diff --git a/bookbuilder.nim b/bookbuilder.nim deleted file mode 100755 index 46ff5d0..0000000 --- a/bookbuilder.nim +++ /dev/null @@ -1,219 +0,0 @@ -#!/usr/bin/env nimcr - -import os, osproc, rdstdin, times -import std/[algorithm, enumerate, exitProcs, marshal, json, sequtils, streams, strutils, sugar, terminal, with] - -type BuilderError = object of CatchableError - -type Book = object - author: string - source: string - tag: string - title: string - year: int - lastWriteTime: string - category: int - -func `<`(x, y: Book): bool {.raises: [].} = - if x.category != y.category: return x.category < y.category - x.year > y.year - -type BookBuilder = object - books: seq[Book] - categories: seq[string] - -func sourceFile(book: Book): string {.raises: [].} = - "src" / book.tag.addFileExt "md" - -proc createBuilder(): BookBuilder {.raises: [BuilderError].} = - try: - let fileContents = "books.json".readFile - to[BookBuilder](fileContents) - except Exception: - raise newException(BuilderError, getCurrentExceptionMsg()) - -func addBook(builder: var BookBuilder, book: Book) {.raises: [].} = - builder.books.add book - -proc save(builder: var BookBuilder) {.raises: [BuilderError].} = - try: - builder.books.sort() - "books.json".writeFile $$builder - except Exception: - raise newException(BuilderError, getCurrentExceptionMsg()) - -proc executeCommand(command: string) {.raises: [BuilderError].} = - var res: tuple[output: string, exitCode: int] - try: - res = execCmdEx(command) - except Exception: - raise newException(BuilderError, getCurrentExceptionMsg()) - if res.exitCode != 0: raise newException(BuilderError, "Command \n" & command & "\n exited with code " & $res.exitCode & " and output \n" & res.output) - -proc make(book: var Book) {.raises: [BuilderError].}= - let dir = "books" / book.tag - let readDir = dir / "read" - try: - dir.createDir - readDir.createDir - except Exception: - raise newException(BuilderError, getCurrentExceptionMsg()) - let indexFile = dir / "index.html" - let commonCommand = "/usr/local/bin/pandoc --wrap=auto --table-of-contents --standalone --reference-location=block --section-divs --from=markdown+smart+auto_identifiers --metadata=author:" & book.author.quoteShell & " --metadata=title:" & book.title.quoteShell & " --metadata=date:" & quoteShell($book.year) & " " & book.sourceFile.quoteShell - let pdfFile = dir / book.tag.addFileExt("pdf") - let htmlFile = readDir / "index.html" - let epubFile = dir / book.tag.addFileExt("epub") - let mobiFile = dir / book.tag.addFileExt("mobi") - executeCommand(commonCommand & " --to=pdf --pdf-engine=xelatex --output=" & pdfFile) - executeCommand(commonCommand & " --to=html --template=templates/pandoc.html --output=" & htmlFile) - executeCommand(commonCommand & " --to=epub --template=templates/pandoc.epub --output=" & epubFile) - executeCommand("/usr/local/bin/ebook-convert " & epubFile & " " & mobiFile) - try: - var s = indexFile.openFileStream fmWrite - with s: - write "" - write "" - write book.title - write "" - write "" - write "
" - write "
" - write "

" - write book.title - write "

" - write "

Written by " - write book.author - write " in " - write ($book.year) - write "

" - write "

Read it online

" - write "

Download a PDF

" - write "

Download an EPUB

" - write "

Download a MOBI

" - if book.source != "": - with s: - write "
" - write "

Created from the page scans here." - with s: - write "

Public Domain Mark
This work (" - write book.title - write ", by " - write book.author - write "), identified by Caden Haustein, is free of known Copyright restrictions.

" - write "
" - write "" - write "" - close() - book.lastWriteTime = $getTime() - except Exception: - raise newException(BuilderError, getCurrentExceptionMsg()) - -func useCategory(builder: var BookBuilder, category: string): int {.raises: [].} = - for (i, c) in enumerate(builder.categories): - if c == category: - return i - builder.categories.add category - return builder.categories.len - 1 - -proc add(builder: var BookBuilder, book: Book) {.raises: [BuilderError].} = - try: - var book: Book - book.author = "Author:".readLineFromStdin - book.source = "Source:".readLineFromStdin - book.tag = "Tag:".readLineFromStdin - book.title = "Title:".readLineFromStdin - book.year = "Year:".readLineFromStdin.parseInt - book.category = builder.useCategory "Category:".readLineFromStdin - book.sourceFile.writeFile "\n" - book.make - builder.books.add book - except Exception: - raise newException(BuilderError, getCurrentExceptionMsg()) - -proc init() {.raises: [BuilderError].} = - var book: Book - var builder = createBuilder() - builder.add book - builder.save - -proc skipWhenAble(book: Book): bool = - try: - book.sourceFile.getFileInfo.lastWriteTime <= book.lastWriteTime.parseTime("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:sszzz", utc()): - except TimeParseError, OSError: false - -proc neverSkip(_: Book): bool = false - -proc make(canSkip: proc(book: Book): bool {.raises: [BuilderError].}) {.raises: [BuilderError].} = - try: - "books".createDir - except Exception: raise newException(BuilderError, getCurrentExceptionMsg()) - - var builder = createBuilder() - - proc modifyBook(book: var Book) {.raises: [BuilderError].} = - if book.canSkip: - echo "Skipping: " & book.tag - else: - echo "Making: " & book.tag - book.make - - builder.books.apply(modifyBook) - builder.save - - let validFiles = collect(for book in builder.books: book.tag) - var toDelete: seq[string] - try: - for file in "books".walkDir(relative = true): - if file.path notIn validFiles: toDelete.add("books" / file.path) - except Exception: raise newException(BuilderError, getCurrentExceptionMsg()) - for file in toDelete: - try: - file.removeFile - except Exception: raise newException(BuilderError, getCurrentExceptionMsg()) - -proc help() {.raises: [].} = - echo "Usage:" - echo " bookbuilder init" - echo " bookbuilder make" - -proc main(): int = - result = QuitSuccess - let params = commandLineParams() - if params.len == 0: - help() - else: - case params[0]: - of "init": - try: - init() - except BuilderError as e: - echo "Error: " & e.msg - return QuitFailure - of "make": - try: - make(skipWhenAble) - except BuilderError as e: - echo "Error: " & e.msg - return QuitFailure - of "make-all": - try: - make(neverSkip) - except BuilderError as e: - echo "Error: " & e.msg - return QuitFailure - else: - help() - -when isMainModule: - exitProcs.addExitProc resetAttributes - main().quit \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/bookbuilder.nims b/bookbuilder.nims new file mode 100755 index 0000000..ebf4278 --- /dev/null +++ b/bookbuilder.nims @@ -0,0 +1,188 @@ +#!/usr/bin/env nim +mode = ScriptMode.Silent +--hints:off + +import std/[linenoise] +import std/[algorithm, enumerate, hashes, json, macros, os, sequtils, strutils] + +type BuilderError = object of CatchableError + +type Book = object + author: string + source: string + tag: string + title: string + year: int + words: int + hash: string + category: int + +func `<`(x, y: Book): bool {.raises: [].} = + if x.category != y.category: return x.category < y.category + x.year > y.year + +type BookBuilder = object + books: seq[Book] + categories: seq[string] + +func sourceFile(book: Book): string {.raises: [].} = + "src" / book.tag.addFileExt "md" + +macro wrap(s) = + quote do: + try: + `s` + except Exception as e: + raise newException(BuilderError, e.msg) + +proc createBuilder(): BookBuilder {.raises: [BuilderError].} = + wrap: result = "books.json".readFile.parseJson.to(BookBuilder) + +proc save(builder: var BookBuilder) {.raises: [BuilderError].} = + wrap: + builder.books.sort() + var jsonNode = %*builder + var data: string + data.toUgly jsonNode + "books.json".writeFile data + +proc countWords(contents: string): int {.raises: [BuilderError].} = + wrap: + var inWord = false + for c in contents: + if c in Whitespace: + inWord = false + elif not inWord: + result.inc + inWord = true + +proc make(book: var Book) {.raises: [BuilderError].}= + let dir = "books" / book.tag + wrap: dir.mkDir + let readDir = dir / "read" + wrap: readDir.mkDir + let commonCommand = "/usr/local/bin/pandoc --wrap=auto --table-of-contents --standalone --reference-location=block --section-divs --from=markdown+smart+auto_identifiers --metadata=author:" & book.author.quoteShell & " --metadata=title:" & book.title.quoteShell & " --metadata=date:" & quoteShell($book.year) & " " & book.sourceFile.quoteShell + let pdfFile = dir / book.tag.addFileExt("pdf") + wrap: exec(commonCommand & " --to=pdf --pdf-engine=xelatex --output=" & pdfFile) + let htmlFile = readDir / "index.html" + wrap: exec(commonCommand & " --to=html --template=templates/pandoc.html --output=" & htmlFile) + let epubFile = dir / book.tag.addFileExt("epub") + wrap: exec(commonCommand & " --to=epub --template=templates/pandoc.epub --output=" & epubFile) + let mobiFile = dir / book.tag.addFileExt("mobi") + wrap: exec("/usr/local/bin/ebook-convert " & epubFile & " " & mobiFile) + var s = "" + s &= book.title + s &= "

" + s &= book.title + s &= "

Written by " + s &= book.author + s &= " in " + s &= $book.year + s &= "

Read it online

Download a PDF

Download an EPUB

Download a MOBI

" + if book.source != "": + s &= "

Created from the page scans here." + s &= "

Public Domain Mark
This work (" + s &= book.title + s &= ", by " + s &= book.author + s &= "), identified by Caden Haustein, is free of known Copyright restrictions.

" + let indexFile = dir / "index.html" + wrap: indexFile.writeFile s + wrap: + exec("/usr/local/bin/pandoc --wrap=auto --from=markdown+smart+auto_identifiers " & book.sourceFile & " --to=markdown+smart+auto_identifiers --output=output.md") + mvFile("output.md", book.sourceFile) + wrap: + let contents = book.sourceFile.readFile + book.hash = $contents.hash + book.words = contents.countWords + +func useCategory(builder: var BookBuilder, category: string): int {.raises: [].} = + for (i, c) in enumerate(builder.categories): + if c == category: + return i + builder.categories.add category + return builder.categories.len - 1 + +proc ask(prompt: string): string {.raises: [BuilderError].} = + var buffer = linenoise.readLine(prompt) + if buffer.isNil: + raise newException(BuilderError, "Linenoise returned nil") + result = $buffer + if result.len > 0: + buffer.historyAdd + linenoise.free(buffer) + +proc add(builder: var BookBuilder, book: Book) {.raises: [BuilderError].} = + var book: Book + book.author = "Author: ".ask + book.title = "Title: ".ask + book.source = "Source: ".ask + book.tag = "Tag: ".ask + wrap: book.year = "Year: ".ask.parseInt + book.category = builder.useCategory "Category: ".ask + wrap: book.sourceFile.writeFile "\n" + book.make + builder.books.add book + +proc init() {.raises: [BuilderError].} = + var book: Book + var builder = createBuilder() + builder.add book + builder.save + +proc skipWhenAble(book: Book): bool {.raises: [].} = + try: + $book.sourceFile.readFile.hash == book.hash + except Exception: + false + +proc neverSkip(_: Book): bool {.raises: [].} = false + +proc make(canSkip: proc(book: Book): bool {.raises: [BuilderError].}) {.raises: [BuilderError].} = + proc modifyBook(book: var Book) {.raises: [BuilderError].} = + if book.canSkip: + echo "Skipping: " & book.tag + else: + echo "Making: " & book.tag + book.make + + wrap: "books".mkDir + var builder = createBuilder() + builder.books.apply(modifyBook) + builder.save + let validFiles = builder.books.mapIt(it.tag) + wrap: + for dir in "books".listDirs.filterIt(it in validFiles): + dir.rmDir + +proc help() {.raises: [].} = + echo "Usage:" + echo " bookbuilder init" + echo " bookbuilder make" + +proc main(): int = + result = QuitSuccess + if paramCount() < 2: help() + else: + try: + case paramStr(2): + of "init": init() + of "make": make(skipWhenAble) + of "make-all": make(neverSkip) + else: help() + except BuilderError as e: + echo "Error: " & e.msg + return QuitFailure + +when isMainModule: + main().quit \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/books.json b/books.json index c05e835..1023724 100644 --- a/books.json +++ b/books.json @@ -1 +1,346 @@ -{"books": [{"author": "G. K. Chesterton", "source": "https://archive.org/details/everlasting_man", "tag": "everlasting-man", "title": "The Everlasting Man", "year": 1927, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:56:09-05:00", "category": 0}, {"author": "Fanny Garrison Villard", "source": "https://archive.org/details/williamlloydgarr00vill", "tag": "garrison-nonresistance", "title": "William Lloyd Garrison on Non-Resistance", "year": 1924, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:54:49-05:00", "category": 0}, {"author": "William Wilson", "source": "https://archive.org/details/atonementnonresi0000wils", "tag": "atonement-nonresistance", "title": "Atonement and Non-Resistance", "year": 1923, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-19T09:40:00-05:00", "category": 0}, {"author": "G. K. Chesterton", "source": "https://archive.org/details/orthodoxy00chesuoft", "tag": "orthodoxy", "title": "Orthodoxy", "year": 1908, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:58:10-05:00", "category": 0}, {"author": "Leo Tolstoy", "source": "https://archive.org/details/completeworksofc20tols/page/469/mode/1up", "tag": "patriotism-peace", "title": "Patriotism or Peace: Letter to Manson", "year": 1896, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:55:12-05:00", "category": 0}, {"author": "Leo Tolstoy", "source": "https://archive.org/details/completeworksofc20tols/page/481/mode/1up", "tag": "on-nonresistance", "title": "On Non-Resistance: Letter to Ernest Howard Crosby", "year": 1896, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:55:05-05:00", "category": 0}, {"author": "Leo Tolstoy", "source": "https://archive.org/details/completeworksofc20tols/page/n15", "tag": "kingdom-within", "title": "The Kingdom of God is Within You", "year": 1894, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:55:40-05:00", "category": 0}, {"author": "Leo Tolstoy", "source": "https://archive.org/details/completeworksofc20tols/page/381", "tag": "christianity-patriotism", "title": "Christianity and Patriotism", "year": 1894, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-24T17:09:44-05:00", "category": 0}, {"author": "Henry David Thoreau", "source": "https://archive.org/details/yankeeincanadawi00thoruoft/page/123", "tag": "civil-disobedience", "title": "Civil Disobedience", "year": 1888, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:55:47-05:00", "category": 0}, {"author": "Leo Tolstoy", "source": "https://archive.org/details/completeworksof17tols/page/371/mode/1up", "tag": "what-christian-may", "title": "What a Christian May Do, and What Not", "year": 1887, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:55:54-05:00", "category": 0}, {"author": "Adin Ballou", "source": "https://archive.org/details/nonresistanceinr00ball", "tag": "remarks-ballou", "title": "Non-Resistance in relation to Human Governments", "year": 1839, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-22T20:42:19-05:00", "category": 0}, {"author": "Ralph Borsodi", "source": "https://archive.org/details/flightfromcityan00borsrich", "tag": "flight-from-city", "title": "Flight from the City", "year": 1933, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T17:00:47-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "G. K. Chesterton", "source": "", "tag": "outline-sanity", "title": "Outline of Sanity", "year": 1926, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:56:21-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "Hilaire Belloc", "source": "https://archive.org/details/belloc-hilaire-economics-for-helen-1924", "tag": "economics-helen", "title": "Economics for Helen", "year": 1924, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:56:35-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "Arthur J. Penty", "source": "https://archive.org/details/towardschristian00pent", "tag": "christian-sociology", "title": "Towards a Christian Sociology", "year": 1923, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:58:22-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "C. H. Douglas", "source": "https://archive.org/details/controldistribut00douguoft", "tag": "control-distribution", "title": "The Control and Distribution of Production", "year": 1922, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T17:00:16-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "G. K. Chesterton", "source": "https://archive.org/details/eugenics00chesuoft", "tag": "eugenics-evils", "title": "Eugenics and Other Evils", "year": 1922, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:57:12-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "G. K. Chesterton", "source": "https://archive.org/details/whatisawinamer00chesrich", "tag": "saw-america", "title": "What I Saw in America", "year": 1922, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:57:01-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "R. H. Tawney", "source": "https://archive.org/details/acquisitivesocie00tawnuoft", "tag": "acquisitive-society", "title": "The Acquisitive Society", "year": 1921, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T17:01:01-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "Arthur Penty", "source": "https://archive.org/details/guildstradeagric00pentuoft", "tag": "guilds-trade", "title": "Guilds, Trade, and Agriculture", "year": 1921, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:58:32-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "C. H. Douglas", "source": "https://archive.org/details/econdemocracy00dougiala", "tag": "economic-democracy", "title": "Economic Democracy", "year": 1920, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T17:00:25-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "G. K. Chesterton", "source": "https://archive.org/details/thesuperstition00chesuoft", "tag": "superstition-divorce", "title": "The Superstition of Divorce", "year": 1920, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:57:20-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "William B. Greene", "source": "https://archive.org/details/mutualbankingsho00greeiala", "tag": "mutual-banking", "title": "Mutual Banking", "year": 1919, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T17:00:36-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "Arthur Penty", "source": "https://archive.org/details/guildssocialcris00pentrich", "tag": "guilds-crisis", "title": "Guilds and the Social Crisis", "year": 1919, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:58:59-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "Hilaire Belloc", "source": "https://archive.org/details/freepress00bellrich", "tag": "the-free-press", "title": "The Free Press", "year": 1918, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:57:29-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "G. K. Chesterton", "source": "https://archive.org/details/utopiaofusurerso00ches/page/n16", "tag": "utopia-usurers", "title": "Utopia of Usurers", "year": 1917, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:57:36-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "Hilaire Belloc", "source": "https://archive.org/details/servilestate00belluoft", "tag": "servile-state", "title": "The Servile State", "year": 1912, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:57:46-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "G. K. Chesterton", "source": "https://archive.org/details/whatswrongwithwo00chesiala", "tag": "whats-wrong", "title": "What's Wrong with the World", "year": 1910, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:57:58-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "Arthur Penty", "source": "https://archive.org/details/restorationofgil00pentrich", "tag": "restoration-guild", "title": "The Restoration of the Guild System", "year": 1906, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:59:08-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "Henry George", "source": "https://archive.org/details/conditionoflabor00georuoft", "tag": "condition-labor", "title": "The Condition of Labor", "year": 1891, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:59:19-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "Henry George", "source": "https://archive.org/details/socialproblems83geor", "tag": "social-problems", "title": "Social Problems", "year": 1883, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:59:33-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "Thomas Paine", "source": "https://archive.org/details/agrarianjusticeo00pain", "tag": "agrarian-justice", "title": "Agrarian Justice", "year": 1797, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:59:41-05:00", "category": 1}, {"author": "G. K. Chesterton", "source": "https://archive.org/details/stfrancisofassis01ches", "tag": "st-francis", "title": "St. Francis of Assisi", "year": 1923, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:56:46-05:00", "category": 2}, {"author": "Arthur Penty", "source": "https://archive.org/details/guildsmanhistory00pentuoft", "tag": "guildsman-history", "title": "A Guildsman's Interpretation of History", "year": 1920, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:58:49-05:00", "category": 2}, {"author": "Ernest Howard Crosby", "source": "https://archive.org/details/addressesdeliver00liberich/page/17", "tag": "tolstoy-philosophy", "title": "Count Tolstoy and His Philosophy of Life", "year": 1900, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-27T12:08:27-05:00", "category": 2}, {"author": "G. K. Chesterton", "source": "https://archive.org/details/manwhowasthursda00chesrich", "tag": "man-thursday", "title": "The Man who was Thursday", "year": 1908, "lastWriteTime": "2022-08-18T16:59:53-05:00", "category": 3}, {"author": "G. K. 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Chesterton", + "source": "https://archive.org/details/everlasting_man", + "tag": "everlasting-man", + "title": "The Everlasting Man", + "year": 1927, + "words": 107004, + "hash": "3201216865", + "category": 0 + }, { + "author": "Fanny Garrison Villard", + "source": "https://archive.org/details/williamlloydgarr00vill", + "tag": "garrison-nonresistance", + "title": "William Lloyd Garrison on Non-Resistance", + "year": 1924, + "words": 16203, + "hash": "1357684184", + "category": 0 + }, { + "author": "William Wilson", + "source": "https://archive.org/details/atonementnonresi0000wils", + "tag": "atonement-nonresistance", + "title": "Atonement and Non-Resistance", + "year": 1923, + "words": 13617, + "hash": "828273832", + "category": 0 + }, { + "author": "G. K. 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+ diff --git a/docs/books/economics-helen/economics-helen.epub b/docs/books/economics-helen/economics-helen.epub index 622a437..2f41de0 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/economics-helen/economics-helen.epub and b/docs/books/economics-helen/economics-helen.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/economics-helen/economics-helen.mobi b/docs/books/economics-helen/economics-helen.mobi index bc9453b..71f488d 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/economics-helen/economics-helen.mobi and b/docs/books/economics-helen/economics-helen.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/economics-helen/economics-helen.pdf b/docs/books/economics-helen/economics-helen.pdf index 9f3853f..439eaf7 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/economics-helen/economics-helen.pdf and b/docs/books/economics-helen/economics-helen.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/economics-helen/read/index.html b/docs/books/economics-helen/read/index.html index 27a73cb..f8a63b4 100644 --- a/docs/books/economics-helen/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/economics-helen/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Economics for Helen - + diff --git a/docs/books/eugenics-evils/eugenics-evils.epub b/docs/books/eugenics-evils/eugenics-evils.epub index 537e5e8..31f85f9 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/eugenics-evils/eugenics-evils.epub and b/docs/books/eugenics-evils/eugenics-evils.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/eugenics-evils/eugenics-evils.mobi b/docs/books/eugenics-evils/eugenics-evils.mobi index c817832..e59ce55 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/eugenics-evils/eugenics-evils.mobi and b/docs/books/eugenics-evils/eugenics-evils.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/eugenics-evils/eugenics-evils.pdf b/docs/books/eugenics-evils/eugenics-evils.pdf index 9199b64..d040cdd 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/eugenics-evils/eugenics-evils.pdf and b/docs/books/eugenics-evils/eugenics-evils.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/eugenics-evils/read/index.html b/docs/books/eugenics-evils/read/index.html index 29b8e79..aaabc44 100644 --- a/docs/books/eugenics-evils/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/eugenics-evils/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Eugenics and Other Evils - 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+ @@ -7766,7 +7766,7 @@

V. The Escape from Paganism

permits him to die. That is what the intelligent sceptics ought to say; and it is not in the least my intention to deny that there is something to be said for it. They mean that the universe is itself a universal -prison; that existence itself is a limitation and a control:■ and it is +prison; that existence itself is a limitation and a control: and it is not for nothing that they call causation a chain. In a word they mean quite simply that they cannot believe these things; not in the least that they are unworthy of belief. 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+ diff --git a/docs/books/garrison-nonresistance/garrison-nonresistance.epub b/docs/books/garrison-nonresistance/garrison-nonresistance.epub index 724cd16..cb97955 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/garrison-nonresistance/garrison-nonresistance.epub and b/docs/books/garrison-nonresistance/garrison-nonresistance.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/garrison-nonresistance/garrison-nonresistance.mobi b/docs/books/garrison-nonresistance/garrison-nonresistance.mobi index a9b0842..d075c51 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/garrison-nonresistance/garrison-nonresistance.mobi and b/docs/books/garrison-nonresistance/garrison-nonresistance.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/garrison-nonresistance/garrison-nonresistance.pdf b/docs/books/garrison-nonresistance/garrison-nonresistance.pdf index f123371..5484391 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/garrison-nonresistance/garrison-nonresistance.pdf and b/docs/books/garrison-nonresistance/garrison-nonresistance.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/garrison-nonresistance/read/index.html b/docs/books/garrison-nonresistance/read/index.html index 6fce930..df158f2 100644 --- a/docs/books/garrison-nonresistance/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/garrison-nonresistance/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ William Lloyd Garrison on Non-Resistance - + diff --git a/docs/books/guilds-crisis/guilds-crisis.epub b/docs/books/guilds-crisis/guilds-crisis.epub index f87a232..725c776 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/guilds-crisis/guilds-crisis.epub and b/docs/books/guilds-crisis/guilds-crisis.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/guilds-crisis/guilds-crisis.mobi b/docs/books/guilds-crisis/guilds-crisis.mobi index bf185f3..0cac734 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/guilds-crisis/guilds-crisis.mobi and b/docs/books/guilds-crisis/guilds-crisis.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/guilds-crisis/guilds-crisis.pdf b/docs/books/guilds-crisis/guilds-crisis.pdf index 9814aee..f76f377 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/guilds-crisis/guilds-crisis.pdf and b/docs/books/guilds-crisis/guilds-crisis.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/guilds-crisis/read/index.html b/docs/books/guilds-crisis/read/index.html index d0b5d82..afd029c 100644 --- a/docs/books/guilds-crisis/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/guilds-crisis/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Guilds and the Social Crisis - + diff --git a/docs/books/guilds-trade/guilds-trade.epub b/docs/books/guilds-trade/guilds-trade.epub index 8a0626f..02e75e5 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/guilds-trade/guilds-trade.epub and b/docs/books/guilds-trade/guilds-trade.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/guilds-trade/guilds-trade.mobi b/docs/books/guilds-trade/guilds-trade.mobi index 912cf9b..358308c 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/guilds-trade/guilds-trade.mobi and b/docs/books/guilds-trade/guilds-trade.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/guilds-trade/guilds-trade.pdf b/docs/books/guilds-trade/guilds-trade.pdf index 6c94ef6..d75c3f6 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/guilds-trade/guilds-trade.pdf and b/docs/books/guilds-trade/guilds-trade.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/guilds-trade/read/index.html b/docs/books/guilds-trade/read/index.html index fbfef4b..225a263 100644 --- a/docs/books/guilds-trade/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/guilds-trade/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Guilds, Trade, and Agriculture - + diff --git a/docs/books/guildsman-history/guildsman-history.epub b/docs/books/guildsman-history/guildsman-history.epub index 7747b76..74ad7ca 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/guildsman-history/guildsman-history.epub and b/docs/books/guildsman-history/guildsman-history.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/guildsman-history/guildsman-history.mobi b/docs/books/guildsman-history/guildsman-history.mobi index 33c763f..748c7fc 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/guildsman-history/guildsman-history.mobi and b/docs/books/guildsman-history/guildsman-history.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/guildsman-history/guildsman-history.pdf b/docs/books/guildsman-history/guildsman-history.pdf index b9e7d39..d96d5b7 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/guildsman-history/guildsman-history.pdf and b/docs/books/guildsman-history/guildsman-history.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/guildsman-history/read/index.html b/docs/books/guildsman-history/read/index.html index 32e94d2..9ee3fbc 100644 --- a/docs/books/guildsman-history/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/guildsman-history/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ A Guildsman's Interpretation of History - + diff --git a/docs/books/kingdom-within/kingdom-within.epub b/docs/books/kingdom-within/kingdom-within.epub index b45edc1..94a1a11 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/kingdom-within/kingdom-within.epub and b/docs/books/kingdom-within/kingdom-within.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/kingdom-within/kingdom-within.mobi b/docs/books/kingdom-within/kingdom-within.mobi index 2e82d85..6e1992a 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/kingdom-within/kingdom-within.mobi and b/docs/books/kingdom-within/kingdom-within.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/kingdom-within/kingdom-within.pdf b/docs/books/kingdom-within/kingdom-within.pdf index 1201f65..07ae18d 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/kingdom-within/kingdom-within.pdf and b/docs/books/kingdom-within/kingdom-within.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/kingdom-within/read/index.html b/docs/books/kingdom-within/read/index.html index ab54431..4fa4dcb 100644 --- a/docs/books/kingdom-within/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/kingdom-within/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ The Kingdom of God is Within You - + diff --git a/docs/books/man-thursday/man-thursday.epub b/docs/books/man-thursday/man-thursday.epub index 82b32e3..84e8545 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/man-thursday/man-thursday.epub and b/docs/books/man-thursday/man-thursday.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/man-thursday/man-thursday.mobi b/docs/books/man-thursday/man-thursday.mobi index 92a7e98..a6de096 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/man-thursday/man-thursday.mobi and b/docs/books/man-thursday/man-thursday.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/man-thursday/man-thursday.pdf b/docs/books/man-thursday/man-thursday.pdf index d45bed4..01b4ea1 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/man-thursday/man-thursday.pdf and b/docs/books/man-thursday/man-thursday.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/man-thursday/read/index.html b/docs/books/man-thursday/read/index.html index 881665c..d3004c0 100644 --- a/docs/books/man-thursday/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/man-thursday/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ The Man who was Thursday - + diff --git a/docs/books/mutual-banking/mutual-banking.epub b/docs/books/mutual-banking/mutual-banking.epub index 6e2027a..ff883e2 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/mutual-banking/mutual-banking.epub and b/docs/books/mutual-banking/mutual-banking.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/mutual-banking/mutual-banking.mobi b/docs/books/mutual-banking/mutual-banking.mobi index 00d3a33..acd6f50 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/mutual-banking/mutual-banking.mobi and b/docs/books/mutual-banking/mutual-banking.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/mutual-banking/mutual-banking.pdf b/docs/books/mutual-banking/mutual-banking.pdf index 0832cd4..15f3e55 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/mutual-banking/mutual-banking.pdf and b/docs/books/mutual-banking/mutual-banking.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/mutual-banking/read/index.html b/docs/books/mutual-banking/read/index.html index 1d9b958..93b945e 100644 --- a/docs/books/mutual-banking/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/mutual-banking/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Mutual Banking - + diff --git a/docs/books/napoleon-notting/napoleon-notting.epub b/docs/books/napoleon-notting/napoleon-notting.epub index a492eab..5245062 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/napoleon-notting/napoleon-notting.epub and b/docs/books/napoleon-notting/napoleon-notting.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/napoleon-notting/napoleon-notting.mobi b/docs/books/napoleon-notting/napoleon-notting.mobi index 50f4757..f1ddc60 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/napoleon-notting/napoleon-notting.mobi and b/docs/books/napoleon-notting/napoleon-notting.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/napoleon-notting/napoleon-notting.pdf b/docs/books/napoleon-notting/napoleon-notting.pdf index 308d1da..3e666f5 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/napoleon-notting/napoleon-notting.pdf and b/docs/books/napoleon-notting/napoleon-notting.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/napoleon-notting/read/index.html b/docs/books/napoleon-notting/read/index.html index 5b8e7e8..baf35c6 100644 --- a/docs/books/napoleon-notting/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/napoleon-notting/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ The Napoleon of Notting Hill - + diff --git a/docs/books/on-nonresistance/on-nonresistance.epub b/docs/books/on-nonresistance/on-nonresistance.epub index 03d1ecd..3789b4f 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/on-nonresistance/on-nonresistance.epub and b/docs/books/on-nonresistance/on-nonresistance.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/on-nonresistance/on-nonresistance.mobi b/docs/books/on-nonresistance/on-nonresistance.mobi index d853f21..fe2e37c 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/on-nonresistance/on-nonresistance.mobi and b/docs/books/on-nonresistance/on-nonresistance.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/on-nonresistance/on-nonresistance.pdf b/docs/books/on-nonresistance/on-nonresistance.pdf index 7634783..0d6f661 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/on-nonresistance/on-nonresistance.pdf and b/docs/books/on-nonresistance/on-nonresistance.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/on-nonresistance/read/index.html b/docs/books/on-nonresistance/read/index.html index 99e1a24..7cc86b8 100644 --- a/docs/books/on-nonresistance/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/on-nonresistance/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ On Non-Resistance: Letter to Ernest Howard Crosby - + diff --git a/docs/books/orthodoxy/orthodoxy.epub b/docs/books/orthodoxy/orthodoxy.epub index 3954da7..d7d30f6 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/orthodoxy/orthodoxy.epub and b/docs/books/orthodoxy/orthodoxy.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/orthodoxy/orthodoxy.mobi b/docs/books/orthodoxy/orthodoxy.mobi index 462bdbf..3221d13 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/orthodoxy/orthodoxy.mobi and b/docs/books/orthodoxy/orthodoxy.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/orthodoxy/orthodoxy.pdf b/docs/books/orthodoxy/orthodoxy.pdf index 8843328..fef746e 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/orthodoxy/orthodoxy.pdf and b/docs/books/orthodoxy/orthodoxy.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/orthodoxy/read/index.html b/docs/books/orthodoxy/read/index.html index aeae466..6d45b92 100644 --- a/docs/books/orthodoxy/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/orthodoxy/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Orthodoxy - + diff --git a/docs/books/outline-sanity/outline-sanity.epub b/docs/books/outline-sanity/outline-sanity.epub index 0430e47..17f2ab5 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/outline-sanity/outline-sanity.epub and b/docs/books/outline-sanity/outline-sanity.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/outline-sanity/outline-sanity.mobi b/docs/books/outline-sanity/outline-sanity.mobi index 096bc1e..18c335d 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/outline-sanity/outline-sanity.mobi and b/docs/books/outline-sanity/outline-sanity.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/outline-sanity/outline-sanity.pdf b/docs/books/outline-sanity/outline-sanity.pdf index 1e5511f..0939fb9 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/outline-sanity/outline-sanity.pdf and b/docs/books/outline-sanity/outline-sanity.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/outline-sanity/read/index.html b/docs/books/outline-sanity/read/index.html index a84159f..5c5e5d6 100644 --- a/docs/books/outline-sanity/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/outline-sanity/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Outline of Sanity - + diff --git a/docs/books/patriotism-peace/patriotism-peace.epub b/docs/books/patriotism-peace/patriotism-peace.epub index 9bfa987..9b5edcc 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/patriotism-peace/patriotism-peace.epub and b/docs/books/patriotism-peace/patriotism-peace.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/patriotism-peace/patriotism-peace.mobi b/docs/books/patriotism-peace/patriotism-peace.mobi index 443d92c..4e41281 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/patriotism-peace/patriotism-peace.mobi and b/docs/books/patriotism-peace/patriotism-peace.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/patriotism-peace/patriotism-peace.pdf b/docs/books/patriotism-peace/patriotism-peace.pdf index 560d417..104ffe5 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/patriotism-peace/patriotism-peace.pdf and b/docs/books/patriotism-peace/patriotism-peace.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/patriotism-peace/read/index.html b/docs/books/patriotism-peace/read/index.html index ef4de13..777c408 100644 --- a/docs/books/patriotism-peace/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/patriotism-peace/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Patriotism or Peace: Letter to Manson - + diff --git a/docs/books/remarks-ballou/read/index.html b/docs/books/remarks-ballou/read/index.html index fa4c2eb..0e5832b 100644 --- a/docs/books/remarks-ballou/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/remarks-ballou/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Non-Resistance in relation to Human Governments - + diff --git a/docs/books/remarks-ballou/remarks-ballou.epub b/docs/books/remarks-ballou/remarks-ballou.epub index b587924..7fd7ca2 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/remarks-ballou/remarks-ballou.epub and b/docs/books/remarks-ballou/remarks-ballou.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/remarks-ballou/remarks-ballou.mobi b/docs/books/remarks-ballou/remarks-ballou.mobi index 1feab90..e520a57 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/remarks-ballou/remarks-ballou.mobi and b/docs/books/remarks-ballou/remarks-ballou.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/remarks-ballou/remarks-ballou.pdf b/docs/books/remarks-ballou/remarks-ballou.pdf index 0ef6560..b4e5e3c 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/remarks-ballou/remarks-ballou.pdf and b/docs/books/remarks-ballou/remarks-ballou.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/restoration-guild/read/index.html b/docs/books/restoration-guild/read/index.html index 2d60d7c..99b3d5d 100644 --- a/docs/books/restoration-guild/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/restoration-guild/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ The Restoration of the Guild System - + diff --git a/docs/books/restoration-guild/restoration-guild.epub b/docs/books/restoration-guild/restoration-guild.epub index 3a23798..6f8cfcc 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/restoration-guild/restoration-guild.epub and b/docs/books/restoration-guild/restoration-guild.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/restoration-guild/restoration-guild.mobi b/docs/books/restoration-guild/restoration-guild.mobi index 88ba2a7..4f285db 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/restoration-guild/restoration-guild.mobi and b/docs/books/restoration-guild/restoration-guild.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/restoration-guild/restoration-guild.pdf b/docs/books/restoration-guild/restoration-guild.pdf index e3366d8..8921e24 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/restoration-guild/restoration-guild.pdf and b/docs/books/restoration-guild/restoration-guild.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/saw-america/read/index.html b/docs/books/saw-america/read/index.html index bc50eb7..d9df067 100644 --- a/docs/books/saw-america/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/saw-america/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ What I Saw in America - + diff --git a/docs/books/saw-america/saw-america.epub b/docs/books/saw-america/saw-america.epub index f3820c9..db016c4 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/saw-america/saw-america.epub and b/docs/books/saw-america/saw-america.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/saw-america/saw-america.mobi b/docs/books/saw-america/saw-america.mobi index 486e19b..067c52b 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/saw-america/saw-america.mobi and b/docs/books/saw-america/saw-america.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/saw-america/saw-america.pdf b/docs/books/saw-america/saw-america.pdf index cc354e4..acc51c9 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/saw-america/saw-america.pdf and b/docs/books/saw-america/saw-america.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/servile-state/read/index.html b/docs/books/servile-state/read/index.html index 067799f..135152a 100644 --- a/docs/books/servile-state/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/servile-state/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ The Servile State - + diff --git a/docs/books/servile-state/servile-state.epub b/docs/books/servile-state/servile-state.epub index f7f94dc..794b55e 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/servile-state/servile-state.epub and b/docs/books/servile-state/servile-state.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/servile-state/servile-state.mobi b/docs/books/servile-state/servile-state.mobi index 8ef3911..48008d9 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/servile-state/servile-state.mobi and b/docs/books/servile-state/servile-state.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/servile-state/servile-state.pdf b/docs/books/servile-state/servile-state.pdf index ce99057..f12c622 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/servile-state/servile-state.pdf and b/docs/books/servile-state/servile-state.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/social-problems/read/index.html b/docs/books/social-problems/read/index.html index 7fd53ac..c9f73e0 100644 --- a/docs/books/social-problems/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/social-problems/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Social Problems - + diff --git a/docs/books/social-problems/social-problems.epub b/docs/books/social-problems/social-problems.epub index 1281943..3305c7e 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/social-problems/social-problems.epub and b/docs/books/social-problems/social-problems.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/social-problems/social-problems.mobi b/docs/books/social-problems/social-problems.mobi index 88827c7..8aff7ea 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/social-problems/social-problems.mobi and b/docs/books/social-problems/social-problems.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/social-problems/social-problems.pdf b/docs/books/social-problems/social-problems.pdf index 3209cc4..2d15049 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/social-problems/social-problems.pdf and b/docs/books/social-problems/social-problems.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/st-francis/read/index.html b/docs/books/st-francis/read/index.html index b05c201..2cd7114 100644 --- a/docs/books/st-francis/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/st-francis/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ St. Francis of Assisi - + diff --git a/docs/books/st-francis/st-francis.epub b/docs/books/st-francis/st-francis.epub index ed7d1fd..7ccdf0f 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/st-francis/st-francis.epub and b/docs/books/st-francis/st-francis.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/st-francis/st-francis.mobi b/docs/books/st-francis/st-francis.mobi index d030171..0714be2 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/st-francis/st-francis.mobi and b/docs/books/st-francis/st-francis.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/st-francis/st-francis.pdf b/docs/books/st-francis/st-francis.pdf index 7de39fe..bde8f4a 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/st-francis/st-francis.pdf and b/docs/books/st-francis/st-francis.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/superstition-divorce/read/index.html b/docs/books/superstition-divorce/read/index.html index 5d32b22..2612a2f 100644 --- a/docs/books/superstition-divorce/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/superstition-divorce/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ The Superstition of Divorce - + diff --git a/docs/books/superstition-divorce/superstition-divorce.epub b/docs/books/superstition-divorce/superstition-divorce.epub index 323c00a..dbd1c93 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/superstition-divorce/superstition-divorce.epub and b/docs/books/superstition-divorce/superstition-divorce.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/superstition-divorce/superstition-divorce.mobi b/docs/books/superstition-divorce/superstition-divorce.mobi index 2f626af..7644cd1 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/superstition-divorce/superstition-divorce.mobi and b/docs/books/superstition-divorce/superstition-divorce.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/superstition-divorce/superstition-divorce.pdf b/docs/books/superstition-divorce/superstition-divorce.pdf index ea4595b..cb02bf7 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/superstition-divorce/superstition-divorce.pdf and b/docs/books/superstition-divorce/superstition-divorce.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/the-free-press/read/index.html b/docs/books/the-free-press/read/index.html index 943b9f1..22d198c 100644 --- a/docs/books/the-free-press/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/the-free-press/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ The Free Press - + diff --git a/docs/books/the-free-press/the-free-press.epub b/docs/books/the-free-press/the-free-press.epub index 9d3c980..8e45ed7 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/the-free-press/the-free-press.epub and b/docs/books/the-free-press/the-free-press.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/the-free-press/the-free-press.mobi b/docs/books/the-free-press/the-free-press.mobi index 4c643df..91f385e 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/the-free-press/the-free-press.mobi and b/docs/books/the-free-press/the-free-press.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/the-free-press/the-free-press.pdf b/docs/books/the-free-press/the-free-press.pdf index 62baea2..0d26363 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/the-free-press/the-free-press.pdf and b/docs/books/the-free-press/the-free-press.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/tolstoy-philosophy/tolstoy-philosophy.epub b/docs/books/tolstoy-philosophy/tolstoy-philosophy.epub index 27df681..0ca1376 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/tolstoy-philosophy/tolstoy-philosophy.epub and b/docs/books/tolstoy-philosophy/tolstoy-philosophy.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/tolstoy-philosophy/tolstoy-philosophy.mobi b/docs/books/tolstoy-philosophy/tolstoy-philosophy.mobi index 1c4fb95..71368cf 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/tolstoy-philosophy/tolstoy-philosophy.mobi and b/docs/books/tolstoy-philosophy/tolstoy-philosophy.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/tolstoy-philosophy/tolstoy-philosophy.pdf b/docs/books/tolstoy-philosophy/tolstoy-philosophy.pdf index 0fc9f9a..16ed5eb 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/tolstoy-philosophy/tolstoy-philosophy.pdf and b/docs/books/tolstoy-philosophy/tolstoy-philosophy.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/utopia-usurers/read/index.html b/docs/books/utopia-usurers/read/index.html index d860f98..dabfe33 100644 --- a/docs/books/utopia-usurers/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/utopia-usurers/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Utopia of Usurers - + diff --git a/docs/books/utopia-usurers/utopia-usurers.epub b/docs/books/utopia-usurers/utopia-usurers.epub index 6674100..3329ed9 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/utopia-usurers/utopia-usurers.epub and b/docs/books/utopia-usurers/utopia-usurers.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/utopia-usurers/utopia-usurers.mobi b/docs/books/utopia-usurers/utopia-usurers.mobi index 2e23cc7..bd771f5 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/utopia-usurers/utopia-usurers.mobi and b/docs/books/utopia-usurers/utopia-usurers.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/utopia-usurers/utopia-usurers.pdf b/docs/books/utopia-usurers/utopia-usurers.pdf index e408932..8341330 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/utopia-usurers/utopia-usurers.pdf and b/docs/books/utopia-usurers/utopia-usurers.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/what-christian-may/read/index.html b/docs/books/what-christian-may/read/index.html index 9c20df5..eb5e395 100644 --- a/docs/books/what-christian-may/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/what-christian-may/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ What a Christian May Do, and What Not - + diff --git a/docs/books/what-christian-may/what-christian-may.epub b/docs/books/what-christian-may/what-christian-may.epub index 29a2c9f..925f7d4 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/what-christian-may/what-christian-may.epub and b/docs/books/what-christian-may/what-christian-may.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/what-christian-may/what-christian-may.mobi b/docs/books/what-christian-may/what-christian-may.mobi index 6ed2c93..2e2becc 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/what-christian-may/what-christian-may.mobi and b/docs/books/what-christian-may/what-christian-may.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/what-christian-may/what-christian-may.pdf b/docs/books/what-christian-may/what-christian-may.pdf index e58258c..8bd70f7 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/what-christian-may/what-christian-may.pdf and b/docs/books/what-christian-may/what-christian-may.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/whats-wrong/read/index.html b/docs/books/whats-wrong/read/index.html index 6199c7c..43f3f88 100644 --- a/docs/books/whats-wrong/read/index.html +++ b/docs/books/whats-wrong/read/index.html @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ What's Wrong with the World - + diff --git a/docs/books/whats-wrong/whats-wrong.epub b/docs/books/whats-wrong/whats-wrong.epub index e057219..c76142a 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/whats-wrong/whats-wrong.epub and b/docs/books/whats-wrong/whats-wrong.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/whats-wrong/whats-wrong.mobi b/docs/books/whats-wrong/whats-wrong.mobi index cb2e909..e5c9f6d 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/whats-wrong/whats-wrong.mobi and b/docs/books/whats-wrong/whats-wrong.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/whats-wrong/whats-wrong.pdf b/docs/books/whats-wrong/whats-wrong.pdf index 6fd170c..c46ad4e 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/whats-wrong/whats-wrong.pdf and b/docs/books/whats-wrong/whats-wrong.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/books/where-love/where-love.epub b/docs/books/where-love/where-love.epub index 14818be..0c677de 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/where-love/where-love.epub and b/docs/books/where-love/where-love.epub differ diff --git a/docs/books/where-love/where-love.mobi b/docs/books/where-love/where-love.mobi index 30612a2..f383ed6 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/where-love/where-love.mobi and b/docs/books/where-love/where-love.mobi differ diff --git a/docs/books/where-love/where-love.pdf b/docs/books/where-love/where-love.pdf index 1b0857f..6860066 100644 Binary files a/docs/books/where-love/where-love.pdf and b/docs/books/where-love/where-love.pdf differ diff --git a/docs/index.html b/docs/index.html index 9b02457..d96cf70 100644 --- a/docs/index.html +++ b/docs/index.html @@ -33,90 +33,90 @@

Welcome to my digital library!

Theology and non-resistance -

The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton (1927)

+

The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton in 1927 (100k words)

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William Lloyd Garrison on Non-Resistance by Fanny Garrison Villard (1924)

+

William Lloyd Garrison on Non-Resistance by Fanny Garrison Villard in 1924 (16k words)

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Atonement and Non-Resistance by William Wilson (1923)

+

Atonement and Non-Resistance by William Wilson in 1923 (13k words)

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Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton (1908)

+

Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton in 1908 (60k words)

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Patriotism or Peace: Letter to Manson by Leo Tolstoy (1896)

+

Patriotism or Peace: Letter to Manson by Leo Tolstoy in 1896 (3200 words)

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On Non-Resistance: Letter to Ernest Howard Crosby by Leo Tolstoy (1896)

+

On Non-Resistance: Letter to Ernest Howard Crosby by Leo Tolstoy in 1896 (4k words)

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The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy (1894)

+

The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy in 1894 (120k words)

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Christianity and Patriotism by Leo Tolstoy (1894)

+

Christianity and Patriotism by Leo Tolstoy in 1894 (21k words)

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Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau (1888)

+

Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau in 1888 (9k words)

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What a Christian May Do, and What Not by Leo Tolstoy (1887)

+

What a Christian May Do, and What Not by Leo Tolstoy in 1887 (1000 words)

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Non-Resistance in relation to Human Governments by Adin Ballou (1839)

+

Non-Resistance in relation to Human Governments by Adin Ballou in 1839 (6k words)

Political economy and political science -

Flight from the City by Ralph Borsodi (1933)

+

Flight from the City by Ralph Borsodi in 1933 (40k words)

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Outline of Sanity by G. K. Chesterton (1926)

+

Outline of Sanity by G. K. Chesterton in 1926 (60k words)

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Economics for Helen by Hilaire Belloc (1924)

+

Economics for Helen by Hilaire Belloc in 1924 (50k words)

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Towards a Christian Sociology by Arthur J. Penty (1923)

+

Towards a Christian Sociology by Arthur J. Penty in 1923 (50k words)

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The Control and Distribution of Production by C. H. Douglas (1922)

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The Control and Distribution of Production by C. H. Douglas in 1922 (30k words)

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Eugenics and Other Evils by G. K. Chesterton (1922)

+

Eugenics and Other Evils by G. K. Chesterton in 1922 (40k words)

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What I Saw in America by G. K. Chesterton (1922)

+

What I Saw in America by G. K. Chesterton in 1922 (90k words)

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The Acquisitive Society by R. H. Tawney (1921)

+

The Acquisitive Society by R. H. Tawney in 1921 (60k words)

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Guilds, Trade, and Agriculture by Arthur Penty (1921)

+

Guilds, Trade, and Agriculture by Arthur Penty in 1921 (30k words)

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Economic Democracy by C. H. Douglas (1920)

+

Economic Democracy by C. H. Douglas in 1920 (23k words)

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The Superstition of Divorce by G. K. Chesterton (1920)

+

The Superstition of Divorce by G. K. Chesterton in 1920 (24k words)

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Mutual Banking by William B. Greene (1919)

+

Mutual Banking by William B. Greene in 1919 (28k words)

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Guilds and the Social Crisis by Arthur Penty (1919)

+

Guilds and the Social Crisis by Arthur Penty in 1919 (21k words)

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The Free Press by Hilaire Belloc (1918)

+

The Free Press by Hilaire Belloc in 1918 (18k words)

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Utopia of Usurers by G. K. Chesterton (1917)

+

Utopia of Usurers by G. K. Chesterton in 1917 (10k words)

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The Servile State by Hilaire Belloc (1912)

+

The Servile State by Hilaire Belloc in 1912 (36k words)

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What's Wrong with the World by G. K. Chesterton (1910)

+

What's Wrong with the World by G. K. Chesterton in 1910 (50k words)

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The Restoration of the Guild System by Arthur Penty (1906)

+

The Restoration of the Guild System by Arthur Penty in 1906 (18k words)

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The Condition of Labor by Henry George (1891)

+

The Condition of Labor by Henry George in 1891 (40k words)

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Social Problems by Henry George (1883)

+

Social Problems by Henry George in 1883 (70k words)

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Agrarian Justice by Thomas Paine (1797)

+

Agrarian Justice by Thomas Paine in 1797 (6k words)

History and biography -

St. Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton (1923)

+

St. Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton in 1923 (40k words)

-

A Guildsman's Interpretation of History by Arthur Penty (1920)

+

A Guildsman's Interpretation of History by Arthur Penty in 1920 (100k words)

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Count Tolstoy and His Philosophy of Life by Ernest Howard Crosby (1900)

+

Count Tolstoy and His Philosophy of Life by Ernest Howard Crosby in 1900 (12k words)

Fiction and parable -

The Man who was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton (1908)

+

The Man who was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton in 1908 (50k words)

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The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton (1904)

+

The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton in 1904 (50k words)

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Where love is there God is also by Leo Tolstoy (1887)

+

Where love is there God is also by Leo Tolstoy in 1887 (5k words)

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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - diff --git a/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-italic.ttf b/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-italic.ttf deleted file mode 100644 index f275ead..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-italic.ttf and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-italic.woff b/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-italic.woff deleted file mode 100644 index 0e5871d..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-italic.woff and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-italic.woff2 b/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-italic.woff2 deleted file mode 100644 index 38bfa01..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-italic.woff2 and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-regular.eot b/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-regular.eot deleted file mode 100644 index 5d10e36..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-regular.eot and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-regular.svg b/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-regular.svg deleted file mode 100644 index 555dea6..0000000 --- a/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-regular.svg +++ /dev/null @@ -1,374 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - diff --git a/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-regular.ttf b/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-regular.ttf deleted file mode 100644 index 85b7f6b..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-regular.ttf and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-regular.woff b/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-regular.woff deleted file mode 100644 index d85e75b..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-regular.woff and /dev/null differ diff --git a/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-regular.woff2 b/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-regular.woff2 deleted file mode 100644 index 6515c26..0000000 Binary files a/fonts/merriweather-v28-latin-regular.woff2 and /dev/null differ diff --git a/site.hs b/site.hs index a68de13..ffbd2d0 100644 --- a/site.hs +++ b/site.hs @@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ import GHC.Generics import Hakyll import System.FilePath (takeBaseName, takeDirectory, ()) import Text.HTML.TagSoup (Tag (..)) +import Prelude hiding (words) import Control.Arrow (second) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- @@ -136,11 +137,30 @@ data BookData = BookData {categories :: [String], books :: [Book]} instance FromJSON BookData -data Book = Book {author :: String, title :: String, year :: Int, tag :: String, source :: String, lastWriteTime :: String, category :: Int} +data Book = Book {author :: String, title :: String, year :: Int, tag :: String, source :: String, hash :: String, words :: Int, category :: Int} deriving (Generic, Show) instance FromJSON Book +prettyWords :: Book -> String +prettyWords book = + let ws = words book in + if ws > 400000 + then show (ws `div` 100000) <> "00k" + else + if ws > 40000 + then show (ws `div` 10000) <> "0k" + else + if ws > 4000 + then show (ws `div` 1000) <> "k" + else + if ws > 400 + then show (ws `div` 100) <> "00" + else + if ws > 40 + then show (ws `div` 10) <> "0" + else show ws + compareBooks :: Book -> Book -> Ordering compareBooks a b = compare (year b) (year a) @@ -155,6 +175,7 @@ booksField bookData = listField "categories" categoryCtx (pure cats) <> field "author" (pure . author . itemBody) <> field "title" (pure . title . itemBody) <> field "year" (pure . show . year . itemBody) + <> field "words" (pure . prettyWords . itemBody) <> field "source" ( \item -> diff --git a/src/acquisitive-society.md b/src/acquisitive-society.md index d632a12..35cdeb9 100644 --- a/src/acquisitive-society.md +++ b/src/acquisitive-society.md @@ -1,1941 +1,1633 @@ # Introductory -It is a commonplace that the characteristic virtue of -Englishmen is their power of sustained practical activity, -and their characteristic vice a reluctance to test the -quality of that activity by reference to principles. They -are incurious as to theory, take fundamentals for granted, -and are more interested in the state of the roads than in -their place on the map. And it might fairly be argued that -in ordinary times that combination of intellectual tameness -with practical energy is sufficiently serviceable to -explain, if not to justify, the equanimity with which its -possessors bear the criticism of more mentally adventurous -nations. It is the mood of those who have made their bargain -with fate and are content to take what it offers without -re-opening the deal. It leaves the mind free to concentrate -undisturbed upon profitable activities, because it is not -distracted by a taste for unprofitable speculations. Most -generations, it might be said, walk in a path, which they -neither make, nor discover, but accept; the main thing is -that they should march. The blinkers worn by Englishmen -enable them to trot all the more steadily along the beaten -road, without being disturbed by curiosity as to their -destination. - -But if the medicine of the constitution ought not to be made -its daily food, neither can its daily food be made medicine. -There are times which are not ordinary, and in such times it -is not enough to follow the road. It is necessary to know -where it leads, and, if it leads nowhere, to follow another. -The search for another involves reflection, which is -uncongenial to the bustling people who describe themselves -as practical, because they take things as they are and leave -them as they are. But the practical thing for a traveller -who is uncertain of his path is not to proceed with the -utmost rapidity in the wrong direction: it is to consider -how to find the right one. And the practical thing for a -nation which has stumbled upon one of the turning points of -history is not to behave as though nothing very important -were involved, as if it did not matter whether it turned to -the right or to the left, went up hill or down dale, -provided that it continued doing with a little more energy -what it has done hitherto; but to consider whether what it -has done hitherto is wise, and, if it is not wise, to alter -it. - -When the broken ends of its industry, its politics, its -social organization, have to be pieced together after a -catastrophe, it must make a decision; for it makes a -decision even if it refuses to decide. If it is to make a -decision which will wear, it must travel beyond the -philosophy momentarily in favour with the proprietors of its -newspapers. Unless it is to move with the energetic futility -of a squirrel in a revolving cage, it must have a clear -apprehension both of the deficiency of what is, and of the -character of what ought to be. And to obtain this -apprehension it must appeal to some standard more stable -than the momentary exigencies of its commerce or industry or -social life, and judge them by it. It must, in short, have -recourse to Principles. - -Such considerations are, perhaps, not altogether irrelevant -at a time when facts have forced upon Englishmen the -reconsideration of their social institutions which no appeal -to theory could induce them to undertake. An appeal to -principles is the condition of any considerable -reconstruction of society, because social institutions are -the visible expression of the scale of moral values which -rules the minds of individuals, and it is impossible to -alter institutions without altering that valuation. -Parliament, industrial organizations, the whole complex -machinery through which society expresses itself, is a mill -which grinds only what is put into it. When nothing is put -into it, it grinds air. - -There are many, of course, who desire no alteration, and -who, when it is attempted, will oppose it. They have found -the existing economic order profitable in the past. They -desire only such changes as will insure that it is equally -profitable in the future. *Quand le Roi avait bu, la Pologne -était ivre.* They are genuinely unable to understand why -their countrymen cannot bask contentedly by the fire which -warms themselves, and ask, like the French -farmer-general:---"When everything goes so happily, why -trouble to change it?" Such persons are to be pitied, for -they lack the social quality which is proper to man. But -they do not need argument; for Heaven has denied them one of -the faculties required to apprehend it. - -There are others, however, who are conscious of the desire -for a new social order, but who yet do not grasp the -implications of their own desire. Men may genuinely -sympathize with the demand for a radical change. They may be -conscious of social evils and sincerely anxious to remove -them. They may set up a new department, and appoint new -officials, and invent a new name to express their resolution -to effect something more drastic than reform, and less -disturbing than revolution. But unless they will take the -pains, not only to act, but to reflect, they end by -effecting nothing. For they deliver themselves bound to -those who think they are practical, because they take their -philosophy so much for granted as to be unconscious of its -implications. As soon as they try to act, that philosophy -re-asserts itself, and serves as an overruling force which -presses their action more deeply into the old channels. - -"Unhappy man that I am; who shall deliver me from the body -of this death?" When they desire to place their economic -life on a better foundation, they repeat, like parrots, the -word "Productivity," because that is the word that rises -first in their minds; regardless of the fact that -productivity is the foundation on which it is based already, -that increased productivity is the one characteristic -achievement of the age before the war, as religion was of -the Middle Ages or art of classical Athens, and that it is -precisely in the century which has seen the greatest -increase in productivity since the fall of the Roman Empire -that economic discontent has been most acute. When they are -touched by social compunction, they can think of nothing -more original than the diminution of poverty, because -poverty, being the opposite of the riches which they value -most, seems to them the most terrible of human afflictions. -They do not understand that poverty is a symptom and a -consequence of social disorder, while the disorder itself is -something at once more fundamental and more incorrigible, -and that the quality in their social life which causes it to -demoralize a few by excessive riches, is also the quality -which causes it to demoralize many by excessive poverty. - -"But increased production is important." Of course it is! -That plenty is good and scarcity evil---it needs no ghost -from the graves of the past seven years to tell us that. But -plenty depends upon cooperative effort, and co-operation -upon moral principles. And moral principles are what the -prophets of this dispensation despise. So the world -"continues in scarcity," because it is too grasping and too -short-sighted to seek that "which maketh men to be of one -mind in a house." The well-intentioned schemes for social -reorganization put forward by its commercial teachers are -abortive, because they endeavour to combine incompatibles, -and, if they disturb everything, they settle nothing. They -are like a man who, when he finds that his shoddy boots wear -badly, orders a pair two sizes larger instead of a pair of -good leather, or who makes up for putting a bad sixpence in -the plate one Sunday by putting in a bad shilling next. And -when their fit of feverish energy has spent itself, and -there is nothing to show for it except disillusionment, they -cry that reform is impracticable, and blame human nature, -when what they ought to blame is themselves. - -Yet all the time the principles upon which industry should -be based are simple, however difficult it may be to apply -them; and if they are overlooked it is not because they are -difficult, but because they are elementary. They are simple -because industry is simple. An industry, when all is said, -is, in its essence, nothing more mysterious than a body of -men associated, in various degrees of competition and -co-operation, to win their livelihood by providing the -community with some service which it requires. Organize it -as you will, let it be a group of craftsmen labouring with -hammer and chisel, or peasants ploughing their own fields, -or armies of mechanics of a hundred different trades -constructing ships which are miracles of complexity with -machines which are the climax of centuries of invention, its -function is service, its method is association. Because its -function is service, an industry as a whole has rights and -duties towards the community, the abrogation of which -involves privilege. Because its method is association, the -different parties within it have rights and duties towards -each other; and the neglect or perversion of these involves -oppression. - -The conditions of a right organization of industry are, -therefore, permanent, unchanging, and capable of being -apprehended by the most elementary intelligence, provided it -will read the nature of its countrymen in the large outlines -of history, not in the bloodless abstractions of experts. -And they are the same, in all essentials, for a society -which is poor as for a society which is rich. The latter may -afford luxuries which the former must forego; the former may -labour hard on a stony soil while the latter dwells at ease -in its material Zion. These differences of economic -endowment decide what industry will yield; they do not alter -the ends at which it should aim, or the moral standard by -which its organization should be tried. As long as men are -men, a poor society cannot be too poor to find a right order -of life, nor a rich society too rich to have need to seek -it. And if the economists are correct, as they may be, in -warning us that the amazing outburst of riches which took -place in the nineteenth century is an episode which is over; -if the period of increasing returns has ended and the period -of diminishing returns has begun; if in the future it will -be only by an increased effort that the industrial -civilization of Western Europe can purchase from America and -the tropics the foodstuffs and raw materials which it -requires, then it is all the more necessary that the -principles on which its economic order is founded should -justify themselves to the consciences of decent men. - -The first principle is that industry should be subordinated -to the community in such a way as to render the best service -technically possible, that those who render that service -faithfully should be honourably paid, and that those who -render no service should not be paid at all, because it is -of the essence of a function that it should find its meaning -in the satisfaction, not of itself, but of the end which it -serves. The second is that its direction and government -should be in the hands of persons who are responsible to -those who are directed and governed, because it is the -condition of economic freedom that men should not be ruled -by an authority which they cannot control. The industrial -problem, in fact, is a problem of right, not merely of -material misery, and because it is a problem of right it is -most acute among those sections of the working classes whose -material misery is least. It is a question, first of -Function, and secondly of Freedom. +It is a commonplace that the characteristic virtue of Englishmen is +their power of sustained practical activity, and their characteristic +vice a reluctance to test the quality of that activity by reference to +principles. They are incurious as to theory, take fundamentals for +granted, and are more interested in the state of the roads than in their +place on the map. And it might fairly be argued that in ordinary times +that combination of intellectual tameness with practical energy is +sufficiently serviceable to explain, if not to justify, the equanimity +with which its possessors bear the criticism of more mentally +adventurous nations. It is the mood of those who have made their bargain +with fate and are content to take what it offers without re-opening the +deal. It leaves the mind free to concentrate undisturbed upon profitable +activities, because it is not distracted by a taste for unprofitable +speculations. Most generations, it might be said, walk in a path, which +they neither make, nor discover, but accept; the main thing is that they +should march. The blinkers worn by Englishmen enable them to trot all +the more steadily along the beaten road, without being disturbed by +curiosity as to their destination. + +But if the medicine of the constitution ought not to be made its daily +food, neither can its daily food be made medicine. There are times which +are not ordinary, and in such times it is not enough to follow the road. +It is necessary to know where it leads, and, if it leads nowhere, to +follow another. The search for another involves reflection, which is +uncongenial to the bustling people who describe themselves as practical, +because they take things as they are and leave them as they are. But the +practical thing for a traveller who is uncertain of his path is not to +proceed with the utmost rapidity in the wrong direction: it is to +consider how to find the right one. And the practical thing for a nation +which has stumbled upon one of the turning points of history is not to +behave as though nothing very important were involved, as if it did not +matter whether it turned to the right or to the left, went up hill or +down dale, provided that it continued doing with a little more energy +what it has done hitherto; but to consider whether what it has done +hitherto is wise, and, if it is not wise, to alter it. + +When the broken ends of its industry, its politics, its social +organization, have to be pieced together after a catastrophe, it must +make a decision; for it makes a decision even if it refuses to decide. +If it is to make a decision which will wear, it must travel beyond the +philosophy momentarily in favour with the proprietors of its newspapers. +Unless it is to move with the energetic futility of a squirrel in a +revolving cage, it must have a clear apprehension both of the deficiency +of what is, and of the character of what ought to be. And to obtain this +apprehension it must appeal to some standard more stable than the +momentary exigencies of its commerce or industry or social life, and +judge them by it. It must, in short, have recourse to Principles. + +Such considerations are, perhaps, not altogether irrelevant at a time +when facts have forced upon Englishmen the reconsideration of their +social institutions which no appeal to theory could induce them to +undertake. An appeal to principles is the condition of any considerable +reconstruction of society, because social institutions are the visible +expression of the scale of moral values which rules the minds of +individuals, and it is impossible to alter institutions without altering +that valuation. Parliament, industrial organizations, the whole complex +machinery through which society expresses itself, is a mill which grinds +only what is put into it. When nothing is put into it, it grinds air. + +There are many, of course, who desire no alteration, and who, when it is +attempted, will oppose it. They have found the existing economic order +profitable in the past. They desire only such changes as will insure +that it is equally profitable in the future. *Quand le Roi avait bu, la +Pologne était ivre.* They are genuinely unable to understand why their +countrymen cannot bask contentedly by the fire which warms themselves, +and ask, like the French farmer-general:---"When everything goes so +happily, why trouble to change it?" Such persons are to be pitied, for +they lack the social quality which is proper to man. But they do not +need argument; for Heaven has denied them one of the faculties required +to apprehend it. + +There are others, however, who are conscious of the desire for a new +social order, but who yet do not grasp the implications of their own +desire. Men may genuinely sympathize with the demand for a radical +change. They may be conscious of social evils and sincerely anxious to +remove them. They may set up a new department, and appoint new +officials, and invent a new name to express their resolution to effect +something more drastic than reform, and less disturbing than revolution. +But unless they will take the pains, not only to act, but to reflect, +they end by effecting nothing. For they deliver themselves bound to +those who think they are practical, because they take their philosophy +so much for granted as to be unconscious of its implications. As soon as +they try to act, that philosophy re-asserts itself, and serves as an +overruling force which presses their action more deeply into the old +channels. + +"Unhappy man that I am; who shall deliver me from the body of this +death?" When they desire to place their economic life on a better +foundation, they repeat, like parrots, the word "Productivity," because +that is the word that rises first in their minds; regardless of the fact +that productivity is the foundation on which it is based already, that +increased productivity is the one characteristic achievement of the age +before the war, as religion was of the Middle Ages or art of classical +Athens, and that it is precisely in the century which has seen the +greatest increase in productivity since the fall of the Roman Empire +that economic discontent has been most acute. When they are touched by +social compunction, they can think of nothing more original than the +diminution of poverty, because poverty, being the opposite of the riches +which they value most, seems to them the most terrible of human +afflictions. They do not understand that poverty is a symptom and a +consequence of social disorder, while the disorder itself is something +at once more fundamental and more incorrigible, and that the quality in +their social life which causes it to demoralize a few by excessive +riches, is also the quality which causes it to demoralize many by +excessive poverty. + +"But increased production is important." Of course it is! That plenty is +good and scarcity evil---it needs no ghost from the graves of the past +seven years to tell us that. But plenty depends upon cooperative effort, +and co-operation upon moral principles. And moral principles are what +the prophets of this dispensation despise. So the world "continues in +scarcity," because it is too grasping and too short-sighted to seek that +"which maketh men to be of one mind in a house." The well-intentioned +schemes for social reorganization put forward by its commercial teachers +are abortive, because they endeavour to combine incompatibles, and, if +they disturb everything, they settle nothing. They are like a man who, +when he finds that his shoddy boots wear badly, orders a pair two sizes +larger instead of a pair of good leather, or who makes up for putting a +bad sixpence in the plate one Sunday by putting in a bad shilling next. +And when their fit of feverish energy has spent itself, and there is +nothing to show for it except disillusionment, they cry that reform is +impracticable, and blame human nature, when what they ought to blame is +themselves. + +Yet all the time the principles upon which industry should be based are +simple, however difficult it may be to apply them; and if they are +overlooked it is not because they are difficult, but because they are +elementary. They are simple because industry is simple. An industry, +when all is said, is, in its essence, nothing more mysterious than a +body of men associated, in various degrees of competition and +co-operation, to win their livelihood by providing the community with +some service which it requires. Organize it as you will, let it be a +group of craftsmen labouring with hammer and chisel, or peasants +ploughing their own fields, or armies of mechanics of a hundred +different trades constructing ships which are miracles of complexity +with machines which are the climax of centuries of invention, its +function is service, its method is association. Because its function is +service, an industry as a whole has rights and duties towards the +community, the abrogation of which involves privilege. Because its +method is association, the different parties within it have rights and +duties towards each other; and the neglect or perversion of these +involves oppression. + +The conditions of a right organization of industry are, therefore, +permanent, unchanging, and capable of being apprehended by the most +elementary intelligence, provided it will read the nature of its +countrymen in the large outlines of history, not in the bloodless +abstractions of experts. And they are the same, in all essentials, for a +society which is poor as for a society which is rich. The latter may +afford luxuries which the former must forego; the former may labour hard +on a stony soil while the latter dwells at ease in its material Zion. +These differences of economic endowment decide what industry will yield; +they do not alter the ends at which it should aim, or the moral standard +by which its organization should be tried. As long as men are men, a +poor society cannot be too poor to find a right order of life, nor a +rich society too rich to have need to seek it. And if the economists are +correct, as they may be, in warning us that the amazing outburst of +riches which took place in the nineteenth century is an episode which is +over; if the period of increasing returns has ended and the period of +diminishing returns has begun; if in the future it will be only by an +increased effort that the industrial civilization of Western Europe can +purchase from America and the tropics the foodstuffs and raw materials +which it requires, then it is all the more necessary that the principles +on which its economic order is founded should justify themselves to the +consciences of decent men. + +The first principle is that industry should be subordinated to the +community in such a way as to render the best service technically +possible, that those who render that service faithfully should be +honourably paid, and that those who render no service should not be paid +at all, because it is of the essence of a function that it should find +its meaning in the satisfaction, not of itself, but of the end which it +serves. The second is that its direction and government should be in the +hands of persons who are responsible to those who are directed and +governed, because it is the condition of economic freedom that men +should not be ruled by an authority which they cannot control. The +industrial problem, in fact, is a problem of right, not merely of +material misery, and because it is a problem of right it is most acute +among those sections of the working classes whose material misery is +least. It is a question, first of Function, and secondly of Freedom. # Rights and Functions -A function may be defined as an activity which embodies and -expresses the idea of social purpose. The essence of it is -that the agent does not perform it merely for personal gain -or to gratify himself, but recognizes that he is responsible -for its discharge to some higher authority. The purpose of -industry is obvious. It is to supply man with things which -are necessary, useful, or beautiful, and thus to bring life -to body or spirit. In so far as it is governed by this end, -it is among the most important of human activities. In so -far as it is diverted from it, it may be harmless, amusing, -or even exhilarating to those who carry it on; but it -possesses no more social significance than the orderly -business of ants and bees, the strutting of peacocks, or the -struggles of carnivorous animals over carrion. - -Men have normally appreciated this fact, however unwilling -or unable they may have been to act upon it; and therefore -from time to time, in so far as they have been able to -control the forces of violence and greed, they have adopted -various expedients for emphasizing the social quality of -economic activity. It is not easy, however, to emphasize it -effectively, because to do so requires a constant effort of -will, against which egotistical instincts are in rebellion, -and because, if that will is to prevail, it must be embodied -in some social and political organization, which may itself -become so arbitrary, tyrannical and corrupt as to thwart the -performance of function instead of promoting it. When this -process of degeneration has gone far, as in most European -countries it had by the middle of the eighteenth century, -the indispensable thing is to break the dead organization up -and to clear the ground. In the course of doing so, the -individual is emancipated and his rights are enlarged; but -the idea of social purpose is discredited by the discredit -justly attaching to the obsolete order in which it is +A function may be defined as an activity which embodies and expresses +the idea of social purpose. The essence of it is that the agent does not +perform it merely for personal gain or to gratify himself, but +recognizes that he is responsible for its discharge to some higher +authority. The purpose of industry is obvious. It is to supply man with +things which are necessary, useful, or beautiful, and thus to bring life +to body or spirit. In so far as it is governed by this end, it is among +the most important of human activities. In so far as it is diverted from +it, it may be harmless, amusing, or even exhilarating to those who carry +it on; but it possesses no more social significance than the orderly +business of ants and bees, the strutting of peacocks, or the struggles +of carnivorous animals over carrion. + +Men have normally appreciated this fact, however unwilling or unable +they may have been to act upon it; and therefore from time to time, in +so far as they have been able to control the forces of violence and +greed, they have adopted various expedients for emphasizing the social +quality of economic activity. It is not easy, however, to emphasize it +effectively, because to do so requires a constant effort of will, +against which egotistical instincts are in rebellion, and because, if +that will is to prevail, it must be embodied in some social and +political organization, which may itself become so arbitrary, tyrannical +and corrupt as to thwart the performance of function instead of +promoting it. When this process of degeneration has gone far, as in most +European countries it had by the middle of the eighteenth century, the +indispensable thing is to break the dead organization up and to clear +the ground. In the course of doing so, the individual is emancipated and +his rights are enlarged; but the idea of social purpose is discredited +by the discredit justly attaching to the obsolete order in which it is embodied. -It is not surprising, therefore, that in the new industrial -societies which arose on the ruins of the old regime the -dominant note should have been the insistence upon -individual rights, irrespective of any social purpose to -which their exercise contributed. The economic expansion -which concentrated population on the coal-measures was, in -essence, an immense movement of colonization drifting from -the south and east to the north and west; and it was natural -that in those regions of England, as in the American -settlements, the characteristic philosophy should be that of -the pioneer and the mining camp. The change of social -quality was profound. But in England, at least, it was -gradual, and the "industrial revolution," though -catastrophic in its effects, was only the visible climax of -generations of subtle moral change. - -The rise of modern economic relations, which may be dated in -England from the latter half of the seventeenth century, was -coincident with the growth of a political theory which -replaced the conception of purpose by that of mechanism. -During a great part of history men had found the -significance of their social order in its relation to the -universal purposes of religion. It stood as one rung in a -ladder which stretched from hell to Paradise, and the -classes who composed it were the hands, the feet, the head -of a corporate body which was itself a microcosm imperfectly -reflecting a larger universe. When the Reformation made the -Church a department of the secular government, it undermined -the already enfeebled spiritual forces which had erected -that sublime, if too much elaborated, synthesis. But its -influence remained for nearly a century after the roots -which fed it had been severed. It was the atmosphere into -which men were born, and from which, however practical, or -even Machiavellian, they could not easily disengage their -spirits. - -Nor was it inconvenient for the new statecraft to see the -weight of a traditional religious sanction added to its own -concern in the subordination of all classes and interests to -the common end, of which it conceived itself, and during the -greater part of the sixteenth century was commonly -conceived, to be the guardian. The lines of the social -structure were no longer supposed to reproduce in miniature -the plan of a universal order. But common habits, common -traditions and beliefs, common pressure from above gave them -a unity of direction, which restrained the forces of -individual variation and lateral expansion; and the centre -towards which they converged, formerly a Church possessing -some of the characteristics of a State, was now a State that -had clothed itself with many of the attributes of a Church. - -The difference between the England of Shakespeare, still -visited by the ghosts of the Middle Ages, and the England -which emerged in 1700 from the fierce polemics of the last -two generations, was a difference of social and political -theory even more than of constitutional and political -arrangements. Not only the facts, but the minds which -appraised them, were profoundly modified. The essence of the -change was the disappearance of the idea that social -institutions and economic activities were related to common -ends, which gave them their significance and which served as -their criterion. - -In the eighteenth century both the State and the Church had -abdicated that part of their sphere which had consisted in -the maintenance of a common body of social ethics; what was -left of it was the repression of a class, not the discipline -of a nation. Opinion ceased to regard social institutions -and economic activity as amenable, like personal conduct, to -moral criteria, because it was no longer influenced by the -spectacle of institutions which, arbitrary, capricious, and -often corrupt in their practical operation, had been the -outward symbol and expression of the subordination of life -to purposes transcending private interests. That part of -government which had been concerned with social -administration, if it did not end, became at least -obsolescent. For such democracy as had existed in the Middle -Ages was dead, and the democracy of the Revolution was not -yet born, so that government passed into the lethargic hand -of classes who wielded the power of the State in the +It is not surprising, therefore, that in the new industrial societies +which arose on the ruins of the old regime the dominant note should have +been the insistence upon individual rights, irrespective of any social +purpose to which their exercise contributed. The economic expansion +which concentrated population on the coal-measures was, in essence, an +immense movement of colonization drifting from the south and east to the +north and west; and it was natural that in those regions of England, as +in the American settlements, the characteristic philosophy should be +that of the pioneer and the mining camp. The change of social quality +was profound. But in England, at least, it was gradual, and the +"industrial revolution," though catastrophic in its effects, was only +the visible climax of generations of subtle moral change. + +The rise of modern economic relations, which may be dated in England +from the latter half of the seventeenth century, was coincident with the +growth of a political theory which replaced the conception of purpose by +that of mechanism. During a great part of history men had found the +significance of their social order in its relation to the universal +purposes of religion. It stood as one rung in a ladder which stretched +from hell to Paradise, and the classes who composed it were the hands, +the feet, the head of a corporate body which was itself a microcosm +imperfectly reflecting a larger universe. When the Reformation made the +Church a department of the secular government, it undermined the already +enfeebled spiritual forces which had erected that sublime, if too much +elaborated, synthesis. But its influence remained for nearly a century +after the roots which fed it had been severed. It was the atmosphere +into which men were born, and from which, however practical, or even +Machiavellian, they could not easily disengage their spirits. + +Nor was it inconvenient for the new statecraft to see the weight of a +traditional religious sanction added to its own concern in the +subordination of all classes and interests to the common end, of which +it conceived itself, and during the greater part of the sixteenth +century was commonly conceived, to be the guardian. The lines of the +social structure were no longer supposed to reproduce in miniature the +plan of a universal order. But common habits, common traditions and +beliefs, common pressure from above gave them a unity of direction, +which restrained the forces of individual variation and lateral +expansion; and the centre towards which they converged, formerly a +Church possessing some of the characteristics of a State, was now a +State that had clothed itself with many of the attributes of a Church. + +The difference between the England of Shakespeare, still visited by the +ghosts of the Middle Ages, and the England which emerged in 1700 from +the fierce polemics of the last two generations, was a difference of +social and political theory even more than of constitutional and +political arrangements. Not only the facts, but the minds which +appraised them, were profoundly modified. The essence of the change was +the disappearance of the idea that social institutions and economic +activities were related to common ends, which gave them their +significance and which served as their criterion. + +In the eighteenth century both the State and the Church had abdicated +that part of their sphere which had consisted in the maintenance of a +common body of social ethics; what was left of it was the repression of +a class, not the discipline of a nation. Opinion ceased to regard social +institutions and economic activity as amenable, like personal conduct, +to moral criteria, because it was no longer influenced by the spectacle +of institutions which, arbitrary, capricious, and often corrupt in their +practical operation, had been the outward symbol and expression of the +subordination of life to purposes transcending private interests. That +part of government which had been concerned with social administration, +if it did not end, became at least obsolescent. For such democracy as +had existed in the Middle Ages was dead, and the democracy of the +Revolution was not yet born, so that government passed into the +lethargic hand of classes who wielded the power of the State in the interests of an irresponsible aristocracy. -And the Church was even more remote from the daily life of -mankind than the state. Philanthropy abounded; but religion, -once the greatest social force, had become a thing as -private and individual as the estate of the squire or the -working clothes of the labourer. There were special -dispensations and occasional interventions, like the acts of -a monarch who reprieved a criminal or signed an order for -his execution. But what was familiar, and human, and -lovable---what was Christian in Christianity had largely -disappeared. God had been thrust into the frigid altitudes -of infinite space. There was a limited monarchy in Heaven, -as well as upon earth. Providence was the spectator of the -curious machine which it had constructed and set in motion, -but the operation of which it was neither able nor willing -to control. Like the occasional intervention of the Crown in -the proceedings of Parliament, its wisdom was revealed in -the infrequency of its interference. - -The natural consequence of the abdication of authorities -which had stood, however imperfectly, for a common purpose -in social organization, was the gradual disappearance from -social thought of the idea of purpose itself. Its place in -the eighteenth century was taken by the idea of mechanism. -The conception of men as united to each other, and of all -mankind as united to God, by mutual obligations arising from -their relation to a common end, ceased to be impressed upon -men's minds, when Church and State withdrew from the centre -of social life to its circumference. Vaguely conceived and -imperfectly realized, it had been the keystone holding -together the social fabric. What remained when the keystone -of the arch was removed, was private rights and private -interests, the materials of a society rather than a society -itself. These rights and interests were the natural order -which had been distorted by the ambitions of kings and -priests, and which emerged when the artificial -super-structure disappeared, because they were the creation, -not of man, but of Nature herself. They had been regarded in -the past as relative to some public purpose, whether -religion or national welfare. Henceforward they were thought -to be absolute and indefeasible, and to stand by their own -virtue. They were the ultimate political and social reality; -and since they were the ultimate reality, they were not -subordinate to other aspects of society, but other aspects +And the Church was even more remote from the daily life of mankind than +the state. Philanthropy abounded; but religion, once the greatest social +force, had become a thing as private and individual as the estate of the +squire or the working clothes of the labourer. There were special +dispensations and occasional interventions, like the acts of a monarch +who reprieved a criminal or signed an order for his execution. But what +was familiar, and human, and lovable---what was Christian in +Christianity had largely disappeared. God had been thrust into the +frigid altitudes of infinite space. There was a limited monarchy in +Heaven, as well as upon earth. Providence was the spectator of the +curious machine which it had constructed and set in motion, but the +operation of which it was neither able nor willing to control. Like the +occasional intervention of the Crown in the proceedings of Parliament, +its wisdom was revealed in the infrequency of its interference. + +The natural consequence of the abdication of authorities which had +stood, however imperfectly, for a common purpose in social organization, +was the gradual disappearance from social thought of the idea of purpose +itself. Its place in the eighteenth century was taken by the idea of +mechanism. The conception of men as united to each other, and of all +mankind as united to God, by mutual obligations arising from their +relation to a common end, ceased to be impressed upon men's minds, when +Church and State withdrew from the centre of social life to its +circumference. Vaguely conceived and imperfectly realized, it had been +the keystone holding together the social fabric. What remained when the +keystone of the arch was removed, was private rights and private +interests, the materials of a society rather than a society itself. +These rights and interests were the natural order which had been +distorted by the ambitions of kings and priests, and which emerged when +the artificial super-structure disappeared, because they were the +creation, not of man, but of Nature herself. They had been regarded in +the past as relative to some public purpose, whether religion or +national welfare. Henceforward they were thought to be absolute and +indefeasible, and to stand by their own virtue. They were the ultimate +political and social reality; and since they were the ultimate reality, +they were not subordinate to other aspects of society, but other aspects of society were subordinate to them. -The State could not encroach upon these rights, for the -State existed for their maintenance. They determined the -relation of classes, for the most obvious and fundamental of -all rights was property---property absolute and -unconditioned---and those who possessed it were regarded as -the natural governors of those who did not. Society arose -from their exercise, through the contracts of individual -with individual. It fulfilled its object in so far as, by -maintaining contractual freedom, it secured full scope for -their unfettered enjoyment. It failed in so far as, like the -French monarchy, it over-rode them by the use of an -arbitrary authority. Thus conceived, society assumed -something of the appearance of a great joint-stock company, -in which political power and the receipt of dividends were -justly assigned to those who held the most numerous shares. -The currents of social activity did not converge upon common -ends, but were dispersed through a multitude of channels, -created by the private interests of the individuals who -composed society. But in their very variety and spontaneity, -in the very absence of any attempt to relate them to a -larger purpose than that of the individual, lay the best -security of its attainment. There is a mysticism of reason -as well as of emotion, and the eighteenth century found in -the beneficence of natural instincts a substitute for the -God whom it had expelled from contact with society, and did -not hesitate to identify them. +The State could not encroach upon these rights, for the State existed +for their maintenance. They determined the relation of classes, for the +most obvious and fundamental of all rights was property---property +absolute and unconditioned---and those who possessed it were regarded as +the natural governors of those who did not. Society arose from their +exercise, through the contracts of individual with individual. It +fulfilled its object in so far as, by maintaining contractual freedom, +it secured full scope for their unfettered enjoyment. It failed in so +far as, like the French monarchy, it over-rode them by the use of an +arbitrary authority. Thus conceived, society assumed something of the +appearance of a great joint-stock company, in which political power and +the receipt of dividends were justly assigned to those who held the most +numerous shares. The currents of social activity did not converge upon +common ends, but were dispersed through a multitude of channels, created +by the private interests of the individuals who composed society. But in +their very variety and spontaneity, in the very absence of any attempt +to relate them to a larger purpose than that of the individual, lay the +best security of its attainment. There is a mysticism of reason as well +as of emotion, and the eighteenth century found in the beneficence of +natural instincts a substitute for the God whom it had expelled from +contact with society, and did not hesitate to identify them. >  "Thus God and nature planned the general frame > > And bade self-love and social be the same." -The result of such ideas in the world of practice was a -society which was ruled by law, not by the caprice of -Governments, but which recognized no moral limitations on -the pursuit by individuals of their economic self-interest. -In the world of thought, it was a political philosophy which -made rights the foundation of the social order, and which -considered the discharge of obligations, when it considered -it at all, as emerging by an inevitable process from their -free exercise. The first famous exponent of this philosophy -was Locke, in whom the dominant conception is the -indefeasibility of private rights, not the pre-ordained -harmony between private rights and public welfare. In the -great French writers who prepared the way for the -Revolution, while believing that they were the servants of -an enlightened absolutism, there is an almost equal emphasis -upon the sanctity of rights and upon the infallibility of -the alchemy by which the pursuit of private ends is -transmuted into the attainment of public good. Though their -writings reveal the influence of the conception of society -as a self-adjusting mechanism, which afterwards became the -most characteristic note of English individualism, what the -French Revolution burned into the mind of Europe was the -former not the latter. In England the idea of right had been -negative and defensive, a barrier to the encroachment of -Governments. The French leapt to the attack from trenches -which the English had been content to defend, and in France -the idea became affirmative and militant, not a weapon of -defence, but a principle of social organization. The attempt -to refound society upon rights, and rights springing not -from musty charters, but from the very nature of man -himself, was at once the triumph and the limitation of the -Revolution. It gave it the enthusiasm and infectious power -of religion. - -What happened in England might seem at first sight to have -been precisely the reverse. English practical men, whose -thoughts were pitched in a lower key, were a little shocked -by the pomp and brilliance of that tremendous creed. They -had scanty sympathy with the absolute affirmations of -France. What captured their imagination was not the right to -liberty, which made no appeal to their commercial instincts, -but the expediency of liberty, which did; and, when the -Revolution had revealed the explosive power of the idea of -natural right, they sought some less menacing formula. It -had been offered them first by Adam Smith and his -precursors, who showed how the mechanism of economic life -converted "as with an invisible hand," the exercise of -individual rights into the instrument of public good. -Bentham, who despised metaphysical subtleties, and thought -the Declaration of the Rights of Man as absurd as any other -dogmatic religion, completed the new orientation by -supplying the final criterion of political institutions in -the principle of Utility. Henceforward emphasis was -transferred from right of the individual to exercise his -freedom as he pleased to the expediency of an undisturbed -exercise of freedom to society. - -The change is significant. It is the difference between the -universal and equal citizenship of France, with its five -million peasant proprietors, and the organized inequality of -England established solidly upon class traditions and class -institutions; the descent from hope to resignation, from the -fire and passion of an age of illimitable vistas to the -monotonous beat of the factory engine, from Turgot and -Condorcet to the melancholy mathematical creed of Bentham -and Ricardo and James Mill. Mankind has, at least, this -superiority over its philosophers, that great movements -spring from the heart and embody a faith, not the nice -adjustments of the hedonistic calculus. So, in the name of -the rights of property, France abolished in three years a -great mass of property rights, which, under the old regime, -had robbed the peasant of part of the produce of his labour, -and the social transformation survived a whole world of -political changes. - -In England the glad tidings of democracy were broken too -discreetly to reach the ears of the hind in the furrow or -the shepherd on the hill; there were political changes -without a social transformation. The doctrine of Utility, -though trenchant in the sphere of politics, involved no -considerable interference with the fundamentals of the -social fabric. Its exponents were principally concerned with -the removal of political abuses and legal anomalies. They -attacked sinecures and pensions and the criminal code and -the procedure of the law courts. But they touched only the -surface of social institutions. They thought it a monstrous -injustice that the citizen should pay one-tenth of his -income in taxation to an idle Government, but quite -reasonable that he should pay one-fifth of it in rent to an -idle landlord. - -The difference, nevertheless, was one of emphasis and -expression, not of principle. It mattered very little in -practice whether private property and unfettered economic -freedom were stated, as in France, to be natural rights, or -whether, as in England, they were merely assumed once for -all to be expedient. In either case they were taken for -granted as the fundamentals upon which social organization -was to be based, and about which no further argument was -admissible. Though Bentham argued that rights were derived -from utility, not from nature, he did not push his analysis -so far as to argue that any particular right was relative to -any particular function, and thus endorsed indiscriminately -rights which were not accompanied by service as well as -rights which were. While eschewing, in short, the -phraseology of natural rights, the English Utilitarians -retained something not unlike the substance of them. For -they assumed that private property in land, and the private -ownership of capital, were natural institutions, and gave -them, indeed, a new lease of life, by proving to their own -satisfaction that social well-being must result from their -continued exercise. Their negative was as important as their -positive teaching. It was a conductor which diverted the -lightning. Behind their political theory, behind the -practical conduct, which as always, continues to express -theory long after it has been discredited in the world of -thought, lay the acceptance of absolute rights to property -and to economic freedom as the unquestioned centre of social -organization. - -The result of that attitude was momentous. The motive and -inspiration of the Liberal Movement of the eighteenth -century had been the attack on Privilege; and, when its main -ideas were being hammered out, that attack was the one -supremely necessary thing. In the modern revulsion against -economic tyranny, there is a disposition to represent the -writers who stand on the threshold of the age of capitalist -industry as the prophets of a vulgar materialism, which -would sacrifice every human aspiration to the pursuit of -riches. No interpretation could be more misleading; and, if -it is not unnatural in England, applied to France, where the -new faith grew to its fullest stature, it is fantastic. The -great individualists of the eighteenth century, Jefferson -and Turgot and Condorcet and Adam Smith, shot their arrows -against the abuses of their day, not of ours. It is as -absurd to criticise them as indifferent to the evils of a -social order which they could not anticipate, as to appeal -to their authority in defence of it. - -When they formulated the new philosophy, the obvious abuse -was not the power wielded by the owners of capital over -populations unable to work without their permission; it was -the network of customary and legal restrictions by which the -landowner in France, monopolistic corporations and the State -both in France and in England, prevented the individual from -exercising his powers, divorced property from labour, and -made idleness the pensioner of industry. The grand enemy of -the age was monopoly; the battle-cry with which -enlightenment marched against it was the abolition of -privilege; its ideal was a society where each man had free -access to the economic opportunities which he could use and -enjoyed the wealth which by his efforts he had created. That -school of thought represented all, or nearly all, that was -humane and intelligent in the mind of the age. It was -individualistic, not because it valued riches as the main -end of man, but because it had a high sense of human -dignity, and desired that men should be free to become -themselves. And the vulgar commercialism which in England -resisted, and still resists, the abolition of child labour, -derived half its strength from the fact that the philosophy -behind which it sheltered was that, not of reaction, but of -enlightenment. - -Of enlightenment, yes. But of an enlightenment which had -crystallized its doctrines while the new industrial order -was still young and its effects unknown. When Adam Smith -wrote, the factory system was still in its infancy; the -typical employer was a small master but little removed from -the half dozen journeymen whom he employed; and the modern -economic system, with its centralized control over armies of -wage-earners, its joint-stock companies separating ownership -from management, its combinations controlling a whole -industry, was neither seen nor suspected. Few even now can -read Condorcet's *Tableau Historique* without a lifting of -the heart. But the creed which had exorcised the spectre of -agrarian feudalism haunting village and *chateau* in France -was impotent to disarm the new ogre of industrial capitalism -who was stretching his grimy arms in the north of England, -for it had never conceived the possibility of his existence. -Hence, with all its brilliant achievements, the appearance -of something belated, something inapposite and irrelevant -which dogs the exponents of that school of thought when they -discuss economic issues after the middle of the nineteenth -century, so different from its trenchant and unswerving -directness in the age of its birth. It is eloquent and -humane. But it seems to repeat the phrases of an age which -expired in producing them, and to do so without knowing it. -For since they were minted by the great masters, the deluge -has changed the face of economic society and has made them -phrases and little more. - -When, shorn of its splendours and illusions, liberalism -triumphed in England in 1832, it carried without criticism -into the new world of capitalist industry categories of -private property and freedom of contract which had been -forged in the simpler economic environment of the -pre-industrial era. In England these categories are being -bent and twisted till they are no longer recognizable, and -will, in time, be made harmless. In America, where necessity -compelled the crystallization of principles in a -constitution, they have the rigidity of an iron jacket. The -magnificent formulae in which a society of farmers, -merchants and master craftsmen enshrined its philosophy of -freedom are in danger of becoming fetters used by an -Anglo-Saxon business aristocracy to bind insurgent movements -on the part of an immigrant and semi-servile proletariat. +The result of such ideas in the world of practice was a society which +was ruled by law, not by the caprice of Governments, but which +recognized no moral limitations on the pursuit by individuals of their +economic self-interest. In the world of thought, it was a political +philosophy which made rights the foundation of the social order, and +which considered the discharge of obligations, when it considered it at +all, as emerging by an inevitable process from their free exercise. The +first famous exponent of this philosophy was Locke, in whom the dominant +conception is the indefeasibility of private rights, not the +pre-ordained harmony between private rights and public welfare. In the +great French writers who prepared the way for the Revolution, while +believing that they were the servants of an enlightened absolutism, +there is an almost equal emphasis upon the sanctity of rights and upon +the infallibility of the alchemy by which the pursuit of private ends is +transmuted into the attainment of public good. Though their writings +reveal the influence of the conception of society as a self-adjusting +mechanism, which afterwards became the most characteristic note of +English individualism, what the French Revolution burned into the mind +of Europe was the former not the latter. In England the idea of right +had been negative and defensive, a barrier to the encroachment of +Governments. The French leapt to the attack from trenches which the +English had been content to defend, and in France the idea became +affirmative and militant, not a weapon of defence, but a principle of +social organization. The attempt to refound society upon rights, and +rights springing not from musty charters, but from the very nature of +man himself, was at once the triumph and the limitation of the +Revolution. It gave it the enthusiasm and infectious power of religion. + +What happened in England might seem at first sight to have been +precisely the reverse. English practical men, whose thoughts were +pitched in a lower key, were a little shocked by the pomp and brilliance +of that tremendous creed. They had scanty sympathy with the absolute +affirmations of France. What captured their imagination was not the +right to liberty, which made no appeal to their commercial instincts, +but the expediency of liberty, which did; and, when the Revolution had +revealed the explosive power of the idea of natural right, they sought +some less menacing formula. It had been offered them first by Adam Smith +and his precursors, who showed how the mechanism of economic life +converted "as with an invisible hand," the exercise of individual rights +into the instrument of public good. Bentham, who despised metaphysical +subtleties, and thought the Declaration of the Rights of Man as absurd +as any other dogmatic religion, completed the new orientation by +supplying the final criterion of political institutions in the principle +of Utility. Henceforward emphasis was transferred from right of the +individual to exercise his freedom as he pleased to the expediency of an +undisturbed exercise of freedom to society. + +The change is significant. It is the difference between the universal +and equal citizenship of France, with its five million peasant +proprietors, and the organized inequality of England established solidly +upon class traditions and class institutions; the descent from hope to +resignation, from the fire and passion of an age of illimitable vistas +to the monotonous beat of the factory engine, from Turgot and Condorcet +to the melancholy mathematical creed of Bentham and Ricardo and James +Mill. Mankind has, at least, this superiority over its philosophers, +that great movements spring from the heart and embody a faith, not the +nice adjustments of the hedonistic calculus. So, in the name of the +rights of property, France abolished in three years a great mass of +property rights, which, under the old regime, had robbed the peasant of +part of the produce of his labour, and the social transformation +survived a whole world of political changes. + +In England the glad tidings of democracy were broken too discreetly to +reach the ears of the hind in the furrow or the shepherd on the hill; +there were political changes without a social transformation. The +doctrine of Utility, though trenchant in the sphere of politics, +involved no considerable interference with the fundamentals of the +social fabric. Its exponents were principally concerned with the removal +of political abuses and legal anomalies. They attacked sinecures and +pensions and the criminal code and the procedure of the law courts. But +they touched only the surface of social institutions. They thought it a +monstrous injustice that the citizen should pay one-tenth of his income +in taxation to an idle Government, but quite reasonable that he should +pay one-fifth of it in rent to an idle landlord. + +The difference, nevertheless, was one of emphasis and expression, not of +principle. It mattered very little in practice whether private property +and unfettered economic freedom were stated, as in France, to be natural +rights, or whether, as in England, they were merely assumed once for all +to be expedient. In either case they were taken for granted as the +fundamentals upon which social organization was to be based, and about +which no further argument was admissible. Though Bentham argued that +rights were derived from utility, not from nature, he did not push his +analysis so far as to argue that any particular right was relative to +any particular function, and thus endorsed indiscriminately rights which +were not accompanied by service as well as rights which were. While +eschewing, in short, the phraseology of natural rights, the English +Utilitarians retained something not unlike the substance of them. For +they assumed that private property in land, and the private ownership of +capital, were natural institutions, and gave them, indeed, a new lease +of life, by proving to their own satisfaction that social well-being +must result from their continued exercise. Their negative was as +important as their positive teaching. It was a conductor which diverted +the lightning. Behind their political theory, behind the practical +conduct, which as always, continues to express theory long after it has +been discredited in the world of thought, lay the acceptance of absolute +rights to property and to economic freedom as the unquestioned centre of +social organization. + +The result of that attitude was momentous. The motive and inspiration of +the Liberal Movement of the eighteenth century had been the attack on +Privilege; and, when its main ideas were being hammered out, that attack +was the one supremely necessary thing. In the modern revulsion against +economic tyranny, there is a disposition to represent the writers who +stand on the threshold of the age of capitalist industry as the prophets +of a vulgar materialism, which would sacrifice every human aspiration to +the pursuit of riches. No interpretation could be more misleading; and, +if it is not unnatural in England, applied to France, where the new +faith grew to its fullest stature, it is fantastic. The great +individualists of the eighteenth century, Jefferson and Turgot and +Condorcet and Adam Smith, shot their arrows against the abuses of their +day, not of ours. It is as absurd to criticise them as indifferent to +the evils of a social order which they could not anticipate, as to +appeal to their authority in defence of it. + +When they formulated the new philosophy, the obvious abuse was not the +power wielded by the owners of capital over populations unable to work +without their permission; it was the network of customary and legal +restrictions by which the landowner in France, monopolistic corporations +and the State both in France and in England, prevented the individual +from exercising his powers, divorced property from labour, and made +idleness the pensioner of industry. The grand enemy of the age was +monopoly; the battle-cry with which enlightenment marched against it was +the abolition of privilege; its ideal was a society where each man had +free access to the economic opportunities which he could use and enjoyed +the wealth which by his efforts he had created. That school of thought +represented all, or nearly all, that was humane and intelligent in the +mind of the age. It was individualistic, not because it valued riches as +the main end of man, but because it had a high sense of human dignity, +and desired that men should be free to become themselves. And the vulgar +commercialism which in England resisted, and still resists, the +abolition of child labour, derived half its strength from the fact that +the philosophy behind which it sheltered was that, not of reaction, but +of enlightenment. + +Of enlightenment, yes. But of an enlightenment which had crystallized +its doctrines while the new industrial order was still young and its +effects unknown. When Adam Smith wrote, the factory system was still in +its infancy; the typical employer was a small master but little removed +from the half dozen journeymen whom he employed; and the modern economic +system, with its centralized control over armies of wage-earners, its +joint-stock companies separating ownership from management, its +combinations controlling a whole industry, was neither seen nor +suspected. Few even now can read Condorcet's *Tableau Historique* +without a lifting of the heart. But the creed which had exorcised the +spectre of agrarian feudalism haunting village and *chateau* in France +was impotent to disarm the new ogre of industrial capitalism who was +stretching his grimy arms in the north of England, for it had never +conceived the possibility of his existence. Hence, with all its +brilliant achievements, the appearance of something belated, something +inapposite and irrelevant which dogs the exponents of that school of +thought when they discuss economic issues after the middle of the +nineteenth century, so different from its trenchant and unswerving +directness in the age of its birth. It is eloquent and humane. But it +seems to repeat the phrases of an age which expired in producing them, +and to do so without knowing it. For since they were minted by the great +masters, the deluge has changed the face of economic society and has +made them phrases and little more. + +When, shorn of its splendours and illusions, liberalism triumphed in +England in 1832, it carried without criticism into the new world of +capitalist industry categories of private property and freedom of +contract which had been forged in the simpler economic environment of +the pre-industrial era. In England these categories are being bent and +twisted till they are no longer recognizable, and will, in time, be made +harmless. In America, where necessity compelled the crystallization of +principles in a constitution, they have the rigidity of an iron jacket. +The magnificent formulae in which a society of farmers, merchants and +master craftsmen enshrined its philosophy of freedom are in danger of +becoming fetters used by an Anglo-Saxon business aristocracy to bind +insurgent movements on the part of an immigrant and semi-servile +proletariat. # The Acquisitive Society -This doctrine has been qualified in practice by particular -limitations to avert particular evils and to meet -exceptional emergencies. But it is limited in special cases -precisely because its general validity is regarded as beyond -controversy, and, up to the eve of the recent war, it was -the working faith of modern economic civilization. What it -implies is, that the foundation of society is found, not in -functions, but in rights; that rights are not deducible from -the discharge of functions, so that the acquisition of -wealth and the enjoyment of property are contingent upon the -performances of services, but that the individual enters the -world equipped with rights to the free disposal of his -property and the pursuit of his economic self-interest, and -that these rights are anterior to, and independent of, any -service which he may render. - -True, the service of society will, in fact, it is assumed, -result from their exercise. But it is not the primary motive -and criterion of industry, but a secondary consequence, -which emerges incidentally through the exercise of rights, a -consequence which is attained, indeed, in practice, but -which is attained without being sought. It is not the end at -which economic activity aims, or the standard by which it is -judged, but a by-product, as coal-tar is a by-product of the -manufacture of gas; whether that by-product appears or not, -it is not proposed that the rights themselves should be -abdicated. For they are regarded, not as a conditional -trust, but as a property, which may, indeed, give way to the -special exigencies of extraordinary emergencies, but which -resumes its sway when the emergency is over, and in normal -times is above discussion. - -That conception is written large over the history of the -nineteenth century, both in England and in America. The -doctrine which it inherited was that property was held by an -absolute right on an individual basis, and to this -fundamental it added another, which can be traced in -principal far back into history, but which grew to its full -stature only after the rise of capitalist industry, that -societies act both unfairly and unwisely when they limit -opportunities of economic enterprise. Hence every attempt to -impose obligations as a condition of the tenure of property -or of the exercise of economic activity has been met by +This doctrine has been qualified in practice by particular limitations +to avert particular evils and to meet exceptional emergencies. But it is +limited in special cases precisely because its general validity is +regarded as beyond controversy, and, up to the eve of the recent war, it +was the working faith of modern economic civilization. What it implies +is, that the foundation of society is found, not in functions, but in +rights; that rights are not deducible from the discharge of functions, +so that the acquisition of wealth and the enjoyment of property are +contingent upon the performances of services, but that the individual +enters the world equipped with rights to the free disposal of his +property and the pursuit of his economic self-interest, and that these +rights are anterior to, and independent of, any service which he may +render. + +True, the service of society will, in fact, it is assumed, result from +their exercise. But it is not the primary motive and criterion of +industry, but a secondary consequence, which emerges incidentally +through the exercise of rights, a consequence which is attained, indeed, +in practice, but which is attained without being sought. It is not the +end at which economic activity aims, or the standard by which it is +judged, but a by-product, as coal-tar is a by-product of the manufacture +of gas; whether that by-product appears or not, it is not proposed that +the rights themselves should be abdicated. For they are regarded, not as +a conditional trust, but as a property, which may, indeed, give way to +the special exigencies of extraordinary emergencies, but which resumes +its sway when the emergency is over, and in normal times is above +discussion. + +That conception is written large over the history of the nineteenth +century, both in England and in America. The doctrine which it inherited +was that property was held by an absolute right on an individual basis, +and to this fundamental it added another, which can be traced in +principal far back into history, but which grew to its full stature only +after the rise of capitalist industry, that societies act both unfairly +and unwisely when they limit opportunities of economic enterprise. Hence +every attempt to impose obligations as a condition of the tenure of +property or of the exercise of economic activity has been met by uncompromising resistance. -The story of the struggle between humanitarian sentiment and -the theory of property transmitted from the eighteenth -century is familiar. No one has forgotten the opposition -offered in the name of the rights of property to factory -legislation, to housing reform, to interference with the -adulteration of goods, even to the compulsory sanitation of -private houses. "May I not do what I like with my own?" was -the answer to the proposal to require a minimum standard of -safety and sanitation from the owners of mills and houses. -Even to this day, while an English urban landlord can cramp -or distort the development of a whole city by withholding -land except at fancy prices, English municipalities are -without adequate powers of compulsory purchase, and must -either pay through the nose or see thousands of their -members overcrowded. The whole body of procedure by which -they may acquire land, or indeed new powers of any kind, has -been carefully designed by lawyers to protect owners of -property against the possibility that their private rights -may be subordinated to the public interest, because their -rights are thought to be primary and absolute and public -interests secondary and contingent. - -No one needs to be reminded, again, of the influence of the -same doctrine in the sphere of taxation. The income tax was -excused as a temporary measure, because the normal society -was conceived to be one in which the individual spent his -whole income for himself and owed no obligations to society -on account of it. The death duties were denounced as -robbery, because they implied that the right to benefit by -inheritance was conditional upon a social sanction. The -Budget of 1909 created a storm, not because the taxation of -land was heavy---in amount the land-taxes were -trifling---but because it was felt to involve the doctrine -that property is not an absolute right, but that it may -properly be accompanied by special obligations, a doctrine -which, if carried to its logical conclusion, would destroy -its sanctity by making ownership no longer absolute but -conditional. - -Such an implication seems intolerable to an influential body -of public opinion, because it has been accustomed to regard -the free disposal of property, and the unlimited -exploitation of economic opportunities, as rights which are -absolute and unconditioned. On the whole, until recently, -this opinion had few antagonists who could not be ignored. -As a consequence the maintenance of property rights has not -been seriously threatened even in those cases in which it is -evident that no service is discharged, directly or -indirectly, by their exercise. - -No one supposes, that the owner of urban land, performs -*qua* owner, any function. He has a right of private -taxation; that is all. But the private ownership of urban -land is as secure to-day as it was a century ago; and Lord -Hugh Cecil, in his interesting little book on Conservatism, -declares that, whether private property is mischievous or -not, society cannot interfere with it, because to interfere -with it is theft, and theft is wicked.No one supposes that -it is for the public good that large areas of land should be -used for parks and game. But our country gentlemen are still -settled heavily upon their villages and still slay their -thousands. No one can argue that a monopolist is impelled by -"an invisible hand" to serve the public interest. But, over -a considerable field of industry, competition, as the recent -Report on Trusts shows, has been replaced by combination, -and combinations are allowed the same unfettered freedom as -individuals in the exploitation of economic opportunities. -No one really believes that the production of coal depends -upon the payment of mining royalties or that ships will not -go to and fro unless ship-owners can earn 50% upon their -capital. But coal mines, or rather the coal miner, still pay -royalties, and ship-owners still make fortunes and are made -Peers. - -At the very moment when everybody is talking about the -importance of increasing the output of wealth, the last -question, apparently, which it occurs to any statesman to -ask is why wealth should be squandered on futile activities, -and in expenditure which is either disproportionate to -service or made for no service at all. So inveterate, -indeed, has become the practice of payment in virtue of -property rights, without even the pretence of any service -being rendered, that when, in a national emergency, it is -proposed to extract oil from the ground, the Government -actually proposes that every gallon shall pay a tax to -landowners who never even suspected its existence, and the -ingenuous proprietors are full of pained astonishment at any -one questioning whether the nation is under a moral -obligation to endow them further. Such rights are, strictly -speaking, privileges. For the definition of a privilege is a -right to which no corresponding function is attached. - -The enjoyment of property and the direction of industry are -considered, in short, to require no social justification, -because they are regarded as rights which stand by their own -virtue, not functions to be judged by the success with which -they contribute to a social purpose. To-day that doctrine, -if intellectually discredited, is still the practical -foundation of social organization. How slowly it yields even -to the most insistent demonstration of its inadequacy is -shown by the attitude which the heads of the business world -have adopted to the restrictions imposed on economic -activity during the war. The control of railways, mines, and -shipping, the distribution of raw materials through a public -department instead of through competing merchants, the -regulation of prices, the attempts to check -"profiteering"---the detailed application of these measures -may have been effective or ineffective, wise or injudicious. -It is evident, indeed, that some of them have been foolish, -like the restriction of imports when the world has five -years' destruction to repair, and that others, if sound in -conception, have been questionable in their execution. If -they were attacked on the ground that they obstruct the -efficient performance of function---if the leaders of -industry came forward and said generally, as some, to their -honour, have:---"We accept your policy, but we will improve -its execution; we desire payment for service and service -only and will help the state to see that it pays for nothing -else"---there might be controversy as to the facts, but -there could be none as to the principle. - -In reality, however, the *gravamen* of the charges brought -against these restrictions appears generally to be precisely -the opposite. They are denounced by most of their critics -not because they limit the opportunity of service, but -because they diminish the opportunity for gain, not because -they prevent the trader enriching the community, but because -they make it more difficult for him to enrich himself; not, -in short, because they have failed to convert economic -activity into a social function, but because they have come -too near succeeding. If the financial adviser to the Coal -Controller may be trusted, the shareholders in coal mines -would appear to have done fairly well during the war. But -the proposal to limit their profits to 1s. 2d. per ton is -described by Lord Gainford as "sheer robbery and -confiscation." With some honourable exceptions, what is -demanded is that in future as in the past the directors of -industry should be free to handle it as an enterprise -conducted for their own convenience or advancement, instead -of being compelled, as they have been partially compelled -during the war, to subordinate it to a social purpose. - -The demand was to be expected. For to admit that the -criterion of commerce and industry is its success in -discharging a social purpose is at once to turn property and -economic activity from rights which are absolute into rights -which are contingent and derivative, because it is to affirm -that they are relative to functions and that they may justly -be revoked when the functions are not performed. It is, in -short, to imply that property and economic activity exist to -promote the ends of society, whereas hitherto society has -been regarded in the world of business as existing to -promote them. To those who hold their position, not as -functionaries, but by virtue of their success in making -industry contribute to their own wealth and social -influence, such a reversal of means and ends appears little -less than a revolution. For it implies that they must -justify before a social tribunal rights which they have -hitherto taken for granted as part of an order which is -above criticism. - -During the greater part of the nineteenth century the -significance of the opposition between the two principles of -individual rights and social functions was masked by the -doctrine of the inevitable harmony between private interests -and public good. Competition, it was argued, was an -effective substitute for honesty. To-day that subsidiary -doctrine has fallen to pieces under criticism; few now would -profess adherence to the compound of economic optimism and -moral bankruptcy which led a nineteenth century economist to -say: "Greed is held in check by greed, and the desire for -gain sets limits to itself." The disposition to regard -individual rights as the centre and pivot of society is -still, however, the most powerful element in political -thought and the practical foundation of industrial -organization. The laborious refutation of the doctrine that -private and public interests are co-incident, and that man's -self-love is God's Providence, which was the excuse of the -last century for its worship of economic egotism, has -achieved, in fact, surprisingly small results. Economic -egotism is still worshipped; and it is worshipped because -that doctrine was not really the centre of the position. It -was an outwork, not the citadel, and now that the outwork -has been captured, the citadel is still to win. - -What gives its special quality and character, its toughness -and cohesion, to the industrial system built up in the last -century and a half, is not its exploded theory of economic -harmonies. It is the doctrine that economic rights are -anterior to, and independent of, economic functions, that -they stand by their own virtue, and need adduce no higher -credentials. The practical result of it is that economic -rights remain, whether economic functions are performed or -not. They remain to-day in a more menacing form than in the -age of early industrialism. For those who control industry -no longer compete but combine, and the rivalry between -property in capital and property in land has long since -ended. - -The basis of the New Conservatism appears to be a -determination so to organize society, both by political and -economic action, as to make it secure against every attempt -to extinguish payments which are made, not for service, but -because the owners possess a right to extract income without -it. Hence the fusion of the two traditional parties, the -proposed "strengthening" of the second chamber, the return -to protection, the swift conversion of rival industrialists -to the advantages of monopoly, and the attempts to buy off -with concessions the more influential section of the working -classes. Revolutions, as a long and bitter experience -reveals, are apt to take their colour from the regime which -they overthrow. Is it any wonder that the creed which -affirms the absolute rights of property should sometimes be -met with a counter-affirmation of the absolute rights of -labour, less antisocial, indeed, and inhuman, but almost as -dogmatic, almost as intolerant and thoughtless as itself? - -A society which aimed at making the acquisition of wealth -contingent upon the discharge of social obligations, which -sought to proportion remuneration to service and denied it -to those by whom no service was performed, which inquired -first, not what men possess, but what they can make or -create or achieve, might be called a Functional Society, -because in such a society the main subject of social -emphasis would be the performance of functions. But such a -society does not exist, even as a remote ideal, in the -modern world, though something like it has hung, an -unrealized theory, before men's minds in the past. Modern -societies aim at protecting economic rights, while leaving -economic functions, except in moments of abnormal emergency, -to fulfil themselves. - -The motive which gives colour and quality to their public -institutions, to their policy and political thought, is not -the attempt to secure the fulfilment of tasks undertaken for -the public service, but to increase the opportunities open -to individuals of attaining the objects which they conceive -to be advantageous to themselves. If asked the end or -criterion of social organization, they would give an answer -reminiscent of the formula the greatest happiness of the -greatest number. But to say that the end of social -institutions is happiness, is to say that they have no -common end at all. For happiness is individual, and to make -happiness the object of society is to resolve society itself -into the ambitions of numberless individuals, each directed -towards the attainment of some personal purpose. - -Such societies may be called Acquisitive Societies, because -their whole tendency and interest and preoccupation is to -promote the acquisition of wealth. The appeal of this -conception must be powerful, for it has laid the whole -modern world under its spell. Since England first revealed -the possibilities of industrialism, it has gone from -strength to strength, and as industrial civilization invades -countries hitherto remote from it, as Russia and Japan and -India and China are drawn into its orbit, each decade sees a -fresh extension of its influence. The secret of its triumph -is obvious. It is an invitation to men to use the powers -with which they have been endowed by nature or society, by -skill or energy or relentless egotism or mere good fortune, -without enquiring whether there is any principle by which -their exercise should be limited. It assumes the social -organization which determines the opportunities which -different classes shall in fact possess, and concentrates -attention upon the right of those who possess or can acquire -power to make the fullest use of it for their own -self-advancement. By fixing men's minds, not upon the -discharge of social obligations, which restricts their -energy, because it defines the goal to which it should be -directed, but upon the exercise of the right to pursue their -own self-interest, it offers unlimited scope for the -acquisition of riches, and therefore gives free play to one -of the most powerful of human instincts. - -To the strong it promises unfettered freedom for the -exercise of their strength; to the weak the hope that they -too one day may be strong. Before the eyes of both it -suspends a golden prize, which not all can attain, but for -which each may strive, the enchanting vision of infinite -expansion. It assures men that there are no ends other than -their ends, no law other than their desires, no limit other -than that which they think advisable. Thus it makes the -individual the centre of his own universe, and dissolves -moral principles into a choice of expediencies. And it -immensely simplifies the problems of social life in complex -communities. For it relieves them of the necessity of -discriminating between different types of economic activity -and different sources of wealth, between enterprise and -avarice, energy and unscrupulous greed, property which is -legitimate and property which is theft, the just enjoyment -of the fruits of labour and the idle parasitism of birth or -fortune, because it treats all economic activities as -standing upon the same level, and suggests that excess or -defect, waste or superfluity, require no conscious effort of -the social will to avert them, but are corrected almost -automatically by the mechanical play of economic forces. - -Under the impulse of such ideas men do not become religious -or wise or artistic; for religion and wisdom and art imply -the acceptance of limitations. But they become powerful and -rich. They inherit the earth and change the face of nature, -if they do not possess their own souls; and they have that -appearance of freedom which consists in the absence of -obstacles between opportunities for self-advancement and -those whom birth, or wealth, or talent or good fortune have -placed in a position to seize them. It is not difficult -either for individuals or for societies to achieve their -object, if that object be sufficiently limited and -immediate, and if they are not distracted from its pursuit -by other considerations. The temper which dedicates itself -to the cultivation of opportunities, and leaves obligations -to take care of themselves, is set upon an object which is -at once simple and practicable. The eighteenth century -defined it. The twentieth century has very largely attained -it. Or, if it has not attained it, it has at least grasped -the possibilities of its attainment. The national output of -wealth per head of population is estimated to have been -approximately £40 in 1914. Unless mankind chooses to -continue the sacrifice of prosperity to the ambitions and -terrors of nationalism, it is possible that by the year 2000 -it may be doubled. +The story of the struggle between humanitarian sentiment and the theory +of property transmitted from the eighteenth century is familiar. No one +has forgotten the opposition offered in the name of the rights of +property to factory legislation, to housing reform, to interference with +the adulteration of goods, even to the compulsory sanitation of private +houses. "May I not do what I like with my own?" was the answer to the +proposal to require a minimum standard of safety and sanitation from the +owners of mills and houses. Even to this day, while an English urban +landlord can cramp or distort the development of a whole city by +withholding land except at fancy prices, English municipalities are +without adequate powers of compulsory purchase, and must either pay +through the nose or see thousands of their members overcrowded. The +whole body of procedure by which they may acquire land, or indeed new +powers of any kind, has been carefully designed by lawyers to protect +owners of property against the possibility that their private rights may +be subordinated to the public interest, because their rights are thought +to be primary and absolute and public interests secondary and +contingent. + +No one needs to be reminded, again, of the influence of the same +doctrine in the sphere of taxation. The income tax was excused as a +temporary measure, because the normal society was conceived to be one in +which the individual spent his whole income for himself and owed no +obligations to society on account of it. The death duties were denounced +as robbery, because they implied that the right to benefit by +inheritance was conditional upon a social sanction. The Budget of 1909 +created a storm, not because the taxation of land was heavy---in amount +the land-taxes were trifling---but because it was felt to involve the +doctrine that property is not an absolute right, but that it may +properly be accompanied by special obligations, a doctrine which, if +carried to its logical conclusion, would destroy its sanctity by making +ownership no longer absolute but conditional. + +Such an implication seems intolerable to an influential body of public +opinion, because it has been accustomed to regard the free disposal of +property, and the unlimited exploitation of economic opportunities, as +rights which are absolute and unconditioned. On the whole, until +recently, this opinion had few antagonists who could not be ignored. As +a consequence the maintenance of property rights has not been seriously +threatened even in those cases in which it is evident that no service is +discharged, directly or indirectly, by their exercise. + +No one supposes, that the owner of urban land, performs *qua* owner, any +function. He has a right of private taxation; that is all. But the +private ownership of urban land is as secure to-day as it was a century +ago; and Lord Hugh Cecil, in his interesting little book on +Conservatism, declares that, whether private property is mischievous or +not, society cannot interfere with it, because to interfere with it is +theft, and theft is wicked.No one supposes that it is for the public +good that large areas of land should be used for parks and game. But our +country gentlemen are still settled heavily upon their villages and +still slay their thousands. No one can argue that a monopolist is +impelled by "an invisible hand" to serve the public interest. But, over +a considerable field of industry, competition, as the recent Report on +Trusts shows, has been replaced by combination, and combinations are +allowed the same unfettered freedom as individuals in the exploitation +of economic opportunities. No one really believes that the production of +coal depends upon the payment of mining royalties or that ships will not +go to and fro unless ship-owners can earn 50% upon their capital. But +coal mines, or rather the coal miner, still pay royalties, and +ship-owners still make fortunes and are made Peers. + +At the very moment when everybody is talking about the importance of +increasing the output of wealth, the last question, apparently, which it +occurs to any statesman to ask is why wealth should be squandered on +futile activities, and in expenditure which is either disproportionate +to service or made for no service at all. So inveterate, indeed, has +become the practice of payment in virtue of property rights, without +even the pretence of any service being rendered, that when, in a +national emergency, it is proposed to extract oil from the ground, the +Government actually proposes that every gallon shall pay a tax to +landowners who never even suspected its existence, and the ingenuous +proprietors are full of pained astonishment at any one questioning +whether the nation is under a moral obligation to endow them further. +Such rights are, strictly speaking, privileges. For the definition of a +privilege is a right to which no corresponding function is attached. + +The enjoyment of property and the direction of industry are considered, +in short, to require no social justification, because they are regarded +as rights which stand by their own virtue, not functions to be judged by +the success with which they contribute to a social purpose. To-day that +doctrine, if intellectually discredited, is still the practical +foundation of social organization. How slowly it yields even to the most +insistent demonstration of its inadequacy is shown by the attitude which +the heads of the business world have adopted to the restrictions imposed +on economic activity during the war. The control of railways, mines, and +shipping, the distribution of raw materials through a public department +instead of through competing merchants, the regulation of prices, the +attempts to check "profiteering"---the detailed application of these +measures may have been effective or ineffective, wise or injudicious. It +is evident, indeed, that some of them have been foolish, like the +restriction of imports when the world has five years' destruction to +repair, and that others, if sound in conception, have been questionable +in their execution. If they were attacked on the ground that they +obstruct the efficient performance of function---if the leaders of +industry came forward and said generally, as some, to their honour, +have:---"We accept your policy, but we will improve its execution; we +desire payment for service and service only and will help the state to +see that it pays for nothing else"---there might be controversy as to +the facts, but there could be none as to the principle. + +In reality, however, the *gravamen* of the charges brought against these +restrictions appears generally to be precisely the opposite. They are +denounced by most of their critics not because they limit the +opportunity of service, but because they diminish the opportunity for +gain, not because they prevent the trader enriching the community, but +because they make it more difficult for him to enrich himself; not, in +short, because they have failed to convert economic activity into a +social function, but because they have come too near succeeding. If the +financial adviser to the Coal Controller may be trusted, the +shareholders in coal mines would appear to have done fairly well during +the war. But the proposal to limit their profits to 1s. 2d. per ton is +described by Lord Gainford as "sheer robbery and confiscation." With +some honourable exceptions, what is demanded is that in future as in the +past the directors of industry should be free to handle it as an +enterprise conducted for their own convenience or advancement, instead +of being compelled, as they have been partially compelled during the +war, to subordinate it to a social purpose. + +The demand was to be expected. For to admit that the criterion of +commerce and industry is its success in discharging a social purpose is +at once to turn property and economic activity from rights which are +absolute into rights which are contingent and derivative, because it is +to affirm that they are relative to functions and that they may justly +be revoked when the functions are not performed. It is, in short, to +imply that property and economic activity exist to promote the ends of +society, whereas hitherto society has been regarded in the world of +business as existing to promote them. To those who hold their position, +not as functionaries, but by virtue of their success in making industry +contribute to their own wealth and social influence, such a reversal of +means and ends appears little less than a revolution. For it implies +that they must justify before a social tribunal rights which they have +hitherto taken for granted as part of an order which is above criticism. + +During the greater part of the nineteenth century the significance of +the opposition between the two principles of individual rights and +social functions was masked by the doctrine of the inevitable harmony +between private interests and public good. Competition, it was argued, +was an effective substitute for honesty. To-day that subsidiary doctrine +has fallen to pieces under criticism; few now would profess adherence to +the compound of economic optimism and moral bankruptcy which led a +nineteenth century economist to say: "Greed is held in check by greed, +and the desire for gain sets limits to itself." The disposition to +regard individual rights as the centre and pivot of society is still, +however, the most powerful element in political thought and the +practical foundation of industrial organization. The laborious +refutation of the doctrine that private and public interests are +co-incident, and that man's self-love is God's Providence, which was the +excuse of the last century for its worship of economic egotism, has +achieved, in fact, surprisingly small results. Economic egotism is still +worshipped; and it is worshipped because that doctrine was not really +the centre of the position. It was an outwork, not the citadel, and now +that the outwork has been captured, the citadel is still to win. + +What gives its special quality and character, its toughness and +cohesion, to the industrial system built up in the last century and a +half, is not its exploded theory of economic harmonies. It is the +doctrine that economic rights are anterior to, and independent of, +economic functions, that they stand by their own virtue, and need adduce +no higher credentials. The practical result of it is that economic +rights remain, whether economic functions are performed or not. They +remain to-day in a more menacing form than in the age of early +industrialism. For those who control industry no longer compete but +combine, and the rivalry between property in capital and property in +land has long since ended. + +The basis of the New Conservatism appears to be a determination so to +organize society, both by political and economic action, as to make it +secure against every attempt to extinguish payments which are made, not +for service, but because the owners possess a right to extract income +without it. Hence the fusion of the two traditional parties, the +proposed "strengthening" of the second chamber, the return to +protection, the swift conversion of rival industrialists to the +advantages of monopoly, and the attempts to buy off with concessions the +more influential section of the working classes. Revolutions, as a long +and bitter experience reveals, are apt to take their colour from the +regime which they overthrow. Is it any wonder that the creed which +affirms the absolute rights of property should sometimes be met with a +counter-affirmation of the absolute rights of labour, less antisocial, +indeed, and inhuman, but almost as dogmatic, almost as intolerant and +thoughtless as itself? + +A society which aimed at making the acquisition of wealth contingent +upon the discharge of social obligations, which sought to proportion +remuneration to service and denied it to those by whom no service was +performed, which inquired first, not what men possess, but what they can +make or create or achieve, might be called a Functional Society, because +in such a society the main subject of social emphasis would be the +performance of functions. But such a society does not exist, even as a +remote ideal, in the modern world, though something like it has hung, an +unrealized theory, before men's minds in the past. Modern societies aim +at protecting economic rights, while leaving economic functions, except +in moments of abnormal emergency, to fulfil themselves. + +The motive which gives colour and quality to their public institutions, +to their policy and political thought, is not the attempt to secure the +fulfilment of tasks undertaken for the public service, but to increase +the opportunities open to individuals of attaining the objects which +they conceive to be advantageous to themselves. If asked the end or +criterion of social organization, they would give an answer reminiscent +of the formula the greatest happiness of the greatest number. But to say +that the end of social institutions is happiness, is to say that they +have no common end at all. For happiness is individual, and to make +happiness the object of society is to resolve society itself into the +ambitions of numberless individuals, each directed towards the +attainment of some personal purpose. + +Such societies may be called Acquisitive Societies, because their whole +tendency and interest and preoccupation is to promote the acquisition of +wealth. The appeal of this conception must be powerful, for it has laid +the whole modern world under its spell. Since England first revealed the +possibilities of industrialism, it has gone from strength to strength, +and as industrial civilization invades countries hitherto remote from +it, as Russia and Japan and India and China are drawn into its orbit, +each decade sees a fresh extension of its influence. The secret of its +triumph is obvious. It is an invitation to men to use the powers with +which they have been endowed by nature or society, by skill or energy or +relentless egotism or mere good fortune, without enquiring whether there +is any principle by which their exercise should be limited. It assumes +the social organization which determines the opportunities which +different classes shall in fact possess, and concentrates attention upon +the right of those who possess or can acquire power to make the fullest +use of it for their own self-advancement. By fixing men's minds, not +upon the discharge of social obligations, which restricts their energy, +because it defines the goal to which it should be directed, but upon the +exercise of the right to pursue their own self-interest, it offers +unlimited scope for the acquisition of riches, and therefore gives free +play to one of the most powerful of human instincts. + +To the strong it promises unfettered freedom for the exercise of their +strength; to the weak the hope that they too one day may be strong. +Before the eyes of both it suspends a golden prize, which not all can +attain, but for which each may strive, the enchanting vision of infinite +expansion. It assures men that there are no ends other than their ends, +no law other than their desires, no limit other than that which they +think advisable. Thus it makes the individual the centre of his own +universe, and dissolves moral principles into a choice of expediencies. +And it immensely simplifies the problems of social life in complex +communities. For it relieves them of the necessity of discriminating +between different types of economic activity and different sources of +wealth, between enterprise and avarice, energy and unscrupulous greed, +property which is legitimate and property which is theft, the just +enjoyment of the fruits of labour and the idle parasitism of birth or +fortune, because it treats all economic activities as standing upon the +same level, and suggests that excess or defect, waste or superfluity, +require no conscious effort of the social will to avert them, but are +corrected almost automatically by the mechanical play of economic +forces. + +Under the impulse of such ideas men do not become religious or wise or +artistic; for religion and wisdom and art imply the acceptance of +limitations. But they become powerful and rich. They inherit the earth +and change the face of nature, if they do not possess their own souls; +and they have that appearance of freedom which consists in the absence +of obstacles between opportunities for self-advancement and those whom +birth, or wealth, or talent or good fortune have placed in a position to +seize them. It is not difficult either for individuals or for societies +to achieve their object, if that object be sufficiently limited and +immediate, and if they are not distracted from its pursuit by other +considerations. The temper which dedicates itself to the cultivation of +opportunities, and leaves obligations to take care of themselves, is set +upon an object which is at once simple and practicable. The eighteenth +century defined it. The twentieth century has very largely attained it. +Or, if it has not attained it, it has at least grasped the possibilities +of its attainment. The national output of wealth per head of population +is estimated to have been approximately £40 in 1914. Unless mankind +chooses to continue the sacrifice of prosperity to the ambitions and +terrors of nationalism, it is possible that by the year 2000 it may be +doubled. # The Nemesis of Industrialism -Such happiness is not remote from achievement. In the course -of achieving it, however, the world has been confronted by a -group of unexpected consequences, which are the cause of its -*malaise*, as the obstruction of economic opportunity was -the cause of social *malaise* in the eighteenth century. And -these consequences are not, as is often suggested, -accidental mal-adjustments, but flow naturally from its -dominant principle: so that there is a sense in which the -cause of its perplexity is not its failure, but the quality -of its success, and its light itself a kind of darkness. - -The will to economic power, if it is sufficiently -single-minded, brings riches. But if it is single-minded it -destroys the moral restraints which ought to condition the -pursuit of riches, and therefore also makes the pursuit of -riches meaningless. For what gives meaning to economic -activity, as to any other activity, is, as we have said, the -purpose to which it is directed. But the faith upon which -our economic civilization reposes, the faith that riches are -not a means but an end, implies that all economic activity -is equally estimable, whether it is subordinated to a social -purpose or not. Hence it divorces gain from service, and -justifies rewards for which no function is performed, or -which are out of all proportion to it. Wealth in modern -societies is distributed according to opportunity; and while -opportunity depends partly upon talent and energy, it -depends still more upon birth, social position, access to -education and inherited wealth; in a word upon property. For -talent and energy can create opportunity. But property need -only wait for it. It is the sleeping partner who draws part -of the dividends which the firm produces, the residuary -legatee who always claims his share in the estate. - -Because rewards are divorced from services, so that what is -prized most is not riches obtained in return for labour but -riches the economic origin of which, being regarded as -sordid, is concealed, two results follow. The first is the -creation of a class of pensioners upon industry, who levy -toll upon its product, but contribute nothing to its -increase, and who are not merely tolerated, but applauded -and admired and protected with assiduous care, as though the -secret of prosperity resided in them. They are admired -because in the absence of any principle of discrimination -between incomes which are payment for functions and incomes -which are not, all incomes, merely because they represent -wealth, stand on the same level of appreciation, and are -estimated solely by their magnitude, so that in all -societies which have accepted industrialism there is an -upper layer which claims the enjoyment of social life, while -it repudiates its responsibilities. The *rentier* and his -ways, how familiar they were in England before the war! A -public school and then club life in Oxford and Cambridge, -and then another club in town; London in June, when London -is pleasant, the moors in August, and pheasants in October, -Cannes in December and hunting in February and March; and a -whole world of rising bourgeoisie eager to imitate them, -sedulous to make their expensive watches keep time with this -preposterous calendar! - -The second consequence is the degradation of those who -labour, but who do not by their labour command large -rewards; that is of the great majority of mankind. And this -degradation follows inevitably from the refusal of men to -give the purpose of industry the first place in their -thoughts about it. When they do that, when their minds are -set upon the fact that the meaning of industry is the -service of man, all who labour appear to them honourable, -because all who labour serve, and the distinction which -separates those who serve from those who merely spend is so -crucial and fundamental as to obliterate all minor -distinctions based on differences of income. But when the -criterion of function is forgotten, the only criterion which -remains is that of wealth, and an Acquisitive Society -reverences the possession of wealth, as a Functional Society -would honour, even in the person of the humblest and most +Such happiness is not remote from achievement. In the course of +achieving it, however, the world has been confronted by a group of +unexpected consequences, which are the cause of its *malaise*, as the +obstruction of economic opportunity was the cause of social *malaise* in +the eighteenth century. And these consequences are not, as is often +suggested, accidental mal-adjustments, but flow naturally from its +dominant principle: so that there is a sense in which the cause of its +perplexity is not its failure, but the quality of its success, and its +light itself a kind of darkness. + +The will to economic power, if it is sufficiently single-minded, brings +riches. But if it is single-minded it destroys the moral restraints +which ought to condition the pursuit of riches, and therefore also makes +the pursuit of riches meaningless. For what gives meaning to economic +activity, as to any other activity, is, as we have said, the purpose to +which it is directed. But the faith upon which our economic civilization +reposes, the faith that riches are not a means but an end, implies that +all economic activity is equally estimable, whether it is subordinated +to a social purpose or not. Hence it divorces gain from service, and +justifies rewards for which no function is performed, or which are out +of all proportion to it. Wealth in modern societies is distributed +according to opportunity; and while opportunity depends partly upon +talent and energy, it depends still more upon birth, social position, +access to education and inherited wealth; in a word upon property. For +talent and energy can create opportunity. But property need only wait +for it. It is the sleeping partner who draws part of the dividends which +the firm produces, the residuary legatee who always claims his share in +the estate. + +Because rewards are divorced from services, so that what is prized most +is not riches obtained in return for labour but riches the economic +origin of which, being regarded as sordid, is concealed, two results +follow. The first is the creation of a class of pensioners upon +industry, who levy toll upon its product, but contribute nothing to its +increase, and who are not merely tolerated, but applauded and admired +and protected with assiduous care, as though the secret of prosperity +resided in them. They are admired because in the absence of any +principle of discrimination between incomes which are payment for +functions and incomes which are not, all incomes, merely because they +represent wealth, stand on the same level of appreciation, and are +estimated solely by their magnitude, so that in all societies which have +accepted industrialism there is an upper layer which claims the +enjoyment of social life, while it repudiates its responsibilities. The +*rentier* and his ways, how familiar they were in England before the +war! A public school and then club life in Oxford and Cambridge, and +then another club in town; London in June, when London is pleasant, the +moors in August, and pheasants in October, Cannes in December and +hunting in February and March; and a whole world of rising bourgeoisie +eager to imitate them, sedulous to make their expensive watches keep +time with this preposterous calendar! + +The second consequence is the degradation of those who labour, but who +do not by their labour command large rewards; that is of the great +majority of mankind. And this degradation follows inevitably from the +refusal of men to give the purpose of industry the first place in their +thoughts about it. When they do that, when their minds are set upon the +fact that the meaning of industry is the service of man, all who labour +appear to them honourable, because all who labour serve, and the +distinction which separates those who serve from those who merely spend +is so crucial and fundamental as to obliterate all minor distinctions +based on differences of income. But when the criterion of function is +forgotten, the only criterion which remains is that of wealth, and an +Acquisitive Society reverences the possession of wealth, as a Functional +Society would honour, even in the person of the humblest and most laborious craftsman, the arts of creation. -So wealth becomes the foundation of public esteem, and the -mass of men who labour, but who do not acquire wealth, are -thought to be vulgar and meaningless and insignificant -compared with the few who acquire wealth by good fortune, or -by the skilful use of economic opportunities. They come to -be regarded, not as the ends for which alone it is worth -while to produce wealth at all, but as the instruments of -its acquisition by a world that declines to be soiled by -contact with what is thought to be the dull and sordid -business of labour. They are not happy, for the reward of -all but the very mean is not merely money, but the esteem of -their fellow men, and they know they are not esteemed, as -soldiers, for example, are esteemed, though it is because -they give their lives to making civilization that there is a -civilization which it is worth while for soldiers to defend. -They are not esteemed, because the admiration of society is -directed towards those who get, not towards those who give; -and though workmen give much they get little. And the -*rentiers* whom they support are not happy; for in -discarding the idea of function, which sets a limit to the -acquisition of riches, they have also discarded the -principle which alone gives riches their meaning. Hence -unless they can persuade themselves that to be rich is in -itself meritorious, they may bask in social admiration, but -they are unable to esteem themselves. For they have -abolished the principle which makes activity significant, -and therefore estimable. They are, indeed, more truly -pitiable than some of those who envy them. For, like the -spirits in the Inferno, they are punished by the attainment -of their desires. - -A society ruled by these notions is necessarily the victim -of an irrational inequality. To escape such inequality it is -necessary to recognize that there is some principle which -ought to limit the gains of particular classes and -particular individuals, because gains drawn from certain -sources or exceeding certain amounts are illegitimate. But -such a limitation implies a standard of discrimination, -which is inconsistent with the assumption that each man has -a right to what he can get, irrespective of any service -rendered for it. Thus privilege, which was to have been -exorcised by the gospel of 1789, returns in a new guise, the -creature no longer of unequal legal rights thwarting the -natural exercise of equal powers of hand and brain, but of -unequal powers springing from the exercise of equal rights -in a world where property and inherited wealth and the -apparatus of class institutions have made opportunities -unequal. - -Inequality, again, leads to the misdirection of production. -For, since the demand of one income of £50,000 is as -powerful a magnet as the demand of 500 incomes of £100, it -diverts energy from the creation of wealth to the -multiplication of luxuries, so that, for example, while -one-tenth of the people of England are overcrowded, a -considerable part of them are engaged, not in supplying that -deficiency, but in making rich men's hotels, luxurious -yachts, and motor-cars like that used by a Secretary of -State for War, "with an interior inlaid with silver in -quartered mahogany, and upholstered in fawn suede and -morocco," which was afterwards bought by a suburban -capitalist, by way of encouraging useful industries and -rebuking pubHc extravagance with an example of private -economy, for the trifling sum of 3,550 guineas. - -Thus part of the goods which are annually produced, and -which are called wealth, is, strictly speaking, waste, -because it consists of articles which, though reckoned as a -part of the income of the nation, either should not have -been produced until other articles had already been produced -in sufficient abundance, or should not have been produced at -all. And some part of the population is employed in making -goods which no man can make with happiness, or indeed -without loss of self-respect, because he knows that they had -much better not be made, and that his life is wasted in -making them. Everybody recognizes that the army contractor, -who, in time of war, set several hundred navvies to dig an -artificial lake in his grounds, was not adding to, but -subtracting from, the wealth of the nation. But in time of -peace many hundred thousand workmen, if they are not digging -ponds, are doing work which is equally foolish and wasteful; -though, in peace, as in war, there is important work, which -is waiting to be done, and which is neglected. - -It is neglected because, while the effective demand of the -mass of men is only too small, there is a small class which -wears several men's clothes, eats several men's dinners, -occupies several families' houses, and lives several men's -lives. As long as a minority has so large an income that -part of it, if spent at all, must be spent on trivialities, -so long will part of the human energy and mechanical -equipment of the nation be diverted from serious work, which -enriches it, to making trivialities, which impoverishes it, -since they can only be made at the cost of not making other -things. And if the peers and millionaires who are now -preaching the duty of production to miners and dock -labourers desire that more wealth, not more waste, should be -produced, the simplest way in which they can achieve their -aim is to transfer to the public their whole incomes over -(say) £1,000 a year, in order that it may be spent in -setting to work, not gardeners, chauffeurs, domestic -servants and shopkeepers in the West End of London, but -builders, mechanics and teachers. - -So to those who clamour, as many now do, "Produce! Produce!" -one simple question may be addressed:---"Produce what?" -Food, clothing, house-room, art, knowledge? By all means! -But if the nation is scantily furnished with these things -had it not better stop producing a good many others which -fill shop windows in Regent Street? If it desires to -re-equip its industries with machinery and its railways with -wagons, had it not better refrain from holding exhibitions -designed to encourage rich men to re-equip themselves with -motor-cars? What can be more childish than to urge the -necessity that productive power should be increased, if part -of the productive power which exists already is misapplied? -Is not *less* production of futilities as important as, -indeed a condition of, *more* production of things of -moment? Would not "Spend less on private luxuries" be as -wise a cry as "produce more?" Yet this result of inequality, -again, is a phenomenon which cannot be prevented, or -checked, or even recognized by a society which excludes the -idea of purpose from its social arrangements and industrial -activity. For to recognize it is to admit that there is a -principle superior to the mechanical play of economic -forces, which ought to determine the relative importance of -different occupations, and thus to abandon the view that all -riches, however composed, are an end, and that all economic -activity is equally justifiable. - -The rejection of the idea of purpose involves another -consequence which every one laments, but which no one can -prevent, except by abandoning the belief that the free -exercise of rights is the main interest of society and the -discharge of obligations a secondary and incidental -consequence which may be left to take care of itself. It is -that social life is turned into a scene of fierce -antagonisms, and that a considerable part of industry is -carried on in the intervals of a disguised social war. The -idea that industrial peace can be secured merely by the -exercise of tact and forbearance is based on the idea that -there is a fundamental identity of interest between the -different groups engaged in it, which is occasionally -interrupted by regrettable misunderstandings. Both the one -idea and the other are an illusion. The disputes which -matter are not caused by a misunderstanding of identity of -interests, but by a better understanding of diversity of -interests. Though a formal declaration of war is an episode, -the conditions which issue in a declaration of war are -permanent; and what makes them permanent is the conception -of industry which also makes inequality and functionless -incomes permanent. It is the denial that industry has any -end or purpose other than the satisfaction of those engaged -in it. - -That motive produces industrial warfare, not as a -regrettable incident, but as an inevitable result. It -produces industrial war, because its teaching is that each -individual or group has a right to what they can get, and -denies that there is any principle, other than the mechanism -of the market, which determines what they ought to get. For, -since the income available for distribution is limited, and -since, therefore, when certain limits have been passed, what -one group gains another group must lose, it is evident that -if the relative incomes of different groups are not to be -determined by their functions, there is no method other than -mutual self-assertion which is left to determine them. -Self-interest, indeed, may cause them to refrain from using -their full strength to enforce their claims, and, in so far -as this happens, peace is secured in industry, as men have -attempted to secure it in international affairs, by a -balance of power. But the maintenance of such a peace is -contingent upon the estimate of the parties to it that they -have more to lose than to gain by an overt struggle, and is -not the result of their acceptance of any standard of -remuneration as an equitable settlement of their claims. -Hence it is precarious, insincere and short. It is without -finality, because there can be no finality in the mere -addition of increments of income, any more than in the -gratification of any other desire for material goods. When -demands are conceded the old struggle recommences upon a new -level, and will always recommence as long as men seek to end -it merely by increasing remuneration, not by finding a -principle upon which all remuneration, whether large or -small, should be based. - -Such a principle is offered by the idea of function, because -its application would eliminate the surpluses which are the -subject of contention, and would make it evident that -remuneration is based upon service, not upon chance or -privilege or the power to use opportunities to drive a hard -bargain. But the idea of function is incompatible with the -doctrine that every person and organization have an -unlimited right to exploit their economic opportunities as -fully as they please, which is the working faith of modern -industry; and, since it is not accepted, men resign -themselves to the settlement of the issue by force, or +So wealth becomes the foundation of public esteem, and the mass of men +who labour, but who do not acquire wealth, are thought to be vulgar and +meaningless and insignificant compared with the few who acquire wealth +by good fortune, or by the skilful use of economic opportunities. They +come to be regarded, not as the ends for which alone it is worth while +to produce wealth at all, but as the instruments of its acquisition by a +world that declines to be soiled by contact with what is thought to be +the dull and sordid business of labour. They are not happy, for the +reward of all but the very mean is not merely money, but the esteem of +their fellow men, and they know they are not esteemed, as soldiers, for +example, are esteemed, though it is because they give their lives to +making civilization that there is a civilization which it is worth while +for soldiers to defend. They are not esteemed, because the admiration of +society is directed towards those who get, not towards those who give; +and though workmen give much they get little. And the *rentiers* whom +they support are not happy; for in discarding the idea of function, +which sets a limit to the acquisition of riches, they have also +discarded the principle which alone gives riches their meaning. Hence +unless they can persuade themselves that to be rich is in itself +meritorious, they may bask in social admiration, but they are unable to +esteem themselves. For they have abolished the principle which makes +activity significant, and therefore estimable. They are, indeed, more +truly pitiable than some of those who envy them. For, like the spirits +in the Inferno, they are punished by the attainment of their desires. + +A society ruled by these notions is necessarily the victim of an +irrational inequality. To escape such inequality it is necessary to +recognize that there is some principle which ought to limit the gains of +particular classes and particular individuals, because gains drawn from +certain sources or exceeding certain amounts are illegitimate. But such +a limitation implies a standard of discrimination, which is inconsistent +with the assumption that each man has a right to what he can get, +irrespective of any service rendered for it. Thus privilege, which was +to have been exorcised by the gospel of 1789, returns in a new guise, +the creature no longer of unequal legal rights thwarting the natural +exercise of equal powers of hand and brain, but of unequal powers +springing from the exercise of equal rights in a world where property +and inherited wealth and the apparatus of class institutions have made +opportunities unequal. + +Inequality, again, leads to the misdirection of production. For, since +the demand of one income of £50,000 is as powerful a magnet as the +demand of 500 incomes of £100, it diverts energy from the creation of +wealth to the multiplication of luxuries, so that, for example, while +one-tenth of the people of England are overcrowded, a considerable part +of them are engaged, not in supplying that deficiency, but in making +rich men's hotels, luxurious yachts, and motor-cars like that used by a +Secretary of State for War, "with an interior inlaid with silver in +quartered mahogany, and upholstered in fawn suede and morocco," which +was afterwards bought by a suburban capitalist, by way of encouraging +useful industries and rebuking pubHc extravagance with an example of +private economy, for the trifling sum of 3,550 guineas. + +Thus part of the goods which are annually produced, and which are called +wealth, is, strictly speaking, waste, because it consists of articles +which, though reckoned as a part of the income of the nation, either +should not have been produced until other articles had already been +produced in sufficient abundance, or should not have been produced at +all. And some part of the population is employed in making goods which +no man can make with happiness, or indeed without loss of self-respect, +because he knows that they had much better not be made, and that his +life is wasted in making them. Everybody recognizes that the army +contractor, who, in time of war, set several hundred navvies to dig an +artificial lake in his grounds, was not adding to, but subtracting from, +the wealth of the nation. But in time of peace many hundred thousand +workmen, if they are not digging ponds, are doing work which is equally +foolish and wasteful; though, in peace, as in war, there is important +work, which is waiting to be done, and which is neglected. + +It is neglected because, while the effective demand of the mass of men +is only too small, there is a small class which wears several men's +clothes, eats several men's dinners, occupies several families' houses, +and lives several men's lives. As long as a minority has so large an +income that part of it, if spent at all, must be spent on trivialities, +so long will part of the human energy and mechanical equipment of the +nation be diverted from serious work, which enriches it, to making +trivialities, which impoverishes it, since they can only be made at the +cost of not making other things. And if the peers and millionaires who +are now preaching the duty of production to miners and dock labourers +desire that more wealth, not more waste, should be produced, the +simplest way in which they can achieve their aim is to transfer to the +public their whole incomes over (say) £1,000 a year, in order that it +may be spent in setting to work, not gardeners, chauffeurs, domestic +servants and shopkeepers in the West End of London, but builders, +mechanics and teachers. + +So to those who clamour, as many now do, "Produce! Produce!" one simple +question may be addressed:---"Produce what?" Food, clothing, house-room, +art, knowledge? By all means! But if the nation is scantily furnished +with these things had it not better stop producing a good many others +which fill shop windows in Regent Street? If it desires to re-equip its +industries with machinery and its railways with wagons, had it not +better refrain from holding exhibitions designed to encourage rich men +to re-equip themselves with motor-cars? What can be more childish than +to urge the necessity that productive power should be increased, if part +of the productive power which exists already is misapplied? Is not +*less* production of futilities as important as, indeed a condition of, +*more* production of things of moment? Would not "Spend less on private +luxuries" be as wise a cry as "produce more?" Yet this result of +inequality, again, is a phenomenon which cannot be prevented, or +checked, or even recognized by a society which excludes the idea of +purpose from its social arrangements and industrial activity. For to +recognize it is to admit that there is a principle superior to the +mechanical play of economic forces, which ought to determine the +relative importance of different occupations, and thus to abandon the +view that all riches, however composed, are an end, and that all +economic activity is equally justifiable. + +The rejection of the idea of purpose involves another consequence which +every one laments, but which no one can prevent, except by abandoning +the belief that the free exercise of rights is the main interest of +society and the discharge of obligations a secondary and incidental +consequence which may be left to take care of itself. It is that social +life is turned into a scene of fierce antagonisms, and that a +considerable part of industry is carried on in the intervals of a +disguised social war. The idea that industrial peace can be secured +merely by the exercise of tact and forbearance is based on the idea that +there is a fundamental identity of interest between the different groups +engaged in it, which is occasionally interrupted by regrettable +misunderstandings. Both the one idea and the other are an illusion. The +disputes which matter are not caused by a misunderstanding of identity +of interests, but by a better understanding of diversity of interests. +Though a formal declaration of war is an episode, the conditions which +issue in a declaration of war are permanent; and what makes them +permanent is the conception of industry which also makes inequality and +functionless incomes permanent. It is the denial that industry has any +end or purpose other than the satisfaction of those engaged in it. + +That motive produces industrial warfare, not as a regrettable incident, +but as an inevitable result. It produces industrial war, because its +teaching is that each individual or group has a right to what they can +get, and denies that there is any principle, other than the mechanism of +the market, which determines what they ought to get. For, since the +income available for distribution is limited, and since, therefore, when +certain limits have been passed, what one group gains another group must +lose, it is evident that if the relative incomes of different groups are +not to be determined by their functions, there is no method other than +mutual self-assertion which is left to determine them. Self-interest, +indeed, may cause them to refrain from using their full strength to +enforce their claims, and, in so far as this happens, peace is secured +in industry, as men have attempted to secure it in international +affairs, by a balance of power. But the maintenance of such a peace is +contingent upon the estimate of the parties to it that they have more to +lose than to gain by an overt struggle, and is not the result of their +acceptance of any standard of remuneration as an equitable settlement of +their claims. Hence it is precarious, insincere and short. It is without +finality, because there can be no finality in the mere addition of +increments of income, any more than in the gratification of any other +desire for material goods. When demands are conceded the old struggle +recommences upon a new level, and will always recommence as long as men +seek to end it merely by increasing remuneration, not by finding a +principle upon which all remuneration, whether large or small, should be +based. + +Such a principle is offered by the idea of function, because its +application would eliminate the surpluses which are the subject of +contention, and would make it evident that remuneration is based upon +service, not upon chance or privilege or the power to use opportunities +to drive a hard bargain. But the idea of function is incompatible with +the doctrine that every person and organization have an unlimited right +to exploit their economic opportunities as fully as they please, which +is the working faith of modern industry; and, since it is not accepted, +men resign themselves to the settlement of the issue by force, or propose that the State should supersede the force of private -associations by the use of its force, as though the absence -of a principle could be compensated by a new kind of -machinery. Yet all the time the true cause of industrial -warfare is as simple as the true cause of international -warfare. It is that if men recognize no law superior to -their desires, then they must fight when their desires -collide; for though groups or nations which are at issue -with each other may be willing to submit to a principle -which is superior to them both, there is no reason why they -should submit to each other. - -Hence the idea, which is popular with rich men, that -industrial disputes would disappear if only the output of -wealth were doubled, and every one were twice as well off, -not only is refuted by all practical experience, but is in -its very nature founded upon an illusion. For the question -is one, not of amounts, but of proportions; and men will -fight to be paid £30 a week, instead of £20, as readily as -they will fight to be paid £5 instead of £4, as long as -there is no reason why they should be paid £20 instead of -£30, and as long as other men who do not work are paid -anything at all. If miners demanded higher wages when every -superfluous charge upon coal-getting had been eliminated, -there would be a principle with which to meet their claims, -the principle that one group of workers ought not to -encroach upon the livelihood of others. But as long as -mineral owners extract royalties, and exceptionally -productive mines pay 30% to absentee shareholders, there is -no valid answer to a demand for higher wages. For if the -community pays anything at all to those who do not work, it -can afford to pay more to those who do. The naive complaint, -that workmen are never satisfied, is, therefore, strictly -true. It is true, not only of workmen, but of all classes in -a society which conducts its affairs on the principle that -wealth, instead of being proportioned to function, belongs -to those who can get it. They are never satisfied, nor can -they be satisfied. For as long as they make that principle -the guide of their individual lives and of their social -order, nothing short of infinity could bring them -satisfaction. - -So here, again, the prevalent insistence upon rights, and -prevalent neglect of functions, brings men into a vicious -circle from which they cannot escape, without escaping from -the false philosophy which dominates them. But it does -something more. It makes that philosophy itself seem -plausible and exhilarating, and a rule not only for -industry, in which it had its birth, but for politics and -culture and religion and the whole compass of social life. -The possibility that one aspect of human life may be so -exaggerated as to overshadow, and in time to atrophy, every -other, has been made familiar to Englishmen by the example -of "Prussian militarism." Militarism is the characteristic, -not of an army, but of a society. Its essence is not any -particular quality or scale of military preparation, but a -state of mind, which, in its concentration on one particular -element in social life, ends finally by exalting it until it -be comes the arbiter of all the rest. The purpose for which -military forces exist is forgotten. They are thought to -stand by their own right and to need no justification. -Instead of being regarded as an instrument which is -necessary in an imperfect world, they are elevated into an -object of superstitious veneration, as though the world -would be a poor insipid place without them, so that -political institutions and social arrangements and intellect -and morality and religion are crushed into a mould made to -fit one activity, which in a sane society is a subordinate -activity, like the police, or the maintenance of prisons, or -the cleansing of sewers, but which in a militarist state is -a kind of mystical epitome of society itself. - -Militarism, as Englishmen see plainly enough, is fetish -worship. It is the prostration of men's souls and the -laceration of their bodies to appease an idol. What they do -not see is that their reverence for economic activity and -industry and what is called business is also fetish worship, -and that, in their devotion to that idol, they torture -themselves as needlessly and indulge in the same meaningless -antics as the Prussians did in their worship of militarism. -For what the military tradition and spirit did for Prussia, -with the result of creating militarism, the commercial -tradition and spirit have done for England, with the result -of creating industrialism. Industrialism is no more the -necessary characteristic of an economically developed -society than militarism is a necessary characteristic of a -nation which maintains military forces. It is no more the -result of applying science to industry than militarism is -the result of the application of science to war, and the -idea that it is something inevitable in a community which -uses coal and iron and machinery, so far from being the -truth, is itself a product of the perversion of mind which -industrialism produces. Men may use what mechanical -instruments they please and be none the worse for their use. -What kills their souls is when they allow their instruments -to use *them*. The essence of industrialism, in short, is -not any particular method of industry, but a particular -estimate of the importance of industry, which results in it -being thought the only thing that is important at all, so -that it is elevated from the subordinate place which it -should occupy among human interests and activities into -being the standard by which all other interests and -activities are judged. - -When a Cabinet Minister declares that the greatness of this -country depends upon the volume of its exports, so that -France, which exports comparatively little, and Elizabethan -England, which exported next to nothing, are presumably to -be pitied as altogether inferior civilizations, that is -Industrialism. It is the confusion of one minor department -of life with the whole of life. When manufacturers cry and -cut themselves with knives, because it is proposed that boys -and girls of fourteen shall attend school for eight hours a -week, and the President of the Board of Education is so -gravely impressed by their apprehensions, that he at once -allows the hours to be reduced to seven, and then suspends -the system altogether, that is Industrialism. It is fetish -worship. When the Government obtains money for a war, which -costs £7,000,000 a day, by closing the Museums, which cost -£20,000 a year, that is Industrialism. It is a contempt for -all interests which do not contribute obviously to economic -activity. When the Press clamours that the one thing needed -to make this island an Arcadia is productivity, and more -productivity, and yet more productivity, that is -Industrialism. It is the confusion of means with ends. - -Men will always confuse means with ends if they are without -any clear conception that it is the ends, not the means, -which matter---if they allow their minds to slip from the -fact that it is the social purpose of industry which gives -it meaning and makes it worth while to carry it on at all. -And when they do that, they will turn their whole world -upside down, because they do not see the poles upon which it -ought to move. So when, like England, they are thoroughly -industrialized, they behave like Prussia, which was -thoroughly militarized. They talk as though man existed for -industry, instead of industry existing for man, as the -Prussians sometimes talked of man existing for war. They -resent any activity which is not coloured by the predominant -interest, because it seems a rival to it. So they destroy -religion and art and morality, which cannot exist unless -they are disinterested; and having destroyed these, which -are the end, for the sake of industry, which is a means, -they make their industry itself what they make their cities, -a desert of unnatural dreariness, which only forgetfulness -can make endurable, and which only excitement can enable -them to forget. - -Torn by suspicions and recriminations, avid of power and -oblivious of duties, desiring peace, but unable to "seek -peace and ensue it," because unwilling to surrender the -creed which is the cause of war, to what can one compare -such a society but to the international world, which also -has been called a society, and which also is social in -nothing but name? And the comparison is more than a play -upon words. It is an analogy which has its roots in the -facts of history. It is not a chance that the last two -centuries, which saw the growth of a new system of industry, -saw also the growth of the system of international politics -which came to a climax in the period from 1870 to 1914. Both -the one and the other are the expression of the same spirit -and move in obedience to similar laws. The essence of the -former was the repudiation of any authority superior to the -individual reason. It left men free to follow their own -interests or ambitions or appetites, untrammelled by -subordination to any common centre of allegiance. The -essence of the latter was the repudiation of any authority -superior to the sovereign state, which again was conceived -as a compact self-contained unit---a unit which would lose -its very essence if it lost its independence of other -states. Just as the one emancipated economic activity from a -mesh of antiquated traditions, so the other emancipated -nations from arbitrary subordination to alien races or -Governments, and turned them into nationalities with a right -to work out their own destiny. - -Nationalism is, in fact, the counterpart among nations of -what individualism is within them. It has similar origins -and tendencies, similar triumphs and defects. For -nationalism, like individualism, lays its emphasis on the -rights of separate units, not on their subordination to -common obligations, though its units are races or nations, -not individual men. Like individualism it appeals to the -self-assertive instincts, to which it promises opportunities -of unlimited expansion. Like individualism it is a force of -immense explosive power, the just claims of which must be -conceded before it is possible to invoke any alternative -principle to control its operations. For one cannot impose a -super-national authority upon irritated or discontented or -oppressed nationalities, any more than one can subordinate -economic motives to the control of society, until society -has recognized that there is a sphere which they may -legitimately occupy. +associations by the use of its force, as though the absence of a +principle could be compensated by a new kind of machinery. Yet all the +time the true cause of industrial warfare is as simple as the true cause +of international warfare. It is that if men recognize no law superior to +their desires, then they must fight when their desires collide; for +though groups or nations which are at issue with each other may be +willing to submit to a principle which is superior to them both, there +is no reason why they should submit to each other. + +Hence the idea, which is popular with rich men, that industrial disputes +would disappear if only the output of wealth were doubled, and every one +were twice as well off, not only is refuted by all practical experience, +but is in its very nature founded upon an illusion. For the question is +one, not of amounts, but of proportions; and men will fight to be paid +£30 a week, instead of £20, as readily as they will fight to be paid £5 +instead of £4, as long as there is no reason why they should be paid £20 +instead of £30, and as long as other men who do not work are paid +anything at all. If miners demanded higher wages when every superfluous +charge upon coal-getting had been eliminated, there would be a principle +with which to meet their claims, the principle that one group of workers +ought not to encroach upon the livelihood of others. But as long as +mineral owners extract royalties, and exceptionally productive mines pay +30% to absentee shareholders, there is no valid answer to a demand for +higher wages. For if the community pays anything at all to those who do +not work, it can afford to pay more to those who do. The naive +complaint, that workmen are never satisfied, is, therefore, strictly +true. It is true, not only of workmen, but of all classes in a society +which conducts its affairs on the principle that wealth, instead of +being proportioned to function, belongs to those who can get it. They +are never satisfied, nor can they be satisfied. For as long as they make +that principle the guide of their individual lives and of their social +order, nothing short of infinity could bring them satisfaction. + +So here, again, the prevalent insistence upon rights, and prevalent +neglect of functions, brings men into a vicious circle from which they +cannot escape, without escaping from the false philosophy which +dominates them. But it does something more. It makes that philosophy +itself seem plausible and exhilarating, and a rule not only for +industry, in which it had its birth, but for politics and culture and +religion and the whole compass of social life. The possibility that one +aspect of human life may be so exaggerated as to overshadow, and in time +to atrophy, every other, has been made familiar to Englishmen by the +example of "Prussian militarism." Militarism is the characteristic, not +of an army, but of a society. Its essence is not any particular quality +or scale of military preparation, but a state of mind, which, in its +concentration on one particular element in social life, ends finally by +exalting it until it be comes the arbiter of all the rest. The purpose +for which military forces exist is forgotten. They are thought to stand +by their own right and to need no justification. Instead of being +regarded as an instrument which is necessary in an imperfect world, they +are elevated into an object of superstitious veneration, as though the +world would be a poor insipid place without them, so that political +institutions and social arrangements and intellect and morality and +religion are crushed into a mould made to fit one activity, which in a +sane society is a subordinate activity, like the police, or the +maintenance of prisons, or the cleansing of sewers, but which in a +militarist state is a kind of mystical epitome of society itself. + +Militarism, as Englishmen see plainly enough, is fetish worship. It is +the prostration of men's souls and the laceration of their bodies to +appease an idol. What they do not see is that their reverence for +economic activity and industry and what is called business is also +fetish worship, and that, in their devotion to that idol, they torture +themselves as needlessly and indulge in the same meaningless antics as +the Prussians did in their worship of militarism. For what the military +tradition and spirit did for Prussia, with the result of creating +militarism, the commercial tradition and spirit have done for England, +with the result of creating industrialism. Industrialism is no more the +necessary characteristic of an economically developed society than +militarism is a necessary characteristic of a nation which maintains +military forces. It is no more the result of applying science to +industry than militarism is the result of the application of science to +war, and the idea that it is something inevitable in a community which +uses coal and iron and machinery, so far from being the truth, is itself +a product of the perversion of mind which industrialism produces. Men +may use what mechanical instruments they please and be none the worse +for their use. What kills their souls is when they allow their +instruments to use *them*. The essence of industrialism, in short, is +not any particular method of industry, but a particular estimate of the +importance of industry, which results in it being thought the only thing +that is important at all, so that it is elevated from the subordinate +place which it should occupy among human interests and activities into +being the standard by which all other interests and activities are +judged. + +When a Cabinet Minister declares that the greatness of this country +depends upon the volume of its exports, so that France, which exports +comparatively little, and Elizabethan England, which exported next to +nothing, are presumably to be pitied as altogether inferior +civilizations, that is Industrialism. It is the confusion of one minor +department of life with the whole of life. When manufacturers cry and +cut themselves with knives, because it is proposed that boys and girls +of fourteen shall attend school for eight hours a week, and the +President of the Board of Education is so gravely impressed by their +apprehensions, that he at once allows the hours to be reduced to seven, +and then suspends the system altogether, that is Industrialism. It is +fetish worship. When the Government obtains money for a war, which costs +£7,000,000 a day, by closing the Museums, which cost £20,000 a year, +that is Industrialism. It is a contempt for all interests which do not +contribute obviously to economic activity. When the Press clamours that +the one thing needed to make this island an Arcadia is productivity, and +more productivity, and yet more productivity, that is Industrialism. It +is the confusion of means with ends. + +Men will always confuse means with ends if they are without any clear +conception that it is the ends, not the means, which matter---if they +allow their minds to slip from the fact that it is the social purpose of +industry which gives it meaning and makes it worth while to carry it on +at all. And when they do that, they will turn their whole world upside +down, because they do not see the poles upon which it ought to move. So +when, like England, they are thoroughly industrialized, they behave like +Prussia, which was thoroughly militarized. They talk as though man +existed for industry, instead of industry existing for man, as the +Prussians sometimes talked of man existing for war. They resent any +activity which is not coloured by the predominant interest, because it +seems a rival to it. So they destroy religion and art and morality, +which cannot exist unless they are disinterested; and having destroyed +these, which are the end, for the sake of industry, which is a means, +they make their industry itself what they make their cities, a desert of +unnatural dreariness, which only forgetfulness can make endurable, and +which only excitement can enable them to forget. + +Torn by suspicions and recriminations, avid of power and oblivious of +duties, desiring peace, but unable to "seek peace and ensue it," because +unwilling to surrender the creed which is the cause of war, to what can +one compare such a society but to the international world, which also +has been called a society, and which also is social in nothing but name? +And the comparison is more than a play upon words. It is an analogy +which has its roots in the facts of history. It is not a chance that the +last two centuries, which saw the growth of a new system of industry, +saw also the growth of the system of international politics which came +to a climax in the period from 1870 to 1914. Both the one and the other +are the expression of the same spirit and move in obedience to similar +laws. The essence of the former was the repudiation of any authority +superior to the individual reason. It left men free to follow their own +interests or ambitions or appetites, untrammelled by subordination to +any common centre of allegiance. The essence of the latter was the +repudiation of any authority superior to the sovereign state, which +again was conceived as a compact self-contained unit---a unit which +would lose its very essence if it lost its independence of other states. +Just as the one emancipated economic activity from a mesh of antiquated +traditions, so the other emancipated nations from arbitrary +subordination to alien races or Governments, and turned them into +nationalities with a right to work out their own destiny. + +Nationalism is, in fact, the counterpart among nations of what +individualism is within them. It has similar origins and tendencies, +similar triumphs and defects. For nationalism, like individualism, lays +its emphasis on the rights of separate units, not on their subordination +to common obligations, though its units are races or nations, not +individual men. Like individualism it appeals to the self-assertive +instincts, to which it promises opportunities of unlimited expansion. +Like individualism it is a force of immense explosive power, the just +claims of which must be conceded before it is possible to invoke any +alternative principle to control its operations. For one cannot impose a +super-national authority upon irritated or discontented or oppressed +nationalities, any more than one can subordinate economic motives to the +control of society, until society has recognized that there is a sphere +which they may legitimately occupy. And, like nationalism, if pushed to its logical conclusion, -individualism, is self-destructive. For, as nationalism, in -its brilliant youth, begins as a claim that nations, because -they are spiritual beings, shall determine themselves, and -passes too often into a claim that they shall dominate -others, so individualism begins by asserting the right of -men to make of their own lives what they can, and ends by -condoning the subjection of the majority of men to the few -whom good fortune, or special opportunity, or privilege have -enabled most successfully to use their rights. They rose -together. It is probable that, if ever they decline, they -will decline together. For life cannot be cut in -compartments. In the long run the world reaps in war what it -sows in peace. And to expect that international rivalry can -be exorcised as long as the industrial order within each -nation is such as to give success to those whose whole -existence is a struggle for self-aggrandizement is a dream -which has not even the merit of being beautiful. - -So the perversion of nationalism is imperialism, as the -perversion of individualism is industrialism. And the -perversion comes, not through any flaw or vice in human -nature, but by the force of the idea, because the principle -is defective and reveals its defects as it reveals its -power. For it asserts that the rights of nations and -individuals are absolute, which is false, instead of -asserting that they are absolute in their own sphere, but -that their sphere itself is contingent upon the part which -they play in the community of nations and individuals, which -is true. Thus it constrains them to a career of indefinite -expansion, in which they devour continents and oceans, law, -morality and religion, and last of all their own souls, in -an attempt to attain infinity by the addition to themselves -of all that is finite. In the meantime their rivals, and -their subjects, and they themselves are conscious of the -danger of opposing forces, and seek to purchase security and -to avoid a collision by organizing a balance of power. But -the balance, whether in international politics or in -industry, is unstable, because it reposes not on the common -recognition of a principle by which the claims of nations -and individuals are limited, but on an attempt to find an -equipoise which may avoid a conflict without abjuring the -assertion of unlimited claims. No such equipoise can be -found, because, in a world where the possibilities of -increasing military or industrial power are illimitable, no -such equipoise can exist. - -Thus, as long as men move on this plane, there is no -solution. They can obtain peace only by surrendering the -claim to the unfettered exercise of their rights, which is -the cause of war. What we have been witnessing, in short, -during the past seven years, both in international affairs -and in industry, is the breakdown of the organization of -society on the basis of rights divorced from obligations. -Sooner or later the collapse was inevitable, because the -basis was too narrow. For a right is simply a power which is -secured by legal sanctions, "a capacity," as the lawyers -define it, "residing in one man, of controlling, with the -assistance of the state, the action of others," and a right -should not be absolute for the same reason that a power -should not be absolute. No doubt it is better that -individuals should have absolute rights than that the State -or the Government should have them; and it was the reaction -against the abuses of absolute power by the State which led -in the eighteenth century to the declaration of the absolute -rights of individuals. The most obvious defence against the -assertion of one extreme was the assertion of the other. -Because Governments and the relics of feudalism had -encroached upon the property of individuals it was affirmed -that the right of property was absolute; because they had -strangled enterprise, it was affirmed that every man had a -natural right to conduct his business as he pleased. - -But, in reality, both the one assertion and the other are -false, and, if applied to practice, must lead to disaster. -The State has no absolute rights; they are limited by its -commission. The individual has no absolute rights; they are -relative to the function which he performs in the community -of which he is a member, because, unless they are so -limited, the consequence must be something in the nature of -private war. All rights, in short, are conditional and -derivative, because all power should be conditional and -derivative. They are derived from the end or purpose of the -society in which they exist. They are conditional on being -used to contribute to the attainment of that end, not to -thwart it. And this means in practice that, if society is to -be healthy, men must regard themselves not as the owners of -rights, but as trustees for the discharge of functions and -the instruments of a social purpose. +individualism, is self-destructive. For, as nationalism, in its +brilliant youth, begins as a claim that nations, because they are +spiritual beings, shall determine themselves, and passes too often into +a claim that they shall dominate others, so individualism begins by +asserting the right of men to make of their own lives what they can, and +ends by condoning the subjection of the majority of men to the few whom +good fortune, or special opportunity, or privilege have enabled most +successfully to use their rights. They rose together. It is probable +that, if ever they decline, they will decline together. For life cannot +be cut in compartments. In the long run the world reaps in war what it +sows in peace. And to expect that international rivalry can be exorcised +as long as the industrial order within each nation is such as to give +success to those whose whole existence is a struggle for +self-aggrandizement is a dream which has not even the merit of being +beautiful. + +So the perversion of nationalism is imperialism, as the perversion of +individualism is industrialism. And the perversion comes, not through +any flaw or vice in human nature, but by the force of the idea, because +the principle is defective and reveals its defects as it reveals its +power. For it asserts that the rights of nations and individuals are +absolute, which is false, instead of asserting that they are absolute in +their own sphere, but that their sphere itself is contingent upon the +part which they play in the community of nations and individuals, which +is true. Thus it constrains them to a career of indefinite expansion, in +which they devour continents and oceans, law, morality and religion, and +last of all their own souls, in an attempt to attain infinity by the +addition to themselves of all that is finite. In the meantime their +rivals, and their subjects, and they themselves are conscious of the +danger of opposing forces, and seek to purchase security and to avoid a +collision by organizing a balance of power. But the balance, whether in +international politics or in industry, is unstable, because it reposes +not on the common recognition of a principle by which the claims of +nations and individuals are limited, but on an attempt to find an +equipoise which may avoid a conflict without abjuring the assertion of +unlimited claims. No such equipoise can be found, because, in a world +where the possibilities of increasing military or industrial power are +illimitable, no such equipoise can exist. + +Thus, as long as men move on this plane, there is no solution. They can +obtain peace only by surrendering the claim to the unfettered exercise +of their rights, which is the cause of war. What we have been +witnessing, in short, during the past seven years, both in international +affairs and in industry, is the breakdown of the organization of society +on the basis of rights divorced from obligations. Sooner or later the +collapse was inevitable, because the basis was too narrow. For a right +is simply a power which is secured by legal sanctions, "a capacity," as +the lawyers define it, "residing in one man, of controlling, with the +assistance of the state, the action of others," and a right should not +be absolute for the same reason that a power should not be absolute. No +doubt it is better that individuals should have absolute rights than +that the State or the Government should have them; and it was the +reaction against the abuses of absolute power by the State which led in +the eighteenth century to the declaration of the absolute rights of +individuals. The most obvious defence against the assertion of one +extreme was the assertion of the other. Because Governments and the +relics of feudalism had encroached upon the property of individuals it +was affirmed that the right of property was absolute; because they had +strangled enterprise, it was affirmed that every man had a natural right +to conduct his business as he pleased. + +But, in reality, both the one assertion and the other are false, and, if +applied to practice, must lead to disaster. The State has no absolute +rights; they are limited by its commission. The individual has no +absolute rights; they are relative to the function which he performs in +the community of which he is a member, because, unless they are so +limited, the consequence must be something in the nature of private war. +All rights, in short, are conditional and derivative, because all power +should be conditional and derivative. They are derived from the end or +purpose of the society in which they exist. They are conditional on +being used to contribute to the attainment of that end, not to thwart +it. And this means in practice that, if society is to be healthy, men +must regard themselves not as the owners of rights, but as trustees for +the discharge of functions and the instruments of a social purpose. # Property and Creative Work -The application of the principle that society should be -organized upon the basis of functions, is not recondite, but -simple and direct. It offers in the first place, a standard -for discriminating between those types of private property -which are legitimate and those which are not. During the -last century and a half, political thought has oscillated -between two conceptions of property, both of which, in their -different ways, are extravagant. - -On the one hand, the practical foundation of social -organization has been the doctrine that the particular forms -of private property which exist at any moment are a thing -sacred and inviolable, that anything may properly become the -object of property rights, and that, when it does, the title -to it is absolute and unconditioned. The modern industrial -system took shape in an age when this theory of property was -triumphant. The American Constitution and the French -Declaration of the Rights of Man both treated property as -one of the fundamental rights which Governments exist to -protect. The English Revolution of 1688, undogmatic and -reticent though it was, had in effect done the same. The -great individualists from Locke to Turgot, Adam Smith and -Bentham all repeated, in different language, a similar -conception. Though what gave the Revolution its diabolical -character in the eyes of the EngHsh upper classes was its -treatment of property, the dogma of the sanctity of private -property was maintained as tenaciously by French Jacobins as -by English Tories; and the theory that property is an -absolute, which is held by many modern Conservatives, is -identical, if only they knew it, with that not only of the -men of 1789, but of the terrible Convention itself. - -On the other hand, the attack has been almost as -undiscriminating as the defence. "Private property" has been -the central position against which the social movement of -the last hundred years has directed its forces. The -criticism of it has ranged from an imaginative communism in -the most elementary and personal of necessaries, to prosaic -and partially realized proposals to transfer certain kinds -of property from private to public ownership, or to limit -their exploitation by restrictions imposed by the State. -But, however varying in emphasis and in method, the general -note of what may conveniently be called the Socialist -criticism of property is what the word Socialism itself -implies. Its essence is the statement that the economic -evils of society are primarily due to the unregulated -operation, under modern conditions of industrial +The application of the principle that society should be organized upon +the basis of functions, is not recondite, but simple and direct. It +offers in the first place, a standard for discriminating between those +types of private property which are legitimate and those which are not. +During the last century and a half, political thought has oscillated +between two conceptions of property, both of which, in their different +ways, are extravagant. + +On the one hand, the practical foundation of social organization has +been the doctrine that the particular forms of private property which +exist at any moment are a thing sacred and inviolable, that anything may +properly become the object of property rights, and that, when it does, +the title to it is absolute and unconditioned. The modern industrial +system took shape in an age when this theory of property was triumphant. +The American Constitution and the French Declaration of the Rights of +Man both treated property as one of the fundamental rights which +Governments exist to protect. The English Revolution of 1688, undogmatic +and reticent though it was, had in effect done the same. The great +individualists from Locke to Turgot, Adam Smith and Bentham all +repeated, in different language, a similar conception. Though what gave +the Revolution its diabolical character in the eyes of the EngHsh upper +classes was its treatment of property, the dogma of the sanctity of +private property was maintained as tenaciously by French Jacobins as by +English Tories; and the theory that property is an absolute, which is +held by many modern Conservatives, is identical, if only they knew it, +with that not only of the men of 1789, but of the terrible Convention +itself. + +On the other hand, the attack has been almost as undiscriminating as the +defence. "Private property" has been the central position against which +the social movement of the last hundred years has directed its forces. +The criticism of it has ranged from an imaginative communism in the most +elementary and personal of necessaries, to prosaic and partially +realized proposals to transfer certain kinds of property from private to +public ownership, or to limit their exploitation by restrictions imposed +by the State. But, however varying in emphasis and in method, the +general note of what may conveniently be called the Socialist criticism +of property is what the word Socialism itself implies. Its essence is +the statement that the economic evils of society are primarily due to +the unregulated operation, under modern conditions of industrial organization, of the institution of private property. -The divergence of opinion is natural, since in most -discussions of property the opposing theorists have usually -been discussing different things. Property is the most -ambiguous of categories. It covers a multitude of rights -which have nothing in common except that they are exercised -by persons and enforced by the State. Apart from these -formal characteristics, they vary indefinitely in economic -character, in social effect, and in moral justification. -They may be conditional like the grant of patent rights, or -absolute like the ownership of ground rents, terminable like -copyright, or permanent like a freehold, as comprehensive as -sovereignty or as restricted as an easement, as intimate and -personal as the ownership of clothes and books, or as remote -and intangible as shares in a gold mine or rubber -plantation. - -It is idle, therefore, to present a case for or against -private property without specifying the particular forms of -property to which reference is made, and the journalist who -says that "private property is the foundation of -civilization" agrees with Proudhon, who said that it was -theft, in this respect at least that, without further -definition, the words of both are meaningless. Arguments -which support or demolish certain kinds of property may have -no application to others; considerations which are -conclusive in one stage of economic organization may be -almost irrelevant in the next. The course of wisdom is -neither to attack private property in general nor to defend -it in general; for things are not similar in quality, merely -because they are identical in name. It is to discriminate -between the various concrete embodiments of what, in itself, -is, after all, little more than an abstraction. +The divergence of opinion is natural, since in most discussions of +property the opposing theorists have usually been discussing different +things. Property is the most ambiguous of categories. It covers a +multitude of rights which have nothing in common except that they are +exercised by persons and enforced by the State. Apart from these formal +characteristics, they vary indefinitely in economic character, in social +effect, and in moral justification. They may be conditional like the +grant of patent rights, or absolute like the ownership of ground rents, +terminable like copyright, or permanent like a freehold, as +comprehensive as sovereignty or as restricted as an easement, as +intimate and personal as the ownership of clothes and books, or as +remote and intangible as shares in a gold mine or rubber plantation. + +It is idle, therefore, to present a case for or against private property +without specifying the particular forms of property to which reference +is made, and the journalist who says that "private property is the +foundation of civilization" agrees with Proudhon, who said that it was +theft, in this respect at least that, without further definition, the +words of both are meaningless. Arguments which support or demolish +certain kinds of property may have no application to others; +considerations which are conclusive in one stage of economic +organization may be almost irrelevant in the next. The course of wisdom +is neither to attack private property in general nor to defend it in +general; for things are not similar in quality, merely because they are +identical in name. It is to discriminate between the various concrete +embodiments of what, in itself, is, after all, little more than an +abstraction. ## (a) The Traditional Doctrine -The origin and development of different kinds of proprietary -rights is not material to this discussion. Whatever may have -been the historical process by which they have been -established and recognized, the *rationale* of private -property traditional in England is that which sees in it -either the results of the personal labour of its owner, -or---what is in effect the same thing---the security that -each man will reap where he has sown. Locke argued that a -man necessarily and legitimately becomes the owner of -"whatsoever he removes out of the state that nature hath -provided," and that "he makes it his property" because he -"hath mixed his labour with it." Paley derived property from -the fact that "it is the intention of God that the produce -of the earth be applied to the use of man, and this -intention cannot be fulfilled without establishing -property." Adam Smith, who wrote the dangerous sentence, -"Civil Government, in so far as it is instituted for the -protection of property, is in reality instituted for the -defence of the rich against the poor," sometimes spoke of -property as the result of usurpation---"Landlords, like -other men, love to reap where they have never sowed"---but -in general ascribed it to the need of offering protection to -productive effort. "If I despair of enjoying the fruits of -labour," said Bentham, repeating what were in all essentials -the utilitarian arguments of Hume, "I shall only live from -day to day; I shall not undertake labours which will only -benefit my enemies." This theory passed into America, and -became the foundation of the sanctity ascribed to property -in *The Federalist* and implied in a long line of judicial -decisions on the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. -Property, it is argued, is a moral right, and not merely a -legal right, because it insures that the producer will not -be deprived by violence of the result of his efforts. - -The period from which that doctrine was inherited differed -from our own in three obvious, but significant, respects. -Property in land and in the simple capital used in most -industries was widely distributed. Before the rise of -capitalist agriculture and capitalist industry, the -ownership, or at any rate the secure and effective -occupation, of land and tools by those who used them, was a -condition precedent to effective work in the field or in the -workshop. The forces which threatened property were the -fiscal policy of Governments and in some countries, for -example France, the decaying relics of feudalism. The -interference both of the one and of the other involved the -sacrifice of those who carried on useful labour to those who -did not. To resist them was to protect not only property but -industry, which was indissolubly connected with it. Too -often, indeed, resistance was ineffective. Accustomed to the -misery of the rural proprietor in France, Voltaire remarked -with astonishment that in England the peasant may be rich, -and "does not fear to increase the number of his beasts or -to cover his roof with tiles." And the English -Parliamentarians and the French philosophers who made the -inviolability of property rights the centre of their -political theory, when they defended those who owned, were -incidentally, if sometimes unintentionally, defending those -who laboured. They were protecting the yeoman, or the master -craftsman, or the merchant from seeing the fruits of his -toil squandered by the hangers-on at St. James or the -courtly parasites of Versailles. - -In such circumstances the doctrine which found the -justification of private property in the fact that it -enabled the industrious man to reap where he had sown, was -not a paradox, but, as far as the mass of the population was -concerned, almost a truism. Property was defended as the -most sacred of rights. But it was defended as a right which -was not only widely exercised, but which was indispensable -to the performance of the active function of providing food -and clothing. For it consisted predominantly of one of two -types, land or tools which were used by the owner for the -purpose of production, and personal possessions which were -the necessities or amenities of civilized existence. The -former had its *rationale* in the fact that the land of the -peasant or the tools of the craftsman were the condition of -his rendering the economic services which society required; -the latter because furniture and clothes are indispensable -to a life of decency and comfort. - -The proprietary rights---and, of course, they were -numerous---which had their source, not in work, but in -predatory force, were protected from criticism by the wide -distribution of some kind of property among the mass of the -population, and in England, at least, the cruder of them -were gradually whittled down. When property in land and such -simple capital as existed were generally diffused among all -classes of society, when, in most parts of England, the -typical workman was not a labourer but a peasant or small -master, who could point to the strips which he had ploughed -or the cloth which he had woven, when the greater part of -the wealth passing at death consisted of land, household -furniture and a stock in trade which was hardly -distinguishable from it, the moral justification of the -title to property was self-evident. It was obviously, what -theorists said that it was, and plain men knew it to be, the -labour spent in producing, acquiring and administering it. - -Such property was not a burden upon society, but a condition -of its health and efficiency, and indeed, of its continued -existence. To protect it was to maintain the organization -through which public necessities were supplied. If, as in -Tudor England, the peasant was evicted from his holding to -make room for sheep, or crushed, as in eighteenth century -France, by arbitrary taxation and seigneurial dues, land -went out of cultivation and the whole community was short of -food. If the tools of the carpenter or smith were seized, -ploughs were not repaired or horses shod. Hence, before the -rise of a commercial civilization, it was the mark of -statesmanship, alike in the England of the Tudors and in the -France of Henry IV, to cherish the small property-owner even -to the point of offending the great. Popular sentiment -idealized the yeoman---"the Joseph of the country who keeps -the poor from starving"---not merely because he owned -property, but because he worked on it. It denounced that -"bringing of the livings of many into the hands of one," -which capitalist societies regard with equanimity as an -inevitable, and, apparently, a laudable result of economic -development, cursed the usurer who took advantage of his -neighbour's necessities to live without labour, and was -shocked by the callous indifference to public welfare shown -by those who "not having before their eyes either God or the -profit and advantage of the realm, have enclosed with hedges -and dykes towns and hamlets." And it was sufficiently -powerful to compel Governments to intervene to prevent the -laying of field to field, and the engrossing of looms---to -set limits, in short, to the scale to which property might -grow. - -When Bacon, who commended Henry VII for protecting the -tenant right of the small farmer, and pleaded in the House -of Commons for more drastic land legislation, wrote "Wealth -is like muck. It is not good but if it be spread," he was -expressing in an epigram what was the commonplace of every -writer on politics from Fortescue at the end of the -fifteenth century to Harrington in the middle of the -seventeenth. The modern conservative, who is inclined to -take *au pied de la lettre* the vigorous argument in which -Lord Hugh Cecil denounces the doctrine that the maintenance -of proprietary rights ought to be contingent upon the use to -which they are put, may be reminded that Lord Hugh's own -theory is of a kind to make his ancestors turn in their -graves. Of the two members of the family who achieved -distinction before the nineteenth century, the elder advised -the Crown to prevent landlords evicting tenants, and -actually proposed to fix a pecuniary maximum to the property -which different classes might possess; the younger attacked -enclosing in Parliament, and carried legislation compelling -landlords to build cottages, to let them with small -holdings, and to plough up pasture. - -William and Robert Cecil were sagacious and responsible men, -and their view that the protection of property should be -accompanied by the enforcement of obligations upon its -owners was shared by most of their contemporaries. The idea -that the institution of private property involves the right -of the owner to use it, or refrain from using it, in such a -way as he may please, and that its principal significance is -to supply him with an income, irrespective of any duties -which he may discharge, would not have been understood by -most public men of that age, and, if understood, would have -been repudiated with indignation by the more reputable among -them. They found the meaning of property in the public -purposes to which it contributed, whether they were the -production of food, as among the peasantry, or the -management of public affairs, as among the gentry, and -hesitated neither to maintain those kinds of property which -met these obligations nor to repress those uses of it which -appeared likely to conflict with them. - -Property was to be an aid to creative work, not an -alternative to it. The patentee was secured protection for a -new invention, in order to secure him the fruits of his own -brain, but the monopolist who grew fat on the industry of -others was to be put down. The law of the village bound the -peasant to use his land, not as he himself might find most -profitable, but to grow the corn the village needed. The law -of the State forbade the landlord to "depopulate" villages, -or to convert arable to pasture. Long after political -changes had made direct interference impracticable, even the -higher ranks of English landowners continued to discharge, -however capriciously and tyrannically, duties which were -vaguely felt to be the contribution which they made to the -public service in virtue of their estates. When as in -France, the obligations of ownership were repudiated almost -as completely as they have been by the owner of to-day, -nemesis came in an onslaught upon the position of a -*noblesse* which had retained its rights and abdicated its -functions. Property reposed, in short, not merely upon -convenience, or on the appetite for gain, but on a moral -principle. It was protected not only for the sake of those -who owned, but for the sake of those who worked and of those -for whom their work provided. It was protected, because, -without security for property, wealth could not be produced -or the business of society carried on. +The origin and development of different kinds of proprietary rights is +not material to this discussion. Whatever may have been the historical +process by which they have been established and recognized, the +*rationale* of private property traditional in England is that which +sees in it either the results of the personal labour of its owner, +or---what is in effect the same thing---the security that each man will +reap where he has sown. Locke argued that a man necessarily and +legitimately becomes the owner of "whatsoever he removes out of the +state that nature hath provided," and that "he makes it his property" +because he "hath mixed his labour with it." Paley derived property from +the fact that "it is the intention of God that the produce of the earth +be applied to the use of man, and this intention cannot be fulfilled +without establishing property." Adam Smith, who wrote the dangerous +sentence, "Civil Government, in so far as it is instituted for the +protection of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the +rich against the poor," sometimes spoke of property as the result of +usurpation---"Landlords, like other men, love to reap where they have +never sowed"---but in general ascribed it to the need of offering +protection to productive effort. "If I despair of enjoying the fruits of +labour," said Bentham, repeating what were in all essentials the +utilitarian arguments of Hume, "I shall only live from day to day; I +shall not undertake labours which will only benefit my enemies." This +theory passed into America, and became the foundation of the sanctity +ascribed to property in *The Federalist* and implied in a long line of +judicial decisions on the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. +Property, it is argued, is a moral right, and not merely a legal right, +because it insures that the producer will not be deprived by violence of +the result of his efforts. + +The period from which that doctrine was inherited differed from our own +in three obvious, but significant, respects. Property in land and in the +simple capital used in most industries was widely distributed. Before +the rise of capitalist agriculture and capitalist industry, the +ownership, or at any rate the secure and effective occupation, of land +and tools by those who used them, was a condition precedent to effective +work in the field or in the workshop. The forces which threatened +property were the fiscal policy of Governments and in some countries, +for example France, the decaying relics of feudalism. The interference +both of the one and of the other involved the sacrifice of those who +carried on useful labour to those who did not. To resist them was to +protect not only property but industry, which was indissolubly connected +with it. Too often, indeed, resistance was ineffective. Accustomed to +the misery of the rural proprietor in France, Voltaire remarked with +astonishment that in England the peasant may be rich, and "does not fear +to increase the number of his beasts or to cover his roof with tiles." +And the English Parliamentarians and the French philosophers who made +the inviolability of property rights the centre of their political +theory, when they defended those who owned, were incidentally, if +sometimes unintentionally, defending those who laboured. They were +protecting the yeoman, or the master craftsman, or the merchant from +seeing the fruits of his toil squandered by the hangers-on at St. James +or the courtly parasites of Versailles. + +In such circumstances the doctrine which found the justification of +private property in the fact that it enabled the industrious man to reap +where he had sown, was not a paradox, but, as far as the mass of the +population was concerned, almost a truism. Property was defended as the +most sacred of rights. But it was defended as a right which was not only +widely exercised, but which was indispensable to the performance of the +active function of providing food and clothing. For it consisted +predominantly of one of two types, land or tools which were used by the +owner for the purpose of production, and personal possessions which were +the necessities or amenities of civilized existence. The former had its +*rationale* in the fact that the land of the peasant or the tools of the +craftsman were the condition of his rendering the economic services +which society required; the latter because furniture and clothes are +indispensable to a life of decency and comfort. + +The proprietary rights---and, of course, they were numerous---which had +their source, not in work, but in predatory force, were protected from +criticism by the wide distribution of some kind of property among the +mass of the population, and in England, at least, the cruder of them +were gradually whittled down. When property in land and such simple +capital as existed were generally diffused among all classes of society, +when, in most parts of England, the typical workman was not a labourer +but a peasant or small master, who could point to the strips which he +had ploughed or the cloth which he had woven, when the greater part of +the wealth passing at death consisted of land, household furniture and a +stock in trade which was hardly distinguishable from it, the moral +justification of the title to property was self-evident. It was +obviously, what theorists said that it was, and plain men knew it to be, +the labour spent in producing, acquiring and administering it. + +Such property was not a burden upon society, but a condition of its +health and efficiency, and indeed, of its continued existence. To +protect it was to maintain the organization through which public +necessities were supplied. If, as in Tudor England, the peasant was +evicted from his holding to make room for sheep, or crushed, as in +eighteenth century France, by arbitrary taxation and seigneurial dues, +land went out of cultivation and the whole community was short of food. +If the tools of the carpenter or smith were seized, ploughs were not +repaired or horses shod. Hence, before the rise of a commercial +civilization, it was the mark of statesmanship, alike in the England of +the Tudors and in the France of Henry IV, to cherish the small +property-owner even to the point of offending the great. Popular +sentiment idealized the yeoman---"the Joseph of the country who keeps +the poor from starving"---not merely because he owned property, but +because he worked on it. It denounced that "bringing of the livings of +many into the hands of one," which capitalist societies regard with +equanimity as an inevitable, and, apparently, a laudable result of +economic development, cursed the usurer who took advantage of his +neighbour's necessities to live without labour, and was shocked by the +callous indifference to public welfare shown by those who "not having +before their eyes either God or the profit and advantage of the realm, +have enclosed with hedges and dykes towns and hamlets." And it was +sufficiently powerful to compel Governments to intervene to prevent the +laying of field to field, and the engrossing of looms---to set limits, +in short, to the scale to which property might grow. + +When Bacon, who commended Henry VII for protecting the tenant right of +the small farmer, and pleaded in the House of Commons for more drastic +land legislation, wrote "Wealth is like muck. It is not good but if it +be spread," he was expressing in an epigram what was the commonplace of +every writer on politics from Fortescue at the end of the fifteenth +century to Harrington in the middle of the seventeenth. The modern +conservative, who is inclined to take *au pied de la lettre* the +vigorous argument in which Lord Hugh Cecil denounces the doctrine that +the maintenance of proprietary rights ought to be contingent upon the +use to which they are put, may be reminded that Lord Hugh's own theory +is of a kind to make his ancestors turn in their graves. Of the two +members of the family who achieved distinction before the nineteenth +century, the elder advised the Crown to prevent landlords evicting +tenants, and actually proposed to fix a pecuniary maximum to the +property which different classes might possess; the younger attacked +enclosing in Parliament, and carried legislation compelling landlords to +build cottages, to let them with small holdings, and to plough up +pasture. + +William and Robert Cecil were sagacious and responsible men, and their +view that the protection of property should be accompanied by the +enforcement of obligations upon its owners was shared by most of their +contemporaries. The idea that the institution of private property +involves the right of the owner to use it, or refrain from using it, in +such a way as he may please, and that its principal significance is to +supply him with an income, irrespective of any duties which he may +discharge, would not have been understood by most public men of that +age, and, if understood, would have been repudiated with indignation by +the more reputable among them. They found the meaning of property in the +public purposes to which it contributed, whether they were the +production of food, as among the peasantry, or the management of public +affairs, as among the gentry, and hesitated neither to maintain those +kinds of property which met these obligations nor to repress those uses +of it which appeared likely to conflict with them. + +Property was to be an aid to creative work, not an alternative to it. +The patentee was secured protection for a new invention, in order to +secure him the fruits of his own brain, but the monopolist who grew fat +on the industry of others was to be put down. The law of the village +bound the peasant to use his land, not as he himself might find most +profitable, but to grow the corn the village needed. The law of the +State forbade the landlord to "depopulate" villages, or to convert +arable to pasture. Long after political changes had made direct +interference impracticable, even the higher ranks of English landowners +continued to discharge, however capriciously and tyrannically, duties +which were vaguely felt to be the contribution which they made to the +public service in virtue of their estates. When as in France, the +obligations of ownership were repudiated almost as completely as they +have been by the owner of to-day, nemesis came in an onslaught upon the +position of a *noblesse* which had retained its rights and abdicated its +functions. Property reposed, in short, not merely upon convenience, or +on the appetite for gain, but on a moral principle. It was protected not +only for the sake of those who owned, but for the sake of those who +worked and of those for whom their work provided. It was protected, +because, without security for property, wealth could not be produced or +the business of society carried on. ## (b) The Divorce of Ownership and Work -Whatever the future may contain, the past has shown no more -excellent social order than that in which the mass of the -people were the masters of the holdings which they ploughed -and of the tools with which they worked, and could boast, -with the English freeholder, that "it is a quietness to a -man's mind to live upon his own and to know his heir -certain." With this conception of property and its practical -expression in social institutions those who urge that -society should be organized on the basis of function have no -quarrel. It is in agreement with their own doctrine, since -it justifies property by reference to the services which it -enables its owner to perform. All that they need ask is that -it should be carried to its logical conclusion. - -For the argument has evidently more than one edge. If it -justifies certain types of property, it condemns others; and -in the conditions of modern industrial civilization, what it -justifies is less than what it condemns. The truth is, -indeed, that this theory of property, and the institutions -in which it is embodied, have survived into an age in which -the whole structure of society is radically different from -that in which it was formulated, and which made it a valid -argument, if not for all, at least for the most common and -characteristic, kinds of property. It is not merely that the -ownership of any substantial share in the national wealth is -concentrated to-day in the hands of a few hundred thousand -families, and that at the end of an age which began with an -affirmation of the rights of property, proprietary rights -are, in fact, far from being widely distributed. Nor is it -merely that what makes property insecure to-day is not the -arbitrary taxation of unconstitutional monarchies or the -privileges of an idle *noblesse*, but the insatiable -expansion and aggregation of property itself, which menaces -with absorption all property less than the greatest, the -small master, the little shopkeeper, the country bank, and -has turned the mass of mankind into a proletariat working -under the agents and for the profit of those who own. - -The characteristic fact, which differentiates most modern -property from that of the pre-industrial age, and which -turns against it the very reasoning by which formerly it was -supported, is that in modern economic conditions ownership -is not active, but passive, that to most of those who own -property to-day it is not a means of work but an instrument -for the acquisition of gain or the exercise of power, and -that there is no guarantee that gain bears any relation to -service, or power to responsibility. For property which can -be regarded as a condition of the performance of function, -like the tools of the craftsman, or the holding of the -peasant, or the personal possessions which contribute to a -life of health and efficiency, forms an insignificant -proportion, as far as its value is concerned, of the -property rights existing at present. In modern industrial -societies the great mass of property consists, as the annual -review of wealth passing at death reveals, neither of -personal acquisitions such as household furniture, nor of -the owner's stock-in-trade, but of rights of various kinds, -such as royalties, ground-rents, and, above all, of course -shares in industrial undertakings, which yield an income -irrespective of any personal service rendered by their -owners. Ownership and use are normally divorced. The greater -part of modern property has been attenuated to a pecuniary -lien or bond on the product of industry, which carries with -it a right to payment, but which is normally valued -precisely because it relieves the owner from any obligation -to perform. a positive or constructive function. - -Such property may be called Passive Property, or Property -for Acquisition, for Exploitation, or for Power, to -distinguish it from the property which is actively used by -its owner for the conduct of his profession or the upkeep of -his household. To the lawyer the first is, of course, as -fully property as the second. It is questionable, however, -whether economists should call it "Property" at all, and not -rather, as Mr. Hobson has suggested, "Improperty," since it -is not identical with the rights which secure the owner the -produce of his toil, but is the opposite of them. A -classification of proprietary rights based upon this -difference would be instructive. If they were arranged -according to the closeness with which they approximate to -one or other of these two extremes, it would be found that -they were spread along a line stretching from property which -is obviously the payment for, and condition of, personal -services, to property which is merely a right to payment -from the services rendered by others, in fact a private tax. -The rough order which would emerge, if all details and -qualifications were omitted, might be something as -follows:--- +Whatever the future may contain, the past has shown no more excellent +social order than that in which the mass of the people were the masters +of the holdings which they ploughed and of the tools with which they +worked, and could boast, with the English freeholder, that "it is a +quietness to a man's mind to live upon his own and to know his heir +certain." With this conception of property and its practical expression +in social institutions those who urge that society should be organized +on the basis of function have no quarrel. It is in agreement with their +own doctrine, since it justifies property by reference to the services +which it enables its owner to perform. All that they need ask is that it +should be carried to its logical conclusion. + +For the argument has evidently more than one edge. If it justifies +certain types of property, it condemns others; and in the conditions of +modern industrial civilization, what it justifies is less than what it +condemns. The truth is, indeed, that this theory of property, and the +institutions in which it is embodied, have survived into an age in which +the whole structure of society is radically different from that in which +it was formulated, and which made it a valid argument, if not for all, +at least for the most common and characteristic, kinds of property. It +is not merely that the ownership of any substantial share in the +national wealth is concentrated to-day in the hands of a few hundred +thousand families, and that at the end of an age which began with an +affirmation of the rights of property, proprietary rights are, in fact, +far from being widely distributed. Nor is it merely that what makes +property insecure to-day is not the arbitrary taxation of +unconstitutional monarchies or the privileges of an idle *noblesse*, but +the insatiable expansion and aggregation of property itself, which +menaces with absorption all property less than the greatest, the small +master, the little shopkeeper, the country bank, and has turned the mass +of mankind into a proletariat working under the agents and for the +profit of those who own. + +The characteristic fact, which differentiates most modern property from +that of the pre-industrial age, and which turns against it the very +reasoning by which formerly it was supported, is that in modern economic +conditions ownership is not active, but passive, that to most of those +who own property to-day it is not a means of work but an instrument for +the acquisition of gain or the exercise of power, and that there is no +guarantee that gain bears any relation to service, or power to +responsibility. For property which can be regarded as a condition of the +performance of function, like the tools of the craftsman, or the holding +of the peasant, or the personal possessions which contribute to a life +of health and efficiency, forms an insignificant proportion, as far as +its value is concerned, of the property rights existing at present. In +modern industrial societies the great mass of property consists, as the +annual review of wealth passing at death reveals, neither of personal +acquisitions such as household furniture, nor of the owner's +stock-in-trade, but of rights of various kinds, such as royalties, +ground-rents, and, above all, of course shares in industrial +undertakings, which yield an income irrespective of any personal service +rendered by their owners. Ownership and use are normally divorced. The +greater part of modern property has been attenuated to a pecuniary lien +or bond on the product of industry, which carries with it a right to +payment, but which is normally valued precisely because it relieves the +owner from any obligation to perform. a positive or constructive +function. + +Such property may be called Passive Property, or Property for +Acquisition, for Exploitation, or for Power, to distinguish it from the +property which is actively used by its owner for the conduct of his +profession or the upkeep of his household. To the lawyer the first is, +of course, as fully property as the second. It is questionable, however, +whether economists should call it "Property" at all, and not rather, as +Mr. Hobson has suggested, "Improperty," since it is not identical with +the rights which secure the owner the produce of his toil, but is the +opposite of them. A classification of proprietary rights based upon this +difference would be instructive. If they were arranged according to the +closeness with which they approximate to one or other of these two +extremes, it would be found that they were spread along a line +stretching from property which is obviously the payment for, and +condition of, personal services, to property which is merely a right to +payment from the services rendered by others, in fact a private tax. The +rough order which would emerge, if all details and qualifications were +omitted, might be something as follows:--- 1. Property in payments made for personal services. -2. Property in personal possessions necessary to health and - comfort. +2. Property in personal possessions necessary to health and comfort. 3. Property in land and tools used by their owners. -4. Property in copyright and patent rights owned by authors - and inventors. +4. Property in copyright and patent rights owned by authors and + inventors. -5. Property in pure interest, including much agricultural - rent. +5. Property in pure interest, including much agricultural rent. -6. Property in profits of luck and good fortune: - "quasi-rents." +6. Property in profits of luck and good fortune: "quasi-rents." 7. Property in monopoly profits. @@ -1943,5135 +1635,4309 @@ follows:--- 9. Property in royalties. -The first four kinds of property clearly accompany, and in -some sense condition, the performance of work. The last four -clearly do not. Pure interest has some affinities with both. -It is obvious that an undertaking or a society which saves -itself need not pay other persons to save for it; it is -equally obvious that, if it is to save itself and thus avoid -the creation of a class of *rentiers*, it must not use for -current consumption the whole of the wealth annually -produced. Pure interest, therefore, represents a necessary -economic cost, the equivalent of which must be borne -whatever the legal arrangements under which capital is held, -and is thus unlike the property represented by profits -(other than the equivalent of salaries and payment for -necessary risks), urban ground-rents and royalties. It -relieves the recipient from personal services, and thus -resembles them. - -"Without the former," said Siéyès, writing of the third -estate and the privileged orders, "nothing can go on; -without the latter everything would go on infinitely -better." The crucial question for any society is, under -which of each of these two broad groups of categories the -greater part (measured in value) of the proprietary rights -which it maintains are at any given moment to be found. If -they fall in the first class, creative work will be -encouraged and idleness will be depressed; if they fall in -the second, the result will be the reverse. The facts vary -widely from age to age and from country to country. Nor have -they ever been fully revealed; for the lords of the jungle -do not hunt by daylight. It is probable, at least, that in -the England of 1550 to 1750, a larger proportion of the -existing property consisted of land and tools used by their -owners than either in contemporary France, where feudal dues -absorbed a considerable proportion of the peasants' income, -or than in the England of 1 800 to 1 850, where the new -capitalist manufacturers made hundreds percent, while manual -workers were goaded by starvation into ineffectual revolt. -It is probable that in the nineteenth century, thanks to the -Revolution, France and England changed places, and that, in -this respect, not only Ireland, but the British Dominions -resemble the former rather than the latter. The -transformation can be studied best of all in the United -States, in parts of which the population of peasant -proprietors and small masters of the early nineteenth -century was replaced in three generations by the nightmare -that haunted Jefferson---a propertyless proletariat and a -capitalist plutocracy. The abolition of the economic -privileges of agrarian feudalism, which, under the name of -equality, was the driving force of the French Revolution, -and which has taken place, in one form or another, in all -countries touched by its influence, has been largely -counterbalanced since 1800 by the growth of the inequalities -springing from Industrialism. - -Of these vital developments in the facts of property, the -conventional theory of property appears hardly to have begun -to take cognizance. So far as England and America are -concerned, the current philosophy of the subject seems to -have been crystallized somewhere about the latter part of -the eighteenth century, and the orator who expounds the -sanctity of property would normally express himself more -accurately, if less eloquently, by substituting for his -peroration the words, "I desire that the social organization -of my country shall as far as possible be based upon legal -principles which were formulated in England in the -seventeenth century, and which were commonly thought to be -specially suitable to the economic conditions existing in -the reign of George III." Nor is his attitude particularly -culpable. The institution of property has undergone in the -last few generations a transformation of bewildering -rapidity, and the failure of thought to keep pace with it +The first four kinds of property clearly accompany, and in some sense +condition, the performance of work. The last four clearly do not. Pure +interest has some affinities with both. It is obvious that an +undertaking or a society which saves itself need not pay other persons +to save for it; it is equally obvious that, if it is to save itself and +thus avoid the creation of a class of *rentiers*, it must not use for +current consumption the whole of the wealth annually produced. Pure +interest, therefore, represents a necessary economic cost, the +equivalent of which must be borne whatever the legal arrangements under +which capital is held, and is thus unlike the property represented by +profits (other than the equivalent of salaries and payment for necessary +risks), urban ground-rents and royalties. It relieves the recipient from +personal services, and thus resembles them. + +"Without the former," said Siéyès, writing of the third estate and the +privileged orders, "nothing can go on; without the latter everything +would go on infinitely better." The crucial question for any society is, +under which of each of these two broad groups of categories the greater +part (measured in value) of the proprietary rights which it maintains +are at any given moment to be found. If they fall in the first class, +creative work will be encouraged and idleness will be depressed; if they +fall in the second, the result will be the reverse. The facts vary +widely from age to age and from country to country. Nor have they ever +been fully revealed; for the lords of the jungle do not hunt by +daylight. It is probable, at least, that in the England of 1550 to 1750, +a larger proportion of the existing property consisted of land and tools +used by their owners than either in contemporary France, where feudal +dues absorbed a considerable proportion of the peasants' income, or than +in the England of 1 800 to 1 850, where the new capitalist manufacturers +made hundreds percent, while manual workers were goaded by starvation +into ineffectual revolt. It is probable that in the nineteenth century, +thanks to the Revolution, France and England changed places, and that, +in this respect, not only Ireland, but the British Dominions resemble +the former rather than the latter. The transformation can be studied +best of all in the United States, in parts of which the population of +peasant proprietors and small masters of the early nineteenth century +was replaced in three generations by the nightmare that haunted +Jefferson---a propertyless proletariat and a capitalist plutocracy. The +abolition of the economic privileges of agrarian feudalism, which, under +the name of equality, was the driving force of the French Revolution, +and which has taken place, in one form or another, in all countries +touched by its influence, has been largely counterbalanced since 1800 by +the growth of the inequalities springing from Industrialism. + +Of these vital developments in the facts of property, the conventional +theory of property appears hardly to have begun to take cognizance. So +far as England and America are concerned, the current philosophy of the +subject seems to have been crystallized somewhere about the latter part +of the eighteenth century, and the orator who expounds the sanctity of +property would normally express himself more accurately, if less +eloquently, by substituting for his peroration the words, "I desire that +the social organization of my country shall as far as possible be based +upon legal principles which were formulated in England in the +seventeenth century, and which were commonly thought to be specially +suitable to the economic conditions existing in the reign of George +III." Nor is his attitude particularly culpable. The institution of +property has undergone in the last few generations a transformation of +bewildering rapidity, and the failure of thought to keep pace with it need cause no surprise. -It is rarely realized, indeed, how extremely modern are -those typical forms of property in which the practical world -of to-day is principally interested. The most salient -example is the share. Of all types of property it is the -commonest and most convenient. It is a title to property -stripped of almost all the encumbrances by which property -used often to be accompanied. It yields an income and can be -disposed of at will. It makes its owner heir to the wealth -of countries to which he has never travelled and a partner -in enterprises of which he hardly knows the name. To -thousands of men to-day shares and property are almost -convertible terms. The share is a product of the joint-stock -company, and in England the joint-stock company began its -career in the sixteenth century. But it took nearly 300 -years for the share to develop the characteristic attributes -which lend it its peculiar attractiveness to-day. Its -disentanglement from the crude contribution, sometimes in -money, sometimes in goods, to a common undertaking, in which -it originated, took place with extraordinary slowness, and -it was only in the latter half of the nineteenth century -that the process was completed. - -The "Joint-stock" of the East India Company---to take an -example from the greatest, though not the earliest, of all -corporate enterprises---had for the greater part of a -century no financial continuity.It was subscribed afresh for -every voyage, or series of voyages, and repaid after it. It -was not until 1657 that the practice of dividing capital as -well as profits was abandoned; it was not until after the -Restoration that the shares became transferable. The -"Bubble" Act of 1719 tried to put down joint-stock -finance---"shares in stocks transferable or -assignable"---altogether, except in companies possessing -royal or parliamentary authorization. Well into the -nineteenth century the law continued to look with suspicion -on the transferable share, as a new and dubious form of -property. Lord Ellenborough in 1808 denounced the whole -system of raising capital by means of numerous small -subscriptions, and warned the parties in a case which came -before him to "forbear to carry into operation... this -mischievous project founded on joint-stock and transferable -shares." Chief Justice Best, in 1828, objected to the -practice of assigning shares unless the company were a -corporation, or a joint-stock undertaking created by Act of -Parliament. "The assignee," he argued, "can join in no -action for a cause of action that accrued before the -assignment. Such rights of action must still remain in the -assignor, who, notwithstanding he has retired from the -company, will still remain liable for every debt contracted -by the company before he ceases to be a member. Indeed, the -members of corporation cannot assign their interest and -force their assignees into the corporation without the -authority of an Act of Parliament... It concerns the public -that bodies, composed of a great number of persons, with -large disposable capitals, should not be formed without the -authority of the Crown, and subject to such regulations as -the King, in his wisdom, may deem necessary for the public -security." Even in 1837 it could be held that a joint-stock -company, with shares assignable at the will of the holder, -was illegal. Even in 1859, four years after the first -general Limited Liability Act, it was not certain that a -broker who dealt in the shares of an unincorporated company -was acting lawfully. - -The existence of this body of opinion at a time so near to -our own is significant. What it means is that, down to less -than two generations ago, the type of property which is -to-day most popular and most universal was still regarded -with suspicion as a dubious innovation, to be tolerated only -in the special case of companies incorporated by Royal -Charter or by Act of Parliament. The assumption of the law -and of the business world was that, in the normal -undertaking, ownership and management were vested in the -hands of the same person. Corporate finance, based on the -existence of a large body of shareholders, which is now the -rule, was then the exception. The contrast offered by that -attitude with the facts of industrial organization as they -exist to-day is an indication of the revolution in the -nature of property in capital which has taken place since -the establishment of Limited Liability in 1855, and the -Companies Act of 1862. In modern industrial communities the -general effect of recent economic development has been to -swell proprietary rights which entitle the owners to payment -without work, and to diminish those which can properly be -described as functional. The expansion of the former, and -the process by which the simpler forms of property have been -merged in them, are movements the significance of which it -is hardly possible to over-estimate. There is still, of -course, a considerable body of property which is of the -older type. But though working landlords, and capitalists -who manage their own businesses, continue to be in the -aggregate a numerous body, the organization for which they -stand is not that which is most representative of the modern +It is rarely realized, indeed, how extremely modern are those typical +forms of property in which the practical world of to-day is principally +interested. The most salient example is the share. Of all types of +property it is the commonest and most convenient. It is a title to +property stripped of almost all the encumbrances by which property used +often to be accompanied. It yields an income and can be disposed of at +will. It makes its owner heir to the wealth of countries to which he has +never travelled and a partner in enterprises of which he hardly knows +the name. To thousands of men to-day shares and property are almost +convertible terms. The share is a product of the joint-stock company, +and in England the joint-stock company began its career in the sixteenth +century. But it took nearly 300 years for the share to develop the +characteristic attributes which lend it its peculiar attractiveness +to-day. Its disentanglement from the crude contribution, sometimes in +money, sometimes in goods, to a common undertaking, in which it +originated, took place with extraordinary slowness, and it was only in +the latter half of the nineteenth century that the process was +completed. + +The "Joint-stock" of the East India Company---to take an example from +the greatest, though not the earliest, of all corporate +enterprises---had for the greater part of a century no financial +continuity.It was subscribed afresh for every voyage, or series of +voyages, and repaid after it. It was not until 1657 that the practice of +dividing capital as well as profits was abandoned; it was not until +after the Restoration that the shares became transferable. The "Bubble" +Act of 1719 tried to put down joint-stock finance---"shares in stocks +transferable or assignable"---altogether, except in companies possessing +royal or parliamentary authorization. Well into the nineteenth century +the law continued to look with suspicion on the transferable share, as a +new and dubious form of property. Lord Ellenborough in 1808 denounced +the whole system of raising capital by means of numerous small +subscriptions, and warned the parties in a case which came before him to +"forbear to carry into operation... this mischievous project founded on +joint-stock and transferable shares." Chief Justice Best, in 1828, +objected to the practice of assigning shares unless the company were a +corporation, or a joint-stock undertaking created by Act of Parliament. +"The assignee," he argued, "can join in no action for a cause of action +that accrued before the assignment. Such rights of action must still +remain in the assignor, who, notwithstanding he has retired from the +company, will still remain liable for every debt contracted by the +company before he ceases to be a member. Indeed, the members of +corporation cannot assign their interest and force their assignees into +the corporation without the authority of an Act of Parliament... It +concerns the public that bodies, composed of a great number of persons, +with large disposable capitals, should not be formed without the +authority of the Crown, and subject to such regulations as the King, in +his wisdom, may deem necessary for the public security." Even in 1837 it +could be held that a joint-stock company, with shares assignable at the +will of the holder, was illegal. Even in 1859, four years after the +first general Limited Liability Act, it was not certain that a broker +who dealt in the shares of an unincorporated company was acting +lawfully. + +The existence of this body of opinion at a time so near to our own is +significant. What it means is that, down to less than two generations +ago, the type of property which is to-day most popular and most +universal was still regarded with suspicion as a dubious innovation, to +be tolerated only in the special case of companies incorporated by Royal +Charter or by Act of Parliament. The assumption of the law and of the +business world was that, in the normal undertaking, ownership and +management were vested in the hands of the same person. Corporate +finance, based on the existence of a large body of shareholders, which +is now the rule, was then the exception. The contrast offered by that +attitude with the facts of industrial organization as they exist to-day +is an indication of the revolution in the nature of property in capital +which has taken place since the establishment of Limited Liability in +1855, and the Companies Act of 1862. In modern industrial communities +the general effect of recent economic development has been to swell +proprietary rights which entitle the owners to payment without work, and +to diminish those which can properly be described as functional. The +expansion of the former, and the process by which the simpler forms of +property have been merged in them, are movements the significance of +which it is hardly possible to over-estimate. There is still, of course, +a considerable body of property which is of the older type. But though +working landlords, and capitalists who manage their own businesses, +continue to be in the aggregate a numerous body, the organization for +which they stand is not that which is most representative of the modern economic world. -The general tendency for the ownership and administration of -property to be separated, the general refinement of property -into a claim on goods produced by an unknown worker, is as -unmistakable as the growth of capitalist industry and urban -civilization themselves. Villages are turned into towns, and -property in land changes from the holding worked by a farmer -or the estate administered by a landlord into "rents," which -are advertised and bought and sold like any other -investment. Mines are opened, and the rights of the landlord -are converted into a tribute for every ton of coal which is -brought to the surface. As joint-stock companies take the -place of the individual enterprise which was typical of the -earlier years of the factory system, organization passes -from the employer who both owns and manages his business, -into the hands of salaried officials, and again the mass of -property-owners is swollen by the multiplication of -*rentiers* who put their wealth at the disposal of industry, -but who have no other connection with it. - -The census of manufactures for 1914 gives a picture of the -change in the United States. It shows that 80.2% of the -wage-earners were employed by corporations, that 91.4% of -the mineral products of the country were produced under -corporate direction, that in banking less than 1% of the -total resources was represented by private banks, and that -the percentage of value added by manufacture in -establishments owned by corporations increased from 63.3% in -1899 to 81.9% in 1914. For Great Britain no equally -comprehensive statistics are available. We do not know even -approximately what proportion the wage-earners employed and -the output produced by the 73,341 Companies, with a nominal -capital of £3,083,086,049, which were on the register of the -Board of Trade in 1919, formed of the total workers and -wealth production of the country; nor, when the legal form -is that of a limited company, is it clear to what extent -ownership is, in fact, divorced from management. It is -certain, however, that as far as all the great staple -industries, except agriculture and building, are concerned, -that separation has been carried almost as far in Great -Britain as in America, and that every year it is proceeding -further. - -The revolutionary effects of the legislation which begins -with the Companies Act of 1 844 and the Act establishing -Limited Liability in 1855 have only begun, in fact, fully to -reveal themselves within the last twenty years. Its -consequence has been to make the organization of English -industry in 1921 as different from that of the days of -Bright and Cobden as that of the latter was from industry in -the year 1800. They have caused the whole philosophy of -individualism, which was based on the "individual -initiative" of "the employer," to be as remote from the -realities of the modern economic world as their noble -internationalism is from its frenzied international -politics. - -Banking, in which, as the Treasury Committee on Bank -Amalgamations reported in 1918, "the number of private banks -has fallen from 37 to 6 since 1891, and the number of -English Joint-stock banks from 106 to 34 during the same -period," and which is, in effect the monopoly of an even -smaller number of firms than those figures would suggest, -railways, with their 300 directors, half a million -shareholders and over 600,000 employees, and insurance, are -given over altogether to corporate enterprise. The 1452 -mine-owners of the country, apart from a few small firms -producing an insignificant proportion of the total output, -are limited companies; the capital of £135,000,000 invested -in collieries in 1914 is the "property," and the 1,110,834 -mine-workers the employees, of 37,316 (or, if industries -allied with coal-mining be included, 94,723) shareholders. -In manufacturing industry a firm like Vickers Ltd., with -60,000 shareholders, is still, no doubt, the exception. But -in all the more important industries, the categories of -"employer and employed" are by now almost as archaic as -those of master and servant. The division of the industrial -world into absentee shareholders, directors, salaried -managers, under-managers and technicians, and hired -wage-earners, is to-day in shipbuilding, engineering, -textiles, the manufacture of clothing, of boots and shoes -and of fifty other necessaries, not the exception, but the -rule. - -Every acceleration in the movement towards combination, -which has made such gigantic strides in the last six years, -necessarily accentuates still further the separation between -property rights and constructive work, which is the essence -of this type of organization. The change is taking place in -our day most conspicuously, perhaps, through the -displacement in retail trade of the small shopkeeper by the -multiple store, and the substitution in manufacturing -industry of combines and amalgamations for separate -businesses conducted by competing employers. And, of course, -it is not only by economic development that such claims are -created. "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the -strong came forth sweetness." It is improbable that war, -which in barbarous ages used to be blamed as destructive of -property, has recently created more titles to property than -almost all other causes put together. As between countries, -the industry of the vanquished is subject to a mortgage in -favour of the victors, which, if it is to be discharged in -goods, may yield an agreeable tribute, but will be a -doubtful blessing to those who live by labour. Within each -country, the annual output of wealth will be subject, except -in the case of repudiation or a capital levy, to a first -charge in the shape of interest, amounting in "Great -Britain" to some £300,000,000, to be paid to investors in -war loans. In the absence of countervailing measures, such -as subsidies and special taxation, the effect must be to -produce a considerable redistribution of wealth, to the -prejudice of those who are dependent mainly on personal -work, and to the advantage of those whose main source of -income is the ownership of property. - -Infinitely diverse as are these proprietary rights, they -have the common characteristic of being so entirely -separated from the actual objects over which they are -exercised, so rarified and generalized, as to be analogous -almost to a form of currency rather than to the property -which is so closely united to its owner as to seem almost a -part of his personality. Their isolation from the rough -environment of economic life, where the material objects of -which they are the symbol are shaped and handled, is their -charm. It is also their danger. The hold which a class has -upon the future depends on the function which it performs. -What nature demands is work; few working aristocracies, -however tyrannical, have fallen; few functionless -aristocracies have survived. In society, as in the world of -organic life, atrophy is but one stage removed from death. -In proportion as the landowner becomes a mere *rentier* and -industry is conducted, not by the rude energy of the -competing employers who dominated its infancy, but by the -salaried servants of shareholders, the argument for private -property which reposes on the impossibility of finding any -organization to supersede them loses its application, for -they are already superseded. - -Whatever may be the justification of these types of -property, it cannot be that which was given for the property -of the peasant or the craftsman. It cannot be that they are -necessary in order to secure to each man the fruits of his -own labour. For if a legal right which gives £50,000 a year -to a mineral owner in the North of England and to a ground -landlord in London "secures the fruits of labour" at all, -the fruits are the proprietor's and the labour that of some -one else. Property has no more insidious enemies than those -well-meaning anarchists who, by defending all forms of it as -equally valid, involve the institution in the discredit -attaching to its extravagances. In reality, whatever -conclusion may be drawn from the fact, the greater part of -modern property belongs to the category of property which is -held, not for use or enjoyment, but for acquisition or -power. Sometimes, like mineral rights and urban -ground-rents, it is merely a form of private taxation which -the law allows certain persons to levy on the industry of -others; sometimes, like property in capital, it consists of -rights to payment for instruments which the capitalist -cannot himself use but puts at the disposal of those who -can. In either case, it has as its essential feature that it -confers upon its owners income unaccompanied by personal -service. - -In this respect the ownership of land and the ownership of -capital are normally similar, though from other points of -view their differences are important. To the economist rent -and interest are distinguished by the fact that the latter, -though it is often accompanied by surplus elements which are -merged with it in dividends, is the price of an instrument -of production which would not be forthcoming for industry if -the price were not paid, while the former is a differential -surplus which does not affect the supply. To the business -community and the solicitor land and capital are equally -investments, between which, since they possess the common -characteristic of yielding income without labour, it is -inequitable to discriminate. Though their significance as -economic categories may be different, their effect as social -institutions is the same. It is to separate property from -creative activity, and to divide society into two classes, -of which one has its primary interest in passive ownership, -while the other is mainly dependent upon active work. - -Hence the real analogy to many kinds of modern property is -not the simple property of the small landowner or the -craftsman, still less the household gods and dear domestic -amenities, which is what the word suggests to the guileless -minds of clerks and shopkeepers, and which stampede them -into displaying the ferocity of terrified sheep when the cry -is raised that "Property" is threatened. It is the feudal -dues which robbed the French peasant of part of his produce -till the Revolution abolished them. How do royalties differ -from *quintaines* and *lods et ventes*? They are similar in -their origin and similar in being a tax levied on each -increment of wealth which labour produces. How do urban -ground-rents differ from the payments which were made to -English sinecurists before the Reform Bill of 1832? They are -equally tribute paid by those who work to those who do not. -If the monopoly profits of the owner of *banalités*, whose -tenant must grind corn at his mill and make wine at his -press, were an intolerable oppression, what is the sanctity -attaching to the monopoly profits of the capitalists, who, -as the Report of the Government Committee on trusts tells -us, "in soap, tobacco, wall-paper, salt, cement and in the -textile trades... are in a position to control output and -prices," or, in other words, can compel the consumer to buy -from them, at the figure they fix, on pain of not buying at -all? - -All these rights---royalties, ground-rents, monopoly -profits, surpluses of all kinds---are "Property." The -criticism most fatal to them is not that of Socialists. It -is contained in the arguments by which property is usually -defended. The meaning of the institution, it is said, is to -encourage industry by securing that the worker shall receive -the produce of his toil. But then, precisely in proportion -as it is important to preserve the property which a man has -in the results of his own labour, is it important to abolish -that which he has in the results of the labour of some one -else. If the former "turns sand into gold," the latter turns -gold into sand; for it saps the motives for constructive -effort. The considerations which justify ownership as a -function are those which condemn it as a tax. Property is -not theft, but a good deal of theft becomes property. The -owner of royalties who, when asked why he should be paid -£50,000 a year from minerals which he has neither discovered -nor developed nor worked but only owned, replies "But it's -Property!" may feel all the awe which his language suggests. -But in reality he is behaving like the snake which sinks -into its background by pretending that it is the dead branch -of a tree, or the lunatic who tried to catch rabbits by -sitting behind a hedge and making a noise like a turnip. He -is practising protective---and sometimes -aggressive---mimicry. His sentiments about property are -those of the simple toiler who fears that what he has sown -another may reap. His claim is to be allowed to continue to -reap what another has sown. - -It is sometimes suggested that the less attractive -characteristics of our industrial civilization, its -combination of luxury and squalor, its class divisions and -class warfare, are accidental maladjustments which are not -rooted in the centre of its being, but are excrescences -which economic progress itself may in time be expected to -correct. That agreeable optimism will not survive an -examination of the operation of the institution of private -property in land and capital in industrialized communities. -In countries where land is widely distributed, in France or -in Ireland, its effect may be to produce a general diffusion -of wealth among a rural middle class who at once work and -own. In countries where the development of industrial -organization has separated the ownership of property and the -performance of work, the normal effect of private property -is to transfer to functionless owners the surplus arising -from the more valuable sites, the better machinery, the more -elaborate organization. - -No clearer exemplification of the operation of this "law of -rent" has been given than the figures supplied to the Coal -Industry Commission by Sir Arthur Lowes Dickenson, which -showed that in a given quarter the costs per ton of -producing coal varied from 12s. 6d. to 48s. 0d. per ton, and -the profits from *nil* to 16s. 6d. The distribution in -dividends to shareholders of the surplus accruing from the -working of richer and more accessible seams, from special -opportunities and access to markets, from superior -machinery, management and organization, involves the -establishment of Privilege as a national institution, as -much as the most arbitrary exactions of a feudal *seigneur*. -It is the foundation of an inequality which is not -accidental or temporary, but necessary and permanent. And on -this inequality is erected the whole apparatus of class -institutions, which make not only the income, but the -housing, education, health and manners, indeed the very -physical appearance, of different classes of Englishmen -almost as different from each other as though the minority -were alien settlers established amid the rude civilization -of a race of impoverished aborigines. +The general tendency for the ownership and administration of property to +be separated, the general refinement of property into a claim on goods +produced by an unknown worker, is as unmistakable as the growth of +capitalist industry and urban civilization themselves. Villages are +turned into towns, and property in land changes from the holding worked +by a farmer or the estate administered by a landlord into "rents," which +are advertised and bought and sold like any other investment. Mines are +opened, and the rights of the landlord are converted into a tribute for +every ton of coal which is brought to the surface. As joint-stock +companies take the place of the individual enterprise which was typical +of the earlier years of the factory system, organization passes from the +employer who both owns and manages his business, into the hands of +salaried officials, and again the mass of property-owners is swollen by +the multiplication of *rentiers* who put their wealth at the disposal of +industry, but who have no other connection with it. + +The census of manufactures for 1914 gives a picture of the change in the +United States. It shows that 80.2% of the wage-earners were employed by +corporations, that 91.4% of the mineral products of the country were +produced under corporate direction, that in banking less than 1% of the +total resources was represented by private banks, and that the +percentage of value added by manufacture in establishments owned by +corporations increased from 63.3% in 1899 to 81.9% in 1914. For Great +Britain no equally comprehensive statistics are available. We do not +know even approximately what proportion the wage-earners employed and +the output produced by the 73,341 Companies, with a nominal capital of +£3,083,086,049, which were on the register of the Board of Trade in +1919, formed of the total workers and wealth production of the country; +nor, when the legal form is that of a limited company, is it clear to +what extent ownership is, in fact, divorced from management. It is +certain, however, that as far as all the great staple industries, except +agriculture and building, are concerned, that separation has been +carried almost as far in Great Britain as in America, and that every +year it is proceeding further. + +The revolutionary effects of the legislation which begins with the +Companies Act of 1 844 and the Act establishing Limited Liability in +1855 have only begun, in fact, fully to reveal themselves within the +last twenty years. Its consequence has been to make the organization of +English industry in 1921 as different from that of the days of Bright +and Cobden as that of the latter was from industry in the year 1800. +They have caused the whole philosophy of individualism, which was based +on the "individual initiative" of "the employer," to be as remote from +the realities of the modern economic world as their noble +internationalism is from its frenzied international politics. + +Banking, in which, as the Treasury Committee on Bank Amalgamations +reported in 1918, "the number of private banks has fallen from 37 to 6 +since 1891, and the number of English Joint-stock banks from 106 to 34 +during the same period," and which is, in effect the monopoly of an even +smaller number of firms than those figures would suggest, railways, with +their 300 directors, half a million shareholders and over 600,000 +employees, and insurance, are given over altogether to corporate +enterprise. The 1452 mine-owners of the country, apart from a few small +firms producing an insignificant proportion of the total output, are +limited companies; the capital of £135,000,000 invested in collieries in +1914 is the "property," and the 1,110,834 mine-workers the employees, of +37,316 (or, if industries allied with coal-mining be included, 94,723) +shareholders. In manufacturing industry a firm like Vickers Ltd., with +60,000 shareholders, is still, no doubt, the exception. But in all the +more important industries, the categories of "employer and employed" are +by now almost as archaic as those of master and servant. The division of +the industrial world into absentee shareholders, directors, salaried +managers, under-managers and technicians, and hired wage-earners, is +to-day in shipbuilding, engineering, textiles, the manufacture of +clothing, of boots and shoes and of fifty other necessaries, not the +exception, but the rule. + +Every acceleration in the movement towards combination, which has made +such gigantic strides in the last six years, necessarily accentuates +still further the separation between property rights and constructive +work, which is the essence of this type of organization. The change is +taking place in our day most conspicuously, perhaps, through the +displacement in retail trade of the small shopkeeper by the multiple +store, and the substitution in manufacturing industry of combines and +amalgamations for separate businesses conducted by competing employers. +And, of course, it is not only by economic development that such claims +are created. "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong +came forth sweetness." It is improbable that war, which in barbarous +ages used to be blamed as destructive of property, has recently created +more titles to property than almost all other causes put together. As +between countries, the industry of the vanquished is subject to a +mortgage in favour of the victors, which, if it is to be discharged in +goods, may yield an agreeable tribute, but will be a doubtful blessing +to those who live by labour. Within each country, the annual output of +wealth will be subject, except in the case of repudiation or a capital +levy, to a first charge in the shape of interest, amounting in "Great +Britain" to some £300,000,000, to be paid to investors in war loans. In +the absence of countervailing measures, such as subsidies and special +taxation, the effect must be to produce a considerable redistribution of +wealth, to the prejudice of those who are dependent mainly on personal +work, and to the advantage of those whose main source of income is the +ownership of property. + +Infinitely diverse as are these proprietary rights, they have the common +characteristic of being so entirely separated from the actual objects +over which they are exercised, so rarified and generalized, as to be +analogous almost to a form of currency rather than to the property which +is so closely united to its owner as to seem almost a part of his +personality. Their isolation from the rough environment of economic +life, where the material objects of which they are the symbol are shaped +and handled, is their charm. It is also their danger. The hold which a +class has upon the future depends on the function which it performs. +What nature demands is work; few working aristocracies, however +tyrannical, have fallen; few functionless aristocracies have survived. +In society, as in the world of organic life, atrophy is but one stage +removed from death. In proportion as the landowner becomes a mere +*rentier* and industry is conducted, not by the rude energy of the +competing employers who dominated its infancy, but by the salaried +servants of shareholders, the argument for private property which +reposes on the impossibility of finding any organization to supersede +them loses its application, for they are already superseded. + +Whatever may be the justification of these types of property, it cannot +be that which was given for the property of the peasant or the +craftsman. It cannot be that they are necessary in order to secure to +each man the fruits of his own labour. For if a legal right which gives +£50,000 a year to a mineral owner in the North of England and to a +ground landlord in London "secures the fruits of labour" at all, the +fruits are the proprietor's and the labour that of some one else. +Property has no more insidious enemies than those well-meaning +anarchists who, by defending all forms of it as equally valid, involve +the institution in the discredit attaching to its extravagances. In +reality, whatever conclusion may be drawn from the fact, the greater +part of modern property belongs to the category of property which is +held, not for use or enjoyment, but for acquisition or power. Sometimes, +like mineral rights and urban ground-rents, it is merely a form of +private taxation which the law allows certain persons to levy on the +industry of others; sometimes, like property in capital, it consists of +rights to payment for instruments which the capitalist cannot himself +use but puts at the disposal of those who can. In either case, it has as +its essential feature that it confers upon its owners income +unaccompanied by personal service. + +In this respect the ownership of land and the ownership of capital are +normally similar, though from other points of view their differences are +important. To the economist rent and interest are distinguished by the +fact that the latter, though it is often accompanied by surplus elements +which are merged with it in dividends, is the price of an instrument of +production which would not be forthcoming for industry if the price were +not paid, while the former is a differential surplus which does not +affect the supply. To the business community and the solicitor land and +capital are equally investments, between which, since they possess the +common characteristic of yielding income without labour, it is +inequitable to discriminate. Though their significance as economic +categories may be different, their effect as social institutions is the +same. It is to separate property from creative activity, and to divide +society into two classes, of which one has its primary interest in +passive ownership, while the other is mainly dependent upon active work. + +Hence the real analogy to many kinds of modern property is not the +simple property of the small landowner or the craftsman, still less the +household gods and dear domestic amenities, which is what the word +suggests to the guileless minds of clerks and shopkeepers, and which +stampede them into displaying the ferocity of terrified sheep when the +cry is raised that "Property" is threatened. It is the feudal dues which +robbed the French peasant of part of his produce till the Revolution +abolished them. How do royalties differ from *quintaines* and *lods et +ventes*? They are similar in their origin and similar in being a tax +levied on each increment of wealth which labour produces. How do urban +ground-rents differ from the payments which were made to English +sinecurists before the Reform Bill of 1832? They are equally tribute +paid by those who work to those who do not. If the monopoly profits of +the owner of *banalités*, whose tenant must grind corn at his mill and +make wine at his press, were an intolerable oppression, what is the +sanctity attaching to the monopoly profits of the capitalists, who, as +the Report of the Government Committee on trusts tells us, "in soap, +tobacco, wall-paper, salt, cement and in the textile trades... are in a +position to control output and prices," or, in other words, can compel +the consumer to buy from them, at the figure they fix, on pain of not +buying at all? + +All these rights---royalties, ground-rents, monopoly profits, surpluses +of all kinds---are "Property." The criticism most fatal to them is not +that of Socialists. It is contained in the arguments by which property +is usually defended. The meaning of the institution, it is said, is to +encourage industry by securing that the worker shall receive the produce +of his toil. But then, precisely in proportion as it is important to +preserve the property which a man has in the results of his own labour, +is it important to abolish that which he has in the results of the +labour of some one else. If the former "turns sand into gold," the +latter turns gold into sand; for it saps the motives for constructive +effort. The considerations which justify ownership as a function are +those which condemn it as a tax. Property is not theft, but a good deal +of theft becomes property. The owner of royalties who, when asked why he +should be paid £50,000 a year from minerals which he has neither +discovered nor developed nor worked but only owned, replies "But it's +Property!" may feel all the awe which his language suggests. But in +reality he is behaving like the snake which sinks into its background by +pretending that it is the dead branch of a tree, or the lunatic who +tried to catch rabbits by sitting behind a hedge and making a noise like +a turnip. He is practising protective---and sometimes +aggressive---mimicry. His sentiments about property are those of the +simple toiler who fears that what he has sown another may reap. His +claim is to be allowed to continue to reap what another has sown. + +It is sometimes suggested that the less attractive characteristics of +our industrial civilization, its combination of luxury and squalor, its +class divisions and class warfare, are accidental maladjustments which +are not rooted in the centre of its being, but are excrescences which +economic progress itself may in time be expected to correct. That +agreeable optimism will not survive an examination of the operation of +the institution of private property in land and capital in +industrialized communities. In countries where land is widely +distributed, in France or in Ireland, its effect may be to produce a +general diffusion of wealth among a rural middle class who at once work +and own. In countries where the development of industrial organization +has separated the ownership of property and the performance of work, the +normal effect of private property is to transfer to functionless owners +the surplus arising from the more valuable sites, the better machinery, +the more elaborate organization. + +No clearer exemplification of the operation of this "law of rent" has +been given than the figures supplied to the Coal Industry Commission by +Sir Arthur Lowes Dickenson, which showed that in a given quarter the +costs per ton of producing coal varied from 12s. 6d. to 48s. 0d. per +ton, and the profits from *nil* to 16s. 6d. The distribution in +dividends to shareholders of the surplus accruing from the working of +richer and more accessible seams, from special opportunities and access +to markets, from superior machinery, management and organization, +involves the establishment of Privilege as a national institution, as +much as the most arbitrary exactions of a feudal *seigneur*. It is the +foundation of an inequality which is not accidental or temporary, but +necessary and permanent. And on this inequality is erected the whole +apparatus of class institutions, which make not only the income, but the +housing, education, health and manners, indeed the very physical +appearance, of different classes of Englishmen almost as different from +each other as though the minority were alien settlers established amid +the rude civilization of a race of impoverished aborigines. ## (c) Property and Security -So the justification of private property traditional in -England, which saw in it the security that each man would -enjoy the fruits of his own labour, though largely -applicable to the age in which it was formulated, has -undergone the fate of most political theories. It has been -refuted not by the doctrines of rival philosophers, but by -the prosaic course of economic development. As far as the -mass of mankind are concerned, the need which private -property other than personal possessions does still often -satisfy, though imperfectly and precariously, is the need -for security. To the small investors, who are the majority -of property owners, though owning only an insignificant -fraction of the property in existence, its meaning is -simple. It is not wealth or power, or even leisure from -work. It is safety. They work hard. They save a little money -for old age, or for sickness, or for their children. They -invest it, and the interest stands between them and all that -they dread most. Their savings are of convenience to -industry, the income from them is convenient to themselves. -"Why," they ask, "should we not reap in old age the -advantage of energy and thrift in youth?" And this hunger -for security is so imperious that those who suffer most from -the abuses of property, as well as those who, if they could -profit by them, would be least inclined to do so, will -tolerate and even defend them, for fear lest the knife which -trims dead matter should cut into the quick. They have seen -too many men drown to be critical of dry land, though it be -an inhospitable rock. They are haunted by the nightmare of -the future, and, if a burglar broke it, would welcome a -burglar. - -This need for security is fundamental, and almost the -gravest indictment of our civilization is that the mass of -mankind are without it. Property is one way of organizing -it. It is quite comprehensible therefore, that the -instrument should be confused with the end, and that any -proposal to modify it should create dismay. In the past, -human beings, roads, bridges and ferries, civil, judicial -and clerical offices, and commissions in the army have all -been private property. Whenever it was proposed to abolish -the rights exercised over them, it was protested that their -removal would involve the destruction of an institution in -which thrifty men had invested their savings, and on which -they depended for protection amid the chances of life and -for comfort in old age. - -In fact, however, property is not the only method of -assuring the future, nor, when it is the way selected, is -security dependent upon the maintenance of all the rights -which are at present normally involved in ownership. In so -far as its psychological foundation is the necessity for -securing an income which is stable and certain, which is -forthcoming when its recipient cannot work, and which can be -used to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves, -what is really demanded is not the command over the -fluctuating proceeds of some particular undertaking, which -accompanies the ownership of capital, but the security which -is offered by an annuity. Property is the instrument, -security is the object, and when some alternative way is -forthcoming of providing the latter, it does not appear in -practice that any loss of confidence, of freedom or of -independence is caused by the absence of the former. - -Hence not only the manual workers, who since the rise of -capitalism, have rarely in England been able to accumulate -property sufficient to act as a guarantee of income when -their period of active earning is past, but also the middle -and professional classes, increasingly seek security to-day, -not in investment, but in insurance against sickness and -death, in the purchase of annuities, or in what is in effect -the same thing, the accumulation of part of their salary -towards a pension which is paid when their salary ceases. -The professional man may buy shares in the hope of making a -profit on the transaction. But when what he desires to buy -is security, the form which his investment takes is usually -some kind of insurance. The teacher, or nurse, or government -servant looks forward to a pension. Women, who fifty years -ago would have been regarded as dependent almost as -completely as if femininity were an incurable disease with -which they had been born, and whose fathers, unless rich -men, would have been tormented with anxiety for fear lest -they should not save sufficient to provide for them, now -receive an education, support themselves in professions, and -save in the same way. - -The amount spent to-day on insurance alone is the more -remarkable in view of the comparatively recent period, -hardly more than two centuries, within which this type of -provision has developed. The total annual expenditure in the -United Kingdom on premiums is already over £50,000,000, the -amount insured some £1,200,000,000, and the aggregate -policies in force over 38,000,000. It is true that a large -number of these policies lapse, and that, while the amount -insured (almost entirely by the well-to-do classes) in the -"ordinary" branch of insurance is some £870,000,000, the -working classes, with only £363,000,000 to their credit in -the "industrial" branch, are miserably under-insured. Even -to-day it is still the case that almost all wage-earners -outside government employment, and many in it, as well as -large numbers of professional men, have nothing to fall back -upon in sickness or old age. But that does not alter the -fact that, when it is made, this type of provision meets the -need for security, which, apart, of course, from personal -possessions and household furniture, is the principal -meaning of property to by far the largest element in the -population, and that it meets it more completely and -certainly than property itself. - -Nor, indeed, even when property is the instrument used to -provide for the future, is such provision dependent upon the -maintenance in its entirety of the whole body of rights -which accompany ownership to-day. Property is not simple but -complex. That of a man who has invested his savings as an -ordinary shareholder comprises at least three rights, the -right to interest, the right to profits, and (in legal -theory) the right to control. In so far as what is desired -is the guarantee for the maintenance of a stable income, not -the acquisition of additional wealth without labour---in so -far as his motive is not gain but security---the need is met -by interest on capital. It has no necessary connection -either with the right to residuary profits or the right to -control the management of the undertaking from which the -profits are derived, both of which are vested to-day in the -shareholder. If all that were desired were to use property -as an instrument for purchasing security, the obvious -course---from the point of view of the investor desiring to -insure his future the safest course---would be to assimilate -his position as far as possible to that of a debenture -holder or mortgagee, who obtains the stable income which is -his motive for investment, but who neither incurs the risks -nor receives the profits of the speculator. - -The elaborate apparatus of proprietary rights which -distributes dividends of 30% to the shareholders in Coats, -and several thousands a year to the owner of mineral -royalties and ground-rents, and then allows them to transmit -the bulk of gains which they have not earned to descendants -who in their turn will thus be relieved from the necessity -of earning, is property run mad. To insist that it must be -maintained for the sake of the widow and the orphan, the -vast majority of whom have neither and would gladly part -with them all for a safe annuity if they had, is, to say the -least of it, extravagantly *mal-a-propos*. It is like -pitching a man into the water because he expresses a wish -for a bath, or presenting a tiger cub to a householder who -is plagued with mice, on the ground that tigers and cats -both belong to the genus *felis*. The tiger hunts for itself -not for its masters, and when game is scarce will hunt them. -The classes who own little or no property may reverence it -because it is security. But the classes who own much prize -it or quite different reasons, and laugh in their sleeve at -the innocence which supposes that anything so vulgar as the -savings of the *petite bourgeoisie* have, except at -elections, any interest for them. They prize it because it -is the order which quarters them on the community and which -provides for the maintenance of a leisure class at the -public expense. +So the justification of private property traditional in England, which +saw in it the security that each man would enjoy the fruits of his own +labour, though largely applicable to the age in which it was formulated, +has undergone the fate of most political theories. It has been refuted +not by the doctrines of rival philosophers, but by the prosaic course of +economic development. As far as the mass of mankind are concerned, the +need which private property other than personal possessions does still +often satisfy, though imperfectly and precariously, is the need for +security. To the small investors, who are the majority of property +owners, though owning only an insignificant fraction of the property in +existence, its meaning is simple. It is not wealth or power, or even +leisure from work. It is safety. They work hard. They save a little +money for old age, or for sickness, or for their children. They invest +it, and the interest stands between them and all that they dread most. +Their savings are of convenience to industry, the income from them is +convenient to themselves. "Why," they ask, "should we not reap in old +age the advantage of energy and thrift in youth?" And this hunger for +security is so imperious that those who suffer most from the abuses of +property, as well as those who, if they could profit by them, would be +least inclined to do so, will tolerate and even defend them, for fear +lest the knife which trims dead matter should cut into the quick. They +have seen too many men drown to be critical of dry land, though it be an +inhospitable rock. They are haunted by the nightmare of the future, and, +if a burglar broke it, would welcome a burglar. + +This need for security is fundamental, and almost the gravest indictment +of our civilization is that the mass of mankind are without it. Property +is one way of organizing it. It is quite comprehensible therefore, that +the instrument should be confused with the end, and that any proposal to +modify it should create dismay. In the past, human beings, roads, +bridges and ferries, civil, judicial and clerical offices, and +commissions in the army have all been private property. Whenever it was +proposed to abolish the rights exercised over them, it was protested +that their removal would involve the destruction of an institution in +which thrifty men had invested their savings, and on which they depended +for protection amid the chances of life and for comfort in old age. + +In fact, however, property is not the only method of assuring the +future, nor, when it is the way selected, is security dependent upon the +maintenance of all the rights which are at present normally involved in +ownership. In so far as its psychological foundation is the necessity +for securing an income which is stable and certain, which is forthcoming +when its recipient cannot work, and which can be used to provide for +those who cannot provide for themselves, what is really demanded is not +the command over the fluctuating proceeds of some particular +undertaking, which accompanies the ownership of capital, but the +security which is offered by an annuity. Property is the instrument, +security is the object, and when some alternative way is forthcoming of +providing the latter, it does not appear in practice that any loss of +confidence, of freedom or of independence is caused by the absence of +the former. + +Hence not only the manual workers, who since the rise of capitalism, +have rarely in England been able to accumulate property sufficient to +act as a guarantee of income when their period of active earning is +past, but also the middle and professional classes, increasingly seek +security to-day, not in investment, but in insurance against sickness +and death, in the purchase of annuities, or in what is in effect the +same thing, the accumulation of part of their salary towards a pension +which is paid when their salary ceases. The professional man may buy +shares in the hope of making a profit on the transaction. But when what +he desires to buy is security, the form which his investment takes is +usually some kind of insurance. The teacher, or nurse, or government +servant looks forward to a pension. Women, who fifty years ago would +have been regarded as dependent almost as completely as if femininity +were an incurable disease with which they had been born, and whose +fathers, unless rich men, would have been tormented with anxiety for +fear lest they should not save sufficient to provide for them, now +receive an education, support themselves in professions, and save in the +same way. + +The amount spent to-day on insurance alone is the more remarkable in +view of the comparatively recent period, hardly more than two centuries, +within which this type of provision has developed. The total annual +expenditure in the United Kingdom on premiums is already over +£50,000,000, the amount insured some £1,200,000,000, and the aggregate +policies in force over 38,000,000. It is true that a large number of +these policies lapse, and that, while the amount insured (almost +entirely by the well-to-do classes) in the "ordinary" branch of +insurance is some £870,000,000, the working classes, with only +£363,000,000 to their credit in the "industrial" branch, are miserably +under-insured. Even to-day it is still the case that almost all +wage-earners outside government employment, and many in it, as well as +large numbers of professional men, have nothing to fall back upon in +sickness or old age. But that does not alter the fact that, when it is +made, this type of provision meets the need for security, which, apart, +of course, from personal possessions and household furniture, is the +principal meaning of property to by far the largest element in the +population, and that it meets it more completely and certainly than +property itself. + +Nor, indeed, even when property is the instrument used to provide for +the future, is such provision dependent upon the maintenance in its +entirety of the whole body of rights which accompany ownership to-day. +Property is not simple but complex. That of a man who has invested his +savings as an ordinary shareholder comprises at least three rights, the +right to interest, the right to profits, and (in legal theory) the right +to control. In so far as what is desired is the guarantee for the +maintenance of a stable income, not the acquisition of additional wealth +without labour---in so far as his motive is not gain but security---the +need is met by interest on capital. It has no necessary connection +either with the right to residuary profits or the right to control the +management of the undertaking from which the profits are derived, both +of which are vested to-day in the shareholder. If all that were desired +were to use property as an instrument for purchasing security, the +obvious course---from the point of view of the investor desiring to +insure his future the safest course---would be to assimilate his +position as far as possible to that of a debenture holder or mortgagee, +who obtains the stable income which is his motive for investment, but +who neither incurs the risks nor receives the profits of the speculator. + +The elaborate apparatus of proprietary rights which distributes +dividends of 30% to the shareholders in Coats, and several thousands a +year to the owner of mineral royalties and ground-rents, and then allows +them to transmit the bulk of gains which they have not earned to +descendants who in their turn will thus be relieved from the necessity +of earning, is property run mad. To insist that it must be maintained +for the sake of the widow and the orphan, the vast majority of whom have +neither and would gladly part with them all for a safe annuity if they +had, is, to say the least of it, extravagantly *mal-a-propos*. It is +like pitching a man into the water because he expresses a wish for a +bath, or presenting a tiger cub to a householder who is plagued with +mice, on the ground that tigers and cats both belong to the genus +*felis*. The tiger hunts for itself not for its masters, and when game +is scarce will hunt them. The classes who own little or no property may +reverence it because it is security. But the classes who own much prize +it or quite different reasons, and laugh in their sleeve at the +innocence which supposes that anything so vulgar as the savings of the +*petite bourgeoisie* have, except at elections, any interest for them. +They prize it because it is the order which quarters them on the +community and which provides for the maintenance of a leisure class at +the public expense. ## (d) The Tyranny of Functionless Property -"Possession," said the Egoist, "without obligation to the -object possessed, approaches felicity." Functionless -property appears natural to those who believe that society -should be organized for the acquisition of private wealth, -and attacks upon it perverse or malicious, because the -question which such persons ask of any institution is, "What -does it yield?" And such property yields much to those who -own it. Those, however, who hold that social unity and -effective work are possible only if society is organized and -wealth distributed on the basis of function, will ask of an -institution, not, "What dividends does it pay?" but "What -service does it perform?" To them the fact that much -property yields income irrespective of any service which is -performed or obligation which is recognized by its owners -will appear, not a quality, but a vice. They will see in the -social confusion which it produces, payments -disproportionate to service here, and payments without any -service at all there, and dissatisfaction everywhere, a -convincing confirmation of their argument that to build on a -foundation of rights and of rights alone is to build on a -quicksand. - -From this portentous exaggeration into an absolute of what -once was, and still might be, a sane and social institution -most other evils follow. Its fruits are the power of those -who do not work over those who do, the alternate -subservience and rebelliousness of those who work towards -those who do not, the starving of science and thought and -creative effort for fear that expenditure upon them should -impinge on the comfort of the sluggard and the *fainéant*, -and the arrangement of society in most of its subsidiary -activities to suit the convenience, not of those who work -usefully, but of those who spend gaily; so that the most -hideous, desolate and parsimonious places in the country are -those in which the greatest wealth is produced, the Clyde -valley, or the cotton towns of Lancashire, or the mining -villages of Scotland and Wales, and the gayest and most -luxurious those in which it is consumed. From the point of -view of social health and economic efficiency, society -should obtain its material equipment at the cheapest price -possible, and, after providing for depreciation and -expansion, should distribute the whole product to its -working members and their dependents. What happens at -present, however, is that its workers are hired at the -cheapest price which the market (as modified by -organization) allows, and that the surplus, somewhat -diminished by taxation, is distributed to the owners of -property. - -Profits may vary in a given year from a loss to 100%. But -wages are fixed at a level which will enable the marginal -firm to continue producing one year with another; and the -surplus, even when due partly to efficient management, goes -neither to managers nor to manual workers, but to -shareholders. The meaning of the process becomes startlingly -apparent when, as recently in Lancashire, large blocks of -capital change hands at a period of abnormal activity. The -existing shareholders receive the equivalent of the -capitalized expectation of future profits. The workers, as -workers, do not participate in the immense increment in -value. And when, in the future, they demand an advance in -wages, they will be met by the answer that profits, which -before the transaction would have been reckoned large, yield -shareholders after it only a low rate of interest on their -investment. - -The truth is that, whereas in earlier ages the protection of -property was normally the protection of work, the -relationship between them has come in the course of the -economic development of the last two centuries to be very -nearly reversed. The two elements which compose civilization -are active efforts and passive property, the labour of human -things and the tools which human beings use. Of these two -elements those who supply the first maintain and improve it, -those who own the second normally dictate its character, its -development and its administration. Hence, though -politically free, the mass of mankind live in effect under -rules imposed to protect the interests of the small section -among them whose primary concern is ownership. From this -subordination of creative activity to passive property, the -worker who depends upon his brains, the organizer, inventor, -teacher or doctor suffers almost as much embarrassment as -the craftsman. The real economic cleavage is not, as is -often said, between employers and employed, but between all -who do constructive work, from scientist to labourer, on the -one hand, and all whose main interest is the preservation of -existing proprietary rights upon the other, irrespective of -whether they contribute to constructive work or not. - -If, therefore, under the modern conditions which have -concentrated any substantial share of property in the hands -of a small minority of the population, the world is to be -governed for the advantage of those who own, it is only -incidentally and by accident that the results will be -agreeable to those who work. In practice there is a constant -collision between them. Turned into another channel, half -the wealth distributed in dividends to function less -shareholders, could secure every child a good education up -to 18, could re-endow English Universities, and (since more -efficient production is important) could equip English -industries for more efficient production. Half the ingenuity -now applied to the protection of property could have made -most industrial diseases as rare as smallpox, and most -English cities into places of health and even of beauty. -What stands in the way is the doctrine that the rights of -property are absolute, irrespective of any social function -which its owners may perform. So the laws which are most -stringently enforced are still the laws which protect -property, though the protection of property is no longer -likely to be equivalent to the protection of work, and the -interests which govern industry and predominate in public -affairs are proprietary interests. - -A mill-owner may poison or mangle a generation of -operatives; but his brother magistrates will let him off -with a caution or a nominal fine to poison and mangle the -next. For he is an owner of property. A landowner may draw -rents from slums in which young children die at the rate of -200 per 1000; but he will be none the less welcome in polite -society. For property has no obligations and therefore can -do no wrong. Urban land may be held from the market on the -outskirts of cities in which human beings are living three -to a room, and rural land may be used for sport when -villagers are leaving it to overcrowd them still more. No -public authority intervenes, for both are property. - -Nor are these practical evils the gravest consequences which -flow from the hypertrophy of property in an industrial -society. Property is in its nature a kind of limited -sovereignty. Its essence is a power, secured by the State to -some individual or group as against all others, to dispose -of the objects over which the proprietary rights are -exercised. When those objects are simple and easily -obtained, the property is normally harmless or beneficial. -When they are such that, while they can be acquired only by -the few, the mass of mankind cannot live unless it has free -access to them, their proprietors, in prescribing their use, -may become the irresponsible governors of thousands of other -human beings. - -Hence, when pushed to extremes, applied to purposes for -which it was not designed, and in an environment to which it -is not adapted, property in things swells into something -which is, in effect, sovereignty over persons. "The main -objection to a large corporation," writes Mr. Justice -Brandeis, of the Supreme Court of the U.S.A., "is that it -makes possible---and in many cases makes inevitable---the -exercise of industrial absolutism." In England such -absolutism is felt mainly in the hours of work, above all in -the power to deprive the wage-earner of his livelihood by -dismissing him from his employment. In America there are -cities where the company owns not only the works, but halls -and meeting-places, streets and pavements, where the town -council and police are its nominees, and the pulpit and -press its mouthpieces, where no meeting can be held to which -it objects and no citizen can dwell of whom it -disapproves.Such property confers a private franchise or -jurisdiction analogous to that which in some periods has -been associated with the ownership of land. The men who -endure it may possess as citizens the right to "life, -liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But they live, in -effect, at the will of a lord. - -To those who believe that institutions which repudiate all -moral significance must sooner or later collapse, a society -which confuses the protection of property with the -preservation of its functionless perversions will appear as -precarious as that which has left the memorials of its -tasteless frivolity and more tasteless ostentation in the -gardens of Versailles. Do men love peace? They will see the -greatest enemy of social unity in rights which involve no -obligation to co-operate for the service of society. Do they -value equality? Property rights which dispense their owners -from the common human necessity of labour make inequality an -institution permeating every corner of society, from the -distribution of material wealth to the training of intellect -itself. Do they desire greater industrial efficiency? There -is no more fatal obstacle to efficiency than the revelation -that idleness has the same privileges as industry, and that -for every additional blow with the pick or hammer an -additional profit will be distributed among shareholders who -wield neither. - -Indeed, functionless property is the greatest enemy of -legitimate property itself. It is the parasite which kills -the organism that produced it. Bad money drives out good, -and, as the history of the last two hundred years shows, -when property for acquisition or power and property for -service or for use jostle each other freely in the market, -without restrictions such as some legal systems have imposed -on alienation and inheritance, the latter tends normally to -be absorbed by the former, because it has less resisting -power. Thus functionless property grows, and as it grows it -undermines the creative energy which produced the -institution of property and which in earlier ages property -protected. It cannot unite men, for what unites them is the -bond of service to a common purpose, and that bond it -repudiates, since its very essence is the maintenance of -rights irrespective of service. It cannot create; it can -only spend, so that the number of scientists, inventors, -artists or men of letters who have sprung in the course of -the last century from hereditary riches can be numbered on -one hand. It values neither culture nor beauty, but only the -power which belongs to wealth and the ostentation which is -the symbol of it. - -So those who dread these qualities, energy and thought and -the creative spirit---and they are many---will not -discriminate, as we have tried to discriminate, between -different types and kinds of property, in order that they -may preserve those which are legitimate and abolish those -which are not. They will endeavour to preserve all private -property, even in its most degenerate forms. And those who -value those things will try to promote them by relieving -property of its perversions, and thus enabling it to return -to its true nature. - -They will not desire to establish any visionary communism, -for they will realize that the free disposal of a -sufficiency of personal possessions is the condition of a -healthy and self-respecting life, and will seek to -distribute more widely the property rights which make them -to-day the privilege of a minority. But they will refuse to -submit to the naive philosophy which would treat all -proprietary rights as equal in sanctity merely because they -are identical in name. They will distinguish sharply between -property which is used by its owner for the conduct of his -profession or the upkeep of his household, and property -which is merely a claim on wealth produced by another's -labour. They will insist that property is moral and healthy -only when it is used as a condition, not of idleness, but of -activity, and when it involves the discharge of definite -personal obligations. They will endeavour in short, to base -it upon the principle of function. +"Possession," said the Egoist, "without obligation to the object +possessed, approaches felicity." Functionless property appears natural +to those who believe that society should be organized for the +acquisition of private wealth, and attacks upon it perverse or +malicious, because the question which such persons ask of any +institution is, "What does it yield?" And such property yields much to +those who own it. Those, however, who hold that social unity and +effective work are possible only if society is organized and wealth +distributed on the basis of function, will ask of an institution, not, +"What dividends does it pay?" but "What service does it perform?" To +them the fact that much property yields income irrespective of any +service which is performed or obligation which is recognized by its +owners will appear, not a quality, but a vice. They will see in the +social confusion which it produces, payments disproportionate to service +here, and payments without any service at all there, and dissatisfaction +everywhere, a convincing confirmation of their argument that to build on +a foundation of rights and of rights alone is to build on a quicksand. + +From this portentous exaggeration into an absolute of what once was, and +still might be, a sane and social institution most other evils follow. +Its fruits are the power of those who do not work over those who do, the +alternate subservience and rebelliousness of those who work towards +those who do not, the starving of science and thought and creative +effort for fear that expenditure upon them should impinge on the comfort +of the sluggard and the *fainéant*, and the arrangement of society in +most of its subsidiary activities to suit the convenience, not of those +who work usefully, but of those who spend gaily; so that the most +hideous, desolate and parsimonious places in the country are those in +which the greatest wealth is produced, the Clyde valley, or the cotton +towns of Lancashire, or the mining villages of Scotland and Wales, and +the gayest and most luxurious those in which it is consumed. From the +point of view of social health and economic efficiency, society should +obtain its material equipment at the cheapest price possible, and, after +providing for depreciation and expansion, should distribute the whole +product to its working members and their dependents. What happens at +present, however, is that its workers are hired at the cheapest price +which the market (as modified by organization) allows, and that the +surplus, somewhat diminished by taxation, is distributed to the owners +of property. + +Profits may vary in a given year from a loss to 100%. But wages are +fixed at a level which will enable the marginal firm to continue +producing one year with another; and the surplus, even when due partly +to efficient management, goes neither to managers nor to manual workers, +but to shareholders. The meaning of the process becomes startlingly +apparent when, as recently in Lancashire, large blocks of capital change +hands at a period of abnormal activity. The existing shareholders +receive the equivalent of the capitalized expectation of future profits. +The workers, as workers, do not participate in the immense increment in +value. And when, in the future, they demand an advance in wages, they +will be met by the answer that profits, which before the transaction +would have been reckoned large, yield shareholders after it only a low +rate of interest on their investment. + +The truth is that, whereas in earlier ages the protection of property +was normally the protection of work, the relationship between them has +come in the course of the economic development of the last two centuries +to be very nearly reversed. The two elements which compose civilization +are active efforts and passive property, the labour of human things and +the tools which human beings use. Of these two elements those who supply +the first maintain and improve it, those who own the second normally +dictate its character, its development and its administration. Hence, +though politically free, the mass of mankind live in effect under rules +imposed to protect the interests of the small section among them whose +primary concern is ownership. From this subordination of creative +activity to passive property, the worker who depends upon his brains, +the organizer, inventor, teacher or doctor suffers almost as much +embarrassment as the craftsman. The real economic cleavage is not, as is +often said, between employers and employed, but between all who do +constructive work, from scientist to labourer, on the one hand, and all +whose main interest is the preservation of existing proprietary rights +upon the other, irrespective of whether they contribute to constructive +work or not. + +If, therefore, under the modern conditions which have concentrated any +substantial share of property in the hands of a small minority of the +population, the world is to be governed for the advantage of those who +own, it is only incidentally and by accident that the results will be +agreeable to those who work. In practice there is a constant collision +between them. Turned into another channel, half the wealth distributed +in dividends to function less shareholders, could secure every child a +good education up to 18, could re-endow English Universities, and (since +more efficient production is important) could equip English industries +for more efficient production. Half the ingenuity now applied to the +protection of property could have made most industrial diseases as rare +as smallpox, and most English cities into places of health and even of +beauty. What stands in the way is the doctrine that the rights of +property are absolute, irrespective of any social function which its +owners may perform. So the laws which are most stringently enforced are +still the laws which protect property, though the protection of property +is no longer likely to be equivalent to the protection of work, and the +interests which govern industry and predominate in public affairs are +proprietary interests. + +A mill-owner may poison or mangle a generation of operatives; but his +brother magistrates will let him off with a caution or a nominal fine to +poison and mangle the next. For he is an owner of property. A landowner +may draw rents from slums in which young children die at the rate of 200 +per 1000; but he will be none the less welcome in polite society. For +property has no obligations and therefore can do no wrong. Urban land +may be held from the market on the outskirts of cities in which human +beings are living three to a room, and rural land may be used for sport +when villagers are leaving it to overcrowd them still more. No public +authority intervenes, for both are property. + +Nor are these practical evils the gravest consequences which flow from +the hypertrophy of property in an industrial society. Property is in its +nature a kind of limited sovereignty. Its essence is a power, secured by +the State to some individual or group as against all others, to dispose +of the objects over which the proprietary rights are exercised. When +those objects are simple and easily obtained, the property is normally +harmless or beneficial. When they are such that, while they can be +acquired only by the few, the mass of mankind cannot live unless it has +free access to them, their proprietors, in prescribing their use, may +become the irresponsible governors of thousands of other human beings. + +Hence, when pushed to extremes, applied to purposes for which it was not +designed, and in an environment to which it is not adapted, property in +things swells into something which is, in effect, sovereignty over +persons. "The main objection to a large corporation," writes Mr. Justice +Brandeis, of the Supreme Court of the U.S.A., "is that it makes +possible---and in many cases makes inevitable---the exercise of +industrial absolutism." In England such absolutism is felt mainly in the +hours of work, above all in the power to deprive the wage-earner of his +livelihood by dismissing him from his employment. In America there are +cities where the company owns not only the works, but halls and +meeting-places, streets and pavements, where the town council and police +are its nominees, and the pulpit and press its mouthpieces, where no +meeting can be held to which it objects and no citizen can dwell of whom +it disapproves.Such property confers a private franchise or jurisdiction +analogous to that which in some periods has been associated with the +ownership of land. The men who endure it may possess as citizens the +right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But they live, +in effect, at the will of a lord. + +To those who believe that institutions which repudiate all moral +significance must sooner or later collapse, a society which confuses the +protection of property with the preservation of its functionless +perversions will appear as precarious as that which has left the +memorials of its tasteless frivolity and more tasteless ostentation in +the gardens of Versailles. Do men love peace? They will see the greatest +enemy of social unity in rights which involve no obligation to +co-operate for the service of society. Do they value equality? Property +rights which dispense their owners from the common human necessity of +labour make inequality an institution permeating every corner of +society, from the distribution of material wealth to the training of +intellect itself. Do they desire greater industrial efficiency? There is +no more fatal obstacle to efficiency than the revelation that idleness +has the same privileges as industry, and that for every additional blow +with the pick or hammer an additional profit will be distributed among +shareholders who wield neither. + +Indeed, functionless property is the greatest enemy of legitimate +property itself. It is the parasite which kills the organism that +produced it. Bad money drives out good, and, as the history of the last +two hundred years shows, when property for acquisition or power and +property for service or for use jostle each other freely in the market, +without restrictions such as some legal systems have imposed on +alienation and inheritance, the latter tends normally to be absorbed by +the former, because it has less resisting power. Thus functionless +property grows, and as it grows it undermines the creative energy which +produced the institution of property and which in earlier ages property +protected. It cannot unite men, for what unites them is the bond of +service to a common purpose, and that bond it repudiates, since its very +essence is the maintenance of rights irrespective of service. It cannot +create; it can only spend, so that the number of scientists, inventors, +artists or men of letters who have sprung in the course of the last +century from hereditary riches can be numbered on one hand. It values +neither culture nor beauty, but only the power which belongs to wealth +and the ostentation which is the symbol of it. + +So those who dread these qualities, energy and thought and the creative +spirit---and they are many---will not discriminate, as we have tried to +discriminate, between different types and kinds of property, in order +that they may preserve those which are legitimate and abolish those +which are not. They will endeavour to preserve all private property, +even in its most degenerate forms. And those who value those things will +try to promote them by relieving property of its perversions, and thus +enabling it to return to its true nature. + +They will not desire to establish any visionary communism, for they will +realize that the free disposal of a sufficiency of personal possessions +is the condition of a healthy and self-respecting life, and will seek to +distribute more widely the property rights which make them to-day the +privilege of a minority. But they will refuse to submit to the naive +philosophy which would treat all proprietary rights as equal in sanctity +merely because they are identical in name. They will distinguish sharply +between property which is used by its owner for the conduct of his +profession or the upkeep of his household, and property which is merely +a claim on wealth produced by another's labour. They will insist that +property is moral and healthy only when it is used as a condition, not +of idleness, but of activity, and when it involves the discharge of +definite personal obligations. They will endeavour in short, to base it +upon the principle of function. # The Functional Society -The application to property and industry of the principle of -function is compatible with several different types of -social organization, and is as unlikely as more important -revelations to be the secret of those who cry "Lo here!" and -"Lo there!" What it means, in effect, is that society should -be organized primarily for the performance of *duties*, not -for the maintenance of *rights*, and that the rights which -it protects should be those which are necessary to the -discharge of social obligations. But duties, unlike rights, -are relative to some end or purpose, for the sake of which -they are imposed. The latter are a principle of division; -they enable men to resist. The former are a principle of -union; they lead men to co-operate. The essential thing, -therefore, is that men should fix their minds upon the idea -of purpose, and give that idea pre-eminence over all -subsidiary issues. - -If, as is patent, the purpose of industry is to provide the -material foundations of a good social life, then any measure -which makes that provision more effective, so long as it -does not conflict with some still more important purpose, is -wise, and any institution which thwarts or encumbers it is -foolish. It is foolish, for example, to maintain property -rights for which no service is performed, for payment -without service is waste; and if it is true, as -statisticians affirm, that, even were income equally -divided, income per head would be small, then it is all the -more foolish. Sailors in a boat have no room for first-class -passengers, and, the smaller the total national income, the -more important is it that none of it should be misapplied. -It is foolish to leave the direction of industry in the -hands of the servants of private property-owners, who -themselves know nothing about it but its balance sheets, -because this is to divert it from the performance of service -to the acquisition of gain, and to subordinate those who do -creative work to those who do not. - -It is foolish, above all, to cripple education, as it is -crippled in England for the sake of industry; for one of the -uses of industry is to provide the wealth which may make -possible better education. If a society with the sense to -keep means and ends in their proper places did no more than -secure the investment in the education of children of a -fraction of the wealth which to-day is applied to the -production of futilities, it would do more for -posterity---it would in a strictly economic sense, "save" -more "capital"---than the most parsimonious of communities -which ever lived with its eyes on the Stock Exchange. To one -who thinks calmly over the recent experience of mankind -there is something almost unbearable in the reflection that -hitherto, outside a small circle of fortunate families, each -generation, as its faculties began to flower, has been -shovelled like raw material into an economic mill, to be -pounded and ground and kneaded into the malleable human pulp -out of which national prosperity and power, all the kingdoms -of the world and the glory of them, are supposed to be -manufactured. In England a new race of nearly 900,000 souls -bursts upon us every year; and if, instead of rejuvenating -the world, they grind corn for the Philistines and doff -bobbins for mill-owners, the responsibility is ours into -whose hands the prodigality of nature pours life itself, and -who let it slip aimlessly through the fingers that close so -greedily on material riches. - -The course of wisdom in the affairs of industry is, after -all, what it is in any other department of organized life. -It is to consider the end for which economic activity is -carried on and then to adapt economic organization to it. It -is to pay for service and for service only, and when capital -is hired to make sure that it is hired at the cheapest -possible price. It is to place the responsibility for -organizing industry on the shoulders of those who work and -use, not of those who own, because production is the -business of the producer and the proper person to see that -he discharges his business is the consumer, for whom, and -not for the owner of property, it ought to be carried on. -Above all it is to insist that all industries shall be -conducted in complete publicity as to costs and profits, -because publicity ought to be the antiseptic both of -economic and political abuses, and no man can have +The application to property and industry of the principle of function is +compatible with several different types of social organization, and is +as unlikely as more important revelations to be the secret of those who +cry "Lo here!" and "Lo there!" What it means, in effect, is that society +should be organized primarily for the performance of *duties*, not for +the maintenance of *rights*, and that the rights which it protects +should be those which are necessary to the discharge of social +obligations. But duties, unlike rights, are relative to some end or +purpose, for the sake of which they are imposed. The latter are a +principle of division; they enable men to resist. The former are a +principle of union; they lead men to co-operate. The essential thing, +therefore, is that men should fix their minds upon the idea of purpose, +and give that idea pre-eminence over all subsidiary issues. + +If, as is patent, the purpose of industry is to provide the material +foundations of a good social life, then any measure which makes that +provision more effective, so long as it does not conflict with some +still more important purpose, is wise, and any institution which thwarts +or encumbers it is foolish. It is foolish, for example, to maintain +property rights for which no service is performed, for payment without +service is waste; and if it is true, as statisticians affirm, that, even +were income equally divided, income per head would be small, then it is +all the more foolish. Sailors in a boat have no room for first-class +passengers, and, the smaller the total national income, the more +important is it that none of it should be misapplied. It is foolish to +leave the direction of industry in the hands of the servants of private +property-owners, who themselves know nothing about it but its balance +sheets, because this is to divert it from the performance of service to +the acquisition of gain, and to subordinate those who do creative work +to those who do not. + +It is foolish, above all, to cripple education, as it is crippled in +England for the sake of industry; for one of the uses of industry is to +provide the wealth which may make possible better education. If a +society with the sense to keep means and ends in their proper places did +no more than secure the investment in the education of children of a +fraction of the wealth which to-day is applied to the production of +futilities, it would do more for posterity---it would in a strictly +economic sense, "save" more "capital"---than the most parsimonious of +communities which ever lived with its eyes on the Stock Exchange. To one +who thinks calmly over the recent experience of mankind there is +something almost unbearable in the reflection that hitherto, outside a +small circle of fortunate families, each generation, as its faculties +began to flower, has been shovelled like raw material into an economic +mill, to be pounded and ground and kneaded into the malleable human pulp +out of which national prosperity and power, all the kingdoms of the +world and the glory of them, are supposed to be manufactured. In England +a new race of nearly 900,000 souls bursts upon us every year; and if, +instead of rejuvenating the world, they grind corn for the Philistines +and doff bobbins for mill-owners, the responsibility is ours into whose +hands the prodigality of nature pours life itself, and who let it slip +aimlessly through the fingers that close so greedily on material riches. + +The course of wisdom in the affairs of industry is, after all, what it +is in any other department of organized life. It is to consider the end +for which economic activity is carried on and then to adapt economic +organization to it. It is to pay for service and for service only, and +when capital is hired to make sure that it is hired at the cheapest +possible price. It is to place the responsibility for organizing +industry on the shoulders of those who work and use, not of those who +own, because production is the business of the producer and the proper +person to see that he discharges his business is the consumer, for whom, +and not for the owner of property, it ought to be carried on. Above all +it is to insist that all industries shall be conducted in complete +publicity as to costs and profits, because publicity ought to be the +antiseptic both of economic and political abuses, and no man can have confidence in his neighbour unless both work in the light. -As far as property is concerned, such a policy would possess -two edges. On the one hand, it would aim at abolishing those -forms of property in which ownership is divorced from -obligations. On the other hand, it would seek to encourage -those forms of economic organization under which the worker, -whether owner or not, is free to carry on his work without -sharing its control or its profits with the mere *rentier*. -Thus, if in certain spheres it involved an extension of -public ownership, it would in others foster an extension of -private property. For it is not private ownership, but -private ownership divorced from work, which is corrupting to -the principle of industry; and the idea of some socialists -that private property in land or capital is necessarily -mischievous is a piece of scholastic pedantry as absurd as -that of those conservatives who would invest all property -with some kind of mysterious sanctity. It all depends what -sort of property it is and for what purpose it is used. The -State can retain its eminent domain, and control alienation, -as it does under the Homestead laws of the Dominions, with -sufficient stringency to prevent the creation of a class of -functionless property-owners. In that case there is no -inconsistency between encouraging simultaneously a -multiplication of peasant farmers and small masters who own -their own farms or shops, and the abolition of private +As far as property is concerned, such a policy would possess two edges. +On the one hand, it would aim at abolishing those forms of property in +which ownership is divorced from obligations. On the other hand, it +would seek to encourage those forms of economic organization under which +the worker, whether owner or not, is free to carry on his work without +sharing its control or its profits with the mere *rentier*. Thus, if in +certain spheres it involved an extension of public ownership, it would +in others foster an extension of private property. For it is not private +ownership, but private ownership divorced from work, which is corrupting +to the principle of industry; and the idea of some socialists that +private property in land or capital is necessarily mischievous is a +piece of scholastic pedantry as absurd as that of those conservatives +who would invest all property with some kind of mysterious sanctity. It +all depends what sort of property it is and for what purpose it is used. +The State can retain its eminent domain, and control alienation, as it +does under the Homestead laws of the Dominions, with sufficient +stringency to prevent the creation of a class of functionless +property-owners. In that case there is no inconsistency between +encouraging simultaneously a multiplication of peasant farmers and small +masters who own their own farms or shops, and the abolition of private ownership in those industries, unfortunately to-day the most -conspicuous, in which the private owner is an absentee -shareholder. - -Indeed, the second reform would help the first. In so far as -the community tolerates functionless property, it makes -difficult, if not impossible, the restoration of the small -master in agriculture or in industry, who cannot easily hold -his own in a world dominated by great estates or capitalist -finance. In so far as it abolishes those kinds of property -which are merely parasitic, it facilitates the restoration -of the small property-owners in those kinds of industry for -which small ownership is adapted. A socialistic policy -towards the former is not antagonistic to the "distributive -state," but, in modern economic conditions, a necessary -preliminary to it; and if by "Property" is meant the -personal possessions which the word suggests to nine-tenths -of the population, the object of socialists is not to -undermine property but to protect and increase it. - -The boundary between large scale and small scale production -will always be uncertain and fluctuating, depending, as it -does, on technical conditions which cannot be foreseen: a -cheapening of electrical power, for example, might result in -the decentralization of manufactures, as steam resulted in -their concentration. The fundamental issue, however, is not -between different scales of ownership, but between ownership -of different kinds, not between the large farmer or master -and the small, but between property which is used for work -and property which yields income without it. The Irish -landlord was abolished, not because he owned upon a large -scale, but because he was an owner and nothing more; if and -when English landownership has been equally attenuated, as -in towns it already has been, it will deserve to meet the -same fate. Once the issue of the character of ownership has -been settled, the question of the size of the economic unit -can be left to settle itself. - -The first step, then, towards the organization of economic -life for the performance of function is to abolish those -types of private property in return for which no function is -performed. The man who lives by owning without working is -necessarily supported by the industry of some one else, and -is, therefore, too expensive a luxury to be encouraged. -Though he deserves to be treated with the leniency which -ought to be, and usually is not, shown to those who have -been brought up from infancy to any other disreputable -trade, indulgence to individuals must not condone the -institution of which both they and their neighbours are the -victims. Judged by this standard, certain kinds of property -are obviously anti-social. The rights in virtue of which the -owner of land is entitled to levy a tax, called a royalty, -on every ton of coal which the miner brings to the surface, -to levy another tax, called a way-leave, on every ton of -coal transported under the surface of his land though its -amenity and value may be quite unaffected, to distort, if he -pleases, the development of a whole district by refusing -access to the minerals except upon his own terms, and to -cause some 3,500 to 4,000 million tons to be wasted in -barriers between different properties, while he in the -meantime contributes to a chorus of lamentations over the -wickedness of the miners in not producing more tons of coal -for the public and incidentally more private taxes for -himself---all this adds an agreeable touch of humour to the -drab quality of our industrial civilization, for which -mineral owners deserve, perhaps, some recognition, but not -the £100,000 a year odd which is paid to each of the four -leading players, or the £6,000,000 a year which is -distributed among the crowd. - -The alchemy by which a gentleman who has never seen a coal -mine distils the contents of that place of gloom into -elegant chambers in London and a house in the country is not -the monopoly of royalty owners. A similar feat of -prestidigitation is performed by the owner of urban -ground-rents. In rural districts some landlords, perhaps -many landlords, are partners in the hazardous and difficult -business of agriculture, and, though they may often exercise -a power which is socially excessive, the position which they -hold and the income which they receive are, in part at -least, a return for the functions which they perform. The -ownership of urban land has been refined till of that crude -ore only the pure gold is left. It is the perfect sinecure, -for the only function it involves is that of collecting its -rents, and in an age when the struggle of Liberalism against -sinecures was still sufficiently recent to stir some chords -of memory, the last and the greatest of liberal thinkers -drew the obvious deduction. "The reasons which form the -justification... of property in land," wrote Mill in 1848, -"are valid only in so far as the proprietor of land is its -improver... In no sound theory of private property was it -ever contemplated that the proprietor of land should be -merely a sinecurist quartered on it." - -Urban ground-rents and royalties are, in fact, as the Prime -Minister in his unregenerate days suggested, a tax which -some persons are permitted by the law to levy upon the -industry of others. They differ from public taxation only in -that their amount increases in proportion, not to the -nation's need of revenue, but to its need of the coal and -space on which they are levied, that their growth inures to -private gain not to public benefit, and that, if the -proceeds are wasted on frivolous expenditure, no one has any -right to complain, because the arrangement by which Lord -Smithson spends the wealth produced by Mr. Brown on objects -which do no good to either is part of the system which, -under the name of private property, Mr. Brown as well as -Lord Smithson have been taught to regard as essential to the -higher welfare of mankind. - -But if we accept the principle of function we shall ask what -is the *purpose* of this arrangement, and for what *end* the -inhabitants of, for example, London pay£16,000,000 a year to -their ground landlords. And if we find that it is for no -purpose and no end, but that these things are like the -horseshoes and nails which the City of London presents to -the Crown on account of land in the Parish of St. Clement -Danes, then we shall not deal harshly with a quaint -historical survival, but neither shall we allow it to -distract us from the business of the present, as though -there had been history but there were not history any -longer. We shall close these channels through which wealth -leaks away by resuming the ownership of minerals and of -urban land, as some communities in the British Dominions and -on the Continent of Europe have resumed it already. We shall -secure that such large accumulations as remain change hands -at least once in every generation, by increasing our taxes -on inheritance till what passes to the heir is little more -than personal possessions, not the right to a tribute from -industry which, though qualified by death-duties, is what -the son of a rich man inherits to-day. We shall, in short, -treat mineral owners and absentee landowners as Plato would -have treated the poets, whom, in their ability to make -something out of nothing and to bewitch mankind with words, -they a little resemble, and crown them with flowers and -usher them politely out of the State. +conspicuous, in which the private owner is an absentee shareholder. + +Indeed, the second reform would help the first. In so far as the +community tolerates functionless property, it makes difficult, if not +impossible, the restoration of the small master in agriculture or in +industry, who cannot easily hold his own in a world dominated by great +estates or capitalist finance. In so far as it abolishes those kinds of +property which are merely parasitic, it facilitates the restoration of +the small property-owners in those kinds of industry for which small +ownership is adapted. A socialistic policy towards the former is not +antagonistic to the "distributive state," but, in modern economic +conditions, a necessary preliminary to it; and if by "Property" is meant +the personal possessions which the word suggests to nine-tenths of the +population, the object of socialists is not to undermine property but to +protect and increase it. + +The boundary between large scale and small scale production will always +be uncertain and fluctuating, depending, as it does, on technical +conditions which cannot be foreseen: a cheapening of electrical power, +for example, might result in the decentralization of manufactures, as +steam resulted in their concentration. The fundamental issue, however, +is not between different scales of ownership, but between ownership of +different kinds, not between the large farmer or master and the small, +but between property which is used for work and property which yields +income without it. The Irish landlord was abolished, not because he +owned upon a large scale, but because he was an owner and nothing more; +if and when English landownership has been equally attenuated, as in +towns it already has been, it will deserve to meet the same fate. Once +the issue of the character of ownership has been settled, the question +of the size of the economic unit can be left to settle itself. + +The first step, then, towards the organization of economic life for the +performance of function is to abolish those types of private property in +return for which no function is performed. The man who lives by owning +without working is necessarily supported by the industry of some one +else, and is, therefore, too expensive a luxury to be encouraged. Though +he deserves to be treated with the leniency which ought to be, and +usually is not, shown to those who have been brought up from infancy to +any other disreputable trade, indulgence to individuals must not condone +the institution of which both they and their neighbours are the victims. +Judged by this standard, certain kinds of property are obviously +anti-social. The rights in virtue of which the owner of land is entitled +to levy a tax, called a royalty, on every ton of coal which the miner +brings to the surface, to levy another tax, called a way-leave, on every +ton of coal transported under the surface of his land though its amenity +and value may be quite unaffected, to distort, if he pleases, the +development of a whole district by refusing access to the minerals +except upon his own terms, and to cause some 3,500 to 4,000 million tons +to be wasted in barriers between different properties, while he in the +meantime contributes to a chorus of lamentations over the wickedness of +the miners in not producing more tons of coal for the public and +incidentally more private taxes for himself---all this adds an agreeable +touch of humour to the drab quality of our industrial civilization, for +which mineral owners deserve, perhaps, some recognition, but not the +£100,000 a year odd which is paid to each of the four leading players, +or the £6,000,000 a year which is distributed among the crowd. + +The alchemy by which a gentleman who has never seen a coal mine distils +the contents of that place of gloom into elegant chambers in London and +a house in the country is not the monopoly of royalty owners. A similar +feat of prestidigitation is performed by the owner of urban +ground-rents. In rural districts some landlords, perhaps many landlords, +are partners in the hazardous and difficult business of agriculture, +and, though they may often exercise a power which is socially excessive, +the position which they hold and the income which they receive are, in +part at least, a return for the functions which they perform. The +ownership of urban land has been refined till of that crude ore only the +pure gold is left. It is the perfect sinecure, for the only function it +involves is that of collecting its rents, and in an age when the +struggle of Liberalism against sinecures was still sufficiently recent +to stir some chords of memory, the last and the greatest of liberal +thinkers drew the obvious deduction. "The reasons which form the +justification... of property in land," wrote Mill in 1848, "are valid +only in so far as the proprietor of land is its improver... In no sound +theory of private property was it ever contemplated that the proprietor +of land should be merely a sinecurist quartered on it." + +Urban ground-rents and royalties are, in fact, as the Prime Minister in +his unregenerate days suggested, a tax which some persons are permitted +by the law to levy upon the industry of others. They differ from public +taxation only in that their amount increases in proportion, not to the +nation's need of revenue, but to its need of the coal and space on which +they are levied, that their growth inures to private gain not to public +benefit, and that, if the proceeds are wasted on frivolous expenditure, +no one has any right to complain, because the arrangement by which Lord +Smithson spends the wealth produced by Mr. Brown on objects which do no +good to either is part of the system which, under the name of private +property, Mr. Brown as well as Lord Smithson have been taught to regard +as essential to the higher welfare of mankind. + +But if we accept the principle of function we shall ask what is the +*purpose* of this arrangement, and for what *end* the inhabitants of, +for example, London pay£16,000,000 a year to their ground landlords. And +if we find that it is for no purpose and no end, but that these things +are like the horseshoes and nails which the City of London presents to +the Crown on account of land in the Parish of St. Clement Danes, then we +shall not deal harshly with a quaint historical survival, but neither +shall we allow it to distract us from the business of the present, as +though there had been history but there were not history any longer. We +shall close these channels through which wealth leaks away by resuming +the ownership of minerals and of urban land, as some communities in the +British Dominions and on the Continent of Europe have resumed it +already. We shall secure that such large accumulations as remain change +hands at least once in every generation, by increasing our taxes on +inheritance till what passes to the heir is little more than personal +possessions, not the right to a tribute from industry which, though +qualified by death-duties, is what the son of a rich man inherits +to-day. We shall, in short, treat mineral owners and absentee landowners +as Plato would have treated the poets, whom, in their ability to make +something out of nothing and to bewitch mankind with words, they a +little resemble, and crown them with flowers and usher them politely out +of the State. # The Liberation of Industry -Rights without functions are like the shades in Homer, which -drank blood but scattered trembling at the voice of a man. -To extinguish royalties and urban ground-rents is merely to -explode a superstition. It needs as little---and as -much---resolution as to put one's hand through any other -ghost. In all industries except the diminishing number in -which the capitalist is himself the manager, property in -capital is almost equally passive. - -Almost, but not quite. For, though the majority of its -owners do not themselves exercise any positive function, -they appoint those who do. It is true, of course, that the -question of how capital is to be owned is distinct from the -question of how it is to be administered, and that the -former can be settled without prejudice to the latter. -Shareholders own capital which is indispensable to industry, -but it does not therefore follow that industry is dependent -upon the maintenance of capital in the hands of -shareholders. To write, with some economists, as though, if -private property in capital were further attenuated or -abolished altogether, the constructive energy of the -managers who may own capital or may not, but who rarely, in -the more important industries, own more than a small -fraction of it, must necessarily be impaired, is to be -guilty of a robust non-sequitur and to ignore the most -obvious facts of contemporary industry. The less the mere -capitalist talks about the necessity for the consumer of an -efficient organization of industry, the better; for, -whatever the future of industry may be, an efficient +Rights without functions are like the shades in Homer, which drank blood +but scattered trembling at the voice of a man. To extinguish royalties +and urban ground-rents is merely to explode a superstition. It needs as +little---and as much---resolution as to put one's hand through any other +ghost. In all industries except the diminishing number in which the +capitalist is himself the manager, property in capital is almost equally +passive. + +Almost, but not quite. For, though the majority of its owners do not +themselves exercise any positive function, they appoint those who do. It +is true, of course, that the question of how capital is to be owned is +distinct from the question of how it is to be administered, and that the +former can be settled without prejudice to the latter. Shareholders own +capital which is indispensable to industry, but it does not therefore +follow that industry is dependent upon the maintenance of capital in the +hands of shareholders. To write, with some economists, as though, if +private property in capital were further attenuated or abolished +altogether, the constructive energy of the managers who may own capital +or may not, but who rarely, in the more important industries, own more +than a small fraction of it, must necessarily be impaired, is to be +guilty of a robust non-sequitur and to ignore the most obvious facts of +contemporary industry. The less the mere capitalist talks about the +necessity for the consumer of an efficient organization of industry, the +better; for, whatever the future of industry may be, an efficient organization is likely to have no room for *him*. But though -shareholders do not govern, they reign, at least to the -extent of saying once a year "*le roy le veult.*" If their -rights are pared down or extinguished, the necessity for -some organ to exercise them will still remain. And the -question of the ownership of capital has this much in common -with the question of industrial organization, that the -problem of the constitution under which industry is to be -conducted is common to both. +shareholders do not govern, they reign, at least to the extent of saying +once a year "*le roy le veult.*" If their rights are pared down or +extinguished, the necessity for some organ to exercise them will still +remain. And the question of the ownership of capital has this much in +common with the question of industrial organization, that the problem of +the constitution under which industry is to be conducted is common to +both. ## (a) Industry as a Profession -That constitution must be sought by considering how industry -can be organized to express most perfectly the principle of -purpose. The application to industry of the principle of -purpose is simple, however difficult it may be to give -effect to it. It is to turn it into a Profession. A -Profession may be defined most simply as a trade which is -organized, incompletely, no doubt, but genuinely, for the -performance of function. It is not simply a collection of -individuals who get a living for themselves by the same kind -of work. Nor is it merely a group which is organized -exclusively for the economic protection of its members, -though that is normally among its purposes. It is a body of -men who carry on their work in accordance with rules -designed to enforce certain standards both for the better -protection of its members and for the better service of the -public. - -The standard which it maintains may be high or low: all -professions have some rules which protect the interests of -the community and others which are an imposition on it. Its -essence is that it assumes certain responsibilities for the -competence of its members or the quality of its wares, and -that it deliberately prohibits certain kinds of conduct on -the ground that, though they may be profitable to the -individual, they are calculated to bring into disrepute the -organization to which he belongs. While some of its rules -are trade union regulations designed primarily to prevent -the economic standards of the profession being lowered by -unscrupulous competition, others have as their main object -to secure that no member of the profession shall have any -but a purely professional interest in his work, by excluding -the incentive of speculative profit. Business men may cajole -the public from every hoarding. But doctors, architects, -consulting engineers, and even lawyers are prohibited by -their professional associations from advertising, from -having any pecuniary interest in the treatment or course of -action recommended to their clients, or from receiving -commissions. The fees which the more eminent among them -charge for their professional services may often be -excessive. But they may charge for professional services and -for nothing else. - -The conception implied in the words "unprofessional conduct" -is, therefore, the exact opposite of the theory and practice -which assume that the service of the public is best secured -by the unrestricted pursuit on the part of rival traders of -their pecuniary self-interest, within such limits as the law -allows. It is significant that at the time when the -professional classes had deified free competition as the -arbiter of commerce and industry, they did not dream of -applying it to the occupations in which they themselves were -primarily interested, but maintained, and indeed, -elaborated, machinery through which a professional -conscience might find expression. The rules themselves may -sometimes appear to the layman arbitrary and ill-conceived. -But their object is clear. It is to impose on the profession -itself the obligation of maintaining the quality of the -service, and to prevent its common purpose being frustrated -through the undue influence of the motive of pecuniary gain -upon the necessities or cupidity of the individual. - -The difference between industry as it exists today and a -profession is, then, simple and unmistakable. The former is -organized for the protection of *rights*, mainly rights to -pecuniary gain, The latter is organized, imperfectly indeed, -but none the less genuinely, for the performance of -*duties*. The essence of the one is that its only criterion -is the financial return which it offers to its shareholders. -The essence of the other, is that, though men enter it for -the sake of livelihood, the measures of their success is the -service which they perform, not the gains which they amass. -They may, as in the case of a successful doctor, grow rich; -but the meaning of their profession, both for themselves and -for the public, is not that they make money but that they -make health, or safety, or knowledge, or good government or -good law. They depend on it for their income, but they do -not consider that any conduct which increases their income -is on that account right. And while a boot-manufacturer who -retires with half a million is counted to have achieved -success, whether the boots which he made were of leather or -brown paper, a civil servant who did the same would, very -properly, be prosecuted. - -So, if men are doctors, they recognize that there are -certain kinds of conduct which cannot be practised, however -large the fee offered for them, because they are -unprofessional; if scholars and teachers, that it is wrong -to make money by deliberately deceiving the public, as is -done by makers of patent medicines, however much the public -may clamour to be deceived; if judges or public servants, -that they must not increase their incomes by selling justice -for money; if soldiers, that the service comes first, and -their private inclinations, even the reasonable preference -of life to death, second. Every country has its traitors, -every army its deserters, and every profession its -blacklegs. To idealize the professional spirit would be very -absurd; is has its sordid side, and, if it is to be fostered -in industry, safeguards will be needed to check its -excesses. Clearly, a profession should not have the final -voice in deciding the charge to be made for its services. It -ought not by itself to determine the conditions on which new -members are to be admitted. It should not have so exclusive -a control even of its own technique as to be in a position -to meet proposals for improvement with the determined -obstructiveness which the legal profession has offered, for -example, to the registration of land. But there is all the -difference between maintaining a standard which is -occasionally abandoned, and affirming as the central truth -of existence that there is no standard to maintain. The -meaning of a profession is that it makes the traitors the -exception, not, as they tend to be in industry, the rule. It -makes them the exception by upholding as the criterion of -success the end for which the profession, whatever it may -be, is carried on, and subordinating the inclinations, -appetites and ambitions of individuals to the rules of an -organization which has as its object to promote the -performance of function. - -There is no sharp line between the professions and the -industries. A hundred years ago the trade of teaching, which -to-day is on the whole an honourable public service, was -rather a vulgar speculation upon public credulity; if -Mr. Squeers was a caricature, the Oxford of Gibbon and Adam -Smith was a solid port-fed reality; no local authority could -have performed one-tenth of the duties which are carried out -by a modern municipal corporation every day, because there -was no body of public servants to perform them, and such as -there were took bribes. It is conceivable, at least, that -some branches of medicine might have developed on the lines -of industrial capitalism, with hospitals as factories, -doctors hired at competitive wages as their "hands," large -dividends paid to shareholders by catering for the rich, and -the poor, who do not offer a profitable market, supplied -with an inferior service or with no service at all. - -The idea that there is some mysterious difference between -making munitions of war and firing them,, between building -schools and teaching in them when built, between providing -food and providing health, which makes it at once inevitable -and laudable that the former should be carried on with a -single eye to pecuniary gain, while the latter are conducted -by professional men, who expect to be paid for their -services, but who neither watch for windfalls nor raise -their fees merely because there are more sick to be cured, -more children to be taught, or more enemies to be resisted, -is an illusion only less astonishing than that the leaders -of industry should welcome the insult as an honour and wear -their humiliation as a kind of halo. The work of making -boots or building a house is in itself no more degrading -than that of curing the sick or teaching the ignorant. It is -as necessary and therefore as honourable. It should be at -least equally bound by rules which have as their object to -maintain the standards of professional service. It should be -at least equally free from the vulgar subordination of moral +That constitution must be sought by considering how industry can be +organized to express most perfectly the principle of purpose. The +application to industry of the principle of purpose is simple, however +difficult it may be to give effect to it. It is to turn it into a +Profession. A Profession may be defined most simply as a trade which is +organized, incompletely, no doubt, but genuinely, for the performance of +function. It is not simply a collection of individuals who get a living +for themselves by the same kind of work. Nor is it merely a group which +is organized exclusively for the economic protection of its members, +though that is normally among its purposes. It is a body of men who +carry on their work in accordance with rules designed to enforce certain +standards both for the better protection of its members and for the +better service of the public. + +The standard which it maintains may be high or low: all professions have +some rules which protect the interests of the community and others which +are an imposition on it. Its essence is that it assumes certain +responsibilities for the competence of its members or the quality of its +wares, and that it deliberately prohibits certain kinds of conduct on +the ground that, though they may be profitable to the individual, they +are calculated to bring into disrepute the organization to which he +belongs. While some of its rules are trade union regulations designed +primarily to prevent the economic standards of the profession being +lowered by unscrupulous competition, others have as their main object to +secure that no member of the profession shall have any but a purely +professional interest in his work, by excluding the incentive of +speculative profit. Business men may cajole the public from every +hoarding. But doctors, architects, consulting engineers, and even +lawyers are prohibited by their professional associations from +advertising, from having any pecuniary interest in the treatment or +course of action recommended to their clients, or from receiving +commissions. The fees which the more eminent among them charge for their +professional services may often be excessive. But they may charge for +professional services and for nothing else. + +The conception implied in the words "unprofessional conduct" is, +therefore, the exact opposite of the theory and practice which assume +that the service of the public is best secured by the unrestricted +pursuit on the part of rival traders of their pecuniary self-interest, +within such limits as the law allows. It is significant that at the time +when the professional classes had deified free competition as the +arbiter of commerce and industry, they did not dream of applying it to +the occupations in which they themselves were primarily interested, but +maintained, and indeed, elaborated, machinery through which a +professional conscience might find expression. The rules themselves may +sometimes appear to the layman arbitrary and ill-conceived. But their +object is clear. It is to impose on the profession itself the obligation +of maintaining the quality of the service, and to prevent its common +purpose being frustrated through the undue influence of the motive of +pecuniary gain upon the necessities or cupidity of the individual. + +The difference between industry as it exists today and a profession is, +then, simple and unmistakable. The former is organized for the +protection of *rights*, mainly rights to pecuniary gain, The latter is +organized, imperfectly indeed, but none the less genuinely, for the +performance of *duties*. The essence of the one is that its only +criterion is the financial return which it offers to its shareholders. +The essence of the other, is that, though men enter it for the sake of +livelihood, the measures of their success is the service which they +perform, not the gains which they amass. They may, as in the case of a +successful doctor, grow rich; but the meaning of their profession, both +for themselves and for the public, is not that they make money but that +they make health, or safety, or knowledge, or good government or good +law. They depend on it for their income, but they do not consider that +any conduct which increases their income is on that account right. And +while a boot-manufacturer who retires with half a million is counted to +have achieved success, whether the boots which he made were of leather +or brown paper, a civil servant who did the same would, very properly, +be prosecuted. + +So, if men are doctors, they recognize that there are certain kinds of +conduct which cannot be practised, however large the fee offered for +them, because they are unprofessional; if scholars and teachers, that it +is wrong to make money by deliberately deceiving the public, as is done +by makers of patent medicines, however much the public may clamour to be +deceived; if judges or public servants, that they must not increase +their incomes by selling justice for money; if soldiers, that the +service comes first, and their private inclinations, even the reasonable +preference of life to death, second. Every country has its traitors, +every army its deserters, and every profession its blacklegs. To +idealize the professional spirit would be very absurd; is has its sordid +side, and, if it is to be fostered in industry, safeguards will be +needed to check its excesses. Clearly, a profession should not have the +final voice in deciding the charge to be made for its services. It ought +not by itself to determine the conditions on which new members are to be +admitted. It should not have so exclusive a control even of its own +technique as to be in a position to meet proposals for improvement with +the determined obstructiveness which the legal profession has offered, +for example, to the registration of land. But there is all the +difference between maintaining a standard which is occasionally +abandoned, and affirming as the central truth of existence that there is +no standard to maintain. The meaning of a profession is that it makes +the traitors the exception, not, as they tend to be in industry, the +rule. It makes them the exception by upholding as the criterion of +success the end for which the profession, whatever it may be, is carried +on, and subordinating the inclinations, appetites and ambitions of +individuals to the rules of an organization which has as its object to +promote the performance of function. + +There is no sharp line between the professions and the industries. A +hundred years ago the trade of teaching, which to-day is on the whole an +honourable public service, was rather a vulgar speculation upon public +credulity; if Mr. Squeers was a caricature, the Oxford of Gibbon and +Adam Smith was a solid port-fed reality; no local authority could have +performed one-tenth of the duties which are carried out by a modern +municipal corporation every day, because there was no body of public +servants to perform them, and such as there were took bribes. It is +conceivable, at least, that some branches of medicine might have +developed on the lines of industrial capitalism, with hospitals as +factories, doctors hired at competitive wages as their "hands," large +dividends paid to shareholders by catering for the rich, and the poor, +who do not offer a profitable market, supplied with an inferior service +or with no service at all. + +The idea that there is some mysterious difference between making +munitions of war and firing them,, between building schools and teaching +in them when built, between providing food and providing health, which +makes it at once inevitable and laudable that the former should be +carried on with a single eye to pecuniary gain, while the latter are +conducted by professional men, who expect to be paid for their services, +but who neither watch for windfalls nor raise their fees merely because +there are more sick to be cured, more children to be taught, or more +enemies to be resisted, is an illusion only less astonishing than that +the leaders of industry should welcome the insult as an honour and wear +their humiliation as a kind of halo. The work of making boots or +building a house is in itself no more degrading than that of curing the +sick or teaching the ignorant. It is as necessary and therefore as +honourable. It should be at least equally bound by rules which have as +their object to maintain the standards of professional service. It +should be at least equally free from the vulgar subordination of moral standards to financial interests. -If industry is to be organized as a profession, two changes -are requisite, one negative and one positive. The first, is -that it should cease to be conducted by the agents of -property-owners for the advantage of property-owners, and -should be carried on, instead, for the service of the -public. The second, is that, subject to rigorous public -supervision, the responsibility for the maintenance of the -service should rest upon the shoulders of those, from -organizer and scientist to labourer, by whom, in effect, the -work is conducted. - -The first change is necessary because the conduct of -industry for the public advantage is impossible as long as -the ultimate authority over its management is vested in -those whose only connection with it, and interest in it, is -the pursuit of gain. As industry is at present organized, -its profits and its control belong by law to that element in -it which has least to do with its success. Under the -joint-stock organization which has become normal in all the -more important industries except agriculture and building, -it is managed by the salaried agents of those by whom the -property is owned. It is successful if it returns large sums -to shareholders, and unsuccessful if it does not. If an -opportunity presents itself to increase dividends by -practices which deteriorate the service or degrade the -workers, the officials who administer industry act strictly -within their duty if they seize it, for they are the -servants of their employers, and their obligation to their -employers is to provide dividends not to provide service. -But the owners of property are, *qua* property-owners, -functionless, not in the sense, of course, that the tools of -which they are the proprietors are not useful, but in the -sense that since work and ownership are increasingly -separated, the efficient use of the tools is not dependent -on the maintenance of the proprietary rights exercised over -them. Of course there are many managing directors who both -own capital and administer the business. But it is none the -less the case that most shareholders in most large -industries are normally shareholders and nothing more. - -Nor is their economic interest identical, as is sometimes -assumed, with that of the general public. A society is rich -when material goods, including capital, are cheap, and human -beings dear; indeed the word "riches" has no other meaning. -The interest of those who own the property used in industry, -though not, of course, of the managers who administer -industry and who themselves are servants, and often very -ill-paid servants at that, is that their capital should be -dear and human beings cheap. Hence, if the industry is such -as to yield a considerable return, or if one unit in the -industry, owing to some special advantage, produces more -cheaply than its neighbours, while selling at the same -price, or if a revival of trade raises prices, or if -supplies are controlled by one of the combines which are now -the rule in many of the more important industries, the -resulting surplus normally passes neither to the managers, -nor to the other employees, nor to the public, but to the -shareholders. - -Such an arrangement is preposterous in the literal sense of -being the reverse of that which would be established by -considerations of equity and common sense, and gives rise -(among other anomalies) to what is called "the struggle -between labour and capital." The phrase is apposite, since -it is as absurd as the relations of which it is intended to -be a description. To deplore "ill-feeling", or to advocate -"harmony", between "labour and capital" is as rational as to -lament the bitterness between carpenters and hammers or to -promote a mission for restoring amity between mankind and -its boots. The only significance of these *clichés* is that -their repetition tends to muffle their inanity, even to the -point of persuading sensible men that capital "employs" -labour, much as our pagan ancestors imagined that the pieces -of wood and iron, which they deified in their day, sent -their crops and won their battles. When men have gone so far -as to talk as though their idols have come to life, it is -time that some one broke them. Labour consists of persons, -capital of things. The only use of things is to be applied -to the service of persons. The business of persons is to see -that they are there to use, and that no more than need be is -paid for using them. - -Thus the application to industry of the principle of -function involves an alteration of proprietary rights, -because those rights do not contribute, as they now are, to -the end which industry exists to serve. What gives unity to -any activity, what alone can reconcile the conflicting -claims of the different groups engaged in it, is the purpose -for which it is carried on. If men have no common goal it is -no wonder that they should fall out by the way, nor are they -likely to be reconciled by a redistribution of their -provisions. If they are not content both to be servants, one -or the other must be master, and it is idle to suppose that -mastership can be held in a state of suspense between the -two. There can be a division of functions between different -grades of workers, or between worker and consumer, because -each, without prejudice to the other, can have in his own -sphere the authority needed to enable him to fill it. But -there cannot be a division of functions between the worker -and the owner who is owner and nothing else, for what -function does such an owner perform? The provision of -capital? Then pay him the sum needed to secure the use of -his capital, but neither pay him more nor admit him to a -position of authority over production for which, merely as -an owner, he is not qualified. For this reason, while an -equilibrium between worker and manager is possible, because -both are workers, that which it is sought to establish -between workers and owners is not. It is like the offer -which the Germans made to negotiate with Belgium from -Brussels. Their proposals may be excellent: but it is not -evident why they are where they are, or how, since they do -not contribute to production, they come to be putting -forward proposals at all. As long as they are in territory -where they have no business to be, their excellence as -individuals will be overlooked in resentment at the system -which puts them in a position of authority. - -It is fortunate indeed, if nothing worse than this happens. -For one way of solving the problem of the conflict of rights -in industry is not to base rights on functions, as we -propose, but to base them on force. It is to re-establish in -some veiled and decorous form the institution of slavery, by -making labour compulsory. In nearly all countries a -concerted refusal to work has been made at one time or -another a criminal offence. There are to-day parts of the -British Empire, as well as of the world outside it, in which -European capitalists, unchecked by any public opinion or -authority independent of themselves, are free to impose -almost what terms they please upon workmen of ignorant and -helpless races. In those districts of America where -capitalism still retains its primitive lawlessness, the same -result appears to be produced upon immigrant workmen by the -threat of violence. - -In such circumstances the conflict of rights which finds -expression in industrial warfare does not arise, because the -rights of one party have been extinguished. The simplicity -of the remedy is so attractive that it is not surprising -that the Governments of industrial nations should coquet -from time to time with the policy of compulsory arbitration. -After all, it is pleaded, it is only analogous to the action -of a super-national authority which should use its common -force to prevent the outbreak of war. In reality, compulsory -arbitration is the opposite of any policy which such an -authority could pursue either with justice or with hope of -success. For it takes for granted the stability of existing -relationships, and intervenes to adjust incidental disputes -upon the assumption that their equity is recognized and -their permanence desired. In industry, however, the equity -of existing relationships is precisely the point at issue. A -League of Nations which settled the quarrel between a -subject race and its oppressors, between Slavs and Magyars, -or the inhabitants of what was once Prussian Poland and the -Prussian Government, on the assumption that the -subordination of Slav to Magyars and Poles to Prussians was -part of an unchangeable order, would rightly be resisted by -all those who think liberty more precious than peace. A -State which, in the name of peace, should make the concerted -cessation of work a legal offence, would be guilty of a -similar betrayal of freedom. It would be solving the -conflict of rights between those who own and those who work -by abolishing the rights of those who work. +If industry is to be organized as a profession, two changes are +requisite, one negative and one positive. The first, is that it should +cease to be conducted by the agents of property-owners for the advantage +of property-owners, and should be carried on, instead, for the service +of the public. The second, is that, subject to rigorous public +supervision, the responsibility for the maintenance of the service +should rest upon the shoulders of those, from organizer and scientist to +labourer, by whom, in effect, the work is conducted. + +The first change is necessary because the conduct of industry for the +public advantage is impossible as long as the ultimate authority over +its management is vested in those whose only connection with it, and +interest in it, is the pursuit of gain. As industry is at present +organized, its profits and its control belong by law to that element in +it which has least to do with its success. Under the joint-stock +organization which has become normal in all the more important +industries except agriculture and building, it is managed by the +salaried agents of those by whom the property is owned. It is successful +if it returns large sums to shareholders, and unsuccessful if it does +not. If an opportunity presents itself to increase dividends by +practices which deteriorate the service or degrade the workers, the +officials who administer industry act strictly within their duty if they +seize it, for they are the servants of their employers, and their +obligation to their employers is to provide dividends not to provide +service. But the owners of property are, *qua* property-owners, +functionless, not in the sense, of course, that the tools of which they +are the proprietors are not useful, but in the sense that since work and +ownership are increasingly separated, the efficient use of the tools is +not dependent on the maintenance of the proprietary rights exercised +over them. Of course there are many managing directors who both own +capital and administer the business. But it is none the less the case +that most shareholders in most large industries are normally +shareholders and nothing more. + +Nor is their economic interest identical, as is sometimes assumed, with +that of the general public. A society is rich when material goods, +including capital, are cheap, and human beings dear; indeed the word +"riches" has no other meaning. The interest of those who own the +property used in industry, though not, of course, of the managers who +administer industry and who themselves are servants, and often very +ill-paid servants at that, is that their capital should be dear and +human beings cheap. Hence, if the industry is such as to yield a +considerable return, or if one unit in the industry, owing to some +special advantage, produces more cheaply than its neighbours, while +selling at the same price, or if a revival of trade raises prices, or if +supplies are controlled by one of the combines which are now the rule in +many of the more important industries, the resulting surplus normally +passes neither to the managers, nor to the other employees, nor to the +public, but to the shareholders. + +Such an arrangement is preposterous in the literal sense of being the +reverse of that which would be established by considerations of equity +and common sense, and gives rise (among other anomalies) to what is +called "the struggle between labour and capital." The phrase is +apposite, since it is as absurd as the relations of which it is intended +to be a description. To deplore "ill-feeling", or to advocate "harmony", +between "labour and capital" is as rational as to lament the bitterness +between carpenters and hammers or to promote a mission for restoring +amity between mankind and its boots. The only significance of these +*clichés* is that their repetition tends to muffle their inanity, even +to the point of persuading sensible men that capital "employs" labour, +much as our pagan ancestors imagined that the pieces of wood and iron, +which they deified in their day, sent their crops and won their battles. +When men have gone so far as to talk as though their idols have come to +life, it is time that some one broke them. Labour consists of persons, +capital of things. The only use of things is to be applied to the +service of persons. The business of persons is to see that they are +there to use, and that no more than need be is paid for using them. + +Thus the application to industry of the principle of function involves +an alteration of proprietary rights, because those rights do not +contribute, as they now are, to the end which industry exists to serve. +What gives unity to any activity, what alone can reconcile the +conflicting claims of the different groups engaged in it, is the purpose +for which it is carried on. If men have no common goal it is no wonder +that they should fall out by the way, nor are they likely to be +reconciled by a redistribution of their provisions. If they are not +content both to be servants, one or the other must be master, and it is +idle to suppose that mastership can be held in a state of suspense +between the two. There can be a division of functions between different +grades of workers, or between worker and consumer, because each, without +prejudice to the other, can have in his own sphere the authority needed +to enable him to fill it. But there cannot be a division of functions +between the worker and the owner who is owner and nothing else, for what +function does such an owner perform? The provision of capital? Then pay +him the sum needed to secure the use of his capital, but neither pay him +more nor admit him to a position of authority over production for which, +merely as an owner, he is not qualified. For this reason, while an +equilibrium between worker and manager is possible, because both are +workers, that which it is sought to establish between workers and owners +is not. It is like the offer which the Germans made to negotiate with +Belgium from Brussels. Their proposals may be excellent: but it is not +evident why they are where they are, or how, since they do not +contribute to production, they come to be putting forward proposals at +all. As long as they are in territory where they have no business to be, +their excellence as individuals will be overlooked in resentment at the +system which puts them in a position of authority. + +It is fortunate indeed, if nothing worse than this happens. For one way +of solving the problem of the conflict of rights in industry is not to +base rights on functions, as we propose, but to base them on force. It +is to re-establish in some veiled and decorous form the institution of +slavery, by making labour compulsory. In nearly all countries a +concerted refusal to work has been made at one time or another a +criminal offence. There are to-day parts of the British Empire, as well +as of the world outside it, in which European capitalists, unchecked by +any public opinion or authority independent of themselves, are free to +impose almost what terms they please upon workmen of ignorant and +helpless races. In those districts of America where capitalism still +retains its primitive lawlessness, the same result appears to be +produced upon immigrant workmen by the threat of violence. + +In such circumstances the conflict of rights which finds expression in +industrial warfare does not arise, because the rights of one party have +been extinguished. The simplicity of the remedy is so attractive that it +is not surprising that the Governments of industrial nations should +coquet from time to time with the policy of compulsory arbitration. +After all, it is pleaded, it is only analogous to the action of a +super-national authority which should use its common force to prevent +the outbreak of war. In reality, compulsory arbitration is the opposite +of any policy which such an authority could pursue either with justice +or with hope of success. For it takes for granted the stability of +existing relationships, and intervenes to adjust incidental disputes +upon the assumption that their equity is recognized and their permanence +desired. In industry, however, the equity of existing relationships is +precisely the point at issue. A League of Nations which settled the +quarrel between a subject race and its oppressors, between Slavs and +Magyars, or the inhabitants of what was once Prussian Poland and the +Prussian Government, on the assumption that the subordination of Slav to +Magyars and Poles to Prussians was part of an unchangeable order, would +rightly be resisted by all those who think liberty more precious than +peace. A State which, in the name of peace, should make the concerted +cessation of work a legal offence, would be guilty of a similar betrayal +of freedom. It would be solving the conflict of rights between those who +own and those who work by abolishing the rights of those who work. ## (b) The extinction of the Capitalist -So here again, unless we are prepared to re-establish some -form of forced labour, we reach an *impasse*. But it is an -*impasse* only in so long as we regard the proprietary -rights of those who own the capital used in industry as -absolute and an end in themselves. If, instead of assuming -that all property, merely because it is property, is equally -sacred, we ask what is the *purpose* for which capital is -used, what is its *function*, we shall realize that it is -not an end but a means to an end, and that its function is -to serve and assist (as the economists tell us) the labour -of human beings, not the function of human beings to serve -those who happen to own it. - -And from this truism two consequences follow. The first is -that since capital is a thing, which ought to be used to -help industry as a man may use a bicycle to get more quickly -to his work, it ought, when it is employed, to be employed -on the cheapest terms possible. The second is that those who -own it should no more control production than a man who lets -a house controls the meals which shall be cooked in the -kitchen, or a man who lets a boat the speed at which the -rowers shall pull. In other words, capital should always be -got at cost price, which means, unless public bodies find it -wise, as they very well may, to own the capital used in -certain industries, it should be paid the lowest interest -for which it can be obtained, but should carry no right -either to residuary dividends or to the control of industry. - -There are, in theory, six ways by which the control of -industry by the agents of private property-owners can be -terminated. The owners may be expropriated without -compensation. They may voluntarily surrender it. They may be -frozen out by action on the part of the working *personnel*, -which itself undertakes such functions, if any, as they have -performed, and makes them superfluous by conducting -production without their assistance. Their place may be -taken by associations of consumers which supply themselves, -and which vest both the ultimate control and the residuary -profits in those who use the service or purchase the goods. -Their proprietary interest may be limited or attenuated to -such a degree that they become mere *rentiers*, who are -guaranteed a fixed payment analogous to that of the -debenture-holder, but who receive no profits and bear no -responsibility for the organization of industry. They may, +So here again, unless we are prepared to re-establish some form of +forced labour, we reach an *impasse*. But it is an *impasse* only in so +long as we regard the proprietary rights of those who own the capital +used in industry as absolute and an end in themselves. If, instead of +assuming that all property, merely because it is property, is equally +sacred, we ask what is the *purpose* for which capital is used, what is +its *function*, we shall realize that it is not an end but a means to an +end, and that its function is to serve and assist (as the economists +tell us) the labour of human beings, not the function of human beings to +serve those who happen to own it. + +And from this truism two consequences follow. The first is that since +capital is a thing, which ought to be used to help industry as a man may +use a bicycle to get more quickly to his work, it ought, when it is +employed, to be employed on the cheapest terms possible. The second is +that those who own it should no more control production than a man who +lets a house controls the meals which shall be cooked in the kitchen, or +a man who lets a boat the speed at which the rowers shall pull. In other +words, capital should always be got at cost price, which means, unless +public bodies find it wise, as they very well may, to own the capital +used in certain industries, it should be paid the lowest interest for +which it can be obtained, but should carry no right either to residuary +dividends or to the control of industry. + +There are, in theory, six ways by which the control of industry by the +agents of private property-owners can be terminated. The owners may be +expropriated without compensation. They may voluntarily surrender it. +They may be frozen out by action on the part of the working *personnel*, +which itself undertakes such functions, if any, as they have performed, +and makes them superfluous by conducting production without their +assistance. Their place may be taken by associations of consumers which +supply themselves, and which vest both the ultimate control and the +residuary profits in those who use the service or purchase the goods. +Their proprietary interest may be limited or attenuated to such a degree +that they become mere *rentiers*, who are guaranteed a fixed payment +analogous to that of the debenture-holder, but who receive no profits +and bear no responsibility for the organization of industry. They may, finally, be bought out. -The first alternative is exemplified by the historical -confiscations of the past, such as, for instance, the -seizure of ecclesiastical property by the ruling classes of -England, Scotland and most other Protestant states. The -second has rarely, if ever, been tried---the nearest -approach to it, perhaps, was the famous abdication of August -4th, 1789. The third is the method apparently contemplated -by the building guilds which are now in process of formation -in Great Britain. The fourth method of treating the -capitalist is followed by the co-operative movement. The -fifth is that recommended by the committee of employers and -trade-unionists in the building industry over which -Mr. Foster presided, and which proposed that employers -should be paid a fixed salary and a fixed rate of interest -on their capital, but that all surplus profits should be -pooled and administered by a central body representing -employers and workers. The sixth has repeatedly been -practised by municipalities, and somewhat less often by -national governments. - -Which of these alternative methods of removing industry from -the control of the property-owner is adopted is a matter of -expediency to be decided in each particular case. -"Nationalization," therefore, which is sometimes advanced as -the only method of extinguishing proprietary rights, is -merely one species of a considerable *genus*. It can be -used, of course, to produce the desired result. But it is a -means to an end, not an end in itself. Properly conceived, -its object is not to establish the State management of -industry, but to remove the dead hand of private ownership, -when the private owner has ceased to perform any positive -function. It is unfortunate, therefore, that the abolition -of obstructive property rights, which is indispensable, -should have been identified with a single formula, which may -be applied with advantage in the special circumstances of -some industries, but need not necessarily be applied to all. - -While the most elaborate scheme for the administration of a -nationalized industry advanced within recent years has come -from the Miners' Federation, the clearest example of a -practical alternative to nationalization has been supplied -by the Building Trades. The Building Industry, which, till a -few years ago, was not specially noted for intellectual -activity, has produced since the Armistice two plans of -reconstruction, neither of which owes anything to -traditional discussions of nationalization, but both of -which, though in different degrees, involve a complete -breach with private ownership as hitherto understood. The -first, that of the building guilds, gets rid of the -capitalist employer in the simplest possible way. It walks -round him. The capital equipment required for building -houses is relatively small. Unlike mining or factory -industry, there is in building no fixed establishment within -which alone operations can be carried on. Since it is -largely a localized industry working for a market in its -immediate neighbourhood, the productive work of the -craftsman is not overshadowed by an elaborate commercial -organization. The provision of decent houses has notoriously -been the field in which, even before the war, alike in -quantity and quality, the failure of capitalist industry was -at once most disastrous and least excusable. - -The Manchester Building Guild Committee, with the 57 -building Committees which have sprung from it in different -parts of the country, and the London Guild of Builders have -taken advantage of these simple facts, not to expropriate -the employer, but to supersede him. As long as each group of -workers necessary to the building of a house insists on -acting in isolation, a business man may be needed to bring -them together. If the whole profession unites, it can serve -the public direct, without his mediation. The aim of the -guilds is not profit, but the provision of good houses at a -reasonable price, on terms compatible with the dignity of -the workers. Their argument is that these two things are -really one, that the system which treats the craftsman as a -"hand" is the same as that which crowds families into -tenements, and that the latter will be properly housed only -by the same associated effort as makes the former a master -in his own profession. - -Hence the guilds are organized, not, like a trade union, for -the defence of economic rights, but for the discharge of -professional duties They do not aim at making a large -surplus out of the difference between prices and costs: -indeed, it is a fundamental rule of the London Guild of -Builders that the surplus earnings cannot be distributed as -dividends, but must be used for the improvement of the -service, and a clause to the same effect formed part of the -agreement reached in July, 1920, between the Manchester -Guild Committee and the Ministry of Health. What they ask is -that the body for whom the work is performed shall pay a sum -which is sufficient to keep men "on the strength", when, -through no fault of their own, there is no work for them to -do. The Guild Committee, with the aid of the Cooperative -Wholesale Society and the Co-operative Bank, buys its own -materials. The Local Authority which gives it a contract -pays the prime cost of the work, *plus* an allowance of £40 -per house to cover payment for lost time, and of 6% to cover -the cost of plant and overhead charges. - -Governed by representatives of the building trade unions, -together with administrators and technicians, and thus -including craftsmen and professional elements in a single -organization, the building guild committees command the -industry in the areas where they have taken root by -commanding its *personnel*. To the Local Authorities, who -have been at their wits end to secure houses, they can offer -all that is offered by a contractor, and can offer it more -effectively, for they secure the services of the *elite* of -the profession, and enjoy the enthusiastic support of the -trade unions. What they offer to the worker is the end of -the odious and degrading system under which he is thrown -aside, like unused material, whenever his services do not -happen to be required, membership in a self-governing -profession, and the consciousness that he is working for the -service of his fellows, not to make profit for an employer. - -It is too early yet to estimate the degree of practical -success which the guilds will achieve. But young as they -are, they have already discredited the assumption that it is -only the fear of unemployment and the appetite for gain -which will induce men to work effectively, for, by general -consent of all observers, the standard of zeal, efficiency, -and *esprit de corps* shown by workers on contracts -undertaken by the guilds is strikingly above what is normal -in the industry. Since their future depends entirely upon -the inherent merits of the guild organization, its -demonstration that it works economically and can give effect -to its undertakings, it is difficult to understand why the -Ministry of Health, when the shortage of houses is put at -anything from 120,000 to 500,000, should have sought to -limit their utility by fixing 20 as the maximum number of -contracts which it would sanction between the guilds and -Local Authorities. - -The example set by the building guilds can hardly fail to be -of capital importance in all industries, such (for example) -as agriculture, where the small capital required makes it -possible for a group of workers to offer their services to -the public without the intervention of an employer. There is -another way, however, of disposing of the private owner, -without nationalization, besides that of "freezing him out." -It may be called the policy of attenuation. Ownership is not -a right, but a bundle of rights, and it is possible to strip -them off piecemeal as well as to strike them off -simultaneously. The ownership of capital involves, as we -have said, three main claims; the right to interest as the -price of capital, the right to profits, and the right to -control, in virtue of which managers and workers are the -servants of shareholders. These rights in their fullest -degree are not the invariable accompaniment of ownership, -nor need they necessarily co-exist. The ingenuity of -financiers long ago devised methods of grading stock in such -a way that the ownership of some carries full control, while -that of others does not, that some bear all the risk and are -entitled to all the profits, while others are limited in -respect to both. All are property, but not all carry -proprietary rights of the same degree. - -Even while the private ownership of industrial capital still -remains, it is possible to attenuate its influence by -insisting that it shall be paid not more than a rate of -interest fixed in advance, and that it shall carry with it -no right of control. In such circumstances the position of -the ordinary shareholder would approximate to that of the -owner of debentures; the property in the industry would be -converted into a mortgage on its profits; while the control -of its administration and all profits in excess of the -minimum would remain to be vested elsewhere. - -Such a change in the character of ownership would have three -advantages. It would abolish the government of industry by -property. It would end the payment of profits to -functionless shareholders by turning them into creditors -paid a fixed rate of interest. It would lay the foundations -for industrial peace by making it possible to convert -industry into a profession carried on by all grades of -workers for the service of the public, not for the gain of -those who own capital. The organization which it would -produce will be described, of course, as impracticable. It -is interesting, therefore, to find it is that which -experience has led practical men to suggest as a remedy for -the disorders of one of the most important of national -industries, that of building. - -The question before the Committee of employers and workmen, -which issued in August, 1919, a Report upon the Building -Trade, was "Scientific Management and the Reduction of -Costs."These are not phrases which suggest an economic -revolution; but it is something little short of a revolution -that the signatories of the report propose. For, as soon as -they came to grips with the problem, they found that it was -impossible to handle it effectively without reconstituting -the general fabric of industrial relationships which is its -setting. Why is the service supplied by the industry -ineffective? Partly because the workers do not give their -full energies to the performance of their part in -production. Why do they not give their best energies? -Because of "the fear of unemployment, the disinclination of -the operatives to make unlimited profit for private -employers, the lack of interest evinced by operatives owing -to their non-participation in control, inefficiency both -managerial and operative." How are these psychological -obstacles to efficiency to be counteracted? By increased -supervision and speeding up, by the allurements of a premium -bonus system, or the other devices by which men who are too -ingenious to have imagination or moral insight would bully -or cajole poor human nature into doing what---if only the -systems they invent would let it!---it desires to do, simple -duties and honest work? Not at all. By turning the building -of houses into what teaching now is, and what Mr. Squeers -thought it could never be, an honourable profession. - -"We believe," they write, "that the great task of our -Industrial Council is to develop an entirely new system of -industrial control by the members of the industry -itself---the actual producers, whether by hand or -brain---and to bring them into co-operation with the State -as the central representative of the community whom they are -organized to serve." Instead of unlimited profits, so -"indispensable as an incentive to efficiency," the employer -is to be paid a salary for his services as manager, and a -rate of interest on his capital which is to be both fixed -and (unless he fails to earn it through his own -inefficiency) guaranteed; anything in excess of it, any -"profits" in fact, which in other industries are distributed -as dividends to shareholders, he is to surrender to a -central fund to be administered by employers and workmen for -the benefit of the industry as a whole. Instead of the -financial standing of each firm being treated as an -inscrutable mystery to the public, with the result that it -is sometimes a mystery to itself, there is to be a system of -public costing and audit, on the basis of which the industry -will assume a collective liability for those firms which are -shown to be competently managed. Instead of the workers -being dismissed in slack times to struggle along as best -they can, they are to be maintained from a fund raised by a -levy on employers and administered by the trade unions. - -Thus there is to be publicity as to costs and profits, open -dealing and honest work and mutual helpfulness, instead of -the competition which the nineteenth century regarded as an -efficient substitute for them. "Capital" is not to "employ -labour." Labour, which includes managerial labour, is to -employ capital; and to employ it at the cheapest rate at -which, in the circumstances of the trade, it can be got. If -it employs it so successfully that there is a surplus when -it has been fairly paid for its own services, then that -surplus is not to be divided among shareholders, for, when -they have been paid interest, they have been paid their due; -it is to be used to equip the industry to provide still more -effective service in the future. - -So here we have the majority of a body of practical men, who -care nothing for socialist theories, proposing to establish -"organized Public Service in the Building Industry," -recommending, in short, that their industry shall be turned -into a profession. And they do it, it will be observed, by -just that functional organization, just that conversion of -full proprietary rights into a mortgage secured (as far as -efficient firms are concerned) on the industry as a whole, -just that transference of the control of production from the -owner of capital to those whose business is production, -which, as we said, is necessary if industry is to be -organized for the performance of service, not for the -pecuniary advantage of those who hold proprietary rights. -The objection commonly made to such proposals for a -limitation of profits as were advanced by the Building Trade -Committee is that exceptional gains and exceptional losses -must be set against each other, that, on the average, -profits are not more than sufficient to evoke the supply of -new capital needed, and that it is only the possibility of -large gains which secures investment in speculative -undertakings. The risks of industry, however, are of various -kinds; broadly speaking, they belong to one of three main -types. There are, in the first place, what may be called -"natural risks," which arise from causes altogether outside -the control of the individuals or groups affected by them, -such as a drought in Australia or America which sends up the -price of wool or cotton, a famine in China or India which -destroys a market, a storm at sea or a European war. There -are, in the second place, the risks of experiment or of -economic progress, which are incidental to the development -of an industry, such as expenditure upon costly -investigations, experiments or new processes, of which many -must fail in order that one may succeed, or the attempt to -establish a connection with some new source of supply of raw -material or some new market for the product. - -In the third place, there are risks incidental to -competitive industry, which are due partly to the -possibility that one firm may be undersold by another, -partly, and that in a more important measure, to the fact -that, as long as each undertaking is operated as an -independent unit, the security of each is obviously less -than the security of the industry as a whole. Clearly, the -larger the unit of organization, the less, other things -being equal, are the risks. A coal mine is a highly -speculative investment, for even the most skilful -management, aided by the most expert scientific advice, is -liable to be baffled by unsuspected difficulties, such as -faults and water. The coal industry of a single district is -much less speculative, but even it, if, for example, it is -mainly an export district, may lose a market abroad. The -coal industry as a whole, until some other source of power -replaces coal, is speculative only to a very slight extent -indeed. - -Of these three types of risk the two first are, in one form -or another, a necessary charge which cannot be avoided. Some -"natural" risks may be, and are, made the subject of -insurance. The "risks of experiment" must obviously be -incurred unless industry is to stagnate, and must be met by -setting adequate funds aside for economic expansion. Both, -on a long view, are part of the cost of production, and as -costs they should be treated. To say that profits are the -payments for risks of this kind is to claim, in effect, that -they are Trust funds and are earmarked to meet special -liabilities. But then, if they are Trust funds, they must be -used as Trust funds, and must not be liable to be raided, as -now, for the payments of dividends. The sum to be set aside -to meet these risks should not be decided by the owners of -capital or their agents---for no man is fit to be judge in -his own cause---but by a joint body on which the workers, -the consumers and the State would be adequately represented. -It should, in short, be removed from the vague and -indeterminate area, of which, under the name of "profits," -the owner of capital claims to dispose as he pleases, and -should be reduced to terms sufficiently definite for -discussion and criticism. - -It is obvious, however, that "competitive risks" are in a -different category. They are not due to "the act of God," -nor are they the price of economic progress. They arise -primarily from the manner in which industry is organized, -and diminish or increase as that organization changes. They -are normally at their greatest when competition is perfectly -free; they are normally diminished when free competition is -replaced by some kind of agreement. No intelligent judgment -can be passed on the statement that profits are the payment -for risk-taking and that the speculative character of -industry makes a fixed rate of interest on capital -impracticable, until it is known in precisely what category -the risks in question fall. If it is plain that such risks -as are inevitable must be borne, it is no less evident that -no justification for high profits is offered by the -existence of such risks as are not. Risks which are -avoidable ought not, in short, to be paid for; they ought to -be avoided. The speculative element in industry cannot be -altogether eliminated. But to claim that the payment to -capital should be increased merely because its owners have -chosen to organize industry in a way which makes it -unnecessarily speculative, is irrational. It is like -proposing that a general should be decorated merely because, -when the opportunity of a comparatively bloodless victory -was open to him, he adopted an order of battle which -resulted in numerous casualties. - -Moreover, the present tendency of industrial organization, -as compared with that of the period from 1800 to 1880, is to -diminish what have been called the "competitive risks" of -industry by bringing competition under control, and, -sometimes, by eliminating it altogether. A whole chapter, -indeed, of recent economic history is concerned with the -attempts of the business world to lighten risks by mutual -arrangements, varying from "gentlemen's agreements" for the -stabilization of prices, through one form or another of -cartel, to the complete amalgamation of formerly independent -businesses. When a really effective combination is -established, it is evident that the security of business is -greatly increased, since one whole order of risks is -eliminated altogether. The possibility of over-production -followed by reckless price-cutting is removed. More -important, the credit of the different plants in the +The first alternative is exemplified by the historical confiscations of +the past, such as, for instance, the seizure of ecclesiastical property +by the ruling classes of England, Scotland and most other Protestant +states. The second has rarely, if ever, been tried---the nearest +approach to it, perhaps, was the famous abdication of August 4th, 1789. +The third is the method apparently contemplated by the building guilds +which are now in process of formation in Great Britain. The fourth +method of treating the capitalist is followed by the co-operative +movement. The fifth is that recommended by the committee of employers +and trade-unionists in the building industry over which Mr. Foster +presided, and which proposed that employers should be paid a fixed +salary and a fixed rate of interest on their capital, but that all +surplus profits should be pooled and administered by a central body +representing employers and workers. The sixth has repeatedly been +practised by municipalities, and somewhat less often by national +governments. + +Which of these alternative methods of removing industry from the control +of the property-owner is adopted is a matter of expediency to be decided +in each particular case. "Nationalization," therefore, which is +sometimes advanced as the only method of extinguishing proprietary +rights, is merely one species of a considerable *genus*. It can be used, +of course, to produce the desired result. But it is a means to an end, +not an end in itself. Properly conceived, its object is not to establish +the State management of industry, but to remove the dead hand of private +ownership, when the private owner has ceased to perform any positive +function. It is unfortunate, therefore, that the abolition of +obstructive property rights, which is indispensable, should have been +identified with a single formula, which may be applied with advantage in +the special circumstances of some industries, but need not necessarily +be applied to all. + +While the most elaborate scheme for the administration of a nationalized +industry advanced within recent years has come from the Miners' +Federation, the clearest example of a practical alternative to +nationalization has been supplied by the Building Trades. The Building +Industry, which, till a few years ago, was not specially noted for +intellectual activity, has produced since the Armistice two plans of +reconstruction, neither of which owes anything to traditional +discussions of nationalization, but both of which, though in different +degrees, involve a complete breach with private ownership as hitherto +understood. The first, that of the building guilds, gets rid of the +capitalist employer in the simplest possible way. It walks round him. +The capital equipment required for building houses is relatively small. +Unlike mining or factory industry, there is in building no fixed +establishment within which alone operations can be carried on. Since it +is largely a localized industry working for a market in its immediate +neighbourhood, the productive work of the craftsman is not overshadowed +by an elaborate commercial organization. The provision of decent houses +has notoriously been the field in which, even before the war, alike in +quantity and quality, the failure of capitalist industry was at once +most disastrous and least excusable. + +The Manchester Building Guild Committee, with the 57 building Committees +which have sprung from it in different parts of the country, and the +London Guild of Builders have taken advantage of these simple facts, not +to expropriate the employer, but to supersede him. As long as each group +of workers necessary to the building of a house insists on acting in +isolation, a business man may be needed to bring them together. If the +whole profession unites, it can serve the public direct, without his +mediation. The aim of the guilds is not profit, but the provision of +good houses at a reasonable price, on terms compatible with the dignity +of the workers. Their argument is that these two things are really one, +that the system which treats the craftsman as a "hand" is the same as +that which crowds families into tenements, and that the latter will be +properly housed only by the same associated effort as makes the former a +master in his own profession. + +Hence the guilds are organized, not, like a trade union, for the defence +of economic rights, but for the discharge of professional duties They do +not aim at making a large surplus out of the difference between prices +and costs: indeed, it is a fundamental rule of the London Guild of +Builders that the surplus earnings cannot be distributed as dividends, +but must be used for the improvement of the service, and a clause to the +same effect formed part of the agreement reached in July, 1920, between +the Manchester Guild Committee and the Ministry of Health. What they ask +is that the body for whom the work is performed shall pay a sum which is +sufficient to keep men "on the strength", when, through no fault of +their own, there is no work for them to do. The Guild Committee, with +the aid of the Cooperative Wholesale Society and the Co-operative Bank, +buys its own materials. The Local Authority which gives it a contract +pays the prime cost of the work, *plus* an allowance of £40 per house to +cover payment for lost time, and of 6% to cover the cost of plant and +overhead charges. + +Governed by representatives of the building trade unions, together with +administrators and technicians, and thus including craftsmen and +professional elements in a single organization, the building guild +committees command the industry in the areas where they have taken root +by commanding its *personnel*. To the Local Authorities, who have been +at their wits end to secure houses, they can offer all that is offered +by a contractor, and can offer it more effectively, for they secure the +services of the *elite* of the profession, and enjoy the enthusiastic +support of the trade unions. What they offer to the worker is the end of +the odious and degrading system under which he is thrown aside, like +unused material, whenever his services do not happen to be required, +membership in a self-governing profession, and the consciousness that he +is working for the service of his fellows, not to make profit for an +employer. + +It is too early yet to estimate the degree of practical success which +the guilds will achieve. But young as they are, they have already +discredited the assumption that it is only the fear of unemployment and +the appetite for gain which will induce men to work effectively, for, by +general consent of all observers, the standard of zeal, efficiency, and +*esprit de corps* shown by workers on contracts undertaken by the guilds +is strikingly above what is normal in the industry. Since their future +depends entirely upon the inherent merits of the guild organization, its +demonstration that it works economically and can give effect to its +undertakings, it is difficult to understand why the Ministry of Health, +when the shortage of houses is put at anything from 120,000 to 500,000, +should have sought to limit their utility by fixing 20 as the maximum +number of contracts which it would sanction between the guilds and Local +Authorities. + +The example set by the building guilds can hardly fail to be of capital +importance in all industries, such (for example) as agriculture, where +the small capital required makes it possible for a group of workers to +offer their services to the public without the intervention of an +employer. There is another way, however, of disposing of the private +owner, without nationalization, besides that of "freezing him out." It +may be called the policy of attenuation. Ownership is not a right, but a +bundle of rights, and it is possible to strip them off piecemeal as well +as to strike them off simultaneously. The ownership of capital involves, +as we have said, three main claims; the right to interest as the price +of capital, the right to profits, and the right to control, in virtue of +which managers and workers are the servants of shareholders. These +rights in their fullest degree are not the invariable accompaniment of +ownership, nor need they necessarily co-exist. The ingenuity of +financiers long ago devised methods of grading stock in such a way that +the ownership of some carries full control, while that of others does +not, that some bear all the risk and are entitled to all the profits, +while others are limited in respect to both. All are property, but not +all carry proprietary rights of the same degree. + +Even while the private ownership of industrial capital still remains, it +is possible to attenuate its influence by insisting that it shall be +paid not more than a rate of interest fixed in advance, and that it +shall carry with it no right of control. In such circumstances the +position of the ordinary shareholder would approximate to that of the +owner of debentures; the property in the industry would be converted +into a mortgage on its profits; while the control of its administration +and all profits in excess of the minimum would remain to be vested +elsewhere. + +Such a change in the character of ownership would have three advantages. +It would abolish the government of industry by property. It would end +the payment of profits to functionless shareholders by turning them into +creditors paid a fixed rate of interest. It would lay the foundations +for industrial peace by making it possible to convert industry into a +profession carried on by all grades of workers for the service of the +public, not for the gain of those who own capital. The organization +which it would produce will be described, of course, as impracticable. +It is interesting, therefore, to find it is that which experience has +led practical men to suggest as a remedy for the disorders of one of the +most important of national industries, that of building. + +The question before the Committee of employers and workmen, which issued +in August, 1919, a Report upon the Building Trade, was "Scientific +Management and the Reduction of Costs."These are not phrases which +suggest an economic revolution; but it is something little short of a +revolution that the signatories of the report propose. For, as soon as +they came to grips with the problem, they found that it was impossible +to handle it effectively without reconstituting the general fabric of +industrial relationships which is its setting. Why is the service +supplied by the industry ineffective? Partly because the workers do not +give their full energies to the performance of their part in production. +Why do they not give their best energies? Because of "the fear of +unemployment, the disinclination of the operatives to make unlimited +profit for private employers, the lack of interest evinced by operatives +owing to their non-participation in control, inefficiency both +managerial and operative." How are these psychological obstacles to +efficiency to be counteracted? By increased supervision and speeding up, +by the allurements of a premium bonus system, or the other devices by +which men who are too ingenious to have imagination or moral insight +would bully or cajole poor human nature into doing what---if only the +systems they invent would let it!---it desires to do, simple duties and +honest work? Not at all. By turning the building of houses into what +teaching now is, and what Mr. Squeers thought it could never be, an +honourable profession. + +"We believe," they write, "that the great task of our Industrial Council +is to develop an entirely new system of industrial control by the +members of the industry itself---the actual producers, whether by hand +or brain---and to bring them into co-operation with the State as the +central representative of the community whom they are organized to +serve." Instead of unlimited profits, so "indispensable as an incentive +to efficiency," the employer is to be paid a salary for his services as +manager, and a rate of interest on his capital which is to be both fixed +and (unless he fails to earn it through his own inefficiency) +guaranteed; anything in excess of it, any "profits" in fact, which in +other industries are distributed as dividends to shareholders, he is to +surrender to a central fund to be administered by employers and workmen +for the benefit of the industry as a whole. Instead of the financial +standing of each firm being treated as an inscrutable mystery to the +public, with the result that it is sometimes a mystery to itself, there +is to be a system of public costing and audit, on the basis of which the +industry will assume a collective liability for those firms which are +shown to be competently managed. Instead of the workers being dismissed +in slack times to struggle along as best they can, they are to be +maintained from a fund raised by a levy on employers and administered by +the trade unions. + +Thus there is to be publicity as to costs and profits, open dealing and +honest work and mutual helpfulness, instead of the competition which the +nineteenth century regarded as an efficient substitute for them. +"Capital" is not to "employ labour." Labour, which includes managerial +labour, is to employ capital; and to employ it at the cheapest rate at +which, in the circumstances of the trade, it can be got. If it employs +it so successfully that there is a surplus when it has been fairly paid +for its own services, then that surplus is not to be divided among +shareholders, for, when they have been paid interest, they have been +paid their due; it is to be used to equip the industry to provide still +more effective service in the future. + +So here we have the majority of a body of practical men, who care +nothing for socialist theories, proposing to establish "organized Public +Service in the Building Industry," recommending, in short, that their +industry shall be turned into a profession. And they do it, it will be +observed, by just that functional organization, just that conversion of +full proprietary rights into a mortgage secured (as far as efficient +firms are concerned) on the industry as a whole, just that transference +of the control of production from the owner of capital to those whose +business is production, which, as we said, is necessary if industry is +to be organized for the performance of service, not for the pecuniary +advantage of those who hold proprietary rights. The objection commonly +made to such proposals for a limitation of profits as were advanced by +the Building Trade Committee is that exceptional gains and exceptional +losses must be set against each other, that, on the average, profits are +not more than sufficient to evoke the supply of new capital needed, and +that it is only the possibility of large gains which secures investment +in speculative undertakings. The risks of industry, however, are of +various kinds; broadly speaking, they belong to one of three main types. +There are, in the first place, what may be called "natural risks," which +arise from causes altogether outside the control of the individuals or +groups affected by them, such as a drought in Australia or America which +sends up the price of wool or cotton, a famine in China or India which +destroys a market, a storm at sea or a European war. There are, in the +second place, the risks of experiment or of economic progress, which are +incidental to the development of an industry, such as expenditure upon +costly investigations, experiments or new processes, of which many must +fail in order that one may succeed, or the attempt to establish a +connection with some new source of supply of raw material or some new +market for the product. + +In the third place, there are risks incidental to competitive industry, +which are due partly to the possibility that one firm may be undersold +by another, partly, and that in a more important measure, to the fact +that, as long as each undertaking is operated as an independent unit, +the security of each is obviously less than the security of the industry +as a whole. Clearly, the larger the unit of organization, the less, +other things being equal, are the risks. A coal mine is a highly +speculative investment, for even the most skilful management, aided by +the most expert scientific advice, is liable to be baffled by +unsuspected difficulties, such as faults and water. The coal industry of +a single district is much less speculative, but even it, if, for +example, it is mainly an export district, may lose a market abroad. The +coal industry as a whole, until some other source of power replaces +coal, is speculative only to a very slight extent indeed. + +Of these three types of risk the two first are, in one form or another, +a necessary charge which cannot be avoided. Some "natural" risks may be, +and are, made the subject of insurance. The "risks of experiment" must +obviously be incurred unless industry is to stagnate, and must be met by +setting adequate funds aside for economic expansion. Both, on a long +view, are part of the cost of production, and as costs they should be +treated. To say that profits are the payments for risks of this kind is +to claim, in effect, that they are Trust funds and are earmarked to meet +special liabilities. But then, if they are Trust funds, they must be +used as Trust funds, and must not be liable to be raided, as now, for +the payments of dividends. The sum to be set aside to meet these risks +should not be decided by the owners of capital or their agents---for no +man is fit to be judge in his own cause---but by a joint body on which +the workers, the consumers and the State would be adequately +represented. It should, in short, be removed from the vague and +indeterminate area, of which, under the name of "profits," the owner of +capital claims to dispose as he pleases, and should be reduced to terms +sufficiently definite for discussion and criticism. + +It is obvious, however, that "competitive risks" are in a different +category. They are not due to "the act of God," nor are they the price +of economic progress. They arise primarily from the manner in which +industry is organized, and diminish or increase as that organization +changes. They are normally at their greatest when competition is +perfectly free; they are normally diminished when free competition is +replaced by some kind of agreement. No intelligent judgment can be +passed on the statement that profits are the payment for risk-taking and +that the speculative character of industry makes a fixed rate of +interest on capital impracticable, until it is known in precisely what +category the risks in question fall. If it is plain that such risks as +are inevitable must be borne, it is no less evident that no +justification for high profits is offered by the existence of such risks +as are not. Risks which are avoidable ought not, in short, to be paid +for; they ought to be avoided. The speculative element in industry +cannot be altogether eliminated. But to claim that the payment to +capital should be increased merely because its owners have chosen to +organize industry in a way which makes it unnecessarily speculative, is +irrational. It is like proposing that a general should be decorated +merely because, when the opportunity of a comparatively bloodless +victory was open to him, he adopted an order of battle which resulted in +numerous casualties. + +Moreover, the present tendency of industrial organization, as compared +with that of the period from 1800 to 1880, is to diminish what have been +called the "competitive risks" of industry by bringing competition under +control, and, sometimes, by eliminating it altogether. A whole chapter, +indeed, of recent economic history is concerned with the attempts of the +business world to lighten risks by mutual arrangements, varying from +"gentlemen's agreements" for the stabilization of prices, through one +form or another of cartel, to the complete amalgamation of formerly +independent businesses. When a really effective combination is +established, it is evident that the security of business is greatly +increased, since one whole order of risks is eliminated altogether. The +possibility of over-production followed by reckless price-cutting is +removed. More important, the credit of the different plants in the industry becomes that of the whole. -In such circumstances the objection that the speculative -character of industry makes it impossible to restrict the -payment made to the owner of capital to a fixed rate of -interest loses most of its weight, since the risks which are -the conventional justification for high dividends have very -largely disappeared. The capitalist may plausibly argue that -an individual cotton mill, or soap factory, or coal mine is -a speculation in which only the prospect of large profits -would induce him to invest; but he cannot say the same about -Coats' Sewing-thread Combine, Lord Leverhulme's Soap Trust, -or the coal industry when it is treated as a financial unit. -By his own admission, when separate firms are merged in a -single combination, profits ought not, as is normally the -case, to be increased. Since the security offered is better, -they ought to be diminished. - -The question raised by the Report of the Building Trade -Committee is whether industry cannot be so organized, even -under private ownership, that capital may be paid a -stipulated rate, and that residuary profits, when they -arise, may pass to the worker and the consumer. Its -suggestion is, in effect, that, instead of the earnings of -capital being treated as an undifferentiated block, of which -the directors of an enterprise can dispose as they please, a -clear discrimination should be made between the payment -needed to secure the necessary supplies of capital, the -reserves required to meet risks, the salary of the employer -as manager, and such surplus, if any, as may arise. In -industries which are, in effect, monopolies, the difficulty -does not appear to be great. The State already prescribes -the sliding scale in accordance with which the dividends of -Gas Companies must be paid, and controls---a necessary -corollary---the issue of new capital. There does not appear -to be any insuperable objection to making the adoption of a -similar arrangement a condition precedent to the sanctioning -of combination in other industries. Were that course -pursued, the firms concerned would pay the market rate of -interest, but no more; and the surplus profits now received -by shareholders in (for example) Coats' Combine, would be -returned to the consumer in lower prices and to the worker -in improved conditions. - -In industries which are not controlled by a combination, an -alternative course is suggested by the proposal of the -Building Trade Committee that the trade should combine so -far as is needed to place a financial guarantee behind those -firms which satisfy a body representing the whole trade that -they are competently managed. When even this degree of -united action is impossible, there would remain the proposal -that firms should be required, before they distribute any -dividends, to set aside a prescribed sum (equal, for -example, to a certain proportion of their paid-up capital) -as reserves to meet risks, and that, when that sum had been -provided, the maximum percentage to be paid to shareholders -should be fixed by a Public Authority, and issues of new -capital made only with its sanction. - -Whether such proposals are adopted or not, the Building -Trades Committee are undoubtedly right in thinking that it -is no longer sufficient to defend profits in general terms -by the statement that there is a "rough correspondence" -between profits and risks. A rough correspondence, when it -exists, is not sufficient. The argument that business is a -lottery, and that profits and losses cancel each other, is -not likely to be accepted, until it is proved beyond doubt -that it is impossible for the productive work of the world -to be organized upon methods more dignified and rational -than those of the gambling saloon, from the analogy of which -such double-edged arguments appear often to be drawn. - -The present position of the capitalist employer resembles, -it may be suggested, that of a king in the days when no -clear distinction was made between the personal and the -official revenue of the monarchy. The result of that -situation is a matter of history. Kings (like employers) -were not worse than other men. But they spent on themselves -money which they should have spent on the business of the -nation. Parliaments (like trade unions) were not more -short-sighted than other bodies. But they cut down the -revenue available for public necessities, in order to -prevent it being wasted on private luxuries. And the -efficiency of the public services suffered from both alike, -as the efficiency of industry suffers to-day. The remedy -discovered after some centuries of struggle was to make a -sharp division between the personal and the official revenue -of the monarch by the establishment of a Civil List. - -To put himself upon a "Civil List" would be the course of -wisdom for the private employer who desires, not merely to -cling to every tittle of his power, but to adapt his -position to a new situation. In the circumstances of the -moment, a policy of prudent conservatism would have as its -object, it may be suggested, to narrow the area of -contentious twilight which at present surrounds the -financial operations of industry. It would make a point of -placing all figures as to costs and profits on the table. It -would discriminate sharply between interest and profits, and -would prove that no higher payment was made to capital than -was necessary, in the conditions of the market, to obtain -its services. It would aim, in short, both at converting the -capitalist into a *rentier* and at striking an alliance -between managerial and other kinds of labour, which would be -strong enough to put pressure upon him. - -Compared, however, either with the programme of the Building -Guilds or with Public Ownership, this proposal to retain the -private employer, while limiting his functions and -converting him from a profit-maker into a manager has, with -all its attractions, certain obvious disadvantages. For one -thing, the real capital of a business is often almost -undiscoverable. For another thing, the course suggested is -open to the objection that it circumscribes the authority -which at present directs industry, without, like either of -the alternative proposals, providing an effective substitute -for it. Had the movement against the control of production -by property taken place before the rise of limited -companies, in which ownership is separated from management, -the transition to the organization of industry as a -profession might also have taken place, as the employers and -workmen in the building trade propose that it should, by -limiting the rights of private ownership without abolishing -it. But that is not what has actually happened, and -therefore the proposals of the building trade are not -capable of general application. It may be possible to retain -private ownership in building and in industries like -building, while changing its character, precisely because in -building the employer is normally not merely an owner, but -something else as well. He is a manager; that is, he is a -workman. And because he is a workman, whose interests, and -still more whose professional spirit as a workman may often -outweigh his interests and merely financial spirit as an -owner, he can form part of the productive organization of -the industry, after his rights as an owner have been trimmed -and limited. - -But that dual position is abnormal, and in the highly -organized industries is becoming more abnormal every year. -In coal, in cotton, in shipbuilding, in many branches of -engineering the owner of capital is not, as he is in -building, an organizer or manager. His connection with the -industry and his interest in it is purely financial. He is -an owner and nothing more. And because his interest is -merely financial, so that his concern is dividends, and -production only as a means to dividends, he cannot be worked -into an organization of industry which vests administration -in a body representing all grades of producers, or producers -and consumers together, for he has no purpose in common with -them. Joint councils between workers and managers may -succeed, but joint councils between workers and owners or -agents of owners, like most of the so-called Whitley -Councils, will not, because the necessity for the mere owner -is itself one of the points in dispute. - -The master builder, who owns the capital used, can be -included, not *qua* capitalist, but *qua* builder, if he -surrenders some of the rights of ownership, as the Building -Industry Committee proposed that he should. But if the -shareholder in a colliery or a shipyard abdicates the -control and unlimited profits to which, *qua* capitalist, he -is at present entitled, he abdicates everything that makes -him what he is, and has no other standing in the industry. -He cannot share like the master builder, in its management, -because he has no qualifications which would enable him to -do so. His object is profit; and if industry is to become, -as employers and workers in the building trade propose, an -"organized public service," then its subordination to the -shareholders whose object is profit, is, as they clearly -see, precisely what must be eliminated. The master builders -propose to give it up. They can do so because they have -their place in the industry in virtue of their function as -workmen. But if the shareholder gave it up, he would have no -place at all. - -In coal mining, therefore, where ownership and management -are sharply separated, the owners will not admit the bare -possibility of any system in which the control of the -administration of the mines is shared between the management -and the miners. "I am authorized to state on behalf of the -Mining Association," Lord Gainford, the chief witness on -behalf of the mine-owners, informed the Coal Commission, -"that if the owners are not to be left complete executive -control they will decline to accept the responsibility for -carrying on the industry."So the mine-owners blow away in a -sentence the whole body of plausible make-believe which -rests on the idea that, while private ownership remains -unaltered, industrial harmony can be produced by the magic -formula of joint control. And they are right. The -representatives of workmen and shareholders, in mining and -in other industries, can meet and negotiate and discuss. But -joint administration of the shareholders' property by a body -representing shareholders and workmen is impossible, because -there is no purpose in common between them. For the only -purpose which could unite all persons engaged in industry, -and overrule their particular and divergent interests, is -the provision of service. And the object of shareholders, -the whole significance and metier of industry to them, is -not the provision of service but the provision of dividends. +In such circumstances the objection that the speculative character of +industry makes it impossible to restrict the payment made to the owner +of capital to a fixed rate of interest loses most of its weight, since +the risks which are the conventional justification for high dividends +have very largely disappeared. The capitalist may plausibly argue that +an individual cotton mill, or soap factory, or coal mine is a +speculation in which only the prospect of large profits would induce him +to invest; but he cannot say the same about Coats' Sewing-thread +Combine, Lord Leverhulme's Soap Trust, or the coal industry when it is +treated as a financial unit. By his own admission, when separate firms +are merged in a single combination, profits ought not, as is normally +the case, to be increased. Since the security offered is better, they +ought to be diminished. + +The question raised by the Report of the Building Trade Committee is +whether industry cannot be so organized, even under private ownership, +that capital may be paid a stipulated rate, and that residuary profits, +when they arise, may pass to the worker and the consumer. Its suggestion +is, in effect, that, instead of the earnings of capital being treated as +an undifferentiated block, of which the directors of an enterprise can +dispose as they please, a clear discrimination should be made between +the payment needed to secure the necessary supplies of capital, the +reserves required to meet risks, the salary of the employer as manager, +and such surplus, if any, as may arise. In industries which are, in +effect, monopolies, the difficulty does not appear to be great. The +State already prescribes the sliding scale in accordance with which the +dividends of Gas Companies must be paid, and controls---a necessary +corollary---the issue of new capital. There does not appear to be any +insuperable objection to making the adoption of a similar arrangement a +condition precedent to the sanctioning of combination in other +industries. Were that course pursued, the firms concerned would pay the +market rate of interest, but no more; and the surplus profits now +received by shareholders in (for example) Coats' Combine, would be +returned to the consumer in lower prices and to the worker in improved +conditions. + +In industries which are not controlled by a combination, an alternative +course is suggested by the proposal of the Building Trade Committee that +the trade should combine so far as is needed to place a financial +guarantee behind those firms which satisfy a body representing the whole +trade that they are competently managed. When even this degree of united +action is impossible, there would remain the proposal that firms should +be required, before they distribute any dividends, to set aside a +prescribed sum (equal, for example, to a certain proportion of their +paid-up capital) as reserves to meet risks, and that, when that sum had +been provided, the maximum percentage to be paid to shareholders should +be fixed by a Public Authority, and issues of new capital made only with +its sanction. + +Whether such proposals are adopted or not, the Building Trades Committee +are undoubtedly right in thinking that it is no longer sufficient to +defend profits in general terms by the statement that there is a "rough +correspondence" between profits and risks. A rough correspondence, when +it exists, is not sufficient. The argument that business is a lottery, +and that profits and losses cancel each other, is not likely to be +accepted, until it is proved beyond doubt that it is impossible for the +productive work of the world to be organized upon methods more dignified +and rational than those of the gambling saloon, from the analogy of +which such double-edged arguments appear often to be drawn. + +The present position of the capitalist employer resembles, it may be +suggested, that of a king in the days when no clear distinction was made +between the personal and the official revenue of the monarchy. The +result of that situation is a matter of history. Kings (like employers) +were not worse than other men. But they spent on themselves money which +they should have spent on the business of the nation. Parliaments (like +trade unions) were not more short-sighted than other bodies. But they +cut down the revenue available for public necessities, in order to +prevent it being wasted on private luxuries. And the efficiency of the +public services suffered from both alike, as the efficiency of industry +suffers to-day. The remedy discovered after some centuries of struggle +was to make a sharp division between the personal and the official +revenue of the monarch by the establishment of a Civil List. + +To put himself upon a "Civil List" would be the course of wisdom for the +private employer who desires, not merely to cling to every tittle of his +power, but to adapt his position to a new situation. In the +circumstances of the moment, a policy of prudent conservatism would have +as its object, it may be suggested, to narrow the area of contentious +twilight which at present surrounds the financial operations of +industry. It would make a point of placing all figures as to costs and +profits on the table. It would discriminate sharply between interest and +profits, and would prove that no higher payment was made to capital than +was necessary, in the conditions of the market, to obtain its services. +It would aim, in short, both at converting the capitalist into a +*rentier* and at striking an alliance between managerial and other kinds +of labour, which would be strong enough to put pressure upon him. + +Compared, however, either with the programme of the Building Guilds or +with Public Ownership, this proposal to retain the private employer, +while limiting his functions and converting him from a profit-maker into +a manager has, with all its attractions, certain obvious disadvantages. +For one thing, the real capital of a business is often almost +undiscoverable. For another thing, the course suggested is open to the +objection that it circumscribes the authority which at present directs +industry, without, like either of the alternative proposals, providing +an effective substitute for it. Had the movement against the control of +production by property taken place before the rise of limited companies, +in which ownership is separated from management, the transition to the +organization of industry as a profession might also have taken place, as +the employers and workmen in the building trade propose that it should, +by limiting the rights of private ownership without abolishing it. But +that is not what has actually happened, and therefore the proposals of +the building trade are not capable of general application. It may be +possible to retain private ownership in building and in industries like +building, while changing its character, precisely because in building +the employer is normally not merely an owner, but something else as +well. He is a manager; that is, he is a workman. And because he is a +workman, whose interests, and still more whose professional spirit as a +workman may often outweigh his interests and merely financial spirit as +an owner, he can form part of the productive organization of the +industry, after his rights as an owner have been trimmed and limited. + +But that dual position is abnormal, and in the highly organized +industries is becoming more abnormal every year. In coal, in cotton, in +shipbuilding, in many branches of engineering the owner of capital is +not, as he is in building, an organizer or manager. His connection with +the industry and his interest in it is purely financial. He is an owner +and nothing more. And because his interest is merely financial, so that +his concern is dividends, and production only as a means to dividends, +he cannot be worked into an organization of industry which vests +administration in a body representing all grades of producers, or +producers and consumers together, for he has no purpose in common with +them. Joint councils between workers and managers may succeed, but joint +councils between workers and owners or agents of owners, like most of +the so-called Whitley Councils, will not, because the necessity for the +mere owner is itself one of the points in dispute. + +The master builder, who owns the capital used, can be included, not +*qua* capitalist, but *qua* builder, if he surrenders some of the rights +of ownership, as the Building Industry Committee proposed that he +should. But if the shareholder in a colliery or a shipyard abdicates the +control and unlimited profits to which, *qua* capitalist, he is at +present entitled, he abdicates everything that makes him what he is, and +has no other standing in the industry. He cannot share like the master +builder, in its management, because he has no qualifications which would +enable him to do so. His object is profit; and if industry is to become, +as employers and workers in the building trade propose, an "organized +public service," then its subordination to the shareholders whose object +is profit, is, as they clearly see, precisely what must be eliminated. +The master builders propose to give it up. They can do so because they +have their place in the industry in virtue of their function as workmen. +But if the shareholder gave it up, he would have no place at all. + +In coal mining, therefore, where ownership and management are sharply +separated, the owners will not admit the bare possibility of any system +in which the control of the administration of the mines is shared +between the management and the miners. "I am authorized to state on +behalf of the Mining Association," Lord Gainford, the chief witness on +behalf of the mine-owners, informed the Coal Commission, "that if the +owners are not to be left complete executive control they will decline +to accept the responsibility for carrying on the industry."So the +mine-owners blow away in a sentence the whole body of plausible +make-believe which rests on the idea that, while private ownership +remains unaltered, industrial harmony can be produced by the magic +formula of joint control. And they are right. The representatives of +workmen and shareholders, in mining and in other industries, can meet +and negotiate and discuss. But joint administration of the shareholders' +property by a body representing shareholders and workmen is impossible, +because there is no purpose in common between them. For the only purpose +which could unite all persons engaged in industry, and overrule their +particular and divergent interests, is the provision of service. And the +object of shareholders, the whole significance and metier of industry to +them, is not the provision of service but the provision of dividends. ## (c) Nationalization as a problem in Constitution-making -Hence in industries where management is divorced from -ownership, as in most of the highly organized trades it is -to-day, there is no obvious halfway house between the -retention of the present system and the complete extrusion -of the capitalist from the control of production. The change -in the character of ownership, which is necessary in order -that coal or textiles and shipbuilding may be organized as -professions for the service of the public, cannot easily -spring from within. The blow needed to liberate them from -the control of the property-owner must come from without. - -In theory it might be struck by action on the part of the -organized workers, who would abolish residuary profits and -the right of control by the mere procedure of refusing to -work as long as they were maintained, on the historical -analogy offered by peasants who have destroyed predatory -property in the past by declining to pay its dues and admit -its government, in which case Parliament would intervene -only to register the community's assent to the *fait -accompli*. Some such result appears to have been the design -of the recent action of the Italian workers in seizing the -factories. In England, however, the conditions of modern -industry being what they are, that course, apart from its -other disadvantages, is so unlikely to be attempted, or, if -attempted, to succeed, that it can be neglected. The -alternative to it is that the change in the character of -property should be affected by legislation in virtue of -which the rights of ownership in an industry are bought out +Hence in industries where management is divorced from ownership, as in +most of the highly organized trades it is to-day, there is no obvious +halfway house between the retention of the present system and the +complete extrusion of the capitalist from the control of production. The +change in the character of ownership, which is necessary in order that +coal or textiles and shipbuilding may be organized as professions for +the service of the public, cannot easily spring from within. The blow +needed to liberate them from the control of the property-owner must come +from without. + +In theory it might be struck by action on the part of the organized +workers, who would abolish residuary profits and the right of control by +the mere procedure of refusing to work as long as they were maintained, +on the historical analogy offered by peasants who have destroyed +predatory property in the past by declining to pay its dues and admit +its government, in which case Parliament would intervene only to +register the community's assent to the *fait accompli*. Some such result +appears to have been the design of the recent action of the Italian +workers in seizing the factories. In England, however, the conditions of +modern industry being what they are, that course, apart from its other +disadvantages, is so unlikely to be attempted, or, if attempted, to +succeed, that it can be neglected. The alternative to it is that the +change in the character of property should be affected by legislation in +virtue of which the rights of ownership in an industry are bought out simultaneously. -In either case, though the procedure is different, the -result of the change, once it is accomplished, is the same. -Private property in capital, in the sense of the right to -profits and control, is abolished. What remains of it is, at -most, a mortgage in favour of the previous proprietors, a -dead leaf which is preserved, though the sap of industry no -longer feeds it, as long as it is not thought worth while to -I strike it off. And since the capital needed to maintain -and equip a modern industry could not be T provided by any -one group of workers, even were it desirable on other -grounds that they should step completely into the position -of the present owners, the complex of rights which -constitutes ownership remains to be shared between them and -whatever organ may act on behalf of the general community. -The former, for example, may be the heir of the present -owners as far as the control of the routine and -administration of industry is concerned: the latter may -succeed to their right to dispose of residuary profits. The -elements composing property, have, in fact, to be -disentangled: and the fact that to-day, under the common -name of ownership, several different powers are vested in -identical hands, must not be allowed to obscure the -probability that, once private property in capital has been -abolished, it may be expedient to reallocate those powers in -detail as well as to transfer them *en bloc*. - -The essence of a profession is, as we have suggested, that -its members organize themselves for the performance of -function. It is essential therefore, if industry is to be -professionalized, that the abolition of functionless -property should be not interpreted to imply a continuance -under public ownership of the absence of responsibility on -the part of the *personnel* of industry, which is the normal -accompaniment of private ownership working through the -wage-system. It is the more important to emphasize that -point, because such an implication has sometimes been -conveyed in the past by some of those who have presented the -case for such a change in the character of ownership as has -been urged above. - -The name consecrated by custom to the transformation of -property by public and external action is Nationalization. -But Nationalization is a word which is neither very -felicitous nor free from ambiguity. Properly used, it means -merely ownership by a body representing the nation---"the -nation" considered as the general public of consumers, -rather than as the subjects of a particular political -allegiance; and when it can be shown that the territorial -state is not a suitable organization for the administration -of industry, the case for "nationalization," in the sense of -public ownership, remains unaltered. It is an unfortunate -chance that English speaking peoples employ one word to -express what in France and Germany are expressed by two, -*étatisation* or *Verstaatlichung* and socialisation or -*Sozialisierung*,---words which in those languages, unlike -the common English practice, are used, not as synonyms, but -as antitheses---and that no language possesses a vocabulary -to express neatly the finer shades in the numerous possible -varieties of organization under which a public service may -be carried on. +In either case, though the procedure is different, the result of the +change, once it is accomplished, is the same. Private property in +capital, in the sense of the right to profits and control, is abolished. +What remains of it is, at most, a mortgage in favour of the previous +proprietors, a dead leaf which is preserved, though the sap of industry +no longer feeds it, as long as it is not thought worth while to I strike +it off. And since the capital needed to maintain and equip a modern +industry could not be T provided by any one group of workers, even were +it desirable on other grounds that they should step completely into the +position of the present owners, the complex of rights which constitutes +ownership remains to be shared between them and whatever organ may act +on behalf of the general community. The former, for example, may be the +heir of the present owners as far as the control of the routine and +administration of industry is concerned: the latter may succeed to their +right to dispose of residuary profits. The elements composing property, +have, in fact, to be disentangled: and the fact that to-day, under the +common name of ownership, several different powers are vested in +identical hands, must not be allowed to obscure the probability that, +once private property in capital has been abolished, it may be expedient +to reallocate those powers in detail as well as to transfer them *en +bloc*. + +The essence of a profession is, as we have suggested, that its members +organize themselves for the performance of function. It is essential +therefore, if industry is to be professionalized, that the abolition of +functionless property should be not interpreted to imply a continuance +under public ownership of the absence of responsibility on the part of +the *personnel* of industry, which is the normal accompaniment of +private ownership working through the wage-system. It is the more +important to emphasize that point, because such an implication has +sometimes been conveyed in the past by some of those who have presented +the case for such a change in the character of ownership as has been +urged above. + +The name consecrated by custom to the transformation of property by +public and external action is Nationalization. But Nationalization is a +word which is neither very felicitous nor free from ambiguity. Properly +used, it means merely ownership by a body representing the nation---"the +nation" considered as the general public of consumers, rather than as +the subjects of a particular political allegiance; and when it can be +shown that the territorial state is not a suitable organization for the +administration of industry, the case for "nationalization," in the sense +of public ownership, remains unaltered. It is an unfortunate chance that +English speaking peoples employ one word to express what in France and +Germany are expressed by two, *étatisation* or *Verstaatlichung* and +socialisation or *Sozialisierung*,---words which in those languages, +unlike the common English practice, are used, not as synonyms, but as +antitheses---and that no language possesses a vocabulary to express +neatly the finer shades in the numerous possible varieties of +organization under which a public service may be carried on. The result has been that the singularly colourless word -"Nationalization" almost inevitably tends to be charged with -a highly specialized and quite arbitrary body of -suggestions. It has come in practice to be used as -equivalent to a particular method of administration, under -which officials employed by the State step into the position -of the present directors of industry, and exercise all the -power which they exercised. So those who desire to maintain -the system under which industry is carried on, not as a -profession serving the public, but for the advantage of -shareholders, attack nationalization on the ground that -state management is necessarily inefficient, and tremble -with apprehension whenever they post a letter in a -letter-box; and those who desire to change it reply that -state services are efficient, and praise God whenever they -use a telephone; as though either private or public -administration had certain peculiar and unalterable -characteristics, instead of depending for its quality, like -an army or railway company or school, and all other -undertakings, public and private alike, not on whether those -who conduct it are private officials or state officials, but -on whether they are properly trained for their work and can -command the good will and confidence of their subordinates. - -The arguments on both sides are ingenious, but in reality -nearly all of them are beside the point. The merits of -nationalization do not stand or fall with the efficiency or -inefficiency of existing state departments as administrators -of industry. For nationalization, which means public -ownership, does not involve placing industry under the -machinery of the political state, with its civil servants -controlled, or nominally controlled, by Cabinet Ministers, -and is compatible with several different types of -management. The constitution of the industry may be -"unitary," as is (for example) that of the post-office. Or -it may be "federal," as was that designed by Mr. Justice -Sankey for the coal industry. Administration may be -centralized or decentralized. The authorities to whom it is -entrusted may be composed of representatives of the -consumers, or of representatives of professional -associations, or of state officials, or of all three in -several different proportions. Executive work may be placed -in the hands of civil servants, trained, recruited, and -promoted as in the existing state departments, or a new -service may be created with a procedure and standards of its -own. The industry may be subject to Treasury control, or it -may be financially autonomous. The problem is, in fact, of a -familiar, though difficult, order. It is one of constitution -making. - -It is commonly assumed by controversialists that the -organization and management of a nationalized industry must, -for some undefined reason, be similar to that of the -Post-Office. One might as reasonably suggest that the -pattern and exemplar of private enterprise must be the Steel -Corporation or the Imperial Tobacco Company. The -administrative systems obtaining in a society which has -nationalized its foundation industries will, in fact, be as -various as in one that resigns them to private ownership; -and to discuss their relative advantages, without defining -what particular type of each is the subject of reference, is -to-day as unhelpful as to approach a modern political -problem in terms of the Aristotelian classification of -constitutions. - -The highly abstract dialectics as to "enterprise," -"initiative," "bureaucracy," "red tape," "democratic -control," "state management," which fill the press of -countries occupied with industrial problems, really belong -to the dark ages of economic thought. If the student of -these questions would wave aside for a moment the -inflammatory images of hide-bound pedantry and irresponsible -caprice which such phrases evoke, and would consider -dispassionately the various types of organization I adopted -or suggested, which alone matter in practice, he might be -less confident as to the merits or demerits of public -ownership in general, but he would be in a better position -to pronounce an opinion upon some particular examples of it. -He would discover that the varieties of administrative and -managerial system applied to public services have been at -least as numerous as the undertakings which have been -"nationalized," and considerably more numerous than the -societies which have "nationalized" them. - -Apart from differences in the area over which the service is -supplied, in the degree of centralization with which it is -administered, and in relations to private business ranging -from competition on equal terms to complete monopoly, the -management of public undertakings may belong to one of -several types. The practice of Great Britain, as exemplified -by the Post Office, by Woolwich Arsenal and by the National -Dockyards, has been to apply to the control of industry the -same type of organization as to those Departments, such as -the Home Office, which are not concerned with production. -Administration is committed to civil servants under a -ministerial head with a seat in the Cabinet, and the -efficiency of the service is supposed to be maintained by -the Minister's liability to Parliamentary criticism. - -This system has developed, not as the result of any -deliberate decision as to its merits, but through the -extension to reproductive undertakings of precedents derived -from services of another kind. A constitution of such a -type, based on political analogies, is not the only -constitution possible, nor is it even the commonest; and if -it is desired to discover some substitute for it, several -alternatives are already in existence. In Australia, and, -since the nationalization of certain of its great railways, -in Canada, the State Railways are administered by Boards of -Commissioners who are practically irremovable during their -term of office, and the permanent commission is a favourite -device in American Cities. The constitution adopted for the -British Liquor Control Board vested authority in the hands -of a body composed of representatives of certain great -Departments, of labour organizations and of employers, with -an admixture of experts. The bodies administering the public -undertakings of British Local Authorities consist usually of -Committees of elected Councillors. But public docks and -harbours are controlled by bodies representing the users of -the service. The Port of London Authority set up by the Act -of 1908 (which has a very bad constitution) consists, in -addition to a Chairman and Vice-Chairman, of 18 members -elected, on an elaborate system of plural voting based on -property, by payers of dues, wharfingers and owners of river -craft, and of 10 appointed members, of whom two must be -representatives of labour. The London Water Board, which -replaced the London Water Companies, and which administers a -capital of some £49,000,000 and supplies water to a -population of about 7,000,000 persons, is composed under the -Act of 1902 of 66 members appointed. by the Local -Authorities of the areas served. - -Normally it appears to be held that the consumers are -adequately protected by the criticism which is supposed to -come from a representative body, whether Parliament or a -Municipal Council. But sometimes, as in connection with the -Ministry of Food, special machinery for expressing their -demands and criticisms has been established. The miners -proposed that, if the mines were transferred to public -ownership, in addition to the representation given the -consumer on the District Mining Councils and the National -Mining Council, a permanent Fuel Consumer's Council should -be set up, representing users of household and industrial -coal, which would have the right to call for full -information, to press, when it thought fit, for changes of -method and policy, and to meet in joint session the body -administering the industry. In view of the complete -helplessness of the ordinary householder when confronted -with a rise of price hitherto, and of the well-known fact -that collieries and distributors took advantage of every -cold snap or threatened dispute to raise prices against him, -there is something cynically comic in the suggestion that he -has anything but an immense increase in influence and in -power of self-protection to gain from public ownership -accompanied by such a scheme of administration as was -advanced by the miners and by Mr. Justice Sankey. - -It may be remarked in parenthesis, indeed, that the view -commonly expressed by the business world, that a public -service is likely to ride roughshod over the consumer, -appears to be the precise opposite of the truth. The real -danger is lest it should be too pliable, and should -sacrifice the permanent interests of the service to the -demand for immediate cheapness. The instantaneous outcry -against "inefficiency," "waste" and "bureaucratic tyranny," -by which the proposal to increase the charges made by a -nationalized service is met, is in itself the very best -evidence of the protection to the consumer which is offered -by Public Ownership. In private industry the prices of -clothes, boots, food and a dozen other commodities rose by -over 160% between 1914 and 1921, and no one did more than -utter an occasional grumble. But the proposal of the Post -Office to raise telephone charges evoked in the business -world a storm of indignation. As the users of underground -and suburban railways know to their cost, certain Railway -Companies habitually sell non-existent places in third-class -carriages, and if, much against his will, the unfortunate -traveller enters a carriage of another class, proceed to -collect from him the excess fare to which the inadequacy of -their arrangements have made him liable. If the railways -were nationalized the Press would ring with protests against -State incompetence and the sharp practice of officials. -Since they are in private hands, not a murmur is heard. The -explanation is simple. The policy of a public undertaking -can be modified by criticism, that of a private business -cannot. The former is held to be acting improperly if it -squeezes the consumer; the latter would often be regarded as -highly eccentric if it did anything else. - -Not only may the composition of the controlling body, and -its relations to the users of the service, vary enormously, -but its relations to its employees may be even more diverse. -It may treat all of them as established "Civil Servants," or -it may so treat none of them. It may, as the British -Ministry of Transport has proposed, and as the French, Swiss -and Italian State Railway Administrations have done, give -the workers direct representation on the Authorities -governing the industry, or it may treat them as "hands" even -to the fullest extent demanded by the British Railway -Companies. The fact that they are public servants may make -no difference to their civil rights; or, as in Prussia -before 1914, they may be dismissed if they join a union. -They may be allowed to join a union, but they may be told, -like the shipyards employees of the British Admiralty, that -they are not allowed to strike, or like the Postal Servants, -that they must not criticize the administration of the -service. Finally, an attempt may be made, as at one time in -Australia, to neutralize the political influence which they -are supposed to wield, by creating a special constituency -for them. - -Such are a few of the varieties of organization which lie on -the surface. When one turns from them to consider the -proposals advanced, they are found to be almost -inexhaustible. The attempt to apply a single standard of -criticism, based on the mere word Nationalization, to the -administration of Prussian coal mines before 1914, the four -different reports of the two recent German coal commissions, -the programmes of Mr. Justice Sankey and of the Miners' -Federation and the half dozen different plans of -administration brought before the British Coal Commission, -to the American "Plumb plan," the proposals of the British -Railway Nationalization Council, and the fifty odd -programmes of public ownership which are afoot, frequently -with official sanction, in the near East, is merely -unintelligent. It is like supposing that France and America -are governed in the same way merely because they are both -called Republics, or that down to 191 8 Prussia had the same -constitution as England because it was called a monarchy. - -It is noticeable, indeed, that the chief characteristic of -almost all recent programmes of nationalization has been the -insistence that the administration of a nationalized -industry should not, except when unavoidable, be entrusted -to the ordinary machinery of the political state. In Great -Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and the British -Dominions---to go no further afield---there appears to be -general agreement among all contemporary supporters of the -policy of public ownership that, though the State must -intervene to carry out the *act* of expropriation by due -process of law, the *administrative body* which *succeeds* -the private proprietor must not be a department directly -dependent on the Government of the day, but an authority -representing at least those who supply the service and those -who use it, and acting with as much elasticity as it is -possible for any large scale organization, whether public or -private, to achieve. Whether that conclusion---which, be it -observed, is the precise opposite of the views usually -ascribed to advocates of nationalization by their -critics---is accepted or not, serious discussion of the -future of industry, as distinct from mere polemics, will not -progress until it is recognised that the problem is one of -making a constitution, and that in making a constitution, -words, so long as they are not outrageous, are less -important than facts. The fact is that public ownership, -like private enterprise, may be accompanied by any one of a -dozen different systems of organization, and that its -effect, good or bad, will depend, not upon the name used to -describe it, but upon which particular system of -organization is adopted in any given case. - -The first task of the student, whatever his personal -conclusions, is, it may be suggested, to contribute what he -can to the restoration of sanity by insisting that instead -of the argument being conducted with the counters of a -highly inflated and rapidly depreciating verbal currency, -the exact situation, in so far as is possible, shall be -stated as it is; uncertainties (of which there are many) -shall be treated as uncertain, and the precise meaning of -alternative proposals shall be strictly defined. Not the -least of the merits of Mr. Justice Sankey's report was that, -by stating in great detail the type of organization which he -recommended for the Coal Industry, he imparted a new -precision and reality into the whole discussion. Whether his -conclusions are accepted or rejected, it is from the basis -of clearly defined proposals such as his that the future -discussion of these problems must proceed. It may not find a -solution. It will at least do something to create the temper +"Nationalization" almost inevitably tends to be charged with a highly +specialized and quite arbitrary body of suggestions. It has come in +practice to be used as equivalent to a particular method of +administration, under which officials employed by the State step into +the position of the present directors of industry, and exercise all the +power which they exercised. So those who desire to maintain the system +under which industry is carried on, not as a profession serving the +public, but for the advantage of shareholders, attack nationalization on +the ground that state management is necessarily inefficient, and tremble +with apprehension whenever they post a letter in a letter-box; and those +who desire to change it reply that state services are efficient, and +praise God whenever they use a telephone; as though either private or +public administration had certain peculiar and unalterable +characteristics, instead of depending for its quality, like an army or +railway company or school, and all other undertakings, public and +private alike, not on whether those who conduct it are private officials +or state officials, but on whether they are properly trained for their +work and can command the good will and confidence of their subordinates. + +The arguments on both sides are ingenious, but in reality nearly all of +them are beside the point. The merits of nationalization do not stand or +fall with the efficiency or inefficiency of existing state departments +as administrators of industry. For nationalization, which means public +ownership, does not involve placing industry under the machinery of the +political state, with its civil servants controlled, or nominally +controlled, by Cabinet Ministers, and is compatible with several +different types of management. The constitution of the industry may be +"unitary," as is (for example) that of the post-office. Or it may be +"federal," as was that designed by Mr. Justice Sankey for the coal +industry. Administration may be centralized or decentralized. The +authorities to whom it is entrusted may be composed of representatives +of the consumers, or of representatives of professional associations, or +of state officials, or of all three in several different proportions. +Executive work may be placed in the hands of civil servants, trained, +recruited, and promoted as in the existing state departments, or a new +service may be created with a procedure and standards of its own. The +industry may be subject to Treasury control, or it may be financially +autonomous. The problem is, in fact, of a familiar, though difficult, +order. It is one of constitution making. + +It is commonly assumed by controversialists that the organization and +management of a nationalized industry must, for some undefined reason, +be similar to that of the Post-Office. One might as reasonably suggest +that the pattern and exemplar of private enterprise must be the Steel +Corporation or the Imperial Tobacco Company. The administrative systems +obtaining in a society which has nationalized its foundation industries +will, in fact, be as various as in one that resigns them to private +ownership; and to discuss their relative advantages, without defining +what particular type of each is the subject of reference, is to-day as +unhelpful as to approach a modern political problem in terms of the +Aristotelian classification of constitutions. + +The highly abstract dialectics as to "enterprise," "initiative," +"bureaucracy," "red tape," "democratic control," "state management," +which fill the press of countries occupied with industrial problems, +really belong to the dark ages of economic thought. If the student of +these questions would wave aside for a moment the inflammatory images of +hide-bound pedantry and irresponsible caprice which such phrases evoke, +and would consider dispassionately the various types of organization I +adopted or suggested, which alone matter in practice, he might be less +confident as to the merits or demerits of public ownership in general, +but he would be in a better position to pronounce an opinion upon some +particular examples of it. He would discover that the varieties of +administrative and managerial system applied to public services have +been at least as numerous as the undertakings which have been +"nationalized," and considerably more numerous than the societies which +have "nationalized" them. + +Apart from differences in the area over which the service is supplied, +in the degree of centralization with which it is administered, and in +relations to private business ranging from competition on equal terms to +complete monopoly, the management of public undertakings may belong to +one of several types. The practice of Great Britain, as exemplified by +the Post Office, by Woolwich Arsenal and by the National Dockyards, has +been to apply to the control of industry the same type of organization +as to those Departments, such as the Home Office, which are not +concerned with production. Administration is committed to civil servants +under a ministerial head with a seat in the Cabinet, and the efficiency +of the service is supposed to be maintained by the Minister's liability +to Parliamentary criticism. + +This system has developed, not as the result of any deliberate decision +as to its merits, but through the extension to reproductive undertakings +of precedents derived from services of another kind. A constitution of +such a type, based on political analogies, is not the only constitution +possible, nor is it even the commonest; and if it is desired to discover +some substitute for it, several alternatives are already in existence. +In Australia, and, since the nationalization of certain of its great +railways, in Canada, the State Railways are administered by Boards of +Commissioners who are practically irremovable during their term of +office, and the permanent commission is a favourite device in American +Cities. The constitution adopted for the British Liquor Control Board +vested authority in the hands of a body composed of representatives of +certain great Departments, of labour organizations and of employers, +with an admixture of experts. The bodies administering the public +undertakings of British Local Authorities consist usually of Committees +of elected Councillors. But public docks and harbours are controlled by +bodies representing the users of the service. The Port of London +Authority set up by the Act of 1908 (which has a very bad constitution) +consists, in addition to a Chairman and Vice-Chairman, of 18 members +elected, on an elaborate system of plural voting based on property, by +payers of dues, wharfingers and owners of river craft, and of 10 +appointed members, of whom two must be representatives of labour. The +London Water Board, which replaced the London Water Companies, and which +administers a capital of some £49,000,000 and supplies water to a +population of about 7,000,000 persons, is composed under the Act of 1902 +of 66 members appointed. by the Local Authorities of the areas served. + +Normally it appears to be held that the consumers are adequately +protected by the criticism which is supposed to come from a +representative body, whether Parliament or a Municipal Council. But +sometimes, as in connection with the Ministry of Food, special machinery +for expressing their demands and criticisms has been established. The +miners proposed that, if the mines were transferred to public ownership, +in addition to the representation given the consumer on the District +Mining Councils and the National Mining Council, a permanent Fuel +Consumer's Council should be set up, representing users of household and +industrial coal, which would have the right to call for full +information, to press, when it thought fit, for changes of method and +policy, and to meet in joint session the body administering the +industry. In view of the complete helplessness of the ordinary +householder when confronted with a rise of price hitherto, and of the +well-known fact that collieries and distributors took advantage of every +cold snap or threatened dispute to raise prices against him, there is +something cynically comic in the suggestion that he has anything but an +immense increase in influence and in power of self-protection to gain +from public ownership accompanied by such a scheme of administration as +was advanced by the miners and by Mr. Justice Sankey. + +It may be remarked in parenthesis, indeed, that the view commonly +expressed by the business world, that a public service is likely to ride +roughshod over the consumer, appears to be the precise opposite of the +truth. The real danger is lest it should be too pliable, and should +sacrifice the permanent interests of the service to the demand for +immediate cheapness. The instantaneous outcry against "inefficiency," +"waste" and "bureaucratic tyranny," by which the proposal to increase +the charges made by a nationalized service is met, is in itself the very +best evidence of the protection to the consumer which is offered by +Public Ownership. In private industry the prices of clothes, boots, food +and a dozen other commodities rose by over 160% between 1914 and 1921, +and no one did more than utter an occasional grumble. But the proposal +of the Post Office to raise telephone charges evoked in the business +world a storm of indignation. As the users of underground and suburban +railways know to their cost, certain Railway Companies habitually sell +non-existent places in third-class carriages, and if, much against his +will, the unfortunate traveller enters a carriage of another class, +proceed to collect from him the excess fare to which the inadequacy of +their arrangements have made him liable. If the railways were +nationalized the Press would ring with protests against State +incompetence and the sharp practice of officials. Since they are in +private hands, not a murmur is heard. The explanation is simple. The +policy of a public undertaking can be modified by criticism, that of a +private business cannot. The former is held to be acting improperly if +it squeezes the consumer; the latter would often be regarded as highly +eccentric if it did anything else. + +Not only may the composition of the controlling body, and its relations +to the users of the service, vary enormously, but its relations to its +employees may be even more diverse. It may treat all of them as +established "Civil Servants," or it may so treat none of them. It may, +as the British Ministry of Transport has proposed, and as the French, +Swiss and Italian State Railway Administrations have done, give the +workers direct representation on the Authorities governing the industry, +or it may treat them as "hands" even to the fullest extent demanded by +the British Railway Companies. The fact that they are public servants +may make no difference to their civil rights; or, as in Prussia before +1914, they may be dismissed if they join a union. They may be allowed to +join a union, but they may be told, like the shipyards employees of the +British Admiralty, that they are not allowed to strike, or like the +Postal Servants, that they must not criticize the administration of the +service. Finally, an attempt may be made, as at one time in Australia, +to neutralize the political influence which they are supposed to wield, +by creating a special constituency for them. + +Such are a few of the varieties of organization which lie on the +surface. When one turns from them to consider the proposals advanced, +they are found to be almost inexhaustible. The attempt to apply a single +standard of criticism, based on the mere word Nationalization, to the +administration of Prussian coal mines before 1914, the four different +reports of the two recent German coal commissions, the programmes of +Mr. Justice Sankey and of the Miners' Federation and the half dozen +different plans of administration brought before the British Coal +Commission, to the American "Plumb plan," the proposals of the British +Railway Nationalization Council, and the fifty odd programmes of public +ownership which are afoot, frequently with official sanction, in the +near East, is merely unintelligent. It is like supposing that France and +America are governed in the same way merely because they are both called +Republics, or that down to 191 8 Prussia had the same constitution as +England because it was called a monarchy. + +It is noticeable, indeed, that the chief characteristic of almost all +recent programmes of nationalization has been the insistence that the +administration of a nationalized industry should not, except when +unavoidable, be entrusted to the ordinary machinery of the political +state. In Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and the British +Dominions---to go no further afield---there appears to be general +agreement among all contemporary supporters of the policy of public +ownership that, though the State must intervene to carry out the *act* +of expropriation by due process of law, the *administrative body* which +*succeeds* the private proprietor must not be a department directly +dependent on the Government of the day, but an authority representing at +least those who supply the service and those who use it, and acting with +as much elasticity as it is possible for any large scale organization, +whether public or private, to achieve. Whether that conclusion---which, +be it observed, is the precise opposite of the views usually ascribed to +advocates of nationalization by their critics---is accepted or not, +serious discussion of the future of industry, as distinct from mere +polemics, will not progress until it is recognised that the problem is +one of making a constitution, and that in making a constitution, words, +so long as they are not outrageous, are less important than facts. The +fact is that public ownership, like private enterprise, may be +accompanied by any one of a dozen different systems of organization, and +that its effect, good or bad, will depend, not upon the name used to +describe it, but upon which particular system of organization is adopted +in any given case. + +The first task of the student, whatever his personal conclusions, is, it +may be suggested, to contribute what he can to the restoration of sanity +by insisting that instead of the argument being conducted with the +counters of a highly inflated and rapidly depreciating verbal currency, +the exact situation, in so far as is possible, shall be stated as it is; +uncertainties (of which there are many) shall be treated as uncertain, +and the precise meaning of alternative proposals shall be strictly +defined. Not the least of the merits of Mr. Justice Sankey's report was +that, by stating in great detail the type of organization which he +recommended for the Coal Industry, he imparted a new precision and +reality into the whole discussion. Whether his conclusions are accepted +or rejected, it is from the basis of clearly defined proposals such as +his that the future discussion of these problems must proceed. It may +not find a solution. It will at least do something to create the temper in which alone a reasonable solution can be sought. -Nationalization, then, is not an end, but a means to an end, -and when the question of ownership has been settled the -question of administration remains for solution. As a means -it is likely to be indispensable in those industries in -which the rights of private proprietors cannot easily be -modified without the action of the State, just as the -purchase of land by county councils is a necessary step to -the establishment of small holders, when landowners will not -voluntarily part with their property for the purpose. But -the object in purchasing land is to establish small holders, -not to set up farms administered by state officials; and the -object of nationalizing mining or railways or the -manufacture of steel should not be to establish any -particular form of state management, but to release those -who do constructive work from the control of those whose -sole interest is pecuniary gain, in order that they may be -free to apply their energies to the true purpose of -industry, which is the provision of service, not the -provision of dividends. - -When the transference of property has taken place, it will -probably be found that the necessary provision for the -government of industry will involve not merely the freedom -of the producers to produce, but the creation of machinery -through which the consumer, for whom he produces, can -express his wishes and criticize the way in which they are -met, as at present he normally cannot. But that is the -second stage in the process of reorganizing industry for the -performance of function, not the first. The first is to free -it from its present subordination to the pecuniary interests -of the owner of property, because they are the magnetic pole -which sets all the compasses wrong, and which causes -industry, however swiftly it may progress, to progress in -the wrong direction. - -Nor does this change in the character of property involve a -breach with the existing order so sharp as to be -impracticable. The phraseology of political controversy -continues to reproduce the conventional antitheses of the -early nineteenth century; "private enterprise" and "public -ownership" are still' contrasted with each other as light -with darkness or darkness with light. But, in reality, -behind the formal shell of the traditional legal system, the -elements of a new body of relationships have already been -prepared, and find piecemeal application through policies -devised, not by socialists, but by men who repeat the -formulae of individualism, at the very moment when they are -undermining it. The Esch-Cummins Act in America, the Act -establishing a Ministry of Transport in England, Sir Arthur -Duckham's scheme for the organization of the coal mines, the -proposals with regard to the coal industry advanced at one -time by the British Government itself, appear to have the -common characteristic of retaining private ownership in -name, while attenuating it in fact, by placing its -operations under the supervision, accompanied sometimes by a -financial guarantee, of a public authority. - -Schemes of this general character appear, indeed, to be the -first instinctive reaction produced by the discovery that -private enterprise is no longer functioning effectively. It -is probable that they possess certain merits of a technical -order, analogous to those associated with the amalgamation -of competing forms into a single combination. It is -questionable, however, whether the compromise which they -represent is permanently tenable. What, after all, it may be -asked, are the advantages of private ownership when it has -been pared down to the point which policies of this order -propose? May not the "owner," whose rights they are designed -to protect, not unreasonably reply to their authors, "Thank -you for nothing"? Individual enterprise has its merits: so -also, perhaps, has public ownership. But, by the time these -schemes have done with it, not much remains of "the simple -and obvious system of natural liberty," while their -inventors are precluded from appealing to the motives which -are emphasized by advocates of nationalization. It is one -thing to be an entrepreneur with a world of adventure and -unlimited profits---if they can be achieved---before one. It -is quite another to be a director of a railway company or -coal corporation with a minimum rate of profit guaranteed by -the State, and a maximum rate of profit which cannot be -exceeded. Hybrids are apt to be sterile. It may be -questioned whether, in drawing the teeth of private -capitalism, this type of compromise does not draw out most -of its virtues as well. - -So, when a certain stage of economic development has been -reached, private ownership, by the admission of its -defenders, can no longer be tolerated in the only form in -which it is free to display the characteristic, and quite -genuine, advantages for the sake of which it used to be -defended. And, as step by step it is whittled down by tacit -concessions to the practical necessity of protecting the -consumer, or eliminating waste, or meeting the claims of the -workers, public ownership becomes, not only on social -grounds, but for reasons of economic efficiency, the -alternative to a type of private ownership which appears to -carry with it few of the rights which are normally valued in -ownership and to be singularly devoid of privacy. - -It would be a mistake to visualize the displacement of the -private capitalist from his position of economic sovereignty -as taking place only through the process of nationalization. -Over a considerable field of industry the Co-operative -Movement has already substituted the motive of communal -service for that of profit, and supplies annually to its -members, through bodies representing the consumers, goods to -the value of some hundred million pounds. It has found a -genuine and practicable alternative to the conduct of -industry by the agents of shareholders for the pecuniary -gain of shareholders, and has thus established the first -condition without which an effective partnership between -producer and consumer is impossible. The extension of State -ownership will take place, it may be suggested, without in -any way impinging on the activities of the Co-operative -Movement, or on the experiments in "industrial -self-government" such as are now being made in the building -industry. Its special sphere will be the great foundation -industries, which, so far, have set at defiance the one -movement and the other. - -Inevitably and unfortunately the change must be gradual. But -it should be continuous. When, as in the last few years, the -State has acquired the ownership of great masses of -industrial capital, it should retain it, instead of -surrendering it to private capitalists, who protest at once -that it will be managed so inefficiently that it will not -pay and managed so efficiently that it will undersell them. -When estates are being broken up and sold, as they are at -present, public bodies should enter the market and acquire -them. - -Most important of all, the ridiculous barrier which at -present prevents English Local Authorities from acquiring -property in land and industrial capital, except for purposes -specified by Act of Parliament, should be abolished, and -they should be free to undertake such services, including -(in so far as it is not already covered by Co-operation) the -whole field of retail distribution, as their citizens may -desire. According to the theory upon which the Local -Government of Great Britain is at present based, Local -Authorities, from the tiniest Parish Council to the largest -County Borough, can exercise only the powers specially -conferred on them by Parliament, and, if they desire -additional powers, they can obtain them only by the cumbrous -and expensive process of private bill legislation. This -strict limitation of the sphere of Local Authorities dates -from the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, which was -admirable in its reconstruction of the machinery of -municipal government, but which was passed at a time when -almost the only proper functions of local bodies were -conceived to be the preservation of public order and the -administration of local finances. - -In an age when Municipal Corporations were corrupt -oligarchies, the main object of reformers was, not to -increase their powers, but to diminish their abuses. But -there is no analogy between modern municipalities and the -strongholds of incompetence and privilege which were -reformed eighty years ago. So far, at least, as County -Boroughs are concerned, the right principle is that, instead -of their being allowed to do only what they are expressly -empowered to do, they should be free to do anything which -they are not forbidden to do. Central control is necessary, -in order to ensure that posterity is not burdened by -excessive capital expenditure, to preserve a minimum -standard of efficiency, and to adjust the claims of -conflicting authorities. But, provided these conditions are -satisfied, there is no reason why great Municipal -Corporations should not undertake such services as they may -from time to time deem expedient. The objection to public -ownership, in so far as it is intelligent, is in reality -largely an objection to over-centralization. But the remedy -for over-centralization is not the maintenance of -functionless property in private hands, but the -decentralized ownership of public property. When Birmingham -and Manchester and Leeds are the little republics which they -should be, there is no reason to anticipate that they will -tremble at a whisper from Whitehall. - -These things should be done steadily and continuously, quite -apart from the special cases like that of the mines, -railways, and canals, where the private ownership of capital -is stated by the experts to have been responsible for -intolerable waste, or the manufacture of armaments and -alcoholic liquor, which are politically and socially too -dangerous to be left in private hands. They should be done -not in order to establish a single form of bureaucratic -management, but in order to release industry from the -domination of proprietary interests, which, whatever the -form of management, are not merely troublesome in detail but -vicious in principle, because they divert it from the -performance of function to the acquisition of gain. If at -the same time private ownership is shaken, as recently it -has been, by action on the part of particular groups of -workers, so much the better. There are more ways of killing -a cat than drowning it in cream, and it is all the more -likely to choose the cream if they are explained to it. But -the two methods are complementary, not alternative, and the -attempt to found rival schools on an imaginary -incompatibility between them is a bad case of the *odium +Nationalization, then, is not an end, but a means to an end, and when +the question of ownership has been settled the question of +administration remains for solution. As a means it is likely to be +indispensable in those industries in which the rights of private +proprietors cannot easily be modified without the action of the State, +just as the purchase of land by county councils is a necessary step to +the establishment of small holders, when landowners will not voluntarily +part with their property for the purpose. But the object in purchasing +land is to establish small holders, not to set up farms administered by +state officials; and the object of nationalizing mining or railways or +the manufacture of steel should not be to establish any particular form +of state management, but to release those who do constructive work from +the control of those whose sole interest is pecuniary gain, in order +that they may be free to apply their energies to the true purpose of +industry, which is the provision of service, not the provision of +dividends. + +When the transference of property has taken place, it will probably be +found that the necessary provision for the government of industry will +involve not merely the freedom of the producers to produce, but the +creation of machinery through which the consumer, for whom he produces, +can express his wishes and criticize the way in which they are met, as +at present he normally cannot. But that is the second stage in the +process of reorganizing industry for the performance of function, not +the first. The first is to free it from its present subordination to the +pecuniary interests of the owner of property, because they are the +magnetic pole which sets all the compasses wrong, and which causes +industry, however swiftly it may progress, to progress in the wrong +direction. + +Nor does this change in the character of property involve a breach with +the existing order so sharp as to be impracticable. The phraseology of +political controversy continues to reproduce the conventional antitheses +of the early nineteenth century; "private enterprise" and "public +ownership" are still' contrasted with each other as light with darkness +or darkness with light. But, in reality, behind the formal shell of the +traditional legal system, the elements of a new body of relationships +have already been prepared, and find piecemeal application through +policies devised, not by socialists, but by men who repeat the formulae +of individualism, at the very moment when they are undermining it. The +Esch-Cummins Act in America, the Act establishing a Ministry of +Transport in England, Sir Arthur Duckham's scheme for the organization +of the coal mines, the proposals with regard to the coal industry +advanced at one time by the British Government itself, appear to have +the common characteristic of retaining private ownership in name, while +attenuating it in fact, by placing its operations under the supervision, +accompanied sometimes by a financial guarantee, of a public authority. + +Schemes of this general character appear, indeed, to be the first +instinctive reaction produced by the discovery that private enterprise +is no longer functioning effectively. It is probable that they possess +certain merits of a technical order, analogous to those associated with +the amalgamation of competing forms into a single combination. It is +questionable, however, whether the compromise which they represent is +permanently tenable. What, after all, it may be asked, are the +advantages of private ownership when it has been pared down to the point +which policies of this order propose? May not the "owner," whose rights +they are designed to protect, not unreasonably reply to their authors, +"Thank you for nothing"? Individual enterprise has its merits: so also, +perhaps, has public ownership. But, by the time these schemes have done +with it, not much remains of "the simple and obvious system of natural +liberty," while their inventors are precluded from appealing to the +motives which are emphasized by advocates of nationalization. It is one +thing to be an entrepreneur with a world of adventure and unlimited +profits---if they can be achieved---before one. It is quite another to +be a director of a railway company or coal corporation with a minimum +rate of profit guaranteed by the State, and a maximum rate of profit +which cannot be exceeded. Hybrids are apt to be sterile. It may be +questioned whether, in drawing the teeth of private capitalism, this +type of compromise does not draw out most of its virtues as well. + +So, when a certain stage of economic development has been reached, +private ownership, by the admission of its defenders, can no longer be +tolerated in the only form in which it is free to display the +characteristic, and quite genuine, advantages for the sake of which it +used to be defended. And, as step by step it is whittled down by tacit +concessions to the practical necessity of protecting the consumer, or +eliminating waste, or meeting the claims of the workers, public +ownership becomes, not only on social grounds, but for reasons of +economic efficiency, the alternative to a type of private ownership +which appears to carry with it few of the rights which are normally +valued in ownership and to be singularly devoid of privacy. + +It would be a mistake to visualize the displacement of the private +capitalist from his position of economic sovereignty as taking place +only through the process of nationalization. Over a considerable field +of industry the Co-operative Movement has already substituted the motive +of communal service for that of profit, and supplies annually to its +members, through bodies representing the consumers, goods to the value +of some hundred million pounds. It has found a genuine and practicable +alternative to the conduct of industry by the agents of shareholders for +the pecuniary gain of shareholders, and has thus established the first +condition without which an effective partnership between producer and +consumer is impossible. The extension of State ownership will take +place, it may be suggested, without in any way impinging on the +activities of the Co-operative Movement, or on the experiments in +"industrial self-government" such as are now being made in the building +industry. Its special sphere will be the great foundation industries, +which, so far, have set at defiance the one movement and the other. + +Inevitably and unfortunately the change must be gradual. But it should +be continuous. When, as in the last few years, the State has acquired +the ownership of great masses of industrial capital, it should retain +it, instead of surrendering it to private capitalists, who protest at +once that it will be managed so inefficiently that it will not pay and +managed so efficiently that it will undersell them. When estates are +being broken up and sold, as they are at present, public bodies should +enter the market and acquire them. + +Most important of all, the ridiculous barrier which at present prevents +English Local Authorities from acquiring property in land and industrial +capital, except for purposes specified by Act of Parliament, should be +abolished, and they should be free to undertake such services, including +(in so far as it is not already covered by Co-operation) the whole field +of retail distribution, as their citizens may desire. According to the +theory upon which the Local Government of Great Britain is at present +based, Local Authorities, from the tiniest Parish Council to the largest +County Borough, can exercise only the powers specially conferred on them +by Parliament, and, if they desire additional powers, they can obtain +them only by the cumbrous and expensive process of private bill +legislation. This strict limitation of the sphere of Local Authorities +dates from the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, which was admirable +in its reconstruction of the machinery of municipal government, but +which was passed at a time when almost the only proper functions of +local bodies were conceived to be the preservation of public order and +the administration of local finances. + +In an age when Municipal Corporations were corrupt oligarchies, the main +object of reformers was, not to increase their powers, but to diminish +their abuses. But there is no analogy between modern municipalities and +the strongholds of incompetence and privilege which were reformed eighty +years ago. So far, at least, as County Boroughs are concerned, the right +principle is that, instead of their being allowed to do only what they +are expressly empowered to do, they should be free to do anything which +they are not forbidden to do. Central control is necessary, in order to +ensure that posterity is not burdened by excessive capital expenditure, +to preserve a minimum standard of efficiency, and to adjust the claims +of conflicting authorities. But, provided these conditions are +satisfied, there is no reason why great Municipal Corporations should +not undertake such services as they may from time to time deem +expedient. The objection to public ownership, in so far as it is +intelligent, is in reality largely an objection to over-centralization. +But the remedy for over-centralization is not the maintenance of +functionless property in private hands, but the decentralized ownership +of public property. When Birmingham and Manchester and Leeds are the +little republics which they should be, there is no reason to anticipate +that they will tremble at a whisper from Whitehall. + +These things should be done steadily and continuously, quite apart from +the special cases like that of the mines, railways, and canals, where +the private ownership of capital is stated by the experts to have been +responsible for intolerable waste, or the manufacture of armaments and +alcoholic liquor, which are politically and socially too dangerous to be +left in private hands. They should be done not in order to establish a +single form of bureaucratic management, but in order to release industry +from the domination of proprietary interests, which, whatever the form +of management, are not merely troublesome in detail but vicious in +principle, because they divert it from the performance of function to +the acquisition of gain. If at the same time private ownership is +shaken, as recently it has been, by action on the part of particular +groups of workers, so much the better. There are more ways of killing a +cat than drowning it in cream, and it is all the more likely to choose +the cream if they are explained to it. But the two methods are +complementary, not alternative, and the attempt to found rival schools +on an imaginary incompatibility between them is a bad case of the *odium sociologicum* which afflicts reformers. # The "Vicious Circle" -What form of management should replace the administration of -industry by the agents of shareholders? What is most likely -to hold it to its main purpose, and to be least at the mercy -of predatory interests and functionless supernumeraries, and -of the alternations of sullen dissatisfaction and spasmodic -revolt which at present distract it? Whatever the system -upon which industry is administered, one thing is certain. -Its economic processes and results must be public, because -only if they are public can it be known whether the service -of industry is vigilant, effective and honourable, whether -its purpose is being realised and its function carried out. -The defence of secrecy in business resembles the defence of -adulteration on the ground that it is a legitimate weapon of -competition; indeed it has even less justification than that -famous doctrine, for the condition of effective competition -is publicity, and one motive for secrecy is to prevent it. - -Those who conduct industry at the present time, and who are -most emphatic that (as the Duke of Wellington said of the -un-reformed House of Commons, they "have never read or heard -of any measure up to the present moment which can in any -degree satisfy the mind") the method of conducting it can in -any way be improved, are also those apparently who, with -some honourable exceptions, are most reluctant that the full -facts about it should be known. And it is crucial that they -should be known. It is crucial not only because, in the -present ignorance of the real economic situation, all -industrial disagreements tend inevitably to be battles in -the dark, in which "ignorant armies clash by night," but -because, unless there is complete publicity as to profits -and costs, it is impossible to form any judgment either of -the reasonableness of the prices which are charged or of the -claims to remuneration of the different parties engaged in -production. For balance sheets, with their opportunities for -concealing profits, give no clear light upon the first, and -no light at all upon the second. And so, when the facts come -out, the public is aghast at revelations which show that -industry is conducted with bewildering financial -extravagance. If the full facts had been published, as they -should have been, quarter by quarter, these revelations -would probably not have been made at all, because publicity -itself would have been an antiseptic and there would have -been nothing sensational to reveal. - -The events of the last few years are a lesson which should -need no repetition. The Government, surprised at the price -charged for making shells at a time when its soldiers were -ordered by Headquarters not to fire more than a few rounds -per day, whatever the need for retaliation, because there -were not more than a few to fire, establishes a costing -department to analyse the estimates submitted by -manufacturers and to compare them, item by item, with the -cost in its own factories. It finds that, through the mere -pooling of knowledge, "some of the reductions made in the -price of shells and similar munitions," as the chartered -accountant employed by the department tells us, "have been -as high as 50% of the original price." The household -consumer grumbles at the price of coal. For once in a way, -amid a storm of indignation from influential persons engaged -in the industry, the facts are published. And what do they -show? That, after 2/6 has been added to the already high -price of coal because the poorer mines are alleged not to be -paying their way, 21% of the output examined by the -Commission was produced at a profit of 1/- to 3/- per ton, -32% at a profit of 3/- to 5/-, 13% at a profit of 5/- to -7/-, and 14% at a profit of 7/- per ton and over, while the -profits of distributors in London alone amount in the -aggregate to over £500,000, and the co-operative movement, -which aims not at profit, but at service, distributes -household coal at a cost of from 2/- to 4/- less per ton -than is charged by the coal trade! - -"But these are exceptions." They may be. It is possible that -in the industries, in which, as the recent Committee on -Trusts has told us, "powerful Combinations or Consolidations -of one kind or another are in a position effectively to -control output and prices," not only costs are cut to the -bare minimum but profits are inconsiderable. But then why -insist on this humiliating tradition of secrecy with regard -to them, when everyone who uses their products, and everyone -who renders honest service to production, stands to gain by -publicity? If industry is to become a profession, whatever -its management, the first of its professional rules should -be, as Sir John Mann told the Coal Commission, that "all -cards should be placed on the table." If it were the duty of -a Public Department to publish quarterly exact returns as to -costs of production and profits in all the firms throughout -an industry, the gain in mere productive efficiency, which -should appeal to our enthusiasts for output, would be -considerable; for the organization whose costs were least -would become the standard with which all other types of -organization would be compared. The gain in *morale*, which -is also, absurd though it may seem, a condition of -efficiency, would be incalculable. For industry would be -conducted in the light of day. Its costs, necessary or -unnecessary, the distribution of the return to it, -reasonable or capricious, would be a matter of common -knowledge. It would be held to its purpose by the mere -impossibility of persuading those who make its products or -those who consume them to acquiesce, as they acquiesce now, -in expenditure which is meaningless because it has -contributed nothing to the service which the industry exists -to perform. - -The organization of industry as a profession does not -involve only the abolition of functionless property, and the -maintenance of publicity as the indispensable condition of a -standard of professional honour. It implies also that those -who perform its work should undertake that its work is -performed effectively. It means that they should not merely -be held to the service of the public by fear of personal -inconvenience or penalties, but that they should treat the -discharge of professional responsibilities as an obligation -attaching not only to a small *elite* of intellectuals, -managers or "bosses," who perform the technical work of -"business management," but as implied by the mere entry into -the industry and as resting on the corporate consent and -initiative of the rank and file of workers. It is precisely, -indeed, in the degree to which that obligation is -interpreted as attaching to all workers, and not merely to a -select class, that the difference between the existing -industrial order, collectivism and the organization of -industry as a profession resides. The first involves the -utilization of human beings for the purpose of private gain; -the second their utilization for the purpose of public -service; the third the association in the service of the -public of their professional pride, solidarity and -organization. - -The difference in administrative machinery between the -second and third might not be considerable. Both involve the -drastic limitation, or the transference to the public, of -the proprietary rights of the existing owners of industrial -capital. Both would necessitate machinery for bringing the -opinion of the consumers to bear upon the service supplied -them by the industry. The difference consists in the manner -in which the obligations of the producer to the public are -conceived. He may either be the executer of orders -transmitted to him by its agents; or he may, through his -organization, himself take a positive part in determining +What form of management should replace the administration of industry by +the agents of shareholders? What is most likely to hold it to its main +purpose, and to be least at the mercy of predatory interests and +functionless supernumeraries, and of the alternations of sullen +dissatisfaction and spasmodic revolt which at present distract it? +Whatever the system upon which industry is administered, one thing is +certain. Its economic processes and results must be public, because only +if they are public can it be known whether the service of industry is +vigilant, effective and honourable, whether its purpose is being +realised and its function carried out. The defence of secrecy in +business resembles the defence of adulteration on the ground that it is +a legitimate weapon of competition; indeed it has even less +justification than that famous doctrine, for the condition of effective +competition is publicity, and one motive for secrecy is to prevent it. + +Those who conduct industry at the present time, and who are most +emphatic that (as the Duke of Wellington said of the un-reformed House +of Commons, they "have never read or heard of any measure up to the +present moment which can in any degree satisfy the mind") the method of +conducting it can in any way be improved, are also those apparently who, +with some honourable exceptions, are most reluctant that the full facts +about it should be known. And it is crucial that they should be known. +It is crucial not only because, in the present ignorance of the real +economic situation, all industrial disagreements tend inevitably to be +battles in the dark, in which "ignorant armies clash by night," but +because, unless there is complete publicity as to profits and costs, it +is impossible to form any judgment either of the reasonableness of the +prices which are charged or of the claims to remuneration of the +different parties engaged in production. For balance sheets, with their +opportunities for concealing profits, give no clear light upon the +first, and no light at all upon the second. And so, when the facts come +out, the public is aghast at revelations which show that industry is +conducted with bewildering financial extravagance. If the full facts had +been published, as they should have been, quarter by quarter, these +revelations would probably not have been made at all, because publicity +itself would have been an antiseptic and there would have been nothing +sensational to reveal. + +The events of the last few years are a lesson which should need no +repetition. The Government, surprised at the price charged for making +shells at a time when its soldiers were ordered by Headquarters not to +fire more than a few rounds per day, whatever the need for retaliation, +because there were not more than a few to fire, establishes a costing +department to analyse the estimates submitted by manufacturers and to +compare them, item by item, with the cost in its own factories. It finds +that, through the mere pooling of knowledge, "some of the reductions +made in the price of shells and similar munitions," as the chartered +accountant employed by the department tells us, "have been as high as +50% of the original price." The household consumer grumbles at the price +of coal. For once in a way, amid a storm of indignation from influential +persons engaged in the industry, the facts are published. And what do +they show? That, after 2/6 has been added to the already high price of +coal because the poorer mines are alleged not to be paying their way, +21% of the output examined by the Commission was produced at a profit of +1/- to 3/- per ton, 32% at a profit of 3/- to 5/-, 13% at a profit of +5/- to 7/-, and 14% at a profit of 7/- per ton and over, while the +profits of distributors in London alone amount in the aggregate to over +£500,000, and the co-operative movement, which aims not at profit, but +at service, distributes household coal at a cost of from 2/- to 4/- less +per ton than is charged by the coal trade! + +"But these are exceptions." They may be. It is possible that in the +industries, in which, as the recent Committee on Trusts has told us, +"powerful Combinations or Consolidations of one kind or another are in a +position effectively to control output and prices," not only costs are +cut to the bare minimum but profits are inconsiderable. But then why +insist on this humiliating tradition of secrecy with regard to them, +when everyone who uses their products, and everyone who renders honest +service to production, stands to gain by publicity? If industry is to +become a profession, whatever its management, the first of its +professional rules should be, as Sir John Mann told the Coal Commission, +that "all cards should be placed on the table." If it were the duty of a +Public Department to publish quarterly exact returns as to costs of +production and profits in all the firms throughout an industry, the gain +in mere productive efficiency, which should appeal to our enthusiasts +for output, would be considerable; for the organization whose costs were +least would become the standard with which all other types of +organization would be compared. The gain in *morale*, which is also, +absurd though it may seem, a condition of efficiency, would be +incalculable. For industry would be conducted in the light of day. Its +costs, necessary or unnecessary, the distribution of the return to it, +reasonable or capricious, would be a matter of common knowledge. It +would be held to its purpose by the mere impossibility of persuading +those who make its products or those who consume them to acquiesce, as +they acquiesce now, in expenditure which is meaningless because it has +contributed nothing to the service which the industry exists to perform. + +The organization of industry as a profession does not involve only the +abolition of functionless property, and the maintenance of publicity as +the indispensable condition of a standard of professional honour. It +implies also that those who perform its work should undertake that its +work is performed effectively. It means that they should not merely be +held to the service of the public by fear of personal inconvenience or +penalties, but that they should treat the discharge of professional +responsibilities as an obligation attaching not only to a small *elite* +of intellectuals, managers or "bosses," who perform the technical work +of "business management," but as implied by the mere entry into the +industry and as resting on the corporate consent and initiative of the +rank and file of workers. It is precisely, indeed, in the degree to +which that obligation is interpreted as attaching to all workers, and +not merely to a select class, that the difference between the existing +industrial order, collectivism and the organization of industry as a +profession resides. The first involves the utilization of human beings +for the purpose of private gain; the second their utilization for the +purpose of public service; the third the association in the service of +the public of their professional pride, solidarity and organization. + +The difference in administrative machinery between the second and third +might not be considerable. Both involve the drastic limitation, or the +transference to the public, of the proprietary rights of the existing +owners of industrial capital. Both would necessitate machinery for +bringing the opinion of the consumers to bear upon the service supplied +them by the industry. The difference consists in the manner in which the +obligations of the producer to the public are conceived. He may either +be the executer of orders transmitted to him by its agents; or he may, +through his organization, himself take a positive part in determining what those orders should be. -In the former case he is responsible for his own work, but -not for anything else. If he hews his stint of coal, it is -no business of his whether the pit is a failure; if he puts -in the normal number of rivets, he disclaims all further -interest in the price or the seaworthiness of the ship. In -the latter his function embraces something more than the -performance of the specialized piece of work allotted to -him. It includes also a responsibility for the success of -the undertaking as a whole. And since responsibility is -impossible without power, his position would involve at -least so much power as is needed to secure that he can -affect in practice the conduct of the industry. It is this -collective liability for the maintenance of a certain -quality of service which is, indeed, the distinguishing -feature of a profession. It is compatible with several -different kinds of government, or indeed, when the unit of -production is, not a group, but an individual, with hardly -any government at all. What it does involve is that the -individual, merely by entering the profession, should have -committed himself to certain obligations in respect of its -conduct, and that the professional organization, whatever it -may be, should have sufficient power to enable it to -maintain them. - -The demand for the participation of the workers in the -control of industry is usually advanced in the name of the -producer, as a plea for economic freedom or industrial -democracy. "Political freedom," writes the Final Report of -the United States Commission on Industrial Relations, which -was presented in 1916, "can exist only where there is -industrial freedom... There are now within the body of our -Republic industrial communities which are virtually -Principalities, oppressive to those dependent upon them for -a livelihood and a dreadful menace to the peace and welfare -of the nation." The vanity of Englishmen may soften the -shadows and heighten the lights. But the concentration of -authority is too deeply rooted in the very essence of -Capitalism for differences in the degree of the -arbitrariness with which it is exercised to be other than -trivial. The control of a large works does, in fact, confer -a kind of private jurisdiction in matters concerning the -life and livelihood of the workers, which, as the United -States' Commission suggests, may properly be described as -"industrial feudalism." It is not easy to understand how the -traditional liberties of Englishmen are compatible with an -organization of industry which, except in so far as it has -been qualified by the law or by trade unionism, permits -populations almost as large as those of some famous cities -of the past to be controlled in their rising up and lying -down, in their work, economic opportunities, and social life -by the decisions of a Committee of half-a-dozen Directors. - -The most conservative thinkers recognize that the present -organization of industry is intolerable in the sacrifice of -liberty which it entails upon the producer. But each effort -which he makes to emancipate himself is met by a protest -that, if the existing system is incompatible with freedom, -it at least secures efficient service, and that efficient -service is threatened by movements which aim at placing a -greater measure of industrial control in the hands of the -workers. The attempt to drive a wedge between the producer -and the consumer is obviously the cue of all the interests -which are conscious that by themselves they are unable to -hold back the flood. It is natural, therefore, that during -the last two years they should have concentrated their -efforts upon representing that every advance in the demands -and in the power of any particular group of workers is a new -imposition upon the general body of the public Eminent -persons, who are not obviously producing more than they -consume, explain to the working classes that unless they -produce more they must consume less. Highly syndicated -combinations warn the public against the menace of predatory -syndicalism. The owners of mines and minerals, in their new -role as protectors of the poor, lament the "selfishness" of -the miners, as though nothing but pure philanthropy had -hitherto caused profits and royalties to be reluctantly -accepted by themselves. - -The assumption upon which this body of argument rests is -simple. It is that the existing organization of industry is -the safeguard of productive efficiency, and that from every -attempt to alter it the workers themselves lose more as -consumers than they can gain as producers. The world has -been drained of its wealth and demands abundance of goods. -The workers demand a larger income, greater leisure, and a -more secure and dignified status. These demands, it is -argued, are contradictory. For how can the consumer be -supplied with cheap goods, if, as a worker, he insists on -higher wages and shorter hours? And how can the worker -secure these conditions, if as a consumer, he demands cheap -goods? So industry, it is thought, moves in a vicious circle -of shorter hours and higher wages and less production, which -in time must mean longer hours and lower wages; and every -one receives less, because every one demands more. - -The picture is plausible, but it is fallacious. It is -fallacious not merely in its crude assumption that a rise in -wages necessarily involves an increase in costs, but for -another and more fundamental reason. In reality the cause of -economic confusion is not that the demands of producer and -consumer meet in blunt opposition; for, if they did, their -incompatibility, when they were incompatible, would be -obvious, and neither could deny his responsibility to the -other, however much he might seek to evade it. It is that -they do not, but that, as industry is organized to-day, what -the worker foregoes the general body of consumers does not -necessarily gain, and what the consumer pays the general -body of workers does not necessarily receive. If the circle -is vicious, its vice is not that it is closed, but that it -is always half open, so that part of production leaks away -in consumption which adds nothing to productive energies, -and that the producer, because he knows this, does not fully -use even the productive energy which he commands. - -It is the consciousness of this leak which sets every one at -cross purposes. No conceivable system of industrial -organization can secure industrial peace, if by "peace" is -meant a complete absence of disagreement. What could be -secured would be that disagreements should not flare up into -a beacon of class warfare. If every member of a group puts -something into a common pool on condition of taking -something out, they may still quarrel about the size of the -shares, as children quarrel over cake; but, if the total is -known and the claims admitted, that is all they can quarrel -about, and, since they all stand on the same footing, any -one who holds out for more than his fellows must show some -good reason why he should get it. But in industry the claims -are not all admitted, for those who put nothing in demand to -take something out; both the total to be divided and the -proportion in which the division takes place are sedulously -concealed; and those who preside over the distribution of -the pool and control what is paid out of it have a direct -interest in securing as large a share as possible for -themselves and in allotting as small a share as possible to -others. If one contributor takes less, so far from it being -evident that the gain will go to some one who has put -something in and has as good a right as himself, it may go -to some one who has put in nothing and has no right at all. -If another claims more, he may secure it, without plundering -a fellow-worker, at the expense of a sleeping partner who is -believed to plunder both. In practice, since there is no -clear principle determining what they ought to take, both -take all they can get. - -In such circumstances denunciations of the producer for -exploiting the consumer miss the mark. They are inevitably -regarded as an economic version of the military device used -by armies which advance behind a screen of women and -children, and then protest at the brutality of the enemy in -shooting non-combatants. They are interpreted as evidence, -not that a section of the producers are exploiting the -remainder, but that a minority of property-owners, which is -in opposition to both, can use its economic power to make -efforts directed against those who consume much and produce -little rebound on those who consume little and produce much. -And the grievance, of which the Press makes so much, that -some workers may be taking too large a share compared with -others, is masked by the much greater grievance, of which it -says nothing whatever, that some idlers take any share at -all. - -The abolition of payments which are made without any -corresponding economic service is thus one of the -indispensable conditions both of economic efficiency and -industrial peace, because their existence prevents different -classes of workers from restraining each other, by uniting -them all against the common enemy. Either the principle of -industry is that of function, in which case slack work is -only less immoral than no work at all; or it is that of -grab, in which case there is no morality in the matter. But -it cannot be both. And it is useless either for -property-owners or for Governments to lament the mote in the -eye of the trade unions, as long as, by insisting on the -maintenance of functionless property, they decline to remove -the beam in their own. - -The truth is that only workers can prevent the abuse of -power by workers, because only workers are recognized as -possessing any title to have their claims considered. And -the first step to prevent the exploitation of the consumer -by the producer is simple. It is to turn all men into -producers, and thus to remove the temptation for particular -groups of workers to force their claims at the expense of -the public, by removing the valid excuse that such gains as -they may get are taken from those who at present have no -right to them, because they are disproportionate to service -or obtained for no service at all. Indeed, if work were the -only title to payment, the danger of the community being -exploited by highly organized groups of producers would -largely disappear. For when no payments were made to -non-producers, there would be no debatable ground for which -to struggle, and it would become evident that if one group -of producers took more, another must put up with less. - -Under such conditions a body of workers who used their -strategic position to extort extravagant terms for -themselves at the expense of their fellow-workers might -properly be described as exploiting the community. But at -present such a statement is meaningless. -It is meaningless -because, before the community can be exploited, the -community must exist, and its existence in the sphere of -economic relations is to-day, not a fact, but only an -aspiration. The procedure by which, whenever any section of -workers advance demands which are regarded as inconvenient -by their masters, they are denounced as a band of anarchists -who are preying on the public, may be a convenient weapon in -an emergency, but, once it is submitted to analysis, it is -logically self-destructive. It has been applied within -recent years, to the postmen, to the engineers, to the -policemen, to the miners and to the railway men, a -population with their dependents, of some eight million -persons; and in the case of the last two the whole body of -organized labour made common cause with those of whose -exorbitant demands it was alleged to be the victim. But when -these workers and their sympathizers are deducted, what is -"the community" which remains? It is a naive arithmetic -which produces a total by subtracting one by one all the -items which compose it; and the art which discovers the -public interest by eliminating the interests of successive -sections of the public smacks of the rhetorician rather than -of the statesman. - -The truth is that at present it is idle to seek to resist -the demands of any group of workers by appeals to "the -interests of society," because today, as long as the -economic plane alone is considered, there is not one society -but two, which dwell together in uneasy juxtaposition, like -Sinbad and the Old Man of the Sea, but which in spirit, in -ideals, and in economic interest, are worlds asunder. There -is the society of those who live by labour, whatever their -craft or profession, and the society of those who live on -it. And the latter cannot command the sacrifices or the -loyalty which are due to the former, for they have no title -which will bear inspection. - -The instinct to ignore that tragic division instead of -ending it is amiable, and sometimes generous. But it is a -sentimentality which is like the morbid optimism of the -consumptive who dares not admit even to himself the -virulence of his disease. As long as the division exists, -the general body of workers, while it may suffer from the -struggles of any one group within it, nevertheless supports -them by its sympathy, because all are interested in the -results of the contest carried on by each. Different -sections of workers will exercise mutual restraint only when -the termination of the struggle leaves them face to face -with each other, and not as now, with the common enemy. The -ideal of a united society in which no one group uses its -power to encroach upon the standards of another is, in -short, unattainable, except through the preliminary -abolition of functionless property. - -Those to whom a leisure class is part of an immutable order -without which civilization is inconceivable, dare not admit, -even to themselves, that the world is poorer, not richer, -because of its existence. So, when, as now, it is important -that productive energy should be fully used, they stamp and -cry, and write to *The Times* about the necessity for -increased production, though all the time they themselves, -their way of life and expenditure, and their very existence -as a leisure class, are among the causes why production is -not increased. In all their economic plans they make one -reservation, that, however necessitous the world may be, it -shall still support *them*. But men who work do not make -that reservation, nor is there any reason why they should; -and appeals to them to produce more wealth because the -public needs it usually fall upon deaf ears, even when such -appeals are not involved in the ignorance and -misapprehensions which often characterize them. - -For the workman is not the servant of the consumer, for -whose sake the greater production is demanded, but of -shareholders, whose primary aim is dividends, and to whom -all production, however futile or frivolous, so long as it -yields dividends, is the same. It is useless to urge that he -should produce more wealth for the community, unless at the -same time he is assured that it is the community which will -benefit in proportion as more wealth is produced. If every -unnecessary charge upon coal-getting had been eliminated, it -would be reasonable to ask that the miners should set a much -needed example to the business community, by refusing to -extort better terms for themselves at the expense of the -public. But there is no reason why they should work for -lower wages or longer hours as long as those who are to-day -responsible for the management of the industry conduct it -with "the extravagance and waste" stigmatized by the most -eminent official witness before the Coal Commission, or why -the consumer should grumble at the rapacity of the miner as -long as he allows himself to be mulcted by swollen profits, -the costs of an ineffective organization, and unnecessary -payments to superfluous middlemen. - -If to-day the miner or any other workman produces more, he -has no guarantee that the result will be lower prices rather -than higher dividends and larger royalties, any more than, -as a workman, he can determine the quality of the wares -which his employer supplies to customers, or the price at -which they are sold. Nor, as long as he is directly the -servant of a profit-making company, and only indirectly the -servant of the community, can any such guarantee be offered -him. It can be offered only in so far as he stands in an -immediate and direct relation to the public for whom -industry is carried on, so that, when all costs have been -met,any surplus will pass to it, and not to private -individuals. It will be accepted only in so far as the -workers in each industry are not merely servants executing -orders, but themselves have a collective responsibility for -the character of the service, and can use their -organizations, not merely to protect themselves against -exploitation, but to make positive contributions to the -administration and development of their industry. +In the former case he is responsible for his own work, but not for +anything else. If he hews his stint of coal, it is no business of his +whether the pit is a failure; if he puts in the normal number of rivets, +he disclaims all further interest in the price or the seaworthiness of +the ship. In the latter his function embraces something more than the +performance of the specialized piece of work allotted to him. It +includes also a responsibility for the success of the undertaking as a +whole. And since responsibility is impossible without power, his +position would involve at least so much power as is needed to secure +that he can affect in practice the conduct of the industry. It is this +collective liability for the maintenance of a certain quality of service +which is, indeed, the distinguishing feature of a profession. It is +compatible with several different kinds of government, or indeed, when +the unit of production is, not a group, but an individual, with hardly +any government at all. What it does involve is that the individual, +merely by entering the profession, should have committed himself to +certain obligations in respect of its conduct, and that the professional +organization, whatever it may be, should have sufficient power to enable +it to maintain them. + +The demand for the participation of the workers in the control of +industry is usually advanced in the name of the producer, as a plea for +economic freedom or industrial democracy. "Political freedom," writes +the Final Report of the United States Commission on Industrial +Relations, which was presented in 1916, "can exist only where there is +industrial freedom... There are now within the body of our Republic +industrial communities which are virtually Principalities, oppressive to +those dependent upon them for a livelihood and a dreadful menace to the +peace and welfare of the nation." The vanity of Englishmen may soften +the shadows and heighten the lights. But the concentration of authority +is too deeply rooted in the very essence of Capitalism for differences +in the degree of the arbitrariness with which it is exercised to be +other than trivial. The control of a large works does, in fact, confer a +kind of private jurisdiction in matters concerning the life and +livelihood of the workers, which, as the United States' Commission +suggests, may properly be described as "industrial feudalism." It is not +easy to understand how the traditional liberties of Englishmen are +compatible with an organization of industry which, except in so far as +it has been qualified by the law or by trade unionism, permits +populations almost as large as those of some famous cities of the past +to be controlled in their rising up and lying down, in their work, +economic opportunities, and social life by the decisions of a Committee +of half-a-dozen Directors. + +The most conservative thinkers recognize that the present organization +of industry is intolerable in the sacrifice of liberty which it entails +upon the producer. But each effort which he makes to emancipate himself +is met by a protest that, if the existing system is incompatible with +freedom, it at least secures efficient service, and that efficient +service is threatened by movements which aim at placing a greater +measure of industrial control in the hands of the workers. The attempt +to drive a wedge between the producer and the consumer is obviously the +cue of all the interests which are conscious that by themselves they are +unable to hold back the flood. It is natural, therefore, that during the +last two years they should have concentrated their efforts upon +representing that every advance in the demands and in the power of any +particular group of workers is a new imposition upon the general body of +the public Eminent persons, who are not obviously producing more than +they consume, explain to the working classes that unless they produce +more they must consume less. Highly syndicated combinations warn the +public against the menace of predatory syndicalism. The owners of mines +and minerals, in their new role as protectors of the poor, lament the +"selfishness" of the miners, as though nothing but pure philanthropy had +hitherto caused profits and royalties to be reluctantly accepted by +themselves. + +The assumption upon which this body of argument rests is simple. It is +that the existing organization of industry is the safeguard of +productive efficiency, and that from every attempt to alter it the +workers themselves lose more as consumers than they can gain as +producers. The world has been drained of its wealth and demands +abundance of goods. The workers demand a larger income, greater leisure, +and a more secure and dignified status. These demands, it is argued, are +contradictory. For how can the consumer be supplied with cheap goods, +if, as a worker, he insists on higher wages and shorter hours? And how +can the worker secure these conditions, if as a consumer, he demands +cheap goods? So industry, it is thought, moves in a vicious circle of +shorter hours and higher wages and less production, which in time must +mean longer hours and lower wages; and every one receives less, because +every one demands more. + +The picture is plausible, but it is fallacious. It is fallacious not +merely in its crude assumption that a rise in wages necessarily involves +an increase in costs, but for another and more fundamental reason. In +reality the cause of economic confusion is not that the demands of +producer and consumer meet in blunt opposition; for, if they did, their +incompatibility, when they were incompatible, would be obvious, and +neither could deny his responsibility to the other, however much he +might seek to evade it. It is that they do not, but that, as industry is +organized to-day, what the worker foregoes the general body of consumers +does not necessarily gain, and what the consumer pays the general body +of workers does not necessarily receive. If the circle is vicious, its +vice is not that it is closed, but that it is always half open, so that +part of production leaks away in consumption which adds nothing to +productive energies, and that the producer, because he knows this, does +not fully use even the productive energy which he commands. + +It is the consciousness of this leak which sets every one at cross +purposes. No conceivable system of industrial organization can secure +industrial peace, if by "peace" is meant a complete absence of +disagreement. What could be secured would be that disagreements should +not flare up into a beacon of class warfare. If every member of a group +puts something into a common pool on condition of taking something out, +they may still quarrel about the size of the shares, as children quarrel +over cake; but, if the total is known and the claims admitted, that is +all they can quarrel about, and, since they all stand on the same +footing, any one who holds out for more than his fellows must show some +good reason why he should get it. But in industry the claims are not all +admitted, for those who put nothing in demand to take something out; +both the total to be divided and the proportion in which the division +takes place are sedulously concealed; and those who preside over the +distribution of the pool and control what is paid out of it have a +direct interest in securing as large a share as possible for themselves +and in allotting as small a share as possible to others. If one +contributor takes less, so far from it being evident that the gain will +go to some one who has put something in and has as good a right as +himself, it may go to some one who has put in nothing and has no right +at all. If another claims more, he may secure it, without plundering a +fellow-worker, at the expense of a sleeping partner who is believed to +plunder both. In practice, since there is no clear principle determining +what they ought to take, both take all they can get. + +In such circumstances denunciations of the producer for exploiting the +consumer miss the mark. They are inevitably regarded as an economic +version of the military device used by armies which advance behind a +screen of women and children, and then protest at the brutality of the +enemy in shooting non-combatants. They are interpreted as evidence, not +that a section of the producers are exploiting the remainder, but that a +minority of property-owners, which is in opposition to both, can use its +economic power to make efforts directed against those who consume much +and produce little rebound on those who consume little and produce much. +And the grievance, of which the Press makes so much, that some workers +may be taking too large a share compared with others, is masked by the +much greater grievance, of which it says nothing whatever, that some +idlers take any share at all. + +The abolition of payments which are made without any corresponding +economic service is thus one of the indispensable conditions both of +economic efficiency and industrial peace, because their existence +prevents different classes of workers from restraining each other, by +uniting them all against the common enemy. Either the principle of +industry is that of function, in which case slack work is only less +immoral than no work at all; or it is that of grab, in which case there +is no morality in the matter. But it cannot be both. And it is useless +either for property-owners or for Governments to lament the mote in the +eye of the trade unions, as long as, by insisting on the maintenance of +functionless property, they decline to remove the beam in their own. + +The truth is that only workers can prevent the abuse of power by +workers, because only workers are recognized as possessing any title to +have their claims considered. And the first step to prevent the +exploitation of the consumer by the producer is simple. It is to turn +all men into producers, and thus to remove the temptation for particular +groups of workers to force their claims at the expense of the public, by +removing the valid excuse that such gains as they may get are taken from +those who at present have no right to them, because they are +disproportionate to service or obtained for no service at all. Indeed, +if work were the only title to payment, the danger of the community +being exploited by highly organized groups of producers would largely +disappear. For when no payments were made to non-producers, there would +be no debatable ground for which to struggle, and it would become +evident that if one group of producers took more, another must put up +with less. + +Under such conditions a body of workers who used their strategic +position to extort extravagant terms for themselves at the expense of +their fellow-workers might properly be described as exploiting the +community. But at present such a statement is meaningless. -It is +meaningless because, before the community can be exploited, the +community must exist, and its existence in the sphere of economic +relations is to-day, not a fact, but only an aspiration. The procedure +by which, whenever any section of workers advance demands which are +regarded as inconvenient by their masters, they are denounced as a band +of anarchists who are preying on the public, may be a convenient weapon +in an emergency, but, once it is submitted to analysis, it is logically +self-destructive. It has been applied within recent years, to the +postmen, to the engineers, to the policemen, to the miners and to the +railway men, a population with their dependents, of some eight million +persons; and in the case of the last two the whole body of organized +labour made common cause with those of whose exorbitant demands it was +alleged to be the victim. But when these workers and their sympathizers +are deducted, what is "the community" which remains? It is a naive +arithmetic which produces a total by subtracting one by one all the +items which compose it; and the art which discovers the public interest +by eliminating the interests of successive sections of the public smacks +of the rhetorician rather than of the statesman. + +The truth is that at present it is idle to seek to resist the demands of +any group of workers by appeals to "the interests of society," because +today, as long as the economic plane alone is considered, there is not +one society but two, which dwell together in uneasy juxtaposition, like +Sinbad and the Old Man of the Sea, but which in spirit, in ideals, and +in economic interest, are worlds asunder. There is the society of those +who live by labour, whatever their craft or profession, and the society +of those who live on it. And the latter cannot command the sacrifices or +the loyalty which are due to the former, for they have no title which +will bear inspection. + +The instinct to ignore that tragic division instead of ending it is +amiable, and sometimes generous. But it is a sentimentality which is +like the morbid optimism of the consumptive who dares not admit even to +himself the virulence of his disease. As long as the division exists, +the general body of workers, while it may suffer from the struggles of +any one group within it, nevertheless supports them by its sympathy, +because all are interested in the results of the contest carried on by +each. Different sections of workers will exercise mutual restraint only +when the termination of the struggle leaves them face to face with each +other, and not as now, with the common enemy. The ideal of a united +society in which no one group uses its power to encroach upon the +standards of another is, in short, unattainable, except through the +preliminary abolition of functionless property. + +Those to whom a leisure class is part of an immutable order without +which civilization is inconceivable, dare not admit, even to themselves, +that the world is poorer, not richer, because of its existence. So, +when, as now, it is important that productive energy should be fully +used, they stamp and cry, and write to *The Times* about the necessity +for increased production, though all the time they themselves, their way +of life and expenditure, and their very existence as a leisure class, +are among the causes why production is not increased. In all their +economic plans they make one reservation, that, however necessitous the +world may be, it shall still support *them*. But men who work do not +make that reservation, nor is there any reason why they should; and +appeals to them to produce more wealth because the public needs it +usually fall upon deaf ears, even when such appeals are not involved in +the ignorance and misapprehensions which often characterize them. + +For the workman is not the servant of the consumer, for whose sake the +greater production is demanded, but of shareholders, whose primary aim +is dividends, and to whom all production, however futile or frivolous, +so long as it yields dividends, is the same. It is useless to urge that +he should produce more wealth for the community, unless at the same time +he is assured that it is the community which will benefit in proportion +as more wealth is produced. If every unnecessary charge upon +coal-getting had been eliminated, it would be reasonable to ask that the +miners should set a much needed example to the business community, by +refusing to extort better terms for themselves at the expense of the +public. But there is no reason why they should work for lower wages or +longer hours as long as those who are to-day responsible for the +management of the industry conduct it with "the extravagance and waste" +stigmatized by the most eminent official witness before the Coal +Commission, or why the consumer should grumble at the rapacity of the +miner as long as he allows himself to be mulcted by swollen profits, the +costs of an ineffective organization, and unnecessary payments to +superfluous middlemen. + +If to-day the miner or any other workman produces more, he has no +guarantee that the result will be lower prices rather than higher +dividends and larger royalties, any more than, as a workman, he can +determine the quality of the wares which his employer supplies to +customers, or the price at which they are sold. Nor, as long as he is +directly the servant of a profit-making company, and only indirectly the +servant of the community, can any such guarantee be offered him. It can +be offered only in so far as he stands in an immediate and direct +relation to the public for whom industry is carried on, so that, when +all costs have been met,any surplus will pass to it, and not to private +individuals. It will be accepted only in so far as the workers in each +industry are not merely servants executing orders, but themselves have a +collective responsibility for the character of the service, and can use +their organizations, not merely to protect themselves against +exploitation, but to make positive contributions to the administration +and development of their industry. # The New Condition of Efficiency -Thus it is not only for the sake of the producers, on whom -the old industrial order weighed most heavily, that a new -industrial order is needed. It is needed for the sake of the -consumers, because the ability on which the old industrial -order prided itself most and which is flaunted most as an -argument against change, the ability to serve them -effectively, is itself visibly breaking down. It is breaking -down at what was always its most vulnerable point, the -control of the human beings whom, with characteristic -indifference to all but their economic significance, it -distilled for its own purposes into an abstraction called -"Labour." The first symptom of its collapse is what the -first symptom of economic collapses has usually been in the -past---the failure of customary stimuli to evoke their -customary response in human effort. +Thus it is not only for the sake of the producers, on whom the old +industrial order weighed most heavily, that a new industrial order is +needed. It is needed for the sake of the consumers, because the ability +on which the old industrial order prided itself most and which is +flaunted most as an argument against change, the ability to serve them +effectively, is itself visibly breaking down. It is breaking down at +what was always its most vulnerable point, the control of the human +beings whom, with characteristic indifference to all but their economic +significance, it distilled for its own purposes into an abstraction +called "Labour." The first symptom of its collapse is what the first +symptom of economic collapses has usually been in the past---the failure +of customary stimuli to evoke their customary response in human effort. ## (a) The Passing of Authority from the Capitalist -Till that failure is recognized and industry reorganized so -that new stimuli may have free play, the collapse will not -correct itself, but, doubtless with spasmodic revivals and -flickering energy, will continue and accelerate. The cause -of it is simple. It is that those whose business it is to -direct economic activity are increasingly incapable of -directing the men upon whom economic activity depends. The -fault is not that of individuals, but of a system, of -Industrialism itself. During the greater part of the -nineteenth century industry was driven by two forces, hunger -and fear, and the employer commanded them both. He could -grant or withhold employment as he pleased. If men revolted -against his terms he could dismiss them, and, if they were -dismissed, what confronted them was starvation or the -workhouse. Authority was centralized; its instruments were -passive; the one thing which they dreaded was unemployment. -And since they could neither prevent its occurrence nor do -more than a little to mitigate its horrors when it occurred, -they submitted to a discipline which they could not resist, -and industry pursued its course through their passive -acquiescence in a power which could crush them individually -if they attempted to oppose it. - -That system might be lauded as efficient or denounced as -inhuman. But, at least, as its admirers were never tired of -pointing out, it worked. And, like the Prussian State, which -alike in its virtues and deficiencies it not a little -resembled, as long as it worked it survived denunciations of -its methods, as a strong man will throw off a disease. But -to-day it is ceasing to have even the qualities of its -defects. It is ceasing to be efficient. It no longer secures -the ever-increasing output of wealth which it offered in its -golden prime, and which enabled it to silence criticism by -an imposing spectacle of material success. Though it still -works, it works unevenly, amid constant friction and jolts -and stoppages, without the confidence of the public and -without full confidence even in itself. It is a tyrant who -must intrigue and cajole where formerly he commanded, a -gaoler who, if not yet deprived of the whip, dare only -administer moderate chastisement, and who, though he still -protests that he alone can keep the treadmill moving and get -the corn ground, is compelled to surrender so much of his -authority as to make it questionable whether he is worth his -keep. - -For the instruments through which Capitalism exercised -discipline are one by one being taken from it. It cannot pay -what wages it likes or work what hours it likes. For several -years it has been obliged to accept the control of prices -and profits. In well-organized industries the power of -arbitrary dismissal, the very centre of its authority, is -being shaken, because men will no longer tolerate a system -which makes their livelihood dependent on the caprices of an -individual. In all industries alike the time is not far -distant when the dread of starvation can no longer be used -to cow dissatisfied workers into submission, because the -public will no longer allow involuntary unemployment to -result in starvation. - -The last point is of crucial importance. It is the control -of the workers' will through the control of his livelihood -which has been in the past the master weapon of economic -tyranny. Both its champions and its opponents know it. In -1919, when the world of Labour was in motion, there were -some employers who looked to the inevitable recurrence of -bad trade "to teach them reason." Now that bad trade has -come, and with it the misery of unemployment, there are some -employers who say that the immediate loss will be more than -counter balanced if the lesson which the older generation -had learned, and which was half forgotten during the war, is -impressed upon the young men who grew up between 1914 and -1920. Let them once realise what it is not to be wanted, -and, except for an occasional outburst, they will come to -heel for the rest of their lives. - -The calculation is superficial, since the fear of -unemployment is one potent cause of industrial *malaise* and -of the slackening of production. The building operative -whose job is drawing towards its close, and who in the past -has had to tramp the streets for months in search of -another, may think that he has a duty to his employer, but -he reflects that he has a prior duty to his wife and -children. So he "makes the job last"; and he is right. As an -expedient for the moment, however, unemployment may be an -effective weapon---provided that the young men will follow -their fathers' example, and treat it as the act of God, not -as a disease accompanying a particular type of industrial -organization. But will they? It is too early yet to answer -that question. It seems clear, however, that the whole -repulsive body of assumptions, which made it seem natural to -use the mass of workers as instruments to be picked up when -there was work and to be laid aside when there was not, is -finding increasing difficulty in meeting the criticism -directed against it. In the impressive words of Lord Shaw, -"if men were merely the spare parts of an industrial -machine, this callous reckoning might be appropriate; but -Society will not much longer tolerate the employment of +Till that failure is recognized and industry reorganized so that new +stimuli may have free play, the collapse will not correct itself, but, +doubtless with spasmodic revivals and flickering energy, will continue +and accelerate. The cause of it is simple. It is that those whose +business it is to direct economic activity are increasingly incapable of +directing the men upon whom economic activity depends. The fault is not +that of individuals, but of a system, of Industrialism itself. During +the greater part of the nineteenth century industry was driven by two +forces, hunger and fear, and the employer commanded them both. He could +grant or withhold employment as he pleased. If men revolted against his +terms he could dismiss them, and, if they were dismissed, what +confronted them was starvation or the workhouse. Authority was +centralized; its instruments were passive; the one thing which they +dreaded was unemployment. And since they could neither prevent its +occurrence nor do more than a little to mitigate its horrors when it +occurred, they submitted to a discipline which they could not resist, +and industry pursued its course through their passive acquiescence in a +power which could crush them individually if they attempted to oppose +it. + +That system might be lauded as efficient or denounced as inhuman. But, +at least, as its admirers were never tired of pointing out, it worked. +And, like the Prussian State, which alike in its virtues and +deficiencies it not a little resembled, as long as it worked it survived +denunciations of its methods, as a strong man will throw off a disease. +But to-day it is ceasing to have even the qualities of its defects. It +is ceasing to be efficient. It no longer secures the ever-increasing +output of wealth which it offered in its golden prime, and which enabled +it to silence criticism by an imposing spectacle of material success. +Though it still works, it works unevenly, amid constant friction and +jolts and stoppages, without the confidence of the public and without +full confidence even in itself. It is a tyrant who must intrigue and +cajole where formerly he commanded, a gaoler who, if not yet deprived of +the whip, dare only administer moderate chastisement, and who, though he +still protests that he alone can keep the treadmill moving and get the +corn ground, is compelled to surrender so much of his authority as to +make it questionable whether he is worth his keep. + +For the instruments through which Capitalism exercised discipline are +one by one being taken from it. It cannot pay what wages it likes or +work what hours it likes. For several years it has been obliged to +accept the control of prices and profits. In well-organized industries +the power of arbitrary dismissal, the very centre of its authority, is +being shaken, because men will no longer tolerate a system which makes +their livelihood dependent on the caprices of an individual. In all +industries alike the time is not far distant when the dread of +starvation can no longer be used to cow dissatisfied workers into +submission, because the public will no longer allow involuntary +unemployment to result in starvation. + +The last point is of crucial importance. It is the control of the +workers' will through the control of his livelihood which has been in +the past the master weapon of economic tyranny. Both its champions and +its opponents know it. In 1919, when the world of Labour was in motion, +there were some employers who looked to the inevitable recurrence of bad +trade "to teach them reason." Now that bad trade has come, and with it +the misery of unemployment, there are some employers who say that the +immediate loss will be more than counter balanced if the lesson which +the older generation had learned, and which was half forgotten during +the war, is impressed upon the young men who grew up between 1914 and +1920. Let them once realise what it is not to be wanted, and, except for +an occasional outburst, they will come to heel for the rest of their +lives. + +The calculation is superficial, since the fear of unemployment is one +potent cause of industrial *malaise* and of the slackening of +production. The building operative whose job is drawing towards its +close, and who in the past has had to tramp the streets for months in +search of another, may think that he has a duty to his employer, but he +reflects that he has a prior duty to his wife and children. So he "makes +the job last"; and he is right. As an expedient for the moment, however, +unemployment may be an effective weapon---provided that the young men +will follow their fathers' example, and treat it as the act of God, not +as a disease accompanying a particular type of industrial organization. +But will they? It is too early yet to answer that question. It seems +clear, however, that the whole repulsive body of assumptions, which made +it seem natural to use the mass of workers as instruments to be picked +up when there was work and to be laid aside when there was not, is +finding increasing difficulty in meeting the criticism directed against +it. In the impressive words of Lord Shaw, "if men were merely the spare +parts of an industrial machine, this callous reckoning might be +appropriate; but Society will not much longer tolerate the employment of human beings on those lines." -What the trade unions are beginning to demand, and what they -are likely to demand with increasing insistence in the -future, is that their members shall be treated as "on the -strength" of their respective industries, and that, if an -industry requires workers when it is busy, it shall -accumulate in good times the reserves needed to maintain -those workers when it is slack. The Building Guilds have -adopted that principle. The Committee of employers and trade -unionists presided over by Mr. Foster recommended a scheme -which was, in essence, the same. The striking programme -submitted by Mr. Bevin to the Transport Workers' Federation -proposes that the whole of the 125,000 workers to be -registered as members of the industry shall be guaranteed a -regular wage of £4 a week throughout the year, provided they -present themselves for employment, and that the cost shall -be met by a levy of 4d. a ton on imports and exports. The -provisions for "contracting out" under the Unemployment -Insurance Act, unsatisfactory though they are, are a step -towards the adoption of schemes which will treat the payment -of regular wages to the workers in each industry, work or -play, as part of the normal "costs" which the return to the -industry must cover. Now that the principle of maintenance -has been recognised, however inadequately, by legislation, -its application is likely to be extended from the exiguous -benefit at present provided to the payment of a sum which -will, in effect, be a standing wage, payable in bad times as -in good, to all workers normally engaged in each industry. - -In proportion as that result is achieved, Capitalism will be -unable to appeal to the terror of unemployment which has -been in the past its most powerful instrument of economic -discipline. And its prestige will vanish with its power. -Indeed it is vanishing already. For if Capitalism is losing -its control of men's bodies, still more has it lost its -command of their minds. The product of a civilization which -regarded "the poor" as the instruments, at worst of the -luxuries, at best of the virtues, of the rich, its -psychological foundation fifty years ago was an ignorance in -the mass of mankind which led them to reverence as wisdom -the very follies of their masters, and an almost animal -incapacity for responsibility. Education and experience have -destroyed the passivity which was the condition of the -perpetuation of industrial government in the hands of an -oligarchy of private capitalists. The workman of to-day has -as little belief in the intellectual superiority of many of -those who direct industry as he has in the morality of the -system. It appears to him to be not only oppressive, but -wasteful, unintelligent and inefficient. In the light of his -own experience in the factory and the mine, he regards the -claim of the capitalist to be the self-appointed guardian of -public interests as a piece of sanctimonious hypocrisy. For -he sees every day that efficiency is sacrificed to -short-sighted financial interests; and while as a man he is -outraged by the inhumanity of the industrial order, as a -professional who knows the difference between good work and -bad he has a growing contempt at once for its misplaced -parsimony and its misplaced extravagance, for the whole -apparatus of adulteration, advertisement and quackery which -seems inseparable from the pursuit of profit as the main -standard of industrial success. - -So Capitalism no longer secures strenuous work by fear, for -it is ceasing to be formidable. And it cannot secure it by -respect, for it has ceased to be respected. And the very -victories by which it seeks to reassert its waning prestige -are more disastrous than defeats. Employers may congratulate -themselves that they have maintained intact their right to -freedom of management, or opposed successfully a demand for -public ownership, or broken a movement for higher wages and -shorter hours. But what is success in a trade dispute or in -a political struggle is often a defeat in the workshop. The -workmen may have lost, but it does not follow that their -employers, still less that the public, which is principally -composed of workmen, have won. - -For the object of industry is to produce goods, and to -produce them at the lowest cost in human effort. But there -is no alchemy which will secure efficient production from -the resentment or distrust of men who feel contempt for the -order under which they work. It is a commonplace that credit -is the foundation of industry. But credit is a matter of -psychology, and the workman has his psychology as well as -the capitalist. If confidence is necessary to the investment -of capital, confidence is not less necessary to the -effective performance of labour by men whose sole livelihood -depends upon it. If they are not yet strong enough to impose -their will, they are strong enough to resist when their -masters would impose theirs. They may work rather than -strike. But they will work to escape dismissal, not for the -greater glory of a system in which they do not believe; and, -if they are dismissed, those who take their place will do -the same. - -That this is one cause of a low output has "been stated both -by employers and workers in the building industry, and by -the representatives of the miners before the Coal -Commission. It was reiterated with impressive emphasis by -Mr. Justice Sankey. Nor is it seriously contested by -employers themselves. What else, indeed, do their repeated -denunciations of"restriction of output" mean, except that -they have failed to organize industry so as to secure the -efficient service which it is their special function to -provide? Nor is it appropriate to the situation to indulge -in full-blooded denunciations of the "selfishness" of the -working classes. "To draw an indictment against a whole -nation" is a procedure which is as impossible in industry as -it is in politics. Institutions must be adapted to human -nature, not human nature to institutions. If the effect of -the industrial system is such that a large and increasing -number of ordinary men and women find that it offers them no -adequate motive for economic effort, it is mere pedantry to -denounce men and women instead of amending the system. - -Thus the time has come when absolutism in industry may still -win its battles, but loses the campaign, and loses it on the -very ground of economic efficiency which was of its own -selection. In the period of transition, while economic -activity is distracted by the struggle between those who -have the name and habit of power, but no longer the full -reality of it, and those who are daily winning more of the -reality of power but are not yet its recognized -repositories, it is the consumer who suffers. He has neither -the service of docile obedience, nor the service of -intelligent co-operation. For slavery will work---as long as -the slaves will let it; and freedom will work when men have -learned to be free; but what will not work is a combination -of the two. So the public goes short of coal, not only -because of the technical deficiencies of the system under -which it is raised and distributed, but because the system -itself has lost its driving force---because the mine owners -can no longer persuade the miners into producing more -dividends for themselves and more royalties for the owners -of minerals, while the public cannot appeal to them to put -their whole power into serving itself, because it has chosen -that they should be the servants, not of itself, but of -shareholders. - -And this dilemma is not, as some suppose, temporary, the -aftermath of war, or peculiar to the coal industry, as -though the miners alone were the children of sin which in -the last two years they have been described to be. It is -permanent; it has spread far; and, as sleeping spirits are -stirred into life by education and one industry after -another develops a strong corporate consciousness, it will -spread further. Nor will it be resolved by lamentations or -menaces or denunciations of leaders whose only significance -is that they say openly what plain men feel privately. For -the matter at bottom is one of psychology. What has happened -is that the motives on which the industrial system relied -for several generations to secure efficiency, secure it no -longer. And it is as impossible to restore them, to revive -by mere exhortation the complex of hopes and fears and -ignorance and patient credulity and passive acquiescence, -which together made men, fifty years ago, plastic -instruments in the hands of industrialism, as to restore -innocence to any others of those who have eaten of the tree -of knowledge. - -The ideal of some intelligent and respectable business men, -the restoration of the golden sixties, when workmen were -docile and confiding, and trade unions were still half -illegal, and foreign competition meant English competition -in foreign countries, and prices were rising a little and -not rising too much, is the one Utopia which can never be -realized. The King may walk naked as long as his courtiers -protest that he is clad; but when a child or a fool has -broken the spell a tailor is more important than all their -admiration. If the public, which suffers from the slackening -of economic activity, desires to end its *malaise*, it will -not laud as admirable and all-sufficient the operation of -motives which are plainly ceasing to move. It will seek to -liberate new motives and to enlist them in its service. It -will endeavour to find an alternative to incentives which -were always degrading, to those who used them as much as to -those upon whom they were used, and which now are adequate -incentives no longer. And the alternative to the discipline -which Capitalism exercised through its instruments of -unemployment and starvation is the self-discipline of +What the trade unions are beginning to demand, and what they are likely +to demand with increasing insistence in the future, is that their +members shall be treated as "on the strength" of their respective +industries, and that, if an industry requires workers when it is busy, +it shall accumulate in good times the reserves needed to maintain those +workers when it is slack. The Building Guilds have adopted that +principle. The Committee of employers and trade unionists presided over +by Mr. Foster recommended a scheme which was, in essence, the same. The +striking programme submitted by Mr. Bevin to the Transport Workers' +Federation proposes that the whole of the 125,000 workers to be +registered as members of the industry shall be guaranteed a regular wage +of £4 a week throughout the year, provided they present themselves for +employment, and that the cost shall be met by a levy of 4d. a ton on +imports and exports. The provisions for "contracting out" under the +Unemployment Insurance Act, unsatisfactory though they are, are a step +towards the adoption of schemes which will treat the payment of regular +wages to the workers in each industry, work or play, as part of the +normal "costs" which the return to the industry must cover. Now that the +principle of maintenance has been recognised, however inadequately, by +legislation, its application is likely to be extended from the exiguous +benefit at present provided to the payment of a sum which will, in +effect, be a standing wage, payable in bad times as in good, to all +workers normally engaged in each industry. + +In proportion as that result is achieved, Capitalism will be unable to +appeal to the terror of unemployment which has been in the past its most +powerful instrument of economic discipline. And its prestige will vanish +with its power. Indeed it is vanishing already. For if Capitalism is +losing its control of men's bodies, still more has it lost its command +of their minds. The product of a civilization which regarded "the poor" +as the instruments, at worst of the luxuries, at best of the virtues, of +the rich, its psychological foundation fifty years ago was an ignorance +in the mass of mankind which led them to reverence as wisdom the very +follies of their masters, and an almost animal incapacity for +responsibility. Education and experience have destroyed the passivity +which was the condition of the perpetuation of industrial government in +the hands of an oligarchy of private capitalists. The workman of to-day +has as little belief in the intellectual superiority of many of those +who direct industry as he has in the morality of the system. It appears +to him to be not only oppressive, but wasteful, unintelligent and +inefficient. In the light of his own experience in the factory and the +mine, he regards the claim of the capitalist to be the self-appointed +guardian of public interests as a piece of sanctimonious hypocrisy. For +he sees every day that efficiency is sacrificed to short-sighted +financial interests; and while as a man he is outraged by the inhumanity +of the industrial order, as a professional who knows the difference +between good work and bad he has a growing contempt at once for its +misplaced parsimony and its misplaced extravagance, for the whole +apparatus of adulteration, advertisement and quackery which seems +inseparable from the pursuit of profit as the main standard of +industrial success. + +So Capitalism no longer secures strenuous work by fear, for it is +ceasing to be formidable. And it cannot secure it by respect, for it has +ceased to be respected. And the very victories by which it seeks to +reassert its waning prestige are more disastrous than defeats. Employers +may congratulate themselves that they have maintained intact their right +to freedom of management, or opposed successfully a demand for public +ownership, or broken a movement for higher wages and shorter hours. But +what is success in a trade dispute or in a political struggle is often a +defeat in the workshop. The workmen may have lost, but it does not +follow that their employers, still less that the public, which is +principally composed of workmen, have won. + +For the object of industry is to produce goods, and to produce them at +the lowest cost in human effort. But there is no alchemy which will +secure efficient production from the resentment or distrust of men who +feel contempt for the order under which they work. It is a commonplace +that credit is the foundation of industry. But credit is a matter of +psychology, and the workman has his psychology as well as the +capitalist. If confidence is necessary to the investment of capital, +confidence is not less necessary to the effective performance of labour +by men whose sole livelihood depends upon it. If they are not yet strong +enough to impose their will, they are strong enough to resist when their +masters would impose theirs. They may work rather than strike. But they +will work to escape dismissal, not for the greater glory of a system in +which they do not believe; and, if they are dismissed, those who take +their place will do the same. + +That this is one cause of a low output has "been stated both by +employers and workers in the building industry, and by the +representatives of the miners before the Coal Commission. It was +reiterated with impressive emphasis by Mr. Justice Sankey. Nor is it +seriously contested by employers themselves. What else, indeed, do their +repeated denunciations of"restriction of output" mean, except that they +have failed to organize industry so as to secure the efficient service +which it is their special function to provide? Nor is it appropriate to +the situation to indulge in full-blooded denunciations of the +"selfishness" of the working classes. "To draw an indictment against a +whole nation" is a procedure which is as impossible in industry as it is +in politics. Institutions must be adapted to human nature, not human +nature to institutions. If the effect of the industrial system is such +that a large and increasing number of ordinary men and women find that +it offers them no adequate motive for economic effort, it is mere +pedantry to denounce men and women instead of amending the system. + +Thus the time has come when absolutism in industry may still win its +battles, but loses the campaign, and loses it on the very ground of +economic efficiency which was of its own selection. In the period of +transition, while economic activity is distracted by the struggle +between those who have the name and habit of power, but no longer the +full reality of it, and those who are daily winning more of the reality +of power but are not yet its recognized repositories, it is the consumer +who suffers. He has neither the service of docile obedience, nor the +service of intelligent co-operation. For slavery will work---as long as +the slaves will let it; and freedom will work when men have learned to +be free; but what will not work is a combination of the two. So the +public goes short of coal, not only because of the technical +deficiencies of the system under which it is raised and distributed, but +because the system itself has lost its driving force---because the mine +owners can no longer persuade the miners into producing more dividends +for themselves and more royalties for the owners of minerals, while the +public cannot appeal to them to put their whole power into serving +itself, because it has chosen that they should be the servants, not of +itself, but of shareholders. + +And this dilemma is not, as some suppose, temporary, the aftermath of +war, or peculiar to the coal industry, as though the miners alone were +the children of sin which in the last two years they have been described +to be. It is permanent; it has spread far; and, as sleeping spirits are +stirred into life by education and one industry after another develops a +strong corporate consciousness, it will spread further. Nor will it be +resolved by lamentations or menaces or denunciations of leaders whose +only significance is that they say openly what plain men feel privately. +For the matter at bottom is one of psychology. What has happened is that +the motives on which the industrial system relied for several +generations to secure efficiency, secure it no longer. And it is as +impossible to restore them, to revive by mere exhortation the complex of +hopes and fears and ignorance and patient credulity and passive +acquiescence, which together made men, fifty years ago, plastic +instruments in the hands of industrialism, as to restore innocence to +any others of those who have eaten of the tree of knowledge. + +The ideal of some intelligent and respectable business men, the +restoration of the golden sixties, when workmen were docile and +confiding, and trade unions were still half illegal, and foreign +competition meant English competition in foreign countries, and prices +were rising a little and not rising too much, is the one Utopia which +can never be realized. The King may walk naked as long as his courtiers +protest that he is clad; but when a child or a fool has broken the spell +a tailor is more important than all their admiration. If the public, +which suffers from the slackening of economic activity, desires to end +its *malaise*, it will not laud as admirable and all-sufficient the +operation of motives which are plainly ceasing to move. It will seek to +liberate new motives and to enlist them in its service. It will +endeavour to find an alternative to incentives which were always +degrading, to those who used them as much as to those upon whom they +were used, and which now are adequate incentives no longer. And the +alternative to the discipline which Capitalism exercised through its +instruments of unemployment and starvation is the self-discipline of responsibility and professional pride. So the demand which aims at stronger organization, fuller -responsibility, larger powers for the sake of the producer -as a condition of economic liberty, the demand for freedom, -is not antithetic to the demand for more effective work and -increased output which is being made in the interests of the -consumer. It is complementary to it, as the insistence by a -body of professional men, whether doctors or university -teachers, on the maintenance of their professional -independence and dignity against attempts to cheapen the -service is not hostile to an efficient service, but, in the -long run, a condition of it. - -The course of wisdom for the consumer would be to hasten, so -far as he can, the transition. For, as at present conducted, -industry is working against the grain. It is compassing sea -and land in its efforts to overcome, by ingenious financial -and technical expedients, obstacles which should never have -existed. It is trying to produce its results by conquering -professional feeling instead of by using it. It is carrying -not only its inevitable economic burdens, but an ever -increasing load of ill-will and scepticism. It has, in fact, -"shot the bird which caused the wind to blow" and goes about -its business with the corpse round its neck. Compared with -that psychological incubus, the technical deficiencies of -industry, serious though they often are, are a bagatelle, -and the business men who preach the gospel of production -without offering any plan for dealing with what is now the -central fact in the economic situation, resemble a Christian -apologist who should avoid disturbing the equanimity of his -audience by carefully omitting all reference either to the -fall of man or to the scheme of salvation. If it is desired -to increase the output of wealth, it is not a paradox, but -the statement of an elementary economic truism to say that -active and constructive co-operation on the part of the rank -and file of workers would do more to contribute to that -result than the discovery of a new coalfield or a generation -of scientific invention. +responsibility, larger powers for the sake of the producer as a +condition of economic liberty, the demand for freedom, is not antithetic +to the demand for more effective work and increased output which is +being made in the interests of the consumer. It is complementary to it, +as the insistence by a body of professional men, whether doctors or +university teachers, on the maintenance of their professional +independence and dignity against attempts to cheapen the service is not +hostile to an efficient service, but, in the long run, a condition of +it. + +The course of wisdom for the consumer would be to hasten, so far as he +can, the transition. For, as at present conducted, industry is working +against the grain. It is compassing sea and land in its efforts to +overcome, by ingenious financial and technical expedients, obstacles +which should never have existed. It is trying to produce its results by +conquering professional feeling instead of by using it. It is carrying +not only its inevitable economic burdens, but an ever increasing load of +ill-will and scepticism. It has, in fact, "shot the bird which caused +the wind to blow" and goes about its business with the corpse round its +neck. Compared with that psychological incubus, the technical +deficiencies of industry, serious though they often are, are a +bagatelle, and the business men who preach the gospel of production +without offering any plan for dealing with what is now the central fact +in the economic situation, resemble a Christian apologist who should +avoid disturbing the equanimity of his audience by carefully omitting +all reference either to the fall of man or to the scheme of salvation. +If it is desired to increase the output of wealth, it is not a paradox, +but the statement of an elementary economic truism to say that active +and constructive co-operation on the part of the rank and file of +workers would do more to contribute to that result than the discovery of +a new coalfield or a generation of scientific invention. ## (b) The Appeal to Professional Feeling -The first condition of enlisting on the side of constructive -work the professional feeling which is now apathetic, or -even hostile to it, is to secure that, when it is given, its -results accrue to the public, not to the owner of property -in capital, in land, or in other resources. For this reason -the attenuation of the rights at present involved in the -private ownership of industrial capital, or their complete -abolition, is not the demand of ideologues, but an -indispensable element in a policy of economic efficiency, -since it is the condition of the most effective functioning -of the human beings upon whom, though, like other truisms, -it is often forgotten, economic efficiency ultimately -depends. But it is only one element. Co-operation may range -from mere acquiescence to a vigilant and zealous initiative. -The criterion of an effective system of administration is -that it should succeed in enlisting in the conduct of -industry the latent forces of professional pride to which -the present industrial order makes little appeal, and which, -indeed. Capitalism, in its war upon trade union -organization, endeavoured for many years to stamp out -altogether. - -Nor does the efficacy of such an appeal repose upon the -assumption of that "change in human nature," which is the -triumphant *reductio ad absurdum* advanced by those who are -least satisfied with the working of human nature as it is. -What it does involve is that certain elementary facts should -be taken into account, instead of, as at present, being -ignored. That all work is distasteful, and that "every man -desires to secure the largest income with the least effort," -may be as axiomatic as it is assumed to be. But in practice -it makes all the difference to the attitude of the -individual whether the collective sentiment of the group to -which he belongs is on the side of effort or against it, and -what standard of effort it sets. That, as employers -complain, the public opinion of considerable groups of -workers is against an intensification of effort as long as -part of its result is increased dividends for shareholders, -is, no doubt, as far as mere efficiency is concerned, the -gravest indictment of the existing industrial order. But, -even when public ownership has taken the place of private -capitalism, its ability to command effective service will -depend ultimately upon its success in securing, not merely -that professional feeling is no longer an opposing force, -but that it is actively enlisted upon the side of -maintaining the highest possible standard of efficiency -which can reasonably be demanded. - -To put the matter concretely, while the existing ownership -of mines is a positive inducement to inefficient work, -public ownership administered by a bureaucracy, if it would -remove the technical deficiencies emphasized by Sir Richard -Redmayne as inseparable from the separate administration of -3,000 pits by 1,500 different companies, would be only too -likely to miss a capital advantage which a different type of -administration would secure. It would lose both the -assistance to be derived from the technical knowledge of -practical men who know by daily experience the points at -which the details of administration can be improved, and the -stimulus to efficiency springing from the corporate pride of -a profession which is responsible for maintaining and -improving the character of its service. - -Professional spirit is a force like gravitation, which in -itself is neither good nor bad, but which the engineer uses, -when he can, to do his work for him. If it is foolish to -idealize it, it is equally short-sighted to neglect it. In -what are described *par excellence* as "the services" it has -always been recognized that *esprit de corps* is the -foundation of efficiency, and all means, some wise and some -mischievous, are used to encourage it; in practice, indeed, -the power upon which the country relied as its main -safeguard in an emergency was the professional zeal of the -navy and nothing else. Nor is that spirit peculiar to the -professions which are concerned with war. It is a matter of -common training, common responsibilities, and common -dangers. In all cases where difficult and disagreeable work -is to be done, the force which elicits it is normally not -merely money, but the public opinion and tradition of the -little society in which the individual moves, and in the -esteem of which he finds that which men value in success. - -To ignore that most powerful of stimuli as it is ignored -to-day, and then to lament that the efforts which it -produces are not forthcoming, is the height of perversity. -To aim at eliminating from industry the growth and action of -corporate feeling, for fear lest an organized body of -producers should exploit the public, is a plausible policy. -But it is short-sighted. It is "to pour away the baby with -the bath," and to lower the quality of the service in an -attempt to safeguard it. A wise system of administration -would recognize that professional solidarity can do much of -its work for it more effectively than it can do it itself, -because the spirit of his profession is part of the -individual and not a force outside him, and it would make it -its object to enlist that temper in the public service. It -is only by that policy, indeed, that the elaboration of -cumbrous regulations to prevent men doing what they should -not, with the incidental result of sometimes preventing them -from doing what they should---it is only by that policy that -what is mechanical and obstructive in bureaucracy can be -averted. For industry cannot run without laws. It must -either control itself by professional standards, or it must -be controlled by officials who are not of the craft, and -who, however zealous and well-meaning, can hardly have the -feel of it in their fingers. Public control and criticism -are indispensable. But they should not be too detailed, or -they defeat themselves. It would be better that, once fair -standards have been established, the professional -organization should check offences against prices and -quality than that it should be necessary for the State to do -so. The alternative to minute external supervision is -supervision from within by men who become imbued with the -public obligations of their trade in the very process of -learning it. It is, in short, professionalism in industry. - -For this reason collectivism by itself is too simple a -solution. Its failure is likely to be that of other -rationalist systems. +The first condition of enlisting on the side of constructive work the +professional feeling which is now apathetic, or even hostile to it, is +to secure that, when it is given, its results accrue to the public, not +to the owner of property in capital, in land, or in other resources. For +this reason the attenuation of the rights at present involved in the +private ownership of industrial capital, or their complete abolition, is +not the demand of ideologues, but an indispensable element in a policy +of economic efficiency, since it is the condition of the most effective +functioning of the human beings upon whom, though, like other truisms, +it is often forgotten, economic efficiency ultimately depends. But it is +only one element. Co-operation may range from mere acquiescence to a +vigilant and zealous initiative. The criterion of an effective system of +administration is that it should succeed in enlisting in the conduct of +industry the latent forces of professional pride to which the present +industrial order makes little appeal, and which, indeed. Capitalism, in +its war upon trade union organization, endeavoured for many years to +stamp out altogether. + +Nor does the efficacy of such an appeal repose upon the assumption of +that "change in human nature," which is the triumphant *reductio ad +absurdum* advanced by those who are least satisfied with the working of +human nature as it is. What it does involve is that certain elementary +facts should be taken into account, instead of, as at present, being +ignored. That all work is distasteful, and that "every man desires to +secure the largest income with the least effort," may be as axiomatic as +it is assumed to be. But in practice it makes all the difference to the +attitude of the individual whether the collective sentiment of the group +to which he belongs is on the side of effort or against it, and what +standard of effort it sets. That, as employers complain, the public +opinion of considerable groups of workers is against an intensification +of effort as long as part of its result is increased dividends for +shareholders, is, no doubt, as far as mere efficiency is concerned, the +gravest indictment of the existing industrial order. But, even when +public ownership has taken the place of private capitalism, its ability +to command effective service will depend ultimately upon its success in +securing, not merely that professional feeling is no longer an opposing +force, but that it is actively enlisted upon the side of maintaining the +highest possible standard of efficiency which can reasonably be +demanded. + +To put the matter concretely, while the existing ownership of mines is a +positive inducement to inefficient work, public ownership administered +by a bureaucracy, if it would remove the technical deficiencies +emphasized by Sir Richard Redmayne as inseparable from the separate +administration of 3,000 pits by 1,500 different companies, would be only +too likely to miss a capital advantage which a different type of +administration would secure. It would lose both the assistance to be +derived from the technical knowledge of practical men who know by daily +experience the points at which the details of administration can be +improved, and the stimulus to efficiency springing from the corporate +pride of a profession which is responsible for maintaining and improving +the character of its service. + +Professional spirit is a force like gravitation, which in itself is +neither good nor bad, but which the engineer uses, when he can, to do +his work for him. If it is foolish to idealize it, it is equally +short-sighted to neglect it. In what are described *par excellence* as +"the services" it has always been recognized that *esprit de corps* is +the foundation of efficiency, and all means, some wise and some +mischievous, are used to encourage it; in practice, indeed, the power +upon which the country relied as its main safeguard in an emergency was +the professional zeal of the navy and nothing else. Nor is that spirit +peculiar to the professions which are concerned with war. It is a matter +of common training, common responsibilities, and common dangers. In all +cases where difficult and disagreeable work is to be done, the force +which elicits it is normally not merely money, but the public opinion +and tradition of the little society in which the individual moves, and +in the esteem of which he finds that which men value in success. + +To ignore that most powerful of stimuli as it is ignored to-day, and +then to lament that the efforts which it produces are not forthcoming, +is the height of perversity. To aim at eliminating from industry the +growth and action of corporate feeling, for fear lest an organized body +of producers should exploit the public, is a plausible policy. But it is +short-sighted. It is "to pour away the baby with the bath," and to lower +the quality of the service in an attempt to safeguard it. A wise system +of administration would recognize that professional solidarity can do +much of its work for it more effectively than it can do it itself, +because the spirit of his profession is part of the individual and not a +force outside him, and it would make it its object to enlist that temper +in the public service. It is only by that policy, indeed, that the +elaboration of cumbrous regulations to prevent men doing what they +should not, with the incidental result of sometimes preventing them from +doing what they should---it is only by that policy that what is +mechanical and obstructive in bureaucracy can be averted. For industry +cannot run without laws. It must either control itself by professional +standards, or it must be controlled by officials who are not of the +craft, and who, however zealous and well-meaning, can hardly have the +feel of it in their fingers. Public control and criticism are +indispensable. But they should not be too detailed, or they defeat +themselves. It would be better that, once fair standards have been +established, the professional organization should check offences against +prices and quality than that it should be necessary for the State to do +so. The alternative to minute external supervision is supervision from +within by men who become imbued with the public obligations of their +trade in the very process of learning it. It is, in short, +professionalism in industry. + +For this reason collectivism by itself is too simple a solution. Its +failure is likely to be that of other rationalist systems. >  "Dann hat er die Theile in seiner Hand, > > Fehlt leider! nur das geistige Band." -If industrial reorganization is to be a living reality, and -not merely a plan upon paper, its aim must be to secure not -only that industry is carried on for the service of the -public, but that it shall be carried on with the active -co-operation of the organizations of producers. But -co-operation involves responsibility, and responsibility -involves power. It is idle to expect that men will give -their best to any system which they do not trust, or that -they will trust any system in the control of which they do -not share. Their ability to carry professional obligations -depends upon the power which they possess to remove the -obstacles which prevent those obligations from being -discharged, and upon their willingness, when they possess -the power, to use it. - -Two causes appear to have hampered the committees which were -established in connection with coal mines during the war to -increase the output of coal. One was the reluctance of some -of them to discharge the invidious task of imposing -penalties for absenteeism on their fellow-workmen. The other -was the exclusion of faults of management from the control -of many committees. In some cases all went well till they -demanded that, if the miners were penalized for absenteeism -which was due to them, the management should be penalized -similarly when men who desired to work were sent home, -because, as the result of defective organization, there was -no work for them to do. Their demand was resisted as -"interference with the management," and the attempt to -enforce regularity of attendance broke down. Nor, to take -another example from the same industry, is it to be expected -that the weight of the miners' organization will be thrown -on to the side of greater production, if it has no power to -insist on the removal of the defects of equipment and -organization, the shortage of trams, rails, tubs and timber, -the "creaming" of the pits by the working of easily got coal -to their future detriment, their wasteful lay-out caused by -the vagaries of separate ownership, by which at present the -output is reduced. - -The public cannot have it both ways. If it allows workmen to -be treated as "hands", it cannot claim the service of their -wills and their brains. If it desires them to show the zeal -of skilled professionals, it must secure that they have -sufficient power to allow of their discharging professional -responsibilities. In order that workmen may abolish any -restrictions on output which may be imposed by them, they -must be able to insist on the abolition of the restrictions, -more mischievous because more effective, which, as the -Committee on Trusts has recently told us, are imposed by -organizations of employers. In order that the miners' -leaders, instead of merely bargaining as to wages, hours and -working conditions, may be able to appeal to their members -to increase the supply of coal, they must be in a position -to secure the removal of the causes of low output which are -due to the deficiencies of the management, and which are -to-day a far more serious obstacle than any reluctance on -the part of the miner. If the workmen in the building trades -are to take combined action to accelerate production, they -must as a body be consulted as to the purpose to which their -energy is to be applied, and must not be expected to build -fashionable houses, when what are required are six-roomed -cottages to house families which are at present living three -persons to a room. - -It is deplorable, indeed, that any human beings should -consent to degrade themselves by producing the articles -which a considerable number of workmen turn out to-day, -boots which are partly brown paper, and furniture which is -not fit to use. The revenge of outraged humanity is certain, -though it is not always obvious; and the penalty paid by the -consumer for tolerating an organization of industry which, -in the name of efficiency, destroyed the responsibility of -the workman, is that the service with which he is provided -is not even efficient. He has always paid it, though he has -not seen it, in quality. To-day he is beginning to realize -that he is likely to pay it in quantity as well. If the -public is to get efficient service, it can get it only from -human beings, with the initiative and caprices of human -beings. It will get it, in short, in so far as it treats -industry as a responsible profession. - -The collective responsibility of the workers for the -maintenance of the standards of their profession is, then, -the alternative to the discipline which Capitalism exercised -in the past, and which is now breaking down. It involves a -fundamental change in the position both of employers and of -trade unions. As long as the direction of industry is in the -hands of property-owners or their agents, who are concerned -to extract from it the maximum profit for themselves, a -trade union is necessarily a defensive organization. -Absorbed, on the one hand, in the struggle to resist the -downward thrust of Capitalism upon the workers' standard of -life, and denounced, on the other, if it presumes, to -"interfere with management," even when management is most -obviously inefficient, it is an opposition which never -becomes a government, and which has neither the will nor the -power to assume responsibility for the quality of the -service offered to the consumer. If the abolition of -functionless property transferred the control of production -to bodies representing those who performed constructive work -and those who consumed the goods produced, the relation of -the worker to the public would no longer be indirect but -immediate. Associations which are now purely defensive would -be in a position, not merely to criticize and oppose, but to -advise, to initiate and to enforce upon their own members +If industrial reorganization is to be a living reality, and not merely a +plan upon paper, its aim must be to secure not only that industry is +carried on for the service of the public, but that it shall be carried +on with the active co-operation of the organizations of producers. But +co-operation involves responsibility, and responsibility involves power. +It is idle to expect that men will give their best to any system which +they do not trust, or that they will trust any system in the control of +which they do not share. Their ability to carry professional obligations +depends upon the power which they possess to remove the obstacles which +prevent those obligations from being discharged, and upon their +willingness, when they possess the power, to use it. + +Two causes appear to have hampered the committees which were established +in connection with coal mines during the war to increase the output of +coal. One was the reluctance of some of them to discharge the invidious +task of imposing penalties for absenteeism on their fellow-workmen. The +other was the exclusion of faults of management from the control of many +committees. In some cases all went well till they demanded that, if the +miners were penalized for absenteeism which was due to them, the +management should be penalized similarly when men who desired to work +were sent home, because, as the result of defective organization, there +was no work for them to do. Their demand was resisted as "interference +with the management," and the attempt to enforce regularity of +attendance broke down. Nor, to take another example from the same +industry, is it to be expected that the weight of the miners' +organization will be thrown on to the side of greater production, if it +has no power to insist on the removal of the defects of equipment and +organization, the shortage of trams, rails, tubs and timber, the +"creaming" of the pits by the working of easily got coal to their future +detriment, their wasteful lay-out caused by the vagaries of separate +ownership, by which at present the output is reduced. + +The public cannot have it both ways. If it allows workmen to be treated +as "hands", it cannot claim the service of their wills and their brains. +If it desires them to show the zeal of skilled professionals, it must +secure that they have sufficient power to allow of their discharging +professional responsibilities. In order that workmen may abolish any +restrictions on output which may be imposed by them, they must be able +to insist on the abolition of the restrictions, more mischievous because +more effective, which, as the Committee on Trusts has recently told us, +are imposed by organizations of employers. In order that the miners' +leaders, instead of merely bargaining as to wages, hours and working +conditions, may be able to appeal to their members to increase the +supply of coal, they must be in a position to secure the removal of the +causes of low output which are due to the deficiencies of the +management, and which are to-day a far more serious obstacle than any +reluctance on the part of the miner. If the workmen in the building +trades are to take combined action to accelerate production, they must +as a body be consulted as to the purpose to which their energy is to be +applied, and must not be expected to build fashionable houses, when what +are required are six-roomed cottages to house families which are at +present living three persons to a room. + +It is deplorable, indeed, that any human beings should consent to +degrade themselves by producing the articles which a considerable number +of workmen turn out to-day, boots which are partly brown paper, and +furniture which is not fit to use. The revenge of outraged humanity is +certain, though it is not always obvious; and the penalty paid by the +consumer for tolerating an organization of industry which, in the name +of efficiency, destroyed the responsibility of the workman, is that the +service with which he is provided is not even efficient. He has always +paid it, though he has not seen it, in quality. To-day he is beginning +to realize that he is likely to pay it in quantity as well. If the +public is to get efficient service, it can get it only from human +beings, with the initiative and caprices of human beings. It will get +it, in short, in so far as it treats industry as a responsible +profession. + +The collective responsibility of the workers for the maintenance of the +standards of their profession is, then, the alternative to the +discipline which Capitalism exercised in the past, and which is now +breaking down. It involves a fundamental change in the position both of +employers and of trade unions. As long as the direction of industry is +in the hands of property-owners or their agents, who are concerned to +extract from it the maximum profit for themselves, a trade union is +necessarily a defensive organization. Absorbed, on the one hand, in the +struggle to resist the downward thrust of Capitalism upon the workers' +standard of life, and denounced, on the other, if it presumes, to +"interfere with management," even when management is most obviously +inefficient, it is an opposition which never becomes a government, and +which has neither the will nor the power to assume responsibility for +the quality of the service offered to the consumer. If the abolition of +functionless property transferred the control of production to bodies +representing those who performed constructive work and those who +consumed the goods produced, the relation of the worker to the public +would no longer be indirect but immediate. Associations which are now +purely defensive would be in a position, not merely to criticize and +oppose, but to advise, to initiate and to enforce upon their own members the obligations of the craft. ## (c) The need of a new Economic Psychology -It is obvious that in such circumstances the service offered -the consumer, however carefully safeguarded by his -representation on the authorities controlling each industry, -would depend primarily upon the success of professional -organizations in finding a substitute for the discipline -exercised to-day by the agents of property-owners. It would -be necessary for them to maintain by their own action the -zeal, efficiency and professional pride which, when the -barbarous weapons of the nineteenth century have been -discarded, would be the only guarantee of a high level of -production. Nor, once this new function has been made -possible for professional organizations, is there any -extravagance in expecting them to perform it with reasonable -competence. - -How far economic motives are baulked to-day and could be -strengthened by a different type of industrial organization, -to what extent, and under what conditions, it is possible to -enlist in the services of industry motives which are not -purely economic, can be ascertained only after a study of -the psychology of work which has not yet been made. Such a -study, to be of value, must start by abandoning the -conventional assumptions, popularized by economic textbooks -and accepted as self-evident by practical men, that the -motives to effort are simple and constant in character, like -the pressure of steam in a boiler, that they are identical -throughout all ranges of economic activity, from the stock -exchange to the shunting of wagons or the laying of bricks, -and that they can be elicited and strengthened only by -directly economic incentives. - -In so far as motives in industry have been considered -hitherto, it has usually been done by writers who, like most -exponents of scientific management, have started by assuming -that the categories of business psychology could be applied -with equal success to all classes of workers and to all -types of productive work. Those categories appear to be -derived from a simplified analysis of the mental processes -of the company promoter, financier or investor, and their -validity as an interpretation of the motives and habits -which determine the attitude to his work of the bricklayer, -the miner, the dock labourer or the engineer, is precisely -the point in question. - -Clearly there are certain types of industry to which they -are only partially relevant. It can hardly be assumed, for -example, that the degree of skill and energy brought to his -work by a surgeon, a scientific investigator, a teacher, a -medical officer of health, an Indian civil servant and a -peasant proprietor are capable of being expressed precisely -and to the same degree in terms of the economic advantage -which those different occupations offer. Obviously those who -pursue them are influenced to some considerable, though -uncertain, extent by economic incentives. Obviously, again, -the precise character of each process or step in the -exercise of their respective avocations, the performance of -an operation, the carrying out of a piece of investigation, -the selection of a particular type of educational method, -the preparation of a report, the decision of a case or the -care of live stock, is not immediately dependent upon an -exact calculation of pecuniary gain or loss. - -What appears to be the case is that in certain walks of -life, while the occupation is chosen after a consideration -of its economic advantages, and while economic reasons exact -the minimum degree of activity needed to avert dismissal -from it or "failure," the actual level of energy or -proficiency displayed depends largely upon conditions of a -different order. Among them are the character of the -training received before and after entering the occupation, -the customary standard of effort demanded by the public -opinion of one's fellows, the desire for the esteem of the -small circle in which the individual moves, the wish to be -recognized as having "made good" and not to have "failed," -interest in one's work, ranging from devotion to a -determination to "do justice" to it, the pride of the -craftsman, the "tradition of the service." - -It would be foolish to suggest that any considerable body of -men are uninfluenced by economic considerations. But to -represent them as amenable to such incentives only is to -give a quite unreal and bookish picture of the actual -conditions under which the work of the world is carried on. -How large a part such considerations play varies from one -occupation to another, according to the character of the -work which it does and the manner in which it is organized. -In what is called *par excellence* industry, calculations of -pecuniary gain and loss are more powerful than in most of -the so-called professions, though even in industry they are -more constantly present to the minds of the business men who -"direct" it, than to those of the managers and technicians, -most of whom are paid fixed salaries, or to the rank and -file of wage-earners. In the professions of teaching and -medicine, and in many branches of the public service, the -necessary qualities are secured, without the intervention of -the capitalist employer, partly by pecuniary incentives, -partly by training and education, partly by the acceptance -on the part of those entering them of the traditional -obligations of their profession as a part of the normal -framework of their working lives. But this difference is not -constant and unalterable. It springs from the manner in -which different types of occupation are organized, on the -training which they offer, and on the *morale* which they -cultivate among their members. The psychology of a vocation -can in fact be changed; new motives can be elicited, -provided steps are taken to allow them free expression. It -is as feasible to turn building into an organized -profession, with a relatively high code of public honour, as +It is obvious that in such circumstances the service offered the +consumer, however carefully safeguarded by his representation on the +authorities controlling each industry, would depend primarily upon the +success of professional organizations in finding a substitute for the +discipline exercised to-day by the agents of property-owners. It would +be necessary for them to maintain by their own action the zeal, +efficiency and professional pride which, when the barbarous weapons of +the nineteenth century have been discarded, would be the only guarantee +of a high level of production. Nor, once this new function has been made +possible for professional organizations, is there any extravagance in +expecting them to perform it with reasonable competence. + +How far economic motives are baulked to-day and could be strengthened by +a different type of industrial organization, to what extent, and under +what conditions, it is possible to enlist in the services of industry +motives which are not purely economic, can be ascertained only after a +study of the psychology of work which has not yet been made. Such a +study, to be of value, must start by abandoning the conventional +assumptions, popularized by economic textbooks and accepted as +self-evident by practical men, that the motives to effort are simple and +constant in character, like the pressure of steam in a boiler, that they +are identical throughout all ranges of economic activity, from the stock +exchange to the shunting of wagons or the laying of bricks, and that +they can be elicited and strengthened only by directly economic +incentives. + +In so far as motives in industry have been considered hitherto, it has +usually been done by writers who, like most exponents of scientific +management, have started by assuming that the categories of business +psychology could be applied with equal success to all classes of workers +and to all types of productive work. Those categories appear to be +derived from a simplified analysis of the mental processes of the +company promoter, financier or investor, and their validity as an +interpretation of the motives and habits which determine the attitude to +his work of the bricklayer, the miner, the dock labourer or the +engineer, is precisely the point in question. + +Clearly there are certain types of industry to which they are only +partially relevant. It can hardly be assumed, for example, that the +degree of skill and energy brought to his work by a surgeon, a +scientific investigator, a teacher, a medical officer of health, an +Indian civil servant and a peasant proprietor are capable of being +expressed precisely and to the same degree in terms of the economic +advantage which those different occupations offer. Obviously those who +pursue them are influenced to some considerable, though uncertain, +extent by economic incentives. Obviously, again, the precise character +of each process or step in the exercise of their respective avocations, +the performance of an operation, the carrying out of a piece of +investigation, the selection of a particular type of educational method, +the preparation of a report, the decision of a case or the care of live +stock, is not immediately dependent upon an exact calculation of +pecuniary gain or loss. + +What appears to be the case is that in certain walks of life, while the +occupation is chosen after a consideration of its economic advantages, +and while economic reasons exact the minimum degree of activity needed +to avert dismissal from it or "failure," the actual level of energy or +proficiency displayed depends largely upon conditions of a different +order. Among them are the character of the training received before and +after entering the occupation, the customary standard of effort demanded +by the public opinion of one's fellows, the desire for the esteem of the +small circle in which the individual moves, the wish to be recognized as +having "made good" and not to have "failed," interest in one's work, +ranging from devotion to a determination to "do justice" to it, the +pride of the craftsman, the "tradition of the service." + +It would be foolish to suggest that any considerable body of men are +uninfluenced by economic considerations. But to represent them as +amenable to such incentives only is to give a quite unreal and bookish +picture of the actual conditions under which the work of the world is +carried on. How large a part such considerations play varies from one +occupation to another, according to the character of the work which it +does and the manner in which it is organized. In what is called *par +excellence* industry, calculations of pecuniary gain and loss are more +powerful than in most of the so-called professions, though even in +industry they are more constantly present to the minds of the business +men who "direct" it, than to those of the managers and technicians, most +of whom are paid fixed salaries, or to the rank and file of +wage-earners. In the professions of teaching and medicine, and in many +branches of the public service, the necessary qualities are secured, +without the intervention of the capitalist employer, partly by pecuniary +incentives, partly by training and education, partly by the acceptance +on the part of those entering them of the traditional obligations of +their profession as a part of the normal framework of their working +lives. But this difference is not constant and unalterable. It springs +from the manner in which different types of occupation are organized, on +the training which they offer, and on the *morale* which they cultivate +among their members. The psychology of a vocation can in fact be +changed; new motives can be elicited, provided steps are taken to allow +them free expression. It is as feasible to turn building into an +organized profession, with a relatively high code of public honour, as it was to do the same for medicine or teaching. -Suppose that the technical heads of a great industry, like -mining or building, having undergone some kind of -conversion, should decide to throw in their lot with the -workers in it, and should take thought with them, and with -representatives of the consumers, as to the ways of securing -in future the most effective service with the least economic -compulsion. How would they proceed? Well, clearly, in the -first place, they would lay immense stress upon training and -selection. Quite apart from the universal secondary -education which ought to be provided for all children up to -sixteen---in place of the miserable trickle of less than 5% -of the boys and girls leaving the elementary schools who -enter secondary schools to-day, only to leave them again, in -the majority of cases, soon after their fifteenth -birthday---quite apart from the general and communal system -of higher education, they would develop a special type of -training for the youths from whom the future recruits of the -service would be drawn. - -It would be partly a training in a specialized technique, -like that given in Schools of Mining---the nucleus of such a -system for the mining industry---at the present day. But it -would be even more a discipline in professional ethics. It -would aim at driving home, as a fixed habit, a certain -standard of professional conduct. It would emphasize that -there were certain things---like advertising, or accepting -secret commissions, or taking advantage of a client's -ignorance, or rigging the market, or other analogous -practices of the present commercial world---which "the -service can't do." It would cultivate the *esprit de corps* -which is natural to young men, and would make them feel that -to snatch special advantages for oneself, like any common -business man, is, apart from other considerations, an odious -offence against good manners. And since the disposition of -all occupations---the "trades" quite as much as the -"professions"---is to relapse into well-worn ruts and to -make an idol of good average mediocrity, it would impress -upon them---what is one of the main truths of all education -whatsoever---that, if the young are not always right, the -old are nearly always wrong, and that the first duty of -youth is, not to avoid mistakes, but to show initiative and -take responsibility, to make a tradition not to perpetuate -one. - -From such professional schools, working in close conjunction -with the Universities, would come the candidates for -admission to the profession. The method of their selection -would be as different from that which obtains at present as -would their training. There would be no question, of course, -of giving a soft job to the youth with money or influence, -still less of "picking the cheapest." They would obtain, at -the end of their period of training, diplomas or other -professional qualifications, would spend the necessary -number of years in practical work, and would be engaged on -the basis of their records. Once in the service, they would -be members of a profession from which the grosser -indignities of the present industrial world, the beating -down of salaries and wages, threats of arbitrary dismissal -and involuntary unemployment without payment, nepotism and -jobbery, the insolence of rich men and their servants, would -be excluded. Since the higher posts would be recruited by -ability, not, as now in the Civil Service, by seniority, nor -by what is worse, the favouritism common in private -business, every able man would "carry a marshal's baton in -his haversack." If the pecuniary value of the largest prizes -were reduced, the stimulus offered to the common man would -be enormously increased, since he would know that it -depended on himself to win them. The motive of fear might be -weaker than it is to-day, but the motive of hope would be -infinitely stronger. - -But knowledge is as important as zeal, and when "the nose -for money" is no longer regarded as a virtue, it will become -all-important. The profession would therefore have attached -to it a body of experts, engaged not in practising it, but -in research into its problems. It would be their business to -pioneer and investigate, to produce new ideas and to bring -them to the notice of the practical men, to improve -established methods, to disturb complacent conservatism and -to keep the profession intellectually alive by a fresh -current of criticism and suggestion. Their discoveries would -be public; there would be no corner in knowledge, such as -appears to be desired by the commercial gentlemen who to-day -wish to keep secret the discoveries of the State-supported +Suppose that the technical heads of a great industry, like mining or +building, having undergone some kind of conversion, should decide to +throw in their lot with the workers in it, and should take thought with +them, and with representatives of the consumers, as to the ways of +securing in future the most effective service with the least economic +compulsion. How would they proceed? Well, clearly, in the first place, +they would lay immense stress upon training and selection. Quite apart +from the universal secondary education which ought to be provided for +all children up to sixteen---in place of the miserable trickle of less +than 5% of the boys and girls leaving the elementary schools who enter +secondary schools to-day, only to leave them again, in the majority of +cases, soon after their fifteenth birthday---quite apart from the +general and communal system of higher education, they would develop a +special type of training for the youths from whom the future recruits of +the service would be drawn. + +It would be partly a training in a specialized technique, like that +given in Schools of Mining---the nucleus of such a system for the mining +industry---at the present day. But it would be even more a discipline in +professional ethics. It would aim at driving home, as a fixed habit, a +certain standard of professional conduct. It would emphasize that there +were certain things---like advertising, or accepting secret commissions, +or taking advantage of a client's ignorance, or rigging the market, or +other analogous practices of the present commercial world---which "the +service can't do." It would cultivate the *esprit de corps* which is +natural to young men, and would make them feel that to snatch special +advantages for oneself, like any common business man, is, apart from +other considerations, an odious offence against good manners. And since +the disposition of all occupations---the "trades" quite as much as the +"professions"---is to relapse into well-worn ruts and to make an idol of +good average mediocrity, it would impress upon them---what is one of the +main truths of all education whatsoever---that, if the young are not +always right, the old are nearly always wrong, and that the first duty +of youth is, not to avoid mistakes, but to show initiative and take +responsibility, to make a tradition not to perpetuate one. + +From such professional schools, working in close conjunction with the +Universities, would come the candidates for admission to the profession. +The method of their selection would be as different from that which +obtains at present as would their training. There would be no question, +of course, of giving a soft job to the youth with money or influence, +still less of "picking the cheapest." They would obtain, at the end of +their period of training, diplomas or other professional qualifications, +would spend the necessary number of years in practical work, and would +be engaged on the basis of their records. Once in the service, they +would be members of a profession from which the grosser indignities of +the present industrial world, the beating down of salaries and wages, +threats of arbitrary dismissal and involuntary unemployment without +payment, nepotism and jobbery, the insolence of rich men and their +servants, would be excluded. Since the higher posts would be recruited +by ability, not, as now in the Civil Service, by seniority, nor by what +is worse, the favouritism common in private business, every able man +would "carry a marshal's baton in his haversack." If the pecuniary value +of the largest prizes were reduced, the stimulus offered to the common +man would be enormously increased, since he would know that it depended +on himself to win them. The motive of fear might be weaker than it is +to-day, but the motive of hope would be infinitely stronger. + +But knowledge is as important as zeal, and when "the nose for money" is +no longer regarded as a virtue, it will become all-important. The +profession would therefore have attached to it a body of experts, +engaged not in practising it, but in research into its problems. It +would be their business to pioneer and investigate, to produce new ideas +and to bring them to the notice of the practical men, to improve +established methods, to disturb complacent conservatism and to keep the +profession intellectually alive by a fresh current of criticism and +suggestion. Their discoveries would be public; there would be no corner +in knowledge, such as appears to be desired by the commercial gentlemen +who to-day wish to keep secret the discoveries of the State-supported Bureau of Industrial Research. The consumers, who would have -representation on the bodies governing the industry, in the -manner proposed (for example) by Mr. Justice Sankey and the -Miners' Federation, would be able to appeal to their results -as evidence that a change of methods, which the profession -might dislike, was justified by the increase in economy or -efficiency which it would produce. - -Is it unreasonable to suggest that such a combination of -intellectual and moral training, professional pride, and -organized knowledge would be at least as effective an -economic engine as the struggle for personal gain which at -present drives the wheels of industry? That question has -hardly been discussed by economists. For economic science -has never escaped from the peculiar bias received from the -dogmatic rationalism which presided at its birth. Man seeks -pleasure and shuns pain. He desires riches and hates effort. -A simple, yet delicate, hedonistic calculus resides in the -bosom of "employer" and "labourer"; to that they will -respond with the precision of a needle to the magnetic pole, -and they will respond to nothing else. That doctrine has -been expelled from psychology and political science: the -danger to-day is that these studies should lay too little -stress upon reason, not too much, and forget that, however -unreasonable human beings may be proved to be, the principal -moral to be drawn is that at any rate they should be as -reasonable as they can. But mere crude eighteenth century -rationalism still works havoc with the discussion of -economic issues, and, above all, of industrial organization. -It is still used as a lazy substitute for observation, and -to suggest a simplicity of motive which is quite foreign to -the facts. - -All that type of thought belongs to the dark ages. The truth -is that we ought radically to revise the presuppositions as -to human motives on which current presentations of economic -theory are ordinarily founded, and in terms of which the -discussion of economic questions is usually carried on. The -assumption that the stimulus of imminent personal want is -either the only spur, or a sufficient spur, to productive -effort is a relic of a crude psychology which has little -warrant either in past history or in present experience. It -derives what plausibility it possesses from a confusion -between work in the sense of the lowest *quantum* of -activity needed to escape actual starvation, and the work -which is given, irrespective of the fact that elementary -wants may already have been satisfied, through the natural -disposition of ordinary men to maintain, and of -extraordinary men to improve upon, the level of exertion -accepted as reasonable by the public opinion of the group of -which they are members. It is the old difference, forgotten -by society as often as it is learned, between the labour of -the free man and that of the slave. Economic fear may secure -the minimum effort needed to escape economic penalties. -What, however, has made progress possible in the past, and -what, it may be suggested, matters to the world to-day, is -not the bare minimum which is required to avoid actual want, -but the capacity of men to bring to bear upon their tasks a -degree of energy, which, while it can be stimulated by -economic incentives, yields results far in excess of any -which are necessary merely to avoid the extremes of hunger -or destitution. - -That capacity is a matter of training, tradition and habit, -at least as much as of pecuniary stimulus, and the ability -to raise it of a professional association representing the -public opinion of a group of workers is, therefore, -considerable. Once industry has been liberated from its -subservience to the interests of the functionless -property-owner, it is in this sphere that trade unions may -be expected increasingly to find their functions. Its -importance both for the general interests of the community -and for the special interests of particular groups of -workers can hardly be exaggerated. Technical knowledge and -managerial skill are likely to be available as readily for a -committee appointed by the workers in an industry as for a -committee appointed, as now, by the shareholders. But it is -more and more evident to-day that the crux of the economic -situation is not the technical deficiencies of industrial -organization, but the growing inability of those who direct -industry to command the active good will of the *personnel*. -Their co-operation is promised by the conversion of industry -into a profession serving the public, and promised, as far -as can be judged, by that alone. - -Nor is the assumption of the new and often disagreeable -obligations of internal discipline and public responsibility -one which trade unionism can afford, once the change is -accomplished, to shirk, however alien they may be to its -present traditions. For ultimately, if by slow degrees, -power follows the ability to wield it; authority goes with +representation on the bodies governing the industry, in the manner +proposed (for example) by Mr. Justice Sankey and the Miners' Federation, +would be able to appeal to their results as evidence that a change of +methods, which the profession might dislike, was justified by the +increase in economy or efficiency which it would produce. + +Is it unreasonable to suggest that such a combination of intellectual +and moral training, professional pride, and organized knowledge would be +at least as effective an economic engine as the struggle for personal +gain which at present drives the wheels of industry? That question has +hardly been discussed by economists. For economic science has never +escaped from the peculiar bias received from the dogmatic rationalism +which presided at its birth. Man seeks pleasure and shuns pain. He +desires riches and hates effort. A simple, yet delicate, hedonistic +calculus resides in the bosom of "employer" and "labourer"; to that they +will respond with the precision of a needle to the magnetic pole, and +they will respond to nothing else. That doctrine has been expelled from +psychology and political science: the danger to-day is that these +studies should lay too little stress upon reason, not too much, and +forget that, however unreasonable human beings may be proved to be, the +principal moral to be drawn is that at any rate they should be as +reasonable as they can. But mere crude eighteenth century rationalism +still works havoc with the discussion of economic issues, and, above +all, of industrial organization. It is still used as a lazy substitute +for observation, and to suggest a simplicity of motive which is quite +foreign to the facts. + +All that type of thought belongs to the dark ages. The truth is that we +ought radically to revise the presuppositions as to human motives on +which current presentations of economic theory are ordinarily founded, +and in terms of which the discussion of economic questions is usually +carried on. The assumption that the stimulus of imminent personal want +is either the only spur, or a sufficient spur, to productive effort is a +relic of a crude psychology which has little warrant either in past +history or in present experience. It derives what plausibility it +possesses from a confusion between work in the sense of the lowest +*quantum* of activity needed to escape actual starvation, and the work +which is given, irrespective of the fact that elementary wants may +already have been satisfied, through the natural disposition of ordinary +men to maintain, and of extraordinary men to improve upon, the level of +exertion accepted as reasonable by the public opinion of the group of +which they are members. It is the old difference, forgotten by society +as often as it is learned, between the labour of the free man and that +of the slave. Economic fear may secure the minimum effort needed to +escape economic penalties. What, however, has made progress possible in +the past, and what, it may be suggested, matters to the world to-day, is +not the bare minimum which is required to avoid actual want, but the +capacity of men to bring to bear upon their tasks a degree of energy, +which, while it can be stimulated by economic incentives, yields results +far in excess of any which are necessary merely to avoid the extremes of +hunger or destitution. + +That capacity is a matter of training, tradition and habit, at least as +much as of pecuniary stimulus, and the ability to raise it of a +professional association representing the public opinion of a group of +workers is, therefore, considerable. Once industry has been liberated +from its subservience to the interests of the functionless +property-owner, it is in this sphere that trade unions may be expected +increasingly to find their functions. Its importance both for the +general interests of the community and for the special interests of +particular groups of workers can hardly be exaggerated. Technical +knowledge and managerial skill are likely to be available as readily for +a committee appointed by the workers in an industry as for a committee +appointed, as now, by the shareholders. But it is more and more evident +to-day that the crux of the economic situation is not the technical +deficiencies of industrial organization, but the growing inability of +those who direct industry to command the active good will of the +*personnel*. Their co-operation is promised by the conversion of +industry into a profession serving the public, and promised, as far as +can be judged, by that alone. + +Nor is the assumption of the new and often disagreeable obligations of +internal discipline and public responsibility one which trade unionism +can afford, once the change is accomplished, to shirk, however alien +they may be to its present traditions. For ultimately, if by slow +degrees, power follows the ability to wield it; authority goes with function. -The workers cannot have it both ways. They must choose -whether to assume the responsibility for industrial -discipline and become free, or to repudiate it and continue -to be serfs. If, organized as professional bodies, they can -provide a more effective service than that which is now, -with increasing difficulty, extorted by the agents of -capital, they will have made good their hold upon the -future. If they cannot, they will remain among the less -calculable instruments of production which many of them are -to-day. The instinct of mankind warns it against accepting -at their face value spiritual demands which cannot justify -themselves by practical achievements. And the road along -which the organized workers, like any other class, must -climb to power, starts from the provision of a more -effective economic service than their masters, as their grip -upon industry becomes increasingly vacillating and -uncertain, are able to supply. +The workers cannot have it both ways. They must choose whether to assume +the responsibility for industrial discipline and become free, or to +repudiate it and continue to be serfs. If, organized as professional +bodies, they can provide a more effective service than that which is +now, with increasing difficulty, extorted by the agents of capital, they +will have made good their hold upon the future. If they cannot, they +will remain among the less calculable instruments of production which +many of them are to-day. The instinct of mankind warns it against +accepting at their face value spiritual demands which cannot justify +themselves by practical achievements. And the road along which the +organized workers, like any other class, must climb to power, starts +from the provision of a more effective economic service than their +masters, as their grip upon industry becomes increasingly vacillating +and uncertain, are able to supply. # The Position of the Brain Worker ## (a) The Growth of an Intellectual Proletariat -The conversion of industry into a profession will involve at -least as great a change in the position of the management as -in that of the manual workers. As each industry is organized -for the performance of function, the employer will cease to -be a profit maker and become what, in so far as he holds his -position by a reputable title, he already is, one workman -among others. - -In some industries, where the capitalist is a manager as -well, the alteration may take place through such a -limitation of his interest as a capitalist as it has been -proposed by employers and workers to introduce into the -building industry. In others, where the whole work of -administration rests on the shoulders of salaried managers, -it has already in part been carried out. The economic -conditions of this change have, indeed, been prepared by the -separation of ownership from management, and by the growth -of an intellectual proletariat to whom the scientific and -managerial work of industry is increasingly entrusted. The -concentration of businesses, the elaboration of -organization, and the developments springing from the -application of science to industry have resulted in the -multiplication of a body of industrial brain workers, whose -existence makes the old classifications into "employers and -workmen," which is still current in common speech, an -absurdly misleading description of the industrial system as -it exists to-day. - -This growth of a class of managers, under-managers, experts, -and technicians, who do an ever-increasing part of the -scientific and constructive work of industry, but who have -no voice in its government, and normally no share in its -profits, is one of the most impressive economic developments -of the last thirty years. It marks the emergence within the -very heart of capitalist industry of a force which, both in -status and in economic interest, is allied to the -wage-earners rather than to the property-owners, and the -support of which is, nevertheless, vital to the continuance -of the existing order. Almost the most important industrial -question of the immediate future is in what direction it -will throw its weight. So far as can be judged at present, -the salaried brain-workers appear to be undergoing the same -gradual conversion to a cautious and doctrineless trade -unionism as took place among the manual workers in the -nineteenth century. Mine-managers, under-managers, and -surveyors all have their trade unions. The Railway Clerks' -Association, with its 90,000 members, includes -station-masters, inspectors, and other supervisory grades. -Bank officers, insurance officials, pottery managers, -technical engineers, not to mention clerks and foremen, are -organized in their respective associations. A considerable -number of organizations of brain-workers are united in the +The conversion of industry into a profession will involve at least as +great a change in the position of the management as in that of the +manual workers. As each industry is organized for the performance of +function, the employer will cease to be a profit maker and become what, +in so far as he holds his position by a reputable title, he already is, +one workman among others. + +In some industries, where the capitalist is a manager as well, the +alteration may take place through such a limitation of his interest as a +capitalist as it has been proposed by employers and workers to introduce +into the building industry. In others, where the whole work of +administration rests on the shoulders of salaried managers, it has +already in part been carried out. The economic conditions of this change +have, indeed, been prepared by the separation of ownership from +management, and by the growth of an intellectual proletariat to whom the +scientific and managerial work of industry is increasingly entrusted. +The concentration of businesses, the elaboration of organization, and +the developments springing from the application of science to industry +have resulted in the multiplication of a body of industrial brain +workers, whose existence makes the old classifications into "employers +and workmen," which is still current in common speech, an absurdly +misleading description of the industrial system as it exists to-day. + +This growth of a class of managers, under-managers, experts, and +technicians, who do an ever-increasing part of the scientific and +constructive work of industry, but who have no voice in its government, +and normally no share in its profits, is one of the most impressive +economic developments of the last thirty years. It marks the emergence +within the very heart of capitalist industry of a force which, both in +status and in economic interest, is allied to the wage-earners rather +than to the property-owners, and the support of which is, nevertheless, +vital to the continuance of the existing order. Almost the most +important industrial question of the immediate future is in what +direction it will throw its weight. So far as can be judged at present, +the salaried brain-workers appear to be undergoing the same gradual +conversion to a cautious and doctrineless trade unionism as took place +among the manual workers in the nineteenth century. Mine-managers, +under-managers, and surveyors all have their trade unions. The Railway +Clerks' Association, with its 90,000 members, includes station-masters, +inspectors, and other supervisory grades. Bank officers, insurance +officials, pottery managers, technical engineers, not to mention clerks +and foremen, are organized in their respective associations. A +considerable number of organizations of brain-workers are united in the National Federation of Professional Workers. -To complete the transformation all that is needed is that -this new class of officials, who fifty years ago were almost -unknown, should recognize that they, like the manual -workers, are the victims of the domination of property, and -that both professional pride and economic interest require -that they should throw in their lot with the rest of those -who are engaged in constructive work. Their position to-day -is often, indeed, very far from being a happy one. Many of -them, like some mine managers, are miserably paid. Their -tenure of their posts is sometimes highly insecure. Their -opportunities for promotion may be few, and distributed with -a singular capriciousness. They see the prizes of industry -awarded by favouritism, or by the nepotism which results in -the head of a business unloading upon it a family of sons -whom it would be economical to pay to keep out of it, and -which, indignantly denounced on the rare occasions on which -it occurs in the public service, is so much the rule in -private industry that no one even questions its propriety. -During the war they have found that, while the organized -workers have secured advances, their own salaries have often -remained almost stationary, because they have been too -genteel to take part in trade unionism, and that today they -are sometimes paid less than the men for whose work they are -supposed to be responsible. Regarded by the workmen as the -hangers-on of the masters, and by their employers as one -section among the rest of the "hands," they have the odium -of capitalism without its power or its profits. - -From the conversion of industry into a profession those who -at present do its intellectual work have as much to gain as -the manual workers. For the principle of function, for which -we have pleaded as the basis of industrial organization, -supplies the only intelligible standard by which the powers -and duties of the different groups engaged in industry can -be determined. At the present time no such standard exists. -The social order of the pre-industrial era, of which faint -traces have survived in the forms of academic organization, -was marked by a careful grading of the successive stages in -the progress from apprentice to master, each of which was -distinguished by clearly defined rights and duties, varying -from grade to grade and together forming a hierarchy of -functions. The industrial system which developed in the -course of the nineteenth century did not admit any principle -of organization other than the convenience of the -individual, who by enterprise, skill, good fortune, -unscrupulous energy or mere nepotism, happened at any moment -to be in a position to wield economic authority. His powers -were what he could exercise; his rights were what at any -time he could assert. The Lancashire mill-owner of the -fifties was, like the Cyclops, a law unto himself. Hence, -since subordination and discipline are indispensable in any -complex undertaking, the subordination which emerged in -industry was that of servant to master, and the discipline -such as economic strength could impose upon economic -weakness. - -The alternative to the allocation of power by the struggle -of individuals for self-aggrandizement is its allocation -according to function, that each group in the complex -process of production should wield so much authority as, and -no more authority than, is needed to enable it to perform -the special duties for which it is responsible. An -organization of industry based on this principle does not -imply the merging of specialized economic functions in an -undifferentiated industrial democracy, or the obliteration -of the brain workers beneath the sheer mass of artisans and -labourers. But it is incompatible with the unlimited -exercise of economic power by any class or individual. It -would have as its fundamental rule that the only powers -which a man can exercise are those conferred upon him in -virtue of his office. - -There would be subordination. But it would be profoundly -different from that which exists to-day. For it would not be -the subordination of one man to another, but of all men to -the purpose for which industry is carried on. There would be -authority. But it would not be the authority of the -individual who imposes rules in virtue of his economic power -for the attainment of his economic advantage. It would be -the authority springing from the necessity of combining -different duties to attain a common end. There would be -discipline. But it would be the discipline involved in -pursuing that end, not the discipline enforced upon one man +To complete the transformation all that is needed is that this new class +of officials, who fifty years ago were almost unknown, should recognize +that they, like the manual workers, are the victims of the domination of +property, and that both professional pride and economic interest require +that they should throw in their lot with the rest of those who are +engaged in constructive work. Their position to-day is often, indeed, +very far from being a happy one. Many of them, like some mine managers, +are miserably paid. Their tenure of their posts is sometimes highly +insecure. Their opportunities for promotion may be few, and distributed +with a singular capriciousness. They see the prizes of industry awarded +by favouritism, or by the nepotism which results in the head of a +business unloading upon it a family of sons whom it would be economical +to pay to keep out of it, and which, indignantly denounced on the rare +occasions on which it occurs in the public service, is so much the rule +in private industry that no one even questions its propriety. During the +war they have found that, while the organized workers have secured +advances, their own salaries have often remained almost stationary, +because they have been too genteel to take part in trade unionism, and +that today they are sometimes paid less than the men for whose work they +are supposed to be responsible. Regarded by the workmen as the +hangers-on of the masters, and by their employers as one section among +the rest of the "hands," they have the odium of capitalism without its +power or its profits. + +From the conversion of industry into a profession those who at present +do its intellectual work have as much to gain as the manual workers. For +the principle of function, for which we have pleaded as the basis of +industrial organization, supplies the only intelligible standard by +which the powers and duties of the different groups engaged in industry +can be determined. At the present time no such standard exists. The +social order of the pre-industrial era, of which faint traces have +survived in the forms of academic organization, was marked by a careful +grading of the successive stages in the progress from apprentice to +master, each of which was distinguished by clearly defined rights and +duties, varying from grade to grade and together forming a hierarchy of +functions. The industrial system which developed in the course of the +nineteenth century did not admit any principle of organization other +than the convenience of the individual, who by enterprise, skill, good +fortune, unscrupulous energy or mere nepotism, happened at any moment to +be in a position to wield economic authority. His powers were what he +could exercise; his rights were what at any time he could assert. The +Lancashire mill-owner of the fifties was, like the Cyclops, a law unto +himself. Hence, since subordination and discipline are indispensable in +any complex undertaking, the subordination which emerged in industry was +that of servant to master, and the discipline such as economic strength +could impose upon economic weakness. + +The alternative to the allocation of power by the struggle of +individuals for self-aggrandizement is its allocation according to +function, that each group in the complex process of production should +wield so much authority as, and no more authority than, is needed to +enable it to perform the special duties for which it is responsible. An +organization of industry based on this principle does not imply the +merging of specialized economic functions in an undifferentiated +industrial democracy, or the obliteration of the brain workers beneath +the sheer mass of artisans and labourers. But it is incompatible with +the unlimited exercise of economic power by any class or individual. It +would have as its fundamental rule that the only powers which a man can +exercise are those conferred upon him in virtue of his office. + +There would be subordination. But it would be profoundly different from +that which exists to-day. For it would not be the subordination of one +man to another, but of all men to the purpose for which industry is +carried on. There would be authority. But it would not be the authority +of the individual who imposes rules in virtue of his economic power for +the attainment of his economic advantage. It would be the authority +springing from the necessity of combining different duties to attain a +common end. There would be discipline. But it would be the discipline +involved in pursuing that end, not the discipline enforced upon one man for the convenience or profit of another. -Under such an organization of industry the brain worker -might expect, as never before, to come to his own. He would -be estimated and promoted by his capacity, not by his means. -He would be less likely than at present to find doors closed -to him because of poverty. His judges would be his -colleagues, not an owner of property intent on dividends. He -would not suffer from the perversion of values which rates -the talent and energy by which wealth is created lower than -the possession of property, which is at best their pensioner -and at worst the spend-thrift of what intelligence has -produced. In a society organized for the encouragement of -creative activity those who are esteemed most highly will be -those who create, as in a world organized for enjoyment they -are those who own. +Under such an organization of industry the brain worker might expect, as +never before, to come to his own. He would be estimated and promoted by +his capacity, not by his means. He would be less likely than at present +to find doors closed to him because of poverty. His judges would be his +colleagues, not an owner of property intent on dividends. He would not +suffer from the perversion of values which rates the talent and energy +by which wealth is created lower than the possession of property, which +is at best their pensioner and at worst the spend-thrift of what +intelligence has produced. In a society organized for the encouragement +of creative activity those who are esteemed most highly will be those +who create, as in a world organized for enjoyment they are those who +own. ## (b) The Position of the Mine-Manager under Nationalisation -Such considerations are too general and abstract to carry -conviction. Greater concreteness may be given them by -comparing the present position of mine-managers with that -which they would occupy were effect given to Mr. Justice -Sankey's scheme for the nationalization of the Coal -Industry. A body of technicians who are weighing the -probable effects of such a reorganization will naturally -consider them in relation both to their own professional -prospects and to the efficiency of the service of which they -are the working heads. They will properly take into account -questions of salaries, pensions, security of status and -promotion. At the same time they will wish to be satisfied -as to points which, though not less important, are less -easily defined. Under which system, private or public -ownership, will they have most personal discretion and -authority over the conduct of matters within their -professional competence? Under which will they have the best -guarantee that their special knowledge will carry due -weight, and that, when handling matters of art, they will -not be overridden or obstructed by amateurs? - -As far as the specific case of the Coal Industry is -concerned, the question of security and salaries need hardly -be discussed. The greatest admirer of the present system -would not argue that security of status is among the -advantages which it offers to its employees. It is notorious -that, in some districts at least, managers are liable to be -dismissed, however professionally competent they may be, if -they express in public views which are not approved by the -directors of their company. Indeed, the criticism which is -normally made on the public services, and made not wholly -without reason, is that the security which they offer is -excessive. On the question of salaries rather more than -one-half of the colliery companies of Great Britain -themselves supplied figures to the Coal Industry Commission. -If their returns may be trusted, it would appear that -mine-managers, as a class, are paid salaries the parsimony -of which is the more surprising in view of the emphasis -laid, and quite properly laid, by the mine-owners on the -managers' responsibilities. The service of the State does -not normally offer, and ought not to offer, financial prizes -comparable with those of private industry. But it is -improbable, had the mines been its property during the last -ten years, that more than one-half the managers would have -been in receipt of salaries of less than £401 per year in -1913, and of less than £500 in 1919, by which time prices -had more than doubled, and the aggregate profits of the -mine-owners (of which the greater part was, however, taken -by the State in taxation) had amounted in five years to +Such considerations are too general and abstract to carry conviction. +Greater concreteness may be given them by comparing the present position +of mine-managers with that which they would occupy were effect given to +Mr. Justice Sankey's scheme for the nationalization of the Coal +Industry. A body of technicians who are weighing the probable effects of +such a reorganization will naturally consider them in relation both to +their own professional prospects and to the efficiency of the service of +which they are the working heads. They will properly take into account +questions of salaries, pensions, security of status and promotion. At +the same time they will wish to be satisfied as to points which, though +not less important, are less easily defined. Under which system, private +or public ownership, will they have most personal discretion and +authority over the conduct of matters within their professional +competence? Under which will they have the best guarantee that their +special knowledge will carry due weight, and that, when handling matters +of art, they will not be overridden or obstructed by amateurs? + +As far as the specific case of the Coal Industry is concerned, the +question of security and salaries need hardly be discussed. The greatest +admirer of the present system would not argue that security of status is +among the advantages which it offers to its employees. It is notorious +that, in some districts at least, managers are liable to be dismissed, +however professionally competent they may be, if they express in public +views which are not approved by the directors of their company. Indeed, +the criticism which is normally made on the public services, and made +not wholly without reason, is that the security which they offer is +excessive. On the question of salaries rather more than one-half of the +colliery companies of Great Britain themselves supplied figures to the +Coal Industry Commission. If their returns may be trusted, it would +appear that mine-managers, as a class, are paid salaries the parsimony +of which is the more surprising in view of the emphasis laid, and quite +properly laid, by the mine-owners on the managers' responsibilities. The +service of the State does not normally offer, and ought not to offer, +financial prizes comparable with those of private industry. But it is +improbable, had the mines been its property during the last ten years, +that more than one-half the managers would have been in receipt of +salaries of less than £401 per year in 1913, and of less than £500 in +1919, by which time prices had more than doubled, and the aggregate +profits of the mine-owners (of which the greater part was, however, +taken by the State in taxation) had amounted in five years to £160,000,000. It would be misleading to suggest that the salaries paid to -mine-managers are typical of private industry, nor need it -be denied that the probable effect of turning an industry -into a public service would be to reduce the size of the -largest prizes at present offered. What is to be expected is -that the lower and medium salaries would be raised, and the -largest somewhat diminished. It is hardly to be denied, at -any rate, that the majority of brain workers in industry -have nothing to fear on financial grounds from such a change -as is proposed by Mr. Justice Sankey. Under the normal -organization of industry, profits, it cannot be too often -insisted, do not go to them but to shareholders. There does -not appear to be any reason to suppose that the salaries of -managers in the mines making more than 5/- profit a ton were -any larger than in those making under 3/-. - -The financial aspect of the change is not, however, the only -point which a group of managers or technicians have to -consider. They have also to weigh its effect on their -professional status. Will they have as much freedom, -initiative and authority in the service of the community as -under private ownership? How that question is answered -depends upon the form given to the administrative system -through which a public service is conducted. It is possible -to conceive an arrangement under which the life of a -mine-manager would be made a burden to him by perpetual -recalcitrance on the part of the men at the pit for which he -is responsible. It is possible to conceive one under which -he would be hampered to the point of paralysis by irritating -interference from a bureaucracy at headquarters. In the past -some managers of "cooperative workshops" suffered, it would -seem, from the former: many officers of Employment Exchanges -are the victims, unless common rumour is misleading, of the -latter. It is quite legitimate, indeed it is indispensable, -that these dangers should be emphasized. The problem of -reorganizing industry is, as has been said above, a problem -of constitution making. It will be handled successfully only -if the defects to which different types of constitutional -machinery are likely to be liable are pointed out in -advance. - -Once, however, these dangers are realized, to devise -precautions against them appears to be a comparatively -simple matter. If Mr. Justice Sankey's proposals be taken as -a concrete example of the position which would be occupied -by the managers in a nationalized industry, it will be seen -that they do not involve either of the two dangers which are -pointed out above. The manager will, it is true, work with a -Local Mining Council or pit committee, which is to "meet -fortnightly, or oftener if need be, to advise the manager on -all questions concerning the direction and safety of the -mine," and "if the manager refuses to take the advice of the -Local Mining Council on any question concerning the safety -and health of the mine, such question shall be referred to -the District Mining Council." It is true also that, once -such a Local Mining Council is formally established, the -manager will find it necessary to win its confidence, to -lead by persuasion, not by mere driving, to establish, in -short, the same relationships of comradeship and goodwill as -ought to exist between the colleagues in any common -undertaking. But in all this there is nothing to undermine -his authority, unless "authority" be understood to mean an -arbitrary power which no man is fit to exercise, and which -few men, in their sober moments, would claim. The manager -will be appointed by, and responsible to, not the men whose -work he supervises, but the District Mining Council, which -controls all the pits in a district, and on that council he -will be represented. - -Nor will he be at the mercy of a distant "clerkocracy," -overwhelming him with circulars and overriding his expert -knowledge with impracticable mandates devised in London. The -very kernel of the schemes advanced both by Mr. Justice -Sankey and by the Miners' Federation is decentralized -administration within the framework of a national system. -There is no question of "managing the industry from -Whitehall." The characteristics of different coal-fields -vary so widely that reliance on local knowledge and -experience are essential, and it is to local knowledge and -experience that it is proposed to entrust the administration -of the industry. The constitution which is recommended is, -in short, not "Unitary" but "Federal." There will be a -division of functions and powers between central authorities -and district authorities. The former will lay down general -rules as to those matters which must necessarily be dealt -with on a national basis. The latter will administer the -industry within their own districts, and, as long as they -comply with those rules and provide their quota of coal, -will possess local autonomy and will follow the method of -working the pits which they think best suited to local -conditions. - -Thus interpreted, public ownership does not appear to -confront the brain worker with the danger of unintelligent -interference with his special technique, of which he is, -quite naturally, apprehensive. It offers him, indeed, far -larger opportunities of professional development than are -open to all but a favoured few to-day, when considerations -of productive efficiency, which it is his special *métier* -to promote, are liable to be overridden by short-sighted -financial interests operating through the pressure of a -Board of Directors who desire to show an immediate profit to -their shareholders, and who, to obtain it, will "cream" the -pit, or work it in a way other than considerations of -technical efficiency would dictate. And the interest of the -community in securing that the manager's professional skill -is liberated for the service of the public, is as great as -his own. For the economic developments of the last thirty -years have made the managerial and technical *personnel* of -industry the repositories of public responsibilities of -quite incalculable importance, which, with the best will in -the world, they can hardly at present discharge. - -The most salient characteristic of modern industrial -organization is that production is carried on under the -general direction of business men, who do not themselves -necessarily know anything of productive processes. -"Business" and "industry" tend to an increasing extent to -form two compartments, which, though united within the same -economic system, employ different types of *personnel*, -evoke different qualities and recognize different standards -of efficiency and workmanship. The technical and managerial -staff of industry is, of course, as amenable as other men to -economic incentives. But their special work is production, -not finance; and, provided they are not smarting under a -sense of economic injustice, they want, like most workmen, -to "see the job done properly." The business men who -ultimately control industry are concerned with the promotion -and capitalization of companies, with competitive selling -and the advertisement of wares, the control of markets, the -securing of special advantages, and the arrangement of -pools, combines and monopolies. They are pre-occupied, in -fact, with financial results, and are interested in the -actual making of goods only in so far as financial results -accrue from it. +mine-managers are typical of private industry, nor need it be denied +that the probable effect of turning an industry into a public service +would be to reduce the size of the largest prizes at present offered. +What is to be expected is that the lower and medium salaries would be +raised, and the largest somewhat diminished. It is hardly to be denied, +at any rate, that the majority of brain workers in industry have nothing +to fear on financial grounds from such a change as is proposed by +Mr. Justice Sankey. Under the normal organization of industry, profits, +it cannot be too often insisted, do not go to them but to shareholders. +There does not appear to be any reason to suppose that the salaries of +managers in the mines making more than 5/- profit a ton were any larger +than in those making under 3/-. + +The financial aspect of the change is not, however, the only point which +a group of managers or technicians have to consider. They have also to +weigh its effect on their professional status. Will they have as much +freedom, initiative and authority in the service of the community as +under private ownership? How that question is answered depends upon the +form given to the administrative system through which a public service +is conducted. It is possible to conceive an arrangement under which the +life of a mine-manager would be made a burden to him by perpetual +recalcitrance on the part of the men at the pit for which he is +responsible. It is possible to conceive one under which he would be +hampered to the point of paralysis by irritating interference from a +bureaucracy at headquarters. In the past some managers of "cooperative +workshops" suffered, it would seem, from the former: many officers of +Employment Exchanges are the victims, unless common rumour is +misleading, of the latter. It is quite legitimate, indeed it is +indispensable, that these dangers should be emphasized. The problem of +reorganizing industry is, as has been said above, a problem of +constitution making. It will be handled successfully only if the defects +to which different types of constitutional machinery are likely to be +liable are pointed out in advance. + +Once, however, these dangers are realized, to devise precautions against +them appears to be a comparatively simple matter. If Mr. Justice +Sankey's proposals be taken as a concrete example of the position which +would be occupied by the managers in a nationalized industry, it will be +seen that they do not involve either of the two dangers which are +pointed out above. The manager will, it is true, work with a Local +Mining Council or pit committee, which is to "meet fortnightly, or +oftener if need be, to advise the manager on all questions concerning +the direction and safety of the mine," and "if the manager refuses to +take the advice of the Local Mining Council on any question concerning +the safety and health of the mine, such question shall be referred to +the District Mining Council." It is true also that, once such a Local +Mining Council is formally established, the manager will find it +necessary to win its confidence, to lead by persuasion, not by mere +driving, to establish, in short, the same relationships of comradeship +and goodwill as ought to exist between the colleagues in any common +undertaking. But in all this there is nothing to undermine his +authority, unless "authority" be understood to mean an arbitrary power +which no man is fit to exercise, and which few men, in their sober +moments, would claim. The manager will be appointed by, and responsible +to, not the men whose work he supervises, but the District Mining +Council, which controls all the pits in a district, and on that council +he will be represented. + +Nor will he be at the mercy of a distant "clerkocracy," overwhelming him +with circulars and overriding his expert knowledge with impracticable +mandates devised in London. The very kernel of the schemes advanced both +by Mr. Justice Sankey and by the Miners' Federation is decentralized +administration within the framework of a national system. There is no +question of "managing the industry from Whitehall." The characteristics +of different coal-fields vary so widely that reliance on local knowledge +and experience are essential, and it is to local knowledge and +experience that it is proposed to entrust the administration of the +industry. The constitution which is recommended is, in short, not +"Unitary" but "Federal." There will be a division of functions and +powers between central authorities and district authorities. The former +will lay down general rules as to those matters which must necessarily +be dealt with on a national basis. The latter will administer the +industry within their own districts, and, as long as they comply with +those rules and provide their quota of coal, will possess local autonomy +and will follow the method of working the pits which they think best +suited to local conditions. + +Thus interpreted, public ownership does not appear to confront the brain +worker with the danger of unintelligent interference with his special +technique, of which he is, quite naturally, apprehensive. It offers him, +indeed, far larger opportunities of professional development than are +open to all but a favoured few to-day, when considerations of productive +efficiency, which it is his special *métier* to promote, are liable to +be overridden by short-sighted financial interests operating through the +pressure of a Board of Directors who desire to show an immediate profit +to their shareholders, and who, to obtain it, will "cream" the pit, or +work it in a way other than considerations of technical efficiency would +dictate. And the interest of the community in securing that the +manager's professional skill is liberated for the service of the public, +is as great as his own. For the economic developments of the last thirty +years have made the managerial and technical *personnel* of industry the +repositories of public responsibilities of quite incalculable +importance, which, with the best will in the world, they can hardly at +present discharge. + +The most salient characteristic of modern industrial organization is +that production is carried on under the general direction of business +men, who do not themselves necessarily know anything of productive +processes. "Business" and "industry" tend to an increasing extent to +form two compartments, which, though united within the same economic +system, employ different types of *personnel*, evoke different qualities +and recognize different standards of efficiency and workmanship. The +technical and managerial staff of industry is, of course, as amenable as +other men to economic incentives. But their special work is production, +not finance; and, provided they are not smarting under a sense of +economic injustice, they want, like most workmen, to "see the job done +properly." The business men who ultimately control industry are +concerned with the promotion and capitalization of companies, with +competitive selling and the advertisement of wares, the control of +markets, the securing of special advantages, and the arrangement of +pools, combines and monopolies. They are pre-occupied, in fact, with +financial results, and are interested in the actual making of goods only +in so far as financial results accrue from it. ## (c) The Increasing Separation of "Business" and Industry -The change in organization which has, to a considerable -degree, specialized the spheres of business and management -is comparable in its importance to that which separated -business and labour a century and a half ago. It is -specially momentous for the consumer. As long as the -functions of manager, technician and capitalist were -combined, as in the classical era of the factory system, in -the single person of "the employer," it was not unreasonable -to assume that profits and productive efficiency ran -similarly together. In such circumstances the ingenuity with -which economists proved that, in obedience to "the law of -substitution," he would choose the most economical process, -machine, or type of organization, wore a certain -plausibility. True, the employer might, even so, adulterate -his goods or exploit the labour of a helpless class of -workers. But as long as the person directing industry was -himself primarily a manager, he could hardly have the -training, ability or time, even if he had the inclination, -to concentrate special attention on financial gains -unconnected with, or opposed to, progress in the arts of -production, and there was some justification for the -conventional picture which represented "the manufacturer" as -the guardian of the interests of the consumer. - -With the drawing apart of the financial and technical -departments of industry---with the separation of "business" -from "production"---the link which bound profits to -productive efficiency is tending to be snapped. There are -more ways than formerly of securing the former without -achieving the latter; and, when it is pleaded that the -interests of the captain of industry stimulate the adoption -of the most "economical" methods, and thus secure industrial -progress, it is necessary to ask "economical for whom?" -Though the organization of industry which is most efficient, -in the sense of offering the consumer the best service at -the, lowest real cost, may be that which is most profitable -to the firm, it is also true that profits are constantly -made in ways which have nothing to do with efficient -production, and which sometimes, indeed, impede it. - -The manner in which "business" may find that the methods -which pay itself best are those which a truly "scientific -management" would condemn may be illustrated by three -examples. In the first place, the whole mass of profits -which are obtained by the adroit capitalization of a new -business, or the reconstruction of one which already exists, -have hardly any connection with production at all. When, for -instance, a Lancashire cotton mill capitalized at £100,000 -is bought by a London syndicate which re-floats it with a -capital of £500,000---not at all an extravagant case---what -exactly has happened? In many cases the equipment of the -mill for production remains, after the process, what it was -before it. It is, however, valued at a different figure, -because it is anticipated that the product of the mill will -sell at a price which will pay a reasonable profit not only -upon the lower, but upon the higher, capitalization. If the -apparent state of the market and prospects of the industry -are such that the public can be induced to believe this, the -promoters of the reconstruction find it worth while to -recapitalize the mill on the new basis. They make their -profit not as manufacturers, but as financiers. They do not -in any way add to the productive efficiency of the firm, but -they acquire shares which will entitle them to an increased -return. Normally, if the market is favourable, they part -with the greater number of them as soon as they are -acquired. But, whether they do so or not, what has occurred -is a process by which the business element in industry -obtains the right to a larger share of the product, without -in any way increasing the efficiency of the service which is -offered to the consumer. - -Other examples of the manner in which the control of -production by "business" cuts across the line of economic -progress are the wastes of competitive industry and the -profits of monopoly. It is obvious that the price paid by -the consumer includes marketing costs, which to a varying, -but to a large, extent are expenses not of supplying the -goods, but of supplying them under conditions involving the -expenses of advertisement and competitive distribution. For -the individual firm such expenses, which enable it to absorb -part of a rival's trade, may be an economy: to the consumer -of milk or coal---to take two flagrant instances---they are -pure loss. Nor, as is sometimes assumed, are such wastes -confined to distribution. Technical reasons are stated by -railway managers to make desirable a unification of railway -administration and by mining experts of mines. But, up to -the war, business considerations maintained the expensive -system under which each railway company was operated as a -separate system, and still prevent collieries, even -collieries in the same district, from being administered as -parts of a single organization. Pits are drowned out by -water, because companies cannot agree to apportion between -them the costs of a common drainage system; materials are -bought, and products sold, separately, because collieries -will not combine; small coal is left in to the amount of -millions of tons because the most economical and technically -efficient working of the seams is not necessarily that which -yields the largest profit to the business men who control -production. - -In this instance the wide differences in economic strength -which exist between different mines discourage the -unification which is economically desirable; naturally the -directors of a company which owns "a good thing" do not -desire to merge interests with a company working coal that -is poor in quality or expensive to mine. When, as -increasingly happens in other industries, competitive -wastes, or some of them, are eliminated by combination, -there is a genuine advance in technical efficiency, which -must be set to the credit of business motives. In that -event, however, the divergence between business interests -and those of the consumers is merely pushed, one stage -further forward. It arises, of course, over the question of -prices. - -If any one is disposed to think that this picture of the -economic waste which accompanies the domination of -production by business interests is overdrawn, he may be -invited to consider the criticism upon the system passed by -the "efficiency engineers," who are increasingly being -called upon to advise as to industrial organization and -equipment, and who, so far from being tainted with -Socialism, have been nurtured on the purest milk of the -Capitalist creed. "The higher officers of the corporation," -writes Mr. H. L. Gantt, of a Public Utility Company -established in America during the war, "have all without -exception been men of the 'business' type of mind, who have -made their success through financiering, buying, selling, -etc.... As a matter of fact it is well known that our -industrial system has not measured up as we had expected... -*The reason for its falling short is undoubtedly that the -men directing it had been trained in a business system -operated for profits, and did not understand one operated -solely for production.* This is no criticism of the men as -individuals; they simply did not know the job, and, what is -worse, they did not know that they did not know it." - -In so far, then, as "Business" and "Management" are -separated, the latter being employed under the direction of -the former, it cannot be assumed that the direction of -industry is in the hands of persons whose primary concern is -productive efficiency. That a considerable degree of -efficiency will result incidentally from the pursuit of -business profits is not, of course, denied. What seems to be -true, however, is that the main interest of those directing -an industry which has reached this stage of development is -given to financial strategy and the control of markets, -because the gains which these activities offer are normally -so much larger than those accruing from the mere improvement -of the processes of production. It is evident, however, that -it is precisely that improvement which is the main interest -of the consumer. He may tolerate large profits as long as -they are thought to be the symbol of efficient production. -But what he is concerned with is the supply of goods, not -the value of shares, and when profits appear to be made, not -by efficient production, but by skilful financiering or -shrewd commercial tactics, they no longer appear -meritorious. - -If, in disgust at what he has learned to call -"profiteering," the consumer seeks an alternative to a -system under which production is controlled by "business," -he can hardly find it except by making an ally of the -managerial and technical *personnel* of industry. They -organize the service which he requires; they are relatively -little implicated, either by material interest or by -psychological bias, in the financial methods which he -distrusts; they often find the control of their professions -by business men, who are primarily financiers, irritating in -the obstruction which it offers to technical efficiency, as -well as sharp and close-fisted in its treatment of salaries. -Both on public and professional grounds they belong to a -group which ought to take the initiative in promoting a -partnership between the producers and the public. They can -offer the community the scientific knowledge and specialized -ability which is the most important condition of progress in -the arts of production. It can offer them a more secure and -dignified status, larger opportunities for the exercise of -their special talents, and the consciousness that they are -giving the best of their work and their lives, not to -enriching a handful of uninspiring, if innocuous, +The change in organization which has, to a considerable degree, +specialized the spheres of business and management is comparable in its +importance to that which separated business and labour a century and a +half ago. It is specially momentous for the consumer. As long as the +functions of manager, technician and capitalist were combined, as in the +classical era of the factory system, in the single person of "the +employer," it was not unreasonable to assume that profits and productive +efficiency ran similarly together. In such circumstances the ingenuity +with which economists proved that, in obedience to "the law of +substitution," he would choose the most economical process, machine, or +type of organization, wore a certain plausibility. True, the employer +might, even so, adulterate his goods or exploit the labour of a helpless +class of workers. But as long as the person directing industry was +himself primarily a manager, he could hardly have the training, ability +or time, even if he had the inclination, to concentrate special +attention on financial gains unconnected with, or opposed to, progress +in the arts of production, and there was some justification for the +conventional picture which represented "the manufacturer" as the +guardian of the interests of the consumer. + +With the drawing apart of the financial and technical departments of +industry---with the separation of "business" from "production"---the +link which bound profits to productive efficiency is tending to be +snapped. There are more ways than formerly of securing the former +without achieving the latter; and, when it is pleaded that the interests +of the captain of industry stimulate the adoption of the most +"economical" methods, and thus secure industrial progress, it is +necessary to ask "economical for whom?" Though the organization of +industry which is most efficient, in the sense of offering the consumer +the best service at the, lowest real cost, may be that which is most +profitable to the firm, it is also true that profits are constantly made +in ways which have nothing to do with efficient production, and which +sometimes, indeed, impede it. + +The manner in which "business" may find that the methods which pay +itself best are those which a truly "scientific management" would +condemn may be illustrated by three examples. In the first place, the +whole mass of profits which are obtained by the adroit capitalization of +a new business, or the reconstruction of one which already exists, have +hardly any connection with production at all. When, for instance, a +Lancashire cotton mill capitalized at £100,000 is bought by a London +syndicate which re-floats it with a capital of £500,000---not at all an +extravagant case---what exactly has happened? In many cases the +equipment of the mill for production remains, after the process, what it +was before it. It is, however, valued at a different figure, because it +is anticipated that the product of the mill will sell at a price which +will pay a reasonable profit not only upon the lower, but upon the +higher, capitalization. If the apparent state of the market and +prospects of the industry are such that the public can be induced to +believe this, the promoters of the reconstruction find it worth while to +recapitalize the mill on the new basis. They make their profit not as +manufacturers, but as financiers. They do not in any way add to the +productive efficiency of the firm, but they acquire shares which will +entitle them to an increased return. Normally, if the market is +favourable, they part with the greater number of them as soon as they +are acquired. But, whether they do so or not, what has occurred is a +process by which the business element in industry obtains the right to a +larger share of the product, without in any way increasing the +efficiency of the service which is offered to the consumer. + +Other examples of the manner in which the control of production by +"business" cuts across the line of economic progress are the wastes of +competitive industry and the profits of monopoly. It is obvious that the +price paid by the consumer includes marketing costs, which to a varying, +but to a large, extent are expenses not of supplying the goods, but of +supplying them under conditions involving the expenses of advertisement +and competitive distribution. For the individual firm such expenses, +which enable it to absorb part of a rival's trade, may be an economy: to +the consumer of milk or coal---to take two flagrant instances---they are +pure loss. Nor, as is sometimes assumed, are such wastes confined to +distribution. Technical reasons are stated by railway managers to make +desirable a unification of railway administration and by mining experts +of mines. But, up to the war, business considerations maintained the +expensive system under which each railway company was operated as a +separate system, and still prevent collieries, even collieries in the +same district, from being administered as parts of a single +organization. Pits are drowned out by water, because companies cannot +agree to apportion between them the costs of a common drainage system; +materials are bought, and products sold, separately, because collieries +will not combine; small coal is left in to the amount of millions of +tons because the most economical and technically efficient working of +the seams is not necessarily that which yields the largest profit to the +business men who control production. + +In this instance the wide differences in economic strength which exist +between different mines discourage the unification which is economically +desirable; naturally the directors of a company which owns "a good +thing" do not desire to merge interests with a company working coal that +is poor in quality or expensive to mine. When, as increasingly happens +in other industries, competitive wastes, or some of them, are eliminated +by combination, there is a genuine advance in technical efficiency, +which must be set to the credit of business motives. In that event, +however, the divergence between business interests and those of the +consumers is merely pushed, one stage further forward. It arises, of +course, over the question of prices. + +If any one is disposed to think that this picture of the economic waste +which accompanies the domination of production by business interests is +overdrawn, he may be invited to consider the criticism upon the system +passed by the "efficiency engineers," who are increasingly being called +upon to advise as to industrial organization and equipment, and who, so +far from being tainted with Socialism, have been nurtured on the purest +milk of the Capitalist creed. "The higher officers of the corporation," +writes Mr. H. L. Gantt, of a Public Utility Company established in +America during the war, "have all without exception been men of the +'business' type of mind, who have made their success through +financiering, buying, selling, etc.... As a matter of fact it is well +known that our industrial system has not measured up as we had +expected... *The reason for its falling short is undoubtedly that the +men directing it had been trained in a business system operated for +profits, and did not understand one operated solely for production.* +This is no criticism of the men as individuals; they simply did not know +the job, and, what is worse, they did not know that they did not know +it." + +In so far, then, as "Business" and "Management" are separated, the +latter being employed under the direction of the former, it cannot be +assumed that the direction of industry is in the hands of persons whose +primary concern is productive efficiency. That a considerable degree of +efficiency will result incidentally from the pursuit of business profits +is not, of course, denied. What seems to be true, however, is that the +main interest of those directing an industry which has reached this +stage of development is given to financial strategy and the control of +markets, because the gains which these activities offer are normally so +much larger than those accruing from the mere improvement of the +processes of production. It is evident, however, that it is precisely +that improvement which is the main interest of the consumer. He may +tolerate large profits as long as they are thought to be the symbol of +efficient production. But what he is concerned with is the supply of +goods, not the value of shares, and when profits appear to be made, not +by efficient production, but by skilful financiering or shrewd +commercial tactics, they no longer appear meritorious. + +If, in disgust at what he has learned to call "profiteering," the +consumer seeks an alternative to a system under which production is +controlled by "business," he can hardly find it except by making an ally +of the managerial and technical *personnel* of industry. They organize +the service which he requires; they are relatively little implicated, +either by material interest or by psychological bias, in the financial +methods which he distrusts; they often find the control of their +professions by business men, who are primarily financiers, irritating in +the obstruction which it offers to technical efficiency, as well as +sharp and close-fisted in its treatment of salaries. Both on public and +professional grounds they belong to a group which ought to take the +initiative in promoting a partnership between the producers and the +public. They can offer the community the scientific knowledge and +specialized ability which is the most important condition of progress in +the arts of production. It can offer them a more secure and dignified +status, larger opportunities for the exercise of their special talents, +and the consciousness that they are giving the best of their work and +their lives, not to enriching a handful of uninspiring, if innocuous, shareholders, but to the service of the great body of their -fellow-countrymen. If the last advantage be dismissed as a -phrase---if medical officers of health, directors of -education, and directors of the Co-operative Wholesale be -assumed to be quite uninfluenced by any consciousness of -social service---the first two, at any rate, remain. And -they are considerable. - -It is this gradual disengagement of managerial technique -from financial interests which would appear to be the -probable line along which "the employer" of the future will -develop. The substitution throughout industry of fixed -salaries for fluctuating profits would, in itself, deprive -his position of half the humiliating atmosphere of predatory -enterprise which embarrasses to-day any man of honour who -finds himself, when he has been paid for his services in -possession of a surplus for which there is no assignable -reason. Nor, once large incomes from profits have been -extinguished, need his salary be large, as incomes are -reckoned to-day. It is said that among the barbarians, where -wealth is still measured by cattle, great chiefs are -described as hundred-cow men. The manager of a great -enterprise, who is paid £10,000 a year, might similarly be -described as a hundred-family man, since he receives the -income of a hundred families. It is true that special talent -is worth any price, and that a payment of £10,000 a year to -the head of a business with a turnover of millions is -economically a bagatelle. But economic considerations are -not the only considerations. There is also "the point of -honour." And the truth is that these hundred-family salaries -are ungentlemanly. - -When really important issues are at stake every one realizes -that no decent man can stand out for his price. A general -does not haggle with his government for the precise -pecuniary equivalent of his contribution to victory. A -sentry who gives the alarm to a sleeping battalion does not -spend next day collecting the capital value of the lives he -has saved; he is paid i/a day and is lucky if he gets it. -The commander of a ship does not cram himself and his -belongings into the boats and leave the crew to scramble out -of the wreck as best they can; by the tradition of the -service he is the last man to leave. - -"I want," Lord Haldane told the Coal Commission, "to make -the service of the State in civilian things as proud a -position as it is with the Army and Navy to-day, and for -there to be public spirit, public honour, and public -recognition. Just as you get the engineer officer who will -throw a bridge over a river with extraordinary skill, -although he seems to have no materials with which to do it, -so you may develop the same kind of capacity in that officer -when he deals with a civilian problem." There is no reason -why the public should insult manufacturers and men of -business by treating them as though they were more -thick-skinned than generals and more extravagant than -privates. To say that they are worth a good deal more than -even the exorbitant salaries which some of them get is often -true. But it is beside the point. No one has any business to -expect to be paid "what he is worth," for what he is worth -is a matter between his own soul and God. What he has a -right to demand, and what it concerns his fellow-men to see -that he gets, is enough to enable him to perform his work. -When industry is organized on a basis of function, that, and -no more than that, is what he will be paid. To do the -managers of industry justice, this whining for more money is -a vice to which they (as distinct from their shareholders) -are not particularly prone. There is no reason why they -should be. If a man has important work, and enough leisure -and income to enable him to do it properly, he is in -possession of as much happiness as is good for any of the -children of Adam. +fellow-countrymen. If the last advantage be dismissed as a phrase---if +medical officers of health, directors of education, and directors of the +Co-operative Wholesale be assumed to be quite uninfluenced by any +consciousness of social service---the first two, at any rate, remain. +And they are considerable. + +It is this gradual disengagement of managerial technique from financial +interests which would appear to be the probable line along which "the +employer" of the future will develop. The substitution throughout +industry of fixed salaries for fluctuating profits would, in itself, +deprive his position of half the humiliating atmosphere of predatory +enterprise which embarrasses to-day any man of honour who finds himself, +when he has been paid for his services in possession of a surplus for +which there is no assignable reason. Nor, once large incomes from +profits have been extinguished, need his salary be large, as incomes are +reckoned to-day. It is said that among the barbarians, where wealth is +still measured by cattle, great chiefs are described as hundred-cow men. +The manager of a great enterprise, who is paid £10,000 a year, might +similarly be described as a hundred-family man, since he receives the +income of a hundred families. It is true that special talent is worth +any price, and that a payment of £10,000 a year to the head of a +business with a turnover of millions is economically a bagatelle. But +economic considerations are not the only considerations. There is also +"the point of honour." And the truth is that these hundred-family +salaries are ungentlemanly. + +When really important issues are at stake every one realizes that no +decent man can stand out for his price. A general does not haggle with +his government for the precise pecuniary equivalent of his contribution +to victory. A sentry who gives the alarm to a sleeping battalion does +not spend next day collecting the capital value of the lives he has +saved; he is paid i/a day and is lucky if he gets it. The commander of a +ship does not cram himself and his belongings into the boats and leave +the crew to scramble out of the wreck as best they can; by the tradition +of the service he is the last man to leave. + +"I want," Lord Haldane told the Coal Commission, "to make the service of +the State in civilian things as proud a position as it is with the Army +and Navy to-day, and for there to be public spirit, public honour, and +public recognition. Just as you get the engineer officer who will throw +a bridge over a river with extraordinary skill, although he seems to +have no materials with which to do it, so you may develop the same kind +of capacity in that officer when he deals with a civilian problem." +There is no reason why the public should insult manufacturers and men of +business by treating them as though they were more thick-skinned than +generals and more extravagant than privates. To say that they are worth +a good deal more than even the exorbitant salaries which some of them +get is often true. But it is beside the point. No one has any business +to expect to be paid "what he is worth," for what he is worth is a +matter between his own soul and God. What he has a right to demand, and +what it concerns his fellow-men to see that he gets, is enough to enable +him to perform his work. When industry is organized on a basis of +function, that, and no more than that, is what he will be paid. To do +the managers of industry justice, this whining for more money is a vice +to which they (as distinct from their shareholders) are not particularly +prone. There is no reason why they should be. If a man has important +work, and enough leisure and income to enable him to do it properly, he +is in possession of as much happiness as is good for any of the children +of Adam. # Porro Unum Necessarium -So the organization of society on the basis of functions, -instead of on that of rights, implies three things. It -means, first, that proprietary rights shall be maintained -when they are accompanied by the performance of service and -abolished when they are not. It means, second, that the -producers shall stand in a direct relation to the community -for whom production is carried on, so that their -responsibility to it may be obvious and unmistakable, not -lost, as at present, through their immediate subordination -to shareholders whose interest is not service but gain. It -means, in the third place, that the obligation for the +So the organization of society on the basis of functions, instead of on +that of rights, implies three things. It means, first, that proprietary +rights shall be maintained when they are accompanied by the performance +of service and abolished when they are not. It means, second, that the +producers shall stand in a direct relation to the community for whom +production is carried on, so that their responsibility to it may be +obvious and unmistakable, not lost, as at present, through their +immediate subordination to shareholders whose interest is not service +but gain. It means, in the third place, that the obligation for the maintenance of the service shall rest upon the professional -organizations of those who perform it, and that, subject to -the supervision and criticism of the consumer, those -organizations shall exercise so much voice in the government -of industry as may be needed to secure that the obligation -is discharged. - -It is obvious, indeed, that no change of system or machinery -can avert those causes of social *malaise* which consist in -the egotism, greed, or quarrelsomeness of human nature. What -it can do is to create an environment in which those are not -the qualities which are encouraged. It cannot secure that -men live up to their principles. What it can do is to -establish their social order upon principles to which, if -they please, they can live up and not live down. It cannot -control their actions. It can offer them an end on which to -fix their minds. And, as their minds are, so, in the long -run and with J exceptions, their practical activity will be. - -The first condition of the right organization of industry -is, then, the intellectual conversion which, in their -distrust of principles. Englishmen are disposed to place -last or to omit altogether. It is that emphasis should be -transferred from the opportunities which it offers -individuals to the social functions which it performs; that -they should be clear as to its end and should judge it by -reference to that end, not by incidental consequences which -are foreign to it, however brilliant or alluring those -consequences may be. What gives its meaning to any activity -which is not purely automatic is its purpose. It is because -the purpose of industry, which is the conquest of nature for -the service of man, is neither adequately expressed in its -organization nor present to the minds of those engaged in -it, because it is not regarded as a function but as an -opportunity for personal gain or advancement or display, -that the economic life of modern societies is in a perpetual -state of morbid irritation. If the conditions which produce -that unnatural tension are to be removed, it can only be -effected by the growth of a habit of mind which will -approach, questions of economic organization from the stand! -point of the purpose which it exists to serve, and which -will apply to it something of the spirit expressed by Bacon -when he said that the work of men ought to be carried on -"for the glory of God and the relief of men's estate." - -Sentimental idealism? But consider the alternative. The -alternative is war; and continuous war must, sooner or -later, mean something like the destruction of civilization. -The havoc which the assertion of the right to unlimited -economic expansion has made of the world of States needs no -emphasis. Those who have lived from 1914 to 1921 will not -ask why mankind has not progressed more swiftly; they will -be inclined to wonder that it has progressed at all. For -every century or oftener it has torn itself to pieces, -usually, since 1648, because it supposed prosperity was to -be achieved by the destruction of an economic rival; and, as -these words are written, the victors in the war for freedom, -in defiance of their engagements and amid general applause -from the classes who will suffer most from the heroics of -their rulers, are continuing the process of ruining -themselves in order to enjoy the satisfaction of more -completely ruining the vanquished. The test of the objects -of a war is the peace which follows it. Millions of human -beings endured for four years the extremes of misery for -ends which they believed to be but little tainted with the -meaner kinds of self-interest. But the historian of the -future will consider, not what they thought, but what their -statesmen did. He will read the Treaty of Versailles; and he -will be merciful if, in its provisions with regard to coal -and shipping and enemy property and colonies and -indemnities, he does not find written large the -*Macht-Politik* of the Acquisitive Society, the natural, if +organizations of those who perform it, and that, subject to the +supervision and criticism of the consumer, those organizations shall +exercise so much voice in the government of industry as may be needed to +secure that the obligation is discharged. + +It is obvious, indeed, that no change of system or machinery can avert +those causes of social *malaise* which consist in the egotism, greed, or +quarrelsomeness of human nature. What it can do is to create an +environment in which those are not the qualities which are encouraged. +It cannot secure that men live up to their principles. What it can do is +to establish their social order upon principles to which, if they +please, they can live up and not live down. It cannot control their +actions. It can offer them an end on which to fix their minds. And, as +their minds are, so, in the long run and with J exceptions, their +practical activity will be. + +The first condition of the right organization of industry is, then, the +intellectual conversion which, in their distrust of principles. +Englishmen are disposed to place last or to omit altogether. It is that +emphasis should be transferred from the opportunities which it offers +individuals to the social functions which it performs; that they should +be clear as to its end and should judge it by reference to that end, not +by incidental consequences which are foreign to it, however brilliant or +alluring those consequences may be. What gives its meaning to any +activity which is not purely automatic is its purpose. It is because the +purpose of industry, which is the conquest of nature for the service of +man, is neither adequately expressed in its organization nor present to +the minds of those engaged in it, because it is not regarded as a +function but as an opportunity for personal gain or advancement or +display, that the economic life of modern societies is in a perpetual +state of morbid irritation. If the conditions which produce that +unnatural tension are to be removed, it can only be effected by the +growth of a habit of mind which will approach, questions of economic +organization from the stand! point of the purpose which it exists to +serve, and which will apply to it something of the spirit expressed by +Bacon when he said that the work of men ought to be carried on "for the +glory of God and the relief of men's estate." + +Sentimental idealism? But consider the alternative. The alternative is +war; and continuous war must, sooner or later, mean something like the +destruction of civilization. The havoc which the assertion of the right +to unlimited economic expansion has made of the world of States needs no +emphasis. Those who have lived from 1914 to 1921 will not ask why +mankind has not progressed more swiftly; they will be inclined to wonder +that it has progressed at all. For every century or oftener it has torn +itself to pieces, usually, since 1648, because it supposed prosperity +was to be achieved by the destruction of an economic rival; and, as +these words are written, the victors in the war for freedom, in defiance +of their engagements and amid general applause from the classes who will +suffer most from the heroics of their rulers, are continuing the process +of ruining themselves in order to enjoy the satisfaction of more +completely ruining the vanquished. The test of the objects of a war is +the peace which follows it. Millions of human beings endured for four +years the extremes of misery for ends which they believed to be but +little tainted with the meaner kinds of self-interest. But the historian +of the future will consider, not what they thought, but what their +statesmen did. He will read the Treaty of Versailles; and he will be +merciful if, in its provisions with regard to coal and shipping and +enemy property and colonies and indemnities, he does not find written +large the *Macht-Politik* of the Acquisitive Society, the natural, if undesired, consequence of which is war. -There are, however, various degrees both of war and of -peace, and it is an illusion to suppose that domestic -tranquillity is either the necessary, or the probable, -alternative, to military collisions abroad. What is more -probable, unless mankind succeeds in basing its social -organisation upon some moral principles which command -general acceptance, is an embittered struggle of classes, -interests, and groups. The principle upon which our society -professed to be based for nearly a hundred years after -1789---the principle of free competition---has clearly spent -its force. In the last few years Great Britain---not to -mention America and Germany---has plunged, as far as certain -great industries are concerned, into an era of something -like monopoly with the same light-hearted recklessness as a -century ago it flung itself into an era of individualism. No -one who reads the Reports of the Committee on Trusts -appointed by the Ministry of Reconstruction and of the -Committees set up under the Profiteering Act upon soap, or -sewing cotton, or oil, or half-a-dozen other products, can -retain the illusion that the consumer is protected by the -rivalry of competing producers. The choice before him, to an -increasing extent, is not between competition and monopoly, -but between a monopoly which is irresponsible and private -and a monopoly which is responsible and public. No one who -observes how industrial agreements between workers and -employers are actually reached can fail to see that they are -settled by a trial of strength between two compactly -organized armies, who are restrained from collision only by -fear of its possible consequences. Fear is a powerful, but a -capricious, motive, and it will not always restrain them. -When prudence is overborne by rashness, or when the hope of -gain outweighs the apprehension of loss, there will be a -collision. No man can say where it will end. No man can even -say with confidence that it will produce a more tolerable -social order. It is idle to urge that any alternative is -preferable to government by the greedy materialists who rule -mankind at present, for greed and materialism are not the -monopoly of a class. If those who have the will to make a -better society have not at present the power, it is -conceivable that, when they have the power, they too, like -their predecessors, may not have the will. - -So, in the long run, it is the principles which men accept -as the basis of their social organization I which matter. -And the principle which we have tried to put forward is that -industry and property and economic activity should be -treated as functions, and should be tested, at every point, -by their relation to a social purpose. Viewed from that -angle, issues which are insoluble when treated on the basis -of rights may be found more susceptible of reasonable -treatment. For a purpose is, in the first place a principle -of limitation. It determines the end for which, and -therefore the limits within which, an activity is to be -carried on. It divides what is worth doing from what is not, -and settles the scale upon which what is worth doing ought -to be done. It is, in the second place, a principle of -unity, because it supplies a common end to which efforts can -be directed, and submits interests, which would otherwise -conflict, to the judgment of an over-ruling object. It is, -in the third place, a principle of apportionment or -distribution. It assigns to the different parties of groups -engaged in a common undertaking the place which they are to -occupy in carrying it out. Thus it establishes order, not -upon chance or power, but upon a principle, and bases -remuneration not upon what men can with good fortune snatch -for themselves, nor upon what, if unlucky, they can be -induced to accept, but upon what is appropriate to their -function, no more and no less, so that those who perform no -function receive no payment, and those who contribute to the -common end receive honourable payment for honourable -service. - -Such a political philosophy implies that society is not an -economic mechanism, but a community of wills which are often -discordant, but which are capable of being inspired by -devotion to common ends. It is, therefore, a religious one, -and, if it is true, the proper bodies to propagate it are -the Christian Churches. During the last two centuries -Europe, and particularly industrial Europe, has seen the -development of a society in which what is called personal -religion continues to be taught as the rule of individual -conduct, but in which the very conception of religion as the -inspiration and standard of social life and corporate effort -has been forgotten. The phenomenon is a curious one. To -suggest that an individual is not a Christian may be -libellous. To preach in public that Christianity is absurd -is legally blasphemy. To state that the social ethics of the -New Testament are obligatory upon men in the business -affairs which occupy nine-tenths of their thought, or on the -industrial organization which gives our society its -character, is to preach revolution. To suggest that they -apply to the relations of States may be held to be sedition. -Such a creed does not find it difficult to obey the -injunction: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's -and unto God the things that are God's." To their first -hearers the words must have come with a note of gentle -irony, for to the reader of the New Testament the things -which are Caesar's appear to be singularly few. The modern -world is not seriously inconvenienced by rendering to God -the things which are God's. They are not numerous, nor are -they of the kind which it misses. - -The phenomenon is not the less singular because its -historical explanation is comparatively easy. When the -Church of England was turned into the moral police of the -State, it lost the independence which might have enabled it -to maintain the peculiar and distinctive Christian standard -of social conduct---a standard which must always appear -paradoxical and extravagant to the mass of mankind and -especially to the powerful and rich, and which only an -effort of mind and will perpetually renewed, perpetually -sustained and emphasized by the support of a corporate -society, can preserve in the face of their natural -scepticism. Deprived of its own vitality, it had allowed its -officers to become by the eighteenth century the servile -clients of a half-pagan aristocracy, to whose contemptuous -indulgence they looked for preferment. It ceased for some -200 years to speak its mind, and, as a natural consequence, -it ceased to have a mind to speak. As an organization for -common worship it survived. As an organ of collective -thought and of a common will it became negligible. - -Had the Nonconformist societies, taken up the testimony -which the Church of England had dropped, the Christian -tradition of social ethics might have continued to find an -organ of expression. Among individual Puritans, as the -teaching of Baxter, or the life of Woolman, shows, it did, -indeed, survive. But the very circumstances of their origin -disposed the Nonconformist Churches to lay only a light -emphasis on the social aspects of Christianity. They had -grown up as the revolt of the spirit against an overgrown -formalism, an artificial and insincere unity. They drew -their support largely from the earnest and sober piety of -the trading and commercial classes. Individualist in their -faith, they were individualist in their interpretation of -social morality. Insisting that the essence of religion was -the contact of the individual soul with its Maker, they -regarded the social order and its consequences, not as the -instrument through which grace is mediated, or as steps in -the painful progress by which the soul climbs to a fuller -vision, but as something external, alien, and -irrelevant---something, at best, indifferent to personal -salvation, and, at worst, the sphere of the letter which -killeth and of the reliance on works which ensnares the +There are, however, various degrees both of war and of peace, and it is +an illusion to suppose that domestic tranquillity is either the +necessary, or the probable, alternative, to military collisions abroad. +What is more probable, unless mankind succeeds in basing its social +organisation upon some moral principles which command general +acceptance, is an embittered struggle of classes, interests, and groups. +The principle upon which our society professed to be based for nearly a +hundred years after 1789---the principle of free competition---has +clearly spent its force. In the last few years Great Britain---not to +mention America and Germany---has plunged, as far as certain great +industries are concerned, into an era of something like monopoly with +the same light-hearted recklessness as a century ago it flung itself +into an era of individualism. No one who reads the Reports of the +Committee on Trusts appointed by the Ministry of Reconstruction and of +the Committees set up under the Profiteering Act upon soap, or sewing +cotton, or oil, or half-a-dozen other products, can retain the illusion +that the consumer is protected by the rivalry of competing producers. +The choice before him, to an increasing extent, is not between +competition and monopoly, but between a monopoly which is irresponsible +and private and a monopoly which is responsible and public. No one who +observes how industrial agreements between workers and employers are +actually reached can fail to see that they are settled by a trial of +strength between two compactly organized armies, who are restrained from +collision only by fear of its possible consequences. Fear is a powerful, +but a capricious, motive, and it will not always restrain them. When +prudence is overborne by rashness, or when the hope of gain outweighs +the apprehension of loss, there will be a collision. No man can say +where it will end. No man can even say with confidence that it will +produce a more tolerable social order. It is idle to urge that any +alternative is preferable to government by the greedy materialists who +rule mankind at present, for greed and materialism are not the monopoly +of a class. If those who have the will to make a better society have not +at present the power, it is conceivable that, when they have the power, +they too, like their predecessors, may not have the will. + +So, in the long run, it is the principles which men accept as the basis +of their social organization I which matter. And the principle which we +have tried to put forward is that industry and property and economic +activity should be treated as functions, and should be tested, at every +point, by their relation to a social purpose. Viewed from that angle, +issues which are insoluble when treated on the basis of rights may be +found more susceptible of reasonable treatment. For a purpose is, in the +first place a principle of limitation. It determines the end for which, +and therefore the limits within which, an activity is to be carried on. +It divides what is worth doing from what is not, and settles the scale +upon which what is worth doing ought to be done. It is, in the second +place, a principle of unity, because it supplies a common end to which +efforts can be directed, and submits interests, which would otherwise +conflict, to the judgment of an over-ruling object. It is, in the third +place, a principle of apportionment or distribution. It assigns to the +different parties of groups engaged in a common undertaking the place +which they are to occupy in carrying it out. Thus it establishes order, +not upon chance or power, but upon a principle, and bases remuneration +not upon what men can with good fortune snatch for themselves, nor upon +what, if unlucky, they can be induced to accept, but upon what is +appropriate to their function, no more and no less, so that those who +perform no function receive no payment, and those who contribute to the +common end receive honourable payment for honourable service. + +Such a political philosophy implies that society is not an economic +mechanism, but a community of wills which are often discordant, but +which are capable of being inspired by devotion to common ends. It is, +therefore, a religious one, and, if it is true, the proper bodies to +propagate it are the Christian Churches. During the last two centuries +Europe, and particularly industrial Europe, has seen the development of +a society in which what is called personal religion continues to be +taught as the rule of individual conduct, but in which the very +conception of religion as the inspiration and standard of social life +and corporate effort has been forgotten. The phenomenon is a curious +one. To suggest that an individual is not a Christian may be libellous. +To preach in public that Christianity is absurd is legally blasphemy. To +state that the social ethics of the New Testament are obligatory upon +men in the business affairs which occupy nine-tenths of their thought, +or on the industrial organization which gives our society its character, +is to preach revolution. To suggest that they apply to the relations of +States may be held to be sedition. Such a creed does not find it +difficult to obey the injunction: "Render unto Caesar the things that +are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's." To their first +hearers the words must have come with a note of gentle irony, for to the +reader of the New Testament the things which are Caesar's appear to be +singularly few. The modern world is not seriously inconvenienced by +rendering to God the things which are God's. They are not numerous, nor +are they of the kind which it misses. + +The phenomenon is not the less singular because its historical +explanation is comparatively easy. When the Church of England was turned +into the moral police of the State, it lost the independence which might +have enabled it to maintain the peculiar and distinctive Christian +standard of social conduct---a standard which must always appear +paradoxical and extravagant to the mass of mankind and especially to the +powerful and rich, and which only an effort of mind and will perpetually +renewed, perpetually sustained and emphasized by the support of a +corporate society, can preserve in the face of their natural scepticism. +Deprived of its own vitality, it had allowed its officers to become by +the eighteenth century the servile clients of a half-pagan aristocracy, +to whose contemptuous indulgence they looked for preferment. It ceased +for some 200 years to speak its mind, and, as a natural consequence, it +ceased to have a mind to speak. As an organization for common worship it +survived. As an organ of collective thought and of a common will it +became negligible. + +Had the Nonconformist societies, taken up the testimony which the Church +of England had dropped, the Christian tradition of social ethics might +have continued to find an organ of expression. Among individual +Puritans, as the teaching of Baxter, or the life of Woolman, shows, it +did, indeed, survive. But the very circumstances of their origin +disposed the Nonconformist Churches to lay only a light emphasis on the +social aspects of Christianity. They had grown up as the revolt of the +spirit against an overgrown formalism, an artificial and insincere +unity. They drew their support largely from the earnest and sober piety +of the trading and commercial classes. Individualist in their faith, +they were individualist in their interpretation of social morality. +Insisting that the essence of religion was the contact of the individual +soul with its Maker, they regarded the social order and its +consequences, not as the instrument through which grace is mediated, or +as steps in the painful progress by which the soul climbs to a fuller +vision, but as something external, alien, and irrelevant---something, at +best, indifferent to personal salvation, and, at worst, the sphere of +the letter which killeth and of the reliance on works which ensnares the spirit into the slumber of death. -In a society thus long obtuse to one whole aspect of the -Christian Faith, it was natural that the restraints imposed -on social conduct by mere tradition, personal kindliness, -the inertia of use and wont should snap like green withies -before the intoxicating revelation of riches which burst on -the early nineteenth century. It was the more natural -because the creed which rushed into the vacuum was itself a -kind of religion, a persuasive, self-confident and militant -Gospel proclaiming the absolute value of economic success. -The personal piety of the Nonconformist could stem that -creed as little as the stiff conservatism of the Churchman. -Indeed, with a few individual exceptions, they did not try -to stem it, for they had lost the spiritual independence -needed to appraise its true moral significance. So they -accepted without misgiving the sharp separation of the -sphere of Christianity from that of economic expediency, -which was its main assumption, and affirmed that religion -was a thing of the spirit, which was degraded if it were -externalised. - -"In the days when Oliver, master of the Schools at Cologne, -preached the Crusade against the Saracens," a certain rich -miller, who was also a usurer, heard, as he lay in bed, an -unwonted rumbling in his mill. He opened the door, and saw -two coal-black horses, and by their side an ill-favoured man -as black as they. It was the devil. The fiend forced him to -mount, and rode with him to hell, where, amid the torments -of others who had been unscrupulous in the pursuit of gain, -he saw "a burning fiery chair, wherein could be no rest, but -torture and interminable pain," and was told, "Now shalt -thou return to thy house, and thou shalt have thy reward in -this chair." The miller died unconfessed, and the priest -who, in return for a bribe, buried him in consecrated -ground, was suspended from his office. - -The fancies of an age which saw in economic motives the most -insidious temptation to the disregard of moral principles -may serve to emphasise, by the extravagance of the contrast, -the perils of one in which the economic motive is regarded -as needing no higher credential. The idea that conduct which -is commercially successful may be morally wicked is as -unfamiliar to the modern world as the idea that a type of -social organization which is economically efficient may be -inconsistent with principles of right. A dock company which -employs several thousand casual labourers for three days a -week, or an employers' association, which uses its powerful -organization to oppose an extension of education, in order -that its members may continue to secure cheap child labour, -or a trade union which sacrifices the public to its own -professional interests, or a retail firm which pays wages -that are an incentive to prostitution, may be regarded as -incompetent in its organization or as deficient in the finer -shades of public spirit. But neither they, nor the community -which may profit by their conduct, are regarded as guilty of -sin, even by those whom professional exigencies have -compelled to retain that unfashionable word in their -vocabulary. - -The abdication by the Christian Churches of one whole -department of life, that of social and political conduct, as -the sphere of the powers of this world and of them alone, is -one of the capital revolutions through which the human -spirit has passed. The mediaeval church, with all its -extravagances and abuses, had asserted the whole compass of -human interests to be the province of religion. The -disposition to idealise it in the interests of some -contemporary ecclesiastical or social propaganda is properly -regarded with suspicion. But, though the practice of its -officers was often odious, it cannot be denied that the -essence of its moral teaching had been the attempts to -uphold a rule of right, by which all aspects of human -conduct were to be judged, and which was not merely to be -preached as an ideal, but to be enforced as a practical -obligation upon members of the Christian community. It had -claimed, however grossly the claim might be degraded by -political intrigues and ambitions, to judge the actions of -rulers by a standard superior to political expediency. It -had tried to impart some moral significance to the ferocity -of the warrior by enlisting him in the service of God. It -had even sought, with a self-confidence which was noble, if -perhaps over-sanguine, to bring the contracts of business -and the transactions of economic life within the scope of a -body of Christian casuistry. - -The Churches of the nineteenth century had no strong -assurance of the reality of any spiritual order invisible to -the eye of sense, which was to be upheld, however much it -might be derided, however violent the contrast which it -offered to the social order created by men. Individuals -among their officers and members spoke and acted as men who -had; but they were rarely followed, and sometimes -repudiated. Possessing no absolute standards of their own, -the Churches were at the mercy of those who did possess -them. They relieved the wounded, and comforted the dying, -but they dared not enter the battle. For men will fight only -for a cause in which they believe, and what the Churches -lacked was not personal virtue, or public spirit, or -practical wisdom, but something more simple and more -indispensable, something which the Children of Light are -supposed to impart to the children of this world, but which -they could not impart, because they did not possess -it---faith in their own creed and in their vocation to make -it prevail. So they made religion the ornament of leisure, -instead of the banner of a Crusade. They became the home of -"a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and -unbreathed, that never sallies out and seeks her adversary, -but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is -to be run for, not without dust and heat." They acquiesced -in the popular assumption that the acquisition of riches was -the main end of man, and confined themselves to preaching -such personal virtues as did not conflict with its -achievement. - -The world has now sufficient experience to judge the truth -of the doctrine---the Gospel according to the Churches of -Laodicea---which affirms that the power of religion in the -individual soul is nicely proportioned to its powerlessness -in society. Whether the life of the spirit is made easier -for the individual by surrendering his social environment to -a ruthless economic egotism is a question which each man -must answer for himself. In the sphere of social morality -the effect of that philosophy is not dubious. The rejection -of the social ethics of Christianity was only gradually -felt, because they were the school in which individuals -continued to be educated long after other standards had -taken their place as the criterion for judging institutions, -policy, the conduct of business, the organization of -industry and public affairs. Its fruits, though they matured -slowly, are now being gathered. In our own day the horrors -which sixty years ago were thought to be exorcised by the -advance of civilization have one by one rolled back, the -rule of the sword and of the assassin hired by governments, -as in Ireland, a hardly-veiled slavery, as in East Africa, a -contempt for international law by the great Powers which -would have filled an earlier generation with amazement, and -in England the prostitution of humanity and personal honour -and the decencies of public life to the pursuit of money. - -These things have occurred before, in ages which were -nominally Christian. What is distinctive of our own is less -its occasional relapses or aberrations, than its assumption -that the habitual conduct and organization of society is a -matter to which religion is merely irrelevant. That attempt -to conduct human affairs in the light of no end other than -the temporary appetites of individuals has as its natural -consequences oppression, the unreasoning and morbid pursuit -of pecuniary gain of which the proper name is the sin of -avarice, and civil war. In so far as Christianity is taken -seriously, it destroys alike the arbitrary power of the few -and the slavery of many, since it maintains a standard by -which both are condemned---a standard which men did not -create and which is independent of their convenience or -desires. By affirming that all men are the children of God, -it insists that the rights of all men are equal. By -affirming that men are men and nothing more, it is a warning -that those rights are conditional and derivative---a -commission of service, not a property. To such a faith -nothing is common or unclean, and in a Christian society -social institutions, economic activity, industrial -organization cease to be either indifferent or merely means -for the satisfaction of human appetites. They arc judged, -not merely by their convenience, but by standards of right -and wrong. They become stages in the progress of mankind to -perfection, and derive a certain sacramental significance -from the spiritual end to which, if only as a kind of -squalid scaffolding, they are ultimately related. - -Hence the opinion, so frequently expressed, that the -religion of a society makes no practical difference to the -conduct of its affairs is not only contrary to experience, -but of its very nature superficial. The creed of -indifferentism, detached from the social order which is the -greatest and most massive expression of the scale of values -that is the working faith of a society, may make no -difference, except to damn more completely those who profess -it. But then, so tepid and self-regarding a creed is not a -religion. Christianity cannot allow its sphere to be -determined by the convenience of politicians or by the -conventional ethics of the world of business. The whole -world of human interests was assigned to it as its province. -"The law of divinity is to lead the lowest through the -intermediate to the highest things." In discharging its -commission, therefore, a Christian Church will constantly -enter the departments of politics and of economic relations, -because it is only a bad modern convention which allows men -to forget that these things, as much as personal conduct, -are the sphere of the spirit and the expression of -character. It will insist that membership in it involves -obedience to a certain rule of life, and the renunciation of -the prizes offered by economic mastery. - -A rule of life, a discipline, a standard and habit of -conduct in the social relations which make up the texture of -life for the mass of mankind---the establishment of these -among its own members, and their maintenance by the -corporate conscience of the Christian society, is among the -most vital tasks of any Church which takes its religion -seriously. It is idle for it to expound the Christian Faith -to those who do not accept it, unless at the same time it is -the guardian of the way of life involved in that Faith among -those who nominally do. Either a Church is a society, or it -is nothing. But, if a society is to exist, it must possess a -corporate mind and will. And if the Church, which is a -Christian Society, is to exist, its mind and will must be -set upon that type of conduct which is specifically -Christian. Hence the acceptance by its members of a rule of -life is involved in the very essence of the Church. They -will normally fail, of course, to live up to it. But when it -ceases altogether to attract them, when they think it, not -the truest wisdom, but impracticable folly, when they -believe that the acceptance of Christianity is compatible -with any rule of life whatsoever or with no rule of life at -all, they have ceased, in so far as their own choice can -affect the matter, to be members of the "Church militant -here on earth." When all its members---were that -conceivable---have made such a choice, that Church has -ceased to exist. - -The demand that a Church should possess and exercise powers -of moral discipline is not, therefore, the expression of -that absurd, if innocent, pose, a romantic and -undiscriminating Mediaevalism. Such powers are a necessary -element in the life of a Church, because they are a -necessary element in the life of any society whatsoever. It -is arguable that a Church ought not to exist; it is not -arguable that, when it exists, it should lack the powers -which are indispensable to any genuine vitality. It ought to -be the greatest of societies, since it is concerned with the -greatest and most enduring interests of mankind. But, if it -has not the authority to discipline its own members, which -is possessed by the humblest secular association, from an -athletic club to a trade union, it is not a society at all. -The recovery and exercise of that authority is thus among -the most important of the practical reforms in its own -organization at which a Church, if it does not already -possess it, can aim, since, without it, it cannot, properly -speaking, be said fully to exist. - -If a Church reasserts and applies its moral authority, if it -insists that, while no man is compelled to belong to it, -membership involves duties as well as privileges, if it -informs its members that they have assumed obligations which -preclude them from practising certain common kinds of -economic conduct and from aiming at certain types of success -which are ordinarily esteemed, two consequences are likely -to follow. It cannot, in the first place, continue to be -established. It will probably, in the second place, lose the -nominal support of a considerable number of those who regard -themselves as its adherents. Such a decline in membership -will, however, be a blessing, not a misfortune. The -tradition of universal allegiance which the Church---to -speak without distinction of denominations---has inherited -from an age in which the word "Christendom" had some -meaning, is a source, not of strength, but of weakness. It -is a weakness, because, in the circumstances of the -twentieth century, it is fundamentally, if unconsciously, -insincere. The position of the Church to-day is not that of -the Middle Ages. It resembles more nearly that of the Church -in the Roman Empire before the conversion of Constantine. -Christians are a sect, and a small sect, in a Pagan Society. -But they can be a sincere sect. If they are sincere, they -will not abuse the Pagans, as sometimes in the past they -were inclined to do; for a good Pagan is an admirable -person. But he is not a Christian, for his hopes and fears, -his preferences and dislikes, his standards of success and -failure, are different from those of Christians. The Church -will not pretend that he is, or endeavour to make its own -Faith acceptable to him by diluting the distinctive ethical -attributes of Christianity till they become inoffensive, at -the cost of becoming trivial. - -"*He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath -exalted the humble and meek.*" A society which is fortunate -enough to possess so revolutionary a basis, a society whose -Founder was executed as the enemy of law and order, need not -seek to soften the materialism of principalities and powers -with mild doses of piety administered in an apologetic -whisper. It will teach as one having authority, and will -have sufficient confidence in its Faith to believe that it -requires neither artificial protection nor judicious -under-statement in order that such truth as there is in it -may prevail. It will appeal to mankind, not because its -standards are identical with those of the world, but because -they are profoundly different. It will win its converts, not -because membership involves no change in their manner of -life, but because it involves a change so complete as to be -ineffaceable. It will expect its adherents to face economic -ruin for the sake of their principles with the same alacrity -as, till recently, it was faced every day by the workman who -sought to establish trade unionism among his fellows. It -will define, with the aid of those of its members who are -engaged in different trades and occupations, the lines of -conduct and organization which approach most nearly to being -the practical application of Christian ethics in the various -branches of economic life, and, having defined them, will -censure those of its members who depart from them without -good reason. It will rebuke the open and notorious sin of -the man who oppresses his fellows for the sake of gain as -freely as that of the drunkard or adulterer. It will voice -frankly the judgment of the Christian conscience on the acts -of the State, even when to do so is an offence to -nine-tenths of its fellow-citizens. Like Missionary Churches -in Africa to-day, it will have as its aim, not merely to -convert the individual, but to make a new kind, and a -Christian kind, of civilization. - -Such a religion is likely to be highly inconvenient to all -parties and persons who desire to dwell at ease in Zion. But -it will not, at any rate, be a matter of indifference. The -marks of its influence will not be comfort, but revolt and -persecution. It will bring not peace but a sword. Yet its -end is peace. It is to harmonize the discords of human -society, by relating its activities to the spiritual purpose -from which they derive their significance. +In a society thus long obtuse to one whole aspect of the Christian +Faith, it was natural that the restraints imposed on social conduct by +mere tradition, personal kindliness, the inertia of use and wont should +snap like green withies before the intoxicating revelation of riches +which burst on the early nineteenth century. It was the more natural +because the creed which rushed into the vacuum was itself a kind of +religion, a persuasive, self-confident and militant Gospel proclaiming +the absolute value of economic success. The personal piety of the +Nonconformist could stem that creed as little as the stiff conservatism +of the Churchman. Indeed, with a few individual exceptions, they did not +try to stem it, for they had lost the spiritual independence needed to +appraise its true moral significance. So they accepted without misgiving +the sharp separation of the sphere of Christianity from that of economic +expediency, which was its main assumption, and affirmed that religion +was a thing of the spirit, which was degraded if it were externalised. + +"In the days when Oliver, master of the Schools at Cologne, preached the +Crusade against the Saracens," a certain rich miller, who was also a +usurer, heard, as he lay in bed, an unwonted rumbling in his mill. He +opened the door, and saw two coal-black horses, and by their side an +ill-favoured man as black as they. It was the devil. The fiend forced +him to mount, and rode with him to hell, where, amid the torments of +others who had been unscrupulous in the pursuit of gain, he saw "a +burning fiery chair, wherein could be no rest, but torture and +interminable pain," and was told, "Now shalt thou return to thy house, +and thou shalt have thy reward in this chair." The miller died +unconfessed, and the priest who, in return for a bribe, buried him in +consecrated ground, was suspended from his office. + +The fancies of an age which saw in economic motives the most insidious +temptation to the disregard of moral principles may serve to emphasise, +by the extravagance of the contrast, the perils of one in which the +economic motive is regarded as needing no higher credential. The idea +that conduct which is commercially successful may be morally wicked is +as unfamiliar to the modern world as the idea that a type of social +organization which is economically efficient may be inconsistent with +principles of right. A dock company which employs several thousand +casual labourers for three days a week, or an employers' association, +which uses its powerful organization to oppose an extension of +education, in order that its members may continue to secure cheap child +labour, or a trade union which sacrifices the public to its own +professional interests, or a retail firm which pays wages that are an +incentive to prostitution, may be regarded as incompetent in its +organization or as deficient in the finer shades of public spirit. But +neither they, nor the community which may profit by their conduct, are +regarded as guilty of sin, even by those whom professional exigencies +have compelled to retain that unfashionable word in their vocabulary. + +The abdication by the Christian Churches of one whole department of +life, that of social and political conduct, as the sphere of the powers +of this world and of them alone, is one of the capital revolutions +through which the human spirit has passed. The mediaeval church, with +all its extravagances and abuses, had asserted the whole compass of +human interests to be the province of religion. The disposition to +idealise it in the interests of some contemporary ecclesiastical or +social propaganda is properly regarded with suspicion. But, though the +practice of its officers was often odious, it cannot be denied that the +essence of its moral teaching had been the attempts to uphold a rule of +right, by which all aspects of human conduct were to be judged, and +which was not merely to be preached as an ideal, but to be enforced as a +practical obligation upon members of the Christian community. It had +claimed, however grossly the claim might be degraded by political +intrigues and ambitions, to judge the actions of rulers by a standard +superior to political expediency. It had tried to impart some moral +significance to the ferocity of the warrior by enlisting him in the +service of God. It had even sought, with a self-confidence which was +noble, if perhaps over-sanguine, to bring the contracts of business and +the transactions of economic life within the scope of a body of +Christian casuistry. + +The Churches of the nineteenth century had no strong assurance of the +reality of any spiritual order invisible to the eye of sense, which was +to be upheld, however much it might be derided, however violent the +contrast which it offered to the social order created by men. +Individuals among their officers and members spoke and acted as men who +had; but they were rarely followed, and sometimes repudiated. Possessing +no absolute standards of their own, the Churches were at the mercy of +those who did possess them. They relieved the wounded, and comforted the +dying, but they dared not enter the battle. For men will fight only for +a cause in which they believe, and what the Churches lacked was not +personal virtue, or public spirit, or practical wisdom, but something +more simple and more indispensable, something which the Children of +Light are supposed to impart to the children of this world, but which +they could not impart, because they did not possess it---faith in their +own creed and in their vocation to make it prevail. So they made +religion the ornament of leisure, instead of the banner of a Crusade. +They became the home of "a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised +and unbreathed, that never sallies out and seeks her adversary, but +slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, +not without dust and heat." They acquiesced in the popular assumption +that the acquisition of riches was the main end of man, and confined +themselves to preaching such personal virtues as did not conflict with +its achievement. + +The world has now sufficient experience to judge the truth of the +doctrine---the Gospel according to the Churches of Laodicea---which +affirms that the power of religion in the individual soul is nicely +proportioned to its powerlessness in society. Whether the life of the +spirit is made easier for the individual by surrendering his social +environment to a ruthless economic egotism is a question which each man +must answer for himself. In the sphere of social morality the effect of +that philosophy is not dubious. The rejection of the social ethics of +Christianity was only gradually felt, because they were the school in +which individuals continued to be educated long after other standards +had taken their place as the criterion for judging institutions, policy, +the conduct of business, the organization of industry and public +affairs. Its fruits, though they matured slowly, are now being gathered. +In our own day the horrors which sixty years ago were thought to be +exorcised by the advance of civilization have one by one rolled back, +the rule of the sword and of the assassin hired by governments, as in +Ireland, a hardly-veiled slavery, as in East Africa, a contempt for +international law by the great Powers which would have filled an earlier +generation with amazement, and in England the prostitution of humanity +and personal honour and the decencies of public life to the pursuit of +money. + +These things have occurred before, in ages which were nominally +Christian. What is distinctive of our own is less its occasional +relapses or aberrations, than its assumption that the habitual conduct +and organization of society is a matter to which religion is merely +irrelevant. That attempt to conduct human affairs in the light of no end +other than the temporary appetites of individuals has as its natural +consequences oppression, the unreasoning and morbid pursuit of pecuniary +gain of which the proper name is the sin of avarice, and civil war. In +so far as Christianity is taken seriously, it destroys alike the +arbitrary power of the few and the slavery of many, since it maintains a +standard by which both are condemned---a standard which men did not +create and which is independent of their convenience or desires. By +affirming that all men are the children of God, it insists that the +rights of all men are equal. By affirming that men are men and nothing +more, it is a warning that those rights are conditional and +derivative---a commission of service, not a property. To such a faith +nothing is common or unclean, and in a Christian society social +institutions, economic activity, industrial organization cease to be +either indifferent or merely means for the satisfaction of human +appetites. They arc judged, not merely by their convenience, but by +standards of right and wrong. They become stages in the progress of +mankind to perfection, and derive a certain sacramental significance +from the spiritual end to which, if only as a kind of squalid +scaffolding, they are ultimately related. + +Hence the opinion, so frequently expressed, that the religion of a +society makes no practical difference to the conduct of its affairs is +not only contrary to experience, but of its very nature superficial. The +creed of indifferentism, detached from the social order which is the +greatest and most massive expression of the scale of values that is the +working faith of a society, may make no difference, except to damn more +completely those who profess it. But then, so tepid and self-regarding a +creed is not a religion. Christianity cannot allow its sphere to be +determined by the convenience of politicians or by the conventional +ethics of the world of business. The whole world of human interests was +assigned to it as its province. "The law of divinity is to lead the +lowest through the intermediate to the highest things." In discharging +its commission, therefore, a Christian Church will constantly enter the +departments of politics and of economic relations, because it is only a +bad modern convention which allows men to forget that these things, as +much as personal conduct, are the sphere of the spirit and the +expression of character. It will insist that membership in it involves +obedience to a certain rule of life, and the renunciation of the prizes +offered by economic mastery. + +A rule of life, a discipline, a standard and habit of conduct in the +social relations which make up the texture of life for the mass of +mankind---the establishment of these among its own members, and their +maintenance by the corporate conscience of the Christian society, is +among the most vital tasks of any Church which takes its religion +seriously. It is idle for it to expound the Christian Faith to those who +do not accept it, unless at the same time it is the guardian of the way +of life involved in that Faith among those who nominally do. Either a +Church is a society, or it is nothing. But, if a society is to exist, it +must possess a corporate mind and will. And if the Church, which is a +Christian Society, is to exist, its mind and will must be set upon that +type of conduct which is specifically Christian. Hence the acceptance by +its members of a rule of life is involved in the very essence of the +Church. They will normally fail, of course, to live up to it. But when +it ceases altogether to attract them, when they think it, not the truest +wisdom, but impracticable folly, when they believe that the acceptance +of Christianity is compatible with any rule of life whatsoever or with +no rule of life at all, they have ceased, in so far as their own choice +can affect the matter, to be members of the "Church militant here on +earth." When all its members---were that conceivable---have made such a +choice, that Church has ceased to exist. + +The demand that a Church should possess and exercise powers of moral +discipline is not, therefore, the expression of that absurd, if +innocent, pose, a romantic and undiscriminating Mediaevalism. Such +powers are a necessary element in the life of a Church, because they are +a necessary element in the life of any society whatsoever. It is +arguable that a Church ought not to exist; it is not arguable that, when +it exists, it should lack the powers which are indispensable to any +genuine vitality. It ought to be the greatest of societies, since it is +concerned with the greatest and most enduring interests of mankind. But, +if it has not the authority to discipline its own members, which is +possessed by the humblest secular association, from an athletic club to +a trade union, it is not a society at all. The recovery and exercise of +that authority is thus among the most important of the practical reforms +in its own organization at which a Church, if it does not already +possess it, can aim, since, without it, it cannot, properly speaking, be +said fully to exist. + +If a Church reasserts and applies its moral authority, if it insists +that, while no man is compelled to belong to it, membership involves +duties as well as privileges, if it informs its members that they have +assumed obligations which preclude them from practising certain common +kinds of economic conduct and from aiming at certain types of success +which are ordinarily esteemed, two consequences are likely to follow. It +cannot, in the first place, continue to be established. It will +probably, in the second place, lose the nominal support of a +considerable number of those who regard themselves as its adherents. +Such a decline in membership will, however, be a blessing, not a +misfortune. The tradition of universal allegiance which the Church---to +speak without distinction of denominations---has inherited from an age +in which the word "Christendom" had some meaning, is a source, not of +strength, but of weakness. It is a weakness, because, in the +circumstances of the twentieth century, it is fundamentally, if +unconsciously, insincere. The position of the Church to-day is not that +of the Middle Ages. It resembles more nearly that of the Church in the +Roman Empire before the conversion of Constantine. Christians are a +sect, and a small sect, in a Pagan Society. But they can be a sincere +sect. If they are sincere, they will not abuse the Pagans, as sometimes +in the past they were inclined to do; for a good Pagan is an admirable +person. But he is not a Christian, for his hopes and fears, his +preferences and dislikes, his standards of success and failure, are +different from those of Christians. The Church will not pretend that he +is, or endeavour to make its own Faith acceptable to him by diluting the +distinctive ethical attributes of Christianity till they become +inoffensive, at the cost of becoming trivial. + +"*He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the +humble and meek.*" A society which is fortunate enough to possess so +revolutionary a basis, a society whose Founder was executed as the enemy +of law and order, need not seek to soften the materialism of +principalities and powers with mild doses of piety administered in an +apologetic whisper. It will teach as one having authority, and will have +sufficient confidence in its Faith to believe that it requires neither +artificial protection nor judicious under-statement in order that such +truth as there is in it may prevail. It will appeal to mankind, not +because its standards are identical with those of the world, but because +they are profoundly different. It will win its converts, not because +membership involves no change in their manner of life, but because it +involves a change so complete as to be ineffaceable. It will expect its +adherents to face economic ruin for the sake of their principles with +the same alacrity as, till recently, it was faced every day by the +workman who sought to establish trade unionism among his fellows. It +will define, with the aid of those of its members who are engaged in +different trades and occupations, the lines of conduct and organization +which approach most nearly to being the practical application of +Christian ethics in the various branches of economic life, and, having +defined them, will censure those of its members who depart from them +without good reason. It will rebuke the open and notorious sin of the +man who oppresses his fellows for the sake of gain as freely as that of +the drunkard or adulterer. It will voice frankly the judgment of the +Christian conscience on the acts of the State, even when to do so is an +offence to nine-tenths of its fellow-citizens. Like Missionary Churches +in Africa to-day, it will have as its aim, not merely to convert the +individual, but to make a new kind, and a Christian kind, of +civilization. + +Such a religion is likely to be highly inconvenient to all parties and +persons who desire to dwell at ease in Zion. But it will not, at any +rate, be a matter of indifference. The marks of its influence will not +be comfort, but revolt and persecution. It will bring not peace but a +sword. Yet its end is peace. It is to harmonize the discords of human +society, by relating its activities to the spiritual purpose from which +they derive their significance. > Frate, la nostra volontà quieta > @@ -7085,66 +5951,57 @@ from which they derive their significance. > > Foran discordi gli nostri disiri > -> Dal volar di colui che qui ne cerne... Anzi e form ale ad -> esto beato esse +> Dal volar di colui che qui ne cerne... Anzi e form ale ad esto beato +> esse > > Tenersi dentro alia divina voglia. > -> Per ch'una fansi nostre voglie stesse... Chiaro mi fu -> allor com' ogni dove +> Per ch'una fansi nostre voglie stesse... Chiaro mi fu allor com' ogni +> dove > > In Cielo e paradiso, e si la grazia > > Del sommo ben d'un modo non vi piove. -The famous lines in which Piccarda explains to Dante the -order of Paradise are a description of a complex and -multiform society which is united by overmastering devotion -to a common end. By that end all stations are assigned and -all activities are valued. The parts derive their quality -from their place in the system, and are so permeated by the -unity which they express that they themselves are glad to be -forgotten, as the ribs of an arch carry the eye from the -floor from which they spring to the vault in which they meet -and interlace. - -Such a combination of unity and diversity is possible only -to a society which subordinates its activities to the -principle of purpose. For what that principle offers is not -merely a standard for determining the relations of different -classes and groups of producers, but a scale of moral -values. Above all, it assigns to economic activity itself -its proper place as the servant, not the master, of society. -The burden of our civilization is not merely, as many -suppose, that the product of industry is ill-distributed, or -its conduct tyrannical, or its operation interrupted by -embittered disagreements. It is that industry itself has -come to hold a position of exclusive predominance among -human interests, which no single interest, and least of all -the provision of the material means of existence, is fit to -occupy. Like a hypochondriac who is so absorbed in the -processes of his own digestion that he goes to his grave -before he has begun to live, industrialized communities -neglect the very objects for which it is worth while to -acquire riches in their feverish preoccupation with the -means by which riches can be acquired. - -That obsession by economic issues is as local and transitory -as it is repulsive and disturbing. To future generations it -will appear as pitiable as the obsession of the seventeenth -century by religious quarrels appears to-day; indeed, it is -less rational, since the object with which it is concerned -is less important. And it is a poison which inflames every -wound and turns each trivial scratch into a malignant ulcer. -Society will not solve the particular problems of industry -which afflict it, until that poison is expelled, and it has -learned to see industry itself in the right perspective. If -it is to do that, it must rearrange its scale of values. It -must regard economic interests as one element in life, not -as the whole of life. It must persuade its members to -renounce the opportunity of gains which accrue without any -corresponding service, because the struggle for them keeps -the whole community in a fever. It must so organize its -industry that the instrumental character of economic -activity is emphasized by its subordination to the social -purpose for which it is carried on. +The famous lines in which Piccarda explains to Dante the order of +Paradise are a description of a complex and multiform society which is +united by overmastering devotion to a common end. By that end all +stations are assigned and all activities are valued. The parts derive +their quality from their place in the system, and are so permeated by +the unity which they express that they themselves are glad to be +forgotten, as the ribs of an arch carry the eye from the floor from +which they spring to the vault in which they meet and interlace. + +Such a combination of unity and diversity is possible only to a society +which subordinates its activities to the principle of purpose. For what +that principle offers is not merely a standard for determining the +relations of different classes and groups of producers, but a scale of +moral values. Above all, it assigns to economic activity itself its +proper place as the servant, not the master, of society. The burden of +our civilization is not merely, as many suppose, that the product of +industry is ill-distributed, or its conduct tyrannical, or its operation +interrupted by embittered disagreements. It is that industry itself has +come to hold a position of exclusive predominance among human interests, +which no single interest, and least of all the provision of the material +means of existence, is fit to occupy. Like a hypochondriac who is so +absorbed in the processes of his own digestion that he goes to his grave +before he has begun to live, industrialized communities neglect the very +objects for which it is worth while to acquire riches in their feverish +preoccupation with the means by which riches can be acquired. + +That obsession by economic issues is as local and transitory as it is +repulsive and disturbing. To future generations it will appear as +pitiable as the obsession of the seventeenth century by religious +quarrels appears to-day; indeed, it is less rational, since the object +with which it is concerned is less important. And it is a poison which +inflames every wound and turns each trivial scratch into a malignant +ulcer. Society will not solve the particular problems of industry which +afflict it, until that poison is expelled, and it has learned to see +industry itself in the right perspective. If it is to do that, it must +rearrange its scale of values. It must regard economic interests as one +element in life, not as the whole of life. It must persuade its members +to renounce the opportunity of gains which accrue without any +corresponding service, because the struggle for them keeps the whole +community in a fever. It must so organize its industry that the +instrumental character of economic activity is emphasized by its +subordination to the social purpose for which it is carried on. diff --git a/src/agrarian-justice.md b/src/agrarian-justice.md index c6af1bc..1e13f8c 100644 --- a/src/agrarian-justice.md +++ b/src/agrarian-justice.md @@ -1,326 +1,280 @@ # -To preserve the benefits of what is called civilized life, -and to remedy, at the same time, the evil which it has -produced, ought to be considered as one of the first objects -of reformed legislation. - -Whether that state that is proudly, perhaps erroneously, -called civilization, has most promoted or most injured the -general happiness of man, is a question that may be strongly -contested. On one side, the spectator is dazzled by splendid -appearances; on the other, he is shocked by extremes of -wretchedness; both of which he has erected. The most -affluent and the most miserable of the human race are to be -found in the countries that are called civilized. - -To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is -necessary to have some idea of the natural and primitive -state of man; such as it is at this day among the Indians of -North America. There is not, in that state, any of those -spectacles of human misery which poverty and want present to -our eyes, in all the towns and streets of Europe. - -Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is -called civilized life. It exists not in the natural state. -On the other hand, the natural state is without those -advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, science, and -manufactures. - -The life of an Indian is a continual holiday, compared with -the poor of Europe; and, on the other hand, it appears to be -abject when compared to the rich. Civilization, therefore, -or that which is so called, has operated two ways; to make -one part of society more affluent, and the other more -wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a -natural state. - -It is always possible to go from the natural to the -civilized state, but it is never possible to go from the -civilized to the natural state. The reason is, that man, in -a natural state, subsisting by hunting, requires ten times -the quantity of land to range over, to procure himself -sustenance, than would support him in a civilized state, -where the earth is cultivated. When, therefore, a country -becomes populous by the additional aids of cultivation, arts -and science, there is a necessity of preserving things in -that state; because without it, there cannot be sustenance -for more, perhaps, than a tenth part of its inhabitants. The -thing, therefore, now to be done, is, to remedy the evils, -and preserve the benefits that have arisen to society, by -passing from the natural to that which is called the -civilized state. - -In taking the matter up on this ground, the first principle -of civilization ought to have been, and ought still to be, -that the condition of every person born into the world, -after a state of civilization commences, ought not to be -worse than if he had been born before that period. But the -fact is, that the condition of millions, in every country in -Europe, is far worse than if they had been born before -civilization began, or had been born among the Indians of -North America at the present day. I will show how this fact -has happened. - -It is a position not to be controverted, that the earth, in -its natural, uncultivated state, was, and ever would have -continued to be, *the common property of the human race*. In -that state every man would have been born to property. He -would have been a joint life-proprietor with the rest in the -property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, -vegetable and animal. - -But the earth, in its natural state, as before said, is -capable of supporting but a small number of inhabitants -compared with what it is capable of doing in a cultivated -state. And as it is impossible to separate the improvement -made by cultivation, from the earth itself, upon which that -improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose from -that inseparable connexion; but it is nevertheless true, -that it is the value of the improvement only, and not the -earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor -therefore, of cultivated land, owes to the community, a -*ground-rent*; for I know of no better term to express the -idea by, for the land which he holds: and it is from this +To preserve the benefits of what is called civilized life, and to +remedy, at the same time, the evil which it has produced, ought to be +considered as one of the first objects of reformed legislation. + +Whether that state that is proudly, perhaps erroneously, called +civilization, has most promoted or most injured the general happiness of +man, is a question that may be strongly contested. On one side, the +spectator is dazzled by splendid appearances; on the other, he is +shocked by extremes of wretchedness; both of which he has erected. The +most affluent and the most miserable of the human race are to be found +in the countries that are called civilized. + +To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to +have some idea of the natural and primitive state of man; such as it is +at this day among the Indians of North America. There is not, in that +state, any of those spectacles of human misery which poverty and want +present to our eyes, in all the towns and streets of Europe. + +Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized +life. It exists not in the natural state. On the other hand, the natural +state is without those advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, +science, and manufactures. + +The life of an Indian is a continual holiday, compared with the poor of +Europe; and, on the other hand, it appears to be abject when compared to +the rich. Civilization, therefore, or that which is so called, has +operated two ways; to make one part of society more affluent, and the +other more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural +state. + +It is always possible to go from the natural to the civilized state, but +it is never possible to go from the civilized to the natural state. The +reason is, that man, in a natural state, subsisting by hunting, requires +ten times the quantity of land to range over, to procure himself +sustenance, than would support him in a civilized state, where the earth +is cultivated. When, therefore, a country becomes populous by the +additional aids of cultivation, arts and science, there is a necessity +of preserving things in that state; because without it, there cannot be +sustenance for more, perhaps, than a tenth part of its inhabitants. The +thing, therefore, now to be done, is, to remedy the evils, and preserve +the benefits that have arisen to society, by passing from the natural to +that which is called the civilized state. + +In taking the matter up on this ground, the first principle of +civilization ought to have been, and ought still to be, that the +condition of every person born into the world, after a state of +civilization commences, ought not to be worse than if he had been born +before that period. But the fact is, that the condition of millions, in +every country in Europe, is far worse than if they had been born before +civilization began, or had been born among the Indians of North America +at the present day. I will show how this fact has happened. + +It is a position not to be controverted, that the earth, in its natural, +uncultivated state, was, and ever would have continued to be, *the +common property of the human race*. In that state every man would have +been born to property. He would have been a joint life-proprietor with +the rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural +productions, vegetable and animal. + +But the earth, in its natural state, as before said, is capable of +supporting but a small number of inhabitants compared with what it is +capable of doing in a cultivated state. And as it is impossible to +separate the improvement made by cultivation, from the earth itself, +upon which that improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose +from that inseparable connexion; but it is nevertheless true, that it is +the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is +individual property. Every proprietor therefore, of cultivated land, +owes to the community, a *ground-rent*; for I know of no better term to +express the idea by, for the land which he holds: and it is from this ground-rent that the fund proposed in this plan is to issue. -It is deducible, as well from the nature of the thing, as -from all the histories transmitted to us, that the idea of -landed property commenced with cultivation, and that there -was no such thing as landed property before that time. It -could not exist in the first state of man, that of hunters. -It did not exist in the second state, that of shepherds: -neither Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, nor Job, so far as the -history of the Bible may be credited in probable things, -were owners of land. Their property consisted, as is always -enumerated, in flocks and herds, and they travelled with -them from place to place. The frequent contentions, at that -time, about the use of a well in the dry country of Arabia, -where those people lived, show also that there was no landed -property. It was not admitted that land could be claimed as -property. - -There could be no such thing as landed property originally. -Man did not make the earth, and, though he had a natural -right to *occupy* it, he had no right to *locate* as his -*property* in perpetuity any part of it: neither did the -Creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the -first title-deeds should issue. Whence, then, arose the idea -of landed property? I answer as before, that when -cultivation began, the idea of landed property began with -it, from the impossibility of separating the improvement -made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that -improvement was made. The value of the improvement so far -exceeded the value of the natural earth, at that time, as to -absorb it; till, in the end, the common right of all became -confounded into the cultivated right of the individual. But -they are, nevertheless, distinct species of rights, and will -continue to be so long as the earth endures. - -It is only by tracing things to their origin that we can -gain rightful ideas of them, and it is by gaining such ideas -that we discover the boundary that divides right from wrong, -and which teaches every man to know his own. I have entitled -this tract Agrarian Justice, to distinguish it from Agrarian -Law. Nothing could be more unjust than Agrarian Law in a -country improved by cultivation; for though every man, as an -inhabitant of the earth, is a joint proprietor of it in its -natural state, it does not follow that he is a joint -proprietor of cultivated earth. The additional value made by -cultivation, after the system was admitted, became the -property of those who did it, or who inherited it from them, -or who purchased it. It had originally no owner. Whilst, -therefore, I advocate the right, and interest myself in the -hard case of all those who have been thrown out of their -natural inheritance by the introduction of the system of -landed property, I equally defend the right of the possessor -to the part which is his. - -Cultivation is, at least, one of the greatest natural -improvements ever made by human invention. It has given to -created earth a tenfold value. But the landed monopoly that -began with it, has produced the greatest evil. It has -dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation -of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as -ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, -and has thereby created a species of poverty and -wretchedness that did not exist before. - -In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it -is a right and not a charity that I am pleading for. But it -is that kind of right, which, being neglected at first, -could not be brought forward afterwards, till heaven had -opened the way by a revolution in the system of government. -Let us then do honour to revolutions by justice, and give +It is deducible, as well from the nature of the thing, as from all the +histories transmitted to us, that the idea of landed property commenced +with cultivation, and that there was no such thing as landed property +before that time. It could not exist in the first state of man, that of +hunters. It did not exist in the second state, that of shepherds: +neither Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, nor Job, so far as the history of the +Bible may be credited in probable things, were owners of land. Their +property consisted, as is always enumerated, in flocks and herds, and +they travelled with them from place to place. The frequent contentions, +at that time, about the use of a well in the dry country of Arabia, +where those people lived, show also that there was no landed property. +It was not admitted that land could be claimed as property. + +There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not +make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to *occupy* it, he +had no right to *locate* as his *property* in perpetuity any part of it: +neither did the Creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the +first title-deeds should issue. Whence, then, arose the idea of landed +property? I answer as before, that when cultivation began, the idea of +landed property began with it, from the impossibility of separating the +improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that +improvement was made. The value of the improvement so far exceeded the +value of the natural earth, at that time, as to absorb it; till, in the +end, the common right of all became confounded into the cultivated right +of the individual. But they are, nevertheless, distinct species of +rights, and will continue to be so long as the earth endures. + +It is only by tracing things to their origin that we can gain rightful +ideas of them, and it is by gaining such ideas that we discover the +boundary that divides right from wrong, and which teaches every man to +know his own. I have entitled this tract Agrarian Justice, to +distinguish it from Agrarian Law. Nothing could be more unjust than +Agrarian Law in a country improved by cultivation; for though every man, +as an inhabitant of the earth, is a joint proprietor of it in its +natural state, it does not follow that he is a joint proprietor of +cultivated earth. The additional value made by cultivation, after the +system was admitted, became the property of those who did it, or who +inherited it from them, or who purchased it. It had originally no owner. +Whilst, therefore, I advocate the right, and interest myself in the hard +case of all those who have been thrown out of their natural inheritance +by the introduction of the system of landed property, I equally defend +the right of the possessor to the part which is his. + +Cultivation is, at least, one of the greatest natural improvements ever +made by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value. +But the landed monopoly that began with it, has produced the greatest +evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation +of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to +have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby +created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before. + +In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right +and not a charity that I am pleading for. But it is that kind of right, +which, being neglected at first, could not be brought forward +afterwards, till heaven had opened the way by a revolution in the system +of government. Let us then do honour to revolutions by justice, and give currency to their principles by blessings. -Having thus, in a few words, opened the merits of the ease, -I shall now proceed to the plan I have to propose, which is, +Having thus, in a few words, opened the merits of the ease, I shall now +proceed to the plan I have to propose, which is, -To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid -to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one -years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation -in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by -the introduction of the system of landed property. +To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every +person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen +pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her +natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed +property. -And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to -every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to -all others as they shall arrive at that age. +And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person +now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall +arrive at that age. ## Means by which the fund is to be created -I have already established the principle, namely, that the -earth, in its natural, uncultivated state, was, and ever -would have continued to be, the *common property of the -human race*; that in that state, every person would have -been born to property; and that the system of landed -property, by its inseparable connexion with cultivation, and -with what is called civilized life, has absorbed the -property of all those whom it dispossessed, without -providing, as ought to have been done, an indemnification -for that loss. - -The fault, however, is not in the present possessors.---No -complaint is intended, or ought to be alleged against them, -unless they adopt the crime by opposing justice. The fault -is in the system, and it has stolen imperceptibly upon the -world, aided afterwards by the Agrarian law of the sword. -But the fault can be made to reform itself by successive -generations, without diminishing or deranging the property -of any of the present possessors, and yet the operation of -the fund can commence, and be in full activity, the first -year of its establishment, or soon after, as I shall show. - -It is proposed that the payments, as already stated, be made -to every person, rich or poor. It is best to make it so, to -prevent invidious distinctions. It is also right it should -be so, because it is in lieu of the natural inheritance, -which, as a right, belongs to every man. over and above the -property he may have created or inherited from those who -did. Such persons as do not choose to receive it, can throw -it into the common fund. - -Taking it then for granted, that no person ought to be in a -worse condition when born under what is called a state of -civilization, than he would have been, had he been born in a -state of nature, and that civilization ought to have made, -and ought still to make, provision for that purpose, it can -only be done by subtracting from property, a portion equal -in value to the natural inheritance it has absorbed. - -Various methods may be proposed for this purpose, but that -which appears to be the best, not only because it will -operate without deranging any present possessors, or without -interfering with the collection of taxes, or *emprunts* -necessary for the purposes of government and the revolution, -but because it will be the least troublesome and the most -effectual, and also because the subtraction will be made at -a time that best admits it, which is, at the moment that -property is passing by the death of one person to the -possession of another. In this case, the bequeather gives -nothing; the receiver pays nothing. The only matter to him -is, that the monopoly of natural inheritance, to which there -never was a right, begins to cease in his person. A generous -man would not wish it to continue, and a just man will -rejoice to see it abolished. - -My state of health prevents my making sufficient inquiries -with respect to the doctrine of probabilities, whereon to -found calculations with such degrees of certainty as they -are capable of. What, therefore, I offer on this head is -more the result of observation and reflection, than of -received information; but I believe it will be found to -agree sufficiently enough with fact. - -In the first place, taking twenty-one years as the epoch of -maturity, all the property of a nation, real and personal, -is always in the possession of persons above that age. It is -then necessary to know as a datum of calculation, the -average of years which persons above that age will live. I -take this average to be about thirty years, for though many -persons will live forty, fifty, or sixty years after the age -of twenty-one years, others will die much sooner, and some -in every year of that time. - -Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time, it will -give, without any material variation, one way or other, the -average of time in which the whole property or capital of a -nation, or a sum equal thereto, will have passed through one -entire revolution in descent, that is, will have gone by -deaths to new possessors; for though, in many instances, -some parts of this capital will remain forty, fifty, or -sixty years in the possession of one person, other parts -will have revolved two or three times before those thirty -years expire, which will bring it to that average; for were -one half the capital of a nation to revolve twice in thirty -years, it would produce the same fund as if the whole -revolved once. - -Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time in which -the whole capital of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will -revolve once, the thirtieth part thereof will be the sum -that will revolve every year, that is, will go by deaths to -new possessors; and this last sum being thus known, and the -ratio percent, to be subtracted from it being determined, -will give the annual amount or income of the proposed fund, +I have already established the principle, namely, that the earth, in its +natural, uncultivated state, was, and ever would have continued to be, +the *common property of the human race*; that in that state, every +person would have been born to property; and that the system of landed +property, by its inseparable connexion with cultivation, and with what +is called civilized life, has absorbed the property of all those whom it +dispossessed, without providing, as ought to have been done, an +indemnification for that loss. + +The fault, however, is not in the present possessors.---No complaint is +intended, or ought to be alleged against them, unless they adopt the +crime by opposing justice. The fault is in the system, and it has stolen +imperceptibly upon the world, aided afterwards by the Agrarian law of +the sword. But the fault can be made to reform itself by successive +generations, without diminishing or deranging the property of any of the +present possessors, and yet the operation of the fund can commence, and +be in full activity, the first year of its establishment, or soon after, +as I shall show. + +It is proposed that the payments, as already stated, be made to every +person, rich or poor. It is best to make it so, to prevent invidious +distinctions. It is also right it should be so, because it is in lieu of +the natural inheritance, which, as a right, belongs to every man. over +and above the property he may have created or inherited from those who +did. Such persons as do not choose to receive it, can throw it into the +common fund. + +Taking it then for granted, that no person ought to be in a worse +condition when born under what is called a state of civilization, than +he would have been, had he been born in a state of nature, and that +civilization ought to have made, and ought still to make, provision for +that purpose, it can only be done by subtracting from property, a +portion equal in value to the natural inheritance it has absorbed. + +Various methods may be proposed for this purpose, but that which appears +to be the best, not only because it will operate without deranging any +present possessors, or without interfering with the collection of taxes, +or *emprunts* necessary for the purposes of government and the +revolution, but because it will be the least troublesome and the most +effectual, and also because the subtraction will be made at a time that +best admits it, which is, at the moment that property is passing by the +death of one person to the possession of another. In this case, the +bequeather gives nothing; the receiver pays nothing. The only matter to +him is, that the monopoly of natural inheritance, to which there never +was a right, begins to cease in his person. A generous man would not +wish it to continue, and a just man will rejoice to see it abolished. + +My state of health prevents my making sufficient inquiries with respect +to the doctrine of probabilities, whereon to found calculations with +such degrees of certainty as they are capable of. What, therefore, I +offer on this head is more the result of observation and reflection, +than of received information; but I believe it will be found to agree +sufficiently enough with fact. + +In the first place, taking twenty-one years as the epoch of maturity, +all the property of a nation, real and personal, is always in the +possession of persons above that age. It is then necessary to know as a +datum of calculation, the average of years which persons above that age +will live. I take this average to be about thirty years, for though many +persons will live forty, fifty, or sixty years after the age of +twenty-one years, others will die much sooner, and some in every year of +that time. + +Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time, it will give, without +any material variation, one way or other, the average of time in which +the whole property or capital of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will +have passed through one entire revolution in descent, that is, will have +gone by deaths to new possessors; for though, in many instances, some +parts of this capital will remain forty, fifty, or sixty years in the +possession of one person, other parts will have revolved two or three +times before those thirty years expire, which will bring it to that +average; for were one half the capital of a nation to revolve twice in +thirty years, it would produce the same fund as if the whole revolved +once. + +Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time in which the whole +capital of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will revolve once, the +thirtieth part thereof will be the sum that will revolve every year, +that is, will go by deaths to new possessors; and this last sum being +thus known, and the ratio percent, to be subtracted from it being +determined, will give the annual amount or income of the proposed fund, to be applied as already mentioned. -In looking over the discourse of the English minister, Pitt, -in his opening of what is called in England, the budget, -(the scheme of finance for the year 1796,) I find an -estimate of the national capital of that country. As this -estimate of a national capital is prepared ready to my hand, -I take it as a datum to act upon. When a calculation is made -upon the known capital of any nation, combined with its -population, it will serve as a scale for any other nation, -in proportion as its capital and population be more or less. -I am the more disposed to take this estimate of Mr. Pitt, -for the purpose of showing to that minister, upon his own -calculation, how much better money may be employed, than in -wasting it, as he has done, on the wild project of setting -up Bourbon kings. What, in the name of heaven, are Bourbon -kings to the people of England? It is better that the people -have bread. - -Mr. Pitt states the national capital of England, real and -personal, to be one thousand three hundred millions -sterling, which is about one-fourth part of the national -capital of France, including Belgium. The event of the last -harvest in each country proves that the soil of France is -more productive than that of England, and that it can better -support twenty-four or twenty-five millions of inhabitants -than that of England can seven, or seven and an half. +In looking over the discourse of the English minister, Pitt, in his +opening of what is called in England, the budget, (the scheme of finance +for the year 1796,) I find an estimate of the national capital of that +country. As this estimate of a national capital is prepared ready to my +hand, I take it as a datum to act upon. When a calculation is made upon +the known capital of any nation, combined with its population, it will +serve as a scale for any other nation, in proportion as its capital and +population be more or less. I am the more disposed to take this estimate +of Mr. Pitt, for the purpose of showing to that minister, upon his own +calculation, how much better money may be employed, than in wasting it, +as he has done, on the wild project of setting up Bourbon kings. What, +in the name of heaven, are Bourbon kings to the people of England? It is +better that the people have bread. + +Mr. Pitt states the national capital of England, real and personal, to +be one thousand three hundred millions sterling, which is about +one-fourth part of the national capital of France, including Belgium. +The event of the last harvest in each country proves that the soil of +France is more productive than that of England, and that it can better +support twenty-four or twenty-five millions of inhabitants than that of +England can seven, or seven and an half. The thirtieth part of this capital of 1,300,000,000*l*. is -43,333,333*l*. which is the part that will revolve every -year by deaths in that country to new possessors; and the -sum that will annually revolve in France in the proportion -of four to one, will be about one hundred and seventy-three -millions sterling. From this sum of 43,333,333*l*. annually -revolving, is to be subtracted the value of the natural -inheritance absorbed in it, which perhaps, in fair justice, -cannot be taken at less, and ought not to be taken for more, -than a tenth part. - -It will always happen, that of the property thus revolving -by deaths every year, part will descend in a direct line to -sons and daughters, and the other part collaterally, and the -proportion will be found to be about three to one; that is, -about thirty millions of the above sum will descend to -direct heirs, and the remaining sum of 13,333.333*l*. to -more distant relations, and part to strangers. - -Considering, then, that man is always related to society, -that relationship will become comparatively greater in -proportion as the next of kin is more distant, it is -therefore consistent with civilization to say, that where -there are no direct heirs, society shall be heir to a part -over and above the tenth part *due* to society. If this -additional part be from 5-10 or 12%, in proportion as the -next of kin be nearer or more remote, so as to average with -the escheats that may fall, which ought always to go to -society and not to the government, an addition of 10%, more; -the produce from the annual sum of 43,333,333*l*. will be, +43,333,333*l*. which is the part that will revolve every year by deaths +in that country to new possessors; and the sum that will annually +revolve in France in the proportion of four to one, will be about one +hundred and seventy-three millions sterling. From this sum of +43,333,333*l*. annually revolving, is to be subtracted the value of the +natural inheritance absorbed in it, which perhaps, in fair justice, +cannot be taken at less, and ought not to be taken for more, than a +tenth part. + +It will always happen, that of the property thus revolving by deaths +every year, part will descend in a direct line to sons and daughters, +and the other part collaterally, and the proportion will be found to be +about three to one; that is, about thirty millions of the above sum will +descend to direct heirs, and the remaining sum of 13,333.333*l*. to more +distant relations, and part to strangers. + +Considering, then, that man is always related to society, that +relationship will become comparatively greater in proportion as the next +of kin is more distant, it is therefore consistent with civilization to +say, that where there are no direct heirs, society shall be heir to a +part over and above the tenth part *due* to society. If this additional +part be from 5-10 or 12%, in proportion as the next of kin be nearer or +more remote, so as to average with the escheats that may fall, which +ought always to go to society and not to the government, an addition of +10%, more; the produce from the annual sum of 43,333,333*l*. will be, --------------------------------------------------------- Fund Payout @@ -335,41 +289,35 @@ the produce from the annual sum of 43,333,333*l*. will be, 43,333,333*l*. 5,666,666*l* --------------------------------------------------------- -Having thus arrived at the annual amount of the proposed -fund, I come, in the next place, to speak of the population -proportioned to this fund, and to compare it with the uses -to which the fund is to be applied. - -The population (I mean that of England) does not exceed -seven millions and an half, and the number of persons above -the age of fifty will in that case be about four hundred -thousand. There would not, however, be more than that number -that would accept the proposed ten pounds sterling per -annum, though they would be entitled to it. I have no idea -it would be accepted by many persons who had a yearly income -of two or three hundred pounds sterling. But as we often see -instances of rich people falling into sudden poverty, even -at the age of sixty, they would always have the right of -drawing all the arrears due to them. Four millions, -therefore, of the above annual sum of 5,666,666*l*. will be -required for four hundred thousand aged persons, at ten -pounds sterling each. - -I come now to speak of the persons annually arriving at -twenty-one years of age. If all the persons who died were -above the age of twenty-one years, the number of persons -annually arriving at that age, must be equal to the annual -number of deaths, to keep the population stationary. But the -greater part die under the age of twenty-one, and therefore -the number of persons annually arriving at twenty-one, will -be less than half the number of deaths. The whole number of -deaths upon a population of seven millions and an half, will -be about 220,000 annually. The number arriving at twenty-one -years of age will be about 100,000. The whole number of -these will not receive the proposed fifteen pounds, for the -reasons already mentioned, though, as in the former case, -they would be entitled to it. Admitting then that a tenth -part declined receiving it, the amount would stand thus: +Having thus arrived at the annual amount of the proposed fund, I come, +in the next place, to speak of the population proportioned to this fund, +and to compare it with the uses to which the fund is to be applied. + +The population (I mean that of England) does not exceed seven millions +and an half, and the number of persons above the age of fifty will in +that case be about four hundred thousand. There would not, however, be +more than that number that would accept the proposed ten pounds sterling +per annum, though they would be entitled to it. I have no idea it would +be accepted by many persons who had a yearly income of two or three +hundred pounds sterling. But as we often see instances of rich people +falling into sudden poverty, even at the age of sixty, they would always +have the right of drawing all the arrears due to them. Four millions, +therefore, of the above annual sum of 5,666,666*l*. will be required for +four hundred thousand aged persons, at ten pounds sterling each. + +I come now to speak of the persons annually arriving at twenty-one years +of age. If all the persons who died were above the age of twenty-one +years, the number of persons annually arriving at that age, must be +equal to the annual number of deaths, to keep the population stationary. +But the greater part die under the age of twenty-one, and therefore the +number of persons annually arriving at twenty-one, will be less than +half the number of deaths. The whole number of deaths upon a population +of seven millions and an half, will be about 220,000 annually. The +number arriving at twenty-one years of age will be about 100,000. The +whole number of these will not receive the proposed fifteen pounds, for +the reasons already mentioned, though, as in the former case, they would +be entitled to it. Admitting then that a tenth part declined receiving +it, the amount would stand thus: Fund annually: 5,666,666*l*. @@ -379,326 +327,279 @@ To 90,000 persons of 21 years, 15*l*. ster. ea.: 1,350,000 5,350,000; remains 316,666*l*. -There are in every country a number of blind and lame -persons, totally incapable of earning a livelihood. But as -it will always happen that the greater number of blind -persons will be among those who are above the age of fifty -years, they will be provided for in that class. The -remaining sum of 316,666*l*. will provide for the lame and -blind under that age, at the same rate of 10*l*. annually -for each person. - -Having now gone through all the necessary calculations, and -stated the particulars of the plan, 1 shall conclude with -some observations. - -It is not charity but a right; not bounty but justice, that -I am pleading for. The contrast of affluence and -wretchedness continually meeting and offending the rye, is -like dead and living bodies chained together. Though I care -as little about riches as any man, I am a friend to riches -because they are capable of good. I care not how affluent -some may be, provided that none be miserable in consequence -of it. But it is impossible to enjoy affluence with the -felicity it is capable of being enjoyed, whilst so much -misery is mingled in the scene. The sight of the misery, and -the unpleasant sensations it suggests, which, though they -may be suffocated, cannot be extinguished, are a greater -drawback upon the felicity of affluence than the proposed -10%, upon property is worth. He that would not give the one -to get rid of the other, has no charity, even for himself. - -There are, in every country, some magnificent charities -established by individuals. It is, however, but little that -any individual can do, when the whole extent of the misery -to be relieved is considered. He may satisfy his conscience, -but not his heart. He may give all that he has, and that all -will relieve but little. It is only by organizing -civilization upon such principles as to act like a system of -pullies, that the whole weight of misery can be removed. - -The plan here proposed will reach the whole. It will -immediately relieve and take out of view three classes of -wretchedness. The blind, the lame, and the aged poor; and it -will furnish the rising generation with means to prevent -their becoming poor; and it will do this, without deranging -or interfering with any national measures. To show that this -will be the case, it is sufficient to observe, that the -operation and effect of the plan will, in all cases, be the -same, as if every individual were *voluntarily* to make his -will, and dispose of his property, in the manner here -proposed. - -But it is justice and not charity, that is the principle of -the plan. In all great cases it is necessary to have a -principle more universally active than charity; and with -respect to justice, it ought not to be left to the choice of -detached individuals, whether they will do justice or -not.---Considering, then, the plan on the ground of justice, -it ought to be the act of the whole, growing spontaneously -out of the principles of the revolution, and the reputation -of it ought to be national and not individual. - -A plan upon this principle would benefit the revolution, by -the energy that springs from the consciousness of justice. -It would multiply also the national resources; for property, -like vegetation, increases by offsets. When a young couple -begin the world, the difference is exceedingly great, -whether they begin with nothing or with fifteen pounds -apiece. With this aid they could buy a cow, and implements -to cultivate a few acres of land; and instead of becoming -burdens upon society, which is always the case, where -children are produced faster than they can be fed, would be -put in the way of becoming useful and profitable citizens. -The national domains also would sell the better if pecuniary -aids were provided to cultivate them in small lots. +There are in every country a number of blind and lame persons, totally +incapable of earning a livelihood. But as it will always happen that the +greater number of blind persons will be among those who are above the +age of fifty years, they will be provided for in that class. The +remaining sum of 316,666*l*. will provide for the lame and blind under +that age, at the same rate of 10*l*. annually for each person. + +Having now gone through all the necessary calculations, and stated the +particulars of the plan, 1 shall conclude with some observations. + +It is not charity but a right; not bounty but justice, that I am +pleading for. The contrast of affluence and wretchedness continually +meeting and offending the rye, is like dead and living bodies chained +together. Though I care as little about riches as any man, I am a friend +to riches because they are capable of good. I care not how affluent some +may be, provided that none be miserable in consequence of it. But it is +impossible to enjoy affluence with the felicity it is capable of being +enjoyed, whilst so much misery is mingled in the scene. The sight of the +misery, and the unpleasant sensations it suggests, which, though they +may be suffocated, cannot be extinguished, are a greater drawback upon +the felicity of affluence than the proposed 10%, upon property is worth. +He that would not give the one to get rid of the other, has no charity, +even for himself. + +There are, in every country, some magnificent charities established by +individuals. It is, however, but little that any individual can do, when +the whole extent of the misery to be relieved is considered. He may +satisfy his conscience, but not his heart. He may give all that he has, +and that all will relieve but little. It is only by organizing +civilization upon such principles as to act like a system of pullies, +that the whole weight of misery can be removed. + +The plan here proposed will reach the whole. It will immediately relieve +and take out of view three classes of wretchedness. The blind, the lame, +and the aged poor; and it will furnish the rising generation with means +to prevent their becoming poor; and it will do this, without deranging +or interfering with any national measures. To show that this will be the +case, it is sufficient to observe, that the operation and effect of the +plan will, in all cases, be the same, as if every individual were +*voluntarily* to make his will, and dispose of his property, in the +manner here proposed. + +But it is justice and not charity, that is the principle of the plan. In +all great cases it is necessary to have a principle more universally +active than charity; and with respect to justice, it ought not to be +left to the choice of detached individuals, whether they will do justice +or not.---Considering, then, the plan on the ground of justice, it ought +to be the act of the whole, growing spontaneously out of the principles +of the revolution, and the reputation of it ought to be national and not +individual. + +A plan upon this principle would benefit the revolution, by the energy +that springs from the consciousness of justice. It would multiply also +the national resources; for property, like vegetation, increases by +offsets. When a young couple begin the world, the difference is +exceedingly great, whether they begin with nothing or with fifteen +pounds apiece. With this aid they could buy a cow, and implements to +cultivate a few acres of land; and instead of becoming burdens upon +society, which is always the case, where children are produced faster +than they can be fed, would be put in the way of becoming useful and +profitable citizens. The national domains also would sell the better if +pecuniary aids were provided to cultivate them in small lots. It is the practice of what has unjustly obtained the name of -civilization (and the practice merits not to be called -either charity or policy) to make some provision for persons -becoming poor and wretched, only at the time they become so. -Would it not, even as a matter of economy, be far better, to -devise means to prevent their becoming poor. This can best -be done, by making every person, when arrived at the age of -twenty-one years, an inheritor of something to begin with. -The rugged face of society, chequered with the extremes of -affluence and of want, proves that some extraordinary -violence has been committed upon it, and calls on justice -for redress. The great mass of the poor, in all countries, -are become an hereditary race, and it is next to impossible -for them to get out of that state of themselves. It ought -also to be observed, that this mass increases in all -countries that are called civilized. More persons fall -annually into it, than get out of it. +civilization (and the practice merits not to be called either charity or +policy) to make some provision for persons becoming poor and wretched, +only at the time they become so. Would it not, even as a matter of +economy, be far better, to devise means to prevent their becoming poor. +This can best be done, by making every person, when arrived at the age +of twenty-one years, an inheritor of something to begin with. The rugged +face of society, chequered with the extremes of affluence and of want, +proves that some extraordinary violence has been committed upon it, and +calls on justice for redress. The great mass of the poor, in all +countries, are become an hereditary race, and it is next to impossible +for them to get out of that state of themselves. It ought also to be +observed, that this mass increases in all countries that are called +civilized. More persons fall annually into it, than get out of it. Though in a plan, in which justice and humanity are the -foundation-principles, interest ought not to be admitted -into the calculation, yet it is always of advantage to the -establishment of any plan, to show that it is beneficial as -a matter of interest. The success of any proposed plan -submitted to public consideration, must finally depend on -the numbers interested in supporting it, united with the +foundation-principles, interest ought not to be admitted into the +calculation, yet it is always of advantage to the establishment of any +plan, to show that it is beneficial as a matter of interest. The success +of any proposed plan submitted to public consideration, must finally +depend on the numbers interested in supporting it, united with the justice of its principles. -The plan here proposed will benefit all, without injuring -any. It will consolidate the interest of the republic with -that of the individual. To the numerous class dispossessed -of their natural inheritance by the system of landed -property, it will be an act of national justice. To persons -dying possessed of moderate fortunes, it will operate as a -tontine to their children, more beneficial than the sum of -money paid into the fund: and it will give to the -accumulation of riches a degree of security, that none of -the old governments of Europe, now tottering on their -foundations, can give. - -I do not suppose that more than one family in ten, in any of -the countries of Europe, has, when the head of the family -dies, a clear property left of five hundred pounds sterling. -To all such, the plan is advantageous. That property would -pay fifty pounds into the fund, and if there were only two' -children under age, they would receive fifteen pounds each, -(thirty pounds) on coming of age, and be entitled to ten -pounds a year after fifty. It is from the overgrown -acquisition of property that the fund will support itself; -and I know that the possessors of such property in England, -though they would eventually be benefited by the protection -of nine-tenths of it, will exclaim against the plan. But, -without entering into any inquiry how they came by that -property, let them recollect that they have been the -advocates of this war, and that Mr. Pitt has already laid on -more new taxes to be raised annually upon the people of -England, and that for supporting the despotism of Austria -and the Bourbons, against the liberties of France, than -would pay annually all the sums proposed in this plan. - -I have made the calculations, stated in this plan, upon what -is called personal, as well as upon landed property. The -reason for making it upon land is already explained; and the -reason for taking personal property into the calculation, is -equally well founded, though on a different principle. Land, -as before said, is the free gift of the Creator in common to -the human race. Personal property is the *effect of -society*; and it is as impossible for an individual to -acquire personal property without the aid of society, as it -is for him to make land originally. Separate an individual -from society, and give him an island or a continent to -possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot -become rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the -end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist, the -latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of -personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce, is -derived to him by living in society; and he owes, on every -principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a -part of that accumulation back again to society from whence -the whole came. This is putting the matter on a general -principle, and perhaps it is best to do so; for if we -examine the case minutely, it will be found, that the -accumulation of personal property is, in many instances, the -effect of paying too little for the labour that produced it; -the consequence of which is, that the working hand perishes -in old age, and the employer abounds in affluence. It is, -perhaps, impossible to proportion exactly the price of -labour to the profits it produces; and it will also be said, -as an apology for the injustice, that were a workman to -receive an increase of wages daily, he would not save it -against old age, nor be much better for it in the interim. -Make, then, society the treasurer, to guard it for him in a -common fund; for it is no reason, that because he might not -make a good use of it for himself, that another should take -it. - -The state of civilization that has prevailed throughout -Europe, is as unjust in its principle, as it is horrid in -its effects; and it is the consciousness of this, and the -apprehension that such a state cannot continue, when once -investigation begins in any country, that makes the -possessors of property dread every idea of a revolution. It -is the hazard and not the principles of a revolution that -retards their progress. This being the case, it is necessary -as well for the protection of property, as for the sake of -justice and humanity, to form a system, that whilst it -preserves one part of society from wretchedness, shall -secure the other from depredation. - -The superstitious awe, the enslaving reverence, that -formerly surrounded affluence, is passing away in all -countries, and leaving the possessor of property to the -convulsion of accidents. When wealth and splendour, instead -of fascinating the multitude, excite emotions of disgust; -when, instead of drawing forth admiration, it is beheld as -an insult upon wretchedness; when the ostentatious -appearance it makes, serves to call the right of it in -question, the case of property becomes critical, and it is -only in a system of justice that the possessor can -contemplate security. - -To remove the danger, it is necessary to remove the -antipathies, and this can only be done by making property -productive of a national blessing, extending to every -individual. When the riches of one man above another shall -increase the national fund in the same proportion; when it -shall be seen that the prosperity of that fund depends on -the prosperity of individuals; when the more riches a man. -acquires, the better it shall be for the general mass; it is -then that antipathies will cease, and property be placed on -the permanent basis of national interest and protection. - -I have no property in France to become subject to the plan 1 -propose. What I have, which is not much, is in the United -States of America. But I will pay one hundred pounds -sterling towards this fund in France, the instant it shall -be established; and I will pay the same sum in England, -whenever a similar establishment shall take place in that -country. - -A revolution in the state of civilization, is the necessary -companion of revolutions in the system of government. If a -revolution in any country be from bad to good, or from good -to bad, the state of what is called civilization in that -country, must be made conformable thereto, to give that -revolution effect. Despotic government supports itself by -abject civilization, in which debasement of the human mind, -and wretchedness in the mass of the people, are the chief -criterions. Such governments consider man merely as an -animal; that the exercise of intellectual faculty is not his -privilege; *that he has nothing to do with the laws, but to -obey them;*and they politically depend more upon breaking -the spirit of the people by poverty, than they fear enraging -it by desperation. - -It is a revolution in the state of civilization, that will -give perfection to the revolution of France. Already the -conviction that government, by representation, is the true -system of government, is spreading itself fast in the world. -The reasonableness of it can be seen by all. The justness of -it makes itself felt even by its opposers. But when a system -of civilization, growing out of that system of government, -shall be so organized, that not a man or woman born in the -republic, but shall inherit some means of beginning the -world, and see before them the certainty of escaping the -miseries that under other governments accompany old age, the -revolution of France will have an advocate and an ally in -the hearts of all nations. - -An army of principles will penetrate where an army of -soldiers cannot; it will succeed where diplomatic management -would fail; it is neither the Rhine, the Channel, nor the -Ocean, that can arrest its progress; it will march on the -horizon of the world, and it will conquer. +The plan here proposed will benefit all, without injuring any. It will +consolidate the interest of the republic with that of the individual. To +the numerous class dispossessed of their natural inheritance by the +system of landed property, it will be an act of national justice. To +persons dying possessed of moderate fortunes, it will operate as a +tontine to their children, more beneficial than the sum of money paid +into the fund: and it will give to the accumulation of riches a degree +of security, that none of the old governments of Europe, now tottering +on their foundations, can give. + +I do not suppose that more than one family in ten, in any of the +countries of Europe, has, when the head of the family dies, a clear +property left of five hundred pounds sterling. To all such, the plan is +advantageous. That property would pay fifty pounds into the fund, and if +there were only two' children under age, they would receive fifteen +pounds each, (thirty pounds) on coming of age, and be entitled to ten +pounds a year after fifty. It is from the overgrown acquisition of +property that the fund will support itself; and I know that the +possessors of such property in England, though they would eventually be +benefited by the protection of nine-tenths of it, will exclaim against +the plan. But, without entering into any inquiry how they came by that +property, let them recollect that they have been the advocates of this +war, and that Mr. Pitt has already laid on more new taxes to be raised +annually upon the people of England, and that for supporting the +despotism of Austria and the Bourbons, against the liberties of France, +than would pay annually all the sums proposed in this plan. + +I have made the calculations, stated in this plan, upon what is called +personal, as well as upon landed property. The reason for making it upon +land is already explained; and the reason for taking personal property +into the calculation, is equally well founded, though on a different +principle. Land, as before said, is the free gift of the Creator in +common to the human race. Personal property is the *effect of society*; +and it is as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property +without the aid of society, as it is for him to make land originally. +Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a +continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot +become rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all +cases, that where the former do not exist, the latter cannot be +obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what +a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and +he owes, on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of +civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from +whence the whole came. This is putting the matter on a general +principle, and perhaps it is best to do so; for if we examine the case +minutely, it will be found, that the accumulation of personal property +is, in many instances, the effect of paying too little for the labour +that produced it; the consequence of which is, that the working hand +perishes in old age, and the employer abounds in affluence. It is, +perhaps, impossible to proportion exactly the price of labour to the +profits it produces; and it will also be said, as an apology for the +injustice, that were a workman to receive an increase of wages daily, he +would not save it against old age, nor be much better for it in the +interim. Make, then, society the treasurer, to guard it for him in a +common fund; for it is no reason, that because he might not make a good +use of it for himself, that another should take it. + +The state of civilization that has prevailed throughout Europe, is as +unjust in its principle, as it is horrid in its effects; and it is the +consciousness of this, and the apprehension that such a state cannot +continue, when once investigation begins in any country, that makes the +possessors of property dread every idea of a revolution. It is the +hazard and not the principles of a revolution that retards their +progress. This being the case, it is necessary as well for the +protection of property, as for the sake of justice and humanity, to form +a system, that whilst it preserves one part of society from +wretchedness, shall secure the other from depredation. + +The superstitious awe, the enslaving reverence, that formerly surrounded +affluence, is passing away in all countries, and leaving the possessor +of property to the convulsion of accidents. When wealth and splendour, +instead of fascinating the multitude, excite emotions of disgust; when, +instead of drawing forth admiration, it is beheld as an insult upon +wretchedness; when the ostentatious appearance it makes, serves to call +the right of it in question, the case of property becomes critical, and +it is only in a system of justice that the possessor can contemplate +security. + +To remove the danger, it is necessary to remove the antipathies, and +this can only be done by making property productive of a national +blessing, extending to every individual. When the riches of one man +above another shall increase the national fund in the same proportion; +when it shall be seen that the prosperity of that fund depends on the +prosperity of individuals; when the more riches a man. acquires, the +better it shall be for the general mass; it is then that antipathies +will cease, and property be placed on the permanent basis of national +interest and protection. + +I have no property in France to become subject to the plan 1 propose. +What I have, which is not much, is in the United States of America. But +I will pay one hundred pounds sterling towards this fund in France, the +instant it shall be established; and I will pay the same sum in England, +whenever a similar establishment shall take place in that country. + +A revolution in the state of civilization, is the necessary companion of +revolutions in the system of government. If a revolution in any country +be from bad to good, or from good to bad, the state of what is called +civilization in that country, must be made conformable thereto, to give +that revolution effect. Despotic government supports itself by abject +civilization, in which debasement of the human mind, and wretchedness in +the mass of the people, are the chief criterions. Such governments +consider man merely as an animal; that the exercise of intellectual +faculty is not his privilege; *that he has nothing to do with the laws, +but to obey them;*and they politically depend more upon breaking the +spirit of the people by poverty, than they fear enraging it by +desperation. + +It is a revolution in the state of civilization, that will give +perfection to the revolution of France. Already the conviction that +government, by representation, is the true system of government, is +spreading itself fast in the world. The reasonableness of it can be seen +by all. The justness of it makes itself felt even by its opposers. But +when a system of civilization, growing out of that system of government, +shall be so organized, that not a man or woman born in the republic, but +shall inherit some means of beginning the world, and see before them the +certainty of escaping the miseries that under other governments +accompany old age, the revolution of France will have an advocate and an +ally in the hearts of all nations. + +An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot; +it will succeed where diplomatic management would fail; it is neither +the Rhine, the Channel, nor the Ocean, that can arrest its progress; it +will march on the horizon of the world, and it will conquer. ## Means for carrying the proposed plan into execution, and to render it at the same time conducive to the public interest -1. Each canton shall elect in its primary assemblies, three - persons, as commissioners for that canton, who shall - take cognizance, and keep a register of all matters - happening in that canton, conformable to the charter - that shall be established by law, for carrying this plan +1. Each canton shall elect in its primary assemblies, three persons, as + commissioners for that canton, who shall take cognizance, and keep a + register of all matters happening in that canton, conformable to the + charter that shall be established by law, for carrying this plan into execution. -2. The law shall fix the manner in which the property of - deceased persons shall be ascertained. - -3. When the amount of the property of any deceased person - shall be ascertained, the principal heir to that - property, or the eldest of the co-heirs, if of lawful - age, or if under age, the person authorized by the will - of the deceased to represent him or them, shall give - bond to the commissioners of the canton, to pay the said - tenth part thereof within the space of one year, in four - equal quarterly payments, or sooner, at the choice of - the payers. One half of the whole property shall remain - as security until the bond be paid off. - -4. The bond shall be registered in the office of the - commissioners of the canton, and the original bonds - shall be deposited in the national bank at Paris. The - bank shall publish every quarter of a year the amount of - the bonds in its possession, and also the bonds that - shall have been paid off, or what parts thereof, since - the last quarterly publication. - -5. The national bank shall issue bank notes upon the - security of the bonds in its possession. The notes so - issued, shall be applied to pay the pensions of aged - persons, and the compensations to persons arriving at - twenty-one years of age. It is both reasonable and - generous to suppose, that persons not under immediate - necessity, will suspend their right of drawing on the - fund, until it acquire, as it will do. a greater degree - of ability. In this case, it is proposed, than an - honorary register be kept in each canton, of the names - of the persons thus suspending that right, at least - during the present war. - -6. As the inheritors of property must always take up their - bonds in four quarterly payments, or sooner if they - choose, there will always be numeraire arriving at the - bank after the expiration of the first quarter, to - exchange for the bank notes that shall be brought in. - -7. The bank notes being thus put in circulation, upon the - best of all possible security, that of actual property, - to more than four times the amount of the bonds upon - which the notes are issued, and with *numeraire* - continually arriving at the bank to exchange or pay them - off whenever they shall be presented for that purpose, - they will acquire a permanent value in all parts of the - republic. They can therefore be received in payment of - taxes or *emprunts* equal to *numeraire*, because the - government can always receive *numeraire* for them at - the bank. - -8. It will be necessary that the payments of the 10%, be - made in numeraire, for the first year, from the - establishment of the plan. But after the expiration of - the first year, the inheritors of property may pay ten - percent, either in bank notes issued upon the fund, or - in *numeraire*. If the payments be in *numeraire*, it - will lie as a deposit at the bank, to be exchanged for a - quantity of notes equal to that amount; and if in notes - issued upon the fund, it will cause a demand upon the - fund equal thereto; and thus the operation of the plan - will create means to carry itself into execution. +2. The law shall fix the manner in which the property of deceased + persons shall be ascertained. + +3. When the amount of the property of any deceased person shall be + ascertained, the principal heir to that property, or the eldest of + the co-heirs, if of lawful age, or if under age, the person + authorized by the will of the deceased to represent him or them, + shall give bond to the commissioners of the canton, to pay the said + tenth part thereof within the space of one year, in four equal + quarterly payments, or sooner, at the choice of the payers. One half + of the whole property shall remain as security until the bond be + paid off. + +4. The bond shall be registered in the office of the commissioners of + the canton, and the original bonds shall be deposited in the + national bank at Paris. The bank shall publish every quarter of a + year the amount of the bonds in its possession, and also the bonds + that shall have been paid off, or what parts thereof, since the last + quarterly publication. + +5. The national bank shall issue bank notes upon the security of the + bonds in its possession. The notes so issued, shall be applied to + pay the pensions of aged persons, and the compensations to persons + arriving at twenty-one years of age. It is both reasonable and + generous to suppose, that persons not under immediate necessity, + will suspend their right of drawing on the fund, until it acquire, + as it will do. a greater degree of ability. In this case, it is + proposed, than an honorary register be kept in each canton, of the + names of the persons thus suspending that right, at least during the + present war. + +6. As the inheritors of property must always take up their bonds in + four quarterly payments, or sooner if they choose, there will always + be numeraire arriving at the bank after the expiration of the first + quarter, to exchange for the bank notes that shall be brought in. + +7. The bank notes being thus put in circulation, upon the best of all + possible security, that of actual property, to more than four times + the amount of the bonds upon which the notes are issued, and with + *numeraire* continually arriving at the bank to exchange or pay them + off whenever they shall be presented for that purpose, they will + acquire a permanent value in all parts of the republic. They can + therefore be received in payment of taxes or *emprunts* equal to + *numeraire*, because the government can always receive *numeraire* + for them at the bank. + +8. It will be necessary that the payments of the 10%, be made in + numeraire, for the first year, from the establishment of the plan. + But after the expiration of the first year, the inheritors of + property may pay ten percent, either in bank notes issued upon the + fund, or in *numeraire*. If the payments be in *numeraire*, it will + lie as a deposit at the bank, to be exchanged for a quantity of + notes equal to that amount; and if in notes issued upon the fund, it + will cause a demand upon the fund equal thereto; and thus the + operation of the plan will create means to carry itself into + execution. **Thomas Paine.** diff --git a/src/atonement-nonresistance.md b/src/atonement-nonresistance.md index 9956e0e..f99c8f9 100644 --- a/src/atonement-nonresistance.md +++ b/src/atonement-nonresistance.md @@ -1,8 +1,21 @@ # Note to Second Edition -Since the first edition of this book was exhausted more than two years ago, there have been constant enquiries for a second. I am glad that it is now possible to issue this. No material alteration has been made. I am more convinced than I was in 1914 that the true meaning of the death of Christ is to be gained along the lines herein suggested, and that human affairs can never go rightly until men learn that evil can only be overcome with good. The two appendices are new. They give material and suggestions for further study. - -An investigation of the teaching of the New Testament regarding the Death of Christ and its place in the salvation of men is greatly needed. For some years past I have been engaged upon the subject and hope it may shortly be possible to issue a larger book in which many problems which could not be dealt with here will be discussed. In the meantime the reader may be assured that further study has only confirmed me in the views herein expressed. +Since the first edition of this book was exhausted more than two years +ago, there have been constant enquiries for a second. I am glad that it +is now possible to issue this. No material alteration has been made. I +am more convinced than I was in 1914 that the true meaning of the death +of Christ is to be gained along the lines herein suggested, and that +human affairs can never go rightly until men learn that evil can only be +overcome with good. The two appendices are new. They give material and +suggestions for further study. + +An investigation of the teaching of the New Testament regarding the +Death of Christ and its place in the salvation of men is greatly needed. +For some years past I have been engaged upon the subject and hope it may +shortly be possible to issue a larger book in which many problems which +could not be dealt with here will be discussed. In the meantime the +reader may be assured that further study has only confirmed me in the +views herein expressed. **William E. Wilson.** @@ -10,9 +23,37 @@ An investigation of the teaching of the New Testament regarding the Death of Chr # Preface -The terrible things which are happening at this moment on the Continent of Europe witness not only to a failure in the national life of our "Christian" States, but also to a deep disease in the Church itself. Somehow we have failed miserably in our presentation of Christ. The conviction is forced upon us that had the Church been truly Christian these things could never have happened. At the centre of all Christian thinking stands the Cross of Christ. If we have failed rightly to read its message, that failure is bound to tell with direful results upon all our life. The writer of these Studies believes that it is just here that we have failed. We have not seen that, when Jesus Christ went forth to die, He was putting to the proof His own message of non-resistance; He was simply telling us in unmistakable language that force can never overcome evil, and that the defeat of right is better than taking up arms for its defence. The greatest victory which good has ever won in the world was secured in the hour when purity and truth and gentleness met and were overthrown by hate and envy and pride. - -In these pages it would be absurd to expect a full treatment of every aspect of the question. The central problem of why it was necessary for the Son of God to die is, however, faced, and we are given a plain exposition of God's method of dealing with evil as seen in the death of Christ. The Church has not followed that method. It has persistently attempted to enthrone righteousness and truth by the method of force. To-day, with startling suddenness we are compelled to see whither it all leads. At such a time men see great issues with a clarity of vision most rare at other times. Perhaps in these days of bitter stress and humiliation we shall be able to see, as never before, what the stress and sorrow of Calvary meant to the Son of God. All who are trying to wrest the deepest lessons from the experiences of this dark hour will welcome the courageous attempt of these pages to lead us to a true understanding of God's great plans for the final overthrow of evil. +The terrible things which are happening at this moment on the Continent +of Europe witness not only to a failure in the national life of our +"Christian" States, but also to a deep disease in the Church itself. +Somehow we have failed miserably in our presentation of Christ. The +conviction is forced upon us that had the Church been truly Christian +these things could never have happened. At the centre of all Christian +thinking stands the Cross of Christ. If we have failed rightly to read +its message, that failure is bound to tell with direful results upon all +our life. The writer of these Studies believes that it is just here that +we have failed. We have not seen that, when Jesus Christ went forth to +die, He was putting to the proof His own message of non-resistance; He +was simply telling us in unmistakable language that force can never +overcome evil, and that the defeat of right is better than taking up +arms for its defence. The greatest victory which good has ever won in +the world was secured in the hour when purity and truth and gentleness +met and were overthrown by hate and envy and pride. + +In these pages it would be absurd to expect a full treatment of every +aspect of the question. The central problem of why it was necessary for +the Son of God to die is, however, faced, and we are given a plain +exposition of God's method of dealing with evil as seen in the death of +Christ. The Church has not followed that method. It has persistently +attempted to enthrone righteousness and truth by the method of force. +To-day, with startling suddenness we are compelled to see whither it all +leads. At such a time men see great issues with a clarity of vision most +rare at other times. Perhaps in these days of bitter stress and +humiliation we shall be able to see, as never before, what the stress +and sorrow of Calvary meant to the Son of God. All who are trying to +wrest the deepest lessons from the experiences of this dark hour will +welcome the courageous attempt of these pages to lead us to a true +understanding of God's great plans for the final overthrow of evil. **Henry T. Hodgkin.** @@ -20,33 +61,188 @@ In these pages it would be absurd to expect a full treatment of every aspect of # Chapter I. Introductory -For many years past the atonement has been conspicuously absent from most Christian preaching. Very few preachers teach the theory of it current sixty years ago. Many practically disregard the subject---to the loss of themselves and their hearers. Others use old phrases which have become dear to them from old association, but which are liable to convey misconceptions. The old theories have been rejected by most modern men---probably rightly rejected---but nothing has been put in their place. And in consequence religious thought is weak at its centre. It is therefore necessary to investigate the subject and see what the foundations are, and what may be legitimately built upon them. - -The Atonement is a fact. We know this because through the centuries since Jesus Christ many thousands of men and women who were in despair as a result of sin, have found through Him access to God, have realised God's love as the supreme fact in their lives, and have been able to live a true and victorious life in the Divine strength. In short, they have been reconciled to God. The obstacle which separated them from Him has been first transcended and then gradually eliminated. Probably this experience has always come as the result of the realisation of God's love, and in the overwhelming majority of cases it is consciously connected with the death of Christ. - -The barrier that separates men from God is sin. Sin is a fact in human experience,---in some ways the most important fact. The normal man who thinks over his life at all is conscious that he has not only made mistakes, but has also wilfully done wrong.[^1] Sin may be defined as opposition of the will to God, or the choice of something less than the morally best. Sometimes it is conscious and deliberate; a man definitely knows a course of action to be wrong, and knowing that, takes it. More often the sin consists in not desiring to know what the right course of action is. It is not so much the choice of wrong as the choice of ignorance, lest knowledge should show one to be wrong. In either case, whether veiled or open, there is opposition to the will of God. But God is righteous, His will is that the world He has made should develop into perfect harmony. Man, by opposition to this holy. will, delays the coming of the Kingdom of God and causes endless suffering to himself and his fellow creatures. The reconciliation of man to God in Jesus Christ, which we call Atonement, is the action of God by which man's opposition is overcome, and his will brought into harmony with the Divine will. - -[^1]: Some men appear to have no sense of sin, but this is either because they have not reflected upon their actions, or have somehow argued themselves into the belief that they are not responsible for them. - -An adequate theory of Atonement must not do violence to the Scriptural statements on the subject. No theory of Atonement is explicitly taught in the New Testament, but there is very great agreement among New Testament writers on four great points regarding the work of Christ for men, namely: (1) The reconciliation wrought by Christ is the work of God. It springs from His love and His grace. He takes steps to bring men to Himself (Romans 5:8). "God commendeth His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Compare also 2 Corinthians 5:19; Ephesians 2:8; Titus 3:4; 1 John 4:9, 10; and John 3:16). (2) It is through Christ's death that reconciliation comes to us. This is to be seen all through the New Testament in the constant references to the blood of Jesus, which signifies His life given up in death (compare Mark 14:24; Acts 20:28; Romans 3:25; Ephesians 1:7; Hebrews 10:19; 1 John 1:7; Revelations 5:9). So fundamental is this thought of the death of Christ with Paul (comprehensively referred to as 'the Cross') that it is made the centre of his thought and preaching (1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5; and Galatians 6:14). Nor is there lacking reference to His death as the essence of His work for men in our Lord's own words, "The Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and *to give His life a ransom for many*" (Mark 10:45). (3) This reconciliation to God, this forgiveness is appropriated by faith on the side of man. Faith is far more than an intellectual assent, it is an attitude of one personality towards another---it is confidence and trust. This attitude of faith in Himself was taught by Jesus Christ---even though in the Synoptic Gospels the word itself is not used. His two invitations, "Come unto Me all ye that are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28, 29), and "If any man will come after Me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me" (Mark 8:34), require faith on the part of the would-be follower. It is the confidence which springs from love that alone can bring men to seek such an overturning of the world's standards of values as is implied in these words of our Lord. Faith, then, is no merely theoretical belief, but a vital personal relationship. (4) The consequence of the reconciliation to God is the union of the reconciled with Jesus Christ. This is taught especially clearly in Paul's epistles and the Gospel of John. (See Romans 6; Colossians 3; Galatians 5:13-26; and John 15.) From the parable of the vine, and Galatians 3:13-26, we gather that this union is an intensely moral thing. Through it, sin is to be eliminated and a fully developed Christian character to be formed. These four New Testament statements then must be given due place in the attempted re-statement. Only one of them is likely to cause difficulty to earnest minded people,---the second, that reconciliation comes through the death of Christ. It is objected, "Why was the death of Christ necessary? Would not the announcement of God's free grace be sufficient to save men?" To answer this question in such a way as to give due weight also to the other New Testament statements is our task. +For many years past the atonement has been conspicuously absent from +most Christian preaching. Very few preachers teach the theory of it +current sixty years ago. Many practically disregard the subject---to the +loss of themselves and their hearers. Others use old phrases which have +become dear to them from old association, but which are liable to convey +misconceptions. The old theories have been rejected by most modern +men---probably rightly rejected---but nothing has been put in their +place. And in consequence religious thought is weak at its centre. It is +therefore necessary to investigate the subject and see what the +foundations are, and what may be legitimately built upon them. + +The Atonement is a fact. We know this because through the centuries +since Jesus Christ many thousands of men and women who were in despair +as a result of sin, have found through Him access to God, have realised +God's love as the supreme fact in their lives, and have been able to +live a true and victorious life in the Divine strength. In short, they +have been reconciled to God. The obstacle which separated them from Him +has been first transcended and then gradually eliminated. Probably this +experience has always come as the result of the realisation of God's +love, and in the overwhelming majority of cases it is consciously +connected with the death of Christ. + +The barrier that separates men from God is sin. Sin is a fact in human +experience,---in some ways the most important fact. The normal man who +thinks over his life at all is conscious that he has not only made +mistakes, but has also wilfully done wrong.[^1] Sin may be defined as +opposition of the will to God, or the choice of something less than the +morally best. Sometimes it is conscious and deliberate; a man definitely +knows a course of action to be wrong, and knowing that, takes it. More +often the sin consists in not desiring to know what the right course of +action is. It is not so much the choice of wrong as the choice of +ignorance, lest knowledge should show one to be wrong. In either case, +whether veiled or open, there is opposition to the will of God. But God +is righteous, His will is that the world He has made should develop into +perfect harmony. Man, by opposition to this holy. will, delays the +coming of the Kingdom of God and causes endless suffering to himself and +his fellow creatures. The reconciliation of man to God in Jesus Christ, +which we call Atonement, is the action of God by which man's opposition +is overcome, and his will brought into harmony with the Divine will. + +An adequate theory of Atonement must not do violence to the Scriptural +statements on the subject. No theory of Atonement is explicitly taught +in the New Testament, but there is very great agreement among New +Testament writers on four great points regarding the work of Christ for +men, namely: (1) The reconciliation wrought by Christ is the work of +God. It springs from His love and His grace. He takes steps to bring men +to Himself (Romans 5:8). "God commendeth His own love toward us, in that +while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Compare also 2 +Corinthians 5:19; Ephesians 2:8; Titus 3:4; 1 John 4:9, 10; and John +3:16). (2) It is through Christ's death that reconciliation comes to us. +This is to be seen all through the New Testament in the constant +references to the blood of Jesus, which signifies His life given up in +death (compare Mark 14:24; Acts 20:28; Romans 3:25; Ephesians 1:7; +Hebrews 10:19; 1 John 1:7; Revelations 5:9). So fundamental is this +thought of the death of Christ with Paul (comprehensively referred to as +'the Cross') that it is made the centre of his thought and preaching (1 +Corinthians 1:18-2:5; and Galatians 6:14). Nor is there lacking +reference to His death as the essence of His work for men in our Lord's +own words, "The Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and *to +give His life a ransom for many*" (Mark 10:45). (3) This reconciliation +to God, this forgiveness is appropriated by faith on the side of man. +Faith is far more than an intellectual assent, it is an attitude of one +personality towards another---it is confidence and trust. This attitude +of faith in Himself was taught by Jesus Christ---even though in the +Synoptic Gospels the word itself is not used. His two invitations, "Come +unto Me all ye that are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest" +(Matthew 11:28, 29), and "If any man will come after Me let him deny +himself and take up his cross and follow Me" (Mark 8:34), require faith +on the part of the would-be follower. It is the confidence which springs +from love that alone can bring men to seek such an overturning of the +world's standards of values as is implied in these words of our Lord. +Faith, then, is no merely theoretical belief, but a vital personal +relationship. (4) The consequence of the reconciliation to God is the +union of the reconciled with Jesus Christ. This is taught especially +clearly in Paul's epistles and the Gospel of John. (See Romans 6; +Colossians 3; Galatians 5:13-26; and John 15.) From the parable of the +vine, and Galatians 3:13-26, we gather that this union is an intensely +moral thing. Through it, sin is to be eliminated and a fully developed +Christian character to be formed. These four New Testament statements +then must be given due place in the attempted re-statement. Only one of +them is likely to cause difficulty to earnest minded people,---the +second, that reconciliation comes through the death of Christ. It is +objected, "Why was the death of Christ necessary? Would not the +announcement of God's free grace be sufficient to save men?" To answer +this question in such a way as to give due weight also to the other New +Testament statements is our task. # Chapter II. The Traditional Doctrine -We saw in the first chapter that the problem to be solved in connection with the Atonement is "Why did Christ need to die?" To this question the answer is frequently given, "He died instead of us." Now in a certain sense this answer is quite indisputably true, for since salvation comes through Christ's death, it may truly be said that His death is instead of the death in sin of those whom He saves. He died, they do not die. But to say this amounts to no more than the general statement that our salvation comes through Christ's death. How it comes from it, or why the death had to take place is still unexplained. No theory of atonement is involved in the words. - -But most people who used to employ the phrase "Christ died instead of us" meant something much more definite than this. They meant the doctrine of Substitution---that Christ died for us in the sense that His death was by way of exchange for our deaths. In other words, that in His death, Christ bore instead of us the punishment of our sins. Theologians of fifty years ago meant by the Atonement "*the satisfaction of Divine justice for the sin of man by the substituted penal sufferings of the Son of God.*"[^2]. Now this does imply a definite formulated theory of Atonement, and one that demands our respectful investigation. This theory, which we may for brevity's sake call the Protestant doctrine, since it dates from the Reformation, contains the following ideas: (1) Sin which separates man from God is such a horrible thing that those who have committed it deserve eternal death (generally understood as eternal torment). (2) God cannot justly forgive sin unless the punishment has been borne. (3) The punishment for sin was transferred to Christ and borne by Him. (4) Sinners who believe on Christ are freed from the consequences of their sin (eternal death). Their guilt is transferred to Christ and punished in Him and His merits are imputed to them, so that God no longer looks upon them as sinners; but others who do not believe are not freed, and in spite of the fact that Christ suffered will be damned. (5) Man, then, is powerless to achieve his own salvation, it is done for him. - -[^2]: W.G.T. Shedd, in his history of Christian Doctrine, published 1872, gives the above words as the generally accepted definition of the Atonement. - -Such a theory has certain great merits. (a) It strongly emphasises the terrible nature of sin. Sin is no light matter, it is not something that does not count. It is no mere negative. (b) And further it insists that man has no merit. He cannot win salvation from God; he must accept it as a gift. (c) It endeavours, though, I think unsuccessfully, to show how God is just. These three points are of vast importance, and we dare not despise the theory which insists upon them. And though we may see reason to dissent from it, we must be careful that anything put in its place is at least as satisfactory on these points. But in spite of these merits, which must account for its long reign in theology (from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century), the theory has several radical defects. These defects are visible from three different points of view. (1) The Rational and Logical. (2) The Moral. (3) The Scriptural. - -(1) The Rational defect. If Christ died instead of all, why is the salvation purchased by His death restricted to believers only? The punishment has been borne, it cannot logically be still to bear. If Christ suffered instead of the sinner, the sinner ought not to have to suffer too. - -(2) The Moral defects. (a) The theory states that Christ was punished instead of us (as generally stated, that our sin was transferred to Him and punished in Him). This implies that sin can be transferred. But sin is not a thing that belongs to one man and can be made over to another. It is an inward state of opposition to God. To say, then, that man's sin is transferred to Christ, if it means anything, means that man's opposition to God is transferred to Christ. In other words, that in place of sinners opposing God, Christ opposes Him. But this has only to be mentioned to be rejected as impossible. But it is possible that the theory may be held without the explicit statement that man's sin was transferred to Christ. Rather it was the *punishment of man's sin which was transferred to Christ.* But the theory does say that sin must be punished, and if the sin is not transferred to the one who bears the punishment, sin is not punished, and the theory fails. (b) The whole theory is founded on the idea that perfect justice *must* punish sin.[^3] Can this be a true idea in face of the fact that we all feel it cruel and vindictive in man to exact the extreme penalty? Can it be right for God to do what is wrong for man? - -[^3]: Of course it is not denied that sin brings many disastrous consequences, but Christ's death does not save the sinner from these, and similar disastrous consequences sometimes also follow acts in no way sinful, but even unselfish and altruistic. - -(3) And this leads us over to the Scriptural objections to the doctrine. (a) Not only is it the clear teaching of our Lord and His apostles that it is the duty of men freely to forgive those who injure them (see Matthew 5:38-48; Romans 12:14-21; Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:13), but it is frequently insisted upon in the New Testament that God Himself forgives freely (see Romans 5:15, 17, 6:23, "free gift," Ephesians 2:4-9). Can it be rightly called free forgiveness which requires the full penalty to be exacted before it can be given? (b) Further, in the New Testament it is frequently stated that God is the originator of Man's salvation (1 John 4:9, 10; 2 Corinthians 5:19, etc.) This fundamental fact the theory appears to deny. For in it God and Christ are separated. Instead of being regarded as the supreme revealer of what God is, Christ has been shown as loving and merciful and God as angry and vindictively "just." This is reflected in popular hymnology. Many of us were taught as children the hymn which runs, +We saw in the first chapter that the problem to be solved in connection +with the Atonement is "Why did Christ need to die?" To this question the +answer is frequently given, "He died instead of us." Now in a certain +sense this answer is quite indisputably true, for since salvation comes +through Christ's death, it may truly be said that His death is instead +of the death in sin of those whom He saves. He died, they do not die. +But to say this amounts to no more than the general statement that our +salvation comes through Christ's death. How it comes from it, or why the +death had to take place is still unexplained. No theory of atonement is +involved in the words. + +But most people who used to employ the phrase "Christ died instead of +us" meant something much more definite than this. They meant the +doctrine of Substitution---that Christ died for us in the sense that His +death was by way of exchange for our deaths. In other words, that in His +death, Christ bore instead of us the punishment of our sins. Theologians +of fifty years ago meant by the Atonement "*the satisfaction of Divine +justice for the sin of man by the substituted penal sufferings of the +Son of God.*"[^2]. Now this does imply a definite formulated theory of +Atonement, and one that demands our respectful investigation. This +theory, which we may for brevity's sake call the Protestant doctrine, +since it dates from the Reformation, contains the following ideas: (1) +Sin which separates man from God is such a horrible thing that those who +have committed it deserve eternal death (generally understood as eternal +torment). (2) God cannot justly forgive sin unless the punishment has +been borne. (3) The punishment for sin was transferred to Christ and +borne by Him. (4) Sinners who believe on Christ are freed from the +consequences of their sin (eternal death). Their guilt is transferred to +Christ and punished in Him and His merits are imputed to them, so that +God no longer looks upon them as sinners; but others who do not believe +are not freed, and in spite of the fact that Christ suffered will be +damned. (5) Man, then, is powerless to achieve his own salvation, it is +done for him. + +Such a theory has certain great merits. (a) It strongly emphasises the +terrible nature of sin. Sin is no light matter, it is not something that +does not count. It is no mere negative. (b) And further it insists that +man has no merit. He cannot win salvation from God; he must accept it as +a gift. (c) It endeavours, though, I think unsuccessfully, to show how +God is just. These three points are of vast importance, and we dare not +despise the theory which insists upon them. And though we may see reason +to dissent from it, we must be careful that anything put in its place is +at least as satisfactory on these points. But in spite of these merits, +which must account for its long reign in theology (from the sixteenth to +the nineteenth century), the theory has several radical defects. These +defects are visible from three different points of view. (1) The +Rational and Logical. (2) The Moral. (3) The Scriptural. + +(1) The Rational defect. If Christ died instead of all, why is the + salvation purchased by His death restricted to believers only? The + punishment has been borne, it cannot logically be still to bear. If + Christ suffered instead of the sinner, the sinner ought not to have + to suffer too. + +(2) The Moral defects. (a) The theory states that Christ was punished + instead of us (as generally stated, that our sin was transferred to + Him and punished in Him). This implies that sin can be transferred. + But sin is not a thing that belongs to one man and can be made over + to another. It is an inward state of opposition to God. To say, + then, that man's sin is transferred to Christ, if it means anything, + means that man's opposition to God is transferred to Christ. In + other words, that in place of sinners opposing God, Christ opposes + Him. But this has only to be mentioned to be rejected as impossible. + But it is possible that the theory may be held without the explicit + statement that man's sin was transferred to Christ. Rather it was + the *punishment of man's sin which was transferred to Christ.* But + the theory does say that sin must be punished, and if the sin is not + transferred to the one who bears the punishment, sin is not + punished, and the theory fails. (b) The whole theory is founded on + the idea that perfect justice *must* punish sin.[^3] Can this be a + true idea in face of the fact that we all feel it cruel and + vindictive in man to exact the extreme penalty? Can it be right for + God to do what is wrong for man? + +```{=html} + +``` +(3) And this leads us over to the Scriptural objections to the + doctrine. (a) Not only is it the clear teaching of our Lord and His + apostles that it is the duty of men freely to forgive those who + injure them (see Matthew 5:38-48; Romans 12:14-21; Ephesians 4:32; + Colossians 3:13), but it is frequently insisted upon in the New + Testament that God Himself forgives freely (see Romans 5:15, 17, + 6:23, "free gift," Ephesians 2:4-9). Can it be rightly called free + forgiveness which requires the full penalty to be exacted before it + can be given? (b) Further, in the New Testament it is frequently + stated that God is the originator of Man's salvation (1 John 4:9, + 10; 2 Corinthians 5:19, etc.) This fundamental fact the theory + appears to deny. For in it God and Christ are separated. Instead of + being regarded as the supreme revealer of what God is, Christ has + been shown as loving and merciful and God as angry and vindictively + "just." This is reflected in popular hymnology. Many of us were + taught as children the hymn which runs, > "He knew how wicked man had been, > @@ -56,173 +252,843 @@ Such a theory has certain great merits. (a) It strongly emphasises the terrible > > He'd bear the punishment instead." -The New Testament teaches that we know God through Christ, that is as love and mercy, but this theory sets up another picture of God which it *calls* just, and which has been painted without looking at Christ. God and Christ by this means have been, in popular thought, opposed instead of united. (c) By stating that Christ died instead of us, this theory fails to do justice to the many passages in Paul's epistles where the Christian is said to share in the death of Christ (see Romans 6; Colossians 2; Philippians 3:10, etc.) and in particular it reaches a conclusion precisely contrary to that of the apostle from the premises "Christ died for all" (2 Corinthians 5:14 "on behalf of") for Paul deduces therefrom, "therefore all died," which is exactly what could not be said if "Christ died instead of all." - -But there is a more fundamental defect in the Protestant theory in that it works towards an unsatisfactory result, and apparently starts from a mistaken pre-supposition. In it, God and man are reconciled by a sacrifice offered to God, or a ransom paid to Him.[^4] That is to say, it appears to be thought that it was God rather than man who needed altering. Again, it says that Jesus Christ bore the *punishment* instead of the believing sinner and so the latter is freed from the punishment of sin. It does not show how he is freed from sin itself. (In fact sanctification was, in older theology, an entirely separate process.) The attention of the framers of the doctrine seems to have been so concentrated on the thought of punishment, that to them the evil in sin was in that, rather than in its essential nature. A theory, therefore, could seem to them satisfactory which showed no logical or causal connection between forgiveness and moral reformation, and instead of showing how Christ's death brought into the world forces which would finally abolish sin, was content to regard that death as a transaction between the first and second persons of the Trinity, which in *some way made sin not count*. - -[^4]: This idea is justified, by those who hold it, from Mark 10:45, where our Lord says that He came "to give His life a ransom for many." This passage will be discussed later. Here it is enough to say that there is *no indication* that our Lord meant that the ransom was paid to God. - -Now the presupposition that Christ's death alters God's attitude to man rather than man's to God, is mistaken, for it is not only contrary to sound reasoning, but to Scriptural statements (for example, John 3:16). And so also in the case of the result to be achieved. In not a few places it is said that Christ's death was to take away sin (John 1:29; 1 John 1:7; 1 John 3:5; 1 Peter 1:18; Hebrews 9:13, 14. This seems to be the meaning too of Romans 6:1-4, and Romans 8:3-4). But the Protestant doctrine only deals with punishment. By some earnest-minded Christians it is then rejected from no unworthy motives but because *it seems to them to depend upon an untrue conception of God, and to minimise the real evil of sin.* - -Perhaps it may be objected, "This all may be true enough, but how can the many passages which speak of our Lord's death as a sacrifice or a ransom be otherwise interpreted but on this theory?" This question must be dealt with in the next chapter. +The New Testament teaches that we know God through Christ, that is as +love and mercy, but this theory sets up another picture of God which it +*calls* just, and which has been painted without looking at Christ. God +and Christ by this means have been, in popular thought, opposed instead +of united. (c) By stating that Christ died instead of us, this theory +fails to do justice to the many passages in Paul's epistles where the +Christian is said to share in the death of Christ (see Romans 6; +Colossians 2; Philippians 3:10, etc.) and in particular it reaches a +conclusion precisely contrary to that of the apostle from the premises +"Christ died for all" (2 Corinthians 5:14 "on behalf of") for Paul +deduces therefrom, "therefore all died," which is exactly what could not +be said if "Christ died instead of all." + +But there is a more fundamental defect in the Protestant theory in that +it works towards an unsatisfactory result, and apparently starts from a +mistaken pre-supposition. In it, God and man are reconciled by a +sacrifice offered to God, or a ransom paid to Him.[^4] That is to say, +it appears to be thought that it was God rather than man who needed +altering. Again, it says that Jesus Christ bore the *punishment* instead +of the believing sinner and so the latter is freed from the punishment +of sin. It does not show how he is freed from sin itself. (In fact +sanctification was, in older theology, an entirely separate process.) +The attention of the framers of the doctrine seems to have been so +concentrated on the thought of punishment, that to them the evil in sin +was in that, rather than in its essential nature. A theory, therefore, +could seem to them satisfactory which showed no logical or causal +connection between forgiveness and moral reformation, and instead of +showing how Christ's death brought into the world forces which would +finally abolish sin, was content to regard that death as a transaction +between the first and second persons of the Trinity, which in *some way +made sin not count*. + +Now the presupposition that Christ's death alters God's attitude to man +rather than man's to God, is mistaken, for it is not only contrary to +sound reasoning, but to Scriptural statements (for example, John 3:16). +And so also in the case of the result to be achieved. In not a few +places it is said that Christ's death was to take away sin (John 1:29; 1 +John 1:7; 1 John 3:5; 1 Peter 1:18; Hebrews 9:13, 14. This seems to be +the meaning too of Romans 6:1-4, and Romans 8:3-4). But the Protestant +doctrine only deals with punishment. By some earnest-minded Christians +it is then rejected from no unworthy motives but because *it seems to +them to depend upon an untrue conception of God, and to minimise the +real evil of sin.* + +Perhaps it may be objected, "This all may be true enough, but how can +the many passages which speak of our Lord's death as a sacrifice or a +ransom be otherwise interpreted but on this theory?" This question must +be dealt with in the next chapter. # Chapter III. Propitiation and Redemption -We must now turn our attention to the question with which the last chapter closed. Is it not a fact that the Protestant doctrine of the Atonement is supported by many passages in the New Testament, which speak of Christ's death in sacrificial language or refer to it as a ransom or redemption paid for men? It cannot be denied that such passages have been quoted in support of the Protestant doctrine, but in face of the fact that the Church was about fifteen hundred years in arriving at that doctrine, and over one thousand years in arriving even at Anselm's theory which is in some respects similar, it can scarcely be maintained that the doctrine is so clearly taught in the New Testament that it is the only legitimate explanation of the passages in question. - -In the compass of a short chapter it will not be possible to discuss all the New Testament passages where sacrificial terms are used of Christ's death; it will, however, be enough if we consider the most prominent passage, Romans 3:19-26, which is particularly important for our purpose, because it contains, not only a sacrificial term, "propitiation," but also the term "redemption," used in the closest connection with it; the two can therefore be discussed together. It is impossible to understand the separate verses apart from the context, so the whole passage is given *in extenso*. - -> "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it speaketh to them that are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God: because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight: for through the law cometh the knowledge of sin. But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe: for there is no distinction; for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, by His blood, to show His righteousness, because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime in the forbearance of God; for the showing, I say, of His righteousness at this present season: that He might Himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus." - -Now it can scarcely be doubted that the keynote of this passage is that *God does it all. Man could not gain God's favour, so God gave it.* Any interpretation of individual words must then be in harmony with this keynote. With this in mind we may discuss the meaning of (a) "propitiation" and (b) "redemption." - -(a) The word "propitiation" may mean "mercy-seat" or it may mean " propitiatory sacrifice," such as a sin offering, and other meanings have also been suggested. A great deal of discussion has taken place as to which of these is here in Paul's mind. But none fit very well into the context, for the mercy-seat on the top of the ark was, after all, an inanimate piece of furniture, and could at best only be used metaphorically of Jesus Christ; and the sin-offering was presented by man to God, whereas the chief point of this passage is that God Himself puts forth the propitiation. It is then probable that Paul does not intend either meaning in a literal sense, but rather refers to the idea common to both; *that which brings God and man together.* Now in old time, both amongst the Jews and Gentiles, it was man who approached God, sometimes cheerfully and with confidence, feeling sure that God was favourable; sometimes with the knowledge of sin, and the fear that God was offended, but in either case, presenting an offering, a sacrifice. The advances came from the side of man. The offering might be divinely appointed, and in so far it was pledge of divine grace; but for all that, it was man who offered it, not God. It was believed that man had in some way to win God's favour. But Paul's new message is that God's favour cannot be won. In Jesus Christ it is freely given. *Man cannot put forward anything that will bring God and man together; it is God that does it.* Thus instead of taking "propitiation" in this passage as meaning a sacrifice offered by man to God, which is the usual meaning of the word, it would be much nearer the truth to say that the "propitiation" of which Paul speaks is a sacrifice offered by God to man. To call Christ's death a sacrifice offered to God for the sin of man, and to quote this passage in support of the statement, means that by too close an adherence to the literal meaning of one word, the whole intention of the passage has been missed. This is one of the cases where the apostle himself would have warned us that "the letter killeth." May we not say that Paul has been forced here to use words in an unusual sense, simply because Christianity involves an upsetting of all current ideas, and no words were adequate to express the greatness of the revelation of God in Christ? - -(b) The meaning of the word "redemption" in this passage must now be discussed. It, and kindred words, such as "redeem" and "ransom" are used in several places in the New Testament of Christ's work for men. Christians are "redeemed by the precious blood of Christ" (1 Peter 1:18, 19), "redeemed from the curse of the law" (Galatains 3:13, here it is not the same word in Greek but the meaning is clearly similar). Christ Himself spoke of giving His life a "ransom for many" (Mark 10:45)... What do these terms imply? At first sight the answer given is, "a commercial transaction," and according to Anselm's famous theory of the Atonement, such a transaction did take place between the first and second persons of the Trinity. In lieu of the insult done to God by man's sin, Christ, as man, paid his death. Thus He satisfied God's offended honour. Is that what is here intended? Let us investigate. Now four factors normally enter into such a commercial transaction: the person or thing bought, the buyer, the person to whom the purchase money is paid, and the purchase money itself. Clearly here, and in other New Testament passages, the person purchased is the believer, and the purchaser is Jesus Christ, or in this place (Romans 3:19ff.) God the Father, and the price paid is the death of Christ. But who is the person from whom the purchase is made? *No answer to this question is ever given in the New Testament.* In one place, Christians are said to be redeemed from a "vain manner of life" (1 Peter 1:18); in another, "from the curse of the law" (Galatians 3:13), and these two are in reality the same, for both mean "from the dominion of sin." But these are not personal beings from whom a purchase can be made. They are rather spoken of pictorially in language which applies properly to persons because the thought in the mind of the writers is that of redemption from slavery---and slavery implies a master. The earliest definite answer to the question, "to whom was the price paid?" was given long after the close of the apostolic age, and stated that it was paid to the devil. And this was not unnatural, for, it was argued, "he is the hard master who keeps men in slavery and sin." - -But this reply carried with it certain implications. If God paid the devil by Christ's death for the sin of men, then clearly the devil must have had a right to tyrannise over them. And not only so, at His death Christ must have come into the power of the devil. But seeing that Christ was risen and seated at the right hand of God, He must have escaped from the devil's clutches. It was therefore said that God had bargained with the devil to free mankind from his slavery on condition that Jesus Christ was given to him instead. *The devil did not know that he would not be able to keep the Son of God.* Thus, practically God cheated the devil (Origen, see Oxenham, "Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement," pp. 114-121). This theory or something like it held the field, until Anselm, about the year 1100, in his famous treatise, "Cur Deus Homo," finally destroyed it and substituted the theory that Christ's death was a price paid to God. We may be thankful for Anselm's work, for the theory of ransom from the devil was founded on very low moral ideas, and must have hindered true spiritual progress. But there is more to be said for the theory of ransom from the devil than for that of Anselm as an interpretation of Scriptural statements. For it is clear in Romans 3:19ff. that God pays the ransom, therefore He can scarcely also be the one to whom it is paid. - -The truth seems to be, that in interpreting passages which speak of Christ's death as a "ransom," a straining after literal exactness has destroyed the real meaning, just as in the case of the interpretation of "propitiation." We know who were ransomed, and who ransomed them, and we know what the price was. But it is not possible to state to whom the price was paid. "To the devil" really, was the most natural answer. But the implications of that theory are such that it cannot be accepted. Nor can we say with Anselm, "it was paid to God," for it is abundantly clear that it was God who paid the price; and Anselm's further idea of God through Christ satisfying His own offended honour is highly artificial and has no Scriptural foundation. May we not rather recognise that both the words "propitiation" and "ransom" are here and elsewhere in the New Testament applied to Christ's death in a metaphorical sense, and are used to express the result achieved by His death, rather than to describe the process by which it was achieved. He was not *literally* a propitiatory sacrifice, for such would have been offered. by man to God, not put forth by God Himself. But His death did what all those sacrifices had striven to do. *It brought man to God.* So also, Christ's death was not a ransom in that it was a price paid to someone for the freeing of slaves. Nevertheless, it did free slaves, and is constantly freeing them, and it was like a ransom too, in that it was costly. It cost Jesus Christ His life to free men. *The redemption of man from sin could only be accomplished by God Himself at a terrible cost. Sin hurts God.* +We must now turn our attention to the question with which the last +chapter closed. Is it not a fact that the Protestant doctrine of the +Atonement is supported by many passages in the New Testament, which +speak of Christ's death in sacrificial language or refer to it as a +ransom or redemption paid for men? It cannot be denied that such +passages have been quoted in support of the Protestant doctrine, but in +face of the fact that the Church was about fifteen hundred years in +arriving at that doctrine, and over one thousand years in arriving even +at Anselm's theory which is in some respects similar, it can scarcely be +maintained that the doctrine is so clearly taught in the New Testament +that it is the only legitimate explanation of the passages in question. + +In the compass of a short chapter it will not be possible to discuss all +the New Testament passages where sacrificial terms are used of Christ's +death; it will, however, be enough if we consider the most prominent +passage, Romans 3:19-26, which is particularly important for our +purpose, because it contains, not only a sacrificial term, +"propitiation," but also the term "redemption," used in the closest +connection with it; the two can therefore be discussed together. It is +impossible to understand the separate verses apart from the context, so +the whole passage is given *in extenso*. + +> "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it speaketh to +> them that are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all +> the world may be brought under the judgment of God: because by the +> works of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight: for through +> the law cometh the knowledge of sin. But now apart from the law a +> righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law +> and the prophets; even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus +> Christ unto all them that believe: for there is no distinction; for +> all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; being justified +> freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: +> whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, by His blood, +> to show His righteousness, because of the passing over of the sins +> done aforetime in the forbearance of God; for the showing, I say, of +> His righteousness at this present season: that He might Himself be +> just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus." + +Now it can scarcely be doubted that the keynote of this passage is that +*God does it all. Man could not gain God's favour, so God gave it.* Any +interpretation of individual words must then be in harmony with this +keynote. With this in mind we may discuss the meaning of (a) +"propitiation" and (b) "redemption." + +(a) The word "propitiation" may mean "mercy-seat" or it may mean " + propitiatory sacrifice," such as a sin offering, and other meanings + have also been suggested. A great deal of discussion has taken place + as to which of these is here in Paul's mind. But none fit very well + into the context, for the mercy-seat on the top of the ark was, + after all, an inanimate piece of furniture, and could at best only + be used metaphorically of Jesus Christ; and the sin-offering was + presented by man to God, whereas the chief point of this passage is + that God Himself puts forth the propitiation. It is then probable + that Paul does not intend either meaning in a literal sense, but + rather refers to the idea common to both; *that which brings God and + man together.* Now in old time, both amongst the Jews and Gentiles, + it was man who approached God, sometimes cheerfully and with + confidence, feeling sure that God was favourable; sometimes with the + knowledge of sin, and the fear that God was offended, but in either + case, presenting an offering, a sacrifice. The advances came from + the side of man. The offering might be divinely appointed, and in so + far it was pledge of divine grace; but for all that, it was man who + offered it, not God. It was believed that man had in some way to win + God's favour. But Paul's new message is that God's favour cannot be + won. In Jesus Christ it is freely given. *Man cannot put forward + anything that will bring God and man together; it is God that does + it.* Thus instead of taking "propitiation" in this passage as + meaning a sacrifice offered by man to God, which is the usual + meaning of the word, it would be much nearer the truth to say that + the "propitiation" of which Paul speaks is a sacrifice offered by + God to man. To call Christ's death a sacrifice offered to God for + the sin of man, and to quote this passage in support of the + statement, means that by too close an adherence to the literal + meaning of one word, the whole intention of the passage has been + missed. This is one of the cases where the apostle himself would + have warned us that "the letter killeth." May we not say that Paul + has been forced here to use words in an unusual sense, simply + because Christianity involves an upsetting of all current ideas, and + no words were adequate to express the greatness of the revelation of + God in Christ? + +(b) The meaning of the word "redemption" in this passage must now be + discussed. It, and kindred words, such as "redeem" and "ransom" are + used in several places in the New Testament of Christ's work for + men. Christians are "redeemed by the precious blood of Christ" (1 + Peter 1:18, 19), "redeemed from the curse of the law" (Galatains + 3:13, here it is not the same word in Greek but the meaning is + clearly similar). Christ Himself spoke of giving His life a "ransom + for many" (Mark 10:45)... What do these terms imply? At first sight + the answer given is, "a commercial transaction," and according to + Anselm's famous theory of the Atonement, such a transaction did take + place between the first and second persons of the Trinity. In lieu + of the insult done to God by man's sin, Christ, as man, paid his + death. Thus He satisfied God's offended honour. Is that what is here + intended? Let us investigate. Now four factors normally enter into + such a commercial transaction: the person or thing bought, the + buyer, the person to whom the purchase money is paid, and the + purchase money itself. Clearly here, and in other New Testament + passages, the person purchased is the believer, and the purchaser is + Jesus Christ, or in this place (Romans 3:19ff.) God the Father, and + the price paid is the death of Christ. But who is the person from + whom the purchase is made? *No answer to this question is ever given + in the New Testament.* In one place, Christians are said to be + redeemed from a "vain manner of life" (1 Peter 1:18); in another, + "from the curse of the law" (Galatians 3:13), and these two are in + reality the same, for both mean "from the dominion of sin." But + these are not personal beings from whom a purchase can be made. They + are rather spoken of pictorially in language which applies properly + to persons because the thought in the mind of the writers is that of + redemption from slavery---and slavery implies a master. The earliest + definite answer to the question, "to whom was the price paid?" was + given long after the close of the apostolic age, and stated that it + was paid to the devil. And this was not unnatural, for, it was + argued, "he is the hard master who keeps men in slavery and sin." + +But this reply carried with it certain implications. If God paid the +devil by Christ's death for the sin of men, then clearly the devil must +have had a right to tyrannise over them. And not only so, at His death +Christ must have come into the power of the devil. But seeing that +Christ was risen and seated at the right hand of God, He must have +escaped from the devil's clutches. It was therefore said that God had +bargained with the devil to free mankind from his slavery on condition +that Jesus Christ was given to him instead. *The devil did not know that +he would not be able to keep the Son of God.* Thus, practically God +cheated the devil (Origen, see Oxenham, "Catholic Doctrine of the +Atonement," pp. 114-121). This theory or something like it held the +field, until Anselm, about the year 1100, in his famous treatise, "Cur +Deus Homo," finally destroyed it and substituted the theory that +Christ's death was a price paid to God. We may be thankful for Anselm's +work, for the theory of ransom from the devil was founded on very low +moral ideas, and must have hindered true spiritual progress. But there +is more to be said for the theory of ransom from the devil than for that +of Anselm as an interpretation of Scriptural statements. For it is clear +in Romans 3:19ff. that God pays the ransom, therefore He can scarcely +also be the one to whom it is paid. + +The truth seems to be, that in interpreting passages which speak of +Christ's death as a "ransom," a straining after literal exactness has +destroyed the real meaning, just as in the case of the interpretation of +"propitiation." We know who were ransomed, and who ransomed them, and we +know what the price was. But it is not possible to state to whom the +price was paid. "To the devil" really, was the most natural answer. But +the implications of that theory are such that it cannot be accepted. Nor +can we say with Anselm, "it was paid to God," for it is abundantly clear +that it was God who paid the price; and Anselm's further idea of God +through Christ satisfying His own offended honour is highly artificial +and has no Scriptural foundation. May we not rather recognise that both +the words "propitiation" and "ransom" are here and elsewhere in the New +Testament applied to Christ's death in a metaphorical sense, and are +used to express the result achieved by His death, rather than to +describe the process by which it was achieved. He was not *literally* a +propitiatory sacrifice, for such would have been offered. by man to God, +not put forth by God Himself. But His death did what all those +sacrifices had striven to do. *It brought man to God.* So also, Christ's +death was not a ransom in that it was a price paid to someone for the +freeing of slaves. Nevertheless, it did free slaves, and is constantly +freeing them, and it was like a ransom too, in that it was costly. It +cost Jesus Christ His life to free men. *The redemption of man from sin +could only be accomplished by God Himself at a terrible cost. Sin hurts +God.* # Chapter IV. Non-Resistance -In the foregoing chapters it has been shown. how unsatisfactory is the traditional Protestant doctrine of the Atonement. It not only appears illogical and even un-ethical, but it disagrees with Scriptural statements, and is based upon a misunderstanding of the very passages which it seeks to interpret. It is therefore imperatively necessary to seek for some truer theory. For without some statement of the significance of Christ's death our religious thought is weak at its centre. And a return to pre-Reformation theories will be of no avail, for as we saw, Anselm's view shares in the unsatisfactory features of the Protestant doctrine. At the present day another theory is also before us, presented with much earnestness and learning, by R. C. Moberly, in the well-known work "Atonement and Personality." With much that is said in that book one cannot but have hearty agreement, but its main constructive theory really stands under the same condemnation as earlier theories. Instead of what is called vicarious suffering, it substitutes the idea of vicarious penitence, and this idea is profoundly unsatisfactory, because: - -(1) It still denies that God can forgive men freely. Its thesis is that man must render to God a sufficient---repentance, but denies that man can do so, because no sinner can adequately see the horror of sin and adequately turn from it. Hence Jesus Christ had to give this adequate repentance for man's sins. This, then, is really a satisfaction theory in another form. God must receive something on man's behalf before He can forgive. It stands therefore under the same condemnation as the earlier theories in that it asserts that it is God rather than man whose attitude has to be changed. Yet like them it contains a valuable grain of truth, for it is true that the sinner whose feelings are blunted by his sin, even when sincerely repentant, cannot see its full odiousness as God sees it. But we are never told in the New Testament that God requires of man a perfect conception of the terrible nature of sin; we are only told both in the Old and New Testaments that He welcomes one who turns from sin (fox example, Ezekiel 18:21, Luke 15). - -(2) But this theory also assumes that repentance *can* be vicarious,---that one intimately connected by love with another can repent of the latter's sins. Moberly instances the deep sorrow of a mother for the sin of her son, and calls this vicarious penitence. But surely while it must be recognised that such sorrow on the mother's part may do much to redeem her child, and is really a beautiful and true illustration of some aspects of the work of Christ for men, it can scarcely rightly be called vicarious *penitence*. A mother can earnestly desire a son's repentance, she can feel the shame of his sin; she can sympathise with and encourage any beginnings of true sorrow and repentance which she may discern in him; and she may even make up her mind that he *shall not sin* again, that he shall come to his senses, and such an act of will on her part may help to bring him to repentance, *but it will be his repentance and not hers.* And it is a logical fallacy to call her attitude of mind penitence, for it is essentially different from what we mean by penitence; it is not a change of mind, a turning round, a repentance. Indeed, if there be anything of repentance in such a mother's attitude, it is not vicarious, but repentance for her own sin in failing in sympathy or prayer for the erring son. - -(3) But the most serious defect in this theory of vicarious penitence is that it does not explain why Christ had to die. This is the difficulty which all theories of the Atonement have to face, and previous ones have faced it and given an explanation of His death, though as we have seen an unsatisfactory one. If vicarious penitence were possible, which it is not, there would seem to be no particular reason why such penitence on the part of Christ should lead Him to His death. It then appears that this theory not only shares in the defects of previous theories, but in addition does not explain the very fact which it was (presumably) constructed to explain. - -We cannot too often remind ourselves that God forgives men *freely*. Any theories of the necessity of Christ's death must be compatible with this fact, which is taught in both Old and New Testaments. The question is now forced upon us, why in the face of this fact were the satisfaction theories ever propounded? To this question there is a threefold answer. (1) Firstly, it is clear from the New Testament that the universal belief in the early Church was t*hat Christ died for us,* and this had to be explained. (2) Secondly, metaphors of sacrifice and ransom are used in the New Testament of His death, and these were overpressed by an unenlightened literalism, so that pedantic insistence on the letter of Scripture destroyed its meaning. These facts we have already noted and investigated, but there is a third fact of no less importance. (3) The theories of Anselm and the Reformation reflect the current morality of their respective ages. In the former case, the doctrine of satisfaction for injury is taken from Roman Law, and the latter is influenced by feudal ideas of justice. In other words, both theories assume, though the framers of them were probably unaware of the assumption, that God must act according to the current standards of their own day, like a Roman litigant, or a feudal Baron. It is because of this implicit assumption that these theories are no longer acceptable to people of our own day. Quite apart from deeply founded rational and Scriptural objections, they are repugnant to the unthinking man-in-the-street, because they assume as basal legal and moral ideas which are no longer operative. - -Can we then say we must substitute for these ancient ideas of justice, modern ones acceptable to present-day people, and with a theory founded on such all will be well? No, for the next generation may find our ideas no less objectionable than we find those of four hundred years ago. These theories were wrong because they took current human law as the standard. *We shall come nearest to a true theory if we substitute for that the highest code of ethics as taught by Jesus Christ Himself.* In other words, these theories went wrong by assuming that *God would act as men in their day acted.* We shall be right if we assume that *God acts as Jesus Christ taught men to act.* The question at issue is, "How shall God deal with sinful men?" How is He to treat those who oppose their wills to His, and make discord instead of harmony in His world? - -Now in the Gospels, Jesus Christ tells us very distinctly how His followers are to deal with those who do them wrong. The Church has, indeed, seldom taken the words seriously, but they are there, and are undisputed words of Jesus. "Resist not the evildoer, but whatsoever smiteth thee upon thy right cheek turn to him the other also" (Matthew 5:39). In endeavouring to advance the Kingdom of God, to bring the Divine harmony into the world, our Lord then advises His followers not to return violence with violence, but to repay hate with love. Older theories of Atonement have assumed that God vindicates His justice by rigorously punishing the evil-doer. But Christ calls His disciples not to resist the evil-doer. Can it be possible that God requires of man a line of conduct diametrically opposed to His own? That can scarcely be, for our Lord Himself set up "the Father" as our standard of conduct, and that especially in His kindness and mercy. (See Matthew 5:45-8, and Luke 6:35-6.) Ought we not rather to believe that God Himself, in dealing with sinners, uses the same method which our Lord enjoined on His disciples, the method of non-resistance? It is in Jesus Christ that God is completely revealed to man. Christ's work for man is God's work. Christ's supreme work, according to the New Testament, was His death. Let us ask, then, quite simply, "What was the cause of Christ's death?" Not some speculative theological cause, but the plain historical cause to be seen in the Gospels. The answer can be given in two sentences, "*Jesus Christ died as a non-resistant; His death came to Him because He testified to the principle of non-resistance.*" He did nothing to defend Himself from torture and death. That is obvious on the face of the Gospel narrative. Therefore He literally, and to the fullest possible extent, obeyed the principle which He laid down for the guidance of His followers. But the more we look into the underlying cause of His death, the more it is clear that it was not simply that He did not resist evildoers, but that He died *because* He would not resist. When He came the Jewish people were looking for a Messiah, whom they expected to be a conquering king. Jesus would not accept that interpretation of His Messiahship, and in consequence lost the confidence of the people. They wanted a conqueror; He was a non-resister, therefore He died. +In the foregoing chapters it has been shown. how unsatisfactory is the +traditional Protestant doctrine of the Atonement. It not only appears +illogical and even un-ethical, but it disagrees with Scriptural +statements, and is based upon a misunderstanding of the very passages +which it seeks to interpret. It is therefore imperatively necessary to +seek for some truer theory. For without some statement of the +significance of Christ's death our religious thought is weak at its +centre. And a return to pre-Reformation theories will be of no avail, +for as we saw, Anselm's view shares in the unsatisfactory features of +the Protestant doctrine. At the present day another theory is also +before us, presented with much earnestness and learning, by R. C. +Moberly, in the well-known work "Atonement and Personality." With much +that is said in that book one cannot but have hearty agreement, but its +main constructive theory really stands under the same condemnation as +earlier theories. Instead of what is called vicarious suffering, it +substitutes the idea of vicarious penitence, and this idea is profoundly +unsatisfactory, because: + +(1) It still denies that God can forgive men freely. Its thesis is that + man must render to God a sufficient---repentance, but denies that + man can do so, because no sinner can adequately see the horror of + sin and adequately turn from it. Hence Jesus Christ had to give this + adequate repentance for man's sins. This, then, is really a + satisfaction theory in another form. God must receive something on + man's behalf before He can forgive. It stands therefore under the + same condemnation as the earlier theories in that it asserts that it + is God rather than man whose attitude has to be changed. Yet like + them it contains a valuable grain of truth, for it is true that the + sinner whose feelings are blunted by his sin, even when sincerely + repentant, cannot see its full odiousness as God sees it. But we are + never told in the New Testament that God requires of man a perfect + conception of the terrible nature of sin; we are only told both in + the Old and New Testaments that He welcomes one who turns from sin + (fox example, Ezekiel 18:21, Luke 15). + +(2) But this theory also assumes that repentance *can* be + vicarious,---that one intimately connected by love with another can + repent of the latter's sins. Moberly instances the deep sorrow of a + mother for the sin of her son, and calls this vicarious penitence. + But surely while it must be recognised that such sorrow on the + mother's part may do much to redeem her child, and is really a + beautiful and true illustration of some aspects of the work of + Christ for men, it can scarcely rightly be called vicarious + *penitence*. A mother can earnestly desire a son's repentance, she + can feel the shame of his sin; she can sympathise with and encourage + any beginnings of true sorrow and repentance which she may discern + in him; and she may even make up her mind that he *shall not sin* + again, that he shall come to his senses, and such an act of will on + her part may help to bring him to repentance, *but it will be his + repentance and not hers.* And it is a logical fallacy to call her + attitude of mind penitence, for it is essentially different from + what we mean by penitence; it is not a change of mind, a turning + round, a repentance. Indeed, if there be anything of repentance in + such a mother's attitude, it is not vicarious, but repentance for + her own sin in failing in sympathy or prayer for the erring son. + +(3) But the most serious defect in this theory of vicarious penitence is + that it does not explain why Christ had to die. This is the + difficulty which all theories of the Atonement have to face, and + previous ones have faced it and given an explanation of His death, + though as we have seen an unsatisfactory one. If vicarious penitence + were possible, which it is not, there would seem to be no particular + reason why such penitence on the part of Christ should lead Him to + His death. It then appears that this theory not only shares in the + defects of previous theories, but in addition does not explain the + very fact which it was (presumably) constructed to explain. + +We cannot too often remind ourselves that God forgives men *freely*. Any +theories of the necessity of Christ's death must be compatible with this +fact, which is taught in both Old and New Testaments. The question is +now forced upon us, why in the face of this fact were the satisfaction +theories ever propounded? To this question there is a threefold answer. +(1) Firstly, it is clear from the New Testament that the universal +belief in the early Church was t*hat Christ died for us,* and this had +to be explained. (2) Secondly, metaphors of sacrifice and ransom are +used in the New Testament of His death, and these were overpressed by an +unenlightened literalism, so that pedantic insistence on the letter of +Scripture destroyed its meaning. These facts we have already noted and +investigated, but there is a third fact of no less importance. (3) The +theories of Anselm and the Reformation reflect the current morality of +their respective ages. In the former case, the doctrine of satisfaction +for injury is taken from Roman Law, and the latter is influenced by +feudal ideas of justice. In other words, both theories assume, though +the framers of them were probably unaware of the assumption, that God +must act according to the current standards of their own day, like a +Roman litigant, or a feudal Baron. It is because of this implicit +assumption that these theories are no longer acceptable to people of our +own day. Quite apart from deeply founded rational and Scriptural +objections, they are repugnant to the unthinking man-in-the-street, +because they assume as basal legal and moral ideas which are no longer +operative. + +Can we then say we must substitute for these ancient ideas of justice, +modern ones acceptable to present-day people, and with a theory founded +on such all will be well? No, for the next generation may find our ideas +no less objectionable than we find those of four hundred years ago. +These theories were wrong because they took current human law as the +standard. *We shall come nearest to a true theory if we substitute for +that the highest code of ethics as taught by Jesus Christ Himself.* In +other words, these theories went wrong by assuming that *God would act +as men in their day acted.* We shall be right if we assume that *God +acts as Jesus Christ taught men to act.* The question at issue is, "How +shall God deal with sinful men?" How is He to treat those who oppose +their wills to His, and make discord instead of harmony in His world? + +Now in the Gospels, Jesus Christ tells us very distinctly how His +followers are to deal with those who do them wrong. The Church has, +indeed, seldom taken the words seriously, but they are there, and are +undisputed words of Jesus. "Resist not the evildoer, but whatsoever +smiteth thee upon thy right cheek turn to him the other also" (Matthew +5:39). In endeavouring to advance the Kingdom of God, to bring the +Divine harmony into the world, our Lord then advises His followers not +to return violence with violence, but to repay hate with love. Older +theories of Atonement have assumed that God vindicates His justice by +rigorously punishing the evil-doer. But Christ calls His disciples not +to resist the evil-doer. Can it be possible that God requires of man a +line of conduct diametrically opposed to His own? That can scarcely be, +for our Lord Himself set up "the Father" as our standard of conduct, and +that especially in His kindness and mercy. (See Matthew 5:45-8, and Luke +6:35-6.) Ought we not rather to believe that God Himself, in dealing +with sinners, uses the same method which our Lord enjoined on His +disciples, the method of non-resistance? It is in Jesus Christ that God +is completely revealed to man. Christ's work for man is God's work. +Christ's supreme work, according to the New Testament, was His death. +Let us ask, then, quite simply, "What was the cause of Christ's death?" +Not some speculative theological cause, but the plain historical cause +to be seen in the Gospels. The answer can be given in two sentences, +"*Jesus Christ died as a non-resistant; His death came to Him because He +testified to the principle of non-resistance.*" He did nothing to defend +Himself from torture and death. That is obvious on the face of the +Gospel narrative. Therefore He literally, and to the fullest possible +extent, obeyed the principle which He laid down for the guidance of His +followers. But the more we look into the underlying cause of His death, +the more it is clear that it was not simply that He did not resist +evildoers, but that He died *because* He would not resist. When He came +the Jewish people were looking for a Messiah, whom they expected to be a +conquering king. Jesus would not accept that interpretation of His +Messiahship, and in consequence lost the confidence of the people. They +wanted a conqueror; He was a non-resister, therefore He died. # Chapter V. The Self-Sacrifice of God -In the previous chapter it was suggested that Christ's death really represents His non-resistance of evil. We have now a threefold task, namely: (1) To amplify and explain the term non-resistance. (2) To endeavour to show how it works. (3) To see whether our theory is confirmed or contradicted by Christian experience, especially as represented in the New Testament. - -1\. What do we mean by non-resistance? The term is liable to misunderstanding. It appears to connote a passive attitude. But the full meaning of the words "Resist not the evil-doer" (Matthew 5:39) is far more than passive. They emphatically do not mean "evil does not matter; it is not real, therefore it may be neglected." Such a thought is entirely out of harmony with the teaching of Jesus and with all Christian experience. Evil is real and terrible, and must be faced and overcome. Paul recognised that and gave the advice, "Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21). There is just this much truth in the thought of being passive towards evil---that sometimes the best way of combating evil within oneself is to turn away the mind from it rather than to fix one's attention on it. But a passive attitude taken towards one who is doing an injury will not make the injury of no consequence. It is a fact, a very hard fact, and it is neither possible nor desirable that the injured party should not feel it, or that he should think it does not matter. That someone, unprovoked, attacks and damages another person, does matter, it is a serious thing. *It not only damages the person attacked---it damages God's world. It is an insult to God.* Therefore it is a mistake to take up a passive attitude towards it. The one who is so treated has a duty, a responsibility. He must endeavour to make right the damage, to cure the ill. But the usual method---violent resistance---only intensifies the evil, and the evil is to be cured. This can only be done by returning good for evil, love for hate. And the injured person, *because he has been injured,* is the one who, above all others, can be the channel of God's saving grace to the wrong doer. The first part of his action will be negative, he must not return evil for evil; then he must try to overcome evil with good. This is what Jesus did. He spoke of God's love, of forgiveness, of the true life. His offers were rejected, He was opposed and finally killed,---yet all through He never ceased to offer good for evil. When we speak of non-resistance we mean a line of conduct of which the term, strictly speaking, only covers the negative side. The positive side is the real spring of action, and is nothing less than *returning good for evil.* - -2\. How does non-resistance work? We have defined sin as opposition towards God. While it is expressed in part by definite acts, these acts are not, properly speaking, *themselves* sin, it is the attitude of mind which lies behind them which is sin. *And this consists in a tendency of the human will contrary to God's will.* It may sometimes be possible to make a person do a right action by means of outward compulsion; it is pretty frequently possible forcibly to prevent a person doing a wrong action. But such use of force has by no means certainly had any effect at all in *altering the will* of the person to commit wrong acts. Indeed, the very fact that force is used to prevent the will issuing in acts of wrong often intensifies the wrong desire. The person has been dared to do wrong, if he can. Thus sin cannot be abolished by force. The sinner may indeed be destroyed and his sin with him---which is as near achieving the purpose as taking a stain out of a table-cloth with nitric acid, which does indeed very effectively remove the stain, but removes the tablecloth as well. This is often forgotten by those who speak as if punishment inflicted on the sinner would vindicate God's justice. As long as evil is present, justice cannot be fully vindicated. - -If we may use the expression, the problem presented to God by the sin of man was, "how to change that *will to do evil* into a *will to do right?*" That is essentially what was required to bring about a reconciliation between God and man. It was not a change in God that would do this; not a change in the nature of God's claim on man. The change must be in man, not alone in his actions, but in his very personality. It must alter the aim and purpose of that personality out of a direction opposed to God into one in harmony with God's will. It is God Himself who effects this change in man by the appeal of love. That His love represented in Jesus Christ was resisted is the measure of man's sin. *The death of Christ is then both the condemnation of man's sin, and the supreme proof of the depth of Christ's love.* And that is nothing less than the love of God, for Christ is God's representative on earth, God expressed as man. The power of love will touch a man when nothing else can, and the more that love is resisted the more it must be shown---hence, non-resistance to the evil-doer is essential to its complete success, else it were possible to say that love is limited. - -3\. This doctrine of the Atonement is confirmed by Christian experience in a manner in which the older doctrines were not. The older doctrines depended for much of their power on the idea of God's justice issuing in wrath and destruction to the evil-doer. This was no part of Christian experience; the Christian, though he was alive to his sin, had not experienced God's wrath against it. As Whittier expresses it, +In the previous chapter it was suggested that Christ's death really +represents His non-resistance of evil. We have now a threefold task, +namely: (1) To amplify and explain the term non-resistance. (2) To +endeavour to show how it works. (3) To see whether our theory is +confirmed or contradicted by Christian experience, especially as +represented in the New Testament. + +1\. What do we mean by non-resistance? The term is liable to +misunderstanding. It appears to connote a passive attitude. But the full +meaning of the words "Resist not the evil-doer" (Matthew 5:39) is far +more than passive. They emphatically do not mean "evil does not matter; +it is not real, therefore it may be neglected." Such a thought is +entirely out of harmony with the teaching of Jesus and with all +Christian experience. Evil is real and terrible, and must be faced and +overcome. Paul recognised that and gave the advice, "Be not overcome +with evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21). There is just +this much truth in the thought of being passive towards evil---that +sometimes the best way of combating evil within oneself is to turn away +the mind from it rather than to fix one's attention on it. But a passive +attitude taken towards one who is doing an injury will not make the +injury of no consequence. It is a fact, a very hard fact, and it is +neither possible nor desirable that the injured party should not feel +it, or that he should think it does not matter. That someone, +unprovoked, attacks and damages another person, does matter, it is a +serious thing. *It not only damages the person attacked---it damages +God's world. It is an insult to God.* Therefore it is a mistake to take +up a passive attitude towards it. The one who is so treated has a duty, +a responsibility. He must endeavour to make right the damage, to cure +the ill. But the usual method---violent resistance---only intensifies +the evil, and the evil is to be cured. This can only be done by +returning good for evil, love for hate. And the injured person, *because +he has been injured,* is the one who, above all others, can be the +channel of God's saving grace to the wrong doer. The first part of his +action will be negative, he must not return evil for evil; then he must +try to overcome evil with good. This is what Jesus did. He spoke of +God's love, of forgiveness, of the true life. His offers were rejected, +He was opposed and finally killed,---yet all through He never ceased to +offer good for evil. When we speak of non-resistance we mean a line of +conduct of which the term, strictly speaking, only covers the negative +side. The positive side is the real spring of action, and is nothing +less than *returning good for evil.* + +2\. How does non-resistance work? We have defined sin as opposition +towards God. While it is expressed in part by definite acts, these acts +are not, properly speaking, *themselves* sin, it is the attitude of mind +which lies behind them which is sin. *And this consists in a tendency of +the human will contrary to God's will.* It may sometimes be possible to +make a person do a right action by means of outward compulsion; it is +pretty frequently possible forcibly to prevent a person doing a wrong +action. But such use of force has by no means certainly had any effect +at all in *altering the will* of the person to commit wrong acts. +Indeed, the very fact that force is used to prevent the will issuing in +acts of wrong often intensifies the wrong desire. The person has been +dared to do wrong, if he can. Thus sin cannot be abolished by force. The +sinner may indeed be destroyed and his sin with him---which is as near +achieving the purpose as taking a stain out of a table-cloth with nitric +acid, which does indeed very effectively remove the stain, but removes +the tablecloth as well. This is often forgotten by those who speak as if +punishment inflicted on the sinner would vindicate God's justice. As +long as evil is present, justice cannot be fully vindicated. + +If we may use the expression, the problem presented to God by the sin of +man was, "how to change that *will to do evil* into a *will to do +right?*" That is essentially what was required to bring about a +reconciliation between God and man. It was not a change in God that +would do this; not a change in the nature of God's claim on man. The +change must be in man, not alone in his actions, but in his very +personality. It must alter the aim and purpose of that personality out +of a direction opposed to God into one in harmony with God's will. It is +God Himself who effects this change in man by the appeal of love. That +His love represented in Jesus Christ was resisted is the measure of +man's sin. *The death of Christ is then both the condemnation of man's +sin, and the supreme proof of the depth of Christ's love.* And that is +nothing less than the love of God, for Christ is God's representative on +earth, God expressed as man. The power of love will touch a man when +nothing else can, and the more that love is resisted the more it must be +shown---hence, non-resistance to the evil-doer is essential to its +complete success, else it were possible to say that love is limited. + +3\. This doctrine of the Atonement is confirmed by Christian experience +in a manner in which the older doctrines were not. The older doctrines +depended for much of their power on the idea of God's justice issuing in +wrath and destruction to the evil-doer. This was no part of Christian +experience; the Christian, though he was alive to his sin, had not +experienced God's wrath against it. As Whittier expresses it, > "I know not of His hate, I know > > His goodness and His love." -It may be said, "But the Christian would not experience the wrath of God; it is reserved for sinners." To this it may be answered, "True, but it is one of the most glorious facts of Christian experience that numbers of men who now enjoy communion with God in Christ were once sunk in the depths of sin. And it is the almost universal testimony of such that it was the love and forbearance of God that saved them." Nor as we look about us in the world do we see the wrath of God coming upon the ungodly. In fact, one of the great problems which have faced religious people is, "Why does not God strike down the wicked in their wickedness? Why does He hold His hand?" On our theory of His method in the world this question falls to the ground. If God is love and is always seeking to save the lost, loving to the uttermost, never desiring to punish---then He will not and cannot, without denying Himself, vindictively destroy the sinner. But what of the wrath of God? A careful reading of Romans 1:18-32 shows that what is there referred to as the "wrath of God" is what we should call the "natural consequences of sin." Sin breeds suffering, and so does much well-meant but mistaken action, which cannot properly be called sin. But the suffering does not come as a punishment because it is sin, but as a disastrous consequence of what is unnatural. And the Atonement in Jesus Christ does not free men from such results of sin---it assures them of God's forgiveness (that is, of His love and favour) and gives them new life. - -Again, the older views of Atonement were unable to do justice to what is a very prominent thought in Paul's epistles, "the union of the Christian with Christ." Not that the Church has not taught this, and that numberless Christians have not experienced it---rather that it was something in no way organically connected with the Atonement. It had to be considered as a separate thing. The Atonement brought men to God, then other forces came into play and brought about the union of the Christian with Christ. But what is the foundation of Paul's teaching of union with Christ? *It is union with His death.* Now on our view this is clearly and closely connected with the Atonement. For Christ's death is God dealing with sinful men by the method of non-resistance. Then the union of Christians with Christ in His death means their taking part in Christ's work for the world in the deepest humility and forbearance and love, experiencing in part the sufferings of Christ, sufferings which were not mainly physical, but were due to His intense desire for the good of men, frustrated by their opposition to their own good. When Paul speaks of being united in the death of Christ, he means first, as has always been recognised, that our salvation comes through His death. But he means further, that in our work for the salvation of men we shall suffer for them as Christ suffered. Thus Paul himself suffered, which explains Colossians 1:24, where he speaks of "filling up what is lacking of the sufferings of Christ." This, too, is what he meant by the "fellowship of Christ's sufferings" (Philippians 3:10). And thus, too, it is that our Lord's foretelling of His passion is at once followed by His words to His disciples about taking up the Cross (Mark 8:34), and that He speaks of His giving up His life "a ransom for many" as the culmination of service such as is expected not only from Him but from all who work for the Kingdom of God (Mark 10:45). - -The sufferings of Christ are then not to be eee as something which man gives to God, or something which is given to God on man's behalf, but rather as the cost to God of continually offering man forgiveness. If one is faced with wrong-doing, and does not merely overlook it, the time may come when one has to choose between doing violence to the wrong-doer, or suffering at his hands. This choice was presented to God, and, in Jesus Christ, He chose to suffer. This is in a very direct way suffering instead of the evil-doer, but it is not in the least what Anselm or the Reformers meant by that phrase. It is *directly* bearing the sin of man, which is what the Scriptures say Christ did, but it is not bearing the punishment of sin instead of man, for that as we have seen is impossible. - -Think now what vast consequences follow from this view! God is no longer to be regarded as the terrible dispenser of vengeance, from which men may escape by Christ's self-sacrificing love in bearing the punishment. He is rather, as Jesus taught, the loving Heavenly Father who strives to draw all men to Himself---who condescends to them, who suffers for them and with them. And God shows that suffering for men in the person of Jesus Christ. At the Cross, love and sin faced one another, and apparently sin conquered, but love is really unconquerable. Christ literally "bore the sin of the world"---not its punishment---the sin itself killed Him. The wilful blindness and hypocrisy of the Pharisees, the prudent worldly wisdom of the Sadducees, the irresolution of Pilate, the fickleness and folly of the populace---it was these that brought Him to the Cross. Not one of us is free from some of these. Had we been there we might have condemned Him. And that sin of man which Christ bore once in history, God has borne from all time, and will bear until redemption is complete, and all men are brought back into the divine harmony. - -Sin, then, looks no less terrible than it did. In the old view it was terrible because God punished it relentlessly. Now it is terrible because it hurts the loving heart of the Father---a far deeper thought. The impulse to virtue is no longer the fear of the punishment for sin, but responsible love to the everlasting mercy. And what of conduct? If we accept this view, the strain between theology and ethics goes, the standards for God and man are one. God loves to the uttermost, and suffers, rather than by violence sweep away man's opposition. Man is to love as he has been loved, to answer violence with patience, evil with good, hate with love, and to do this without limit. For Christ died. +It may be said, "But the Christian would not experience the wrath of +God; it is reserved for sinners." To this it may be answered, "True, but +it is one of the most glorious facts of Christian experience that +numbers of men who now enjoy communion with God in Christ were once sunk +in the depths of sin. And it is the almost universal testimony of such +that it was the love and forbearance of God that saved them." Nor as we +look about us in the world do we see the wrath of God coming upon the +ungodly. In fact, one of the great problems which have faced religious +people is, "Why does not God strike down the wicked in their wickedness? +Why does He hold His hand?" On our theory of His method in the world +this question falls to the ground. If God is love and is always seeking +to save the lost, loving to the uttermost, never desiring to +punish---then He will not and cannot, without denying Himself, +vindictively destroy the sinner. But what of the wrath of God? A careful +reading of Romans 1:18-32 shows that what is there referred to as the +"wrath of God" is what we should call the "natural consequences of sin." +Sin breeds suffering, and so does much well-meant but mistaken action, +which cannot properly be called sin. But the suffering does not come as +a punishment because it is sin, but as a disastrous consequence of what +is unnatural. And the Atonement in Jesus Christ does not free men from +such results of sin---it assures them of God's forgiveness (that is, of +His love and favour) and gives them new life. + +Again, the older views of Atonement were unable to do justice to what is +a very prominent thought in Paul's epistles, "the union of the Christian +with Christ." Not that the Church has not taught this, and that +numberless Christians have not experienced it---rather that it was +something in no way organically connected with the Atonement. It had to +be considered as a separate thing. The Atonement brought men to God, +then other forces came into play and brought about the union of the +Christian with Christ. But what is the foundation of Paul's teaching of +union with Christ? *It is union with His death.* Now on our view this is +clearly and closely connected with the Atonement. For Christ's death is +God dealing with sinful men by the method of non-resistance. Then the +union of Christians with Christ in His death means their taking part in +Christ's work for the world in the deepest humility and forbearance and +love, experiencing in part the sufferings of Christ, sufferings which +were not mainly physical, but were due to His intense desire for the +good of men, frustrated by their opposition to their own good. When Paul +speaks of being united in the death of Christ, he means first, as has +always been recognised, that our salvation comes through His death. But +he means further, that in our work for the salvation of men we shall +suffer for them as Christ suffered. Thus Paul himself suffered, which +explains Colossians 1:24, where he speaks of "filling up what is lacking +of the sufferings of Christ." This, too, is what he meant by the +"fellowship of Christ's sufferings" (Philippians 3:10). And thus, too, +it is that our Lord's foretelling of His passion is at once followed by +His words to His disciples about taking up the Cross (Mark 8:34), and +that He speaks of His giving up His life "a ransom for many" as the +culmination of service such as is expected not only from Him but from +all who work for the Kingdom of God (Mark 10:45). + +The sufferings of Christ are then not to be eee as something which man +gives to God, or something which is given to God on man's behalf, but +rather as the cost to God of continually offering man forgiveness. If +one is faced with wrong-doing, and does not merely overlook it, the time +may come when one has to choose between doing violence to the +wrong-doer, or suffering at his hands. This choice was presented to God, +and, in Jesus Christ, He chose to suffer. This is in a very direct way +suffering instead of the evil-doer, but it is not in the least what +Anselm or the Reformers meant by that phrase. It is *directly* bearing +the sin of man, which is what the Scriptures say Christ did, but it is +not bearing the punishment of sin instead of man, for that as we have +seen is impossible. + +Think now what vast consequences follow from this view! God is no longer +to be regarded as the terrible dispenser of vengeance, from which men +may escape by Christ's self-sacrificing love in bearing the punishment. +He is rather, as Jesus taught, the loving Heavenly Father who strives to +draw all men to Himself---who condescends to them, who suffers for them +and with them. And God shows that suffering for men in the person of +Jesus Christ. At the Cross, love and sin faced one another, and +apparently sin conquered, but love is really unconquerable. Christ +literally "bore the sin of the world"---not its punishment---the sin +itself killed Him. The wilful blindness and hypocrisy of the Pharisees, +the prudent worldly wisdom of the Sadducees, the irresolution of Pilate, +the fickleness and folly of the populace---it was these that brought Him +to the Cross. Not one of us is free from some of these. Had we been +there we might have condemned Him. And that sin of man which Christ bore +once in history, God has borne from all time, and will bear until +redemption is complete, and all men are brought back into the divine +harmony. + +Sin, then, looks no less terrible than it did. In the old view it was +terrible because God punished it relentlessly. Now it is terrible +because it hurts the loving heart of the Father---a far deeper thought. +The impulse to virtue is no longer the fear of the punishment for sin, +but responsible love to the everlasting mercy. And what of conduct? If +we accept this view, the strain between theology and ethics goes, the +standards for God and man are one. God loves to the uttermost, and +suffers, rather than by violence sweep away man's opposition. Man is to +love as he has been loved, to answer violence with patience, evil with +good, hate with love, and to do this without limit. For Christ died. # Chapter VI. Practical Conclusions -The view of the Atonement which has been put forward in these papers, if accepted by the Christian Church, would have far-reaching consequences in thought and conduct. Belief always affects conduct, though in some cases, owing to the illogicality of the---believer, its influence is not as great as one would expect. Under the reign of the traditional doctrine, the Atonement influenced Christian people in two different directions. The love of Christ had its natural result on those who knew it. It produced a deep and sincere devotion to Him, a love to Him which was strong enough to carry men through anything for His sake, and a self-sacrificing love for others. Christ had died for them, they would give all for Christ, they would follow Him and serve Him to death. And as they submitted themselves to His influence, love and mercy sprang up in their lives as the natural fruits of His spirit. Such results always follow when the self-sacrificing love of Christ grips anyone, and that quite apart from any doctrine of the Atonement; they arise from the spiritual appreciation of the fact of the Atonement. - -The intellectual understanding of it, as set forth in the Medieval or Protestant form of doctrine, tended to have an almost precisely opposite effect. The theory that God must exact to the full the penalty of sin, that He is full of fierce indignation against it, which would, had not Jesus Christ interposed and borne the punishment due to them, have issued in eternal torments for the sinners,---this theory naturally tended to make men fierce and vengeful, unforgiving and unmerciful; and historically there can be little doubt that much of the fierceness with which Christians persecuted those whom they considered heretics and much of the cruelty of old-time penal systems are due to the fact that the conception of God which underlies this theory prevented the experience of Christ's love producing the fruit of human goodness which should be its natural result. Thus under the old theory experience and thought were opposed; they drew sincere Christians in different ways. Those who experienced the first inflow of new spiritual life in the Reformation or the Evangelical revival were generally most influenced by the experience of the love of Christ, but their successors, whose spiritual life was not so directly derived from first-hand spiritual experience, were often influenced by theological considerations, and were in consequence hard, and sometimes unforgiving and cruel. Thus we find the fierce intolerance of the Puritans came to its fullest development in later times in the American Colonies rather than in the earlier times in England. And this too explains the fact that the greatest advances towards a more humane spirit in dealing with criminals and the greatest tolerance towards "heretics" and "false religions" have come along with a weakening of dogmatic Christianity. The prevalent belief of the humanitarian agnostic that Christianity is opposed to the best in humanity, and the cloudy belief of modern Christians that theology is either unimportant or positively harmful are neither of them really valid, but are due to the fact that the Christian thought, founded ona mistaken theory of the most central message of God to man, the death of Christ, has for hundreds of years been fighting against Christian intuition founded upon a first-hand experience of Christ. - -Thus almost everywhere in Christendom theory and experience have been opposed, and even those who, building upon experience, gave theory a second place, as did the early Friends, were still handicapped by the fact that they did not definitely reject the mistaken theory, but were inclined rather to put a ban upon all thought. Had the early theologians amongst Friends, Barclay and Penington, been followed by others of like learning and spirit, Christian thought might long ago have rid itself of the burden of this contradiction, and who can measure what an advance would then have been possible? Mistaken theory has then been a cause of inner weakness to the Church, She has spoken with two voices, and these have contradicted one another. She has experienced that God is love, and has taught it, but her words have been in part ineffective because her central doctrine has seemed to imply to many minds that God is Hate. Will not a great accession of strength be the result when experience and theory speak with the same voice? Such a result will follow if the view here advocated is accepted. The opposition between the effect of the personality of Jesus as seen in the Gospels and as known in experience on the one hand, and the doctrine of the Atonement on the other hand disappears. Nay, even more, this theory of Christ's work reinforces the personal appeal. Theory and experience help one another. Christian thinking becomes clarified. God and Christ are no longer opposed as has often been the case in popular thought. They are one in purpose and work, one in love and self-sacrifice for men. But another opposition also disappears. On the one hand there are those who look upon Christianity as essentially a following of Christ, which they generally interpret to mean the practice of kindness and love to all. On the other hand, Christianity is held to consist essentially in a belief that Christ atoned for our sins, died instead of us; faith in that act of His brings salvation. Now on the old doctrine of the Atonement these two views of Christianity were not necessarily connected, and were sometimes even opposed to one another. It is a matter of common knowledge that those who were chiefly attached to the former view were looked upon askance by those who made much of the Atonement, and themselves were inclined to deny the fact of Atonement or to belittle it. But if the essential of the Atonement is that God does not resist evil, that He returns good for evil and suffers rather than inflict injury, then belief in this fact is most closely connected with Christian conduct, and following Christ receives a more definite content than it has ever had before. He came to establish the Kingdom of God and He told His followers to make its coming the supreme object of their prayers and efforts. Seeing then that the method which He took to establish it was the method of non-resistance, following Him must mean taking that method to advance it. In other words, the following of Christ and the belief in His atonement for us become one. He saved us by non-resistance; we are to follow Him and so save the world by the same method (Mark 8:34). - -With this doctrine of the Atonement then Christian thinking becomes capable of great simplification; ethics and theology point in the same direction, and Christian conduct and Christian faith become united. We have a Gospel that the thinking man can accept. It is not filled with inner contradictions, it does not lower our conception of God, nor does it contradict any Scripture statement; rather, for the first time, it does justice to the numerous New Testament passages which speak of the Christian sharing in the sufferings of Christ. It bates not a jot of the hideousness of sin, but it presents God's method of curing it as something that really touches the problem, not as something which brings in factors of whose existence no man can know. And it shows how God requires man's co-operation with Him in the work of salvation. - -One opposition, however, is intensified; Christian practice can no longer be confounded with the way of the world. The opposition between them is deep and essential. The object which the worldly man wants to achieve is not generally so far removed from the Christian ideal as is often assumed. He usually desires justice, he hates injustice and oppression---in other people. Nearly every well-intentioned man, who thinks at all, is a reformer. He wishes to put other people right, and often sees quite correctly where they are wrong. For example, it is evident that all Englishmen detest German militarism, and we are constantly being told that the present war is to put an end to it; but there is very great danger that its result will rather be to enthrone militarism in England; and this will be as bad for the world at large as is German militarism; and further, there is no reason to suppose that German militarism can be permanently destroyed by any other means than by the will of the German people. The world's method of reform then is to make other people do right. This is an exterior method, and from that very fact fails radically. Jesus Christ advised a very different line of conduct when, in the simile of the mote and the beam, he suggested that reform must begin with the reformer; and His method, instead of being a merely surface alteration, as forced reforms are bound to be, begins within and secures the central citadel of a man's life by capturing his affections, and thus alters not merely a man's action, but his thoughts and desires, so that he does right naturally and because he wants to do it, not from compulsion. - -Christ's method of reform does not use injurious force, and it must take the consequences. Injury and suffering must be expected, and even, in extreme cases, death. The death of Christ means that the world is not to be reformed by force, but by love, which is never willing to inflict injury, but must be ready ever to suffer it. It is obvious that this Divine programme of Christianity cannot be reconciled with self-defence by means of injury to another, nor with national defence, much less with greed for gain, aggression and militarism. While these are recognised methods by which the so-called Christian nations gain their ends, it cannot be much wonder to any thinking person that the Kingdom of God does not come. The acceptance then of this theory of the Atonement would, if the Church held it consistently, place her definitely in opposition to the powers of the world. She would no more consent to bless armies and baptise battleships. She would probably lose many members, for to be a Christian would again mean unpopularity and persecution. But the Church, though reduced in numbers, would be increased in power, for she would again be following Christ, and carrying on the work which He entrusted to her, - -But there is much else in our modern life that will have to be altered as a consequence of this view of the work of Christ. It is a commonplace that to-day industry is a sort of war between capital and labour. That this is a somewhat exaggerated way of speaking is probably realised now that we are engaged in a real war; but there is this much truth in it, that greed for gain, the desire to get the better of one another, and oppression are all very evident in the business world. The Christian Church is waking to this fact, and the acceptance of this view of the Atonement could not but increase her sensitiveness to such forms of wrong, and make her additionally eager to find some Christian solution to the problems of commercial life. Again, there is the great subject of the administration of justice and the treatment of criminals. How far are the functions of the Police Force and the office of Magistrate compatible with God's method of saving the world by returning good for evil? We must not be too ready to dispense with these long-used human institutions, yet we shall be obliged to think whether they do not require serious modification. In fact, it is not too much to say that *the acceptance of this view of Christ's work for men will require us to re-think the whole of our personal, social, and political systems. It implies a definite outlook on life which is radically different from that of the world.* Paul held that the whole philosophy of life was "Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2); and as we get back again to what was to him the centre, we too shall find, as he did, that "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." - -For if, as we believe, the Cross of Christ is God's clearest message to men, then it must follow that the whole of our natural way of thinking as to how evil is to be conquered is mistaken. *God who created and sustains the Universe, is revealed to us in Jesus Christ, as saving the world by the method of nonresistance. To refuse to adopt the same method ourselves, is to claim that we are wiser than the Almighty.* +The view of the Atonement which has been put forward in these papers, if +accepted by the Christian Church, would have far-reaching consequences +in thought and conduct. Belief always affects conduct, though in some +cases, owing to the illogicality of the---believer, its influence is not +as great as one would expect. Under the reign of the traditional +doctrine, the Atonement influenced Christian people in two different +directions. The love of Christ had its natural result on those who knew +it. It produced a deep and sincere devotion to Him, a love to Him which +was strong enough to carry men through anything for His sake, and a +self-sacrificing love for others. Christ had died for them, they would +give all for Christ, they would follow Him and serve Him to death. And +as they submitted themselves to His influence, love and mercy sprang up +in their lives as the natural fruits of His spirit. Such results always +follow when the self-sacrificing love of Christ grips anyone, and that +quite apart from any doctrine of the Atonement; they arise from the +spiritual appreciation of the fact of the Atonement. + +The intellectual understanding of it, as set forth in the Medieval or +Protestant form of doctrine, tended to have an almost precisely opposite +effect. The theory that God must exact to the full the penalty of sin, +that He is full of fierce indignation against it, which would, had not +Jesus Christ interposed and borne the punishment due to them, have +issued in eternal torments for the sinners,---this theory naturally +tended to make men fierce and vengeful, unforgiving and unmerciful; and +historically there can be little doubt that much of the fierceness with +which Christians persecuted those whom they considered heretics and much +of the cruelty of old-time penal systems are due to the fact that the +conception of God which underlies this theory prevented the experience +of Christ's love producing the fruit of human goodness which should be +its natural result. Thus under the old theory experience and thought +were opposed; they drew sincere Christians in different ways. Those who +experienced the first inflow of new spiritual life in the Reformation or +the Evangelical revival were generally most influenced by the experience +of the love of Christ, but their successors, whose spiritual life was +not so directly derived from first-hand spiritual experience, were often +influenced by theological considerations, and were in consequence hard, +and sometimes unforgiving and cruel. Thus we find the fierce intolerance +of the Puritans came to its fullest development in later times in the +American Colonies rather than in the earlier times in England. And this +too explains the fact that the greatest advances towards a more humane +spirit in dealing with criminals and the greatest tolerance towards +"heretics" and "false religions" have come along with a weakening of +dogmatic Christianity. The prevalent belief of the humanitarian agnostic +that Christianity is opposed to the best in humanity, and the cloudy +belief of modern Christians that theology is either unimportant or +positively harmful are neither of them really valid, but are due to the +fact that the Christian thought, founded ona mistaken theory of the most +central message of God to man, the death of Christ, has for hundreds of +years been fighting against Christian intuition founded upon a +first-hand experience of Christ. + +Thus almost everywhere in Christendom theory and experience have been +opposed, and even those who, building upon experience, gave theory a +second place, as did the early Friends, were still handicapped by the +fact that they did not definitely reject the mistaken theory, but were +inclined rather to put a ban upon all thought. Had the early theologians +amongst Friends, Barclay and Penington, been followed by others of like +learning and spirit, Christian thought might long ago have rid itself of +the burden of this contradiction, and who can measure what an advance +would then have been possible? Mistaken theory has then been a cause of +inner weakness to the Church, She has spoken with two voices, and these +have contradicted one another. She has experienced that God is love, and +has taught it, but her words have been in part ineffective because her +central doctrine has seemed to imply to many minds that God is Hate. +Will not a great accession of strength be the result when experience and +theory speak with the same voice? Such a result will follow if the view +here advocated is accepted. The opposition between the effect of the +personality of Jesus as seen in the Gospels and as known in experience +on the one hand, and the doctrine of the Atonement on the other hand +disappears. Nay, even more, this theory of Christ's work reinforces the +personal appeal. Theory and experience help one another. Christian +thinking becomes clarified. God and Christ are no longer opposed as has +often been the case in popular thought. They are one in purpose and +work, one in love and self-sacrifice for men. But another opposition +also disappears. On the one hand there are those who look upon +Christianity as essentially a following of Christ, which they generally +interpret to mean the practice of kindness and love to all. On the other +hand, Christianity is held to consist essentially in a belief that +Christ atoned for our sins, died instead of us; faith in that act of His +brings salvation. Now on the old doctrine of the Atonement these two +views of Christianity were not necessarily connected, and were sometimes +even opposed to one another. It is a matter of common knowledge that +those who were chiefly attached to the former view were looked upon +askance by those who made much of the Atonement, and themselves were +inclined to deny the fact of Atonement or to belittle it. But if the +essential of the Atonement is that God does not resist evil, that He +returns good for evil and suffers rather than inflict injury, then +belief in this fact is most closely connected with Christian conduct, +and following Christ receives a more definite content than it has ever +had before. He came to establish the Kingdom of God and He told His +followers to make its coming the supreme object of their prayers and +efforts. Seeing then that the method which He took to establish it was +the method of non-resistance, following Him must mean taking that method +to advance it. In other words, the following of Christ and the belief in +His atonement for us become one. He saved us by non-resistance; we are +to follow Him and so save the world by the same method (Mark 8:34). + +With this doctrine of the Atonement then Christian thinking becomes +capable of great simplification; ethics and theology point in the same +direction, and Christian conduct and Christian faith become united. We +have a Gospel that the thinking man can accept. It is not filled with +inner contradictions, it does not lower our conception of God, nor does +it contradict any Scripture statement; rather, for the first time, it +does justice to the numerous New Testament passages which speak of the +Christian sharing in the sufferings of Christ. It bates not a jot of the +hideousness of sin, but it presents God's method of curing it as +something that really touches the problem, not as something which brings +in factors of whose existence no man can know. And it shows how God +requires man's co-operation with Him in the work of salvation. + +One opposition, however, is intensified; Christian practice can no +longer be confounded with the way of the world. The opposition between +them is deep and essential. The object which the worldly man wants to +achieve is not generally so far removed from the Christian ideal as is +often assumed. He usually desires justice, he hates injustice and +oppression---in other people. Nearly every well-intentioned man, who +thinks at all, is a reformer. He wishes to put other people right, and +often sees quite correctly where they are wrong. For example, it is +evident that all Englishmen detest German militarism, and we are +constantly being told that the present war is to put an end to it; but +there is very great danger that its result will rather be to enthrone +militarism in England; and this will be as bad for the world at large as +is German militarism; and further, there is no reason to suppose that +German militarism can be permanently destroyed by any other means than +by the will of the German people. The world's method of reform then is +to make other people do right. This is an exterior method, and from that +very fact fails radically. Jesus Christ advised a very different line of +conduct when, in the simile of the mote and the beam, he suggested that +reform must begin with the reformer; and His method, instead of being a +merely surface alteration, as forced reforms are bound to be, begins +within and secures the central citadel of a man's life by capturing his +affections, and thus alters not merely a man's action, but his thoughts +and desires, so that he does right naturally and because he wants to do +it, not from compulsion. + +Christ's method of reform does not use injurious force, and it must take +the consequences. Injury and suffering must be expected, and even, in +extreme cases, death. The death of Christ means that the world is not to +be reformed by force, but by love, which is never willing to inflict +injury, but must be ready ever to suffer it. It is obvious that this +Divine programme of Christianity cannot be reconciled with self-defence +by means of injury to another, nor with national defence, much less with +greed for gain, aggression and militarism. While these are recognised +methods by which the so-called Christian nations gain their ends, it +cannot be much wonder to any thinking person that the Kingdom of God +does not come. The acceptance then of this theory of the Atonement +would, if the Church held it consistently, place her definitely in +opposition to the powers of the world. She would no more consent to +bless armies and baptise battleships. She would probably lose many +members, for to be a Christian would again mean unpopularity and +persecution. But the Church, though reduced in numbers, would be +increased in power, for she would again be following Christ, and +carrying on the work which He entrusted to her, + +But there is much else in our modern life that will have to be altered +as a consequence of this view of the work of Christ. It is a commonplace +that to-day industry is a sort of war between capital and labour. That +this is a somewhat exaggerated way of speaking is probably realised now +that we are engaged in a real war; but there is this much truth in it, +that greed for gain, the desire to get the better of one another, and +oppression are all very evident in the business world. The Christian +Church is waking to this fact, and the acceptance of this view of the +Atonement could not but increase her sensitiveness to such forms of +wrong, and make her additionally eager to find some Christian solution +to the problems of commercial life. Again, there is the great subject of +the administration of justice and the treatment of criminals. How far +are the functions of the Police Force and the office of Magistrate +compatible with God's method of saving the world by returning good for +evil? We must not be too ready to dispense with these long-used human +institutions, yet we shall be obliged to think whether they do not +require serious modification. In fact, it is not too much to say that +*the acceptance of this view of Christ's work for men will require us to +re-think the whole of our personal, social, and political systems. It +implies a definite outlook on life which is radically different from +that of the world.* Paul held that the whole philosophy of life was +"Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2); and as we get back +again to what was to him the centre, we too shall find, as he did, that +"the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is +stronger than men." + +For if, as we believe, the Cross of Christ is God's clearest message to +men, then it must follow that the whole of our natural way of thinking +as to how evil is to be conquered is mistaken. *God who created and +sustains the Universe, is revealed to us in Jesus Christ, as saving the +world by the method of nonresistance. To refuse to adopt the same method +ourselves, is to claim that we are wiser than the Almighty.* # Appendix 1. Bibliography The traditional view of the Atonement somewhat softened:--- -- R. W. Dale: *The Atonement.* +- R. W. Dale: *The Atonement.* -- James Denney: - *The Death of Christ.* - *The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation.* Published 1917. +- James Denney: *The Death of Christ.* *The Christian Doctrine of + Reconciliation.* Published 1917. -- P. L. Snowden: *The Atonement and Ourselves.* Published 1919. +- P. L. Snowden: *The Atonement and Ourselves.* Published 1919. -- J. K. Mozley: *The Doctrine of the Atonement* (last chapter). Published 1915. +- J. K. Mozley: *The Doctrine of the Atonement* (last chapter). + Published 1915. Histories of the Doctrine:--- -- R. S. Franks: *History of the Doctrine of the Work of Christ.* 2 Vols. Published 1918. +- R. S. Franks: *History of the Doctrine of the Work of Christ.* 2 + Vols. Published 1918. -- L. W. Grensted: *A Short History of the Doctrine of the Atonement.* Published 1920. +- L. W. Grensted: *A Short History of the Doctrine of the Atonement.* + Published 1920. -- Robert Mackintosh. *Historic Theories of Atonement.* Published 1920. +- Robert Mackintosh. *Historic Theories of Atonement.* Published 1920. -- J. K. Mozley: *The Doctrine of the Atonement.* Published 1915. +- J. K. Mozley: *The Doctrine of the Atonement.* Published 1915. Critical of traditional views:--- -- Melville Scott: *The Atonement*. Published 1g10. Good on Old Testament. +- Melville Scott: *The Atonement*. Published 1g10. Good on Old + Testament. -- G. B. Stevens: *The Christian Doctrine of Salvation*. Good on New Testament. Partly historical, partly critical. +- G. B. Stevens: *The Christian Doctrine of Salvation*. Good on New + Testament. Partly historical, partly critical. -- T. Vincent Tymms: *The Christian Idea of Atonement.* Good criticism of traditional views. +- T. Vincent Tymms: *The Christian Idea of Atonement.* Good criticism + of traditional views. -- Hastings Rashdall: *The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology.* Published 1919. An all-round treatise, uncompromisingly hostile to the traditional view, strongly advocating "Moral Influence" view. +- Hastings Rashdall: *The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology.* + Published 1919. An all-round treatise, uncompromisingly hostile to + the traditional view, strongly advocating "Moral Influence" view. Famous Reconstructions of the Doctrine:--- -- H. Bushnell: *The Vicarious Sacrifice.* The classical statement in modern times of the 'moral influence' view. +- H. Bushnell: *The Vicarious Sacrifice.* The classical statement in + modern times of the 'moral influence' view. -- J. McLeod Campbell: *The Nature of the Atonement.* +- J. McLeod Campbell: *The Nature of the Atonement.* -- R. C. Moberly: *Atonement and Personality.* +- R. C. Moberly: *Atonement and Personality.* -- Douglas White: *Forgiveness and Suffering.* Published 1913. Nearly approaches view here presented. +- Douglas White: *Forgiveness and Suffering.* Published 1913. Nearly + approaches view here presented. Taking the same view as here presented:--- -- W. Fearon Halliday: *Reconciliation and Reality.* Published 1917. The best general treatment of the subject. +- W. Fearon Halliday: *Reconciliation and Reality.* Published 1917. + The best general treatment of the subject. -- Edward Grubb: *The Meaning of the Cross.* Published 1922. Scriptural, historical and comprehensive. +- Edward Grubb: *The Meaning of the Cross.* Published 1922. + Scriptural, historical and comprehensive. -- Practically all the writers of the *Christian Revolution Series* take this view, and express it in their books in the series. It is especially clearly set forth in A. T. Cadoux' *Essays in Christian Thinking.* In America it has been quite independently expressed by Walter Rauschenbusch in a *Theology for the Social Gospel.* +- Practically all the writers of the *Christian Revolution Series* + take this view, and express it in their books in the series. It is + especially clearly set forth in A. T. Cadoux' *Essays in Christian + Thinking.* In America it has been quite independently expressed by + Walter Rauschenbusch in a *Theology for the Social Gospel.* Useful for a background:--- -- C. E. Rolt: *The World's Redemption.* A Philosophic world-view harmonising with the view here presented. +- C. E. Rolt: *The World's Redemption.* A Philosophic world-view + harmonising with the view here presented. -- R. S. Moxon: *The Doctrine of Sin,* Published 1922. +- R. S. Moxon: *The Doctrine of Sin,* Published 1922. -- Dougall and Emmet: *The Lord of Thought;* and +- Dougall and Emmet: *The Lord of Thought;* and -- Norman L. Robinson: *Christian Justice;* bear on the problem of Punishment and Justice. +- Norman L. Robinson: *Christian Justice;* bear on the problem of + Punishment and Justice. # Appendix 2. Helps for use of Study Circles -The two chief questions to be kept in mind throughout are: How are we to explain the connection between the death of Christ and the salvation of men? And what are the moral implications of our ideas on the subject? +The two chief questions to be kept in mind throughout are: How are we to +explain the connection between the death of Christ and the salvation of +men? And what are the moral implications of our ideas on the subject? -Two meetings may with advantage be given to each of Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4. +Two meetings may with advantage be given to each of Chapters 1, 2, 3 and +4. ## Chapter I -Central thought is "The atonement is a fact" (p. 9). We know it as a fact because people have evidently been reconciled to God through Christ and His death. +Central thought is "The atonement is a fact" (p. 9). We know it as a +fact because people have evidently been reconciled to God through Christ +and His death. -The original meaning of word "Atonement" in English is "Reconciliation"---At-one-ment. This is the meaning in Romans 5:11 A.V., the only place where the word occurs in N.T. R.V. translates rightly "Reconciliation." +The original meaning of word "Atonement" in English is +"Reconciliation"---At-one-ment. This is the meaning in Romans 5:11 A.V., +the only place where the word occurs in N.T. R.V. translates rightly +"Reconciliation." -To realise what is the meaning of the Fact of Atonement, thought should be given to the following questions: +To realise what is the meaning of the Fact of Atonement, thought should +be given to the following questions: What is Sin? -Is there any distinction between evil-doing in general and sin? Do we call a man a sinner for doing wrong which he has not realised as wrong? May not such unconscious wrong be as bad for the world at large as what is conscious and deliberate? +Is there any distinction between evil-doing in general and sin? Do we +call a man a sinner for doing wrong which he has not realised as wrong? +May not such unconscious wrong be as bad for the world at large as what +is conscious and deliberate? What is the relation of Sin to God? @@ -232,55 +1098,124 @@ What is the relation of Sin to our fellow-men? Is it correct to say "Sin is Selfishness"? -Suppose we regard human life as consisting in relations of the self with God and the fellow-men. Sin spoils these relations. Atonement would mean the restoration of right relations. If this is so, what must atonement do? Must it alter God, the world of fellow-men, or the sinner? +Suppose we regard human life as consisting in relations of the self with +God and the fellow-men. Sin spoils these relations. Atonement would mean +the restoration of right relations. If this is so, what must atonement +do? Must it alter God, the world of fellow-men, or the sinner? -For the fact of Atonement seen in the transformation of sinners into saints, see *Broken Earthenware* and *In the Hands of the Potter*, by H. Begbie, and James's *Varieties of Religious Experience*, Lect. 9 and 10. +For the fact of Atonement seen in the transformation of sinners into +saints, see *Broken Earthenware* and *In the Hands of the Potter*, by H. +Begbie, and James's *Varieties of Religious Experience*, Lect. 9 and 10. ## Chapter II -The subject is the Traditional Protestant Doctrine: "The satisfaction of Divine justice for the sin of man by the substituted penal sufferings of the Son of God" (p.13). - -Nearly everyone recognises the rational or moral difficulties in accepting this. Its sole support nowadays is the belief that it, or something like it, is necessarily implied in Scripture. It is therefore important that a careful study of the N.T. should be made on the question Passages on the subject naturally fall under three heads : - -(1) Those which seem inconsistent with the Traditional Doctrine. All such, for instance, as speak of free forgiveness or of salvation as due to the love of God, thus naturally making any idea of satisfaction or appeasement unlikely, for example: - -John 3:16-21; Romans 3:19-26 (as interpreted in chapter 3); Romans 8:3 and 31-39; 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 (whole context, 11-21, should be read); 1 John 3:16, 4:9-10. - -(2) Those which have been used as bases for the doctrine; such as use expressions about sacrifice and ransom, and those which have been taken to imply substitution in the strict sense. It is to be noted that neither "satisfaction" nor "substitution" are Biblical words, and that there is no passage in the N.T. where even the ideas behind "satisfaction" are *indisputably* expressed. - -About all these passages we ought to ask---Are they meant literally, or is there something metaphorical, typical, or pictorial about them? Do the words necessarily convey the meaning which has been read into them? Does the reference to Christ's death as a sacrifice necessarily lead to the traditional doctrine at all? If sacrifice implied either satisfaction or substitution, what is the meaning of the passages which refer to the lives and deaths of Christians as sacrifices? Is there any reason to think that phrases apparently implying substitution really mean any more than is suggested on p. 13? - -References:---Mark 10:45; Matthew 26:28; Matthew 26:36-44; Romans 3:25 (as usually interpreted); Romans 5:10: 1 Corinthians 6:20; 1 Corinthians 5:7; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13, 4:4; Ephesians 5:2; 1 Timothy 2:5-6; Hebrews 2:17, 9:22-28; 1 Peter 2:24 (as ordinarily interpreted), etc., etc. - -Passages referring to the lives and deaths of Christians as sacrifices:---Romans 12:1; Romans 15:16; Philippians 2:17; Philippians 4:18; 2 Timothy 4:6; compare also Hebrews 13:15-16; 1 Peter 2:5-9. - -(3) Those which may be used in support of the doctrine, but do not, taken by themselves, even apparently imply it. These only in general support the idea that in some way Christ's death was involved in man's salvation; they therefore equally well fit in with the thesis of Atonement and Non-Resistance. - -Luke 24:46-47; John 6:51, 10:11-18; Romans 5:6; 1 Corinthians 15:3; 2 Corinthians 5:14-15; Galatians 1:4; Ephesians 1:6-7; 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10; Titus 2:13-14; Hebrews 2:9, 9:12; Revelations 1:5-6. +The subject is the Traditional Protestant Doctrine: "The satisfaction of +Divine justice for the sin of man by the substituted penal sufferings of +the Son of God" (p.13). + +Nearly everyone recognises the rational or moral difficulties in +accepting this. Its sole support nowadays is the belief that it, or +something like it, is necessarily implied in Scripture. It is therefore +important that a careful study of the N.T. should be made on the +question Passages on the subject naturally fall under three heads : + +(1) Those which seem inconsistent with the Traditional Doctrine. All + such, for instance, as speak of free forgiveness or of salvation as + due to the love of God, thus naturally making any idea of + satisfaction or appeasement unlikely, for example: + +John 3:16-21; Romans 3:19-26 (as interpreted in chapter 3); Romans 8:3 +and 31-39; 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 (whole context, 11-21, should be read); +1 John 3:16, 4:9-10. + +(2) Those which have been used as bases for the doctrine; such as use + expressions about sacrifice and ransom, and those which have been + taken to imply substitution in the strict sense. It is to be noted + that neither "satisfaction" nor "substitution" are Biblical words, + and that there is no passage in the N.T. where even the ideas behind + "satisfaction" are *indisputably* expressed. + +About all these passages we ought to ask---Are they meant literally, or +is there something metaphorical, typical, or pictorial about them? Do +the words necessarily convey the meaning which has been read into them? +Does the reference to Christ's death as a sacrifice necessarily lead to +the traditional doctrine at all? If sacrifice implied either +satisfaction or substitution, what is the meaning of the passages which +refer to the lives and deaths of Christians as sacrifices? Is there any +reason to think that phrases apparently implying substitution really +mean any more than is suggested on p. 13? + +References:---Mark 10:45; Matthew 26:28; Matthew 26:36-44; Romans 3:25 +(as usually interpreted); Romans 5:10: 1 Corinthians 6:20; 1 Corinthians +5:7; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13, 4:4; Ephesians 5:2; 1 Timothy +2:5-6; Hebrews 2:17, 9:22-28; 1 Peter 2:24 (as ordinarily interpreted), +etc., etc. + +Passages referring to the lives and deaths of Christians as +sacrifices:---Romans 12:1; Romans 15:16; Philippians 2:17; Philippians +4:18; 2 Timothy 4:6; compare also Hebrews 13:15-16; 1 Peter 2:5-9. + +(3) Those which may be used in support of the doctrine, but do not, + taken by themselves, even apparently imply it. These only in general + support the idea that in some way Christ's death was involved in + man's salvation; they therefore equally well fit in with the thesis + of Atonement and Non-Resistance. + +Luke 24:46-47; John 6:51, 10:11-18; Romans 5:6; 1 Corinthians 15:3; 2 +Corinthians 5:14-15; Galatians 1:4; Ephesians 1:6-7; 1 Thessalonians +5:9-10; Titus 2:13-14; Hebrews 2:9, 9:12; Revelations 1:5-6. ## Chapter III -The subject of this chapter is the meaning of sacrificial terms as applied to the death of Christ and the use of the words "redemption," "ransom," etc., in the N.T. +The subject of this chapter is the meaning of sacrificial terms as +applied to the death of Christ and the use of the words "redemption," +"ransom," etc., in the N.T. -The strength of the argument for the traditional view lies in the assumption that sacrificial terms imply the necessity of "appeasing God," that is, that to propitiate means to appease. And on the assumption that "ransom" and "redeem" are used in the full and complete literal meaning, as stated on p. 23 and 24. +The strength of the argument for the traditional view lies in the +assumption that sacrificial terms imply the necessity of "appeasing +God," that is, that to propitiate means to appease. And on the +assumption that "ransom" and "redeem" are used in the full and complete +literal meaning, as stated on p. 23 and 24. -The thesis of the chapter is that in Romans 3 these two assumptions are untrue. The same applies elsewhere in N.T. But the reasoning can be carried a step farther back. Even in the O.T. sacrifices are *not* regarded as appeasing God. Melville Scott's *Atonement*, chapters 3 and 4, should be read and the references there given looked up. +The thesis of the chapter is that in Romans 3 these two assumptions are +untrue. The same applies elsewhere in N.T. But the reasoning can be +carried a step farther back. Even in the O.T. sacrifices are *not* +regarded as appeasing God. Melville Scott's *Atonement*, chapters 3 and +4, should be read and the references there given looked up. -The words "ransom," "redeem," etc., as used in O.T., should be looked up in a concordance and a careful study made as to where used perfectly literally and where metaphorically (that is, where it is impossible to suppose that an actual purchase is meant). It will be found that about 60% are metaphorical, and this includes *ail* in which God is called Redeemer. +The words "ransom," "redeem," etc., as used in O.T., should be looked up +in a concordance and a careful study made as to where used perfectly +literally and where metaphorically (that is, where it is impossible to +suppose that an actual purchase is meant). It will be found that about +60% are metaphorical, and this includes *ail* in which God is called +Redeemer. -Were the O.T. sacrifices meant to appease God? (See Melville Scott, *op. cit.*) +Were the O.T. sacrifices meant to appease God? (See Melville Scott, *op. +cit.*) -If "propitiate" means "appease," does not Romans 3:24 and 25, mean that God appeased Himself? Do you think Paul can mean that? +If "propitiate" means "appease," does not Romans 3:24 and 25, mean that +God appeased Himself? Do you think Paul can mean that? -If these verses mean that Christ paid God for our salvation, how can it be true that we are "justified *freely* by His *grace*?" +If these verses mean that Christ paid God for our salvation, how can it +be true that we are "justified *freely* by His *grace*?" -In verse 26, how is it that God is proved just? Is He some way proved just *in spite* of justifying "him that hath faith in Jesus?" Or is He proved just *because* He justifies? +In verse 26, how is it that God is proved just? Is He some way proved +just *in spite* of justifying "him that hath faith in Jesus?" Or is He +proved just *because* He justifies? -In face of the frequently metaphorical use of "redeem" etc., in the O.T., need we think that Paul must use "redemption" literally here? +In face of the frequently metaphorical use of "redeem" etc., in the +O.T., need we think that Paul must use "redemption" literally here? ## Chapter IV -The central ideas are "Repentance" and "Forgiveness." What is implied in these and how are they related to one another? It is shown in the chapter that Moberly's idea of "Vicarious Penitence" is fallacious and that we have reason to think that God's forgiveness manifests itself in non-resistance to the evil-doer. A further study of what is meant by Repentance and Forgiveness will make both these points clearer, and will also show how it is that God can rightly forgive the repentant sinner without any "sanction" of punishment. +The central ideas are "Repentance" and "Forgiveness." What is implied in +these and how are they related to one another? It is shown in the +chapter that Moberly's idea of "Vicarious Penitence" is fallacious and +that we have reason to think that God's forgiveness manifests itself in +non-resistance to the evil-doer. A further study of what is meant by +Repentance and Forgiveness will make both these points clearer, and will +also show how it is that God can rightly forgive the repentant sinner +without any "sanction" of punishment. What is repentance? @@ -290,7 +1225,16 @@ Is it desire to escape the punishment? Is it something that does instead of punishment? -All these meanings are suggested by the words *repentance* and *penitence*, which are derived from the Latin "*poena*," meaning " expiation," "punishment," "suffering." The words themselves come from the Vulgate rendering of *metanoeite* by "poenitentiam agite." But the Greek word *metanoein* means "to change one's mind." And this does not necessarily imply either expiation, punishment, suffering, or sorrow, though the two latter may generally accompany it. "To repent," then, obviously means to change one's mind from opposing God to trusting Him and obeying Him. Is there any possibility that one who does this, in so far as he does it, will "abuse God's forgiveness?" +All these meanings are suggested by the words *repentance* and +*penitence*, which are derived from the Latin "*poena*," meaning " +expiation," "punishment," "suffering." The words themselves come from +the Vulgate rendering of *metanoeite* by "poenitentiam agite." But the +Greek word *metanoein* means "to change one's mind." And this does not +necessarily imply either expiation, punishment, suffering, or sorrow, +though the two latter may generally accompany it. "To repent," then, +obviously means to change one's mind from opposing God to trusting Him +and obeying Him. Is there any possibility that one who does this, in so +far as he does it, will "abuse God's forgiveness?" ### Forgiveness @@ -308,56 +1252,134 @@ Or is it the restoration of friendship between God and man? If it is the last, the others may all in time follow from it. -If it is the last, we see at once how it is that forgiveness cannot come till man repents, because no one can be in a state of friendship with another if he does not want to be. And this points to two different meanings of the word "forgiveness." As God's action it cannot take place till man repents. As God's attitude it is always present, being an essential part of His love. +If it is the last, we see at once how it is that forgiveness cannot come +till man repents, because no one can be in a state of friendship with +another if he does not want to be. And this points to two different +meanings of the word "forgiveness." As God's action it cannot take place +till man repents. As God's attitude it is always present, being an +essential part of His love. -A careful thinking out of these points will help to a clearer understanding of Atonement as non-resistance. +A careful thinking out of these points will help to a clearer +understanding of Atonement as non-resistance. -Reading: D. White's *Forgiveness and Suffering*, chapter 5, also 6 and 7. +Reading: D. White's *Forgiveness and Suffering*, chapter 5, also 6 and +7. ## Chapter V The central ideas are self-sacrifice and moral appeal. -Perhaps the most important words in Chapter V are on p. 37: "The death of Christ is, then, both the condemnation of man's sin and the supreme proof of the depth of Christ's love." +Perhaps the most important words in Chapter V are on p. 37: "The death +of Christ is, then, both the condemnation of man's sin and the supreme +proof of the depth of Christ's love." The following passages should be studied:--- (a) John 3:17-21, 5:22-30, 8:15-16, 12:31-32, 47-48. -(b) Mark 8:31-34, 10:42-45; Romans 5:6-11, 6:1-11, 23, 7:1-4; 2 Corinthians 6:14-19; Galatians 2:20-21; Philippians 2:1-11; Colossians 1:19-22; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 2:14-18; Hebrews 9:13-14 (notice contrast between "flesh" v. 13 and "conscience" v. 14), 1 Peter 2:21-25, etc. +(b) Mark 8:31-34, 10:42-45; Romans 5:6-11, 6:1-11, 23, 7:1-4; 2 + Corinthians 6:14-19; Galatians 2:20-21; Philippians 2:1-11; + Colossians 1:19-22; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 2:14-18; Hebrews 9:13-14 + (notice contrast between "flesh" v. 13 and "conscience" v. 14), 1 + Peter 2:21-25, etc. -(a) Refer to Christ as Judge. +(c) Refer to Christ as Judge. -(b) Refer to certain aspects of His work through His death. +(d) Refer to certain aspects of His work through His death. The following questions may be raised:--- -Does the judgment on sin here spoken of imply punishment? If not, in what does it consist? What bearing has such judgment on our theory? +Does the judgment on sin here spoken of imply punishment? If not, in +what does it consist? What bearing has such judgment on our theory? -What bearing on our theory have such passages as refer to (a) the moral effects of Christ's death in us, for example, 2 Corinthians 5:14-19 and Hebrews 9:13-14, etc., and (b) His death as exemplary, for example, Mark 8:31-34, Philippians 2:1-11, and 1 Peter 2:21-25, etc.? +What bearing on our theory have such passages as refer to (a) the moral +effects of Christ's death in us, for example, 2 Corinthians 5:14-19 and +Hebrews 9:13-14, etc., and (b) His death as exemplary, for example, Mark +8:31-34, Philippians 2:1-11, and 1 Peter 2:21-25, etc.? -If Atonement implies a moral change in man (see Chapter I.), must not an important part of Christ's work be a *moral appeal?* +If Atonement implies a moral change in man (see Chapter I.), must not an +important part of Christ's work be a *moral appeal?* -If forgiveness cannot be complete without repentance (see Chapter IV), must not Christ's work have been aimed at producing repentance? +If forgiveness cannot be complete without repentance (see Chapter IV), +must not Christ's work have been aimed at producing repentance? -How does His self-sacrifice consummating in death do this? What made His death necessary? +How does His self-sacrifice consummating in death do this? What made His +death necessary? -Have we in the N.T. any indication that Christ's death was necessary to alter God's attitude towards us? +Have we in the N.T. any indication that Christ's death was necessary to +alter God's attitude towards us? ## Chapter VI -The central thought is that God's way of putting the world right is the way of inward change, produced by moral appeal (p. 47). This is in entire accord with Christian experience, but has not had any adequate expression in Christian Theory. The view of Atonement as Non-Resistance ought to strengthen enormously the Christian position by uniting theory and experience. But it definitely opposes Christianity to the world. +The central thought is that God's way of putting the world right is the +way of inward change, produced by moral appeal (p. 47). This is in +entire accord with Christian experience, but has not had any adequate +expression in Christian Theory. The view of Atonement as Non-Resistance +ought to strengthen enormously the Christian position by uniting theory +and experience. But it definitely opposes Christianity to the world. Thought may profitably be given to the following subjects:--- -Setting right the world by inward change means beginning with the individual. The nearest individual is myself. What change is needed in me? +Setting right the world by inward change means beginning with the +individual. The nearest individual is myself. What change is needed in +me? -How ought I to work for the change in others? Consider the meaning of "Judge not" (Matthew 7:1). Consider the force of example and love and service. Consider the example of Christ and how we may copy it. Note how constantly in the N.T. the *Death* of Christ is referred to as exemplary. References: Mark 8:31-34; Mark 10:42-45; Philippians 2:1-11; Colossians 1:24; 1 Peter 1:14-22, 2:21-24, 3:16-18, 4:1, 12-13, etc. +How ought I to work for the change in others? Consider the meaning of +"Judge not" (Matthew 7:1). Consider the force of example and love and +service. Consider the example of Christ and how we may copy it. Note how +constantly in the N.T. the *Death* of Christ is referred to as +exemplary. References: Mark 8:31-34; Mark 10:42-45; Philippians 2:1-11; +Colossians 1:24; 1 Peter 1:14-22, 2:21-24, 3:16-18, 4:1, 12-13, etc. What is the meaning of this? -Special problems: War, Industrial Competition, Prisons, Police, and Punishment. In all these we see enormous wrong. Two questions arise: (a) What is the right which should be substituted for the wrong? (b) How are we to work for this substitution? - -Is not the answer to both along the same lines? These are wrong in that they use the ways of opposition and injury of people. They must be put right by the way of inward change. No way of injury and violence can rightly put them right. Love, persuasion, example, are the only forces. - -On the question of *War* the author's two books, *Christ and War* (written before the great War broke out) and *The Foundations of Peace* (written during the War) may be recommended. The latter gives the fullest discussion of the meaning of "Non-Resistance" in any modern book. It also discusses means of preventing war. The volumes of the *Christian Revolution Series* set forth the general back-ground of Pacifism. On the question of *Crime and Punishment,* Thomas Mott Osbourne's *Society and Prisons* is good, as is C. Leeson's *The Probation System.* Actual conditions as they were up to a few years ago are given in *English Prisons To-day,* Hobhouse and Brockway, and the history is given in the Webb's *Prisons under Local Government.* George Ives' *History of Penal Methods* covers a much wider field, and is the best introduction to the whole subject. On the *Social Question* generally, [R. H. Tawney's *Acquisitive Society*](https://cadenhaustein.com/books/acquisitive-society/) and the Webb's *Decay of Capitalist Civilization* are important. H. T. Hodgkin's *Christian Revolution* gives valuable suggestions towards a Christian re-organisation of society. The publications of the *Christian Conference for Economics, Politics and Citizenship* (C.O.P.E.C.) may be studied with advantage. +Special problems: War, Industrial Competition, Prisons, Police, and +Punishment. In all these we see enormous wrong. Two questions arise: (a) +What is the right which should be substituted for the wrong? (b) How are +we to work for this substitution? + +Is not the answer to both along the same lines? These are wrong in that +they use the ways of opposition and injury of people. They must be put +right by the way of inward change. No way of injury and violence can +rightly put them right. Love, persuasion, example, are the only forces. + +On the question of *War* the author's two books, *Christ and War* +(written before the great War broke out) and *The Foundations of Peace* +(written during the War) may be recommended. The latter gives the +fullest discussion of the meaning of "Non-Resistance" in any modern +book. It also discusses means of preventing war. The volumes of the +*Christian Revolution Series* set forth the general back-ground of +Pacifism. On the question of *Crime and Punishment,* Thomas Mott +Osbourne's *Society and Prisons* is good, as is C. Leeson's *The +Probation System.* Actual conditions as they were up to a few years ago +are given in *English Prisons To-day,* Hobhouse and Brockway, and the +history is given in the Webb's *Prisons under Local Government.* George +Ives' *History of Penal Methods* covers a much wider field, and is the +best introduction to the whole subject. On the *Social Question* +generally, [R. H. Tawney's *Acquisitive +Society*](https://cadenhaustein.com/books/acquisitive-society/) and the +Webb's *Decay of Capitalist Civilization* are important. H. T. Hodgkin's +*Christian Revolution* gives valuable suggestions towards a Christian +re-organisation of society. The publications of the *Christian +Conference for Economics, Politics and Citizenship* (C.O.P.E.C.) may be +studied with advantage. + +[^1]: Some men appear to have no sense of sin, but this is either + because they have not reflected upon their actions, or have somehow + argued themselves into the belief that they are not responsible for + them. + +[^2]: W.G.T. Shedd, in his history of Christian Doctrine, published + 1872, gives the above words as the generally accepted definition of + the Atonement. + +[^3]: Of course it is not denied that sin brings many disastrous + consequences, but Christ's death does not save the sinner from + these, and similar disastrous consequences sometimes also follow + acts in no way sinful, but even unselfish and altruistic. + +[^4]: This idea is justified, by those who hold it, from Mark 10:45, + where our Lord says that He came "to give His life a ransom for + many." This passage will be discussed later. Here it is enough to + say that there is *no indication* that our Lord meant that the + ransom was paid to God. diff --git a/src/christian-sociology.md b/src/christian-sociology.md index 638dfd6..b527478 100644 --- a/src/christian-sociology.md +++ b/src/christian-sociology.md @@ -1,6422 +1,5396 @@ # I. Socialism and Christianity -If the position be granted that is assumed by nearly all -reformers, that the salvation of society involves among -other things its reorganisation on some corporate or -co-operative basis, there are two ways in which the problem -of reconstruction may be approached. The first of these is -the Christian one which, taking its stand on the permanent -needs of human nature, assumes the existence of a type of -society which may be designated as the normal, because it -most perfectly satisfies human needs, and therefore directs -its policy towards the recovery and strengthening of -everything in life and society that is to be regarded as -normal. The other, which is the Socialist one, is altogether -destitute of any conception of normality, since, apart from -the elementary needs of food, clothing, and shelter, it -treats other human needs as non-essentials, subject to -change and flux. It takes its stand on the supposed truth of -a theory of social evolution according to which all social -phenomena are to be regarded as relative, and human nature -capable of infinite adaptation to changing circumstances. -Its policy is therefore not directed towards a return to the -normal, but towards the stabilisation of the abnormal. All -thought on social questions moves between these opposed -conceptions, which have their roots finally in the teachings -of Christ and of Marx, and the reason why there is so much -confusion of thought on social questions is that most -people, whether they be Socialists, Labourists or -Christians, fail to discriminate between the categories, -vainly imagining they can compromise between the two. - -This, however, is finally impossible, as all sooner or later -must find out; for all such compromises are in the long run -rendered untenable by the course of events, and one -conception must eventually triumph over the other. As to -which it will be, there should nowadays be no room for -doubt; for if experience of attempts at social -reconstruction can be held to prove anything, it is the -inadequacy of the Socialist approach. Before the War, -Socialist legislation on Collectivist lines was enacted -under the auspices of the Liberal Government, the most -notable example being that of the Insurance Act, which -produced very different results from what was expected. For -instead of bringing to the workers a larger measure of -freedom, it resulted in their regimentation. It was seen -that in so far as it increased the security of the workers -it was at the expense of their liberty; for the tendency of -all such legislation is towards a condition of things which -Mr. Belloc aptly described as the "servile state." Yet so -far as the majority of Socialists were concerned, this -experience of the working of their theories was either -entirely wasted on them or it resulted in a reaction against -the moderation of Fabian policy---towards the more -revolutionary attitude of Marx, syndicalism, and direct -action---it being maintained by the extremists that the -failure of all such legislation was due to the mistake of -attempting to introduce Socialist legislation before +If the position be granted that is assumed by nearly all reformers, that +the salvation of society involves among other things its reorganisation +on some corporate or co-operative basis, there are two ways in which the +problem of reconstruction may be approached. The first of these is the +Christian one which, taking its stand on the permanent needs of human +nature, assumes the existence of a type of society which may be +designated as the normal, because it most perfectly satisfies human +needs, and therefore directs its policy towards the recovery and +strengthening of everything in life and society that is to be regarded +as normal. The other, which is the Socialist one, is altogether +destitute of any conception of normality, since, apart from the +elementary needs of food, clothing, and shelter, it treats other human +needs as non-essentials, subject to change and flux. It takes its stand +on the supposed truth of a theory of social evolution according to which +all social phenomena are to be regarded as relative, and human nature +capable of infinite adaptation to changing circumstances. Its policy is +therefore not directed towards a return to the normal, but towards the +stabilisation of the abnormal. All thought on social questions moves +between these opposed conceptions, which have their roots finally in the +teachings of Christ and of Marx, and the reason why there is so much +confusion of thought on social questions is that most people, whether +they be Socialists, Labourists or Christians, fail to discriminate +between the categories, vainly imagining they can compromise between the +two. + +This, however, is finally impossible, as all sooner or later must find +out; for all such compromises are in the long run rendered untenable by +the course of events, and one conception must eventually triumph over +the other. As to which it will be, there should nowadays be no room for +doubt; for if experience of attempts at social reconstruction can be +held to prove anything, it is the inadequacy of the Socialist approach. +Before the War, Socialist legislation on Collectivist lines was enacted +under the auspices of the Liberal Government, the most notable example +being that of the Insurance Act, which produced very different results +from what was expected. For instead of bringing to the workers a larger +measure of freedom, it resulted in their regimentation. It was seen that +in so far as it increased the security of the workers it was at the +expense of their liberty; for the tendency of all such legislation is +towards a condition of things which Mr. Belloc aptly described as the +"servile state." Yet so far as the majority of Socialists were +concerned, this experience of the working of their theories was either +entirely wasted on them or it resulted in a reaction against the +moderation of Fabian policy---towards the more revolutionary attitude of +Marx, syndicalism, and direct action---it being maintained by the +extremists that the failure of all such legislation was due to the +mistake of attempting to introduce Socialist legislation before capitalism was overthrown and abolished. -The Russian Revolution afforded an opportunity of testing -the truth of this assertion. But far from succeeding in -their efforts to abolish capitalism and establish Socialism -or communism in its place, the Bolsheviks found themselves -finally compelled by the force of circumstances to open the -door for the re-entry of foreign capitalists into Russia, -without whose aid Lenin had to confess they could not get -along. And this failure, it is to be observed, can in no -sense be ascribed to the opposition of foreign powers, to -which Socialists in this country like to ascribe it, but was -inherent in their policy from the start. For when the -Bolsheviks abolished private property they committed -economic suicide, because henceforth it was impossible for -them to raise revenue by taxation, and as their Government -had to have money to keep going it was driven to support its -existence by means of the printing press. The wholesale -issue of paper money which resulted had the effect of -depreciating the currency to an extent hitherto undreamed -of, for the paper money they issued fell and fell in value -until finally notes were worth no more than the value of the -paper they were printed on. It was the opinion of Lenin at -that time that by such means currency could be abolished, -private trading and profiteering brought to an end, and -communism established. But it did not work out as expected, -since in proportion as currency lost its value the result -was not communism but stagnation, to combat which the -Bolsheviks were driven to resort to labour conscription, in -fact to introduce that very regimentation which Socialists -had maintained was the consequence of attempting to -introduce Socialism before capitalism was abolished. We see -therefore that it matters not whether Socialist measures are -promoted by moderates or extremists, under a capitalist -Government or by a Socialist one, they result in the -enslavement of the industrial workers; while paradoxically -it has happened that the only class who promise to benefit -by the revolution in Russia is the peasantry, for the only -reform introduced by the Bolsheviks that appears likely to -remain is the nationalisation of the land. - -The experience of Germany and Italy is not more reassuring. -After the Revolution in Germany the Socialists found -themselves in power. But when they got it they did not know -what to do with it. All their lives they had talked about -the nationalisation of land, capital, and the means of -production and exchange, but their accession to power -revealed their impotence. After fifty years of general -oratory they had no constructive scheme to give practical -effect to their theories, and so it came about that they -were driven to make terms with the capitalists to carry on. -In Italy, the Socialists took possession of the factories -and the peasants of the land, while the Government adopted a -neutral attitude, acting as arbitrator between the workers -and the capitalists. But the unemployed problem which had -led to the piecemeal revolution not only remained but -increased under the new regime, and it was not long before -the Socialists were prepared to allow the capitalists to -resume possession of the factories, though the peasants have -kept hold of the land. Meanwhile the Revolution created a -nationalist reaction, giving rise to Fascism, which, after -having by its violent methods reduced the Socialist elements -to silence and taken possession of the Government, has -changed its attitude, adopting a friendly attitude towards -Labour, setting its face against profiteers, and, under the -influence of d'Annunzio, whose prestige in Italy is -unprecedented, gone a long way towards adopting a Guild -platform. - -One would have thought that such a series of reverses would -have shaken the faith of the most ardent Socialist in the -sufficiency of his creed. Yet if the utterances of the -official leaders in this country can be taken as an index of -the mind of the movement, no change at all has taken place. -In their latest book[^1] Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb still -believe in the old nostrums. Mr. Philip Snowden's great -speech in the House of Commons on the "Failure of Capitalist -Civilisation"[^2] was orthodox collectivism. It threw not a -particle of light on any practical problem confronting the -country. For while it is undoubtedly true that capitalist -civilisation has failed, it is equally true that the -Socialist remedy has failed; for Socialist measures fail -entirely to get at grips with the actual situation, which -doubtless explains the fact that Sir Alfred Mond was able to -make out about as good a case for the retention of -capitalism as Mr. Philip Snowden was for its abolition. - -The immediate reason for this failure is doubtless to be -found in the fact that in attempting to abolish the -institutions of private management and property, except in -regard to land and natural monopolies, the Socialist -movement is at war with the very nature of things. I shall -have something to say about the practical failure of -Socialist theories in later chapters. But for the present I -am only concerned with the more general and philosophic -cause of failure, which I submit is to be found in this: -that there is no correspondence between the moral impulse of -the Socialist movement and its official economic theories; -nay, so far from there being any correspondence, they are -actually contradictory, and to this fact the practical -failure of Socialist measures is to be ascribed. To -understand the Socialist movement, it must be realised that -it is primarily a moral revolt. The movement draws its -recruits from among those who are outraged by the corruption -and injustices of our industrial system, and if we are to -see the movement in its proper perspective this fact must -never be forgotten. Its great achievement is to have given -to the world a social conscience. If we compare the state of -mind a hundred years ago, portrayed so vividly in the books -of the Hammonds on the period covered by the Industrial -Revolution, the callous, inhuman, and hypocritical attitude -of the rich towards the sufferings and misfortunes of the -poor, and the prevailing hard, mechanical outlook on life -and society with the attitude which obtains to-day, the -change of outlook and feeling is astonishing, amounting to -no less than a revolution. And though we must not forget the -many writers---Carlyle, Ruskin, Disraeli, Dickens, Charles -Reade, Kingsley---who by their writings directed public -attention to the great injustices of our social system, I -yet think the great change that has taken place is in the -main due to the activities of Socialists, whose absolute -devotion and untiring energy in the cause of the oppressed -has made the social problem a living issue in politics. An -indirect consequence of their activity has been that the -need of social change, of replacing our existing competitive -society by one based upon the principles of brotherhood, -mutual aid, and co-operation, has become widely accepted by -people entirely unaffected by Socialist theories, thus -providing us with a foundation upon which it is possible to -build. But the official economic theories of Socialism have -no connection whatsoever with any reaction or revolt against -capitalism, nor with the principles of brotherhood and -co-operation. On the contrary, they accept capitalism as a -stage in social and economic evolution in the hope of -superimposing over it a communal organisation, failing -entirely to understand that Socialist figs cannot be made to -grow on capitalist thistles. It is this discrepancy, not to -say contradiction, between the head and the heart of -Socialism, between its economic theories and moral -intention, that brings to naught all their efforts at -reconstruction, for their theories when translated into +The Russian Revolution afforded an opportunity of testing the truth of +this assertion. But far from succeeding in their efforts to abolish +capitalism and establish Socialism or communism in its place, the +Bolsheviks found themselves finally compelled by the force of +circumstances to open the door for the re-entry of foreign capitalists +into Russia, without whose aid Lenin had to confess they could not get +along. And this failure, it is to be observed, can in no sense be +ascribed to the opposition of foreign powers, to which Socialists in +this country like to ascribe it, but was inherent in their policy from +the start. For when the Bolsheviks abolished private property they +committed economic suicide, because henceforth it was impossible for +them to raise revenue by taxation, and as their Government had to have +money to keep going it was driven to support its existence by means of +the printing press. The wholesale issue of paper money which resulted +had the effect of depreciating the currency to an extent hitherto +undreamed of, for the paper money they issued fell and fell in value +until finally notes were worth no more than the value of the paper they +were printed on. It was the opinion of Lenin at that time that by such +means currency could be abolished, private trading and profiteering +brought to an end, and communism established. But it did not work out as +expected, since in proportion as currency lost its value the result was +not communism but stagnation, to combat which the Bolsheviks were driven +to resort to labour conscription, in fact to introduce that very +regimentation which Socialists had maintained was the consequence of +attempting to introduce Socialism before capitalism was abolished. We +see therefore that it matters not whether Socialist measures are +promoted by moderates or extremists, under a capitalist Government or by +a Socialist one, they result in the enslavement of the industrial +workers; while paradoxically it has happened that the only class who +promise to benefit by the revolution in Russia is the peasantry, for the +only reform introduced by the Bolsheviks that appears likely to remain +is the nationalisation of the land. + +The experience of Germany and Italy is not more reassuring. After the +Revolution in Germany the Socialists found themselves in power. But when +they got it they did not know what to do with it. All their lives they +had talked about the nationalisation of land, capital, and the means of +production and exchange, but their accession to power revealed their +impotence. After fifty years of general oratory they had no constructive +scheme to give practical effect to their theories, and so it came about +that they were driven to make terms with the capitalists to carry on. In +Italy, the Socialists took possession of the factories and the peasants +of the land, while the Government adopted a neutral attitude, acting as +arbitrator between the workers and the capitalists. But the unemployed +problem which had led to the piecemeal revolution not only remained but +increased under the new regime, and it was not long before the +Socialists were prepared to allow the capitalists to resume possession +of the factories, though the peasants have kept hold of the land. +Meanwhile the Revolution created a nationalist reaction, giving rise to +Fascism, which, after having by its violent methods reduced the +Socialist elements to silence and taken possession of the Government, +has changed its attitude, adopting a friendly attitude towards Labour, +setting its face against profiteers, and, under the influence of +d'Annunzio, whose prestige in Italy is unprecedented, gone a long way +towards adopting a Guild platform. + +One would have thought that such a series of reverses would have shaken +the faith of the most ardent Socialist in the sufficiency of his creed. +Yet if the utterances of the official leaders in this country can be +taken as an index of the mind of the movement, no change at all has +taken place. In their latest book[^1] Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb still +believe in the old nostrums. Mr. Philip Snowden's great speech in the +House of Commons on the "Failure of Capitalist Civilisation"[^2] was +orthodox collectivism. It threw not a particle of light on any practical +problem confronting the country. For while it is undoubtedly true that +capitalist civilisation has failed, it is equally true that the +Socialist remedy has failed; for Socialist measures fail entirely to get +at grips with the actual situation, which doubtless explains the fact +that Sir Alfred Mond was able to make out about as good a case for the +retention of capitalism as Mr. Philip Snowden was for its abolition. + +The immediate reason for this failure is doubtless to be found in the +fact that in attempting to abolish the institutions of private +management and property, except in regard to land and natural +monopolies, the Socialist movement is at war with the very nature of +things. I shall have something to say about the practical failure of +Socialist theories in later chapters. But for the present I am only +concerned with the more general and philosophic cause of failure, which +I submit is to be found in this: that there is no correspondence between +the moral impulse of the Socialist movement and its official economic +theories; nay, so far from there being any correspondence, they are +actually contradictory, and to this fact the practical failure of +Socialist measures is to be ascribed. To understand the Socialist +movement, it must be realised that it is primarily a moral revolt. The +movement draws its recruits from among those who are outraged by the +corruption and injustices of our industrial system, and if we are to see +the movement in its proper perspective this fact must never be +forgotten. Its great achievement is to have given to the world a social +conscience. If we compare the state of mind a hundred years ago, +portrayed so vividly in the books of the Hammonds on the period covered +by the Industrial Revolution, the callous, inhuman, and hypocritical +attitude of the rich towards the sufferings and misfortunes of the poor, +and the prevailing hard, mechanical outlook on life and society with the +attitude which obtains to-day, the change of outlook and feeling is +astonishing, amounting to no less than a revolution. And though we must +not forget the many writers---Carlyle, Ruskin, Disraeli, Dickens, +Charles Reade, Kingsley---who by their writings directed public +attention to the great injustices of our social system, I yet think the +great change that has taken place is in the main due to the activities +of Socialists, whose absolute devotion and untiring energy in the cause +of the oppressed has made the social problem a living issue in politics. +An indirect consequence of their activity has been that the need of +social change, of replacing our existing competitive society by one +based upon the principles of brotherhood, mutual aid, and co-operation, +has become widely accepted by people entirely unaffected by Socialist +theories, thus providing us with a foundation upon which it is possible +to build. But the official economic theories of Socialism have no +connection whatsoever with any reaction or revolt against capitalism, +nor with the principles of brotherhood and co-operation. On the +contrary, they accept capitalism as a stage in social and economic +evolution in the hope of superimposing over it a communal organisation, +failing entirely to understand that Socialist figs cannot be made to +grow on capitalist thistles. It is this discrepancy, not to say +contradiction, between the head and the heart of Socialism, between its +economic theories and moral intention, that brings to naught all their +efforts at reconstruction, for their theories when translated into practice produce results not intended by their authors. -Recognising then that the failure of Socialist measures is -to be found in the fact that the economic theories of the -movement do not correspond with its moral intention, the -problem which confronts us is how to replace the existing -economic theory of Socialism by one that does correspond. -This carries us into very deep waters, for it involves -finally nothing less than the repudiation of the materialist -philosophy that lies at the back of the movement and a frank -acceptance of the principles of Christianity; for all the -great sociological principles are implicit in the Gospels -and to them we must return if we are to build on a safe and -sure foundation. Yet great as is the change that is -demanded, it is one that is in harmony with the trend of -modern thought on social questions, the centre of gravity of -which is being gradually shifted from economics to -psychology, and as such is favourable to a renewal of belief -in Christianity, for it is a change from an external to an -internal approach. It was inevitable, perhaps, that the -first awakening of the social conscience should have been -associated with the external approach of Socialist theory: -for the growth of understanding of the true inwardness of -the social problem has taken time to develop. Before a true -conception of anything comes to be accepted, the mind of the -world must be prepared for its reception; that is to say, -there must exist predisposing causes and influences leading -men in the direction of the new conception and tending to -develop in them the faculties which shall recognise it. In -this sense the Socialist theory and agitation may be -regarded as a necessary preparation for the acceptance of -the social gospel of Christianity, since but for the -concentration of thought on social questions to which it has -given rise and the failure of Socialist experiments in -social reconstruction, the Christian ideal would have +Recognising then that the failure of Socialist measures is to be found +in the fact that the economic theories of the movement do not correspond +with its moral intention, the problem which confronts us is how to +replace the existing economic theory of Socialism by one that does +correspond. This carries us into very deep waters, for it involves +finally nothing less than the repudiation of the materialist philosophy +that lies at the back of the movement and a frank acceptance of the +principles of Christianity; for all the great sociological principles +are implicit in the Gospels and to them we must return if we are to +build on a safe and sure foundation. Yet great as is the change that is +demanded, it is one that is in harmony with the trend of modern thought +on social questions, the centre of gravity of which is being gradually +shifted from economics to psychology, and as such is favourable to a +renewal of belief in Christianity, for it is a change from an external +to an internal approach. It was inevitable, perhaps, that the first +awakening of the social conscience should have been associated with the +external approach of Socialist theory: for the growth of understanding +of the true inwardness of the social problem has taken time to develop. +Before a true conception of anything comes to be accepted, the mind of +the world must be prepared for its reception; that is to say, there must +exist predisposing causes and influences leading men in the direction of +the new conception and tending to develop in them the faculties which +shall recognise it. In this sense the Socialist theory and agitation may +be regarded as a necessary preparation for the acceptance of the social +gospel of Christianity, since but for the concentration of thought on +social questions to which it has given rise and the failure of Socialist +experiments in social reconstruction, the Christian ideal would have remained unacceptable. -But we are not out of the wood yet. When we have travelled -thus far there is a danger of falling into another pitfall, -into an error the exact opposite of that of the Socialists. -When people become aware of the inadequacy of the Socialist -position and begin to realise the sociological implications -of Christianity---when they see that the social problem is -not only material and economic but spiritual and -psychological, and learn that spiritual values must come -first---they are very liable to fall into the error of -withdrawing from practical activity on the assumption that -economic evils may not be attacked direct. Such an -interpretation of the message of Christianity I believe to -be entirely mistaken and to be Manichaean rather than -Christian, for the Christian injunction to put spiritual -things first clearly does not mean that we are to -concentrate all our thought and energy upon the spiritual to -the neglect of the material, but that material evils can -only be remedied when they are attacked in the light of a -spiritual idea, because unless material evils are approached -from a spiritual standpoint we shall be mistaken as to the -nature of the material problem. It is difficult to make -people understand exactly what is meant by this, but an -illustration will perhaps convey my meaning in a way that -abstract argument is powerless to do. When an architect -designs a house, say, he will (if he knows his job) begin by -making a plan of the roof, for he knows that the design of -the roof governs both the elevation and the internal -arrangements. But the builder starts work at the other end, -and builds, not from the roof, but from the foundations. In -the same way it is necessary for us in our efforts to create -a new social order to design from the roof (spiritual -values) and build from the foundations (material problems). -Unfortunately, however, very few people understand this -paradoxical nature of the position; for the world is full of -spiritually minded people who understand that it is -necessary to design from the roof but imagine they can build -from the top downwards, and practically minded people who -realise that they must build from the foundations but -imagine it is possible to design from the bottom upwards. -And because of these misunderstandings most of our -discussion is at cross purposes and most of our energies run -to waste, for with such notions true co-operation is -impossible. Seen in this light the problem before us is how -to dispel these illusions in the minds of both the spiritual -and the practical---how to make Christians understand what -is true in Socialism, and Socialists to understand the truth -of Christianity. +But we are not out of the wood yet. When we have travelled thus far +there is a danger of falling into another pitfall, into an error the +exact opposite of that of the Socialists. When people become aware of +the inadequacy of the Socialist position and begin to realise the +sociological implications of Christianity---when they see that the +social problem is not only material and economic but spiritual and +psychological, and learn that spiritual values must come first---they +are very liable to fall into the error of withdrawing from practical +activity on the assumption that economic evils may not be attacked +direct. Such an interpretation of the message of Christianity I believe +to be entirely mistaken and to be Manichaean rather than Christian, for +the Christian injunction to put spiritual things first clearly does not +mean that we are to concentrate all our thought and energy upon the +spiritual to the neglect of the material, but that material evils can +only be remedied when they are attacked in the light of a spiritual +idea, because unless material evils are approached from a spiritual +standpoint we shall be mistaken as to the nature of the material +problem. It is difficult to make people understand exactly what is meant +by this, but an illustration will perhaps convey my meaning in a way +that abstract argument is powerless to do. When an architect designs a +house, say, he will (if he knows his job) begin by making a plan of the +roof, for he knows that the design of the roof governs both the +elevation and the internal arrangements. But the builder starts work at +the other end, and builds, not from the roof, but from the foundations. +In the same way it is necessary for us in our efforts to create a new +social order to design from the roof (spiritual values) and build from +the foundations (material problems). Unfortunately, however, very few +people understand this paradoxical nature of the position; for the world +is full of spiritually minded people who understand that it is necessary +to design from the roof but imagine they can build from the top +downwards, and practically minded people who realise that they must +build from the foundations but imagine it is possible to design from the +bottom upwards. And because of these misunderstandings most of our +discussion is at cross purposes and most of our energies run to waste, +for with such notions true co-operation is impossible. Seen in this +light the problem before us is how to dispel these illusions in the +minds of both the spiritual and the practical---how to make Christians +understand what is true in Socialism, and Socialists to understand the +truth of Christianity. # II. Socialism and the Idea of Progress -The underlying cause of the discrepancy between the moral -impulse of the Socialist movement and its official economic -theories is to be found in the idea of Progress, which it is -necessary to understand if we are to understand the -Socialist movement or, for that matter, the modern world. -For if it be true, as Professor Bury asserts, that "the -success of the idea of Progress has been promoted by its -association with Socialism,"[^3] it is equally true to say -that the success of Socialism has been promoted by its -association with the idea of Progress. For Socialism grew up -in the atmosphere of the idea of Progress, which determined -its main economic conceptions. - -Now on first acquaintance, Progress presents itself as the -vaguest of ideas; for it is associated with the most -contradictory things. Thus it is invoked in support of the -ideal of democracy, of liberty, equality, and fraternity, -while it undoubtedly does lend support to the reaction -towards slavery. It is used in some quarters to support the -idea that the majority is always right and in others that -the minority is always right; while there are people who -somehow manage to believe in both ideas at one and the same -time. It was defined by John Stuart Mill "as the -preservation of all kinds and amounts of good which already -exist and the increase of them," which presents an idea to -which no Mediaevalist could possibly object; while in -affirming that "all progress is differentiation," Herbert -Spencer enunciated an idea to which every Mediaevalist would -very much object. And so we are left wondering whether -Progress is really an idea at all or whether it is not -entirely a superstition to which all who intend to take part -in practical activities must subscribe --a catchword which -can be twisted to mean almost anything, but which yet -somehow manages to get in the way of most things that are -worth doing. - -On the face of things such undoubtedly is the case. Yet, in -spite of the fact that the word Progress may mean almost -anything, it is nevertheless an idea with a very definite -historical connotation, and a very important one too. For -its essence is to be found in this---the assumption that the -new thing is to be preferred to the old. It took shape in -the seventeenth century, and can be traced back to Francis -Bacon, who urged the necessity of a break with the past. -Until the time of Bacon, the main preoccupation of men who -wished to improve the world was the problem of how to change -men. No man in the Middle Ages ever entertained the idea -that the arrival of an ideal social system could precede the -arrival of ideal men. But Bacon (who incidentally was a bit -of a rascal), living at the time of the Reformation, when -the unity of Christendom was destroyed, sought to promote -the idea that as religion and morals had failed, social -salvation was not to be found in any internal change of -spirit but in external change of circumstances, and to this -end he wrote a scientific Utopia called the *New Atlantis*, -in which he looked for the happiness of mankind chiefly to -applied natural philosophy and the scientific organisation -of production. Yet it was due to the influence of Descartes -rather than to Bacon that the idea of Progress became -accepted. Bacon had taken his stand on the broad issue of -science versus religion. But Descartes was more diplomatic. -He did not make the issue one between science and religion, -but between the future and the past. This attitude would -have been impossible for Bacon, since he had a certain -reverence for classical literature which would for him have -made such an issue unreal. But Descartes was not hampered by -any such considerations. He was modernist in spirit. He was -proud of having forgotten the Greek he learned as a boy and -he looked entirely to the future. "The inspiration of his -work was the idea of breaking sharply and completely with -the past, and constructing a system that borrows nothing -from the dead,"[^4] which suggests that the idea of Progress -owed its origin as much to a reaction against the pedantry -of the Renaissance as to reform by external means, which in -the excessive consideration it gave to the opinions of the -Ancients, operated to strangle all vitality out of thought. - -Now, in rebelling against this pedantry, there can be no -doubt that Descartes and his followers were entirely in the -right; for we know only too well the disastrous effect that -the pedantry of the Renaissance had upon literature, -architecture, and the crafts and arts generally---it -strangled every bit of life out of them. The confusion in -which the arts find themselves to-day is to be traced to the -destruction of aesthetic perception and power of design by -these selfsame academic influences. But, on the other hand, -it is equally certain that the idea of Progress has been -followed by results no less disastrous; for by undermining -respect for the achievements of the past it has destroyed -the mental balance and breadth of outlook necessary to real -achievement. These considerations lead us to the conclusion -that the idea of Progress and the pedantic influences of the -Renaissance are but two aspects of the same disease, -inasmuch as they have combined to undermine right feeling -and attitude towards things, making it impossible for the -modern man to enter sympathetically into the great heritage -of the past or to face realistically the problems of the -present. - -While Descartes claimed the right to break sharply and -completely with the past, his claim was only made in respect -to the sciences; for in religion he was orthodox. But it so -happened that the method which he advocated in connection -with the sciences was given a wider application by his -followers. And it was thus currents of thought were set in -motion that had far-reaching effects, proving themselves to -be fatal to all clear thinking about religion, philosophy, -art, and sociology which are not to be separated from their -roots in history. The Cartesian doubt---the resolution -provisionally to doubt everything---is a necessary condition -of intellectual advance. Its defect, says the Spanish -philosopher Unamuno, is to be found " in the resolution of -Descartes to begin by emptying himself of himself, of -Descartes, of the real man, the man of flesh and bone, the -man who does not want to die, in order that he might be a -mere thinker---that is an abstraction";[^5] for to proceed -on such a method is to introduce a logic that operates to -divorce the subjective from the objective side of thought -and life. On the contrary, the right method of reasoning is -not to begin with external phenomenon but with ourselves. -What we can know and feel of the world is finally what we -can know and feel in ourselves. It is only by penetrating -deep into our own interior nature that we can discover those -strands that bind us to others and the world. For what is -the property of each is the property of all. The macrocosm -can only be studied in the microcosm. And therefore it is -necessary if we are, so to say, to feel our feet in the -world of thought, to have the liberty if need be to break -with the past---that is, to doubt what other men have said -in order to prove it to ourselves. But men who go exploring -are apt to get lost. And they can lose them- selves more -easily in the depths of their own nature than in the -exterior universe. Hence it is if men who seek after wisdom -are to retain their balance and sanity, it is essential for -them to be for ever seeking to correct their own judgments -and intuitions by comparing them with the general experience -of mankind. For men in the mass are in some respects wiser -than any single individual, however much error and stupidity -may be mixed with the wisdom. And therefore the more a man -finds reason to differ with his own generation, the more -important it is for him to study the past; for only when he -is familiar with what men thought and felt in other ages can -he see the thought of his day in a proper perspective. Hence -the conclusion that truth is finally neither subjective nor -objective, but resides at a point midway between the two. - -To reason clearly on this issue is of fundamental -importance, because under the influence of the idea of -Progress the subjective and objective sides of life have -become fatally divided, and all manner of evil has followed -the division. After Descartes, men could say with -Protagoras, "My thought is the measure of things." Thus an -idea was set in motion that operated slowly to disintegrate -the common mind, and with it the possibility of collective -activity for any useful purpose. People who are accustomed -to underrate the importance and influence of ideas would do -well to reflect on the tragic consequences of this one, -which has led men everywhere to deny the existence of any -absolute right, whilst affirming that truth is entirely a -matter of opinion. Is it not apparent that in making the -departure he did, Descartes knocked the bottom out of the -mind, breaking down the bridge that makes brotherhood -possible, by bringing into existence an atmosphere of -credulity and intellectual instability in which the false -prophet is always sure of a hearing and the prize goes to -the man who can tell the tallest story. - -Faith in Progress was until yesterday the faith of the -modern world. But it cannot be said to be so any longer; for -the events of the last eight years have led to widespread -scepticism in regard to the future. But if we are to see the -most consummate expression of the idea of Progress we must -go to the Socialist movement, which has based its activities -upon it without any reservation or qualification. Generally -speaking, those who accepted the idea of Progress did not -cut themselves off entirely from the past. They accepted the -idea in a vague way as meaning that in the gradual ascent of -man the same interplay of forces which they supposed had -conducted him so far would, with the increase of liberty, -lead him towards conditions of increasing happiness and -prosperity, for in their universe catastrophe did not exist. -But with Socialists it was different. They took their stand -on what was central in the idea of Progress---that it was -necessary to break sharply and completely with the past, and -proposed to reconstruct society on a basis that borrowed -nothing from the social organisation or experience of former -times. At least that was their idea at the outset, for when -they settled down to work they found themselves unable to -get as far away from reality as they had hoped. But to this -extent it is true. They had an *a priori* prejudice against -all forms of social organisation which had existed in the -past and had since disappeared; for they took it for granted -that all such organisations belonged to a lower stage of -social evolution and therefore could have no relevance to -the problems of to-day. All who have fought for the Guild -idea know this notion only too well. This prejudice has much -to do with the perplexity of the Socialist movement to-day; -for, having denied the experience of the past, it has -nothing to fall back upon now that modern things are to be -seen everywhere collapsing. - -But it is not only in their desire to break sharply and -completely with the past that Socialists followed in the -path of Descartes. Their philosophy exhibits the same fatal -division between the subjective and objective sides of life. -The Guild, which was the type and exemplar of Mediaeval -organisation, postulated in its organisation the essential -unity of life; for it touched the subjective and objective -sides of life at one and the same time. Socialist -organisation, however, is entirely objective in the sense -that it bears no relation whatsoever to the subjective life -of man, as is recognised in the popular criticism which says -it leaves human nature out of account. But while Socialist -organisation is objective, Socialist thought is subjective. -This is another source of the difficulties of the movement. -For if there is no ultimate standard of right and wrong, if -truth is entirely a matter of opinion, as the subjective -philosophy postulates, then no real basis of co-operation -between individuals exists. Men can only unite with one -another on the assumption that they share common beliefs and -work for common ends. And therefore co-operation becomes -impossible wherever men have become individualised in their -beliefs. Thus we see that the subjective philosophy is -antipathetic to collective activity. And it is because of -this that the Socialist movement has throughout its history -been perplexed by internal dissensions; for in attempting to -organise for communal ends people whose standards of thought -are entirely subjective it attempts the impossible; it seeks -to organise the unorganisable. And, because it attempts the -impossible, it can have no future apart from such a change -in spirit as would revolutionize its thought. The future is -with those who are united in positive and fundamental -beliefs, not with those who are united only in their +The underlying cause of the discrepancy between the moral impulse of the +Socialist movement and its official economic theories is to be found in +the idea of Progress, which it is necessary to understand if we are to +understand the Socialist movement or, for that matter, the modern world. +For if it be true, as Professor Bury asserts, that "the success of the +idea of Progress has been promoted by its association with +Socialism,"[^3] it is equally true to say that the success of Socialism +has been promoted by its association with the idea of Progress. For +Socialism grew up in the atmosphere of the idea of Progress, which +determined its main economic conceptions. + +Now on first acquaintance, Progress presents itself as the vaguest of +ideas; for it is associated with the most contradictory things. Thus it +is invoked in support of the ideal of democracy, of liberty, equality, +and fraternity, while it undoubtedly does lend support to the reaction +towards slavery. It is used in some quarters to support the idea that +the majority is always right and in others that the minority is always +right; while there are people who somehow manage to believe in both +ideas at one and the same time. It was defined by John Stuart Mill "as +the preservation of all kinds and amounts of good which already exist +and the increase of them," which presents an idea to which no +Mediaevalist could possibly object; while in affirming that "all +progress is differentiation," Herbert Spencer enunciated an idea to +which every Mediaevalist would very much object. And so we are left +wondering whether Progress is really an idea at all or whether it is not +entirely a superstition to which all who intend to take part in +practical activities must subscribe --a catchword which can be twisted +to mean almost anything, but which yet somehow manages to get in the way +of most things that are worth doing. + +On the face of things such undoubtedly is the case. Yet, in spite of the +fact that the word Progress may mean almost anything, it is nevertheless +an idea with a very definite historical connotation, and a very +important one too. For its essence is to be found in this---the +assumption that the new thing is to be preferred to the old. It took +shape in the seventeenth century, and can be traced back to Francis +Bacon, who urged the necessity of a break with the past. Until the time +of Bacon, the main preoccupation of men who wished to improve the world +was the problem of how to change men. No man in the Middle Ages ever +entertained the idea that the arrival of an ideal social system could +precede the arrival of ideal men. But Bacon (who incidentally was a bit +of a rascal), living at the time of the Reformation, when the unity of +Christendom was destroyed, sought to promote the idea that as religion +and morals had failed, social salvation was not to be found in any +internal change of spirit but in external change of circumstances, and +to this end he wrote a scientific Utopia called the *New Atlantis*, in +which he looked for the happiness of mankind chiefly to applied natural +philosophy and the scientific organisation of production. Yet it was due +to the influence of Descartes rather than to Bacon that the idea of +Progress became accepted. Bacon had taken his stand on the broad issue +of science versus religion. But Descartes was more diplomatic. He did +not make the issue one between science and religion, but between the +future and the past. This attitude would have been impossible for Bacon, +since he had a certain reverence for classical literature which would +for him have made such an issue unreal. But Descartes was not hampered +by any such considerations. He was modernist in spirit. He was proud of +having forgotten the Greek he learned as a boy and he looked entirely to +the future. "The inspiration of his work was the idea of breaking +sharply and completely with the past, and constructing a system that +borrows nothing from the dead,"[^4] which suggests that the idea of +Progress owed its origin as much to a reaction against the pedantry of +the Renaissance as to reform by external means, which in the excessive +consideration it gave to the opinions of the Ancients, operated to +strangle all vitality out of thought. + +Now, in rebelling against this pedantry, there can be no doubt that +Descartes and his followers were entirely in the right; for we know only +too well the disastrous effect that the pedantry of the Renaissance had +upon literature, architecture, and the crafts and arts generally---it +strangled every bit of life out of them. The confusion in which the arts +find themselves to-day is to be traced to the destruction of aesthetic +perception and power of design by these selfsame academic influences. +But, on the other hand, it is equally certain that the idea of Progress +has been followed by results no less disastrous; for by undermining +respect for the achievements of the past it has destroyed the mental +balance and breadth of outlook necessary to real achievement. These +considerations lead us to the conclusion that the idea of Progress and +the pedantic influences of the Renaissance are but two aspects of the +same disease, inasmuch as they have combined to undermine right feeling +and attitude towards things, making it impossible for the modern man to +enter sympathetically into the great heritage of the past or to face +realistically the problems of the present. + +While Descartes claimed the right to break sharply and completely with +the past, his claim was only made in respect to the sciences; for in +religion he was orthodox. But it so happened that the method which he +advocated in connection with the sciences was given a wider application +by his followers. And it was thus currents of thought were set in motion +that had far-reaching effects, proving themselves to be fatal to all +clear thinking about religion, philosophy, art, and sociology which are +not to be separated from their roots in history. The Cartesian +doubt---the resolution provisionally to doubt everything---is a +necessary condition of intellectual advance. Its defect, says the +Spanish philosopher Unamuno, is to be found " in the resolution of +Descartes to begin by emptying himself of himself, of Descartes, of the +real man, the man of flesh and bone, the man who does not want to die, +in order that he might be a mere thinker---that is an abstraction";[^5] +for to proceed on such a method is to introduce a logic that operates to +divorce the subjective from the objective side of thought and life. On +the contrary, the right method of reasoning is not to begin with +external phenomenon but with ourselves. What we can know and feel of the +world is finally what we can know and feel in ourselves. It is only by +penetrating deep into our own interior nature that we can discover those +strands that bind us to others and the world. For what is the property +of each is the property of all. The macrocosm can only be studied in the +microcosm. And therefore it is necessary if we are, so to say, to feel +our feet in the world of thought, to have the liberty if need be to +break with the past---that is, to doubt what other men have said in +order to prove it to ourselves. But men who go exploring are apt to get +lost. And they can lose them- selves more easily in the depths of their +own nature than in the exterior universe. Hence it is if men who seek +after wisdom are to retain their balance and sanity, it is essential for +them to be for ever seeking to correct their own judgments and +intuitions by comparing them with the general experience of mankind. For +men in the mass are in some respects wiser than any single individual, +however much error and stupidity may be mixed with the wisdom. And +therefore the more a man finds reason to differ with his own generation, +the more important it is for him to study the past; for only when he is +familiar with what men thought and felt in other ages can he see the +thought of his day in a proper perspective. Hence the conclusion that +truth is finally neither subjective nor objective, but resides at a +point midway between the two. + +To reason clearly on this issue is of fundamental importance, because +under the influence of the idea of Progress the subjective and objective +sides of life have become fatally divided, and all manner of evil has +followed the division. After Descartes, men could say with Protagoras, +"My thought is the measure of things." Thus an idea was set in motion +that operated slowly to disintegrate the common mind, and with it the +possibility of collective activity for any useful purpose. People who +are accustomed to underrate the importance and influence of ideas would +do well to reflect on the tragic consequences of this one, which has led +men everywhere to deny the existence of any absolute right, whilst +affirming that truth is entirely a matter of opinion. Is it not apparent +that in making the departure he did, Descartes knocked the bottom out of +the mind, breaking down the bridge that makes brotherhood possible, by +bringing into existence an atmosphere of credulity and intellectual +instability in which the false prophet is always sure of a hearing and +the prize goes to the man who can tell the tallest story. + +Faith in Progress was until yesterday the faith of the modern world. But +it cannot be said to be so any longer; for the events of the last eight +years have led to widespread scepticism in regard to the future. But if +we are to see the most consummate expression of the idea of Progress we +must go to the Socialist movement, which has based its activities upon +it without any reservation or qualification. Generally speaking, those +who accepted the idea of Progress did not cut themselves off entirely +from the past. They accepted the idea in a vague way as meaning that in +the gradual ascent of man the same interplay of forces which they +supposed had conducted him so far would, with the increase of liberty, +lead him towards conditions of increasing happiness and prosperity, for +in their universe catastrophe did not exist. But with Socialists it was +different. They took their stand on what was central in the idea of +Progress---that it was necessary to break sharply and completely with +the past, and proposed to reconstruct society on a basis that borrowed +nothing from the social organisation or experience of former times. At +least that was their idea at the outset, for when they settled down to +work they found themselves unable to get as far away from reality as +they had hoped. But to this extent it is true. They had an *a priori* +prejudice against all forms of social organisation which had existed in +the past and had since disappeared; for they took it for granted that +all such organisations belonged to a lower stage of social evolution and +therefore could have no relevance to the problems of to-day. All who +have fought for the Guild idea know this notion only too well. This +prejudice has much to do with the perplexity of the Socialist movement +to-day; for, having denied the experience of the past, it has nothing to +fall back upon now that modern things are to be seen everywhere +collapsing. + +But it is not only in their desire to break sharply and completely with +the past that Socialists followed in the path of Descartes. Their +philosophy exhibits the same fatal division between the subjective and +objective sides of life. The Guild, which was the type and exemplar of +Mediaeval organisation, postulated in its organisation the essential +unity of life; for it touched the subjective and objective sides of life +at one and the same time. Socialist organisation, however, is entirely +objective in the sense that it bears no relation whatsoever to the +subjective life of man, as is recognised in the popular criticism which +says it leaves human nature out of account. But while Socialist +organisation is objective, Socialist thought is subjective. This is +another source of the difficulties of the movement. For if there is no +ultimate standard of right and wrong, if truth is entirely a matter of +opinion, as the subjective philosophy postulates, then no real basis of +co-operation between individuals exists. Men can only unite with one +another on the assumption that they share common beliefs and work for +common ends. And therefore co-operation becomes impossible wherever men +have become individualised in their beliefs. Thus we see that the +subjective philosophy is antipathetic to collective activity. And it is +because of this that the Socialist movement has throughout its history +been perplexed by internal dissensions; for in attempting to organise +for communal ends people whose standards of thought are entirely +subjective it attempts the impossible; it seeks to organise the +unorganisable. And, because it attempts the impossible, it can have no +future apart from such a change in spirit as would revolutionize its +thought. The future is with those who are united in positive and +fundamental beliefs, not with those who are united only in their detestation of the existing social order. # III. The Kingdom of God -Once it is realised that belief in the sufficiency of that -automatic movement of social and economic development which -before the War was known by the name of Progress is nothing -more than a superstition, inasmuch as, so far from laying a -foundation upon which a new social order could be built, -experience has revealed it to be a movement towards the -disintegration of everything that was hard and permanent in -the world, it follows that our only hope of social salvation -is to take our stand on something that has within itself the -elements of permanence and stability. Over against the world -of movement and flux, of progress and relativity, we must -set up a standard of unchanging reality, of absolute and -immutable values which are unaffected by the fluid elements -on the changing surface of things. Such values are to be -found in the traditions of Christianity, and to them we must -return. For only principles that rest upon supernatural -sanction are invested with sufficient authority to secure -for them popular acceptance. - -But comes the objection: the problem confronting the workers -is a material one, it is a bread-and-butter question, and -therefore Christianity has no relevance; for it is not -primarily concerned with the affairs of this world but the -next. Considering the way Christianity has for long been -presented in the Churches, such a view is excusable. For -until yesterday, the Churches since the Reformation treated -Christianity entirely as a gospel of personal salvation that -had nothing to say about the social question. Yet such a -presentation is not the Gospel as it was taught by Christ -and as it was believed in by the Early Christians, to whom -Christianity was as much an affair of the redemption of this -world as of salvation in the next. And what is more, this -attitude of the Early Christians became embodied in the -dogmas of the Church; for as Señor de Maeztu pointed out in -a recent article,[^6] it is the Resurrection of the Body and -the Life Everlasting upon which the Christian Creeds insist, -while it is equally significant that no mention is made in -them of the Immortality of the Soul. And there is a reason -for this; for the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body -is just as much a symbol of the Early Christians' belief in -the redemption of this world as the Immortality of the Soul -is the symbol of the fatalistic attitude which until -yesterday the Churches assumed towards the social question. - -Let us consider this matter further. Not only is the -significance of the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body -rarely understood, but ignorance as to its meaning is one of -the stumbling-blocks in the path of the revival of -Christianity; for the doctrine does not relate to our -existing physical bodies, as is popularly supposed, but to -the fact that in any final consummation the bodily life of -man must find a place no less than the spiritual."[^7] As -such, the doctrine was formulated to combat the Manichaean -heresy which, in divorcing spirit from matter, led men to -place all their hopes in the next world to the neglect of -the claims of this. According to Christian doctrine, there -is no such divorce between spirit and matter; for -Christianity is both spiritual and material. There are good -spirits and evil spirits, while the bodily life of man might -be good or bad according to the spirit in which men lived. -The Manichaeans, on the contrary, taught a doctrine which -cuts right across the Christian conception. They identified -good and evil with spirit and matter. According to them -spirit was good and matter was evil. And it was in order to -combat the evils arising from this perverted attitude of -mind that the Christian Fathers were led to formulate the -doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body; for the practical -consequences that followed the acceptance of the one -conception or the other cannot easily be exaggerated. The -Manichaean conception of life and the universe leads -directly to contempt of the body and indifference towards -the secular order of society, which it regards as beyond -redemption on the one hand, or to pure worldliness on the -other. The Christian conception, on the contrary, leads -directly to a frank acceptance of the bodily life of man and -a belief in the possibility of social redemption. For if the -body is important, then the life of man on earth is -important. The life of this world may be transient, yet it -is an essential part of the next. If we neglect to take -measures to make truth and justice prevail in this world, -what reason is there to suppose we shall be equipped to make -them prevail in the next?"The other world is this world in -the fulness of its consequences." Hence the Kingdom of God -around which the social teaching of Jesus moves. The phrase -or its equivalent, the Kingdom of Heaven, occurs more than a -hundred times in the first three Gospels. Its purpose was -the establishment of the Kingdom upon this earth, and not -its postponement to a life hereafter---a subtle evasion of -the problems of the secular world as it has come to mean. - -Though the reality of the Kingdom has been neglected by -Christians in modern times, there can be little doubt that -it was a central idea in the teaching of Christ. By the -Kingdom Jesus undoubtedly meant a new social order which it -is God's purpose to establish in this world, and of which He -is the head. The phrase had long been familiar to His -hearers. It was the term in which the pious Jews expressed -their anticipation of a time when the national ideal of -Israel should at last be realised and the prophet's vision -of a just and prosperous society be fulfilled. Jesus took -this earlier association for granted while seeking to give -the idea a richer and larger content. It was not to be -merely a new social system of man's devising, but something -extending beyond this world into the next; while its -approach was not to be primarily through political activity -but through moral regeneration, through the redemption of -the individual. The entire social order was to be -Christianised. The world as a whole was the subject of -redemption. - -If it can be affirmed that it was the intention of Jesus to -establish the Kingdom upon earth, with even greater -confidence it can be affirmed that such was the meaning -given to His words by His hearers, for how else is the -communism of the Early Church at Jerusalem to be explained? -This first attempt to realise the Kingdom clearly -demonstrates that to them the new life which Jesus -proclaimed not only involved an inward change of heart but -an outward change of circumstance, since for the sake of the -Kingdom they were prepared to give up everything. The -attempt failed because it was premature. It was premature -because the inward change of spirit necessary to the -establishment of a new social order had not proceeded -sufficiently far to make such a complete break with the -traditions of society a practicable proposition. -Nevertheless, the spirit of communism remained in the -Church. But it remained as an ideal rather than as a method, -expressing itself in care for the poor, attacks upon wealth, -the condemnation of luxury, and insistence upon the duty of -honest labour. Thus in one way or another very powerful -solvents were brought to bear upon the established social -order, operating to remove the barriers that stood in the -way of brotherhood and destined in time so completely to -undermine the foundations on which Pagan civilisation rested -as to prepare the way for far-reaching social and political -changes. It gradually modified the attitude towards slavery, -which by the fourth century was a doomed institution, though -it lingered on in places for centuries. - -That faith in the early establishment of the Kingdom, the -dreams and hopes that it raised, materially contributed to -the success of the Gospel and remained a force in the Church -for centuries is admitted. Its disappearance would, in the -first place, appear to be due to the fact that as on the -sociological side of Christianity no systematic body of -doctrine was built up corresponding to its carefully -formulated theology, the enthusiasm of the millennialists -was allowed to spend its force in wild dreams about the -Kingdom instead of being directed into channels where it -would have borne fruit; and in the next place to the -disillusionment that came over the Roman world after the -year 410, when Rome was sacked by the Goths. Rome had long -ceased to be more than a symbol of Empire, but as such it -was so entirely identified with every conception of orderly -government that its fall had a tremendous effect on the -imagination of men; for in being generally recognised as -heralding the collapse of the old world, it not only -dispelled millennial dreams but raised the question as to -whether the Church itself was also destined to perish with -the secular order. It was answered by St. Augustine, who, in -the succeeding years, wrote his great treatise on Christian -political philosophy, *De Civitate Dei*---The City of -God---to restore Faith to the world. In it he completely -identified the Church with the Kingdom. The old Roman Empire -was tottering to its fall ; the Church stood fast, ready to -step into its inheritance. Others before him may have taken -the same view. Yet he was the first who ventured to teach -that the Visible Church was the Kingdom of God, that the -millennial kingdom commenced with the appearance of Christ -on earth, and was therefore an accomplished fact. By this -doctrine Augustine gave a new direction to Western theology, -carrying it clear of millennialism, which very soon became a -thing of the past, while certain elements of it became -branded as heretical. But though perhaps it saved the Church -at the moment, it did it by perverting the purpose of -Christianity, for in identifying the Church with the Kingdom -it destroyed for ever the possibility of the redemption of -the secular order of society. According to Augustine's view, -the human race is to be divided into two parts, "the one -consisting of those who live according to man, the other of -those who live according to God," which he mystically calls -the two cities, one of which was predestined to reign -eternally with God, and the other to suffer eternal -punishment with the devil. While the City of God is -concerned with spiritual values, the City of Satan is of the -earth earthly, though to the question of the relation in -which the two cities stand to one another according to God's -purpose he can find no answer. - -The implications of St. Augustine's position are enormous; -for this division of the human race into two parts involves -a terrible degradation of earthly duties with which the -majority of men must of necessity be primarily concerned. -Yet though Augustine attacks the dualism of Manichaeanism, -it is apparent that his own central idea of the two cities -is Manichaean rather than Christian, for it postulates the -divorce of the spiritual from the temporal, while it -naturally led him to identify the Kingdom with the Church. -These perversions of the teaching of Christianity are -important because, as the influence of St. Augustine on the -Middle Ages was decisive, they are to be held accountable -for much---perhaps for the defeat of Christianity itself; -for there are some who see the whole Hildebrandine policy, -the controversies between Popes and Emperors, as indeed the -"dominion of grace" of Wycliffe and the predestination of -Calvin, which between them have alienated the world from -Christianity, implicit in the pages of *De Civitate -Dei*.[^8] - -In affirming, therefore, the centrality of the doctrine of -the Kingdom, we are not only recalling the Church to its -original purpose, but we are doing something towards purging -the Church of its Manichaean tendencies, which stand between -the modern world and the acceptance of the principles of -Christianity. It is important to insist upon these things, -because the world is faced to-day with a situation in many -ways analogous to that which confronted the Roman world in -the early part of the fifth century. The shock of the -world-catastrophe has produced an effect on the minds of men -to-day very similar, it is to be imagined, to the effect -that the sack of Rome by Alaric had on Roman society; while -since the War we become daily more conscious that the fabric -of society has been shattered beyond repair\^ And becoming -increasingly conscious of the fleeting nature of the -circumstances of life, of the instability of our material -environment, we look round for something that possesses -within itself the elements of permanence, and like -St. Augustine we find it in Christian doctrine. For just as -he felt in the crisis through which the Roman world was -passing, that with the collapse of the old order leadership -devolved upon the Church, so we, facing a parallel -situation, are equally convinced that in Christianity is to -be found the key. But its activities will have to be of a -fundamentally different nature; for the problem confronting -the world to-day is not how to save civilisation from an -external enemy, but how to save it from internal corruption -and disintegration, while so far from the teachings of -St. Augustine being of any service to us in this task, it is -from the very consequences of his teaching that we need to -be saved. For the great evil to-day is dualism---the -consequence of the Manichaeanism with which he infected -Christianity. The separation of the material from the -spiritual has proceeded so far that not only have our -politics and industry become so corrupt that it often seems -impossible to bring any moral influence to bear upon them, -but we are caught in the toils of an economic and industrial -system that has made us all its slaves, and therefore a -solution of our problems is not to be found in exalting the -Church as a sanctuary, in providing a refuge to enable men -to escape from the world, but by recalling the Church to its -original purpose, as the instrument for the establishment of -the Kingdom of God. Apart from spiritual influences, it -would appear that the normal trend of things is downwards. -For the evidence is only too conclusive that, left to -themselves, men tend so to degenerate that spiritual things -are entirely crowded out of their lives. Circumstances, -self-interests, considerations of expediency all conspire to -this end. For it is only when men are in possession of fixed -principles which challenge this tendency that they have the -courage to resist. It is for this reason that not until men -are in possession of a sociology that will define the -Christian attitude towards political and economic questions -that they will be able to make a stand for principles and -assert again the claims of the spirit that the steady -process of demoralisation that has overtaken the modern -world will be stopped. Not until then will the tide be -turned, for against economic expediency nothing less than -such principles can stand. +Once it is realised that belief in the sufficiency of that automatic +movement of social and economic development which before the War was +known by the name of Progress is nothing more than a superstition, +inasmuch as, so far from laying a foundation upon which a new social +order could be built, experience has revealed it to be a movement +towards the disintegration of everything that was hard and permanent in +the world, it follows that our only hope of social salvation is to take +our stand on something that has within itself the elements of permanence +and stability. Over against the world of movement and flux, of progress +and relativity, we must set up a standard of unchanging reality, of +absolute and immutable values which are unaffected by the fluid elements +on the changing surface of things. Such values are to be found in the +traditions of Christianity, and to them we must return. For only +principles that rest upon supernatural sanction are invested with +sufficient authority to secure for them popular acceptance. + +But comes the objection: the problem confronting the workers is a +material one, it is a bread-and-butter question, and therefore +Christianity has no relevance; for it is not primarily concerned with +the affairs of this world but the next. Considering the way Christianity +has for long been presented in the Churches, such a view is excusable. +For until yesterday, the Churches since the Reformation treated +Christianity entirely as a gospel of personal salvation that had nothing +to say about the social question. Yet such a presentation is not the +Gospel as it was taught by Christ and as it was believed in by the Early +Christians, to whom Christianity was as much an affair of the redemption +of this world as of salvation in the next. And what is more, this +attitude of the Early Christians became embodied in the dogmas of the +Church; for as Señor de Maeztu pointed out in a recent article,[^6] it +is the Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting upon which the +Christian Creeds insist, while it is equally significant that no mention +is made in them of the Immortality of the Soul. And there is a reason +for this; for the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body is just as +much a symbol of the Early Christians' belief in the redemption of this +world as the Immortality of the Soul is the symbol of the fatalistic +attitude which until yesterday the Churches assumed towards the social +question. + +Let us consider this matter further. Not only is the significance of the +doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body rarely understood, but +ignorance as to its meaning is one of the stumbling-blocks in the path +of the revival of Christianity; for the doctrine does not relate to our +existing physical bodies, as is popularly supposed, but to the fact that +in any final consummation the bodily life of man must find a place no +less than the spiritual."[^7] As such, the doctrine was formulated to +combat the Manichaean heresy which, in divorcing spirit from matter, led +men to place all their hopes in the next world to the neglect of the +claims of this. According to Christian doctrine, there is no such +divorce between spirit and matter; for Christianity is both spiritual +and material. There are good spirits and evil spirits, while the bodily +life of man might be good or bad according to the spirit in which men +lived. The Manichaeans, on the contrary, taught a doctrine which cuts +right across the Christian conception. They identified good and evil +with spirit and matter. According to them spirit was good and matter was +evil. And it was in order to combat the evils arising from this +perverted attitude of mind that the Christian Fathers were led to +formulate the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body; for the +practical consequences that followed the acceptance of the one +conception or the other cannot easily be exaggerated. The Manichaean +conception of life and the universe leads directly to contempt of the +body and indifference towards the secular order of society, which it +regards as beyond redemption on the one hand, or to pure worldliness on +the other. The Christian conception, on the contrary, leads directly to +a frank acceptance of the bodily life of man and a belief in the +possibility of social redemption. For if the body is important, then the +life of man on earth is important. The life of this world may be +transient, yet it is an essential part of the next. If we neglect to +take measures to make truth and justice prevail in this world, what +reason is there to suppose we shall be equipped to make them prevail in +the next?"The other world is this world in the fulness of its +consequences." Hence the Kingdom of God around which the social teaching +of Jesus moves. The phrase or its equivalent, the Kingdom of Heaven, +occurs more than a hundred times in the first three Gospels. Its purpose +was the establishment of the Kingdom upon this earth, and not its +postponement to a life hereafter---a subtle evasion of the problems of +the secular world as it has come to mean. + +Though the reality of the Kingdom has been neglected by Christians in +modern times, there can be little doubt that it was a central idea in +the teaching of Christ. By the Kingdom Jesus undoubtedly meant a new +social order which it is God's purpose to establish in this world, and +of which He is the head. The phrase had long been familiar to His +hearers. It was the term in which the pious Jews expressed their +anticipation of a time when the national ideal of Israel should at last +be realised and the prophet's vision of a just and prosperous society be +fulfilled. Jesus took this earlier association for granted while seeking +to give the idea a richer and larger content. It was not to be merely a +new social system of man's devising, but something extending beyond this +world into the next; while its approach was not to be primarily through +political activity but through moral regeneration, through the +redemption of the individual. The entire social order was to be +Christianised. The world as a whole was the subject of redemption. + +If it can be affirmed that it was the intention of Jesus to establish +the Kingdom upon earth, with even greater confidence it can be affirmed +that such was the meaning given to His words by His hearers, for how +else is the communism of the Early Church at Jerusalem to be explained? +This first attempt to realise the Kingdom clearly demonstrates that to +them the new life which Jesus proclaimed not only involved an inward +change of heart but an outward change of circumstance, since for the +sake of the Kingdom they were prepared to give up everything. The +attempt failed because it was premature. It was premature because the +inward change of spirit necessary to the establishment of a new social +order had not proceeded sufficiently far to make such a complete break +with the traditions of society a practicable proposition. Nevertheless, +the spirit of communism remained in the Church. But it remained as an +ideal rather than as a method, expressing itself in care for the poor, +attacks upon wealth, the condemnation of luxury, and insistence upon the +duty of honest labour. Thus in one way or another very powerful solvents +were brought to bear upon the established social order, operating to +remove the barriers that stood in the way of brotherhood and destined in +time so completely to undermine the foundations on which Pagan +civilisation rested as to prepare the way for far-reaching social and +political changes. It gradually modified the attitude towards slavery, +which by the fourth century was a doomed institution, though it lingered +on in places for centuries. + +That faith in the early establishment of the Kingdom, the dreams and +hopes that it raised, materially contributed to the success of the +Gospel and remained a force in the Church for centuries is admitted. Its +disappearance would, in the first place, appear to be due to the fact +that as on the sociological side of Christianity no systematic body of +doctrine was built up corresponding to its carefully formulated +theology, the enthusiasm of the millennialists was allowed to spend its +force in wild dreams about the Kingdom instead of being directed into +channels where it would have borne fruit; and in the next place to the +disillusionment that came over the Roman world after the year 410, when +Rome was sacked by the Goths. Rome had long ceased to be more than a +symbol of Empire, but as such it was so entirely identified with every +conception of orderly government that its fall had a tremendous effect +on the imagination of men; for in being generally recognised as +heralding the collapse of the old world, it not only dispelled +millennial dreams but raised the question as to whether the Church +itself was also destined to perish with the secular order. It was +answered by St. Augustine, who, in the succeeding years, wrote his great +treatise on Christian political philosophy, *De Civitate Dei*---The City +of God---to restore Faith to the world. In it he completely identified +the Church with the Kingdom. The old Roman Empire was tottering to its +fall ; the Church stood fast, ready to step into its inheritance. Others +before him may have taken the same view. Yet he was the first who +ventured to teach that the Visible Church was the Kingdom of God, that +the millennial kingdom commenced with the appearance of Christ on earth, +and was therefore an accomplished fact. By this doctrine Augustine gave +a new direction to Western theology, carrying it clear of millennialism, +which very soon became a thing of the past, while certain elements of it +became branded as heretical. But though perhaps it saved the Church at +the moment, it did it by perverting the purpose of Christianity, for in +identifying the Church with the Kingdom it destroyed for ever the +possibility of the redemption of the secular order of society. According +to Augustine's view, the human race is to be divided into two parts, +"the one consisting of those who live according to man, the other of +those who live according to God," which he mystically calls the two +cities, one of which was predestined to reign eternally with God, and +the other to suffer eternal punishment with the devil. While the City of +God is concerned with spiritual values, the City of Satan is of the +earth earthly, though to the question of the relation in which the two +cities stand to one another according to God's purpose he can find no +answer. + +The implications of St. Augustine's position are enormous; for this +division of the human race into two parts involves a terrible +degradation of earthly duties with which the majority of men must of +necessity be primarily concerned. Yet though Augustine attacks the +dualism of Manichaeanism, it is apparent that his own central idea of +the two cities is Manichaean rather than Christian, for it postulates +the divorce of the spiritual from the temporal, while it naturally led +him to identify the Kingdom with the Church. These perversions of the +teaching of Christianity are important because, as the influence of +St. Augustine on the Middle Ages was decisive, they are to be held +accountable for much---perhaps for the defeat of Christianity itself; +for there are some who see the whole Hildebrandine policy, the +controversies between Popes and Emperors, as indeed the "dominion of +grace" of Wycliffe and the predestination of Calvin, which between them +have alienated the world from Christianity, implicit in the pages of *De +Civitate Dei*.[^8] + +In affirming, therefore, the centrality of the doctrine of the Kingdom, +we are not only recalling the Church to its original purpose, but we are +doing something towards purging the Church of its Manichaean tendencies, +which stand between the modern world and the acceptance of the +principles of Christianity. It is important to insist upon these things, +because the world is faced to-day with a situation in many ways +analogous to that which confronted the Roman world in the early part of +the fifth century. The shock of the world-catastrophe has produced an +effect on the minds of men to-day very similar, it is to be imagined, to +the effect that the sack of Rome by Alaric had on Roman society; while +since the War we become daily more conscious that the fabric of society +has been shattered beyond repair\^ And becoming increasingly conscious +of the fleeting nature of the circumstances of life, of the instability +of our material environment, we look round for something that possesses +within itself the elements of permanence, and like St. Augustine we find +it in Christian doctrine. For just as he felt in the crisis through +which the Roman world was passing, that with the collapse of the old +order leadership devolved upon the Church, so we, facing a parallel +situation, are equally convinced that in Christianity is to be found the +key. But its activities will have to be of a fundamentally different +nature; for the problem confronting the world to-day is not how to save +civilisation from an external enemy, but how to save it from internal +corruption and disintegration, while so far from the teachings of +St. Augustine being of any service to us in this task, it is from the +very consequences of his teaching that we need to be saved. For the +great evil to-day is dualism---the consequence of the Manichaeanism with +which he infected Christianity. The separation of the material from the +spiritual has proceeded so far that not only have our politics and +industry become so corrupt that it often seems impossible to bring any +moral influence to bear upon them, but we are caught in the toils of an +economic and industrial system that has made us all its slaves, and +therefore a solution of our problems is not to be found in exalting the +Church as a sanctuary, in providing a refuge to enable men to escape +from the world, but by recalling the Church to its original purpose, as +the instrument for the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Apart from +spiritual influences, it would appear that the normal trend of things is +downwards. For the evidence is only too conclusive that, left to +themselves, men tend so to degenerate that spiritual things are entirely +crowded out of their lives. Circumstances, self-interests, +considerations of expediency all conspire to this end. For it is only +when men are in possession of fixed principles which challenge this +tendency that they have the courage to resist. It is for this reason +that not until men are in possession of a sociology that will define the +Christian attitude towards political and economic questions that they +will be able to make a stand for principles and assert again the claims +of the spirit that the steady process of demoralisation that has +overtaken the modern world will be stopped. Not until then will the tide +be turned, for against economic expediency nothing less than such +principles can stand. # IV. The Life in the Kingdom -It is evident that the condition of society contemplated by -Jesus in His Kingdom was one in which a balance was -maintained between the spiritual and material sides of life. -But as it so happens that left to themselves men tend to -degenerate into materialism, and undue concentration upon -the material side of things tends to choke the spiritual -life, it is necessary, if a balance is to be preserved -between the spiritual and material sides of life, to be for -ever insisting upon the importance of the spiritual life. -Spiritual things must come first. "Take ye no thought -saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, and -wherewithal shall we be clothed (for after all these things -do the Gentiles seek) for your heavenly Father knoweth that -ye have need of these things. But seek ye first the Kingdom -of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be -added unto you." This is the true political economy; it was -the political economy of Christendom; and it is the -political economy to which we must return; for it was -precisely because the Mediaevalists, within certain limits, -pursued this ideal that they were not troubled with the -problem of riches and poverty that perplexes us to-day. -Jesus did not, like modern economists, begin with any -detailed analysis of external conditions, with the relation -of man to his environment, but with the relation of man to -God, confident in the knowledge that if men only believed in -and worshipped the things of the spirit they would not find -the ordering of their economic life a problem of insuperable -difficulty. - -What we understand by industrialism is the organisation of -life and society upon the opposite assumption. It says in so -many words, "Seek ye first material prosperity, and all -other things shall be added unto you." But somehow or other -the promise is not fulfilled. The other things are not -added, while experience is proving that in the long run the -pursuit of riches does not even bring material prosperity. -And there is a reason for this. The concentration of all -effort and mental energy upon material achievement upsets -the spiritual equilibrium of society. It awakens the spirit -of avarice which operates to disintegrate the common life, -and brings in its train great contrasts of wealth and -poverty. Out of these contrasts come pride, envy, jealousy, -national and class hatreds, economic and military warfare, -and finally the destruction of the wealth that has been so -laboriously created. For no civilisation built on a lie can -endure. That, ultimately, is the reason why our civilisation -is breaking down. The pursuit of materialism defeats its own -ends by bringing into existence such a monstrous -disproportion between the material and spiritual sides of -life that the spiritual is incapable of shaping the material -to human and social ends. - -Spiritual values must come first because the first thing to -be considered in the arrangements of any social order is the -quality of life which men live. In Socialist theory and -propaganda this is considered a matter of no relevance. -Every individual is to be at liberty to live just as he -likes, to do whatever takes his fancy, to live a life of -luxury, to acknowledge no restraints except of the grosser -kind which delivers him into the hands of the policeman; for -according to the Socialist point of view all such questions -are entirely personal ones which each individual can decide -for himself, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the -economic problem, which is to be solved as a separate and -detached issue in the domains of politics and industry. But -Jesus thought differently. He did not approach life and -society as a series of separate problems of religion, -morality, politics, art, economics, etc., but as one problem -with many aspects. Further, He did not consider all the -aspects of equal importance. On the contrary. He gave -precedence to the spiritual side of the problem. It was what -men believed and did and worshipped that finally mattered, -and must be attended to first; for spiritual truth was the -leaven that kept life pure and wholesome. The solution of -the economic problem which confronted society in our Lord's -time, much as it does in ours, would be easy if men could be -persuaded to give to spiritual values the first place in -their lives. - -The important thing was the life lived, but the right life -was impossible so long as men were absorbed in material -pursuits and ends. Men had to be born again. The social -problem was something more than a problem of economics. -Rightly considered, it was but the more obtrusive symptom of -an internal spiritual disease that had followed the triumph -of materialism. It was for this reason that He insisted that -"No man can serve two masters: he cannot serve God and -Mammon." - -Looked at from this point of view, the problem confronting -modern society is the problem of how to restore the balance -between the spiritual and material sides of life that have -been so completely upset by a century and a half of -industrialism. There are still, I suppose, in spite of the -War, and the Peace, and the social, economic, and political -confusion that has followed and involved us all, some -cheerful and optimistic people who believe that the present -confusion is but incidental to a state of transition in -which our industrial system will be conquered and redeemed -and man become as much the master of things as he was in the -pre-machine age. But industry becomes daily more complex, -and as it becomes more complex the chances of any such -redemption become more and more remote; for as it increases -in complexity it makes demands on our alertness and -many-sidedness to which our wits and sympathies are unable -to respond. If ever the human spirit is to come again to its -own, if it is to emancipate itself from the tyranny of -things, we shall have no option but to return to simpler -conditions of life and society, such as would reduce the -complexity of our relationships to terms commensurate with -the human understanding. Any idea of subordinating our +It is evident that the condition of society contemplated by Jesus in His +Kingdom was one in which a balance was maintained between the spiritual +and material sides of life. But as it so happens that left to themselves +men tend to degenerate into materialism, and undue concentration upon +the material side of things tends to choke the spiritual life, it is +necessary, if a balance is to be preserved between the spiritual and +material sides of life, to be for ever insisting upon the importance of +the spiritual life. Spiritual things must come first. "Take ye no +thought saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, and +wherewithal shall we be clothed (for after all these things do the +Gentiles seek) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of +these things. But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His +righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." This is +the true political economy; it was the political economy of Christendom; +and it is the political economy to which we must return; for it was +precisely because the Mediaevalists, within certain limits, pursued this +ideal that they were not troubled with the problem of riches and poverty +that perplexes us to-day. Jesus did not, like modern economists, begin +with any detailed analysis of external conditions, with the relation of +man to his environment, but with the relation of man to God, confident +in the knowledge that if men only believed in and worshipped the things +of the spirit they would not find the ordering of their economic life a +problem of insuperable difficulty. + +What we understand by industrialism is the organisation of life and +society upon the opposite assumption. It says in so many words, "Seek ye +first material prosperity, and all other things shall be added unto +you." But somehow or other the promise is not fulfilled. The other +things are not added, while experience is proving that in the long run +the pursuit of riches does not even bring material prosperity. And there +is a reason for this. The concentration of all effort and mental energy +upon material achievement upsets the spiritual equilibrium of society. +It awakens the spirit of avarice which operates to disintegrate the +common life, and brings in its train great contrasts of wealth and +poverty. Out of these contrasts come pride, envy, jealousy, national and +class hatreds, economic and military warfare, and finally the +destruction of the wealth that has been so laboriously created. For no +civilisation built on a lie can endure. That, ultimately, is the reason +why our civilisation is breaking down. The pursuit of materialism +defeats its own ends by bringing into existence such a monstrous +disproportion between the material and spiritual sides of life that the +spiritual is incapable of shaping the material to human and social ends. + +Spiritual values must come first because the first thing to be +considered in the arrangements of any social order is the quality of +life which men live. In Socialist theory and propaganda this is +considered a matter of no relevance. Every individual is to be at +liberty to live just as he likes, to do whatever takes his fancy, to +live a life of luxury, to acknowledge no restraints except of the +grosser kind which delivers him into the hands of the policeman; for +according to the Socialist point of view all such questions are entirely +personal ones which each individual can decide for himself, and have +nothing whatsoever to do with the economic problem, which is to be +solved as a separate and detached issue in the domains of politics and +industry. But Jesus thought differently. He did not approach life and +society as a series of separate problems of religion, morality, +politics, art, economics, etc., but as one problem with many aspects. +Further, He did not consider all the aspects of equal importance. On the +contrary. He gave precedence to the spiritual side of the problem. It +was what men believed and did and worshipped that finally mattered, and +must be attended to first; for spiritual truth was the leaven that kept +life pure and wholesome. The solution of the economic problem which +confronted society in our Lord's time, much as it does in ours, would be +easy if men could be persuaded to give to spiritual values the first +place in their lives. + +The important thing was the life lived, but the right life was +impossible so long as men were absorbed in material pursuits and ends. +Men had to be born again. The social problem was something more than a +problem of economics. Rightly considered, it was but the more obtrusive +symptom of an internal spiritual disease that had followed the triumph +of materialism. It was for this reason that He insisted that "No man can +serve two masters: he cannot serve God and Mammon." + +Looked at from this point of view, the problem confronting modern +society is the problem of how to restore the balance between the +spiritual and material sides of life that have been so completely upset +by a century and a half of industrialism. There are still, I suppose, in +spite of the War, and the Peace, and the social, economic, and political +confusion that has followed and involved us all, some cheerful and +optimistic people who believe that the present confusion is but +incidental to a state of transition in which our industrial system will +be conquered and redeemed and man become as much the master of things as +he was in the pre-machine age. But industry becomes daily more complex, +and as it becomes more complex the chances of any such redemption become +more and more remote; for as it increases in complexity it makes demands +on our alertness and many-sidedness to which our wits and sympathies are +unable to respond. If ever the human spirit is to come again to its own, +if it is to emancipate itself from the tyranny of things, we shall have +no option but to return to simpler conditions of life and society, such +as would reduce the complexity of our relationships to terms +commensurate with the human understanding. Any idea of subordinating our industrial system to moral, aesthetic, and religious ends by -"spiritualising the machine," as some define their aim, is -vain and impossible. You might as well try to spiritualise a -crocodile. - -Industrialism came into existence for material and not for -spiritual ends, and will obey the laws of its own being to -the finish; for as it proceeds it excludes from its ranks -all who serve other ends. Fifty years ago, before -industrialism finally conquered, it might have been redeemed -if men had been persuaded of the necessity. But fifty years -ago men were too much hypnotised by machinery; they were too -much enthralled by the unexplored possibilities of -mechanical production to listen to the words of warning -Ruskin and others so plainly uttered. - -In such circumstances, if the balance between the spiritual -and material sides of life is to be restored, we must be -prepared to renounce mechanical methods of production -wherever they are found to stand in the way of the spiritual -life; for it is only by putting spiritual things first that -society may be reconstructed. All my reasoning on the social -problem brings me to this conclusion, and I am strengthened -in my conviction that such is the case by the knowledge that -Jesus Christ insisted always on the primacy of spiritual -things. It is not through revolutionary upheavals but -through an awakened spiritual consciousness that mankind -will grope its way out of chaos. But I fear that it may -prove difficult to persuade the working class, who are the -principal sufferers in our social confusion, that the social -problem is primarily a spiritual one. They are confronted in -their lives by hard material facts. Their crying need is for -the opportunity of self-development which poverty has denied -them. It is not surprising, therefore, that they should come -to the conclusion that the problem is primarily a material -one and should view with suspicion all who affirm the -contrary, as people who seek to betray them. All the same, -it is an illusion, for, as Mr. Tawney recently put it, "to -say that poverty is the greatest evil is to give sanction to -the idea that riches is the greatest good," and therefore to -misdirect reform activities by urging them towards a goal -that is not only false but positively vicious. It is for -this reason that it is no accident that all efforts to -secure reform on a purely material basis should have failed; -for nothing militates against clear thinking on social -questions and really effective action so much as the desire -to be immediately practical, for in practice it means that -short-sighted views come to be preferred to long ones; and -that is the curse from which we should pray to be delivered. - -But it will be said the Labour movement is a spiritual -revival, inasmuch as it is an attempt to express the spirit -of Jesus in everyday life. This is true up to a certain -point; for it is not to be denied that with an altruism that -gives the lie to their theory that material factors have -finally determined the course of history, the Labour -movement has been a source of real inspiration to thousands, -leading them to throw their energies into the attempt to -secure for others those opportunities which have been denied -themselves. Yet it cannot but appear as an anomaly that a -movement of such spiritual potentiality should subscribe to -the tenets of a philosophy that rests upon material values, -while there can be no doubt that this contradiction lies at -the root of the failure of Labour, thwarting their every -effort to achieve emancipation. It is a heresy, and like all -heresies it leads to quarrels and dissensions; for in every -crisis the Labour movement becomes a house divided against -itself. +"spiritualising the machine," as some define their aim, is vain and +impossible. You might as well try to spiritualise a crocodile. + +Industrialism came into existence for material and not for spiritual +ends, and will obey the laws of its own being to the finish; for as it +proceeds it excludes from its ranks all who serve other ends. Fifty +years ago, before industrialism finally conquered, it might have been +redeemed if men had been persuaded of the necessity. But fifty years ago +men were too much hypnotised by machinery; they were too much enthralled +by the unexplored possibilities of mechanical production to listen to +the words of warning Ruskin and others so plainly uttered. + +In such circumstances, if the balance between the spiritual and material +sides of life is to be restored, we must be prepared to renounce +mechanical methods of production wherever they are found to stand in the +way of the spiritual life; for it is only by putting spiritual things +first that society may be reconstructed. All my reasoning on the social +problem brings me to this conclusion, and I am strengthened in my +conviction that such is the case by the knowledge that Jesus Christ +insisted always on the primacy of spiritual things. It is not through +revolutionary upheavals but through an awakened spiritual consciousness +that mankind will grope its way out of chaos. But I fear that it may +prove difficult to persuade the working class, who are the principal +sufferers in our social confusion, that the social problem is primarily +a spiritual one. They are confronted in their lives by hard material +facts. Their crying need is for the opportunity of self-development +which poverty has denied them. It is not surprising, therefore, that +they should come to the conclusion that the problem is primarily a +material one and should view with suspicion all who affirm the contrary, +as people who seek to betray them. All the same, it is an illusion, for, +as Mr. Tawney recently put it, "to say that poverty is the greatest evil +is to give sanction to the idea that riches is the greatest good," and +therefore to misdirect reform activities by urging them towards a goal +that is not only false but positively vicious. It is for this reason +that it is no accident that all efforts to secure reform on a purely +material basis should have failed; for nothing militates against clear +thinking on social questions and really effective action so much as the +desire to be immediately practical, for in practice it means that +short-sighted views come to be preferred to long ones; and that is the +curse from which we should pray to be delivered. + +But it will be said the Labour movement is a spiritual revival, inasmuch +as it is an attempt to express the spirit of Jesus in everyday life. +This is true up to a certain point; for it is not to be denied that with +an altruism that gives the lie to their theory that material factors +have finally determined the course of history, the Labour movement has +been a source of real inspiration to thousands, leading them to throw +their energies into the attempt to secure for others those opportunities +which have been denied themselves. Yet it cannot but appear as an +anomaly that a movement of such spiritual potentiality should subscribe +to the tenets of a philosophy that rests upon material values, while +there can be no doubt that this contradiction lies at the root of the +failure of Labour, thwarting their every effort to achieve emancipation. +It is a heresy, and like all heresies it leads to quarrels and +dissensions; for in every crisis the Labour movement becomes a house +divided against itself. # V. The Great Commandment of the Law -We saw that in the mind of Jesus the most fundamental -requisite for social salvation was a willingness on the part -of men to acknowledge the primacy of spiritual things, since -only on this assumption could a balance be maintained -between the spiritual and material sides of life. But it is -necessary for another reason. Unless men consent to put -spiritual things first, they cannot finally unite among one -another; for in that case the cement will be lacking to bind -men together in the bonds of brotherhood. Hence it was that -in answer to a lawyer who asked what was the great -commandment of the law Jesus replied, "Thou shalt love the -Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all -thy mind, and with all thy strength. And the second is like -unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these -two commandments hang all the law and the prophets," thereby -affirming the primacy of spiritual values as the only -possible basis for a common or corporate life. - -Let me quote in this connection the words of Señor de -Maeztu: "The commandment," he says, "which compels me to -love my neighbour as myself, does not tell me how to love my -neighbour, for it does not tell me how I ought to love -myself. There are happy moments when I love for myself -truth, justice and the tragic and supreme beauty of -sacrifice. There are other moments when I love for myself -flattery, although it may be false; power, although it may -be stolen; and pleasure, although it may degrade both my -body and mind. And if 1 love my neighbour as myself, why -should I not also love for my neighbour false flattery, -usurped power, and degrading pleasures? And this supposition -is not merely imaginative. The altruistic drunkard wants his -neighbours to get drunk; and the voluptuary is usually an -altruist in the sense that he wants the greatest possible -diffusion of his vices... - -"Love of one's neighbour does not acquire a positive value -except when it depends upon the first and great commandment, -which is the love of God. Non-religious persons may reply -that they do not know what is being asked of them when they -are told to love God... What we assert is that love of -cultural values is love of the Divine Substance, and -therefore love of God. - -"But to the first and great commandment Jesus added the -second, 'Love thy neighbour as thyself,' and it was -necessary to add this, for the men who have come to love God -in His substance, or in His Person, have known the -temptation of feeling a certain repugnance towards their -neighbour and towards themselves. He who loves the good, -easily falls into the sin of not loving man; for man is a -sinner; he who loves truth feels more pity than love for -this poor human reason, whose limitations are as familiar to -him as they are painful. And he who loves the power that -preserves and increases goodness and truth, easily yields to -the temptation of despising his own weakness and the -weakness of his neighbour. And yet we must love man, for the -love of man is necessary for the preservation of truth in -the world. With all his limitations, we hope that man is -carrying out some function in the world; for otherwise we -could find no meaning in his existence. The man who loves -God must be commanded to love his neighbour and himself, for -he is the one who realises better the faults of human -kind... If a human society is a partnership in cultural -values, its constitution is desirable, and then the -fellowship of its members must be added to it to make it +We saw that in the mind of Jesus the most fundamental requisite for +social salvation was a willingness on the part of men to acknowledge the +primacy of spiritual things, since only on this assumption could a +balance be maintained between the spiritual and material sides of life. +But it is necessary for another reason. Unless men consent to put +spiritual things first, they cannot finally unite among one another; for +in that case the cement will be lacking to bind men together in the +bonds of brotherhood. Hence it was that in answer to a lawyer who asked +what was the great commandment of the law Jesus replied, "Thou shalt +love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all +thy mind, and with all thy strength. And the second is like unto it. +Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang +all the law and the prophets," thereby affirming the primacy of +spiritual values as the only possible basis for a common or corporate +life. + +Let me quote in this connection the words of Señor de Maeztu: "The +commandment," he says, "which compels me to love my neighbour as myself, +does not tell me how to love my neighbour, for it does not tell me how I +ought to love myself. There are happy moments when I love for myself +truth, justice and the tragic and supreme beauty of sacrifice. There are +other moments when I love for myself flattery, although it may be false; +power, although it may be stolen; and pleasure, although it may degrade +both my body and mind. And if 1 love my neighbour as myself, why should +I not also love for my neighbour false flattery, usurped power, and +degrading pleasures? And this supposition is not merely imaginative. The +altruistic drunkard wants his neighbours to get drunk; and the +voluptuary is usually an altruist in the sense that he wants the +greatest possible diffusion of his vices... + +"Love of one's neighbour does not acquire a positive value except when +it depends upon the first and great commandment, which is the love of +God. Non-religious persons may reply that they do not know what is being +asked of them when they are told to love God... What we assert is that +love of cultural values is love of the Divine Substance, and therefore +love of God. + +"But to the first and great commandment Jesus added the second, 'Love +thy neighbour as thyself,' and it was necessary to add this, for the men +who have come to love God in His substance, or in His Person, have known +the temptation of feeling a certain repugnance towards their neighbour +and towards themselves. He who loves the good, easily falls into the sin +of not loving man; for man is a sinner; he who loves truth feels more +pity than love for this poor human reason, whose limitations are as +familiar to him as they are painful. And he who loves the power that +preserves and increases goodness and truth, easily yields to the +temptation of despising his own weakness and the weakness of his +neighbour. And yet we must love man, for the love of man is necessary +for the preservation of truth in the world. With all his limitations, we +hope that man is carrying out some function in the world; for otherwise +we could find no meaning in his existence. The man who loves God must be +commanded to love his neighbour and himself, for he is the one who +realises better the faults of human kind... If a human society is a +partnership in cultural values, its constitution is desirable, and then +the fellowship of its members must be added to it to make it prosper."[^9] -Perhaps now we may begin to understand upon what basis a -Christian sociology must rest. It is upon the mutual -dependence of the love of God and one's neighbour. Neither -of these commandments can stand alone. A right relationship -with God is necessary to a right relationship with men and -*vice versa*. But it has been the error of Socialists to -suppose that it is possible to build up a new social system -upon the love of one's neighbour whilst ignoring the -necessity for any love of God in his Person or in his -Substance, giving to material values the primacy that -belongs to the spiritual. And this has led to an inversion -of the natural order of things, in which the will of the -people takes the place of the will of God. *Vox populi, vox -Dei*. There are times when the voice of the people is -clearly the voice of God. When the people rebel against -injustice we may be assured that God is with them. But the -voice of the people is raised at times for other causes at -the bidding of selfish interests. And Christians, at any -rate, should not forget that it was raised to crucify their -Lord. It is therefore necessary to discriminate. - -If Christ came to-day, it may be assumed that the common -people would hear Him gladly. But can we be sure they would -follow Him to the end? A conflict between Him and the people -would perhaps be inevitable. For the majority of people are -short-sighted and are apt to become very impatient with -those who take longer views. This is one of the difficulties -connected with democracy. However much we may sympathise -with the people in their sufferings, however much we may -wish to see their grievances redressed, let us not lose -sight of this fact. They are ready to listen to those who -flatter them, who tell them that nothing can stand in the -way of the consummation of their will, who hold out promises -to them that they do not know how to fulfil, but they are by -no means so ready to listen to those who tell them the truth -when it conflicts with their own immediate desires and -interests. And it is because of this that evil is so -powerful in the world. The whole power of evil rests -ultimately upon its capacity to offer immediate advantages. -It tempts men by pleasures that it may hold them in its -grip. It builds up a power to enslave men in their capacity -as producers by making itself subservient to their whims as -consumers. It persuades men to sell their birthright for a -mess of pottage. And so it is, unless people are willing to -acknowledge and serve some higher principle than is dictated -by their own appetites and desires, there can be for them no -hope of social salvation. For so long as they remain the -slaves of their own desires, capitalism will be able to -devise some means of exploiting them. - -Meanwhile the democratic movement suffers from a conflict of -wills. This perplexity follows naturally from the fact that -a power built up by an appeal to selfish interests cannot be -used for the enforcement of unselfish principles, and -disappointment with attempts to do so creates a spirit of -resentment in the hearts of those who expected most. -Democracy in its despair has come to repudiate its own -leaders. This nemesis of democracy is the natural -consequence of attempting to separate the love of one's -neighbour from the love of God.' For when men cease to love -God in His Person or in His Substance there no longer exists -any common bond of sympathy and understanding between the -people and their natural leaders. There is no cement to bind -together men of different grades of intelligence, as was the -case in the Middle Ages, when king and peasant, priest and -craftsman were bound together by a common religious -tradition which, however much they might disagree, was -stronger than their differences. In the absence of this -shared and common tradition, the wise are no longer -understood of the people, and they tend to drift apart -because they do not readily discover points of contact. And -when the wise are gone the end is in sight. The people begin -to follow the leadership of those who make themselves -subservient to their every whim, who flatter their Vanity, -and make promises that they do not know how to fulfil until -the day of reckoning comes and rebellion against all -leadership whatsoever manifests itself in the rank-and-file. -This is the explanation of the democratic temper to-day. -Rightly interpreted, the rebellion against leadership is not -a rebellion against all leadership, but against false -leadership. And as such, it is finally a rebellion against -the very doctrines in which the workers profess to believe; -against an ideal of democracy that would separate love of -one's neighbour from the love of God. +Perhaps now we may begin to understand upon what basis a Christian +sociology must rest. It is upon the mutual dependence of the love of God +and one's neighbour. Neither of these commandments can stand alone. A +right relationship with God is necessary to a right relationship with +men and *vice versa*. But it has been the error of Socialists to suppose +that it is possible to build up a new social system upon the love of +one's neighbour whilst ignoring the necessity for any love of God in his +Person or in his Substance, giving to material values the primacy that +belongs to the spiritual. And this has led to an inversion of the +natural order of things, in which the will of the people takes the place +of the will of God. *Vox populi, vox Dei*. There are times when the +voice of the people is clearly the voice of God. When the people rebel +against injustice we may be assured that God is with them. But the voice +of the people is raised at times for other causes at the bidding of +selfish interests. And Christians, at any rate, should not forget that +it was raised to crucify their Lord. It is therefore necessary to +discriminate. + +If Christ came to-day, it may be assumed that the common people would +hear Him gladly. But can we be sure they would follow Him to the end? A +conflict between Him and the people would perhaps be inevitable. For the +majority of people are short-sighted and are apt to become very +impatient with those who take longer views. This is one of the +difficulties connected with democracy. However much we may sympathise +with the people in their sufferings, however much we may wish to see +their grievances redressed, let us not lose sight of this fact. They are +ready to listen to those who flatter them, who tell them that nothing +can stand in the way of the consummation of their will, who hold out +promises to them that they do not know how to fulfil, but they are by no +means so ready to listen to those who tell them the truth when it +conflicts with their own immediate desires and interests. And it is +because of this that evil is so powerful in the world. The whole power +of evil rests ultimately upon its capacity to offer immediate +advantages. It tempts men by pleasures that it may hold them in its +grip. It builds up a power to enslave men in their capacity as producers +by making itself subservient to their whims as consumers. It persuades +men to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage. And so it is, unless +people are willing to acknowledge and serve some higher principle than +is dictated by their own appetites and desires, there can be for them no +hope of social salvation. For so long as they remain the slaves of their +own desires, capitalism will be able to devise some means of exploiting +them. + +Meanwhile the democratic movement suffers from a conflict of wills. This +perplexity follows naturally from the fact that a power built up by an +appeal to selfish interests cannot be used for the enforcement of +unselfish principles, and disappointment with attempts to do so creates +a spirit of resentment in the hearts of those who expected most. +Democracy in its despair has come to repudiate its own leaders. This +nemesis of democracy is the natural consequence of attempting to +separate the love of one's neighbour from the love of God.' For when men +cease to love God in His Person or in His Substance there no longer +exists any common bond of sympathy and understanding between the people +and their natural leaders. There is no cement to bind together men of +different grades of intelligence, as was the case in the Middle Ages, +when king and peasant, priest and craftsman were bound together by a +common religious tradition which, however much they might disagree, was +stronger than their differences. In the absence of this shared and +common tradition, the wise are no longer understood of the people, and +they tend to drift apart because they do not readily discover points of +contact. And when the wise are gone the end is in sight. The people +begin to follow the leadership of those who make themselves subservient +to their every whim, who flatter their Vanity, and make promises that +they do not know how to fulfil until the day of reckoning comes and +rebellion against all leadership whatsoever manifests itself in the +rank-and-file. This is the explanation of the democratic temper to-day. +Rightly interpreted, the rebellion against leadership is not a rebellion +against all leadership, but against false leadership. And as such, it is +finally a rebellion against the very doctrines in which the workers +profess to believe; against an ideal of democracy that would separate +love of one's neighbour from the love of God. # VI. The Church and the Common Mind -We saw that the basis of a Christian sociology was to be -found in the mutual dependence of the love of God and one's -neighbour. But if ideas are to exercise a permanent -influence on the world of affairs, it is essential for them -to be embodied in institutions. Hence the Church, which our -Lord founded and left behind Him to continue the work He had -begun. It was, as we saw, not to be regarded as an end in -itself, such as it has come to be, but as an instrument for -the establishment of the Kingdom of God. - -But though Jesus meant that the Church was to be considered -as a means rather than an end, He did not mean that a time -would ever come when the Kingdom would be established once -and for ever; because, as a matter of fact, in the sense of -finality it never can be established. On the contrary, if it -is to continue living, its life must be renewed daily; and -it is for this reason that the Church as a visible and -organised institution will always be necessary. It will -always be necessary, moreover, because Christianity is the -religion of the Incarnation. Spirit and form, soul and body -cannot by the essential principle of faith be divided. To -bring about harmony between them, between the inner and the -outward life, between truth and its visible expression. -between religion and civilisation is the task to which -Christianity is committed. And as there can be no finality -in these things, the Church will always be necessary to -effect renewal and adjustment. - -From a sociological point of view, the first function of the -Church is to maintain in society the acceptance of common -standards of thought and morals. This is a necessary -condition of any stable social order, because if men are to -share a common life they must share a common mind, for there -must be a common mind if men are to act together. We have -moved so far away from the thought and impulse of the Middle -Ages that there are few to-day who recognise the fundamental -importance of the common mind to any successful ordering of -our social arrangements. Yet it is only necessary to reflect -on the general social and political situation to-day to -realise that in recognising its importance the Mediaevalists -were right while the Modernists in failing to do so are -wrong. What is the secret of the apathy of the present day -The immediate cause is, doubtless, disillusionment. For -centuries society has worshipped at the shrine of mammon, -science, and mechanism. Men saw the immediate advantages -which followed their surrender to them, while they concealed -from themselves their evil side, which was tolerated, nay, -justified, as incidental to the cause of progress. They -refused to judge this development by any fixed standard of -right and wrong, preferring to take their stand on the -doctrine of evolution according to which any evil can be -justified as a temporary phenomenon inevitable to a time of -transition on the assumption that truth and justice will -prevail in the end. But it has not worked out as expected. -Experience has proved that figs do not grow on thistles, -though the culture may be scientific. The pursuit of wealth -has not resulted in a more equitable distribution, as Adam -Smith prophesied, but has widened the gulf between rich and -poor, while it is seen to end in widespread unemployment. It -has corrupted business and politics, concentrated power, and -built up irresponsible and impersonal tyrannies. Our -industrial system has not liberated but enslaved men, while -it uses up raw materials at such an alarming rate that the -problem of securing new supplies has become a perpetual -menace to peace. It is for such reasons that the feeling -grows that modern civilisation is breaking up, while -science, as detached as ever, invents poison-gas to ensure -that the destruction shall be complete. - -It is easy to understand why the awakening of the world to -these perils should have led to some disillusionment. But -the disillusionment would not have led to apathy but for -another thing. The man of to-day has no idea how to stop the -rot that threatens civilisation; and he has no idea how to -stop it because there is no longer in existence a common -mind; and because the common mind no longer exists it is -impossible to secure any widespread agreement as to what -requires to be done. For so long have men enjoyed freedom of -thought and speech, for so long has such freedom been -exalted as an end in itself, for so long has every false -prophet who attacked the very foundations of right thinking -and feeling enjoyed immunity, that the average mind to-day -is in such a hopeless state of confusion about everything -that it is impossible to get agreement about anything that -really matters. And so it comes about that in the absence of -any positive idea on which to unite, men to-day associate -for negative purposes---not to promote what is right, but to +We saw that the basis of a Christian sociology was to be found in the +mutual dependence of the love of God and one's neighbour. But if ideas +are to exercise a permanent influence on the world of affairs, it is +essential for them to be embodied in institutions. Hence the Church, +which our Lord founded and left behind Him to continue the work He had +begun. It was, as we saw, not to be regarded as an end in itself, such +as it has come to be, but as an instrument for the establishment of the +Kingdom of God. + +But though Jesus meant that the Church was to be considered as a means +rather than an end, He did not mean that a time would ever come when the +Kingdom would be established once and for ever; because, as a matter of +fact, in the sense of finality it never can be established. On the +contrary, if it is to continue living, its life must be renewed daily; +and it is for this reason that the Church as a visible and organised +institution will always be necessary. It will always be necessary, +moreover, because Christianity is the religion of the Incarnation. +Spirit and form, soul and body cannot by the essential principle of +faith be divided. To bring about harmony between them, between the inner +and the outward life, between truth and its visible expression. between +religion and civilisation is the task to which Christianity is +committed. And as there can be no finality in these things, the Church +will always be necessary to effect renewal and adjustment. + +From a sociological point of view, the first function of the Church is +to maintain in society the acceptance of common standards of thought and +morals. This is a necessary condition of any stable social order, +because if men are to share a common life they must share a common mind, +for there must be a common mind if men are to act together. We have +moved so far away from the thought and impulse of the Middle Ages that +there are few to-day who recognise the fundamental importance of the +common mind to any successful ordering of our social arrangements. Yet +it is only necessary to reflect on the general social and political +situation to-day to realise that in recognising its importance the +Mediaevalists were right while the Modernists in failing to do so are +wrong. What is the secret of the apathy of the present day The immediate +cause is, doubtless, disillusionment. For centuries society has +worshipped at the shrine of mammon, science, and mechanism. Men saw the +immediate advantages which followed their surrender to them, while they +concealed from themselves their evil side, which was tolerated, nay, +justified, as incidental to the cause of progress. They refused to judge +this development by any fixed standard of right and wrong, preferring to +take their stand on the doctrine of evolution according to which any +evil can be justified as a temporary phenomenon inevitable to a time of +transition on the assumption that truth and justice will prevail in the +end. But it has not worked out as expected. Experience has proved that +figs do not grow on thistles, though the culture may be scientific. The +pursuit of wealth has not resulted in a more equitable distribution, as +Adam Smith prophesied, but has widened the gulf between rich and poor, +while it is seen to end in widespread unemployment. It has corrupted +business and politics, concentrated power, and built up irresponsible +and impersonal tyrannies. Our industrial system has not liberated but +enslaved men, while it uses up raw materials at such an alarming rate +that the problem of securing new supplies has become a perpetual menace +to peace. It is for such reasons that the feeling grows that modern +civilisation is breaking up, while science, as detached as ever, invents +poison-gas to ensure that the destruction shall be complete. + +It is easy to understand why the awakening of the world to these perils +should have led to some disillusionment. But the disillusionment would +not have led to apathy but for another thing. The man of to-day has no +idea how to stop the rot that threatens civilisation; and he has no idea +how to stop it because there is no longer in existence a common mind; +and because the common mind no longer exists it is impossible to secure +any widespread agreement as to what requires to be done. For so long +have men enjoyed freedom of thought and speech, for so long has such +freedom been exalted as an end in itself, for so long has every false +prophet who attacked the very foundations of right thinking and feeling +enjoyed immunity, that the average mind to-day is in such a hopeless +state of confusion about everything that it is impossible to get +agreement about anything that really matters. And so it comes about that +in the absence of any positive idea on which to unite, men to-day +associate for negative purposes---not to promote what is right, but to denounce what is wrong; for after all, Socialist schemes of -reconstruction are little more than organised negations, as -the Labour Party's election manifesto bears witness. The -desperate position in which, owing to the disappearance of a -common mind, men find themselves to-day makes them attempt -to co-operate by sinking their differences, on the -assumption that the attainment of power is the first thing -necessary to social salvation. But all such attempts avail -nothing; for a power that is built up by sinking differences -is not a real power but a sham one, that goes to pieces -wherever it comes into collision with realities. It is for -this reason that the Labour Party tends to lose effective -strength in proportion as it grows in numbers. Its recent -accession of strength[^10] enables its voice to be heard, -and will doubtless result in many things being done to -mitigate existing evils that would not be done but for the -fear of a Labour Government. To this extent the Party is -doing useful work. Yet the voice it raises is finally the -voice of protest and negation rather than of a prophetic and -constructive vision. The members of the Party can unite in -their protests against war, on behalf of the unemployed, to -prevent the decontrol of rents and in their attacks upon -capital. But their points of agreement are superficial, -while their disagreements are fundamental, and so it is an -open question as to how long they will be able to remain -united; for having put their trust in numbers rather than in -clear thinking, their faith has become an amorphous -conglomeration of conflicting beliefs, and it needs but the -shock of reality to expose its weakness. - -In these circumstances not only do we see the urgency of -re-creating the common mind, but we begin to understand why -in former times heresy was suppressed. It was suppressed -because when men had a firm grip of fundamental truth they -realised that any idea that attacked the unity of the Faith -threatened the existence of the common mind, and therefore -the stability of society by undermining its capacity to -resist evil influences. It was for this reason that in the -Middle Ages the heretic was looked upon as a traitor to -society, and why for centuries the suppression of heresy was -a popular movement. We miss the significance of this -suppression if we assume that it was undertaken solely for -ecclesiastical reasons. On the contrary, it is to be -observed that the suppression of heresy has, with -exceptions, been undertaken from secular rather than -religious motives, and by civil rather than ecclesiastical -authorities, while there is nothing peculiarly Christian or -Mediaeval about it. The Greeks condemned Socrates to death -because it was held that his teaching undermined respect for -the gods, while Plato finally came to the conclusion that to -doubt the gods should be a crime punishable by death. The -Roman Emperors persecuted the Christians for refusing -observance of the gods, while it was the best Emperors who -were opposed to the advance of Christianity and the worst -ones who were indifferent to its encroachment---Marcus -Aurelius himself being no exception to this rule. And what -is more interesting, it was not until Christianity became -the official religion of the Empire that there was any -persecution of heretics in the interests of Christianity. -Then the successors of Constantine, continuing in the -persuasion of the Pagan Emperors that the first concern of -the imperial authority was the protection of religion, -persecuted men for not being Christians in the same spirit -that their predecessors persecuted men because they were -Christians. The same is true of the spirit in which heretics -were persecuted by the Church. For it was not until the -Papacy became a secular power that it began to persecute -heretics, while the most active in their persecutions were -the great Popes rather than the average ones, and all the -great Popes, as Mr. McCabe points out,[^11] were canonists -rather than theologians. Such persecutions, however, did not -necessarily involve the death penalty, which was reserved -for the very exceptional and obstinate cases; for, generally -speaking, the opinion prevailed among influential -ecclesiastics that while the civil arm might be employed to -deal with heretics by prohibiting assemblies and in other -ways preventing them from spreading their views, the death -penalty was contrary to the spirit of the Gospel. And this -attitude continued until the close of the twelfth century, -when, owing to the spread of the heresy of the Albigenses -(which, owing to the support of the nobility of Southern -France, presented the aspect of a powerful political party -in addition to that of an heretical sect), the attitude of -the Church changed. The Church was terribly afraid of this -new spirit, which she considered not only menaced her own -existence but the very foundations of society as well, and -in the end she shrank from no cruelty that she might be rid -of it for ever. The persecution of the Albigenses was the -great crime of the Middle Ages, but it is interesting to -observe that Innocent III, who instigated the persecution, -was a canonist rather than a theologian. - -Sufficient has now been said to demonstrate that the -suppression of heresy was undertaken for social rather than -religious reasons; because men felt that the promotion of -ideas which destroyed the unity of the Faith was subversive -of the social order. As to whether they were right in -supposing that force was the remedy is quite another matter. -But this much is certain: that men in the past were right in -regarding the preservation of the common mind as a matter of -supreme and fundamental importance to the stability of -society; while it is equally certain that any solution of -our difficulties at the present day involves its recovery; -for if order is to be restored to the world, it will have to -make its appearance first in the mind of man. And if order -is to make its appearance in the mind of man, it will be -because the world returns to Christianity. In the break-up -of the modern world Christianity is the one thing that is -left standing. Its principles are still vaguely accepted by -an enormous mass of people to-day, and that is why it must -become the new centre of order---a rallying point from which -the traditions of society, of a common mind, can be -re-created. - -But it will be said: If we are to wait until a revival of -Christianity is an accomplished fact we are lost, for the -problem confronting society develops with such rapidity, and -we cannot expect any wholesale conversions of men to -Christianity. To which I answer that I am speaking of the -ultimate solution, not of immediate measures. But it would -clarify our thinking enormously about practical measures if -we considered them in the light of Christianity instead of -in the light of the materialist philosophy. It is for this -reason that the formulation and popularisation of a -definitely Christian sociology which would relate the -principles and forms of social organisation to the -principles of Christianity is a matter of urgency. For in -this our immediate task of re-creating the common mind, we -cannot rely upon any purely educational propaganda which -would aim direct at the creation of common standards of -thought and morals; for such a propaganda would lack the -definiteness necessary to the crystallisation of thought. It -is for this reason that there remains but one path of -approach---to approach the spiritual through the material. -We must meet the public half-way, bringing light to bear -upon the problems in which they are interested, tackling the -concrete realities of life and society. By such means the -principles of Christianity would be brought into a close and -definite relationship with the thought of to-day. And from -the union would be born a common mind. +reconstruction are little more than organised negations, as the Labour +Party's election manifesto bears witness. The desperate position in +which, owing to the disappearance of a common mind, men find themselves +to-day makes them attempt to co-operate by sinking their differences, on +the assumption that the attainment of power is the first thing necessary +to social salvation. But all such attempts avail nothing; for a power +that is built up by sinking differences is not a real power but a sham +one, that goes to pieces wherever it comes into collision with +realities. It is for this reason that the Labour Party tends to lose +effective strength in proportion as it grows in numbers. Its recent +accession of strength[^10] enables its voice to be heard, and will +doubtless result in many things being done to mitigate existing evils +that would not be done but for the fear of a Labour Government. To this +extent the Party is doing useful work. Yet the voice it raises is +finally the voice of protest and negation rather than of a prophetic and +constructive vision. The members of the Party can unite in their +protests against war, on behalf of the unemployed, to prevent the +decontrol of rents and in their attacks upon capital. But their points +of agreement are superficial, while their disagreements are fundamental, +and so it is an open question as to how long they will be able to remain +united; for having put their trust in numbers rather than in clear +thinking, their faith has become an amorphous conglomeration of +conflicting beliefs, and it needs but the shock of reality to expose its +weakness. + +In these circumstances not only do we see the urgency of re-creating the +common mind, but we begin to understand why in former times heresy was +suppressed. It was suppressed because when men had a firm grip of +fundamental truth they realised that any idea that attacked the unity of +the Faith threatened the existence of the common mind, and therefore the +stability of society by undermining its capacity to resist evil +influences. It was for this reason that in the Middle Ages the heretic +was looked upon as a traitor to society, and why for centuries the +suppression of heresy was a popular movement. We miss the significance +of this suppression if we assume that it was undertaken solely for +ecclesiastical reasons. On the contrary, it is to be observed that the +suppression of heresy has, with exceptions, been undertaken from secular +rather than religious motives, and by civil rather than ecclesiastical +authorities, while there is nothing peculiarly Christian or Mediaeval +about it. The Greeks condemned Socrates to death because it was held +that his teaching undermined respect for the gods, while Plato finally +came to the conclusion that to doubt the gods should be a crime +punishable by death. The Roman Emperors persecuted the Christians for +refusing observance of the gods, while it was the best Emperors who were +opposed to the advance of Christianity and the worst ones who were +indifferent to its encroachment---Marcus Aurelius himself being no +exception to this rule. And what is more interesting, it was not until +Christianity became the official religion of the Empire that there was +any persecution of heretics in the interests of Christianity. Then the +successors of Constantine, continuing in the persuasion of the Pagan +Emperors that the first concern of the imperial authority was the +protection of religion, persecuted men for not being Christians in the +same spirit that their predecessors persecuted men because they were +Christians. The same is true of the spirit in which heretics were +persecuted by the Church. For it was not until the Papacy became a +secular power that it began to persecute heretics, while the most active +in their persecutions were the great Popes rather than the average ones, +and all the great Popes, as Mr. McCabe points out,[^11] were canonists +rather than theologians. Such persecutions, however, did not necessarily +involve the death penalty, which was reserved for the very exceptional +and obstinate cases; for, generally speaking, the opinion prevailed +among influential ecclesiastics that while the civil arm might be +employed to deal with heretics by prohibiting assemblies and in other +ways preventing them from spreading their views, the death penalty was +contrary to the spirit of the Gospel. And this attitude continued until +the close of the twelfth century, when, owing to the spread of the +heresy of the Albigenses (which, owing to the support of the nobility of +Southern France, presented the aspect of a powerful political party in +addition to that of an heretical sect), the attitude of the Church +changed. The Church was terribly afraid of this new spirit, which she +considered not only menaced her own existence but the very foundations +of society as well, and in the end she shrank from no cruelty that she +might be rid of it for ever. The persecution of the Albigenses was the +great crime of the Middle Ages, but it is interesting to observe that +Innocent III, who instigated the persecution, was a canonist rather than +a theologian. + +Sufficient has now been said to demonstrate that the suppression of +heresy was undertaken for social rather than religious reasons; because +men felt that the promotion of ideas which destroyed the unity of the +Faith was subversive of the social order. As to whether they were right +in supposing that force was the remedy is quite another matter. But this +much is certain: that men in the past were right in regarding the +preservation of the common mind as a matter of supreme and fundamental +importance to the stability of society; while it is equally certain that +any solution of our difficulties at the present day involves its +recovery; for if order is to be restored to the world, it will have to +make its appearance first in the mind of man. And if order is to make +its appearance in the mind of man, it will be because the world returns +to Christianity. In the break-up of the modern world Christianity is the +one thing that is left standing. Its principles are still vaguely +accepted by an enormous mass of people to-day, and that is why it must +become the new centre of order---a rallying point from which the +traditions of society, of a common mind, can be re-created. + +But it will be said: If we are to wait until a revival of Christianity +is an accomplished fact we are lost, for the problem confronting society +develops with such rapidity, and we cannot expect any wholesale +conversions of men to Christianity. To which I answer that I am speaking +of the ultimate solution, not of immediate measures. But it would +clarify our thinking enormously about practical measures if we +considered them in the light of Christianity instead of in the light of +the materialist philosophy. It is for this reason that the formulation +and popularisation of a definitely Christian sociology which would +relate the principles and forms of social organisation to the principles +of Christianity is a matter of urgency. For in this our immediate task +of re-creating the common mind, we cannot rely upon any purely +educational propaganda which would aim direct at the creation of common +standards of thought and morals; for such a propaganda would lack the +definiteness necessary to the crystallisation of thought. It is for this +reason that there remains but one path of approach---to approach the +spiritual through the material. We must meet the public half-way, +bringing light to bear upon the problems in which they are interested, +tackling the concrete realities of life and society. By such means the +principles of Christianity would be brought into a close and definite +relationship with the thought of to-day. And from the union would be +born a common mind. # VII. The Church and Brotherhood -We saw that from a sociological point of view the first -function of the Church is to maintain in society common -standards of thought and morals; its second is to promote -the brotherhood of mankind. These two functions necessary to -the establishment of the Kingdom of God upon earth -correspond respectively to the two great commandments of the -law upon which Jesus asserted "hang all the law and the -prophets." - -The parallel is identical. For the common mind and the -brotherhood of man are as mutually dependent upon each other -as we saw the commandments to love God and to love one's -neighbour are mutually dependent. They are mutually -dependent because if men are to share a common life they -must share a common mind, while if they are finally to share -a common mind they must share a common life, for anything -that is destructive of the one reacts to destroy the other. -Heresies destroy the common life by destroying the common -mind, while capitalism destroys the common mind by -destroying the common life. Such considerations enforce the -conclusion that neither of these ideas is intelligible apart -from the other. We have considered what is meant by the -common mind; we must now proceed to consider what is meant -by the common life or the brotherhood of man. - -As at the present time popular ideas about brotherhood are -so vague and nebulous, it will clear the air of a great deal -of cant if we begin by saying what it is not. And in this -connection it is to be observed that the brotherhood of man -is not going to be promoted by crying " Peace, peace, where -there is no peace." Brotherhood does not mean bringing all -and sundry together, people who share different traditions, -exploiters and exploited, and demanding that they shall live -henceforth in peace and amity in the sloppy-minded -sentimental way so many Christian bodies set to work. For -brotherhood must be based upon justice, and attempts to -evade the great fundamental injustices of our civilisation -do not bring brotherhood nearer, but postpone it. To ask the -poor to recognise their exploiters as brothers while they -are still unrepentant is to insult them, for such advice, if -followed, would rob them of what honour they have left. For -there can be no forgiveness without repentance. Activity of -this kind has done incalculable harm to the cause of -Christianity, for we may be perfectly assured Jesus would -have no sympathy with action of such an invertebrate -character. If He commanded men to love another, He also -said: "Think not I come to bring peace but a sword." If He -did not preach class hatred, He did attack the ideal of -wealth, not only because it involved injustice to the poor, -but because of its evil effect on the character of the rich. -Pride and avarice, the two sins associated with wealth, are -the two great enemies of the brotherhood of man. They -separate a man from his fellows, cutting him off from the -great currents of love and fellowship, from the great -primary realities of life, causing him to live an artificial -life. If a man is whole hearted in his pursuit of wealth and -sacrifices everything to it, he ends in becoming an empty -husk from which all the sweetness has gone. And in this -state he comes to crave sensation and becomes a prey to -luxury, vice, and pleasure, which he pursues to relieve his -boredom. - -That is the great peril of wealth. And it was because Jesus -saw that there were two sides of the question, inasmuch as -it brought evil into the lives of both the rich and the -poor, that He did not preach class hatred, but attacked the -ideal of wealth. He did not preach class hatred because He -saw that by increasing antagonisms it would postpone rather -than hasten the arrival of human brotherhood. For hatred -only breeds hatred; it does not bring fellowship and love. -Jesus saw that the social problem was not merely a material -question of redistributing wealth and property, but a -spiritual one of changing the ideal of men. And it was -necessary that the ideal be changed first, because any -redistribution of wealth apart from it would not be -permanent; since as long as men worshipped wealth in their -hearts, the same social and economic evils would soon -reappear if a new social order were established, were such a +We saw that from a sociological point of view the first function of the +Church is to maintain in society common standards of thought and morals; +its second is to promote the brotherhood of mankind. These two functions +necessary to the establishment of the Kingdom of God upon earth +correspond respectively to the two great commandments of the law upon +which Jesus asserted "hang all the law and the prophets." + +The parallel is identical. For the common mind and the brotherhood of +man are as mutually dependent upon each other as we saw the commandments +to love God and to love one's neighbour are mutually dependent. They are +mutually dependent because if men are to share a common life they must +share a common mind, while if they are finally to share a common mind +they must share a common life, for anything that is destructive of the +one reacts to destroy the other. Heresies destroy the common life by +destroying the common mind, while capitalism destroys the common mind by +destroying the common life. Such considerations enforce the conclusion +that neither of these ideas is intelligible apart from the other. We +have considered what is meant by the common mind; we must now proceed to +consider what is meant by the common life or the brotherhood of man. + +As at the present time popular ideas about brotherhood are so vague and +nebulous, it will clear the air of a great deal of cant if we begin by +saying what it is not. And in this connection it is to be observed that +the brotherhood of man is not going to be promoted by crying " Peace, +peace, where there is no peace." Brotherhood does not mean bringing all +and sundry together, people who share different traditions, exploiters +and exploited, and demanding that they shall live henceforth in peace +and amity in the sloppy-minded sentimental way so many Christian bodies +set to work. For brotherhood must be based upon justice, and attempts to +evade the great fundamental injustices of our civilisation do not bring +brotherhood nearer, but postpone it. To ask the poor to recognise their +exploiters as brothers while they are still unrepentant is to insult +them, for such advice, if followed, would rob them of what honour they +have left. For there can be no forgiveness without repentance. Activity +of this kind has done incalculable harm to the cause of Christianity, +for we may be perfectly assured Jesus would have no sympathy with action +of such an invertebrate character. If He commanded men to love another, +He also said: "Think not I come to bring peace but a sword." If He did +not preach class hatred, He did attack the ideal of wealth, not only +because it involved injustice to the poor, but because of its evil +effect on the character of the rich. Pride and avarice, the two sins +associated with wealth, are the two great enemies of the brotherhood of +man. They separate a man from his fellows, cutting him off from the +great currents of love and fellowship, from the great primary realities +of life, causing him to live an artificial life. If a man is whole +hearted in his pursuit of wealth and sacrifices everything to it, he +ends in becoming an empty husk from which all the sweetness has gone. +And in this state he comes to crave sensation and becomes a prey to +luxury, vice, and pleasure, which he pursues to relieve his boredom. + +That is the great peril of wealth. And it was because Jesus saw that +there were two sides of the question, inasmuch as it brought evil into +the lives of both the rich and the poor, that He did not preach class +hatred, but attacked the ideal of wealth. He did not preach class hatred +because He saw that by increasing antagonisms it would postpone rather +than hasten the arrival of human brotherhood. For hatred only breeds +hatred; it does not bring fellowship and love. Jesus saw that the social +problem was not merely a material question of redistributing wealth and +property, but a spiritual one of changing the ideal of men. And it was +necessary that the ideal be changed first, because any redistribution of +wealth apart from it would not be permanent; since as long as men +worshipped wealth in their hearts, the same social and economic evils +would soon reappear if a new social order were established, were such a thing possible. -It was because Jesus saw that the evils of wealth had their -roots in the hearts of men that He preached repentance. -Repentance was the first step because it meant a change of -spirit, and this was a precedent condition of material -change. If men come to love God in His Person or in His -Substance, their lives would be filled with something that -would make them indifferent to wealth. They would be lifted -on to a higher plane. And on this higher plane they would -see wealth for what it is. They could use it, and its use -would be good. For being proof against its temptations it -could not enslave them. Thus we see that Socialists, in -concentrating entirely on the material side of the social -problem whilst ignoring the spiritual, are mistaken. It is -true that the existing system of industry gives rise to all -manner of evils, that sweating, overcrowding, unemployment, -shoddy work, adulteration, profiteering, lying, fraud, and a -thousand and one other evils are promoted by it. And to this -extent the average man to-day is very much the victim of -circumstances. But it is not the whole truth. For on the -other hand it is equally true to say that the present -system, with all its vices, is the creation of man; that it -is a manifestation of the evil in the heart of man; of the -active pursuit of avarice by some men, and a passive -acquiescence in it by most men. And it is for this reason -that it is vain to suppose that the brotherhood of man can -be promoted merely by a change of environment. Nay, it is -because of this that it is impossible by means of external -reform considered apart from a change of heart to change for -the better the environment at all, as the failure of +It was because Jesus saw that the evils of wealth had their roots in the +hearts of men that He preached repentance. Repentance was the first step +because it meant a change of spirit, and this was a precedent condition +of material change. If men come to love God in His Person or in His +Substance, their lives would be filled with something that would make +them indifferent to wealth. They would be lifted on to a higher plane. +And on this higher plane they would see wealth for what it is. They +could use it, and its use would be good. For being proof against its +temptations it could not enslave them. Thus we see that Socialists, in +concentrating entirely on the material side of the social problem whilst +ignoring the spiritual, are mistaken. It is true that the existing +system of industry gives rise to all manner of evils, that sweating, +overcrowding, unemployment, shoddy work, adulteration, profiteering, +lying, fraud, and a thousand and one other evils are promoted by it. And +to this extent the average man to-day is very much the victim of +circumstances. But it is not the whole truth. For on the other hand it +is equally true to say that the present system, with all its vices, is +the creation of man; that it is a manifestation of the evil in the heart +of man; of the active pursuit of avarice by some men, and a passive +acquiescence in it by most men. And it is for this reason that it is +vain to suppose that the brotherhood of man can be promoted merely by a +change of environment. Nay, it is because of this that it is impossible +by means of external reform considered apart from a change of heart to +change for the better the environment at all, as the failure of Socialist measures everywhere abundantly testifies. -Among the lessons that are to be learned from the Socialist -failure, there are two which have an immediate bearing on -the point we are discussing. The first of these is that -capitalism will not yield to a frontal attack, and must -therefore be undermined; and the other is that the -realisation of brotherhood can only follow a change in the -spirit of men. Brotherhood is fellowship, and fellowship has -its basis in friendship. It has its origin in groups of -friends who are united in common aims and sympathies; and -the brotherhood of man can only follow the gradual expansion -of such fellowships. It must begin with the details of life, -with neighbourly actions. The Mediaeval Guilds were -fellowships. The word "Guild" originally meant a festival or -sacrificial feast, and was applied subsequently to the -company who thus feasted together. And it would be well if -some of our organisations would revive this Mediaeval -custom, as has already been done by the Adult Schools with -their Sunday morning breakfasts. Fellowship appears to be -indissolubly connected with the taking of meals in common. -For this reason it is necessary to insist that brotherhood -is not primarily a method of organisation, but a way of -life. It is true that as it develops it needs to be -supported by organisation, nevertheless the fact remains -that it is primarily a *life*, which aspect we must to-day -be always insisting upon; for the fundamental importance of -this aspect is almost completely lost sight of in Socialist -economics.[^12] - -In the Middle Ages these things were understood because the -brotherhood of man then reposed upon the Fatherhood of God. -It was this association of the ideal of brotherhood with -that of religion that kept its essentially human basis in -the forefront of people's minds. But with the break-up of -the Middle Ages, accompanied as it was with the decline in -the power and influence of the Church, the defeat of the -Guilds and the formation of great States, and the subsequent -rise of rationalism, the essentially human and religious -basis of brotherhood was lost sight of; and men came to -think of society and social arrangements in the terms of -politics rather than religion, in the belief that reform of -the State rather than of the Church was the key to the -situation. And so it came about that with the French -Revolution the ideal of brotherhood became associated with -political activity, and the State was called upon to -re-create what it had assisted to destroy. And it has -remained associated with political or industrial activity -ever since, with the result that the very conception of -brotherhood has been changed from an idea resting on a -spiritual basis to an idea resting on a material one, from -an idea which concerned itself primarily with the relation -of man to man to an idea which concerns itself primarily -with the relation of man to his environment. Not that the -latter is unimportant, but that the Socialist in always -stressing the need of a change in environment while ignoring -the still more important need of a change in spirit, has in -thought moved farther and farther away from the ideal of -brotherhood, as the incessant quarrels and dissensions -within the movement abundantly testify. Confronted by a -common enemy in the renewed power of capitalism, these -quarrels have perhaps for the moment somewhat abated. Yet we -may be assured that the truce is but temporary, and that -they will reappear with a change of fortune. For peace is -impossible in a movement which no longer shares a common -mind. +Among the lessons that are to be learned from the Socialist failure, +there are two which have an immediate bearing on the point we are +discussing. The first of these is that capitalism will not yield to a +frontal attack, and must therefore be undermined; and the other is that +the realisation of brotherhood can only follow a change in the spirit of +men. Brotherhood is fellowship, and fellowship has its basis in +friendship. It has its origin in groups of friends who are united in +common aims and sympathies; and the brotherhood of man can only follow +the gradual expansion of such fellowships. It must begin with the +details of life, with neighbourly actions. The Mediaeval Guilds were +fellowships. The word "Guild" originally meant a festival or sacrificial +feast, and was applied subsequently to the company who thus feasted +together. And it would be well if some of our organisations would revive +this Mediaeval custom, as has already been done by the Adult Schools +with their Sunday morning breakfasts. Fellowship appears to be +indissolubly connected with the taking of meals in common. For this +reason it is necessary to insist that brotherhood is not primarily a +method of organisation, but a way of life. It is true that as it +develops it needs to be supported by organisation, nevertheless the fact +remains that it is primarily a *life*, which aspect we must to-day be +always insisting upon; for the fundamental importance of this aspect is +almost completely lost sight of in Socialist economics.[^12] + +In the Middle Ages these things were understood because the brotherhood +of man then reposed upon the Fatherhood of God. It was this association +of the ideal of brotherhood with that of religion that kept its +essentially human basis in the forefront of people's minds. But with the +break-up of the Middle Ages, accompanied as it was with the decline in +the power and influence of the Church, the defeat of the Guilds and the +formation of great States, and the subsequent rise of rationalism, the +essentially human and religious basis of brotherhood was lost sight of; +and men came to think of society and social arrangements in the terms of +politics rather than religion, in the belief that reform of the State +rather than of the Church was the key to the situation. And so it came +about that with the French Revolution the ideal of brotherhood became +associated with political activity, and the State was called upon to +re-create what it had assisted to destroy. And it has remained +associated with political or industrial activity ever since, with the +result that the very conception of brotherhood has been changed from an +idea resting on a spiritual basis to an idea resting on a material one, +from an idea which concerned itself primarily with the relation of man +to man to an idea which concerns itself primarily with the relation of +man to his environment. Not that the latter is unimportant, but that the +Socialist in always stressing the need of a change in environment while +ignoring the still more important need of a change in spirit, has in +thought moved farther and farther away from the ideal of brotherhood, as +the incessant quarrels and dissensions within the movement abundantly +testify. Confronted by a common enemy in the renewed power of +capitalism, these quarrels have perhaps for the moment somewhat abated. +Yet we may be assured that the truce is but temporary, and that they +will reappear with a change of fortune. For peace is impossible in a +movement which no longer shares a common mind. # VIII. The Necessity of Law -The brotherhood of man, expressing itself in communist -society, where all share and share alike and private -property is unknown, is the Christian ideal of society. But -such an ideal is not easy of attainment, for it is only -capable of realisation on the assumption that its individual -members will accept a discipline which the majority are not -prepared to do. Hence, while throughout history it has been -a tradition of the Church to uphold the ideal of pure -communism as the best form of organisation for religious -orders, a modified communism which we know by the names of -the corporate or common life has been found to be a more -practicable ideal for the life of the workaday world, -experience having taught men that "private property and -common use," rather than "common property and private -use"---to adopt Father Jarrett's phrase[^13]---was more -adapted to the circumstances of secular society. - -But the unwillingness of the average man to accept a -discipline is not the only difficulty that stands in the way -of the organisation of secular society on a basis of pure -communism. A greater difficulty arises from the fact that in -every society there is to be found a minority of men -actuated by anti-social motives who spurn the ideal of -brotherhood. There is a type of man whom Señor de Maeztu has -designated the "man of prey," whose ruling passion is the -love of wealth and power and who is always ready to -sacrifice the welfare of others to the attainment of his -ambition. In societies where law is weak, such men take to -plunder and robbery. In modern societies where the law is -strong, it is more usual for them to seek their ends by -profiteering and other usurious dealings, by lying, deceit, -and the countless forms of fraudulent gain whereby men are -for ever seeking to gather the riches which will give them -power over others. - -It is because of the existence in every community of such -anti-social types of men who cannot be persuaded to respect -the claims of the common life, that law at all times is a -necessity. It is necessary to protect peaceable and honest -working citizens from the depredations of the men of prey ; -for if the brotherhood of man is ever to be realised in fact -it can only be on the assumption that laws exist to restrain -such men. For just as bad money drives good out of the -market if allowed free circulation, so high standards of -social and commercial life can only be maintained on the -assumption that laws exist to suppress lower ones. But in -our day the State which administers the law has come very -much under the domination of the men of prey, who use it as -an instrument for their purposes; for exploiting the public -and the workers or for the subjugation of other races, while -they do not hesitate to plunge the country on occasion into -war to protect their interests. And because this undoubted -fact has in these days received a wide recognition, an -increasing minority of people have come to regard the State -as the very embodiment of evil; as a mere instrument of -exploitation; as the enemy of society; and are busy -promoting the idea that there can be no social salvation -until the State as we understand it is abolished, while some -have gone so far as to demand "an unarmed Commonwealth of -Friends trained to live by reason, love and freedom."[^14] - -Now it does seem to me that at the present time, when all -manner of evil deeds are being done behind our backs in the -name of the State, when we can get no exact knowledge of -what is going on, when we can no longer believe what the -newspapers tell us, when, in fact, politics have become a -mere puppet show, the strings of which are pulled by -unscrupulous financiers who think only of deals, and when -another war would probably end in the destruction of -civilization, the only possible attitude is the pacifist -one; for the only way to put a stop to such iniquities is to -refuse to support those who commit them. But I do not think -that we are justified in assuming because of the present -iniquity of the State that the State should or could be -abolished, or that armed defence in some form could be -entirely dispensed with; for even if corruption was -eradicated from politics and men of principle did come into -power again, they would not be able to retain power for long -unless they took measures to protect themselves against the -men of prey by the enactment of laws in their restraint and -were prepared to back them up if necessary with force; for -all law rests ultimately upon force. And what is true for -the maintenance of internal order, of protecting society -against the enemy within the gates, is true for protecting -it against enemies outside. For no society, however well -ordered it might be, however much it stands for -righteousness, can be secure against invasion so long as any -people in the world are under the domination of men of the -predatory type. It may be true, as internationalists assert, -that, taken in the mass, men are very much alike all over -the world. But in practical affairs what makes the -difference is the type of man that dominates a civilisation, -for the dominating type gives the tone to a community, and -it is that which in politics must be reckoned with. - -But the feeling to-day against the State does not only rest -on the pacifist objection to the use of force; for the -Communists who believe in the use of force are equally -opposed to it. Their objection is just as fundamental, for -it rests upon the clear apprehension of the fact that the -State has consistently upheld certain evils in society -(which is true), though it should not be forgotten that good -influences as well as bad have been -brought to bear upon -the State. Yet, generally speaking, it is true to say that -laws to-day are made *to enable rich men to live among -poor*, instead of *to enable good men to live among bad*, as -was the aim of the Mediaeval customary or common law.[^15] -And I think it would clear the air of a great deal of -discussion at cross purposes and bring reformers into a -definite relationship with reality if, instead of demanding -the abolition of the State, which is impracticable, and -affirming the natural perfection of mankind, which is -untrue, they were to take their stand on the principle that -the aim of all legislation should be to enable good men to -live among bad. At any rate, such a position appears to me -to be the only consistent one for Christians to adopt. Such -a principle is the political expression of the doctrine of -original sin; for the distinction it makes between good men -and bad is the practical one which we make in the world of -affairs, and is in no way inconsistent with an equal -recognition of the theological position that all men are -sinners. - -The application of such a principle would be revolutionary; -for it would put reformers in a position to steer a safe -middle course between the impracticable and the undesirable, -and at the present time the choice is generally between -these alternatives. We miss the significance of the present -intellectual reaction against Socialism if we assume that it -is due to a desire to deny the rightful claims of Labour, -since on the contrary it is due to the realisation of the -fact that their actual proposals are in the larger sense -impracticable, and therefore if applied could only make -matters worse than they are at present. It is for this -reason that the recent victory of Labour at the polls can -only be the prelude to another disappointment, for until -faith in the realisability of the confused notions of -mid-Victorian Socialism has been destroyed absolutely root -and branch, no sane and reasonable proposal will be listened -to, because such proposals necessarily come into collision -with the dogmas of Socialism, which, approaching every -problem of society from a purely material point of view, -puts the emphasis on the wrong aspect, exalting questions of -expediency into principles while treating other issues which -should be determined on principle as matters of expediency. - -In no direction has this wrong approach been followed by -such confusions and contradictions as in the Socialist -attitude towards the State. In the days of Collectivism the -State was idealised. Always a necessity, the State was -converted by Collectivists into The Good. This is no -exaggeration; for with them the idea of the State acquired a -kind of ethical value. For every social evil there was one -and only one remedy---apply the magic formula of State -control, and evil would be suddenly transformed into good. -It was a pure illusion, and it could not stand the shock of -reality. A few years of activity on a Collectivist basis led -to disillusionment, and from being idealised the State fell -into contempt; from being The Good it became The Bad. This -change of attitude was in operation before the War. But the -rapid and enormous extension of State activity during the -War made reaction inevitable. It brought home to everybody -the inadequacy of bureaucracy as a method of organisation, -while the profiteering and corruption which were associated -more particularly with war contracts, the incompetence and -corruption of politicians, and the failure of the Peace has -brought everything connected with the State into contempt. -It is not my purpose to rescue the State from contempt; for -in the main I share the opinions of its critics. But just as -I found myself in opposition to those who a decade or so ago -thought the State capable of doing everything much better -than an individual or group of men could do it, so nowadays -I feel myself equally opposed to those who can see nothing -but evil in the State and demand its abolition. Each view -appears to me to be equally irrational. The reaction against -the State to-day is in no small measure due to the fact that -Collectivists demanded that it should perform -impossibilities. If the State is not capable of doing all -things, it nevertheless remains the only power capable of -doing some things. It is the only power capable of giving -protection---the need of which first called it into -existence. It is capable of securing some measure of -internal order, though it should fail to live up to the -ideal of justice. And the maintenance of order is a function -not to be underrated, as we should soon find out if the -State became incapable of performing it. In the -rehabilitated Christendom to which we look forward, the -maintenance of order will be the only function entrusted to -the State. Instead of being the all-powerful Leviathan, the -overwhelming and dominating power it is to-day, it will, -stripped of its illegitimate functions, be reduced to the -position it held in the Middle Ages, becoming one power -among a plurality of powers. The old Liberals were right in -maintaining that the less the State did the better ; where -they were wrong was in assuming that for this reason as many -activities as possible should be left to the unrestrained -competition of individuals. For there is a middle course -that they lost sight of---the restrained individualism which -existed under the Mediaeval Guilds. - -But Collectivists, obsessed with the idea of Progress and -full of prejudices and ignorance in regard to the past, were -blind to the possibilities of a Guild revival. And so they -were led to idealise the State, which they demanded should -take over and administer land, capital, and the means of -production and exchange; not understanding that the State of -historical actuality, the highly centralised State of modern -times, is itself a part of or symptom of the disease of -society, and that the remedy is not to be found in the -direction of increasing the already exaggerated abnormality -and artificiality of society, but in the direction of a -return to simpler, more normal and wholesome conditions of -life and society, such as existed in the past when men were -held together by personal and human ties and there was -little need of the impersonal activity of the State. +The brotherhood of man, expressing itself in communist society, where +all share and share alike and private property is unknown, is the +Christian ideal of society. But such an ideal is not easy of attainment, +for it is only capable of realisation on the assumption that its +individual members will accept a discipline which the majority are not +prepared to do. Hence, while throughout history it has been a tradition +of the Church to uphold the ideal of pure communism as the best form of +organisation for religious orders, a modified communism which we know by +the names of the corporate or common life has been found to be a more +practicable ideal for the life of the workaday world, experience having +taught men that "private property and common use," rather than "common +property and private use"---to adopt Father Jarrett's phrase[^13]---was +more adapted to the circumstances of secular society. + +But the unwillingness of the average man to accept a discipline is not +the only difficulty that stands in the way of the organisation of +secular society on a basis of pure communism. A greater difficulty +arises from the fact that in every society there is to be found a +minority of men actuated by anti-social motives who spurn the ideal of +brotherhood. There is a type of man whom Señor de Maeztu has designated +the "man of prey," whose ruling passion is the love of wealth and power +and who is always ready to sacrifice the welfare of others to the +attainment of his ambition. In societies where law is weak, such men +take to plunder and robbery. In modern societies where the law is +strong, it is more usual for them to seek their ends by profiteering and +other usurious dealings, by lying, deceit, and the countless forms of +fraudulent gain whereby men are for ever seeking to gather the riches +which will give them power over others. + +It is because of the existence in every community of such anti-social +types of men who cannot be persuaded to respect the claims of the common +life, that law at all times is a necessity. It is necessary to protect +peaceable and honest working citizens from the depredations of the men +of prey ; for if the brotherhood of man is ever to be realised in fact +it can only be on the assumption that laws exist to restrain such men. +For just as bad money drives good out of the market if allowed free +circulation, so high standards of social and commercial life can only be +maintained on the assumption that laws exist to suppress lower ones. But +in our day the State which administers the law has come very much under +the domination of the men of prey, who use it as an instrument for their +purposes; for exploiting the public and the workers or for the +subjugation of other races, while they do not hesitate to plunge the +country on occasion into war to protect their interests. And because +this undoubted fact has in these days received a wide recognition, an +increasing minority of people have come to regard the State as the very +embodiment of evil; as a mere instrument of exploitation; as the enemy +of society; and are busy promoting the idea that there can be no social +salvation until the State as we understand it is abolished, while some +have gone so far as to demand "an unarmed Commonwealth of Friends +trained to live by reason, love and freedom."[^14] + +Now it does seem to me that at the present time, when all manner of evil +deeds are being done behind our backs in the name of the State, when we +can get no exact knowledge of what is going on, when we can no longer +believe what the newspapers tell us, when, in fact, politics have become +a mere puppet show, the strings of which are pulled by unscrupulous +financiers who think only of deals, and when another war would probably +end in the destruction of civilization, the only possible attitude is +the pacifist one; for the only way to put a stop to such iniquities is +to refuse to support those who commit them. But I do not think that we +are justified in assuming because of the present iniquity of the State +that the State should or could be abolished, or that armed defence in +some form could be entirely dispensed with; for even if corruption was +eradicated from politics and men of principle did come into power again, +they would not be able to retain power for long unless they took +measures to protect themselves against the men of prey by the enactment +of laws in their restraint and were prepared to back them up if +necessary with force; for all law rests ultimately upon force. And what +is true for the maintenance of internal order, of protecting society +against the enemy within the gates, is true for protecting it against +enemies outside. For no society, however well ordered it might be, +however much it stands for righteousness, can be secure against invasion +so long as any people in the world are under the domination of men of +the predatory type. It may be true, as internationalists assert, that, +taken in the mass, men are very much alike all over the world. But in +practical affairs what makes the difference is the type of man that +dominates a civilisation, for the dominating type gives the tone to a +community, and it is that which in politics must be reckoned with. + +But the feeling to-day against the State does not only rest on the +pacifist objection to the use of force; for the Communists who believe +in the use of force are equally opposed to it. Their objection is just +as fundamental, for it rests upon the clear apprehension of the fact +that the State has consistently upheld certain evils in society (which +is true), though it should not be forgotten that good influences as well +as bad have been -brought to bear upon the State. Yet, generally +speaking, it is true to say that laws to-day are made *to enable rich +men to live among poor*, instead of *to enable good men to live among +bad*, as was the aim of the Mediaeval customary or common law.[^15] And +I think it would clear the air of a great deal of discussion at cross +purposes and bring reformers into a definite relationship with reality +if, instead of demanding the abolition of the State, which is +impracticable, and affirming the natural perfection of mankind, which is +untrue, they were to take their stand on the principle that the aim of +all legislation should be to enable good men to live among bad. At any +rate, such a position appears to me to be the only consistent one for +Christians to adopt. Such a principle is the political expression of the +doctrine of original sin; for the distinction it makes between good men +and bad is the practical one which we make in the world of affairs, and +is in no way inconsistent with an equal recognition of the theological +position that all men are sinners. + +The application of such a principle would be revolutionary; for it would +put reformers in a position to steer a safe middle course between the +impracticable and the undesirable, and at the present time the choice is +generally between these alternatives. We miss the significance of the +present intellectual reaction against Socialism if we assume that it is +due to a desire to deny the rightful claims of Labour, since on the +contrary it is due to the realisation of the fact that their actual +proposals are in the larger sense impracticable, and therefore if +applied could only make matters worse than they are at present. It is +for this reason that the recent victory of Labour at the polls can only +be the prelude to another disappointment, for until faith in the +realisability of the confused notions of mid-Victorian Socialism has +been destroyed absolutely root and branch, no sane and reasonable +proposal will be listened to, because such proposals necessarily come +into collision with the dogmas of Socialism, which, approaching every +problem of society from a purely material point of view, puts the +emphasis on the wrong aspect, exalting questions of expediency into +principles while treating other issues which should be determined on +principle as matters of expediency. + +In no direction has this wrong approach been followed by such confusions +and contradictions as in the Socialist attitude towards the State. In +the days of Collectivism the State was idealised. Always a necessity, +the State was converted by Collectivists into The Good. This is no +exaggeration; for with them the idea of the State acquired a kind of +ethical value. For every social evil there was one and only one +remedy---apply the magic formula of State control, and evil would be +suddenly transformed into good. It was a pure illusion, and it could not +stand the shock of reality. A few years of activity on a Collectivist +basis led to disillusionment, and from being idealised the State fell +into contempt; from being The Good it became The Bad. This change of +attitude was in operation before the War. But the rapid and enormous +extension of State activity during the War made reaction inevitable. It +brought home to everybody the inadequacy of bureaucracy as a method of +organisation, while the profiteering and corruption which were +associated more particularly with war contracts, the incompetence and +corruption of politicians, and the failure of the Peace has brought +everything connected with the State into contempt. It is not my purpose +to rescue the State from contempt; for in the main I share the opinions +of its critics. But just as I found myself in opposition to those who a +decade or so ago thought the State capable of doing everything much +better than an individual or group of men could do it, so nowadays I +feel myself equally opposed to those who can see nothing but evil in the +State and demand its abolition. Each view appears to me to be equally +irrational. The reaction against the State to-day is in no small measure +due to the fact that Collectivists demanded that it should perform +impossibilities. If the State is not capable of doing all things, it +nevertheless remains the only power capable of doing some things. It is +the only power capable of giving protection---the need of which first +called it into existence. It is capable of securing some measure of +internal order, though it should fail to live up to the ideal of +justice. And the maintenance of order is a function not to be +underrated, as we should soon find out if the State became incapable of +performing it. In the rehabilitated Christendom to which we look +forward, the maintenance of order will be the only function entrusted to +the State. Instead of being the all-powerful Leviathan, the overwhelming +and dominating power it is to-day, it will, stripped of its illegitimate +functions, be reduced to the position it held in the Middle Ages, +becoming one power among a plurality of powers. The old Liberals were +right in maintaining that the less the State did the better ; where they +were wrong was in assuming that for this reason as many activities as +possible should be left to the unrestrained competition of individuals. +For there is a middle course that they lost sight of---the restrained +individualism which existed under the Mediaeval Guilds. + +But Collectivists, obsessed with the idea of Progress and full of +prejudices and ignorance in regard to the past, were blind to the +possibilities of a Guild revival. And so they were led to idealise the +State, which they demanded should take over and administer land, +capital, and the means of production and exchange; not understanding +that the State of historical actuality, the highly centralised State of +modern times, is itself a part of or symptom of the disease of society, +and that the remedy is not to be found in the direction of increasing +the already exaggerated abnormality and artificiality of society, but in +the direction of a return to simpler, more normal and wholesome +conditions of life and society, such as existed in the past when men +were held together by personal and human ties and there was little need +of the impersonal activity of the State. # IX. The Social Organisation of the Middle Ages -The conclusion at which we arrived in the last -chapter---that a solution of the social problem is not to be -found in the direction of an increase of artificiality but -in the direction of a return to simpler and more wholesome -conditions of life and society such as existed in the -past---leads inevitably to a consideration of the social -organisation of the Middle Ages. Moreover, as the -institutions of the Middle Ages were in varying degrees -expressions of the spirit of Christianity, they offer us a -pattern that may be studied in the interests of a revival of +The conclusion at which we arrived in the last chapter---that a solution +of the social problem is not to be found in the direction of an increase +of artificiality but in the direction of a return to simpler and more +wholesome conditions of life and society such as existed in the +past---leads inevitably to a consideration of the social organisation of +the Middle Ages. Moreover, as the institutions of the Middle Ages were +in varying degrees expressions of the spirit of Christianity, they offer +us a pattern that may be studied in the interests of a revival of Christendom. -However much room there may be for differences of opinion as -to the precise measure of success that followed upon the -application of Mediaeval principles of social organisation, -there is no room for doubt as to what the exact nature of -the principles really were. The central one was that of -Function, to which the organisation of the Church, the -monarchy, the feudal system, and the guilds alike conformed. -The principle of Function was defined in the twelfth century -by John of Salisbury as the principle "that a well-ordered -constitution consists in the proper apportionment of -functions to members and in the apt condition, strength and -composition of each and every member; that all members must -in their functions supplement and support each other, never -losing sight of the weal of the others, and feeling pain in -the harm that is done to another." In our day it has been -defined by Señor de Maeztu as the principle which says "that -rights ought only to be granted to men or associations of -men in virtue of the function they fulfil, and not on any -pretences of a subjective character," and as such he -recommends it as an alternative to the principles of liberty -and authority, between which the modern world oscillates. -"The liberal principle," he asserts, "is no principle at -all, because it does not bind the individual to any kind of -solidarity; it leads to incoherence in the societies in -which it prevails. It sanctions all desires, legitimate and -illegitimate, and all opinion founded, and unfounded." The -principle of authority, on the other hand, he regards as -equally dangerous, because when " we try to found an order -on the omnipotence of authority instead of deriving -authority from the necessity of order, the result is -disorder, because society abandons itself unconditionally to -the ambition of individuals who assume the privileges of -authority. And as ambition in its essence is unlimited, it -will not be satisfied with anything less than the world for -a kingdom."[^16] - -It is because the Mediaevalists acknowledged neither the -principles of authority nor of liberty as they are -understood to-day, but this third principle of Function, -which is neither yet partakes of the nature of both, that -the modern mind which thinks in the terms of authority or -liberty, as the case may be, finds it as a rule so difficult -to understand the Middle Ages, and this is why the usual -criticism of Mediaeval institutions is so futile. It is -futile because it invariably postulates the existence of a -standard which never did exist, and never can exist, because -it is not in the nature of things to exist. Thus the +However much room there may be for differences of opinion as to the +precise measure of success that followed upon the application of +Mediaeval principles of social organisation, there is no room for doubt +as to what the exact nature of the principles really were. The central +one was that of Function, to which the organisation of the Church, the +monarchy, the feudal system, and the guilds alike conformed. The +principle of Function was defined in the twelfth century by John of +Salisbury as the principle "that a well-ordered constitution consists in +the proper apportionment of functions to members and in the apt +condition, strength and composition of each and every member; that all +members must in their functions supplement and support each other, never +losing sight of the weal of the others, and feeling pain in the harm +that is done to another." In our day it has been defined by Señor de +Maeztu as the principle which says "that rights ought only to be granted +to men or associations of men in virtue of the function they fulfil, and +not on any pretences of a subjective character," and as such he +recommends it as an alternative to the principles of liberty and +authority, between which the modern world oscillates. "The liberal +principle," he asserts, "is no principle at all, because it does not +bind the individual to any kind of solidarity; it leads to incoherence +in the societies in which it prevails. It sanctions all desires, +legitimate and illegitimate, and all opinion founded, and unfounded." +The principle of authority, on the other hand, he regards as equally +dangerous, because when " we try to found an order on the omnipotence of +authority instead of deriving authority from the necessity of order, the +result is disorder, because society abandons itself unconditionally to +the ambition of individuals who assume the privileges of authority. And +as ambition in its essence is unlimited, it will not be satisfied with +anything less than the world for a kingdom."[^16] + +It is because the Mediaevalists acknowledged neither the principles of +authority nor of liberty as they are understood to-day, but this third +principle of Function, which is neither yet partakes of the nature of +both, that the modern mind which thinks in the terms of authority or +liberty, as the case may be, finds it as a rule so difficult to +understand the Middle Ages, and this is why the usual criticism of +Mediaeval institutions is so futile. It is futile because it invariably +postulates the existence of a standard which never did exist, and never +can exist, because it is not in the nature of things to exist. Thus the institutions of the Middle Ages are maligned, because of the -shortcomings of individuals---it never occurring to such -critics that no kind of social machinery can avert those -evils which arise from the pride, avarice, or -quarrelsomeness of human nature. Socialists who imagine the -contrary are living in a world of unrealities. Their search -for a social system that shall be constructed so perfectly -that the evil desires in man will balance and neutralise -each other in an equilibrium of good is as vain as the -search for perpetual motion. For laws cannot be made that -will make men go straight in spite of themselves. On the -cont^ar3^ the utmost we can demand is that laws and -organisations shall discourage rather than encourage the -evil elements of human nature. Forms of organisation may be -designed to enable the good men to live among bad, but we -cannot by means of social organisation ensure that the good -shall prevail in society, for that depends on the proportion -the good men bear to the bad and the amount of cohesion -existing in each camp; while, if the bad are in a majority -or are more united than the good, they will find means of -turning the best of institutions to evil purposes. If, -therefore, we praise the social organisations of the Middle -Ages, it is not because we imagine that crime and dishonesty -were absent from Mediaeval society, but because they existed -in spite of the laws and social organisation, and not -because of them. Mediaeval organisations based upon the -principle of Function accepted the idea of reciprocal rights -and duties. A man might enjoy rights, but only on condition -that he fulfilled his obligations to the community, while if -he failed in their fulfilment he might lose his rights. -There were no rights in the Middle Ages that were absolute -and unconditional, such as exist to-day. - -These principles are common to all Mediaeval organisations. -The idea of Function was central in the Guilds. The Guilds -were privileged bodies, but their privileges were held -conditional upon their performance of public duties. They -were granted charters by the State which gave them a -monopoly of a trade over a particular town or city. But it -was not a monopoly which conferred upon them the privilege -of exploiting the community, as is the case with limited -liability companies, but a monopoly to enable the members of -a craft to suppress trade abuses. The guilds were required -to uphold the traditions of their craft, to sell at a just -and fixed price, to pay just and fixed wages, to train -apprentices and suppress profiteering in its various forms -of forestalling, regrating, engrossing and adulteration, -while they performed the functions of mutual aid among their -members. If a guildsman was sick, he was visited. If he fell -into want, he was befriended. If he died, his widow and -children were provided for out of the funds of the Guild. -Thus in one way or another the Guild entered into all the -details of life. It gave the craftsman security. It -protected him against unscrupulous rivals, while it ensured -there should be fair dealing between him and the public. And -with a fine instinct of sociological truth, the -Mediaevalists saw that such things were only possible on a -basis of reciprocal rights and duties. - -What was true of the Guilds was true of the Feudal System, -for, like them, it was based upon the principles of -Function, with its concomitant of reciprocal rights and -duties. I am aware that this is not the popular notion, -which, basing its ideas of what Feudalism was, upon the -corrupted Feudalism against which the peasants rose in 1381, -is entirely unaware that Feudalism stood for anything but -exploitation. This is not the place to enter into the -history of Feudalism, but this much can be said, that it had -a popular origin, beginning as a local system of military -defence to protect the people against the barbarian -invasions of the ninth and tenth centuries, when central -government collapsed. But partly through the crystallising -tendency that overtakes all institutions and partly because -it was extended by conquest, it came through the lapse of -centuries to wear a different complexion, and hardened into -a hereditary system of social, economic and military -organisation which affected the life of every class in the -community, from the villain to the king, not excluding the -greater part of the clergy. - -Though the romantic representation of Feudalism as dominated -by the sentiment of chivalry may be exaggerated, there can -be little doubt that its animating principle was that of -personal loyalty and devotion, since apart from such -sentiments the system could have neither come into -existence, persisted for centuries, nor ended its life in -the Crusades. Yet no society can rest entirely upon -sentiment, since in the long run human relations are -impossible apart from some reasonable recognition and -fulfilment of mutual obligations. Thus we find that while -the vassal was bound to discharge certain obligations to his -lord, it was only on condition that the lord discharged his -obligations to the vassal. +shortcomings of individuals---it never occurring to such critics that no +kind of social machinery can avert those evils which arise from the +pride, avarice, or quarrelsomeness of human nature. Socialists who +imagine the contrary are living in a world of unrealities. Their search +for a social system that shall be constructed so perfectly that the evil +desires in man will balance and neutralise each other in an equilibrium +of good is as vain as the search for perpetual motion. For laws cannot +be made that will make men go straight in spite of themselves. On the +cont^ar3^ the utmost we can demand is that laws and organisations shall +discourage rather than encourage the evil elements of human nature. +Forms of organisation may be designed to enable the good men to live +among bad, but we cannot by means of social organisation ensure that the +good shall prevail in society, for that depends on the proportion the +good men bear to the bad and the amount of cohesion existing in each +camp; while, if the bad are in a majority or are more united than the +good, they will find means of turning the best of institutions to evil +purposes. If, therefore, we praise the social organisations of the +Middle Ages, it is not because we imagine that crime and dishonesty were +absent from Mediaeval society, but because they existed in spite of the +laws and social organisation, and not because of them. Mediaeval +organisations based upon the principle of Function accepted the idea of +reciprocal rights and duties. A man might enjoy rights, but only on +condition that he fulfilled his obligations to the community, while if +he failed in their fulfilment he might lose his rights. There were no +rights in the Middle Ages that were absolute and unconditional, such as +exist to-day. + +These principles are common to all Mediaeval organisations. The idea of +Function was central in the Guilds. The Guilds were privileged bodies, +but their privileges were held conditional upon their performance of +public duties. They were granted charters by the State which gave them a +monopoly of a trade over a particular town or city. But it was not a +monopoly which conferred upon them the privilege of exploiting the +community, as is the case with limited liability companies, but a +monopoly to enable the members of a craft to suppress trade abuses. The +guilds were required to uphold the traditions of their craft, to sell at +a just and fixed price, to pay just and fixed wages, to train +apprentices and suppress profiteering in its various forms of +forestalling, regrating, engrossing and adulteration, while they +performed the functions of mutual aid among their members. If a +guildsman was sick, he was visited. If he fell into want, he was +befriended. If he died, his widow and children were provided for out of +the funds of the Guild. Thus in one way or another the Guild entered +into all the details of life. It gave the craftsman security. It +protected him against unscrupulous rivals, while it ensured there should +be fair dealing between him and the public. And with a fine instinct of +sociological truth, the Mediaevalists saw that such things were only +possible on a basis of reciprocal rights and duties. + +What was true of the Guilds was true of the Feudal System, for, like +them, it was based upon the principles of Function, with its concomitant +of reciprocal rights and duties. I am aware that this is not the popular +notion, which, basing its ideas of what Feudalism was, upon the +corrupted Feudalism against which the peasants rose in 1381, is entirely +unaware that Feudalism stood for anything but exploitation. This is not +the place to enter into the history of Feudalism, but this much can be +said, that it had a popular origin, beginning as a local system of +military defence to protect the people against the barbarian invasions +of the ninth and tenth centuries, when central government collapsed. But +partly through the crystallising tendency that overtakes all +institutions and partly because it was extended by conquest, it came +through the lapse of centuries to wear a different complexion, and +hardened into a hereditary system of social, economic and military +organisation which affected the life of every class in the community, +from the villain to the king, not excluding the greater part of the +clergy. + +Though the romantic representation of Feudalism as dominated by the +sentiment of chivalry may be exaggerated, there can be little doubt that +its animating principle was that of personal loyalty and devotion, since +apart from such sentiments the system could have neither come into +existence, persisted for centuries, nor ended its life in the Crusades. +Yet no society can rest entirely upon sentiment, since in the long run +human relations are impossible apart from some reasonable recognition +and fulfilment of mutual obligations. Thus we find that while the vassal +was bound to discharge certain obligations to his lord, it was only on +condition that the lord discharged his obligations to the vassal. The principle of mutual obligation was carried into economic -relationships. The serf had to give part of his labour to -the lord; but the amount of labour the lord could exact was -a legally defined and fixed quantity, in return for which -the serf received military protection, which, in those -turbulent times, was no small thing. And what is not -generally recognised is that the right to strike was -recognised in Feudal law, for if the lord failed in his -duties, men were absolved from their feudal obligations -towards him. - -When we pass on to consider the institution of Monarchy, we -find the same acknowledgement of the principle of Function; -the same insistence upon reciprocal rights and duties. The -Mediaeval king was not, as popular opinion supposes, a -capricious ruler possessing almost unlimited authority. On -the contrary, he was subject to the law. He held his -authority on the supposition that he would administer -justice, while the right of rebellion against the ruler who -abused his position was freely maintained by all political -thinkers of the Middle Ages, and supported by the Church, -which, in those days, was in a position to make things very -unpleasant for any monarch who put himself above the law. -Nay, so far from it being true that the king was a despot -exercising unlimited authority, many of the troubles of the -Middle Ages arose from the fact that he was not possessed of -sufficient authority. For kings in those days did not -possess any effective civil service or police to ensure the -smooth working of the law; and here it is to be observed -that law in the Middle Ages did not normally present itself -as something to be made, but was primarily custom which owed -its existence to the corporate sense of the community. - -Any new law that was made was not the arbitrary act of the -ruler, or even of an assembly, but in some more or less -vague way required the acceptance of the whole community. On -accession it was customary for the king to swear fidelity to -all written and traditional customs, which henceforth he was -empowered to administer. The formal treatises on kingship, -of which there were many in the Middle Ages, were very -largely made up of admonitions to the king to follow after -justice and mercy, to seek wisdom and to fear God. He was to -appoint fit persons to administer the laws under him. But -they were not to lord it over the people or ill-treat them. -For this reason the king should always be ready to hear the -cause of the poor himself, lest any of his ministers should -act unjustly or suffer the poor to be oppressed. Only by -doing justice to the poor and the orphan could he hope for -God to establish his throne. - -Though it is true to say that the Church acknowledged the -same principle of reciprocal rights and duties---its rights -being temporal and its duties spiritual---yet there is -another sense in which this is not true. The theory and -claims of Papal absolutism which at first glance appear to -be so genuinely Mediaeval, really made a breach with the -Mediaeval mode of thought and conception of society, for, as -Gierke insists, the Papacy was the first force to tread the -road that leads away from the Mediaeval to the modern world. -And the claims of Papal absolutism brought in their train -other absolutisms---the absolutisms of States and the Empire -and other conceptions of law, of society and the individual, -which between them drew away all the vital nutriment that -fed the Mediaeval social order. +relationships. The serf had to give part of his labour to the lord; but +the amount of labour the lord could exact was a legally defined and +fixed quantity, in return for which the serf received military +protection, which, in those turbulent times, was no small thing. And +what is not generally recognised is that the right to strike was +recognised in Feudal law, for if the lord failed in his duties, men were +absolved from their feudal obligations towards him. + +When we pass on to consider the institution of Monarchy, we find the +same acknowledgement of the principle of Function; the same insistence +upon reciprocal rights and duties. The Mediaeval king was not, as +popular opinion supposes, a capricious ruler possessing almost unlimited +authority. On the contrary, he was subject to the law. He held his +authority on the supposition that he would administer justice, while the +right of rebellion against the ruler who abused his position was freely +maintained by all political thinkers of the Middle Ages, and supported +by the Church, which, in those days, was in a position to make things +very unpleasant for any monarch who put himself above the law. Nay, so +far from it being true that the king was a despot exercising unlimited +authority, many of the troubles of the Middle Ages arose from the fact +that he was not possessed of sufficient authority. For kings in those +days did not possess any effective civil service or police to ensure the +smooth working of the law; and here it is to be observed that law in the +Middle Ages did not normally present itself as something to be made, but +was primarily custom which owed its existence to the corporate sense of +the community. + +Any new law that was made was not the arbitrary act of the ruler, or +even of an assembly, but in some more or less vague way required the +acceptance of the whole community. On accession it was customary for the +king to swear fidelity to all written and traditional customs, which +henceforth he was empowered to administer. The formal treatises on +kingship, of which there were many in the Middle Ages, were very largely +made up of admonitions to the king to follow after justice and mercy, to +seek wisdom and to fear God. He was to appoint fit persons to administer +the laws under him. But they were not to lord it over the people or +ill-treat them. For this reason the king should always be ready to hear +the cause of the poor himself, lest any of his ministers should act +unjustly or suffer the poor to be oppressed. Only by doing justice to +the poor and the orphan could he hope for God to establish his throne. + +Though it is true to say that the Church acknowledged the same principle +of reciprocal rights and duties---its rights being temporal and its +duties spiritual---yet there is another sense in which this is not true. +The theory and claims of Papal absolutism which at first glance appear +to be so genuinely Mediaeval, really made a breach with the Mediaeval +mode of thought and conception of society, for, as Gierke insists, the +Papacy was the first force to tread the road that leads away from the +Mediaeval to the modern world. And the claims of Papal absolutism +brought in their train other absolutisms---the absolutisms of States and +the Empire and other conceptions of law, of society and the individual, +which between them drew away all the vital nutriment that fed the +Mediaeval social order. # X. Why the Middle Ages Failed We saw that the principle behind the various forms of social -organisation in the Middle Ages which gave to them their -peculiar Christian character was that of Function---of -reciprocal rights and duties; and that in the demands of -Papal absolutism was to be found the beginning of the change -which gradually undermined Mediaeval society. It is -necessary for a clear comprehension of the problems of our -own times to consider this important development more in -detail. For only when we know exactly how the modern world -with all its evils came into being can there be any prospect -of finding a remedy. - -Prior to the quarrel over the Right of Investiture, in the -eleventh century, the relations subsisting between the -Papacy and the Empire and secular authorities had been -friendly and sympathetic. But there was a crying scandal -that demanded a remedy---the evil of simony, or the sale of -ecclesiastical offices---which brought in its train -worldliness, luxury and profligacy. It was an evil of long -standing, but it was not until the end of the eleventh -century that determined action was taken to find a remedy, -and then it came about as a consequence of the far-reaching -influence of a great spiritual revival that a century -earlier had spread from the abbey of Cluny. In the minds of -reformers the scandal of simony was primarily connected with -the predominant influence of kings and emperors in the -higher ecclesiastical appointments which resulted in such -offices being bestowed as payment for secular services -rather than upon men who were controlled by religious -principles and devoted to the interests of the Church. To -combat this evil the Papacy, under the inspiration of the -archdeacon Hildebrand (the Pope, Gregory VII), began to -develop the policy of limiting or prohibiting the -intervention of secular authorities in ecclesiastical -appointments---a policy which led immediately to the quarrel -over the Right of Investiture, and eventually to the demand -of the Church to control the secular state and make her -counsels the guide of the world. - -Around this quarrel there arose a great controversy to -determine the respective spheres of influence of the Popes -and the Emperors. In connection with it, historical -investigations were undertaken, which indirectly had the -result of effecting a revival of Roman law, which, as legal -historians have rightly claimed, was an event of the first -importance. "A history of civilisation," says Maitland, -"would be miserably imperfect if it took no account of the -first new birth of Roman law in the Bologna of Irnerius. -Indeed, there are those who think that no later -movement---not the Renaissance, not the Reformation---draws -a stronger line across the annals of mankind than that which -was drawn about the year 1100, when a human science won a -place beside theology."[^17] With the opinion of this -distinguished scholar I entirely agree, though perhaps for a -different reason. For the significance of the revival is to -be found in the fact that Roman law is a very human -science---very much more - -human than many of its exponents are prepared to admit. The -Mediaeval social order was Christian, and relatively stable -because it acknowledged the principle of reciprocal rights -and duties, making the enjoyment of rights dependent upon -the fulfilment of duties. But the ideas associated with the -revival of Roman law gradually changed all that, for Roman -law was as emphatically individualist and capitalist in -spirit as Mediaeval law was communal and corporate. The -consequence was the revival of Roman law drove a wedge -between the two aspects of reciprocity of Mediaeval law, -making rights absolute and duties optional, for under Roman -law the rights of private property are the rights of use and -abuse. The legalisation of a principle of such an -anti-social character gradually undermined in the community -the sense of corporate responsibility. It transformed -feudalism into landlordism, justified and legalised usury, -while by bringing the idea of the Just Price into discredit -it operated to undermine the Guilds. It was thus that the -revival of Roman law broke up the Middle Ages by opening a -road for the growth of capitalism and individualism. Nor can -this charge be met by pleading that law follows custom, -because it so happens that the Mediaeval jurists who -promoted the revival were not mere legalists who confined -their attention to the technicalities of law, but -propagandists who taught a system of morality which -justified economic individualism, and was therefore -antipathetic in spirit to everything that Christianity stood -for. By justifying usury and maintaining individual rights, -they undermined the moral sanctions on which the Mediaeval -social order rested, which teaching in its turn, by its -social and economic reactions, brought about a state of -things that was favourable to the reception of Roman law. -Nor again is the position tenable of those who maintain that -it was the development of trade with the East which followed -the Crusades that is responsible for the break-up of the -Middle Ages. For if it be true that the development of trade -corrupted Christendom, why, it may be asked, did it not -corrupt Islam? There is only one answer that I can find. In -Islam there was no revival of Roman law. - -Had Roman law no other side to recommend it, the attempts of -the Papacy to suppress its study would probably have been -successful. But there was another side of Roman law which -had a very direct appeal to the self-interest of monarchs, -for it could be used as a weapon for resisting the -encroachments of the Papacy. The Mediaeval king found -himself placed between two kinds of law. There was on one -side of him the Canon law of the Church, which had many -things to say about the duties of kingship that were not -always acceptable; while on the other side there was the -Feudal law and the Common or Customary law of the land to -which he had to swear fealty. Both of these systems of law -were a source of annoyance to him. For while the former made -him subject to the power of the Church, the latter placed -him very much at the mercy of his barons. Remembering these -things, it can occasion no surprise that a system of law -which made law dependent upon the will of the sovereign, -clothing him with unlimited power and supreme authority, -should have had a very strong appeal for monarchs who were -faced with the problem of building up an administrative -system powerful enough to counteract the unruly elements in -Feudalism on the one hand, and of maintaining their position -against the absolutist demands of the Papacy on the other. -It was the need of the latter especially that secured a -foothold in affairs for Roman law; for it was first used by -the Emperors as a weapon against the Canon law in -ecclesiastical-politico disputes; while the fact that the -study of Roman law brought into existence a trained body of -laymen who were capable of taking office enabled kings to -free themselves from their dependence on clerical advisers -who, because of their monopoly of education, had hitherto -been able to monopolise the offices of State. This was an -important factor in the situation at a time when the triumph -of the Papacy had in turn brought into existence national -movements to limit the power of the Popes because they had -abused their privilege of patronage by placing foreigners in -the higher ecclesiastical offices of all lands. It was -immediate considerations of this kind that in the first -instance led to the adoption of Roman law and allowed all -the anti-social doctrines associated with it to grow up -unobserved under the royal protection. The truth about Roman -law is that it came into existence to hold together a Pagan -society that had been honeycombed with corruption and -rendered unstable by the growth of capitalism, and it was -because Roman law presupposed the existence of a commercial -community that its revival in the Middle Ages operated to -introduce into Mediaeval society the elements of corruption -with which it had been associated in Rome. This is true in -spite of the fact that the Roman jurists of the Empire were -men of wide and humane sympathies who did their best to -humanise slavery and the other institutions with which they -had to deal. Unable to conceive the practical possibility of -realising the ideal of justice, they addressed themselves to -the more immediately practical and less ambitious task of -maintaining order, which they achieved by disregarding moral -issues, by inculcating always the policy of following the -line of least resistance, by giving legal sanction and -security to private property (no matter by what means it had -been obtained) as the easiest way of avoiding continual -strife among neighbours, and by establishing a supreme power -in order to enforce the fulfilment of contracts. It is this -opportunist spirit of Roman law which for ever exalts -considerations of expediency above those of principle that -is at the same time the secret of its power and its -corrupting influence, and explains why its revival proved -itself so fatal to the Mediaeval social order. - -But, it will be said, such an explanation of the break-up of -the Mediaeval social order is irrelevant so far as England -is concerned, because there is no Roman law in England. But -is this so? It is true that there has not been in England -any formal reception of Roman law such as happened on the -Continent. English law is a continuous tradition since the -Middle Ages. English jurists never fell into the error of -attempting to appropriate the law of another race and to -galvanise it into a semblance of life. Law has never been -administered in this country out of Justinian's law books, -as it was in Germany until the year 1900. But can we on this -account say that there is no Roman law in England? Feudalism -has been replaced by landlordism in which property rights -are absolute and not conditional upon the fulfilment of -duties; usury is legalised; speculation in prices is -permitted; contracts are enforced; the highly centralised -State exists among us while corporate bodies are still -treated with suspicion and some hostility. How, we may ask, -have all these things so different from what existed in the -Middle Ages come about? What influence, may we ask, has been -at work to bring about changes in the law of England which -correspond so closely to the changes that followed the -reception of Roman law in other countries, if there is no -Roman law in England? For if the contention of the legal -profession be correct, we are entitled to some explanation -of this extraordinary phenomenon that has taken place, and -which admits of only one possible explanation: that though -there has not been in this country any formal reception of -Roman law, it is nevertheless a fact that the concepts of -Roman law have taken possession of the Common law, gradually -moulding it until it approximates substantially to the same -thing. -At any rate, this is a reasonable explanation when -considered in conjunction with the fact that Roman law has -been taught at Oxford since the early part of the twelfth -century. For it is impossible to believe that the legal -profession has been entirely uninfluenced by its training. -And further, I would submit that the reason why the legal -profession enjoys the illusion that there is no Roman law in -England is, on the one hand, due to the fact that the broad -moral issue is for it obscured by considerations of -technicalities, and on the other that it thinks of Roman law -entirely in the terms of the Reception, which it identifies -entirely with the issue of absolute monarchy. But if the -movement for a reception and absolute monarchy was defeated -in the seventeenth century, may it not be that something as -bad, if not worse, has happened? Law in this country may not -be dependent on the pleasure of the ruler, but for a long -time it has been dependent on the pleasure of an oligarchy -of landlords and capitalists, though the reality may be -concealed under the forms of democracy. And though at times -a despot may act disinterestedly, an oligarchy never does. - -But it is not necessary for me to labour this point any -longer, for nowadays it is admitted by at least one legal -authority that such a transformation of English law has -taken place. In the recent edition of *Stephen's -Commentaries of the Laws of England*, the general editor, -Professor Jenks, discusses the question, "How far is the -Common law a native system?" suggesting that it is necessary -for the legal profession to reconsider its commonly received -opinion that there is no Roman law in England, in connection -with which he says:--- - -"It is at least worthy to note that the plunder of the -Guilds (sanctioned in the statute of 1547) coincided very -closely, as a great legal historian has shown us, with the -last systematic and determined attempt to seat Roman law -openly and avowedly on the Common law. - -"It may well be therefore that the final verdict of history -will hold that, despite the ostentatious repudiation of the -'Romanists' by the founders of the Common law, there yet -entered into the framework of that law much material -indirectly derived from Roman law. Certainly nothing could -in appearance and detail be much more remote from Roman -principles than that system of feudal land-tenure which was -the most striking and, in some ways, the most permanent -result of the Norman Conquest. Nevertheless the system which -converted the thegn or *land-rica* into the feudal -landowner, whose villagers became his serfs and held their -land 'at the will of the lord,' who could turn the village -waste into a capitalist sheep-run, who could treat his land, -by sale and mortgage, as an article of commerce, who could -ultimately break up the whole system of communal farming by -'enclosures,' was far more in sympathy with the individual -ownership and capitalist principles of the Roman law than -with the strong communal instincts of pre-Conquest -agricultural customs."[^18] +organisation in the Middle Ages which gave to them their peculiar +Christian character was that of Function---of reciprocal rights and +duties; and that in the demands of Papal absolutism was to be found the +beginning of the change which gradually undermined Mediaeval society. It +is necessary for a clear comprehension of the problems of our own times +to consider this important development more in detail. For only when we +know exactly how the modern world with all its evils came into being can +there be any prospect of finding a remedy. + +Prior to the quarrel over the Right of Investiture, in the eleventh +century, the relations subsisting between the Papacy and the Empire and +secular authorities had been friendly and sympathetic. But there was a +crying scandal that demanded a remedy---the evil of simony, or the sale +of ecclesiastical offices---which brought in its train worldliness, +luxury and profligacy. It was an evil of long standing, but it was not +until the end of the eleventh century that determined action was taken +to find a remedy, and then it came about as a consequence of the +far-reaching influence of a great spiritual revival that a century +earlier had spread from the abbey of Cluny. In the minds of reformers +the scandal of simony was primarily connected with the predominant +influence of kings and emperors in the higher ecclesiastical +appointments which resulted in such offices being bestowed as payment +for secular services rather than upon men who were controlled by +religious principles and devoted to the interests of the Church. To +combat this evil the Papacy, under the inspiration of the archdeacon +Hildebrand (the Pope, Gregory VII), began to develop the policy of +limiting or prohibiting the intervention of secular authorities in +ecclesiastical appointments---a policy which led immediately to the +quarrel over the Right of Investiture, and eventually to the demand of +the Church to control the secular state and make her counsels the guide +of the world. + +Around this quarrel there arose a great controversy to determine the +respective spheres of influence of the Popes and the Emperors. In +connection with it, historical investigations were undertaken, which +indirectly had the result of effecting a revival of Roman law, which, as +legal historians have rightly claimed, was an event of the first +importance. "A history of civilisation," says Maitland, "would be +miserably imperfect if it took no account of the first new birth of +Roman law in the Bologna of Irnerius. Indeed, there are those who think +that no later movement---not the Renaissance, not the +Reformation---draws a stronger line across the annals of mankind than +that which was drawn about the year 1100, when a human science won a +place beside theology."[^17] With the opinion of this distinguished +scholar I entirely agree, though perhaps for a different reason. For the +significance of the revival is to be found in the fact that Roman law is +a very human science---very much more + +human than many of its exponents are prepared to admit. The Mediaeval +social order was Christian, and relatively stable because it +acknowledged the principle of reciprocal rights and duties, making the +enjoyment of rights dependent upon the fulfilment of duties. But the +ideas associated with the revival of Roman law gradually changed all +that, for Roman law was as emphatically individualist and capitalist in +spirit as Mediaeval law was communal and corporate. The consequence was +the revival of Roman law drove a wedge between the two aspects of +reciprocity of Mediaeval law, making rights absolute and duties +optional, for under Roman law the rights of private property are the +rights of use and abuse. The legalisation of a principle of such an +anti-social character gradually undermined in the community the sense of +corporate responsibility. It transformed feudalism into landlordism, +justified and legalised usury, while by bringing the idea of the Just +Price into discredit it operated to undermine the Guilds. It was thus +that the revival of Roman law broke up the Middle Ages by opening a road +for the growth of capitalism and individualism. Nor can this charge be +met by pleading that law follows custom, because it so happens that the +Mediaeval jurists who promoted the revival were not mere legalists who +confined their attention to the technicalities of law, but propagandists +who taught a system of morality which justified economic individualism, +and was therefore antipathetic in spirit to everything that Christianity +stood for. By justifying usury and maintaining individual rights, they +undermined the moral sanctions on which the Mediaeval social order +rested, which teaching in its turn, by its social and economic +reactions, brought about a state of things that was favourable to the +reception of Roman law. Nor again is the position tenable of those who +maintain that it was the development of trade with the East which +followed the Crusades that is responsible for the break-up of the Middle +Ages. For if it be true that the development of trade corrupted +Christendom, why, it may be asked, did it not corrupt Islam? There is +only one answer that I can find. In Islam there was no revival of Roman +law. + +Had Roman law no other side to recommend it, the attempts of the Papacy +to suppress its study would probably have been successful. But there was +another side of Roman law which had a very direct appeal to the +self-interest of monarchs, for it could be used as a weapon for +resisting the encroachments of the Papacy. The Mediaeval king found +himself placed between two kinds of law. There was on one side of him +the Canon law of the Church, which had many things to say about the +duties of kingship that were not always acceptable; while on the other +side there was the Feudal law and the Common or Customary law of the +land to which he had to swear fealty. Both of these systems of law were +a source of annoyance to him. For while the former made him subject to +the power of the Church, the latter placed him very much at the mercy of +his barons. Remembering these things, it can occasion no surprise that a +system of law which made law dependent upon the will of the sovereign, +clothing him with unlimited power and supreme authority, should have had +a very strong appeal for monarchs who were faced with the problem of +building up an administrative system powerful enough to counteract the +unruly elements in Feudalism on the one hand, and of maintaining their +position against the absolutist demands of the Papacy on the other. It +was the need of the latter especially that secured a foothold in affairs +for Roman law; for it was first used by the Emperors as a weapon against +the Canon law in ecclesiastical-politico disputes; while the fact that +the study of Roman law brought into existence a trained body of laymen +who were capable of taking office enabled kings to free themselves from +their dependence on clerical advisers who, because of their monopoly of +education, had hitherto been able to monopolise the offices of State. +This was an important factor in the situation at a time when the triumph +of the Papacy had in turn brought into existence national movements to +limit the power of the Popes because they had abused their privilege of +patronage by placing foreigners in the higher ecclesiastical offices of +all lands. It was immediate considerations of this kind that in the +first instance led to the adoption of Roman law and allowed all the +anti-social doctrines associated with it to grow up unobserved under the +royal protection. The truth about Roman law is that it came into +existence to hold together a Pagan society that had been honeycombed +with corruption and rendered unstable by the growth of capitalism, and +it was because Roman law presupposed the existence of a commercial +community that its revival in the Middle Ages operated to introduce into +Mediaeval society the elements of corruption with which it had been +associated in Rome. This is true in spite of the fact that the Roman +jurists of the Empire were men of wide and humane sympathies who did +their best to humanise slavery and the other institutions with which +they had to deal. Unable to conceive the practical possibility of +realising the ideal of justice, they addressed themselves to the more +immediately practical and less ambitious task of maintaining order, +which they achieved by disregarding moral issues, by inculcating always +the policy of following the line of least resistance, by giving legal +sanction and security to private property (no matter by what means it +had been obtained) as the easiest way of avoiding continual strife among +neighbours, and by establishing a supreme power in order to enforce the +fulfilment of contracts. It is this opportunist spirit of Roman law +which for ever exalts considerations of expediency above those of +principle that is at the same time the secret of its power and its +corrupting influence, and explains why its revival proved itself so +fatal to the Mediaeval social order. + +But, it will be said, such an explanation of the break-up of the +Mediaeval social order is irrelevant so far as England is concerned, +because there is no Roman law in England. But is this so? It is true +that there has not been in England any formal reception of Roman law +such as happened on the Continent. English law is a continuous tradition +since the Middle Ages. English jurists never fell into the error of +attempting to appropriate the law of another race and to galvanise it +into a semblance of life. Law has never been administered in this +country out of Justinian's law books, as it was in Germany until the +year 1900. But can we on this account say that there is no Roman law in +England? Feudalism has been replaced by landlordism in which property +rights are absolute and not conditional upon the fulfilment of duties; +usury is legalised; speculation in prices is permitted; contracts are +enforced; the highly centralised State exists among us while corporate +bodies are still treated with suspicion and some hostility. How, we may +ask, have all these things so different from what existed in the Middle +Ages come about? What influence, may we ask, has been at work to bring +about changes in the law of England which correspond so closely to the +changes that followed the reception of Roman law in other countries, if +there is no Roman law in England? For if the contention of the legal +profession be correct, we are entitled to some explanation of this +extraordinary phenomenon that has taken place, and which admits of only +one possible explanation: that though there has not been in this country +any formal reception of Roman law, it is nevertheless a fact that the +concepts of Roman law have taken possession of the Common law, gradually +moulding it until it approximates substantially to the same thing. -At +any rate, this is a reasonable explanation when considered in +conjunction with the fact that Roman law has been taught at Oxford since +the early part of the twelfth century. For it is impossible to believe +that the legal profession has been entirely uninfluenced by its +training. And further, I would submit that the reason why the legal +profession enjoys the illusion that there is no Roman law in England is, +on the one hand, due to the fact that the broad moral issue is for it +obscured by considerations of technicalities, and on the other that it +thinks of Roman law entirely in the terms of the Reception, which it +identifies entirely with the issue of absolute monarchy. But if the +movement for a reception and absolute monarchy was defeated in the +seventeenth century, may it not be that something as bad, if not worse, +has happened? Law in this country may not be dependent on the pleasure +of the ruler, but for a long time it has been dependent on the pleasure +of an oligarchy of landlords and capitalists, though the reality may be +concealed under the forms of democracy. And though at times a despot may +act disinterestedly, an oligarchy never does. + +But it is not necessary for me to labour this point any longer, for +nowadays it is admitted by at least one legal authority that such a +transformation of English law has taken place. In the recent edition of +*Stephen's Commentaries of the Laws of England*, the general editor, +Professor Jenks, discusses the question, "How far is the Common law a +native system?" suggesting that it is necessary for the legal profession +to reconsider its commonly received opinion that there is no Roman law +in England, in connection with which he says:--- + +"It is at least worthy to note that the plunder of the Guilds +(sanctioned in the statute of 1547) coincided very closely, as a great +legal historian has shown us, with the last systematic and determined +attempt to seat Roman law openly and avowedly on the Common law. + +"It may well be therefore that the final verdict of history will hold +that, despite the ostentatious repudiation of the 'Romanists' by the +founders of the Common law, there yet entered into the framework of that +law much material indirectly derived from Roman law. Certainly nothing +could in appearance and detail be much more remote from Roman principles +than that system of feudal land-tenure which was the most striking and, +in some ways, the most permanent result of the Norman Conquest. +Nevertheless the system which converted the thegn or *land-rica* into +the feudal landowner, whose villagers became his serfs and held their +land 'at the will of the lord,' who could turn the village waste into a +capitalist sheep-run, who could treat his land, by sale and mortgage, as +an article of commerce, who could ultimately break up the whole system +of communal farming by 'enclosures,' was far more in sympathy with the +individual ownership and capitalist principles of the Roman law than +with the strong communal instincts of pre-Conquest agricultural +customs."[^18] # XI. The Civil Law and the Law of Nature[^19] {#xi.-the-civil-law-and-the-law-of-nature20} -Hitherto what we have said about Roman law has been about -the *jus civile* or Civil law. But it is equally necessary -to any comprehension of history or the social problem to -understand the part played by the theory of the *jus -naturale* or Law of Nature, which we must now proceed to -consider. For, as Herr Beer rightly points out, "the -influence exercised by that theory, or system of thought, in -the development of English, and generally, European social -and political speculations, could hardly be over-estimated. -Schoolmen, theologians, statesmen, lawyers, revolutionists -and poets based their reasoning and wove their imaginings on -it, and even as late as in the first half of the nineteenth -century... British socialists, poor law and social reformers +Hitherto what we have said about Roman law has been about the *jus +civile* or Civil law. But it is equally necessary to any comprehension +of history or the social problem to understand the part played by the +theory of the *jus naturale* or Law of Nature, which we must now proceed +to consider. For, as Herr Beer rightly points out, "the influence +exercised by that theory, or system of thought, in the development of +English, and generally, European social and political speculations, +could hardly be over-estimated. Schoolmen, theologians, statesmen, +lawyers, revolutionists and poets based their reasoning and wove their +imaginings on it, and even as late as in the first half of the +nineteenth century... British socialists, poor law and social reformers were thinking in the terms of that system."[^20] -What, then, was the theory of the Law of Nature? It might, -perhaps, be defined as the apologetic for Roman Civil Law, -being designed to give philosophic justification to its -measures of practical expediency. The Civil Law, we saw, had -made the attainment of order rather than the realisation of -justice the object of its ambition. In consequence it had -become in Rome an object of suspicion. We learn from Cicero -that it was a common saying of the time that injustice was -necessarily involved in the administration of the -Commonwealth. The opinion prevailed that there was no such -thing as justice, or else that justice is mere foolishness, -since the only source of virtue is human agreement---an -opinion probably deriving from Epicurus, who had said that -"justice was nothing in itself, but merely a compact of -expediency to prevent mutual injury." The Roman jurists, who -apparently were of more liberal sentiments, do not appear to -have been altogether happy about the prevailing opinion. For -though they were well aware that the Civil Law was based -entirely upon considerations of expediency, they yet felt in -some way law should be related to the more general and -universal principles of justice. And so it came about that -they were led to borrow an idea from the philosophy of the -Stoics which postulated the existence of a natural condition -of society anterior to the formation of States in which men -were free and equal and the principles of justice obtained, -and which they came to recognise as the Law of Nature in -contradistinction to the Civil Law and the *jus gentium* or -Law of Nations which, making order rather than justice their -aim, legalised dominion and servitude. - -The Law of Nature was never at any time a theory resting -upon ascertained fact, but a hypothesis formulated for the -purpose of distinguishing between the ideal and the actual, -the primitive and the conventional, though the grounds of -the distinction remained somewhat uncertain. Each writer -gave his own interpretation as - -to what constituted the Law of Nature, and because of this -during the course of centuries it became a changing -hypothesis, adapting itself to changing mental and social -conditions. At the beginning the Law of Nature was combined -with the Law of Nations; but later jurists realised the -inconsistency. According to the Institutes of Justinian, the -Law of Nature is that which nature teaches animals and men; -from it originates the joining together of male and female, -the procreation and education of the offspring. It is the -law which makes air and water free, and public and religious -buildings a common possession, while, as under it all men -are born free and equal, it is incompatible with the -institution of slavery. - -Viewed in relation to the Law of Nature, which because of -its universality was considered divine and eternal, the -Civil Law was considered empirical and particular. The Civil -Law, it was maintained, owed its existence to the corruption -of human nature which, defeating the ends of justice, -necessitated organised government to keep evil in check. -Thus the State owed its existence to the depravity of human -nature. It was adapted to the circumstances of life, and -therefore justifiable under the actual conditions of -society, and for the vices connected with those conditions -it was the true remedy. Or, in other words, the Civil Law -differed from the Law of Nature to the extent that -conventional and civilised life in Rome differed from the -natural life of barbarians, and as such it appears as a kind -of Pagan version of the Fall of Man from the state of -innocence he enjoyed in the Garden of Eden. - -Instead of seeking to formulate a system of law in -connection with a theory of sociology to render practicable -the establishment of the Kingdom of God upon earth, the -Christian Fathers continued in the traditions of the Roman -jurists. They accepted the distinction the jurists had made -between the ideal and the actual, whilst giving to it a -Christian interpretation. They began by identifying the Law -of Nature with the law of God. All men are by nature equal -in the sense that whether a man be slave or free he is still -capable of the same moral and spiritual life, capable of -knowing God and serving Him. To the institution of slavery, -which the jurists held was contrary to nature, they added -the institution of private property. But that did not bring -them into collision with the established social order of -Rome, for they were no more prepared to condemn the -institution of property or slavery as unlawful than were the -jurists or the philosophers. On the contrary, it led them -into an attitude of political determinism in which they came -to acquiesce in such institutions because of the Fall; -slavery and property had become a necessity because of the -presence of sin in the world. At the same time, they sought -to mitigate their incidence by the affirmation of the -fundamental equality of human nature. If a man was a slave, -he was to be treated fairly and reasonably by his master, -who was no dearer to God than was the slave. If he was a -slave-holder, he might be prevailed upon to free his slaves. -If he had wealth, he might be induced to use it in some -public way. But that was as far as they went. In so far as -the spirit of charity, the temper which teaches a man to put -himself on an equality with his fellow-men, tended to modify -existing institutions, the Fathers of the Church may claim -to have been social reformers, but they discouraged all -attempts to realise the Kingdom of God by action of a more -positive and radical order. - -Now it is not to be denied that, taking all the -circumstances of the time into consideration, a very strong -case can be made out for their attitude. Yet the question -remains as to whether, by adopting the attitude they did, -the Christian Fathers did not betray the spirit of the -Gospel. It is a difficult question, and not to be easily -answered. There were extenuating circumstances, and much -authority for what they did. It is necessary in the first -place to recognise that, however great were the evils in -Roman society, experience had proved that they would not -yield to a frontal attack. There had been a thousand slave -revolts in antiquity, and one and all had failed. In the -next place, we must remember that the problem of the -relation of converts to the Roman Government was a very -difficult one; for the Government not only viewed the -advance of Christianity with distrust and suspicion, but -from time to time adopted a policy of persecution towards -it. In the face of such circumstances the only possible -policy for the Fathers to adopt was one of circumspection. -They were not unnaturally anxious to give the Government no -cause for provocation, while it is certain that had the more -impulsive and headstrong among the converts had their own -way and embarked on a revolt that was premature, it would -have been defeated and the success of Christianity might -have been imperilled by its association with revolutionary -activities that were foredoomed to failure. Remembering -these things, the conservative attitude of the Fathers -appears as common prudence. We may be assured that they were -absolutely in the right in making it their first aim to -change the temper of society by means of the spread of -spiritual truth and in refusing to compromise themselves by -supporting ill-considered revolts. In adopting this attitude -there was, moreover, authority on their side. Our Lord's -reply to those who asked whether it was lawful to pay -tribute to Caesar clearly showed that He had no intention of -becoming entangled in the difficult questions relating to -Jewish nationality and the Roman Empire, while the fact that -St. Paul sent a certain slave Onesimus back to his master -Philemon, from whom he had escaped, leaves no room for doubt -as to what St. Paul thought the attitude of the Church -towards slavery should be. There is no doubt that he thought -it should be dictated by considerations of expediency. "All -things are lawful for me; but all things are not -expedient,"[^21] he wrote to the Corinthians on another -occasion and in a different connection. It is important as -testifying to the spirit in which he thought the practical -problems of life should be faced. Idealism was to be -tempered by commonsense. - -If the Fathers of the Church had gone no further than to -compromise with slavery, no exception could be taken to -their attitude from the point of view of authority. But it -is evident that they did go further. St. Paul compromised -with slavery, but it cannot, I think, be said that he -acquiesced in it. Yet this is what the Fathers did. They -acquiesced in it and justified it. It had become a necessity -because of the presence of sin in the world. And to this -fact the decline of the moral power of Christianity in the -fourth century, when it became the official religion of the -Roman Empire, is perhaps to be attributed. A common -explanation for this decline is to say that the moral level -went down in the fourth century, because when Christianity -became the official religion of the Empire it cost nothing -to be a Christian, whereas in the days of persecution it had -cost a great deal. No doubt this explanation is true as far -as it goes. But I do not think it is the whole truth; for it -would be a poor testimony to the life-giving powers of the -Faith to say it can only flourish under persecution. I -venture, therefore, this explanation: that, owing to the -adoption of the Law of Nature by the Christian Fathers they -had been led into a fatalistic attitude towards the social -question, which resulted in the Church entirely neglecting -to prepare itself by the formulation of a Christian -sociology for the duties that were thrust upon it when at -last Christianity obtained the mastery of government. Belief -in the near approach of the Kingdom of God had been a chief -driving force among the Early Christians. It had led to the -most glorious anticipations of what Christianity would do -when it attained supreme power. Yet when at last -Christianity became acknowledged as the official religion of -the Roman Empire the great expectations were not fulfilled. -The Church had no new light to throw upon the problems that -confronted society, and this led in the first instance to -disappointment and disillusionment, and finally to reaction. - -The Law of Nature became in the twelfth century an integral -part of the Canon law of the Church. It embodied the -definition given by St. Isidore of Seville in the seventh -century. According to him, "the Law of Nature is common to -all nations, and it contains everything that is known to man -by natural instinct and not by constitutions, and man-made -law, and that is: the joining together of man and woman, -procreation and education of children, *communis omnium -possessio et omnium una libertas*, the acquisition of things -that may be captured in the air, on the earth, and in the -water, restitution of loaned and entrusted goods, finally, -self-defence by force against violence." The Law of Nature, -having become a part of the Canon Law, came to play a part -in the discussions of the schoolmen in the Middle Ages, who -constantly refer to St. Isidore's definition. At this point -an interesting development takes place. The Law of Nature, -as it was handled by the jurists of the Roman Empire, was, -as we saw, a purely academic proposition, while its -influence on patristic thought was to dispose the Christian -Fathers towards an attitude of political determinism. But -when, after the lapse of centuries, interest in the Law of -Nature was revived, it became an instrument of revolutionary -potentialities. The reason for this transformation is to be -found in the circumstances attending the revival of the -Roman civil law in the Middle Ages. In Rome, the Civil Law -was the traditional law of the Empire. It had gradually -shaped itself in obedience to considerations of expediency. -If it gave legal sanction to the institution of slavery and -to property rights divorced from duties, it followed custom -and merely gave legal sanction to institutions already -existing. But when the Roman civil law was revived in the -Middle Ages, it was different. Slavery, though it still -survived in places, had largely disappeared. Capitalism, the -existence of which the Roman civil law presupposes, was -almost non-existent, if not entirely so; while society did -not suffer from a system of private property as private -property was understood in Rome and as it is understood -among us to-day. Hence it was that Roman civil law, which, -in the first instance, gained a lodgment because it was -convenient to monarchs in their quarrels with the Papacy, -when given a wider application appeared as a challenge to -mediaeval institutions and readily lent itself for the -purposes of oppression. Armed with it, the kings found -themselves able to encroach upon the functions of the feudal -lords, while the feudal lords in turn found themselves able -to encroach upon the common rights of the people. And so it -came about that the land to which hitherto the peasantry had -some share came to be claimed as private property by the -lords, while the peasants began to lose their ancient status -and to sink into a position of slavery. It was against such -encroachments that the peasants rebelled in England in 1381, -in Bohemia in 1521, and in Germany in 1525. And in each case -their demand for the abolition of private property was -associated with the Law of Nature. Thus we see the Peasants' -Revolt and Peasant Wars were in a theoretical sense a -rebellion of the *jus naturale* of the peasants and friars -against the *jus civile* of the lawyers and lords. - -With the discovery of America and her tribal organisation, -the Law of Nature acquired an added strength and vigour. Its -theory, which hitherto had appeared as little more than a -useful hypothesis, now appeared to rest on a basis of solid -fact. To Amerigo Vespucci, Sir Thomas More, Hugo Grotius and -others the American tribes and communities appeared as -striking demonstrations of the truth of the Law of Nature. -From then onwards it exercised an influence on the -development of political thought and speculation, both -English and Continental, that it is difficult to -over-estimate. In the shock of the struggle between -Parliament and Monarchy in the Civil War, the Law of Nature -in one form or another appeared as the main element in the -flood of political and religious heresies that spread over -the land. Men no longer appealed to tradition, to laws and -customs, but to reason and the natural rights of man; to the -unwritten law of the *jus naturale* against the written law -of the *jus civile*. So full of peril did this rebellion -against all constituted authority appear to many that -attempts were made to reconcile the natural and civil state, -and to this end Pope wrote his *Essay on Man*, in which he -promulgated the view that the great aim and end of life did -not depend on equality of goods and station, but on virtue, -on the rule of reason over passion, on the harmony between -self-love and society, on the identification of individual -and social interests. But such attempts at reconciliation -were in vain, for they became ipso facto apologies for the -existing social order, and as the Civil Law remained in the -hands of the landlords as an instrument for encroaching upon -the common rights of the people, and as they kept on -encroaching all attempts at reconciliation were finally -impossible. Political thinkers continued to base their -theories upon the supposed truth of the Law of Nature, until -at last, in the French Revolution, the attempt was made on a -truly heroic scale to establish a new civilisation on the -basis of its principles. But the French Revolution failed, -as was inevitable. For a civilisation based upon the -principles of the Law of Nature is a contradiction in terms, -inasmuch as the aim of civilisation is to escape from nature -and not to return to it. Its failure was, among other -things, followed by a decline of faith in the efficacy of -the *jus naturale*, though as a part of the general -political consciousness it still continues to exercise -influence, as the survival of the belief in Free Trade and -the demand of Socialists for the abolition of the private +What, then, was the theory of the Law of Nature? It might, perhaps, be +defined as the apologetic for Roman Civil Law, being designed to give +philosophic justification to its measures of practical expediency. The +Civil Law, we saw, had made the attainment of order rather than the +realisation of justice the object of its ambition. In consequence it had +become in Rome an object of suspicion. We learn from Cicero that it was +a common saying of the time that injustice was necessarily involved in +the administration of the Commonwealth. The opinion prevailed that there +was no such thing as justice, or else that justice is mere foolishness, +since the only source of virtue is human agreement---an opinion probably +deriving from Epicurus, who had said that "justice was nothing in +itself, but merely a compact of expediency to prevent mutual injury." +The Roman jurists, who apparently were of more liberal sentiments, do +not appear to have been altogether happy about the prevailing opinion. +For though they were well aware that the Civil Law was based entirely +upon considerations of expediency, they yet felt in some way law should +be related to the more general and universal principles of justice. And +so it came about that they were led to borrow an idea from the +philosophy of the Stoics which postulated the existence of a natural +condition of society anterior to the formation of States in which men +were free and equal and the principles of justice obtained, and which +they came to recognise as the Law of Nature in contradistinction to the +Civil Law and the *jus gentium* or Law of Nations which, making order +rather than justice their aim, legalised dominion and servitude. + +The Law of Nature was never at any time a theory resting upon +ascertained fact, but a hypothesis formulated for the purpose of +distinguishing between the ideal and the actual, the primitive and the +conventional, though the grounds of the distinction remained somewhat +uncertain. Each writer gave his own interpretation as + +to what constituted the Law of Nature, and because of this during the +course of centuries it became a changing hypothesis, adapting itself to +changing mental and social conditions. At the beginning the Law of +Nature was combined with the Law of Nations; but later jurists realised +the inconsistency. According to the Institutes of Justinian, the Law of +Nature is that which nature teaches animals and men; from it originates +the joining together of male and female, the procreation and education +of the offspring. It is the law which makes air and water free, and +public and religious buildings a common possession, while, as under it +all men are born free and equal, it is incompatible with the institution +of slavery. + +Viewed in relation to the Law of Nature, which because of its +universality was considered divine and eternal, the Civil Law was +considered empirical and particular. The Civil Law, it was maintained, +owed its existence to the corruption of human nature which, defeating +the ends of justice, necessitated organised government to keep evil in +check. Thus the State owed its existence to the depravity of human +nature. It was adapted to the circumstances of life, and therefore +justifiable under the actual conditions of society, and for the vices +connected with those conditions it was the true remedy. Or, in other +words, the Civil Law differed from the Law of Nature to the extent that +conventional and civilised life in Rome differed from the natural life +of barbarians, and as such it appears as a kind of Pagan version of the +Fall of Man from the state of innocence he enjoyed in the Garden of +Eden. + +Instead of seeking to formulate a system of law in connection with a +theory of sociology to render practicable the establishment of the +Kingdom of God upon earth, the Christian Fathers continued in the +traditions of the Roman jurists. They accepted the distinction the +jurists had made between the ideal and the actual, whilst giving to it a +Christian interpretation. They began by identifying the Law of Nature +with the law of God. All men are by nature equal in the sense that +whether a man be slave or free he is still capable of the same moral and +spiritual life, capable of knowing God and serving Him. To the +institution of slavery, which the jurists held was contrary to nature, +they added the institution of private property. But that did not bring +them into collision with the established social order of Rome, for they +were no more prepared to condemn the institution of property or slavery +as unlawful than were the jurists or the philosophers. On the contrary, +it led them into an attitude of political determinism in which they came +to acquiesce in such institutions because of the Fall; slavery and +property had become a necessity because of the presence of sin in the +world. At the same time, they sought to mitigate their incidence by the +affirmation of the fundamental equality of human nature. If a man was a +slave, he was to be treated fairly and reasonably by his master, who was +no dearer to God than was the slave. If he was a slave-holder, he might +be prevailed upon to free his slaves. If he had wealth, he might be +induced to use it in some public way. But that was as far as they went. +In so far as the spirit of charity, the temper which teaches a man to +put himself on an equality with his fellow-men, tended to modify +existing institutions, the Fathers of the Church may claim to have been +social reformers, but they discouraged all attempts to realise the +Kingdom of God by action of a more positive and radical order. + +Now it is not to be denied that, taking all the circumstances of the +time into consideration, a very strong case can be made out for their +attitude. Yet the question remains as to whether, by adopting the +attitude they did, the Christian Fathers did not betray the spirit of +the Gospel. It is a difficult question, and not to be easily answered. +There were extenuating circumstances, and much authority for what they +did. It is necessary in the first place to recognise that, however great +were the evils in Roman society, experience had proved that they would +not yield to a frontal attack. There had been a thousand slave revolts +in antiquity, and one and all had failed. In the next place, we must +remember that the problem of the relation of converts to the Roman +Government was a very difficult one; for the Government not only viewed +the advance of Christianity with distrust and suspicion, but from time +to time adopted a policy of persecution towards it. In the face of such +circumstances the only possible policy for the Fathers to adopt was one +of circumspection. They were not unnaturally anxious to give the +Government no cause for provocation, while it is certain that had the +more impulsive and headstrong among the converts had their own way and +embarked on a revolt that was premature, it would have been defeated and +the success of Christianity might have been imperilled by its +association with revolutionary activities that were foredoomed to +failure. Remembering these things, the conservative attitude of the +Fathers appears as common prudence. We may be assured that they were +absolutely in the right in making it their first aim to change the +temper of society by means of the spread of spiritual truth and in +refusing to compromise themselves by supporting ill-considered revolts. +In adopting this attitude there was, moreover, authority on their side. +Our Lord's reply to those who asked whether it was lawful to pay tribute +to Caesar clearly showed that He had no intention of becoming entangled +in the difficult questions relating to Jewish nationality and the Roman +Empire, while the fact that St. Paul sent a certain slave Onesimus back +to his master Philemon, from whom he had escaped, leaves no room for +doubt as to what St. Paul thought the attitude of the Church towards +slavery should be. There is no doubt that he thought it should be +dictated by considerations of expediency. "All things are lawful for me; +but all things are not expedient,"[^21] he wrote to the Corinthians on +another occasion and in a different connection. It is important as +testifying to the spirit in which he thought the practical problems of +life should be faced. Idealism was to be tempered by commonsense. + +If the Fathers of the Church had gone no further than to compromise with +slavery, no exception could be taken to their attitude from the point of +view of authority. But it is evident that they did go further. St. Paul +compromised with slavery, but it cannot, I think, be said that he +acquiesced in it. Yet this is what the Fathers did. They acquiesced in +it and justified it. It had become a necessity because of the presence +of sin in the world. And to this fact the decline of the moral power of +Christianity in the fourth century, when it became the official religion +of the Roman Empire, is perhaps to be attributed. A common explanation +for this decline is to say that the moral level went down in the fourth +century, because when Christianity became the official religion of the +Empire it cost nothing to be a Christian, whereas in the days of +persecution it had cost a great deal. No doubt this explanation is true +as far as it goes. But I do not think it is the whole truth; for it +would be a poor testimony to the life-giving powers of the Faith to say +it can only flourish under persecution. I venture, therefore, this +explanation: that, owing to the adoption of the Law of Nature by the +Christian Fathers they had been led into a fatalistic attitude towards +the social question, which resulted in the Church entirely neglecting to +prepare itself by the formulation of a Christian sociology for the +duties that were thrust upon it when at last Christianity obtained the +mastery of government. Belief in the near approach of the Kingdom of God +had been a chief driving force among the Early Christians. It had led to +the most glorious anticipations of what Christianity would do when it +attained supreme power. Yet when at last Christianity became +acknowledged as the official religion of the Roman Empire the great +expectations were not fulfilled. The Church had no new light to throw +upon the problems that confronted society, and this led in the first +instance to disappointment and disillusionment, and finally to reaction. + +The Law of Nature became in the twelfth century an integral part of the +Canon law of the Church. It embodied the definition given by St. Isidore +of Seville in the seventh century. According to him, "the Law of Nature +is common to all nations, and it contains everything that is known to +man by natural instinct and not by constitutions, and man-made law, and +that is: the joining together of man and woman, procreation and +education of children, *communis omnium possessio et omnium una +libertas*, the acquisition of things that may be captured in the air, on +the earth, and in the water, restitution of loaned and entrusted goods, +finally, self-defence by force against violence." The Law of Nature, +having become a part of the Canon Law, came to play a part in the +discussions of the schoolmen in the Middle Ages, who constantly refer to +St. Isidore's definition. At this point an interesting development takes +place. The Law of Nature, as it was handled by the jurists of the Roman +Empire, was, as we saw, a purely academic proposition, while its +influence on patristic thought was to dispose the Christian Fathers +towards an attitude of political determinism. But when, after the lapse +of centuries, interest in the Law of Nature was revived, it became an +instrument of revolutionary potentialities. The reason for this +transformation is to be found in the circumstances attending the revival +of the Roman civil law in the Middle Ages. In Rome, the Civil Law was +the traditional law of the Empire. It had gradually shaped itself in +obedience to considerations of expediency. If it gave legal sanction to +the institution of slavery and to property rights divorced from duties, +it followed custom and merely gave legal sanction to institutions +already existing. But when the Roman civil law was revived in the Middle +Ages, it was different. Slavery, though it still survived in places, had +largely disappeared. Capitalism, the existence of which the Roman civil +law presupposes, was almost non-existent, if not entirely so; while +society did not suffer from a system of private property as private +property was understood in Rome and as it is understood among us to-day. +Hence it was that Roman civil law, which, in the first instance, gained +a lodgment because it was convenient to monarchs in their quarrels with +the Papacy, when given a wider application appeared as a challenge to +mediaeval institutions and readily lent itself for the purposes of +oppression. Armed with it, the kings found themselves able to encroach +upon the functions of the feudal lords, while the feudal lords in turn +found themselves able to encroach upon the common rights of the people. +And so it came about that the land to which hitherto the peasantry had +some share came to be claimed as private property by the lords, while +the peasants began to lose their ancient status and to sink into a +position of slavery. It was against such encroachments that the peasants +rebelled in England in 1381, in Bohemia in 1521, and in Germany in 1525. +And in each case their demand for the abolition of private property was +associated with the Law of Nature. Thus we see the Peasants' Revolt and +Peasant Wars were in a theoretical sense a rebellion of the *jus +naturale* of the peasants and friars against the *jus civile* of the +lawyers and lords. + +With the discovery of America and her tribal organisation, the Law of +Nature acquired an added strength and vigour. Its theory, which hitherto +had appeared as little more than a useful hypothesis, now appeared to +rest on a basis of solid fact. To Amerigo Vespucci, Sir Thomas More, +Hugo Grotius and others the American tribes and communities appeared as +striking demonstrations of the truth of the Law of Nature. From then +onwards it exercised an influence on the development of political +thought and speculation, both English and Continental, that it is +difficult to over-estimate. In the shock of the struggle between +Parliament and Monarchy in the Civil War, the Law of Nature in one form +or another appeared as the main element in the flood of political and +religious heresies that spread over the land. Men no longer appealed to +tradition, to laws and customs, but to reason and the natural rights of +man; to the unwritten law of the *jus naturale* against the written law +of the *jus civile*. So full of peril did this rebellion against all +constituted authority appear to many that attempts were made to +reconcile the natural and civil state, and to this end Pope wrote his +*Essay on Man*, in which he promulgated the view that the great aim and +end of life did not depend on equality of goods and station, but on +virtue, on the rule of reason over passion, on the harmony between +self-love and society, on the identification of individual and social +interests. But such attempts at reconciliation were in vain, for they +became ipso facto apologies for the existing social order, and as the +Civil Law remained in the hands of the landlords as an instrument for +encroaching upon the common rights of the people, and as they kept on +encroaching all attempts at reconciliation were finally impossible. +Political thinkers continued to base their theories upon the supposed +truth of the Law of Nature, until at last, in the French Revolution, the +attempt was made on a truly heroic scale to establish a new civilisation +on the basis of its principles. But the French Revolution failed, as was +inevitable. For a civilisation based upon the principles of the Law of +Nature is a contradiction in terms, inasmuch as the aim of civilisation +is to escape from nature and not to return to it. Its failure was, among +other things, followed by a decline of faith in the efficacy of the *jus +naturale*, though as a part of the general political consciousness it +still continues to exercise influence, as the survival of the belief in +Free Trade and the demand of Socialists for the abolition of the private ownership of property bear witness. -Considering how the *jus naturale* was in the past -associated with revolutionary activities, it might be -supposed that it was the natural remedy for the injustices -of the *jus civile*. Yet when we look into the matter more -closely we begin to see that the Law of Nature and the Civil -Law are but two aspects of the same disease, inasmuch as -they bring to each other mutual support. Indignation and -attempts to resist the encroachments of landlords armed with -the Civil Law there were bound to be. At this point the Law -of Nature comes to the rescue of the Civil Law, and by -filling the minds of the people with impossible ideals -safely steers the popular movements clear of concrete -grievances, causing them to dissipate their energies in wild -talk and popular demonstrations which accomplish nothing, -for by leading the people to demand everything they end in -getting nothing. In all the popular movements that have -arisen to demonstrate against landlordism the demand has -never been made to abrogate the Statute of Merton (1235) -which is the foundation of the law on the subject, and which -gave to the lords the right to "make their profit" of the -"wastes, woods and pastures," notwithstanding the -"complaints of knights and freeholders." It is because this -law is still on the Statute Book that proprietors of -manorial rights continue to encroach to this day. Yet, -instead of the efforts of reformers being concentrated on -such a concrete injustice, they take refuge in economic -abstractions, and for this misdirection of reform activity -we have to thank the attitude of mind fostered by the Law of -Nature. - -But this is not all that is to be said. Throughout history -the Law of Nature has been responsible for concentrating the -attention of reformers on the problem of property to the -exclusion of the problem of currency; and in our day the -problem of machinery. So it has happened that while in times -of revolution the peasant has been able to improve his -position by getting hold of the land, no such benefits have -accrued to the town worker. For the problems of the town -worker are more particularly those of currency and -machinery, and on these problems reformers to-day, true to -the traditions of the Law of Nature, have nothing to say. +Considering how the *jus naturale* was in the past associated with +revolutionary activities, it might be supposed that it was the natural +remedy for the injustices of the *jus civile*. Yet when we look into the +matter more closely we begin to see that the Law of Nature and the Civil +Law are but two aspects of the same disease, inasmuch as they bring to +each other mutual support. Indignation and attempts to resist the +encroachments of landlords armed with the Civil Law there were bound to +be. At this point the Law of Nature comes to the rescue of the Civil +Law, and by filling the minds of the people with impossible ideals +safely steers the popular movements clear of concrete grievances, +causing them to dissipate their energies in wild talk and popular +demonstrations which accomplish nothing, for by leading the people to +demand everything they end in getting nothing. In all the popular +movements that have arisen to demonstrate against landlordism the demand +has never been made to abrogate the Statute of Merton (1235) which is +the foundation of the law on the subject, and which gave to the lords +the right to "make their profit" of the "wastes, woods and pastures," +notwithstanding the "complaints of knights and freeholders." It is +because this law is still on the Statute Book that proprietors of +manorial rights continue to encroach to this day. Yet, instead of the +efforts of reformers being concentrated on such a concrete injustice, +they take refuge in economic abstractions, and for this misdirection of +reform activity we have to thank the attitude of mind fostered by the +Law of Nature. + +But this is not all that is to be said. Throughout history the Law of +Nature has been responsible for concentrating the attention of reformers +on the problem of property to the exclusion of the problem of currency; +and in our day the problem of machinery. So it has happened that while +in times of revolution the peasant has been able to improve his position +by getting hold of the land, no such benefits have accrued to the town +worker. For the problems of the town worker are more particularly those +of currency and machinery, and on these problems reformers to-day, true +to the traditions of the Law of Nature, have nothing to say. # XII. Currency and the Guilds -It is a commonly received opinion that gains some support -from the theory of Roman law that civilisation owes its -existence to the introduction of slavery. Such a view, -however, is untenable. It receives no support from the -actual facts, for we know that slavery existed long before -civilisation came into existence. Not slavery, but the -introduction of currency was the decisive factor in the -situation; and it is the failure to understand this fact -that is one of the root causes of confusion in social -theory. It cannot fail to strike the impartial observer as -an extraordinary thing that currency, to the introduction of -which civilisation owes its very existence, should have no -recognised place in social theory. Yet such is the case. Its -problems, which are central in civilisation, are treated as -the mere technical ones of bankers and financiers, and are -only approached from their point of view. But the bankers' -approach is most demonstrably a fundamentally false one; for -it ignores the moral issue involved in the problem of usury, -and it is because the moral factor is ignored in discussions -of this problem that the whole subject is involved in such -hopeless confusion. For currency, Uke every other social and -economic problem, to be intelligible must be approached -historically in the light of a definite moral standard, and -not as being a purely technical question for men who are -familiar with the intricacies of finance. - -Currency was first introduced in the seventh century before -Christ, when the Lydian kings introduced stamped bars of -fixed weight to replace the metal bars of unfixed weight -which hitherto had served as a medium of exchange. It was a -simple device the consequences of which were entirely -unforeseen; but the developments that followed upon it were -simply stupendous. It created an economic revolution -comparable only to that which followed the invention of the -steam engine in more recent times. Civilisation---that is, -the development of the material accessories of life---dates -from that simple invention; for by facilitating exchange it -made possible differentiation of occupation, specialisation -in the crafts and arts, city-life and foreign trade. But -along with the undoubted advantages which a fixed currency -brought with it, there came an evil unknown to primitive -society---the economic problem. For the introduction of -currency not only undermined the common life of the -Mediterranean communities, but it brought into existence the -problem of capitalism. And with capitalism there came the -division of society into two distinct and hostile -classes---the prosperous landowners, merchants and -money-lending class on the one hand, and the peasantry and -debt slaves on the other, while incidentally it gave rise to -the private ownership of land, which now for the first time -could be bought and sold as a commodity.[^22] - -The reason for these developments is not far to seek. So -long as the exchange was carried on by barter a natural -limit was placed to the development of trade, because under -such circumstances people would only exchange wares for -their own personal use. Exchange would only be possible when -each party to the bargain possessed some article of which -the other party was in need. But with the introduction of -currency circumstances changed, and for the first time in -history there came into existence a class of men who bought -and sold entirely for the purposes of gain. These merchants -or middlemen became specialists in finance. They knew better -than the peasantry the market value of things, and so they -found little difficulty in taking advantage of them. Little -by little they became rich and the peasantry their debtors. -It is the same story wherever men are at liberty to -speculate in values and exchange is unregulated---the -distributor enslaves the producer. It happened in Greece, it -happened in Rome, and it has happened everywhere in the -modern world, for speculation in exchange brings in its -train the same evils. - -Though the Greeks and Romans thought a great deal about the -economic problems that had followed the introduction of -currency, to the end the problem eluded them. The ideal of -Plato of rebuilding society anew on the principles of -justice gave way to the more immediately practical aim of -the Roman jurists of maintaining order. For, as I have -previously pointed out, the maintenance of order rather than -justice was the aim of Roman law, and as such it was an -instrument for holding together a society that had been -rendered unstable by the growth of capitalism. Thus we see -there is a definite connection between the development of -Roman civil law and the inability of antiquity to find a -solution for the problems of currency. Freedom of exchange -having led to capitalism, and capitalism to social -disorders, Roman law stepped into the breach, and by -legalising injustices sought to preserve order. And because -of this, because of the generally received opinion in Rome -that injustice was necessarily involved in the -administration of the commonwealth, the jurists of the -Antonine period came to postulate the Law of Nature in order -to provide a philosophic basis for their legal measures of -practical necessity. And as reform activities have ever -since the Middle Ages been influenced by the Law of Nature, -we see that the vicious circle in which they move owes its -existence to the general failure to give to the problem of -currency its position of central importance. - -Unregulated currency gradually disintegrated the -civilisations of Greece and Rome, and mankind had to wait -until the Middle Ages before a solution was -forthcoming, -when it was provided by the Guilds in the light of the -teaching of Christianity, though owing to the fact that the -Guilds came into existence as spontaneous and instinctive -creations of the people, their significance was entirely -overlooked by Mediaeval thinkers, who, if orthodox, confined -their social and political speculations to the range of -issues covered by the Civil and Canon Laws, and, if -revolutionary, to the issues raised by the Law of Nature, in -neither of which systems Guilds found a place. This was one -of the tragedies of the Middle Ages. For in organising the -Guilds the townsmen of the Middle Ages unconsciously -stumbled upon the solution of the problem of currency, but -owing to the fact that the minds of thinkers and publicists -of the time were engrossed with other things the social -potentialities of this great discovery were lost to the -world. - -What, then, was the solution provided by the Guilds? It was -to stabilise currency by the institution of a Just and Fixed -Price. The Just Price had a central place in Mediaeval -economic theory, though, strictly speaking, the Just Price -is a moral rather than an economic idea. The Mediaevalists -understood what we are only beginning to understand---that -there is no such thing as a purely economic solution of the -problems of society, since economics are not to be -understood as a separate and detached science considered -apart from morals. On the contrary, economic issues are -primarily moral issues with economic equivalents. And for -this reason Mediaevalists insisted upon things being bought -and sold at a Just Price. They taught that to buy a thing -for less or sell a thing for more than its real value was in -itself unallowable and unjust, and therefore sinful, though -exceptional circumstances might at times make it -permissible. The institution of buying and selling was -established for the common advantage of mankind, but the -ends of justice and equality were defeated if one party to -any transaction received a price that was more and the other -less than an article was worth. - -This doctrine---that wares should be sold at a Just -Price---together with another---that the taking of interest -was sinful---was insisted upon by the Church, and obedience -was enforced from the pulpit, in the confessional, and in -the ecclesiastical courts. So effectually were these -doctrines impressed upon the consciences of men that their -principles found their way into all the secular legislation -of the period, whether of Parliament, Guild or Municipality. -The differing fortunes that followed these legislative -attempts to secure obedience to the principle of the Just -Price is instructive, for it demonstrates the undoubted -superiority of the Guild as an instrument for the -performance of economic functions. Parliament could do -nothing but enact laws against profiteering, and as such its -action was negative and finally ineffective. But the Guilds -were positive. They sought to give effect to the principle -of the Just Price by making it at the same time a Fixed -Price, and around this central idea there was gradually -built up the wonderful system of corporate life of the -cities. Thus, in order to perform their economic functions, -the Guilds had to be privileged bodies, having a complete -monopoly of their trades over the area of a particular town -or city; for only through the exercise of authority over its -individual members could a Guild enforce a discipline. -Profiteering and other trade abuses were ruthlessly -suppressed; for the first offence a member was fined; the -most severe penalty was expulsion from the Guild, when a man -lost the privilege of following his trade or craft in his -native city. - -But a Just and Fixed Price cannot be maintained by moral -action alone. If prices are to be fixed throughout industry, -it can only be on the assumption that a standard of quality -can be upheld. As a standard of quality cannot be defined in -the terms of law, it is necessary, for the maintenance of a -standard, to place authority in the hands of craft-masters, -a consensus of whose opinion constitutes the final court of -appeal. In order to ensure a supply of masters it is -necessary to train apprentices, to regulate the size of the -workshop, the hours of labour, the volume of production, and -so forth; for only when attention is given to such matters -is it possible "to ensure the permanency of practice and -continuity of tradition, whereby alone the reputation of the -Guild for honourable dealing and sound workmanship can be -carried on from generation to generation," and conditions -created favourable to the production of masters. Thus we see -all the regulations--as, indeed, the whole hierarchy of the -Guild---arising out of the primary object of maintaining the -Just Price. - -But it will be said: If the Mediaeval Guilds were such -excellent institutions, why did they disappear? The -immediate cause is to be found in the fact that they were -not co-extensive with society. The Guilds existed in the -towns, but they never came into existence in the rural -areas. That was the weak place in the Mediaeval economic -armour; for it is obvious that if a Fixed Price was finally -to be maintained anywhere, it would have to be maintained -everywhere, both in town and country. That Guilds were never -organised in the rural areas is to be explained immediately -by the fact that in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when -Guilds were organised in the towns, the agricultural -population was organised under Feudalism, and money was only -beginning to be used, so the problem was not pressing. But -the ultimate reason is to be found in the fact that the -impossibility of maintaining, in the long run, a Just Price -that was not a Fixed Price was not at the time appreciated -by the Church, which appears to have been blind to the need -of Guild organisation for its maintenance. Churchmen then -thought, as so many do to-day, that the world can be -redeemed by moral action alone, never realising that a high -standard of commercial morality can only be maintained if -organisations exist to suppress a lower one. Hence it came -about that, when in the thirteenth century the validity of -the Just Price came to be challenged by the lawyers, who -maintained the right of every man to make the best bargain -he could for himself, the moral sanction on which the -maintenance of the Just Price ultimately rested was -undermined. Belief in it lost its hold on the country -population, and then the Guild regulations came to be -regarded as unnecessary restrictions on the freedom of the -individual. Thus a way was opened in rural areas for the -growth of capitalism and speculation, and this made it -increasingly difficult for the Guilds to maintain fixed -prices in the towns, until at last, in the sixteenth -century, the whole system broke down amid the economic chaos -that followed the suppression of the monasteries and the -wholesale importation of gold from South America, which -doubled prices all over Europe. It was because the Guilds -were unable to perform any longer the functions that brought -them into existence that they finally fell, and not because -of the Chantries Act of 1547. This Act did not attack the -Guilds as economic organisations, as is commonly supposed, -nor did it seek to confiscate the whole of their property, -but only such part of their revenues as had already been +It is a commonly received opinion that gains some support from the +theory of Roman law that civilisation owes its existence to the +introduction of slavery. Such a view, however, is untenable. It receives +no support from the actual facts, for we know that slavery existed long +before civilisation came into existence. Not slavery, but the +introduction of currency was the decisive factor in the situation; and +it is the failure to understand this fact that is one of the root causes +of confusion in social theory. It cannot fail to strike the impartial +observer as an extraordinary thing that currency, to the introduction of +which civilisation owes its very existence, should have no recognised +place in social theory. Yet such is the case. Its problems, which are +central in civilisation, are treated as the mere technical ones of +bankers and financiers, and are only approached from their point of +view. But the bankers' approach is most demonstrably a fundamentally +false one; for it ignores the moral issue involved in the problem of +usury, and it is because the moral factor is ignored in discussions of +this problem that the whole subject is involved in such hopeless +confusion. For currency, Uke every other social and economic problem, to +be intelligible must be approached historically in the light of a +definite moral standard, and not as being a purely technical question +for men who are familiar with the intricacies of finance. + +Currency was first introduced in the seventh century before Christ, when +the Lydian kings introduced stamped bars of fixed weight to replace the +metal bars of unfixed weight which hitherto had served as a medium of +exchange. It was a simple device the consequences of which were entirely +unforeseen; but the developments that followed upon it were simply +stupendous. It created an economic revolution comparable only to that +which followed the invention of the steam engine in more recent times. +Civilisation---that is, the development of the material accessories of +life---dates from that simple invention; for by facilitating exchange it +made possible differentiation of occupation, specialisation in the +crafts and arts, city-life and foreign trade. But along with the +undoubted advantages which a fixed currency brought with it, there came +an evil unknown to primitive society---the economic problem. For the +introduction of currency not only undermined the common life of the +Mediterranean communities, but it brought into existence the problem of +capitalism. And with capitalism there came the division of society into +two distinct and hostile classes---the prosperous landowners, merchants +and money-lending class on the one hand, and the peasantry and debt +slaves on the other, while incidentally it gave rise to the private +ownership of land, which now for the first time could be bought and sold +as a commodity.[^22] + +The reason for these developments is not far to seek. So long as the +exchange was carried on by barter a natural limit was placed to the +development of trade, because under such circumstances people would only +exchange wares for their own personal use. Exchange would only be +possible when each party to the bargain possessed some article of which +the other party was in need. But with the introduction of currency +circumstances changed, and for the first time in history there came into +existence a class of men who bought and sold entirely for the purposes +of gain. These merchants or middlemen became specialists in finance. +They knew better than the peasantry the market value of things, and so +they found little difficulty in taking advantage of them. Little by +little they became rich and the peasantry their debtors. It is the same +story wherever men are at liberty to speculate in values and exchange is +unregulated---the distributor enslaves the producer. It happened in +Greece, it happened in Rome, and it has happened everywhere in the +modern world, for speculation in exchange brings in its train the same +evils. + +Though the Greeks and Romans thought a great deal about the economic +problems that had followed the introduction of currency, to the end the +problem eluded them. The ideal of Plato of rebuilding society anew on +the principles of justice gave way to the more immediately practical aim +of the Roman jurists of maintaining order. For, as I have previously +pointed out, the maintenance of order rather than justice was the aim of +Roman law, and as such it was an instrument for holding together a +society that had been rendered unstable by the growth of capitalism. +Thus we see there is a definite connection between the development of +Roman civil law and the inability of antiquity to find a solution for +the problems of currency. Freedom of exchange having led to capitalism, +and capitalism to social disorders, Roman law stepped into the breach, +and by legalising injustices sought to preserve order. And because of +this, because of the generally received opinion in Rome that injustice +was necessarily involved in the administration of the commonwealth, the +jurists of the Antonine period came to postulate the Law of Nature in +order to provide a philosophic basis for their legal measures of +practical necessity. And as reform activities have ever since the Middle +Ages been influenced by the Law of Nature, we see that the vicious +circle in which they move owes its existence to the general failure to +give to the problem of currency its position of central importance. + +Unregulated currency gradually disintegrated the civilisations of Greece +and Rome, and mankind had to wait until the Middle Ages before a +solution was -forthcoming, when it was provided by the Guilds in the +light of the teaching of Christianity, though owing to the fact that the +Guilds came into existence as spontaneous and instinctive creations of +the people, their significance was entirely overlooked by Mediaeval +thinkers, who, if orthodox, confined their social and political +speculations to the range of issues covered by the Civil and Canon Laws, +and, if revolutionary, to the issues raised by the Law of Nature, in +neither of which systems Guilds found a place. This was one of the +tragedies of the Middle Ages. For in organising the Guilds the townsmen +of the Middle Ages unconsciously stumbled upon the solution of the +problem of currency, but owing to the fact that the minds of thinkers +and publicists of the time were engrossed with other things the social +potentialities of this great discovery were lost to the world. + +What, then, was the solution provided by the Guilds? It was to stabilise +currency by the institution of a Just and Fixed Price. The Just Price +had a central place in Mediaeval economic theory, though, strictly +speaking, the Just Price is a moral rather than an economic idea. The +Mediaevalists understood what we are only beginning to understand---that +there is no such thing as a purely economic solution of the problems of +society, since economics are not to be understood as a separate and +detached science considered apart from morals. On the contrary, economic +issues are primarily moral issues with economic equivalents. And for +this reason Mediaevalists insisted upon things being bought and sold at +a Just Price. They taught that to buy a thing for less or sell a thing +for more than its real value was in itself unallowable and unjust, and +therefore sinful, though exceptional circumstances might at times make +it permissible. The institution of buying and selling was established +for the common advantage of mankind, but the ends of justice and +equality were defeated if one party to any transaction received a price +that was more and the other less than an article was worth. + +This doctrine---that wares should be sold at a Just Price---together +with another---that the taking of interest was sinful---was insisted +upon by the Church, and obedience was enforced from the pulpit, in the +confessional, and in the ecclesiastical courts. So effectually were +these doctrines impressed upon the consciences of men that their +principles found their way into all the secular legislation of the +period, whether of Parliament, Guild or Municipality. The differing +fortunes that followed these legislative attempts to secure obedience to +the principle of the Just Price is instructive, for it demonstrates the +undoubted superiority of the Guild as an instrument for the performance +of economic functions. Parliament could do nothing but enact laws +against profiteering, and as such its action was negative and finally +ineffective. But the Guilds were positive. They sought to give effect to +the principle of the Just Price by making it at the same time a Fixed +Price, and around this central idea there was gradually built up the +wonderful system of corporate life of the cities. Thus, in order to +perform their economic functions, the Guilds had to be privileged +bodies, having a complete monopoly of their trades over the area of a +particular town or city; for only through the exercise of authority over +its individual members could a Guild enforce a discipline. Profiteering +and other trade abuses were ruthlessly suppressed; for the first offence +a member was fined; the most severe penalty was expulsion from the +Guild, when a man lost the privilege of following his trade or craft in +his native city. + +But a Just and Fixed Price cannot be maintained by moral action alone. +If prices are to be fixed throughout industry, it can only be on the +assumption that a standard of quality can be upheld. As a standard of +quality cannot be defined in the terms of law, it is necessary, for the +maintenance of a standard, to place authority in the hands of +craft-masters, a consensus of whose opinion constitutes the final court +of appeal. In order to ensure a supply of masters it is necessary to +train apprentices, to regulate the size of the workshop, the hours of +labour, the volume of production, and so forth; for only when attention +is given to such matters is it possible "to ensure the permanency of +practice and continuity of tradition, whereby alone the reputation of +the Guild for honourable dealing and sound workmanship can be carried on +from generation to generation," and conditions created favourable to the +production of masters. Thus we see all the regulations--as, indeed, the +whole hierarchy of the Guild---arising out of the primary object of +maintaining the Just Price. + +But it will be said: If the Mediaeval Guilds were such excellent +institutions, why did they disappear? The immediate cause is to be found +in the fact that they were not co-extensive with society. The Guilds +existed in the towns, but they never came into existence in the rural +areas. That was the weak place in the Mediaeval economic armour; for it +is obvious that if a Fixed Price was finally to be maintained anywhere, +it would have to be maintained everywhere, both in town and country. +That Guilds were never organised in the rural areas is to be explained +immediately by the fact that in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when +Guilds were organised in the towns, the agricultural population was +organised under Feudalism, and money was only beginning to be used, so +the problem was not pressing. But the ultimate reason is to be found in +the fact that the impossibility of maintaining, in the long run, a Just +Price that was not a Fixed Price was not at the time appreciated by the +Church, which appears to have been blind to the need of Guild +organisation for its maintenance. Churchmen then thought, as so many do +to-day, that the world can be redeemed by moral action alone, never +realising that a high standard of commercial morality can only be +maintained if organisations exist to suppress a lower one. Hence it came +about that, when in the thirteenth century the validity of the Just +Price came to be challenged by the lawyers, who maintained the right of +every man to make the best bargain he could for himself, the moral +sanction on which the maintenance of the Just Price ultimately rested +was undermined. Belief in it lost its hold on the country population, +and then the Guild regulations came to be regarded as unnecessary +restrictions on the freedom of the individual. Thus a way was opened in +rural areas for the growth of capitalism and speculation, and this made +it increasingly difficult for the Guilds to maintain fixed prices in the +towns, until at last, in the sixteenth century, the whole system broke +down amid the economic chaos that followed the suppression of the +monasteries and the wholesale importation of gold from South America, +which doubled prices all over Europe. It was because the Guilds were +unable to perform any longer the functions that brought them into +existence that they finally fell, and not because of the Chantries Act +of 1547. This Act did not attack the Guilds as economic organisations, +as is commonly supposed, nor did it seek to confiscate the whole of +their property, but only such part of their revenues as had already been devoted to specified religious purposes. -The explanation I have given of the decline of the Guilds -is, so far as the details are concerned, the history of the -decline of the English Guilds only. On the Continent the -decline pursued a different course, and as the factors in -the situation were there much more complex, it is not so -easy to generalise. Nevertheless, I think it is true to say -that the ultimate cause of their decline is to be traced to -the revival of Roman law. The Guilds went down not because -they were unfitted by their nature to grapple with the -problems of a wider social intercourse, as historians have -too hastily assumed, but because the moral sanctions on -which they rested had been completely undermined by the -revival of a system of law that gave legal sanction to usury -and permitted speculation in prices. Unfortunately, the -truth of the matter, which is extremely simple, has been -concealed from the public by a mysterious habit of economic -historians of always talking about the growth of national -industry when what they really mean is the growth of -capitalist industry. If they talked about the growth of -capitalist industry, everyone would understand that the -failure of the Guilds was a consequence of the moral failure -of Mediaeval society, for the issues would be clear. But -instead of talking about capitalist industry, they talk -about national industry, and people are led to suppose that -the Guilds declined because their type of organisation -became obsolete, which is not the case, as we shall see -later. +The explanation I have given of the decline of the Guilds is, so far as +the details are concerned, the history of the decline of the English +Guilds only. On the Continent the decline pursued a different course, +and as the factors in the situation were there much more complex, it is +not so easy to generalise. Nevertheless, I think it is true to say that +the ultimate cause of their decline is to be traced to the revival of +Roman law. The Guilds went down not because they were unfitted by their +nature to grapple with the problems of a wider social intercourse, as +historians have too hastily assumed, but because the moral sanctions on +which they rested had been completely undermined by the revival of a +system of law that gave legal sanction to usury and permitted +speculation in prices. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter, which is +extremely simple, has been concealed from the public by a mysterious +habit of economic historians of always talking about the growth of +national industry when what they really mean is the growth of capitalist +industry. If they talked about the growth of capitalist industry, +everyone would understand that the failure of the Guilds was a +consequence of the moral failure of Mediaeval society, for the issues +would be clear. But instead of talking about capitalist industry, they +talk about national industry, and people are led to suppose that the +Guilds declined because their type of organisation became obsolete, +which is not the case, as we shall see later. # XIII. The Just and Fixed Price -The question of price is as central in the economic -situation of to-day as it was in the Middle Ages, though its -importance has been obscured by the Socialist and Labour -movements, whose theories of late years have almost -monopolised public interest. Yet if we turn from what -reformers are talking about to what the business world is -thinking about, we shall find that the problem of price is -what engages their unceasing attention, as the perennial -interest in the controversy between Free Trade and -Protection bears witness. Though the economists of the -Manchester School entirely repudiated the conclusions of the -Mediaeval economists, they nevertheless agreed with them -that the problem of price was a central issue. Adam Smith -would have agreed with St. Thomas Aquinas that the -attainment of the Just Price was the aim of economic -justice, the difference between them would be on the issue -as to how such a desideratum was to be brought about. Adam -Smith, regarding economics as a detached service unrelated -to morals, thought the advantage of buyer and seller would -be best secured by allowing the prices to be determined by -competition; that is, by allowing free play for the -operation of economic forces more or less mechanical. To -this end he advocated a policy of enlightened selfishness, -whereas Aquinas, viewing the question from a Christian -standpoint, saw the whole problem as that of relating -economic practice to moral standards. From his point of -view, the attainment of the Just Price was a thing that -followed the determination to be honest and straightforward -in business. Apart from exceptional cases, there was no -difficulty about it. It would be arrived at whenever men -were bent upon straightforward dealing.[^23] - -I have contrasted Aquinas with Adam Smith because they -represent respectively the extreme attitudes of Mediaevalism -and modernism towards the problem of the Just Price. And -yet, though Aquinas is infinitely nearer the truth than Adam -Smith, he does not express the whole truth. For though we -may agree with him in maintaining the attainment of the Just -Price to be primarily a moral question, we yet cannot agree -with him in regarding it as entirely a moral issue. For if -the individual is to maintain a perfectly moral attitude in -his business relationships, it can finally only be on the -assumption that he and others who would follow the path of -rectitude are armed with power to suppress the actions of -those who have regard only to their own immediate advantage. -For just as bad money drives good out of the market, so a -low standard of commercial morality will in the long run -render impossible the maintenance of a higher one unless -organisations exist to suppress the lower one. This truth, -which modern experience has brought home to almost everyone, -Aquinas did not understand; for not only is there not to be -found in his writings any suggestion of the need of -organisation to uphold the Just Price, but it is clear that -he regards the issue as one with which law is not qualified -to deal; for he actually says in this connection: "Human law -cannot prohibit all that is against virtue, it can only -prohibit what would break up society. Other wrong acts it -treats as quasi-lawful, in the sense that while not -approving them it does not punish them." However he came to -make this statement I do not understand; for not only are we -to-day finding out that speculation in prices by creating -economic instability must in the long run break up society, -but all through the Middle Ages profiteering was ruthlessly -suppressed; and it is impossible to suppose that Aquinas had -never heard of the Guilds. - -But if Aquinas did not understand that organisation was -necessary to the maintenance of the Just Price, such was not -the case with the men who organised the Guilds. They clearly -understood that a high standard of commercial morality could -only be upheld on the assumption that organisations existed -to suppress a lower one, and that the Just Price could not -be maintained unless it were at the same time a fixed price. -And it is because of this that the revival of the Guilds is -a question of such fundamental importance to us. Reformers -have come to see the importance of reviving the Guilds, but -they do not yet fully appreciate the still greater -importance of their corollary---the Just and Fixed Price. -And because of this, it is desirable for us to go more -deeply into this matter. It will be necessary for us to -reinforce the moral arguments in favour of the Just Price by -arguments in favour of the fixed price deduced from purely -economic considerations. For if the modern world is to be -converted to a fixed price it will only be on the assumption -that we can justify it economically as well as morally. - -On what grounds, then, is a fixed price to be justified? -Because in no other way is it possible to ensure that -currency shall bear a close and definite relationship to the -real values it is supposed to represent, or, in other words, -because in no other way can currency become a common measure -of value. The principle underlying the fixed price is a -simple one---so simple, in fact, that one wonders however it -came to be overlooked. Currency, or in other words money, is -a medium of exchange. The problem is how to restrict its use -to the legitimate one of a common measure of value. So long -as money is fairly and honourably used to give value for -value; so long, in fact, as money is used merely as a token -for the exchange of goods, then it will remain in a close -and definite relationship to the real values it is supposed -to represent, a practical economic equality will obtain -between individuals, while society will continue -economically stable and healthy; for it will be free from -those alternating periods of boom and depression in trade -that are the inevitable corollary of speculation in prices. -But unfortunately such a desideratum does not follow -naturally from the unrestricted freedom of exchange---that -is, by allowing prices to be determined by the higgling of -the market; because under such conditions there is no -equality of bargain power. The merchants and middlemen, -because they specialise in market conditions and are -possessed of a reserve of capital, find themselves in a -position to exploit the community by speculating in values, -For though there are many merchants who are scrupulously -honest, market conditions are nevertheless apt to be -determined by those who use their position of vantage to the -utmost and do not disdain to indulge in smart practices. -Standing between producer and consumer, they are in a -position to levy tribute from each of them. By refusing to -buy, they can compel producers to sell things to them at -less than their real value; while by refusing to sell they -can compel consumers to buy things from them at more than -their real value; and by pocketing the difference they -become rich. The principle remains the same when the -middleman becomes a manufacturer, the only difference being -that the exploitation becomes then more direct. For whereas -in his capacity of merchant the middleman exploits the -producer indirectly by buying the produce of his labour at -too low a price, in his capacity as manufacturer he does it -directly by paying the labourer too low a wage. Most -commercial operations partake of this nature. Their aim is -to defeat the ends of fair exchange by manipulating values. -By so doing money is *made*, as we say, and the problem of -riches and poverty created. It is a byproduct of this abuse -of exchange. And for this evil there is but one remedy---the -remedy provided by the Guilds---to fix the price of -everything; for if all prices were fixed there would be no -room for the speculator. There would be nothing left to -speculate in. - -I said that if prices were fixed society would be free from -the alternating periods of boom and depression in trade that -are the inevitable corollary of speculation in prices. But -we shall be told that speculation is the soul of business, -and do we propose to rob business of its soul? In so far as -that is true, we most emphatically do; for speculation is -precisely what we do want to get rid of: in the first place -because so long as speculation is considered legitimate and -practised industry must remain unstable, and the working -class will be required to bear the consequences---to suffer -privations because of chronic under-payment and periodic -unemployment; in the next because so long as speculation is -the soul of business it is impossible to see how production -for service, use and beauty can ever supplant production for -profit; then so long as speculation is the soul of business -the direction of industry will remain in the hands of the -financier instead of those of the craft-master, which is -contrary to the principle of function: and finally, because -unfixed prices and speculation inevitably lead to class -warfare, because they involve social and economic injustice. -In the event of a shortage, the producer exploits the -consumer; in the event of a surplus, the consumer exploits -the producer. And as production and consumption rarely -balance, such a condition of affairs gives rise to -disaffection all round ; for the producer has a grievance -when there is a surplus, and the consumer has a grievance -when there is a shortage. Thus the inevitable accompaniment -of speculation and unfixed prices is unrest and -dissatisfaction, the creation of a temper of mutual distrust -and suspicion, which leads finally to class warfare. - -Such then is the case for fixed prices. They are as -necessary to-day as they were in the Middle Ages, because -the same evil demands the same remedy. Let us try to be -clear in our minds about that; for there is nothing that -stands in the way of clear thinking on social questions, or -any other question for that matter, so much as the fatal -habit of assuming that what was true in one age can have no -relevance in another. We do not apply such reasoning to the -principles of Christianity. We recognise that if -Christianity was true in the Middle Ages it is true to-day -and *vice versa*. And if the truths of Christianity are -independent of time, surely their economic corollaries are -in the same way equally so independent, while it is to be -affirmed that no more difficulty stands in the way of their -practical application than stands in the way of the -practical application of any other principle of -Christianity. I said no more difficulty, I should have said -the same difficulty; for in each case it is selfishness -where it is not intellectual confusion or sheer stupidity -that blocks the way. The difficulty is finally moral rather -than technical, as is demonstrated by the fact that during -the War, when the desire and will were forthcoming, the -fixation of prices was found to be a perfectly practicable -proposition. That any such fixation should be unpopular in -certain quarters was inevitable, for profiteers have no -desire to see their profits curtailed. But that they were -effective in that they succeeded in preventing prices rising -higher cannot be denied. A recent writer who has some -qualifications to speak with authority on the matter asserts -"that if taxation had been increased and Government control -of prices and distribution enforced earlier, the expansion -of credit and currency and the general rise of prices would -have been far less."[^24] And he goes on to say that "at the -time of the Armistice there were many responsible statesmen -and men of affairs who advocated the retention of much of -the price-fixing machinery, at any rate for so long as -economic conditions were unsettled by the after-effects of -war. These plans were frustrated, not merely by the general -dislike of State interference, but by a still more -formidable obstacle---the canons of orthodox finance."[^25] - -Before the War the idea of fixing prices was regarded as -impracticable and chimerical. But that is no longer the -case, for the War demonstrated that where there is a will -there is a way; it demonstrated moreover that in a time of -crisis, when our national existence was at stake, we -instinctively threw overboard the canons of orthodox -finance, and it was reasonable that we should, for the -canons of orthodox finance have come into existence to -subserve the interests of private gain, and for that very -reason conflict with the interests of the community. That -during the War fixed prices were accompanied by irritating -regulations is not to be denied. But that does not -invalidate the principle of fixed prices. What it does -invalidate is the instrument that was used for enforcing -them. That instrument was the bureaucratic machine---the -system of control from without. It is clumsy and irritating, -but the Government had no option but to use it, for the -Guild---the system of control from within---which is the -natural instrument for the maintenance of fixed prices, was -non-existent. So when we demand a system of fixed prices, we -must at the same time demand a restoration of Guilds, for -when we associate the ideas of Guilds and fixed prices many -of the problems which we find so perplexing to-day will -begin to straighten themselves out. But until we can get -Guilds we must put up with bureaucracy as the lesser of two -evils. Indeed, I incline to the opinion that the fixation of -prices of the staples of industry by the bureaucracy will -pave the way for a restoration of the Guilds. - -At the moment, then, bureaucracy is inevitable. As the -problem of price is to-day an international one and, as -Mr. Lloyd has shown, is intimately connected with the -stabilisation of currencies, it follows that any immediate -effort to cope with the problem demands international -co-operation, and only a bureaucracy could undertake such a -task. Yet though fixation of prices by such means would help -to stabilise the currency, there is a limit to the number of -commodities whose price could be fixed by such means; for -experience proves that a definite limit is set to the -successful operations of any bureaucracy, since in -proportion as it tends to expand its machinery gets clogged. -The end of all bureaucracies is to become strangled by red -tape. If therefore we are to fix the price of -everything---and nothing less will be finally effective, if -capitalistic influences are to be entirely eliminated---it -follows that we must set to work in a systematic way and -build up a system of Guilds to enforce them. Moreover, it is -important that prices should be fixed as part of a -methodical plan, beginning with the price of food and raw -materials and then gradually extending the system. That a -precedent condition of agricultural reconstruction is -dependent upon the fixation of the prices of agricultural -produce has been recognised for some time. As far back as -the year 1908 Mr. Montagu Fordham, the well-known authority -on agricultural history and economics, who has had wide -practical knowledge of his subject, outlined a scheme[^26] -which was widely discussed at numerous public meetings in -the villages and in that section of the Press which -circulates in rural areas. At the time of writing the -Government Committee, to whom the question of prices in -agriculture has been referred, is taking evidence as to the -possibility of fixing agricultural prices. As to whether -they will endorse such an idea it is impossible to say. But -it may be assumed that a proposal so revolutionary will not -go through without opposition, for it challenges vested -interests and prejudices at too many points to be acceptable -to "practical men" before a national propaganda has been -undertaken on its behalf. - -Of the obstacles in the path of any systematic fixation of -prices, the Socialist prejudice is by far the most serious; -for as most active reformers at the present day are affected -by Socialist economics, it is to be feared that until this -prejudice can be removed the force necessary to effect -change will not be forthcoming. Their prejudice has its -roots in the fact that as Socialist theory traces all the -evils of existing society to the institution of private -property and demands its abolition, Socialists are apt to -look with suspicion upon any proposal for dealing with the -economic problem which conflicts with their theory---the -fixation of prices presenting itself as a device for -postponing the day of substantial reform. And indeed from -their point of view the suspicion is well founded, for if -Just and Fixed prices were established the case for the -abolition of private property would be gone, for most of the -evils which proceed from the institution of property would -automatically disappear, while such as remained, as, for -instance, those deriving from the laws of inheritance and -transfer and its present inequality of distribution, could -be removed by legislation if the complications due to -industrialism, of which we shall have something to say -later, were dealt with. - -Looked at from this point of view, the fixation of prices -presents itself as an alternative approach to the economic -problem to that assumed by Socialists, for we see the -attitude we adopt towards the problem of price will -determine our attitude towards the problem of property and -*vice versa*. If the evils which at the present time we -associate with the institution of property are to be -removed, either private ownership must be abolished or we -must surround private ownership by a series of restrictions -that will prevent its abuse, and of these the fixation of -prices is by far the most important. To the former of these -alternative schemes almost all reform activity has been -devoted. But not only are we assured that the abolition of -private ownership of property is impossible in a highly -industrialised society such as ours, but where, as in Russia -under the Bolshevik regime, private ownership was abolished, -experience proved that it undermined the springs of economic -activity and it was found necessary to reinstate it, as -Lenin himself had to admit.[^27] Are we not justified -therefore in affirming that in attempting to abolish private -property Socialists are at war with the very nature of -things, considering men as they are? But if the abolition of -private property undermines the springs of economic -activity, the fixation of prices would actually stimulate -it, for it is safe to say that the farmer, the craftsman, in -fact everyone who actually produces (as distinguished from -those who exploit production) would welcome fixed prices as -everyone in touch with them is well aware, for it would free -them from uncertainty and anxiety which are to-day -undermining the very morale of production.[^28] - -I confess I find it difficult to understand how in the light -of the Russian experience Socialists find it possible still -to believe that the abolition of private property is a -remedy for our economic troubles. At every step in the -reconstruction of society it will be necessary to interfere -with property, yet all the same the centre of economic -gravity is to be found in price and currency rather than in -property, for currency is the vital thing, the thing of -movement; it is the active principle in economic -development, while property is the passive. It is true that -profits that are made by manipulating currency sooner or -later assume the form of property, but the root mischief is -not to be found in the institution of private property but -in the abuse of currency, in speculation in prices. To solve -the problem of currency by the institution of Just and Fixed -Prices under a system of Guilds is to introduce order into -the economic problem at its active vital centre. Once having -dealt with the problem of currency which lies at the centre, -it would be a comparatively easy matter to handle the -problem of property which lies at the circumference. But to -begin as Socialists do with the problem of property is to -reverse the natural order of things; for it is to proceed -from the circumference to the centre, which is contrary to -the law of growth. It is to precipitate economic confusion -by dragging up society by its roots, and this defeats the -ends of revolution by strengthening the hands of the -profiteer, for the profiteer thrives on economic confusion, -as is proved by the experience of the French and Russian -revolutions. Of what use is it therefore to seek a -redistribution of wealth before the profiteer has been got -under control? The effort is foredoomed to failure, since so -long as men are at liberty to manipulate exchange they will -manage somehow to get the wealth of the community into their -hands. Not until Socialists come to_see this will they be -able to do anything in a practical way to change the -existing order of society. Here, incidentally, it is to be -observed that the reason why Socialists think in the terms -of property is due to the fact that for centuries reformers -were accustomed to get their political theories from -lawyers, and property was the only economic concept with -which lawyers were acquainted. - -But we are not out of the wood yet. For experience has -taught us that when we manage to persuade Socialists that -the centre of economic gravity is to be found in currency -rather than property, it not infrequently happens that they -degenerate into currency cranks, when, far from making -themselves intelligible to others, they become entirely lost -to the world. The reason for this is because, as I pointed -out in the last chapter, they fall into the common error of -identifying the general problem of currency, which is -extremely simple, with the highly specialised problem of -banking, it never occurring to them that the problems of -banking have their origin in the fact that usury and -speculation in prices are permitted, but would disappear -with the fixation of prices under a system of Guilds. At any -rate, it is interesting to read that Mr. Lloyd, in the book -to which I have already referred, who approaches the -economic problem entirely from the point of view of -providing a sound currency system, comes to the conclusion -that the stabilisation of currency involves the fixation of -prices. Thus, after sketching a plan for international -currency regulation, he says: "It is doubtful, however, -whether this object (the stabilisation of currency) can be -effectively achieved by manipulating the bank-rate and -co-operation between the Central Banks, so long as the -marketing of the staple commodities, which enter into the -general index number of prices, is carried on under -competitive conditions. It might even happen that serious -disharmony in the adjustment of supply and demand in !:he -case of particular commodities might show no influence on -the general level of prices; for a sharp rise in one -commodity might be offset by a general fall in the -remainder. The essence of a wider plan of stabilisation is -that the price of a fairly wide range of staple commodities -should be regulated by a similar method of international -cooperation and control. Just as under the currency -reorganisation adopted by the Genoa Conference it was -proposed to stabilise the value of gold, so under this plan -stabilisation would be applied to certain basic raw -materials and foodstuffs, such as coal, petroleum, wheat, -sugar, wool, cotton, rubber, nitrates and other similar -commodities in universal and fairly constant demand. This -idea should not be dismissed offhand as impracticable. It is -put forward, not indeed as an immediately practical -programme, but as an intelligent policy in keeping with -modern tendencies."[^29] - -Mr. Lloyd, to use his own words, is working at one end of -the tunnel and we at the other, and it looks as if we are -about to meet in the middle. Meanwhile I am persuaded it is -unprofitable for any but those with the necessary experience -of finance and banking to worry about the technical side of -the problem of currency, in the stabilisation of which -bankers are as much interested as we are, and if it should -finally elude them who have the knowledge, it will certainly -elude us who have not. What we must do is to insist upon the -moral aspect of the fixation of prices, the desirability of -which every man engaged in production can understand, for it -is a necessary condition of ensuring that currency shall be -used only as a common measure of value. All the problems of -currency that lead people to believe in the existence of a -kind of economic witchcraft arise from the fact that people -who specialise in finance have no intention of using money -as a common measure of value. On the contrary, they want to -use money for the purpose of making more money. And the man -in the street, failing to see that all the technical -difficulties of finance arise from its anti-social -intention, comes to look upon the whole subject of finance -as a mystery, and we witness the extraordinary spectacle of -people who lead Christian lives deferring in matters of -finance and industry to those whose opinions they would -indignantly repudiate if they knew the anti-social -principles on which their reasoning was based. This anomaly -of the condonation of usury that has taken place since the -Reformation is partly the consequence of the complexity of -modern industry. In the Middle Ages people knew that -speculation and usury were sinful because their consequences -were obvious. But in these days usury and speculation have -become so interwoven with business that they have all the -appearance of a law of nature, and so it comes about that -people hesitate to condemn practices on a large scale that -they would not hesitate to condemn on a small one. And it is -because a system of fixed prices challenges the principles -of *laissez-faire* as nothing else does that it naturally -meets with the opposition of all who still believe that -*laissez-faire* is the last word of economic wisdom. - -That there are difficulties in the way of price-fixing is -not to be denied. It will be objected that it is impossible -to base price upon the cost of production, which a Just and -Fixed Price assumes, because the cost of production itself -is variable rather than constant, varying according to -circumstances. It is not necessary to deny the truth in this -objection, but to point out that the difficulty is not an -insuperable one. There is a rough-and-ready method of -determining what constitutes a Just Price as distinguished -from the *laissez-faire* price of competitive conditions. -For instance, there is the method of price-fixing adopted -during the War by the Food Administration Department of the -United States Government. It was based upon a method of -price-fixing known as the "ratio method of price -determination," worked out by Mr. Henry A. Wallace (to whose -book on Agricultural Prices I have already referred in the -footnotes), and is advocated as a permanent remedy for price -fluctuation in his organ the *Wallace's Farmer*. By means of -carefully prepared statistical tables, Mr. Wallace was able -to show that the average market price of agricultural -produce taken over a long period of years was almost -identical with a Just Price based upon the cost of -production averaged over a corresponding number of years. -And what is still more interesting is that the fixation of -such a Just Price would not only give security to the -producer, but that, by reason of the fact that producers -under such circumstances would not need such a reserve of -capital and could work on a smaller margin of profit, the -prices paid by the consuming public could be enormously -reduced. "In its simplest form," says Mr. Wallace, "the hog -producer of fifty years ago grasped the ratio idea. Without -any statistical investigation, the swine-growers of those -days came to the conclusion that they could make money when -they sold their hogs for a value per hundredweight of more -than the value of ten bushels of corn. For a generation or -two hog men looked on a ratio of ten bushels of corn to one -hundred pounds of hog flesh as about right, although they -felt that such a ratio might not cover risk. How uniform is -this ratio between corn and hogs from decade to decade may -be judged from the ratios as they have prevailed year by -year for the last sixty years, and the average by -decades."[^30] It will be seen therefore that by a fixed -price we do not mean a price that is unalterable for all -time, but a price that is periodically adjusted as may be -necessary to bring the selling price into a definite -relationship with the costs of production. - -Anyone who has read Mr. Wallace's book, with its hundred -pages of statistics on the subject, must, I think, be -convinced that any technical difficulties there are in the -way of determining what is a Just Price can be overcome by -patient study. For of all industries agriculture, because of -its dependence on changing climatic conditions, is the most -difficult to handle from the point of view of price fixing. -And if, as Mr. Wallace has demonstrated, the difficulty is -capable of being overcome in respect to agriculture, there -is no reason why it should not be overcome in every other -industry. The other difficulty that stands in the way of the -adoption of fixed prices is due to the opposition of the -business world, which is interested in the maintenance of -the *status quo*. Their objection that we have to compete in -foreign markets and therefore must be at liberty to adjust -prices to circumstances would be valid if we proposed to fix -the prices of all commodities simultaneously. We do not need -to be told by business men that such a policy would be -impracticable, for it is not what we propose. On the -contrary, as we have pointed out, any fixation of prices -must be part of a methodical plan, beginning of course with -agriculture and commodities made for the home market and -extending it as circumstances and international agreements -permitted. So far from such a policy increasing our -difficulties in foreign markets it would decrease them; for -the fixation of prices by eliminating middlemen's profit and -insurance risk would, by bringing down the cost of living at -home, place us in a more favourable position to compete -until fixed prices become universal. Such being the case I -do not believe the opposition of business men will be able -to frustrate permanently the movement for fixed prices. -Moreover, once social reformers come to see its centrality -and realise that the fixation of prices is a precedent -condition of stabilising wages, the battle will be won. I -dislike all appeals to social evolution, but as Socialists -chose to take their stand on the supposed truth of the -principles of social evolution, when the trend of economic -development gave a certain plausibility to their measures, -they cannot object to me drawing attention to the fact that -the tide has begun to turn in our favour. All over the -world, in the United States, in Canada, Australia, New -Zealand, the Argentine, Russia, and indeed most European -countries, and to a lesser extent in Great Britain, there is -a tendency for farmers to realise the principle of -collective sale, either through co-operative associations or -through State intervention, thereby acknowledging *ipso -facto* the principle of fixed prices. It is a world-wide -phenomena which, taken in conjunction with the fact that the -trend of industrial development is towards the fixation of -prices by trusts, rings, and combines, leaves no room for -doubt as to what direction in the future things are going to -move. What is more interesting is that this movement back to -Mediaevalism (f or rightly interpreted it is nothing less) -has come about as a result of the desire to escape from the -consequences of that economic deadlock in which Marx foresaw -the policy of maximum production was bound to culminate. In -the face of such facts it is vain to say that fixed prices -are impracticable or that they are against social evolution -or any of that kind of nonsense; for there can be no doubt -that they have come to stay. The only point is, who is going -to fix them? Are they going to be fixed by rings and -combines in the private interest, or by Guilds and the State -in the public interest? Seen clearly, the issue is no longer -between fixed prices and unfixed ones, but between the Fixed -and Just Price and the fixed and unjust one. When will -Socialists awaken from the trance in which their theory of -social evolution put them? Many things have happened since -Socialist theory first took shape. +The question of price is as central in the economic situation of to-day +as it was in the Middle Ages, though its importance has been obscured by +the Socialist and Labour movements, whose theories of late years have +almost monopolised public interest. Yet if we turn from what reformers +are talking about to what the business world is thinking about, we shall +find that the problem of price is what engages their unceasing +attention, as the perennial interest in the controversy between Free +Trade and Protection bears witness. Though the economists of the +Manchester School entirely repudiated the conclusions of the Mediaeval +economists, they nevertheless agreed with them that the problem of price +was a central issue. Adam Smith would have agreed with St. Thomas +Aquinas that the attainment of the Just Price was the aim of economic +justice, the difference between them would be on the issue as to how +such a desideratum was to be brought about. Adam Smith, regarding +economics as a detached service unrelated to morals, thought the +advantage of buyer and seller would be best secured by allowing the +prices to be determined by competition; that is, by allowing free play +for the operation of economic forces more or less mechanical. To this +end he advocated a policy of enlightened selfishness, whereas Aquinas, +viewing the question from a Christian standpoint, saw the whole problem +as that of relating economic practice to moral standards. From his point +of view, the attainment of the Just Price was a thing that followed the +determination to be honest and straightforward in business. Apart from +exceptional cases, there was no difficulty about it. It would be arrived +at whenever men were bent upon straightforward dealing.[^23] + +I have contrasted Aquinas with Adam Smith because they represent +respectively the extreme attitudes of Mediaevalism and modernism towards +the problem of the Just Price. And yet, though Aquinas is infinitely +nearer the truth than Adam Smith, he does not express the whole truth. +For though we may agree with him in maintaining the attainment of the +Just Price to be primarily a moral question, we yet cannot agree with +him in regarding it as entirely a moral issue. For if the individual is +to maintain a perfectly moral attitude in his business relationships, it +can finally only be on the assumption that he and others who would +follow the path of rectitude are armed with power to suppress the +actions of those who have regard only to their own immediate advantage. +For just as bad money drives good out of the market, so a low standard +of commercial morality will in the long run render impossible the +maintenance of a higher one unless organisations exist to suppress the +lower one. This truth, which modern experience has brought home to +almost everyone, Aquinas did not understand; for not only is there not +to be found in his writings any suggestion of the need of organisation +to uphold the Just Price, but it is clear that he regards the issue as +one with which law is not qualified to deal; for he actually says in +this connection: "Human law cannot prohibit all that is against virtue, +it can only prohibit what would break up society. Other wrong acts it +treats as quasi-lawful, in the sense that while not approving them it +does not punish them." However he came to make this statement I do not +understand; for not only are we to-day finding out that speculation in +prices by creating economic instability must in the long run break up +society, but all through the Middle Ages profiteering was ruthlessly +suppressed; and it is impossible to suppose that Aquinas had never heard +of the Guilds. + +But if Aquinas did not understand that organisation was necessary to the +maintenance of the Just Price, such was not the case with the men who +organised the Guilds. They clearly understood that a high standard of +commercial morality could only be upheld on the assumption that +organisations existed to suppress a lower one, and that the Just Price +could not be maintained unless it were at the same time a fixed price. +And it is because of this that the revival of the Guilds is a question +of such fundamental importance to us. Reformers have come to see the +importance of reviving the Guilds, but they do not yet fully appreciate +the still greater importance of their corollary---the Just and Fixed +Price. And because of this, it is desirable for us to go more deeply +into this matter. It will be necessary for us to reinforce the moral +arguments in favour of the Just Price by arguments in favour of the +fixed price deduced from purely economic considerations. For if the +modern world is to be converted to a fixed price it will only be on the +assumption that we can justify it economically as well as morally. + +On what grounds, then, is a fixed price to be justified? Because in no +other way is it possible to ensure that currency shall bear a close and +definite relationship to the real values it is supposed to represent, +or, in other words, because in no other way can currency become a common +measure of value. The principle underlying the fixed price is a simple +one---so simple, in fact, that one wonders however it came to be +overlooked. Currency, or in other words money, is a medium of exchange. +The problem is how to restrict its use to the legitimate one of a common +measure of value. So long as money is fairly and honourably used to give +value for value; so long, in fact, as money is used merely as a token +for the exchange of goods, then it will remain in a close and definite +relationship to the real values it is supposed to represent, a practical +economic equality will obtain between individuals, while society will +continue economically stable and healthy; for it will be free from those +alternating periods of boom and depression in trade that are the +inevitable corollary of speculation in prices. But unfortunately such a +desideratum does not follow naturally from the unrestricted freedom of +exchange---that is, by allowing prices to be determined by the higgling +of the market; because under such conditions there is no equality of +bargain power. The merchants and middlemen, because they specialise in +market conditions and are possessed of a reserve of capital, find +themselves in a position to exploit the community by speculating in +values, For though there are many merchants who are scrupulously honest, +market conditions are nevertheless apt to be determined by those who use +their position of vantage to the utmost and do not disdain to indulge in +smart practices. Standing between producer and consumer, they are in a +position to levy tribute from each of them. By refusing to buy, they can +compel producers to sell things to them at less than their real value; +while by refusing to sell they can compel consumers to buy things from +them at more than their real value; and by pocketing the difference they +become rich. The principle remains the same when the middleman becomes a +manufacturer, the only difference being that the exploitation becomes +then more direct. For whereas in his capacity of merchant the middleman +exploits the producer indirectly by buying the produce of his labour at +too low a price, in his capacity as manufacturer he does it directly by +paying the labourer too low a wage. Most commercial operations partake +of this nature. Their aim is to defeat the ends of fair exchange by +manipulating values. By so doing money is *made*, as we say, and the +problem of riches and poverty created. It is a byproduct of this abuse +of exchange. And for this evil there is but one remedy---the remedy +provided by the Guilds---to fix the price of everything; for if all +prices were fixed there would be no room for the speculator. There would +be nothing left to speculate in. + +I said that if prices were fixed society would be free from the +alternating periods of boom and depression in trade that are the +inevitable corollary of speculation in prices. But we shall be told that +speculation is the soul of business, and do we propose to rob business +of its soul? In so far as that is true, we most emphatically do; for +speculation is precisely what we do want to get rid of: in the first +place because so long as speculation is considered legitimate and +practised industry must remain unstable, and the working class will be +required to bear the consequences---to suffer privations because of +chronic under-payment and periodic unemployment; in the next because so +long as speculation is the soul of business it is impossible to see how +production for service, use and beauty can ever supplant production for +profit; then so long as speculation is the soul of business the +direction of industry will remain in the hands of the financier instead +of those of the craft-master, which is contrary to the principle of +function: and finally, because unfixed prices and speculation inevitably +lead to class warfare, because they involve social and economic +injustice. In the event of a shortage, the producer exploits the +consumer; in the event of a surplus, the consumer exploits the producer. +And as production and consumption rarely balance, such a condition of +affairs gives rise to disaffection all round ; for the producer has a +grievance when there is a surplus, and the consumer has a grievance when +there is a shortage. Thus the inevitable accompaniment of speculation +and unfixed prices is unrest and dissatisfaction, the creation of a +temper of mutual distrust and suspicion, which leads finally to class +warfare. + +Such then is the case for fixed prices. They are as necessary to-day as +they were in the Middle Ages, because the same evil demands the same +remedy. Let us try to be clear in our minds about that; for there is +nothing that stands in the way of clear thinking on social questions, or +any other question for that matter, so much as the fatal habit of +assuming that what was true in one age can have no relevance in another. +We do not apply such reasoning to the principles of Christianity. We +recognise that if Christianity was true in the Middle Ages it is true +to-day and *vice versa*. And if the truths of Christianity are +independent of time, surely their economic corollaries are in the same +way equally so independent, while it is to be affirmed that no more +difficulty stands in the way of their practical application than stands +in the way of the practical application of any other principle of +Christianity. I said no more difficulty, I should have said the same +difficulty; for in each case it is selfishness where it is not +intellectual confusion or sheer stupidity that blocks the way. The +difficulty is finally moral rather than technical, as is demonstrated by +the fact that during the War, when the desire and will were forthcoming, +the fixation of prices was found to be a perfectly practicable +proposition. That any such fixation should be unpopular in certain +quarters was inevitable, for profiteers have no desire to see their +profits curtailed. But that they were effective in that they succeeded +in preventing prices rising higher cannot be denied. A recent writer who +has some qualifications to speak with authority on the matter asserts +"that if taxation had been increased and Government control of prices +and distribution enforced earlier, the expansion of credit and currency +and the general rise of prices would have been far less."[^24] And he +goes on to say that "at the time of the Armistice there were many +responsible statesmen and men of affairs who advocated the retention of +much of the price-fixing machinery, at any rate for so long as economic +conditions were unsettled by the after-effects of war. These plans were +frustrated, not merely by the general dislike of State interference, but +by a still more formidable obstacle---the canons of orthodox +finance."[^25] + +Before the War the idea of fixing prices was regarded as impracticable +and chimerical. But that is no longer the case, for the War demonstrated +that where there is a will there is a way; it demonstrated moreover that +in a time of crisis, when our national existence was at stake, we +instinctively threw overboard the canons of orthodox finance, and it was +reasonable that we should, for the canons of orthodox finance have come +into existence to subserve the interests of private gain, and for that +very reason conflict with the interests of the community. That during +the War fixed prices were accompanied by irritating regulations is not +to be denied. But that does not invalidate the principle of fixed +prices. What it does invalidate is the instrument that was used for +enforcing them. That instrument was the bureaucratic machine---the +system of control from without. It is clumsy and irritating, but the +Government had no option but to use it, for the Guild---the system of +control from within---which is the natural instrument for the +maintenance of fixed prices, was non-existent. So when we demand a +system of fixed prices, we must at the same time demand a restoration of +Guilds, for when we associate the ideas of Guilds and fixed prices many +of the problems which we find so perplexing to-day will begin to +straighten themselves out. But until we can get Guilds we must put up +with bureaucracy as the lesser of two evils. Indeed, I incline to the +opinion that the fixation of prices of the staples of industry by the +bureaucracy will pave the way for a restoration of the Guilds. + +At the moment, then, bureaucracy is inevitable. As the problem of price +is to-day an international one and, as Mr. Lloyd has shown, is +intimately connected with the stabilisation of currencies, it follows +that any immediate effort to cope with the problem demands international +co-operation, and only a bureaucracy could undertake such a task. Yet +though fixation of prices by such means would help to stabilise the +currency, there is a limit to the number of commodities whose price +could be fixed by such means; for experience proves that a definite +limit is set to the successful operations of any bureaucracy, since in +proportion as it tends to expand its machinery gets clogged. The end of +all bureaucracies is to become strangled by red tape. If therefore we +are to fix the price of everything---and nothing less will be finally +effective, if capitalistic influences are to be entirely eliminated---it +follows that we must set to work in a systematic way and build up a +system of Guilds to enforce them. Moreover, it is important that prices +should be fixed as part of a methodical plan, beginning with the price +of food and raw materials and then gradually extending the system. That +a precedent condition of agricultural reconstruction is dependent upon +the fixation of the prices of agricultural produce has been recognised +for some time. As far back as the year 1908 Mr. Montagu Fordham, the +well-known authority on agricultural history and economics, who has had +wide practical knowledge of his subject, outlined a scheme[^26] which +was widely discussed at numerous public meetings in the villages and in +that section of the Press which circulates in rural areas. At the time +of writing the Government Committee, to whom the question of prices in +agriculture has been referred, is taking evidence as to the possibility +of fixing agricultural prices. As to whether they will endorse such an +idea it is impossible to say. But it may be assumed that a proposal so +revolutionary will not go through without opposition, for it challenges +vested interests and prejudices at too many points to be acceptable to +"practical men" before a national propaganda has been undertaken on its +behalf. + +Of the obstacles in the path of any systematic fixation of prices, the +Socialist prejudice is by far the most serious; for as most active +reformers at the present day are affected by Socialist economics, it is +to be feared that until this prejudice can be removed the force +necessary to effect change will not be forthcoming. Their prejudice has +its roots in the fact that as Socialist theory traces all the evils of +existing society to the institution of private property and demands its +abolition, Socialists are apt to look with suspicion upon any proposal +for dealing with the economic problem which conflicts with their +theory---the fixation of prices presenting itself as a device for +postponing the day of substantial reform. And indeed from their point of +view the suspicion is well founded, for if Just and Fixed prices were +established the case for the abolition of private property would be +gone, for most of the evils which proceed from the institution of +property would automatically disappear, while such as remained, as, for +instance, those deriving from the laws of inheritance and transfer and +its present inequality of distribution, could be removed by legislation +if the complications due to industrialism, of which we shall have +something to say later, were dealt with. + +Looked at from this point of view, the fixation of prices presents +itself as an alternative approach to the economic problem to that +assumed by Socialists, for we see the attitude we adopt towards the +problem of price will determine our attitude towards the problem of +property and *vice versa*. If the evils which at the present time we +associate with the institution of property are to be removed, either +private ownership must be abolished or we must surround private +ownership by a series of restrictions that will prevent its abuse, and +of these the fixation of prices is by far the most important. To the +former of these alternative schemes almost all reform activity has been +devoted. But not only are we assured that the abolition of private +ownership of property is impossible in a highly industrialised society +such as ours, but where, as in Russia under the Bolshevik regime, +private ownership was abolished, experience proved that it undermined +the springs of economic activity and it was found necessary to reinstate +it, as Lenin himself had to admit.[^27] Are we not justified therefore +in affirming that in attempting to abolish private property Socialists +are at war with the very nature of things, considering men as they are? +But if the abolition of private property undermines the springs of +economic activity, the fixation of prices would actually stimulate it, +for it is safe to say that the farmer, the craftsman, in fact everyone +who actually produces (as distinguished from those who exploit +production) would welcome fixed prices as everyone in touch with them is +well aware, for it would free them from uncertainty and anxiety which +are to-day undermining the very morale of production.[^28] + +I confess I find it difficult to understand how in the light of the +Russian experience Socialists find it possible still to believe that the +abolition of private property is a remedy for our economic troubles. At +every step in the reconstruction of society it will be necessary to +interfere with property, yet all the same the centre of economic gravity +is to be found in price and currency rather than in property, for +currency is the vital thing, the thing of movement; it is the active +principle in economic development, while property is the passive. It is +true that profits that are made by manipulating currency sooner or later +assume the form of property, but the root mischief is not to be found in +the institution of private property but in the abuse of currency, in +speculation in prices. To solve the problem of currency by the +institution of Just and Fixed Prices under a system of Guilds is to +introduce order into the economic problem at its active vital centre. +Once having dealt with the problem of currency which lies at the centre, +it would be a comparatively easy matter to handle the problem of +property which lies at the circumference. But to begin as Socialists do +with the problem of property is to reverse the natural order of things; +for it is to proceed from the circumference to the centre, which is +contrary to the law of growth. It is to precipitate economic confusion +by dragging up society by its roots, and this defeats the ends of +revolution by strengthening the hands of the profiteer, for the +profiteer thrives on economic confusion, as is proved by the experience +of the French and Russian revolutions. Of what use is it therefore to +seek a redistribution of wealth before the profiteer has been got under +control? The effort is foredoomed to failure, since so long as men are +at liberty to manipulate exchange they will manage somehow to get the +wealth of the community into their hands. Not until Socialists come +to_see this will they be able to do anything in a practical way to +change the existing order of society. Here, incidentally, it is to be +observed that the reason why Socialists think in the terms of property +is due to the fact that for centuries reformers were accustomed to get +their political theories from lawyers, and property was the only +economic concept with which lawyers were acquainted. + +But we are not out of the wood yet. For experience has taught us that +when we manage to persuade Socialists that the centre of economic +gravity is to be found in currency rather than property, it not +infrequently happens that they degenerate into currency cranks, when, +far from making themselves intelligible to others, they become entirely +lost to the world. The reason for this is because, as I pointed out in +the last chapter, they fall into the common error of identifying the +general problem of currency, which is extremely simple, with the highly +specialised problem of banking, it never occurring to them that the +problems of banking have their origin in the fact that usury and +speculation in prices are permitted, but would disappear with the +fixation of prices under a system of Guilds. At any rate, it is +interesting to read that Mr. Lloyd, in the book to which I have already +referred, who approaches the economic problem entirely from the point of +view of providing a sound currency system, comes to the conclusion that +the stabilisation of currency involves the fixation of prices. Thus, +after sketching a plan for international currency regulation, he says: +"It is doubtful, however, whether this object (the stabilisation of +currency) can be effectively achieved by manipulating the bank-rate and +co-operation between the Central Banks, so long as the marketing of the +staple commodities, which enter into the general index number of prices, +is carried on under competitive conditions. It might even happen that +serious disharmony in the adjustment of supply and demand in !:he case +of particular commodities might show no influence on the general level +of prices; for a sharp rise in one commodity might be offset by a +general fall in the remainder. The essence of a wider plan of +stabilisation is that the price of a fairly wide range of staple +commodities should be regulated by a similar method of international +cooperation and control. Just as under the currency reorganisation +adopted by the Genoa Conference it was proposed to stabilise the value +of gold, so under this plan stabilisation would be applied to certain +basic raw materials and foodstuffs, such as coal, petroleum, wheat, +sugar, wool, cotton, rubber, nitrates and other similar commodities in +universal and fairly constant demand. This idea should not be dismissed +offhand as impracticable. It is put forward, not indeed as an +immediately practical programme, but as an intelligent policy in keeping +with modern tendencies."[^29] + +Mr. Lloyd, to use his own words, is working at one end of the tunnel and +we at the other, and it looks as if we are about to meet in the middle. +Meanwhile I am persuaded it is unprofitable for any but those with the +necessary experience of finance and banking to worry about the technical +side of the problem of currency, in the stabilisation of which bankers +are as much interested as we are, and if it should finally elude them +who have the knowledge, it will certainly elude us who have not. What we +must do is to insist upon the moral aspect of the fixation of prices, +the desirability of which every man engaged in production can +understand, for it is a necessary condition of ensuring that currency +shall be used only as a common measure of value. All the problems of +currency that lead people to believe in the existence of a kind of +economic witchcraft arise from the fact that people who specialise in +finance have no intention of using money as a common measure of value. +On the contrary, they want to use money for the purpose of making more +money. And the man in the street, failing to see that all the technical +difficulties of finance arise from its anti-social intention, comes to +look upon the whole subject of finance as a mystery, and we witness the +extraordinary spectacle of people who lead Christian lives deferring in +matters of finance and industry to those whose opinions they would +indignantly repudiate if they knew the anti-social principles on which +their reasoning was based. This anomaly of the condonation of usury that +has taken place since the Reformation is partly the consequence of the +complexity of modern industry. In the Middle Ages people knew that +speculation and usury were sinful because their consequences were +obvious. But in these days usury and speculation have become so +interwoven with business that they have all the appearance of a law of +nature, and so it comes about that people hesitate to condemn practices +on a large scale that they would not hesitate to condemn on a small one. +And it is because a system of fixed prices challenges the principles of +*laissez-faire* as nothing else does that it naturally meets with the +opposition of all who still believe that *laissez-faire* is the last +word of economic wisdom. + +That there are difficulties in the way of price-fixing is not to be +denied. It will be objected that it is impossible to base price upon the +cost of production, which a Just and Fixed Price assumes, because the +cost of production itself is variable rather than constant, varying +according to circumstances. It is not necessary to deny the truth in +this objection, but to point out that the difficulty is not an +insuperable one. There is a rough-and-ready method of determining what +constitutes a Just Price as distinguished from the *laissez-faire* price +of competitive conditions. For instance, there is the method of +price-fixing adopted during the War by the Food Administration +Department of the United States Government. It was based upon a method +of price-fixing known as the "ratio method of price determination," +worked out by Mr. Henry A. Wallace (to whose book on Agricultural Prices +I have already referred in the footnotes), and is advocated as a +permanent remedy for price fluctuation in his organ the *Wallace's +Farmer*. By means of carefully prepared statistical tables, Mr. Wallace +was able to show that the average market price of agricultural produce +taken over a long period of years was almost identical with a Just Price +based upon the cost of production averaged over a corresponding number +of years. And what is still more interesting is that the fixation of +such a Just Price would not only give security to the producer, but +that, by reason of the fact that producers under such circumstances +would not need such a reserve of capital and could work on a smaller +margin of profit, the prices paid by the consuming public could be +enormously reduced. "In its simplest form," says Mr. Wallace, "the hog +producer of fifty years ago grasped the ratio idea. Without any +statistical investigation, the swine-growers of those days came to the +conclusion that they could make money when they sold their hogs for a +value per hundredweight of more than the value of ten bushels of corn. +For a generation or two hog men looked on a ratio of ten bushels of corn +to one hundred pounds of hog flesh as about right, although they felt +that such a ratio might not cover risk. How uniform is this ratio +between corn and hogs from decade to decade may be judged from the +ratios as they have prevailed year by year for the last sixty years, and +the average by decades."[^30] It will be seen therefore that by a fixed +price we do not mean a price that is unalterable for all time, but a +price that is periodically adjusted as may be necessary to bring the +selling price into a definite relationship with the costs of production. + +Anyone who has read Mr. Wallace's book, with its hundred pages of +statistics on the subject, must, I think, be convinced that any +technical difficulties there are in the way of determining what is a +Just Price can be overcome by patient study. For of all industries +agriculture, because of its dependence on changing climatic conditions, +is the most difficult to handle from the point of view of price fixing. +And if, as Mr. Wallace has demonstrated, the difficulty is capable of +being overcome in respect to agriculture, there is no reason why it +should not be overcome in every other industry. The other difficulty +that stands in the way of the adoption of fixed prices is due to the +opposition of the business world, which is interested in the maintenance +of the *status quo*. Their objection that we have to compete in foreign +markets and therefore must be at liberty to adjust prices to +circumstances would be valid if we proposed to fix the prices of all +commodities simultaneously. We do not need to be told by business men +that such a policy would be impracticable, for it is not what we +propose. On the contrary, as we have pointed out, any fixation of prices +must be part of a methodical plan, beginning of course with agriculture +and commodities made for the home market and extending it as +circumstances and international agreements permitted. So far from such a +policy increasing our difficulties in foreign markets it would decrease +them; for the fixation of prices by eliminating middlemen's profit and +insurance risk would, by bringing down the cost of living at home, place +us in a more favourable position to compete until fixed prices become +universal. Such being the case I do not believe the opposition of +business men will be able to frustrate permanently the movement for +fixed prices. Moreover, once social reformers come to see its centrality +and realise that the fixation of prices is a precedent condition of +stabilising wages, the battle will be won. I dislike all appeals to +social evolution, but as Socialists chose to take their stand on the +supposed truth of the principles of social evolution, when the trend of +economic development gave a certain plausibility to their measures, they +cannot object to me drawing attention to the fact that the tide has +begun to turn in our favour. All over the world, in the United States, +in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Argentine, Russia, and indeed +most European countries, and to a lesser extent in Great Britain, there +is a tendency for farmers to realise the principle of collective sale, +either through co-operative associations or through State intervention, +thereby acknowledging *ipso facto* the principle of fixed prices. It is +a world-wide phenomena which, taken in conjunction with the fact that +the trend of industrial development is towards the fixation of prices by +trusts, rings, and combines, leaves no room for doubt as to what +direction in the future things are going to move. What is more +interesting is that this movement back to Mediaevalism (f or rightly +interpreted it is nothing less) has come about as a result of the desire +to escape from the consequences of that economic deadlock in which Marx +foresaw the policy of maximum production was bound to culminate. In the +face of such facts it is vain to say that fixed prices are impracticable +or that they are against social evolution or any of that kind of +nonsense; for there can be no doubt that they have come to stay. The +only point is, who is going to fix them? Are they going to be fixed by +rings and combines in the private interest, or by Guilds and the State +in the public interest? Seen clearly, the issue is no longer between +fixed prices and unfixed ones, but between the Fixed and Just Price and +the fixed and unjust one. When will Socialists awaken from the trance in +which their theory of social evolution put them? Many things have +happened since Socialist theory first took shape. # XIV. The Elimination of Usury -Closely allied to the problem of the Just Price is that of -usury. The enforcement of the one and the prohibition of the -other was at one time, as we saw, insisted upon by the -Mediaeval Church. But this strict view was, in the case of -usury, modified by later moralists and economists, who came -to believe that to forbid the taking of interest under all -circumstances was not expedient, inasmuch as it led to -serious public inconvenience. Hence the question which -agitated the minds of moralists and economists in the -thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries was how to -determine what was and what was not legitimate. Starting -from the principle of Aristotle that money itself cannot -beget money, they were puzzled as to how to justify the -taking of interest. They were agreed that to seek to -increase wealth in order to live on the labour of others was -wrong; and to this extent the issue was a purely moral one. -But, on the other hand, there was the question of public -convenience, as in the case of travellers who would have to -carry large sums of money about with them in the absence of -bills of exchange, or the question of risk involved in a -loan. To all such difficult and perplexing problems the -Mediaeval moralists addressed themselves, not for -theoretical, but for practical reasons. For as commerce -tended to increase it became urgent to hammer out some -principle whereby the necessities of trade could be related -to some definite moral standard. - -To the end the problem evaded them. In principle all were -against usury, but public convenience demanded that -exception be made under certain circumstances. These -exceptions grew and grew in number, but no sure principle -was forthcoming. And so things went on until the -Reformation, when, in the latter half of the sixteenth -century, a breach was effected with Mediaeval doctrine and -practice. Not that the leaders of the Reformation were -advocates of usury. On the contrary, they were even more -opposed to any compromise with usury than Catholic -theologians. But the effect of the Reformation had been to -destroy the unity of the Church. And this, by undermining -authority on the one hand and by causing Lutheran divines to -lean upon territorial princes and the merchant class, opened -the way for a change of attitude towards usury by -accommodating morals to the practice of the rich. Calvin's -attitude proved to be the turning point. He objected to the -idea of regarding money as barren. He was prepared to -justify the taking of interest with certain qualifications, -such as "that usury should not be demanded from men in need; -nor is it lawful to force any man to pay usury who is -oppressed by need or calamity"; and "he who receives a loan -on usury should make at least as much for himself by his -labour and care as he who obtains which gives the -loan."[^31] But "in after centuries Calvin's great authority -was invoked for the wide proposition that to take reward for -the loan of money was never sinful; and a couple of his -sentences were taken from their context and quoted without -regard to the conditions by which they were limited. His -careful qualified approval of the claim for usury when it -was made by one business man to another was wrested into an -approval of every sort of contract concerning the loan of -money."[^32] - -Henceforth business and usury became so closely identified -that it became impossible to separate them. They have -between them been the force behind the modern industrial -development. Usury has become so much a part of our -industrial activities that it is difficult for the -individual to feel any sense of personal responsibility in -the matter. We are all so much involved that acquiescence in -it has come to partake more of the nature of a corporate -than an individual sin. If a man in the Middle Ages was a -usurer he knew it, and his neighbours knew it, and he was -treated with the cold suspicion which was his fitting -reward. But no one who receives a dividend from a limited -liability company, or receives interest on War Loan stock, -considers himself in any sense of the word a usurer, which -term of opprobrium he reserves for the professional -moneylender. And indeed in the moral sense there is a -difference between the dividend receiver and the -moneylender. It is the difference between the absentee -landlord, who may in his personal relations be an excellent -man, and his steward, who, perhaps unknown to him, screws -money out of his tenants. For the great evil connected with -limited liability companies is that they have fastened the -evil of absenteeism upon industry, and as such have been the -root of endless mischief; for under them responsibility is -divided among so many people that nobody feels himself -personally to blame for their shortcomings. Yet though there -may be a moral difference between the dividend receiver and -the moneylender, the economic consequences, so far as the -general well-being is concerned, is the same. For the law of -compound interest is to accumulate, whether the increment be -the work of moneylenders or dividend receivers. And it -stands to reason that this process of accumulation cannot go -on indefinitely, as the famous arithmetical calculation that -a halfpenny put out to five per cent, compound interest on -the first day of the Christian era would by now amount to -more money than the earth contains clearly demonstrates. Yet -what to-day is called "sound finance" proceeds upon the -assumption that there is no limit to compound interest. The -consequence is that industry has become burdened with a load -it can no longer bear. Meanwhile the usurers, in their -anxiety to increase dividends, have so impoverished the -people that they cannot afford to buy the goods which -industry produces, and the only remedy they can think of is -to produce goods cheaper by lowering wages, entirely losing -sight of the fact that to lower wages is to reduce -purchasing power still further. The crisis that nowadays has -overtaken industry was making its appearance before the War. -But the £7,000,000,000 War Debt, bearing interest at the -rate of £350,000,000 a year, has "put the lid on," as we -say. It has precipitated an economic deadlock, resulting in -widespread unemployment, that must remain insoluble until -the problem of usury among others is faced. - -This is the dilemma of civilisation. What is to be done -about it? There are times when one feels as if nothing would -get done, and that the usurers will go on demanding their -pound of flesh regardless of consequences to themselves as -much as to others until finally the end comes, suggesting -that a civilisation that takes to usury perishes by usury. -There is the Douglas Credit scheme, which proposes to -resolve the deadlock by the redistribution of purchasing -power in the form of dividends for all. It sounds plausible, -yet not only does one feel that it is utterly impracticable, -but that it is a skilful evasion of the whole difficulty; -for the evil is surely primarily moral rather than -technical, and it has personal roots. If men sin, we may be -assured that there is no remedy apart from repentance, and -that the consequences of sin are not to be cancelled by a -chartered accountant. Hence, we may be assured, a solution -of the problem of usury will not follow a new system of -book-keeping, which is what the Douglas Credit scheme -amounts to, but a change in the heart and mind of men. And -it is for this reason that we entirely repudiate the idea -which advocates of the scheme affirm, that the "problem of -finance is as technical as a main drainage scheme." - -When people do come to see that the economic problem has -personal roots, it not infrequently happens that when they -take the thing seriously they go off at a tangent, hoping to -do something towards the solution of the problem by refusing -to take any interest on money themselves. Apart from -exceptional cases, where the refusal to take interest means -that individual cases of hardship are relieved, action of -this kind avails nothing; for its only effect is to swell -still more the pockets of those who have no misgivings about -usury; while, moreover, it is impossible to expect many -people to act in this way; for, in the case of an enormous -mass of people, it would mean a complete loss of income; in -others it would mean constant anxiety; while in others, -again, the decision to forgo all interest on money would -mean that work, which at the present juncture is of -fundamental importance to society, would never get done, -because it has nO immediate economic value, for such work -can only be done to-day by people possessed of private -means. For a variety of reasons, therefore, there is no -reason to suppose that any considerable number of people -will act in such an heroic way. And there is no reason why -they should; for the way to replace the present system of -industry based upon usury by one that is not, is not to -advise people to forgo their dividends, but to advise them -to spend their spare money in a way beneficial to the -community, instead of reinvesting it for the purposes of -further increase. If the rich could be persuaded to use -their money in this way the pressure of competition would be -so much relieved that it would be possible in the course of -a generation for people to refuse altogether to have -anything to do with usury without having to face the fear of -poverty, which most people would have to face to-day if they -refused to take any more dividends. And if we cannot -persuade the rich to do this, there is no reason to suppose -they could be persuaded to forgo interest entirely. - -The custom of investing spare money for further increase is -so general to-day that we are apt to forget that the custom -is a comparatively recent one. In former times it was the -custom for the wealthy to spend their yearly surplus upon -such things as architecture, the patronage of the arts and -letters, the endowment of religion, educational and -charitable institutions, and in suchlike ways. Such -expenditure was good, because it kept money in circulation. -It stimulated demand and created employment by maintaining a -balance between demand and supply. Until a couple of -generations ago this tradition of using money survived in -the old Tory school, whose faith it was that the spending of -money gave employment, while bridging the gulf between rich -and poor. What destroyed this excellent tradition was the -introduction of machinery and the coming of the limited -liability company, which opened up so many more channels of -profitable investment that the aristocratic tradition of -spending was not only lost sight of, obscured, and -forgotten, but people actually came to believe that they -were doing a positive service to the community when they -invested any spare money they might possess in some new -industrial enterprise instead of spending it. Yet such is -not the case; for the present deadlock that has overtaken -industry is in no small measure due to this misdirection of -surplus wealth. For whereas money that is spent does return -into general circulation, the effect of investing and -reinvesting surplus money is in the long run to withdraw it -from circulation, much in the same way as if it were -hoarded. Nay, it is actually worse than if it were hoarded. -Hoarded money may undermine demand, but it does not increase -supply, whereas when reinvestment proceeds beyond a certain -point it increases supply and undermines demand at the same -time. This upsets the balance between demand and supply, -which in turn is productive of waste. For when more money is -invested in any industry than is required for its proper -conduct the pressure of com- petition is increased, and this -increases the selling costs by encouraging the growth of the -number of middlemen, who levy toll upon industry, while it -increases the expenditure on advertisements and other -overhead charges, bringing about over-capitalisation. That, -in turn, gives rise to every kind of dirty trick and smart -practice, which are resorted to in the attempt to produce -dividends on the watered capital. - -Viewing the problem in this light, it is evident that the -first step to be taken to mitigate the evil of usury and to -resolve the economic deadlock that has overtaken industry is -to advise people to spend money in the way it was customary -to spend it in the past rather than to be for ever -reinvesting it for the purpose of further increase; for -spending money increases demand. But it will make a great -deal of difference the way it is spent. Merely to increase -personal expenditure is not desirable, for it brings other -evils in its train. Wise expenditure would result in it -being spent in impersonal waj\^s, and at the present time -there could be no wiser way than to spend it in building -houses, to relieve the housing problem; while if such -expenditure was generous and wise, ignoring entirely returns -in rent, it would, do a great deal towards the revival of -architecture, for architecture will never revive so long as -people build for investment. In former times people did not -expect building to pay. They looked upon it as a way of -using spare money. When they come to look upon building -again in this light conditions will be created favourable to -the rebirth of architecture. - -In other directions the problem of usury can only be solved -by means of organisation. It seems to me that the reason why -the Mediaeval moralists and economists could find no answer -to the problems which usury presented was due to the fact -that that problem is only partly a moral one. And in the -same way that they failed to realise that the only way -finally to give effect to the principle of the Just Price is -to make it at the same time a Fixed Price to be maintained -by Guilds, so they failed to realise that the difficulties -in which they found themselves in their attempts to justify -the taking of interest in certain cases in order that the -public convenience might not suffer arose from the fact that -the function that the usurer performed in such cases was -essentially a public one, and should have been undertaken by -men in some corporate capacity, and not left to the -initiative of individuals. It could have been overcome by -organisation; for it is safe to say that if, in the Middle -Ages, the Guilds, instead of being confined to the towns, -had been co-extensive with society, the problems of usury -and currency would never have arisen. For while on the one -hand, by the maintenance of Just and Fixed Prices, such -Guilds would have operated to keep money in a close and -definite relationship to the real values it is supposed to -represent, on the other, by making provision for their -members in times of sickness or adversity, little room would -have remained for the snares of the usurer, and what little -there was could doubtless have been overcome by organisation -of one kind or another. Unfortunately, however, this most -obvious solution of the problem of usury never appears to -have occurred to the Mediaeval moralists and economists, -who, envisaging the problem entirely as a moral one, were as -blind to the need of organisation to enforce moral standards -upon the recalcitrant minority as reformers to-day, -envisaging the social problem as entirely one of -organisation, are as a rule equally blind to the need of a -moral basis to give vitality to their organisations. In the -sixteenth century, however, the Franciscans do appear to -have come to some such conclusion; for they founded the -*monies pietatis*, or lending houses, which advanced loans -to poor people either without interest or at a very low -rate, and thus prevented many from falling into the hands of -usurers. The change of attitude, however, came too late to -stop the onrushing torrent. +Closely allied to the problem of the Just Price is that of usury. The +enforcement of the one and the prohibition of the other was at one time, +as we saw, insisted upon by the Mediaeval Church. But this strict view +was, in the case of usury, modified by later moralists and economists, +who came to believe that to forbid the taking of interest under all +circumstances was not expedient, inasmuch as it led to serious public +inconvenience. Hence the question which agitated the minds of moralists +and economists in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries +was how to determine what was and what was not legitimate. Starting from +the principle of Aristotle that money itself cannot beget money, they +were puzzled as to how to justify the taking of interest. They were +agreed that to seek to increase wealth in order to live on the labour of +others was wrong; and to this extent the issue was a purely moral one. +But, on the other hand, there was the question of public convenience, as +in the case of travellers who would have to carry large sums of money +about with them in the absence of bills of exchange, or the question of +risk involved in a loan. To all such difficult and perplexing problems +the Mediaeval moralists addressed themselves, not for theoretical, but +for practical reasons. For as commerce tended to increase it became +urgent to hammer out some principle whereby the necessities of trade +could be related to some definite moral standard. + +To the end the problem evaded them. In principle all were against usury, +but public convenience demanded that exception be made under certain +circumstances. These exceptions grew and grew in number, but no sure +principle was forthcoming. And so things went on until the Reformation, +when, in the latter half of the sixteenth century, a breach was effected +with Mediaeval doctrine and practice. Not that the leaders of the +Reformation were advocates of usury. On the contrary, they were even +more opposed to any compromise with usury than Catholic theologians. But +the effect of the Reformation had been to destroy the unity of the +Church. And this, by undermining authority on the one hand and by +causing Lutheran divines to lean upon territorial princes and the +merchant class, opened the way for a change of attitude towards usury by +accommodating morals to the practice of the rich. Calvin's attitude +proved to be the turning point. He objected to the idea of regarding +money as barren. He was prepared to justify the taking of interest with +certain qualifications, such as "that usury should not be demanded from +men in need; nor is it lawful to force any man to pay usury who is +oppressed by need or calamity"; and "he who receives a loan on usury +should make at least as much for himself by his labour and care as he +who obtains which gives the loan."[^31] But "in after centuries Calvin's +great authority was invoked for the wide proposition that to take reward +for the loan of money was never sinful; and a couple of his sentences +were taken from their context and quoted without regard to the +conditions by which they were limited. His careful qualified approval of +the claim for usury when it was made by one business man to another was +wrested into an approval of every sort of contract concerning the loan +of money."[^32] + +Henceforth business and usury became so closely identified that it +became impossible to separate them. They have between them been the +force behind the modern industrial development. Usury has become so much +a part of our industrial activities that it is difficult for the +individual to feel any sense of personal responsibility in the matter. +We are all so much involved that acquiescence in it has come to partake +more of the nature of a corporate than an individual sin. If a man in +the Middle Ages was a usurer he knew it, and his neighbours knew it, and +he was treated with the cold suspicion which was his fitting reward. But +no one who receives a dividend from a limited liability company, or +receives interest on War Loan stock, considers himself in any sense of +the word a usurer, which term of opprobrium he reserves for the +professional moneylender. And indeed in the moral sense there is a +difference between the dividend receiver and the moneylender. It is the +difference between the absentee landlord, who may in his personal +relations be an excellent man, and his steward, who, perhaps unknown to +him, screws money out of his tenants. For the great evil connected with +limited liability companies is that they have fastened the evil of +absenteeism upon industry, and as such have been the root of endless +mischief; for under them responsibility is divided among so many people +that nobody feels himself personally to blame for their shortcomings. +Yet though there may be a moral difference between the dividend receiver +and the moneylender, the economic consequences, so far as the general +well-being is concerned, is the same. For the law of compound interest +is to accumulate, whether the increment be the work of moneylenders or +dividend receivers. And it stands to reason that this process of +accumulation cannot go on indefinitely, as the famous arithmetical +calculation that a halfpenny put out to five per cent, compound interest +on the first day of the Christian era would by now amount to more money +than the earth contains clearly demonstrates. Yet what to-day is called +"sound finance" proceeds upon the assumption that there is no limit to +compound interest. The consequence is that industry has become burdened +with a load it can no longer bear. Meanwhile the usurers, in their +anxiety to increase dividends, have so impoverished the people that they +cannot afford to buy the goods which industry produces, and the only +remedy they can think of is to produce goods cheaper by lowering wages, +entirely losing sight of the fact that to lower wages is to reduce +purchasing power still further. The crisis that nowadays has overtaken +industry was making its appearance before the War. But the +£7,000,000,000 War Debt, bearing interest at the rate of £350,000,000 a +year, has "put the lid on," as we say. It has precipitated an economic +deadlock, resulting in widespread unemployment, that must remain +insoluble until the problem of usury among others is faced. + +This is the dilemma of civilisation. What is to be done about it? There +are times when one feels as if nothing would get done, and that the +usurers will go on demanding their pound of flesh regardless of +consequences to themselves as much as to others until finally the end +comes, suggesting that a civilisation that takes to usury perishes by +usury. There is the Douglas Credit scheme, which proposes to resolve the +deadlock by the redistribution of purchasing power in the form of +dividends for all. It sounds plausible, yet not only does one feel that +it is utterly impracticable, but that it is a skilful evasion of the +whole difficulty; for the evil is surely primarily moral rather than +technical, and it has personal roots. If men sin, we may be assured that +there is no remedy apart from repentance, and that the consequences of +sin are not to be cancelled by a chartered accountant. Hence, we may be +assured, a solution of the problem of usury will not follow a new system +of book-keeping, which is what the Douglas Credit scheme amounts to, but +a change in the heart and mind of men. And it is for this reason that we +entirely repudiate the idea which advocates of the scheme affirm, that +the "problem of finance is as technical as a main drainage scheme." + +When people do come to see that the economic problem has personal roots, +it not infrequently happens that when they take the thing seriously they +go off at a tangent, hoping to do something towards the solution of the +problem by refusing to take any interest on money themselves. Apart from +exceptional cases, where the refusal to take interest means that +individual cases of hardship are relieved, action of this kind avails +nothing; for its only effect is to swell still more the pockets of those +who have no misgivings about usury; while, moreover, it is impossible to +expect many people to act in this way; for, in the case of an enormous +mass of people, it would mean a complete loss of income; in others it +would mean constant anxiety; while in others, again, the decision to +forgo all interest on money would mean that work, which at the present +juncture is of fundamental importance to society, would never get done, +because it has nO immediate economic value, for such work can only be +done to-day by people possessed of private means. For a variety of +reasons, therefore, there is no reason to suppose that any considerable +number of people will act in such an heroic way. And there is no reason +why they should; for the way to replace the present system of industry +based upon usury by one that is not, is not to advise people to forgo +their dividends, but to advise them to spend their spare money in a way +beneficial to the community, instead of reinvesting it for the purposes +of further increase. If the rich could be persuaded to use their money +in this way the pressure of competition would be so much relieved that +it would be possible in the course of a generation for people to refuse +altogether to have anything to do with usury without having to face the +fear of poverty, which most people would have to face to-day if they +refused to take any more dividends. And if we cannot persuade the rich +to do this, there is no reason to suppose they could be persuaded to +forgo interest entirely. + +The custom of investing spare money for further increase is so general +to-day that we are apt to forget that the custom is a comparatively +recent one. In former times it was the custom for the wealthy to spend +their yearly surplus upon such things as architecture, the patronage of +the arts and letters, the endowment of religion, educational and +charitable institutions, and in suchlike ways. Such expenditure was +good, because it kept money in circulation. It stimulated demand and +created employment by maintaining a balance between demand and supply. +Until a couple of generations ago this tradition of using money survived +in the old Tory school, whose faith it was that the spending of money +gave employment, while bridging the gulf between rich and poor. What +destroyed this excellent tradition was the introduction of machinery and +the coming of the limited liability company, which opened up so many +more channels of profitable investment that the aristocratic tradition +of spending was not only lost sight of, obscured, and forgotten, but +people actually came to believe that they were doing a positive service +to the community when they invested any spare money they might possess +in some new industrial enterprise instead of spending it. Yet such is +not the case; for the present deadlock that has overtaken industry is in +no small measure due to this misdirection of surplus wealth. For whereas +money that is spent does return into general circulation, the effect of +investing and reinvesting surplus money is in the long run to withdraw +it from circulation, much in the same way as if it were hoarded. Nay, it +is actually worse than if it were hoarded. Hoarded money may undermine +demand, but it does not increase supply, whereas when reinvestment +proceeds beyond a certain point it increases supply and undermines +demand at the same time. This upsets the balance between demand and +supply, which in turn is productive of waste. For when more money is +invested in any industry than is required for its proper conduct the +pressure of com- petition is increased, and this increases the selling +costs by encouraging the growth of the number of middlemen, who levy +toll upon industry, while it increases the expenditure on advertisements +and other overhead charges, bringing about over-capitalisation. That, in +turn, gives rise to every kind of dirty trick and smart practice, which +are resorted to in the attempt to produce dividends on the watered +capital. + +Viewing the problem in this light, it is evident that the first step to +be taken to mitigate the evil of usury and to resolve the economic +deadlock that has overtaken industry is to advise people to spend money +in the way it was customary to spend it in the past rather than to be +for ever reinvesting it for the purpose of further increase; for +spending money increases demand. But it will make a great deal of +difference the way it is spent. Merely to increase personal expenditure +is not desirable, for it brings other evils in its train. Wise +expenditure would result in it being spent in impersonal waj\^s, and at +the present time there could be no wiser way than to spend it in +building houses, to relieve the housing problem; while if such +expenditure was generous and wise, ignoring entirely returns in rent, it +would, do a great deal towards the revival of architecture, for +architecture will never revive so long as people build for investment. +In former times people did not expect building to pay. They looked upon +it as a way of using spare money. When they come to look upon building +again in this light conditions will be created favourable to the rebirth +of architecture. + +In other directions the problem of usury can only be solved by means of +organisation. It seems to me that the reason why the Mediaeval moralists +and economists could find no answer to the problems which usury +presented was due to the fact that that problem is only partly a moral +one. And in the same way that they failed to realise that the only way +finally to give effect to the principle of the Just Price is to make it +at the same time a Fixed Price to be maintained by Guilds, so they +failed to realise that the difficulties in which they found themselves +in their attempts to justify the taking of interest in certain cases in +order that the public convenience might not suffer arose from the fact +that the function that the usurer performed in such cases was +essentially a public one, and should have been undertaken by men in some +corporate capacity, and not left to the initiative of individuals. It +could have been overcome by organisation; for it is safe to say that if, +in the Middle Ages, the Guilds, instead of being confined to the towns, +had been co-extensive with society, the problems of usury and currency +would never have arisen. For while on the one hand, by the maintenance +of Just and Fixed Prices, such Guilds would have operated to keep money +in a close and definite relationship to the real values it is supposed +to represent, on the other, by making provision for their members in +times of sickness or adversity, little room would have remained for the +snares of the usurer, and what little there was could doubtless have +been overcome by organisation of one kind or another. Unfortunately, +however, this most obvious solution of the problem of usury never +appears to have occurred to the Mediaeval moralists and economists, who, +envisaging the problem entirely as a moral one, were as blind to the +need of organisation to enforce moral standards upon the recalcitrant +minority as reformers to-day, envisaging the social problem as entirely +one of organisation, are as a rule equally blind to the need of a moral +basis to give vitality to their organisations. In the sixteenth century, +however, the Franciscans do appear to have come to some such conclusion; +for they founded the *monies pietatis*, or lending houses, which +advanced loans to poor people either without interest or at a very low +rate, and thus prevented many from falling into the hands of usurers. +The change of attitude, however, came too late to stop the onrushing +torrent. # XV. Regulative and Producing Guilds -If the centre of gravity of the economic problem is to be -found in currency and price rather than in property, every -other problem in society will assume a different -perspective---questions which nowadays are regarded as -issues of primary and fundamental importance will be -relegated to a secondary position, while issues that -hitherto have been treated as secondary and unimportant will -become matters of primary interest. - -In this process of transformation our conception of the -nature and purpose of the Guild will be completely changed, -inasmuch as regulation rather than production will now -become its primary aim. Producing Guilds have hitherto found -favour among Socialists because they recommended themselves -as instruments for the abolition of the private ownership of -property, the substitution of workers' control for private -management being considered a means towards this end. But -once it is recognised that the centre of economic gravity is -to be found in currency and price rather than in property, a -different type of Guild will find favour, since from this -point of view the primary aim of Guild activity is the -regulation of prices, and the type of Guild best adapted to -perform this function is not the Producing but the Mediaeval -or Regulative type, which would superimpose over each -industry an organisation to regulate its affairs much in the -same way that professional societies enforce a discipline -among their members, with the difference that, in addition -to upholding a standard of professional conduct, such Guilds -would be concerned to promote a certain measure of economic -equality among their members, in the same way that trade -unions do to-day. Such guilds would insist that all who were -engaged in any industry should conform to its regulations, -which would be concerned with such things as the maintenance -of Just and Fixed Prices and rates of wages, the regulation -of machinery and apprenticeship, the upholding of a standard -of quality in production, the prevention of adulteration and -bad workmanship, mutual aid, and other matters appertaining -to the conduct of industry and the personal welfare of its -members. - -Though such Regulative Guilds are identical in principle -with the Mediaeval Guilds, there is yet no technical -difficulty that stands in the way of their establishment -over industry to-day; for the principles to which it is -proposed they should give practical application are finally -nothing more than the enforcement of moral standards. For -though modern industry differs from Mediaeval industry, the -differences are technical, and no technical difference can -involve a difference of moral principles. On the contrary, -what is involved is a difference in application, inasmuch as -whereas the Mediaeval Guilds only exercised control over -employers and their assistants engaged in small workshops -and owned by small masters, our proposed modern Regulative -Guilds would exercise control over employers and workers -engaged in both large and small factories and workshops -owned by private individuals, joint-stock companies and -self-governing groups of workers. To make such control -effective, it would be necessary to depart from the rules of -the Mediaeval Guilds to the extent that authority would have -to be vested in the whole body of members---employers and -workers---instead of being exclusively in the hands of the -masters, as was the case in the Middle Ages. For the typical -employer to-day is not a master of his craft, who is jealous -for its honour, as was the Mediaeval employer, but a -financier who is only interested in the profit and loss -account, and therefore is not to be trusted with final -authority. Hence the conclusion that if any standards of -honesty and fair dealing are to be upheld, prices and wages -fixed on a basis of justice, machinery and other things -necessary to the proper conduct of industry to be regulated, -the final authority must be vested in the trade as a whole, -for only those who suffer from the growth of abuses can be -relied upon to take measures to suppress them.[^33] - -In comparison with the enforcement of such moral standards -over industry, all other issues, such as whether the workers -be engaged in co-operative production or Producing Guilds, -whether they have small workshops of their own or are -employed by others, are secondary. They are not matters of -principle, but of expediency or personal preference. There -is no greater mistake than to suppose that every man would -prefer to work cooperatively with others. On the contrary, -the majority---the vast majority, I believe---would, other -things being equal, prefer to be employers or employed. Any -number of men prefer to work as assistants because they -don't like responsibility, while there are numbers of men of -a masterful disposition who are too individualistic by -temperament to love co-operation and who would be mere grit -and friction inside any organisation on a co-operative -basis, while again it is to be observed that there are many -men who prefer to work under such men of a masterful -disposition because they like to know just where they are, -and others prefer to work alone. Preferences of this kind -have nothing to do with indifference to or love of money. -Men may be any of these things and be good or bad citizens; -it is entirely a question of differences of temperament. For -this reason a mixed economy which is flexible and contains -different types of organisation is best adapted to differing -human needs and the varied circumstances of industry. What -is important is that these various types of men in any -single industry---employers, employed, co-operators---should -submit to the same statutes and regulations or suffer -expulsion. If moral standards are enforced over industry by -Regulative Guilds the particular way men preferred to work -or organise could be left for themselves to decide, for -their differences could have no harmful consequences; while -it is to be observed the enforcement of the Guild discipline -would tend to weed out undesirable forms of industrial -organisation such as limited liability companies. +If the centre of gravity of the economic problem is to be found in +currency and price rather than in property, every other problem in +society will assume a different perspective---questions which nowadays +are regarded as issues of primary and fundamental importance will be +relegated to a secondary position, while issues that hitherto have been +treated as secondary and unimportant will become matters of primary +interest. + +In this process of transformation our conception of the nature and +purpose of the Guild will be completely changed, inasmuch as regulation +rather than production will now become its primary aim. Producing Guilds +have hitherto found favour among Socialists because they recommended +themselves as instruments for the abolition of the private ownership of +property, the substitution of workers' control for private management +being considered a means towards this end. But once it is recognised +that the centre of economic gravity is to be found in currency and price +rather than in property, a different type of Guild will find favour, +since from this point of view the primary aim of Guild activity is the +regulation of prices, and the type of Guild best adapted to perform this +function is not the Producing but the Mediaeval or Regulative type, +which would superimpose over each industry an organisation to regulate +its affairs much in the same way that professional societies enforce a +discipline among their members, with the difference that, in addition to +upholding a standard of professional conduct, such Guilds would be +concerned to promote a certain measure of economic equality among their +members, in the same way that trade unions do to-day. Such guilds would +insist that all who were engaged in any industry should conform to its +regulations, which would be concerned with such things as the +maintenance of Just and Fixed Prices and rates of wages, the regulation +of machinery and apprenticeship, the upholding of a standard of quality +in production, the prevention of adulteration and bad workmanship, +mutual aid, and other matters appertaining to the conduct of industry +and the personal welfare of its members. + +Though such Regulative Guilds are identical in principle with the +Mediaeval Guilds, there is yet no technical difficulty that stands in +the way of their establishment over industry to-day; for the principles +to which it is proposed they should give practical application are +finally nothing more than the enforcement of moral standards. For though +modern industry differs from Mediaeval industry, the differences are +technical, and no technical difference can involve a difference of moral +principles. On the contrary, what is involved is a difference in +application, inasmuch as whereas the Mediaeval Guilds only exercised +control over employers and their assistants engaged in small workshops +and owned by small masters, our proposed modern Regulative Guilds would +exercise control over employers and workers engaged in both large and +small factories and workshops owned by private individuals, joint-stock +companies and self-governing groups of workers. To make such control +effective, it would be necessary to depart from the rules of the +Mediaeval Guilds to the extent that authority would have to be vested in +the whole body of members---employers and workers---instead of being +exclusively in the hands of the masters, as was the case in the Middle +Ages. For the typical employer to-day is not a master of his craft, who +is jealous for its honour, as was the Mediaeval employer, but a +financier who is only interested in the profit and loss account, and +therefore is not to be trusted with final authority. Hence the +conclusion that if any standards of honesty and fair dealing are to be +upheld, prices and wages fixed on a basis of justice, machinery and +other things necessary to the proper conduct of industry to be +regulated, the final authority must be vested in the trade as a whole, +for only those who suffer from the growth of abuses can be relied upon +to take measures to suppress them.[^33] + +In comparison with the enforcement of such moral standards over +industry, all other issues, such as whether the workers be engaged in +co-operative production or Producing Guilds, whether they have small +workshops of their own or are employed by others, are secondary. They +are not matters of principle, but of expediency or personal preference. +There is no greater mistake than to suppose that every man would prefer +to work cooperatively with others. On the contrary, the majority---the +vast majority, I believe---would, other things being equal, prefer to be +employers or employed. Any number of men prefer to work as assistants +because they don't like responsibility, while there are numbers of men +of a masterful disposition who are too individualistic by temperament to +love co-operation and who would be mere grit and friction inside any +organisation on a co-operative basis, while again it is to be observed +that there are many men who prefer to work under such men of a masterful +disposition because they like to know just where they are, and others +prefer to work alone. Preferences of this kind have nothing to do with +indifference to or love of money. Men may be any of these things and be +good or bad citizens; it is entirely a question of differences of +temperament. For this reason a mixed economy which is flexible and +contains different types of organisation is best adapted to differing +human needs and the varied circumstances of industry. What is important +is that these various types of men in any single industry---employers, +employed, co-operators---should submit to the same statutes and +regulations or suffer expulsion. If moral standards are enforced over +industry by Regulative Guilds the particular way men preferred to work +or organise could be left for themselves to decide, for their +differences could have no harmful consequences; while it is to be +observed the enforcement of the Guild discipline would tend to weed out +undesirable forms of industrial organisation such as limited liability +companies. Such then is our conception of the primary purpose of Guild -organisation. But it is not on this basis that the Guild -idea has hitherto been promoted in this country. On the -contrary, approaching the problem of Guild organisation from -the point of view of property rather than currency and price -regulation, the Guild idea became identified with that of -co-operative production or Producing Guilds; for National -Guilds was an attempt to give universal application to a -principle of organisation that on a small scale was -practised with success under the auspices of the -co-operative movement by giving it a base in the Trade -Unions, and it would have cleared the air of a great deal of -discussion at cross purposes if from the first they had been -called Producing Guilds instead of National Guilds ; for it -is not the Guild idea in the larger sense as expressed in -the Regulative Guild or even the Producing Guilds that is -finally called in question by the failure of the Building -Guilds, but the particular policy and form of organisation -popularised by the National Guilds League, as nowadays its -members are prepared to admit. National Guilds, as we have -always insisted, was a compromise, and a compromise that -could not last, for it was compounded of incompatibilities. -So far, therefore, from the failure of the Building Guilds -heralding the defeat of the Guild idea, it should, by -exposing the inconsistency of the National Guild position, -prepare the way for its acceptance. For it has not been the -Mediaeval elements in Guild theory that have been found -wanting in practice, but the modernist ones that it borrowed -from Collectivism. - -Meanwhile it will be interesting to compare the Building -Guild experiment with the Italian Producing Guilds[^34] for -the failure of the one and the success of the other may -suggest to us the lines upon which a new policy for -Producing Guilds should be based. In this connection the -first great difference that we notice is that, compared with -the Italian Guilds, our Building Guilds were exotic. They -were created artificially from above to execute the housing -schemes and developed with such rapidity as to engender all -the defects and shortcomings which everywhere accompany -organisations of mushroom growth. For their difficulty of -obtaining credit, which was the immediate cause of failure, -and the internal problems of organisation which, apart from -the problem of credit, must eventually have resulted in -failure, were both largely the result of a too rapid growth; -for when growth is too rapid, organisations do not grow up -in an organic way, and suffer in consequence from a -multitude of maladjustments which, leading to confusion and -dissensions, are apt to prove disruptive. - -In Italy the development was different. The Producing Guilds -there originated, as did the smaller Producing Guilds in -this country which came into existence as a result of the -boom of the Building Guilds, to provide work for the -unemployed, and their development in the early stages was -very slow indeed, for it should be known the Italian -Building Guilds are already sixty years old. Thus it was, -instead of being promoted from above, they began at the very -bottom of things---often as mere organisations of labour -undertaking simple works such as nav vying, where "labour" -is the most expensive "raw material." From such humble -beginnings they gradually advanced step by step, -consolidating their position as they went on, until they -could undertake works of importance where more plant and -capital was required. And because they grew up slowly in -this unobtrusive way they were never seriously perplexed by -the problem of credit on the one hand nor with difficulties -of internal organisation on the other, while the fact that -at the beginning they had no idea of creating a new social -order, no other aim in fact than to provide work for the -unemployed, any working theory that they have come to -possess has been the result of experience and not the result -of any *a priori* reasonings, for any other -"ism"---Socialism, Syndicalism, or Fascism---with which any -of the Guilds may be identified to-day has been grafted on -to them since and had nothing to do with their origin. - -To understand this is important. For the immunity of the -Italian Guilds in their early stages of development from the -disruptive influence of Socialist theories led them to adopt -a common-sense attitude towards the problems confronting -them which might otherwise have been impossible. The Italian -Guildsmen began by accepting the fact that the Guilds they -organised had to function within the capitalist system and -be as businesslike as any private firm, and did not -therefore attempt to push the principles of democratic -control so far as to make such functioning impossible. For -when such principles are pushed too far, as it is in -National Guild theory, the rank and file inevitably come -into collision with the administrative staff, into whose -hands decision as to details inevitably falls, for there is -a limit to the number of things to which committees can -attend. The non-recognition of this fact was a constant -source of friction in the Building Guilds. Their ideal was -to be democratic from the top to the bottom, and this led to -an extraordinary multiplicity of committees, which made the -organisation of the whole of industry upon such a basis a -proposition entirely unthinkable.[^35] Experience was to -prove that on the ultra-democratic basis upon which they -were organised there was no discoverable basis of -co-operation between the administrative staff and the rank -and file; a fact which came very much in evidence every time -a new appointment was to be made. And this difficulty -inherent in National Guild theory was further complicated by -the fact that the rapid growth of the Building Guilds -necessitated the recruitment of their administrative staffs -from the middle class instead of from the rank and file as -was possible in Italy because of their slower growth, and -this, because it involved differences in economic status, -naturally led to dissatisfaction in an organisation that -came into existence to promote economic equality. - -The different standards of living of the working and middle -classes is a real obstacle in the path of their close -co-operation in any organisation that is democratically -controlled. For though the middle-class Socialist when he -preaches economic equality means that with a better -distribution of wealth the working class would be raised up -to his own standard of living, the idea is interpreted by -the working-class man as meaning that the middle-class man -should be prepared to accept the same wage or salary as -himself. And this constitutes a real difficulty that should -be faced. It is to be traced to the fatal habit of reformers -of exalting a standard of idealism which they personally are -not prepared to act upon. It borders on insincerity, for I -do not think the middle-class Socialist has any right to ask -the working class to live up to a standard of social -idealism that he is not prepared to live up to himself. Yet -it seems to me that this is what happened under the Building -Guilds; for while the working-class member was asked to work -at a standard rate and forgo any share in any profits that -he might help to produce, the middle-class man expected to -take his share out in the form of a higher salary. Much of -the demoralisation that overtook the Building Guild was, I -am persuaded, traceable to this fact, for it was much talked -about. It seems to me if wages and salaries are not to be -equal, it would be wiser to allow the workers to have a -share in the profits, as is the case with Producers, -Co-operatives. I say it is the wiser thing---I should say, I -think it is the only thing---to do, if disaster is not going -to follow disaster. And I can see no objection to it. For if -we had Regulative Guilds that would maintain just and fixed -prices and wages and other matters relating to the conduct -of industry, such Producing Guilds could not degenerate into -capitalist concerns, for all the distribution of such -profits would mean would be that men were rewarded for any -extra exertion they might put into their work, and this -would provide the incentive that is required to keep up the -morale of the Guild. This, I submit, is only common sense. -The men in the Building Guild worked hard at the beginning. -But after a twelvemonth, when the wave of enthusiasm had -spent itself, there came the inevitable reaction which -always follows the attempt to live up to an idealism pitched -in too high a key. Of course Socialists are led into this -error by their belief in the natural perfection of mankind, -whereas the fact is most demonstrable that all men are -sinners. - -I do not know if a time will ever come when the whole of -industry will be organised in local Producing Guilds under -the control of National Regulative Guilds, but if it did it -might prove to be a misfortune, the prelude of decline, for -if private management were entirely to disappear I cannot -help feeling that initiative would disappear with it. It -would disappear under Producing Guilds as it is disappearing -under limited liability companies, and for precisely the -same reason---that as the majority of men lack imagination, -they are only willing to adopt any new idea when it has been -proved to them by demonstration, and as it is for this -reason invariably impossible to get any committee to back -any new idea from the start, it follows that new -developments are only possible on the assumption that -private industry is not entirely extinguished. The entire -disappearance of private industry would certainly place an -insuperable obstacle in the path of the revival of the -crafts and arts. "Economic co-operation," says Dr. Jacks, -"runs to quantity, because quantity is something that can be -proved to everybody's satisfaction; meanwhile quality, which -is incapable of proof, is apt to suffer."[^36] I am not -quite sure whether this will always be true, but it is -certainly true to-day --at any rate so far as the crafts and -arts are concerned --for it seems to be absolutely -impossible to forge any permanent link between them and any -form of collective activity at the present time, in spite of -\^the constant efforts that are made to overcome the -difficulty. It may be argued that if Regulative Guilds were -established and prices fixed, the difficulty would -disappear. But I am not quite sure whether such would be the -case, for the difficulty is psychological as well as -economic, and it is possible that if the economic difficulty -were removed the psychological difficulty would remain, -because in the absence of private industry the more -enlightened minority would be powerless against the blind -majority into whose hands the control of administrative -machinery would fall. Viewed in this light, the problem of -the arts presents itself finally not as a problem of taste -but of power. It is the problem of keeping open an avenue -for their revival, and my fear is that if Producing Guilds -become too widely established before the arts are revived -all such avenues would be finally closed. For if bad -traditions of design and workmanship once get into such -guilds, as seems inevitable to-day, there will be no getting -them out again apart from outside influence. This is one of -the many reasons why I feel that Regulative Guilds should -come first. +organisation. But it is not on this basis that the Guild idea has +hitherto been promoted in this country. On the contrary, approaching the +problem of Guild organisation from the point of view of property rather +than currency and price regulation, the Guild idea became identified +with that of co-operative production or Producing Guilds; for National +Guilds was an attempt to give universal application to a principle of +organisation that on a small scale was practised with success under the +auspices of the co-operative movement by giving it a base in the Trade +Unions, and it would have cleared the air of a great deal of discussion +at cross purposes if from the first they had been called Producing +Guilds instead of National Guilds ; for it is not the Guild idea in the +larger sense as expressed in the Regulative Guild or even the Producing +Guilds that is finally called in question by the failure of the Building +Guilds, but the particular policy and form of organisation popularised +by the National Guilds League, as nowadays its members are prepared to +admit. National Guilds, as we have always insisted, was a compromise, +and a compromise that could not last, for it was compounded of +incompatibilities. So far, therefore, from the failure of the Building +Guilds heralding the defeat of the Guild idea, it should, by exposing +the inconsistency of the National Guild position, prepare the way for +its acceptance. For it has not been the Mediaeval elements in Guild +theory that have been found wanting in practice, but the modernist ones +that it borrowed from Collectivism. + +Meanwhile it will be interesting to compare the Building Guild +experiment with the Italian Producing Guilds[^34] for the failure of the +one and the success of the other may suggest to us the lines upon which +a new policy for Producing Guilds should be based. In this connection +the first great difference that we notice is that, compared with the +Italian Guilds, our Building Guilds were exotic. They were created +artificially from above to execute the housing schemes and developed +with such rapidity as to engender all the defects and shortcomings which +everywhere accompany organisations of mushroom growth. For their +difficulty of obtaining credit, which was the immediate cause of +failure, and the internal problems of organisation which, apart from the +problem of credit, must eventually have resulted in failure, were both +largely the result of a too rapid growth; for when growth is too rapid, +organisations do not grow up in an organic way, and suffer in +consequence from a multitude of maladjustments which, leading to +confusion and dissensions, are apt to prove disruptive. + +In Italy the development was different. The Producing Guilds there +originated, as did the smaller Producing Guilds in this country which +came into existence as a result of the boom of the Building Guilds, to +provide work for the unemployed, and their development in the early +stages was very slow indeed, for it should be known the Italian Building +Guilds are already sixty years old. Thus it was, instead of being +promoted from above, they began at the very bottom of things---often as +mere organisations of labour undertaking simple works such as nav vying, +where "labour" is the most expensive "raw material." From such humble +beginnings they gradually advanced step by step, consolidating their +position as they went on, until they could undertake works of importance +where more plant and capital was required. And because they grew up +slowly in this unobtrusive way they were never seriously perplexed by +the problem of credit on the one hand nor with difficulties of internal +organisation on the other, while the fact that at the beginning they had +no idea of creating a new social order, no other aim in fact than to +provide work for the unemployed, any working theory that they have come +to possess has been the result of experience and not the result of any +*a priori* reasonings, for any other "ism"---Socialism, Syndicalism, or +Fascism---with which any of the Guilds may be identified to-day has been +grafted on to them since and had nothing to do with their origin. + +To understand this is important. For the immunity of the Italian Guilds +in their early stages of development from the disruptive influence of +Socialist theories led them to adopt a common-sense attitude towards the +problems confronting them which might otherwise have been impossible. +The Italian Guildsmen began by accepting the fact that the Guilds they +organised had to function within the capitalist system and be as +businesslike as any private firm, and did not therefore attempt to push +the principles of democratic control so far as to make such functioning +impossible. For when such principles are pushed too far, as it is in +National Guild theory, the rank and file inevitably come into collision +with the administrative staff, into whose hands decision as to details +inevitably falls, for there is a limit to the number of things to which +committees can attend. The non-recognition of this fact was a constant +source of friction in the Building Guilds. Their ideal was to be +democratic from the top to the bottom, and this led to an extraordinary +multiplicity of committees, which made the organisation of the whole of +industry upon such a basis a proposition entirely unthinkable.[^35] +Experience was to prove that on the ultra-democratic basis upon which +they were organised there was no discoverable basis of co-operation +between the administrative staff and the rank and file; a fact which +came very much in evidence every time a new appointment was to be made. +And this difficulty inherent in National Guild theory was further +complicated by the fact that the rapid growth of the Building Guilds +necessitated the recruitment of their administrative staffs from the +middle class instead of from the rank and file as was possible in Italy +because of their slower growth, and this, because it involved +differences in economic status, naturally led to dissatisfaction in an +organisation that came into existence to promote economic equality. + +The different standards of living of the working and middle classes is a +real obstacle in the path of their close co-operation in any +organisation that is democratically controlled. For though the +middle-class Socialist when he preaches economic equality means that +with a better distribution of wealth the working class would be raised +up to his own standard of living, the idea is interpreted by the +working-class man as meaning that the middle-class man should be +prepared to accept the same wage or salary as himself. And this +constitutes a real difficulty that should be faced. It is to be traced +to the fatal habit of reformers of exalting a standard of idealism which +they personally are not prepared to act upon. It borders on insincerity, +for I do not think the middle-class Socialist has any right to ask the +working class to live up to a standard of social idealism that he is not +prepared to live up to himself. Yet it seems to me that this is what +happened under the Building Guilds; for while the working-class member +was asked to work at a standard rate and forgo any share in any profits +that he might help to produce, the middle-class man expected to take his +share out in the form of a higher salary. Much of the demoralisation +that overtook the Building Guild was, I am persuaded, traceable to this +fact, for it was much talked about. It seems to me if wages and salaries +are not to be equal, it would be wiser to allow the workers to have a +share in the profits, as is the case with Producers, Co-operatives. I +say it is the wiser thing---I should say, I think it is the only +thing---to do, if disaster is not going to follow disaster. And I can +see no objection to it. For if we had Regulative Guilds that would +maintain just and fixed prices and wages and other matters relating to +the conduct of industry, such Producing Guilds could not degenerate into +capitalist concerns, for all the distribution of such profits would mean +would be that men were rewarded for any extra exertion they might put +into their work, and this would provide the incentive that is required +to keep up the morale of the Guild. This, I submit, is only common +sense. The men in the Building Guild worked hard at the beginning. But +after a twelvemonth, when the wave of enthusiasm had spent itself, there +came the inevitable reaction which always follows the attempt to live up +to an idealism pitched in too high a key. Of course Socialists are led +into this error by their belief in the natural perfection of mankind, +whereas the fact is most demonstrable that all men are sinners. + +I do not know if a time will ever come when the whole of industry will +be organised in local Producing Guilds under the control of National +Regulative Guilds, but if it did it might prove to be a misfortune, the +prelude of decline, for if private management were entirely to disappear +I cannot help feeling that initiative would disappear with it. It would +disappear under Producing Guilds as it is disappearing under limited +liability companies, and for precisely the same reason---that as the +majority of men lack imagination, they are only willing to adopt any new +idea when it has been proved to them by demonstration, and as it is for +this reason invariably impossible to get any committee to back any new +idea from the start, it follows that new developments are only possible +on the assumption that private industry is not entirely extinguished. +The entire disappearance of private industry would certainly place an +insuperable obstacle in the path of the revival of the crafts and arts. +"Economic co-operation," says Dr. Jacks, "runs to quantity, because +quantity is something that can be proved to everybody's satisfaction; +meanwhile quality, which is incapable of proof, is apt to suffer."[^36] +I am not quite sure whether this will always be true, but it is +certainly true to-day --at any rate so far as the crafts and arts are +concerned --for it seems to be absolutely impossible to forge any +permanent link between them and any form of collective activity at the +present time, in spite of \^the constant efforts that are made to +overcome the difficulty. It may be argued that if Regulative Guilds were +established and prices fixed, the difficulty would disappear. But I am +not quite sure whether such would be the case, for the difficulty is +psychological as well as economic, and it is possible that if the +economic difficulty were removed the psychological difficulty would +remain, because in the absence of private industry the more enlightened +minority would be powerless against the blind majority into whose hands +the control of administrative machinery would fall. Viewed in this +light, the problem of the arts presents itself finally not as a problem +of taste but of power. It is the problem of keeping open an avenue for +their revival, and my fear is that if Producing Guilds become too widely +established before the arts are revived all such avenues would be +finally closed. For if bad traditions of design and workmanship once get +into such guilds, as seems inevitable to-day, there will be no getting +them out again apart from outside influence. This is one of the many +reasons why I feel that Regulative Guilds should come first. # XVI. Property and Function -A consideration of the problems of management and control -naturally leads to a consideration of those of property, for -the two are so inseparably bound up together that any -attitude we adopt towards the one inevitably affects our -attitude towards the other. Socialists have been perfectly -consistent in maintaining that the abolition of the private -ownership of property involves the abolition of private -management of industry. In the same way an acceptance of the -private management of industry involves an acceptance of the -institution of private property. - -The reason for this is not far to seek. The private -management of industry involves the recognition of the -principle of private property, because in the long run it is -impossible rightly to perform any function apart from the -personal independence that the possession of property gives. -The truth of this is illustrated by the changes that have -taken place in the spirit and conduct of industry since the -spread of limited liability companies. Prior to their -getting possession of industry, the financier without -technical experience had little or no footing in production. -On the contrary, the control and ownership of industry was -in the hands of men who invariably understood the practical -and technical side of industry in addition to its business -side; for most capitalists were men who had risen from the -ranks. But with the spread of limited liability companies, -the ownership of industry was taken out of the hands of the -men who had technical knowledge of it and placed in the -hands of shareholders who had no such knowledge. Thus the -spirit and conduct of industry was completely changed. It is -true that before the days of limited companies there was -plenty of profiteering in industry. But side by side with -profiteering there existed a certain pride in the work -produced, a certain craft spirit prevailed, for everything -was not sacrificed to profits. If men loved profits, most of -them also valued their reputation for producing a good -article and for fair dealing. And, where they did not suffer -from foreign competition, whether or not a man lived up to a -standard was largely optional with him. But limited -companies have changed all this. The shareholders in whose -hands control is finally vested do not share the craft -traditions of the manufacturer who rose from the ranks. They -are only interested in extracting out of an industry as much -profit as possible for themselves. This has been followed by -a transfer of the control of industry from the hands of men -with technical experience into the hands of financiers, -touts, and salesmen, who have subordinated technical men to -themselves. The change has exercised a most demoralising -influence upon industry, for experience proves that such men -cannot manage industry. On the contrary, all they can do is -to exploit it, which is a very different thing. For good -management means, among other things, the prevention of -waste. But since financiers and salesmen have come into -control, waste has been constantly increasing. In the long -run this must bring disaster to limited liability companies. -though in the meantime they manage to put off the evil day -by rings and combines of all kinds, which keep up the +A consideration of the problems of management and control naturally +leads to a consideration of those of property, for the two are so +inseparably bound up together that any attitude we adopt towards the one +inevitably affects our attitude towards the other. Socialists have been +perfectly consistent in maintaining that the abolition of the private +ownership of property involves the abolition of private management of +industry. In the same way an acceptance of the private management of +industry involves an acceptance of the institution of private property. + +The reason for this is not far to seek. The private management of +industry involves the recognition of the principle of private property, +because in the long run it is impossible rightly to perform any function +apart from the personal independence that the possession of property +gives. The truth of this is illustrated by the changes that have taken +place in the spirit and conduct of industry since the spread of limited +liability companies. Prior to their getting possession of industry, the +financier without technical experience had little or no footing in +production. On the contrary, the control and ownership of industry was +in the hands of men who invariably understood the practical and +technical side of industry in addition to its business side; for most +capitalists were men who had risen from the ranks. But with the spread +of limited liability companies, the ownership of industry was taken out +of the hands of the men who had technical knowledge of it and placed in +the hands of shareholders who had no such knowledge. Thus the spirit and +conduct of industry was completely changed. It is true that before the +days of limited companies there was plenty of profiteering in industry. +But side by side with profiteering there existed a certain pride in the +work produced, a certain craft spirit prevailed, for everything was not +sacrificed to profits. If men loved profits, most of them also valued +their reputation for producing a good article and for fair dealing. And, +where they did not suffer from foreign competition, whether or not a man +lived up to a standard was largely optional with him. But limited +companies have changed all this. The shareholders in whose hands control +is finally vested do not share the craft traditions of the manufacturer +who rose from the ranks. They are only interested in extracting out of +an industry as much profit as possible for themselves. This has been +followed by a transfer of the control of industry from the hands of men +with technical experience into the hands of financiers, touts, and +salesmen, who have subordinated technical men to themselves. The change +has exercised a most demoralising influence upon industry, for +experience proves that such men cannot manage industry. On the contrary, +all they can do is to exploit it, which is a very different thing. For +good management means, among other things, the prevention of waste. But +since financiers and salesmen have come into control, waste has been +constantly increasing. In the long run this must bring disaster to +limited liability companies. though in the meantime they manage to put +off the evil day by rings and combines of all kinds, which keep up the prices. -The reason for this constant increase of waste is to be -found partly in the fact that limited companies, by their -control of capital, have brought into existence -organisations so large as to become almost unmanageable, and -partly because the managers, who, as a rule, are financial -men without any technical training, do not know how to make -appointments on the technical side. Being without the inside -knowledge that comes with technical experience, the managers -can only judge men by appearances. In consequence, promotion -in large commercial organisations no longer goes with doing -good and valuable work, for that is hidden from the eyes of -the managers; but with toadying to men in position; with -maintaining a certain bluff, an appearance of doing things, -but not with actually doing them, which is much more likely -to lead to trouble by incurring the jealousy of "duds" in -high places; with managing things in such a way so as to -secure the credit for oneself for things that are successful -and to shuffle off responsibility for failure on to the -shoulders of others. This is not difficult in large -organisations, for it is generally impossible except for -those actually on the job to know exactly for what work any -particular individual is responsible. There are, of course, -exceptions to this rule, but then there are exceptional -circumstances, and an institution is to be judged by its -norm and not by its exceptions. No one who has ever worked -inside a large commercial organisation will deny that -success goes to the bounder, to the man who studies the game -rather than the work. And it is because of this that limited -companies have demoralised industry; for when men began to -find that competence was not rewarded and honour not -appreciated, all the old incentives that gave a morale to -industry were gone. There was no one left to set a standard. - -For these evils nationalisation is no remedy; for though the -element of profit-making would be removed if the Government -took over industry and property, yet the divorce of function -from ownership, which is the central evil of limited -companies, would remain, while certain other evils which are -peculiar to State activities would be added. Such being the -case, it is apparent that the remedy demands among other -things the restriction, if not the abolition, of limited -companies, and such a redistribution of property as would -unite again function and ownership. And here it is necessary -to observe that the remedy proposed by the Douglas Credit -scheme, which professes to be a form of Distributivism, -would be no remedy at all, even if it were practicable, -which I am assured it is not, since a scheme that provides -"dividends for all" would perpetuate the divorce between -function and ownership. And so long as that remains there -can be no restoration of the morale of industry. - -But to reunite function and ownership involves the -acceptance of the principle of private property. And as we -found in the case of private management that the wise course -was to accept the institution whilst protecting society -against its abuse by superimposing over industry a system of -Guilds, so I am persuaded that the right treatment of the -problem of property is not to be found in the abolition of -private ownership, but in taking measures to safeguard -society against its abuse. In this connection I feel that a -limit should be placed to the rights of property in two -directions. There should, in the first place, be no private -property in land in the sense that land should not be -treated as a commodity to be bought and sold. On the -contrary, it should be owned by the community as a whole, or -by the parish, who would lease it out to individuals or -groups of workers on a moderate rental. An arrangement -incidentally, it is to be observed, which was advocated in -the eighteenth century and from which the idea of the single -tax derives. For, according to Thomas Spence, who originally -made this proposal, the revenues from the rents would form -the only tax from which the expenses of local and central -government would be defrayed.[^37] This restriction of -private property is necessary because there is no doubt that -the growth of economic tyrannies follows trafficking in -land. And as under a system of Guilds the producer would be -compelled to sell his produce at a Just and Fixed Price and -to pay just wages, it appears to me that under such -conditions the Socialist case against private property -entirely disappears. For under such conditions the Socialist -ideal would be fulfilled, inasmuch as, while the individual -would be secure in the fruits of his labour, he would not be -in a position to abuse his position by trespassing on the -rights of others. It would, moreover, be a return to the -Mediaeval principle of reciprocal rights and duties; for as -no one under such conditions could hold property for any -other purpose than for the performance of function, all idea -of absolute property rights would disappear.[^38] - -The application of these principles would solve the problem -of property in rural areas and in so far as small industries -are concerned. It would also mitigate the evils of private -ownership where large-scale production obtains to the extent -of guarding the community against the abuses of property. -But it would not solve the problem of how the individual -worker in a large industry is to secure his share of the -wealth he helps to create. Before the introduction of -machinery the problem of property was theoretically a simple -one. The instruments of production were such as to interpose -no obstacle to the organisation of society on a basis of -equity; for when the only instruments of production were the -tools of the handicraftsman, there was no technical -difficulty to stand in the way of a reasonable distribution -of property. On the contrary, the problem that did exist was -entirely a moral one. It was the problem of inducing men to -obey the moral law in the sphere of economics, of preventing -men from obtaining more than their share of property. But -once machinery was invented and large-scale production came -into existence, the terms of the problem were changed, and -the moral problem became complicated by a technical problem -of ownership that has so far proved to be entirely insoluble -from the point of view of the general well-being of society. -It was the apparent impossibility of finding a satisfactory -solution for this problem that led Socialists in the past to -attempt to escape from the dilemma in which the unrestricted -use of machinery involves the problem of property and -ownership by demanding the abolition of all private property -whatsoever. At the time this solution was first promulgated, -it recommended itself as the line of least resistance. But -experience is proving that to attempt the abolition of -private property is to follow the line of maximum -resistance; for there is no reason to suppose that the -problem of industrial property will ever be solved by direct -action. And as experience proves that Producing Guilds can -only be successful under industrialism within very narrow -limits, the problem would be entirely insoluble but for one -consideration---that the unrestricted use of machinery that -stands in the way of any solution of the problem of property -stands also in the way of the solution of every other -problem of society---of religion, law, politics, arts, -crafts, organisation, currency, the family, and other social -traditions. This consideration leads us to the conclusion -that a precedent condition of finding a solution to the -problem of property or any other social problem is to make -up our minds about the place of machinery in society, for -the attitude which we adopt towards it finally determines -our attitude towards every other problem of society. +The reason for this constant increase of waste is to be found partly in +the fact that limited companies, by their control of capital, have +brought into existence organisations so large as to become almost +unmanageable, and partly because the managers, who, as a rule, are +financial men without any technical training, do not know how to make +appointments on the technical side. Being without the inside knowledge +that comes with technical experience, the managers can only judge men by +appearances. In consequence, promotion in large commercial organisations +no longer goes with doing good and valuable work, for that is hidden +from the eyes of the managers; but with toadying to men in position; +with maintaining a certain bluff, an appearance of doing things, but not +with actually doing them, which is much more likely to lead to trouble +by incurring the jealousy of "duds" in high places; with managing things +in such a way so as to secure the credit for oneself for things that are +successful and to shuffle off responsibility for failure on to the +shoulders of others. This is not difficult in large organisations, for +it is generally impossible except for those actually on the job to know +exactly for what work any particular individual is responsible. There +are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but then there are exceptional +circumstances, and an institution is to be judged by its norm and not by +its exceptions. No one who has ever worked inside a large commercial +organisation will deny that success goes to the bounder, to the man who +studies the game rather than the work. And it is because of this that +limited companies have demoralised industry; for when men began to find +that competence was not rewarded and honour not appreciated, all the old +incentives that gave a morale to industry were gone. There was no one +left to set a standard. + +For these evils nationalisation is no remedy; for though the element of +profit-making would be removed if the Government took over industry and +property, yet the divorce of function from ownership, which is the +central evil of limited companies, would remain, while certain other +evils which are peculiar to State activities would be added. Such being +the case, it is apparent that the remedy demands among other things the +restriction, if not the abolition, of limited companies, and such a +redistribution of property as would unite again function and ownership. +And here it is necessary to observe that the remedy proposed by the +Douglas Credit scheme, which professes to be a form of Distributivism, +would be no remedy at all, even if it were practicable, which I am +assured it is not, since a scheme that provides "dividends for all" +would perpetuate the divorce between function and ownership. And so long +as that remains there can be no restoration of the morale of industry. + +But to reunite function and ownership involves the acceptance of the +principle of private property. And as we found in the case of private +management that the wise course was to accept the institution whilst +protecting society against its abuse by superimposing over industry a +system of Guilds, so I am persuaded that the right treatment of the +problem of property is not to be found in the abolition of private +ownership, but in taking measures to safeguard society against its +abuse. In this connection I feel that a limit should be placed to the +rights of property in two directions. There should, in the first place, +be no private property in land in the sense that land should not be +treated as a commodity to be bought and sold. On the contrary, it should +be owned by the community as a whole, or by the parish, who would lease +it out to individuals or groups of workers on a moderate rental. An +arrangement incidentally, it is to be observed, which was advocated in +the eighteenth century and from which the idea of the single tax +derives. For, according to Thomas Spence, who originally made this +proposal, the revenues from the rents would form the only tax from which +the expenses of local and central government would be defrayed.[^37] +This restriction of private property is necessary because there is no +doubt that the growth of economic tyrannies follows trafficking in land. +And as under a system of Guilds the producer would be compelled to sell +his produce at a Just and Fixed Price and to pay just wages, it appears +to me that under such conditions the Socialist case against private +property entirely disappears. For under such conditions the Socialist +ideal would be fulfilled, inasmuch as, while the individual would be +secure in the fruits of his labour, he would not be in a position to +abuse his position by trespassing on the rights of others. It would, +moreover, be a return to the Mediaeval principle of reciprocal rights +and duties; for as no one under such conditions could hold property for +any other purpose than for the performance of function, all idea of +absolute property rights would disappear.[^38] + +The application of these principles would solve the problem of property +in rural areas and in so far as small industries are concerned. It would +also mitigate the evils of private ownership where large-scale +production obtains to the extent of guarding the community against the +abuses of property. But it would not solve the problem of how the +individual worker in a large industry is to secure his share of the +wealth he helps to create. Before the introduction of machinery the +problem of property was theoretically a simple one. The instruments of +production were such as to interpose no obstacle to the organisation of +society on a basis of equity; for when the only instruments of +production were the tools of the handicraftsman, there was no technical +difficulty to stand in the way of a reasonable distribution of property. +On the contrary, the problem that did exist was entirely a moral one. It +was the problem of inducing men to obey the moral law in the sphere of +economics, of preventing men from obtaining more than their share of +property. But once machinery was invented and large-scale production +came into existence, the terms of the problem were changed, and the +moral problem became complicated by a technical problem of ownership +that has so far proved to be entirely insoluble from the point of view +of the general well-being of society. It was the apparent impossibility +of finding a satisfactory solution for this problem that led Socialists +in the past to attempt to escape from the dilemma in which the +unrestricted use of machinery involves the problem of property and +ownership by demanding the abolition of all private property whatsoever. +At the time this solution was first promulgated, it recommended itself +as the line of least resistance. But experience is proving that to +attempt the abolition of private property is to follow the line of +maximum resistance; for there is no reason to suppose that the problem +of industrial property will ever be solved by direct action. And as +experience proves that Producing Guilds can only be successful under +industrialism within very narrow limits, the problem would be entirely +insoluble but for one consideration---that the unrestricted use of +machinery that stands in the way of any solution of the problem of +property stands also in the way of the solution of every other problem +of society---of religion, law, politics, arts, crafts, organisation, +currency, the family, and other social traditions. This consideration +leads us to the conclusion that a precedent condition of finding a +solution to the problem of property or any other social problem is to +make up our minds about the place of machinery in society, for the +attitude which we adopt towards it finally determines our attitude +towards every other problem of society. # XVII. The Break-Up of Industrialism -In the preceding chapters we defined the principles upon -which a reconstituted society should rest. While we saw that -some of them were capable of immediate application, we found -the problem of property an obstacle in our path, inasmuch as -any solution that would relate property to personal needs -cannot be harmonised with the circumstances of industrial -production and *vice versa*. In these circumstances we are -led to inquire whether industrialism, as we understand it, -is a natural and normal development of industry with a -future before it, or whether it is not a thing altogether -abnormal, a blind alley from which we must retrace our steps -or perish. - -To this question I can find but one answer. Industrialism is -a thing altogether abnormal, and for that reason has no -future. Evidence in support of this contention is to be -found in the political and economic confusion that has -overtaken the world. Modern civilisation is the creation of -our industrial methods of production in the sense that apart -from their invention it could never have come into existence -nor be maintained. Before the War, the comfortable theory -obtained that the confusion, which it was admitted had -followed the introduction of steam power and machinery, was -the inevitable accompaniment of an age of transition. It was -analogous to the confusion of youth and would disappear -before the growth of maturity. Meanwhile the increase of -productive capacity was laying a foundation of material -well-being in which every member of society would eventually -share. The War knocked the bottom out of that breezy -optimism by revealing industrialism in a different light. -Confronted by the world catastrophe, the theory that -industrialism and militarism were opposed in principle and -that militarism, which was the mark of a lower stage of -social evolution, would disappear before the growth of -industrialism, which was the mark of a higher stage of -social evolution, was rendered altogether untenable, since -industrialism and militarism as they exist in Europe to-day -are too obviously parts of the same disease, inasmuch as -both are expressions of the bent given to the human mind by -the worship of wealth and the cult of mechanism; while so -far from industrialism making for peace and militarism for -war, they give each other mutual support. For while, on the -one hand, the need of industrial nations for ever-widening -markets and new sources of raw material is a constant source -of international friction and creates an atmosphere -favourable to war, on the other it is demonstrable that war -on such a prodigious scale as the late one would have been -impossible apart from the whole industrial apparatus of -mechanical transport, telegraphs, tinned foods, and the -thousand and one other devices indispensable to modern -warfare. - -For a century industrialism and militarism pressed forward -together towards a common disaster. Yet mechanism of itself -cannot produce war. To do that it must be allied with -passion. If men were to be induced to fight, if they were to -be preached into the trenches, war had to be idealised. And -so it came about that the sordid realities behind the War -were carefully concealed from the popular eye, while it was -loudly proclaimed that the War was a war to end wars, it was -to make the world safe for democracy. But figs do not grow -on thistles in spite of journalistic enterprise. Once the -War was well on the way, rampant profiteering broke loose, -and the suspicion gained ground that the War was not being -fought to make the world safe for democracy, but to make it -safe for plutocracy. At any rate, by the time the War came -to an end, idealism was as good as dead. The Treaty of -Versailles, instead of exhibiting that spirit of magnanimity -which might have paved the way to universal peace, provided -only another illustration of the dictum of Herodotus that -"revenge is the one law of history," since so far from -measures being taken to prevent another catastrophe, it -sowed the seeds of further trouble. The League of Nations -was instituted to keep up appearances, but the passions that -the War had let loose craved satisfaction, and they found it -in a peace that has proved to be no less disastrous than the -War, to victors as to vanquished. - -It is easy to see how all this came about. There were tv/o, -and only two, possible post-war policies to be pursued. -Either the economic problem that had led to the War was to -be faced or it was not. If it was, then the whole problem of -industrialism, of the unrestricted use of machinery, of -usury, and the speculation in prices would have to be dealt -with and the social and economic reconstruction of Europe -undertaken from its very basis; for nothing short of this -would have sufficed to lay the foundations of universal -peace. But it was not to be expected that the statesmen, -politicians, financiers, and others into whose hands the -arrangement of peace terms fell would voluntarily undertake -such a task. To have done so would have demanded of them a -measure of self-sacrifice that we associate with the lives -of the saints and is altogether incompatible with the -struggle for power which is the central motive of their -lives. It was not therefore surprising that they chose the -other alternative, which at the time appeared to them the -line of least resistance, and attempted to prop up the -credit of the Governments and industries of the Allied -nations by making Germany pay. But experience has proved -that in spite of the Treaty of Versailles it is easier said -than done; for while on the one hand the only way by which -Germany could possibly pay the indemnity is by increasing -her export trade-the one thing which we at any rate don't -want; on the other, it has become apparent to even statesmen -and financiers that a solution of the economic problems of -the world cannot be postponed indefinitely. Hence it has -been that one international conference after another---at -Washington, Genoa, and the Hague---has been held in attempts -to undo the mischief that was done at Versailles and to get -at grips with the economic situation. Each in turn has been -hailed as the liberator, yet each and all have ended in -disappointment, for each in turn has found itself at the -mercy of circumstances too powerful for it. Exactly how it -will all work out it is impossible to foresee. But at the -time of writing France has played her last card and seized -the Ruhr, and having played it she is somewhat perplexed as -to what to do next; for it is already evident that she is -going to lose rather than gain by the adventure. The failure -of this policy must end in the defeat of the Conservatives, -who since the War have governed France, and if reports are -to be trusted it will in all probability be followed by a -violent reaction towards the Left, which would seem to be -the logical outcome of the situation; for the -disillusionment will be absolute. - -Should such prove to be the case, and a Communist or -democratic rising take place, the cause of peace will be -enormously strengthened, for France, which since the War has -been the storm centre of Europe, will have come into line -with the rest of the Continent. It will complete the -movement against all constituted power and authority that -has taken place in nations that before the War had adopted -conscription, which began in March 1917 with the successful -Revolution in Russia, and led to the assumption of power by -the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks, as all the world knows -to-day, were followers of Marx, and they attempted to -reorganise Russian society on a communist basis according to -the social theory that Marx had enunciated. According to -that theory, the social revolution, when it did come, would -be the culmination of a long process of industrial evolution -when the mass of the people having become separated from any -ownership of the means of production would become -class-conscious and, suffering from increasing privations -and unemployment, would rise and overthrow the capitalist -and ruling class, take possession of land, capital, and the -means of production and exchange, and organise society for -the benefit of all, instead of for the few. But Russia, -where the flames of revolt were first kindled, is not a -highly industrialised country, while the immediate cause of -the revolution was military defeat rather than any issue -connected with the economics of industry. The consequence -was, though the Bolsheviks found themselves in power because -they were the only people in the crisis who were prepared to -act with energy and determination, the social theory in -which they put their trust had no relevance whatsoever to -the actual situation with which they were confronted; but -being persuaded that communism was impossible apart from a -highly developed industrialism, they set to work to -industrialise Russia, in order, as they imagined, to render -stable the communist organisation which simultaneously they -sought to establish. But instead of rendering communism -stable as they had intended, their activities resulted in -provoking a reaction against both industrialism and -communism which ended in a complete defeat of their policy. - -The immediate cause of the defeat of the Bolshevik policy, -as all are well aware, was the famine of 1921. But the -ultimate cause lay much deeper and is connected with the -failure of the Bolsheviks to understand the psychology or to -enter into the point of view of the Russian peasantry. The -Russian peasant is Mediaeval, he is religious and -traditional, he has the sense of the soil, he shared in a -common life. In fact, he enjoyed in some degree the very -things that Socialists are supposed to be after. But the -Bolsheviks, with their eyes on the future, and their -misunderstanding and contempt of the past, with their belief -in industrialism, their materialist philosophy, and their -anti-religious spirit, failed to see that the foundation was -there for them to build upon. Being orthodox followers of -Marx, they believed that the small farmer and peasant -proprietor were doomed to disappear in obedience to some law -of social evolution which never works out as expected; and -so, instead of seeking to shape the traditions of the -peasants to more communal ends by the organisation of -agricultural Guilds to maintain Just and Fixed Prices, they -set themselves against the peasantry from the first. They -attacked their religion, while they sought to effect an -immediate transition to complete communism by demanding that -the peasants should relinquish any claim to benefit -individually by the results of their labour. The result of -it was that the peasants, finding their surplus produce -requisitioned, while all they got in exchange for it was -paper money which would not buy for them any of the things -they needed, curtailed their production. They began to -produce no more food than was necessary to satisfy their own -personal needs, with the result that when in 1921 the -drought came upon them they had no reserves to fall back -upon and famine overtook them. It was this that led to the +In the preceding chapters we defined the principles upon which a +reconstituted society should rest. While we saw that some of them were +capable of immediate application, we found the problem of property an +obstacle in our path, inasmuch as any solution that would relate +property to personal needs cannot be harmonised with the circumstances +of industrial production and *vice versa*. In these circumstances we are +led to inquire whether industrialism, as we understand it, is a natural +and normal development of industry with a future before it, or whether +it is not a thing altogether abnormal, a blind alley from which we must +retrace our steps or perish. + +To this question I can find but one answer. Industrialism is a thing +altogether abnormal, and for that reason has no future. Evidence in +support of this contention is to be found in the political and economic +confusion that has overtaken the world. Modern civilisation is the +creation of our industrial methods of production in the sense that apart +from their invention it could never have come into existence nor be +maintained. Before the War, the comfortable theory obtained that the +confusion, which it was admitted had followed the introduction of steam +power and machinery, was the inevitable accompaniment of an age of +transition. It was analogous to the confusion of youth and would +disappear before the growth of maturity. Meanwhile the increase of +productive capacity was laying a foundation of material well-being in +which every member of society would eventually share. The War knocked +the bottom out of that breezy optimism by revealing industrialism in a +different light. Confronted by the world catastrophe, the theory that +industrialism and militarism were opposed in principle and that +militarism, which was the mark of a lower stage of social evolution, +would disappear before the growth of industrialism, which was the mark +of a higher stage of social evolution, was rendered altogether +untenable, since industrialism and militarism as they exist in Europe +to-day are too obviously parts of the same disease, inasmuch as both are +expressions of the bent given to the human mind by the worship of wealth +and the cult of mechanism; while so far from industrialism making for +peace and militarism for war, they give each other mutual support. For +while, on the one hand, the need of industrial nations for ever-widening +markets and new sources of raw material is a constant source of +international friction and creates an atmosphere favourable to war, on +the other it is demonstrable that war on such a prodigious scale as the +late one would have been impossible apart from the whole industrial +apparatus of mechanical transport, telegraphs, tinned foods, and the +thousand and one other devices indispensable to modern warfare. + +For a century industrialism and militarism pressed forward together +towards a common disaster. Yet mechanism of itself cannot produce war. +To do that it must be allied with passion. If men were to be induced to +fight, if they were to be preached into the trenches, war had to be +idealised. And so it came about that the sordid realities behind the War +were carefully concealed from the popular eye, while it was loudly +proclaimed that the War was a war to end wars, it was to make the world +safe for democracy. But figs do not grow on thistles in spite of +journalistic enterprise. Once the War was well on the way, rampant +profiteering broke loose, and the suspicion gained ground that the War +was not being fought to make the world safe for democracy, but to make +it safe for plutocracy. At any rate, by the time the War came to an end, +idealism was as good as dead. The Treaty of Versailles, instead of +exhibiting that spirit of magnanimity which might have paved the way to +universal peace, provided only another illustration of the dictum of +Herodotus that "revenge is the one law of history," since so far from +measures being taken to prevent another catastrophe, it sowed the seeds +of further trouble. The League of Nations was instituted to keep up +appearances, but the passions that the War had let loose craved +satisfaction, and they found it in a peace that has proved to be no less +disastrous than the War, to victors as to vanquished. + +It is easy to see how all this came about. There were tv/o, and only +two, possible post-war policies to be pursued. Either the economic +problem that had led to the War was to be faced or it was not. If it +was, then the whole problem of industrialism, of the unrestricted use of +machinery, of usury, and the speculation in prices would have to be +dealt with and the social and economic reconstruction of Europe +undertaken from its very basis; for nothing short of this would have +sufficed to lay the foundations of universal peace. But it was not to be +expected that the statesmen, politicians, financiers, and others into +whose hands the arrangement of peace terms fell would voluntarily +undertake such a task. To have done so would have demanded of them a +measure of self-sacrifice that we associate with the lives of the saints +and is altogether incompatible with the struggle for power which is the +central motive of their lives. It was not therefore surprising that they +chose the other alternative, which at the time appeared to them the line +of least resistance, and attempted to prop up the credit of the +Governments and industries of the Allied nations by making Germany pay. +But experience has proved that in spite of the Treaty of Versailles it +is easier said than done; for while on the one hand the only way by +which Germany could possibly pay the indemnity is by increasing her +export trade-the one thing which we at any rate don't want; on the +other, it has become apparent to even statesmen and financiers that a +solution of the economic problems of the world cannot be postponed +indefinitely. Hence it has been that one international conference after +another---at Washington, Genoa, and the Hague---has been held in +attempts to undo the mischief that was done at Versailles and to get at +grips with the economic situation. Each in turn has been hailed as the +liberator, yet each and all have ended in disappointment, for each in +turn has found itself at the mercy of circumstances too powerful for it. +Exactly how it will all work out it is impossible to foresee. But at the +time of writing France has played her last card and seized the Ruhr, and +having played it she is somewhat perplexed as to what to do next; for it +is already evident that she is going to lose rather than gain by the +adventure. The failure of this policy must end in the defeat of the +Conservatives, who since the War have governed France, and if reports +are to be trusted it will in all probability be followed by a violent +reaction towards the Left, which would seem to be the logical outcome of +the situation; for the disillusionment will be absolute. + +Should such prove to be the case, and a Communist or democratic rising +take place, the cause of peace will be enormously strengthened, for +France, which since the War has been the storm centre of Europe, will +have come into line with the rest of the Continent. It will complete the +movement against all constituted power and authority that has taken +place in nations that before the War had adopted conscription, which +began in March 1917 with the successful Revolution in Russia, and led to +the assumption of power by the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks, as all the +world knows to-day, were followers of Marx, and they attempted to +reorganise Russian society on a communist basis according to the social +theory that Marx had enunciated. According to that theory, the social +revolution, when it did come, would be the culmination of a long process +of industrial evolution when the mass of the people having become +separated from any ownership of the means of production would become +class-conscious and, suffering from increasing privations and +unemployment, would rise and overthrow the capitalist and ruling class, +take possession of land, capital, and the means of production and +exchange, and organise society for the benefit of all, instead of for +the few. But Russia, where the flames of revolt were first kindled, is +not a highly industrialised country, while the immediate cause of the +revolution was military defeat rather than any issue connected with the +economics of industry. The consequence was, though the Bolsheviks found +themselves in power because they were the only people in the crisis who +were prepared to act with energy and determination, the social theory in +which they put their trust had no relevance whatsoever to the actual +situation with which they were confronted; but being persuaded that +communism was impossible apart from a highly developed industrialism, +they set to work to industrialise Russia, in order, as they imagined, to +render stable the communist organisation which simultaneously they +sought to establish. But instead of rendering communism stable as they +had intended, their activities resulted in provoking a reaction against +both industrialism and communism which ended in a complete defeat of +their policy. + +The immediate cause of the defeat of the Bolshevik policy, as all are +well aware, was the famine of 1921. But the ultimate cause lay much +deeper and is connected with the failure of the Bolsheviks to understand +the psychology or to enter into the point of view of the Russian +peasantry. The Russian peasant is Mediaeval, he is religious and +traditional, he has the sense of the soil, he shared in a common life. +In fact, he enjoyed in some degree the very things that Socialists are +supposed to be after. But the Bolsheviks, with their eyes on the future, +and their misunderstanding and contempt of the past, with their belief +in industrialism, their materialist philosophy, and their anti-religious +spirit, failed to see that the foundation was there for them to build +upon. Being orthodox followers of Marx, they believed that the small +farmer and peasant proprietor were doomed to disappear in obedience to +some law of social evolution which never works out as expected; and so, +instead of seeking to shape the traditions of the peasants to more +communal ends by the organisation of agricultural Guilds to maintain +Just and Fixed Prices, they set themselves against the peasantry from +the first. They attacked their religion, while they sought to effect an +immediate transition to complete communism by demanding that the +peasants should relinquish any claim to benefit individually by the +results of their labour. The result of it was that the peasants, finding +their surplus produce requisitioned, while all they got in exchange for +it was paper money which would not buy for them any of the things they +needed, curtailed their production. They began to produce no more food +than was necessary to satisfy their own personal needs, with the result +that when in 1921 the drought came upon them they had no reserves to +fall back upon and famine overtook them. It was this that led to the defeat of the economic policy of the Bolsheviks. -In a speech delivered to the Russian Congress of Local -Organisations for Political Enlightenment in October -1921,[^39] Lenin frankly admitted the failure and defeat of -the economic policy of the Bolsheviks, which he attributed -to their mishandling of the peasants and failure to create -personal interest. So far from having abolished capitalism -and established communism in its place, he confessed that -they had been driven by the force of circumstances to -reinstitute private property except in land and to open the -door for the re-entry of foreign capitalists into Russia, -without whose aid they could not get along. The whole future -of Russia resolved itself, in Lenin's opinion at the time, -into the question as to which party would get the upper -hand; whether the capitalists would succeed in organising -themselves, in which event they would drive out the -Bolsheviks, or whether the Bolsheviks, with the support » of -the peasants, would succeed in holding the capitalists in +In a speech delivered to the Russian Congress of Local Organisations for +Political Enlightenment in October 1921,[^39] Lenin frankly admitted the +failure and defeat of the economic policy of the Bolsheviks, which he +attributed to their mishandling of the peasants and failure to create +personal interest. So far from having abolished capitalism and +established communism in its place, he confessed that they had been +driven by the force of circumstances to reinstitute private property +except in land and to open the door for the re-entry of foreign +capitalists into Russia, without whose aid they could not get along. The +whole future of Russia resolved itself, in Lenin's opinion at the time, +into the question as to which party would get the upper hand; whether +the capitalists would succeed in organising themselves, in which event +they would drive out the Bolsheviks, or whether the Bolsheviks, with the +support » of the peasants, would succeed in holding the capitalists in check. -Events, however, were to prove that Lenin was again -mistaken, for the thing that has happened is a thing that he -never even remotely suspected. For the upshot of it all is -that, having broken the power of the Bolshevik regime, the -peasants have conquered. All over Eastern Europe the Red -International is being succeeded by a Green International. -Political parties are outbidding each other for the support -of the peasantry. The large estates have been broken up and -the peasants have got hold of the land, with the result that -while urban populations are being reduced to starvation the -rural populations are becoming prosperous. And this shifting -of the centre of political and economic gravity is being -accompanied by the emergence of the peasants' point of view, -which is manifesting itself as hostile to industrialism. The -peasants, we are told, express their abhorrence of it by -crossing themselves three times whenever they speak of the -town or the factory. - -This attitude of the peasants towards industrialism I -believe to be a perfectly healthy, natural human instinct, -and full of promise for the future. But to most of the -writers in the *Manchester Guardian* Special Supplement on -"Reconstruction in Europe," to whom I am largely indebted -for my information on this subject, it is different. They -can see nothing in the rise to power of the peasants but the -complete destruction of all human culture, since to them, -with their love of industrialism, it is the deluge. That -immediately the rise to power of the peasants may exercise -an influence detrimental to modernist culture is not, I -think, to be denied; for it is not to be supposed that the -peasants will be more discriminating in their hatred of -modernist culture than our intellectuals have been in their -hatred of the Mediaevalist culture of the peasants. But this -does not mean that all culture will disappear, but that its -centre of gravity will be changed from modernism to -Mediaevalism. The modernists have no right to complain. They -are being defeated by the peasants because the peasants have -a grip on reality which they have not. Their defeat is the -nemesis of their intellectual insincerity, of their contempt -of reality, their denial of religion, and their persistent -refusal to face the facts of our industrial system. And -because of this the change in the centre of gravity from -modernism to Mediaevalism is all to the good. Before any -further human advance is possible it is urgent that the -balance between town and country, between man and the -machine, should be restored. As our intellectuals, in common -with the vast majority of the modern world, are entirely -blind to the necessity, deceiving themselves with fine -phrases about progress and emancipation which mean nothing, -it is in the nature of things that the initiative in society -should be transferred to others. +Events, however, were to prove that Lenin was again mistaken, for the +thing that has happened is a thing that he never even remotely +suspected. For the upshot of it all is that, having broken the power of +the Bolshevik regime, the peasants have conquered. All over Eastern +Europe the Red International is being succeeded by a Green +International. Political parties are outbidding each other for the +support of the peasantry. The large estates have been broken up and the +peasants have got hold of the land, with the result that while urban +populations are being reduced to starvation the rural populations are +becoming prosperous. And this shifting of the centre of political and +economic gravity is being accompanied by the emergence of the peasants' +point of view, which is manifesting itself as hostile to industrialism. +The peasants, we are told, express their abhorrence of it by crossing +themselves three times whenever they speak of the town or the factory. + +This attitude of the peasants towards industrialism I believe to be a +perfectly healthy, natural human instinct, and full of promise for the +future. But to most of the writers in the *Manchester Guardian* Special +Supplement on "Reconstruction in Europe," to whom I am largely indebted +for my information on this subject, it is different. They can see +nothing in the rise to power of the peasants but the complete +destruction of all human culture, since to them, with their love of +industrialism, it is the deluge. That immediately the rise to power of +the peasants may exercise an influence detrimental to modernist culture +is not, I think, to be denied; for it is not to be supposed that the +peasants will be more discriminating in their hatred of modernist +culture than our intellectuals have been in their hatred of the +Mediaevalist culture of the peasants. But this does not mean that all +culture will disappear, but that its centre of gravity will be changed +from modernism to Mediaevalism. The modernists have no right to +complain. They are being defeated by the peasants because the peasants +have a grip on reality which they have not. Their defeat is the nemesis +of their intellectual insincerity, of their contempt of reality, their +denial of religion, and their persistent refusal to face the facts of +our industrial system. And because of this the change in the centre of +gravity from modernism to Mediaevalism is all to the good. Before any +further human advance is possible it is urgent that the balance between +town and country, between man and the machine, should be restored. As +our intellectuals, in common with the vast majority of the modern world, +are entirely blind to the necessity, deceiving themselves with fine +phrases about progress and emancipation which mean nothing, it is in the +nature of things that the initiative in society should be transferred to +others. # XVIII. The Quantitative Stadard -In a sane and rational society, it may be assumed that the -use to which a force of such unknown potentialities as that -of steam power and machinery should be put would have been a -subject of serious deliberation. Its discovery would have -been followed by a patient and exhaustive inquiry into the -probable social, political, and economic effects of its -application, and if its use was permitted it would, in the -first instance, have only been sanctioned for experimental -purposes, while its reactions would have been carefully -watched. For though the undoubted advantages of machinery -would have been recognised, men would not have closed their -eyes to the perils to society which might follow the -liberation of such an unknown power. But though the advance -of machinery in its early days appears to have been viewed -with some suspicion and hostility by the workers, because it -threatened to displace their labour, no such apprehensions -of danger appear to have been felt by those in authority, -who apparently from the start took the unrestricted use of -machinery for granted. The eighteenth century was an age of -economic individualism, and as there was plenty of money to -be made by using machinery no other consideration was -allowed to stand in the way of its unrestricted use. And so -it was that society plunged light-heartedly into the perils -of industrialism, with little thought as to the future. -Owing to the fact that there was a big market demanding -goods in America, the economic effects of machine production -were not immediately felt. But about the year 1806 supply -began to get ahead of demand, and the displacement and -depreciation of labour by machinery began. This upset the -wage system---that is, the distribution of purchasing power -by means of payment for work done---precipitating an -economic crisis. The rational thing to have done would have -been to restrict the use of machinery so that it did not -interfere with the wage system or any other of the social -and economic traditions of society. But rational ideas had -no particular appeal for that age of reason, and any hopes -of a rational solution were destroyed by the action of the -Government in suppressing the Luddite riots in the year -1811. - -For what happened was this. *Henceforth the only way of -keeping men in employment was to increase the volume of -production with each new labour-saving invention.* This is -the key to all subsequent economic development, frustrating -all efforts to stabilise industrialism. For there is a limit -to the possibilities of increased production. Increased -production involves expanding markets. As capitalists -refused to allow labour to share in the increased -productivity that machinery brought, they were compelled to -be going ever farther and farther afield in their search for -markets to dispose of their surplus goods, while at the same -time they created competitors for themselves. For no nation -can afford to be a consumer of machine-made goods -indefinitely. The suction would drain its economic -resources. Hence it was that one nation after another that -was once our customer was drawn into the vicious circle of -industrial production and became our competitor for markets. -But such a process could not continue indefinitely. A time -comes when there are no new markets left as dumping grounds. -When that point was reached, as it was in the decade before -the War, competition rapidly increased in intensity, until -at length the breaking point was reached, and the economic -crisis arrived in Germany that precipitated the War. - -As always happens in times of great crisis, there are -immediate causes as well as ultimate ones, and the world -sees only the immediate cause and ignores the ultimate one. -Thus the immediate cause of the economic crisis in Germany -that precipitated the Great War can be traced to the Balkan -War, which closed the Balkan markets to her, and to the fact -that after the Agadir crisis of 191 1 the French capitalists -withdrew their loans from Germany, and to the failure of the -German system of credit banks. But the ultimate reason why -the crisis made its appearance in Germany was that, more -than any other nation, she had forced the pace of -competition. In the fifteen years before the War Germany had -quadrupled her output. She had increased her use of -machinery to such an extent that production was no longer -controlled by demand, but by plant. Excessive specialisation -had brought into existence a state of things in which it was -necessary for financial reasons to be working always at full -pressure. No machine could be stopped nor any furnace damped -down, or the overhead expenses, which could not be reduced -proportionately, would eat up the profits and bring the -whole industrial organisation crashing down, precipitating -national bankruptcy. Thus it came about that production got -ahead of demand, and a day came at last when all the markets -accessible to Germany could absorb no more of her goods. -Hence the War. Germany thought that by making herself -militarily supreme she could, by means of indemnities, -restore her finances, get access to new markets and supplies -of raw materials, thereby relieving the pressure of -competition that had brought bankruptcy to her industries. -The same cause led to her demand for colonial expansion and -to destroying the towns and industries of Belgium and -Northern France. They had all one object in view---to get -more elbow-room for German industries. And if Germany had -succeeded, as she expected, in bringing the War to an early -conclusion, there can be little doubt but that she would -have gained a temporary respite from the economic troubles -that the pursuit of a quantitative standard in production -had brought upon her. But the respite could only have been -temporary, for the central problem remained just where it -was, and would have brought a new crisis in a decade or so +In a sane and rational society, it may be assumed that the use to which +a force of such unknown potentialities as that of steam power and +machinery should be put would have been a subject of serious +deliberation. Its discovery would have been followed by a patient and +exhaustive inquiry into the probable social, political, and economic +effects of its application, and if its use was permitted it would, in +the first instance, have only been sanctioned for experimental purposes, +while its reactions would have been carefully watched. For though the +undoubted advantages of machinery would have been recognised, men would +not have closed their eyes to the perils to society which might follow +the liberation of such an unknown power. But though the advance of +machinery in its early days appears to have been viewed with some +suspicion and hostility by the workers, because it threatened to +displace their labour, no such apprehensions of danger appear to have +been felt by those in authority, who apparently from the start took the +unrestricted use of machinery for granted. The eighteenth century was an +age of economic individualism, and as there was plenty of money to be +made by using machinery no other consideration was allowed to stand in +the way of its unrestricted use. And so it was that society plunged +light-heartedly into the perils of industrialism, with little thought as +to the future. Owing to the fact that there was a big market demanding +goods in America, the economic effects of machine production were not +immediately felt. But about the year 1806 supply began to get ahead of +demand, and the displacement and depreciation of labour by machinery +began. This upset the wage system---that is, the distribution of +purchasing power by means of payment for work done---precipitating an +economic crisis. The rational thing to have done would have been to +restrict the use of machinery so that it did not interfere with the wage +system or any other of the social and economic traditions of society. +But rational ideas had no particular appeal for that age of reason, and +any hopes of a rational solution were destroyed by the action of the +Government in suppressing the Luddite riots in the year 1811. + +For what happened was this. *Henceforth the only way of keeping men in +employment was to increase the volume of production with each new +labour-saving invention.* This is the key to all subsequent economic +development, frustrating all efforts to stabilise industrialism. For +there is a limit to the possibilities of increased production. Increased +production involves expanding markets. As capitalists refused to allow +labour to share in the increased productivity that machinery brought, +they were compelled to be going ever farther and farther afield in their +search for markets to dispose of their surplus goods, while at the same +time they created competitors for themselves. For no nation can afford +to be a consumer of machine-made goods indefinitely. The suction would +drain its economic resources. Hence it was that one nation after another +that was once our customer was drawn into the vicious circle of +industrial production and became our competitor for markets. But such a +process could not continue indefinitely. A time comes when there are no +new markets left as dumping grounds. When that point was reached, as it +was in the decade before the War, competition rapidly increased in +intensity, until at length the breaking point was reached, and the +economic crisis arrived in Germany that precipitated the War. + +As always happens in times of great crisis, there are immediate causes +as well as ultimate ones, and the world sees only the immediate cause +and ignores the ultimate one. Thus the immediate cause of the economic +crisis in Germany that precipitated the Great War can be traced to the +Balkan War, which closed the Balkan markets to her, and to the fact that +after the Agadir crisis of 191 1 the French capitalists withdrew their +loans from Germany, and to the failure of the German system of credit +banks. But the ultimate reason why the crisis made its appearance in +Germany was that, more than any other nation, she had forced the pace of +competition. In the fifteen years before the War Germany had quadrupled +her output. She had increased her use of machinery to such an extent +that production was no longer controlled by demand, but by plant. +Excessive specialisation had brought into existence a state of things in +which it was necessary for financial reasons to be working always at +full pressure. No machine could be stopped nor any furnace damped down, +or the overhead expenses, which could not be reduced proportionately, +would eat up the profits and bring the whole industrial organisation +crashing down, precipitating national bankruptcy. Thus it came about +that production got ahead of demand, and a day came at last when all the +markets accessible to Germany could absorb no more of her goods. Hence +the War. Germany thought that by making herself militarily supreme she +could, by means of indemnities, restore her finances, get access to new +markets and supplies of raw materials, thereby relieving the pressure of +competition that had brought bankruptcy to her industries. The same +cause led to her demand for colonial expansion and to destroying the +towns and industries of Belgium and Northern France. They had all one +object in view---to get more elbow-room for German industries. And if +Germany had succeeded, as she expected, in bringing the War to an early +conclusion, there can be little doubt but that she would have gained a +temporary respite from the economic troubles that the pursuit of a +quantitative standard in production had brought upon her. But the +respite could only have been temporary, for the central problem remained +just where it was, and would have brought a new crisis in a decade or so later. -If discussion on economic questions had not been boycotted -by the Press, it is possible that when, before the War, it -became evident that the industrial system had reached its -limit of expansion because there were no new markets left to -exploit, discussion on this issue would have engaged popular -attention. But as all discussion on real issues had for some -long time previously been suppressed as highbrow talk, there -grew up that maze of false issues that created an atmosphere -favourable to war. By creating a demand for munitions, the -War relieved the pressure of competition that had followed -the exhaustion of markets, and this postponed the reaction -by giving the industrial system a new lease of life. -Nowadays the reaction can no longer be postponed, because -the exchanges are dislocated and the markets are shrinking. -It is no longer possible for any country to recover economic -prosperity of a kind when her industries begin to suffer -from the competition of machine-made goods by embarking on -an industrial career, and dumping her surplus goods upon -other countries that are not yet industrialised, as was the -custom throughout the nineteenth century. Hence the reaction -against industrialism in India and Eastern Europe, and the -various boycotts of European manufacturers in the East that -from time to time are whispered in the Press. Such boycotts -are inevitable. Insistence upon the purchase of native -manufactures presents itself as the easiest way of providing -a livelihood for men who are out of work and starving -because of the competition of foreign manufactures. In -countries where the handicrafts have not disappeared the -issue of machine production is as clear as it was to the -Luddites, and we are up against the consequences of the -refusal of our forefathers to face that problem. The problem -of machinery and unemployment that con- fronted the Luddites -was not solved, as the school histories taught us and the -average Englishman supposes, but evaded. The unemployment -was transferred from Lancashire to India. And the means -employed to effect this transference was to suppress the -importation of Indian goods to England by the imposition of -prohibitive duties, and to encourage the export of British -goods to India by the imposition of an excise duty upon -Indian goods. By such dodges industrialism was propped up, -while the average Englishman, ignorant of how it was done, -came to live in a fool's paradise, attributing our national -prosperity to the blessings of Free Trade. - -I said that the problem that confronted the Luddites was not -solved. In those days it was small and manageable. Nowadays -the problem is universal, as the fact that every country is -perplexed by an unemployed problem bears witness. Nor is the -working class the only class that nowadays is feeling the -pinch, for unemployment is becoming almost as much dreaded -by the upper classes as the lower. "What are we to do with -our sons?" is the plaintive wail that recently went up in -the columns of *The Times* from members of the class -accustomed to send its sons to public schools. And no answer -was forthcoming, nor will there be one until as a nation we -repent for our misdoings and have the courage to face the -problem of machinery. Meanwhile attempts are being made to -evade the problem of unemployment by the advocacy of -emigration. But to where? we may reasonably ask, for there -is no country in the world that has not got an unemployed -problem of its own. That in any reconstruction of society -the emigration of a part of our population will be necessary -may be true; for as the world market is contracting, our -industries will not in the future be able to provide so much -employment as hitherto. But as an isolated proposition, as a -means of escape from the problem caused by the displacement -of labour by machinery, it is mere futility, since just to -the extent that it relieves the burden of unemployment here, -it will intensify it elsewhere. - -The unemployed problem must remain insoluble until the -problem of machinery is faced. Nowadays, when not only are -there no more new markets available as dumping grounds, but -boycotts are being organised against industrial wares in the -East, it follows that each new labour-saving invention must -tend increasingly to displace manual labour, and this reacts -to overcrowd the professions by reducing the number of jobs -at which it is possible to earn a living. And so the problem -of machinery demands of us a solution, for the system of -distributing purchasing power by means of payment for work -done is clearly breaking down. But it is not the only thing -that is breaking down as a result of the misapplication of -machinery, for, as a matter of fact, every other institution -in society is breaking down for the same reason. All our -social and economic traditions are in a state of -disintegration. And as all these problems are organically -related to each other, it will remain impossible to effect a -change or reform in one department of activity apart from -the abolition of the subdivision of labour and a restriction -of the use of machinery, which are at the root of the -trouble. +If discussion on economic questions had not been boycotted by the Press, +it is possible that when, before the War, it became evident that the +industrial system had reached its limit of expansion because there were +no new markets left to exploit, discussion on this issue would have +engaged popular attention. But as all discussion on real issues had for +some long time previously been suppressed as highbrow talk, there grew +up that maze of false issues that created an atmosphere favourable to +war. By creating a demand for munitions, the War relieved the pressure +of competition that had followed the exhaustion of markets, and this +postponed the reaction by giving the industrial system a new lease of +life. Nowadays the reaction can no longer be postponed, because the +exchanges are dislocated and the markets are shrinking. It is no longer +possible for any country to recover economic prosperity of a kind when +her industries begin to suffer from the competition of machine-made +goods by embarking on an industrial career, and dumping her surplus +goods upon other countries that are not yet industrialised, as was the +custom throughout the nineteenth century. Hence the reaction against +industrialism in India and Eastern Europe, and the various boycotts of +European manufacturers in the East that from time to time are whispered +in the Press. Such boycotts are inevitable. Insistence upon the purchase +of native manufactures presents itself as the easiest way of providing a +livelihood for men who are out of work and starving because of the +competition of foreign manufactures. In countries where the handicrafts +have not disappeared the issue of machine production is as clear as it +was to the Luddites, and we are up against the consequences of the +refusal of our forefathers to face that problem. The problem of +machinery and unemployment that con- fronted the Luddites was not +solved, as the school histories taught us and the average Englishman +supposes, but evaded. The unemployment was transferred from Lancashire +to India. And the means employed to effect this transference was to +suppress the importation of Indian goods to England by the imposition of +prohibitive duties, and to encourage the export of British goods to +India by the imposition of an excise duty upon Indian goods. By such +dodges industrialism was propped up, while the average Englishman, +ignorant of how it was done, came to live in a fool's paradise, +attributing our national prosperity to the blessings of Free Trade. + +I said that the problem that confronted the Luddites was not solved. In +those days it was small and manageable. Nowadays the problem is +universal, as the fact that every country is perplexed by an unemployed +problem bears witness. Nor is the working class the only class that +nowadays is feeling the pinch, for unemployment is becoming almost as +much dreaded by the upper classes as the lower. "What are we to do with +our sons?" is the plaintive wail that recently went up in the columns of +*The Times* from members of the class accustomed to send its sons to +public schools. And no answer was forthcoming, nor will there be one +until as a nation we repent for our misdoings and have the courage to +face the problem of machinery. Meanwhile attempts are being made to +evade the problem of unemployment by the advocacy of emigration. But to +where? we may reasonably ask, for there is no country in the world that +has not got an unemployed problem of its own. That in any reconstruction +of society the emigration of a part of our population will be necessary +may be true; for as the world market is contracting, our industries will +not in the future be able to provide so much employment as hitherto. But +as an isolated proposition, as a means of escape from the problem caused +by the displacement of labour by machinery, it is mere futility, since +just to the extent that it relieves the burden of unemployment here, it +will intensify it elsewhere. + +The unemployed problem must remain insoluble until the problem of +machinery is faced. Nowadays, when not only are there no more new +markets available as dumping grounds, but boycotts are being organised +against industrial wares in the East, it follows that each new +labour-saving invention must tend increasingly to displace manual +labour, and this reacts to overcrowd the professions by reducing the +number of jobs at which it is possible to earn a living. And so the +problem of machinery demands of us a solution, for the system of +distributing purchasing power by means of payment for work done is +clearly breaking down. But it is not the only thing that is breaking +down as a result of the misapplication of machinery, for, as a matter of +fact, every other institution in society is breaking down for the same +reason. All our social and economic traditions are in a state of +disintegration. And as all these problems are organically related to +each other, it will remain impossible to effect a change or reform in +one department of activity apart from the abolition of the subdivision +of labour and a restriction of the use of machinery, which are at the +root of the trouble. Such considerations would be sufficient to convince us that -industrialism is a blind alley from which we must retrace -our steps or perish. But there is a further consideration -which leaves no room for doubt that the days of -industrialism are numbered; and that is the rapid exhaustion -of easily accessible sources of supply of raw materials of -all kinds. Before the age of machines the inroads made by -man on irreplaceable material were moderate, and offered no -menace to posterity. But the machine has an insatiable -appetite for fuel and minerals of all kinds, the supply of -which is limited, and which are being used up at an alarming -rate.[^40] And this fact, by necessitating new sources of -supply to keep our machines running, has become a perpetual -menace to peace. Hitherto our industrial wars were -undertaken to open up new markets to dispose of our surplus -production---itself a consequence of our refusal to regulate -machinery. In the future, if the situation is not faced, we -shall have wars for raw materials. Since the Armistice, oil -has become of ever-increasing importance as a factor in -world politics, determining the course of diplomacy, and, in -the most literal sense of the word, making history. The -industrialised nations, having become increasingly dependent -upon oil as a motive power, must have sources of supply. As -existing supplies are becoming exhausted, a titanic struggle -is proceeding behind the backs of the politicians between -American and British interests for the possession of new -oilfields, and Governments and peoples are being dragged -into the quarrel.[^41] But why? Because the modern world -will not face the facts of industrialism, because men fail -to see any connection (for example) between war and the -increase of motor transit. The world, it would appear, is -determined to use motor transit more than ever. Yet it is -estimated that the known sources of the supply of oil will -be exhausted in twenty-five years' time at the most. It is -possible, of course, that new sources of supply or some -other motive power may be discovered in the meantime. But -supposing they are not, where shall we be then? There can be -but one answer. Civilisation must collapse, for it will be -impossible to breed horses so rapidly as to effect a speedy -return to horse transit. Yet Socialists and other reformers -are entirely uninterested in this question, on which the -whole future of civilisation depends. On the contrary, all -they can see in the great struggle for oil is a reason for -abolishing capitalism, on the assumption, apparently, that -if only Socialism were established oil would be as plentiful -as water. - -To anyone who will take the trouble to think, it must be -apparent that this "rake's progress" which we dignify by the -name of "industrial expansion" must come to an end, if not -by one means then by another. If not by wisdom and -forethought, by renunciation and repentance---then by the -sword, by more wars and famine and pestilence. For there -can, I think, be no doubt whatsoever that the proximate -cause of the War and the troubles that have followed it are -to be found in the quantitative standard of industrialism, -which, obliging each nation that adopted machine production -to pursue a policy of political and economic expansion, -inevitably brought it into collision with other nations -pursuing the same ends. If the world had any sense of -political and economic reality it would long ago have -frankly recognised this fact. It would have faced the fact -that military warfare in these days has its roots in -economic warfare, which, in turn, is the consequence of the -quantitative standard of production, and that the -restoration of peace to the world is finally dependent upon -the abandonment of the quantitative standard and its -replacement by a qualitative one. But unfortunately this -lesson which the War should have taught us has been entirely -disregarded, and instead of boldly facing the problem, all -our Conservative politicians and industrial magnates can -think about is how to stick to what they have got; and all -the Socialist and Labour politicians can think about is how -to dispossess the capitalists; for neither party exhibits -any interest in the problem of industrialism which lies -behind both Conservative and Socialist politics, and which -determines the activities of both. And if we search for the -cause of this extraordinary phenomenon, I think we shall -find it in a certain separation of men from reality that has -followed the pursuit of the quantitative standard. The -quantitative standard results in over-specialisation, and -this in turn results in a loss of adaptability. Among all -the symptoms that point to the break-up of the modern world, -.1 think that this loss of adaptability is the most ominous. -It suggests that industrial civilisation is not the fittest -to survive. - -In a recently published book an American writer, Mr. R. A. -Cram, has some interesting things to say about the -consequences of the quantitative standard. "It is indeed," -he says, "not only the nemesis of culture, but even of -civilisation itself. Out of this gross scale of things come -many other evils; great States subsisting on the subjugation -and exploitation of small and alien peoples; great cities -which, when they exceed more than 100,000 in population, are -a menace, and when they exceed 1,000,000 are a crime; -subdivision of labour and specialisation which degrade men -to the level of machines; concentration and segregation of -industries, the factory system, high finance and -international finance, capitalism, and the international -standardised education; metropolitan newspapers, pragmatic -philosophy, and churches 'run on business methods' and -recruited by advertising and 'publicity agents.' - -"Greater than all, however, is the social poison that -affects society with pernicious anaemia through cutting man -off from his natural social group and making of him an -indistinguishable particle in a sliding stream of grain. Man -belongs to his family, 'his neighbourhood. his local trade -or craft guild, and to his parish church; the essence of -wholesome association is that a man should work with, -through, and by those whom he knows personally---and -preferably so well that he calls them all by their first -names. As a matter of fact, to-day he works with, through, -and by individuals whom he probably has never seen, and -frequently would, as a matter of personal taste, hesitate to -recognise if he did see them... The harsh and perilous -division into classes and castes which is now universal, -with its development of 'class consciousness,' is the direct -and inevitable result of this imperial scale in life which -has annihilated the social unit of human scale and brought -in the gigantic aggregations of peoples, money, manufacture, -and labourers, where man can no longer function either as a -human unit or an essential factor in a workable -society."[^42] - -That such things are evil is nowadays generally admitted. -Yet it is not everyone who connects them with the -quantitative standard of industrial production which has -been the forerunner of the adoption of the quantitative -standard in other departments of activity. On the contrary, -the majority of reformers look upon these evils as -incidental to a time of transition and capable of reform by -external measures, and fail entirely to see that they are -organic with the structure of modern society and are -involved in its activities. Nor can there be a remedy for -such evils so long as the quantitative standard is accepted. -Quantity up to a certain point we must of course have, but -we must break with the theory that exalts a standard of -quantity as the final test of industrial righteousness and -substitute for the idea of "maximum production" the -conception of a "sufficient production," since so long as we -accept the quantitative standard a time will never come when -we have produced enough. Appearances will always be against -a return to sanity, because when production proceeds beyond -a certain point it creates gluts which upsets distribution; -and by upsetting distribution competition is increased and -unemployment and poverty is created. The widespread -existence of such poverty in turn lends colour to the demand -for still more production on the assumption that our primary -trouble is an insufficiency of productive power rather than -the fact that by allowing production to run riot we have -broken down the system of distribution. Our economic system -is suffering from a kind of chronic indigestion consequent -upon something that might aptly be called "industrial -gluttony." For just as the glutton, because he eats too much -and fails to profit by the food he consumes, comes to crave -for more food, so we, because we produce too much, fail to -profit by our vast production and call out for more -production as the remedy. - -Yet if more production is our need, the mystery is however -in the past people managed to exist at all? For if, with -productive power increased a hundredfold, the masses of -people are still in poverty, the existence of human beings -on this planet before the introduction of machinery is a -fact impossible of explanation, while the further fact that -all available evidence goes to prove that the mass of people -in the fifteenth century were, as regards the necessaries of -life, infinitely better off than they are to-day[^43] -suggests that we live in a madhouse, which is perhaps not -far from the truth. There never was a civilisation in which -appearances and reahty were so far apart, and where -appearances count for so much and reahty for so httle. It is -this central fact in our civilisation that makes cataclysms -inevitable; for when men put their whole faith in -appearances, the brutality of facts alone can secure a -respect for reality. - -Meanwhile, the real facts of the situation are concealed -from us by statisticians, who, instead of giving an account -of wages and prices from the Middle Ages onwards to the -present day, which would effectually expose the fallacy of -the maximum productionists, invariably make the end of the -eighteenth century the starting point of their calculations -and analyses. On this basis they are able, on the whole, to -demonstrate a slight rise in the standard of comfort of the -working class, continuing until the middle of the nineties, -when, for some reason they cannot explain, it begins to -fall. By such means they are able to evade the inconvenient -question as to why the standard of comfort at the end of the -eighteenth century had fallen, as compared with the -fifteenth century, in spite of the largely increased -productive power. The answer to this question gives the clue -to the situation, viz. that the fall was due to the unjust -policy which separated the people from the land and to the -defeat of the Guilds, which left the people without -protection against exploitation. From this point of view it -would appear that the demand for increased production was, -in the eighteenth century, advanced as a policy for evading -the problems brought about by social injustice. Just as in -our day for precisely the same reason the demand for -increased production was revived during the War, and -Socialists, misled as usual by appearances, fell into the -trap; for being destitute of any such conception as that of -"a sufficient production," which is the necessary corollary -of the qualitative standard, they had no position from which -to attack the heresy. - -Among all Biblical incidents the displeasure of God which -David incurred by numbering Israel is one of the most -cryptic. But the modern world offers a most illuminating -commentary on it, for we can see only too clearly to-day how -manifold evils have their origin in a prepossession with -numbers. When men are so prepossessed, statisticians get to -work, and they rule out as imponderable everything that -cannot be weighed or measured. And as everything that -finally matters in life cannot be reduced to the terms of -one or the other, it comes about attention is diverted from -the things that matter to the things that don't, and all -quality is thrust out of life. For the same reason the -quantitative standard of production has proved itself to be -destructive of all sense of quality. It is no accident that -the arts are to-day being destroyed. They cannot live in a -world of quantitative standards. +industrialism is a blind alley from which we must retrace our steps or +perish. But there is a further consideration which leaves no room for +doubt that the days of industrialism are numbered; and that is the rapid +exhaustion of easily accessible sources of supply of raw materials of +all kinds. Before the age of machines the inroads made by man on +irreplaceable material were moderate, and offered no menace to +posterity. But the machine has an insatiable appetite for fuel and +minerals of all kinds, the supply of which is limited, and which are +being used up at an alarming rate.[^40] And this fact, by necessitating +new sources of supply to keep our machines running, has become a +perpetual menace to peace. Hitherto our industrial wars were undertaken +to open up new markets to dispose of our surplus production---itself a +consequence of our refusal to regulate machinery. In the future, if the +situation is not faced, we shall have wars for raw materials. Since the +Armistice, oil has become of ever-increasing importance as a factor in +world politics, determining the course of diplomacy, and, in the most +literal sense of the word, making history. The industrialised nations, +having become increasingly dependent upon oil as a motive power, must +have sources of supply. As existing supplies are becoming exhausted, a +titanic struggle is proceeding behind the backs of the politicians +between American and British interests for the possession of new +oilfields, and Governments and peoples are being dragged into the +quarrel.[^41] But why? Because the modern world will not face the facts +of industrialism, because men fail to see any connection (for example) +between war and the increase of motor transit. The world, it would +appear, is determined to use motor transit more than ever. Yet it is +estimated that the known sources of the supply of oil will be exhausted +in twenty-five years' time at the most. It is possible, of course, that +new sources of supply or some other motive power may be discovered in +the meantime. But supposing they are not, where shall we be then? There +can be but one answer. Civilisation must collapse, for it will be +impossible to breed horses so rapidly as to effect a speedy return to +horse transit. Yet Socialists and other reformers are entirely +uninterested in this question, on which the whole future of civilisation +depends. On the contrary, all they can see in the great struggle for oil +is a reason for abolishing capitalism, on the assumption, apparently, +that if only Socialism were established oil would be as plentiful as +water. + +To anyone who will take the trouble to think, it must be apparent that +this "rake's progress" which we dignify by the name of "industrial +expansion" must come to an end, if not by one means then by another. If +not by wisdom and forethought, by renunciation and repentance---then by +the sword, by more wars and famine and pestilence. For there can, I +think, be no doubt whatsoever that the proximate cause of the War and +the troubles that have followed it are to be found in the quantitative +standard of industrialism, which, obliging each nation that adopted +machine production to pursue a policy of political and economic +expansion, inevitably brought it into collision with other nations +pursuing the same ends. If the world had any sense of political and +economic reality it would long ago have frankly recognised this fact. It +would have faced the fact that military warfare in these days has its +roots in economic warfare, which, in turn, is the consequence of the +quantitative standard of production, and that the restoration of peace +to the world is finally dependent upon the abandonment of the +quantitative standard and its replacement by a qualitative one. But +unfortunately this lesson which the War should have taught us has been +entirely disregarded, and instead of boldly facing the problem, all our +Conservative politicians and industrial magnates can think about is how +to stick to what they have got; and all the Socialist and Labour +politicians can think about is how to dispossess the capitalists; for +neither party exhibits any interest in the problem of industrialism +which lies behind both Conservative and Socialist politics, and which +determines the activities of both. And if we search for the cause of +this extraordinary phenomenon, I think we shall find it in a certain +separation of men from reality that has followed the pursuit of the +quantitative standard. The quantitative standard results in +over-specialisation, and this in turn results in a loss of adaptability. +Among all the symptoms that point to the break-up of the modern world, +.1 think that this loss of adaptability is the most ominous. It suggests +that industrial civilisation is not the fittest to survive. + +In a recently published book an American writer, Mr. R. A. Cram, has +some interesting things to say about the consequences of the +quantitative standard. "It is indeed," he says, "not only the nemesis of +culture, but even of civilisation itself. Out of this gross scale of +things come many other evils; great States subsisting on the subjugation +and exploitation of small and alien peoples; great cities which, when +they exceed more than 100,000 in population, are a menace, and when they +exceed 1,000,000 are a crime; subdivision of labour and specialisation +which degrade men to the level of machines; concentration and +segregation of industries, the factory system, high finance and +international finance, capitalism, and the international standardised +education; metropolitan newspapers, pragmatic philosophy, and churches +'run on business methods' and recruited by advertising and 'publicity +agents.' + +"Greater than all, however, is the social poison that affects society +with pernicious anaemia through cutting man off from his natural social +group and making of him an indistinguishable particle in a sliding +stream of grain. Man belongs to his family, 'his neighbourhood. his +local trade or craft guild, and to his parish church; the essence of +wholesome association is that a man should work with, through, and by +those whom he knows personally---and preferably so well that he calls +them all by their first names. As a matter of fact, to-day he works +with, through, and by individuals whom he probably has never seen, and +frequently would, as a matter of personal taste, hesitate to recognise +if he did see them... The harsh and perilous division into classes and +castes which is now universal, with its development of 'class +consciousness,' is the direct and inevitable result of this imperial +scale in life which has annihilated the social unit of human scale and +brought in the gigantic aggregations of peoples, money, manufacture, and +labourers, where man can no longer function either as a human unit or an +essential factor in a workable society."[^42] + +That such things are evil is nowadays generally admitted. Yet it is not +everyone who connects them with the quantitative standard of industrial +production which has been the forerunner of the adoption of the +quantitative standard in other departments of activity. On the contrary, +the majority of reformers look upon these evils as incidental to a time +of transition and capable of reform by external measures, and fail +entirely to see that they are organic with the structure of modern +society and are involved in its activities. Nor can there be a remedy +for such evils so long as the quantitative standard is accepted. +Quantity up to a certain point we must of course have, but we must break +with the theory that exalts a standard of quantity as the final test of +industrial righteousness and substitute for the idea of "maximum +production" the conception of a "sufficient production," since so long +as we accept the quantitative standard a time will never come when we +have produced enough. Appearances will always be against a return to +sanity, because when production proceeds beyond a certain point it +creates gluts which upsets distribution; and by upsetting distribution +competition is increased and unemployment and poverty is created. The +widespread existence of such poverty in turn lends colour to the demand +for still more production on the assumption that our primary trouble is +an insufficiency of productive power rather than the fact that by +allowing production to run riot we have broken down the system of +distribution. Our economic system is suffering from a kind of chronic +indigestion consequent upon something that might aptly be called +"industrial gluttony." For just as the glutton, because he eats too much +and fails to profit by the food he consumes, comes to crave for more +food, so we, because we produce too much, fail to profit by our vast +production and call out for more production as the remedy. + +Yet if more production is our need, the mystery is however in the past +people managed to exist at all? For if, with productive power increased +a hundredfold, the masses of people are still in poverty, the existence +of human beings on this planet before the introduction of machinery is a +fact impossible of explanation, while the further fact that all +available evidence goes to prove that the mass of people in the +fifteenth century were, as regards the necessaries of life, infinitely +better off than they are to-day[^43] suggests that we live in a +madhouse, which is perhaps not far from the truth. There never was a +civilisation in which appearances and reahty were so far apart, and +where appearances count for so much and reahty for so httle. It is this +central fact in our civilisation that makes cataclysms inevitable; for +when men put their whole faith in appearances, the brutality of facts +alone can secure a respect for reality. + +Meanwhile, the real facts of the situation are concealed from us by +statisticians, who, instead of giving an account of wages and prices +from the Middle Ages onwards to the present day, which would effectually +expose the fallacy of the maximum productionists, invariably make the +end of the eighteenth century the starting point of their calculations +and analyses. On this basis they are able, on the whole, to demonstrate +a slight rise in the standard of comfort of the working class, +continuing until the middle of the nineties, when, for some reason they +cannot explain, it begins to fall. By such means they are able to evade +the inconvenient question as to why the standard of comfort at the end +of the eighteenth century had fallen, as compared with the fifteenth +century, in spite of the largely increased productive power. The answer +to this question gives the clue to the situation, viz. that the fall was +due to the unjust policy which separated the people from the land and to +the defeat of the Guilds, which left the people without protection +against exploitation. From this point of view it would appear that the +demand for increased production was, in the eighteenth century, advanced +as a policy for evading the problems brought about by social injustice. +Just as in our day for precisely the same reason the demand for +increased production was revived during the War, and Socialists, misled +as usual by appearances, fell into the trap; for being destitute of any +such conception as that of "a sufficient production," which is the +necessary corollary of the qualitative standard, they had no position +from which to attack the heresy. + +Among all Biblical incidents the displeasure of God which David incurred +by numbering Israel is one of the most cryptic. But the modern world +offers a most illuminating commentary on it, for we can see only too +clearly to-day how manifold evils have their origin in a prepossession +with numbers. When men are so prepossessed, statisticians get to work, +and they rule out as imponderable everything that cannot be weighed or +measured. And as everything that finally matters in life cannot be +reduced to the terms of one or the other, it comes about attention is +diverted from the things that matter to the things that don't, and all +quality is thrust out of life. For the same reason the quantitative +standard of production has proved itself to be destructive of all sense +of quality. It is no accident that the arts are to-day being destroyed. +They cannot live in a world of quantitative standards. # XIX. Machiner and the Subdivision of Labour -If we are agreed that the quantitative standard of -production is incompatible with social and economic -stability, it follows that everything that is most -fundamental in our industrial system is called in question. -If it will not be necessary to abolish entirely the use of -machinery, it will at any rate be necessary to get it into -subjection, and this involves among other things a -considerable curtailment of its use. As to this necessity, -Professor Lethaby has some interesting things to say which -will bear quotation. - -"The question of machinery," he says, "is one that troubles -many minds, as well it may. At times I am drawn to the -belief that machinery, gunpowder, electricity are too -astounding powers for feeble-willed men to control; indeed, -it is quite thinkable that machinery is the wrecking force -in the world, which will, in fact, be shattered by it. But -some will say, 'Machinery has come to stay.' That may be -true. Drunkenness seems to have come to stay, but we have at -least to try to control it. Machine production has, in fact, -swiftly changed the character of our population; and -whereas, not many generations ago they were mostly -craftsmen---that is, little artists---they are now an -aggregate of machine tenders, under gangers. These are the -sort of facts which political economists never foresaw. -Machinery is such a mighty power that it must be controlled. -No single individual should fire off a powerful machine for -his own profit, any more than he should work a cannon in -Oxford Street to the terror of all well-doers. The owner of -machinery must be licensed to shoot. In truth, machinery is -the artillery of commerce, and it must be controlled by wise -generalship. We have as much right to control any form of -machinery as we have to protect ourselves from firearms... -No one should be allowed to pass into 'brain work,' such as -stockbroking, without his year of manual drill; and -others---Members of Parliament, architects, and all kinds of -pastors and teachers---should, I think, be asked to have two -years to show their good faith. If there were this basis of -actual experience, then perhaps we might hope to control the -machines before they tear civilisation to bits."[^44] - -Suggestive as are Professor Lethaby's words, they yet -provide us with no definite standpoint from which the -problem of machinery may be attacked. And the reason for -this, I submit, is that the primary evil is not to be found -in machinery qua machinery, but in the subdivision of -labour, which conflicts with the claims of human -personality. The subdivision of labour preceded the -invention of the steam engine and determined the particular -mode of the application of machinery. From this it follows -that if the quantitative standard is to be replaced by a -qualitative one, our attack must not be directed primarily -at the use of machinery, but at the subdivision of labour. -Abolish it, and most of the evils we associate with the use -of machinery would automatically disappear, while such other -evils as remained could be easily dealt with. - -But what do we mean by the subdivision of labour? We mean -measures taken to increase the volume of production by the -splitting up of a craft into a number of separate processes -which reduce the worker to the position of an automaton or -living machine when his working life comes to consist in -repeating, thousands of times a day, some simple mechanical -movement, like turning a screw. It is this splitting up of a -craft into a number of detailed processes that -differentiates the subdivision of labour from the division -of labour. The latter is a natural and legitimate -development, for it increases the possibilities of human -development, while apart from it no civilised society could -exist, for in civilised society no man can supply all his -own needs. The specialisation of men into different trades -coincides with the emergence of civilisation. One man -becomes a carpenter, another a weaver, a third a smith, and -so forth. But the subdivision of labour is not called into -existence by the desire of men to live a civilised life, but -by the desire for profits. It dates from the seventeenth -century, the classical example being that eulogised by Adam -Smith in *The Wealth of Nation*s---namely, pin-making, in -which industry it takes twenty men to make a pin, each man -being specialised for a lifetime upon a single process. - -In these days the subdivision of labour is associated with -the idea of "mass production," and has received a further -development in the idea of "scientific management," which is -to be differentiated from the subdivision of labour by the -fact that, whereas the latter seeks to increase the volume -of production by splitting up a craft into a number of -separate processes, the former attacks the man direct, -endeavouring to secure a larger output by the elimination of -such motions of the arms, legs, and fingers as do not -contribute directly to the process of manufacture. As such -it completes the dehumanisation and despiritualisation of -labour begun by the subdivision of labour. - -The evil inherent in such methods of production is not -merely that they result in periodic gluts and unemployment, -and lead inevitably to wars, but that such increased -productivity is brought about entirely at the cost of the -individual labourer. In the simpler days before the advent -of the subdivision of labour and large-scale production, -there was not the separation between the brain and the hand -that there is to-day. The worker helped to plan and design -the work which with his skill and strength he helped to -carry into execution, even when he was not his own master -and able to sell his productions direct to the public. -Working under such conditions, a man found his work a means -of expression; and because of this, work as a rule was the -central interest in his life, providing him with a base for -his culture; for craft culture may be as real a thing as -book culture. But such a condition of work is a thing of the -past. Under the factory system all sense of fine personal -creation and fine craftsmanship, all art and ingenuity -disappear. All that is left for the worker is the monotonous -details that inventive genius has been unable to design a -machine to do. As the process of manufacture is carried to a -higher and higher degree of mechanical perfection, the task -of the worker becomes increasingly that of a deadly routine -against which all his subconscious instincts rebel; for the -human organism is not adapted to work of this kind. The -first step in this process of degradation was taken when the -subdivision of labour was introduced. It broke the worker -into a fragment of a man, turning him into a mere cog of a -machine, and destroyed in him all interest and pleasure in -work by condemning him to a life of drudgery that operated -to stultify and atrophy his natural faculties. Thus the -subdivision of labour came to mean barren monotony for -millions of men, deadening their imagination and robbing -them of all sense of creative joy. It cuts at the roots of -human development, thwarting the creative impulse which is -inherent in man, for under such conditions of labour culture -can no longer come to a man through his work, as it came to -the Mediaeval craftsman; and as culture through vocation is -for the great mass of men the only means of approach, it -follows that it is vain to attempt to build up by evening -classes and free libraries what the day's work is for ever -breaking down. Men who are degraded in their work have no -taste or inclination for such a superimposed culture. For -culture to be real must be a part of the life that a man -lives, and the only culture that can be made a part of the -life of the industrial worker is finally the culture of -Bolshevism and the class war, for class warfare is the only -activity that can have any appeal to men who are denied -pleasure and interest in their work. - -That mechanical work has such an effect on the faculties is -nowadays being recognised by physiologists, psychologists, -and educationalists. Writing on the effect of drills in -manual education. Dr. P. B. Ballard says: "It is well to -remember that no habit is got gratuitously. The price that -has to be paid is a loss of adaptability. The nervous system -becomes less plastic, less flexible. All habits are due to -the establishment of new pathways of discharge in the -central nervous system. There is almost certainly an actual -growth in the neurones. Fibrils of communication extended in -a specific direction drain off a previously diffused -discharge and rob other parts of the possibility of -exercise. These parts tend to become atrophied and less -ready to function. But a change of external conditions may -render the functioning of these weaker parts desirable. It -will thus be seen that the specialised nerve growth, by -monopolising nutriment and exercise, has caused a -deterioration in other elements, and renders more difficult -the formation of new habits. In other words, there has been -a loss of flexibility."[^45] - -If Dr. Ballard could say this merely of the effect of drills -as a part of manual education, what could he have said of a -system of production which consists of nothing else? I -propose, therefore, to supplement what Dr.  Ballard has said -by some editorial comments of *American Medicine* on the -effects of scientific management: - -" Working along with his partner, the efficiency engineer, -the speeder-up has managed to obtain from the factory worker -a larger output in the same period of time. This is done by -eliminating the so-called superfluous motions of the arms -and fingers---i.e. those which do not contribute directly to -the fashioning of the article under process of -manufacture... The movements thought to be superfluous -simply represent Nature's attempt to rest the strained and -tired muscles. Whenever the muscles of the arms and fingers, -or of any part of the body for that matter, undertake to do -a definite piece of work, it is physiologically imperative -that they do not accomplish it by the shortest mathematical -route. A rigid to-and-fro movement is possible only to -machinery; muscles necessarily move in curves, and that is -why grace is characteristic of muscular movement and is -absent from a machine. The more finished the technique of a -workman and the greater his strength, the more graceful are -his movements, and, what is more important in this -connection, vice versa. A certain flourish, superfluous only -to the untrained eye, is absolutely characteristic of the -efficient workman's motions. - -"Speeding-up eliminates grace and the curved movements of -physiological repose, and thus induces an irresistible -fatigue, first in small muscles, second in the trunk, -ultimately in the brain and nervous system. The early result -is a fagged and spiritless worker of the very sort that the -speeder-up's partner---the efficiency engineer---will be -anxious to replace by a younger and fresher candidate, who, -in his turn, will soon follow his predecessor if the same -relentless process is enforced."[^46] - -But the evil does not end with the mutilation of the -workers. It spreads upwards, inducing a psychical and -economic reflex that brings unspeakable confusion into every -department of life and activity. Immediately it replaces the -old vertical social divisions, which, based upon differences -of function, were flexible in their nature, by horizontal -class divisions, which, based upon differences of wealth, -are rigid and accompanied by a confusion of function where -they are not divorced from it. Then it invades the -intellectual processes, replacing the old categories based -upon conceptions of quality by categories based upon -conceptions of quantity, while it encourages the growth of -specialisation in every department of activity. To such a -degree had specialisation in the intellectual sphere -proceeded in Germany before the War that it is said that -every individual became a monomaniac on his own subject, -while he was largely ignorant of every other, to the -detriment of general culture. For the intellectual -specialist, by developing one side of his mind at the -expense of the other sides, tends to lose balance, and his -judgments are apt to be anything but reliable. This was the -Kultur that gave to the Germans their sense of superiority -over other people and was a contributory cause of the War. -It would not be true to ascribe the development of -specialisation in the department of intellectual activity -entirely to the institution of the subdivision of labour, -for the tendency existed before the seventeenth century, and -is to be traced ultimately to the intellectual forces set in -motion by the Renaissance, which, by substituting -universality for unity as the aim of education, promoted -specialisation; for as it is impossible for any single -individual to be universal, with such an aim the field of -thought became inevitably divided among many specialists. -All the same, there is no doubt that the subdivision of -labour has, by its reactions, increased this tendency, for -it has created mechanical problems that favour the growth of -mechanics. It reacts also to create metallurgical, physical -and chemical problems. Thus natural science flourishes, and -the methods of science and the prestige of science lead to -their application in other departments of activity, with -results that are disastrous, as the present intellectual -confusion bears witness. - -The end of it all is social, moral, intellectual, and -spiritual disintegration. All bonds are being sundered, for -things which were once united are everywhere resolving -themselves into their component parts. The labourer is -divorced from the soil, the arts from the crafts, -personality from industry, property from function, function -from responsibility, money from values, power from -knowledge, knowledge from opportunity, the material from the -spiritual. Moreover, specialisation leads to complexity, -complexity to confusion, and confusion leads to -misunderstandings and suspicions, and suspicions harden into -class hatred and warfare. Thus all sense of a common -tradition, of a common mind and a common life knit together -by personal and human ties is dissolved. Literature and art, -instead of being vehicles of expression for common and -universal ideas, become expressions of the idiosyncrasies of -egoists, and instead of links joining people together, -become barriers to separate them. Finally, the human -personality itself begins to disintegrate, for a point is -reached in the development of complexity when the human mind -loses all grip on the basic facts of life. The individual -can no longer respond to the demands that are made on his -wits and sympathies. He becomes listless, indifferent, -apathetic---the fate of the modern man. Thus we see all -human development is arrested. Man, by his energy, his -inventiveness, and his avarice, has brought into existence a -system of production that can only function at the expense -of the individual and in an environment so monstrous and -complex that it baffles and masters him. It is the old story -of the Frankenstein monster over again. Man has created an -environment that threatens to destroy him. - -Once we realise that what is popularly known as Progress is -nothing less than a process of internal disintegration in -which all the things that God joined together have become -fatally separated, it becomes evident that the most -fundamental requisite of any scheme of social reconstruction -is to bring together again the things that have become -divided---to abolish the subdivision of labour and the use -of machinery, in so far as it serves such quantitative ends. -But if the current of economic development is to be -reversed, it is essential that we take our stand on the -truth of the principles of Christianity, for there is no -other way of replacing the quantitative standard, which -involves the subdivision of labour, by a qualitative one. It -cannot be done so long as men accept the point of view of -Socialist and materialist economics, because the Socialist -qua Socialist thinks only of the distribution of wealth. He -reasons in quantities, and as the subdivision of labour -increases the volume of production there is not, from the -point of view of Socialist economics, any valid objection to -it---the assumption being that the more wealth there is -produced the more there will be to divide. That, as a matter -of fact, any increase of wealth obtained by such means -defeats its own ends, inasmuch as it places the workers at -the mercy of capitalists, who are in a position to prevent -any such redistribution of wealth, is not admitted in -Socialist theory. And it can never be admitted, because it -is a conclusion that can be deduced from psychology, but not -from economics. Such considerations lead us to the -inevitable conclusion that the clue to the social problem is -to be found in psychology rather than in economics, and it -is for this reason that a revival of Christianity is -necessary to any solution of the social problem; for it is -only when we approach this question from the point of view -of personality, only if we believe in the aboriginal and -imperishable worth of the individual, that we can have any -grounds for objecting to the subdivision of labour. The -subdivision of labour can be condemned on Christian grounds, -because it treats men as economic units of production -instead of as individuals with souls to be saved, but it -cannot be condemned on economic grounds because it does -increase the volume of production. As Christians we can -maintain that any increase of wealth obtained by such means -carries with it a curse, because it violates the sanctity of -personality, and therefore demand its abolition. But such an -argument is invalid from the point of view of Socialist -theory, which approaches social questions from the point of -view of the quantity of goods produced rather than from that -of the quality of the life to be lived. +If we are agreed that the quantitative standard of production is +incompatible with social and economic stability, it follows that +everything that is most fundamental in our industrial system is called +in question. If it will not be necessary to abolish entirely the use of +machinery, it will at any rate be necessary to get it into subjection, +and this involves among other things a considerable curtailment of its +use. As to this necessity, Professor Lethaby has some interesting things +to say which will bear quotation. + +"The question of machinery," he says, "is one that troubles many minds, +as well it may. At times I am drawn to the belief that machinery, +gunpowder, electricity are too astounding powers for feeble-willed men +to control; indeed, it is quite thinkable that machinery is the wrecking +force in the world, which will, in fact, be shattered by it. But some +will say, 'Machinery has come to stay.' That may be true. Drunkenness +seems to have come to stay, but we have at least to try to control it. +Machine production has, in fact, swiftly changed the character of our +population; and whereas, not many generations ago they were mostly +craftsmen---that is, little artists---they are now an aggregate of +machine tenders, under gangers. These are the sort of facts which +political economists never foresaw. Machinery is such a mighty power +that it must be controlled. No single individual should fire off a +powerful machine for his own profit, any more than he should work a +cannon in Oxford Street to the terror of all well-doers. The owner of +machinery must be licensed to shoot. In truth, machinery is the +artillery of commerce, and it must be controlled by wise generalship. We +have as much right to control any form of machinery as we have to +protect ourselves from firearms... No one should be allowed to pass into +'brain work,' such as stockbroking, without his year of manual drill; +and others---Members of Parliament, architects, and all kinds of pastors +and teachers---should, I think, be asked to have two years to show their +good faith. If there were this basis of actual experience, then perhaps +we might hope to control the machines before they tear civilisation to +bits."[^44] + +Suggestive as are Professor Lethaby's words, they yet provide us with no +definite standpoint from which the problem of machinery may be attacked. +And the reason for this, I submit, is that the primary evil is not to be +found in machinery qua machinery, but in the subdivision of labour, +which conflicts with the claims of human personality. The subdivision of +labour preceded the invention of the steam engine and determined the +particular mode of the application of machinery. From this it follows +that if the quantitative standard is to be replaced by a qualitative +one, our attack must not be directed primarily at the use of machinery, +but at the subdivision of labour. Abolish it, and most of the evils we +associate with the use of machinery would automatically disappear, while +such other evils as remained could be easily dealt with. + +But what do we mean by the subdivision of labour? We mean measures taken +to increase the volume of production by the splitting up of a craft into +a number of separate processes which reduce the worker to the position +of an automaton or living machine when his working life comes to consist +in repeating, thousands of times a day, some simple mechanical movement, +like turning a screw. It is this splitting up of a craft into a number +of detailed processes that differentiates the subdivision of labour from +the division of labour. The latter is a natural and legitimate +development, for it increases the possibilities of human development, +while apart from it no civilised society could exist, for in civilised +society no man can supply all his own needs. The specialisation of men +into different trades coincides with the emergence of civilisation. One +man becomes a carpenter, another a weaver, a third a smith, and so +forth. But the subdivision of labour is not called into existence by the +desire of men to live a civilised life, but by the desire for profits. +It dates from the seventeenth century, the classical example being that +eulogised by Adam Smith in *The Wealth of Nation*s---namely, pin-making, +in which industry it takes twenty men to make a pin, each man being +specialised for a lifetime upon a single process. + +In these days the subdivision of labour is associated with the idea of +"mass production," and has received a further development in the idea of +"scientific management," which is to be differentiated from the +subdivision of labour by the fact that, whereas the latter seeks to +increase the volume of production by splitting up a craft into a number +of separate processes, the former attacks the man direct, endeavouring +to secure a larger output by the elimination of such motions of the +arms, legs, and fingers as do not contribute directly to the process of +manufacture. As such it completes the dehumanisation and +despiritualisation of labour begun by the subdivision of labour. + +The evil inherent in such methods of production is not merely that they +result in periodic gluts and unemployment, and lead inevitably to wars, +but that such increased productivity is brought about entirely at the +cost of the individual labourer. In the simpler days before the advent +of the subdivision of labour and large-scale production, there was not +the separation between the brain and the hand that there is to-day. The +worker helped to plan and design the work which with his skill and +strength he helped to carry into execution, even when he was not his own +master and able to sell his productions direct to the public. Working +under such conditions, a man found his work a means of expression; and +because of this, work as a rule was the central interest in his life, +providing him with a base for his culture; for craft culture may be as +real a thing as book culture. But such a condition of work is a thing of +the past. Under the factory system all sense of fine personal creation +and fine craftsmanship, all art and ingenuity disappear. All that is +left for the worker is the monotonous details that inventive genius has +been unable to design a machine to do. As the process of manufacture is +carried to a higher and higher degree of mechanical perfection, the task +of the worker becomes increasingly that of a deadly routine against +which all his subconscious instincts rebel; for the human organism is +not adapted to work of this kind. The first step in this process of +degradation was taken when the subdivision of labour was introduced. It +broke the worker into a fragment of a man, turning him into a mere cog +of a machine, and destroyed in him all interest and pleasure in work by +condemning him to a life of drudgery that operated to stultify and +atrophy his natural faculties. Thus the subdivision of labour came to +mean barren monotony for millions of men, deadening their imagination +and robbing them of all sense of creative joy. It cuts at the roots of +human development, thwarting the creative impulse which is inherent in +man, for under such conditions of labour culture can no longer come to a +man through his work, as it came to the Mediaeval craftsman; and as +culture through vocation is for the great mass of men the only means of +approach, it follows that it is vain to attempt to build up by evening +classes and free libraries what the day's work is for ever breaking +down. Men who are degraded in their work have no taste or inclination +for such a superimposed culture. For culture to be real must be a part +of the life that a man lives, and the only culture that can be made a +part of the life of the industrial worker is finally the culture of +Bolshevism and the class war, for class warfare is the only activity +that can have any appeal to men who are denied pleasure and interest in +their work. + +That mechanical work has such an effect on the faculties is nowadays +being recognised by physiologists, psychologists, and educationalists. +Writing on the effect of drills in manual education. Dr. P. B. Ballard +says: "It is well to remember that no habit is got gratuitously. The +price that has to be paid is a loss of adaptability. The nervous system +becomes less plastic, less flexible. All habits are due to the +establishment of new pathways of discharge in the central nervous +system. There is almost certainly an actual growth in the neurones. +Fibrils of communication extended in a specific direction drain off a +previously diffused discharge and rob other parts of the possibility of +exercise. These parts tend to become atrophied and less ready to +function. But a change of external conditions may render the functioning +of these weaker parts desirable. It will thus be seen that the +specialised nerve growth, by monopolising nutriment and exercise, has +caused a deterioration in other elements, and renders more difficult the +formation of new habits. In other words, there has been a loss of +flexibility."[^45] + +If Dr. Ballard could say this merely of the effect of drills as a part +of manual education, what could he have said of a system of production +which consists of nothing else? I propose, therefore, to supplement what +Dr.  Ballard has said by some editorial comments of *American Medicine* +on the effects of scientific management: + +" Working along with his partner, the efficiency engineer, the +speeder-up has managed to obtain from the factory worker a larger output +in the same period of time. This is done by eliminating the so-called +superfluous motions of the arms and fingers---i.e. those which do not +contribute directly to the fashioning of the article under process of +manufacture... The movements thought to be superfluous simply represent +Nature's attempt to rest the strained and tired muscles. Whenever the +muscles of the arms and fingers, or of any part of the body for that +matter, undertake to do a definite piece of work, it is physiologically +imperative that they do not accomplish it by the shortest mathematical +route. A rigid to-and-fro movement is possible only to machinery; +muscles necessarily move in curves, and that is why grace is +characteristic of muscular movement and is absent from a machine. The +more finished the technique of a workman and the greater his strength, +the more graceful are his movements, and, what is more important in this +connection, vice versa. A certain flourish, superfluous only to the +untrained eye, is absolutely characteristic of the efficient workman's +motions. + +"Speeding-up eliminates grace and the curved movements of physiological +repose, and thus induces an irresistible fatigue, first in small +muscles, second in the trunk, ultimately in the brain and nervous +system. The early result is a fagged and spiritless worker of the very +sort that the speeder-up's partner---the efficiency engineer---will be +anxious to replace by a younger and fresher candidate, who, in his turn, +will soon follow his predecessor if the same relentless process is +enforced."[^46] + +But the evil does not end with the mutilation of the workers. It spreads +upwards, inducing a psychical and economic reflex that brings +unspeakable confusion into every department of life and activity. +Immediately it replaces the old vertical social divisions, which, based +upon differences of function, were flexible in their nature, by +horizontal class divisions, which, based upon differences of wealth, are +rigid and accompanied by a confusion of function where they are not +divorced from it. Then it invades the intellectual processes, replacing +the old categories based upon conceptions of quality by categories based +upon conceptions of quantity, while it encourages the growth of +specialisation in every department of activity. To such a degree had +specialisation in the intellectual sphere proceeded in Germany before +the War that it is said that every individual became a monomaniac on his +own subject, while he was largely ignorant of every other, to the +detriment of general culture. For the intellectual specialist, by +developing one side of his mind at the expense of the other sides, tends +to lose balance, and his judgments are apt to be anything but reliable. +This was the Kultur that gave to the Germans their sense of superiority +over other people and was a contributory cause of the War. It would not +be true to ascribe the development of specialisation in the department +of intellectual activity entirely to the institution of the subdivision +of labour, for the tendency existed before the seventeenth century, and +is to be traced ultimately to the intellectual forces set in motion by +the Renaissance, which, by substituting universality for unity as the +aim of education, promoted specialisation; for as it is impossible for +any single individual to be universal, with such an aim the field of +thought became inevitably divided among many specialists. All the same, +there is no doubt that the subdivision of labour has, by its reactions, +increased this tendency, for it has created mechanical problems that +favour the growth of mechanics. It reacts also to create metallurgical, +physical and chemical problems. Thus natural science flourishes, and the +methods of science and the prestige of science lead to their application +in other departments of activity, with results that are disastrous, as +the present intellectual confusion bears witness. + +The end of it all is social, moral, intellectual, and spiritual +disintegration. All bonds are being sundered, for things which were once +united are everywhere resolving themselves into their component parts. +The labourer is divorced from the soil, the arts from the crafts, +personality from industry, property from function, function from +responsibility, money from values, power from knowledge, knowledge from +opportunity, the material from the spiritual. Moreover, specialisation +leads to complexity, complexity to confusion, and confusion leads to +misunderstandings and suspicions, and suspicions harden into class +hatred and warfare. Thus all sense of a common tradition, of a common +mind and a common life knit together by personal and human ties is +dissolved. Literature and art, instead of being vehicles of expression +for common and universal ideas, become expressions of the idiosyncrasies +of egoists, and instead of links joining people together, become +barriers to separate them. Finally, the human personality itself begins +to disintegrate, for a point is reached in the development of complexity +when the human mind loses all grip on the basic facts of life. The +individual can no longer respond to the demands that are made on his +wits and sympathies. He becomes listless, indifferent, apathetic---the +fate of the modern man. Thus we see all human development is arrested. +Man, by his energy, his inventiveness, and his avarice, has brought into +existence a system of production that can only function at the expense +of the individual and in an environment so monstrous and complex that it +baffles and masters him. It is the old story of the Frankenstein monster +over again. Man has created an environment that threatens to destroy +him. + +Once we realise that what is popularly known as Progress is nothing less +than a process of internal disintegration in which all the things that +God joined together have become fatally separated, it becomes evident +that the most fundamental requisite of any scheme of social +reconstruction is to bring together again the things that have become +divided---to abolish the subdivision of labour and the use of machinery, +in so far as it serves such quantitative ends. But if the current of +economic development is to be reversed, it is essential that we take our +stand on the truth of the principles of Christianity, for there is no +other way of replacing the quantitative standard, which involves the +subdivision of labour, by a qualitative one. It cannot be done so long +as men accept the point of view of Socialist and materialist economics, +because the Socialist qua Socialist thinks only of the distribution of +wealth. He reasons in quantities, and as the subdivision of labour +increases the volume of production there is not, from the point of view +of Socialist economics, any valid objection to it---the assumption being +that the more wealth there is produced the more there will be to divide. +That, as a matter of fact, any increase of wealth obtained by such means +defeats its own ends, inasmuch as it places the workers at the mercy of +capitalists, who are in a position to prevent any such redistribution of +wealth, is not admitted in Socialist theory. And it can never be +admitted, because it is a conclusion that can be deduced from +psychology, but not from economics. Such considerations lead us to the +inevitable conclusion that the clue to the social problem is to be found +in psychology rather than in economics, and it is for this reason that a +revival of Christianity is necessary to any solution of the social +problem; for it is only when we approach this question from the point of +view of personality, only if we believe in the aboriginal and +imperishable worth of the individual, that we can have any grounds for +objecting to the subdivision of labour. The subdivision of labour can be +condemned on Christian grounds, because it treats men as economic units +of production instead of as individuals with souls to be saved, but it +cannot be condemned on economic grounds because it does increase the +volume of production. As Christians we can maintain that any increase of +wealth obtained by such means carries with it a curse, because it +violates the sanctity of personality, and therefore demand its +abolition. But such an argument is invalid from the point of view of +Socialist theory, which approaches social questions from the point of +view of the quantity of goods produced rather than from that of the +quality of the life to be lived. # XX. The Foundation in Labor -The attitude that reformers assume towards the subdivision -of labour is ultimately the thing that divides them into -different schools of thought; for it is the thing that -determines their attitude towards everything else. It is the -economic issue that separates the Mediaevalists from the -modernists. The Fabian Essayists, following Adam Smith, -accepted the subdivision of labour as a boon to mankind, -because it increased the volume of production, whilst -ignoring its moral and psychological implications, to the -evils of which they were apparently blind. Ruskin, on the -contrary, condemned it in language that admits of no -equivocation as an unmitigated curse, inasmuch as it -dehumanised and despiritualised the workers. But the -attitude which is the most significant and most perverse is -that of Marx; for he welcomes it with his eyes wide open, -because it encourages class warfare, which he persuaded -himself was the dynamic law of history. - -As in a previous chapter I have dealt with the fallacies of -"maximum production," it will not be necessary for me to -controvert the Fabian attitude, and we may proceed to -consider that of Marx, which is of fundamental importance to -us. In connection with the subdivision of labour he says: - -"Within the capitalist system all methods for raising the -social productiveness of labour are brought about at the -cost of the individual labourer; all means for the -development of production transform themselves into means of -domination over, and exploitation of, the producers; they -mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, degrade him -to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every -remnant of charm in his work, and turn it into hated toil; -they estrange him from the intellectual potentialities of -the labour-process in the same proportion as science is -incorporated in it as an independent power; they distort the -conditions under which he works, subject him during the -labour-process to a despotism the more hateful for its -meanness; they transform his life-time into working-time, -and drag his wife and child beneath the wheels of the -Juggernaut of Capital."[^47] - -I confess that when I first read this passage it took my -breath away. Before reading it I had assumed that Marx, like -the Fabians, was one of those mechanically minded people who -are blind to the human degradation that the subdivision of -labour involves. But such apparently was not the case. For -his words, which might have been written by Ruskin, testify -to the fact that he was fully alive to the essentially -degrading nature of such a method of production. Yet instead -of demanding its abolition like Ruskin, instead of facing -the problem as a clear issue between right and wrong, he was -so obsessed with the idea of evolution, according to which -the subdivision of labour was to be regarded as a necessary -stage in social and economic development, and with the idea -of class warfare which it encouraged and which he persuaded -himself was the dynamic law of history, that considerations -of right and wrong, of humanity and inhumanity, became in -his mind matters of quite secondary importance which could -not be allowed to impede the path of progress. - -But truth will out, if not in theory then in practice. For -it is interesting to observe that one of the causes of the -defeat of the Bolshevik regime in Russia is to be found in -their essentially wrong attitude towards the subdivision of -labour and scientific management; for, on Lenin's own -confession, failure to create personal interest was the -ultimate rock on which Communism foundered, though the -famine was the immediate cause of failure; and there is no -room for doubt that this failure was as intimately connected -with the introduction of scientific management and labour -conscription into Russia by the Communists as with the -abolition of private property to which Lenin ascribed it. -That the introduction of such methods of production and -organisation would have a demoralising effect was clearly -foreseen by the Mensheviks. They saw in them something that -was incompatible with the Communist ideal, as we know from a -speech delivered by Lenin in 1918 to the plenary sitting of -the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, when he -quotes them as saying: "The introduction of scientific -management and labour conscription, except in connection -with the re-establishment of capitalism, cannot increase the -productivity of labour; on the contrary, it will lessen -labour's self-reliance and organising activities; it -threatens to enslave labour, and to arouse the -dissatisfaction of the most backward classes." But Lenin -maintained that such would not be the case. "If it were -true," he said, "then our revolution with its Socialist -ideals would be on the eve of collapse... I should consider -the revolution as lost if it were not for the knowledge that -those who reason thus belong to a small and uninfluential -group, and that no assembly of class-conscious workers would -endorse such opinions... What," he asks, "has made these -people forsake reality for formulas?" Yet the predictions of -the "small and uninfluential group" proved to be right, as -Lenin himself subsequently found out. For the Mensheviks -proved to be right in believing that scientific management -and labour conscription were incompatible with a Communist -society, or for that matter with any decent social order. - -Now the whole issue between Mediaevalism and modernism, -between a Christian sociology and Socialist economics, will -be found to turn on the attitude we adopt towards the -subdivision of labour. If out of timidity we acquiesce in -it, then I contend that disaster will overtake any efforts -we may make to establish a new social order, as it overtook -the Bolsheviks in Russia. On the contrary, if as Christians -we demand its abolition, because of its contempt of -personality, we are inevitably committed to the Mediaevalist -position. For once we make such a complete break with -present-day methods of production there is no stopping until +The attitude that reformers assume towards the subdivision of labour is +ultimately the thing that divides them into different schools of +thought; for it is the thing that determines their attitude towards +everything else. It is the economic issue that separates the +Mediaevalists from the modernists. The Fabian Essayists, following Adam +Smith, accepted the subdivision of labour as a boon to mankind, because +it increased the volume of production, whilst ignoring its moral and +psychological implications, to the evils of which they were apparently +blind. Ruskin, on the contrary, condemned it in language that admits of +no equivocation as an unmitigated curse, inasmuch as it dehumanised and +despiritualised the workers. But the attitude which is the most +significant and most perverse is that of Marx; for he welcomes it with +his eyes wide open, because it encourages class warfare, which he +persuaded himself was the dynamic law of history. + +As in a previous chapter I have dealt with the fallacies of "maximum +production," it will not be necessary for me to controvert the Fabian +attitude, and we may proceed to consider that of Marx, which is of +fundamental importance to us. In connection with the subdivision of +labour he says: + +"Within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social +productiveness of labour are brought about at the cost of the individual +labourer; all means for the development of production transform +themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, the +producers; they mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, degrade +him to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of +charm in his work, and turn it into hated toil; they estrange him from +the intellectual potentialities of the labour-process in the same +proportion as science is incorporated in it as an independent power; +they distort the conditions under which he works, subject him during the +labour-process to a despotism the more hateful for its meanness; they +transform his life-time into working-time, and drag his wife and child +beneath the wheels of the Juggernaut of Capital."[^47] + +I confess that when I first read this passage it took my breath away. +Before reading it I had assumed that Marx, like the Fabians, was one of +those mechanically minded people who are blind to the human degradation +that the subdivision of labour involves. But such apparently was not the +case. For his words, which might have been written by Ruskin, testify to +the fact that he was fully alive to the essentially degrading nature of +such a method of production. Yet instead of demanding its abolition like +Ruskin, instead of facing the problem as a clear issue between right and +wrong, he was so obsessed with the idea of evolution, according to which +the subdivision of labour was to be regarded as a necessary stage in +social and economic development, and with the idea of class warfare +which it encouraged and which he persuaded himself was the dynamic law +of history, that considerations of right and wrong, of humanity and +inhumanity, became in his mind matters of quite secondary importance +which could not be allowed to impede the path of progress. + +But truth will out, if not in theory then in practice. For it is +interesting to observe that one of the causes of the defeat of the +Bolshevik regime in Russia is to be found in their essentially wrong +attitude towards the subdivision of labour and scientific management; +for, on Lenin's own confession, failure to create personal interest was +the ultimate rock on which Communism foundered, though the famine was +the immediate cause of failure; and there is no room for doubt that this +failure was as intimately connected with the introduction of scientific +management and labour conscription into Russia by the Communists as with +the abolition of private property to which Lenin ascribed it. That the +introduction of such methods of production and organisation would have a +demoralising effect was clearly foreseen by the Mensheviks. They saw in +them something that was incompatible with the Communist ideal, as we +know from a speech delivered by Lenin in 1918 to the plenary sitting of +the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, when he quotes them as +saying: "The introduction of scientific management and labour +conscription, except in connection with the re-establishment of +capitalism, cannot increase the productivity of labour; on the contrary, +it will lessen labour's self-reliance and organising activities; it +threatens to enslave labour, and to arouse the dissatisfaction of the +most backward classes." But Lenin maintained that such would not be the +case. "If it were true," he said, "then our revolution with its +Socialist ideals would be on the eve of collapse... I should consider +the revolution as lost if it were not for the knowledge that those who +reason thus belong to a small and uninfluential group, and that no +assembly of class-conscious workers would endorse such opinions... +What," he asks, "has made these people forsake reality for formulas?" +Yet the predictions of the "small and uninfluential group" proved to be +right, as Lenin himself subsequently found out. For the Mensheviks +proved to be right in believing that scientific management and labour +conscription were incompatible with a Communist society, or for that +matter with any decent social order. + +Now the whole issue between Mediaevalism and modernism, between a +Christian sociology and Socialist economics, will be found to turn on +the attitude we adopt towards the subdivision of labour. If out of +timidity we acquiesce in it, then I contend that disaster will overtake +any efforts we may make to establish a new social order, as it overtook +the Bolsheviks in Russia. On the contrary, if as Christians we demand +its abolition, because of its contempt of personality, we are inevitably +committed to the Mediaevalist position. For once we make such a complete +break with present-day methods of production there is no stopping until we get back to the Middle Ages---anti-Mediaeval prejudice -notwithstanding; for in that case we break with the -empirical attitude towards social questions and take our -stand on the elemental needs of human nature. - -Among such elemental needs none is more urgent than this, -the reform of work. If ever again work is to be honoured and -respected, it must be real, wholesome work in which men can -find joy and expression, and this involves the abolition of -the subdivision of labour and such machinery as conflicts -with the claims of personality and art. "Work," says -Professor Lethaby, "as the first necessity of life, has to -be recognised as the centre of gravity of the whole social -structure, for everything in a sound and developing society -should be seen in relation to productive work. Brain work, -sciences, fine arts, may all be noble and beneficial, but -only in so far as they are functions of the common society -and part of a steady development of the great body of those -who toil."[^48] Or, as he put it another way: "As work is -the first necessity of existence, the very centre of our -moral system, so a proper recognition of work is the -necessary basis for all right religion, art, and -civilisation, since society became diseased in direct ratio -to its neglect or contempt of labour."[^49] - -Failure to perceive this central truth in life is at the -root of the failure of reform activities of all kinds. -Reformers have invariably approached social questions from -the point of view of leisure rather than work, the -attainment of leisure being regarded by them as a precedent -condition of the attainment of all the other good things of -life. Art, culture, enjoyment, opportunity---everything, in -fact, that makes life worth living---being supposed to be -dependent upon leisure. Hence the attainment of leisure has -been made one of the immediate objectives of reform -activity; the assumption being that if only leisure could be -secured for the masses an atmosphere would be created +notwithstanding; for in that case we break with the empirical attitude +towards social questions and take our stand on the elemental needs of +human nature. + +Among such elemental needs none is more urgent than this, the reform of +work. If ever again work is to be honoured and respected, it must be +real, wholesome work in which men can find joy and expression, and this +involves the abolition of the subdivision of labour and such machinery +as conflicts with the claims of personality and art. "Work," says +Professor Lethaby, "as the first necessity of life, has to be recognised +as the centre of gravity of the whole social structure, for everything +in a sound and developing society should be seen in relation to +productive work. Brain work, sciences, fine arts, may all be noble and +beneficial, but only in so far as they are functions of the common +society and part of a steady development of the great body of those who +toil."[^48] Or, as he put it another way: "As work is the first +necessity of existence, the very centre of our moral system, so a proper +recognition of work is the necessary basis for all right religion, art, +and civilisation, since society became diseased in direct ratio to its +neglect or contempt of labour."[^49] + +Failure to perceive this central truth in life is at the root of the +failure of reform activities of all kinds. Reformers have invariably +approached social questions from the point of view of leisure rather +than work, the attainment of leisure being regarded by them as a +precedent condition of the attainment of all the other good things of +life. Art, culture, enjoyment, opportunity---everything, in fact, that +makes life worth living---being supposed to be dependent upon leisure. +Hence the attainment of leisure has been made one of the immediate +objectives of reform activity; the assumption being that if only leisure +could be secured for the masses an atmosphere would be created favourable to the revival of art and culture. -Now on first acquaintance it may seem impossible not to -support such an aim. There is no doubt whatsoever that lack -of leisure is for the masses one of their greatest -handicaps. Yet when we look into the matter more closely we -find that, so far as the majority is concerned, the trouble -is not so much that they suffer from a lack of leisure as -that under industrialism their work is of such a nature that -it cannot be done in a leisurely way. It is not lack of -leisure, but mechanical labour that is one of the great -obstructions in the path of art and culture; and it will not -be removed merely by increasing the amount of time in which -people are not obliged to work at all. On the contrary, so -long as work remains monotonous and hurried as it is to-day, -there is no reason to suppose that if leisure were increased -it would be followed, so far as the majority are concerned, -by any revival of interest in art and culture. They would -use it in the same way that they use their leisure -to-day---in the pursuit of pleasure. If people had more -money and more leisure they would demand more amusements and -luxurious living, the women would waste more money on dress, -and the men would provide the motor- cars. Vulgarity in -every direction would be increased. There can be no doubt as -to what would happen; for anyone who has been to America -knows only too well how industrialised citizens prefer to -spend their money and leisure. It is in the nature of things -that this should be so. For culture, as I have before said, -is not something added to life, but a necessary part of the -life a man lives. It has its basis in work. If men are -turned into machines, or are engaged in occupations that -separate them from primary realities, then their life is -corrupted at its roots, and it would matter little if the -work was reduced to four or even two hours a day, the -corruption would be there all the same, and it would corrupt -the leisure that accompanies it. But, as a matter of fact, -there is no prospect whatsoever of the leisure of the -workers being increased under industrialism, except in the -form of unemployment, because the practical effect of every -increase in the use of machinery is not to increase leisure -but competitive waste, and competitive waste builds up -powerful vested interests that benefit by its continuance; +Now on first acquaintance it may seem impossible not to support such an +aim. There is no doubt whatsoever that lack of leisure is for the masses +one of their greatest handicaps. Yet when we look into the matter more +closely we find that, so far as the majority is concerned, the trouble +is not so much that they suffer from a lack of leisure as that under +industrialism their work is of such a nature that it cannot be done in a +leisurely way. It is not lack of leisure, but mechanical labour that is +one of the great obstructions in the path of art and culture; and it +will not be removed merely by increasing the amount of time in which +people are not obliged to work at all. On the contrary, so long as work +remains monotonous and hurried as it is to-day, there is no reason to +suppose that if leisure were increased it would be followed, so far as +the majority are concerned, by any revival of interest in art and +culture. They would use it in the same way that they use their leisure +to-day---in the pursuit of pleasure. If people had more money and more +leisure they would demand more amusements and luxurious living, the +women would waste more money on dress, and the men would provide the +motor- cars. Vulgarity in every direction would be increased. There can +be no doubt as to what would happen; for anyone who has been to America +knows only too well how industrialised citizens prefer to spend their +money and leisure. It is in the nature of things that this should be so. +For culture, as I have before said, is not something added to life, but +a necessary part of the life a man lives. It has its basis in work. If +men are turned into machines, or are engaged in occupations that +separate them from primary realities, then their life is corrupted at +its roots, and it would matter little if the work was reduced to four or +even two hours a day, the corruption would be there all the same, and it +would corrupt the leisure that accompanies it. But, as a matter of fact, +there is no prospect whatsoever of the leisure of the workers being +increased under industrialism, except in the form of unemployment, +because the practical effect of every increase in the use of machinery +is not to increase leisure but competitive waste, and competitive waste +builds up powerful vested interests that benefit by its continuance; such, for instance, as railway companies, who profit by -cross-distribution, and the advertising trades, which batten -on overproduction. The tendency of vested interests of this -type to increase stands in the way of any reduction of the -hours of labour beyond that required to produce the maximum -output, and explains why in spite of the enormous increase -in production the mass of workers to-day are infinitely -poorer than in the Middle Ages. - -Sufficient has perhaps now been said to demonstrate the -insufficiency of leisure as a reformist aim, and why the -centre of gravity of reformist activities must be found in -an ideal of work---of work that is of a real and wholesome -nature. Yet, after all, it is not surprising that Socialists -should have fallen into the error of supposing that -salvation is to be found in an increase of leisure, when we -remember that the ideal of leisure is a part of our cultural -tradition. That tradition is derived from the Greeks, and, -as Professor Lethaby has wisely remarked, the problems which -the Greeks first propounded and which philosophers have ever -since gone turning round and round were the problems that -interested men of leisure in a civilisation based upon -slavery; or, in other words, philosophy really was the -thinking of those who had the necessaries of life provided -for them.[^50] It follows that such philosophies are in -their nature limited. They can in no sense be regarded as -adequate philosophies of life, for any philosophy that would -attempt to grapple with the problem of life as a whole must -be a philosophy that concerns the poor man as much as the -rich. And for this reason it must have its foundation in -work, because the necessity of labour lies at the basis of -every society. Work, then, and not leisure, must be the -starting point of any philosophy of life and society, and -everything in a sound and developing society must be -appraised according as to whether or not it increases the -opportunities of man for expression through work. Only when -normal and healthy conditions of work obtain will a society -be stable and permanent, and art and culture function -beneficially in its midst. - -If this principle were accepted---and considering that -throughout the Middle Ages work, and not wealth and leisure, -was regarded as the bestower of all worth and -dignity---there seems to be no reason why Christians to-day -should not accept it, then it follows that we have no option -but to renounce industrialism, for it is built upon a denial -of the sanctity of work and personality, and to return to -that conception of social economy and well-being which had -its foundations in agriculture rather than in trade and -commerce, of which we read: - -"Among manual industries none stood higher in the -estimation of the Canon law than agriculture. It was looked -upon as the mother and producer of all social organisation, -and culture, as the fosterer of all other industries, and -consequently as the basis of material well-being. The Canon -law exacted special consideration for agriculture, and, -partly for this reason, that it tended in a higher degree -than any other branch of labour to teach those who practised -it godly fear and uprightness. 'The farmer,' so it is -written in *A Christian Admonition*, 'must in all things be -protected and encouraged, for all depends upon his labour, -from the Emperor to the humblest of mankind, and his -handiwork is in particular honourable and well-pleasing to -God.' Therefore both the spiritual and secular law protect -him. - -"Next to agriculture came handiwork. 'This is praiseworthy -in the sight of God, especially in so far as it represents -necessary and useful things.' And when the articles are made -with care and art, then both God and men take pleasure in -them; and it is good and true work when artistic men, by the -skill and cunning of their hands, in beautiful building and -sculpture, spread the glory of God and make men gentle in -their spirits, so that they find delight in beautiful -things, and look reverently on all art and handicraft as a -gift of God for use, enjoyment, and edification of mankind. - -"Trade and commerce were held in lower esteem. 'An -honourable merchant,' says Trithemius, 'who does not only -think of large profits, and who is guided in all his -dealings by the laws of God and man, and who gladly gives to -the needy of his wealth and earnings, deserves the same -esteem as any other worker. But it is no easy matter to be -always honourable in mercantile dealings, and with the -increase of gain not to become avaricious. Without commerce -no community, of course, can exist, but immoderate commerce -is rather hurtful than beneficial, because it fosters greed -of gain and gold, and enervates and emasculates the nation +cross-distribution, and the advertising trades, which batten on +overproduction. The tendency of vested interests of this type to +increase stands in the way of any reduction of the hours of labour +beyond that required to produce the maximum output, and explains why in +spite of the enormous increase in production the mass of workers to-day +are infinitely poorer than in the Middle Ages. + +Sufficient has perhaps now been said to demonstrate the insufficiency of +leisure as a reformist aim, and why the centre of gravity of reformist +activities must be found in an ideal of work---of work that is of a real +and wholesome nature. Yet, after all, it is not surprising that +Socialists should have fallen into the error of supposing that salvation +is to be found in an increase of leisure, when we remember that the +ideal of leisure is a part of our cultural tradition. That tradition is +derived from the Greeks, and, as Professor Lethaby has wisely remarked, +the problems which the Greeks first propounded and which philosophers +have ever since gone turning round and round were the problems that +interested men of leisure in a civilisation based upon slavery; or, in +other words, philosophy really was the thinking of those who had the +necessaries of life provided for them.[^50] It follows that such +philosophies are in their nature limited. They can in no sense be +regarded as adequate philosophies of life, for any philosophy that would +attempt to grapple with the problem of life as a whole must be a +philosophy that concerns the poor man as much as the rich. And for this +reason it must have its foundation in work, because the necessity of +labour lies at the basis of every society. Work, then, and not leisure, +must be the starting point of any philosophy of life and society, and +everything in a sound and developing society must be appraised according +as to whether or not it increases the opportunities of man for +expression through work. Only when normal and healthy conditions of work +obtain will a society be stable and permanent, and art and culture +function beneficially in its midst. + +If this principle were accepted---and considering that throughout the +Middle Ages work, and not wealth and leisure, was regarded as the +bestower of all worth and dignity---there seems to be no reason why +Christians to-day should not accept it, then it follows that we have no +option but to renounce industrialism, for it is built upon a denial of +the sanctity of work and personality, and to return to that conception +of social economy and well-being which had its foundations in +agriculture rather than in trade and commerce, of which we read: + +"Among manual industries none stood higher in the estimation of the +Canon law than agriculture. It was looked upon as the mother and +producer of all social organisation, and culture, as the fosterer of all +other industries, and consequently as the basis of material well-being. +The Canon law exacted special consideration for agriculture, and, partly +for this reason, that it tended in a higher degree than any other branch +of labour to teach those who practised it godly fear and uprightness. +'The farmer,' so it is written in *A Christian Admonition*, 'must in all +things be protected and encouraged, for all depends upon his labour, +from the Emperor to the humblest of mankind, and his handiwork is in +particular honourable and well-pleasing to God.' Therefore both the +spiritual and secular law protect him. + +"Next to agriculture came handiwork. 'This is praiseworthy in the sight +of God, especially in so far as it represents necessary and useful +things.' And when the articles are made with care and art, then both God +and men take pleasure in them; and it is good and true work when +artistic men, by the skill and cunning of their hands, in beautiful +building and sculpture, spread the glory of God and make men gentle in +their spirits, so that they find delight in beautiful things, and look +reverently on all art and handicraft as a gift of God for use, +enjoyment, and edification of mankind. + +"Trade and commerce were held in lower esteem. 'An honourable merchant,' +says Trithemius, 'who does not only think of large profits, and who is +guided in all his dealings by the laws of God and man, and who gladly +gives to the needy of his wealth and earnings, deserves the same esteem +as any other worker. But it is no easy matter to be always honourable in +mercantile dealings, and with the increase of gain not to become +avaricious. Without commerce no community, of course, can exist, but +immoderate commerce is rather hurtful than beneficial, because it +fosters greed of gain and gold, and enervates and emasculates the nation through love of pleasure and luxury.' -"The Canonical writers did not think it was conducive to the -well-being of the people that the merchants 'like spiders -should everywhere collect together and draw everything into -their webs.' With the ever-increasing growth and -predominance of the mercantile spirit before their eyes, -they were sufficiently justified in their condemnation of -the tyranny and iniquity of trade, which, as St. Thomas -Aquinas had already said, made all civic life corrupt, and -by the casting aside of good faith and honesty opened the -door wide to fraudulence; while each one thought only of his -personal profit without regard to the public good."[^51] - -It was for such reasons that the Mediaeval economists -deprecated any politico-economic movement that encouraged -the people to give up the pursuit of agriculture for trade -and commerce. Four centuries of activity, based upon the -opposite assumption that wealth and leisure rather than -useful and conscientious work should be the aim of industry, -has done nothing more than to justify the suspicion and -hostility with which in the Middle Ages such activities were -regarded. +"The Canonical writers did not think it was conducive to the well-being +of the people that the merchants 'like spiders should everywhere collect +together and draw everything into their webs.' With the ever-increasing +growth and predominance of the mercantile spirit before their eyes, they +were sufficiently justified in their condemnation of the tyranny and +iniquity of trade, which, as St. Thomas Aquinas had already said, made +all civic life corrupt, and by the casting aside of good faith and +honesty opened the door wide to fraudulence; while each one thought only +of his personal profit without regard to the public good."[^51] + +It was for such reasons that the Mediaeval economists deprecated any +politico-economic movement that encouraged the people to give up the +pursuit of agriculture for trade and commerce. Four centuries of +activity, based upon the opposite assumption that wealth and leisure +rather than useful and conscientious work should be the aim of industry, +has done nothing more than to justify the suspicion and hostility with +which in the Middle Ages such activities were regarded. # XXI. Science and Civilisation -We have insisted that in any sound and developing society it -would be necessary for "work to be recognised as the first -necessity of life, as the centre of gravity of the whole -social structure." As opposed to the ideal of leisure, the -ideal of work may be a valid one. Yet it is apparent that -work in itself is insufficient as an ideal, since until we -have defined for ourselves the final aims of life we have no -guarantee that it will not be misdirected. In this -connection it may be observed that the evils which we -associate with industrialism could never have reached their -present proportions but for much disinterested work, -generously given by scientists and inventors; and what is -still more serious is that the most serious perils that -confront civilisation to-day, as, for instance, poison gas -and bombing planes, not to mention the threatened release of -sub-atomic energy, do not owe their existence to greed and -avarice, which we justly condemn, but to the labours of -scientists and inventors, often undertaken at great personal -sacrifice. - -There are scientists who are genuinely alarmed at the later -developments of science. Unless society can find measures to -control successfully the knowledge that science has placed -at its disposal, unless there is sufficient moral and -intellectual power in the community to ensure that -scientific knowledge is used for the well-being of society -instead of for the purposes of destruction, then the less we -have to do with science the better. This point of view has -recently been given dramatic expression by Miss Cicely -Hamilton in a recent novel,[^52] in which she predicts the -destruction of modern civilisation as a result of the -alliance of science with passion. She comes to the startling -conclusion "that man, being by nature destructive, can only -survive when his powers of destruction are limited," while -she sees in the fear of knowledge and inquiry which in the -past was associated with religious beliefs an essential need -of the race, inasmuch as it expressed the instinct of -self-preservation. The fear of knowledge was not due to mere -prejudice and bigotry, but to a dim race memory of evils -that in the past had overtaken society when the barrier -between science and emotion had been removed and knowledge -claimed as the right of the multitude. The perils that -confronted society to-day were not new. They had been -experienced in forgotten generations, and their memory was -preserved for us in myth and folklore. To Theodore Savage, -who had seen civilisation laid waste by the agency of -science combined with human passion, myth and folklore had -become real: "The dragon that wasted a country with its -breath---how else could a race that knew naught of chemistry -account for the devilry of gas? And he understood now why -the legend of Icarus was a story of disaster, and why -Prometheus, who stole the fire from heaven, was chained to -eternity for his daring; he knew also why the angel with a -flaming sword barred the gate of Eden to those who had -tasted the tree of knowledge... The story of the Garden, of -the Fall of Man, was no more the legend of his youth; he -read it now, with his opened eyes, as a livid and absolute -fact. A fact told plainly as symbol could tell it by a race -that had put from it all memory of the science, whereby it -was driven from its ancient paradise, its garden of -civilisation... How many times since the world began had man -mastered the knowledge that should make him like unto God, -and turned, in agony of mind and body, from a power -synonymous with death?" - -Let us hope that Miss Hamilton's forecast of the future is -an exaggeration. But that she probes a real issue and faces -the peril that confronts us with courage is, I think, -unquestionable and exhilarating in an age that hopes to -survive by cultivating the arts of evasion. "Knowledge is -evil," says an Eastern proverb, and we have yet to prove it -to be untrue; for the spirit of evasion that characterises -men to-day, reformers included, does not encourage us to -hope that the evil will be mastered and turned into good. -For whenever the issue of science and mechanical production -is raised, as a rule all we can get from reformers are fine -sentiments about "not being prepared to surrender all that -science has brought to us or to regard it as merely the -working of the powers of darkness," and about "capturing the -astounding achievements of the human spirit," and that kind -of thing, which in practical effect means that the powers of -darkness are not to be interfered with, on the assumption, -apparently, that evil will eventuate in good if it be -allowed to proceed unchecked. - -But will it? Evidence accumulates daily to prove that such -will not be the case, for science allied with mechanism on -one side and with passion on the other exhibits a spirit -that is not only increasingly hostile to all the interests -of mankind but to the very existence of civilisation. In -former times a natural boundary was put to the possibilities -of social and industrial development by man's ignorance of -the powers and forces of nature. He was protected from the -worst extremes of destructive nihilism by his very -limitations. By the sweat of his brow he not only earned his -bread, but he was kept in a close and sympathetic -relationship with the primary facts of life and nature. But -science, in unlocking the secrets of nature, removed the old -limitations. It presented man with a gift that could have -relieved him of his more arduous toil on two -conditions---that he kept his head, and that his moral -development kept step with his technical discoveries; for -only on such terms could all the flames of emotion and -selfish passion, which experience proves are so destructive -when allied to science, be kept in a strict subjection. -Unfortunately, however, the perils of science were not -foreseen. The average man was so completely hypnotised by -machinery that he entirely lost his head, while scientists -were so enamoured of their own discoveries that they somehow -seemed to imagine that science itself might become a -substitute for morality, as would appear from the very naive -way in which they were apt to assume that the only obstacle -in the path of the millennium was the scantiness of nature. -Thus it came about that science, instead of allying itself -with religion and submitting to be controlled for the better -service of mankind, became the instrument of power, avarice, -and passion, while the majority, surrounded by the wonders -of science and technology, of all sorts of complicated -machines in daily use, living among changes which followed -each other with such startling rapidity, lost their bearings -completely, and became the easy victims of exploitation and -oppression. Effective resistance to their growing -enslavement and insecurity was frustrated by a theory of -Socialism which, by concentrating popular attention on the -evils of capitalism, blinded men to the still more -fundamental evils of which modern capitalism is but a -symptom. - -But these more fundamental evils must be attacked if -civilisation is to survive. We must frankly recognise that -knowledge may be just as easily an agent for evil as for -good. Nay, more easily; since pursued as an end in itself, -apart from any consideration of the higher interests of -mankind it is supposed to serve, experience proves that it -can only too readily be exploited for selfish ends. The -reason for this is to be found in the fact that the man bent -upon selfish ends can always get to work more quickly than -the man who would serve a higher purpose or takes a longer -view of things. We conclude therefore that unless science is -subject to rigid control that will prevent its abuse it will -continue to be used for evil purposes. - -But if science is to be controlled, the question arises as -to what authority is going to control it. Here we find -ourselves in deep waters, for it raises a question which is -urgent but to which there is no immediate answer. There is -no answer to-day because the exercise of authority at any -time depends upon the existence within the community of a -certain consensus of opinion as to the kind of authority it -is necessary to exercise. And as no such consensus of -opinion as to the kind of control to which science should be -subjected exists to-day, it is obviously impossible for any -person or body to exercise any authority in the matter. In -these circumstances it would appear that the only thing to -be done is to educate public opinion, since until people can -be brought to see the perils inherent in permitting certain -forms of knowledge to be common property nothing can be -done. And this enforces upon us the need of a changed ideal -of life, for until people are in possession of some definite -standard of values other than the material, they will not be -able to see how the problem could be handled, while to -forbid knowledge except in the interests of some higher -truth or revelation would inevitably appear stupid and -arbitrary. - -Meanwhile it is possible that history may repeat itself and -that the scientific knowledge that has become so perilous to -civilisation may be lost in a new Dark Age, the near -approach of which already appears as imminent. Or it may be -that science will disappear from the modern world as it did -from the ancient world, not because the knowledge of it was -suppressed, but because with the spread of Christianity -interest was diverted from the natural to the supernatural -world, for when men become interested in values that are -eternal they have not the same keen interest in things -transitory. There are many signs that the world is about to -move in some such direction. We must in the first place -recognise that belief in materialism is on the decline; in -the next that popular belief in the beneficence of science -has been" largely dispelled by the fact that during the War -it so readily lent itself for the purposes of destruction; -then we have to reckon with the fact that the increasing -complexity of science makes it every year more difficult to -follow, and because of this it may fall into the same -contempt as the speculations of the schoolmen fell in the -Middle Ages; and again, that scientists have already lost -that confident belief in their mission---a sure presage of -decline; and finally because there is abundant evidence -that, as in the latter days of the Roman Empire, interest is -to-day being diverted from the natural to the supernatural. -It is impossible to read the story of the early centuries of -Christianity without feeling that history is beginning again -to repeat itself, for a process of spiritual and -psychological change is taking place in the mind of the -world to-day in all respects analogous to the change that -took place in the latter days of the Roman Empire. The -modern world, like the Pagan, is being disenchanted of -materialism, it has been shaken by its perception of the -inadequacy of a purely intellectual interpretation of the -universe, and there has occurred a corresponding influx of -Eastern ideas which has awakened an interest in the -mystical, the psychic, and the occult, of which the East is -the perennial source; for it is well to remember that all -the modern cults and sects interested in these things, the -Theosophists, the Spiritualists, and the Christian -Scientists had their parallels in the Gnostics, the -Neo-Platonists. and Manichaeans of ancient Rome. And what is -still more interesting is that the fusion of Eastern and -Western thought in Rome was followed by the triumph of -Christianity. Does it not look as if the same thing is again -about to happen, and that the spiritual movement on the one -hand and the social movement on the other are preparing the -way for the acceptance of Christianity, which, being both -spiritual and material, can alone give coherence and -definiteness to the vague spiritual and social impulses of +We have insisted that in any sound and developing society it would be +necessary for "work to be recognised as the first necessity of life, as +the centre of gravity of the whole social structure." As opposed to the +ideal of leisure, the ideal of work may be a valid one. Yet it is +apparent that work in itself is insufficient as an ideal, since until we +have defined for ourselves the final aims of life we have no guarantee +that it will not be misdirected. In this connection it may be observed +that the evils which we associate with industrialism could never have +reached their present proportions but for much disinterested work, +generously given by scientists and inventors; and what is still more +serious is that the most serious perils that confront civilisation +to-day, as, for instance, poison gas and bombing planes, not to mention +the threatened release of sub-atomic energy, do not owe their existence +to greed and avarice, which we justly condemn, but to the labours of +scientists and inventors, often undertaken at great personal sacrifice. + +There are scientists who are genuinely alarmed at the later developments +of science. Unless society can find measures to control successfully the +knowledge that science has placed at its disposal, unless there is +sufficient moral and intellectual power in the community to ensure that +scientific knowledge is used for the well-being of society instead of +for the purposes of destruction, then the less we have to do with +science the better. This point of view has recently been given dramatic +expression by Miss Cicely Hamilton in a recent novel,[^52] in which she +predicts the destruction of modern civilisation as a result of the +alliance of science with passion. She comes to the startling conclusion +"that man, being by nature destructive, can only survive when his powers +of destruction are limited," while she sees in the fear of knowledge and +inquiry which in the past was associated with religious beliefs an +essential need of the race, inasmuch as it expressed the instinct of +self-preservation. The fear of knowledge was not due to mere prejudice +and bigotry, but to a dim race memory of evils that in the past had +overtaken society when the barrier between science and emotion had been +removed and knowledge claimed as the right of the multitude. The perils +that confronted society to-day were not new. They had been experienced +in forgotten generations, and their memory was preserved for us in myth +and folklore. To Theodore Savage, who had seen civilisation laid waste +by the agency of science combined with human passion, myth and folklore +had become real: "The dragon that wasted a country with its breath---how +else could a race that knew naught of chemistry account for the devilry +of gas? And he understood now why the legend of Icarus was a story of +disaster, and why Prometheus, who stole the fire from heaven, was +chained to eternity for his daring; he knew also why the angel with a +flaming sword barred the gate of Eden to those who had tasted the tree +of knowledge... The story of the Garden, of the Fall of Man, was no more +the legend of his youth; he read it now, with his opened eyes, as a +livid and absolute fact. A fact told plainly as symbol could tell it by +a race that had put from it all memory of the science, whereby it was +driven from its ancient paradise, its garden of civilisation... How many +times since the world began had man mastered the knowledge that should +make him like unto God, and turned, in agony of mind and body, from a +power synonymous with death?" + +Let us hope that Miss Hamilton's forecast of the future is an +exaggeration. But that she probes a real issue and faces the peril that +confronts us with courage is, I think, unquestionable and exhilarating +in an age that hopes to survive by cultivating the arts of evasion. +"Knowledge is evil," says an Eastern proverb, and we have yet to prove +it to be untrue; for the spirit of evasion that characterises men +to-day, reformers included, does not encourage us to hope that the evil +will be mastered and turned into good. For whenever the issue of science +and mechanical production is raised, as a rule all we can get from +reformers are fine sentiments about "not being prepared to surrender all +that science has brought to us or to regard it as merely the working of +the powers of darkness," and about "capturing the astounding +achievements of the human spirit," and that kind of thing, which in +practical effect means that the powers of darkness are not to be +interfered with, on the assumption, apparently, that evil will eventuate +in good if it be allowed to proceed unchecked. + +But will it? Evidence accumulates daily to prove that such will not be +the case, for science allied with mechanism on one side and with passion +on the other exhibits a spirit that is not only increasingly hostile to +all the interests of mankind but to the very existence of civilisation. +In former times a natural boundary was put to the possibilities of +social and industrial development by man's ignorance of the powers and +forces of nature. He was protected from the worst extremes of +destructive nihilism by his very limitations. By the sweat of his brow +he not only earned his bread, but he was kept in a close and sympathetic +relationship with the primary facts of life and nature. But science, in +unlocking the secrets of nature, removed the old limitations. It +presented man with a gift that could have relieved him of his more +arduous toil on two conditions---that he kept his head, and that his +moral development kept step with his technical discoveries; for only on +such terms could all the flames of emotion and selfish passion, which +experience proves are so destructive when allied to science, be kept in +a strict subjection. Unfortunately, however, the perils of science were +not foreseen. The average man was so completely hypnotised by machinery +that he entirely lost his head, while scientists were so enamoured of +their own discoveries that they somehow seemed to imagine that science +itself might become a substitute for morality, as would appear from the +very naive way in which they were apt to assume that the only obstacle +in the path of the millennium was the scantiness of nature. Thus it came +about that science, instead of allying itself with religion and +submitting to be controlled for the better service of mankind, became +the instrument of power, avarice, and passion, while the majority, +surrounded by the wonders of science and technology, of all sorts of +complicated machines in daily use, living among changes which followed +each other with such startling rapidity, lost their bearings completely, +and became the easy victims of exploitation and oppression. Effective +resistance to their growing enslavement and insecurity was frustrated by +a theory of Socialism which, by concentrating popular attention on the +evils of capitalism, blinded men to the still more fundamental evils of +which modern capitalism is but a symptom. + +But these more fundamental evils must be attacked if civilisation is to +survive. We must frankly recognise that knowledge may be just as easily +an agent for evil as for good. Nay, more easily; since pursued as an end +in itself, apart from any consideration of the higher interests of +mankind it is supposed to serve, experience proves that it can only too +readily be exploited for selfish ends. The reason for this is to be +found in the fact that the man bent upon selfish ends can always get to +work more quickly than the man who would serve a higher purpose or takes +a longer view of things. We conclude therefore that unless science is +subject to rigid control that will prevent its abuse it will continue to +be used for evil purposes. + +But if science is to be controlled, the question arises as to what +authority is going to control it. Here we find ourselves in deep waters, +for it raises a question which is urgent but to which there is no +immediate answer. There is no answer to-day because the exercise of +authority at any time depends upon the existence within the community of +a certain consensus of opinion as to the kind of authority it is +necessary to exercise. And as no such consensus of opinion as to the +kind of control to which science should be subjected exists to-day, it +is obviously impossible for any person or body to exercise any authority +in the matter. In these circumstances it would appear that the only +thing to be done is to educate public opinion, since until people can be +brought to see the perils inherent in permitting certain forms of +knowledge to be common property nothing can be done. And this enforces +upon us the need of a changed ideal of life, for until people are in +possession of some definite standard of values other than the material, +they will not be able to see how the problem could be handled, while to +forbid knowledge except in the interests of some higher truth or +revelation would inevitably appear stupid and arbitrary. + +Meanwhile it is possible that history may repeat itself and that the +scientific knowledge that has become so perilous to civilisation may be +lost in a new Dark Age, the near approach of which already appears as +imminent. Or it may be that science will disappear from the modern world +as it did from the ancient world, not because the knowledge of it was +suppressed, but because with the spread of Christianity interest was +diverted from the natural to the supernatural world, for when men become +interested in values that are eternal they have not the same keen +interest in things transitory. There are many signs that the world is +about to move in some such direction. We must in the first place +recognise that belief in materialism is on the decline; in the next that +popular belief in the beneficence of science has been" largely dispelled +by the fact that during the War it so readily lent itself for the +purposes of destruction; then we have to reckon with the fact that the +increasing complexity of science makes it every year more difficult to +follow, and because of this it may fall into the same contempt as the +speculations of the schoolmen fell in the Middle Ages; and again, that +scientists have already lost that confident belief in their mission---a +sure presage of decline; and finally because there is abundant evidence +that, as in the latter days of the Roman Empire, interest is to-day +being diverted from the natural to the supernatural. It is impossible to +read the story of the early centuries of Christianity without feeling +that history is beginning again to repeat itself, for a process of +spiritual and psychological change is taking place in the mind of the +world to-day in all respects analogous to the change that took place in +the latter days of the Roman Empire. The modern world, like the Pagan, +is being disenchanted of materialism, it has been shaken by its +perception of the inadequacy of a purely intellectual interpretation of +the universe, and there has occurred a corresponding influx of Eastern +ideas which has awakened an interest in the mystical, the psychic, and +the occult, of which the East is the perennial source; for it is well to +remember that all the modern cults and sects interested in these things, +the Theosophists, the Spiritualists, and the Christian Scientists had +their parallels in the Gnostics, the Neo-Platonists. and Manichaeans of +ancient Rome. And what is still more interesting is that the fusion of +Eastern and Western thought in Rome was followed by the triumph of +Christianity. Does it not look as if the same thing is again about to +happen, and that the spiritual movement on the one hand and the social +movement on the other are preparing the way for the acceptance of +Christianity, which, being both spiritual and material, can alone give +coherence and definiteness to the vague spiritual and social impulses of our time? # XXII. The Practical Application -We have in the preceding chapters stated the principles upon -which a Christian sociology should rest. It remains for us -to suggest the lines of their practical application. - -In this connection it is to be observed that a precedent -condition of any really effective action must be a -willingness to face the fact that our industrial system is -doomed, that a process of disintegration is taking place -which, unless it can be checked, sooner or later must result -in collapse, since apart from such a frank recognition it is -certain that the real issues will not be faced. This will -especially be the case with the unemployed problem, for -unless we realise that industrialism is doomed we shall be -unwilling to recognise it as the inevitable consequence of -the misapplication of machinery. This unwillingness to-day -renders our handling of the unemployed problem not merely -contradictory but idiotic. Hitherto the defence of the -unrestricted use of machinery rested on the belief that in -the long run it would emancipate mankind from the necessity -of labour, since by reducing work to a minimum it would set -men free to follow the higher pursuits of life. As to -whether most of those who claim to have been so liberated -show any disposition to follow such higher aims I do not for -the moment inquire; but it is to be observed that nowadays -when this prophecy that machinery is destined to liberate -man from the necessity of toil shows some signs of being -fulfilled, when for the moment we have produced enough and -to spare, we are panic-stricken at the army of unemployed in -our streets, and straightway organise demonstrations to find -them some work to do. The situation is grotesque in the -extreme, and were it not so tragic it would be laughable; -for the utterly idiotic attitude of mind it reveals is -perhaps without parallel in history. The modern man has had -his dreams fulfilled, and he awakens to find the fulfilment -is a nightmare. Yet he goes on dreaming---it never occurring -to most reformers to connect the problem of unemployment -with the problem of machinery---and this, in spite of the -fact that it was to find a solution of the problem created -by the displacement of labour by machinery at the time of -the Luddite riots that led to the speculations of Robert -Owen, which laid the foundation of Socialist thought and -brought the movement into existence.[^53] In the course of a -century the Socialist movement has not only entirely lost -sight of the problem it originally set out to solve and -around which its social theory originally took shape, but -nowadays actually denies that any such problem of machinery -exists. - -Yet the problem must be faced. Apart from the larger problem -of the destruction of our social and cultural traditions -which we saw had followed the unrestricted use of machinery -on a basis of the subdivision of labour, is it not apparent -that apart from some restriction to its use it is impossible -to keep men in employment? This fact was clearly recognised -by Marx, who saw that the end of the industrial system would -coincide with the appearance of a large and insoluble -problem of unemployment. He saw in the unemployed the -nucleus of the new world order, proposing to use them for -the purpose of overthrowing the capitalist system by means -of a proletarian revolution. But experience proves that -class warfare is sterile. It is capable of destroying the -existing order of society, but not of creating anything to -take its place---an experience that should not surprise us -considering that the principles of Marx conflict with those -of the Gospel. But if we are of the opinion that Marx was -mistaken in supposing that a new social system could be -heralded by means of revolution, we nevertheless feel that -he was instinctively right in recognising in the unemployed -the nucleus of the new world order, and we are confirmed in -our opinion by the experience of Guild development. Odon Por -tells us that the outstanding feature of the Italian -Producing Guilds is that they originated in the first -instance to relieve unemployment[^54]---an experience which -has been repeated here, since apart from the Building Guild, -which owed its creation to the housing shortage, all the -other Producing Guilds have had the same origin. - -But it is not sufficient merely to organise the unemployed -in Producing Guilds, for it is apparent that it will be -precisely where unemployment is greatest, as in the -engineering trades, that it will be most difficult to -organise such Guilds because of the slump in demand on the -one hand and the enormous plant and capital required on the -other. To grapple therefore with the problem it is necessary -to take a wider view---to train the unemployed in such ways -that they may become citizens of the post-industrial -society. In other words, believing that the industrial -system is doomed and the day of universal markets is coming -to an end, we propose to turn the unemployed into -agriculturalists and handicraftsmen. There should be no more -difficulty about this, if it were undertaken in a public -way, than there was during the War of turning civilians into -soldiers. It is entirely a question of will and -determination. Attempts in the past to deal with the -unemployed have invariably failed, and no wonder, for they -have been the last word in futility. The only idea behind -the various schemes for dealing with them has been to make -work, to mark time, as it were, until trade revived. Such an -aim inspires nobody. The unemployed themselves are conscious -of the futility of the work upon which they are engaged, and -this sense of futility is demoralising in the last degree. -But if the fact that the industrial system is doomed was -frankly faced, and the unemployed were given a craft or -agricultural training to enable them to take their place in -the new social order, a different spirit would come to -prevail. Their work would come to have meaning for them, and -this would make all the difference in the world, for men can -only put their heart into their work when they are inspired -by a real motive. - -By such means the new commonwealth could be built up within -the existing state and industrial system. As existing -civilisation falls to pieces it would be gradually replaced -by this new social order. There would be no real practical -difficulty about this, if only people could free themselves -of all the moribund social theories, Free Trade, principles -of "sound finance," and all the other useless lumber that -encumbers their minds; if only they could become again as -little children and see the simple truth of things unalloyed -by all the sophisticated nonsense that came into existence -to bolster up the existing system, a great part of which has -been incorporated in Socialist theory. For if they could -only clear their minds of such impedimenta and look at facts -as they exist, they would see that it would be a perfectly -simple proposition to build up one society within another if -it were frankly acknowledged that at every stage in its -development the new society stood in need of protection. The -foundations of such a society would rest, as all stable -societies rest, upon agriculture, and to effect such a -revival as we anticipate it would, in the first instance, be -necessary to stabilise prices of agricultural produce by -means of their fixation. Uncertainty as to price is the -thing that stands in the way of a revival of agriculture, by -placing the farmer very much at the mercy of circumstances -over which he has no control, while it is particularly -demoralising to the small-holder, who is without a -sufficient reserve of capital and is too busy with the work -of actual production to be able to follow the markets -closely. Moreover, it puts them into the hands of dealers -and middlemen, who absorb the larger part of the profits of -agriculture. The only remedy for this evil is to put an end -once for all to waste and speculation by the fixation of -prices based upon the cost of production and maintained by -Agricultural Guilds, which would, in addition, be centres of -mutual aid, buy and sell, and do other work undertaken by -agricultural organisation societies. They should, moreover, -administer the land; and in this connection I would suggest -that the land should be owned, as well as administered, by -the local Guilds. This suggestion is offered as an -alternative to nationalisation, in order to avoid the evils -of bureaucracy. But the land question is not so urgent as -the fixation of prices, to effect which should be the -immediate objective of reformers. For until prices are -fixed, not only will it be difficult to allay those feelings -of mutual suspicion that make wider co-operation so -difficult, especially among agriculturalists, but it will be -impossible to plan or arrange anything that may not be +We have in the preceding chapters stated the principles upon which a +Christian sociology should rest. It remains for us to suggest the lines +of their practical application. + +In this connection it is to be observed that a precedent condition of +any really effective action must be a willingness to face the fact that +our industrial system is doomed, that a process of disintegration is +taking place which, unless it can be checked, sooner or later must +result in collapse, since apart from such a frank recognition it is +certain that the real issues will not be faced. This will especially be +the case with the unemployed problem, for unless we realise that +industrialism is doomed we shall be unwilling to recognise it as the +inevitable consequence of the misapplication of machinery. This +unwillingness to-day renders our handling of the unemployed problem not +merely contradictory but idiotic. Hitherto the defence of the +unrestricted use of machinery rested on the belief that in the long run +it would emancipate mankind from the necessity of labour, since by +reducing work to a minimum it would set men free to follow the higher +pursuits of life. As to whether most of those who claim to have been so +liberated show any disposition to follow such higher aims I do not for +the moment inquire; but it is to be observed that nowadays when this +prophecy that machinery is destined to liberate man from the necessity +of toil shows some signs of being fulfilled, when for the moment we have +produced enough and to spare, we are panic-stricken at the army of +unemployed in our streets, and straightway organise demonstrations to +find them some work to do. The situation is grotesque in the extreme, +and were it not so tragic it would be laughable; for the utterly idiotic +attitude of mind it reveals is perhaps without parallel in history. The +modern man has had his dreams fulfilled, and he awakens to find the +fulfilment is a nightmare. Yet he goes on dreaming---it never occurring +to most reformers to connect the problem of unemployment with the +problem of machinery---and this, in spite of the fact that it was to +find a solution of the problem created by the displacement of labour by +machinery at the time of the Luddite riots that led to the speculations +of Robert Owen, which laid the foundation of Socialist thought and +brought the movement into existence.[^53] In the course of a century the +Socialist movement has not only entirely lost sight of the problem it +originally set out to solve and around which its social theory +originally took shape, but nowadays actually denies that any such +problem of machinery exists. + +Yet the problem must be faced. Apart from the larger problem of the +destruction of our social and cultural traditions which we saw had +followed the unrestricted use of machinery on a basis of the subdivision +of labour, is it not apparent that apart from some restriction to its +use it is impossible to keep men in employment? This fact was clearly +recognised by Marx, who saw that the end of the industrial system would +coincide with the appearance of a large and insoluble problem of +unemployment. He saw in the unemployed the nucleus of the new world +order, proposing to use them for the purpose of overthrowing the +capitalist system by means of a proletarian revolution. But experience +proves that class warfare is sterile. It is capable of destroying the +existing order of society, but not of creating anything to take its +place---an experience that should not surprise us considering that the +principles of Marx conflict with those of the Gospel. But if we are of +the opinion that Marx was mistaken in supposing that a new social system +could be heralded by means of revolution, we nevertheless feel that he +was instinctively right in recognising in the unemployed the nucleus of +the new world order, and we are confirmed in our opinion by the +experience of Guild development. Odon Por tells us that the outstanding +feature of the Italian Producing Guilds is that they originated in the +first instance to relieve unemployment[^54]---an experience which has +been repeated here, since apart from the Building Guild, which owed its +creation to the housing shortage, all the other Producing Guilds have +had the same origin. + +But it is not sufficient merely to organise the unemployed in Producing +Guilds, for it is apparent that it will be precisely where unemployment +is greatest, as in the engineering trades, that it will be most +difficult to organise such Guilds because of the slump in demand on the +one hand and the enormous plant and capital required on the other. To +grapple therefore with the problem it is necessary to take a wider +view---to train the unemployed in such ways that they may become +citizens of the post-industrial society. In other words, believing that +the industrial system is doomed and the day of universal markets is +coming to an end, we propose to turn the unemployed into +agriculturalists and handicraftsmen. There should be no more difficulty +about this, if it were undertaken in a public way, than there was during +the War of turning civilians into soldiers. It is entirely a question of +will and determination. Attempts in the past to deal with the unemployed +have invariably failed, and no wonder, for they have been the last word +in futility. The only idea behind the various schemes for dealing with +them has been to make work, to mark time, as it were, until trade +revived. Such an aim inspires nobody. The unemployed themselves are +conscious of the futility of the work upon which they are engaged, and +this sense of futility is demoralising in the last degree. But if the +fact that the industrial system is doomed was frankly faced, and the +unemployed were given a craft or agricultural training to enable them to +take their place in the new social order, a different spirit would come +to prevail. Their work would come to have meaning for them, and this +would make all the difference in the world, for men can only put their +heart into their work when they are inspired by a real motive. + +By such means the new commonwealth could be built up within the existing +state and industrial system. As existing civilisation falls to pieces it +would be gradually replaced by this new social order. There would be no +real practical difficulty about this, if only people could free +themselves of all the moribund social theories, Free Trade, principles +of "sound finance," and all the other useless lumber that encumbers +their minds; if only they could become again as little children and see +the simple truth of things unalloyed by all the sophisticated nonsense +that came into existence to bolster up the existing system, a great part +of which has been incorporated in Socialist theory. For if they could +only clear their minds of such impedimenta and look at facts as they +exist, they would see that it would be a perfectly simple proposition to +build up one society within another if it were frankly acknowledged that +at every stage in its development the new society stood in need of +protection. The foundations of such a society would rest, as all stable +societies rest, upon agriculture, and to effect such a revival as we +anticipate it would, in the first instance, be necessary to stabilise +prices of agricultural produce by means of their fixation. Uncertainty +as to price is the thing that stands in the way of a revival of +agriculture, by placing the farmer very much at the mercy of +circumstances over which he has no control, while it is particularly +demoralising to the small-holder, who is without a sufficient reserve of +capital and is too busy with the work of actual production to be able to +follow the markets closely. Moreover, it puts them into the hands of +dealers and middlemen, who absorb the larger part of the profits of +agriculture. The only remedy for this evil is to put an end once for all +to waste and speculation by the fixation of prices based upon the cost +of production and maintained by Agricultural Guilds, which would, in +addition, be centres of mutual aid, buy and sell, and do other work +undertaken by agricultural organisation societies. They should, +moreover, administer the land; and in this connection I would suggest +that the land should be owned, as well as administered, by the local +Guilds. This suggestion is offered as an alternative to nationalisation, +in order to avoid the evils of bureaucracy. But the land question is not +so urgent as the fixation of prices, to effect which should be the +immediate objective of reformers. For until prices are fixed, not only +will it be difficult to allay those feelings of mutual suspicion that +make wider co-operation so difficult, especially among agriculturalists, +but it will be impossible to plan or arrange anything that may not be subsequently upset by fluctuations of the market.[^55] -Upon this basis of agriculture, the new industries in which -the subdivision of labour was abolished and machinery -controlled would rest. Such industries would need to be -protected in the early stages against the competition of -industries in which existing abuses were retained. And the -simplest way to do this would be to put a tax upon all goods -produced by means of the subdivision of labour and the use -of such machinery as conflicts with the claims of -personality and art, which taxation should increase year by -year until all such industry ceased to exist. As to where to -draw the line there should be no difficulty, once the -principle were recognised that production which served -quantitative ends was degrading and that which served -qualitative ends is not. Anyone of aesthetic sensibility, -with practical experience of craft production, would know -instinctively where to draw it, and the public could easily -find out if they meant business. The difficulties are really -imaginary, since, if the public were persuaded of the -desirability of replacing the quantitative standard hy a -qualitative one, they would trust the judgment of men with -experience of craft production to give effect to their -wishes, as they do in other matters where expert knowledge -is required. - -After a time, when this new society began to develop an -organised life of its own, it would no longer stand in need -of protection against the competition of outside industries, -for the saving of cost that would be effected by the -elimination of cross-distribution, of overhead charges, and -of waste which would follow the resumption of the control of -industry by craftsmen and technologists, would more than -compensate for the increased cost of the actual production. -Still, prices and wages should be fixed, and every industry -be under the control of Guilds to prevent capitalism growing -up again within the new society, which it certainly would do -if freedom of bargaining were permitted. There would be no -practical difficulty about reconstruction upon such lines -once the idea was properly understood. The problem is -emphatically one of order. Take issues in their natural -order, and everything will straighten itself out -beautifully. All the minor details or secondary parts will -fall into their proper places. But approach these same -issues in a wrong order, and confusion results. No -subsequent adjustments can remedy the initial error. This -principle is universally true. It is as true of rebuilding -society as it is of writing a book or designing a building. -The secret of success in each case will be found finally to -rest upon the perception of the order in which the various -issues are taken. "They are called wise," says Aquinas, "who -put things in their right order and control them well." - -The scheme I have outlined is presented as one for the -rebuilding of society on the assumption industrial -civilisation will disintegrate. Yet, as a matter of fact, if -the proposals here made were acted upon in the near future, -there would be no sudden catastrophic change, but a gradual -transition; for the proposals I have advanced might be -likened to the underpinning of a house, the foundations of -which were giving way, and which, when once done, rendered -the structure stable. For the revival of agriculture, by -providing a largely increased home market for industrial -wares, would tend gradually to free industry from its -dependence upon foreign markets. Of course, we cannot -dispense with foreign trade altogether, but it cannot be -denied that a condition of affairs in which we get wheat -from America, beef from the Argentine, mutton from New -Zealand, eggs from Egypt, and butter from Siberia, as we -were doing before the War, while land at home remains idle -and the unemployed are not allowed to do any useful work, is -too idiotic for words, and cannot last for long. For a -nation that has allowed its economic arrangements to drift -into such a condition inevitably experiences the fleeting -nature of prosperity that is built upon foreign trade, for -it comes to be at the mercy of forces it is powerless to -control. And what is true of the production of food is true -of industrial production. It was an accidental and -temporary, and not a permanent circumstance, that gave -colour to the theory, so popular in the first half of the -last century, that England was destined to become the -workshop of the world, and its unreality is nowadays being -brought home to us. The only rational society is one that is -as self-contained as possible, for only such societies can -bring order into their internal economic arrangements. - -But it will be said: What about our population? The -self-contained national unit may be an ideal, but such an -ideal is an impossible one for a country like ours which has -to support such a huge population on such a limited area. My -answer is that so far from the policy I advocate increasing -our difficulties in this direction it actually decreases -them; for is it not apparent that if we produced our own -food unemployment would be lessened, while the reaction of -the revival of agriculture upon building and other -industries would be to provide additional employment. To -argue, as some Free Traders do, that because we cannot -produce all the food we require, we need not therefore -trouble to produce any, seems to me the last word in -imbecility, for it is evident that every additional acre -under cultivation reduces in size the problem that confronts -us. Such imbecility comes of exalting a measure of temporary -economic expediency, such as Free Trade, into a principle of -economics. Still, in the long run it has to be admitted that -we shall not be able to support our present population. But -this will not be because we revive agriculture and the -crafts, which can only increase employment, but because one -by one we are losing our foreign markets. It is for this -reason that emigration on a great scale is a necessary part -of any scheme of social reorganisation. Apart from it, the -choice as regards our surplus population must be one between -actual starvation or semi-starvation by doles; for the -evidence is, so far as I can see, conclusive that in the -future the general tendency will be for industrialism to -contract rather than to expand. So, while it would be -possible by reviving agriculture and craftsmanship to find a -temporary solution for the unemployed problem, we may be -assured that, apart from organised emigration, in a few -years' time the existing problem would be back again. - -When, however, we advocate the need of emigration, we find -ourselves confronted by a deep-rooted prejudice in the -Labour movement which is partly well founded, but which in -the main derives from the utterly fallacious economic -theories to which the movement is committed; for the -Socialist theory in the Fabian form in which the Labour -movement received it, ignores altogether the temporary and -accidental circumstances which led to our enormous -industrial expansion during the nineteenth century, and -proceeds upon the assumption that industry may expand -indefinitely. And yet, while every fact in the economic -situation to-day demonstrates without a shadow of doubt that -such an assumption is entirely unfounded, the Labour -movement in its general outlook continues to act as if it -were true. But the opposition of Labour to emigration is not -entirely due to prejudice. Part of it at least is based upon -the well-founded suspicion that emigration recommends itself -to many imperially minded citizens rather as a means of -evading the problem of social reconstruction than as a -necessary part of a national (I should say international) -scheme. The word "emigration" is apt to stink in the -nostrils of men who, when they find themselves out of work -and half starving, are airily told that their duty is to get -out of the country as quickly as possible that they may -starve elsewhere, as they certainly would, for emigration as -an isolated proposition pursued by one country is useless, -since, as the present unemployed problem is international, -apart from concerted action on the part of other countries, -it follows that, just to the extent that emigration would -relieve the problem of unemployment here, it would intensify -it somewhere else. - -But that is not the only trouble. The unintelligent and -unsympathetic attitude revealed in the recently proposed -Government scheme of emigration was, apart from any other -consideration, calculated to provoke opposition. In former -times emigration was by groups. - -When, as among the Greeks, a community came to the -conclusion that it was over-populated, emigration was -undertaken by groups. Such communities planted out new -societies that consisted of groups of families in which -there were agriculturalists, craftsmen, doctors, and others -whose labour was necessary to fulfil the variety of needs -that are called into existence by a civilised life. It was -in some such way that the Pilgrim Fathers sailed out and -began the colonisation of America. They founded societies -that were comparatively stable, and not least of the things -that enabled them to found such societies was that, in spite -of their Puritanism, some of the old Mediaeval communal -spirit survived among them, as it has survived among -Italians and Eastern Europeans, who emigrated in groups -until emigration was brought to an end by the War. But among -Western Europeans this tradition has died out. For some long -time emigration has been largely left to individual -initiative. The result is that the man who emigrates rarely -settles down in the land of his adoption. As he is separated -from his friends, he cherishes the hope of making a pile and -returning home. It is this spirit that has corrupted -colonial life, and has brought into existence in America and -the colonies in less than a century social problems as bad, -if not worse, than our own, which have taken centuries to -develop. For the entire absence in the new countries of any -of the old communal spirit has engendered a spirit of -individualism much more ruthless and intense than anything -in the older countries. It has brought into existence an -atmosphere that is bad for men, but which is utterly -demoralising in the case of boys. Yet the Government have so -little sense of human psychology that, instead of proposing -a scheme for the emigration of people in groups, of families -capable of co-operating together, they actually proposed to -take boys at the most impressionable period of their lives, -between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, and tear them -away from their families without proper provision for their -moral and spiritual welfare. It is true that the scheme -provided that the consent of the boy and his father had to -be obtained. But, as a matter of fact, neither are free -agents. The boys, broken by lack of work at home, have lost -hope, while the parents, crushed down by economic pressure, -consent to a scheme which completes the disintegration of -the family. Is there any wonder that Labour should be +Upon this basis of agriculture, the new industries in which the +subdivision of labour was abolished and machinery controlled would rest. +Such industries would need to be protected in the early stages against +the competition of industries in which existing abuses were retained. +And the simplest way to do this would be to put a tax upon all goods +produced by means of the subdivision of labour and the use of such +machinery as conflicts with the claims of personality and art, which +taxation should increase year by year until all such industry ceased to +exist. As to where to draw the line there should be no difficulty, once +the principle were recognised that production which served quantitative +ends was degrading and that which served qualitative ends is not. Anyone +of aesthetic sensibility, with practical experience of craft production, +would know instinctively where to draw it, and the public could easily +find out if they meant business. The difficulties are really imaginary, +since, if the public were persuaded of the desirability of replacing the +quantitative standard hy a qualitative one, they would trust the +judgment of men with experience of craft production to give effect to +their wishes, as they do in other matters where expert knowledge is +required. + +After a time, when this new society began to develop an organised life +of its own, it would no longer stand in need of protection against the +competition of outside industries, for the saving of cost that would be +effected by the elimination of cross-distribution, of overhead charges, +and of waste which would follow the resumption of the control of +industry by craftsmen and technologists, would more than compensate for +the increased cost of the actual production. Still, prices and wages +should be fixed, and every industry be under the control of Guilds to +prevent capitalism growing up again within the new society, which it +certainly would do if freedom of bargaining were permitted. There would +be no practical difficulty about reconstruction upon such lines once the +idea was properly understood. The problem is emphatically one of order. +Take issues in their natural order, and everything will straighten +itself out beautifully. All the minor details or secondary parts will +fall into their proper places. But approach these same issues in a wrong +order, and confusion results. No subsequent adjustments can remedy the +initial error. This principle is universally true. It is as true of +rebuilding society as it is of writing a book or designing a building. +The secret of success in each case will be found finally to rest upon +the perception of the order in which the various issues are taken. "They +are called wise," says Aquinas, "who put things in their right order and +control them well." + +The scheme I have outlined is presented as one for the rebuilding of +society on the assumption industrial civilisation will disintegrate. +Yet, as a matter of fact, if the proposals here made were acted upon in +the near future, there would be no sudden catastrophic change, but a +gradual transition; for the proposals I have advanced might be likened +to the underpinning of a house, the foundations of which were giving +way, and which, when once done, rendered the structure stable. For the +revival of agriculture, by providing a largely increased home market for +industrial wares, would tend gradually to free industry from its +dependence upon foreign markets. Of course, we cannot dispense with +foreign trade altogether, but it cannot be denied that a condition of +affairs in which we get wheat from America, beef from the Argentine, +mutton from New Zealand, eggs from Egypt, and butter from Siberia, as we +were doing before the War, while land at home remains idle and the +unemployed are not allowed to do any useful work, is too idiotic for +words, and cannot last for long. For a nation that has allowed its +economic arrangements to drift into such a condition inevitably +experiences the fleeting nature of prosperity that is built upon foreign +trade, for it comes to be at the mercy of forces it is powerless to +control. And what is true of the production of food is true of +industrial production. It was an accidental and temporary, and not a +permanent circumstance, that gave colour to the theory, so popular in +the first half of the last century, that England was destined to become +the workshop of the world, and its unreality is nowadays being brought +home to us. The only rational society is one that is as self-contained +as possible, for only such societies can bring order into their internal +economic arrangements. + +But it will be said: What about our population? The self-contained +national unit may be an ideal, but such an ideal is an impossible one +for a country like ours which has to support such a huge population on +such a limited area. My answer is that so far from the policy I advocate +increasing our difficulties in this direction it actually decreases +them; for is it not apparent that if we produced our own food +unemployment would be lessened, while the reaction of the revival of +agriculture upon building and other industries would be to provide +additional employment. To argue, as some Free Traders do, that because +we cannot produce all the food we require, we need not therefore trouble +to produce any, seems to me the last word in imbecility, for it is +evident that every additional acre under cultivation reduces in size the +problem that confronts us. Such imbecility comes of exalting a measure +of temporary economic expediency, such as Free Trade, into a principle +of economics. Still, in the long run it has to be admitted that we shall +not be able to support our present population. But this will not be +because we revive agriculture and the crafts, which can only increase +employment, but because one by one we are losing our foreign markets. It +is for this reason that emigration on a great scale is a necessary part +of any scheme of social reorganisation. Apart from it, the choice as +regards our surplus population must be one between actual starvation or +semi-starvation by doles; for the evidence is, so far as I can see, +conclusive that in the future the general tendency will be for +industrialism to contract rather than to expand. So, while it would be +possible by reviving agriculture and craftsmanship to find a temporary +solution for the unemployed problem, we may be assured that, apart from +organised emigration, in a few years' time the existing problem would be +back again. + +When, however, we advocate the need of emigration, we find ourselves +confronted by a deep-rooted prejudice in the Labour movement which is +partly well founded, but which in the main derives from the utterly +fallacious economic theories to which the movement is committed; for the +Socialist theory in the Fabian form in which the Labour movement +received it, ignores altogether the temporary and accidental +circumstances which led to our enormous industrial expansion during the +nineteenth century, and proceeds upon the assumption that industry may +expand indefinitely. And yet, while every fact in the economic situation +to-day demonstrates without a shadow of doubt that such an assumption is +entirely unfounded, the Labour movement in its general outlook continues +to act as if it were true. But the opposition of Labour to emigration is +not entirely due to prejudice. Part of it at least is based upon the +well-founded suspicion that emigration recommends itself to many +imperially minded citizens rather as a means of evading the problem of +social reconstruction than as a necessary part of a national (I should +say international) scheme. The word "emigration" is apt to stink in the +nostrils of men who, when they find themselves out of work and half +starving, are airily told that their duty is to get out of the country +as quickly as possible that they may starve elsewhere, as they certainly +would, for emigration as an isolated proposition pursued by one country +is useless, since, as the present unemployed problem is international, +apart from concerted action on the part of other countries, it follows +that, just to the extent that emigration would relieve the problem of +unemployment here, it would intensify it somewhere else. + +But that is not the only trouble. The unintelligent and unsympathetic +attitude revealed in the recently proposed Government scheme of +emigration was, apart from any other consideration, calculated to +provoke opposition. In former times emigration was by groups. + +When, as among the Greeks, a community came to the conclusion that it +was over-populated, emigration was undertaken by groups. Such +communities planted out new societies that consisted of groups of +families in which there were agriculturalists, craftsmen, doctors, and +others whose labour was necessary to fulfil the variety of needs that +are called into existence by a civilised life. It was in some such way +that the Pilgrim Fathers sailed out and began the colonisation of +America. They founded societies that were comparatively stable, and not +least of the things that enabled them to found such societies was that, +in spite of their Puritanism, some of the old Mediaeval communal spirit +survived among them, as it has survived among Italians and Eastern +Europeans, who emigrated in groups until emigration was brought to an +end by the War. But among Western Europeans this tradition has died out. +For some long time emigration has been largely left to individual +initiative. The result is that the man who emigrates rarely settles down +in the land of his adoption. As he is separated from his friends, he +cherishes the hope of making a pile and returning home. It is this +spirit that has corrupted colonial life, and has brought into existence +in America and the colonies in less than a century social problems as +bad, if not worse, than our own, which have taken centuries to develop. +For the entire absence in the new countries of any of the old communal +spirit has engendered a spirit of individualism much more ruthless and +intense than anything in the older countries. It has brought into +existence an atmosphere that is bad for men, but which is utterly +demoralising in the case of boys. Yet the Government have so little +sense of human psychology that, instead of proposing a scheme for the +emigration of people in groups, of families capable of co-operating +together, they actually proposed to take boys at the most impressionable +period of their lives, between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, and +tear them away from their families without proper provision for their +moral and spiritual welfare. It is true that the scheme provided that +the consent of the boy and his father had to be obtained. But, as a +matter of fact, neither are free agents. The boys, broken by lack of +work at home, have lost hope, while the parents, crushed down by +economic pressure, consent to a scheme which completes the +disintegration of the family. Is there any wonder that Labour should be opposed to emigration when it is conceived in such a purely -matter-of-fact business-like spirit? It brings into a vivid -light our false approach to the social question, of viewing -men and boys as economic units rather than as human beings -with souls to be saved. It is this point of view that -penetrates the social theory, if it does not express the -mind of reformers, that brings to naught their best +matter-of-fact business-like spirit? It brings into a vivid light our +false approach to the social question, of viewing men and boys as +economic units rather than as human beings with souls to be saved. It is +this point of view that penetrates the social theory, if it does not +express the mind of reformers, that brings to naught their best intentions. -Could anything better illustrate the need of giving to -spiritual values the primacy in our lives? For it is certain -that until we do the human side of life will not be -respected. There will remain that contempt of personality -which not only degrades men in their work, but which finally -dissolves all those personal and human ties which are -necessary to the preservation of society in a sound and -wholesome condition. It has been said that the world, like a -ship, has a wonderful self-righting power. And that may be -so when the weights are in the right place. But if they are -not, as is the case to-day, then there are finally but two -ways in which the balance may be restored. One of these is -the path of revolution, by the violent destruction of false -ideas and parasitic growths, as happened in Russia, when, -after a period of anarchy, the new order begins to emerge. -The other is the way of Christianity. It is the path of -renunciation and repentance, of the determination to live -new lives and willing sacrifice of such privileges and -advantages, such comfort and convenience, as are to be got -only by the degradation and enslavement of the workers and -which conflict with the claims of a higher and nobler life. -The choice before us is finally between these alternatives, -and it is a choice that can no longer be postponed. For our -civilisation becomes daily more unstable, and the end is in -sight. - -[^1]: *The Decay of Capitalist Civilisation*, by Sidney and - Beatrice Webb (London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.). +Could anything better illustrate the need of giving to spiritual values +the primacy in our lives? For it is certain that until we do the human +side of life will not be respected. There will remain that contempt of +personality which not only degrades men in their work, but which finally +dissolves all those personal and human ties which are necessary to the +preservation of society in a sound and wholesome condition. It has been +said that the world, like a ship, has a wonderful self-righting power. +And that may be so when the weights are in the right place. But if they +are not, as is the case to-day, then there are finally but two ways in +which the balance may be restored. One of these is the path of +revolution, by the violent destruction of false ideas and parasitic +growths, as happened in Russia, when, after a period of anarchy, the new +order begins to emerge. The other is the way of Christianity. It is the +path of renunciation and repentance, of the determination to live new +lives and willing sacrifice of such privileges and advantages, such +comfort and convenience, as are to be got only by the degradation and +enslavement of the workers and which conflict with the claims of a +higher and nobler life. The choice before us is finally between these +alternatives, and it is a choice that can no longer be postponed. For +our civilisation becomes daily more unstable, and the end is in sight. + +[^1]: *The Decay of Capitalist Civilisation*, by Sidney and Beatrice + Webb (London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.). [^2]: March 20, 1923. -[^3]: *The Idea of Progress*, by J. B. Bury (Macmillem & - Co.), p. 65. +[^3]: *The Idea of Progress*, by J. B. Bury (Macmillem & Co.), p. 65. [^4]: *The Idea of Progress*, p. 67. -[^5]: *The Tragic Sense of Life*, by Miguel de Unamuno - (Macmillan & Co.). p. 34. +[^5]: *The Tragic Sense of Life*, by Miguel de Unamuno (Macmillan & + Co.). p. 34. -[^6]: *The Reconciliation*, by Ramiro de Maeztu. El Sol, - Madrid. Translation in *The Crusader*, September 29, - 1922. +[^6]: *The Reconciliation*, by Ramiro de Maeztu. El Sol, Madrid. + Translation in *The Crusader*, September 29, 1922. [^7]: *Essays in Orthodoxy*, by Oliver Chase Quick. -[^8]: Writing on this issue in *The Return of Christendom*, - Father P. E. T. Widdrington says: "There is an excusable - tendency to exaggerate the great achievements of the - Middle Ages, and to see in Mediaeval civilisation a - Christendom as near perfection as is possible in this - imperfect world. But why did Mediaeval civilisation - collapse? There are reasons and reasons. I hold the true - one to be because at the root of that civilisation there - was a lie. Mediaeval civilisation identified the Church - with the Kingdom of God. The Church, instead of - promoting the Kingdom, replaced it. The usurpation of - the Church and its disparagement of the other modes - through which the Kingdom is built, brought with it the - inevitable consequence. Catholicism degenerated in the - slavish worship of its own organisation, and that - organisation became a tyranny from which men at length - revolted. The danger is not altogether a thing of the - past. It has assumed a different form..." +[^8]: Writing on this issue in *The Return of Christendom*, Father P. E. + T. Widdrington says: "There is an excusable tendency to exaggerate + the great achievements of the Middle Ages, and to see in Mediaeval + civilisation a Christendom as near perfection as is possible in this + imperfect world. But why did Mediaeval civilisation collapse? There + are reasons and reasons. I hold the true one to be because at the + root of that civilisation there was a lie. Mediaeval civilisation + identified the Church with the Kingdom of God. The Church, instead + of promoting the Kingdom, replaced it. The usurpation of the Church + and its disparagement of the other modes through which the Kingdom + is built, brought with it the inevitable consequence. Catholicism + degenerated in the slavish worship of its own organisation, and that + organisation became a tyranny from which men at length revolted. The + danger is not altogether a thing of the past. It has assumed a + different form..." [^9]: *New Age*, January 18, 1917. [^10]: The General Election, November 15, 1922. -[^11]: *Crises in the History of the Papacy*, by Joseph - McCabe. +[^11]: *Crises in the History of the Papacy*, by Joseph McCabe. -[^12]: The Village Club movement which we connect with the - name of Mr. J. Nugent Harris is another example of this - kind of thing. By bringing people together on a basis of - fraternity it should, as it spreads, tend to break down - that individualism which is at the root of so many of - the problems of rural life. +[^12]: The Village Club movement which we connect with the name of + Mr. J. Nugent Harris is another example of this kind of thing. By + bringing people together on a basis of fraternity it should, as it + spreads, tend to break down that individualism which is at the root + of so many of the problems of rural life. [^13]: *Mediaeval Socialism*, by Bede Jarrett. -[^14]: See *Our Enemy the State*, by Gilbert T. Sadler (C. - W. Daniel, Ltd.). - -[^15]: This is the reason why the law was made, that the - wickedness of men might be restrained through fear of - it, and that good men could safely live among bad men; - and that bad men should be punished and cease to do evil - for fear of punishment." (From the preamble to the - Fuero Juzgo, a collection of laws Gothic and Roman in - origin, made by the Hispano-Gothic King Chindavinto, - A.D. 640. In the National Library of Spain, Madrid.) - - In a school catechism it was taught in England within - living memory that the purpose of law was "to preserve - the rich in their possessions and to restrain the - vicious poor."---*Mediaeval Contributions to Modern - Civilisation*, Essay by Rev. Claude Jenkins. (G. G. - Harrap & Co.) - -[^16]: *Authority, Liberty and Function*, by Ramiro de - Maeztu. - - Mr. Tawney has defined the principle of Function as "an - activity which embodies and expresses the idea of social - purpose. The essence of it is that the agent does not - merely perform it for personal gain or to gratify - himself, but recognises that he is responsible for its - discharge to some higher authority."---[*The Acquisitive - Society*, by R. H. +[^14]: See *Our Enemy the State*, by Gilbert T. Sadler (C. W. Daniel, + Ltd.). + +[^15]: This is the reason why the law was made, that the wickedness of + men might be restrained through fear of it, and that good men could + safely live among bad men; and that bad men should be punished and + cease to do evil for fear of punishment." (From the preamble to the + Fuero Juzgo, a collection of laws Gothic and Roman in origin, made + by the Hispano-Gothic King Chindavinto, A.D. 640. In the National + Library of Spain, Madrid.) + + In a school catechism it was taught in England within living memory + that the purpose of law was "to preserve the rich in their + possessions and to restrain the vicious poor."---*Mediaeval + Contributions to Modern Civilisation*, Essay by Rev. Claude Jenkins. + (G. G. Harrap & Co.) + +[^16]: *Authority, Liberty and Function*, by Ramiro de Maeztu. + + Mr. Tawney has defined the principle of Function as "an activity + which embodies and expresses the idea of social purpose. The essence + of it is that the agent does not merely perform it for personal gain + or to gratify himself, but recognises that he is responsible for its + discharge to some higher authority."---[*The Acquisitive Society*, + by R. H. Tawney](https://cadenhaustein.com/books/acquisitive-society). -[^17]: *English Law and the Renaissance*, by F. W. Maitland, - p. 24. +[^17]: *English Law and the Renaissance*, by F. W. Maitland, p. 24. -[^18]: *Stephen's Commentaries of the Laws of England*, - under the general editorship of Edward Jenks, M.A,, - D.CX., seventeenth edition, 1922, vol. iv, pp. 491-2. +[^18]: *Stephen's Commentaries of the Laws of England*, under the + general editorship of Edward Jenks, M.A,, D.CX., seventeenth + edition, 1922, vol. iv, pp. 491-2. -[^19]: The early part of this chapter is largely based upon - the valuable material contained in Dr. A. J. Carlyle's\* - Mediaeval Political Theory in the West*, and the latter - part on Herr M. Beer's *History of British Socialism\*, - to whom acknowledgments are due. +[^19]: The early part of this chapter is largely based upon the valuable + material contained in Dr. A. J. Carlyle's\* Mediaeval Political + Theory in the West*, and the latter part on Herr M. Beer's *History + of British Socialism\*, to whom acknowledgments are due. -[^20]: *A History of British Socialism*, by M. Beer, vol. i, - p. 11. +[^20]: *A History of British Socialism*, by M. Beer, vol. i, p. 11. [^21]: 1 Corinthians 10:23. -[^22]: See *The Greek Commonwealth*, by Alfred Zimraem, - pp. 1 - -[^23]: During the War President Wilson gave a definition of - the Just Price in connection with war contracts which is - quite interesting. It runs: "By a Just Price I mean a - price which will sustain the industries concerned in a - high state of efficiency, provide a living for those who - conduct them, enable them to pay good wages, and make - possible the expansion of their enterprises which will, - from time to time, become necessary, as the stupendous - undertaking of this Great War develops."---Quoted in - *Agricultural Prices*, by Henry A. Wallace, p. 26. - -[^24]: *Stabilisation: an Economic Policy for Producers and - Consumers*, by E. M. H. Lloyd (formerly Assistant - Secretary to the Ministry of Food and Member of the - Economic and Financial Section of the League of Nations - Secretariat), p. 24 (Allen & Unwin.) It is an important - book, and should be studied in conjunction with the - theory enunciated in this chapter. +[^22]: See *The Greek Commonwealth*, by Alfred Zimraem, pp. 1 + +[^23]: During the War President Wilson gave a definition of the Just + Price in connection with war contracts which is quite interesting. + It runs: "By a Just Price I mean a price which will sustain the + industries concerned in a high state of efficiency, provide a living + for those who conduct them, enable them to pay good wages, and make + possible the expansion of their enterprises which will, from time to + time, become necessary, as the stupendous undertaking of this Great + War develops."---Quoted in *Agricultural Prices*, by Henry A. + Wallace, p. 26. + +[^24]: *Stabilisation: an Economic Policy for Producers and Consumers*, + by E. M. H. Lloyd (formerly Assistant Secretary to the Ministry of + Food and Member of the Economic and Financial Section of the League + of Nations Secretariat), p. 24 (Allen & Unwin.) It is an important + book, and should be studied in conjunction with the theory + enunciated in this chapter. [^25]: *Stabilisaiion*, pp. 25-6. -[^26]: *Mother Earth,* by Montagu Fordham, ch. iii, "The - Regulation of Markets." +[^26]: *Mother Earth,* by Montagu Fordham, ch. iii, "The Regulation of + Markets." [^27]: *Labour Monthly*, December 192 1. -[^28]: "The *laissez-faire*, supply and demand, speculative, - or market price system, is condemned by nearly everyone - except the business men who run it and believe they - understand its beneficent workings... The common man - prefers to approach the question of price not from the - standpoint of supply and demand, but from the standpoint - of cost of production... The fluctuating price system, - which means great profits to a wealthy few, serious - losses and wrecked lives for a few, and a bare - livelihood for many, is the natural result of the - laissez-faire policy of the old classical economists... - The common people and the lofty idealists in America - were greatly elated during 191 7 and 1918 at the - apparently successful working of fixed prices - established more or less in defiance of the speculative - or laissez-faire price system."---*Agricultural Prices*, - by Henry A. Wallace, pp. 26-27. +[^28]: "The *laissez-faire*, supply and demand, speculative, or market + price system, is condemned by nearly everyone except the business + men who run it and believe they understand its beneficent + workings... The common man prefers to approach the question of price + not from the standpoint of supply and demand, but from the + standpoint of cost of production... The fluctuating price system, + which means great profits to a wealthy few, serious losses and + wrecked lives for a few, and a bare livelihood for many, is the + natural result of the laissez-faire policy of the old classical + economists... The common people and the lofty idealists in America + were greatly elated during 191 7 and 1918 at the apparently + successful working of fixed prices established more or less in + defiance of the speculative or laissez-faire price + system."---*Agricultural Prices*, by Henry A. Wallace, pp. 26-27. [^29]: *Stabilisation*, by E. M. H. Lloyd, pp. 79-80. -[^30]: *Agricultural Prices*, by Henry A. Wallace, p. 30 - (Wallace Publishing Company, Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.A.). +[^30]: *Agricultural Prices*, by Henry A. Wallace, p. 30 (Wallace + Publishing Company, Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.A.). [^31]: Ibid., p. 460. [^32]: Ibid., p. 460. -[^33]: Such a conception of industrial reorganisation is not - as remote from practical politics as many will assume, - for the scheme of industrial reorganisation proposed in - the Majority Report of the Industrial Council of the - Building Industry (better known as the Building Trades' - Parliament) proceeds upon such a basis. It is a - remarkable testimony to the truth and universality of - Mediaeval principles that its promoters were unaware of - its likeness to Mediaeval organisation. - - An account of it is to be found in my - *Post-Industrialism* (Allen & Unwin, 6s.). - -[^34]: *Stabilisation: an Economic Policy for Producers and - Consumers*, by E. M. H. Lloyd (formerly Assistant - Secretary to the Ministry of Food and Member of the - Economic and Financial Section of the League of Nations - Secretariat), p. 24 (Allen & Unwin.) It is an important - book, and should be studied in conjunction with the - theory enunciated in this chapter. - -[^35]: In *Psychology and Politics* Dr. W. H. R. Rivers - argues that committees should be consultative rather - than executive. He maintains that the successful - committees he has known have been consultative and the - failures executive. +[^33]: Such a conception of industrial reorganisation is not as remote + from practical politics as many will assume, for the scheme of + industrial reorganisation proposed in the Majority Report of the + Industrial Council of the Building Industry (better known as the + Building Trades' Parliament) proceeds upon such a basis. It is a + remarkable testimony to the truth and universality of Mediaeval + principles that its promoters were unaware of its likeness to + Mediaeval organisation. + + An account of it is to be found in my *Post-Industrialism* (Allen & + Unwin, 6s.). + +[^34]: *Stabilisation: an Economic Policy for Producers and Consumers*, + by E. M. H. Lloyd (formerly Assistant Secretary to the Ministry of + Food and Member of the Economic and Financial Section of the League + of Nations Secretariat), p. 24 (Allen & Unwin.) It is an important + book, and should be studied in conjunction with the theory + enunciated in this chapter. + +[^35]: In *Psychology and Politics* Dr. W. H. R. Rivers argues that + committees should be consultative rather than executive. He + maintains that the successful committees he has known have been + consultative and the failures executive. [^36]: *From the Human End*, by L. P. Jacks. -[^37]: See Beer's *History of British Socialism*, vol. i, - pp. 107-8. +[^37]: See Beer's *History of British Socialism*, vol. i, pp. 107-8. [^38]: See [*The Acquisitive Society*, by R. H. - Tawney](https://cadenhaustein.com/books/acquisitive-society), - where the relation of property to function is discussed - in some detail. + Tawney](https://cadenhaustein.com/books/acquisitive-society), where + the relation of property to function is discussed in some detail. [^39]: *Labour Monthly*, December 1921. -[^40]: In an interview given to the *Daily News* (December - 14, 1922) by Sir Edward M. Edgar on his return from - America, he said: "In all the years I have known America - I have never been so struck as during the past two - months by her prodigality... The American demand for - metals, cotton, and oil is so insatiable, and is so - rapidly increasing, that a world-wide shortage of these - commodities is inevitable... You can hardly name one of - the big staples of industry that they are not literally - devouring... There is bound to be a sharp halt in - American progress; there may be something like a +[^40]: In an interview given to the *Daily News* (December 14, 1922) by + Sir Edward M. Edgar on his return from America, he said: "In all the + years I have known America I have never been so struck as during the + past two months by her prodigality... The American demand for + metals, cotton, and oil is so insatiable, and is so rapidly + increasing, that a world-wide shortage of these commodities is + inevitable... You can hardly name one of the big staples of industry + that they are not literally devouring... There is bound to be a + sharp halt in American progress; there may be something like a collapse." -[^41]: See *Oil: Its Influence on Politics*, by Francis - Delaisi (George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 2s. 6d.). - -[^42]: *Towards the Great Peace*, by R. A. Cram, pp. 59-61 - (George G. Harrap & Co.). - -[^43]: The wages of the artisan during the period to which I - refer (the fifteenth century) were generally, and - through the year, about 6d. per day. Those of the - agricultural labourers were about 4d. I am referring to - ordinary artisans and workers... It is plain the day was - one of eight hours... Sometimes the labourer is paid for - every day in the year, though it is certain he did not - work on Sundays and principal holidays. Very often the - labourer is fed. In this case the cost of maintenance is - put down at from 6d. to 8d, a week. Food was so abundant - and cheap that it was sometimes thrown in with the wages - (*Six Centuries of Work and Wages*, by J. E. Thorold - Rogers, pp. 327-8). +[^41]: See *Oil: Its Influence on Politics*, by Francis Delaisi (George + Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 2s. 6d.). + +[^42]: *Towards the Great Peace*, by R. A. Cram, pp. 59-61 (George G. + Harrap & Co.). + +[^43]: The wages of the artisan during the period to which I refer (the + fifteenth century) were generally, and through the year, about 6d. + per day. Those of the agricultural labourers were about 4d. I am + referring to ordinary artisans and workers... It is plain the day + was one of eight hours... Sometimes the labourer is paid for every + day in the year, though it is certain he did not work on Sundays and + principal holidays. Very often the labourer is fed. In this case the + cost of maintenance is put down at from 6d. to 8d, a week. Food was + so abundant and cheap that it was sometimes thrown in with the wages + (*Six Centuries of Work and Wages*, by J. E. Thorold Rogers, + pp. 327-8). [^44]: *Form in Civilisation*, by W. R. Lethaby, pp. 220-4. -[^45]: *Handwork as an Educational Medium*, by P. B. - Ballard, pp. 2II-I2 (George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.). +[^45]: *Handwork as an Educational Medium*, by P. B. Ballard, pp. 2II-I2 + (George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.). -[^46]: *American Medicine*, April 191 3, quoted in *American - Labour Unions*, by Helen Marot. +[^46]: *American Medicine*, April 191 3, quoted in *American Labour + Unions*, by Helen Marot. [^47]: *Capital*, by Karl Marx, pp. 660-1. @@ -6426,18 +5400,17 @@ sight. [^50]: Form in Civilisation, pp. 218-19. -[^51]: *History of the German People at the Close of the - Middle Ages*, by Johannes Janssen, vol. ii, pp. 97-8. +[^51]: *History of the German People at the Close of the Middle Ages*, + by Johannes Janssen, vol. ii, pp. 97-8. [^52]: *Theodore Savage*, by Cicely Hamilton. -[^53]: See my *Post-Industrialism* (Allen & Unwin, 6s.), - where the bearing of the problem of machinery on - Socialist theory is developed. +[^53]: See my *Post-Industrialism* (Allen & Unwin, 6s.), where the + bearing of the problem of machinery on Socialist theory is + developed. [^54]: *Guilds and Co-operatives in Italy*, by Odon Por. -[^55]: See the recently published tract *Agriculture and the - Guild System,* with a preface by Montagu Fordham (P. S. - King & Son, is.), which outlines a practical scheme on - this basis. +[^55]: See the recently published tract *Agriculture and the Guild + System,* with a preface by Montagu Fordham (P. S. King & Son, is.), + which outlines a practical scheme on this basis. diff --git a/src/christianity-patriotism.md b/src/christianity-patriotism.md index 5368727..a10da7b 100644 --- a/src/christianity-patriotism.md +++ b/src/christianity-patriotism.md @@ -1,197 +1,171 @@ # -The Franco-Russian celebrations which took place in France, -in the month of October of last year, provoked in me, as no -doubt in many other people, at first a feeling of amusement, -then of perplexity, and at last of indignation, which I -intended to express in a short article in a periodical; but, -the more I dwelt on the chief causes of this strange -phenomenon, the more did I arrive at the considerations -which I now offer to my readers. +The Franco-Russian celebrations which took place in France, in the month +of October of last year, provoked in me, as no doubt in many other +people, at first a feeling of amusement, then of perplexity, and at last +of indignation, which I intended to express in a short article in a +periodical; but, the more I dwelt on the chief causes of this strange +phenomenon, the more did I arrive at the considerations which I now +offer to my readers. # I -Russians and Frenchmen have lived for many centuries, -knowing one another, entering with one another at times into -friendly, more often, I am sorry to say, into very hostile -relations, which have been provoked by their governments; -suddenly, because two years ago a French squadron arrived at -Kronstadt, and the officers of the squadron, upon landing, -ate and drank a lot of wine in various places, hearing and -uttering upon these occasions many lying and stupid words, -and because, in the year 1893, a similar Russian squadron -arrived at Toulon, and the officers of the Russian squadron -ate and drank a lot in Paris, hearing and uttering upon that -occasion more lying and stupid words than before, it -happened that not only the men who ate, drank, and talked, -but even those who were present, and even those who were not -present, but only heard and read of it in newspapers, all -these millions of Russians and Frenchmen suddenly imagined -that they somehow were particularly in love with one -another, that is, that all the French loved all the -Russians, and all the Russians loved all the French. - -These sentiments were last October expressed in France in a -most unusual manner. - -Here is the way the reception of the Russian sailors is -described in the *Rural Messenger*, a newspaper which -collects its information from all the others: - -"At the meeting of the Russian and French vessels, both, -besides the salvos of guns, greeted one another with hearty, -ecstatic shouts, 'Hurrah,' 'Long live Russia,' 'Long live +Russians and Frenchmen have lived for many centuries, knowing one +another, entering with one another at times into friendly, more often, I +am sorry to say, into very hostile relations, which have been provoked +by their governments; suddenly, because two years ago a French squadron +arrived at Kronstadt, and the officers of the squadron, upon landing, +ate and drank a lot of wine in various places, hearing and uttering upon +these occasions many lying and stupid words, and because, in the year +1893, a similar Russian squadron arrived at Toulon, and the officers of +the Russian squadron ate and drank a lot in Paris, hearing and uttering +upon that occasion more lying and stupid words than before, it happened +that not only the men who ate, drank, and talked, but even those who +were present, and even those who were not present, but only heard and +read of it in newspapers, all these millions of Russians and Frenchmen +suddenly imagined that they somehow were particularly in love with one +another, that is, that all the French loved all the Russians, and all +the Russians loved all the French. + +These sentiments were last October expressed in France in a most unusual +manner. + +Here is the way the reception of the Russian sailors is described in the +*Rural Messenger*, a newspaper which collects its information from all +the others: + +"At the meeting of the Russian and French vessels, both, besides the +salvos of guns, greeted one another with hearty, ecstatic shouts, +'Hurrah,' 'Long live Russia,' 'Long live France!' + +"These were joined by bands of music (which came on many private +steamers), playing the Russian hymn, 'God save the Tsar,' and the French +Marseillaise; the public on the private vessels waved their hats, flags, +handkerchiefs, and bouquets; on many barques there were peasants with +their wives and children, and they all had bouquets in their hands, and +even the children waved the bouquets and shouted at the top of their +voices, '*Vive la Russie!*' Our sailors, upon seeing such national +transport, were unable to restrain their tears... + +"In the harbour all the ships-of-war which were then at Toulon were +drawn out in two lines, and our squadron passed between them; in front +was the ironclad of the admiralty, and this was followed by the rest. +There ensued a most solemn minute. + +" On the Russian ironclad, fifteen salvos were fired in honour of the +French squadron, and a French ironclad replied with double the number, +with thirty salvos. From the French vessels thundered the sounds of the +Russian hymn. The French sailors climbed up on the sail-yards and masts; +loud exclamations of greeting proceeded uninterruptedly from the two +squadrons and from the private vessels; the caps of the sailors, the +hats and handkerchiefs of the public,---all were thrown up triumphantly +in honour of the dear guests. On all sides, on the water and on the +shore, there boomed one common call, 'Long live Russia! Long live France!' -"These were joined by bands of music (which came on many -private steamers), playing the Russian hymn, 'God save the -Tsar,' and the French Marseillaise; the public on the -private vessels waved their hats, flags, handkerchiefs, and -bouquets; on many barques there were peasants with their -wives and children, and they all had bouquets in their -hands, and even the children waved the bouquets and shouted -at the top of their voices, '*Vive la Russie!*' Our sailors, -upon seeing such national transport, were unable to restrain -their tears... - -"In the harbour all the ships-of-war which were then at -Toulon were drawn out in two lines, and our squadron passed -between them; in front was the ironclad of the admiralty, -and this was followed by the rest. There ensued a most -solemn minute. - -" On the Russian ironclad, fifteen salvos were fired in -honour of the French squadron, and a French ironclad replied -with double the number, with thirty salvos. From the French -vessels thundered the sounds of the Russian hymn. The French -sailors climbed up on the sail-yards and masts; loud -exclamations of greeting proceeded uninterruptedly from the -two squadrons and from the private vessels; the caps of the -sailors, the hats and handkerchiefs of the public,---all -were thrown up triumphantly in honour of the dear guests. On -all sides, on the water and on the shore, there boomed one -common call, 'Long live Russia! Long live France!' - -"In conformity with naval law, Admiral Avelan and the -officers of his staff landed, in order to greet the local -authorities. On the quay the Russian sailors were met by the -chief marine staff of France and the superior officers of -the port of Toulon. There ensued a universal friendly -hand-shaking, accompanied by the boom of cannon and the -ringing of bells. A band of marine music played the hymn -'God save the Tsar,' drowned by the thunderous shouts of the -public, 'Long live the Tsar! Long live Russia!' These -exclamations blended into one mighty sound, which drowned -the music and the salvos from the guns. - -"Eye-witnesses declare that at this moment the enthusiasm -of the innumerable mass of people reached its highest -limits, and that it is impossible to express in words with -what sensations the hearts of all those present were filled. -Admiral Avelan, with bared head, and accompanied by Russian -and French officers, directed his steps to the building of -the Marine Office, where the French minister of marine was +"In conformity with naval law, Admiral Avelan and the officers of his +staff landed, in order to greet the local authorities. On the quay the +Russian sailors were met by the chief marine staff of France and the +superior officers of the port of Toulon. There ensued a universal +friendly hand-shaking, accompanied by the boom of cannon and the ringing +of bells. A band of marine music played the hymn 'God save the Tsar,' +drowned by the thunderous shouts of the public, 'Long live the Tsar! +Long live Russia!' These exclamations blended into one mighty sound, +which drowned the music and the salvos from the guns. + +"Eye-witnesses declare that at this moment the enthusiasm of the +innumerable mass of people reached its highest limits, and that it is +impossible to express in words with what sensations the hearts of all +those present were filled. Admiral Avelan, with bared head, and +accompanied by Russian and French officers, directed his steps to the +building of the Marine Office, where the French minister of marine was waiting for him. -"In receiving the admiral, the minister said: 'Kronstadt -and Toulon are two places which bear witness to the sympathy -between the Russian and the French nations; you will -everywhere be met as dear friends. The government and all of -France welcome you upon your arrival and that of your -companions, who represent a great and noble nation.' +"In receiving the admiral, the minister said: 'Kronstadt and Toulon are +two places which bear witness to the sympathy between the Russian and +the French nations; you will everywhere be met as dear friends. The +government and all of France welcome you upon your arrival and that of +your companions, who represent a great and noble nation.' -"The admiral replied that he was not able to express all -his gratitude. The Russian squadron and all of Russia,' he -said, 'will remember the reception you have given us.' +"The admiral replied that he was not able to express all his gratitude. +The Russian squadron and all of Russia,' he said, 'will remember the +reception you have given us.' -"After a short conversation, the admiral, saying goodbye to -the minister, a second time thanked him for the reception, -and added, 'I do not want to part from you before -pronouncing those words which are imprinted in all Russian -hearts: "Long live France!"'" (*Rural Messenger*, 1893, -No. 41.) +"After a short conversation, the admiral, saying goodbye to the +minister, a second time thanked him for the reception, and added, 'I do +not want to part from you before pronouncing those words which are +imprinted in all Russian hearts: "Long live France!"'" (*Rural +Messenger*, 1893, No. 41.) Such was the meeting at Toulon. In Paris the meeting and the celebrations were more remarkable still. -Here is the way the meeting in Paris was described in the -newspapers: "All eyes were directed to the Boulevard des -Italiens, whence the Russian sailors were to appear. Finally -the boom of a whole hurricane of exclamations and applauses -is heard in the distance. The boom grows stronger and more -audible. The hurricane is apparently approaching. A mighty -motion takes place on the square. Policemen rush forward to -clear a path toward the Cercle Militaire, but this is by no -means an easy task. There is an incredible crush and -pressure in the crowd... Finally the head of the procession -appears in the square. At the same moment a deafening shout, -'*Vive la Russie! Vive les Russes!*' rises over it. All bare -their heads, the public, packed close in the windows, on the -balconies, perched even on the roofs, wave handkerchiefs, -flags, and hats, applaud madly, and from the windows of the -upper stories throw clouds of small many-coloured cockades. -A whole sea of handkerchiefs, hats, and flags surges above -the heads of the crowd in the square: '*Vive la Russie! Vive -les Russes!*' shouts this mass of one hundred thousand -people, trying to get a look at the dear guests, extending -their hands to them, and in every way expressing their -sympathies" (*New Time*). - -Another correspondent writes that the transport of the crowd -bordered on delirium. A Russian publicist, who was in Paris -at that time, describes this entrance of the sailors in the -following manner: "They tell the truth,---it was an incident -of world-wide import, wondrous, touching, soul-stirring, -making the heart quiver with that love which discerns the -brothers in men, and which detests bloodshed and concomitant -acts of violence, the tearing away of the children from -their beloved mother. I have been in some kind of an -intoxication for several hours. I felt so strange, and even -so weak, as I stood at the station of the Lyons Railway, -among the representatives of the French administration in -their gold-embroidered uniforms, among the members of the -municipality in full dress, and heard the shouts, '*Vive la -Russie! Vive le Czar!*' and our national hymn, which was -played several times in succession. Where am I? What has -happened? What magic stream has united all this into one -feeling, into one mind? Does one not feel here the presence -of the God of love and brotherhood, the presence of -something higher, something ideal, which descends upon men -only in lofty moments? The heart is so full of something -beautiful and pure and exalted, that the pen is not able to -express it all. Words pale before what I saw, what I felt. -It is not transport,---the word is too banal,---it is -something better than transport. It is more picturesque, -profounder, more joyous, more varied. It is impossible to -describe what happened at the Cercle Militaire, when Admiral -Avelan appeared on the balcony of a second story. Words will -not tell anything here. During the Te Deum, when the -choristers sang in the church 'Save, O Lord, thy people,' -there burst through the open door the solemn sounds of the -Marseillaise, which was played in the street by an orchestra -of wind-instruments. There was something astounding and -inexpressible in the impression conveyed" (*New Time*, -October, 1893). +Here is the way the meeting in Paris was described in the newspapers: +"All eyes were directed to the Boulevard des Italiens, whence the +Russian sailors were to appear. Finally the boom of a whole hurricane of +exclamations and applauses is heard in the distance. The boom grows +stronger and more audible. The hurricane is apparently approaching. A +mighty motion takes place on the square. Policemen rush forward to clear +a path toward the Cercle Militaire, but this is by no means an easy +task. There is an incredible crush and pressure in the crowd... Finally +the head of the procession appears in the square. At the same moment a +deafening shout, '*Vive la Russie! Vive les Russes!*' rises over it. All +bare their heads, the public, packed close in the windows, on the +balconies, perched even on the roofs, wave handkerchiefs, flags, and +hats, applaud madly, and from the windows of the upper stories throw +clouds of small many-coloured cockades. A whole sea of handkerchiefs, +hats, and flags surges above the heads of the crowd in the square: +'*Vive la Russie! Vive les Russes!*' shouts this mass of one hundred +thousand people, trying to get a look at the dear guests, extending +their hands to them, and in every way expressing their sympathies" (*New +Time*). + +Another correspondent writes that the transport of the crowd bordered on +delirium. A Russian publicist, who was in Paris at that time, describes +this entrance of the sailors in the following manner: "They tell the +truth,---it was an incident of world-wide import, wondrous, touching, +soul-stirring, making the heart quiver with that love which discerns the +brothers in men, and which detests bloodshed and concomitant acts of +violence, the tearing away of the children from their beloved mother. I +have been in some kind of an intoxication for several hours. I felt so +strange, and even so weak, as I stood at the station of the Lyons +Railway, among the representatives of the French administration in their +gold-embroidered uniforms, among the members of the municipality in full +dress, and heard the shouts, '*Vive la Russie! Vive le Czar!*' and our +national hymn, which was played several times in succession. Where am I? +What has happened? What magic stream has united all this into one +feeling, into one mind? Does one not feel here the presence of the God +of love and brotherhood, the presence of something higher, something +ideal, which descends upon men only in lofty moments? The heart is so +full of something beautiful and pure and exalted, that the pen is not +able to express it all. Words pale before what I saw, what I felt. It is +not transport,---the word is too banal,---it is something better than +transport. It is more picturesque, profounder, more joyous, more varied. +It is impossible to describe what happened at the Cercle Militaire, when +Admiral Avelan appeared on the balcony of a second story. Words will not +tell anything here. During the Te Deum, when the choristers sang in the +church 'Save, O Lord, thy people,' there burst through the open door the +solemn sounds of the Marseillaise, which was played in the street by an +orchestra of wind-instruments. There was something astounding and +inexpressible in the impression conveyed" (*New Time*, October, 1893). # II -After arriving in France, the Russian sailors for two weeks -went from one celebration to another, and in the middle or -at the end of every celebration they ate, drank, and talked; -and the information as to what they ate and drank on -Wednesday and where and what on Friday, and what was said -upon that occasion, was wired home and conveyed to the whole -of Russia. The moment some Russian captain drank the health -of France, this at once became known to the whole world, and -the moment the Russian admiral said, "I drink to fair -France!" these words were immediately borne over the whole -world. But more than that: the scrupulousness of the -newspapers was such that they reported not only the toasts, -but even many dinners, with the cakes and appetizers which -were used at these dinners. - -Thus it said in one issue of a newspaper that the dinner was -"an artistic production:" +After arriving in France, the Russian sailors for two weeks went from +one celebration to another, and in the middle or at the end of every +celebration they ate, drank, and talked; and the information as to what +they ate and drank on Wednesday and where and what on Friday, and what +was said upon that occasion, was wired home and conveyed to the whole of +Russia. The moment some Russian captain drank the health of France, this +at once became known to the whole world, and the moment the Russian +admiral said, "I drink to fair France!" these words were immediately +borne over the whole world. But more than that: the scrupulousness of +the newspapers was such that they reported not only the toasts, but even +many dinners, with the cakes and appetizers which were used at these +dinners. + +Thus it said in one issue of a newspaper that the dinner was "an +artistic production:" >  Consommé de volailles, petits pâtés > @@ -215,8 +189,8 @@ Thus it said in one issue of a newspaper that the dinner was In the next number it said: -"In a culinary sense the dinner left nothing to be desired. -The menu consisted of the following: +"In a culinary sense the dinner left nothing to be desired. The menu +consisted of the following: >  Potage livonien et St. Germain > @@ -228,2313 +202,1975 @@ The menu consisted of the following: and so forth. -The next number described another menu. With every menu a -detailed description was given of the wines which the feted -men consumed,---such and such "voodka" such and such -*Bourgogne vieux*, *Grand Moët*, and so forth. In an English -paper there was an account of all the intoxicants consumed -by the celebrators. This amount is so enormous that it is -doubtful if all the drunkards of Russia and of France could -have drunk so much in so short a time. - -They reported also the speeches which were made by the -celebrators, but the menus were more varied than the -speeches. The speeches consisted invariably of the same -words in all kinds of combinations and permutations. The -meaning of these words was always one and the same: "We love -one another tenderly, we are in transport, because we have -so suddenly fallen in love with one another. Our aim is not -war and not *revanche*, and not the return of provinces -taken, but only *peace*, the benefaction of *peace*, the -security of *peace*, the rest and *peace* of Europe. Long -live the Emperor of Russia and the empress,---we love them -and we love *peace*. Long live the president of the republic -and his wife,---we love them, too, and we love *peace*. Long -live France, Russia, their fleets, and their armies. We love -the army, too, and *peace*, and the chief of the squadron." -The speeches generally ended, as in couplets, with the -words,"Toulon, Kronstadt," or "Kronstadt, Toulon." And the -names of these places, where so much food was eaten and so -many kinds of wine were consumed, were pronounced like words +The next number described another menu. With every menu a detailed +description was given of the wines which the feted men consumed,---such +and such "voodka" such and such *Bourgogne vieux*, *Grand Moët*, and so +forth. In an English paper there was an account of all the intoxicants +consumed by the celebrators. This amount is so enormous that it is +doubtful if all the drunkards of Russia and of France could have drunk +so much in so short a time. + +They reported also the speeches which were made by the celebrators, but +the menus were more varied than the speeches. The speeches consisted +invariably of the same words in all kinds of combinations and +permutations. The meaning of these words was always one and the same: +"We love one another tenderly, we are in transport, because we have so +suddenly fallen in love with one another. Our aim is not war and not +*revanche*, and not the return of provinces taken, but only *peace*, the +benefaction of *peace*, the security of *peace*, the rest and *peace* of +Europe. Long live the Emperor of Russia and the empress,---we love them +and we love *peace*. Long live the president of the republic and his +wife,---we love them, too, and we love *peace*. Long live France, +Russia, their fleets, and their armies. We love the army, too, and +*peace*, and the chief of the squadron." The speeches generally ended, +as in couplets, with the words,"Toulon, Kronstadt," or "Kronstadt, +Toulon." And the names of these places, where so much food was eaten and +so many kinds of wine were consumed, were pronounced like words reminding one of the loftiest, most valorous of acts of the -representatives of both nations, words after which there was -nothing else to be said, because everything was -comprehensible. "We love one another, and we love peace. -Kronstadt, Toulon!"What else can be added to this? -Especially with the accompaniment of solemn music, playing -simultaneously two hymns, one---praising the Tsar and asking -God for all kinds of benefactions for him, and the -other---cursing all kings and promising their ruin. - -The men who expressed their sentiments of love particularly -well received decorations and reward; other men for the same -services, or simply out of a superabundance of feelings, -were given the strangest and most unexpected -presents,---thus the Emperor of Russia received from the -French squadron some kind of a golden book, in which, I -think, nothing was written, and if there was, it was -something that nobody needed to know, and the chief of the -Russian squadron received, among other presents, a still -more remarkable object, an aluminum plough, covered with -flowers, and many other just as unexpected presents. - -Besides, all these strange acts were accompanied by still -stranger religious ceremonies and public prayers, which, it -would seem, the French had long ago outlived. Since the days -of the Concordat there had hardly been offered so many -prayers as in that short time. All the French suddenly -became unusually pious, and carefully hung up in the rooms -of the Russian sailors those very images which they had just -as carefully removed from their schools, as being harmful -tools of superstition, and they kept praying all the time. -Cardinals and bishops everywhere prescribed prayers, and -themselves prayed, uttering the strangest prayers. Thus the -Bishop of Toulon at the launching of the ironclad -*Joriguiberi* prayed to the God of peace, making people -feel, however, that, if it came to a pinch, he could address -also the God of war. - -"What her fate will be," said the bishop, in reference to -the ironclad, "God alone knows. No one knows whether she -will belch forth death from her appalling bosom. But if, -invoking now the God of peace, we should later have occasion -to invoke the God of war, we are firmly convinced that the -*Joriguiberi* will go forth side by side with the mighty -boats whose crews have this day entered into such a close -fraternal union with our own. Far from us be such a -prospect, and may the present festivity leave nothing but a -peaceful recollection, like the recollection of the *Grand -Duke Constantine*, which was present here (in 1857) at the -launching of the ship *Quirinal*, and may the friendship of -France and of Russia make these two nations the guardians of -peace." - -In the meantime tens of thousands of telegrams flew from -Russia to France, and from France to Russia. French women -greeted Russian women. Russian women expressed their -gratitude to the French women. A troupe of Russian actors -greeted some French actors, and the French actors informed -them that they harboured deeply in their hearts the greeting -of the Russian actors. Some Russian candidates for judicial -positions, who served in a Circuit Court of some town or -other, expressed their enthusiasm for the French nation. -General So and So thanked Madame So and So, and Madame So -and So assured General So and So of her sentiments for the -Russian nation; Russian children wrote verses of welcome to -French children, and the French children answered in verse -and in prose; the Russian minister of education assured the -French minister of education of the sentiments of sudden -love for the French, which were experienced by all the -children, scholars, and authors subject to his ministry; -members of a society for the protection of animals expressed -their ardent attachment for the French, and so did the -Council of the City of Kazán. - -The canon of the eparchy of Arras informed his Worship, the -chief priest of the Russian court clergy, that he could -affirm that deep in the hearts of all the French cardinals -and archbishops there was imprinted a love for Russia and -his Majesty Alexander III. and his most august family, and -that the Russian and French clergy professed almost the -selfsame religion and equally honoured the Virgin; to which -his Worship, the chief priest, replied that the prayers of -the French clergy for the most august family re-echoed -joyfully in the hearts of the whole Russian Tsar-loving -family, and that, since the Russian people also worshipped -the Holy Virgin, it could count on France in life and in -death. Almost the same information was vouchsafed by -different generals, telegraph operators, and dealers in -groceries. Everybody congratulated somebody on something and -thanked somebody for something. - -The excitement was so great that the most unusual acts were -committed, but no one observed their unusual character, and -all, on the contrary, approved of them, went into ecstasies -over them, and, as though fearing lest they should be too -late, hastened to commit similar acts, so as not to fall -behind the rest. If protests were expressed in words and in -writing and in printing against these mad acts, pointing out -their irrationality, such protests were concealed or -squelched. - -Thus I know of the following protest of students, sent to -Paris, which was not accepted by a single newspaper: +representatives of both nations, words after which there was nothing +else to be said, because everything was comprehensible. "We love one +another, and we love peace. Kronstadt, Toulon!"What else can be added to +this? Especially with the accompaniment of solemn music, playing +simultaneously two hymns, one---praising the Tsar and asking God for all +kinds of benefactions for him, and the other---cursing all kings and +promising their ruin. + +The men who expressed their sentiments of love particularly well +received decorations and reward; other men for the same services, or +simply out of a superabundance of feelings, were given the strangest and +most unexpected presents,---thus the Emperor of Russia received from the +French squadron some kind of a golden book, in which, I think, nothing +was written, and if there was, it was something that nobody needed to +know, and the chief of the Russian squadron received, among other +presents, a still more remarkable object, an aluminum plough, covered +with flowers, and many other just as unexpected presents. + +Besides, all these strange acts were accompanied by still stranger +religious ceremonies and public prayers, which, it would seem, the +French had long ago outlived. Since the days of the Concordat there had +hardly been offered so many prayers as in that short time. All the +French suddenly became unusually pious, and carefully hung up in the +rooms of the Russian sailors those very images which they had just as +carefully removed from their schools, as being harmful tools of +superstition, and they kept praying all the time. Cardinals and bishops +everywhere prescribed prayers, and themselves prayed, uttering the +strangest prayers. Thus the Bishop of Toulon at the launching of the +ironclad *Joriguiberi* prayed to the God of peace, making people feel, +however, that, if it came to a pinch, he could address also the God of +war. + +"What her fate will be," said the bishop, in reference to the ironclad, +"God alone knows. No one knows whether she will belch forth death from +her appalling bosom. But if, invoking now the God of peace, we should +later have occasion to invoke the God of war, we are firmly convinced +that the *Joriguiberi* will go forth side by side with the mighty boats +whose crews have this day entered into such a close fraternal union with +our own. Far from us be such a prospect, and may the present festivity +leave nothing but a peaceful recollection, like the recollection of the +*Grand Duke Constantine*, which was present here (in 1857) at the +launching of the ship *Quirinal*, and may the friendship of France and +of Russia make these two nations the guardians of peace." + +In the meantime tens of thousands of telegrams flew from Russia to +France, and from France to Russia. French women greeted Russian women. +Russian women expressed their gratitude to the French women. A troupe of +Russian actors greeted some French actors, and the French actors +informed them that they harboured deeply in their hearts the greeting of +the Russian actors. Some Russian candidates for judicial positions, who +served in a Circuit Court of some town or other, expressed their +enthusiasm for the French nation. General So and So thanked Madame So +and So, and Madame So and So assured General So and So of her sentiments +for the Russian nation; Russian children wrote verses of welcome to +French children, and the French children answered in verse and in prose; +the Russian minister of education assured the French minister of +education of the sentiments of sudden love for the French, which were +experienced by all the children, scholars, and authors subject to his +ministry; members of a society for the protection of animals expressed +their ardent attachment for the French, and so did the Council of the +City of Kazán. + +The canon of the eparchy of Arras informed his Worship, the chief priest +of the Russian court clergy, that he could affirm that deep in the +hearts of all the French cardinals and archbishops there was imprinted a +love for Russia and his Majesty Alexander III. and his most august +family, and that the Russian and French clergy professed almost the +selfsame religion and equally honoured the Virgin; to which his Worship, +the chief priest, replied that the prayers of the French clergy for the +most august family re-echoed joyfully in the hearts of the whole Russian +Tsar-loving family, and that, since the Russian people also worshipped +the Holy Virgin, it could count on France in life and in death. Almost +the same information was vouchsafed by different generals, telegraph +operators, and dealers in groceries. Everybody congratulated somebody on +something and thanked somebody for something. + +The excitement was so great that the most unusual acts were committed, +but no one observed their unusual character, and all, on the contrary, +approved of them, went into ecstasies over them, and, as though fearing +lest they should be too late, hastened to commit similar acts, so as not +to fall behind the rest. If protests were expressed in words and in +writing and in printing against these mad acts, pointing out their +irrationality, such protests were concealed or squelched. + +Thus I know of the following protest of students, sent to Paris, which +was not accepted by a single newspaper: >   > -> Lately a group of Moscow students of law, with the -> university authorities at their head, took it upon -> themselves to speak in behalf of all the student body of -> Moscow University in respect to the Toulon festivities. +> Lately a group of Moscow students of law, with the university +> authorities at their head, took it upon themselves to speak in behalf +> of all the student body of Moscow University in respect to the Toulon +> festivities. > -> We, the representatives of the association of student -> societies, protest in the most emphatic manner possible -> both against the arrogation of this group and -> substantially against the exchange of civilities between -> it and the French students. We, too, look with ardent love -> and profound respect upon France, and we do so, because we -> see in it a great nation, which formerly used to appear -> before the whole world as the herald and proclaimer of -> great ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity; and -> which was also the first in the matter of bold endeavour -> for the materialization of these great ideals,---and the -> best part of the Russian youth has always been ready to -> welcome France as the leading champion for the best future -> of humanity; but we do not consider such festivities as -> those of Kronstadt and Toulon a suitable occasion for such -> civilities. +> We, the representatives of the association of student societies, +> protest in the most emphatic manner possible both against the +> arrogation of this group and substantially against the exchange of +> civilities between it and the French students. We, too, look with +> ardent love and profound respect upon France, and we do so, because we +> see in it a great nation, which formerly used to appear before the +> whole world as the herald and proclaimer of great ideals of liberty, +> equality, and fraternity; and which was also the first in the matter +> of bold endeavour for the materialization of these great ideals,---and +> the best part of the Russian youth has always been ready to welcome +> France as the leading champion for the best future of humanity; but we +> do not consider such festivities as those of Kronstadt and Toulon a +> suitable occasion for such civilities. > -> On the contrary, these festivities signal a sad but, let -> us hope, temporary phenomenon,---the disloyalty of France -> to its former great historic role: the country, which once -> called the whole world to break the fetters of despotism -> and offered its fraternal aid to every nation that -> revolted for the sake of its freedom, now burns incense -> before the Russian government, which systematically trigs -> the normal, organic, and vital growth of the national -> life, and mercilessly crushes, without stopping at -> anything, all the strivings of Russian society toward the -> light, toward freedom, and toward independence. The Toulon -> manifestations are one of the acts of that drama which is -> presented by the antagonism---the creation of Napoleon III -> and Bismarck---between two great nations, France and -> Germany. This antagonism keeps all of Europe under arms, -> and makes the Russian absolutism, which has always been -> the stay of despotism and arbitrariness against freedom, -> of the exploiters against the exploited, the executor of -> the political destinies of the world. A sensation of -> anguish for our country, of pity for the blindness of a -> considerable part of French society, such are the -> sensations evoked in us by these festivities. +> On the contrary, these festivities signal a sad but, let us hope, +> temporary phenomenon,---the disloyalty of France to its former great +> historic role: the country, which once called the whole world to break +> the fetters of despotism and offered its fraternal aid to every nation +> that revolted for the sake of its freedom, now burns incense before +> the Russian government, which systematically trigs the normal, +> organic, and vital growth of the national life, and mercilessly +> crushes, without stopping at anything, all the strivings of Russian +> society toward the light, toward freedom, and toward independence. The +> Toulon manifestations are one of the acts of that drama which is +> presented by the antagonism---the creation of Napoleon III and +> Bismarck---between two great nations, France and Germany. This +> antagonism keeps all of Europe under arms, and makes the Russian +> absolutism, which has always been the stay of despotism and +> arbitrariness against freedom, of the exploiters against the +> exploited, the executor of the political destinies of the world. A +> sensation of anguish for our country, of pity for the blindness of a +> considerable part of French society, such are the sensations evoked in +> us by these festivities. > -> We are fully convinced that the young generation of France -> will not be carried away by the national Chauvinism, and -> that, prepared to struggle for that better social -> structure toward which humanity is marching, it will know -> how to render to itself an account of the present events -> and to take the proper stand about them; we hope that our -> fervent protest will find a sympathetic echo in the hearts -> of the French youth. +> We are fully convinced that the young generation of France will not be +> carried away by the national Chauvinism, and that, prepared to +> struggle for that better social structure toward which humanity is +> marching, it will know how to render to itself an account of the +> present events and to take the proper stand about them; we hope that +> our fervent protest will find a sympathetic echo in the hearts of the +> French youth. > -> The union council of twenty-four united Moscow student -> societies." - -To say nothing of all the millions of work-days which were -wasted on these festivities, of the wholesale drunkenness of -all the participants, which was encouraged by all the -powers, to say nothing of the insipidity of the speeches -made, the maddest and most cruel things were done, and no -one paid any attention to them. - -Thus several dozens of men were crushed to death, and no one -found it necessary to mention this fact. One correspondent -wrote that a Frenchman told him at a ball that now there -could hardly be found a woman in Paris who would not be -false to her duties, in order to satisfy the wishes of some -Russian sailor---and all this passed by unnoticed, as -something that ought to be. There occurred cases of distinct -madness. Thus one woman, dressing herself in a garment of -the colours of the Franco-Russian flags, waited for the -sailors and, exclaiming, "*Vive la Russie!*" jumped from the -bridge into the river and was drowned. - -Women in general played in these festivities a prominent -part and even guided the men. Besides throwing flowers and -all kinds of ribbons, and offering presents and addresses, -French women made for the Russian sailors and kissed them; -some of them for some reason brought their children to them, -to be kissed by them, and when the Russian sailors complied -with their wish, all persons present went into ecstasies and +> The union council of twenty-four united Moscow student societies." + +To say nothing of all the millions of work-days which were wasted on +these festivities, of the wholesale drunkenness of all the participants, +which was encouraged by all the powers, to say nothing of the insipidity +of the speeches made, the maddest and most cruel things were done, and +no one paid any attention to them. + +Thus several dozens of men were crushed to death, and no one found it +necessary to mention this fact. One correspondent wrote that a Frenchman +told him at a ball that now there could hardly be found a woman in Paris +who would not be false to her duties, in order to satisfy the wishes of +some Russian sailor---and all this passed by unnoticed, as something +that ought to be. There occurred cases of distinct madness. Thus one +woman, dressing herself in a garment of the colours of the +Franco-Russian flags, waited for the sailors and, exclaiming, "*Vive la +Russie!*" jumped from the bridge into the river and was drowned. + +Women in general played in these festivities a prominent part and even +guided the men. Besides throwing flowers and all kinds of ribbons, and +offering presents and addresses, French women made for the Russian +sailors and kissed them; some of them for some reason brought their +children to them, to be kissed by them, and when the Russian sailors +complied with their wish, all persons present went into ecstasies and wept. -This strange excitement was so infectious that, as one -correspondent tells, an apparently absolutely sound Russian -sailor, after two days of contemplation of what took place -around him, in the middle of the day jumped from the ship -into the sea and, swimming, shouted, "*Vive la France!*" -When he was taken aboard and asked why he had done so, he -replied that he had made a vow that in honour of France he -would swim around the ship. - -Thus the undisturbed excitement grew and grew, like a ball -of rolling wet snow, and finally reached such dimensions -that not only the persons present, not only predisposed, -weak-nerved, but even strong, normal men fell a prey to the -general mood and became abnormally affected. - -I remember how I, absent-mindedly reading one of these -descriptions of the solemnity of the reception of the -sailors, suddenly felt a feeling, akin to meekness of -spirit, even a readiness for tears, communicated to me, so -that I had to make an effort to overcome this feeling. +This strange excitement was so infectious that, as one correspondent +tells, an apparently absolutely sound Russian sailor, after two days of +contemplation of what took place around him, in the middle of the day +jumped from the ship into the sea and, swimming, shouted, "*Vive la +France!*" When he was taken aboard and asked why he had done so, he +replied that he had made a vow that in honour of France he would swim +around the ship. + +Thus the undisturbed excitement grew and grew, like a ball of rolling +wet snow, and finally reached such dimensions that not only the persons +present, not only predisposed, weak-nerved, but even strong, normal men +fell a prey to the general mood and became abnormally affected. + +I remember how I, absent-mindedly reading one of these descriptions of +the solemnity of the reception of the sailors, suddenly felt a feeling, +akin to meekness of spirit, even a readiness for tears, communicated to +me, so that I had to make an effort to overcome this feeling. # III -Lately Sikórski, a professor of psychiatry, described in the -*Kiev University Record* the psychopathic epidemic, as he -calls it, of the Malévannians, as manifested in a few -villages of Vasilkóv County of the Government of Kiev. The -essence of this epidemic, as Mr. Sikórski, the investigator -of it, says, consisted in this, that certain persons of -these villages, under the influence of their leader, by the -name of Malévanny, came to imagine that the end of the world -was at hand, and so, changing their whole mode of life, -began to distribute their property, to dress up, and to eat -savoury food, and stopped working. The professor found the -condition of these men to be abnormal. He says: "Their -unusual good nature frequently passed into exaltation, a -joyous condition, which was devoid of external motives. They -were sentimentally disposed: excessively polite, talkative, -mobile, with tears of joy appearing easily and just as -easily disappearing. They sold their necessaries, in order -to provide themselves with umbrellas, silk kerchiefs, and -similar objects, and at that the kerchiefs served them only -as ornaments for their toilet. They ate many sweet things. -They were always in a cheerful mood, and they led an idle -life,---visited one another, walked together... When the -obviously absurd character of their refusal to work was -pointed out to them, one every time heard in reply the -stereotyped phrase, 'If I want to, I shall work, and if I do -not want to, why should I compel myself?'" - -The learned professor considers the condition of these men a -pronounced case of a psychopathic epidemic, and, advising -the government to take certain measures against its spread, -ends his communication with the words: "Malévannism is the -wail of a morbidly sick population and a supplication to be -freed from liquor and to have education and sanitary +Lately Sikórski, a professor of psychiatry, described in the *Kiev +University Record* the psychopathic epidemic, as he calls it, of the +Malévannians, as manifested in a few villages of Vasilkóv County of the +Government of Kiev. The essence of this epidemic, as Mr. Sikórski, the +investigator of it, says, consisted in this, that certain persons of +these villages, under the influence of their leader, by the name of +Malévanny, came to imagine that the end of the world was at hand, and +so, changing their whole mode of life, began to distribute their +property, to dress up, and to eat savoury food, and stopped working. The +professor found the condition of these men to be abnormal. He says: +"Their unusual good nature frequently passed into exaltation, a joyous +condition, which was devoid of external motives. They were sentimentally +disposed: excessively polite, talkative, mobile, with tears of joy +appearing easily and just as easily disappearing. They sold their +necessaries, in order to provide themselves with umbrellas, silk +kerchiefs, and similar objects, and at that the kerchiefs served them +only as ornaments for their toilet. They ate many sweet things. They +were always in a cheerful mood, and they led an idle life,---visited one +another, walked together... When the obviously absurd character of their +refusal to work was pointed out to them, one every time heard in reply +the stereotyped phrase, 'If I want to, I shall work, and if I do not +want to, why should I compel myself?'" + +The learned professor considers the condition of these men a pronounced +case of a psychopathic epidemic, and, advising the government to take +certain measures against its spread, ends his communication with the +words: "Malévannism is the wail of a morbidly sick population and a +supplication to be freed from liquor and to have education and sanitary conditions improved." -But if Malevannism is the wail of a morbidly sick population -and a supplication to be freed from liquor and from harmful -social conditions, then this new disease, which has appeared -in Paris and has with alarming rapidity embraced a great -part of the city population of France and almost the whole -of governmental and cultured Russia, is just such an -alarming wail of a morbid population and just such a -supplication to be freed from liquor and from false social -conditions. - -And if we must admit that the psychopathic suffering of -Malevannism is dangerous, and that the government has done -well to follow the professor's advice and remove the leaders -of Malevannism by confining some of them in lunatic asylums -and monasteries and by deporting others to distant places, -how much more dangerous must be considered to be this new -epidemic, which appeared in Toulon and Paris and from there -spread over the whole of France and of Russia, and how much -more necessary it is, if not for the government, at least -for society, to take decisive measures against the spread of -such epidemics! - -The resemblance between the diseases is complete. There is -the same good nature, passing into causeless and joyful -exaltation, the same sentimentality, excessive politeness, -talkativeness, the same constant tears of meekness of -spirit, which come and go without cause, the same festive -mood, the same walking for pleasure and visiting one -another, the same dressing up in the best clothes, the same -proneness for sweet food, the same senseless talks, the same -idleness, the same singing and music, the same leadership of -the women, and the same clownish phase of *attitudes -passionnelles*, which Mr. Sikórski has noticed in the case -of the Malévannians; that is, as I understand this word, -those different, unnatural poses, which men assume during -solemn meetings, receptions, and after-dinner speeches. - -The resemblance is complete. The only difference is -this,---and the difference is very great for the society in -which these phenomena are taking place,---that there it is -the aberration of a few dozen peaceful, poor village people, -who live on their small means and, therefore, cannot exert -any violence on their neighbours, and who infect others only -by the personal and oral transmission of their mood, while -here it is the aberration of millions of people, who possess -enormous sums of money and means for exerting violence -against other people,---guns, bayonets, fortresses, -ironclads, melinite, dynamite, and who, besides, have at -their command the most energetic means for the dissemination -of their madness, the post, the telegraph, an enormous -number of newspapers, and all kinds of publications, which -are printed without cessation and carry the infection to all -the corners of the globe. There is also this difference, -that the first not only do not get themselves drunk, but -even do not use any intoxicating liquor, while the second -are constantly in a state of semi-intoxication, which they -never stop maintaining in themselves. And so for a society -in which these phenomena are taking place, there is the same -difference between the Kíev epidemic, during which, -according to Mr. Sikorski's information, it does not appear -that they commit any violence or murders, and the one which -made its appearance in Paris, where in one procession twenty -women were crushed to death, as there is between a piece of -coal, which has leaped out of the stove and is glowing on -the floor without igniting it, and a fire which is already -enveloping the door and walls of the house. In the worst -case the consequences of the Kíev epidemic will consist in -this, that the peasants of one millionth part of Russia will -spend what they have earned by hard labour, and will be -unable to pay the Crown taxes; but the consequences from the -Toulon-Paris epidemic, which is embracing men who are in -possession of a terrible power, of vast sums of money, and -of implements of violence and of the dissemination of their -madness, can and must be terrible. +But if Malevannism is the wail of a morbidly sick population and a +supplication to be freed from liquor and from harmful social conditions, +then this new disease, which has appeared in Paris and has with alarming +rapidity embraced a great part of the city population of France and +almost the whole of governmental and cultured Russia, is just such an +alarming wail of a morbid population and just such a supplication to be +freed from liquor and from false social conditions. + +And if we must admit that the psychopathic suffering of Malevannism is +dangerous, and that the government has done well to follow the +professor's advice and remove the leaders of Malevannism by confining +some of them in lunatic asylums and monasteries and by deporting others +to distant places, how much more dangerous must be considered to be this +new epidemic, which appeared in Toulon and Paris and from there spread +over the whole of France and of Russia, and how much more necessary it +is, if not for the government, at least for society, to take decisive +measures against the spread of such epidemics! + +The resemblance between the diseases is complete. There is the same good +nature, passing into causeless and joyful exaltation, the same +sentimentality, excessive politeness, talkativeness, the same constant +tears of meekness of spirit, which come and go without cause, the same +festive mood, the same walking for pleasure and visiting one another, +the same dressing up in the best clothes, the same proneness for sweet +food, the same senseless talks, the same idleness, the same singing and +music, the same leadership of the women, and the same clownish phase of +*attitudes passionnelles*, which Mr. Sikórski has noticed in the case of +the Malévannians; that is, as I understand this word, those different, +unnatural poses, which men assume during solemn meetings, receptions, +and after-dinner speeches. + +The resemblance is complete. The only difference is this,---and the +difference is very great for the society in which these phenomena are +taking place,---that there it is the aberration of a few dozen peaceful, +poor village people, who live on their small means and, therefore, +cannot exert any violence on their neighbours, and who infect others +only by the personal and oral transmission of their mood, while here it +is the aberration of millions of people, who possess enormous sums of +money and means for exerting violence against other people,---guns, +bayonets, fortresses, ironclads, melinite, dynamite, and who, besides, +have at their command the most energetic means for the dissemination of +their madness, the post, the telegraph, an enormous number of +newspapers, and all kinds of publications, which are printed without +cessation and carry the infection to all the corners of the globe. There +is also this difference, that the first not only do not get themselves +drunk, but even do not use any intoxicating liquor, while the second are +constantly in a state of semi-intoxication, which they never stop +maintaining in themselves. And so for a society in which these phenomena +are taking place, there is the same difference between the Kíev +epidemic, during which, according to Mr. Sikorski's information, it does +not appear that they commit any violence or murders, and the one which +made its appearance in Paris, where in one procession twenty women were +crushed to death, as there is between a piece of coal, which has leaped +out of the stove and is glowing on the floor without igniting it, and a +fire which is already enveloping the door and walls of the house. In the +worst case the consequences of the Kíev epidemic will consist in this, +that the peasants of one millionth part of Russia will spend what they +have earned by hard labour, and will be unable to pay the Crown taxes; +but the consequences from the Toulon-Paris epidemic, which is embracing +men who are in possession of a terrible power, of vast sums of money, +and of implements of violence and of the dissemination of their madness, +can and must be terrible. # IV -We can with pity listen to the delirium of a feeble, -defenceless, crazy old man, in his cap and cloak, and even -not contradict him, and even jestingly agree with him; but -when it is a whole crowd of sound insane people, who have -broken away from their confinement, and these people bristle -from head to foot with sharp daggers, swords, and loaded -revolvers, and madly flourish these death-dealing weapons, -we can no longer agree with them, and we cannot be at rest -even for a minute. The same is true of that condition of -excitement, provoked by the French celebrations, in which -Russian and French society finds itself at the present time. - -It is true, in all the speeches, in all the toasts, -pronounced at these celebrations, in all the articles -concerning these celebrations, they never stopped talking of -the importance of everything which was taking place for the -guarantee of peace. Even the advocates of war did not speak -of hatred of those who snatch away provinces, but of some -kind of a love which somehow hates. - -But we know of the slyness of all men who are mentally -diseased, and it is this most persistent repetition of our -not wanting war, but peace, and the reticence regarding that -of which all think, that form a most menacing phenomenon. - -In answering a toast at a dinner given in the Palace of the -Élysées, the Russian ambassador said: "Before drinking a -toast to which will respond from the depth of their hearts, -not only those who are within these walls, but even -those---and, that, too, with equal force---whose hearts near -by and far away, at all the points of great, fair France, as -also in all of Russia, at the present moment are beating in -unison with ours,---permit me to offer to you the expression -of our profoundest gratitude for the words of welcome which -were addressed by you to our admiral, whom our Tsar has -charged with the mission of paying back your visit at -Kronstadt. Considering the high importance which you enjoy, -your words characterize the true significance of the -magnificent *peaceful* festivities, which are celebrated -with such wonderful unanimity, loyalty, and sincerity." - -The same unjustifiable mention of peace is found in the -speech of the French president: "The ties of love, which -unite Russia and France," he said, "and which two years ago -were strengthened by touching manifestations, of which our -fleet was the object at Kronstadt, become tighter and -tighter with every day, and the honourable exchange of our -amicable sentiments must inspire all those who take to heart -the benefactions of peace, confidence, and security," and so -forth. - -Both speeches quite unexpectedly and without any cause refer -to the benefactions of peace and to peaceful celebrations. - -The same occurs in the telegrams which were exchanged -between the Emperor of Russia and the President of France. -The Emperor of Russia telegraphed: - -"*Au moment oil l'escadre russe quitte la France, it me -tient a coeur de vous exprimer combien je suis touche et -reconnaissant de I'accueil chaleureux et splendide, que mes -marins out trouve partout sur le sol français. Les -témoignages de vive sympathie qui se sont manifestos encore -une fois avec tant d'eloquence, joindront un nouveau lien a -ceux qui unissent les deux pays et contribueront, je -l'espère, a l'affermissement de la paix generale, objet de -leurs efforts et de leurs vœux les plus constants*" etc. +We can with pity listen to the delirium of a feeble, defenceless, crazy +old man, in his cap and cloak, and even not contradict him, and even +jestingly agree with him; but when it is a whole crowd of sound insane +people, who have broken away from their confinement, and these people +bristle from head to foot with sharp daggers, swords, and loaded +revolvers, and madly flourish these death-dealing weapons, we can no +longer agree with them, and we cannot be at rest even for a minute. The +same is true of that condition of excitement, provoked by the French +celebrations, in which Russian and French society finds itself at the +present time. + +It is true, in all the speeches, in all the toasts, pronounced at these +celebrations, in all the articles concerning these celebrations, they +never stopped talking of the importance of everything which was taking +place for the guarantee of peace. Even the advocates of war did not +speak of hatred of those who snatch away provinces, but of some kind of +a love which somehow hates. + +But we know of the slyness of all men who are mentally diseased, and it +is this most persistent repetition of our not wanting war, but peace, +and the reticence regarding that of which all think, that form a most +menacing phenomenon. + +In answering a toast at a dinner given in the Palace of the Élysées, the +Russian ambassador said: "Before drinking a toast to which will respond +from the depth of their hearts, not only those who are within these +walls, but even those---and, that, too, with equal force---whose hearts +near by and far away, at all the points of great, fair France, as also +in all of Russia, at the present moment are beating in unison with +ours,---permit me to offer to you the expression of our profoundest +gratitude for the words of welcome which were addressed by you to our +admiral, whom our Tsar has charged with the mission of paying back your +visit at Kronstadt. Considering the high importance which you enjoy, +your words characterize the true significance of the magnificent +*peaceful* festivities, which are celebrated with such wonderful +unanimity, loyalty, and sincerity." + +The same unjustifiable mention of peace is found in the speech of the +French president: "The ties of love, which unite Russia and France," he +said, "and which two years ago were strengthened by touching +manifestations, of which our fleet was the object at Kronstadt, become +tighter and tighter with every day, and the honourable exchange of our +amicable sentiments must inspire all those who take to heart the +benefactions of peace, confidence, and security," and so forth. + +Both speeches quite unexpectedly and without any cause refer to the +benefactions of peace and to peaceful celebrations. + +The same occurs in the telegrams which were exchanged between the +Emperor of Russia and the President of France. The Emperor of Russia +telegraphed: + +"*Au moment oil l'escadre russe quitte la France, it me tient a coeur de +vous exprimer combien je suis touche et reconnaissant de I'accueil +chaleureux et splendide, que mes marins out trouve partout sur le sol +français. Les témoignages de vive sympathie qui se sont manifestos +encore une fois avec tant d'eloquence, joindront un nouveau lien a ceux +qui unissent les deux pays et contribueront, je l'espère, a +l'affermissement de la paix generale, objet de leurs efforts et de leurs +vœux les plus constants*" etc. The President of France in his reply telegraphed as follows: -"*La dépêche dont je remercie votre Majesté m'est parvenue -au moment ou je quittais Toulon pour rentrer a Paris. La -belle escadre sur laquelle fai en la vive satisfaction de -saluer le pavilion russe dans les eaux françaises, l'accueil -cordial et spontané que vos braves marins ont rencontre -partout en France affirment une fois de plus avec eclat les -sympathies sincères qui unissent nos deux pays. Ils marquent -en même temps une foi profonde dans l'influence bienfaisante -que peuvent exercer ensemble deux grandes nations dévouées à -la cause de la paix.*" - -Again there is in both telegrams a gratuitous mention of -peace, which has nothing in common with the celebrations of -the sailors. - -There is not one speech, not one article, in which mention -is not made of this, that the aim of all these past orgies -is the peace of Europe. At a dinner, which is given by the -representatives of the Russian press, everybody speaks of -peace. Mr. Zola, who lately wrote about the necessity and -even usefulness of war, and Mr. Vogue, who more than once -expressed the same idea, do not say one word about war, but -speak only of peace. The meetings of the Chambers are opened -with speeches respecting the past celebrations, and the -orators affirm that these festivities are the declaration of -the peace of Europe. - -It is as though a man, coming into some peaceful society, -should go out of his way on every occasion to assure the -persons present that he has not the slightest intention of -knocking out anybody's teeth, smashing eyes, or breaking -arms, but means only to pass a peaceable evening. "But -nobody has any doubts about that," one feels like saying to -him. " But if you have such base intentions, at least do -not dare speak of them to us." - -In many articles, which were written about these -celebrations, there is even a direct and naive expression of -pleasure, because during the festivities no one gave -utterance to what by tacit consent it had been decided to -conceal from, everybody, and what only one incautious man, -who was immediately removed by the police, dared to shout, -giving expression to the secret thought of all, namely, "*A -bas l'Allemagne!*" Thus children are frequently so happy at -having concealed their naughtiness, that their very joy -gives them away. - -Why should we so rejoice at the fact that no mention was -made of war, if we indeed are not thinking of it? +"*La dépêche dont je remercie votre Majesté m'est parvenue au moment ou +je quittais Toulon pour rentrer a Paris. La belle escadre sur laquelle +fai en la vive satisfaction de saluer le pavilion russe dans les eaux +françaises, l'accueil cordial et spontané que vos braves marins ont +rencontre partout en France affirment une fois de plus avec eclat les +sympathies sincères qui unissent nos deux pays. Ils marquent en même +temps une foi profonde dans l'influence bienfaisante que peuvent exercer +ensemble deux grandes nations dévouées à la cause de la paix.*" + +Again there is in both telegrams a gratuitous mention of peace, which +has nothing in common with the celebrations of the sailors. + +There is not one speech, not one article, in which mention is not made +of this, that the aim of all these past orgies is the peace of Europe. +At a dinner, which is given by the representatives of the Russian press, +everybody speaks of peace. Mr. Zola, who lately wrote about the +necessity and even usefulness of war, and Mr. Vogue, who more than once +expressed the same idea, do not say one word about war, but speak only +of peace. The meetings of the Chambers are opened with speeches +respecting the past celebrations, and the orators affirm that these +festivities are the declaration of the peace of Europe. + +It is as though a man, coming into some peaceful society, should go out +of his way on every occasion to assure the persons present that he has +not the slightest intention of knocking out anybody's teeth, smashing +eyes, or breaking arms, but means only to pass a peaceable evening. "But +nobody has any doubts about that," one feels like saying to him. " But +if you have such base intentions, at least do not dare speak of them to +us." + +In many articles, which were written about these celebrations, there is +even a direct and naive expression of pleasure, because during the +festivities no one gave utterance to what by tacit consent it had been +decided to conceal from, everybody, and what only one incautious man, +who was immediately removed by the police, dared to shout, giving +expression to the secret thought of all, namely, "*A bas l'Allemagne!*" +Thus children are frequently so happy at having concealed their +naughtiness, that their very joy gives them away. + +Why should we so rejoice at the fact that no mention was made of war, if +we indeed are not thinking of it? # V -No one is thinking of war, but yet milliards are wasted on -military preparations, and, millions of men are under arms -in Russia and in France. - -"But all this is being done for the security of peace. *Si -vis pacem, para helium. L'empire c'est la paix, la -république c'est la paix.*" - -But if it is so, why are the military advantages of our -alliance with France in case of a war with Germany -explained, not only in all the periodicals and newspapers -published for the so-called cultured people, but also in the -*Rural Messenger*, a newspaper published by the Russian -government for the masses, by means of which these -unfortunate masses, deceived by the government, are -impressed with this, that " to be friendly with France is -also useful and profitable, because, if, beyond all -expectation, the above-mentioned powers (Germany, Austria, -Italy) should decide to violate the peace with Russia, -Russia, though able with God's aid to protect itself and -handle a very powerful alliance of adversaries, would not -find this to be an easy task, and for a successful struggle -great sacrifices and losses would be needed," and so forth -(*Rural Messenger*, No. 43, 1893). - -And why do they in all the French colleges teach history -from a text-book composed by Mr. Lavisse, twenty-first -edition, 1889, in which the following passage is found: - -"*Depuis que l'insurrection de la Commune a été vaincue, la -France n'a plus été troublée. Au lendemain de la guerre, -elle s'est remise au travail. Elle a payé aux Allemands sans -difficulté l'énorme contribution de guerre de cinq -milliards. Mais la France a perdu sa renommée militaire -pendant la guerre de 1870. Elle a perdu une partie de son -territoire. Plus de quinze cents mille hommes, qui -habitaient nos départements die Haut Rhin, du Bas Rhin et de -la Moselle, et qui étaient de bons Français, ont été obligés -de devenir Allemands. Ils ne sont pas résignés a leur sort. -Ils détestent l'Allemagne; ils espèrent toujours redevenir -Français. Mais l'Allemagne tient a sa conquête, et e'est un -grand pays, dont tous les habitants aiment sincèrement leur -patrie et dont les soldats sont braves et disciplines. Pour -reprendre à l'Allemagne ce qu'elle nous a pris, il faut que -nous soyons de bons citoyens et de bons soldats. C'est pour -que vous deveniez de bons soldats, que vos maitres vous -apprennent l'histoire de la France. L'histoire de la France -montre que dans notre pays les fils ont toujours vengé les -désastres de leurs pères. Les Français du temps de Charles -VII ont vengé leurs pères vaincus à Crécy, à Poitiers, à -Agincourt. C'est à vous, enfants élèves aujourd'hui dans nos -écoles, qu'il appartient de venger vos pères, vaincus à -Sedan et à Metz. C'est votre devoir, le grand devoir de -votre vie. Vous devez y penser toujours,*" etc. - -At the foot of the page there is a whole series of -questions, to correspond to the articles. The questions are -as follows: "What did France lose when she lost part of her -territory? How many Frenchmen became German with the loss of -this territory? Do the French love Germany? What must we do, -in order to regain what was taken away from us by Germany?" -In addition to these there are also "*Réflexions sur le -Livre VII*," in which it says that " the children of France -must remember our defeats of 1870," that "they must feel on -their hearts the burden of this memory," but that "this -memory must not discourage them: it should, on the contrary, -incite them to bravery." - -Thus, if in official speeches peace is mentioned with great -persistency, the masses, the younger generations, yes, all -the Russians and Frenchmen in general, are imperturbably -impressed with the necessity, legality, profitableness, and -even virtue of war. - -"We are not thinking of war,---we are concerned only about -peace." - -One feels like asking "*Qui, diable, trompe-t-on ici?*" if -it were necessary to ask this, and if it were not quite -clear who the unfortunate cheated are. - -The cheated are the same eternally deceived, stupid, -labouring masses, the same who with their callous hands have -built all these ships, and fortresses, and arsenals, and -barracks, and guns, and steamboats, and quays, and moles, -and all these palaces, halls, and platforms, and triumphal -arches; and have set and printed all these newspapers and -books; and have secured and brought all those pheasants, and -ortolans, and oysters, and wines, which are consumed by all -those men, whom they, again, have nurtured and brought up -and sustained,---men who, deceiving the masses, prepare the -most terrible calamities for them; the same good-natured, -stupid masses, who, displaying their sound, white teeth, -have grinned in childish fashion, naively enjoying the sight -of all the dressed-up admirals and presidents, of the flags -fluttering above them, the fireworks, the thundering music, -and who will hardly have time to look around, when there -shall be no longer any admirals, nor presidents, nor flags, -nor music, but there will be only a wet, waste field, -hunger, cold, gloom, in front the slaying enemy, behind the -goading authorities, blood, wounds, sufferings, rotting -corpses, and a senseless, useless death. - -And the men like those who now are celebrating at the -festivities in Toulon and Paris, will be sitting, after a -good dinner, with unfinished glasses of good wine, with a -cigar between their teeth, in a dark cloth tent, and will -with pins mark down the places on the map where so much food -for cannon, composed of the masses, should be left, in order -to seize such and such a fortress, and in order to obtain -such or such a ribbon or promotion. +No one is thinking of war, but yet milliards are wasted on military +preparations, and, millions of men are under arms in Russia and in +France. + +"But all this is being done for the security of peace. *Si vis pacem, +para helium. L'empire c'est la paix, la république c'est la paix.*" + +But if it is so, why are the military advantages of our alliance with +France in case of a war with Germany explained, not only in all the +periodicals and newspapers published for the so-called cultured people, +but also in the *Rural Messenger*, a newspaper published by the Russian +government for the masses, by means of which these unfortunate masses, +deceived by the government, are impressed with this, that " to be +friendly with France is also useful and profitable, because, if, beyond +all expectation, the above-mentioned powers (Germany, Austria, Italy) +should decide to violate the peace with Russia, Russia, though able with +God's aid to protect itself and handle a very powerful alliance of +adversaries, would not find this to be an easy task, and for a +successful struggle great sacrifices and losses would be needed," and so +forth (*Rural Messenger*, No. 43, 1893). + +And why do they in all the French colleges teach history from a +text-book composed by Mr. Lavisse, twenty-first edition, 1889, in which +the following passage is found: + +"*Depuis que l'insurrection de la Commune a été vaincue, la France n'a +plus été troublée. Au lendemain de la guerre, elle s'est remise au +travail. Elle a payé aux Allemands sans difficulté l'énorme contribution +de guerre de cinq milliards. Mais la France a perdu sa renommée +militaire pendant la guerre de 1870. Elle a perdu une partie de son +territoire. Plus de quinze cents mille hommes, qui habitaient nos +départements die Haut Rhin, du Bas Rhin et de la Moselle, et qui étaient +de bons Français, ont été obligés de devenir Allemands. Ils ne sont pas +résignés a leur sort. Ils détestent l'Allemagne; ils espèrent toujours +redevenir Français. Mais l'Allemagne tient a sa conquête, et e'est un +grand pays, dont tous les habitants aiment sincèrement leur patrie et +dont les soldats sont braves et disciplines. Pour reprendre à +l'Allemagne ce qu'elle nous a pris, il faut que nous soyons de bons +citoyens et de bons soldats. C'est pour que vous deveniez de bons +soldats, que vos maitres vous apprennent l'histoire de la France. +L'histoire de la France montre que dans notre pays les fils ont toujours +vengé les désastres de leurs pères. Les Français du temps de Charles VII +ont vengé leurs pères vaincus à Crécy, à Poitiers, à Agincourt. C'est à +vous, enfants élèves aujourd'hui dans nos écoles, qu'il appartient de +venger vos pères, vaincus à Sedan et à Metz. C'est votre devoir, le +grand devoir de votre vie. Vous devez y penser toujours,*" etc. + +At the foot of the page there is a whole series of questions, to +correspond to the articles. The questions are as follows: "What did +France lose when she lost part of her territory? How many Frenchmen +became German with the loss of this territory? Do the French love +Germany? What must we do, in order to regain what was taken away from us +by Germany?" In addition to these there are also "*Réflexions sur le +Livre VII*," in which it says that " the children of France must +remember our defeats of 1870," that "they must feel on their hearts the +burden of this memory," but that "this memory must not discourage them: +it should, on the contrary, incite them to bravery." + +Thus, if in official speeches peace is mentioned with great persistency, +the masses, the younger generations, yes, all the Russians and Frenchmen +in general, are imperturbably impressed with the necessity, legality, +profitableness, and even virtue of war. + +"We are not thinking of war,---we are concerned only about peace." + +One feels like asking "*Qui, diable, trompe-t-on ici?*" if it were +necessary to ask this, and if it were not quite clear who the +unfortunate cheated are. + +The cheated are the same eternally deceived, stupid, labouring masses, +the same who with their callous hands have built all these ships, and +fortresses, and arsenals, and barracks, and guns, and steamboats, and +quays, and moles, and all these palaces, halls, and platforms, and +triumphal arches; and have set and printed all these newspapers and +books; and have secured and brought all those pheasants, and ortolans, +and oysters, and wines, which are consumed by all those men, whom they, +again, have nurtured and brought up and sustained,---men who, deceiving +the masses, prepare the most terrible calamities for them; the same +good-natured, stupid masses, who, displaying their sound, white teeth, +have grinned in childish fashion, naively enjoying the sight of all the +dressed-up admirals and presidents, of the flags fluttering above them, +the fireworks, the thundering music, and who will hardly have time to +look around, when there shall be no longer any admirals, nor presidents, +nor flags, nor music, but there will be only a wet, waste field, hunger, +cold, gloom, in front the slaying enemy, behind the goading authorities, +blood, wounds, sufferings, rotting corpses, and a senseless, useless +death. + +And the men like those who now are celebrating at the festivities in +Toulon and Paris, will be sitting, after a good dinner, with unfinished +glasses of good wine, with a cigar between their teeth, in a dark cloth +tent, and will with pins mark down the places on the map where so much +food for cannon, composed of the masses, should be left, in order to +seize such and such a fortress, and in order to obtain such or such a +ribbon or promotion. # VI -"But there is nothing of the kind, and there are no warlike -intentions," we are told. "All there is, is that two nations -feeling a mutual sympathy are expressing this sentiment to -one another. What harm is there in this, that the -representatives of a friendly nation were received with -especial solemnity and honour by the representatives of the -other nation? What harm is there in it, even if it be -admitted that the alliance may have the significance of a -protection against a dangerous neighbour, threatening the -peace of Europe?" - -The harm is this, that all this is a most palpable and bold -lie, an unjustifiable, bad lie. The sudden outburst of an -exclusive love of the Russians for the French, and of the -French for the Russians, is a lie; and our hatred for the -Germans, our distrust of them, which is understood by it, is -also a lie. And the statement that the aim of all these -indecent and mad orgies is the guarantee of European peace, -is a still greater lie. - -We all know that we have experienced no particular love for -the French, neither before, nor even now, even as we have -not experienced any hostile feeling toward the Germans. - -We are told that Germany has some intentions against Russia, -that the Triple Alliance threatens the peace of Europe and -us, and that our alliance with France balances the forces, -and so guarantees the peace. But this assertion is so -obviously absurd, that it makes one feel ashamed to give it -a serious denial. For this to be so, that is, for the -alliance to guarantee peace, it is necessary that the forces -be mathematically even. If now the excess is on the side of -the Franco-Russian alliance, the danger is still the same. -It is even greater, because, if there was a danger that -William, who stood at the head of the European alliance, -would violate the peace, there is a much greater danger that -France, which cannot get used to the loss of her provinces, -will do so. The Triple Alliance was called a league of -peace, but for us it was a league of war. Even so now the -Franco-Russian alliance cannot present itself as anything -else than what it is,---a league of war. - -And then, if peace depends on the balance of the powers, how -are the units to be determined, between whom the balance is -to be established? Now the English say that the alliance -between Russia and France menaces them, and that they must, -therefore, form another alliance. And into how many units of -alliances must Europe be divided, in order that there be a -balance? If so, then every man stronger than another in -society is already a danger, and the others must form into -alliances, to withstand him. - -They ask, "What harm is there in this, that France and -Russia have expressed their mutual sympathies for the -guarantee of peace?" What is bad is, that it is a lie, and a -lie is never spoken with impunity, and does not pass -unpunished. - -The devil is a slayer of men and the father of lies. And the -lies always lead to the slaying of men,---in this case more -obviously than ever. - -In just the same manner as now, the Turkish war was preceded -by a sudden outburst of love of our Russians for their -brothers, the Slavs, whom no one had known for hundreds of -years, while the Germans, the French, the English have -always been incomparably nearer and more closely related to -us than Montenegrins, Serbians, or Bulgarians. And there -began transports, receptions, and festivities, which were -fanned by such men as Aksákov and Katkóv, who are mentioned -now in Paris as models of patriotism. Then, as now, they -spoke of nothing but the mutual sudden outburst of love -between the Russians and the Slavs. In the beginning they -ate and drank in Moscow, even as now in Paris, and talked -nonsense to one another, becoming affected by their own -exalted sentiments, spoke of union and peace, and did not -say anything about the chief thing, the intentions against -Turkey. The newspapers fanned the excitement, and the -government by degrees entered into the game. Servia -revolted. There began an exchange of diplomatic notes and -the publication of semi-official articles; the newspapers -lied more and more, invented and waxed wroth, and the end of -it all was that Alexander II, who really did not want any -war, could not help but agree to it, and we all know what -happened: the destruction of hundreds of thousands of -innocent people and the bestialization and dulling of -millions. - -What was done in Toulon and in Paris, and now continues to -be done in the newspapers, obviously leads to the same, or -to a still more terrible calamity. Just so all kinds of -generals and ministers will at first, to the sounds of "God -save the Tsar" and the Marseillaise drink the health of -France, of Russia, of the various regiments of the army and -the navy; the newspapers will print their lies; the idle -crowd of the rich, who do not know what to do with their -powers and with their time, will babble patriotic speeches, -fanning hatred against Germany, and no matter how peaceful -Alexander III may be, the conditions will be such that he -will be unable to decline a war which will be demanded by -all those who surround him, by all the newspapers, and, as -always seems, by the public opinion of the j whole nation. -And before we shall have had time to look around, there will -appear in the columns of the newspapers the usual, ominous, -stupid proclamation: - -"By God's grace, we, the most autocratic great Emperor of -all Russia, the King of Poland, the Grand Duke of Finland, -etc., etc., inform all our faithful subjects that for the -good of these dear subjects, entrusted to us by God, we have -considered it our duty before God to send them out to -slaughter. God be with them," and so forth. - -The bells will be rung, and long-haired men will throw -gold-embroidered bags over themselves and will begin to pray -for the slaughter. And there will begin again the old, -well-known, terrible deed. The newspaper writers, who under -the guise of patriotism stir people up to hatred and murder, -will be about, in the hope of double earnings. -Manufacturers, merchants, purveyors of military supplies, -will bestir themselves joyfully, expecting double profits. -All kinds of officials will bestir themselves, foreseeing a -chance to steal more than they usually do. The military -authorities will bestir themselves, for they will receive -double salaries and rations, and will hope to get for the -killing of people all kinds of trifles, which they value -very much,---ribbons, crosses, galloons, stars. Idle -gentlemen and ladies will bestir themselves, inscribing -themselves in advance in the Red Cross, preparing themselves -to dress the wounds of those whom their own husbands and -brothers will kill, and imagining that they are thus doing a -most Christian work. - -And, drowning in their hearts their despair by means of -songs, debauches, and vodka, hundreds of thousands of -simple, good people, torn away from peaceful labour, from -their wives, mothers, children, will march, with weapons of -murder in their hands, whither they will be driven. They -will go to freeze, to starve, to be sick, to die from -diseases, and finally they will arrive at the place where -they will be killed by the thousand, and they will kill by -the thousand, themselves not knowing why, men whom they have -never seen and who have done them and can do them no harm. - -And when there shall be collected so many sick, wounded, and -killed that nobody will have the time to pick them up, and -when the air shall already be so infected by this rotting -food for cannon that even the authorities will feel -uncomfortable, then they will stop for awhile, will somehow -manage to pick up the wounded, will haul off and somewhere -throw into a pile the sick, and will bury the dead, covering -them with lime, and again they will lead on the whole crowd -of the deceived, and will continue to lead them on in this -manner until those who have started the whole thing will get -tired of it, or until those who needed it will get what they -needed. And again will men become infuriated, brutalized, -and bestialized, and love will be diminished in the world, -and the incipient Christianization of humanity will be -delayed for decades and for centuries. And again will the -people, who gain thereby, begin to say with assurance that, -if there is a war, this means that it is necessary, and -again they will begin to prepare for it the future +"But there is nothing of the kind, and there are no warlike intentions," +we are told. "All there is, is that two nations feeling a mutual +sympathy are expressing this sentiment to one another. What harm is +there in this, that the representatives of a friendly nation were +received with especial solemnity and honour by the representatives of +the other nation? What harm is there in it, even if it be admitted that +the alliance may have the significance of a protection against a +dangerous neighbour, threatening the peace of Europe?" + +The harm is this, that all this is a most palpable and bold lie, an +unjustifiable, bad lie. The sudden outburst of an exclusive love of the +Russians for the French, and of the French for the Russians, is a lie; +and our hatred for the Germans, our distrust of them, which is +understood by it, is also a lie. And the statement that the aim of all +these indecent and mad orgies is the guarantee of European peace, is a +still greater lie. + +We all know that we have experienced no particular love for the French, +neither before, nor even now, even as we have not experienced any +hostile feeling toward the Germans. + +We are told that Germany has some intentions against Russia, that the +Triple Alliance threatens the peace of Europe and us, and that our +alliance with France balances the forces, and so guarantees the peace. +But this assertion is so obviously absurd, that it makes one feel +ashamed to give it a serious denial. For this to be so, that is, for the +alliance to guarantee peace, it is necessary that the forces be +mathematically even. If now the excess is on the side of the +Franco-Russian alliance, the danger is still the same. It is even +greater, because, if there was a danger that William, who stood at the +head of the European alliance, would violate the peace, there is a much +greater danger that France, which cannot get used to the loss of her +provinces, will do so. The Triple Alliance was called a league of peace, +but for us it was a league of war. Even so now the Franco-Russian +alliance cannot present itself as anything else than what it is,---a +league of war. + +And then, if peace depends on the balance of the powers, how are the +units to be determined, between whom the balance is to be established? +Now the English say that the alliance between Russia and France menaces +them, and that they must, therefore, form another alliance. And into how +many units of alliances must Europe be divided, in order that there be a +balance? If so, then every man stronger than another in society is +already a danger, and the others must form into alliances, to withstand +him. + +They ask, "What harm is there in this, that France and Russia have +expressed their mutual sympathies for the guarantee of peace?" What is +bad is, that it is a lie, and a lie is never spoken with impunity, and +does not pass unpunished. + +The devil is a slayer of men and the father of lies. And the lies always +lead to the slaying of men,---in this case more obviously than ever. + +In just the same manner as now, the Turkish war was preceded by a sudden +outburst of love of our Russians for their brothers, the Slavs, whom no +one had known for hundreds of years, while the Germans, the French, the +English have always been incomparably nearer and more closely related to +us than Montenegrins, Serbians, or Bulgarians. And there began +transports, receptions, and festivities, which were fanned by such men +as Aksákov and Katkóv, who are mentioned now in Paris as models of +patriotism. Then, as now, they spoke of nothing but the mutual sudden +outburst of love between the Russians and the Slavs. In the beginning +they ate and drank in Moscow, even as now in Paris, and talked nonsense +to one another, becoming affected by their own exalted sentiments, spoke +of union and peace, and did not say anything about the chief thing, the +intentions against Turkey. The newspapers fanned the excitement, and the +government by degrees entered into the game. Servia revolted. There +began an exchange of diplomatic notes and the publication of +semi-official articles; the newspapers lied more and more, invented and +waxed wroth, and the end of it all was that Alexander II, who really did +not want any war, could not help but agree to it, and we all know what +happened: the destruction of hundreds of thousands of innocent people +and the bestialization and dulling of millions. + +What was done in Toulon and in Paris, and now continues to be done in +the newspapers, obviously leads to the same, or to a still more terrible +calamity. Just so all kinds of generals and ministers will at first, to +the sounds of "God save the Tsar" and the Marseillaise drink the health +of France, of Russia, of the various regiments of the army and the navy; +the newspapers will print their lies; the idle crowd of the rich, who do +not know what to do with their powers and with their time, will babble +patriotic speeches, fanning hatred against Germany, and no matter how +peaceful Alexander III may be, the conditions will be such that he will +be unable to decline a war which will be demanded by all those who +surround him, by all the newspapers, and, as always seems, by the public +opinion of the j whole nation. And before we shall have had time to look +around, there will appear in the columns of the newspapers the usual, +ominous, stupid proclamation: + +"By God's grace, we, the most autocratic great Emperor of all Russia, +the King of Poland, the Grand Duke of Finland, etc., etc., inform all +our faithful subjects that for the good of these dear subjects, +entrusted to us by God, we have considered it our duty before God to +send them out to slaughter. God be with them," and so forth. + +The bells will be rung, and long-haired men will throw gold-embroidered +bags over themselves and will begin to pray for the slaughter. And there +will begin again the old, well-known, terrible deed. The newspaper +writers, who under the guise of patriotism stir people up to hatred and +murder, will be about, in the hope of double earnings. Manufacturers, +merchants, purveyors of military supplies, will bestir themselves +joyfully, expecting double profits. All kinds of officials will bestir +themselves, foreseeing a chance to steal more than they usually do. The +military authorities will bestir themselves, for they will receive +double salaries and rations, and will hope to get for the killing of +people all kinds of trifles, which they value very much,---ribbons, +crosses, galloons, stars. Idle gentlemen and ladies will bestir +themselves, inscribing themselves in advance in the Red Cross, preparing +themselves to dress the wounds of those whom their own husbands and +brothers will kill, and imagining that they are thus doing a most +Christian work. + +And, drowning in their hearts their despair by means of songs, +debauches, and vodka, hundreds of thousands of simple, good people, torn +away from peaceful labour, from their wives, mothers, children, will +march, with weapons of murder in their hands, whither they will be +driven. They will go to freeze, to starve, to be sick, to die from +diseases, and finally they will arrive at the place where they will be +killed by the thousand, and they will kill by the thousand, themselves +not knowing why, men whom they have never seen and who have done them +and can do them no harm. + +And when there shall be collected so many sick, wounded, and killed that +nobody will have the time to pick them up, and when the air shall +already be so infected by this rotting food for cannon that even the +authorities will feel uncomfortable, then they will stop for awhile, +will somehow manage to pick up the wounded, will haul off and somewhere +throw into a pile the sick, and will bury the dead, covering them with +lime, and again they will lead on the whole crowd of the deceived, and +will continue to lead them on in this manner until those who have +started the whole thing will get tired of it, or until those who needed +it will get what they needed. And again will men become infuriated, +brutalized, and bestialized, and love will be diminished in the world, +and the incipient Christianization of humanity will be delayed for +decades and for centuries. And again will the people, who gain thereby, +begin to say with assurance that, if there is a war, this means that it +is necessary, and again they will begin to prepare for it the future generations, by corrupting them from childhood. # VII -And so, when there appear such patriotic manifestations as -were the Toulon celebrations, which, though still at a -distance, in advance bind the wills of men and oblige them -to commit those customary malefactions which always result -from patriotism, every one who understands the significance -of these celebrations cannot help but protest against -everything which is tacitly included in them. And so, when -the journalists say in print that all the Russians -sympathize with what took place at Kronstadt, Toulon, and -Paris; that this alliance for life and death is confirmed by -the will of the whole nation; and when the Russian minister -of education assures the French ministers that his whole -company, the Russian children, the learned, and the authors, -share his sentiments; or when the commander of the Russian -squadron assures the French that the whole of Russia will be -grateful to them for their reception; and when the chief -priests speak for their flocks and assure the French that -their prayers for the life of the most august house have -re-echoed joyfully in the hearts of the Russian -*Tsar-loving* nation; and when the Russian ambassador in -Paris, who is considered to be the representative of the -Russian nation, says after a dinner of *ortolans à la -soubise et logopèdes glaces*, with a glass of champagne -Grand Moe't in his hand, that all Russian hearts are beating -in unison with his heart, which is filled with a sudden -outburst of exclusive love for fair France (*la belle -France*),---we, the people who are free from the -stultification, consider it our sacred duty, not only for -our own sakes, but also for the sake of tens of millions of -Russians, in the most emphatic manner to protest against it -and to declare that our hearts do not beat in unison with -the hearts of the journalists, ministers of education, -commanders of squadrons, chief priests, and ambassadors, -but, on the contrary, are full to the brim with indignation -and loathing for that harmful lie and that evil which they -consciously and unconsciously disseminate with their acts -and their speeches. Let them drink *Moët* as much as they -please, and let them write articles and deliver addresses in -their own name, but we, all the Christians, who recognize -ourselves as such, cannot admit that we are bound by -everything that these men say and write. We cannot admit it, -because we know what is concealed beneath all these drunken -transports, speeches, and embraces, which do not resemble -the confirmation of peace, as we are assured, but rather -those orgies and that drunkenness to which evil-doers -abandon themselves when they prepare themselves for a joint -crime. +And so, when there appear such patriotic manifestations as were the +Toulon celebrations, which, though still at a distance, in advance bind +the wills of men and oblige them to commit those customary malefactions +which always result from patriotism, every one who understands the +significance of these celebrations cannot help but protest against +everything which is tacitly included in them. And so, when the +journalists say in print that all the Russians sympathize with what took +place at Kronstadt, Toulon, and Paris; that this alliance for life and +death is confirmed by the will of the whole nation; and when the Russian +minister of education assures the French ministers that his whole +company, the Russian children, the learned, and the authors, share his +sentiments; or when the commander of the Russian squadron assures the +French that the whole of Russia will be grateful to them for their +reception; and when the chief priests speak for their flocks and assure +the French that their prayers for the life of the most august house have +re-echoed joyfully in the hearts of the Russian *Tsar-loving* nation; +and when the Russian ambassador in Paris, who is considered to be the +representative of the Russian nation, says after a dinner of *ortolans à +la soubise et logopèdes glaces*, with a glass of champagne Grand Moe't +in his hand, that all Russian hearts are beating in unison with his +heart, which is filled with a sudden outburst of exclusive love for fair +France (*la belle France*),---we, the people who are free from the +stultification, consider it our sacred duty, not only for our own sakes, +but also for the sake of tens of millions of Russians, in the most +emphatic manner to protest against it and to declare that our hearts do +not beat in unison with the hearts of the journalists, ministers of +education, commanders of squadrons, chief priests, and ambassadors, but, +on the contrary, are full to the brim with indignation and loathing for +that harmful lie and that evil which they consciously and unconsciously +disseminate with their acts and their speeches. Let them drink *Moët* as +much as they please, and let them write articles and deliver addresses +in their own name, but we, all the Christians, who recognize ourselves +as such, cannot admit that we are bound by everything that these men say +and write. We cannot admit it, because we know what is concealed beneath +all these drunken transports, speeches, and embraces, which do not +resemble the confirmation of peace, as we are assured, but rather those +orgies and that drunkenness to which evil-doers abandon themselves when +they prepare themselves for a joint crime. # VIII -About four years ago,---the first swallow of the Toulon -spring,---a certain French agitator in favour of a war with -Germany came to Russia for the purpose of preparing the -Franco-Russian alliance, and he visited us in the country. -He arrived at our house when we were working in the mowing. -At breakfast, as we returned home, we made the acquaintance -of the guest, and he immediately proceeded to tell us how he -had fought, had been in captivity, had run away from it, and -how he had made a patriotic vow, of which he was apparently -proud, that he would not stop agitating a war against -Germany until the integrity and glory of France should be -re-established. - -In our circle all the convictions of our guest as to how -necessary an alliance between Russia and France was for the -re-establishment of the former borders of France and its -might and glory, and for making us secure against the -malevolent intentions of Germany, were of no avail to him. -In reply to his arguments that France could not be at peace -so long as the provinces taken from it were not returned to -it, we said that similarly Prussia could not be at rest, so -long as it had not paid back for Jena, and that, if the -French "*revanche*" should now be successful, the Germans -would have to pay them back, and so on without end. - -In reply to his arguments that the French were obliged to -save their brothers, who had been torn away from them, we -said that the condition of the inhabitants, of the majority -of the inhabitants, of the working people in -Alsace-Lorraine, was hardly any worse under German rule than -it had been under France, and that, because some Alsatians -preferred to belong to France rather than to Germany, and -he, our guest, found it desirable to re-establish the glory -of French arms, it was not worth while, either to begin -those terrible calamities which result from war, or even to -sacrifice one single human life. In reply to his arguments -that it was all very well for us to speak thus, since we had -not experienced the same, and that we should be speaking -differently, if we had the Baltic provinces and Poland taken -away from us, we said that even from the political -standpoint the loss of Poland and of the Baltic provinces -could not be a calamity for us, but might rather be -considered an advantage, since it would diminish the -necessity for a military force and the expenses of state; -and from the Christian point of view we never could permit a -war, since a war demanded the killing of men, whereas -Christianity not only forbade every murder, but even -demanded that we do good to all men, considering all, -without distinction of nationalities, as our brothers. The -Christian state, we said, which enters upon war, to be -consistent, must not only haul down the crosses from the -churches, turn all the churches into buildings for different -purposes, give the clergy other offices, and, above all, -prohibit the Gospel, but must also renounce all the demands -of morality which result from the Christian law. "*C'est à -prendre ou à laisser*," we said. But until Christianity was -abolished, it would be possible to entice men to war only by -cunning and deceit, as indeed is being done nowadays. We see -this cunning and deception, and so cannot submit to it. As -there was no music, no champagne, nothing intoxicating about -us, our guest only shrugged his shoulders and with customary -French amiability remarked that he was very thankful for the -fine reception accorded to him in our house, but that he was -sorry that his ideas were not treated in the same way. +About four years ago,---the first swallow of the Toulon spring,---a +certain French agitator in favour of a war with Germany came to Russia +for the purpose of preparing the Franco-Russian alliance, and he visited +us in the country. He arrived at our house when we were working in the +mowing. At breakfast, as we returned home, we made the acquaintance of +the guest, and he immediately proceeded to tell us how he had fought, +had been in captivity, had run away from it, and how he had made a +patriotic vow, of which he was apparently proud, that he would not stop +agitating a war against Germany until the integrity and glory of France +should be re-established. + +In our circle all the convictions of our guest as to how necessary an +alliance between Russia and France was for the re-establishment of the +former borders of France and its might and glory, and for making us +secure against the malevolent intentions of Germany, were of no avail to +him. In reply to his arguments that France could not be at peace so long +as the provinces taken from it were not returned to it, we said that +similarly Prussia could not be at rest, so long as it had not paid back +for Jena, and that, if the French "*revanche*" should now be successful, +the Germans would have to pay them back, and so on without end. + +In reply to his arguments that the French were obliged to save their +brothers, who had been torn away from them, we said that the condition +of the inhabitants, of the majority of the inhabitants, of the working +people in Alsace-Lorraine, was hardly any worse under German rule than +it had been under France, and that, because some Alsatians preferred to +belong to France rather than to Germany, and he, our guest, found it +desirable to re-establish the glory of French arms, it was not worth +while, either to begin those terrible calamities which result from war, +or even to sacrifice one single human life. In reply to his arguments +that it was all very well for us to speak thus, since we had not +experienced the same, and that we should be speaking differently, if we +had the Baltic provinces and Poland taken away from us, we said that +even from the political standpoint the loss of Poland and of the Baltic +provinces could not be a calamity for us, but might rather be considered +an advantage, since it would diminish the necessity for a military force +and the expenses of state; and from the Christian point of view we never +could permit a war, since a war demanded the killing of men, whereas +Christianity not only forbade every murder, but even demanded that we do +good to all men, considering all, without distinction of nationalities, +as our brothers. The Christian state, we said, which enters upon war, to +be consistent, must not only haul down the crosses from the churches, +turn all the churches into buildings for different purposes, give the +clergy other offices, and, above all, prohibit the Gospel, but must also +renounce all the demands of morality which result from the Christian +law. "*C'est à prendre ou à laisser*," we said. But until Christianity +was abolished, it would be possible to entice men to war only by cunning +and deceit, as indeed is being done nowadays. We see this cunning and +deception, and so cannot submit to it. As there was no music, no +champagne, nothing intoxicating about us, our guest only shrugged his +shoulders and with customary French amiability remarked that he was very +thankful for the fine reception accorded to him in our house, but that +he was sorry that his ideas were not treated in the same way. # IX -After this conversation we went to the mowing, and there he, -in the hope of finding more sympathy for his ideas among the -masses, asked me to translate to the peasant Prokófi, an -old, sickly man, with an enormous rupture, who none the less -stuck to his work, and was my companion in the mowing, his -plan of attacking the Germans, which was to squeeze the -Germans, who were between the French and the Russians, from -both sides. The Frenchman gave an ocular demonstration of -this to Prokófi, by touching from two sides Prokófi's sweaty -hempen shirt with his white fingers. I recall Prokófi's -good-naturedly scornful surprise, when I explained to him -the Frenchman's words and gestures. The proposition to -squeeze the Germans from both sides was apparently taken by -Prokófi as a joke, for he would not admit the idea that a -grown man and a scholar should calmly and when he was sober -talk of the desirability of war. - -"Well, if we squeeze the German from both sides," he replied -jestingly to what he thought was a joke, "he will have no -place to go to. We must give him room." +After this conversation we went to the mowing, and there he, in the hope +of finding more sympathy for his ideas among the masses, asked me to +translate to the peasant Prokófi, an old, sickly man, with an enormous +rupture, who none the less stuck to his work, and was my companion in +the mowing, his plan of attacking the Germans, which was to squeeze the +Germans, who were between the French and the Russians, from both sides. +The Frenchman gave an ocular demonstration of this to Prokófi, by +touching from two sides Prokófi's sweaty hempen shirt with his white +fingers. I recall Prokófi's good-naturedly scornful surprise, when I +explained to him the Frenchman's words and gestures. The proposition to +squeeze the Germans from both sides was apparently taken by Prokófi as a +joke, for he would not admit the idea that a grown man and a scholar +should calmly and when he was sober talk of the desirability of war. + +"Well, if we squeeze the German from both sides," he replied jestingly +to what he thought was a joke, "he will have no place to go to. We must +give him room." I translated this to my guest. "*Dites lui que nous aimons les Russes*," he said. -These words obviously startled Prokofi even more than the -proposition to squeeze the German, and provoked a certain -sentiment of suspicion. +These words obviously startled Prokofi even more than the proposition to +squeeze the German, and provoked a certain sentiment of suspicion. -"Who is he?" Prokófi asked me, with mistrust, indicating my -guest with his head. +"Who is he?" Prokófi asked me, with mistrust, indicating my guest with +his head. I told him that he was a Frenchman, a rich man. "What is his business?" Prokófi asked me. -When I explained to him that he had come to invite the -Russians to form an alliance with France in case of a war -with Germany, Prokófi apparently became quite dissatisfied, -and, turning to the women, who were sitting near a haycock, -he shouted at them in a strong voice, which involuntarily -betrayed the feelings which this conversation had provoked +When I explained to him that he had come to invite the Russians to form +an alliance with France in case of a war with Germany, Prokófi +apparently became quite dissatisfied, and, turning to the women, who +were sitting near a haycock, he shouted at them in a strong voice, which +involuntarily betrayed the feelings which this conversation had provoked in him, that they should go and rake up the unraked hay. -"Come now, you crows! Have you fallen asleep? Come! Much -time we have to squeeze the German! We have not finished the -mowing yet, and it looks likely that we shall be mowing on -Wednesday," he said. And then, as though fearing to offend -the stranger by such a remark, he added, displaying his -half-worn-off teeth in a good-natured smile, "You had better -come and work with us, and send the German, too. When we get -through working, we shall have a good time. We'll take the -German along. They are just such folk as we.", And, having -said tins, Prokofi took his muscular arm out of the crotch -of the fork, on which he had been leaning, threw the fork -over his shoulders, and went away to the women. - -"*Oh, le brave homme!*" the polite Frenchman exclaimed, -smiling. And with this he then concluded his diplomatic -mission to the Russian people. - -The sight of these so radically different men,---the one -beaming with freshness, alacrity, elegance, the well-fed -Frenchman, in a silk hat and long overcoat of the latest -fashion, energetically illustrating with his white hands, -unused to labour, how to squeeze the Germans, and the sight -of the dishevelled Prokofi, with hay-seed in his hair, dried -up from work, sunburnt, always tired and always working, in -spite of his immense rupture, with fingers swollen from -work, with his loosely hanging homespun trousers, battered -bast shoes, jogging along with an immense forkful of hay -over his shoulder in that indolent pace of a labouring man, -which economizes motion,---the sight of these two so -radically different men elucidated to me then many things, -and has occurred to me now, after the Toulon-Paris -celebrations. One of them personified all those men, -nurtured by the labours of the masses, who later use these -masses as food for cannon; and Prokófi personified to me -that food for cannon, which nurtures and makes secure the -men who dispose of it. +"Come now, you crows! Have you fallen asleep? Come! Much time we have to +squeeze the German! We have not finished the mowing yet, and it looks +likely that we shall be mowing on Wednesday," he said. And then, as +though fearing to offend the stranger by such a remark, he added, +displaying his half-worn-off teeth in a good-natured smile, "You had +better come and work with us, and send the German, too. When we get +through working, we shall have a good time. We'll take the German along. +They are just such folk as we.", And, having said tins, Prokofi took his +muscular arm out of the crotch of the fork, on which he had been +leaning, threw the fork over his shoulders, and went away to the women. + +"*Oh, le brave homme!*" the polite Frenchman exclaimed, smiling. And +with this he then concluded his diplomatic mission to the Russian +people. + +The sight of these so radically different men,---the one beaming with +freshness, alacrity, elegance, the well-fed Frenchman, in a silk hat and +long overcoat of the latest fashion, energetically illustrating with his +white hands, unused to labour, how to squeeze the Germans, and the sight +of the dishevelled Prokofi, with hay-seed in his hair, dried up from +work, sunburnt, always tired and always working, in spite of his immense +rupture, with fingers swollen from work, with his loosely hanging +homespun trousers, battered bast shoes, jogging along with an immense +forkful of hay over his shoulder in that indolent pace of a labouring +man, which economizes motion,---the sight of these two so radically +different men elucidated to me then many things, and has occurred to me +now, after the Toulon-Paris celebrations. One of them personified all +those men, nurtured by the labours of the masses, who later use these +masses as food for cannon; and Prokófi personified to me that food for +cannon, which nurtures and makes secure the men who dispose of it. # X -"But France has been deprived of two provinces,---two -children have been violently removed from their mother. But -Russia cannot permit Germany to prescribe laws to it and to -deprive it of its historic destiny in the East,---it cannot -tolerate the chance of having its provinces, the Baltic -provinces, Poland, the Caucasus, taken from it, as was done -in the case of France. But Germany cannot tolerate the -possibility of losing its prerogatives, which it has gained -through so many sacrifices. But England cannot yield its -supremacy on the seas to any one." And, having spoken such -words, it is generally assumed that a Frenchman, a Russian, -a German, an Englishman must be prepared to sacrifice -everything in order to regain the lost provinces, to -establish their predominance in the East, to maintain their -unity and power, their supremacy on the seas, and so forth. - -It is assumed that the sentiment of patriotism is, in the -first place, a sentiment which is always inherent in men, -and, in the second, such an exalted moral sentiment that, if -it is absent, it has to be evoked in those who do not have -it. But neither is correct. I have passed half a century -among the Russian masses, and among the great majority of -the real Russian people I have in all that time never seen -or heard even once any manifestation or expression of this -sentiment of patriotism, if we do not count those patriotic -phrases, which are learned by rote during military service -or are repeated from books by the most frivolous and spoiled -men of the nation. I have never heard any expression of -patriotic sentiments from the people; but, I have, on the -contrary, frequently heard the most serious and respectable -men from among the masses giving utterance to the most -absolute indifference and even contempt for all kinds of -manifestations of patriotism. The same thing I have observed -among the labouring classes of other nations, and I have -often been assured of the same by cultured Frenchmen, -Germans, and Englishmen concerning their own working people. - -The working people are too busy with the all-absorbing -business of supporting themselves and their families, to be -interested in those political questions, which present -themselves as the chief motive of patriotism,---the -questions of Prussia's influence in the East, the unity of -Germany, or the restitution of the lost provinces to France, -or the acts of this or that part of one state toward -another, and so forth, do not interest them, not only -because they hardly ever know the conditions under which -these questions have arisen, but also because the interests -of their lives are quite independent of the political -interests. It is always very much a matter of indifference -to a man from the masses, where certain borders will be -marked down, or to whom Constantinople will belong, or -whether Saxony or Brunswick will be a member of the German -union, or whether Australia or Matabeleland will belong to -England, or even to what government he will have to pay -taxes and to what army he will have to send his sons; but it -is always very important for him to know how much he will -have to pay in taxes, how long he has to serve, and how much -he will receive for his labour,---and these are questions -that are quite independent of the common political -interests. It is for this reason that, in spite of all the -intensified means used by the governments for the -inoculation of the masses with a patriotism which is alien -to them and for the suppression of the ideas of socialism, -which are developing among them, the socialism more and more -penetrates into the masses, and the patriotism, which is so -carefully inoculated by the governments, is not only not -adopted by the masses, but is disappearing more and more, -maintaining itself only among the upper classes, to whom it -is advantageous. If it happens that at times patriotism -takes hold of the popular crowd, as was the case in Paris, -this is only so when the masses are subjected to an -intensified hypnotic influence by the governments and the -ruling classes, and the patriotism is maintained among the -masses only so long at this influence lasts. - -Thus, for example, in Russia, where patriotism, in the form -of love and loyalty for the faith, the Tsar, and the -country, is inoculated in the masses with extraordinary -tension and with the use of all the tools at the command of -the governments, such as the church, the school, the press, -and all kinds of solemnities, the Russian labouring -classes,---one hundred millions of the Russian nation,---in -spite of Russia's unearned reputation as a nation that is -particularly devoted to its faith, its Tsar, and its -country, are most free from the deception of patriotism and -from loyalty to faith, the Tsar, and country. The men of the -masses for the most part do not know their Orthodox, state -faith, to which they are supposed to be so loyal, and when -they come to know it, they immediately give it up and become -rationalists, that is, accept a faith which it is impossible -to attack or to defend; on their Tsar they, in spite of the -constant and persistent influences brought to bear upon -them, look as upon all the powers of violence, if not with -condemnation, at least with absolute indifference; but their -country, if by that we do not mean their village or -township, they do not know at all, or, if they do, they do -not distinguish it from any other countries, so that, as -Russian colonists used to go to Austria and to Turkey, they -now with just as much indifference settle in Russia, outside -of Russia, in Turkey or in China. +"But France has been deprived of two provinces,---two children have been +violently removed from their mother. But Russia cannot permit Germany to +prescribe laws to it and to deprive it of its historic destiny in the +East,---it cannot tolerate the chance of having its provinces, the +Baltic provinces, Poland, the Caucasus, taken from it, as was done in +the case of France. But Germany cannot tolerate the possibility of +losing its prerogatives, which it has gained through so many sacrifices. +But England cannot yield its supremacy on the seas to any one." And, +having spoken such words, it is generally assumed that a Frenchman, a +Russian, a German, an Englishman must be prepared to sacrifice +everything in order to regain the lost provinces, to establish their +predominance in the East, to maintain their unity and power, their +supremacy on the seas, and so forth. + +It is assumed that the sentiment of patriotism is, in the first place, a +sentiment which is always inherent in men, and, in the second, such an +exalted moral sentiment that, if it is absent, it has to be evoked in +those who do not have it. But neither is correct. I have passed half a +century among the Russian masses, and among the great majority of the +real Russian people I have in all that time never seen or heard even +once any manifestation or expression of this sentiment of patriotism, if +we do not count those patriotic phrases, which are learned by rote +during military service or are repeated from books by the most frivolous +and spoiled men of the nation. I have never heard any expression of +patriotic sentiments from the people; but, I have, on the contrary, +frequently heard the most serious and respectable men from among the +masses giving utterance to the most absolute indifference and even +contempt for all kinds of manifestations of patriotism. The same thing I +have observed among the labouring classes of other nations, and I have +often been assured of the same by cultured Frenchmen, Germans, and +Englishmen concerning their own working people. + +The working people are too busy with the all-absorbing business of +supporting themselves and their families, to be interested in those +political questions, which present themselves as the chief motive of +patriotism,---the questions of Prussia's influence in the East, the +unity of Germany, or the restitution of the lost provinces to France, or +the acts of this or that part of one state toward another, and so forth, +do not interest them, not only because they hardly ever know the +conditions under which these questions have arisen, but also because the +interests of their lives are quite independent of the political +interests. It is always very much a matter of indifference to a man from +the masses, where certain borders will be marked down, or to whom +Constantinople will belong, or whether Saxony or Brunswick will be a +member of the German union, or whether Australia or Matabeleland will +belong to England, or even to what government he will have to pay taxes +and to what army he will have to send his sons; but it is always very +important for him to know how much he will have to pay in taxes, how +long he has to serve, and how much he will receive for his labour,---and +these are questions that are quite independent of the common political +interests. It is for this reason that, in spite of all the intensified +means used by the governments for the inoculation of the masses with a +patriotism which is alien to them and for the suppression of the ideas +of socialism, which are developing among them, the socialism more and +more penetrates into the masses, and the patriotism, which is so +carefully inoculated by the governments, is not only not adopted by the +masses, but is disappearing more and more, maintaining itself only among +the upper classes, to whom it is advantageous. If it happens that at +times patriotism takes hold of the popular crowd, as was the case in +Paris, this is only so when the masses are subjected to an intensified +hypnotic influence by the governments and the ruling classes, and the +patriotism is maintained among the masses only so long at this influence +lasts. + +Thus, for example, in Russia, where patriotism, in the form of love and +loyalty for the faith, the Tsar, and the country, is inoculated in the +masses with extraordinary tension and with the use of all the tools at +the command of the governments, such as the church, the school, the +press, and all kinds of solemnities, the Russian labouring +classes,---one hundred millions of the Russian nation,---in spite of +Russia's unearned reputation as a nation that is particularly devoted to +its faith, its Tsar, and its country, are most free from the deception +of patriotism and from loyalty to faith, the Tsar, and country. The men +of the masses for the most part do not know their Orthodox, state faith, +to which they are supposed to be so loyal, and when they come to know +it, they immediately give it up and become rationalists, that is, accept +a faith which it is impossible to attack or to defend; on their Tsar +they, in spite of the constant and persistent influences brought to bear +upon them, look as upon all the powers of violence, if not with +condemnation, at least with absolute indifference; but their country, if +by that we do not mean their village or township, they do not know at +all, or, if they do, they do not distinguish it from any other +countries, so that, as Russian colonists used to go to Austria and to +Turkey, they now with just as much indifference settle in Russia, +outside of Russia, in Turkey or in China. # XI My old friend D---, who in the winter lived alone in -the country, while his wife, whom he went to see but rarely, -lived in Paris, used to talk during the long autumn evenings -with an illiterate, but very clever and respectable peasant, -an elder, who came in the evening to report, and my friend -told him, among other things, of the superiority of the -French political order over our own. This was on the eve of -the last Polish insurrection and the interference of the -French government in our affairs. The patriotic Russian -newspapers at that time burned with indignation on account -of such interference, and so heated up the ruling classes -that they talked of a war with France. - -My friend, who had read the papers, told the elder also of -these relations between Russia and France. Submitting to the -tone of the papers, my friend said that if there should be -any war (he was an old soldier), he would serve and fight -against France. At that time the "*revanche*" against the -French seemed necessary to the Russians on account of -Sevastopol. +the country, while his wife, whom he went to see but rarely, lived in +Paris, used to talk during the long autumn evenings with an illiterate, +but very clever and respectable peasant, an elder, who came in the +evening to report, and my friend told him, among other things, of the +superiority of the French political order over our own. This was on the +eve of the last Polish insurrection and the interference of the French +government in our affairs. The patriotic Russian newspapers at that time +burned with indignation on account of such interference, and so heated +up the ruling classes that they talked of a war with France. + +My friend, who had read the papers, told the elder also of these +relations between Russia and France. Submitting to the tone of the +papers, my friend said that if there should be any war (he was an old +soldier), he would serve and fight against France. At that time the +"*revanche*" against the French seemed necessary to the Russians on +account of Sevastopol. "But why should we wage war?" asked the elder. "How can we permit France to manage our affairs?" -"But you say yourself that things are better arranged with -them than with us," the elder said, quite seriously. "Let -them arrange matters in our country, too." - -My friend told me that this reflection so startled him that -he was absolutely at a loss what to say, and only laughed, -as laugh those who awaken from a deceptive dream. - -Such reflections one may hear from any sober Russian -labouring man, if only he is not under any hypnotic -influence of the government. They talk of the love of the -Russian masses for their faith, their Tsar, and their -government, and yet there will not be found one commune of -peasants in the whole of Russia, which would hesitate for a -moment, which of the two places to choose for its -colonization,---Russia, with the Tsar, the little father, as -they write in books, and with the holy Orthodox faith in its -adored country, but with less and worse land, or without the -little father, the white Tsar, and without the Orthodox -faith, somewhere outside of Russia, in Prussia, China, -Turkey, Austria, but with some greater and better -advantages, as indeed we have seen before and see at -present. For every Russian peasant the question as to what -government he will be under (since he knows that, no matter -under what government he may be, he will be fleeced just the -same) has incomparably less meaning than the question as to -whether, I will not say the water is good, but as to whether -the clay is soft and as to whether there will be a good crop -of cabbage. - -But it may be thought that the indifference of the Russians -is due to this, that any other government under whose power -they may come will certainly be better than the Russian, -because in Europe there is not one that is worse than the -Russian; but that is not so: so far as I know, we have seen -the same in the case of the English, Dutch, German -immigrants in America, and of all the other colonists in -Russia. - -The transference of the European nations from the power of -one government to another, from the Turkish to the Austrian, -or from the French to the German, changes the condition of -the nations so little that in no case can they provoke the -dissatisfaction of the working classes, so long as they are -not artificially subjected to the suggestions of the -governments and the ruling classes. +"But you say yourself that things are better arranged with them than +with us," the elder said, quite seriously. "Let them arrange matters in +our country, too." + +My friend told me that this reflection so startled him that he was +absolutely at a loss what to say, and only laughed, as laugh those who +awaken from a deceptive dream. + +Such reflections one may hear from any sober Russian labouring man, if +only he is not under any hypnotic influence of the government. They talk +of the love of the Russian masses for their faith, their Tsar, and their +government, and yet there will not be found one commune of peasants in +the whole of Russia, which would hesitate for a moment, which of the two +places to choose for its colonization,---Russia, with the Tsar, the +little father, as they write in books, and with the holy Orthodox faith +in its adored country, but with less and worse land, or without the +little father, the white Tsar, and without the Orthodox faith, somewhere +outside of Russia, in Prussia, China, Turkey, Austria, but with some +greater and better advantages, as indeed we have seen before and see at +present. For every Russian peasant the question as to what government he +will be under (since he knows that, no matter under what government he +may be, he will be fleeced just the same) has incomparably less meaning +than the question as to whether, I will not say the water is good, but +as to whether the clay is soft and as to whether there will be a good +crop of cabbage. + +But it may be thought that the indifference of the Russians is due to +this, that any other government under whose power they may come will +certainly be better than the Russian, because in Europe there is not one +that is worse than the Russian; but that is not so: so far as I know, we +have seen the same in the case of the English, Dutch, German immigrants +in America, and of all the other colonists in Russia. + +The transference of the European nations from the power of one +government to another, from the Turkish to the Austrian, or from the +French to the German, changes the condition of the nations so little +that in no case can they provoke the dissatisfaction of the working +classes, so long as they are not artificially subjected to the +suggestions of the governments and the ruling classes. # XII -People generally adduce, in proof of the existence of -patriotism, the manifestations of patriotic sentiments in a -nation during a time of all kinds of celebrations, as, for -example, in Russia during a coronation or the meeting of the -emperor after the calamity of the seventeenth of October, or -in France during the proclamation of war against Prussia, or +People generally adduce, in proof of the existence of patriotism, the +manifestations of patriotic sentiments in a nation during a time of all +kinds of celebrations, as, for example, in Russia during a coronation or +the meeting of the emperor after the calamity of the seventeenth of +October, or in France during the proclamation of war against Prussia, or in Germany during the festivities of victory, or during the Franco-Russian celebrations. -But it ought to be known how these manifestations are -prepared. In Russia, for example, people are especially -dressed up by the village commune and the owners of -factories to meet and welcome the emperor whenever he passes -through a given locality. - -The transports of the masses are generally prepared -artificially by those who need them, and the degree of -transport expressed by the crowd shows only the degree of -the art of the arrangers of these transports. This business -has long been practised, and so the specialists in arranging -such transports have reached a high degree of virtuosity in -these arrangements. When Alexander II was still an heir -apparent, and was in command, as is usually the case, of the -Preobrázhenski regiment, he once drove out after dinner to -the regiment in camp. The moment his carriage appeared, the -soldiers, coatless as they were, rushed out to meet him, and -with such transport welcomed, as they say, their most august -commander, that all ran a race behind his carriage, and many -of them made the sign of the cross while on a run, looking -all the time at the heir apparent. All those who saw this -meeting were deeply touched by this naive loyalty and love -of the Russian soldiers for their Tsar and his heir, and by -that sincere religious and apparently unprepared transport -which was expressed in the faces, the motions, and -especially in the signs of the cross, which the soldiers -made. However, all that was done artificially and prepared -in the following manner: after the inspection of the -previous day the heir said to the brigade commander that he -would drive up the next day to the regiment. +But it ought to be known how these manifestations are prepared. In +Russia, for example, people are especially dressed up by the village +commune and the owners of factories to meet and welcome the emperor +whenever he passes through a given locality. + +The transports of the masses are generally prepared artificially by +those who need them, and the degree of transport expressed by the crowd +shows only the degree of the art of the arrangers of these transports. +This business has long been practised, and so the specialists in +arranging such transports have reached a high degree of virtuosity in +these arrangements. When Alexander II was still an heir apparent, and +was in command, as is usually the case, of the Preobrázhenski regiment, +he once drove out after dinner to the regiment in camp. The moment his +carriage appeared, the soldiers, coatless as they were, rushed out to +meet him, and with such transport welcomed, as they say, their most +august commander, that all ran a race behind his carriage, and many of +them made the sign of the cross while on a run, looking all the time at +the heir apparent. All those who saw this meeting were deeply touched by +this naive loyalty and love of the Russian soldiers for their Tsar and +his heir, and by that sincere religious and apparently unprepared +transport which was expressed in the faces, the motions, and especially +in the signs of the cross, which the soldiers made. However, all that +was done artificially and prepared in the following manner: after the +inspection of the previous day the heir said to the brigade commander +that he would drive up the next day to the regiment. "When are we to expect your Imperial Majesty?" -"In all probability in the evening. Only, please, no -preparations." - -The moment the heir drove off, the brigade commander called -together the commanders of the companies and gave the order -that on the following day all the soldiers were to appear in -clean shirts, and, as soon as they saw the heir's carriage, -which the signallers were to announce, they were to run at -haphazard after the carriage, shouting "Hurrah!" and that, -at the same time, every tenth man in the company was to run -and make the sign of the cross. The sergeants drew up the -companies, and, counting the soldiers, stopped at every -tenth man: "One, two, three... eight, nine, -ten,---Sidorénko---the sign of the cross; one, two, three, -four... Ivánov---the sign of the cross..." Everything was -carried out as by command, and the impression of transport -was complete, both on the heir apparent and on all the -persons present, even on the soldiers and the officers, and -even on the commander of the brigade, who had invented all -that. Just so, though less coarsely, they do in all places, -wherever there are any patriotic manifestations. Thus the -Franco-Russian celebrations, which present themselves to us -as free expressions of the people's sentiments, did not -originate with the people, but were, on the contrary, very -artfully and quite obviously prepared and provoked by the +"In all probability in the evening. Only, please, no preparations." + +The moment the heir drove off, the brigade commander called together the +commanders of the companies and gave the order that on the following day +all the soldiers were to appear in clean shirts, and, as soon as they +saw the heir's carriage, which the signallers were to announce, they +were to run at haphazard after the carriage, shouting "Hurrah!" and +that, at the same time, every tenth man in the company was to run and +make the sign of the cross. The sergeants drew up the companies, and, +counting the soldiers, stopped at every tenth man: "One, two, three... +eight, nine, ten,---Sidorénko---the sign of the cross; one, two, three, +four... Ivánov---the sign of the cross..." Everything was carried out as +by command, and the impression of transport was complete, both on the +heir apparent and on all the persons present, even on the soldiers and +the officers, and even on the commander of the brigade, who had invented +all that. Just so, though less coarsely, they do in all places, wherever +there are any patriotic manifestations. Thus the Franco-Russian +celebrations, which present themselves to us as free expressions of the +people's sentiments, did not originate with the people, but were, on the +contrary, very artfully and quite obviously prepared and provoked by the French government. -"The moment the arrival of the Russian sailors became -known," I am again quoting the same *Rural Messenger*, the -official organ, which collects its information from all the -other newspapers, "committees for the arrangement of -celebrations were being formed, not only in all the large -and small cities lying on the route from Toulon to Paris, a -considerable distance, but also in a large number of towns -and villages which lie quite to either side of this route. -Everywhere a subscription was opened for contributions to -meet the expenses for these celebrations. Many cities sent -deputations to Paris to our imperial ambassador, imploring -him to let the sailors visit their cities even for one day -or even for one hour. The municipal governments of all those -cities in which our sailors were ordered to stay set aside -vast sums, averaging more than one hundred thousand roubles, -for the arrangement of all kinds of festivities and -amusements, and expressed their willingness to expend even -greater sums, as much as should be needed, provided the -welcome and the celebrations should be as magnificent as -possible. - -"In Paris itself a private committee collected, in addition -to the sum set aside by the city government for this -purpose, an immense sum by private subscription, also for -the arrangement of amusements, and the French government -assigned more than one hundred thousand roubles for expenses -incurred by the ministers and other authorities in welcoming -the guests. In many cities, where our sailors will not set -foot at all, they none the less decided to celebrate the -first of October with all kinds of festivities in honour of -Russia. A vast number of cities and provinces decided to -send special deputations to Toulon and Paris, in order to -welcome the Russian guests and to offer them presents to -remember France by, or to send to them addresses and -telegrams of welcome. It was decided everywhere to consider -the first of October a national holiday and to dismiss the -pupils of all the educational institutions for that day, and -in Paris for two days. Officials of lower rank had their -penalties remitted, that they might, gratefully remember the -joyful day for France,---the first of October. - -"To make it easier for those who wished to visit Toulon and -take part in the welcome to the Russian squadron, the -railways lowered the rates to one-half and sent out special -trains." - -And thus, when by means of a whole series of universal, -simultaneous measures, which the government can always take -by dint of the power which it has in its hands, a certain -part of the nation, pre-eminently the scum of the people, -the city crowd, is brought to a condition of abnormal -excitement, they say: "Behold, this is the free expression -of the will of the whole nation." Manifestations like those -which just took place in Toulon and in Paris, which in -Germany take place at the meeting of the emperor or of -Bismarck, or at manoeuvres in Lorraine, and which are -constantly repeated in Russia at every meeting circumstanced -with solemnity, prove only this, that the means of an -artificial excitation of the people, which now are in the -hands of the governments and the ruling classes, are so -powerful that the governments and the ruling classes, which -are in possession of them, are always able at will to -provoke any kind of a patriotic manifestation they may wish -by rousing the patriotic sentiments of the masses. Nothing, -on the contrary, proves the absence of patriotism in the -masses with such obviousness as those tense efforts which -now are made by the governments and the ruling classes for -the artificial excitation of patriotism, and the -insignificant results which are obtained in spite of all the -efforts. - -If patriotic sentiments are so proper to the nations, they -should be permitted to manifest themselves freely, and -should not be provoked by all kinds of exclusive and -artificial means, applied on every possible occasion. Let -them even for a time, for one year, stop in Russia -compelling all the people, as they are doing now, upon the -accession of every Tsar, to swear allegiance to him; let -them at every divine service stop solemnly repeating several -times the customary prayers for the Tsar; let them stop -celebrating his birthdays and name-days with ringing of -bells, illumination, and the prohibition to work; let them -stop everywhere hanging out and displaying representations -of him; let them stop, in prayer-books, almanacs, -text-books, printing his name and the names of his family, -and even the pronouns referring to him, in capitals; let -them stop glorifying him in special books and newspapers -printed for the purpose; let them stop imprisoning men for -the slightest disrespectful word uttered concerning the -Tsar,---let them stop doing all that for a time only, and -then we should see how proper it is for the masses, for the -real labouring masses, for Prokofi, for elder Ivan, and for -all the men of the Russian masses,---as the nation is made -to believe and as all the foreigners are convinced of -it,---to worship the Tsar, who in one way or another turns -them over into the hands of a landed proprietor or of the -rich in general. So it is in Russia; but let them similarly -stop in Germany, France, Italy, England, America doing all -that which is done there with the same tension by the ruling -classes in order to rouse patriotism and loyalty and -submission to the existing government, and we should see in -how far this imaginary patriotism is characteristic of the -nations of our time. - -But, as it is, the masses are stultified from childhood by -all possible means, by school-books, divine services, -sermons, books, newspapers, verses, monuments, which all -tend in one and the same direction; then they select by -force or bribery a few thousands of the people, and when -these assembled thousands, joined by all the loafers who are -always happy to be present at any spectacle, to the sounds -of cannon-shots and of music, and at the sight of every kind -of splendour and light begin to shout what the leaders shout -to them, we are told that this is an expression of the -sentiments of the whole nation. But, in the first place, -these thousands, or, if it is a great crowd, these tens of -thousands, who shout something at such celebrations, form -but a tiny, a ten-thousandth part of the whole nation; in -the second place, out of these tens of thousands of shouting -men, who wave their hats, the greater part are either -collected by force, as is the case with us in Russia, or -artificially provoked by some enticement; in the third -place, among all these thousands, there are scarcely tens -who know what it is all about, and all the rest would as -gladly shout and wave their hats if the very opposite took -place; and, in the fourth place, the police are always -present, and they will make any one shut up if he does not -shout what the government wants and demands shall be -shouted, and lock him up at once, as was done with much -force during the Franco-Russian festivities. - -In France they welcomed with equal enthusiasm the war with -Russia under Napoleon I, and then Alexander I, against whom -the war was waged, and then again Napoleon, and again the -allies, and Bourbon, and Orleans, and the Republic, and -Napoleon III, and Boulanger; and in Russia they acclaim with -the same enthusiasm, to-day Peter, to-morrow Catherine, the +"The moment the arrival of the Russian sailors became known," I am again +quoting the same *Rural Messenger*, the official organ, which collects +its information from all the other newspapers, "committees for the +arrangement of celebrations were being formed, not only in all the large +and small cities lying on the route from Toulon to Paris, a considerable +distance, but also in a large number of towns and villages which lie +quite to either side of this route. Everywhere a subscription was opened +for contributions to meet the expenses for these celebrations. Many +cities sent deputations to Paris to our imperial ambassador, imploring +him to let the sailors visit their cities even for one day or even for +one hour. The municipal governments of all those cities in which our +sailors were ordered to stay set aside vast sums, averaging more than +one hundred thousand roubles, for the arrangement of all kinds of +festivities and amusements, and expressed their willingness to expend +even greater sums, as much as should be needed, provided the welcome and +the celebrations should be as magnificent as possible. + +"In Paris itself a private committee collected, in addition to the sum +set aside by the city government for this purpose, an immense sum by +private subscription, also for the arrangement of amusements, and the +French government assigned more than one hundred thousand roubles for +expenses incurred by the ministers and other authorities in welcoming +the guests. In many cities, where our sailors will not set foot at all, +they none the less decided to celebrate the first of October with all +kinds of festivities in honour of Russia. A vast number of cities and +provinces decided to send special deputations to Toulon and Paris, in +order to welcome the Russian guests and to offer them presents to +remember France by, or to send to them addresses and telegrams of +welcome. It was decided everywhere to consider the first of October a +national holiday and to dismiss the pupils of all the educational +institutions for that day, and in Paris for two days. Officials of lower +rank had their penalties remitted, that they might, gratefully remember +the joyful day for France,---the first of October. + +"To make it easier for those who wished to visit Toulon and take part in +the welcome to the Russian squadron, the railways lowered the rates to +one-half and sent out special trains." + +And thus, when by means of a whole series of universal, simultaneous +measures, which the government can always take by dint of the power +which it has in its hands, a certain part of the nation, pre-eminently +the scum of the people, the city crowd, is brought to a condition of +abnormal excitement, they say: "Behold, this is the free expression of +the will of the whole nation." Manifestations like those which just took +place in Toulon and in Paris, which in Germany take place at the meeting +of the emperor or of Bismarck, or at manoeuvres in Lorraine, and which +are constantly repeated in Russia at every meeting circumstanced with +solemnity, prove only this, that the means of an artificial excitation +of the people, which now are in the hands of the governments and the +ruling classes, are so powerful that the governments and the ruling +classes, which are in possession of them, are always able at will to +provoke any kind of a patriotic manifestation they may wish by rousing +the patriotic sentiments of the masses. Nothing, on the contrary, proves +the absence of patriotism in the masses with such obviousness as those +tense efforts which now are made by the governments and the ruling +classes for the artificial excitation of patriotism, and the +insignificant results which are obtained in spite of all the efforts. + +If patriotic sentiments are so proper to the nations, they should be +permitted to manifest themselves freely, and should not be provoked by +all kinds of exclusive and artificial means, applied on every possible +occasion. Let them even for a time, for one year, stop in Russia +compelling all the people, as they are doing now, upon the accession of +every Tsar, to swear allegiance to him; let them at every divine service +stop solemnly repeating several times the customary prayers for the +Tsar; let them stop celebrating his birthdays and name-days with ringing +of bells, illumination, and the prohibition to work; let them stop +everywhere hanging out and displaying representations of him; let them +stop, in prayer-books, almanacs, text-books, printing his name and the +names of his family, and even the pronouns referring to him, in +capitals; let them stop glorifying him in special books and newspapers +printed for the purpose; let them stop imprisoning men for the slightest +disrespectful word uttered concerning the Tsar,---let them stop doing +all that for a time only, and then we should see how proper it is for +the masses, for the real labouring masses, for Prokofi, for elder Ivan, +and for all the men of the Russian masses,---as the nation is made to +believe and as all the foreigners are convinced of it,---to worship the +Tsar, who in one way or another turns them over into the hands of a +landed proprietor or of the rich in general. So it is in Russia; but let +them similarly stop in Germany, France, Italy, England, America doing +all that which is done there with the same tension by the ruling classes +in order to rouse patriotism and loyalty and submission to the existing +government, and we should see in how far this imaginary patriotism is +characteristic of the nations of our time. + +But, as it is, the masses are stultified from childhood by all possible +means, by school-books, divine services, sermons, books, newspapers, +verses, monuments, which all tend in one and the same direction; then +they select by force or bribery a few thousands of the people, and when +these assembled thousands, joined by all the loafers who are always +happy to be present at any spectacle, to the sounds of cannon-shots and +of music, and at the sight of every kind of splendour and light begin to +shout what the leaders shout to them, we are told that this is an +expression of the sentiments of the whole nation. But, in the first +place, these thousands, or, if it is a great crowd, these tens of +thousands, who shout something at such celebrations, form but a tiny, a +ten-thousandth part of the whole nation; in the second place, out of +these tens of thousands of shouting men, who wave their hats, the +greater part are either collected by force, as is the case with us in +Russia, or artificially provoked by some enticement; in the third place, +among all these thousands, there are scarcely tens who know what it is +all about, and all the rest would as gladly shout and wave their hats if +the very opposite took place; and, in the fourth place, the police are +always present, and they will make any one shut up if he does not shout +what the government wants and demands shall be shouted, and lock him up +at once, as was done with much force during the Franco-Russian +festivities. + +In France they welcomed with equal enthusiasm the war with Russia under +Napoleon I, and then Alexander I, against whom the war was waged, and +then again Napoleon, and again the allies, and Bourbon, and Orleans, and +the Republic, and Napoleon III, and Boulanger; and in Russia they +acclaim with the same enthusiasm, to-day Peter, to-morrow Catherine, the next day Paul, Alexander, Constantine, Nicholas, the Duke of -Lichtenberg, the brother Slavs, the King of Prussia, the -French sailors, and all those whom the government wants them -to welcome. The same happens in England, America, Germany, -Italy. - -What in our time is called patriotism is, on the one hand, -only a certain mood, which is constantly produced and -maintained in the masses by the schools, the religion, the -venal press, having such a tendency as the government -demands, and, on the other, a temporary excitation, produced -with exclusive means by the ruling classes, in the masses, -who stand on a lower moral and even mental plane,---an -excitation, which later is given out as a constant -expression of the will of the whole nation. The patriotism -of the oppressed nationalities does not form an exception to -this. It is as little characteristic of the working classes, -and is artificially inculcated upon them by the upper -classes. +Lichtenberg, the brother Slavs, the King of Prussia, the French sailors, +and all those whom the government wants them to welcome. The same +happens in England, America, Germany, Italy. + +What in our time is called patriotism is, on the one hand, only a +certain mood, which is constantly produced and maintained in the masses +by the schools, the religion, the venal press, having such a tendency as +the government demands, and, on the other, a temporary excitation, +produced with exclusive means by the ruling classes, in the masses, who +stand on a lower moral and even mental plane,---an excitation, which +later is given out as a constant expression of the will of the whole +nation. The patriotism of the oppressed nationalities does not form an +exception to this. It is as little characteristic of the working +classes, and is artificially inculcated upon them by the upper classes. # XIII -"But if the men of the masses do not experience the -sentiment of patriotism, this is due to the fact that they -have not yet reached that exalted sentiment, which is -characteristic of every cultured man. If they do not -experience this exalted sentiment, it has to be educated in +"But if the men of the masses do not experience the sentiment of +patriotism, this is due to the fact that they have not yet reached that +exalted sentiment, which is characteristic of every cultured man. If +they do not experience this exalted sentiment, it has to be educated in them. It is this that the government is doing." -Thus generally speak the men of the ruling classes, with -such full confidence that patriotism is an exalted -sentiment, that the naive men of the masses, who do not -experience it, consider themselves at fault, because they do -not experience this sentiment, and try to assure themselves -that they experience it, or at least pretend that they do. - -But what is this exalted sentiment, which, in the opinion of -the ruling classes, ought to be educated in the nations? - -This sentiment is in its most precise definition nothing but -a preference shown to one's own state or nation in -comparison with any other state or nation, a sentiment which -is fully expressed in the German patriotic song, -"*Deutschland, Deutschland über alles*," in which we need -only substitute *Russland*, *Frankreich*, *Italien*, or any -other state for Deutschland, and we shall get the clearest -formula of the exalted sentiment of patriotism. It may be -that this sentiment is very desirable and useful for the -governments and the integrity of the state, but one cannot -help but observe that this sentiment is not at all exalted, -but, on the contrary, very stupid and very immoral: stupid, -because, if every state will consider itself better than any -other, it is obvious that they will all be in the wrong; and -immoral, because it inevitably leads every man who -experiences the feeling to try to obtain advantages for his -own state and nation, at the expense of other states and -nations---a tendency which is directly opposed to the -fundamental moral law recognized by all men: not to do unto -another what we do not wish to have done to ourselves. - -Patriotism may have been a virtue in the ancient world, when -it demanded of man that he serve the highest ideal -accessible to him at the time,---the ideal of his country. -But how can patriotism be a virtue in our time, when it -demands of men what is directly opposed to what forms the -ideal of our religion and morality,---not the recognition of -the equality and brotherhood of all men, but the recognition -of one state and nationality as predominating over all the -others. This sentiment is in our time not only not a virtue, -but unquestionably a vice; no such sentiment of patriotism -in its true sense does or can exist in our time, because the -material and moral foundations for it are lacking. - -Patriotism could have some sense in the ancient world, when -every nation, more or less homogeneous in its structure, -professing one and the same state religion, and submitting -to the same unlimited power of its supreme, deified ruler, -appeared to itself as an island in the ocean of the -barbarians, which ever threatened to inundate it. - -We can see how with such a state of affairs, patriotism, -that is, the desire to ward off the attacks of the -barbarians, who were not only prepared to destroy the social -order, but who also threatened wholesale plundering and -murder, with the enslavement of men and the rape of women, -was a natural feeling, and we can see why a man, to free -himself and his compatriots from such calamities, could have -preferred his nation to all the others, and could experience -a hostile feeling toward the barbarians around him, and -could kill them, in order to protect his nation. - -But what significance can this sentiment have in our -Christian time? On what ground and for what purpose can a -man of our time, a Russian, go and kill Frenchmen or -Germans, or a Frenchman Germans, when he knows full well, no -matter how little educated he may be, that the men of the -other state and nation, against which they are rousing his -patriotic hostility, are not barbarians, but just such -Christians as he, frequently of the same faith and -profession with him, desiring like him nothing but peace and -a peaceful exchange of labour, and that, besides, they are -for the most part united with him either by the interests of -common labour, or by commercial or spiritual interests, or -by all together? Thus frequently the men of another country -are nearer and more indispensable to a man than his own -countrymen, as is the case with labourers who are connected -with employers of other nationalities, and as is the case -with commercial people, and especially with scholars and +Thus generally speak the men of the ruling classes, with such full +confidence that patriotism is an exalted sentiment, that the naive men +of the masses, who do not experience it, consider themselves at fault, +because they do not experience this sentiment, and try to assure +themselves that they experience it, or at least pretend that they do. + +But what is this exalted sentiment, which, in the opinion of the ruling +classes, ought to be educated in the nations? + +This sentiment is in its most precise definition nothing but a +preference shown to one's own state or nation in comparison with any +other state or nation, a sentiment which is fully expressed in the +German patriotic song, "*Deutschland, Deutschland über alles*," in which +we need only substitute *Russland*, *Frankreich*, *Italien*, or any +other state for Deutschland, and we shall get the clearest formula of +the exalted sentiment of patriotism. It may be that this sentiment is +very desirable and useful for the governments and the integrity of the +state, but one cannot help but observe that this sentiment is not at all +exalted, but, on the contrary, very stupid and very immoral: stupid, +because, if every state will consider itself better than any other, it +is obvious that they will all be in the wrong; and immoral, because it +inevitably leads every man who experiences the feeling to try to obtain +advantages for his own state and nation, at the expense of other states +and nations---a tendency which is directly opposed to the fundamental +moral law recognized by all men: not to do unto another what we do not +wish to have done to ourselves. + +Patriotism may have been a virtue in the ancient world, when it demanded +of man that he serve the highest ideal accessible to him at the +time,---the ideal of his country. But how can patriotism be a virtue in +our time, when it demands of men what is directly opposed to what forms +the ideal of our religion and morality,---not the recognition of the +equality and brotherhood of all men, but the recognition of one state +and nationality as predominating over all the others. This sentiment is +in our time not only not a virtue, but unquestionably a vice; no such +sentiment of patriotism in its true sense does or can exist in our time, +because the material and moral foundations for it are lacking. + +Patriotism could have some sense in the ancient world, when every +nation, more or less homogeneous in its structure, professing one and +the same state religion, and submitting to the same unlimited power of +its supreme, deified ruler, appeared to itself as an island in the ocean +of the barbarians, which ever threatened to inundate it. + +We can see how with such a state of affairs, patriotism, that is, the +desire to ward off the attacks of the barbarians, who were not only +prepared to destroy the social order, but who also threatened wholesale +plundering and murder, with the enslavement of men and the rape of +women, was a natural feeling, and we can see why a man, to free himself +and his compatriots from such calamities, could have preferred his +nation to all the others, and could experience a hostile feeling toward +the barbarians around him, and could kill them, in order to protect his +nation. + +But what significance can this sentiment have in our Christian time? On +what ground and for what purpose can a man of our time, a Russian, go +and kill Frenchmen or Germans, or a Frenchman Germans, when he knows +full well, no matter how little educated he may be, that the men of the +other state and nation, against which they are rousing his patriotic +hostility, are not barbarians, but just such Christians as he, +frequently of the same faith and profession with him, desiring like him +nothing but peace and a peaceful exchange of labour, and that, besides, +they are for the most part united with him either by the interests of +common labour, or by commercial or spiritual interests, or by all +together? Thus frequently the men of another country are nearer and more +indispensable to a man than his own countrymen, as is the case with +labourers who are connected with employers of other nationalities, and +as is the case with commercial people, and especially with scholars and artists. -Besides, the conditions of life themselves have so changed -now that what we call our country, what we are supposed to -distinguish from everything else, has ceased to be something -clearly defined, as it was with the ancients, where the men -forming one country belonged to one nationality, one state, -and one faith. We can understand the patriotism of an -Egyptian, a Jew, a Greek, who, defending his country, was at -the same time defending his faith, and his nationality, and -his home, and his state. - -But in what way will in our time be expressed the patriotism -of an Irishman in the United States, who by his faith -belongs to Rome, by his nationality to Ireland, by his state -allegiance to the United States? In the same condition are a -Bohemian in Austria, a Pole in Russia, Prussia, and Austria, -a Hindu in England, a Tartar and an Armenian in Russia and -in Turkey. But, even leaving out these men of the separate -conquered nationalities, the men of the most homogeneous -states, such as are Russia, France, Prussia, can no longer -experience that sentiment of patriotism, which was peculiar -to the ancients, because frequently all the chief interests -of their life (sometimes their domestic ones,---they are -married to women of another nation; the economic -ones,---their capital is abroad; their spiritual, -scientific, or artistic ones) are not in their own country, -but outside it, in that state against which the government -is rousing his patriotic hatred. - -But most of all is patriotism impossible in our time, -because, no matter how much we have tried for eighteen -hundred years to conceal the meaning of Christianity, it has -none the less trickled through into our life, and is guiding -it in such a way that the coarsest and most stupid of men -cannot help but see the absolute incompatibility of -patriotism with those moral rules by which they live. +Besides, the conditions of life themselves have so changed now that what +we call our country, what we are supposed to distinguish from everything +else, has ceased to be something clearly defined, as it was with the +ancients, where the men forming one country belonged to one nationality, +one state, and one faith. We can understand the patriotism of an +Egyptian, a Jew, a Greek, who, defending his country, was at the same +time defending his faith, and his nationality, and his home, and his +state. + +But in what way will in our time be expressed the patriotism of an +Irishman in the United States, who by his faith belongs to Rome, by his +nationality to Ireland, by his state allegiance to the United States? In +the same condition are a Bohemian in Austria, a Pole in Russia, Prussia, +and Austria, a Hindu in England, a Tartar and an Armenian in Russia and +in Turkey. But, even leaving out these men of the separate conquered +nationalities, the men of the most homogeneous states, such as are +Russia, France, Prussia, can no longer experience that sentiment of +patriotism, which was peculiar to the ancients, because frequently all +the chief interests of their life (sometimes their domestic ones,---they +are married to women of another nation; the economic ones,---their +capital is abroad; their spiritual, scientific, or artistic ones) are +not in their own country, but outside it, in that state against which +the government is rousing his patriotic hatred. + +But most of all is patriotism impossible in our time, because, no matter +how much we have tried for eighteen hundred years to conceal the meaning +of Christianity, it has none the less trickled through into our life, +and is guiding it in such a way that the coarsest and most stupid of men +cannot help but see the absolute incompatibility of patriotism with +those moral rules by which they live. # XIV -Patriotism was necessary for the formation, out of -heterogeneous nationalities, of strong, united kingdoms, -protected against the barbarians. But as soon as the -Christian enlightenment transformed all these kingdoms alike -from within, by giving them the same foundations, patriotism -not only became unnecessary, but was also the one barrier -against that union of the nations for which they are -prepared by dint of their Christian consciousness. - -Patriotism is in our time the cruel tradition of a -long-gone-by period of time, which holds itself only through -inertia and because the governments and the ruling classes -feel that with this patriotism is connected not only their -power, but also their existence, and so with care and -cunning and violence rouse and sustain it in the nations. -Patriotism is in our time like the scaffolding, which at one -time was necessary for the construction of the walls of a -building, but which now, though it only interferes with the -proper use of the building, is not taken down, because its -existence is advantageous for some persons. - -Among the Christian nations there has for a long time ceased -to exist any cause for discord, and there can be no such -cause. It is even impossible to imagine why and how Russian -and German labourers, who peacefully work together near the -border and in the capital cities, should begin to quarrel -among themselves. And much less can we imagine any hostility -between, let us say, a Kazan peasant, who supplies a German -with corn, and the German, who supplies him with scythes and -machines, and similarly among French, German, and Italian -labourers. It is even ridiculous to talk of quarrels among -the scholars, artists, writers of various nationalities, who -live by the same interests, that are independent of -nationality and the state structure. - -But the governments cannot leave the nations alone, that is, -in peaceful relations among themselves, because the chief, -if not the only justification of the existence of the -governments consists in making peace between the nations, -that is, in allaying their hostile relations. And so the -governments provoke these hostile relations under the guise -of patriotism, and then make it appear that they are making -peace among the nations. It is something like what a gipsy -does, who pours some pepper under his horse's tail, and -lashes it in the stall, and then leads it out, while hanging -on to the bridle, pretending that he has the hardest time to -restrain the mettled horse. - -We are assured that the governments are concerned about -preserving the peace among the nations. In what way do they -preserve this peace? - -People are living along the Rhine in peaceful intercourse -among themselves,---suddenly, in consequence of all kinds of -disputes and intrigues between the kings and emperors, war -breaks out, and the French government finds it necessary to -recognize some of these inhabitants as Frenchmen. Ages pass, -men have become accustomed to this state of affairs; again -there begin hostilities between the governments of the great -nations, and war breaks out on the slightest pretence, and -the Germans find it necessary to recognize these inhabitants -once more as Germans, and in all the French and the Germans -ill-will flames up toward one another. Or Germans and -Russians are living peacefully near the border, peacefully -exchanging their labour and the products of labour, and -suddenly the same institutions which exist only in the name -of the pacification of the nations begin to quarrel, to do -one foolish thing after another, and are not able to invent -anything better than the coarsest childish method of -self-inflicted punishment, if only they can thus have their -will and do something nasty to their adversary (which in -this case is especially advantageous, since not those who -start a customs war, but others, suffer from it); thus the -Customs War between Russia and Germany was lately started. -Then, with the aid of the newspapers, there flames up a -malevolent feeling, which is still farther fanned by the -Franco-Russian celebrations, and which, before we know it, +Patriotism was necessary for the formation, out of heterogeneous +nationalities, of strong, united kingdoms, protected against the +barbarians. But as soon as the Christian enlightenment transformed all +these kingdoms alike from within, by giving them the same foundations, +patriotism not only became unnecessary, but was also the one barrier +against that union of the nations for which they are prepared by dint of +their Christian consciousness. + +Patriotism is in our time the cruel tradition of a long-gone-by period +of time, which holds itself only through inertia and because the +governments and the ruling classes feel that with this patriotism is +connected not only their power, but also their existence, and so with +care and cunning and violence rouse and sustain it in the nations. +Patriotism is in our time like the scaffolding, which at one time was +necessary for the construction of the walls of a building, but which +now, though it only interferes with the proper use of the building, is +not taken down, because its existence is advantageous for some persons. + +Among the Christian nations there has for a long time ceased to exist +any cause for discord, and there can be no such cause. It is even +impossible to imagine why and how Russian and German labourers, who +peacefully work together near the border and in the capital cities, +should begin to quarrel among themselves. And much less can we imagine +any hostility between, let us say, a Kazan peasant, who supplies a +German with corn, and the German, who supplies him with scythes and +machines, and similarly among French, German, and Italian labourers. It +is even ridiculous to talk of quarrels among the scholars, artists, +writers of various nationalities, who live by the same interests, that +are independent of nationality and the state structure. + +But the governments cannot leave the nations alone, that is, in peaceful +relations among themselves, because the chief, if not the only +justification of the existence of the governments consists in making +peace between the nations, that is, in allaying their hostile relations. +And so the governments provoke these hostile relations under the guise +of patriotism, and then make it appear that they are making peace among +the nations. It is something like what a gipsy does, who pours some +pepper under his horse's tail, and lashes it in the stall, and then +leads it out, while hanging on to the bridle, pretending that he has the +hardest time to restrain the mettled horse. + +We are assured that the governments are concerned about preserving the +peace among the nations. In what way do they preserve this peace? + +People are living along the Rhine in peaceful intercourse among +themselves,---suddenly, in consequence of all kinds of disputes and +intrigues between the kings and emperors, war breaks out, and the French +government finds it necessary to recognize some of these inhabitants as +Frenchmen. Ages pass, men have become accustomed to this state of +affairs; again there begin hostilities between the governments of the +great nations, and war breaks out on the slightest pretence, and the +Germans find it necessary to recognize these inhabitants once more as +Germans, and in all the French and the Germans ill-will flames up toward +one another. Or Germans and Russians are living peacefully near the +border, peacefully exchanging their labour and the products of labour, +and suddenly the same institutions which exist only in the name of the +pacification of the nations begin to quarrel, to do one foolish thing +after another, and are not able to invent anything better than the +coarsest childish method of self-inflicted punishment, if only they can +thus have their will and do something nasty to their adversary (which in +this case is especially advantageous, since not those who start a +customs war, but others, suffer from it); thus the Customs War between +Russia and Germany was lately started. Then, with the aid of the +newspapers, there flames up a malevolent feeling, which is still farther +fanned by the Franco-Russian celebrations, and which, before we know it, may lead to a sanguinary war. -I have cited the last two examples of the manner in which -the governments affect the people by rousing in them a -hostile feeling toward other nations, because they are -contemporary; but there is not one war in all history, which -was not provoked by the governments, by the governments -alone, independently of the advantages to the nations, to -which war, even if it is successful, is always harmful. - -The governments assure the nations that they are in danger -of an incursion from other nations and from internal -enemies, and that the only salvation from this danger -consists in the slavish obedience of the nations to their -governments. This is most obvious in the time of revolutions -and dictatorships, and this takes place at all times and in -all places, wherever there is power. Every government -explains its existence and justifies all its violence by -insisting that, if it did not exist, things would be worse. -By assuring the nations that they are in danger, the -governments subject them to themselves. When the nations -submit to the governments, these governments compel these -nations to attack the other nations. In this manner the -nations find confirmed the assurances of their governments -in regard to the danger from being attacked by other -nations. +I have cited the last two examples of the manner in which the +governments affect the people by rousing in them a hostile feeling +toward other nations, because they are contemporary; but there is not +one war in all history, which was not provoked by the governments, by +the governments alone, independently of the advantages to the nations, +to which war, even if it is successful, is always harmful. + +The governments assure the nations that they are in danger of an +incursion from other nations and from internal enemies, and that the +only salvation from this danger consists in the slavish obedience of the +nations to their governments. This is most obvious in the time of +revolutions and dictatorships, and this takes place at all times and in +all places, wherever there is power. Every government explains its +existence and justifies all its violence by insisting that, if it did +not exist, things would be worse. By assuring the nations that they are +in danger, the governments subject them to themselves. When the nations +submit to the governments, these governments compel these nations to +attack the other nations. In this manner the nations find confirmed the +assurances of their governments in regard to the danger from being +attacked by other nations. *Divide et impera*. -Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most -unquestionable significance is for the rulers nothing but a -tool for attaining their ambitious and selfish ends, and for -the ruled a renunciation of human dignity, reason, -conscience, and a slavish submission to those who are in -power. Thus is patriotism actually preached, wherever it is -preached. +Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most unquestionable +significance is for the rulers nothing but a tool for attaining their +ambitious and selfish ends, and for the ruled a renunciation of human +dignity, reason, conscience, and a slavish submission to those who are +in power. Thus is patriotism actually preached, wherever it is preached. Patriotism is slavery. -The advocates of peace through arbitration judge like this: -two animals cannot divide their prey otherwise than by -fighting, as do children, barbarians, and barbarous nations. -But sensible people settle their differences by discussion, -conviction, the transmission of the solution of the question -to disinterested, sensible men. Even thus must the sensible -nations of our time act. These reflections seem quite -correct. The nations of our time have reached an age of -discretion, are not hostile to one another, and should be -able to settle their differences in a peaceable manner. But -the reflection is correct only in reference to the nations, -to the nations alone, if they were not under the power of -their governments. But the nations which submit to their -governments cannot be sensible, because submission to the -governments is already a sign of the greatest senselessness. - -How can we talk of the sensibleness of men who promise in -advance to do everything (including the murder of men) which -the government, that is, certain men who have accidentally -come to hold this position, may command them to do? - -Men who are able to accept such a duty of unflinching -submission to what certain strangers will, from -St. Petersburg, Vienna, Paris, command them to do, cannot be -sensible, and the governments, that is, the men who possess -such power, can still less be sensible, and cannot help -abusing it,---they cannot help losing their minds from such -a senselessly terrible power. For that reason the peace -among the nations cannot be attained by any sensible means, -through conventions, through arbitrations, so long as there -exists a submission to the governments, which is always -senseless and always pernicious. - -But the submission of men to the governments will always -exist, so long as there is any patriotism, because every -power is based on patriotism, that is, on the readiness of -men, for the sake of defending their nation, their country, -that is, the state, against supposed dangers that are -threatening it, to submit to the power. - -On this patriotism was based the power of the French kings -over the whole nation previous to the Revolution; on the -same patriotism was based the power of the Committee of -Public Safety after the Revolution; on the same patriotism -was reared the power of Napoleon (as consul and as emperor); -and on the same patriotism, after the downfall of Napoleon, -was established the power of the Bourbons, and later of the -Republic, and of Louis Philippe, and again of the Republic, -and again of Bonaparte, and again of the Republic, and on -the same patriotism came very near being established the -power of Mr. Boulanger. - -It is terrible to say so, but there does not exist, and -there has not existed, a case of aggregate violence -committed by one set of men against another which has not -been committed in the name of patriotism. In the name of -patriotism the Russians fought with the French, and the -French with the Russians, and in the name of patriotism the -Russians and the French are now preparing themselves to wage -war against the Germans,---to fight from two flanks. But war -is not all,---in the name of patriotism the Russians crush -the Poles, and the Germans the Slavs; in the name of -patriotism the Communists killed the Versaillians, and the -Versaillians, the Communists. +The advocates of peace through arbitration judge like this: two animals +cannot divide their prey otherwise than by fighting, as do children, +barbarians, and barbarous nations. But sensible people settle their +differences by discussion, conviction, the transmission of the solution +of the question to disinterested, sensible men. Even thus must the +sensible nations of our time act. These reflections seem quite correct. +The nations of our time have reached an age of discretion, are not +hostile to one another, and should be able to settle their differences +in a peaceable manner. But the reflection is correct only in reference +to the nations, to the nations alone, if they were not under the power +of their governments. But the nations which submit to their governments +cannot be sensible, because submission to the governments is already a +sign of the greatest senselessness. + +How can we talk of the sensibleness of men who promise in advance to do +everything (including the murder of men) which the government, that is, +certain men who have accidentally come to hold this position, may +command them to do? + +Men who are able to accept such a duty of unflinching submission to what +certain strangers will, from St. Petersburg, Vienna, Paris, command them +to do, cannot be sensible, and the governments, that is, the men who +possess such power, can still less be sensible, and cannot help abusing +it,---they cannot help losing their minds from such a senselessly +terrible power. For that reason the peace among the nations cannot be +attained by any sensible means, through conventions, through +arbitrations, so long as there exists a submission to the governments, +which is always senseless and always pernicious. + +But the submission of men to the governments will always exist, so long +as there is any patriotism, because every power is based on patriotism, +that is, on the readiness of men, for the sake of defending their +nation, their country, that is, the state, against supposed dangers that +are threatening it, to submit to the power. + +On this patriotism was based the power of the French kings over the +whole nation previous to the Revolution; on the same patriotism was +based the power of the Committee of Public Safety after the Revolution; +on the same patriotism was reared the power of Napoleon (as consul and +as emperor); and on the same patriotism, after the downfall of Napoleon, +was established the power of the Bourbons, and later of the Republic, +and of Louis Philippe, and again of the Republic, and again of +Bonaparte, and again of the Republic, and on the same patriotism came +very near being established the power of Mr. Boulanger. + +It is terrible to say so, but there does not exist, and there has not +existed, a case of aggregate violence committed by one set of men +against another which has not been committed in the name of patriotism. +In the name of patriotism the Russians fought with the French, and the +French with the Russians, and in the name of patriotism the Russians and +the French are now preparing themselves to wage war against the +Germans,---to fight from two flanks. But war is not all,---in the name +of patriotism the Russians crush the Poles, and the Germans the Slavs; +in the name of patriotism the Communists killed the Versaillians, and +the Versaillians, the Communists. # XV -It would seem that with the dissemination of culture, of -improved means of locomotion, of frequent intercourse among -the men of the various nations, in connection with the -diffusion of the press, and, above all, in connection with -the complete absence of danger from other nations, the -deception of patriotism ought to become harder and harder, -and ought in the end to become impossible. - -But the point is, that these same means of a universal -external culture, of improved methods of locomotion, and of -intercommunication, and above all, of the press, which the -governments have seized upon and seize upon more and more, -give them now such a power of exciting in the nations -hostile feelings toward one another, that, though on the one -hand the obviousness of the uselessness and harm of -patriotism has increased, there has, on the other, increased -the power of the governments and of the ruling classes to -influence the masses, by rousing patriotism in them. - -The difference between what was and what now is consists -only in this, that, since now a much greater number of men -share in the advantages which patriotism affords to the -upper classes, a much greater number of men take part in the -dissemination and maintenance of this wonderful +It would seem that with the dissemination of culture, of improved means +of locomotion, of frequent intercourse among the men of the various +nations, in connection with the diffusion of the press, and, above all, +in connection with the complete absence of danger from other nations, +the deception of patriotism ought to become harder and harder, and ought +in the end to become impossible. + +But the point is, that these same means of a universal external culture, +of improved methods of locomotion, and of intercommunication, and above +all, of the press, which the governments have seized upon and seize upon +more and more, give them now such a power of exciting in the nations +hostile feelings toward one another, that, though on the one hand the +obviousness of the uselessness and harm of patriotism has increased, +there has, on the other, increased the power of the governments and of +the ruling classes to influence the masses, by rousing patriotism in +them. + +The difference between what was and what now is consists only in this, +that, since now a much greater number of men share in the advantages +which patriotism affords to the upper classes, a much greater number of +men take part in the dissemination and maintenance of this wonderful superstition. -The more difficult it is to maintain the power, the greater -and greater is the number of men with whom the government -shares it. - -Formerly a small group of rulers had the power,---emperors, -kings, dukes, their officials, and warriors; but now the -participants in this power and in the advantages which it -affords are not only the officials and the clergy, but also -capitalists, great and small, the landowners, bankers, -members of Chambers, teachers, rural officers, scholars, -even artists, and especially journalists. And all these -persons consciously and unconsciously spread the deception -of patriotism, which is indispensable to them for the -maintenance of their advantageous position. And the -deception, thanks to the fact that the means of deception -have become more powerful and that now an ever-growing -number of men are taking part in it, is produced so -successfully that, in spite of the great difficulty of -deceiving, the degree of the deception remains the same. - -One hundred years ago, the illiterate masses, who had no -conception as to who composed their government and as to -what nations surrounded them, blindly obeyed those local -officials and gentry, whose slaves they were. And it -sufficed for the government by means of bribes and rewards -to keep these officials and this gentry in their power, in -order that the masses might obediently do what was demanded -of them. But now, when the masses for the most part can read -and more or less know of whom their government is composed, -and what nations surround them; when the men of the masses -constantly move about with ease from one place to another, -bringing to the masses information about what is going on in -the world, a mere demand to carry out the commands of the -government no longer suffices: it becomes necessary to -obscure the true conceptions which the masses have -concerning life, and to impress them with improper ideas -concerning the conditions of their life and concerning the -relation of other nations toward them. - -And so, thanks to the diffusion of the press, of the -rudiments, and of the means of communication, the -governments, having their agents everywhere, by means of -decrees, church sermons, the schools, the newspapers -inculcate on the masses the wildest and most perverse -conceptions about their advantages, about the relation of -the peoples among themselves, about their properties and -intentions; and the masses, which are so crushed by labour -that they have no time and no chance to understand the -significance and verify the correctness of those conceptions -which are inculcated upon them, and of those demands which -are made on them in the name of their good, submit to them -without a murmur. - -But the men from the masses who free themselves from -constant labour and who educate themselves, and who, it -would seem, should be able to understand the deception which -is practised upon them, are subjected to such an intensified -effect of menaces, bribery, and hypnotization by the -governments, that they almost without an exception pass over -to the side of the governments and, accepting advantageous -and well-paid positions as teachers, priests, officers, -officials, become participants in the dissemination of the -deception which ruins their fellow men. It is as though at -the door of education stood a snare, into which inevitably -fall those who in one way or another leave the masses that -are absorbed in labour. - -At first, as one comes to understand the cruelty of the -deception, there involuntarily rises an indignation against -those who for their personal, selfish, ambitious advantage -produce this cruel deception, which destroys, not only men's -bodies, but also their souls, and one feels like showing up -these cruel deceivers. But the point is, that the deceivers -do not deceive because they want to deceive, but because -they almost cannot do otherwise. And they do not deceive in -any Machiavellian way, with a consciousness of the deception -which they practise, but for the most part with the naive -assurance that they are doing something good and elevated, -in which opinion they are constantly maintained by the -sympathy and approval of all the men who surround them. It -is true that, feeling dimly that their power and their -advantageous position is based on this deception, they are -involuntarily drawn toward it; but they do not act because -they wish to deceive the masses, but because they think that -the work which they are doing is useful for the masses. - -Thus emperors and kings and their ministers, performing -their coronations, manoeuvres, inspections, mutual visits, -during which time they, dressing themselves up in all kinds -of uniforms and travelling from one place to another, -consult with one another with serious faces about how to -pacify presumably hostile nations (who will never think of -fighting with one another), are absolutely convinced that -everything they do is exceedingly sensible and useful. - -Similarly all the ministers, diplomatists, and all kinds of -officials, who dress themselves up in their uniforms, with -all kinds of ribbons and little crosses, and with -preoccupation write on fine paper their obscure, twisted, -useless numbered reports, communications, prescriptions, -projects, are absolutely convinced that without this their -activity the whole life of the nations will come to a -standstill or will be entirely destroyed. - -Similarly the military, who dress themselves up in their -ridiculous costumes and who seriously discuss with what guns -or cannon it is better to kill people, are fully convinced -that their manoeuvres and parades are most important and -necessary for the nation. - -The same conviction is held by the preachers, journalists, -and writers of patriotic verses and text-books, who receive -a liberal reward for preaching patriotism. Nor is any doubt -concerning this harboured by the managers of celebrations, -like the Franco-Russian ones, who are sincerely affected -when they utter their patriotic speeches and toasts. All -people do unconsciously what they do, because that is -necessary, or because their whole life is based on this -deception and they are unable to do anything else, while -these same acts evoke the sympathy and the approval of all -those men among whom they are committed. Not only do they, -being all connected with one another, approve and justify -the acts and the activities of one another,---the emperors -and kings, the acts of the soldiers, the officials, and the -clergy; and the military, the officials, and the clergy, the -acts of the emperors, the kings, and one another,---the -popular crowd, especially the city crowd, which sees no -comprehensible meaning in everything which is being done by -these men, involuntarily ascribes a special, almost a -supernatural significance to them. The crowd sees, for -example, that triumphal arches are being erected; that men -masquerade in crowns, uniforms, vestments; that fireworks -are displayed, cannon are fired, bells are rung, regiments -are marching with music, documents, telegrams, and couriers -fly from one place to another, and strangely masquerading -men with preoccupation keep riding from one place to -another, saying and writing something, and so forth,---and, -not being able to verify whether there is the slightest need -for what is being done (as, indeed, there is none), ascribes -to all this a special, mysterious, and important meaning, -and with shouts of transport or with silent awe meets all -these manifestations. But in the meantime these expressions -of transport and the constant respect of the crowd still -more strengthen the assurance of the men who are doing all +The more difficult it is to maintain the power, the greater and greater +is the number of men with whom the government shares it. + +Formerly a small group of rulers had the power,---emperors, kings, +dukes, their officials, and warriors; but now the participants in this +power and in the advantages which it affords are not only the officials +and the clergy, but also capitalists, great and small, the landowners, +bankers, members of Chambers, teachers, rural officers, scholars, even +artists, and especially journalists. And all these persons consciously +and unconsciously spread the deception of patriotism, which is +indispensable to them for the maintenance of their advantageous +position. And the deception, thanks to the fact that the means of +deception have become more powerful and that now an ever-growing number +of men are taking part in it, is produced so successfully that, in spite +of the great difficulty of deceiving, the degree of the deception +remains the same. + +One hundred years ago, the illiterate masses, who had no conception as +to who composed their government and as to what nations surrounded them, +blindly obeyed those local officials and gentry, whose slaves they were. +And it sufficed for the government by means of bribes and rewards to +keep these officials and this gentry in their power, in order that the +masses might obediently do what was demanded of them. But now, when the +masses for the most part can read and more or less know of whom their +government is composed, and what nations surround them; when the men of +the masses constantly move about with ease from one place to another, +bringing to the masses information about what is going on in the world, +a mere demand to carry out the commands of the government no longer +suffices: it becomes necessary to obscure the true conceptions which the +masses have concerning life, and to impress them with improper ideas +concerning the conditions of their life and concerning the relation of +other nations toward them. + +And so, thanks to the diffusion of the press, of the rudiments, and of +the means of communication, the governments, having their agents +everywhere, by means of decrees, church sermons, the schools, the +newspapers inculcate on the masses the wildest and most perverse +conceptions about their advantages, about the relation of the peoples +among themselves, about their properties and intentions; and the masses, +which are so crushed by labour that they have no time and no chance to +understand the significance and verify the correctness of those +conceptions which are inculcated upon them, and of those demands which +are made on them in the name of their good, submit to them without a +murmur. + +But the men from the masses who free themselves from constant labour and +who educate themselves, and who, it would seem, should be able to +understand the deception which is practised upon them, are subjected to +such an intensified effect of menaces, bribery, and hypnotization by the +governments, that they almost without an exception pass over to the side +of the governments and, accepting advantageous and well-paid positions +as teachers, priests, officers, officials, become participants in the +dissemination of the deception which ruins their fellow men. It is as +though at the door of education stood a snare, into which inevitably +fall those who in one way or another leave the masses that are absorbed +in labour. + +At first, as one comes to understand the cruelty of the deception, there +involuntarily rises an indignation against those who for their personal, +selfish, ambitious advantage produce this cruel deception, which +destroys, not only men's bodies, but also their souls, and one feels +like showing up these cruel deceivers. But the point is, that the +deceivers do not deceive because they want to deceive, but because they +almost cannot do otherwise. And they do not deceive in any Machiavellian +way, with a consciousness of the deception which they practise, but for +the most part with the naive assurance that they are doing something +good and elevated, in which opinion they are constantly maintained by +the sympathy and approval of all the men who surround them. It is true +that, feeling dimly that their power and their advantageous position is +based on this deception, they are involuntarily drawn toward it; but +they do not act because they wish to deceive the masses, but because +they think that the work which they are doing is useful for the masses. + +Thus emperors and kings and their ministers, performing their +coronations, manoeuvres, inspections, mutual visits, during which time +they, dressing themselves up in all kinds of uniforms and travelling +from one place to another, consult with one another with serious faces +about how to pacify presumably hostile nations (who will never think of +fighting with one another), are absolutely convinced that everything +they do is exceedingly sensible and useful. + +Similarly all the ministers, diplomatists, and all kinds of officials, +who dress themselves up in their uniforms, with all kinds of ribbons and +little crosses, and with preoccupation write on fine paper their +obscure, twisted, useless numbered reports, communications, +prescriptions, projects, are absolutely convinced that without this +their activity the whole life of the nations will come to a standstill +or will be entirely destroyed. + +Similarly the military, who dress themselves up in their ridiculous +costumes and who seriously discuss with what guns or cannon it is better +to kill people, are fully convinced that their manoeuvres and parades +are most important and necessary for the nation. + +The same conviction is held by the preachers, journalists, and writers +of patriotic verses and text-books, who receive a liberal reward for +preaching patriotism. Nor is any doubt concerning this harboured by the +managers of celebrations, like the Franco-Russian ones, who are +sincerely affected when they utter their patriotic speeches and toasts. +All people do unconsciously what they do, because that is necessary, or +because their whole life is based on this deception and they are unable +to do anything else, while these same acts evoke the sympathy and the +approval of all those men among whom they are committed. Not only do +they, being all connected with one another, approve and justify the acts +and the activities of one another,---the emperors and kings, the acts of +the soldiers, the officials, and the clergy; and the military, the +officials, and the clergy, the acts of the emperors, the kings, and one +another,---the popular crowd, especially the city crowd, which sees no +comprehensible meaning in everything which is being done by these men, +involuntarily ascribes a special, almost a supernatural significance to +them. The crowd sees, for example, that triumphal arches are being +erected; that men masquerade in crowns, uniforms, vestments; that +fireworks are displayed, cannon are fired, bells are rung, regiments are +marching with music, documents, telegrams, and couriers fly from one +place to another, and strangely masquerading men with preoccupation keep +riding from one place to another, saying and writing something, and so +forth,---and, not being able to verify whether there is the slightest +need for what is being done (as, indeed, there is none), ascribes to all +this a special, mysterious, and important meaning, and with shouts of +transport or with silent awe meets all these manifestations. But in the +meantime these expressions of transport and the constant respect of the +crowd still more strengthen the assurance of the men who are doing all these foolish things. -Lately William II ordered a new throne for himself, with -some special ornaments, and, dressing himself up in a white -uniform with patches, in tight trousers, and in a helmet -with a bird on it, and throwing a red mantle over all, came -out to his subjects and seated himself on this throne, with -the full assurance that this was a very necessary and -important act, and his subjects not only did not see -anything funny in all this, but even found this spectacle to -be very majestic. +Lately William II ordered a new throne for himself, with some special +ornaments, and, dressing himself up in a white uniform with patches, in +tight trousers, and in a helmet with a bird on it, and throwing a red +mantle over all, came out to his subjects and seated himself on this +throne, with the full assurance that this was a very necessary and +important act, and his subjects not only did not see anything funny in +all this, but even found this spectacle to be very majestic. # XVI -The power of the governments has now for a long time ceased -to be based on force, as it was based in those times when -one nationality conquered another and by force of arms held -it in subjection, or when the rulers, amidst a defenceless -people, maintained separate armed troops of janissaries, -opríchniks, or guardsmen. The power of the governments has -now for a long time been based on what is called public -opinion. - -There exists a public opinion that patriotism is a great -moral sentiment, and that it is good and right to consider -one's own nation, one's own state, the best in the world, -and from this there naturally establishes itself a public -opinion that it is necessary to recognize the power of the -government over ourselves and to submit to it; that it is -good and right to serve in the army and to submit to -discipline; that it is good and right to give up our savings -in the shape of taxes to the government; that it is good and -right to submit to the decisions of the courts; that it is -good and right to believe without verification in what is -given out as a divine truth by the men of the government. - -Once such a public opinion exists, there establishes itself -a mighty power, which in our time has command of milliards -of money, of an organized mechanism of government, the post, -the telegraphs, the telephones, disciplined armies, courts, -the police, a submissive clergy, the school, even the press, -and this power maintains in the nations that public opinion -which it needs. - -The power of the governments is maintained through public -opinion; but, having the power, the governments by means of -all their organs, the officers of the courts, the school, -the church, even the press, are always able to keep up the -public opinion which they need. Public opinion produces -power,---power produces public opinion. There seems to be no -way out from this situation. - -Thus it would, indeed, be, if public opinion were something -stable and unchanging, and if the governments were able to -produce the public opinion which they need. - -But fortunately this is not the case, and public opinion is, -in the first place, not something which is constant, -unchanging, stable, but, on the contrary, something -eternally changing, moving together with the motion of -humanity; and, in the second, public opinion not only cannot -be produced by the will of the governments, but is that -which produces the governments and gives them power or takes -it away from them. - -It may appear that public opinion remains immovable and now -is such as it was decades ago, and it may appear that public -opinion wavers in relation to certain special cases, as -though going back, so that, for example, it now destroys the -republic, putting the monarchy in its place, and now again -destroys the monarchy, putting the republic in its place; -but that only seems so when we view the external -manifestations of that public opinion which is artificially -produced by the governments. We need only take public -opinion in its relation to the whole life of men, and we -shall see that public opinion, just like the time of the day -or year, never stands in one place, but is always in motion, -always marching unrestrictedly ahead along the path on which -humanity proceeds, just as, in spite of retardations and -waverings, day or spring moves on unrestrictedly along the -path over which the sun travels. - -Thus, though by the external signs the condition of the -nations of Europe in our time is nearly the same that it was -fifty years ago, the relation of the nations toward it is -now entirely different from what it was fifty years ago. -Though there exist, even as fifty years ago, the same -rulers, armies, wars, taxes, luxury, and misery, the same -Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, these existed before -because the public opinion of the nations demanded them, but -now they all exist because the governments artificially -maintain that which formerly was a living public opinion. - -If we frequently do not notice this motion of public -opinion, as we do not notice the motion of water in the -river, with the current of which we are swimming, this is -due to the fact that those imperceptible changes of public -opinion which form its motion are taking place in ourselves. - -The property of public opinion is that of constant and -unrestricted motion. If it seems to us that it is standing -in one place, this is due to the fact that everywhere there -are people who have established an advantageous position for -themselves at a certain moment of public opinion, and so -with all their strength try to maintain it and not to admit -the manifestation of the new, the present public opinion -which, though not yet fully expressed, is living in the -consciousness of men. Such people, who retain the obsolete -public opinion and conceal the new, are all those who at the -present time form the governments and the ruling classes, -and who profess patriotism as an indispensable condition of -human life. - -The means which are at the command of these people are -enormous, but since public opinion is something eternally -flowing and increasing, all their efforts cannot help but be -vain: the old grows old, and the youthful grows. - -The longer the expression of the new public opinion shall be -retained, the more it will grow, and the greater will be the -force with which it will express itself. The government and -the ruling classes try with all their strength to retain -that old public opinion of patriotism, on which their power -is based, and to retard the manifestation of the new, which -will destroy it. But it is possible only within certain -limits to retain the old and retard the new, just as running -water can be held back by a dam only within certain limits. - -No matter how much the governments may try to rouse in the -nations the past public opinion, now no longer -characteristic of them, concerning the dignity and virtue of -patriotism, the men of our time no longer believe in -patriotism, but more and more believe in the solidarity and -brotherhood of the nations. Patriotism now presents to men -nothing but the most terrible future; but the brotherhood of -the nations forms that ideal which more and more grows to be -comprehensible and desirable for humanity. And so the -transition of men from the former obsolete public opinion to -the new must inevitably be accomplished. This transition is -as inevitable as the falling of the last sere leaves in -autumn and the unfolding of the young leaves in swelling -buds. - -The longer this transition is delayed, the more imperative -does it become, and the more obvious is its necessity. - -Indeed, we need only recall what it is we are professing, as -Christians, and simply as men of our time, we need but -recall those moral bases which guide us in our public, -domestic, and private life, and that position in which we -have placed ourselves in the name of patriotism, in order -that we may see what degree of contradiction we have reached -between our consciousness and that which among us, thanks to -the intensified influence of the government in this respect, -is regarded as our public opinion. - -We need only reflect on those very usual demands of -patriotism, which present themselves to us as something very -simple and natural, in order that we may understand to what -extent these demands contradict that real public opinion -which we all share now. We all consider ourselves free, -cultured, humane men, and even Christians, and at the same -time we are in such a position that if to-morrow William -takes umbrage at Alexander, or Mr. N--- writes a clever -article on the Eastern question, or some prince robs the -Bulgarians or the Serbians, or some queen or empress takes -offence at something, we all, the cultured, humane -Christians, must go out to kill men, whom we do not know, -and toward whom we are friendly disposed, as toward all men. -If this has not yet happened, we owe this, as we are -assured, to the peaceful mind of Alexander III, or to this, -that Nicholas Aleksándrovich is going to marry Victoria's -grandchild. But let another man be in the place of -Alexander, or let Alexander himself change his mood, or -Nicholas Aleksandrovich marry Amalia, and not Alice, and we -shall throw ourselves like bloodthirsty animals upon one -another, to take out one another's guts. Such is the -supposed public opinion of our time. Such opinions are -calmly repeated in all the leading and liberal organs of the -press. - -If we, the Christians of one thousand years' standing, have -not yet cut one another's throats, it is because Alexander -III does not let us do so. +The power of the governments has now for a long time ceased to be based +on force, as it was based in those times when one nationality conquered +another and by force of arms held it in subjection, or when the rulers, +amidst a defenceless people, maintained separate armed troops of +janissaries, opríchniks, or guardsmen. The power of the governments has +now for a long time been based on what is called public opinion. + +There exists a public opinion that patriotism is a great moral +sentiment, and that it is good and right to consider one's own nation, +one's own state, the best in the world, and from this there naturally +establishes itself a public opinion that it is necessary to recognize +the power of the government over ourselves and to submit to it; that it +is good and right to serve in the army and to submit to discipline; that +it is good and right to give up our savings in the shape of taxes to the +government; that it is good and right to submit to the decisions of the +courts; that it is good and right to believe without verification in +what is given out as a divine truth by the men of the government. + +Once such a public opinion exists, there establishes itself a mighty +power, which in our time has command of milliards of money, of an +organized mechanism of government, the post, the telegraphs, the +telephones, disciplined armies, courts, the police, a submissive clergy, +the school, even the press, and this power maintains in the nations that +public opinion which it needs. + +The power of the governments is maintained through public opinion; but, +having the power, the governments by means of all their organs, the +officers of the courts, the school, the church, even the press, are +always able to keep up the public opinion which they need. Public +opinion produces power,---power produces public opinion. There seems to +be no way out from this situation. + +Thus it would, indeed, be, if public opinion were something stable and +unchanging, and if the governments were able to produce the public +opinion which they need. + +But fortunately this is not the case, and public opinion is, in the +first place, not something which is constant, unchanging, stable, but, +on the contrary, something eternally changing, moving together with the +motion of humanity; and, in the second, public opinion not only cannot +be produced by the will of the governments, but is that which produces +the governments and gives them power or takes it away from them. + +It may appear that public opinion remains immovable and now is such as +it was decades ago, and it may appear that public opinion wavers in +relation to certain special cases, as though going back, so that, for +example, it now destroys the republic, putting the monarchy in its +place, and now again destroys the monarchy, putting the republic in its +place; but that only seems so when we view the external manifestations +of that public opinion which is artificially produced by the +governments. We need only take public opinion in its relation to the +whole life of men, and we shall see that public opinion, just like the +time of the day or year, never stands in one place, but is always in +motion, always marching unrestrictedly ahead along the path on which +humanity proceeds, just as, in spite of retardations and waverings, day +or spring moves on unrestrictedly along the path over which the sun +travels. + +Thus, though by the external signs the condition of the nations of +Europe in our time is nearly the same that it was fifty years ago, the +relation of the nations toward it is now entirely different from what it +was fifty years ago. Though there exist, even as fifty years ago, the +same rulers, armies, wars, taxes, luxury, and misery, the same +Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, these existed before because the +public opinion of the nations demanded them, but now they all exist +because the governments artificially maintain that which formerly was a +living public opinion. + +If we frequently do not notice this motion of public opinion, as we do +not notice the motion of water in the river, with the current of which +we are swimming, this is due to the fact that those imperceptible +changes of public opinion which form its motion are taking place in +ourselves. + +The property of public opinion is that of constant and unrestricted +motion. If it seems to us that it is standing in one place, this is due +to the fact that everywhere there are people who have established an +advantageous position for themselves at a certain moment of public +opinion, and so with all their strength try to maintain it and not to +admit the manifestation of the new, the present public opinion which, +though not yet fully expressed, is living in the consciousness of men. +Such people, who retain the obsolete public opinion and conceal the new, +are all those who at the present time form the governments and the +ruling classes, and who profess patriotism as an indispensable condition +of human life. + +The means which are at the command of these people are enormous, but +since public opinion is something eternally flowing and increasing, all +their efforts cannot help but be vain: the old grows old, and the +youthful grows. + +The longer the expression of the new public opinion shall be retained, +the more it will grow, and the greater will be the force with which it +will express itself. The government and the ruling classes try with all +their strength to retain that old public opinion of patriotism, on which +their power is based, and to retard the manifestation of the new, which +will destroy it. But it is possible only within certain limits to retain +the old and retard the new, just as running water can be held back by a +dam only within certain limits. + +No matter how much the governments may try to rouse in the nations the +past public opinion, now no longer characteristic of them, concerning +the dignity and virtue of patriotism, the men of our time no longer +believe in patriotism, but more and more believe in the solidarity and +brotherhood of the nations. Patriotism now presents to men nothing but +the most terrible future; but the brotherhood of the nations forms that +ideal which more and more grows to be comprehensible and desirable for +humanity. And so the transition of men from the former obsolete public +opinion to the new must inevitably be accomplished. This transition is +as inevitable as the falling of the last sere leaves in autumn and the +unfolding of the young leaves in swelling buds. + +The longer this transition is delayed, the more imperative does it +become, and the more obvious is its necessity. + +Indeed, we need only recall what it is we are professing, as Christians, +and simply as men of our time, we need but recall those moral bases +which guide us in our public, domestic, and private life, and that +position in which we have placed ourselves in the name of patriotism, in +order that we may see what degree of contradiction we have reached +between our consciousness and that which among us, thanks to the +intensified influence of the government in this respect, is regarded as +our public opinion. + +We need only reflect on those very usual demands of patriotism, which +present themselves to us as something very simple and natural, in order +that we may understand to what extent these demands contradict that real +public opinion which we all share now. We all consider ourselves free, +cultured, humane men, and even Christians, and at the same time we are +in such a position that if to-morrow William takes umbrage at Alexander, +or Mr. N--- writes a clever article on the Eastern question, or some +prince robs the Bulgarians or the Serbians, or some queen or empress +takes offence at something, we all, the cultured, humane Christians, +must go out to kill men, whom we do not know, and toward whom we are +friendly disposed, as toward all men. If this has not yet happened, we +owe this, as we are assured, to the peaceful mind of Alexander III, or +to this, that Nicholas Aleksándrovich is going to marry Victoria's +grandchild. But let another man be in the place of Alexander, or let +Alexander himself change his mood, or Nicholas Aleksandrovich marry +Amalia, and not Alice, and we shall throw ourselves like bloodthirsty +animals upon one another, to take out one another's guts. Such is the +supposed public opinion of our time. Such opinions are calmly repeated +in all the leading and liberal organs of the press. + +If we, the Christians of one thousand years' standing, have not yet cut +one another's throats, it is because Alexander III does not let us do +so. This is, indeed, terrible. # XVII -For the greatest and most important changes to take place in -the life of humanity, no exploits are needed,---neither the -armament of millions of soldiers, nor the construction of -new roads and machines, nor the establishment of -exhibitions, nor the establishment of labour-unions, nor -revolutions, nor barricades, nor explosions, nor the -invention of aerial motion, and so forth, but only a change -in public opinion. But for public opinion to change, no -efforts of the mind are needed, nor the rejection of -anything existing, nor the invention of anything unusual and -new; all that is needed is, that every separate man should -say what he actually thinks and feels, or at least should -not say what he does not think. Let men, even a small number -of them, do so, and the obsolete public opinion will fall of -its own accord and there will be manifested the youthful, -live, present public opinion. And let public opinion change, -and the inner structure of men's life, which torments and -pains them, will be changed without any effort. It is really -a shame to think how little is needed for all men to be -freed from all those calamities which now oppress them; they -need only stop lying. Let men only not succumb to that lie -which is inculcated on them, let them not say what they do -not think or feel, and immediately a revolution will take -place in the whole structure of our life, such as the -revolutionists will not accomplish in centuries, even if all -the power were in their hands. - -If men only believed that the strength is not in strength, -but in the truth, and if they boldly expressed it, or at -least did not depart from it in words and deeds,---if they -did not say what they do not think, and did not do what they -consider bad and stupid. - -"What harm is there in crying '*Vive la France!*' or -'Hurrah!' to some emperor, king, victor, or in going in a -uniform, with the chamberlain's key, to wait for him in the -antechamber, to bow, and to address him by strange titles, -and then to impress all young and uncultured men with the -fact that this is very praiseworthy?" Or,"What harm is there -in writing an article in defence of the Franco-Russian -alliance or the Customs War, or in condemnation of the -Germans, Russians, Frenchmen, Englishmen?" Or, "What harm is -there in attending some patriotic celebration and eulogizing -men whom you do not care for and have nothing to do with, -and drinking their health?" Or even, "What harm is there in -recognizing, in a conversation, the benefit and usefulness -of treaties, or alliances, or even in keeping silent, when -your nation and state is praised in your presence, and other -nationalities are cursed and blackened, or when Catholicism, -Orthodoxy, Lutheranism are praised, or when some war hero or -ruler, like Napoleon, Peter, or the contemporary Boulanger -or Skóbelev, are praised?" - -All that seems so unimportant, and yet in these seemingly -unimportant acts, in our aloofness from them, in our -readiness to point out, according to our strength, the -irrationality of what is obviously irrational,---in this -does our great, invincible power consist, the power which -composes that insuperable force which forms the real, -actual, public opinion, which, moving itself, moves the -whole of humanity. The governments know this, and tremble -before this force, and with all the means at their command -try to counteract it and to get possession of it. - -They know that the force is not in force, but in thought and -in its clear enunciation, and so they are more afraid of the -expression of independent thought than of armies, and -establish censorships, bribe newspapers, take possession of -the management of religion and of schools. But the spiritual -force which moves the world slips away from them: it is not -even in a book, a newspaper,---it is intangible and always -free,---it is in the depth of men's consciousness. The most -powerful, intangible, freest force is the one which is -manifested in man's soul, when he by himself reflects on the -phenomena of the world, and then involuntarily expresses his -thoughts to his wife, brother, friend, to all those men with -whom he comes together, and from whom he considers it a sin -to conceal what he regards as the truth. No milliards of -roubles, millions of soldiers, no institutions, nor wars, -nor revolutions will produce what will be produced by the -simple expression of a free man as to what he considers -just, independently of what exists and what is inculcated -upon him. - -One free man will truthfully say what he thinks and feels, -amidst thousands of men, who by their acts and words affirm -the very opposite. It would seem that the man who frankly -expressed his thought would remain alone, while in reality -it happens that all those men, or the majority of them, have -long been thinking and feeling the same, but have not -expressed their thought. And what yesterday was the new -opinion of one man, to-day becomes the common opinion of all -men. And as soon as this opinion has established itself, -men's acts begin to change imperceptibly, slowly, but -irresistibly. - -For, as it is, every free man says to himself: "What can I -do against all this sea of evil and deceit, which inundates -me? Why should I give expression to my thought? Why even -give form to it? It is better not to think of these obscure -and intricate questions. Maybe these contradictions form an -inevitable condition of all the phenomena of life. And why -should I alone struggle against all this evil of the world? -Would it not be better if I abandoned myself to the current -which sweeps me along? If anything can be done, it can be -done only in conjunction with other men." - -And, abandoning that powerful instrument of thought and its -expression, which moves the world, this man takes up the -instrument of public activity, without noticing that all -public activity is based on the very principles against -which he has to struggle, that in entering upon any public -activity which exists amidst our world, he must at least -partially depart from the truth, make such concessions as -will destroy the whole force of that powerful instrument of -the struggle which is given to him. It is as though a man, -into whose hands an unusually sharp dagger is given, one -that cuts everything, should drive in nails with the blade. - -We all deplore the senseless order of life which contradicts -all our existence, and yet not only fail to make use of the -one most powerful tool, which is in our hands,---the -recognition of the truth and its expression,---but, on the -contrary, under the pretext of struggling with evil, destroy -this tool and sacrifice it to the imaginary struggle against -this order. - -One man does not tell the truth which he knows, because he -feels himself under obligation to the men with whom he is -connected; another,---because the truth might deprive him of -the advantageous position by means of which he is supporting -his family; a third,---because he wants to attain glory and -power, to use them later in the service of men; a -fourth,---because he does not wish to violate the ancient -sacred traditions; a fifth,---because the expression of the -truth will provoke persecution and will impair that good -public activity to which he is devoting himself, or intends -to devote himself. - -One man serves as an emperor, king, minister, official, -soldier, and assures himself and others that the deviation -from the truth which is necessary in his position is more -than redeemed by his usefulness. - -Another exercises the office of a spiritual pastor, though -in the depth of his heart he does not believe in what he -teaches, permitting himself a deviation from the truth in -view of the good which he does. A third instructs men in -literature and, in spite of the suppression of the whole -truth, in order not to provoke the government and society -against himself, has no doubt as to the good which he does; -a fourth simply struggles against the existing order, as do -the revolutionists and anarchists, and is fully convinced -that the aim which he pursues is so beneficent that the -suppression of the truth, which is indispensable in his -activity, and even lying will not destroy the good effect of -his activity. - -For the order of life which is contrary to the consciousness -of men to give way to one in accord with it, it is necessary -for the obsolete public opinion to give way to a live and -new one. - -For the old, obsolete public opinion to give way to the new, -live one, it is necessary that the men who are conscious of -the new demands of life should clearly express them. -Meanwhile all the men who recognize all these new demands, -one in the name of one thing, and another in the name of -another, not only repress them, but even in words and deeds -confirm what is directly opposed to these demands. Only the -truth and its expression can establish that new public -opinion which will change the obsolete and harmful order of -life; we, however, not only do not express the truth which -we know, but frequently even express precisely what we -consider to be an untruth. - -If free men would only not depend on what has no force and -is never free,---on external power,---and would always -believe in what is always powerful and free,---in the truth -and its expression. If men only expressed boldly the truth, -already revealed to them, about the brotherhood of all the -nations and about the criminality of the exclusive -membership in one nation, the dead, false public opinion, on -which the whole power of the governments is based, and all -the evil produced by them, would fall off by itself like a -dried-up skin, and there would appear that new, live public -opinion, which is only waiting for the sloughing off of the -hampering old opinion, in order clearly and boldly to -proclaim its demands and establish the new forms of life in +For the greatest and most important changes to take place in the life of +humanity, no exploits are needed,---neither the armament of millions of +soldiers, nor the construction of new roads and machines, nor the +establishment of exhibitions, nor the establishment of labour-unions, +nor revolutions, nor barricades, nor explosions, nor the invention of +aerial motion, and so forth, but only a change in public opinion. But +for public opinion to change, no efforts of the mind are needed, nor the +rejection of anything existing, nor the invention of anything unusual +and new; all that is needed is, that every separate man should say what +he actually thinks and feels, or at least should not say what he does +not think. Let men, even a small number of them, do so, and the obsolete +public opinion will fall of its own accord and there will be manifested +the youthful, live, present public opinion. And let public opinion +change, and the inner structure of men's life, which torments and pains +them, will be changed without any effort. It is really a shame to think +how little is needed for all men to be freed from all those calamities +which now oppress them; they need only stop lying. Let men only not +succumb to that lie which is inculcated on them, let them not say what +they do not think or feel, and immediately a revolution will take place +in the whole structure of our life, such as the revolutionists will not +accomplish in centuries, even if all the power were in their hands. + +If men only believed that the strength is not in strength, but in the +truth, and if they boldly expressed it, or at least did not depart from +it in words and deeds,---if they did not say what they do not think, and +did not do what they consider bad and stupid. + +"What harm is there in crying '*Vive la France!*' or 'Hurrah!' to some +emperor, king, victor, or in going in a uniform, with the chamberlain's +key, to wait for him in the antechamber, to bow, and to address him by +strange titles, and then to impress all young and uncultured men with +the fact that this is very praiseworthy?" Or,"What harm is there in +writing an article in defence of the Franco-Russian alliance or the +Customs War, or in condemnation of the Germans, Russians, Frenchmen, +Englishmen?" Or, "What harm is there in attending some patriotic +celebration and eulogizing men whom you do not care for and have nothing +to do with, and drinking their health?" Or even, "What harm is there in +recognizing, in a conversation, the benefit and usefulness of treaties, +or alliances, or even in keeping silent, when your nation and state is +praised in your presence, and other nationalities are cursed and +blackened, or when Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism are praised, or +when some war hero or ruler, like Napoleon, Peter, or the contemporary +Boulanger or Skóbelev, are praised?" + +All that seems so unimportant, and yet in these seemingly unimportant +acts, in our aloofness from them, in our readiness to point out, +according to our strength, the irrationality of what is obviously +irrational,---in this does our great, invincible power consist, the +power which composes that insuperable force which forms the real, +actual, public opinion, which, moving itself, moves the whole of +humanity. The governments know this, and tremble before this force, and +with all the means at their command try to counteract it and to get +possession of it. + +They know that the force is not in force, but in thought and in its +clear enunciation, and so they are more afraid of the expression of +independent thought than of armies, and establish censorships, bribe +newspapers, take possession of the management of religion and of +schools. But the spiritual force which moves the world slips away from +them: it is not even in a book, a newspaper,---it is intangible and +always free,---it is in the depth of men's consciousness. The most +powerful, intangible, freest force is the one which is manifested in +man's soul, when he by himself reflects on the phenomena of the world, +and then involuntarily expresses his thoughts to his wife, brother, +friend, to all those men with whom he comes together, and from whom he +considers it a sin to conceal what he regards as the truth. No milliards +of roubles, millions of soldiers, no institutions, nor wars, nor +revolutions will produce what will be produced by the simple expression +of a free man as to what he considers just, independently of what exists +and what is inculcated upon him. + +One free man will truthfully say what he thinks and feels, amidst +thousands of men, who by their acts and words affirm the very opposite. +It would seem that the man who frankly expressed his thought would +remain alone, while in reality it happens that all those men, or the +majority of them, have long been thinking and feeling the same, but have +not expressed their thought. And what yesterday was the new opinion of +one man, to-day becomes the common opinion of all men. And as soon as +this opinion has established itself, men's acts begin to change +imperceptibly, slowly, but irresistibly. + +For, as it is, every free man says to himself: "What can I do against +all this sea of evil and deceit, which inundates me? Why should I give +expression to my thought? Why even give form to it? It is better not to +think of these obscure and intricate questions. Maybe these +contradictions form an inevitable condition of all the phenomena of +life. And why should I alone struggle against all this evil of the +world? Would it not be better if I abandoned myself to the current which +sweeps me along? If anything can be done, it can be done only in +conjunction with other men." + +And, abandoning that powerful instrument of thought and its expression, +which moves the world, this man takes up the instrument of public +activity, without noticing that all public activity is based on the very +principles against which he has to struggle, that in entering upon any +public activity which exists amidst our world, he must at least +partially depart from the truth, make such concessions as will destroy +the whole force of that powerful instrument of the struggle which is +given to him. It is as though a man, into whose hands an unusually sharp +dagger is given, one that cuts everything, should drive in nails with +the blade. + +We all deplore the senseless order of life which contradicts all our +existence, and yet not only fail to make use of the one most powerful +tool, which is in our hands,---the recognition of the truth and its +expression,---but, on the contrary, under the pretext of struggling with +evil, destroy this tool and sacrifice it to the imaginary struggle +against this order. + +One man does not tell the truth which he knows, because he feels himself +under obligation to the men with whom he is connected; +another,---because the truth might deprive him of the advantageous +position by means of which he is supporting his family; a +third,---because he wants to attain glory and power, to use them later +in the service of men; a fourth,---because he does not wish to violate +the ancient sacred traditions; a fifth,---because the expression of the +truth will provoke persecution and will impair that good public activity +to which he is devoting himself, or intends to devote himself. + +One man serves as an emperor, king, minister, official, soldier, and +assures himself and others that the deviation from the truth which is +necessary in his position is more than redeemed by his usefulness. + +Another exercises the office of a spiritual pastor, though in the depth +of his heart he does not believe in what he teaches, permitting himself +a deviation from the truth in view of the good which he does. A third +instructs men in literature and, in spite of the suppression of the +whole truth, in order not to provoke the government and society against +himself, has no doubt as to the good which he does; a fourth simply +struggles against the existing order, as do the revolutionists and +anarchists, and is fully convinced that the aim which he pursues is so +beneficent that the suppression of the truth, which is indispensable in +his activity, and even lying will not destroy the good effect of his +activity. + +For the order of life which is contrary to the consciousness of men to +give way to one in accord with it, it is necessary for the obsolete +public opinion to give way to a live and new one. + +For the old, obsolete public opinion to give way to the new, live one, +it is necessary that the men who are conscious of the new demands of +life should clearly express them. Meanwhile all the men who recognize +all these new demands, one in the name of one thing, and another in the +name of another, not only repress them, but even in words and deeds +confirm what is directly opposed to these demands. Only the truth and +its expression can establish that new public opinion which will change +the obsolete and harmful order of life; we, however, not only do not +express the truth which we know, but frequently even express precisely +what we consider to be an untruth. + +If free men would only not depend on what has no force and is never +free,---on external power,---and would always believe in what is always +powerful and free,---in the truth and its expression. If men only +expressed boldly the truth, already revealed to them, about the +brotherhood of all the nations and about the criminality of the +exclusive membership in one nation, the dead, false public opinion, on +which the whole power of the governments is based, and all the evil +produced by them, would fall off by itself like a dried-up skin, and +there would appear that new, live public opinion, which is only waiting +for the sloughing off of the hampering old opinion, in order clearly and +boldly to proclaim its demands and establish the new forms of life in accordance with the consciousness of men. # XVIII -Men need but understand that what is given out to them as -public opinion, what is maintained by such complex and -artificial means, is not public opinion, but only the dead -consequence of the quondam public opinion; they need only, -above all, believe in themselves, in this, that what is -cognized by them in the depth of their hearts, what begs for -recognition and finds no expression only because it -contradicts public opinion, is that force which changes the -world, and the manifestation of which forms man's destiny; -men need but believe that the truth is not what men about -him say, but what his conscience, that is, God, says to him, -and immediately there will disappear the false, artificially -sustained public opinion, and the true one will be -established. - -If men only said what they believe, and did not say what -they do not believe, there would immediately disappear the -superstitions that result from patriotism, and all the evil -feelings and all the violence, which are based on them. -There would disappear the hatred and hostility of states -against states and of nationalities against nationalities, -which are fanned by the governments; there would disappear -the eulogizing of military exploits, that is, of murder; -there would, above all else, disappear the respect for the -authorities, the surrender of people's labours and the -submission to them, for which there are no foundations +Men need but understand that what is given out to them as public +opinion, what is maintained by such complex and artificial means, is not +public opinion, but only the dead consequence of the quondam public +opinion; they need only, above all, believe in themselves, in this, that +what is cognized by them in the depth of their hearts, what begs for +recognition and finds no expression only because it contradicts public +opinion, is that force which changes the world, and the manifestation of +which forms man's destiny; men need but believe that the truth is not +what men about him say, but what his conscience, that is, God, says to +him, and immediately there will disappear the false, artificially +sustained public opinion, and the true one will be established. + +If men only said what they believe, and did not say what they do not +believe, there would immediately disappear the superstitions that result +from patriotism, and all the evil feelings and all the violence, which +are based on them. There would disappear the hatred and hostility of +states against states and of nationalities against nationalities, which +are fanned by the governments; there would disappear the eulogizing of +military exploits, that is, of murder; there would, above all else, +disappear the respect for the authorities, the surrender of people's +labours and the submission to them, for which there are no foundations outside of patriotism. -Let all this be done, and immediately all that vast mass of -weak men, who are always guided from without, will sweep -over to the side of the new public opinion. - -And the new public opinion will become the ruling one in the -place of the old public opinion. - -Let the governments have possession of the school, the -church, the press, milliards of roubles, and millions of -disciplined men turned into machines,---all that apparently -terrible organization of rude force is nothing in comparison -with the recognition of the truth, which arises in the heart -of one man who knows the force of the truth, and is -communicated by this man to another, a third man, just as an -endless number of candles are lighted from one. This light -need only burn, and, like the wax before the face of the -fire, all this seemingly so powerful organization will waste -away. - -If men only understood that terrible power which is given -them in the word which expresses the truth. If men only did -not sell their birthright for a mess of pottage. If men only -made use of this power of theirs,---the rulers would not -only not dare, as they dare now, to threaten men with -universal slaughter, to which they will drive men or not, as -they may see fit, but would not even dare in the sight of -peaceable citizens to bring the disciplined murderers out on -parade or in manoeuvres; the governments would not dare for -their own profit, for the advantage of their accomplices, to -make and unmake customs treaties, and they would not dare to -collect from the people those millions of roubles which they -distribute to their accomplices and for which they prepare -themselves for the commission of murder. - -And so the change is not only possible, but it is even -impossible for it not to take place, as it is impossible for -an overgrown, dead tree not to rot, and for a young one not -to grow. "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: -not as the world giveth give I unto you; let not your heart -be troubled, neither let it be afraid," said Christ. And -this peace is actually already among us, and it depends on -us to attain it. - -If only the hearts of separate men did not grow faint from -those temptations with which they are tempted every hour, -and if they were not frightened by those imaginary fears -with which they are terrified. If men only knew in what -their mighty, all-conquering force consists, the peace for -which men have always wished, not the one which is obtained -by means of diplomatic treaties, journeys of emperors and -kings from one city to another, dinners, speeches, -fortresses, cannon, dynamite, and melanite, but the one -which is obtained not by the exhaustion of the masses by -taxes, not by tearing the flower of the population away from -work and debauching them, but by the free profession of the -truth by every separate individual, would long ago have come -to us. +Let all this be done, and immediately all that vast mass of weak men, +who are always guided from without, will sweep over to the side of the +new public opinion. + +And the new public opinion will become the ruling one in the place of +the old public opinion. + +Let the governments have possession of the school, the church, the +press, milliards of roubles, and millions of disciplined men turned into +machines,---all that apparently terrible organization of rude force is +nothing in comparison with the recognition of the truth, which arises in +the heart of one man who knows the force of the truth, and is +communicated by this man to another, a third man, just as an endless +number of candles are lighted from one. This light need only burn, and, +like the wax before the face of the fire, all this seemingly so powerful +organization will waste away. + +If men only understood that terrible power which is given them in the +word which expresses the truth. If men only did not sell their +birthright for a mess of pottage. If men only made use of this power of +theirs,---the rulers would not only not dare, as they dare now, to +threaten men with universal slaughter, to which they will drive men or +not, as they may see fit, but would not even dare in the sight of +peaceable citizens to bring the disciplined murderers out on parade or +in manoeuvres; the governments would not dare for their own profit, for +the advantage of their accomplices, to make and unmake customs treaties, +and they would not dare to collect from the people those millions of +roubles which they distribute to their accomplices and for which they +prepare themselves for the commission of murder. + +And so the change is not only possible, but it is even impossible for it +not to take place, as it is impossible for an overgrown, dead tree not +to rot, and for a young one not to grow. "Peace I leave with you, my +peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth give I unto you; let not +your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid," said Christ. And this +peace is actually already among us, and it depends on us to attain it. + +If only the hearts of separate men did not grow faint from those +temptations with which they are tempted every hour, and if they were not +frightened by those imaginary fears with which they are terrified. If +men only knew in what their mighty, all-conquering force consists, the +peace for which men have always wished, not the one which is obtained by +means of diplomatic treaties, journeys of emperors and kings from one +city to another, dinners, speeches, fortresses, cannon, dynamite, and +melanite, but the one which is obtained not by the exhaustion of the +masses by taxes, not by tearing the flower of the population away from +work and debauching them, but by the free profession of the truth by +every separate individual, would long ago have come to us. *Moscow, March 17, 1894*. diff --git a/src/civil-disobedience.md b/src/civil-disobedience.md index 9ffa222..387a0be 100644 --- a/src/civil-disobedience.md +++ b/src/civil-disobedience.md @@ -1,10 +1,82 @@ -I heartily accept the motto---"That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe---"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure. - -This American government---what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavouring to transmit itself unimpaired to poverty, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow. Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. *It* does not keep the country free. *It* does not settle the West. *It* does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India-rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads. - -But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it. - -After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?---in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation "which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said, that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts---a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments, though it may be--- +I heartily accept the motto---"That government is best which governs +least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and +systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I +believe---"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when +men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they +will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments +are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The +objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are +many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought +against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the +standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which +the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be +abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the +present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using +the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people +would not have consented to this measure. + +This American government---what is it but a tradition, though a recent +one, endeavouring to transmit itself unimpaired to poverty, but each +instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force +of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is +a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But it is not the less +necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery +or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which +they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, +even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we +must all allow. Yet this government never of itself furthered any +enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. *It* +does not keep the country free. *It* does not settle the West. *It* does +not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all +that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the +government had not sometimes got in its way. For government is an +expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; +and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most +let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of +India-rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which +legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to +judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions and not partly by +their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with +those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads. + +But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call +themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but +at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of +government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward +obtaining it. + +After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands +of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, +to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor +because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are +physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in +all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. +Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually +decide right and wrong, but conscience?---in which majorities decide +only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must +the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his +conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I +think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not +desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. +The only obligation "which I have a right to assume, is to do at any +time what I think right. It is truly enough said, that a corporation has +no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation +with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of +their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents +of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for law +is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, +privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill +and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common +sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and +produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a +damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably +inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and +magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit the +Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can +make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts---a mere shadow +and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and +already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments, +though it may be--- > "Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, > @@ -14,7 +86,24 @@ After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the > > O'er the grave where our hero we buried." -The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others---as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers---and office-holders---serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the Devil, without *intending* it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will not submit te be "clay," and "stop a hole to keep the wind away," but leave that office to his dust at least:--- +The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as +machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the +militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there +is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but +they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and +wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as +well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. +They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as +these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others---as most +legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers---and +office-holders---serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they +rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the +Devil, without *intending* it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, +martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with +their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; +and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise man will only be +useful as a man, and will not submit te be "clay," and "stop a hole to +keep the wind away," but leave that office to his dust at least:--- > "I am too high-born to be propertied, > @@ -24,79 +113,584 @@ The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with t > > To any sovereign state throughout the world." -He who gives himself entirely to his fellow-men appears to them useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them is pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist. - -How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the *slave's* government also. - -All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution of '75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should not make an ado about it, for I can do without them. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counterbalance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer. In other words, when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact, that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army. Paley, a common authority with many on moral questions, in his chapter on the "Duty of Submission to Civil Government," resolves all civil obligation into expediency; and he proceeds to say, "that so long as the interest of.the whole society requires it, that is, so long as the established government cannot be resisted or changed without public inconveniency, it is the will of God that the established government be obeyed, and no longer... This principle being admitted, the justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced to a computation of the quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of the probability and expense of redressing it on the other." Of this, he says, every man shall judge for himself. But Paley appears never to have contemplated those cases to which the rule of expediency does not apply, in which a people, as well as an individual, must do justice, cost what it may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself. This, according to Paley, would be inconvenient. But he that would save his life, in such a case, shall lose it This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people. - -In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does any one think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the present crisis? +He who gives himself entirely to his fellow-men appears to them useless +and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them is pronounced a +benefactor and philanthropist. + +How does it become a man to behave toward this American government +to-day? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. +I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my +government which is the *slave's* government also. + +All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse +allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its +inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is +not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution +of '75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it +taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most +probable that I should not make an ado about it, for I can do without +them. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough +good to counterbalance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make +a stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and +oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a +machine any longer. In other words, when a sixth of the population of a +nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and +a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and +subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest +men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is +the fact, that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the +invading army. Paley, a common authority with many on moral questions, +in his chapter on the "Duty of Submission to Civil Government," resolves +all civil obligation into expediency; and he proceeds to say, "that so +long as the interest of.the whole society requires it, that is, so long +as the established government cannot be resisted or changed without +public inconveniency, it is the will of God that the established +government be obeyed, and no longer... This principle being admitted, +the justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced to a +computation of the quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, +and of the probability and expense of redressing it on the other." Of +this, he says, every man shall judge for himself. But Paley appears +never to have contemplated those cases to which the rule of expediency +does not apply, in which a people, as well as an individual, must do +justice, cost what it may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a +drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself. This, +according to Paley, would be inconvenient. But he that would save his +life, in such a case, shall lose it This people must cease to hold +slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence +as a people. + +In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does any one think that +Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the present crisis? > "A drab of state, a cloth-o'-silver slut, > > To have her train borne up, and her soul trail in the dirt." -Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, *cost what it may.* I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home, co-operate with, and do the bidding of, those far away, and without whom the latter would be harmless. We are accustomed to say, that the mass of men are unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the few are not materially wiser or better than the many. It is not so important that many should be as good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump. There are thousands who are *in opinion* opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question of freedom to the question of free-trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot to-day? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and God-speed, to the right, as it goes by them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man. But it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than with the temporary guardian of it. - -All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting *for the right* is *doing* nothing for it. It ie only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. *They* will then be the only slaves. Only *his* vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote. - -I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or elsewhere, for the selection of a candidate for the Presidency, made up chiefly of editors, and men who are politicians by profession; but I think, what is it to any independent, intelligent, and respectable man what decision they may come to? Shall we not have the advantage of his wisdom and honesty, nevertheless? Can we not count upon some independent votes? Are there not many individuals in the country who do not attend conventions? But no: I find that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted from his position, and despairs of his country, when his country has more reason to despair of him. He forthwith adopts one of the candidates thus selected as the only *available* one, thus proving that he is himself *available* for any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who may have been bought. O for a man who is a *man*, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too large. How many *men* are there to a square thousand miles in this country? Hardly one. Does not America offer any inducement for men to settle here? The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow---one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of intellect and cheerful self-reliance; whose first and chief concern, on coming into the world, is to see that the Almshouses are in good repair; and, before yet he has lawfully donned the virile garb, to collect a fund for the support of the widows and orphans that may be; who, in short, ventures to live only by the aid of the Mutual Insurance company, which has promised to bury him decently. - -It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at east, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my towns. men say, "I should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico;---see if I would go"; and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards and sets at naught; as if the State were penitent to that degree that it hired one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment. Thus, under the name of Order and Civil Government, we are all made at last to pay homage to and support our own meanness. After the first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made. - -The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to which the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are most likely to incur. Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support, are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform. Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves---the union between themselves and the State---and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in the same relation to the State, that the State does to the Union? And have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting the Union, which have prevented them from resisting the State? - -How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy *it*? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is aggrieved? If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing that you are cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due; but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full amount, and see that you are never cheated again. Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the *individual*, separating the diabolical in him from the divine. - -Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. Bat it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy *is* worse than the evil. *It* makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it ery and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert te point out its faults, and *do* better than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels? - -One would think, that a deliberate and practical denial of its authority was the only offence never contemplated by government; else, why has it not assigned its definite, its suitable and proportionate penalty? If a man who has no property refuses but once to earn nine shillings for the State, he is put in prison for a period unlimited by any law that I know, and determined only by the discretion of those who placed him there; but if he should steal ninety times nine shillings from the State, he is soon permitted to go at large again. - -If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth---certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn. - -As for adopting the ways which the State has provided for remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man's life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but something; and because he cannot do *everything*, it is not necessary that he should do *something* wrong. It is not my business to be petitioning the Governor or the Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me; and, if they should not hear my petition, what should I do then? But in this case the State has provided no way: its very Constitution is the evil. This may seem to be harsh and stubborn and nonconciliatory; but it is to treat with the utmost kindness and consideration the only spirit that can appreciate or deserves it. So is all change for the better, like birth and death, which convulse the body. - -I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and property, from the government of Massachusetts, and not wait till they constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail through them. I think that it is enough if they have God on their side, without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already. - -I meet this American government, or its representative, the State government, directly, and face to face, once a year---no more---in the person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in which a man situated as I am necessarily meets it; and it then says distinctly, Recognize me; and the simplest, the most effectual, and, in the present posture of affairs, the most indispensable mode of treating with it on this head, of expressing your little satisfaction with and love for it,is to deny it then. My civil neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the very man I have to deal with---for it is, after all, with men and not with parchment that I quarrel---and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the government. How shall he ever know well what he is and does as an officer of the government, or as a man, until he is obliged to consider whether he shall treat me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the peace, and see if he can get over this obstruction to his neighborliness without a ruder and more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with his action. I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name---if ten *honest* men only---ay, if *one* **honest** man, in this State of Massachusetts, *ceasing to hold slaves,* were actually to withdraw from this copartnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America. For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever. But we love better to talk about it: that we say is our mission. Reform keeps many scores of newspapers in its service, but not one man. If my esteemed neighbor, the State's ambassador, who will devote his days to the settlement of the question of human rights in the Council Chamber, instead of being threatened with the prisons of Carolina, were to sit down the prisoner of Massachusetts, that State which is so anxious to foist the sin of slavery upon her sister---though at present she can discover only an act of inhospitality to be the ground of a quarrel with her---the Legislature would not wholly waive the subject the following winter. - -Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. The proper place to-day, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. It is there that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race, should find them; on that separate, but more free and honorable ground, where the State places those who are not *with* her, but *against* her---the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an enemy within its walls, they do not know by how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible. If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, "But what shall I do?" my answer is, "If you really wish to do anything, resign your office." When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished. But even suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man's real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death. I see this blood flowing now. - -I have contemplated the imprisonment of the offender, rather than the seizure of his goods---though both will serve the same purpose---because they who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time in accumulating property. To such the State renders comparatively small service, and a slight tax is wont to appear exorbitant, particularly if they are obliged to earn it by special labor with their hands. If there were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the State itself would hesitate to demand it of him. But the rich man---not to make any invidious comparison---is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it. It puts to rest many questions which he would otherwise be taxed to answer; while the only new question which it puts is the hard but superfluous one, how to spend it. Thus his moral ground is taken from under his feet. The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as what are called the "means" are increased. The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor. Christ answered the Herodians according to their condition. "Show me the tribute-money," said he;---and one took a penny out of his pocket;---if you use money which has the image of Caesar on it, and which he has made current and valuable, that is, *if you are men of the State,* and gladly enjoy the advantages of Caesar's government, then pay him back some of his own when he demands it; "Render therefore to Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God those things which are God's,"---leaving them no wiser than before as to which was which; for they did not wish to know. - -When I converse with the freest of my neighbors, I perceive that, whatever they may say about the magnitude and seriousness of the question, and their regard for the public tranquillity, the long and the short of the matter is, that they cannot spare the protection of the existing government, and they dread the consequences to their property and families of disobedience to it. For my own part, I should not like to think that I ever rely on the protection of the State. But, if I deny the authority of the State when it presents its tax-bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end. This is hard. This makes it impossible for a man to live honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward respects. It will not be worth the while to accumulate property; that would be sure to go again. You must hire or squat somewhere, and raise but a small crop, and eat that soon. You must live within yourself, and depend upon yourself always tucked up and ready for a start, and not have many affairs. A man may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a good subject of the Turkish government. Confucius said: "If a state is governed by the principles of reason, poverty and misery are subjects of shame; if a state is not governed by the principles of reason, riches and honors are the subjects of shame." No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State, than it would to obey. L should feel as if I were worth less in that case. - -Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of the Church, and commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman whose preaching my father attended, but never I myself. "Pay," it said, "or be locked up in the jail." I declined to pay. Bat, unfortunately, another man saw fit to pay it. I did not sce why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster; for I was not the State's schoolmaster, but I supported myself hy voluntary subscription. I did not see why the lyceum should not present its tax-bill, and have the State to back its demand, as well as the Church. However, at the request of the selectmen, I condescended to make some such statement as this in writing:---"Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society which I have not joined." This I gave to the town clerk; and he has it. The State, having thus learned that I did not wish to be regarded as a member of that church, has never made a like demand on me since; though it said that it must adhere to its original presumption that time. If I had known how to name them, I should then have signed off in detail from all the societies which I never signed on to; but I did not know where to find a complete list. - -I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, ta be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and *they* were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it. - -Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force me who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become like themselves. I do not hear of *men* being *forced* to live this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government which says to me, "Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money? It may be in a great strait, and not know what to do: I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as I do. It is not worth the while to snivel about it. I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man. - -> The night in prison was novel and interesting enough The prisoners in their shirt-sleeves were enjoying a chat and the evening air in the doorway, when I entered. But the jailer said, "Come, boys, it is time to lock up"; and so they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their steps returning into the hollow apartments. My room-mate was introduced ta me by the jailer, as "a first-rate fellow and a clever man." When the door was locked, he showed me where to hang my hat, and how he managed matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once a month; and this one, at least, was the whitest, most simply furnished, and probably the neatest apartment in the town. He naturally wanted to know where I came from, and what brought me there; and, when I had told him, I asked him in my turn how he came there, presuming him to be an honest man, of course; and, as the world goes, I believe he was. "Why," said he, "they accuse me of burning a barn; but I never did it." As near as I could discover, he had probably gone to bed in a barn when drunk, and smoked his pipe there; and so a barn was burnt. He had the reputation of being a clever man, had been there some three months waiting for his trial to come on, and would have to wait as much longer; but he was quite domesticated and contented, since he got his board for nothing, and thought that he was well treated. +Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not +a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand +merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and +agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do +justice to the slave and to Mexico, *cost what it may.* I quarrel not +with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home, co-operate with, +and do the bidding of, those far away, and without whom the latter would +be harmless. We are accustomed to say, that the mass of men are +unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the few are not materially +wiser or better than the many. It is not so important that many should +be as good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; +for that will leaven the whole lump. There are thousands who are *in +opinion* opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing +to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington +and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that +they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question +of freedom to the question of free-trade, and quietly read the +prices-current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, +and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current of +an honest man and patriot to-day? They hesitate, and they regret, and +sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. +They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they +may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, +and a feeble countenance and God-speed, to the right, as it goes by +them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one +virtuous man. But it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a +thing than with the temporary guardian of it. + +All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a +slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral +questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the +voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I +am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to +leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that +of expediency. Even voting *for the right* is *doing* nothing for it. It +ie only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A +wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to +prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in +the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for +the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to +slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by +their vote. *They* will then be the only slaves. Only *his* vote can +hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote. + +I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or elsewhere, for the +selection of a candidate for the Presidency, made up chiefly of editors, +and men who are politicians by profession; but I think, what is it to +any independent, intelligent, and respectable man what decision they may +come to? Shall we not have the advantage of his wisdom and honesty, +nevertheless? Can we not count upon some independent votes? Are there +not many individuals in the country who do not attend conventions? But +no: I find that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted +from his position, and despairs of his country, when his country has +more reason to despair of him. He forthwith adopts one of the candidates +thus selected as the only *available* one, thus proving that he is +himself *available* for any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no +more worth than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, +who may have been bought. O for a man who is a *man*, and, as my +neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand +through! Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned +too large. How many *men* are there to a square thousand miles in this +country? Hardly one. Does not America offer any inducement for men to +settle here? The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow---one who may +be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness, and a +manifest lack of intellect and cheerful self-reliance; whose first and +chief concern, on coming into the world, is to see that the Almshouses +are in good repair; and, before yet he has lawfully donned the virile +garb, to collect a fund for the support of the widows and orphans that +may be; who, in short, ventures to live only by the aid of the Mutual +Insurance company, which has promised to bury him decently. + +It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the +eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly +have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash +his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it +practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and +contemplations, I must first see, at east, that I do not pursue them +sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he +may pursue his contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency is +tolerated. I have heard some of my towns. men say, "I should like to +have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, +or to march to Mexico;---see if I would go"; and yet these very men have +each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by +their money, furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded who +refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain +the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose +own act and authority he disregards and sets at naught; as if the State +were penitent to that degree that it hired one to scourge it while it +sinned, but not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment. +Thus, under the name of Order and Civil Government, we are all made at +last to pay homage to and support our own meanness. After the first +blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral it becomes, as it +were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that life which we have +made. + +The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested +virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to which the virtue of +patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are most likely to incur. Those +who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a +government, yield to it their allegiance and support, are undoubtedly +its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious +obstacles to reform. Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the +Union, to disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not +dissolve it themselves---the union between themselves and the +State---and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not they +stand in the same relation to the State, that the State does to the +Union? And have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting +the Union, which have prevented them from resisting the State? + +How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy +*it*? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is +aggrieved? If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor, +you do not rest satisfied with knowing that you are cheated, or with +saying that you are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you +your due; but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full +amount, and see that you are never cheated again. Action from principle, +the perception and the performance of right, changes things and +relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly +with anything which was. It not only divides states and churches, it +divides families; ay, it divides the *individual*, separating the +diabolical in him from the divine. + +Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we +endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall +we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as +this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the +majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the +remedy would be worse than the evil. Bat it is the fault of the +government itself that the remedy *is* worse than the evil. *It* makes +it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? +Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it ery and resist +before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the +alert te point out its faults, and *do* better than it would have them? +Why does it always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and +Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels? + +One would think, that a deliberate and practical denial of its authority +was the only offence never contemplated by government; else, why has it +not assigned its definite, its suitable and proportionate penalty? If a +man who has no property refuses but once to earn nine shillings for the +State, he is put in prison for a period unlimited by any law that I +know, and determined only by the discretion of those who placed him +there; but if he should steal ninety times nine shillings from the +State, he is soon permitted to go at large again. + +If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of +government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear +smooth---certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a +spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then +perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the +evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent +of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a +counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at +any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn. + +As for adopting the ways which the State has provided for remedying the +evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man's life +will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to. I came into this world, +not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be +it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but something; and +because he cannot do *everything*, it is not necessary that he should do +*something* wrong. It is not my business to be petitioning the Governor +or the Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me; and, if +they should not hear my petition, what should I do then? But in this +case the State has provided no way: its very Constitution is the evil. +This may seem to be harsh and stubborn and nonconciliatory; but it is to +treat with the utmost kindness and consideration the only spirit that +can appreciate or deserves it. So is all change for the better, like +birth and death, which convulse the body. + +I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists +should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and +property, from the government of Massachusetts, and not wait till they +constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail +through them. I think that it is enough if they have God on their side, +without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than +his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already. + +I meet this American government, or its representative, the State +government, directly, and face to face, once a year---no more---in the +person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in which a man +situated as I am necessarily meets it; and it then says distinctly, +Recognize me; and the simplest, the most effectual, and, in the present +posture of affairs, the most indispensable mode of treating with it on +this head, of expressing your little satisfaction with and love for +it,is to deny it then. My civil neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the very +man I have to deal with---for it is, after all, with men and not with +parchment that I quarrel---and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent +of the government. How shall he ever know well what he is and does as an +officer of the government, or as a man, until he is obliged to consider +whether he shall treat me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a +neighbor and well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the +peace, and see if he can get over this obstruction to his neighborliness +without a ruder and more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with +his action. I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if +ten men whom I could name---if ten *honest* men only---ay, if *one* +**honest** man, in this State of Massachusetts, *ceasing to hold +slaves,* were actually to withdraw from this copartnership, and be +locked up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of +slavery in America. For it matters not how small the beginning may seem +to be: what is once well done is done forever. But we love better to +talk about it: that we say is our mission. Reform keeps many scores of +newspapers in its service, but not one man. If my esteemed neighbor, the +State's ambassador, who will devote his days to the settlement of the +question of human rights in the Council Chamber, instead of being +threatened with the prisons of Carolina, were to sit down the prisoner +of Massachusetts, that State which is so anxious to foist the sin of +slavery upon her sister---though at present she can discover only an act +of inhospitality to be the ground of a quarrel with her---the +Legislature would not wholly waive the subject the following winter. + +Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a +just man is also a prison. The proper place to-day, the only place which +Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is +in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own +act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. It is +there that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and +the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race, should find them; on +that separate, but more free and honorable ground, where the State +places those who are not *with* her, but *against* her---the only house +in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. If any think +that their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer +afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an enemy within +its walls, they do not know by how much truth is stronger than error, +nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who +has experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a +strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless +while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but +it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative +is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State +will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay +their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody +measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit +violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a +peaceable revolution, if any such is possible. If the tax-gatherer, or +any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, "But what shall I +do?" my answer is, "If you really wish to do anything, resign your +office." When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has +resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished. But even +suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort of blood shed when the +conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man's real manhood and +immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death. I see this +blood flowing now. + +I have contemplated the imprisonment of the offender, rather than the +seizure of his goods---though both will serve the same purpose---because +they who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to +a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time in accumulating +property. To such the State renders comparatively small service, and a +slight tax is wont to appear exorbitant, particularly if they are +obliged to earn it by special labor with their hands. If there were one +who lived wholly without the use of money, the State itself would +hesitate to demand it of him. But the rich man---not to make any +invidious comparison---is always sold to the institution which makes him +rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money +comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it +was certainly no great virtue to obtain it. It puts to rest many +questions which he would otherwise be taxed to answer; while the only +new question which it puts is the hard but superfluous one, how to spend +it. Thus his moral ground is taken from under his feet. The +opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as what are called +the "means" are increased. The best thing a man can do for his culture +when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he +entertained when he was poor. Christ answered the Herodians according to +their condition. "Show me the tribute-money," said he;---and one took a +penny out of his pocket;---if you use money which has the image of +Caesar on it, and which he has made current and valuable, that is, *if +you are men of the State,* and gladly enjoy the advantages of Caesar's +government, then pay him back some of his own when he demands it; +"Render therefore to Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God those +things which are God's,"---leaving them no wiser than before as to which +was which; for they did not wish to know. + +When I converse with the freest of my neighbors, I perceive that, +whatever they may say about the magnitude and seriousness of the +question, and their regard for the public tranquillity, the long and the +short of the matter is, that they cannot spare the protection of the +existing government, and they dread the consequences to their property +and families of disobedience to it. For my own part, I should not like +to think that I ever rely on the protection of the State. But, if I deny +the authority of the State when it presents its tax-bill, it will soon +take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without +end. This is hard. This makes it impossible for a man to live honestly, +and at the same time comfortably, in outward respects. It will not be +worth the while to accumulate property; that would be sure to go again. +You must hire or squat somewhere, and raise but a small crop, and eat +that soon. You must live within yourself, and depend upon yourself +always tucked up and ready for a start, and not have many affairs. A man +may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a good +subject of the Turkish government. Confucius said: "If a state is +governed by the principles of reason, poverty and misery are subjects of +shame; if a state is not governed by the principles of reason, riches +and honors are the subjects of shame." No: until I want the protection +of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, +where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up +an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse +allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It +costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the +State, than it would to obey. L should feel as if I were worth less in +that case. + +Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of the Church, and commanded +me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman whose +preaching my father attended, but never I myself. "Pay," it said, "or be +locked up in the jail." I declined to pay. Bat, unfortunately, another +man saw fit to pay it. I did not sce why the schoolmaster should be +taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster; for I +was not the State's schoolmaster, but I supported myself hy voluntary +subscription. I did not see why the lyceum should not present its +tax-bill, and have the State to back its demand, as well as the Church. +However, at the request of the selectmen, I condescended to make some +such statement as this in writing:---"Know all men by these presents, +that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any +incorporated society which I have not joined." This I gave to the town +clerk; and he has it. The State, having thus learned that I did not wish +to be regarded as a member of that church, has never made a like demand +on me since; though it said that it must adhere to its original +presumption that time. If I had known how to name them, I should then +have signed off in detail from all the societies which I never signed on +to; but I did not know where to find a complete list. + +I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on +this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of +solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot +thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help +being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me +as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, ta be locked up. I wondered +that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it +could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in +some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my +townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break +through, before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a +moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and +mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They +plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are +underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; +for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of +that stone wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously they +locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without +let or hindrance, and *they* were really all that was dangerous. As they +could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, +if they cannot come at some person against whom they have a spite, will +abuse his dog. I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid +as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its +friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and +pitied it. + +Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual +or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior +wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to +be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the +strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force me who obey a +higher law than I. They force me to become like themselves. I do not +hear of *men* being *forced* to live this way or that by masses of men. +What sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government which says +to me, "Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my +money? It may be in a great strait, and not know what to do: I cannot +help that. It must help itself; do as I do. It is not worth the while to +snivel about it. I am not responsible for the successful working of the +machinery of society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive that, +when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain +inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and +spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance, +overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to +its nature, it dies; and so a man. + +> The night in prison was novel and interesting enough The prisoners in +> their shirt-sleeves were enjoying a chat and the evening air in the +> doorway, when I entered. But the jailer said, "Come, boys, it is time +> to lock up"; and so they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their +> steps returning into the hollow apartments. My room-mate was +> introduced ta me by the jailer, as "a first-rate fellow and a clever +> man." When the door was locked, he showed me where to hang my hat, and +> how he managed matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once a month; +> and this one, at least, was the whitest, most simply furnished, and +> probably the neatest apartment in the town. He naturally wanted to +> know where I came from, and what brought me there; and, when I had +> told him, I asked him in my turn how he came there, presuming him to +> be an honest man, of course; and, as the world goes, I believe he was. +> "Why," said he, "they accuse me of burning a barn; but I never did +> it." As near as I could discover, he had probably gone to bed in a +> barn when drunk, and smoked his pipe there; and so a barn was burnt. +> He had the reputation of being a clever man, had been there some three +> months waiting for his trial to come on, and would have to wait as +> much longer; but he was quite domesticated and contented, since he got +> his board for nothing, and thought that he was well treated. > -> He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw, that, if one stayed there long, his principal business would be to look out the window. I had soon read all the tracts that were left there, and examined where former prisoners had broken out, and where a grate had been sawed off, and heard the history of the various occupants of that room; for I found that even here there was a history and a gossip which never circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably this is the only house in the town where verses are composed, which are afterward printed in a circular form, but not published. I was shown quite a long list of verses which were composed by some young men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who avenged themselves by singing them. +> He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw, that, if one +> stayed there long, his principal business would be to look out the +> window. I had soon read all the tracts that were left there, and +> examined where former prisoners had broken out, and where a grate had +> been sawed off, and heard the history of the various occupants of that +> room; for I found that even here there was a history and a gossip +> which never circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably this is +> the only house in the town where verses are composed, which are +> afterward printed in a circular form, but not published. I was shown +> quite a long list of verses which were composed by some young men who +> had been detected in an attempt to escape, who avenged themselves by +> singing them. > -> I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear I should never see him again; but at length he showed me which was my bed, and left me to blow out the lamp. +> I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear I should never +> see him again; but at length he showed me which was my bed, and left +> me to blow out the lamp. > -> It was like travelling into a far country, such as I had never expected to behold, to lie there for one night. It seemed to me that I never had heard the town-clock strike before, nor the evening sounds of the village; for we slept with the windows open, which were inside the grating. It was to see my native village in the light of the Middle Ages, and our Concord was turned into a Rhine stream, and visions of knights and castles passed before me. They were the voices of old burghers that I heard in the streets. I was an involuntary spectator and auditor of whatever was done and said in the kitchen of the adjacent village-inn---a wholly new and rare experience to me. It was a closer view of my native town. I was fairly inside of it. I never had seen its institutions before. This is one of its peculiar institutions; for it is a shire town. I began to comprehend what its inhabitants were about. +> It was like travelling into a far country, such as I had never +> expected to behold, to lie there for one night. It seemed to me that I +> never had heard the town-clock strike before, nor the evening sounds +> of the village; for we slept with the windows open, which were inside +> the grating. It was to see my native village in the light of the +> Middle Ages, and our Concord was turned into a Rhine stream, and +> visions of knights and castles passed before me. They were the voices +> of old burghers that I heard in the streets. I was an involuntary +> spectator and auditor of whatever was done and said in the kitchen of +> the adjacent village-inn---a wholly new and rare experience to me. It +> was a closer view of my native town. I was fairly inside of it. I +> never had seen its institutions before. This is one of its peculiar +> institutions; for it is a shire town. I began to comprehend what its +> inhabitants were about. > -> In the morning, our breakfasts were put through the hole m the door, in small oblong-square tin pans, made to fit, and holding a pint of chocolate, with brown bread, and an iron spoon. When they called for the vessels again, I was green enough to return what bread I had left; but my comrade seized it, and said that I should lay that up for lunch or dinner. Soon after he was let out to work at haying in a neighboring field, whither he went every day, and would not be back till noon; so he bade me good-day, saying that he doubted if he should see me again. +> In the morning, our breakfasts were put through the hole m the door, +> in small oblong-square tin pans, made to fit, and holding a pint of +> chocolate, with brown bread, and an iron spoon. When they called for +> the vessels again, I was green enough to return what bread I had left; +> but my comrade seized it, and said that I should lay that up for lunch +> or dinner. Soon after he was let out to work at haying in a +> neighboring field, whither he went every day, and would not be back +> till noon; so he bade me good-day, saying that he doubted if he should +> see me again. > -> When I came out of prison---for some one interfered, and paid that tax---I did not perceive that great changes had taken place on the common, such as he observed who went in a youth, and emerged a tottering and gray-headed man; and yet a change had to my eyes come over the scene---the town, and State, and country---greater than any that mere time could effect. I saw yet more distinctly the State in which I lived. I saw to what extent the people among whom I lived could be trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer weather only; that they did not greatly propose to do right; that they were a distinct race from me by their prejudices and superstitions, as the Chinamen and Malays are; that, in their sacrifices to humanity, they ran no risks, not even to their property; that, after all, they were not so noble but they treated the thief as he had treated them, and hoped, by a certain outward observance and a few prayers, and by walking in a particular straight though useless path from time to time, to save their souls. This may be to judge my neighbors harshly; for I believe that many of them are not aware that they have such an institution as the jail in their village. +> When I came out of prison---for some one interfered, and paid that +> tax---I did not perceive that great changes had taken place on the +> common, such as he observed who went in a youth, and emerged a +> tottering and gray-headed man; and yet a change had to my eyes come +> over the scene---the town, and State, and country---greater than any +> that mere time could effect. I saw yet more distinctly the State in +> which I lived. I saw to what extent the people among whom I lived +> could be trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their friendship +> was for summer weather only; that they did not greatly propose to do +> right; that they were a distinct race from me by their prejudices and +> superstitions, as the Chinamen and Malays are; that, in their +> sacrifices to humanity, they ran no risks, not even to their property; +> that, after all, they were not so noble but they treated the thief as +> he had treated them, and hoped, by a certain outward observance and a +> few prayers, and by walking in a particular straight though useless +> path from time to time, to save their souls. This may be to judge my +> neighbors harshly; for I believe that many of them are not aware that +> they have such an institution as the jail in their village. > -> It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their fingers, which were crossed to represent the grating of a jail window, "How do ye do?" My neighbors did not thus salute me, but first looked at me, and then at one another, as if I had returned from a long journey. I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour---for the horse was soon tackled---was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen. +> It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out +> of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their +> fingers, which were crossed to represent the grating of a jail window, +> "How do ye do?" My neighbors did not thus salute me, but first looked +> at me, and then at one another, as if I had returned from a long +> journey. I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get +> a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I +> proceeded to finish my errand, and having put on my mended shoe, +> joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under +> my conduct; and in half an hour---for the horse was soon tackled---was +> in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two +> miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen. > > This is the whole history of "My Prisons." -I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject; and, as for supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate my fellow-countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the tax-bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually. I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man or a musket to shoot one with---the dollar is innocent---but I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance. In fact, I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make what use and get what advantage of her I can, as is usual in such cases. - -If others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a sympathy with the State, they do but what they have al: "ready done in their own case, or rather they abet injustice to a greater extent than the State requires. If they pay the tax from a mistaken interest in the individual taxed, to save his property, or prevent his going to jail, it is because they have not considered wisely how far they let their private feelings interfere with the public good. - -This, then, is my position at present. But one cannot be too much on his guard in such a case, lest his action be biassed by obstinacy, or an undue regard for the opinions of men. Let him see that he does only what belongs to himself and to the hour. - -I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well they are only ignorant; they would do better if they knew how: why give your neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not inclined to? But I think again, this is no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind. Again, I sometimes say to myself, When many millions of men, without heat, without ill will, without personal feeling of any kind, demand of you a few shillings only without the possibility, such is their constitution, of retracting or altering their present demand, and without the possibility, on your side, of appeal to any other millions, why expose yourself to this overwhelming brute force? You do not resist cold and hunger, the winds and the waves, thus obstinately; you quietly submit to a thousand similar necessities. You do not put your head into the fire. But just in proportion as I regard this as not wholly a brute force, but partly a human force, and consider that I have relations to those millions as to so many millions of men, and not of mere brute or inanimate things, I see that appeal is possible, first and instantaneously, from them to the Maker of them, and, secondly, from them to themselves. But, if I put my head deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal to fire or to the Maker of fire, and I have only myself to blame. If I could convince myself that I have any right to be satisfied with men as they are, and to treat them accordingly, and not according, in some respects, to my requisitions and expectations of what they and I ought to be, then, like a good Mussulman and fatalist, I should endeavor to be satisfied with things as they are, and say it is the will of God. And, above all, there is this difference between resisting this and a purely brute or natural force, that I can resist this with some effect s but I cannot expect, like Orpheus, to change the nature of the rocks and trees and beasts. - -I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up as better than my neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an excuse for conforming to the laws of the land. I am but too ready to conform to them. Indeed, I have reason to suspect myself on this head; and each year, as the tax-gatherer comes round, I find myself disposed to review the acts and position of the general and State governments, and the spirit of the people, to discover a pretext for conformity. +I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as desirous +of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject; and, as for +supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate my fellow-countrymen +now. It is for no particular item in the tax-bill that I refuse to pay +it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and +stand aloof from it effectually. I do not care to trace the course of my +dollar, if I could, till it buys a man or a musket to shoot one +with---the dollar is innocent---but I am concerned to trace the effects +of my allegiance. In fact, I quietly declare war with the State, after +my fashion, though I will still make what use and get what advantage of +her I can, as is usual in such cases. + +If others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a sympathy with the +State, they do but what they have al: "ready done in their own case, or +rather they abet injustice to a greater extent than the State requires. +If they pay the tax from a mistaken interest in the individual taxed, to +save his property, or prevent his going to jail, it is because they have +not considered wisely how far they let their private feelings interfere +with the public good. + +This, then, is my position at present. But one cannot be too much on his +guard in such a case, lest his action be biassed by obstinacy, or an +undue regard for the opinions of men. Let him see that he does only what +belongs to himself and to the hour. + +I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well they are only ignorant; +they would do better if they knew how: why give your neighbors this pain +to treat you as they are not inclined to? But I think again, this is no +reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much +greater pain of a different kind. Again, I sometimes say to myself, When +many millions of men, without heat, without ill will, without personal +feeling of any kind, demand of you a few shillings only without the +possibility, such is their constitution, of retracting or altering their +present demand, and without the possibility, on your side, of appeal to +any other millions, why expose yourself to this overwhelming brute +force? You do not resist cold and hunger, the winds and the waves, thus +obstinately; you quietly submit to a thousand similar necessities. You +do not put your head into the fire. But just in proportion as I regard +this as not wholly a brute force, but partly a human force, and consider +that I have relations to those millions as to so many millions of men, +and not of mere brute or inanimate things, I see that appeal is +possible, first and instantaneously, from them to the Maker of them, +and, secondly, from them to themselves. But, if I put my head +deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal to fire or to the Maker +of fire, and I have only myself to blame. If I could convince myself +that I have any right to be satisfied with men as they are, and to treat +them accordingly, and not according, in some respects, to my +requisitions and expectations of what they and I ought to be, then, like +a good Mussulman and fatalist, I should endeavor to be satisfied with +things as they are, and say it is the will of God. And, above all, there +is this difference between resisting this and a purely brute or natural +force, that I can resist this with some effect s but I cannot expect, +like Orpheus, to change the nature of the rocks and trees and beasts. + +I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to split +hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up as better than my +neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an excuse for conforming to +the laws of the land. I am but too ready to conform to them. Indeed, I +have reason to suspect myself on this head; and each year, as the +tax-gatherer comes round, I find myself disposed to review the acts and +position of the general and State governments, and the spirit of the +people, to discover a pretext for conformity. > "We must affect our country as our parents > @@ -110,14 +704,115 @@ I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to split hairs, t > > And not desire of rule or benefit." -I believe that the State will soon be able to take all my work of this sort out of my hands, and then I shall be no better a patriot than my fellow-countrymen. Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good; the law and the courts are very respectable; even this State and this American government are, in many respects, very admirable and rare things, to be thankful for, such as a great many have described them; but seen from a point of view a little higher, they are what I have described them; seen from a higher still, und the highest, who shall say what they are, or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all? - -However, the government does not concern me much, and I shall bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many moments that I live under a government, even in this world. If a man is thought-free, fancy-free, imagination-free, that which is not never for a long time appearing *to be* to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him. - -I know that most men think differently from myself; but those whose lives are by profession devoted to the study of these or kindred subjects, content me as little as any. Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but have no resting-place without it. They may be men of a certain experience and discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not governed by policy and expediency. Webster never goes behind government, and so cannot speak with authority about it. His words are wisdom to those legislators who contemplate no essential reform in the existing government; but for thinkers, and those who legislate for all time, he never once glances at the subject. I know of those whose serene and wise speculations on this theme would soon reveal the limits of his mind's range and hospitality. Yet, compared with the cheap professions of most reformers, and the still cheaper wisdom and eloquence of politicians in general, his are almost the only sensible and valuable words, and we thank Heaven for him. Comparatively, he is always strong, original, and, above nll, practical. Still his quality is not wisdom, but prudence. The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency. Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing. He well deserves to be called, as he has been called, the Defender of the Constitution. There are really no blows to be given by him but defensive ones. He is not a leader, but a follower. His leaders are the men of '87. "I have never made an effort," he says, "and never propose to make an effort; I have never countenanced an effort, and never mean to countenance an effort, to disturb the arrangement as originally made, by which the various States came into the Union." Still thinking of the sanction which the Constitution gives to slavery, he says, "Because it was a part of the original compact---let it stand." Notwithstanding his special acuteness and ability, he is unable to take a fact out of its merely political relations, and behold it as it lies absolutely to be disposed of by the intellect---what, for instance, it behooves a man to do here in America today with regard to slavery, but ventures, or is driven, to make some such desperate answer as the following, ~ while professing to speak absolutely, and as a private man---from which what new and singular code of social duties might be inferred? "The manner," says he, "in which the governments of those States where slavery exists are to regulate it, is for their own consideration, under their responsibility to their constituents, to the general laws of propriety, humanity, and justice, and to God. Associations formed elsewhere, springing from a feeling of humanity, or any other cause, have nothing whatever to do with it. They have never received any encouragement from me, and they never will." - -They who know of no purer sources of truth, whe have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humility; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward its fountain-head. - -No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak, who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free-trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation. They have no genius or talent for comparatively humble questions of taxation and finance, commerce and manufactures and agriculture. If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations. For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation? - -The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to---for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even hose who neither know nor can do so well---is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State, until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose, if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen. +I believe that the State will soon be able to take all my work of this +sort out of my hands, and then I shall be no better a patriot than my +fellow-countrymen. Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution, +with all its faults, is very good; the law and the courts are very +respectable; even this State and this American government are, in many +respects, very admirable and rare things, to be thankful for, such as a +great many have described them; but seen from a point of view a little +higher, they are what I have described them; seen from a higher still, +und the highest, who shall say what they are, or that they are worth +looking at or thinking of at all? + +However, the government does not concern me much, and I shall bestow the +fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many moments that I live under +a government, even in this world. If a man is thought-free, fancy-free, +imagination-free, that which is not never for a long time appearing *to +be* to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him. + +I know that most men think differently from myself; but those whose +lives are by profession devoted to the study of these or kindred +subjects, content me as little as any. Statesmen and legislators, +standing so completely within the institution, never distinctly and +nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but have no +resting-place without it. They may be men of a certain experience and +discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even useful +systems, for which we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and +usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are wont to +forget that the world is not governed by policy and expediency. Webster +never goes behind government, and so cannot speak with authority about +it. His words are wisdom to those legislators who contemplate no +essential reform in the existing government; but for thinkers, and those +who legislate for all time, he never once glances at the subject. I know +of those whose serene and wise speculations on this theme would soon +reveal the limits of his mind's range and hospitality. Yet, compared +with the cheap professions of most reformers, and the still cheaper +wisdom and eloquence of politicians in general, his are almost the only +sensible and valuable words, and we thank Heaven for him. Comparatively, +he is always strong, original, and, above nll, practical. Still his +quality is not wisdom, but prudence. The lawyer's truth is not Truth, +but consistency or a consistent expediency. Truth is always in harmony +with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that +may consist with wrong-doing. He well deserves to be called, as he has +been called, the Defender of the Constitution. There are really no blows +to be given by him but defensive ones. He is not a leader, but a +follower. His leaders are the men of '87. "I have never made an effort," +he says, "and never propose to make an effort; I have never countenanced +an effort, and never mean to countenance an effort, to disturb the +arrangement as originally made, by which the various States came into +the Union." Still thinking of the sanction which the Constitution gives +to slavery, he says, "Because it was a part of the original +compact---let it stand." Notwithstanding his special acuteness and +ability, he is unable to take a fact out of its merely political +relations, and behold it as it lies absolutely to be disposed of by the +intellect---what, for instance, it behooves a man to do here in America +today with regard to slavery, but ventures, or is driven, to make some +such desperate answer as the following, \~ while professing to speak +absolutely, and as a private man---from which what new and singular code +of social duties might be inferred? "The manner," says he, "in which the +governments of those States where slavery exists are to regulate it, is +for their own consideration, under their responsibility to their +constituents, to the general laws of propriety, humanity, and justice, +and to God. Associations formed elsewhere, springing from a feeling of +humanity, or any other cause, have nothing whatever to do with it. They +have never received any encouragement from me, and they never will." + +They who know of no purer sources of truth, whe have traced up its +stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the +Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humility; but +they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, +gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward its +fountain-head. + +No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are +rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and +eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his +mouth to speak, who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of +the day. We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which +it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not +yet learned the comparative value of free-trade and of freedom, of +union, and of rectitude, to a nation. They have no genius or talent for +comparatively humble questions of taxation and finance, commerce and +manufactures and agriculture. If we were left solely to the wordy wit of +legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable +experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not +long retain her rank among the nations. For eighteen hundred years, +though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been +written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent +enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of +legislation? + +The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit +to---for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, +and in many things even hose who neither know nor can do so well---is +still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and +consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and +property but what I concede to it. The progress from an absolute to a +limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress +toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher +was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is +a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in +government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards +recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a +really free and enlightened State, until the State comes to recognize +the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own +power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please +myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all +men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even +would not think it inconsistent with its own repose, if a few were to +live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who +fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore +this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, +would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which +also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen. diff --git a/src/condition-labor.md b/src/condition-labor.md index 4b289c2..1e442cd 100644 --- a/src/condition-labor.md +++ b/src/condition-labor.md @@ -2,3661 +2,3117 @@ *Your Holiness:* -I have read with care your Encyclical letter on the -condition of labor, addressed, through the Patriarchs, -Primates, Archbishops and Bishops of your faith, to the -Christian World. - -Since its most strikingly pronounced condemnations are -directed against a theory that we who hold it know to be -deserving of your support, I ask permission to lay before -your Holiness the grounds of our belief, and to set forth -some considerations that you have unfortunately overlooked. -The momentous seriousness of the facts you refer to, the -poverty, suffering and seething discontent that pervade the -Christian world, the danger that passion may lead ignorance -in a blind struggle against social conditions rapidly -becoming intolerable, are my justification. +I have read with care your Encyclical letter on the condition of labor, +addressed, through the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops and Bishops of +your faith, to the Christian World. + +Since its most strikingly pronounced condemnations are directed against +a theory that we who hold it know to be deserving of your support, I ask +permission to lay before your Holiness the grounds of our belief, and to +set forth some considerations that you have unfortunately overlooked. +The momentous seriousness of the facts you refer to, the poverty, +suffering and seething discontent that pervade the Christian world, the +danger that passion may lead ignorance in a blind struggle against +social conditions rapidly becoming intolerable, are my justification. # I -Our postulates are all stated or implied in your Encyclical, -They are the primary perceptions of human reason, the -fundamental teachings of the Christian faith: +Our postulates are all stated or implied in your Encyclical, They are +the primary perceptions of human reason, the fundamental teachings of +the Christian faith: We hold: That--- This world is the creation of God. -The men brought into it for the brief period of their -earthly lives are the equal creatures of His bounty, the -equal subjects of His provident care. - -By his constitution man is beset by physical wants, on the -satisfaction of which depend not only the maintenance of his -physical life but also the development of his intellectual -and spiritual life. - -God has made the satisfaction of these wants dependent on -man's own exertions, giving him the power and laying on him -the injunction to labor---a power that of itself raises him -far above the brute, since we may reverently say that it -enables him to become as it were a helper in the creative -work. - -God has not put on man the task of making bricks without -straw. With the need for labor and the power to labor He has -also given to man the material for labor. This material is -land---man physically being a land animal, who can live only -on and from land, and can use other elements, such as air, -sunshine and water, only by the use of land. - -Being the equal creatures of the Creator, equally entitled -under His providence to live their lives and satisfy their -needs, men are equally entitled to the use of land, and any -adjustment that denies this equal use of land is morally -wrong. +The men brought into it for the brief period of their earthly lives are +the equal creatures of His bounty, the equal subjects of His provident +care. -As to the right of ownership, we hold: That--- +By his constitution man is beset by physical wants, on the satisfaction +of which depend not only the maintenance of his physical life but also +the development of his intellectual and spiritual life. -Being created individuals, with individual wants and powers, -men are individually entitled (subject of course to the -moral obligations that arise from such relations as that of -the family) to the use of their own powers and the enjoyment -of the results. +God has made the satisfaction of these wants dependent on man's own +exertions, giving him the power and laying on him the injunction to +labor---a power that of itself raises him far above the brute, since we +may reverently say that it enables him to become as it were a helper in +the creative work. -There thus arises, anterior to human law, and deriving its -validity from the law of God, a right of private ownership -in things produced by labor---a right that the possessor may -transfer, but of which to deprive him without his will is -theft. +God has not put on man the task of making bricks without straw. With the +need for labor and the power to labor He has also given to man the +material for labor. This material is land---man physically being a land +animal, who can live only on and from land, and can use other elements, +such as air, sunshine and water, only by the use of land. + +Being the equal creatures of the Creator, equally entitled under His +providence to live their lives and satisfy their needs, men are equally +entitled to the use of land, and any adjustment that denies this equal +use of land is morally wrong. + +As to the right of ownership, we hold: That--- -This right of property, originating in the right of the -individual to himself, is the only full and complete right -of property. It attaches to things produced by labor, but -cannot attach to things created by God. - -Thus, if a man take a fish from the ocean he acquires a -right of property in that fish, which exclusive right he may -transfer by sale or gift. But he cannot obtain a similar -right of property in the ocean, so that he may sell *it* or -give *it* or forbid others to use *it*. - -Or, if he set up a windmill he acquires a right of property -in the things such use of wind enables him to produce. But -he cannot claim a right of property in the wind itself, so -that he may sell *it* or forbid others to use *it*. - -Or, if he cultivate grain he acquires a right of property in -the grain his labor brings forth. But he cannot obtain a -similar right of property in the sun which ripened it or the -soil on which it grew. For these things are of the -continuing gifts of God to all generations of men, which all -may use, but none may claim as his alone. - -To attach to things created by God the same right of private -ownership that justly attaches to things produced by labor -is to impair and deny the true rights of property. For a man -who out of the proceeds of his labor is obliged to pay -another man for the use of ocean or air or sunshine or soil, -all of which are to men involved in the single term land, is -in this deprived of his rightful property and thus robbed. +Being created individuals, with individual wants and powers, men are +individually entitled (subject of course to the moral obligations that +arise from such relations as that of the family) to the use of their own +powers and the enjoyment of the results. + +There thus arises, anterior to human law, and deriving its validity from +the law of God, a right of private ownership in things produced by +labor---a right that the possessor may transfer, but of which to deprive +him without his will is theft. + +This right of property, originating in the right of the individual to +himself, is the only full and complete right of property. It attaches to +things produced by labor, but cannot attach to things created by God. + +Thus, if a man take a fish from the ocean he acquires a right of +property in that fish, which exclusive right he may transfer by sale or +gift. But he cannot obtain a similar right of property in the ocean, so +that he may sell *it* or give *it* or forbid others to use *it*. + +Or, if he set up a windmill he acquires a right of property in the +things such use of wind enables him to produce. But he cannot claim a +right of property in the wind itself, so that he may sell *it* or forbid +others to use *it*. + +Or, if he cultivate grain he acquires a right of property in the grain +his labor brings forth. But he cannot obtain a similar right of property +in the sun which ripened it or the soil on which it grew. For these +things are of the continuing gifts of God to all generations of men, +which all may use, but none may claim as his alone. + +To attach to things created by God the same right of private ownership +that justly attaches to things produced by labor is to impair and deny +the true rights of property. For a man who out of the proceeds of his +labor is obliged to pay another man for the use of ocean or air or +sunshine or soil, all of which are to men involved in the single term +land, is in this deprived of his rightful property and thus robbed. As to the use of land, we hold: That--- -While the right of ownership that justly attaches to things -produced by labor cannot attach to land, there may attach to -land a right of possession. As your Holiness says, " God -has not granted the earth to mankind in general in the sense -that all without distinction can deal with it as they -please," and regulations necessary for its best use may be -fixed by human laws. But such regulations must conform to -the moral law---must secure to all equal participation in -the advantages of God's general bounty. The principle is the -same as where a human father leaves property equally to a -number of children. Some of the things thus left may be -incapable of common use or of specific division. Such things -may properly be assigned to some of the children, but only -under condition that the equality of benefit among them all -be preserved. - -In the rudest social state, while industry consists in -hunting, fishing, and gathering the spontaneous fruits of -the earth, private possession of land is not necessary. But -as men begin to cultivate the ground and expend their labor -in permanent works, private possession of the land on which -labor is thus expended is needed to secure the right of -property in the products of labor. For who would sow if not -assured of the exclusive possession needed to enable him to -reap! who would attach costly works to the soil without such -exclusive possession of the soil as would enable him to -secure the benefit? - -This right of private possession in things created by God is -however very different from the right of private ownership -in things produced by labor. The one is limited, the other -unlimited, save in cases when the dictate of -self-preservation terminates all other rights. The purpose -of the one, the exclusive possession of land, is merely to -secure the other, the exclusive ownership of the products of -labor; and it can never rightfully be carried so far as to -impair or deny this. While anyone may hold exclusive -possession of land so far as it does not interfere with the -equal rights of others, he can rightfully hold it no +While the right of ownership that justly attaches to things produced by +labor cannot attach to land, there may attach to land a right of +possession. As your Holiness says, " God has not granted the earth to +mankind in general in the sense that all without distinction can deal +with it as they please," and regulations necessary for its best use may +be fixed by human laws. But such regulations must conform to the moral +law---must secure to all equal participation in the advantages of God's +general bounty. The principle is the same as where a human father leaves +property equally to a number of children. Some of the things thus left +may be incapable of common use or of specific division. Such things may +properly be assigned to some of the children, but only under condition +that the equality of benefit among them all be preserved. + +In the rudest social state, while industry consists in hunting, fishing, +and gathering the spontaneous fruits of the earth, private possession of +land is not necessary. But as men begin to cultivate the ground and +expend their labor in permanent works, private possession of the land on +which labor is thus expended is needed to secure the right of property +in the products of labor. For who would sow if not assured of the +exclusive possession needed to enable him to reap! who would attach +costly works to the soil without such exclusive possession of the soil +as would enable him to secure the benefit? + +This right of private possession in things created by God is however +very different from the right of private ownership in things produced by +labor. The one is limited, the other unlimited, save in cases when the +dictate of self-preservation terminates all other rights. The purpose of +the one, the exclusive possession of land, is merely to secure the +other, the exclusive ownership of the products of labor; and it can +never rightfully be carried so far as to impair or deny this. While +anyone may hold exclusive possession of land so far as it does not +interfere with the equal rights of others, he can rightfully hold it no further. -Thus Cain and Abel, were there only two men on earth, might -by agreement divide the earth between them. Under this -compact each might claim exclusive right to his share as -against the other. But neither could rightfully continue -such claim against the next man born. For since no one comes -into the world without God's permission, his presence -attests his equal right to the use of God's bounty. For them -to refuse him any use of the earth which they had divided -between them would therefore be for them to commit murder. -And for them to refuse him any use of the earth, unless by -laboring for them or by giving them part of the products of -his labor he bought it of them, would be for them to commit +Thus Cain and Abel, were there only two men on earth, might by agreement +divide the earth between them. Under this compact each might claim +exclusive right to his share as against the other. But neither could +rightfully continue such claim against the next man born. For since no +one comes into the world without God's permission, his presence attests +his equal right to the use of God's bounty. For them to refuse him any +use of the earth which they had divided between them would therefore be +for them to commit murder. And for them to refuse him any use of the +earth, unless by laboring for them or by giving them part of the +products of his labor he bought it of them, would be for them to commit theft. -God's laws do not change. Though their applications may -alter with altering conditions, the same principles of right -and wrong that hold when men are few and industry is rude -also hold amid teeming populations and complex industries. -In our cities of millions and our states of scores of -millions, in a civilization where the division of labor has -gone so far that large numbers are hardly conscious that -they are land users, it still remains true that we are all -land animals and can live only on land, and that land is -God's bounty to all, of which no one can be deprived without -being murdered, and for which no one can be compelled to pay -another without being robbed. But even in a state of society -where, the elaboration of industry and the increase of -permanent improvements have made the need for private -possession of land widespread, there is no difficulty in -conforming individual possession with the equal right to -land. For as soon as any piece of land will yield to the -possessor a larger return than is had by similar labor on -other land a value attaches to it which is shown when it is -sold or rented. Thus, the value of the land itself, -irrespective of the value of any improvements in or on it, -always indicates the precise value of the benefit to which -all are entitled in its use, as distinguished from the value -which as producer or successor of a producer belongs to the +God's laws do not change. Though their applications may alter with +altering conditions, the same principles of right and wrong that hold +when men are few and industry is rude also hold amid teeming populations +and complex industries. In our cities of millions and our states of +scores of millions, in a civilization where the division of labor has +gone so far that large numbers are hardly conscious that they are land +users, it still remains true that we are all land animals and can live +only on land, and that land is God's bounty to all, of which no one can +be deprived without being murdered, and for which no one can be +compelled to pay another without being robbed. But even in a state of +society where, the elaboration of industry and the increase of permanent +improvements have made the need for private possession of land +widespread, there is no difficulty in conforming individual possession +with the equal right to land. For as soon as any piece of land will +yield to the possessor a larger return than is had by similar labor on +other land a value attaches to it which is shown when it is sold or +rented. Thus, the value of the land itself, irrespective of the value of +any improvements in or on it, always indicates the precise value of the +benefit to which all are entitled in its use, as distinguished from the +value which as producer or successor of a producer belongs to the possessor in individual right. -To combine the advantages of private possession with the -justice of common ownership it is only necessary therefore -to take for common uses what value attaches to land -irrespective of any exertion of labor on it. The principle -is the same as in the case referred to, where a human father -leaves equally to his children things not susceptible of -specific division or common use. In that case such things -would be sold or rented and the value equally applied. - -It is on this common sense principle that we, who term -ourselves single tax men, would have the community act. - -We do not propose to assert equal rights to land by keeping -land common, letting any one use any part of it at any time. -We do not propose the task, impossible in the present state -of society, of dividing land in equal shares; still less the -yet more impossible task of keeping it so divided. - -We propose, leaving land in the private possession of -individuals, with full liberty on their part to give, sell -or bequeath it, simply to levy on it for public uses a tax -that shall equal the annual value of the land itself, -irrespective of the use made of it or the improvements on -it. And since this would provide amply for the need of -public revenues, we would accompany this tax on land values -with the repeal of all taxes now levied on the products and -processes of industry---which taxes, since they take from -the earnings of labor, we hold to be infringements of the -right of property. - -This we propose, not as a cunning device of human ingenuity, -but as a conforming of human regulations to the will of God. - -God cannot contradict himself nor impose on his creatures -laws that clash. - -If it be God's command to men that they should not -steal---that is to say, that they should respect the right -of property which each one has in the fruits of his labor; - -And if He be also the Father of all men, who in His common -bounty has intended all to have equal opportunities for -sharing; - -Then, in any possible stage of civilization, however -elaborate, there must be some way in which the exclusive -right to the products of industry may be reconciled with the -equal right to land. - -If the Almighty be consistent with Himself, it cannot be, as -say those socialists referred to by you, that in order to -secure the equal participation of men in the opportunities -of life and labor we must ignore the right of private -property. Nor yet can it be, as you yourself in the -Encyclical seem to argue, that to secure the right of -private property we must ignore the equality of right in the -opportunities of life and labor. To say the one thing or the -other is equally to deny the harmony of God's laws. - -But, the private possession of land, subject to the payment -to the community of the value of any special advantage thus -given to the individual, satisfies both laws, securing to -all equal participation in the bounty of the Creator and to -each the full ownership of the products of his labor. - -Nor do we hesitate to say that this way of securing the -equal right to the bounty of the Creator and the exclusive -right to the products of labor is the way intended by God -for raising public revenues. For we are not atheists, who -deny God; nor semi-atheists, who deny that He has any +To combine the advantages of private possession with the justice of +common ownership it is only necessary therefore to take for common uses +what value attaches to land irrespective of any exertion of labor on it. +The principle is the same as in the case referred to, where a human +father leaves equally to his children things not susceptible of specific +division or common use. In that case such things would be sold or rented +and the value equally applied. + +It is on this common sense principle that we, who term ourselves single +tax men, would have the community act. + +We do not propose to assert equal rights to land by keeping land common, +letting any one use any part of it at any time. We do not propose the +task, impossible in the present state of society, of dividing land in +equal shares; still less the yet more impossible task of keeping it so +divided. + +We propose, leaving land in the private possession of individuals, with +full liberty on their part to give, sell or bequeath it, simply to levy +on it for public uses a tax that shall equal the annual value of the +land itself, irrespective of the use made of it or the improvements on +it. And since this would provide amply for the need of public revenues, +we would accompany this tax on land values with the repeal of all taxes +now levied on the products and processes of industry---which taxes, +since they take from the earnings of labor, we hold to be infringements +of the right of property. + +This we propose, not as a cunning device of human ingenuity, but as a +conforming of human regulations to the will of God. + +God cannot contradict himself nor impose on his creatures laws that +clash. + +If it be God's command to men that they should not steal---that is to +say, that they should respect the right of property which each one has +in the fruits of his labor; + +And if He be also the Father of all men, who in His common bounty has +intended all to have equal opportunities for sharing; + +Then, in any possible stage of civilization, however elaborate, there +must be some way in which the exclusive right to the products of +industry may be reconciled with the equal right to land. + +If the Almighty be consistent with Himself, it cannot be, as say those +socialists referred to by you, that in order to secure the equal +participation of men in the opportunities of life and labor we must +ignore the right of private property. Nor yet can it be, as you yourself +in the Encyclical seem to argue, that to secure the right of private +property we must ignore the equality of right in the opportunities of +life and labor. To say the one thing or the other is equally to deny the +harmony of God's laws. + +But, the private possession of land, subject to the payment to the +community of the value of any special advantage thus given to the +individual, satisfies both laws, securing to all equal participation in +the bounty of the Creator and to each the full ownership of the products +of his labor. + +Nor do we hesitate to say that this way of securing the equal right to +the bounty of the Creator and the exclusive right to the products of +labor is the way intended by God for raising public revenues. For we are +not atheists, who deny God; nor semi-atheists, who deny that He has any concern in politics and legislation. -It is true as you say---a salutary truth too often -forgotten---that "man is older than the state, and he holds -the right of providing for the life of his body prior to the -formation of any state." Yet, as you too perceive, it is -also true that the state is in the divinely appointed order. -For He who foresaw all things and provided for all things, -foresaw and provided that with the increase of population -and the development of industry the organization of human -society into states or governments would become both -expedient and necessary. - -No sooner does the state arise than, as we all know, it -needs revenues. This need for revenues is small at first, -while population is sparse, industry rude and the functions -of the state few and simple. But with growth of population -and advance of civilization the functions of the state -increase and larger and larger revenues are needed. - -Now, He that made the world and placed man in it, He that -preordained civilization as the means whereby man might rise -to higher powers and become more and more conscious of the -works of his Creator, must have foreseen this increasing -need for state revenues and have made provision for it. That -is to say: The increasing need for public revenues with -social advance, being a natural, God-ordained need, there -must be a right way of raising them---some way that we can -truly say is the way intended by God. It is clear that this -right way of raising public revenues must accord with the -moral law. +It is true as you say---a salutary truth too often forgotten---that "man +is older than the state, and he holds the right of providing for the +life of his body prior to the formation of any state." Yet, as you too +perceive, it is also true that the state is in the divinely appointed +order. For He who foresaw all things and provided for all things, +foresaw and provided that with the increase of population and the +development of industry the organization of human society into states or +governments would become both expedient and necessary. + +No sooner does the state arise than, as we all know, it needs revenues. +This need for revenues is small at first, while population is sparse, +industry rude and the functions of the state few and simple. But with +growth of population and advance of civilization the functions of the +state increase and larger and larger revenues are needed. + +Now, He that made the world and placed man in it, He that preordained +civilization as the means whereby man might rise to higher powers and +become more and more conscious of the works of his Creator, must have +foreseen this increasing need for state revenues and have made provision +for it. That is to say: The increasing need for public revenues with +social advance, being a natural, God-ordained need, there must be a +right way of raising them---some way that we can truly say is the way +intended by God. It is clear that this right way of raising public +revenues must accord with the moral law. Hence: It must not take from individuals what rightfully belongs to individuals. -It must not give some an advantage over others, as by -increasing the prices of what some have to sell and others -must buy. - -It must not lead men into temptation, by requiring trivial -oaths, by making it profitable to lie, to swear falsely, to -bribe or to take bribes. - -It must not confuse the distinctions of right and wrong, and -weaken the sanctions of religion and the state by creating -crimes that are not sins, and punishing men for doing what -in itself they have an undoubted right to do. - -It must not repress industry. It must not check commerce. It -must not punish thrift. It must offer no impediment to the -largest production and the fairest division of wealth. - -Let me ask your Holiness to consider the taxes on the -processes and products of industry by which through the -civilized world public revenues are collected---the octroi -duties that surround Italian cities with barriers; the -monstrous customs duties that hamper intercourse between -so-called Christian states; the taxes on occupations, on -earnings, on investments, on the building of houses, on the -cultivation of fields, on industry and thrift in all forms. -Can these be the ways God has intended that governments -should raise the means they need? Have any of them the -characteristics indispensable in any plan we can deem a +It must not give some an advantage over others, as by increasing the +prices of what some have to sell and others must buy. + +It must not lead men into temptation, by requiring trivial oaths, by +making it profitable to lie, to swear falsely, to bribe or to take +bribes. + +It must not confuse the distinctions of right and wrong, and weaken the +sanctions of religion and the state by creating crimes that are not +sins, and punishing men for doing what in itself they have an undoubted +right to do. + +It must not repress industry. It must not check commerce. It must not +punish thrift. It must offer no impediment to the largest production and +the fairest division of wealth. + +Let me ask your Holiness to consider the taxes on the processes and +products of industry by which through the civilized world public +revenues are collected---the octroi duties that surround Italian cities +with barriers; the monstrous customs duties that hamper intercourse +between so-called Christian states; the taxes on occupations, on +earnings, on investments, on the building of houses, on the cultivation +of fields, on industry and thrift in all forms. Can these be the ways +God has intended that governments should raise the means they need? Have +any of them the characteristics indispensable in any plan we can deem a right one? -All these taxes violate the moral law. They take by force -what belongs to the individual alone; they give to the -unscrupulous an advantage over the scrupulous; they have the -effect, nay are largely intended, to increase the price of -what some have to sell and others must buy; they corrupt -government; they make oaths a mockery; they shackle -commerce; they fine industry and thrift; they lessen the -wealth that men might enjoy, and enrich some by -impoverishing others. - -Yet what most strikingly shows how opposed to Christianity -is this system of raising public revenues is its influence -on thought. - -Christianity teaches us that all men are brethren; that -their true interests are harmonious, not antagonistic. It -gives us, as the golden rule of life, that we should do to -others as we would have others do to us. But out of the -system of taxing the products and processes of labor, and -out of its effects in increasing the price of what some have -to sell and others must buy, has grown the theory of -"protection," which denies this gospel, which holds Christ -ignorant of political economy and proclaims laws of national -well-being utterly at variance with His teaching. This -theory sanctifies national hatreds; it inculcates a -universal war of hostile tariffs; it teaches peoples that -their prosperity lies in imposing on the productions of -other peoples restrictions they do not wish imposed on their -own; and instead of the Christian doctrine of man's -brotherhood it makes injury of foreigners a civic virtue. - -"By their fruits you shall know them." Can anything more -clearly show that to tax the products and processes of -industry is not the way God intended public revenues to be -raised? - -But to consider what we propose---the raising of public -revenues by a single tax on the value of land irrespective -of improvements---is to see that in all respects this does -conform to the moral law. - -Let me ask your Holiness to keep in mind that the value we -propose to tax, the value of land irrespective of -improvements, does not come from any exertion of labor or -investment of capital on or in it---the values produced in -this way being values of improvement which we would exempt. -The value of land irrespective of improvement is the value -that attaches to land by reason of increasing population and -social progress. This is a value that always goes to the -owner as owner, and never does and never can go to the user; -for if the user be a different person from the owner he must -always pay the owner for it in rent or in purchase money; -while if the user be also the owner, it is as owner,, not as -user, that he receives it, and by selling or renting the -land he can, as owner, continue to receive it after he -ceases to be a user. - -Thus, taxes on land irrespective of improvement cannot -lessen the rewards of industry, nor add to prices,nor in any -way take from the individual what belongs to the individual. -They can only take the value that attaches to land by the -growth of the community, and which therefore belongs to the -community as a whole. - -To take land values for the state, abolishing all taxes on -the products of labor, would therefore leave to the laborer -the full produce of labor; to the individual all that -rightfully belongs to the individual. It would impose no -burden on industry, no check on commerce, no punishment on -thrift; it would secure the largest production and the -fairest distribution of wealth, by leaving men free to -produce and to exchange as they please, without any -artificial enhancement of prices; and by taking for public -purposes a value that cannot be carried off, that cannot be -hidden, that of all values is most easily ascertained and -most certainly and cheaply collected, it would enormously -lessen the number of officials, dispense with oaths, do away -with temptations to bribery and evasion, and abolish -man-made crimes in themselves innocent. - -But, further: That God has intended the state to obtain the -revenues it needs by the taxation of land values is shown by -the same order and degree of evidence that shows that God -has intended the milk of the mother for the nourishment of -the babe. - -See how close is the analogy. In that primitive condition -ere the need for the state arises there are no land values. -The products of labor have value, but in the sparsity of -population no value as yet attaches to land itself. But as -increasing density of population and increasing elaboration -of industry necessitate the organization of the state, with -its need for revenues, value begins to attach to land. As -population still increases and industry grows more -elaborate, so the needs for public revenues increase. And at -the same time and from the same causes land values increase. -The connection is invariable. The value of things produced -by labor tends to decline with social development, since the -larger scale of production and the improvement of processes -tend steadily to reduce their cost. But the value of land on -which population centers goes up and up. Take Rome or Paris -or London or New York or Melbourne. Consider the enormous -value of land in such cities as compared with the value of -land in sparsely settled parts of the same countries. To -what is this due? Is it not due to the density and activity -of the populations of those cities---to the very causes that -require great public expenditure for streets, drains, public -buildings, and all the many things needed for the health, -convenience and safety of such great cities? See how with -the growth of such cities the one thing that steadily -increases in value is land; how the opening of roads, the -building of railways, the making of any public improvement, -adds to the value of land. Is it not clear that here is a -natural law---that is to say a tendency willed by the -Creator? Can it mean anything else than that He who ordained -the state with its needs has in the values which attach to -land provided the means to meet those needs? - -That it does mean this and nothing else is confirmed if we -look deeper still, and inquire not merely as to the intent, -but as to the purpose of the intent. If we do so we may see -in this natural law by which land values increase with the -growth of society not only such a perfectly adapted -provision for the needs of society as gratifies our -intellectual perceptions by showing us the wisdom of the -Creator, but a purpose with regard to the individual that -gratifies our moral perceptions by opening to us a glimpse -of His beneficence. - -Consider: Here is a natural law by which as society advances -the one thing that increases m value is land---a natural law -by virtue of which all growth of population, all advance of -the arts, all general improvements of whatever kind, add to -a fund that both the commands of justice and the dictates of -expediency prompt us to take for the common uses of society. -Now, since increase in the fund available for the common -uses of society is increase in the gain that goes equally to -each member of society, is it not clear that the law by -which land values increase with social advance while the -value of the products of labor do not increase, tends with -the advance of civilization to make the share that goes -equally to each member of society more and more important as -compared with what goes to him from his individual earnings, -and thus to make the advance of civilization lessen -relatively the differences that in a ruder social state must -exist between the strong and the weak, the fortunate and the -unfortunate? Does it not show the purpose of the Creator to -be that the advance of man in civilization should be an -advance not merely to larger powers but to a greater and -greater equality, instead of what we, by our ignoring of His -intent, are making it, an advance towards a more and more -monstrous inequality? - -That the value attaching to land with social growth is -intended for social needs is shown by the final proof. God -is indeed a jealous God in the sense that nothing but injury -and disaster can attend the effort of men to do things other -than in the way He has intended; in the sense that where the -blessings He proffers to men are refused or misused they -turn to evils that scourge us. And just as for the mother to -withhold the provision that fills her breast with the birth -of the child is to endanger physical health, so for society -to refuse to take for social uses the provision intended for -them is to breed social disease. - -For refusal to take for public purposes the increasing -values that attach to land with social growth is to -necessitate the getting of public revenues by taxes that -lessen production, distort distribution and corrupt society. -It is to leave some to take what justly belongs to all; it -is to forego the only means by which it is possible in an -advanced civilization to combine the security of possession -that is necessary to improvement with the equality of -natural opportunity that is the most important of all -natural rights. It is thus at the basis of all social life -to set up an unjust inequality between man and man, -compelling some to pay others for the privilege of living, -for the chance of working, for the advantages of -civilization, for the gifts of their God. But it is even -more than this. The very robbery that the masses of men thus -suffer gives rise in advancing communities to a new robbery. -For the value that with the increase of population and -social advance attaches to land being suffered to go to -individuals who have secured ownership of the land, it -prompts to a forestalling of and speculation in land -wherever there is any prospect of advancing population or of -coming improvement, thus producing an artificial scarcity of -the natural elements of life and labor, and a strangulation -of production that shows itself in recurring spasms of -industrial depression as disastrous to the world as -destructive wars. It is this that is driving men from the -old countries to the new countries, only to bring there the -same curses. It is this that causes our material advance not -merely to fail to improve the condition of the mere worker, -but to make the condition of large classes positively worse. -It is this that in our richest Christian countries is giving -us a large population whose lives are harder, more hopeless, -more degraded than those of the veriest savages. It is this -that leads so many men to think that God is a bungler and is -constantly bringing more people into His world than He has -made provision for; or that there is no God, and that belief -in Him is a superstition which the facts of life and the -advance of science are dispelling. - -The darkness in light, the weakness in strength, the poverty -amid wealth, the seething discontent foreboding civil -strife, that characterize our civilization of to-day, are -the natural, the inevitable results of our rejection of -God's beneficence, of our ignoring of His intent. Were we on -the other hand to follow His clear, simple rule of right, -leaving scrupulously to the individual all that individual -labor produces, and taking for the community the value that -attaches to land by the growth of the community itself, not -merely could evil modes of raising public revenue be -dispensed with, but all men would be placed on an equal -level of opportunity with regard to the bounty of their -Creator, on an equal level of opportunity to exert their -labor and to enjoy its fruits. And then, without drastic or -restrictive measures the forestalling of land would cease. -For then the possession of land would mean only security for -the permanence of its use, and there would be no object for -any one to get land or to keep land except for use; nor -would his possession of better land than others had confer -any unjust advantage on him, or unjust deprivation on them, -since the equivalent of the advantage would be taken by the -state for the benefit of all. - -The Right Reverend Dr. Thomas Nulty, Bishop of Meath, who -sees all this as clearly as we do, in pointing out to the -clergy and laity of his diocesethe design of Divine -Providence that the rent of land should be taken for the -community, says: - -"I think, therefore, that I may fairly infer, on the -strength of authority as well as of reason, that the people -are and always must be the real owners of the land of their -country. This great social fact appears to me to be of -incalculable importance, and it is fortunate, indeed, that -on the strictest principles of justice it is not clouded -even by a shadow of uncertainty or doubt. There is, -moreover, a charm and a peculiar beauty in the clearness -with which it reveals the wisdom and the benevolence of the -designs of Providence in the admirable provision He has made -for the wants and the necessities of that state of social -existence of which He is author, and in which the very -instincts of nature tell us we are to spend our lives. A -vast public property, a great national fund, has been placed -under the dominion and at the disposal of the nation to -supply itself abundantly with resources necessary to -liquidate the expenses of its government, the administration -of its laws and the education of its youth, and to enable it -to provide for the suitable sustentation and support of its -criminal and pauper population. One of the most interesting -peculiarities of this property is that its value is never -stationary; it is constantly progressive and increasing in a -direct ratio to the growth of the population, and the very -causes that increase and multiply the demands made on it -increase proportionately its ability to meet them." - -There is, indeed, as Bishop Nulty says, a peculiar beauty in -the clearness with which the wisdom and benevolence of -Providence are revealed in this great social fact, the -provision made for the common needs of society in what -economists call the law of rent. Of all the evidence that -natural religion gives, it is this that most clearly shows -the existence of a beneficent God, and most conclusively -silences the doubts that in our days lead so many to -materialism. - -For in this beautiful provision made by natural law for the -social needs of civilization we see that God has intended -civilization; that all our discoveries and inventions do not -and cannot outrun His forethought, and that steam, -electricity and labor saving appliances only make the great -moral laws clearer and more important. In the growth of this -great fund, increasing with social advance---a fund that -accrues from the growth of the community and belongs -therefore to the community---we see not only that there is -no need for the taxes that lessen wealth, that engender -corruption, that promote inequality and teach men to deny -the gospel; but that to take this fund for the purpose for -which it was evidently intended would in the highest -civilization secure to all the equal enjoyment of God's -bounty, the abundant opportunity to satisfy their wants, and -would provide amply for every legitimate need of the state. -We see that God in His dealings with men has not been a -bungler or a niggard; that He has not brought too many men -into the world; that He has not neglected abundantly to -supply them; that He has not intended that bitter -competition of the masses for a mere animal existence and +All these taxes violate the moral law. They take by force what belongs +to the individual alone; they give to the unscrupulous an advantage over +the scrupulous; they have the effect, nay are largely intended, to +increase the price of what some have to sell and others must buy; they +corrupt government; they make oaths a mockery; they shackle commerce; +they fine industry and thrift; they lessen the wealth that men might +enjoy, and enrich some by impoverishing others. + +Yet what most strikingly shows how opposed to Christianity is this +system of raising public revenues is its influence on thought. + +Christianity teaches us that all men are brethren; that their true +interests are harmonious, not antagonistic. It gives us, as the golden +rule of life, that we should do to others as we would have others do to +us. But out of the system of taxing the products and processes of labor, +and out of its effects in increasing the price of what some have to sell +and others must buy, has grown the theory of "protection," which denies +this gospel, which holds Christ ignorant of political economy and +proclaims laws of national well-being utterly at variance with His +teaching. This theory sanctifies national hatreds; it inculcates a +universal war of hostile tariffs; it teaches peoples that their +prosperity lies in imposing on the productions of other peoples +restrictions they do not wish imposed on their own; and instead of the +Christian doctrine of man's brotherhood it makes injury of foreigners a +civic virtue. + +"By their fruits you shall know them." Can anything more clearly show +that to tax the products and processes of industry is not the way God +intended public revenues to be raised? + +But to consider what we propose---the raising of public revenues by a +single tax on the value of land irrespective of improvements---is to see +that in all respects this does conform to the moral law. + +Let me ask your Holiness to keep in mind that the value we propose to +tax, the value of land irrespective of improvements, does not come from +any exertion of labor or investment of capital on or in it---the values +produced in this way being values of improvement which we would exempt. +The value of land irrespective of improvement is the value that attaches +to land by reason of increasing population and social progress. This is +a value that always goes to the owner as owner, and never does and never +can go to the user; for if the user be a different person from the owner +he must always pay the owner for it in rent or in purchase money; while +if the user be also the owner, it is as owner,, not as user, that he +receives it, and by selling or renting the land he can, as owner, +continue to receive it after he ceases to be a user. + +Thus, taxes on land irrespective of improvement cannot lessen the +rewards of industry, nor add to prices,nor in any way take from the +individual what belongs to the individual. They can only take the value +that attaches to land by the growth of the community, and which +therefore belongs to the community as a whole. + +To take land values for the state, abolishing all taxes on the products +of labor, would therefore leave to the laborer the full produce of +labor; to the individual all that rightfully belongs to the individual. +It would impose no burden on industry, no check on commerce, no +punishment on thrift; it would secure the largest production and the +fairest distribution of wealth, by leaving men free to produce and to +exchange as they please, without any artificial enhancement of prices; +and by taking for public purposes a value that cannot be carried off, +that cannot be hidden, that of all values is most easily ascertained and +most certainly and cheaply collected, it would enormously lessen the +number of officials, dispense with oaths, do away with temptations to +bribery and evasion, and abolish man-made crimes in themselves innocent. + +But, further: That God has intended the state to obtain the revenues it +needs by the taxation of land values is shown by the same order and +degree of evidence that shows that God has intended the milk of the +mother for the nourishment of the babe. + +See how close is the analogy. In that primitive condition ere the need +for the state arises there are no land values. The products of labor +have value, but in the sparsity of population no value as yet attaches +to land itself. But as increasing density of population and increasing +elaboration of industry necessitate the organization of the state, with +its need for revenues, value begins to attach to land. As population +still increases and industry grows more elaborate, so the needs for +public revenues increase. And at the same time and from the same causes +land values increase. The connection is invariable. The value of things +produced by labor tends to decline with social development, since the +larger scale of production and the improvement of processes tend +steadily to reduce their cost. But the value of land on which population +centers goes up and up. Take Rome or Paris or London or New York or +Melbourne. Consider the enormous value of land in such cities as +compared with the value of land in sparsely settled parts of the same +countries. To what is this due? Is it not due to the density and +activity of the populations of those cities---to the very causes that +require great public expenditure for streets, drains, public buildings, +and all the many things needed for the health, convenience and safety of +such great cities? See how with the growth of such cities the one thing +that steadily increases in value is land; how the opening of roads, the +building of railways, the making of any public improvement, adds to the +value of land. Is it not clear that here is a natural law---that is to +say a tendency willed by the Creator? Can it mean anything else than +that He who ordained the state with its needs has in the values which +attach to land provided the means to meet those needs? + +That it does mean this and nothing else is confirmed if we look deeper +still, and inquire not merely as to the intent, but as to the purpose of +the intent. If we do so we may see in this natural law by which land +values increase with the growth of society not only such a perfectly +adapted provision for the needs of society as gratifies our intellectual +perceptions by showing us the wisdom of the Creator, but a purpose with +regard to the individual that gratifies our moral perceptions by opening +to us a glimpse of His beneficence. + +Consider: Here is a natural law by which as society advances the one +thing that increases m value is land---a natural law by virtue of which +all growth of population, all advance of the arts, all general +improvements of whatever kind, add to a fund that both the commands of +justice and the dictates of expediency prompt us to take for the common +uses of society. Now, since increase in the fund available for the +common uses of society is increase in the gain that goes equally to each +member of society, is it not clear that the law by which land values +increase with social advance while the value of the products of labor do +not increase, tends with the advance of civilization to make the share +that goes equally to each member of society more and more important as +compared with what goes to him from his individual earnings, and thus to +make the advance of civilization lessen relatively the differences that +in a ruder social state must exist between the strong and the weak, the +fortunate and the unfortunate? Does it not show the purpose of the +Creator to be that the advance of man in civilization should be an +advance not merely to larger powers but to a greater and greater +equality, instead of what we, by our ignoring of His intent, are making +it, an advance towards a more and more monstrous inequality? + +That the value attaching to land with social growth is intended for +social needs is shown by the final proof. God is indeed a jealous God in +the sense that nothing but injury and disaster can attend the effort of +men to do things other than in the way He has intended; in the sense +that where the blessings He proffers to men are refused or misused they +turn to evils that scourge us. And just as for the mother to withhold +the provision that fills her breast with the birth of the child is to +endanger physical health, so for society to refuse to take for social +uses the provision intended for them is to breed social disease. + +For refusal to take for public purposes the increasing values that +attach to land with social growth is to necessitate the getting of +public revenues by taxes that lessen production, distort distribution +and corrupt society. It is to leave some to take what justly belongs to +all; it is to forego the only means by which it is possible in an +advanced civilization to combine the security of possession that is +necessary to improvement with the equality of natural opportunity that +is the most important of all natural rights. It is thus at the basis of +all social life to set up an unjust inequality between man and man, +compelling some to pay others for the privilege of living, for the +chance of working, for the advantages of civilization, for the gifts of +their God. But it is even more than this. The very robbery that the +masses of men thus suffer gives rise in advancing communities to a new +robbery. For the value that with the increase of population and social +advance attaches to land being suffered to go to individuals who have +secured ownership of the land, it prompts to a forestalling of and +speculation in land wherever there is any prospect of advancing +population or of coming improvement, thus producing an artificial +scarcity of the natural elements of life and labor, and a strangulation +of production that shows itself in recurring spasms of industrial +depression as disastrous to the world as destructive wars. It is this +that is driving men from the old countries to the new countries, only to +bring there the same curses. It is this that causes our material advance +not merely to fail to improve the condition of the mere worker, but to +make the condition of large classes positively worse. It is this that in +our richest Christian countries is giving us a large population whose +lives are harder, more hopeless, more degraded than those of the veriest +savages. It is this that leads so many men to think that God is a +bungler and is constantly bringing more people into His world than He +has made provision for; or that there is no God, and that belief in Him +is a superstition which the facts of life and the advance of science are +dispelling. + +The darkness in light, the weakness in strength, the poverty amid +wealth, the seething discontent foreboding civil strife, that +characterize our civilization of to-day, are the natural, the inevitable +results of our rejection of God's beneficence, of our ignoring of His +intent. Were we on the other hand to follow His clear, simple rule of +right, leaving scrupulously to the individual all that individual labor +produces, and taking for the community the value that attaches to land +by the growth of the community itself, not merely could evil modes of +raising public revenue be dispensed with, but all men would be placed on +an equal level of opportunity with regard to the bounty of their +Creator, on an equal level of opportunity to exert their labor and to +enjoy its fruits. And then, without drastic or restrictive measures the +forestalling of land would cease. For then the possession of land would +mean only security for the permanence of its use, and there would be no +object for any one to get land or to keep land except for use; nor would +his possession of better land than others had confer any unjust +advantage on him, or unjust deprivation on them, since the equivalent of +the advantage would be taken by the state for the benefit of all. + +The Right Reverend Dr. Thomas Nulty, Bishop of Meath, who sees all this +as clearly as we do, in pointing out to the clergy and laity of his +diocesethe design of Divine Providence that the rent of land should be +taken for the community, says: + +"I think, therefore, that I may fairly infer, on the strength of +authority as well as of reason, that the people are and always must be +the real owners of the land of their country. This great social fact +appears to me to be of incalculable importance, and it is fortunate, +indeed, that on the strictest principles of justice it is not clouded +even by a shadow of uncertainty or doubt. There is, moreover, a charm +and a peculiar beauty in the clearness with which it reveals the wisdom +and the benevolence of the designs of Providence in the admirable +provision He has made for the wants and the necessities of that state of +social existence of which He is author, and in which the very instincts +of nature tell us we are to spend our lives. A vast public property, a +great national fund, has been placed under the dominion and at the +disposal of the nation to supply itself abundantly with resources +necessary to liquidate the expenses of its government, the +administration of its laws and the education of its youth, and to enable +it to provide for the suitable sustentation and support of its criminal +and pauper population. One of the most interesting peculiarities of this +property is that its value is never stationary; it is constantly +progressive and increasing in a direct ratio to the growth of the +population, and the very causes that increase and multiply the demands +made on it increase proportionately its ability to meet them." + +There is, indeed, as Bishop Nulty says, a peculiar beauty in the +clearness with which the wisdom and benevolence of Providence are +revealed in this great social fact, the provision made for the common +needs of society in what economists call the law of rent. Of all the +evidence that natural religion gives, it is this that most clearly shows +the existence of a beneficent God, and most conclusively silences the +doubts that in our days lead so many to materialism. + +For in this beautiful provision made by natural law for the social needs +of civilization we see that God has intended civilization; that all our +discoveries and inventions do not and cannot outrun His forethought, and +that steam, electricity and labor saving appliances only make the great +moral laws clearer and more important. In the growth of this great fund, +increasing with social advance---a fund that accrues from the growth of +the community and belongs therefore to the community---we see not only +that there is no need for the taxes that lessen wealth, that engender +corruption, that promote inequality and teach men to deny the gospel; +but that to take this fund for the purpose for which it was evidently +intended would in the highest civilization secure to all the equal +enjoyment of God's bounty, the abundant opportunity to satisfy their +wants, and would provide amply for every legitimate need of the state. +We see that God in His dealings with men has not been a bungler or a +niggard; that He has not brought too many men into the world; that He +has not neglected abundantly to supply them; that He has not intended +that bitter competition of the masses for a mere animal existence and that monstrous aggregation of wealth which characterize our -civilization; but that these evils which lead so many to say -there is no God, or yet more impiously to say that they are -of God's ordering, are due to our denial of His moral law. -We see that the law of justice, the law of the Golden Rule, -is not a mere counsel of perfection, but indeed the law of -social life. We see that if we were only to observe it there -would be work for all, leisure for all, abundance for all; -and that civilization would tend to give to the poorest not -only necessaries, but all comforts and reasonable luxuries -as well. We see that Christ was not a mere dreamer when He -told men that if they would seek the kingdom of God and its -right doing they might no more worry about material things -than do the lilies of the field about their raiment; but -that He was only declaring what political economy in the -light of modern discovery shows to be a sober truth. - -Your Holiness, even to see this is deep and lasting joy. For -it is to see for one's self that there is a God who lives -and reigns, and that He is a God of justice and love---Our -Father who art in Heaven. It is to open a rift of sunlight -through the clouds of our darker questionings, and to make -the faith that trusts where it cannot see a living thing. +civilization; but that these evils which lead so many to say there is no +God, or yet more impiously to say that they are of God's ordering, are +due to our denial of His moral law. We see that the law of justice, the +law of the Golden Rule, is not a mere counsel of perfection, but indeed +the law of social life. We see that if we were only to observe it there +would be work for all, leisure for all, abundance for all; and that +civilization would tend to give to the poorest not only necessaries, but +all comforts and reasonable luxuries as well. We see that Christ was not +a mere dreamer when He told men that if they would seek the kingdom of +God and its right doing they might no more worry about material things +than do the lilies of the field about their raiment; but that He was +only declaring what political economy in the light of modern discovery +shows to be a sober truth. + +Your Holiness, even to see this is deep and lasting joy. For it is to +see for one's self that there is a God who lives and reigns, and that He +is a God of justice and love---Our Father who art in Heaven. It is to +open a rift of sunlight through the clouds of our darker questionings, +and to make the faith that trusts where it cannot see a living thing. # II -Your Holiness will see from the explanation I have given -that the reform we propose, like all true reforms, has both -an ethical and an economic side. By ignoring the ethical -side, and pushing our proposal merely as a reform of -taxation, we could avoid the objections that arise from -confounding ownership with possession and attributing to -private property in land that security of use and -improvement that can be had even better without it. All that -we seek practically is the legal abolition, as fast as -possible, of taxes on the products and processes of labor, -and the consequent concentration of taxation on land values -irrespective of improvements. To put our proposals in this -way would be to urge them merely as a matter of wise public -expediency. - -There are indeed many single tax men who do put our -proposals in this way; who seeing the beauty of our plan -from a fiscal standpoint do not concern themselves farther. -But to those who think as I do, the ethical is the more -important side. Not only do we not wish to evade the -question of private property in land, but to us it seems -that the beneficent and far-reaching revolution we aim at is -too great a thing to be accomplished by "intelligent -self-interest," and can be carried by nothing less than the -religious conscience. - -Hence we earnestly seek the judgment of religion. This is -the tribunal of which your Holiness as the head of the -largest body of Christians is the most august -representative. - -It therefore behooves us to examine the reasons you urge in -support of private property inland---if they be sound to -accept them, and if they be not sound respectfully to point -out to you wherein is their error. - -To your proposition that "Our first and most fundamental -principle when we undertake to alleviate the condition of -the masses must be the inviolability of private property" we -would joyfully agree if we could only understand you to have -in mind the moral element, and to mean rightful private -property, as when you speak of marriage as ordained by God's -authority we may understand an implied exclusion of improper -marriages. Unfortunately, however, other expressions show -that you mean private property in general and have expressly -in mind private property in land. This confusion of thought, -this non-distribution of terms, runs through your whole -argument, leading you to conclusions so unwarranted by your -premises as to be utterly repugnant to them, as when from -the moral sanction of private property in the things -produced by labor you infer something entirely different and -utterly opposed, a similar right of property in the land -created by God. - -Private property is not of one species, and moral sanction -can no more be asserted universally of it than of marriage. -That proper marriage conforms to the law of God does not -justify the polygamic, or polyandric or incestuous marriages -that are in some countries permitted by the civil law. And -as there may be immoral marriage so may there may be immoral -private property. Private property is that which may be held -in ownership by an individual, or that which may be held in -ownership by an individual with the sanction of the state. -The mere lawyer, the mere servant of the state, may rest -here, refusing to distinguish between what the state holds -equally lawful. Your Holiness, however, is not a servant of -the state, but a servant of God, a guardian of morals. You +Your Holiness will see from the explanation I have given that the reform +we propose, like all true reforms, has both an ethical and an economic +side. By ignoring the ethical side, and pushing our proposal merely as a +reform of taxation, we could avoid the objections that arise from +confounding ownership with possession and attributing to private +property in land that security of use and improvement that can be had +even better without it. All that we seek practically is the legal +abolition, as fast as possible, of taxes on the products and processes +of labor, and the consequent concentration of taxation on land values +irrespective of improvements. To put our proposals in this way would be +to urge them merely as a matter of wise public expediency. + +There are indeed many single tax men who do put our proposals in this +way; who seeing the beauty of our plan from a fiscal standpoint do not +concern themselves farther. But to those who think as I do, the ethical +is the more important side. Not only do we not wish to evade the +question of private property in land, but to us it seems that the +beneficent and far-reaching revolution we aim at is too great a thing to +be accomplished by "intelligent self-interest," and can be carried by +nothing less than the religious conscience. + +Hence we earnestly seek the judgment of religion. This is the tribunal +of which your Holiness as the head of the largest body of Christians is +the most august representative. + +It therefore behooves us to examine the reasons you urge in support of +private property inland---if they be sound to accept them, and if they +be not sound respectfully to point out to you wherein is their error. + +To your proposition that "Our first and most fundamental principle when +we undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses must be the +inviolability of private property" we would joyfully agree if we could +only understand you to have in mind the moral element, and to mean +rightful private property, as when you speak of marriage as ordained by +God's authority we may understand an implied exclusion of improper +marriages. Unfortunately, however, other expressions show that you mean +private property in general and have expressly in mind private property +in land. This confusion of thought, this non-distribution of terms, runs +through your whole argument, leading you to conclusions so unwarranted +by your premises as to be utterly repugnant to them, as when from the +moral sanction of private property in the things produced by labor you +infer something entirely different and utterly opposed, a similar right +of property in the land created by God. + +Private property is not of one species, and moral sanction can no more +be asserted universally of it than of marriage. That proper marriage +conforms to the law of God does not justify the polygamic, or polyandric +or incestuous marriages that are in some countries permitted by the +civil law. And as there may be immoral marriage so may there may be +immoral private property. Private property is that which may be held in +ownership by an individual, or that which may be held in ownership by an +individual with the sanction of the state. The mere lawyer, the mere +servant of the state, may rest here, refusing to distinguish between +what the state holds equally lawful. Your Holiness, however, is not a +servant of the state, but a servant of God, a guardian of morals. You know, as said by St. Thomas Aquinas, that--- -"Human law is law only in virtue of its accordance with -right reason and it is thus manifest that it flows from the -eternal law. And in so far as it deviates from right reason -it is called an unjust law. *In such case it is not law at -all, but rather a species of violence.*" - -Thus, that any species of property is permitted by the state -does not of itself give it moral sanction. The state has -often made things property that are not justly property, but -involve violence and robbery. - -For instance, the things of religion, the dignity and -authority of offices of the church, the power of -administering her sacraments and controlling her -temporalities have often by profligate princes been given as -salable property to courtiers and concubines. At this very -day in England an atheist or a heathen may buy in open -market, and hold as legal property, to be sold, given or -bequeathed as he pleases, the power of appointing to the -cure of souls, and the value of these legal rights of -presentation is said to be no less than £17,000,000. - -Or again: Slaves were universally treated as property by the -customs and laws of the classical nations, and were so -acknowledged in Europe long after the acceptance of -Christianity. At the beginning of this century there was no -Christian nation that did not, in her colonies at least, -recognize property in slaves, and slave ships crossed the -seas under Christian flags. In the United States, little -more than thirty years ago, to buy a man gave the same legal -ownership as to buy a horse, and in Mohammedan countries law -and custom yet make the slave the property of his captor or -purchaser. - -Yet your Holiness, one of the glories of whose pontificate -is the attempt to break up slavery in its last strongholds, -will not contend that the moral sanction that attaches to -property in things produced by labor can, or ever could, -apply to property in slaves. - -Your use, in so many passages of your Encyclical, of the -inclusive term "property" or "private" property, of which in -morals nothing can be either affirmed or denied, makes your -meaning, if we take isolated sentences, in many places -ambiguous. But reading it as a whole, there can be no doubt -of your intention that private property in land shall be -understood when you speak merely of private property. With -this interpretation, I find that the reasons you urge for -private property in land are eight. Let us consider them in -order of presentation. You urge: - -1\. *That what is bought with rightful property is rightful -property. (6.)* - -Clearly, purchase and sale cannot give, but can only -transfer ownership. Property that in itself has no moral -sanction does not obtain moral sanction by passing from -seller to buyer. - -If right reason does not make the slave the property of the -slave hunter it does not make him the property of the slave -buyer. Yet your reasoning as to private property in land -would as well justify property in slaves. To show this it is -only needful to change in your argument the word land to the -word slave. It would then read: - -"It is surely undeniable that when a man engages in -remunerative labor the very reason and motive of his work is -to obtain property, and to hold it in his own private -possession. - -"If one man hire out to another his strength or his -industry he does this for the purpose of receiving in return -what is necessary for food and living; he thereby expressly -proposes to acquire a full and legal right, not only to the -remuneration, but also to the disposal of that remuneration -as he pleases. - -"Thus, if he lives sparingly, saves money and invests his -savings for greater security in a *slave*, the *slave* in -such a case is only his wages in another form; and -consequently a working-man's *slave* thus purchased should -be as completely at his own disposal as the wages he +"Human law is law only in virtue of its accordance with right reason and +it is thus manifest that it flows from the eternal law. And in so far as +it deviates from right reason it is called an unjust law. *In such case +it is not law at all, but rather a species of violence.*" + +Thus, that any species of property is permitted by the state does not of +itself give it moral sanction. The state has often made things property +that are not justly property, but involve violence and robbery. + +For instance, the things of religion, the dignity and authority of +offices of the church, the power of administering her sacraments and +controlling her temporalities have often by profligate princes been +given as salable property to courtiers and concubines. At this very day +in England an atheist or a heathen may buy in open market, and hold as +legal property, to be sold, given or bequeathed as he pleases, the power +of appointing to the cure of souls, and the value of these legal rights +of presentation is said to be no less than £17,000,000. + +Or again: Slaves were universally treated as property by the customs and +laws of the classical nations, and were so acknowledged in Europe long +after the acceptance of Christianity. At the beginning of this century +there was no Christian nation that did not, in her colonies at least, +recognize property in slaves, and slave ships crossed the seas under +Christian flags. In the United States, little more than thirty years +ago, to buy a man gave the same legal ownership as to buy a horse, and +in Mohammedan countries law and custom yet make the slave the property +of his captor or purchaser. + +Yet your Holiness, one of the glories of whose pontificate is the +attempt to break up slavery in its last strongholds, will not contend +that the moral sanction that attaches to property in things produced by +labor can, or ever could, apply to property in slaves. + +Your use, in so many passages of your Encyclical, of the inclusive term +"property" or "private" property, of which in morals nothing can be +either affirmed or denied, makes your meaning, if we take isolated +sentences, in many places ambiguous. But reading it as a whole, there +can be no doubt of your intention that private property in land shall be +understood when you speak merely of private property. With this +interpretation, I find that the reasons you urge for private property in +land are eight. Let us consider them in order of presentation. You urge: + +1\. *That what is bought with rightful property is rightful property. +(6.)* + +Clearly, purchase and sale cannot give, but can only transfer ownership. +Property that in itself has no moral sanction does not obtain moral +sanction by passing from seller to buyer. + +If right reason does not make the slave the property of the slave hunter +it does not make him the property of the slave buyer. Yet your reasoning +as to private property in land would as well justify property in slaves. +To show this it is only needful to change in your argument the word land +to the word slave. It would then read: + +"It is surely undeniable that when a man engages in remunerative labor +the very reason and motive of his work is to obtain property, and to +hold it in his own private possession. + +"If one man hire out to another his strength or his industry he does +this for the purpose of receiving in return what is necessary for food +and living; he thereby expressly proposes to acquire a full and legal +right, not only to the remuneration, but also to the disposal of that +remuneration as he pleases. + +"Thus, if he lives sparingly, saves money and invests his savings for +greater security in a *slave*, the *slave* in such a case is only his +wages in another form; and consequently a working-man's *slave* thus +purchased should be as completely at his own disposal as the wages he receives for his labor." -Nor in turning your argument for private property in land -into an argument for private property in men am I doing a -new thing. In my own country, in my own time, this very -argument, that purchase gave ownership, was the common -defense of slavery. It was made by statesmen, by jurists, by -clergymen, by bishops; it was accepted over the whole -country by the great mass of the people. By it was justified -the separation of wives from husbands, of children from -parents, the compelling of labor, the appropriation of its -fruits, the buying and selling of Christians by Christians. -In language almost identical with yours it was asked, "Here -is a poor man who has worked hard, lived sparingly, and -invested his savings in a few slaves. Would you rob him of -his earnings by liberating those slaves" Or it was said: -"Here is a poor widow; all her husband has been able to -leave her is a few negroes, the earnings of his hard toil. -Would you rob the widow and the orphan by freeing these -negroes?" And because of this perversion of reason, this -confounding of unjust property rights with just property -rights, this acceptance of man's law as though it were God's -law, there came on our nation a judgment of fire and blood. - -The error of our people in thinking that what in itself was -not rightfully property could become rightful property by -purchase and sale is the same error into which your Holiness -falls. It is not merely formally the same; it is essentially -the same. Private property in land, no less than private -property in slaves, is a violation of the true rights of -property. They are different forms of the same robbery; twin -devices by which the perverted ingenuity of man has sought -to enable the strong and the cunning to escape God's -requirement of labor by forcing it on others. - -What difference does it make whether I merely own the land -on which another man must live or own the man himself % Am I -not in the one case as much his master as in the other? Can -I not compel him to work for me? Can I not take to myself as -much of the fruits of his labor; as fully dictate his -actions % Have I not over him the power of life and death? -For to deprive a man of land is as certainly to kill him as -to deprive him of blood by opening his veins, or of air by -tightening a halter around his neck. - -The essence of slavery is in empowering one man to obtain -the labor of another without recompense. Private property in -land does this as fully as chattel slavery. The slave owner -must leave to the slave enough of his earnings to enable him -to live. Are there not in so called free countries great -bodies of working-men who get no more? How much more of the -fruits of their toil do the agricultural laborers of Italy -and England get than did the slaves of our Southern States? -Did not private property in land permit the land owner of -Europe in ruder times to demand the *jus primoe noctis?* -Does not the same last outrage exist to-day in diffused form -in the immorality born of monstrous wealth on the one hand -and ghastly poverty on the other? - -In what did the slavery of Russia consist but in giving to -the master land on which the serf was forced to live? When -an Ivan or a Catherine enriched their favorites with the -labor of others they did not give men, they gave land. And -when the appropriation of land has gone so far that no free -land remains to which the landless man may turn, then -without further violence the more insidious form of labor -robbery involved in private property in land takes the place -of chattel slavery, because more economical and convenient. -For under it the slave does not have to be caught or held, -or to be fed when not needed. He comes of himself, begging -the privilege of serving, and when no longer wanted can be -discharged. The lash is unnecessary; hunger is as -efficacious. This is why the Norman conquerors of England -and the English conquerors of Ireland did not divide up the -people, but divided the land. This is why European slave -ships took their cargoes to the New World, not to Europe. - -Slavery is not yet abolished. Though in all Christian -countries its ruder form has now gone, it still exists in -the heart of our civilization in more insidious form, and is -increasing. There is work to be done for the glory of God -and the liberty of man by other soldiers of the cross than -those warrior monks whom, with the blessing of your -Holiness, Cardinal Lavigerie is sending into the Sahara. -Yet, your Encyclical employs in defense of one form of -slavery the same fallacies that the apologists for chattel -slavery used in defense of the other! - -The Arabs are not wanting in acumen. Your Encyclical reaches -far. What shall your warrior monks say, if when at the -muzzle of their rifles they demand of some Arab slave -merchant his miserable caravan, he shall declare that he -bought them with his savings, and producing a copy of your -Encyclical, shall prove by your reasoning that his slaves -are consequently "only his wages in another form," and ask -if they who bear your blessing and own your authority -propose to "deprive him of the liberty of disposing of his -wages and thus of all hope and possibility of increasing his -stock and bettering his condition in life?" - -2\. *That private property in land proceeds from man's gift -of reason. (6-7.)* - -In the second place your Holiness argues that man possessing -reason and forethought may not only acquire ownership of the -fruits of the earth, but also of the earth itself, so that -out of its products he may make provision for the future. - -Reason, with its attendant forethought, is indeed the -distinguishing attribute of man; that which raises him above -the brute, and shows, as the Scriptures declare, that he is -created in the likeness of God. And this gift of reason -does, as your Holiness points out, involve the need and -right of private property in whatever is produced by the -exertion of reason and its attendant forethought, as well as -in what is produced by physical labor. In truth, these -elements of man's production are inseparable, and labor -involves the use of reason. It is by his reason that man -differs from the animals in being a producer, and in this -sense a maker. Of themselves his physical powers are slight, -forming as it were but the connection by which the mind -takes hold of material things, so as to utilize to its will -the matter and forces of nature. It is mind, the intelligent -reason, that is the prime mover in labor, the essential -agent in production. - -The right of private ownership does therefore indisputably -attach to things provided by man's reason and forethought. -But it cannot attach to things provided by the reason and -forethought of God! - -To illustrate: Let us suppose a company travelling through -the desert as the Israelites travelled from Egypt. Such of -them as had the forethought to provide themselves with -vessels of water would acquire a just right of property in -the water so carried, and in the thirst of the waterless -desert those who had neglected to provide themselves, though -they might ask water from the provident in charity, could -not demand it in right. For while water itself is of the -providence of God, the presence of this water in such -vessels, at such place, results from the providence of the +Nor in turning your argument for private property in land into an +argument for private property in men am I doing a new thing. In my own +country, in my own time, this very argument, that purchase gave +ownership, was the common defense of slavery. It was made by statesmen, +by jurists, by clergymen, by bishops; it was accepted over the whole +country by the great mass of the people. By it was justified the +separation of wives from husbands, of children from parents, the +compelling of labor, the appropriation of its fruits, the buying and +selling of Christians by Christians. In language almost identical with +yours it was asked, "Here is a poor man who has worked hard, lived +sparingly, and invested his savings in a few slaves. Would you rob him +of his earnings by liberating those slaves" Or it was said: "Here is a +poor widow; all her husband has been able to leave her is a few negroes, +the earnings of his hard toil. Would you rob the widow and the orphan by +freeing these negroes?" And because of this perversion of reason, this +confounding of unjust property rights with just property rights, this +acceptance of man's law as though it were God's law, there came on our +nation a judgment of fire and blood. + +The error of our people in thinking that what in itself was not +rightfully property could become rightful property by purchase and sale +is the same error into which your Holiness falls. It is not merely +formally the same; it is essentially the same. Private property in land, +no less than private property in slaves, is a violation of the true +rights of property. They are different forms of the same robbery; twin +devices by which the perverted ingenuity of man has sought to enable the +strong and the cunning to escape God's requirement of labor by forcing +it on others. + +What difference does it make whether I merely own the land on which +another man must live or own the man himself % Am I not in the one case +as much his master as in the other? Can I not compel him to work for me? +Can I not take to myself as much of the fruits of his labor; as fully +dictate his actions % Have I not over him the power of life and death? +For to deprive a man of land is as certainly to kill him as to deprive +him of blood by opening his veins, or of air by tightening a halter +around his neck. + +The essence of slavery is in empowering one man to obtain the labor of +another without recompense. Private property in land does this as fully +as chattel slavery. The slave owner must leave to the slave enough of +his earnings to enable him to live. Are there not in so called free +countries great bodies of working-men who get no more? How much more of +the fruits of their toil do the agricultural laborers of Italy and +England get than did the slaves of our Southern States? Did not private +property in land permit the land owner of Europe in ruder times to +demand the *jus primoe noctis?* Does not the same last outrage exist +to-day in diffused form in the immorality born of monstrous wealth on +the one hand and ghastly poverty on the other? + +In what did the slavery of Russia consist but in giving to the master +land on which the serf was forced to live? When an Ivan or a Catherine +enriched their favorites with the labor of others they did not give men, +they gave land. And when the appropriation of land has gone so far that +no free land remains to which the landless man may turn, then without +further violence the more insidious form of labor robbery involved in +private property in land takes the place of chattel slavery, because +more economical and convenient. For under it the slave does not have to +be caught or held, or to be fed when not needed. He comes of himself, +begging the privilege of serving, and when no longer wanted can be +discharged. The lash is unnecessary; hunger is as efficacious. This is +why the Norman conquerors of England and the English conquerors of +Ireland did not divide up the people, but divided the land. This is why +European slave ships took their cargoes to the New World, not to Europe. + +Slavery is not yet abolished. Though in all Christian countries its +ruder form has now gone, it still exists in the heart of our +civilization in more insidious form, and is increasing. There is work to +be done for the glory of God and the liberty of man by other soldiers of +the cross than those warrior monks whom, with the blessing of your +Holiness, Cardinal Lavigerie is sending into the Sahara. Yet, your +Encyclical employs in defense of one form of slavery the same fallacies +that the apologists for chattel slavery used in defense of the other! + +The Arabs are not wanting in acumen. Your Encyclical reaches far. What +shall your warrior monks say, if when at the muzzle of their rifles they +demand of some Arab slave merchant his miserable caravan, he shall +declare that he bought them with his savings, and producing a copy of +your Encyclical, shall prove by your reasoning that his slaves are +consequently "only his wages in another form," and ask if they who bear +your blessing and own your authority propose to "deprive him of the +liberty of disposing of his wages and thus of all hope and possibility +of increasing his stock and bettering his condition in life?" + +2\. *That private property in land proceeds from man's gift of reason. +(6-7.)* + +In the second place your Holiness argues that man possessing reason and +forethought may not only acquire ownership of the fruits of the earth, +but also of the earth itself, so that out of its products he may make +provision for the future. + +Reason, with its attendant forethought, is indeed the distinguishing +attribute of man; that which raises him above the brute, and shows, as +the Scriptures declare, that he is created in the likeness of God. And +this gift of reason does, as your Holiness points out, involve the need +and right of private property in whatever is produced by the exertion of +reason and its attendant forethought, as well as in what is produced by +physical labor. In truth, these elements of man's production are +inseparable, and labor involves the use of reason. It is by his reason +that man differs from the animals in being a producer, and in this sense +a maker. Of themselves his physical powers are slight, forming as it +were but the connection by which the mind takes hold of material things, +so as to utilize to its will the matter and forces of nature. It is +mind, the intelligent reason, that is the prime mover in labor, the +essential agent in production. + +The right of private ownership does therefore indisputably attach to +things provided by man's reason and forethought. But it cannot attach to +things provided by the reason and forethought of God! + +To illustrate: Let us suppose a company travelling through the desert as +the Israelites travelled from Egypt. Such of them as had the forethought +to provide themselves with vessels of water would acquire a just right +of property in the water so carried, and in the thirst of the waterless +desert those who had neglected to provide themselves, though they might +ask water from the provident in charity, could not demand it in right. +For while water itself is of the providence of God, the presence of this +water in such vessels, at such place, results from the providence of the men who carried it. Thus they have to it an exclusive right. -But suppose others use their forethought in pushing ahead -and appropriating the springs, refusing when their fellows -come up to let them drink of the water save as they buy it -of them. Would such forethought give any right? - -Your Holiness, it is not the forethought of carrying water -where it is needed, but the forethought of seizing springs, -that you seek to defend in defending the private ownership -of land! - -Let me show this more fully, since it may be worth while to -meet those who say that if private property in land be not -just, then private property in the products of labor is not -just, as the material of these products is taken from land. -It will be seen on consideration that all of man's -production is analogous to such transportation of water as -we have supposed. In growing grain, or smelting metals, or -building houses, or weaving cloth, or doing any of the -things that constitute producing, all that man does is to -change in place or form pre-existing matter. As a producer -man is merely a changer, not a creator; God alone creates. -And since the changes in which man's production consists -inhere in matter so long as they persist, the right of -private ownership attaches the accident to the essence, and -gives the right of ownership in that natural material in -which the labor of production is embodied. Thus water, which -in its original form and place is the common gift of God to -all men, when drawn from its natural reservoir and brought -into the desert, passes rightfully into the ownership of the -individual who by changing its place has produced it there. - -But such right of ownership is in reality a mere right of -temporary possession. For though man may take material from -the storehouse of nature and change it in place or form to -suit his desires, yet from the moment he takes it, it tends -back to that storehouse again. Wood decays, iron rusts, -stone disintegrates and is displaced, while of more -perishable products, some will last for only a few months, -others for only a few days, and some disappear immediately -on use. Though, so far as we can see, matter is eternal and -force forever persists; though we can neither annihilate nor -create the tiniest mote that floats in a sunbeam or the -faintest impulse that stirs a leaf, yet in the ceaseless -flux of nature, man's work of moving and combining -constantly passes away. Thus the recognition of the -ownership of what natural material is embodied in the -products of man never constitutes more than temporary -possession---never interferes with the reservoir provided -for all. As taking water from one place and carrying it to -another place by no means lessens the store of water, since -whether it is drunk or spilled or left to evaporate, it must -return again to the natural reservoirs---so is it with all -things on which man in production can lay the impress of his +But suppose others use their forethought in pushing ahead and +appropriating the springs, refusing when their fellows come up to let +them drink of the water save as they buy it of them. Would such +forethought give any right? + +Your Holiness, it is not the forethought of carrying water where it is +needed, but the forethought of seizing springs, that you seek to defend +in defending the private ownership of land! + +Let me show this more fully, since it may be worth while to meet those +who say that if private property in land be not just, then private +property in the products of labor is not just, as the material of these +products is taken from land. It will be seen on consideration that all +of man's production is analogous to such transportation of water as we +have supposed. In growing grain, or smelting metals, or building houses, +or weaving cloth, or doing any of the things that constitute producing, +all that man does is to change in place or form pre-existing matter. As +a producer man is merely a changer, not a creator; God alone creates. +And since the changes in which man's production consists inhere in +matter so long as they persist, the right of private ownership attaches +the accident to the essence, and gives the right of ownership in that +natural material in which the labor of production is embodied. Thus +water, which in its original form and place is the common gift of God to +all men, when drawn from its natural reservoir and brought into the +desert, passes rightfully into the ownership of the individual who by +changing its place has produced it there. + +But such right of ownership is in reality a mere right of temporary +possession. For though man may take material from the storehouse of +nature and change it in place or form to suit his desires, yet from the +moment he takes it, it tends back to that storehouse again. Wood decays, +iron rusts, stone disintegrates and is displaced, while of more +perishable products, some will last for only a few months, others for +only a few days, and some disappear immediately on use. Though, so far +as we can see, matter is eternal and force forever persists; though we +can neither annihilate nor create the tiniest mote that floats in a +sunbeam or the faintest impulse that stirs a leaf, yet in the ceaseless +flux of nature, man's work of moving and combining constantly passes +away. Thus the recognition of the ownership of what natural material is +embodied in the products of man never constitutes more than temporary +possession---never interferes with the reservoir provided for all. As +taking water from one place and carrying it to another place by no means +lessens the store of water, since whether it is drunk or spilled or left +to evaporate, it must return again to the natural reservoirs---so is it +with all things on which man in production can lay the impress of his labor. -Hence, when you say that man's reason puts it within his -right to have in stable and permanent possession not only -things that perish in the using, but also those that remain -for use in the future, you are right in so far as you may -include such things as buildings, which with repair will -last for generations, with such things as food or firewood, -which are destroyed in the use. But when you infer that man -can have private ownership in those permanent things of -nature that are the reservoirs from which all must draw, you -are clearly wrong. Man may indeed hold in private ownership -the fruits of the earth produced by his labor, since they -lose in time the impress of that labor, and pass again into -the natural reservoirs from which they were taken, and thus -the ownership of them by one works no injury to others. But -he cannot so own the earth itself, for that is the reservoir -from which must constantly be drawn not only the material -with which alone men can produce, but even their very -bodies. - -The conclusive reason why man cannot claim ownership in the -earth itself as he can in the fruits that he by labor brings -forth from it, is in the facts stated by you in the very -next paragraph (7), when you truly say: - -"Man's needs do not die out, but recur; satisfied to-day -they demand new supplies to-morrow."*Nature therefore owes -to man a storehouse that shall never fail, the daily supply -of his daily wants. And this he finds only in the -inexhaustible fertility of the earth.*" - -By man you mean all men. Can what nature owes to all men be -made the private property of some men, from which they may -debar all other men? - -Let me dwell on the words of your Holiness, "*Nature*, -therefore, *owes* to man a storehouse that shall never -fail." By Nature you mean God. Thus your thought, that in -creating us, God himself has incurred an obligation to -provide us with a storehouse that shall never fail, is the -same as is thus expressed and carried to its irresistible -conclusion by the Bishop of Meath: - -"God was perfectly free in the act by which He created us; -but having created us He bound himself by that act to -provide us with the means necessary for our subsistence. The -land is the only source of this kind now known to us. The -land, therefore, of every country is the common property of -the people of that country, because its real owner, the -Creator who made it, has transferred it as a voluntary gift -to them. '*Terram autem dedit filiis hominum.*' Now, as -every individual in that country is a creature and child of -God, and as all His creatures are equal in His sight, any -settlement of the land of a country that would exclude the -humblest man in that country from his share of the common -inheritance would be not only an injustice and a wrong to -that man, but, moreover, be **an impious resistance to the -benevolent interventions of his creator**." - -3\. *That private property in land deprives no one of the -use of land. (8.)* - -Your own statement that land is the inexhaustible storehouse -that God owes to man must have aroused in your Holiness's -mind an uneasy questioning of its appropriation as private -property, for, as though to reassure yourself, you proceed -to argue that its ownership by some will not injure others. -You say in substance, that even though divided among private -owners the earth does not cease to minister to the needs of -all, since those who do not possess the soil can by selling -their labor obtain in payment the produce of the land. - -Suppose that to your Holiness as a judge of morals one -should put this case of conscience: - -"I am one of several children to whom our father left a -field abundant for our support. As he assigned no part of it -to any one of us in particular, leaving the limits of our -separate possession to be fixed by ourselves, I being the -eldest took the whole field in exclusive ownership. But in -doing so I have not deprived my brothers of their support -from it, for I have let them work for me on it, paying them -from the produce as much wages as I would have had to pay -strangers. Is there any reason why my conscience should not -be clear?" - -What would be your answer? Would you not tell him that he -was in mortal sin, and that his excuse added to his guilt? -Would you not call on him to make restitution and to do -penance? - -Or, suppose that as a temporal prince your Holiness were -ruler of a rainless land, such as Egypt, where there were no -springs or brooks, their want being supplied by a bountiful -river like the Nile. Supposing that having sent a number of -your subjects to make fruitful this land, bidding them do -justly and prosper, you were told that some of them had set -up a claim of ownership in the river, refusing the others a -drop of water, except as they bought it of them; and that -thus they had become rich without work, while the others, -though working hard, were so impoverished by paying for -water as to be hardly able to exist? +Hence, when you say that man's reason puts it within his right to have +in stable and permanent possession not only things that perish in the +using, but also those that remain for use in the future, you are right +in so far as you may include such things as buildings, which with repair +will last for generations, with such things as food or firewood, which +are destroyed in the use. But when you infer that man can have private +ownership in those permanent things of nature that are the reservoirs +from which all must draw, you are clearly wrong. Man may indeed hold in +private ownership the fruits of the earth produced by his labor, since +they lose in time the impress of that labor, and pass again into the +natural reservoirs from which they were taken, and thus the ownership of +them by one works no injury to others. But he cannot so own the earth +itself, for that is the reservoir from which must constantly be drawn +not only the material with which alone men can produce, but even their +very bodies. + +The conclusive reason why man cannot claim ownership in the earth itself +as he can in the fruits that he by labor brings forth from it, is in the +facts stated by you in the very next paragraph (7), when you truly say: + +"Man's needs do not die out, but recur; satisfied to-day they demand new +supplies to-morrow."*Nature therefore owes to man a storehouse that +shall never fail, the daily supply of his daily wants. And this he finds +only in the inexhaustible fertility of the earth.*" + +By man you mean all men. Can what nature owes to all men be made the +private property of some men, from which they may debar all other men? + +Let me dwell on the words of your Holiness, "*Nature*, therefore, *owes* +to man a storehouse that shall never fail." By Nature you mean God. Thus +your thought, that in creating us, God himself has incurred an +obligation to provide us with a storehouse that shall never fail, is the +same as is thus expressed and carried to its irresistible conclusion by +the Bishop of Meath: + +"God was perfectly free in the act by which He created us; but having +created us He bound himself by that act to provide us with the means +necessary for our subsistence. The land is the only source of this kind +now known to us. The land, therefore, of every country is the common +property of the people of that country, because its real owner, the +Creator who made it, has transferred it as a voluntary gift to them. +'*Terram autem dedit filiis hominum.*' Now, as every individual in that +country is a creature and child of God, and as all His creatures are +equal in His sight, any settlement of the land of a country that would +exclude the humblest man in that country from his share of the common +inheritance would be not only an injustice and a wrong to that man, but, +moreover, be **an impious resistance to the benevolent interventions of +his creator**." + +3\. *That private property in land deprives no one of the use of land. +(8.)* + +Your own statement that land is the inexhaustible storehouse that God +owes to man must have aroused in your Holiness's mind an uneasy +questioning of its appropriation as private property, for, as though to +reassure yourself, you proceed to argue that its ownership by some will +not injure others. You say in substance, that even though divided among +private owners the earth does not cease to minister to the needs of all, +since those who do not possess the soil can by selling their labor +obtain in payment the produce of the land. + +Suppose that to your Holiness as a judge of morals one should put this +case of conscience: + +"I am one of several children to whom our father left a field abundant +for our support. As he assigned no part of it to any one of us in +particular, leaving the limits of our separate possession to be fixed by +ourselves, I being the eldest took the whole field in exclusive +ownership. But in doing so I have not deprived my brothers of their +support from it, for I have let them work for me on it, paying them from +the produce as much wages as I would have had to pay strangers. Is there +any reason why my conscience should not be clear?" + +What would be your answer? Would you not tell him that he was in mortal +sin, and that his excuse added to his guilt? Would you not call on him +to make restitution and to do penance? + +Or, suppose that as a temporal prince your Holiness were ruler of a +rainless land, such as Egypt, where there were no springs or brooks, +their want being supplied by a bountiful river like the Nile. Supposing +that having sent a number of your subjects to make fruitful this land, +bidding them do justly and prosper, you were told that some of them had +set up a claim of ownership in the river, refusing the others a drop of +water, except as they bought it of them; and that thus they had become +rich without work, while the others, though working hard, were so +impoverished by paying for water as to be hardly able to exist? Would not your indignation wax hot when this was told? -Suppose that then the river owners should send to you and -thus excuse their action: - -"The river, though divided among private owners ceases not -thereby to minister to the needs of all, for there is no one -who drinks who does not drink of the water of the river. -Those who do not possess the water of the river contribute -their labor to get it; so that it may be truly said that all -water is supplied either from one's own river, or from some -laborious industry which is paid for either in the water, or -in that which is exchanged for the water." - -Would the indignation of your Holiness be abated? Would it -not wax fiercer yet for the insult to your intelligence of -this excuse? - -I do not need more formally to show your Holiness that -between utterly depriving a man of God's gifts and depriving -him of God's gifts unless he will buy them, is merely the -difference between the robber who leaves his victim to die -and the robber who puts him to ransom. But I would like to -point out how your statement that "the earth though divided -among private owners ceases not thereby to minister to the -needs of all" overlooks the largest facts. - -From your palace of the Vatican the eye may rest on the -expanse of the Campagna, where the pious toil of religious -congregations and the efforts of the state are only now -beginning to make it possible for men to live. Once that -expanse was tilled by thriving husband-men and dotted with -smiling hamlets. What for centuries has condemned it to -desertion? History tells us. It was private property in -land; the growth of the great estates of which Pliny saw -that ancient Italy was perishing; the cause that, by -bringing failure to the crop of men, let in the Goths and -Vandals, gave Roman Britain to the worship of Odin and Thor, -and in what were once the rich and populous provinces of the -East shivered the thinned ranks and palsied arms of the -legions on the cimiters of Mohammedan hordes, and in the -sepulchre of our Lord and in the Church of St. Sophia -trampled the cross to rear the crescent! - -If you will go to Scotland, you may see great tracts that -under the Gaelic tenure, which recognized the right of each -to a foothold in the soil, bred sturdy men, but that now, -under the recognition of private property in land, are given -up to wild animals. If you go to Ireland, your Bishops will -show you, on lands where now only beasts graze, the traces -of hamlets that when they were young priests, were filled -with honest, kindly, religious people. - -If you will come to the United States, you will find in a -land wide enough and rich enough to support in comfort the -whole population of Europe, the growth of a sentiment that -looks with evil eye on immigration, because the artificial -scarcity that results from private property in land makes it -seem as if there is not room enough and work enough for -those already here. - -Or go to the Antipodes, and in Australia as in England, you -may see that private property in land is operating to leave -the land barren and to crowd the bulk of the population into -great cities. Go wherever you please where the forces loosed -by modern invention are beginning to be felt and you may see -that private property in land is the curse, denounced by the -prophet, that prompts men to lay field to field till they -"alone dwell in the midst of the earth." - -To the mere materialist this is sin and shame. Shall we to -whom this world is God's world---we who hold that man is -called to this life only as a prelude to a higher -life---shall we defend it? - -4\. *That Industry expended on land gives ownership in the -land itself. (9-10.)* - -Your Holiness next contends that industry expended on land -gives a right to ownership of the land, and that the -improvement of land creates benefits indistinguishable and -inseparable from the land itself. - -This contention, if valid, could only justify the ownership -of land by those who expend industry on it. It would not -justify private property in land as it exists. On the -contrary, it would justify a gigantic no-rent declaration -that would take land from those who now legally own it, the -landlords, and turn it over to the tenants and laborers. And -if it also be that improvements cannot be distinguished and -separated from the land itself, how could the landlords -claim consideration even for improvements they had made? - -But your Holiness cannot mean what your words imply. What -you really mean, I take it, is that the original -justification and title of land ownership is in the -expenditure of labor on it. But neither can this justify -private property in land as it exists. For is it not all but -universally true that existing land titles do not come from -use, but from force or fraud? - -Take Italy! Is it not true that the greater part of the land -of Italy is held by those who so far from ever having -expended industry on it have been mere appropriators of the -industry of those who have? Is this not also true of Great -Britain and of other countries? Even in the United States, -where the forces of concentration have not yet had time to -fully operate and there has been some attempt to give land -to users, it is probably true to-day that the greater part -of the land is held by those who neither use it nor propose -to use it themselves, but ' merely hold it to compel others -to pay them for permission to use it. - -And if industry give ownership to land what are the limits -of this ownership? If a man may acquire the ownership of -several square miles of land by grazing sheep on it, does -this give to him and his heirs the ownership of the same -land when it is found to contain rich mines, or when by the -growth of population and the progress of society it is -needed for farming, for gardening, for the close occupation -of a great city? Is it on the rights given by the industry -of those who first used it for' grazing cows or growing -potatoes that you would found the title to the land now -covered by the city of New York and having a value of +Suppose that then the river owners should send to you and thus excuse +their action: + +"The river, though divided among private owners ceases not thereby to +minister to the needs of all, for there is no one who drinks who does +not drink of the water of the river. Those who do not possess the water +of the river contribute their labor to get it; so that it may be truly +said that all water is supplied either from one's own river, or from +some laborious industry which is paid for either in the water, or in +that which is exchanged for the water." + +Would the indignation of your Holiness be abated? Would it not wax +fiercer yet for the insult to your intelligence of this excuse? + +I do not need more formally to show your Holiness that between utterly +depriving a man of God's gifts and depriving him of God's gifts unless +he will buy them, is merely the difference between the robber who leaves +his victim to die and the robber who puts him to ransom. But I would +like to point out how your statement that "the earth though divided +among private owners ceases not thereby to minister to the needs of all" +overlooks the largest facts. + +From your palace of the Vatican the eye may rest on the expanse of the +Campagna, where the pious toil of religious congregations and the +efforts of the state are only now beginning to make it possible for men +to live. Once that expanse was tilled by thriving husband-men and dotted +with smiling hamlets. What for centuries has condemned it to desertion? +History tells us. It was private property in land; the growth of the +great estates of which Pliny saw that ancient Italy was perishing; the +cause that, by bringing failure to the crop of men, let in the Goths and +Vandals, gave Roman Britain to the worship of Odin and Thor, and in what +were once the rich and populous provinces of the East shivered the +thinned ranks and palsied arms of the legions on the cimiters of +Mohammedan hordes, and in the sepulchre of our Lord and in the Church of +St. Sophia trampled the cross to rear the crescent! + +If you will go to Scotland, you may see great tracts that under the +Gaelic tenure, which recognized the right of each to a foothold in the +soil, bred sturdy men, but that now, under the recognition of private +property in land, are given up to wild animals. If you go to Ireland, +your Bishops will show you, on lands where now only beasts graze, the +traces of hamlets that when they were young priests, were filled with +honest, kindly, religious people. + +If you will come to the United States, you will find in a land wide +enough and rich enough to support in comfort the whole population of +Europe, the growth of a sentiment that looks with evil eye on +immigration, because the artificial scarcity that results from private +property in land makes it seem as if there is not room enough and work +enough for those already here. + +Or go to the Antipodes, and in Australia as in England, you may see that +private property in land is operating to leave the land barren and to +crowd the bulk of the population into great cities. Go wherever you +please where the forces loosed by modern invention are beginning to be +felt and you may see that private property in land is the curse, +denounced by the prophet, that prompts men to lay field to field till +they "alone dwell in the midst of the earth." + +To the mere materialist this is sin and shame. Shall we to whom this +world is God's world---we who hold that man is called to this life only +as a prelude to a higher life---shall we defend it? + +4\. *That Industry expended on land gives ownership in the land itself. +(9-10.)* + +Your Holiness next contends that industry expended on land gives a right +to ownership of the land, and that the improvement of land creates +benefits indistinguishable and inseparable from the land itself. + +This contention, if valid, could only justify the ownership of land by +those who expend industry on it. It would not justify private property +in land as it exists. On the contrary, it would justify a gigantic +no-rent declaration that would take land from those who now legally own +it, the landlords, and turn it over to the tenants and laborers. And if +it also be that improvements cannot be distinguished and separated from +the land itself, how could the landlords claim consideration even for +improvements they had made? + +But your Holiness cannot mean what your words imply. What you really +mean, I take it, is that the original justification and title of land +ownership is in the expenditure of labor on it. But neither can this +justify private property in land as it exists. For is it not all but +universally true that existing land titles do not come from use, but +from force or fraud? + +Take Italy! Is it not true that the greater part of the land of Italy is +held by those who so far from ever having expended industry on it have +been mere appropriators of the industry of those who have? Is this not +also true of Great Britain and of other countries? Even in the United +States, where the forces of concentration have not yet had time to fully +operate and there has been some attempt to give land to users, it is +probably true to-day that the greater part of the land is held by those +who neither use it nor propose to use it themselves, but ' merely hold +it to compel others to pay them for permission to use it. + +And if industry give ownership to land what are the limits of this +ownership? If a man may acquire the ownership of several square miles of +land by grazing sheep on it, does this give to him and his heirs the +ownership of the same land when it is found to contain rich mines, or +when by the growth of population and the progress of society it is +needed for farming, for gardening, for the close occupation of a great +city? Is it on the rights given by the industry of those who first used +it for' grazing cows or growing potatoes that you would found the title +to the land now covered by the city of New York and having a value of thousands of millions of dollars? -But your contention is not valid. Industry expended on land -gives ownership in the fruits of that industry, but not in -the land itself, just as industry expended on the ocean -would give a right of ownership to the fish taken by it, but -not a right of ownership in the ocean. Nor yet is it true -that private ownership of land is necessary to secure the -fruits of labor on land; nor does the improvement of land -create benefits indistinguishable and inseparable from the -land itself. That secure possession is necessary to the use -and improvement of land I have already explained, but that -ownership is not necessary is shown by the fact that in all -civilized countries land owned by one person is cultivated -and improved by other persons. Most of the cultivated land -in the British Islands, as in Italy and other countries, is -cultivated not by owners but by tenants. And so the -costliest buildings are erected by those who are not owners -of the land, but who have from the owner a mere right of -possession for a time on condition of certain payments. -Nearly the whole of London has been built in this way, and -in New York, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Sydney and -Melbourne, as well as in continental cities, the owners of -many of the largest edifices will be found to be different -persons from the owners of the ground. So far from the value -of improvements being inseparable from the value of land, it -is in individual transactions constantly separated. For -instance, one-half of the land on which the immense Grand -Pacific Hotel in Chicago stands was recently separately -sold, and in Ceylon it is a not infrequent occurrence for -one person to own a fruit tree and another to own the ground -in which it is implanted. - -There is, indeed, no improvement of land, whether it be -clearing, plowing, manuring, cultivating, the digging of -cellars, the opening of wells or the building of houses, -that so long as its usefulness continues does not have a -value clearly distinguishable from the value of the land. -For land having such improvements will always sell or rent +But your contention is not valid. Industry expended on land gives +ownership in the fruits of that industry, but not in the land itself, +just as industry expended on the ocean would give a right of ownership +to the fish taken by it, but not a right of ownership in the ocean. Nor +yet is it true that private ownership of land is necessary to secure the +fruits of labor on land; nor does the improvement of land create +benefits indistinguishable and inseparable from the land itself. That +secure possession is necessary to the use and improvement of land I have +already explained, but that ownership is not necessary is shown by the +fact that in all civilized countries land owned by one person is +cultivated and improved by other persons. Most of the cultivated land in +the British Islands, as in Italy and other countries, is cultivated not +by owners but by tenants. And so the costliest buildings are erected by +those who are not owners of the land, but who have from the owner a mere +right of possession for a time on condition of certain payments. Nearly +the whole of London has been built in this way, and in New York, +Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Sydney and Melbourne, as well as in +continental cities, the owners of many of the largest edifices will be +found to be different persons from the owners of the ground. So far from +the value of improvements being inseparable from the value of land, it +is in individual transactions constantly separated. For instance, +one-half of the land on which the immense Grand Pacific Hotel in Chicago +stands was recently separately sold, and in Ceylon it is a not +infrequent occurrence for one person to own a fruit tree and another to +own the ground in which it is implanted. + +There is, indeed, no improvement of land, whether it be clearing, +plowing, manuring, cultivating, the digging of cellars, the opening of +wells or the building of houses, that so long as its usefulness +continues does not have a value clearly distinguishable from the value +of the land. For land having such improvements will always sell or rent for more than similar land without them. -If, therefore, the state levy a tax equal to what the land -irrespective of improvement would bring, it will take the -benefits of mere ownership, but will leave the full benefits -of use and improvement, which the prevailing system does not -do. And since the holder, who would still in form continue -to be the owner, could at any time give or sell both -possession and improvements, subject to future assessment by -the state on the value of the land alone, he will be -perfectly free to retain or dispose of the full amount of -property that the exertion of his labor or the investment of -his capital has attached to or stored up in the land. - -Thus, what we propose would secure, as it is impossible in -any other way to secure, what you properly say is just and -right---"that the results of labor should belong to him who -has labored." But private property in land---to allow the -holder without adequate payment to the state to take for -himself the benefit of the value that attaches to land with -social growth and improvement---does take the results of -labor from him who has labored, does turn over the fruits of -one man's labor to be enjoyed by another. For labor, as the -active factor, is the producer of all wealth. Mere ownership -produces nothing. A man might own a world, but so sure is -the decree that "by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat -bread," that without labor he could not get a meal or -provide himself a garment. Hence, when the owners of land, -by virtue of their ownership and without laboring -themselves, get the products of labor in abundance, these -things must come from the labor of others, must be the -fruits of others' sweat, taken from those who have a right -to them and enjoyed by those who have no right to them. - -The only utility of private ownership of land as -distinguished from possession is the evil utility of giving -to the owner products of labor he does not earn. For until -land will yield to its owner some return beyond that of the -labor and capital he expends on it---that is to say, until -by sale or rental he can without expenditure of labor obtain -from it products of labor, ownership amounts to no more than -security of possession, and has no value. Its importance and -value begin only when, either in the present or -prospectively, it will yield a revenue---that is to say, -will enable the owner as owner to obtain products of labor -without exertion on his part, and thus to enjoy the results -of others' labor. - -What largely keeps men from realizing the robbery involved -in private property in land is that in the most striking -cases the robbery is not of individuals, but of the -community. For, as I have before explained, it is impossible -for rent in the economic sense---that value which attaches -to land by reason of social growth and improvement---to go -to the user. It can go only to the owner or to the -community. Thus those who pay enormous rents for the use of -land in such centres as London or New York are not -individually injured. Individually they get a return for -what they pay, and must feel that they have no better right -to the use , of such peculiarly advantageous localities -without paying for it than have thousands of others. And so, -not thinking or not caring for the interests of the -community, they make no objection to the system. - -It recently came to light in New York that a man having no -title whatever had been for years collecting rents on a -piece of land that the growth of the city had made very -valuable. Those who paid these rents had never stopped to -ask whether he had any right to them. They felt that they -had no right to land that so many others would like to have, -without paying for it, and did not think of, or did not care -for, the rights of all. - -5\. *That private property in land has the support of the -common opinion of mankind, and has conduced to peace and -tranquillity, and that it is sanctioned by Divine Law. -(11.)* - -Even were it true that the common opinion of mankind has -sanctioned private property in land, this would no more -prove its justice than the once universal practice of the -known world would have proved the justice of slavery. - -But it is not true. Examination will show that wherever we -can trace them the first perceptions of mankind have always -recognized the equality of right to land, and that when -individual possession became necessary to secure the right -of ownership in things produced by labor some method of -securing equality, sufficient in the existing state of -social development, was adopted. Thus, among some peoples, -land used for cultivation was periodically divided, land -used for pasturage and wood being held in common. Among -others, every family was permitted to hold what land it -needed for a dwelling and for cultivation, but the moment -that such use and cultivation stopped any one else could -step in and take it on like tenure. Of the same nature were -the land laws of the Mosaic code. The land, first fairly -divided among the people, was made inalienable by the -provision of the jubilee, under which, if sold, it reverted -every fiftieth year to the children of its original -possessors. - -Private property in land as we know it, the attaching to -land of the same right of ownership that justly attaches to -the products of labor, has never grown up anywhere save by -usurpation or force. Like slavery, it is the result of war. -It comes to us of the modern world from your ancestors, the -Romans, whose civilization it corrupted and whose empire it -destroyed. - -It made with the freer spirit of the northern peoples the -combination of the feudal system, in which, though -subordination was substituted for equality, there was still -a rough recognition of the principle of common rights in -land. A fief was a trust, and to enjoyment was annexed some -obligation. The sovereign, the representative of the whole -people, was the only owner of land. Of him, immediately or -mediately, held tenants, whose possession involved duties or -payments, which, though rudely and imperfectly, embodied the -idea that we would carry out in the single tax, of taking -land values for public uses. The crown lands maintained the -sovereign and the civil list; the church lands defrayed the -cost of public worship and instruction, of the relief of the -sick, the destitute and the way-worn; while the military -tenures provided for public defense and bore the costs of -war. A fourth and very large portion of the land remained in -common, the people of the neighborhood being free to pasture +If, therefore, the state levy a tax equal to what the land irrespective +of improvement would bring, it will take the benefits of mere ownership, +but will leave the full benefits of use and improvement, which the +prevailing system does not do. And since the holder, who would still in +form continue to be the owner, could at any time give or sell both +possession and improvements, subject to future assessment by the state +on the value of the land alone, he will be perfectly free to retain or +dispose of the full amount of property that the exertion of his labor or +the investment of his capital has attached to or stored up in the land. + +Thus, what we propose would secure, as it is impossible in any other way +to secure, what you properly say is just and right---"that the results +of labor should belong to him who has labored." But private property in +land---to allow the holder without adequate payment to the state to take +for himself the benefit of the value that attaches to land with social +growth and improvement---does take the results of labor from him who has +labored, does turn over the fruits of one man's labor to be enjoyed by +another. For labor, as the active factor, is the producer of all wealth. +Mere ownership produces nothing. A man might own a world, but so sure is +the decree that "by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread," that +without labor he could not get a meal or provide himself a garment. +Hence, when the owners of land, by virtue of their ownership and without +laboring themselves, get the products of labor in abundance, these +things must come from the labor of others, must be the fruits of others' +sweat, taken from those who have a right to them and enjoyed by those +who have no right to them. + +The only utility of private ownership of land as distinguished from +possession is the evil utility of giving to the owner products of labor +he does not earn. For until land will yield to its owner some return +beyond that of the labor and capital he expends on it---that is to say, +until by sale or rental he can without expenditure of labor obtain from +it products of labor, ownership amounts to no more than security of +possession, and has no value. Its importance and value begin only when, +either in the present or prospectively, it will yield a revenue---that +is to say, will enable the owner as owner to obtain products of labor +without exertion on his part, and thus to enjoy the results of others' +labor. + +What largely keeps men from realizing the robbery involved in private +property in land is that in the most striking cases the robbery is not +of individuals, but of the community. For, as I have before explained, +it is impossible for rent in the economic sense---that value which +attaches to land by reason of social growth and improvement---to go to +the user. It can go only to the owner or to the community. Thus those +who pay enormous rents for the use of land in such centres as London or +New York are not individually injured. Individually they get a return +for what they pay, and must feel that they have no better right to the +use , of such peculiarly advantageous localities without paying for it +than have thousands of others. And so, not thinking or not caring for +the interests of the community, they make no objection to the system. + +It recently came to light in New York that a man having no title +whatever had been for years collecting rents on a piece of land that the +growth of the city had made very valuable. Those who paid these rents +had never stopped to ask whether he had any right to them. They felt +that they had no right to land that so many others would like to have, +without paying for it, and did not think of, or did not care for, the +rights of all. + +5\. *That private property in land has the support of the common opinion +of mankind, and has conduced to peace and tranquillity, and that it is +sanctioned by Divine Law. (11.)* + +Even were it true that the common opinion of mankind has sanctioned +private property in land, this would no more prove its justice than the +once universal practice of the known world would have proved the justice +of slavery. + +But it is not true. Examination will show that wherever we can trace +them the first perceptions of mankind have always recognized the +equality of right to land, and that when individual possession became +necessary to secure the right of ownership in things produced by labor +some method of securing equality, sufficient in the existing state of +social development, was adopted. Thus, among some peoples, land used for +cultivation was periodically divided, land used for pasturage and wood +being held in common. Among others, every family was permitted to hold +what land it needed for a dwelling and for cultivation, but the moment +that such use and cultivation stopped any one else could step in and +take it on like tenure. Of the same nature were the land laws of the +Mosaic code. The land, first fairly divided among the people, was made +inalienable by the provision of the jubilee, under which, if sold, it +reverted every fiftieth year to the children of its original possessors. + +Private property in land as we know it, the attaching to land of the +same right of ownership that justly attaches to the products of labor, +has never grown up anywhere save by usurpation or force. Like slavery, +it is the result of war. It comes to us of the modern world from your +ancestors, the Romans, whose civilization it corrupted and whose empire +it destroyed. + +It made with the freer spirit of the northern peoples the combination of +the feudal system, in which, though subordination was substituted for +equality, there was still a rough recognition of the principle of common +rights in land. A fief was a trust, and to enjoyment was annexed some +obligation. The sovereign, the representative of the whole people, was +the only owner of land. Of him, immediately or mediately, held tenants, +whose possession involved duties or payments, which, though rudely and +imperfectly, embodied the idea that we would carry out in the single +tax, of taking land values for public uses. The crown lands maintained +the sovereign and the civil list; the church lands defrayed the cost of +public worship and instruction, of the relief of the sick, the destitute +and the way-worn; while the military tenures provided for public defense +and bore the costs of war. A fourth and very large portion of the land +remained in common, the people of the neighborhood being free to pasture it, cut wood on it, or put it to other common uses. -In this partial yet substantial recognition of common rights -to land is to be found the reason why, in a time when the -industrial arts were rude, wars frequent, and the great -discoveries and inventions of our time unthought of, the -condition of the laborer was devoid of that grinding poverty -which despite our marvellous advances now exists. Speaking -of England, the highest authority on such subjects, the late -Professor Thorold Rogers, declares that in the thirteenth -century there was no class so poor, so helpless, so pressed -and degraded as are millions of Englishmen in our boasted -nineteenth century; and that, save in times of actual -famine, there was no laborer so poor as to fear that his -wife and children might come to want even were he taken from -them. Dark and rude in many respects as they were, these -were the times when the cathedrals and churches and -religious houses whose ruins yet excite our admiration were -built; the times when England had no national debt, no poor -law, no standing army, no hereditary paupers, no thousands -and thousands of human beings rising in the morning without -knowing where they might lay their heads at night. - -With the decay of the feudal system, the system of private -property in land that had destroyed Rome was extended. As to -England, it may briefly be said that the crown lands were -for the most part given away to favorites; that the church -lands were parcelled among his courtiers by Henry VIII,and -in Scotland grasped by the nobles; that the military dues -were finally remitted in the seventeenth century, and -taxation on consumption substituted; and that by a process -beginning with the Tudors and extending to our own time all -but a mere fraction of the commons were enclosed by the -greater land owners; while the same private ownership of -land was extended over Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, -partly by the sword and partly by bribery of the chiefs. -Even the military dues, had they been commuted,, not -remitted, would to-day have more than sufficed to pay all -public expenses without one penny of other taxation. - -Of the New World, whose institutions but continue those of -Europe, it is only necessary to say that to the parcelling -out of land in great tracts is due the backwardness and -turbulence of Spanish America; that to the large plantations -of the Southern States of the Union was due the persistence -of slavery there, and that the more northern settlements -showed the earlier English feeling, land being fairly well -divided and the attempts to establish manorial estates -coming to little or nothing. In this lies the secret of the -more vigorous growth of the northern states. But the idea -that land was to be treated as private property had been -thoroughly established in English thought before the -colonial period ended, and it has been so treated by the -United States and by the several States. And though land was -at first sold cheaply, and then given to actual settlers, it -was also sold in large quantities to speculators, given away -in great tracts for railroads and other purposes, until now -the public domain of the United States, which a generation -ago seemed illimitable, has practically gone. And this, as -the experience of other countries shows, is the natural -result in a growing community of making land private -property. When the possession of land means the gain of -unearned wealth, the strong and unscrupulous will secure it. -But when, as we propose, economic rent, the "unearned -increment of wealth," is taken by the state for the use of -the community, then land will pass into the hands of users -and remain there, since no matter how great its value, its -possession will only be profitable to users. - -As to private property in land having conduced to the peace -and tranquillity of human life, it is not necessary more -than to allude to the notorious fact that the struggle for -land has been the prolific source of wars and of law suits, -while it is the poverty engendered by private property in -land that make the prison and the workhouse the unfailing -attributes of what we call Christian civilization. - -Your Holiness intimates that the Divine Law gives its -sanction to the private ownership of land, quoting from -Deuteronomy, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor -his house, nor his field, nor his manservant, nor his -maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything which is -his." - -If, as your Holiness conveys, this inclusion of the words, -"nor his field," is to be taken as sanctioning private -property in land as it exists to-day, then, but with far -greater force, must the words, "his manservant, nor his -maid-servant," be taken to sanction chattel slavery; for it -is evident from other provisions of the same code that these -terms referred both to bondsmen for a term of years and to -perpetual slaves. But the word "field" involves the idea of -use and improvement, to which the right of possession and -ownership does attach without recognition of property in the -land itself. And that this reference to the "field" is not a -sanction of private property in land as it exists to-day is -proved by the fact that the Mosaic code expressly denied -such unqualified ownership in land, and with the -declaration, "the land also shall not be sold forever, -because it is mine, and you are strangers and sojourners -with me," provided for its reversion every fiftieth year; -thus, in a way adapted to the primitive industrial -conditions of the time, securing to all of the chosen people -a foothold in the soil. +In this partial yet substantial recognition of common rights to land is +to be found the reason why, in a time when the industrial arts were +rude, wars frequent, and the great discoveries and inventions of our +time unthought of, the condition of the laborer was devoid of that +grinding poverty which despite our marvellous advances now exists. +Speaking of England, the highest authority on such subjects, the late +Professor Thorold Rogers, declares that in the thirteenth century there +was no class so poor, so helpless, so pressed and degraded as are +millions of Englishmen in our boasted nineteenth century; and that, save +in times of actual famine, there was no laborer so poor as to fear that +his wife and children might come to want even were he taken from them. +Dark and rude in many respects as they were, these were the times when +the cathedrals and churches and religious houses whose ruins yet excite +our admiration were built; the times when England had no national debt, +no poor law, no standing army, no hereditary paupers, no thousands and +thousands of human beings rising in the morning without knowing where +they might lay their heads at night. + +With the decay of the feudal system, the system of private property in +land that had destroyed Rome was extended. As to England, it may briefly +be said that the crown lands were for the most part given away to +favorites; that the church lands were parcelled among his courtiers by +Henry VIII,and in Scotland grasped by the nobles; that the military dues +were finally remitted in the seventeenth century, and taxation on +consumption substituted; and that by a process beginning with the Tudors +and extending to our own time all but a mere fraction of the commons +were enclosed by the greater land owners; while the same private +ownership of land was extended over Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, +partly by the sword and partly by bribery of the chiefs. Even the +military dues, had they been commuted,, not remitted, would to-day have +more than sufficed to pay all public expenses without one penny of other +taxation. + +Of the New World, whose institutions but continue those of Europe, it is +only necessary to say that to the parcelling out of land in great tracts +is due the backwardness and turbulence of Spanish America; that to the +large plantations of the Southern States of the Union was due the +persistence of slavery there, and that the more northern settlements +showed the earlier English feeling, land being fairly well divided and +the attempts to establish manorial estates coming to little or nothing. +In this lies the secret of the more vigorous growth of the northern +states. But the idea that land was to be treated as private property had +been thoroughly established in English thought before the colonial +period ended, and it has been so treated by the United States and by the +several States. And though land was at first sold cheaply, and then +given to actual settlers, it was also sold in large quantities to +speculators, given away in great tracts for railroads and other +purposes, until now the public domain of the United States, which a +generation ago seemed illimitable, has practically gone. And this, as +the experience of other countries shows, is the natural result in a +growing community of making land private property. When the possession +of land means the gain of unearned wealth, the strong and unscrupulous +will secure it. But when, as we propose, economic rent, the "unearned +increment of wealth," is taken by the state for the use of the +community, then land will pass into the hands of users and remain there, +since no matter how great its value, its possession will only be +profitable to users. + +As to private property in land having conduced to the peace and +tranquillity of human life, it is not necessary more than to allude to +the notorious fact that the struggle for land has been the prolific +source of wars and of law suits, while it is the poverty engendered by +private property in land that make the prison and the workhouse the +unfailing attributes of what we call Christian civilization. + +Your Holiness intimates that the Divine Law gives its sanction to the +private ownership of land, quoting from Deuteronomy, "Thou shalt not +covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his house, nor his field, nor his +manservant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything +which is his." + +If, as your Holiness conveys, this inclusion of the words, "nor his +field," is to be taken as sanctioning private property in land as it +exists to-day, then, but with far greater force, must the words, "his +manservant, nor his maid-servant," be taken to sanction chattel slavery; +for it is evident from other provisions of the same code that these +terms referred both to bondsmen for a term of years and to perpetual +slaves. But the word "field" involves the idea of use and improvement, +to which the right of possession and ownership does attach without +recognition of property in the land itself. And that this reference to +the "field" is not a sanction of private property in land as it exists +to-day is proved by the fact that the Mosaic code expressly denied such +unqualified ownership in land, and with the declaration, "the land also +shall not be sold forever, because it is mine, and you are strangers and +sojourners with me," provided for its reversion every fiftieth year; +thus, in a way adapted to the primitive industrial conditions of the +time, securing to all of the chosen people a foothold in the soil. Nowhere in fact throughout the Scriptures can the slightest -justification be found for the attaching to land of the same -right of property that justly attaches to the things -produced by labor. Everywhere is it treated as the free -bounty of God, "the land which the Lord thy God giveth -thee." - -6\. *That fathers should provide for their children and that -private property in land is necessary to enable them to do -so. (14-17.)* - -With all that your Holiness has to say of the sacredness of -the family relation we are in full accord. But how the -obligation of the father to the child can justify private -property in land we cannot see. You reason that private -property in land is necessary to the discharge of the duty -of the father, and is therefore requisite and just, -because--- - -"It is a most sacred law of nature that a father must -provide food and all necessities for those whom he has -begotten; and similarly nature dictates that a man's -children, who carry on as it were and continue his own -personality, should be provided by him with all that is -needful to enable them honorably to keep themselves from -want and misery in the uncertainties of this mortal life. -Now in no other way can a father effect this except by the -ownership of profitable property, which he can transmit to -his children by inheritance." (14.) - -Thanks to Him who has bound the generations of men together -by a provision that brings the tenderest love to greet our -entrance into the world and soothes our exit with filial -piety, it is both the duty and the joy of the father to care -for the child till its powers mature, and afterwards in the -natural order it becomes the duty and privilege of the child -to be the stay of the parent. This is the natural reason for -that relation of marriage, the ground work of the sweetest, -tenderest and purest of human joys, which the Catholic -Church has guarded, with such unremitting vigilance. - -We do, for a few years, need the providence of our fathers -after the flesh. But how small, how transient, how narrow is -this need, as compared with our constant need for the -providence of Him in whom we live, move and have our -being---Our Father who art in Heaven! It is to Him, "the -giver of every good and perfect gift," and not to our -fathers after the flesh, that Christ taught us to pray, -"Give us this day our daily bread." And how true it is that -it is through Him that the generations of men exist. Let the -mean temperature of the earth rise or fall a few degrees, an -amount as nothing compared with differences produced in our -laboratories, and mankind would disappear as ice disappears -under a tropical sun, would fall as the leaves fall at the -touch of frost. Or, let for two or three seasons the earth -refuse her increase, and how many of our millions would -remain alive? - -The duty of fathers to transmit to their children profitable -property that will enable them to keep themselves from want -and misery in the uncertainties of this mortal life! What is -not possible cannot be a duty. And how is it possible for -fathers to do that? Your Holiness has not considered how -mankind really lives from hand to mouth, getting each day -its daily bread; how little one generation does or can leave -another. It is doubtful if the wealth of the civilized world -all told amounts to anything like as much as one year's -labor, while it is certain that if labor were to stop and -men had to rely on existing accumulation, it would be only a -few days ere in the richest countries pestilence and famine -would stalk. - -The profitable property your Holiness refers to, is private -property in land. Now profitable land, as all economists -will agree, is land superior to the land that the ordinary -man can get. It is land that will yield an income to the -owner as owner, and therefore that will permit the owner to -appropriate the products of labor without doing labor, its -profitableness to the individual involving the robbery of -other individuals. It is therefore possible only for some -fathers to leave their children profitable land. What -therefore your Holiness practically declares is, that it is -the duty of all fathers to struggle to leave their children -what only the few peculiarly strong, lucky or unscrupulous -can leave; and that, a something that involves the robbery +justification be found for the attaching to land of the same right of +property that justly attaches to the things produced by labor. +Everywhere is it treated as the free bounty of God, "the land which the +Lord thy God giveth thee." + +6\. *That fathers should provide for their children and that private +property in land is necessary to enable them to do so. (14-17.)* + +With all that your Holiness has to say of the sacredness of the family +relation we are in full accord. But how the obligation of the father to +the child can justify private property in land we cannot see. You reason +that private property in land is necessary to the discharge of the duty +of the father, and is therefore requisite and just, because--- + +"It is a most sacred law of nature that a father must provide food and +all necessities for those whom he has begotten; and similarly nature +dictates that a man's children, who carry on as it were and continue his +own personality, should be provided by him with all that is needful to +enable them honorably to keep themselves from want and misery in the +uncertainties of this mortal life. Now in no other way can a father +effect this except by the ownership of profitable property, which he can +transmit to his children by inheritance." (14.) + +Thanks to Him who has bound the generations of men together by a +provision that brings the tenderest love to greet our entrance into the +world and soothes our exit with filial piety, it is both the duty and +the joy of the father to care for the child till its powers mature, and +afterwards in the natural order it becomes the duty and privilege of the +child to be the stay of the parent. This is the natural reason for that +relation of marriage, the ground work of the sweetest, tenderest and +purest of human joys, which the Catholic Church has guarded, with such +unremitting vigilance. + +We do, for a few years, need the providence of our fathers after the +flesh. But how small, how transient, how narrow is this need, as +compared with our constant need for the providence of Him in whom we +live, move and have our being---Our Father who art in Heaven! It is to +Him, "the giver of every good and perfect gift," and not to our fathers +after the flesh, that Christ taught us to pray, "Give us this day our +daily bread." And how true it is that it is through Him that the +generations of men exist. Let the mean temperature of the earth rise or +fall a few degrees, an amount as nothing compared with differences +produced in our laboratories, and mankind would disappear as ice +disappears under a tropical sun, would fall as the leaves fall at the +touch of frost. Or, let for two or three seasons the earth refuse her +increase, and how many of our millions would remain alive? + +The duty of fathers to transmit to their children profitable property +that will enable them to keep themselves from want and misery in the +uncertainties of this mortal life! What is not possible cannot be a +duty. And how is it possible for fathers to do that? Your Holiness has +not considered how mankind really lives from hand to mouth, getting each +day its daily bread; how little one generation does or can leave +another. It is doubtful if the wealth of the civilized world all told +amounts to anything like as much as one year's labor, while it is +certain that if labor were to stop and men had to rely on existing +accumulation, it would be only a few days ere in the richest countries +pestilence and famine would stalk. + +The profitable property your Holiness refers to, is private property in +land. Now profitable land, as all economists will agree, is land +superior to the land that the ordinary man can get. It is land that will +yield an income to the owner as owner, and therefore that will permit +the owner to appropriate the products of labor without doing labor, its +profitableness to the individual involving the robbery of other +individuals. It is therefore possible only for some fathers to leave +their children profitable land. What therefore your Holiness practically +declares is, that it is the duty of all fathers to struggle to leave +their children what only the few peculiarly strong, lucky or +unscrupulous can leave; and that, a something that involves the robbery of others---their deprivation of the material gifts of God. -This anti-Christian doctrine has been long in practice -throughout the Christian world. What are its results? - -Are they not the very evils set forth in your Encyclical? -Are they not, so far from enabling men to keep themselves -from want and misery in the uncertainties of this mortal -life, to condemn the great masses of men to want and misery -that the natural conditions of our mortal life do not -entail; to want and misery deeper and more widespread than -exist among heathen savages? Under the regime of private -property in land and in the richest countries not five per -cent, of fathers are able at their death to leave anything -substantial to their children, and probably a large majority -do not leave enough to bury them! Some few children are left -by their fathers richer than it is good for them to be, but -the vast majority not only are left nothing by their -fathers, but by the system that makes land private property -are deprived of the bounty of their Heavenly Father; are -compelled to sue others for permission to live and to work, -and to toil all their lives for a pittance that often does -not enable them to escape starvation and pauperism. - -What your Holiness is actually, though of course -inadvertently, urging, is that earthly fathers should assume -the functions of the Heavenly Father. It is not the business -of one generation to provide the succeeding generation with -"all that is needful to enable them honorably to keep -themselves from want and misery." That is God's business. We -no more create our children than we create our fathers. It -is God who is the Creator of each succeeding generation as -fully as of the one that preceded it. And, to recall your -own words (7), "Nature \[God\] therefore owes to man a -storehouse that shall never fail, the daily supply of his -daily wants. And this he finds only in the inexhaustible -fertility of the earth." What you are now assuming is, that -it is the duty of men to provide for the wants of *their* -children by appropriating this storehouse and depriving -other men's children of the unfailing supply that God has -provided for all. - -The duty of the father to the child---the duty possible to -all fathers! Is it not so to conduct himself, so to nurture -and teach it, that it shall come to manhood with a sound -body, well developed mind, habits of virtue, piety and -industry, and in a state of society that shall give it and -all others free access to the bounty of God, the providence -of the All-Father? - -In doing this the father would be doing more to secure his -children from want and misery than is possible now to the -richest of fathers---as much more as the providence of God -surpasses that of man. For the justice of God laughs at the -efforts of men to circumvent it, and the subtle law that -binds humanity together poisons the rich in the sufferings -of the poor. Even the few who are able in the general -struggle to leave their children wealth that they fondly -think will keep them from want and misery in the -uncertainties of this mortal life---do they succeed % Does -experience show that it is a benefit to a child to place him -above his fellows and enable him to think God's law of labor -is not for him? Is not such wealth of truer a curse than a -blessing, and does not its expectation often destroy filial -love and bring dissensions and heart burnings into families? -And how far and how long are even the richest and strongest -able to exempt their children from the common lot? Nothing -is more certain than that the blood of the masters of the -world flows to-day in lazzaroni and that the descendants of -kings and princes tenant slums and workhouses. - -But in the state of society we strive for, where the -monopoly and waste of God's bounty would be done away with -and the fruits of labor would go to the laborer, it would be -within the ability of all to make more than a comfortable -living with reasonable labor. And for those who might be -crippled or incapacitated, or deprived of their natural -protectors and bread winners, the most ample provision could -be made out of that great and increasing fund with which God -in his law of rent has provided society---not as a matter of -niggardly and degrading alms, but as a matter of right, as -the assurance which in a Christian state society owes to all -its members. - -Thus it is that the duty of the father, the obligation to -the child, instead of giving any support to private property -in land, utterly condemns it, urging us by the most powerful -considerations to abolish it in the simple and efficacious -way of the single tax. - -This duty of the father, this obligation to children, is not -confined to those who have actually children of their own, -but rests on all of us who have come to the powers and -responsibilities of manhood. - -For did not Christ set a little child in the midst of the -disciples, saying to them that the angels of such little -ones always behold the face of His father; saying to them -that it were better for a man to hang a millstone about his -neck and plunge into the uttermost depths of the sea than to -injure such a little one? - -And what to-day is the result of private property in land in -the richest of so called Christian countries? Is it not that -young people fear to marry; that married people fear to have -children; that children are driven out of life from sheer -want of proper nourishment and care, or compelled to toil -when they ought to be at school or at play; that great -numbers of those who attain maturity enter it with -under-nourished bodies, overstrained nerves, undeveloped -minds---under conditions that foredoom them, not merely to -suffering, but to crime; that fit them in advance for the -prison and the brothel? - -If your Holiness will consider these things we are confident -that instead of defending private property in land you will -condemn it with anathema! - -7\. *That the private ownership of land stimulates industry, -increases wealth, and attaches men to the soil and to their -country. (51.)* - -The idea, as expressed by Arthur Young, that "the magic of -property turns barren sands to gold" springs from the -confusion of ownership with possession, of which I have -before spoken, that attributes to private property in land -what is due to security of the products of labor. It is -needless for me again to point out that the change we -propose, the taxation for public uses of land values, or -economic rent, and the abolition of other taxes, would give -to the user of land far greater security for the fruits of -his labor than the present system and far greater permanence -of possession. Nor is it necessary further to show how it -would give homes to those who are now homeless and bind men -to their country. For under it every one who wanted a piece -of land for a home or for productive use could get it -without purchase price and hold it even without tax, since -the tax we propose would not fall on all land, nor even on -all land in use, but only on land better than 'the poorest -land in use, and is in reality not a tax at all, but merely -a return to the state for the use of a valuable privilege. -And even those who from circumstances or occupation did not -wish to make permanent use of land would still have an equal -interest with all others in the land of their country and in -the general prosperity. - -But I should like your Holiness to consider how utterly -unnatural is the condition of the masses in the richest and -most progressive of Christian countries; how large bodies of -them live in habitations in which a rich man would not ask -his dog to dwell; how the great majority have no homes from -which they are not liable on the slightest misfortune to be -evicted; how numbers have no homes at all, but must seek -what shelter chance or charity offers. I should like to ask -your Holiness to consider how the great majority of men in -such countries have no interest whatever in what they are -taught to call *their* native land, for which they are told -that on occasions it is their duty to fight or to die. What -right, for instance, have the majority of your countrymen in -the land of their birth? Can they live in Italy outside of a -prison or a poorhouse except as they buy the privilege from -some of the exclusive owners of Italy? Cannot an English -man, an American, an Arab or a Japanese do as much? May not -what was said centuries ago by Tiberius Gracchus be said -to-day: "*Men of Rome! you are called the lords of the -world, yet have no right to a square foot of its soil! The -wild leasts have their dens, but the soldiers of Italy have -only water and air!*" What is true of Italy is true of the -civilized world---is becoming increasingly true. It is the -inevitable effect as civilization progresses of private -property in land. - -8\. *That the right to possess private property in land is -from Nature, not from, man; that the state has no right to -abolish it, and that to take the value of land ownership in -taxation would be unjust and cruel to the private owner. -(51).* - -This, like much else that your Holiness says, is masked in -the use of the indefinite terms private property and private -owner---a want of precision in the use of words that has -doubtless aided in the confusion of your own thought. But -the context leaves no doubt that by private property you -mean private property in land, and by private owner, the +This anti-Christian doctrine has been long in practice throughout the +Christian world. What are its results? + +Are they not the very evils set forth in your Encyclical? Are they not, +so far from enabling men to keep themselves from want and misery in the +uncertainties of this mortal life, to condemn the great masses of men to +want and misery that the natural conditions of our mortal life do not +entail; to want and misery deeper and more widespread than exist among +heathen savages? Under the regime of private property in land and in the +richest countries not five per cent, of fathers are able at their death +to leave anything substantial to their children, and probably a large +majority do not leave enough to bury them! Some few children are left by +their fathers richer than it is good for them to be, but the vast +majority not only are left nothing by their fathers, but by the system +that makes land private property are deprived of the bounty of their +Heavenly Father; are compelled to sue others for permission to live and +to work, and to toil all their lives for a pittance that often does not +enable them to escape starvation and pauperism. + +What your Holiness is actually, though of course inadvertently, urging, +is that earthly fathers should assume the functions of the Heavenly +Father. It is not the business of one generation to provide the +succeeding generation with "all that is needful to enable them honorably +to keep themselves from want and misery." That is God's business. We no +more create our children than we create our fathers. It is God who is +the Creator of each succeeding generation as fully as of the one that +preceded it. And, to recall your own words (7), "Nature \[God\] +therefore owes to man a storehouse that shall never fail, the daily +supply of his daily wants. And this he finds only in the inexhaustible +fertility of the earth." What you are now assuming is, that it is the +duty of men to provide for the wants of *their* children by +appropriating this storehouse and depriving other men's children of the +unfailing supply that God has provided for all. + +The duty of the father to the child---the duty possible to all fathers! +Is it not so to conduct himself, so to nurture and teach it, that it +shall come to manhood with a sound body, well developed mind, habits of +virtue, piety and industry, and in a state of society that shall give it +and all others free access to the bounty of God, the providence of the +All-Father? + +In doing this the father would be doing more to secure his children from +want and misery than is possible now to the richest of fathers---as much +more as the providence of God surpasses that of man. For the justice of +God laughs at the efforts of men to circumvent it, and the subtle law +that binds humanity together poisons the rich in the sufferings of the +poor. Even the few who are able in the general struggle to leave their +children wealth that they fondly think will keep them from want and +misery in the uncertainties of this mortal life---do they succeed % Does +experience show that it is a benefit to a child to place him above his +fellows and enable him to think God's law of labor is not for him? Is +not such wealth of truer a curse than a blessing, and does not its +expectation often destroy filial love and bring dissensions and heart +burnings into families? And how far and how long are even the richest +and strongest able to exempt their children from the common lot? Nothing +is more certain than that the blood of the masters of the world flows +to-day in lazzaroni and that the descendants of kings and princes tenant +slums and workhouses. + +But in the state of society we strive for, where the monopoly and waste +of God's bounty would be done away with and the fruits of labor would go +to the laborer, it would be within the ability of all to make more than +a comfortable living with reasonable labor. And for those who might be +crippled or incapacitated, or deprived of their natural protectors and +bread winners, the most ample provision could be made out of that great +and increasing fund with which God in his law of rent has provided +society---not as a matter of niggardly and degrading alms, but as a +matter of right, as the assurance which in a Christian state society +owes to all its members. + +Thus it is that the duty of the father, the obligation to the child, +instead of giving any support to private property in land, utterly +condemns it, urging us by the most powerful considerations to abolish it +in the simple and efficacious way of the single tax. + +This duty of the father, this obligation to children, is not confined to +those who have actually children of their own, but rests on all of us +who have come to the powers and responsibilities of manhood. + +For did not Christ set a little child in the midst of the disciples, +saying to them that the angels of such little ones always behold the +face of His father; saying to them that it were better for a man to hang +a millstone about his neck and plunge into the uttermost depths of the +sea than to injure such a little one? + +And what to-day is the result of private property in land in the richest +of so called Christian countries? Is it not that young people fear to +marry; that married people fear to have children; that children are +driven out of life from sheer want of proper nourishment and care, or +compelled to toil when they ought to be at school or at play; that great +numbers of those who attain maturity enter it with under-nourished +bodies, overstrained nerves, undeveloped minds---under conditions that +foredoom them, not merely to suffering, but to crime; that fit them in +advance for the prison and the brothel? + +If your Holiness will consider these things we are confident that +instead of defending private property in land you will condemn it with +anathema! + +7\. *That the private ownership of land stimulates industry, increases +wealth, and attaches men to the soil and to their country. (51.)* + +The idea, as expressed by Arthur Young, that "the magic of property +turns barren sands to gold" springs from the confusion of ownership with +possession, of which I have before spoken, that attributes to private +property in land what is due to security of the products of labor. It is +needless for me again to point out that the change we propose, the +taxation for public uses of land values, or economic rent, and the +abolition of other taxes, would give to the user of land far greater +security for the fruits of his labor than the present system and far +greater permanence of possession. Nor is it necessary further to show +how it would give homes to those who are now homeless and bind men to +their country. For under it every one who wanted a piece of land for a +home or for productive use could get it without purchase price and hold +it even without tax, since the tax we propose would not fall on all +land, nor even on all land in use, but only on land better than 'the +poorest land in use, and is in reality not a tax at all, but merely a +return to the state for the use of a valuable privilege. And even those +who from circumstances or occupation did not wish to make permanent use +of land would still have an equal interest with all others in the land +of their country and in the general prosperity. + +But I should like your Holiness to consider how utterly unnatural is the +condition of the masses in the richest and most progressive of Christian +countries; how large bodies of them live in habitations in which a rich +man would not ask his dog to dwell; how the great majority have no homes +from which they are not liable on the slightest misfortune to be +evicted; how numbers have no homes at all, but must seek what shelter +chance or charity offers. I should like to ask your Holiness to consider +how the great majority of men in such countries have no interest +whatever in what they are taught to call *their* native land, for which +they are told that on occasions it is their duty to fight or to die. +What right, for instance, have the majority of your countrymen in the +land of their birth? Can they live in Italy outside of a prison or a +poorhouse except as they buy the privilege from some of the exclusive +owners of Italy? Cannot an English man, an American, an Arab or a +Japanese do as much? May not what was said centuries ago by Tiberius +Gracchus be said to-day: "*Men of Rome! you are called the lords of the +world, yet have no right to a square foot of its soil! The wild leasts +have their dens, but the soldiers of Italy have only water and air!*" +What is true of Italy is true of the civilized world---is becoming +increasingly true. It is the inevitable effect as civilization +progresses of private property in land. + +8\. *That the right to possess private property in land is from Nature, +not from, man; that the state has no right to abolish it, and that to +take the value of land ownership in taxation would be unjust and cruel +to the private owner. (51).* + +This, like much else that your Holiness says, is masked in the use of +the indefinite terms private property and private owner---a want of +precision in the use of words that has doubtless aided in the confusion +of your own thought. But the context leaves no doubt that by private +property you mean private property in land, and by private owner, the private owner of land. -The contention, thus made, that private property in land is -from nature, not from man, has no other basis than the -confounding of ownership with possession and the ascription -to property in land of what belongs to its contradictory, -property in the proceeds of labor. You do not attempt to -show for it any other basis, nor has any one else ever -attempted to do so. That private property in the products of -labor is from nature is clear, for nature gives such things -to labor and to labor alone. Of every article of this kind, -we know that it came into being as nature's response to the -exertion of an individual man or of individual men---given -by nature directly and exclusively to him or to them. Thus -there inheres in such things a right of private property, -which originates from and goes back to the source of -ownership, the maker of the thing. This right is anterior to -the state and superior to its enactments, so that, as we -hold, it is a violation of natural right and an injustice to -the private owner for the state to tax the processes and -products of labor. They do not belong to Caesar. They are -things that God, of whom nature is but an expression, gives -to those who apply for them in the way He has appointed---by -labor. +The contention, thus made, that private property in land is from nature, +not from man, has no other basis than the confounding of ownership with +possession and the ascription to property in land of what belongs to its +contradictory, property in the proceeds of labor. You do not attempt to +show for it any other basis, nor has any one else ever attempted to do +so. That private property in the products of labor is from nature is +clear, for nature gives such things to labor and to labor alone. Of +every article of this kind, we know that it came into being as nature's +response to the exertion of an individual man or of individual +men---given by nature directly and exclusively to him or to them. Thus +there inheres in such things a right of private property, which +originates from and goes back to the source of ownership, the maker of +the thing. This right is anterior to the state and superior to its +enactments, so that, as we hold, it is a violation of natural right and +an injustice to the private owner for the state to tax the processes and +products of labor. They do not belong to Caesar. They are things that +God, of whom nature is but an expression, gives to those who apply for +them in the way He has appointed---by labor. + +But who will dare trace the individual ownership of land to any grant +from the Maker of land? What does nature give to such ownership? how +does she in any way recognize it? Will any one show from difference of +form or feature, of stature or complexion, from dissection of their +bodies or analysis of their powers and needs, that one man was intended +by nature to own land and another to live on it as his tenant! That +which derives its existence from man and passes away like him, which is +indeed but the evanescent expression of his labor, man may hold and +transfer as the exclusive property of the individual; but how can such +individual ownership attach to land, which existed before man was, and +which continues to exist while the generations of men come and go---the +unfailing storehouse that the Creator gives to man for "the daily +support of his daily wants?" + +Clearly, the private ownership of land is from the state, not from +nature. Thus, not merely can no objection be made on the score of morals +when it is proposed that the state shall abolish it altogether, bat +insomuch as it is a violation of natural right, its existence involving +a gross injustice on the part of the state, an "impious violation of the +benevolent intention of the Creator," it is a moral duty that the state +so abolish it. + +So far from there being anything unjust in taking the full value of land +ownership for the use of the community, the real injustice is in leaving +it in private hands---an injustice that amounts to robbery and murder. + +And when your Holiness shall see this I have no fear that you will +listen for one moment to the impudent plea that before the community can +take what God intended it to take, before men who have been disinherited +of their natural rights can be restored to them, the present owners of +land shall first be compensated. + +For not only will you see that the single tax will directly and largely +benefit small land owners, whose interests as laborers and capitalists +are much greater than their interests as land owners, and that though +the great landowners---or rather the propertied class in general among +whom the profits of land ownership are really divided through mortgages, +rent charges, etc.---would relatively lose, they too would be absolute +gainers in the increased prosperity and improved morals; but more +quickly, more strongly, more peremptorily than from any calculation of +gains or losses would your duty as a man, your faith as a Christian, +forbid you to listen for one moment to any such paltering with right and +wrong. -But who will dare trace the individual ownership of land to -any grant from the Maker of land? What does nature give to -such ownership? how does she in any way recognize it? Will -any one show from difference of form or feature, of stature -or complexion, from dissection of their bodies or analysis -of their powers and needs, that one man was intended by -nature to own land and another to live on it as his tenant! -That which derives its existence from man and passes away -like him, which is indeed but the evanescent expression of -his labor, man may hold and transfer as the exclusive -property of the individual; but how can such individual -ownership attach to land, which existed before man was, and -which continues to exist while the generations of men come -and go---the unfailing storehouse that the Creator gives to -man for "the daily support of his daily wants?" - -Clearly, the private ownership of land is from the state, -not from nature. Thus, not merely can no objection be made -on the score of morals when it is proposed that the state -shall abolish it altogether, bat insomuch as it is a -violation of natural right, its existence involving a gross -injustice on the part of the state, an "impious violation of -the benevolent intention of the Creator," it is a moral duty -that the state so abolish it. - -So far from there being anything unjust in taking the full -value of land ownership for the use of the community, the -real injustice is in leaving it in private hands---an -injustice that amounts to robbery and murder. - -And when your Holiness shall see this I have no fear that -you will listen for one moment to the impudent plea that -before the community can take what God intended it to take, -before men who have been disinherited of their natural -rights can be restored to them, the present owners of land -shall first be compensated. - -For not only will you see that the single tax will directly -and largely benefit small land owners, whose interests as -laborers and capitalists are much greater than their -interests as land owners, and that though the great -landowners---or rather the propertied class in general among -whom the profits of land ownership are really divided -through mortgages, rent charges, etc.---would relatively -lose, they too would be absolute gainers in the increased -prosperity and improved morals; but more quickly, more -strongly, more peremptorily than from any calculation of -gains or losses would your duty as a man, your faith as a -Christian, forbid you to listen for one moment to any such -paltering with right and wrong. - -Where me state takes some land for public uses it is only -just that those whose land is taken should be compensated, -otherwise some land owners would be treated more harshly -than others. But where, by a measure affecting all alike, -rent is appropriated for the benefit of all, there can be no -claim to compensation. Compensation in such case would be a -continuance of the same injustice in another form---the -giving to land owners in the shape of interest of what they -before got as rent. Your Holiness knows that justice and -injustice are not thus to be juggled with, and when you -fully realize that land is really the storehouse that God -owes to all His children, you will no more listen to any -demand for compensation for restoring it to them than Moses -would have listened to a demand that Pharaoh should be -compensated before letting the children of Israel go. - -Compensated for what? For giving up what has been unjustly -taken? The demand of land owners for compensation is not -that. We do not seek to spoil the Egyptians. We do not ask -that what has been unjustly taken from laborers shall be -restored. We are willing that bygones should be bygones and -to leave dead wrongs to bury their dead. We propose to let -those who by the past appropriation of land value have taken -the fruits of labor to retain what they have thus got. We -merely propose that for the future such robbery of labor -shall cease---that for the future, not for the past, -landholders shall pay to the community the rent that to the -community is justly due. +Where me state takes some land for public uses it is only just that +those whose land is taken should be compensated, otherwise some land +owners would be treated more harshly than others. But where, by a +measure affecting all alike, rent is appropriated for the benefit of +all, there can be no claim to compensation. Compensation in such case +would be a continuance of the same injustice in another form---the +giving to land owners in the shape of interest of what they before got +as rent. Your Holiness knows that justice and injustice are not thus to +be juggled with, and when you fully realize that land is really the +storehouse that God owes to all His children, you will no more listen to +any demand for compensation for restoring it to them than Moses would +have listened to a demand that Pharaoh should be compensated before +letting the children of Israel go. + +Compensated for what? For giving up what has been unjustly taken? The +demand of land owners for compensation is not that. We do not seek to +spoil the Egyptians. We do not ask that what has been unjustly taken +from laborers shall be restored. We are willing that bygones should be +bygones and to leave dead wrongs to bury their dead. We propose to let +those who by the past appropriation of land value have taken the fruits +of labor to retain what they have thus got. We merely propose that for +the future such robbery of labor shall cease---that for the future, not +for the past, landholders shall pay to the community the rent that to +the community is justly due. # III -I have said enough to show your Holiness the injustice into -which you fall in classing us, who in seeking virtually to -abolish private property in land seek more fully to secure -the true rights of property, with those whom you speak of as -socialists, who wish to make all property common. But you -also do injustice to the socialists. - -There are many, it is true, who feeling bitterly the -monstrous wrongs of the present distribution of wealth are -animated only by a blind hatred of the rich and a fierce -desire to destroy existing social adjustments. This class is -indeed only less dangerous than those who proclaim that no -social improvement is needed or is possible. But it is not -fair to confound with them those who, however mistakenly, -propose definite schemes of remedy. - -The socialists, as I understand them, and as the term has -come to apply to anything like a definite theory and not to -be vaguely and improperly used to include all who desire -social improvement, do not, as you imply, seek the abolition -of all private property. Those who do this are properly -called communists. What the socialists seek is the state -assumption of capital (in which they vaguely and erroneously -include land), or more properly speaking, of large capitals, -and state management and direction of at least the larger -operations of industry. In this way they hope to abolish -interest, which they regard as a wrong and an evil; to do -away with the gains of exchangers, speculators, contractors -and middlemen, which they regard as waste; to do away with -the wage system and secure general co-operation j and to -prevent competition, which they deem the fundamental cause -of the impoverishment of labor. The more moderate of them, -without going so far, go in the same direction, and seek -some remedy or palliation of the worst forms of poverty by -government regulation. The essential character of socialism -is that it looks to the extension of the functions of the -state for the remedy of social evils; that it would -substitute regulation and direction for competition; and -intelligent control by organized society for the free play -of individual desire and effort. - -Though not usually classed as socialists, both the trades -unionists and the protectionists have the same essential -character. The trades unionists seek the increase of wages, -the reduction of working hours and the general improvement -in the condition of wage-workers, by organizing them into -guilds or associations which shall fix the rates at which -they will sell their labor; shall deal as one body with -employers in case of dispute; shall use on occasion their -necessary weapon, the strike; and shall accumulate funds for -such purposes and for the purpose of assisting members when -on a strike, or (sometimes) when out of employment. The -protectionists seek by governmental prohibitions or taxes on -imports to regulate the industry and control the exchanges -of each country, so, as they imagine, to diversify home -industries and prevent the competition of people of other -countries. - -At the opposite extreme are the anarchists, a term which, -though frequently applied to mere violent destructionists, -refers also to those who, seeing the many evils of too much -government, regard government in itself as evil, and believe -that in the absence of coercive power the mutual interests -of men would secure voluntarily what co-operation is needed. - -Differing from all these are those for whom 1 would speak. -Believing that the rights of true property are sacred, we -would regard forcible communism as robbery that would bring -destruction. But we would not be disposed to deny that -voluntary communism might be the highest possible state of -which men can conceive. Nor do we say that it cannot be -possible for mankind to attain it, since among the early -Christians and among the religious orders of the Catholic -church we have examples of communistic societies on a small -scale. St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Thomas Aquinas and Fra -Angelico, the illustrious orders of the Carmelites and -Franciscans, the Jesuits, whose heroism carried the cross -among the most savage tribes of American forests, the -societies that wherever your communion is known have deemed -no work of mercy too dangerous or too repellent---were or -are communists. Knowing these things we cannot take it on -ourselves to say that a social condition may not be possible -in which an all-embracing love shall have taken the place of -all other motives. But we see that communism is only -possible where there exists a general and intense religious -faith, and we see that such a state can be reached only -through a state of justice. For before a man can be a saint -he must first be an honest man. - -With both anarchists and socialists, we, who for want of a -better term have come to call ourselves single tax men, -fundamentally differ. We regard them as erring in opposite -directions---the one in ignoring the social nature of man, -the other in ignoring his individual nature. While we see -that man is primarily an individual, and that nothing but -evil has come or can come from the interference by the state -with things that belong to individual action, we also see -that he is a social being, or, as Aristotle called him, a -political animal, and that the state is requisite to social -advance, having an indispensable place in the natural order. -Looking ou the bodily organism as the analogue of the social -organism, and on the proper functions of the state as akin -to those that in the human organism are discharged by the -conscious intelligence, while the play of individual impulse -and interest performs functions akin to those discharged in -the bodily organism by the unconscious instincts and -involuntary motions, the anarchists seem to us like men who -would try to get along without heads and the socialists like -men who would try to rule the wonderfully complex and -delicate internal relations of their frames by conscious -will. - -The philosophical anarchists of whom I speak are few in -number, and of little practical importance. It is with -socialism in its various phases that we have to do battle. - -With the socialists we have some points of agreement, for we -recognize fully the social nature of man and believe that -all monopolies should be held and governed by the state. In -these, and in directions where the general health, -knowledge, comfort and convenience might be improved, we, -too, would extend the functions of the state. - -But it seems to us the vice of socialism in all its degrees -is its want of radicalism, of going to the root. It takes -its theories from those who have sought to justify the -impoverishment of the masses, and its advocates generally -teach the preposterous and degrading doctrine that slavery -was the first condition of labor. It assumes that the -tendency of wages to a minimum is the natural law, and seeks -to abolish wages; it assumes that the natural result of -competition is to grind down workers, and seeks to abolish -competition by restrictions, prohibitions and extensions of -governing power. Thus mistaking effects for causes, and -childishly blaming the stone for hitting it, it wastes -strength in striving for remedies that when not worse are -futile. Associated though it is in many places with -democratic aspiration, yet its essence is the same delusion -to which the Children of Israel yielded when against the -protest of their prophet they insisted on a king; the -delusion that has everywhere corrupted democracies and -enthroned tyrants---that power over the people can be used -for the benefit of the people; that there may be devised -machinery that through human agencies will secure for the -management of individual affairs more wisdom and more virtue -than the people themselves possess. - -This superficiality and this tendency may be seen in all the -phases of socialism. - -Take, for instance, protectionism. What support it has, -beyond the mere selfish desire of sellers to compel buyers -to pay them more than their goods are worth, springs from -such superficial ideas as that production, not consumption, -is the end of effort; that money is more valuable than -money's worth, and to sell more profitable than to buy; and -above all from a desire to limit competition, springing from -an unanalyzing recognition of the phenomena that necessarily -follow when men who have the need to labor are deprived by -monopoly of access to the natural and indispensable element -of all labor. Its methods involve the idea that governments -can more wisely direct the expenditure of labor and the -investment of capital than can laborers and capitalists, and -that the men who control governments will use this power for -the general good and not in their own interests. They tend -to multiply officials, restrict liberty, invent crimes. They -promote perjury, fraud and corruption. And they would, were -the theory carried to its logical conclusion, destroy +I have said enough to show your Holiness the injustice into which you +fall in classing us, who in seeking virtually to abolish private +property in land seek more fully to secure the true rights of property, +with those whom you speak of as socialists, who wish to make all +property common. But you also do injustice to the socialists. + +There are many, it is true, who feeling bitterly the monstrous wrongs of +the present distribution of wealth are animated only by a blind hatred +of the rich and a fierce desire to destroy existing social adjustments. +This class is indeed only less dangerous than those who proclaim that no +social improvement is needed or is possible. But it is not fair to +confound with them those who, however mistakenly, propose definite +schemes of remedy. + +The socialists, as I understand them, and as the term has come to apply +to anything like a definite theory and not to be vaguely and improperly +used to include all who desire social improvement, do not, as you imply, +seek the abolition of all private property. Those who do this are +properly called communists. What the socialists seek is the state +assumption of capital (in which they vaguely and erroneously include +land), or more properly speaking, of large capitals, and state +management and direction of at least the larger operations of industry. +In this way they hope to abolish interest, which they regard as a wrong +and an evil; to do away with the gains of exchangers, speculators, +contractors and middlemen, which they regard as waste; to do away with +the wage system and secure general co-operation j and to prevent +competition, which they deem the fundamental cause of the impoverishment +of labor. The more moderate of them, without going so far, go in the +same direction, and seek some remedy or palliation of the worst forms of +poverty by government regulation. The essential character of socialism +is that it looks to the extension of the functions of the state for the +remedy of social evils; that it would substitute regulation and +direction for competition; and intelligent control by organized society +for the free play of individual desire and effort. + +Though not usually classed as socialists, both the trades unionists and +the protectionists have the same essential character. The trades +unionists seek the increase of wages, the reduction of working hours and +the general improvement in the condition of wage-workers, by organizing +them into guilds or associations which shall fix the rates at which they +will sell their labor; shall deal as one body with employers in case of +dispute; shall use on occasion their necessary weapon, the strike; and +shall accumulate funds for such purposes and for the purpose of +assisting members when on a strike, or (sometimes) when out of +employment. The protectionists seek by governmental prohibitions or +taxes on imports to regulate the industry and control the exchanges of +each country, so, as they imagine, to diversify home industries and +prevent the competition of people of other countries. + +At the opposite extreme are the anarchists, a term which, though +frequently applied to mere violent destructionists, refers also to those +who, seeing the many evils of too much government, regard government in +itself as evil, and believe that in the absence of coercive power the +mutual interests of men would secure voluntarily what co-operation is +needed. + +Differing from all these are those for whom 1 would speak. Believing +that the rights of true property are sacred, we would regard forcible +communism as robbery that would bring destruction. But we would not be +disposed to deny that voluntary communism might be the highest possible +state of which men can conceive. Nor do we say that it cannot be +possible for mankind to attain it, since among the early Christians and +among the religious orders of the Catholic church we have examples of +communistic societies on a small scale. St. Peter and St. Paul, +St. Thomas Aquinas and Fra Angelico, the illustrious orders of the +Carmelites and Franciscans, the Jesuits, whose heroism carried the cross +among the most savage tribes of American forests, the societies that +wherever your communion is known have deemed no work of mercy too +dangerous or too repellent---were or are communists. Knowing these +things we cannot take it on ourselves to say that a social condition may +not be possible in which an all-embracing love shall have taken the +place of all other motives. But we see that communism is only possible +where there exists a general and intense religious faith, and we see +that such a state can be reached only through a state of justice. For +before a man can be a saint he must first be an honest man. + +With both anarchists and socialists, we, who for want of a better term +have come to call ourselves single tax men, fundamentally differ. We +regard them as erring in opposite directions---the one in ignoring the +social nature of man, the other in ignoring his individual nature. While +we see that man is primarily an individual, and that nothing but evil +has come or can come from the interference by the state with things that +belong to individual action, we also see that he is a social being, or, +as Aristotle called him, a political animal, and that the state is +requisite to social advance, having an indispensable place in the +natural order. Looking ou the bodily organism as the analogue of the +social organism, and on the proper functions of the state as akin to +those that in the human organism are discharged by the conscious +intelligence, while the play of individual impulse and interest performs +functions akin to those discharged in the bodily organism by the +unconscious instincts and involuntary motions, the anarchists seem to us +like men who would try to get along without heads and the socialists +like men who would try to rule the wonderfully complex and delicate +internal relations of their frames by conscious will. + +The philosophical anarchists of whom I speak are few in number, and of +little practical importance. It is with socialism in its various phases +that we have to do battle. + +With the socialists we have some points of agreement, for we recognize +fully the social nature of man and believe that all monopolies should be +held and governed by the state. In these, and in directions where the +general health, knowledge, comfort and convenience might be improved, +we, too, would extend the functions of the state. + +But it seems to us the vice of socialism in all its degrees is its want +of radicalism, of going to the root. It takes its theories from those +who have sought to justify the impoverishment of the masses, and its +advocates generally teach the preposterous and degrading doctrine that +slavery was the first condition of labor. It assumes that the tendency +of wages to a minimum is the natural law, and seeks to abolish wages; it +assumes that the natural result of competition is to grind down workers, +and seeks to abolish competition by restrictions, prohibitions and +extensions of governing power. Thus mistaking effects for causes, and +childishly blaming the stone for hitting it, it wastes strength in +striving for remedies that when not worse are futile. Associated though +it is in many places with democratic aspiration, yet its essence is the +same delusion to which the Children of Israel yielded when against the +protest of their prophet they insisted on a king; the delusion that has +everywhere corrupted democracies and enthroned tyrants---that power over +the people can be used for the benefit of the people; that there may be +devised machinery that through human agencies will secure for the +management of individual affairs more wisdom and more virtue than the +people themselves possess. + +This superficiality and this tendency may be seen in all the phases of +socialism. + +Take, for instance, protectionism. What support it has, beyond the mere +selfish desire of sellers to compel buyers to pay them more than their +goods are worth, springs from such superficial ideas as that production, +not consumption, is the end of effort; that money is more valuable than +money's worth, and to sell more profitable than to buy; and above all +from a desire to limit competition, springing from an unanalyzing +recognition of the phenomena that necessarily follow when men who have +the need to labor are deprived by monopoly of access to the natural and +indispensable element of all labor. Its methods involve the idea that +governments can more wisely direct the expenditure of labor and the +investment of capital than can laborers and capitalists, and that the +men who control governments will use this power for the general good and +not in their own interests. They tend to multiply officials, restrict +liberty, invent crimes. They promote perjury, fraud and corruption. And +they would, were the theory carried to its logical conclusion, destroy civilization and reduce mankind to savagery. -Take trades unionism. While within narrow lines trades -unionism promotes the idea of the mutuality of interests, -and often helps to raise courage and further political -education, and while it has enabled limited bodies of -workingmen to improve somewhat their condition, and gain, as -it were, breathing space, yet it takes no note of the -general causes that determine the conditions of labor, and -strives for the elevation of only a small part of the great -body by means that cannot help the rest. Aiming at the -restriction of competition---the limitation of the right to -labor, its methods are like those of an army, which even in -a righteous cause are subversive of liberty and liable to -abuse, while its weapon, the strike, is destructive in its -nature, both to combatants and non-combatants, being a form -of passive war. To apply the principle of trades unions to -all industry, as some dream of doing, would be to enthrall -men in a caste system. - -Or take even such moderate measures as the limitation of -working hours and of the labor of women and children. They -are superficial in looking no further than to the eagerness -of men and women and little children to work unduly, and in -proposing forcibly to restrain overwork while utterly -ignoring its cause, the sting of poverty that forces human -beings to it. And the methods by which these restraints must -be enforced, multiply officials, interfere with personal -liberty, tend to corruption, and are liable to abuse. - -As for thorough going socialism, which is the more to be -honoured as having the courage of its convictions, it would -carry these vices to full expression. Jumping to conclusions -without effort to discover causes, it fails to see that -oppression does not come from the nature of capital, but -from the wrong that robs labor of capital by divorcing it -from land, and that creates a fictitious capital that is -really capitalized monopoly. It fails to see that it would -be impossible for capital to oppress labor were labor free -to the natural material of production; that the wage system -in itself springs from mutual convenience, being a form of -co-operation in which one of the parties prefers a certain -to a contingent result; and that what it calls the "iron law -of wages" is not the natural law of wages, but only the law -of wages in that unnatural condition in which men are made -helpless by being deprived of the materials for life and -work. It fails to see that what it mistakes for the evils of -competition are really the evils of restricted -competition---are due to a one sided competition to which -men are forced when deprived of land. While its methods, the -organization of men into industrial armies, the direction -and control of all production and exchange by governmental -or semi-governmental bureaus, would, if carried to full -expression, mean Egyptian despotism. - -We differ from the socialists in our diagnosis of the evil -and we differ from them as to remedies. We have no fear of -capital, regarding it as the natural handmaiden of labor; we -look on interest in itself as natural and just; we would set -no limit to accumulation, nor impose on the rich any burden -that is not equally placed on the poor; we see no evil in -competition, but deem unrestricted competition to be as -necessary to the health of the industrial and social -organism as the free circulation of the blood is to the -health of the bodily organism---to be the agency whereby the -fullest co-operation is to be secured. We would simply take -for the community what belongs to the community, the value -that attaches to land by the growth of the community; leave -sacredly to the individual all that belongs to the -individual; and, treating necessary monopolies as functions -of the state, abolish all restrictions and prohibitions save -those required for public health, safety, morals and -convenience. - -But the fundamental difference---the difference I ask your -Holiness specially to note, is in this: socialism in all its -phases looks on the evils of our civilization as springing -from the inadequacy or disharmony of natural relations, -which must be artificially organized or improved. In its -idea there devolves on the state the necessity of -intelligently organizing the industrial relations of men; -the construction, as it were, of a great machine whose -complicated parts shall properly work together under the -direction of human intelligence. This is the reason why -socialism tends towards atheism. Failing to see the order -and symmetry of natural law, it fails to recognize God. - -On the other hand, we who call ourselves single tax men (a -name which expresses merely our practical propositions) see -in the social and industrial relations of men not a machine -which requires construction, but an organism which needs -only to be suffered to grow. We see in the natural social -and industrial laws such harmony as we see in the -adjustments of the human body, and that as far transcends -the power of man's intelligence to order and direct as it is -beyond man's intelligence to order and direct the vital -movements of his frame. We see in these social and -industrial laws so close a relation to the moral law as must -spring from the same Authorship, and that proves the moral -law to be the sure guide of man where his intelligence would -wander and go astray. Thus, to us, all that is needed to -remedy the evils of our time is to do justice and give -freedom. This is the reason why our beliefs tend towards, -nay are indeed the only beliefs consistent with a firm and -reverent faith in God, and with the recognition of His law -as the supreme law which men must follow if they would -secure prosperity and avoid destruction. This is the reason -why to us political economy only serves to show the depth of -wisdom in the simple truths which common people heard gladly -from the lips of Him of whom it was said with wonder, "Is -not this the Carpenter of Nazareth?" - -And it is because that in what we propose---the securing to -all men of equal natural opportunities for the exercise of -their powers and the removal of all legal restriction on the -legitimate exercise of those powers---we see the -conformation of human law to the moral law, that we hold -with confidence not merely that this is the sufficient -remedy for all the evils you so strikingly portray, but that -it is the only possible remedy. - -Nor is there any other. The organization of man is such, his -relations to the world in which he is placed are such---that -is to say, the immutable laws of God are such, that it is -beyond the power of human ingenuity to devise any way by -which the evils born of the injustice that robs men of their -birthright can be removed otherwise than by doing justice, -by opening to all the bounty that God has provided for all. - -Since man can live only on land and from land, since land is -the reservoir of matter and force from which man's body -itself is taken, and on which he must draw for all that he -can produce, does it not irresistibly follow that to give -the land in ownership to some men and to deny to others all -right to it is to divide mankind into the rich and the poor, -the privileged and the helpless? Does it not follow that -those who have no rights to the use of land can live only by -selling their power to labor to those who own the land? Does -it not follow that what the socialists call "the iron law of -wages," what the political economists term "the tendency of -wages to a minimum," must take from the landless -masses---the mere laborers, who of themselves have no power -to use their labor---all the benefits of any possible -advance or improvement that does not alter this unjust -division of land. For having no power to employ themselves, -they must, either as labor sellers or land renters, compete -with one another for permission to labor. This competition -with one another of men shut out from God's inexhaustible -storehouse has no limit but starvation, and must ultimately -force wages to their lowest point, the point at which life -can just be maintained and reproduction carried on. - -This is not to say that all wages must fall to this point, -but that the wages of that necessarily largest stratum of -laborers who have only ordinary knowledge, skill and -aptitude must so fall. The wages of special classes, who are -fenced off from the pressure of competition by peculiar -knowledge, skill or other causes, may remain above that -ordinary level. Thus, where the ability to read and write is -rare its possession enables a man to obtain higher wages -than the ordinary laborer. But as the diffusion of education -makes the ability to read and write general this advantage -is lost. So when a vocation requires special training or -skill, or is made difficult of access by artificial -restrictions, the checking of competition tends to keep -wages in it at a higher level. But as the progress of -invention dispenses with peculiar skill, or artificial -restrictions are broken down, these higher wages sink to the -ordinary level. And so, it is only so long as they are -special that such qualities as industry, prudence and thrift -can enable the ordinary laborer to maintain a condition -above that which gives a mere living. Where they become -general, the law of competition must reduce the earnings or -savings of such qualities to the general level---which, land -being monopolized and labor helpless, can be only that at -which the next lowest point is the cessation of life. - -Or, to state the same thing in another way: Land being -necessary to life and labor, its owners will be able, in -return for permission to use it, to obtain from mere -laborers all that labor can produce, save enough to enable -such of them to maintain life as are wanted by the land -owners and their dependents. - -Thus, where private property in land has divided society -into a land owning class and a landless class, there is no -possible invention or improvement, whether it be industrial, -social or moral, which, so long as it does not affect the -ownership of land, can prevent poverty or relieve the -general conditions of mere laborers. For whether the effect -of any invention or improvement be to increase what labor -can produce or to decrease what is required to support the -laborer, it can, so soon as it becomes general, result only -in increasing the income of the owners of land, without at -all benefiting the mere laborers. In no event can those -possessed of the mere ordinary power to labor, a power -utterly useless without the means necessary to labor, keep -more of their earnings than enough to enable them to live. - -How true this is we may see in the facts of to-day. In our -own time invention and discovery have enormously increased -the productive power of labor, and at the same time greatly -reduced the cost of many things necessary to the support of -the laborer. Have these improvements anywhere raised the -earnings of the mere laborer? Have not their benefits mainly -gone to the owners of land---enormously increased land +Take trades unionism. While within narrow lines trades unionism promotes +the idea of the mutuality of interests, and often helps to raise courage +and further political education, and while it has enabled limited bodies +of workingmen to improve somewhat their condition, and gain, as it were, +breathing space, yet it takes no note of the general causes that +determine the conditions of labor, and strives for the elevation of only +a small part of the great body by means that cannot help the rest. +Aiming at the restriction of competition---the limitation of the right +to labor, its methods are like those of an army, which even in a +righteous cause are subversive of liberty and liable to abuse, while its +weapon, the strike, is destructive in its nature, both to combatants and +non-combatants, being a form of passive war. To apply the principle of +trades unions to all industry, as some dream of doing, would be to +enthrall men in a caste system. + +Or take even such moderate measures as the limitation of working hours +and of the labor of women and children. They are superficial in looking +no further than to the eagerness of men and women and little children to +work unduly, and in proposing forcibly to restrain overwork while +utterly ignoring its cause, the sting of poverty that forces human +beings to it. And the methods by which these restraints must be +enforced, multiply officials, interfere with personal liberty, tend to +corruption, and are liable to abuse. + +As for thorough going socialism, which is the more to be honoured as +having the courage of its convictions, it would carry these vices to +full expression. Jumping to conclusions without effort to discover +causes, it fails to see that oppression does not come from the nature of +capital, but from the wrong that robs labor of capital by divorcing it +from land, and that creates a fictitious capital that is really +capitalized monopoly. It fails to see that it would be impossible for +capital to oppress labor were labor free to the natural material of +production; that the wage system in itself springs from mutual +convenience, being a form of co-operation in which one of the parties +prefers a certain to a contingent result; and that what it calls the +"iron law of wages" is not the natural law of wages, but only the law of +wages in that unnatural condition in which men are made helpless by +being deprived of the materials for life and work. It fails to see that +what it mistakes for the evils of competition are really the evils of +restricted competition---are due to a one sided competition to which men +are forced when deprived of land. While its methods, the organization of +men into industrial armies, the direction and control of all production +and exchange by governmental or semi-governmental bureaus, would, if +carried to full expression, mean Egyptian despotism. + +We differ from the socialists in our diagnosis of the evil and we differ +from them as to remedies. We have no fear of capital, regarding it as +the natural handmaiden of labor; we look on interest in itself as +natural and just; we would set no limit to accumulation, nor impose on +the rich any burden that is not equally placed on the poor; we see no +evil in competition, but deem unrestricted competition to be as +necessary to the health of the industrial and social organism as the +free circulation of the blood is to the health of the bodily +organism---to be the agency whereby the fullest co-operation is to be +secured. We would simply take for the community what belongs to the +community, the value that attaches to land by the growth of the +community; leave sacredly to the individual all that belongs to the +individual; and, treating necessary monopolies as functions of the +state, abolish all restrictions and prohibitions save those required for +public health, safety, morals and convenience. + +But the fundamental difference---the difference I ask your Holiness +specially to note, is in this: socialism in all its phases looks on the +evils of our civilization as springing from the inadequacy or disharmony +of natural relations, which must be artificially organized or improved. +In its idea there devolves on the state the necessity of intelligently +organizing the industrial relations of men; the construction, as it +were, of a great machine whose complicated parts shall properly work +together under the direction of human intelligence. This is the reason +why socialism tends towards atheism. Failing to see the order and +symmetry of natural law, it fails to recognize God. + +On the other hand, we who call ourselves single tax men (a name which +expresses merely our practical propositions) see in the social and +industrial relations of men not a machine which requires construction, +but an organism which needs only to be suffered to grow. We see in the +natural social and industrial laws such harmony as we see in the +adjustments of the human body, and that as far transcends the power of +man's intelligence to order and direct as it is beyond man's +intelligence to order and direct the vital movements of his frame. We +see in these social and industrial laws so close a relation to the moral +law as must spring from the same Authorship, and that proves the moral +law to be the sure guide of man where his intelligence would wander and +go astray. Thus, to us, all that is needed to remedy the evils of our +time is to do justice and give freedom. This is the reason why our +beliefs tend towards, nay are indeed the only beliefs consistent with a +firm and reverent faith in God, and with the recognition of His law as +the supreme law which men must follow if they would secure prosperity +and avoid destruction. This is the reason why to us political economy +only serves to show the depth of wisdom in the simple truths which +common people heard gladly from the lips of Him of whom it was said with +wonder, "Is not this the Carpenter of Nazareth?" + +And it is because that in what we propose---the securing to all men of +equal natural opportunities for the exercise of their powers and the +removal of all legal restriction on the legitimate exercise of those +powers---we see the conformation of human law to the moral law, that we +hold with confidence not merely that this is the sufficient remedy for +all the evils you so strikingly portray, but that it is the only +possible remedy. + +Nor is there any other. The organization of man is such, his relations +to the world in which he is placed are such---that is to say, the +immutable laws of God are such, that it is beyond the power of human +ingenuity to devise any way by which the evils born of the injustice +that robs men of their birthright can be removed otherwise than by doing +justice, by opening to all the bounty that God has provided for all. + +Since man can live only on land and from land, since land is the +reservoir of matter and force from which man's body itself is taken, and +on which he must draw for all that he can produce, does it not +irresistibly follow that to give the land in ownership to some men and +to deny to others all right to it is to divide mankind into the rich and +the poor, the privileged and the helpless? Does it not follow that those +who have no rights to the use of land can live only by selling their +power to labor to those who own the land? Does it not follow that what +the socialists call "the iron law of wages," what the political +economists term "the tendency of wages to a minimum," must take from the +landless masses---the mere laborers, who of themselves have no power to +use their labor---all the benefits of any possible advance or +improvement that does not alter this unjust division of land. For having +no power to employ themselves, they must, either as labor sellers or +land renters, compete with one another for permission to labor. This +competition with one another of men shut out from God's inexhaustible +storehouse has no limit but starvation, and must ultimately force wages +to their lowest point, the point at which life can just be maintained +and reproduction carried on. + +This is not to say that all wages must fall to this point, but that the +wages of that necessarily largest stratum of laborers who have only +ordinary knowledge, skill and aptitude must so fall. The wages of +special classes, who are fenced off from the pressure of competition by +peculiar knowledge, skill or other causes, may remain above that +ordinary level. Thus, where the ability to read and write is rare its +possession enables a man to obtain higher wages than the ordinary +laborer. But as the diffusion of education makes the ability to read and +write general this advantage is lost. So when a vocation requires +special training or skill, or is made difficult of access by artificial +restrictions, the checking of competition tends to keep wages in it at a +higher level. But as the progress of invention dispenses with peculiar +skill, or artificial restrictions are broken down, these higher wages +sink to the ordinary level. And so, it is only so long as they are +special that such qualities as industry, prudence and thrift can enable +the ordinary laborer to maintain a condition above that which gives a +mere living. Where they become general, the law of competition must +reduce the earnings or savings of such qualities to the general +level---which, land being monopolized and labor helpless, can be only +that at which the next lowest point is the cessation of life. + +Or, to state the same thing in another way: Land being necessary to life +and labor, its owners will be able, in return for permission to use it, +to obtain from mere laborers all that labor can produce, save enough to +enable such of them to maintain life as are wanted by the land owners +and their dependents. + +Thus, where private property in land has divided society into a land +owning class and a landless class, there is no possible invention or +improvement, whether it be industrial, social or moral, which, so long +as it does not affect the ownership of land, can prevent poverty or +relieve the general conditions of mere laborers. For whether the effect +of any invention or improvement be to increase what labor can produce or +to decrease what is required to support the laborer, it can, so soon as +it becomes general, result only in increasing the income of the owners +of land, without at all benefiting the mere laborers. In no event can +those possessed of the mere ordinary power to labor, a power utterly +useless without the means necessary to labor, keep more of their +earnings than enough to enable them to live. + +How true this is we may see in the facts of to-day. In our own time +invention and discovery have enormously increased the productive power +of labor, and at the same time greatly reduced the cost of many things +necessary to the support of the laborer. Have these improvements +anywhere raised the earnings of the mere laborer? Have not their +benefits mainly gone to the owners of land---enormously increased land values? -I say mainly, for some part of the benefit has gone to the -cost of monstrous standing armies and warlike preparations; -to the payment of interest on great public debts; and r -largely disguised as interest on fictitious capital, to the -owners of monopolies other than that of land. But -improvements that would do away with these wastes would not -benefit labor; they would simply increase the profits of -land owners. Were standing armies and all their incidents -abolished, were all monopolies other than that of land done -away with, were governments to become models of economy, -were the profits of speculators, of middlemen, of all sorts -of exchangers saved, were every one to become so strictly -honest that no policemen, no courts, no prisons, no -precautions against dishonesty would be needed---the result -would not differ from that which has followed the increase -of productive power. - -Nay, would not these very blessings bring starvation to many -of those who now manage to live? Is it not true that if -there were proposed to-day, what all Christian men ought to -pray for, the complete disbandment of all the armies of -Europe, the greatest fears would be aroused for the -consequences of throwing on the labor market so many +I say mainly, for some part of the benefit has gone to the cost of +monstrous standing armies and warlike preparations; to the payment of +interest on great public debts; and r largely disguised as interest on +fictitious capital, to the owners of monopolies other than that of land. +But improvements that would do away with these wastes would not benefit +labor; they would simply increase the profits of land owners. Were +standing armies and all their incidents abolished, were all monopolies +other than that of land done away with, were governments to become +models of economy, were the profits of speculators, of middlemen, of all +sorts of exchangers saved, were every one to become so strictly honest +that no policemen, no courts, no prisons, no precautions against +dishonesty would be needed---the result would not differ from that which +has followed the increase of productive power. + +Nay, would not these very blessings bring starvation to many of those +who now manage to live? Is it not true that if there were proposed +to-day, what all Christian men ought to pray for, the complete +disbandment of all the armies of Europe, the greatest fears would be +aroused for the consequences of throwing on the labor market so many unemployed laborers? -The explanation of this and of similar paradoxes that in our -time perplex on every side may be easily seen. The effect of -all inventions and improvements that increase productive -power, that save waste and economize effort, is to lessen -the labor required for a given result, and thus to save -labor, so that we speak of them as labor saving' inventions -or improvements. Now, in a natural state of society where -the rights of all to the use of the earth are acknowledged, -labor saving improvements might go to the very utmost that -can be imagined without lessening the demand for men, since -in such natural conditions the demand for men lies in their -own enjoyment of life and the strong instincts that the -Creator has implanted in the human breast. But in that -unnatural state of society where the masses of men are -disinherited of all but the power to labor when opportunity -to labor is given them by others, there the demand for them -becomes simply the demand for their services by those who -hold this opportunity, and man himself becomes a commodity. -Hence, although the natural effect of labor saving -improvement is to increase wages, yet in the unnatural -condition which private ownership of the land begets, the -effect, even of such moral improvements as the disbandment -of armies and the saving of the labor that vice entails, is -by lessening the commercial demand, to lower wages and -reduce mere laborers to starvation or pauperism. If labor -saving inventions and improvements could be carried to the -very abolition of the necessity for labor, what would be the -result? Would it not be that land owners could then get all -the wealth that the land was capable of producing, and would -have no need at all for laborers, who must then either -starve or live as pensioners on the bounty of the land -owners? - -Thus, so long as private property in land continues---so -long as some men are treated as owners of the earth and -other men can live on it only by their sufferance---human -wisdom can devise no means by which the evils of our present -condition may be avoided. +The explanation of this and of similar paradoxes that in our time +perplex on every side may be easily seen. The effect of all inventions +and improvements that increase productive power, that save waste and +economize effort, is to lessen the labor required for a given result, +and thus to save labor, so that we speak of them as labor saving' +inventions or improvements. Now, in a natural state of society where the +rights of all to the use of the earth are acknowledged, labor saving +improvements might go to the very utmost that can be imagined without +lessening the demand for men, since in such natural conditions the +demand for men lies in their own enjoyment of life and the strong +instincts that the Creator has implanted in the human breast. But in +that unnatural state of society where the masses of men are disinherited +of all but the power to labor when opportunity to labor is given them by +others, there the demand for them becomes simply the demand for their +services by those who hold this opportunity, and man himself becomes a +commodity. Hence, although the natural effect of labor saving +improvement is to increase wages, yet in the unnatural condition which +private ownership of the land begets, the effect, even of such moral +improvements as the disbandment of armies and the saving of the labor +that vice entails, is by lessening the commercial demand, to lower wages +and reduce mere laborers to starvation or pauperism. If labor saving +inventions and improvements could be carried to the very abolition of +the necessity for labor, what would be the result? Would it not be that +land owners could then get all the wealth that the land was capable of +producing, and would have no need at all for laborers, who must then +either starve or live as pensioners on the bounty of the land owners? + +Thus, so long as private property in land continues---so long as some +men are treated as owners of the earth and other men can live on it only +by their sufferance---human wisdom can devise no means by which the +evils of our present condition may be avoided. Nor yet could the wisdom of God. -By the light of that right reason of which St. Thomas speaks -we may see that even He, the Almighty, so long as His laws -remain what they are, could do nothing to prevent poverty -and starvation while property in land continues. - -How could He? Should he infuse new vigor into the sunlight, -new virtue into the air, new fertility into the soil, would -not all this new bounty go to the owners of the land, and -work not benefit, but rather injury, to mere laborers? -Should He open the minds of men to the possibilities of new -substances, new adjustments, new powers, could this do any -more to relieve poverty than steam, electricity and all the -numberless discoveries and inventions of our time have done? -Or, if He were to send down from the heavens above or cause -to gush up from the subterranean depths, food, clothing, all -the things that satisfy man's material desires, to whom -under our laws would all these belong? So far from -benefiting man, would not this increase and extension of His -bounty prove but a curse, enabling the privileged class more -riotously to roll in wealth, and bringing the disinherited -class to more widespread starvation or pauperism? +By the light of that right reason of which St. Thomas speaks we may see +that even He, the Almighty, so long as His laws remain what they are, +could do nothing to prevent poverty and starvation while property in +land continues. + +How could He? Should he infuse new vigor into the sunlight, new virtue +into the air, new fertility into the soil, would not all this new bounty +go to the owners of the land, and work not benefit, but rather injury, +to mere laborers? Should He open the minds of men to the possibilities +of new substances, new adjustments, new powers, could this do any more +to relieve poverty than steam, electricity and all the numberless +discoveries and inventions of our time have done? Or, if He were to send +down from the heavens above or cause to gush up from the subterranean +depths, food, clothing, all the things that satisfy man's material +desires, to whom under our laws would all these belong? So far from +benefiting man, would not this increase and extension of His bounty +prove but a curse, enabling the privileged class more riotously to roll +in wealth, and bringing the disinherited class to more widespread +starvation or pauperism? # IV -Believing that the social question is at bottom a religious -question, we deem it of happy augury to the world that in -your Encyclical the most influential of all religious -teachers has directed attention to the condition of labor. - -But while we appreciate the many wholesome truths you utter, -while we feel, as all must feel, that you are animated by a -desire to help the suffering and oppressed, and to put an -end to any idea that the Church is divorced from the -aspiration for liberty and progress, yet it is painfully -obvious to us that one fatal assumption hides from you the -cause of the evils you see, and makes it impossible for you -to propose any adequate remedy. This assumption is, that -private property in land is of the same nature and has the -same sanctions as private property in things produced by -labor. In spite of its undeniable truths and its benevolent -spirit, your Encyclical shows you to be involved in such -difficulties as a physician called to examine one suffering -from disease of the stomach would meet should he begin with -a refusal to consider the stomach. - -Prevented by this assumption from seeing the true cause, the -only causes you find it possible to assign for the growth of -misery and wretchedness are the destruction of workingmen's -guilds in the last century, the repudiation in public -institutions and laws of the ancient religion, rapacious -usury, the custom of working by contract, and the +Believing that the social question is at bottom a religious question, we +deem it of happy augury to the world that in your Encyclical the most +influential of all religious teachers has directed attention to the +condition of labor. + +But while we appreciate the many wholesome truths you utter, while we +feel, as all must feel, that you are animated by a desire to help the +suffering and oppressed, and to put an end to any idea that the Church +is divorced from the aspiration for liberty and progress, yet it is +painfully obvious to us that one fatal assumption hides from you the +cause of the evils you see, and makes it impossible for you to propose +any adequate remedy. This assumption is, that private property in land +is of the same nature and has the same sanctions as private property in +things produced by labor. In spite of its undeniable truths and its +benevolent spirit, your Encyclical shows you to be involved in such +difficulties as a physician called to examine one suffering from disease +of the stomach would meet should he begin with a refusal to consider the +stomach. + +Prevented by this assumption from seeing the true cause, the only causes +you find it possible to assign for the growth of misery and wretchedness +are the destruction of workingmen's guilds in the last century, the +repudiation in public institutions and laws of the ancient religion, +rapacious usury, the custom of working by contract, and the concentration of trade. -Such diagnosis is manifestly inadequate to account for evils -that are alike felt in Catholic countries, in Protestant -countries, in countries that adhere to the Greek communion -and in countries where no religion is professed by the -state; that are alike felt in old countries and in new -countries; where industry is simple and where it is most -elaborate; and amid all varieties of industrial customs and -relations. - -But the real cause will be clear if you will consider that -since labor must find its workshop and reservoir in land, -the labor question is but another name for the land -question, and will re-examine your assumption that private -property in land is necessary and right. - -See how fully adequate is the cause I have pointed out. The -most important of all the material relations of man is his -relation to the planet he inhabits, and hence, the "impious -resistance to the benevolent intentions of his Creator," -which, as Bishop Nulty says, is involved in private property -in land, *must* produce evils wherever it exists. But by -virtue of the law, "unto whom much is given, from him much -is required," the very progress of civilization makes the -evils produced by private property in land more widespread -and intense. - -What is producing throughout the civilized world that -condition of things you rightly describe as in tolerable is -not this and that local error or minor mistake. It is -nothing less than the progress of civilization itself; -nothing less than the intellectual advance and the material -growth in which our century has been so pre-eminent, acting -in a state of society based on private property in land; -nothing less than the new gifts that in our time God has -been showering on man, but which are being turned into -scourges by man's "impious resistance to the benevolent -intention of his Creator." - -The discoveries of science, the gains of invention have -given to us in this wonderful century more than has been -given to men in any time before; and, in a degree so rapidly -accelerating as to suggest geometrical progression, are -placing in our hands new material powers. But with the -benefit comes the obligation. In a civilization beginning to -pulse with steam and electricity, where the sun paints -pictures and the phonograph stores speech, it will not do to -be merely as just as were our fathers. Intellectual advance -and material advance require corresponding moral advance. -Knowledge and power are neither good nor evil. They are not -ends but means---evolving forces that if not controlled in -orderly relations must take disorderly and destructive -forms. The deepening pain, the increasing perplexity, the -growing discontent for which, as you truly say, *some remedy -must be found and quickly found,* mean nothing less than -that forces of destruction swifter and more terrible than -those that have shattered every preceding civilization are -already menacing ours---that if it does not quickly rise to -a higher moral level; if it does not become in deed as in -word a Christian civilization, on the wall of its splendor -must flame the doom of Babylon: "Thou art weighed in the -balance and found wanting!" - -One false assumption prevents you from seeing the real cause -and true significance of the facts that have prompted your -Encyclical. And it fatally fetters you when you seek a -remedy. - -You state that you approach the subject with confidence, yet -in all that greater part of the Encyclical (19-67) devoted -to the remedy, while there is an abundance of moral -reflections and injunctions, excellent in themselves but -dead and meaningless as you apply them, the only definite -practical proposals for the improvement of the condition of -labor are: - -1. That the State should step in to prevent overwork, to - restrict the employment of women and children, to secure - in workshops conditions not unfavorable to health and - morals, and, at least where there is danger of - insufficient wages provoking strikes, to regulate wages +Such diagnosis is manifestly inadequate to account for evils that are +alike felt in Catholic countries, in Protestant countries, in countries +that adhere to the Greek communion and in countries where no religion is +professed by the state; that are alike felt in old countries and in new +countries; where industry is simple and where it is most elaborate; and +amid all varieties of industrial customs and relations. + +But the real cause will be clear if you will consider that since labor +must find its workshop and reservoir in land, the labor question is but +another name for the land question, and will re-examine your assumption +that private property in land is necessary and right. + +See how fully adequate is the cause I have pointed out. The most +important of all the material relations of man is his relation to the +planet he inhabits, and hence, the "impious resistance to the benevolent +intentions of his Creator," which, as Bishop Nulty says, is involved in +private property in land, *must* produce evils wherever it exists. But +by virtue of the law, "unto whom much is given, from him much is +required," the very progress of civilization makes the evils produced by +private property in land more widespread and intense. + +What is producing throughout the civilized world that condition of +things you rightly describe as in tolerable is not this and that local +error or minor mistake. It is nothing less than the progress of +civilization itself; nothing less than the intellectual advance and the +material growth in which our century has been so pre-eminent, acting in +a state of society based on private property in land; nothing less than +the new gifts that in our time God has been showering on man, but which +are being turned into scourges by man's "impious resistance to the +benevolent intention of his Creator." + +The discoveries of science, the gains of invention have given to us in +this wonderful century more than has been given to men in any time +before; and, in a degree so rapidly accelerating as to suggest +geometrical progression, are placing in our hands new material powers. +But with the benefit comes the obligation. In a civilization beginning +to pulse with steam and electricity, where the sun paints pictures and +the phonograph stores speech, it will not do to be merely as just as +were our fathers. Intellectual advance and material advance require +corresponding moral advance. Knowledge and power are neither good nor +evil. They are not ends but means---evolving forces that if not +controlled in orderly relations must take disorderly and destructive +forms. The deepening pain, the increasing perplexity, the growing +discontent for which, as you truly say, *some remedy must be found and +quickly found,* mean nothing less than that forces of destruction +swifter and more terrible than those that have shattered every preceding +civilization are already menacing ours---that if it does not quickly +rise to a higher moral level; if it does not become in deed as in word a +Christian civilization, on the wall of its splendor must flame the doom +of Babylon: "Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting!" + +One false assumption prevents you from seeing the real cause and true +significance of the facts that have prompted your Encyclical. And it +fatally fetters you when you seek a remedy. + +You state that you approach the subject with confidence, yet in all that +greater part of the Encyclical (19-67) devoted to the remedy, while +there is an abundance of moral reflections and injunctions, excellent in +themselves but dead and meaningless as you apply them, the only definite +practical proposals for the improvement of the condition of labor are: + +1. That the State should step in to prevent overwork, to restrict the + employment of women and children, to secure in workshops conditions + not unfavorable to health and morals, and, at least where there is + danger of insufficient wages provoking strikes, to regulate wages (39-40). -2. That it should encourage the acquisition of property (in - land) by workingmen (50-51). +2. That it should encourage the acquisition of property (in land) by + workingmen (50-51). 3. That workingmen's associations should be formed (52-67). -These remedies so far as they .go are socialistic, and -though the Encyclical is not without recognition of the -individual character of man and of the priority of the -individual and the family to the state, yet the whole -tendency and spirit of its remedial suggestions lean -unmistakably to socialism---extremely moderate socialism it -is true; socialism hampered and emasculated by a supreme -respect for private possessions; yet socialism still. But, -although you frequently use the ambiguous term "private -property" when the context shows that you have in mind -private property in land, the one thing clear on the surface -and becoming clearer still with examination is that you -insist that whatever else may be done, the private ownership -of land shall be left untouched. - -I have already referred generally to the defects that attach -to all socialistic remedies for the evil condition of labor, -but respect for your Holiness dictates that I should speak -specifically, even though briefly, of the remedies proposed -or suggested by you. - -Of these, the widest and strongest are that the state should -restrict the hours of labor, the employment of women and -children, the unsanitary conditions of workshops, etc. Yet -how little may in this way be accomplished. - -A strong, absolute ruler might hope by such regulations to -alleviate the conditions of chattel slaves. But the tendency -of our times is towards democracy, and democratic states are -necessarily weaker in paternalism, while in the industrial -slavery, growing out of private ownership of land, that -prevails in Christendom to-day, it is not the master who -forces the slave to labor, but the\* slave who urges the -master to let him labor. Thus the greatest difficulty in -enforcing such regulations comes from those whom they are -intended to benefit. It is not, for instance, the masters -who make it difficult to enforce restrictions on child labor -in factories, but the mothers, who, prompted by poverty, -misrepresent the ages of their children even to the masters, -and teach the children to misrepresent. - -But while in large factories and mines regulations as to -hours, ages, etc., though subject to evasion and offering -opportunities for extortion and corruption, may be to some -extent enforced, how can they have any effect in those far -wider branches of industry where the laborer works for -himself or for small employers? - -All such remedies are of the nature of the remedy for -overcrowding that is generally prescribed with them---the -restriction under penalty of the number who may occupy a -room and the demolition of unsanitary buildings. Since these -measures have no tendency to increase house accommodation or -to augment ability to pay for it, the overcrowding that is -forced back in some places goes on in other places and to a -worse degree. All such remedies begin at the wrong end. They -are like putting on brake and bit to hold in quietness -horses that are being lashed into frenzy; they are like -trying to stop a locomotive by holding its wheels instead of -shutting off steam; like attempting to cure smallpox by -driving back its pustules. Men do not overwork themselves -because they like it; it is not in the nature of the -mother's heart to send children to work when they ought to -be at play; it is not of choice that laborers will work in -dangerous and unsanitary conditions. These things, like -overcrowding, come from the sting of poverty. And so long as -the poverty of which they are the expression is left -untouched, restrictions such as you endorse can have only -partial and evanescent results. The cause remaining, -repression in one place can only bring out its effects in -other places, and the task you assign to the state is as -hopeless as to ask it to lower the level of the ocean by -bailing out the sea. - -Nor can the state cure poverty by regulating wages. It is as -much beyond the power of the state to regulate wages as it -is to regulate the rates of interest. Usury laws have been -tried again and again, but the only effect they have ever -had has been to increase what the poorer borrowers must pay, -and for the same reasons that all attempts to lower by -regulation the price of goods have always resulted merely in -increasing them. The general rate of wages is fixed by the -ease or difficulty with which labor can obtain access to -land, ranging from the full earnings of labor, where land is -free, to the least on which laborers can live and reproduce, -where land is fully monopolized. Thus, where it has been -comparatively easy for laborers to get land, as in the -United States and in Australasia, wages have been higher -than in Europe and it has been impossible to get European -laborers to work there for wages that they would gladly -accept at home; while as monopolization goes on under the -influence of private property in land, wages tend to fall, -and the social conditions of Europe to appear. Thus, under -the partial yet substantial recognition of common rights to -land, of which I have spoken, the many attempts of the -British parliaments to reduce wages by regulation failed -utterly. And so, when the institution of private property in -land had done its work in England, all attempts of -Parliament to raise wages proved unavailing. In the -beginning of this century it was even attempted to increase -the earnings of laborers by grants in aid of wages. But the -only result was to lower commensurately what wages employers -paid. - -The state could only maintain wages above the tendency of -the market (for as I have shown labor deprived of land -becomes a commodity), by offering employment to all who wish -it; or by lending its sanction to strikes and supporting -them with its funds. Thus it is, that the thorough -going -socialists who want the state to take all industry into its -hands are much more logical than those timid socialists who -propose that the state should regulate private -industry---but only a little. - -The same hopelessness attends your suggestion that working -people should be encouraged by the state in obtaining a -share of the land. It is evident that by this you mean that, -as is now being attempted in Ireland, the state shall buy -out large land owners in favor of small ones, establishing -what is known as peasant proprietors. Supposing that this -can be done even to a considerable extent, what will be -accomplished save to substitute a larger privileged class -for a smaller privileged class? What will be done for the -still larger class that must remain, the laborers of the -agricultural districts, the workmen of the towns, the -proletarians of the cities? Is it not true, as Professor De -Laveleye says, that in such countries as Belgium, where -peasant proprietary exists, the tenants, for there still -exist tenants, are rackrented with a mercilessness unknown -in Ireland? Is it not true that in such countries as Belgium -the condition of the mere laborer is even worse than it is -in Great Britain, where large ownerships obtain? And if the -state attempts to buy up land for peasant proprietors will -not the effect be, what is seen to-day in Ireland, to -increase the market value of land and thus make it more -difficult for those not so favored, and for those who will -come after, to get land? How, moreover, on the principle -which you declare (36), that " to the state the interests -of all are equal, whether high or low," will you justify -state aid to one man to buy a bit of land without also -insisting on state aid to another man to buy a donkey, to -another to buy a shop, to another to buy the tools and -materials of a trade---state aid in short to everybody who -may be able to make good use of it or thinks that he could? -And are you not thus landed in communism---not the communism -of the early Christians and of the religious orders, but -communism that uses the coercive power of the state to take -rightful property by force from those who have, to give to -those who have not? For the state has no purse of -Fortunatus; the state cannot repeat the miracle of the -loaves and fishes; all that the state can give, it must get -by some form or other of the taxing power. And whether it -gives or lends money, or gives or lends credit, it cannot -give to those who have not, without taking from those who -have. - -But aside from all this, any scheme of dividing up land -while maintaining private property in land is futile. Small -holdings cannot co-exist with the treatment of land as -private property where civilization is materially advancing -and wealth augments. We may see this in the economic -tendencies that in ancient times were the main cause that -transformed world-conquering Italy from a land of small -farms to a land of great estates. We may see it in the fact -that while two centuries ago the majority of English farmers -were' owners of the land they tilled, tenancy has been for a -long time the all but universal condition of the English -farmer. And now the mighty forces of steam and electricity -have come to urge concentration. It is in the United States -that we may see on the largest scale how their power is -operating to turn a nation of land owners into a nation of -tenants. The principle is clear and irresistible. Material -progress makes land more valuable, and when this increasing -value is left to private owners land must pass from the -ownership of the poor into the ownership of the rich, just -as diamonds so pass when poor men find them. What the -British government is attempting in Ireland is to build snow -houses in the Arabian desert! to plant bananas in Labrador! - -There is one way, and only one way, in which working people -in our civilization may be secured a share in the land of -their country, and that is the way that we propose---the -taking of the profits of land ownership for the community. - -As to workingmen's associations, what your Holiness seems to -contemplate is the formation and encouragement of societies -akin to the Catholic sodalities, and to the friendly and -beneficial societies, like the Odd Fellows, which have had a -large extension in English speaking countries. Such -associations may promote fraternity, extend social -intercourse and provide assurance in case of sickness or -death, but if they go no further they are powerless to -affect wages even among their members. As to trades unions -proper, it is hard to define your position, which is, -perhaps, best stated as one of warm approbation provided -that they do not go too far. For while you object to -strikes; while you reprehend societies that "do their best -to get into their hands the whole field of labor and to -force workingmen either to join them or to starve;" while -you discountenance the coercing of employers and seem to -think that arbitration might take the place of strikes; yet -you use expressions and assert principles that are all that -the trade unionist would ask, not merely to justify the -strike and the boycott, but even the use of violence where -only violence would suffice. For you speak of the -insufficient wages of workmen as due to the greed of rich -employers; you assume the moral right of the workman to -obtain employment from others at wages greater than those -others are willing freely to give; and you deny the right of -any one to work for such wages as he pleases, in such a way -as to lead Mr. Stead, in so widely read a journal as the -*Review of Reviews,* to approvingly declare that you regard -"blacklegging," *i. e.*, the working for less than union -wages, as a crime. - -To men conscious of bitter injustice, to men steeped in -poverty yet mocked by flaunting wealth, such words mean more -than I can think you realize. - -When fire shall be cool and ice be warm, when armies shall -throw away lead and iron, to try conclusions by the pelting -of rose leaves, such labor associations as you are thinking -of may be possible. But not till then. For labor -associations can do nothing to raise wages but by force. It -may be force applied passively, or force applied actively, -or force held in reserve, but it must be force. They must -coerce or hold the power to coerce employers; they *must* -coerce those among their own members disposed to straggle; -they *must* do their best to get into their hands the whole -field of labor they seek to occupy and to force other -workingmen either to join them or to starve. Those who tell -you of trades unions bent on raising wages by moral suasion -alone are like those who would tell you of tigers who live -on oranges. - -The condition of the masses to-day is that of men pressed -together in a hall where ingress is open and more are -constantly coming, but where the doors for egress are -closed. If forbidden to relieve the general pressure by -throwing open those doors, whose bars and bolts are private -property in land, they can only mitigate the pressure on -themselves by forcing back others, and the weakest must be -driven to the wall. This is the way of labor unions and -trade guilds. Even those amiable societies that you -recommend would in their efforts to find employment for -their own members necessarily displace others. - -For even the philanthropy which, recognizing the evil of -trying to help labor by alms, seeks to help men to help -themselves by finding them work, becomes aggressive in the -blind and bitter struggle that private property in land -entails, and in helping one set of men injures others. Thus, -to minimize the bitter complaints of taking work from others -and lessening the wages of others in providing their own -beneficiaries with work and wages, benevolent societies are -forced to devices akin to the digging of holes and filling -them up again. Our American societies feel this difficulty, -General Booth encounters it in England, and the Catholic -societies which your Holiness recommends must find it, when +These remedies so far as they .go are socialistic, and though the +Encyclical is not without recognition of the individual character of man +and of the priority of the individual and the family to the state, yet +the whole tendency and spirit of its remedial suggestions lean +unmistakably to socialism---extremely moderate socialism it is true; +socialism hampered and emasculated by a supreme respect for private +possessions; yet socialism still. But, although you frequently use the +ambiguous term "private property" when the context shows that you have +in mind private property in land, the one thing clear on the surface and +becoming clearer still with examination is that you insist that whatever +else may be done, the private ownership of land shall be left untouched. + +I have already referred generally to the defects that attach to all +socialistic remedies for the evil condition of labor, but respect for +your Holiness dictates that I should speak specifically, even though +briefly, of the remedies proposed or suggested by you. + +Of these, the widest and strongest are that the state should restrict +the hours of labor, the employment of women and children, the unsanitary +conditions of workshops, etc. Yet how little may in this way be +accomplished. + +A strong, absolute ruler might hope by such regulations to alleviate the +conditions of chattel slaves. But the tendency of our times is towards +democracy, and democratic states are necessarily weaker in paternalism, +while in the industrial slavery, growing out of private ownership of +land, that prevails in Christendom to-day, it is not the master who +forces the slave to labor, but the\* slave who urges the master to let +him labor. Thus the greatest difficulty in enforcing such regulations +comes from those whom they are intended to benefit. It is not, for +instance, the masters who make it difficult to enforce restrictions on +child labor in factories, but the mothers, who, prompted by poverty, +misrepresent the ages of their children even to the masters, and teach +the children to misrepresent. + +But while in large factories and mines regulations as to hours, ages, +etc., though subject to evasion and offering opportunities for extortion +and corruption, may be to some extent enforced, how can they have any +effect in those far wider branches of industry where the laborer works +for himself or for small employers? + +All such remedies are of the nature of the remedy for overcrowding that +is generally prescribed with them---the restriction under penalty of the +number who may occupy a room and the demolition of unsanitary buildings. +Since these measures have no tendency to increase house accommodation or +to augment ability to pay for it, the overcrowding that is forced back +in some places goes on in other places and to a worse degree. All such +remedies begin at the wrong end. They are like putting on brake and bit +to hold in quietness horses that are being lashed into frenzy; they are +like trying to stop a locomotive by holding its wheels instead of +shutting off steam; like attempting to cure smallpox by driving back its +pustules. Men do not overwork themselves because they like it; it is not +in the nature of the mother's heart to send children to work when they +ought to be at play; it is not of choice that laborers will work in +dangerous and unsanitary conditions. These things, like overcrowding, +come from the sting of poverty. And so long as the poverty of which they +are the expression is left untouched, restrictions such as you endorse +can have only partial and evanescent results. The cause remaining, +repression in one place can only bring out its effects in other places, +and the task you assign to the state is as hopeless as to ask it to +lower the level of the ocean by bailing out the sea. + +Nor can the state cure poverty by regulating wages. It is as much beyond +the power of the state to regulate wages as it is to regulate the rates +of interest. Usury laws have been tried again and again, but the only +effect they have ever had has been to increase what the poorer borrowers +must pay, and for the same reasons that all attempts to lower by +regulation the price of goods have always resulted merely in increasing +them. The general rate of wages is fixed by the ease or difficulty with +which labor can obtain access to land, ranging from the full earnings of +labor, where land is free, to the least on which laborers can live and +reproduce, where land is fully monopolized. Thus, where it has been +comparatively easy for laborers to get land, as in the United States and +in Australasia, wages have been higher than in Europe and it has been +impossible to get European laborers to work there for wages that they +would gladly accept at home; while as monopolization goes on under the +influence of private property in land, wages tend to fall, and the +social conditions of Europe to appear. Thus, under the partial yet +substantial recognition of common rights to land, of which I have +spoken, the many attempts of the British parliaments to reduce wages by +regulation failed utterly. And so, when the institution of private +property in land had done its work in England, all attempts of +Parliament to raise wages proved unavailing. In the beginning of this +century it was even attempted to increase the earnings of laborers by +grants in aid of wages. But the only result was to lower commensurately +what wages employers paid. + +The state could only maintain wages above the tendency of the market +(for as I have shown labor deprived of land becomes a commodity), by +offering employment to all who wish it; or by lending its sanction to +strikes and supporting them with its funds. Thus it is, that the +thorough -going socialists who want the state to take all industry into +its hands are much more logical than those timid socialists who propose +that the state should regulate private industry---but only a little. + +The same hopelessness attends your suggestion that working people should +be encouraged by the state in obtaining a share of the land. It is +evident that by this you mean that, as is now being attempted in +Ireland, the state shall buy out large land owners in favor of small +ones, establishing what is known as peasant proprietors. Supposing that +this can be done even to a considerable extent, what will be +accomplished save to substitute a larger privileged class for a smaller +privileged class? What will be done for the still larger class that must +remain, the laborers of the agricultural districts, the workmen of the +towns, the proletarians of the cities? Is it not true, as Professor De +Laveleye says, that in such countries as Belgium, where peasant +proprietary exists, the tenants, for there still exist tenants, are +rackrented with a mercilessness unknown in Ireland? Is it not true that +in such countries as Belgium the condition of the mere laborer is even +worse than it is in Great Britain, where large ownerships obtain? And if +the state attempts to buy up land for peasant proprietors will not the +effect be, what is seen to-day in Ireland, to increase the market value +of land and thus make it more difficult for those not so favored, and +for those who will come after, to get land? How, moreover, on the +principle which you declare (36), that " to the state the interests of +all are equal, whether high or low," will you justify state aid to one +man to buy a bit of land without also insisting on state aid to another +man to buy a donkey, to another to buy a shop, to another to buy the +tools and materials of a trade---state aid in short to everybody who may +be able to make good use of it or thinks that he could? And are you not +thus landed in communism---not the communism of the early Christians and +of the religious orders, but communism that uses the coercive power of +the state to take rightful property by force from those who have, to +give to those who have not? For the state has no purse of Fortunatus; +the state cannot repeat the miracle of the loaves and fishes; all that +the state can give, it must get by some form or other of the taxing +power. And whether it gives or lends money, or gives or lends credit, it +cannot give to those who have not, without taking from those who have. + +But aside from all this, any scheme of dividing up land while +maintaining private property in land is futile. Small holdings cannot +co-exist with the treatment of land as private property where +civilization is materially advancing and wealth augments. We may see +this in the economic tendencies that in ancient times were the main +cause that transformed world-conquering Italy from a land of small farms +to a land of great estates. We may see it in the fact that while two +centuries ago the majority of English farmers were' owners of the land +they tilled, tenancy has been for a long time the all but universal +condition of the English farmer. And now the mighty forces of steam and +electricity have come to urge concentration. It is in the United States +that we may see on the largest scale how their power is operating to +turn a nation of land owners into a nation of tenants. The principle is +clear and irresistible. Material progress makes land more valuable, and +when this increasing value is left to private owners land must pass from +the ownership of the poor into the ownership of the rich, just as +diamonds so pass when poor men find them. What the British government is +attempting in Ireland is to build snow houses in the Arabian desert! to +plant bananas in Labrador! + +There is one way, and only one way, in which working people in our +civilization may be secured a share in the land of their country, and +that is the way that we propose---the taking of the profits of land +ownership for the community. + +As to workingmen's associations, what your Holiness seems to contemplate +is the formation and encouragement of societies akin to the Catholic +sodalities, and to the friendly and beneficial societies, like the Odd +Fellows, which have had a large extension in English speaking countries. +Such associations may promote fraternity, extend social intercourse and +provide assurance in case of sickness or death, but if they go no +further they are powerless to affect wages even among their members. As +to trades unions proper, it is hard to define your position, which is, +perhaps, best stated as one of warm approbation provided that they do +not go too far. For while you object to strikes; while you reprehend +societies that "do their best to get into their hands the whole field of +labor and to force workingmen either to join them or to starve;" while +you discountenance the coercing of employers and seem to think that +arbitration might take the place of strikes; yet you use expressions and +assert principles that are all that the trade unionist would ask, not +merely to justify the strike and the boycott, but even the use of +violence where only violence would suffice. For you speak of the +insufficient wages of workmen as due to the greed of rich employers; you +assume the moral right of the workman to obtain employment from others +at wages greater than those others are willing freely to give; and you +deny the right of any one to work for such wages as he pleases, in such +a way as to lead Mr. Stead, in so widely read a journal as the *Review +of Reviews,* to approvingly declare that you regard "blacklegging," *i. +e.*, the working for less than union wages, as a crime. + +To men conscious of bitter injustice, to men steeped in poverty yet +mocked by flaunting wealth, such words mean more than I can think you +realize. + +When fire shall be cool and ice be warm, when armies shall throw away +lead and iron, to try conclusions by the pelting of rose leaves, such +labor associations as you are thinking of may be possible. But not till +then. For labor associations can do nothing to raise wages but by force. +It may be force applied passively, or force applied actively, or force +held in reserve, but it must be force. They must coerce or hold the +power to coerce employers; they *must* coerce those among their own +members disposed to straggle; they *must* do their best to get into +their hands the whole field of labor they seek to occupy and to force +other workingmen either to join them or to starve. Those who tell you of +trades unions bent on raising wages by moral suasion alone are like +those who would tell you of tigers who live on oranges. + +The condition of the masses to-day is that of men pressed together in a +hall where ingress is open and more are constantly coming, but where the +doors for egress are closed. If forbidden to relieve the general +pressure by throwing open those doors, whose bars and bolts are private +property in land, they can only mitigate the pressure on themselves by +forcing back others, and the weakest must be driven to the wall. This is +the way of labor unions and trade guilds. Even those amiable societies +that you recommend would in their efforts to find employment for their +own members necessarily displace others. + +For even the philanthropy which, recognizing the evil of trying to help +labor by alms, seeks to help men to help themselves by finding them +work, becomes aggressive in the blind and bitter struggle that private +property in land entails, and in helping one set of men injures others. +Thus, to minimize the bitter complaints of taking work from others and +lessening the wages of others in providing their own beneficiaries with +work and wages, benevolent societies are forced to devices akin to the +digging of holes and filling them up again. Our American societies feel +this difficulty, General Booth encounters it in England, and the +Catholic societies which your Holiness recommends must find it, when they are formed. -Your Holiness knows of, and I am sure honors, the princely -generosity of Baron Hirsch towards his suffering -co-religionists. But, as I write, the New York newspapers -contain accounts of an immense meeting held in Cooper Union, -in this city, on the evening of Friday, September 4, in -which a number of Hebrew trades unions protested in the -strongest manner against the loss of work and reduction of -wages that is being effected by Baron Hirsch's generosity in -bringing their own countrymen here and teaching them to -work. The resolution unanimously adopted at this great +Your Holiness knows of, and I am sure honors, the princely generosity of +Baron Hirsch towards his suffering co-religionists. But, as I write, the +New York newspapers contain accounts of an immense meeting held in +Cooper Union, in this city, on the evening of Friday, September 4, in +which a number of Hebrew trades unions protested in the strongest manner +against the loss of work and reduction of wages that is being effected +by Baron Hirsch's generosity in bringing their own countrymen here and +teaching them to work. The resolution unanimously adopted at this great meeting thus concludes: -"We now demand of Baron Hirsch himself that he release us -from his 'charity' and take back the millions, which, -instead of a blessing, have proved a curse and a source of -misery." - -Nor does this show that the members of these Hebrew labor -unions---who are themselves immigrants of the same class as -those Baron Hirsch is striving to help, for in the next -generation they lose with us their distinctiveness--- are a -whit less generous than other men. - -Labor associations of the nature of trade guilds or unions -are necessarily selfish; by the law of their being they must -fight for their own hand, regardless of who is hurt; they -ignore and must ignore the teaching of Christ that we should -do to others as we would have them do to us, which a true -political economy shows is the only way to the full -emancipation of the masses. They must do their best to -starve workmen who do not join them, they must by all means -in their power force back the "blackleg"---as the soldier in -battle must shoot down his mother's son if in the opposing -ranks. And who is the blackleg? A fellow creature seeking -work---a fellow creature in all probability more pressed and -starved than those who so bitterly denounce him, and often -with the hungry pleading faces of wife and child behind him. - -And, in so far as they succeed, what is it that trades -guilds and unions do but to impose more restrictions on -natural rights; to create "trusts" in labor; to add to -privileged classes other somewhat privileged classes; and to -press the weaker closer to the wall? - -I speak without prejudice against trades unions, of which -for years I was an active member. And in pointing out to -your Holiness that their principle is selfish and incapable -of large and permanent benefits, and that their methods -violate natural rights and work hardship and injustice, I am -only saying to you what, both in my books and by word of -mouth, I have said over and over again to them. Nor is what -I say capable of dispute. Intelligent trades unionists know -it, and the less intelligent vaguely feel it. And even those -of the classes of wealth and leisure who, as if to head off -the demand for natural rights, are preaching trades unionism -to working men, must needs admit it. - -Your Holiness will remember the great London dock strike of -two years ago, which, with that of other influential men, -received the moral support of that Prince of the Church whom -we of the English speech hold higher and dearer than any -prelate has been held by us since the blood of Thomas -A'Becket stained the Canterbury altar. - -In a volume called "The Story of the Dockers' Strike," -written by Messrs. H. Lewellyn Smith and Vaughan Nash, with -an introduction by Sydney Buxton, M. P., which advocates -trades unionism as the solution of the labor question, and -of which a large number were sent to Australia as a sort of -official recognition of the generous aid received from there -by the strikers, I find in the summing up, on pages 164-5, -the following: - -"If the settlement lasts, work at the docks will be more -regular, better paid, and carried on under better conditions -than ever before. All this will be an unqualified gain to -those who get the benefit from it. But another result will -undoubtedly be *to contract the field of employment and -lessen the number of those for whom work can be found.* The -lower class casual will, in the end, find his position more -precarious than ever before, in proportion to the increased -regularity of work which the"fitter" of the laborers will -secure. The effect of the organization of dock labor, as of -all classes of labor, will be *to squeeze out the residuum.* -The loafer, the cadger, the failure in the industrial -race---the members of 'Class B' of Mr. Charles Booth's -hierarchy of social classes---will be no gainers by the -change, but will rather *find another door closed against -them,* and this in many cases *the last door to -employments.*" - -I am far from wishing that your Holiness should join in that -Pharisaical denunciation of trades unions common among those -who, while quick to point out the injustice of trades unions -in denying to others the equal right to work, are themselves -supporters of that more primary injustice that denies the -equal right to the standing place and natural material -necessary to work. What I wish to point out is that trades -unionism, while it may be a partial palliative, is not a -remedy; that it has not that moral character which could -alone justify one in the position of your Holiness in urging -it as good in itself. Yet, so long as you insist on private -property in land what better can you do? +"We now demand of Baron Hirsch himself that he release us from his +'charity' and take back the millions, which, instead of a blessing, have +proved a curse and a source of misery." + +Nor does this show that the members of these Hebrew labor unions---who +are themselves immigrants of the same class as those Baron Hirsch is +striving to help, for in the next generation they lose with us their +distinctiveness--- are a whit less generous than other men. + +Labor associations of the nature of trade guilds or unions are +necessarily selfish; by the law of their being they must fight for their +own hand, regardless of who is hurt; they ignore and must ignore the +teaching of Christ that we should do to others as we would have them do +to us, which a true political economy shows is the only way to the full +emancipation of the masses. They must do their best to starve workmen +who do not join them, they must by all means in their power force back +the "blackleg"---as the soldier in battle must shoot down his mother's +son if in the opposing ranks. And who is the blackleg? A fellow creature +seeking work---a fellow creature in all probability more pressed and +starved than those who so bitterly denounce him, and often with the +hungry pleading faces of wife and child behind him. + +And, in so far as they succeed, what is it that trades guilds and unions +do but to impose more restrictions on natural rights; to create "trusts" +in labor; to add to privileged classes other somewhat privileged +classes; and to press the weaker closer to the wall? + +I speak without prejudice against trades unions, of which for years I +was an active member. And in pointing out to your Holiness that their +principle is selfish and incapable of large and permanent benefits, and +that their methods violate natural rights and work hardship and +injustice, I am only saying to you what, both in my books and by word of +mouth, I have said over and over again to them. Nor is what I say +capable of dispute. Intelligent trades unionists know it, and the less +intelligent vaguely feel it. And even those of the classes of wealth and +leisure who, as if to head off the demand for natural rights, are +preaching trades unionism to working men, must needs admit it. + +Your Holiness will remember the great London dock strike of two years +ago, which, with that of other influential men, received the moral +support of that Prince of the Church whom we of the English speech hold +higher and dearer than any prelate has been held by us since the blood +of Thomas A'Becket stained the Canterbury altar. + +In a volume called "The Story of the Dockers' Strike," written by +Messrs. H. Lewellyn Smith and Vaughan Nash, with an introduction by +Sydney Buxton, M. P., which advocates trades unionism as the solution of +the labor question, and of which a large number were sent to Australia +as a sort of official recognition of the generous aid received from +there by the strikers, I find in the summing up, on pages 164-5, the +following: + +"If the settlement lasts, work at the docks will be more regular, better +paid, and carried on under better conditions than ever before. All this +will be an unqualified gain to those who get the benefit from it. But +another result will undoubtedly be *to contract the field of employment +and lessen the number of those for whom work can be found.* The lower +class casual will, in the end, find his position more precarious than +ever before, in proportion to the increased regularity of work which +the"fitter" of the laborers will secure. The effect of the organization +of dock labor, as of all classes of labor, will be *to squeeze out the +residuum.* The loafer, the cadger, the failure in the industrial +race---the members of 'Class B' of Mr. Charles Booth's hierarchy of +social classes---will be no gainers by the change, but will rather *find +another door closed against them,* and this in many cases *the last door +to employments.*" + +I am far from wishing that your Holiness should join in that Pharisaical +denunciation of trades unions common among those who, while quick to +point out the injustice of trades unions in denying to others the equal +right to work, are themselves supporters of that more primary injustice +that denies the equal right to the standing place and natural material +necessary to work. What I wish to point out is that trades unionism, +while it may be a partial palliative, is not a remedy; that it has not +that moral character which could alone justify one in the position of +your Holiness in urging it as good in itself. Yet, so long as you insist +on private property in land what better can you do? # V -In the beginning of the Encyclical you declare that the -responsibility of the apostolic office urges your Holiness -to treat the question of the condition of labor "expressly -and at length in order that there may be no mistake as to -the principles which truth and justice dictate for its -settlement." But, blinded by one false assumption, you do -not see even fundamentals. - -You assume that the labor question is a question between -wage-workers and their employers. But working for wages is -not the primary or exclusive occupation of labor. Primarily -men work for themselves without the intervention of an -employer. And the primary source of wages is in the earnings -of labor, the man who works for himself and consumes his own -products receiving his wages in the fruits of his labor. Are -not fishermen, boatmen, cab drivers, peddlers, working -farmers---all, in short, of the many workers who get their -wages directly by the sale of their services or products -without the medium of an employer, as much laborers as those -who work for the specific wages of an employer? In your -consideration of remedies you do not seem even to have -thought of them. Yet in reality the laborers who work for -themselves are the first to be considered, since what men -will be willing to accept from employers depends manifestly -on what they can get by working for themselves. - -You assume that all employers are rich men, who might raise -wages much higher were they not so grasping. But is it not -the fact that the great majority of employers are in reality -as much pressed by competition as their workmen, many of -them constantly on the verge of failure? Such employers -could not possibly raise the wages they pay, however they +In the beginning of the Encyclical you declare that the responsibility +of the apostolic office urges your Holiness to treat the question of the +condition of labor "expressly and at length in order that there may be +no mistake as to the principles which truth and justice dictate for its +settlement." But, blinded by one false assumption, you do not see even +fundamentals. + +You assume that the labor question is a question between wage-workers +and their employers. But working for wages is not the primary or +exclusive occupation of labor. Primarily men work for themselves without +the intervention of an employer. And the primary source of wages is in +the earnings of labor, the man who works for himself and consumes his +own products receiving his wages in the fruits of his labor. Are not +fishermen, boatmen, cab drivers, peddlers, working farmers---all, in +short, of the many workers who get their wages directly by the sale of +their services or products without the medium of an employer, as much +laborers as those who work for the specific wages of an employer? In +your consideration of remedies you do not seem even to have thought of +them. Yet in reality the laborers who work for themselves are the first +to be considered, since what men will be willing to accept from +employers depends manifestly on what they can get by working for +themselves. + +You assume that all employers are rich men, who might raise wages much +higher were they not so grasping. But is it not the fact that the great +majority of employers are in reality as much pressed by competition as +their workmen, many of them constantly on the verge of failure? Such +employers could not possibly raise the wages they pay, however they might wish to, unless all others were compelled to do so. -You assume that there are in the natural order two classes, -the rich and the poor, and that laborers naturally belong to -the poor. - -It is true as you say that there are differences in -capacity, in diligence, in health and in strength, that may -produce differences in fortune. These, however, are not the -differences that divide men into rich and poor. The natural -differences in powers and aptitudes are certainly not -greater than are natural differences in stature. But while -it is only by selecting giants and dwarfs that we can find -men twice as tall as others, yet in the difference between -rich and poor that exists to-day we find some men richer -than other men by the thousand fold and the million fold. - -Nowhere do these differences between wealth and poverty -coincide with differences in individual powers and -aptitudes. The real difference between rich and poor is the -difference between those who hold the toll gates and those -who pay toll; between tribute receivers and tribute yield -ers. - -In what way does nature justify such a difference? In the -numberless varieties of animated nature we find some species -that are evidently intended to live on other species. But -their relations are always marked by unmistakable -differences in size, shape or organs. To man has been given -dominion over all the other living things that tenant the -earth. But is not this mastery indicated even in externals, -so that no one can fail on sight to distinguish between a -man and one of the inferior animals. Our American apologists -for slavery used to contend that the black skin and woolly -hair of the negro indicated the intent of nature that the -black should serve the white; but the difference that you -assume to be natural is between men of the same race. What -difference does nature show between such men as would -indicate her intent that one should live idly yet be rich, -and the other should work hard yet be poor? If I could bring -you from the United States a man who has \$200,000,000, and -one who is glad to work for a few dollars a week, and place -them side by side in your ante-chamber, would you be able to -tell which was which, even were you to call in the most -skilled anatomist? Is it not clear that God in no way -countenances or condones the division of rich and poor that -exists to-day, or in any way permits it, except as having -given them free will he permits men to choose either good or -evil, and to avoid heaven if they prefer hell. For is it not -clear that the division of men into the classes rich and -poor has invariably its origin in force and fraud; -invariably involves violation of the moral law; and is -really a division into those who get the profits of robbery -and those who are robbed; those who hold in exclusive -possession what God made for all, and those who are deprived -of His bounty? Did not Christ in all His utterances and -parables show that the gross difference between rich and -poor is opposed to God's law? Would he have condemned the -rich so strongly as he did, if the class distinction between -rich and poor did not involve injustice---was not opposed to -God's intent? - -It seems to us that your Holiness misses its real -significance in intimating that Christ, in becoming the son -of a carpenter and Himself working as a carpenter, showed -merely that "there is nothing to be ashamed of in seeking -one's bread by labor." To say that is almost like saying -that by not robbing people He showed that there is nothing -to be ashamed of in honesty % If you will consider how true -in any large view is the classification of all men into -workingmen, beggars and thieves, you will see that it was -morally impossible that Christ during His stay on earth -should have been anything else than a working-man, since He -who came to fulfil the law must by deed as well as word obey -God's law of labor. - -See how fully and how beautifully Christ's life on earth -illustrated this law. Entering our earthly life in the -weakness of infancy, as it is appointed that all should -enter it, He lovingly took what in the natural order is -lovingly rendered, the sustenance, secured by labor, that -one generation owes to its immediate successors. Arrived at -maturity, He earned His own subsistence by that common labor -in which the majority of men must and do earn it. Then -passing to a higher---to the very highest---sphere of labor, -He earned His subsistence by the teaching of moral and -spiritual truths, receiving its material wages in the love -offerings of grateful hearers, and not refusing the costly -spikenard with which Mary anointed His feet. So, when He -chose His disciples, He did not go to land owners or other -monopolists who live on the labor of others, but to common -laboring men. And when He called them to a higher sphere of -labor and sent them out to teach moral and spiritual truths, -He told them to take, without condescension on the one hand -or sense of degradation on the other, the loving return for -such labor, saying to them that the "laborer is worthy of -his hire," thus showing, what we hold, that all labor does -not consist in what is called manual labor, but that whoever -helps to add to the material, intellectual, moral or +You assume that there are in the natural order two classes, the rich and +the poor, and that laborers naturally belong to the poor. + +It is true as you say that there are differences in capacity, in +diligence, in health and in strength, that may produce differences in +fortune. These, however, are not the differences that divide men into +rich and poor. The natural differences in powers and aptitudes are +certainly not greater than are natural differences in stature. But while +it is only by selecting giants and dwarfs that we can find men twice as +tall as others, yet in the difference between rich and poor that exists +to-day we find some men richer than other men by the thousand fold and +the million fold. + +Nowhere do these differences between wealth and poverty coincide with +differences in individual powers and aptitudes. The real difference +between rich and poor is the difference between those who hold the toll +gates and those who pay toll; between tribute receivers and tribute +yield ers. + +In what way does nature justify such a difference? In the numberless +varieties of animated nature we find some species that are evidently +intended to live on other species. But their relations are always marked +by unmistakable differences in size, shape or organs. To man has been +given dominion over all the other living things that tenant the earth. +But is not this mastery indicated even in externals, so that no one can +fail on sight to distinguish between a man and one of the inferior +animals. Our American apologists for slavery used to contend that the +black skin and woolly hair of the negro indicated the intent of nature +that the black should serve the white; but the difference that you +assume to be natural is between men of the same race. What difference +does nature show between such men as would indicate her intent that one +should live idly yet be rich, and the other should work hard yet be +poor? If I could bring you from the United States a man who has +\$200,000,000, and one who is glad to work for a few dollars a week, and +place them side by side in your ante-chamber, would you be able to tell +which was which, even were you to call in the most skilled anatomist? Is +it not clear that God in no way countenances or condones the division of +rich and poor that exists to-day, or in any way permits it, except as +having given them free will he permits men to choose either good or +evil, and to avoid heaven if they prefer hell. For is it not clear that +the division of men into the classes rich and poor has invariably its +origin in force and fraud; invariably involves violation of the moral +law; and is really a division into those who get the profits of robbery +and those who are robbed; those who hold in exclusive possession what +God made for all, and those who are deprived of His bounty? Did not +Christ in all His utterances and parables show that the gross difference +between rich and poor is opposed to God's law? Would he have condemned +the rich so strongly as he did, if the class distinction between rich +and poor did not involve injustice---was not opposed to God's intent? + +It seems to us that your Holiness misses its real significance in +intimating that Christ, in becoming the son of a carpenter and Himself +working as a carpenter, showed merely that "there is nothing to be +ashamed of in seeking one's bread by labor." To say that is almost like +saying that by not robbing people He showed that there is nothing to be +ashamed of in honesty % If you will consider how true in any large view +is the classification of all men into workingmen, beggars and thieves, +you will see that it was morally impossible that Christ during His stay +on earth should have been anything else than a working-man, since He who +came to fulfil the law must by deed as well as word obey God's law of +labor. + +See how fully and how beautifully Christ's life on earth illustrated +this law. Entering our earthly life in the weakness of infancy, as it is +appointed that all should enter it, He lovingly took what in the natural +order is lovingly rendered, the sustenance, secured by labor, that one +generation owes to its immediate successors. Arrived at maturity, He +earned His own subsistence by that common labor in which the majority of +men must and do earn it. Then passing to a higher---to the very +highest---sphere of labor, He earned His subsistence by the teaching of +moral and spiritual truths, receiving its material wages in the love +offerings of grateful hearers, and not refusing the costly spikenard +with which Mary anointed His feet. So, when He chose His disciples, He +did not go to land owners or other monopolists who live on the labor of +others, but to common laboring men. And when He called them to a higher +sphere of labor and sent them out to teach moral and spiritual truths, +He told them to take, without condescension on the one hand or sense of +degradation on the other, the loving return for such labor, saying to +them that the "laborer is worthy of his hire," thus showing, what we +hold, that all labor does not consist in what is called manual labor, +but that whoever helps to add to the material, intellectual, moral or spiritual fullness of life is also a laborer. -In assuming that laborers, even ordinary manual laborers, -are naturally poor, you ignore the fact that labor is the -producer of wealth, and attribute to the natural law of the -Creator an injustice that comes from man's impious violation -of His benevolent intention. In the rudest stage of the arts -it is possible, where justice prevails, for all well men to -earn a living. With the labor-saving appliances of our time, -it should be possible for all to earn much more. And so, in -saying that poverty is no disgrace, you convey an -unreasonable implication. For poverty *ought* to be a -disgrace, since in a condition of social justice, it would, -where unsought from religious motives or un-imposed by -unavoidable misfortune, imply recklessness or laziness. - -The sympathy of your Holiness seems exclusively directed to -the poor, the workers. Ought this to be so? Are not the -rich, the idlers, to be pitied also? By the word of the -Gospel it is the rich rather than the poor who call for -pity, for the presumption is that they will share the fate -of Dives. And to any one who believes in a future life the -condition of him who wakes to find his cherished millions -left behind must seem pitiful. But even in this life, how -really pitiable are the rich. The evil is not in wealth in -itself---in its command over material things; it is in the -possession of wealth while others are steeped in poverty; in -being raised above touch with the life of humanity, from its -work and its struggles, its hopes and its fears, and above -all, from the love that sweetens life, and the kindly -sympathies and generous acts that strengthen faith in man -and trust in God. Consider how the rich see the meaner side -of human nature; how they are surrounded by flatterers and -sycophants; how they find ready instruments not only to -gratify vicious impulses, but to prompt and stimulate them; -how they must constantly be on guard lest they be swindled; -how often they must suspect an ulterior motive behind kindly -deed or friendly word; how if they try to be generous they -are beset by shameless beggars and scheming impostors; how -often the family affections are chilled for them, and their -deaths anticipated with the ill-concealed joy of expectant -possession. The worst evil of poverty is not in the want of -material things, but in the stunting and distortion of the -higher qualities. So, though in another way, the possession -of unearned wealth likewise stunts and distorts what is -noblest in man. - -God's commands cannot be evaded with impunity. If it be -God's command that men shall earn their bread by labor, the -idle rich must suffer. And they do. See the utter vacancy of -the lives of those who live for pleasure; see the loathsome -vices bred in a class who surrounded by poverty are sated -with wealth. See that terrible punishment of *ennui*, of -which the poor know so little that they cannot understand -it; see the pessimism that grows among the wealthy -classes---that shuts out God, that despises men, that deems -existence in itself an evil, and fearing death yet longs for -annihilation. - -When Christ told the rich young man who sought Him to sell -all he had and to give it to the poor, He was not thinking -of the poor, but of the young man. And I doubt not that -among the rich, and especially among the self-made rich, -there are many who at times at least feel keenly the folly -of their riches and fear for the dangers and temptations to -which these expose their children. But the strength of long -habit, the promptings of pride, the excitement of making and -holding what has become for them the counters in a game of -cards, the family expectations that have assumed the -character of rights, and the real difficulty they find in -making any good use of their wealth, bind them to their -burden, like a weary donkey to his pack, till they stumble -on the precipice that bounds this life. - -Men who are sure of getting food when they shall need it eat -only what appetite dictates. But with the sparse tribes who -exist on the verge of the habitable globe life is either a -famine or a feast. Enduring hunger for days, the fear of it -prompts them to gorge like anacondas when successful in -their quest of game. And so, what gives wealth its curse is -what drives men to seek it, what makes it so envied and -admired---the fear of want. As the unduly rich are the -corollary of the unduly poor, so is the soul-destroying -quality of riches but the reflex of the want that embrutes -and degrades. The real evil lies in the injustice from which -unnatural possession and unnatural deprivation both spring. - -But this injustice can hardly be charged on individuals or -classes. The existence of private property in land is a -great social wrong from which society at large suffers, and -of which the very rich and the very poor are alike victims, -though at the opposite extremes. Seeing this, it seems to us -like a violation of Christian charity to speak of the rich -as though they individually were responsible for the -sufferings of the poor. Yet, while you do this, you insist -that the cause of monstrous wealth and degrading poverty -shall not be touched. Here is a man with a disfiguring and -dangerous excrescence. One physician would kindly, gently, -but firmly remove it. Another insists that it shall not be -removed, but at the same time holds up the poor victim to -hatred and ridicule. Which is right? - -In seeking to restore all men to their equal and natural -rights we do not seek the benefit of any class, but of all. -For we both know by faith and see by fact that injustice can -profit no one and that justice must benefit all. - -Nor do we seek any "futile and ridiculous equality." We -recognize, with you, that there must always be differences -and inequalities. In so far as these are in conformity with -the moral law, in so far as they do not violate the command, -"Thou shalt not steal," we are content. We do not seek to -better God's work; we seek only to do His will. The equality -we would bring about is not the equality of fortune, but the -equality of natural opportunity; the equality that reason -and religion alike proclaim---the equality in usufruct of -all His children to the bounty of Our Father who art in -Heaven. - -And in taking for the uses of society what we clearly see is -the great fund intended for society in the divine order, we -would not levy the slightest tax on the possessors of -wealth, no matter how rich they might be. Not only do we -deem such taxes a violation of the right of property, but we -see that by virtue of beautiful adaptations in the economic -laws of the Creator, it is impossible for any one honestly -to acquire wealth, without at the same time adding to the -wealth of the world. - -To persist in a wrong, to refuse to undo it, is always to -become involved in other wrongs. Those who defend private -property in land, and thereby deny the first and most -important of all human rights, the equal right to the -material substratum of life, are compelled to one of two -courses. Either they must, as do those whose gospel is " -Devil take the hindermost," deny the equal right to life, -and by some theory like that to which the English clergyman -Malthus has given his name, assert that nature (they do not -venture to say God) brings into the world more men than -there is provision for; or, they must, as do the socialists, -assert as rights what in themselves are wrongs. - -Your Holiness in the Encyclical gives an example of this. -Denying the equality of right to the material basis of life, --and yet conscious that there is a right to live, you assert -the right of laborers to employment and their right to -receive from their employers a certain indefinite wage. No -such rights exist. No one has a right to demand employment -of another, or to demand higher wages than the other is -willing to give, or in any way to put pressure on another to -make him raise such wages against his will. There can be no -better moral justification for such demands on employers by -workingmen than there would be for employers demanding that -workingmen shall be compelled to work for them when they do -not want to and to accept wages lower than they are willing -to take. Any seeming justification springs from a prior -wrong, the denial to workingmen of their natural rights, and -can in the last analysis only rest on that supreme dictate -of self-preservation that under extraordinary circumstances -makes pardonable what in itself is theft, or sacrilege or -even murder. - -A fugitive slave with the bloodhounds of his pursuers baying -at his heels would in true Christian morals be held -blameless if he seized the first horse he came across, even -though to take it he had to knock down the rider. But this -is not to justify horse-stealing as an ordinary means of -traveling. - -When his disciples were hungry Christ permitted them to -pluck corn on the Sabbath day. But He never denied the -sanctity of the Sabbath by asserting that it was under -ordinary circumstances a proper time to gather corn. - -He justified David, who when pressed by hunger committed -what ordinarily would be sacrilege, by taking from the -temple the loaves of proposition. But in this He was far -from saying that the robbing of temples was a proper way of -getting a living. - -In the Encyclical however you commend the application to the -ordinary relations of life, under normal conditions, of -principles that in ethics are only to be tolerated under -extraordinary conditions. You are driven to this assertion -of false rights by your denial of true rights. The natural -right which each man has is not that of demanding employment -or wages from another man; but that of employing -himself---that of applying by his own labor to the -inexhaustible storehouse which the Creator has in the land -provided for all men. Were that storehouse open, as by the -single tax we would open it, the natural demand for labor -would keep pace with the supply, the man who sold labor and -the man who bought it would become free exchangers for -mutual advantage, and all cause for dispute between workman -and employer would be gone. For then, all being free to -employ themselves, the mere opportunity to labor would cease -to seem a boon; and since no one would work for another for -less, all things considered, than he could earn by working -for himself, wages would necessarily rise to their full -value, and the relations of workman and employer be -regulated by mutual interest and convenience. - -This is the only way in which they can be satisfactorily -regulated. - -Your Holiness seems to assume that there is some just rate -of wages that employers ought to be willing to pay and that -laborers should be content to receive, and to imagine that -if this were secured there would be an end of strife. This -rate you evidently think of as that which will give -workingmen a frugal living, and perhaps enable them by hard -work and strict economy to lay by a little something. - -But how can a just rate of wages be fixed without the -"higgling of the market" any more than the just price of -corn or pigs or ships or paintings can be so fixed? And -would not arbitrary regulation in the one case as in the -other check that interplay that most effectively promotes -the economical adjustment of productive forces? Why should -buyers of labor, any more than buyers of commodities, be -called on to pay higher prices than in a free market they -are compelled to pay? Why should the sellers of labor be -content with anything less than in a free market they can -obtain? Why should workingmen be content with frugal fare -when the world is so rich? Why should they be satisfied with -a life time of toil and stinting, when the world is so -beautiful % Why should not they also desire to gratify the -higher instincts, the finer tastes? Why should they be -forever content to travel in the steerage when others find -the cabin more enjoyable? - -Nor will they. The ferment of our time does not arise merely -from the fact that workingmen find it harder to live on the -same scale of comfort. It is also and perhaps still more -largely due to the increase of their desires with an -improved scale of comfort. This increase of desire must -continue. For workingmen are men. And man is the unsatisfied +In assuming that laborers, even ordinary manual laborers, are naturally +poor, you ignore the fact that labor is the producer of wealth, and +attribute to the natural law of the Creator an injustice that comes from +man's impious violation of His benevolent intention. In the rudest stage +of the arts it is possible, where justice prevails, for all well men to +earn a living. With the labor-saving appliances of our time, it should +be possible for all to earn much more. And so, in saying that poverty is +no disgrace, you convey an unreasonable implication. For poverty *ought* +to be a disgrace, since in a condition of social justice, it would, +where unsought from religious motives or un-imposed by unavoidable +misfortune, imply recklessness or laziness. + +The sympathy of your Holiness seems exclusively directed to the poor, +the workers. Ought this to be so? Are not the rich, the idlers, to be +pitied also? By the word of the Gospel it is the rich rather than the +poor who call for pity, for the presumption is that they will share the +fate of Dives. And to any one who believes in a future life the +condition of him who wakes to find his cherished millions left behind +must seem pitiful. But even in this life, how really pitiable are the +rich. The evil is not in wealth in itself---in its command over material +things; it is in the possession of wealth while others are steeped in +poverty; in being raised above touch with the life of humanity, from its +work and its struggles, its hopes and its fears, and above all, from the +love that sweetens life, and the kindly sympathies and generous acts +that strengthen faith in man and trust in God. Consider how the rich see +the meaner side of human nature; how they are surrounded by flatterers +and sycophants; how they find ready instruments not only to gratify +vicious impulses, but to prompt and stimulate them; how they must +constantly be on guard lest they be swindled; how often they must +suspect an ulterior motive behind kindly deed or friendly word; how if +they try to be generous they are beset by shameless beggars and scheming +impostors; how often the family affections are chilled for them, and +their deaths anticipated with the ill-concealed joy of expectant +possession. The worst evil of poverty is not in the want of material +things, but in the stunting and distortion of the higher qualities. So, +though in another way, the possession of unearned wealth likewise stunts +and distorts what is noblest in man. + +God's commands cannot be evaded with impunity. If it be God's command +that men shall earn their bread by labor, the idle rich must suffer. And +they do. See the utter vacancy of the lives of those who live for +pleasure; see the loathsome vices bred in a class who surrounded by +poverty are sated with wealth. See that terrible punishment of *ennui*, +of which the poor know so little that they cannot understand it; see the +pessimism that grows among the wealthy classes---that shuts out God, +that despises men, that deems existence in itself an evil, and fearing +death yet longs for annihilation. + +When Christ told the rich young man who sought Him to sell all he had +and to give it to the poor, He was not thinking of the poor, but of the +young man. And I doubt not that among the rich, and especially among the +self-made rich, there are many who at times at least feel keenly the +folly of their riches and fear for the dangers and temptations to which +these expose their children. But the strength of long habit, the +promptings of pride, the excitement of making and holding what has +become for them the counters in a game of cards, the family expectations +that have assumed the character of rights, and the real difficulty they +find in making any good use of their wealth, bind them to their burden, +like a weary donkey to his pack, till they stumble on the precipice that +bounds this life. + +Men who are sure of getting food when they shall need it eat only what +appetite dictates. But with the sparse tribes who exist on the verge of +the habitable globe life is either a famine or a feast. Enduring hunger +for days, the fear of it prompts them to gorge like anacondas when +successful in their quest of game. And so, what gives wealth its curse +is what drives men to seek it, what makes it so envied and admired---the +fear of want. As the unduly rich are the corollary of the unduly poor, +so is the soul-destroying quality of riches but the reflex of the want +that embrutes and degrades. The real evil lies in the injustice from +which unnatural possession and unnatural deprivation both spring. + +But this injustice can hardly be charged on individuals or classes. The +existence of private property in land is a great social wrong from which +society at large suffers, and of which the very rich and the very poor +are alike victims, though at the opposite extremes. Seeing this, it +seems to us like a violation of Christian charity to speak of the rich +as though they individually were responsible for the sufferings of the +poor. Yet, while you do this, you insist that the cause of monstrous +wealth and degrading poverty shall not be touched. Here is a man with a +disfiguring and dangerous excrescence. One physician would kindly, +gently, but firmly remove it. Another insists that it shall not be +removed, but at the same time holds up the poor victim to hatred and +ridicule. Which is right? + +In seeking to restore all men to their equal and natural rights we do +not seek the benefit of any class, but of all. For we both know by faith +and see by fact that injustice can profit no one and that justice must +benefit all. + +Nor do we seek any "futile and ridiculous equality." We recognize, with +you, that there must always be differences and inequalities. In so far +as these are in conformity with the moral law, in so far as they do not +violate the command, "Thou shalt not steal," we are content. We do not +seek to better God's work; we seek only to do His will. The equality we +would bring about is not the equality of fortune, but the equality of +natural opportunity; the equality that reason and religion alike +proclaim---the equality in usufruct of all His children to the bounty of +Our Father who art in Heaven. + +And in taking for the uses of society what we clearly see is the great +fund intended for society in the divine order, we would not levy the +slightest tax on the possessors of wealth, no matter how rich they might +be. Not only do we deem such taxes a violation of the right of property, +but we see that by virtue of beautiful adaptations in the economic laws +of the Creator, it is impossible for any one honestly to acquire wealth, +without at the same time adding to the wealth of the world. + +To persist in a wrong, to refuse to undo it, is always to become +involved in other wrongs. Those who defend private property in land, and +thereby deny the first and most important of all human rights, the equal +right to the material substratum of life, are compelled to one of two +courses. Either they must, as do those whose gospel is " Devil take the +hindermost," deny the equal right to life, and by some theory like that +to which the English clergyman Malthus has given his name, assert that +nature (they do not venture to say God) brings into the world more men +than there is provision for; or, they must, as do the socialists, assert +as rights what in themselves are wrongs. + +Your Holiness in the Encyclical gives an example of this. Denying the +equality of right to the material basis of life, -and yet conscious that +there is a right to live, you assert the right of laborers to employment +and their right to receive from their employers a certain indefinite +wage. No such rights exist. No one has a right to demand employment of +another, or to demand higher wages than the other is willing to give, or +in any way to put pressure on another to make him raise such wages +against his will. There can be no better moral justification for such +demands on employers by workingmen than there would be for employers +demanding that workingmen shall be compelled to work for them when they +do not want to and to accept wages lower than they are willing to take. +Any seeming justification springs from a prior wrong, the denial to +workingmen of their natural rights, and can in the last analysis only +rest on that supreme dictate of self-preservation that under +extraordinary circumstances makes pardonable what in itself is theft, or +sacrilege or even murder. + +A fugitive slave with the bloodhounds of his pursuers baying at his +heels would in true Christian morals be held blameless if he seized the +first horse he came across, even though to take it he had to knock down +the rider. But this is not to justify horse-stealing as an ordinary +means of traveling. + +When his disciples were hungry Christ permitted them to pluck corn on +the Sabbath day. But He never denied the sanctity of the Sabbath by +asserting that it was under ordinary circumstances a proper time to +gather corn. + +He justified David, who when pressed by hunger committed what ordinarily +would be sacrilege, by taking from the temple the loaves of proposition. +But in this He was far from saying that the robbing of temples was a +proper way of getting a living. + +In the Encyclical however you commend the application to the ordinary +relations of life, under normal conditions, of principles that in ethics +are only to be tolerated under extraordinary conditions. You are driven +to this assertion of false rights by your denial of true rights. The +natural right which each man has is not that of demanding employment or +wages from another man; but that of employing himself---that of applying +by his own labor to the inexhaustible storehouse which the Creator has +in the land provided for all men. Were that storehouse open, as by the +single tax we would open it, the natural demand for labor would keep +pace with the supply, the man who sold labor and the man who bought it +would become free exchangers for mutual advantage, and all cause for +dispute between workman and employer would be gone. For then, all being +free to employ themselves, the mere opportunity to labor would cease to +seem a boon; and since no one would work for another for less, all +things considered, than he could earn by working for himself, wages +would necessarily rise to their full value, and the relations of workman +and employer be regulated by mutual interest and convenience. + +This is the only way in which they can be satisfactorily regulated. + +Your Holiness seems to assume that there is some just rate of wages that +employers ought to be willing to pay and that laborers should be content +to receive, and to imagine that if this were secured there would be an +end of strife. This rate you evidently think of as that which will give +workingmen a frugal living, and perhaps enable them by hard work and +strict economy to lay by a little something. + +But how can a just rate of wages be fixed without the "higgling of the +market" any more than the just price of corn or pigs or ships or +paintings can be so fixed? And would not arbitrary regulation in the one +case as in the other check that interplay that most effectively promotes +the economical adjustment of productive forces? Why should buyers of +labor, any more than buyers of commodities, be called on to pay higher +prices than in a free market they are compelled to pay? Why should the +sellers of labor be content with anything less than in a free market +they can obtain? Why should workingmen be content with frugal fare when +the world is so rich? Why should they be satisfied with a life time of +toil and stinting, when the world is so beautiful % Why should not they +also desire to gratify the higher instincts, the finer tastes? Why +should they be forever content to travel in the steerage when others +find the cabin more enjoyable? + +Nor will they. The ferment of our time does not arise merely from the +fact that workingmen find it harder to live on the same scale of +comfort. It is also and perhaps still more largely due to the increase +of their desires with an improved scale of comfort. This increase of +desire must continue. For workingmen are men. And man is the unsatisfied animal. -He is not an ox, of whom it may be said, so much grass, so -much grain, so much water, and a little salt, and he will be -content. On the contrary, the more he gets the more he -craves. When he has enough food then he wants better food. -When he gets a shelter then he wants a more commodious and -tasty one. When his animal needs are satisfied then mental -and spiritual desires arise. - -This restless discontent is of the nature of man---of that -nobler nature that raises him above the animals by so -immeasurable a gulf, and shows him to be indeed created in -the likeness of God. It is not to be quarrelled with, for it -is the motor of all progress. It is this that has raised -St. Peter's dome and on dull, dead canvass made the angelic -face of the Madonna to glow; it is this that has weighed -suns and analyzed stars, and opened page after page of the -wonderful works of creative intelligence; it is this that -has narrowed the Atlantic to an ocean ferry and trained the -lightning to carry our messages to the remotest lands; it is -this that is opening to us possibilities beside which all -that our modern civilization has as yet accomplished seem -small. Nor can it be repressed save by degrading and -imbruting men; by reducing Europe to Asia. - -Hence, short of what wages may be earned when all -restrictions on labor are removed and access to natural -opportunities on equal terms secured to all, it is -impossible to fix any rate of wages that will be deemed -just, or any rate of wages that can prevent workingmen -striving to get more. So far from it making workingmen more -contented to improve their condition a little, it is certain -to make them more discontented. - -Nor are you asking justice when you ask employers to pay -their workingmen more than they are compelled to pay---more -than they could get others to do the work for. You are -asking charity. For the surplus that the rich employer thus -gives is not in reality wages, it is essentially alms. - -In speaking of the practical measures for the improvement of -the condition of labor which your Holiness suggests, I have -not mentioned what you place much stress upon---charity. But -there is nothing practical in such recommendations as a cure -for poverty, nor will any one so consider them. If it were -possible for the giving of alms to abolish poverty there -would be no poverty in Christendom. - -Charity is indeed a noble and beautiful virtue, grateful to -man and approved by God. But charity must be built on -justice. It cannot supersede justice. - -What is wrong with the condition of labor through the -Christian world is that labor is robbed. And while you -justify the continuance of that robbery it is idle to urge -charity. To do so---to commend charity as a substitute for -justice, is indeed something akin in essence to those -heresies, condemned by your predecessors, that taught that -the Gospel had superseded the law, and that the love of God -exempted men from moral obligations. - -All that charity can do where injustice exists is here and -there to somewhat mollify the effects of injustice. It -cannot cure them. Nor is even what little it can do to -mollify the effects of injustice without evil. For what may -be called the superimposed, and in this sense, secondary -virtues, work evil where the fundamental or primary virtues -are absent. Thus sobriety is a virtue and diligence is a -virtue. But a sober and diligent thief is all the more -dangerous. Thus patience is a virtue. But patience under -wrong is the condoning of wrong. Thus it is a virtue to seek -knowledge and to endeavor to cultivate the mental powers. -But the wicked man becomes more capable of evil by reason of -his intelligence. Devils we always think of as intelligent. - -And thus that pseudo charity that discards and denies -justice works evil. On the one side, it demoralizes its -recipients, outraging that human dignity which as you say -"God himself treats with reverence," and turning into -beggars and paupers men who to become self supporting, self -respecting citizens only need the restitution of what God -has given them. On the other side, it acts as an anodyne to -the consciences of those who are living on the robbery of -their fellows, and fosters that moral delusion and spiritual -pride that Christ doubtless had in mind when he said it was -easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than -for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Tor it leads -men steeped in injustice, and using their money and their -influence to bolster up injustice, to think that in giving -alms they are doing something more than their duty towards -man and deserve to be very well thought of by God, and in a -vague way to attribute to their own goodness what really -belongs to God's goodness. For consider: Who is the -All-provider? Who is it the!: as you say, "owes to man a -storehouse that shall never fail," and which "he finds only -in the inexhaustible fertility of the earth." Is it not God? -And when, therefore, men, deprived of the bounty of their -God, are made dependent on the bounty of their fellow -creatures, are not these creatures, as it were, put in the -place of God, to take credit to themselves for paying -obligations that you yourself say God owes? - -But worse perhaps than all else is the way in which this -substituting of vague injunctions to charity for the -clear-cut demands of justice opens an easy means for the -professed teachers of the Christian religion of all branches -and communions to placate Mammon while persuading themselves -that they are serving God. Had the English clergy not -subordinated the teaching of justice to the teaching of -charity---to go no further in illustrating a principle of -which the whole history of Christendom from Constantine's -time to our own is witness---the Tudor tyranny would never -have arisen, and the separation of the Church been averted; -had the clergy of France never substituted charity for -justice, the monstrous iniquities of the ancient regime -would never have brought the horrors of the Great -Revolution; and in my own country had those who should have -preached justice not satisfied themselves with preaching -kindness, chattel slavery could never have demanded the -holocaust of our civil war. - -No, your Holiness; as faith without works is dead, as men -cannot give to God His due while denying to their fellows -the rights He gave them, so charity unsupported by justice -can do nothing to solve the problem of the existing -condition of labor. Though the rich were to " bestow all -their goods to feed the poor and give their bodies to be -burned," poverty would continue while property in land -continues. - -Take the case of the rich man to-day who is honestly -desirous of devoting his wealth to the improvement of the -condition of labor. What can he do? - -Bestow his wealth on those who need it? He may help some who -deserve it, but will not improve general conditions. And -against the good he may do will be the danger of doing harm. - -Build churches? Under the shadow of churches poverty festers -and the vice that is born of it breeds. - -Build schools and colleges? Save as it may lead men to see -the iniquity of private property in land, increased -education can effect nothing for mere laborers, for as -education is diffused the wages of education sink. - -Establish hospitals? Why, already it seems to laborers that -there are too many seeking work, and to save and prolong -life is to add to the pressure. - -Build model tenements? Unless he cheapens house -accommodations he but drives further the class he would -benefit, and as he cheapens house accommodation he brings -more to seek employment and cheapens wages. - -Institute laboratories, scientific schools, workshops for -physical experiments? He but stimulates invention and -discovery, the very forces that, acting on a society based -on private property in land, are crushing labor as between -the upper and the nether millstone. - -Promote emigration from places where wages are low to places -where they are somewhat higher? If he does, even those whom -he at first helps to emigrate will soon turn on him to -demand that such emigration shall be stopped as reducing -their wages. - -Give away what land he may have, or refuse to take rent for -it, or let it at lower rents than the market price? He will -simply make new land owners or partial land owners; he may -make some individuals the richer, but he will do nothing to -improve the general condition of labor. - -Or, bethinking himself of those public spirited citizens of -classic times who spent great sums in improving their native -cities, shall he try to beautify the city of his birth or -adoption? Let him widen and straighten narrow and crooked -streets, let him build parks and erect fountains, let him -open tramways and bring in railroads, or in any way make -beautiful and attractive his chosen city, and what will be -the result? Must it not be that those who appropriate God's -bounty will take his also? Will it not be that the value of -land will go up, and that the net result of his benefactions -will be an increase of rents and a bounty to land owners? -Why, even the mere announcement that he is going to do such -things will start speculation and send up the value of land -by leaps and bounds. - -What, then, can the rich man do to improve the condition of -labor? - -He can do nothing at all except to use his strength for the -abolition of the great primary wrong that robs men of their -birthright. The justice of God laughs at the attempts of men -to substitute anything else for it. - -If when in speaking of the practical measures your Holiness -proposes, I did not note the moral injunctions that the -Encyclical contains, it is not because we do not think -morality practical. On the contrary it seems to us that in -the teachings of morality is to be found the highest -practicality, and that the question, What is wise? may -always safely be subordinated to the question, What is -right? But your Holiness in the Encyclical expressly -deprives the moral truths you state of all real bearing on -the condition of labor, just as the American people, by -their legalization of chattel slavery, used to deprive of -all practical meaning the declaration they deem their -fundamental charter, and were accustomed to read solemnly on -every national anniversary. That declaration asserts that -"We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are -created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain -unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and -the pursuit of happiness." But what did this truth mean on -the lips of men who asserted that one man was the rightful -property of another man who had bought him; who asserted -that the slave was robbing the master in running away, and -that the man or the woman who helped the fugitive to escape, -or even gave him a cup of cold water in Christ's name, was -an accessory to theft, on whose head the penalties of the -state should be visited? +He is not an ox, of whom it may be said, so much grass, so much grain, +so much water, and a little salt, and he will be content. On the +contrary, the more he gets the more he craves. When he has enough food +then he wants better food. When he gets a shelter then he wants a more +commodious and tasty one. When his animal needs are satisfied then +mental and spiritual desires arise. + +This restless discontent is of the nature of man---of that nobler nature +that raises him above the animals by so immeasurable a gulf, and shows +him to be indeed created in the likeness of God. It is not to be +quarrelled with, for it is the motor of all progress. It is this that +has raised St. Peter's dome and on dull, dead canvass made the angelic +face of the Madonna to glow; it is this that has weighed suns and +analyzed stars, and opened page after page of the wonderful works of +creative intelligence; it is this that has narrowed the Atlantic to an +ocean ferry and trained the lightning to carry our messages to the +remotest lands; it is this that is opening to us possibilities beside +which all that our modern civilization has as yet accomplished seem +small. Nor can it be repressed save by degrading and imbruting men; by +reducing Europe to Asia. + +Hence, short of what wages may be earned when all restrictions on labor +are removed and access to natural opportunities on equal terms secured +to all, it is impossible to fix any rate of wages that will be deemed +just, or any rate of wages that can prevent workingmen striving to get +more. So far from it making workingmen more contented to improve their +condition a little, it is certain to make them more discontented. + +Nor are you asking justice when you ask employers to pay their +workingmen more than they are compelled to pay---more than they could +get others to do the work for. You are asking charity. For the surplus +that the rich employer thus gives is not in reality wages, it is +essentially alms. + +In speaking of the practical measures for the improvement of the +condition of labor which your Holiness suggests, I have not mentioned +what you place much stress upon---charity. But there is nothing +practical in such recommendations as a cure for poverty, nor will any +one so consider them. If it were possible for the giving of alms to +abolish poverty there would be no poverty in Christendom. + +Charity is indeed a noble and beautiful virtue, grateful to man and +approved by God. But charity must be built on justice. It cannot +supersede justice. + +What is wrong with the condition of labor through the Christian world is +that labor is robbed. And while you justify the continuance of that +robbery it is idle to urge charity. To do so---to commend charity as a +substitute for justice, is indeed something akin in essence to those +heresies, condemned by your predecessors, that taught that the Gospel +had superseded the law, and that the love of God exempted men from moral +obligations. + +All that charity can do where injustice exists is here and there to +somewhat mollify the effects of injustice. It cannot cure them. Nor is +even what little it can do to mollify the effects of injustice without +evil. For what may be called the superimposed, and in this sense, +secondary virtues, work evil where the fundamental or primary virtues +are absent. Thus sobriety is a virtue and diligence is a virtue. But a +sober and diligent thief is all the more dangerous. Thus patience is a +virtue. But patience under wrong is the condoning of wrong. Thus it is a +virtue to seek knowledge and to endeavor to cultivate the mental powers. +But the wicked man becomes more capable of evil by reason of his +intelligence. Devils we always think of as intelligent. + +And thus that pseudo charity that discards and denies justice works +evil. On the one side, it demoralizes its recipients, outraging that +human dignity which as you say "God himself treats with reverence," and +turning into beggars and paupers men who to become self supporting, self +respecting citizens only need the restitution of what God has given +them. On the other side, it acts as an anodyne to the consciences of +those who are living on the robbery of their fellows, and fosters that +moral delusion and spiritual pride that Christ doubtless had in mind +when he said it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a +needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Tor it leads +men steeped in injustice, and using their money and their influence to +bolster up injustice, to think that in giving alms they are doing +something more than their duty towards man and deserve to be very well +thought of by God, and in a vague way to attribute to their own goodness +what really belongs to God's goodness. For consider: Who is the +All-provider? Who is it the!: as you say, "owes to man a storehouse that +shall never fail," and which "he finds only in the inexhaustible +fertility of the earth." Is it not God? And when, therefore, men, +deprived of the bounty of their God, are made dependent on the bounty of +their fellow creatures, are not these creatures, as it were, put in the +place of God, to take credit to themselves for paying obligations that +you yourself say God owes? + +But worse perhaps than all else is the way in which this substituting of +vague injunctions to charity for the clear-cut demands of justice opens +an easy means for the professed teachers of the Christian religion of +all branches and communions to placate Mammon while persuading +themselves that they are serving God. Had the English clergy not +subordinated the teaching of justice to the teaching of charity---to go +no further in illustrating a principle of which the whole history of +Christendom from Constantine's time to our own is witness---the Tudor +tyranny would never have arisen, and the separation of the Church been +averted; had the clergy of France never substituted charity for justice, +the monstrous iniquities of the ancient regime would never have brought +the horrors of the Great Revolution; and in my own country had those who +should have preached justice not satisfied themselves with preaching +kindness, chattel slavery could never have demanded the holocaust of our +civil war. + +No, your Holiness; as faith without works is dead, as men cannot give to +God His due while denying to their fellows the rights He gave them, so +charity unsupported by justice can do nothing to solve the problem of +the existing condition of labor. Though the rich were to " bestow all +their goods to feed the poor and give their bodies to be burned," +poverty would continue while property in land continues. + +Take the case of the rich man to-day who is honestly desirous of +devoting his wealth to the improvement of the condition of labor. What +can he do? + +Bestow his wealth on those who need it? He may help some who deserve it, +but will not improve general conditions. And against the good he may do +will be the danger of doing harm. + +Build churches? Under the shadow of churches poverty festers and the +vice that is born of it breeds. + +Build schools and colleges? Save as it may lead men to see the iniquity +of private property in land, increased education can effect nothing for +mere laborers, for as education is diffused the wages of education sink. + +Establish hospitals? Why, already it seems to laborers that there are +too many seeking work, and to save and prolong life is to add to the +pressure. + +Build model tenements? Unless he cheapens house accommodations he but +drives further the class he would benefit, and as he cheapens house +accommodation he brings more to seek employment and cheapens wages. + +Institute laboratories, scientific schools, workshops for physical +experiments? He but stimulates invention and discovery, the very forces +that, acting on a society based on private property in land, are +crushing labor as between the upper and the nether millstone. + +Promote emigration from places where wages are low to places where they +are somewhat higher? If he does, even those whom he at first helps to +emigrate will soon turn on him to demand that such emigration shall be +stopped as reducing their wages. + +Give away what land he may have, or refuse to take rent for it, or let +it at lower rents than the market price? He will simply make new land +owners or partial land owners; he may make some individuals the richer, +but he will do nothing to improve the general condition of labor. + +Or, bethinking himself of those public spirited citizens of classic +times who spent great sums in improving their native cities, shall he +try to beautify the city of his birth or adoption? Let him widen and +straighten narrow and crooked streets, let him build parks and erect +fountains, let him open tramways and bring in railroads, or in any way +make beautiful and attractive his chosen city, and what will be the +result? Must it not be that those who appropriate God's bounty will take +his also? Will it not be that the value of land will go up, and that the +net result of his benefactions will be an increase of rents and a bounty +to land owners? Why, even the mere announcement that he is going to do +such things will start speculation and send up the value of land by +leaps and bounds. + +What, then, can the rich man do to improve the condition of labor? + +He can do nothing at all except to use his strength for the abolition of +the great primary wrong that robs men of their birthright. The justice +of God laughs at the attempts of men to substitute anything else for it. + +If when in speaking of the practical measures your Holiness proposes, I +did not note the moral injunctions that the Encyclical contains, it is +not because we do not think morality practical. On the contrary it seems +to us that in the teachings of morality is to be found the highest +practicality, and that the question, What is wise? may always safely be +subordinated to the question, What is right? But your Holiness in the +Encyclical expressly deprives the moral truths you state of all real +bearing on the condition of labor, just as the American people, by their +legalization of chattel slavery, used to deprive of all practical +meaning the declaration they deem their fundamental charter, and were +accustomed to read solemnly on every national anniversary. That +declaration asserts that "We hold these truths to be self evident that +all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain +unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit +of happiness." But what did this truth mean on the lips of men who +asserted that one man was the rightful property of another man who had +bought him; who asserted that the slave was robbing the master in +running away, and that the man or the woman who helped the fugitive to +escape, or even gave him a cup of cold water in Christ's name, was an +accessory to theft, on whose head the penalties of the state should be +visited? Consider the moral teachings of the Encyclical: -You tell us that God owes to man an inexhaustible storehouse -which he finds only in the land. Yet you support a system -that denies to the great majority of men all right of -recourse to this storehouse. - -You tell us that the necessity of labor is a consequence of -original sin. Yet you support a system that exempts a -privileged class from the necessity for labor and enables -them to shift their share and much more than their share of -labor on others. - -You tell us that God has not created us for the perishable -and transitory things of earth, but has given us this world -as a place of exile and not as our true country. Yet you -tell us that some of the exiles have the exclusive right of -ownership in this place of common exile, so that they may -compel their fellow exiles to pay *them* for sojourning -here, and that this exclusive ownership they may transfer to -other exiles yet to come, with the same right of excluding -their fellows. - -You tell us that virtue is the common inheritance of all; -that all men are children of God the common Father; that all -have the same last end; that all are redeemed by Jesus -Christ; that the blessings of nature and the gifts of grace -belong in common to all, and that to all except the unworthy -is promised the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven! Yet in -all this and through all this you insist as a moral duty on -the maintenance of a system that makes the reservoir of all -God's material bounties and blessings to man the exclusive -property of a few of their number---you give us equal rights -in heaven, but deny us equal rights on earth! - -It was said of a famous decision of the Supreme Court of the -United States made just before the civil war, in a fugitive -slave case, that "it gave the law to the North and the -nigger to the South." It is thus that your Encyclical gives -the gospel to laborers and the earth to the landlords. Is it -really to be wondered at that there are those who sneeringly -say "The priests are ready enough to give the poor an equal -share in all that is out of sight, but they take precious -good care that the rich shall keep a tight grip on all that -is within sight." - -Herein is the reason why the working masses all over the -world are turning away from organized religion. - -And why should they not? What is the office of religion if -not to point out the principles that ought to govern the -conduct of men towards each other; to furnish a clear, -decisive rule of right which shall guide men in all the -relations of life---in the workshop, in the mart, in the -forum and in the senate, as well as in the church; to -supply, as it were, a compass by which amid the blasts of -passion, the aberrations of greed and the delusions of a -short-sighted expediency men may safely steer? What is the -use of a religion that stands palsied and paltering in the -face of the most momentous problems? What is the use of a -religion that whatever it may promise for the next world can -do nothing to prevent injustice in this? Early Christianity -was not such a religion, else it would never have -encountered the Roman persecutions; else it would never have -swept the Roman world. The sceptical masters of Rome, -tolerant of all gods, careless of what they deemed vulgar -superstitions, were keenly sensitive to a doctrine based on -equal rights; they feared instinctively a religion that -inspired slave and proletarian with a new hope; that took -for its central figure a crucified carpenter; that taught -the equal fatherhood of God and the equal brotherhood of -men; that looked for the speedy reign of justice, and that -prayed, *"Thy Kingdom come on Earth!"* - -To-day, the same perceptions, the same aspirations, exist -among the masses. Man is, as he has been called, a religious -animal, and can never quite rid himself of the feeling that -there is some moral government of the world, some eternal -distinction between wrong and right; can never quite abandon -the yearning for a reign of righteousness. And to-day, men -who, as they think, have cast off all belief in religion, -will tell you, even though they know not what it is, that -with regard to the condition of labor something is wrong! If -theology be, as St. Thomas Aquinas held it, the sum and -focus of the sciences, is it not the business of religion to -say clearly and fearlessly what that wrong is? It was by a -deep impulse that of old when threatened and perplexed by -general disaster men came to the oracles to ask, In what -have we offended the gods? To-day,menaced by growing evils -that threaten the very existence of society, men, conscious -that *something is wrong,* are putting the same question to -the ministers of religion. What is the answer they get? -Alas, with few exceptions, it is as vague, as inadequate, as -the answers that used to come from heathen oracles. +You tell us that God owes to man an inexhaustible storehouse which he +finds only in the land. Yet you support a system that denies to the +great majority of men all right of recourse to this storehouse. + +You tell us that the necessity of labor is a consequence of original +sin. Yet you support a system that exempts a privileged class from the +necessity for labor and enables them to shift their share and much more +than their share of labor on others. + +You tell us that God has not created us for the perishable and +transitory things of earth, but has given us this world as a place of +exile and not as our true country. Yet you tell us that some of the +exiles have the exclusive right of ownership in this place of common +exile, so that they may compel their fellow exiles to pay *them* for +sojourning here, and that this exclusive ownership they may transfer to +other exiles yet to come, with the same right of excluding their +fellows. + +You tell us that virtue is the common inheritance of all; that all men +are children of God the common Father; that all have the same last end; +that all are redeemed by Jesus Christ; that the blessings of nature and +the gifts of grace belong in common to all, and that to all except the +unworthy is promised the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven! Yet in +all this and through all this you insist as a moral duty on the +maintenance of a system that makes the reservoir of all God's material +bounties and blessings to man the exclusive property of a few of their +number---you give us equal rights in heaven, but deny us equal rights on +earth! + +It was said of a famous decision of the Supreme Court of the United +States made just before the civil war, in a fugitive slave case, that +"it gave the law to the North and the nigger to the South." It is thus +that your Encyclical gives the gospel to laborers and the earth to the +landlords. Is it really to be wondered at that there are those who +sneeringly say "The priests are ready enough to give the poor an equal +share in all that is out of sight, but they take precious good care that +the rich shall keep a tight grip on all that is within sight." + +Herein is the reason why the working masses all over the world are +turning away from organized religion. + +And why should they not? What is the office of religion if not to point +out the principles that ought to govern the conduct of men towards each +other; to furnish a clear, decisive rule of right which shall guide men +in all the relations of life---in the workshop, in the mart, in the +forum and in the senate, as well as in the church; to supply, as it +were, a compass by which amid the blasts of passion, the aberrations of +greed and the delusions of a short-sighted expediency men may safely +steer? What is the use of a religion that stands palsied and paltering +in the face of the most momentous problems? What is the use of a +religion that whatever it may promise for the next world can do nothing +to prevent injustice in this? Early Christianity was not such a +religion, else it would never have encountered the Roman persecutions; +else it would never have swept the Roman world. The sceptical masters of +Rome, tolerant of all gods, careless of what they deemed vulgar +superstitions, were keenly sensitive to a doctrine based on equal +rights; they feared instinctively a religion that inspired slave and +proletarian with a new hope; that took for its central figure a +crucified carpenter; that taught the equal fatherhood of God and the +equal brotherhood of men; that looked for the speedy reign of justice, +and that prayed, *"Thy Kingdom come on Earth!"* + +To-day, the same perceptions, the same aspirations, exist among the +masses. Man is, as he has been called, a religious animal, and can never +quite rid himself of the feeling that there is some moral government of +the world, some eternal distinction between wrong and right; can never +quite abandon the yearning for a reign of righteousness. And to-day, men +who, as they think, have cast off all belief in religion, will tell you, +even though they know not what it is, that with regard to the condition +of labor something is wrong! If theology be, as St. Thomas Aquinas held +it, the sum and focus of the sciences, is it not the business of +religion to say clearly and fearlessly what that wrong is? It was by a +deep impulse that of old when threatened and perplexed by general +disaster men came to the oracles to ask, In what have we offended the +gods? To-day,menaced by growing evils that threaten the very existence +of society, men, conscious that *something is wrong,* are putting the +same question to the ministers of religion. What is the answer they get? +Alas, with few exceptions, it is as vague, as inadequate, as the answers +that used to come from heathen oracles. Is it any wonder that the masses of men are losing faith? Let me again state the case that your Encyclical presents: -What is that condition of labor which as you truly say is -"the question of the hour," and "fills every mind with -painful apprehension?" Reduced to its lowest expression it -is the poverty of men willing to work. And what is the -lowest expression of this phrase? It is that they lack -bread---for in that one word we most concisely and strongly -express all the manifold material satisfactions needed by -humanity, the absence of which constitutes poverty. - -Now what is the prayer of Christendom---the universal -prayer; the prayer that goes up daily and hourly wherever -the name of Christ is honored; that ascends from your -Holiness at the high altar of St. Peter's, and that is -repeated by the youngest child that the poorest Christian -mother has taught to lisp a request to her Father in Heaven? -It is, "Give us this day our daily bread!" - -Yet where this prayer goes up, daily and hourly, men lack -bread. Is it not the business of religion to say why? If it -cannot do so, shall not scoffers mock its ministers as Elias -mocked the prophets of Baal, saying, "Cry with a louder -voice, for he is a god; and perhaps he is talking, or is in -an inn, or on a journey or perhaps he is asleep, and must be -awakened!" What answer can those ministers give? Either -there is no God, or He is asleep, or else He does give men -their daily bread, and it is in some way intercepted. - -Here is the answer, the only true answer: If men lack bread -it is not that God has not done His part in providing it. If -men willing to labor are cursed with poverty, it is not that -the storehouse that God owes men has failed; that the daily -supply He has promised for the daily wants of His children -is not here in abundance. It is, that impiously violating -the benevolent intentions of their Creator, men have made -land private property, and thus given into the exclusive -ownership of the few the provision that a bountiful Father -has made for all. - -Any other answer than that, no matter how it may be shrouded -in the mere forms of religion, is practically an atheistic -answer. +What is that condition of labor which as you truly say is "the question +of the hour," and "fills every mind with painful apprehension?" Reduced +to its lowest expression it is the poverty of men willing to work. And +what is the lowest expression of this phrase? It is that they lack +bread---for in that one word we most concisely and strongly express all +the manifold material satisfactions needed by humanity, the absence of +which constitutes poverty. + +Now what is the prayer of Christendom---the universal prayer; the prayer +that goes up daily and hourly wherever the name of Christ is honored; +that ascends from your Holiness at the high altar of St. Peter's, and +that is repeated by the youngest child that the poorest Christian mother +has taught to lisp a request to her Father in Heaven? It is, "Give us +this day our daily bread!" + +Yet where this prayer goes up, daily and hourly, men lack bread. Is it +not the business of religion to say why? If it cannot do so, shall not +scoffers mock its ministers as Elias mocked the prophets of Baal, +saying, "Cry with a louder voice, for he is a god; and perhaps he is +talking, or is in an inn, or on a journey or perhaps he is asleep, and +must be awakened!" What answer can those ministers give? Either there is +no God, or He is asleep, or else He does give men their daily bread, and +it is in some way intercepted. + +Here is the answer, the only true answer: If men lack bread it is not +that God has not done His part in providing it. If men willing to labor +are cursed with poverty, it is not that the storehouse that God owes men +has failed; that the daily supply He has promised for the daily wants of +His children is not here in abundance. It is, that impiously violating +the benevolent intentions of their Creator, men have made land private +property, and thus given into the exclusive ownership of the few the +provision that a bountiful Father has made for all. + +Any other answer than that, no matter how it may be shrouded in the mere +forms of religion, is practically an atheistic answer. \*\*\* -I have written this letter not alone for your Holiness, but -for all whom I may hope it to reach. But in sending it to -you personally, and in advance of publication, I trust that -it may be by you personally read and weighed. In setting -forth the grounds of our belief and in pointing out -considerations which it seems to us you have unfortunately -overlooked, I have written frankly, as was my duty on a -matter of such momentous importance, and as I am sure you -would have me write. But I trust I have done so without -offence. For your office I have profound respect, for -yourself personally the highest esteem. And while the views -I have opposed seem to us erroneous and dangerous, we do not -wish to be understood as in the slightest degree questioning -either your sincerity or intelligence in adopting them. For -they are views all but universally held by the professed -religious teachers of Christendom, in all communions and -creeds, and that have received the sanction of those looked -to as the wise and learned. Under the conditions that have -surrounded you, and under the pressure of so many high -duties and responsibilities, culminating in those of your -present exalted position, it is not to be expected that you -should have hitherto thought to question them. But I trust -that the considerations herein set forth may induce you to -do so, and even if the burdens and cares that beset you -shall now make impossible the careful consideration that -should precede expression by one in your responsible -position I trust that what I have written may not be without -use to others. - -And, as I have said, we are deeply grateful for your -Encyclical. It is much that by so conspicuously calling -attention to the condition of labor, you have recalled the -fact forgotten by so many that the social evils and problems -of our time directly and pressingly concern the Church. It -is much that you should thus have placed the stamp of your -disapproval on that impious doctrine which directly and by -implication has been so long and so widely preached in the -name of Christianity, that the sufferings of the poor are -due to mysterious decrees of Providence which men may lament -but cannot alter. Your Encyclical will be seen by those who -carefully analyze it to be directed not against socialism, -which in moderate form you favor, but against what we in the -United States call the single tax. Yet we have no solicitude -for the truth save that it shall be brought into discussion, -and we recognize in your Holiness' Encyclical a most -efficient means of promoting discussion, and of promoting -discussion along the lines that we deem of the greatest -importance---the lines of morality and religion. In this you -deserve the gratitude of all who would follow truth, for it -is of the nature of truth always to prevail over error where -discussion goes on. - -And the truth for which we stand has now made such progress -in the minds of men that it must be heard; that it can never -be stifled; that it must go on conquering and to conquer. -Far off Australia leads the van, and has already taken the -first steps towards the single tax. In Great Britain, in the -United States, and in Canada, the question is on the verge -of practical politics and soon will be the burning issue of -the time. Continental Europe cannot long linger behind. -Faster than ever the world is moving. - -Forty years ago slavery seemed stronger in the United States -than ever before, and the market price of slaves---both -working slaves and breeding slaves---was higher than it had -ever been before, for the title of the owner seemed growing -more secure. In the shadow of the Hall where the equal -rights of man had been solemnly proclaimed, the manacled -fugitive was dragged back to bondage, and on what to -American tradition was our Marathon of freedom, the slave -master boasted that he would yet call the roll of his -chattels. - -Yet forty years ago, though the party that was to place -Abraham Lincoln in the Presidential chair had not been -formed, and nearly a decade was yet to pass ere the signal -gun was to ring out, slavery, as we may now see, was doomed. - -To-day a wider, deeper, more beneficent revolution is -brooding, not over one country, but over the world. God's -truth impels it, and forces mightier than He has ever before -given to man urge it on. It is no more in the power of -vested wrongs to stay it than it is in man's power to stay -the sun. The stars in their courses fight against Sisera, -and in the ferment of today, to him who hath ears to hear, -the doom of industrial slavery is sealed. - -Where shall the dignitaries of the Church be in the struggle -that is coming, nay that is already here? On the side of -justice and liberty, or on the side of wrong and slavery % -with the delivered when the timbrels shall sound again, or -with the chariots and the horsemen that again shall be -engulfed in the sea? - -As to the masses, there is little fear where they will be. -Already, among those who hold it with religious fervor, the -single tax counts great numbers of Catholics, many priests, -secular and regular, and at least some bishops, while there -is no communion or denomination of the many into which -English speaking Christians are divided where its advocates -are not to be found. - -Last Sunday evening in the New York church that of all -churches in the world is most richly endowed, I saw the -cross carried through its aisles by a hundred choristers, -and heard a priest of that English branch of the Church that -three hundred years since was separated from your obedience, -declare to a great congregation that the labor question was -at bottom a religious question; that it. could only be -settled on the basis of moral right; that the first and -clearest of rights is the equal right to the use of the -physical basis of all life; and that no human titles could -set aside God's gift of the land to all men. +I have written this letter not alone for your Holiness, but for all whom +I may hope it to reach. But in sending it to you personally, and in +advance of publication, I trust that it may be by you personally read +and weighed. In setting forth the grounds of our belief and in pointing +out considerations which it seems to us you have unfortunately +overlooked, I have written frankly, as was my duty on a matter of such +momentous importance, and as I am sure you would have me write. But I +trust I have done so without offence. For your office I have profound +respect, for yourself personally the highest esteem. And while the views +I have opposed seem to us erroneous and dangerous, we do not wish to be +understood as in the slightest degree questioning either your sincerity +or intelligence in adopting them. For they are views all but universally +held by the professed religious teachers of Christendom, in all +communions and creeds, and that have received the sanction of those +looked to as the wise and learned. Under the conditions that have +surrounded you, and under the pressure of so many high duties and +responsibilities, culminating in those of your present exalted position, +it is not to be expected that you should have hitherto thought to +question them. But I trust that the considerations herein set forth may +induce you to do so, and even if the burdens and cares that beset you +shall now make impossible the careful consideration that should precede +expression by one in your responsible position I trust that what I have +written may not be without use to others. + +And, as I have said, we are deeply grateful for your Encyclical. It is +much that by so conspicuously calling attention to the condition of +labor, you have recalled the fact forgotten by so many that the social +evils and problems of our time directly and pressingly concern the +Church. It is much that you should thus have placed the stamp of your +disapproval on that impious doctrine which directly and by implication +has been so long and so widely preached in the name of Christianity, +that the sufferings of the poor are due to mysterious decrees of +Providence which men may lament but cannot alter. Your Encyclical will +be seen by those who carefully analyze it to be directed not against +socialism, which in moderate form you favor, but against what we in the +United States call the single tax. Yet we have no solicitude for the +truth save that it shall be brought into discussion, and we recognize in +your Holiness' Encyclical a most efficient means of promoting +discussion, and of promoting discussion along the lines that we deem of +the greatest importance---the lines of morality and religion. In this +you deserve the gratitude of all who would follow truth, for it is of +the nature of truth always to prevail over error where discussion goes +on. + +And the truth for which we stand has now made such progress in the minds +of men that it must be heard; that it can never be stifled; that it must +go on conquering and to conquer. Far off Australia leads the van, and +has already taken the first steps towards the single tax. In Great +Britain, in the United States, and in Canada, the question is on the +verge of practical politics and soon will be the burning issue of the +time. Continental Europe cannot long linger behind. Faster than ever the +world is moving. + +Forty years ago slavery seemed stronger in the United States than ever +before, and the market price of slaves---both working slaves and +breeding slaves---was higher than it had ever been before, for the title +of the owner seemed growing more secure. In the shadow of the Hall where +the equal rights of man had been solemnly proclaimed, the manacled +fugitive was dragged back to bondage, and on what to American tradition +was our Marathon of freedom, the slave master boasted that he would yet +call the roll of his chattels. + +Yet forty years ago, though the party that was to place Abraham Lincoln +in the Presidential chair had not been formed, and nearly a decade was +yet to pass ere the signal gun was to ring out, slavery, as we may now +see, was doomed. + +To-day a wider, deeper, more beneficent revolution is brooding, not over +one country, but over the world. God's truth impels it, and forces +mightier than He has ever before given to man urge it on. It is no more +in the power of vested wrongs to stay it than it is in man's power to +stay the sun. The stars in their courses fight against Sisera, and in +the ferment of today, to him who hath ears to hear, the doom of +industrial slavery is sealed. + +Where shall the dignitaries of the Church be in the struggle that is +coming, nay that is already here? On the side of justice and liberty, or +on the side of wrong and slavery % with the delivered when the timbrels +shall sound again, or with the chariots and the horsemen that again +shall be engulfed in the sea? + +As to the masses, there is little fear where they will be. Already, +among those who hold it with religious fervor, the single tax counts +great numbers of Catholics, many priests, secular and regular, and at +least some bishops, while there is no communion or denomination of the +many into which English speaking Christians are divided where its +advocates are not to be found. + +Last Sunday evening in the New York church that of all churches in the +world is most richly endowed, I saw the cross carried through its aisles +by a hundred choristers, and heard a priest of that English branch of +the Church that three hundred years since was separated from your +obedience, declare to a great congregation that the labor question was +at bottom a religious question; that it. could only be settled on the +basis of moral right; that the first and clearest of rights is the equal +right to the use of the physical basis of all life; and that no human +titles could set aside God's gift of the land to all men. And as the Cross moved by, and the choristers sang, @@ -3664,25 +3120,22 @@ And as the Cross moved by, and the choristers sang, > > The Cross of Christ the Lord!" -men to whom it was a new thing bowed their heads, and in -hearts long steeled against the Church, as the willing -handmaid of oppression, rose the "God wills it!" of the -grandest and mightiest of crusades. +men to whom it was a new thing bowed their heads, and in hearts long +steeled against the Church, as the willing handmaid of oppression, rose +the "God wills it!" of the grandest and mightiest of crusades. -Servant of the Servants of God! I call you by the strongest -and sweetest of your titles. In your hands more than in -those of any living man lies the power to say the word and -make the sign that shall end an unnatural divorce, and marry -again to religion all that is pure and high in social +Servant of the Servants of God! I call you by the strongest and sweetest +of your titles. In your hands more than in those of any living man lies +the power to say the word and make the sign that shall end an unnatural +divorce, and marry again to religion all that is pure and high in social aspiration -Wishing for your Holiness the chief est of all blessings, -that you may know the truth and be freed by the truth; -wishing for you the days and the strength that may enable -you by the great service you may render to humanity to make -your pontificate through all coming time most glorious; and -with the profound respect due to your personal character and -to your exalted office, I am, +Wishing for your Holiness the chief est of all blessings, that you may +know the truth and be freed by the truth; wishing for you the days and +the strength that may enable you by the great service you may render to +humanity to make your pontificate through all coming time most glorious; +and with the profound respect due to your personal character and to your +exalted office, I am, Yours sincerely, @@ -3694,1584 +3147,1308 @@ New York, September 11, 1891. *Official Translation.* -*To our Venerable Brethren, all Patriarchs, Primates, -Archbishops, and Bishops of the Catholic World, in grace and -communion with the Apostolic See, Pope Leo XIII.* +*To our Venerable Brethren, all Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, and +Bishops of the Catholic World, in grace and communion with the Apostolic +See, Pope Leo XIII.* **Venerable Brethren, Health and Apostolic Benediction.** -1. That the spirit of revolutionary change, which has long - been disturbing the nations of the world,should have - passed beyond the sphere of politics and made its - influence felt in the cognate sphere of practical - economics is not surprising. The elements of the - conflict now raging are unmistakable, in the vast - expansion of industrial pursuits and the marvellous - discoveries of science; in the changed relations between - masters and workmen; in the enormous fortunes of some - few individuals,and the utter poverty of the masses; the - increased self reliance and closer mutual combination of - the working classes; as also, finally, in the prevailing - moral degeneracy. The momentous gravity of the state of - things now obtaining fills every mind with painful - apprehension; wise men are discussing it; practical men - are proposing schemes; popular meetings, legislatures, - and rulers of nations are all busied with it---actually - there is no question which has taken deeper hold on the - public mind. - -2. Therefore, venerable brethren, as on former occasions - when it seemed opportune to refute false teaching, We - have addressed you in the interests of the Church and of - the common weal, and have issued letters bearing on - political power, human liberty, the Christian - constitution of the State, and like matters, so have We - thought it expedient now to speak on the condition of - the working classes. It is a subject on which We have - already touched more than once, incidentally. But in the - present letter, the responsibility of the apostolic - office urges Us to treat the question of set purpose and - in detail, in order that no misapprehension may exist as - to the principles which truth and justice dictate for - its settlement. The discussion is not easy, nor is it - void of danger. It is no easy matter to define the - relative rights and mutual duties of the rich and of the - poor, of capital and of labor. And the danger lies in - this, that crafty agitators are intent on making use of - these differences of opinion to pervert men's judgments - and to stir up the people to revolt. - -3. In any case we clearly see, and on this there is general - agreement, that some opportune remedy must be found - quickly for the misery and wretchedness pressing so - unjustly on the majority of the working class: for the - ancient workingmen's guilds were abolished in the last - century, and no other protective organization took their - place. Public institutions and the laws set aside the - ancient religion. Hence, by degrees it has come to pass - that working men have been surrendered, isolated and - helpless, to the hard-heartedness of employers and the - greed of unchecked competition. The mischief has been - increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than - once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a - different guise, but with like injustice, still - practiced by covetous and grasping men. To this must be - added that the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade - are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so - that a small number of very rich men have been able to - lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke - little better than that of slavery itself. - -4. To remedy these wrongs the &, working on the poor man's - envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private - property, and contend that individual possessions should - become the common property of all, to be administered by - the State or by municipal bodies. They hold that by thus - transferring property from private individuals to the - community, the present mischievous state of things will - be set to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will then get - his fair share of whatever there is to enjoy. But their - contentions are so clearly powerless to end the - controversy that were they carried into effect the - working man himself would be among the first to suffer. - They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would - rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the - State, and create utter confusion in the community. - -5. It is surely undeniable that, when a man engages in - remunerative labor, the impelling reason and motive of - his work is to obtain property, and thereafter to hold - it as his very own. If one man hires out to another his - strength or skill, he does so for the purpose of - receiving in return what is necessary for the - satisfaction of his needs; he therefore expressly - intends to acquire a right full and real, not only to - the remuneration, but also to the disposal of such - remuneration, just as he pleases. Thus, if he lives - sparingly, saves money, and, for greater security, - invests his savings in land, the land, in such case, is - only his wages under another form; and, consequently, a - working man's little estate thus purchased should be as - completely at his full disposal as are the wages he - receives for his labor. But it is precisely in such - power of disposal that ownership obtains, whether the - property consist of land or chattels. Socialists, - therefore, by endeavoring to transfer the possessions of - individuals to the community at large, strike at the - interests of every wage-earner, since they would deprive - him of the liberty of disposing of his wages, and - thereby of all hope and possibility of increasing his - resources and of bettering his condition in life. - -6. What is of far greater moment, however, is the fact that - the remedy they propose is manifestly against justice. - For, every man has by nature the right to possess - property as his own. This is one of the chief points of - distinction between man and the animal creation, for the - brute has no power of self direction, but is governed by - two main instincts, which keep his powers on the alert, - impel him to develop them in a fitting manner, and - stimulate and determine him to action without any power - of choice. One of these instincts is self preservation, - the other the propagation of the species. Both can - attain their purpose by means of things which lie within - range; beyond their verge the brute creation cannot go, - for they are moved to action by their senses only, and - in the special direction which these suggest. But with - man it is wholly different. He possesses, on the one - hand, the full perfection of the animal being, and hence - enjoys at least as much as the rest of the animal kind, - the fruition of things material. But animal nature, - however perfect, is far from representing the human - being in its completeness, and is in truth but - humanity's humble handmaid, made to serve and to obey. - It is the mind, or reason, which is the predominant - element in us who are human creatures; it is this which - renders a human being human, and distinguishes him - essentially from the brute. And on this very - account---that man alone among the animal creation is - endowed with reason---it must be within his right to - possess things not merely for temporary and momentary - use, as other living things do, but to have and to hold - them in stable and permanent possession; he must have - not only things that perish in the use, but those also - which, though they have been reduced into use, continue - for further use in after time. - -7. This becomes still more clearly evident if man's nature - be considered a little more deeply. For man, fathoming - by his faculty of reason matters without number, linking - the future with the present, and being master of his own - acts, guides his ways under the eternal law and the - power of God, whose providence governs all things. - Wherefore, it is in his power to exercise his choice not - only as to matters that regard his present welfare, but - also about those which he deems may be for his advantage - in time yet to come. Hence, man not only should possess - the fruits of the earth, but also the very soil, - inasmuch as from the produce of the earth he has to lay - by provision for the future. Man's needs do not die out, - but forever recur; although satisfied today, they demand - fresh supplies for tomorrow. Nature accordingly must - have given to man a source that is stable and remaining - always with him, from which he might look to draw - continual supplies. And this stable condition of things - he finds solely in the earth and its fruits. There is no - need to bring in the State. Man precedes the State, and - possesses, prior to the formation of any State, the - right of providing for the substance of his body. - -8. The fact that God has given the earth for the use and - enjoyment of the whole human race can in no way be a bar - to the owning of private property. For God has granted - the earth to mankind in general, not in the sense that - all without distinction can deal with it as they like, - but rather that no part of it was assigned to any one in - particular, and that the limits of private possession - have been left to be fixed by man's own industry, and by - the laws of individual races. Moreover, the earth, even - though apportioned among private owners, ceases not - thereby to minister to the needs of all, inasmuch as - there is not one who does not sustain life from what the - land produces. Those who do not possess the soil - contribute their labor; hence, it may truly be said that - all human subsistence is derived either from labor on - one's own land, or from some toil, some calling, which - is paid for either in the produce of the land itself, or - in that which is exchanged for what the land brings - forth. - -9. Here, again, we have further proof that private - ownership is in accordance with the law of nature. - Truly, that which is required for the preservation of - life, and for life's well-being, is produced in great - abundance from the soil, but not until man has brought - it into cultivation and expended upon it his solicitude - and skill. Now, when man thus turns the activity of his - mind and the strength of his body toward procuring the - fruits of nature, by such act he makes his own that - portion of nature's field which he cultivates---that - portion on which he leaves, as it were, the impress of - his personality; and it cannot but be just that he - should possess that portion as his very own, and have a - right to hold it without any one being justified in +1. That the spirit of revolutionary change, which has long been + disturbing the nations of the world,should have passed beyond the + sphere of politics and made its influence felt in the cognate sphere + of practical economics is not surprising. The elements of the + conflict now raging are unmistakable, in the vast expansion of + industrial pursuits and the marvellous discoveries of science; in + the changed relations between masters and workmen; in the enormous + fortunes of some few individuals,and the utter poverty of the + masses; the increased self reliance and closer mutual combination of + the working classes; as also, finally, in the prevailing moral + degeneracy. The momentous gravity of the state of things now + obtaining fills every mind with painful apprehension; wise men are + discussing it; practical men are proposing schemes; popular + meetings, legislatures, and rulers of nations are all busied with + it---actually there is no question which has taken deeper hold on + the public mind. + +2. Therefore, venerable brethren, as on former occasions when it seemed + opportune to refute false teaching, We have addressed you in the + interests of the Church and of the common weal, and have issued + letters bearing on political power, human liberty, the Christian + constitution of the State, and like matters, so have We thought it + expedient now to speak on the condition of the working classes. It + is a subject on which We have already touched more than once, + incidentally. But in the present letter, the responsibility of the + apostolic office urges Us to treat the question of set purpose and + in detail, in order that no misapprehension may exist as to the + principles which truth and justice dictate for its settlement. The + discussion is not easy, nor is it void of danger. It is no easy + matter to define the relative rights and mutual duties of the rich + and of the poor, of capital and of labor. And the danger lies in + this, that crafty agitators are intent on making use of these + differences of opinion to pervert men's judgments and to stir up the + people to revolt. + +3. In any case we clearly see, and on this there is general agreement, + that some opportune remedy must be found quickly for the misery and + wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working + class: for the ancient workingmen's guilds were abolished in the + last century, and no other protective organization took their place. + Public institutions and the laws set aside the ancient religion. + Hence, by degrees it has come to pass that working men have been + surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hard-heartedness of + employers and the greed of unchecked competition. The mischief has + been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once + condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, + but with like injustice, still practiced by covetous and grasping + men. To this must be added that the hiring of labor and the conduct + of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that + a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the + teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that + of slavery itself. + +4. To remedy these wrongs the &, working on the poor man's envy of the + rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend + that individual possessions should become the common property of + all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies. They + hold that by thus transferring property from private individuals to + the community, the present mischievous state of things will be set + to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will then get his fair share of + whatever there is to enjoy. But their contentions are so clearly + powerless to end the controversy that were they carried into effect + the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They + are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful + possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter + confusion in the community. + +5. It is surely undeniable that, when a man engages in remunerative + labor, the impelling reason and motive of his work is to obtain + property, and thereafter to hold it as his very own. If one man + hires out to another his strength or skill, he does so for the + purpose of receiving in return what is necessary for the + satisfaction of his needs; he therefore expressly intends to acquire + a right full and real, not only to the remuneration, but also to the + disposal of such remuneration, just as he pleases. Thus, if he lives + sparingly, saves money, and, for greater security, invests his + savings in land, the land, in such case, is only his wages under + another form; and, consequently, a working man's little estate thus + purchased should be as completely at his full disposal as are the + wages he receives for his labor. But it is precisely in such power + of disposal that ownership obtains, whether the property consist of + land or chattels. Socialists, therefore, by endeavoring to transfer + the possessions of individuals to the community at large, strike at + the interests of every wage-earner, since they would deprive him of + the liberty of disposing of his wages, and thereby of all hope and + possibility of increasing his resources and of bettering his + condition in life. + +6. What is of far greater moment, however, is the fact that the remedy + they propose is manifestly against justice. For, every man has by + nature the right to possess property as his own. This is one of the + chief points of distinction between man and the animal creation, for + the brute has no power of self direction, but is governed by two + main instincts, which keep his powers on the alert, impel him to + develop them in a fitting manner, and stimulate and determine him to + action without any power of choice. One of these instincts is self + preservation, the other the propagation of the species. Both can + attain their purpose by means of things which lie within range; + beyond their verge the brute creation cannot go, for they are moved + to action by their senses only, and in the special direction which + these suggest. But with man it is wholly different. He possesses, on + the one hand, the full perfection of the animal being, and hence + enjoys at least as much as the rest of the animal kind, the fruition + of things material. But animal nature, however perfect, is far from + representing the human being in its completeness, and is in truth + but humanity's humble handmaid, made to serve and to obey. It is the + mind, or reason, which is the predominant element in us who are + human creatures; it is this which renders a human being human, and + distinguishes him essentially from the brute. And on this very + account---that man alone among the animal creation is endowed with + reason---it must be within his right to possess things not merely + for temporary and momentary use, as other living things do, but to + have and to hold them in stable and permanent possession; he must + have not only things that perish in the use, but those also which, + though they have been reduced into use, continue for further use in + after time. + +7. This becomes still more clearly evident if man's nature be + considered a little more deeply. For man, fathoming by his faculty + of reason matters without number, linking the future with the + present, and being master of his own acts, guides his ways under the + eternal law and the power of God, whose providence governs all + things. Wherefore, it is in his power to exercise his choice not + only as to matters that regard his present welfare, but also about + those which he deems may be for his advantage in time yet to come. + Hence, man not only should possess the fruits of the earth, but also + the very soil, inasmuch as from the produce of the earth he has to + lay by provision for the future. Man's needs do not die out, but + forever recur; although satisfied today, they demand fresh supplies + for tomorrow. Nature accordingly must have given to man a source + that is stable and remaining always with him, from which he might + look to draw continual supplies. And this stable condition of things + he finds solely in the earth and its fruits. There is no need to + bring in the State. Man precedes the State, and possesses, prior to + the formation of any State, the right of providing for the substance + of his body. + +8. The fact that God has given the earth for the use and enjoyment of + the whole human race can in no way be a bar to the owning of private + property. For God has granted the earth to mankind in general, not + in the sense that all without distinction can deal with it as they + like, but rather that no part of it was assigned to any one in + particular, and that the limits of private possession have been left + to be fixed by man's own industry, and by the laws of individual + races. Moreover, the earth, even though apportioned among private + owners, ceases not thereby to minister to the needs of all, inasmuch + as there is not one who does not sustain life from what the land + produces. Those who do not possess the soil contribute their labor; + hence, it may truly be said that all human subsistence is derived + either from labor on one's own land, or from some toil, some + calling, which is paid for either in the produce of the land itself, + or in that which is exchanged for what the land brings forth. + +9. Here, again, we have further proof that private ownership is in + accordance with the law of nature. Truly, that which is required for + the preservation of life, and for life's well-being, is produced in + great abundance from the soil, but not until man has brought it into + cultivation and expended upon it his solicitude and skill. Now, when + man thus turns the activity of his mind and the strength of his body + toward procuring the fruits of nature, by such act he makes his own + that portion of nature's field which he cultivates---that portion on + which he leaves, as it were, the impress of his personality; and it + cannot but be just that he should possess that portion as his very + own, and have a right to hold it without any one being justified in violating that right. -10. So strong and convincing are these arguments that it - seems amazing that some should now be setting up anew - certain obsolete opinions in opposition to what is here - laid down. They assert that it is right for private - persons to have the use of the soil and its various - fruits, but that it is unjust for any one to possess - outright either the land on which he has built or the - estate which he has brought under cultivation. But those - who deny these rights do not perceive that they are - defrauding man of what his own labor has produced. For - the soil which is tilled and cultivated with toil and - skill utterly changes its condition; it was wild before, - now it is fruitful; was barren, but now brings forth in - abundance. That which has thus altered and improved the - land becomes so truly part of itself as to be in great - measure indistinguishable and inseparable from it. Is it - just that the fruit of a man's own sweat and labor - should be possessed and enjoyed by any one else? As - effects follow their cause, so is it just and right that - the results of labor should belong to those who have - bestowed their labor. - -11. With reason, then, the common opinion of mankind, little - affected by the few dissentients who have contended for - the opposite view, has found in the careful study of - nature, and in the laws of nature, the foundations of - the division of property, and the practice of all ages - has consecrated the principle of private ownership, as - being pre-eminently in conformity with human nature, and - as conducing in the most unmistakable manner to the - peace and tranquillity of human existence. The same - principle is confirmed and enforced by the civil - laws-laws which, so long as they are just, derive from - the law of nature their binding force. The authority of - the divine law adds its sanction, forbidding us in - severest terms even to covet that which is another's: - "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife; nor his - house, nor his field, nor his man-servant, nor his - maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that - is his." - -12. The rights here spoken of, belonging to each individual - man, are seen in much stronger light when considered in - relation to man's social and domestic obligations. In - choosing a state of life, it is indisputable that all - are at full liberty to follow the counsel of Jesus - Christ as to observing virginity, or to bind themselves - by the marriage tie. No human law can abolish the - natural and original right of marriage, nor in any way - limit the chief and principal purpose of marriage - ordained by God's authority from the beginning: - "Increase and multiply."Hence we have the family, the - "society" of a man's house---a society very small, one - must admit, but none the less a true society, and one - older than any State. Consequently, it has rights and - duties peculiar to itself which are quite independent of - the State. - -13. That right to property, therefore, which has been proved - to belong naturally to individual persons, must in like - wise belong to a man in his capacity of head of a - family; nay, that right is all the stronger in - proportion as the human person receives a wider - extension in the family group. It is a most sacred law - of nature that a father should provide food and all - necessaries for those whom he has begotten; and, - similarly, it is natural that he should wish that his - children, who carry on, so to speak, and continue his - personality, should be by him provided with all that is - needful to enable them to keep themselves decently from - want and misery amid the uncertainties of this mortal - life. Now, in no other way can a father effect this - except by the ownership of productive property, which he - can transmit to his children by inheritance. A family, - no less than a State, is, as We have said, a true - society, governed by an authority peculiar to itself, - that is to say, by the authority of the father. - Provided, therefore, the limits which are prescribed by - the very purposes for which it exists be not - transgressed, the family has at least equal rights with - the State in the choice and pursuit of the things - needful to its preservation and its just liberty. We - say, "at least equal rights"; for, inasmuch as the - domestic household is antecedent, as well in idea as in - fact, to the gathering of men into a community, the - family must necessarily have rights and duties which are - prior to those of the community, and founded more - immediately in nature. If the citizens, if the families - on entering into association and fellowship, were to - experience hindrance in a commonwealth instead of help, - and were to find their rights attacked instead of being - upheld, society would rightly be an object of - detestation rather than of desire. - -14. The contention, then, that the civil government should - at its option intrude into and exercise intimate control - over the family and the household is a great and - pernicious error. True, if a family finds itself in - exceeding distress, utterly deprived of the counsel of - friends, and without any prospect of extricating itself, - it is right that extreme necessity be met by public aid, - since each family is a part of the commonwealth. In like - manner, if within the precincts of the household there - occur grave disturbance of mutual rights, public - authority should intervene to force each party to yield - to the other its proper due; for this is not to deprive - citizens of their rights, but justly and properly to - safeguard and strengthen them. But the rulers of the - commonwealth must go no further; here, nature bids them - stop. Paternal authority can be neither abolished nor - absorbed by the State; for it has the same source as - human life itself. "The child belongs to the father," - and is, as it were, the continuation of the father's - personality; and speaking strictly, the child takes its - place in civil society, not of its own right, but in its - quality as member of the family in which it is born. And - for the very reason that "the child belongs to the - father" it is, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, "before it - attains the use of free will, under the power and the - charge of its parents."The socialists, therefore, in - setting aside the parent and setting up a State - supervision, act against natural justice, and destroy - the structure of the home. - -15. And in addition to injustice, it is only too evident - what an upset and disturbance there would be in all - classes, and to how intolerable and hateful a slavery - citizens would be subjected. The door would be thrown - open to envy, to mutual invective, and to discord; the - sources of wealth themselves would run dry, for no one - would have any interest in exerting his talents or his - industry; and that ideal equality about which they - entertain pleasant dreams would be in reality the - levelling down of all to a like condition of misery and - degradation. Hence, it is clear that the main tenet of - socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected, - since it only injures those whom it would seem meant to - benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of - mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into - the common-weal. The first and most fundamental - principle, therefore, if one would undertake to - alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the - inviolability of private property. This being - established, we proceed to show where the remedy sought - for must be found. - -16. We approach the subject with confidence, and in the - exercise of the rights which manifestly appertain to Us, - for no practical solution of this question will be found - apart from the intervention of religion and of the - Church. It is We who are the chief guardian of religion - and the chief dispenser of what pertains to the Church; - and by keeping silence we would seem to neglect the duty - incumbent on us. Doubtless, this most serious question - demands the attention and the efforts of others besides - ourselves---to wit, of the rulers of States, of - employers of labor, of the wealthy, aye, of the working - classes themselves, for whom We are pleading. But We - affirm without hesitation that all the striving of men - will be vain if they leave out the Church. It is the - Church that insists, on the authority of the Gospel, - upon those teachings whereby the conflict can be brought - to an end, or rendered, at least, far less bitter; the - Church uses her efforts not only to enlighten the mind, - but to direct by her precepts the life and conduct of - each and all; the Church improves and betters the - condition of the working man by means of numerous - organizations; does her best to enlist the services of - all classes in discussing and endeavoring to further in - the most practical way, the interests of the working - classes; and considers that for this purpose recourse - should be had, in due measure and degree, to the +10. So strong and convincing are these arguments that it seems amazing + that some should now be setting up anew certain obsolete opinions in + opposition to what is here laid down. They assert that it is right + for private persons to have the use of the soil and its various + fruits, but that it is unjust for any one to possess outright either + the land on which he has built or the estate which he has brought + under cultivation. But those who deny these rights do not perceive + that they are defrauding man of what his own labor has produced. For + the soil which is tilled and cultivated with toil and skill utterly + changes its condition; it was wild before, now it is fruitful; was + barren, but now brings forth in abundance. That which has thus + altered and improved the land becomes so truly part of itself as to + be in great measure indistinguishable and inseparable from it. Is it + just that the fruit of a man's own sweat and labor should be + possessed and enjoyed by any one else? As effects follow their + cause, so is it just and right that the results of labor should + belong to those who have bestowed their labor. + +11. With reason, then, the common opinion of mankind, little affected by + the few dissentients who have contended for the opposite view, has + found in the careful study of nature, and in the laws of nature, the + foundations of the division of property, and the practice of all + ages has consecrated the principle of private ownership, as being + pre-eminently in conformity with human nature, and as conducing in + the most unmistakable manner to the peace and tranquillity of human + existence. The same principle is confirmed and enforced by the civil + laws-laws which, so long as they are just, derive from the law of + nature their binding force. The authority of the divine law adds its + sanction, forbidding us in severest terms even to covet that which + is another's: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife; nor his + house, nor his field, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor + his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his." + +12. The rights here spoken of, belonging to each individual man, are + seen in much stronger light when considered in relation to man's + social and domestic obligations. In choosing a state of life, it is + indisputable that all are at full liberty to follow the counsel of + Jesus Christ as to observing virginity, or to bind themselves by the + marriage tie. No human law can abolish the natural and original + right of marriage, nor in any way limit the chief and principal + purpose of marriage ordained by God's authority from the beginning: + "Increase and multiply."Hence we have the family, the "society" of a + man's house---a society very small, one must admit, but none the + less a true society, and one older than any State. Consequently, it + has rights and duties peculiar to itself which are quite independent + of the State. + +13. That right to property, therefore, which has been proved to belong + naturally to individual persons, must in like wise belong to a man + in his capacity of head of a family; nay, that right is all the + stronger in proportion as the human person receives a wider + extension in the family group. It is a most sacred law of nature + that a father should provide food and all necessaries for those whom + he has begotten; and, similarly, it is natural that he should wish + that his children, who carry on, so to speak, and continue his + personality, should be by him provided with all that is needful to + enable them to keep themselves decently from want and misery amid + the uncertainties of this mortal life. Now, in no other way can a + father effect this except by the ownership of productive property, + which he can transmit to his children by inheritance. A family, no + less than a State, is, as We have said, a true society, governed by + an authority peculiar to itself, that is to say, by the authority of + the father. Provided, therefore, the limits which are prescribed by + the very purposes for which it exists be not transgressed, the + family has at least equal rights with the State in the choice and + pursuit of the things needful to its preservation and its just + liberty. We say, "at least equal rights"; for, inasmuch as the + domestic household is antecedent, as well in idea as in fact, to the + gathering of men into a community, the family must necessarily have + rights and duties which are prior to those of the community, and + founded more immediately in nature. If the citizens, if the families + on entering into association and fellowship, were to experience + hindrance in a commonwealth instead of help, and were to find their + rights attacked instead of being upheld, society would rightly be an + object of detestation rather than of desire. + +14. The contention, then, that the civil government should at its option + intrude into and exercise intimate control over the family and the + household is a great and pernicious error. True, if a family finds + itself in exceeding distress, utterly deprived of the counsel of + friends, and without any prospect of extricating itself, it is right + that extreme necessity be met by public aid, since each family is a + part of the commonwealth. In like manner, if within the precincts of + the household there occur grave disturbance of mutual rights, public + authority should intervene to force each party to yield to the other + its proper due; for this is not to deprive citizens of their rights, + but justly and properly to safeguard and strengthen them. But the + rulers of the commonwealth must go no further; here, nature bids + them stop. Paternal authority can be neither abolished nor absorbed + by the State; for it has the same source as human life itself. "The + child belongs to the father," and is, as it were, the continuation + of the father's personality; and speaking strictly, the child takes + its place in civil society, not of its own right, but in its quality + as member of the family in which it is born. And for the very reason + that "the child belongs to the father" it is, as St. Thomas Aquinas + says, "before it attains the use of free will, under the power and + the charge of its parents."The socialists, therefore, in setting + aside the parent and setting up a State supervision, act against + natural justice, and destroy the structure of the home. + +15. And in addition to injustice, it is only too evident what an upset + and disturbance there would be in all classes, and to how + intolerable and hateful a slavery citizens would be subjected. The + door would be thrown open to envy, to mutual invective, and to + discord; the sources of wealth themselves would run dry, for no one + would have any interest in exerting his talents or his industry; and + that ideal equality about which they entertain pleasant dreams would + be in reality the levelling down of all to a like condition of + misery and degradation. Hence, it is clear that the main tenet of + socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected, since it + only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly + contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce + confusion and disorder into the common-weal. The first and most + fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to + alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of + private property. This being established, we proceed to show where + the remedy sought for must be found. + +16. We approach the subject with confidence, and in the exercise of the + rights which manifestly appertain to Us, for no practical solution + of this question will be found apart from the intervention of + religion and of the Church. It is We who are the chief guardian of + religion and the chief dispenser of what pertains to the Church; and + by keeping silence we would seem to neglect the duty incumbent on + us. Doubtless, this most serious question demands the attention and + the efforts of others besides ourselves---to wit, of the rulers of + States, of employers of labor, of the wealthy, aye, of the working + classes themselves, for whom We are pleading. But We affirm without + hesitation that all the striving of men will be vain if they leave + out the Church. It is the Church that insists, on the authority of + the Gospel, upon those teachings whereby the conflict can be brought + to an end, or rendered, at least, far less bitter; the Church uses + her efforts not only to enlighten the mind, but to direct by her + precepts the life and conduct of each and all; the Church improves + and betters the condition of the working man by means of numerous + organizations; does her best to enlist the services of all classes + in discussing and endeavoring to further in the most practical way, + the interests of the working classes; and considers that for this + purpose recourse should be had, in due measure and degree, to the intervention of the law and of State authority. -17. It must be first of all recognized that the condition of - things inherent in human affairs must be borne with, for - it is impossible to reduce civil society to one dead - level. Socialists may in that intent do their utmost, - but all striving against nature is in vain. There - naturally exist among mankind manifold differences of - the most important kind; people differ in capacity, - skill, health, strength; and unequal fortune is a - necessary result of unequal condition. Such inequality - is far from being disadvantageous either to individuals - or to the community. Social and public life can only be - maintained by means of various kinds of capacity for - business and the playing of many parts; and each man, as - a rule, chooses the part which suits his own peculiar - domestic condition. As regards bodily labor, even had - man never fallen from the state of innocence, he would - not have remained wholly idle; but that which would then - have been his free choice and his delight became - afterwards compulsory, and the painful expiation for his - disobedience. "Cursed be the earth in thy work; in thy - labor thou shalt eat of it all the days of thy life." - -18. In like manner, the other pains and hardships of life - will have no end or cessation on earth; for the - consequences of sin are bitter and hard to bear, and - they must accompany man so long as life lasts. To suffer - and to endure, therefore, is the lot of humanity; let - them strive as they may, no strength and no artifice - will ever succeed in banishing from human life the ills - and troubles which beset it. If any there are who - pretend differently---who hold out to a hard-pressed - people the boon of freedom from pain and trouble, an - undisturbed repose, and constant enjoyment---they delude - the people and impose upon them, and their lying - promises will only one day bring forth evils worse than - the present. Nothing is more useful than to look upon - the world as it really is, and at the same time to seek - elsewhere, as We have said, for the solace to its - troubles. +17. It must be first of all recognized that the condition of things + inherent in human affairs must be borne with, for it is impossible + to reduce civil society to one dead level. Socialists may in that + intent do their utmost, but all striving against nature is in vain. + There naturally exist among mankind manifold differences of the most + important kind; people differ in capacity, skill, health, strength; + and unequal fortune is a necessary result of unequal condition. Such + inequality is far from being disadvantageous either to individuals + or to the community. Social and public life can only be maintained + by means of various kinds of capacity for business and the playing + of many parts; and each man, as a rule, chooses the part which suits + his own peculiar domestic condition. As regards bodily labor, even + had man never fallen from the state of innocence, he would not have + remained wholly idle; but that which would then have been his free + choice and his delight became afterwards compulsory, and the painful + expiation for his disobedience. "Cursed be the earth in thy work; in + thy labor thou shalt eat of it all the days of thy life." + +18. In like manner, the other pains and hardships of life will have no + end or cessation on earth; for the consequences of sin are bitter + and hard to bear, and they must accompany man so long as life lasts. + To suffer and to endure, therefore, is the lot of humanity; let them + strive as they may, no strength and no artifice will ever succeed in + banishing from human life the ills and troubles which beset it. If + any there are who pretend differently---who hold out to a + hard-pressed people the boon of freedom from pain and trouble, an + undisturbed repose, and constant enjoyment---they delude the people + and impose upon them, and their lying promises will only one day + bring forth evils worse than the present. Nothing is more useful + than to look upon the world as it really is, and at the same time to + seek elsewhere, as We have said, for the solace to its troubles. 19. The great mistake made in regard to the matter now under - consideration is to take up with the notion that class - is naturally hostile to class, and that the wealthy and - the working men are intended by nature to live in mutual - conflict. So irrational and so false is this view that - the direct contrary is the truth. Just as the symmetry - of the human frame is the result of the suitable - arrangement of the different parts of the body, so in a - State is it ordained by nature that these two classes - should dwell in harmony and agreement, so as to maintain - the balance of the body politic. Each needs the other: - capital cannot do without labor, nor labor without - capital. Mutual agreement results in the beauty of good - order, while perpetual conflict necessarily produces - confusion and savage barbarity. Now, in preventing such - strife as this, and in uprooting it, the efficacy of - Christian institutions is marvellous and manifold. First - of all, there is no intermediary more powerful than - religion (whereof the Church is the interpreter and - guardian) in drawing the rich and the working class - together, by reminding each of its duties to the other, - and especially of the obligations of justice. - -20. Of these duties, the following bind the proletarian and - the worker: fully and faithfully to perform the work - which has been freely and equitably agreed upon; never - to injure the property, nor to outrage the person, of an - employer; never to resort to violence in defending their - own cause, nor to engage in riot or disorder; and to - have nothing to do with men of evil principles, who work - upon the people with artful promises of great results, - and excite foolish hopes which usually end in useless - regrets and grievous loss. The following duties bind the - wealthy owner and the employer: not to look upon their - work people as their bondsmen, but to respect in every - man his dignity as a person ennobled by Christian - character. They are reminded that, according to natural - reason and Christian philosophy, working for gain is - creditable, not shameful, to a man, since it enables him - to earn an honorable livelihood; but to misuse men as - though they were things in the pursuit of gain, or to - value them solely for their physical powers---that is - truly shameful and inhuman. Again justice demands that, - in dealing with the working man, religion and the good - of his soul must be kept in mind. Hence, the employer is - bound to see that the worker has time for his religious - duties; that he be not exposed to corrupting influences - and dangerous occasions; and that he be not led away to - neglect his home and family, or to squander his - earnings. Furthermore, the employer must never tax his - work people beyond their strength, or employ them in - work unsuited to their sex and age. His great and - principal duty is to give every one what is just. - Doubtless, before deciding whether wages axe fair, many - things have to be considered; but wealthy owners and all - masters of labor should be mindful of this---that to - exercise pressure upon the indigent and the destitute - for the sake of gain, and to gather one's profit out of - the need of another, is condemned by all laws, human and - divine. To defraud any one of wages that are his due is - a great crime which cries to the avenging anger of - Heaven. "Behold, the hire of the laborers... which by - fraud has been kept back by you, crieth; and the cry of - them hath entered into the ears of the Lord of - Sabbath."Lastly, the rich must religiously refrain from - cutting down the workmen's earnings, whether by force, - by fraud, or by usurious dealing; and with all the - greater reason because the laboring man is, as a rule, - weak and unprotected, and because his slender means - should in proportion to their scantiness be accounted - sacred. Were these precepts carefully obeyed and - followed out, would they not be sufficient of themselves + consideration is to take up with the notion that class is naturally + hostile to class, and that the wealthy and the working men are + intended by nature to live in mutual conflict. So irrational and so + false is this view that the direct contrary is the truth. Just as + the symmetry of the human frame is the result of the suitable + arrangement of the different parts of the body, so in a State is it + ordained by nature that these two classes should dwell in harmony + and agreement, so as to maintain the balance of the body politic. + Each needs the other: capital cannot do without labor, nor labor + without capital. Mutual agreement results in the beauty of good + order, while perpetual conflict necessarily produces confusion and + savage barbarity. Now, in preventing such strife as this, and in + uprooting it, the efficacy of Christian institutions is marvellous + and manifold. First of all, there is no intermediary more powerful + than religion (whereof the Church is the interpreter and guardian) + in drawing the rich and the working class together, by reminding + each of its duties to the other, and especially of the obligations + of justice. + +20. Of these duties, the following bind the proletarian and the worker: + fully and faithfully to perform the work which has been freely and + equitably agreed upon; never to injure the property, nor to outrage + the person, of an employer; never to resort to violence in defending + their own cause, nor to engage in riot or disorder; and to have + nothing to do with men of evil principles, who work upon the people + with artful promises of great results, and excite foolish hopes + which usually end in useless regrets and grievous loss. The + following duties bind the wealthy owner and the employer: not to + look upon their work people as their bondsmen, but to respect in + every man his dignity as a person ennobled by Christian character. + They are reminded that, according to natural reason and Christian + philosophy, working for gain is creditable, not shameful, to a man, + since it enables him to earn an honorable livelihood; but to misuse + men as though they were things in the pursuit of gain, or to value + them solely for their physical powers---that is truly shameful and + inhuman. Again justice demands that, in dealing with the working + man, religion and the good of his soul must be kept in mind. Hence, + the employer is bound to see that the worker has time for his + religious duties; that he be not exposed to corrupting influences + and dangerous occasions; and that he be not led away to neglect his + home and family, or to squander his earnings. Furthermore, the + employer must never tax his work people beyond their strength, or + employ them in work unsuited to their sex and age. His great and + principal duty is to give every one what is just. Doubtless, before + deciding whether wages axe fair, many things have to be considered; + but wealthy owners and all masters of labor should be mindful of + this---that to exercise pressure upon the indigent and the destitute + for the sake of gain, and to gather one's profit out of the need of + another, is condemned by all laws, human and divine. To defraud any + one of wages that are his due is a great crime which cries to the + avenging anger of Heaven. "Behold, the hire of the laborers... which + by fraud has been kept back by you, crieth; and the cry of them hath + entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath."Lastly, the rich must + religiously refrain from cutting down the workmen's earnings, + whether by force, by fraud, or by usurious dealing; and with all the + greater reason because the laboring man is, as a rule, weak and + unprotected, and because his slender means should in proportion to + their scantiness be accounted sacred. Were these precepts carefully + obeyed and followed out, would they not be sufficient of themselves to keep under all strife and all its causes? -21. But the Church, with Jesus Christ as her Master and - Guide, aims higher still. She lays down precepts yet - more perfect, and tries to bind class to class in - friendliness and good feeling. The things of earth - cannot be understood or valued aright without taking - into consideration the life to come, the life that will - know no death. Exclude the idea of futurity, and - forthwith the very notion of what is good and right - would perish; nay, the whole scheme of the universe - would become a dark and unfathomable mystery. The great - truth which we learn from nature herself is also the - grand Christian dogma on which religion rests as on its - foundation---that, when we have given up this present - life, then shall we really begin to live. God has not - created us for the perishable and transitory things of - earth, but for things heavenly and everlasting; He has - given us this world as a place of exile, and not as our - abiding place. As for riches and the other things which - men call good and desirable, whether we have them in - abundance, or are lacking in them-so far as eternal - happiness is concerned---it makes no difference; the - only important thing is to use them aright. Jesus - Christ, when He redeemed us with plentiful redemption, - took not away the pains and sorrows which in such large - proportion are woven together in the web of our mortal - life. He transformed them into motives of virtue and - occasions of merit; and no man can hope for eternal - reward unless he follow in the blood-stained footprints - of his Saviour. "If we suffer with Him, we shall also - reign with Him."Christ's labors and sufferings, accepted - of His own free will, have marvellously sweetened all - suffering and all labor. And not only by His example, - but by His grace and by the hope held forth of - everlasting recompense, has He made pain and grief more - easy to endure; "for that which is at present momentary - and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above - measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory." - -22. Therefore, those whom fortune favors are warned that - riches do not bring freedom from sorrow and are of no - avail for eternal happiness, but rather are - obstacles;that the rich should tremble at the - threatenings of Jesus Christ---threatenings so unwonted - in the mouth of our Lord---and that a most strict - account must be given to the Supreme Judge for all we - possess. The chief and most excellent rule for the right - use of money is one the heathen philosophers hinted at, - but which the Church has traced out clearly, and has not - only made known to men's minds, but has impressed upon - their lives. It rests on the principle that it is one - thing to have a right to the possession of money and - another to have a right to use money as one wills. - Private ownership, as we have seen, is the natural right - of man, and to exercise that right, especially as - members of society, is not only lawful, but absolutely - necessary. "It is lawful," says St. Thomas Aquinas, "for - a man to hold private property; and it is also necessary - for the carrying on of human existence."But if the - question be asked: How must one's possessions be - used?---the Church replies without hesitation in the - words of the same holy Doctor: "Man should not consider - his material possessions as his own, but as common to - all, so as to share them without hesitation when others - are in need. Whence the Apostle with, 'Command the rich - of this world... to offer with no stint, to apportion - largely.'"True, no one is commanded to distribute to - others that which is required for his own needs and - those of his household; nor even to give away what is - reasonably required to keep up becomingly his condition - in life, "for no one ought to live other than - becomingly."But, when what necessity demands has been - supplied, and one's standing fairly taken thought for, - it becomes a duty to give to the indigent out of what - remains over. "Of that which remaineth, give alms."It is - a duty, not of justice (save in extreme cases), but of - Christian charity---a duty not enforced by human law. - But the laws and judgments of men must yield place to - the laws and judgments of Christ the true God, who in - many ways urges on His followers the practice of - alms-giving---'It is more blessed to give than to - receive";and who will count a kindness done or refused - to the poor as done or refused to Himself---"As long as - you did it to one of My least brethren you did it to - Me."To sum up, then, what has been said: Whoever has - received from the divine bounty a large share of - temporal blessings, whether they be external and - material, or gifts of the mind, has received them for - the purpose of using them for the perfecting of his own - nature, and, at the same time, that he may employ them, - as the steward of God's providence, for the benefit of - others."He that hath a talent," said St. Gregory the - Great, "let him see that he hide it not; he that hath - abundance, let him quicken himself to mercy and - generosity; he that hath art and skill, let him do his - best to share the use and the utility hereof with his - neighbor." - -23. As for those who possess not the gifts of fortune, they - are taught by the Church that in God's sight poverty is - no disgrace, and that there is nothing to be ashamed of - in earning their bread by labor. This is enforced by - what we see in Christ Himself, who, "whereas He was - rich, for our sakes became poor";and who, being the Son - of God, and God Himself, chose to seem and to be - considered the son of a carpenter---nay, did not disdain - to spend a great part of His life as a carpenter - Himself. "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?" - -24. From contemplation of this divine Model, it is more easy - to understand that the true worth and nobility of man - lie in his moral qualities, that is, in virtue; that - virtue is, moreover, the common inheritance of men, - equally within the reach of high and low, rich and poor; - and that virtue, and virtue alone, wherever found, will - be followed by the rewards of everlasting happiness. - Nay, God Himself seems to incline rather to those who - suffer misfortune; for Jesus Christ calls the poor - "blessed";He lovingly invites those in labor and grief - to come to Him for solace;and He displays the tenderest - charity toward the lowly and the oppressed. These - reflections cannot fail to keep down the pride of the - well-to-do, and to give heart to the unfortunate; to - move the former to be generous and the latter to be - moderate in their desires. Thus, the separation which - pride would set up tends to disappear, nor will it be - difficult to make rich and poor join hands in friendly - concord. - -25. But, if Christian precepts prevail, the respective - classes will not only be united in the bonds of - friendship, but also in those of brotherly love. For - they will understand and feel that all men are children - of the same common Father, who is God; that all have - alike the same last end, which is God Himself, who alone - can make either men or angels absolutely and perfectly - happy; that each and all are redeemed and made sons of - God, by Jesus Christ, "the first-born among many - brethren"; that the blessings of nature and the gifts of - grace belong to the whole human race in common, and that - from none except the unworthy is withheld the - inheritance of the kingdom of Heaven. "If sons, heirs - also; heirs indeed of God, and co-heirs with - Christ."Such is the scheme of duties and of rights which - is shown forth to the world by the Gospel. Would it not - seem that, were society penetrated with ideas like - these, strife must quickly cease? - -26. But the Church, not content with pointing out the - remedy, also applies it. For the Church does her utmost - to teach and to train men, and to educate them and by - the intermediary of her bishops and clergy diffuses her - salutary teachings far and wide. She strives to - influence the mind and the heart so that all may - willingly yield themselves to be formed and guided by - the commandments of God. It is precisely in this - fundamental and momentous matter, on which everything - depends that the Church possesses a power peculiarly her - own. The instruments which she employs are given to her - by Jesus Christ Himself for the very purpose of reaching - the hearts of men, and drive their efficiency from God. - They alone can reach the innermost heart and conscience, - and bring men to act from a motive of duty, to control - their passions and appetites, to love God and their - fellow men with a love that is outstanding and of the - highest degree and to break down courageously every - barrier which blocks the way to virtue. - -27. On this subject we need but recall for one moment the - examples recorded in history. Of these facts there - cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil - society was renovated in every part by Christian - institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the - human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it - was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent - a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, - or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to - be. Of this beneficent transformation Jesus Christ was - at once the first cause and the final end; as from Him - all came, so to Him was all to be brought back. For, - when the human race, by the light of the Gospel message, - came to know the grand mystery of the Incarnation of the - Word and the redemption of man, at once the life of - Jesus Christ, God and Man, pervaded every race and - nation, and interpenetrated them with His faith, His - precepts, and His laws. And if human society is to be - healed now, in no other way can it be healed save by a - return to Christian life and Christian institutions. - When a society is perishing, the wholesome advice to - give to those who would restore it is to call it to the - principles from which it sprang; for the purpose and - perfection of an association is to aim at and to attain - that for which it is formed, and its efforts should be - put in motion and inspired by the end and object which - originally gave it being. Hence, to fall away from its - primal constitution implies disease; to go back to it, - recovery. And this may be asserted with utmost truth - both of the whole body of the commonwealth and of that - class of its citizens-by far the great majority---who - get their living by their labor. - -28. Neither must it be supposed that the solicitude of the - Church is so preoccupied with the spiritual concerns of - her children as to neglect their temporal and earthly - interests. Her desire is that the poor, for example, - should rise above poverty and wretchedness, and better - their condition in life; and for this she makes a strong - endeavor. By the fact that she calls men to virtue and - forms them to its practice she promotes this in no - slight degree. Christian morality, when adequately and - completely practiced, leads of itself to temporal - prosperity, for it merits the blessing of that God who - is the source of all blessings; it powerfully restrains - the greed of possession and the thirst for pleasure-twin - plagues, which too often make a man who is void of - self-restraint miserable in the midst of abundance;it - makes men supply for the lack of means through economy, - teaching them to be content with frugal living, and - further, keeping them out of the reach of those vices - which devour not small incomes merely, but large - fortunes, and dissipate many a goodly inheritance. - -29. The Church, moreover, intervenes directly in behalf of - the poor, by setting on foot and maintaining many - associations which she knows to be efficient for the - relief of poverty. Herein, again, she has always - succeeded so well as to have even extorted the praise of - her enemies. Such was the ardor of brotherly love among - the earliest Christians that numbers of those who were - in better circumstances despoiled themselves of their - possessions in order to relieve their brethren; whence - "neither was there any one needy among them."To the - order of deacons, instituted in that very intent, was - committed by the Apostles the charge of the daily doles; - and the Apostle Paul, though burdened with the - solicitude of all the churches, hesitated not to - undertake laborious journeys in order to carry the alms - of the faithful to the poorer Christians. Tertullian - calls these contributions, given voluntarily by - Christians in their assemblies, deposits of piety, - because, to cite his own words, they were employed "in - feeding the needy, in burying them, in support of youths - and maidens destitute of means and deprived of their - parents, in the care of the aged, and the relief of the - shipwrecked." - -30. Thus, by degrees, came into existence the patrimony - which the Church has guarded with religious care as the - inheritance of the poor. Nay, in order to spare them the - shame of begging, the Church has provided aid for the - needy. The common Mother of rich and poor has aroused - everywhere the heroism of charity, and has established - congregations of religious and many other useful - institutions for help and mercy, so that hardly any kind - of suffering could exist which was not afforded relief. - At the present day many there are who, like the heathen - of old, seek to blame and condemn the Church for such - eminent charity. They would substitute in its stead a - system of relief organized by the State. But no human - expedients will ever make up for the devotedness and - self sacrifice of Christian charity. Charity, as a - virtue, pertains to the Church; for virtue it is not, - unless it be drawn from the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus - Christ; and whosoever turns his back on the Church - cannot be near to Christ. - -31. It cannot, however, be doubted that to attain the - purpose we are treating of, not only the Church, but all - human agencies, must concur. All who are concerned in - the matter should be of one mind and according to their - ability act together. It is with this, as with - providence that governs the world; the results of causes - do not usually take place save where all the causes - cooperate. It is sufficient, therefore, to inquire what - part the State should play in the work of remedy and - relief. - -32. By the State we here understand, not the particular form - of government prevailing in this or that nation, but the - State as rightly apprehended; that is to say, any - government conformable in its institutions to right - reason and natural law, and to those dictates of the - divine wisdom which we have expounded in the encyclical - *On the Christian Constitution of the State.*The - foremost duty, therefore, of the rulers of the State - should be to make sure that the laws and institutions, - the general character and administration of the - commonwealth, shall be such as of themselves to realize - public well-being and private prosperity. This is the - proper scope of wise statesmanship and is the work of - the rulers. Now a State chiefly prospers and thrives - through moral rule, well-regulated family life, respect - for religion and justice, the moderation and fair - imposing of public taxes, the progress of the arts and - of trade, the abundant yield of the land-through - everything, in fact, which makes the citizens better and - happier. Hereby, then, it lies in the power of a ruler - to benefit every class in the State, and amongst the - rest to promote to the utmost the interests of the poor; - and this in virtue of his office, and without being open - to suspicion of undue interference---since it is the - province of the commonwealth to serve the common good. - And the more that is done for the benefit of the working - classes by the general laws of the country, the less - need will there be to seek for special means to relieve - them. - -33. There is another and deeper consideration which must not - be lost sight of. As regards the State, the interests of - all, whether high or low, are equal. The members of the - working classes are citizens by nature and by the same - right as the rich; they are real parts, living the life - which makes up, through the family, the body of the - commonwealth; and it need hardly be said that they are - in every city very largely in the majority. It would be - irrational to neglect one portion of the citizens and - favor another, and therefore the public administration - must duly and solicitously provide for the welfare and - the comfort of the working classes; otherwise, that law - of justice will be violated which ordains that each man - shall have his due. To cite the wise words of St. Thomas - Aquinas: "As the part and the whole are in a certain - sense identical, so that which belongs to the whole in a - sense belongs to the part."Among the many and grave - duties of rulers who would do their best for the people, - the first and chief is to act with strict justice---with - that justice which is called *distributive*---toward - each and every class alike. - -34. But although all citizens, without exception, can and - ought to contribute to that common good in which - individuals share so advantageously to themselves, yet - it should not be supposed that all can contribute in the - like way and to the same extent. No matter what changes - may occur in forms of government, there will ever be - differences and inequalities of condition in the State. - Society cannot exist or be conceived of without them. - Some there must be who devote themselves to the work of - the commonwealth, who make the laws or administer - justice, or whose advice and authority govern the nation - in times of peace, and defend it in war. Such men - clearly occupy the foremost place in the State, and - should be held in highest estimation, for their work - concerns most nearly and effectively the general - interests of the community. Those who labor at a trade - or calling do not promote the general welfare in such - measure as this, but they benefit the nation, if less - directly, in a most important manner. We have insisted, - it is true, that, since the end of society is to make - men better, the chief good that society can possess is - virtue. Nevertheless, it is the business of a - well-constituted body politic to see to the provision of - those material and external helps "the use of which is - necessary to virtuous action."Now, for the provision of - such commodities, the labor of the working class---the - exercise of their skill, and the employment of their - strength, in the cultivation of the land, and in the - workshops of trade---is especially responsible and quite - indispensable. Indeed, their co-operation is in this - respect so important that it may be truly said that it - is only by the labor of working men that States grow - rich. Justice, therefore, demands that the interests of - the working classes should be carefully watched over by - the administration, so that they who contribute so - largely to the advantage of the community may themselves - share in the benefits which they create-that being - housed, clothed, and bodily fit, they may find their - life less hard and more endurable. It follows that - whatever shall appear to prove conducive to the - well-being of those who work should obtain favorable - consideration. There is no fear that solicitude of this - kind will be harmful to any interest; on the contrary, - it will be to the advantage of all, for it cannot but be - good for the commonwealth to shield from misery those on - whom it so largely depends for the things that it needs. - -35. We have said that the State must not absorb the - individual or the family; both should be allowed free - and untrammelled action so far as is consistent with the - common good and the interest of others. Rulers should, - nevertheless, anxiously safeguard the community and all - its members; the community, because the conservation - thereof is so emphatically the business of the supreme - power, that the safety of the commonwealth is not only - the first law, but it is a government's whole reason of - existence; and the members, because both philosophy and - the Gospel concur in laying down that the object of the - government of the State should be, not the advantage of - the ruler, but the benefit of those over whom he is - placed. As the power to rule comes from God, and is, as - it were, a participation in His, the highest of all - sovereignties, it should be exercised as the power of - God is exercised---with a fatherly solicitude which not +21. But the Church, with Jesus Christ as her Master and Guide, aims + higher still. She lays down precepts yet more perfect, and tries to + bind class to class in friendliness and good feeling. The things of + earth cannot be understood or valued aright without taking into + consideration the life to come, the life that will know no death. + Exclude the idea of futurity, and forthwith the very notion of what + is good and right would perish; nay, the whole scheme of the + universe would become a dark and unfathomable mystery. The great + truth which we learn from nature herself is also the grand Christian + dogma on which religion rests as on its foundation---that, when we + have given up this present life, then shall we really begin to live. + God has not created us for the perishable and transitory things of + earth, but for things heavenly and everlasting; He has given us this + world as a place of exile, and not as our abiding place. As for + riches and the other things which men call good and desirable, + whether we have them in abundance, or are lacking in them-so far as + eternal happiness is concerned---it makes no difference; the only + important thing is to use them aright. Jesus Christ, when He + redeemed us with plentiful redemption, took not away the pains and + sorrows which in such large proportion are woven together in the web + of our mortal life. He transformed them into motives of virtue and + occasions of merit; and no man can hope for eternal reward unless he + follow in the blood-stained footprints of his Saviour. "If we suffer + with Him, we shall also reign with Him."Christ's labors and + sufferings, accepted of His own free will, have marvellously + sweetened all suffering and all labor. And not only by His example, + but by His grace and by the hope held forth of everlasting + recompense, has He made pain and grief more easy to endure; "for + that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, + worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of + glory." + +22. Therefore, those whom fortune favors are warned that riches do not + bring freedom from sorrow and are of no avail for eternal happiness, + but rather are obstacles;that the rich should tremble at the + threatenings of Jesus Christ---threatenings so unwonted in the mouth + of our Lord---and that a most strict account must be given to the + Supreme Judge for all we possess. The chief and most excellent rule + for the right use of money is one the heathen philosophers hinted + at, but which the Church has traced out clearly, and has not only + made known to men's minds, but has impressed upon their lives. It + rests on the principle that it is one thing to have a right to the + possession of money and another to have a right to use money as one + wills. Private ownership, as we have seen, is the natural right of + man, and to exercise that right, especially as members of society, + is not only lawful, but absolutely necessary. "It is lawful," says + St. Thomas Aquinas, "for a man to hold private property; and it is + also necessary for the carrying on of human existence."But if the + question be asked: How must one's possessions be used?---the Church + replies without hesitation in the words of the same holy Doctor: + "Man should not consider his material possessions as his own, but as + common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others + are in need. Whence the Apostle with, 'Command the rich of this + world... to offer with no stint, to apportion largely.'"True, no one + is commanded to distribute to others that which is required for his + own needs and those of his household; nor even to give away what is + reasonably required to keep up becomingly his condition in life, + "for no one ought to live other than becomingly."But, when what + necessity demands has been supplied, and one's standing fairly taken + thought for, it becomes a duty to give to the indigent out of what + remains over. "Of that which remaineth, give alms."It is a duty, not + of justice (save in extreme cases), but of Christian charity---a + duty not enforced by human law. But the laws and judgments of men + must yield place to the laws and judgments of Christ the true God, + who in many ways urges on His followers the practice of + alms-giving---'It is more blessed to give than to receive";and who + will count a kindness done or refused to the poor as done or refused + to Himself---"As long as you did it to one of My least brethren you + did it to Me."To sum up, then, what has been said: Whoever has + received from the divine bounty a large share of temporal blessings, + whether they be external and material, or gifts of the mind, has + received them for the purpose of using them for the perfecting of + his own nature, and, at the same time, that he may employ them, as + the steward of God's providence, for the benefit of others."He that + hath a talent," said St. Gregory the Great, "let him see that he + hide it not; he that hath abundance, let him quicken himself to + mercy and generosity; he that hath art and skill, let him do his + best to share the use and the utility hereof with his neighbor." + +23. As for those who possess not the gifts of fortune, they are taught + by the Church that in God's sight poverty is no disgrace, and that + there is nothing to be ashamed of in earning their bread by labor. + This is enforced by what we see in Christ Himself, who, "whereas He + was rich, for our sakes became poor";and who, being the Son of God, + and God Himself, chose to seem and to be considered the son of a + carpenter---nay, did not disdain to spend a great part of His life + as a carpenter Himself. "Is not this the carpenter, the son of + Mary?" + +24. From contemplation of this divine Model, it is more easy to + understand that the true worth and nobility of man lie in his moral + qualities, that is, in virtue; that virtue is, moreover, the common + inheritance of men, equally within the reach of high and low, rich + and poor; and that virtue, and virtue alone, wherever found, will be + followed by the rewards of everlasting happiness. Nay, God Himself + seems to incline rather to those who suffer misfortune; for Jesus + Christ calls the poor "blessed";He lovingly invites those in labor + and grief to come to Him for solace;and He displays the tenderest + charity toward the lowly and the oppressed. These reflections cannot + fail to keep down the pride of the well-to-do, and to give heart to + the unfortunate; to move the former to be generous and the latter to + be moderate in their desires. Thus, the separation which pride would + set up tends to disappear, nor will it be difficult to make rich and + poor join hands in friendly concord. + +25. But, if Christian precepts prevail, the respective classes will not + only be united in the bonds of friendship, but also in those of + brotherly love. For they will understand and feel that all men are + children of the same common Father, who is God; that all have alike + the same last end, which is God Himself, who alone can make either + men or angels absolutely and perfectly happy; that each and all are + redeemed and made sons of God, by Jesus Christ, "the first-born + among many brethren"; that the blessings of nature and the gifts of + grace belong to the whole human race in common, and that from none + except the unworthy is withheld the inheritance of the kingdom of + Heaven. "If sons, heirs also; heirs indeed of God, and co-heirs with + Christ."Such is the scheme of duties and of rights which is shown + forth to the world by the Gospel. Would it not seem that, were + society penetrated with ideas like these, strife must quickly cease? + +26. But the Church, not content with pointing out the remedy, also + applies it. For the Church does her utmost to teach and to train + men, and to educate them and by the intermediary of her bishops and + clergy diffuses her salutary teachings far and wide. She strives to + influence the mind and the heart so that all may willingly yield + themselves to be formed and guided by the commandments of God. It is + precisely in this fundamental and momentous matter, on which + everything depends that the Church possesses a power peculiarly her + own. The instruments which she employs are given to her by Jesus + Christ Himself for the very purpose of reaching the hearts of men, + and drive their efficiency from God. They alone can reach the + innermost heart and conscience, and bring men to act from a motive + of duty, to control their passions and appetites, to love God and + their fellow men with a love that is outstanding and of the highest + degree and to break down courageously every barrier which blocks the + way to virtue. + +27. On this subject we need but recall for one moment the examples + recorded in history. Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of + doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part + by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the + human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought + back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing + more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the + ages that have yet to be. Of this beneficent transformation Jesus + Christ was at once the first cause and the final end; as from Him + all came, so to Him was all to be brought back. For, when the human + race, by the light of the Gospel message, came to know the grand + mystery of the Incarnation of the Word and the redemption of man, at + once the life of Jesus Christ, God and Man, pervaded every race and + nation, and interpenetrated them with His faith, His precepts, and + His laws. And if human society is to be healed now, in no other way + can it be healed save by a return to Christian life and Christian + institutions. When a society is perishing, the wholesome advice to + give to those who would restore it is to call it to the principles + from which it sprang; for the purpose and perfection of an + association is to aim at and to attain that for which it is formed, + and its efforts should be put in motion and inspired by the end and + object which originally gave it being. Hence, to fall away from its + primal constitution implies disease; to go back to it, recovery. And + this may be asserted with utmost truth both of the whole body of the + commonwealth and of that class of its citizens-by far the great + majority---who get their living by their labor. + +28. Neither must it be supposed that the solicitude of the Church is so + preoccupied with the spiritual concerns of her children as to + neglect their temporal and earthly interests. Her desire is that the + poor, for example, should rise above poverty and wretchedness, and + better their condition in life; and for this she makes a strong + endeavor. By the fact that she calls men to virtue and forms them to + its practice she promotes this in no slight degree. Christian + morality, when adequately and completely practiced, leads of itself + to temporal prosperity, for it merits the blessing of that God who + is the source of all blessings; it powerfully restrains the greed of + possession and the thirst for pleasure-twin plagues, which too often + make a man who is void of self-restraint miserable in the midst of + abundance;it makes men supply for the lack of means through economy, + teaching them to be content with frugal living, and further, keeping + them out of the reach of those vices which devour not small incomes + merely, but large fortunes, and dissipate many a goodly inheritance. + +29. The Church, moreover, intervenes directly in behalf of the poor, by + setting on foot and maintaining many associations which she knows to + be efficient for the relief of poverty. Herein, again, she has + always succeeded so well as to have even extorted the praise of her + enemies. Such was the ardor of brotherly love among the earliest + Christians that numbers of those who were in better circumstances + despoiled themselves of their possessions in order to relieve their + brethren; whence "neither was there any one needy among them."To the + order of deacons, instituted in that very intent, was committed by + the Apostles the charge of the daily doles; and the Apostle Paul, + though burdened with the solicitude of all the churches, hesitated + not to undertake laborious journeys in order to carry the alms of + the faithful to the poorer Christians. Tertullian calls these + contributions, given voluntarily by Christians in their assemblies, + deposits of piety, because, to cite his own words, they were + employed "in feeding the needy, in burying them, in support of + youths and maidens destitute of means and deprived of their parents, + in the care of the aged, and the relief of the shipwrecked." + +30. Thus, by degrees, came into existence the patrimony which the Church + has guarded with religious care as the inheritance of the poor. Nay, + in order to spare them the shame of begging, the Church has provided + aid for the needy. The common Mother of rich and poor has aroused + everywhere the heroism of charity, and has established congregations + of religious and many other useful institutions for help and mercy, + so that hardly any kind of suffering could exist which was not + afforded relief. At the present day many there are who, like the + heathen of old, seek to blame and condemn the Church for such + eminent charity. They would substitute in its stead a system of + relief organized by the State. But no human expedients will ever + make up for the devotedness and self sacrifice of Christian charity. + Charity, as a virtue, pertains to the Church; for virtue it is not, + unless it be drawn from the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ; and + whosoever turns his back on the Church cannot be near to Christ. + +31. It cannot, however, be doubted that to attain the purpose we are + treating of, not only the Church, but all human agencies, must + concur. All who are concerned in the matter should be of one mind + and according to their ability act together. It is with this, as + with providence that governs the world; the results of causes do not + usually take place save where all the causes cooperate. It is + sufficient, therefore, to inquire what part the State should play in + the work of remedy and relief. + +32. By the State we here understand, not the particular form of + government prevailing in this or that nation, but the State as + rightly apprehended; that is to say, any government conformable in + its institutions to right reason and natural law, and to those + dictates of the divine wisdom which we have expounded in the + encyclical *On the Christian Constitution of the State.*The foremost + duty, therefore, of the rulers of the State should be to make sure + that the laws and institutions, the general character and + administration of the commonwealth, shall be such as of themselves + to realize public well-being and private prosperity. This is the + proper scope of wise statesmanship and is the work of the rulers. + Now a State chiefly prospers and thrives through moral rule, + well-regulated family life, respect for religion and justice, the + moderation and fair imposing of public taxes, the progress of the + arts and of trade, the abundant yield of the land-through + everything, in fact, which makes the citizens better and happier. + Hereby, then, it lies in the power of a ruler to benefit every class + in the State, and amongst the rest to promote to the utmost the + interests of the poor; and this in virtue of his office, and without + being open to suspicion of undue interference---since it is the + province of the commonwealth to serve the common good. And the more + that is done for the benefit of the working classes by the general + laws of the country, the less need will there be to seek for special + means to relieve them. + +33. There is another and deeper consideration which must not be lost + sight of. As regards the State, the interests of all, whether high + or low, are equal. The members of the working classes are citizens + by nature and by the same right as the rich; they are real parts, + living the life which makes up, through the family, the body of the + commonwealth; and it need hardly be said that they are in every city + very largely in the majority. It would be irrational to neglect one + portion of the citizens and favor another, and therefore the public + administration must duly and solicitously provide for the welfare + and the comfort of the working classes; otherwise, that law of + justice will be violated which ordains that each man shall have his + due. To cite the wise words of St. Thomas Aquinas: "As the part and + the whole are in a certain sense identical, so that which belongs to + the whole in a sense belongs to the part."Among the many and grave + duties of rulers who would do their best for the people, the first + and chief is to act with strict justice---with that justice which is + called *distributive*---toward each and every class alike. + +34. But although all citizens, without exception, can and ought to + contribute to that common good in which individuals share so + advantageously to themselves, yet it should not be supposed that all + can contribute in the like way and to the same extent. No matter + what changes may occur in forms of government, there will ever be + differences and inequalities of condition in the State. Society + cannot exist or be conceived of without them. Some there must be who + devote themselves to the work of the commonwealth, who make the laws + or administer justice, or whose advice and authority govern the + nation in times of peace, and defend it in war. Such men clearly + occupy the foremost place in the State, and should be held in + highest estimation, for their work concerns most nearly and + effectively the general interests of the community. Those who labor + at a trade or calling do not promote the general welfare in such + measure as this, but they benefit the nation, if less directly, in a + most important manner. We have insisted, it is true, that, since the + end of society is to make men better, the chief good that society + can possess is virtue. Nevertheless, it is the business of a + well-constituted body politic to see to the provision of those + material and external helps "the use of which is necessary to + virtuous action."Now, for the provision of such commodities, the + labor of the working class---the exercise of their skill, and the + employment of their strength, in the cultivation of the land, and in + the workshops of trade---is especially responsible and quite + indispensable. Indeed, their co-operation is in this respect so + important that it may be truly said that it is only by the labor of + working men that States grow rich. Justice, therefore, demands that + the interests of the working classes should be carefully watched + over by the administration, so that they who contribute so largely + to the advantage of the community may themselves share in the + benefits which they create-that being housed, clothed, and bodily + fit, they may find their life less hard and more endurable. It + follows that whatever shall appear to prove conducive to the + well-being of those who work should obtain favorable consideration. + There is no fear that solicitude of this kind will be harmful to any + interest; on the contrary, it will be to the advantage of all, for + it cannot but be good for the commonwealth to shield from misery + those on whom it so largely depends for the things that it needs. + +35. We have said that the State must not absorb the individual or the + family; both should be allowed free and untrammelled action so far + as is consistent with the common good and the interest of others. + Rulers should, nevertheless, anxiously safeguard the community and + all its members; the community, because the conservation thereof is + so emphatically the business of the supreme power, that the safety + of the commonwealth is not only the first law, but it is a + government's whole reason of existence; and the members, because + both philosophy and the Gospel concur in laying down that the object + of the government of the State should be, not the advantage of the + ruler, but the benefit of those over whom he is placed. As the power + to rule comes from God, and is, as it were, a participation in His, + the highest of all sovereignties, it should be exercised as the + power of God is exercised---with a fatherly solicitude which not only guides the whole, but reaches also individuals. -36. Whenever the general interest or any particular class - suffers, or is threatened with harm, which can in no - other way be met or prevented, the public authority must - step in to deal with it. Now, it is to the interest of - the community, as well as of the individual, that peace - and good order should be maintained; that all things - should be carried on in accordance with God's laws and - those of nature; that the discipline of family life - should be observed and that religion should be obeyed; - that a high standard of morality should prevail, both in - public and private life; that justice should be held - sacred and that no one should injure another with - impunity; that the members of the commonwealth should - grow up to man's estate strong and robust, and capable, - if need be, of guarding and defending their country. If - by a strike of workers or concerted interruption of work - there should be imminent danger of disturbance to the - public peace; or if circumstances were such as that - among the working class the ties of family life were - relaxed; if religion were found to suffer through the - workers not having time and opportunity afforded them to - practice its duties; if in workshops and factories there - were danger to morals through the mixing of the sexes or - from other harmful occasions of evil; or if employers - laid burdens upon their workmen which were unjust, or - degraded them with conditions repugnant to their dignity - as human beings; finally, if health were endangered by - excessive labor, or by work unsuited to sex or age---in - such cases, there can be no question but that, within - certain limits, it would be right to invoke the aid and - authority of the law. The limits must be determined by - the nature of the occasion which calls for the law's - interference---the principle being that the law must not - undertake more, nor proceed further, than is required - for the remedy of the evil or the removal of the - mischief. - -37. Rights must be religiously respected wherever they - exist, and it is the duty of the public authority to - prevent and to punish injury, and to protect every one - in the possession of his own. Still, when there is - question of defending the rights of individuals, the - poor and badly off have a claim to especial - consideration. The richer class have many ways of - shielding themselves, and stand less in need of help - from the State; whereas the mass of the poor have no - resources of their own to fall back upon, and must - chiefly depend upon the assistance of the State. And it - is for this reason that wage-earners, since they mostly - belong in the mass of the needy, should be specially - cared for and protected by the government. - -38. Here, however, it is expedient to bring under special - notice certain matters of moment. First of all, there is - the duty of safeguarding private property by legal - enactment and protection. Most of all it is essential, - where the passion of greed is so strong, to keep the - populace within the line of duty; for, if all may justly - strive to better their condition, neither justice nor - the common good allows any individual to seize upon that - which belongs to another, or, under the futile and - shallow pretext of equality, to lay violent hands on - other people's possessions. Most true it is that by far - the larger part of the workers prefer to better - themselves by honest labor rather than by doing any - wrong to others. But there are not a few who are imbued - with evil principles and eager for revolutionary change, - whose main purpose is to stir up disorder and incite - their fellows to acts of violence. The authority of the - law should intervene to put restraint upon such - firebrands, to save the working classes from being led - astray by their maneuvers, and to protect lawful owners - from spoliation. - -39. When work people have recourse to a strike and become - voluntarily idle, it is frequently because the hours of - labor are too long, or the work too hard, or because - they consider their wages insufficient. The grave - inconvenience of this not uncommon occurrence should be - obviated by public remedial measures; for such - paralysing of labor not only affects the masters and - their work people alike, but is extremely injurious to - trade and to the general interests of the public; - moreover, on such occasions, violence and disorder are - generally not far distant, and thus it frequently - happens that the public peace is imperiled. The laws - should forestall and prevent such troubles from arising; - they should lend their influence and authority to the - removal in good time of the causes which lead to - conflicts between employers and employed. - -40. The working man, too, has interests in which he should - be protected by the State; and first of all, there are - the interests of his soul. Life on earth, however good - and desirable in itself, is not the final purpose for - which man is created; it is only the way and the means - to that attainment of truth and that love of goodness in - which the full life of the soul consists. It is the soul - which is made after the image and likeness of God; it is - in the soul that the sovereignty resides in virtue - whereof man is commanded to rule the creatures below him - and to use all the earth and the ocean for his profit - and advantage. "Fill the earth and subdue it; and rule - over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, - and all living creatures that move upon the earth."In - this respect all men are equal; there is here no - difference between rich and poor, master and servant, - ruler and ruled, "for the same is Lord over all."[^1] No - man may with impunity outrage that human dignity which - God Himself treats with great reverence, nor stand in - the way of that higher life which is the preparation of - the eternal life of heaven. Nay, more; no man has in - this matter power over himself. To consent to any - treatment which is calculated to defeat the end and - purpose of his being is beyond his right; he cannot give - up his soul to servitude, for it is not man's own rights - which are here in question, but the rights of God, the - most sacred and inviolable of rights. - -41. From this follows the obligation of the cessation from - work and labor on Sundays and certain holy days. The - rest from labor is not to be understood as mere giving - way to idleness; much less must it be an occasion for - spending money and for vicious indulgence, as many would - have it to be; but it should be rest from labor, - hallowed by religion. Rest (combined with religious - observances) disposes man to forget for a while the - business of his everyday life, to turn his thoughts to - things heavenly, and to the worship which he so strictly - owes to the eternal Godhead. It is this, above all, - which is the reason arid motive of Sunday rest; a rest - sanctioned by God's great law of the Ancient - Covenant-"Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath day,"and - taught to the world by His own mysterious "rest" after - the creation of man: "He rested on the seventh day from - all His work which He had done." - -42. If we turn not to things external and material, the - first thing of all to secure is to save unfortunate - working people from the cruelty of men of greed, who use - human beings as mere instruments for money-making. It is - neither just nor human so to grind men down with - excessive labor as to stupefy their minds and wear out - their bodies. Man's powers, like his general nature, are - limited, and beyond these limits he cannot go. His - strength is developed and increased by use and exercise, - but only on condition of due intermission and proper - rest. Daily labor, therefore, should be so regulated as - not to be protracted over longer hours than strength - admits. How many and how long the intervals of rest - should be must depend on the nature of the work, on - circumstances of time and place, and on the health and - strength of the workman. Those who work in mines and - quarries, and extract coal, stone and metals from the - bowels of the earth, should have shorter hours in - proportion as their labor is more severe and trying to - health. Then, again, the season of the year should be - taken into account; for not infrequently a kind of labor - is easy at one time which at another is intolerable or - exceedingly difficult. Finally, work which is quite - suitable for a strong man cannot rightly be required - from a woman or a child. And, in regard to children, - great care should be taken not to place them in - workshops and factories until their bodies and minds are - sufficiently developed. For, just as very rough weather - destroys the buds of spring, so does too early an - experience of life's hard toil blight the young promise - of a child's faculties, and render any true education - impossible. Women, again, are not suited for certain - occupations; a woman is by nature fitted for home-work, - and it is that which is best adapted at once to preserve - her modesty and to promote the good bringing up of - children and the well-being of the family. As a general - principle it may be laid down that a workman ought to - have leisure and rest proportionate to the wear and tear - of his strength, for waste of strength must be repaired - by cessation from hard work. In all agreements between - masters and work people there is always the condition - expressed or understood that there should be allowed - proper rest for soul and body. To agree in any other - sense would be against what is right and just; for it - can never be just or right to require on the one side, - or to promise on the other, the giving up of those - duties which a man owes to his God and to himself. - -43. We now approach a subject of great importance, and one - in respect of which, if extremes are to be avoided, - right notions are absolutely necessary. Wages, as we are - told, are regulated by free consent, and therefore the - employer, when he pays what was agreed upon, has done - his part and seemingly is not called upon to do anything - beyond. The only way, it is said, in which injustice - might occur would be if the master refused to pay the - whole of the wages, or if the workman should not - complete the work undertaken; in such cases the public - authority should intervene, to see that each obtains his - due, but not under any other circumstances. - -44. To this kind of argument a fair-minded man will not - easily or entirely assent; it is not complete, for there - are important considerations which it leaves out of - account altogether. To labor is to exert oneself for the - sake of procuring what is necessary for the various - purposes of life, and chief of all for self - preservation. "In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat - bread."Hence, a man's labor necessarily bears two notes - or characters. First of all, it is personal, inasmuch as - the force which acts is bound up with the personality - and is the exclusive property of him who acts, and, - further, was given to him for his advantage. Secondly, - man's labor is necessary; for without the result of - labor a man cannot live, and self-preservation is a law - of nature, which it is wrong to disobey. Now, were we to - consider labor merely in so far as it is personal, - doubtless it would be within the workman's right to - accept any rate of wages whatsoever; for in the same way - as he is free to work or not, so is he free to accept a - small wage or even none at all. But our conclusion must - be very different if, together with the personal element - in a man's work, we consider the fact that work is also - necessary for him to live: these two aspects of his work - are separable in thought, but not in reality. The - preservation of life is the bounden duty of one and all, - and to be wanting therein is a crime. It necessarily - follows that each one has a natural right to procure - what is required in order to live, and the poor can - procure that in no other way than by what they can earn - through their work. - -45. Let the working man and the employer make free - agreements, and in particular let them agree freely as - to the wages; nevertheless, there underlies a dictate of - natural justice more imperious and ancient than any - bargain between man and man, namely, that wages ought - not to be insufficient to support a frugal and - well-behaved wage-earner. If through necessity or fear - of a worse evil the workman accept harder conditions - because an employer or contractor will afford him no - better, he is made the victim of force and injustice. In - these and similar questions, however---such as, for - example, the hours of labor in different trades, the - sanitary precautions to be observed in factories and - workshops, etc.---in order to supersede undue - interference on the part of the State, especially as - circumstances, times, and localities differ so widely, - it is advisable that recourse be had to societies or - boards such as We shall mention presently, or to some - other mode of safeguarding the interests of the - wage-earners; the State being appealed to, should - circumstances require, for its sanction and protection. - -46. If a workman's wages be sufficient to enable him - comfortably to support himself, his wife, and his - children, he will find it easy, if he be a sensible man, - to practice thrift, and he will not fail, by cutting - down expenses, to put by some little savings and thus - secure a modest source of income. Nature itself would - urge him to this. We have seen that this great labor - question cannot be solved save by assuming as a - principle that private ownership must be held sacred and - inviolable. The law, therefore, should favor ownership, - and its policy should be to induce as many as possible - of the people to become owners. - -47. Many excellent results will follow from this; and, first - of all, property will certainly become more equitably - divided. For, the result of civil change and revolution - has been to divide cities into two classes separated by - a wide chasm. On the one side there is the party which - holds power because it holds wealth; which has in its - grasp the whole of labor and trade; which manipulates - for its own benefit and its own purposes all the sources - of supply, and which is not without influence even in - the administration of the commonwealth. On the other - side there is the needy and powerless multitude, sick - and sore in spirit and ever ready for disturbance. If - working people can be encouraged to look forward to - obtaining a share in the land, the consequence will be - that the gulf between vast wealth and sheer poverty will - be bridged over, and the respective classes will be - brought nearer to one another. A further consequence - will result in the great abundance of the fruits of the - earth. Men always work harder and more readily when they - work on that which belongs to them; nay, they learn to - love the very soil that yields in response to the labor - of their hands, not only food to eat, but an abundance - of good things for themselves and those that are dear to - them. That such a spirit of willing labor would add to - the produce of the earth and to the wealth of the - community is self evident. And a third advantage would - spring from this: men would cling to the country in - which they were born, for no one would exchange his - country for a foreign land if his own afforded him the - means of living a decent and happy life. These three - important benefits, however, can be reckoned on only - provided that a man's means be not drained and exhausted - by excessive taxation. The right to possess private - property is derived from nature, not from man; and the - State has the right to control its use in the interests - of the public good alone, but by no means to absorb it - altogether. The State would therefore be unjust and - cruel if under the name of taxation it were to deprive - the private owner of more than is fair. - -48. In the last place, employers and workmen may of - themselves effect much, in the matter We are treating, - by means of such associations and organizations as - afford opportune aid to those who are in distress, and - which draw the two classes more closely together. Among - these may be enumerated societies for mutual help; - various benevolent foundations established by private - persons to provide for the workman, and for his widow or - his orphans, in case of sudden calamity, in sickness, - and in the event of death; and institutions for the - welfare of boys and girls, young people, and those more +36. Whenever the general interest or any particular class suffers, or is + threatened with harm, which can in no other way be met or prevented, + the public authority must step in to deal with it. Now, it is to the + interest of the community, as well as of the individual, that peace + and good order should be maintained; that all things should be + carried on in accordance with God's laws and those of nature; that + the discipline of family life should be observed and that religion + should be obeyed; that a high standard of morality should prevail, + both in public and private life; that justice should be held sacred + and that no one should injure another with impunity; that the + members of the commonwealth should grow up to man's estate strong + and robust, and capable, if need be, of guarding and defending their + country. If by a strike of workers or concerted interruption of work + there should be imminent danger of disturbance to the public peace; + or if circumstances were such as that among the working class the + ties of family life were relaxed; if religion were found to suffer + through the workers not having time and opportunity afforded them to + practice its duties; if in workshops and factories there were danger + to morals through the mixing of the sexes or from other harmful + occasions of evil; or if employers laid burdens upon their workmen + which were unjust, or degraded them with conditions repugnant to + their dignity as human beings; finally, if health were endangered by + excessive labor, or by work unsuited to sex or age---in such cases, + there can be no question but that, within certain limits, it would + be right to invoke the aid and authority of the law. The limits must + be determined by the nature of the occasion which calls for the + law's interference---the principle being that the law must not + undertake more, nor proceed further, than is required for the remedy + of the evil or the removal of the mischief. + +37. Rights must be religiously respected wherever they exist, and it is + the duty of the public authority to prevent and to punish injury, + and to protect every one in the possession of his own. Still, when + there is question of defending the rights of individuals, the poor + and badly off have a claim to especial consideration. The richer + class have many ways of shielding themselves, and stand less in need + of help from the State; whereas the mass of the poor have no + resources of their own to fall back upon, and must chiefly depend + upon the assistance of the State. And it is for this reason that + wage-earners, since they mostly belong in the mass of the needy, + should be specially cared for and protected by the government. + +38. Here, however, it is expedient to bring under special notice certain + matters of moment. First of all, there is the duty of safeguarding + private property by legal enactment and protection. Most of all it + is essential, where the passion of greed is so strong, to keep the + populace within the line of duty; for, if all may justly strive to + better their condition, neither justice nor the common good allows + any individual to seize upon that which belongs to another, or, + under the futile and shallow pretext of equality, to lay violent + hands on other people's possessions. Most true it is that by far the + larger part of the workers prefer to better themselves by honest + labor rather than by doing any wrong to others. But there are not a + few who are imbued with evil principles and eager for revolutionary + change, whose main purpose is to stir up disorder and incite their + fellows to acts of violence. The authority of the law should + intervene to put restraint upon such firebrands, to save the working + classes from being led astray by their maneuvers, and to protect + lawful owners from spoliation. + +39. When work people have recourse to a strike and become voluntarily + idle, it is frequently because the hours of labor are too long, or + the work too hard, or because they consider their wages + insufficient. The grave inconvenience of this not uncommon + occurrence should be obviated by public remedial measures; for such + paralysing of labor not only affects the masters and their work + people alike, but is extremely injurious to trade and to the general + interests of the public; moreover, on such occasions, violence and + disorder are generally not far distant, and thus it frequently + happens that the public peace is imperiled. The laws should + forestall and prevent such troubles from arising; they should lend + their influence and authority to the removal in good time of the + causes which lead to conflicts between employers and employed. + +40. The working man, too, has interests in which he should be protected + by the State; and first of all, there are the interests of his soul. + Life on earth, however good and desirable in itself, is not the + final purpose for which man is created; it is only the way and the + means to that attainment of truth and that love of goodness in which + the full life of the soul consists. It is the soul which is made + after the image and likeness of God; it is in the soul that the + sovereignty resides in virtue whereof man is commanded to rule the + creatures below him and to use all the earth and the ocean for his + profit and advantage. "Fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over + the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living + creatures that move upon the earth."In this respect all men are + equal; there is here no difference between rich and poor, master and + servant, ruler and ruled, "for the same is Lord over all."[^1] No + man may with impunity outrage that human dignity which God Himself + treats with great reverence, nor stand in the way of that higher + life which is the preparation of the eternal life of heaven. Nay, + more; no man has in this matter power over himself. To consent to + any treatment which is calculated to defeat the end and purpose of + his being is beyond his right; he cannot give up his soul to + servitude, for it is not man's own rights which are here in + question, but the rights of God, the most sacred and inviolable of + rights. + +41. From this follows the obligation of the cessation from work and + labor on Sundays and certain holy days. The rest from labor is not + to be understood as mere giving way to idleness; much less must it + be an occasion for spending money and for vicious indulgence, as + many would have it to be; but it should be rest from labor, hallowed + by religion. Rest (combined with religious observances) disposes man + to forget for a while the business of his everyday life, to turn his + thoughts to things heavenly, and to the worship which he so strictly + owes to the eternal Godhead. It is this, above all, which is the + reason arid motive of Sunday rest; a rest sanctioned by God's great + law of the Ancient Covenant-"Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath + day,"and taught to the world by His own mysterious "rest" after the + creation of man: "He rested on the seventh day from all His work + which He had done." + +42. If we turn not to things external and material, the first thing of + all to secure is to save unfortunate working people from the cruelty + of men of greed, who use human beings as mere instruments for + money-making. It is neither just nor human so to grind men down with + excessive labor as to stupefy their minds and wear out their bodies. + Man's powers, like his general nature, are limited, and beyond these + limits he cannot go. His strength is developed and increased by use + and exercise, but only on condition of due intermission and proper + rest. Daily labor, therefore, should be so regulated as not to be + protracted over longer hours than strength admits. How many and how + long the intervals of rest should be must depend on the nature of + the work, on circumstances of time and place, and on the health and + strength of the workman. Those who work in mines and quarries, and + extract coal, stone and metals from the bowels of the earth, should + have shorter hours in proportion as their labor is more severe and + trying to health. Then, again, the season of the year should be + taken into account; for not infrequently a kind of labor is easy at + one time which at another is intolerable or exceedingly difficult. + Finally, work which is quite suitable for a strong man cannot + rightly be required from a woman or a child. And, in regard to + children, great care should be taken not to place them in workshops + and factories until their bodies and minds are sufficiently + developed. For, just as very rough weather destroys the buds of + spring, so does too early an experience of life's hard toil blight + the young promise of a child's faculties, and render any true + education impossible. Women, again, are not suited for certain + occupations; a woman is by nature fitted for home-work, and it is + that which is best adapted at once to preserve her modesty and to + promote the good bringing up of children and the well-being of the + family. As a general principle it may be laid down that a workman + ought to have leisure and rest proportionate to the wear and tear of + his strength, for waste of strength must be repaired by cessation + from hard work. In all agreements between masters and work people + there is always the condition expressed or understood that there + should be allowed proper rest for soul and body. To agree in any + other sense would be against what is right and just; for it can + never be just or right to require on the one side, or to promise on + the other, the giving up of those duties which a man owes to his God + and to himself. + +43. We now approach a subject of great importance, and one in respect of + which, if extremes are to be avoided, right notions are absolutely + necessary. Wages, as we are told, are regulated by free consent, and + therefore the employer, when he pays what was agreed upon, has done + his part and seemingly is not called upon to do anything beyond. The + only way, it is said, in which injustice might occur would be if the + master refused to pay the whole of the wages, or if the workman + should not complete the work undertaken; in such cases the public + authority should intervene, to see that each obtains his due, but + not under any other circumstances. + +44. To this kind of argument a fair-minded man will not easily or + entirely assent; it is not complete, for there are important + considerations which it leaves out of account altogether. To labor + is to exert oneself for the sake of procuring what is necessary for + the various purposes of life, and chief of all for self + preservation. "In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread."Hence, + a man's labor necessarily bears two notes or characters. First of + all, it is personal, inasmuch as the force which acts is bound up + with the personality and is the exclusive property of him who acts, + and, further, was given to him for his advantage. Secondly, man's + labor is necessary; for without the result of labor a man cannot + live, and self-preservation is a law of nature, which it is wrong to + disobey. Now, were we to consider labor merely in so far as it is + personal, doubtless it would be within the workman's right to accept + any rate of wages whatsoever; for in the same way as he is free to + work or not, so is he free to accept a small wage or even none at + all. But our conclusion must be very different if, together with the + personal element in a man's work, we consider the fact that work is + also necessary for him to live: these two aspects of his work are + separable in thought, but not in reality. The preservation of life + is the bounden duty of one and all, and to be wanting therein is a + crime. It necessarily follows that each one has a natural right to + procure what is required in order to live, and the poor can procure + that in no other way than by what they can earn through their work. + +45. Let the working man and the employer make free agreements, and in + particular let them agree freely as to the wages; nevertheless, + there underlies a dictate of natural justice more imperious and + ancient than any bargain between man and man, namely, that wages + ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved + wage-earner. If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the + workman accept harder conditions because an employer or contractor + will afford him no better, he is made the victim of force and + injustice. In these and similar questions, however---such as, for + example, the hours of labor in different trades, the sanitary + precautions to be observed in factories and workshops, etc.---in + order to supersede undue interference on the part of the State, + especially as circumstances, times, and localities differ so widely, + it is advisable that recourse be had to societies or boards such as + We shall mention presently, or to some other mode of safeguarding + the interests of the wage-earners; the State being appealed to, + should circumstances require, for its sanction and protection. + +46. If a workman's wages be sufficient to enable him comfortably to + support himself, his wife, and his children, he will find it easy, + if he be a sensible man, to practice thrift, and he will not fail, + by cutting down expenses, to put by some little savings and thus + secure a modest source of income. Nature itself would urge him to + this. We have seen that this great labor question cannot be solved + save by assuming as a principle that private ownership must be held + sacred and inviolable. The law, therefore, should favor ownership, + and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people + to become owners. + +47. Many excellent results will follow from this; and, first of all, + property will certainly become more equitably divided. For, the + result of civil change and revolution has been to divide cities into + two classes separated by a wide chasm. On the one side there is the + party which holds power because it holds wealth; which has in its + grasp the whole of labor and trade; which manipulates for its own + benefit and its own purposes all the sources of supply, and which is + not without influence even in the administration of the + commonwealth. On the other side there is the needy and powerless + multitude, sick and sore in spirit and ever ready for disturbance. + If working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining a + share in the land, the consequence will be that the gulf between + vast wealth and sheer poverty will be bridged over, and the + respective classes will be brought nearer to one another. A further + consequence will result in the great abundance of the fruits of the + earth. Men always work harder and more readily when they work on + that which belongs to them; nay, they learn to love the very soil + that yields in response to the labor of their hands, not only food + to eat, but an abundance of good things for themselves and those + that are dear to them. That such a spirit of willing labor would add + to the produce of the earth and to the wealth of the community is + self evident. And a third advantage would spring from this: men + would cling to the country in which they were born, for no one would + exchange his country for a foreign land if his own afforded him the + means of living a decent and happy life. These three important + benefits, however, can be reckoned on only provided that a man's + means be not drained and exhausted by excessive taxation. The right + to possess private property is derived from nature, not from man; + and the State has the right to control its use in the interests of + the public good alone, but by no means to absorb it altogether. The + State would therefore be unjust and cruel if under the name of + taxation it were to deprive the private owner of more than is fair. + +48. In the last place, employers and workmen may of themselves effect + much, in the matter We are treating, by means of such associations + and organizations as afford opportune aid to those who are in + distress, and which draw the two classes more closely together. + Among these may be enumerated societies for mutual help; various + benevolent foundations established by private persons to provide for + the workman, and for his widow or his orphans, in case of sudden + calamity, in sickness, and in the event of death; and institutions + for the welfare of boys and girls, young people, and those more advanced in years. -49. The consciousness of his own weakness urges man to call - in aid from without. We read in the pages of holy Writ: - "It is better that two should be together than one; for - they have the advantage of their society. If one fall he - shall be supported by the other. Woe to him that is - alone, for when he falleth he hath none to lift him - up."And further: "A brother that is helped by his - brother is like a strong city."It is this natural - impulse which binds men together in civil society; and - it is likewise this which leads them to join together in - associations which are, it is true, lesser and not - independent societies, but, nevertheless, real - societies. - -50. The most important of all are workingmen's unions, for - these virtually include all the rest. History attests - what excellent results were brought about by the - artificers' guilds of olden times. They were the means - of affording not only many advantages to the workmen, - but in no small degree of promoting the advancement of - art, as numerous monuments remain to bear witness. Such - unions should be suited to the requirements of this our - age---an age of wider education, of different habits, - and of far more numerous requirements in daily life. It - is gratifying to know that there are actually in - existence not a few associations of this nature, - consisting either of workmen alone, or of workmen and - employers together, but it were greatly to be desired - that they should become more numerous and more - efficient. We have spoken of them more than once, yet it - will be well to explain here how notably they are - needed, to show that they exist of their own right, and - what should be their organization and their mode of - action. - -51. These lesser societies and the larger society differ in - many respects, because their immediate purpose and aim - are different. Civil society exists for the common good, - and hence is concerned with the interests of all in - general, albeit with individual interests also in their - due place and degree. It is therefore called a public - society, because by its agency, as St. Thomas of Aquinas - says, "Men establish relations in common with one - another in the setting up of a commonwealth."But - societies which are formed in the bosom of the - commonwealth are styled *private*, and rightly so, since - their immediate purpose is the private advantage of the - associates. "Now, a private society," says St. Thomas - again, "is one which is formed for the purpose of - carrying out private objects; as when two or three enter - into partnership with the view of trading in - common."Private societies, then, although they exist - within the body politic, and are severally part of the - commonwealth, cannot nevertheless be absolutely, and as - such, prohibited by public authority. For, to enter into - a "society" of this kind is the natural right of man; - and the State has for its office to protect natural - rights, not to destroy them; and, if it forbid its - citizens to form associations, it contradicts the very - principle of its own existence, for both they and it - exist in virtue of the like principle, namely, the - natural tendency of man to dwell in society. - -52. There are occasions, doubtless, when it is fitting that - the law should intervene to prevent certain - associations, as when men join together for purposes - which are evidently bad, unlawful, or dangerous to the - State. In such cases, public authority may justly forbid - the formation of such associations, and may dissolve - them if they already exist. But every precaution should - be taken not to violate the rights of individuals and - not to impose unreasonable regulations under pretense of - public benefit. For laws only bind when they are in - accordance with right reason, and, hence, with the +49. The consciousness of his own weakness urges man to call in aid from + without. We read in the pages of holy Writ: "It is better that two + should be together than one; for they have the advantage of their + society. If one fall he shall be supported by the other. Woe to him + that is alone, for when he falleth he hath none to lift him up."And + further: "A brother that is helped by his brother is like a strong + city."It is this natural impulse which binds men together in civil + society; and it is likewise this which leads them to join together + in associations which are, it is true, lesser and not independent + societies, but, nevertheless, real societies. + +50. The most important of all are workingmen's unions, for these + virtually include all the rest. History attests what excellent + results were brought about by the artificers' guilds of olden times. + They were the means of affording not only many advantages to the + workmen, but in no small degree of promoting the advancement of art, + as numerous monuments remain to bear witness. Such unions should be + suited to the requirements of this our age---an age of wider + education, of different habits, and of far more numerous + requirements in daily life. It is gratifying to know that there are + actually in existence not a few associations of this nature, + consisting either of workmen alone, or of workmen and employers + together, but it were greatly to be desired that they should become + more numerous and more efficient. We have spoken of them more than + once, yet it will be well to explain here how notably they are + needed, to show that they exist of their own right, and what should + be their organization and their mode of action. + +51. These lesser societies and the larger society differ in many + respects, because their immediate purpose and aim are different. + Civil society exists for the common good, and hence is concerned + with the interests of all in general, albeit with individual + interests also in their due place and degree. It is therefore called + a public society, because by its agency, as St. Thomas of Aquinas + says, "Men establish relations in common with one another in the + setting up of a commonwealth."But societies which are formed in the + bosom of the commonwealth are styled *private*, and rightly so, + since their immediate purpose is the private advantage of the + associates. "Now, a private society," says St. Thomas again, "is one + which is formed for the purpose of carrying out private objects; as + when two or three enter into partnership with the view of trading in + common."Private societies, then, although they exist within the body + politic, and are severally part of the commonwealth, cannot + nevertheless be absolutely, and as such, prohibited by public + authority. For, to enter into a "society" of this kind is the + natural right of man; and the State has for its office to protect + natural rights, not to destroy them; and, if it forbid its citizens + to form associations, it contradicts the very principle of its own + existence, for both they and it exist in virtue of the like + principle, namely, the natural tendency of man to dwell in society. + +52. There are occasions, doubtless, when it is fitting that the law + should intervene to prevent certain associations, as when men join + together for purposes which are evidently bad, unlawful, or + dangerous to the State. In such cases, public authority may justly + forbid the formation of such associations, and may dissolve them if + they already exist. But every precaution should be taken not to + violate the rights of individuals and not to impose unreasonable + regulations under pretense of public benefit. For laws only bind + when they are in accordance with right reason, and, hence, with the eternal law of God. -53. And here we are reminded of the confraternities, - societies, and religious orders which have arisen by the - Church's authority and the piety of Christian men. The - annals of every nation down to our own days bear witness - to what they have accomplished for the human race. It is - indisputable that on grounds of reason alone such - associations, being perfectly blameless in their - objects, possess the sanction of the law of nature. In - their religious aspect they claim rightly to be - responsible to the Church alone. The rulers of the State - accordingly have no rights over them, nor can they claim - any share in their control; on the contrary, it is the - duty of the State to respect and cherish them, and, if - need be, to defend them from attack. It is notorious - that a very different course has been followed, more - especially in our own times. In many places the State - authorities have laid violent hands on these - communities, and committed manifold injustice against - them; it has placed them under control of the civil law, - taken away their rights as corporate bodies, and - despoiled them of their property, in such property the - Church had her rights, each member of the body had his - or her rights, and there were also the rights of those - who had founded or endowed these communities for a - definite purpose, and, furthermore, of those for whose - benefit and assistance they had their being. Therefore - We cannot refrain from complaining of such spoliation as - unjust and fraught with evil results; and with all the - more reason do We complain because, at the very time - when the law proclaims that association is free to all, - We see that Catholic societies, however peaceful and - useful, are hampered in every way, whereas the utmost - liberty is conceded to individuals whose purposes are at - once hurtful to religion and dangerous to the - commonwealth. - -54. Associations of every kind, and especially those of - working men, are now far more common than heretofore. As - regards many of these there is no need at present to - inquire whence they spring, what are their objects, or - what the means they imply. Now, there is a good deal of - evidence in favor of the opinion that many of these - societies are in the hands of secret leaders, and are - managed on principles ill---according with Christianity - and the public well-being; and that they do their utmost - to get within their grasp the whole field of labor, and - force working men either to join them or to starve. - Under these circumstances Christian working men must do - one of two things: either join associations in which - their religion will be exposed to peril, or form - associations among themselves and unite their forces so - as to shake off courageously the yoke of so unrighteous - and intolerable an oppression. No one who does not wish - to expose man's chief good to extreme risk will for a - moment hesitate to say that the second alternative - should by all means be adopted. - -55. Those Catholics are worthy of all praise-and they are - not a few-who, understanding what the times require, - have striven, by various undertakings and endeavors, to - better the condition of the working class by rightful - means. They have taken up the cause of the working man, - and have spared no efforts to better the condition both - of families and individuals; to infuse a spirit of - equity into the mutual relations of employers and - employed; to keep before the eyes of both classes the - precepts of duty and the laws of the Gospel---that - Gospel which, by inculcating self restraint, keeps men - within the bounds of moderation, and tends to establish - harmony among the divergent interests and the various - classes which compose the body politic. It is with such - ends in view that we see men of eminence, meeting - together for discussion, for the promotion of concerted - action, and for practical work. Others, again, strive to - unite working men of various grades into associations, - help them with their advice and means, and enable them - to obtain fitting and profitable employment. The - bishops, on their part, bestow their ready good will and - support; and with their approval and guidance many - members of the clergy, both secular and regular, labor - assiduously in behalf of the spiritual interest of the - members of such associations. And there are not wanting - Catholics blessed with affluence, who have, as it were, - cast in their lot with the wage-earners, and who have - spent large sums in founding and widely spreading - benefit and insurance societies, by means of which the - working man may without difficulty acquire through his - labor not only many present advantages, but also the - certainty of honorable support in days to come. How - greatly such manifold and earnest activity has benefited - the community at large is too well known to require Us - to dwell upon it. We find therein grounds for most - cheering hope in the future, provided always that the - associations We have described continue to grow and - spread, and are well and wisely administered. The State - should watch over these societies of citizens banded - together in accordance with their rights, but it should - not thrust itself into their peculiar concerns and their - organization, for things move and live by the spirit - inspiring them, and may be killed by the rough grasp of - a hand from without. - -56. In order that an association may be carried on with - unity of purpose and harmony of action, its - administration and government should be firm and wise. - All such societies, being free to exist, have the - further right to adopt such rules and organization as - may best conduce to the attainment of their respective - objects. We do not judge it possible to enter into - minute particulars touching the subject of organization; - this must depend on national character, on practice and - experience, on the nature and aim of the work to be - done, on the scope of the various trades and - employments, and on other circumstances of fact and of - time---all of which should be carefully considered. - -57. To sum up, then, We may lay it down as a general and - lasting law that working men's associations should be so - organized and governed as to furnish the best and most - suitable means for attaining what is aimed at, that is - to say, for helping each individual member to better his - condition to the utmost in body, soul, and property. It - is clear that they must pay special and chief attention - to the duties of religion and morality, and that social - betterment should have this chiefly in view; otherwise - they would lose wholly their special character, and end - by becoming little better than those societies which - take no account whatever of religion. What advantage can - it be to a working man to obtain by means of a society - material well-being, if he endangers his soul for lack - of spiritual food? "What doth it profit a man, if he - gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his - soul?"This, as our Lord teaches, is the mark or - character that distinguishes the Christian from the - heathen. "After all these things do the heathen seek... - Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice: and - all these things shall be added unto you."Let our - associations, then, look first and before all things to - God; let religious instruction have therein the foremost - place, each one being carefully taught what is his duty - to God, what he has to believe, what to hope for, and - how he is to work out his salvation; and let all be - warned and strengthened with special care against wrong - principles and false teaching. Let the working man be - urged and led to the worship of God, to the earnest - practice of religion, and, among other things, to the - keeping holy of Sundays and holy days. Let him learn to - reverence and love holy Church, the common Mother of us - all; and hence to obey the precepts of the Church, and - to frequent the sacraments, since they are the means - ordained by God for obtaining forgiveness of sin and fox - leading a holy life. - -58. The foundations of the organization being thus laid in - religion, We next proceed to make clear the relations of - the members one to another, in order that they may live - together in concord and go forward prosperously and with - good results. The offices and charges of the society - should be apportioned for the good of the society - itself, and in such mode that difference in degree or - standing should not interfere with unanimity and - good-will. It is most important that office bearers be - appointed with due prudence and discretion, and each - one's charge carefully mapped out, in order that no - members may suffer harm. The common funds must be - administered with strict honesty, in such a way that a - member may receive assistance in proportion to his - necessities. The rights and duties of the employers, as - compared with the rights and duties of the employed, - ought to be the subject of careful consideration. Should - it happen that either a master or a workman believes - himself injured, nothing would be more desirable than - that a committee should be appointed, composed of - reliable and capable members of the association, whose - duty would be, conformably with the rules of the - association, to settle the dispute. Among the several - purposes of a society, one should be to try to arrange - for a continuous supply of work at all times and - seasons; as well as to create a fund out of which the - members may be effectually helped in their needs, not - only in the cases of accident, but also in sickness, old - age, and distress. - -59. Such rules and regulations, if willingly obeyed by all, - will sufficiently ensure the well being of the less - well-to-do; whilst such mutual associations among - Catholics are certain to be productive in no small - degree of prosperity to the State. Is it not rash to - conjecture the future from the past. Age gives way to - age, but the events of one century are wonderfully like - those of another, for they are directed by the - providence of God, who overrules the course of history - in accordance with His purposes in creating the race of - man. We are told that it was cast as a reproach on the - Christians in the early ages of the Church that the - greater number among them had to live by begging or by - labor. Yet, destitute though they were of wealth and - influence, they ended by winning over to their side the - favor of the rich and the good-will of the powerful. - They showed themselves industrious, hard-working, - assiduous, and peaceful, ruled by justice, and, above - all, bound together in brotherly love. In presence of - such mode of life and such example, prejudice gave way, - the tongue of malevolence was silenced, and the lying - legends of ancient superstition little by little yielded - to Christian truth. - -60. At the time being, the condition of the working classes - is the pressing question of the hour, and nothing can be - of higher interest to all classes of the State than that - it should be rightly and reasonably settled. But it will - be easy for Christian working men to solve it aright if - they will form associations, choose wise guides, and - follow on the path which with so much advantage to - themselves and the common weal was trodden by their - fathers before them. Prejudice, it is true, is mighty, - and so is the greed of money; but if the sense of what - is just and rightful be not deliberately stifled, their - fellow citizens are sure to be won over to a kindly - feeling towards men whom they see to be in earnest as - regards their work and who prefer so unmistakably right - dealing to mere lucre, and the sacredness of duty to - every other consideration. - -61. And further great advantage would result from the state - of things We are describing; there would exist so much - more ground for hope, and likelihood, even, of recalling - to a sense of their duty those working men who have - either given up their faith altogether, or whose lives - are at variance with its precepts. Such men feel in most - cases that they have been fooled by empty promises and - deceived by false pretexts. They cannot but perceive - that their grasping employers too often treat them with - great inhumanity and hardly care for them outside the - profit their labor brings; and if they belong to any - union, it is probably one in which there exists, instead - of charity and love, that intestine strife which ever - accompanies poverty when unresigned and unsustained by - religion. Broken in spirit and worn down in body, how - many of them would gladly free themselves from such - galling bondage! But human respect, or the dread of - starvation, makes them tremble to take the step. To such - as these Catholic associations are of incalculable - service, by helping them out of their difficulties, - inviting them to companionship and receiving the - returning wanderers to a haven where they may securely +53. And here we are reminded of the confraternities, societies, and + religious orders which have arisen by the Church's authority and the + piety of Christian men. The annals of every nation down to our own + days bear witness to what they have accomplished for the human race. + It is indisputable that on grounds of reason alone such + associations, being perfectly blameless in their objects, possess + the sanction of the law of nature. In their religious aspect they + claim rightly to be responsible to the Church alone. The rulers of + the State accordingly have no rights over them, nor can they claim + any share in their control; on the contrary, it is the duty of the + State to respect and cherish them, and, if need be, to defend them + from attack. It is notorious that a very different course has been + followed, more especially in our own times. In many places the State + authorities have laid violent hands on these communities, and + committed manifold injustice against them; it has placed them under + control of the civil law, taken away their rights as corporate + bodies, and despoiled them of their property, in such property the + Church had her rights, each member of the body had his or her + rights, and there were also the rights of those who had founded or + endowed these communities for a definite purpose, and, furthermore, + of those for whose benefit and assistance they had their being. + Therefore We cannot refrain from complaining of such spoliation as + unjust and fraught with evil results; and with all the more reason + do We complain because, at the very time when the law proclaims that + association is free to all, We see that Catholic societies, however + peaceful and useful, are hampered in every way, whereas the utmost + liberty is conceded to individuals whose purposes are at once + hurtful to religion and dangerous to the commonwealth. + +54. Associations of every kind, and especially those of working men, are + now far more common than heretofore. As regards many of these there + is no need at present to inquire whence they spring, what are their + objects, or what the means they imply. Now, there is a good deal of + evidence in favor of the opinion that many of these societies are in + the hands of secret leaders, and are managed on principles + ill---according with Christianity and the public well-being; and + that they do their utmost to get within their grasp the whole field + of labor, and force working men either to join them or to starve. + Under these circumstances Christian working men must do one of two + things: either join associations in which their religion will be + exposed to peril, or form associations among themselves and unite + their forces so as to shake off courageously the yoke of so + unrighteous and intolerable an oppression. No one who does not wish + to expose man's chief good to extreme risk will for a moment + hesitate to say that the second alternative should by all means be + adopted. + +55. Those Catholics are worthy of all praise-and they are not a few-who, + understanding what the times require, have striven, by various + undertakings and endeavors, to better the condition of the working + class by rightful means. They have taken up the cause of the working + man, and have spared no efforts to better the condition both of + families and individuals; to infuse a spirit of equity into the + mutual relations of employers and employed; to keep before the eyes + of both classes the precepts of duty and the laws of the + Gospel---that Gospel which, by inculcating self restraint, keeps men + within the bounds of moderation, and tends to establish harmony + among the divergent interests and the various classes which compose + the body politic. It is with such ends in view that we see men of + eminence, meeting together for discussion, for the promotion of + concerted action, and for practical work. Others, again, strive to + unite working men of various grades into associations, help them + with their advice and means, and enable them to obtain fitting and + profitable employment. The bishops, on their part, bestow their + ready good will and support; and with their approval and guidance + many members of the clergy, both secular and regular, labor + assiduously in behalf of the spiritual interest of the members of + such associations. And there are not wanting Catholics blessed with + affluence, who have, as it were, cast in their lot with the + wage-earners, and who have spent large sums in founding and widely + spreading benefit and insurance societies, by means of which the + working man may without difficulty acquire through his labor not + only many present advantages, but also the certainty of honorable + support in days to come. How greatly such manifold and earnest + activity has benefited the community at large is too well known to + require Us to dwell upon it. We find therein grounds for most + cheering hope in the future, provided always that the associations + We have described continue to grow and spread, and are well and + wisely administered. The State should watch over these societies of + citizens banded together in accordance with their rights, but it + should not thrust itself into their peculiar concerns and their + organization, for things move and live by the spirit inspiring them, + and may be killed by the rough grasp of a hand from without. + +56. In order that an association may be carried on with unity of purpose + and harmony of action, its administration and government should be + firm and wise. All such societies, being free to exist, have the + further right to adopt such rules and organization as may best + conduce to the attainment of their respective objects. We do not + judge it possible to enter into minute particulars touching the + subject of organization; this must depend on national character, on + practice and experience, on the nature and aim of the work to be + done, on the scope of the various trades and employments, and on + other circumstances of fact and of time---all of which should be + carefully considered. + +57. To sum up, then, We may lay it down as a general and lasting law + that working men's associations should be so organized and governed + as to furnish the best and most suitable means for attaining what is + aimed at, that is to say, for helping each individual member to + better his condition to the utmost in body, soul, and property. It + is clear that they must pay special and chief attention to the + duties of religion and morality, and that social betterment should + have this chiefly in view; otherwise they would lose wholly their + special character, and end by becoming little better than those + societies which take no account whatever of religion. What advantage + can it be to a working man to obtain by means of a society material + well-being, if he endangers his soul for lack of spiritual food? + "What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer + the loss of his soul?"This, as our Lord teaches, is the mark or + character that distinguishes the Christian from the heathen. "After + all these things do the heathen seek... Seek ye first the Kingdom of + God and His justice: and all these things shall be added unto + you."Let our associations, then, look first and before all things to + God; let religious instruction have therein the foremost place, each + one being carefully taught what is his duty to God, what he has to + believe, what to hope for, and how he is to work out his salvation; + and let all be warned and strengthened with special care against + wrong principles and false teaching. Let the working man be urged + and led to the worship of God, to the earnest practice of religion, + and, among other things, to the keeping holy of Sundays and holy + days. Let him learn to reverence and love holy Church, the common + Mother of us all; and hence to obey the precepts of the Church, and + to frequent the sacraments, since they are the means ordained by God + for obtaining forgiveness of sin and fox leading a holy life. + +58. The foundations of the organization being thus laid in religion, We + next proceed to make clear the relations of the members one to + another, in order that they may live together in concord and go + forward prosperously and with good results. The offices and charges + of the society should be apportioned for the good of the society + itself, and in such mode that difference in degree or standing + should not interfere with unanimity and good-will. It is most + important that office bearers be appointed with due prudence and + discretion, and each one's charge carefully mapped out, in order + that no members may suffer harm. The common funds must be + administered with strict honesty, in such a way that a member may + receive assistance in proportion to his necessities. The rights and + duties of the employers, as compared with the rights and duties of + the employed, ought to be the subject of careful consideration. + Should it happen that either a master or a workman believes himself + injured, nothing would be more desirable than that a committee + should be appointed, composed of reliable and capable members of the + association, whose duty would be, conformably with the rules of the + association, to settle the dispute. Among the several purposes of a + society, one should be to try to arrange for a continuous supply of + work at all times and seasons; as well as to create a fund out of + which the members may be effectually helped in their needs, not only + in the cases of accident, but also in sickness, old age, and + distress. + +59. Such rules and regulations, if willingly obeyed by all, will + sufficiently ensure the well being of the less well-to-do; whilst + such mutual associations among Catholics are certain to be + productive in no small degree of prosperity to the State. Is it not + rash to conjecture the future from the past. Age gives way to age, + but the events of one century are wonderfully like those of another, + for they are directed by the providence of God, who overrules the + course of history in accordance with His purposes in creating the + race of man. We are told that it was cast as a reproach on the + Christians in the early ages of the Church that the greater number + among them had to live by begging or by labor. Yet, destitute though + they were of wealth and influence, they ended by winning over to + their side the favor of the rich and the good-will of the powerful. + They showed themselves industrious, hard-working, assiduous, and + peaceful, ruled by justice, and, above all, bound together in + brotherly love. In presence of such mode of life and such example, + prejudice gave way, the tongue of malevolence was silenced, and the + lying legends of ancient superstition little by little yielded to + Christian truth. + +60. At the time being, the condition of the working classes is the + pressing question of the hour, and nothing can be of higher interest + to all classes of the State than that it should be rightly and + reasonably settled. But it will be easy for Christian working men to + solve it aright if they will form associations, choose wise guides, + and follow on the path which with so much advantage to themselves + and the common weal was trodden by their fathers before them. + Prejudice, it is true, is mighty, and so is the greed of money; but + if the sense of what is just and rightful be not deliberately + stifled, their fellow citizens are sure to be won over to a kindly + feeling towards men whom they see to be in earnest as regards their + work and who prefer so unmistakably right dealing to mere lucre, and + the sacredness of duty to every other consideration. + +61. And further great advantage would result from the state of things We + are describing; there would exist so much more ground for hope, and + likelihood, even, of recalling to a sense of their duty those + working men who have either given up their faith altogether, or + whose lives are at variance with its precepts. Such men feel in most + cases that they have been fooled by empty promises and deceived by + false pretexts. They cannot but perceive that their grasping + employers too often treat them with great inhumanity and hardly care + for them outside the profit their labor brings; and if they belong + to any union, it is probably one in which there exists, instead of + charity and love, that intestine strife which ever accompanies + poverty when unresigned and unsustained by religion. Broken in + spirit and worn down in body, how many of them would gladly free + themselves from such galling bondage! But human respect, or the + dread of starvation, makes them tremble to take the step. To such as + these Catholic associations are of incalculable service, by helping + them out of their difficulties, inviting them to companionship and + receiving the returning wanderers to a haven where they may securely find repose. -62. We have now laid before you, venerable brethren, both - who are the persons and what are the means whereby this - most arduous question must be solved. Every one should - put his hand to the work which falls to his share, and - that at once and straightaway, lest the evil which is - already so great become through delay absolutely beyond - remedy. Those who rule the commonwealths should avail - themselves of the laws and institutions of the country; - masters and wealthy owners must be mindful of their - duty; the working class, whose interests are at stake, - should make every lawful and proper effort; and since - religion alone, as We said at the beginning, can avail - to destroy the evil at its root, all men should rest - persuaded that main thing needful is to re-establish - Christian morals, apart from which all the plans and - devices of the wisest will prove of little avail. - -63. In regard to the Church, her cooperation will never be - found lacking, be the time or the occasion what it may; - and she will intervene with all the greater effect in - proportion as her liberty of action is the more - unfettered. Let this be carefully taken to heart by - those whose office it is to safeguard the public - welfare. Every minister of holy religion must bring to - the struggle the full energy of his mind and all his - power of endurance. Moved by your authority, venerable - brethren, and quickened by your example, they should - never cease to urge upon men of every class, upon the - high-placed as well as the lowly, the Gospel doctrines - of Christian life; by every means in their power they - must strive to secure the good of the people; and above - all must earnestly cherish in themselves, and try to - arouse in others, charity, the mistress and the queen of - virtues. For, the happy results we all long for must be - chiefly brought about by the plenteous outpouring of - charity; of that true Christian charity which is the - fulfilling of the whole Gospel law, which is always - ready to sacrifice itself for others' sake, and is man's - surest antidote against worldly pride and immoderate - love of self; that charity whose office is described and - whose Godlike features are outlined by the Apostle - St. Paul in these words: "Charity is patient, is - kind,... seeketh not her own,... suffereth all - things,... endureth all things." - -64. On each of you, venerable brethren, and on your clergy - and people, as an earnest of God's mercy and a mark of - Our affection, we lovingly in the Lord bestow the - apostolic benediction. - -Given at St. Peter's, in Rome, the fifteenth day of May, -1891, the fourteenth year of Our Pontificate. +62. We have now laid before you, venerable brethren, both who are the + persons and what are the means whereby this most arduous question + must be solved. Every one should put his hand to the work which + falls to his share, and that at once and straightaway, lest the evil + which is already so great become through delay absolutely beyond + remedy. Those who rule the commonwealths should avail themselves of + the laws and institutions of the country; masters and wealthy owners + must be mindful of their duty; the working class, whose interests + are at stake, should make every lawful and proper effort; and since + religion alone, as We said at the beginning, can avail to destroy + the evil at its root, all men should rest persuaded that main thing + needful is to re-establish Christian morals, apart from which all + the plans and devices of the wisest will prove of little avail. + +63. In regard to the Church, her cooperation will never be found + lacking, be the time or the occasion what it may; and she will + intervene with all the greater effect in proportion as her liberty + of action is the more unfettered. Let this be carefully taken to + heart by those whose office it is to safeguard the public welfare. + Every minister of holy religion must bring to the struggle the full + energy of his mind and all his power of endurance. Moved by your + authority, venerable brethren, and quickened by your example, they + should never cease to urge upon men of every class, upon the + high-placed as well as the lowly, the Gospel doctrines of Christian + life; by every means in their power they must strive to secure the + good of the people; and above all must earnestly cherish in + themselves, and try to arouse in others, charity, the mistress and + the queen of virtues. For, the happy results we all long for must be + chiefly brought about by the plenteous outpouring of charity; of + that true Christian charity which is the fulfilling of the whole + Gospel law, which is always ready to sacrifice itself for others' + sake, and is man's surest antidote against worldly pride and + immoderate love of self; that charity whose office is described and + whose Godlike features are outlined by the Apostle St. Paul in these + words: "Charity is patient, is kind,... seeketh not her own,... + suffereth all things,... endureth all things." + +64. On each of you, venerable brethren, and on your clergy and people, + as an earnest of God's mercy and a mark of Our affection, we + lovingly in the Lord bestow the apostolic benediction. + +Given at St. Peter's, in Rome, the fifteenth day of May, 1891, the +fourteenth year of Our Pontificate. **LEO XIII.** diff --git a/src/control-distribution.md b/src/control-distribution.md index f85d930..fcadb81 100644 --- a/src/control-distribution.md +++ b/src/control-distribution.md @@ -1,3400 +1,2874 @@ # Preface -Certain of the chapters in this volume were first delivered -as lectures before the Sociological Society, the Ruskin -College at Oxford and the National Guilds League; whilst the -others appeared in the pages of *The New Age* and *The -English Review*, for which full acknowledgment for -permission to reprint them here is made to their respective -Editors. +Certain of the chapters in this volume were first delivered as lectures +before the Sociological Society, the Ruskin College at Oxford and the +National Guilds League; whilst the others appeared in the pages of *The +New Age* and *The English Review*, for which full acknowledgment for +permission to reprint them here is made to their respective Editors. # The Mechanism of Consumer Control -No doubt to some members and guests of this Society much of -the subject with which we are concerned to-night will be -elementary, even if the method of approach to it is somewhat -novel; but to others to whom the subject of Finance, which -is an important component of it, is a mysterious and -incomprehensible jungle, through which they feel they could -never hope to find a way, I would make the following -suggestions. - -Money is only a mechanism by means of which we deal with -things---it has no properties except those we choose to give -to it. A phrase such as "There is no money in the country -with which to do such and so" means simply nothing, unless -we are also saying "The goods and services required to do -this thing do not exist and cannot be produced, therefore it -is useless to create the money equivalent of them." For -instance, it is simply childish to say that a country has no -money for social betterment, or for any other purpose, when -it has the skill, the men and the material and plant to -create that betterment. The banks or the Treasury can create -the money in five minutes, and are doing it every day, and -have been doing it for centuries. - -Secondly, you will hear a good deal to-night about credit, -and I would ask you to bear most consistently in mind the -two following definitions:---- - -*Real credit* is a correct estimate of the rate, or dynamic -capacity, at which a community can deliver goods and -services as demanded. - -*Financial credit* is ostensibly a device by which this -capacity can be drawn upon. It is, however, actually a -measure of the rate at which an organisation or individual -can deliver money. The money may or may not represent goods -and services. - -I would also ask you to realise that the validity of the -criticisms passed on the existing financial system does not -rest to any considerable extent on the personal character, -or the good or bad motives, of financiers. The motives of -both sides of the Irish question, for example, may be of the -most lofty, for all that I know to the contrary, and no one -would suggest that there are not charming men on both sides; -but one can hardly say that the result of their policy is -happy, and that either side can be allowed to pursue a -policy having such results, indefinitely, and the same line -of reasoning can be applied to the existing financial -system. - -Before dealing with the subject described by the title of -this address, I would therefore beg your indulgence for a -short space of time in order to review briefly certain -premises fundamental to the subject; because it has been -found that even people very familiar with these matters are -apt to raise vigorous objections which are really based on -other and inconsistent premises unless they are placed in -the limelight at once, and, as far as possible, -simultaneously. If you disagree with these premises, you -will of course disagree with our conclusions, but if you -agree, and still dislike the conclusions, I hope you will -tell us where the hiatus occurs and suggest another solution -based on them. +No doubt to some members and guests of this Society much of the subject +with which we are concerned to-night will be elementary, even if the +method of approach to it is somewhat novel; but to others to whom the +subject of Finance, which is an important component of it, is a +mysterious and incomprehensible jungle, through which they feel they +could never hope to find a way, I would make the following suggestions. + +Money is only a mechanism by means of which we deal with things---it has +no properties except those we choose to give to it. A phrase such as +"There is no money in the country with which to do such and so" means +simply nothing, unless we are also saying "The goods and services +required to do this thing do not exist and cannot be produced, therefore +it is useless to create the money equivalent of them." For instance, it +is simply childish to say that a country has no money for social +betterment, or for any other purpose, when it has the skill, the men and +the material and plant to create that betterment. The banks or the +Treasury can create the money in five minutes, and are doing it every +day, and have been doing it for centuries. + +Secondly, you will hear a good deal to-night about credit, and I would +ask you to bear most consistently in mind the two following +definitions:---- + +*Real credit* is a correct estimate of the rate, or dynamic capacity, at +which a community can deliver goods and services as demanded. + +*Financial credit* is ostensibly a device by which this capacity can be +drawn upon. It is, however, actually a measure of the rate at which an +organisation or individual can deliver money. The money may or may not +represent goods and services. + +I would also ask you to realise that the validity of the criticisms +passed on the existing financial system does not rest to any +considerable extent on the personal character, or the good or bad +motives, of financiers. The motives of both sides of the Irish question, +for example, may be of the most lofty, for all that I know to the +contrary, and no one would suggest that there are not charming men on +both sides; but one can hardly say that the result of their policy is +happy, and that either side can be allowed to pursue a policy having +such results, indefinitely, and the same line of reasoning can be +applied to the existing financial system. + +Before dealing with the subject described by the title of this address, +I would therefore beg your indulgence for a short space of time in order +to review briefly certain premises fundamental to the subject; because +it has been found that even people very familiar with these matters are +apt to raise vigorous objections which are really based on other and +inconsistent premises unless they are placed in the limelight at once, +and, as far as possible, simultaneously. If you disagree with these +premises, you will of course disagree with our conclusions, but if you +agree, and still dislike the conclusions, I hope you will tell us where +the hiatus occurs and suggest another solution based on them. Categorically, they are as follows:---- -1\. Modern co-operative industry (all modern industry is -co-operative) serves two purposes: it makes goods, and -distributes purchasing power by means of which they are -distributed. - -2\. The primary object of the overwhelming majority of -persons who co-operate in industry is to get *goods* with a -minimum of discomfort, both of the right description, -"right" being a matter of individual taste, and in the right -quantity. It is not "employment," and it is only "money" in -so far as money is a means to these things. - -If the system fails to achieve this end, it fails in its -primary object and will break up, from the failure of the -majority to co-operate. - -3\. If we insist that the distribution of the goods is -entirely (Marxist) or chiefly (Capitalistic) dependent on -the doing of work in connection with the production of them, -then it follows that either (a) it takes all the available -labour to provide the requisite amount of goods, or (6) an -increasing number of persons cannot get the goods, or (c) -goods or labour must be misapplied or wasted, purely for the -purpose of distributing purchasing power. - -We know that (a) is not true. If it were, the whole of -modern progress would be a mere mockery. But, on the -contrary, it is quite indisputable that, apart from many -other factors making for real progress, production is -practically proportionate to the dynamic energy applied to -it, and the means developed during the past century by which -solar dynamic energy (steam, water, oil-power, etc.) has -been made available to the extent of thousands of times that -due to human muscular energy (which yet, previous to this -development, was able to secure for humanity a standard of -life in many ways more tolerable than that existing to-day) -is sufficient basis for such an assertion. Speaking as a -technical man, I have no hesitation in saying that it is the -programme of production and not the productive process which -is chiefly at fault, and that where the productive process -is working badly it is because of the inclusion of -unnecessary labour in it. +1\. Modern co-operative industry (all modern industry is co-operative) +serves two purposes: it makes goods, and distributes purchasing power by +means of which they are distributed. + +2\. The primary object of the overwhelming majority of persons who +co-operate in industry is to get *goods* with a minimum of discomfort, +both of the right description, "right" being a matter of individual +taste, and in the right quantity. It is not "employment," and it is only +"money" in so far as money is a means to these things. + +If the system fails to achieve this end, it fails in its primary object +and will break up, from the failure of the majority to co-operate. + +3\. If we insist that the distribution of the goods is entirely +(Marxist) or chiefly (Capitalistic) dependent on the doing of work in +connection with the production of them, then it follows that either (a) +it takes all the available labour to provide the requisite amount of +goods, or (6) an increasing number of persons cannot get the goods, or +(c) goods or labour must be misapplied or wasted, purely for the purpose +of distributing purchasing power. + +We know that (a) is not true. If it were, the whole of modern progress +would be a mere mockery. But, on the contrary, it is quite indisputable +that, apart from many other factors making for real progress, production +is practically proportionate to the dynamic energy applied to it, and +the means developed during the past century by which solar dynamic +energy (steam, water, oil-power, etc.) has been made available to the +extent of thousands of times that due to human muscular energy (which +yet, previous to this development, was able to secure for humanity a +standard of life in many ways more tolerable than that existing to-day) +is sufficient basis for such an assertion. Speaking as a technical man, +I have no hesitation in saying that it is the programme of production +and not the productive process which is chiefly at fault, and that where +the productive process is working badly it is because of the inclusion +of unnecessary labour in it. \(b\) and (c) are true, as matters of both common and expert observation. -4\. The system under which the whole of the world, not -excluding Russia, carries on the production and distribution -of goods and services is commonly called the Capitalistic -system, which system, contrary to general opinion, has -nothing, directly, to do with the relations of employers and -employed, which are administrative relations. The -fundamental premises of the Capitalistic system are, first, -that all costs (purchasing power distributed to individuals -during the productive process) should be added together, and -recovered from the public, the consumer, in prices; and, -second, that over and above that the price of an article is -what it will fetch. - -If you will give the foregoing premises your careful -consideration, you will see that the existing economic -system is breaking up, not so much from the attacks on it, -which, on the whole, are neither very intelligent, nor very -well directed, but because of the inherent incompatibility -of its premises with the objective of industry and modern -scientific progress as a whole. - -The latter, taking the objective of industry as it finds it, -endeavours, and fundamentally succeeds, in obtaining that -objective with an ever-decreasing amount of human energy, by -shifting the burden of civilisation from the backs of men on -to the backs of machines; a process which, if unimpeded, -must clearly result in freeing the human spirit for -conquests at the moment beyond our wildest dreams. - -The existing economic system, on the contrary, ably backed -by the Marxian Socialist, takes as its motto that saying -which I cannot help thinking proceeded rather from Saul of -Tarsus than from the Apostle of Freedom--"if a man will not -work, neither shall he eat"--and defining work as something -the price of which can be included in costs and recovered in -price. - -It completely denies all recognition to the social nature of -the heritage of civilisation, and by its refusal of -purchasing power, except on terms, arrogates to a few -persons selected by the system and not by humanity, the -right to disinherit the indubitable heirs, the individuals +4\. The system under which the whole of the world, not excluding Russia, +carries on the production and distribution of goods and services is +commonly called the Capitalistic system, which system, contrary to +general opinion, has nothing, directly, to do with the relations of +employers and employed, which are administrative relations. The +fundamental premises of the Capitalistic system are, first, that all +costs (purchasing power distributed to individuals during the productive +process) should be added together, and recovered from the public, the +consumer, in prices; and, second, that over and above that the price of +an article is what it will fetch. + +If you will give the foregoing premises your careful consideration, you +will see that the existing economic system is breaking up, not so much +from the attacks on it, which, on the whole, are neither very +intelligent, nor very well directed, but because of the inherent +incompatibility of its premises with the objective of industry and +modern scientific progress as a whole. + +The latter, taking the objective of industry as it finds it, endeavours, +and fundamentally succeeds, in obtaining that objective with an +ever-decreasing amount of human energy, by shifting the burden of +civilisation from the backs of men on to the backs of machines; a +process which, if unimpeded, must clearly result in freeing the human +spirit for conquests at the moment beyond our wildest dreams. + +The existing economic system, on the contrary, ably backed by the +Marxian Socialist, takes as its motto that saying which I cannot help +thinking proceeded rather from Saul of Tarsus than from the Apostle of +Freedom--"if a man will not work, neither shall he eat"--and defining +work as something the price of which can be included in costs and +recovered in price. + +It completely denies all recognition to the social nature of the +heritage of civilisation, and by its refusal of purchasing power, except +on terms, arrogates to a few persons selected by the system and not by +humanity, the right to disinherit the indubitable heirs, the individuals who compose society. May I emphasise this fact before passing on to more concrete -arguments?--if wages and salaries, forming a portion of -costs, and reappearing in prices, are to form the major -portion of the purchasing power of Society, then modern -scientific progress is the deadly enemy of Society, since it -aims at replacing the persons who now obtain their living in -this way, by machines and processes. - -The prevalent assumption that human work is the foundation -of purchasing power has more implications than it is -possible to emphasise to-night; it is the root assumption of -a world---philosophy which may yet bring civilisation to its -death-grapple; but one result of it is that a man and a -machine are, in the eyes of a cost-accountant, identical to -the extent that both are an expense, a cost which must -reappear in price, the man, however, being at this -disadvantage as compared with a machine, that he has to bear -his own maintenance and depreciation charges. Costs are a -dispensation of purchasing power; and whether you are -disciples of the "Cost" theory of prices, or of the "Supply -and Demand" theory, you must admit that Capitalistic prices -cannot be less than cost, over any considerable period of -time. - -If, therefore, a portion of the "costs" of production are -allocated to machines, and yet reappear in ultimate prices, -it is obvious that the costs (purchasing power) in -individual hands are not sufficient to pay these prices. - -I do not wish to pursue at great length this aspect of the -subject to-night, because it has been elaborated in -considerable detail in print and does not lend itself to -platform discussion. But one consideration must be -mentioned---the effect on the prices of ultimate -products---those consumed by individuals---of the production -of intermediate products---tools, factories, raw materials, -etc. While, as has just been suggested, the flow of -purchasing power to individuals through the media of wages, -salaries, and, it may be added, dividends, is not sufficient -to buy the total price-values created in the same time, it -must be remembered that a great and increasing quantity of -the total production of the world is not bought by -individuals at all---it is bought and paid for by -organisations, national or otherwise, and is of no use to -individuals. - -Now the costs of this production represent effective demand -to individuals; and the second postulate of the present -economic system is that -`average price = effective demand / goods in demand`. - -Consequently, the more of these intermediate products we -produce, under the present system, the higher rise the -prices of goods for individual consumption; which is the -reason why the cry for indiscriminate super-production is -both inane and mischievous. You will see at once that if the -above formula for price, under the so-called law of supply -and demand, is correct, which I suppose is not disputed, -then it is really immaterial whether more or less goods are -made, and more or less money distributed---any quantity of -goods *less than sufficient* will absorb all the money -available. And because the Capitalistic incentive to -production is money, production stops when there is no more -money. - -You will see that, firstly, the existing system does not -distribute the control of intermediate production to -individuals at all; and, secondly, gives them no say -whatever as to the quantity, quality or variety of ultimate -products. - -The distribution of purchasing power through the agency of -the present volume of wages, salaries and dividends thus -fails to distribute the product; and since when distribution -stops production stops, the system would appear quite -unworkable. - -But we know, as a matter of observation, that, although the -grinding and groaning of the machine is plainly audible -evidence that it *is* working very badly, it is working, and -there must be something to account for the fact that -distribution of a sort does take place. There are two +arguments?--if wages and salaries, forming a portion of costs, and +reappearing in prices, are to form the major portion of the purchasing +power of Society, then modern scientific progress is the deadly enemy of +Society, since it aims at replacing the persons who now obtain their +living in this way, by machines and processes. + +The prevalent assumption that human work is the foundation of purchasing +power has more implications than it is possible to emphasise to-night; +it is the root assumption of a world---philosophy which may yet bring +civilisation to its death-grapple; but one result of it is that a man +and a machine are, in the eyes of a cost-accountant, identical to the +extent that both are an expense, a cost which must reappear in price, +the man, however, being at this disadvantage as compared with a machine, +that he has to bear his own maintenance and depreciation charges. Costs +are a dispensation of purchasing power; and whether you are disciples of +the "Cost" theory of prices, or of the "Supply and Demand" theory, you +must admit that Capitalistic prices cannot be less than cost, over any +considerable period of time. + +If, therefore, a portion of the "costs" of production are allocated to +machines, and yet reappear in ultimate prices, it is obvious that the +costs (purchasing power) in individual hands are not sufficient to pay +these prices. + +I do not wish to pursue at great length this aspect of the subject +to-night, because it has been elaborated in considerable detail in print +and does not lend itself to platform discussion. But one consideration +must be mentioned---the effect on the prices of ultimate +products---those consumed by individuals---of the production of +intermediate products---tools, factories, raw materials, etc. While, as +has just been suggested, the flow of purchasing power to individuals +through the media of wages, salaries, and, it may be added, dividends, +is not sufficient to buy the total price-values created in the same +time, it must be remembered that a great and increasing quantity of the +total production of the world is not bought by individuals at all---it +is bought and paid for by organisations, national or otherwise, and is +of no use to individuals. + +Now the costs of this production represent effective demand to +individuals; and the second postulate of the present economic system is +that `average price = effective demand / goods in demand`. + +Consequently, the more of these intermediate products we produce, under +the present system, the higher rise the prices of goods for individual +consumption; which is the reason why the cry for indiscriminate +super-production is both inane and mischievous. You will see at once +that if the above formula for price, under the so-called law of supply +and demand, is correct, which I suppose is not disputed, then it is +really immaterial whether more or less goods are made, and more or less +money distributed---any quantity of goods *less than sufficient* will +absorb all the money available. And because the Capitalistic incentive +to production is money, production stops when there is no more money. + +You will see that, firstly, the existing system does not distribute the +control of intermediate production to individuals at all; and, secondly, +gives them no say whatever as to the quantity, quality or variety of +ultimate products. + +The distribution of purchasing power through the agency of the present +volume of wages, salaries and dividends thus fails to distribute the +product; and since when distribution stops production stops, the system +would appear quite unworkable. + +But we know, as a matter of observation, that, although the grinding and +groaning of the machine is plainly audible evidence that it *is* working +very badly, it is working, and there must be something to account for +the fact that distribution of a sort does take place. There are two things: export credit and loan credit. -Now I may say at once that I do not see how it is possible -to conceive of an economic system capable of dealing with -the modern productive system in which this credit factor in -the total sum of purchasing power does not play a -preponderating and increasing part. It is far better to -arrive at conclusions of this sort inductively rather than -deductively, and I will simply direct your attention to the -present trade position in this country and in America. There -is the plant; there is the raw material; there is labour; -and there is real, though not effective, demand; but -production is decreasing along a very steep curve. - -Why? I do not suppose anyone here to-night is guileless -enough to believe that it is all the fault of Labour. It -would do the Labour extremists all the good in the world, -and might modify their policy, if they could be brought to -realise that Labour, while a necessary factor in production, -is less and less a determining factor. The success of the -various dilution measures carried through under the stress -of war is quite convincing proof of that fact. - -Nor is it Capital, in the ordinary sense of the word. A man -who has sunk large sums of money in a manufacturing plant -wants to manufacture, if lie can, because otherwise his -plant is a dead loss to him. - -There is no doubt whatever, and I do not suppose that anyone -at all familiar with the subject would dispute the statement -for a moment, that the present trade depression is directly -and consciously caused by the concerted action of the banks -in restricting credit facilities, and that such credit -facilities as are granted have very little relation to -public need; that, whatever else might have happened had -this policy not been pursued, there would have been no trade -depression at this time, any more than there was during the -war; and that the banks, through their control of credit -facilities, hold the volume of production at all times in -the hollow of their hands. You will, of course, understand -that no personal accusation is involved in this statement; -the banks act quite automatically according to the rules of -the game, and if the public is so foolish as to sanction -these rules I do not see why it should complain. - -I should like, however, to emphasise this point: if the -civilised world continues to permit this centralised, -irresponsible, anti-public control of the life-blood of -production to continue, and at the same time the possibly -well-meaning but ill-informed and dogmatic Syndicalist makes -good what is in essence exactly the same claim in the -administrative field, then the world, in no considerable -time, will be faced with a tyranny besides which the crude -efforts of the Spanish Inquisition may well retire into -insignificance. - -Let me repeat---the only true, sane origin of production is -the real need or desire of the individual consumer. If we -are to continue to have co-operative production, then that -productive system must be subject to one condition -only---that it delivers the goods where they are demanded. -If any men, or body of men, by reason of their fortuitous -position in that system, attempt to dictate the terms on -which they will deliver the goods (not, be it noted, the -terms on which they will work), then that is a tyranny, and -the world has never tolerated a tyranny for very long. - -There is, I think, a widespread idea that if agitators would -only stop agitating, and reformers stop trying to reform, -the world would settle down. For myself, I am quite -convinced that both agitation and reformism are merely -symptoms of a grave and quite possibly fatal disease in our -social and economic system, and that unless an adequate -remedy is administered there will be an irreparable -breakdown. I am emphasising this lest anyone should imagine -that mere *laissez-faire* or, on the other hand, a vigorous -suppression of symptoms is all that is necessary to cause -things to "come right." +Now I may say at once that I do not see how it is possible to conceive +of an economic system capable of dealing with the modern productive +system in which this credit factor in the total sum of purchasing power +does not play a preponderating and increasing part. It is far better to +arrive at conclusions of this sort inductively rather than deductively, +and I will simply direct your attention to the present trade position in +this country and in America. There is the plant; there is the raw +material; there is labour; and there is real, though not effective, +demand; but production is decreasing along a very steep curve. + +Why? I do not suppose anyone here to-night is guileless enough to +believe that it is all the fault of Labour. It would do the Labour +extremists all the good in the world, and might modify their policy, if +they could be brought to realise that Labour, while a necessary factor +in production, is less and less a determining factor. The success of the +various dilution measures carried through under the stress of war is +quite convincing proof of that fact. + +Nor is it Capital, in the ordinary sense of the word. A man who has sunk +large sums of money in a manufacturing plant wants to manufacture, if +lie can, because otherwise his plant is a dead loss to him. + +There is no doubt whatever, and I do not suppose that anyone at all +familiar with the subject would dispute the statement for a moment, that +the present trade depression is directly and consciously caused by the +concerted action of the banks in restricting credit facilities, and that +such credit facilities as are granted have very little relation to +public need; that, whatever else might have happened had this policy not +been pursued, there would have been no trade depression at this time, +any more than there was during the war; and that the banks, through +their control of credit facilities, hold the volume of production at all +times in the hollow of their hands. You will, of course, understand that +no personal accusation is involved in this statement; the banks act +quite automatically according to the rules of the game, and if the +public is so foolish as to sanction these rules I do not see why it +should complain. + +I should like, however, to emphasise this point: if the civilised world +continues to permit this centralised, irresponsible, anti-public control +of the life-blood of production to continue, and at the same time the +possibly well-meaning but ill-informed and dogmatic Syndicalist makes +good what is in essence exactly the same claim in the administrative +field, then the world, in no considerable time, will be faced with a +tyranny besides which the crude efforts of the Spanish Inquisition may +well retire into insignificance. + +Let me repeat---the only true, sane origin of production is the real +need or desire of the individual consumer. If we are to continue to have +co-operative production, then that productive system must be subject to +one condition only---that it delivers the goods where they are demanded. +If any men, or body of men, by reason of their fortuitous position in +that system, attempt to dictate the terms on which they will deliver the +goods (not, be it noted, the terms on which they will work), then that +is a tyranny, and the world has never tolerated a tyranny for very long. + +There is, I think, a widespread idea that if agitators would only stop +agitating, and reformers stop trying to reform, the world would settle +down. For myself, I am quite convinced that both agitation and reformism +are merely symptoms of a grave and quite possibly fatal disease in our +social and economic system, and that unless an adequate remedy is +administered there will be an irreparable breakdown. I am emphasising +this lest anyone should imagine that mere *laissez-faire* or, on the +other hand, a vigorous suppression of symptoms is all that is necessary +to cause things to "come right." The roots of this disease, then, are as follows: -1. Wages, salaries, and dividends will not purchase total - production. This difficulty is cumulative. - -2. The only sources of the purchasing power necessary to - make up the difference are loan and export credits. - -3. All industrial nations are competing for export credits. - The end of that is war. - -4. The major distribution of purchasing power to - individuals is through the media of wages and salaries. - The preponderating factor in production is improving - process and the utilisation of solar energy. - -5. This latter tends to displace wages and salaries and the - consequent distribution of the product to individuals. - The credit factor in purchasing power thus increases in - importance and dominates production. - -6. This production is consequently of a character demanded - by those in control of credit and is capital production. - -7. The fundamental derivation of credit is from the - community of individuals, and because individuals are - ceasing to benefit by its use it is breaking down. - -If you have followed me so far you will see that there are -two main and increasing defects in the present system---it -makes the wrong things and so is colossally wasteful, and it -does not satisfactorily distribute what it does make. The -key to both of these is the control of credit. - -I should like to direct your attention to the meaning which -can be attached to the word "control." We talk about the -"public" control of this, that or the other. Is there any -person in this room who has ever met the public, or knows in -any clear-cut, tangible fashion, this alleged entity, the -public, or really---if he or she is honest in the use of -words---cares a broken rush about the public? Is it the -public which wants better houses, better food, a wider life? -I think not. When there is "unemployment" it is John Smith, -Jane Smith and the Little Smiths who experiment with -rationing. When there is a war it is Private, Lieutenant or -Colonel Smith who loses an arm or whose wife places a wreath -on the Cenotaph. I have not noticed that the name of the -Public appears in the casualty lists of any of the nations -engaged in the late war. +1. Wages, salaries, and dividends will not purchase total production. + This difficulty is cumulative. + +2. The only sources of the purchasing power necessary to make up the + difference are loan and export credits. + +3. All industrial nations are competing for export credits. The end of + that is war. + +4. The major distribution of purchasing power to individuals is through + the media of wages and salaries. The preponderating factor in + production is improving process and the utilisation of solar energy. + +5. This latter tends to displace wages and salaries and the consequent + distribution of the product to individuals. The credit factor in + purchasing power thus increases in importance and dominates + production. + +6. This production is consequently of a character demanded by those in + control of credit and is capital production. + +7. The fundamental derivation of credit is from the community of + individuals, and because individuals are ceasing to benefit by its + use it is breaking down. + +If you have followed me so far you will see that there are two main and +increasing defects in the present system---it makes the wrong things and +so is colossally wasteful, and it does not satisfactorily distribute +what it does make. The key to both of these is the control of credit. + +I should like to direct your attention to the meaning which can be +attached to the word "control." We talk about the "public" control of +this, that or the other. Is there any person in this room who has ever +met the public, or knows in any clear-cut, tangible fashion, this +alleged entity, the public, or really---if he or she is honest in the +use of words---cares a broken rush about the public? Is it the public +which wants better houses, better food, a wider life? I think not. When +there is "unemployment" it is John Smith, Jane Smith and the Little +Smiths who experiment with rationing. When there is a war it is Private, +Lieutenant or Colonel Smith who loses an arm or whose wife places a +wreath on the Cenotaph. I have not noticed that the name of the Public +appears in the casualty lists of any of the nations engaged in the late +war. I do not suggest for a moment that there is not a real -group-consciousness---I think that there is such a -consciousness. But the ills from which we are suffering do -not take effect on that plane of consciousness, they take -effect on individuals; and if, as I have tried to indicate, -the key to the solution of those ills is to be found in a -modified control of credit, then that modification must be -in favour of individuals. We can, I think, safely leave the -group-consciousness to look after itself. - -The problem, then, is to give to individuals such personal -control of credit as will enable each of them, for himself -or herself, to get from the machine of civilisation those -things, now lacking, to the extent that the machine is -capable of meeting the demand, and the answer is almost -childishly simple---it is contained in the proposition that -he ought to be able to buy those things with the money at -his disposal, and that if he does not want to buy them, then -he should not be made to pay for them. - -If you will consider this matter in the light of everyday -conditions in the world of business, you will find that the -practical steps necessary to embody these principles in a -practical mechanism resolve themselves into two groups---the -control in the interest of the consumer of the credit issued -to manufacturers, in order that those things shall be made -which the ultimate consumer wants made---because the -ultimate consumer should be the sole arbiter of the *policy* -of production, though not concerned with the processes by -which his policy is materialised; and, secondly, that the -credit, or purchasing power, in the hands of the consumer -shall be adequate to enable him, if necessary, to draw on -the maximum resources of the productive organisation; -otherwise, it is clear, a part of those resources is -ineffective. - -As we have previously noticed, individuals in the modern -world obtain their purchasing power through three -sources---wages, salaries and dividends. This purchasing -power is taken away from them through the medium of what we -call prices, and it will be quite obvious to you that the -first thing necessary is to make total purchasing power -equal to total prices, a proposition which has no other -known solution than by the addition of a credit issue to -purchasing power. That is to say, *we must give the consumer -purchasing power which does not appear in prices*. - -Please remember that prices contain not only production -costs, but capital costs, and these latter are the -increasing factor in both costs and prices. If we take them -out of prices and distribute them as purchasing power, then -prices bear the same relation to costs as does consumption -to production. You will see that this is so if you remember -that capital charges represent sums based on the credit -value of tools, etc. - -But, of course, this results in speedy bankruptcy to the -producer who is selling under cost, unless we go a good deal -further. - -It must be borne in mind that, though we find that we -require to eliminate these credit-capital charges from -prices, the credit-capital is a real if intangible thing, -and can be drawn upon, because tools, processes, solar -power, etc., represent a real capacity to deliver goods and -services. Therefore there must be something somewhere which -stands in the position of trustee for the collective credit, -and should administer it in the interests of the -individuals. There is such an organ---it is the Treasury. - -But the Treasury does not in normal times deal with -manufacturers, it deals with the banks, and the banks are -so-called private institutions which administer this -collective credit for their own ends, and those ends are by -no means similar to the ends of the community of individuals +group-consciousness---I think that there is such a consciousness. But +the ills from which we are suffering do not take effect on that plane of +consciousness, they take effect on individuals; and if, as I have tried +to indicate, the key to the solution of those ills is to be found in a +modified control of credit, then that modification must be in favour of +individuals. We can, I think, safely leave the group-consciousness to +look after itself. + +The problem, then, is to give to individuals such personal control of +credit as will enable each of them, for himself or herself, to get from +the machine of civilisation those things, now lacking, to the extent +that the machine is capable of meeting the demand, and the answer is +almost childishly simple---it is contained in the proposition that he +ought to be able to buy those things with the money at his disposal, and +that if he does not want to buy them, then he should not be made to pay +for them. + +If you will consider this matter in the light of everyday conditions in +the world of business, you will find that the practical steps necessary +to embody these principles in a practical mechanism resolve themselves +into two groups---the control in the interest of the consumer of the +credit issued to manufacturers, in order that those things shall be made +which the ultimate consumer wants made---because the ultimate consumer +should be the sole arbiter of the *policy* of production, though not +concerned with the processes by which his policy is materialised; and, +secondly, that the credit, or purchasing power, in the hands of the +consumer shall be adequate to enable him, if necessary, to draw on the +maximum resources of the productive organisation; otherwise, it is +clear, a part of those resources is ineffective. + +As we have previously noticed, individuals in the modern world obtain +their purchasing power through three sources---wages, salaries and +dividends. This purchasing power is taken away from them through the +medium of what we call prices, and it will be quite obvious to you that +the first thing necessary is to make total purchasing power equal to +total prices, a proposition which has no other known solution than by +the addition of a credit issue to purchasing power. That is to say, *we +must give the consumer purchasing power which does not appear in +prices*. + +Please remember that prices contain not only production costs, but +capital costs, and these latter are the increasing factor in both costs +and prices. If we take them out of prices and distribute them as +purchasing power, then prices bear the same relation to costs as does +consumption to production. You will see that this is so if you remember +that capital charges represent sums based on the credit value of tools, +etc. + +But, of course, this results in speedy bankruptcy to the producer who is +selling under cost, unless we go a good deal further. + +It must be borne in mind that, though we find that we require to +eliminate these credit-capital charges from prices, the credit-capital +is a real if intangible thing, and can be drawn upon, because tools, +processes, solar power, etc., represent a real capacity to deliver goods +and services. Therefore there must be something somewhere which stands +in the position of trustee for the collective credit, and should +administer it in the interests of the individuals. There is such an +organ---it is the Treasury. + +But the Treasury does not in normal times deal with manufacturers, it +deals with the banks, and the banks are so-called private institutions +which administer this collective credit for their own ends, and those +ends are by no means similar to the ends of the community of individuals from whom the credit takes its rise. -If, therefore, we wish to solve the first half of the -problem, that of the control, in the interest of the -consumer, of the credit issued to manufacturers, we have to -put control of the policy of the banks at the disposal of -the consumer interest. - -If, at the same time, we wish to ensure that the goods, when -they *are* produced, are distributed amongst the individuals -in whose interest, *ex hypothesi*, they were made, we have -to get the credit purchasing power which attends the -capacity to make and deliver them into the hands of those -individuals. We can deal with this latter problem in two -possible ways---either by a gift of Treasury "money" -obtained by a creation of credit, or by reducing prices -below cost to the individual consumer, and then making up -this difference between price and cost by a Treasury issue -to the producer. I hope you realise that the only basis for -such a credit issue is the difference between what the -productive organisation is called upon to deliver and what -it could deliver if its capacity were stretched to the -utmost. - -The latter of the two foregoing alternatives is, I think, by -far the more practicable, because it not only delivers the -purchasing power at the moment that it is wanted---at the -moment of purchase---but it is also far better adapted to -the psychology of the present time. It is the method which -has been embodied in the suggestions which Mr A. R. Orage -and I have been endeavouring to bring to the notice of the -public in the Draft Scheme for the Mining Industry. - -This scheme has been fairly widely discussed, both here and -in America, but there is one feature of it which will -perhaps bear a little elaboration---the obvious traversing -of all accepted Socialist policy in the provision not only -for the continuance of dividends to present shareholders, -but the wide extension of those dividends to still more -shareholders. I will not take up your time with the -philosophic basis of the proposal, although it has such a -basis; but would merely draw your attention once again to -the quite undeniable fact that there is simply not room in -*economic* industry---by which I mean industry financed from -public credit---for more than a small and decreasing -fraction of the available labour. The attempt to cram all -this human energy into a function of society which has no -need of it is neither more nor less than lunacy. But we have -to recognise, as a matter of common sense, that to throw a -large and inexperienced section of the population out of its -usual pursuits suddenly, and without preparation, and with -more spending power than it has the training to use, might -have a number of unpleasant consequences. I do not believe -for one moment in all the nonsense talked about work and -drink being the only alternatives of the British -working-man---it is a gross calumny; but a smooth and rapid -transition stage is desirable, and that is provided in the -scheme by the increasing substitution of wages by dividends. -When this process had proceeded far enough we should have -defeated also one of the worst features of the present -system, which is unable to distribute goods made and stored, -without making more goods, whether these are required or -not, merely for the purpose of distributing purchasing -power. You will no doubt ask what are the prospects of such -a scheme as we are considering. - -Well, in the first place, it has to be observed that the -uncoordinated parts of it are coming into being with -tremendous rapidity and, to those who have eyes to see, with -irresistible momentum. In this country it is quite obvious -that not only cannot the public debt (all issues of -securities, whether to so-called private companies, local -authorities or Governmental bodies, are public debt -fundamentally) be reduced, but the business of the country -cannot be carried on for a month without a continuous -increase in it. The immediate effect of an attempt to -restrict the flow is a slump in trade and an avalanche of -business crises, which is only just beginning, but which -will, unless I am very much mistaken, or war provides an -alternative, proceed to lengths quite sufficient to -establish the principle. - -The mechanism is being forged. The Brotherhood of Locomotive -Engineers in America has, on the first of this month, opened -the doors of the first of a series of banks whose credit -rests fundamentally on the railway services of the American -continent, not on the cash in the vaults of the bank. The -Confederation General de Travail is about to inaugurate a -bank with a nominal capital of 25,000,000 francs on the same -lines. These are the beginnings of the shifting of control. - -The operations of these organisations will, in the first -place, assist in raising prices---in fact, by enormously -enhancing the economic power of Labour, will tend to raise -them considerably. But as the toothache is the only agency -which will drive the majority of people to a dentist, there -will be posed thereby a plain issue---and to that issue I do -not know any other reply than that I have endeavoured, so -far as time has allowed, to put before you. +If, therefore, we wish to solve the first half of the problem, that of +the control, in the interest of the consumer, of the credit issued to +manufacturers, we have to put control of the policy of the banks at the +disposal of the consumer interest. + +If, at the same time, we wish to ensure that the goods, when they *are* +produced, are distributed amongst the individuals in whose interest, *ex +hypothesi*, they were made, we have to get the credit purchasing power +which attends the capacity to make and deliver them into the hands of +those individuals. We can deal with this latter problem in two possible +ways---either by a gift of Treasury "money" obtained by a creation of +credit, or by reducing prices below cost to the individual consumer, and +then making up this difference between price and cost by a Treasury +issue to the producer. I hope you realise that the only basis for such a +credit issue is the difference between what the productive organisation +is called upon to deliver and what it could deliver if its capacity were +stretched to the utmost. + +The latter of the two foregoing alternatives is, I think, by far the +more practicable, because it not only delivers the purchasing power at +the moment that it is wanted---at the moment of purchase---but it is +also far better adapted to the psychology of the present time. It is the +method which has been embodied in the suggestions which Mr A. R. Orage +and I have been endeavouring to bring to the notice of the public in the +Draft Scheme for the Mining Industry. + +This scheme has been fairly widely discussed, both here and in America, +but there is one feature of it which will perhaps bear a little +elaboration---the obvious traversing of all accepted Socialist policy in +the provision not only for the continuance of dividends to present +shareholders, but the wide extension of those dividends to still more +shareholders. I will not take up your time with the philosophic basis of +the proposal, although it has such a basis; but would merely draw your +attention once again to the quite undeniable fact that there is simply +not room in *economic* industry---by which I mean industry financed from +public credit---for more than a small and decreasing fraction of the +available labour. The attempt to cram all this human energy into a +function of society which has no need of it is neither more nor less +than lunacy. But we have to recognise, as a matter of common sense, that +to throw a large and inexperienced section of the population out of its +usual pursuits suddenly, and without preparation, and with more spending +power than it has the training to use, might have a number of unpleasant +consequences. I do not believe for one moment in all the nonsense talked +about work and drink being the only alternatives of the British +working-man---it is a gross calumny; but a smooth and rapid transition +stage is desirable, and that is provided in the scheme by the increasing +substitution of wages by dividends. When this process had proceeded far +enough we should have defeated also one of the worst features of the +present system, which is unable to distribute goods made and stored, +without making more goods, whether these are required or not, merely for +the purpose of distributing purchasing power. You will no doubt ask what +are the prospects of such a scheme as we are considering. + +Well, in the first place, it has to be observed that the uncoordinated +parts of it are coming into being with tremendous rapidity and, to those +who have eyes to see, with irresistible momentum. In this country it is +quite obvious that not only cannot the public debt (all issues of +securities, whether to so-called private companies, local authorities or +Governmental bodies, are public debt fundamentally) be reduced, but the +business of the country cannot be carried on for a month without a +continuous increase in it. The immediate effect of an attempt to +restrict the flow is a slump in trade and an avalanche of business +crises, which is only just beginning, but which will, unless I am very +much mistaken, or war provides an alternative, proceed to lengths quite +sufficient to establish the principle. + +The mechanism is being forged. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers +in America has, on the first of this month, opened the doors of the +first of a series of banks whose credit rests fundamentally on the +railway services of the American continent, not on the cash in the +vaults of the bank. The Confederation General de Travail is about to +inaugurate a bank with a nominal capital of 25,000,000 francs on the +same lines. These are the beginnings of the shifting of control. + +The operations of these organisations will, in the first place, assist +in raising prices---in fact, by enormously enhancing the economic power +of Labour, will tend to raise them considerably. But as the toothache is +the only agency which will drive the majority of people to a dentist, +there will be posed thereby a plain issue---and to that issue I do not +know any other reply than that I have endeavoured, so far as time has +allowed, to put before you. # The Control of Policy in Industry -Your Principal has been flattering enough to suggest that -you might be interested to listen for a short time to-night -to certain ideas on the subject of the industrial problems -which have been made public, for the most part, through the -columns of *The New Age*. Before proceeding to the concrete -proposals, I should like, with your permission, to go over +Your Principal has been flattering enough to suggest that you might be +interested to listen for a short time to-night to certain ideas on the +subject of the industrial problems which have been made public, for the +most part, through the columns of *The New Age*. Before proceeding to +the concrete proposals, I should like, with your permission, to go over the philosophy of them very briefly. -In any undertaking in which men engage, to paraphrase the -ever-green Sir W. S. Gilbert, there are always at least two -fundamental aspects which demand recognition before success -can possibly be expected to accrue to those engaged in it. -These are that there must first be a clear, well-defined -policy, which means that every person who has any right to -be heard in the matter in hand shall agree as to the -*results* which he is willing to further with his support. -And there must be somewhere resident in the venture some -person or persons with expert knowledge as to the technical -processes by which those results can be achieved with the -materials (using the word in its broader sense) at the -disposal of those associated together, and this person must -have the confidence of the remainder. +In any undertaking in which men engage, to paraphrase the ever-green Sir +W. S. Gilbert, there are always at least two fundamental aspects which +demand recognition before success can possibly be expected to accrue to +those engaged in it. These are that there must first be a clear, +well-defined policy, which means that every person who has any right to +be heard in the matter in hand shall agree as to the *results* which he +is willing to further with his support. And there must be somewhere +resident in the venture some person or persons with expert knowledge as +to the technical processes by which those results can be achieved with +the materials (using the word in its broader sense) at the disposal of +those associated together, and this person must have the confidence of +the remainder. I should like you to observe particularly that certain very -important---in fact, quite fundamental---relationships -proceed from these simple premises. The genesis of such an -association is agreement that a certain result is desirable -and a general belief that it can be attained---it is not at -all necessary that all of those associated shall know how to -attain the result, but it is vital that they shall be -satisfied with it. We may imagine this association to be the -community. Secondly, the person or persons who "know how," -who collectively we may call the producers, who will be -empowered by the community to materialise the results of the -agreed policy, stand fundamentally and unalterably on a -basis of Service---it is their business to deliver the goods -to order, not to make terms about them, because it is the -basis of the whole arrangement that the general interest is -best served by this relationship. (This applies, of course, -to their simple function of producers, not to their -comprehensive, all-embracing r61e of individuals.) Subject -to this fundamental provision that they deliver the goods to -order, it is no business of the controllers of policy, the -community, how the producers deliver them---that is a matter -for agreement amongst the producers. - -The goods having been delivered to order, it is the business -of the community, to whose order they were made, to dispose -of them---not the business of the producers, who would never -have been able to function without the consent of society. - -Now in the present dissatisfaction with the productive -system which is the outstanding feature of the present time -there is a remarkable misdirection of attack---the battle -front is aligned as between employer and employed, the -so-called Capitalist and Labour, whereas the real cleavage -is between "producer-distributor" (both controlled by the +important---in fact, quite fundamental---relationships proceed from +these simple premises. The genesis of such an association is agreement +that a certain result is desirable and a general belief that it can be +attained---it is not at all necessary that all of those associated shall +know how to attain the result, but it is vital that they shall be +satisfied with it. We may imagine this association to be the community. +Secondly, the person or persons who "know how," who collectively we may +call the producers, who will be empowered by the community to +materialise the results of the agreed policy, stand fundamentally and +unalterably on a basis of Service---it is their business to deliver the +goods to order, not to make terms about them, because it is the basis of +the whole arrangement that the general interest is best served by this +relationship. (This applies, of course, to their simple function of +producers, not to their comprehensive, all-embracing r61e of +individuals.) Subject to this fundamental provision that they deliver +the goods to order, it is no business of the controllers of policy, the +community, how the producers deliver them---that is a matter for +agreement amongst the producers. + +The goods having been delivered to order, it is the business of the +community, to whose order they were made, to dispose of them---not the +business of the producers, who would never have been able to function +without the consent of society. + +Now in the present dissatisfaction with the productive system which is +the outstanding feature of the present time there is a remarkable +misdirection of attack---the battle front is aligned as between employer +and employed, the so-called Capitalist and Labour, whereas the real +cleavage is between "producer-distributor" (both controlled by the financier) and consumer---employers and employed forming the -producer-distributor army, and the whole community, which -includes the producers, forming the opposition. If anyone -doubts this, a consideration of the facility with which -Labour obtains increases of pay, just so long as these -increases can be recovered from the public in the form of -increased prices, will surely dispel the doubt. The +producer-distributor army, and the whole community, which includes the +producers, forming the opposition. If anyone doubts this, a +consideration of the facility with which Labour obtains increases of +pay, just so long as these increases can be recovered from the public in +the form of increased prices, will surely dispel the doubt. The position, therefore, is one of civil war of the gravest -character---gravest because the "victory" of either side -means the destruction of both. - -Before proceeding to the consideration of the means -available to meet this situation, it is necessary to be -clear on the matter of policy. - -There is no possible definition of a policy which is -all-embracing in its acceptance other than the word -"Freedom." People only unite in wanting what they want. We -shall never get one inch farther along the road to a final -settlement of world problems until we make up our minds for -good and all whether a man is in the largest sense more -benefited by learning, through trial and error, what is good -for him, or, on the other hand, whether he should be ruled -in the way he should go by Authority. - -Personally I am convinced that the former conclusion is -inevitable. The dictatorship of the proletariat or any other -*comprehensive* dictatorship is intolerable and -impracticable. Please note that I am referring to man as an -individual---not as a producer. The technique of production -is a matter of Law, not of Emotion and Desire, and I believe -that a much more exacting discipline will be expected of -those of all ranks who are privileged to serve the community -in any capacity, and that the penalty of failure to live up -to that discipline will be the loss of that privilege, which -will be a much greater loss when no economic question enters -into it. - -It used to be a very common argument that the spur of -economic necessity was ennobling to the character. Frankly, -I don't believe it. If you will, and I am sure you will, -look at the question from a detached point of view, I think -you will agree that the man who is engaged in "making money" -is neither so pleasant or so broad-minded to deal with, nor -so fundamentally efficient, as the man who, while yet -exerting his capacity for useful effort to the utmost, is by -fortune lifted above the necessity of considering his own -economic advantage. The struggle to overcome difficulties is -most unquestionably ennobling, but we have, I think, reached -a stage when our attention may with advantage be diverted +character---gravest because the "victory" of either side means the +destruction of both. + +Before proceeding to the consideration of the means available to meet +this situation, it is necessary to be clear on the matter of policy. + +There is no possible definition of a policy which is all-embracing in +its acceptance other than the word "Freedom." People only unite in +wanting what they want. We shall never get one inch farther along the +road to a final settlement of world problems until we make up our minds +for good and all whether a man is in the largest sense more benefited by +learning, through trial and error, what is good for him, or, on the +other hand, whether he should be ruled in the way he should go by +Authority. + +Personally I am convinced that the former conclusion is inevitable. The +dictatorship of the proletariat or any other *comprehensive* +dictatorship is intolerable and impracticable. Please note that I am +referring to man as an individual---not as a producer. The technique of +production is a matter of Law, not of Emotion and Desire, and I believe +that a much more exacting discipline will be expected of those of all +ranks who are privileged to serve the community in any capacity, and +that the penalty of failure to live up to that discipline will be the +loss of that privilege, which will be a much greater loss when no +economic question enters into it. + +It used to be a very common argument that the spur of economic necessity +was ennobling to the character. Frankly, I don't believe it. If you +will, and I am sure you will, look at the question from a detached point +of view, I think you will agree that the man who is engaged in "making +money" is neither so pleasant or so broad-minded to deal with, nor so +fundamentally efficient, as the man who, while yet exerting his capacity +for useful effort to the utmost, is by fortune lifted above the +necessity of considering his own economic advantage. The struggle to +overcome difficulties is most unquestionably ennobling, but we have, I +think, reached a stage when our attention may with advantage be diverted from the somewhat sordid struggle for mere existence. -We want, therefore, to put more and finally all people in -this position, not to remove from it those who are already -there, always assuming that the alternative exists; and to -do that we want so to organise the machinery of production -that it serves the single end of forming the most perfect -instrument possible with which to carry out the policy of -the community; and so to empower the community that -individuals will submit themselves voluntarily to the -discipline of the productive process, because in the first -place they know that it is operated for production and so -gains their primary ends with a minimum of exertion, and in -the second place because of the interest and satisfaction of -cooperative, coordinated effort. You will understand that -the physical facts of production are such that, operated in -this way, only a small proportion of the world's population, -working short hours, could find employment directly in the -industrial process---a condition of affairs which is -cumulative and reduces to an anachronism the complaint of -the early Victorian Socialist against the idle rich, and to -an absurdity the super-Industrialist cry for greater -production at a cost of harder work. To anyone to whom this -aspect of the case is unfamiliar, I would commend the works -of Mr Thorstein Veblen on Capitalist Sabotage, or the more -specialised conclusions of the late H. M. Gantt and his -partner, Mr Walter Polakov. The present preoccupation of the -financial system is to hide the enormous capacity for output -which modern methods have placed at our disposal; and it is -fairly successful in its efforts, so far. - -So much for the philosophy of the subject. If you agree with -it you will. see at once that the problem with which society -has to grapple falls naturally and inevitably into certain -lines. The *primary* object of the whole industrial system -should be the delivery to individuals, associated together -as the public, or society, of the material goods and -services they individually require. This demand of -individuals, be it emphasised, is the absolute origin of all -activity. Since men co-operate to satisfy this demand, which -is complex in its nature, it is necessary to also combine -the demand, and this combined demand of society is the -policy, so far as it is economic, of society as a whole. The -first part of the problem, then, consists in finding a -mechanism which will impose this policy on the co-operating -producers with the maximum effectiveness, which always means -with the minimum of friction. - -Now, if I have made my meaning clear, you will begin to see -(willingly or otherwise!) that this has nothing to do with -"workshop control by the workers"--in fact is in one sense -the antithesis of it. It involves the assumption that the -plant of civilisation belongs to the community, not to the -operators, and the community can, or should, be able to -appoint or dismiss anyone who in its discretion fails to use -that plant to the best advantage. So far you might say this -is pure State Socialism, but I think you will agree, if I -make myself clear, that it is nothing like what is commonly -so called. In this connection the following paragraph from -*The Threefold State*, by Dr Rudolf Steiner, a book which is -attracting attention on the Continent, may be of -interest:---- - -"Modern socialism is absolutely justified 1 in demanding -that the present-day methods, under which production is -carried on for individual profit, should be replaced by -others, under which production will be carried on for the -sake of the common consumption. But it is just the person -who most thoroughly recognises the justice of this demand -who will find himself unable to concur in the conclusion -which modern socialism deduces: That, therefore, the means -of production must be transferred from private to communal -ownership. Rather he will be forced to a conclusion that is -quite different, namely: That whatever is privately produced -by means of individual energies and talents must find its -way to the community through the right channels." - -The radical difference---and I would commend it to your most -serious consideration---is that State Socialism is based on -the premise that, firstly, the control of policy is resident -in administration, and, secondly, that it is possible to -"socially" control administration, and, thirdly, that the -State should be able to supply economic pressure to the -individual; whereas I suggest to you that the control of -policy is resident in credit (fundamentally, in the belief -in the beneficial outcome of any line or action) and its -financial derivations, of which money is one, while -administration is a technical and expert matter not -susceptible of being socialised, and, lastly, that the only -possible method by which the highest civilisation can be -reached is to make it impossible for either the State or any -other body to apply economic pressure to any individual. - -Any attempt either to socialise administration or to govern -by economic coercion quite inevitably leads to centralised -organisation and centralised credit, resulting in all the -well-known phenomena of inefficiency inseparable from the -attempted subordination of the human ego to the necessities -of a non-human system. The difference is the recognition of -the difference between beneficial ownership and -administrative ownership. The managing director of the White -Star Line was in beneficial ownership of the *Titanic*, he -controlled the credit of it; but his attempt to interfere in -its administration destroyed the &. - -We can, then, for the moment leave the question of -administration where it stands, the more so if you will -consider that, however certain enthusiasts may endeavour to -persuade you to the contrary, it is a well-recognised fact -that it is impossible, in this country at any rate, to -promote a strike of any magnitude on any basis but that of -distribution---i.e. wages or prices---which only shows the -general good sense of the British public. - -It is not suggested that administration is faultless, but by -deferring the consideration of it---for it is essentially a -technical matter---we are free to concentrate on the primary -requisite---the transfer of the control of the *policy* of -production into the hands of those for whom the whole -productive process exists---the individuals who collectively +We want, therefore, to put more and finally all people in this position, +not to remove from it those who are already there, always assuming that +the alternative exists; and to do that we want so to organise the +machinery of production that it serves the single end of forming the +most perfect instrument possible with which to carry out the policy of +the community; and so to empower the community that individuals will +submit themselves voluntarily to the discipline of the productive +process, because in the first place they know that it is operated for +production and so gains their primary ends with a minimum of exertion, +and in the second place because of the interest and satisfaction of +cooperative, coordinated effort. You will understand that the physical +facts of production are such that, operated in this way, only a small +proportion of the world's population, working short hours, could find +employment directly in the industrial process---a condition of affairs +which is cumulative and reduces to an anachronism the complaint of the +early Victorian Socialist against the idle rich, and to an absurdity the +super-Industrialist cry for greater production at a cost of harder work. +To anyone to whom this aspect of the case is unfamiliar, I would commend +the works of Mr Thorstein Veblen on Capitalist Sabotage, or the more +specialised conclusions of the late H. M. Gantt and his partner, Mr +Walter Polakov. The present preoccupation of the financial system is to +hide the enormous capacity for output which modern methods have placed +at our disposal; and it is fairly successful in its efforts, so far. + +So much for the philosophy of the subject. If you agree with it you +will. see at once that the problem with which society has to grapple +falls naturally and inevitably into certain lines. The *primary* object +of the whole industrial system should be the delivery to individuals, +associated together as the public, or society, of the material goods and +services they individually require. This demand of individuals, be it +emphasised, is the absolute origin of all activity. Since men co-operate +to satisfy this demand, which is complex in its nature, it is necessary +to also combine the demand, and this combined demand of society is the +policy, so far as it is economic, of society as a whole. The first part +of the problem, then, consists in finding a mechanism which will impose +this policy on the co-operating producers with the maximum +effectiveness, which always means with the minimum of friction. + +Now, if I have made my meaning clear, you will begin to see (willingly +or otherwise!) that this has nothing to do with "workshop control by the +workers"--in fact is in one sense the antithesis of it. It involves the +assumption that the plant of civilisation belongs to the community, not +to the operators, and the community can, or should, be able to appoint +or dismiss anyone who in its discretion fails to use that plant to the +best advantage. So far you might say this is pure State Socialism, but I +think you will agree, if I make myself clear, that it is nothing like +what is commonly so called. In this connection the following paragraph +from *The Threefold State*, by Dr Rudolf Steiner, a book which is +attracting attention on the Continent, may be of interest:---- + +"Modern socialism is absolutely justified 1 in demanding that the +present-day methods, under which production is carried on for individual +profit, should be replaced by others, under which production will be +carried on for the sake of the common consumption. But it is just the +person who most thoroughly recognises the justice of this demand who +will find himself unable to concur in the conclusion which modern +socialism deduces: That, therefore, the means of production must be +transferred from private to communal ownership. Rather he will be forced +to a conclusion that is quite different, namely: That whatever is +privately produced by means of individual energies and talents must find +its way to the community through the right channels." + +The radical difference---and I would commend it to your most serious +consideration---is that State Socialism is based on the premise that, +firstly, the control of policy is resident in administration, and, +secondly, that it is possible to "socially" control administration, and, +thirdly, that the State should be able to supply economic pressure to +the individual; whereas I suggest to you that the control of policy is +resident in credit (fundamentally, in the belief in the beneficial +outcome of any line or action) and its financial derivations, of which +money is one, while administration is a technical and expert matter not +susceptible of being socialised, and, lastly, that the only possible +method by which the highest civilisation can be reached is to make it +impossible for either the State or any other body to apply economic +pressure to any individual. + +Any attempt either to socialise administration or to govern by economic +coercion quite inevitably leads to centralised organisation and +centralised credit, resulting in all the well-known phenomena of +inefficiency inseparable from the attempted subordination of the human +ego to the necessities of a non-human system. The difference is the +recognition of the difference between beneficial ownership and +administrative ownership. The managing director of the White Star Line +was in beneficial ownership of the *Titanic*, he controlled the credit +of it; but his attempt to interfere in its administration destroyed the +&. + +We can, then, for the moment leave the question of administration where +it stands, the more so if you will consider that, however certain +enthusiasts may endeavour to persuade you to the contrary, it is a +well-recognised fact that it is impossible, in this country at any rate, +to promote a strike of any magnitude on any basis but that of +distribution---i.e. wages or prices---which only shows the general good +sense of the British public. + +It is not suggested that administration is faultless, but by deferring +the consideration of it---for it is essentially a technical matter---we +are free to concentrate on the primary requisite---the transfer of the +control of the *policy* of production into the hands of those for whom +the whole productive process exists---the individuals who collectively form the public. -As has been stated, the control of policy is resident in -credit---a word which is quite sufficient, I have no doubt, -to excite your worst forebodings, but I assure you that in -itself the matter is very simple. A credit instrument is -something which will enable you to get what you want. If you -are stranded without food on an island overrun with rabbits, -a shot-cartridge is in all probability the most effective -credit instrument with which to deal with the situation, but -in more highly organised communities the instrument in most -general use, and which typifies the rest, is what we call -money. It differs from a cartridge chiefly in disappearing -less noisily. - -It is absolutely vital to realise that the essential part of -money is the belief that through its agency you can satisfy -your demands. Once this is agreed you will see that the -control of the issue of something which embodies this belief -is equivalent to the control of the policy of society. The -belief, if well founded, is real credit, and its vehicle, +As has been stated, the control of policy is resident in credit---a word +which is quite sufficient, I have no doubt, to excite your worst +forebodings, but I assure you that in itself the matter is very simple. +A credit instrument is something which will enable you to get what you +want. If you are stranded without food on an island overrun with +rabbits, a shot-cartridge is in all probability the most effective +credit instrument with which to deal with the situation, but in more +highly organised communities the instrument in most general use, and +which typifies the rest, is what we call money. It differs from a +cartridge chiefly in disappearing less noisily. + +It is absolutely vital to realise that the essential part of money is +the belief that through its agency you can satisfy your demands. Once +this is agreed you will see that the control of the issue of something +which embodies this belief is equivalent to the control of the policy of +society. The belief, if well founded, is real credit, and its vehicle, financial credit, convertible into money. -There exists in civilised society in all countries to-day an -institution whose business it is to issue money. This -institution is called a bank. The banking business is in -many respects the exact opposite of the Social Reform -business---it is immensely powerful, talks very little, acts -quickly, knows what it wants, chooses its employees wisely -in its own interests. - -When a bank allows a manufacturer an overdraft for the -purpose of carrying out a contract or a production -programme, it performs an absolutely vital function, without -which production would stop. If you doubt this, consider for -a moment the result of a rise in the bank rate of interest -on loans and you will see that the power to choke off -producers by taxing them at will is essentially similar to -that exercised by governments on consumers by orthodox -taxation, with the vital difference that in the first case a -purely sectional interest is operating uncontrolled by -society, whereas in the second case the power undoubtedly -exists, though ineffective because misunderstood, to control +There exists in civilised society in all countries to-day an institution +whose business it is to issue money. This institution is called a bank. +The banking business is in many respects the exact opposite of the +Social Reform business---it is immensely powerful, talks very little, +acts quickly, knows what it wants, chooses its employees wisely in its +own interests. + +When a bank allows a manufacturer an overdraft for the purpose of +carrying out a contract or a production programme, it performs an +absolutely vital function, without which production would stop. If you +doubt this, consider for a moment the result of a rise in the bank rate +of interest on loans and you will see that the power to choke off +producers by taxing them at will is essentially similar to that +exercised by governments on consumers by orthodox taxation, with the +vital difference that in the first case a purely sectional interest is +operating uncontrolled by society, whereas in the second case the power +undoubtedly exists, though ineffective because misunderstood, to control it in the general interest. -Now the vital thing done by a bank in its financing aspect -is to mobilise effective demand. - -*The effective demand is that of the public, based on the -money of the public, and the willingness of producers to -respond to economic orders; but the paramount policy which -directs the mobilisation is anti-public, because it aims at -depriving, with the greatest possible rapidity, the public -of the means to make its demands effective; through the -agency of prices.* - -I would particularly ask you to note that there is no -suggestion that *bankers*, as human beings, are in the main -actuated by any such anti-social policy---the system is such -that they simply cannot help the result. - -In order, then, to acquire public control of economic -policy, we have to control the whole mechanism of effective -demand---the rate at which its vehicle, financial credit, is -issued, the conditions on which it is issued, and take such -measures as will ensure that the public, from whom it -arises, are penalised by withdrawal of the vehicle to the -minimum possible extent. It must be obvious that the real -limit of the rate at which something representing -purchasing-power could be issued to the *public* is equal to -the maximum rate at which goods can be produced, whereas the -"taking back" through prices of this purchasing-power should -be the equivalent of the fraction of this potential -production which *is* delivered. - -Let us imagine that wages, salaries and dividends, added -together, were issued via the productive industries at a -*rate* representing the maximum possible production of -ultimate products, and actual consumption was only one -quarter of potential production. Then, clearly, the -community would only have exercised one quarter of its -potential demand. But the whole of the *costs* of -production---the issues of purchasing-power through the -agencies of wages, salaries and dividends---would have to be -allocated to the *actual* production as at present, and if -we charge the public with the whole cost of production their -total effective demand is taken from them. But if we apply -to the ascertained cost of production a fractional -multiplier equal to the ratio of actual consumption to -potential production, then we take back in prices that -portion of the total purchasing-power which represents the -actual energy draft on the productive resources of the -community, and the price to the actual consumer would be, in -the case above mentioned, 75%, less than commercial cost. - -If I have made myself clear you will see that credit-issue -and price-making are the positive and negative aspects of -the same thing, and we can only control the economic -situation by controlling both of them---not one at a time, -but both together, and in order to do this it is necessary -to transfer the basis of the credit-system entirely away -from *currency*, on which it now rests, to *useful -productive capacity*. The issue of credit instruments will -then not result in an expansion of money for the same or a -diminishing amount of goods, which is inflation, but in an -expansion of goods for the same or a diminishing amount of +Now the vital thing done by a bank in its financing aspect is to +mobilise effective demand. + +*The effective demand is that of the public, based on the money of the +public, and the willingness of producers to respond to economic orders; +but the paramount policy which directs the mobilisation is anti-public, +because it aims at depriving, with the greatest possible rapidity, the +public of the means to make its demands effective; through the agency of +prices.* + +I would particularly ask you to note that there is no suggestion that +*bankers*, as human beings, are in the main actuated by any such +anti-social policy---the system is such that they simply cannot help the +result. + +In order, then, to acquire public control of economic policy, we have to +control the whole mechanism of effective demand---the rate at which its +vehicle, financial credit, is issued, the conditions on which it is +issued, and take such measures as will ensure that the public, from whom +it arises, are penalised by withdrawal of the vehicle to the minimum +possible extent. It must be obvious that the real limit of the rate at +which something representing purchasing-power could be issued to the +*public* is equal to the maximum rate at which goods can be produced, +whereas the "taking back" through prices of this purchasing-power should +be the equivalent of the fraction of this potential production which +*is* delivered. + +Let us imagine that wages, salaries and dividends, added together, were +issued via the productive industries at a *rate* representing the +maximum possible production of ultimate products, and actual consumption +was only one quarter of potential production. Then, clearly, the +community would only have exercised one quarter of its potential demand. +But the whole of the *costs* of production---the issues of +purchasing-power through the agencies of wages, salaries and +dividends---would have to be allocated to the *actual* production as at +present, and if we charge the public with the whole cost of production +their total effective demand is taken from them. But if we apply to the +ascertained cost of production a fractional multiplier equal to the +ratio of actual consumption to potential production, then we take back +in prices that portion of the total purchasing-power which represents +the actual energy draft on the productive resources of the community, +and the price to the actual consumer would be, in the case above +mentioned, 75%, less than commercial cost. + +If I have made myself clear you will see that credit-issue and +price-making are the positive and negative aspects of the same thing, +and we can only control the economic situation by controlling both of +them---not one at a time, but both together, and in order to do this it +is necessary to transfer the basis of the credit-system entirely away +from *currency*, on which it now rests, to *useful productive capacity*. +The issue of credit instruments will then not result in an expansion of +money for the same or a diminishing amount of goods, which is inflation, +but in an expansion of goods for the same or a diminishing amount of money, which is deflation. -I may perhaps be permitted to end on a graver note. The -present maladministration of credit results in increasingly -embittered struggles for markets. Unless it is remedied, war -is inevitable---and the next, great war will destroy this -civilisation. +I may perhaps be permitted to end on a graver note. The present +maladministration of credit results in increasingly embittered struggles +for markets. Unless it is remedied, war is inevitable---and the next, +great war will destroy this civilisation. # The Control of Production -It has frequently and rightly been emphasised that the -essence of any real progress towards a better condition of -society resides in the acquisition of control of its -functions by those who are affected by its structure; and it -is well if somewhat vaguely recognised by the worker of all -classes that this control is at present not resident in, but -is external to, society itself, and that in consequence men -and women, instead of rising to an ever superior control of -circumstance, remain the slaves of a system they did not -make and have not so far been able to alter in its -fundamentals. - -This system is assailed under the name of Capitalism; but of -the millions who are convinced that by the destruction of -Capitalism the Millennium will be achieved, not very many -have yet awakened to the fact that Capitalism died an -unhallowed death seventy-five years ago, more or less, and -that the driving force of the system which, more than any -other single cause, has produced the tangle of misery and -unrest in which the world now welters is Creditism. - -Credit is a real thing; it is the correct estimate of -capacity to achieve, and the function and immense importance -for good or evil of this real credit will be impressed on -mankind with cumulative insistence in the difficult times -ahead. But for the moment it is desirable to consider a -narrower use of the word; one conveying, however, a sense -with which it is more commonly associated---financial -credit. - -Financial credit is simply an estimate of the capacity to -pay money---any sort of money which is legal or customary -tender; it is not, for instance, an estimate of capital -possessed; and its use as a driving-force through the -creation of loan-credit is directly consequent on this -definition. The British banking system has, since the -Banking Act of 1844, based its operations on the ultimate -liability to pay gold, but in actual fact the community, as -a whole, has dethroned gold, and bases its acceptance of -cheques and bills on its estimate of the bank credit of the -individual or corporation issuing the document, and for -practical purposes not at all on the likelihood that the -bank will meet the document with gold. This bank credit -simply consists of certain figures in a ledger combined with -the willingness of the bank to manipulate those figures and -at call to convert them into legal tender. What, then, is -likely to induce a bank to increase the credit by the -creation of loans, etc., of an applicant for that favour? -The answer is contained in the definition: the capacity to -pay money; and the credit will be extended absolutely and -solely as the officials concerned are satisfied that this -condition will be met. It is quite immaterial whether the -judgment is based on existing "securities" or contemplated -operations; the basis of bank credit to-day is simply and -solely the capacity within an agreed time-limit, which may -be long or short, to pay money. - -Now apply the consideration of this to such a problem as -control of the provision of decent housing for the miners at -rents not exceeding 10%, of the miners' earnings. There are -a number of idealists, who cannot be labelled otherwise than -half-baked, who will say that it is a "sound business -proposition" to house the miners properly at low rents. -There are also a number of people by no means half-baked who -are prepared to lose a little on housing to retain control -of industry. That it is in the highest sense sound is -unquestionable; but as to being a business proposition we -suggest to those well-meaning people of the first class -whose minds are above detail, that they go to the banks -unsupported by security, and endeavour to borrow money for -such a project. - -We see, then, that it is purely a question of the financial -effect likely to accrue from an enterprise which will induce -the banks to back it with credit, and the use-value or -inherent desirability of doing certain work is a by-product. -But the deduction to be made from this is of transcendent -importance---it is that to control industry in the interest -of use-values you must back use-values with credit. And that -means the control of credit. And in order to control credit -the base on which it rests must be altered to meet the -changed aspirations of society. The economic power of Labour -is a potential power. By withholding it, Labour (using the -term in its widest sense) can break down civilisation; but -it cannot build it up again by any agency that the mind of -man has yet conceived which does not involve the use of -credit in some form or other. The community creates all the -credit there is; there is nothing whatever to prevent the -community entering into its own and dwelling therein except -it shall be by sheer demonstrated inability to seize the -opportunity which at this very moment lies open to it; an -opportunity which if seized and used aright would within ten -years reduce class-war to an absurdity and politics to the -status of a disease. +It has frequently and rightly been emphasised that the essence of any +real progress towards a better condition of society resides in the +acquisition of control of its functions by those who are affected by its +structure; and it is well if somewhat vaguely recognised by the worker +of all classes that this control is at present not resident in, but is +external to, society itself, and that in consequence men and women, +instead of rising to an ever superior control of circumstance, remain +the slaves of a system they did not make and have not so far been able +to alter in its fundamentals. + +This system is assailed under the name of Capitalism; but of the +millions who are convinced that by the destruction of Capitalism the +Millennium will be achieved, not very many have yet awakened to the fact +that Capitalism died an unhallowed death seventy-five years ago, more or +less, and that the driving force of the system which, more than any +other single cause, has produced the tangle of misery and unrest in +which the world now welters is Creditism. + +Credit is a real thing; it is the correct estimate of capacity to +achieve, and the function and immense importance for good or evil of +this real credit will be impressed on mankind with cumulative insistence +in the difficult times ahead. But for the moment it is desirable to +consider a narrower use of the word; one conveying, however, a sense +with which it is more commonly associated---financial credit. + +Financial credit is simply an estimate of the capacity to pay +money---any sort of money which is legal or customary tender; it is not, +for instance, an estimate of capital possessed; and its use as a +driving-force through the creation of loan-credit is directly consequent +on this definition. The British banking system has, since the Banking +Act of 1844, based its operations on the ultimate liability to pay gold, +but in actual fact the community, as a whole, has dethroned gold, and +bases its acceptance of cheques and bills on its estimate of the bank +credit of the individual or corporation issuing the document, and for +practical purposes not at all on the likelihood that the bank will meet +the document with gold. This bank credit simply consists of certain +figures in a ledger combined with the willingness of the bank to +manipulate those figures and at call to convert them into legal tender. +What, then, is likely to induce a bank to increase the credit by the +creation of loans, etc., of an applicant for that favour? The answer is +contained in the definition: the capacity to pay money; and the credit +will be extended absolutely and solely as the officials concerned are +satisfied that this condition will be met. It is quite immaterial +whether the judgment is based on existing "securities" or contemplated +operations; the basis of bank credit to-day is simply and solely the +capacity within an agreed time-limit, which may be long or short, to pay +money. + +Now apply the consideration of this to such a problem as control of the +provision of decent housing for the miners at rents not exceeding 10%, +of the miners' earnings. There are a number of idealists, who cannot be +labelled otherwise than half-baked, who will say that it is a "sound +business proposition" to house the miners properly at low rents. There +are also a number of people by no means half-baked who are prepared to +lose a little on housing to retain control of industry. That it is in +the highest sense sound is unquestionable; but as to being a business +proposition we suggest to those well-meaning people of the first class +whose minds are above detail, that they go to the banks unsupported by +security, and endeavour to borrow money for such a project. + +We see, then, that it is purely a question of the financial effect +likely to accrue from an enterprise which will induce the banks to back +it with credit, and the use-value or inherent desirability of doing +certain work is a by-product. But the deduction to be made from this is +of transcendent importance---it is that to control industry in the +interest of use-values you must back use-values with credit. And that +means the control of credit. And in order to control credit the base on +which it rests must be altered to meet the changed aspirations of +society. The economic power of Labour is a potential power. By +withholding it, Labour (using the term in its widest sense) can break +down civilisation; but it cannot build it up again by any agency that +the mind of man has yet conceived which does not involve the use of +credit in some form or other. The community creates all the credit there +is; there is nothing whatever to prevent the community entering into its +own and dwelling therein except it shall be by sheer demonstrated +inability to seize the opportunity which at this very moment lies open +to it; an opportunity which if seized and used aright would within ten +years reduce class-war to an absurdity and politics to the status of a +disease. # A Mechanical View of Economics -Elsewhere an attempt has been made to show the dangerously -false premises on which the New Unionist party bases all its -hopes of Reconstruction. The keynote of the symphony we are -to play under the conduct of Mr Lloyd George and the -industrial federations behind him is production, production, -yet more production; and by this simple remedy we are to -change from a nation with a C3 population and many -grievances into a band of busy B's (or is it A1's?) healthy, -wealthy, happy and wise. - -It is a simple little remedy---one wonders why we never -thought of it before. You seize any unconsidered trifle of -matter which may be lying about, preferably on your -neighbour's territory, and you make it into something else -quite unspecified. You assert by a process of arithmetical -legerdemain known as cost accounting that the value of the -original matter which we may call `a` is now -`a + (b + c) + (d + e)`, `b` being labour, `c` overhead -charges, `d` selling charges and `e` profit, and that the -"wealth" of the country is increased by this operation in -respect of a sum equal to `(b + c + d + e)`. With the aid of -your banking system you now create credits which show that -`a` *is* `a + etc. - (x + y)` (where `x` is loss in trading, -etc., and `y` is depreciation) and there you are---A1. - -The chief objection to this otherwise fascinating idea is -that despite a large body of most respectable and even -highly paid accountants and bankers who will produce -quantities of figures to prove that `a` has now become -`(a + b, etc.)` and that the wealth of the country has been -increased, etc., etc., the facts do not, unfortunately, -confirm their statements. - -The power used in doing work on `a` has been dissipated in -heat and otherwise; the tools have been worn, the workmen -have consumed food and clothes and have occupied houses, and -*what you have actually got is `a` minus any 'portion of `a` -lost in conversion*; `b`, `c`, `d`, `e`, etc., are the price -paid by the *community* for the increased adaptability of -`a` to the needs of the community, which price must in the -last event be paid for in energy. The question of the gain -in adaptability depends on what you produce; but payment is -inevitable. - -Under the existing conditions probably no body of men has -done more to crystallise the data on which we carry on the -business of the world than has the accounting profession; -but the utter confusion of thought which has undoubtedly -arisen from the calm assumption of the book-keeper and the -accountant that he and he alone was in a position to assign -positive or negative values to the quantities represented by -his figures is one of the outstanding curiosities of the -industrial system; and the attempt to mould the activities -of a great empire on such a basis is surely the final -condemnation of an out-worn method. - -While the effect of the concrete sum distributed as profit -is overrated in the attacks made on the capitalistic system, -and is far and increasingly less important than the overhead -charges added to the value of the product in computing its -factory cost, it is the dominant factor in the political -aspect of the situation, because the equation of production -is stated by the capitalist in a form which requires it to -be solved in terms of selling price, while `e`, the profit, -is always a plus quantity. - -Now the prime necessity of the situation, which is -world-wide at this time, is to realise that in economics we -are dealing with facts and not figures; and mechanical facts -at that. The conversion of a bar of iron into a nut and bolt -and its change in price from 2d. or 3d. to, say, Is. means -absolutely nothing at all beyond the fact that we have -transformed a certain amount of potential energy into work -in the process of changing the bar of iron into a nut and -bolt, and that an arbitrary and totally empirical measure of -this potential energy in various forms is contained in the -figures of cost. The factor which gives real character to -the operation is the "inducement to produce." - -If the object of this use of material and energy is simply -finance, we shall get a financial result of some sort---but -two real things result in any case. First we have definitely -decreased the energy potentially available for all other -purposes, and, secondly, we have obtained simply a nut and -bolt in return for a bar of iron and a definite amount of +Elsewhere an attempt has been made to show the dangerously false +premises on which the New Unionist party bases all its hopes of +Reconstruction. The keynote of the symphony we are to play under the +conduct of Mr Lloyd George and the industrial federations behind him is +production, production, yet more production; and by this simple remedy +we are to change from a nation with a C3 population and many grievances +into a band of busy B's (or is it A1's?) healthy, wealthy, happy and +wise. + +It is a simple little remedy---one wonders why we never thought of it +before. You seize any unconsidered trifle of matter which may be lying +about, preferably on your neighbour's territory, and you make it into +something else quite unspecified. You assert by a process of +arithmetical legerdemain known as cost accounting that the value of the +original matter which we may call `a` is now `a + (b + c) + (d + e)`, +`b` being labour, `c` overhead charges, `d` selling charges and `e` +profit, and that the "wealth" of the country is increased by this +operation in respect of a sum equal to `(b + c + d + e)`. With the aid +of your banking system you now create credits which show that `a` *is* +`a + etc. - (x + y)` (where `x` is loss in trading, etc., and `y` is +depreciation) and there you are---A1. + +The chief objection to this otherwise fascinating idea is that despite a +large body of most respectable and even highly paid accountants and +bankers who will produce quantities of figures to prove that `a` has now +become `(a + b, etc.)` and that the wealth of the country has been +increased, etc., etc., the facts do not, unfortunately, confirm their +statements. + +The power used in doing work on `a` has been dissipated in heat and +otherwise; the tools have been worn, the workmen have consumed food and +clothes and have occupied houses, and *what you have actually got is `a` +minus any 'portion of `a` lost in conversion*; `b`, `c`, `d`, `e`, etc., +are the price paid by the *community* for the increased adaptability of +`a` to the needs of the community, which price must in the last event be +paid for in energy. The question of the gain in adaptability depends on +what you produce; but payment is inevitable. + +Under the existing conditions probably no body of men has done more to +crystallise the data on which we carry on the business of the world than +has the accounting profession; but the utter confusion of thought which +has undoubtedly arisen from the calm assumption of the book-keeper and +the accountant that he and he alone was in a position to assign positive +or negative values to the quantities represented by his figures is one +of the outstanding curiosities of the industrial system; and the attempt +to mould the activities of a great empire on such a basis is surely the +final condemnation of an out-worn method. + +While the effect of the concrete sum distributed as profit is overrated +in the attacks made on the capitalistic system, and is far and +increasingly less important than the overhead charges added to the value +of the product in computing its factory cost, it is the dominant factor +in the political aspect of the situation, because the equation of +production is stated by the capitalist in a form which requires it to be +solved in terms of selling price, while `e`, the profit, is always a +plus quantity. + +Now the prime necessity of the situation, which is world-wide at this +time, is to realise that in economics we are dealing with facts and not +figures; and mechanical facts at that. The conversion of a bar of iron +into a nut and bolt and its change in price from 2d. or 3d. to, say, Is. +means absolutely nothing at all beyond the fact that we have transformed +a certain amount of potential energy into work in the process of +changing the bar of iron into a nut and bolt, and that an arbitrary and +totally empirical measure of this potential energy in various forms is +contained in the figures of cost. The factor which gives real character +to the operation is the "inducement to produce." + +If the object of this use of material and energy is simply finance, we +shall get a financial result of some sort---but two real things result +in any case. First we have definitely decreased the energy potentially +available for all other purposes, and, secondly, we have obtained simply +a nut and bolt in return for a bar of iron and a definite amount of energy dissipated. If by wealth is meant the original meaning attached to the -word--"well-being"--the value in well-being to be attached -to our bolt and nut depends entirely on its use for the -promotion of well-being (unless we admire bolts and nuts as -ornaments), and bears no relation whatever to the empirical -process of giving values to `a`, `b` and `c`, etc. - -Let us particularise: The immediate necessity as to which -all political parties are agreed is improved housing. The -financier says; "Yes, you shall have money for housing as -the result of building gunboats for Chile," thereby implying -that there is a chain of causation between gunboats for -Chile and houses for Camberwell. Not only is there no such -real chain of causation, but the building of gun-boats for -Chile, or elsewhere, decreases the energy available to build -those houses, and when the total available energy is -utilised, as has been approximately the case during the war, -and may easily be so again, not all the gunboats ever sold, -no matter what the accounting figures attached to the -transaction may indicate in added wealth to this country, -will produce one house at Camberwell, or anywhere else. What -is, of course, common to the two is the "inducement to -produce," but that may or may not be a sound inducement. - -The matter is really very serious. The economic effect of -charging all the waste in industry to the consumer so -curtails his purchasing power that an increasing percentage -of the product of industry must be exported. The effect of -this on the worker is that he has to do many times the -amount of work which should be necessary to keep him in the -highest standard of living, as a result of an artificial -inducement to produce things he does not want, which he -cannot buy, and which are of no use to the attainment of his -internal standard of well-being. "While the mechanism of the -process is possibly too technical for his general -comprehension, he has grasped the drift of the situation and -shows every sign of a determination to make things -interesting. On the other hand, we see a good sound reason -for the capitalist's hatred for internationalism; failing -interplanetary commerce, he will have nowhere to export to, -and will be faced with the horrible prospect of dividing up -the world's production amongst the individuals who live -here. In which case a larger number of people than at -present will agree that it is possible to overproduce -gun-boats. Given this situation, what will be the result of -a"strong" Coalition Government? +word--"well-being"--the value in well-being to be attached to our bolt +and nut depends entirely on its use for the promotion of well-being +(unless we admire bolts and nuts as ornaments), and bears no relation +whatever to the empirical process of giving values to `a`, `b` and `c`, +etc. + +Let us particularise: The immediate necessity as to which all political +parties are agreed is improved housing. The financier says; "Yes, you +shall have money for housing as the result of building gunboats for +Chile," thereby implying that there is a chain of causation between +gunboats for Chile and houses for Camberwell. Not only is there no such +real chain of causation, but the building of gun-boats for Chile, or +elsewhere, decreases the energy available to build those houses, and +when the total available energy is utilised, as has been approximately +the case during the war, and may easily be so again, not all the +gunboats ever sold, no matter what the accounting figures attached to +the transaction may indicate in added wealth to this country, will +produce one house at Camberwell, or anywhere else. What is, of course, +common to the two is the "inducement to produce," but that may or may +not be a sound inducement. + +The matter is really very serious. The economic effect of charging all +the waste in industry to the consumer so curtails his purchasing power +that an increasing percentage of the product of industry must be +exported. The effect of this on the worker is that he has to do many +times the amount of work which should be necessary to keep him in the +highest standard of living, as a result of an artificial inducement to +produce things he does not want, which he cannot buy, and which are of +no use to the attainment of his internal standard of well-being. "While +the mechanism of the process is possibly too technical for his general +comprehension, he has grasped the drift of the situation and shows every +sign of a determination to make things interesting. On the other hand, +we see a good sound reason for the capitalist's hatred for +internationalism; failing interplanetary commerce, he will have nowhere +to export to, and will be faced with the horrible prospect of dividing +up the world's production amongst the individuals who live here. In +which case a larger number of people than at present will agree that it +is possible to overproduce gun-boats. Given this situation, what will be +the result of a"strong" Coalition Government? # Production and Prices -It is admitted by almost everyone not utterly blind to the -trend of public events that there is something seriously -wrong in the world to-day. Hardly yet have the hospitals -discharged the casualties of the first World War, yet the -shadow of an even greater catastrophe is plain to those with -eyes to see. Instead of the world for heroes to live in, one -strike follows another to an inconclusive settlement; an -apathetic public regards the conflict between "Capital" and -"Labour" with a lack-lustre eye, repeating the while the -*clichés* of its particular brand of millionaire-owned -newspaper. - -Amongst the experts, various prescriptions for the disease -of Society are propounded. These are: - -1. The Super-productionists, the "Capitalist" party, who - refuse to admit any fault in the social system. The - keynote of their remedy is harder work and more of it. - -2. What may be called the ecclesiastical party; the keynote - of their policy is "a change of heart." Their attention - is concentrated in hierarchical problems, - administration, etc. The legal, military, bureaucratic - mind is essentially of this type, and the Whitley - Council, the Sankey Report, and the various committee - schemes of the Fabian Society in this country, the Plumb - scheme in America, etc., are examples of it. All these - schemes are *deductive* in character; they start with a - theory of a different sort of society to the one we - know, and assume that the problem is to change the world - into that form. In consequence, all the solutions demand - centralisation of administration; they involve a - machinery by which individuals can be forced to do - something---work, fight, etc.; the machine must be +It is admitted by almost everyone not utterly blind to the trend of +public events that there is something seriously wrong in the world +to-day. Hardly yet have the hospitals discharged the casualties of the +first World War, yet the shadow of an even greater catastrophe is plain +to those with eyes to see. Instead of the world for heroes to live in, +one strike follows another to an inconclusive settlement; an apathetic +public regards the conflict between "Capital" and "Labour" with a +lack-lustre eye, repeating the while the *clichés* of its particular +brand of millionaire-owned newspaper. + +Amongst the experts, various prescriptions for the disease of Society +are propounded. These are: + +1. The Super-productionists, the "Capitalist" party, who refuse to + admit any fault in the social system. The keynote of their remedy is + harder work and more of it. + +2. What may be called the ecclesiastical party; the keynote of their + policy is "a change of heart." Their attention is concentrated in + hierarchical problems, administration, etc. The legal, military, + bureaucratic mind is essentially of this type, and the Whitley + Council, the Sankey Report, and the various committee schemes of the + Fabian Society in this country, the Plumb scheme in America, etc., + are examples of it. All these schemes are *deductive* in character; + they start with a theory of a different sort of society to the one + we know, and assume that the problem is to change the world into + that form. In consequence, all the solutions demand centralisation + of administration; they involve a machinery by which individuals can + be forced to do something---work, fight, etc.; the machine must be stronger than the man. -Practically all socialist schemes, as well as Trust, -Capitalist, Militarist, etc., schemes, are of this -character--*e.g.* the League of Nations, which is -essentially ecclesiastical in origin, is probably the final -instance of this. - -It may be observed, however, that in the world in which -things are actually done, not talked about, where bridges -are built, engines are made, armies fight, we do not work -that way. We do not sit down in London and say the Forth -Bridge ought to be 500 yards long and 50 ft. high, and then -make such a bridge and narrow down the Firth of Forth by -about 75%, and cut off the masts of every steamer 45 ft. -above sea-level in order to make them pass under it. We -measure the Firth, observe the ships, and make our structure -fit our facts. Successful generals do not say, "The proper -place to fight the battle is at X, I am not interested in -what the other fellow is doing, I shall move all my troops -there." - -The attempt to deal with one of the industrial and social -difficulties existing at this time, which is embodied in -these remarks, starts from this position therefore. - -It does not attempt to suggest what people ought to want, -but rather what they do want, and is arrived at not so much -from any theory of political economy as from a fairly close -acquaintance with what is actually happening in those -spheres where production takes place and prices are fixed. - -If we look at the problem of production from this point of -view, the first thing we ask ourselves is, Why do we produce -now? The answer to this is vital---it is to make money. Why -do we want to make money? The answer is twofold. First, to -get goods and services afterwards, to give expression, often -perverted, to the creative instinct through power. Please -note that these two are quite separate---whether a man has -any recognisable creative instinct or not, he absolutely -requires goods and services of some sort. We then have our -problem stated; we have to inquire whether our present -mechanism satisfies it, and if not, why not, and how can it -be altered so that it does satisfy it. - -Emphasising the fact that it is only half the problem, the -only half I propose to deal with to-night, let us inquire to -what extent we succeed in our primary object---that of -obtaining goods and services when we produce for money under -the existing economic system. - -Production only takes place at present when at least two -conditions are met, when the article produced meets with an -effective demand---that is to say, when people with the -means to pay are willing to buy, and when the price at which -they are willing to buy is one at which the producers are -willing to sell. - -Now under the private capitalistic system the price at which -the producer is willing to sell is the sum of all the -expenses to which he has been put plus all the remuneration -he can get called profit. *The essential point to notice, -however, is not the profit, hut that he cannot and will not -produce unless his expenses on the average are more than -covered.* These expenses may be of various descriptions, but -they can all be resolved ultimately into labour charges of -some sort (a fact which incidentally is responsible for the -fallacy that labour, by which is meant the labour of the -present population of the world, produces all wealth). -Consider what this means. All past labour, represented by -money charges, goes into cost and so into price. But a great -part of the product of this labour---that part which -represents consumption and depreciation---has become -useless, and disappeared. Its money equivalent has also -disappeared from the hand of the general public---a fact -which is easily verifiable by comparing the wages paid in -Industry with the sums deposited in the Savings Banks and -elsewhere---but it still remains in price. So that if -everyone had equal remuneration and equal purchasing power, -and there were no other elements, the position would be one -of absolute stagnation---it would be impossible to buy at -any price at which it is possible to produce, and there -would be no production. I may say that in spite of -enormously modifying circumstances I believe that to be very -much the case at present. - -But there is a profound modifying factor, the factor of -credit. Basing their operations fundamentally on -faith---that faith which in sober truth moves -mountains---the banks manufacture purchasing power by -allowing overdrafts, and by other devices, to the -entrepreneur class: in common phrase, the Capitalist. Now -consider the position of this person. He has large -purchasing power, but his personal consuming power is like -that of any other human being: he requires food, clothes, -lodging, etc. - -If, as is increasingly the case, the personal Capitalist is -replaced by a Trust, there is a somewhat larger personal -consuming power, represented by the stockholders, but it is -still incomparably below the purchasing power represented by -credit. What happens? After exhausting the possibilities of -luxuries, the organisation itself exercises the purchasing -power and buys the goods and services which it itself -consumes---machinery, raw material, etc. In consequence, the -production which is stimulated---the production which we are -asked to increase---is that which is required by the -industrial machine, intermediate products or -semi-manufactures, not that required by humanity. It is -perfectly true that money is distributed in this process, -but the ratio of this money to the price-value of human -necessities---ultimate products---is constantly decreasing -for the reasons shown, and the cost of living is therefore -constantly rising. - -Before turning to the examination of the remedy built upon -this diagnosis it is necessary to emphasise a feature of our -economic system which is vital to the condition in which we -find ourselves--*i.e.* that the wages, etc., system -distributes goods and services through the same agency by -which it produces goods and services---the productive -system. In other words, it is quite immaterial how many -commodities there are in the world, the general public -cannot touch them without doing more work and producing more -commodities. It is my own opinion, not lightly arrived at, -that that is the condition of affairs in the world -to-day---that there is little if any real shortage, but that -production is hampered by prices, and the capitalists cannot -drop prices without losing control. However that may be, -this feature, in conjunction with those previously examined, -has many far-reaching consequences---amongst others the -feverish struggle for markets, which in turn has an -overwhelmingly important bearing on Foreign Policy. To sum -the whole matter up, the existing economic arrangements-- - -1. Make credit the most important factor in effective - demand; - -2. Base credit on the pursuit of a financial objective, and - centralise it; +Practically all socialist schemes, as well as Trust, Capitalist, +Militarist, etc., schemes, are of this character--*e.g.* the League of +Nations, which is essentially ecclesiastical in origin, is probably the +final instance of this. + +It may be observed, however, that in the world in which things are +actually done, not talked about, where bridges are built, engines are +made, armies fight, we do not work that way. We do not sit down in +London and say the Forth Bridge ought to be 500 yards long and 50 ft. +high, and then make such a bridge and narrow down the Firth of Forth by +about 75%, and cut off the masts of every steamer 45 ft. above sea-level +in order to make them pass under it. We measure the Firth, observe the +ships, and make our structure fit our facts. Successful generals do not +say, "The proper place to fight the battle is at X, I am not interested +in what the other fellow is doing, I shall move all my troops there." + +The attempt to deal with one of the industrial and social difficulties +existing at this time, which is embodied in these remarks, starts from +this position therefore. + +It does not attempt to suggest what people ought to want, but rather +what they do want, and is arrived at not so much from any theory of +political economy as from a fairly close acquaintance with what is +actually happening in those spheres where production takes place and +prices are fixed. + +If we look at the problem of production from this point of view, the +first thing we ask ourselves is, Why do we produce now? The answer to +this is vital---it is to make money. Why do we want to make money? The +answer is twofold. First, to get goods and services afterwards, to give +expression, often perverted, to the creative instinct through power. +Please note that these two are quite separate---whether a man has any +recognisable creative instinct or not, he absolutely requires goods and +services of some sort. We then have our problem stated; we have to +inquire whether our present mechanism satisfies it, and if not, why not, +and how can it be altered so that it does satisfy it. + +Emphasising the fact that it is only half the problem, the only half I +propose to deal with to-night, let us inquire to what extent we succeed +in our primary object---that of obtaining goods and services when we +produce for money under the existing economic system. + +Production only takes place at present when at least two conditions are +met, when the article produced meets with an effective demand---that is +to say, when people with the means to pay are willing to buy, and when +the price at which they are willing to buy is one at which the producers +are willing to sell. + +Now under the private capitalistic system the price at which the +producer is willing to sell is the sum of all the expenses to which he +has been put plus all the remuneration he can get called profit. *The +essential point to notice, however, is not the profit, hut that he +cannot and will not produce unless his expenses on the average are more +than covered.* These expenses may be of various descriptions, but they +can all be resolved ultimately into labour charges of some sort (a fact +which incidentally is responsible for the fallacy that labour, by which +is meant the labour of the present population of the world, produces all +wealth). Consider what this means. All past labour, represented by money +charges, goes into cost and so into price. But a great part of the +product of this labour---that part which represents consumption and +depreciation---has become useless, and disappeared. Its money equivalent +has also disappeared from the hand of the general public---a fact which +is easily verifiable by comparing the wages paid in Industry with the +sums deposited in the Savings Banks and elsewhere---but it still remains +in price. So that if everyone had equal remuneration and equal +purchasing power, and there were no other elements, the position would +be one of absolute stagnation---it would be impossible to buy at any +price at which it is possible to produce, and there would be no +production. I may say that in spite of enormously modifying +circumstances I believe that to be very much the case at present. + +But there is a profound modifying factor, the factor of credit. Basing +their operations fundamentally on faith---that faith which in sober +truth moves mountains---the banks manufacture purchasing power by +allowing overdrafts, and by other devices, to the entrepreneur class: in +common phrase, the Capitalist. Now consider the position of this person. +He has large purchasing power, but his personal consuming power is like +that of any other human being: he requires food, clothes, lodging, etc. + +If, as is increasingly the case, the personal Capitalist is replaced by +a Trust, there is a somewhat larger personal consuming power, +represented by the stockholders, but it is still incomparably below the +purchasing power represented by credit. What happens? After exhausting +the possibilities of luxuries, the organisation itself exercises the +purchasing power and buys the goods and services which it itself +consumes---machinery, raw material, etc. In consequence, the production +which is stimulated---the production which we are asked to increase---is +that which is required by the industrial machine, intermediate products +or semi-manufactures, not that required by humanity. It is perfectly +true that money is distributed in this process, but the ratio of this +money to the price-value of human necessities---ultimate products---is +constantly decreasing for the reasons shown, and the cost of living is +therefore constantly rising. + +Before turning to the examination of the remedy built upon this +diagnosis it is necessary to emphasise a feature of our economic system +which is vital to the condition in which we find ourselves--*i.e.* that +the wages, etc., system distributes goods and services through the same +agency by which it produces goods and services---the productive system. +In other words, it is quite immaterial how many commodities there are in +the world, the general public cannot touch them without doing more work +and producing more commodities. It is my own opinion, not lightly +arrived at, that that is the condition of affairs in the world +to-day---that there is little if any real shortage, but that production +is hampered by prices, and the capitalists cannot drop prices without +losing control. However that may be, this feature, in conjunction with +those previously examined, has many far-reaching consequences---amongst +others the feverish struggle for markets, which in turn has an +overwhelmingly important bearing on Foreign Policy. To sum the whole +matter up, the existing economic arrangements-- + +1. Make credit the most important factor in effective demand; + +2. Base credit on the pursuit of a financial objective, and centralise + it; 3. This involves constantly expanding production; -4. This must find an effective demand, which means export - and more credit; - -5. Makes price a linear function of cost, and so limits - distribution, largely to those with large credits; - -6. Therefore directs production into channels desired by - those with the largest credits. - -A careful consideration of these factors will lead to the -conclusion that loan-credit is the form of effective demand -most suitable for stimulating semi-manufactures, plant, -intermediate products, etc., and that "cash"-credit is -required for ultimate products for real personal -consumption. The control of production, therefore, is a -problem of the control of loan-credit, while the -distribution of ultimate products is a problem of the -adjustment of prices to cash-credits. It is only with this -latter that we are at present concerned. - -We have already seen that the cash-credit provided by the -whole of the money distributed by the industrial system, so -far as it concerns the wage-earner, is only sufficient to -provide a small surplus over the cost of the present -standard of living, and that only by conditions of -employment which the workers repudiate, and rightly -repudiate. We cannot create a greater surplus by increasing -wages, because the increase is reflected in a compound rise -in prices. Keeping, for the moment, wages constant, we have -to inquire what prices ought to be to ensure proper +4. This must find an effective demand, which means export and more + credit; + +5. Makes price a linear function of cost, and so limits distribution, + largely to those with large credits; + +6. Therefore directs production into channels desired by those with the + largest credits. + +A careful consideration of these factors will lead to the conclusion +that loan-credit is the form of effective demand most suitable for +stimulating semi-manufactures, plant, intermediate products, etc., and +that "cash"-credit is required for ultimate products for real personal +consumption. The control of production, therefore, is a problem of the +control of loan-credit, while the distribution of ultimate products is a +problem of the adjustment of prices to cash-credits. It is only with +this latter that we are at present concerned. + +We have already seen that the cash-credit provided by the whole of the +money distributed by the industrial system, so far as it concerns the +wage-earner, is only sufficient to provide a small surplus over the cost +of the present standard of living, and that only by conditions of +employment which the workers repudiate, and rightly repudiate. We cannot +create a greater surplus by increasing wages, because the increase is +reflected in a compound rise in prices. Keeping, for the moment, wages +constant, we have to inquire what prices ought to be to ensure proper distribution. -Now the *core of this problem is the fact that money which -is distributed in respect of articles which do not come into -the buying range of the persons to whom the money is -distributed is not real money*--it is simply inflation of -currency so far as those persons are concerned. The public -does not buy machinery, industrial buildings, etc., for -personal consumption at all. So that, as we have to -distribute wages in respect of all these things, and we want -to make these wages real money, we have to establish a -relation between total production, represented by total -wages, salaries, etc., and total ultimate consumption, so -that whatever money a man receives, it is real purchasing -power. This relation is the ratio which total production of -all descriptions bears to *total* consumption and -depreciation. - -The total money distributed represents total production. If -prices are arranged as at present, so that this total will -only buy a portion of the supply of ultimate products, then -all intermediate products must be paid for in some other -way. They are; they are paid for by internal and external -(export) loan-credit. - -If prices are arranged so that they bear the same relation -to cost that consumption does to production, then every -man's money will buy him his average share of the total -consumption, leaving him with a balance which represents his -credit in respect of his share in---the production of -intermediate products (semi-manufactures)--a share to which -he is entitled, but which is now almost entirely controlled -by the financier in partnership with the industrial -price-fixer. - -It is a little difficult to state with any accuracy what -proportion of cost prices ought to be because of the -distorting effect of waste, sabotage and aimless luxury. - -I am making some rather tedious investigations into this, -and I can only say that I am convinced that even now prices -are five times too high, and that with proper direction of -production this figure would be greatly exceeded. +Now the *core of this problem is the fact that money which is +distributed in respect of articles which do not come into the buying +range of the persons to whom the money is distributed is not real +money*--it is simply inflation of currency so far as those persons are +concerned. The public does not buy machinery, industrial buildings, +etc., for personal consumption at all. So that, as we have to distribute +wages in respect of all these things, and we want to make these wages +real money, we have to establish a relation between total production, +represented by total wages, salaries, etc., and total ultimate +consumption, so that whatever money a man receives, it is real +purchasing power. This relation is the ratio which total production of +all descriptions bears to *total* consumption and depreciation. + +The total money distributed represents total production. If prices are +arranged as at present, so that this total will only buy a portion of +the supply of ultimate products, then all intermediate products must be +paid for in some other way. They are; they are paid for by internal and +external (export) loan-credit. + +If prices are arranged so that they bear the same relation to cost that +consumption does to production, then every man's money will buy him his +average share of the total consumption, leaving him with a balance which +represents his credit in respect of his share in---the production of +intermediate products (semi-manufactures)--a share to which he is +entitled, but which is now almost entirely controlled by the financier +in partnership with the industrial price-fixer. + +It is a little difficult to state with any accuracy what proportion of +cost prices ought to be because of the distorting effect of waste, +sabotage and aimless luxury. + +I am making some rather tedious investigations into this, and I can only +say that I am convinced that even now prices are five times too high, +and that with proper direction of production this figure would be +greatly exceeded. # What is Capitalism? -When two opposing forces of sufficient magnitude push -transversely at either end of a plank---or a problem---it -revolves: there is Revolution. When the forces are exhausted -the revolution subsides, and the plank or problem remains in -much the same position in space which it occupied before the -forces acted on it. It is possible to conceive its molecules +When two opposing forces of sufficient magnitude push transversely at +either end of a plank---or a problem---it revolves: there is Revolution. +When the forces are exhausted the revolution subsides, and the plank or +problem remains in much the same position in space which it occupied +before the forces acted on it. It is possible to conceive its molecules as being somewhat worn and giddy as a result of their rapid -reorientation, but their environment is otherwise unchanged. -If, however, the forces act through the centre of -resistance, actual motion results; the object is shifted -bodily by the greater force, without revolution. - -In the first portion of this metaphor is to be found the -explanation of the devastating inconclusiveness which dogs -the steps of the constant and increasingly embittered -controversy between the forces of what is called Capitalism -and its antagonist Labour, and for a recent instance of the -phenomenon it is not necessary to go further than the Coal -Commission. During the earlier part of the inquiry it was -made abundantly plain that an intolerable state of affairs -existed in the coal industry. Mr Smillie's attack was so -well delivered, the evidence marshalled was so damning, that -had the case been closed at that point the position of the -miners, and with them Labour generally, would have been -inconceivably strengthened. But, unfortunately in the -general interest, the case was not closed there. The ground -was immediately shifted to a discussion of the merits of -private, as opposed to nationalised, administration. - -Now I suppose it is a thankless task to say it, but the -second question has about the same relation to the subject -matter of the attack as has the strategy of a general to the -pay of his troops. In consequence the issue now before the -public is not whether the economic contract between the -miners as members of the community, on the one hand, and the -mining industry controlled by the colliery proprietors as -producers for the community, on the other, is a bad and -inequitable contract, but whether, under what is in essence -the same contract, the miners' scheme of organisation is a -better scheme than the employers'. Personally I very much -doubt it. - -This is a matter which affects the general public quite as -much as the miners themselves. It is fairly obvious that, -recognising that Labour is determined to attack Capitalism, -and having themselves no delusions about the real issue, the -admirable brains behind the Capitalist organisation have -decided, while providing just so much opposition as is -necessary to register a protest, to allow an experiment on -lines already discredited to be made at the expense of the -consumer, in order that its stultification, which can be -insured, will strengthen Finance elsewhere. Brer Rabbit, -being in some danger, is betraying a special and exaggerated -fear of the briar bush. - -This is, of course, all very adroit: it shifts the opposing -forces to the opposite ends of the plank. The question for -the molecules---the general public---however, is whether -they care about the resultant revolution. If not, then their -concern is to bring the opposing forces into line---to see -that Labour is attacking what Finance is really concerned to -defend. - -The general public is more likely to do this if it can be -brought to realise that it is really as members of the -community, not as artisans, that the attack is operating. - -The whole tendency of Trade Unionist, just as much as -Capitalistic, propaganda is to obscure this fact, and by so -doing split the offensive, but the most superficial -consideration of the root idea of the existing economic -system will establish it. - -*"Capitalism" is not a system of administration at all; it -is a system of fixing prices in relation to costs.* This is -not to say, of course, that the personnel and methods of -administration would not be profoundly affected and improved -by a valid and radical modification of the -"capitalistic"--*i.e.* financial-system, but such changes -would be effects and not causes. - -The root problem of civilisation---not the only problem, but -that which has to be disposed of before any other---is the -problem of the provision of bed, board and clothes, and this -affects the ordinary man in terms of effort. If he has to -work hard and long hours to obtain a precarious existence, -then for him civilisation fails. As the miner demonstrably -had to work longer for a lower standard of life, measured in -terms of purchasing power, than existed in the fourteenth -century in England, then for him progress was not operative. -But the reason he has to do these things is not at all that -the coal mines are badly worked, although it is quite -possible that they might be better worked, just as it is -possible and excusable that the miners' own efficiency is -not so high as it might be under better conditions. The -plain, simple English of the reason is that his wages will -not buy him the things he wants. His own common-sense has -consequently consistently been applied to the problem of -raising his wages, but has for the most part stopped for -want of technical knowledge at the recognition of the effect -of this on prices. - -In the December 1918 number of *The English Review* it was -pointed out in a short article entitled "The Delusion of -Super-Production" that the sum of the wages, salaries and -dividends distributed in respect of the world's production -was diminishingly able to buy that production *at the prices -which the capitalist is by his system forced to charge*. -"Profiteering," in the sense of charging exorbitant sums in -excess of cost, is a mere excrescence on the system. If the -producer could be imagined as making no profit at all, the -difficulty would still exist, quite possibly in an -exaggerated form. That is why the policy of more and yet -more production at prices fixed on a basis of cost and -profit is a mere aggravation of the prevailing difficulty. -Because the available purchasing power would absorb a -decreasing proportion of this production it must be either -exported or wasted, and both of these lead straight to war, -the supreme waster. - -Now habits of thought are so powerful in their influence -that at first sight a statement that the correct *price* of -an article may be a low percentage of its *cost* is apt to -induce both disbelief and ridicule. But if the matter be -attacked from the other end, if it be realised that an -article cannot be sold, nor can its exchange through export -be sold, unless its average price is considerably less than -cost; that if it cannot be sold the effort expended in -making it is wasted; that if it is exported competitively -every economic force is driving the community irresistibly -towards war; it may then be agreed that it is worth while to -consider whether the accepted principles of price making are -so sacred that a world must be brought to ashes rather than -that they should be analysed and revised. - -The analysis has been made; and although the methods by -which the results are arrived at are too technical for -description in an article of this character, it may be said -that the purchasing power of effort at this time should be -certainly not less than five times its present return, and -most probably very much more. In other words, with wages at -their present level the cost of living ought to be one-fifth -or less of what it is. The essential facts on which this -statement is based are that production is overwhelmingly -dependent on tool power and process; that tool power and -process are a cultural inheritance belonging not to -individuals but to the community, being largely the result -of work done by persons now dead; and that in consequence -the *equitable* return for effort includes a dividend on -this inheritance which is immeasurably larger than the -direct payment. Just as the time-rate of production has -diverged from that possible to a community without tools, -processes or education, so to a corresponding degree has the -present economic system become inequitable and unsound. - -It is a matter of simple fact that men do not in the mass -act together for ethical conceptions. That is why a strike -can always be settled for the time on a money basis; and the -only demand which will not be so disposed of is one which -promises more purchasing power by its success than its -opponents can in the nature of things dispose of, because -such a demand will utterly divide them. But any demand which -savours of the perpetuation and extension of a bureaucracy -which is already highly unpopular will alienate not only the -general public but the organised worker. +reorientation, but their environment is otherwise unchanged. If, +however, the forces act through the centre of resistance, actual motion +results; the object is shifted bodily by the greater force, without +revolution. + +In the first portion of this metaphor is to be found the explanation of +the devastating inconclusiveness which dogs the steps of the constant +and increasingly embittered controversy between the forces of what is +called Capitalism and its antagonist Labour, and for a recent instance +of the phenomenon it is not necessary to go further than the Coal +Commission. During the earlier part of the inquiry it was made +abundantly plain that an intolerable state of affairs existed in the +coal industry. Mr Smillie's attack was so well delivered, the evidence +marshalled was so damning, that had the case been closed at that point +the position of the miners, and with them Labour generally, would have +been inconceivably strengthened. But, unfortunately in the general +interest, the case was not closed there. The ground was immediately +shifted to a discussion of the merits of private, as opposed to +nationalised, administration. + +Now I suppose it is a thankless task to say it, but the second question +has about the same relation to the subject matter of the attack as has +the strategy of a general to the pay of his troops. In consequence the +issue now before the public is not whether the economic contract between +the miners as members of the community, on the one hand, and the mining +industry controlled by the colliery proprietors as producers for the +community, on the other, is a bad and inequitable contract, but whether, +under what is in essence the same contract, the miners' scheme of +organisation is a better scheme than the employers'. Personally I very +much doubt it. + +This is a matter which affects the general public quite as much as the +miners themselves. It is fairly obvious that, recognising that Labour is +determined to attack Capitalism, and having themselves no delusions +about the real issue, the admirable brains behind the Capitalist +organisation have decided, while providing just so much opposition as is +necessary to register a protest, to allow an experiment on lines already +discredited to be made at the expense of the consumer, in order that its +stultification, which can be insured, will strengthen Finance elsewhere. +Brer Rabbit, being in some danger, is betraying a special and +exaggerated fear of the briar bush. + +This is, of course, all very adroit: it shifts the opposing forces to +the opposite ends of the plank. The question for the molecules---the +general public---however, is whether they care about the resultant +revolution. If not, then their concern is to bring the opposing forces +into line---to see that Labour is attacking what Finance is really +concerned to defend. + +The general public is more likely to do this if it can be brought to +realise that it is really as members of the community, not as artisans, +that the attack is operating. + +The whole tendency of Trade Unionist, just as much as Capitalistic, +propaganda is to obscure this fact, and by so doing split the offensive, +but the most superficial consideration of the root idea of the existing +economic system will establish it. + +*"Capitalism" is not a system of administration at all; it is a system +of fixing prices in relation to costs.* This is not to say, of course, +that the personnel and methods of administration would not be profoundly +affected and improved by a valid and radical modification of the +"capitalistic"--*i.e.* financial-system, but such changes would be +effects and not causes. + +The root problem of civilisation---not the only problem, but that which +has to be disposed of before any other---is the problem of the provision +of bed, board and clothes, and this affects the ordinary man in terms of +effort. If he has to work hard and long hours to obtain a precarious +existence, then for him civilisation fails. As the miner demonstrably +had to work longer for a lower standard of life, measured in terms of +purchasing power, than existed in the fourteenth century in England, +then for him progress was not operative. But the reason he has to do +these things is not at all that the coal mines are badly worked, +although it is quite possible that they might be better worked, just as +it is possible and excusable that the miners' own efficiency is not so +high as it might be under better conditions. The plain, simple English +of the reason is that his wages will not buy him the things he wants. +His own common-sense has consequently consistently been applied to the +problem of raising his wages, but has for the most part stopped for want +of technical knowledge at the recognition of the effect of this on +prices. + +In the December 1918 number of *The English Review* it was pointed out +in a short article entitled "The Delusion of Super-Production" that the +sum of the wages, salaries and dividends distributed in respect of the +world's production was diminishingly able to buy that production *at the +prices which the capitalist is by his system forced to charge*. +"Profiteering," in the sense of charging exorbitant sums in excess of +cost, is a mere excrescence on the system. If the producer could be +imagined as making no profit at all, the difficulty would still exist, +quite possibly in an exaggerated form. That is why the policy of more +and yet more production at prices fixed on a basis of cost and profit is +a mere aggravation of the prevailing difficulty. Because the available +purchasing power would absorb a decreasing proportion of this production +it must be either exported or wasted, and both of these lead straight to +war, the supreme waster. + +Now habits of thought are so powerful in their influence that at first +sight a statement that the correct *price* of an article may be a low +percentage of its *cost* is apt to induce both disbelief and ridicule. +But if the matter be attacked from the other end, if it be realised that +an article cannot be sold, nor can its exchange through export be sold, +unless its average price is considerably less than cost; that if it +cannot be sold the effort expended in making it is wasted; that if it is +exported competitively every economic force is driving the community +irresistibly towards war; it may then be agreed that it is worth while +to consider whether the accepted principles of price making are so +sacred that a world must be brought to ashes rather than that they +should be analysed and revised. + +The analysis has been made; and although the methods by which the +results are arrived at are too technical for description in an article +of this character, it may be said that the purchasing power of effort at +this time should be certainly not less than five times its present +return, and most probably very much more. In other words, with wages at +their present level the cost of living ought to be one-fifth or less of +what it is. The essential facts on which this statement is based are +that production is overwhelmingly dependent on tool power and process; +that tool power and process are a cultural inheritance belonging not to +individuals but to the community, being largely the result of work done +by persons now dead; and that in consequence the *equitable* return for +effort includes a dividend on this inheritance which is immeasurably +larger than the direct payment. Just as the time-rate of production has +diverged from that possible to a community without tools, processes or +education, so to a corresponding degree has the present economic system +become inequitable and unsound. + +It is a matter of simple fact that men do not in the mass act together +for ethical conceptions. That is why a strike can always be settled for +the time on a money basis; and the only demand which will not be so +disposed of is one which promises more purchasing power by its success +than its opponents can in the nature of things dispose of, because such +a demand will utterly divide them. But any demand which savours of the +perpetuation and extension of a bureaucracy which is already highly +unpopular will alienate not only the general public but the organised +worker. # The Question of Exports -I have received two letters which seem to indicate some -confusion of thought as to the bearing of a modified credit -system on export trade. Both these letters quote statistics -of wheat production and consumption with a view to throwing -some doubt on our capacity to grow our own food. Now, -ultimately, statistics are indispensable to sound practical -politics, but to the writers of these letters, as well as to -others who may be tempted to attack the problem on the basis -of official statistics, it may be emphasised that it is -nearly irrelevant to the primary issues whether this country -can feed its population off its own acreage or not. It is -quite arguable that it can; and it is also arguable that it -would be bad business for it to try. These issues are: - -1. Are there inducements operating towards the best use of - the land we have? - -2. If we export services (*i.e.* the energy element of - production) do we get the best real price for them? - -In regard to 1, and leaving out of the argument, for the -moment, the indisputable fact that the acreage under wheat -is steadily decreasing decade by decade, consider the -position of the farmer. He, like everyone else at present, -is in business to make money, not to deliver goods. It is -quite true that he makes money by selling things, but he can -easily make more money by selling less goods at a higher -price than *vice versa*. - -Now wheat is one of a fairly small group of commodities over -the price of which the individual producer has practically -no control whatever. It is a graded homogeneous product -bought in bulk by experts who have a strictly finite demand -for it, and the price paid is under existing conditions -purely fixed by financial supply and demand, whether -un-fettered or artificially stimulated by rings, and is not -directly based on cost. Normally, a given amount of foreign -wheat is contracted for in this country---bought on -"futures" by grain brokers whose price fixes a datum line -for home-grown wheat. So long as wheat is in short supply as -compared with the demand, the price rises, and everyone -engaged in the grain trade, either as producer or dealer, -may benefit, although no doubt most of the benefit goes to -the dealer. The relation of the farmer to this situation -must surely be plain. The one situation he must avoid at all -costs is that produced by throwing grain on the market in -any quantity which will bring down prices---that is to say, +I have received two letters which seem to indicate some confusion of +thought as to the bearing of a modified credit system on export trade. +Both these letters quote statistics of wheat production and consumption +with a view to throwing some doubt on our capacity to grow our own food. +Now, ultimately, statistics are indispensable to sound practical +politics, but to the writers of these letters, as well as to others who +may be tempted to attack the problem on the basis of official +statistics, it may be emphasised that it is nearly irrelevant to the +primary issues whether this country can feed its population off its own +acreage or not. It is quite arguable that it can; and it is also +arguable that it would be bad business for it to try. These issues are: + +1. Are there inducements operating towards the best use of the land we + have? + +2. If we export services (*i.e.* the energy element of production) do + we get the best real price for them? + +In regard to 1, and leaving out of the argument, for the moment, the +indisputable fact that the acreage under wheat is steadily decreasing +decade by decade, consider the position of the farmer. He, like everyone +else at present, is in business to make money, not to deliver goods. It +is quite true that he makes money by selling things, but he can easily +make more money by selling less goods at a higher price than *vice +versa*. + +Now wheat is one of a fairly small group of commodities over the price +of which the individual producer has practically no control whatever. It +is a graded homogeneous product bought in bulk by experts who have a +strictly finite demand for it, and the price paid is under existing +conditions purely fixed by financial supply and demand, whether +un-fettered or artificially stimulated by rings, and is not directly +based on cost. Normally, a given amount of foreign wheat is contracted +for in this country---bought on "futures" by grain brokers whose price +fixes a datum line for home-grown wheat. So long as wheat is in short +supply as compared with the demand, the price rises, and everyone +engaged in the grain trade, either as producer or dealer, may benefit, +although no doubt most of the benefit goes to the dealer. The relation +of the farmer to this situation must surely be plain. The one situation +he must avoid at all costs is that produced by throwing grain on the +market in any quantity which will bring down prices---that is to say, slacken the demand or competition to buy. His criterion of a -satisfactory output, therefore, bears no relation to what -amount of wheat the public requires, or what amount the land -wiU produce, but rests fundamentally on, firstly, the -operations of the grain brokers and, secondly, an estimate -of what margin of profit can be extracted from the market by -keeping it short of wheat without causing a secondary -movement of grain from other markets. As transportation -facilities improve, the proposition becomes less and less -attractive to the farmer, who is driven more and more to the -production of perishable goods, such as eggs, butter and -milk, whose nature enables him to control the local market, -or to the raising of stock on which the transportation -charges and risks are heavy. The first prime question can -therefore be answered quite confidently in the negative. In -regard to the second point, let us assume that the -magnitude, at any rate of our imports of foodstuffs, is a -reasonable subject of discussion and policy. It is evident -that there is a point at which it is debatable whether we -should grow the last few million quarters of wheat required -on land which may not be of the most suitable description, -or whether it is sound business management to obtain this -wheat by the exchange for it of manufactured goods---that is -to say, by an export of economic energy. It does not take -much consideration to see that the answer to this is purely -quantitative: how much wheat are we to get for a given -energy export? +satisfactory output, therefore, bears no relation to what amount of +wheat the public requires, or what amount the land wiU produce, but +rests fundamentally on, firstly, the operations of the grain brokers +and, secondly, an estimate of what margin of profit can be extracted +from the market by keeping it short of wheat without causing a secondary +movement of grain from other markets. As transportation facilities +improve, the proposition becomes less and less attractive to the farmer, +who is driven more and more to the production of perishable goods, such +as eggs, butter and milk, whose nature enables him to control the local +market, or to the raising of stock on which the transportation charges +and risks are heavy. The first prime question can therefore be answered +quite confidently in the negative. In regard to the second point, let us +assume that the magnitude, at any rate of our imports of foodstuffs, is +a reasonable subject of discussion and policy. It is evident that there +is a point at which it is debatable whether we should grow the last few +million quarters of wheat required on land which may not be of the most +suitable description, or whether it is sound business management to +obtain this wheat by the exchange for it of manufactured goods---that is +to say, by an export of economic energy. It does not take much +consideration to see that the answer to this is purely quantitative: how +much wheat are we to get for a given energy export? Consider the present situation. It is true enough, as our -super-industrialists and orthodox economists are always -telling us, that imports are paid for by exports, but on the -whole, they are content to leave it at that. They do not -explain, for instance, how a population which most certainly -cannot, and does not, buy its own total production for cash -(if it could, there would be no necessity either for home or -export credits, and no "unemployment" problem), can become -able to buy the imports which are exchanged for the -unpurchasable surplus. They do not, again, explain how a -textile worker, paid wages for converting a bale of raw -cotton worth, say, £20 into goods worth, say, £60 can -benefit if in return for these manufactured goods two more -bales of raw cotton at £40 are received---a condition common -to trade booms. Nor do they generally publish the fact that -English machinery is often sold to export agents abroad at -far lower prices than those at which the same machinery can -be obtained at home, or that it is possible to buy, in the -bazaars of Bombay, a shirt made in Lancashire for a quarter -the price at which the same shirt can be bought retail in -Manchester. - -The simple facts are that, under existing arrangements, our -principal preoccupation is the provision of employment---the -making of work. On this simple canon hangs the law and the -profits. When, therefore, a locomotive is required for the -Argentine, and assuming for the moment that it is in any -sense sold in the open market, there is a competition, open -to the industrial nations of the world, to *sell* -locomotives and to *buy* wheat, with the usual and logical -result that wheat appreciates in price in terms of -locomotives, the industrial exporting country continually -gives more, and the exporting agricultural country +super-industrialists and orthodox economists are always telling us, that +imports are paid for by exports, but on the whole, they are content to +leave it at that. They do not explain, for instance, how a population +which most certainly cannot, and does not, buy its own total production +for cash (if it could, there would be no necessity either for home or +export credits, and no "unemployment" problem), can become able to buy +the imports which are exchanged for the unpurchasable surplus. They do +not, again, explain how a textile worker, paid wages for converting a +bale of raw cotton worth, say, £20 into goods worth, say, £60 can +benefit if in return for these manufactured goods two more bales of raw +cotton at £40 are received---a condition common to trade booms. Nor do +they generally publish the fact that English machinery is often sold to +export agents abroad at far lower prices than those at which the same +machinery can be obtained at home, or that it is possible to buy, in the +bazaars of Bombay, a shirt made in Lancashire for a quarter the price at +which the same shirt can be bought retail in Manchester. + +The simple facts are that, under existing arrangements, our principal +preoccupation is the provision of employment---the making of work. On +this simple canon hangs the law and the profits. When, therefore, a +locomotive is required for the Argentine, and assuming for the moment +that it is in any sense sold in the open market, there is a competition, +open to the industrial nations of the world, to *sell* locomotives and +to *buy* wheat, with the usual and logical result that wheat appreciates +in price in terms of locomotives, the industrial exporting country +continually gives more, and the exporting agricultural country continually less, economic energy in every bargain. -That is the proposition in a nutshell. In order to make a -bargain which is just--*i.e.* judicious---the industrial -nation must be restored to the position of a free, not a -forced, seller, just as to restore social equilibrium inside -the nation the individual must be put in the position of a -free, not a forced, worker. The arrangements which would -fulfil these desiderata are already sufficiently familiar in -principle. +That is the proposition in a nutshell. In order to make a bargain which +is just--*i.e.* judicious---the industrial nation must be restored to +the position of a free, not a forced, seller, just as to restore social +equilibrium inside the nation the individual must be put in the position +of a free, not a forced, worker. The arrangements which would fulfil +these desiderata are already sufficiently familiar in principle. # Unemployment and Waste -While it is necessary to bear in mind that the object of -industry should not be employment, but rather the delivery -of goods with a minimum expenditure of energy on their -production, it is yet true that *at the moment* unemployment -does form a practical problem demanding alleviating -treatment. The word is generally used to indicate labour -unemployment, but it is practically impossible to have any -considerable volume of labour unemployment without a capital -unemployment representing many times the production value of -the idle labour. - -To the extent that private capitalism in the old sense can -be said to exist, this is just as great an evil to the -capitalist as to the manual worker, although its incidence -may not be so personal or so immediately tragic. It -penalises his initiative, depletes his reserves, and finally -bankrupts him; and the whole of the process is eventually an -injury distributed over the community in general, resulting -in a deterioration of moral, as well as in the more material -evil of a rise in prices. - -It is particularly important to notice the wastefulness of -the system. A demand backed by money arises in the community -for a particular class of goods; an enterprising -manufacturer puts down a plant "at his own expense," as the -misleading phrase goes (it is impossible for anyone to put -down modern plant at the expense of other than the general -consumer), and supplies the goods. This man is a public -benefactor; he gives the public what it wants, and he gives -it much quicker than it would be possible to get it by any -other system, because one man can make a decision quicker -than a dozen men, to say nothing of a Government Department. -A trade slump comes; unemployment grows like a snowball, -since every man thrown out of work is one man less receiving -money, and therefore one man less in the market to buy -goods; our manufacturer, though still willing and able to -make his product, cannot sell it, and if this state of -affairs continues for any length of time he is ruined. His -business organisation is probably excellent, but it is -broken up and bis plant dispersed, and when the trade -revival comes a new plant and a new organisation has again -to be constructed at the expense of the consumer. - -Both the employer and the employed are so familiar with this -cycle that both take steps which they imagine will protect -them against its effects, but which in fact only make -confusion worse confounded. During times of brisk trade the -employer charges the highest price he can obtain, or, in -other words, delivers the minimum of goods for the maximum -of money, and embodies his large profits in invisible -reserves, with the result that the consumer is left without -any effective demand (demand backed by money) as soon as his -wages cease. The worker, sensing this, does in his sphere -precisely the same thing---he uses his trade combinations to -obtain the maximum amount of money for the minimum amount of -production, not realising that this money simply goes into -the cost of the product, which has to be paid by the -community of which he forms so large a part. Since, -superficially, it seems vital to the interest of both of -them to keep the process moving as long as possible, the -manufacturer is driven to sell, by advertisement or -otherwise, useless or inferior and quickly worn-out articles -where he cannot make a handsome profit on durable and -well-finished production, the life and usefulness of which -operate in the truest sense towards labour-saving. - -Consider, then, the position at the present time. It is -certain that both employers and employed are willing and -able to work *on terms*; it is demonstrable without -difficulty that the productive capacity of industry, with -its labour, plant and organisation, greatly exceeds the -consuming capacity of the nation, unless that consuming -capacity is enormously and viciously inflated by waste, and -especially the culminating waste of war; and yet it is -patent that the needs of the individuals who comprise the -community (whose collective needs are the only reason and -justification for the existence of industry at all) are far, -and even increasingly far, from being met. There is one -possible explanation for this anomaly---the financial -system, which ought to be an effective distributive -mechanism for the whole possible production of society, is -defective---it does not so arrange the prices of articles -produced as to enable the extant purchasing power to acquire -them. - -Now without, for the moment, discussing the methods by which -this defect can be remedied, let us imagine the remedy to be -applied and consider its *immediate* effect on the -unemployment problem. There are still millions of persons -wanting goods; the productive system can make these goods; -the persons who want them can buy them, and those who make -them can be paid for them. - -It seems obvious that an enormous stimulation to production -would be provided---a stimulation which no mere propaganda -on its desirability has ever succeeded in evoking; and that -the immediate effect of this would be a radical diminution -of unemployment. - -Consider now the policy actually being pursued at this -moment by the Government and the financial powers to deal -with the problem. They can be summarised in one -sentence---the reduction of costs, and more especially -labour costs. But labour costs are wages and form by far the -most important item in the total purchasing power *inside -the country* available for the distribution of goods. Even -supposing that retail prices were reduced in exact ratio to -wage reductions, which is highly improbable or even -impossible, how is the distribution of goods *to people in -this country*, which is the true object of British industry, -thereby advantaged? As the prices fall by this method, so -the amount of money to purchase also falls, and we are as -badly off as before, with the added complication of the -discontent evoked by the reduction of wages. - -It would seem, then, that although a reduction of prices *in -relation to purchasing power* is not only vital in -connection with the more fundamental problems of industry -and society, but is the only effective method of dealing -with the immediate problem of unemployment, we are not as a -nation pursuing this policy, but rather one which, if not -diametrically opposed to it, is yet wholly inapplicable to -the situation. Is it impossible to obtain adequate -recognition of fundamental remedies, and equally impossible -to rouse the general public to a sense of the catastrophe -towards which its passivity in the matter is hurrying it so -swiftly? +While it is necessary to bear in mind that the object of industry should +not be employment, but rather the delivery of goods with a minimum +expenditure of energy on their production, it is yet true that *at the +moment* unemployment does form a practical problem demanding alleviating +treatment. The word is generally used to indicate labour unemployment, +but it is practically impossible to have any considerable volume of +labour unemployment without a capital unemployment representing many +times the production value of the idle labour. + +To the extent that private capitalism in the old sense can be said to +exist, this is just as great an evil to the capitalist as to the manual +worker, although its incidence may not be so personal or so immediately +tragic. It penalises his initiative, depletes his reserves, and finally +bankrupts him; and the whole of the process is eventually an injury +distributed over the community in general, resulting in a deterioration +of moral, as well as in the more material evil of a rise in prices. + +It is particularly important to notice the wastefulness of the system. A +demand backed by money arises in the community for a particular class of +goods; an enterprising manufacturer puts down a plant "at his own +expense," as the misleading phrase goes (it is impossible for anyone to +put down modern plant at the expense of other than the general +consumer), and supplies the goods. This man is a public benefactor; he +gives the public what it wants, and he gives it much quicker than it +would be possible to get it by any other system, because one man can +make a decision quicker than a dozen men, to say nothing of a Government +Department. A trade slump comes; unemployment grows like a snowball, +since every man thrown out of work is one man less receiving money, and +therefore one man less in the market to buy goods; our manufacturer, +though still willing and able to make his product, cannot sell it, and +if this state of affairs continues for any length of time he is ruined. +His business organisation is probably excellent, but it is broken up and +bis plant dispersed, and when the trade revival comes a new plant and a +new organisation has again to be constructed at the expense of the +consumer. + +Both the employer and the employed are so familiar with this cycle that +both take steps which they imagine will protect them against its +effects, but which in fact only make confusion worse confounded. During +times of brisk trade the employer charges the highest price he can +obtain, or, in other words, delivers the minimum of goods for the +maximum of money, and embodies his large profits in invisible reserves, +with the result that the consumer is left without any effective demand +(demand backed by money) as soon as his wages cease. The worker, sensing +this, does in his sphere precisely the same thing---he uses his trade +combinations to obtain the maximum amount of money for the minimum +amount of production, not realising that this money simply goes into the +cost of the product, which has to be paid by the community of which he +forms so large a part. Since, superficially, it seems vital to the +interest of both of them to keep the process moving as long as possible, +the manufacturer is driven to sell, by advertisement or otherwise, +useless or inferior and quickly worn-out articles where he cannot make a +handsome profit on durable and well-finished production, the life and +usefulness of which operate in the truest sense towards labour-saving. + +Consider, then, the position at the present time. It is certain that +both employers and employed are willing and able to work *on terms*; it +is demonstrable without difficulty that the productive capacity of +industry, with its labour, plant and organisation, greatly exceeds the +consuming capacity of the nation, unless that consuming capacity is +enormously and viciously inflated by waste, and especially the +culminating waste of war; and yet it is patent that the needs of the +individuals who comprise the community (whose collective needs are the +only reason and justification for the existence of industry at all) are +far, and even increasingly far, from being met. There is one possible +explanation for this anomaly---the financial system, which ought to be +an effective distributive mechanism for the whole possible production of +society, is defective---it does not so arrange the prices of articles +produced as to enable the extant purchasing power to acquire them. + +Now without, for the moment, discussing the methods by which this defect +can be remedied, let us imagine the remedy to be applied and consider +its *immediate* effect on the unemployment problem. There are still +millions of persons wanting goods; the productive system can make these +goods; the persons who want them can buy them, and those who make them +can be paid for them. + +It seems obvious that an enormous stimulation to production would be +provided---a stimulation which no mere propaganda on its desirability +has ever succeeded in evoking; and that the immediate effect of this +would be a radical diminution of unemployment. + +Consider now the policy actually being pursued at this moment by the +Government and the financial powers to deal with the problem. They can +be summarised in one sentence---the reduction of costs, and more +especially labour costs. But labour costs are wages and form by far the +most important item in the total purchasing power *inside the country* +available for the distribution of goods. Even supposing that retail +prices were reduced in exact ratio to wage reductions, which is highly +improbable or even impossible, how is the distribution of goods *to +people in this country*, which is the true object of British industry, +thereby advantaged? As the prices fall by this method, so the amount of +money to purchase also falls, and we are as badly off as before, with +the added complication of the discontent evoked by the reduction of +wages. + +It would seem, then, that although a reduction of prices *in relation to +purchasing power* is not only vital in connection with the more +fundamental problems of industry and society, but is the only effective +method of dealing with the immediate problem of unemployment, we are not +as a nation pursuing this policy, but rather one which, if not +diametrically opposed to it, is yet wholly inapplicable to the +situation. Is it impossible to obtain adequate recognition of +fundamental remedies, and equally impossible to rouse the general public +to a sense of the catastrophe towards which its passivity in the matter +is hurrying it so swiftly? # A Commentary on World Politics (I) -Mr Balfour, in supporting the project of the League of -Nations, stated with great impressiveness, and to an -enthusiastic audience, that the League must come; there is -no alternative. Now Mr Balfour is a statesman; a little -*passé* perhaps, but still a statesman as distinct from a -politician. It is highly probable that we differ from him in -nearly every fundamental conception of what society ought to -be and could be, and in the means that can profitably be -employed to induce such changes as are necessary. But we -have no doubt whatever that Mr Balfour has a personal code -from which he will not depart, and that included in that -code is a refusal to state clearly and definitely as a fact -that which he knows or even suspects to be false. We -emphasise this point because it is necessary to a grasp of -the difficulties and dangers with which this country in -particular and the world in general is beset at this time. -Mr Balfour, then, a representative of the best type of the -old-fashioned statesman, puts forward a plea in support of a -project involving the most tremendous consequences, and -separating Great Britain from every fundamental canon of -procedure not only of the past, but of the "platform" on -which the war was fought (if we except empty phrases), and -this course is recommended to his hearers, not by any -reasoned or inductive process of argument or demonstration, -but by the council of despair that, lacking any idea of the -right thing to do, we must do this. It would be incredible, -if it were not so clear that every statesman of every -country in the world has either succumbed to panic, or -retreated behind a barrier of phrases without concrete -meaning or application to the course of events. Stripped of -its verbiage and the mass of pious sentiment with which it -is surrounded, what *is* the League of Nations, as projected -on the basis of existing social, political and economic -systems? Its major premise is the avoidance of war, by the -settlement of disputes at a centralised headquarters, backed -ultimately by the logic of a position which centralises the -final argument of force under an elected committee, -operating by means of permanent officials. The first -permanent officials have been appointed, and may broadly be -said to represent the Ultramontane, or Temporal Power, -section of Roman Catholic politics (said to be the only -barrier between Europe and "anarchy"), by accommodation and -in accordance with at least one section of High Finance. -Consider this proposition, stripped of its sentiment, in the -light of actual knowledge and observation of the working of -such an organisation (quite apart from any question of -personnel at all). The Post Office, for instance, is such an -organisation. It is in theory a Department ruled over by a -Political Minister responsible to an elected body, the House -of Commons. Does anyone in their senses imagine that the -Postmaster-General could carry any point of internal policy -in the Post Office against the settled procedure of the -Permanent Officials? Or that any attack by an individual -from *inside* the Post Office on a *system* (as distinct -from a person) which may press hardly on him has any chance -of success? But, it may be argued, we are going to change -all that. We are going to have democratically elected -committees to deal with all such questions. Very well, let -us consider the actual working of such a committee. A -grievance comes before it and a decision is given which may -quite reasonably not give satisfaction, and the committee is -attacked for it. It is an honest decision honestly given, -and the committee combines to resist the attack. Immediately -a position is created in which the committee represents a -vested interest, and acts not as a body of elected -representatives, but as an Institution whose power must be -consolidated, and whose dignity must be upheld. Anyone with -practical knowledge of committees knows that this is what -happens. It may be said that all this is simply an argument -for anarchy (and it is *the* argument for anarchy), but that -is a mistaken view, as we hope to show. - -Having got it firmly fixed in our minds that no conceivable -change of heart has any bearing on the results of the -arrangement we are discussing (we should imagine that from -top to bottom, for instance, the Post Office is staffed with -average kindly human beings), it is clearly vital to get -some idea of where the difficulty does lie, since no -difficulty is finally insuperable; and we have no hesitation -in saying that the difficulty lies in the common confusion -between organisation and administration. Organisation is a -pure, if at present empirical, science; its relation to -administration is the relation between the Theory of -Structures and the Strength of Materials. No personality -enters into sound principles of organisation at all; -administration, on the other hand, which is an art, is -wholly concerned with the satisfactory adjustment of -individuality to organisation. The distinction is vital. Let -us apply it to the projected League of Nations, which is -first of all an organisation of some sort, and an -organisation presupposes some objective. We have seen that -*the very core of the League of Nations' idea is power, -final and absolute; it is, therefore, an organisation -expressly designed to eliminate administration by -suppressing individuality*; to make the Machine finally -supreme over the Man. And the alternative? Let us return to -our *corpus vile*, the Post Office. - -Imagine the Post Office to be organised exactly as it is -organised (though it is highly probable that its -organisation could be improved). Its *administration* -admittedly is bad, for reasons, in our opinion, -fundamentally unconnected with personnel. Leaving, we say, -everything else exactly as it is for the moment, let us -suppose a Regulation to be added to the few thousands which -are now the chief exercise for the ingenuity of its staff, -to the effect that all Post Office servants are at liberty -to retire at will on a pension equal to their full salary. -We admit that the traffic in St Martin's-le-Grand would be -congested for some time, but supposing this initial period -to have been surmounted by a reasonably well thought-out -transition policy, we have no doubt whatever that a staff -would be found at work, having realised that creative -activity is a luxury, if not a necessity, of existence. Our -hypothetical arbitration committees, however, are now -confronted with a new situation---they have to find a -solution of problems submitted to them *which will keep the -complainant at work by preference, if it is to the advantage -of the Post Office Service that he should he kept at work*. -If he is a pure crank, the Post Office will be better -without him; but if his ideas are sound---i.e. *in the -general interest of all concerned*--he will be in a position -both to defy economic pressure and to apply collective -interest to the solution of his difficulties. The -illustration is crude, but it may serve. The conclusion of -the matter is that association for the attainment of an -objective inevitably becomes a tyranny (*i.e.* an attack on -individual initiative) unless it can be broken at any time, -without incurring any penalty other than the loss of +Mr Balfour, in supporting the project of the League of Nations, stated +with great impressiveness, and to an enthusiastic audience, that the +League must come; there is no alternative. Now Mr Balfour is a +statesman; a little *passé* perhaps, but still a statesman as distinct +from a politician. It is highly probable that we differ from him in +nearly every fundamental conception of what society ought to be and +could be, and in the means that can profitably be employed to induce +such changes as are necessary. But we have no doubt whatever that Mr +Balfour has a personal code from which he will not depart, and that +included in that code is a refusal to state clearly and definitely as a +fact that which he knows or even suspects to be false. We emphasise this +point because it is necessary to a grasp of the difficulties and dangers +with which this country in particular and the world in general is beset +at this time. Mr Balfour, then, a representative of the best type of the +old-fashioned statesman, puts forward a plea in support of a project +involving the most tremendous consequences, and separating Great Britain +from every fundamental canon of procedure not only of the past, but of +the "platform" on which the war was fought (if we except empty phrases), +and this course is recommended to his hearers, not by any reasoned or +inductive process of argument or demonstration, but by the council of +despair that, lacking any idea of the right thing to do, we must do +this. It would be incredible, if it were not so clear that every +statesman of every country in the world has either succumbed to panic, +or retreated behind a barrier of phrases without concrete meaning or +application to the course of events. Stripped of its verbiage and the +mass of pious sentiment with which it is surrounded, what *is* the +League of Nations, as projected on the basis of existing social, +political and economic systems? Its major premise is the avoidance of +war, by the settlement of disputes at a centralised headquarters, backed +ultimately by the logic of a position which centralises the final +argument of force under an elected committee, operating by means of +permanent officials. The first permanent officials have been appointed, +and may broadly be said to represent the Ultramontane, or Temporal +Power, section of Roman Catholic politics (said to be the only barrier +between Europe and "anarchy"), by accommodation and in accordance with +at least one section of High Finance. Consider this proposition, +stripped of its sentiment, in the light of actual knowledge and +observation of the working of such an organisation (quite apart from any +question of personnel at all). The Post Office, for instance, is such an +organisation. It is in theory a Department ruled over by a Political +Minister responsible to an elected body, the House of Commons. Does +anyone in their senses imagine that the Postmaster-General could carry +any point of internal policy in the Post Office against the settled +procedure of the Permanent Officials? Or that any attack by an +individual from *inside* the Post Office on a *system* (as distinct from +a person) which may press hardly on him has any chance of success? But, +it may be argued, we are going to change all that. We are going to have +democratically elected committees to deal with all such questions. Very +well, let us consider the actual working of such a committee. A +grievance comes before it and a decision is given which may quite +reasonably not give satisfaction, and the committee is attacked for it. +It is an honest decision honestly given, and the committee combines to +resist the attack. Immediately a position is created in which the +committee represents a vested interest, and acts not as a body of +elected representatives, but as an Institution whose power must be +consolidated, and whose dignity must be upheld. Anyone with practical +knowledge of committees knows that this is what happens. It may be said +that all this is simply an argument for anarchy (and it is *the* +argument for anarchy), but that is a mistaken view, as we hope to show. + +Having got it firmly fixed in our minds that no conceivable change of +heart has any bearing on the results of the arrangement we are +discussing (we should imagine that from top to bottom, for instance, the +Post Office is staffed with average kindly human beings), it is clearly +vital to get some idea of where the difficulty does lie, since no +difficulty is finally insuperable; and we have no hesitation in saying +that the difficulty lies in the common confusion between organisation +and administration. Organisation is a pure, if at present empirical, +science; its relation to administration is the relation between the +Theory of Structures and the Strength of Materials. No personality +enters into sound principles of organisation at all; administration, on +the other hand, which is an art, is wholly concerned with the +satisfactory adjustment of individuality to organisation. The +distinction is vital. Let us apply it to the projected League of +Nations, which is first of all an organisation of some sort, and an +organisation presupposes some objective. We have seen that *the very +core of the League of Nations' idea is power, final and absolute; it is, +therefore, an organisation expressly designed to eliminate +administration by suppressing individuality*; to make the Machine +finally supreme over the Man. And the alternative? Let us return to our +*corpus vile*, the Post Office. + +Imagine the Post Office to be organised exactly as it is organised +(though it is highly probable that its organisation could be improved). +Its *administration* admittedly is bad, for reasons, in our opinion, +fundamentally unconnected with personnel. Leaving, we say, everything +else exactly as it is for the moment, let us suppose a Regulation to be +added to the few thousands which are now the chief exercise for the +ingenuity of its staff, to the effect that all Post Office servants are +at liberty to retire at will on a pension equal to their full salary. We +admit that the traffic in St Martin's-le-Grand would be congested for +some time, but supposing this initial period to have been surmounted by +a reasonably well thought-out transition policy, we have no doubt +whatever that a staff would be found at work, having realised that +creative activity is a luxury, if not a necessity, of existence. Our +hypothetical arbitration committees, however, are now confronted with a +new situation---they have to find a solution of problems submitted to +them *which will keep the complainant at work by preference, if it is to +the advantage of the Post Office Service that he should he kept at +work*. If he is a pure crank, the Post Office will be better without +him; but if his ideas are sound---i.e. *in the general interest of all +concerned*--he will be in a position both to defy economic pressure and +to apply collective interest to the solution of his difficulties. The +illustration is crude, but it may serve. The conclusion of the matter is +that association for the attainment of an objective inevitably becomes a +tyranny (*i.e.* an attack on individual initiative) unless it can be +broken at any time, without incurring any penalty other than the loss of association itself. -Before, therefore, the League of Nations can be constituted -as that League in the interest of Free Persons, which it -pretends to be, but is not, we have to place the Machine at -the disposal of the Man. Given that essential, we can design -or alter the Machine with the single object that it shall be -the best Machine with which to attain a result having the -full approval of the individuals without whose co-operation -it cannot work, and this will involve not one organisation -but many organisations in which the relation of the -individual to the organisation is not dissimilar to that of -a man who is a director of several and possibly widely -differing companies. If he does not approve of them he -resigns, and if a sufficient number of persons resign and -are not replaced, then the activities of that concern are -clearly not desirable, and it goes out of existence. Now the -project at present known as the League of Nations can be -seen to be the converse of all this; if the individual or -the nation does not approve of the objective of the League -(which rests on a purely abstract and improbable assumption -that its personnel not only represents the highest wisdom -but an unearthly disinterestedness), then that individual or -that nation is eliminated, so that in theory no effective -will remains save that which reaches its highest expression -in the apex of the perfect Pyramid of Power, which is its -object. We repeat, therefore, that in this project is the -greatest and probably the final attempt to enslave the -world, an attempt which is exactly similar, and probably -proceeds from exactly the same International source, as the -attempt so recently failed, in which the German people were -tools, blameworthy just to the extent that they allowed -themselves to become tools; and we believe that while it -must finally fail, the measure of the misery in which its -trial would plunge the world is such as to dwarf the horrors -of the years so recently endured. We do not, therefore, -agree with Mr Balfour, either that the League of Nations -must come, or that there is no alternative to it, and we -trust that the community in whose hands may lie the power -will not be so blinded by the fine words in which its -description is enveloped as to miss the meaning of the thing -which is behind them. - -The most important report, issued by the United States -Council of National Defence, entitled *An Analysis of the -High Cost of Living Problem*, is a document (we are sorry to -say), as might be expected, incomparably in advance of any -similar official pronouncement which has appeared in this -country. After pointing out that the problem is so -interrelated with others that its consideration opens up the -entire field of reconstruction, it goes on to remark that it -is neither a new problem nor (under existing circumstances) -transitory in character. Proceeding, it explains, in an -excellently concise manner, the form of currency inflation -which is produced by the lavish distribution of money -unrepresented by ultimate products in *personal* demand -(which is exactly the situation our super-producers are -striving to foster, whether by ignorance or otherwise is -immaterial), and remarks "with dismay on the general flood -of misinformation, half complete information and undiluted -ignorance which... pervades the land regarding our current -economic situation." We agree entirely with all this, and -while the conclusions which the report draws as to the steps -to be taken to deal with the situation are not so impressive -(quite possibly for reasons over which the individuals who -framed the report had little control), there is none of the -glib claptrap about them which we are doomed to suffer in -similar circumstances in this country. Compare all this with -the solemn pronouncements of our only Mr G. H. Roberts. -After admitting that food is, on the whole, abundant, and -that its alleged scarcity has little to do with high prices -(a piece of information he might have derived from us about -a year ago), he admits sadly that "it is undoubtedly true -that at the present time the increase in supply has not -brought about the decline that was expected by many... in -fact prices, so far from declining, have remained high, or -shown some tendency to increase." - -After numbing his hearers with a mass of statistics to prove -that we ought to be thankful that we are not worse -off---most of which, when exchange is considered, prove -exactly that we *are* worse off than our neighbours---he -goes on to make the original suggestion that the cure is -more production for export. Let us paraphrase Mr Roberts, -and explain him to himself, as he clearly requires -explaining. He admits that there is a sufficiency of goods. -He even allows it to be gathered that supply is being -restricted by artificial means. He knows that the world is -complaining of high prices. He knows, if he will keep quite -quiet, and think for a few minutes, that prices ultimately -represent work, man-hours of labour. As a remedy for a -complaint that prices representing work are too high, -although he is being asked to distribute goods which already -exist in sufficient quantity, he recommends more work, much -more work, to be applied to the making of unspecified -articles, in order to export the result out of the community -which has performed that work. Mr Roberts concludes by -assuring the Conference that they may be confident that the -Ministry of Food is doing everything in its power to keep -down prices, and that the power of the Government is -strictly limited in this respect. - -We have no doubt Mr Roberts is entirely honest in making -these latter statements, and, moreover, that, as distinct -from his earlier remarks, he is entirely correct. Both the -Ministry of Food and the ostensible Government, as a whole, -are mere tools in the hands of the *real* Governments, and -Mr Roberts has probably found out by now, if he did not -suspect it when he accepted office, that he is paid to do as -he is told. If he really knew anything about the cause of -high prices, and were determined to use his knowledge for -the benefit of the country, he would not remain in office -for ten days. But consider what he says. The -Government--*i.e.* the Ministers of the Crown---represent in -theory the collective interest of the nation. They are -always saying so, so it must be true. Is there any -collective interest of the nation which is more immediate -and more vital than that of food prices? If the Government -has no power over prices--*i.e.* if knowing that there is a -sufficiency of the articles required, in existence, they -cannot get those articles distributed without making an -immense quantity of goods for other countries which are not -asking for them, and whose population, in any event, these -Ministers do not represent, if, in other words, they cannot -affect or modify the most elementary functions of -society---then who can modify them? And, if the real rulers -of society are not in the Government, but behind the -Government, who elected them, what interest do they -represent, and what is the good of, say, Mr Roberts? We feel -sure that Mr Roberts is convinced that it would be much -better not to inquire too deeply into these matters, but at -the same time he must recognise that he is certain to be -asked about them sooner or later. We suggest, therefore, -that the sooner the Hidden Governments of the world are -brought out into the open, and a decision is obtained on -points which really matter, the sooner we shall know what -sort of a New-World-for-heroes we are likely to get. At the -moment it requires heroism for any but Cabinet Ministers to -live in it. +Before, therefore, the League of Nations can be constituted as that +League in the interest of Free Persons, which it pretends to be, but is +not, we have to place the Machine at the disposal of the Man. Given that +essential, we can design or alter the Machine with the single object +that it shall be the best Machine with which to attain a result having +the full approval of the individuals without whose co-operation it +cannot work, and this will involve not one organisation but many +organisations in which the relation of the individual to the +organisation is not dissimilar to that of a man who is a director of +several and possibly widely differing companies. If he does not approve +of them he resigns, and if a sufficient number of persons resign and are +not replaced, then the activities of that concern are clearly not +desirable, and it goes out of existence. Now the project at present +known as the League of Nations can be seen to be the converse of all +this; if the individual or the nation does not approve of the objective +of the League (which rests on a purely abstract and improbable +assumption that its personnel not only represents the highest wisdom but +an unearthly disinterestedness), then that individual or that nation is +eliminated, so that in theory no effective will remains save that which +reaches its highest expression in the apex of the perfect Pyramid of +Power, which is its object. We repeat, therefore, that in this project +is the greatest and probably the final attempt to enslave the world, an +attempt which is exactly similar, and probably proceeds from exactly the +same International source, as the attempt so recently failed, in which +the German people were tools, blameworthy just to the extent that they +allowed themselves to become tools; and we believe that while it must +finally fail, the measure of the misery in which its trial would plunge +the world is such as to dwarf the horrors of the years so recently +endured. We do not, therefore, agree with Mr Balfour, either that the +League of Nations must come, or that there is no alternative to it, and +we trust that the community in whose hands may lie the power will not be +so blinded by the fine words in which its description is enveloped as to +miss the meaning of the thing which is behind them. + +The most important report, issued by the United States Council of +National Defence, entitled *An Analysis of the High Cost of Living +Problem*, is a document (we are sorry to say), as might be expected, +incomparably in advance of any similar official pronouncement which has +appeared in this country. After pointing out that the problem is so +interrelated with others that its consideration opens up the entire +field of reconstruction, it goes on to remark that it is neither a new +problem nor (under existing circumstances) transitory in character. +Proceeding, it explains, in an excellently concise manner, the form of +currency inflation which is produced by the lavish distribution of money +unrepresented by ultimate products in *personal* demand (which is +exactly the situation our super-producers are striving to foster, +whether by ignorance or otherwise is immaterial), and remarks "with +dismay on the general flood of misinformation, half complete information +and undiluted ignorance which... pervades the land regarding our current +economic situation." We agree entirely with all this, and while the +conclusions which the report draws as to the steps to be taken to deal +with the situation are not so impressive (quite possibly for reasons +over which the individuals who framed the report had little control), +there is none of the glib claptrap about them which we are doomed to +suffer in similar circumstances in this country. Compare all this with +the solemn pronouncements of our only Mr G. H. Roberts. After admitting +that food is, on the whole, abundant, and that its alleged scarcity has +little to do with high prices (a piece of information he might have +derived from us about a year ago), he admits sadly that "it is +undoubtedly true that at the present time the increase in supply has not +brought about the decline that was expected by many... in fact prices, +so far from declining, have remained high, or shown some tendency to +increase." + +After numbing his hearers with a mass of statistics to prove that we +ought to be thankful that we are not worse off---most of which, when +exchange is considered, prove exactly that we *are* worse off than our +neighbours---he goes on to make the original suggestion that the cure is +more production for export. Let us paraphrase Mr Roberts, and explain +him to himself, as he clearly requires explaining. He admits that there +is a sufficiency of goods. He even allows it to be gathered that supply +is being restricted by artificial means. He knows that the world is +complaining of high prices. He knows, if he will keep quite quiet, and +think for a few minutes, that prices ultimately represent work, +man-hours of labour. As a remedy for a complaint that prices +representing work are too high, although he is being asked to distribute +goods which already exist in sufficient quantity, he recommends more +work, much more work, to be applied to the making of unspecified +articles, in order to export the result out of the community which has +performed that work. Mr Roberts concludes by assuring the Conference +that they may be confident that the Ministry of Food is doing everything +in its power to keep down prices, and that the power of the Government +is strictly limited in this respect. + +We have no doubt Mr Roberts is entirely honest in making these latter +statements, and, moreover, that, as distinct from his earlier remarks, +he is entirely correct. Both the Ministry of Food and the ostensible +Government, as a whole, are mere tools in the hands of the *real* +Governments, and Mr Roberts has probably found out by now, if he did not +suspect it when he accepted office, that he is paid to do as he is told. +If he really knew anything about the cause of high prices, and were +determined to use his knowledge for the benefit of the country, he would +not remain in office for ten days. But consider what he says. The +Government--*i.e.* the Ministers of the Crown---represent in theory the +collective interest of the nation. They are always saying so, so it must +be true. Is there any collective interest of the nation which is more +immediate and more vital than that of food prices? If the Government has +no power over prices--*i.e.* if knowing that there is a sufficiency of +the articles required, in existence, they cannot get those articles +distributed without making an immense quantity of goods for other +countries which are not asking for them, and whose population, in any +event, these Ministers do not represent, if, in other words, they cannot +affect or modify the most elementary functions of society---then who can +modify them? And, if the real rulers of society are not in the +Government, but behind the Government, who elected them, what interest +do they represent, and what is the good of, say, Mr Roberts? We feel +sure that Mr Roberts is convinced that it would be much better not to +inquire too deeply into these matters, but at the same time he must +recognise that he is certain to be asked about them sooner or later. We +suggest, therefore, that the sooner the Hidden Governments of the world +are brought out into the open, and a decision is obtained on points +which really matter, the sooner we shall know what sort of a +New-World-for-heroes we are likely to get. At the moment it requires +heroism for any but Cabinet Ministers to live in it. # A Commentary on World Politics (II) -Readers of these pages who are also readers of *The Daily -Telegraph* will not have failed to notice the columns in the -issue of that estimable journal signed by Sir Oswald Stoll. -He asks in parenthesis, "Who can deny that we are on the -verge of a great financial and economic crisis?" and goes on -to say, "Hundreds of enterprises are held up by costs too -high to admit of sane capitalisation! Thousands of -enterprises necessary to keep the economic wheel revolving -are on the brink of failure *because they cannot buy cheaply -or sell dearly enough*." (Our italics.) After observing that -" Financiers' finance, with its checkmates by rival groups, -is ruining the country," and that"the aim of National -Finance should be some prosperity for all Nationals, not all -prosperity for some Internationals," he points out the -solution "...a true conception of National Finance and -National Credit." This is all very gratifying to our -prescience, if not to our humanitarianism. We have been -saying much the same sort of thing publicly for four and a -half years, and we think it highly probable that the "sane -Labour leaders" who preside at Eccleston Square and -elsewhere will hear from the brainy fellows who comprise -their official and unofficial general staff that Sir Oswald -Stoll is in league with us, or *vice versa*. But they will, -if only on this occasion, be wrong---not only has that happy -consummation still to be reached, but, in the meantime, -while agreeing absolutely with all the quotations cited -above, and many others which space forbids us to include, we -disagree totally with the conclusion drawn from them---that -"Production on the great scale will save us." Now, some -months ago, there appeared in the pages of *Credit Power and -Democracy* this statement: "In spite of the apparent lack of -enthusiasm with which any attempt to examine the subject of -credit and price control is apt to be received in the -immediate present, there is no doubt whatever that its -paramount importance will within a very short time be -recognised, although perhaps not so quickly by British -Labour as elsewhere. *The real struggle is going to take -place not as to the necessity of these controls, hut as to -whether they shall he in the hands of the producer or the -consumer.*" That is just exactly the point at which we join -issue with Sir Oswald StoU, and the super-Productionists. -The practical implication of their policy is a continuous -rise in the level of prices of necessaries; we look to a +Readers of these pages who are also readers of *The Daily Telegraph* +will not have failed to notice the columns in the issue of that +estimable journal signed by Sir Oswald Stoll. He asks in parenthesis, +"Who can deny that we are on the verge of a great financial and economic +crisis?" and goes on to say, "Hundreds of enterprises are held up by +costs too high to admit of sane capitalisation! Thousands of enterprises +necessary to keep the economic wheel revolving are on the brink of +failure *because they cannot buy cheaply or sell dearly enough*." (Our +italics.) After observing that " Financiers' finance, with its +checkmates by rival groups, is ruining the country," and that"the aim of +National Finance should be some prosperity for all Nationals, not all +prosperity for some Internationals," he points out the solution "...a +true conception of National Finance and National Credit." This is all +very gratifying to our prescience, if not to our humanitarianism. We +have been saying much the same sort of thing publicly for four and a +half years, and we think it highly probable that the "sane Labour +leaders" who preside at Eccleston Square and elsewhere will hear from +the brainy fellows who comprise their official and unofficial general +staff that Sir Oswald Stoll is in league with us, or *vice versa*. But +they will, if only on this occasion, be wrong---not only has that happy +consummation still to be reached, but, in the meantime, while agreeing +absolutely with all the quotations cited above, and many others which +space forbids us to include, we disagree totally with the conclusion +drawn from them---that "Production on the great scale will save us." +Now, some months ago, there appeared in the pages of *Credit Power and +Democracy* this statement: "In spite of the apparent lack of enthusiasm +with which any attempt to examine the subject of credit and price +control is apt to be received in the immediate present, there is no +doubt whatever that its paramount importance will within a very short +time be recognised, although perhaps not so quickly by British Labour as +elsewhere. *The real struggle is going to take place not as to the +necessity of these controls, hut as to whether they shall he in the +hands of the producer or the consumer.*" That is just exactly the point +at which we join issue with Sir Oswald StoU, and the +super-Productionists. The practical implication of their policy is a +continuous rise in the level of prices of necessaries; we look to a continuous fall in such prices. -We believe it is no longer necessary to labour the point -that whoever controls credit controls economic policy; and -it follows as a simple syllogism that just to the extent -that control of food, clothes and housing is control of -society, so producer-control of credit means the enslavement -of society to Industrialism; whereas the whole world now -rocks to its social base in an effort to subdue the dragon -of the industrial machine in order that men may be free. Any -housewife who ordered from her tradesmen "as much as you can -send me of everything" would be deserving of, and would -receive, reprobation, even in a time of scarcity; but where -the real capacity for supply is far in excess of any real -demand, such an individual would be in danger of -certification as insane. The public is the housewife, and -its business is to order the right quantities of the right -things in the right order, and to see that it gets them; not -simply "More." The productive system is easily capable of -giving the public what it wants, if only producers can be -salved from the unlimited task of giving the public what it -doesn't want--*e.g.* "employment." The existing financial -system exists by seeing that the public never gets quite -enough of any one thing it wants; by constantly diverting -the productive organisation before it has time to finish any -one task; or else "sabotaging" the output; and while we -require for this reason at the moment "more" of the -fundamental necessaries of life, we do not require an -indefinite amount even of these. As has so often been -emphasised in the foregoing pages,; the whole problem -fundamentally resolves itself into providing an organisation -to get first: things first, with the minimum of trouble to -everyone. +We believe it is no longer necessary to labour the point that whoever +controls credit controls economic policy; and it follows as a simple +syllogism that just to the extent that control of food, clothes and +housing is control of society, so producer-control of credit means the +enslavement of society to Industrialism; whereas the whole world now +rocks to its social base in an effort to subdue the dragon of the +industrial machine in order that men may be free. Any housewife who +ordered from her tradesmen "as much as you can send me of everything" +would be deserving of, and would receive, reprobation, even in a time of +scarcity; but where the real capacity for supply is far in excess of any +real demand, such an individual would be in danger of certification as +insane. The public is the housewife, and its business is to order the +right quantities of the right things in the right order, and to see that +it gets them; not simply "More." The productive system is easily capable +of giving the public what it wants, if only producers can be salved from +the unlimited task of giving the public what it doesn't want--*e.g.* +"employment." The existing financial system exists by seeing that the +public never gets quite enough of any one thing it wants; by constantly +diverting the productive organisation before it has time to finish any +one task; or else "sabotaging" the output; and while we require for this +reason at the moment "more" of the fundamental necessaries of life, we +do not require an indefinite amount even of these. As has so often been +emphasised in the foregoing pages,; the whole problem fundamentally +resolves itself into providing an organisation to get first: things +first, with the minimum of trouble to everyone. One of the vital means to that end is to throw overboard the -superstition that "employment" is the inevitable condition -antecedent to "pay," and for this reason we welcome the -support given by the numerous local Trades and Labour -Councils to the resolution put forward by the Minimum Income -League on the agenda of the Annual Labour Party Conference -recently held at Scarborough. To students of the psychology -alike of industrial and of world movements (which is, in -essence, identical) it requires an effort to avoid cynicism -at the similarity in the real aims of orthodox Socialism and -ultra-Capitalism. The idolater of the State says: "I will -make it impossible for you to live except you conform to my -standard of conduct." Lord Leverhulme, amongst others, says -very little, but, being more capable, obtains world control -of essential products, and lays down a policy both for his -employees and those who must have his goods. Bismarck -understood the situation perfectly when, in speaking of the -German Socialist Party, he observed: "We march separately, -but we conquer together." The will-to-govern is identical in -each case. Against this essentially insolent tyranny, the -*idea* underlying, *inter alia*, the Minimum Income -proposal, is the only defence, and we therefore congratulate -its authors on the excellence of their achievement in -planting it in somewhat difficult soil. But having said so -much, we are bound to point out the ineffectiveness of the -suggested *mechanism*, which is based on the error, made in -company with others such as Professor Bowley, who, we think, -ought to know better, that the national income equals the -sum of the price-values of the national production. - -*This would he true if all wages, salaries and dividends -charged to production were used, at the instant they were -earned, to buy the production in respect of which they are -earned.* But they are not so used, and on this gap between -production and delivery, which the complexity of modern -co-operative production is widening, a mass of credit -purchasing power is erected which never appears as income at -all, and which is completely ignored by such proposals as -that which we are considering. If A ordered a house off B, -and B, having built it, lived in it for ten years and then -insisted on charging his rent to A in a lump-sum addition to -the price, A would probably complain; but when B put his -overhead charges, the rent of his control of production, -into the price of bricks for A's garage, A seems to regard -it as an act of God, or, alternatively, of the King's -enemies. Possibly he is right in both cases, but that does -not alter the fact that A is being asked to pay, in prices, -for something---viz. a period of use-value, past, and -therefore destroyed and non-existent---of which the -*effective* purchasing power never was distributed either as -wages, salaries, or dividends--*i.e.* income---therefore -income will not buy it. What may remain is the credit-value -of this period of use, its assistance to future production, -which may form a solid basis for a distribution of -purchasing power possibly much in excess of the use-value -charged in prices; but A gets none of this. - -We admit the elusiveness of the argument; it is one of those -conceptions which, like the differential co-efficient in -mathematics, to which it has a strong family resemblance, -comes suddenly rather than by intellectual explanation. But -it is, without any doubt whatever, of the essence of the -contract, and failing provision to deal with it, we are -bound to agree with the dictum of an opponent of the scheme -in the correspondence columns of *The Times* who -characterised the proposal (to pool 20%, of every income, -dividing the pool equally over the whole population) as -being the heaviest direct tax on the poor ever invented. The -Minimum Income League has a great cause to fight for, and we -are confident that its progenitors, if they will concentrate -on the problem, can so modify their proposals as to still -further assist in gaining a great victory; and in any event -we wish them luck. The fundamental point at issue will be -still further brought into prominence by the next move in -the strategy of the hard-shell Capitalists, which will be to -concede unemployment maintenance to wage-earners in -consideration of the removal of all restrictions upon output -and the acceptance of payment by results---an arrangement -which really means the formation of comprehensive low salary -lists, plus a percentage commission on output. We are not so -much concerned to point out that this arrangement makes men -"slaves" to an imposed industrial policy, because a large -number of human beings are slaves already and quite a number -of them like it; but it is quite certainly a most ingenious -device to keep them slaves, whether they like it or not, and -we are sorry to see that the Building Guilds, which have -been started in London as well as in Manchester, do not seem -to grasp that fact, in their rather naive satisfaction at -having incorporated the same principle in their -constitution. The important point is not whether John -Pushemup, of Messrs Cubitts, for example, builds houses or -Mr James Articraft, of the London Building Guild, builds -them---without knowing anything of the executive capacity of -either, we do not know which is the right man for the job. -But we do know that it makes very little difference to the -result, after an initial short period, which organisation -makes the rules, if either of them is in a position to lay -down conditions to the public as to the use of the houses -after they are built. That is exactly what this maintenance -pay idea amounts to---that we shall all be nicely fed, -watered, groomed and stabled if we will leave policy to the -productive organisations; and the pity of it all is that it -won't work. - -Some years ago one of the largest State-owned industrial -organisations in this country imported from a commercial -firm the idea of the suggestion box, into which any employee -of any grade from the highest to the lowest was invited to -place any proposal either for the smoother and more -efficient running of the organisation or for improvement in -the processes of manufacture. An elected Committee was set -up to deal with the matter, and a fund, for which a -Government grant was obtained, provided a source from which -rewards, varying from a few shillings to several hundred -pounds, could be paid. On the whole, the scheme was a -failure. During the first year of its life a flood of -suggestions, good, bad and indifferent, from the Selection -Committee's point of view, were submitted, many of them were -paid for and some of them were acted upon. The second year -showed a great falling off both in number and quality, and -in subsequent years a mere trickle of, in general, -impracticable proposals, usually emanating from new-comers, -was the only output, and what was probably worse, the -general run of workmen in the undertaking openly derided the -plan as a scheme to "suck their brains." (This in a -"Nationalised" undertaking!) As a consequence of -considerable familiarity with this and similar devices, we -have no hesitation whatever in saying that the main cause of -failure was not inadequacy of reward, or even -dissatisfaction with the decisions of the Selection -Committee, although both of these were alleged; but was -rather a subconscious irritation at the complete impotence -of the authors of the suggestions to superintend the process -of giving their ideas a run. Now, each of these suggestions, -where they were original, betrayed nascent initiative, and -it is out of personal initiative that all progress of any -description must come. In the case we have just instanced, -it was possible to watch the strangling of initiative taking -place; and the explanation was also obvious----that the -great mass of individuals will not risk economic -disaster---the loss of their job---for the sake of an idea. -But it is highly probable that many most valuable additions -to the knowledge of industrial organisation and processes -were thereby lost to the community and are daily so being -lost; and only the grant of economic independence and the -consequent freeing of personal initiative will stop this -immensely important channel of social waste. - -That estimable journal *The Spectator* recently started a -sort of symposium on the subject of "the Jewish Peril," both -the book which has recently been published under that name -and the hypothetical thing itself. Most people are no doubt -familiar with the general legend, if legend it be; it was -the core of the Dreyfus case, which convulsed France some -years ago, and is constantly reappearing in the guise of the -Hidden Hand stories of various descriptions which crop up at -any time of national crisis. - -It presupposes the existence of great secret organisations -bent on the acquisition of world-empire and the overthrow of -their "enemies," and directed by immensely wise men with all -the power which an almost superhuman knowledge of psychology -can bestow. Such an organisation would be capable of using -Governments as its tools and the lives of men as the raw -material for the fashioning of its projects. Like *The -Spectator*, we have no means of knowing how much of this -idea is pure moonshine, or even whether the whole matter is -a malignant stimulus to anti-Semitism; but, with that -journal, we can understand that it *might* have some -foundation in fact, and that, as it puts the matter, we have -a good many more Jews in important positions in this country -than we deserve. And not only in this country, but in every -country, certain ideas which are the gravest possible menace -to humanity---ideas which can be traced through the -propaganda of Collectivism to the idea of the Supreme, -impersonal State, to which every individual must bow---seem -to derive a good deal of their most active, intelligent -support from Jewish sources, while at the same time a grim -struggle is proceeding in the great international financial -groups, many of which are purely Jewish, for the acquisition -of key positions from which to control the World-State when -formed. We are anxious not to be misunderstood. We do not -believe for a single instant that the average British Jew -would countenance such schemes for a single moment, but in -view of the curiously circumstantial evidence which is put -forward to support such theories, and the immense importance -of the issues involved, we agree that it is very much better -that as much daylight should be allowed to play on the -matter as may be necessary to clear it up. The alternative -will be an outbreak of popular fury in which the innocent -will suffer with the guilty, if there be any such. - -It is always difficult to know how much weight to attach to -Press expressions of public opinion in the United States, -and that difficulty is greatly enhanced at this time both by -the immanence of the Presidential elections, and the -selective censorship which our own Press exercises in its -quotations. But there seems no reason to doubt the general -truth of the impression which is conveyed both by them and -by a perusal of the American political reviews, that -anti-British feeling is steadily gaining ground, not only, -and not even so much, in the eastern cities such as New -York, Boston and Philadelphia, but in the Middle West and on -the Pacific coast. Because of the constant flow of passenger -traffic between Europe and the Eastern States, and the -consequent tendency of European newspapers to quote American -journals with which they are familiar, there is an -impression prevalent that the centre of gravity of American -action is resident along the Atlantic seaboard. Such an idea -is probably far more mistaken than to imagine, for instance, -that London opinion is British opinion. All through the -Middle West, including such considerable cities as Chicago -and Milwaukee, there is an actual numerical preponderance of -people of definitely anti-British extraction---Milwaukee, in -particular, is overwhelmingly German, while Chicago is -politically in the hands of Irish emigrants largely of a -generation having much greater and more solid grounds for -hatred of British Governments than any which exist to-day. -This population has on the whole not done well out of the -war; it is hit by high prices, and irritated by all sorts of -hindrances to peaceful progress, ranging from Labour -troubles to a moribund railway system and a Negro problem. -Such a soil is the perfect matrix of an international -hatred, and the seed of such a hatred, already dormant, is -being cultivated with a skill and assiduity which should -command our attention, if not our admiration. AH sorts of -misrepresentation both of fact and of policy, particularly -in respect of Ireland, Egypt and India, are circulated with -an utter disregard either of essential truth or contingent -circumstances. On the Pacific Coast, where Japanese -expansion is an obsession, our alliance with that country is -a special reason for dislike, and is exploited to the -utmost. This is not the place to examine at length the -motives behind the persistent efforts to embitter the -relations between Great Britain and the North American -Republic---we have referred to some of them in previous -issues---but to anyone who realises, as we do, the appalling -horrors to which their success must lead, the situation is -one to excite the gravest concern. +superstition that "employment" is the inevitable condition antecedent to +"pay," and for this reason we welcome the support given by the numerous +local Trades and Labour Councils to the resolution put forward by the +Minimum Income League on the agenda of the Annual Labour Party +Conference recently held at Scarborough. To students of the psychology +alike of industrial and of world movements (which is, in essence, +identical) it requires an effort to avoid cynicism at the similarity in +the real aims of orthodox Socialism and ultra-Capitalism. The idolater +of the State says: "I will make it impossible for you to live except you +conform to my standard of conduct." Lord Leverhulme, amongst others, +says very little, but, being more capable, obtains world control of +essential products, and lays down a policy both for his employees and +those who must have his goods. Bismarck understood the situation +perfectly when, in speaking of the German Socialist Party, he observed: +"We march separately, but we conquer together." The will-to-govern is +identical in each case. Against this essentially insolent tyranny, the +*idea* underlying, *inter alia*, the Minimum Income proposal, is the +only defence, and we therefore congratulate its authors on the +excellence of their achievement in planting it in somewhat difficult +soil. But having said so much, we are bound to point out the +ineffectiveness of the suggested *mechanism*, which is based on the +error, made in company with others such as Professor Bowley, who, we +think, ought to know better, that the national income equals the sum of +the price-values of the national production. + +*This would he true if all wages, salaries and dividends charged to +production were used, at the instant they were earned, to buy the +production in respect of which they are earned.* But they are not so +used, and on this gap between production and delivery, which the +complexity of modern co-operative production is widening, a mass of +credit purchasing power is erected which never appears as income at all, +and which is completely ignored by such proposals as that which we are +considering. If A ordered a house off B, and B, having built it, lived +in it for ten years and then insisted on charging his rent to A in a +lump-sum addition to the price, A would probably complain; but when B +put his overhead charges, the rent of his control of production, into +the price of bricks for A's garage, A seems to regard it as an act of +God, or, alternatively, of the King's enemies. Possibly he is right in +both cases, but that does not alter the fact that A is being asked to +pay, in prices, for something---viz. a period of use-value, past, and +therefore destroyed and non-existent---of which the *effective* +purchasing power never was distributed either as wages, salaries, or +dividends--*i.e.* income---therefore income will not buy it. What may +remain is the credit-value of this period of use, its assistance to +future production, which may form a solid basis for a distribution of +purchasing power possibly much in excess of the use-value charged in +prices; but A gets none of this. + +We admit the elusiveness of the argument; it is one of those conceptions +which, like the differential co-efficient in mathematics, to which it +has a strong family resemblance, comes suddenly rather than by +intellectual explanation. But it is, without any doubt whatever, of the +essence of the contract, and failing provision to deal with it, we are +bound to agree with the dictum of an opponent of the scheme in the +correspondence columns of *The Times* who characterised the proposal (to +pool 20%, of every income, dividing the pool equally over the whole +population) as being the heaviest direct tax on the poor ever invented. +The Minimum Income League has a great cause to fight for, and we are +confident that its progenitors, if they will concentrate on the problem, +can so modify their proposals as to still further assist in gaining a +great victory; and in any event we wish them luck. The fundamental point +at issue will be still further brought into prominence by the next move +in the strategy of the hard-shell Capitalists, which will be to concede +unemployment maintenance to wage-earners in consideration of the removal +of all restrictions upon output and the acceptance of payment by +results---an arrangement which really means the formation of +comprehensive low salary lists, plus a percentage commission on output. +We are not so much concerned to point out that this arrangement makes +men "slaves" to an imposed industrial policy, because a large number of +human beings are slaves already and quite a number of them like it; but +it is quite certainly a most ingenious device to keep them slaves, +whether they like it or not, and we are sorry to see that the Building +Guilds, which have been started in London as well as in Manchester, do +not seem to grasp that fact, in their rather naive satisfaction at +having incorporated the same principle in their constitution. The +important point is not whether John Pushemup, of Messrs Cubitts, for +example, builds houses or Mr James Articraft, of the London Building +Guild, builds them---without knowing anything of the executive capacity +of either, we do not know which is the right man for the job. But we do +know that it makes very little difference to the result, after an +initial short period, which organisation makes the rules, if either of +them is in a position to lay down conditions to the public as to the use +of the houses after they are built. That is exactly what this +maintenance pay idea amounts to---that we shall all be nicely fed, +watered, groomed and stabled if we will leave policy to the productive +organisations; and the pity of it all is that it won't work. + +Some years ago one of the largest State-owned industrial organisations +in this country imported from a commercial firm the idea of the +suggestion box, into which any employee of any grade from the highest to +the lowest was invited to place any proposal either for the smoother and +more efficient running of the organisation or for improvement in the +processes of manufacture. An elected Committee was set up to deal with +the matter, and a fund, for which a Government grant was obtained, +provided a source from which rewards, varying from a few shillings to +several hundred pounds, could be paid. On the whole, the scheme was a +failure. During the first year of its life a flood of suggestions, good, +bad and indifferent, from the Selection Committee's point of view, were +submitted, many of them were paid for and some of them were acted upon. +The second year showed a great falling off both in number and quality, +and in subsequent years a mere trickle of, in general, impracticable +proposals, usually emanating from new-comers, was the only output, and +what was probably worse, the general run of workmen in the undertaking +openly derided the plan as a scheme to "suck their brains." (This in a +"Nationalised" undertaking!) As a consequence of considerable +familiarity with this and similar devices, we have no hesitation +whatever in saying that the main cause of failure was not inadequacy of +reward, or even dissatisfaction with the decisions of the Selection +Committee, although both of these were alleged; but was rather a +subconscious irritation at the complete impotence of the authors of the +suggestions to superintend the process of giving their ideas a run. Now, +each of these suggestions, where they were original, betrayed nascent +initiative, and it is out of personal initiative that all progress of +any description must come. In the case we have just instanced, it was +possible to watch the strangling of initiative taking place; and the +explanation was also obvious----that the great mass of individuals will +not risk economic disaster---the loss of their job---for the sake of an +idea. But it is highly probable that many most valuable additions to the +knowledge of industrial organisation and processes were thereby lost to +the community and are daily so being lost; and only the grant of +economic independence and the consequent freeing of personal initiative +will stop this immensely important channel of social waste. + +That estimable journal *The Spectator* recently started a sort of +symposium on the subject of "the Jewish Peril," both the book which has +recently been published under that name and the hypothetical thing +itself. Most people are no doubt familiar with the general legend, if +legend it be; it was the core of the Dreyfus case, which convulsed +France some years ago, and is constantly reappearing in the guise of the +Hidden Hand stories of various descriptions which crop up at any time of +national crisis. + +It presupposes the existence of great secret organisations bent on the +acquisition of world-empire and the overthrow of their "enemies," and +directed by immensely wise men with all the power which an almost +superhuman knowledge of psychology can bestow. Such an organisation +would be capable of using Governments as its tools and the lives of men +as the raw material for the fashioning of its projects. Like *The +Spectator*, we have no means of knowing how much of this idea is pure +moonshine, or even whether the whole matter is a malignant stimulus to +anti-Semitism; but, with that journal, we can understand that it *might* +have some foundation in fact, and that, as it puts the matter, we have a +good many more Jews in important positions in this country than we +deserve. And not only in this country, but in every country, certain +ideas which are the gravest possible menace to humanity---ideas which +can be traced through the propaganda of Collectivism to the idea of the +Supreme, impersonal State, to which every individual must bow---seem to +derive a good deal of their most active, intelligent support from Jewish +sources, while at the same time a grim struggle is proceeding in the +great international financial groups, many of which are purely Jewish, +for the acquisition of key positions from which to control the +World-State when formed. We are anxious not to be misunderstood. We do +not believe for a single instant that the average British Jew would +countenance such schemes for a single moment, but in view of the +curiously circumstantial evidence which is put forward to support such +theories, and the immense importance of the issues involved, we agree +that it is very much better that as much daylight should be allowed to +play on the matter as may be necessary to clear it up. The alternative +will be an outbreak of popular fury in which the innocent will suffer +with the guilty, if there be any such. + +It is always difficult to know how much weight to attach to Press +expressions of public opinion in the United States, and that difficulty +is greatly enhanced at this time both by the immanence of the +Presidential elections, and the selective censorship which our own Press +exercises in its quotations. But there seems no reason to doubt the +general truth of the impression which is conveyed both by them and by a +perusal of the American political reviews, that anti-British feeling is +steadily gaining ground, not only, and not even so much, in the eastern +cities such as New York, Boston and Philadelphia, but in the Middle West +and on the Pacific coast. Because of the constant flow of passenger +traffic between Europe and the Eastern States, and the consequent +tendency of European newspapers to quote American journals with which +they are familiar, there is an impression prevalent that the centre of +gravity of American action is resident along the Atlantic seaboard. Such +an idea is probably far more mistaken than to imagine, for instance, +that London opinion is British opinion. All through the Middle West, +including such considerable cities as Chicago and Milwaukee, there is an +actual numerical preponderance of people of definitely anti-British +extraction---Milwaukee, in particular, is overwhelmingly German, while +Chicago is politically in the hands of Irish emigrants largely of a +generation having much greater and more solid grounds for hatred of +British Governments than any which exist to-day. This population has on +the whole not done well out of the war; it is hit by high prices, and +irritated by all sorts of hindrances to peaceful progress, ranging from +Labour troubles to a moribund railway system and a Negro problem. Such a +soil is the perfect matrix of an international hatred, and the seed of +such a hatred, already dormant, is being cultivated with a skill and +assiduity which should command our attention, if not our admiration. AH +sorts of misrepresentation both of fact and of policy, particularly in +respect of Ireland, Egypt and India, are circulated with an utter +disregard either of essential truth or contingent circumstances. On the +Pacific Coast, where Japanese expansion is an obsession, our alliance +with that country is a special reason for dislike, and is exploited to +the utmost. This is not the place to examine at length the motives +behind the persistent efforts to embitter the relations between Great +Britain and the North American Republic---we have referred to some of +them in previous issues---but to anyone who realises, as we do, the +appalling horrors to which their success must lead, the situation is one +to excite the gravest concern. # A Commentary on World Politics (III) -Sir Oswald Stoll returns to his attack on the system of -credit-control by financial groups, and although, as we said -in a previous comment, we are quite assured that the -proposals he adumbrates in his campaign are *by themselves* -worse than useless as a cure for the present situation, we -welcome the attention he cannot fail to attract to the -problem as a whole. His text, in this case, is a quotation -from a speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which -the financiers are openly implored, as the controllers of -the situation, to conserve "Capital" by which, from the -context, it is obvious that the Chancellor means credit. It -is a remarkable speech, and Sir Oswald is probably correct -in stating that never before did a Chancellor of the -Exchequer acknowledge in set terms the absolute control of -the Government and the country by the financial community. -Just think what it means. Two or three great groups of banks -and issuing houses controlled by men, in many cases alien, -and even anti-British alien, by birth and tradition, -international in their interests and quite definitely -anti-public in their policy, not elected and not subject to -dismissal, able to set at naught the plans of governments; -producing nothing, and yet controlling all production. We do -not believe that there is a single considerable commercial -organisation in this country or America, however apparently -prosperous, which could live for two years against the -active hostility of half-a-dozen of these men. To such. -Ministers of the Crown are servants appointed to take -orders, and dismissed if they are negligent in the execution -of them; wars, famine and desolation are simply mechanisms -by the aid of which their control is conserved. Consider the -railway systems of America: twenty years ago giving promise -of forming a model transportation system; to-day, looted, -sacked and exhausted by one financial raid after another, -they are almost *in extremis*, and only maintain a service -which is a mockery to technical capacity, by means of a -grant from the public purse of a sum substantially equal to -the original cost of their construction. Every one of the -groups which were directly responsible for this result is -represented in the city of London, and is included in the -Chancellor's reference, just as they are represented in -Paris and Berlin, and probably Moscow. Meanwhile, Dean Inge -deplores the failure of democracy, and the Labour Party -agrees that what we really want is more production, and the -building trade gets on with building more---factories. - -We have always held that in America, where irresponsible -financial control has been most blatant, and the results of -it, taking natural resources into consideration, more -obviously disastrous than even in Europe, there would come -the first clear-cut and dangerous challenge to the system; -and the modest little announcement which has crept into the -London Press that representatives of a new party opposing -the Democrats and Republicans alike, and not in sympathy -with the Socialists, will meet at Chicago to nominate a -Presidential candidate, is, if we mistake not, a -justification of this opinion. The power behind this new -movement is a composite one, involving the Non-Partisan -League (which is definitely in possession of the machinery -of government in North Dakota; is said to control Minnesota, -and is steadily gaining ground in several other of the -States of the Middle West), and a number of the Labour -unions, including the Railroad Brotherhoods, who have -revolted from the leadership of the egregious Mr Samuel -Gompers, the latter individual undoubtedly one of the most -valuable assets the trusts possess. "With these bodies are -associated the Co-operative movement, the Consumers' League, -and several quasi-religious organisations for social -service, the whole making up a body of opinion which, if -time permits, is definitely powerful enough to carry the -policy it represents---essentially that of the public -control of credit and price-making---against any other -single party of the Republic. - -Mr Gompers, who is no mean politician, and is fully alive to -the fact that his popularity is waning, has himself raised -the credit issue with a demand for producer-control, -coupling his platform with a political strategy which, -consists in urging his followers to support any candidate, -either Democrat or Republican, who will pledge himself to -assist in obtaining it, thus forming, in intention, a -coalition against the new party of Economic Democracy. How -far American trade unionists will thus allow themselves to -be spoofed only time can tell, but the result of this -alignment should be a matter of most absorbing interest, not -only in the United States, but in this country, for it is -not too much to say that the peace of the world and the -future of civilisation may be involved in the outcome of the -struggle. - -A deputation from the League to Abolish War, consisting, -amongst others, of Mr G. N. Barnes, M.P., and Mr Frank -Hodges, of the Miners' Federation, waited on the Prime -Minister in June 1920 for the purpose of urging upon him the -necessity of an International Police Force to do the bidding -of the League of Nations. It is, at first sight, a little -difficult to understand the mentality of Labour -representatives who, while professing to be profoundly -dissatisfied with the existing state of society, and -constantly concerned to accuse the Governments of all -countries outside, perhaps, Russia, of acting in the -interests of the Capitalist system which they condemn (an -accusation which is probably justified), and of using the -police and other armed forces for the purpose of buttressing -their power, yet propose to set up a mechanism expressly -designed to make revolt against such Government impossible. - -We are not, for the moment, criticising the proposal itself; -we are merely considering the support of it by official -representatives of a party openly pledged to revolutionise -society. Now, assuming, as we are quite willing to assume, -that both Mr Barnes and Mr Hodges are perfectly honest both -in their desire for a better state of society and for the -abolition of war, and that not being merely irresponsible -lunatics, they have some reasons for figuring on such a -deputation, it becomes of interest to see how they reconcile -the fact that revolutionary Labour is notoriously unable to -capture existing police forces, with a desire to build up a -police force which is *ex hypothesi* incorruptible. We -believe the reason to be twofold. In the first place, Mr -Barnes and Mr Hodges no doubt believe that they represent a -Labour Party which is coming into political power all the -world over, and that therefore they will control this police -force; and secondly, they confuse a remedial, if appalling, -symptom, war, for the disease which causes it, much as one -might ignorantly say that spots on the skin constitute -measles. - -Both of these reasons are demonstrably unsound; we will -endeavour to show why. A modern Trade Union represents, not -a body of individuals, but a monopoly more or less complete -of an essential factor in production--*i.e.* -Labour---differing in no respect in principle from a trust -monopoly of, say, sugar, and Mr Barnes and Mr Hodges, in so -far as they represent or have represented trade unions, -represent this functional monopoly just as truly as the -chairman or secretary of the sugar trust represents a sugar -monopoly, and the object of both is identical---viz. to -exploit the public, the consumer. There is not anyone else -to exploit; the employer is utterly incapable of carrying a -25%, rise in wages for a month if lie does not recover it -from the public, and, conversely, will joyously grant any -percentage of wage increase if he is assured that prices -will recoup him. The party, if it can be so called, which is -undoubtedly coming into power in the next few years all over -the world, therefore, is not the "Labour" Party which Mr -Barnes and Mr Hodges represent, but a Public Party which -will replace exploitation by co-operation and in consequence -will deal just as faithfully with the abuse of a "Labour" -monopoly as with any other trust, and which will represent -the men and women who now form the constituents of the -Labour Party, not as monopolists of a commodity, but as -human beings anxious to gain their legitimate ends by the -most convenient and comfortable methods. In an economic -system constituted as is ours to-day, we do not in the very -least blame any monopolists, organised Labour included, for -exploiting their advantage to the utmost: that is the way -the game is played, and that is the sure and certain method -which will break up society as we know it, though it -contains no promise of constructing a system to replace the -ruins. But nothing is gained by idealising the process; and -the Labour Party and its officials are just as much a part -of the capitalistic system as, say, the Federation of -British Industries, and *qua* their representation of a +Sir Oswald Stoll returns to his attack on the system of credit-control +by financial groups, and although, as we said in a previous comment, we +are quite assured that the proposals he adumbrates in his campaign are +*by themselves* worse than useless as a cure for the present situation, +we welcome the attention he cannot fail to attract to the problem as a +whole. His text, in this case, is a quotation from a speech by the +Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which the financiers are openly +implored, as the controllers of the situation, to conserve "Capital" by +which, from the context, it is obvious that the Chancellor means credit. +It is a remarkable speech, and Sir Oswald is probably correct in stating +that never before did a Chancellor of the Exchequer acknowledge in set +terms the absolute control of the Government and the country by the +financial community. Just think what it means. Two or three great groups +of banks and issuing houses controlled by men, in many cases alien, and +even anti-British alien, by birth and tradition, international in their +interests and quite definitely anti-public in their policy, not elected +and not subject to dismissal, able to set at naught the plans of +governments; producing nothing, and yet controlling all production. We +do not believe that there is a single considerable commercial +organisation in this country or America, however apparently prosperous, +which could live for two years against the active hostility of +half-a-dozen of these men. To such. Ministers of the Crown are servants +appointed to take orders, and dismissed if they are negligent in the +execution of them; wars, famine and desolation are simply mechanisms by +the aid of which their control is conserved. Consider the railway +systems of America: twenty years ago giving promise of forming a model +transportation system; to-day, looted, sacked and exhausted by one +financial raid after another, they are almost *in extremis*, and only +maintain a service which is a mockery to technical capacity, by means of +a grant from the public purse of a sum substantially equal to the +original cost of their construction. Every one of the groups which were +directly responsible for this result is represented in the city of +London, and is included in the Chancellor's reference, just as they are +represented in Paris and Berlin, and probably Moscow. Meanwhile, Dean +Inge deplores the failure of democracy, and the Labour Party agrees that +what we really want is more production, and the building trade gets on +with building more---factories. + +We have always held that in America, where irresponsible financial +control has been most blatant, and the results of it, taking natural +resources into consideration, more obviously disastrous than even in +Europe, there would come the first clear-cut and dangerous challenge to +the system; and the modest little announcement which has crept into the +London Press that representatives of a new party opposing the Democrats +and Republicans alike, and not in sympathy with the Socialists, will +meet at Chicago to nominate a Presidential candidate, is, if we mistake +not, a justification of this opinion. The power behind this new movement +is a composite one, involving the Non-Partisan League (which is +definitely in possession of the machinery of government in North Dakota; +is said to control Minnesota, and is steadily gaining ground in several +other of the States of the Middle West), and a number of the Labour +unions, including the Railroad Brotherhoods, who have revolted from the +leadership of the egregious Mr Samuel Gompers, the latter individual +undoubtedly one of the most valuable assets the trusts possess. "With +these bodies are associated the Co-operative movement, the Consumers' +League, and several quasi-religious organisations for social service, +the whole making up a body of opinion which, if time permits, is +definitely powerful enough to carry the policy it +represents---essentially that of the public control of credit and +price-making---against any other single party of the Republic. + +Mr Gompers, who is no mean politician, and is fully alive to the fact +that his popularity is waning, has himself raised the credit issue with +a demand for producer-control, coupling his platform with a political +strategy which, consists in urging his followers to support any +candidate, either Democrat or Republican, who will pledge himself to +assist in obtaining it, thus forming, in intention, a coalition against +the new party of Economic Democracy. How far American trade unionists +will thus allow themselves to be spoofed only time can tell, but the +result of this alignment should be a matter of most absorbing interest, +not only in the United States, but in this country, for it is not too +much to say that the peace of the world and the future of civilisation +may be involved in the outcome of the struggle. + +A deputation from the League to Abolish War, consisting, amongst others, +of Mr G. N. Barnes, M.P., and Mr Frank Hodges, of the Miners' +Federation, waited on the Prime Minister in June 1920 for the purpose of +urging upon him the necessity of an International Police Force to do the +bidding of the League of Nations. It is, at first sight, a little +difficult to understand the mentality of Labour representatives who, +while professing to be profoundly dissatisfied with the existing state +of society, and constantly concerned to accuse the Governments of all +countries outside, perhaps, Russia, of acting in the interests of the +Capitalist system which they condemn (an accusation which is probably +justified), and of using the police and other armed forces for the +purpose of buttressing their power, yet propose to set up a mechanism +expressly designed to make revolt against such Government impossible. + +We are not, for the moment, criticising the proposal itself; we are +merely considering the support of it by official representatives of a +party openly pledged to revolutionise society. Now, assuming, as we are +quite willing to assume, that both Mr Barnes and Mr Hodges are perfectly +honest both in their desire for a better state of society and for the +abolition of war, and that not being merely irresponsible lunatics, they +have some reasons for figuring on such a deputation, it becomes of +interest to see how they reconcile the fact that revolutionary Labour is +notoriously unable to capture existing police forces, with a desire to +build up a police force which is *ex hypothesi* incorruptible. We +believe the reason to be twofold. In the first place, Mr Barnes and Mr +Hodges no doubt believe that they represent a Labour Party which is +coming into political power all the world over, and that therefore they +will control this police force; and secondly, they confuse a remedial, +if appalling, symptom, war, for the disease which causes it, much as one +might ignorantly say that spots on the skin constitute measles. + +Both of these reasons are demonstrably unsound; we will endeavour to +show why. A modern Trade Union represents, not a body of individuals, +but a monopoly more or less complete of an essential factor in +production--*i.e.* Labour---differing in no respect in principle from a +trust monopoly of, say, sugar, and Mr Barnes and Mr Hodges, in so far as +they represent or have represented trade unions, represent this +functional monopoly just as truly as the chairman or secretary of the +sugar trust represents a sugar monopoly, and the object of both is +identical---viz. to exploit the public, the consumer. There is not +anyone else to exploit; the employer is utterly incapable of carrying a +25%, rise in wages for a month if lie does not recover it from the +public, and, conversely, will joyously grant any percentage of wage +increase if he is assured that prices will recoup him. The party, if it +can be so called, which is undoubtedly coming into power in the next few +years all over the world, therefore, is not the "Labour" Party which Mr +Barnes and Mr Hodges represent, but a Public Party which will replace +exploitation by co-operation and in consequence will deal just as +faithfully with the abuse of a "Labour" monopoly as with any other +trust, and which will represent the men and women who now form the +constituents of the Labour Party, not as monopolists of a commodity, but +as human beings anxious to gain their legitimate ends by the most +convenient and comfortable methods. In an economic system constituted as +is ours to-day, we do not in the very least blame any monopolists, +organised Labour included, for exploiting their advantage to the utmost: +that is the way the game is played, and that is the sure and certain +method which will break up society as we know it, though it contains no +promise of constructing a system to replace the ruins. But nothing is +gained by idealising the process; and the Labour Party and its officials +are just as much a part of the capitalistic system as, say, the +Federation of British Industries, and *qua* their representation of a monopoly, just as pernicious. -The second misconception, while one may have every sympathy -with it, is none the less fatal to any effective remedial -action. War, appalling orgy of waste and misery as every -sane person must admit it to be, is not the greatest of all -evils, although it may quite conceivably be a great enough -evil to destroy this civilisation. A greater evil would be -the unchecked operation in a helpless world of those causes -of which war is an effect. That is exactly where what is -commonly called pacifism makes its cardinal error---it is so -concerned with the "rash" on the patient that it will go to -any length to suppress it. Not that way lies a cure. The -disease lies much deeper than the skin---is concerned with -the vital processes of the body politic; and to avoid -substituting a more lingering horror for the sharp fever of -war, it is necessary to restore these vital processes to -health and balanced functioning. Now although we have -insisted that the financial organism is the region demanding -the most instant attention, it is not the whole of the -problem, although the successful reconstruction of it would -probably render easy the solution of the remainder. That -lust for domination which may perhaps be said to lie at the -root of the major evils of anti-public finance also -operates, by the substitution of the motive of fear for the -motive of gain, through the mechanism of bureaucracy. The -business man assists in an unsound policy through the lure -of reward and through cupidity---the bureaucrat winks at -intrigue because of a fear, born of experience, that his -knuckles will be severely rapped if he doesn't. Merely to -substitute cupidity (which, after all, as its name suggests, -is only perverted *affection*) by fear would be a sorry -exchange. The problem is essentially a practical one, and we -have no doubt whatever that the real inceptors of the -deputation to which we refer (and who we feel positive do -not comprise either Mr Barnes or Mr Frank Hodges) are -actuated by motives which, whatever else they may not be, -are almost luridly practical. - -The proposition which has been aired during 1920 to increase -railway rates another 40 per cent., making 90 per cent, -permanent increase over pre-war rates, raises, in an -interesting form, the question of the applicability to this -particular case of what is known as the law of diminishing -return. It is probably quite familiar to readers of these -pages---it postulates that there is a certain maximum "load" -which any mechanism, economic or otherwise, will carry: -below and above this load the output drops away, finally -reaching minima. Now it has long been an axiom with ) -railway managers that it was impossible to base railway -rates on cost; the only principle on which a railway system -as a whole could be made to pay was to charge each separate -class of traffic "what it would bear"--*i.e.* the most, it -would pay without revolt. The rich industry ' thus -subsidised the less prosperous and the railway averaged -their prosperity. This system had reached perfection before -the war, and it is quite probable that in this country 5 per -cent, increase in any one rate would have raised a storm. It -is now proposed that rates shall rise not 5 per cent, but -90%, and that at a time when there are not wanting -interested persons (with whom we totally disagree) who would -contend that the day of the railway is done and that road -transport and aviation will carry the traffic of the -immediate future. We say we disagree with such persons; but -we do not mean by that to suggest that it is not possible by -means of crazy finance to ruin a magnificent asset, in order -that a few international credit-mongers may acquire control -of national transport. The bearing on this of the law to -which we refer will be plain: if the rates on British -railways before the war were as high as could be borne, and -they were, then any further rise means a decreasing return -and the speedy bankruptcy of the whole railway system due to -the use of alternative, though not fundamentally better, +The second misconception, while one may have every sympathy with it, is +none the less fatal to any effective remedial action. War, appalling +orgy of waste and misery as every sane person must admit it to be, is +not the greatest of all evils, although it may quite conceivably be a +great enough evil to destroy this civilisation. A greater evil would be +the unchecked operation in a helpless world of those causes of which war +is an effect. That is exactly where what is commonly called pacifism +makes its cardinal error---it is so concerned with the "rash" on the +patient that it will go to any length to suppress it. Not that way lies +a cure. The disease lies much deeper than the skin---is concerned with +the vital processes of the body politic; and to avoid substituting a +more lingering horror for the sharp fever of war, it is necessary to +restore these vital processes to health and balanced functioning. Now +although we have insisted that the financial organism is the region +demanding the most instant attention, it is not the whole of the +problem, although the successful reconstruction of it would probably +render easy the solution of the remainder. That lust for domination +which may perhaps be said to lie at the root of the major evils of +anti-public finance also operates, by the substitution of the motive of +fear for the motive of gain, through the mechanism of bureaucracy. The +business man assists in an unsound policy through the lure of reward and +through cupidity---the bureaucrat winks at intrigue because of a fear, +born of experience, that his knuckles will be severely rapped if he +doesn't. Merely to substitute cupidity (which, after all, as its name +suggests, is only perverted *affection*) by fear would be a sorry +exchange. The problem is essentially a practical one, and we have no +doubt whatever that the real inceptors of the deputation to which we +refer (and who we feel positive do not comprise either Mr Barnes or Mr +Frank Hodges) are actuated by motives which, whatever else they may not +be, are almost luridly practical. + +The proposition which has been aired during 1920 to increase railway +rates another 40 per cent., making 90 per cent, permanent increase over +pre-war rates, raises, in an interesting form, the question of the +applicability to this particular case of what is known as the law of +diminishing return. It is probably quite familiar to readers of these +pages---it postulates that there is a certain maximum "load" which any +mechanism, economic or otherwise, will carry: below and above this load +the output drops away, finally reaching minima. Now it has long been an +axiom with ) railway managers that it was impossible to base railway +rates on cost; the only principle on which a railway system as a whole +could be made to pay was to charge each separate class of traffic "what +it would bear"--*i.e.* the most, it would pay without revolt. The rich +industry ' thus subsidised the less prosperous and the railway averaged +their prosperity. This system had reached perfection before the war, and +it is quite probable that in this country 5 per cent, increase in any +one rate would have raised a storm. It is now proposed that rates shall +rise not 5 per cent, but 90%, and that at a time when there are not +wanting interested persons (with whom we totally disagree) who would +contend that the day of the railway is done and that road transport and +aviation will carry the traffic of the immediate future. We say we +disagree with such persons; but we do not mean by that to suggest that +it is not possible by means of crazy finance to ruin a magnificent +asset, in order that a few international credit-mongers may acquire +control of national transport. The bearing on this of the law to which +we refer will be plain: if the rates on British railways before the war +were as high as could be borne, and they were, then any further rise +means a decreasing return and the speedy bankruptcy of the whole railway +system due to the use of alternative, though not fundamentally better, means of transport. -Just as it is quite erroneously said that threatened men -live long, so there is a tendency as perverse as it is -general to assume that it is only necessary to predict -disaster of any description to form thereby a solid basis -for optimism. For twenty years hundreds of men and women in -this country, and thousands on the European continent, knew -that, given the continuance of certain economic and -political factors, war with Germany was just as inevitable -as a chemical reaction. Certain social factors combined will -produce certain social results, just as certainly as the -combination by the aid of a spark of a mixture of oxygen and -hydrogen will result in water. In 1900 the writer was told -by an official of the German Foreign Office that there was -not room in the world for a powerful Britain and a -progressive Germany, and the reasons given, which required -the major portion of a long and dull sea voyage for their -discussion, were quite conclusive if the premises of the -financial system were admitted. In spite of the organised -efforts of Lord Roberts and others to drive the facts of the -situation home to those persons most vitally affected, the -members of the British public, it is quite certain that not -5 per cent, of the population of these islands regarded the -question as anything but a political "stunt" run by a -mixture of interested scaremongers and cranks with bees in -their bonnets. Viewing the situation dispassionately in the -light of events, it seems probable that the control of the -organs of public information, and the general psychology of -the peoples who were to be the victims of the coming -disaster, were already so grouped as to make the late war, -humanly speaking, inevitable; that any radical preventive -propaganda, to have a reasonable prospect of success, must -have been launched not much later than 1875, and must have -taken effective steps, amongst other things, to deal with -the capture and syndication of the public Press which marked -the closing years of the nineteenth century. But the -situation in regard to the disasters which threaten us now -is profoundly altered, and we believe that it is a practical -proposition to expect to bring such forces to bear on the -situation as will suffice to avoid at any rate the full -force of the blow which might otherwise destroy us. Amongst -the differences on which legitimate optimism may be based is -the increasing cynicism, common in every rank of society, in -regard to the expression of beautiful sentiments unsupported -by a live practical policy amenable to all the checks men -apply to everyday affairs. The sob-stuff is losing its grip. -By their fruits ye shall know them. Perhaps in some queer, -perverted way President Wilson was indeed the saviour of the -world, as he is said to have believed himself to be, when he -heralded the entry of the United States into world politics -by a series of speeches couched in the most silver -eloquence, and embodying sentiments calculated to take the -thoughts of men clean away from the facts of life; and then, -in company with his fellow-conjurers, hatched out a treaty -and a League of Nations expressly designed to reduce every -one of these beautiful sentiments to a grinning mockery. -"Open covenants openly arrived at"; Mr Lloyd George goes -down to Lympne to discuss policy with Sir Philip Sassoon -prior to reshuffling the destinies of peoples with M. -Millerand; "self-determination"--and admittedly the ordinary -everyday liberty of the subject fell during Mr Wilson's -administration of the United States Government to a lower -level than that of Russia under the Tsar. The practical -effect of this disillusionment is seen daily in operation; -not so very long ago a rhetorical appeal for backing for the -anti-Bolshevists was met by an unmistakably dry negative -even from quarters which have no love for Lenin and Trotsky; -the somewhat New-Jerusalemic tone of The Daily Herald is -barely offset in its effect on its popularity by the -realistic and detailed descriptions of the current -prize-fights which form a feature of its otherwise pacifist -pages. The general result of all this is to make it -increasingly difficult to sweep a nation off its feet by a -mere gust of emotion, and even if the change has not yet -proceeded very far it is a most hopeful sign that it has -begun. - -The Food Controller's monthly report issued in June -1920showing a further serious rise in the price of food -since January, was a grim comment on the attempt made to -inaugurate what the French have christened *la vague de -baisse*, by the simple process of saying that it has -arrived. So far from a wave of falling prices having reached -either us or them, the level of prices steadily rose, and -reached in this country 265 per cent, of the prices ruling -for foodstuffs in July 1914, and there is every prospect -that, with a possible temporary decline, it will continue to -rise. The real cause can be stated in half-a-dozen -words---the breakdown of credit; the disbelief in the -reality of "money" as a good exchange for either goods or -services; and there is nothing in the line being taken -either by the Government or the large industrial combines; -to show that they have either the will or the j -understanding necessary to close the rapidly j widening gap -between financial credit and real credit. It is now being -allowed to transpire that the big manufacturers of the -Midlands and the North are finding the way very hard indeed, -their costs are such as to make their prices definitely -non-commercial; and dark hints of the necessity of shutting -down their plants for the purpose of bringing labour to its -senses--*i.e.* starving it into submission---are appearing -in the columns of the Press. It is of course an open secret -that this latter plan was concocted and agreed to by a ring -of manufacturers in 1917 as being the inevitable result of -concessions extracted from them during the war, but it was -intended that it should be put into operation much earlier, -and we very much doubt whether it may not now have results -quite other than those expected by its inventors. What about -the necessity for greater production as a cure for all -evils? Surely if it is only production *per se* that we want -it is very reprehensible for the employer to consider for a -single instant a policy which is not merely designed to -limit production, but to stop it completely, when for so -long we have been told that only greater production will -save us. Can it be possible that the only production it is -desired to increase is the production of money, and that if -more money can be produced by making less goods we shall get -less goods? The next few months should furnish an answer to -that question. +Just as it is quite erroneously said that threatened men live long, so +there is a tendency as perverse as it is general to assume that it is +only necessary to predict disaster of any description to form thereby a +solid basis for optimism. For twenty years hundreds of men and women in +this country, and thousands on the European continent, knew that, given +the continuance of certain economic and political factors, war with +Germany was just as inevitable as a chemical reaction. Certain social +factors combined will produce certain social results, just as certainly +as the combination by the aid of a spark of a mixture of oxygen and +hydrogen will result in water. In 1900 the writer was told by an +official of the German Foreign Office that there was not room in the +world for a powerful Britain and a progressive Germany, and the reasons +given, which required the major portion of a long and dull sea voyage +for their discussion, were quite conclusive if the premises of the +financial system were admitted. In spite of the organised efforts of +Lord Roberts and others to drive the facts of the situation home to +those persons most vitally affected, the members of the British public, +it is quite certain that not 5 per cent, of the population of these +islands regarded the question as anything but a political "stunt" run by +a mixture of interested scaremongers and cranks with bees in their +bonnets. Viewing the situation dispassionately in the light of events, +it seems probable that the control of the organs of public information, +and the general psychology of the peoples who were to be the victims of +the coming disaster, were already so grouped as to make the late war, +humanly speaking, inevitable; that any radical preventive propaganda, to +have a reasonable prospect of success, must have been launched not much +later than 1875, and must have taken effective steps, amongst other +things, to deal with the capture and syndication of the public Press +which marked the closing years of the nineteenth century. But the +situation in regard to the disasters which threaten us now is profoundly +altered, and we believe that it is a practical proposition to expect to +bring such forces to bear on the situation as will suffice to avoid at +any rate the full force of the blow which might otherwise destroy us. +Amongst the differences on which legitimate optimism may be based is the +increasing cynicism, common in every rank of society, in regard to the +expression of beautiful sentiments unsupported by a live practical +policy amenable to all the checks men apply to everyday affairs. The +sob-stuff is losing its grip. By their fruits ye shall know them. +Perhaps in some queer, perverted way President Wilson was indeed the +saviour of the world, as he is said to have believed himself to be, when +he heralded the entry of the United States into world politics by a +series of speeches couched in the most silver eloquence, and embodying +sentiments calculated to take the thoughts of men clean away from the +facts of life; and then, in company with his fellow-conjurers, hatched +out a treaty and a League of Nations expressly designed to reduce every +one of these beautiful sentiments to a grinning mockery. "Open covenants +openly arrived at"; Mr Lloyd George goes down to Lympne to discuss +policy with Sir Philip Sassoon prior to reshuffling the destinies of +peoples with M. Millerand; "self-determination"--and admittedly the +ordinary everyday liberty of the subject fell during Mr Wilson's +administration of the United States Government to a lower level than +that of Russia under the Tsar. The practical effect of this +disillusionment is seen daily in operation; not so very long ago a +rhetorical appeal for backing for the anti-Bolshevists was met by an +unmistakably dry negative even from quarters which have no love for +Lenin and Trotsky; the somewhat New-Jerusalemic tone of The Daily Herald +is barely offset in its effect on its popularity by the realistic and +detailed descriptions of the current prize-fights which form a feature +of its otherwise pacifist pages. The general result of all this is to +make it increasingly difficult to sweep a nation off its feet by a mere +gust of emotion, and even if the change has not yet proceeded very far +it is a most hopeful sign that it has begun. + +The Food Controller's monthly report issued in June 1920showing a +further serious rise in the price of food since January, was a grim +comment on the attempt made to inaugurate what the French have +christened *la vague de baisse*, by the simple process of saying that it +has arrived. So far from a wave of falling prices having reached either +us or them, the level of prices steadily rose, and reached in this +country 265 per cent, of the prices ruling for foodstuffs in July 1914, +and there is every prospect that, with a possible temporary decline, it +will continue to rise. The real cause can be stated in half-a-dozen +words---the breakdown of credit; the disbelief in the reality of "money" +as a good exchange for either goods or services; and there is nothing in +the line being taken either by the Government or the large industrial +combines; to show that they have either the will or the j understanding +necessary to close the rapidly j widening gap between financial credit +and real credit. It is now being allowed to transpire that the big +manufacturers of the Midlands and the North are finding the way very +hard indeed, their costs are such as to make their prices definitely +non-commercial; and dark hints of the necessity of shutting down their +plants for the purpose of bringing labour to its senses--*i.e.* starving +it into submission---are appearing in the columns of the Press. It is of +course an open secret that this latter plan was concocted and agreed to +by a ring of manufacturers in 1917 as being the inevitable result of +concessions extracted from them during the war, but it was intended that +it should be put into operation much earlier, and we very much doubt +whether it may not now have results quite other than those expected by +its inventors. What about the necessity for greater production as a cure +for all evils? Surely if it is only production *per se* that we want it +is very reprehensible for the employer to consider for a single instant +a policy which is not merely designed to limit production, but to stop +it completely, when for so long we have been told that only greater +production will save us. Can it be possible that the only production it +is desired to increase is the production of money, and that if more +money can be produced by making less goods we shall get less goods? The +next few months should furnish an answer to that question. # A Commentary on World Politics (IV) -If Macaulay's New Zealander, after musing on the more -material remains of our social system as exemplified in the -Houses of Parliament and the secretariats of Whitehall, -should be driven to investigate the concepts of national -organisation symbolised by them, it is fairly certain that -nothing will astonish him more than the evidences he will -find on every hand of the persistent and touching faith of -this queer old people in what they call "representation." He -will find that this curious superstition (dating back to the -earliest days of their history, when priests made a corner -in deals with God and the dispensing of personal salvation -became a close trust) persisted on even through the First -World War when millions of persons who disliked war and held -it in contempt as a moral and material anachronism allowed -their representatives not merely to lead them into a war -which had become inevitable but, almost without a protest, -to throw away any poor consolation which might be derived -from a real "war to end war." He would note that at -irregular and inappropriate intervals queer ceremonies -called elections took place at which persons for the most -part personally unknown to the electors were "returned" for -the ostensible purpose of carrying out "reforms" which most -of the electors neither understood nor cared about one -fig. And he would further observe that these elected ones, -once safely through the ceremony, at once became very -superior persons, full of dignity and importance, and for -the most part concerned with very intricate relations -between the State and Borioboola-Gha. It seemed clear that -these same electors never derived any benefit from these -negotiations, or in fact and on the whole from more than the -very minutest fraction of the activities of their -representatives, while further it was quite plain that a -small number of very opulent gentry of international -sympathies, who were not elected, and represented no one but -themselves, did in fact sway the whole deliberations of the -elected assembly. Still this touching faith that some day -they would elect the right men and all would be well seemed -to sustain the people through a series of disappointments -which would have daunted a less stubborn race. The New -Zealander, who we must suppose to be an intelligent man, -would, we think, conclude that this was a matter outside -logic and reason, and only comparable to collective -hypnotism. And he would be right. - -In certain things this country in particular is under a -spell. At the time of the Armistice there was not only not -an unemployed man in this country, but there was hardly an -unemployed woman or child over fourteen and under eighty. -The wheat cultivation was increasing at a rate unknown for -generations, shipbuilding was proceeding at such a rate that -the destruction of war has been more than made good in two -years, manufacturers were becoming rich, workmen were -becoming manufacturers. Even the despised professional -classes were for the most part able to eke out a precarious -existence in either the fighting services, or if age or -health precluded that, in ministering to the wants or -patching the digestions of those who did well out of---a -long way out of---the war. Production, which Mr Clynes will -tell us is all we need to make us prosperous, reached -heights far in excess of anything ever touched in history, -even outstripping such destruction as Dante never dreamed -of. Then peace, with the wings of a dove, burst upon us. -Hardly had the last stretcher-case reached a casualty -clearing station in a grim and haunted silence than a bleat -of real anguish rose from these sheltered shores---not from -the battered wrecks in hospital blue, the sad-eyed women in -black, or even from the new poor, but from Lord Inchcape and -other bankers. We were a poor nation---no homes for heroes -for us. Perhaps, if we all worked harder than ever, and -lived the simple life for twenty years or so, we might -aspire to a few Nissen huts. As a preliminary to all of us -working harder prices rose 50 per cent., and the -unemployment figures rose from nil to the present figure of -about three million. But further than that, the earnings, as -apart from the wage rates of those still employed, fell -also. On every hoarding may be seen auctioneers' -advertisements of eligible modern factories equipped with -the finest tools to be sold at break-up prices, and -manufacturers are beginning to compete with generals for -eligible if undistinguished posts under the Holborn Borough -Council. It is hardly to be wondered at that our warnings of -a greater and more terrible war leave numbers of persons -very cold, since only destruction on the largest scale, it -seems to them, can provide a decent living for the -survivors. Side by side with these happenings, which are -plain for all to see, it cannot have escaped notice that -every bank composing the charmed Circle of Five has pulled -down its barns to build larger. The London City and Midland, -to take one instance only, now has fifteen hundred branches, -of which, at a guess, at least one half have been opened -since 1914 in buildings of a solid magnificence appropriate -to the temples of a great faith. Perhaps one of our readers -with a taste for statistics will compile a table showing the -percentage of corner sites occupied by banks as compared -with those occupied by other undertakings. Has anyone during -this time of industrial depression and labour distress -noticed any bank premises for sale? Is there any possible -room for doubt, not merely who did best out of the war, but -is doing well out of the peace? - -It might be noted from his article in *The Daily Herald* of -24th March 1921, entitled "The Coal Crisis and the Nation's -Credit," that Mr Frank Hodges "has been propounding up and -down the country a scheme which is the only internal scheme -calculated to help the mining industry out of its -difficulties and consequently other industries out of -theirs." We wish Mr Hodges every success in his efforts, -which aim at the use of national credit to enable coal to be -sold below the cost of production, and we would offer him -every assistance, technical and otherwise, to enable him to -carry properly designed proposals of this character to a -successful issue. His article in *The Daily Herald* was, we -think, admirable for the purpose for which it was intended, -but we would suggest to him that a combination of his -propaganda with a new and more effective form of "Direct -Action" would be very---desirable at this time. He suggests -that "the British Government" should either propose -something better or put his scheme to the test of practice. -We can assure Mr Hodges that the British Government, or that -essential part of it which counts in matters of this sort, -has no intention or desire to propose anything better---on -the contrary, it has said in so many words that it is -unalterably opposed to any proposition which involves the -granting of a subsidy, and it is prepared to go to any -amount of trouble and expense to prevent Mr Hodges making -clear to any considerable number of persons how this -proposal differs from one involving a subsidy. But if Mr -Hodges will abandon the idea, so natural to ingenuous -minds---we have had it ourselves---that the Government is -struggling with a problem it does not understand and cannot -solve, and ceasing his endeavours to enlighten it, will use -the position entrusted to him to assist his constituents to -dispense with Government acquiescence with his plan (and, of -course, he must know that that is possible) we feel sure -that he will be astonished at the quickened apprehension of -Westminster. - -At the time of writing (1921) the miners' strike or -lock-out, whichever it should be termed, has commenced, and -according to the popular Press a number of pits are already -irretrievably flooded. Lest the public should be in any -doubt as to who pays for these little wrangles between the -Coal Trust and the Labour Trust, the price of coal has been -put up Is. per ton at once just to "larn us to be a twoad." -Our sympathies as between the two combatants are wholly with -the Labour trust, because it contains more human beings, but -they are a good deal more with the public than with either -party, and we think we are not alone in the matter. It is -quite time, we think, that the great trade unions should -understand that the plea of the under dog, fighting against -unfair odds of education and resources and injuring the -bystander only because engaged in a life-and-death struggle, -will not wash. The resources of, say, the Triple Alliance, -are ample to put them in possession of every weapon in the -hands of their antagonists---are, in fact, potentially far -superior; and the fact that they are quite obviously -incapable of striking a blow which the vile body of the -public does not receive instead of the "Capitalists," at -whom it is aimed, might quite reasonably, and will, be -adduced as a good sound reason that they are a public -nuisance. That would be a superficial judgment, but we do -suggest that clumsiness and ineptitude are now as -inexcusable as real vice, and that the great causes of which -the Trade Union and Labour movement claims to be the -protagonist, and of which it is, in fact, the natural -champion, should not be allowed much longer to be so -compromised by mismanagement as has most unquestionably been -the case during the past three years. We have said elsewhere -that the British Labour Party in particular had an -opportunity during the years 1914-1918 such as probably -never before presented itself to any political party. That -opportunity was missed thoroughly and completely, and the -credit and power of the Labour Party is so damaged that it -is quite possible that it may never recover. "The moving -finger writes, and having writ moves on," and not often, if -ever, is a second innings vouchsafed to any side in a game -of this magnitude. We see only one hope for the Labour -Party; that it may, by a miraculous up-rush of leadership, -renounce its absurd arrogance of all the virtues, and by -truly representing the community, rather than a mere -sectional interest, draw again to its aid---all those men of -good-will in whatever station they may be found whose good -offices it now seems so anxious to repel. If it will not do -this, and do it soon, it will sink to the importance of the -British Bolshevik Party, which is negligible except as a -useful bogey, by the aid of which Mr Lloyd George can -frighten old women of both sexes into voting for the +If Macaulay's New Zealander, after musing on the more material remains +of our social system as exemplified in the Houses of Parliament and the +secretariats of Whitehall, should be driven to investigate the concepts +of national organisation symbolised by them, it is fairly certain that +nothing will astonish him more than the evidences he will find on every +hand of the persistent and touching faith of this queer old people in +what they call "representation." He will find that this curious +superstition (dating back to the earliest days of their history, when +priests made a corner in deals with God and the dispensing of personal +salvation became a close trust) persisted on even through the First +World War when millions of persons who disliked war and held it in +contempt as a moral and material anachronism allowed their +representatives not merely to lead them into a war which had become +inevitable but, almost without a protest, to throw away any poor +consolation which might be derived from a real "war to end war." He +would note that at irregular and inappropriate intervals queer +ceremonies called elections took place at which persons for the most +part personally unknown to the electors were "returned" for the +ostensible purpose of carrying out "reforms" which most of the electors +neither understood nor cared about one fig. And he would further observe +that these elected ones, once safely through the ceremony, at once +became very superior persons, full of dignity and importance, and for +the most part concerned with very intricate relations between the State +and Borioboola-Gha. It seemed clear that these same electors never +derived any benefit from these negotiations, or in fact and on the whole +from more than the very minutest fraction of the activities of their +representatives, while further it was quite plain that a small number of +very opulent gentry of international sympathies, who were not elected, +and represented no one but themselves, did in fact sway the whole +deliberations of the elected assembly. Still this touching faith that +some day they would elect the right men and all would be well seemed to +sustain the people through a series of disappointments which would have +daunted a less stubborn race. The New Zealander, who we must suppose to +be an intelligent man, would, we think, conclude that this was a matter +outside logic and reason, and only comparable to collective hypnotism. +And he would be right. + +In certain things this country in particular is under a spell. At the +time of the Armistice there was not only not an unemployed man in this +country, but there was hardly an unemployed woman or child over fourteen +and under eighty. The wheat cultivation was increasing at a rate unknown +for generations, shipbuilding was proceeding at such a rate that the +destruction of war has been more than made good in two years, +manufacturers were becoming rich, workmen were becoming manufacturers. +Even the despised professional classes were for the most part able to +eke out a precarious existence in either the fighting services, or if +age or health precluded that, in ministering to the wants or patching +the digestions of those who did well out of---a long way out of---the +war. Production, which Mr Clynes will tell us is all we need to make us +prosperous, reached heights far in excess of anything ever touched in +history, even outstripping such destruction as Dante never dreamed of. +Then peace, with the wings of a dove, burst upon us. Hardly had the last +stretcher-case reached a casualty clearing station in a grim and haunted +silence than a bleat of real anguish rose from these sheltered +shores---not from the battered wrecks in hospital blue, the sad-eyed +women in black, or even from the new poor, but from Lord Inchcape and +other bankers. We were a poor nation---no homes for heroes for us. +Perhaps, if we all worked harder than ever, and lived the simple life +for twenty years or so, we might aspire to a few Nissen huts. As a +preliminary to all of us working harder prices rose 50 per cent., and +the unemployment figures rose from nil to the present figure of about +three million. But further than that, the earnings, as apart from the +wage rates of those still employed, fell also. On every hoarding may be +seen auctioneers' advertisements of eligible modern factories equipped +with the finest tools to be sold at break-up prices, and manufacturers +are beginning to compete with generals for eligible if undistinguished +posts under the Holborn Borough Council. It is hardly to be wondered at +that our warnings of a greater and more terrible war leave numbers of +persons very cold, since only destruction on the largest scale, it seems +to them, can provide a decent living for the survivors. Side by side +with these happenings, which are plain for all to see, it cannot have +escaped notice that every bank composing the charmed Circle of Five has +pulled down its barns to build larger. The London City and Midland, to +take one instance only, now has fifteen hundred branches, of which, at a +guess, at least one half have been opened since 1914 in buildings of a +solid magnificence appropriate to the temples of a great faith. Perhaps +one of our readers with a taste for statistics will compile a table +showing the percentage of corner sites occupied by banks as compared +with those occupied by other undertakings. Has anyone during this time +of industrial depression and labour distress noticed any bank premises +for sale? Is there any possible room for doubt, not merely who did best +out of the war, but is doing well out of the peace? + +It might be noted from his article in *The Daily Herald* of 24th March +1921, entitled "The Coal Crisis and the Nation's Credit," that Mr Frank +Hodges "has been propounding up and down the country a scheme which is +the only internal scheme calculated to help the mining industry out of +its difficulties and consequently other industries out of theirs." We +wish Mr Hodges every success in his efforts, which aim at the use of +national credit to enable coal to be sold below the cost of production, +and we would offer him every assistance, technical and otherwise, to +enable him to carry properly designed proposals of this character to a +successful issue. His article in *The Daily Herald* was, we think, +admirable for the purpose for which it was intended, but we would +suggest to him that a combination of his propaganda with a new and more +effective form of "Direct Action" would be very---desirable at this +time. He suggests that "the British Government" should either propose +something better or put his scheme to the test of practice. We can +assure Mr Hodges that the British Government, or that essential part of +it which counts in matters of this sort, has no intention or desire to +propose anything better---on the contrary, it has said in so many words +that it is unalterably opposed to any proposition which involves the +granting of a subsidy, and it is prepared to go to any amount of trouble +and expense to prevent Mr Hodges making clear to any considerable number +of persons how this proposal differs from one involving a subsidy. But +if Mr Hodges will abandon the idea, so natural to ingenuous minds---we +have had it ourselves---that the Government is struggling with a problem +it does not understand and cannot solve, and ceasing his endeavours to +enlighten it, will use the position entrusted to him to assist his +constituents to dispense with Government acquiescence with his plan +(and, of course, he must know that that is possible) we feel sure that +he will be astonished at the quickened apprehension of Westminster. + +At the time of writing (1921) the miners' strike or lock-out, whichever +it should be termed, has commenced, and according to the popular Press a +number of pits are already irretrievably flooded. Lest the public should +be in any doubt as to who pays for these little wrangles between the +Coal Trust and the Labour Trust, the price of coal has been put up Is. +per ton at once just to "larn us to be a twoad." Our sympathies as +between the two combatants are wholly with the Labour trust, because it +contains more human beings, but they are a good deal more with the +public than with either party, and we think we are not alone in the +matter. It is quite time, we think, that the great trade unions should +understand that the plea of the under dog, fighting against unfair odds +of education and resources and injuring the bystander only because +engaged in a life-and-death struggle, will not wash. The resources of, +say, the Triple Alliance, are ample to put them in possession of every +weapon in the hands of their antagonists---are, in fact, potentially far +superior; and the fact that they are quite obviously incapable of +striking a blow which the vile body of the public does not receive +instead of the "Capitalists," at whom it is aimed, might quite +reasonably, and will, be adduced as a good sound reason that they are a +public nuisance. That would be a superficial judgment, but we do suggest +that clumsiness and ineptitude are now as inexcusable as real vice, and +that the great causes of which the Trade Union and Labour movement +claims to be the protagonist, and of which it is, in fact, the natural +champion, should not be allowed much longer to be so compromised by +mismanagement as has most unquestionably been the case during the past +three years. We have said elsewhere that the British Labour Party in +particular had an opportunity during the years 1914-1918 such as +probably never before presented itself to any political party. That +opportunity was missed thoroughly and completely, and the credit and +power of the Labour Party is so damaged that it is quite possible that +it may never recover. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves +on," and not often, if ever, is a second innings vouchsafed to any side +in a game of this magnitude. We see only one hope for the Labour Party; +that it may, by a miraculous up-rush of leadership, renounce its absurd +arrogance of all the virtues, and by truly representing the community, +rather than a mere sectional interest, draw again to its aid---all those +men of good-will in whatever station they may be found whose good +offices it now seems so anxious to repel. If it will not do this, and do +it soon, it will sink to the importance of the British Bolshevik Party, +which is negligible except as a useful bogey, by the aid of which Mr +Lloyd George can frighten old women of both sexes into voting for the Sassoon-Cassel-Zaharofi coalition. # A Commentary on World Politics (V) -If anyone is disposed to doubt our native genius for -organisation we would direct his attention to the team-work -of the Press on the subject of Mr Frank Hodges' timid -suggestion of a credit appropriation for the solution of the -coal difficulty. In many keys, yet in perfect harmony, a -shriek of horror has risen from organs professing all shades -of political opinion yet united by the approach of a common -danger to their financial masters. It is true that most of -them, as newspapers, have no more knowledge of the processes -of finance than is necessary to enable them to draw or cash -a cheque, but, aided by some mysterious sense, none of them -has failed to translate the proposal by exactly the same -word "Subsidy." And the concern of them for the poor -taxpayer! Was there ever anything so touching? Happy the -nation which has a Press so active and sensitive to the -interests of its constituents. But there is more still to be -done, and, without for the moment quibbling over the -confusion involved in the misuse of words, we would direct -the attention of Fleet Street to the great -activity---supported from Downing Street and the city which -is taking place in regard to various schemes for Export -"Subsidies," such as the Ter Meulen and Sir Edward Mountain -proposals. Mr Hodges admits that a sum of £100,000,000 might -be required for his purposes, but it is hardly denied that -this sum would be represented by an increased distribution -of coal in this country, since the increased purchasing -power would not be reflected in an increased price for coal. -That is to say, the "subsidy" would be represented by goods -in this country. But the various Export "Subsidy" schemes -contemplate the use of sums at least five times as large as -that for which Mr Hodges is asking, and still taking Fleet -Street's word that a subsidy and a credit are the same -thing, the distracted British tax-payer would be fleeced to -ten times the extent to which Mr Hodges would subject him; -he would not only have, *ex hypothesi*, to find five hundred -millions in taxation, but would be mulcted by a rise in the -general level of prices due to the distribution of five -hundred millions of money unrepresented by any increase of -goods in this country. May we hope that, the point having -been indicated, Sir Edward Mountain's Export Subsidy Scheme -will now receive the same candid and uniform treatment as -that accorded to poor Mr Hodges? - -Where Mr Hodges and the miners fail in strategy is that they -do not seem to realise the fundamental weakness of their -case as miners, and the immense strength of it as members of -the public. We thoroughly recognise that the very worst and -blackest aspect is put on their demands, but the elementary -fact is that even as put by themselves there is nothing -about them to compensate the public at large for the expense -and inconvenience to which it is put by a strike. Outside -the war profiteers, who, after all, are the merest tithe of -the population and are congenitally selfish, there are very -few classes in this country who are not far worse off -financially than they were in 1914, and the classes who have -lost most are those who, while saying least, think the more -and exercise by far the most vital influence on affairs in a -time of crisis. If instead of continually trumpeting their -determination to raise their own standard of living, no -matter who suffers in the process, the Triple Alliance would -say, "We intend that the general standard of living in this -country shall rise, and we mean to proceed, not by attacking -anyone, but by assisting everyone---by first demanding a -conference of all parties for the purpose of exploring every -avenue which might lead to lowering the cost of living -without lowering the income of anyone," they would be -invincible and would carry their own ends by a side wind. No -altruism is required or is desirable---if every rich man in -this country sold all that he hath and gave to the poor, the -poor would only notice it for about three months, and after -that would, under the conditions which the Labour movement -has not so far challenged, starve to death through -unemployment and tte failure of production, just as happened -in Russia. As it is, a conviction is hardening in the -country that, bad as things are, they would be simply -intolerable if the Labour Party ever got into power. That -psychology is disastrous, and when over some such issue as -the present the Prime Minister decides to appeal to the -country, it will result in his being returned with a -majority which will be acclaimed as a mandate to put Labour -exactly where Sir Alfred Mond and his confreres wish to see -it. - -Mr Hughes' note to the Allied Powers, which may be -considered as the first official pronouncement on Foreign -Policy issued by the Harding Administration, is a -sufficiently disquieting document. In the details of its -comments on the Yap controversy and its demand for a share -in the loot of Mesopotamia there is, of course, nothing new. -The noteworthy content of the dispatch is the considered -enunciation of a new Monroe doctrine embracing the whole -world, and the intimation in effect that the other World -Powers have been wasting their time in disposing (so far as -they have disposed) of the problems contingent on the Peace -Treaty---that nothing can be done without the acquiescence -of the United States, and that as the United States has not -acquiesced in what has been done, it is all null and void. -Passing over the nice judicial point as to whether a nation -which has been invited and has refused to take part in the -deliberations which have led to the allotment of mandates -and other little spoils of war is justified in objecting to -the results when they are a more or less accomplished fact -(because the only real sanction behind such an attitude is -the will and the power to impose acceptance of it by force -of arms), we may profitably consider exactly what is the -position created by such a claim. If Washington is alone in -making it, it is clear that the United States is claiming -the position of the super-State, the ultimate arbiter of all -things mundane. But if, on the other hand, she is only -claiming a right which she is prepared to allow to others, -then once again we are brought up against the question of -sanctions. Suppose Montenegro should object to the future -course of events in Mexico? Will Washington agree that all -action in Mexico must be held up until Montenegro is -placated? It requires some optimism to believe it. - -The curious point about the old Monroe doctrine, which is -not without interest in considering the new variant, is that -probably more than anything else it has consistently -handicapped the United States in her relations with South -America to which it chiefly referred. While not above -invoking it when occasion served, the peoples of the Latin -republics derided it in conversation as a piece of -unsolicited impertinence, and visited their resentment on -the head of the unfortunate "Norte Americano," both by trade -discrimination against him and by direct personal dislike, -with the result that, at any rate prior to 1914, he was -easily the most unpopular national south of Panama. In -itself there is, of course, no doubt that the Monroe -doctrine was in the best interests of South America, and -incidentally of this country, which always consistently -supported it, but it is, nevertheless, incontestable that -things being as they are, it was one of the ulterior forces -concerned in the late war. Germany had acquired -predominating commercial interests in Brazil, and only the -Monroe doctrine and the British fleet stood between her and -the annexation of a dominion larger than the United States -and rich beyond the dreams of avarice---a country only held -back by the incompetence and laziness of the Portuguese -settlers. Presumably, although we have no information on the -point, German interests in Brazil have suffered eclipse; it -is certain that the United States have been making the most -strenuous efforts to replace her not only in Brazil, but in -the Argentine, where she was obtaining large financial power -through her banking system; but the resentment of -overlordship excited by the rather crude tactics of -Washington is so strong that we may hazard a guess that our -exporters are not doing very badly. - -When a man is entirely destitute of knowledge and ideas in -regard to the industrial situation, one of two -pronouncements may safely be expected of him in regard to -it. If he is of the traditional type of beef-eating Briton -chiefly met with in country districts, who will endure -anything if only he is not asked to think, he will probably -bark out "Labour? D---d scoundrels! put 'em up against a -wall and shoot 'em!" No one with a sense of humour ought to -dislike this hearty ruffian, even if driven by -uncontrollable impulse to throw a bucket of water over him. -In the first place, he is no more responsible for his -opinion than a terrier howling at Beethoven, and in the -second place, however silly his method, his instinct is -healthy---he wants a solution. The other person is in a -different and, to us, much more contemptible category---he -feels sure that all would be well if "both sides" would only -show a little good-will. This man may not know it, but he is -blasphemous. One of the most amazing features of the present -situation is the steady bias towards good-will and reason -met with everywhere---the prevalence of a subconscious -feeling that an effort is being made to get honest men to -fall out in order that thieves may break through and steal. -It is particularly noticeable on the railways, where every -grade seems anxious to discount the inconvenience it -anticipates being forced to inflict on the public. The -writer has been privileged to address various meetings up -and down the country on Credit Reform proposals, at most of -which have been present one or two unhappy-looking -individuals whose ideals evidently did not agree with their -digestions, or, perhaps, proceeded from them; but no one -could mistake the isolation of their position. Most of these -audiences either of so-called "masters" or "men" consisted -of individuals actually grappling with the facts of -industry, knowing the virtues, failings and common humanity -of their neighbours, and well disposed to agree that a third -party, Finance, understood by neither of them, might be the -agency which for ever seemed to make agreement impossible. -That there are small bodies of irreconcilables we agree; but -if the main body of citizens had a sound lead we do not -think that these warriors would count for very much. - -There may be various opinions about Mr Lloyd George (known -for obvious reasons, in political circles, as "The Goat") as -a Prime Minister, but it is impossible to deny him the very -highest honours both as a strategist and as a political -acrobat. His method of testing the electioneering -temperature by calling out the reserves and imploring all -loyal citizens to enlist in the Volunteer Defence Force -during the late coal strike is very expensive to the -tax-payer and very bad for the moral of the country, but -gives him quite a fair idea of the votes he would get in the -election he is doubtless considering. Having tested the -temper of the country in this way, we may confidently expect -him to go to the country at an early date and be returned to -power with a substantial, even if slightly diminished, -majority. In the unlikely event of his deciding that an -election would be inopportune he will no doubt pose as the -saviour of the country from the civil war we haven't -noticed. Either way, it all seems clear gain to Mr Lloyd -George, and it is very, very clever. "Whether a little -wisdom would not be worth more to the country, and to Mr -Lloyd George himself, than all this agility is, of course, a -matter on which one may hold strong opinions. It has always -been incomprehensible to us that anyone could imagine that a -body of men of the magnitude of, say, the Triple Alliance, -beaten by starvation or force into accepting terms, -distasteful to them, could fail to renew the struggle at the -earliest possible moment; and we can only conclude that the -International Financial Groups who precipitate these -struggles do not really care how frequent they are---the -cost of them is simply passed on to the public in prices, -and the real authors of them not merely go completely -untouched by the repeated tragedies, but from villas on the -Riviera or elsewhere"glut" their love of power by +If anyone is disposed to doubt our native genius for organisation we +would direct his attention to the team-work of the Press on the subject +of Mr Frank Hodges' timid suggestion of a credit appropriation for the +solution of the coal difficulty. In many keys, yet in perfect harmony, a +shriek of horror has risen from organs professing all shades of +political opinion yet united by the approach of a common danger to their +financial masters. It is true that most of them, as newspapers, have no +more knowledge of the processes of finance than is necessary to enable +them to draw or cash a cheque, but, aided by some mysterious sense, none +of them has failed to translate the proposal by exactly the same word +"Subsidy." And the concern of them for the poor taxpayer! Was there ever +anything so touching? Happy the nation which has a Press so active and +sensitive to the interests of its constituents. But there is more still +to be done, and, without for the moment quibbling over the confusion +involved in the misuse of words, we would direct the attention of Fleet +Street to the great activity---supported from Downing Street and the +city which is taking place in regard to various schemes for Export +"Subsidies," such as the Ter Meulen and Sir Edward Mountain proposals. +Mr Hodges admits that a sum of £100,000,000 might be required for his +purposes, but it is hardly denied that this sum would be represented by +an increased distribution of coal in this country, since the increased +purchasing power would not be reflected in an increased price for coal. +That is to say, the "subsidy" would be represented by goods in this +country. But the various Export "Subsidy" schemes contemplate the use of +sums at least five times as large as that for which Mr Hodges is asking, +and still taking Fleet Street's word that a subsidy and a credit are the +same thing, the distracted British tax-payer would be fleeced to ten +times the extent to which Mr Hodges would subject him; he would not only +have, *ex hypothesi*, to find five hundred millions in taxation, but +would be mulcted by a rise in the general level of prices due to the +distribution of five hundred millions of money unrepresented by any +increase of goods in this country. May we hope that, the point having +been indicated, Sir Edward Mountain's Export Subsidy Scheme will now +receive the same candid and uniform treatment as that accorded to poor +Mr Hodges? + +Where Mr Hodges and the miners fail in strategy is that they do not seem +to realise the fundamental weakness of their case as miners, and the +immense strength of it as members of the public. We thoroughly recognise +that the very worst and blackest aspect is put on their demands, but the +elementary fact is that even as put by themselves there is nothing about +them to compensate the public at large for the expense and inconvenience +to which it is put by a strike. Outside the war profiteers, who, after +all, are the merest tithe of the population and are congenitally +selfish, there are very few classes in this country who are not far +worse off financially than they were in 1914, and the classes who have +lost most are those who, while saying least, think the more and exercise +by far the most vital influence on affairs in a time of crisis. If +instead of continually trumpeting their determination to raise their own +standard of living, no matter who suffers in the process, the Triple +Alliance would say, "We intend that the general standard of living in +this country shall rise, and we mean to proceed, not by attacking +anyone, but by assisting everyone---by first demanding a conference of +all parties for the purpose of exploring every avenue which might lead +to lowering the cost of living without lowering the income of anyone," +they would be invincible and would carry their own ends by a side wind. +No altruism is required or is desirable---if every rich man in this +country sold all that he hath and gave to the poor, the poor would only +notice it for about three months, and after that would, under the +conditions which the Labour movement has not so far challenged, starve +to death through unemployment and tte failure of production, just as +happened in Russia. As it is, a conviction is hardening in the country +that, bad as things are, they would be simply intolerable if the Labour +Party ever got into power. That psychology is disastrous, and when over +some such issue as the present the Prime Minister decides to appeal to +the country, it will result in his being returned with a majority which +will be acclaimed as a mandate to put Labour exactly where Sir Alfred +Mond and his confreres wish to see it. + +Mr Hughes' note to the Allied Powers, which may be considered as the +first official pronouncement on Foreign Policy issued by the Harding +Administration, is a sufficiently disquieting document. In the details +of its comments on the Yap controversy and its demand for a share in the +loot of Mesopotamia there is, of course, nothing new. The noteworthy +content of the dispatch is the considered enunciation of a new Monroe +doctrine embracing the whole world, and the intimation in effect that +the other World Powers have been wasting their time in disposing (so far +as they have disposed) of the problems contingent on the Peace +Treaty---that nothing can be done without the acquiescence of the United +States, and that as the United States has not acquiesced in what has +been done, it is all null and void. Passing over the nice judicial point +as to whether a nation which has been invited and has refused to take +part in the deliberations which have led to the allotment of mandates +and other little spoils of war is justified in objecting to the results +when they are a more or less accomplished fact (because the only real +sanction behind such an attitude is the will and the power to impose +acceptance of it by force of arms), we may profitably consider exactly +what is the position created by such a claim. If Washington is alone in +making it, it is clear that the United States is claiming the position +of the super-State, the ultimate arbiter of all things mundane. But if, +on the other hand, she is only claiming a right which she is prepared to +allow to others, then once again we are brought up against the question +of sanctions. Suppose Montenegro should object to the future course of +events in Mexico? Will Washington agree that all action in Mexico must +be held up until Montenegro is placated? It requires some optimism to +believe it. + +The curious point about the old Monroe doctrine, which is not without +interest in considering the new variant, is that probably more than +anything else it has consistently handicapped the United States in her +relations with South America to which it chiefly referred. While not +above invoking it when occasion served, the peoples of the Latin +republics derided it in conversation as a piece of unsolicited +impertinence, and visited their resentment on the head of the +unfortunate "Norte Americano," both by trade discrimination against him +and by direct personal dislike, with the result that, at any rate prior +to 1914, he was easily the most unpopular national south of Panama. In +itself there is, of course, no doubt that the Monroe doctrine was in the +best interests of South America, and incidentally of this country, which +always consistently supported it, but it is, nevertheless, incontestable +that things being as they are, it was one of the ulterior forces +concerned in the late war. Germany had acquired predominating commercial +interests in Brazil, and only the Monroe doctrine and the British fleet +stood between her and the annexation of a dominion larger than the +United States and rich beyond the dreams of avarice---a country only +held back by the incompetence and laziness of the Portuguese settlers. +Presumably, although we have no information on the point, German +interests in Brazil have suffered eclipse; it is certain that the United +States have been making the most strenuous efforts to replace her not +only in Brazil, but in the Argentine, where she was obtaining large +financial power through her banking system; but the resentment of +overlordship excited by the rather crude tactics of Washington is so +strong that we may hazard a guess that our exporters are not doing very +badly. + +When a man is entirely destitute of knowledge and ideas in regard to the +industrial situation, one of two pronouncements may safely be expected +of him in regard to it. If he is of the traditional type of beef-eating +Briton chiefly met with in country districts, who will endure anything +if only he is not asked to think, he will probably bark out "Labour? +D---d scoundrels! put 'em up against a wall and shoot 'em!" No one with +a sense of humour ought to dislike this hearty ruffian, even if driven +by uncontrollable impulse to throw a bucket of water over him. In the +first place, he is no more responsible for his opinion than a terrier +howling at Beethoven, and in the second place, however silly his method, +his instinct is healthy---he wants a solution. The other person is in a +different and, to us, much more contemptible category---he feels sure +that all would be well if "both sides" would only show a little +good-will. This man may not know it, but he is blasphemous. One of the +most amazing features of the present situation is the steady bias +towards good-will and reason met with everywhere---the prevalence of a +subconscious feeling that an effort is being made to get honest men to +fall out in order that thieves may break through and steal. It is +particularly noticeable on the railways, where every grade seems anxious +to discount the inconvenience it anticipates being forced to inflict on +the public. The writer has been privileged to address various meetings +up and down the country on Credit Reform proposals, at most of which +have been present one or two unhappy-looking individuals whose ideals +evidently did not agree with their digestions, or, perhaps, proceeded +from them; but no one could mistake the isolation of their position. +Most of these audiences either of so-called "masters" or "men" consisted +of individuals actually grappling with the facts of industry, knowing +the virtues, failings and common humanity of their neighbours, and well +disposed to agree that a third party, Finance, understood by neither of +them, might be the agency which for ever seemed to make agreement +impossible. That there are small bodies of irreconcilables we agree; but +if the main body of citizens had a sound lead we do not think that these +warriors would count for very much. + +There may be various opinions about Mr Lloyd George (known for obvious +reasons, in political circles, as "The Goat") as a Prime Minister, but +it is impossible to deny him the very highest honours both as a +strategist and as a political acrobat. His method of testing the +electioneering temperature by calling out the reserves and imploring all +loyal citizens to enlist in the Volunteer Defence Force during the late +coal strike is very expensive to the tax-payer and very bad for the +moral of the country, but gives him quite a fair idea of the votes he +would get in the election he is doubtless considering. Having tested the +temper of the country in this way, we may confidently expect him to go +to the country at an early date and be returned to power with a +substantial, even if slightly diminished, majority. In the unlikely +event of his deciding that an election would be inopportune he will no +doubt pose as the saviour of the country from the civil war we haven't +noticed. Either way, it all seems clear gain to Mr Lloyd George, and it +is very, very clever. "Whether a little wisdom would not be worth more +to the country, and to Mr Lloyd George himself, than all this agility +is, of course, a matter on which one may hold strong opinions. It has +always been incomprehensible to us that anyone could imagine that a body +of men of the magnitude of, say, the Triple Alliance, beaten by +starvation or force into accepting terms, distasteful to them, could +fail to renew the struggle at the earliest possible moment; and we can +only conclude that the International Financial Groups who precipitate +these struggles do not really care how frequent they are---the cost of +them is simply passed on to the public in prices, and the real authors +of them not merely go completely untouched by the repeated tragedies, +but from villas on the Riviera or elsewhere"glut" their love of power by contemplating the writhings of the world they have enslaved. -Dr Leighton Parkes, Rector of St Bartholomew's Episcopal -Church, New York, stirred up a hornets' nest by stating that -"he Roman Catholic Hierarchy in this country \[United -States\] desires nothing more than to bring about a war with -England, not only on account of the ancient grudge, but -because England is the great Protestant country of Europe as -we are in the Western Hemisphere." We think Dr Leighton -Parkes is to be congratulated on his plain speaking. It is -quite certain that the fundamental difference between -political Roman Catholicism and political Protestantism (all -religions are the basis of political systems) is that the -first is essentially authoritarian and the second is -individualistic. There are thousands of English Roman -Catholics who are such because they are attracted by the -beauty and dignity of its ritual and the artistic impact of -its code of life. But the simple fact remains that when -stripped to its essentials the Roman claim is a claim for -the surrender of individual judgment and, in any important -crisis, of individual action. That is one reason why Roman -Catholics are so successful in the army, and it is the great -reason why the Hierarchy of Rome, as apart from the many -delightful personages to be found in it, is a danger to -peace, freedom and development, wherever it is entrenched. +Dr Leighton Parkes, Rector of St Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, New +York, stirred up a hornets' nest by stating that "he Roman Catholic +Hierarchy in this country \[United States\] desires nothing more than to +bring about a war with England, not only on account of the ancient +grudge, but because England is the great Protestant country of Europe as +we are in the Western Hemisphere." We think Dr Leighton Parkes is to be +congratulated on his plain speaking. It is quite certain that the +fundamental difference between political Roman Catholicism and political +Protestantism (all religions are the basis of political systems) is that +the first is essentially authoritarian and the second is +individualistic. There are thousands of English Roman Catholics who are +such because they are attracted by the beauty and dignity of its ritual +and the artistic impact of its code of life. But the simple fact remains +that when stripped to its essentials the Roman claim is a claim for the +surrender of individual judgment and, in any important crisis, of +individual action. That is one reason why Roman Catholics are so +successful in the army, and it is the great reason why the Hierarchy of +Rome, as apart from the many delightful personages to be found in it, is +a danger to peace, freedom and development, wherever it is entrenched. # "The Moving Finger Writes..." -It is now nearly three years since the first publication of -the credit theory which has become, it is hoped, more -familiar than seemed likely at that time. When that theory -first saw the light of publicity the world, panting and -enfeebled from the first world war, was threatened with -social upheaval and torn with conflicting idealisms on the -one hand, and a prey to the megalomaniacs of industry and -finance on the other. "All power to the Soldiers and Workers -Councils!" yelled the Left. "Increased production," murmured -Lord Inchcape, as he passed the plans for a few hundred new -branch banks. - -Well, they have all had their way. The greatest undivided -unit of the world's surface, a national territory which -could accommodate comfortably the United States and the -whole of non-Russian Europe within its boundaries and still -have vast expanses unoccupied; an area which is probably far -richer in potential resources than any other under one -control, has been nominally ruled for more than four years -by the first Workers Republic. In that short space of time -millions of the class in whose interests it is alleged that -the Soviet Republic was created have been reduced to a state -of famine and misery far in excess of anything experienced -under the corrupt and inefficient regime of the Tsar. The -control of the individual worker over his life and destiny, -so far from having increased, has become a mere mockery, and -the only tolerable portions of Russia appear to be those in -which the writ of the centralised despotism of Moscow does -not run. A new era is opening; enter Herr Stinnes and Mr -Hoover. - -In Great Britain and America the working out of the dominant -policy has been equally instructive if only less immediately -disastrous. Following on the gigantic expansion of plant -which took place during the war, the year 1919 and the early -half of 1920 saw still more factory and real capital -production, accompanied, for reasons explained many times in -these pages, by a continuous rise in prices. Lord Inchcape -has got his branch banks. Homes for heroes are still under -strength. - -In May 1920 the financial powers considered that the process -had gone far enough and withheld further facilities, and in -a period of less than eighteen months, of the many ambitious -enterprises floated at the expense of the public in the -immediate post-war period, probably 95 per cent, have come -into the complete control of the Joint Stock Banks, and not -one of the remainder can carry on for a year except with -their permission. The banker, busily engaged just now in -sorting out from his catch those specimens worth, from a -banker's point of view, preservation, condoles with the -manufacturer and trader, who doesn't quite know what has hit -him. "Ah, my dear fellow," you can hear him say, "if only -those damned lazy scoundrels of yours had worked harder and -consumed less! Wait a bit: sell your car and live quietly -for a few months and we may be able to put you back into -your own works as manager, and then you can teach the -blighters what's what. In fact we'll take care that you do, -if you want to hold your job. Good-morning, my *dear* -fellow." - -(It will be noticed that while prices of retail or ultimate -commodities rose during the period of credit inflation -almost directly in proportion to that inflation, the -stringency has failed signally to produce a corresponding -fall: a result which confirms the credit theory that while -prices can rise to any height under the stress of financial -or effective demand, they cannot fall below costs, which -include all credit issues, without bankruptcy of any -entrepreneur who has not access to the general credit.) - -Meanwhile the Labour Movement in this country and in America -has met its Waterloo. Headed very vigorously and firmly away -from one or two timid approaches to a consumers' policy, -such as the demand for a trifling reduction in the price of -coal, and bound hand and foot to an economic theory -identical with the capitalism it professes to attack, it is -now firmly established in the public estimation as an -anti-public interest. Endowed by the circumstances of the -war with such an opportunity as no one political party ever -had before or probably ever will have again, the Labour -Party both in Parliament and out of it has proved to -demonstration that because its structure is fundamentally -identical with that of other political parties it moves more -or less slowly along similar lines to those of its -competitors, depending as to pace on the qualities of its -personnel. They can change the pace but they cannot change -the direction. That direction is merely to centralise or -focus whatever power is resident in the interest for which -the party stands, and it is patent that labour, simply as a -component of the productive process, is fundamentally a -dying interest. - -Had the miners' strike, or lock-out, occurred twenty-five -years ago it would have paralysed this country and convulsed -the world. How much of a ripple did it produce in 1921? If -economic power precedes political power, as it does, how -much influence will a purely Labour Party exercise in -politics? - -The factor most destructive of progress to the Labour Party -and most useful to the forces opposed to its legitimate -aspirations is its incorrigible abstraction from -reality---an abstraction which is quite probably the result, -amongst other things, of generations of "religious" +It is now nearly three years since the first publication of the credit +theory which has become, it is hoped, more familiar than seemed likely +at that time. When that theory first saw the light of publicity the +world, panting and enfeebled from the first world war, was threatened +with social upheaval and torn with conflicting idealisms on the one +hand, and a prey to the megalomaniacs of industry and finance on the +other. "All power to the Soldiers and Workers Councils!" yelled the +Left. "Increased production," murmured Lord Inchcape, as he passed the +plans for a few hundred new branch banks. + +Well, they have all had their way. The greatest undivided unit of the +world's surface, a national territory which could accommodate +comfortably the United States and the whole of non-Russian Europe within +its boundaries and still have vast expanses unoccupied; an area which is +probably far richer in potential resources than any other under one +control, has been nominally ruled for more than four years by the first +Workers Republic. In that short space of time millions of the class in +whose interests it is alleged that the Soviet Republic was created have +been reduced to a state of famine and misery far in excess of anything +experienced under the corrupt and inefficient regime of the Tsar. The +control of the individual worker over his life and destiny, so far from +having increased, has become a mere mockery, and the only tolerable +portions of Russia appear to be those in which the writ of the +centralised despotism of Moscow does not run. A new era is opening; +enter Herr Stinnes and Mr Hoover. + +In Great Britain and America the working out of the dominant policy has +been equally instructive if only less immediately disastrous. Following +on the gigantic expansion of plant which took place during the war, the +year 1919 and the early half of 1920 saw still more factory and real +capital production, accompanied, for reasons explained many times in +these pages, by a continuous rise in prices. Lord Inchcape has got his +branch banks. Homes for heroes are still under strength. + +In May 1920 the financial powers considered that the process had gone +far enough and withheld further facilities, and in a period of less than +eighteen months, of the many ambitious enterprises floated at the +expense of the public in the immediate post-war period, probably 95 per +cent, have come into the complete control of the Joint Stock Banks, and +not one of the remainder can carry on for a year except with their +permission. The banker, busily engaged just now in sorting out from his +catch those specimens worth, from a banker's point of view, +preservation, condoles with the manufacturer and trader, who doesn't +quite know what has hit him. "Ah, my dear fellow," you can hear him say, +"if only those damned lazy scoundrels of yours had worked harder and +consumed less! Wait a bit: sell your car and live quietly for a few +months and we may be able to put you back into your own works as +manager, and then you can teach the blighters what's what. In fact we'll +take care that you do, if you want to hold your job. Good-morning, my +*dear* fellow." + +(It will be noticed that while prices of retail or ultimate commodities +rose during the period of credit inflation almost directly in proportion +to that inflation, the stringency has failed signally to produce a +corresponding fall: a result which confirms the credit theory that while +prices can rise to any height under the stress of financial or effective +demand, they cannot fall below costs, which include all credit issues, +without bankruptcy of any entrepreneur who has not access to the general +credit.) + +Meanwhile the Labour Movement in this country and in America has met its +Waterloo. Headed very vigorously and firmly away from one or two timid +approaches to a consumers' policy, such as the demand for a trifling +reduction in the price of coal, and bound hand and foot to an economic +theory identical with the capitalism it professes to attack, it is now +firmly established in the public estimation as an anti-public interest. +Endowed by the circumstances of the war with such an opportunity as no +one political party ever had before or probably ever will have again, +the Labour Party both in Parliament and out of it has proved to +demonstration that because its structure is fundamentally identical with +that of other political parties it moves more or less slowly along +similar lines to those of its competitors, depending as to pace on the +qualities of its personnel. They can change the pace but they cannot +change the direction. That direction is merely to centralise or focus +whatever power is resident in the interest for which the party stands, +and it is patent that labour, simply as a component of the productive +process, is fundamentally a dying interest. + +Had the miners' strike, or lock-out, occurred twenty-five years ago it +would have paralysed this country and convulsed the world. How much of a +ripple did it produce in 1921? If economic power precedes political +power, as it does, how much influence will a purely Labour Party +exercise in politics? + +The factor most destructive of progress to the Labour Party and most +useful to the forces opposed to its legitimate aspirations is its +incorrigible abstraction from reality---an abstraction which is quite +probably the result, amongst other things, of generations of "religious" instruction specifically directed to the preaching of "other -worldliness," and to that extent also an instance of the -direction of Labour thought by financial influences. It is -rampant in every sphere of Labour political action, from the -lionising of Mr George Lansbury, an honest citizen who would -like to apply his conception of the Sermon on the Mount to -the game of cut-throat poker, to the instantaneous success -of Mr Tawney's title for his book, *The Sickness of an -Acquisitive Society*. I have not read that book, which is -doubtless excellent, but its title suggests that the average -man ought to work with the specific object of not getting -what he works for---goods; a precisely parallel line of -argument to that of the orthodox capitalist who insists that -the major object of industry is to send goods away from -those who made them, by export, or otherwise, so that -"employment" may never fail. Put shortly, the psychology of -the Labour Party is a psychology of failure. To be poor is -to be virtuous; to be well off is to be wicked; and the -objective of all action is to replace the wicked by the -virtuous. As a result, the official Labour Party is almost -irrevocably committed to a policy of attack, of levelling -down, and is bound to be opposed, sooner or later, by -everyone with any conception of the possibility of levelling -up, as well as by those who have anything to lose. - -It is no pleasant thing to have to criticise that party. -There was a period when organised Labour appeared to be the -hope of the world, but that hope is now very dim; not only -from the causes just outlined, but because the power given -to it by the circumstances of war has been dissipated. Not a -single proposition of the capitalist system has been even -challenged by it; every strike has been a fight for position -in the system, a claim either that the office boy ought to -be General Manager, or at any rate ought to control the -General Manager, combined with lurid threats to the firm's -customers that, in the happy days to come, Labour would -"larn" them what it was like to be an office boy. A very -alluring programme. *R.I.P.* - -While the Labour Party has for all practical purposes -devoted its attention to a mechanical and unreasoning claim -to power on the grounds of virtue, the financiers have not -been so immobile. So long as it was possible to keep the -subject of credit away from public discussion it was done, -and done well. But merely negative opposition, in the nature -of things, being bound to fail, a positive line of action -has been elaborated and is now well under way---the -exploitation of public credit for export purposes. Apart -from the Ter Meulen and Mountain schemes, the Government -(*i.e.* Zaharoff-Sassoon) proposals for dealing with -"unemployment" are based fundamentally on an export credit -scheme buttressed by relief works at home, the latter to be -financed out of taxation. - -Now it is our contention that the use and control of credit -is absolutely the vital issue of the present era. It is a -force and can be used like other forces to destroy or to -build, and it is quite possible that in this Government -proposal we are faced with a real crisis in the history of -civilisation. If it is put into force, we are committed to a -line of action diametrically opposed to that urged in the -pages of this book, and it is therefore vital that it should -be understood. - -The proposal involves the pledging of public credit to the -extent of (at first), say, £26,000,000. It should be -particularly noted that Mr Lloyd George explicitly says: "It -is not consumable goods of which the world stands in the -most urgent need. What it stands mostly in need of is -equipment to start its trade---machinery, transport; and -short credits are of no use when you are dealing with heavy -goods of that kind. We have come to the conclusion ... it is -desirable that we should extend credit for five or even six -years (*Hear, hear!*)"--*Times* report, 20th October. - -That is to say, although the productive capacity of the -industrial nations was so enormous that it overtook the -wastage of a four and a half years' war in eighteen months, -so that two and a half millions are unemployed in this -country, and probably six millions in America, the energies -of the nation are to be employed, not in obtaining the -maximum benefit from its existing plant, but in producing -still more plant to be exported in competition with -countries similarly situated. - -This £25,000,000, then, will be paid out in this country as -wages, salaries and dividends, entirely unrepresented by any -goods for which the general public has any demand whatever. -The money so paid out, therefore, represents pure inflation, -and, being unaccompanied by any method of dealing with -prices, means the inevitable result of pure inflation---a -rise in prices. In other words, the goods exported under -these conditions are paid for by the general public through -the agency of a general rise in prices, but not delivered to -them, but the credits, if ever repaid, are repaid not to the -general public, but to the banks who will finance these -credits. And as at the same time these exports will be in -fierce competition with similar goods from, say, America, -preparations for the coming war will naturally be -accelerated. +worldliness," and to that extent also an instance of the direction of +Labour thought by financial influences. It is rampant in every sphere of +Labour political action, from the lionising of Mr George Lansbury, an +honest citizen who would like to apply his conception of the Sermon on +the Mount to the game of cut-throat poker, to the instantaneous success +of Mr Tawney's title for his book, *The Sickness of an Acquisitive +Society*. I have not read that book, which is doubtless excellent, but +its title suggests that the average man ought to work with the specific +object of not getting what he works for---goods; a precisely parallel +line of argument to that of the orthodox capitalist who insists that the +major object of industry is to send goods away from those who made them, +by export, or otherwise, so that "employment" may never fail. Put +shortly, the psychology of the Labour Party is a psychology of failure. +To be poor is to be virtuous; to be well off is to be wicked; and the +objective of all action is to replace the wicked by the virtuous. As a +result, the official Labour Party is almost irrevocably committed to a +policy of attack, of levelling down, and is bound to be opposed, sooner +or later, by everyone with any conception of the possibility of +levelling up, as well as by those who have anything to lose. + +It is no pleasant thing to have to criticise that party. There was a +period when organised Labour appeared to be the hope of the world, but +that hope is now very dim; not only from the causes just outlined, but +because the power given to it by the circumstances of war has been +dissipated. Not a single proposition of the capitalist system has been +even challenged by it; every strike has been a fight for position in the +system, a claim either that the office boy ought to be General Manager, +or at any rate ought to control the General Manager, combined with lurid +threats to the firm's customers that, in the happy days to come, Labour +would "larn" them what it was like to be an office boy. A very alluring +programme. *R.I.P.* + +While the Labour Party has for all practical purposes devoted its +attention to a mechanical and unreasoning claim to power on the grounds +of virtue, the financiers have not been so immobile. So long as it was +possible to keep the subject of credit away from public discussion it +was done, and done well. But merely negative opposition, in the nature +of things, being bound to fail, a positive line of action has been +elaborated and is now well under way---the exploitation of public credit +for export purposes. Apart from the Ter Meulen and Mountain schemes, the +Government (*i.e.* Zaharoff-Sassoon) proposals for dealing with +"unemployment" are based fundamentally on an export credit scheme +buttressed by relief works at home, the latter to be financed out of +taxation. + +Now it is our contention that the use and control of credit is +absolutely the vital issue of the present era. It is a force and can be +used like other forces to destroy or to build, and it is quite possible +that in this Government proposal we are faced with a real crisis in the +history of civilisation. If it is put into force, we are committed to a +line of action diametrically opposed to that urged in the pages of this +book, and it is therefore vital that it should be understood. + +The proposal involves the pledging of public credit to the extent of (at +first), say, £26,000,000. It should be particularly noted that Mr Lloyd +George explicitly says: "It is not consumable goods of which the world +stands in the most urgent need. What it stands mostly in need of is +equipment to start its trade---machinery, transport; and short credits +are of no use when you are dealing with heavy goods of that kind. We +have come to the conclusion ... it is desirable that we should extend +credit for five or even six years (*Hear, hear!*)"--*Times* report, 20th +October. + +That is to say, although the productive capacity of the industrial +nations was so enormous that it overtook the wastage of a four and a +half years' war in eighteen months, so that two and a half millions are +unemployed in this country, and probably six millions in America, the +energies of the nation are to be employed, not in obtaining the maximum +benefit from its existing plant, but in producing still more plant to be +exported in competition with countries similarly situated. + +This £25,000,000, then, will be paid out in this country as wages, +salaries and dividends, entirely unrepresented by any goods for which +the general public has any demand whatever. The money so paid out, +therefore, represents pure inflation, and, being unaccompanied by any +method of dealing with prices, means the inevitable result of pure +inflation---a rise in prices. In other words, the goods exported under +these conditions are paid for by the general public through the agency +of a general rise in prices, but not delivered to them, but the credits, +if ever repaid, are repaid not to the general public, but to the banks +who will finance these credits. And as at the same time these exports +will be in fierce competition with similar goods from, say, America, +preparations for the coming war will naturally be accelerated. diff --git a/src/economic-democracy.md b/src/economic-democracy.md index ff35c8b..64db0f1 100644 --- a/src/economic-democracy.md +++ b/src/economic-democracy.md @@ -1,25 +1,22 @@ # Preface -Written for the most part under the pressure of War -conditions, this book is an attempt to disentangle from a -mass of superficial features such as Profiteering, and -alleged scarcity of commodities, a sufficient portion of the -skeleton of the Structure we call Society as will serve to -suggest sound reasons for the decay with which it is now -attacked; and afterwards to indicate the probable direction -of sound and vital reconstruction. - -My apologies and sympathy are offered to the reader in -respect of the severe concentration which its tabloid -treatment of technical methods demands; but I have some -grounds for supposing that the matter it contains has -aroused sufficient interest to excuse its presentation in +Written for the most part under the pressure of War conditions, this +book is an attempt to disentangle from a mass of superficial features +such as Profiteering, and alleged scarcity of commodities, a sufficient +portion of the skeleton of the Structure we call Society as will serve +to suggest sound reasons for the decay with which it is now attacked; +and afterwards to indicate the probable direction of sound and vital +reconstruction. + +My apologies and sympathy are offered to the reader in respect of the +severe concentration which its tabloid treatment of technical methods +demands; but I have some grounds for supposing that the matter it +contains has aroused sufficient interest to excuse its presentation in this form. -I am indebted to my friend Mr. A. R. Orage, the Editor of -*The New Age* (in which review, together with the remainder -of the book, it first appeared) for the use of the block -which forms the frontispiece. +I am indebted to my friend Mr. A. R. Orage, the Editor of *The New Age* +(in which review, together with the remainder of the book, it first +appeared) for the use of the block which forms the frontispiece. C. H. Douglas. @@ -27,2877 +24,2443 @@ Heath End, Basingstoke. *November*, 1919. # Chapter One -There has been a very strong tendency, fortunately not now -so strong as it was, to regard fidelity to one set of -opinions as being something of which to be proud, and -consistency in the superficial sense as a test of character. - -The Scottish political constituent who always voted for a -Liberal because he was too Conservative to change, has his -counterpart in every sphere of human activity, and most -particularly so in that of economics, where the tracing back -to first principles of the dogmas used for everyday purposes -requires, in addition to some little aptitude and research, -a laborious effort of thought and logic very foreign to our +There has been a very strong tendency, fortunately not now so strong as +it was, to regard fidelity to one set of opinions as being something of +which to be proud, and consistency in the superficial sense as a test of +character. + +The Scottish political constituent who always voted for a Liberal +because he was too Conservative to change, has his counterpart in every +sphere of human activity, and most particularly so in that of economics, +where the tracing back to first principles of the dogmas used for +everyday purposes requires, in addition to some little aptitude and +research, a laborious effort of thought and logic very foreign to our normal methods. -It thus comes about that modification in the creed of the -orthodox is both difficult and conducive to exasperation; -since because the form is commonly mistaken for the -substance it is not clearly seen why a statement which has -embodied a sound principle, may in course of time become a -dangerous hindrance to progress. - -Of such a character are many of our habits of thought and -speech to-day. Because from the commercial policy of the -nineteenth century has quite clearly sprung great advance in -the domain of science and the mastery of material nature, -the commercialist, quite honestly in many cases, would have -us turn the land into a counting house and drain the sea to -make a factory. On the other hand the Social Reformer, -obsessed as well he might be, with the poverty and -degradation which shoulder the very doors of the rich, is -apt to turn his eyes back to the days antecedent to the -Industrial Revolution note, or assume, that the conditions -he deplores did not exist then, at any rate, in so desperate -a degree; and condemn all business as abominable. - -At various well-defined epochs in the history of -civilisation there has occurred such a clash of apparently -irreconcilable ideas as has at this time most definitely -come upon us. Now, as then, from every quarter come the -unmistakable signs of crumbling institutions and discredited -formulae, while the wide-spread nature of the general -unrest, together with the immense range of pretext alleged -for it, is a clear indication that a general re-arrangement -is imminent. - -As a result of the conditions produced by the European War, -the play of forces, usually only visible to expert -observers, has become apparent to many who previously -regarded none of these things. The very efforts made to -conceal the existence of springs of action other than those -publicly admitted, has riveted the attention of an awakened -proletariat as no amount of positive propaganda would have -done. A more or less conscious effort to refer the results -of the working of the social and political system to the Bar -of individual requirement has, on the whole, quite -definitely resulted in a verdict for the prosecution; and -there is little doubt that sentence will be pronounced and -enforced. - -Before proceeding to the consideration of the remedies -proposed, it may be well to emphasise the more salient -features of the indictment, and in doing this it is of the -first consequence to make very sure of the code against -which the alleged offences have been committed. And here we -are driven right back to first principles---to an attempt to -define the purposes, conscious or unconscious, which govern -humanity in its ceaseless struggle with environment. - -To cover the whole of the ground is, of course, impossible. -The infinite combinations into which the drive of evolution -can assemble the will, emotions and desires, are probably -outside the scope of any form of words not too symbolical -for everyday use. - -But of the many attempts which have been made it is quite -possible that the definition embodied in the majestic words -of the American Declaration of Independence, "the -inalienable right of man to life, liberty and the pursuit of -happiness"is still unexcelled, although the promise of its -birth is yet far from complete justification; and if words -mean anything at all, these words are an assertion of the -supremacy of the individual considered collectively, over -any external interest. Now, what does this mean? First of -all, it does *not* mean anarchy, nor does it mean exactly -what is commonly called individualism, which generally -resolves itself into a claim to force the individuality of -others to subordinate itself to the will-to-power of the -self-styled individualist. And most emphatically it does not -mean collectivism in any of the forms made familiar to us by -the Fabians and others. - -It is suggested that the primary requisite is to obtain in -the re-adjustment of the economic and political structure -such control of initiative that by its exercise every -individual can avail himself of the benefits of science and -mechanism; that by their aid he is placed in such a position -of advantage, that in common with his fellows he can choose, -with increasing freedom and complete independence, whether -he will or will not assist in any project which may be -placed before him. - -The basis of independence of this character is most -definitely economic; it is simply hypocrisy, conscious "or -unconscious, to discuss freedom of any description which -does not secure to the individual, that in return for effort -exercised as a right, not as a concession, an average +It thus comes about that modification in the creed of the orthodox is +both difficult and conducive to exasperation; since because the form is +commonly mistaken for the substance it is not clearly seen why a +statement which has embodied a sound principle, may in course of time +become a dangerous hindrance to progress. + +Of such a character are many of our habits of thought and speech to-day. +Because from the commercial policy of the nineteenth century has quite +clearly sprung great advance in the domain of science and the mastery of +material nature, the commercialist, quite honestly in many cases, would +have us turn the land into a counting house and drain the sea to make a +factory. On the other hand the Social Reformer, obsessed as well he +might be, with the poverty and degradation which shoulder the very doors +of the rich, is apt to turn his eyes back to the days antecedent to the +Industrial Revolution note, or assume, that the conditions he deplores +did not exist then, at any rate, in so desperate a degree; and condemn +all business as abominable. + +At various well-defined epochs in the history of civilisation there has +occurred such a clash of apparently irreconcilable ideas as has at this +time most definitely come upon us. Now, as then, from every quarter come +the unmistakable signs of crumbling institutions and discredited +formulae, while the wide-spread nature of the general unrest, together +with the immense range of pretext alleged for it, is a clear indication +that a general re-arrangement is imminent. + +As a result of the conditions produced by the European War, the play of +forces, usually only visible to expert observers, has become apparent to +many who previously regarded none of these things. The very efforts made +to conceal the existence of springs of action other than those publicly +admitted, has riveted the attention of an awakened proletariat as no +amount of positive propaganda would have done. A more or less conscious +effort to refer the results of the working of the social and political +system to the Bar of individual requirement has, on the whole, quite +definitely resulted in a verdict for the prosecution; and there is +little doubt that sentence will be pronounced and enforced. + +Before proceeding to the consideration of the remedies proposed, it may +be well to emphasise the more salient features of the indictment, and in +doing this it is of the first consequence to make very sure of the code +against which the alleged offences have been committed. And here we are +driven right back to first principles---to an attempt to define the +purposes, conscious or unconscious, which govern humanity in its +ceaseless struggle with environment. + +To cover the whole of the ground is, of course, impossible. The infinite +combinations into which the drive of evolution can assemble the will, +emotions and desires, are probably outside the scope of any form of +words not too symbolical for everyday use. + +But of the many attempts which have been made it is quite possible that +the definition embodied in the majestic words of the American +Declaration of Independence, "the inalienable right of man to life, +liberty and the pursuit of happiness"is still unexcelled, although the +promise of its birth is yet far from complete justification; and if +words mean anything at all, these words are an assertion of the +supremacy of the individual considered collectively, over any external +interest. Now, what does this mean? First of all, it does *not* mean +anarchy, nor does it mean exactly what is commonly called individualism, +which generally resolves itself into a claim to force the individuality +of others to subordinate itself to the will-to-power of the self-styled +individualist. And most emphatically it does not mean collectivism in +any of the forms made familiar to us by the Fabians and others. + +It is suggested that the primary requisite is to obtain in the +re-adjustment of the economic and political structure such control of +initiative that by its exercise every individual can avail himself of +the benefits of science and mechanism; that by their aid he is placed in +such a position of advantage, that in common with his fellows he can +choose, with increasing freedom and complete independence, whether he +will or will not assist in any project which may be placed before him. + +The basis of independence of this character is most definitely economic; +it is simply hypocrisy, conscious "or unconscious, to discuss freedom of +any description which does not secure to the individual, that in return +for effort exercised as a right, not as a concession, an average economic equivalent of the effort made shall be forthcoming. -It seems clear that only by a recognition of this necessity -can the foundations of society be so laid that no -superstructure built upon them can fail, as the -superstructure of capitalistic society is most -unquestionably failing, because the pediments which should -sustain it are honeycombed with decay. +It seems clear that only by a recognition of this necessity can the +foundations of society be so laid that no superstructure built upon them +can fail, as the superstructure of capitalistic society is most +unquestionably failing, because the pediments which should sustain it +are honeycombed with decay. -Systems were made for men, and not men for systems, and the -interest of man which is self-development, is above all -systems, whether theological, political or economic. +Systems were made for men, and not men for systems, and the interest of +man which is self-development, is above all systems, whether +theological, political or economic. # Chapter Two -Accepting this statement as a basis of constructive effort, -it seems clear that all forms, whether of government, -industry or society must exist contingently to the -furtherance of the principles contained in it. If a State -system can be shown to be inimical to them---it must go; if -social customs hamper their continuous expansion---they must -be modified; if unbridled industrialism checks their growth, -then industrialism must be reined in. That is to say, we -must build up from the individual, not down from the State. - -It is necessary to be very clear in thus defining the scope -of our inquiry since the exaltation of the State into an -authority from which there is no appeal, the exploitation of -a public opinion which at the present time is frequently -manufactured for interested purposes, and other attempts to -shift the centre of gravity of the main issues; these are -all features of one of the policies which it is our purpose -to analyse. If, therefore, any condition can be shown to be -oppressive to the individual, no appeal to its desirability -in the interests of external organisation can be considered -in extenuation; and while cooperation is the note of the -coming age, our premises require that it must be the -cooperation of reasoned assent, not regimentation in the +Accepting this statement as a basis of constructive effort, it seems +clear that all forms, whether of government, industry or society must +exist contingently to the furtherance of the principles contained in it. +If a State system can be shown to be inimical to them---it must go; if +social customs hamper their continuous expansion---they must be +modified; if unbridled industrialism checks their growth, then +industrialism must be reined in. That is to say, we must build up from +the individual, not down from the State. + +It is necessary to be very clear in thus defining the scope of our +inquiry since the exaltation of the State into an authority from which +there is no appeal, the exploitation of a public opinion which at the +present time is frequently manufactured for interested purposes, and +other attempts to shift the centre of gravity of the main issues; these +are all features of one of the policies which it is our purpose to +analyse. If, therefore, any condition can be shown to be oppressive to +the individual, no appeal to its desirability in the interests of +external organisation can be considered in extenuation; and while +cooperation is the note of the coming age, our premises require that it +must be the cooperation of reasoned assent, not regimentation in the interests of any system, however superficially attractive. -There is no doubt whatever that a mangled and misapplied -Darwinism has been one of the most potent factors in the -social development of the past sixty years; from the date of -the publication of "The Origin of Species" the theory of the -"survival of the fittest" has always been put forward as an -omnibus answer to any individual hardship; and although such -books as Mr. Benjamin Kidd's "Science of Power" have pretty -well exposed the reasons why the individual, efficient in -his own interest and consequently well-fitted to survive, -may and will possess characteristics which completely unfit -him for positions of power in the community, we may begin -our inquiry by noticing that one of the most serious causes -of the prevalent dissatisfaction and disquietude is the -obvious survival, success and rise to positions of great -power, of individuals to whom the term '*fittest*' could -only be applied in the very narrowest sense. And in -admitting the justice of the criticism, it is not of course -necessary to question the soundness of Darwin's theory. Such -an admission is simply evidence that the particular -environment in which the "fittest" are admittedly surviving -and succeeding is unsatisfactory; that in consequence those -best fitted for it are not representative of the ideal -existent in the mind of the critic, and that environment -cannot be left to the unaided law of Darwinian evolution, in +There is no doubt whatever that a mangled and misapplied Darwinism has +been one of the most potent factors in the social development of the +past sixty years; from the date of the publication of "The Origin of +Species" the theory of the "survival of the fittest" has always been put +forward as an omnibus answer to any individual hardship; and although +such books as Mr. Benjamin Kidd's "Science of Power" have pretty well +exposed the reasons why the individual, efficient in his own interest +and consequently well-fitted to survive, may and will possess +characteristics which completely unfit him for positions of power in the +community, we may begin our inquiry by noticing that one of the most +serious causes of the prevalent dissatisfaction and disquietude is the +obvious survival, success and rise to positions of great power, of +individuals to whom the term '*fittest*' could only be applied in the +very narrowest sense. And in admitting the justice of the criticism, it +is not of course necessary to question the soundness of Darwin's theory. +Such an admission is simply evidence that the particular environment in +which the "fittest" are admittedly surviving and succeeding is +unsatisfactory; that in consequence those best fitted for it are not +representative of the ideal existent in the mind of the critic, and that +environment cannot be left to the unaided law of Darwinian evolution, in view of its effect on other than material issues. -To what extent the rapid development of systematic -organisation is connected with the statement of the law of -biological evolution would be an interesting speculation; -but the second great factor in the changes which have been -taking place during the final years of the epoch just -closing is undoubtedly the marshalling of effort in -conformity with well-defined principles, the enunciation of -which has largely proceeded from Germany, although their -source may very possibly be extra-national; and while these -principles have been accepted and developed in varying -degree by the governing classes of all countries, the -dubious honour of applying them with rigid logic and a stern -disregard of by-products, belongs without question, to the -land of their birth. They may be summarised as a claim for -the complete subjection of the individual to an objective -which is externally imposed on him; which it is not -necessary or even desirable that he should understand in -full; and the forging of a social, industrial and political -organisation which will concentrate control of policy while -making effective revolt completely impossible, and leaving -its originators in possession of supreme power. - -This demand to subordinate individuality to the need of some -external organisation, the exaltation of the State into an -authority from which there is no appeal (as if the State had -a concrete existence apart from which those who operate its -functions), the exploitation of "public opinion" manipulated -by a Press owned and controlled from the apex of power, are -all features of a centralising policy commended to the -individual by a claim that the interest of the community is -thereby advanced, and its results in Germany have been -nothing less than appalling. The external characteristics of -a nation with a population of 65 millions have been -completely altered in two generations, so that from the home -of idealism typified by Schiller, Goethe, and Heine, it has -become notorious for bestiality and inhumanity only offset -by a slavish discipline. Its statistics of child suicide -during the years preceding the war exceeded by many hundreds -percent, those of any other country in the world, and were -rising rapidly. Insanity and nervous breakdown were becoming -by far the gravest problem of the German medical profession. -Its commercial morality was devoid of all honour, and the -external influence of Prussian ideals on the world has -undoubtedly been to intensify the struggle for existence -along lines which quite inevitably culminated in the -greatest war of all history. - -The comparative rapidity with which the processes matured -was no doubt aided by an essential servility characteristic -of the Teutonic race, and the attempt to embody these -principles in Anglo-Saxon communities has not proceeded -either so fast or so far; but every indication points to the -imminence of a determined effort to transfer and adopt the -policy of central, or, more correctly, pyramid, control from -the nation it has ruined to others, so far more fortunate. - -Thus far we have examined the psychological aspect of -control exercised through power. Let us turn for a moment to -its material side. Inequalities of circumstance confront us -at every turn. The vicious circles of unemployment, -degradation and unemployability, the disparity between the -reward of the successful stock-jobber and the same man +To what extent the rapid development of systematic organisation is +connected with the statement of the law of biological evolution would be +an interesting speculation; but the second great factor in the changes +which have been taking place during the final years of the epoch just +closing is undoubtedly the marshalling of effort in conformity with +well-defined principles, the enunciation of which has largely proceeded +from Germany, although their source may very possibly be extra-national; +and while these principles have been accepted and developed in varying +degree by the governing classes of all countries, the dubious honour of +applying them with rigid logic and a stern disregard of by-products, +belongs without question, to the land of their birth. They may be +summarised as a claim for the complete subjection of the individual to +an objective which is externally imposed on him; which it is not +necessary or even desirable that he should understand in full; and the +forging of a social, industrial and political organisation which will +concentrate control of policy while making effective revolt completely +impossible, and leaving its originators in possession of supreme power. + +This demand to subordinate individuality to the need of some external +organisation, the exaltation of the State into an authority from which +there is no appeal (as if the State had a concrete existence apart from +which those who operate its functions), the exploitation of "public +opinion" manipulated by a Press owned and controlled from the apex of +power, are all features of a centralising policy commended to the +individual by a claim that the interest of the community is thereby +advanced, and its results in Germany have been nothing less than +appalling. The external characteristics of a nation with a population of +65 millions have been completely altered in two generations, so that +from the home of idealism typified by Schiller, Goethe, and Heine, it +has become notorious for bestiality and inhumanity only offset by a +slavish discipline. Its statistics of child suicide during the years +preceding the war exceeded by many hundreds percent, those of any other +country in the world, and were rising rapidly. Insanity and nervous +breakdown were becoming by far the gravest problem of the German medical +profession. Its commercial morality was devoid of all honour, and the +external influence of Prussian ideals on the world has undoubtedly been +to intensify the struggle for existence along lines which quite +inevitably culminated in the greatest war of all history. + +The comparative rapidity with which the processes matured was no doubt +aided by an essential servility characteristic of the Teutonic race, and +the attempt to embody these principles in Anglo-Saxon communities has +not proceeded either so fast or so far; but every indication points to +the imminence of a determined effort to transfer and adopt the policy of +central, or, more correctly, pyramid, control from the nation it has +ruined to others, so far more fortunate. + +Thus far we have examined the psychological aspect of control exercised +through power. Let us turn for a moment to its material side. +Inequalities of circumstance confront us at every turn. The vicious +circles of unemployment, degradation and unemployability, the disparity +between the reward of the successful stock-jobber and the same man turned private soldier, enduring unbelievable discomfort for -eighteen-pence per day, the gardener turned pieceworker, -earning three times the pay of the skilled mechanic, are -instances at random of the erratic working of the so-called -law of supply and demand. - -In the sphere of politics it is clear that all settled -principle other than the consolidation of power, has been -abandoned, and mere expediency has taken its place. The -attitude of statesman and officials to the people in whose -interests they are supposed to hold office, is one of -scarcely veiled antagonism, only tempered by the fear of -unpleasant consequences. In the State services, the easy -supremacy of patronage over merit, and vested interest over -either, has kindled widespread resentment, levelled not less -at the inevitable result, than at the personal injustice -involved. - -In its relations with labour, the State is hardly more -happy. In the interim report of the Commission on Industrial -Unrest, the following statement occurs:---- - ->  There is no doubt that one cause of labour unrest is that -> workmen have come to regard the promises and pledges of -> Parliament and Government Departments with suspicion and -> distrust. - -In industry itself, the perennial struggle between the -forces of Capital and Labour, on questions of wages and -hours of work, is daily becoming complicated by the -introduction of fresh issues such as welfare, status and -discipline, and it is universally recognised that the -periodic strikes which convulse one trade after another, -have common roots far deeper than the immediate matter of -contention. In the very ranks of Trade Unionism, whose -organisation has become centralised in opposition to -concentrated capital, cleavage is evident in the acrimonious -squabbles between the skilled and the unskilled, the rank -and file and the Trade Union official. - -Although the diversion of the forces of industry to munition -work of, in the economic sense, an unreproductive character -has created an almost unlimited outlet for manufactures of -nearly every kind, it is not forgotten that before the war -the competition for markets was of the fiercest character -and that the whole world was apparently overproducing; in -spite of the patent contradiction offered by the existence -of a large element of the population continually on the -verge of starvation (Snowden Socialism and Syndicalism), and -a great majority whose only interest in great groups of the -luxury trades was that of the wage-earner. - -The ever-rising cost of living has brought home to large -numbers of the salaried classes problems which had -previously affected only the wage-earner. It is realised -that "labour-saving" machinery has only enabled the worker -to do more work; and that the ever-increasing complexity of -production, paralleled by the rising price of the -necessaries of life, is a sieve through which out and for -ever out go all ideas, scruples and principles which would -hamper the individual in the scramble for an increasingly -precarious existence. - -We see, then, that there is cause for dissatisfaction with -not only the material results of the economic and political -systems, but that they result in an environment which is -hostile to moral progress and intellectual expansion; and it -will be noticed in this enumeration of social evils, which -is only so wide as is necessary to suggest principles, that -emphasis is laid on what may be called abstract defects and -miscarriages of justice, as well as on the material misery -and distress which accompany them. The reason for this is -that the twin evil (common more or less to all existing -organised Society) of servility is poverty, as has been -clearly recognised by all shades of opinion amongst the -exponents of Revolutionary Socialism. Poverty is in itself a -transient phenomenon, but servility (not necessarily, of -course, of manner) is a definite component of a system -having centralised control of policy as its apex; and while -the development of self-respect is universally recognised to -be an antecedent condition to any real improvement in -environment, it is not so generally understood that a -world-wide system is thereby challenged. In referring the -existent systems to the standard we have agreed to accept, -however, it seems clear that the stimulation of independence -of thought and action is a primary requirement, and to the -extent to which these qualities are repressed, social and -economic conditions stand condemned as undesirable. - -Now it may be emphasised that a centralised or pyramid form -of control may be, and is in certain conditions, the ideal -organisation for the attainment of one specific and material -end. The only effective force by which any objective can be -attained is in the last analysis the human will, and if an -organisation of this character can keep the will of all its -component members focussed on the objective to be attained, -the collective power available is centralised control of -policy as its apex; and while the development of -self-respect is universally recognised to be an antecedent -condition to any real improvement in environment, it is not -so generally understood that a world-wide system is thereby -challenged. In referring the existent systems to the -standard we have agreed to accept, however, it seems clear -that the stimulation of independence of thought and action -is a primary requirement, and to the extent to which these -qualities are repressed, social and economic conditions -stand condemned as undesirable. - -To crystallise the matter into a phrase; in respect of any -undertaking, centralisation is the way to do it, but is -neither the correct method of deciding what to do or of -selecting the individual who is to do it. +eighteen-pence per day, the gardener turned pieceworker, earning three +times the pay of the skilled mechanic, are instances at random of the +erratic working of the so-called law of supply and demand. + +In the sphere of politics it is clear that all settled principle other +than the consolidation of power, has been abandoned, and mere expediency +has taken its place. The attitude of statesman and officials to the +people in whose interests they are supposed to hold office, is one of +scarcely veiled antagonism, only tempered by the fear of unpleasant +consequences. In the State services, the easy supremacy of patronage +over merit, and vested interest over either, has kindled widespread +resentment, levelled not less at the inevitable result, than at the +personal injustice involved. + +In its relations with labour, the State is hardly more happy. In the +interim report of the Commission on Industrial Unrest, the following +statement occurs:---- + +>  There is no doubt that one cause of labour unrest is that workmen +> have come to regard the promises and pledges of Parliament and +> Government Departments with suspicion and distrust. + +In industry itself, the perennial struggle between the forces of Capital +and Labour, on questions of wages and hours of work, is daily becoming +complicated by the introduction of fresh issues such as welfare, status +and discipline, and it is universally recognised that the periodic +strikes which convulse one trade after another, have common roots far +deeper than the immediate matter of contention. In the very ranks of +Trade Unionism, whose organisation has become centralised in opposition +to concentrated capital, cleavage is evident in the acrimonious +squabbles between the skilled and the unskilled, the rank and file and +the Trade Union official. + +Although the diversion of the forces of industry to munition work of, in +the economic sense, an unreproductive character has created an almost +unlimited outlet for manufactures of nearly every kind, it is not +forgotten that before the war the competition for markets was of the +fiercest character and that the whole world was apparently +overproducing; in spite of the patent contradiction offered by the +existence of a large element of the population continually on the verge +of starvation (Snowden Socialism and Syndicalism), and a great majority +whose only interest in great groups of the luxury trades was that of the +wage-earner. + +The ever-rising cost of living has brought home to large numbers of the +salaried classes problems which had previously affected only the +wage-earner. It is realised that "labour-saving" machinery has only +enabled the worker to do more work; and that the ever-increasing +complexity of production, paralleled by the rising price of the +necessaries of life, is a sieve through which out and for ever out go +all ideas, scruples and principles which would hamper the individual in +the scramble for an increasingly precarious existence. + +We see, then, that there is cause for dissatisfaction with not only the +material results of the economic and political systems, but that they +result in an environment which is hostile to moral progress and +intellectual expansion; and it will be noticed in this enumeration of +social evils, which is only so wide as is necessary to suggest +principles, that emphasis is laid on what may be called abstract defects +and miscarriages of justice, as well as on the material misery and +distress which accompany them. The reason for this is that the twin evil +(common more or less to all existing organised Society) of servility is +poverty, as has been clearly recognised by all shades of opinion amongst +the exponents of Revolutionary Socialism. Poverty is in itself a +transient phenomenon, but servility (not necessarily, of course, of +manner) is a definite component of a system having centralised control +of policy as its apex; and while the development of self-respect is +universally recognised to be an antecedent condition to any real +improvement in environment, it is not so generally understood that a +world-wide system is thereby challenged. In referring the existent +systems to the standard we have agreed to accept, however, it seems +clear that the stimulation of independence of thought and action is a +primary requirement, and to the extent to which these qualities are +repressed, social and economic conditions stand condemned as +undesirable. + +Now it may be emphasised that a centralised or pyramid form of control +may be, and is in certain conditions, the ideal organisation for the +attainment of one specific and material end. The only effective force by +which any objective can be attained is in the last analysis the human +will, and if an organisation of this character can keep the will of all +its component members focussed on the objective to be attained, the +collective power available is centralised control of policy as its apex; +and while the development of self-respect is universally recognised to +be an antecedent condition to any real improvement in environment, it is +not so generally understood that a world-wide system is thereby +challenged. In referring the existent systems to the standard we have +agreed to accept, however, it seems clear that the stimulation of +independence of thought and action is a primary requirement, and to the +extent to which these qualities are repressed, social and economic +conditions stand condemned as undesirable. + +To crystallise the matter into a phrase; in respect of any undertaking, +centralisation is the way to do it, but is neither the correct method of +deciding what to do or of selecting the individual who is to do it. # Chapter Three -We are thus led to inquire into environment with a view to -the identification, if possible, of conditions to which can -be charged the development of servility on the one hand, and -the discouragement of possibly more desirable -characteristics on the other, and in this inquiry it is -necessary to avoid the real danger of mistaking effects for -causes; and, further, to beware of seeing only one -phenomenon when we are really confronted with several. - -For instance, that from the misuse of the power of capital -many of the more glaring defects of society proceed is -certain, but in claiming that in itself the private -*administration* of industry is the whole source of these -evils, the Socialist is almost certainly claiming too much, -confounding the symptom with the disease, and taking no -account of certain essential facts. It is most important to -differentiate in this matter, between private enterprise -utilising capital, and the abuse of it. - -The private administration of capital has had a credit as -well as a debit side to its account; without private -enterprise backed by capital, scientific progress, and the -possibilities of material betterment based on it, would -never have achieved the rapid development of the past -hundred years; and still more important at this time, only -the control of capital, which on the one hand has degraded -propaganda into one of the Black Arts, has, on the other, -made possible such crusades against an ill-informed or -misled public opinion as, for instance, the anti-slavery -Campaign of the early nineteenth century, or the parallel -activities of the anti-sweating league at the present day. -The very agitation carried on against capitalism itself -would be impossible without the freedom of action given by -the private control of considerable funds. - -The capitalistic system in the form in which we know it has -served its purpose, and may be replaced with advantage; but -in any social system proposed, the first necessity is to -provide some bulwark against a despotism which might exceed -that of the Trust, bad as the latter has become. In our -anxiety to make a world safe for democracy it is a matter of -real urgency that we do not tip out the baby with the bath -water, and, by discarding too soon what is clearly an agency -which can be made to operate both ways, make democracy even -more unsafe for the individual than it is at present. - -The danger which at the moment threatens individual liberty -far more than any extension of individual enterprise is the -Servile State; the erection of an irresistible and -impersonal organisation through which the ambition of able -men, animated consciously or unconsciously by the lust of -domination, may operate to the enslavement of their fellows. -Under such a system the ordinary citizen might, and probably -would, be far worse off than under private enterprise freed -from the domination of finance and regulated in the light of -modern thought. The consideration of any return to isolated -industrial undertakings is quite academic, since there is -not the faintest probability of its occurrence, but that -stage of development had undoubtedly certain valuable -features which it would be well to preserve and revive. The -large profit-making limited company which distributes its -profits over a wide area is already rapidly displacing the -family business and, as will be seen, it is not alone in the -profit-making aspect of its activities that its worst +We are thus led to inquire into environment with a view to the +identification, if possible, of conditions to which can be charged the +development of servility on the one hand, and the discouragement of +possibly more desirable characteristics on the other, and in this +inquiry it is necessary to avoid the real danger of mistaking effects +for causes; and, further, to beware of seeing only one phenomenon when +we are really confronted with several. + +For instance, that from the misuse of the power of capital many of the +more glaring defects of society proceed is certain, but in claiming that +in itself the private *administration* of industry is the whole source +of these evils, the Socialist is almost certainly claiming too much, +confounding the symptom with the disease, and taking no account of +certain essential facts. It is most important to differentiate in this +matter, between private enterprise utilising capital, and the abuse of +it. + +The private administration of capital has had a credit as well as a +debit side to its account; without private enterprise backed by capital, +scientific progress, and the possibilities of material betterment based +on it, would never have achieved the rapid development of the past +hundred years; and still more important at this time, only the control +of capital, which on the one hand has degraded propaganda into one of +the Black Arts, has, on the other, made possible such crusades against +an ill-informed or misled public opinion as, for instance, the +anti-slavery Campaign of the early nineteenth century, or the parallel +activities of the anti-sweating league at the present day. The very +agitation carried on against capitalism itself would be impossible +without the freedom of action given by the private control of +considerable funds. + +The capitalistic system in the form in which we know it has served its +purpose, and may be replaced with advantage; but in any social system +proposed, the first necessity is to provide some bulwark against a +despotism which might exceed that of the Trust, bad as the latter has +become. In our anxiety to make a world safe for democracy it is a matter +of real urgency that we do not tip out the baby with the bath water, +and, by discarding too soon what is clearly an agency which can be made +to operate both ways, make democracy even more unsafe for the individual +than it is at present. + +The danger which at the moment threatens individual liberty far more +than any extension of individual enterprise is the Servile State; the +erection of an irresistible and impersonal organisation through which +the ambition of able men, animated consciously or unconsciously by the +lust of domination, may operate to the enslavement of their fellows. +Under such a system the ordinary citizen might, and probably would, be +far worse off than under private enterprise freed from the domination of +finance and regulated in the light of modern thought. The consideration +of any return to isolated industrial undertakings is quite academic, +since there is not the faintest probability of its occurrence, but that +stage of development had undoubtedly certain valuable features which it +would be well to preserve and revive. The large profit-making limited +company which distributes its profits over a wide area is already +rapidly displacing the family business and, as will be seen, it is not +alone in the profit-making aspect of its activities that its worst features lie. -In attacking capitalism, collective Socialism has largely -failed to recognise that the real enemy is the -will-to-power, the positive complement to servility, of -which Prussianism, with its theories of the supreme state -and the unimportance of the individual (both of which are -the absolute negation of private enterprise) is only the -fine flower; and that nationalisation of all the means of -livelihood, without the provision of much more effective -safeguards than have so far been publicly evolved, leaves -the individual without any appeal from its only possible -employer and so substitutes a worse, because more powerful, +In attacking capitalism, collective Socialism has largely failed to +recognise that the real enemy is the will-to-power, the positive +complement to servility, of which Prussianism, with its theories of the +supreme state and the unimportance of the individual (both of which are +the absolute negation of private enterprise) is only the fine flower; +and that nationalisation of all the means of livelihood, without the +provision of much more effective safeguards than have so far been +publicly evolved, leaves the individual without any appeal from its only +possible employer and so substitutes a worse, because more powerful, tyranny for that which it would destroy. -It is a most astonishing fact that the experience of -hundreds of thousands of men and women in such departments -as the Post Office, where real discontent is probably more -general, and the material and psychological justification -for it more obvious, than in any of the more modern -industrial establishments, has not been sufficient to -impress the public with the futility of mere -nationalisation. This is not in any sense a disparagement of -the excellent qualities ot large numbers of Government -officials; it is merely an attempt to indicate the -remarkable facility with which well-intentioned people will -allow themselves to be hypnotised by a phrase. It is -notorious that the State Socialists of Germany, commonly -known as the Majority Party, were of the greatest possible -assistance to Junkerdom in carrying out its plans for a -Prussian world hegemony; while in our own country the -bureaucrat and the Fabian have, on the whole, not failed to -understand each other; and the explanation is simply that -both, either consciously or unconsciously, assume that there -is no psychological problem involved in the control of -industry just as the Syndicalist is, with more -justification, apt to stress the psychological to the -exclusion of the technical aspect. - -Because the control of capital has given power, the effect -of the operation of the will-to-power has been to accumulate -capital in a few groups, possibly composed of large numbers -of shareholders, but frequently directed by one man; and -this process is quite clearly a stage in the transition from -decentralised to centralised power. This centralisation of -the power of capital and credit is going on before our eyes, -both directly in the form of money trusts and bank -amalgamations, and indirectly in the confederation of the -producing industries representing the capital power of -machinery. It has its counterpart in every sphere of -activity: the coalescing of small businesses into larger, of -shops into huge stores, of villages into towns, of nations -into leagues, and in every case is commended to the reason -by the plea of economic necessity and efficiency. But behind -this lies always the will-to-power, which operates equally -through politics, finance or industry, and always towards -centralisation. If this point of view be admitted, it seems -perfectly clear that to the individual it will make very -little difference what name is given to centralisation. -Nationalisation without decentralised control of policy will -quite effectively instal the trust magnate of the next -generation in the chair of the bureaucrat, with the added -advantage to him that he will have no shareholders' meeting. - -One of the more obvious effects of the concentration of -credit-capital in a few hands, which simply means the -centralisation of directive power, is its contribution to -the illusion of the fiercely competitive nature of -international trade. Although as we shall see, in -considering the economics of the increasing employment of -machinery for productive purposes, this phenomenon has been -confounded with one to which it is only indirectly -connected, it may be convenient at this time to point out -one method by which this illusion is produced, and it is -probably not possible to do so in better words than those -used by Mr. J. A. Hobson in his "Democracy After the War":-- - -> Where the product of industry and commerce is so divided -> that wages are low while profits, interest, and rent are -> relatively high, the small purchasing power of the masses -> sets a limit on the home market for most staple -> commodities. The staple manufacturers, therefore, working -> with modern mechanical methods, that continually increase -> the pace of output, are in every country compelled to look -> more and more to export trade, and to hustle and compete -> for markets in the backward countries of the world... Just -> as the home market was restricted by a distribution of -> wealth which left the mass of people with inadequate power -> to purchase and consume, while the minority who had the -> purchasing power either wanted to use it in other ways or -> to save it and apply it to an increased production which -> still further congested the home markets, so likewise with -> the world markets... Closely linked with this practical -> limitation of the expansion of markets for goods is the -> limitation of profitable fields of investment. The -> limitation of home markets implies a corresponding -> limitation in the investment of fresh capital in the -> trades supplying these markets. - -Because capitalism per se is largely the instrument through -which the will-to-power operates in the economic sphere, -some examination of its methods is necessary. The -accumulation of financial wealth through the making of -profit is merely one of the uses or abuses of money, but it -is in this sense that capitalism is associated to a very -great extent in the popular mind with the processes of -manufacture, production and distribution, and it is in this -sense that the word is here employed. The capitalistic -system is based fundamentally on the financial perversion of -the law of supply and demand, which involves a claim that -there exists an intrinsic relation between need or -requirement, and legitimate price or exchange value; a -statement which is becoming increasingly discredited, and is -negatived in the limitation of monopoly values, by common -consent, in respect of public utility companies, such as -lighting, water and transportation undertakings. - -Proceeding from an economic system based on this assumed -relation, however, the capitalistic producer only parts with -his product for a sum in excess of that representing its -cost to him, receiving payment through the agency of money -in its various forms of cash and financial credit, which, so -far as they are convertible, have been defined as any medium -which has reached such a degree of acceptability that no -matter what it is made of, and no matter why people want it, -no one will refuse it in exchange for his product. -(Professor Walker, "Money, Trade and Industry," p. 6). - -So long as this definition holds good, it is obvious that -the possession of money, or financial credit convertible -into money, establishes an absolute lien on the services of -others in direct proportion to the fraction of the whole -stock controlled, and further that the whole stock of -financial wealth, inclusive of credit, in the world should, -by the definition, be sufficient to balance the aggregate -book price of the world's material assets and prospective -production; and generally it is assumed that the banks -regulate the figures of wealth by the creation of credits -broadly representing the mobilisation value of these assets -either in esse or in posse, such value being for financial -purposes the transfer or selling price and bearing no -relation to the usage value of the article so appraised. - -But for reasons which will be evident in considering the -costing of production at a later stage of our inquiry, the -book value of the world's stocks is always greater than the -apparent financial ability to liquidate them, because these -book values already include mobilised credits; the creation -of subsidiary financial media, in the form of further bank -credits, becomes necessary, and results in the piling up of -a system on figures which the accountant calls capital, but -which are in fact merely a function of prices. The effect of -this is, of course, to decrease progressively the purchasing -power of money, or, in other words, to concentrate the lien -on the services of others, which money gives, in the hands -of those whose rate of increase is most rapid. Intrinsic -improvements in manufacturing methods operate to delay this -concentration in respect of industry, but the process is -logically inevitable, and, as we see, is proceeding with -ever-increasing rapidity; and we may fairly conclude that -the profit-making system as a whole, and as now operated, is -inherently centralising in character. - -With this concentration of financial power and consequent -control, however, there is proceeding in industry another -development, apparently contradictory in its results, but of -the greatest importance in the consideration of the subject -as a whole. During the period of transition between -individual ownership and company or trust management, and -under the stress of competition for markets, it became of -vital importance to cut down the selling price of -commodities, not so much intrinsically as in comparison with -competitors; and as a means to this end, standardisation and -quantity-production in large factories are of the utmost -importance, carrying with them specialisation of processes, -the substitution, wherever possible, of automatic and -semi-automatic machinery for skilled workmanship, and the -incorporation of the worker into a machine-like system of -which every part is expected to function as systematically -as a detail of the machine which he may operate. The -objective has, to a considerable extent, been attained---the -scientific management systems in factories (an outstanding -instance of this policy) based on the researches of -efficiency engineers such as Mr. F. W. Taylor and Mr. Frank -Gilbreth, have resulted in a rate of production per unit of -labour, hundreds or even thousands percent, higher than -existed before their introduction. - -As a bait for the worker these methods have commonly been -accompanied by systems of payment-by-results, such as the -premium-bonus system in its various forms as adapted by -Halsey, Rowan, Weir, etc., round which has raged fierce -controversy since in the very nature of things, being based -on the consideration of profit, they were unable to take -into account the operation of broad economic principles. It -is no part of the argument with which we are concerned to -discuss such systems in detail, but any unprejudiced and -sufficiently technical consideration of them will carry the -conviction that while the immediate effect of their -introduction was undoubtedly to raise earnings and so -apparently to delay the concentration of wealth, it was -correctly recognised by the worker that his real wage tended -to bear much the same ratio, or even to fall, in comparison -with the cost of living, since the purchasing power of money -in terms of food, clothes, and housing fell faster than his +It is a most astonishing fact that the experience of hundreds of +thousands of men and women in such departments as the Post Office, where +real discontent is probably more general, and the material and +psychological justification for it more obvious, than in any of the more +modern industrial establishments, has not been sufficient to impress the +public with the futility of mere nationalisation. This is not in any +sense a disparagement of the excellent qualities ot large numbers of +Government officials; it is merely an attempt to indicate the remarkable +facility with which well-intentioned people will allow themselves to be +hypnotised by a phrase. It is notorious that the State Socialists of +Germany, commonly known as the Majority Party, were of the greatest +possible assistance to Junkerdom in carrying out its plans for a +Prussian world hegemony; while in our own country the bureaucrat and the +Fabian have, on the whole, not failed to understand each other; and the +explanation is simply that both, either consciously or unconsciously, +assume that there is no psychological problem involved in the control of +industry just as the Syndicalist is, with more justification, apt to +stress the psychological to the exclusion of the technical aspect. + +Because the control of capital has given power, the effect of the +operation of the will-to-power has been to accumulate capital in a few +groups, possibly composed of large numbers of shareholders, but +frequently directed by one man; and this process is quite clearly a +stage in the transition from decentralised to centralised power. This +centralisation of the power of capital and credit is going on before our +eyes, both directly in the form of money trusts and bank amalgamations, +and indirectly in the confederation of the producing industries +representing the capital power of machinery. It has its counterpart in +every sphere of activity: the coalescing of small businesses into +larger, of shops into huge stores, of villages into towns, of nations +into leagues, and in every case is commended to the reason by the plea +of economic necessity and efficiency. But behind this lies always the +will-to-power, which operates equally through politics, finance or +industry, and always towards centralisation. If this point of view be +admitted, it seems perfectly clear that to the individual it will make +very little difference what name is given to centralisation. +Nationalisation without decentralised control of policy will quite +effectively instal the trust magnate of the next generation in the chair +of the bureaucrat, with the added advantage to him that he will have no +shareholders' meeting. + +One of the more obvious effects of the concentration of credit-capital +in a few hands, which simply means the centralisation of directive +power, is its contribution to the illusion of the fiercely competitive +nature of international trade. Although as we shall see, in considering +the economics of the increasing employment of machinery for productive +purposes, this phenomenon has been confounded with one to which it is +only indirectly connected, it may be convenient at this time to point +out one method by which this illusion is produced, and it is probably +not possible to do so in better words than those used by Mr. J. A. +Hobson in his "Democracy After the War":-- + +> Where the product of industry and commerce is so divided that wages +> are low while profits, interest, and rent are relatively high, the +> small purchasing power of the masses sets a limit on the home market +> for most staple commodities. The staple manufacturers, therefore, +> working with modern mechanical methods, that continually increase the +> pace of output, are in every country compelled to look more and more +> to export trade, and to hustle and compete for markets in the backward +> countries of the world... Just as the home market was restricted by a +> distribution of wealth which left the mass of people with inadequate +> power to purchase and consume, while the minority who had the +> purchasing power either wanted to use it in other ways or to save it +> and apply it to an increased production which still further congested +> the home markets, so likewise with the world markets... Closely linked +> with this practical limitation of the expansion of markets for goods +> is the limitation of profitable fields of investment. The limitation +> of home markets implies a corresponding limitation in the investment +> of fresh capital in the trades supplying these markets. + +Because capitalism per se is largely the instrument through which the +will-to-power operates in the economic sphere, some examination of its +methods is necessary. The accumulation of financial wealth through the +making of profit is merely one of the uses or abuses of money, but it is +in this sense that capitalism is associated to a very great extent in +the popular mind with the processes of manufacture, production and +distribution, and it is in this sense that the word is here employed. +The capitalistic system is based fundamentally on the financial +perversion of the law of supply and demand, which involves a claim that +there exists an intrinsic relation between need or requirement, and +legitimate price or exchange value; a statement which is becoming +increasingly discredited, and is negatived in the limitation of monopoly +values, by common consent, in respect of public utility companies, such +as lighting, water and transportation undertakings. + +Proceeding from an economic system based on this assumed relation, +however, the capitalistic producer only parts with his product for a sum +in excess of that representing its cost to him, receiving payment +through the agency of money in its various forms of cash and financial +credit, which, so far as they are convertible, have been defined as any +medium which has reached such a degree of acceptability that no matter +what it is made of, and no matter why people want it, no one will refuse +it in exchange for his product. (Professor Walker, "Money, Trade and +Industry," p. 6). + +So long as this definition holds good, it is obvious that the possession +of money, or financial credit convertible into money, establishes an +absolute lien on the services of others in direct proportion to the +fraction of the whole stock controlled, and further that the whole stock +of financial wealth, inclusive of credit, in the world should, by the +definition, be sufficient to balance the aggregate book price of the +world's material assets and prospective production; and generally it is +assumed that the banks regulate the figures of wealth by the creation of +credits broadly representing the mobilisation value of these assets +either in esse or in posse, such value being for financial purposes the +transfer or selling price and bearing no relation to the usage value of +the article so appraised. + +But for reasons which will be evident in considering the costing of +production at a later stage of our inquiry, the book value of the +world's stocks is always greater than the apparent financial ability to +liquidate them, because these book values already include mobilised +credits; the creation of subsidiary financial media, in the form of +further bank credits, becomes necessary, and results in the piling up of +a system on figures which the accountant calls capital, but which are in +fact merely a function of prices. The effect of this is, of course, to +decrease progressively the purchasing power of money, or, in other +words, to concentrate the lien on the services of others, which money +gives, in the hands of those whose rate of increase is most rapid. +Intrinsic improvements in manufacturing methods operate to delay this +concentration in respect of industry, but the process is logically +inevitable, and, as we see, is proceeding with ever-increasing rapidity; +and we may fairly conclude that the profit-making system as a whole, and +as now operated, is inherently centralising in character. + +With this concentration of financial power and consequent control, +however, there is proceeding in industry another development, apparently +contradictory in its results, but of the greatest importance in the +consideration of the subject as a whole. During the period of transition +between individual ownership and company or trust management, and under +the stress of competition for markets, it became of vital importance to +cut down the selling price of commodities, not so much intrinsically as +in comparison with competitors; and as a means to this end, +standardisation and quantity-production in large factories are of the +utmost importance, carrying with them specialisation of processes, the +substitution, wherever possible, of automatic and semi-automatic +machinery for skilled workmanship, and the incorporation of the worker +into a machine-like system of which every part is expected to function +as systematically as a detail of the machine which he may operate. The +objective has, to a considerable extent, been attained---the scientific +management systems in factories (an outstanding instance of this policy) +based on the researches of efficiency engineers such as Mr. F. W. Taylor +and Mr. Frank Gilbreth, have resulted in a rate of production per unit +of labour, hundreds or even thousands percent, higher than existed +before their introduction. + +As a bait for the worker these methods have commonly been accompanied by +systems of payment-by-results, such as the premium-bonus system in its +various forms as adapted by Halsey, Rowan, Weir, etc., round which has +raged fierce controversy since in the very nature of things, being based +on the consideration of profit, they were unable to take into account +the operation of broad economic principles. It is no part of the +argument with which we are concerned to discuss such systems in detail, +but any unprejudiced and sufficiently technical consideration of them +will carry the conviction that while the immediate effect of their +introduction was undoubtedly to raise earnings and so apparently to +delay the concentration of wealth, it was correctly recognised by the +worker that his real wage tended to bear much the same ratio, or even to +fall, in comparison with the cost of living, since the purchasing power +of money in terms of food, clothes, and housing fell faster than his wages rose. -As the mechanical efficiency of production rose, therefore, -discontent and industrial strife became accentuated, and an -unstable equilibrium was only maintained by the operation of -such factors as have become known under the names of -"ca'canny," restriction of output, etc., and before the war -the operation of piece-work systems in large industrial -engineering works almost invariably resulted in the -establishment of a local ratio between time rates and -piece-work earnings, generally ranging between 1.25 and 1.5 -to 1. It is not necessary to discuss the ethics of such an -arrangement; it is merely necessary to note that the settled -policy of Labour, acting presumably on the best advice it -could get in its own interests, *was to exercise a control -over production by fixing its own standard of output -irrespective of time*. The situation created by the demand -for munitions of all kinds during the war has, of course, -profoundly modified this attitude, with the result that a -temporary very large increase in real earnings undoubtedly -took place in 1915 and 1916, taking the form of a rapid -distribution of stored commodities; but it is quite -questionable whether this level is even approximately -maintained, and with the cessation of the wholesale sabotage -of war, it will unquestionably fall as economic distribution -through the wages system becomes ineffective; apart from -actual scarcity. - -Quite apart, therefore, from all questions of payment, there -has grown up a spirit of revolt against a life spent in the -performance of one mechanical operation devoid of interest, -requiring little skill, and having few prospects of -advancement other than by the problematical acquisition of -sufficient money to escape from it. +As the mechanical efficiency of production rose, therefore, discontent +and industrial strife became accentuated, and an unstable equilibrium +was only maintained by the operation of such factors as have become +known under the names of "ca'canny," restriction of output, etc., and +before the war the operation of piece-work systems in large industrial +engineering works almost invariably resulted in the establishment of a +local ratio between time rates and piece-work earnings, generally +ranging between 1.25 and 1.5 to 1. It is not necessary to discuss the +ethics of such an arrangement; it is merely necessary to note that the +settled policy of Labour, acting presumably on the best advice it could +get in its own interests, *was to exercise a control over production by +fixing its own standard of output irrespective of time*. The situation +created by the demand for munitions of all kinds during the war has, of +course, profoundly modified this attitude, with the result that a +temporary very large increase in real earnings undoubtedly took place in +1915 and 1916, taking the form of a rapid distribution of stored +commodities; but it is quite questionable whether this level is even +approximately maintained, and with the cessation of the wholesale +sabotage of war, it will unquestionably fall as economic distribution +through the wages system becomes ineffective; apart from actual +scarcity. + +Quite apart, therefore, from all questions of payment, there has grown +up a spirit of revolt against a life spent in the performance of one +mechanical operation devoid of interest, requiring little skill, and +having few prospects of advancement other than by the problematical +acquisition of sufficient money to escape from it. The very efficiency with which factory operations have been -sectionalised has resulted in a complete divorcing between -the worker and the finished product, which is in itself -conducive to the feeling that he is part of a machine in the -final output of which he is not interested. His foreman and -departmental heads are, from the largeness of the -undertakings, almost inevitably out of human touch with him, -while all the well-known phenomena of bureaucratic methods -contribute to maintain a constant state of irritation and -dissatisfaction; and in all these things is the nucleus of a -centrifugal movement of formidable force. Nor is this -feature confined to industrial life.. The connection between -militarism and capitalism as vehicles for the expression of -the will-to-power has frequently been pointed out. By the -device of universal liability to military service a general -threat has been made operative which would appear, ultima -ratio regis, to set the seal on the ability of authority to -dictate the terms on which the existence of the individual -can continue. But it is doubtful whether there ever was a -time when this threat was held more lightly, and the -disregard of consequences so widespread. It is not suggested -that conscription either military or industrial is regarded -with complacency; the exact opposite is, of course, the -truth. But just for the reason that the whole conception of -a militarist world is instinctively recognised as an -anachronism, so, just to that extent, is the determination -to defeat at any cost schemes involving compulsion, -strengthened in the minds of a population normally -acquiescent. +sectionalised has resulted in a complete divorcing between the worker +and the finished product, which is in itself conducive to the feeling +that he is part of a machine in the final output of which he is not +interested. His foreman and departmental heads are, from the largeness +of the undertakings, almost inevitably out of human touch with him, +while all the well-known phenomena of bureaucratic methods contribute to +maintain a constant state of irritation and dissatisfaction; and in all +these things is the nucleus of a centrifugal movement of formidable +force. Nor is this feature confined to industrial life.. The connection +between militarism and capitalism as vehicles for the expression of the +will-to-power has frequently been pointed out. By the device of +universal liability to military service a general threat has been made +operative which would appear, ultima ratio regis, to set the seal on the +ability of authority to dictate the terms on which the existence of the +individual can continue. But it is doubtful whether there ever was a +time when this threat was held more lightly, and the disregard of +consequences so widespread. It is not suggested that conscription either +military or industrial is regarded with complacency; the exact opposite +is, of course, the truth. But just for the reason that the whole +conception of a militarist world is instinctively recognised as an +anachronism, so, just to that extent, is the determination to defeat at +any cost schemes involving compulsion, strengthened in the minds of a +population normally acquiescent. # Chapter Four -We are, therefore, faced with an apparent dilemma, a -world-wide movement towards centralised control, backed by -strong arguments as to the increased efficiency and -consequent economic necessity of organisation of this -character (and these arguments receive support from quarters -as widely separated as, say, Lord Milner and Mr. Sidney -Webb), and, on the other hand, a deepening distrust of such -measures bred by personal experience and observation of -their effect on the individual. A powerful minority of the -community, determined to maintain its position relative to -the majority, assures the world that there is no alternative -between a pyramid of power based on toil of ever-increasing -monotony, and some form of famine and disaster; while a -growing and ever more dissatisfied majority strives to throw -off the hypnotic influence of training and to grapple with -the fallacy which it feels must exist somewhere. - -Now let it be said at once that there is no evasion of this -dilemma possible by the introduction of questions of -personality---a bad system is still a bad system no matter -what changes are made in personnel. The power of personality -is susceptible of the same definition as any other form of -power, it is the rate of doing work; and the rate at which a -given personality can change an organisation depends on two -things; the magnitude of the change desired, and the size of -the organisation. As it is hoped to make clear, the effect -of a single organisation of this pyramidal character applied -to the complex purpose of civilisation produces a definite -type of individual, of which the Prussian is one instance. -Pyramidal organisation is a structure designed to -concentrate power, and success in such an organisation -sooner or later becomes a question of the subordination of -all other considerations to its attainment and retention. -For this reason the very qualities which make for personal -success in central control are those which make it most -unlikely that success and the attainment of a position of -authority will result in any strong effort to change the -operations of the organisation in any external interest, and -the progress to power of an individual under such conditions -must result either in a complete acceptance of the situation -as he finds it, or a conscious or unconscious sycophancy -quite deadly to the preservation of any originality of -thought and action. - -It cannot be too heavily stressed at this time that similar -forms of organisation, no matter how dissimilar their name, -favour the emergence of like characteristics, quite -irrespective of the ideals of the founders, and it is to the -principles underlying the design of the structure, and not -to its name or the personalities originally operating it, -that we may look for information on its eventual -performance. - -In considering the objectionable features which have arisen -from modern industrial and political systems in the light of -this centralising tendency, it is instructive to turn for a -moment to the examination of the differences which have -developed in them with respect to those they have displaced, -and without covering afresh the ground which has been -sufficiently well traversed by the exponents of National -Guilds, Syndicalism and other systems of industrial -self-government, it may be well to point out that the -industrial revolution of the late eighteenth and early -nineteenth centuries was largely marked in principle by the -separation of the workman from the ownership of his tools -and the control of his business policy. - -All craft was handicraft; the equipment of a tradesman was -of the simplest; the selling price of the product was -practically material cost plus direct labour cost; direct -labour cost was indistinguishable from profit, and -practically the whole of it was available for the purchase -of further material, and the product of other men's -industry. So far as our knowledge goes, and the theory of -industry would confirm such an assumption, there was within -the craft guilds no involuntary poverty or unemployment at -all comparable to that with which we are too familiar, and, -at any rate, within the circle of their influence the -standard of material comfort rose directly in proportion to -the total production, while at the same time the craftsman -maintained a pride in his work and considerable -independence. - -With the advent of machinery came the intervention of the -financier into industry; willing to provide the able -craftsman with the means to extend the exercise of his skill -on payment for his services. The development from this -stage, though the small workshop run on borrowed money by -the enterprising man who both worked himself and directed -the work of others, to the larger factory in which the -function of the craftsman ceased to be exercised by the -employer, who retained only the direction and management; to -the large limited liability company or Trust, in which the -craftsman, the management, and the direction of policy, -became still further separated, has been logical and rapid, -and this development carries with it changes of a -fundamental character. - -Behind all effort lies the active or passive acquiescence of -the human will, and this can only be obtained by the -provision of an objective. By the separation of large -classes into mere agents of a function, it has been possible -to obtain the more or less complete cooperation of large -numbers of individuals in aims of which they were completely -ignorant, and of which had they been able to appreciate them -in their entirety, they would have completely disapproved, -while at the same time Education and Ecclesiasticism have -combined to foster the idea, that so long as the orders of a -superior were obeyed, no responsibility rested on the +We are, therefore, faced with an apparent dilemma, a world-wide movement +towards centralised control, backed by strong arguments as to the +increased efficiency and consequent economic necessity of organisation +of this character (and these arguments receive support from quarters as +widely separated as, say, Lord Milner and Mr. Sidney Webb), and, on the +other hand, a deepening distrust of such measures bred by personal +experience and observation of their effect on the individual. A powerful +minority of the community, determined to maintain its position relative +to the majority, assures the world that there is no alternative between +a pyramid of power based on toil of ever-increasing monotony, and some +form of famine and disaster; while a growing and ever more dissatisfied +majority strives to throw off the hypnotic influence of training and to +grapple with the fallacy which it feels must exist somewhere. + +Now let it be said at once that there is no evasion of this dilemma +possible by the introduction of questions of personality---a bad system +is still a bad system no matter what changes are made in personnel. The +power of personality is susceptible of the same definition as any other +form of power, it is the rate of doing work; and the rate at which a +given personality can change an organisation depends on two things; the +magnitude of the change desired, and the size of the organisation. As it +is hoped to make clear, the effect of a single organisation of this +pyramidal character applied to the complex purpose of civilisation +produces a definite type of individual, of which the Prussian is one +instance. Pyramidal organisation is a structure designed to concentrate +power, and success in such an organisation sooner or later becomes a +question of the subordination of all other considerations to its +attainment and retention. For this reason the very qualities which make +for personal success in central control are those which make it most +unlikely that success and the attainment of a position of authority will +result in any strong effort to change the operations of the organisation +in any external interest, and the progress to power of an individual +under such conditions must result either in a complete acceptance of the +situation as he finds it, or a conscious or unconscious sycophancy quite +deadly to the preservation of any originality of thought and action. + +It cannot be too heavily stressed at this time that similar forms of +organisation, no matter how dissimilar their name, favour the emergence +of like characteristics, quite irrespective of the ideals of the +founders, and it is to the principles underlying the design of the +structure, and not to its name or the personalities originally operating +it, that we may look for information on its eventual performance. + +In considering the objectionable features which have arisen from modern +industrial and political systems in the light of this centralising +tendency, it is instructive to turn for a moment to the examination of +the differences which have developed in them with respect to those they +have displaced, and without covering afresh the ground which has been +sufficiently well traversed by the exponents of National Guilds, +Syndicalism and other systems of industrial self-government, it may be +well to point out that the industrial revolution of the late eighteenth +and early nineteenth centuries was largely marked in principle by the +separation of the workman from the ownership of his tools and the +control of his business policy. + +All craft was handicraft; the equipment of a tradesman was of the +simplest; the selling price of the product was practically material cost +plus direct labour cost; direct labour cost was indistinguishable from +profit, and practically the whole of it was available for the purchase +of further material, and the product of other men's industry. So far as +our knowledge goes, and the theory of industry would confirm such an +assumption, there was within the craft guilds no involuntary poverty or +unemployment at all comparable to that with which we are too familiar, +and, at any rate, within the circle of their influence the standard of +material comfort rose directly in proportion to the total production, +while at the same time the craftsman maintained a pride in his work and +considerable independence. + +With the advent of machinery came the intervention of the financier into +industry; willing to provide the able craftsman with the means to extend +the exercise of his skill on payment for his services. The development +from this stage, though the small workshop run on borrowed money by the +enterprising man who both worked himself and directed the work of +others, to the larger factory in which the function of the craftsman +ceased to be exercised by the employer, who retained only the direction +and management; to the large limited liability company or Trust, in +which the craftsman, the management, and the direction of policy, became +still further separated, has been logical and rapid, and this +development carries with it changes of a fundamental character. + +Behind all effort lies the active or passive acquiescence of the human +will, and this can only be obtained by the provision of an objective. By +the separation of large classes into mere agents of a function, it has +been possible to obtain the more or less complete cooperation of large +numbers of individuals in aims of which they were completely ignorant, +and of which had they been able to appreciate them in their entirety, +they would have completely disapproved, while at the same time Education +and Ecclesiasticism have combined to foster the idea, that so long as +the orders of a superior were obeyed, no responsibility rested on the individual. -It is not, of course, suggested that commercial policy has -been deliberately and uniformly dictated by unworthy -motives---far from it; nor is it unlikely that had the -processes of production and distribution been separated from -any control over individual activity along other lines, its -development might have been in the best interests of the -community; but since it has been accompanied by a growing -subjection of the individual to the machine of -industrialism, it is quite unquestionable that the whole -process of centralising power and policy and alleged -responsibility in the brains of a few men whose -deliberations are not open to discussion; whose interests, -largely financial, are quite clearly in many respects -opposed to those of the individuals they control, and whose -critics can be victimised; is without a single redeeming -feature, and is rendered inherently vicious by the -conditions which operate during the selective process. When -it is further considered that these positions of power fall -to men whose very habit of mind, however kindly and broad in -view it may be and often is in other directions, must quite -inevitably force them to consider the individual as mere -material for a policy---cannon-fodder whether of politics or -industry---the gravity of the issue should be apparent. - -Along with this development has gone a parallel change in -the status of the individual. The apprentice, the journeyman -and the master were all of one social class; the apprentice -or journeyman dined at his master's table and married his -own or some other master's daughter; the standard of life -therefore without, of course, being identical, was -comparable as between various grades. The implication of -this was considerable---it involved a common standard to -which everyday difficulties could be referred. A -consideration of these facts, and a comparison of the -conditions produced by them with those existing in our -industrial districts in more recent years, has led reformers -of the type of William Morris and John Ruskin to idealise -this period and to place to the debit of machinery and -quantity-production all the miseries and ugliness visible in -the Midlands and the manufacturing North. This attitude -seems mistaken, and here again we are met by a confusion -between cause and effect: there is absolutely no virtue in -taking ten hours to produce by hand a necessary which a -machine will produce in ten seconds, thereby releasing a -human being to that extent for other aims, but it is -essential that the individual *should he released*; that -freedom for other pursuits than the mere maintenance of life -should thereby be achieved. - -How, then, are we to deal with this dilemma? It cannot -seriously be contended that the advancement gained as a -result of the application of material science to the -requirements of society should be abandoned, and that men -should abjure the use of anything more complicated than a -hammer and chisel or a spinning wheel. But while progress in -the replacement of manual effort by machinery seems both -natural and beneficial, it is equally clear that the -spiritual and intellectual revolt against the conditions -which have grown up alongside this material progress is -fundamental and widespread, and will not be satisfied by any -mere betterment movement. The whole policy of Governments -and industrialists alike in respect of this conflict of -interest has been one of grudging compromise, partly as the -result of the natural tendency of humanity to "laissez -faire" methods and partly no doubt from a settled conviction -that nothing but compromise was possible; that the existing -order is based on natural law, and is not amenable to any -radical modification, and that all critics are either cranks -and dreamers, or else are solely actuated by a desire for -the sweets of office. It is most important to recognise that -there are two distinct problems involved in this dilemma: -one technical, the other psychological, and it is just -because the psychological aspect of industry has been -confused with and subordinated to the technical aspect that -we are confronted with so grave a situation at this time. -There is little reason to doubt that we are rapidly -attaining command of the means for the solution of any -reasonable requirement of a purely technical nature, and it -may be well therefore to consider briefly the usual methods -which the modern industrial system has developed to deal -with the organisation of large numbers of individuals to the -end that their combined effort may result in commercial -success. - -Very broadly the main difference lies between what may be -defined as the military and the functional systems of -control, or some combination of the two, and these involve -an interesting difference of conception. - -As we have seen, the development of industrial activity has -been very largely a practical application of the economic -proposition in regard to the division of labour; the -"military" organisation conceives a large business or a -Government Department as an aggregation of human units to -carry out on a large scale that which one immensely able and -versatile man could do on a small scale, and, broadly -considered, the perfect organisation of this character would -be derived by dissecting the various attributes of the -perfect one-man business, making each of them a Department, -and staffing them with men who, in the aggregate, -represented nothing but an expansion of that attribute. -Fortunately, the perfect organisation of this character has -yet to appear, but the effect of the endeavour to achieve it -has quite definitely left its mark on civilisation---it is -easy to distinguish the soldier and the civil servant, or -even the infantryman and the bombardier, and the development -due to the unbalanced exercise of one set only of perhaps -many abilities resident in the human unit, is a very -definite factor in the existing discontent and one which, if -perpetuated, could only be increased by wider education. - -A little consideration will at once suggest that this type -of organisation carried out to its furthest limits is -pyramid control in its simplest form, and it is clear that -successive grades or ranks decreasing regularly in the -number of units composing each grade, until supreme power -and composite function is reached and concentrated at the +It is not, of course, suggested that commercial policy has been +deliberately and uniformly dictated by unworthy motives---far from it; +nor is it unlikely that had the processes of production and distribution +been separated from any control over individual activity along other +lines, its development might have been in the best interests of the +community; but since it has been accompanied by a growing subjection of +the individual to the machine of industrialism, it is quite +unquestionable that the whole process of centralising power and policy +and alleged responsibility in the brains of a few men whose +deliberations are not open to discussion; whose interests, largely +financial, are quite clearly in many respects opposed to those of the +individuals they control, and whose critics can be victimised; is +without a single redeeming feature, and is rendered inherently vicious +by the conditions which operate during the selective process. When it is +further considered that these positions of power fall to men whose very +habit of mind, however kindly and broad in view it may be and often is +in other directions, must quite inevitably force them to consider the +individual as mere material for a policy---cannon-fodder whether of +politics or industry---the gravity of the issue should be apparent. + +Along with this development has gone a parallel change in the status of +the individual. The apprentice, the journeyman and the master were all +of one social class; the apprentice or journeyman dined at his master's +table and married his own or some other master's daughter; the standard +of life therefore without, of course, being identical, was comparable as +between various grades. The implication of this was considerable---it +involved a common standard to which everyday difficulties could be +referred. A consideration of these facts, and a comparison of the +conditions produced by them with those existing in our industrial +districts in more recent years, has led reformers of the type of William +Morris and John Ruskin to idealise this period and to place to the debit +of machinery and quantity-production all the miseries and ugliness +visible in the Midlands and the manufacturing North. This attitude seems +mistaken, and here again we are met by a confusion between cause and +effect: there is absolutely no virtue in taking ten hours to produce by +hand a necessary which a machine will produce in ten seconds, thereby +releasing a human being to that extent for other aims, but it is +essential that the individual *should he released*; that freedom for +other pursuits than the mere maintenance of life should thereby be +achieved. + +How, then, are we to deal with this dilemma? It cannot seriously be +contended that the advancement gained as a result of the application of +material science to the requirements of society should be abandoned, and +that men should abjure the use of anything more complicated than a +hammer and chisel or a spinning wheel. But while progress in the +replacement of manual effort by machinery seems both natural and +beneficial, it is equally clear that the spiritual and intellectual +revolt against the conditions which have grown up alongside this +material progress is fundamental and widespread, and will not be +satisfied by any mere betterment movement. The whole policy of +Governments and industrialists alike in respect of this conflict of +interest has been one of grudging compromise, partly as the result of +the natural tendency of humanity to "laissez faire" methods and partly +no doubt from a settled conviction that nothing but compromise was +possible; that the existing order is based on natural law, and is not +amenable to any radical modification, and that all critics are either +cranks and dreamers, or else are solely actuated by a desire for the +sweets of office. It is most important to recognise that there are two +distinct problems involved in this dilemma: one technical, the other +psychological, and it is just because the psychological aspect of +industry has been confused with and subordinated to the technical aspect +that we are confronted with so grave a situation at this time. There is +little reason to doubt that we are rapidly attaining command of the +means for the solution of any reasonable requirement of a purely +technical nature, and it may be well therefore to consider briefly the +usual methods which the modern industrial system has developed to deal +with the organisation of large numbers of individuals to the end that +their combined effort may result in commercial success. + +Very broadly the main difference lies between what may be defined as the +military and the functional systems of control, or some combination of +the two, and these involve an interesting difference of conception. + +As we have seen, the development of industrial activity has been very +largely a practical application of the economic proposition in regard to +the division of labour; the "military" organisation conceives a large +business or a Government Department as an aggregation of human units to +carry out on a large scale that which one immensely able and versatile +man could do on a small scale, and, broadly considered, the perfect +organisation of this character would be derived by dissecting the +various attributes of the perfect one-man business, making each of them +a Department, and staffing them with men who, in the aggregate, +represented nothing but an expansion of that attribute. Fortunately, the +perfect organisation of this character has yet to appear, but the effect +of the endeavour to achieve it has quite definitely left its mark on +civilisation---it is easy to distinguish the soldier and the civil +servant, or even the infantryman and the bombardier, and the development +due to the unbalanced exercise of one set only of perhaps many abilities +resident in the human unit, is a very definite factor in the existing +discontent and one which, if perpetuated, could only be increased by +wider education. + +A little consideration will at once suggest that this type of +organisation carried out to its furthest limits is pyramid control in +its simplest form, and it is clear that successive grades or ranks +decreasing regularly in the number of units composing each grade, until +supreme power and composite function is reached and concentrated at the apex, are definitely characteristic of it. -The next step is to split the functions of the higher ranks -so that each unit therein becomes the head of a separate -little pyramid, each of which as a whole furnishes the unit -composing a larger pyramid; in every case, however, -eventually concentralising power and responsibility in one -man, representing the power of finance and of control over -the necessaries of life. - -Several points are to be noticed in the conditions produced -by such an arrangement: Firstly, there is fundamental -inequality of opportunity. The more any organisation, -whether of society as a whole or any of the various aspects -of it, approaches this form the more certain is it that -there cannot possibly be any relation between merit and -reward---it is, for instance, absurd to assume that there is -only one possible head, for each railway company. Government -Department, or great industrial undertaking. There is no -doubt whatever that the intrigue which is a commonplace in -such undertakings has its roots almost entirely in this +The next step is to split the functions of the higher ranks so that each +unit therein becomes the head of a separate little pyramid, each of +which as a whole furnishes the unit composing a larger pyramid; in every +case, however, eventually concentralising power and responsibility in +one man, representing the power of finance and of control over the +necessaries of life. + +Several points are to be noticed in the conditions produced by such an +arrangement: Firstly, there is fundamental inequality of opportunity. +The more any organisation, whether of society as a whole or any of the +various aspects of it, approaches this form the more certain is it that +there cannot possibly be any relation between merit and reward---it is, +for instance, absurd to assume that there is only one possible head, for +each railway company. Government Department, or great industrial +undertaking. There is no doubt whatever that the intrigue which is a +commonplace in such undertakings has its roots almost entirely in this cause, and contributes in no small degree to their notorious inefficiency. -Another objection which becomes increasingly important as -the concentration proceeds is the divorce between power and -detail knowledge. This difficulty is recognised in the -appointment of official and unofficial intelligence -departments which, of course, are in themselves the source -of further abuses. - -Having these points to some extent in mind, American -industry has developed what is most unquestionably a very -important modification of principle---that of functional -control in place of individual control; that is to say, the -individual is only controlled from one source in regard to -one function---say time-keeping. In respect of such matters -as technical methods he deals with an entirely different -authority, and with still another in respect of pay. - -The real objection to this is the effect on the source of -specialised authority of so narrow a function as is demanded -by much so-called scientific management, but there is very -little doubt that the underlying idea does contain the germ -of an industrial system which would be in the highest degree -efficient if its psychological difficulties could be -removed, and it is significant that this form of +Another objection which becomes increasingly important as the +concentration proceeds is the divorce between power and detail +knowledge. This difficulty is recognised in the appointment of official +and unofficial intelligence departments which, of course, are in +themselves the source of further abuses. + +Having these points to some extent in mind, American industry has +developed what is most unquestionably a very important modification of +principle---that of functional control in place of individual control; +that is to say, the individual is only controlled from one source in +regard to one function---say time-keeping. In respect of such matters as +technical methods he deals with an entirely different authority, and +with still another in respect of pay. + +The real objection to this is the effect on the source of specialised +authority of so narrow a function as is demanded by much so-called +scientific management, but there is very little doubt that the +underlying idea does contain the germ of an industrial system which +would be in the highest degree efficient if its psychological +difficulties could be removed, and it is significant that this form of organisation produces its own type of personality. -It will be seen, therefore, that we have in the industrial -field a double problem to solve: while retaining the -benefits of mechanism for productive purposes, to obtain -effective distribution of the results and to restore -personal initiative. - -The proposition which is being urged from orthodox -capitalistic quarters as a means of dealing with this -situation is a little ingenuous. It consists of an -intensification policy by which, in some mysterious way, all -the unpleasant features, by being exaggerated, are to -disappear, and it is usually summed up at the moment in the -phrase, "We must produce more." A fair statement of this -demand for unlimited and intensified manufacturing would no -doubt be something after this fashion:---- +It will be seen, therefore, that we have in the industrial field a +double problem to solve: while retaining the benefits of mechanism for +productive purposes, to obtain effective distribution of the results and +to restore personal initiative. + +The proposition which is being urged from orthodox capitalistic quarters +as a means of dealing with this situation is a little ingenuous. It +consists of an intensification policy by which, in some mysterious way, +all the unpleasant features, by being exaggerated, are to disappear, and +it is usually summed up at the moment in the phrase, "We must produce +more." A fair statement of this demand for unlimited and intensified +manufacturing would no doubt be something after this fashion:---- 1. We must pay for the war and for betterment schemes. 2. This means high taxes. -3. Taxes must come from profits and earnings, which are - parts of one whole. +3. Taxes must come from profits and earnings, which are parts of one + whole. -4. High earnings, high profits, and low labour costs, and - low selling and competitive costs, can only be combined - if increased output is obtained. +4. High earnings, high profits, and low labour costs, and low selling + and competitive costs, can only be combined if increased output is + obtained. 5. High earnings will mean wider markets. -Now this is a very specious argument; a large number of -people, whose instincts warn them that there is a fallacy -somewhere, have not felt themselves able to offer any -effective criticism of it, since some practical knowledge of -technique is involved. The labour attitude has either been a -simple non-possumus, or a re-statement of the evils of -capitalistic profit-making, together with sufficiently -pungent inquiry into the qualifications of the holders of -the major portion of the securities representing Government -indebtedness, and their title to rank as the winners of the -war, and the chief beneficiaries of the peace. All this is -quite to the point, but it is not even the chief economic +Now this is a very specious argument; a large number of people, whose +instincts warn them that there is a fallacy somewhere, have not felt +themselves able to offer any effective criticism of it, since some +practical knowledge of technique is involved. The labour attitude has +either been a simple non-possumus, or a re-statement of the evils of +capitalistic profit-making, together with sufficiently pungent inquiry +into the qualifications of the holders of the major portion of the +securities representing Government indebtedness, and their title to rank +as the winners of the war, and the chief beneficiaries of the peace. All +this is quite to the point, but it is not even the chief economic objection to such a policy. -First of all, let it be admitted that a considerable amount -of manufacturing will have to be done, firstly, to reinstate -the devastated areas, and afterwards to meet the accumulated -demand, and these together will provide an outlet for a very -large quantity of manufactured goods. These goods will not, -of course, be furnished for nothing, and the money to pay -for them will in the main be supplied by loans, which to -begin with, clearly mean more taxes for someone where the -work done is on public account. But, says the -super-producer, this money will be distributed in wages, -salaries and profits, which will enable the whole population -(at any rate of this country, where we propose to do our -manufacturing so long as labour and other conditions are -favourable) to buy more goods, or, conversely, save more -money, and eventually enjoy more leisure and freedom. - -Let us give to this statement the attention it deserves, -because on it hangs the fate of a whole economic system. If -it is true as it stands, then the whole system which stands -behind it, the fight for markets, the cartels, trusts, and -combines, and the other machinery of competitive trade, are -justified at any rate by national self-interest. In order -then to make this analysis it is unavoidable that we should -enter into some detail with regard to the accountancy of -manufacturing; not forgetting that the unequal distribution -of wealth is an initial restriction on the free sale of -commodities, and that in consequence what we are aiming at -in order to meet the final contention of the argument, is -not an expansion of figures, but an equalisation of real +First of all, let it be admitted that a considerable amount of +manufacturing will have to be done, firstly, to reinstate the devastated +areas, and afterwards to meet the accumulated demand, and these together +will provide an outlet for a very large quantity of manufactured goods. +These goods will not, of course, be furnished for nothing, and the money +to pay for them will in the main be supplied by loans, which to begin +with, clearly mean more taxes for someone where the work done is on +public account. But, says the super-producer, this money will be +distributed in wages, salaries and profits, which will enable the whole +population (at any rate of this country, where we propose to do our +manufacturing so long as labour and other conditions are favourable) to +buy more goods, or, conversely, save more money, and eventually enjoy +more leisure and freedom. + +Let us give to this statement the attention it deserves, because on it +hangs the fate of a whole economic system. If it is true as it stands, +then the whole system which stands behind it, the fight for markets, the +cartels, trusts, and combines, and the other machinery of competitive +trade, are justified at any rate by national self-interest. In order +then to make this analysis it is unavoidable that we should enter into +some detail with regard to the accountancy of manufacturing; not +forgetting that the unequal distribution of wealth is an initial +restriction on the free sale of commodities, and that in consequence +what we are aiming at in order to meet the final contention of the +argument, is not an expansion of figures, but an equalisation of real purchasing power. -Now, purchasing power is the amount of goods *of the -description desired* which can be bought with the sum of -money available, and it is clearly a function of price. It -is a widely spread delusion that price is simply a question -of supply and demand, whereas, of course, only the upper -limit of price is thus governed, the lower limit, which -under free competition would be the ruling limit, being -fixed by cost plus the minimum profit which will provide a -financial inducement to produce. It is important to bear -this in mind, because it is frequently assumed that a mere -glut of goods will bring down prices quite irrespective of -any intrinsic economy involved in large scale production. -Unless these goods are all absorbed, the result may be -exactly opposite, since deterioration must go into -succeeding costs. Cost is the accumulation of past spendings -over an indefinite period, whereas cash price requires a +Now, purchasing power is the amount of goods *of the description +desired* which can be bought with the sum of money available, and it is +clearly a function of price. It is a widely spread delusion that price +is simply a question of supply and demand, whereas, of course, only the +upper limit of price is thus governed, the lower limit, which under free +competition would be the ruling limit, being fixed by cost plus the +minimum profit which will provide a financial inducement to produce. It +is important to bear this in mind, because it is frequently assumed that +a mere glut of goods will bring down prices quite irrespective of any +intrinsic economy involved in large scale production. Unless these goods +are all absorbed, the result may be exactly opposite, since +deterioration must go into succeeding costs. Cost is the accumulation of +past spendings over an indefinite period, whereas cash price requires a purchasing power effective at the moment of purchase. -Where competition is restricted by Trusts, price is cost -plus whatever profit the Trust considers it politic to -charge. +Where competition is restricted by Trusts, price is cost plus whatever +profit the Trust considers it politic to charge. # Chapter Five -Looked at from this standpoint it is fairly clear that the -kernel of the problem is factory cost, since it is quite -possible to conceive of a limited company in which the -shares were all held by the employees, either equally or in -varying proportions, according to their grade, and the -selling costs were internal---that is to say, all -advertising was done by the firm itself, and the cost of its -salesmen, etc., was either negligible, or confined to their -salaries. We should then have the complete profit-sharing -enterprise in its ultimate aspect, and the argument against -Capitalism in its usual form would not arise. - -Such an undertaking would, let us assume, make a complicated -engineering product, requiring expensive plant and -machinery, and would absorb considerable quantities of power -and light, lubricants, etc., much of which would be wasted; -and would inevitably produce a certain amount of scrap the -value of which would be less than the material in the form -in which it entered the works. The machinery would wear out, -and would have to be replaced and maintained, and generally -it is clear that for each unit of production there would be -three main divisions of factory cost, the "staple" raw -material, the wages and salaries, and a sum representing a -proportion of the cost of upkeep on the whole of the plant, -which might easily equal 200%, of the wages and salaries. As -the plant became more automatic by improvements in process, -the ratio which these plant costs bore to the cost of labour -and salaries would increase. The factory cost of the total -production, therefore, would be the addition of these three -items: staple material, labour and salaries, and plant cost, -and with the addition of selling charges and profit, this -would be the selling price. - -As a result of the operations of the undertaking, the wealth -of the world would thus be apparently increased by the -difference between the value of all the material entering -the factory, and the total sum represented by the selling -price of the product. But it is clear that the total amount -distributed in wages, salaries and profit or dividends, -would be less by a considerable sum (representing purchases -on factory account) than the total selling price of the -product, and if this is true in one factory it must be true -in all. Consequently, the total amount of money liberated by -manufacturing processes of this nature is clearly less than -the total selling price of the product. This difference is -due to the fact that while the final price to the consumer -of any manufactured article is steadily growing with the -time required for manufacture, during the same time the -money distributed by the manufacturing process is being -returned to the capitalist through purchases for immediate -consumption. - -A concrete example will make this clear. A steel bolt and -nut weighing ten pounds might require in the blank about -eleven and a half pounds of material representing, say, 3s. -6d. The nett selling price of the scrap recovered would -probably be about one penny. The wages value of the total -man-hours expended on the conversion from the blank to the -finished nut and bolt might be 5s., and the average plant -charge 150%, on the direct time charge, i.e. 7s. 6d. The -factory cost would, therefore, be 15s. lid., of which 7s. -6d., or just under one-half, would be plant charge. Of this -plant charge probably 75%., or about 5s. 7d., is represented -by the sum of items which are either afterwards wiped off -for depreciation and consequently not distributed at all at -that time, or are distributed in payments outside the -organisation, which payments clearly must be subsequent to -any valuation of the articles for which they are paid, and -so do not affect the argument. Without proceeding to add -selling charges and profit it must be clear that a charge of -15s. lid. on the world's purchasing power has been created, -of which only 6s. 10d. is distributed in respect of the -specific article under consideration, and that if the -effective demand exists at all in a form suitable for the -liquidation of this charge, it must reside in the banks. - -But we know that the total increase in the *personal* cash -accounts in the banks in normal times is under 3% of the -wages, salaries and dividends distributed, consequently it -is not to these accounts that we must look for effective -demand. There are two sources remaining; loan-credit, that -is to say, purchasing power *created* by the banks on -principles which are directed solely to the production of a -positive financial result; and foreign or export demand. Now -loan-credit is never available to the consumer as such, -because consumption as such has no commercial value. In -consequence loan-credit has become the great stimulus either -to manufacture or to any financial or commercial operation -which will result in a profit, that is to say, an inflation -of figures. - -An additional factor also comes into play at this point. All -large scale business is settled on a credit basis. In the -case of commodities in general retail demand, the price -tends to rise above the cost limit, because the sums -distributed in advance of the completion of large works -become effective in the retail market, while the large -works, when completed, are paid for by an expansion ot -credit. This process involves a continuous inflation of -currency, a rise in prices, and a consequent dilution in -purchasing power. - -The reason that the decrease in the consumer's purchasing -power has not been so great as would be suggested by these -considerations is, of course, largely due to intrinsic -cheapening ot processes which would, if not defeated by this -dilution of the consumer's purchasing power, have brought -down prices faster than they have risen. - -There are thus two processes at work; an intrinsic -cheapening of the product by better methods, and an -artificial decrease in purchasing power due to what is in -effect the charging of the cost of all waste and -inefficiency to the consumer. And it is clear that under -this system the greater the volume of production the larger -will be the absolute value of the waste which the consumer -has to pay for, whether he will or no, because as the bank -credits are created at the instance of the manufacturer, and -repaid out of prices, each article produced dilutes, by the -ratio of its book price to all the credits outstanding, the -absolute purchasing power of the money held by any -individual. - -These facts are quite unaffected by the perfectly sound -argument that increased production means decreased cost per -piece, since it is the total production price which has to -be liquidated. - -Already there is not very much left of the argument for the -innate desirability of unlimited, unspecified and -intensified manufacturing under the existing economic -system, but more trouble yet is ahead of it. While the ratio -of plant charges to total wages and salaries cost is less -than 1:1 over the whole range of commodities, a general rise -in direct rates of pay may mean a rise (but not a -proportionate rise) in the purchasing power of those who -obtain their remuneration in this way. But when by the -increased application of mechanical methods the average -overhead charge passes the ratio of one to one (which it -rapidly will, and should do on this basis of calculation) -every general increase in rates of pay of "direct" labour -may mean an actual decrease in real pay, because the -consumer is only interested in ultimate products and -overhead charges do not represent ultimate products in -existence. - -The whole argument which represents a manufactured article -as an access of wealth to the country and to everyone -concerned, no matter what its description and utility so -long as by any method it can be sold and wages distributed -in respect of it, will, therefore, be seen to be a dangerous -fallacy based on an entirely wrong conception,, which is -epitomised in the use of the word "production," and fostered -by ignorance of financial processes. Manufacturing of any -kind whatever, even agriculture in a limited sense, is the -conversion of one thing into another, which process is only -advantageous to the extent that it subserves a definite -requirement of human evolution. In any case, it shares with -all other conversions the characteristic of having only a -fractional efficiency, and the waste of effort involved, -although being continually reduced by improvements of -method, still can only be paid for in one way, by effort on -the part of somebody. - -If this effort is useful effort--"useful" in the sense that -a definite, healthy and sane human requirement is -served---the wealth and standard of living of the community -may thereby be enhanced. If the effort is aimless or -destructive, the money attached to it does not alter the +Looked at from this standpoint it is fairly clear that the kernel of the +problem is factory cost, since it is quite possible to conceive of a +limited company in which the shares were all held by the employees, +either equally or in varying proportions, according to their grade, and +the selling costs were internal---that is to say, all advertising was +done by the firm itself, and the cost of its salesmen, etc., was either +negligible, or confined to their salaries. We should then have the +complete profit-sharing enterprise in its ultimate aspect, and the +argument against Capitalism in its usual form would not arise. + +Such an undertaking would, let us assume, make a complicated engineering +product, requiring expensive plant and machinery, and would absorb +considerable quantities of power and light, lubricants, etc., much of +which would be wasted; and would inevitably produce a certain amount of +scrap the value of which would be less than the material in the form in +which it entered the works. The machinery would wear out, and would have +to be replaced and maintained, and generally it is clear that for each +unit of production there would be three main divisions of factory cost, +the "staple" raw material, the wages and salaries, and a sum +representing a proportion of the cost of upkeep on the whole of the +plant, which might easily equal 200%, of the wages and salaries. As the +plant became more automatic by improvements in process, the ratio which +these plant costs bore to the cost of labour and salaries would +increase. The factory cost of the total production, therefore, would be +the addition of these three items: staple material, labour and salaries, +and plant cost, and with the addition of selling charges and profit, +this would be the selling price. + +As a result of the operations of the undertaking, the wealth of the +world would thus be apparently increased by the difference between the +value of all the material entering the factory, and the total sum +represented by the selling price of the product. But it is clear that +the total amount distributed in wages, salaries and profit or dividends, +would be less by a considerable sum (representing purchases on factory +account) than the total selling price of the product, and if this is +true in one factory it must be true in all. Consequently, the total +amount of money liberated by manufacturing processes of this nature is +clearly less than the total selling price of the product. This +difference is due to the fact that while the final price to the consumer +of any manufactured article is steadily growing with the time required +for manufacture, during the same time the money distributed by the +manufacturing process is being returned to the capitalist through +purchases for immediate consumption. + +A concrete example will make this clear. A steel bolt and nut weighing +ten pounds might require in the blank about eleven and a half pounds of +material representing, say, 3s. 6d. The nett selling price of the scrap +recovered would probably be about one penny. The wages value of the +total man-hours expended on the conversion from the blank to the +finished nut and bolt might be 5s., and the average plant charge 150%, +on the direct time charge, i.e. 7s. 6d. The factory cost would, +therefore, be 15s. lid., of which 7s. 6d., or just under one-half, would +be plant charge. Of this plant charge probably 75%., or about 5s. 7d., +is represented by the sum of items which are either afterwards wiped off +for depreciation and consequently not distributed at all at that time, +or are distributed in payments outside the organisation, which payments +clearly must be subsequent to any valuation of the articles for which +they are paid, and so do not affect the argument. Without proceeding to +add selling charges and profit it must be clear that a charge of 15s. +lid. on the world's purchasing power has been created, of which only 6s. +10d. is distributed in respect of the specific article under +consideration, and that if the effective demand exists at all in a form +suitable for the liquidation of this charge, it must reside in the +banks. + +But we know that the total increase in the *personal* cash accounts in +the banks in normal times is under 3% of the wages, salaries and +dividends distributed, consequently it is not to these accounts that we +must look for effective demand. There are two sources remaining; +loan-credit, that is to say, purchasing power *created* by the banks on +principles which are directed solely to the production of a positive +financial result; and foreign or export demand. Now loan-credit is never +available to the consumer as such, because consumption as such has no +commercial value. In consequence loan-credit has become the great +stimulus either to manufacture or to any financial or commercial +operation which will result in a profit, that is to say, an inflation of +figures. + +An additional factor also comes into play at this point. All large scale +business is settled on a credit basis. In the case of commodities in +general retail demand, the price tends to rise above the cost limit, +because the sums distributed in advance of the completion of large works +become effective in the retail market, while the large works, when +completed, are paid for by an expansion ot credit. This process involves +a continuous inflation of currency, a rise in prices, and a consequent +dilution in purchasing power. + +The reason that the decrease in the consumer's purchasing power has not +been so great as would be suggested by these considerations is, of +course, largely due to intrinsic cheapening ot processes which would, if +not defeated by this dilution of the consumer's purchasing power, have +brought down prices faster than they have risen. + +There are thus two processes at work; an intrinsic cheapening of the +product by better methods, and an artificial decrease in purchasing +power due to what is in effect the charging of the cost of all waste and +inefficiency to the consumer. And it is clear that under this system the +greater the volume of production the larger will be the absolute value +of the waste which the consumer has to pay for, whether he will or no, +because as the bank credits are created at the instance of the +manufacturer, and repaid out of prices, each article produced dilutes, +by the ratio of its book price to all the credits outstanding, the +absolute purchasing power of the money held by any individual. + +These facts are quite unaffected by the perfectly sound argument that +increased production means decreased cost per piece, since it is the +total production price which has to be liquidated. + +Already there is not very much left of the argument for the innate +desirability of unlimited, unspecified and intensified manufacturing +under the existing economic system, but more trouble yet is ahead of it. +While the ratio of plant charges to total wages and salaries cost is +less than 1:1 over the whole range of commodities, a general rise in +direct rates of pay may mean a rise (but not a proportionate rise) in +the purchasing power of those who obtain their remuneration in this way. +But when by the increased application of mechanical methods the average +overhead charge passes the ratio of one to one (which it rapidly will, +and should do on this basis of calculation) every general increase in +rates of pay of "direct" labour may mean an actual decrease in real pay, +because the consumer is only interested in ultimate products and +overhead charges do not represent ultimate products in existence. + +The whole argument which represents a manufactured article as an access +of wealth to the country and to everyone concerned, no matter what its +description and utility so long as by any method it can be sold and +wages distributed in respect of it, will, therefore, be seen to be a +dangerous fallacy based on an entirely wrong conception,, which is +epitomised in the use of the word "production," and fostered by +ignorance of financial processes. Manufacturing of any kind whatever, +even agriculture in a limited sense, is the conversion of one thing into +another, which process is only advantageous to the extent that it +subserves a definite requirement of human evolution. In any case, it +shares with all other conversions the characteristic of having only a +fractional efficiency, and the waste of effort involved, although being +continually reduced by improvements of method, still can only be paid +for in one way, by effort on the part of somebody. + +If this effort is useful effort--"useful" in the sense that a definite, +healthy and sane human requirement is served---the wealth and standard +of living of the community may thereby be enhanced. If the effort is +aimless or destructive, the money attached to it does not alter the result. -The financial process just discussed therefore clearly -attaches a concrete money value to an abstract quality not -proven, and as this money value must be represented -somewhere by equivalent purchasing power in the broadest -sense, misdirected effort which appears in cost forms a -continuous and increasing diluent to the purchasing value of -effort in general. - -Now it has already been emphasised that, at the moment, -economic questions are of paramount importance, because the -economic system is the great weapon of the will-to-power. It -will be obvious that if the economic problem could be -reduced to a position of minor importance---in other words, -if the productive power of machinery could be made effective -in reducing to a very small fraction of the total man-hours -available, the man-hours required for adapting the world's -natural resources to the highest requirements of -humanity---the "deflation" of the problem would, to a very -considerable extent, be accomplished. The technical means -are to our hands; the good will is by no means lacking and -the opportunity is now with us. But it should be clearly -recognised that waste is not less waste because a money -value is attached to it, and that the machinery of -remuneration must be modified profoundly since the sum of -the wages, salaries and dividends, distributed in respect of -the world's production will buy an ever-decreasing fraction -of it. - -It is one of the most curious phenomena of the existing -economic system that a large portion of the world's energy, -both intellectual and physical, is directed to the -artificial stimulation of the desire for luxuries by -advertisement and otherwise, in order that the remainder may -be absorbed in what is frequently toilsome, disagreeable and -brutalising work; to the end that a device for the -distribution of purchasing power may be maintained in -existence. The irony of the situation is the greater since -the perfecting of the organisation to carry on this vicious -circle, carries with it as we have just seen, a complete +The financial process just discussed therefore clearly attaches a +concrete money value to an abstract quality not proven, and as this +money value must be represented somewhere by equivalent purchasing power +in the broadest sense, misdirected effort which appears in cost forms a +continuous and increasing diluent to the purchasing value of effort in +general. + +Now it has already been emphasised that, at the moment, economic +questions are of paramount importance, because the economic system is +the great weapon of the will-to-power. It will be obvious that if the +economic problem could be reduced to a position of minor importance---in +other words, if the productive power of machinery could be made +effective in reducing to a very small fraction of the total man-hours +available, the man-hours required for adapting the world's natural +resources to the highest requirements of humanity---the "deflation" of +the problem would, to a very considerable extent, be accomplished. The +technical means are to our hands; the good will is by no means lacking +and the opportunity is now with us. But it should be clearly recognised +that waste is not less waste because a money value is attached to it, +and that the machinery of remuneration must be modified profoundly since +the sum of the wages, salaries and dividends, distributed in respect of +the world's production will buy an ever-decreasing fraction of it. + +It is one of the most curious phenomena of the existing economic system +that a large portion of the world's energy, both intellectual and +physical, is directed to the artificial stimulation of the desire for +luxuries by advertisement and otherwise, in order that the remainder may +be absorbed in what is frequently toilsome, disagreeable and brutalising +work; to the end that a device for the distribution of purchasing power +may be maintained in existence. The irony of the situation is the +greater since the perfecting of the organisation to carry on this +vicious circle, carries with it as we have just seen, a complete negation of all real progress. -The common factor of the whole situation lies in the simple -facts that at any given period the material requirements of -the individual are quite definitely limited---that any -attempt to expand them artificially is an interference with -the plain trend of evolution, which is to subordinate -material to mental and psychological necessity; and that the -impulse behind unbridled industrialism is not progressive -but reactionary, because its objective is an obsolete -financial control which forms one of the most effective -instruments of the will-to-power, whereas the correct -objectives of industry are two-fold; the removal of material -limitations, and the satisfaction of the creative impulse. - -It is for this reason that while, as we see, the effect of -the concrete sum distributed as profit is over-rated in the -attacks made on the Capitalistic system, and is of small and -diminishing importance as compared with the delusive -accounting system which accompanies it, and which acts to -reduce consistently the purchasing power of effort, it is, -nevertheless, of prime importance as furnishing the -immediate "inducement to produce," which is a false -inducement in that it claims as "wealth" what may just as -probably be waste. - -If by wealth we mean the original meaning attached to the -word: *i.e.*, " well-being," the value in well-being to be -attached to production depends entirely on its use for the -promotion of well-being (unless a case is made out for the -moral value of factory life), and bears no relation whatever -to the value obtained by cost accounting. - -Further, if the interaction between production for profit -and the creation of credit by the finance and banking houses -is understood, it will be seen that the root of the evil -accruing from the system is in the constant filching of -purchasing power from the individual in favour of the -financier, rather than in the mere profit itself. - -Having in view the importance of the issues involved, it may -be desirable to summarise the conclusions to be derived from -a study of the methods by which the price of production is -based on cost under the existing economic arrangements. They -are as follows:---- +The common factor of the whole situation lies in the simple facts that +at any given period the material requirements of the individual are +quite definitely limited---that any attempt to expand them artificially +is an interference with the plain trend of evolution, which is to +subordinate material to mental and psychological necessity; and that the +impulse behind unbridled industrialism is not progressive but +reactionary, because its objective is an obsolete financial control +which forms one of the most effective instruments of the will-to-power, +whereas the correct objectives of industry are two-fold; the removal of +material limitations, and the satisfaction of the creative impulse. + +It is for this reason that while, as we see, the effect of the concrete +sum distributed as profit is over-rated in the attacks made on the +Capitalistic system, and is of small and diminishing importance as +compared with the delusive accounting system which accompanies it, and +which acts to reduce consistently the purchasing power of effort, it is, +nevertheless, of prime importance as furnishing the immediate +"inducement to produce," which is a false inducement in that it claims +as "wealth" what may just as probably be waste. + +If by wealth we mean the original meaning attached to the word: *i.e.*, +" well-being," the value in well-being to be attached to production +depends entirely on its use for the promotion of well-being (unless a +case is made out for the moral value of factory life), and bears no +relation whatever to the value obtained by cost accounting. + +Further, if the interaction between production for profit and the +creation of credit by the finance and banking houses is understood, it +will be seen that the root of the evil accruing from the system is in +the constant filching of purchasing power from the individual in favour +of the financier, rather than in the mere profit itself. + +Having in view the importance of the issues involved, it may be +desirable to summarise the conclusions to be derived from a study of the +methods by which the price of production is based on cost under the +existing economic arrangements. They are as follows:---- 1. Price cannot normally be less than cost plus profit. 2. Cost includes all expenditure on product. -3. Therefore, cost involves all expenditure on consumption - (food, clothes, housing, etc.), paid for out of wages, - salary or dividends as well as all expenditure on - factory account, also representing previous consumption. - -4. Since it includes this expenditure, the portion of the - cost represented by this expenditure has already been - paid by the recipients of wages, salaries and dividends. - -5. These represent the community; therefore, the only - distribution of real purchasing power in respect of - production over a unit period of time is the surplus - wages, salaries and dividends available after all - subsistence, expenditure and cost of materials consumed - has been deducted. The surplus production, however, - includes all this expenditure in cost, and, - consequently, in price. - -6. The only effective demand of the consumer, therefore, is - a few percent, of the price value of commodities, and is - cash credit. The remainder of the Home effective demand - is loan credit, which is controlled by the banker, the - financier, and the industrialist, in the interest of - production with a financial objective, not in the +3. Therefore, cost involves all expenditure on consumption (food, + clothes, housing, etc.), paid for out of wages, salary or dividends + as well as all expenditure on factory account, also representing + previous consumption. + +4. Since it includes this expenditure, the portion of the cost + represented by this expenditure has already been paid by the + recipients of wages, salaries and dividends. + +5. These represent the community; therefore, the only distribution of + real purchasing power in respect of production over a unit period of + time is the surplus wages, salaries and dividends available after + all subsistence, expenditure and cost of materials consumed has been + deducted. The surplus production, however, includes all this + expenditure in cost, and, consequently, in price. + +6. The only effective demand of the consumer, therefore, is a few + percent, of the price value of commodities, and is cash credit. The + remainder of the Home effective demand is loan credit, which is + controlled by the banker, the financier, and the industrialist, in + the interest of production with a financial objective, not in the interest of the ultimate consumer. -It will be necessary to grasp the significance of these -considerations, which can hardly be over-rated in its effect -on the break-up of the existing economic system, in order to -appreciate the result of a change in the control of credit -and the method of price fixing, with which it is proposed to -deal at a later stage. +It will be necessary to grasp the significance of these considerations, +which can hardly be over-rated in its effect on the break-up of the +existing economic system, in order to appreciate the result of a change +in the control of credit and the method of price fixing, with which it +is proposed to deal at a later stage. # Chapter Six -It will be readily understood that the difficulties which -are seen to be inherent in the policy of super-production -are only an accentuation of those with which we were only -too familiar prior to the outbreak of war, and it may be -contended and, in fact, it frequently is stated, that even -with the unemployment statistics at their minimum point and -the Nation at its maximum activity in Industry, there is -still not enough product to go round. Recently, for -instance. Professor Bowley has estimated that the total -surplus income of the United Kingdom in excess of £160 per -annum is only £250,000,000, which would mean, if distributed -to 10,000,000 heads of families, £25 per annum per family, -assuming that this distribution did not reduce the -production of wealth. - -The figures themselves have been criticised; but, in any -case, the whole argument is completely fallacious, because -it takes no account whatever of loan credit, which is by far -the most important factor in the distribution of production, -as we have already seen. What it *does* show is that the -purchasing power of effort is quite insignificant in +It will be readily understood that the difficulties which are seen to be +inherent in the policy of super-production are only an accentuation of +those with which we were only too familiar prior to the outbreak of war, +and it may be contended and, in fact, it frequently is stated, that even +with the unemployment statistics at their minimum point and the Nation +at its maximum activity in Industry, there is still not enough product +to go round. Recently, for instance. Professor Bowley has estimated that +the total surplus income of the United Kingdom in excess of £160 per +annum is only £250,000,000, which would mean, if distributed to +10,000,000 heads of families, £25 per annum per family, assuming that +this distribution did not reduce the production of wealth. + +The figures themselves have been criticised; but, in any case, the whole +argument is completely fallacious, because it takes no account whatever +of loan credit, which is by far the most important factor in the +distribution of production, as we have already seen. What it *does* show +is that the purchasing power of effort is quite insignificant in comparison with its productive power. -But it may be advisable to glance at some of the proximate -causes operating to reduce the return for effort; and to -realise the origin of most of the specific instances, it -must be borne in mind that the *existing economic system -distributes goods and services through the same agency which -induces goods and services*, *i.e.*, payment for work in -progress. In other words, if production stops, distribution -stops, and, as a consequence, a clear incentive exists to -produce useless or superfluous articles in order that useful -commodities already existing may be distributed. - -This perfectly simple reason is the explanation of the -increasing necessity of what has come to be called economic -sabotage; the colossal waste of effort which goes on in -every walk of life quite unobserved by the majority of -people because they are so familiar with it; a waste which -yet so over-taxed the ingenuity of society to extend it that -the climax of war only occurred in the moment when a -culminating exhibition of organised sabotage was necessary -to preserve the system from spontaneous combustion. - -The simplest form of this process is that of "making work"; -the elaboration of every action in life so as to involve the -maximum quantity and the minimum efficiency in human effort. -The much-maligned household plumber who evolves an elaborate -organisation and etiquette probably requiring two assistants -and half a day, in order to "wipe" a damaged water pipe, -which could, by methods with which he is perfectly familiar, -be satisfactorily repaired by a boy in one-third the time; -the machinist insisting on a lengthy apprenticeship to an -unskilled process of industry, such as the operation of an -automatic machine tool, are simple instances of this. A -little higher up the scale of complexity comes the -manufacturer who produces a new model of his particular -speciality, with the object, express or subconscious, of -rendering the old model obsolete before it is worn out. We -then begin to touch the immense region of artificial demand -created by advertisement; a demand, in many cases, as purely -hypnotic in origin as the request of the mesmerised subject -for a draught of kerosene. All these are instances which -could be multiplied and elaborated to any extent necessary -to prove the point. - -In another class comes the stupendous waste of effort -involved in the intricacies of finance and book-keeping; -much of which, although necessary to the competitive system, -is quite useless in increasing the amenities of life; there -is the burden of armaments and the waste of materials and -equipment involved in them even in peace time; the -ever-growing bureaucracy largely concerned in elaborating -safeguards for a radically defective social system; and, -finally, but by no means least, the cumulative export of the -product of labour, largely and increasingly paid for by the -raw material which forms the vehicle for the export of -further labour. - -All these and many other forms of avoidable waste take their -rise in the obsession of wealth defined in terms of money; -an obsession which even the steady fall in the purchasing -power of the unit of currency seems powerless to dispel; an -obsession which obscures the whole object and meaning of -scientific progress and places the worker and the honest man -in a permanently disadvantageous position in comparison with -the financier and the rogue. It is probable that the device -of money is a necessary device in our present civilisation; -but the establishment of a stable ratio between the use -value of effort and its money value is a problem which -demands a very early solution, and must clearly result in -the abolition of any incentive to the capitalisation of any -form of waste. - -The tawdry "ornament," the jerry-built house, the slow and -uncomfortable train service, the unwholesome sweetmeat, are -the direct and logical consummation of an economic system -which rewards variety, quite irrespective of quality, and -proclaims in the clearest possible manner that it is much -better to "do" your neighbour than to do sound and lasting -work. - -The capitalistic wage system based on the current methods of -finance, so far from offering maximum distribution, is -decreasingly capable of meeting any requirement of society -fully. Its very existence depends on a constant increase in -the variety of product, the stimulation of desire, and in -keeping the articles desired in short supply. +But it may be advisable to glance at some of the proximate causes +operating to reduce the return for effort; and to realise the origin of +most of the specific instances, it must be borne in mind that the +*existing economic system distributes goods and services through the +same agency which induces goods and services*, *i.e.*, payment for work +in progress. In other words, if production stops, distribution stops, +and, as a consequence, a clear incentive exists to produce useless or +superfluous articles in order that useful commodities already existing +may be distributed. + +This perfectly simple reason is the explanation of the increasing +necessity of what has come to be called economic sabotage; the colossal +waste of effort which goes on in every walk of life quite unobserved by +the majority of people because they are so familiar with it; a waste +which yet so over-taxed the ingenuity of society to extend it that the +climax of war only occurred in the moment when a culminating exhibition +of organised sabotage was necessary to preserve the system from +spontaneous combustion. + +The simplest form of this process is that of "making work"; the +elaboration of every action in life so as to involve the maximum +quantity and the minimum efficiency in human effort. The much-maligned +household plumber who evolves an elaborate organisation and etiquette +probably requiring two assistants and half a day, in order to "wipe" a +damaged water pipe, which could, by methods with which he is perfectly +familiar, be satisfactorily repaired by a boy in one-third the time; the +machinist insisting on a lengthy apprenticeship to an unskilled process +of industry, such as the operation of an automatic machine tool, are +simple instances of this. A little higher up the scale of complexity +comes the manufacturer who produces a new model of his particular +speciality, with the object, express or subconscious, of rendering the +old model obsolete before it is worn out. We then begin to touch the +immense region of artificial demand created by advertisement; a demand, +in many cases, as purely hypnotic in origin as the request of the +mesmerised subject for a draught of kerosene. All these are instances +which could be multiplied and elaborated to any extent necessary to +prove the point. + +In another class comes the stupendous waste of effort involved in the +intricacies of finance and book-keeping; much of which, although +necessary to the competitive system, is quite useless in increasing the +amenities of life; there is the burden of armaments and the waste of +materials and equipment involved in them even in peace time; the +ever-growing bureaucracy largely concerned in elaborating safeguards for +a radically defective social system; and, finally, but by no means +least, the cumulative export of the product of labour, largely and +increasingly paid for by the raw material which forms the vehicle for +the export of further labour. + +All these and many other forms of avoidable waste take their rise in the +obsession of wealth defined in terms of money; an obsession which even +the steady fall in the purchasing power of the unit of currency seems +powerless to dispel; an obsession which obscures the whole object and +meaning of scientific progress and places the worker and the honest man +in a permanently disadvantageous position in comparison with the +financier and the rogue. It is probable that the device of money is a +necessary device in our present civilisation; but the establishment of a +stable ratio between the use value of effort and its money value is a +problem which demands a very early solution, and must clearly result in +the abolition of any incentive to the capitalisation of any form of +waste. + +The tawdry "ornament," the jerry-built house, the slow and uncomfortable +train service, the unwholesome sweetmeat, are the direct and logical +consummation of an economic system which rewards variety, quite +irrespective of quality, and proclaims in the clearest possible manner +that it is much better to "do" your neighbour than to do sound and +lasting work. + +The capitalistic wage system based on the current methods of finance, so +far from offering maximum distribution, is decreasingly capable of +meeting any requirement of society fully. Its very existence depends on +a constant increase in the variety of product, the stimulation of +desire, and in keeping the articles desired in short supply. # Chapter Seven -If the preceding endeavour to marshal into some sort of -coherent pattern the facts of the general economic and -social situation as it exists at present has been to any -extent successful, it will be evident that the real -antagonism which is at the root of the upheaval with which -we are faced is one which appears under different forms in -every aspect of human life. It is the age-long struggle -between freedom and authority, between external compulsion -and internal initiative, in which all the command of -resources, information, religious dogma, educational system, -political opportunity and even, apparently, economic -necessity, is ranged on the side of authority; and ultimate -authority is now exercised through finance. This antagonism -does, however, appear at the present time to have reached a -stage in which a definite victory for one side, or the other -is inevitable---it seems perfectly certain that either a -pyramidal organisation, having at its apex supreme power, -and at its base complete subjection, will crystallise out of -the centralising process which is evident in the realms of -finance and industry, equally with that of politics, or else -a more complete decentralisation of initiative than this -civilisation has ever known will be substituted for external -authority. The issue transcends in importance all others: -the development of the human race will be radically -different as it is decided one way or another, but as far as -it is possible to judge, the general advantage of the -individual will lie with the retention of a measure of -coordination in all mechanical organisation, combined with -the evolution of progressively decentralised initiative, -largely by the displacement of the power of centralised -finance. - -The implication of this is a challenge, which will become -more definite as time goes on, to external authority as to -its right to adjudicate on the absolute value, expressed in -terms of commodities, of various forms of activity. Even -now, the practical difficulty of estimating the relation -between material reward and individual effort is becoming -almost insuperable, even in the cases where an honest effort -is made to arrive at some solution. The various movements -for the grant of a minimum living wage, the demand for the -recognition of the "right to work" (*i.e.*, to draw pay) are -all symptoms of the breakdown of the financial "law" of -supply and demand in its application to economic problems. - -Still another significant feature of the inadequacy of the -economic structure is the increase of voluntary unpaid -effort and the large amount of energy devoted to games. -There is absolutely no concrete difference between work and -play unless it be in favour of the former---no one would -contend that it is inherently more interesting or -pleasurable, to endeavour to place a small ball in an -inadequate hole with inappropriate instruments, than to -assist in the construction of a Quebec Bridge, or the -harnessing of Niagara. But for one object men will travel -long distances at their own expense, while for the other -they require payment and considerable incentive to remain at -work. - -The whole difference is, of course, psychological; in the -one case there is absolute freedom of choice, not of -conditions, but as to whether those conditions are -acceptable; there is some voice in control, and there is an -avoidance of monotony by the comparatively short period of -the game, followed by occupation of an entirely different -order. But the efficiency of the performance as compared -with the efficiency of the average factory worker is simply -incomparable---any factory which could induce for six months -the united and enthusiastic concentration of, say, an -amateur football team would produce quite astonishing -results. - -Now, it may be emphasised here at once, that there is -absolutely no future for inefficiency as a cult; the whole -promise of a brighter, probably a very bright, future for -the world lies in doing the best possible things in the best -possible way. In industrial affairs the principle of the -maximum efficiency of effort per unit of time is so patently -unassailable that its enunciation would hardly be necessary, -but that the proposition carries with it a very different -conception of efficiency than the narrow "business" meaning -commonly attached to the word, and in consequence it is the -fashion amongst the less progressive elements of society to -attack any demand for improved conditions as simply an -attempt to substitute sloth and incapacity for energy and -capability. While, therefore, a readjustment of system and, -above all, a complete reconsideration of objective is -necessary, it is probable that *the basis of such changes -must be economic, with political and financial systems -auxiliary rather than definitive*, and it is certain that a -revision of economic policy, to be stable, must result in -higher economic efficiency, even though the very aim of that -higher efficiency is to reduce economic problems to a very -subordinate position. And the higher psychological -efficiency of voluntary effort is clearly a step to this -end. - -We have just seen that merely increased production under -existing conditions will not achieve any economic stability -because there are at least two quite irreconcilable criteria -governing the scope of the operations proposed. There is, on -the one hand, the adjustment of manufacturing of all sorts -to the opportunity of sale (not by any means always -profitable sale) and this is a purely artificial and yet -all-powerful consideration under present financial systems, -and constitutes the effective demand. - -And there is, on the other hand, the growing *real* demand, -first for food, clothing and shelter and then for -participation in the wider life which modern progress has -made possible, such demand being quite irrespective of -capacity to pay in money. And the reconciliation of these -two interests means the defeat of the will-to-power by the -will-to-freedom, and in this reconciliation is involved a -modification of economic distribution. - -Now if there is any sanity left in the world at all, it -should be obvious that the real demand is the proper -objective of production, and that it must be met from the -bottom upwards, that is to say, there must be first a -production of necessaries sufficient to meet universal -requirements; and, secondly, an economic system must be -devised to ensure their practically automatic and universal -distribution; this having been achieved it may be followed -to whatever extent may prove desirable by the manufacture of -articles having a more limited range of usefulness. All -financial questions are quite beside the point; if finance -cannot meet this simple proposition then finance fails, and -will be replaced. It has been estimated that two hours per -week of the time of every fit adult between the ages of 18 -and 45 would provide for a uniformly high standard of -physical welfare under existing conditions, and without -endorsing the exact figures it is perfectly certain that -distribution and not manufacture is the real economic -problem and is at present quite intolerably unsatisfactory. -There is no need to assume that the whole machinery of -business as we know it must be scrapped; in fact, the -machinery of business, as machinery, is highly efficient; -but it must undoubtedly be adjusted so that no selfish -desire for domination can make it possible for any interest -to hold up distribution on purely artificial grounds. Since -the analysis of existing conditions which we have undertaken -shows that any centralised administrative organisation is -certain to be captured by some interest antagonistic to the +If the preceding endeavour to marshal into some sort of coherent pattern +the facts of the general economic and social situation as it exists at +present has been to any extent successful, it will be evident that the +real antagonism which is at the root of the upheaval with which we are +faced is one which appears under different forms in every aspect of +human life. It is the age-long struggle between freedom and authority, +between external compulsion and internal initiative, in which all the +command of resources, information, religious dogma, educational system, +political opportunity and even, apparently, economic necessity, is +ranged on the side of authority; and ultimate authority is now exercised +through finance. This antagonism does, however, appear at the present +time to have reached a stage in which a definite victory for one side, +or the other is inevitable---it seems perfectly certain that either a +pyramidal organisation, having at its apex supreme power, and at its +base complete subjection, will crystallise out of the centralising +process which is evident in the realms of finance and industry, equally +with that of politics, or else a more complete decentralisation of +initiative than this civilisation has ever known will be substituted for +external authority. The issue transcends in importance all others: the +development of the human race will be radically different as it is +decided one way or another, but as far as it is possible to judge, the +general advantage of the individual will lie with the retention of a +measure of coordination in all mechanical organisation, combined with +the evolution of progressively decentralised initiative, largely by the +displacement of the power of centralised finance. + +The implication of this is a challenge, which will become more definite +as time goes on, to external authority as to its right to adjudicate on +the absolute value, expressed in terms of commodities, of various forms +of activity. Even now, the practical difficulty of estimating the +relation between material reward and individual effort is becoming +almost insuperable, even in the cases where an honest effort is made to +arrive at some solution. The various movements for the grant of a +minimum living wage, the demand for the recognition of the "right to +work" (*i.e.*, to draw pay) are all symptoms of the breakdown of the +financial "law" of supply and demand in its application to economic +problems. + +Still another significant feature of the inadequacy of the economic +structure is the increase of voluntary unpaid effort and the large +amount of energy devoted to games. There is absolutely no concrete +difference between work and play unless it be in favour of the +former---no one would contend that it is inherently more interesting or +pleasurable, to endeavour to place a small ball in an inadequate hole +with inappropriate instruments, than to assist in the construction of a +Quebec Bridge, or the harnessing of Niagara. But for one object men will +travel long distances at their own expense, while for the other they +require payment and considerable incentive to remain at work. + +The whole difference is, of course, psychological; in the one case there +is absolute freedom of choice, not of conditions, but as to whether +those conditions are acceptable; there is some voice in control, and +there is an avoidance of monotony by the comparatively short period of +the game, followed by occupation of an entirely different order. But the +efficiency of the performance as compared with the efficiency of the +average factory worker is simply incomparable---any factory which could +induce for six months the united and enthusiastic concentration of, say, +an amateur football team would produce quite astonishing results. + +Now, it may be emphasised here at once, that there is absolutely no +future for inefficiency as a cult; the whole promise of a brighter, +probably a very bright, future for the world lies in doing the best +possible things in the best possible way. In industrial affairs the +principle of the maximum efficiency of effort per unit of time is so +patently unassailable that its enunciation would hardly be necessary, +but that the proposition carries with it a very different conception of +efficiency than the narrow "business" meaning commonly attached to the +word, and in consequence it is the fashion amongst the less progressive +elements of society to attack any demand for improved conditions as +simply an attempt to substitute sloth and incapacity for energy and +capability. While, therefore, a readjustment of system and, above all, a +complete reconsideration of objective is necessary, it is probable that +*the basis of such changes must be economic, with political and +financial systems auxiliary rather than definitive*, and it is certain +that a revision of economic policy, to be stable, must result in higher +economic efficiency, even though the very aim of that higher efficiency +is to reduce economic problems to a very subordinate position. And the +higher psychological efficiency of voluntary effort is clearly a step to +this end. + +We have just seen that merely increased production under existing +conditions will not achieve any economic stability because there are at +least two quite irreconcilable criteria governing the scope of the +operations proposed. There is, on the one hand, the adjustment of +manufacturing of all sorts to the opportunity of sale (not by any means +always profitable sale) and this is a purely artificial and yet +all-powerful consideration under present financial systems, and +constitutes the effective demand. + +And there is, on the other hand, the growing *real* demand, first for +food, clothing and shelter and then for participation in the wider life +which modern progress has made possible, such demand being quite +irrespective of capacity to pay in money. And the reconciliation of +these two interests means the defeat of the will-to-power by the +will-to-freedom, and in this reconciliation is involved a modification +of economic distribution. + +Now if there is any sanity left in the world at all, it should be +obvious that the real demand is the proper objective of production, and +that it must be met from the bottom upwards, that is to say, there must +be first a production of necessaries sufficient to meet universal +requirements; and, secondly, an economic system must be devised to +ensure their practically automatic and universal distribution; this +having been achieved it may be followed to whatever extent may prove +desirable by the manufacture of articles having a more limited range of +usefulness. All financial questions are quite beside the point; if +finance cannot meet this simple proposition then finance fails, and will +be replaced. It has been estimated that two hours per week of the time +of every fit adult between the ages of 18 and 45 would provide for a +uniformly high standard of physical welfare under existing conditions, +and without endorsing the exact figures it is perfectly certain that +distribution and not manufacture is the real economic problem and is at +present quite intolerably unsatisfactory. There is no need to assume +that the whole machinery of business as we know it must be scrapped; in +fact, the machinery of business, as machinery, is highly efficient; but +it must undoubtedly be adjusted so that no selfish desire for domination +can make it possible for any interest to hold up distribution on purely +artificial grounds. Since the analysis of existing conditions which we +have undertaken shows that any centralised administrative organisation +is certain to be captured by some interest antagonistic to the individual, it seems evident that it is in the direction of -decentralisation of control that we must look for such -alteration in the social structure as would be -self-protective against capture for interested purposes. - -As we have already seen, alongside the concentration of -political and industrial power a powerful decentralising -force is already beginning to show itself in various forms. -In considering the manifestation of this force it will be -observed that at the moment it is seeking expression through -organisation---in new forms, but for the present operating -with old sources of energy, chiefly negative in character, -such as the strike. To be effective, however, against -positive centralisation, positive decentralisation will have -to come---decentralised economic power is necessary. - -Among the more important of these forms is the shop steward -or rank-and-file movement in industry, and the workmen's -councils in politics, both purely decentralising in -tendency, quite apart from any special policy for the -furtherance of which they may be used. The apprehension with -which the movements are regarded by the reactionary -capitalist is based far more on a recognition of the -difficulties such a scheme of organisation offers to -successful corruption and capture than to any regard for the -specific items in the policy it may for the moment -represent; most of which have been previously parried with -ease when presented through delegated Trade Union leaders, -whose position of authority have been perforce achieved by -exactly the methods best understood by those with whom they -have to deal. - -As the Shop Steward movement is the most definite industrial -recognition from the Labour side, of the necessity for -decentralisation, some examination of the general scheme is -of interest. The actual details of the organisation vary -from place to place, trade to trade, and even day to day; -but the essence of the idea consists in the adoption of a -decentralised unit of production such as the "shop" or -department, and the substitution of actual workers in -considerable numbers, for the paid Trade Union official as -the nucleoli of both industrial and political power -(although the political power is not exercised through +decentralisation of control that we must look for such alteration in the +social structure as would be self-protective against capture for +interested purposes. + +As we have already seen, alongside the concentration of political and +industrial power a powerful decentralising force is already beginning to +show itself in various forms. In considering the manifestation of this +force it will be observed that at the moment it is seeking expression +through organisation---in new forms, but for the present operating with +old sources of energy, chiefly negative in character, such as the +strike. To be effective, however, against positive centralisation, +positive decentralisation will have to come---decentralised economic +power is necessary. + +Among the more important of these forms is the shop steward or +rank-and-file movement in industry, and the workmen's councils in +politics, both purely decentralising in tendency, quite apart from any +special policy for the furtherance of which they may be used. The +apprehension with which the movements are regarded by the reactionary +capitalist is based far more on a recognition of the difficulties such a +scheme of organisation offers to successful corruption and capture than +to any regard for the specific items in the policy it may for the moment +represent; most of which have been previously parried with ease when +presented through delegated Trade Union leaders, whose position of +authority have been perforce achieved by exactly the methods best +understood by those with whom they have to deal. + +As the Shop Steward movement is the most definite industrial recognition +from the Labour side, of the necessity for decentralisation, some +examination of the general scheme is of interest. The actual details of +the organisation vary from place to place, trade to trade, and even day +to day; but the essence of the idea consists in the adoption of a +decentralised unit of production such as the "shop" or department, and +the substitution of actual workers in considerable numbers, for the paid +Trade Union official as the nucleoli of both industrial and political +power (although the political power is not exercised through Parliamentary channels). -The shop steward is generally "industrial" rather than -"craft" in interest; that is to say, he represents a body of -men who produce an article, rather than a section who -perform one class of operation for widely different ends; -but there is nothing inherently antagonistic as between the -two conceptions of function, Industrial Unionism being -largely a militant device. He is quite limited in his sphere -of action, but initiates general discussion on the basis of -first-hand information, and forms a link between the -decentralised industrial unit and other units which may be -concerned. The practical effect of the arrangement is that -the spokesmen are never out of touch with those for whom -they speak, since the normal occupation and remuneration of -representatives is similar to that of those they represent; -and should any cleavage occur, a change of representative -can be easily secured. The official concerned has, in -theory, no executive authority whatever, nor can he take any -action not supported by his co-workers, *i.e.*, the -direction of policy is from the bottom upwards instead of -the top downwards. The individual shop stewards are banded -together in a shop stewards' committee, which has again only -just as much authority as the individual workers care to -delegate to it. - -It is, of course, obvious that the permanent success of any -arrangement of this character depends on a common -recognition amongst the individuals affected by the -organization, of certain principles as "confirming standards -of reference." In short, it would be impossible to -administer a complicated manufacturing concern on any such -principles unless the general body of employees had a -general appreciation of the fundamental necessities of the -business, inclusive of direction and technical design. - -In other words, and in a more general sense all *political* -arrangements of this or any other description simply provide -a mechanism for the administration of an agreed -system---they are not, and cannot in their very nature be -that system in itself. - -Where, of course, it is clear that there is a confusion of -function is, that the shop steward claims control not only -of the conditions of production, but eventually of the terms -of distribution. This confusion is quite inevitable at -present, but is not necessarily permanent, and is obviously -undesirable. It is based on the fallacy that labour, as -such, produces all wealth, whereas the simple fact is that -production is 95%, a matter of tools and process, which -tools and process form the cultural inheritance of the -community not as workers, but as a community, and as such -the community is most clearly the proper though far from -being the legal, administrator of it. +The shop steward is generally "industrial" rather than "craft" in +interest; that is to say, he represents a body of men who produce an +article, rather than a section who perform one class of operation for +widely different ends; but there is nothing inherently antagonistic as +between the two conceptions of function, Industrial Unionism being +largely a militant device. He is quite limited in his sphere of action, +but initiates general discussion on the basis of first-hand information, +and forms a link between the decentralised industrial unit and other +units which may be concerned. The practical effect of the arrangement is +that the spokesmen are never out of touch with those for whom they +speak, since the normal occupation and remuneration of representatives +is similar to that of those they represent; and should any cleavage +occur, a change of representative can be easily secured. The official +concerned has, in theory, no executive authority whatever, nor can he +take any action not supported by his co-workers, *i.e.*, the direction +of policy is from the bottom upwards instead of the top downwards. The +individual shop stewards are banded together in a shop stewards' +committee, which has again only just as much authority as the individual +workers care to delegate to it. + +It is, of course, obvious that the permanent success of any arrangement +of this character depends on a common recognition amongst the +individuals affected by the organization, of certain principles as +"confirming standards of reference." In short, it would be impossible to +administer a complicated manufacturing concern on any such principles +unless the general body of employees had a general appreciation of the +fundamental necessities of the business, inclusive of direction and +technical design. + +In other words, and in a more general sense all *political* arrangements +of this or any other description simply provide a mechanism for the +administration of an agreed system---they are not, and cannot in their +very nature be that system in itself. + +Where, of course, it is clear that there is a confusion of function is, +that the shop steward claims control not only of the conditions of +production, but eventually of the terms of distribution. This confusion +is quite inevitable at present, but is not necessarily permanent, and is +obviously undesirable. It is based on the fallacy that labour, as such, +produces all wealth, whereas the simple fact is that production is 95%, +a matter of tools and process, which tools and process form the cultural +inheritance of the community not as workers, but as a community, and as +such the community is most clearly the proper though far from being the +legal, administrator of it. # Chapter Eight -Admitting, then, that any decentralised scheme of society -must first justify itself economically, it is necessary to -grapple with, at any rate, the main features of the radical -reconstruction necessary before any attempt can be made to -forecast the political aspect. - -The starting point is clearly a reasonably uniform and -plentiful distribution of simple necessaries; food, clothes, -housing, etc. - -Now the actual production of these articles presents no -difficulties whatever. Notwithstanding the diversion of the -major portion of the world's energy for four years to -purposes of destruction, the actual economic want in the -world has been almost entirely artificial, *i.e.*, has been -confined either to countries effectively blockaded, or else -lacking the mechanical facilities for effective -distribution. In fact, it is most significant that while -useful (in a peace sense) production has been enormously -reduced in Great Britain during the war, the standard of -comfort has been more uniformly high than ever before. - -The explanation of this is simple: The payments made in -wages have increased, prices and the production of luxuries -have been partly controlled, and sabotage has disposed of -useless product, and so kept up wage distribution. - -The practical problem, then, is to make it certain that -commodities are produced under satisfactory conditions, and -equally certain that they are distributed according to -necessity, and the organisation for these purposes may well -determine the social structure, inasmuch as a complete -success would be the most powerful incentive to the adoption -of similar methods in less fundamental directions. - -Profiting by the deduction made from the examination already -made of the results of various types of organisation, it may -be repeated that the best results would seem probable from a -coordinated organisation for purposes of technique with the -greatest decentralisation of initiative in the use of the -facilities so provided. - -Now it should be clearly grasped at the outset that at least -two main problems are involved in the question at issue, -which may be broadly defined as that of the producer and the -consumer; and not only are these entirely separate, but, -rightly considered, they are on completely different planes -of existence. - -The problem of the consumer is essentially material; he is -concerned with quality, variety, price, supply; he is -concerned with *product*. - -On the contrary, the producer is almost entirely concerned -with psychological issues; fatigue, interest, welfare, hours -of labour, all of which, *qua* producer pure and simple, are -broadly summed up in the word "contentment." - -The consumer is interested in distribution; the producer is -concerned with effort. While the producer and the consumer -are frequently combined in the same person, a recognition of -these distinctions will make it easier to define the powers -which should belong to each. - -It is particularly necessary to emphasise this distinction -since the existing structure of industry based on finance -takes it for granted that the possession of large quantities -of goods, or their equivalent purchasing power in money, is -a good and sufficient reason for the exercise of a -preponderating voice in the conditions and processes of +Admitting, then, that any decentralised scheme of society must first +justify itself economically, it is necessary to grapple with, at any +rate, the main features of the radical reconstruction necessary before +any attempt can be made to forecast the political aspect. + +The starting point is clearly a reasonably uniform and plentiful +distribution of simple necessaries; food, clothes, housing, etc. + +Now the actual production of these articles presents no difficulties +whatever. Notwithstanding the diversion of the major portion of the +world's energy for four years to purposes of destruction, the actual +economic want in the world has been almost entirely artificial, *i.e.*, +has been confined either to countries effectively blockaded, or else +lacking the mechanical facilities for effective distribution. In fact, +it is most significant that while useful (in a peace sense) production +has been enormously reduced in Great Britain during the war, the +standard of comfort has been more uniformly high than ever before. + +The explanation of this is simple: The payments made in wages have +increased, prices and the production of luxuries have been partly +controlled, and sabotage has disposed of useless product, and so kept up +wage distribution. + +The practical problem, then, is to make it certain that commodities are +produced under satisfactory conditions, and equally certain that they +are distributed according to necessity, and the organisation for these +purposes may well determine the social structure, inasmuch as a complete +success would be the most powerful incentive to the adoption of similar +methods in less fundamental directions. + +Profiting by the deduction made from the examination already made of the +results of various types of organisation, it may be repeated that the +best results would seem probable from a coordinated organisation for +purposes of technique with the greatest decentralisation of initiative +in the use of the facilities so provided. + +Now it should be clearly grasped at the outset that at least two main +problems are involved in the question at issue, which may be broadly +defined as that of the producer and the consumer; and not only are these +entirely separate, but, rightly considered, they are on completely +different planes of existence. + +The problem of the consumer is essentially material; he is concerned +with quality, variety, price, supply; he is concerned with *product*. + +On the contrary, the producer is almost entirely concerned with +psychological issues; fatigue, interest, welfare, hours of labour, all +of which, *qua* producer pure and simple, are broadly summed up in the +word "contentment." + +The consumer is interested in distribution; the producer is concerned +with effort. While the producer and the consumer are frequently combined +in the same person, a recognition of these distinctions will make it +easier to define the powers which should belong to each. + +It is particularly necessary to emphasise this distinction since the +existing structure of industry based on finance takes it for granted +that the possession of large quantities of goods, or their equivalent +purchasing power in money, is a good and sufficient reason for the +exercise of a preponderating voice in the conditions and processes of production. -We say, and it is only now that it is faintly contested, -that he who pays the piper calls the tune. The idea that it -is the hearer who is primarily concerned in the tune, the -piper primarily in the instrument, and the payment a mere -convenience as between the two parties, is so novel to large -numbers of unthinking persons, that it is only natural to -expect violent opposition to the world-wide efforts being -made to reconstitute society on these very principles. - -Bearing these distinctions in mind it will be recognised -that there are two separate lines along which to attack the -situation presented by the dissatisfaction of the worker -with his conditions of work, and the not less serious -discontent of the consumer with the machinery of -distribution; and these may be called mediaevalism and -ultra-modernism. - -Mediaevalism seems to claim that all mechanical progress is -unsound and inherently delusive; that mankind is by his very -constitution compelled, under penalty of decadence, to -support himself by unaided skill of hand and eye. In support -of its contentions it points to the Golden Age of the -fourteenth century in England, for example, when real want -was comparatively unknown, and green woods stood and clear -rivers ran where the slag-heaps and chemical works of Widnes -or Wednesbury now offend the eye and pollute the air. When -arts and crafts made industry almost a sacrament, and faulty -execution a social and even a legal offence; when the medium -of exchange was the Just Price, and the idea of buying in -the cheapest and selling in the dearest market, if it -existed, was classed with usury and punished by heavy -penalties. - -While appreciating the temptation to compare the two periods -to the very great disadvantage of the present, it does not -seem possible to agree with the conclusion of the -Mediaevalist that we are in a cul-de-sac from which the only -exit is backwards; and it is proposed to make an endeavour -to show that there is a way through, and that we may in time -regain the best of the advantages on which the Mediaevalist -rightly sets such store, retaining in addition a command -over environment, which he would be the first to recognise -as a real advance; a solution which may be described as -Ultra-Modernist. - -In order to do this, certain somewhat abstract assumptions -are necessary, and it has been the object of the preceding -pages to present as far as possible the data on which these -assumptions are made. They are as follows:---- - -1. The existing difficulties are the immediate result of a - social structure framed to concentrate personal power - over other persons, a structure which must take the form - of a pyramid. Economics is the material key to this - modern riddle of the sphinx because power over food, - clothes, and housing is ultimately power over life. - -2. So long as the structure of Society persists personality - simply reacts against it. Personality has nothing to do - with the effect of the structure; it merely governs the - response of the individual to conditions he cannot - control except by altering the structure. - -3. It follows that general improvement of *conditions* - based on personality is a confusion of ideas. Changed - personality will only become *effective* through changed - social structure. - -4. The pyramidal structure of Society gives environment the - maximum control over individuality. The correct - objective of any change is to give individuality maximum - control over environment. - -If these premises are accepted it seems clear that the first -and probably most important step is to give the individual -control of the necessaries of life on the cheapest terms -possible. What are these terms? What is the fundamental -currency in which the individual does in the last analysis -liquidate his debts? A little consideration must make it -clear that there can be only one reply; that the individual -only possesses inalienable property of the one description; -potential effort over a definite period of time. If this be -admitted, and it is inconceivable that anyone would -seriously deny it, it follows that the real unit of the -world's currency is effort into time---what we may call the -time-energy unit. - -Now, time is an easily measurable factor, and although we -cannot measure human potential, because we have at present -no standard, it is, nevertheless, true that for a given -process the number of human time-energy units required for a -given output is quite definite, and therefore, the cheapest -terms on which the individual can liquidate his debt to -nature in respect of food, clothes, and shelter, is clearly -dependent on process; and by getting free of this debt with -the minimum expenditure of time-energy units of which his -individual supply varies, but is, nevertheless, quite -definite at any given time, he clearly is so much the richer -in the most real sense in that he can control the use to be -made of his remaining stock. - -But, and it is vital to the whole argument, improved process -must be made the servant of this objective, that is to say, -a process which is improved must, by the operation of a -suitable economic system decrease the time-energy units -demanded from the community, or to put the matter another -way all improvements in process should be made to pay a -dividend to the community. (It will be noted that an -admission of the theorem is a complete condemnation of -payment by results as commonly understood; that is to say, -an arrangement of remuneration designed to foster an -increasing use of time-energy units.) The primary -necessaries of life as above defined, *i.e.*, food, clothes -and shelter, have an important characteristic which -differentiates them from what we may call conveniences and -luxuries; they are quite approximately constant in quantity -per head of the population; in other words, the average -human being requires as a groundwork for his daily life a -definite number of heat units in the form of suitable food, -a definite minimum quantity of clothing and a definite -minimum space in which to sleep and work, and the variation -between the minimum and the maximum quantity of each that he -can utilise with advantage to himself is not, broadly -speaking, very great. - -This fact renders it perfectly feasible (it has already very -largely been accomplished)--to estimate the absolute -production of foodstuffs required by the world's population; -the time-energy units required at the present stage of -mechanical and scientific development to produce those -foodstuffs; and the time-energy units approximately -available. Accuracy in these estimates is unnecessary, since -there is not the very smallest doubt that the margins are so -large that it is only the failure of "effective demand" -under existing circumstances which has prevented -over-production. The most superficial consideration of the -earnings of agriculture before the war must make this -obvious. - -There is good ground for stating that the subsistence basis -of the civilised world stated thus in time-energy units -represents a few minutes' work per day for all adults -between the ages of 18 and 40. - -Exactly the same principle is applicable to the provision of -clothing and housing, and the "maintenance rate" in respect -of these staple commodities as distinct from the -"exploitation effort" necessary to put the world on a -satisfactory basis does not again exceed a few minutes per -day per head on the assumption that the fullest use is made -of natural sources of energy, and that all the human effort -specifically connected with the system of production for -profit is eliminated. The exact figures are beside the -point, but something over three hours' work per head per day -is ample for the purpose of meeting consumption and -depreciation of all the factors of modern life under normal -conditions and proper direction. - -Now, such a line of policy is clearly based on coordination -of design, but it evolves under certain conditions radical -decentralisation of initiative. - -These conditions are firstly definite productions of -*ultimate products* to a programme, and consequent -limitation of output to that programme; and, secondly, the -provision of an incentive to produce which shall ensure the -distribution of the article produced. The basis of the first -condition has just been indicated briefly; the provision of -an incentive requires more extended analysis. - -There is a disposition on the part of certain idealistic -people, and, in particular, in quarters obsessed by the -magic of the State idea, to decry the necessity of any -organised incentive in industry at all. They seem to suggest -either that the problem is merely one of designing a huge -machine of such irresistible power that no incentive is -necessary because no resistance is possible, or, -alternatively, that the mere creative impulse ought to be -sufficient to induce every individual to give of his best -without any thought of personal benefit. In regard to the -former idea, it may be said that quite apart from its -fundamental objection it is quite impracticable; and in -regard to the latter that it is not yet, nor for a very -considerable time, likely to be practicable to satisfy the -creative impulse through the same channels as those used for -the economic business of the world. - -Under existing conditions there is much necessary work to be -done which cannot fail to be largely of a routine nature, -and the provision of an incentive external to the -performance of the immediate task seems both practically and -morally sound. - -First of all, some consideration of the defects of existing -incentives is necessary in order to meet the difficulties so -exposed. - -Broadly, remuneration, or the system by which the amenities -of civilisation are placed at the disposal of the -individual, is of three varieties; payment by financial -manipulation (profit), payment by time (salaries and -time-rate wages), and payment by results (piecework in all -its forms), and it should be noticed that only the first of -these combines possession of the amenities with -opportunities for their fullest use. - -Payment by financial manipulation, whether through the -agency of profit (other than that earned by personal -endeavour), stock manipulation or otherwise, is quite -definitely anti-social. It operates to neutralise all -progress towards real efficiency by diluting the medium of -exchange, and by this process it will quite certainly bring -about the downfall of the social order to which it belongs, -largely through the operation of the factory economic system -already discussed. - -Payment by time fails for two practical reasons; it is based -on the operation of the fallacy that the *value* of a thing -bears any relation to the demand for it, and the assumption -that money has a fixed value. Because of the first reason it -clearly penalises genuine initiative (because there is no -demand for the unknown), and because of the second, it -fosters aggression. The policy of Trade Unions in regard to -time rates of pay has simply been successful to the extent -that it has used its organised power for aggressive action; -and while such a policy may be sound and justifiable under -existing conditions it clearly offers no promise of social -peace. - -Payment by results or piecework may be considered as the -final effort of an outworn system to justify itself. -Superficially, it seems fair and reasonable in almost any of -its many forms; actually, it operates to increase the -individual time-energy units expended, while decreasing, -through diluted currency the exchange value of each -time-energy unit, and crediting to the banker and the -financier nearly the whole value of increased efficiency. If -this contention is questioned, a reference to the much -greater purchasing power of labour in the Middle Ages -admitted in such books as "The Six Hour Day"must surely -confirm it. +We say, and it is only now that it is faintly contested, that he who +pays the piper calls the tune. The idea that it is the hearer who is +primarily concerned in the tune, the piper primarily in the instrument, +and the payment a mere convenience as between the two parties, is so +novel to large numbers of unthinking persons, that it is only natural to +expect violent opposition to the world-wide efforts being made to +reconstitute society on these very principles. + +Bearing these distinctions in mind it will be recognised that there are +two separate lines along which to attack the situation presented by the +dissatisfaction of the worker with his conditions of work, and the not +less serious discontent of the consumer with the machinery of +distribution; and these may be called mediaevalism and ultra-modernism. + +Mediaevalism seems to claim that all mechanical progress is unsound and +inherently delusive; that mankind is by his very constitution compelled, +under penalty of decadence, to support himself by unaided skill of hand +and eye. In support of its contentions it points to the Golden Age of +the fourteenth century in England, for example, when real want was +comparatively unknown, and green woods stood and clear rivers ran where +the slag-heaps and chemical works of Widnes or Wednesbury now offend the +eye and pollute the air. When arts and crafts made industry almost a +sacrament, and faulty execution a social and even a legal offence; when +the medium of exchange was the Just Price, and the idea of buying in the +cheapest and selling in the dearest market, if it existed, was classed +with usury and punished by heavy penalties. + +While appreciating the temptation to compare the two periods to the very +great disadvantage of the present, it does not seem possible to agree +with the conclusion of the Mediaevalist that we are in a cul-de-sac from +which the only exit is backwards; and it is proposed to make an +endeavour to show that there is a way through, and that we may in time +regain the best of the advantages on which the Mediaevalist rightly sets +such store, retaining in addition a command over environment, which he +would be the first to recognise as a real advance; a solution which may +be described as Ultra-Modernist. + +In order to do this, certain somewhat abstract assumptions are +necessary, and it has been the object of the preceding pages to present +as far as possible the data on which these assumptions are made. They +are as follows:---- + +1. The existing difficulties are the immediate result of a social + structure framed to concentrate personal power over other persons, a + structure which must take the form of a pyramid. Economics is the + material key to this modern riddle of the sphinx because power over + food, clothes, and housing is ultimately power over life. + +2. So long as the structure of Society persists personality simply + reacts against it. Personality has nothing to do with the effect of + the structure; it merely governs the response of the individual to + conditions he cannot control except by altering the structure. + +3. It follows that general improvement of *conditions* based on + personality is a confusion of ideas. Changed personality will only + become *effective* through changed social structure. + +4. The pyramidal structure of Society gives environment the maximum + control over individuality. The correct objective of any change is + to give individuality maximum control over environment. + +If these premises are accepted it seems clear that the first and +probably most important step is to give the individual control of the +necessaries of life on the cheapest terms possible. What are these +terms? What is the fundamental currency in which the individual does in +the last analysis liquidate his debts? A little consideration must make +it clear that there can be only one reply; that the individual only +possesses inalienable property of the one description; potential effort +over a definite period of time. If this be admitted, and it is +inconceivable that anyone would seriously deny it, it follows that the +real unit of the world's currency is effort into time---what we may call +the time-energy unit. + +Now, time is an easily measurable factor, and although we cannot measure +human potential, because we have at present no standard, it is, +nevertheless, true that for a given process the number of human +time-energy units required for a given output is quite definite, and +therefore, the cheapest terms on which the individual can liquidate his +debt to nature in respect of food, clothes, and shelter, is clearly +dependent on process; and by getting free of this debt with the minimum +expenditure of time-energy units of which his individual supply varies, +but is, nevertheless, quite definite at any given time, he clearly is so +much the richer in the most real sense in that he can control the use to +be made of his remaining stock. + +But, and it is vital to the whole argument, improved process must be +made the servant of this objective, that is to say, a process which is +improved must, by the operation of a suitable economic system decrease +the time-energy units demanded from the community, or to put the matter +another way all improvements in process should be made to pay a dividend +to the community. (It will be noted that an admission of the theorem is +a complete condemnation of payment by results as commonly understood; +that is to say, an arrangement of remuneration designed to foster an +increasing use of time-energy units.) The primary necessaries of life as +above defined, *i.e.*, food, clothes and shelter, have an important +characteristic which differentiates them from what we may call +conveniences and luxuries; they are quite approximately constant in +quantity per head of the population; in other words, the average human +being requires as a groundwork for his daily life a definite number of +heat units in the form of suitable food, a definite minimum quantity of +clothing and a definite minimum space in which to sleep and work, and +the variation between the minimum and the maximum quantity of each that +he can utilise with advantage to himself is not, broadly speaking, very +great. + +This fact renders it perfectly feasible (it has already very largely +been accomplished)--to estimate the absolute production of foodstuffs +required by the world's population; the time-energy units required at +the present stage of mechanical and scientific development to produce +those foodstuffs; and the time-energy units approximately available. +Accuracy in these estimates is unnecessary, since there is not the very +smallest doubt that the margins are so large that it is only the failure +of "effective demand" under existing circumstances which has prevented +over-production. The most superficial consideration of the earnings of +agriculture before the war must make this obvious. + +There is good ground for stating that the subsistence basis of the +civilised world stated thus in time-energy units represents a few +minutes' work per day for all adults between the ages of 18 and 40. + +Exactly the same principle is applicable to the provision of clothing +and housing, and the "maintenance rate" in respect of these staple +commodities as distinct from the "exploitation effort" necessary to put +the world on a satisfactory basis does not again exceed a few minutes +per day per head on the assumption that the fullest use is made of +natural sources of energy, and that all the human effort specifically +connected with the system of production for profit is eliminated. The +exact figures are beside the point, but something over three hours' work +per head per day is ample for the purpose of meeting consumption and +depreciation of all the factors of modern life under normal conditions +and proper direction. + +Now, such a line of policy is clearly based on coordination of design, +but it evolves under certain conditions radical decentralisation of +initiative. + +These conditions are firstly definite productions of *ultimate products* +to a programme, and consequent limitation of output to that programme; +and, secondly, the provision of an incentive to produce which shall +ensure the distribution of the article produced. The basis of the first +condition has just been indicated briefly; the provision of an incentive +requires more extended analysis. + +There is a disposition on the part of certain idealistic people, and, in +particular, in quarters obsessed by the magic of the State idea, to +decry the necessity of any organised incentive in industry at all. They +seem to suggest either that the problem is merely one of designing a +huge machine of such irresistible power that no incentive is necessary +because no resistance is possible, or, alternatively, that the mere +creative impulse ought to be sufficient to induce every individual to +give of his best without any thought of personal benefit. In regard to +the former idea, it may be said that quite apart from its fundamental +objection it is quite impracticable; and in regard to the latter that it +is not yet, nor for a very considerable time, likely to be practicable +to satisfy the creative impulse through the same channels as those used +for the economic business of the world. + +Under existing conditions there is much necessary work to be done which +cannot fail to be largely of a routine nature, and the provision of an +incentive external to the performance of the immediate task seems both +practically and morally sound. + +First of all, some consideration of the defects of existing incentives +is necessary in order to meet the difficulties so exposed. + +Broadly, remuneration, or the system by which the amenities of +civilisation are placed at the disposal of the individual, is of three +varieties; payment by financial manipulation (profit), payment by time +(salaries and time-rate wages), and payment by results (piecework in all +its forms), and it should be noticed that only the first of these +combines possession of the amenities with opportunities for their +fullest use. + +Payment by financial manipulation, whether through the agency of profit +(other than that earned by personal endeavour), stock manipulation or +otherwise, is quite definitely anti-social. It operates to neutralise +all progress towards real efficiency by diluting the medium of exchange, +and by this process it will quite certainly bring about the downfall of +the social order to which it belongs, largely through the operation of +the factory economic system already discussed. + +Payment by time fails for two practical reasons; it is based on the +operation of the fallacy that the *value* of a thing bears any relation +to the demand for it, and the assumption that money has a fixed value. +Because of the first reason it clearly penalises genuine initiative +(because there is no demand for the unknown), and because of the second, +it fosters aggression. The policy of Trade Unions in regard to time +rates of pay has simply been successful to the extent that it has used +its organised power for aggressive action; and while such a policy may +be sound and justifiable under existing conditions it clearly offers no +promise of social peace. + +Payment by results or piecework may be considered as the final effort of +an outworn system to justify itself. Superficially, it seems fair and +reasonable in almost any of its many forms; actually, it operates to +increase the individual time-energy units expended, while decreasing, +through diluted currency the exchange value of each time-energy unit, +and crediting to the banker and the financier nearly the whole value of +increased efficiency. If this contention is questioned, a reference to +the much greater purchasing power of labour in the Middle Ages admitted +in such books as "The Six Hour Day"must surely confirm it. In actual practice piecework neither does nor can take into -consideration that, just as there is no limit to progress -either of method or dexterity, so is there no fundamental -relation between money and value as at present understood. +consideration that, just as there is no limit to progress either of +method or dexterity, so is there no fundamental relation between money +and value as at present understood. -Consequently, all piecework systems produce in varying -degree one of three conditions, either +Consequently, all piecework systems produce in varying degree one of +three conditions, either -1\. Large classes of workers earn continuously increasing -sums of money which bear no ratio to equally meritorious -efforts on other bases of payment. If any effort is made to -unify the basis on a large scale the purchasing power of -money becomes completely unstable. +1\. Large classes of workers earn continuously increasing sums of money +which bear no ratio to equally meritorious efforts on other bases of +payment. If any effort is made to unify the basis on a large scale the +purchasing power of money becomes completely unstable. or -2\. A piece rate is "nursed" to avoid any urgent incentive -to change of method as an excuse for cutting the rate and -earnings, with the result that output is restricted to a -locally agreed basis, having no relation to either real or -effective demand. +2\. A piece rate is "nursed" to avoid any urgent incentive to change of +method as an excuse for cutting the rate and earnings, with the result +that output is restricted to a locally agreed basis, having no relation +to either real or effective demand. or -3\. The price will be cut periodically by dubious -management, a constant state of friction engendered, and the -whole affair surrounded with an atmosphere of suspicion. - -These results are logical, and to blame any special interest -for any of them is beside the point. The use-value of the -product, short time, unemployment, to say nothing of the -elemental facts of industrial psychology and economics, are -not considered at all in such systems; with the result that -the victims make, so far as Trade Unions on the one hand and -Employers' Federations on the other, can assist them, their -own arrangements for protection against the more dire -consequences of crude forms of scientific management, or -lukewarm service. - -We have now arrived at this position; we desire to produce a -definite programme of necessaries with a minimum expenditure -of time-energy units. We agree that the substitution of -human effort by natural forces through the agency of -machinery is the clear path to this end; and we require to -correlate to this a system which will arrange for the -equitable distribution of the whole product while, at the -same time, providing the most powerful incentive to -efficiency possible. - -The general answer to this problem may be stated in the four -following propositions, which represent an effort to arrive -at the Just Price:---- - -1. Natural resources are common property, and the means for - their exploitation should also be common property. - -2. The payment to be made to the worker, no matter what the - unit adopted, is the sum necessary to enable him to buy - a definite share of ultimate products irrespective of - the time taken to produce them. - -3. The payment to be made to the improver of process, - including direction, is to be based on the rate of - decrease of human time-energy units resulting from the - improvement, and is to take the form of an extension of - facilities for further improvement in the same or other - processes. +3\. The price will be cut periodically by dubious management, a constant +state of friction engendered, and the whole affair surrounded with an +atmosphere of suspicion. + +These results are logical, and to blame any special interest for any of +them is beside the point. The use-value of the product, short time, +unemployment, to say nothing of the elemental facts of industrial +psychology and economics, are not considered at all in such systems; +with the result that the victims make, so far as Trade Unions on the one +hand and Employers' Federations on the other, can assist them, their own +arrangements for protection against the more dire consequences of crude +forms of scientific management, or lukewarm service. + +We have now arrived at this position; we desire to produce a definite +programme of necessaries with a minimum expenditure of time-energy +units. We agree that the substitution of human effort by natural forces +through the agency of machinery is the clear path to this end; and we +require to correlate to this a system which will arrange for the +equitable distribution of the whole product while, at the same time, +providing the most powerful incentive to efficiency possible. + +The general answer to this problem may be stated in the four following +propositions, which represent an effort to arrive at the Just Price:---- + +1. Natural resources are common property, and the means for their + exploitation should also be common property. + +2. The payment to be made to the worker, no matter what the unit + adopted, is the sum necessary to enable him to buy a definite share + of ultimate products irrespective of the time taken to produce them. + +3. The payment to be made to the improver of process, including + direction, is to be based on the rate of decrease of human + time-energy units resulting from the improvement, and is to take the + form of an extension of facilities for further improvement in the + same or other processes. 4. Labour is not exchangeable; product is. -No attempt will be made to prove these propositions since -their validity rests on equity. - -It should be noted particularly that none of these points -has any relation to systems of administration, although a -recognition of them would radically affect the distribution -of personnel in any system of administration. - -While the distribution of the product of industry is -fundamentally involved, and the inducements to vary the -articles produced are clearly modified to a degree which -would profoundly alter the industrial situation, no -extension of bureaucracy in the accepted sense is implied or -induced. - -It may be argued that these principles are not susceptible -of immediate embodiment; but it is, nevertheless, well to -bear in mind the imminence of an economic breakdown (as a -direct result of the inflation of currency by the -capitalisation of negative values) already discussed, and -the probability that a new economic system, having as its -basis the principles of the law of the conservation of -energy, will replace it. +No attempt will be made to prove these propositions since their validity +rests on equity. + +It should be noted particularly that none of these points has any +relation to systems of administration, although a recognition of them +would radically affect the distribution of personnel in any system of +administration. + +While the distribution of the product of industry is fundamentally +involved, and the inducements to vary the articles produced are clearly +modified to a degree which would profoundly alter the industrial +situation, no extension of bureaucracy in the accepted sense is implied +or induced. + +It may be argued that these principles are not susceptible of immediate +embodiment; but it is, nevertheless, well to bear in mind the imminence +of an economic breakdown (as a direct result of the inflation of +currency by the capitalisation of negative values) already discussed, +and the probability that a new economic system, having as its basis the +principles of the law of the conservation of energy, will replace it. It may be said in regard to proposition 1 that it involves a -confiscation of plant, which is clearly an injustice to the -present owners. But is it? - -A reference to the accounting process already described will -make it clear *that the community has already bought and -paid for many times over the whole of the plant used for -manufacturing processes*, the purchase price being included -in the selling price of the articles produced, and -representing, in the ultimate, effort of some sort, but -immediately, a rise in the cost of living. If the community -can use the plant it is clearly entitled to it, quite apart -from the fact that under proper conditions there is no -reason why every reasonable requirement of its present -owners should not be met under the changed conditions. - -Before allowing the methods of compromise (which may or may -not be desirable in the practicable evolution of a better -conception of the community based on these propositions) to -obscure the objective, a purely idealistic interpretation of -them may be worth consideration, as a basis from which to -deduce a practical policy. - -Let us imagine the theories of rent and wages to be swept -away and discredited, the existing industrial plant to be -the property of the community and to be operating with -technical efficiency. We are in possession of a census of -the material requirements of the community, and are -producing to a programme either based on those requirements -or on the indirect achievement of them by the processes of -barter with similar communities. - -Since no extension or alteration of this programme is -possible without affecting the whole community, the -administration of real capital, *i.e.*, *the power to draw -on the collective potential capacity to do work*, is clearly -subject to the control of its real owners through the agency -of credit. - -Let us imagine this collective credit organisation, which -might preferably not be the State, to be provided with the -necessary organisation to fit it to pass upon, and if -desirable to sanction, any private enterprise deemed to be -in the interest of the community represented, the necessary -capitalisation being secured by the general credit. It is -clear that such an arrangement involves an appraisal of -values both in respect to persons and materials, but it does -not necessarily involve any control of policy whatever in -respect of the internal administration of any undertaking -once originated. - -Under these conditions the community can be regarded as a -single undertaking (decentralised as to administration to -any extent necessary) and every individual comprised within -it is in the position of an equal Bondholder entitled to an -equal share of product. The distribution of the product is -simply a problem of the arbitrary adjustment of prices to -fit the dimensions of a periodical order to pay, issued to -each bondholder, and it will be found that such prices will -normally be less than cost, as measured by existing methods. - -Let this annual order to pay be inalienable but carrying the -assumption that a definite percentage of the individual's -stock of time-energy units is freely placed at the disposal -of the community. Let these time-energy units be graded so -that the lowest grade represents the poorest capacity -multiplied by the time-factor, and let all adults on -entering productive industry be so graded, and let the least -attractive work be done by the agency of these time-energy -units. Let an improvement of grade be based on the proposal -by the individual of methods, processes, or organisation, -resulting in a diminution of the total time-energy units -required for the programme of production, and the success of -the proposals. (It will be noticed that the strongest -incentive to right judgment as regards facilities for trial -exists here.) Let the possession of a definite "grade" of -time-energy units be the absolute qualification for each -class of employment; that is to say, proved ability to -render special service will be the qualification for -facilities to render service, but will not affect the -division of product. - -Now, it will be noticed that we have under these conditions -absolute equity both personal and social. All improvement in -process is to the general benefit, while, at the same time, -the psychological reward of specific ability is exactly that -which common experience shows to be the most perfectly -satisfactory. No questions of material remuneration enter -into the problem of administration at all; and increased -complexity of manufactured product is either bought by -increased efficiency or longer working hours; while -simplicity of life provides greater opportunities for the -use of the product and other activities. A system not -dissimilar from the existing Shop Steward system, but with -its members acting in the rôle of Citizens and not as -Artisans, might control *policy* absolutely, *i.e.*, -increase or decrease programmes of production and -efficiency, etc., without interfering or having any possible -incentive to interfere in direction or function. Economic -incentive to competition other than in efficiency would -disappear completely, and with it the primary cause of war. +confiscation of plant, which is clearly an injustice to the present +owners. But is it? + +A reference to the accounting process already described will make it +clear *that the community has already bought and paid for many times +over the whole of the plant used for manufacturing processes*, the +purchase price being included in the selling price of the articles +produced, and representing, in the ultimate, effort of some sort, but +immediately, a rise in the cost of living. If the community can use the +plant it is clearly entitled to it, quite apart from the fact that under +proper conditions there is no reason why every reasonable requirement of +its present owners should not be met under the changed conditions. + +Before allowing the methods of compromise (which may or may not be +desirable in the practicable evolution of a better conception of the +community based on these propositions) to obscure the objective, a +purely idealistic interpretation of them may be worth consideration, as +a basis from which to deduce a practical policy. + +Let us imagine the theories of rent and wages to be swept away and +discredited, the existing industrial plant to be the property of the +community and to be operating with technical efficiency. We are in +possession of a census of the material requirements of the community, +and are producing to a programme either based on those requirements or +on the indirect achievement of them by the processes of barter with +similar communities. + +Since no extension or alteration of this programme is possible without +affecting the whole community, the administration of real capital, +*i.e.*, *the power to draw on the collective potential capacity to do +work*, is clearly subject to the control of its real owners through the +agency of credit. + +Let us imagine this collective credit organisation, which might +preferably not be the State, to be provided with the necessary +organisation to fit it to pass upon, and if desirable to sanction, any +private enterprise deemed to be in the interest of the community +represented, the necessary capitalisation being secured by the general +credit. It is clear that such an arrangement involves an appraisal of +values both in respect to persons and materials, but it does not +necessarily involve any control of policy whatever in respect of the +internal administration of any undertaking once originated. + +Under these conditions the community can be regarded as a single +undertaking (decentralised as to administration to any extent necessary) +and every individual comprised within it is in the position of an equal +Bondholder entitled to an equal share of product. The distribution of +the product is simply a problem of the arbitrary adjustment of prices to +fit the dimensions of a periodical order to pay, issued to each +bondholder, and it will be found that such prices will normally be less +than cost, as measured by existing methods. + +Let this annual order to pay be inalienable but carrying the assumption +that a definite percentage of the individual's stock of time-energy +units is freely placed at the disposal of the community. Let these +time-energy units be graded so that the lowest grade represents the +poorest capacity multiplied by the time-factor, and let all adults on +entering productive industry be so graded, and let the least attractive +work be done by the agency of these time-energy units. Let an +improvement of grade be based on the proposal by the individual of +methods, processes, or organisation, resulting in a diminution of the +total time-energy units required for the programme of production, and +the success of the proposals. (It will be noticed that the strongest +incentive to right judgment as regards facilities for trial exists +here.) Let the possession of a definite "grade" of time-energy units be +the absolute qualification for each class of employment; that is to say, +proved ability to render special service will be the qualification for +facilities to render service, but will not affect the division of +product. + +Now, it will be noticed that we have under these conditions absolute +equity both personal and social. All improvement in process is to the +general benefit, while, at the same time, the psychological reward of +specific ability is exactly that which common experience shows to be the +most perfectly satisfactory. No questions of material remuneration enter +into the problem of administration at all; and increased complexity of +manufactured product is either bought by increased efficiency or longer +working hours; while simplicity of life provides greater opportunities +for the use of the product and other activities. A system not dissimilar +from the existing Shop Steward system, but with its members acting in +the rôle of Citizens and not as Artisans, might control *policy* +absolutely, *i.e.*, increase or decrease programmes of production and +efficiency, etc., without interfering or having any possible incentive +to interfere in direction or function. Economic incentive to competition +other than in efficiency would disappear completely, and with it the +primary cause of war. # Chapter Nine -While a much higher development not only of civic sense but -of material progress is necessary to any realisation of a -scheme of society based on anything approximating to the -foregoing sketch, it is quite probable that eventually such -an arrangement might be the only solution having inherent -stability. - -But a transition period is highly desirable, and as the -present structure is susceptible of change by metabolism, it -may be well to consider one of the numerous expedients -available to that end. - -Since an immediate levelling up of real purchasing power is -absolutely essential if industry is to be kept going at all, -the first point on which to be perfectly clear is that -increasing wages on the grand scale is simply childish. -Given a minimum percentage of profit and a fixed process, -under the existing economic system the real wage, in the -sense of a proportion of product, is steadily decreasing; -and nothing will alter that fact except change of process -(temporarily) and change of economic system (permanently). -Even taxation of profits is quite incapable of providing any -real remedy, because, as we have seen, the sum of the wages, -salaries and dividends distributed in respect of the world's -production, even if evenly distributed, would not buy it, -since the price includes non-existent values. There is no -doubt whatever that the first step towards dealing with the -problem is the recognition of the fact that what is commonly -called credit by the banker is administered by him primarily -for the purpose of private profit, whereas it is most -definitely communal property. In its essence it is the -estimated value of the only real capital---it is the -estimate of the *potential* capacity under a given set of -conditions, including plant, etc., of a Society to do work. -The banking system has been allowed to become the -administrator of this credit and its financial derivatives -with the result that the creative energy of mankind has been -subjected to fetters which have no relation whatever to the -real demands of existence, and the allocation of tasks has -been placed in unsuitable hands. - -Now it cannot be too clearly emphasised *that real credit is -a measure of the reserve of energy belonging to a community -and in consequence drafts on this reserve should he -accounted for by a financial system which reflects that -fact*. - -If this be borne in mind, together with the conception of -"Production" as a conversion, absorbing energy, it will be -seen that the individual should receive something -representing the diminution of the communal credit-capital -in respect of each unit of converted material. - -It remains to consider how these abstract propositions can -be given concrete form. - -So far as this country is concerned, the instrument which -comes most easily to the hand to deal with the matter is the -National Debt, which for practical purposes may be -considered to be the War Debt in all its forms, although it -should be clearly understood that all appropriations of -credit can be considered as equally concerned. - -Some consideration of the real nature of the debt is -necessary in order to understand the basis of this proposal. - -The £8,000,000,000 in round numbers which have been -subscribed for war purposes represents as to its major -portion (apart from about £1,500,000,000 re-lent) services -which have been rendered and paid for, and in particular, -the sums paid for munitions of all kinds, payment of troops -and sums distributed in pensions and other doles. Now, the -services have been rendered and the munitions expended, -consequently, the loan represents a lien with interest on -the future activities of the community, in favour of the -holders of the loan, that is to say, the community -guarantees the holders to work for them without payment, for -an indefinite period in return for services rendered by the -subscribers to the Loan. What are those services? - -Disregarding holdings under £1,000 and re-investment of -pre-war assets, the great bulk of the loan represents -purchases by large industrial and financial undertakings -*who obtained the money to buy by means of the creation and -appropriation of credits at the expense of the community, -through the agency of industrial accounting and bank -finance*. - -It is not necessary to elaborate this contention at any -great length because it is quite obviously true. Eventually, -to have any meaning, the loan must be paid off in purchasing -power over goods not yet produced, and is, therefore, simply -a portion of the estimated capacity of the nation to do work -which has been hypothesized. - -Whatever may be said of subscriptions out of wages and -salaries, therefore, there is not the slightest question -that in so far as the loan represents the capitalisation of -the processes already described, its owners have no right in -equity to it---it simply represents communal credit -transferred to private account. - -To put the matter another way: For every shell made and -afterwards fired and destroyed, for every aeroplane built -and crashed, for all the stores lost, stolen or spoilt, the -Capitalist has an entry in his books which he calls wealth, -and on which he proposes to draw interest at 5%, whereas -that entry represents loss not gain, debt not credit, to the -community, and, consequently, is only realisable by -regarding the interest of the Capitalist as directly -opposite to that of the community. *Now, it must be -perfectly obvious to anyone who seriously considers the -matter that the State should lend, not borrow, and that in -this respect, as in others, the Capitalist usurps the -function of the State*. - -But, however the matter be considered, the National Debt as -it stands is simply a statement that an indefinite amount of -goods and services (indefinite because of the variable -purchasing power of money) are to be rendered in the future -to the holders of the loan, *i.e.*, it is clearly a -distributing agent. - -Now, instead of the levy on capital, which is widely -discussed, let it be recognised that credit is a communal, -not a bankers' possession; let the loan be redistributed by -the same methods suggested in respect of a capital levy so -that no holding of over £1,000 is permitted; to the end -that, say, 8,000,000 heads of families are credited with £50 -per annum of additional purchasing power. - -And further, let all production be costed on a uniform -system open to inspection, the factory cost being easily -ascertained by making all payments through a credit agency; -the manner of procedure to this end is described hereafter. -Let all payments for materials and plant be made through the -Credit Agency and let plant increases be a running addition -to the existing National Debt, and let the yearly increase -in the debt be equally distributed after proper -depreciation. Let the selling price of the product be -adjusted in reference to the effective demand by means of a -depreciation rate fixed on the principle described -subsequently, and let all manufacturing and agriculture be -done, with broad limits, to a programme. Payment for -industrial service rendered should be made somewhat on the -following lines:---- - -Let it be assumed that a given production centre has a curve -of efficiency varying with output, which is a correct -statement for a given process worked at normal intensity. -The centre would be rated as responsible for a programme -over a given time such that this efficiency would be a -maximum when considered with reference to, say, a standard -six-hour day. On this rating it is clear that the amount of -money available for distribution in respect of labour and -staff charges can be estimated by methods familiar to every -manufacturer. - -Now let this sum be allocated in any suitable proportion -between the various grades of effort involved in the -undertaking, and let a considerable bonus together with a -recognised claim to promotion be assured to any individual -who by the suggestion of improved methods or otherwise, can -for the specified programme, reduce the hours worked by the -factory or department in which he is engaged. - -Now, consider the effect of these measures: Firstly, there -is an immediate fall in prices which is cumulative, and, -consequently, a rise in the purchasing power of money. -Secondly, there is a widening of effective demand of all -kinds by the wider basis of financial distribution. There is -a sufficient incentive to produce, but there is communal -control of undesirable production through the agency of -credit; and there is incentive to efficiency. There is the -mechanism by which the most suitable technical ability would -be employed where it would be most useful, while the -separation of a sufficient portion of the machinery of -economic distribution from the processes of production would -restore individual initiative, and, under proper conditions, +While a much higher development not only of civic sense but of material +progress is necessary to any realisation of a scheme of society based on +anything approximating to the foregoing sketch, it is quite probable +that eventually such an arrangement might be the only solution having +inherent stability. + +But a transition period is highly desirable, and as the present +structure is susceptible of change by metabolism, it may be well to +consider one of the numerous expedients available to that end. + +Since an immediate levelling up of real purchasing power is absolutely +essential if industry is to be kept going at all, the first point on +which to be perfectly clear is that increasing wages on the grand scale +is simply childish. Given a minimum percentage of profit and a fixed +process, under the existing economic system the real wage, in the sense +of a proportion of product, is steadily decreasing; and nothing will +alter that fact except change of process (temporarily) and change of +economic system (permanently). Even taxation of profits is quite +incapable of providing any real remedy, because, as we have seen, the +sum of the wages, salaries and dividends distributed in respect of the +world's production, even if evenly distributed, would not buy it, since +the price includes non-existent values. There is no doubt whatever that +the first step towards dealing with the problem is the recognition of +the fact that what is commonly called credit by the banker is +administered by him primarily for the purpose of private profit, whereas +it is most definitely communal property. In its essence it is the +estimated value of the only real capital---it is the estimate of the +*potential* capacity under a given set of conditions, including plant, +etc., of a Society to do work. The banking system has been allowed to +become the administrator of this credit and its financial derivatives +with the result that the creative energy of mankind has been subjected +to fetters which have no relation whatever to the real demands of +existence, and the allocation of tasks has been placed in unsuitable +hands. + +Now it cannot be too clearly emphasised *that real credit is a measure +of the reserve of energy belonging to a community and in consequence +drafts on this reserve should he accounted for by a financial system +which reflects that fact*. + +If this be borne in mind, together with the conception of "Production" +as a conversion, absorbing energy, it will be seen that the individual +should receive something representing the diminution of the communal +credit-capital in respect of each unit of converted material. + +It remains to consider how these abstract propositions can be given +concrete form. + +So far as this country is concerned, the instrument which comes most +easily to the hand to deal with the matter is the National Debt, which +for practical purposes may be considered to be the War Debt in all its +forms, although it should be clearly understood that all appropriations +of credit can be considered as equally concerned. + +Some consideration of the real nature of the debt is necessary in order +to understand the basis of this proposal. + +The £8,000,000,000 in round numbers which have been subscribed for war +purposes represents as to its major portion (apart from about +£1,500,000,000 re-lent) services which have been rendered and paid for, +and in particular, the sums paid for munitions of all kinds, payment of +troops and sums distributed in pensions and other doles. Now, the +services have been rendered and the munitions expended, consequently, +the loan represents a lien with interest on the future activities of the +community, in favour of the holders of the loan, that is to say, the +community guarantees the holders to work for them without payment, for +an indefinite period in return for services rendered by the subscribers +to the Loan. What are those services? + +Disregarding holdings under £1,000 and re-investment of pre-war assets, +the great bulk of the loan represents purchases by large industrial and +financial undertakings *who obtained the money to buy by means of the +creation and appropriation of credits at the expense of the community, +through the agency of industrial accounting and bank finance*. + +It is not necessary to elaborate this contention at any great length +because it is quite obviously true. Eventually, to have any meaning, the +loan must be paid off in purchasing power over goods not yet produced, +and is, therefore, simply a portion of the estimated capacity of the +nation to do work which has been hypothesized. + +Whatever may be said of subscriptions out of wages and salaries, +therefore, there is not the slightest question that in so far as the +loan represents the capitalisation of the processes already described, +its owners have no right in equity to it---it simply represents communal +credit transferred to private account. + +To put the matter another way: For every shell made and afterwards fired +and destroyed, for every aeroplane built and crashed, for all the stores +lost, stolen or spoilt, the Capitalist has an entry in his books which +he calls wealth, and on which he proposes to draw interest at 5%, +whereas that entry represents loss not gain, debt not credit, to the +community, and, consequently, is only realisable by regarding the +interest of the Capitalist as directly opposite to that of the +community. *Now, it must be perfectly obvious to anyone who seriously +considers the matter that the State should lend, not borrow, and that in +this respect, as in others, the Capitalist usurps the function of the +State*. + +But, however the matter be considered, the National Debt as it stands is +simply a statement that an indefinite amount of goods and services +(indefinite because of the variable purchasing power of money) are to be +rendered in the future to the holders of the loan, *i.e.*, it is clearly +a distributing agent. + +Now, instead of the levy on capital, which is widely discussed, let it +be recognised that credit is a communal, not a bankers' possession; let +the loan be redistributed by the same methods suggested in respect of a +capital levy so that no holding of over £1,000 is permitted; to the end +that, say, 8,000,000 heads of families are credited with £50 per annum +of additional purchasing power. + +And further, let all production be costed on a uniform system open to +inspection, the factory cost being easily ascertained by making all +payments through a credit agency; the manner of procedure to this end is +described hereafter. Let all payments for materials and plant be made +through the Credit Agency and let plant increases be a running addition +to the existing National Debt, and let the yearly increase in the debt +be equally distributed after proper depreciation. Let the selling price +of the product be adjusted in reference to the effective demand by means +of a depreciation rate fixed on the principle described subsequently, +and let all manufacturing and agriculture be done, with broad limits, to +a programme. Payment for industrial service rendered should be made +somewhat on the following lines:---- + +Let it be assumed that a given production centre has a curve of +efficiency varying with output, which is a correct statement for a given +process worked at normal intensity. The centre would be rated as +responsible for a programme over a given time such that this efficiency +would be a maximum when considered with reference to, say, a standard +six-hour day. On this rating it is clear that the amount of money +available for distribution in respect of labour and staff charges can be +estimated by methods familiar to every manufacturer. + +Now let this sum be allocated in any suitable proportion between the +various grades of effort involved in the undertaking, and let a +considerable bonus together with a recognised claim to promotion be +assured to any individual who by the suggestion of improved methods or +otherwise, can for the specified programme, reduce the hours worked by +the factory or department in which he is engaged. + +Now, consider the effect of these measures: Firstly, there is an +immediate fall in prices which is cumulative, and, consequently, a rise +in the purchasing power of money. Secondly, there is a widening of +effective demand of all kinds by the wider basis of financial +distribution. There is a sufficient incentive to produce, but there is +communal control of undesirable production through the agency of credit; +and there is incentive to efficiency. There is the mechanism by which +the most suitable technical ability would be employed where it would be +most useful, while the separation of a sufficient portion of the +machinery of economic distribution from the processes of production +would restore individual initiative, and, under proper conditions, minimise the effects of bureaucracy. -This rapid survey of the possibilities of a modified -economic system will, therefore, probably justify a somewhat -more detailed examination of certain features of the -proposed structure, and clearly the control and use of -credit is of primary importance. It should be particularly -noted at this point, however, that every suggestion made in -this connection has in view the maximum expansion of -personal control of initiative and the minimising and final -elimination of economic domination, either personal or -through the agency of the State. +This rapid survey of the possibilities of a modified economic system +will, therefore, probably justify a somewhat more detailed examination +of certain features of the proposed structure, and clearly the control +and use of credit is of primary importance. It should be particularly +noted at this point, however, that every suggestion made in this +connection has in view the maximum expansion of personal control of +initiative and the minimising and final elimination of economic +domination, either personal or through the agency of the State. # Chapter Ten -IN considering the inadequacy of a mere extension of -manufacturing production unaccompanied by a modification of -the distributing system, it was seen that in any -manufacturing process there enters into the cost, and -re-appears in the price, a charge for certain items which -are really rendered useless, but which form a step towards -the final product. These items may be conveniently grouped -under the heading of semi-manufactures when considered in -relation to a more complex product, although in many cases -they may in themselves, for other purposes, represent a -final product. For instance, electric power, if used for -lighting, is a final product, and ministers directly to a -human need, but the same energy, if used to drive a cotton -mill, is in the sense in which the term is here used, a -semi-manufacture. - -Now, it should be obvious that a semi-manufacture in this -sense is of no use to a consumer---if it is used as an -ultimate product it ceases to come under the heading of a -semi-manufacture. - -Therefore, a semi-manufacture must be an asset to be -accounted into an estimate of the potential capacity to -produce ultimate products (which is the whole object of -manufacture from a human point of view), and with certain -reservations represents an increase of credit-capital but -not of wealth. This conception is of the most fundamental -importance. - -If we concede its validity, a transfer of value in respect -of semi-manufactures as between one undertaking and another -is measured by a transfer of real credit, and like a -financial credit transfer is most suitably dealt with -through the agency of a Clearing-house. - -Let us imagine such a Clearing-house to exist and endeavour -to analyse its operations in respect to Messrs. Jones and -Company who tan leather, Messrs. Brown and Company who make -boots, and Messrs. Robinson who sell them, and let us -imagine that all these undertakings are run on the basis of -a commission or profit on all labour and salary costs, an -arrangement which is, however, quite immaterial to the main -issue. - -Messrs. Jones receives raw hides of the datum value of £100 -which require semi-manufactures value £500 to turn out as -leather, together with the expenditure of £500 in wages and -salaries. Messrs. Jones order the hides and the -semi-manufactures by the usual methods from any source which -seems to them desirable, and on receipt of the invoices, -turn these into the Clearing-house, which issues a cheque in -favour of Messrs. Jones for the total amount;£600; by means -of which Messrs. Jones deal with their accounts for -supplies. - -The Clearing-house writes *up* its capital account by this -sum, and by all sums issued by it. The out-of-pocket cost to -Messrs. Jones of their finished product is, therefore, £500. -Let us allow them 10%. profit on this, and the cost, plus -profit, at the factory under these conditions is £550, and a -sum of £600 is owing to the Clearing-house. - -Messrs. Brown who require these hides for boot-making, order -them from Messrs. Jones, and other supplies from elsewhere -amounting to £500, and similarly transmit Messrs. Jones' -invoices (which include the sums paid by the Clearing-house) -with the rest to the Clearing-house, which issues a cheque -for £l,650 to Messrs. Brown, who pay Messrs. Jones; who, in -turn, retain £550 and pay back £600 to the Clearing-house. -Messrs. Jones are now disposed of. They have made their own -arrangements in respect of quantity of labour, etc., and -have made a profit of 10%, on the cost of this labour. - -Messrs. Brown now make the leather into boots, expending a -further £500 in salaries and wages, and making 10%, profit -on this. They receive an order from Messrs. Robinson for -these boots: and Messrs. Robinson's own out-of-pocket cost, -with their commission, is £300 paid by a cheque from the -Clearing-house for £2,200 + £300, £2,200 of which goes to -Messrs. Brown, who pay off their debt of £1,650 and retain -the remainder. - -Now let us notice that the purchasing power released -externally in these transactions is that represented by -wages, salaries and a commission on them, and that no goods -have been yet released to consumers against this purchasing -power. These sums thus distributed will be largely expended -by the recipients in various forms of consumption, and it is -only their joint surplus which will assist in providing an -effective demand for Messrs. Robinson's stock. The price of -this stock then requires adjustment. - -Let us now introduce into the transactions a document we may -call a retail clearing invoice, which might form in its -description of the goods a duplicate of the bill paid by the -purchaser of an article for the purpose of ultimate -consumption; and let it be understood that a properly -executed retail clearing invoice is accepted by the -Clearing-house as evidence of the transfer of goods to an -actual consumer. It will be seen that by the process -previously explained we have distributed the means of -purchase and are left in a position to fix the price without -reference to the individual interests of Messrs. Brown, -Jones or Robinson, as so far the cost is charged to capital -account. The question is what should the price be? The -answer to this is a *statement of the average depreciation -of the capital assets of the community, stated in terms of -money released over an equal period of time, and the correct -price is the money value of this depreciation in terms of -the cost of the article*. In other words, the Just Price of -an article, which is the price at which it can be -effectively distributed in the community producing, bears -the same ratio to the cost of production that the total -consumption and depreciation of the community bears to the -total production. - -Let us now apply this to our example of such a staple as the -supply of boots. - -Let us assume that in a given credit area the sum involved -in the delivery of boots to the user per month amounts to -£2,500, that is to say, the *cost* figures of the retail -invoices turned into the Clearing-house per month total that -sum. This means that services have been rendered and -remunerated by the payment over an indefinite period of the -token value of £2,500, and the product of these services -distributed in one month. But the token value has a general -purchasing power, consequently, it should be set against a -general value. The general value is equal to the general -rate of depreciation, or if it be preferred, consumption of -the whole of the goods which can be bought with the token -value. Let us assume this to be 40%, that is to say, let us -imagine that of the total work of the community for one -month 60%, remains for use during a subsequent period. Then -the selling price of a pair of boots would be equal to 40%, -of £2,500 divided by the total number of pairs of boots -distributed (not pairs produced); or would be ⅖ *of -commercial cost*. Messrs. Robinson, therefore, in respect of -£2,500 of retail invoices turned in by them (which would -include their own labour and commission) would be credited -with 60% of that sum against the cheque originally sent them -(out of which they paid Messrs. Brown) recovering the -remaining 40%, from the actual purchasers of the boots, and -reimbursing the Clearing-house; who after balancing Messrs. -Robinson's account would write *down* their own credits by -that amount. This would leave the credit-capital of the -community---that is to say, the financial estimate of -potential capacity to deliver goods---written up by 60% of -£2,500, which is an accounting reflection of the actual +IN considering the inadequacy of a mere extension of manufacturing +production unaccompanied by a modification of the distributing system, +it was seen that in any manufacturing process there enters into the +cost, and re-appears in the price, a charge for certain items which are +really rendered useless, but which form a step towards the final +product. These items may be conveniently grouped under the heading of +semi-manufactures when considered in relation to a more complex product, +although in many cases they may in themselves, for other purposes, +represent a final product. For instance, electric power, if used for +lighting, is a final product, and ministers directly to a human need, +but the same energy, if used to drive a cotton mill, is in the sense in +which the term is here used, a semi-manufacture. + +Now, it should be obvious that a semi-manufacture in this sense is of no +use to a consumer---if it is used as an ultimate product it ceases to +come under the heading of a semi-manufacture. + +Therefore, a semi-manufacture must be an asset to be accounted into an +estimate of the potential capacity to produce ultimate products (which +is the whole object of manufacture from a human point of view), and with +certain reservations represents an increase of credit-capital but not of +wealth. This conception is of the most fundamental importance. + +If we concede its validity, a transfer of value in respect of +semi-manufactures as between one undertaking and another is measured by +a transfer of real credit, and like a financial credit transfer is most +suitably dealt with through the agency of a Clearing-house. + +Let us imagine such a Clearing-house to exist and endeavour to analyse +its operations in respect to Messrs. Jones and Company who tan leather, +Messrs. Brown and Company who make boots, and Messrs. Robinson who sell +them, and let us imagine that all these undertakings are run on the +basis of a commission or profit on all labour and salary costs, an +arrangement which is, however, quite immaterial to the main issue. + +Messrs. Jones receives raw hides of the datum value of £100 which +require semi-manufactures value £500 to turn out as leather, together +with the expenditure of £500 in wages and salaries. Messrs. Jones order +the hides and the semi-manufactures by the usual methods from any source +which seems to them desirable, and on receipt of the invoices, turn +these into the Clearing-house, which issues a cheque in favour of +Messrs. Jones for the total amount;£600; by means of which Messrs. Jones +deal with their accounts for supplies. + +The Clearing-house writes *up* its capital account by this sum, and by +all sums issued by it. The out-of-pocket cost to Messrs. Jones of their +finished product is, therefore, £500. Let us allow them 10%. profit on +this, and the cost, plus profit, at the factory under these conditions +is £550, and a sum of £600 is owing to the Clearing-house. + +Messrs. Brown who require these hides for boot-making, order them from +Messrs. Jones, and other supplies from elsewhere amounting to £500, and +similarly transmit Messrs. Jones' invoices (which include the sums paid +by the Clearing-house) with the rest to the Clearing-house, which issues +a cheque for £l,650 to Messrs. Brown, who pay Messrs. Jones; who, in +turn, retain £550 and pay back £600 to the Clearing-house. Messrs. Jones +are now disposed of. They have made their own arrangements in respect of +quantity of labour, etc., and have made a profit of 10%, on the cost of +this labour. + +Messrs. Brown now make the leather into boots, expending a further £500 +in salaries and wages, and making 10%, profit on this. They receive an +order from Messrs. Robinson for these boots: and Messrs. Robinson's own +out-of-pocket cost, with their commission, is £300 paid by a cheque from +the Clearing-house for £2,200 + £300, £2,200 of which goes to Messrs. +Brown, who pay off their debt of £1,650 and retain the remainder. + +Now let us notice that the purchasing power released externally in these +transactions is that represented by wages, salaries and a commission on +them, and that no goods have been yet released to consumers against this +purchasing power. These sums thus distributed will be largely expended +by the recipients in various forms of consumption, and it is only their +joint surplus which will assist in providing an effective demand for +Messrs. Robinson's stock. The price of this stock then requires +adjustment. + +Let us now introduce into the transactions a document we may call a +retail clearing invoice, which might form in its description of the +goods a duplicate of the bill paid by the purchaser of an article for +the purpose of ultimate consumption; and let it be understood that a +properly executed retail clearing invoice is accepted by the +Clearing-house as evidence of the transfer of goods to an actual +consumer. It will be seen that by the process previously explained we +have distributed the means of purchase and are left in a position to fix +the price without reference to the individual interests of Messrs. +Brown, Jones or Robinson, as so far the cost is charged to capital +account. The question is what should the price be? The answer to this is +a *statement of the average depreciation of the capital assets of the +community, stated in terms of money released over an equal period of +time, and the correct price is the money value of this depreciation in +terms of the cost of the article*. In other words, the Just Price of an +article, which is the price at which it can be effectively distributed +in the community producing, bears the same ratio to the cost of +production that the total consumption and depreciation of the community +bears to the total production. + +Let us now apply this to our example of such a staple as the supply of +boots. + +Let us assume that in a given credit area the sum involved in the +delivery of boots to the user per month amounts to £2,500, that is to +say, the *cost* figures of the retail invoices turned into the +Clearing-house per month total that sum. This means that services have +been rendered and remunerated by the payment over an indefinite period +of the token value of £2,500, and the product of these services +distributed in one month. But the token value has a general purchasing +power, consequently, it should be set against a general value. The +general value is equal to the general rate of depreciation, or if it be +preferred, consumption of the whole of the goods which can be bought +with the token value. Let us assume this to be 40%, that is to say, let +us imagine that of the total work of the community for one month 60%, +remains for use during a subsequent period. Then the selling price of a +pair of boots would be equal to 40%, of £2,500 divided by the total +number of pairs of boots distributed (not pairs produced); or would be ⅖ +*of commercial cost*. Messrs. Robinson, therefore, in respect of £2,500 +of retail invoices turned in by them (which would include their own +labour and commission) would be credited with 60% of that sum against +the cheque originally sent them (out of which they paid Messrs. Brown) +recovering the remaining 40%, from the actual purchasers of the boots, +and reimbursing the Clearing-house; who after balancing Messrs. +Robinson's account would write *down* their own credits by that amount. +This would leave the credit-capital of the community---that is to say, +the financial estimate of potential capacity to deliver goods---written +up by 60% of £2,500, which is an accounting reflection of the actual situation. -From this point of view, all semi-manufactures become simply -a form of tool power, and are subject to the same treatment -as manufacturing plant; they are a form of capital assets to -be depreciated and written down from time to time. There is -absolutely no difference in principle between the treatment -in this manner of a tool which wears out in five years' time -and a unit of energy which is dissipated in a few minutes in +From this point of view, all semi-manufactures become simply a form of +tool power, and are subject to the same treatment as manufacturing +plant; they are a form of capital assets to be depreciated and written +down from time to time. There is absolutely no difference in principle +between the treatment in this manner of a tool which wears out in five +years' time and a unit of energy which is dissipated in a few minutes in driving the tool. -We arrive, then, at a conception of credit employment, by -which all semi-manufacturers are treated as additions to -communal capital account; subject to writing down as they -are actually consumed as ultimate products. In order to be -effective the writing down must take the form of a -cancellation of credit-capital, a process which is done -quite simply and automatically by the application to the -capital account of retail clearing invoices in the manner -roughly outlined, or by any other device which is based on -the dynamic conception of industry. - -Exactly the same treatment is applicable to the installation -of fresh tools, buildings, etc., although for convenience, -no doubt, separate accounts for such assets would be -desirable, since the writing down would be done at somewhat -longer intervals. - -We have now clearly arrived at a point where there is a -direct relation between effective demand and prices, as -distinct from the relation between costs and prices. Let us -now imagine a single adjustable tax applied to all -production, of such magnitude as to bring prices from those -fixed by the foregoing method to the suitable international -exchange level. In existing circumstances, without affecting -present prices, such a tax would pay the interest on the War -Loan many times over. Let such a tax be applied to this -purpose, the War Loan being distributed in the manner -described and possibly increased by additions from -Clearing-house transfers. It is clear that a rise in -external prices would be met by an increased distribution, -while a greater internal efficiency would have a similar -result. Such an arrangement would make it possible to -effect, in fact, would certainly induce, a transition from a -purely competitive world system to one exhibiting in -concrete form the demand for cooperation without -regimentation, which, beyond all question, underlies the -so-called proletarian revolt. - -It may, perhaps, at this juncture, be desirable to emphasise -the obvious, to the extent of pointing out that no financial -system by itself affects concrete facts; that the object of -measures of the character indicated is the provision of the -right incentive to effort and the removal of any possible -incentive to waste; and only to the extent that these are -achieved is the economic emancipation of the individual -brought nearer to reality. Had the principles underlying -these suggestions been generally understood and accepted -during the war, we should have experienced a steady decrease -of purchasing power by every individual, which would have -enabled us to resume the general improvement in social -conditions at its close, without that misunderstanding of -facts which now threatens catastrophe. The depreciation rate -would, in a manner quite similar to that with which we are -familiar in the case of the Bank rate, have been raised at -suitable intervals to represent the excess of destruction -over production; the necessity of increased effort would -have been brought home to every individual by decreased -distribution in respect of National Capital assets, and the -general atmosphere of distrust and recrimination, from which -we suffer as a result of confusion of thought, would -probably not have arisen. +We arrive, then, at a conception of credit employment, by which all +semi-manufacturers are treated as additions to communal capital account; +subject to writing down as they are actually consumed as ultimate +products. In order to be effective the writing down must take the form +of a cancellation of credit-capital, a process which is done quite +simply and automatically by the application to the capital account of +retail clearing invoices in the manner roughly outlined, or by any other +device which is based on the dynamic conception of industry. + +Exactly the same treatment is applicable to the installation of fresh +tools, buildings, etc., although for convenience, no doubt, separate +accounts for such assets would be desirable, since the writing down +would be done at somewhat longer intervals. + +We have now clearly arrived at a point where there is a direct relation +between effective demand and prices, as distinct from the relation +between costs and prices. Let us now imagine a single adjustable tax +applied to all production, of such magnitude as to bring prices from +those fixed by the foregoing method to the suitable international +exchange level. In existing circumstances, without affecting present +prices, such a tax would pay the interest on the War Loan many times +over. Let such a tax be applied to this purpose, the War Loan being +distributed in the manner described and possibly increased by additions +from Clearing-house transfers. It is clear that a rise in external +prices would be met by an increased distribution, while a greater +internal efficiency would have a similar result. Such an arrangement +would make it possible to effect, in fact, would certainly induce, a +transition from a purely competitive world system to one exhibiting in +concrete form the demand for cooperation without regimentation, which, +beyond all question, underlies the so-called proletarian revolt. + +It may, perhaps, at this juncture, be desirable to emphasise the +obvious, to the extent of pointing out that no financial system by +itself affects concrete facts; that the object of measures of the +character indicated is the provision of the right incentive to effort +and the removal of any possible incentive to waste; and only to the +extent that these are achieved is the economic emancipation of the +individual brought nearer to reality. Had the principles underlying +these suggestions been generally understood and accepted during the war, +we should have experienced a steady decrease of purchasing power by +every individual, which would have enabled us to resume the general +improvement in social conditions at its close, without that +misunderstanding of facts which now threatens catastrophe. The +depreciation rate would, in a manner quite similar to that with which we +are familiar in the case of the Bank rate, have been raised at suitable +intervals to represent the excess of destruction over production; the +necessity of increased effort would have been brought home to every +individual by decreased distribution in respect of National Capital +assets, and the general atmosphere of distrust and recrimination, from +which we suffer as a result of confusion of thought, would probably not +have arisen. # Chapter Eleven -THE awful tragedy of waste and misery through which the -world has passed during the years 1914-1919 has brought -about a widespread determination that the best efforts of -which mankind is capable are not too much to devote to the -construction of a fabric of society within which a -repetition of the disaster would be, if not impossible, -unlikely; and the major focus of this determination has -found a vehicle in the project commonly known as the League -of Nations. - -The immense appeal which the phrase has made to the popular -and honest mind has made it dangerous to fail in rendering -lip service to it; but it is fairly certain that under cover -of the same form of words one of the most gigantic and -momentous struggles in history is waged for the embodiment -of either of the opposing policies already discussed. - -The success of an attempt to impose an economic and -political system on the world by means of armed force would -mean the culmination of the policy of centralised control, -and the certainty that all the evils, which increasing -centralisation of administrative power has shown to be -inherent in a power basis of society, would reach in that -event their final triumphant climax. - -But there is no final and inevitable relation between the -project of international unity and the policy of centralised -control. Just as in the microcosm of the industrial -organisation there is no difficulty in conceiving a -condition of individual control of policy in the common -interest, so in the larger world of international interest -the character and effect of a League of Free Peoples is -entirely dependent on the structure by which those interests -which individuals have in common can be made effective in -action. - -Now, unless the earlier portions of this book have been -written in vain, it has been shown that the basis of power -in the world to-day is economic, and that the economic -system with which we are familiar is expressly designed to -concentrate power. It follows inevitably from a -consideration of this proposition that a League of Nations -involving centralised military force is entirely -interdependent upon the final survival of the Capitalistic -system in the form in which we know it, and conversely that -the fall of this system would involve a totally different -international organisation. A superficial survey of the -position would no doubt suggest that the triumph of central -control was certain; that the power of the machine was never -so great; and that, whether by the aid of the machine-gun or -mere economic elimination, the scattered opponents to the -united and coherent focus of financial and military power -would within a measurable period be reduced to complete +THE awful tragedy of waste and misery through which the world has passed +during the years 1914-1919 has brought about a widespread determination +that the best efforts of which mankind is capable are not too much to +devote to the construction of a fabric of society within which a +repetition of the disaster would be, if not impossible, unlikely; and +the major focus of this determination has found a vehicle in the project +commonly known as the League of Nations. + +The immense appeal which the phrase has made to the popular and honest +mind has made it dangerous to fail in rendering lip service to it; but +it is fairly certain that under cover of the same form of words one of +the most gigantic and momentous struggles in history is waged for the +embodiment of either of the opposing policies already discussed. + +The success of an attempt to impose an economic and political system on +the world by means of armed force would mean the culmination of the +policy of centralised control, and the certainty that all the evils, +which increasing centralisation of administrative power has shown to be +inherent in a power basis of society, would reach in that event their +final triumphant climax. + +But there is no final and inevitable relation between the project of +international unity and the policy of centralised control. Just as in +the microcosm of the industrial organisation there is no difficulty in +conceiving a condition of individual control of policy in the common +interest, so in the larger world of international interest the character +and effect of a League of Free Peoples is entirely dependent on the +structure by which those interests which individuals have in common can +be made effective in action. + +Now, unless the earlier portions of this book have been written in vain, +it has been shown that the basis of power in the world to-day is +economic, and that the economic system with which we are familiar is +expressly designed to concentrate power. It follows inevitably from a +consideration of this proposition that a League of Nations involving +centralised military force is entirely interdependent upon the final +survival of the Capitalistic system in the form in which we know it, and +conversely that the fall of this system would involve a totally +different international organisation. A superficial survey of the +position would no doubt suggest that the triumph of central control was +certain; that the power of the machine was never so great; and that, +whether by the aid of the machine-gun or mere economic elimination, the +scattered opponents to the united and coherent focus of financial and +military power would within a measurable period be reduced to complete impotence and would finally disappear. -But a closer examination of the details tends to modify that -view, and to confirm the statement already made that a -pyramidal administrative organisation, though the strongest -against external pressure, is of all forms the most -vulnerable to disruption from within. - -We have already seen that a feature of the industrial -economic organisation at present is the illusion of -international competition, arising out of the failure of -internal effective demand as an instrument by means of which -production is distributed. This failure involves the -necessity of an increasing export of manufactured goods to -undeveloped countries, and this forced export, which is -common to all highly developed capitalistic States, has to -be paid for almost entirely by the raw material of further -exports. Now, it is fairly clear that under a system of -centralised control of finance such as that we are now -considering, this forced competitive export becomes -impossible; while at the same time the share of product -consumed inside the League becomes increasingly dependent on -a frenzied acceleration of the process. - -The increasing use of mechanical appliances, with its -capitalisation of overhead charges into prices, renders the -distribution of purchasing power, through the medium of -wages in particular, more and more ineffective; and as a -result individual discontent becomes daily a more formidable -menace to the system. It must be evident therefore that an -economic system involving forced extrusion of product from -the community producing, as an integral component of the -machinery for the distribution of purchasing power, is -entirely incompatible with any effective League of Nations, -because the logical and inevitable end of economic -competition is war. Conversely, an effective League of Free -Peoples postulates the abolition of the competitive basis of -society, and by the installation of the cooperative -commonwealth in its place makes of war not only a crime, but -a blunder. - -Under such a modification of world policy, inter-change of -commodities would take place with immeasurably greater -freedom than at present, but on principles exactly opposite -to those which now govern Trade. The manufacturing community -now struggles for the privilege of converting raw material -into manufactured goods for export to less developed -countries. Non-competitive industry would largely leave the -trading initiative to the supplier of raw material. Since -any material received in payment of exported goods would -find a distributed effective demand waiting for it, imports -would tend to consist of a much larger proportion of -ultimate products for immediate consumption than is now the -case; thus forcing on the more primitive countries the -necessity of exerting native initiative in the provision of -distinctive production. - -Again, International legislation in regard to labour -conditions under a competitive system must always fail at -the point at which it ceases to be merely negative, because -it has ultimately to consider employment as an agency of -distribution, and rightly considered distribution should be -a function of work accomplished, not of work in progress, -*i.e.*, employment. As a consequence, this most important -field of constructive effort resolves itself into a -battleground of opposing interests, both of which are merely -concerned with an effort to get something for nothing. The -inevitable compromise can be in no sense a settlement of -such questions, any more than the succession of strikes for -higher pay and shorter hours, which are based on exactly the -same conception, can possibly result in themselves in a -stable industrial equilibrium. +But a closer examination of the details tends to modify that view, and +to confirm the statement already made that a pyramidal administrative +organisation, though the strongest against external pressure, is of all +forms the most vulnerable to disruption from within. + +We have already seen that a feature of the industrial economic +organisation at present is the illusion of international competition, +arising out of the failure of internal effective demand as an instrument +by means of which production is distributed. This failure involves the +necessity of an increasing export of manufactured goods to undeveloped +countries, and this forced export, which is common to all highly +developed capitalistic States, has to be paid for almost entirely by the +raw material of further exports. Now, it is fairly clear that under a +system of centralised control of finance such as that we are now +considering, this forced competitive export becomes impossible; while at +the same time the share of product consumed inside the League becomes +increasingly dependent on a frenzied acceleration of the process. + +The increasing use of mechanical appliances, with its capitalisation of +overhead charges into prices, renders the distribution of purchasing +power, through the medium of wages in particular, more and more +ineffective; and as a result individual discontent becomes daily a more +formidable menace to the system. It must be evident therefore that an +economic system involving forced extrusion of product from the community +producing, as an integral component of the machinery for the +distribution of purchasing power, is entirely incompatible with any +effective League of Nations, because the logical and inevitable end of +economic competition is war. Conversely, an effective League of Free +Peoples postulates the abolition of the competitive basis of society, +and by the installation of the cooperative commonwealth in its place +makes of war not only a crime, but a blunder. + +Under such a modification of world policy, inter-change of commodities +would take place with immeasurably greater freedom than at present, but +on principles exactly opposite to those which now govern Trade. The +manufacturing community now struggles for the privilege of converting +raw material into manufactured goods for export to less developed +countries. Non-competitive industry would largely leave the trading +initiative to the supplier of raw material. Since any material received +in payment of exported goods would find a distributed effective demand +waiting for it, imports would tend to consist of a much larger +proportion of ultimate products for immediate consumption than is now +the case; thus forcing on the more primitive countries the necessity of +exerting native initiative in the provision of distinctive production. + +Again, International legislation in regard to labour conditions under a +competitive system must always fail at the point at which it ceases to +be merely negative, because it has ultimately to consider employment as +an agency of distribution, and rightly considered distribution should be +a function of work accomplished, not of work in progress, *i.e.*, +employment. As a consequence, this most important field of constructive +effort resolves itself into a battleground of opposing interests, both +of which are merely concerned with an effort to get something for +nothing. The inevitable compromise can be in no sense a settlement of +such questions, any more than the succession of strikes for higher pay +and shorter hours, which are based on exactly the same conception, can +possibly result in themselves in a stable industrial equilibrium. Examples of the same class of difficulty might be multiplied -indefinitely, but enough has probably been said to indicate -the disruptive nature of the forces at work. To state -whether or not the general confusion and misdirection of -opinion will make a period of power control inevitable, in -order to unite public opinion against it, would be to -venture into a form of prophecy for which there is no -present justification; but it is safe to say, that whether -after the lapse of a few months, or of a very few years, the -conception of a world governed by the concentrated power of -compulsion of any description whatever, will be finally -discredited and the instruments of its policy reduced to -impotence. +indefinitely, but enough has probably been said to indicate the +disruptive nature of the forces at work. To state whether or not the +general confusion and misdirection of opinion will make a period of +power control inevitable, in order to unite public opinion against it, +would be to venture into a form of prophecy for which there is no +present justification; but it is safe to say, that whether after the +lapse of a few months, or of a very few years, the conception of a world +governed by the concentrated power of compulsion of any description +whatever, will be finally discredited and the instruments of its policy +reduced to impotence. # Chapter Twelve -As a result of the survey of the wide field of unrest and -the attempt to analyse, and as far as possible to simplify, -the common elements which are its prime movers, it appears -probable that the concentration of economic power through -the agency of the capitalistic system of price fixing, and -the control of finance and credit, is of all causes by far -the most immediately important and therefore that the -distribution of economic power back to the individual is a -fundamental postulate of any radical improvement. While -this, it would seem, is indisputable, it must not be assumed -that by the attainment of individual economic independence, -the social problems which are so menacing, would immediately -disappear. The reproach is frequently levelled at those who -insist on the economic basis of society that in them -materialism is rampant, and in consequence the bearing of -sentiment on these matters is overlooked, and the immense -and decisive influence on events which is exerted by such -factors is very apt to be ignored. There is a germ of truth -in this; but if such critics will consider the origin of -popular sentiment, the influence of economic power will be -seen to predominate in this matter also, whether considered -merely as the tool of a policy, or as an isolated -phenomenon. - -It is claimed, and more particularly by those who utilise -it, that "public opinion" is the decisive power in public -affairs. Assuming that in some sense this may be true, it -becomes of interest to consider the nature of this public -opinion and the basis from which it proceeds, and it will be -agreed that the chief factors are education and propaganda. - -Now, the bearing of economic power on education hardly -requires emphasis. In England, the Public School tradition, -with all its admirable features, is nevertheless an open and -unashamed claim to special privilege based on purchasing -power and on nothing else; and with a sufficient number of -exceptions, its product is pre-eminently efficient in its -own interest, as distinct from that of the community. It is -one of the most hopeful and cheering features of the present -day that this defect is increasingly deplored by all the -best elements comprised within the system; and the danger of -reaction in the future is to that extent reduced. - -But by far the most important instrument used in the -moulding of public opinion is that of organised propaganda -either through the Public Press, the orator, the picture, -moving or otherwise, or the making of speeches; and in all -these the mobilising capacity of economic power is without +As a result of the survey of the wide field of unrest and the attempt to +analyse, and as far as possible to simplify, the common elements which +are its prime movers, it appears probable that the concentration of +economic power through the agency of the capitalistic system of price +fixing, and the control of finance and credit, is of all causes by far +the most immediately important and therefore that the distribution of +economic power back to the individual is a fundamental postulate of any +radical improvement. While this, it would seem, is indisputable, it must +not be assumed that by the attainment of individual economic +independence, the social problems which are so menacing, would +immediately disappear. The reproach is frequently levelled at those who +insist on the economic basis of society that in them materialism is +rampant, and in consequence the bearing of sentiment on these matters is +overlooked, and the immense and decisive influence on events which is +exerted by such factors is very apt to be ignored. There is a germ of +truth in this; but if such critics will consider the origin of popular +sentiment, the influence of economic power will be seen to predominate +in this matter also, whether considered merely as the tool of a policy, +or as an isolated phenomenon. + +It is claimed, and more particularly by those who utilise it, that +"public opinion" is the decisive power in public affairs. Assuming that +in some sense this may be true, it becomes of interest to consider the +nature of this public opinion and the basis from which it proceeds, and +it will be agreed that the chief factors are education and propaganda. + +Now, the bearing of economic power on education hardly requires +emphasis. In England, the Public School tradition, with all its +admirable features, is nevertheless an open and unashamed claim to +special privilege based on purchasing power and on nothing else; and +with a sufficient number of exceptions, its product is pre-eminently +efficient in its own interest, as distinct from that of the community. +It is one of the most hopeful and cheering features of the present day +that this defect is increasingly deplored by all the best elements +comprised within the system; and the danger of reaction in the future is +to that extent reduced. + +But by far the most important instrument used in the moulding of public +opinion is that of organised propaganda either through the Public Press, +the orator, the picture, moving or otherwise, or the making of speeches; +and in all these the mobilising capacity of economic power is without doubt immensely if not preponderatingly important. -When it is considered that the expression of opinion -inimical to "vested interests" has in the majority of cases -to be done at the cost of financial loss and in the face of -tremendous difficulty, while a platform can always be found -or provided for advocates of an extension of economic -privilege, the fundamental necessity of dealing *first* with -the economic basis of society must surely be, and in fact -now is, recognised, and this having been established in -conformity with a considered policy the powers of education -and propaganda will be free from the improper influences -which operate to distort their immense capacity for good. - -The policy suggested in the foregoing pages is essentially -and consciously aimed at pointing the way, in so far as it -is possible at this time, to a society based on the -unfettered freedom of the individual to cooperate in a state -of affairs in which community of interest and individual -interest are merely different aspects of the same thing. It -is believed that the material basis of such a society -involves *the administration of credit by a decentralised -local authority; the placing of the control of process -entirely in the hands of the organised producer* (and this -in the broadest sense of the evolution of goods and -services) and the *fixing of prices on the broad principles -of use value, by the community as a whole operating by the +When it is considered that the expression of opinion inimical to "vested +interests" has in the majority of cases to be done at the cost of +financial loss and in the face of tremendous difficulty, while a +platform can always be found or provided for advocates of an extension +of economic privilege, the fundamental necessity of dealing *first* with +the economic basis of society must surely be, and in fact now is, +recognised, and this having been established in conformity with a +considered policy the powers of education and propaganda will be free +from the improper influences which operate to distort their immense +capacity for good. + +The policy suggested in the foregoing pages is essentially and +consciously aimed at pointing the way, in so far as it is possible at +this time, to a society based on the unfettered freedom of the +individual to cooperate in a state of affairs in which community of +interest and individual interest are merely different aspects of the +same thing. It is believed that the material basis of such a society +involves *the administration of credit by a decentralised local +authority; the placing of the control of process entirely in the hands +of the organised producer* (and this in the broadest sense of the +evolution of goods and services) and the *fixing of prices on the broad +principles of use value, by the community as a whole operating by the most flexible representation possible*. -On such a basis, the control of the sources of information -in the interests of any small section of the community -becomes an anomaly without a specific meaning; and the -prostitution of the Press and of similar organs of publicity -would no doubt within a measurable time disappear because it -would lack objective. But there would still remain the task -of eradicating the hypnotic influence of a persistent -presentation of distorted information, at any rate so far as -this generation of humanity is concerned, and it seems clear -that a radical and democratic basis of Publicity control is -an integral factor in the production of the better society -on which the Plain People have quite certainly determined. +On such a basis, the control of the sources of information in the +interests of any small section of the community becomes an anomaly +without a specific meaning; and the prostitution of the Press and of +similar organs of publicity would no doubt within a measurable time +disappear because it would lack objective. But there would still remain +the task of eradicating the hypnotic influence of a persistent +presentation of distorted information, at any rate so far as this +generation of humanity is concerned, and it seems clear that a radical +and democratic basis of Publicity control is an integral factor in the +production of the better society on which the Plain People have quite +certainly determined. Thus out of threatened chaos might the diff --git a/src/economics-helen.md b/src/economics-helen.md index d384be3..3e4c22a 100644 --- a/src/economics-helen.md +++ b/src/economics-helen.md @@ -1,6047 +1,5197 @@ # The Elements -Economics is the name which people have come to give to the -study of Wealth. It is the study by which we learn how -Wealth is produced, how it is consumed, how it is -distributed among people, and so on. It is a very important -kind of study, because it often depends upon our being right -or wrong in Economics whether we make the whole State poorer -or richer, and whether we make the people living in the -State happier or not. - -Now as Economics is the study of Wealth, the first thing we -have to make certain of is, *What Wealth is*. +Economics is the name which people have come to give to the study of +Wealth. It is the study by which we learn how Wealth is produced, how it +is consumed, how it is distributed among people, and so on. It is a very +important kind of study, because it often depends upon our being right +or wrong in Economics whether we make the whole State poorer or richer, +and whether we make the people living in the State happier or not. + +Now as Economics is the study of Wealth, the first thing we have to make +certain of is, *What Wealth is*. ## What is Wealth? -The Economic definition of Wealth is subtle and difficult to -appreciate, but it is absolutely essential to our study to -get it clear at the outset and keep it firmly in mind. It is -through some muddlement in this original definition of -wealth that nearly all mistakes in Economics are made. +The Economic definition of Wealth is subtle and difficult to appreciate, +but it is absolutely essential to our study to get it clear at the +outset and keep it firmly in mind. It is through some muddlement in this +original definition of wealth that nearly all mistakes in Economics are +made. First, we must be clear as to what Wealth is *not.* -Wealth is never properly defined, for the purposes of -economic study, by any one of the answers a person would -naturally give off-hand. For instance, most people would say -that a man's wealth was the money he was worth. But that, of -course, is nonsense; for even if there were no money used -his possessions would still be there, and if he had a house -and cattle and horses the mere fact that money was not being -used where he lived would not make him any worse off. - -Another and better, but still a wrong, answer is: "Wealth is -what a man possesses." - -For instance, in the case of this farmer, his house and his -stock and his furniture and implements are what we call his -"wealth." In ordinary talk that answer will do well enough. -But it will not do for the strict science of Economics, for -it is not accurate. - -For consider a particular case. Part of this man's wealth -is, you say, a certain grey horse. But if you look closely -at your definition and make it rigidly accurate, you will -find that *it is not the horse itself which constitutes his -wealth, but something attaching to the horse,* some quality -or circumstance which affects the horse and gives the horse -what is called its *value.* It is this *Value* which is -wealth, not the horse. To see how true this is consider how -the value changes while the horse remains the same. - -On such and such a date any neighbour would have given the -owner of the horse from 20 to 25 sacks of wheat for it, or, -say, 10 sheep, or 50 loads of cut wood. But suppose there -comes a great mortality among horses, so that very few are -left. There is an eager desire to get hold of those that -survive in order that the work may be done on the farms. -Then the neighbours will be willing to give the owner of the -horse much more than 20 or 25 sacks of wheat for it. They -may offer as much as 50 sacks, or 20 sheep, or 100 loads of -wood. Yet the horse is exactly the same horse it was before. -The wealth of the master has increased. His horse, as we -say, is "worth more." *It is this* **Worth**, *that is, this -ability to get other wealth in exchange, which constitutes -true Economic Wealth.* - -I have told you that the idea is very difficult to seize, -and that you will find the hardest part of the study here, -at the beginning. There is no way of making it plainer. One -has no choice but to master the idea and make oneself -familiar with it, difficult as it is. *Wealth does not -reside in the objects we possess, but in the economic values -attaching to those objects.* - -We talk of a man's wealth or a nation's wealth, or the -wealth of the whole world, and we think at once, of course, -of a lot of material things: houses and ships, and pictures -and furniture, and food and all the rest of it. But the -economic wealth which it is our business to study is not -identical with those *things.* Wealth is the sum total of +Wealth is never properly defined, for the purposes of economic study, by +any one of the answers a person would naturally give off-hand. For +instance, most people would say that a man's wealth was the money he was +worth. But that, of course, is nonsense; for even if there were no money +used his possessions would still be there, and if he had a house and +cattle and horses the mere fact that money was not being used where he +lived would not make him any worse off. + +Another and better, but still a wrong, answer is: "Wealth is what a man +possesses." + +For instance, in the case of this farmer, his house and his stock and +his furniture and implements are what we call his "wealth." In ordinary +talk that answer will do well enough. But it will not do for the strict +science of Economics, for it is not accurate. + +For consider a particular case. Part of this man's wealth is, you say, a +certain grey horse. But if you look closely at your definition and make +it rigidly accurate, you will find that *it is not the horse itself +which constitutes his wealth, but something attaching to the horse,* +some quality or circumstance which affects the horse and gives the horse +what is called its *value.* It is this *Value* which is wealth, not the +horse. To see how true this is consider how the value changes while the +horse remains the same. + +On such and such a date any neighbour would have given the owner of the +horse from 20 to 25 sacks of wheat for it, or, say, 10 sheep, or 50 +loads of cut wood. But suppose there comes a great mortality among +horses, so that very few are left. There is an eager desire to get hold +of those that survive in order that the work may be done on the farms. +Then the neighbours will be willing to give the owner of the horse much +more than 20 or 25 sacks of wheat for it. They may offer as much as 50 +sacks, or 20 sheep, or 100 loads of wood. Yet the horse is exactly the +same horse it was before. The wealth of the master has increased. His +horse, as we say, is "worth more." *It is this* **Worth**, *that is, +this ability to get other wealth in exchange, which constitutes true +Economic Wealth.* + +I have told you that the idea is very difficult to seize, and that you +will find the hardest part of the study here, at the beginning. There is +no way of making it plainer. One has no choice but to master the idea +and make oneself familiar with it, difficult as it is. *Wealth does not +reside in the objects we possess, but in the economic values attaching +to those objects.* + +We talk of a man's wealth or a nation's wealth, or the wealth of the +whole world, and we think at once, of course, of a lot of material +things: houses and ships, and pictures and furniture, and food and all +the rest of it. But the economic wealth which it is our business to +study is not identical with those *things.* Wealth is the sum total of the *values* attaching to those things. That is the first and most important point. -Here is the second: Wealth, for the purposes of economic -study, *is confined to those values attaching to material -objects through the action of man, which values can be -exchanged for other values.* +Here is the second: Wealth, for the purposes of economic study, *is +confined to those values attaching to material objects through the +action of man, which values can be exchanged for other values.* I will explain what that sentence means. -Here is a mountain country where there are few people and -plenty of water everywhere. That water does not form part of -the Economic *wealth* of anyone living there. Everyone is -the better off for the water, but no one has *wealth* in it. -The water they have is absolutely necessary to life, but no -man will give anything for it because any man can get it for -himself. It has no *value in exchange.* But in a town to -which water has to be brought at great expense of effort, -and where the amount is limited, it acquires a value in -exchange, that is, people cannot get it without offering -something for it. That is why we say that in a modern town -water forms part of *Economic Wealth,* while in the country -it usually does not. - -We must carefully note that wealth thus defined is NOT the -same thing as well-being. The mixing up of these two -separate things---well-being and economic wealth-----has -given rise to half the errors in economic science. People -confuse the word "wealth" with the idea of well-being. They -say: "Surely a man is better off with plenty of water than -with little, and therefore conditions under which he can get -plenty of water for nothing are conditions under which he -has *more wealth* than when he has to pay for it. He has -more *wealth* when he gets the water free than he has when -he has to pay for it." - -It is not so. Economic wealth is a separate thing from -well-being. Economic wealth may well be increasing though -the general well-being of the people is going down. It may -increase though the general well-being of the people around -it is stationary. - -The Science of Economics does not deal with true happiness -nor even with well-being in material things. It deals with a -strictly limited field of what is called "Economic Wealth," -and if it goes outside its own boundaries it goes wrong. -Making people as happy as possible is much more than -Economics can pretend to. Economics cannot even tell you how -to make people well-to-do in material things. But it can -tell you how exchangeable Wealth is produced and what -happens to it; and as it can tell you this, it is a useful -servant. - -That is the second difficult point at the very beginning of -our study. *Economic Wealth consists in* **exchangeable** -*values, and nothing else.* - -We must be as clear on this second point as we have made -ourselves upon the first, or we 9 hall not make any progress -in Economics. They are both of them unfamiliar ideas, and -one has to go over them many times before one really grasps -them. But they are absolutely essential to this science. - -Let us sum up this first, elementary, part of our subject, -and put it in the shortest terms we can find-----what are -called "Formulae," which means short and exact definitions, -such as can be learnt by heart and retained permanently. +Here is a mountain country where there are few people and plenty of +water everywhere. That water does not form part of the Economic *wealth* +of anyone living there. Everyone is the better off for the water, but no +one has *wealth* in it. The water they have is absolutely necessary to +life, but no man will give anything for it because any man can get it +for himself. It has no *value in exchange.* But in a town to which water +has to be brought at great expense of effort, and where the amount is +limited, it acquires a value in exchange, that is, people cannot get it +without offering something for it. That is why we say that in a modern +town water forms part of *Economic Wealth,* while in the country it +usually does not. + +We must carefully note that wealth thus defined is NOT the same thing as +well-being. The mixing up of these two separate things---well-being and +economic wealth-----has given rise to half the errors in economic +science. People confuse the word "wealth" with the idea of well-being. +They say: "Surely a man is better off with plenty of water than with +little, and therefore conditions under which he can get plenty of water +for nothing are conditions under which he has *more wealth* than when he +has to pay for it. He has more *wealth* when he gets the water free than +he has when he has to pay for it." + +It is not so. Economic wealth is a separate thing from well-being. +Economic wealth may well be increasing though the general well-being of +the people is going down. It may increase though the general well-being +of the people around it is stationary. + +The Science of Economics does not deal with true happiness nor even with +well-being in material things. It deals with a strictly limited field of +what is called "Economic Wealth," and if it goes outside its own +boundaries it goes wrong. Making people as happy as possible is much +more than Economics can pretend to. Economics cannot even tell you how +to make people well-to-do in material things. But it can tell you how +exchangeable Wealth is produced and what happens to it; and as it can +tell you this, it is a useful servant. + +That is the second difficult point at the very beginning of our study. +*Economic Wealth consists in* **exchangeable** *values, and nothing +else.* + +We must be as clear on this second point as we have made ourselves upon +the first, or we 9 hall not make any progress in Economics. They are +both of them unfamiliar ideas, and one has to go over them many times +before one really grasps them. But they are absolutely essential to this +science. + +Let us sum up this first, elementary, part of our subject, and put it in +the shortest terms we can find-----what are called "Formulae," which +means short and exact definitions, such as can be learnt by heart and +retained permanently. We write down, then, two Formulae: -1. **Wealth is made up, not of things, but of economic - values attaching to things.** +1. **Wealth is made up, not of things, but of economic values attaching + to things.** -2. **Wealth, for the purposes of economic study, means ONLY - exchange values: that is, values against which other - values will be given in exchange.** +2. **Wealth, for the purposes of economic study, means ONLY exchange + values: that is, values against which other values will be given in + exchange.** ## The Three Things Necessary to the Production of Wealth---Land, Labour and Capital -You will notice that all about you living beings are -occupied in changing the things around them from a condition -where they are *less* to a condition where they are *more* -useful to themselves. - -Man is a living being, and he is doing this kind of thing -all the time. If he were not he could not live. - -He draws air into his lungs, taking it from a condition -where it does him no good to a condition where it keeps him -alive. He sows seed; he brings food from a distance; he -cooks it for his eating. To give himself shelter from the -weather he moulds bricks out of clay and puts them together -into houses. To get himself warmth he cuts down wood and -brings it to his hearth, or he sinks a shaft and gets coal -out of the earth, and so on. - -Man is perpetually changing the things- around him from a -condition in which they are *less* useful to him into a -condition where they are *more* useful to him. - -*Whenever a man does that he is said to be creating, and -adding to, Human Wealth:* part of which is Economic Wealth, -that is Wealth suitable for study under the science of -Economics. - -Wealth, therefore, that thing the nature and growth of which -we are about to study, is, so far as man is concerned, the -result of this process of changing things to man's use, and -it is through looking closely at the nature of this process -that we get to understand what is necessary to it, and what -impedes it, and how its results are distributed among -mankind. - -We must next go on to think out *how* wealth is so produced. -We have already seen what the general statement on this is: -Wealth is produced by man's consciously transforming things -around him to his own uses; and though not everything so -transformed has true *Economic Wealth* attaching to it (for -instance, breathing in air does not produce Economic -Wealth), yet all Economic Wealth is produced as *part* of -this general process. - -Now when we come to examine the Production of Wealth, we -shall find that *three* great separate forces come into it; -and these we shall find to be called conveniently "Land," -"Labour" and "Capital." - -Let us take a particular case of the production of Economic -Wealth and see how it goes forward. Let us take the case of -the production of, say, 100 sacks of wheat. +You will notice that all about you living beings are occupied in +changing the things around them from a condition where they are *less* +to a condition where they are *more* useful to themselves. + +Man is a living being, and he is doing this kind of thing all the time. +If he were not he could not live. + +He draws air into his lungs, taking it from a condition where it does +him no good to a condition where it keeps him alive. He sows seed; he +brings food from a distance; he cooks it for his eating. To give himself +shelter from the weather he moulds bricks out of clay and puts them +together into houses. To get himself warmth he cuts down wood and brings +it to his hearth, or he sinks a shaft and gets coal out of the earth, +and so on. + +Man is perpetually changing the things- around him from a condition in +which they are *less* useful to him into a condition where they are +*more* useful to him. + +*Whenever a man does that he is said to be creating, and adding to, +Human Wealth:* part of which is Economic Wealth, that is Wealth suitable +for study under the science of Economics. + +Wealth, therefore, that thing the nature and growth of which we are +about to study, is, so far as man is concerned, the result of this +process of changing things to man's use, and it is through looking +closely at the nature of this process that we get to understand what is +necessary to it, and what impedes it, and how its results are +distributed among mankind. + +We must next go on to think out *how* wealth is so produced. We have +already seen what the general statement on this is: Wealth is produced +by man's consciously transforming things around him to his own uses; and +though not everything so transformed has true *Economic Wealth* +attaching to it (for instance, breathing in air does not produce +Economic Wealth), yet all Economic Wealth is produced as *part* of this +general process. + +Now when we come to examine the Production of Wealth, we shall find that +*three* great separate forces come into it; and these we shall find to +be called conveniently "Land," "Labour" and "Capital." + +Let us take a particular case of the production of Economic Wealth and +see how it goes forward. Let us take the case of the production of, say, +100 sacks of wheat. ### 1. Land -A man finds himself possessed of so much land, and when he -sets out to produce the 100 sacks of wheat, the following -are the conditions before him. - -There are natural forces of which he takes advantage and -without which he could not grow wheat. The soil he has to do -with has a certain fertility, there is enough rainfall to -make the seeds sprout, and so on. - -All these natural forces are obviously necessary to him. -Though we talk of man "creating" wealth he does not really -create anything. What he does is to use and combine certain -natural forces of which he is aware. He has found out that -wheat will sprout if it is put into the ground at a -particular season, and that he will get his best result by -preparing the ground in a particular manner, etc. These -natural forces are the foundation of the whole affair. - -For the sake of shortness we call all this bundle of natural -forces (which are the very first essential to the making of -wealth) "**LAND**." This word "Land" is only a conventional -term in Economics, meant to include a vast number of things -beside the soil: things which are not Land at all; for -instance, water power and wind power, the fertility of seed, -the force of electricity, and thousands of other natural -energies. But we must have some short convenient term for -this set of things, and the term "Land" having become the -conventional term in Economic Science for all natural -forces, it is now the useful and short word always used for -them as a whole: the reason being, I suppose, that land, or -soil, is the first natural requisite for food-----the most -important of man's requirements, and the *place* from which -he uses all other natural forces. - -We say, then, that for the production of wealth the first -thing you need is the natural forces of the world, or -"Land." +A man finds himself possessed of so much land, and when he sets out to +produce the 100 sacks of wheat, the following are the conditions before +him. + +There are natural forces of which he takes advantage and without which +he could not grow wheat. The soil he has to do with has a certain +fertility, there is enough rainfall to make the seeds sprout, and so on. + +All these natural forces are obviously necessary to him. Though we talk +of man "creating" wealth he does not really create anything. What he +does is to use and combine certain natural forces of which he is aware. +He has found out that wheat will sprout if it is put into the ground at +a particular season, and that he will get his best result by preparing +the ground in a particular manner, etc. These natural forces are the +foundation of the whole affair. + +For the sake of shortness we call all this bundle of natural forces +(which are the very first essential to the making of wealth) "**LAND**." +This word "Land" is only a conventional term in Economics, meant to +include a vast number of things beside the soil: things which are not +Land at all; for instance, water power and wind power, the fertility of +seed, the force of electricity, and thousands of other natural energies. +But we must have some short convenient term for this set of things, and +the term "Land" having become the conventional term in Economic Science +for all natural forces, it is now the useful and short word always used +for them as a whole: the reason being, I suppose, that land, or soil, is +the first natural requisite for food-----the most important of man's +requirements, and the *place* from which he uses all other natural +forces. + +We say, then, that for the production of wealth the first thing you need +is the natural forces of the world, or "Land." ### 2. Labour -But we next note that this possession of natural forces, our -knowledge of how they will work, and our power of combining -them, *is not enough to produce wealth.* - -If the farmer were to stand still, satisfied with his -knowledge of the fertility of the soil, the quality of seed, -and all the rest of it, he would have no harvest. He must, -as we have said, prepare the land and sow the seed: only so -will he get a harvest at the end of his work. These -operations of human energy which end in his getting his -harvest are called "LABOUR": that is, *the application of -human energy to natural forces.* There are no conditions -whatsoever under which wealth can be produced without -natural forces or "land;" but there are also no conditions -whatsoever under which it can be produced without "labour," -that is, the use of human energy. Even if a man were in such -a position that he could get his food by picking it off the -trees, there would still be the effort required of picking -it. We say, therefore, that *all wealth comes from the -combination of LAND and LABOUR: That is,* of *natural -forces* and *human energy.* +But we next note that this possession of natural forces, our knowledge +of how they will work, and our power of combining them, *is not enough +to produce wealth.* + +If the farmer were to stand still, satisfied with his knowledge of the +fertility of the soil, the quality of seed, and all the rest of it, he +would have no harvest. He must, as we have said, prepare the land and +sow the seed: only so will he get a harvest at the end of his work. +These operations of human energy which end in his getting his harvest +are called "LABOUR": that is, *the application of human energy to +natural forces.* There are no conditions whatsoever under which wealth +can be produced without natural forces or "land;" but there are also no +conditions whatsoever under which it can be produced without "labour," +that is, the use of human energy. Even if a man were in such a position +that he could get his food by picking it off the trees, there would +still be the effort required of picking it. We say, therefore, that *all +wealth comes from the combination of LAND and LABOUR: That is,* of +*natural forces* and *human energy.* ### 3. Capital -At first sight it looks as though these two elements, Land -and Labour, were all that was needed; and a very great deal -of trouble has been caused in the world by people jumping to -this conclusion without further examination. - -But if we look closely into the matter we shall see that -Land and Labour alone are *not* sufficient to the production -of wealth in any appreciable amount. The moment man begins -to produce wealth in any special fashion and to any -appreciable extent, a third element comes in which is as -rigorously necessary as the two others; and that third +At first sight it looks as though these two elements, Land and Labour, +were all that was needed; and a very great deal of trouble has been +caused in the world by people jumping to this conclusion without further +examination. + +But if we look closely into the matter we shall see that Land and Labour +alone are *not* sufficient to the production of wealth in any +appreciable amount. The moment man begins to produce wealth in any +special fashion and to any appreciable extent, a third element comes in +which is as rigorously necessary as the two others; and that third element is called CAPITAL. Let us see what this word "CAPITAL" means. -Here is your farmer with all the requisite knowledge and the -natural forces at his disposal. He has enough good land -provided him to produce a harvest of 100 sacks of wheat if -he is able and willing to apply his manual labour and -intelligence to this land. But he must be kept alive during -the many months required for the growth of the wheat. It is -no use his beginning operations, therefore, unless he has a -stock of food; for if he had not such a stock he would die -before the harvest was gathered. Again, he must have seed. -He must have enough seed to produce at the end of those -months one hundred sacks of wheat. So we see that at the -very least, for this particular case of production, the -natural forces about him and his own energies would not be -of the least use to the production of the harvest unless -there were this third thing, a stock of wheat both for -sowing and for eating. - -But that is not all. He must be sheltered from the weather; -he must be clothed and he must have a house, otherwise he -would die before the harvest was gathered. Again, though he -might grow a very little wheat by putting in what seed he -could with his hands into a few suitable places in the soil, -he could not get anything like the harvest he was working -for unless he had special implements. He must prepare the -land with a plough; so he must have a plough; and he must -have horses to draw the plough; and those horses must be -kept alive while they are working, until the next harvest -comes in; so he must have a stock of oats to feed them with. - -All this means quite a large accumulation of wealth before -he can expect a good harvest: the wealth attaching to -clothes, houses, food, ploughs, horses for a year. - -In general, we find that man, when he is setting out on a -particular piece of production of wealth, is absolutely -compelled to add to his energies, and to the natural forces -at his disposal, a third element consisting of *certain -accumulations of wealth made in the past*---an accumulation -of food, clothing, implements, etc.---without which the -process of production could not be undertaken. *This -accumulation of* **already-made wealth**, *which is thus -absolutely necessary to production,* we call CAPITAL. - -It includes *all kinds of wealth whatsoever which man uses* -**with the object of producing further wealth,** *and -without which the further wealth could not be produced.* It -is a reserve without which the process of production is -impossible. Later on we shall see how very important this -fact is: for every healthy man has energy, and natural -forces are open to all, but *capital* can sometimes be -controlled by very few men. If they will not allow their -capital to be used, wealth cannot be produced by the rest; -therefore those who, by their labour, produce wealth may be -driven to very hard conditions by the few owners of Capital, -whose leave is necessary for any wealth to be produced at -all. - -But all this we must leave to a later part of our study. For -the moment what we have to get clearly into our heads are -these three things: (1) *Natural Forces,* (2) *Human -Energy,* and (3) *Accumulated stores and implements,* which -are called, generally, for the sake of shortness: *LAND*, -*LABOUR* and *CAPITAL*. In the absence of any one of these -three, production of Wealth is impossible. All three must be -present; and it is only the combination of all three which -makes the process of producing economic values possible. +Here is your farmer with all the requisite knowledge and the natural +forces at his disposal. He has enough good land provided him to produce +a harvest of 100 sacks of wheat if he is able and willing to apply his +manual labour and intelligence to this land. But he must be kept alive +during the many months required for the growth of the wheat. It is no +use his beginning operations, therefore, unless he has a stock of food; +for if he had not such a stock he would die before the harvest was +gathered. Again, he must have seed. He must have enough seed to produce +at the end of those months one hundred sacks of wheat. So we see that at +the very least, for this particular case of production, the natural +forces about him and his own energies would not be of the least use to +the production of the harvest unless there were this third thing, a +stock of wheat both for sowing and for eating. + +But that is not all. He must be sheltered from the weather; he must be +clothed and he must have a house, otherwise he would die before the +harvest was gathered. Again, though he might grow a very little wheat by +putting in what seed he could with his hands into a few suitable places +in the soil, he could not get anything like the harvest he was working +for unless he had special implements. He must prepare the land with a +plough; so he must have a plough; and he must have horses to draw the +plough; and those horses must be kept alive while they are working, +until the next harvest comes in; so he must have a stock of oats to feed +them with. + +All this means quite a large accumulation of wealth before he can expect +a good harvest: the wealth attaching to clothes, houses, food, ploughs, +horses for a year. + +In general, we find that man, when he is setting out on a particular +piece of production of wealth, is absolutely compelled to add to his +energies, and to the natural forces at his disposal, a third element +consisting of *certain accumulations of wealth made in the past*---an +accumulation of food, clothing, implements, etc.---without which the +process of production could not be undertaken. *This accumulation of* +**already-made wealth**, *which is thus absolutely necessary to +production,* we call CAPITAL. + +It includes *all kinds of wealth whatsoever which man uses* **with the +object of producing further wealth,** *and without which the further +wealth could not be produced.* It is a reserve without which the process +of production is impossible. Later on we shall see how very important +this fact is: for every healthy man has energy, and natural forces are +open to all, but *capital* can sometimes be controlled by very few men. +If they will not allow their capital to be used, wealth cannot be +produced by the rest; therefore those who, by their labour, produce +wealth may be driven to very hard conditions by the few owners of +Capital, whose leave is necessary for any wealth to be produced at all. + +But all this we must leave to a later part of our study. For the moment +what we have to get clearly into our heads are these three things: (1) +*Natural Forces,* (2) *Human Energy,* and (3) *Accumulated stores and +implements,* which are called, generally, for the sake of shortness: +*LAND*, *LABOUR* and *CAPITAL*. In the absence of any one of these +three, production of Wealth is impossible. All three must be present; +and it is only the combination of all three which makes the process of +producing economic values possible. ### Points about capital -There are *three* important things to remember about -Capital. - -1\. The first is that what makes a particular piece of -wealth into capital is not the kind of object to which the -economic value attaches, but the *intention* of using it as -capital on the part of the person who controls that object; -that is, the intention to use it for the *production of -future wealth.* Almost any object can be used as capital, -but no object is capital, however suitable it be for that -purpose, *unless there is the intention present of using it -as capital.* For instance: One might think that a factory -power engine was always Capital. The economic values -attaching to it, which make an engine worth what it is are -nearly always used for the production of future wealth, and -so we come to think of the engine as being necessarily -capital simply because it is an engine, and the same is true -of factory buildings and all other machinery and all tools, -such as hammers and saws and so on. - -But these things are not capital *in themselves;* for if we -do not use them for the production of future wealth they -cease to be capital. For instance, if you were to put the -engine into a museum, or to keep a hammer in remembrance of -someone and not use it, then it would not be capital. - -And this truth works the other way about. At first sight you -would say, for instance, that a diamond ring could not be -capital: it is only a luxurious ornament. But if you use it -to cut glass for mending a window it is capital for that -purpose. - -2\. The second important thing to remember about Capital is -that, being Wealth, *it is at last consumed, as all other -Wealth is.* Capital is consumed in the process of using it -to make more Wealth, and as it is consumed it has to be -replaced, or the process of production will break down. Take -the case of the farmer we gave just now. He had to start, as -we saw, with so much Capital---horses and a plough and a -stock of wheat and a stock of oats, etc.; and only by the -use of this capital could he procure his harvest of 100 -sacks of wheat at the end of the year; but if he is going on -producing wheat year after year he must replace the wastage -in his capital year after year. His stock of wheat for food -and for seed will have disappeared in the year; so will his -stock of hay and oats for keeping his horses. His plough -will be somewhat worn and will need mending; and his horses, -after a certain time, will grow old and will have to be -replaced. Therefore, if production is to be continuous, that -is, if there are to be harvests year after year, each -harvest must be at least enough to replace all the wastage -of capital which goes on during the process of production. - -3\. The third thing to remember about Capital is that -Capital is *always the result of saving:* That is, the only -way in which people can get Capital is by doing without some -immediate enjoyment of goods, and putting them by to use -them up in creating wealth for the future. This ought to be -self-evident; but people often forget it, because the person -who *controls* the capital is very often quite a different -person from the person who *really accumulated* it. The -owner of the capital is very often a person who never thinks -of saving. Nevertheless, the saving has been done by someone -in the past, and saving must go on the whole time, for if it -did not the Capital could not come into existence, and could +There are *three* important things to remember about Capital. + +1\. The first is that what makes a particular piece of wealth into +capital is not the kind of object to which the economic value attaches, +but the *intention* of using it as capital on the part of the person who +controls that object; that is, the intention to use it for the +*production of future wealth.* Almost any object can be used as capital, +but no object is capital, however suitable it be for that purpose, +*unless there is the intention present of using it as capital.* For +instance: One might think that a factory power engine was always +Capital. The economic values attaching to it, which make an engine worth +what it is are nearly always used for the production of future wealth, +and so we come to think of the engine as being necessarily capital +simply because it is an engine, and the same is true of factory +buildings and all other machinery and all tools, such as hammers and +saws and so on. + +But these things are not capital *in themselves;* for if we do not use +them for the production of future wealth they cease to be capital. For +instance, if you were to put the engine into a museum, or to keep a +hammer in remembrance of someone and not use it, then it would not be +capital. + +And this truth works the other way about. At first sight you would say, +for instance, that a diamond ring could not be capital: it is only a +luxurious ornament. But if you use it to cut glass for mending a window +it is capital for that purpose. + +2\. The second important thing to remember about Capital is that, being +Wealth, *it is at last consumed, as all other Wealth is.* Capital is +consumed in the process of using it to make more Wealth, and as it is +consumed it has to be replaced, or the process of production will break +down. Take the case of the farmer we gave just now. He had to start, as +we saw, with so much Capital---horses and a plough and a stock of wheat +and a stock of oats, etc.; and only by the use of this capital could he +procure his harvest of 100 sacks of wheat at the end of the year; but if +he is going on producing wheat year after year he must replace the +wastage in his capital year after year. His stock of wheat for food and +for seed will have disappeared in the year; so will his stock of hay and +oats for keeping his horses. His plough will be somewhat worn and will +need mending; and his horses, after a certain time, will grow old and +will have to be replaced. Therefore, if production is to be continuous, +that is, if there are to be harvests year after year, each harvest must +be at least enough to replace all the wastage of capital which goes on +during the process of production. + +3\. The third thing to remember about Capital is that Capital is *always +the result of saving:* That is, the only way in which people can get +Capital is by doing without some immediate enjoyment of goods, and +putting them by to use them up in creating wealth for the future. This +ought to be self-evident; but people often forget it, because the person +who *controls* the capital is very often quite a different person from +the person who *really accumulated* it. The owner of the capital is very +often a person who never thinks of saving. Nevertheless, the saving has +been done by someone in the past, and saving must go on the whole time, +for if it did not the Capital could not come into existence, and could not be maintained once it was in existence. -Suppose, for instance, a man inherits £10,000 worth of -Capital invested in a Steamship Company. - -This means that he has a share in a number of hulls, -engines, stocks of coal and food, and clothing for the -crews, and other things which have to be provided before the -steamships can go to sea and create wealth by so doing. - -All this capital has been saved by someone. Not by the man -himself; he has merely inherited the wealth---but by -someone. - -Someone at some time, his father or whoever first got the -capital together, must have forgone immediate enjoyment and -put by wealth for future production, or the capital could -not have come into existence. Thus, if the first accumulator -of the capital had used his wealth for the purchase of a -yacht in which to travel for his amusement, the labour and -natural forces used in the production of that yacht would -have made wealth consumed in immediate enjoyment, and it -would not have been used for future production as is a cargo -ship. - -In the same way this capital, once it has come into -existence in the shape of cargo ships and stocks of coal and -the rest, would soon disappear if it were not perpetually -replenished by further saving. The man who owns the shares -in the Steamship Company does not consciously save year -after year enough money to keep the capital at its original +Suppose, for instance, a man inherits £10,000 worth of Capital invested +in a Steamship Company. + +This means that he has a share in a number of hulls, engines, stocks of +coal and food, and clothing for the crews, and other things which have +to be provided before the steamships can go to sea and create wealth by +so doing. + +All this capital has been saved by someone. Not by the man himself; he +has merely inherited the wealth---but by someone. + +Someone at some time, his father or whoever first got the capital +together, must have forgone immediate enjoyment and put by wealth for +future production, or the capital could not have come into existence. +Thus, if the first accumulator of the capital had used his wealth for +the purchase of a yacht in which to travel for his amusement, the labour +and natural forces used in the production of that yacht would have made +wealth consumed in immediate enjoyment, and it would not have been used +for future production as is a cargo ship. + +In the same way this capital, once it has come into existence in the +shape of cargo ships and stocks of coal and the rest, would soon +disappear if it were not perpetually replenished by further saving. The +man who owns the shares in the Steamship Company does not consciously +save year after year enough money to keep the capital at its original level. -Nevertheless, the saving is done for him. The Directors of -the Company keep back out of the total receipts enough to -repair the ships and to replenish the stocks of coal, etc., -and they are thus perpetually accumulating fresh capital to -replace the consumption of the old. How true it is that all -Capital is the result of saving by *someone, somewhere,* we -see in the difference between countries that do a lot of -saving and countries that do little. Savages and people of a -low civilisation differ in this very much from people of a -high civilisation. They want to enjoy what they have the -moment they have it, and they lay by as little as possible -for the future; only just as much as will keep them going. -But in a high civilisation people save capital more and -more, and so are able to produce more and more wealth. - -Now let us sum up in some more Formulae what we have learnt -so far:--- - -1. **All production of Wealth needs three things:** (a) - **Natural forces,** (b) **Human energy, and** (c) **an - Accumulation of wealth made in the past and used up in - future production.** - -2. **These three are called, for shortness:** (a) - **Land,** (b) **Labour,** (c) **Capital.** - -3. **The last, Capital,** (a) **depends for its character - on the intention of the user,** (b) **is consumed in - production,** (c) **is always the result of saving.** +Nevertheless, the saving is done for him. The Directors of the Company +keep back out of the total receipts enough to repair the ships and to +replenish the stocks of coal, etc., and they are thus perpetually +accumulating fresh capital to replace the consumption of the old. How +true it is that all Capital is the result of saving by *someone, +somewhere,* we see in the difference between countries that do a lot of +saving and countries that do little. Savages and people of a low +civilisation differ in this very much from people of a high +civilisation. They want to enjoy what they have the moment they have it, +and they lay by as little as possible for the future; only just as much +as will keep them going. But in a high civilisation people save capital +more and more, and so are able to produce more and more wealth. + +Now let us sum up in some more Formulae what we have learnt so far:--- + +1. **All production of Wealth needs three things:** (a) **Natural + forces,** (b) **Human energy, and** (c) **an Accumulation of wealth + made in the past and used up in future production.** + +2. **These three are called, for shortness:** (a) **Land,** (b) + **Labour,** (c) **Capital.** + +3. **The last, Capital,** (a) **depends for its character on the + intention of the user,** (b) **is consumed in production,** (c) **is + always the result of saving.** ## The Process of Production -You have seen how the production of wealth takes place -through the combination of these three things, LAND, LABOUR -AND CAPITAL, and you have also seen how the wealth so -produced consists not in the objects themselves, but in the -economic values attached to the objects. - -Now we will take a particular instance of wealth and show -how this works out in practice and what various forms the -production of wealth takes. - -Wealth, as we have seen, arises from the transposing of -things around us from a condition where they are less to a -condition where they are more useful to our needs. - -Let us take a ton of coal lying a thousand feet down under -the earth and no way provided of getting at it. A man -possessing that ton of coal would not possess any wealth. -The coal lying in the earth has no economic value attaching -to it whatsoever. It has not yet entered the process whereby -it ultimately satisfies a human need. - -A shaft is sunk to get at that coal, and once the coal is -reached a first economic value begins to attach to it. Next, -further labour, capital and natural forces are applied to -the task of hewing the coal out and raising it to the -surface. This means that yet more economic values are -attached to the ton of coal. These we express by saying that -the ton of coal at the bottom of the mine, just hewed out, -is worth so much---say 15/-; and later at the pit head is -worth so much more---say £1. But the process of production -of wealth is not yet completed. The coal is needed to warm -you in your house, and your house is a long way from the pit -head. It must be taken from the pit head to your house, and -for this transport further labour, natural forces and -capital must be used, and these add yet another economic -value to the coal. - -We express this by saying that the ton of coal *delivered* -(that is, at your house) is worth not £1, which it was at -the pit head, but £1 10s.; and in this example we see that -transport is as much a part of the production of wealth as -other work. We also see a further example of the truth -originally stated that wealth does not consist in the object -itself but in the values attached to it. The ton of coal is -there in your cellar exactly the same (except that it is -broken up) as it was when it lay a thousand feet under the -earth with no way of getting to it. In your cellar it -represents wealth. In possessing it you are possessing -wealth to the amount of 30s. You could exchange it against -30s. worth of some other thing, such as wheat. But the -wealth you thus possess is not the actual coal, but the -values attaching to the coal. These economic values are -being piled up from the very beginning of the process of -production until the process of consumption begins. - -Here is another case which shows how the process of -production will add values to a thing without necessarily -changing the thing itself. - -Suppose an island where there is a lot of salt in mines near -the surface, but with very poor pasture and very little of -it; most of the soil barren and the climate bad. On the -main-land, a day's journey from the island, there is good -soil and pasture and a good climate, but there is no salt. -Salt is a prime necessity of life, and it comes into a lot -of things besides necessaries. To the people of the main -land, therefore, salt, which they lack, is of high value. To -the people of the island it is of low value, for they can -get as much of it as they want, with very little trouble. -Meanwhile, meat is of very high value to the people of the -island, who can grow little of it on their own soil, while -it is of much less value to the people of the main-land, who -have plenty of it through their good pastures and climate. -Here we have, let us say, 100 tons of salt in the island and -100 tons of meat on the main-land. A boat takes the 100 tons -of salt from the island to the main-land and brings back the -meat from the main-land to the island. Here wealth has been -created on both sides, although no change has taken place in -the articles themselves except a change in position. Both -parties, the islanders and the main-land people, are -wealthier through the transaction, and this is a case where -*exchange* is a direct creator of wealth, and the transport -effecting the exchange is a creator of wealth. - -Strictly speaking, everything done to increase the -usefulness of an object right up to the moment when -consumption begins is part of the production of wealth. For -instance, wealth is being produced from the moment that -wheat is sowed in the ground to the moment when the baked -loaf is ready for eating, and the wealth expressed by the -loaf, that is, the values attaching to it, are made up by -all the processes of adding values from the first moment the -seed was sown. When you eat a sixpenny loaf you are -beginning to consume values created by the sowing of the -wheat and its culture and its harvesting and grinding, and -the working of the flour into dough, and the baking, and -created by every piece of transport in the process, the -carting of the sheaf into the rick, the carting thrashed -wheat to the mill, the taking of the flour to the baker, the -taking of the baked loaf to your house, and even the -bringing of the loaf from the larder to your table. Every -one of these actions is part of the production of wealth. - -There is attaching to the process of the production of -wealth a certain character which we appreciate easily in -some cases, but with much more difficulty in others. We have -already come across it in discussing Capital. It is this: +You have seen how the production of wealth takes place through the +combination of these three things, LAND, LABOUR AND CAPITAL, and you +have also seen how the wealth so produced consists not in the objects +themselves, but in the economic values attached to the objects. + +Now we will take a particular instance of wealth and show how this works +out in practice and what various forms the production of wealth takes. + +Wealth, as we have seen, arises from the transposing of things around us +from a condition where they are less to a condition where they are more +useful to our needs. + +Let us take a ton of coal lying a thousand feet down under the earth and +no way provided of getting at it. A man possessing that ton of coal +would not possess any wealth. The coal lying in the earth has no +economic value attaching to it whatsoever. It has not yet entered the +process whereby it ultimately satisfies a human need. + +A shaft is sunk to get at that coal, and once the coal is reached a +first economic value begins to attach to it. Next, further labour, +capital and natural forces are applied to the task of hewing the coal +out and raising it to the surface. This means that yet more economic +values are attached to the ton of coal. These we express by saying that +the ton of coal at the bottom of the mine, just hewed out, is worth so +much---say 15/-; and later at the pit head is worth so much more---say +£1. But the process of production of wealth is not yet completed. The +coal is needed to warm you in your house, and your house is a long way +from the pit head. It must be taken from the pit head to your house, and +for this transport further labour, natural forces and capital must be +used, and these add yet another economic value to the coal. + +We express this by saying that the ton of coal *delivered* (that is, at +your house) is worth not £1, which it was at the pit head, but £1 10s.; +and in this example we see that transport is as much a part of the +production of wealth as other work. We also see a further example of the +truth originally stated that wealth does not consist in the object +itself but in the values attached to it. The ton of coal is there in +your cellar exactly the same (except that it is broken up) as it was +when it lay a thousand feet under the earth with no way of getting to +it. In your cellar it represents wealth. In possessing it you are +possessing wealth to the amount of 30s. You could exchange it against +30s. worth of some other thing, such as wheat. But the wealth you thus +possess is not the actual coal, but the values attaching to the coal. +These economic values are being piled up from the very beginning of the +process of production until the process of consumption begins. + +Here is another case which shows how the process of production will add +values to a thing without necessarily changing the thing itself. + +Suppose an island where there is a lot of salt in mines near the +surface, but with very poor pasture and very little of it; most of the +soil barren and the climate bad. On the main-land, a day's journey from +the island, there is good soil and pasture and a good climate, but there +is no salt. Salt is a prime necessity of life, and it comes into a lot +of things besides necessaries. To the people of the main land, +therefore, salt, which they lack, is of high value. To the people of the +island it is of low value, for they can get as much of it as they want, +with very little trouble. Meanwhile, meat is of very high value to the +people of the island, who can grow little of it on their own soil, while +it is of much less value to the people of the main-land, who have plenty +of it through their good pastures and climate. Here we have, let us say, +100 tons of salt in the island and 100 tons of meat on the main-land. A +boat takes the 100 tons of salt from the island to the main-land and +brings back the meat from the main-land to the island. Here wealth has +been created on both sides, although no change has taken place in the +articles themselves except a change in position. Both parties, the +islanders and the main-land people, are wealthier through the +transaction, and this is a case where *exchange* is a direct creator of +wealth, and the transport effecting the exchange is a creator of wealth. + +Strictly speaking, everything done to increase the usefulness of an +object right up to the moment when consumption begins is part of the +production of wealth. For instance, wealth is being produced from the +moment that wheat is sowed in the ground to the moment when the baked +loaf is ready for eating, and the wealth expressed by the loaf, that is, +the values attaching to it, are made up by all the processes of adding +values from the first moment the seed was sown. When you eat a sixpenny +loaf you are beginning to consume values created by the sowing of the +wheat and its culture and its harvesting and grinding, and the working +of the flour into dough, and the baking, and created by every piece of +transport in the process, the carting of the sheaf into the rick, the +carting thrashed wheat to the mill, the taking of the flour to the +baker, the taking of the baked loaf to your house, and even the bringing +of the loaf from the larder to your table. Every one of these actions is +part of the production of wealth. + +There is attaching to the process of the production of wealth a certain +character which we appreciate easily in some cases, but with much more +difficulty in others. We have already come across it in discussing +Capital. It is this: *All wealth is consumed.* -This is universally true of all wealth whatsoever, though -the rate of consumption is very different in different -cases. - -The purpose of nature is not the purpose of man. Man only -creates wealth by a perpetual effort against the purpose of -nature, and the moment his effort ceases nature tends to -drag back man's creation from a condition where it is more -to a condition where it is less useful to himself. - -For some sorts of wealth the process is very rapid, as, for -instance, in the consumption of fuel, or in the wasting of -ice on a hot day. Man with an expenditure of his energy and -brains applied to natural forces, and by the use of capital, -has caused ice to be present under conditions where nature -meant there to be no ice---a hot summer's day. - -He'has brought it from a high, cold place far away; or he -has kept it from the winter onwards stored in an ice house -which he had to make and to which he had to transport it; or -he has made it with engine power. But the force of nature is -always ready to melt the ice when man's effort ceases. - -The moment man's effort ceases, deterioration, that is, *the -consumption of the wealth present,* at once begins. And this -truth applies at the other end of the scale. You may make a -building of granite, but it will not last for ever. The -consumption is exceedingly slow, but it is there all the -same. And whether the consumption takes place in the service -of man (as when fuel is burnt on a hearth) or by neglect (as -when a derelict house decays) it is always *economic -consumption.* +This is universally true of all wealth whatsoever, though the rate of +consumption is very different in different cases. + +The purpose of nature is not the purpose of man. Man only creates wealth +by a perpetual effort against the purpose of nature, and the moment his +effort ceases nature tends to drag back man's creation from a condition +where it is more to a condition where it is less useful to himself. + +For some sorts of wealth the process is very rapid, as, for instance, in +the consumption of fuel, or in the wasting of ice on a hot day. Man with +an expenditure of his energy and brains applied to natural forces, and +by the use of capital, has caused ice to be present under conditions +where nature meant there to be no ice---a hot summer's day. + +He'has brought it from a high, cold place far away; or he has kept it +from the winter onwards stored in an ice house which he had to make and +to which he had to transport it; or he has made it with engine power. +But the force of nature is always ready to melt the ice when man's +effort ceases. + +The moment man's effort ceases, deterioration, that is, *the consumption +of the wealth present,* at once begins. And this truth applies at the +other end of the scale. You may make a building of granite, but it will +not last for ever. The consumption is exceedingly slow, but it is there +all the same. And whether the consumption takes place in the service of +man (as when fuel is burnt on a hearth) or by neglect (as when a +derelict house decays) it is always *economic consumption.* We may sum up in the following Formulae:--- -1. **Transport and Exchange, quite as much as actual work - on the original material, form part of the Production of - Wealth.** +1. **Transport and Exchange, quite as much as actual work on the + original material, form part of the Production of Wealth.** -2. **All Wealth is ultimately consumed: that is, matter - having been transposed by man from a condition where it - is less to a condition where it is more useful to - himself, is dragged back from a condition where it is - more to a condition where It is less useful to +2. **All Wealth is ultimately consumed: that is, matter having been + transposed by man from a condition where it is less to a condition + where it is more useful to himself, is dragged back from a condition + where it is more to a condition where It is less useful to himself.** ## The Three Parts Into Which the Wealth Produced Naturally Divides Itself---Rent, Interest, Subsistence -We now come to that part of Economics which has most effect -upon human society, and the understanding of which is most -essential to sound politics. It is not a difficult point to -understand. The only difficulty is to keep in our minds a -clear distinction between what is called economic law, that -is, the necessary results of producing wealth, and the moral -law, that is the matter of right and wrong in the -distribution and use of wealth. - -Some people are so shocked by the fact that economic law is -different from moral law that they try to deny economic law. -Others are so annoyed by this lack of logic that they fall -into the other error of thinking that economic law can -override moral law. - -You have to be warned against both these errors before you -begin to approach the subject of Rent, Profit and -Subsistence. Only when we have worked out the principles of -these three things can we come back again to the apparent -clash between economic law and moral law, the understanding -of which is so very important in England to-day. - -The motive of production is to satisfy human needs, and the -simplest case of production is that of a man working for -himself and his family as a settler in a new country. He -cuts down wood and brings it where it is wanted; he builds a -hut and a bridge with it; he stacks it ready to burn for -fuel. The wealth he thus produces by his labour goes to him -and his, and because the labour he has to expend is what -impresses him most about the process, he calls the wealth -produced at the end of it: " Wealth produced by his -labour." He thinks of his labour as the one agent of the -whole affair, and so it is the one immediate human agent; -but, as we have seen, there are two other agents as well. -His mere labour (that is, the use of his brain and his -muscles) would not have produced a pennyworth of wealth, but -for two other agents: Natural Forces (or Land) and Capital. -And we shall find when we look into it that the wealth he -thus produces and regards as one thing is also really -divided into three divisions: one corresponding to each of -the three agents which produce wealth. - -Being a settler living by himself and possessing his own -land and his own implements, he controls all he produces and -does not notice the three divisions. But three divisions -there are none the less present in all wealth produced -anywhere, **and these three divisions do not correspond to -the moral claim man has to the result of his labour.** They -are divisions produced by the working of economic law, which -is as blind and indifferent to right and wrong as are the -ordinary forces of nature about us. - -These three divisions are called **RENT, INTEREST** (or -**Profit**) and **SUBSISTENCE.** In order to see how these -three divisions come about we must take them in the order of -*Subsistence* first, then *Interest*, then *Rent*. +We now come to that part of Economics which has most effect upon human +society, and the understanding of which is most essential to sound +politics. It is not a difficult point to understand. The only difficulty +is to keep in our minds a clear distinction between what is called +economic law, that is, the necessary results of producing wealth, and +the moral law, that is the matter of right and wrong in the distribution +and use of wealth. + +Some people are so shocked by the fact that economic law is different +from moral law that they try to deny economic law. Others are so annoyed +by this lack of logic that they fall into the other error of thinking +that economic law can override moral law. + +You have to be warned against both these errors before you begin to +approach the subject of Rent, Profit and Subsistence. Only when we have +worked out the principles of these three things can we come back again +to the apparent clash between economic law and moral law, the +understanding of which is so very important in England to-day. + +The motive of production is to satisfy human needs, and the simplest +case of production is that of a man working for himself and his family +as a settler in a new country. He cuts down wood and brings it where it +is wanted; he builds a hut and a bridge with it; he stacks it ready to +burn for fuel. The wealth he thus produces by his labour goes to him and +his, and because the labour he has to expend is what impresses him most +about the process, he calls the wealth produced at the end of it: " +Wealth produced by his labour." He thinks of his labour as the one agent +of the whole affair, and so it is the one immediate human agent; but, as +we have seen, there are two other agents as well. His mere labour (that +is, the use of his brain and his muscles) would not have produced a +pennyworth of wealth, but for two other agents: Natural Forces (or Land) +and Capital. And we shall find when we look into it that the wealth he +thus produces and regards as one thing is also really divided into three +divisions: one corresponding to each of the three agents which produce +wealth. + +Being a settler living by himself and possessing his own land and his +own implements, he controls all he produces and does not notice the +three divisions. But three divisions there are none the less present in +all wealth produced anywhere, **and these three divisions do not +correspond to the moral claim man has to the result of his labour.** +They are divisions produced by the working of economic law, which is as +blind and indifferent to right and wrong as are the ordinary forces of +nature about us. + +These three divisions are called **RENT, INTEREST** (or **Profit**) and +**SUBSISTENCE.** In order to see how these three divisions come about we +must take them in the order of *Subsistence* first, then *Interest*, +then *Rent*. ### 1. Subsistence -In any civilisation you will find a certain amount of things -which are regarded as necessaries. In any civilisation it is -thought that human beings must not be allowed to sink below -a certain level, and a certain amount of clothes of a -certain pattern, a certain amount of housing room and fuel, -and a certain amount of food of a certain kind are thought -the very least upon which life can be conducted. Even the -poorest are not allowed to fall below that standard. This -does not mean that no one is allowed to starve or die of -insufficient warmth. It means that any particular -civilisation (our own, for instance, or the Chinese) has its -regulation minimum and lets men die rather than fall below -it. This "certain amount," below which even the poorest -people's livelihood is not allowed to fall, is called **THE -STANDARD OF SUBSISTENCE.** - -Most people when they first think of these things imagine -that there is some very small amount of necessaries which, -all over the world, and at all times, would be thought -absolutely essential to man. But it is not so. The standard -set is always higher than the mere necessity of keeping +In any civilisation you will find a certain amount of things which are +regarded as necessaries. In any civilisation it is thought that human +beings must not be allowed to sink below a certain level, and a certain +amount of clothes of a certain pattern, a certain amount of housing room +and fuel, and a certain amount of food of a certain kind are thought the +very least upon which life can be conducted. Even the poorest are not +allowed to fall below that standard. This does not mean that no one is +allowed to starve or die of insufficient warmth. It means that any +particular civilisation (our own, for instance, or the Chinese) has its +regulation minimum and lets men die rather than fall below it. This +"certain amount," below which even the poorest people's livelihood is +not allowed to fall, is called **THE STANDARD OF SUBSISTENCE.** + +Most people when they first think of these things imagine that there is +some very small amount of necessaries which, all over the world, and at +all times, would be thought absolutely essential to man. But it is not +so. The standard set is always higher than the mere necessity of keeping alive would demand. -For instance, we in this country put into our standard of -necessity clothes of a rather complicated pattern. We should -not tolerate the poorest people going about in blankets. -They must have boots on their feet, which take a lot of -labour and material. We should not tolerate the poorest -people going about barefooted, as they do in many other -countries, nor even with sandals. It is not our custom. They -may die of wet feet through bad leather boots and bad, thin -clothing of our complicated pattern, but they must not wear -wooden shoes or walk barefoot or go about in blankets. - -Again, we do not live on anything at random, but upon cooked -meat and a certain special kind of grain called wheat. There -are some grains much cheaper than wheat; but our custom -demands wheat even for the poorest, if there is not enough -wheat there is a famine, and famine is preferred by society -to the giving up of the wheat standard. Again, we insist -upon even the poorest having a certain amount of protection -against the weather in the way of houses, which must be up -to a certain standard. We do not tolerate their living in -holes in the ground or mud huts. - -One way and another we have set up a certain standard of -subsistence even for the poorest; *and every community in -history has, at all times, lived under this idea of a* -**minimum standard of subsistence.** This is so true that -people will suffer great inconvenience, even to famine, as I -have said, rather than give up the standard of subsistence. -When people are too poor to afford this least amount of what -we think necessaries effort is made to supply them by doles -or a poor rate, or something of that kind; but the standard -is not abandoned. - -Well, this *Minimum Standard of Subsistence* is the first -division in the Wealth produced. The prosperous man, tilling -his own land and possessed of his own capital, consumes, of -course, much more than the bare standard of subsistence -would allow. He eats more food and better food, and has more -and better clothes and house room and fuel and the rest than -the mere standard of subsistence of his civilisation -demands. Nevertheless, even in his case the standard of -subsistence is there. It is a minimum below which, if things -went wrong, he would not fall. Ask him to fall below it and -he would simply fail to do so. He would try to produce that -minimum amount of wealth in some other way, or if he could +For instance, we in this country put into our standard of necessity +clothes of a rather complicated pattern. We should not tolerate the +poorest people going about in blankets. They must have boots on their +feet, which take a lot of labour and material. We should not tolerate +the poorest people going about barefooted, as they do in many other +countries, nor even with sandals. It is not our custom. They may die of +wet feet through bad leather boots and bad, thin clothing of our +complicated pattern, but they must not wear wooden shoes or walk +barefoot or go about in blankets. + +Again, we do not live on anything at random, but upon cooked meat and a +certain special kind of grain called wheat. There are some grains much +cheaper than wheat; but our custom demands wheat even for the poorest, +if there is not enough wheat there is a famine, and famine is preferred +by society to the giving up of the wheat standard. Again, we insist upon +even the poorest having a certain amount of protection against the +weather in the way of houses, which must be up to a certain standard. We +do not tolerate their living in holes in the ground or mud huts. + +One way and another we have set up a certain standard of subsistence +even for the poorest; *and every community in history has, at all times, +lived under this idea of a* **minimum standard of subsistence.** This is +so true that people will suffer great inconvenience, even to famine, as +I have said, rather than give up the standard of subsistence. When +people are too poor to afford this least amount of what we think +necessaries effort is made to supply them by doles or a poor rate, or +something of that kind; but the standard is not abandoned. + +Well, this *Minimum Standard of Subsistence* is the first division in +the Wealth produced. The prosperous man, tilling his own land and +possessed of his own capital, consumes, of course, much more than the +bare standard of subsistence would allow. He eats more food and better +food, and has more and better clothes and house room and fuel and the +rest than the mere standard of subsistence of his civilisation demands. +Nevertheless, even in his case the standard of subsistence is there. It +is a minimum below which, if things went wrong, he would not fall. Ask +him to fall below it and he would simply fail to do so. He would try to +produce that minimum amount of wealth in some other way, or if he could not do that he would die. -This "Standard of Subsistence," which is to be found in its -various shapes in every civilisation, may be called "*The -Worth While of Labour.*" Human energy would not be -forthcoming, the work would not get done, unless at the very -least the person doing the work got this Standard of -Subsistence. In England to-day it is set for a man and his -family at something like 35s. to 40s. a week. One way and -another, counting for allowance in rent and overtime and so -on, even the poorest labourer gets that, and if he did not -get it labour would stop. Our civilisation would run to -famine and plague rather than go below this minimum. - -Another way of putting it is this: Under the standard of -subsistence in our civilisation in England a man must, on -the average, produce something like £2 worth of economic -values a week, otherwise it is not worth while living, not -worth while going on. - -I say "on the average." A great many people, of course, -produce nothing. But there must be an average production of -that amount to keep society going at all, merely in labour, -that is, in human energy and brains. As a fact, of course, -the average production is much higher. But it could not fall -to less than this without the production of wealth gradually +This "Standard of Subsistence," which is to be found in its various +shapes in every civilisation, may be called "*The Worth While of +Labour.*" Human energy would not be forthcoming, the work would not get +done, unless at the very least the person doing the work got this +Standard of Subsistence. In England to-day it is set for a man and his +family at something like 35s. to 40s. a week. One way and another, +counting for allowance in rent and overtime and so on, even the poorest +labourer gets that, and if he did not get it labour would stop. Our +civilisation would run to famine and plague rather than go below this +minimum. + +Another way of putting it is this: Under the standard of subsistence in +our civilisation in England a man must, on the average, produce +something like £2 worth of economic values a week, otherwise it is not +worth while living, not worth while going on. + +I say "on the average." A great many people, of course, produce nothing. +But there must be an average production of that amount to keep society +going at all, merely in labour, that is, in human energy and brains. As +a fact, of course, the average production is much higher. But it could +not fall to less than this without the production of wealth gradually coming to an end. -It is very important to recognise this principle in -Economics, for it is nearly always misunderstood, and it -makes a great difference in our judgment of social problems. -You often hear people speaking as though the subsistence of -their fellows might fall to any level so long as they had so -much weight of food and amount of warmth as would keep them -alive. But it is not so. Every society has its own standard, -and will rather have men emigrate or die than fall below it: -and that standard is the basis of all production. *It must -be satisfied or production ceases.* +It is very important to recognise this principle in Economics, for it is +nearly always misunderstood, and it makes a great difference in our +judgment of social problems. You often hear people speaking as though +the subsistence of their fellows might fall to any level so long as they +had so much weight of food and amount of warmth as would keep them +alive. But it is not so. Every society has its own standard, and will +rather have men emigrate or die than fall below it: and that standard is +the basis of all production. *It must be satisfied or production +ceases.* ### 2. Interest -Now, if this "Worth While of Labour" was all that had to be -considered, things would be a great deal simpler than they -are. Unfortunately, there is another "worth while" from -which one cannot get away, and which makes the second -division in the produce of wealth. This is the "Worth While +Now, if this "Worth While of Labour" was all that had to be considered, +things would be a great deal simpler than they are. Unfortunately, there +is another "worth while" from which one cannot get away, and which makes +the second division in the produce of wealth. This is the "Worth While of Capital": called "Profit" or "Interest." -We must be careful not to mix up "Interest on Money," that -is, the word "interest" in its ordinary conversational use, -with true economic interest. Interest on money does not -really exist. It is either interest on *Real Capital* -(machines, stores, etc.) for which the money is only a -symbol, or else it is usury, that is, the claiming of a -profit which is not really there; and what usury is exactly -we shall see later on. The thing to remember here is that -there is no such thing in Economic Science as Interest on -Money. - -We have seen that Capital cannot come into existence unless -somebody saves. We have also seen that since it is always -being consumed and must be replaced, the saving has got to -go on all the time, if the production of wealth (to which -capital is necessary) is to continue. - -Now, as you will see in a minute, capital cannot be -accumulated without some motive. You only accumulate capital -by doing without a pleasure which you might have at a -certain moment, and putting it off to a future time. You go -without the immediate enjoyment of your wealth in order to -use it for producing further wealth. That means restraint -and sacrifice. - -But restraint and sacrifice require some motive. Why should -a man, or a society, do without a present enjoyment if the -sacrifice is not to be productive of future good? - -What happens is this: A man says: "On my present capital I -can produce so much wealth. If I accumulate more capital I -shall, in the long run, have a larger income. I will -therefore forgo my present pleasure. I will add to my -capital and have more income in the future through my -present self-restraint." Or again: "If I don't *keep up* my -capital by continual saving to replace what is consumed in -production I shall gradually get *less* income." - -But here comes in a very important law of Economics called -"*The Law of Diminishing Returns.*" After a certain point, -capital as it accumulates, does not produce a -*corresponding* amount of extra wealth. It produces some -more, but not as much in proportion. For instance, if you -till a field thoroughly with the use of so many ploughs and -horses and so on, you will get such and such a return. If -you add a great deal more capital in the shape of food for -more labourers and more tillage till you treat the land as a -sort of garden, you produce more wealth from that field; but -though you may have doubled your capital you will not have -doubled your income. You will only have added to it, say, -half as much again. If you were to double your capital -again, making four times your original amount, using a lot -more food for labourers and a lot more implements, you would -again have a larger produce, probably, but perhaps only -double your original amount: *Four* times the original -amount of capital, and only *twice,* say, the old income. - -So the process goes on; and in all forms of the production -of wealth this formula applies, and is true: "*The returns -of increasing capital, so long as the method of production -is not changed, get greater in amount, but less in -proportion to the total capital employed.*" - -Men developing a certain section of natural forces get 10% -on a small capital, perhaps 5%, on a larger one; on a still -larger one only 2½%, and so on, if they apply that capital -to the *same section* of natural forces and in the *same -manner.* - -Well, this advantage which a man gets by adding to his -capital at the expense of present enjoyment can be measured. - -For instance, a man owning a farm and tilling it himself -gets a harvest of 1,000 sacks of wheat. In order to get this -result he must have capital at the beginning of every -year---ploughs and horses, and sacks of grain and what -not---worth altogether 10,000 sacks of wheat. His income, in -wheat, is one-tenth of his capital. Every ten sacks of -capital produces him an income of one sack a year. He says -to himself: "If I were to plough the land more thoroughly -and put on a lot more phosphates and slag and get new, -improved machinery I might get another fifty sacks a year -out of the land, but this new capital will have to be +We must be careful not to mix up "Interest on Money," that is, the word +"interest" in its ordinary conversational use, with true economic +interest. Interest on money does not really exist. It is either interest +on *Real Capital* (machines, stores, etc.) for which the money is only a +symbol, or else it is usury, that is, the claiming of a profit which is +not really there; and what usury is exactly we shall see later on. The +thing to remember here is that there is no such thing in Economic +Science as Interest on Money. + +We have seen that Capital cannot come into existence unless somebody +saves. We have also seen that since it is always being consumed and must +be replaced, the saving has got to go on all the time, if the production +of wealth (to which capital is necessary) is to continue. + +Now, as you will see in a minute, capital cannot be accumulated without +some motive. You only accumulate capital by doing without a pleasure +which you might have at a certain moment, and putting it off to a future +time. You go without the immediate enjoyment of your wealth in order to +use it for producing further wealth. That means restraint and sacrifice. + +But restraint and sacrifice require some motive. Why should a man, or a +society, do without a present enjoyment if the sacrifice is not to be +productive of future good? + +What happens is this: A man says: "On my present capital I can produce +so much wealth. If I accumulate more capital I shall, in the long run, +have a larger income. I will therefore forgo my present pleasure. I will +add to my capital and have more income in the future through my present +self-restraint." Or again: "If I don't *keep up* my capital by continual +saving to replace what is consumed in production I shall gradually get +*less* income." + +But here comes in a very important law of Economics called "*The Law of +Diminishing Returns.*" After a certain point, capital as it accumulates, +does not produce a *corresponding* amount of extra wealth. It produces +some more, but not as much in proportion. For instance, if you till a +field thoroughly with the use of so many ploughs and horses and so on, +you will get such and such a return. If you add a great deal more +capital in the shape of food for more labourers and more tillage till +you treat the land as a sort of garden, you produce more wealth from +that field; but though you may have doubled your capital you will not +have doubled your income. You will only have added to it, say, half as +much again. If you were to double your capital again, making four times +your original amount, using a lot more food for labourers and a lot more +implements, you would again have a larger produce, probably, but perhaps +only double your original amount: *Four* times the original amount of +capital, and only *twice,* say, the old income. + +So the process goes on; and in all forms of the production of wealth +this formula applies, and is true: "*The returns of increasing capital, +so long as the method of production is not changed, get greater in +amount, but less in proportion to the total capital employed.*" + +Men developing a certain section of natural forces get 10% on a small +capital, perhaps 5%, on a larger one; on a still larger one only 2½%, +and so on, if they apply that capital to the *same section* of natural +forces and in the *same manner.* + +Well, this advantage which a man gets by adding to his capital at the +expense of present enjoyment can be measured. + +For instance, a man owning a farm and tilling it himself gets a harvest +of 1,000 sacks of wheat. In order to get this result he must have +capital at the beginning of every year---ploughs and horses, and sacks +of grain and what not---worth altogether 10,000 sacks of wheat. His +income, in wheat, is one-tenth of his capital. Every ten sacks of +capital produces him an income of one sack a year. He says to himself: +"If I were to plough the land more thoroughly and put on a lot more +phosphates and slag and get new, improved machinery I might get another +fifty sacks a year out of the land, but this new capital will have to be saved." -He carefully saves on every harvest, exchanging the wheat -for the things he needs in the way of new capital, until, -after a few years, the implements and the phosphates and -slag and the rest on his land, and all his other capital is -worth much more than it used to be. - -Instead of being worth only *one* thousand sacks, his -capital is now worth *two* thousand sacks, and he gets the -reward for his putting by and doing without immediate -enjoyment in the shape of a larger harvest. But though he -has doubled his capital he has not doubled his income. -Instead of the old income of 100 sacks of wheat he is now -getting 150 sacks of wheat. Thus though his income is -larger, the proportion of that income to the total capital -is less. For 1,000 sacks of capital he got 100 sacks of -wheat at harvest; but now for 2,000 sacks of capital he only -gets 150 sacks at the harvest. Or (as we put it in modern -language), his income is no longer 10% on his capital, but -7½ % only. He has a larger income, but it is smaller in -proportion to the capital invested. - -Now, although the 2,000 of capital invested is thus bringing -him in a smaller *proportion* of income than the old 1,000 -did, he thinks it worth while: because he is at any rate -getting more *income;* 150 sacks instead of only 100. But -there must come a time when he will no longer think it worth -while to go on saving. Supposing he finds, for instance, -that after taking all the trouble to accumulate and apply to -his land capital to the value of 10,000 sacks of wheat, he -gets only 200 sacks, that is 2% annual reward for all this -saving, he will not think it good enough, and he will stop -saving. The point where he stops, the return below which he -does not think it worth while to save, marks the *minimum -profits of capital.* A man is delighted, of course, to have -*more* profit than this if he can. But the point is, he will -not take *less.* Rather than make less than a certain -proportion of income to his capital he will stop saving, and -spend all he has in immediate enjoyment. - -It is this obvious truth which makes the second great -division in the produce of wealth. You must, as we have -seen, produce enough to keep labour going. That is, you must -produce enough to satisfy the standard of subsistence in -your society; *but you must also produce enough more to keep -capital accumulating.* You must produce, over and above -subsistence, whatever happens to be the amount of *profits* -for which capital will accumulate in any particular society -(with us, to-day, it is about 5%). - -It is very important to observe that this second division, -Profit, or Interest, must always be present, no matter how -the capital is owned and controlled, no matter who gets the -profit. - -Some people have thought that if you were to take capital -away from the rich men who now own most of it and to give it -to the politicians to manage for everybody, this division, -Profit, would disappear. But it is not so. The people who -were managing the capital for the benefit of everybody would -have to tell the electors that they could not have all the -wealth produced to consume as they chose: a certain amount -would have to be kept back, and people would only consent to -have a certain amount kept back on condition that they got -an advantage in the future as a reward of their immediate -sacrifice. Even if you had a Despot at the head of the State -who cared nothing for people's opinions, this division of -profit would still be there; for it would be mere waste to -accumulate capital at a heavy sacrifice to himself and his -subjects, unless it produced a future reward. - -If the Despot said, "This year you must do without *half* -your usual amount of leisure and without *half* your usual -amounts, pay *double* for your cinemas and for your beer, -and all that in order to earn one hundredth more leisure and -amusements next year," it would be found intolerable. - -So it comes to this: There are always present in the process -of production two agents, Capital and Labour, and each of -these must have in one form or another its "Worth While," -otherwise it wont go on. You must satisfy the "Worth While -of Labour" and you must satisfy the "Worth While of -Capital." If you do not, labour stops working and capital -stops accumulating, and the whole business of production -breaks down. - -(Of course, we must be careful to distinguish between the -case of a private man increasing his investments and the -general increase of capital as applied to an unchanging area -of natural forces. John Smith having £1 ,000 invested at 5% -can save another £1,000 and another and many more, and still -get 5%. But that is because he is saving and makes up for -others wasting, or because his saving is so small a -proportion of the total Capital of Society that it has no -appreciable effect. But if the total Capital of Society be -thus increased the Law of Diminishing Returns eventually -comes into play.) +He carefully saves on every harvest, exchanging the wheat for the things +he needs in the way of new capital, until, after a few years, the +implements and the phosphates and slag and the rest on his land, and all +his other capital is worth much more than it used to be. + +Instead of being worth only *one* thousand sacks, his capital is now +worth *two* thousand sacks, and he gets the reward for his putting by +and doing without immediate enjoyment in the shape of a larger harvest. +But though he has doubled his capital he has not doubled his income. +Instead of the old income of 100 sacks of wheat he is now getting 150 +sacks of wheat. Thus though his income is larger, the proportion of that +income to the total capital is less. For 1,000 sacks of capital he got +100 sacks of wheat at harvest; but now for 2,000 sacks of capital he +only gets 150 sacks at the harvest. Or (as we put it in modern +language), his income is no longer 10% on his capital, but 7½ % only. He +has a larger income, but it is smaller in proportion to the capital +invested. + +Now, although the 2,000 of capital invested is thus bringing him in a +smaller *proportion* of income than the old 1,000 did, he thinks it +worth while: because he is at any rate getting more *income;* 150 sacks +instead of only 100. But there must come a time when he will no longer +think it worth while to go on saving. Supposing he finds, for instance, +that after taking all the trouble to accumulate and apply to his land +capital to the value of 10,000 sacks of wheat, he gets only 200 sacks, +that is 2% annual reward for all this saving, he will not think it good +enough, and he will stop saving. The point where he stops, the return +below which he does not think it worth while to save, marks the *minimum +profits of capital.* A man is delighted, of course, to have *more* +profit than this if he can. But the point is, he will not take *less.* +Rather than make less than a certain proportion of income to his capital +he will stop saving, and spend all he has in immediate enjoyment. + +It is this obvious truth which makes the second great division in the +produce of wealth. You must, as we have seen, produce enough to keep +labour going. That is, you must produce enough to satisfy the standard +of subsistence in your society; *but you must also produce enough more +to keep capital accumulating.* You must produce, over and above +subsistence, whatever happens to be the amount of *profits* for which +capital will accumulate in any particular society (with us, to-day, it +is about 5%). + +It is very important to observe that this second division, Profit, or +Interest, must always be present, no matter how the capital is owned and +controlled, no matter who gets the profit. + +Some people have thought that if you were to take capital away from the +rich men who now own most of it and to give it to the politicians to +manage for everybody, this division, Profit, would disappear. But it is +not so. The people who were managing the capital for the benefit of +everybody would have to tell the electors that they could not have all +the wealth produced to consume as they chose: a certain amount would +have to be kept back, and people would only consent to have a certain +amount kept back on condition that they got an advantage in the future +as a reward of their immediate sacrifice. Even if you had a Despot at +the head of the State who cared nothing for people's opinions, this +division of profit would still be there; for it would be mere waste to +accumulate capital at a heavy sacrifice to himself and his subjects, +unless it produced a future reward. + +If the Despot said, "This year you must do without *half* your usual +amount of leisure and without *half* your usual amounts, pay *double* +for your cinemas and for your beer, and all that in order to earn one +hundredth more leisure and amusements next year," it would be found +intolerable. + +So it comes to this: There are always present in the process of +production two agents, Capital and Labour, and each of these must have +in one form or another its "Worth While," otherwise it wont go on. You +must satisfy the "Worth While of Labour" and you must satisfy the "Worth +While of Capital." If you do not, labour stops working and capital stops +accumulating, and the whole business of production breaks down. + +(Of course, we must be careful to distinguish between the case of a +private man increasing his investments and the general increase of +capital as applied to an unchanging area of natural forces. John Smith +having £1 ,000 invested at 5% can save another £1,000 and another and +many more, and still get 5%. But that is because he is saving and makes +up for others wasting, or because his saving is so small a proportion of +the total Capital of Society that it has no appreciable effect. But if +the total Capital of Society be thus increased the Law of Diminishing +Returns eventually comes into play.) ### 3. Rent We arrive through this at the third division, *Rent.* -Under some circumstances the "Worth While of Labour" and the -"Worth While of Capital" can just barely be earned, and no -more. Under those circumstances production will take place, -but under worse circumstances it will not. - -For instance, where there is very light, sandy soil near a -heath a man finds that by putting a thousand pounds of -capital on to a hundred acres of land he can get his bare -subsistence and £50 worth of produce over: 5%, on his -capital. It is worth his while to cultivate that land, just -barely worth his while. He also possesses land on a still -more sandy part over the boundary of the heath itself. He -calculates that if he were laboriously to save another -£1,000 and take in 100 acres of the new, worse land, he -would make the bare subsistence of the labour employed upon -it, but only £10 extra, that is, only 1% on his new capital. -He would say: "This is not worth while," and the too-sandy -bit of land would go uncultivated. - -When the conditions are such that the capital and labour -applied to them *just* get their worth while and no more, -those conditions are said to be "*on the margin of -production,*" which means that they are the worst conditions -under which men in a particular society will consent to -produce wealth at all. Put them on conditions still worse, -and they will not produce. - -Now the existence of this Margin of Production creates the -third division in Wealth, which is called **RENT.** - -*Rent is the surplus over and above the minimum required by -labour and capital out of the total produce.* (We must be -careful, as we saw in the case of "Interest" not to confuse -true economic Rent with "Rent" in the conversational sense. -Thus what is called "the rent" of a house is part of it true -economic rent, but part of it interest on the accumulated or -saved wealth, the *Capital* of its bricks and mortar and -building.) - -Take the case of a seam of coal, which at one end of its run -crops out on the surface, a couple of miles on is only 1,000 -feet below the surface, but dips down gradually until, -within twenty miles, it is 10,000 feet below the surface. - -Under the conditions of the society in which the coal is -being mined, and in the state which the science of mining -has reached, it is found that, at a depth of 5,000 feet, -this seam is *just* worth while mining: that is, the capital -which has to be accumulated for sinking the shafts and -bringing the miners up and down from their work, and raising -the coal to the surface, and providing subsistence for the -miners at their work, *just barely* gets the profit below -which it would not be worth while to use it. - -A shaft sunk at this depth, for instance, and the machinery -and stores cost £10,000, and when you get the coal to the -surface that coal will pay the standard of subsistence of -the labourers and leave £500 profit for capital; that is, -5%. Capital will not accumulate if it gets less than 5%. -Labour will not be exercised if it gets less than its -standard subsistence; therefore, the coal which lies farther -along the seam, deeper than 5,000 feet, will be left -untouched. It is not "worth while" to sink a shaft to try -and get it. It is "below the Margin of Production." +Under some circumstances the "Worth While of Labour" and the "Worth +While of Capital" can just barely be earned, and no more. Under those +circumstances production will take place, but under worse circumstances +it will not. + +For instance, where there is very light, sandy soil near a heath a man +finds that by putting a thousand pounds of capital on to a hundred acres +of land he can get his bare subsistence and £50 worth of produce over: +5%, on his capital. It is worth his while to cultivate that land, just +barely worth his while. He also possesses land on a still more sandy +part over the boundary of the heath itself. He calculates that if he +were laboriously to save another £1,000 and take in 100 acres of the +new, worse land, he would make the bare subsistence of the labour +employed upon it, but only £10 extra, that is, only 1% on his new +capital. He would say: "This is not worth while," and the too-sandy bit +of land would go uncultivated. + +When the conditions are such that the capital and labour applied to them +*just* get their worth while and no more, those conditions are said to +be "*on the margin of production,*" which means that they are the worst +conditions under which men in a particular society will consent to +produce wealth at all. Put them on conditions still worse, and they will +not produce. + +Now the existence of this Margin of Production creates the third +division in Wealth, which is called **RENT.** + +*Rent is the surplus over and above the minimum required by labour and +capital out of the total produce.* (We must be careful, as we saw in the +case of "Interest" not to confuse true economic Rent with "Rent" in the +conversational sense. Thus what is called "the rent" of a house is part +of it true economic rent, but part of it interest on the accumulated or +saved wealth, the *Capital* of its bricks and mortar and building.) + +Take the case of a seam of coal, which at one end of its run crops out +on the surface, a couple of miles on is only 1,000 feet below the +surface, but dips down gradually until, within twenty miles, it is +10,000 feet below the surface. + +Under the conditions of the society in which the coal is being mined, +and in the state which the science of mining has reached, it is found +that, at a depth of 5,000 feet, this seam is *just* worth while mining: +that is, the capital which has to be accumulated for sinking the shafts +and bringing the miners up and down from their work, and raising the +coal to the surface, and providing subsistence for the miners at their +work, *just barely* gets the profit below which it would not be worth +while to use it. + +A shaft sunk at this depth, for instance, and the machinery and stores +cost £10,000, and when you get the coal to the surface that coal will +pay the standard of subsistence of the labourers and leave £500 profit +for capital; that is, 5%. Capital will not accumulate if it gets less +than 5%. Labour will not be exercised if it gets less than its standard +subsistence; therefore, the coal which lies farther along the seam, +deeper than 5,000 feet, will be left untouched. It is not "worth while" +to sink a shaft to try and get it. It is "below the Margin of +Production." ![image](assets/MarginOfProduction.png) -What happens to the coal in the places where it gets nearer -and nearer to the surface? Obviously, it is better worth -while to sink shafts there than it is at 5,000 feet. You -only want the same amount of labour for cutting the coal -out, whether it is 5,000 feet below the surface or 2,000, -and you want much less capital and labour in sinking the -shafts and bringing the coal to the surface and getting the -miners up and down. There is, therefore, a surplus. Thus -with a shaft only 2,000 feet deep you need, say, only £5,000 -worth of capital to get £500 worth of coal over and above -the subsistence of the labourers. 5% on £5,000 is £250---so -in that case there is a benefit of an extra £250 *after* the -"worth while" of Capital and Labour are satisfied. Over and -above what is just the "worth while" of capital and labour -for getting the coal you have in the shallower mines extra -value, and that extra value gets larger and larger as the -distance of the coal from the surface gets less and less. -The deepest mine is on what we call "the margin of -production." It is just worth while to work it. The surplus -values in all the shallower mines are called RENT. If a -landlord owned the coal in quite a shallow part where it was -within a thousand feet of the surface, he could say to the -labourers and the owners of capital who were coming to dig -it out: "The mine which is working at 5,000 feet is just -worth your while. If you work here at 1,000 feet you will -have a great deal more than 5% on your capital, and the -subsistence of labour is just the same. All this extra -amount of values, however, I must have, otherwise you shall -not work my coal." - -Since the Capitalists are content to accumulate capital for -a return of 5% and the labourers to work for their -subsistence, the extra amount is paid to the landlord. If -one set of people refuse to pay it, there will always be -another set of people who will be content to pay it and this -extra amount or surplus is called "Economic *Rent,*" which -is something, of course, much more strictly defined than, -and different from, what we call Rent in ordinary -conversation. - -Or again, take three farms of equal area but varying -fertility. Each requires £1,000 capital to stock it and five -labourers to work it. The £1,000 capital demands £50 a year -profit. The five labourers need £500 in a year to meet their -standard of subsistence. The poorest farm raises just £550 -worth of produce a year. The next best raises £750, and the -best one £950 worth. Then there is no economic rent on the -first; it lies on the "margin of production." There is £200 -economic rent a year on the second, and £400 on the third. - -We can sum the whole thing up and say that on the mass of -all production there are three charges: +What happens to the coal in the places where it gets nearer and nearer +to the surface? Obviously, it is better worth while to sink shafts there +than it is at 5,000 feet. You only want the same amount of labour for +cutting the coal out, whether it is 5,000 feet below the surface or +2,000, and you want much less capital and labour in sinking the shafts +and bringing the coal to the surface and getting the miners up and down. +There is, therefore, a surplus. Thus with a shaft only 2,000 feet deep +you need, say, only £5,000 worth of capital to get £500 worth of coal +over and above the subsistence of the labourers. 5% on £5,000 is +£250---so in that case there is a benefit of an extra £250 *after* the +"worth while" of Capital and Labour are satisfied. Over and above what +is just the "worth while" of capital and labour for getting the coal you +have in the shallower mines extra value, and that extra value gets +larger and larger as the distance of the coal from the surface gets less +and less. The deepest mine is on what we call "the margin of +production." It is just worth while to work it. The surplus values in +all the shallower mines are called RENT. If a landlord owned the coal in +quite a shallow part where it was within a thousand feet of the surface, +he could say to the labourers and the owners of capital who were coming +to dig it out: "The mine which is working at 5,000 feet is just worth +your while. If you work here at 1,000 feet you will have a great deal +more than 5% on your capital, and the subsistence of labour is just the +same. All this extra amount of values, however, I must have, otherwise +you shall not work my coal." + +Since the Capitalists are content to accumulate capital for a return of +5% and the labourers to work for their subsistence, the extra amount is +paid to the landlord. If one set of people refuse to pay it, there will +always be another set of people who will be content to pay it and this +extra amount or surplus is called "Economic *Rent,*" which is something, +of course, much more strictly defined than, and different from, what we +call Rent in ordinary conversation. + +Or again, take three farms of equal area but varying fertility. Each +requires £1,000 capital to stock it and five labourers to work it. The +£1,000 capital demands £50 a year profit. The five labourers need £500 +in a year to meet their standard of subsistence. The poorest farm raises +just £550 worth of produce a year. The next best raises £750, and the +best one £950 worth. Then there is no economic rent on the first; it +lies on the "margin of production." There is £200 economic rent a year +on the second, and £400 on the third. + +We can sum the whole thing up and say that on the mass of all production +there are three charges: 1. **First, the charge for the subsistence of labour.** -2. **Next, the charge of profits, or interest, for the - reward of capital, that is, of saving, and lastly** - -3. **In varying amounts, rising from nothing at the margin - of production, to larger and larger amounts under more - favourable circumstances, the surplus value called - Economic Rent.** - -These three divisions are always present whenever wealth is -produced. The same man may get all three at once, as happens -when a farmer works good land which is his own. Or again, -when one man owns the fertile land and another man provides -the capital, and yet another man provides the labour, the -three divisions appear as three incomes of Labourer, Farmer -and Landlord receiving separately Wages, Profit and Rent. -Whether these divisions appear openly, paid to different -classes of men, or whether they are concealed by all coming -into the same hands, they are present everywhere and always. -That is a fixed economic law from which there is no getting -away. - -Always remember that these economic laws are in no way -binding in a social sense. They are not laws like moral -laws, which men are bound to obey. They are certain -mathematical consequences of the very nature of wealth and -its production, which men must take into account when they -make their social arrangements. It does not follow because -Rent or Interest are present that such and such rich men, or -the State, or the labourers, have a right to them. That is -for the moralist to decide; and men can in such matters make -what arrangements they will. All economic science can tell -us is how to distinguish between the three divisions, and to -remember that they are inevitable and necessary. But we must -wait until a little later on to discuss social rights and -wrongs under Applied Economics and continue here for the -present to confine ourselves to the Elements of economic law -alone. +2. **Next, the charge of profits, or interest, for the reward of + capital, that is, of saving, and lastly** + +3. **In varying amounts, rising from nothing at the margin of + production, to larger and larger amounts under more favourable + circumstances, the surplus value called Economic Rent.** + +These three divisions are always present whenever wealth is produced. +The same man may get all three at once, as happens when a farmer works +good land which is his own. Or again, when one man owns the fertile land +and another man provides the capital, and yet another man provides the +labour, the three divisions appear as three incomes of Labourer, Farmer +and Landlord receiving separately Wages, Profit and Rent. Whether these +divisions appear openly, paid to different classes of men, or whether +they are concealed by all coming into the same hands, they are present +everywhere and always. That is a fixed economic law from which there is +no getting away. + +Always remember that these economic laws are in no way binding in a +social sense. They are not laws like moral laws, which men are bound to +obey. They are certain mathematical consequences of the very nature of +wealth and its production, which men must take into account when they +make their social arrangements. It does not follow because Rent or +Interest are present that such and such rich men, or the State, or the +labourers, have a right to them. That is for the moralist to decide; and +men can in such matters make what arrangements they will. All economic +science can tell us is how to distinguish between the three divisions, +and to remember that they are inevitable and necessary. But we must wait +until a little later on to discuss social rights and wrongs under +Applied Economics and continue here for the present to confine ourselves +to the Elements of economic law alone. ## Exchange -**Exchange** is really only a form of production, as we saw -in the illustration of the island with salt and the -main-land with meat. When the exchange of the things is of -advantage to both parties it creates wealth for both, and -profitable exchange is, therefore, when it takes place, only -the last step in a general chain of production. - -But Exchange is so separate an action that students of -Economics have agreed to treat it as a sort of chapter by -itself, and we will do so here. - -The characteristic of Exchange is that you take a thing from -a place where it has less value to a place where it has more -value, thus adding an economic value to the thing moved and -so creating wealth. In the same transaction you bring back -something else against it, which has more value in your own -place than it had in the place from which you took it, that -is again adding an economic value and therefore creating -wealth. We saw how this was in the case of the salt and the -meat, and so it is with thousands upon thousands of -exchanges going on all over the world. - -For instance, we in England have grown fond of drinking tea -in the last 200 years. But our climate will not allow us to -grow tea. Tea can only grow in a very hot country. - -Now in very hot countries specially heavy labour upon metal -work is not to be expected. Men are not fit for it. But in -this cool climate men are fit for it, and also men here have -through long practice become very skilful at working metal: -smelting iron, for instance, and making it up into machines. - -Therefore, there is a double advantage to us and to the -people who live in the hot countries where tea is grown if -we *exchange.* We send them metal things that we have made -and which are useful to them, and which they could hardly -make themselves, or only with very great difficulty (and, -therefore, at a great expense of energy), and we get from -them tea, which we could not grow here except in hot houses: -that is, at much more expense of energy than is needed in -the countries where tea grows naturally out of doors. - -W'hen there are present two or more objects of this kind, -such that the exchange of them between two places will -benefit both parties, we may speak of "*a potential of -exchange,*" stronger or weaker according to the amount of -mutual advantage derived. - -This word "potential" you will not find yet in many books, -but it is coming in, for it is a very useful word. It is -taken by way of metaphor from Physical Science. When there -is a head of water over a dam, or a current of electricity -of such and such an intensity, we talk of the "*potential*" -and measure it. For instance, we say this electrical current -is double the potential of that, or the head of water -working such and such turbines is at double the potential of -another head of water in the neighbourhood. In the same way -we talk of a "potential" of exchange, meaning a tendency for -exchange to arise between two places or people because it is -of mutual benefit to both. - -Potentials of exchange come into existence not only through -difference of climate or differences of habit, but also -through what is called the *Differentiation of Employment,* -which is also called Division of Labour. - -Thus two countries may be both equally able to produce, say, -metal work and silk fabrics, and yet if one of them -concentrates on getting better and better at metal work and -the other on getting better and better at silk fabrics, it -may well be that both will benefit by separating their jobs -and exchanging the results. And this is true not only of two +**Exchange** is really only a form of production, as we saw in the +illustration of the island with salt and the main-land with meat. When +the exchange of the things is of advantage to both parties it creates +wealth for both, and profitable exchange is, therefore, when it takes +place, only the last step in a general chain of production. + +But Exchange is so separate an action that students of Economics have +agreed to treat it as a sort of chapter by itself, and we will do so +here. + +The characteristic of Exchange is that you take a thing from a place +where it has less value to a place where it has more value, thus adding +an economic value to the thing moved and so creating wealth. In the same +transaction you bring back something else against it, which has more +value in your own place than it had in the place from which you took it, +that is again adding an economic value and therefore creating wealth. We +saw how this was in the case of the salt and the meat, and so it is with +thousands upon thousands of exchanges going on all over the world. + +For instance, we in England have grown fond of drinking tea in the last +200 years. But our climate will not allow us to grow tea. Tea can only +grow in a very hot country. + +Now in very hot countries specially heavy labour upon metal work is not +to be expected. Men are not fit for it. But in this cool climate men are +fit for it, and also men here have through long practice become very +skilful at working metal: smelting iron, for instance, and making it up +into machines. + +Therefore, there is a double advantage to us and to the people who live +in the hot countries where tea is grown if we *exchange.* We send them +metal things that we have made and which are useful to them, and which +they could hardly make themselves, or only with very great difficulty +(and, therefore, at a great expense of energy), and we get from them +tea, which we could not grow here except in hot houses: that is, at much +more expense of energy than is needed in the countries where tea grows +naturally out of doors. + +W'hen there are present two or more objects of this kind, such that the +exchange of them between two places will benefit both parties, we may +speak of "*a potential of exchange,*" stronger or weaker according to +the amount of mutual advantage derived. + +This word "potential" you will not find yet in many books, but it is +coming in, for it is a very useful word. It is taken by way of metaphor +from Physical Science. When there is a head of water over a dam, or a +current of electricity of such and such an intensity, we talk of the +"*potential*" and measure it. For instance, we say this electrical +current is double the potential of that, or the head of water working +such and such turbines is at double the potential of another head of +water in the neighbourhood. In the same way we talk of a "potential" of +exchange, meaning a tendency for exchange to arise between two places or +people because it is of mutual benefit to both. + +Potentials of exchange come into existence not only through difference +of climate or differences of habit, but also through what is called the +*Differentiation of Employment,* which is also called Division of +Labour. + +Thus two countries may be both equally able to produce, say, metal work +and silk fabrics, and yet if one of them concentrates on getting better +and better at metal work and the other on getting better and better at +silk fabrics, it may well be that both will benefit by separating their +jobs and exchanging the results. And this is true not only of two countries, but of individuals and groups. -The cobbler does not make his own clothes. He makes boots, -and by learning his trade and getting used to it makes them -much better and in a much shorter time than other men could, -and therefore makes a pair of boots with less expense of -energy, that is, *cheaper,* than another man would. The -tailor can say the same thing about making clothes. So it is -to the advantage of the cobbler to exchange his extra boots -against the extra clothes the tailor has made. - -In general: intelligent societies always tend to build up a -very wide-spread system of exchange, because intelligent -people tend to concentrate each on the job that suits him -best, and also because intelligent people discover -differences of climate and soil and the rest which may make -exchange between two places a mutual advantage for both. - -It is indeed a great mistake to do as some modern people do, -and put Exchange in front of Production. Thus you hear -people talking as though the trade a country does, the total -amount of its exports and imports, were the test of its -prosperity, whereas the real test of its prosperity is what -it has the power to consume, not what it manages to -exchange. - -But still, though it comes at the end of Production and must -never be made more important than the whole process of -Production, Exchange is present universally wherever there -is active production of Wealth. Thus the group of people who -build ships are really exchanging what they make against the -produce of other people who make clothes and grow food and -build houses, and the rest of it; and in a highly-civilised -country like ours much the greater part of the wealth you -see consumed around you has gone through many processes of -exchange. - -There are a few elementary Formulae concerning Exchange -which it is important to remember. - -1\. **There is a Potential of Exchange, that is, exchange -tends to take place, when of two objects the proportionate -values are different in two different communities.** - -It is not very easy to understand the meaning of this until -one is given an example. Supposing a ton of coal from -England to be worth £2 by the time it is delivered in Cadiz, -and supposing that making a dozen bottles of wine in -England, with all the apparatus of hot-house grapes and the -rest of it, came to £5 of expense. Supposing that in Cadiz, -from the small coal mines near by, they can produce coal at -only £1 a ton, but on account of their climate they can -produce a dozen of wine for a shilling. Then you get this -curious situation: - -It pays the exporting country, England, to sell coal in -Cadiz *at less than its English economic value,* and to -import the wine from Cadiz. It pays your English owner of -coal, although the values attaching to it by the time it has -got to Cadiz are £2 a ton, to sell a ton of coal there for -only £1, and to exchange that against the wine of Cadiz, and -bring that back to England. At first sight it sounds absurd -to say that selling thus at a lower value than the cost of -production and transport can possibly be profitable. - -But if you will look at it closely you will see that it is -so. - -If the Englishman had tried to make his wine at home it -would have cost him £100 to make twenty dozen bottles, but -when he has sold his coal at Cadiz for £1 he can with that -£1 buy twenty dozen of wine and bring it back to England. He -is much the wealthier by the transaction, and so is the man -at Cadiz. The Cadiz man could have spent his energies in -digging out a ton of coal near Cadiz instead of importing -it, but the same energies used in making wine produce enough -wine to get him rather more coal from England. - -2\. The second Formula to remember about Exchange is this: -**Goods do not directly exchange always one against the -other, but usually in a much more complicated way, by what -may be called** *Multiple Exchange.* - -Of course, the vehicle by which this is done is a currency, -or *money,* which I will explain in a moment; but the point -to seize here is that exchange is just as truly taking place -when there is no direct barter of two things but a much -longer and complicated process. - -For instance, a group of people called a Railway Company in -the Argentine want a locomotive. A locomotive can be -produced cheaper and better, that is, with less expenditure -of energy for the result, in England than in the Argentine. -But on the other hand, England wants to import tea. Now the -Argentine grows no tea. What happens? How does England get -the tea? That locomotive goes out to the Argentine. An -amount of wheat sufficient to exchange against the -locomotive goes against it, not to England, but to Holland, -a country which, like us, has to import a lot of wheat. As -against the wheat sent to Holland, the people in Holland -send, say, the cheeses which they make so well, on account -of their special conditions, and the consignment goes to -Germany. The Germans send out a number of rails equivalent -to the number of cheeses and of the wheat and of the -locomotive, as they are very good at making rails, and have -specialised on it. But they do not send the rails to -Holland. They send them to some Railway Company which has -asked for them in Egypt. The Egyptian people send out an -equivalent amount of cotton, which they can grow easily in -their climate, and this cotton goes to mills in India, and -against it there comes an equivalent amount of tea, but the -tea does not go back to Egypt. It goes to England. - -There you have a circle of Multiple Exchange in which -everybody profits by the exchange going on, although it is -indirect. In the same way, of course, it is true that all of -our domestic exchanges at home are multiple. If I write a -book which people want to read, whereas I want not books but -several other things, boots and fuel and furniture, I do not -take my books round to the man who provides boots and to the -one who provides fuel and to the one who provides furniture, -I go through the process of selling my book to a publisher, -and through an instrument he gives me, called a cheque (I -will explain this when we come to the point of money), I can -obtain boots and fuel and furniture to the amount of the -value of the books of mine which my publisher will sell. Yet -when exchange is thus highly indirect and multiple it is -just as much exchange as though I went and bartered one book -for one pair of boots with the cobbler. - -3\. The third thing to remember about Exchange is of the -utmost importance, because it has given rise to one of the -biggest discussions of our English politics. The Formula -runs thus:--- - -**Other things being equal, the greatest freedom of exchange -in any given area makes for the greatest amount of wealth in -that area.** - -It ought to be self evident, but it is astonishing how -muddled people get about it, when they become confused over -details and cannot see the wood for the trees. It ought, I -say, to be self-evident that if you leave Exchange quite -free, anybody being at liberty to produce what he can -produce best, and exchange it for things which other men can -produce better than he, both parties will tend to be the -richer by such freedom and the wealth of the whole country -will be greatest when all exchanges in it are thus left free -to be worked by the sense of advantage. - -If there were a law, for instance, preventing me from buying -etchings, or preventing Jones, the etcher, from buying -books, Jones would have to write his own books (or do -without them, which is what he would do), and I should have -to etch my own etchings, which would be exceedingly poor -compared with the wonderful etchings of Jones. We are -obviously both of us better off if we are left free to -exchange what we can each make best. And so it is with all -the countless things made in a State. - -This principle applies not only to a particular nation but -to the whole world. If you left the whole world free to -exchange the whole world would be the richer for it. And any -interference with exchange between one nation and another -lessens the total possible amount of wealth there might be -in the world. - -So far so good; and, as I have said, such a truth ought to -be self-evident. But here there comes in a misunderstanding -of its application, and that misunderstanding has made any -amount of trouble. It is so important that I must give it a -separate division to itself. +The cobbler does not make his own clothes. He makes boots, and by +learning his trade and getting used to it makes them much better and in +a much shorter time than other men could, and therefore makes a pair of +boots with less expense of energy, that is, *cheaper,* than another man +would. The tailor can say the same thing about making clothes. So it is +to the advantage of the cobbler to exchange his extra boots against the +extra clothes the tailor has made. + +In general: intelligent societies always tend to build up a very +wide-spread system of exchange, because intelligent people tend to +concentrate each on the job that suits him best, and also because +intelligent people discover differences of climate and soil and the rest +which may make exchange between two places a mutual advantage for both. + +It is indeed a great mistake to do as some modern people do, and put +Exchange in front of Production. Thus you hear people talking as though +the trade a country does, the total amount of its exports and imports, +were the test of its prosperity, whereas the real test of its prosperity +is what it has the power to consume, not what it manages to exchange. + +But still, though it comes at the end of Production and must never be +made more important than the whole process of Production, Exchange is +present universally wherever there is active production of Wealth. Thus +the group of people who build ships are really exchanging what they make +against the produce of other people who make clothes and grow food and +build houses, and the rest of it; and in a highly-civilised country like +ours much the greater part of the wealth you see consumed around you has +gone through many processes of exchange. + +There are a few elementary Formulae concerning Exchange which it is +important to remember. + +1\. **There is a Potential of Exchange, that is, exchange tends to take +place, when of two objects the proportionate values are different in two +different communities.** + +It is not very easy to understand the meaning of this until one is given +an example. Supposing a ton of coal from England to be worth £2 by the +time it is delivered in Cadiz, and supposing that making a dozen bottles +of wine in England, with all the apparatus of hot-house grapes and the +rest of it, came to £5 of expense. Supposing that in Cadiz, from the +small coal mines near by, they can produce coal at only £1 a ton, but on +account of their climate they can produce a dozen of wine for a +shilling. Then you get this curious situation: + +It pays the exporting country, England, to sell coal in Cadiz *at less +than its English economic value,* and to import the wine from Cadiz. It +pays your English owner of coal, although the values attaching to it by +the time it has got to Cadiz are £2 a ton, to sell a ton of coal there +for only £1, and to exchange that against the wine of Cadiz, and bring +that back to England. At first sight it sounds absurd to say that +selling thus at a lower value than the cost of production and transport +can possibly be profitable. + +But if you will look at it closely you will see that it is so. + +If the Englishman had tried to make his wine at home it would have cost +him £100 to make twenty dozen bottles, but when he has sold his coal at +Cadiz for £1 he can with that £1 buy twenty dozen of wine and bring it +back to England. He is much the wealthier by the transaction, and so is +the man at Cadiz. The Cadiz man could have spent his energies in digging +out a ton of coal near Cadiz instead of importing it, but the same +energies used in making wine produce enough wine to get him rather more +coal from England. + +2\. The second Formula to remember about Exchange is this: **Goods do +not directly exchange always one against the other, but usually in a +much more complicated way, by what may be called** *Multiple Exchange.* + +Of course, the vehicle by which this is done is a currency, or *money,* +which I will explain in a moment; but the point to seize here is that +exchange is just as truly taking place when there is no direct barter of +two things but a much longer and complicated process. + +For instance, a group of people called a Railway Company in the +Argentine want a locomotive. A locomotive can be produced cheaper and +better, that is, with less expenditure of energy for the result, in +England than in the Argentine. But on the other hand, England wants to +import tea. Now the Argentine grows no tea. What happens? How does +England get the tea? That locomotive goes out to the Argentine. An +amount of wheat sufficient to exchange against the locomotive goes +against it, not to England, but to Holland, a country which, like us, +has to import a lot of wheat. As against the wheat sent to Holland, the +people in Holland send, say, the cheeses which they make so well, on +account of their special conditions, and the consignment goes to +Germany. The Germans send out a number of rails equivalent to the number +of cheeses and of the wheat and of the locomotive, as they are very good +at making rails, and have specialised on it. But they do not send the +rails to Holland. They send them to some Railway Company which has asked +for them in Egypt. The Egyptian people send out an equivalent amount of +cotton, which they can grow easily in their climate, and this cotton +goes to mills in India, and against it there comes an equivalent amount +of tea, but the tea does not go back to Egypt. It goes to England. + +There you have a circle of Multiple Exchange in which everybody profits +by the exchange going on, although it is indirect. In the same way, of +course, it is true that all of our domestic exchanges at home are +multiple. If I write a book which people want to read, whereas I want +not books but several other things, boots and fuel and furniture, I do +not take my books round to the man who provides boots and to the one who +provides fuel and to the one who provides furniture, I go through the +process of selling my book to a publisher, and through an instrument he +gives me, called a cheque (I will explain this when we come to the point +of money), I can obtain boots and fuel and furniture to the amount of +the value of the books of mine which my publisher will sell. Yet when +exchange is thus highly indirect and multiple it is just as much +exchange as though I went and bartered one book for one pair of boots +with the cobbler. + +3\. The third thing to remember about Exchange is of the utmost +importance, because it has given rise to one of the biggest discussions +of our English politics. The Formula runs thus:--- + +**Other things being equal, the greatest freedom of exchange in any +given area makes for the greatest amount of wealth in that area.** + +It ought to be self evident, but it is astonishing how muddled people +get about it, when they become confused over details and cannot see the +wood for the trees. It ought, I say, to be self-evident that if you +leave Exchange quite free, anybody being at liberty to produce what he +can produce best, and exchange it for things which other men can produce +better than he, both parties will tend to be the richer by such freedom +and the wealth of the whole country will be greatest when all exchanges +in it are thus left free to be worked by the sense of advantage. + +If there were a law, for instance, preventing me from buying etchings, +or preventing Jones, the etcher, from buying books, Jones would have to +write his own books (or do without them, which is what he would do), and +I should have to etch my own etchings, which would be exceedingly poor +compared with the wonderful etchings of Jones. We are obviously both of +us better off if we are left free to exchange what we can each make +best. And so it is with all the countless things made in a State. + +This principle applies not only to a particular nation but to the whole +world. If you left the whole world free to exchange the whole world +would be the richer for it. And any interference with exchange between +one nation and another lessens the total possible amount of wealth there +might be in the world. + +So far so good; and, as I have said, such a truth ought to be +self-evident. But here there comes in a misunderstanding of its +application, and that misunderstanding has made any amount of trouble. +It is so important that I must give it a separate division to itself. ## Free Trade and Production -Nations, as we know, put up tariffs against goods which come -from abroad: That is, their Governments tax imports of -certain goods and thereby interfere with the freedom of -exchange. For instance, the French have a tax of this kind -upon wheat. Wheat grown in France will cost, let us say, £1 -a sack, but the Argentine can send wheat to France at an -expense of only 10s. a sack, because the land there is new, -and for various other causes. If the wheat from the -Argentine were allowed to come in freely, and the French to -export against it things which they can make more easily -than wheat they would have more wheat at a less total -expense; but they prefer to put a tax of ten shillings upon -every sack, that is, to put up a barrier against the import -of wheat from abroad, and so keep up the price artificially -at home. - -When a nation does this with regard to any object that may -be imported, if the object can also be produced within the -nation (which it nearly always can) it is said to *protect* -that object, and the system of so doing is called -**Protection.** The word arose from the demand of certain -trades to be "protected" by their Governments without -considering whether it was for the good of the whole nation -or not. It obviously would be a very nice thing for people -who breed sheep, for instance, in this country, if all -mutton coming from the Colonies were taxed at the Ports, -while the mutton grown inside the country were not taxed; -for in this way the value of the mutton would rise in -England, and the rise would benefit the sheep owners. But it -would be at the expense of all the other people who did not -grow sheep, and who would have to pay more for their mutton. - -As opposed to this system of *Protection,* and interfering -with international exchange by a tariff, intelligent people -a long lifetime ago began to agitate for what they called -**"FREE TRADE,"** that is the putting of no tariff on to an -import, or at least no tariff high enough to give an -artificial price to the producer of the same thing at home. -Thus, when England was completely Free Trading (which it was -until the war) there was a tariff on tea; but that was not -Protection, for those who would try to grow tea here would -have to grow it in hot houses and at an enormous expense, -and the tax on tea, though heavy, did not make it anything -like so dear as to make it worth while to produce tea here. - -Another principle of Free Trade was that if it was thought -advisable to put a tariff on to anything coming into the -country which could be produced in the country, then you -would have to put what was called "*an equivalent excise*" -on the thing produced at home. For instance, in order to get -revenue, one might put a tax of a 1d. on the pound on sugar -coming from Germany, but, according to the doctrine of Free -Trade, you must put a similar excise (that is, a home tax of -1d. on the pound) upon any sugar produced in England. If you -did not do that you would be benefiting the sugar -manufacturer in England at the expense of all other -Englishmen, which would be unjust and also make England less -wealthy because it would be inducing Englishmen to make -sugar by offering them a reward and so take them away from -some production for which they were better fitted. - -This idea, that Free Trade must necessarily be of advantage -to everybody, and that it was only stupidity or private -avarice which supported Protection, was very strong in -England, and, in the form you have just read, it seems -beyond contradiction. - -But if you will look closely at Formula No. 3 written in the -last division on page 59 you will see that there is a -fallacy hidden in this universal Free Trade theory. It is -perfectly true that free exchange over any area tends to -make the wealth of all that area greater, and if the area -include the whole world, then free exchange all over the -whole world, that is, complete Free Trade, would make the -world as a whole richer. - -*But it does not follow that* **each part** *of the area -thus made richer is itself enriched.* That is the important -point which the Free Trade people missed, and it is this -which supports, in some cases, the argument for Protection. - -If we allow free exchange everywhere throughout England, -England as a whole will, of course, be the richer for it; -but it is quite possible that Essex will be the poorer. If -we allow Free Trade throughout all Europe, Europe will be -the richer for it; but it is quite possible that some -particular part of Europe, Italy or Spain, may be made -poorer by the general process, and as they don't want to be -poorer they will by Protection and tariffs cut themselves -off from the area of free exchange. - -**There are conditions where an interference with free -exchange over the boundaries of a particular area make that -area richer: when those conditions exist, there is what is -called an Economic Reason for Protection.** - -So we may sum up and say that the theory of universal Free -Trade being of benefit to the world as a whole is perfectly -true. If we are only considering the world, and do not mind -what happens to some particular area of the world, then the -case for Free Trade is absolute. But if we mind a hurt being -done to some particular area, such as our own country, more -than we mind the hurt done to the world as a whole, then we -should look at our particular conditions and see whether our -country may not be one of those parts which will be drained -of wealth by Free Trade and will be benefited by -artificially fostering internal exchanges. - -In the second part of this book I will go into this again, -and show how the discussion arose in England and what the -arguments are for and against Universal Free Trade, and how -true it is that a sound economic argument for Protection -exists. +Nations, as we know, put up tariffs against goods which come from +abroad: That is, their Governments tax imports of certain goods and +thereby interfere with the freedom of exchange. For instance, the French +have a tax of this kind upon wheat. Wheat grown in France will cost, let +us say, £1 a sack, but the Argentine can send wheat to France at an +expense of only 10s. a sack, because the land there is new, and for +various other causes. If the wheat from the Argentine were allowed to +come in freely, and the French to export against it things which they +can make more easily than wheat they would have more wheat at a less +total expense; but they prefer to put a tax of ten shillings upon every +sack, that is, to put up a barrier against the import of wheat from +abroad, and so keep up the price artificially at home. + +When a nation does this with regard to any object that may be imported, +if the object can also be produced within the nation (which it nearly +always can) it is said to *protect* that object, and the system of so +doing is called **Protection.** The word arose from the demand of +certain trades to be "protected" by their Governments without +considering whether it was for the good of the whole nation or not. It +obviously would be a very nice thing for people who breed sheep, for +instance, in this country, if all mutton coming from the Colonies were +taxed at the Ports, while the mutton grown inside the country were not +taxed; for in this way the value of the mutton would rise in England, +and the rise would benefit the sheep owners. But it would be at the +expense of all the other people who did not grow sheep, and who would +have to pay more for their mutton. + +As opposed to this system of *Protection,* and interfering with +international exchange by a tariff, intelligent people a long lifetime +ago began to agitate for what they called **"FREE TRADE,"** that is the +putting of no tariff on to an import, or at least no tariff high enough +to give an artificial price to the producer of the same thing at home. +Thus, when England was completely Free Trading (which it was until the +war) there was a tariff on tea; but that was not Protection, for those +who would try to grow tea here would have to grow it in hot houses and +at an enormous expense, and the tax on tea, though heavy, did not make +it anything like so dear as to make it worth while to produce tea here. + +Another principle of Free Trade was that if it was thought advisable to +put a tariff on to anything coming into the country which could be +produced in the country, then you would have to put what was called "*an +equivalent excise*" on the thing produced at home. For instance, in +order to get revenue, one might put a tax of a 1d. on the pound on sugar +coming from Germany, but, according to the doctrine of Free Trade, you +must put a similar excise (that is, a home tax of 1d. on the pound) upon +any sugar produced in England. If you did not do that you would be +benefiting the sugar manufacturer in England at the expense of all other +Englishmen, which would be unjust and also make England less wealthy +because it would be inducing Englishmen to make sugar by offering them a +reward and so take them away from some production for which they were +better fitted. + +This idea, that Free Trade must necessarily be of advantage to +everybody, and that it was only stupidity or private avarice which +supported Protection, was very strong in England, and, in the form you +have just read, it seems beyond contradiction. + +But if you will look closely at Formula No. 3 written in the last +division on page 59 you will see that there is a fallacy hidden in this +universal Free Trade theory. It is perfectly true that free exchange +over any area tends to make the wealth of all that area greater, and if +the area include the whole world, then free exchange all over the whole +world, that is, complete Free Trade, would make the world as a whole +richer. + +*But it does not follow that* **each part** *of the area thus made +richer is itself enriched.* That is the important point which the Free +Trade people missed, and it is this which supports, in some cases, the +argument for Protection. + +If we allow free exchange everywhere throughout England, England as a +whole will, of course, be the richer for it; but it is quite possible +that Essex will be the poorer. If we allow Free Trade throughout all +Europe, Europe will be the richer for it; but it is quite possible that +some particular part of Europe, Italy or Spain, may be made poorer by +the general process, and as they don't want to be poorer they will by +Protection and tariffs cut themselves off from the area of free +exchange. + +**There are conditions where an interference with free exchange over the +boundaries of a particular area make that area richer: when those +conditions exist, there is what is called an Economic Reason for +Protection.** + +So we may sum up and say that the theory of universal Free Trade being +of benefit to the world as a whole is perfectly true. If we are only +considering the world, and do not mind what happens to some particular +area of the world, then the case for Free Trade is absolute. But if we +mind a hurt being done to some particular area, such as our own country, +more than we mind the hurt done to the world as a whole, then we should +look at our particular conditions and see whether our country may not be +one of those parts which will be drained of wealth by Free Trade and +will be benefited by artificially fostering internal exchanges. + +In the second part of this book I will go into this again, and show how +the discussion arose in England and what the arguments are for and +against Universal Free Trade, and how true it is that a sound economic +argument for Protection exists. ## Money -When people begin exchanging by bartering goods one against -another they at once find that there is an awkward -obstruction to this kind of commerce; at least, they find it -the moment there are more than two of them. It is this: That -the person they are nearest to for the striking of a bargain -may not want, at the moment, the particular thing they have -to offer, but something else which a third party has who is -*not* present. - -For instance: John is a hunter who has a surplus of skins to -offer. He can get skins easier than other people. William, -farming good soil, has surplus wheat to offer, and Robert, -living near a wood and skilled as a woodman, has extra wood -to offer. John wants wood. He takes one of his furs to -Robert and says: "I will give you this fur for a cartload of -wood." But Robert may answer, "I don't happen to want a fur -just now. What I do want is a sack of wheat." - -Either no transaction will take place on account of this -hitch, or one of these two things will happen: Robert will -take the fur from John and give him his cartload of wood, -and will then take the fur over to William, and see whether -William wants a fur in exchange for some wheat. Or John, -very much wanting the wood, will go to William, and if -William wants a fur, will exchange it for wheat; then John -will take the wheat back to Robert, and exchange it for the -wood that he wants. - -That is the sort of complicated and clumsy come-and-go that -will be continually happening even with quite a few -exchangers, and with quite a small number of articles. When -it came to a great number of exchangers and a great number -of articles the trouble would grow impossible and exchange -would break down. - -But things arrange themselves thus: It is soon found that -one of the things which are being exchanged is easier to -carry than the rest, and perhaps lasts longer and also can -be easily used in small or large amounts. For instance, in -the case of our three producers, John, William and Robert, -*wheat* might easily appear in this character. People always -want wheat sooner or later. It keeps well. It is not very -difficult to transport, and you can divide it into quite -small amounts, or lump it up in large amounts. - -So the chances are that when any of the three wanted to -benefit by getting rid of some of his surplus produce he -would get into the habit of taking *wheat* in exchange, even -if he did not want it for the moment. For he would say to -himself: "I can always keep it by me and then exchange it -against somebody else's produce when that somebody else -happens to want wheat. Soon you would find each one of the -three would be keeping a little wheat by him for the purpose -of saving tiresome journeys to effect complicated double -exchanges, and the wheat so used by all three of them would -be in effect **MONEY.** It would be used as a common medium -of exchange to facilitate the disposal of goods one against -the other, without the elaborate business of making special +When people begin exchanging by bartering goods one against another they +at once find that there is an awkward obstruction to this kind of +commerce; at least, they find it the moment there are more than two of +them. It is this: That the person they are nearest to for the striking +of a bargain may not want, at the moment, the particular thing they have +to offer, but something else which a third party has who is *not* +present. + +For instance: John is a hunter who has a surplus of skins to offer. He +can get skins easier than other people. William, farming good soil, has +surplus wheat to offer, and Robert, living near a wood and skilled as a +woodman, has extra wood to offer. John wants wood. He takes one of his +furs to Robert and says: "I will give you this fur for a cartload of +wood." But Robert may answer, "I don't happen to want a fur just now. +What I do want is a sack of wheat." + +Either no transaction will take place on account of this hitch, or one +of these two things will happen: Robert will take the fur from John and +give him his cartload of wood, and will then take the fur over to +William, and see whether William wants a fur in exchange for some wheat. +Or John, very much wanting the wood, will go to William, and if William +wants a fur, will exchange it for wheat; then John will take the wheat +back to Robert, and exchange it for the wood that he wants. + +That is the sort of complicated and clumsy come-and-go that will be +continually happening even with quite a few exchangers, and with quite a +small number of articles. When it came to a great number of exchangers +and a great number of articles the trouble would grow impossible and +exchange would break down. + +But things arrange themselves thus: It is soon found that one of the +things which are being exchanged is easier to carry than the rest, and +perhaps lasts longer and also can be easily used in small or large +amounts. For instance, in the case of our three producers, John, William +and Robert, *wheat* might easily appear in this character. People always +want wheat sooner or later. It keeps well. It is not very difficult to +transport, and you can divide it into quite small amounts, or lump it up +in large amounts. + +So the chances are that when any of the three wanted to benefit by +getting rid of some of his surplus produce he would get into the habit +of taking *wheat* in exchange, even if he did not want it for the +moment. For he would say to himself: "I can always keep it by me and +then exchange it against somebody else's produce when that somebody else +happens to want wheat. Soon you would find each one of the three would +be keeping a little wheat by him for the purpose of saving tiresome +journeys to effect complicated double exchanges, and the wheat so used +by all three of them would be in effect **MONEY.** It would be used as a +common medium of exchange to facilitate the disposal of goods one +against the other, without the elaborate business of making special barters, after long search. -Mankind has found, in most cases, that where a very large -number of articles were being exchanged *two* in particular -naturally lent themselves to this particular use, and those -two were **gold** and **silver.** They have also used -bronze, and even iron and in some places rare shells, and -all sorts of other things. But gold and silver came to be -for nearly all mankind, and are now for all civilised -mankind, the objects which most naturally are used as money. +Mankind has found, in most cases, that where a very large number of +articles were being exchanged *two* in particular naturally lent +themselves to this particular use, and those two were **gold** and +**silver.** They have also used bronze, and even iron and in some places +rare shells, and all sorts of other things. But gold and silver came to +be for nearly all mankind, and are now for all civilised mankind, the +objects which most naturally are used as money. The reason for this is as follows: -The thing which naturally becomes money out of all the -things that are exchanged will be that which best combines a -certain number of qualities, some of which we have already -mentioned, and of which here is a list. - -1. It must be portable, that is, a large weight of it must - take up little room, so that quite considerable values - can be taken easily from place to place---for money has - to be always moving from one to another to effect - purchases and sales. - -2. It must be easily divisible, for one is always wanting - to use it in all sorts of amounts, very little and very - large. - -3. It must keep. That is, it must not deteriorate quickly, - or it would have very little use as Money. - -4. It must be of an even quality, so that, wherever you - come across it, you may count on its being pretty well - always the same, and therefore weight for weight of the - same value. - -5. It must be more or less stable in value. It would be - difficult to use as money some object which was very - plentiful at one moment and suddenly scarce at another; - very cheap this year, and very dear next year---such as - are, for instance, agricultural products depending upon - the season. - -Now of all objects Gold and Silver best fulfil all these -requirements. Precious stones are more portable, value for -value. A £1,000 worth of diamonds takes up less space and is -less heavy than a £1,000 worth of gold. And precious stones -are fairly stable in value and also keep very well; but they -are not easily divisible. Again, they are not of the same -standard value in all cases. They vary in purity. But gold -and silver have all the qualities required. Gold hardly -decays at all through the passage of time, and silver very -little; and each, but especially gold, is valuable for its -bulk, and its value is fairly stable, and each is easily -divisible and can therefore be presented in any amount, from -a tenth of an ounce to a hundred pounds weight. - -So, by the mere force of things. Gold and Silver became the -Money of mankind. People kept gold and silver by them in -order to effect their exchanges, and very soon a producer -did not feel himself to be exchanging at all (in the sense -of exchanging goods against goods), but thought of the -affair as *Buying and Selling.* That is, of exchanging his -produce, not against other produce, but against gold and -silver, with the object of *later* re-exchanging that gold -and silver for other things that he needed. - -Money, once thus established, is called **A MEDIUM OF -EXCHANGE** and also **CURRENCY** or **THE CIRCULATING -MEDIUM.** It is called "currency" and "circulating" because -it goes its round through society, effecting the exchanges, -and this running around or circulating gives it its name: -"That which is current" from the Latin for "running." That -which "circulates" from the late Latin word for "going the -rounds." - -When gold and silver become the money of mankind it is -important to be able to tell at once the exact amounts you -are dealing with. This, under simple conditions, is done by -weighing; but it is more convenient to stamp on separate -bits of metal what weight there is in each, and that is -called "coining the metal." All that a Government does when -it makes a sovereign is to guarantee that there is so much -weight of gold in the round disc of metal which it stamps. - -Money does not only fill this main function of being a -medium of exchange, that is, of making a vast quantity of -complicated exchanges possible, it also has great social -value as a measurer or standard, and soon after money comes -into use men begin to think of the economic values of things -in terms of money: that is, in what we call **"Prices."** - -All things which men produce are fluctuating the whole time -in value. There is now rather more of one article, and now -rather less. A sack of barley at one moment will exchange -exactly against a sack of wheat, and then in a few weeks -against rather less than a sack of wheat. Meanwhile, where -it used to fetch a lamb in exchange it may, in a few months, -need two sacks for a lamb; and so with all the hundreds and -thousands of other objects. When we have money the whole -mass of transactions is referred to the current medium, and -that is of immense social value. For no one could keep in -his head all the changing exchange values of a multitude of -articles one against the other, but it is easy to remember -the exchange values against one standard commodity, such as -gold. And whatever the exchange value is in gold we call the -**price** of the article. - -For instance, when you say that a house is worth £500, that -that is the *"price"* of the house, you mean that the amount -of gold you would have to exchange to get it is about Ten -Pounds weight of the metal. And when you say that the price -of a ticket to Edinburgh is £4, you mean that the service of -taking you to Edinburgh in the train will be exchanged +The thing which naturally becomes money out of all the things that are +exchanged will be that which best combines a certain number of +qualities, some of which we have already mentioned, and of which here is +a list. + +1. It must be portable, that is, a large weight of it must take up + little room, so that quite considerable values can be taken easily + from place to place---for money has to be always moving from one to + another to effect purchases and sales. + +2. It must be easily divisible, for one is always wanting to use it in + all sorts of amounts, very little and very large. + +3. It must keep. That is, it must not deteriorate quickly, or it would + have very little use as Money. + +4. It must be of an even quality, so that, wherever you come across it, + you may count on its being pretty well always the same, and + therefore weight for weight of the same value. + +5. It must be more or less stable in value. It would be difficult to + use as money some object which was very plentiful at one moment and + suddenly scarce at another; very cheap this year, and very dear next + year---such as are, for instance, agricultural products depending + upon the season. + +Now of all objects Gold and Silver best fulfil all these requirements. +Precious stones are more portable, value for value. A £1,000 worth of +diamonds takes up less space and is less heavy than a £1,000 worth of +gold. And precious stones are fairly stable in value and also keep very +well; but they are not easily divisible. Again, they are not of the same +standard value in all cases. They vary in purity. But gold and silver +have all the qualities required. Gold hardly decays at all through the +passage of time, and silver very little; and each, but especially gold, +is valuable for its bulk, and its value is fairly stable, and each is +easily divisible and can therefore be presented in any amount, from a +tenth of an ounce to a hundred pounds weight. + +So, by the mere force of things. Gold and Silver became the Money of +mankind. People kept gold and silver by them in order to effect their +exchanges, and very soon a producer did not feel himself to be +exchanging at all (in the sense of exchanging goods against goods), but +thought of the affair as *Buying and Selling.* That is, of exchanging +his produce, not against other produce, but against gold and silver, +with the object of *later* re-exchanging that gold and silver for other +things that he needed. + +Money, once thus established, is called **A MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE** and +also **CURRENCY** or **THE CIRCULATING MEDIUM.** It is called "currency" +and "circulating" because it goes its round through society, effecting +the exchanges, and this running around or circulating gives it its name: +"That which is current" from the Latin for "running." That which +"circulates" from the late Latin word for "going the rounds." + +When gold and silver become the money of mankind it is important to be +able to tell at once the exact amounts you are dealing with. This, under +simple conditions, is done by weighing; but it is more convenient to +stamp on separate bits of metal what weight there is in each, and that +is called "coining the metal." All that a Government does when it makes +a sovereign is to guarantee that there is so much weight of gold in the +round disc of metal which it stamps. + +Money does not only fill this main function of being a medium of +exchange, that is, of making a vast quantity of complicated exchanges +possible, it also has great social value as a measurer or standard, and +soon after money comes into use men begin to think of the economic +values of things in terms of money: that is, in what we call +**"Prices."** + +All things which men produce are fluctuating the whole time in value. +There is now rather more of one article, and now rather less. A sack of +barley at one moment will exchange exactly against a sack of wheat, and +then in a few weeks against rather less than a sack of wheat. Meanwhile, +where it used to fetch a lamb in exchange it may, in a few months, need +two sacks for a lamb; and so with all the hundreds and thousands of +other objects. When we have money the whole mass of transactions is +referred to the current medium, and that is of immense social value. For +no one could keep in his head all the changing exchange values of a +multitude of articles one against the other, but it is easy to remember +the exchange values against one standard commodity, such as gold. And +whatever the exchange value is in gold we call the **price** of the +article. + +For instance, when you say that a house is worth £500, that that is the +*"price"* of the house, you mean that the amount of gold you would have +to exchange to get it is about Ten Pounds weight of the metal. And when +you say that the price of a ticket to Edinburgh is £4, you mean that the +service of taking you to Edinburgh in the train will be exchanged against about an ounce of the metal gold. -I now come to a most difficult point about money and prices -which is rather beyond the elements of Economics, but which -it is important to have some idea of, though it is very -difficult. - -There is a very interesting study in Economics called *"The -Theory of Prices,"* showing why *all prices on the average* -(what is called "General Prices," that is the value of all -goods *in general* as measured against gold) sometimes begin -to go up and at other times go down: Why goods as a whole -begin to get dearer and dearer in gold money, or cheaper and -cheaper. It is a complicated piece of study, and people -dispute about it. But the general rules would seem to be -something like this: The exchange value of things against -gold, or the value of gold, against the things for which it -exchanges (that is prices) is made up of two things: -*First,* the amount of gold present to do the work of -exchange; *Secondly,* the amount of work you can make it do -in exchange: The pace at which you can get it to circulate. -It is obvious that one piece of gold moving rapidly from -hand to hand will do as much work in helping exchanges to be -carried out as ten pieces moving ten times more slowly. - -If, for any reason, the total amount of gold becomes -suddenly smaller or suddenly larger, or if the pace at which -it is used changes very quickly, then prices fluctuate -violently. - -Supposing you could, in a night, take away half the gold in -circulation. Then, of course, the remaining gold would -become much more valuable. In other words, prices would -fall. For if an ounce of gold is rarer and more difficult to -get than it was, it will exchange against, that is, "buy" -more than it did; this means that "the price of things has -fallen." We used to say, for instance, that a quarter of -wheat was worth an ounce of gold. But if we suddenly change -the amount of gold so that gold becomes much rarer and more -valuable, perhaps an ounce of gold will buy not one quarter -but two. The price of one quarter used to be an ounce of -gold. Now the price is only half an ounce of gold. Wheat has -become cheaper in proportion to gold, and "prices," that is, -values measured in gold, in money, have fallen. - -The same thing would happen if you did not lessen the amount -of gold in circulation but made the circulation much more -sluggish. The amount of gold in circulation would be the -same, but as it went its rounds more slowly it would be more -difficult to get a certain amount of gold in any one place -at any one time. - -Prices, then, depend upon the actual amount of money that is -present to do the work, *and* the pace at which it is made -to go the rounds: or (to put it in technical terms), on the -amount of the currency *and* its *"efficiency in -circulation."* - -Now, there is in the human mind a very strong tendency to -keep prices stable. We think of them by a sort of natural -illusion as though they were absolute fixed things. We think -of a pound, and a shilling, and five pounds as real, -permanent, unchanging values. If we find that quite suddenly -five pounds will buy a great deal more than it used to, or -quite suddenly a great deal less, if we are met by a sudden -and violent fluctuation in prices of this kind, our minds -tend, unconsciously, to bring things back, as much as -possible, to the old position; and I will show you how this -tendency works in practice. - -Supposing a very great deal of gold, for some cause, were to -disappear. People suddenly find prices falling very rapidly. -A man with a £1,000 a year can buy twice as many things, -perhaps, as he used to buy. On the other hand, a man with -anything to sell can only get half the amount he used to -get. For gold has become rarer, and therefore more valuable -as against other things. - -What is the result? *The result is a very rapid increase in -the pace at which the gold circulates.* Every purchaser -feels himself richer. The gold is tendered for a much larger -number of bargains, and though the mind, by this illusion it -has of gold value as a fixed thing, cannot bring the actual -gold back, what it can do is so to increase the second -factor, **Efficiency in Circulation,** as largely as to make -up for the lack of gold; and under the effect of this prices -will gradually rise again. In the same way, if the mass of -current medium by some accident becomes suddenly increased -that should lead to an equally sudden rise in prices; but -the unconscious tendency of the human mind to keep prices -stable sets to work at once. Efficiency in Circulation slows -down, the new large amount of currency works more -sluggishly, and, though prices rise, they do not rise nearly -as much as the influx of money might warrant. - -We see, therefore, that the factor in the making of prices -called " Efficiency in Circulation " works like a sort of -automatic governor, tending to keep prices fairly stable; -but of course it cannot prevent the gradual changes, and -sometimes it cannot prevent quite sharp changes, as we shall -see a little later on. For the moment, the interesting thing -to note about Efficiency in Circulation is that we owe to -this factor in prices the creation of *paper money.* - -If, with only a certain stock of gold to work on, business -rapidly and largely increases, if a great many more things -are made and exchanged, then, as the gold will have a lot -more work to do---and so become more difficult to obtain in -any one time or place---that should have the effect, of -course, of making it more valuable, that is, of lowering +I now come to a most difficult point about money and prices which is +rather beyond the elements of Economics, but which it is important to +have some idea of, though it is very difficult. + +There is a very interesting study in Economics called *"The Theory of +Prices,"* showing why *all prices on the average* (what is called +"General Prices," that is the value of all goods *in general* as +measured against gold) sometimes begin to go up and at other times go +down: Why goods as a whole begin to get dearer and dearer in gold money, +or cheaper and cheaper. It is a complicated piece of study, and people +dispute about it. But the general rules would seem to be something like +this: The exchange value of things against gold, or the value of gold, +against the things for which it exchanges (that is prices) is made up of +two things: *First,* the amount of gold present to do the work of +exchange; *Secondly,* the amount of work you can make it do in exchange: +The pace at which you can get it to circulate. It is obvious that one +piece of gold moving rapidly from hand to hand will do as much work in +helping exchanges to be carried out as ten pieces moving ten times more +slowly. + +If, for any reason, the total amount of gold becomes suddenly smaller or +suddenly larger, or if the pace at which it is used changes very +quickly, then prices fluctuate violently. + +Supposing you could, in a night, take away half the gold in circulation. +Then, of course, the remaining gold would become much more valuable. In +other words, prices would fall. For if an ounce of gold is rarer and +more difficult to get than it was, it will exchange against, that is, +"buy" more than it did; this means that "the price of things has +fallen." We used to say, for instance, that a quarter of wheat was worth +an ounce of gold. But if we suddenly change the amount of gold so that +gold becomes much rarer and more valuable, perhaps an ounce of gold will +buy not one quarter but two. The price of one quarter used to be an +ounce of gold. Now the price is only half an ounce of gold. Wheat has +become cheaper in proportion to gold, and "prices," that is, values +measured in gold, in money, have fallen. + +The same thing would happen if you did not lessen the amount of gold in +circulation but made the circulation much more sluggish. The amount of +gold in circulation would be the same, but as it went its rounds more +slowly it would be more difficult to get a certain amount of gold in any +one place at any one time. + +Prices, then, depend upon the actual amount of money that is present to +do the work, *and* the pace at which it is made to go the rounds: or (to +put it in technical terms), on the amount of the currency *and* its +*"efficiency in circulation."* + +Now, there is in the human mind a very strong tendency to keep prices +stable. We think of them by a sort of natural illusion as though they +were absolute fixed things. We think of a pound, and a shilling, and +five pounds as real, permanent, unchanging values. If we find that quite +suddenly five pounds will buy a great deal more than it used to, or +quite suddenly a great deal less, if we are met by a sudden and violent +fluctuation in prices of this kind, our minds tend, unconsciously, to +bring things back, as much as possible, to the old position; and I will +show you how this tendency works in practice. + +Supposing a very great deal of gold, for some cause, were to disappear. +People suddenly find prices falling very rapidly. A man with a £1,000 a +year can buy twice as many things, perhaps, as he used to buy. On the +other hand, a man with anything to sell can only get half the amount he +used to get. For gold has become rarer, and therefore more valuable as +against other things. + +What is the result? *The result is a very rapid increase in the pace at +which the gold circulates.* Every purchaser feels himself richer. The +gold is tendered for a much larger number of bargains, and though the +mind, by this illusion it has of gold value as a fixed thing, cannot +bring the actual gold back, what it can do is so to increase the second +factor, **Efficiency in Circulation,** as largely as to make up for the +lack of gold; and under the effect of this prices will gradually rise +again. In the same way, if the mass of current medium by some accident +becomes suddenly increased that should lead to an equally sudden rise in +prices; but the unconscious tendency of the human mind to keep prices +stable sets to work at once. Efficiency in Circulation slows down, the +new large amount of currency works more sluggishly, and, though prices +rise, they do not rise nearly as much as the influx of money might +warrant. + +We see, therefore, that the factor in the making of prices called " +Efficiency in Circulation " works like a sort of automatic governor, +tending to keep prices fairly stable; but of course it cannot prevent +the gradual changes, and sometimes it cannot prevent quite sharp +changes, as we shall see a little later on. For the moment, the +interesting thing to note about Efficiency in Circulation is that we owe +to this factor in prices the creation of *paper money.* + +If, with only a certain stock of gold to work on, business rapidly and +largely increases, if a great many more things are made and exchanged, +then, as the gold will have a lot more work to do---and so become more +difficult to obtain in any one time or place---that should have the +effect, of course, of making it more valuable, that is, of lowering prices. -Now with the beginnings of modern industry, about a hundred -and fifty years ago, a vastly greater number of things began -to be made than had ever been made before, and the number of -exchanges effected multiplied ten, twenty and a hundredfold. -The stock of gold, though it was increased in the nineteenth -century by discoveries in Australia and California, and -later in South Africa, would have been quite unable to cope -with this flood of new work, and prices would have fallen -very much indeed, had it not been for the creation of *Paper -Money.* Paper money was a method of immensely increasing -Efficiency in Circulation. +Now with the beginnings of modern industry, about a hundred and fifty +years ago, a vastly greater number of things began to be made than had +ever been made before, and the number of exchanges effected multiplied +ten, twenty and a hundredfold. The stock of gold, though it was +increased in the nineteenth century by discoveries in Australia and +California, and later in South Africa, would have been quite unable to +cope with this flood of new work, and prices would have fallen very much +indeed, had it not been for the creation of *Paper Money.* Paper money +was a method of immensely increasing Efficiency in Circulation. This is how it worked. -A Bank or a Government (but especially the Bank of England, -with the guarantee of the Government) would print pieces of -paper with the words: "I promise to pay to the bearer of -this Five Pounds." Anyone who took one of these pieces of -paper to the Bank of England could get Five Golden -Sovereigns. But since this was publicly known, people were -willing to take the piece of paper *instead of* the five -sovereigns. - -If you sold a man a horse for fifty pounds, you were just as -willing to take ten five pound notes for him as fifty -sovereigns. They were more convenient to carry, and you knew -that whenever you wanted the actual gold you had only to go -to the bank and get it. - -Because people were thus willing to be paid in paper instead -of in the actual gold, a large number of notes could be kept -in circulation at any one time, and only a small amount of -gold had to be kept in readiness at the Bank to redeem them. -In practice it was found that very much less gold than the -notes stood for was quite enough to meet the notes as they -were brought in for payment. Much the most of the note -circulation went on going the rounds, and in normal times it -took a long time for a note on the average to be brought -back to the Bank. - -You can see that this dodge of paper money had the effect of -increasing the total *amount* of the current medium in -practice, and of greatly increasing its Efficiency in -Circulation. Moreover, it made the Efficiency in Circulation -very elastic, because in times of quiet business, more notes -would go out of circulation and be paid into the bank, while -in time of active business more notes would go on +A Bank or a Government (but especially the Bank of England, with the +guarantee of the Government) would print pieces of paper with the words: +"I promise to pay to the bearer of this Five Pounds." Anyone who took +one of these pieces of paper to the Bank of England could get Five +Golden Sovereigns. But since this was publicly known, people were +willing to take the piece of paper *instead of* the five sovereigns. + +If you sold a man a horse for fifty pounds, you were just as willing to +take ten five pound notes for him as fifty sovereigns. They were more +convenient to carry, and you knew that whenever you wanted the actual +gold you had only to go to the bank and get it. + +Because people were thus willing to be paid in paper instead of in the +actual gold, a large number of notes could be kept in circulation at any +one time, and only a small amount of gold had to be kept in readiness at +the Bank to redeem them. In practice it was found that very much less +gold than the notes stood for was quite enough to meet the notes as they +were brought in for payment. Much the most of the note circulation went +on going the rounds, and in normal times it took a long time for a note +on the average to be brought back to the Bank. + +You can see that this dodge of paper money had the effect of increasing +the total *amount* of the current medium in practice, and of greatly +increasing its Efficiency in Circulation. Moreover, it made the +Efficiency in Circulation very elastic, because in times of quiet +business, more notes would go out of circulation and be paid into the +bank, while in time of active business more notes would go on circulating. -*So long as every note was redeemed in gold every time it -was brought to the bank, so long as the promise to pay was -promptly kept, the money still remained good; the paper -currency did not interfere with the reality of the gold -values, there was no upsetting of prices, and all went -well.* - -Unfortunately, Governments are under a great temptation, -when they have exceptionally heavy expenses, to falsify the -Currency. People get so much in the habit of trusting the -Government stamp on paper or metal that they take it as part -of nature. What the Government is really doing when it coins -a sovereign is giving a guarantee that this little disc of -yellow metal contains 123 grains of gold with a certain -known (and small) amount of alloy to make the gold hard. -When the Government has to pay a large amount in wages, or -for its Army and Navy, or what not, it is tempted to put in -less gold and more alloy and keep the old stamp unchanged, -and that is called "Debasing the Currency." - -For instance, the Government wants a hundred tons of wheat -to feed soldiers with, and the price of wheat in gold at -that moment is Ten Sovereigns a ton. It says to a merchant, -"If you will give me a hundred tons of wheat, I will give -you a thousand sovereigns." But when it comes to paying the -thousand sovereigns, instead of giving a thousand coins with -123 grains of gold in each, it strikes a baser coin with -only a hundred or less than a hundred grains in each, and -pays the merchant with these. It is a simple form of -cheating and always effective, because the merchant thinks -the sovereign is genuine. Only when these bad sovereigns get -into circulation they naturally find their level in gold; -for people begin to test them, and find that they have not -got as much gold in them as they pretend to have. Then, of -course, prices as measured in this new base coin rise. If -the Government wants to buy another hundred tons of wheat it -must offer more than a thousand of the base coins; it must -offer, say, thirteen hundred of them. But again it is -tempted to put even less gold into the coins with which it -pays for the second lot of wheat, and so the coin gets baser -and baser, until at last, perhaps, a sovereign will not -really be worth half what it pretends to be. Governments in -the past have done this over and over again, but it was not -until our time that the worst form of debasing the coinage -came in. - -It came in as a result of the Great War, and we are all -suffering from it to-day. This last and worst form of -debasing coinage worked, not through cheating about the -metal, but through a trick played with paper money. - -Before the war, if you got a Five Pound note saying "I -promise to pay Five Pounds" the promise was kept and the -five golden sovereigns were there for you whenever you went -with your note to the bank and asked for them; but when the -Government had these very heavy expenses to meet on account -of the war, they first began making difficulties about -paying when people brought their paper to the bank, and at -last stopped paying altogether. At the same time, they did -everything they could to get the gold out of private -people's hands and to make them use paper money instead. The -consequence was that, people being so accustomed to think of -a paper guarantee of the Government exactly as though it -were real money, readily took to the new notes and used them -as money, thinking of these wretched bits of paper exactly -as though they were so many golden sovereigns. The -Government could go on printing as many bits of paper as it -liked, and they would still be used as though they were real -money. So long as the amount of paper printed was not more -than *would have been printed* when the notes were -redeemable, and when the currency was on a true *"Gold -Basis,"* no harm was done; but of course it paid the -Government to go on printing a great many more notes than -that, because, when it could make money thus cheaply, it -could pay for anything, however great the expense; but at -the cost, of course, of debasing the currency more and more. - -This kind of money, forced upon people, pretending to be the -same as real money but actually without a Gold Basis, is -called *Fiat*money, and that is the kind of money the whole -world has to-day, except those countries which did not take -part in the Great War, and the United States which did not -ever give up its gold basis. - -Of the different European fighting countries, however, ours -did best in this matter. We are still living on Fiat money, -and we have much more of it than we ought to have. But the -French have more in proportion, so that prices measured in -*their* money are now (1923) more than three times what they -would be in gold. The Italians are worse off still. With -them it is four times. With the Germans it is millions of -times, and their currency has quite gone to pieces; a paper -coin in Germany is worth (at the time I write, October, -1923) *ten million* times less than the real metal coin -which it is supposed to represent. - -This is one of the very worst things that has happened on -account of the war, for as the money now being used all over -Europe is not real money, no one feels certain whether he -can get his debts really paid, or whether his savings are -safe, or whether a contract made for a certain payment a few -months hence will be really fulfilled or not. A man may lend -a thousand francs or marks or pounds for a year, and then at -the end of the year, when he is to be paid back, he may be -paid in coin which has got so much worse that he is really -receiving only half or a tenth or a thousandth of the real -value he lent. A man in Germany sells a hundred sheep for so -many marks, to be paid for in a month; and at the end of the -month the marks will only buy ten sheep! - -This piece of swindling, which has been the note of the last -five years, is the first point we have touched on so far -where a problem in Economics and the study of economic law -brings one up against questions of right and wrong. - -It is morally wrong for the Government to swindle people out -of their property by making false money. What is the way -out, allowing for Economic Law? It is morally wrong that -some men should starve while other men have too much: -allowing for Economic Law, what is the way out of such -evils? - -As you go on in the study of Economics you find quantities -of questions where you have to decide whether economic laws -render possible political actions which you would very much -like to undertake, and which seem right and just. Many such -actions, though one would like to undertake them, cannot be -undertaken because our study of Economics has shown us that -the consequences will be very different from what we hoped. - -On the other hand, a great many people try to get out of -what it is their duty to do politically by pleading that -Economic Law prevents it. - -Before ending these notes, then, we must go into the main -questions of this kind, and see what there is to be said, in -the light of economic knowledge, for our present system of -society, which is called **Capitalism;** for other systems -in the past such as **Slavery;** for **Private Property;** -for the various theories of **Socialism;** for and against -**Usury,** and so on. - -It is necessary to go into these points even in the most -elementary book on Economics, because the moment one begins -the practical application of one's economic science these -questions at once arise; to answer them rightly is the most -important use we can make of economic knowledge. +*So long as every note was redeemed in gold every time it was brought to +the bank, so long as the promise to pay was promptly kept, the money +still remained good; the paper currency did not interfere with the +reality of the gold values, there was no upsetting of prices, and all +went well.* + +Unfortunately, Governments are under a great temptation, when they have +exceptionally heavy expenses, to falsify the Currency. People get so +much in the habit of trusting the Government stamp on paper or metal +that they take it as part of nature. What the Government is really doing +when it coins a sovereign is giving a guarantee that this little disc of +yellow metal contains 123 grains of gold with a certain known (and +small) amount of alloy to make the gold hard. When the Government has to +pay a large amount in wages, or for its Army and Navy, or what not, it +is tempted to put in less gold and more alloy and keep the old stamp +unchanged, and that is called "Debasing the Currency." + +For instance, the Government wants a hundred tons of wheat to feed +soldiers with, and the price of wheat in gold at that moment is Ten +Sovereigns a ton. It says to a merchant, "If you will give me a hundred +tons of wheat, I will give you a thousand sovereigns." But when it comes +to paying the thousand sovereigns, instead of giving a thousand coins +with 123 grains of gold in each, it strikes a baser coin with only a +hundred or less than a hundred grains in each, and pays the merchant +with these. It is a simple form of cheating and always effective, +because the merchant thinks the sovereign is genuine. Only when these +bad sovereigns get into circulation they naturally find their level in +gold; for people begin to test them, and find that they have not got as +much gold in them as they pretend to have. Then, of course, prices as +measured in this new base coin rise. If the Government wants to buy +another hundred tons of wheat it must offer more than a thousand of the +base coins; it must offer, say, thirteen hundred of them. But again it +is tempted to put even less gold into the coins with which it pays for +the second lot of wheat, and so the coin gets baser and baser, until at +last, perhaps, a sovereign will not really be worth half what it +pretends to be. Governments in the past have done this over and over +again, but it was not until our time that the worst form of debasing the +coinage came in. + +It came in as a result of the Great War, and we are all suffering from +it to-day. This last and worst form of debasing coinage worked, not +through cheating about the metal, but through a trick played with paper +money. + +Before the war, if you got a Five Pound note saying "I promise to pay +Five Pounds" the promise was kept and the five golden sovereigns were +there for you whenever you went with your note to the bank and asked for +them; but when the Government had these very heavy expenses to meet on +account of the war, they first began making difficulties about paying +when people brought their paper to the bank, and at last stopped paying +altogether. At the same time, they did everything they could to get the +gold out of private people's hands and to make them use paper money +instead. The consequence was that, people being so accustomed to think +of a paper guarantee of the Government exactly as though it were real +money, readily took to the new notes and used them as money, thinking of +these wretched bits of paper exactly as though they were so many golden +sovereigns. The Government could go on printing as many bits of paper as +it liked, and they would still be used as though they were real money. +So long as the amount of paper printed was not more than *would have +been printed* when the notes were redeemable, and when the currency was +on a true *"Gold Basis,"* no harm was done; but of course it paid the +Government to go on printing a great many more notes than that, because, +when it could make money thus cheaply, it could pay for anything, +however great the expense; but at the cost, of course, of debasing the +currency more and more. + +This kind of money, forced upon people, pretending to be the same as +real money but actually without a Gold Basis, is called *Fiat*money, and +that is the kind of money the whole world has to-day, except those +countries which did not take part in the Great War, and the United +States which did not ever give up its gold basis. + +Of the different European fighting countries, however, ours did best in +this matter. We are still living on Fiat money, and we have much more of +it than we ought to have. But the French have more in proportion, so +that prices measured in *their* money are now (1923) more than three +times what they would be in gold. The Italians are worse off still. With +them it is four times. With the Germans it is millions of times, and +their currency has quite gone to pieces; a paper coin in Germany is +worth (at the time I write, October, 1923) *ten million* times less than +the real metal coin which it is supposed to represent. + +This is one of the very worst things that has happened on account of the +war, for as the money now being used all over Europe is not real money, +no one feels certain whether he can get his debts really paid, or +whether his savings are safe, or whether a contract made for a certain +payment a few months hence will be really fulfilled or not. A man may +lend a thousand francs or marks or pounds for a year, and then at the +end of the year, when he is to be paid back, he may be paid in coin +which has got so much worse that he is really receiving only half or a +tenth or a thousandth of the real value he lent. A man in Germany sells +a hundred sheep for so many marks, to be paid for in a month; and at the +end of the month the marks will only buy ten sheep! + +This piece of swindling, which has been the note of the last five years, +is the first point we have touched on so far where a problem in +Economics and the study of economic law brings one up against questions +of right and wrong. + +It is morally wrong for the Government to swindle people out of their +property by making false money. What is the way out, allowing for +Economic Law? It is morally wrong that some men should starve while +other men have too much: allowing for Economic Law, what is the way out +of such evils? + +As you go on in the study of Economics you find quantities of questions +where you have to decide whether economic laws render possible political +actions which you would very much like to undertake, and which seem +right and just. Many such actions, though one would like to undertake +them, cannot be undertaken because our study of Economics has shown us +that the consequences will be very different from what we hoped. + +On the other hand, a great many people try to get out of what it is +their duty to do politically by pleading that Economic Law prevents it. + +Before ending these notes, then, we must go into the main questions of +this kind, and see what there is to be said, in the light of economic +knowledge, for our present system of society, which is called +**Capitalism;** for other systems in the past such as **Slavery;** for +**Private Property;** for the various theories of **Socialism;** for and +against **Usury,** and so on. + +It is necessary to go into these points even in the most elementary book +on Economics, because the moment one begins the practical application of +one's economic science these questions at once arise; to answer them +rightly is the most important use we can make of economic knowledge. # Political Applications ## Introduction -So far I have been putting down the elements of Economics -just as one might put down the elements of Arithmetic. But -Economics have, just like Arithmetic, a *practical -application:* if it were not for this, there would be no -real use in studying Economics at all. - -For instance: we find out, when we do the elements of -Arithmetic, that solid bodies vary with the cube of their -linear measurements. That is the general abstract principle; -but the *use* of it is in real life when we come {for -instance) to measuring boats. We learn there from Arithmetic -that, with boats of similar shape, a boat twice as long as -another will be eight times as big; it is also by using the -elements of Arithmetic that we can keep household accounts -and do all the rest of our work. - -It is precisely the same with Economics. We are perpetually -coming upon political problems which Economics illustrate -and to which economic science furnishes the answer---or part -of the answer---and that is where the theoretical elements -of Economics have practical importance. - -For instance: once we know the elementary economic principle -that rent is a surplus, we appreciate that it does not enter -into cost of production. We do not try to make things -cheaper by compulsorily lowering rent. Or, again, when we -have learned the nature of money we can appreciate the -dangers that come from using false money. - -In these political applications of Economics we also come -upon what is much more important than mere politics, and -that is the question of right and wrong. We see that such -and such a thing ought to be so as a matter of justice; but -we may blunder, as many great reformers have blundered, in -trying to do the right thing and fading to do it, because we -have not made a proper application of our economic science. -And the opposite is also true: that is, a knowledge of -Economics prevents their being wrongly applied by those who -desire evil. Many men take refuge in the excuse that, with -the best will in the world, they cannot work such and such a -social reform because economic science prevents their doing -what they know to be right. If we know our Economics -properly we can refute these false arguments, to the great -advantage of our own souls and of our fellow-men. - -For instance: it is clearly our duty to-day to alleviate the -fearful poverty in which most Englishmen live. A great many -people who ought to know better say, or pretend, that -economic laws prevent our doing this act of justice. -Economic laws have no such effect; and an understanding of -Economics clears us in this matter, as we shall see later -on. - -We have hitherto been following the statement and -examination of economic laws: that is, the *theoretical* -part of our study and its necessary foundation. Now we go on -to the *practical* part, or "Applied Economics," which is -the effect of those laws on the lives of men. - -Before leaving this Introduction I think it is important to -get quite clear the difference between what is called -"theoretical" study and the practical application of such -study. People are very often muddle-headed about this, and -the more clearly we think about it the better. - -A theoretical statement is a statement following necessarily -and logically from some one or more known first principles. -Thus, we know that two sides of a triangle are longer than -the third, so we say it follows *theoretically* that a -straight road from London to Brighton is quicker motoring -than going round by Lewes. But the number of first -principles at work in the actual world is indefinitely -large. Therefore One must test any one theoretical -conclusion by practice: by seeing how it works. Because, -side by side with the one or two first principles upon which -our theory is built, there are an indefinitely large number -of other first principles which come into play in the real -world. Thus there is, in motoring, the principle that speed -varies with road surface. So the way round by Lewes may be -quicker than the straight road if it has a better surface. -There is yet another principle that speed is checked by -turnings in the road, and it may prove that on trial the two +So far I have been putting down the elements of Economics just as one +might put down the elements of Arithmetic. But Economics have, just like +Arithmetic, a *practical application:* if it were not for this, there +would be no real use in studying Economics at all. + +For instance: we find out, when we do the elements of Arithmetic, that +solid bodies vary with the cube of their linear measurements. That is +the general abstract principle; but the *use* of it is in real life when +we come {for instance) to measuring boats. We learn there from +Arithmetic that, with boats of similar shape, a boat twice as long as +another will be eight times as big; it is also by using the elements of +Arithmetic that we can keep household accounts and do all the rest of +our work. + +It is precisely the same with Economics. We are perpetually coming upon +political problems which Economics illustrate and to which economic +science furnishes the answer---or part of the answer---and that is where +the theoretical elements of Economics have practical importance. + +For instance: once we know the elementary economic principle that rent +is a surplus, we appreciate that it does not enter into cost of +production. We do not try to make things cheaper by compulsorily +lowering rent. Or, again, when we have learned the nature of money we +can appreciate the dangers that come from using false money. + +In these political applications of Economics we also come upon what is +much more important than mere politics, and that is the question of +right and wrong. We see that such and such a thing ought to be so as a +matter of justice; but we may blunder, as many great reformers have +blundered, in trying to do the right thing and fading to do it, because +we have not made a proper application of our economic science. And the +opposite is also true: that is, a knowledge of Economics prevents their +being wrongly applied by those who desire evil. Many men take refuge in +the excuse that, with the best will in the world, they cannot work such +and such a social reform because economic science prevents their doing +what they know to be right. If we know our Economics properly we can +refute these false arguments, to the great advantage of our own souls +and of our fellow-men. + +For instance: it is clearly our duty to-day to alleviate the fearful +poverty in which most Englishmen live. A great many people who ought to +know better say, or pretend, that economic laws prevent our doing this +act of justice. Economic laws have no such effect; and an understanding +of Economics clears us in this matter, as we shall see later on. + +We have hitherto been following the statement and examination of +economic laws: that is, the *theoretical* part of our study and its +necessary foundation. Now we go on to the *practical* part, or "Applied +Economics," which is the effect of those laws on the lives of men. + +Before leaving this Introduction I think it is important to get quite +clear the difference between what is called "theoretical" study and the +practical application of such study. People are very often muddle-headed +about this, and the more clearly we think about it the better. + +A theoretical statement is a statement following necessarily and +logically from some one or more known first principles. Thus, we know +that two sides of a triangle are longer than the third, so we say it +follows *theoretically* that a straight road from London to Brighton is +quicker motoring than going round by Lewes. But the number of first +principles at work in the actual world is indefinitely large. Therefore +One must test any one theoretical conclusion by practice: by seeing how +it works. Because, side by side with the one or two first principles +upon which our theory is built, there are an indefinitely large number +of other first principles which come into play in the real world. Thus +there is, in motoring, the principle that speed varies with road +surface. So the way round by Lewes may be quicker than the straight road +if it has a better surface. There is yet another principle that speed is +checked by turnings in the road, and it may prove that on trial the two ways are about equal. -Or again: we know that the tidal wave is raised on either -side of the earth, and that there is, therefore, about -twelve hours of even ebb and flow, six hours each on the -average and taking the world as a whole: because the earth -takes twenty-four hours to go round. - -But if you were to act upon that first principle *only* in -any one part of the world, and to say without testing the -thing in practice, "I can calculate the tide theoretically," -you would very often wreck your ship. For many other -principles come into play in the matter of the tide besides -this twelve-hour period. In one case the tide will be -delayed by shoals or by the current of a river. In another -there may be two or three tides meeting. In a third the sea -will be so locked that there will be hardly any tide for -many hours, and then a rush at the end---and so on. - -Now it is just the same with Economics. Your economic first -principle makes you come to such and such a *theoretical* -conclusion. But there are a lot of other first principles at -work, and they may modify the effect *in practice* to any -extent. When people object to "theoretical dreaming," as -they call it, they mean the bad habit of thinking that one -conclusion from one particular set of first principles is -sufficient and will apply to any set of circumstances. It -never does. One has always to watch the thing in practice, -and see what other forces come in. - -In the political applications of economic science we have to -deal with the effect of human society upon economic law. For -instance: economic law tells us that, given a certain -standard of living for labour---the "worth while" of -labour---and a certain minimum profit without which capital -will not accumulate---the "worth while" of capital---there -is, as we have seen, a lowest limit of production; a set of -conditions below which production will not take place. Land -which is below a certain standard of fertility will not be -farmed; a vein of metal below a certain standard of yield -will not be mined under such and such social conditions. But -all circumstances in which production has greater advantages -than this lowest limit produce a surplus value called -"Rent." That is an economic law, and it is always true. - -But it does not follow that the owner of the land, for -instance, will get the full economic rent of the land. There -may be customs in society, or laws, by which he is compelled -to share with the tenant. The theoretical economic rent is -there all right, but one cannot deduce from this truth that -the landlord will necessarily and always get the whole of -it. And so it is with every other political application. - -Having said so much by way of Preface, let us turn to the -particular problems, and first of all consider the idea -which underlies all practical economic conclusions, the idea -of **Property.** - -The very first governing condition of economic production -and distribution in the real world is the condition of -*control.* Who *controls* the process of production in any -particular Society? Who in it owns (that is, has the right -and power to use or leave idle, to distribute or withhold) -the means of production, the stores of food and clothing, -and houses and machinery? On the answer to that question -depends the economic structure of a society. This control is -called *Property,* and as the first thing we have to study -in practical Economics is the character of *Property,* we -will make that the first division of our political -applications. +Or again: we know that the tidal wave is raised on either side of the +earth, and that there is, therefore, about twelve hours of even ebb and +flow, six hours each on the average and taking the world as a whole: +because the earth takes twenty-four hours to go round. + +But if you were to act upon that first principle *only* in any one part +of the world, and to say without testing the thing in practice, "I can +calculate the tide theoretically," you would very often wreck your ship. +For many other principles come into play in the matter of the tide +besides this twelve-hour period. In one case the tide will be delayed by +shoals or by the current of a river. In another there may be two or +three tides meeting. In a third the sea will be so locked that there +will be hardly any tide for many hours, and then a rush at the end---and +so on. + +Now it is just the same with Economics. Your economic first principle +makes you come to such and such a *theoretical* conclusion. But there +are a lot of other first principles at work, and they may modify the +effect *in practice* to any extent. When people object to "theoretical +dreaming," as they call it, they mean the bad habit of thinking that one +conclusion from one particular set of first principles is sufficient and +will apply to any set of circumstances. It never does. One has always to +watch the thing in practice, and see what other forces come in. + +In the political applications of economic science we have to deal with +the effect of human society upon economic law. For instance: economic +law tells us that, given a certain standard of living for labour---the +"worth while" of labour---and a certain minimum profit without which +capital will not accumulate---the "worth while" of capital---there is, +as we have seen, a lowest limit of production; a set of conditions below +which production will not take place. Land which is below a certain +standard of fertility will not be farmed; a vein of metal below a +certain standard of yield will not be mined under such and such social +conditions. But all circumstances in which production has greater +advantages than this lowest limit produce a surplus value called "Rent." +That is an economic law, and it is always true. + +But it does not follow that the owner of the land, for instance, will +get the full economic rent of the land. There may be customs in society, +or laws, by which he is compelled to share with the tenant. The +theoretical economic rent is there all right, but one cannot deduce from +this truth that the landlord will necessarily and always get the whole +of it. And so it is with every other political application. + +Having said so much by way of Preface, let us turn to the particular +problems, and first of all consider the idea which underlies all +practical economic conclusions, the idea of **Property.** + +The very first governing condition of economic production and +distribution in the real world is the condition of *control.* Who +*controls* the process of production in any particular Society? Who in +it owns (that is, has the right and power to use or leave idle, to +distribute or withhold) the means of production, the stores of food and +clothing, and houses and machinery? On the answer to that question +depends the economic structure of a society. This control is called +*Property,* and as the first thing we have to study in practical +Economics is the character of *Property,* we will make that the first +division of our political applications. ## Property---The Control of Wealth -All the political application of Economics---that is, all -the application of Economic Science to the conduct of -families in the State---turns on The Control of Wealth, and -of the things necessary to make wealth. - -The first thing to grasp is that *someone* must control -every piece of wealth if it is to be used to any purpose. -Every bundle of economic values in the community must be -under the control of some human will; otherwise those pieces -of wealth "run to waste," that is, are consumed without use -to mankind. For instance, a ton of threshed wheat represents -a bundle of economic values. It represents a piece of wealth -equivalent, in currency measure, to say £16. If no one has -the right to decide upon its preservation and use, when and -how it is to be kept dry and free from vermin, when and how -it is to be ground and the flour made into bread, then it -will rot or be eaten by rats, and in a short time its -economic values will have disappeared. It will be worthless. -The £16 worth of wealth will have been "consumed without -use"; in plain language, wasted. But if wealth were all -wasted humanity would die out. So men must, of necessity, -arrange for a *control* of all wealth, and this they do by -laws which fix the control of one parcel of wealth by one -authority, of another by another; men make laws allowing -such control by some people and preventing attempted control -by other people not authorised. This lawful control over a -piece of wealth we call *Property* in it. - -Thus, the coal in your cellar which you have bought is by -our laws your property. It is for you to bum it as you want -it and when you choose. If another person comes in and takes -some of it without your leave, to burn it as *he* chooses, -he is called a thief and punished as such. The coal in the -Admiralty Stores is State property. The State has the right -to decide into what ships it is to be put and how and when -it is to be burnt, and so on. But whether the control is in -private hands such as yours, or in the naval authorities -who'are officers of the State, control there must always be. - -When people say that they want to "abolish property," or -that "There ought to be no property," they mean *Private* -property: the right of individuals, or families, or -corporations to control wealth. Property in the full sense, -meaning the control of wealth by *someone,* whether the -State, or private individuals, or what not, is inevitable, -and is necessary in every human society. So, granting that -property must exist, we will first examine the various forms -it may take. - -At the beginning of our examination we noticed that wealth, -owned and controlled by whoever it may be---the State, or an -individual, or a corporation---is of two kinds. There is the -wealth which will be consumed in enjoyment and the wealth -which will be consumed in producing future wealth. - -The wealth which will be consumed in producing future wealth -is, as we have seen, called *Capital.* For instance: if a -man has a ton of wheat and eats half of it while he is doing -nothing but taking a holiday, or doing work which has some -moral but no material effect---that is not Capital. But if -he uses the other half to keep himself alive while he is -ploughing and sowing for a future harvest, and keeps a -little of it for the seed of that harvest, all that he so -uses is *Capital.* Since control of wealth is necessary, no -matter of what kind the wealth be, it is clear that there -must be property not only in what is about to be consumed in -enjoyment but also in Capital. Someone, then, must own +All the political application of Economics---that is, all the +application of Economic Science to the conduct of families in the +State---turns on The Control of Wealth, and of the things necessary to +make wealth. + +The first thing to grasp is that *someone* must control every piece of +wealth if it is to be used to any purpose. Every bundle of economic +values in the community must be under the control of some human will; +otherwise those pieces of wealth "run to waste," that is, are consumed +without use to mankind. For instance, a ton of threshed wheat represents +a bundle of economic values. It represents a piece of wealth equivalent, +in currency measure, to say £16. If no one has the right to decide upon +its preservation and use, when and how it is to be kept dry and free +from vermin, when and how it is to be ground and the flour made into +bread, then it will rot or be eaten by rats, and in a short time its +economic values will have disappeared. It will be worthless. The £16 +worth of wealth will have been "consumed without use"; in plain +language, wasted. But if wealth were all wasted humanity would die out. +So men must, of necessity, arrange for a *control* of all wealth, and +this they do by laws which fix the control of one parcel of wealth by +one authority, of another by another; men make laws allowing such +control by some people and preventing attempted control by other people +not authorised. This lawful control over a piece of wealth we call +*Property* in it. + +Thus, the coal in your cellar which you have bought is by our laws your +property. It is for you to bum it as you want it and when you choose. If +another person comes in and takes some of it without your leave, to burn +it as *he* chooses, he is called a thief and punished as such. The coal +in the Admiralty Stores is State property. The State has the right to +decide into what ships it is to be put and how and when it is to be +burnt, and so on. But whether the control is in private hands such as +yours, or in the naval authorities who'are officers of the State, +control there must always be. + +When people say that they want to "abolish property," or that "There +ought to be no property," they mean *Private* property: the right of +individuals, or families, or corporations to control wealth. Property in +the full sense, meaning the control of wealth by *someone,* whether the +State, or private individuals, or what not, is inevitable, and is +necessary in every human society. So, granting that property must exist, +we will first examine the various forms it may take. + +At the beginning of our examination we noticed that wealth, owned and +controlled by whoever it may be---the State, or an individual, or a +corporation---is of two kinds. There is the wealth which will be +consumed in enjoyment and the wealth which will be consumed in producing +future wealth. + +The wealth which will be consumed in producing future wealth is, as we +have seen, called *Capital.* For instance: if a man has a ton of wheat +and eats half of it while he is doing nothing but taking a holiday, or +doing work which has some moral but no material effect---that is not +Capital. But if he uses the other half to keep himself alive while he is +ploughing and sowing for a future harvest, and keeps a little of it for +the seed of that harvest, all that he so uses is *Capital.* Since +control of wealth is necessary, no matter of what kind the wealth be, it +is clear that there must be property not only in what is about to be +consumed in enjoyment but also in Capital. Someone, then, must own Capital. -But here comes in a very important addition. The fertility -of land, space upon which to build, mines of metal, water -power, natural opportunities of any kind and natural forces, -*though they are not wealth,*are the necessary conditions -for producing wealth. Someone, therefore, must control these -also: someone must have the power of saying, "This field -shall be ploughed and sown thus and thus. This waterfall -must be made to turn this turbine in such and such a spot, -and the power developed must be applied thus and thus." For -if no one had such power the fertility of the land, the -force of the stream, would be wasted. - -Property, therefore, extends over two fields, one of which -is itself divided into two parts. A.---It extends over -natural forces. B.---It extends over wealth, and, in the -case of B, wealth, it extends over B.i wealth to be used for -future production (which kind of wealth, when it is so used, -is called Capital), and also B.2 wealth which is going to be -consumed without the attempt to produce anything else: -consumed, as the phrase goes, "in enjoyment."\[\^2\] Natural -forces may be grouped, as we have grouped them in the first -part of this book, under the conventional term "Land." So -Property covers Land and Capital, as well as Wealth to be -consumed without the attempt to produce other wealth. You -may put the whole thing in a diagram thus:--- +But here comes in a very important addition. The fertility of land, +space upon which to build, mines of metal, water power, natural +opportunities of any kind and natural forces, *though they are not +wealth,*are the necessary conditions for producing wealth. Someone, +therefore, must control these also: someone must have the power of +saying, "This field shall be ploughed and sown thus and thus. This +waterfall must be made to turn this turbine in such and such a spot, and +the power developed must be applied thus and thus." For if no one had +such power the fertility of the land, the force of the stream, would be +wasted. + +Property, therefore, extends over two fields, one of which is itself +divided into two parts. A.---It extends over natural forces. B.---It +extends over wealth, and, in the case of B, wealth, it extends over B.i +wealth to be used for future production (which kind of wealth, when it +is so used, is called Capital), and also B.2 wealth which is going to be +consumed without the attempt to produce anything else: consumed, as the +phrase goes, "in enjoyment."\[\^2\] Natural forces may be grouped, as we +have grouped them in the first part of this book, under the conventional +term "Land." So Property covers Land and Capital, as well as Wealth to +be consumed without the attempt to produce other wealth. You may put the +whole thing in a diagram thus:--- ![image](assets/Property.png) -In studying the social effects of Property it is convenient -to group together *Land* and that part of wealth which is -used for further production and is called *Capital,* and to -call the two *"the means of production":* because, in a -great many social problems the important point is not who -owns the Capital separately or the land separately, but who -owns the whole bundle of things which constitute the "Means -of Production," without which no production can take place. - -For instance: Supposing a man owns a hundred acres of -fertile land, that is his property, and though we call it -wealth in ordinary conversation it is not real wealth at -all. It is only the opportunity for producing wealth. If no -one worked on that land, if no one even worked so little as -to take the trouble of picking fruit off the trees or -cutting the grass or looking after animals on it, it would -be worth nothing. Supposing another man to own the stores of -food and the houses and the clothing necessary for the -livelihood of the labourers on the land, and also the horses -and the ploughs and the stores of seeds necessary for -farming, then that man owns the Capital only. But to the -*labourers* the important thing is that someone else owns -the "Means of Production," *without which they cannot live,* -and they are equally dependent whether one or many control -or own the *Means of Production* in any particular case. -Their condition has for its main character *the fact that -they do not own the "Means of Production."* - -Labour must be kept going. That is, human energy, for -producing wealth from land, while it is at work, waiting -between one harvest and another, will consume part of the -stores of food and some proportion of the housing (which is -a perishable thing, though it only perishes slowly) and of -the clothing, and of the seed, etc. So we have to examine -the various ways in which labour (which is not wealth) and -land (which is not wealth) and capital (which is wealth) may -be controlled. - -There are three main types of human society which differ -according to the way in which control is exercised over -these three factors of Labour, Capital and Land. These three -types are:--- - -1. **The Servile State:** that is, the state in which the - material Means of Production are the property of men who - also own the human agents of Production. - -2. **The Capitalist State:** that is, the state in which - the material Means of Production are the property of a - few, and the numerous human agents of Production are - free, but without property - -3. **The Distributive State:** that is, the state in which - the material means of Production are owned by the free - human agents of Production. - -There is also a fourth imaginary kind of state which has -never come into being, called the Socialist or Communist -State. We will examine this in its right place, but the only -three *actual* states of which we know anything in history -and can deal with as real human experiences, are these three -just described: the *Servile* State, the *Capitalist* State, +In studying the social effects of Property it is convenient to group +together *Land* and that part of wealth which is used for further +production and is called *Capital,* and to call the two *"the means of +production":* because, in a great many social problems the important +point is not who owns the Capital separately or the land separately, but +who owns the whole bundle of things which constitute the "Means of +Production," without which no production can take place. + +For instance: Supposing a man owns a hundred acres of fertile land, that +is his property, and though we call it wealth in ordinary conversation +it is not real wealth at all. It is only the opportunity for producing +wealth. If no one worked on that land, if no one even worked so little +as to take the trouble of picking fruit off the trees or cutting the +grass or looking after animals on it, it would be worth nothing. +Supposing another man to own the stores of food and the houses and the +clothing necessary for the livelihood of the labourers on the land, and +also the horses and the ploughs and the stores of seeds necessary for +farming, then that man owns the Capital only. But to the *labourers* the +important thing is that someone else owns the "Means of Production," +*without which they cannot live,* and they are equally dependent whether +one or many control or own the *Means of Production* in any particular +case. Their condition has for its main character *the fact that they do +not own the "Means of Production."* + +Labour must be kept going. That is, human energy, for producing wealth +from land, while it is at work, waiting between one harvest and another, +will consume part of the stores of food and some proportion of the +housing (which is a perishable thing, though it only perishes slowly) +and of the clothing, and of the seed, etc. So we have to examine the +various ways in which labour (which is not wealth) and land (which is +not wealth) and capital (which is wealth) may be controlled. + +There are three main types of human society which differ according to +the way in which control is exercised over these three factors of +Labour, Capital and Land. These three types are:--- + +1. **The Servile State:** that is, the state in which the material + Means of Production are the property of men who also own the human + agents of Production. + +2. **The Capitalist State:** that is, the state in which the material + Means of Production are the property of a few, and the numerous + human agents of Production are free, but without property + +3. **The Distributive State:** that is, the state in which the material + means of Production are owned by the free human agents of + Production. + +There is also a fourth imaginary kind of state which has never come into +being, called the Socialist or Communist State. We will examine this in +its right place, but the only three *actual* states of which we know +anything in history and can deal with as real human experiences, are +these three just described: the *Servile* State, the *Capitalist* State, and the *Distributive* State. -But, before going farther, we must get hold of a very -important principle, which is this:--- +But, before going farther, we must get hold of a very important +principle, which is this:--- **The nature of an economic society is not determined by its -arrangements being universal, that is, applying without -exception to all the families of the State, but only by -their applying to what is called** *The Determining Number* -**of the families of the State: that is, in so great a -proportion as to colour and give its form to the whole +arrangements being universal, that is, applying without exception to all +the families of the State, but only by their applying to what is +called** *The Determining Number* **of the families of the State: that +is, in so great a proportion as to colour and give its form to the whole society.** -No one can exactly define the amount of this "determining -number," but we all know in practice what it means. For -instance: we say the English are a tall race, from 5½ to 6 -feet high. But that does not mean necessarily that the -majority of the people are over 5½ feet. You have, of -course, to exclude the children, and there are a great -number of very short people and a few very tall people. It -means that the general impression conveyed when you mix with -English people---the size of the doors and the implements -with which men work, and the clothes that are produced, and -the rest of it---turn upon the general experience that you -are dealing with a race of about that size---5½ to 6 feet. -Or again, you say that the *determining* number or -proportion of our society speaks English. That does not mean -that they all speak English. Some are dumb; some speak Welsh -or Gaelic. Many speak with such an accent that others with a -different accent find it difficult to understand them. Yet -it is true to say that the society in which we live speaks -English. - -Now it is exactly the same with the economic conditions of -society. You may have a society in which there is a certain -number of slaves, and yet it is not a slave-owning society, -because the number of free men is so great as to give a -general tone of freedom. Or you have, as we have in England, -a great deal of property owned by the State---barracks and -battleships and arsenals, some of the forests, and so -on---but we do not say that England is economically a -State-owned society, because the *determining* proportion of -property is not owned by the State but by private people. -The general effect produced is one of private ownership and -not of State ownership. - -One more principle must be set down before we go farther, -and that is that almost any society is mixed. A society of -which the determining proportion is slave-owning will yet -certainly have a proportion of free men; for if it did not -there would be no one to own the slaves. In the same way -what is called a Capitalist Society, which I will describe -in a moment (and which is the society in which we now live -in England) has a great number of people not living under -purely capitalist conditions. It is mixed. - -But, though only a *determining number* is required to mark -the character of a particular society, and though every -society is *mixed* in its character, it remains true that -all societies we know of, in the past or the present, fall -into one of these three groups---the Servile (that is, -slave-owning), the Capitalist, and the Distributive. +No one can exactly define the amount of this "determining number," but +we all know in practice what it means. For instance: we say the English +are a tall race, from 5½ to 6 feet high. But that does not mean +necessarily that the majority of the people are over 5½ feet. You have, +of course, to exclude the children, and there are a great number of very +short people and a few very tall people. It means that the general +impression conveyed when you mix with English people---the size of the +doors and the implements with which men work, and the clothes that are +produced, and the rest of it---turn upon the general experience that you +are dealing with a race of about that size---5½ to 6 feet. Or again, you +say that the *determining* number or proportion of our society speaks +English. That does not mean that they all speak English. Some are dumb; +some speak Welsh or Gaelic. Many speak with such an accent that others +with a different accent find it difficult to understand them. Yet it is +true to say that the society in which we live speaks English. + +Now it is exactly the same with the economic conditions of society. You +may have a society in which there is a certain number of slaves, and yet +it is not a slave-owning society, because the number of free men is so +great as to give a general tone of freedom. Or you have, as we have in +England, a great deal of property owned by the State---barracks and +battleships and arsenals, some of the forests, and so on---but we do not +say that England is economically a State-owned society, because the +*determining* proportion of property is not owned by the State but by +private people. The general effect produced is one of private ownership +and not of State ownership. + +One more principle must be set down before we go farther, and that is +that almost any society is mixed. A society of which the determining +proportion is slave-owning will yet certainly have a proportion of free +men; for if it did not there would be no one to own the slaves. In the +same way what is called a Capitalist Society, which I will describe in a +moment (and which is the society in which we now live in England) has a +great number of people not living under purely capitalist conditions. It +is mixed. + +But, though only a *determining number* is required to mark the +character of a particular society, and though every society is *mixed* +in its character, it remains true that all societies we know of, in the +past or the present, fall into one of these three groups---the Servile +(that is, slave-owning), the Capitalist, and the Distributive. The definition of these three systems is as follows:--- -1\. In the Slave-owning Society, or **servile state,** a -certain minority owns a determining amount of the wealth and -also of land---that is, the means of production (land and -capital) and the wealth ready for consumption in enjoyment. -The rest of the community is compelled by positive law to -give its labour for the advantage of these few owners; and -this rest of the community are, by economic definition, -(whether they call themselves by the actual name or not) -slaves: that is, they can be compelled to work for the -owners, and can be punished by law if they do not work for -the owners. - -2\. In the **capitalist state** a determining number of the -families or individuals are free; that is, they cannot be -compelled by positive law to work for anybody. They are at -liberty to make a contract. Each can say to an owner of land -or capital: "I will work for you for so much reward, such -and such a proportion of the wealth I produce. If you will -not give me that I will not work at all," and no one can -punish him for the refusal. - -But the mark of the Capitalist State is that a determining -amount of land and capital is owned by a small number of -people, and that the rest of the people---much the greater -number---though free, cannot get food or housing or clothing -except in so far as the owners of these things (that is, of -the means of production) choose to give it them. In such a -state of society the people who own nothing, or next to -nothing, are free to make a contract and to say: "I will -work on your farm" (for instance) "if you will give me half -or three-quarters of the harvest. If you will not, I will -not work for you." But this contract is bound by a very hard -condition, for if they push their refusal to the limit and -continue not to work they will starve, and they will not be -able to get housing against the weather or clothes to wear. - -We are living to-day, in England especially, in such a -Capitalist State. In such a state the free men who contract -to sell their labour often have a certain very small -proportion of things on which they can live for a short -time. They have a suit of clothes and perhaps a little money -with which they can purchase a few days' livelihood---some -of them more, some of them less. But the tone or colour of -the society is given by the fact *that the great majority, -though free, are dispossessed of the means of production, -and therefore of livelihood, and that a small minority -controls these things.* - -The word "Capitalism" does not mean that there exists -capital in such a society. Capital exists in all societies. -It is a necessary part of human society and of the -production of wealth, without which no society can live at -all. The word "Capitalism" is only "shorthand for the -condition we have just described: a condition where capital -and land are in few hands though all men are free. - -3\. The **distributive state** is a state in which a -determining number of the citizens, a number sufficient to -colour the habits, laws and conditions of the whole society, -is possessed of the means of production, as private -property, divided among the various families. The word -"distributive" is an ugly, long word, only used for want of -a better; but the reason that we have to use such a tiresome -word is an odd and paradoxical reason well worth grasping. -The Distributive State is the natural state of mankind. Men -are happiest in such conditions; they can fulfil their being -best and are most perfectly themselves when they are owners -and free. Now whenever you have natural and good conditions, -not only in Economics but in any other aspect of life, it is -very difficult to find a word for it. There is always a word -ready for odd, unnatural conditions: but it is often -difficult to find a word for conditions normal to our human -nature. For instance: we have the words "dwarf" and "giant," -but we have no similar common, short word to describe people -of ordinary stature. So it is with the Distributive State. -We have to use an ugly new word, because men more or less -take for granted this state of affairs in their minds, and -have never thought out a special word for it. - -However, a name it must have; so let us agree to call that -kind of society in which most men are *really* free and -dignified and full citizens, not only possessing rights -before the law, but *owning,* so that they are at no other -man's orders but can live independently, "The Distributive -State." - -Then we have these three main types of Society within human -experience: the Servile, the Capitalist, the Distributive. - -To put these three estates clearly before our minds, let us -describe the kind of thing you would see in any one of the -three. - -In the *Servile State,* as you travelled through the -country, you would most ordinarily see working on the fields -men who were the slaves of a master. That master would own -the land and the seed, and the food and the houses, and the -horses and ploughs and everything, and these men you would -see working would be compelled to work for their master, and -he would have the right by law to punish them if they did -not. - -If you were in a *Capitalist State* (as we are in England) -the men you would see working would, as a rule, be earning -what are called "wages," that is, an allowance (actually of -money but immediately translated into food and clothes and -house-room and the rest), which allowance would be paid to -them at fairly short intervals, and without which they could -not live. The ploughs and horses with which they would be -working, the seed they would be sowing, the houses they -lived in would be the property of another man owning this -*capital,* and therefore called *The Capitalist.* If you -asked any one of these men who were working whether he were -*compelled* to work by law he would indignantly tell you -that he was not. For he is a free man; his wages are paid -him as a result of a contract; he has said: "I will work for -you for so much," and no one could compel him to work if he -did not choose to work. But in this state of society a man -without capital must make a contract of this sort in order -to live at all. He is not compelled by law to work for -another, but he is compelled by the necessity of living to -work for another. - -Lastly, if you were travelling through a *Distributive -State* (Denmark is the best example of such a state in -modern Europe) you would find that the man working on the -land was himself the owner of the land, and also of the seed -and of the horses and the houses, and all the rest of it. He -would be a free man working for his own advantage and for -nobody else's. He would also have a share in the factories -of the country and be a part owner in the local dairies, -sharing the profit of those dairies where the milk of many -farms is gathered together, turned into butter and cheese, -and sold. - -This is what we mean by the three types of State. In each -you would find many exceptions, but each has its -*determining number*---of slaves in the one case, wage -earners in the other, and independent men in the third. - -We will now take each of these three kinds of State -separately and see the good and evil of them and what the -consequences of them are. +1\. In the Slave-owning Society, or **servile state,** a certain +minority owns a determining amount of the wealth and also of land---that +is, the means of production (land and capital) and the wealth ready for +consumption in enjoyment. The rest of the community is compelled by +positive law to give its labour for the advantage of these few owners; +and this rest of the community are, by economic definition, (whether +they call themselves by the actual name or not) slaves: that is, they +can be compelled to work for the owners, and can be punished by law if +they do not work for the owners. + +2\. In the **capitalist state** a determining number of the families or +individuals are free; that is, they cannot be compelled by positive law +to work for anybody. They are at liberty to make a contract. Each can +say to an owner of land or capital: "I will work for you for so much +reward, such and such a proportion of the wealth I produce. If you will +not give me that I will not work at all," and no one can punish him for +the refusal. + +But the mark of the Capitalist State is that a determining amount of +land and capital is owned by a small number of people, and that the rest +of the people---much the greater number---though free, cannot get food +or housing or clothing except in so far as the owners of these things +(that is, of the means of production) choose to give it them. In such a +state of society the people who own nothing, or next to nothing, are +free to make a contract and to say: "I will work on your farm" (for +instance) "if you will give me half or three-quarters of the harvest. If +you will not, I will not work for you." But this contract is bound by a +very hard condition, for if they push their refusal to the limit and +continue not to work they will starve, and they will not be able to get +housing against the weather or clothes to wear. + +We are living to-day, in England especially, in such a Capitalist State. +In such a state the free men who contract to sell their labour often +have a certain very small proportion of things on which they can live +for a short time. They have a suit of clothes and perhaps a little money +with which they can purchase a few days' livelihood---some of them more, +some of them less. But the tone or colour of the society is given by the +fact *that the great majority, though free, are dispossessed of the +means of production, and therefore of livelihood, and that a small +minority controls these things.* + +The word "Capitalism" does not mean that there exists capital in such a +society. Capital exists in all societies. It is a necessary part of +human society and of the production of wealth, without which no society +can live at all. The word "Capitalism" is only "shorthand for the +condition we have just described: a condition where capital and land are +in few hands though all men are free. + +3\. The **distributive state** is a state in which a determining number +of the citizens, a number sufficient to colour the habits, laws and +conditions of the whole society, is possessed of the means of +production, as private property, divided among the various families. The +word "distributive" is an ugly, long word, only used for want of a +better; but the reason that we have to use such a tiresome word is an +odd and paradoxical reason well worth grasping. The Distributive State +is the natural state of mankind. Men are happiest in such conditions; +they can fulfil their being best and are most perfectly themselves when +they are owners and free. Now whenever you have natural and good +conditions, not only in Economics but in any other aspect of life, it is +very difficult to find a word for it. There is always a word ready for +odd, unnatural conditions: but it is often difficult to find a word for +conditions normal to our human nature. For instance: we have the words +"dwarf" and "giant," but we have no similar common, short word to +describe people of ordinary stature. So it is with the Distributive +State. We have to use an ugly new word, because men more or less take +for granted this state of affairs in their minds, and have never thought +out a special word for it. + +However, a name it must have; so let us agree to call that kind of +society in which most men are *really* free and dignified and full +citizens, not only possessing rights before the law, but *owning,* so +that they are at no other man's orders but can live independently, "The +Distributive State." + +Then we have these three main types of Society within human experience: +the Servile, the Capitalist, the Distributive. + +To put these three estates clearly before our minds, let us describe the +kind of thing you would see in any one of the three. + +In the *Servile State,* as you travelled through the country, you would +most ordinarily see working on the fields men who were the slaves of a +master. That master would own the land and the seed, and the food and +the houses, and the horses and ploughs and everything, and these men you +would see working would be compelled to work for their master, and he +would have the right by law to punish them if they did not. + +If you were in a *Capitalist State* (as we are in England) the men you +would see working would, as a rule, be earning what are called "wages," +that is, an allowance (actually of money but immediately translated into +food and clothes and house-room and the rest), which allowance would be +paid to them at fairly short intervals, and without which they could not +live. The ploughs and horses with which they would be working, the seed +they would be sowing, the houses they lived in would be the property of +another man owning this *capital,* and therefore called *The +Capitalist.* If you asked any one of these men who were working whether +he were *compelled* to work by law he would indignantly tell you that he +was not. For he is a free man; his wages are paid him as a result of a +contract; he has said: "I will work for you for so much," and no one +could compel him to work if he did not choose to work. But in this state +of society a man without capital must make a contract of this sort in +order to live at all. He is not compelled by law to work for another, +but he is compelled by the necessity of living to work for another. + +Lastly, if you were travelling through a *Distributive State* (Denmark +is the best example of such a state in modern Europe) you would find +that the man working on the land was himself the owner of the land, and +also of the seed and of the horses and the houses, and all the rest of +it. He would be a free man working for his own advantage and for nobody +else's. He would also have a share in the factories of the country and +be a part owner in the local dairies, sharing the profit of those +dairies where the milk of many farms is gathered together, turned into +butter and cheese, and sold. + +This is what we mean by the three types of State. In each you would find +many exceptions, but each has its *determining number*---of slaves in +the one case, wage earners in the other, and independent men in the +third. + +We will now take each of these three kinds of State separately and see +the good and evil of them and what the consequences of them are. ## The Servile State -The Servile State is that which was found among our -forefathers everywhere. It is the Servile State in which we -Europeans all lived when we were pagan two thousand years -ago. For instance: In old pagan Italy before it became -Christian, or in old pagan Greece---both of them the best -countries in the world of their time and both of them, as -you know, the origins of our own civilisation---most of the -people you would have seen working at anything were slaves, -and above the slaves were the owners: the free men. - -Since we are talking of the political applications of -political economy, we have to consider *human happiness,* -which is the object of all human living; and when we talk of -"advantage" or "disadvantage" in any particular economic -state we mean its greater or less effect on human happiness. - -The great disadvantage of the slave-owning state is clearly -apparent: in it the mass of men are degraded: they are not -citizens: they cannot exercise their own wills. This is so -evident and great an evil that it must be set against ah the -advantages we are about to notice. Slavery is a most unhappy -condition in so far as it wounds human honour and offends -human dignity; and that is why the Christian religion -gradually dissolved slavery in the process of many -centuries: slavery is not sufficiently consistent with the -idea of man's being made in the image of God. Slavery can -also be materially unhappy, if the masters are cruel or -negligent. The great mass of slaves in such a society might -be, at the caprice of their masters, very unhappy; and under -bad phases of those societies they *were* very unhappy. - -But we must not be misled by the ideas that have grown up -around the word "slave" in the modern mind. Because we have -no one in England to-day who is called a slave and bought or -sold as a slave, and no one is yet compelled by law to work -for another man, therefore we regard slavery as something -odd and alien; and because it is natural to dislike things -which are odd and alien, unaccustomed, we think of slavery -as something simply bad. - -That is a great mistake. The Servile State had---and, if it -comes back, will have again---two great advantages: which -were *personal security* and *general stability.* - -*Personal security* means a condition in which everybody, -master and man, is free from grave anxiety upon the future: -can expect regular food and lodging and a continuance of his -regular way of life. - -*General stability* means the continuance of all society in -one fashion, without the violent ups and downs of -competition and without the friction of unwilling, -constantly interrupted labour---as in strikes and lock-outs. - -In the Servile State work always got done and was done -regularly. The owners knew "where they were." With so much -land and so many slaves they were sure of a certain average -annual produce. On the whole it was to the advantage of a -man to keep his slaves alive and fairly well fed and housed. -Also, the human relation came in, and a man and his slave, -in the better and simpler forms of the Servile State, would -often be friends and were usually in the same relation as -people are to-day with their dependents. For instance: in -well-to-do houses of the Servile State we know from history -that certain slaves were often the tutors of the children, -and thus had a very important and respectable position, and -there were other slaves who acted as good musicians and -architects and artists. There was always the feeling of a -fixed social difference between slave and free, but this did -not necessarily nor perhaps usually lead to great -unhappiness. - -This stability and security which slave-owning gave to all -society (to the owned to some extent, and to the owners -altogether) also produced a very valuable effect, which is, -the presence of *leisure.* Because revenue was fairly -certain, because this kind of arrangement prevented violent -fluctuation of fortune, competition in excess, and the rest -of it, therefore was there a considerable proportion of -people at any time who had ample opportunity for study, for -cultivating good tastes, for writing and building well, and -judging well, and---what is very important---for conducting -the affairs of the State without haste or the panic and -folly of haste. - -One alleged *economic* disadvantage of slave-owning must be -looked at narrowly before we leave this description of the -Servile State. - -One often hears it said that slave labour is less productive -than free labour, that is, labour working at a wage under -Capitalism. People sometimes point to modem examples of this -contrast, saying that places like the Southern States of -America, where slave labour was used a lifetime ago, were -less productive than the Northern States, where labour was -free. But though this is true of particular moments in -history, it is not generally true. Free labour working at a -wage under the first institution of capitalism---when, for -instance, a body of capitalists are beginning to develop a -new country with hired free men to work for them---will be -full of energy and highly productive. But when what is -called "free labour"---that is, men without property working -by contract for a wage---gets into routine and habit, it is -doubtful whether it is more productive than slave labour. It -is accompanied by a great deal of ill-will. There is -perpetual interruption by strikes, and lock-outs,and the -process of production cannot be as minutely and absolutely -directed by the small and leisured class as can slave -labour. *There is no reason why a free man working for -another's profit should do his best.* On the contrary, he -has every reason to work as little as possible, while a -slave can be compelled to work hard. - -But whether slave labour be more or less productive is not -so important as the two points mentioned above, of advantage -and disadvantage. The disadvantages, as we have seen, are -(1) that it offends our human love of honour and -independence, degrading the mass of men, and (2) that it is -so terribly liable to abuse in the hands of cruel or stupid -owners, or in conditions where great gangs of slaves grow up -under one owner who can know nothing about them personally -and is therefore indifferent to their fate. The *advantages* -are security and stability, running as a note throughout -society and showing themselves especially in the leisure of -the owning classes, with all the good fruits of leisure in -taste, literary and artistic. It was a society based on -slavery which produced what is perhaps the best fruit of -leisure, and that is the profound and fruitful thinking out -of the great human problems. All the great philosophy and -art of the ancients was worked out by the free owners in the -slave-owning states, and so was the best literature ever -made. +The Servile State is that which was found among our forefathers +everywhere. It is the Servile State in which we Europeans all lived when +we were pagan two thousand years ago. For instance: In old pagan Italy +before it became Christian, or in old pagan Greece---both of them the +best countries in the world of their time and both of them, as you know, +the origins of our own civilisation---most of the people you would have +seen working at anything were slaves, and above the slaves were the +owners: the free men. + +Since we are talking of the political applications of political economy, +we have to consider *human happiness,* which is the object of all human +living; and when we talk of "advantage" or "disadvantage" in any +particular economic state we mean its greater or less effect on human +happiness. + +The great disadvantage of the slave-owning state is clearly apparent: in +it the mass of men are degraded: they are not citizens: they cannot +exercise their own wills. This is so evident and great an evil that it +must be set against ah the advantages we are about to notice. Slavery is +a most unhappy condition in so far as it wounds human honour and offends +human dignity; and that is why the Christian religion gradually +dissolved slavery in the process of many centuries: slavery is not +sufficiently consistent with the idea of man's being made in the image +of God. Slavery can also be materially unhappy, if the masters are cruel +or negligent. The great mass of slaves in such a society might be, at +the caprice of their masters, very unhappy; and under bad phases of +those societies they *were* very unhappy. + +But we must not be misled by the ideas that have grown up around the +word "slave" in the modern mind. Because we have no one in England +to-day who is called a slave and bought or sold as a slave, and no one +is yet compelled by law to work for another man, therefore we regard +slavery as something odd and alien; and because it is natural to dislike +things which are odd and alien, unaccustomed, we think of slavery as +something simply bad. + +That is a great mistake. The Servile State had---and, if it comes back, +will have again---two great advantages: which were *personal security* +and *general stability.* + +*Personal security* means a condition in which everybody, master and +man, is free from grave anxiety upon the future: can expect regular food +and lodging and a continuance of his regular way of life. + +*General stability* means the continuance of all society in one fashion, +without the violent ups and downs of competition and without the +friction of unwilling, constantly interrupted labour---as in strikes and +lock-outs. + +In the Servile State work always got done and was done regularly. The +owners knew "where they were." With so much land and so many slaves they +were sure of a certain average annual produce. On the whole it was to +the advantage of a man to keep his slaves alive and fairly well fed and +housed. Also, the human relation came in, and a man and his slave, in +the better and simpler forms of the Servile State, would often be +friends and were usually in the same relation as people are to-day with +their dependents. For instance: in well-to-do houses of the Servile +State we know from history that certain slaves were often the tutors of +the children, and thus had a very important and respectable position, +and there were other slaves who acted as good musicians and architects +and artists. There was always the feeling of a fixed social difference +between slave and free, but this did not necessarily nor perhaps usually +lead to great unhappiness. + +This stability and security which slave-owning gave to all society (to +the owned to some extent, and to the owners altogether) also produced a +very valuable effect, which is, the presence of *leisure.* Because +revenue was fairly certain, because this kind of arrangement prevented +violent fluctuation of fortune, competition in excess, and the rest of +it, therefore was there a considerable proportion of people at any time +who had ample opportunity for study, for cultivating good tastes, for +writing and building well, and judging well, and---what is very +important---for conducting the affairs of the State without haste or the +panic and folly of haste. + +One alleged *economic* disadvantage of slave-owning must be looked at +narrowly before we leave this description of the Servile State. + +One often hears it said that slave labour is less productive than free +labour, that is, labour working at a wage under Capitalism. People +sometimes point to modem examples of this contrast, saying that places +like the Southern States of America, where slave labour was used a +lifetime ago, were less productive than the Northern States, where +labour was free. But though this is true of particular moments in +history, it is not generally true. Free labour working at a wage under +the first institution of capitalism---when, for instance, a body of +capitalists are beginning to develop a new country with hired free men +to work for them---will be full of energy and highly productive. But +when what is called "free labour"---that is, men without property +working by contract for a wage---gets into routine and habit, it is +doubtful whether it is more productive than slave labour. It is +accompanied by a great deal of ill-will. There is perpetual interruption +by strikes, and lock-outs,and the process of production cannot be as +minutely and absolutely directed by the small and leisured class as can +slave labour. *There is no reason why a free man working for another's +profit should do his best.* On the contrary, he has every reason to work +as little as possible, while a slave can be compelled to work hard. + +But whether slave labour be more or less productive is not so important +as the two points mentioned above, of advantage and disadvantage. The +disadvantages, as we have seen, are (1) that it offends our human love +of honour and independence, degrading the mass of men, and (2) that it +is so terribly liable to abuse in the hands of cruel or stupid owners, +or in conditions where great gangs of slaves grow up under one owner who +can know nothing about them personally and is therefore indifferent to +their fate. The *advantages* are security and stability, running as a +note throughout society and showing themselves especially in the leisure +of the owning classes, with all the good fruits of leisure in taste, +literary and artistic. It was a society based on slavery which produced +what is perhaps the best fruit of leisure, and that is the profound and +fruitful thinking out of the great human problems. All the great +philosophy and art of the ancients was worked out by the free owners in +the slave-owning states, and so was the best literature ever made. ## The Capitalist State -The Capitalist State is that one in which though all men are -free (that is, though no one is compelled to work for -another by law, nor anyone compelled to support another), -yet a few owners of the land and capital have working for -them the great mass of the people who own little or nothing -and receive a *wage* to keep them alive: that is, a part -only of the wealth they produce, the rest going as rent and -profit to the owners. - -The Capitalist State is a recent phenomenon compared with -the great length of known recorded history. It is a modern -phenomenon produced by our white race alone, by no means -covering the whole of that race, nor the most of it, but of -great interest to us in England because we alone are, of all -nations, an almost purely capitalist society. +The Capitalist State is that one in which though all men are free (that +is, though no one is compelled to work for another by law, nor anyone +compelled to support another), yet a few owners of the land and capital +have working for them the great mass of the people who own little or +nothing and receive a *wage* to keep them alive: that is, a part only of +the wealth they produce, the rest going as rent and profit to the +owners. + +The Capitalist State is a recent phenomenon compared with the great +length of known recorded history. It is a modern phenomenon produced by +our white race alone, by no means covering the whole of that race, nor +the most of it, but of great interest to us in England because we alone +are, of all nations, an almost purely capitalist society. Here again we can tabulate the advantages and disadvantages. The chief moral advantage of Capitalism as compared with the -Slave-owning State is that *every man, however poor, feels -himself to be free and to that extent saves his honour.* He -may be compelled by poverty to suffer a very hard bargain; -he may see himself producing wealth for other men, of which -wealth he is only allowed to keep a portion for himself. To -that extent he is "exploited," as the phrase goes. He feels -himself the victim of a certain injustice. He remains poor -in spite of all his labour, and the man for whom he works -grows rich. But, after all, it is a contract which the free -workman has made, and he has made it as a citizen. If those -who own nothing, or next to nothing, in a capitalist state -(this great majority is technically called in economic -language "the *proletariat*") organise, they can bargain, as -our great Trade Unions do, with the few owners of their -means of livelihood and of production, and be fairly -certain, for some little time ahead, of a reasonable -livelihood. - -Another advantage of Capitalism, purely economic, is the -*effectiveness of human energy* under this system, at least, -*in the first part of its development.* We spoke of this in -the last section. +Slave-owning State is that *every man, however poor, feels himself to be +free and to that extent saves his honour.* He may be compelled by +poverty to suffer a very hard bargain; he may see himself producing +wealth for other men, of which wealth he is only allowed to keep a +portion for himself. To that extent he is "exploited," as the phrase +goes. He feels himself the victim of a certain injustice. He remains +poor in spite of all his labour, and the man for whom he works grows +rich. But, after all, it is a contract which the free workman has made, +and he has made it as a citizen. If those who own nothing, or next to +nothing, in a capitalist state (this great majority is technically +called in economic language "the *proletariat*") organise, they can +bargain, as our great Trade Unions do, with the few owners of their +means of livelihood and of production, and be fairly certain, for some +little time ahead, of a reasonable livelihood. + +Another advantage of Capitalism, purely economic, is the *effectiveness +of human energy* under this system, at least, *in the first part of its +development.* We spoke of this in the last section. But the disadvantages are very grave indeed. -Under Capitalism the capitalist himself acts competitively -and for a profit. He does not, like the slave-owner, direct -a regular, simple machine which works evenly year in and -year out. He is perpetually struggling to rise; or -suffering, through the rise of others, a fall of fortune. He -is always on the look-out to buy labour as cheaply as he can -and then to sell the product as dearly as he can. There is -thus a perpetual gamble going on, the owners of Capital -rapidly growing rich and poor by turns and a general -insecurity gradually poisoning all the owning part of -society. A far worse insecurity affects the propertyless -majority. The Proletariat---that is, the mass of the -State---lives perpetually under the fear of falling into -unemployment and starvation. The lash urging the workman to -his fullest effort is this dread of misery. At first that -lash urges men to intense effort, but later it destroys -their energy. Capitalism was marked by nothing more striking -when it first arose than by the immense expansion of wealth -and population which followed it. In every district which -fell under the capitalist system this expansion of total -wealth and of total population could be observed; and -England, which has become completely capitalist, had in the -hey-day of its Capitalism---up to the present generation---a -more rapid rate of expansion in wealth and population than -any other ancient people. But already the tide has turned, -and the inhumanity of such a life is beginning to breed -everywhere an ill-ease and revolt which threaten our -civilisation. - -The disadvantages of Capitalism are, in the long run, so -great that now, after not more than a lifetime of complete -Capitalism, and that in only one State---the English -State---nearly everybody is profoundly discontented with it -and many people are in violent rebellion against it. This -grinding and increasing insecurity which attaches to the -Capitalist system is killing it. No one is safe for the -morrow. Perpetual competition, increasing with every -increase of energy, has led to a chaos in human society such -as there never was before. The mass of the people, not being -slaves, cannot be certain that they will be kept alive. They -live in a state of perpetual anxiety as to whether their -employment will continue; while among the owners themselves -the same anxiety exists in another form. The competition -among them gets more and more severe. The number of owners -gets less, and even the richest of them is more insecure -than were the moderately rich of a generation ago. All -society is like a boiling pot, with individuals suddenly -coming into great wealth from below and then dropping out -again; the whole State suffers from an increasing absence of -leisure and an increasing turmoil. - -There is, then, this very grave disadvantage of insecurity -everywhere, and particularly for the mass of the people, who -live under permanent conditions of insecurity; nearly all -the wage-earners have had experience at some time, longer or -shorter, of insufficiency through unemployment. Capitalism -leaves free men under a sense of acute grievance (which they -would *not* feel if they were slaves, accustomed to a -regular and fixed status in society), and, what is worse, -Capitalism *in its later stages* need not provide for the -livelihood of the mass of citizens, and, in effect, *does -not* so provide. - -The magnitude of these evils is obvious. A man who is a free -man, a citizen, able in theory to take part in the life of -the State, equal with the richest man before the law, yet -finds himself living on a precarious amount of necessaries -of life doled out as wages week after week; he sees his -labour exploited by others and suffers from a sense of -injustice and oppression. The wealth of the small, owning, -class does not seem a natural adjunct to its social -position, as it does in the slave-owning state; for there is -no tradition behind that class; it has no "status," that is, -no general respect paid to it as something naturally---or, -at any rate, traditionally---superior to the rest of men. -Many a modem millionaire capitalist, exploiting the labour -of thousands of his fellows, is of a lower culture than most -of his labourers; and, what is more, he may in a few years -have lost all his economic position and have been succeeded -by another, even baser than himself. How can the masses feel -respect for such a man in such a position of chance -advantage? - -It is inevitable that a moral evil of this sort should make -the whole State unstable. You cannot make of great -differences in wealth between citizens a stable state of -affairs, save by breeding respect for the owners of great -wealth. But the more the turmoil of Capitalism increases the -less respect these owners of great wealth either deserve or -obtain: the less do they form a class, and the less do they -preserve traditions of any kind. And yet it is under these -very conditions of Capitalism that there is a greater -disparity of wealth than ever the world knew before! It is -clear that society in such a condition must be as unstable +Under Capitalism the capitalist himself acts competitively and for a +profit. He does not, like the slave-owner, direct a regular, simple +machine which works evenly year in and year out. He is perpetually +struggling to rise; or suffering, through the rise of others, a fall of +fortune. He is always on the look-out to buy labour as cheaply as he can +and then to sell the product as dearly as he can. There is thus a +perpetual gamble going on, the owners of Capital rapidly growing rich +and poor by turns and a general insecurity gradually poisoning all the +owning part of society. A far worse insecurity affects the propertyless +majority. The Proletariat---that is, the mass of the State---lives +perpetually under the fear of falling into unemployment and starvation. +The lash urging the workman to his fullest effort is this dread of +misery. At first that lash urges men to intense effort, but later it +destroys their energy. Capitalism was marked by nothing more striking +when it first arose than by the immense expansion of wealth and +population which followed it. In every district which fell under the +capitalist system this expansion of total wealth and of total population +could be observed; and England, which has become completely capitalist, +had in the hey-day of its Capitalism---up to the present generation---a +more rapid rate of expansion in wealth and population than any other +ancient people. But already the tide has turned, and the inhumanity of +such a life is beginning to breed everywhere an ill-ease and revolt +which threaten our civilisation. + +The disadvantages of Capitalism are, in the long run, so great that now, +after not more than a lifetime of complete Capitalism, and that in only +one State---the English State---nearly everybody is profoundly +discontented with it and many people are in violent rebellion against +it. This grinding and increasing insecurity which attaches to the +Capitalist system is killing it. No one is safe for the morrow. +Perpetual competition, increasing with every increase of energy, has led +to a chaos in human society such as there never was before. The mass of +the people, not being slaves, cannot be certain that they will be kept +alive. They live in a state of perpetual anxiety as to whether their +employment will continue; while among the owners themselves the same +anxiety exists in another form. The competition among them gets more and +more severe. The number of owners gets less, and even the richest of +them is more insecure than were the moderately rich of a generation ago. +All society is like a boiling pot, with individuals suddenly coming into +great wealth from below and then dropping out again; the whole State +suffers from an increasing absence of leisure and an increasing turmoil. + +There is, then, this very grave disadvantage of insecurity everywhere, +and particularly for the mass of the people, who live under permanent +conditions of insecurity; nearly all the wage-earners have had +experience at some time, longer or shorter, of insufficiency through +unemployment. Capitalism leaves free men under a sense of acute +grievance (which they would *not* feel if they were slaves, accustomed +to a regular and fixed status in society), and, what is worse, +Capitalism *in its later stages* need not provide for the livelihood of +the mass of citizens, and, in effect, *does not* so provide. + +The magnitude of these evils is obvious. A man who is a free man, a +citizen, able in theory to take part in the life of the State, equal +with the richest man before the law, yet finds himself living on a +precarious amount of necessaries of life doled out as wages week after +week; he sees his labour exploited by others and suffers from a sense of +injustice and oppression. The wealth of the small, owning, class does +not seem a natural adjunct to its social position, as it does in the +slave-owning state; for there is no tradition behind that class; it has +no "status," that is, no general respect paid to it as something +naturally---or, at any rate, traditionally---superior to the rest of +men. Many a modem millionaire capitalist, exploiting the labour of +thousands of his fellows, is of a lower culture than most of his +labourers; and, what is more, he may in a few years have lost all his +economic position and have been succeeded by another, even baser than +himself. How can the masses feel respect for such a man in such a +position of chance advantage? + +It is inevitable that a moral evil of this sort should make the whole +State unstable. You cannot make of great differences in wealth between +citizens a stable state of affairs, save by breeding respect for the +owners of great wealth. But the more the turmoil of Capitalism increases +the less respect these owners of great wealth either deserve or obtain: +the less do they form a class, and the less do they preserve traditions +of any kind. And yet it is under these very conditions of Capitalism +that there is a greater disparity of wealth than ever the world knew +before! It is clear that society in such a condition must be as unstable as an explosive. -So much for the first great disadvantage of Capitalism, -chaos. But the second main disadvantage---the fact that -Capitalism in its later stages ceases to guarantee the -livelihood of the people---is a little less easy to -understand. Indeed, most people who discuss Capitalism, even -when they strongly oppose it, seem unable to grasp this -second disadvantage---so let us examine it closely. +So much for the first great disadvantage of Capitalism, chaos. But the +second main disadvantage---the fact that Capitalism in its later stages +ceases to guarantee the livelihood of the people---is a little less easy +to understand. Indeed, most people who discuss Capitalism, even when +they strongly oppose it, seem unable to grasp this second +disadvantage---so let us examine it closely. -I have said that Capitalism, in its later stages, *does not -provide for the maintenance of the mass of the people.* +I have said that Capitalism, in its later stages, *does not provide for +the maintenance of the mass of the people.* To see how true this is, consider an extreme case. -Supposing one man were to own all the means of production, -and supposing he were to have in his possession one machine -which could produce in an indefinite amount all that human -beings need in order to live. Then there would be no -economic reason why this one man should provide wealth for -anyone except himself and his family. He might turn out -enough things to support a few others whom he wanted for -private servants or to amuse him, but there would be no -reason why he should support the masses around him. - -Now it is true that we have not yet come, under Capitalism, -to so extreme a case. But the moral applies, though -modified, to Capitalism in its last stages, when very few -men control the means of production, when machinery has -become very efficient, and when the great mass of people are -dependent upon employment by the capitalist for their -existence. - -Consider that it is of the essence of Capitalism to keep -wages down, that is, to buy labour cheap. Therefore, the -labourer who actually produces, say, boots cannot afford to -buy a sufficient amount of the boots which he himself has -made. The capitalist controlling the boot-making machinery, -when he has provided himself with a dozen pair of boots, and -the working classes of the community with such boots as -their wages permit them to buy, must either try to sell the -extra boots abroad (and that outlet can't last long) or stop -making them. He has restricted the home market by the -necessity of cheap labour, and you have the absurd position -of men making more goods than they need, and yet having less -of those goods available for themselves than they need: the -labourer producing, or able to produce, every year enough -clothing for ten years, and yet not being able to afford -sufficient for one: the labourer producing or able to -produce ten good overcoats, yet not able to buy one. - -So under Capitalism in its last stages you have the abnormal -position of millions of men ready to make the necessaries of -life, of machinery ready to produce those necessaries, of -raw material standing ready to be worked up by the machinery -if only labourers could be put on, and yet all the machinery -standing idle, the wealth not being produced, and the mass -who could produce it going hungry and ill-shod and badly -clothed. And the more Capitalism develops the more that -state of things will develop with it. - -Now this gradual lessening of purchasing power on the part -of the working masses under Capitalism is *the destruction -of the home market*. Low wages make great masses of English -bootmakers unable to buy all the boots they would. Therefore -the capitalist who owns the boot-making machinery must try -to sell his surplus abroad. But the foreign countries, as -they grow capitalist, suffer from the same trouble: property -being badly distributed and the wage-earners kept as low as -possible, their power to buy foreign goods also diminishes. -Thus you have *gradual destruction of the foreign market.* -You get in the long run the full working of what we will -call the *"Capitalist Paradox,"* which is that Capitalism is -a way of producing wealth which, in the long run, prevents -people from obtaining the wealth produced and prevents the +Supposing one man were to own all the means of production, and supposing +he were to have in his possession one machine which could produce in an +indefinite amount all that human beings need in order to live. Then +there would be no economic reason why this one man should provide wealth +for anyone except himself and his family. He might turn out enough +things to support a few others whom he wanted for private servants or to +amuse him, but there would be no reason why he should support the masses +around him. + +Now it is true that we have not yet come, under Capitalism, to so +extreme a case. But the moral applies, though modified, to Capitalism in +its last stages, when very few men control the means of production, when +machinery has become very efficient, and when the great mass of people +are dependent upon employment by the capitalist for their existence. + +Consider that it is of the essence of Capitalism to keep wages down, +that is, to buy labour cheap. Therefore, the labourer who actually +produces, say, boots cannot afford to buy a sufficient amount of the +boots which he himself has made. The capitalist controlling the +boot-making machinery, when he has provided himself with a dozen pair of +boots, and the working classes of the community with such boots as their +wages permit them to buy, must either try to sell the extra boots abroad +(and that outlet can't last long) or stop making them. He has restricted +the home market by the necessity of cheap labour, and you have the +absurd position of men making more goods than they need, and yet having +less of those goods available for themselves than they need: the +labourer producing, or able to produce, every year enough clothing for +ten years, and yet not being able to afford sufficient for one: the +labourer producing or able to produce ten good overcoats, yet not able +to buy one. + +So under Capitalism in its last stages you have the abnormal position of +millions of men ready to make the necessaries of life, of machinery +ready to produce those necessaries, of raw material standing ready to be +worked up by the machinery if only labourers could be put on, and yet +all the machinery standing idle, the wealth not being produced, and the +mass who could produce it going hungry and ill-shod and badly clothed. +And the more Capitalism develops the more that state of things will +develop with it. + +Now this gradual lessening of purchasing power on the part of the +working masses under Capitalism is *the destruction of the home market*. +Low wages make great masses of English bootmakers unable to buy all the +boots they would. Therefore the capitalist who owns the boot-making +machinery must try to sell his surplus abroad. But the foreign +countries, as they grow capitalist, suffer from the same trouble: +property being badly distributed and the wage-earners kept as low as +possible, their power to buy foreign goods also diminishes. Thus you +have *gradual destruction of the foreign market.* You get in the long +run the full working of what we will call the *"Capitalist Paradox,"* +which is that Capitalism is a way of producing wealth which, in the long +run, prevents people from obtaining the wealth produced and prevents the owner of the wealth from finding a market. -There is no doubt that, on the balance, the disadvantages of -Capitalism have proved, even after its short trial, -overwhelmingly greater than the advantages, - -Capitalism arose in small beginnings rather more than 250 -years ago. It grew strong and covered the greater part of -the community (in England, at least) about 100 years ago. It -came to its highest development in our own time; and it is -already doomed. People cannot bear it any longer. Future -historians looking back upon our time will be astonished at -the immense productivity of Capitalism, the enormous -addition to wealth which it made, and to population, in its -early phases; but perhaps they will be still more astonished -at the pace at which it ran down at its end. Urged by the -extreme human suffering, moral and material, which -capitalism now produces, remedies have been proposed, the -chief of which is generally called Socialism, or, in its -fully developed form, Communism. - -But before we talk of this supposed remedy, which has never -been put into practice (it is an imaginary state of things) -we must describe the third form of state---the Distributive -State. +There is no doubt that, on the balance, the disadvantages of Capitalism +have proved, even after its short trial, overwhelmingly greater than the +advantages, + +Capitalism arose in small beginnings rather more than 250 years ago. It +grew strong and covered the greater part of the community (in England, +at least) about 100 years ago. It came to its highest development in our +own time; and it is already doomed. People cannot bear it any longer. +Future historians looking back upon our time will be astonished at the +immense productivity of Capitalism, the enormous addition to wealth +which it made, and to population, in its early phases; but perhaps they +will be still more astonished at the pace at which it ran down at its +end. Urged by the extreme human suffering, moral and material, which +capitalism now produces, remedies have been proposed, the chief of which +is generally called Socialism, or, in its fully developed form, +Communism. + +But before we talk of this supposed remedy, which has never been put +into practice (it is an imaginary state of things) we must describe the +third form of state---the Distributive State. ## The Distributive State -A state of society in which the families composing it are, -in a determining number, owners of the land and the means of -production as well as themselves the human agents of -production (that is, the people who by their human energy -produce wealth with those means of production), is probably -the oldest, and certainly the most commonly found of all -states of society. It is a state of society which you get -all through the East, all through Asia, and in all the -primitive states we know. It is the state to which men try -to return, as a rule, after they have blundered into any -other, though the first state we described---the Servile -State---runs it very close as a thing suitable to human -nature; for we know that the Servile State did also last for +A state of society in which the families composing it are, in a +determining number, owners of the land and the means of production as +well as themselves the human agents of production (that is, the people +who by their human energy produce wealth with those means of +production), is probably the oldest, and certainly the most commonly +found of all states of society. It is a state of society which you get +all through the East, all through Asia, and in all the primitive states +we know. It is the state to which men try to return, as a rule, after +they have blundered into any other, though the first state we +described---the Servile State---runs it very close as a thing suitable +to human nature; for we know that the Servile State did also last for centuries quite normally and stably in the Pagan past. -The reason men commonly adopt the Distributive form of -society, and tend to return to it if they can, is that the -advantages it presents seem greater in most men's eyes than -its disadvantages. +The reason men commonly adopt the Distributive form of society, and tend +to return to it if they can, is that the advantages it presents seem +greater in most men's eyes than its disadvantages. The advantages are these:--- -It gives freedom: that is, the exercise of one's will. A -family possessed of the means of production---the simplest -form of which is the possession of land and of the -implements and capital for working the land---cannot be -controlled by others. Of course, various producers -specialise, and through exchange one with the other they -become more or less interdependent, but still, each one can -live "on his own": each one can stand out, if necessary, -from pressure exercised against him by another. He can say: -"If you will not take my surplus as against your surplus I -shall be the poorer; but at least I can live." - -Societies of this kind are not only free, but also, what -goes with freedom, elastic---that is, they mould themselves -easily to changed conditions. The individual, or the family, -controlling his or its own means of production, can choose -what he will do best, and can exercise his faculties, if he -has sufficient knowledge, to the best advantage. - -This arrangement also gives security, though not as much -security as the Servile State. Men in this position of -ownership are not in dread of the immediate future. They can -carry on. They may, if they choose, make a reserve of their -produce to carry them over moments of difficulty. For -instance, they will probably have each a reserve of food to -carry them over a bad harvest or some natural disaster. -Further, it is found in practice that societies of this kind -continue for centuries without much change. They go on for -generations with a property well divided among them and -everybody free, so far as economic situation is concerned. -No such society has ever been destroyed except by some great -shock; and so long as every shock can be warded off, this -system of having the land and the means of production -controlled by the mass of the citizens as private owners is -enduring. There are districts of Europe to-day where the -system has continued from beyond the memory of man. Such a -little state as Andorra is an example, and many of the Swiss -valleys. Further, when the system has been laboriously -reconstructed, when the mass of families who used to be -dispossessed have been again put into possession of land and -the means of production, we find that the state arrived at +It gives freedom: that is, the exercise of one's will. A family +possessed of the means of production---the simplest form of which is the +possession of land and of the implements and capital for working the +land---cannot be controlled by others. Of course, various producers +specialise, and through exchange one with the other they become more or +less interdependent, but still, each one can live "on his own": each one +can stand out, if necessary, from pressure exercised against him by +another. He can say: "If you will not take my surplus as against your +surplus I shall be the poorer; but at least I can live." + +Societies of this kind are not only free, but also, what goes with +freedom, elastic---that is, they mould themselves easily to changed +conditions. The individual, or the family, controlling his or its own +means of production, can choose what he will do best, and can exercise +his faculties, if he has sufficient knowledge, to the best advantage. + +This arrangement also gives security, though not as much security as the +Servile State. Men in this position of ownership are not in dread of the +immediate future. They can carry on. They may, if they choose, make a +reserve of their produce to carry them over moments of difficulty. For +instance, they will probably have each a reserve of food to carry them +over a bad harvest or some natural disaster. Further, it is found in +practice that societies of this kind continue for centuries without much +change. They go on for generations with a property well divided among +them and everybody free, so far as economic situation is concerned. No +such society has ever been destroyed except by some great shock; and so +long as every shock can be warded off, this system of having the land +and the means of production controlled by the mass of the citizens as +private owners is enduring. There are districts of Europe to-day where +the system has continued from beyond the memory of man. Such a little +state as Andorra is an example, and many of the Swiss valleys. Further, +when the system has been laboriously reconstructed, when the mass of +families who used to be dispossessed have been again put into possession +of land and the means of production, we find that the state arrived at is stable. -The best example of that sort of reconstruction to-day is to -be found in Denmark, but you have it also in a less marked -fashion in most parts of France and in most of the Valley of -the Rhine, in Belgium and Holland, in Norway, and in many -other places. Wherever it has been settled it has taken root -firmly. - -The disadvantages of such a system are, first, that though -in practice it is found usually stable, yet in theory it is -not necessarily stable, and in practice also there are some -communities the social character of which is such that the -system cannot be established permanently. - -It is obvious that, with land and the means of production -well distributed among the various families, a few may by -luck or special perseverance and cunning, tend to buy up the -land and implements of their less fortunate neighbours, and -nothing will prevent this but a set of laws backed up by -strong public opinion. In other words, people must desire -this state of society, and desire it strongly in order to -maintain it; and if the desire for ownership and freedom is -weak this distributive arrangement will not last. - -In the absence of special laws, and a public opinion to back -them, the idler or the least competent or least lucky of the -owners will gradually lose their ownership to the more -industrious or the more cunning or more fortunate. - -Another disadvantage which has often been pointed out is -that a state of society of this sort, though usually stable -and enduring, falls into a routine (that is, into a -traditional way of doing things), which it is very difficult -to change. The small owner will not have the same -opportunities for travel and for wide experience as the rich -man has, and he will tend to go on as his fathers did, and -therefore when some new invention arises outside his society -he will be slow to adopt it. In this way his society becomes -less able to defend itself from predatory neighbours and -goes under in war. For a society of this kind is unfitted to -the discovery of new things. Contented men feel no special -spur to discover or to act on such discovery. That is why we -find societies in which land and all the other means of -production are well distributed among the greater part of -the families of the State becoming too conservative---that -is, unwilling to change even for their own advantage. - -This, of course, is not universally true. For instance: no -society in Europe has made more progress in agriculture than -the Danish society of small owners. But, take the world all -over, this kind of state is usually backward, that is, slow -to take up improvements in production and to avail itself of -new discoveries in physical science. - -There is also another disadvantage which the Distributive -State has when it is in competition with a Capitalist State, -or even a Servile State, and that is *the difficulty of -getting a very large number of small owners to put their -money together for any great purpose.* The small owner will -probably have less opportunities for instruction and -judgment than the few directing rich men of a Capitalist or -Servile State, and even if he is, on the average, as well -educated as these rich men in neighbouring states, it will -be more difficult to get a great number of small owners to -act together than to persuade a few large owners to act -together. Therefore highly Capitalist States, such as -England, will be found more enterprising than less -Capitalist States in their investments and commerce. They -will open up new countries more rapidly, and will get +The best example of that sort of reconstruction to-day is to be found in +Denmark, but you have it also in a less marked fashion in most parts of +France and in most of the Valley of the Rhine, in Belgium and Holland, +in Norway, and in many other places. Wherever it has been settled it has +taken root firmly. + +The disadvantages of such a system are, first, that though in practice +it is found usually stable, yet in theory it is not necessarily stable, +and in practice also there are some communities the social character of +which is such that the system cannot be established permanently. + +It is obvious that, with land and the means of production well +distributed among the various families, a few may by luck or special +perseverance and cunning, tend to buy up the land and implements of +their less fortunate neighbours, and nothing will prevent this but a set +of laws backed up by strong public opinion. In other words, people must +desire this state of society, and desire it strongly in order to +maintain it; and if the desire for ownership and freedom is weak this +distributive arrangement will not last. + +In the absence of special laws, and a public opinion to back them, the +idler or the least competent or least lucky of the owners will gradually +lose their ownership to the more industrious or the more cunning or more +fortunate. + +Another disadvantage which has often been pointed out is that a state of +society of this sort, though usually stable and enduring, falls into a +routine (that is, into a traditional way of doing things), which it is +very difficult to change. The small owner will not have the same +opportunities for travel and for wide experience as the rich man has, +and he will tend to go on as his fathers did, and therefore when some +new invention arises outside his society he will be slow to adopt it. In +this way his society becomes less able to defend itself from predatory +neighbours and goes under in war. For a society of this kind is unfitted +to the discovery of new things. Contented men feel no special spur to +discover or to act on such discovery. That is why we find societies in +which land and all the other means of production are well distributed +among the greater part of the families of the State becoming too +conservative---that is, unwilling to change even for their own +advantage. + +This, of course, is not universally true. For instance: no society in +Europe has made more progress in agriculture than the Danish society of +small owners. But, take the world all over, this kind of state is +usually backward, that is, slow to take up improvements in production +and to avail itself of new discoveries in physical science. + +There is also another disadvantage which the Distributive State has when +it is in competition with a Capitalist State, or even a Servile State, +and that is *the difficulty of getting a very large number of small +owners to put their money together for any great purpose.* The small +owner will probably have less opportunities for instruction and judgment +than the few directing rich men of a Capitalist or Servile State, and +even if he is, on the average, as well educated as these rich men in +neighbouring states, it will be more difficult to get a great number of +small owners to act together than to persuade a few large owners to act +together. Therefore highly Capitalist States, such as England, will be +found more enterprising than less Capitalist States in their investments +and commerce. They will open up new countries more rapidly, and will get possession of the best markets. -Lastly, this disadvantage attaches to the Distributive -State---that it is not so easy in it to collect great funds -for war or for national defence, or for any other purpose, -as it is in a Capitalist or Servile State. You cannot tax a -Distributive State as highly as you can tax a Capitalist -State. The reason is obvious enough. A family with, say, -£400 a year finds it terribly difficult---almost -impossible---to pay out £100 a year in taxation. They live -on a certain modest scale to which all their lives are -fitted, and which does not leave very much margin for -taxation. If you have a million such families with a total -income of £400 millions you may collect from them, say, a -tenth of their wealth in a year---£40 millions---but you -will hardly be able to collect a quarter---£100 millions. - -But another society with exactly the same amount of total -wealth, £400 millions a year, only divided into very rich -and very poor, a society in which there are, say, 1,000 very -rich families with £300,000 a year each, and a million -families with rather less than £100 a year each, is in quite -a different situation. You need not tax at all the million -people with a hundred a year each, but the rich people, who -between them have £300,000,000 a year, can easily be taxed a -quarter of their whole wealth; for a rich man always has a -much larger margin, the loss of which he does not really -feel. - -By a very curious paradox, which it would take much too long -to go into in detail, but which it is amusing to notice, -this power of taxing a very highly capitalist community is -one of the things which is beginning to handicap our -Capitalist societies to-day against the Distributive -societies. It used to be all the other way, and it seemed -common sense that countries where you could levy large sums -for State purposes of war or peace would win against -countries where you could not levy such sums for public -purposes. But the fact that you can tax so very highly a -society of a few rich and many poor has been shown in the -last few years to have most unexpected results. The very -rich men pay all right; but the drain on the total resources -of the wealth of the State weakens it. - -The money raised by taxation is spent on State -servants---many of them inefficient and idle. - -Since it is so easy to raise large sums, there is a -temptation to indulge in all sorts of expensive State -schemes, many of which come to nothing. And this power of -easy taxation, which was a strength, becomes a weakness. - -No one suspected this until taxation rose to its present -height, but now it is clearly apparent; and we in England -might perhaps be in a better way later on if there had been -as much resistance to high taxation here as there has been -in countries where property is better distributed. +Lastly, this disadvantage attaches to the Distributive State---that it +is not so easy in it to collect great funds for war or for national +defence, or for any other purpose, as it is in a Capitalist or Servile +State. You cannot tax a Distributive State as highly as you can tax a +Capitalist State. The reason is obvious enough. A family with, say, £400 +a year finds it terribly difficult---almost impossible---to pay out £100 +a year in taxation. They live on a certain modest scale to which all +their lives are fitted, and which does not leave very much margin for +taxation. If you have a million such families with a total income of +£400 millions you may collect from them, say, a tenth of their wealth in +a year---£40 millions---but you will hardly be able to collect a +quarter---£100 millions. + +But another society with exactly the same amount of total wealth, £400 +millions a year, only divided into very rich and very poor, a society in +which there are, say, 1,000 very rich families with £300,000 a year +each, and a million families with rather less than £100 a year each, is +in quite a different situation. You need not tax at all the million +people with a hundred a year each, but the rich people, who between them +have £300,000,000 a year, can easily be taxed a quarter of their whole +wealth; for a rich man always has a much larger margin, the loss of +which he does not really feel. + +By a very curious paradox, which it would take much too long to go into +in detail, but which it is amusing to notice, this power of taxing a +very highly capitalist community is one of the things which is beginning +to handicap our Capitalist societies to-day against the Distributive +societies. It used to be all the other way, and it seemed common sense +that countries where you could levy large sums for State purposes of war +or peace would win against countries where you could not levy such sums +for public purposes. But the fact that you can tax so very highly a +society of a few rich and many poor has been shown in the last few years +to have most unexpected results. The very rich men pay all right; but +the drain on the total resources of the wealth of the State weakens it. + +The money raised by taxation is spent on State servants---many of them +inefficient and idle. + +Since it is so easy to raise large sums, there is a temptation to +indulge in all sorts of expensive State schemes, many of which come to +nothing. And this power of easy taxation, which was a strength, becomes +a weakness. + +No one suspected this until taxation rose to its present height, but now +it is clearly apparent; and we in England might perhaps be in a better +way later on if there had been as much resistance to high taxation here +as there has been in countries where property is better distributed. ## Socialism -It remains to deal with a certain remedy which some people -have imagined would get rid of all the disadvantages of -Capitalism once and for all. This remedy is called -*Socialism,* and Socialism, as we shall see in a moment, -must mean ultimately *Communism.* - -No one has ever succeeded in putting this remedy for the -evils of Capitalism into practice, and (though the matter is -still very much disputed) it looks more and more as though -no one would ever be able to put it into practice. - -We have seen what the evils of Capitalism were and how they -have exasperated nearly everyone who has become subject to a -capitalist state of society. There is the increasing -insecurity which everybody feels---all the Proletariat and -many of the Capitalists as well---whilst there is the -necessary tendency of Capitalism to leave a larger and -larger proportion of people unproductive, not making the -wealth which is necessary for their support, and therefore -either kept in idleness by Doles out of the wealth which is -still produced (a process which cannot go on for ever) or -starving. Pretty well everyone wants to get rid of these -evils and to get out of the Capitalist system, and this idea -of Socialism which we are going to examine seemed, when it -was first put forward, an easy and obvious shortcut out of -the Capitalist muddle. When we have looked into it, we shall -see how and why Socialism does not, in practice, turn out to -be a shortcut at all, but a blind alley. - -Ever since men began to live in societies and to leave -records, you will find the poorer people, when their poverty -became intolerable, clamouring for a division of the wealth -which the more fortunate enjoy. - -That is the main, obvious remedy to inequality of wealth; to -divide it up again. But such a scheme has nothing to do with -Socialism, and must not be mistaken for Socialism. - -The Socialist theory was invented, or at any rate was first -put clearly, by a man of genius, Louis Blanc, who was Scotch -on his father's side and French on his mother's. He lived -rather less than a hundred years ago and the scheme which he -and those around him started was this:--- +It remains to deal with a certain remedy which some people have imagined +would get rid of all the disadvantages of Capitalism once and for all. +This remedy is called *Socialism,* and Socialism, as we shall see in a +moment, must mean ultimately *Communism.* + +No one has ever succeeded in putting this remedy for the evils of +Capitalism into practice, and (though the matter is still very much +disputed) it looks more and more as though no one would ever be able to +put it into practice. + +We have seen what the evils of Capitalism were and how they have +exasperated nearly everyone who has become subject to a capitalist state +of society. There is the increasing insecurity which everybody +feels---all the Proletariat and many of the Capitalists as well---whilst +there is the necessary tendency of Capitalism to leave a larger and +larger proportion of people unproductive, not making the wealth which is +necessary for their support, and therefore either kept in idleness by +Doles out of the wealth which is still produced (a process which cannot +go on for ever) or starving. Pretty well everyone wants to get rid of +these evils and to get out of the Capitalist system, and this idea of +Socialism which we are going to examine seemed, when it was first put +forward, an easy and obvious shortcut out of the Capitalist muddle. When +we have looked into it, we shall see how and why Socialism does not, in +practice, turn out to be a shortcut at all, but a blind alley. + +Ever since men began to live in societies and to leave records, you will +find the poorer people, when their poverty became intolerable, +clamouring for a division of the wealth which the more fortunate enjoy. + +That is the main, obvious remedy to inequality of wealth; to divide it +up again. But such a scheme has nothing to do with Socialism, and must +not be mistaken for Socialism. + +The Socialist theory was invented, or at any rate was first put clearly, +by a man of genius, Louis Blanc, who was Scotch on his father's side and +French on his mother's. He lived rather less than a hundred years ago +and the scheme which he and those around him started was this:--- The Officers of the State were to own all the Means of -Production---machinery and land and stores of food, -etc.---and they alone should be allowed to own it. -Individuals and families and corporations might consume that -portion of produced wealth allotted them by the State after -it had been produced, *but they might not use it for making -future wealth.* **Any wealth used for the making of future -wealth, that is, Capital in any form, was to be handed over -to the officers of the state; and all land and natural -forces were to be owned for ever by the State.** That scheme -is Socialism, and from that principle all Socialist ideas -flow. - -In this way, it was claimed, there would be no division of -society into Capitalists and Proletarians, no chaos of -competition with its alternating riches and ruin; insecurity -would be done away with, and insufficiency as well. Everyone -in the country would be a worker, the State itself would be -the Universal Capitalist. So there would be no struggle of -capitalists going up and down one against the other, and no +Production---machinery and land and stores of food, etc.---and they +alone should be allowed to own it. Individuals and families and +corporations might consume that portion of produced wealth allotted them +by the State after it had been produced, *but they might not use it for +making future wealth.* **Any wealth used for the making of future +wealth, that is, Capital in any form, was to be handed over to the +officers of the state; and all land and natural forces were to be owned +for ever by the State.** That scheme is Socialism, and from that +principle all Socialist ideas flow. + +In this way, it was claimed, there would be no division of society into +Capitalists and Proletarians, no chaos of competition with its +alternating riches and ruin; insecurity would be done away with, and +insufficiency as well. Everyone in the country would be a worker, the +State itself would be the Universal Capitalist. So there would be no +struggle of capitalists going up and down one against the other, and no unemployment or lack of necessaries for anyone. -Among the energetic and keen set of men who surrounded Blanc -in Paris was a certain Mordecai, who wrote under the name -his father had assumed, that of "Marx." He wrote (in German) -a very long and detailed book describing the whole scheme, -as well as describing the evils of Capitalism, and showing -how this scheme would remedy those evils. His book was -pushed forward by the people who were converted to the idea, -and that is why the theory of Socialism is now often called -"Marxism." - -For instance: the coal-mines and all the machinery of the -coal-mines and the houses in which the miners live and the -stores of food and the clothing, etc., which keep the miners -alive while the coal is being mined, that is during the -process of production---all these, which now belong to -capitalists who make a profit out of the miners' labour, -would then belong to the State, which would allot the coal -produced to all who needed it. So it would be with all -farms, farming implements, and cattle and horses and the -stores of food and clothing and houses necessary to the -labourers on the land during the process of production. So -it would be with all stone-quarrying and timber-felling, and -carpentry and brick-making for the continued production of -the houses necessary to the producers during production. So -it would be with all corresponding material for making cloth -for clothing. So it would be with everything which was made -in the whole country. The officers of the State would share -out the wealth produced, so that it would be consumed by all -the citizens, and there would be an end to the exploitation -of one man by another and to the uncertainty of living. - -Communism is simply that form of Socialism in which all that -is thus shared out by the State would be shared equally, the -State giving every family an equal share in proportion to -the numbers of people which had to be supported in the -family, from one upwards. - -The reason I have called Communism the logical and only -possible ultimate form of Socialism is that there could be -under Socialism no reason for any other form of -distribution. - -Some time ago certain Socialists used to try to get out of -this necessity for Communism, so as not to frighten rich -people with their proposals for reform. They would say to a -man who was making, say, £5,000 a year because he owned a -lot of capital and land and had rents and profits coming to -him from the work of his labourers: "You will have just as -much under Socialism, for we recognise what a superior kind -of person you are, and when the State shares out its wealth -among its citizens it will give you as much as you have now, -leaving the same difference between rich and poor, only -seeing to it that the poor always at least have enough to -live on. Where we give one ticket to the labourer to claim -out of the common stores what he wants for a week we will -give you fifty tickets, so that you will get fifty times as -much if you like." But of course this was nonsense, and was -soon discovered to be nonsense. With everybody working for -the State under orders all would naturally claim equality, -and there would be no way of preventing their getting an -equal share except force. In justice, supposing a Socialist -state to arise, there could be only the Communist form of -it. - -This scheme has never been put into practice, and when we -look closely at it we shall discover, I think, why it never -will be put into practice. - -The reason it cannot be put into practice is this: Although -we use the words "the State" this mere idea means in -practice real men who act as officials to represent the -State. Actual men with their varying characters, good and -bad, lazy and industrious, just and unjust, have got to -undertake the enormous business *first* of running -production in the interest of all, *next* of distributing -the resultant wealth equally to all. - -Now there are two qualities in man which make action of this -sort break down. The first is that men love -independence---they like to feel themselves their own -masters. They like therefore to own, so that they may do -what they like with material things. The next is that men -like to get as much as possible of good things. Both these -feelings are universally true of the human race. You will -find exceptional people, of course, who are just as -contented with a little as with a great deal, and you will -find exceptional people who do not care about independence -or about owning, and who are quite willing to be run by -other people, or to give up all possession for the sake of -some special way of living: that is, there is a -comparatively small number of men and women who, in order to -live free from responsibility, or in order to devote -themselves to religion or to some form of study and -contemplation, will give up all property and have the -material side of their lives administered for them. But men -and women in general will both want to get all they can of -good things with the least possible exertion in the getting -of them, and they will also desire freedom to exercise their -own wills and deal with material objects as they choose. - -Now the Socialist scheme requires both these very strong -emotions, common to all mankind, to be suppressed. The -people who run the State---that is the politicians---are to -be absolutely just (although there is no one to force them -to be just), they are to forget all personal wishes and to -think of nothing but the good of those whose labour they -direct and among whom they share out the wealth that is -produced. We know by experience that politicians are not -angels of this sort. It is absurd to imagine that men -coveting public office (and living the life of intrigue -necessary to get it) would suddenly turn into unselfish and -devoted beings of this ideal kind. You cannot give this -enormous power to men without their abusing it. - -The second force making against the establishment of -Socialism is still stronger. You will never get the run of -men and women contented to live their whole lives entirely -under orders. In exceptional moments a large part of -individual freedom will be given up to the necessity of the -State---as during the Great War; for if the State did not -survive the individual's life and that of his children would -not be worth living. The individual in abnormal crises goes -through a great deal of suffering for a moment in order that -he and his should have less pain in the long run. But even -in such crises a large part of liberty remains to him. Under -Socialism he would have none. He would have to do what he -was told by his task-masters, much more than even the -poorest labourers now have to do what they are told by -task-masters. And there would also be this difference: that -*everyone* would be in that situation and there would be no -way out. Not a part of life, nor so many hours a day, but -the whole of life, would be subject to orders given by -others. This, humanity would certainly find intolerable. - -That is why, I think, Socialism has never been put into -practice and never can be put into practice. There have been -attempts at it, but even when they are sincere and not the -mere product of alien despotism they break down. As in -Russia to-day, where, whether the Jew adventurers who seized -power were sincere or mere tyrants, they have, in spite of -their attempt at seizing all the soil and keeping the -peasants dependent on them, been compelled at last to let -nearly all the nation live as owners tilling their own land. - -It is no reply to this to say that the State always has -owned, and actually can and does own, *some* part of the -means of Production (such as the Post Office and certain -forests and lands here in England, and, abroad, most -mountain land, all mines and much else) and direct them with -success. The point of Socialism---the one condition -necessary to its existence---is that the State should own -*all* the means of Production that really count. Between the -normal exercise of a partial function and the abnormal -exercise of a universal function is all the difference -between *plus* and *minus.* A partial State ownership -working in a society the determining character of which is -private ownership is an utterly different thing, even an -*opposite* thing to general State ownership determining the -character of Society and allowing only exceptional private -ownership. Socialism can only be *(a)* good *(b)* possible -when men desire, and are at ease in, the latter kind of -state; that is, desire and are at ease in complete -forgetfulness of self coupled with justice as men ruling, -and complete surrender of personal honour and freedom and -appetite as men ruled. +Among the energetic and keen set of men who surrounded Blanc in Paris +was a certain Mordecai, who wrote under the name his father had assumed, +that of "Marx." He wrote (in German) a very long and detailed book +describing the whole scheme, as well as describing the evils of +Capitalism, and showing how this scheme would remedy those evils. His +book was pushed forward by the people who were converted to the idea, +and that is why the theory of Socialism is now often called "Marxism." + +For instance: the coal-mines and all the machinery of the coal-mines and +the houses in which the miners live and the stores of food and the +clothing, etc., which keep the miners alive while the coal is being +mined, that is during the process of production---all these, which now +belong to capitalists who make a profit out of the miners' labour, would +then belong to the State, which would allot the coal produced to all who +needed it. So it would be with all farms, farming implements, and cattle +and horses and the stores of food and clothing and houses necessary to +the labourers on the land during the process of production. So it would +be with all stone-quarrying and timber-felling, and carpentry and +brick-making for the continued production of the houses necessary to the +producers during production. So it would be with all corresponding +material for making cloth for clothing. So it would be with everything +which was made in the whole country. The officers of the State would +share out the wealth produced, so that it would be consumed by all the +citizens, and there would be an end to the exploitation of one man by +another and to the uncertainty of living. + +Communism is simply that form of Socialism in which all that is thus +shared out by the State would be shared equally, the State giving every +family an equal share in proportion to the numbers of people which had +to be supported in the family, from one upwards. + +The reason I have called Communism the logical and only possible +ultimate form of Socialism is that there could be under Socialism no +reason for any other form of distribution. + +Some time ago certain Socialists used to try to get out of this +necessity for Communism, so as not to frighten rich people with their +proposals for reform. They would say to a man who was making, say, +£5,000 a year because he owned a lot of capital and land and had rents +and profits coming to him from the work of his labourers: "You will have +just as much under Socialism, for we recognise what a superior kind of +person you are, and when the State shares out its wealth among its +citizens it will give you as much as you have now, leaving the same +difference between rich and poor, only seeing to it that the poor always +at least have enough to live on. Where we give one ticket to the +labourer to claim out of the common stores what he wants for a week we +will give you fifty tickets, so that you will get fifty times as much if +you like." But of course this was nonsense, and was soon discovered to +be nonsense. With everybody working for the State under orders all would +naturally claim equality, and there would be no way of preventing their +getting an equal share except force. In justice, supposing a Socialist +state to arise, there could be only the Communist form of it. + +This scheme has never been put into practice, and when we look closely +at it we shall discover, I think, why it never will be put into +practice. + +The reason it cannot be put into practice is this: Although we use the +words "the State" this mere idea means in practice real men who act as +officials to represent the State. Actual men with their varying +characters, good and bad, lazy and industrious, just and unjust, have +got to undertake the enormous business *first* of running production in +the interest of all, *next* of distributing the resultant wealth equally +to all. + +Now there are two qualities in man which make action of this sort break +down. The first is that men love independence---they like to feel +themselves their own masters. They like therefore to own, so that they +may do what they like with material things. The next is that men like to +get as much as possible of good things. Both these feelings are +universally true of the human race. You will find exceptional people, of +course, who are just as contented with a little as with a great deal, +and you will find exceptional people who do not care about independence +or about owning, and who are quite willing to be run by other people, or +to give up all possession for the sake of some special way of living: +that is, there is a comparatively small number of men and women who, in +order to live free from responsibility, or in order to devote themselves +to religion or to some form of study and contemplation, will give up all +property and have the material side of their lives administered for +them. But men and women in general will both want to get all they can of +good things with the least possible exertion in the getting of them, and +they will also desire freedom to exercise their own wills and deal with +material objects as they choose. + +Now the Socialist scheme requires both these very strong emotions, +common to all mankind, to be suppressed. The people who run the +State---that is the politicians---are to be absolutely just (although +there is no one to force them to be just), they are to forget all +personal wishes and to think of nothing but the good of those whose +labour they direct and among whom they share out the wealth that is +produced. We know by experience that politicians are not angels of this +sort. It is absurd to imagine that men coveting public office (and +living the life of intrigue necessary to get it) would suddenly turn +into unselfish and devoted beings of this ideal kind. You cannot give +this enormous power to men without their abusing it. + +The second force making against the establishment of Socialism is still +stronger. You will never get the run of men and women contented to live +their whole lives entirely under orders. In exceptional moments a large +part of individual freedom will be given up to the necessity of the +State---as during the Great War; for if the State did not survive the +individual's life and that of his children would not be worth living. +The individual in abnormal crises goes through a great deal of suffering +for a moment in order that he and his should have less pain in the long +run. But even in such crises a large part of liberty remains to him. +Under Socialism he would have none. He would have to do what he was told +by his task-masters, much more than even the poorest labourers now have +to do what they are told by task-masters. And there would also be this +difference: that *everyone* would be in that situation and there would +be no way out. Not a part of life, nor so many hours a day, but the +whole of life, would be subject to orders given by others. This, +humanity would certainly find intolerable. + +That is why, I think, Socialism has never been put into practice and +never can be put into practice. There have been attempts at it, but even +when they are sincere and not the mere product of alien despotism they +break down. As in Russia to-day, where, whether the Jew adventurers who +seized power were sincere or mere tyrants, they have, in spite of their +attempt at seizing all the soil and keeping the peasants dependent on +them, been compelled at last to let nearly all the nation live as owners +tilling their own land. + +It is no reply to this to say that the State always has owned, and +actually can and does own, *some* part of the means of Production (such +as the Post Office and certain forests and lands here in England, and, +abroad, most mountain land, all mines and much else) and direct them +with success. The point of Socialism---the one condition necessary to +its existence---is that the State should own *all* the means of +Production that really count. Between the normal exercise of a partial +function and the abnormal exercise of a universal function is all the +difference between *plus* and *minus.* A partial State ownership working +in a society the determining character of which is private ownership is +an utterly different thing, even an *opposite* thing to general State +ownership determining the character of Society and allowing only +exceptional private ownership. Socialism can only be *(a)* good *(b)* +possible when men desire, and are at ease in, the latter kind of state; +that is, desire and are at ease in complete forgetfulness of self +coupled with justice as men ruling, and complete surrender of personal +honour and freedom and appetite as men ruled. ## International Exchange -International exchange is not really different from the -domestic exchanges which go on within a nation. The -foreigner who has some product of his own to exchange -against a product of ours deals as a private man with other -private men, and if you could see all the exchanges of the -world going on you would not distinguish between the -character of an exchange, say, between Devonshire and London -and one between London and the Argentine. The Devonshire man -grows wheat, which he sells perhaps in a London market, and -buys manufactured products which a merchant in London -provides. The farmer in the Argentine does much the same -thing, sells wheat and receives in exchange what -manufactures he needs, precisely as though he were living in -Devonshire instead of abroad. He does not trade with -"England," but with a particular merchant or company in -England. - -But there are certain points about international trade which -one must get clear unless one is to make mistakes in the -political problems arising out of it. - -In the first place, international trade is always subject to -a certain interference which domestic trade does not suffer. -All countries have a *tariff,* that is a set of taxes upon a -great number of the articles coming in from abroad. Even -those countries which, as England did until quite lately, -believe in leaving their citizens on equal terms with -foreign competitors and have gone in for complete free -trade, examine all goods at the port of entry or at special -points on the frontier, both in order to raise revenue and -to keep out undesirable goods, such as certain drugs; nor -does any country allow all things to come in unexamined, -lest forbidden things should come in unobserved. Moreover, -it is important to measure the nature and volume of a -nation's foreign trade, and this cannot be done without -stopping things at the ports or frontiers and examining -them. - -In general, international trade differs from domestic trade -first of all in this---that it always has to pass through an -examination at the frontiers through which it enters. It -also differs from domestic trade in that it has to use -another currency. Even when all countries have a gold -currency, there are certain small fluctuations in the -exchange values of the different currencies. For instance: -before the war the English pound was worth in gold about 25¼ -French francs, but you hardly ever had this "Parity" (as it -is called) exact. The franc would fluctuate slightly against -the sovereign---sometimes above, sometimes below "Parity" by -a penny, or even sometimes more than a penny, one way or the -other. With many countries whose currency was not in a good -condition the fluctuations would be more violent, and of -course since the war, now that so many nations no longer -have a gold currency at all, but a fictitious paper -currency, the value of one currency against another -fluctuates wildly. Within a year you could get only 50 -francs for an English sovereign and then a little later as -much as 80 francs. - -Within one country exchanges can be simply conducted by -counting all values in the currency of the country; but -international trade, involving the use of two or more -currencies, cannot be so simple. - -There is also a third point in international trade which -must be understood, and which proceeds from the very fact -that international exchanges do not essentially differ from -the exchanges which take place within the same country, and -that is the fact that exchanges are not simple contracts -between two parties, but follow a whole chain of contracts, -covering a great number of parties. - -We saw, in the first part of this book, that exchange even -within one country, was not simple barter but & - -In domestic exchange a farmer sells his wheat to a broker, -but does not purchase a lorry from the same buyer: he -receives money from the buyer, and with that money buys a -lorry, say, a month later. But what has really happened is a -whole chain of exchanges in between the wheat and the -lorry---a miller has bought the wheat from the broker, a -baker the flour from the miller, and so on until towards the -end of the chain a caster has sold castings to a motor maker -who has assembled them and sold the lorry to the farmer. - -It is the same with international exchanges; as we saw in -the earlier part of this book. There is an international -chain of exchanges. - -The total number of units engaged in this international -chain may be as large as you like; there may be ten or fifty -or a hundred links before it is complete. But the universal -principle holds that imports and exports usually balance. -Whatever you import from abroad into a country you must, as -a general rule, pay for by exporting an equivalent set of -values created within your own country. But there are -certain exceptions to this rule which are sometimes lost -sight of. - -In the first place, the imports and the exports need not all -be what are called "visible" imports and exports. Many of -them may be, and some always are, "invisible." The most -obvious example of these are "freights," that is, sums paid -for the carriage of goods between one country and another. -Thus, in the old days before the war you would find England -importing more than she exported, and one of the principal -reasons for the difference was that the imports were mostly -brought in English ships. Thus if a man in the Argentine -were sending 50 tons of wheat to England worth £500, -England, after a long chain of trade with many countries, -including the Argentine, would be exporting values against -this £500 worth of wheat, which would be worth, say, not -£500, but only £450. The difference of £50 was made up by -the cost of bringing the wheat from the Argentine to England -*in an English ship.* In other words, £50 worth of the total -£500 worth of wheat stood for the sum which the man in the -Argentine had to pay to the English sailors to bring his -wheat over the sea. - -Further, a wealthy or strong country very often levied -tribute upon a poorer or weaker one, and this tribute might -take several forms. There was the tribute of *interest upon -loans.* If English bankers had lent to people in Egypt a -million pounds with interest at forty thousand pounds a year -Egyptian production would have to export to England, either -directly or roundabout through the chain of trade, forty -thousand pounds' worth of goods, against which England had -not to send out anything. - -Another form of tribute---though a small one---is that paid -in pensions. A man having worked all his life in the Civil -Service in India (for instance) would retire upon a yearly -pension of a thousand pounds a year; but this pension was -levied upon the taxpayers of India, and if the man came to -live in England and spent his pension there---as nearly all -of them did---it meant that India had to export a thousand -pounds' worth of goods every year to England, against which -England sent nothing back. - -In the same way the shareholder in some works or firms -situated in a foreign country would, if he lived in England, -cause an import to come in equivalent to his dividends or -profits, and against that England would send out nothing. - -But the point to remember is, that *the mere volume of -trade* (that is, *the total of things imported and of things -exported*) *is no indication of the wealth or prosperity of -the country importing and exporting.* - -A country may be very wealthy, although it is doing hardly -any international trade, because it may be producing within -its own boundaries a great deal of wealth of a kind -sufficient to nearly all, or all, its needs. Again, of -international trade (and it is exceedingly important to -remember this, because most people go wrong on it) *nothing +International exchange is not really different from the domestic +exchanges which go on within a nation. The foreigner who has some +product of his own to exchange against a product of ours deals as a +private man with other private men, and if you could see all the +exchanges of the world going on you would not distinguish between the +character of an exchange, say, between Devonshire and London and one +between London and the Argentine. The Devonshire man grows wheat, which +he sells perhaps in a London market, and buys manufactured products +which a merchant in London provides. The farmer in the Argentine does +much the same thing, sells wheat and receives in exchange what +manufactures he needs, precisely as though he were living in Devonshire +instead of abroad. He does not trade with "England," but with a +particular merchant or company in England. + +But there are certain points about international trade which one must +get clear unless one is to make mistakes in the political problems +arising out of it. + +In the first place, international trade is always subject to a certain +interference which domestic trade does not suffer. All countries have a +*tariff,* that is a set of taxes upon a great number of the articles +coming in from abroad. Even those countries which, as England did until +quite lately, believe in leaving their citizens on equal terms with +foreign competitors and have gone in for complete free trade, examine +all goods at the port of entry or at special points on the frontier, +both in order to raise revenue and to keep out undesirable goods, such +as certain drugs; nor does any country allow all things to come in +unexamined, lest forbidden things should come in unobserved. Moreover, +it is important to measure the nature and volume of a nation's foreign +trade, and this cannot be done without stopping things at the ports or +frontiers and examining them. + +In general, international trade differs from domestic trade first of all +in this---that it always has to pass through an examination at the +frontiers through which it enters. It also differs from domestic trade +in that it has to use another currency. Even when all countries have a +gold currency, there are certain small fluctuations in the exchange +values of the different currencies. For instance: before the war the +English pound was worth in gold about 25¼ French francs, but you hardly +ever had this "Parity" (as it is called) exact. The franc would +fluctuate slightly against the sovereign---sometimes above, sometimes +below "Parity" by a penny, or even sometimes more than a penny, one way +or the other. With many countries whose currency was not in a good +condition the fluctuations would be more violent, and of course since +the war, now that so many nations no longer have a gold currency at all, +but a fictitious paper currency, the value of one currency against +another fluctuates wildly. Within a year you could get only 50 francs +for an English sovereign and then a little later as much as 80 francs. + +Within one country exchanges can be simply conducted by counting all +values in the currency of the country; but international trade, +involving the use of two or more currencies, cannot be so simple. + +There is also a third point in international trade which must be +understood, and which proceeds from the very fact that international +exchanges do not essentially differ from the exchanges which take place +within the same country, and that is the fact that exchanges are not +simple contracts between two parties, but follow a whole chain of +contracts, covering a great number of parties. + +We saw, in the first part of this book, that exchange even within one +country, was not simple barter but & + +In domestic exchange a farmer sells his wheat to a broker, but does not +purchase a lorry from the same buyer: he receives money from the buyer, +and with that money buys a lorry, say, a month later. But what has +really happened is a whole chain of exchanges in between the wheat and +the lorry---a miller has bought the wheat from the broker, a baker the +flour from the miller, and so on until towards the end of the chain a +caster has sold castings to a motor maker who has assembled them and +sold the lorry to the farmer. + +It is the same with international exchanges; as we saw in the earlier +part of this book. There is an international chain of exchanges. + +The total number of units engaged in this international chain may be as +large as you like; there may be ten or fifty or a hundred links before +it is complete. But the universal principle holds that imports and +exports usually balance. Whatever you import from abroad into a country +you must, as a general rule, pay for by exporting an equivalent set of +values created within your own country. But there are certain exceptions +to this rule which are sometimes lost sight of. + +In the first place, the imports and the exports need not all be what are +called "visible" imports and exports. Many of them may be, and some +always are, "invisible." The most obvious example of these are +"freights," that is, sums paid for the carriage of goods between one +country and another. Thus, in the old days before the war you would find +England importing more than she exported, and one of the principal +reasons for the difference was that the imports were mostly brought in +English ships. Thus if a man in the Argentine were sending 50 tons of +wheat to England worth £500, England, after a long chain of trade with +many countries, including the Argentine, would be exporting values +against this £500 worth of wheat, which would be worth, say, not £500, +but only £450. The difference of £50 was made up by the cost of bringing +the wheat from the Argentine to England *in an English ship.* In other +words, £50 worth of the total £500 worth of wheat stood for the sum +which the man in the Argentine had to pay to the English sailors to +bring his wheat over the sea. + +Further, a wealthy or strong country very often levied tribute upon a +poorer or weaker one, and this tribute might take several forms. There +was the tribute of *interest upon loans.* If English bankers had lent to +people in Egypt a million pounds with interest at forty thousand pounds +a year Egyptian production would have to export to England, either +directly or roundabout through the chain of trade, forty thousand +pounds' worth of goods, against which England had not to send out +anything. + +Another form of tribute---though a small one---is that paid in pensions. +A man having worked all his life in the Civil Service in India (for +instance) would retire upon a yearly pension of a thousand pounds a +year; but this pension was levied upon the taxpayers of India, and if +the man came to live in England and spent his pension there---as nearly +all of them did---it meant that India had to export a thousand pounds' +worth of goods every year to England, against which England sent nothing +back. + +In the same way the shareholder in some works or firms situated in a +foreign country would, if he lived in England, cause an import to come +in equivalent to his dividends or profits, and against that England +would send out nothing. + +But the point to remember is, that *the mere volume of trade* (that is, +*the total of things imported and of things exported*) *is no indication +of the wealth or prosperity of the country importing and exporting.* + +A country may be very wealthy, although it is doing hardly any +international trade, because it may be producing within its own +boundaries a great deal of wealth of a kind sufficient to nearly all, or +all, its needs. Again, of international trade (and it is exceedingly +important to remember this, because most people go wrong on it) *nothing increases the wealth of a country except the imports.* -It ought to be quite clear, especially in the case of an -island like Great Britain, that it *loses* what it sends out -and *gains* what it brings in. Yet people get muddled about -even this very simple proposition, because the individual -trader thinks of his transactions as an individual sale. He -does not consider the nature of trade as a whole. The -individual trader, for instance, who makes locomotives and -exports them, gets paid, let us say, £10,000 for each -locomotive. In point of fact this means that in the long run -he or someone else in England will exercise £10,000 worth of -demand for foreign goods. But the individual trader does not -usually think of that; he thinks only of his own -transactions, and he would be very much surprised if he were -told that his sending the locomotive abroad was, *regarded -in itself, and apart from the import which it assumed,* a -loss to the country of £10,000 worth of wealth. - -You often hear people in political arguments talking as -though the falling off of exports from a country were a bad -thing and the increase of imports also a bad thing. It -cannot t\>e so in the long run. The excess of imports over -exports is the national profit on the whole of its foreign -transactions, and any country which is exporting regularly -more than it imports is paying tribute to foreigners abroad, -while every country which regularly imports more than it -exports is receiving tribute. - -Of course, if you consider only a short period of time, the -falling off of exports may be a bad sign; for it may mean -that the corresponding imports will not be gathered. If in -this country we saw our exports regularly falling year by -year we should be right to take alarm, for this would almost -certainly mean that a corresponding falling off in imports -would sooner or later take place also, and that therefore -our total wealth would be diminished. But considered over a -sufficient space of time, it is obvious that the excess of -imports over exports is a gain and that the excess of -exports over imports is a loss. - -One last thing to remember about international trade is that -the very different importance of foreign trade to different -countries makes the foreign politics of nations differ -equally. A country which can supply itself with all it needs -is free to risk its foreign trade for some other issue. A -country importing its necessities cannot risk the loss of -such trade, for it is a matter of life and death. The United -States is in the first position. It has within its own -boundaries not only all the minerals it needs, but also all -the petrol and all the raw material for making cloth, and -all the leather for boots, and all the rest of it. But a -country like England is in quite a different position. We -only grow half the meat we need and about one-fifth of the -com. Therefore it is absolutely necessary for us to have a -foreign trade. If all the foreign trade of the United States -were to be destroyed to-morrow, the United States, though -somewhat poorer, would still be very rich and able to carry -on without the help of anyone else. But if our foreign trade -were destroyed there would be a terrible famine and most of -us would die. - -Nations differ very much in this respect, but of all nations -Great Britain is that which is most vitally interested in -maintaining a great foreign trade, and next after Great -Britain Belgium is similarly interested, for Belgium also -needs to import four-fifths of its bread-stuffs. Almost -every country except the United States *must* have some -foreign trade if it is to live normally. For instance: -France, though largely a self-sufficing country, has no -petrol. It has to buy its petrol abroad and must export -goods to pay for that import. Nor has it quite enough coal -for its needs, and, before the war, it had not nearly enough -iron. Italy has no coal, no petrol and no iron to speak -of---not nearly enough for its needs. And so it is with -pretty well every nation in Europe. But of all nations our -own and Belgium---our own particularly---are in the most -need of maintaining a large foreign trade. - -This affects all our policy, it is the root of both the -greatness and peril of England. It also tends to make -English people judge the wealth of foreigners by the volume -of their trade, and that is a great error. +It ought to be quite clear, especially in the case of an island like +Great Britain, that it *loses* what it sends out and *gains* what it +brings in. Yet people get muddled about even this very simple +proposition, because the individual trader thinks of his transactions as +an individual sale. He does not consider the nature of trade as a whole. +The individual trader, for instance, who makes locomotives and exports +them, gets paid, let us say, £10,000 for each locomotive. In point of +fact this means that in the long run he or someone else in England will +exercise £10,000 worth of demand for foreign goods. But the individual +trader does not usually think of that; he thinks only of his own +transactions, and he would be very much surprised if he were told that +his sending the locomotive abroad was, *regarded in itself, and apart +from the import which it assumed,* a loss to the country of £10,000 +worth of wealth. + +You often hear people in political arguments talking as though the +falling off of exports from a country were a bad thing and the increase +of imports also a bad thing. It cannot t\>e so in the long run. The +excess of imports over exports is the national profit on the whole of +its foreign transactions, and any country which is exporting regularly +more than it imports is paying tribute to foreigners abroad, while every +country which regularly imports more than it exports is receiving +tribute. + +Of course, if you consider only a short period of time, the falling off +of exports may be a bad sign; for it may mean that the corresponding +imports will not be gathered. If in this country we saw our exports +regularly falling year by year we should be right to take alarm, for +this would almost certainly mean that a corresponding falling off in +imports would sooner or later take place also, and that therefore our +total wealth would be diminished. But considered over a sufficient space +of time, it is obvious that the excess of imports over exports is a gain +and that the excess of exports over imports is a loss. + +One last thing to remember about international trade is that the very +different importance of foreign trade to different countries makes the +foreign politics of nations differ equally. A country which can supply +itself with all it needs is free to risk its foreign trade for some +other issue. A country importing its necessities cannot risk the loss of +such trade, for it is a matter of life and death. The United States is +in the first position. It has within its own boundaries not only all the +minerals it needs, but also all the petrol and all the raw material for +making cloth, and all the leather for boots, and all the rest of it. But +a country like England is in quite a different position. We only grow +half the meat we need and about one-fifth of the com. Therefore it is +absolutely necessary for us to have a foreign trade. If all the foreign +trade of the United States were to be destroyed to-morrow, the United +States, though somewhat poorer, would still be very rich and able to +carry on without the help of anyone else. But if our foreign trade were +destroyed there would be a terrible famine and most of us would die. + +Nations differ very much in this respect, but of all nations Great +Britain is that which is most vitally interested in maintaining a great +foreign trade, and next after Great Britain Belgium is similarly +interested, for Belgium also needs to import four-fifths of its +bread-stuffs. Almost every country except the United States *must* have +some foreign trade if it is to live normally. For instance: France, +though largely a self-sufficing country, has no petrol. It has to buy +its petrol abroad and must export goods to pay for that import. Nor has +it quite enough coal for its needs, and, before the war, it had not +nearly enough iron. Italy has no coal, no petrol and no iron to speak +of---not nearly enough for its needs. And so it is with pretty well +every nation in Europe. But of all nations our own and Belgium---our own +particularly---are in the most need of maintaining a large foreign +trade. + +This affects all our policy, it is the root of both the greatness and +peril of England. It also tends to make English people judge the wealth +of foreigners by the volume of their trade, and that is a great error. ## Free Trade and Protection as Political Issues -In this matter of international trade there rose up, about a -hundred years ago, a great political discussion in England -between what was called *Free Trade* and what was called -*Protection.* +In this matter of international trade there rose up, about a hundred +years ago, a great political discussion in England between what was +called *Free Trade* and what was called *Protection.* -This discussion is still going on and affecting the life of -the country, and it is important to understand the -principles of it, for we have here one of the chief -applications of theoretical Political Economy to actual +This discussion is still going on and affecting the life of the country, +and it is important to understand the principles of it, for we have here +one of the chief applications of theoretical Political Economy to actual conditions. -I dealt with this subject briefly in the first part of this -book under "Elementary Principles," but I return to it here -in more detail because it has given rise, in political -application, to the most important economic discussion in -modern England. - -The Free Traders were those who said that England would be -wealthier, as a whole, if there were no restriction upon -exchange at all, whether internal or external. A man having -something to exchange with his English neighbour was, of -course, free to exchange it without any interference; but -the Free Trader's particular point was that a man having -something to exchange with a *foreign* purchaser should be -equally free to exchange it, without any interference at the -ports in the way of export duty taxing the transaction. In -the same way he said that the foreigner should be perfectly -free to send here any goods he had to exchange against ours, -and should neither be kept out by laws nor restricted by -special import duties at the ports. - -"In this way," said the Free Traders, "we shall get the -maximum of wealth for the whole country." - -The Protectionists, on the other hand, said: "Here are a lot -of people engaged on a particular form of production in -England. Those who have their capital in it are making -profits, those who own the land on which the capital is -invested are getting rents, and the working people are -getting wages. The foreigner, having special advantages for -this kind of production, which make him able to produce this -particular thing more cheaply than we can, brings in that -cheaper produce and offers it for sale to Englishmen. The -people to whom it is offered for sale will, of course, buy -the foreign stuff because it is cheaper. The result will be -that the English people who have invested their capital in -producing this particular thing---that is, who have got -implements together and buildings, and the rest, suitable -for producing this thing---will be ruined. It will not be -worth their while to go on, for no one will buy their goods. -Their profits will be extinguished, and their capital will -decay to nothing. The rents on the land they occupy will -also disappear, and, what is worst of all, the large -population which live on wages produced by this kind of work -will starve or have to be supported, idle, by other people. -Their power of producing wealth will be lost to England. -Therefore, let us tax this cheap foreign import so that our -production at home shall be *protected.* Let us tax the -foreign goods as they come in, so that the cost of producing -abroad, with this tax added, comes to at least as much as -the cost of producing the same stuff at home. In this way it -will still be worth while for our people at home to go on -producing this kind of thing. The Englishman at home will be -just as ready to buy his fellow-citizen's produce as the -foreigner's, for the price of each will be the same." - -The Protectionist even said: "Let us make this tariff so -high that the foreign goods are sold at a -*dis*advantage---that is, let the tax on the foreign goods -be such that, added to the cost of production abroad, they -cannot be sold in England save at a *higher* price than the -English goods. In this way only the English goods will be -bought here and the home industry will flourish as it did -before." - -Such were the two political theories, standing one against -the other. - -Now let us look into the economic principles underlying -these two opposing parties, and see which of them had the -best of the argument. - -We have already seen, in the first part of this book, the -elementary economic principle that Exchange is only the last -stage in the process of production. - -And we have also had fixed the principle that *freedom of -exchange tends to produce a maximum of wealth within the -area to which it applies,* and that interference with -freedom of exchange tends to reduce the total possible -wealth of that area. This is so obvious that all the great -modem nations are careful to let exchange be as free as -possible *within their own boundaries.* - -Goods can be freely exchanged without interference all over -the United States and all over Great Britain and all over -France, etc., because if you were to set up tolls and -interferences with exchange *within* the country the total -wealth of the country would necessarily be diminished. - -Now the Free Traders extended this principle to foreign -trade. They said: "If the foreigner comes to us with -something which he can sell to us cheaper than we can make -it ourselves that is an advantage to us, and it is -short-sighted to interfere with it under the idea that we -are benefiting the existing trade which is threatened by -foreign competition. For it means that we are producing -something with difficulty which we could get with much less -work if we turned our attention to things which we can -produce with ease. Or, again, it means that with the same -amount of work devoted to things we make well and exchange -against the foreigner's goods we shall get much more of the -things which the foreigner can make more easily than we -can." - -If we take a concrete example we shall see what the Free -Traders' argument means. - -Supposing people in this country had never heard of foreign -wine, but had to make their wine out of their own grapes -grown in hot-houses, and at great expense, the wine coming, -let us say, to £1 a gallon. Meanwhile we are producing -easily great quantities of coal because we have great -coal-mines near the surface. We come to hear of people -living in another climate who can grow grapes easily in the -open, who need much less labour and capital to ripen them -than we do in our artificial way in hot-houses, and who can -therefore send us wine at 10s. a gallon. Then we can get for -each £1 worth of labour and capital twice as much wine as we -got before. Instead of wasting our time artificially growing -grapes in hot-houses to make our wine, let the people who -used to work in the hot-houses become coal-miners, so that -more coal may be produced and this extra coal exchanged for -foreign wine. A pound's worth of labour and capital in coal -will get us 2 gallons of wine from the foreigner when the -same amount of labour and capital used in making the wine -ourselves would only get us one gallon. Let the capital that -used to keep up the hot-houses be spent in developing mines, -and we shall find as a result that we are as rich as ever we -used to be in coal and richer in wine. Our total wealth will -be increased. - -In the particular case of the English dispute about Free -Trade and Protection not wine but a much more important -thing was concerned, namely food; and that was what gave the -political discussion its practical value and made it so -violent. It is also because food was in question that the -Free Traders won, and that England was, for a whole -lifetime, up to the Great War, a Free Trade country---that -is, a country allowing all foreign produce to come in and -compete on equal terms with home produce. - -This country, at the beginning of the discussion a hundred -years ago, was already producing great quantities of -manufactured goods: cloth and machinery, ships and so on. It -also produced on its fields the wheat and meat and dairy -produce with which it fed itself. But as the population -increased the amount of food being produced on the soil of -England, though getting larger in the total, got smaller in -proportion to the rapidly increasing population. Therefore -there was a danger of its getting dearer. The Free Traders -said: " Let foreign food come in free. If it is produced in -climates where for the same amount of labour you can get -more wheat and more meat and more dairy produce then, of -course, many of our agricultural people will have to give up -working on the land. But they can take to manufacturing, and -the total amount of food which the English will get for so -much labour on their part will be greater. Where an -agricultural labourer working an hour, for instance, can get -a pound's weight of food, the same man working one hour in a -factory will get, say, by exchange of the manufacture -against foreign food, two pounds of food, if we allow all -foreign food to come in free." - -These Free Trade arguments look, when they are first -studied, not only simple and clear, but unanswerable, and -indeed most educated men---nearly all educated men---in -Queen Victoria's reign, thought they *were* unanswerable, -and that Protectionists here at home (who were no longer -allowed to put their theories into laws) and Protectionists -abroad who had kept up tariffs against foreign trade, were -simply ignorant and foolish men who did not properly -understand the elements of Economic Science. - -To see whether the Free Traders were right or wrong in these -ideas, let us next turn to the arguments with which the -Protectionists met them. +I dealt with this subject briefly in the first part of this book under +"Elementary Principles," but I return to it here in more detail because +it has given rise, in political application, to the most important +economic discussion in modern England. + +The Free Traders were those who said that England would be wealthier, as +a whole, if there were no restriction upon exchange at all, whether +internal or external. A man having something to exchange with his +English neighbour was, of course, free to exchange it without any +interference; but the Free Trader's particular point was that a man +having something to exchange with a *foreign* purchaser should be +equally free to exchange it, without any interference at the ports in +the way of export duty taxing the transaction. In the same way he said +that the foreigner should be perfectly free to send here any goods he +had to exchange against ours, and should neither be kept out by laws nor +restricted by special import duties at the ports. + +"In this way," said the Free Traders, "we shall get the maximum of +wealth for the whole country." + +The Protectionists, on the other hand, said: "Here are a lot of people +engaged on a particular form of production in England. Those who have +their capital in it are making profits, those who own the land on which +the capital is invested are getting rents, and the working people are +getting wages. The foreigner, having special advantages for this kind of +production, which make him able to produce this particular thing more +cheaply than we can, brings in that cheaper produce and offers it for +sale to Englishmen. The people to whom it is offered for sale will, of +course, buy the foreign stuff because it is cheaper. The result will be +that the English people who have invested their capital in producing +this particular thing---that is, who have got implements together and +buildings, and the rest, suitable for producing this thing---will be +ruined. It will not be worth their while to go on, for no one will buy +their goods. Their profits will be extinguished, and their capital will +decay to nothing. The rents on the land they occupy will also disappear, +and, what is worst of all, the large population which live on wages +produced by this kind of work will starve or have to be supported, idle, +by other people. Their power of producing wealth will be lost to +England. Therefore, let us tax this cheap foreign import so that our +production at home shall be *protected.* Let us tax the foreign goods as +they come in, so that the cost of producing abroad, with this tax added, +comes to at least as much as the cost of producing the same stuff at +home. In this way it will still be worth while for our people at home to +go on producing this kind of thing. The Englishman at home will be just +as ready to buy his fellow-citizen's produce as the foreigner's, for the +price of each will be the same." + +The Protectionist even said: "Let us make this tariff so high that the +foreign goods are sold at a *dis*advantage---that is, let the tax on the +foreign goods be such that, added to the cost of production abroad, they +cannot be sold in England save at a *higher* price than the English +goods. In this way only the English goods will be bought here and the +home industry will flourish as it did before." + +Such were the two political theories, standing one against the other. + +Now let us look into the economic principles underlying these two +opposing parties, and see which of them had the best of the argument. + +We have already seen, in the first part of this book, the elementary +economic principle that Exchange is only the last stage in the process +of production. + +And we have also had fixed the principle that *freedom of exchange tends +to produce a maximum of wealth within the area to which it applies,* and +that interference with freedom of exchange tends to reduce the total +possible wealth of that area. This is so obvious that all the great +modem nations are careful to let exchange be as free as possible *within +their own boundaries.* + +Goods can be freely exchanged without interference all over the United +States and all over Great Britain and all over France, etc., because if +you were to set up tolls and interferences with exchange *within* the +country the total wealth of the country would necessarily be diminished. + +Now the Free Traders extended this principle to foreign trade. They +said: "If the foreigner comes to us with something which he can sell to +us cheaper than we can make it ourselves that is an advantage to us, and +it is short-sighted to interfere with it under the idea that we are +benefiting the existing trade which is threatened by foreign +competition. For it means that we are producing something with +difficulty which we could get with much less work if we turned our +attention to things which we can produce with ease. Or, again, it means +that with the same amount of work devoted to things we make well and +exchange against the foreigner's goods we shall get much more of the +things which the foreigner can make more easily than we can." + +If we take a concrete example we shall see what the Free Traders' +argument means. + +Supposing people in this country had never heard of foreign wine, but +had to make their wine out of their own grapes grown in hot-houses, and +at great expense, the wine coming, let us say, to £1 a gallon. Meanwhile +we are producing easily great quantities of coal because we have great +coal-mines near the surface. We come to hear of people living in another +climate who can grow grapes easily in the open, who need much less +labour and capital to ripen them than we do in our artificial way in +hot-houses, and who can therefore send us wine at 10s. a gallon. Then we +can get for each £1 worth of labour and capital twice as much wine as we +got before. Instead of wasting our time artificially growing grapes in +hot-houses to make our wine, let the people who used to work in the +hot-houses become coal-miners, so that more coal may be produced and +this extra coal exchanged for foreign wine. A pound's worth of labour +and capital in coal will get us 2 gallons of wine from the foreigner +when the same amount of labour and capital used in making the wine +ourselves would only get us one gallon. Let the capital that used to +keep up the hot-houses be spent in developing mines, and we shall find +as a result that we are as rich as ever we used to be in coal and richer +in wine. Our total wealth will be increased. + +In the particular case of the English dispute about Free Trade and +Protection not wine but a much more important thing was concerned, +namely food; and that was what gave the political discussion its +practical value and made it so violent. It is also because food was in +question that the Free Traders won, and that England was, for a whole +lifetime, up to the Great War, a Free Trade country---that is, a country +allowing all foreign produce to come in and compete on equal terms with +home produce. + +This country, at the beginning of the discussion a hundred years ago, +was already producing great quantities of manufactured goods: cloth and +machinery, ships and so on. It also produced on its fields the wheat and +meat and dairy produce with which it fed itself. But as the population +increased the amount of food being produced on the soil of England, +though getting larger in the total, got smaller in proportion to the +rapidly increasing population. Therefore there was a danger of its +getting dearer. The Free Traders said: " Let foreign food come in free. +If it is produced in climates where for the same amount of labour you +can get more wheat and more meat and more dairy produce then, of course, +many of our agricultural people will have to give up working on the +land. But they can take to manufacturing, and the total amount of food +which the English will get for so much labour on their part will be +greater. Where an agricultural labourer working an hour, for instance, +can get a pound's weight of food, the same man working one hour in a +factory will get, say, by exchange of the manufacture against foreign +food, two pounds of food, if we allow all foreign food to come in free." + +These Free Trade arguments look, when they are first studied, not only +simple and clear, but unanswerable, and indeed most educated +men---nearly all educated men---in Queen Victoria's reign, thought they +*were* unanswerable, and that Protectionists here at home (who were no +longer allowed to put their theories into laws) and Protectionists +abroad who had kept up tariffs against foreign trade, were simply +ignorant and foolish men who did not properly understand the elements of +Economic Science. + +To see whether the Free Traders were right or wrong in these ideas, let +us next turn to the arguments with which the Protectionists met them. These arguments were of two kinds:--- -*(a)* There were Protectionists who said: "We cannot follow -all these elaborate abstract discussions about a science -called Economics; we are practical men with plenty of common -sense and experience, and all we know is that if the -foreigner comes in free we shall be ruined. He can sell his -wheat at such a price that our farmers will lose on it. Our -labourers will leave the land, the rents paid to our -landlords will vanish. You will thus ruin English wealth -altogether." - -*(b)* There was another kind of Protectionist who said: "You -Free Traders take for granted, and depend upon, one capital -point, to wit, *that the labour now employed in a particular -form of production, and the capital employed in it, both of -which will be destroyed by Free Trade, can be used more -profitably in some other form of Production.* But we, the -Protectionists, say that, in the particular case in -question, they would *not* be used more profitably. We say -that, in point of fact, things being as they are, the -national character being what it is, the arrangements of our -English society and its traditions being what we know them -to be, the ruined industry will go on getting worse and -worse, artificially supported by relief from the community -outside it, the farmer losing year after year and still -hanging on, the land going back to weeds and marsh, the -buildings falling down, and so forth. *We* say that, though -it may theoretically be possible to use in other ways the -labour and capital thus displaced, in practice you will +*(a)* There were Protectionists who said: "We cannot follow all these +elaborate abstract discussions about a science called Economics; we are +practical men with plenty of common sense and experience, and all we +know is that if the foreigner comes in free we shall be ruined. He can +sell his wheat at such a price that our farmers will lose on it. Our +labourers will leave the land, the rents paid to our landlords will +vanish. You will thus ruin English wealth altogether." + +*(b)* There was another kind of Protectionist who said: "You Free +Traders take for granted, and depend upon, one capital point, to wit, +*that the labour now employed in a particular form of production, and +the capital employed in it, both of which will be destroyed by Free +Trade, can be used more profitably in some other form of Production.* +But we, the Protectionists, say that, in the particular case in +question, they would *not* be used more profitably. We say that, in +point of fact, things being as they are, the national character being +what it is, the arrangements of our English society and its traditions +being what we know them to be, the ruined industry will go on getting +worse and worse, artificially supported by relief from the community +outside it, the farmer losing year after year and still hanging on, the +land going back to weeds and marsh, the buildings falling down, and so +forth. *We* say that, though it may theoretically be possible to use in +other ways the labour and capital thus displaced, in practice you will destroy more wealth than you will create." -These two kinds of arguments on the Protectionist side are -still to be heard everywhere to-day. - -It ought to be perfectly clear to anyone who thinks about -the matter at all that argument *(a)* was nonsense, for -people and capital driven out of an industry ill suited to -our present conditions are not thereby destroyed. They may -very well find employment producing more total wealth in -another. But argument *(b)* was a good argument if the -statement about the impossibility of changing from one trade -to another were in practice true. The whole discussion -really turned upon the last point. - -Unfortunately for the Protectionists, those who defended -their cause in this country nearly all used argument (a), -and were very properly derided as fools by the Free Traders. -Argument (b) was only used by a comparatively small number -of thoughtful men and they were under this disadvantage--- -that they were arguing with regard to a possible or probable -future with no past experience to guide them, and that many -years must pass before it could be discovered whether, in -practice, what they said was true or false; whether in -practice the ruin of English agriculture would diminish the -well-being of England as a whole or not. - -Further, the population continued to increase at a great -rate, and that all in the towns and on the coal-fields. Our -manufacturing productions went up and up and up, the total -wealth of the country enormously increased, and these -processes hid and made to seem insignificant the -corresponding decay of the fields. We had no need for -Protection in any domestic manufactured goods; we had begun -to use coal before anybody else; we had developed machinery -before anybody else. The only thing which there could be any -point in protecting was agriculture, and that would have -meant dearer food for the wage-earners in the towns. - -The great consequence was that Free Trade won hands down, -and for a long time all its opponents, however distinguished -or reasonable, were laughed at. - -But if we wish to be worthy students of Economic Science we -cannot dismiss the quarrel so simply. There is such a thing -as a strong *economic* argument in favour of Protection in -particular circumstances. The practical proof of this truth -is the immense increase in wealth which took place in the -German Empire during the thirty years before the Great War, -which increase exactly corresponded with a highly protective -tariff. The same thing happened in the United States at the -same time. But the theoretical argument in favour of -Protection is much better, because the increase of wealth in -Germany and the United States under Protection might be due -to other causes, whilst it can be shown by reason that -Protection itself, in particular cases, increases the total -national wealth. With the proof of this I will end the -present chapter. - -We have seen that the following formula is true:-- *Freedom -of exchange tends to increase the total amount of wealth of -all that area which it covers.* - -But what gives the argument for Protection, in special -cases, its value is, as we saw on page 64, a second Formula -equally true. Though freedom of exchange tends to increase -the total wealth of an area over which it extends, *yet it -does not tend to increase the wealth of every part of that -area.* Therefore, if a part of the area over which freedom -of exchange extends finds itself impoverished by the -process, it may be enriched by interfering with freedom of -exchange over the boundaries of its own special part. - -Therein lies the whole argument for Protection in particular -cases. - -Let us take for example three islands, two close together -and one far away and prove the case by figures. +These two kinds of arguments on the Protectionist side are still to be +heard everywhere to-day. + +It ought to be perfectly clear to anyone who thinks about the matter at +all that argument *(a)* was nonsense, for people and capital driven out +of an industry ill suited to our present conditions are not thereby +destroyed. They may very well find employment producing more total +wealth in another. But argument *(b)* was a good argument if the +statement about the impossibility of changing from one trade to another +were in practice true. The whole discussion really turned upon the last +point. + +Unfortunately for the Protectionists, those who defended their cause in +this country nearly all used argument (a), and were very properly +derided as fools by the Free Traders. Argument (b) was only used by a +comparatively small number of thoughtful men and they were under this +disadvantage--- that they were arguing with regard to a possible or +probable future with no past experience to guide them, and that many +years must pass before it could be discovered whether, in practice, what +they said was true or false; whether in practice the ruin of English +agriculture would diminish the well-being of England as a whole or not. + +Further, the population continued to increase at a great rate, and that +all in the towns and on the coal-fields. Our manufacturing productions +went up and up and up, the total wealth of the country enormously +increased, and these processes hid and made to seem insignificant the +corresponding decay of the fields. We had no need for Protection in any +domestic manufactured goods; we had begun to use coal before anybody +else; we had developed machinery before anybody else. The only thing +which there could be any point in protecting was agriculture, and that +would have meant dearer food for the wage-earners in the towns. + +The great consequence was that Free Trade won hands down, and for a long +time all its opponents, however distinguished or reasonable, were +laughed at. + +But if we wish to be worthy students of Economic Science we cannot +dismiss the quarrel so simply. There is such a thing as a strong +*economic* argument in favour of Protection in particular circumstances. +The practical proof of this truth is the immense increase in wealth +which took place in the German Empire during the thirty years before the +Great War, which increase exactly corresponded with a highly protective +tariff. The same thing happened in the United States at the same time. +But the theoretical argument in favour of Protection is much better, +because the increase of wealth in Germany and the United States under +Protection might be due to other causes, whilst it can be shown by +reason that Protection itself, in particular cases, increases the total +national wealth. With the proof of this I will end the present chapter. + +We have seen that the following formula is true:-- *Freedom of exchange +tends to increase the total amount of wealth of all that area which it +covers.* + +But what gives the argument for Protection, in special cases, its value +is, as we saw on page 64, a second Formula equally true. Though freedom +of exchange tends to increase the total wealth of an area over which it +extends, *yet it does not tend to increase the wealth of every part of +that area.* Therefore, if a part of the area over which freedom of +exchange extends finds itself impoverished by the process, it may be +enriched by interfering with freedom of exchange over the boundaries of +its own special part. + +Therein lies the whole argument for Protection in particular cases. + +Let us take for example three islands, two close together and one far +away and prove the case by figures. ![image](assets/ThreeRegions.png) -We will number them A, B, C. Island A is full of iron ore. -Island B is full of coal. Island C is also full of iron ore, -like No. A, but it is a long way off. - -Iron ore naturally comes to the coal area to be smelted, -because, being heavier, it can be carried in smaller bulk. -It is cheaper to bring iron ore to coal than coal to iron -ore. If all three islands belong to the same realm what will -happen is quite clear. Island B will import iron ore from -Island A and will smelt it and turn it into pig-iron and -steel and iron manufactures of all kinds, while Island C, a -long way off, will remain unused. We will suppose the -climate of No. C to be bleak, the soil bad, and the people -there, since they cannot sell their iron ore on account of -the distance at which they stand, make a very poor -livelihood out of grazing a few cattle. - -Let us suppose that the amount of iron ore imported every -year by No. B from No. A is worth £10 million. This of -course has to be paid for. In other words, Island No. B has -got to export manufactured goods in iron and steel back to -Island No. A as payment for the iron ore which No. B imports -for smelting. It also has to pay for the freight on the iron -ore from No. A, that is, for the cost of bringing it over -the sea to No. B. Let us suppose this cost to be one -million. The total value of the iron goods produced on -No. B, after being smelted with the coal of No. B, is, let -us say, £30 million. Of this, £11 million goes back for the -cost of carrying the ore from Island No. A and for its -purchase. Meanwhile we may neglect economic values of Island -No. C, because the few wretched inhabitants and their -handful of cattle hardly count. - -Here, then, we have a wealth of £30,000,000 in manufactured -iron goods, of which £10,000,000 goes to Island No. A and -£19,000,000 to Island No. B, and £1 million to whoever -carries the ore in ships. If you were estimating the wealth -of the whole realm made up of the three islands, A, B and C, -you would say: "The wealth of these people consists in -manufactured iron and steel goods. It is equivalent to -£30,000,000 a year, of which some £10,000,000 is revenue to -Island A and £19,000,000 is revenue to Island B and £1 -million earned in freights. The wealth of Island C is -negligible." Well and good. - -Now supposing the political conditions to change. Islands B -and C belong to one realm in future but Island A has become -a foreigner. The realm to which Islands B and C belong turns -Protectionist and sets up a barrier in the shape of a tariff -against iron ore coming from abroad. We have seen that the -cost of carrying iron ore from No. A to No. B was -£1,000,000. No. C being much farther away from No. B, let us -say that the cost of carrying is £5,000,000, but it is -carried by subjects of the realm. The tariff put up by the -realm to which Island B and C belong is what is called -"prohibitive"---that is, it is so high that it keeps the -iron ore of No. A out altogether, and the smelters on Island -No. B are bound to get their iron ore from that distant -Island C. Let us see what happens. - -Island No. B has now got to pay a freight, that is, cost of -bringing the iron ore, five times as much as it used to be. -Instead of paying £11,000,000 for its ore (£10,000,000 at -the mine and £1,000,000 for carriage) it is now paying -£15,000,000 (£10,000,000 at the mine and £5,000,000 for -carriage). It still makes £30,000,000 worth of goods a year, -but it only has £15,000,000 left over for its own income, -instead of the £19,000,000 which it used to have. It is thus -impoverished. - -But Island C, from having hardly any income at all, has now -an income of £10,000,000 a year. Island A is ruined. -Protection has put the getting of the ore under unnatural -conditions. It has compelled the coal-owners to go much -farther off for their ore than they need have done under -Free Trade. The total wealth of all three islands altogether -is less than it used to be by £4,000,000, for they are -adding £4,000,000 extra to the cost of getting the raw -material. *But the total combined wealth of B and C, even if -they pay foreign ships to bring the ore, is now greater than -it used to be under the old Free Trade.* No. B has -£15,000,000; No. C has £10,000,000---the total is -£25,000,000. If they pay their own sailors to bring the ore -it is £30,000,000. Under the old conditions the total of B -and C alone was only £19,000,000. Island A is ruined and the -total wealth of the whole system is less, but the -Protectionists of the realm, which now only includes B and -C, are quite indifferent to that. They are thinking of the -wealth of their common country, and are indifferent to the -ruin of others, and their policy is *increasing* the wealth -of their common country at the expense of foreigners. - -In that example lies the argument for Protection. *If Island -C could do something other than mine ore, if it had other -forms of wealth, or by ingenuity or luck could discover some -new fields in which its activities might develop, then the -argument for Protection in this case would break down.* -Island B would say: "Let me get my iron ore cheap from the -foreigner in Island A, and do you, on Island C, develop (let -us say) dairy farming, or something else which I cannot do -and which Island B cannot do. In that way we shall all three -benefit, and the common realm, consisting of Island B and -Island C, will be richer than ever. Island B will have all -its old profit of £19,000,000 (instead of being reduced to -£15,000,000), and Island C can well develop a dairy produce -of more than £7,000,000." - -One ought to be able to see quite clearly from an example -like this how true it is that *the argument in favour of -Protection applies to particular cases only, and turns -entirely upon whether an undeveloped part of the energies of -the community can be turned into new channels or not.* - -We have' an excellent, though small, example to hand in -England to-day. The English people have to send abroad about -£4 worth of goods every year per family for pig-meat, that -is, bacon and hams and the rest. There is no reason why they -should do this. They could produce the pigs on their own -farms without drawing a single person from the factories and -keep this mass of manufactured goods for their own use. The -reason we are in this state in the matter of pig-meat is -that our agriculture has generally got into such a hole that -people will not bestir themselves to produce enough pigs. So -here is a definite case in point, and only experiment could -show whether Protection would pay here or would not pay. +We will number them A, B, C. Island A is full of iron ore. Island B is +full of coal. Island C is also full of iron ore, like No. A, but it is a +long way off. + +Iron ore naturally comes to the coal area to be smelted, because, being +heavier, it can be carried in smaller bulk. It is cheaper to bring iron +ore to coal than coal to iron ore. If all three islands belong to the +same realm what will happen is quite clear. Island B will import iron +ore from Island A and will smelt it and turn it into pig-iron and steel +and iron manufactures of all kinds, while Island C, a long way off, will +remain unused. We will suppose the climate of No. C to be bleak, the +soil bad, and the people there, since they cannot sell their iron ore on +account of the distance at which they stand, make a very poor livelihood +out of grazing a few cattle. + +Let us suppose that the amount of iron ore imported every year by No. B +from No. A is worth £10 million. This of course has to be paid for. In +other words, Island No. B has got to export manufactured goods in iron +and steel back to Island No. A as payment for the iron ore which No. B +imports for smelting. It also has to pay for the freight on the iron ore +from No. A, that is, for the cost of bringing it over the sea to No. B. +Let us suppose this cost to be one million. The total value of the iron +goods produced on No. B, after being smelted with the coal of No. B, is, +let us say, £30 million. Of this, £11 million goes back for the cost of +carrying the ore from Island No. A and for its purchase. Meanwhile we +may neglect economic values of Island No. C, because the few wretched +inhabitants and their handful of cattle hardly count. + +Here, then, we have a wealth of £30,000,000 in manufactured iron goods, +of which £10,000,000 goes to Island No. A and £19,000,000 to Island +No. B, and £1 million to whoever carries the ore in ships. If you were +estimating the wealth of the whole realm made up of the three islands, +A, B and C, you would say: "The wealth of these people consists in +manufactured iron and steel goods. It is equivalent to £30,000,000 a +year, of which some £10,000,000 is revenue to Island A and £19,000,000 +is revenue to Island B and £1 million earned in freights. The wealth of +Island C is negligible." Well and good. + +Now supposing the political conditions to change. Islands B and C belong +to one realm in future but Island A has become a foreigner. The realm to +which Islands B and C belong turns Protectionist and sets up a barrier +in the shape of a tariff against iron ore coming from abroad. We have +seen that the cost of carrying iron ore from No. A to No. B was +£1,000,000. No. C being much farther away from No. B, let us say that +the cost of carrying is £5,000,000, but it is carried by subjects of the +realm. The tariff put up by the realm to which Island B and C belong is +what is called "prohibitive"---that is, it is so high that it keeps the +iron ore of No. A out altogether, and the smelters on Island No. B are +bound to get their iron ore from that distant Island C. Let us see what +happens. + +Island No. B has now got to pay a freight, that is, cost of bringing the +iron ore, five times as much as it used to be. Instead of paying +£11,000,000 for its ore (£10,000,000 at the mine and £1,000,000 for +carriage) it is now paying £15,000,000 (£10,000,000 at the mine and +£5,000,000 for carriage). It still makes £30,000,000 worth of goods a +year, but it only has £15,000,000 left over for its own income, instead +of the £19,000,000 which it used to have. It is thus impoverished. + +But Island C, from having hardly any income at all, has now an income of +£10,000,000 a year. Island A is ruined. Protection has put the getting +of the ore under unnatural conditions. It has compelled the coal-owners +to go much farther off for their ore than they need have done under Free +Trade. The total wealth of all three islands altogether is less than it +used to be by £4,000,000, for they are adding £4,000,000 extra to the +cost of getting the raw material. *But the total combined wealth of B +and C, even if they pay foreign ships to bring the ore, is now greater +than it used to be under the old Free Trade.* No. B has £15,000,000; +No. C has £10,000,000---the total is £25,000,000. If they pay their own +sailors to bring the ore it is £30,000,000. Under the old conditions the +total of B and C alone was only £19,000,000. Island A is ruined and the +total wealth of the whole system is less, but the Protectionists of the +realm, which now only includes B and C, are quite indifferent to that. +They are thinking of the wealth of their common country, and are +indifferent to the ruin of others, and their policy is *increasing* the +wealth of their common country at the expense of foreigners. + +In that example lies the argument for Protection. *If Island C could do +something other than mine ore, if it had other forms of wealth, or by +ingenuity or luck could discover some new fields in which its activities +might develop, then the argument for Protection in this case would break +down.* Island B would say: "Let me get my iron ore cheap from the +foreigner in Island A, and do you, on Island C, develop (let us say) +dairy farming, or something else which I cannot do and which Island B +cannot do. In that way we shall all three benefit, and the common realm, +consisting of Island B and Island C, will be richer than ever. Island B +will have all its old profit of £19,000,000 (instead of being reduced to +£15,000,000), and Island C can well develop a dairy produce of more than +£7,000,000." + +One ought to be able to see quite clearly from an example like this how +true it is that *the argument in favour of Protection applies to +particular cases only, and turns entirely upon whether an undeveloped +part of the energies of the community can be turned into new channels or +not.* + +We have' an excellent, though small, example to hand in England to-day. +The English people have to send abroad about £4 worth of goods every +year per family for pig-meat, that is, bacon and hams and the rest. +There is no reason why they should do this. They could produce the pigs +on their own farms without drawing a single person from the factories +and keep this mass of manufactured goods for their own use. The reason +we are in this state in the matter of pig-meat is that our agriculture +has generally got into such a hole that people will not bestir +themselves to produce enough pigs. So here is a definite case in point, +and only experiment could show whether Protection would pay here or +would not pay. Protection ought to take the form of saying:--- -"Any pig-meat from abroad must pay such and such a sum per -pound at the ports as it enters." This would raise the price -of pig-meat in England somewhat. If it raised the price to -such an amount that the English people as a whole had to pay -£2 more a family, *and if at that increased rate of price -agricultural people could be stimulated into feeding the -right amount of pigs and taking the necessary trouble to -keep the supply going,* then the total wealth of the -community would be increased £2 per family. Even if the -price had to increase till each family on the average paid -£3 more, or £3 10s. 0d. more, it would still be of advantage -to the nation *on condition that the higher price really did -make the farmers breed enough pigs, without lessening their -production of other things.* But if, when the charge on the -community had risen to £4 per family, it did not stimulate -the production of pigs in this country sufficiently to -supply the market, then your Protection of Pigs would be run -at a loss. +"Any pig-meat from abroad must pay such and such a sum per pound at the +ports as it enters." This would raise the price of pig-meat in England +somewhat. If it raised the price to such an amount that the English +people as a whole had to pay £2 more a family, *and if at that increased +rate of price agricultural people could be stimulated into feeding the +right amount of pigs and taking the necessary trouble to keep the supply +going,* then the total wealth of the community would be increased £2 per +family. Even if the price had to increase till each family on the +average paid £3 more, or £3 10s. 0d. more, it would still be of +advantage to the nation *on condition that the higher price really did +make the farmers breed enough pigs, without lessening their production +of other things.* But if, when the charge on the community had risen to +£4 per family, it did not stimulate the production of pigs in this +country sufficiently to supply the market, then your Protection of Pigs +would be run at a loss. ## Banking -During the last two hundred and fifty years there has -arisen, among other modern economic institutions, the -institution of *Banking.* - -It has origins much older; indeed, people did something of -the kind at *all* times, but Banking as a fully developed -institution grew up in this comparatively short time: since -the middle of the seventeenth century. It began in Holland -and England and spread to other countries. - -Like other modem institutions, it only became really -important in the latter half of this period, that is, during -the last hundred years or so; quite recently---in the last -fifty years---it has become of such supreme importance by -the mastery it has got over the whole commonwealth that -everybody ought to try to understand its character. The -Power of the Banks comes to-day into the lives of all of us -and largely affects the relations between different nations. -Indeed, it has become so powerful quite lately that one of -the principal things we have to watch in politics is the -enmity which the power of the Banks has aroused and the way -in which that power is being attacked. - -The essential of banking lies in these two combined ideas: -(1) that a man will leave his money in custody of another -man when that other man has better opportunities for keeping -it safe than he has; (2) that the money so left in custody -*may* be used by the custodian of the money without the real -owner being very anxious what is being done with it, so long -as he is certain to get it when he wants it. - -The putting together of these two ideas---which are ideas -naturally arising in everybody's mind---is the origin of all -banking, and the moral basis upon which banking reposes. - -A man has £1,000 in gold. He has to travel or to go abroad -on a war, or is not certain of the safety of so large a sum -if it is kept in his house. He therefore gives it into the -custody of a man whom he can trust, and who, on account of -special circumstances, can keep it more securely than he -himself can. What the owner of the £1,000 wants in the -transaction is to be certain of getting a part or the whole -of his money whenever he may need it. He does not want the -individual pieces of money. So long as he can get the value -of them *or of part of them* at any moment from the man to -whom he gave custody of the original sum he is satisfied. - -A good many other people feel the same necessity. The man -who has special opportunities for looking after *all* their -sums of money collects them together and has them in his -strong box in safe keeping. Those who have acted thus would -be very angry if they found their money had been lost, or -that when they came to ask for £20 or £100 out of their -thousand pounds---needing such a sum for the transactions of -the moment---the man in whose custody the whole lay was -unable to let them have the £20 or £100 required. But so -long as the depositor (as he is called, that is, the man who -hands over his money for safe custody) finds himself, in -practice, always getting the whole or any part of his -deposit on demand, he is content; *and will not be annoyed -to find that the person in whose custody he left the money -has been using it in the meantime.* - -For instance: I might leave £1,000 in gold in the custody of -someone who is better able than I to prevent its being -stolen. I am saved all the trouble of looking after it, and -I can call on a part of it or all of it whenever I like. If -there were only myself leaving it thus with one friend, and -it was a particular transaction between us two, that friend -would be acting wrongly if he were to take my £1,000 and buy -a ship with it, say, and do trade. No doubt he would earn a -profit, and could say to me when I came back for £100 of it: -"I am sorry that I cannot give you your £100, but I have -used the money, without telling you, to buy a ship. The ship -will earn a profit of £200 at the end of the year, and then -you can have back your £100 if you like, and if you press -me, I will even sell the ship and you shall have back the -whole of your £1,000." - -In that case I should naturally answer: "No one gave you -leave to use my money. You have embezzled it, and you have -acted like a thief." - -But when a very great number of men entrust their money in -this fashion, and do not specially stipulate that it should -be left untouched, when there is a sort of silent -understanding that, if whenever they want it, the money will -be forthcoming, then they do not ask too closely what has -been done with the whole of the sum in the custodian's -hands. For if *very many* people are thus "banking" their -money with one safe custodian only a certain proportion will -*at any one time* want their money, and the rest can be used -without danger of the "banker's" failing to meet any -particular demand. Thus banking, that is, the use of other -peoples' money, arises and becomes a natural process because -it is of mutual advantage. The Banker can earn profits with -that average amount of money which always remains in his -hands, the depositors have their money safely looked after -and may even share in the profit. - -A hundred men, let us say, have given £1,000 each into the -hands of such a custodian, who has come to be called their -"Banker." The total sum of money in this man's hands is -£100,000. It is found in practice, over the average of a -number of years, that this hundred men do not "draw" upon -(that is, ask for their money to be paid out to them by) -their banker more than to the extent of, let us say, £100 -every month each, and it is also found that, while they need -this £100 to pay wages or bills or what not, they also come -back with the money they earn (say, £120 per month, on the -average) and give it back to their banker for safe keeping. -In several years of this practice the banker discovers that -he must have about 100 times £100, that is £10,000, in free -cash to meet the demands upon him, and that he gets rather -more put into his custody in the same period of a month, -year in and year out. It follows that he always has about -£90,000 in gold doing nothing the whole time. He says to -himself: "Why should I not use this money to buy instruments -of production---ships or ploughs, or machinery or what -not---and produce more wealth? It will not hurt those who -have deposited it with me, for I have found that, *on the -average,* they never want more than a tenth of their money -out at the same time (and they are also perpetually paying -in more money to me---so that they and I are quite safe), -and if I make a good profit by the use of the things I shall -have bought with this £90,000 I can offer them part of the -profit. So we are both benefited." - -That is what the banker began by doing at the very origins -of this institution of banking. It was a little odd. It was -not quite straightforward. But the depositors, most of them, -knew what was going on, and at any rate did not protest. And -if, when a profit was made out of their combined money, they -got some of that profit, they were glad enough to see that -their money had been put to some use and that they had -become richer by its use; while if they had kept it to -themselves in scattered small amounts it would not have made -them any richer. - -In England we can trace the origins of a great many banks, -and of the fortunes of their owners, proceeding along these -lines. For instance: there was a family of silversmiths -rather more than two hundred years ago. They had a shop in -which silver objects were bought and sold, and they also had -gold plate to buy and sell. They had strong-boxes in which -these things were kept, and they paid money to men who -guarded these strong-boxes. It was a natural thing for -people to go to this shop and say: "I have here a thousand -pounds in gold which is not very safe at home. Will you look -after it for me, on condition, of course that I may call for -any amount of it when I want it and what will you charge for -your trouble?" The silversmiths said: "Yes, we will do this, -we will charge nothing," and in that way they got hold of -very large sums which people left with them. They found, as -we have just seen, that in practice, year after year, only a -certain amount of the sums were required of them at any one -time, and rather than leave the big balance lying idle they -used it for buying useful things which would produce more -wealth. They lent the money sometimes to the State for its -purposes, that is, to the King of the time. Sometimes they -employed it in other ways which earned a profit. The people -who left the money with them always found that they could -get back whatever they wanted when they asked for it, and -they were content. That is how banking arose. - -Another example of which I know the history and which is -very interesting is that of a squire in the West of England -who lived rather less than two hundred years ago and has -given his name to one of our great banks still existing -to-day. This squire was a rich man who had many friends -coming to his table. He had the reputation of good judgment -and his friends would say: "I will leave this sum of money -in your custody," for they knew that he would be able to put -it to good use and give them part of the profit. Thus, -looking after the money of neighbours, he came to look after -the money of a great many people whom his neighbours -recommended, and at last had hundreds of "clients," as the -phrase went---that is, of people who would leave their money -with him, knowing that he would earn a profit both for -himself and for them; at the same time the money would be -safely kept, and they might call for a portion of it -whenever they wanted it. - -From such origins the banking system gradually extended -until, about a hundred years ago, or rather more, every rich -family in this country had a considerable sum of money left -at a bank, and paid into the banker's coffers further sums -of money which they received. Each had a book of accounts -with the bank showing exactly how much had been put in and -therefore how much they could "draw" upon. At first the -clients, or depositors, would "draw" some portion of their -money which they might immediately need by way of a letter. -Thus, if their banker's name was Mr. Smith, they would write -this note: "To Mr. Smith. Please pay my servant who brings -this letter £20 out of the £1,000 which I left with you the -other day." They would sign this letter and send the servant -with it; the banker would give the £20 to the servant and -the servant would give a receipt against it. - -That was the origin of what are nowadays called "cheques." -The letter giving authority for the messenger to draw the -money grew more and more formal and was drawn up more and -more in the same terms to save trouble. Then the bankers -would have the forms printed, so that the client who wanted -to draw would have the least possible trouble. If you look -at a cheque to-day you will see that it is nothing but the -old letter put into the simplest terms. At the head of the -cheque is the name of the bank; then there is the word " -Pay," and after that the client adds the sum which he wants -paid and signs his name to prove that it is really he who is -entitled to have the sum and who is asking for it. The words -" or bearer " are sometimes printed after the word " -Pay," so that anyone bringing the cheque for the client can -get the money for him. - -But to prevent people using these pieces of paper to get -money without having the right to it the word "order" was -more often substituted for the word "bearer"; and this word -"order" means that the owner, who is drawing his money out, -says: "Do not pay it to me; pay it to this other person whom -I desire to receive the money and whose name I have -mentioned above, who will sign to show that *his* order for -payment has been met." - -For instance: I have £1,000 deposited with my banker, -Mr. Smith. I write a letter: "Pay £20 to John Jones *or -order.*" This means:"Do not, dear Mr. Smith, send the money -back to me, but give it to Mr. Jones who will bring this -letter with him, or, if he cannot come himself, will send a -signed letter *order* that it should be paid to him." At the -beginning of the system, Mr. Jones, to whom I gave the -cheque, would write a little letter saying: "Dear Mr. Smith, -Mr. So-and-So, who banks with you, has given me the -accompanying letter by which I can get £20 of his *by my -order.* I therefore send you this letter to tell you that -whoever brings this cheque bears my order to give the money -to him." He signs the letter"John Jones" and the banker -hands over the money to whomever it may be that brings the -letter for John Jones. - -In process of time the thing was simplified. In place of the -letter came the shortened form, the cheque, and you wrote: -"Pay £20 to John Jones or order," and John Jones, instead of -sending a letter signed by himself, merely put his signature -at the back of the cheque. This was called "endorsement," -which is a Latin form of the English meaning "putting one's -name on the back of anything." A cheque "endorsed" with the -name "John Jones," that is, with John Jones's name signed on -the back of it, was paid by the bank to whomever John Jones -might send to receive the payment. My cheque asking for £20 -to be paid to John J ones having fulfilled its object, and -the £20 being paid to whomever John Jones had sent after he -had "endorsed" that, cheque, the cheque was said to have -been "honoured" by the bank. The word "honoured" meant that -the bank had admitted that I had the money banked with them, -and that they were bound to hand it over on seeing my -signature asking that it should be handed over. - -The convenience of cheques used in this way for business was -obvious. If I owed a man £20 and I had £1,000 with my -banker, instead of having to draw out twenty sovereigns -myself and take them to him, all I had to do was to write -out a cheque to the order of this man, who would endorse it +During the last two hundred and fifty years there has arisen, among +other modern economic institutions, the institution of *Banking.* + +It has origins much older; indeed, people did something of the kind at +*all* times, but Banking as a fully developed institution grew up in +this comparatively short time: since the middle of the seventeenth +century. It began in Holland and England and spread to other countries. + +Like other modem institutions, it only became really important in the +latter half of this period, that is, during the last hundred years or +so; quite recently---in the last fifty years---it has become of such +supreme importance by the mastery it has got over the whole commonwealth +that everybody ought to try to understand its character. The Power of +the Banks comes to-day into the lives of all of us and largely affects +the relations between different nations. Indeed, it has become so +powerful quite lately that one of the principal things we have to watch +in politics is the enmity which the power of the Banks has aroused and +the way in which that power is being attacked. + +The essential of banking lies in these two combined ideas: (1) that a +man will leave his money in custody of another man when that other man +has better opportunities for keeping it safe than he has; (2) that the +money so left in custody *may* be used by the custodian of the money +without the real owner being very anxious what is being done with it, so +long as he is certain to get it when he wants it. + +The putting together of these two ideas---which are ideas naturally +arising in everybody's mind---is the origin of all banking, and the +moral basis upon which banking reposes. + +A man has £1,000 in gold. He has to travel or to go abroad on a war, or +is not certain of the safety of so large a sum if it is kept in his +house. He therefore gives it into the custody of a man whom he can +trust, and who, on account of special circumstances, can keep it more +securely than he himself can. What the owner of the £1,000 wants in the +transaction is to be certain of getting a part or the whole of his money +whenever he may need it. He does not want the individual pieces of +money. So long as he can get the value of them *or of part of them* at +any moment from the man to whom he gave custody of the original sum he +is satisfied. + +A good many other people feel the same necessity. The man who has +special opportunities for looking after *all* their sums of money +collects them together and has them in his strong box in safe keeping. +Those who have acted thus would be very angry if they found their money +had been lost, or that when they came to ask for £20 or £100 out of +their thousand pounds---needing such a sum for the transactions of the +moment---the man in whose custody the whole lay was unable to let them +have the £20 or £100 required. But so long as the depositor (as he is +called, that is, the man who hands over his money for safe custody) +finds himself, in practice, always getting the whole or any part of his +deposit on demand, he is content; *and will not be annoyed to find that +the person in whose custody he left the money has been using it in the +meantime.* + +For instance: I might leave £1,000 in gold in the custody of someone who +is better able than I to prevent its being stolen. I am saved all the +trouble of looking after it, and I can call on a part of it or all of it +whenever I like. If there were only myself leaving it thus with one +friend, and it was a particular transaction between us two, that friend +would be acting wrongly if he were to take my £1,000 and buy a ship with +it, say, and do trade. No doubt he would earn a profit, and could say to +me when I came back for £100 of it: "I am sorry that I cannot give you +your £100, but I have used the money, without telling you, to buy a +ship. The ship will earn a profit of £200 at the end of the year, and +then you can have back your £100 if you like, and if you press me, I +will even sell the ship and you shall have back the whole of your +£1,000." + +In that case I should naturally answer: "No one gave you leave to use my +money. You have embezzled it, and you have acted like a thief." + +But when a very great number of men entrust their money in this fashion, +and do not specially stipulate that it should be left untouched, when +there is a sort of silent understanding that, if whenever they want it, +the money will be forthcoming, then they do not ask too closely what has +been done with the whole of the sum in the custodian's hands. For if +*very many* people are thus "banking" their money with one safe +custodian only a certain proportion will *at any one time* want their +money, and the rest can be used without danger of the "banker's" failing +to meet any particular demand. Thus banking, that is, the use of other +peoples' money, arises and becomes a natural process because it is of +mutual advantage. The Banker can earn profits with that average amount +of money which always remains in his hands, the depositors have their +money safely looked after and may even share in the profit. + +A hundred men, let us say, have given £1,000 each into the hands of such +a custodian, who has come to be called their "Banker." The total sum of +money in this man's hands is £100,000. It is found in practice, over the +average of a number of years, that this hundred men do not "draw" upon +(that is, ask for their money to be paid out to them by) their banker +more than to the extent of, let us say, £100 every month each, and it is +also found that, while they need this £100 to pay wages or bills or what +not, they also come back with the money they earn (say, £120 per month, +on the average) and give it back to their banker for safe keeping. In +several years of this practice the banker discovers that he must have +about 100 times £100, that is £10,000, in free cash to meet the demands +upon him, and that he gets rather more put into his custody in the same +period of a month, year in and year out. It follows that he always has +about £90,000 in gold doing nothing the whole time. He says to himself: +"Why should I not use this money to buy instruments of +production---ships or ploughs, or machinery or what not---and produce +more wealth? It will not hurt those who have deposited it with me, for I +have found that, *on the average,* they never want more than a tenth of +their money out at the same time (and they are also perpetually paying +in more money to me---so that they and I are quite safe), and if I make +a good profit by the use of the things I shall have bought with this +£90,000 I can offer them part of the profit. So we are both benefited." + +That is what the banker began by doing at the very origins of this +institution of banking. It was a little odd. It was not quite +straightforward. But the depositors, most of them, knew what was going +on, and at any rate did not protest. And if, when a profit was made out +of their combined money, they got some of that profit, they were glad +enough to see that their money had been put to some use and that they +had become richer by its use; while if they had kept it to themselves in +scattered small amounts it would not have made them any richer. + +In England we can trace the origins of a great many banks, and of the +fortunes of their owners, proceeding along these lines. For instance: +there was a family of silversmiths rather more than two hundred years +ago. They had a shop in which silver objects were bought and sold, and +they also had gold plate to buy and sell. They had strong-boxes in which +these things were kept, and they paid money to men who guarded these +strong-boxes. It was a natural thing for people to go to this shop and +say: "I have here a thousand pounds in gold which is not very safe at +home. Will you look after it for me, on condition, of course that I may +call for any amount of it when I want it and what will you charge for +your trouble?" The silversmiths said: "Yes, we will do this, we will +charge nothing," and in that way they got hold of very large sums which +people left with them. They found, as we have just seen, that in +practice, year after year, only a certain amount of the sums were +required of them at any one time, and rather than leave the big balance +lying idle they used it for buying useful things which would produce +more wealth. They lent the money sometimes to the State for its +purposes, that is, to the King of the time. Sometimes they employed it +in other ways which earned a profit. The people who left the money with +them always found that they could get back whatever they wanted when +they asked for it, and they were content. That is how banking arose. + +Another example of which I know the history and which is very +interesting is that of a squire in the West of England who lived rather +less than two hundred years ago and has given his name to one of our +great banks still existing to-day. This squire was a rich man who had +many friends coming to his table. He had the reputation of good judgment +and his friends would say: "I will leave this sum of money in your +custody," for they knew that he would be able to put it to good use and +give them part of the profit. Thus, looking after the money of +neighbours, he came to look after the money of a great many people whom +his neighbours recommended, and at last had hundreds of "clients," as +the phrase went---that is, of people who would leave their money with +him, knowing that he would earn a profit both for himself and for them; +at the same time the money would be safely kept, and they might call for +a portion of it whenever they wanted it. + +From such origins the banking system gradually extended until, about a +hundred years ago, or rather more, every rich family in this country had +a considerable sum of money left at a bank, and paid into the banker's +coffers further sums of money which they received. Each had a book of +accounts with the bank showing exactly how much had been put in and +therefore how much they could "draw" upon. At first the clients, or +depositors, would "draw" some portion of their money which they might +immediately need by way of a letter. Thus, if their banker's name was +Mr. Smith, they would write this note: "To Mr. Smith. Please pay my +servant who brings this letter £20 out of the £1,000 which I left with +you the other day." They would sign this letter and send the servant +with it; the banker would give the £20 to the servant and the servant +would give a receipt against it. + +That was the origin of what are nowadays called "cheques." The letter +giving authority for the messenger to draw the money grew more and more +formal and was drawn up more and more in the same terms to save trouble. +Then the bankers would have the forms printed, so that the client who +wanted to draw would have the least possible trouble. If you look at a +cheque to-day you will see that it is nothing but the old letter put +into the simplest terms. At the head of the cheque is the name of the +bank; then there is the word " Pay," and after that the client adds the +sum which he wants paid and signs his name to prove that it is really he +who is entitled to have the sum and who is asking for it. The words " or +bearer " are sometimes printed after the word " Pay," so that anyone +bringing the cheque for the client can get the money for him. + +But to prevent people using these pieces of paper to get money without +having the right to it the word "order" was more often substituted for +the word "bearer"; and this word "order" means that the owner, who is +drawing his money out, says: "Do not pay it to me; pay it to this other +person whom I desire to receive the money and whose name I have +mentioned above, who will sign to show that *his* order for payment has +been met." + +For instance: I have £1,000 deposited with my banker, Mr. Smith. I write +a letter: "Pay £20 to John Jones *or order.*" This means:"Do not, dear +Mr. Smith, send the money back to me, but give it to Mr. Jones who will +bring this letter with him, or, if he cannot come himself, will send a +signed letter *order* that it should be paid to him." At the beginning +of the system, Mr. Jones, to whom I gave the cheque, would write a +little letter saying: "Dear Mr. Smith, Mr. So-and-So, who banks with +you, has given me the accompanying letter by which I can get £20 of his +*by my order.* I therefore send you this letter to tell you that whoever +brings this cheque bears my order to give the money to him." He signs +the letter"John Jones" and the banker hands over the money to whomever +it may be that brings the letter for John Jones. + +In process of time the thing was simplified. In place of the letter came +the shortened form, the cheque, and you wrote: "Pay £20 to John Jones or +order," and John Jones, instead of sending a letter signed by himself, +merely put his signature at the back of the cheque. This was called +"endorsement," which is a Latin form of the English meaning "putting +one's name on the back of anything." A cheque "endorsed" with the name +"John Jones," that is, with John Jones's name signed on the back of it, +was paid by the bank to whomever John Jones might send to receive the +payment. My cheque asking for £20 to be paid to John J ones having +fulfilled its object, and the £20 being paid to whomever John Jones had +sent after he had "endorsed" that, cheque, the cheque was said to have +been "honoured" by the bank. The word "honoured" meant that the bank had +admitted that I had the money banked with them, and that they were bound +to hand it over on seeing my signature asking that it should be handed +over. + +The convenience of cheques used in this way for business was obvious. If +I owed a man £20 and I had £1,000 with my banker, instead of having to +draw out twenty sovereigns myself and take them to him, all I had to do +was to write out a cheque to the order of this man, who would endorse it and get the money. -Now as banking grew and came to deal with more and more -people, it was probable that this man, Jones, would have a -banking account too with somebody. If Mr. Smith was not his -banker, then Mr. Brown would be. As we have seen, people not -only drew out money from the original sum they had deposited -at the bank, they also paid in money as they got it, on -account of the convenience of having it looked after safely. -So when John Jones got my cheque for £20, he often did not -get the actual cash from my banker, Mr. Smith, but simply -gave in the cheque, endorsed by him, to Mr. Brown, *his* -banker, and said: "Get this from Mr. Smith, the other -banker, and add it to the sum which I have banked with you, -Mr. Brown." The banker Brown did this, and the cheque which -I had originally signed in favour of John Jones, having gone -the rounds, was sent back to me to prove that the -transaction was complete. - -As banking continued to grow this system took on a vast -extension. Thousands and thousands of people paid, and were -paid, by cheques, of which only a small part were turned -into cash, and of which much the greater part were paid into -the bankers' offices and then settled by the bankers among -themselves. - -After many years of this system it became apparent that the -enormous transactions, thousands of cheques all crossing -each other daily in hundreds of ways, could be simplified by -the establishment of what came to be called the " Clearing -House." - -Thus, suppose three bankers---Mr. Smith, Mr. Brown and -Mr. Robinson. I bank with Mr. Smith, and sign a cheque in -favour of Mr. Jones who banks with Mr. Brown, because I owe -Jones a bill which I can thus pay. I also sign a cheque in -favour of Mr. Harding (that is, to the order of Mr. -Harding), to whom I also owe money. He banks with -Mr. Robinson. Meanwhile Harding perhaps owes money to Jones -and pays him a cheque ordering Mr. Robinson (Harding's -banker) to pay Jones a sum of money. Jones hands this over -to his banker, Mr. Brown. At the end of a certain -time---say, a month---the three bankers, Smith, Brown and -Robinson, get together and compare the various cheques they -have received. It is obvious that a great many will cancel -out. - -For instance: I have given Jones a cheque for £20 which -Mr. Smith, my banker, has to pay to Mr. Brown, Jones's -banker. But Mr. Brown has a cheque of Mr. Harding's asking -Mr. Robinson to pay £20 to Jones, and Jones has given that -to Brown too. Meanwhile Jones has given me a cheque later -on, for something which he owed me, of £10. The bankers -compare notes and see that Smith need not pay £20 to Brown, -and then ask Brown for £10. It is simpler to pay the -difference only. Mr. Smith hands to Mr. Brown what is called -the "balance." The difference between £10 and £20 is £10, -and Brown hands over £10 to Smith. At the end of another -month perhaps it is Robinson, Harding's banker, who finds -that on comparing notes he has a balance against him of £10 -to Brown: and so on. - -When dozens of bankers came to be established with thousands -of clients, or "depositors," the convenience of this system -was overwhelming. There would perhaps be in a week as many -as 10,000 cheques out, and instead of having to make 10,000 -separate transactions of paying from Brown to Smith, Smith -to Robinson, Robinson back to Brown, and so on, through -dozens of bankers, the cheques were compared and only the -balances were paid over---or, as the phrase goes, "cleared." - -The Clearing House was the place where all the cheques of -different banks were put in at regular intervals and -compared one with another, so as to see what balances -remained over, owing by particular bankers to others. - -Meanwhile, as the banking system grew, most of the ready -money in the community came into the hands of the bankers. -There was a perpetual coming and going, and paying in and -paying out, but there was always among the bankers as a -community a very large sum of money lying untouched, a sort -of reservoir. It was nearly always very much more than -two-thirds of the whole amount which the banks could be -called on to pay. That is, the depositors never wanted a -third of their deposits out at any one time. The art of a -banker, therefore, consisted in knowing how to purchase with -this idle money left in their hands fruitful objects for -producing future wealth, in other words, "investing" it in -"capital enterprises," but always prudently keeping a large -reserve ready to meet any demands which their depositors -might suddenly make upon them. - -So far so good. The banking system up to this point in its -development was an advantage to the community and to -individuals. It enabled a large number of small sums which -could not be used very well separately to be collected -together for big enterprises. - -A thousand people, depositing a thousand pounds each, left a -million pounds in the hands of the bankers, of which much -more than half a million could be used at any time for " -development," that is, for buying instruments with which to -develop natural resources. The nation would be richer if a -deep shaft were sunk and coal were got out of the earth, but -it would cost half a million to make that mine. No one of -the thousand small depositors could have undertaken such a -task: the bank, using all their monies together, could -undertake it---and did so. - -The banking system thus rapidly increased the wealth of the -country, and that was all to the good. People meanwhile felt -their money to be secure, and they had the great advantage -of being able to draw cheques for payments they had to make -to those to whom they owed money, and of receiving cheques -for money due to them instead of perpetually handling and -carrying about large sums in metal---the whole passing -through- the bank and helping to keep this reservoir of -wealth perpetually filled and available for use in -investment. - -That state of affairs lasted to within the memory of men now -living, and, as I have said, the banking system during that -time was an advantage to everybody. There was nothing to be -said against it. - -But then came (as there comes upon every human institution -after a certain time) a further phase of development, in -which the institution of banking produced certain perils and -evils. Those perils and evils are increasing, and are -producing the antagonism to the banks and to their power -which everybody is beginning to express to-day, all over -Europe and America, and which we must understand if we are -to follow modern political economy. I will show you how -these evils in the Banking system arose. - -A man having £1,000 in the bank could draw upon it up to the -total amount. He could sign a cheque for £100 and then for -£500 (making £600) and then for another £400. Supposing he -put nothing in during that time, he would have exhausted the -whole of what he had in his bank; he would have come to an -end of what is called, in the terms of banking, his -"balance." There, you might think, was an end of his power -to draw cheques. He had got back all his money, so the bank -and he had nothing more to do with each other. At first, of -course, that was the regular state of affairs. A man could -draw out all that he had in the bank, but no more. It seems -common sense. - -But the banks had plenty of other people's money lying about -which had not been drawn out, and much of which had not yet -been invested in capital enterprises, such as mining, or -what not. They would say to the man who had once put £1,000 -into their hands and who had now drawn it all out: "You -still want to carry on your business; but you have exhausted -all the money you had with us. You will probably want to -borrow some money to tide you over until the time when -further sums begin to come in to you through what you sell -in your business. We are prepared to lend you money out of -what we have to use from other people's deposits. You will -pay a certain *'interest'* upon it (that is, so much a year -on each hundred pounds we lend you---say £5 a year for every -£100), and you shall pay us back when you can." The bank -accompanied this offer with the right to draw further -cheques to, say, another thousand pounds, which the bank -would"honour"---that is, for which the bank would pay out -money which did not really belong to their client but was -lent to him by the bank out of other people's balances. And -this extra amount, which the bank thus allowed their client -over and beyond what was his own money was, and is, called -an "over-draft." - -At first, before the banks would allow anybody an -"over-draft" (that is, a loan), they required the borrower -to give security. He had to leave with them gold or silver -plate or a mortgage upon his land, so that if, in the long -run, he found himself unable to pay back, the banker, could +Now as banking grew and came to deal with more and more people, it was +probable that this man, Jones, would have a banking account too with +somebody. If Mr. Smith was not his banker, then Mr. Brown would be. As +we have seen, people not only drew out money from the original sum they +had deposited at the bank, they also paid in money as they got it, on +account of the convenience of having it looked after safely. So when +John Jones got my cheque for £20, he often did not get the actual cash +from my banker, Mr. Smith, but simply gave in the cheque, endorsed by +him, to Mr. Brown, *his* banker, and said: "Get this from Mr. Smith, the +other banker, and add it to the sum which I have banked with you, +Mr. Brown." The banker Brown did this, and the cheque which I had +originally signed in favour of John Jones, having gone the rounds, was +sent back to me to prove that the transaction was complete. + +As banking continued to grow this system took on a vast extension. +Thousands and thousands of people paid, and were paid, by cheques, of +which only a small part were turned into cash, and of which much the +greater part were paid into the bankers' offices and then settled by the +bankers among themselves. + +After many years of this system it became apparent that the enormous +transactions, thousands of cheques all crossing each other daily in +hundreds of ways, could be simplified by the establishment of what came +to be called the " Clearing House." + +Thus, suppose three bankers---Mr. Smith, Mr. Brown and Mr. Robinson. I +bank with Mr. Smith, and sign a cheque in favour of Mr. Jones who banks +with Mr. Brown, because I owe Jones a bill which I can thus pay. I also +sign a cheque in favour of Mr. Harding (that is, to the order of Mr. +Harding), to whom I also owe money. He banks with Mr. Robinson. +Meanwhile Harding perhaps owes money to Jones and pays him a cheque +ordering Mr. Robinson (Harding's banker) to pay Jones a sum of money. +Jones hands this over to his banker, Mr. Brown. At the end of a certain +time---say, a month---the three bankers, Smith, Brown and Robinson, get +together and compare the various cheques they have received. It is +obvious that a great many will cancel out. + +For instance: I have given Jones a cheque for £20 which Mr. Smith, my +banker, has to pay to Mr. Brown, Jones's banker. But Mr. Brown has a +cheque of Mr. Harding's asking Mr. Robinson to pay £20 to Jones, and +Jones has given that to Brown too. Meanwhile Jones has given me a cheque +later on, for something which he owed me, of £10. The bankers compare +notes and see that Smith need not pay £20 to Brown, and then ask Brown +for £10. It is simpler to pay the difference only. Mr. Smith hands to +Mr. Brown what is called the "balance." The difference between £10 and +£20 is £10, and Brown hands over £10 to Smith. At the end of another +month perhaps it is Robinson, Harding's banker, who finds that on +comparing notes he has a balance against him of £10 to Brown: and so on. + +When dozens of bankers came to be established with thousands of clients, +or "depositors," the convenience of this system was overwhelming. There +would perhaps be in a week as many as 10,000 cheques out, and instead of +having to make 10,000 separate transactions of paying from Brown to +Smith, Smith to Robinson, Robinson back to Brown, and so on, through +dozens of bankers, the cheques were compared and only the balances were +paid over---or, as the phrase goes, "cleared." + +The Clearing House was the place where all the cheques of different +banks were put in at regular intervals and compared one with another, so +as to see what balances remained over, owing by particular bankers to +others. + +Meanwhile, as the banking system grew, most of the ready money in the +community came into the hands of the bankers. There was a perpetual +coming and going, and paying in and paying out, but there was always +among the bankers as a community a very large sum of money lying +untouched, a sort of reservoir. It was nearly always very much more than +two-thirds of the whole amount which the banks could be called on to +pay. That is, the depositors never wanted a third of their deposits out +at any one time. The art of a banker, therefore, consisted in knowing +how to purchase with this idle money left in their hands fruitful +objects for producing future wealth, in other words, "investing" it in +"capital enterprises," but always prudently keeping a large reserve +ready to meet any demands which their depositors might suddenly make +upon them. + +So far so good. The banking system up to this point in its development +was an advantage to the community and to individuals. It enabled a large +number of small sums which could not be used very well separately to be +collected together for big enterprises. + +A thousand people, depositing a thousand pounds each, left a million +pounds in the hands of the bankers, of which much more than half a +million could be used at any time for " development," that is, for +buying instruments with which to develop natural resources. The nation +would be richer if a deep shaft were sunk and coal were got out of the +earth, but it would cost half a million to make that mine. No one of the +thousand small depositors could have undertaken such a task: the bank, +using all their monies together, could undertake it---and did so. + +The banking system thus rapidly increased the wealth of the country, and +that was all to the good. People meanwhile felt their money to be +secure, and they had the great advantage of being able to draw cheques +for payments they had to make to those to whom they owed money, and of +receiving cheques for money due to them instead of perpetually handling +and carrying about large sums in metal---the whole passing through- the +bank and helping to keep this reservoir of wealth perpetually filled and +available for use in investment. + +That state of affairs lasted to within the memory of men now living, +and, as I have said, the banking system during that time was an +advantage to everybody. There was nothing to be said against it. + +But then came (as there comes upon every human institution after a +certain time) a further phase of development, in which the institution +of banking produced certain perils and evils. Those perils and evils are +increasing, and are producing the antagonism to the banks and to their +power which everybody is beginning to express to-day, all over Europe +and America, and which we must understand if we are to follow modern +political economy. I will show you how these evils in the Banking system +arose. + +A man having £1,000 in the bank could draw upon it up to the total +amount. He could sign a cheque for £100 and then for £500 (making £600) +and then for another £400. Supposing he put nothing in during that time, +he would have exhausted the whole of what he had in his bank; he would +have come to an end of what is called, in the terms of banking, his +"balance." There, you might think, was an end of his power to draw +cheques. He had got back all his money, so the bank and he had nothing +more to do with each other. At first, of course, that was the regular +state of affairs. A man could draw out all that he had in the bank, but +no more. It seems common sense. + +But the banks had plenty of other people's money lying about which had +not been drawn out, and much of which had not yet been invested in +capital enterprises, such as mining, or what not. They would say to the +man who had once put £1,000 into their hands and who had now drawn it +all out: "You still want to carry on your business; but you have +exhausted all the money you had with us. You will probably want to +borrow some money to tide you over until the time when further sums +begin to come in to you through what you sell in your business. We are +prepared to lend you money out of what we have to use from other +people's deposits. You will pay a certain *'interest'* upon it (that is, +so much a year on each hundred pounds we lend you---say £5 a year for +every £100), and you shall pay us back when you can." The bank +accompanied this offer with the right to draw further cheques to, say, +another thousand pounds, which the bank would"honour"---that is, for +which the bank would pay out money which did not really belong to their +client but was lent to him by the bank out of other people's balances. +And this extra amount, which the bank thus allowed their client over and +beyond what was his own money was, and is, called an "over-draft." + +At first, before the banks would allow anybody an "over-draft" (that is, +a loan), they required the borrower to give security. He had to leave +with them gold or silver plate or a mortgage upon his land, so that if, +in the long run, he found himself unable to pay back, the banker, could sell the security and recoup himself. -But it was obviously convenient and useful when a client was -in a big way of business to grant him an "over-draft" from -time to time although he had no security to offer. The bank -said to itself: "Here is a merchant making very large -profits every year. It takes him some time to get his money -in from the foreigners to whom he sells goods oversea, but -he is bound to get it sooner or later. So, without asking -him for any security (for perhaps he has no plate or title -deeds or what not to give), it is still well worth our while -to let him have an over-draft (that is, a loan) out of the -other people's money. He will pay us interest upon it, we -shall make a profit, and when the foreigners pay him he will -be able to pay us back." - -In this way the banks became on all sides lenders of money -to persons without security, and it became exceedingly -important to any trader whether he could or could not get -the banks to back him up in this fashion. - -The thing went farther. A man might have no capital at all, -but a good idea. He might have discovered, for instance, a -mine of copper-ore in some colony. He would come to the -banks and say: "I have not the money to pay labourers to dig -for this ore, but if you will advance the money to me and go -shares in the profit the ore can be got out." The banks -would look at the "proposition," as it is called, and if -they thought it a good thing they would advance the money -and share the subsequent profits with the borrower. All over -the world the banks were thus "financing," as it is called, -every kind of enterprise. - -The system went farther still---and here it is that we come -upon the modern trouble. Hitherto when they gave an -over-draft to anybody, whether with or without security, or -even when they gave a loan to a man who had no capital at -all, and "backed" him in his enterprise which they thought -likely to prove successful, they had used the money which -other clients had left with them. But it occurred to the -banks after a certain time that there was no need to use -anybody else's money at all. *They could themselves offer to -honour the cheques of the man to whom they lent the money, -without having any real money with which to pay those +But it was obviously convenient and useful when a client was in a big +way of business to grant him an "over-draft" from time to time although +he had no security to offer. The bank said to itself: "Here is a +merchant making very large profits every year. It takes him some time to +get his money in from the foreigners to whom he sells goods oversea, but +he is bound to get it sooner or later. So, without asking him for any +security (for perhaps he has no plate or title deeds or what not to +give), it is still well worth our while to let him have an over-draft +(that is, a loan) out of the other people's money. He will pay us +interest upon it, we shall make a profit, and when the foreigners pay +him he will be able to pay us back." + +In this way the banks became on all sides lenders of money to persons +without security, and it became exceedingly important to any trader +whether he could or could not get the banks to back him up in this +fashion. + +The thing went farther. A man might have no capital at all, but a good +idea. He might have discovered, for instance, a mine of copper-ore in +some colony. He would come to the banks and say: "I have not the money +to pay labourers to dig for this ore, but if you will advance the money +to me and go shares in the profit the ore can be got out." The banks +would look at the "proposition," as it is called, and if they thought it +a good thing they would advance the money and share the subsequent +profits with the borrower. All over the world the banks were thus +"financing," as it is called, every kind of enterprise. + +The system went farther still---and here it is that we come upon the +modern trouble. Hitherto when they gave an over-draft to anybody, +whether with or without security, or even when they gave a loan to a man +who had no capital at all, and "backed" him in his enterprise which they +thought likely to prove successful, they had used the money which other +clients had left with them. But it occurred to the banks after a certain +time that there was no need to use anybody else's money at all. *They +could themselves offer to honour the cheques of the man to whom they +lent the money, without having any real money with which to pay those cheques.* -Why was this? It was because, with the growth of the banking -system, hardly any of the payments were, by this time, -actually made in gold. Real money only passed in a very -small degree. Of the myriad transactions all but a tiny -proportion were *"instruments of credit."* Just as a -bank-note issued by the Bank of England is a promise to pay -in gold, and yet a promise to pay a million pounds in -bank-notes could always be made with much less than a -million real pounds to redeem the notes so *the hanks could -create paper money, or its equivalent, in the form of -over-drafts.* If they said to a man who had no money -deposited with them: "We will honour your cheques up to -£1,000" *what they were really doing was increasing the -paper currency to the extent of £1,000.* They were issuing -promises to pay, exactly like banknotes, knowing that of the -total amount out only a small proportion at any moment would -be required in real money. - -There was a check on this system of creating new artificial -paper money by the banks (for this is what it came to), and -the check consisted in the control of the Government over -the National Bank---in England the Bank of England. There -was a law preventing the Bank of England from issuing more -than a certain number of notes in proportion to the gold -lying behind them, and the private banks could not issue -over-drafts, or loans, indefinitely, because they could not -get more than a certain amount of paper money from the Bank -of England to meet the payments they had to make, and the -Bank, in its turn, could not issue more than a certain -proportion of paper money against its gold. - -So ultimately the amount of real money, the gold, in the -hands of the banks, both national and private, acted as a -check upon this creation of false money by the banks. But -when gold payments ceased with the Great War that check -broke down, and even if gold payments had not ceased, the -power of the banks thus to "create" as it is called,---in -other words, their power to say to any individual -enterprise: "You shall or you shall not have your cheques -honoured: you shall or you shall not carry on"---gave them -an immense and increasing power over the community. - -That is why the revolt against the banking system and its -control over our lives in the modern state since the war is -becoming so formidable. +Why was this? It was because, with the growth of the banking system, +hardly any of the payments were, by this time, actually made in gold. +Real money only passed in a very small degree. Of the myriad +transactions all but a tiny proportion were *"instruments of credit."* +Just as a bank-note issued by the Bank of England is a promise to pay in +gold, and yet a promise to pay a million pounds in bank-notes could +always be made with much less than a million real pounds to redeem the +notes so *the hanks could create paper money, or its equivalent, in the +form of over-drafts.* If they said to a man who had no money deposited +with them: "We will honour your cheques up to £1,000" *what they were +really doing was increasing the paper currency to the extent of £1,000.* +They were issuing promises to pay, exactly like banknotes, knowing that +of the total amount out only a small proportion at any moment would be +required in real money. + +There was a check on this system of creating new artificial paper money +by the banks (for this is what it came to), and the check consisted in +the control of the Government over the National Bank---in England the +Bank of England. There was a law preventing the Bank of England from +issuing more than a certain number of notes in proportion to the gold +lying behind them, and the private banks could not issue over-drafts, or +loans, indefinitely, because they could not get more than a certain +amount of paper money from the Bank of England to meet the payments they +had to make, and the Bank, in its turn, could not issue more than a +certain proportion of paper money against its gold. + +So ultimately the amount of real money, the gold, in the hands of the +banks, both national and private, acted as a check upon this creation of +false money by the banks. But when gold payments ceased with the Great +War that check broke down, and even if gold payments had not ceased, the +power of the banks thus to "create" as it is called,---in other words, +their power to say to any individual enterprise: "You shall or you shall +not have your cheques honoured: you shall or you shall not carry +on"---gave them an immense and increasing power over the community. + +That is why the revolt against the banking system and its control over +our lives in the modern state since the war is becoming so formidable. It has two chief forms against which men protest. -1. The bankers can decide, of two competitors, which shall - survive. As the great majority of enterprises lie in - debt to the banks---that is, carrying on with loans - allowed them by the banks working with money *made* by - the banks---any one of two competing industries can be - killed by the bankers saying: "I will no longer lend you - this money. I 'call it in'---that is, ask for it to be - paid at once. But I will not exercise the same pressure - upon the man who is competing against you." This power - makes the banks the masters of the greater part of modem - industry. It is argued that the banks do not act from - caprice, and will naturally only back a sound enterprise - and only ruin an unsound one. That is, on the whole, - true. But still, those who command them have the power, - if they like, to act from caprice, and whenever you give - a few human beings great power of this sort over - millions of others it tends to be abused. - -2. The banks, especially in England, are all in one - combination and keep detailed information upon all of - us. Not only have they control over industry through - their power to make or withhold the money which they - alone can now create and hand out to those they favour, - but they also keep indexes of detailed information as - thorough and widespread as those of any Government - office. They have a secret service more widespread and - powerful than that of the State, and this hidden power - of theirs, though private and concealed knowledge, - irritates plain men more and more. People feel that they - are not free, and that the banking system, which is - international in essence, is a universal and hidden - master. - -Therefore all over the world to-day people are saying: "The -banking system, and the few men who direct it, are -altogether too powerful. They control our lives. They are -beginning to control the public policy of the State, -especially in England, and there ought to be a national +1. The bankers can decide, of two competitors, which shall survive. As + the great majority of enterprises lie in debt to the banks---that + is, carrying on with loans allowed them by the banks working with + money *made* by the banks---any one of two competing industries can + be killed by the bankers saying: "I will no longer lend you this + money. I 'call it in'---that is, ask for it to be paid at once. But + I will not exercise the same pressure upon the man who is competing + against you." This power makes the banks the masters of the greater + part of modem industry. It is argued that the banks do not act from + caprice, and will naturally only back a sound enterprise and only + ruin an unsound one. That is, on the whole, true. But still, those + who command them have the power, if they like, to act from caprice, + and whenever you give a few human beings great power of this sort + over millions of others it tends to be abused. + +2. The banks, especially in England, are all in one combination and + keep detailed information upon all of us. Not only have they control + over industry through their power to make or withhold the money + which they alone can now create and hand out to those they favour, + but they also keep indexes of detailed information as thorough and + widespread as those of any Government office. They have a secret + service more widespread and powerful than that of the State, and + this hidden power of theirs, though private and concealed knowledge, + irritates plain men more and more. People feel that they are not + free, and that the banking system, which is international in + essence, is a universal and hidden master. + +Therefore all over the world to-day people are saying: "The banking +system, and the few men who direct it, are altogether too powerful. They +control our lives. They are beginning to control the public policy of +the State, especially in England, and there ought to be a national authority superior to them and keeping them in order." -A great many schemes have lately been on all sides proposed -to establish such a superior authority. Thus, we have in -England a very powerful movement in favour of what is called -the " Douglas Scheme of Credit," and of course the -Socialists, with their ideas of State control of everything, -would also put an end to the private power of the banking -system. Then there are those who want to have a strong King -who would be able to override any lesser power in the State, -including the bankers.But the points to seize in -understanding the political economy of our time are those I -have just been describing to you: what the banking system -is, how it arose, how unnaturally powerful it has become, +A great many schemes have lately been on all sides proposed to establish +such a superior authority. Thus, we have in England a very powerful +movement in favour of what is called the " Douglas Scheme of Credit," +and of course the Socialists, with their ideas of State control of +everything, would also put an end to the private power of the banking +system. Then there are those who want to have a strong King who would be +able to override any lesser power in the State, including the +bankers.But the points to seize in understanding the political economy +of our time are those I have just been describing to you: what the +banking system is, how it arose, how unnaturally powerful it has become, and why a universal revolt is arising against it. -There will be a struggle inevitably between the banking, or -financial, interest and the people all over civilised -countries: but no one can tell which will win. In industrial -countries the odds are in favour of the banks, or -financiers. In peasant countries against them. +There will be a struggle inevitably between the banking, or financial, +interest and the people all over civilised countries: but no one can +tell which will win. In industrial countries the odds are in favour of +the banks, or financiers. In peasant countries against them. ## National Loans and Taxation -Every country must, to carry on its national services, raise -taxes from its citizens, and those taxes, though levied in -money, translate themselves, of course, into goods, that is, -economic values attached to material objects. - -We say that the State "raises," say, a hundred million -pounds in taxation from its citizens a year, for "State -Purposes"; and when you come to look into what is actually -got by the State and how the State uses what it has got, it -means that the State levies so many boots and so much bread, -and so much housing material and so much clothing, and -spends this again in maintaining State servants, that is, in -clothing and housing and feeding soldiers and policemen, and -civil servants and school teachers, and so on. - -But in the modern world, and for the last two hundred years -or so, nearly all states have also had to raise taxation *in -order to pay interest upon the State loans.* - -A State loan, or *national debt,* arises in this way. The -State needs a great quantity of goods for a particular -purpose---usually for the very unproductive purpose of -waging a war. It has to get a lot of metal for its munitions -and guns, and quantities of food to feed the soldiers, and -coal to transport them. Now there are two ways in which a -state gets these. The first is to get the whole amount, as -it is needed, directly from the people, by a very heavy tax -levied at the time. That was what was done for hundreds of -years before the second method was attempted. The king of a -country, wishing to wage war, would ask his subjects for -contributions, and he could not wage war upon a scale more -than these contributions would meet. - -But about two hundred years ago there began (and since then -has very largely increased), the second method, which is -that of *national loans.* - -The State is, let us say, taking in ordinary taxation from -its citizens about one-tenth of their produce. Suddenly it -finds itself involved in a much higher expenditure, -amounting to, say, half the produce of the country. If it -asked for half the produce right away as a tax people might -refuse to pay it, or it might make the policy of the -State---the war, for instance, which the Government wanted -to wage---so unpopular that the State could not pursue that -policy or wage that war. So the Government had recourse to -*borrowing* from the citizens, promising to pay, to those -who lent, interest in proportion to what they borrowed, as -well as the capital itself. Thus they would *take* in -taxation for a war money from a farmer equivalent to *ten* -loads of wheat; but they would also *borrow* from him *one -hundred loads* of wheat, promising to give him as interest -*five* loads of wheat every year for any number of years -until they should ultimately pay back the whole hundred -loads as well. - -When these national loans began the Governments honestly -intended to pay back what they borrowed. But the method was -so fatally easy that, as time went on, the debt piled up and -up until there could be no question of repaying it: all the -State could do was to pay the interest out of taxation. It -remained indebted to private rich men for the principal, -that is, the whole original sum, and meanwhile, through -further wars, this hold of the rich men upon all the rest of -the community perpetually increased - -The "National Debt"---as it came to be called---remained a -permanent institution, in connection with which all the -citizens had to be taxed in order to provide interest for -the rich lenders. Latterly these burdens of national debt -have become overwhelming, and at the present moment about a -twelfth of everything that English people produce is taken -from them and handed over as interest to the comparatively -few wealthy residents in England and abroad who lent great -sums to the Government during the war. - -It is true that whenever a loan is raised the Government -provides not only interest but what is called a "sinking -fund"---that is, an extra amount of taxation every year -which is dedicated to paying back the whole of the loan -slowly. But long before a loan is paid off some new occasion -arises compelling the Government to borrow again on a large +Every country must, to carry on its national services, raise taxes from +its citizens, and those taxes, though levied in money, translate +themselves, of course, into goods, that is, economic values attached to +material objects. + +We say that the State "raises," say, a hundred million pounds in +taxation from its citizens a year, for "State Purposes"; and when you +come to look into what is actually got by the State and how the State +uses what it has got, it means that the State levies so many boots and +so much bread, and so much housing material and so much clothing, and +spends this again in maintaining State servants, that is, in clothing +and housing and feeding soldiers and policemen, and civil servants and +school teachers, and so on. + +But in the modern world, and for the last two hundred years or so, +nearly all states have also had to raise taxation *in order to pay +interest upon the State loans.* + +A State loan, or *national debt,* arises in this way. The State needs a +great quantity of goods for a particular purpose---usually for the very +unproductive purpose of waging a war. It has to get a lot of metal for +its munitions and guns, and quantities of food to feed the soldiers, and +coal to transport them. Now there are two ways in which a state gets +these. The first is to get the whole amount, as it is needed, directly +from the people, by a very heavy tax levied at the time. That was what +was done for hundreds of years before the second method was attempted. +The king of a country, wishing to wage war, would ask his subjects for +contributions, and he could not wage war upon a scale more than these +contributions would meet. + +But about two hundred years ago there began (and since then has very +largely increased), the second method, which is that of *national +loans.* + +The State is, let us say, taking in ordinary taxation from its citizens +about one-tenth of their produce. Suddenly it finds itself involved in a +much higher expenditure, amounting to, say, half the produce of the +country. If it asked for half the produce right away as a tax people +might refuse to pay it, or it might make the policy of the State---the +war, for instance, which the Government wanted to wage---so unpopular +that the State could not pursue that policy or wage that war. So the +Government had recourse to *borrowing* from the citizens, promising to +pay, to those who lent, interest in proportion to what they borrowed, as +well as the capital itself. Thus they would *take* in taxation for a war +money from a farmer equivalent to *ten* loads of wheat; but they would +also *borrow* from him *one hundred loads* of wheat, promising to give +him as interest *five* loads of wheat every year for any number of years +until they should ultimately pay back the whole hundred loads as well. + +When these national loans began the Governments honestly intended to pay +back what they borrowed. But the method was so fatally easy that, as +time went on, the debt piled up and up until there could be no question +of repaying it: all the State could do was to pay the interest out of +taxation. It remained indebted to private rich men for the principal, +that is, the whole original sum, and meanwhile, through further wars, +this hold of the rich men upon all the rest of the community perpetually +increased + +The "National Debt"---as it came to be called---remained a permanent +institution, in connection with which all the citizens had to be taxed +in order to provide interest for the rich lenders. Latterly these +burdens of national debt have become overwhelming, and at the present +moment about a twelfth of everything that English people produce is +taken from them and handed over as interest to the comparatively few +wealthy residents in England and abroad who lent great sums to the +Government during the war. + +It is true that whenever a loan is raised the Government provides not +only interest but what is called a "sinking fund"---that is, an extra +amount of taxation every year which is dedicated to paying back the +whole of the loan slowly. But long before a loan is paid off some new +occasion arises compelling the Government to borrow again on a large scale, and the total debt perpetually increases. -The result is that all the great modem European nations are -now loaded with a debt really larger than any of them can -bear, and that therefore they have all taken steps to -lighten that burden by various tricks not at all -straightforward. Some of them pay back in money which -appears the same as the money which they borrowed, but which -has a very different value. They have borrowed for a war, -say, £1,000, representing 100 tons of wheat. Then they -debase the currency, so that a sum still called £1,000 will -only buy 20 tons of wheat, and in this way they can pretend -to pay the lender back, although they are really cheating -him of four-fifths of what he lent. Two countries, Germany -and Russia, have pushed this so far that the lenders are now -not really paid anything at all. A man who lent the German -Government, for carrying on the war, money which during the -war would have bought a million tons of wheat, is now -(October, 1923) paid back in money called by the same name -but able only to purchase a tenth of a ton---which is the -same as saying that he is not paid back at all. - -Of all European countries that fought in the war our own has -been the most honest in this matter, but even in England a -man who lent the equivalent of 1,000 sheep, say, and who was -promised interest at the rate of 50 sheep a year, is only -getting 25 sheep a year on account of the change in the -value of money. - -In this matter of loans we must distinguish between -*internal loans* and *external loans.* An internal loan is -borrowed from one's own people. It involves taxing and -impoverishing one set of citizens in order to pay interest -to and enrich another set. But the country as a whole is no -poorer. An *external* loan is borrowed from foreigners, and -the interest on it is dead loss to the country. Also, it -cannot be paid in debased currency. A government can cheat -its own nationals by paying them in false money. But it has -to pay foreign lenders in real money. A foreign loan is -real. It must be (as a rule) paid in gold. England thus pays +The result is that all the great modem European nations are now loaded +with a debt really larger than any of them can bear, and that therefore +they have all taken steps to lighten that burden by various tricks not +at all straightforward. Some of them pay back in money which appears the +same as the money which they borrowed, but which has a very different +value. They have borrowed for a war, say, £1,000, representing 100 tons +of wheat. Then they debase the currency, so that a sum still called +£1,000 will only buy 20 tons of wheat, and in this way they can pretend +to pay the lender back, although they are really cheating him of +four-fifths of what he lent. Two countries, Germany and Russia, have +pushed this so far that the lenders are now not really paid anything at +all. A man who lent the German Government, for carrying on the war, +money which during the war would have bought a million tons of wheat, is +now (October, 1923) paid back in money called by the same name but able +only to purchase a tenth of a ton---which is the same as saying that he +is not paid back at all. + +Of all European countries that fought in the war our own has been the +most honest in this matter, but even in England a man who lent the +equivalent of 1,000 sheep, say, and who was promised interest at the +rate of 50 sheep a year, is only getting 25 sheep a year on account of +the change in the value of money. + +In this matter of loans we must distinguish between *internal loans* and +*external loans.* An internal loan is borrowed from one's own people. It +involves taxing and impoverishing one set of citizens in order to pay +interest to and enrich another set. But the country as a whole is no +poorer. An *external* loan is borrowed from foreigners, and the interest +on it is dead loss to the country. Also, it cannot be paid in debased +currency. A government can cheat its own nationals by paying them in +false money. But it has to pay foreign lenders in real money. A foreign +loan is real. It must be (as a rule) paid in gold. England thus pays millions a year to America. -Now from State *loans* let us turn to State *taxation,* -which has to-day for its most permanent object the payment -of interest on internal and external loans. +Now from State *loans* let us turn to State *taxation,* which has to-day +for its most permanent object the payment of interest on internal and +external loans. How does the State tax its citizens? -Taxation levied by the State is divided into two -kinds---called *direct* and *indirect.* - -Direct taxation is the taxation levied upon the money which -the person who pays it has at his disposal. - -For instance: If you have £1,000 a year and the State makes -you declare that and then taxes you £100 every year, that is -direct taxation. - -Indirect taxation takes the form of levying a tax on the -manufacturer of an article or on the importer of an article, -which tax he passes on to the person who consumes it, by an -addition to the price of the article. Thus, when you buy a -pound of tea or a bottle of wine you are paying indirect -taxation. The price which you paid for the tea is so much -for the real value of the tea and so much more (though you -do not feel or know it at the time) which has been paid on -the tea as it came into England at the ports. The brewers -who make beer have got to pay the Government so much for -every gallon they make, and this is passed on to the people -who buy the beer by an extra amount put on to the price. - -The wisest men who have discussed how taxes should be levied -laid down four rules which, unfortunately, no Government has -kept to as it should. It is worth while knowing those rules, -because they are a guide to what good taxation should be. +Taxation levied by the State is divided into two kinds---called *direct* +and *indirect.* + +Direct taxation is the taxation levied upon the money which the person +who pays it has at his disposal. + +For instance: If you have £1,000 a year and the State makes you declare +that and then taxes you £100 every year, that is direct taxation. + +Indirect taxation takes the form of levying a tax on the manufacturer of +an article or on the importer of an article, which tax he passes on to +the person who consumes it, by an addition to the price of the article. +Thus, when you buy a pound of tea or a bottle of wine you are paying +indirect taxation. The price which you paid for the tea is so much for +the real value of the tea and so much more (though you do not feel or +know it at the time) which has been paid on the tea as it came into +England at the ports. The brewers who make beer have got to pay the +Government so much for every gallon they make, and this is passed on to +the people who buy the beer by an extra amount put on to the price. + +The wisest men who have discussed how taxes should be levied laid down +four rules which, unfortunately, no Government has kept to as it should. +It is worth while knowing those rules, because they are a guide to what +good taxation should be. These rules are:--- -1\. A tax should fall in such a fashion that it is paid most -easily. - -For instance: it is much easier to pay £100 a year in small -sums which fall due at frequent intervals than to pay the -whole £100 upon demand in one lump. - -2\. The tax should be so arranged that the cost of -collecting it should be as slight as possible. - -For instance: if I put a tax upon everyone who crosses a -particular bridge, I shall have to appoint and pay someone -to collect the tax at the bridge, and I shall probably have -to pay inspectors to go round and see that these bridgemen -do their duty and do not cheat. If I tried to levy a tax of -this kind on a great many bridges that are not much used the -cost of collecting would be very high compared with the -revenue produced. But if I put a tax on every cheque issued -by a bank, *that* tax is collected with hardly any expense. -All the Government has to do is to say that no cheque will -be valid unless it carries a stamp. The banks stamp all -their cheques with this stamp, and when they sell a cheque -book to a customer they take the value of the stamps from -him. All the Government has to do is to find out the number -of cheque books issued, and ask for the money from the -banks.[^1] - -3\. Taxes are better in proportion as they fall on -unnecessary things rather than on necessary things. - -It is much better, obviously, to make people pay for their -luxuries than for their necessities. It is oppressive to -make people pay for their necessities, which even the very -poor must have, and it is juster and altogether better to -make people pay for things which they need not have. Thus, -when the tax was first levied upon tea it was a tax upon a -luxury, for only rich people then drank tea. But to-day, -when the poorest people must drink it, it is unjust to tax -it, for it is a necessity. - -Unfortunately, it is very difficult to keep to this rule in -any modem country, because the amount of taxes required is -so large that unless one taxes the necessities one will not -get enough money for the requirements of the State: thus tea -and sugar, beer and tobacco, all of them *necessities* of -the poorest people, are enormously taxed. Our poor people in -England are much more heavily taxed than any people in the +1\. A tax should fall in such a fashion that it is paid most easily. + +For instance: it is much easier to pay £100 a year in small sums which +fall due at frequent intervals than to pay the whole £100 upon demand in +one lump. + +2\. The tax should be so arranged that the cost of collecting it should +be as slight as possible. + +For instance: if I put a tax upon everyone who crosses a particular +bridge, I shall have to appoint and pay someone to collect the tax at +the bridge, and I shall probably have to pay inspectors to go round and +see that these bridgemen do their duty and do not cheat. If I tried to +levy a tax of this kind on a great many bridges that are not much used +the cost of collecting would be very high compared with the revenue +produced. But if I put a tax on every cheque issued by a bank, *that* +tax is collected with hardly any expense. All the Government has to do +is to say that no cheque will be valid unless it carries a stamp. The +banks stamp all their cheques with this stamp, and when they sell a +cheque book to a customer they take the value of the stamps from him. +All the Government has to do is to find out the number of cheque books +issued, and ask for the money from the banks.[^1] + +3\. Taxes are better in proportion as they fall on unnecessary things +rather than on necessary things. + +It is much better, obviously, to make people pay for their luxuries than +for their necessities. It is oppressive to make people pay for their +necessities, which even the very poor must have, and it is juster and +altogether better to make people pay for things which they need not +have. Thus, when the tax was first levied upon tea it was a tax upon a +luxury, for only rich people then drank tea. But to-day, when the +poorest people must drink it, it is unjust to tax it, for it is a +necessity. + +Unfortunately, it is very difficult to keep to this rule in any modem +country, because the amount of taxes required is so large that unless +one taxes the necessities one will not get enough money for the +requirements of the State: thus tea and sugar, beer and tobacco, all of +them *necessities* of the poorest people, are enormously taxed. Our poor +people in England are much more heavily taxed than any people in the world. -4\. Taxes should fall proportionately to the wealth of the -taxed, that is, the sacrifice should be equally felt by all. -This rule is easy enough to keep when taxation is light. For -a very slight tax on poor men---who are the vast majority of -the State, suffices to bring in the small revenue needed, -and a severe tax on rich men is but an addition. But when -taxation must be heavy to meet the requirements of the -State---say more than a twentieth of poor men's -incomes---then the rule is difficult to keep. For either you -get insufficient revenue if you spare the poor, or you must -tax the poor on a scale which no increase of the taxation on -the rich can really equal. When taxation is too heavy, you -must either ruin the rich or crush the poor. And that is why -heavy taxation has destroyed so many States. - -5\. The last rule about taxation is that it should be -*certain;* and this means that the State should be certain -of getting what it ought to get, and that the people who pay -should know what they have to pay and not be left in doubt -and anxiety. - -For instance: the tax on tobacco in this country is a -certain tax. It is levied on a comparatively small number of -ships' cargoes which enter the country with tobacco, because -we do not grow tobacco in England, and the sum which the -importers pay is automatically passed on to the purchasers. -The State knows by experience how much tobacco the people -will buy in the country in the year, and the people who buy -tobacco know what they mean to spend, and can, if they -choose, ascertain how much of this goes in taxation. But the -same tax on tobacco in France is not a certain tax, because -the French grow a lot of their own tobacco---in fact, most -of it. The people who grow tobacco naturally try to hide the -total amount of their crop from the Government inspectors, -and a great number of these inspectors have to be going -about the whole time actually counting each leaf on each -plant and rummaging in the bins to see that none is gone. - -An example of a most uncertain and unjust tax for the -taxpayer in our own country is the Income Tax, because it is -difficult to prevent unfixed people from hiding their -profits or from concealing from the tax collectors amounts -which they have earned. Also the honest citizen with an -established and known position can be bled to the full, -while the rogue and adventurer, the speculator and dealer -escapes. But it is a certain tax from the point of view of -the Government, because they know on the average what a -penny on the Income Tax will produce one year with another, -and are not concerned with justice but with a calculable +4\. Taxes should fall proportionately to the wealth of the taxed, that +is, the sacrifice should be equally felt by all. This rule is easy +enough to keep when taxation is light. For a very slight tax on poor +men---who are the vast majority of the State, suffices to bring in the +small revenue needed, and a severe tax on rich men is but an addition. +But when taxation must be heavy to meet the requirements of the +State---say more than a twentieth of poor men's incomes---then the rule +is difficult to keep. For either you get insufficient revenue if you +spare the poor, or you must tax the poor on a scale which no increase of +the taxation on the rich can really equal. When taxation is too heavy, +you must either ruin the rich or crush the poor. And that is why heavy +taxation has destroyed so many States. + +5\. The last rule about taxation is that it should be *certain;* and +this means that the State should be certain of getting what it ought to +get, and that the people who pay should know what they have to pay and +not be left in doubt and anxiety. + +For instance: the tax on tobacco in this country is a certain tax. It is +levied on a comparatively small number of ships' cargoes which enter the +country with tobacco, because we do not grow tobacco in England, and the +sum which the importers pay is automatically passed on to the +purchasers. The State knows by experience how much tobacco the people +will buy in the country in the year, and the people who buy tobacco know +what they mean to spend, and can, if they choose, ascertain how much of +this goes in taxation. But the same tax on tobacco in France is not a +certain tax, because the French grow a lot of their own tobacco---in +fact, most of it. The people who grow tobacco naturally try to hide the +total amount of their crop from the Government inspectors, and a great +number of these inspectors have to be going about the whole time +actually counting each leaf on each plant and rummaging in the bins to +see that none is gone. + +An example of a most uncertain and unjust tax for the taxpayer in our +own country is the Income Tax, because it is difficult to prevent +unfixed people from hiding their profits or from concealing from the tax +collectors amounts which they have earned. Also the honest citizen with +an established and known position can be bled to the full, while the +rogue and adventurer, the speculator and dealer escapes. But it is a +certain tax from the point of view of the Government, because they know +on the average what a penny on the Income Tax will produce one year with +another, and are not concerned with justice but with a calculable revenue. -Before we leave this discussion it is worth while mentioning -an odd idea which a few very earnest and active people have -got hold of, called the "Single Tax." - -It is really much more a part of the theory of Socialism -than a system of taxation. Still, as it has come to be -called the "Single Tax" we will treat it under that head. - -The idea of the single tax is this:---Rent, or the surplus -value of a site, whether it be due to the extra fertility of -farm land or to the extra convenience of town land, is, say -the Single Taxers, not the product of the individual who -owns the land. - -If I own a barren piece of heath on which I cannot get any -rent for agriculture, and then a railway is built passing -through it and a station is built on the heath, many town -workers who want to live in the country will take houses -which will be built near this station and live in these -houses, running up and down from town for their work. In a -few years this barren heath which brought me in nothing will -be bringing in many thousands a year, for a little town will -have sprang up, and I shall be able to charge rent to all -the people who live there upon my land. - -The Single Taxers say that, since I did nothing towards -making the extra value, but that extra value has been made -by the growth of population and by the activity of the whole -community, I have no right to these rents. In the same way -they say that I have no right to the rent of a very fertile -field compared with a bad field which pays little or no +Before we leave this discussion it is worth while mentioning an odd idea +which a few very earnest and active people have got hold of, called the +"Single Tax." + +It is really much more a part of the theory of Socialism than a system +of taxation. Still, as it has come to be called the "Single Tax" we will +treat it under that head. + +The idea of the single tax is this:---Rent, or the surplus value of a +site, whether it be due to the extra fertility of farm land or to the +extra convenience of town land, is, say the Single Taxers, not the +product of the individual who owns the land. + +If I own a barren piece of heath on which I cannot get any rent for +agriculture, and then a railway is built passing through it and a +station is built on the heath, many town workers who want to live in the +country will take houses which will be built near this station and live +in these houses, running up and down from town for their work. In a few +years this barren heath which brought me in nothing will be bringing in +many thousands a year, for a little town will have sprang up, and I +shall be able to charge rent to all the people who live there upon my +land. + +The Single Taxers say that, since I did nothing towards making the extra +value, but that extra value has been made by the growth of population +and by the activity of the whole community, I have no right to these +rents. In the same way they say that I have no right to the rent of a +very fertile field compared with a bad field which pays little or no rent, because it was not I that made the soil fertile. -So they propose that *all the rents of the country should be -levied as a tax.* They say that no other taxes are needed. -If I have money from dividends in an industrial concern I -can keep all that without paying any taxes on it, and I can -be let off taxes on tobacco and drink and everything else of -that sort. But anything I get as rent for land I must pay -over to the State. I may still be allowed to call myself the -owner of the land, but I must be taxed an equivalent to the -rent which it produces. - -These people have never been able to apply their theory, and -the reason is pretty clear. It would work most unjustly, -considering that people buy and sell land just as they do -any other commodity, and that a man who had put all his -money into rents in land would be ruined by this system, -while another man with exactly the same amount of money, who -had put it into a business, would go scot free. If you were -starting a new country it might be possible to begin with -the Single Tax system, but even then you would be up against -the fact that people like owning land because such ownership -gives them independence. But at any rate it is theoretically -possible to apply this system in a new country. In an old +So they propose that *all the rents of the country should be levied as a +tax.* They say that no other taxes are needed. If I have money from +dividends in an industrial concern I can keep all that without paying +any taxes on it, and I can be let off taxes on tobacco and drink and +everything else of that sort. But anything I get as rent for land I must +pay over to the State. I may still be allowed to call myself the owner +of the land, but I must be taxed an equivalent to the rent which it +produces. + +These people have never been able to apply their theory, and the reason +is pretty clear. It would work most unjustly, considering that people +buy and sell land just as they do any other commodity, and that a man +who had put all his money into rents in land would be ruined by this +system, while another man with exactly the same amount of money, who had +put it into a business, would go scot free. If you were starting a new +country it might be possible to begin with the Single Tax system, but +even then you would be up against the fact that people like owning land +because such ownership gives them independence. But at any rate it is +theoretically possible to apply this system in a new country. In an old country it is quite out of the question. ## The Social (or Historical) Value of Money -There is a special point in Economics which has been very -little dealt with, or rather not properly dealt with at all, -and which you will find interesting as a new piece of study, -because it will help you to understand history as nothing -else will: and that point is the *Social* (*or Historical*) -*Value of Money.* - -You read how, in the past, the King of England, wishing to -wage a great war, managed to raise, say, a hundred thousand -pounds; and how that was thought a most enormous sum: -whereas to-day, for the same sized army, we should need -thirty times as much. You read how Henry VIII suppressed the -Monastery at Westminster which had an income of four -thousand pounds a year, and how this income was then -regarded as something very large indeed---much as we to-day -regard a half million a year or more---the income of some -great shipping company. You read how the National Debt later -on actually reached *one* million, and people trembled lest -the State could not bear the burden. - -Yet here we are to-day, raising hundreds of millions yearly -in taxation, spending thousands of millions in our wars. - -What is the explanation of this apparently totally different -meaning of money in different times? It puzzles nearly -everybody who reads history intelligently, and it wants -explanation. Most attempts to explain it have failed, or -have been very insufficient; some of them quite vague, as: -"The value of money was very different in those days from -what it is now." Or: "Money was then at least ten times as -valuable as now" (whereas it is clear from the chronicle -that it was *enormously* more valuable!) Sentences like that -leave the unfortunate reader as much in the dark as he was -before. We need a more precise explanation, and that I think -can be given. - -There are three things which, between them, decide the -social value of money at any period, and unless we consider -*all* three we shall go wrong. The reason why most people -have gone wrong in trying to solve the problem---or have -abandoned it---is that they only consider the first of the -three. These three things are as follows:--- - -1. *The actual purchasing power of whatever is used as - currency*---in our case, for nearly the whole of - European history, gold: the amount of wheat and leather - and building materials and all the rest of it, which so - much weight of gold (say an ounce) will purchase at any - time. This varies in different periods according to the - amount of gold present in circulation, and its - efficiency in circulation. We saw how these were the - factors of price, that is, of the purchasing power of - money, when we spoke of money earlier in the book. - -2. *The number of kinds of things* which money can be used - to buy in any society---or, to put it in learned words, - "the number of categories of purchasable economic - values." - -3. *The economic scale of the community,* that is, the - number of its citizens and the amount of its total - wealth at a given time. - -When we go into the full meaning of all these three things -we shall see how, in combination, they make up the social -value of money at any time, and why that value differs so -very much between one historical period and another. +There is a special point in Economics which has been very little dealt +with, or rather not properly dealt with at all, and which you will find +interesting as a new piece of study, because it will help you to +understand history as nothing else will: and that point is the *Social* +(*or Historical*) *Value of Money.* + +You read how, in the past, the King of England, wishing to wage a great +war, managed to raise, say, a hundred thousand pounds; and how that was +thought a most enormous sum: whereas to-day, for the same sized army, we +should need thirty times as much. You read how Henry VIII suppressed the +Monastery at Westminster which had an income of four thousand pounds a +year, and how this income was then regarded as something very large +indeed---much as we to-day regard a half million a year or more---the +income of some great shipping company. You read how the National Debt +later on actually reached *one* million, and people trembled lest the +State could not bear the burden. + +Yet here we are to-day, raising hundreds of millions yearly in taxation, +spending thousands of millions in our wars. + +What is the explanation of this apparently totally different meaning of +money in different times? It puzzles nearly everybody who reads history +intelligently, and it wants explanation. Most attempts to explain it +have failed, or have been very insufficient; some of them quite vague, +as: "The value of money was very different in those days from what it is +now." Or: "Money was then at least ten times as valuable as now" +(whereas it is clear from the chronicle that it was *enormously* more +valuable!) Sentences like that leave the unfortunate reader as much in +the dark as he was before. We need a more precise explanation, and that +I think can be given. + +There are three things which, between them, decide the social value of +money at any period, and unless we consider *all* three we shall go +wrong. The reason why most people have gone wrong in trying to solve the +problem---or have abandoned it---is that they only consider the first of +the three. These three things are as follows:--- + +1. *The actual purchasing power of whatever is used as currency*---in + our case, for nearly the whole of European history, gold: the amount + of wheat and leather and building materials and all the rest of it, + which so much weight of gold (say an ounce) will purchase at any + time. This varies in different periods according to the amount of + gold present in circulation, and its efficiency in circulation. We + saw how these were the factors of price, that is, of the purchasing + power of money, when we spoke of money earlier in the book. + +2. *The number of kinds of things* which money can be used to buy in + any society---or, to put it in learned words, "the number of + categories of purchasable economic values." + +3. *The economic scale of the community,* that is, the number of its + citizens and the amount of its total wealth at a given time. + +When we go into the full meaning of all these three things we shall see +how, in combination, they make up the social value of money at any time, +and why that value differs so very much between one historical period +and another. ### 1. The actual purchasing power of the currency -Given the same currency (and in Western Europe it has, for -all practical purposes, been gold for the last two thousand -years), we can measure the purchasing value of such and such -a weight of gold in any period by what is known as the -*Index Number* of that period. - -The Index Number is a thing important to understand, because -it comes into a great deal of modern discussion as well as -historical discussion; for instance: wages are nowadays -largely based upon an Index Number. - -A particular year is taken, say the year 1900, and the -records of what various commodities were fetching in gold in -the market during that year are examined. Thus it is found -that an ounce of gold in that year would buy (let us say) -four hundred pounds weight of wheat, 600 pounds weight of -barley, 80 pounds weight of bacon, 80 gallons of beer, a -quarter of a ton of pig iron, and so on. A list is drawn up -of all the principal commodities which are used in the -community. Suppose that 100 such commodities are taken and -between them make up by far the great part---say -seven-eighths---of all the values commonly consumed in that -community. The next thing to do is what is called to -"weight" each commodity, for it is evident that a commodity -which is very largely bought---such as bread---must count -more in estimating the purchasing power of money than a -commodity of which very much less is used---such as tin. - -According to the value of each commodity used in any one -period of time (say a year) the various commodities are -"weighted." Thus you count bread (let us say) as twelve -times more important than lead, because the value of the -bread used in the community for one year is twelve times as -much as the value of the lead used in the community during -that year. Then let us suppose that the value of the leather -used is three times that of the lead, the value of the iron -five times, etc. You put against each commodity these -"weight" numbers. - -Next you find out what an ounce of gold would purchase of -each of those commodities in that particular year. For -instance: you find it would purchase a quarter of a ton of -lead, 400 pounds weight of bread, and so on, only you -multiply by your weight number the use of gold in each -particular article. For instance: you count the gold used in -buying bread as twelve times more important than the gold -used in buying lead. - -You then add up all the prices measured in an ounce of gold -in your column; you divide by the number of items in your -column, each multiplied by its weight number, and the result -is that your ounce of gold for the year 1900 will be found -to have a certain *average purchasing power* which you call, -for the sake of further application, arbitrarily, - -Then you take another year, say 1920, and you find what the -ounce of gold would purchase in the same conditions, -similarly weighted, in the year 1920. You discover that the -ounce of gold on the average in 1920 would only purchase -half the weight of stuff it purchased in 1900. In other -words, prices have doubled, or, what is the same thing, gold -has halved in value. You put down for the year 1920 the -figure "200," which means that average prices are twice as -great as they were in 1900, and the economist's way of -saying this is: "With the year 1900 as a base, the Index -Number for 1920 is 200." - -In the year 1921 he makes the calculation again, and finds -that prices have fallen, that is, gold has become rather -more valuable as compared with other things, and prices are -only three-quarters more than they were in 1900. The -economist writes down: "The Index Number for 1921 is 175, -with the prices of 1900 as a base." He goes back to 1880 and -finds that in 1880, after making a similar calculation, an -ounce of gold would on the average buy five pounds of -material where in 1900 it could only buy four. In other -words, prices are lower in 1880 by one-fourth. So he writes -down: "The Index Number for 1880, with 1900 as a base, is -75." - -These Index Numbers taken for each year with a particular -year as a *base,* or year of reference, show the -fluctuations in the purchasing value of gold. - -To make the process clearer, we will take a simple instance -and imagine a community in which there were only three -things purchased on a large scale by the citizens---wheat, -bacon, and iron. We take for our year of reference, let us -say, the year 1880, and we find that an ounce of gold would -purchase one ton of wheat, half a ton of iron, and a quarter -of a ton of bacon. But the amount spent on wheat was ten -times the amount spent on bacon and twenty times the amount -spent on iron. - -You add up the twenty tons of wheat, the half ton of iron -and the half ton of bacon---half a ton of the latter because -twice as much is spent on it as is spent on iron, and -therefore though it is half the price of iron you must -double the amount, because twice as much is bought. - -You get 21 tons. To buy this 21 tons of stuff 3 ounces of -gold were needed. You divide the 21 tons by 3, and you get 7 -tons of material on the average. - -Next, as you are taking this particular year for a "base" -(or year of reference) you call the 7 "100," so that you may -compare in percentages the rise or fall of prices in other -years. You then do exactly the same thing with these three -staple commodities in another year---say 1890---and you find -that your ounce of gold purchases no longer 7 tons of stuff, -but 14 tons of stuff. Taking the year 1800 as your base +Given the same currency (and in Western Europe it has, for all practical +purposes, been gold for the last two thousand years), we can measure the +purchasing value of such and such a weight of gold in any period by what +is known as the *Index Number* of that period. + +The Index Number is a thing important to understand, because it comes +into a great deal of modern discussion as well as historical discussion; +for instance: wages are nowadays largely based upon an Index Number. + +A particular year is taken, say the year 1900, and the records of what +various commodities were fetching in gold in the market during that year +are examined. Thus it is found that an ounce of gold in that year would +buy (let us say) four hundred pounds weight of wheat, 600 pounds weight +of barley, 80 pounds weight of bacon, 80 gallons of beer, a quarter of a +ton of pig iron, and so on. A list is drawn up of all the principal +commodities which are used in the community. Suppose that 100 such +commodities are taken and between them make up by far the great +part---say seven-eighths---of all the values commonly consumed in that +community. The next thing to do is what is called to "weight" each +commodity, for it is evident that a commodity which is very largely +bought---such as bread---must count more in estimating the purchasing +power of money than a commodity of which very much less is used---such +as tin. + +According to the value of each commodity used in any one period of time +(say a year) the various commodities are "weighted." Thus you count +bread (let us say) as twelve times more important than lead, because the +value of the bread used in the community for one year is twelve times as +much as the value of the lead used in the community during that year. +Then let us suppose that the value of the leather used is three times +that of the lead, the value of the iron five times, etc. You put against +each commodity these "weight" numbers. + +Next you find out what an ounce of gold would purchase of each of those +commodities in that particular year. For instance: you find it would +purchase a quarter of a ton of lead, 400 pounds weight of bread, and so +on, only you multiply by your weight number the use of gold in each +particular article. For instance: you count the gold used in buying +bread as twelve times more important than the gold used in buying lead. + +You then add up all the prices measured in an ounce of gold in your +column; you divide by the number of items in your column, each +multiplied by its weight number, and the result is that your ounce of +gold for the year 1900 will be found to have a certain *average +purchasing power* which you call, for the sake of further application, +arbitrarily, + +Then you take another year, say 1920, and you find what the ounce of +gold would purchase in the same conditions, similarly weighted, in the +year 1920. You discover that the ounce of gold on the average in 1920 +would only purchase half the weight of stuff it purchased in 1900. In +other words, prices have doubled, or, what is the same thing, gold has +halved in value. You put down for the year 1920 the figure "200," which +means that average prices are twice as great as they were in 1900, and +the economist's way of saying this is: "With the year 1900 as a base, +the Index Number for 1920 is 200." + +In the year 1921 he makes the calculation again, and finds that prices +have fallen, that is, gold has become rather more valuable as compared +with other things, and prices are only three-quarters more than they +were in 1900. The economist writes down: "The Index Number for 1921 is +175, with the prices of 1900 as a base." He goes back to 1880 and finds +that in 1880, after making a similar calculation, an ounce of gold would +on the average buy five pounds of material where in 1900 it could only +buy four. In other words, prices are lower in 1880 by one-fourth. So he +writes down: "The Index Number for 1880, with 1900 as a base, is 75." + +These Index Numbers taken for each year with a particular year as a +*base,* or year of reference, show the fluctuations in the purchasing +value of gold. + +To make the process clearer, we will take a simple instance and imagine +a community in which there were only three things purchased on a large +scale by the citizens---wheat, bacon, and iron. We take for our year of +reference, let us say, the year 1880, and we find that an ounce of gold +would purchase one ton of wheat, half a ton of iron, and a quarter of a +ton of bacon. But the amount spent on wheat was ten times the amount +spent on bacon and twenty times the amount spent on iron. + +You add up the twenty tons of wheat, the half ton of iron and the half +ton of bacon---half a ton of the latter because twice as much is spent +on it as is spent on iron, and therefore though it is half the price of +iron you must double the amount, because twice as much is bought. + +You get 21 tons. To buy this 21 tons of stuff 3 ounces of gold were +needed. You divide the 21 tons by 3, and you get 7 tons of material on +the average. + +Next, as you are taking this particular year for a "base" (or year of +reference) you call the 7 "100," so that you may compare in percentages +the rise or fall of prices in other years. You then do exactly the same +thing with these three staple commodities in another year---say +1890---and you find that your ounce of gold purchases no longer 7 tons +of stuff, but 14 tons of stuff. Taking the year 1800 as your base number, you will see that the Index Number for 1890 is "50." -Then you do the same thing for the year 1920, and you find -that with the same ounce of gold you can only purchase 3½ -tons of stuff. 7 is to 3½ as 100 is to 200, so the Index -Number for 1920 will be 200 as compared with the base -year---or year of reference---which is 1880. - -You cannot use the Index Numbers without knowing what your -base year is and what average prices were in that base year, -but, having settled that, your Index Number is nothing more -than a statement of *average prices,* or again, the average -purchasing power of a fixed weight of gold in the various -epochs you examine. - -In reality the calculating of an Index Number involves a -great many more difficult points than these, and of course -the number of commodities taken is very much more than -three; but that is the method in its general outline, and if -you go over it carefully I think you will not find it -difficult to understand. - -The first thing, then, in finding out the social value of -money at any historical period is to find out the purchasing -value of a given weight of gold---say, one ounce. Supposing -we are comparing the time when Henry VIII dissolved the -monasteries and took their wealth (1536-9) with our own -time, before the War, when our currency was still normal and -in gold, you will find that with 100 as your base for prices -in 1536-9 the Index Number of 1913 is, according to -different calculations, somewhere between 2,000 and 2,400. I -have gone into it myself very carefully, and I make it out -to be at least 2,400 (though historians some time ago, who -had not gone into it very fully, used to make it lower); -that is, where one ounce of gold would purchase the things -which Englishmen regarded as their staple commodities in -1536, 24 ounces of gold would be necessary to-day. - -That is the first thing you have to consider when you are -comparing the social value of money at that time with the -social value of money in our own time. You multiply right -away by 24. You hear, for instance, that a man had £100 a -year paid him by the King for looking after the garrison at -Dover. You translate it into modern money, and say that he -had £2,400 a year paid him *in our money.* - -Most people stop there, and that is why they get their -answer to the problem all wrong. In reality the *social* -value of money then was *very much more than* 24 times what -it is now, and £100 a year under Henry VIII meant *a great -deal more* than what £2,400 means now. - -In order to see how true this is we have to consider the -next two points which I mentioned. +Then you do the same thing for the year 1920, and you find that with the +same ounce of gold you can only purchase 3½ tons of stuff. 7 is to 3½ as +100 is to 200, so the Index Number for 1920 will be 200 as compared with +the base year---or year of reference---which is 1880. + +You cannot use the Index Numbers without knowing what your base year is +and what average prices were in that base year, but, having settled +that, your Index Number is nothing more than a statement of *average +prices,* or again, the average purchasing power of a fixed weight of +gold in the various epochs you examine. + +In reality the calculating of an Index Number involves a great many more +difficult points than these, and of course the number of commodities +taken is very much more than three; but that is the method in its +general outline, and if you go over it carefully I think you will not +find it difficult to understand. + +The first thing, then, in finding out the social value of money at any +historical period is to find out the purchasing value of a given weight +of gold---say, one ounce. Supposing we are comparing the time when Henry +VIII dissolved the monasteries and took their wealth (1536-9) with our +own time, before the War, when our currency was still normal and in +gold, you will find that with 100 as your base for prices in 1536-9 the +Index Number of 1913 is, according to different calculations, somewhere +between 2,000 and 2,400. I have gone into it myself very carefully, and +I make it out to be at least 2,400 (though historians some time ago, who +had not gone into it very fully, used to make it lower); that is, where +one ounce of gold would purchase the things which Englishmen regarded as +their staple commodities in 1536, 24 ounces of gold would be necessary +to-day. + +That is the first thing you have to consider when you are comparing the +social value of money at that time with the social value of money in our +own time. You multiply right away by 24. You hear, for instance, that a +man had £100 a year paid him by the King for looking after the garrison +at Dover. You translate it into modern money, and say that he had £2,400 +a year paid him *in our money.* + +Most people stop there, and that is why they get their answer to the +problem all wrong. In reality the *social* value of money then was *very +much more than* 24 times what it is now, and £100 a year under Henry +VIII meant *a great deal more* than what £2,400 means now. + +In order to see how true this is we have to consider the next two points +which I mentioned. ### 2. The number of purchasable categories -Suppose you put a man into a little primitive place like -Andorra (which is a tiny independent state shut off from the -world in a valley of the Pyrenees), and he is paid there -£1,000 a year. He cannot live in a house with more than a -small rental, because there are no big houses to be had. -Everybody lives in simple, little houses. He cannot spend -his money on many things. There are no roads, no use for a -motor car; no railways, so he cannot spend money on railway -fares; no theatres or cinematographs---none of the hundred -things which we have here on every side. He can buy bread -and meat, and wine and clothing, and very little else---for -there is nothing else to be bought. In other words, the -number of *sets of things* (that is what the word -"categories" means---"sets of things") on which he can spend -money is a great deal less than what it would be in London. -A man with £1,000 a year in London and a family to keep is, -of course, very much better off than a labouring man, but -still he is not rich, as rich people use the term. He will -live in a house for which he must pay perhaps £200 a year, -counting rent and taxes. Then he will---he usually -must---travel, and that will cost him perhaps £50 a year. -Then his friends will expect to meet him and he must have -them at his house, and he will have to spend a good deal in -postage and telegraphing---and so on. The man in Andorra -with £1,000 a year simply would not know what to do with it. -He would be so "well off" that he would have a very large -surplus---more than half---to give away, or to help other -people with, or to save and invest. But exactly the same -sort of man, with the same ideas and bringing-up and -necessities, put down in London would certainly not be able -to save a penny of his £1,000 a year. - -So we see that the social value of £1,000 a year in Andorra -is very different from the social value of the same sum in -London. Some people might be inclined to laugh at this -difference, and to say: "Oh, yes! but the man in London -could, if he liked, save, simply by not spending on those -various categories, as you call them." Yes; he as an -individual might choose to live an odd life of his own and -not do what other people do. But *Society as a whole*---that -is, all the community round him---in London is, as a fact, -spending upon those various, very numerous, categories, -while in Andorra he does not, for he *cannot,* spend upon -them; they are not there to be purchased. Therefore it is -true that the *social value* of the same sum, with the same -index number, is on the average very much higher in Andorra -than in London. - -You cannot give this difference precisely in figures as you -can an index number, because nobody can precisely calculate -the number of categories nor the respective importance of -each, but the least knowledge of history shows you that in -Henry VIII's time, in 1536, the number of categories was -very much smaller than it is to-day. So the man to whom -Henry VIII paid £100 a year as salary for looking after one -of his castles, though the purchasing value of his -income---the amount of rye or pork or what not that he could -buy with it---was what we should call to-day £2,400 a year, -had a much higher income *relatively to the people of the -time* than has a man with £2,400 a year to-day. He counted -much more than a man to-day counts who has five thousand a -year. - -But this second point is not all. There is again a third -point, as we have seen, and we must next turn to that. +Suppose you put a man into a little primitive place like Andorra (which +is a tiny independent state shut off from the world in a valley of the +Pyrenees), and he is paid there £1,000 a year. He cannot live in a house +with more than a small rental, because there are no big houses to be +had. Everybody lives in simple, little houses. He cannot spend his money +on many things. There are no roads, no use for a motor car; no railways, +so he cannot spend money on railway fares; no theatres or +cinematographs---none of the hundred things which we have here on every +side. He can buy bread and meat, and wine and clothing, and very little +else---for there is nothing else to be bought. In other words, the +number of *sets of things* (that is what the word "categories" +means---"sets of things") on which he can spend money is a great deal +less than what it would be in London. A man with £1,000 a year in London +and a family to keep is, of course, very much better off than a +labouring man, but still he is not rich, as rich people use the term. He +will live in a house for which he must pay perhaps £200 a year, counting +rent and taxes. Then he will---he usually must---travel, and that will +cost him perhaps £50 a year. Then his friends will expect to meet him +and he must have them at his house, and he will have to spend a good +deal in postage and telegraphing---and so on. The man in Andorra with +£1,000 a year simply would not know what to do with it. He would be so +"well off" that he would have a very large surplus---more than half---to +give away, or to help other people with, or to save and invest. But +exactly the same sort of man, with the same ideas and bringing-up and +necessities, put down in London would certainly not be able to save a +penny of his £1,000 a year. + +So we see that the social value of £1,000 a year in Andorra is very +different from the social value of the same sum in London. Some people +might be inclined to laugh at this difference, and to say: "Oh, yes! but +the man in London could, if he liked, save, simply by not spending on +those various categories, as you call them." Yes; he as an individual +might choose to live an odd life of his own and not do what other people +do. But *Society as a whole*---that is, all the community round him---in +London is, as a fact, spending upon those various, very numerous, +categories, while in Andorra he does not, for he *cannot,* spend upon +them; they are not there to be purchased. Therefore it is true that the +*social value* of the same sum, with the same index number, is on the +average very much higher in Andorra than in London. + +You cannot give this difference precisely in figures as you can an index +number, because nobody can precisely calculate the number of categories +nor the respective importance of each, but the least knowledge of +history shows you that in Henry VIII's time, in 1536, the number of +categories was very much smaller than it is to-day. So the man to whom +Henry VIII paid £100 a year as salary for looking after one of his +castles, though the purchasing value of his income---the amount of rye +or pork or what not that he could buy with it---was what we should call +to-day £2,400 a year, had a much higher income *relatively to the people +of the time* than has a man with £2,400 a year to-day. He counted much +more than a man to-day counts who has five thousand a year. + +But this second point is not all. There is again a third point, as we +have seen, and we must next turn to that. ### 3. The purchasing value of the whole community -The third factor in the making up of the social value of -money is the relation of any sum to the total wealth of the -whole community. That of course depends upon two things: the -average of wealth of each family in the community, and the -number of those families. - -Supposing, for instance, with things at their present -prices, you consider two communities: (1) the people of -Iceland, (2) the people of Australia. In both countries you -can get pretty much the same amount of stuff for an ounce of -gold, and though there are less categories of purchasable -things in Iceland than in Australia, yet most of the things -a civilised man requires can be got in Iceland---at least in -the capital, or can be imported there by the inhabitants if -they need them or can afford to pay for them. Both -communities are of our own race and of much the same -standard of culture and the same idea of how one should -live. But Iceland has only four thousand families, and these -families are poor for the most part. Australia has a million -families, that is, 250 times as many, and they are much -richer than the families in Iceland on the average. There -are much worse differences of rich and poor in Australia -than there are in Iceland. There are far more miserable and -starving people in Australia than there are in Iceland; but -the *average* wealth of a family in Australia is much higher -than that in Iceland. - -Now suppose that the Government of Iceland were to want to -build a new harbour for the capital, which is on the sea, -and in order to get the money were either to confiscate the -wealth of certain rich people or to tax all the -people---supposing it wanted, for instance, £400,000 in -order to complete the work. And supposing the people of -Australia similarly wanted to build a harbour and also -wanted £400,000 to be got in the same way. The index number -is the same in both places. An ounce of gold will roughly -purchase the same amount of things in both places, for the -index number at any moment is much the same all over the -white world, measured in gold, and we may imagine the -categories of purchasable things to be much the same in both -places. Yet the social value of the £400,000 is quite -different in Iceland from what it is in Australia. In -Iceland it means taking an average of £100 from each of the -poor families---if you get it by taxation---or the -confiscation of all the wealth of the very few rich men -there may be. But in Australia it means no more than the -taking of about 8s. from each family, and that from an -average family income much higher than the average family -income in Iceland. Under this heading the social value of -£400,000 in Iceland is enormous and in Australia is small. -If Iceland tried to build such a harbour it could hardly do -so. The economic effort would be very great, and if it -succeeded it would fill a big place in the history of the -island. In Australian history it would pass almost -unnoticed. - -Now let us add the influence of all these three points -together, and we shall see that there is a vast difference -between the social value of money in the time of Henry VIII, -when the monasteries were dissolved, and the social value of -the same amount of money to-day. We shall see, for instance, -why the King, taking away the annual revenues of the -Monastery of Westminster and keeping them for himself, made -such a prodigious splash, although the actual amount in -pounds, or weight of gold, in which the income of -Westminster Abbey could then be measured was only £4,000 a -year. In the first place, you must multiply by 24, so that -the actual income or annual purchasing value in wheat, beef, -rye, pork, beer, which was confiscated, was nearly £100,000 -in our money. Then you must remember that it took place in a -community where there was a very much smaller number of -purchasable categories; that is, where people had a very -much small number of "sets of things" upon which to spend -money. - -And, lastly, you must remember that it took place in an -England the population of which was hardly more than a -sixth---some people would say it was hardly more than a -tenth---of to-day's, and that population actually a great -deal poorer on the average than the present population of -England. It is true that there was not then the great herd -of starving or half-starving people which we have to-day in -England, and that labouring people were then much better off -than they are now; but, on the other hand, there was nothing -like the same number of very rich people, and therefore the -average family income was much smaller. Put all that -together, and it is clear what a tremendous business the -confiscation of this one Abbey meant. It was somewhat as -though the Government to-day were to confiscate one of the -smaller railway companies, or to take away the rentals now -paid by a northern manufacturing town to the great landlords -owning the soil, and put the money into its own pocket. - -From this example of the confiscation of the Abbey of -Westminster you can argue to all the other expenditure of -the time---expenditure on armies and navies, and so on---and -in this way you can see *how, why and in what degree the -social value of money differs between one period and +The third factor in the making up of the social value of money is the +relation of any sum to the total wealth of the whole community. That of +course depends upon two things: the average of wealth of each family in +the community, and the number of those families. + +Supposing, for instance, with things at their present prices, you +consider two communities: (1) the people of Iceland, (2) the people of +Australia. In both countries you can get pretty much the same amount of +stuff for an ounce of gold, and though there are less categories of +purchasable things in Iceland than in Australia, yet most of the things +a civilised man requires can be got in Iceland---at least in the +capital, or can be imported there by the inhabitants if they need them +or can afford to pay for them. Both communities are of our own race and +of much the same standard of culture and the same idea of how one should +live. But Iceland has only four thousand families, and these families +are poor for the most part. Australia has a million families, that is, +250 times as many, and they are much richer than the families in Iceland +on the average. There are much worse differences of rich and poor in +Australia than there are in Iceland. There are far more miserable and +starving people in Australia than there are in Iceland; but the +*average* wealth of a family in Australia is much higher than that in +Iceland. + +Now suppose that the Government of Iceland were to want to build a new +harbour for the capital, which is on the sea, and in order to get the +money were either to confiscate the wealth of certain rich people or to +tax all the people---supposing it wanted, for instance, £400,000 in +order to complete the work. And supposing the people of Australia +similarly wanted to build a harbour and also wanted £400,000 to be got +in the same way. The index number is the same in both places. An ounce +of gold will roughly purchase the same amount of things in both places, +for the index number at any moment is much the same all over the white +world, measured in gold, and we may imagine the categories of +purchasable things to be much the same in both places. Yet the social +value of the £400,000 is quite different in Iceland from what it is in +Australia. In Iceland it means taking an average of £100 from each of +the poor families---if you get it by taxation---or the confiscation of +all the wealth of the very few rich men there may be. But in Australia +it means no more than the taking of about 8s. from each family, and that +from an average family income much higher than the average family income +in Iceland. Under this heading the social value of £400,000 in Iceland +is enormous and in Australia is small. If Iceland tried to build such a +harbour it could hardly do so. The economic effort would be very great, +and if it succeeded it would fill a big place in the history of the +island. In Australian history it would pass almost unnoticed. + +Now let us add the influence of all these three points together, and we +shall see that there is a vast difference between the social value of +money in the time of Henry VIII, when the monasteries were dissolved, +and the social value of the same amount of money to-day. We shall see, +for instance, why the King, taking away the annual revenues of the +Monastery of Westminster and keeping them for himself, made such a +prodigious splash, although the actual amount in pounds, or weight of +gold, in which the income of Westminster Abbey could then be measured +was only £4,000 a year. In the first place, you must multiply by 24, so +that the actual income or annual purchasing value in wheat, beef, rye, +pork, beer, which was confiscated, was nearly £100,000 in our money. +Then you must remember that it took place in a community where there was +a very much smaller number of purchasable categories; that is, where +people had a very much small number of "sets of things" upon which to +spend money. + +And, lastly, you must remember that it took place in an England the +population of which was hardly more than a sixth---some people would say +it was hardly more than a tenth---of to-day's, and that population +actually a great deal poorer on the average than the present population +of England. It is true that there was not then the great herd of +starving or half-starving people which we have to-day in England, and +that labouring people were then much better off than they are now; but, +on the other hand, there was nothing like the same number of very rich +people, and therefore the average family income was much smaller. Put +all that together, and it is clear what a tremendous business the +confiscation of this one Abbey meant. It was somewhat as though the +Government to-day were to confiscate one of the smaller railway +companies, or to take away the rentals now paid by a northern +manufacturing town to the great landlords owning the soil, and put the +money into its own pocket. + +From this example of the confiscation of the Abbey of Westminster you +can argue to all the other expenditure of the time---expenditure on +armies and navies, and so on---and in this way you can see *how, why and +in what degree the social value of money differs between one period and another.* -It is most important to get this point in Economics clear in -your mind if you are reading history, because it helps to -explain all manner of things which otherwise puzzle one in -the past. +It is most important to get this point in Economics clear in your mind +if you are reading history, because it helps to explain all manner of +things which otherwise puzzle one in the past. ## Usury -Usury, the last subject but one on which I am going to touch -in this book, is one which modem people have almost entirely -forgotten, and which you will not find mentioned in any book -on Economics that I know. Yet its vital importance was -recognised throughout all history until quite lately, and it -is already forcing itself upon modem people's notice whether -they like it or no. So it is as well to understand it -betimes, for it is going to be discussed very widely in the -near future. +Usury, the last subject but one on which I am going to touch in this +book, is one which modem people have almost entirely forgotten, and +which you will not find mentioned in any book on Economics that I know. +Yet its vital importance was recognised throughout all history until +quite lately, and it is already forcing itself upon modem people's +notice whether they like it or no. So it is as well to understand it +betimes, for it is going to be discussed very widely in the near future. -All codes of law and all writers on morals from the -beginning of anything we know about human society have -denounced as wrong the practice of *Usury.* +All codes of law and all writers on morals from the beginning of +anything we know about human society have denounced as wrong the +practice of *Usury.* -They have recognised that this practice does grave harm to -the State and to society as a whole, and must, therefore, as -far as possible, be forbidden. +They have recognised that this practice does grave harm to the State and +to society as a whole, and must, therefore, as far as possible, be +forbidden. Now what is Usury, and why does it thus do harm? -Modem people have so far forgotten this exceedingly -important matter that they have come to use the word "usury" -loosely for "the taking of high interest upon a loan." That -is very muddled thinking indeed, as you will see in a -moment. The character of Usury *has nothing to do with the -taking of high or low interest.* It is concerned with -something quite different. - -*Usury is the taking of any interest whatever upon an* -**unproductive** *loan.* - -A man comes to you and says: "Lend me this piece of capital -which you possess" (for instance, a ship, and stores of food -with which to feed the sailors during the voyage of the -ship). "Using this piece of capital to transport the surplus -goods from this country over the sea and to bring back -foreign goods which we need here I shall make a profit so -large that I can exchange it for at least one hundred tons -of wheat. The voyage there and back will take a year." - -You naturally answer: "It is all very well for you to make a -profit of one hundred tons of wheat in one year by the use -of *my* ship and of *my* stores of food for sailors who work -the ship, but what about me? I grant you ought to have part -of this profit for yourself, as you are taking all the -trouble. But I ought to have *some,* because the ship and -stores of food are mine; and unless I lent them to you -(since you have none of your own) you would not be able to -make that profit by trading of which you speak. Let us go -half shares. You shall have fifty tons of wheat and I will -take fifty, out of the total profit of one hundred tons." - -The man who proposed to borrow your ship agrees. The bargain -is struck, and when the year is over you make a fifty tons -profit of wheat on your capital. +Modem people have so far forgotten this exceedingly important matter +that they have come to use the word "usury" loosely for "the taking of +high interest upon a loan." That is very muddled thinking indeed, as you +will see in a moment. The character of Usury *has nothing to do with the +taking of high or low interest.* It is concerned with something quite +different. + +*Usury is the taking of any interest whatever upon an* **unproductive** +*loan.* + +A man comes to you and says: "Lend me this piece of capital which you +possess" (for instance, a ship, and stores of food with which to feed +the sailors during the voyage of the ship). "Using this piece of capital +to transport the surplus goods from this country over the sea and to +bring back foreign goods which we need here I shall make a profit so +large that I can exchange it for at least one hundred tons of wheat. The +voyage there and back will take a year." + +You naturally answer: "It is all very well for you to make a profit of +one hundred tons of wheat in one year by the use of *my* ship and of +*my* stores of food for sailors who work the ship, but what about me? I +grant you ought to have part of this profit for yourself, as you are +taking all the trouble. But I ought to have *some,* because the ship and +stores of food are mine; and unless I lent them to you (since you have +none of your own) you would not be able to make that profit by trading +of which you speak. Let us go half shares. You shall have fifty tons of +wheat and I will take fifty, out of the total profit of one hundred +tons." + +The man who proposed to borrow your ship agrees. The bargain is struck, +and when the year is over you make a fifty tons profit of wheat on your +capital. That is *the earning of interest on a productive loan.* -There is nothing morally wrong about that transaction at -all. It does no one any harm. It does not weaken the State -or society, or even hurt any individual. There is a sheer -gain due to wise exchange (which is equivalent to -production); everybody is benefited---you that own the -capital, the man who uses it, and all society, which -benefits by the foreign exchange. Supposing your ship and -stores of food were worth a hundred tons of wheat, then your -profit of fifty tons of wheat is a profit of 50%, which is -very high indeed. But you have a perfect right to it: your -capital has produced a real increase of wealth to that -extent. If your capital be worth ten times as much, then -your profit is only 5% instead of 50%. But your moral right -to the 50% is just as great as your moral right to the 5%. -No one can blame you, and you are doing no harm. - -Now supposing that, instead of coming to ask you for the -loan of your ship, the man came and asked you for the loan -of a sum of money which you happened to have by you and -which would be sufficient to buy and stock the ship. It is -clear that the transaction remains exactly the same. The -loan is *productive.* He makes a true profit, that is, there -is a real increase of wealth for the community, and you and -he have a right to take your shares out of it---you because -you are the owner of the capital, and he because he took the -trouble of organising and overlooking the expedition. +There is nothing morally wrong about that transaction at all. It does no +one any harm. It does not weaken the State or society, or even hurt any +individual. There is a sheer gain due to wise exchange (which is +equivalent to production); everybody is benefited---you that own the +capital, the man who uses it, and all society, which benefits by the +foreign exchange. Supposing your ship and stores of food were worth a +hundred tons of wheat, then your profit of fifty tons of wheat is a +profit of 50%, which is very high indeed. But you have a perfect right +to it: your capital has produced a real increase of wealth to that +extent. If your capital be worth ten times as much, then your profit is +only 5% instead of 50%. But your moral right to the 50% is just as great +as your moral right to the 5%. No one can blame you, and you are doing +no harm. + +Now supposing that, instead of coming to ask you for the loan of your +ship, the man came and asked you for the loan of a sum of money which +you happened to have by you and which would be sufficient to buy and +stock the ship. It is clear that the transaction remains exactly the +same. The loan is *productive.* He makes a true profit, that is, there +is a real increase of wealth for the community, and you and he have a +right to take your shares out of it---you because you are the owner of +the capital, and he because he took the trouble of organising and +overlooking the expedition. These are examples of profit on a *productive* loan. -Now suppose a man to come to you if you were a baker and -say: "Lend me half a dozen loaves. My family have no bread -and I cannot see my way to earning anything for a day or -two. But when I begin to earn I will get another half dozen -loaves and see that you are not out of pocket." Then if you -were to reply: "I will not let you have half a dozen loaves -on those terms. I will let you owe me the bread for a month -if you like, but at the end of the month you must give me -back *seven* loaves": that would be usury. - -The man is not using the loan productively; he is consuming -the loaves immediately. No more wealth is created by the -act. The world is not the richer, nor are you the richer, -nor is society in general the richer. No more wealth at all -has appeared through the transaction. Therefore the extra -loaf that you are claiming is claimed out of nothing. It has -to come out of the wealth of the community---in this -particular case out of the wealth of the man who borrowed -the loaves---instead of coming out of an increment or excess -or new wealth. That is why usury is called "usury"---which -means: "wearing down," "gradually dilapidating." - -It is clear that if the whole world practised usury and -nothing but usury, if wealth were never lent to be used -productively, but only to be consumed unproductively, and -yet were to demand interest on the unproductive transaction, -then the wealth that was lent would soon eat up all the -other wealth in the community until you came to a situation -in which there was no more to take. Everyone would be ruined -except those who lent; then these, having no more blood to -suck, would die themselves, and society would end. - -As in the case of the ship, it matters not in the least -whether the actual thing, the loaves of bread, are. lent, or -money is lent with which to buy them. *The test is whether -the loan is productive or not.* The *intention* of Usury is -present *when the money is lent at interest on what the -lender* **knows** *will be an unproductive purpose,* and the -actual *practice of usury is present when the loan, having -as a fact been used unproductively, interest is none the -less demanded.* - -As in every other case of right and wrong whatsoever, there -is, of course, a broad margin in which it is very difficult -to draw the line. A man guilty of usury and trying to excuse -himself might say, even in the case of food lent to a -starving man: "The loan may not look directly productive, -but indirectly it was productive, for it saved the man's -life and thus later on he was able to work and produce -wealth." - -The other way about (though there is not much danger of that -nowadays), a man trying to get out of interest on a -productive loan might say in many cases: "The loan was not -really productive. It is true I made a profit on it, but -that profit was not additional wealth for the community. It -only represented what I got out of somebody else on a +Now suppose a man to come to you if you were a baker and say: "Lend me +half a dozen loaves. My family have no bread and I cannot see my way to +earning anything for a day or two. But when I begin to earn I will get +another half dozen loaves and see that you are not out of pocket." Then +if you were to reply: "I will not let you have half a dozen loaves on +those terms. I will let you owe me the bread for a month if you like, +but at the end of the month you must give me back *seven* loaves": that +would be usury. + +The man is not using the loan productively; he is consuming the loaves +immediately. No more wealth is created by the act. The world is not the +richer, nor are you the richer, nor is society in general the richer. No +more wealth at all has appeared through the transaction. Therefore the +extra loaf that you are claiming is claimed out of nothing. It has to +come out of the wealth of the community---in this particular case out of +the wealth of the man who borrowed the loaves---instead of coming out of +an increment or excess or new wealth. That is why usury is called +"usury"---which means: "wearing down," "gradually dilapidating." + +It is clear that if the whole world practised usury and nothing but +usury, if wealth were never lent to be used productively, but only to be +consumed unproductively, and yet were to demand interest on the +unproductive transaction, then the wealth that was lent would soon eat +up all the other wealth in the community until you came to a situation +in which there was no more to take. Everyone would be ruined except +those who lent; then these, having no more blood to suck, would die +themselves, and society would end. + +As in the case of the ship, it matters not in the least whether the +actual thing, the loaves of bread, are. lent, or money is lent with +which to buy them. *The test is whether the loan is productive or not.* +The *intention* of Usury is present *when the money is lent at interest +on what the lender* **knows** *will be an unproductive purpose,* and the +actual *practice of usury is present when the loan, having as a fact +been used unproductively, interest is none the less demanded.* + +As in every other case of right and wrong whatsoever, there is, of +course, a broad margin in which it is very difficult to draw the line. A +man guilty of usury and trying to excuse himself might say, even in the +case of food lent to a starving man: "The loan may not look directly +productive, but indirectly it was productive, for it saved the man's +life and thus later on he was able to work and produce wealth." + +The other way about (though there is not much danger of that nowadays), +a man trying to get out of interest on a productive loan might say in +many cases: "The loan was not really productive. It is true I made a +profit on it, but that profit was not additional wealth for the +community. It only represented what I got out of somebody else on a bargain." -In this margin of uncertainty we have only common sense to -guide us, as in every other similar case. We know pretty -well in each particular example we come across whether a -loan is productive of not; whether we are borrowing or -lending for a productive purpose, or for a charitable or -luxurious one, or for one in every way unproductive. - -The proof that this feeling about usury is right is to be -found in the private conduct of individuals in their social -relations. If a poor man in distress goes to a rich friend -and borrows ten pounds, he pays it back when he can; and the -rich man would think it dishonourable to charge interest. -But if a man borrowed ten pounds of one for the purpose of -doing something which was likely to increase its value, and -we knew that this was his purpose, we should have a perfect -right to share the results with him, and no one would think -the claim dishonourable. - -Usury, then, is essentially a claim to increment, or extra -wealth, *which is not there to be claimed.* It is a practice -which diminishes the capital wealth of the needy and eats it -up to the profit of the lender; so that, if usury go -unchecked, it must end in the absorption of all private -property into the hands of a few money brokers. - -Now, these things being so, the nature of usury being pretty -clear, and both the moral wrong of it and the injury it does -to society being equally clear, how is it that the modem -world for so long forgot all about it, and how is it that it -is forcing itself upon the attention of the modern world -again in spite of that forgetfulness? +In this margin of uncertainty we have only common sense to guide us, as +in every other similar case. We know pretty well in each particular +example we come across whether a loan is productive of not; whether we +are borrowing or lending for a productive purpose, or for a charitable +or luxurious one, or for one in every way unproductive. + +The proof that this feeling about usury is right is to be found in the +private conduct of individuals in their social relations. If a poor man +in distress goes to a rich friend and borrows ten pounds, he pays it +back when he can; and the rich man would think it dishonourable to +charge interest. But if a man borrowed ten pounds of one for the purpose +of doing something which was likely to increase its value, and we knew +that this was his purpose, we should have a perfect right to share the +results with him, and no one would think the claim dishonourable. + +Usury, then, is essentially a claim to increment, or extra wealth, +*which is not there to be claimed.* It is a practice which diminishes +the capital wealth of the needy and eats it up to the profit of the +lender; so that, if usury go unchecked, it must end in the absorption of +all private property into the hands of a few money brokers. + +Now, these things being so, the nature of usury being pretty clear, and +both the moral wrong of it and the injury it does to society being +equally clear, how is it that the modem world for so long forgot all +about it, and how is it that it is forcing itself upon the attention of +the modern world again in spite of that forgetfulness? I will answer both of those questions. -The wrong and the very nature of usury came to be forgotten -with the great expansion of financial dealings which arose -in the middle and end of the seventeenth century---that is, -about 250 years ago---in Europe. In the simpler times, when -commercial transactions were open and upon a comparatively -small scale, and done between men who knew each other, you -could pretty usually tell, as you can in private life, -whether a loan were a loan required for a productive or an -unproductive purpose. The burden of proof lay upon the -lender. It was no excuse in lending a man money to say: "I -did not know what he wanted to do with it, so I charged him -10%, thinking that very probably he was going to use it -productively." The courts of justice would not admit such a -plea, and they were quite right. For under the simple -conditions of the old days the judge would answer: " It was -your business to know. A man does not come borrowing money -unless he is in either personal necessity or has some -productive scheme for which he wants to use the money. If -you thought it was a productive scheme you would certainly -have asked him about it in order to share the profits, and -the fact that you did not trouble to find out whether it -were productive or no shows that you are indifferent to the -wrong of usury, and willing to do that wrong under the -pretence that it was not your business to inquire." - -The attitude of the law on money-lending in the old days was -very much what it is to-day with regard to certain poisonous -chemicals which may be used well or ill. The seller of those -chemicals has to ask what they are going to be used for, and -is responsible if he fails to inquire. In the same way the -old Christian law said a lender was bound to find out if his -loan were intended for production or not. If the law had not -done this, then usury would have been universal and would -have eaten up the State, to the profit of the few people who -lent out their money: as it is doing now. - -But as trade became more and more complicated and much -larger and lost its personal character, as the banking -system arose on a large scale and great companies with any -number of shareholders, and as it became impossible to lay -the weight of proof upon the lender---when, indeed, most -lenders could not know for what their money was being lent, -but only that they had put it into some financial -institution with the object of fructifying it---then the -opportunity for Usury came in, and it soon permeated all -commerce. - -Suppose a man to-day, for instance, to put money into an -Insurance Company. It pays him, let us say, 5% interest on -his money. He does not know, and cannot know---no one can -know---exactly how that particular bit of money is being -used It is merged in the whole lump of the funds the -Insurance Company has to deal with. A great deal of it will -be used productively. It will go to the purchase of steam -engines and stores of food, ships, and so on, which in use -increase the wealth of the world; and the money spent in -buying these things has a perfect right to profit and does -no harm to anyone by taking profit. But a certain proportion -will be used unproductively. The original investor knows -nothing about that, and even the managers of the company -know nothing about it. - -A client comes to them and says: "I want a loan of a -thousand pounds." They are quite unable, under modern -conditions, to go into an examination of what he is going to -do with it. He gives security and gets his loan. He may be a -man in distress who gets-it in order to pay his debts, or he -may be a man who is going to start a business. The company -cannot go into that. It has to make a general rule of so -much interest upon what it lends, under the implied -supposition, of course, that the loan is normally -productive. But the borrower can U9e it unproductively, and -often does and intends to do so. - -Thus, with a very large volume of impersonal business, the -presence of usury is inevitable. But though inevitable, and -though therefore the practice of it, being indirect and -distant, cannot be imputed to this man or that, usury -inevitably produces its disastrous effects, and the modern -world is at last coming to feel those effects very sharply. - -A few pence lent out at usury some twenty centuries ago -would amount now, at compound interest, to more wealth than -there is in the whole world; which is a sufficient proof -that usury is unjust and, as a permanent trade method, -impossible. - -The large proportion of usurious payments which are now -being made on account of the impersonal and indirect -character of nearly all transactions, is beginning to lay -such a burden upon the world as a whole that there is danger -of a breakdown. - -If you keep on taking wealth as though from an increase, -when really there is no increase out of which that wealth -can come, the process must, sooner or later, come to an end. -It is as though you were to claim a hundred bushels of -apples every year from an orchard after the orchard had -ceased to bear, or as though you were to claim a daily -supply of water from a spring which had dried up. The man -who would have to pay the apples would have to get them as -best he could, but by the time the claim was being made on -all the orchards of the world, by the time that usury was -asking a million bushels of apples a year, though only half -a million were being produced, there would be a jam. The -interest would not be forthcoming, and the machinery for -collecting it would stop working. Long before it actually -stopped, of course, people would find increasing difficulty -in getting their interest and increasing trouble would -appear in all the commercial world. - -Now that is exactly what is beginning to happen to-day after -about two centuries of usury and one century of unrestricted -usury. So far we have got out of it by all manner of -makeshifts. Those who have borrowed the money and have -promised to pay, say, 5%, are allowed to change and to pay -only 2.5%. Or, by the process of debasing currency, which I -described earlier in this book, the value of the money is -changed, so that a man who has been set down to pay, say, a -hundred sheep a year, is really only paying 50 or 30 sheep a -year. A more drastic method is the method of "writing off" -loans altogether---simply saying: "I simply cannot get my -interest, and so I must stop asking for it." That is what -happens when a Government goes bankrupt, as the Government -of Germany has done. - -If you look at the Usury created by the Great War, you will -see this kind of thing going on on all sides. The -Governments that were fighting borrowed money from -individuals and promised interest upon it. Most of that -money was not used productively: it was used for buying -wheat and metal, and machinery and the rest, but the wheat -was not used to feed workmen who were producing more wealth. -It was used to feed soldiers who were producing no wealth, -and so were the ships and the metal and the machinery, etc. -Therefore when the individuals who had lent the money began -collecting from the Government interest upon what they had -lent they were asking every year for wealth which simply was -not there, and the Governments have got out of their promise -to pay a usurious interest in all sorts of ways---some by -repudiating, that is saying that they *would* not pay (the -Russians have done that), others by debasing currency in -various degrees. The English Government has cut down what it -promised to pay to about half, and by taxing this it has -further reduced it to rather less than a third. The French -Government, by inflation and by taxation, have reduced it -much more---to less than a fourth, or perhaps more like a -sixth or an eighth. - -The Germans have reduced it by inflation to pretty well -nothing, which is the same really as repudiating the debt -altogether. +The wrong and the very nature of usury came to be forgotten with the +great expansion of financial dealings which arose in the middle and end +of the seventeenth century---that is, about 250 years ago---in Europe. +In the simpler times, when commercial transactions were open and upon a +comparatively small scale, and done between men who knew each other, you +could pretty usually tell, as you can in private life, whether a loan +were a loan required for a productive or an unproductive purpose. The +burden of proof lay upon the lender. It was no excuse in lending a man +money to say: "I did not know what he wanted to do with it, so I charged +him 10%, thinking that very probably he was going to use it +productively." The courts of justice would not admit such a plea, and +they were quite right. For under the simple conditions of the old days +the judge would answer: " It was your business to know. A man does not +come borrowing money unless he is in either personal necessity or has +some productive scheme for which he wants to use the money. If you +thought it was a productive scheme you would certainly have asked him +about it in order to share the profits, and the fact that you did not +trouble to find out whether it were productive or no shows that you are +indifferent to the wrong of usury, and willing to do that wrong under +the pretence that it was not your business to inquire." + +The attitude of the law on money-lending in the old days was very much +what it is to-day with regard to certain poisonous chemicals which may +be used well or ill. The seller of those chemicals has to ask what they +are going to be used for, and is responsible if he fails to inquire. In +the same way the old Christian law said a lender was bound to find out +if his loan were intended for production or not. If the law had not done +this, then usury would have been universal and would have eaten up the +State, to the profit of the few people who lent out their money: as it +is doing now. + +But as trade became more and more complicated and much larger and lost +its personal character, as the banking system arose on a large scale and +great companies with any number of shareholders, and as it became +impossible to lay the weight of proof upon the lender---when, indeed, +most lenders could not know for what their money was being lent, but +only that they had put it into some financial institution with the +object of fructifying it---then the opportunity for Usury came in, and +it soon permeated all commerce. + +Suppose a man to-day, for instance, to put money into an Insurance +Company. It pays him, let us say, 5% interest on his money. He does not +know, and cannot know---no one can know---exactly how that particular +bit of money is being used It is merged in the whole lump of the funds +the Insurance Company has to deal with. A great deal of it will be used +productively. It will go to the purchase of steam engines and stores of +food, ships, and so on, which in use increase the wealth of the world; +and the money spent in buying these things has a perfect right to profit +and does no harm to anyone by taking profit. But a certain proportion +will be used unproductively. The original investor knows nothing about +that, and even the managers of the company know nothing about it. + +A client comes to them and says: "I want a loan of a thousand pounds." +They are quite unable, under modern conditions, to go into an +examination of what he is going to do with it. He gives security and +gets his loan. He may be a man in distress who gets-it in order to pay +his debts, or he may be a man who is going to start a business. The +company cannot go into that. It has to make a general rule of so much +interest upon what it lends, under the implied supposition, of course, +that the loan is normally productive. But the borrower can U9e it +unproductively, and often does and intends to do so. + +Thus, with a very large volume of impersonal business, the presence of +usury is inevitable. But though inevitable, and though therefore the +practice of it, being indirect and distant, cannot be imputed to this +man or that, usury inevitably produces its disastrous effects, and the +modern world is at last coming to feel those effects very sharply. + +A few pence lent out at usury some twenty centuries ago would amount +now, at compound interest, to more wealth than there is in the whole +world; which is a sufficient proof that usury is unjust and, as a +permanent trade method, impossible. + +The large proportion of usurious payments which are now being made on +account of the impersonal and indirect character of nearly all +transactions, is beginning to lay such a burden upon the world as a +whole that there is danger of a breakdown. + +If you keep on taking wealth as though from an increase, when really +there is no increase out of which that wealth can come, the process +must, sooner or later, come to an end. It is as though you were to claim +a hundred bushels of apples every year from an orchard after the orchard +had ceased to bear, or as though you were to claim a daily supply of +water from a spring which had dried up. The man who would have to pay +the apples would have to get them as best he could, but by the time the +claim was being made on all the orchards of the world, by the time that +usury was asking a million bushels of apples a year, though only half a +million were being produced, there would be a jam. The interest would +not be forthcoming, and the machinery for collecting it would stop +working. Long before it actually stopped, of course, people would find +increasing difficulty in getting their interest and increasing trouble +would appear in all the commercial world. + +Now that is exactly what is beginning to happen to-day after about two +centuries of usury and one century of unrestricted usury. So far we have +got out of it by all manner of makeshifts. Those who have borrowed the +money and have promised to pay, say, 5%, are allowed to change and to +pay only 2.5%. Or, by the process of debasing currency, which I +described earlier in this book, the value of the money is changed, so +that a man who has been set down to pay, say, a hundred sheep a year, is +really only paying 50 or 30 sheep a year. A more drastic method is the +method of "writing off" loans altogether---simply saying: "I simply +cannot get my interest, and so I must stop asking for it." That is what +happens when a Government goes bankrupt, as the Government of Germany +has done. + +If you look at the Usury created by the Great War, you will see this +kind of thing going on on all sides. The Governments that were fighting +borrowed money from individuals and promised interest upon it. Most of +that money was not used productively: it was used for buying wheat and +metal, and machinery and the rest, but the wheat was not used to feed +workmen who were producing more wealth. It was used to feed soldiers who +were producing no wealth, and so were the ships and the metal and the +machinery, etc. Therefore when the individuals who had lent the money +began collecting from the Government interest upon what they had lent +they were asking every year for wealth which simply was not there, and +the Governments have got out of their promise to pay a usurious interest +in all sorts of ways---some by repudiating, that is saying that they +*would* not pay (the Russians have done that), others by debasing +currency in various degrees. The English Government has cut down what it +promised to pay to about half, and by taxing this it has further reduced +it to rather less than a third. The French Government, by inflation and +by taxation, have reduced it much more---to less than a fourth, or +perhaps more like a sixth or an eighth. + +The Germans have reduced it by inflation to pretty well nothing, which +is the same really as repudiating the debt altogether. So what we see in a general survey is this:--- -1. Usury is both wrong morally and bad for society, - *because it is the claim for an increase of wealth which - is not really present at all.* It is trying to get - something where there is nothing out of which that - something can be paid. - -2. This action must therefore progressively and - increasingly soak up the wealth which men produce into - the hands of those who lend money, until at last all the - wealth is so soaked up and the process comes to an end. - -3. That is what has happened in the case of the modern - world, largely through unproductive expenditure on war, - which expenditure has been met by borrowing money *and - promising interest upon it although the money was not - producing any further wealth.* - -4. The modem world has therefore reached a limit in this - process and the future of usurious investment is in - doubt. - -Though these conclusions are perfectly clear, it is -unfortunately not possible to say that this or that is a way -out of our difficulties; that by this or that law we can -stop usury in the future and can go back to healthier -conditions. Trade is still spread all over the world. It is -still impersonal and money continues to be lent out at -interest unproductively, with the recurring necessity of -repaying the debt and failing to keep up payments which have -been promised. Things will not get right again in this -respect until society becomes as simple as it used to be, -and we shall have to go through a pretty bad time before we +1. Usury is both wrong morally and bad for society, *because it is the + claim for an increase of wealth which is not really present at all.* + It is trying to get something where there is nothing out of which + that something can be paid. + +2. This action must therefore progressively and increasingly soak up + the wealth which men produce into the hands of those who lend money, + until at last all the wealth is so soaked up and the process comes + to an end. + +3. That is what has happened in the case of the modern world, largely + through unproductive expenditure on war, which expenditure has been + met by borrowing money *and promising interest upon it although the + money was not producing any further wealth.* + +4. The modem world has therefore reached a limit in this process and + the future of usurious investment is in doubt. + +Though these conclusions are perfectly clear, it is unfortunately not +possible to say that this or that is a way out of our difficulties; that +by this or that law we can stop usury in the future and can go back to +healthier conditions. Trade is still spread all over the world. It is +still impersonal and money continues to be lent out at interest +unproductively, with the recurring necessity of repaying the debt and +failing to keep up payments which have been promised. Things will not +get right again in this respect until society becomes as simple as it +used to be, and we shall have to go through a pretty bad time before we get back to that. ## Economic Imaginaries -I am going to end with a rather difficult subject on which I -hesitated whether I should put it into this book or no. If -you find it too difficult leave it out; but if you find as -you read that you can understand it it is worth going into, -because it is quite new (you will not find it in any other -book), and it is very useful in helping one to understand -certain difficult problems which have arisen in our modern -society and which have become a danger to-day. This subject -is what I call "Economic Imaginaries." - -An imaginary is a term taken from mathematics, and means a -value which appears on paper but has no real existence. It -would be too long and much too puzzling to explain what -imaginaries in mathematics are, but I can give you a very -simple example of what they are in Economics. They mean -economic values or lumps of wealth which appear on paper -when you are making calculations, so that one would think -the wealth was really there, but which when you go closely -into their nature you find do not really exist. - -The first example I will give you is that of a man who, -having a large income, gives an allowance to his son living -somewhere abroad. Supposing a man in England has £10,000 a -year, and he has put his son into business in Paris, but -because the young man has not yet learned his business, and -is still being helped from home, he allows that son £1,000 a -year to spend. - -When the Income Tax people go round finding out what -everybody has they put down the rich man in England, quite -rightly, as having £10,000 a year, and when the value of all -incomes in England is *assessed, i.e.,* when a table is -drawn up showing what the total income of all Englishmen is, -this man appears, quite properly, as having £10,000 a year. -But when the people in France make a similar *assessment,* -to find out what the incomes are of all the people living in -France, the rich man's son in Paris appears as having £1,000 -a year. So when the assessments of England and France are -added together and some Government economist is calculating -what the total income of the citizens of both countries may -be, *that £1,000 a year appears twice.* One of these -appearances is an *economic imaginary.* In other words, by -the method of calculation used, £1,000 every year appears on -the total assessment of England and also of France, making -£2,000 of £1,000. The extra £1,000, though appearing on -paper, does not really exist at all: it is an "Economic -Imaginary." - -This is the simplest case of an economic imaginary. It is -the case overlap, or counting of the same money twice, and -we may put down this case in general terms by saying: "Every -unchecked overlap creates an economic imaginary to the -extent of that unchecked overlap." - -It looks so simple that one might say, "Well, surely -everybody would notice that!" But it is very much the other -way---even in this simple case. The more complicated society -becomes, the more payments there are back and forth, -allowances and pensions and all sorts of arrangements which -grow up with increased travel and means of communication -and, in general, with the development of society, the more -these overlaps come into being and remain unchecked, that -is, uncorrected, the greater number there are in which -people are not aware that there is an overlap, or if it is -an overlap do not remember to mention it, or if they do -mention it are not believed. In general the more society -increases in complexity the more this kind of economic -imaginary by mere overlap increases in proportion to the -total real wealth, and the more the total "assessment" of -the community is exaggerated. - -I will give you one instance, to prove this, which is very -striking and which happened in my own experience. A man I -knew gave in his income tax returns a few years ago. He had -a secretary at home to whom he paid a fairly large salary, -and he also used a secretary in town. Their salaries came -out of money which he had earned in business but appeared in -his taxable general income, for he was not allowed to take -it off as an expense. Meanwhile, both the secretary in the -country and the secretary in town were paying tax on *their* -salaries, though they came out of a total income which had -already paid taxes, and anyone making an assessment of the -total income of England would certainly have written down -from the official books: "Mr. Blank, so much a year; his -secretary A---, so much a year; his secretary B---, so much -a year," and added up the total. Yet it is clear that the -money put down to A and B was imaginary. - -I cannot tell you the thousands of ways in which this simple -case of overlapping goes on in modem England, for it would -be too long to explain, and I have only given you very -simple instances, but you may be certain that the economic -imaginaries of this kind form at least a quarter of the -supposed income of the country. - -If there were no other form of imaginaries than this it -would be very simple to understand them, and perhaps allow -for them in making an estimate of total wealth. -Unfortunately, there are any number of different forms much -more difficult to seize and cropping up like mushrooms -everywhere more and more in a complicated and active -society. - -For instance: you have (2) the economic imaginary due to -*luxurious expenditure.* - -All over the world where you have rich people spending money -foolishly they are asked, for things that they buy, prices -altogether out of keeping with the real value of the things. -If you go into one of the big hotels in London or Paris and -have a dinner the *economic values* you consume are anything -from a quarter to a tenth of the sum you are asked to pay. -Thus people who buy a bottle of champagne in this sort of -place pay from a pound to thirty shillings. The economic -values contained in a bottle of champagne, that is the -economic values which are built up by the labour of all -sorts which has been expended in producing it, come to about -two shillings and sixpence. So when people pay from a pound -to thirty shillings for a bottle of champagne they are -paying from eight to twelve times the real economic values -which are destroyed in consumption. There is an extra margin -of anything from seventeen shillings and sixpence to -twenty-seven shillings and sixpence, which is an *economic -imaginary* in that one case alone. And remember that this -economic imaginary goes the rounds. It appears in the -profits of the Hotelkeeper, which are assessed in the total -national income for taxation. It appears in the rent for his -hotel, since a man will pay much more rent for a house in -which he can get people to pay these sums than for a humbler -hotel of the same size and of the same true economic value -in bricks and mortar. It appears in the rates which the -hotel pays to the local authorities, and which in their turn -appear in the income of humble officials living in the -suburbs. That economic imaginary created by the silly person -who is willing to pay from a pound to thirty shillings for a -thing worth two shillings and sixpence appears over and over -again in the various assessments of the country. - -Here is another case (3): *economic imaginaries due to -inequality of income.* - -Supposing you have a thousand families with £1,000 a year -each; that is, a total income among them of £1,000,000 a -year. Supposing you put up for competition among those -families a very beautiful picture which everybody would like -to have; painted, say, by Van Dyck. None of these people -with £1,000 a year each could afford to give more than a -certain sum for the picture, and probably, when they had -competed for it, it would fetch no more than £100. An -official estimating that community would say that it had -£1,000,000 a year income, such and such values in houses, -etc., and that there was a picture present worth £100, and -all that would go down in his estimates or "Assessment." - -Now supposing all but two of these thousand families to be -impoverished by having to pay rents and interest to these -two men. Supposing they were all reduced to just under £500 -a year, and that the balance of £500,000 were paid to those -other two. Then each of these would have £250,000 a year. -The Van Dyck is put up for auction in this community. The -poor families, of course, have no show at all. Not one of -them can afford more than £50 at the most, however much he -wanted the Van Dyck. But the two rich men can compete one -against the other recklessly. They have an enormous margin -of wealth with which to do what they like, and the Van Dyck -between them may be rushed up to £50,000. - -There is not a penny more of real wealth in the community -than there was before. Yet your Government assessor would -come down and assess the community in a very different -fashion from the way in which he would have assessed the -first community. He will put down the total income at -£1,000,000, and the houses, furniture, etc., at so much, and -he will add: "Also a Van Dyck valued at £50,000." Of course -in real life, where are great differences of income, this -sort of thing is multiplied by the thousand. It is another -example of the way in which, as communities get more -complicated in a high civilisation, economic imaginaries -appear. - -I am only introducing this subject as a very simple addition -to this little book, and I will not multiply instances too -much, though one might go on giving examples almost -indefinitely. - -Here, then, is a last one (4): *economic imaginaries due to -the confusion between services and economic values attached -to material things.* - -We saw at the beginning of this book that wealth did not -consist in *things,* such as coal, chairs, tables, etc., but -in the *economic values attached to those things;* that is, -their added use for the purposes of human beings up to the -point where they were beginning to be consumed. We saw how -the coal in the earth has no economic value, how it begins -to be of value when it begins to be mined, and how each -piece of additional labour put into it to bring it nearer to -the point of consumption adds to its economic value, until -at last, when it gets into your cellar, from being worth -nothing a ton (when it was still in the earth) it is worth -thirty shillings or forty shillings a ton. - -But when people assess wealth for the purpose of taxation, -and in order to find what (in their judgment) the total -yearly income of a nation is, they count not only the -economic values attached to things consumed by the nation, -but also *services.* - -For instance: if Jones is a good card player, the rich man -Smith may pay him £500 a year to live in his house and amuse -his loneliness by perpetually playing cards with him. I knew -a case of a man in South Wales who did exactly that. It is -an extreme case, but we all of us, all day long, are paying -money for services which do not add economic values to -things at all, and which yet must appear in assessment. - -All the money I earn by writing is of this kind. Now -assessment of these services creates an enormous body of -economic imaginaries, and to show you how they may do so I -will give you an extreme and ludicrous case. - -Supposing two men, one of whom, Smith, has a loaf of bread, -and the other of whom, Brown, has nothing. Smith says to -Brown: "If you will sing me a song I will give you my loaf -of bread." Brown sings his song and Smith hands over the -bread. A little later Brown wants to hear Smith sing and he -says to him: "If you will sing me a song I will give you -this loaf of bread." A little later Smith again wants to -have a song from Brown. Brown sings his song (let us hope a -new one!) and the loaf of bread again changes hands and so -on all day. - -Supposing each of these transactions to be recorded in a -book of accounts. There will appear in Smith's book: "Paid -to Brown for singing songs two hundred loaves of bread," and -in Brown's book: "Paid to Smith for singing songs two -hundred loaves of bread." The official who has to assess the -national income will laboriously copy these figures into his -book and will put down: "Daily income of Smith, 200 loaves -of bread. Daily income of Brown, 200 loaves of bread. Total -400 loaves of bread." Yet there is only one *real* loaf of -bread there all the time! The other 399 are imaginary. - -Now with a ludicrous and extreme example of this sort you -may say: " That is all very well as a joke, but it has no -bearing on real life." It has. That is exactly the sort of -thing which is going on the whole time in a highly-developed -economic society. I go to a matinee and pay 10s. for a man -to amuse me. He goes of! himself in the evening and pays -ios. to hear a man sing at a concert. Next morning that man -(I sincerely hope) buys one of my books, and a big part of -the price is not paid for the economic values attaching to -the material of it, but for the services of writing it, -which is not a creation of wealth at all. The publisher pays -me my royalty, and I spend part of it in looking at an -acrobat in a music hall. The acrobat pays ios. to keep up -his chapel; and the minister of the chapel, in a fit of -fervour, pays a subscription of ios. to a political party. - -And so on. Here is a short chain of economic imaginaries: -50s.---five ten-shilling notes---all appearing one after the -other in the assessment of the national income and -corresponding to no real wealth. - -It is exactly the same thing in principle as the case of the -two men singing for one loaf of bread. And the same -principle applies to the expenditure of rates and taxes. A -great part of this expenditure goes in empty services, not -in services which add economic values to things. - -We must, of course, distinguish between two things which -many of the older economists muddled up. A thing may be of -the highest temporal use to humanity in the production of -happiness, such as good singing, or of high spiritual value, -such as good conduct, and yet that thing must not be -confounded with economic values. When one says, for -instance, that good singing, or a good picture, or a good -book has no economic value, or only a very slight material -economic value (the best picture ever painted has probably -not a true economic value of more than 20s. outside its -frame, unless the painter used expensive paints or a quite -enormous canvas) one does not mean, as too many foolish -people imagine, that *therefore* one ought not to have good -singing, or good pictures, or the rest of it. - -What (is) meant is that the examination of any one set of -things must be kept separate from the examination of -another, and when you put down the money spent on these -things as though it represented real economic values you are -making a false calculation. - -Well, this is only a hint of quite a new subject in -Economics, which I have put in at the end in the hope that -it may be of some value to you. Meditate upon it. As -societies get more and more luxurious, more and more -complicated, more and more "civilised" (as we call it), so -do these economic imaginaries grow out of all proportion to -the real wealth of the society. If on the top of their -growth you suddenly impose high taxation, based upon your -assessment, you may think that you are only taking a fifth -or a third or a fourth of the whole community's real yearly -wealth, when in reality you are taking a half or more than a -half. And this is probably the main reason why so many -highly developed societies have broken down towards the end -of their brilliance through the demands of their -tax-gatherers who worked on assessment inflated out of all -reality by a mass of economic imaginaries. - -[^1]: This very sensible tax was invented by Disraeli in - England about a lifetime ago. +I am going to end with a rather difficult subject on which I hesitated +whether I should put it into this book or no. If you find it too +difficult leave it out; but if you find as you read that you can +understand it it is worth going into, because it is quite new (you will +not find it in any other book), and it is very useful in helping one to +understand certain difficult problems which have arisen in our modern +society and which have become a danger to-day. This subject is what I +call "Economic Imaginaries." + +An imaginary is a term taken from mathematics, and means a value which +appears on paper but has no real existence. It would be too long and +much too puzzling to explain what imaginaries in mathematics are, but I +can give you a very simple example of what they are in Economics. They +mean economic values or lumps of wealth which appear on paper when you +are making calculations, so that one would think the wealth was really +there, but which when you go closely into their nature you find do not +really exist. + +The first example I will give you is that of a man who, having a large +income, gives an allowance to his son living somewhere abroad. Supposing +a man in England has £10,000 a year, and he has put his son into +business in Paris, but because the young man has not yet learned his +business, and is still being helped from home, he allows that son £1,000 +a year to spend. + +When the Income Tax people go round finding out what everybody has they +put down the rich man in England, quite rightly, as having £10,000 a +year, and when the value of all incomes in England is *assessed, i.e.,* +when a table is drawn up showing what the total income of all Englishmen +is, this man appears, quite properly, as having £10,000 a year. But when +the people in France make a similar *assessment,* to find out what the +incomes are of all the people living in France, the rich man's son in +Paris appears as having £1,000 a year. So when the assessments of +England and France are added together and some Government economist is +calculating what the total income of the citizens of both countries may +be, *that £1,000 a year appears twice.* One of these appearances is an +*economic imaginary.* In other words, by the method of calculation used, +£1,000 every year appears on the total assessment of England and also of +France, making £2,000 of £1,000. The extra £1,000, though appearing on +paper, does not really exist at all: it is an "Economic Imaginary." + +This is the simplest case of an economic imaginary. It is the case +overlap, or counting of the same money twice, and we may put down this +case in general terms by saying: "Every unchecked overlap creates an +economic imaginary to the extent of that unchecked overlap." + +It looks so simple that one might say, "Well, surely everybody would +notice that!" But it is very much the other way---even in this simple +case. The more complicated society becomes, the more payments there are +back and forth, allowances and pensions and all sorts of arrangements +which grow up with increased travel and means of communication and, in +general, with the development of society, the more these overlaps come +into being and remain unchecked, that is, uncorrected, the greater +number there are in which people are not aware that there is an overlap, +or if it is an overlap do not remember to mention it, or if they do +mention it are not believed. In general the more society increases in +complexity the more this kind of economic imaginary by mere overlap +increases in proportion to the total real wealth, and the more the total +"assessment" of the community is exaggerated. + +I will give you one instance, to prove this, which is very striking and +which happened in my own experience. A man I knew gave in his income tax +returns a few years ago. He had a secretary at home to whom he paid a +fairly large salary, and he also used a secretary in town. Their +salaries came out of money which he had earned in business but appeared +in his taxable general income, for he was not allowed to take it off as +an expense. Meanwhile, both the secretary in the country and the +secretary in town were paying tax on *their* salaries, though they came +out of a total income which had already paid taxes, and anyone making an +assessment of the total income of England would certainly have written +down from the official books: "Mr. Blank, so much a year; his secretary +A---, so much a year; his secretary B---, so much a year," and added up +the total. Yet it is clear that the money put down to A and B was +imaginary. + +I cannot tell you the thousands of ways in which this simple case of +overlapping goes on in modem England, for it would be too long to +explain, and I have only given you very simple instances, but you may be +certain that the economic imaginaries of this kind form at least a +quarter of the supposed income of the country. + +If there were no other form of imaginaries than this it would be very +simple to understand them, and perhaps allow for them in making an +estimate of total wealth. Unfortunately, there are any number of +different forms much more difficult to seize and cropping up like +mushrooms everywhere more and more in a complicated and active society. + +For instance: you have (2) the economic imaginary due to *luxurious +expenditure.* + +All over the world where you have rich people spending money foolishly +they are asked, for things that they buy, prices altogether out of +keeping with the real value of the things. If you go into one of the big +hotels in London or Paris and have a dinner the *economic values* you +consume are anything from a quarter to a tenth of the sum you are asked +to pay. Thus people who buy a bottle of champagne in this sort of place +pay from a pound to thirty shillings. The economic values contained in a +bottle of champagne, that is the economic values which are built up by +the labour of all sorts which has been expended in producing it, come to +about two shillings and sixpence. So when people pay from a pound to +thirty shillings for a bottle of champagne they are paying from eight to +twelve times the real economic values which are destroyed in +consumption. There is an extra margin of anything from seventeen +shillings and sixpence to twenty-seven shillings and sixpence, which is +an *economic imaginary* in that one case alone. And remember that this +economic imaginary goes the rounds. It appears in the profits of the +Hotelkeeper, which are assessed in the total national income for +taxation. It appears in the rent for his hotel, since a man will pay +much more rent for a house in which he can get people to pay these sums +than for a humbler hotel of the same size and of the same true economic +value in bricks and mortar. It appears in the rates which the hotel pays +to the local authorities, and which in their turn appear in the income +of humble officials living in the suburbs. That economic imaginary +created by the silly person who is willing to pay from a pound to thirty +shillings for a thing worth two shillings and sixpence appears over and +over again in the various assessments of the country. + +Here is another case (3): *economic imaginaries due to inequality of +income.* + +Supposing you have a thousand families with £1,000 a year each; that is, +a total income among them of £1,000,000 a year. Supposing you put up for +competition among those families a very beautiful picture which +everybody would like to have; painted, say, by Van Dyck. None of these +people with £1,000 a year each could afford to give more than a certain +sum for the picture, and probably, when they had competed for it, it +would fetch no more than £100. An official estimating that community +would say that it had £1,000,000 a year income, such and such values in +houses, etc., and that there was a picture present worth £100, and all +that would go down in his estimates or "Assessment." + +Now supposing all but two of these thousand families to be impoverished +by having to pay rents and interest to these two men. Supposing they +were all reduced to just under £500 a year, and that the balance of +£500,000 were paid to those other two. Then each of these would have +£250,000 a year. The Van Dyck is put up for auction in this community. +The poor families, of course, have no show at all. Not one of them can +afford more than £50 at the most, however much he wanted the Van Dyck. +But the two rich men can compete one against the other recklessly. They +have an enormous margin of wealth with which to do what they like, and +the Van Dyck between them may be rushed up to £50,000. + +There is not a penny more of real wealth in the community than there was +before. Yet your Government assessor would come down and assess the +community in a very different fashion from the way in which he would +have assessed the first community. He will put down the total income at +£1,000,000, and the houses, furniture, etc., at so much, and he will +add: "Also a Van Dyck valued at £50,000." Of course in real life, where +are great differences of income, this sort of thing is multiplied by the +thousand. It is another example of the way in which, as communities get +more complicated in a high civilisation, economic imaginaries appear. + +I am only introducing this subject as a very simple addition to this +little book, and I will not multiply instances too much, though one +might go on giving examples almost indefinitely. + +Here, then, is a last one (4): *economic imaginaries due to the +confusion between services and economic values attached to material +things.* + +We saw at the beginning of this book that wealth did not consist in +*things,* such as coal, chairs, tables, etc., but in the *economic +values attached to those things;* that is, their added use for the +purposes of human beings up to the point where they were beginning to be +consumed. We saw how the coal in the earth has no economic value, how it +begins to be of value when it begins to be mined, and how each piece of +additional labour put into it to bring it nearer to the point of +consumption adds to its economic value, until at last, when it gets into +your cellar, from being worth nothing a ton (when it was still in the +earth) it is worth thirty shillings or forty shillings a ton. + +But when people assess wealth for the purpose of taxation, and in order +to find what (in their judgment) the total yearly income of a nation is, +they count not only the economic values attached to things consumed by +the nation, but also *services.* + +For instance: if Jones is a good card player, the rich man Smith may pay +him £500 a year to live in his house and amuse his loneliness by +perpetually playing cards with him. I knew a case of a man in South +Wales who did exactly that. It is an extreme case, but we all of us, all +day long, are paying money for services which do not add economic values +to things at all, and which yet must appear in assessment. + +All the money I earn by writing is of this kind. Now assessment of these +services creates an enormous body of economic imaginaries, and to show +you how they may do so I will give you an extreme and ludicrous case. + +Supposing two men, one of whom, Smith, has a loaf of bread, and the +other of whom, Brown, has nothing. Smith says to Brown: "If you will +sing me a song I will give you my loaf of bread." Brown sings his song +and Smith hands over the bread. A little later Brown wants to hear Smith +sing and he says to him: "If you will sing me a song I will give you +this loaf of bread." A little later Smith again wants to have a song +from Brown. Brown sings his song (let us hope a new one!) and the loaf +of bread again changes hands and so on all day. + +Supposing each of these transactions to be recorded in a book of +accounts. There will appear in Smith's book: "Paid to Brown for singing +songs two hundred loaves of bread," and in Brown's book: "Paid to Smith +for singing songs two hundred loaves of bread." The official who has to +assess the national income will laboriously copy these figures into his +book and will put down: "Daily income of Smith, 200 loaves of bread. +Daily income of Brown, 200 loaves of bread. Total 400 loaves of bread." +Yet there is only one *real* loaf of bread there all the time! The other +399 are imaginary. + +Now with a ludicrous and extreme example of this sort you may say: " +That is all very well as a joke, but it has no bearing on real life." It +has. That is exactly the sort of thing which is going on the whole time +in a highly-developed economic society. I go to a matinee and pay 10s. +for a man to amuse me. He goes of! himself in the evening and pays ios. +to hear a man sing at a concert. Next morning that man (I sincerely +hope) buys one of my books, and a big part of the price is not paid for +the economic values attaching to the material of it, but for the +services of writing it, which is not a creation of wealth at all. The +publisher pays me my royalty, and I spend part of it in looking at an +acrobat in a music hall. The acrobat pays ios. to keep up his chapel; +and the minister of the chapel, in a fit of fervour, pays a subscription +of ios. to a political party. + +And so on. Here is a short chain of economic imaginaries: 50s.---five +ten-shilling notes---all appearing one after the other in the assessment +of the national income and corresponding to no real wealth. + +It is exactly the same thing in principle as the case of the two men +singing for one loaf of bread. And the same principle applies to the +expenditure of rates and taxes. A great part of this expenditure goes in +empty services, not in services which add economic values to things. + +We must, of course, distinguish between two things which many of the +older economists muddled up. A thing may be of the highest temporal use +to humanity in the production of happiness, such as good singing, or of +high spiritual value, such as good conduct, and yet that thing must not +be confounded with economic values. When one says, for instance, that +good singing, or a good picture, or a good book has no economic value, +or only a very slight material economic value (the best picture ever +painted has probably not a true economic value of more than 20s. outside +its frame, unless the painter used expensive paints or a quite enormous +canvas) one does not mean, as too many foolish people imagine, that +*therefore* one ought not to have good singing, or good pictures, or the +rest of it. + +What (is) meant is that the examination of any one set of things must be +kept separate from the examination of another, and when you put down the +money spent on these things as though it represented real economic +values you are making a false calculation. + +Well, this is only a hint of quite a new subject in Economics, which I +have put in at the end in the hope that it may be of some value to you. +Meditate upon it. As societies get more and more luxurious, more and +more complicated, more and more "civilised" (as we call it), so do these +economic imaginaries grow out of all proportion to the real wealth of +the society. If on the top of their growth you suddenly impose high +taxation, based upon your assessment, you may think that you are only +taking a fifth or a third or a fourth of the whole community's real +yearly wealth, when in reality you are taking a half or more than a +half. And this is probably the main reason why so many highly developed +societies have broken down towards the end of their brilliance through +the demands of their tax-gatherers who worked on assessment inflated out +of all reality by a mass of economic imaginaries. + +[^1]: This very sensible tax was invented by Disraeli in England about a + lifetime ago. diff --git a/src/eugenics-evils.md b/src/eugenics-evils.md index eb5efb5..83ccdcb 100644 --- a/src/eugenics-evils.md +++ b/src/eugenics-evils.md @@ -1,55 +1,48 @@ ## To The Reader -I publish these essays at the present time for a particular -reason connected with the present situation; a reason which -I should like briefly to emphasise and make clear. - -Though most of the conclusions, especially towards the end, -are conceived with reference to recent events, the actual -bulk of preliminary notes about the science of Eugenics were -written before the war. It was a time when this theme was -the topic of the hour; when eugenic babies (not visibly very -distinguishable from other babies) sprawled all over the -illustrated papers; when the evolutionary fancy of Nietzsche -was the new cry among the intellectuals; and when -Mr. Bernard Shaw and others were considering the idea that -to breed a man like a cart-horse was the true way to attain -that higher civilisation, of intellectual magnanimity and -sympathetic insight, which may be found in cart-horses. It -may therefore appear that I took the opinion too -controversially, and it seems to me that I sometimes took it -too seriously. But the criticism of Eugenics soon expanded -of itself into a more general criticism of a modern craze -for scientific officialism and strict social organisation. - -And then the hour came when I felt, not without relief, that -I might well fling all my notes into the fire. The fire was -a very big one, and was burning up bigger things than such -pedantic quackeries. And, anyhow, the issue itself was being -settled in a very different style. Scientific officialism -and organisation in the State which had specialised in them, -had gone to war with the older culture of Christendom. -Either Prussianism would win and the protest would be -hopeless, or Prussianism would lose and the protest would be -needless. As the war advanced from poison gas to piracy -against neutrals, it grew more and more plain that the -scientifically organised State was not increasing in -popularity. Whatever happened, no Englishmen would ever -again go nosing round the stinks of that low laboratory. So -I thought all I had written irrelevant, and put it out of my -mind. - -I am greatly grieved to say that it is not irrelevant. It -has gradually grown apparent, to my astounded gaze, that the -ruling classes in England are still proceeding on the -assumption that Prussia is a pattern for the whole world. If -parts of my book are nearly nine years old, most of their -principles and proceedings arc a great deal older. They can -offer us nothing but the same stuffy science, the same -bullying bureaucracy and the same terrorism by tenth-rate -professors that have led the German Empire to its recent -conspicuous triumph. For that reason, three years after the -war with Prussia, I collect and publish these papers. +I publish these essays at the present time for a particular reason +connected with the present situation; a reason which I should like +briefly to emphasise and make clear. + +Though most of the conclusions, especially towards the end, are +conceived with reference to recent events, the actual bulk of +preliminary notes about the science of Eugenics were written before the +war. It was a time when this theme was the topic of the hour; when +eugenic babies (not visibly very distinguishable from other babies) +sprawled all over the illustrated papers; when the evolutionary fancy of +Nietzsche was the new cry among the intellectuals; and when Mr. Bernard +Shaw and others were considering the idea that to breed a man like a +cart-horse was the true way to attain that higher civilisation, of +intellectual magnanimity and sympathetic insight, which may be found in +cart-horses. It may therefore appear that I took the opinion too +controversially, and it seems to me that I sometimes took it too +seriously. But the criticism of Eugenics soon expanded of itself into a +more general criticism of a modern craze for scientific officialism and +strict social organisation. + +And then the hour came when I felt, not without relief, that I might +well fling all my notes into the fire. The fire was a very big one, and +was burning up bigger things than such pedantic quackeries. And, anyhow, +the issue itself was being settled in a very different style. Scientific +officialism and organisation in the State which had specialised in them, +had gone to war with the older culture of Christendom. Either +Prussianism would win and the protest would be hopeless, or Prussianism +would lose and the protest would be needless. As the war advanced from +poison gas to piracy against neutrals, it grew more and more plain that +the scientifically organised State was not increasing in popularity. +Whatever happened, no Englishmen would ever again go nosing round the +stinks of that low laboratory. So I thought all I had written +irrelevant, and put it out of my mind. + +I am greatly grieved to say that it is not irrelevant. It has gradually +grown apparent, to my astounded gaze, that the ruling classes in England +are still proceeding on the assumption that Prussia is a pattern for the +whole world. If parts of my book are nearly nine years old, most of +their principles and proceedings arc a great deal older. They can offer +us nothing but the same stuffy science, the same bullying bureaucracy +and the same terrorism by tenth-rate professors that have led the German +Empire to its recent conspicuous triumph. For that reason, three years +after the war with Prussia, I collect and publish these papers. G. K. C. @@ -57,4359 +50,3661 @@ G. K. C. ## What is Eugenics? -The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are -hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; -especially after you are mortally hurt. People talk about -the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know -that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too -late. It is often essential to resist a tyranny before it -exists. It is no answer to say, with a distant optimism, -that the scheme is only in the air. A blow from a hatchet -can only be parried while it is in the air. - -There exists to-day a scheme of action, a school of thought, -as collective and unmistakable as any of those by whose -grouping alone we can make any outline of history. It is as -firm a fact as the Oxford Movement, or the Puritans of the -Long Parliament; or the Jansenists; or the Jesuits. It is a -thing that can be pointed out; it is a thing that can be -discussed; and it is a thing that can still be destroyed. It -is called for convenience "Eugenics"; and that it ought to -be destroyed I propose to prove in the pages that follow. I -know that it means very different things to different -people; but that is only because evil always takes advantage -of ambiguity. I know it is praised with high professions of -idealism and benevolence; with silver-tongued rhetoric about -purer motherhood and a happier posterity. But that is only -because evil is always flattered, as the Furies were called -"The Gracious Ones." I know that it numbers many disciples -whose intentions are entirely innocent and humane; and who -would be sincerely astonished at my describing it as I do. -But that is only because evil always wins through the -strength of its splendid dupes; and there has in an ages -been a disastrous alliance between abnormal innocence and -abnormal sin. Of these who are deceived I shall speak of -course as we all do of such instruments; judging them by the -good they think they are doing, and not by the evil which -they really do. But Eugenics itself does exist for those who -have sense enough to see that ideas exist; and Eugenics -itself, in large quantities or small, coming quickly or -coming slowly, urged from good motives or bad, applied to a -thousand people or applied to three, Eugenics itself is a -thing no more to be bargained about than poisoning. - -It is not really difficult to sum up the essence of -Eugenics: though some of the Eugenists seem to be rather -vague about it. The movement consists of two parts: a moral -basis, which is common to all, and a scheme of social -application which varies a good deal. For the moral basis, -it is obvious that man's ethical responsibility varies with -his knowledge of consequences. If I were in charge of a baby -(like Dr. Johnson in that tower of vision), and if the baby -was ill through having eaten the soap, I might possibly send -for a doctor. I might be calling him away from much more -serious cases, from the bedsides of babies whose diet had -been far more deadly; but I should be justified. I could not -be expected to know enough about his other patients to be -obliged (or even entitled) to sacrifice to them the baby for -whom I was primarily and directly responsible. Now the -Eugenic moral basis is this; that the baby for when we are -primarily and directly responsible is the babe unborn. That -is, that we know (or may come to know) enough of certain -inevitable tendencies in biology to consider the fruit of -some contemplated union in that direct and clear light of -conscience which we can now only fix on the other partner in -that union. The one duty can conceivably be as definite as -or more definite than the other. The baby that does not -exist can be considered even before the wife who does. Now -it is essential to grasp that this is a comparatively new -note in morality. Of course sane people always thought the -aim of marriage was the procreation of children to the glory -of God or according to the plan of Nature; but whether they -counted such children as God's reward for service or -Nature's premium on sanity, they always left the reward to -God or the premium to Nature, as a less definable thing. The -only person (and this is the point) towards whom one could -have precise duties was the partner in the process. Directly -considering the partner's claims was the nearest one could -get to indirectly considering the claims of posterity. If -the women of the harem sang praises of the hero as the -Moslem mounted his horse, it was because this was the due of -a man; if the Christian knight helped his wife off her -horse, it was because this was the due of a woman. Definite -and detailed dues of this kind they did not predicate of the -babe unborn; regarding him in that agnostic and opportunist -light in which Mr. Browdie regarded the hypothetical child -of Miss Squeers. Thinking these sex relations healthy, they -naturally hoped they would produce healthy children; but -that was all. The Moslem woman doubtless expected Allah to -send beautiful sons to an obedient wife; but she would not -have allowed any direct vision of such sons to alter the -obedience itself. She would not have said, "I will now be a -disobedient wife; as the learned leech informs me that great -prophets are often the children of disobedient wives." The -knight doubtless hoped that the saints would help him to -strong children, if he did all the duties of his station, -one of which might be helping his wife off her horse; but he -would not have refrained from doing this because he had read -in a book that a course of falling off horses often resulted -in the birth of a genius. Both Moslem and Christian would -have thought such speculations not only impious but utterly -unpractical. I quite agree with them; but that is not the -point here. - -The point here is that a new school believes Eugenics -*against* Ethics. And it is proved by one familiar fact: -that the heroisms of history are actually the crimes of -Eugenics. The Eugenists' books and articles are full of -suggestions that non-eugenic unions should and may come to -be regarded as we regard sins; that we should really feel -that marrying an invalid is a kind of cruelty to children. -But history is full of the praises of people who have held -sacred such ties to invalids; of cases like those of Colonel -Hutchinson and Sir William Temple, who remained faithful to -betrothals when beauty and health had been apparently -blasted. And though the illnesses of Dorothy Osborne and -Mrs. Hutchinson may not fall under the Eugenic speculations -(I do not know), it is obvious that they might have done so; -and certainly it would not have made any difference to men's -moral opinion of the act. I do not discuss here which -morality I favour; but I insist that they are opposite. The -Eugenist really sets up as saints the very men whom hundreds -of families have caned sneaks. To be consistent, they ought -to put up statues to the men who deserted their loves -because of bodily misfortune; with inscriptions celebrating -the good Eugenist who, on his fiancée falling off a bicycle, -nobly refused to marry her; or to the young hero who, on -hearing of an uncle with erysipelas, magnanimously broke his -word. What is perfectly plain is this: that mankind have -hitherto held the bond between man and woman so sacred, and -the effect of it on the children so incalculable, that they -have always admired the maintenance of honour more than the -maintenance of safety. Doubtless they thought that even the -children might be none the worse for not being the children -of cowards and shirkers; but this was not the first thought, -the first commandment. Briefly, we may say that while many -moral systems have set restraints on sex almost as severe as -any Eugenist could set, they have almost always had the -character of securing the fidelity of the two sexes to each -other, and leaving the rest to God. To introduce an ethic -which makes that fidelity or infidelity vary with some -calculation about here?-it is that rarest of all things, a -revolution that has not happened before. - -It is only right to say here, though the matter should only -be touched on, that many Eugenists would contradict this, in -so far as to claim that there was a consciously Eugenic -reason for the horror of those unions which begin with the -celebrated denial to man of the privilege of marrying his -grandmother. Dr. S. R. Steinmetz, with that creepy -simplicity of mind with which the Eugenists chill the blood, -remarks that "we do not yet know quite certainly" what were -"the motives for the horror of" that horrible thing which is -the agony of Oedipus. With entirely amiable intention, I ask -Dr. S. R. Steinmetz to speak for himself. I know the motives -for regarding a mother or sister as separate from other -women; nor have I reached them by any curious researches. I -found them where I found an analogous a version to eating a -baby for breakfast. I found them in a rooted detestation in -the human soul to liking a thing in one way, when you -already like it in another quite incompatible way. Now it is -perfectly true that this aversion may have acted -eugenically; and so had a certain ultimate confirmation and -basis in the laws of procreation. But there really cannot be -any Eugenist quite so dull as not to see that this is not a -defence of Eugenics but a direct denial of Eugenics. If -something which has been discovered at last by the lamp of -learning is something which has been acted on from the first -by the light of nature, this (so far as it goes) is plainly -not an argument for Pestering people, but an argument for -letting them alone. If men did not marry their grandmothers -when it was, for all they knew, a most hygienic habit; if we -know now that they instinctively avoided scientific peril; -that, so far as it goes, is a point in favour of letting -people marry anyone they like. It is simply the statement -that sexual selection, or what Christians call falling in -love, is a part of man which in the rough and in the long -run can be trusted. And that is the destruction of the whole -of this science at a blow. - -The second part of the definition, the persuasive or -coercive methods to be employed, I shall deal with more -fully in the second part of this book. But some such summary -as the following may here be useful. Far into the -unfathomable past of our race we find the assumption that -the founding of a family is the personal adventure of a free -man. Before slavery sank slowly out of sight under the new -climate of Christianity, it may or may not be true that -slaves were in some sense bred like cattle, valued as a -promising stock for labour. If it was so it was so in a much -looser and vaguer sense than the breeding of the Eugenists; -and such modern philosophers read into the old paganism a -fantastic pride and cruelty which are wholly modern. It may -be, however, that pagan slaves had some shadow of the -blessings of the Eugenist's care. It is quite certain that -the pagan freemen would have killed the first man that -suggested it. I mean suggested it seriously; for Plato was -only a Bernard Shaw who unfortunately made his jokes in -Greek. Among free men, the law, more often the creed, most -commonly of all the custom, have laid all sorts of -restrictions on sex for this reason or that. But law and -creed and custom have never concentrated heavily except upon -fixing and keeping the family w hen once it had been made. -The act of founding the family, I repeat, was an individual -adventure outside the frontiers of the State. Our first -forgotten ancestors left this tradition behind them; and our -own latest fathers and mothers a few years ago would have -thought us lunatics to be discussing it. The shortest -general definition of Eugenics on its practical side is that -it does, in a more or less degree, propose to control some -families at least as if they were families of pagan slaves. -I shall discuss later the question of the people to whom -this pressure may be applied; and the much more puzzling -question of what people will apply it. But it is to be -applied at the very least by somebody to somebody, and that -on certain calculations about breeding which are affirmed to -be demonstrable. So much for the subject itself. I say that -this thing exists. I define it as closely as matters -involving moral evidence can be defined; I call it Eugenics. -If after that anyone chooses to say that Eugenics is not the -Greek for this---I am content to answer that "chivalrous" is -not the French for "horsy"; and that such controversial -games are more horsy than chivalrous. +The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is +no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally +hurt. People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound +historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved +too late. It is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists. It +is no answer to say, with a distant optimism, that the scheme is only in +the air. A blow from a hatchet can only be parried while it is in the +air. + +There exists to-day a scheme of action, a school of thought, as +collective and unmistakable as any of those by whose grouping alone we +can make any outline of history. It is as firm a fact as the Oxford +Movement, or the Puritans of the Long Parliament; or the Jansenists; or +the Jesuits. It is a thing that can be pointed out; it is a thing that +can be discussed; and it is a thing that can still be destroyed. It is +called for convenience "Eugenics"; and that it ought to be destroyed I +propose to prove in the pages that follow. I know that it means very +different things to different people; but that is only because evil +always takes advantage of ambiguity. I know it is praised with high +professions of idealism and benevolence; with silver-tongued rhetoric +about purer motherhood and a happier posterity. But that is only because +evil is always flattered, as the Furies were called "The Gracious Ones." +I know that it numbers many disciples whose intentions are entirely +innocent and humane; and who would be sincerely astonished at my +describing it as I do. But that is only because evil always wins through +the strength of its splendid dupes; and there has in an ages been a +disastrous alliance between abnormal innocence and abnormal sin. Of +these who are deceived I shall speak of course as we all do of such +instruments; judging them by the good they think they are doing, and not +by the evil which they really do. But Eugenics itself does exist for +those who have sense enough to see that ideas exist; and Eugenics +itself, in large quantities or small, coming quickly or coming slowly, +urged from good motives or bad, applied to a thousand people or applied +to three, Eugenics itself is a thing no more to be bargained about than +poisoning. + +It is not really difficult to sum up the essence of Eugenics: though +some of the Eugenists seem to be rather vague about it. The movement +consists of two parts: a moral basis, which is common to all, and a +scheme of social application which varies a good deal. For the moral +basis, it is obvious that man's ethical responsibility varies with his +knowledge of consequences. If I were in charge of a baby (like +Dr. Johnson in that tower of vision), and if the baby was ill through +having eaten the soap, I might possibly send for a doctor. I might be +calling him away from much more serious cases, from the bedsides of +babies whose diet had been far more deadly; but I should be justified. I +could not be expected to know enough about his other patients to be +obliged (or even entitled) to sacrifice to them the baby for whom I was +primarily and directly responsible. Now the Eugenic moral basis is this; +that the baby for when we are primarily and directly responsible is the +babe unborn. That is, that we know (or may come to know) enough of +certain inevitable tendencies in biology to consider the fruit of some +contemplated union in that direct and clear light of conscience which we +can now only fix on the other partner in that union. The one duty can +conceivably be as definite as or more definite than the other. The baby +that does not exist can be considered even before the wife who does. Now +it is essential to grasp that this is a comparatively new note in +morality. Of course sane people always thought the aim of marriage was +the procreation of children to the glory of God or according to the plan +of Nature; but whether they counted such children as God's reward for +service or Nature's premium on sanity, they always left the reward to +God or the premium to Nature, as a less definable thing. The only person +(and this is the point) towards whom one could have precise duties was +the partner in the process. Directly considering the partner's claims +was the nearest one could get to indirectly considering the claims of +posterity. If the women of the harem sang praises of the hero as the +Moslem mounted his horse, it was because this was the due of a man; if +the Christian knight helped his wife off her horse, it was because this +was the due of a woman. Definite and detailed dues of this kind they did +not predicate of the babe unborn; regarding him in that agnostic and +opportunist light in which Mr. Browdie regarded the hypothetical child +of Miss Squeers. Thinking these sex relations healthy, they naturally +hoped they would produce healthy children; but that was all. The Moslem +woman doubtless expected Allah to send beautiful sons to an obedient +wife; but she would not have allowed any direct vision of such sons to +alter the obedience itself. She would not have said, "I will now be a +disobedient wife; as the learned leech informs me that great prophets +are often the children of disobedient wives." The knight doubtless hoped +that the saints would help him to strong children, if he did all the +duties of his station, one of which might be helping his wife off her +horse; but he would not have refrained from doing this because he had +read in a book that a course of falling off horses often resulted in the +birth of a genius. Both Moslem and Christian would have thought such +speculations not only impious but utterly unpractical. I quite agree +with them; but that is not the point here. + +The point here is that a new school believes Eugenics *against* Ethics. +And it is proved by one familiar fact: that the heroisms of history are +actually the crimes of Eugenics. The Eugenists' books and articles are +full of suggestions that non-eugenic unions should and may come to be +regarded as we regard sins; that we should really feel that marrying an +invalid is a kind of cruelty to children. But history is full of the +praises of people who have held sacred such ties to invalids; of cases +like those of Colonel Hutchinson and Sir William Temple, who remained +faithful to betrothals when beauty and health had been apparently +blasted. And though the illnesses of Dorothy Osborne and Mrs. Hutchinson +may not fall under the Eugenic speculations (I do not know), it is +obvious that they might have done so; and certainly it would not have +made any difference to men's moral opinion of the act. I do not discuss +here which morality I favour; but I insist that they are opposite. The +Eugenist really sets up as saints the very men whom hundreds of families +have caned sneaks. To be consistent, they ought to put up statues to the +men who deserted their loves because of bodily misfortune; with +inscriptions celebrating the good Eugenist who, on his fiancée falling +off a bicycle, nobly refused to marry her; or to the young hero who, on +hearing of an uncle with erysipelas, magnanimously broke his word. What +is perfectly plain is this: that mankind have hitherto held the bond +between man and woman so sacred, and the effect of it on the children so +incalculable, that they have always admired the maintenance of honour +more than the maintenance of safety. Doubtless they thought that even +the children might be none the worse for not being the children of +cowards and shirkers; but this was not the first thought, the first +commandment. Briefly, we may say that while many moral systems have set +restraints on sex almost as severe as any Eugenist could set, they have +almost always had the character of securing the fidelity of the two +sexes to each other, and leaving the rest to God. To introduce an ethic +which makes that fidelity or infidelity vary with some calculation about +here?-it is that rarest of all things, a revolution that has not +happened before. + +It is only right to say here, though the matter should only be touched +on, that many Eugenists would contradict this, in so far as to claim +that there was a consciously Eugenic reason for the horror of those +unions which begin with the celebrated denial to man of the privilege of +marrying his grandmother. Dr. S. R. Steinmetz, with that creepy +simplicity of mind with which the Eugenists chill the blood, remarks +that "we do not yet know quite certainly" what were "the motives for the +horror of" that horrible thing which is the agony of Oedipus. With +entirely amiable intention, I ask Dr. S. R. Steinmetz to speak for +himself. I know the motives for regarding a mother or sister as separate +from other women; nor have I reached them by any curious researches. I +found them where I found an analogous a version to eating a baby for +breakfast. I found them in a rooted detestation in the human soul to +liking a thing in one way, when you already like it in another quite +incompatible way. Now it is perfectly true that this aversion may have +acted eugenically; and so had a certain ultimate confirmation and basis +in the laws of procreation. But there really cannot be any Eugenist +quite so dull as not to see that this is not a defence of Eugenics but a +direct denial of Eugenics. If something which has been discovered at +last by the lamp of learning is something which has been acted on from +the first by the light of nature, this (so far as it goes) is plainly +not an argument for Pestering people, but an argument for letting them +alone. If men did not marry their grandmothers when it was, for all they +knew, a most hygienic habit; if we know now that they instinctively +avoided scientific peril; that, so far as it goes, is a point in favour +of letting people marry anyone they like. It is simply the statement +that sexual selection, or what Christians call falling in love, is a +part of man which in the rough and in the long run can be trusted. And +that is the destruction of the whole of this science at a blow. + +The second part of the definition, the persuasive or coercive methods to +be employed, I shall deal with more fully in the second part of this +book. But some such summary as the following may here be useful. Far +into the unfathomable past of our race we find the assumption that the +founding of a family is the personal adventure of a free man. Before +slavery sank slowly out of sight under the new climate of Christianity, +it may or may not be true that slaves were in some sense bred like +cattle, valued as a promising stock for labour. If it was so it was so +in a much looser and vaguer sense than the breeding of the Eugenists; +and such modern philosophers read into the old paganism a fantastic +pride and cruelty which are wholly modern. It may be, however, that +pagan slaves had some shadow of the blessings of the Eugenist's care. It +is quite certain that the pagan freemen would have killed the first man +that suggested it. I mean suggested it seriously; for Plato was only a +Bernard Shaw who unfortunately made his jokes in Greek. Among free men, +the law, more often the creed, most commonly of all the custom, have +laid all sorts of restrictions on sex for this reason or that. But law +and creed and custom have never concentrated heavily except upon fixing +and keeping the family w hen once it had been made. The act of founding +the family, I repeat, was an individual adventure outside the frontiers +of the State. Our first forgotten ancestors left this tradition behind +them; and our own latest fathers and mothers a few years ago would have +thought us lunatics to be discussing it. The shortest general definition +of Eugenics on its practical side is that it does, in a more or less +degree, propose to control some families at least as if they were +families of pagan slaves. I shall discuss later the question of the +people to whom this pressure may be applied; and the much more puzzling +question of what people will apply it. But it is to be applied at the +very least by somebody to somebody, and that on certain calculations +about breeding which are affirmed to be demonstrable. So much for the +subject itself. I say that this thing exists. I define it as closely as +matters involving moral evidence can be defined; I call it Eugenics. If +after that anyone chooses to say that Eugenics is not the Greek for +this---I am content to answer that "chivalrous" is not the French for +"horsy"; and that such controversial games are more horsy than +chivalrous. ## The First Obstacles -Now before I set about arguing these things, there is a -cloud of skirmishers, of harmless and confused modern -sceptics, who ought to be cleared off or calmed down before -we come to debate with the real doctors of the heresy. If I -sum up my statement thus: It Eugenics, as discussed, -evidently means the control of some men over the marriage -and unmarriage of others; and probably means the control of -the few over the marriage and unmarriage of the many," I -shall first of all receive the sort of answers that float -like skim on the surface of teacups and talk. I may very -roughly and rapidly divide these preliminary objectors into -five sects; whom I will call the Euphemists, the Casuists, -the Autocrats, the Precedenters, and the Endeavourers. When -we have answered the immediate protestation of all these -good, shouting, short-sighted people, we can begin to do -justice to those intelligences that are really behind the -idea. - -Most Eugenists are Euphemists. I mean merely that short -words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they -are utterly incapable of translating the one into the other, -however obviously they mean the same thing. Say to them "The -persuasive and even coercive powers of the citizen should -enable him to make sure that the burden of longevity in the -previous generation does not become disproportionate and -intolerable, especially to the females"; say this to them -and they will sway slightly to and fro like babies sent to -sleep in cradles. Say to them "Murder your mother," and they -sit up quite suddenly. Yet the two sentences, in cold logic, -are exactly the same. Say to them "It is not improbable that -a period may arrive when the narrow if once useful -distinction between the anthropoid *homo* and the other -animals, which has been modified on so many moral points, -may be modified also even in regard to the important -question of the extension of human diet"; say this to them, -and beauty born of murmuring sound will pass into their -face. But say to them, in a simple, manly, hearty way"Let's -eat a man!" and their surprise is quite surprising. Yet the -sentences say just the same thing. Now, if anyone thinks -these two instances extravagant, I will refer to two actual -cases from the Eugenic discussions. When Sir Oliver Lodge -spoke of the methods "of the stud-farm" many Eugenists -exclaimed against the crudity of the suggestion. Yet long -before that one of the ablest champions in the other -interest had written "What nonsense this education is! Who -could educate a racehorse or a greyhound?" Which most -certainly either means nothing, or the human stud-farm. Or -again, when I spoke of people "being married forcibly by the -police," another distinguished Eugenist almost achieved high -spirits in his hearty assurance that no such thing had ever -come into their heads. Yet a few days after I saw a Eugenist -pronouncement, to the effect that the State ought to extend -its powers in this area. The State can only be that -corporation which men permit to employ compulsion; and this -area can only be the area of sexual selection. I mean -somewhat more than an idle jest when I say that the -policeman win generally be found in that area. But I -willingly admit that the policeman who looks after weddings -will be like the policeman who looks after wedding-presents. -He will be in plain clothes. I do, not mean that a man in -blue with a helmet will drag the bride and bridegroom to the -altar. I do mean that nobody that man in blue is told to -arrest will even dare to come near the church. Sir Oliver -did not mean that men would be tied up in stables and -scrubbed down by grooms. He meant that they would undergo a -less of liberty which to men is even more infamous. He meant -that the only formula important to Eugenists would be "by -Smith out of Jones." Such a formula is one of the shortest -in the world; and is certainly the shortest way with the -Euphemists. - -The next sect of superficial objectors is even more -irritating. I have called them, for immediate purposes, the -Casuists. Suppose I say "I dislike this spread of -Cannibalism in the West End restaurants." Somebody is sure -to say "Well, after all, Queen Eleanor when she sucked blood -from her husband's arm was a cannibal." What is one to say -to such people? One can only say "Confine yourself to -sucking poisoned blood from people's arms, and I permit you -to call yourself by the glorious title of Cannibal." In this -sense people say of Eugenics, "After all, whenever we -discourage a schoolboy from marrying a mad Negress with a -hump back, we are really Eugenists." Again one can only -answer, "Confine yourselves strictly to such schoolboys as -are naturally attracted to hump-backed Negresses; and you -may exult in the title of Eugenist, all the more proudly -because that distinction will be rare." But surely anyone's -common-sense must tell him that if Eugenics dealt only with -such extravagant cases, it would be called -common-sense---and not Eugenics. The human race has excluded -such absurdities for unknown ages; and has never yet called -it Eugenics. You may call it flogging when you hit a choking -gentleman on the back; you may call it torture when a man -unfreezes his fingers at the fire; but if you talk like that -a little longer you will cease to live among living men. If -nothing but this mad minimum of accident were involved, -there would be no such thing as a Eugenic Congress, and -certainly no such thing as this book. - -I had thought of calling the next sort of superficial people -the Idealists; but I think this implies a humility towards -impersonal good they hardly show; so I call them the -Autocrats. They are those who give us generally to -understand that every modern reform will "work" all right, -because they will be there to see. Where they will be, and -for how long, they do not explain very clearly. I do not -mind their looking forward to numberless lives in -succession; for that is the shadow of a human or divine -hope. But even a theosophist does not expect to be a vast -number of people at once. And these people most certainly -propose to be responsible for a whole movement after it has -left their hands. Each man promises to be about a thousand -policemen. If you ask them how this or that will work, they -will answer, "Oh, I would certainly insist on this"; or "I -would never go so far as that"; as if they could return to -this earth and do what no ghost has ever done quite -successfully---force men to forsake their sins. Of these it -is enough to say that they do not understand the nature of a -law any more than the nature of a dog. If you let loose a -law, it will do as a dog does. It will obey its own nature, -not yours. Such sense as you have put into the law (or the -dog) will be fulfilled. But you will not be able to fulfil a +Now before I set about arguing these things, there is a cloud of +skirmishers, of harmless and confused modern sceptics, who ought to be +cleared off or calmed down before we come to debate with the real +doctors of the heresy. If I sum up my statement thus: It Eugenics, as +discussed, evidently means the control of some men over the marriage and +unmarriage of others; and probably means the control of the few over the +marriage and unmarriage of the many," I shall first of all receive the +sort of answers that float like skim on the surface of teacups and talk. +I may very roughly and rapidly divide these preliminary objectors into +five sects; whom I will call the Euphemists, the Casuists, the +Autocrats, the Precedenters, and the Endeavourers. When we have answered +the immediate protestation of all these good, shouting, short-sighted +people, we can begin to do justice to those intelligences that are +really behind the idea. + +Most Eugenists are Euphemists. I mean merely that short words startle +them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable of +translating the one into the other, however obviously they mean the same +thing. Say to them "The persuasive and even coercive powers of the +citizen should enable him to make sure that the burden of longevity in +the previous generation does not become disproportionate and +intolerable, especially to the females"; say this to them and they will +sway slightly to and fro like babies sent to sleep in cradles. Say to +them "Murder your mother," and they sit up quite suddenly. Yet the two +sentences, in cold logic, are exactly the same. Say to them "It is not +improbable that a period may arrive when the narrow if once useful +distinction between the anthropoid *homo* and the other animals, which +has been modified on so many moral points, may be modified also even in +regard to the important question of the extension of human diet"; say +this to them, and beauty born of murmuring sound will pass into their +face. But say to them, in a simple, manly, hearty way"Let's eat a man!" +and their surprise is quite surprising. Yet the sentences say just the +same thing. Now, if anyone thinks these two instances extravagant, I +will refer to two actual cases from the Eugenic discussions. When Sir +Oliver Lodge spoke of the methods "of the stud-farm" many Eugenists +exclaimed against the crudity of the suggestion. Yet long before that +one of the ablest champions in the other interest had written "What +nonsense this education is! Who could educate a racehorse or a +greyhound?" Which most certainly either means nothing, or the human +stud-farm. Or again, when I spoke of people "being married forcibly by +the police," another distinguished Eugenist almost achieved high spirits +in his hearty assurance that no such thing had ever come into their +heads. Yet a few days after I saw a Eugenist pronouncement, to the +effect that the State ought to extend its powers in this area. The State +can only be that corporation which men permit to employ compulsion; and +this area can only be the area of sexual selection. I mean somewhat more +than an idle jest when I say that the policeman win generally be found +in that area. But I willingly admit that the policeman who looks after +weddings will be like the policeman who looks after wedding-presents. He +will be in plain clothes. I do, not mean that a man in blue with a +helmet will drag the bride and bridegroom to the altar. I do mean that +nobody that man in blue is told to arrest will even dare to come near +the church. Sir Oliver did not mean that men would be tied up in stables +and scrubbed down by grooms. He meant that they would undergo a less of +liberty which to men is even more infamous. He meant that the only +formula important to Eugenists would be "by Smith out of Jones." Such a +formula is one of the shortest in the world; and is certainly the +shortest way with the Euphemists. + +The next sect of superficial objectors is even more irritating. I have +called them, for immediate purposes, the Casuists. Suppose I say "I +dislike this spread of Cannibalism in the West End restaurants." +Somebody is sure to say "Well, after all, Queen Eleanor when she sucked +blood from her husband's arm was a cannibal." What is one to say to such +people? One can only say "Confine yourself to sucking poisoned blood +from people's arms, and I permit you to call yourself by the glorious +title of Cannibal." In this sense people say of Eugenics, "After all, +whenever we discourage a schoolboy from marrying a mad Negress with a +hump back, we are really Eugenists." Again one can only answer, "Confine +yourselves strictly to such schoolboys as are naturally attracted to +hump-backed Negresses; and you may exult in the title of Eugenist, all +the more proudly because that distinction will be rare." But surely +anyone's common-sense must tell him that if Eugenics dealt only with +such extravagant cases, it would be called common-sense---and not +Eugenics. The human race has excluded such absurdities for unknown ages; +and has never yet called it Eugenics. You may call it flogging when you +hit a choking gentleman on the back; you may call it torture when a man +unfreezes his fingers at the fire; but if you talk like that a little +longer you will cease to live among living men. If nothing but this mad +minimum of accident were involved, there would be no such thing as a +Eugenic Congress, and certainly no such thing as this book. + +I had thought of calling the next sort of superficial people the +Idealists; but I think this implies a humility towards impersonal good +they hardly show; so I call them the Autocrats. They are those who give +us generally to understand that every modern reform will "work" all +right, because they will be there to see. Where they will be, and for +how long, they do not explain very clearly. I do not mind their looking +forward to numberless lives in succession; for that is the shadow of a +human or divine hope. But even a theosophist does not expect to be a +vast number of people at once. And these people most certainly propose +to be responsible for a whole movement after it has left their hands. +Each man promises to be about a thousand policemen. If you ask them how +this or that will work, they will answer, "Oh, I would certainly insist +on this"; or "I would never go so far as that"; as if they could return +to this earth and do what no ghost has ever done quite +successfully---force men to forsake their sins. Of these it is enough to +say that they do not understand the nature of a law any more than the +nature of a dog. If you let loose a law, it will do as a dog does. It +will obey its own nature, not yours. Such sense as you have put into the +law (or the dog) will be fulfilled. But you will not be able to fulfil a fragment of anything you have forgotten to put into it. -Along with such idealists should go the strange people who -seem to think that you can consecrate and purify any -campaign for ever by repeating the names of the abstract -virtues that its better advocates had in mind. These people -will say "So far from aiming at *slavery*, the Eugenists are -seeking *true* liberty; liberty from disease and degeneracy, -etc." Or they will say"We can assure Mr. Chesterton that the -Eugenists have *no* intention of segregating the harmless; -justice and mercy are the very motto of---" etc. To this -kind of thing perhaps the shortest answer is this. Many of -those who speak thus are agnostic or generally unsympathetic -to official religion. Suppose one of them said "The Church -of England is full of hypocrisy." What would he think of me -if I answered, "I assure you that hypocrisy is condemned by -every form of Christianity; and is particularly repudiated -in the Prayer Book"? Suppose he said that the Church of Rome -had been guilty of great cruelties. What would he think of -me if I answered, "The Church is expressly bound to meekness -and charity; and therefore cannot be cruel"? This kind of -people need not detain us long. Then there are others whom I -may call the Precedenters; who flourish particularly in -Parliament. They are best represented by the solemn official -who said the other day that he could not understand the clam -our against the Feeble-Minded Bill, as it only extended the -principles of the old Lunacy Laws. To which again one can -only answer "Quite so. It only extends the principles of the -Lunacy Laws to persons without a trace of lunacy." This -lucid politician finds an old law, let us say, about keeping -lepers in quarantine. He simply alters the word "lepers" to -"long-nosed people," and says blandly that the principle is -the same. - -Perhaps the weakest of all are those helpless persons whom I -have called the Endeavourers. The prize specimen of them was -another M.P. who defended the same Bill as "an honest -attempt" to deal with a great evil: as if one had a right to -dragoon and enslave one's fellow citizens as a kind of -chemical experiment; in a state of reverent agnosticism -about what would come of it. But with this fatuous notion -that one can deliberately establish the Inquisition or the -Terror, and then faintly trust the larger hope, I shall have -to deal more seriously in a subsequent chapter. It is enough -to say here that the best thing the honest Endeavourer could -do would be to make an honest attempt to know what he is -doing. And not to do anything else until he has found out. -Lastly, there is a class of controversialists so hopeless -and futile that I have really failed to find a name for -them. But whenever anyone attempts to argue rationally for -or against any existent and recognisable *thing*, such as -the Eugenic class of legislation, there are always people -who begin to chop hay about Socialism and Individualism; and -say "*You* object to all State interference; *I* am in -favour of State interference. *You* are an Individualist; -*I*, on the other hand," etc. To which I can only answer, -with heart-broken patience, that I am not an Individualist, -but a poor fallen but baptised journalist who is trying to -write a book about Eugenists, several of whom he has met; -whereas he never met an Individualist, and is by no means -certain he would recognise him if he did. In short, I do not -deny, but strongly affirm, the fight of the State to -interfere to cure a great evil. I say that in this case it -would interfere to create a great evil; and I am not going -to be turned from the discussion of that direct issue to -bottomless botherings about Socialism and Individualism, or -the relative advantages of always turning to the right and -always turning to the left. - -And for the rest, there is undoubtedly an enormous mass of -sensible, rather thoughtless people, whose rooted sentiment -it is that any deep change in our society must be in some -way infinitely distant. They cannot believe that men in hats -and coats like themselves can be preparing a revolution; all -their Victorian philosophy has taught them that such -transformations are always slow. Therefore, when I speak of -Eugenic legislation, or the coming of the Eugenic State, -they think of it as something like *The Time Machine* or -*Looking Backward:* a thing that, good or bad, will have to -fit itself to their great-great-great-grandchild, who may be -very different and may like it; and who in any case is -rather a distant relative. To all this I have, to begin -with, a very short and simple answer. The Eugenic State has -begun. The first of the Eugenic Laws has already been -adopted by the Government of this country; and passed with -the applause of both parties through the dominant House of -Parliament. This first Eugenic Law clears the ground and may -be said to proclaim negative Eugenics; but it cannot be -defended, and nobody has attempted to defend it, except on -the Eugenic theory. I win can it the Feeble-Minded Bill both -for brevity and because the description is strictly -accurate. It is, quite simply and literally, a Bill for -incarcerating as madmen those whom no doctor will consent to -call mad. It is enough if some doctor or other may happen to -call them weak-minded. Since there is scarcely any human -being to whom this term has not been conversationally -applied by his own friends and relatives on some occasion or -other (unless his friends and relatives have been lamentably -lacking in spirit), it can be clearly seen that this law, -like the early Christian Church (to which, however, it -presents points of dissimilarity), is a net drawing in of -all kinds. It must not be supposed that we have a stricter -definition incorporated in the Bill. Indeed, the first -definition of "feeble-minded" in the Bill was much looser -and vaguer than the phrase "feeble-minded" itself. It is a -piece of yawning idiocy about "persons who though capable of -earning their living under favourable circumstances" (as if -anyone could earn his living if circumstances were directly -unfavourable to his doing so), are nevertheless "incapable -of managing their affairs with proper prudence"; which is -exactly what all the world and his wife are saying about -their neighbours all over this planet. But as an incapacity -for any kind of thought is now regarded as statesmanship, -there is nothing so very novel about such slovenly drafting. -What is novel and what is vital is this: that the *defence* -of this crazy Coercion Act is a Eugenic defence. It is not -only openly said, it is eagerly urged, that the aim of the -measure is to prevent any person whom these propagandists do -not happen to think intelligent from having any wife or -children. Every tramp who is sulky, every labourer who is -shy, every rustic who is eccentric, can quite easily be -brought under such conditions as were designed for homicidal -maniacs. That is the situation; and that is the point. -England has forgotten the Feudal State; it is in the last -anarchy of the Industrial State; there is much in -Mr. Belloc's theory that it is approaching the Servile -State; it cannot at present get at the Distributive State; -it has almost certainly missed the Socialist State. But we -are already under the Eugenist State; and nothing remains to -us but rebellion. +Along with such idealists should go the strange people who seem to think +that you can consecrate and purify any campaign for ever by repeating +the names of the abstract virtues that its better advocates had in mind. +These people will say "So far from aiming at *slavery*, the Eugenists +are seeking *true* liberty; liberty from disease and degeneracy, etc." +Or they will say"We can assure Mr. Chesterton that the Eugenists have +*no* intention of segregating the harmless; justice and mercy are the +very motto of---" etc. To this kind of thing perhaps the shortest answer +is this. Many of those who speak thus are agnostic or generally +unsympathetic to official religion. Suppose one of them said "The Church +of England is full of hypocrisy." What would he think of me if I +answered, "I assure you that hypocrisy is condemned by every form of +Christianity; and is particularly repudiated in the Prayer Book"? +Suppose he said that the Church of Rome had been guilty of great +cruelties. What would he think of me if I answered, "The Church is +expressly bound to meekness and charity; and therefore cannot be cruel"? +This kind of people need not detain us long. Then there are others whom +I may call the Precedenters; who flourish particularly in Parliament. +They are best represented by the solemn official who said the other day +that he could not understand the clam our against the Feeble-Minded +Bill, as it only extended the principles of the old Lunacy Laws. To +which again one can only answer "Quite so. It only extends the +principles of the Lunacy Laws to persons without a trace of lunacy." +This lucid politician finds an old law, let us say, about keeping lepers +in quarantine. He simply alters the word "lepers" to "long-nosed +people," and says blandly that the principle is the same. + +Perhaps the weakest of all are those helpless persons whom I have called +the Endeavourers. The prize specimen of them was another M.P. who +defended the same Bill as "an honest attempt" to deal with a great evil: +as if one had a right to dragoon and enslave one's fellow citizens as a +kind of chemical experiment; in a state of reverent agnosticism about +what would come of it. But with this fatuous notion that one can +deliberately establish the Inquisition or the Terror, and then faintly +trust the larger hope, I shall have to deal more seriously in a +subsequent chapter. It is enough to say here that the best thing the +honest Endeavourer could do would be to make an honest attempt to know +what he is doing. And not to do anything else until he has found out. +Lastly, there is a class of controversialists so hopeless and futile +that I have really failed to find a name for them. But whenever anyone +attempts to argue rationally for or against any existent and +recognisable *thing*, such as the Eugenic class of legislation, there +are always people who begin to chop hay about Socialism and +Individualism; and say "*You* object to all State interference; *I* am +in favour of State interference. *You* are an Individualist; *I*, on the +other hand," etc. To which I can only answer, with heart-broken +patience, that I am not an Individualist, but a poor fallen but baptised +journalist who is trying to write a book about Eugenists, several of +whom he has met; whereas he never met an Individualist, and is by no +means certain he would recognise him if he did. In short, I do not deny, +but strongly affirm, the fight of the State to interfere to cure a great +evil. I say that in this case it would interfere to create a great evil; +and I am not going to be turned from the discussion of that direct issue +to bottomless botherings about Socialism and Individualism, or the +relative advantages of always turning to the right and always turning to +the left. + +And for the rest, there is undoubtedly an enormous mass of sensible, +rather thoughtless people, whose rooted sentiment it is that any deep +change in our society must be in some way infinitely distant. They +cannot believe that men in hats and coats like themselves can be +preparing a revolution; all their Victorian philosophy has taught them +that such transformations are always slow. Therefore, when I speak of +Eugenic legislation, or the coming of the Eugenic State, they think of +it as something like *The Time Machine* or *Looking Backward:* a thing +that, good or bad, will have to fit itself to their +great-great-great-grandchild, who may be very different and may like it; +and who in any case is rather a distant relative. To all this I have, to +begin with, a very short and simple answer. The Eugenic State has begun. +The first of the Eugenic Laws has already been adopted by the Government +of this country; and passed with the applause of both parties through +the dominant House of Parliament. This first Eugenic Law clears the +ground and may be said to proclaim negative Eugenics; but it cannot be +defended, and nobody has attempted to defend it, except on the Eugenic +theory. I win can it the Feeble-Minded Bill both for brevity and because +the description is strictly accurate. It is, quite simply and literally, +a Bill for incarcerating as madmen those whom no doctor will consent to +call mad. It is enough if some doctor or other may happen to call them +weak-minded. Since there is scarcely any human being to whom this term +has not been conversationally applied by his own friends and relatives +on some occasion or other (unless his friends and relatives have been +lamentably lacking in spirit), it can be clearly seen that this law, +like the early Christian Church (to which, however, it presents points +of dissimilarity), is a net drawing in of all kinds. It must not be +supposed that we have a stricter definition incorporated in the Bill. +Indeed, the first definition of "feeble-minded" in the Bill was much +looser and vaguer than the phrase "feeble-minded" itself. It is a piece +of yawning idiocy about "persons who though capable of earning their +living under favourable circumstances" (as if anyone could earn his +living if circumstances were directly unfavourable to his doing so), are +nevertheless "incapable of managing their affairs with proper prudence"; +which is exactly what all the world and his wife are saying about their +neighbours all over this planet. But as an incapacity for any kind of +thought is now regarded as statesmanship, there is nothing so very novel +about such slovenly drafting. What is novel and what is vital is this: +that the *defence* of this crazy Coercion Act is a Eugenic defence. It +is not only openly said, it is eagerly urged, that the aim of the +measure is to prevent any person whom these propagandists do not happen +to think intelligent from having any wife or children. Every tramp who +is sulky, every labourer who is shy, every rustic who is eccentric, can +quite easily be brought under such conditions as were designed for +homicidal maniacs. That is the situation; and that is the point. England +has forgotten the Feudal State; it is in the last anarchy of the +Industrial State; there is much in Mr. Belloc's theory that it is +approaching the Servile State; it cannot at present get at the +Distributive State; it has almost certainly missed the Socialist State. +But we are already under the Eugenist State; and nothing remains to us +but rebellion. ## The Anarchy from Above -A silent anarchy is eating out our society. I must pause -upon the expression; because the true nature of anarchy is -mostly misapprehended. It is not in the least necessary that -anarchy should be violent; nor is it necessary that it -should come from below. A government may grow anarchic as -much as a people. The more sentimental sort of Tory uses the -word anarchy as a mere term of abuse for rebellion; but he -misses a most important intellectual distinction. Rebellion -may be wrong and disastrous; but even when rebellion is -wrong, it is never anarchy. When it is not self-defence, it -is usurpation. It aims at setting up a new rule in place of -the old rule. And while it cannot be anarchic in essence -(because it has an aim), it certainly cannot be anarchic in -method; for men must be organised when they fight; and the -discipline in a rebel army has to be as good as the -discipline in the royal army. This deep principle of -distinction must be clearly kept in mind. Take for the sake -of symbolism those two great spiritual stories which, -whether we count them myths or mysteries, have so long been -the two hinges of all European morals. The Christian who is -inclined to sympathise generally with constituted authority -will think of rebellion under the image of Satan, the rebel -against God. But Satan, though a traitor, was not an -anarchist. He claimed the crown of the cosmos; and had he -prevailed, would have expected his rebel angels to give up -rebelling. On the other hand, the Christian whose sympathies -are more generally with just self-defence among the -oppressed will think rather of Christ Himself defying the -High Priests and scourging the rich traders. But whether or -no Christ was (as some say) a Socialist, He most certainly -was not an Anarchist. Christ, like Satan, claimed the -throne. He set up a new authority against an old authority; -but He set it up with positive commandments and a -comprehensible scheme. In this light all mediaeval -people---indeed, all people until a little while ago---would -have judged questions involving revolt. John Ball would have -offered to pull down the government because it was a bad -government, not because it was a government. Richard II -would have blamed Bolingbroke not as a disturber of the -peace, but as a usurper. Anarchy, then, in the useful sense -of the word, is a thing utterly distinct from any rebellion, -right or wrong. It is not necessarily angry; it is not, in -its first stages, at least, even necessarily painful. And, -as I said before, it is often entirely silent. - -Anarchy is that condition of mind or methods in which you -cannot stop yourself. It is the loss of that self-control -which can return to the normal. It is not anarchy because -men are permitted to begin uproar, extravagance, experiment, -peril. It is anarchy when people cannot *end* these things. -It is not anarchy in the home if the whole family sits up -all night on New Year's Eve. It is anarchy in the home if -members of the family sit up later and later for months -afterwards. It was not anarchy in the Roman villa when, -during the Saturnalia, the slaves turned masters or the -masters slaves. It was (from the slave-owners' point of -view) anarchy if, after the Saturnalia, the slaves continued -to behave in a Saturnalian manner; but it is historically -evident that they did not. It is not anarchy to have a -picnic; but it is anarchy to lose all memory of mealtimes. -It would, I think, be anarchy if (as is the disgusting -suggestion of some) we all took what we liked off the -sideboard. That is the way swine would eat if swine had -sideboards; they have no immovable feasts; they are -uncommonly progressive, are swine. It is this inability to -return within rational limits after a legitimate -extravagance that is the really dangerous disorder. The -modern world is like Niagara. It is magnificent, but it is -not strong. It is as weak as water---like Niagara. The -objection to a cataract is not that it is deafening or -dangerous or even destructive; it is that it cannot stop. -Now it is plain that this sort of chaos can possess the -powers that rule a society as easily as the society so -ruled. And in modern England it is the powers that rule who -are chiefly possessed by it---who are truly possessed by -devils. The phrase, in its sound old psychological sense, is -not too strong. The State has suddenly and quietly gone mad. -It is talking nonsense; and it can't stop. - -Now it is perfectly plain that government ought to have, and -must have, the same sort of right to use exceptional methods -occasionally that the private householder has to have a -picnic or to sit up all night on New Year's Eve. The State, -like the householder, is sane if it can treat such -exceptions as exceptions. Such desperate remedies may not -even be right; but such remedies are endurable as long as -they are admittedly desperate. Such cases, of course, are -the communism of food in a besieged city; the official -disavowal of an arrested spy; the subjection of a patch of -civil life to martial law; the cutting of communication in a -plague; or that deepest degradation of the commonwealth, the -use of national soldiers not against foreign soldiers, but -against their own brethren in revolt. Of these exceptions -some are right and some wrong; but all are right in so far -as they are taken as exceptions. The modern world is insane, -not so much because it admits the abnormal as because it -cannot recover the normal. - -We see this in the vague extension of punishments like -imprisonment; often the very reformers who admit that prison -is bad for people propose to reform them by a little more of -it. We see it in panic legislation like that after the White -Slave scare, when the torture of flogging was revived for -all sorts of ill defined and vague and variegated types of -men. Our fathers were never so mad, even when they were -torturers. They stretched the man out on the rack. They did -not stretch the rack out, as we are doing. When men went -witch-burning they may have seen witches -everywhere---because their minds were fixed on witchcraft. -But they did not see things to burn everywhere, because -their minds were unfixed. While tying some very unpopular -witch to the stake, with the firm conviction that she was a -spiritual tyranny and pestilence, they did not say to each -other, "A little burning is what my Aunt Susan wants, to -cure her of back-biting," or "Some of these f\*\*\*\*\*s -would do your Cousin James good, and teach him to play with -poor girls' affections." - -Now the name of all this is Anarchy. It not only does not -know what it wants, but it does not even know what it hates. -It multiplies excessively in the more American sort of -English newspapers. When this new sort of New Englander -burns a witch the whole prairie catches fire. These people -have not the decision and detachment of the doctrinal ages. -They cannot do a monstrous action and still see it is -monstrous. Wherever they make a stride they make a rut. They -cannot stop their own thoughts, though their thoughts are -pouring into the pit. - -A final instance, which can be sketched much more briefly. -can be found in this general fact: that the definition of -almost every crime has become more and more indefinite, and -spreads like a flattening and thinning cloud over larger and -larger landscapes. Cruelty to children, one would have -thought. was a thing about as unmistakable, unusual and -appalling as parricide. In its application it has come to -cover almost every negligence that can occur in a needy -household. The only distinction is, of course, that these -negligences are punished in the poor, who generally can't -help them, and not in the rich, who generally can. But that -is not the point I am arguing just now. The point here is -that a crime we all instinctively connect with Herod on the -bloody night of innocents has come precious near being -attributable to Mary and Joseph when they lost their child -in the Temple. In the light of a fairly recent case (the -confessedly kind mother who was lately jailed because her -confessedly healthy children had no water to wash in) no -one. I think, will call this an, illegitimate literary -exaggeration. Now this is exactly as if all the horror and -heavy punishment. attached in the simplest tribes to -parricide. could now be used against any son who had done -any act that could colorably be supposed to have worried his +A silent anarchy is eating out our society. I must pause upon the +expression; because the true nature of anarchy is mostly misapprehended. +It is not in the least necessary that anarchy should be violent; nor is +it necessary that it should come from below. A government may grow +anarchic as much as a people. The more sentimental sort of Tory uses the +word anarchy as a mere term of abuse for rebellion; but he misses a most +important intellectual distinction. Rebellion may be wrong and +disastrous; but even when rebellion is wrong, it is never anarchy. When +it is not self-defence, it is usurpation. It aims at setting up a new +rule in place of the old rule. And while it cannot be anarchic in +essence (because it has an aim), it certainly cannot be anarchic in +method; for men must be organised when they fight; and the discipline in +a rebel army has to be as good as the discipline in the royal army. This +deep principle of distinction must be clearly kept in mind. Take for the +sake of symbolism those two great spiritual stories which, whether we +count them myths or mysteries, have so long been the two hinges of all +European morals. The Christian who is inclined to sympathise generally +with constituted authority will think of rebellion under the image of +Satan, the rebel against God. But Satan, though a traitor, was not an +anarchist. He claimed the crown of the cosmos; and had he prevailed, +would have expected his rebel angels to give up rebelling. On the other +hand, the Christian whose sympathies are more generally with just +self-defence among the oppressed will think rather of Christ Himself +defying the High Priests and scourging the rich traders. But whether or +no Christ was (as some say) a Socialist, He most certainly was not an +Anarchist. Christ, like Satan, claimed the throne. He set up a new +authority against an old authority; but He set it up with positive +commandments and a comprehensible scheme. In this light all mediaeval +people---indeed, all people until a little while ago---would have judged +questions involving revolt. John Ball would have offered to pull down +the government because it was a bad government, not because it was a +government. Richard II would have blamed Bolingbroke not as a disturber +of the peace, but as a usurper. Anarchy, then, in the useful sense of +the word, is a thing utterly distinct from any rebellion, right or +wrong. It is not necessarily angry; it is not, in its first stages, at +least, even necessarily painful. And, as I said before, it is often +entirely silent. + +Anarchy is that condition of mind or methods in which you cannot stop +yourself. It is the loss of that self-control which can return to the +normal. It is not anarchy because men are permitted to begin uproar, +extravagance, experiment, peril. It is anarchy when people cannot *end* +these things. It is not anarchy in the home if the whole family sits up +all night on New Year's Eve. It is anarchy in the home if members of the +family sit up later and later for months afterwards. It was not anarchy +in the Roman villa when, during the Saturnalia, the slaves turned +masters or the masters slaves. It was (from the slave-owners' point of +view) anarchy if, after the Saturnalia, the slaves continued to behave +in a Saturnalian manner; but it is historically evident that they did +not. It is not anarchy to have a picnic; but it is anarchy to lose all +memory of mealtimes. It would, I think, be anarchy if (as is the +disgusting suggestion of some) we all took what we liked off the +sideboard. That is the way swine would eat if swine had sideboards; they +have no immovable feasts; they are uncommonly progressive, are swine. It +is this inability to return within rational limits after a legitimate +extravagance that is the really dangerous disorder. The modern world is +like Niagara. It is magnificent, but it is not strong. It is as weak as +water---like Niagara. The objection to a cataract is not that it is +deafening or dangerous or even destructive; it is that it cannot stop. +Now it is plain that this sort of chaos can possess the powers that rule +a society as easily as the society so ruled. And in modern England it is +the powers that rule who are chiefly possessed by it---who are truly +possessed by devils. The phrase, in its sound old psychological sense, +is not too strong. The State has suddenly and quietly gone mad. It is +talking nonsense; and it can't stop. + +Now it is perfectly plain that government ought to have, and must have, +the same sort of right to use exceptional methods occasionally that the +private householder has to have a picnic or to sit up all night on New +Year's Eve. The State, like the householder, is sane if it can treat +such exceptions as exceptions. Such desperate remedies may not even be +right; but such remedies are endurable as long as they are admittedly +desperate. Such cases, of course, are the communism of food in a +besieged city; the official disavowal of an arrested spy; the subjection +of a patch of civil life to martial law; the cutting of communication in +a plague; or that deepest degradation of the commonwealth, the use of +national soldiers not against foreign soldiers, but against their own +brethren in revolt. Of these exceptions some are right and some wrong; +but all are right in so far as they are taken as exceptions. The modern +world is insane, not so much because it admits the abnormal as because +it cannot recover the normal. + +We see this in the vague extension of punishments like imprisonment; +often the very reformers who admit that prison is bad for people propose +to reform them by a little more of it. We see it in panic legislation +like that after the White Slave scare, when the torture of flogging was +revived for all sorts of ill defined and vague and variegated types of +men. Our fathers were never so mad, even when they were torturers. They +stretched the man out on the rack. They did not stretch the rack out, as +we are doing. When men went witch-burning they may have seen witches +everywhere---because their minds were fixed on witchcraft. But they did +not see things to burn everywhere, because their minds were unfixed. +While tying some very unpopular witch to the stake, with the firm +conviction that she was a spiritual tyranny and pestilence, they did not +say to each other, "A little burning is what my Aunt Susan wants, to +cure her of back-biting," or "Some of these f\*\*\*\*\*s would do your +Cousin James good, and teach him to play with poor girls' affections." + +Now the name of all this is Anarchy. It not only does not know what it +wants, but it does not even know what it hates. It multiplies +excessively in the more American sort of English newspapers. When this +new sort of New Englander burns a witch the whole prairie catches fire. +These people have not the decision and detachment of the doctrinal ages. +They cannot do a monstrous action and still see it is monstrous. +Wherever they make a stride they make a rut. They cannot stop their own +thoughts, though their thoughts are pouring into the pit. + +A final instance, which can be sketched much more briefly. can be found +in this general fact: that the definition of almost every crime has +become more and more indefinite, and spreads like a flattening and +thinning cloud over larger and larger landscapes. Cruelty to children, +one would have thought. was a thing about as unmistakable, unusual and +appalling as parricide. In its application it has come to cover almost +every negligence that can occur in a needy household. The only +distinction is, of course, that these negligences are punished in the +poor, who generally can't help them, and not in the rich, who generally +can. But that is not the point I am arguing just now. The point here is +that a crime we all instinctively connect with Herod on the bloody night +of innocents has come precious near being attributable to Mary and +Joseph when they lost their child in the Temple. In the light of a +fairly recent case (the confessedly kind mother who was lately jailed +because her confessedly healthy children had no water to wash in) no +one. I think, will call this an, illegitimate literary exaggeration. Now +this is exactly as if all the horror and heavy punishment. attached in +the simplest tribes to parricide. could now be used against any son who +had done any act that could colorably be supposed to have worried his father, and so affected his health. Few of us would be safe. -Another case out of hundreds is the loose extension of the -idea of libel. Libel cases bear no more trace of the old and -just anger against the man who bore false witness against -his neighbour than "cruelty" cases do of the old and just -horror of the parents that hated their own flesh. A libel -case has become one of the sports of the less athletic -rich-a variation on *baccarat*, a game of chance. A -music-hall actress got damages for a song that was caned -"vulgar," which is as if I could fine or imprison my -neighbour for calling my handwriting "rococo." A politician -got huge damages because he was said to have spoken to -children about Tariff Reform; as if that seductive topic -would corrupt their virtue, like an indecent story. -Sometimes libel is defined as anything calculated to hurt a -man in his business; in which case any new tradesman calling -himself a grocer slanders the grocer opposite. All this, I -say, is Anarchy; for it is clear that its exponents possess -no power of distinction, or sense of proportion, by which -they can draw the line between calling a woman a popular -singer and calling her a bad lot; or between charging a man -with leading infants to Protection and leading them to sin -and shame. But the vital point to which to return is this. -That it is not necessarily, nor even specially, an anarchy -in the populace. It is an anarchy in the organ of -government. It is the magistrates---voices of the governing -class---who cannot distinguish between cruelty and -carelessness. It is the judges (and their very submissive -special juries) who cannot see the difference between -opinion and slander. And it is the highly placed and highly -paid experts who have brought in the first Eugenic Law, the -Feeble-Minded Bill---thus showing that they can see no -difference between a mad and a sane man. - -That, to begin with, is the historic atmosphere in which -this thing was born. It is a peculiar atmosphere, and -luckily not likely to last. Real progress bears the same -relation to it that a happy girl laughing bears to an -hysterical girl who cannot stop laughing. But I have -described this atmosphere first because it is the only -atmosphere in which such a thing as the Eugenist legislation -could be proposed among men. All other ages would have -called it to some kind of logical account, however academic -or narrow. The lowest sophist in the Greek schools would -remember enough of Socrates to force the Eugenist to tell -him (at least) whether Midias was segregated because he was -curable or because he was incurable. The meanest Thomist of -the mediaeval monasteries would have the sense to see that -you cannot discuss a madman when you have not discussed a -man. The most owlish Calvinist commentator in the -seventeenth century would ask the Eugenist to reconcile such -Bible texts as derided fools with the other Bible texts that -praised them. The dullest shopkeeper in Paris in 1790 would -have asked what were the Rights of Man, if they did not -include the rights of the lover, the husband, and the -father. It is only in our own London Particular (as Mr. -Guppy said of the fog) that small figures can loom so large -in the vapour, and even mingle with quite different figures, -and have the appearance of a mob. But, above all, I have -dwelt on the telescopic quality in these twilight avenues, -because unless the reader realises how elastic and unlimited -they are, he simply will not believe in the abominations we -have to combat. - -One of those wise old fairy tales, that come from nowhere -and flourish everywhere, tells how a man came to own a small -magic machine like a coffee-mill, which would grind anything -he wanted when he said one word and stop when he said -another. After performing marvels (which I wish my -conscience would let me put into this book for padding) the -mill was merely asked to grind a few grains of salt at an -officers' mess on board ship; for salt is the type -everywhere of small luxury and exaggeration, and sailors' -tales should be taken with a grain of it. The man remembered -the word that started the salt mill, and then, touching the -word that stopped it, suddenly remembered that he forgot. -The tall ship sank, laden and sparkling to the topmasts with -salt like Arctic snows; but the mad mill was still grinding -at the ocean bottom, where all the men lay drowned. And that -(so says this fairy tale) is why the great waters about our -world have a bitter taste. For the fairy tales knew what the -modern mystics don't---that one should not let loose either -the supernatural or the natural. +Another case out of hundreds is the loose extension of the idea of +libel. Libel cases bear no more trace of the old and just anger against +the man who bore false witness against his neighbour than "cruelty" +cases do of the old and just horror of the parents that hated their own +flesh. A libel case has become one of the sports of the less athletic +rich-a variation on *baccarat*, a game of chance. A music-hall actress +got damages for a song that was caned "vulgar," which is as if I could +fine or imprison my neighbour for calling my handwriting "rococo." A +politician got huge damages because he was said to have spoken to +children about Tariff Reform; as if that seductive topic would corrupt +their virtue, like an indecent story. Sometimes libel is defined as +anything calculated to hurt a man in his business; in which case any new +tradesman calling himself a grocer slanders the grocer opposite. All +this, I say, is Anarchy; for it is clear that its exponents possess no +power of distinction, or sense of proportion, by which they can draw the +line between calling a woman a popular singer and calling her a bad lot; +or between charging a man with leading infants to Protection and leading +them to sin and shame. But the vital point to which to return is this. +That it is not necessarily, nor even specially, an anarchy in the +populace. It is an anarchy in the organ of government. It is the +magistrates---voices of the governing class---who cannot distinguish +between cruelty and carelessness. It is the judges (and their very +submissive special juries) who cannot see the difference between opinion +and slander. And it is the highly placed and highly paid experts who +have brought in the first Eugenic Law, the Feeble-Minded Bill---thus +showing that they can see no difference between a mad and a sane man. + +That, to begin with, is the historic atmosphere in which this thing was +born. It is a peculiar atmosphere, and luckily not likely to last. Real +progress bears the same relation to it that a happy girl laughing bears +to an hysterical girl who cannot stop laughing. But I have described +this atmosphere first because it is the only atmosphere in which such a +thing as the Eugenist legislation could be proposed among men. All other +ages would have called it to some kind of logical account, however +academic or narrow. The lowest sophist in the Greek schools would +remember enough of Socrates to force the Eugenist to tell him (at least) +whether Midias was segregated because he was curable or because he was +incurable. The meanest Thomist of the mediaeval monasteries would have +the sense to see that you cannot discuss a madman when you have not +discussed a man. The most owlish Calvinist commentator in the +seventeenth century would ask the Eugenist to reconcile such Bible texts +as derided fools with the other Bible texts that praised them. The +dullest shopkeeper in Paris in 1790 would have asked what were the +Rights of Man, if they did not include the rights of the lover, the +husband, and the father. It is only in our own London Particular (as Mr. +Guppy said of the fog) that small figures can loom so large in the +vapour, and even mingle with quite different figures, and have the +appearance of a mob. But, above all, I have dwelt on the telescopic +quality in these twilight avenues, because unless the reader realises +how elastic and unlimited they are, he simply will not believe in the +abominations we have to combat. + +One of those wise old fairy tales, that come from nowhere and flourish +everywhere, tells how a man came to own a small magic machine like a +coffee-mill, which would grind anything he wanted when he said one word +and stop when he said another. After performing marvels (which I wish my +conscience would let me put into this book for padding) the mill was +merely asked to grind a few grains of salt at an officers' mess on board +ship; for salt is the type everywhere of small luxury and exaggeration, +and sailors' tales should be taken with a grain of it. The man +remembered the word that started the salt mill, and then, touching the +word that stopped it, suddenly remembered that he forgot. The tall ship +sank, laden and sparkling to the topmasts with salt like Arctic snows; +but the mad mill was still grinding at the ocean bottom, where all the +men lay drowned. And that (so says this fairy tale) is why the great +waters about our world have a bitter taste. For the fairy tales knew +what the modern mystics don't---that one should not let loose either the +supernatural or the natural. ## The Lunatic and the Law -The modern evil, we have said, greatly turns on this: that -people do not see that the exception proves the rule. Thus -it mayor may not be right to kill a murderer; but it can -only conceivably be right to kill a murderer because it is -wrong to kill a man. If the hangman, having got his hand in, -proceeded to hang friends and relatives to his taste and -fancy, he would (intellectually) unhang the first man, -though the first man might not think so. Or thus again, if -you say an insane man is irresponsible, you imply that a -sane man is responsible. He is responsible for the insane -man. And the attempt of the Eugenists and other fatalists to -treat all men as irresponsible is the largest and flattest -folly in philosophy. The Eugenist has to treat everybody, -including himself, as an exception to a rule that isn't -there. - -The Eugenists, as a first move, have extended the frontiers -of the lunatic asylum: let us take this as our definite -starting point, and ask ourselves what lunacy is, and what -is its fundamental relation to human society. Now that raw -juvenile scepticism that clogs all thought with catchwords -may often be heard to remark that the mad are only the -minority, the sane only the majority. There is a neat -exactitude about such people's nonsense; they seem to miss -the point by magic. The mad arc not a minority because they -arc not a corporate body; and that is what their madness -means. The sane are not a majority; they are mankind. And -mankind (as its name would seem to imply) is a *kind*, not a -degree. In so far as the lunatic differs, he differs from -all minorities and majorities in kind. - -The madman who thinks he is a knife cannot go into -partnership with the other who thinks he is a fork. There is -no trysting place outside reason; there is no inn on those -wild roads that are beyond the world. The madman is not he -that defies the world. The saint, the criminal, the martyr, -the cynic, the nihilist may all defy the world quite sanely. -And even if such fanatics would destroy the world, the world -owes them a strictly fair trial according to proof and -public law. But the madman is not the man who defies the -world; he is the man who *denies* it. Suppose we are all -standing round a field and looking at a tree in the middle -of it. It is perfectly true that we all see it (as the -decadents say) in infinitely different aspects: that is not -the point; the point is that we all say it is a tree. -Suppose, if you will. that we are an poets, which seems -improbable; so that each of us could turn his aspect into a -vivid image distinct from a tree. Suppose one says it looks -like a green cloud and another like a green fountain, and a -third like a green dragon and the fourth like a green -cheese. The fact remains: that they all say it *looks* like -these things. It is a tree. Nor are any of the poets in the -least mad because of any opinions they may form, however -frenzied, about the functions or future of the tree. A -conservative poet may wish to clip the tree; a revolutionary -poet may wish to burn it. An optimist poet may want to make -it a Christmas tree and hang candles on it. A pessimist poet -may want to hang himself on it. None of these are mad, -because they are all talking about the same thing. But there -is another man who is talking horribly about something else. -There is a monstrous exception to mankind. Why he is so we -know not; a new theory says it is heredity; an older theory -says it is devils. But in any case, the spirit of it is the -spirit that denies, the spirit that really denies realities. -This is the man who looks at the tree and does not say it +The modern evil, we have said, greatly turns on this: that people do not +see that the exception proves the rule. Thus it mayor may not be right +to kill a murderer; but it can only conceivably be right to kill a +murderer because it is wrong to kill a man. If the hangman, having got +his hand in, proceeded to hang friends and relatives to his taste and +fancy, he would (intellectually) unhang the first man, though the first +man might not think so. Or thus again, if you say an insane man is +irresponsible, you imply that a sane man is responsible. He is +responsible for the insane man. And the attempt of the Eugenists and +other fatalists to treat all men as irresponsible is the largest and +flattest folly in philosophy. The Eugenist has to treat everybody, +including himself, as an exception to a rule that isn't there. + +The Eugenists, as a first move, have extended the frontiers of the +lunatic asylum: let us take this as our definite starting point, and ask +ourselves what lunacy is, and what is its fundamental relation to human +society. Now that raw juvenile scepticism that clogs all thought with +catchwords may often be heard to remark that the mad are only the +minority, the sane only the majority. There is a neat exactitude about +such people's nonsense; they seem to miss the point by magic. The mad +arc not a minority because they arc not a corporate body; and that is +what their madness means. The sane are not a majority; they are mankind. +And mankind (as its name would seem to imply) is a *kind*, not a degree. +In so far as the lunatic differs, he differs from all minorities and +majorities in kind. + +The madman who thinks he is a knife cannot go into partnership with the +other who thinks he is a fork. There is no trysting place outside +reason; there is no inn on those wild roads that are beyond the world. +The madman is not he that defies the world. The saint, the criminal, the +martyr, the cynic, the nihilist may all defy the world quite sanely. And +even if such fanatics would destroy the world, the world owes them a +strictly fair trial according to proof and public law. But the madman is +not the man who defies the world; he is the man who *denies* it. Suppose +we are all standing round a field and looking at a tree in the middle of +it. It is perfectly true that we all see it (as the decadents say) in +infinitely different aspects: that is not the point; the point is that +we all say it is a tree. Suppose, if you will. that we are an poets, +which seems improbable; so that each of us could turn his aspect into a +vivid image distinct from a tree. Suppose one says it looks like a green +cloud and another like a green fountain, and a third like a green dragon +and the fourth like a green cheese. The fact remains: that they all say +it *looks* like these things. It is a tree. Nor are any of the poets in +the least mad because of any opinions they may form, however frenzied, +about the functions or future of the tree. A conservative poet may wish +to clip the tree; a revolutionary poet may wish to burn it. An optimist +poet may want to make it a Christmas tree and hang candles on it. A +pessimist poet may want to hang himself on it. None of these are mad, +because they are all talking about the same thing. But there is another +man who is talking horribly about something else. There is a monstrous +exception to mankind. Why he is so we know not; a new theory says it is +heredity; an older theory says it is devils. But in any case, the spirit +of it is the spirit that denies, the spirit that really denies +realities. This is the man who looks at the tree and does not say it looks like a lion, but says that it *is* a lamp-post. -I do not mean that all mad delusions are as concrete as -this, though some are more concrete. Believing your own body -is glass is a more daring denial of reality than believing a -tree is a glass lamp at the top of a pole. But all true -delusions have in them this unalterable assertion---that -what is not is. The difference between us and the maniac is -not about how things look or how things ought to look, but -about what they self-evidently are. The lunatic does not say -that he ought to be King; Perkin Warbeck might say that. He -says he is King. The lunatic does not say he is as wise as -Shakespeare; Bernard Shaw might say that. The lunatic says -he *is* Shakespeare. The lunatic does not say he is divine -in the same sense as Christ; Mr. R. J. Campbell would say -that. The lunatic says he *is* Christ. In all cases the -difference is a difference about what is there; not a -difference touching what should be done about it. - -For this reason, and for this alone, the lunatic is outside -public law. This is the abysmal difference between him and -the criminal. The criminal admits the facts, and therefore -permits us to appeal to the facts. We can so arrange the -facts around him that he may really understand that -agreement is in his own interests. We can say to him, "Do -not steal apples from this tree, or we will hang you on that -tree." But if the man really thinks one tree is a lamp-post -and the other tree a Trafalgar Square fountain, we simply -cannot treat with him at all. It is obviously useless to -say, "Do not steal apples from this lamp-post, or I will -hang you on that fountain." If a man denies the facts, there -is no answer but to lock him up. He cannot speak our -language: not that varying verbal language which often -misses fire even with us, but that enormous alphabet of sun -and moon and green grass and blue sky in which alone we -meet, and by which alone we can signal to each other. That -unique man of genius, George Macdonald, described in one of -his weird stories two systems of space co-incident; so that -where I knew there was a piano standing in a drawing-room -you knew there was a rose-bush growing in a garden. -Something of this sort is in small or great affairs-the -matter with the madman. He cannot have a vote, because he is -the citizen of another country. He is a foreigner. Nay, he -is an invader and an enemy; for the city he lives in has -been super-imposed on ours. - -Now these two things are primarily to be noted in his case. -First, that we can only condemn him to a *general* doom, -because we only know his *general* nature. All criminals, -who do particular things for particular reasons (things and -reasons which, however criminal, are always comprehensible), -have been more and more tried for such separate actions -under separate and suitable laws ever since Europe began to -become a civilisation---and until the rare and recent -re-incursions of barbarism in such things as the -Indeterminate Sentence. Of that I shall speak later; it is -enough for this argument to point out the plain facts. It is -the plain fact that every savage, every sultan, every -outlawed baron, every brigand-chief has always used this -instrument of the Indeterminate Sentence, which has been -recently offered us as something highly scientific and -humane. All these people, in short, being barbarians, have -always kept their captives captive until they (the -barbarians) chose to think the captives were in fit frame of -mind to come out. It is also the plain fact that all that -has been called civilisation or progress, justice or -liberty, for nearly three thousand years, has had the -general direction of treating even the captive as a free -man, in so far as some clear case of some defined crime had -to be shown against him. All law has meant allowing the -criminal, within some limits or other, to argue with the -law: as Job was allowed, or rather challenged, to argue with -God. But the criminal is, among civilised men, tried by one -law for one crime for a perfectly simple reason: that the -motive of the crime, like the meaning of the law, is -conceivable to the common intelligence. A man is punished -specially as a burglar, and not generally as a bad man, -because a man may be a burglar and in many other respects -not be a bad man. The act of burglary is punishable because -it is intelligible. But when acts are unintelligible, we can -only refer them to a general untrustworthiness, and guard -against them by a general restraint. If a. man breaks into a -house to get a piece of bread, we can appeal to his reason -in various ways. We can hang him for housebreaking; or again -(as has occurred to some daring thinkers) we can give him a -piece of bread. But if he breaks in, let us say, to steal -the parings of other people's finger nails, then we are in a -difficulty: we cannot imagine what he is going to do with -them, and therefore cannot easily imagine what we are going -to do with him. If a villain comes in, in cloak and mask, -and puts a little arsenic in the soup, we can collar him and -say to him distinctly, "You are guilty of Murder; and I will -now consult the code of tribal law, under which we live, to -see if this practice is not forbidden." But if a man in the -same cloak and mask is found at midnight putting a little -soda-water in the soup, what can we say? Our charge -necessarily becomes a more general one. We can only observe, -with a moderation almost amounting to weakness, "You seem to -be the sort of person who will do this sort of thing." And -then we can lock him up. The principle of the indeterminate -sentence is the creation of the indeterminate mind. It does -apply to the incomprehensible creature, the lunatic. And it -applies to nobody else. - -The second thing to be noted is this: that it is only by the -unanimity of sane men that we can condemn this man as -utterly separate. If he says a tree is a lamp-post he is -mad; but only because all other men say it is a tree. If -some men thought it was a tree with a lamp on it, and others -thought it was a lamp-post wreathed with branches and -vegetation, then it would be a matter of opinion and degree; -and he would not be mad, but merely extreme. Certainly he -would not be mad if nobody but a botanist could see it was a -tree. Certainly his enemies might be madder than he, if -nobody but a lamplighter could see it was not a lamp-post. -And similarly a man is not imbecile if only a Eugenist -thinks so. The question then raised would not be his sanity, -but the sanity of one botanist or one lamplighter or one -Eugenist. That which can condemn the abnormally foolish is -not the abnormally clever, which is obviously a matter in -dispute. That which can condemn the abnormally foolish is -the normally foolish. It is when he begins to say and do -things that even stupid people do not say or do, that we -have a right to treat him as the exception and not the rule. -It is only because we none of us profess to be anything more -than man that we have authority to treat him as something -less. - -Now the first principle behind Eugenics becomes plain -enough. It is the proposal that somebody or something should -criticise men with the same superiority with which men -criticise madmen. It might exercise this right with great -moderation; but I am not here talking about the exercise, -but about the right. Its *claim* certainly is to bring all +I do not mean that all mad delusions are as concrete as this, though +some are more concrete. Believing your own body is glass is a more +daring denial of reality than believing a tree is a glass lamp at the +top of a pole. But all true delusions have in them this unalterable +assertion---that what is not is. The difference between us and the +maniac is not about how things look or how things ought to look, but +about what they self-evidently are. The lunatic does not say that he +ought to be King; Perkin Warbeck might say that. He says he is King. The +lunatic does not say he is as wise as Shakespeare; Bernard Shaw might +say that. The lunatic says he *is* Shakespeare. The lunatic does not say +he is divine in the same sense as Christ; Mr. R. J. Campbell would say +that. The lunatic says he *is* Christ. In all cases the difference is a +difference about what is there; not a difference touching what should be +done about it. + +For this reason, and for this alone, the lunatic is outside public law. +This is the abysmal difference between him and the criminal. The +criminal admits the facts, and therefore permits us to appeal to the +facts. We can so arrange the facts around him that he may really +understand that agreement is in his own interests. We can say to him, +"Do not steal apples from this tree, or we will hang you on that tree." +But if the man really thinks one tree is a lamp-post and the other tree +a Trafalgar Square fountain, we simply cannot treat with him at all. It +is obviously useless to say, "Do not steal apples from this lamp-post, +or I will hang you on that fountain." If a man denies the facts, there +is no answer but to lock him up. He cannot speak our language: not that +varying verbal language which often misses fire even with us, but that +enormous alphabet of sun and moon and green grass and blue sky in which +alone we meet, and by which alone we can signal to each other. That +unique man of genius, George Macdonald, described in one of his weird +stories two systems of space co-incident; so that where I knew there was +a piano standing in a drawing-room you knew there was a rose-bush +growing in a garden. Something of this sort is in small or great +affairs-the matter with the madman. He cannot have a vote, because he is +the citizen of another country. He is a foreigner. Nay, he is an invader +and an enemy; for the city he lives in has been super-imposed on ours. + +Now these two things are primarily to be noted in his case. First, that +we can only condemn him to a *general* doom, because we only know his +*general* nature. All criminals, who do particular things for particular +reasons (things and reasons which, however criminal, are always +comprehensible), have been more and more tried for such separate actions +under separate and suitable laws ever since Europe began to become a +civilisation---and until the rare and recent re-incursions of barbarism +in such things as the Indeterminate Sentence. Of that I shall speak +later; it is enough for this argument to point out the plain facts. It +is the plain fact that every savage, every sultan, every outlawed baron, +every brigand-chief has always used this instrument of the Indeterminate +Sentence, which has been recently offered us as something highly +scientific and humane. All these people, in short, being barbarians, +have always kept their captives captive until they (the barbarians) +chose to think the captives were in fit frame of mind to come out. It is +also the plain fact that all that has been called civilisation or +progress, justice or liberty, for nearly three thousand years, has had +the general direction of treating even the captive as a free man, in so +far as some clear case of some defined crime had to be shown against +him. All law has meant allowing the criminal, within some limits or +other, to argue with the law: as Job was allowed, or rather challenged, +to argue with God. But the criminal is, among civilised men, tried by +one law for one crime for a perfectly simple reason: that the motive of +the crime, like the meaning of the law, is conceivable to the common +intelligence. A man is punished specially as a burglar, and not +generally as a bad man, because a man may be a burglar and in many other +respects not be a bad man. The act of burglary is punishable because it +is intelligible. But when acts are unintelligible, we can only refer +them to a general untrustworthiness, and guard against them by a general +restraint. If a. man breaks into a house to get a piece of bread, we can +appeal to his reason in various ways. We can hang him for housebreaking; +or again (as has occurred to some daring thinkers) we can give him a +piece of bread. But if he breaks in, let us say, to steal the parings of +other people's finger nails, then we are in a difficulty: we cannot +imagine what he is going to do with them, and therefore cannot easily +imagine what we are going to do with him. If a villain comes in, in +cloak and mask, and puts a little arsenic in the soup, we can collar him +and say to him distinctly, "You are guilty of Murder; and I will now +consult the code of tribal law, under which we live, to see if this +practice is not forbidden." But if a man in the same cloak and mask is +found at midnight putting a little soda-water in the soup, what can we +say? Our charge necessarily becomes a more general one. We can only +observe, with a moderation almost amounting to weakness, "You seem to be +the sort of person who will do this sort of thing." And then we can lock +him up. The principle of the indeterminate sentence is the creation of +the indeterminate mind. It does apply to the incomprehensible creature, +the lunatic. And it applies to nobody else. + +The second thing to be noted is this: that it is only by the unanimity +of sane men that we can condemn this man as utterly separate. If he says +a tree is a lamp-post he is mad; but only because all other men say it +is a tree. If some men thought it was a tree with a lamp on it, and +others thought it was a lamp-post wreathed with branches and vegetation, +then it would be a matter of opinion and degree; and he would not be +mad, but merely extreme. Certainly he would not be mad if nobody but a +botanist could see it was a tree. Certainly his enemies might be madder +than he, if nobody but a lamplighter could see it was not a lamp-post. +And similarly a man is not imbecile if only a Eugenist thinks so. The +question then raised would not be his sanity, but the sanity of one +botanist or one lamplighter or one Eugenist. That which can condemn the +abnormally foolish is not the abnormally clever, which is obviously a +matter in dispute. That which can condemn the abnormally foolish is the +normally foolish. It is when he begins to say and do things that even +stupid people do not say or do, that we have a right to treat him as the +exception and not the rule. It is only because we none of us profess to +be anything more than man that we have authority to treat him as +something less. + +Now the first principle behind Eugenics becomes plain enough. It is the +proposal that somebody or something should criticise men with the same +superiority with which men criticise madmen. It might exercise this +right with great moderation; but I am not here talking about the +exercise, but about the right. Its *claim* certainly is to bring all human life under the Lunacy Laws. -Now this is the first weakness in the case of the Eugenists: -that they cannot define who is to control whom; they cannot -say by what authority they do these things. They cannot see -the exception is different from the rule---even when it is -misrule, even when it is an unruly rule. The sound sense in -the old Lunacy Law was this: that you cannot deny that a man -is a citizen until you are practically prepared to deny that -he is a man. Men, and only men, can be the judges of whether -he is a man. But any private club of prigs can be judges of -whether he ought to be a citizen. When once we step down -from that tall and splintered peak of pure insanity we step -on to a tableland where one man is not so widely different -from another. Outside the exception, what we find is the -average. And the practical, legal shape of the quarrel is -this: that unless the normal men have the right to expel the -abnormal, what particular sort of abnormal men have the -right to expel the normal men? If sanity is not good enough, -what is there that is saner than sanity - -Without any grip of the notion of a rule and an exception, -the general idea of judging people's heredity breaks down -and is useless. For this reason: that if everything is the -result of a doubtful heredity, the judgment itself is the -result of a doubtful heredity also. Let it judge not that it -be not judged. Eugenists, strange to say, have fathers and -mothers like other people; and our opinion about their -fathers and mothers is worth exactly as much as their -opinions about ours. None of the parents were lunatics, and -the rest is mere likes and dislikes. Suppose Dr. Saleeby had -gone up to Byron and said, "My lord, I perceive you have a -club-foot and inordinate passions: such are the hereditary -results of a profligate soldier marrying a hot-tempered -woman." The poet might logically reply (with characteristic -lucidity and impropriety), "Sir, I perceive you have a -confused mind and an unphilosophic theory about other -people's love affairs. Such are the hereditary delusions -bred by a Syrian doctor marrying a Quaker lady from York." -Suppose Dr. Karl Pearson had said to Shelley, "From what I -see of your temperament, you are running great risks in -forming a connection with the daughter of a fanatic and -eccentric like Godwin." Shelley would be employing the -strict rationalism of the older and stronger free thinkers, -if he answered, "From what I observe of your mind, you are -rushing on destruction in marrying the great-niece of an old -corpse of a courtier and dilettante like Samuel Rogers." It -is only opinion for opinion. Nobody can pretend that either -Mary Godwin or Samuel Rogers was mad; and the general view a -man may hold about the healthiness of inheriting their blood -or type is simply the same sort of general view by which men -do marry for love or liking. There is no reason to suppose -that Dr. Karl Pearson is any better judge of a bridegroom -than the bridegroom is of a bride. - -An objection may be anticipated here, but it is very easily -answered. It may be said that we do, in fact, call in -medical specialists to settle whether a man is mad; and that -these specialists go by technical and even secret tests that -cannot be known to the mass of men. It is obvious that this -is true; it is equally obvious that it does not affect our -argument. When we ask the doctor whether our grandfather is -going mad, we still mean mad by our own common human -definition. We mean, is he going to be a certain sort of -person whom an men recognise when once he exists. That -certain specialists can detect the approach of him, before -he exists, does not alter the fact that it is of the -practical and popular madman that we are talking, and of him -alone. The doctor merely sees a certain fact potentially in -the future. while we, with less information, can only see it -in the present; but his fact is our fact and everybody's -fact, or we should not bother about it at all. Here is no -question of the doctor bringing an entirely new sort of -person under coercion, as in the Feeble-Minded Bill. The -doctor can say, "Tobacco is death to you," because the -dislike of death can be taken for granted, being a highly -democratic institution; and it is the same with the dislike -of the indubitable exception called madness. The doctor can -say, "Jones has that twitch in the nerves, and he may burn -down the house." But it is not the medical detail we fear, -but the moral upshot. We should say, "let him twitch, as -long as he doesn't burn down the house." The doctor may say, -"He has that look in the eyes, and he may take the hatchet -and brain you all." But we do not object to the look in the -eyes as such; we object to consequences which, once come, we -should all call insane if there were no doctors in the -world. We should say, "Let him look how he likes; as long as -he does not look for the hatchet." - -Now, that specialists are valuable for this particular and -practical purpose, of predicting the approach of enormous -and admitted human calamities, nobody but a fool would deny. -But that does not bring us one inch nearer to allowing them -the right to define what is a calamity; or to call things -calamities which common sense does not call calamities. We -call in the doctor to save us from death; and, death being -admittedly an evil he has the right to administer the -queerest and most recondite pill which he may think is a -cure for all such menaces of death. He has not the right to -administer death, as the cure for all human ills. And as he -has no moral authority to enforce a new conception of -happiness, so he has no moral authority to enforce a new -conception of sanity. He may know I am going mad; for -madness is an isolated thing like leprosy; and I know -nothing about leprosy. But if he merely thinks my mind is +Now this is the first weakness in the case of the Eugenists: that they +cannot define who is to control whom; they cannot say by what authority +they do these things. They cannot see the exception is different from +the rule---even when it is misrule, even when it is an unruly rule. The +sound sense in the old Lunacy Law was this: that you cannot deny that a +man is a citizen until you are practically prepared to deny that he is a +man. Men, and only men, can be the judges of whether he is a man. But +any private club of prigs can be judges of whether he ought to be a +citizen. When once we step down from that tall and splintered peak of +pure insanity we step on to a tableland where one man is not so widely +different from another. Outside the exception, what we find is the +average. And the practical, legal shape of the quarrel is this: that +unless the normal men have the right to expel the abnormal, what +particular sort of abnormal men have the right to expel the normal men? +If sanity is not good enough, what is there that is saner than sanity + +Without any grip of the notion of a rule and an exception, the general +idea of judging people's heredity breaks down and is useless. For this +reason: that if everything is the result of a doubtful heredity, the +judgment itself is the result of a doubtful heredity also. Let it judge +not that it be not judged. Eugenists, strange to say, have fathers and +mothers like other people; and our opinion about their fathers and +mothers is worth exactly as much as their opinions about ours. None of +the parents were lunatics, and the rest is mere likes and dislikes. +Suppose Dr. Saleeby had gone up to Byron and said, "My lord, I perceive +you have a club-foot and inordinate passions: such are the hereditary +results of a profligate soldier marrying a hot-tempered woman." The poet +might logically reply (with characteristic lucidity and impropriety), +"Sir, I perceive you have a confused mind and an unphilosophic theory +about other people's love affairs. Such are the hereditary delusions +bred by a Syrian doctor marrying a Quaker lady from York." Suppose +Dr. Karl Pearson had said to Shelley, "From what I see of your +temperament, you are running great risks in forming a connection with +the daughter of a fanatic and eccentric like Godwin." Shelley would be +employing the strict rationalism of the older and stronger free +thinkers, if he answered, "From what I observe of your mind, you are +rushing on destruction in marrying the great-niece of an old corpse of a +courtier and dilettante like Samuel Rogers." It is only opinion for +opinion. Nobody can pretend that either Mary Godwin or Samuel Rogers was +mad; and the general view a man may hold about the healthiness of +inheriting their blood or type is simply the same sort of general view +by which men do marry for love or liking. There is no reason to suppose +that Dr. Karl Pearson is any better judge of a bridegroom than the +bridegroom is of a bride. + +An objection may be anticipated here, but it is very easily answered. It +may be said that we do, in fact, call in medical specialists to settle +whether a man is mad; and that these specialists go by technical and +even secret tests that cannot be known to the mass of men. It is obvious +that this is true; it is equally obvious that it does not affect our +argument. When we ask the doctor whether our grandfather is going mad, +we still mean mad by our own common human definition. We mean, is he +going to be a certain sort of person whom an men recognise when once he +exists. That certain specialists can detect the approach of him, before +he exists, does not alter the fact that it is of the practical and +popular madman that we are talking, and of him alone. The doctor merely +sees a certain fact potentially in the future. while we, with less +information, can only see it in the present; but his fact is our fact +and everybody's fact, or we should not bother about it at all. Here is +no question of the doctor bringing an entirely new sort of person under +coercion, as in the Feeble-Minded Bill. The doctor can say, "Tobacco is +death to you," because the dislike of death can be taken for granted, +being a highly democratic institution; and it is the same with the +dislike of the indubitable exception called madness. The doctor can say, +"Jones has that twitch in the nerves, and he may burn down the house." +But it is not the medical detail we fear, but the moral upshot. We +should say, "let him twitch, as long as he doesn't burn down the house." +The doctor may say, "He has that look in the eyes, and he may take the +hatchet and brain you all." But we do not object to the look in the eyes +as such; we object to consequences which, once come, we should all call +insane if there were no doctors in the world. We should say, "Let him +look how he likes; as long as he does not look for the hatchet." + +Now, that specialists are valuable for this particular and practical +purpose, of predicting the approach of enormous and admitted human +calamities, nobody but a fool would deny. But that does not bring us one +inch nearer to allowing them the right to define what is a calamity; or +to call things calamities which common sense does not call calamities. +We call in the doctor to save us from death; and, death being admittedly +an evil he has the right to administer the queerest and most recondite +pill which he may think is a cure for all such menaces of death. He has +not the right to administer death, as the cure for all human ills. And +as he has no moral authority to enforce a new conception of happiness, +so he has no moral authority to enforce a new conception of sanity. He +may know I am going mad; for madness is an isolated thing like leprosy; +and I know nothing about leprosy. But if he merely thinks my mind is weak, I may happen to think the same of his. I often do. -In short, unless pilots are to be permitted to ram ships on -to the rocks and then say that heaven is the only true -harbour; unless judges are to be allowed to let murderers -loose, and explain afterwards that the murder had done good -on the whole; unless soldiers are to be allowed to lose -battles and then point out that true glory is to be found in -the valley of humiliation; unless cashiers are to rob a bank -in order to give it an advertisement; or dentists to torture -people to give them a contrast to their comforts; unless we -are prepared to let loose all these private fancies against -the public and accepted meaning of life or safety or -prosperity or pleasure---then it is as plain as Punch's nose -that no scientific man must be allowed to meddle with the -public definition of madness. We call him in to tell us -where it is or when it is. We could not do so, if we had not -ourselves settled what it is. - -As I wish to confine myself in this chapter to the primary -point of the plain existence of sanity and insanity, I will -not be led along any of the attractive paths that open here. -I shall endeavour to deal with them in the next chapter. -Here I confine myself to a sort of summary. Suppose a man's -throat has been cut, quite swiftly and suddenly, with a -table knife, at a small table where we sit. The whole of -civil law rests on the supposition that we are witnesses; -that we saw it; and if we do not know about it, who does? -Now suppose all the witnesses fall into a quarrel about -degrees of eyesight. Suppose one says he had brought his -reading-glasses instead of his usual glasses; and therefore -did not see the man fall across the table and cover it with -blood. Suppose another says he could not be certain it was -blood, because a slight colour-blindness was hereditary in -his family. Suppose a third says he cannot swear to the -uplifted knife, because his oculist tells him he is -astigmatic, and vertical lines do not affect him as do -horizontal lines. Suppose another says that dots have often -danced before his eyes in very fantastic combinations, many -of which were very like one gentleman cutting another -gentleman's throat at dinner. All these things refer to real -experiences. There is such a thing as myopia; there is such -a thing as colour-blindness; there is such a thing as -astigmatism; there is such a thing as shifting shapes -swimming before the eyes. But what should we think of a -whole dinner party that could give nothing except these -highly scientific explanations when found in company with a -corpse? I imagine there are only two things we could think: -either that they were all drunk, or they were all murderers. - -And yet there is an exception. If there were one man at -table who was admittedly *blind*, should we not give him the -benefit of the doubt? Should we not honestly feel that he -was the exception that proved the rule? The very fact that -he could not have seen would remind us that the other men -must have seen. The very fact that he had no eyes must -remind us of eyes. A man can be blind; a man can be dead; a -man can be mad. But the comparison is necessarily weak, -after all. For it is the essence of madness to be unlike -anything else in the world: which is perhaps why so many men -wiser than we have traced it to another. - -Lastly, the literal maniac is different from all other -persons in dispute in this vital respect: that he is the -only person whom we can, with a final lucidity, declare that -we do not want. He is almost always miserable himself, and -he always makes others miserable. But this is not so with -the mere invalid. The Eugenists would probably answer all my -examples by taking the case of marrying into a family with -consumption (or some such disease which they are fairly sure -is hereditary) and asking whether such cases at least are -not clear cases for a Eugenic intervention. Permit me to -point out to them that they once more make a confusion of -thought. The sickness or soundness of a consumptive may be a -clear and calculable matter. The happiness or unhappiness of -a consumptive is quite another matter, and is not calculable -at all. What is the good of telling people that if they -marry for love, they may be punished by being the parents of -Keats or the parents of Stevenson? Keats died young; but he -had more pleasure in a minute than a Eugenist gets in a -month. Stevenson had lung-trouble; and it may, for all I -know, have been perceptible to the Eugenic eye even a -generation before. But who would perform that illegal -operation: the stopping of Stevenson? Intercepting a letter -bursting with good news, confiscating a hamper full of -presents and prizes, pouring torrents of intoxicating wine -into the sea, all this is a faint approximation for the -Eugenic inaction of the ancestors of Stevenson. This, -however, is not the essential point; with Stevenson it is -not merely a case of the pleasure we get, but of the -pleasure he got. If he had died without writing a line, he -would have had more red-hot joy than is given to most men. -Shall I say of him, to whom I owe so much, let the day -perish wherein he was born? Shall I pray that the stars of -the twilight thereof be dark and it be not numbered among -the days of the year, because it shut not up the doors of -his mother's womb? I respectfully decline; like Job, I will -put my hand upon my mouth. +In short, unless pilots are to be permitted to ram ships on to the rocks +and then say that heaven is the only true harbour; unless judges are to +be allowed to let murderers loose, and explain afterwards that the +murder had done good on the whole; unless soldiers are to be allowed to +lose battles and then point out that true glory is to be found in the +valley of humiliation; unless cashiers are to rob a bank in order to +give it an advertisement; or dentists to torture people to give them a +contrast to their comforts; unless we are prepared to let loose all +these private fancies against the public and accepted meaning of life or +safety or prosperity or pleasure---then it is as plain as Punch's nose +that no scientific man must be allowed to meddle with the public +definition of madness. We call him in to tell us where it is or when it +is. We could not do so, if we had not ourselves settled what it is. + +As I wish to confine myself in this chapter to the primary point of the +plain existence of sanity and insanity, I will not be led along any of +the attractive paths that open here. I shall endeavour to deal with them +in the next chapter. Here I confine myself to a sort of summary. Suppose +a man's throat has been cut, quite swiftly and suddenly, with a table +knife, at a small table where we sit. The whole of civil law rests on +the supposition that we are witnesses; that we saw it; and if we do not +know about it, who does? Now suppose all the witnesses fall into a +quarrel about degrees of eyesight. Suppose one says he had brought his +reading-glasses instead of his usual glasses; and therefore did not see +the man fall across the table and cover it with blood. Suppose another +says he could not be certain it was blood, because a slight +colour-blindness was hereditary in his family. Suppose a third says he +cannot swear to the uplifted knife, because his oculist tells him he is +astigmatic, and vertical lines do not affect him as do horizontal lines. +Suppose another says that dots have often danced before his eyes in very +fantastic combinations, many of which were very like one gentleman +cutting another gentleman's throat at dinner. All these things refer to +real experiences. There is such a thing as myopia; there is such a thing +as colour-blindness; there is such a thing as astigmatism; there is such +a thing as shifting shapes swimming before the eyes. But what should we +think of a whole dinner party that could give nothing except these +highly scientific explanations when found in company with a corpse? I +imagine there are only two things we could think: either that they were +all drunk, or they were all murderers. + +And yet there is an exception. If there were one man at table who was +admittedly *blind*, should we not give him the benefit of the doubt? +Should we not honestly feel that he was the exception that proved the +rule? The very fact that he could not have seen would remind us that the +other men must have seen. The very fact that he had no eyes must remind +us of eyes. A man can be blind; a man can be dead; a man can be mad. But +the comparison is necessarily weak, after all. For it is the essence of +madness to be unlike anything else in the world: which is perhaps why so +many men wiser than we have traced it to another. + +Lastly, the literal maniac is different from all other persons in +dispute in this vital respect: that he is the only person whom we can, +with a final lucidity, declare that we do not want. He is almost always +miserable himself, and he always makes others miserable. But this is not +so with the mere invalid. The Eugenists would probably answer all my +examples by taking the case of marrying into a family with consumption +(or some such disease which they are fairly sure is hereditary) and +asking whether such cases at least are not clear cases for a Eugenic +intervention. Permit me to point out to them that they once more make a +confusion of thought. The sickness or soundness of a consumptive may be +a clear and calculable matter. The happiness or unhappiness of a +consumptive is quite another matter, and is not calculable at all. What +is the good of telling people that if they marry for love, they may be +punished by being the parents of Keats or the parents of Stevenson? +Keats died young; but he had more pleasure in a minute than a Eugenist +gets in a month. Stevenson had lung-trouble; and it may, for all I know, +have been perceptible to the Eugenic eye even a generation before. But +who would perform that illegal operation: the stopping of Stevenson? +Intercepting a letter bursting with good news, confiscating a hamper +full of presents and prizes, pouring torrents of intoxicating wine into +the sea, all this is a faint approximation for the Eugenic inaction of +the ancestors of Stevenson. This, however, is not the essential point; +with Stevenson it is not merely a case of the pleasure we get, but of +the pleasure he got. If he had died without writing a line, he would +have had more red-hot joy than is given to most men. Shall I say of him, +to whom I owe so much, let the day perish wherein he was born? Shall I +pray that the stars of the twilight thereof be dark and it be not +numbered among the days of the year, because it shut not up the doors of +his mother's womb? I respectfully decline; like Job, I will put my hand +upon my mouth. ## The Flying Authority -It happened one day that an atheist and a man were standing -together on a doorstep; and the atheist said, "It is -raining." To which the man replied, "What is raining?": -which question was the beginning of a violent quarrel and a -lasting friendship. I will not touch upon any heads of the -dispute, which doubtless included Jupiter Pluvius, the -Neuter Gender, Pantheism, Noah's Ark, Mackintoshes, and the -Passive Mood; but I will record the one point upon which the -two persons emerged in some agreement. It was that there is -such a thing as an atheistic literary style; that -materialism may appear in the mere diction of a man, though -he be speaking of clocks or cats or anything quite remote -from theology. The mark of the atheistic style is that it -instinctively chooses the word which suggests that things -are dead things; that things have no souls. Thus they will -not speak of waging war, which means willing it; they speak -of the" outbreak of war," as if all the guns blew up -without the men touching them. Thus those Socialists that -are atheist will not call their international sympathy, -sympathy; they will call it "solidarity," as if the poor men -of France and Germany were physically stuck together like -dates in a grocer's shop. The same Marxian Socialists are -accused of cursing the Capitalists inordinately; but the -truth is that they let the Capitalists off much too easily. -For instead of saying that employers pay less wages, which -eight pin the employers to some moral responsibility, they -insist on talking about the "rise and fall" of wages; as if -a vast silver sea of sixpences and shillings was always -going up and down automatically like the real sea at -Margate. Thus they will not speak of reform, but of -development; and they spoil their one honest and virile -phrase, "the class war," by talking of it as no one in his -wits can talk of a war, predicting its finish and final -result as one calculates the coming of Christmas Day or the -taxes. Thus, lastly (as we shall see touching our special -subject-matter here) the atheist style in letters always -avoids talking of love or lust, which are things alive, and -calls marriage or concubinage "the relations of the sexes"; -as if a man and a woman were two wooden objects standing in -a certain angle and attitude to each other, like a table and -a chair. Now the same anarchic mystery that clings round the -phrase, "*il pleut,*" clings round the phrase, "*il fault.*" -In English it is generally represented by the passive mood -in grammar, and the Eugenists and their like deal especially -in it; they are as passive in their statements as they are -active in their experiments. Their sentences always enter -tail first, and have no subject, like animals without heads. -It is never "the doctor should cut off this leg" or "the -policeman should collar that man." It is always "Such limbs -should be amputated," or "Such men should be under -restraint." Hamlet said, "I should have fatted all the -region kites with this slave's offal." The Eugenist would -say, "The region kites should, if possible, be fattened; and -the offal of this slave is available for the dietetic -experiment." Lady Macbeth said, "Give me the daggers; I'll -let his bowels out." The Eugenist would say, "In such cases -the bowels should, etc." Do not blame me for the -repulsiveness of the comparisons. I have searched English -literature for the most decent parallels to Eugenist -language. - -The formless god that broods over the East is called "Om." -The formless god who has begun to brood over the West is -caned "On." But here we must make a distinction. The -impersonal word *on* is French, and the French have a right -to use it, because they are a democracy. And when a -Frenchman says "one" he does not mean himself, but the -normal citizen. He does not mean merely "one," but one and -all. "*On n'a que sa parole*" does not mean "*Noblesse -oblige,*" or "I am the Duke of Billingsgate and must keep my -word." It means: "One has a sense of honour as one has a -backbone: every man, rich or poor, should feel honourable"; -and this, whether possible or no, is the purest ambition of -the republic. But when the Eugenists say, "Conditions must -be altered" or "Ancestry should be investigated," or what -not, it seems clear that they do not mean that the democracy -must do it, whatever else they may mean. They do not mean -that any man not evidently mad may bc trusted with these -tests and re-arrangements, as the French democratic system -trusts such a man with a vote or a farm or the control of a -family. That would mean that Jones and Brown, being both -ordinary men, would set about arranging each other's -marriages. And this state of affairs would seem a little -elaborate, and it might occur even to the Eugenic mind that -if Jones and Brown are quite capable of arranging each -other's marriages, it is just possible that they might be -capable of arranging their own. - -This dilemma, which applies in so simple a case, applies -equally to any wide and sweeping system of Eugenist voting; -for though it is true that the community can judge more -dispassionately than a man can judge in his own case, this -particular question of the choice of a wife is so full of -disputable shades in every conceivable case, that it is -surely obvious that almost any democracy would simply vote -the thing out of the sphere of voting, as they would any -proposal of police interference in the choice of walking -weather or of children's names. I should not like to be the -politician who should propose a particular instance of -Eugenics to be voted on by the French people. Democracy -dismissed, it is here hardly needful to consider the other -old models. Modern scientists will not say that George III, -in his lucid intervals, should settle who is mad; or that -the aristocracy that introduced gout shall supervise diet. - -I hold it clear, therefore, if anything is clear about the -business, that the Eugenists do not merely mean that the -mass of common men should settle each other's marriages -between them; the question remains, therefore, whom they do -instinctively trust when they say that this or that ought to -be done. What is this flying and evanescent authority that -vanishes wherever we seek to fix it? Who is the man who is -the lost subject that governs the Eugenist's verb? In a -large number of cases I think we can simply say that the -individual Eugenist means himself, and, nobody else. Indeed -one Eugenist, Mr. A. H. Ruth, actually had a sense of -humour, and admitted this. He thinks a great deal of good -could be done with a surgical knife, if we would only turn -him loose with one. And this may be true. A great deal of -good could be done with a loaded revolver, in the hands of a -judicious student of human nature. But it is imperative that -the Eugenist should perceive that on that principle we can -never get beyond a perfect balance of different sympathies -and antipathies. I mean that I should differ from -Dr. Saleeby or Dr. Karl Pearson not only in a vast majority -of individual cases, but in a vast majority of cases in -which they would be bound to admit that such a difference -was natural and reasonable. The chief victim of these famous -doctors would be a yet more famous doctor: that eminent -though unpopular practitioner, Dr. Fell. - -To show that such rational and serious differences do exist, -I will take one instance from that Bill which proposed to -protect families and the public generally from the burden of -feeble-minded persons. Now, even if I could share the -Eugenic contempt for human rights, even if I could start -gaily on the Eugenic campaign, I should not begin by -removing feeble-minded persons. I have known as many -families in as many classes as most men; and I cannot -remember meeting any very monstrous human suffering arising -out of the presence of such insufficient and negative types. -There seem to be comparatively few of them; and those few by -no means the worst burdens upon domestic happiness. I do not -hear of them often; I do not hear of them doing much more -harm than good; and in the few cases I know well they are -not only regarded with human affection, but can be put to -certain limited forms of human use. Even if I were a -Eugenist, then I should not personally elect to waste my -time locking up the feeble-minded. The people I should lock -up would be the strong-minded. I have known hardly any cases -of mere mental weakness making a family a failure; I have -known eight or nine cases of violent and exaggerated force -of character making a family a hell. If the strong-minded -could be segregated it would quite certainly be better for -their friends and families. And if there is really anything -in heredity, it would be better for posterity too. For the -kind of egoist I mean is a madman in a much more plausible -sense than the mere harmless "deficient"; and to hand on the -horrors of his anarchic and insatiable temperament is a much -graver responsibility than to leave a mere inheritance of -childishness. I would not arrest such tyrants, because I -think that even moral tyranny in a few homes is better than -a medical tyranny turning the state into a madhouse. I would -not segregate them, because I respect a man's free-will and -his front-door and his right to he tried by his peers. But -since free-will is believed by Eugenists no more than by -Calvinists, since front-doors are respected by Eugenists no -more than by house-breakers, and since the Habeas Corpus is -about as sacred to Eugenists as it would be to King John, -why do not they bring light and peace into so many human -homes by removing a demoniac from each of them? Why do not -the promoters of the Feeble-Minded Bill call at the many -grand houses in town or country where such nightmares -notoriously are? Why do they not knock at the door and take -the bad squire away? Why do they not ring the bell and -remove the dipsomaniac prize-fighter? I do not know; and -there is only one reason I can think of, which must remain a -matter of speculation. When I was at school, the kind of boy -who liked teasing halfwits was not the sort that stood up to +It happened one day that an atheist and a man were standing together on +a doorstep; and the atheist said, "It is raining." To which the man +replied, "What is raining?": which question was the beginning of a +violent quarrel and a lasting friendship. I will not touch upon any +heads of the dispute, which doubtless included Jupiter Pluvius, the +Neuter Gender, Pantheism, Noah's Ark, Mackintoshes, and the Passive +Mood; but I will record the one point upon which the two persons emerged +in some agreement. It was that there is such a thing as an atheistic +literary style; that materialism may appear in the mere diction of a +man, though he be speaking of clocks or cats or anything quite remote +from theology. The mark of the atheistic style is that it instinctively +chooses the word which suggests that things are dead things; that things +have no souls. Thus they will not speak of waging war, which means +willing it; they speak of the" outbreak of war," as if all the guns blew +up without the men touching them. Thus those Socialists that are atheist +will not call their international sympathy, sympathy; they will call it +"solidarity," as if the poor men of France and Germany were physically +stuck together like dates in a grocer's shop. The same Marxian +Socialists are accused of cursing the Capitalists inordinately; but the +truth is that they let the Capitalists off much too easily. For instead +of saying that employers pay less wages, which eight pin the employers +to some moral responsibility, they insist on talking about the "rise and +fall" of wages; as if a vast silver sea of sixpences and shillings was +always going up and down automatically like the real sea at Margate. +Thus they will not speak of reform, but of development; and they spoil +their one honest and virile phrase, "the class war," by talking of it as +no one in his wits can talk of a war, predicting its finish and final +result as one calculates the coming of Christmas Day or the taxes. Thus, +lastly (as we shall see touching our special subject-matter here) the +atheist style in letters always avoids talking of love or lust, which +are things alive, and calls marriage or concubinage "the relations of +the sexes"; as if a man and a woman were two wooden objects standing in +a certain angle and attitude to each other, like a table and a chair. +Now the same anarchic mystery that clings round the phrase, "*il +pleut,*" clings round the phrase, "*il fault.*" In English it is +generally represented by the passive mood in grammar, and the Eugenists +and their like deal especially in it; they are as passive in their +statements as they are active in their experiments. Their sentences +always enter tail first, and have no subject, like animals without +heads. It is never "the doctor should cut off this leg" or "the +policeman should collar that man." It is always "Such limbs should be +amputated," or "Such men should be under restraint." Hamlet said, "I +should have fatted all the region kites with this slave's offal." The +Eugenist would say, "The region kites should, if possible, be fattened; +and the offal of this slave is available for the dietetic experiment." +Lady Macbeth said, "Give me the daggers; I'll let his bowels out." The +Eugenist would say, "In such cases the bowels should, etc." Do not blame +me for the repulsiveness of the comparisons. I have searched English +literature for the most decent parallels to Eugenist language. + +The formless god that broods over the East is called "Om." The formless +god who has begun to brood over the West is caned "On." But here we must +make a distinction. The impersonal word *on* is French, and the French +have a right to use it, because they are a democracy. And when a +Frenchman says "one" he does not mean himself, but the normal citizen. +He does not mean merely "one," but one and all. "*On n'a que sa parole*" +does not mean "*Noblesse oblige,*" or "I am the Duke of Billingsgate and +must keep my word." It means: "One has a sense of honour as one has a +backbone: every man, rich or poor, should feel honourable"; and this, +whether possible or no, is the purest ambition of the republic. But when +the Eugenists say, "Conditions must be altered" or "Ancestry should be +investigated," or what not, it seems clear that they do not mean that +the democracy must do it, whatever else they may mean. They do not mean +that any man not evidently mad may bc trusted with these tests and +re-arrangements, as the French democratic system trusts such a man with +a vote or a farm or the control of a family. That would mean that Jones +and Brown, being both ordinary men, would set about arranging each +other's marriages. And this state of affairs would seem a little +elaborate, and it might occur even to the Eugenic mind that if Jones and +Brown are quite capable of arranging each other's marriages, it is just +possible that they might be capable of arranging their own. + +This dilemma, which applies in so simple a case, applies equally to any +wide and sweeping system of Eugenist voting; for though it is true that +the community can judge more dispassionately than a man can judge in his +own case, this particular question of the choice of a wife is so full of +disputable shades in every conceivable case, that it is surely obvious +that almost any democracy would simply vote the thing out of the sphere +of voting, as they would any proposal of police interference in the +choice of walking weather or of children's names. I should not like to +be the politician who should propose a particular instance of Eugenics +to be voted on by the French people. Democracy dismissed, it is here +hardly needful to consider the other old models. Modern scientists will +not say that George III, in his lucid intervals, should settle who is +mad; or that the aristocracy that introduced gout shall supervise diet. + +I hold it clear, therefore, if anything is clear about the business, +that the Eugenists do not merely mean that the mass of common men should +settle each other's marriages between them; the question remains, +therefore, whom they do instinctively trust when they say that this or +that ought to be done. What is this flying and evanescent authority that +vanishes wherever we seek to fix it? Who is the man who is the lost +subject that governs the Eugenist's verb? In a large number of cases I +think we can simply say that the individual Eugenist means himself, and, +nobody else. Indeed one Eugenist, Mr. A. H. Ruth, actually had a sense +of humour, and admitted this. He thinks a great deal of good could be +done with a surgical knife, if we would only turn him loose with one. +And this may be true. A great deal of good could be done with a loaded +revolver, in the hands of a judicious student of human nature. But it is +imperative that the Eugenist should perceive that on that principle we +can never get beyond a perfect balance of different sympathies and +antipathies. I mean that I should differ from Dr. Saleeby or Dr. Karl +Pearson not only in a vast majority of individual cases, but in a vast +majority of cases in which they would be bound to admit that such a +difference was natural and reasonable. The chief victim of these famous +doctors would be a yet more famous doctor: that eminent though unpopular +practitioner, Dr. Fell. + +To show that such rational and serious differences do exist, I will take +one instance from that Bill which proposed to protect families and the +public generally from the burden of feeble-minded persons. Now, even if +I could share the Eugenic contempt for human rights, even if I could +start gaily on the Eugenic campaign, I should not begin by removing +feeble-minded persons. I have known as many families in as many classes +as most men; and I cannot remember meeting any very monstrous human +suffering arising out of the presence of such insufficient and negative +types. There seem to be comparatively few of them; and those few by no +means the worst burdens upon domestic happiness. I do not hear of them +often; I do not hear of them doing much more harm than good; and in the +few cases I know well they are not only regarded with human affection, +but can be put to certain limited forms of human use. Even if I were a +Eugenist, then I should not personally elect to waste my time locking up +the feeble-minded. The people I should lock up would be the +strong-minded. I have known hardly any cases of mere mental weakness +making a family a failure; I have known eight or nine cases of violent +and exaggerated force of character making a family a hell. If the +strong-minded could be segregated it would quite certainly be better for +their friends and families. And if there is really anything in heredity, +it would be better for posterity too. For the kind of egoist I mean is a +madman in a much more plausible sense than the mere harmless +"deficient"; and to hand on the horrors of his anarchic and insatiable +temperament is a much graver responsibility than to leave a mere +inheritance of childishness. I would not arrest such tyrants, because I +think that even moral tyranny in a few homes is better than a medical +tyranny turning the state into a madhouse. I would not segregate them, +because I respect a man's free-will and his front-door and his right to +he tried by his peers. But since free-will is believed by Eugenists no +more than by Calvinists, since front-doors are respected by Eugenists no +more than by house-breakers, and since the Habeas Corpus is about as +sacred to Eugenists as it would be to King John, why do not they bring +light and peace into so many human homes by removing a demoniac from +each of them? Why do not the promoters of the Feeble-Minded Bill call at +the many grand houses in town or country where such nightmares +notoriously are? Why do they not knock at the door and take the bad +squire away? Why do they not ring the bell and remove the dipsomaniac +prize-fighter? I do not know; and there is only one reason I can think +of, which must remain a matter of speculation. When I was at school, the +kind of boy who liked teasing halfwits was not the sort that stood up to bullies. -That, however it may be, does not concern my argument. I -mention the case of the strong-minded variety of the -monstrous merely to give one out of the hundred cases of the -instant divergence of individual opinions the moment we -begin to discuss who is fit or unfit to propagate. If -Dr. Saleeby and I were setting out on a segregating trip -together, we should separate at the very door; and if he had -a thousand doctors with him, they would all go different -ways. Everyone who has known as many kind and capable -doctors as I have, knows that the ablest and sanest of them -have a tendency to possess some little hobby or -half-discovery of their own, as that oranges are bad for -children, or that trees are dangerous in gardens, or that -many more people ought to wear spectacles. It is asking too -much of human nature to expect them not to cherish such -scraps of originality in a hard, dull, and often heroic -trade. But the inevitable result of it, as exercised by the -individual Saleebys, would be that each man would have his -favourite kind of idiot. Each doctor would be mad on his own -madman. One would have his eye on devotional curates; -another would wander about collecting obstreperous majors; a -third would be the terror of animal-loving spinsters, who -would flee with all their cats and dogs before him. Short of -sheer literal anarchy, therefore, it seems plain that the -Eugenist must find some authority other than his own implied -personality. He must, once and for all, learn the lesson -which is hardest for him and me and for all our fallen -race---the fact that he is only himself. - -We now pass from mere individual men who obviously cannot be -trusted, even if they are individual medical men, with such -despotism over their neighbours; and we come to consider -whether the Eugenists have at all clearly traced any more -imaginable public authority, any apparatus of great experts -or great examinations to which such risks of tyranny could -be trusted. They are not very precise about this either; -indeed, the great difficulty I have throughout in -considering what are the Eugenist's proposals is that they -do not seem to know themselves. Some philosophic attitude -which I cannot myself connect with human reason seems to -make them actually proud of the dimness of their definitions -and the incompleteness of their plans. The Eugenic optimism -seems to partake generally of the nature of that dazzled and -confused confidence, so common in private theatricals, that -it will be all right on the night. They have all the ancient -despotism, but none of the ancient dogmatism. If they are -ready to reproduce the secrecies and cruelties of the -Inquisition. at least we cannot accuse them of offending us -with any of that close and complicated thought, that arid -and exact logic which narrowed the minds of the Middle Ages; -they have discovered how to combine the hardening of the -heart with a sympathetic softening of the head. -Nevertheless, there is one large, though vague, idea of the -Eugenists, which is an idea, and which we reach when we -reach this problem of a more general supervision. - -It was best presented perhaps by the distinguished doctor -who wrote the article on these matters in that composite -book which Mr. Wells edited, and called "The Great State." -He said the doctor should no longer be a mere plasterer of -paltry maladies, but should be, in his own words, "the -health adviser of the community." The same can be expressed -with even more point and simplicity in the proverb that -prevention is better than cure. Commenting on this, I said -that it amounted to treating all people who are well as if -they were ill. This the writer admitted to be true, only -adding that everyone is ill. To which I rejoin that if -everyone is ill the health adviser is ill too, and therefore -cannot know how to cure that minimum of illness. This is the -fundamental fallacy in the whole business of preventive -medicine. Prevention is not better than cure. Cutting off a -man's head is not better than curing his headache; it is not -even better than failing to cure it. And it is the same if a -man is in revolt, even a morbid revolt. Taking the heart out -of him by slavery is not better than leaving the heart in -him, even if you leave it a broken heart. Prevention is not -only not better than cure; prevention is even worse than -disease. Prevention means being an invalid for life, with -the extra exasperation of being quite well. I will ask God, -but certainly not man, to prevent me in all my doings. But -the decisive and discussable form of this is well summed up -in that phrase about the health adviser of society. I am -sure that those who speak thus have something in their minds -larger and more illuminating than the other two propositions -we have considered. They do not mean that all citizens -should decide, which would mean merely the present vague and -dubious balance. They do not mean that all medical men -should decide, which would mean a much more unbalanced -balance. They mean that a few men might be found who had a -consistent scheme and vision of a healthy nation, as -Napoleon had a consistent scheme and vision of an army. It -is cold anarchy to say that all men are to meddle in all -men's marriages. It is cold anarchy to say that any doctor -may seize and segregate anyone he likes. But it is not -anarchy to say that a few great hygienists might enclose or -limit the life of all citizens, as nurses do with a family -of children. It is not anarchy, it is tyranny; but tyranny -is a workable thing. When we ask by what process such men -could be certainly chosen, we are back again on the old -dilemma of despotism, which means a man, or democracy which -means men, or aristocracy which means favouritism. But as a -vision the thing is plausible and even rational. It is -rational, and it is wrong. - -It is wrong, quite apart from the suggestion that an expert -on health cannot be chosen. It is wrong because an expert on -health cannot exist. An expert on disease can exist, for the -very reason we have already considered in the case of -madness, because experts can only arise out of exceptional -things. A parallel with any of the other learned professions -will make the point plain. If I am prosecuted for trespass, -I will ask my solicitor which of the local lanes I am -forbidden to walk in. But if my solicitor, having gained my -case, were so elated that he insisted on settling what lanes -I should walk in; if he asked me to let him map out all my -country walks, because he was the perambulatory adviser of -the community---then that solicitor would solicit in vain. -If he will insist on walking behind me through woodland -ways, pointing out with his walking-stick likely avenues and -attractive short-cuts, I shall turn on him with passion, -saying: "Sir, I pay you to know one particular puzzle in -Latin and Norman-French, which they call the law of England; -and you do know the law of England. I have never had any -earthly reason to suppose that you know England. If you did, -you would leave a man alone when he was looking at it." As -are the limits of the lawyer's special knowledge about -walking, so are the limits of the doctor's. If I fall over -the stump of a tree and break my leg, as is likely enough, I -shall say to the lawyer, "Please go and fetch the doctor." I -shall do it because the doctor really has a larger knowledge -of a narrower area. There are only a certain number of ways -in which a leg can be broken; I know none of them, and he -knows all of them. There is such a thing as being a -specialist in broken legs. There is no such thing as being a -specialist in legs. When unbroken, legs are a matter of -taste. If the doctor has really mended my leg, he may merit -a colossal equestrian statue on the top of an eternal tower -of brass. But if the doctor has really mended my leg he has -no more rights over it. He must not come and teach me how to -walk; because he and I learnt that in the same school, the -nursery. And there is no more abstract likelihood of the -doctor walking more elegantly than I do than there is of the -barber or the bishop or the burglar walking more elegantly -than I do. There cannot be a general specialist; the -specialist can have no kind of authority, unless he has -avowedly limited his range. There cannot be such a thing as -the health adviser of the community, because there cannot be -such a thing as one who specialises in the universe. - -Thus when Dr. Saleeby says that a young man about to be -married should be obliged to produce his health-book as he -does his bank-book, the expression is neat; but it does not -convey the real respects in which the two things agree, and -in which they differ. To begin with, of course, there is a -great deal too much of the bank-book for the sanity of our -commonwealth; and it is highly probable that the -health-book, as conducted in modern conditions, would -rapidly become as timid, as snobbish, and as sterile as the -money side of marriage has become. In the moral atmosphere -of modernity the poor and the honest would probably get as -much the worst of it if we fought with health-books as they -do when we fight with bank-books. But that is a more general -matter; the real point is in the difference between the two. -The difference is in this vital fact: that a monied man -generally thinks about money, whereas a healthy man does not -think about health. If the strong young man cannot produce -his health-book, it is for the perfectly simple reason that -he has not got one. He can mention some extraordinary malady -he has; but every man of honour is expected to do that now, -whatever may be the decision that follows on the knowledge. - -Health is simply Nature, and no naturalist ought to have the -impudence to understand it. Health, one may say, is God; and -no agnostic has any right to claim His acquaintance. For God -must mean, among other things, that mystical and -multitudinous balance of all things, by which they are at -least able to stand up straight and endure; and any -scientist who pretends to have exhausted this subject of -ultimate sanity, I will call the lowest of religious -fanatics. I will allow him to understand the madman, for the -madman is an exception. But if he says he understands the -sane man, then he says he has the secret of the Creator. For -whenever you and I feel fully sane, we are quite incapable -of naming the elements that make up that mysterious -simplicity. We can no more analyse such peace in the soul -than we can conceive in our heads the whole enormous and -dizzy equilibrium by which, out of suns roaring like -infernos and heavens toppling like precipices, He has hanged -the world upon nothing. - -We conclude, therefore, that unless Eugenic activity be -restricted to monstrous things like mania, there is no -constituted or constitutable authority that can really -over-rule men in a matter in which they are so largely on a -level. In the matter of fundamental human rights, nothing -can be above Man, except God. An institution claiming to -come from God might have such authority; but this is the -last claim the Eugenists are likely to make. One caste or -one profession seeking to rule men in such matters is like a -man's right eye claiming to rule him, or his left leg to run -away with him. It is madness. We now pass on to consider -whether there is really anything in the way of Eugenics to -be done, with such cheerfulness as we may possess after -discovering that there is nobody to do it. +That, however it may be, does not concern my argument. I mention the +case of the strong-minded variety of the monstrous merely to give one +out of the hundred cases of the instant divergence of individual +opinions the moment we begin to discuss who is fit or unfit to +propagate. If Dr. Saleeby and I were setting out on a segregating trip +together, we should separate at the very door; and if he had a thousand +doctors with him, they would all go different ways. Everyone who has +known as many kind and capable doctors as I have, knows that the ablest +and sanest of them have a tendency to possess some little hobby or +half-discovery of their own, as that oranges are bad for children, or +that trees are dangerous in gardens, or that many more people ought to +wear spectacles. It is asking too much of human nature to expect them +not to cherish such scraps of originality in a hard, dull, and often +heroic trade. But the inevitable result of it, as exercised by the +individual Saleebys, would be that each man would have his favourite +kind of idiot. Each doctor would be mad on his own madman. One would +have his eye on devotional curates; another would wander about +collecting obstreperous majors; a third would be the terror of +animal-loving spinsters, who would flee with all their cats and dogs +before him. Short of sheer literal anarchy, therefore, it seems plain +that the Eugenist must find some authority other than his own implied +personality. He must, once and for all, learn the lesson which is +hardest for him and me and for all our fallen race---the fact that he is +only himself. + +We now pass from mere individual men who obviously cannot be trusted, +even if they are individual medical men, with such despotism over their +neighbours; and we come to consider whether the Eugenists have at all +clearly traced any more imaginable public authority, any apparatus of +great experts or great examinations to which such risks of tyranny could +be trusted. They are not very precise about this either; indeed, the +great difficulty I have throughout in considering what are the +Eugenist's proposals is that they do not seem to know themselves. Some +philosophic attitude which I cannot myself connect with human reason +seems to make them actually proud of the dimness of their definitions +and the incompleteness of their plans. The Eugenic optimism seems to +partake generally of the nature of that dazzled and confused confidence, +so common in private theatricals, that it will be all right on the +night. They have all the ancient despotism, but none of the ancient +dogmatism. If they are ready to reproduce the secrecies and cruelties of +the Inquisition. at least we cannot accuse them of offending us with any +of that close and complicated thought, that arid and exact logic which +narrowed the minds of the Middle Ages; they have discovered how to +combine the hardening of the heart with a sympathetic softening of the +head. Nevertheless, there is one large, though vague, idea of the +Eugenists, which is an idea, and which we reach when we reach this +problem of a more general supervision. + +It was best presented perhaps by the distinguished doctor who wrote the +article on these matters in that composite book which Mr. Wells edited, +and called "The Great State." He said the doctor should no longer be a +mere plasterer of paltry maladies, but should be, in his own words, "the +health adviser of the community." The same can be expressed with even +more point and simplicity in the proverb that prevention is better than +cure. Commenting on this, I said that it amounted to treating all people +who are well as if they were ill. This the writer admitted to be true, +only adding that everyone is ill. To which I rejoin that if everyone is +ill the health adviser is ill too, and therefore cannot know how to cure +that minimum of illness. This is the fundamental fallacy in the whole +business of preventive medicine. Prevention is not better than cure. +Cutting off a man's head is not better than curing his headache; it is +not even better than failing to cure it. And it is the same if a man is +in revolt, even a morbid revolt. Taking the heart out of him by slavery +is not better than leaving the heart in him, even if you leave it a +broken heart. Prevention is not only not better than cure; prevention is +even worse than disease. Prevention means being an invalid for life, +with the extra exasperation of being quite well. I will ask God, but +certainly not man, to prevent me in all my doings. But the decisive and +discussable form of this is well summed up in that phrase about the +health adviser of society. I am sure that those who speak thus have +something in their minds larger and more illuminating than the other two +propositions we have considered. They do not mean that all citizens +should decide, which would mean merely the present vague and dubious +balance. They do not mean that all medical men should decide, which +would mean a much more unbalanced balance. They mean that a few men +might be found who had a consistent scheme and vision of a healthy +nation, as Napoleon had a consistent scheme and vision of an army. It is +cold anarchy to say that all men are to meddle in all men's marriages. +It is cold anarchy to say that any doctor may seize and segregate anyone +he likes. But it is not anarchy to say that a few great hygienists might +enclose or limit the life of all citizens, as nurses do with a family of +children. It is not anarchy, it is tyranny; but tyranny is a workable +thing. When we ask by what process such men could be certainly chosen, +we are back again on the old dilemma of despotism, which means a man, or +democracy which means men, or aristocracy which means favouritism. But +as a vision the thing is plausible and even rational. It is rational, +and it is wrong. + +It is wrong, quite apart from the suggestion that an expert on health +cannot be chosen. It is wrong because an expert on health cannot exist. +An expert on disease can exist, for the very reason we have already +considered in the case of madness, because experts can only arise out of +exceptional things. A parallel with any of the other learned professions +will make the point plain. If I am prosecuted for trespass, I will ask +my solicitor which of the local lanes I am forbidden to walk in. But if +my solicitor, having gained my case, were so elated that he insisted on +settling what lanes I should walk in; if he asked me to let him map out +all my country walks, because he was the perambulatory adviser of the +community---then that solicitor would solicit in vain. If he will insist +on walking behind me through woodland ways, pointing out with his +walking-stick likely avenues and attractive short-cuts, I shall turn on +him with passion, saying: "Sir, I pay you to know one particular puzzle +in Latin and Norman-French, which they call the law of England; and you +do know the law of England. I have never had any earthly reason to +suppose that you know England. If you did, you would leave a man alone +when he was looking at it." As are the limits of the lawyer's special +knowledge about walking, so are the limits of the doctor's. If I fall +over the stump of a tree and break my leg, as is likely enough, I shall +say to the lawyer, "Please go and fetch the doctor." I shall do it +because the doctor really has a larger knowledge of a narrower area. +There are only a certain number of ways in which a leg can be broken; I +know none of them, and he knows all of them. There is such a thing as +being a specialist in broken legs. There is no such thing as being a +specialist in legs. When unbroken, legs are a matter of taste. If the +doctor has really mended my leg, he may merit a colossal equestrian +statue on the top of an eternal tower of brass. But if the doctor has +really mended my leg he has no more rights over it. He must not come and +teach me how to walk; because he and I learnt that in the same school, +the nursery. And there is no more abstract likelihood of the doctor +walking more elegantly than I do than there is of the barber or the +bishop or the burglar walking more elegantly than I do. There cannot be +a general specialist; the specialist can have no kind of authority, +unless he has avowedly limited his range. There cannot be such a thing +as the health adviser of the community, because there cannot be such a +thing as one who specialises in the universe. + +Thus when Dr. Saleeby says that a young man about to be married should +be obliged to produce his health-book as he does his bank-book, the +expression is neat; but it does not convey the real respects in which +the two things agree, and in which they differ. To begin with, of +course, there is a great deal too much of the bank-book for the sanity +of our commonwealth; and it is highly probable that the health-book, as +conducted in modern conditions, would rapidly become as timid, as +snobbish, and as sterile as the money side of marriage has become. In +the moral atmosphere of modernity the poor and the honest would probably +get as much the worst of it if we fought with health-books as they do +when we fight with bank-books. But that is a more general matter; the +real point is in the difference between the two. The difference is in +this vital fact: that a monied man generally thinks about money, whereas +a healthy man does not think about health. If the strong young man +cannot produce his health-book, it is for the perfectly simple reason +that he has not got one. He can mention some extraordinary malady he +has; but every man of honour is expected to do that now, whatever may be +the decision that follows on the knowledge. + +Health is simply Nature, and no naturalist ought to have the impudence +to understand it. Health, one may say, is God; and no agnostic has any +right to claim His acquaintance. For God must mean, among other things, +that mystical and multitudinous balance of all things, by which they are +at least able to stand up straight and endure; and any scientist who +pretends to have exhausted this subject of ultimate sanity, I will call +the lowest of religious fanatics. I will allow him to understand the +madman, for the madman is an exception. But if he says he understands +the sane man, then he says he has the secret of the Creator. For +whenever you and I feel fully sane, we are quite incapable of naming the +elements that make up that mysterious simplicity. We can no more analyse +such peace in the soul than we can conceive in our heads the whole +enormous and dizzy equilibrium by which, out of suns roaring like +infernos and heavens toppling like precipices, He has hanged the world +upon nothing. + +We conclude, therefore, that unless Eugenic activity be restricted to +monstrous things like mania, there is no constituted or constitutable +authority that can really over-rule men in a matter in which they are so +largely on a level. In the matter of fundamental human rights, nothing +can be above Man, except God. An institution claiming to come from God +might have such authority; but this is the last claim the Eugenists are +likely to make. One caste or one profession seeking to rule men in such +matters is like a man's right eye claiming to rule him, or his left leg +to run away with him. It is madness. We now pass on to consider whether +there is really anything in the way of Eugenics to be done, with such +cheerfulness as we may possess after discovering that there is nobody to +do it. ## The Unanswered Challenge -Dr. Saleeby did me the honour of referring to me in one of -his addresses on this subject, and said that even I cannot -produce any but a feeble-minded child from a feeble-minded -ancestry. To which I reply, first of all, that he cannot -produce a feeble-minded child. The whole point of our -contention is that this phrase conveys nothing fixed and -outside opinion. There is such a thing as mania, which has -always been segregated; there is such a thing as idiocy, -which has always been segregated; but feeble-mindedness is a -new phrase under which you might segregate anybody. It is -essential that this fundamental fallacy in the use of -statistics should be got somehow into the modern mind. Such -people must be made to see the point, which is surely plain -enough, that it is useless to have exact figures if they are -exact figures about an inexact phrase. If I say, "There are -five fools in Acton," it is surely quite clear that. though -no mathematician can make five the same as four or six, that -will not stop you or anyone else from finding a few more -fools in Acton. Now weak-mindedness, like folly, is a term -divided from madness in this vital manner---that in one -sense it applies to all men, in another to most men, in -another to very many men, and so on. It is as if Dr. Saleeby -were to say, "Vanity, I find, is undoubtedly hereditary. -Here is Mrs. Jones, who was very sensitive about her sonnets -being criticised, and I found her little daughter in a new -frock looking in the glass. The experiment is conclusive, -the demonstration is complete; there in the first generation -is the artistic temperament---that is vanity; and there in -the second generation is dress---and that is vanity." We -should answer, It My friend, all is vanity, vanity and -vexation of spirit---especially when one has to listen to -logic of your favourite kind. Obviously all human beings -must value themselves; and obviously there is in all such -valuation an element of weakness, since it is not the -valuation of eternal justice. What is the use of your -finding by experiment in some people a thing we know by -reason must be in all of them?" - -Here it will be as well to pause a moment and avert one -possible misunderstanding. I do not mean that you and I -cannot and do not practically see and personally remark on -this or that eccentric or intermediate type, for which the -word "feeble-minded" might be a very convenient word, and -might correspond to a genuine though indefinable fact of -experience. In the same way we might speak, and do speak, of -such and such a person being "mad with vanity" without -wanting two keepers to walk in and take the person off. But -I ask the reader to remember always that I am talking of -words, not as they are used in talk or novels, but as they -will be used, and have been used, in warrants and -certificates, and Acts of Parliament. The distinction -between the two is perfectly clear and practical. The -difference is that a novelist or a talker can be trusted to -try and hit the mark; it is all to his glory that the cap -should fit, that the type should be recognised; that he -should, in a literary sense, hang the right man. But it is -by no means always to the interests of governments or -officials to hang the right man. The fact that they often do -stretch words in order to cover cases is the whole -foundation of having any fixed laws or free institutions at -all. My point is not that I have never met anyone whom I -should call feeble-minded, rather than mad or imbecile. My -point is that if I want to dispossess a nephew, oust a -rival, silence a blackmailer, or get rid of an importunate -widow, there is nothing in logic to prevent my calling them -feeble-minded too. And the vaguer the charge is the less -they will be able to disprove it. - -One does not, as I have said, need to deny heredity In order -to resist such legislation, any more than one needs to deny -the spiritual world in order to resist an epidemic of -witch-burning. I admit there may be such a thing as -hereditary feeble-mindedness; I believe there is such a -thing as witchcraft. Believing that there are spirits, I am -bound in mere reason to suppose that there are probably evil -spirits; believing that there are evil spirits, I am bound -in mere reason to suppose that some men grow evil by dealing -with them. All that is mere rationalism; the superstition -(that is the unreasoning repugnance and terror) is in the -person who admits there can be angels but denies there can -be devils. The superstition is in the person who admits -there can be devils but denies there can be diabolists. Yet -I should certainly resist any effort to search for witches, -for a perfectly simple reason, which is the key of the whole -of this controversy. The reason is that it is one thing to -believe in witches, and quite another to believe in -witch-smellers. I have more respect for the old -witch-finders than for the Eugenists, who go about -persecuting the fool of the family; because the -witch-finders, according to their own conviction, ran a -risk. Witches were not the feeble-minded, but the -strong-minded---the evil mesmerists, the rulers of the -elements. Many a raid on a witch, right or wrong, seemed to -the villagers who did it a righteous popular rising against -a vast spiritual tyranny, a papacy of sin. Yet we know that -the thing degenerated into a rabid and despicable -persecution of the feeble or the old. It ended by being a -war upon the weak. It ended by being what Eugenics begins by +Dr. Saleeby did me the honour of referring to me in one of his addresses +on this subject, and said that even I cannot produce any but a +feeble-minded child from a feeble-minded ancestry. To which I reply, +first of all, that he cannot produce a feeble-minded child. The whole +point of our contention is that this phrase conveys nothing fixed and +outside opinion. There is such a thing as mania, which has always been +segregated; there is such a thing as idiocy, which has always been +segregated; but feeble-mindedness is a new phrase under which you might +segregate anybody. It is essential that this fundamental fallacy in the +use of statistics should be got somehow into the modern mind. Such +people must be made to see the point, which is surely plain enough, that +it is useless to have exact figures if they are exact figures about an +inexact phrase. If I say, "There are five fools in Acton," it is surely +quite clear that. though no mathematician can make five the same as four +or six, that will not stop you or anyone else from finding a few more +fools in Acton. Now weak-mindedness, like folly, is a term divided from +madness in this vital manner---that in one sense it applies to all men, +in another to most men, in another to very many men, and so on. It is as +if Dr. Saleeby were to say, "Vanity, I find, is undoubtedly hereditary. +Here is Mrs. Jones, who was very sensitive about her sonnets being +criticised, and I found her little daughter in a new frock looking in +the glass. The experiment is conclusive, the demonstration is complete; +there in the first generation is the artistic temperament---that is +vanity; and there in the second generation is dress---and that is +vanity." We should answer, It My friend, all is vanity, vanity and +vexation of spirit---especially when one has to listen to logic of your +favourite kind. Obviously all human beings must value themselves; and +obviously there is in all such valuation an element of weakness, since +it is not the valuation of eternal justice. What is the use of your +finding by experiment in some people a thing we know by reason must be +in all of them?" + +Here it will be as well to pause a moment and avert one possible +misunderstanding. I do not mean that you and I cannot and do not +practically see and personally remark on this or that eccentric or +intermediate type, for which the word "feeble-minded" might be a very +convenient word, and might correspond to a genuine though indefinable +fact of experience. In the same way we might speak, and do speak, of +such and such a person being "mad with vanity" without wanting two +keepers to walk in and take the person off. But I ask the reader to +remember always that I am talking of words, not as they are used in talk +or novels, but as they will be used, and have been used, in warrants and +certificates, and Acts of Parliament. The distinction between the two is +perfectly clear and practical. The difference is that a novelist or a +talker can be trusted to try and hit the mark; it is all to his glory +that the cap should fit, that the type should be recognised; that he +should, in a literary sense, hang the right man. But it is by no means +always to the interests of governments or officials to hang the right +man. The fact that they often do stretch words in order to cover cases +is the whole foundation of having any fixed laws or free institutions at +all. My point is not that I have never met anyone whom I should call +feeble-minded, rather than mad or imbecile. My point is that if I want +to dispossess a nephew, oust a rival, silence a blackmailer, or get rid +of an importunate widow, there is nothing in logic to prevent my calling +them feeble-minded too. And the vaguer the charge is the less they will +be able to disprove it. + +One does not, as I have said, need to deny heredity In order to resist +such legislation, any more than one needs to deny the spiritual world in +order to resist an epidemic of witch-burning. I admit there may be such +a thing as hereditary feeble-mindedness; I believe there is such a thing +as witchcraft. Believing that there are spirits, I am bound in mere +reason to suppose that there are probably evil spirits; believing that +there are evil spirits, I am bound in mere reason to suppose that some +men grow evil by dealing with them. All that is mere rationalism; the +superstition (that is the unreasoning repugnance and terror) is in the +person who admits there can be angels but denies there can be devils. +The superstition is in the person who admits there can be devils but +denies there can be diabolists. Yet I should certainly resist any effort +to search for witches, for a perfectly simple reason, which is the key +of the whole of this controversy. The reason is that it is one thing to +believe in witches, and quite another to believe in witch-smellers. I +have more respect for the old witch-finders than for the Eugenists, who +go about persecuting the fool of the family; because the witch-finders, +according to their own conviction, ran a risk. Witches were not the +feeble-minded, but the strong-minded---the evil mesmerists, the rulers +of the elements. Many a raid on a witch, right or wrong, seemed to the +villagers who did it a righteous popular rising against a vast spiritual +tyranny, a papacy of sin. Yet we know that the thing degenerated into a +rabid and despicable persecution of the feeble or the old. It ended by +being a war upon the weak. It ended by being what Eugenics begins by being. -When I said above that I believed in witches, but not in -witch-smellers, I stated my full position about that -conception of heredity, that half-formed philosophy of fears -and omens; of curses and weird recurrence and darkness and -the doom of blood, which, as preached to humanity to-day, is -often more inhuman than witchcraft itself. I do not deny -that this dark element exists; I only affirm that it is -dark; or, in other words, that its most strenuous students -are evidently in the dark about it. I would no more trust -Dr. Karl Pearson on a heredity-hunt than on a heresy-hunt. I -am perfectly ready to give my reasons for thinking this; and -I believe any well-balanced person, if he reflects on them, -will think as I do. There are two senses in which a man may -be said to know or not know a subject. I know the subject of -arithmetic, for instance; that is, I am not good at it, but -I know what it is. I am sufficiently familiar with its use -to see the absurdity of anyone who says, "So vulgar a -fraction cannot be mentioned before ladies," or "This unit -is Unionist, I hope." Considering myself for one moment as -an arithmetician, I may say that I know next to nothing -about my subject: but I know my subject. I know it in the -street. There is the other kind of man, like Dr. Karl -Pearson, who undoubtedly knows a vast amount about his -subject; who undoubtedly lives in great forests of facts -concerning kinship and inheritance. But it is not, by any -means, the same thing to have searched the forests and to -have recognised the frontiers. Indeed, the two things -generally belong to two very different types of mind. I -gravely doubt whether the Astronomer-Royal would write the -best essay on the relations between astronomy and astrology. -I doubt whether the President of the Geographical Society -could give the best definition and history of the words -"geography" and "geology." - -Now the students of heredity, especially, understand all of -their subject except their subject. They were, I suppose, -bred and born in that brier-patch, and have really explored -it without coming to the end of it. That is, they have -studied everything but the question of what. they are -studying. Now I do not propose to rely merely on myself to -tell them what they are studying. I propose, as will be seen -in a moment, to call the testimony of a great man who has -himself studied it. But to begin with, the domain of -heredity (for those who see its frontiers) is a sort of -triangle, enclosed on its three sides by three facts. The -first is that heredity undoubtedly exists, or there would be -no such thing as a family likeness, and every marriage might -suddenly produce a small Negro. The second is that even -simple heredity can never be simple; its complexity must be -literally unfathomable, for in that field fight unthinkable -millions. But yet again it never is simple heredity: for the -instant anyone is, he experiences. The third is that these +When I said above that I believed in witches, but not in witch-smellers, +I stated my full position about that conception of heredity, that +half-formed philosophy of fears and omens; of curses and weird +recurrence and darkness and the doom of blood, which, as preached to +humanity to-day, is often more inhuman than witchcraft itself. I do not +deny that this dark element exists; I only affirm that it is dark; or, +in other words, that its most strenuous students are evidently in the +dark about it. I would no more trust Dr. Karl Pearson on a heredity-hunt +than on a heresy-hunt. I am perfectly ready to give my reasons for +thinking this; and I believe any well-balanced person, if he reflects on +them, will think as I do. There are two senses in which a man may be +said to know or not know a subject. I know the subject of arithmetic, +for instance; that is, I am not good at it, but I know what it is. I am +sufficiently familiar with its use to see the absurdity of anyone who +says, "So vulgar a fraction cannot be mentioned before ladies," or "This +unit is Unionist, I hope." Considering myself for one moment as an +arithmetician, I may say that I know next to nothing about my subject: +but I know my subject. I know it in the street. There is the other kind +of man, like Dr. Karl Pearson, who undoubtedly knows a vast amount about +his subject; who undoubtedly lives in great forests of facts concerning +kinship and inheritance. But it is not, by any means, the same thing to +have searched the forests and to have recognised the frontiers. Indeed, +the two things generally belong to two very different types of mind. I +gravely doubt whether the Astronomer-Royal would write the best essay on +the relations between astronomy and astrology. I doubt whether the +President of the Geographical Society could give the best definition and +history of the words "geography" and "geology." + +Now the students of heredity, especially, understand all of their +subject except their subject. They were, I suppose, bred and born in +that brier-patch, and have really explored it without coming to the end +of it. That is, they have studied everything but the question of what. +they are studying. Now I do not propose to rely merely on myself to tell +them what they are studying. I propose, as will be seen in a moment, to +call the testimony of a great man who has himself studied it. But to +begin with, the domain of heredity (for those who see its frontiers) is +a sort of triangle, enclosed on its three sides by three facts. The +first is that heredity undoubtedly exists, or there would be no such +thing as a family likeness, and every marriage might suddenly produce a +small Negro. The second is that even simple heredity can never be +simple; its complexity must be literally unfathomable, for in that field +fight unthinkable millions. But yet again it never is simple heredity: +for the instant anyone is, he experiences. The third is that these innumerable ancient influences, these instant inundations of -experiences, come together according to a combination that -is unlike anything else on this earth. It is a combination -that does combine. It cannot be sorted out again, even on -the Day of Judgment. Two totally different people have -become in the sense most sacred, frightful, and -unanswerable, one flesh. If a golden-haired Scandinavian -girl has married a very swarthy Jew, the Scandinavian side -of the family may say till they are blue in the face that -the baby has his mother's nose or his mother's eyes. They -can never be certain the black-haired Bedouin is not present -in every feature, in every inch. In the person of the baby -he may have gently pulled his wife's nose. In the person of -the baby he may have partly blacked his wife's eyes. - -Those are the three first facts of heredity. That it exists; -that it is subtle and made of a million elements; that it is -simple, and cannot be unmade into those elements. To -summarise: you know there is wine in the soup. You do not -know how many wines there are in the soup, because you do -not know how many wines there are in the world. And you -never will know, because all chemists, all cooks, and all -common-sense people tell you that the soup is of such a sort -that it can never be chemically analysed. That is a -perfectly fair parallel to the hereditary element in the -human soul. There are many ways in which one can feel that -there is wine in the soup, as in suddenly tasting a wine -specially favoured; that corresponds to seeing suddenly -flash on a young face the image of some ancestor you have -known. But even then the taster cannot be certain he is not -tasting one familiar wine among many unfamiliar ones---or -seeing one known ancestor among a million unknown ancestors. -Another way is to get drunk on the soup, which corresponds -to the case of those who say they are driven to sin and -death by hereditary doom. But even then the drunkard cannot -be certain it was the soup, any more than the traditional -drunkard who is certain it was the salmon. - -Those are the facts about heredity which anyone can see. The -upshot of them is not only that a miss is as good as a mile, -but a miss is as good as a win. If the child has his -parents' nose (or noses) that may be heredity. But if he has -not, that may be heredity too. And as we need not take -heredity lightly because two generations' differ---so we -need not take heredity a scrap more seriously because two -generations are similar. The thing is there, in what cases -we know not, in what proportion we know not, and we cannot -know. - -Now it is just here that the decent difference of function -between Dr. Saleeby's trade and mine comes in. It is his -business to study human health and sickness as a whole, in a -spirit of more or less enlightened guesswork; and it is -perfectly natural that he should allow for heredity here, -there, and everywhere, as a man climbing a mountain or -sailing a boat will allow for weather without even -explaining it to himself. An utterly different attitude is -incumbent on any conscientious man writing about what laws -should be enforced or about how commonwealths should be -governed. And when we consider how plain a fact is murder, -and yet how hesitant and even hazy we all grow about the -guilt of a murderer, when we consider how simple an act is -stealing, and yet how it is to convict and punish those rich -commercial pirates who steal the most, when we consider how -cruel and clumsy the law can be even about things as old and -plain as the Ten Commandments---I simply cannot conceive any -responsible person proposing to legislate on our broken -knowledge and bottomless ignorance of heredity. - -But though I have to consider this dull matter in its due -logical order, it appears to me that this part of the matter -has been settled, and settled in a most masterly way, by -somebody who has infinitely more right to speak on it than I -have. Our press seems to have a perfect genius for fitting -people with caps that don't fit; and affixing the wrong -terms of eulogy and even the wrong terms of abuse. And just -as people will talk of Bernard Shaw as a naughty winking -Pierrot, when he is the last great Puritan and really -believes in respectability; just as (*si parva licet* etc.) -they will talk of my own paradoxes, when I pass my life in -preaching that the truisms are true; so an enormous number -of newspaper readers seem to have it fixed firmly in their -heads that Mr. H. G. Wells is a harsh and horrible Eugenist -in great goblin spectacles, who wants to put us all into -metallic microscopes and dissect us with metallic tools. As -a matter of fact, of course, Mr. Wells, so far from being -too definite, is generally not definite enough. He is an -absolute wizard in the appreciation of atmospheres and the -opening of vistas; but his answers are more agnostic than -his questions. His books will do every thing except shut. -And so far from being the sort of man who would stop a man -from propagating, he cannot even stop a full stop. He is not -Eugenic enough to prevent the black dot at the end of a -sentence from breeding a line of little dots. - -But this is not the clear-cut blunder of which I spoke. The -real blunder is this. Mr. Wells deserves a tiara of crowns -and a garland of medals for all kinds of reasons. But if I -were restricted, on grounds of public economy, to giving -Mr. Wells only one medal *ob cives servatos*, I would give -him a medal as the Eugenist who destroyed Eugenics. For -everyone spoke of him, rightly or wrongly, as a Eugenist; -and he certainly had, as I have not, the training and type -of culture required to consider the matter merely in a -biological and not in a generally moral sense. The result -was that in that fine book, "Mankind in the Making," where -he inevitably came to grips with the problem, he threw down -to the Eugenists an intellectual challenge which seems to me -unanswerable, but which, at any rate, is unanswered. I do -not mean that no remote Eugenist wrote upon the subject; for -it is impossible to read all writings, especially Eugenist -writings. I do mean that the leading Eugenists write as if -this challenge had never been offered. The gauntlet lies -unlifted on the ground. - -Having given honour for the idea where it is due, I may be -permitted to summarise it myself for the sake of brevity. -Mr. Wells' point was this. That we cannot be certain about -the inheritance of health, because health is not a quality. -It is not a thing like darkness in the hair or length in the -limbs. It is a relation, a balance. You have a tall, strong -man; but his very strength depends on his not being too tall -for his strength. You catch a healthy, full-blooded fellow; -but his very health depends on his being not too full of -blood. A heart that is strong for a dwarf will be weak for a -giant; a nervous system that would kill a man with a trace -of a certain illness will sustain him to ninety if he has no -trace of that illness. Nay, the same nervous system might -kill him if he had an excess of some other comparatively -healthy thing. Seeing, therefore, that there are apparently -healthy people of all types, it is obvious that if you mate -two of them, you may even then produce a discord out of two -inconsistent harmonies. It is obvious that you can no more -be certain of a good offspring than you can be certain of a -good tune if you play two fine airs at once on the same -piano. You can be even less certain of it in the more -delicate case of beauty, of which the Eugenists talk a great -deal. Marry two handsome people whose noses tend to the -aquiline, and their baby (for all you know) may be a goblin -with a nose like an enormous parrot's. Indeed, I actually -know a case of this kind. The Eugenist has to settle, not -the result f fixing one steady thing to a second steady -thing; but what will happen when one toppling and dizzy -equilibrium crashes into another. - -This is the interesting conclusion. It is on this degree of -knowledge that we are asked to abandon the universal -morality of mankind. When we have stopped the lover from -marrying the unfortunate woman he loves, when we have found -him another uproariously healthy female whom he does not -love in the least, even then we have no logical evidence -that the result may not be as horrid and dangerous as if he -had behaved like a man of honour. +experiences, come together according to a combination that is unlike +anything else on this earth. It is a combination that does combine. It +cannot be sorted out again, even on the Day of Judgment. Two totally +different people have become in the sense most sacred, frightful, and +unanswerable, one flesh. If a golden-haired Scandinavian girl has +married a very swarthy Jew, the Scandinavian side of the family may say +till they are blue in the face that the baby has his mother's nose or +his mother's eyes. They can never be certain the black-haired Bedouin is +not present in every feature, in every inch. In the person of the baby +he may have gently pulled his wife's nose. In the person of the baby he +may have partly blacked his wife's eyes. + +Those are the three first facts of heredity. That it exists; that it is +subtle and made of a million elements; that it is simple, and cannot be +unmade into those elements. To summarise: you know there is wine in the +soup. You do not know how many wines there are in the soup, because you +do not know how many wines there are in the world. And you never will +know, because all chemists, all cooks, and all common-sense people tell +you that the soup is of such a sort that it can never be chemically +analysed. That is a perfectly fair parallel to the hereditary element in +the human soul. There are many ways in which one can feel that there is +wine in the soup, as in suddenly tasting a wine specially favoured; that +corresponds to seeing suddenly flash on a young face the image of some +ancestor you have known. But even then the taster cannot be certain he +is not tasting one familiar wine among many unfamiliar ones---or seeing +one known ancestor among a million unknown ancestors. Another way is to +get drunk on the soup, which corresponds to the case of those who say +they are driven to sin and death by hereditary doom. But even then the +drunkard cannot be certain it was the soup, any more than the +traditional drunkard who is certain it was the salmon. + +Those are the facts about heredity which anyone can see. The upshot of +them is not only that a miss is as good as a mile, but a miss is as good +as a win. If the child has his parents' nose (or noses) that may be +heredity. But if he has not, that may be heredity too. And as we need +not take heredity lightly because two generations' differ---so we need +not take heredity a scrap more seriously because two generations are +similar. The thing is there, in what cases we know not, in what +proportion we know not, and we cannot know. + +Now it is just here that the decent difference of function between +Dr. Saleeby's trade and mine comes in. It is his business to study human +health and sickness as a whole, in a spirit of more or less enlightened +guesswork; and it is perfectly natural that he should allow for heredity +here, there, and everywhere, as a man climbing a mountain or sailing a +boat will allow for weather without even explaining it to himself. An +utterly different attitude is incumbent on any conscientious man writing +about what laws should be enforced or about how commonwealths should be +governed. And when we consider how plain a fact is murder, and yet how +hesitant and even hazy we all grow about the guilt of a murderer, when +we consider how simple an act is stealing, and yet how it is to convict +and punish those rich commercial pirates who steal the most, when we +consider how cruel and clumsy the law can be even about things as old +and plain as the Ten Commandments---I simply cannot conceive any +responsible person proposing to legislate on our broken knowledge and +bottomless ignorance of heredity. + +But though I have to consider this dull matter in its due logical order, +it appears to me that this part of the matter has been settled, and +settled in a most masterly way, by somebody who has infinitely more +right to speak on it than I have. Our press seems to have a perfect +genius for fitting people with caps that don't fit; and affixing the +wrong terms of eulogy and even the wrong terms of abuse. And just as +people will talk of Bernard Shaw as a naughty winking Pierrot, when he +is the last great Puritan and really believes in respectability; just as +(*si parva licet* etc.) they will talk of my own paradoxes, when I pass +my life in preaching that the truisms are true; so an enormous number of +newspaper readers seem to have it fixed firmly in their heads that +Mr. H. G. Wells is a harsh and horrible Eugenist in great goblin +spectacles, who wants to put us all into metallic microscopes and +dissect us with metallic tools. As a matter of fact, of course, +Mr. Wells, so far from being too definite, is generally not definite +enough. He is an absolute wizard in the appreciation of atmospheres and +the opening of vistas; but his answers are more agnostic than his +questions. His books will do every thing except shut. And so far from +being the sort of man who would stop a man from propagating, he cannot +even stop a full stop. He is not Eugenic enough to prevent the black dot +at the end of a sentence from breeding a line of little dots. + +But this is not the clear-cut blunder of which I spoke. The real blunder +is this. Mr. Wells deserves a tiara of crowns and a garland of medals +for all kinds of reasons. But if I were restricted, on grounds of public +economy, to giving Mr. Wells only one medal *ob cives servatos*, I would +give him a medal as the Eugenist who destroyed Eugenics. For everyone +spoke of him, rightly or wrongly, as a Eugenist; and he certainly had, +as I have not, the training and type of culture required to consider the +matter merely in a biological and not in a generally moral sense. The +result was that in that fine book, "Mankind in the Making," where he +inevitably came to grips with the problem, he threw down to the +Eugenists an intellectual challenge which seems to me unanswerable, but +which, at any rate, is unanswered. I do not mean that no remote Eugenist +wrote upon the subject; for it is impossible to read all writings, +especially Eugenist writings. I do mean that the leading Eugenists write +as if this challenge had never been offered. The gauntlet lies unlifted +on the ground. + +Having given honour for the idea where it is due, I may be permitted to +summarise it myself for the sake of brevity. Mr. Wells' point was this. +That we cannot be certain about the inheritance of health, because +health is not a quality. It is not a thing like darkness in the hair or +length in the limbs. It is a relation, a balance. You have a tall, +strong man; but his very strength depends on his not being too tall for +his strength. You catch a healthy, full-blooded fellow; but his very +health depends on his being not too full of blood. A heart that is +strong for a dwarf will be weak for a giant; a nervous system that would +kill a man with a trace of a certain illness will sustain him to ninety +if he has no trace of that illness. Nay, the same nervous system might +kill him if he had an excess of some other comparatively healthy thing. +Seeing, therefore, that there are apparently healthy people of all +types, it is obvious that if you mate two of them, you may even then +produce a discord out of two inconsistent harmonies. It is obvious that +you can no more be certain of a good offspring than you can be certain +of a good tune if you play two fine airs at once on the same piano. You +can be even less certain of it in the more delicate case of beauty, of +which the Eugenists talk a great deal. Marry two handsome people whose +noses tend to the aquiline, and their baby (for all you know) may be a +goblin with a nose like an enormous parrot's. Indeed, I actually know a +case of this kind. The Eugenist has to settle, not the result f fixing +one steady thing to a second steady thing; but what will happen when one +toppling and dizzy equilibrium crashes into another. + +This is the interesting conclusion. It is on this degree of knowledge +that we are asked to abandon the universal morality of mankind. When we +have stopped the lover from marrying the unfortunate woman he loves, +when we have found him another uproariously healthy female whom he does +not love in the least, even then we have no logical evidence that the +result may not be as horrid and dangerous as if he had behaved like a +man of honour. ## The Established Church of Doubt -Let us now finally consider what the honest Eugenists do -mean, since it has become increasingly evident that they -cannot mean what they say. Unfortunately, the obstacles to -any explanation of this are such as to insist on a -circuitous approach. The tendency of all that is printed and -much that is spoken to-day is to be, in the only true sense, -behind the times. It is because it is always in a hurry that -it is always too late. Give an ordinary man a day to write -an article, and he will remember the things he has really -heard latest; and may even, in the last glory of the sunset, -begin to think of what he thinks himself. Give him an hour -to write it, and he will think of the nearest text-book on -the topic, and make the best mosaic he may out of classical -quotations and old authorities. Give him ten minutes to -write it and he will run screaming for refuge to the old -nursery where he learnt his .stalest proverbs, or the old -school where he learnt his stalest politics. The quicker -goes the journalist the slower go his thoughts. The result -is the newspaper of our time, which every day can be -delivered earlier and earlier, and which, every day, is less -worth delivering at all. The poor panting critic falls -farther and farther behind the motor-car of modern fact. -Fifty years ago he was barely fifteen years behind the -times. Fifteen years ago he was not more than fifty years -behind the times. Just now he is rather more than a hundred -years behind the times: and the proof of it is that the -things he says, though manifest nonsense about our society -to-day, really were true about our society some hundred and -thirty years ago. The best instance of his belated state is -his perpetual assertion that the supernatural is less and -less believed. It is a perfectly true and realistic -account---of the eighteenth century. It is the worst -possible account of this age of psychics and spirit-healers -and fakirs and fashionable fortune tellers. In fact, I -generally reply in eighteenth century language to this -eighteenth century illusion. If somebody says to me, "The -creeds are crumbling," I reply, "And the King of Prussia, -who is himself a Freethinker, is certainly capturing Silesia -from the Catholic Empress." If somebody says, "Miracles must -be reconsidered in the light of rational experience," I -answer affably, "But I hope that our enlightened leader, -Hébert, will not insist on guillotining that poor French -queen." If somebody says, "We must watch for the rise of -some new religion which can commend itself to reason," I -reply, "But how much more necessary is it to watch for the -rise of some military adventurer who may destroy the -Republic; and, to my mind, that young Major Bonaparte has -rather a restless air." It is only in such language from the -Age of Reason that we can answer such things. The age we -live in is something more than an age of superstition---it -is an age of innumerable superstitions. But it is only with -one example of this that I am concerned here. - -I mean the error that still sends men marching about -disestablishing churches and talking of the tyranny of -compulsory church teaching or compulsory church tithes. I do -not wish for an irrelevant misunderstanding here; I would -myself certainly disestablish any church that had a -numerical minority, like the Irish or the Welsh; and I think -it would do a great deal of good to genuine churches that -have a partly conventional majority, like the English, or -even the Russian. But I should only do this if I had nothing -else to do; and just now there is very much else to do. For -religion, orthodox or unorthodox, is not just now relying on -the weapon of State establishment at all. The Pope -practically made no attempt to preserve the Concordat; but -seemed rather relieved at the independence his Church gained -by the destruction of it: and it is common talk among the -French clericalists that the Church has gained by the -change. In Russia the one real charge brought by religious -people (especially Roman Catholics) against the Orthodox -Church is not its orthodoxy or heterodoxy, but its abject -dependence on the State. In England we can almost measure an -Anglican's fervour for his Church by his comparative -coolness about its establishment---that is, its control by a -Parliament of Scotch Presbyterians like Balfour, or Welsh -Congregationalists like Lloyd George. In Scotland the -powerful combination of the two great sects outside the -establishment have left it in a position in which it feels -no disposition to boast of being called by mere lawyers the -Church of Scotland. I am not here arguing that Churches -should not depend on the State; nor that they do not depend -upon much worse things. It may be reasonably maintained that -the strength of Romanism, though it be not in any national -police, is in a moral police more rigid and vigilant. It may -be reasonably maintained that the strength of Anglicanism, -though it be not in establishment, is in aristocracy, and -its shadow, which is called snobbishness. All I assert here -is that the Churches are not now leaning heavily on their -political establishment; they are not using heavily the -secular arm. Almost everywhere their legal tithes have been -modified, their legal boards of control have been mixed. -They may still employ tyranny, and worse tyranny: I am not -considering that. They are not specially using that special -tyranny which consists in using the government. - -The thing that really is trying to tyrannise through -government is Science. The thing that really does use the -secular arm is Science. And the creed that really is levying -tithes and capturing schools, the creed that really is -enforced by fine and imprisonment, the creed that really is -proclaimed not in sermons but in statutes, and spread not by -pilgrims but by policemen---that creed is the great but -disputed system of thought which began with Evolution and -has ended in Eugenics. Materialism is really our established -Church; for the Government will really help it to persecute -its heretics. Vaccination, in its hundred years of -experiment, has been disputed almost as much as baptism in -its approximate two thousand. But it seems quite natural to -our politicians to enforce vaccination: and it would seem to -them madness to enforce baptism. - -I am not frightened of the word "persecution" when it is -attributed to the churches; nor is it in the least as a term -of reproach that I attribute it to the men of science. It is -as a term of legal fact. If it means the imposition by the -police of a widely disputed theory, incapable of final -proof---then our priests are not now persecuting, but our -doctors are. The imposition of such dogmas constitutes a -State Church-in an older and stronger sense than any that -can be applied to any supernatural Church to-day. There are -still places where the religious minority is forbidden to -assemble or to teach in this way or that; and yet more where -it is excluded from this or that public post. But I cannot -now recall any place where it is compelled by the criminal -law to go through the rite of the official religion. Even -the Young Turks did not insist on all Macedonians being -circumcised. - -Now here we find ourselves confronted with an amazing fact. -When, in the past, opinions so arguable have been enforced -by State violence, it has been at the instigation of -fanatics who held them for fixed and flaming certainties. If -truths could not be evaded by their enemies, neither could -they be altered even by their friends. But what are the -certain truths that the secular arm must now lift the sword -to enforce? Why, they are that very mass of bottomless -questions and bewildered answers that we have been studying -in the last chapters---questions whose only interest is that -they are trackless and mysterious; answers whose only glory -is that they are tentative and new. The devotee boasted that -he would never abandon the faith; and therefore he -persecuted for the faith. But the doctor of science actually -boasts that he will always abandon a hypothesis; and yet he -persecutes for the hypothesis. The Inquisitor violently -enforced his creed, because it was unchangeable. The -*savant* enforces it violently because he may change it the -next day. - -Now this is a new sort of persecution; and one may be -permitted to ask if it is an improvement on the old. The -difference, so far as one can see at first, seems rather -favourable to the old. If we are to be at the merciless -mercy of man, most of us would rather be racked for a creed -that existed intensely in somebody's head, rather than -vivisected for a discovery that had not yet come into -anyone's head, and possibly never would. A man would rather -be tortured with a thumbscrew until he chose to see reason -than tortured with a vivisecting knife until the vivisector -chose to see reason. Yet that is the real difference between -the two types of legal enforcement. If I gave in to the -Inquisitors, I should at least know what creed to profess. -But even if I yelled out *a credo* when the Eugenists had me -on the rack, I should not know what creed to yell. I might -get an extra turn of the rack for confessing to the creed -they confessed quite a week ago. - -Now let no light-minded person say that I am here taking -extravagant parallels; for the parallel is not only perfect, -but plain. For this reason: that the difference between -torture and vivisection is not in any way affected by the -fierceness or mildness of either. Whether they gave the rack -half a turn or half a hundred, they were, by hypothesis, -dealing with a truth which they knew to be there. Whether -they vivisect painfully or painlessly, they are trying to -find out whether the truth is there or not. The old -Inquisitors tortured to put their own opinions into -somebody. But the new Inquisitors torture to get their own -opinions out of him. They do not know what their own -opinions are, until the victim of vivisection tells them. -The division of thought is a complete chasm for anyone who -cares about thinking. The old persecutor was trying to -*teach* the citizen, with fire and sword. The new persecutor -is trying to *learn* from the citizen, with scalpel and -germ-injector. The master was meeker than the pupil will be. - -I could prove by many practical instances that even my -illustrations are not exaggerated, by many placid proposals -I have heard for the vivisection of criminals, or by the -filthy incident of Dr. Neisser. But I prefer here to stick -to a strictly logical line of distinction, and insist that -whereas in all previous persecutions the violence was used -to end our indecision, the whole point here is that the -violence is used to end the indecision of the persecutors. -This is what the honest Eugenists really mean, so far as -they mean anything. They mean that the public is to be given -up, not as a heathen land for conversion, but simply as a -*pabulum* for experiment. That is the real, rude, barbaric -sense behind this Eugenic legislation. The Eugenist doctors -are not such fools as they look in the light of any logical -inquiry about what they want. They do not know what they -want, except that they want your soul and body and mine in -order to find out. They are quite seriously, as they -themselves might say, the first religion to be experimental -instead of doctrinal. All other established Churches have -been based on somebody having found the truth. This is the -first Church that was ever based on not having found it. - -There is in them a perfectly sincere hope and enthusiasm; -but it is not for us, but for what they might learn from us, -if they could rule us as they can rabbits. They cannot tell -us anything about heredity, because they do not know -anything about it. But they do quite honestly believe that -they would know something about it, when they had married -and mismarried us for a few hundred years. They cannot tell -us who is fit to wield such authority, for they know that -nobody is; but they do quite honestly believe that when that -authority has been abused for n very long time, somebody -somehow will be evolved who is fit for the job. I am no -Puritan, and no one who knows my opinions will consider it a -mere criminal charge if I say that they are simply gambling. -The reckless gambler has no money in his pockets; he has -only the ideas in his head. These gamblers have no ideas in -their heads; they have only the money in their pockets. But -they think that if they could use the money to buy a big -society to experiment on, something like an idea might come -to them at last. That is Eugenics. - -I confine myself here to remarking that I do not like it. I -may be very stingy, but I am willing to pay the scientist -for what lie does know; I draw the line at paying him for -everything he doesn't know. I may be very cowardly, but I am -willing to be hurt for what I think or what he thinks---I am -not willing to be hurt, or even inconvenienced, for whatever -he might happen to think after he had hurt me. The ordinary -citizen may easily be more magnanimous than I. and take the -whole thing on trust; in which case his career may be -happier in the next world, but (I think) sadder in this. At -least, I wish to point out to him that he will not be giving -his glorious body as soldier3 give it: to the glory of a -fixed flag, or martyrs to the glory of a deathless God. He -will bc, in the strict sense of the Latin phrase, giving his -vile body for an experiment---an experiment of which even -the experimentalist knows neither the significance nor the -end. +Let us now finally consider what the honest Eugenists do mean, since it +has become increasingly evident that they cannot mean what they say. +Unfortunately, the obstacles to any explanation of this are such as to +insist on a circuitous approach. The tendency of all that is printed and +much that is spoken to-day is to be, in the only true sense, behind the +times. It is because it is always in a hurry that it is always too late. +Give an ordinary man a day to write an article, and he will remember the +things he has really heard latest; and may even, in the last glory of +the sunset, begin to think of what he thinks himself. Give him an hour +to write it, and he will think of the nearest text-book on the topic, +and make the best mosaic he may out of classical quotations and old +authorities. Give him ten minutes to write it and he will run screaming +for refuge to the old nursery where he learnt his .stalest proverbs, or +the old school where he learnt his stalest politics. The quicker goes +the journalist the slower go his thoughts. The result is the newspaper +of our time, which every day can be delivered earlier and earlier, and +which, every day, is less worth delivering at all. The poor panting +critic falls farther and farther behind the motor-car of modern fact. +Fifty years ago he was barely fifteen years behind the times. Fifteen +years ago he was not more than fifty years behind the times. Just now he +is rather more than a hundred years behind the times: and the proof of +it is that the things he says, though manifest nonsense about our +society to-day, really were true about our society some hundred and +thirty years ago. The best instance of his belated state is his +perpetual assertion that the supernatural is less and less believed. It +is a perfectly true and realistic account---of the eighteenth century. +It is the worst possible account of this age of psychics and +spirit-healers and fakirs and fashionable fortune tellers. In fact, I +generally reply in eighteenth century language to this eighteenth +century illusion. If somebody says to me, "The creeds are crumbling," I +reply, "And the King of Prussia, who is himself a Freethinker, is +certainly capturing Silesia from the Catholic Empress." If somebody +says, "Miracles must be reconsidered in the light of rational +experience," I answer affably, "But I hope that our enlightened leader, +Hébert, will not insist on guillotining that poor French queen." If +somebody says, "We must watch for the rise of some new religion which +can commend itself to reason," I reply, "But how much more necessary is +it to watch for the rise of some military adventurer who may destroy the +Republic; and, to my mind, that young Major Bonaparte has rather a +restless air." It is only in such language from the Age of Reason that +we can answer such things. The age we live in is something more than an +age of superstition---it is an age of innumerable superstitions. But it +is only with one example of this that I am concerned here. + +I mean the error that still sends men marching about disestablishing +churches and talking of the tyranny of compulsory church teaching or +compulsory church tithes. I do not wish for an irrelevant +misunderstanding here; I would myself certainly disestablish any church +that had a numerical minority, like the Irish or the Welsh; and I think +it would do a great deal of good to genuine churches that have a partly +conventional majority, like the English, or even the Russian. But I +should only do this if I had nothing else to do; and just now there is +very much else to do. For religion, orthodox or unorthodox, is not just +now relying on the weapon of State establishment at all. The Pope +practically made no attempt to preserve the Concordat; but seemed rather +relieved at the independence his Church gained by the destruction of it: +and it is common talk among the French clericalists that the Church has +gained by the change. In Russia the one real charge brought by religious +people (especially Roman Catholics) against the Orthodox Church is not +its orthodoxy or heterodoxy, but its abject dependence on the State. In +England we can almost measure an Anglican's fervour for his Church by +his comparative coolness about its establishment---that is, its control +by a Parliament of Scotch Presbyterians like Balfour, or Welsh +Congregationalists like Lloyd George. In Scotland the powerful +combination of the two great sects outside the establishment have left +it in a position in which it feels no disposition to boast of being +called by mere lawyers the Church of Scotland. I am not here arguing +that Churches should not depend on the State; nor that they do not +depend upon much worse things. It may be reasonably maintained that the +strength of Romanism, though it be not in any national police, is in a +moral police more rigid and vigilant. It may be reasonably maintained +that the strength of Anglicanism, though it be not in establishment, is +in aristocracy, and its shadow, which is called snobbishness. All I +assert here is that the Churches are not now leaning heavily on their +political establishment; they are not using heavily the secular arm. +Almost everywhere their legal tithes have been modified, their legal +boards of control have been mixed. They may still employ tyranny, and +worse tyranny: I am not considering that. They are not specially using +that special tyranny which consists in using the government. + +The thing that really is trying to tyrannise through government is +Science. The thing that really does use the secular arm is Science. And +the creed that really is levying tithes and capturing schools, the creed +that really is enforced by fine and imprisonment, the creed that really +is proclaimed not in sermons but in statutes, and spread not by pilgrims +but by policemen---that creed is the great but disputed system of +thought which began with Evolution and has ended in Eugenics. +Materialism is really our established Church; for the Government will +really help it to persecute its heretics. Vaccination, in its hundred +years of experiment, has been disputed almost as much as baptism in its +approximate two thousand. But it seems quite natural to our politicians +to enforce vaccination: and it would seem to them madness to enforce +baptism. + +I am not frightened of the word "persecution" when it is attributed to +the churches; nor is it in the least as a term of reproach that I +attribute it to the men of science. It is as a term of legal fact. If it +means the imposition by the police of a widely disputed theory, +incapable of final proof---then our priests are not now persecuting, but +our doctors are. The imposition of such dogmas constitutes a State +Church-in an older and stronger sense than any that can be applied to +any supernatural Church to-day. There are still places where the +religious minority is forbidden to assemble or to teach in this way or +that; and yet more where it is excluded from this or that public post. +But I cannot now recall any place where it is compelled by the criminal +law to go through the rite of the official religion. Even the Young +Turks did not insist on all Macedonians being circumcised. + +Now here we find ourselves confronted with an amazing fact. When, in the +past, opinions so arguable have been enforced by State violence, it has +been at the instigation of fanatics who held them for fixed and flaming +certainties. If truths could not be evaded by their enemies, neither +could they be altered even by their friends. But what are the certain +truths that the secular arm must now lift the sword to enforce? Why, +they are that very mass of bottomless questions and bewildered answers +that we have been studying in the last chapters---questions whose only +interest is that they are trackless and mysterious; answers whose only +glory is that they are tentative and new. The devotee boasted that he +would never abandon the faith; and therefore he persecuted for the +faith. But the doctor of science actually boasts that he will always +abandon a hypothesis; and yet he persecutes for the hypothesis. The +Inquisitor violently enforced his creed, because it was unchangeable. +The *savant* enforces it violently because he may change it the next +day. + +Now this is a new sort of persecution; and one may be permitted to ask +if it is an improvement on the old. The difference, so far as one can +see at first, seems rather favourable to the old. If we are to be at the +merciless mercy of man, most of us would rather be racked for a creed +that existed intensely in somebody's head, rather than vivisected for a +discovery that had not yet come into anyone's head, and possibly never +would. A man would rather be tortured with a thumbscrew until he chose +to see reason than tortured with a vivisecting knife until the +vivisector chose to see reason. Yet that is the real difference between +the two types of legal enforcement. If I gave in to the Inquisitors, I +should at least know what creed to profess. But even if I yelled out *a +credo* when the Eugenists had me on the rack, I should not know what +creed to yell. I might get an extra turn of the rack for confessing to +the creed they confessed quite a week ago. + +Now let no light-minded person say that I am here taking extravagant +parallels; for the parallel is not only perfect, but plain. For this +reason: that the difference between torture and vivisection is not in +any way affected by the fierceness or mildness of either. Whether they +gave the rack half a turn or half a hundred, they were, by hypothesis, +dealing with a truth which they knew to be there. Whether they vivisect +painfully or painlessly, they are trying to find out whether the truth +is there or not. The old Inquisitors tortured to put their own opinions +into somebody. But the new Inquisitors torture to get their own opinions +out of him. They do not know what their own opinions are, until the +victim of vivisection tells them. The division of thought is a complete +chasm for anyone who cares about thinking. The old persecutor was trying +to *teach* the citizen, with fire and sword. The new persecutor is +trying to *learn* from the citizen, with scalpel and germ-injector. The +master was meeker than the pupil will be. + +I could prove by many practical instances that even my illustrations are +not exaggerated, by many placid proposals I have heard for the +vivisection of criminals, or by the filthy incident of Dr. Neisser. But +I prefer here to stick to a strictly logical line of distinction, and +insist that whereas in all previous persecutions the violence was used +to end our indecision, the whole point here is that the violence is used +to end the indecision of the persecutors. This is what the honest +Eugenists really mean, so far as they mean anything. They mean that the +public is to be given up, not as a heathen land for conversion, but +simply as a *pabulum* for experiment. That is the real, rude, barbaric +sense behind this Eugenic legislation. The Eugenist doctors are not such +fools as they look in the light of any logical inquiry about what they +want. They do not know what they want, except that they want your soul +and body and mine in order to find out. They are quite seriously, as +they themselves might say, the first religion to be experimental instead +of doctrinal. All other established Churches have been based on somebody +having found the truth. This is the first Church that was ever based on +not having found it. + +There is in them a perfectly sincere hope and enthusiasm; but it is not +for us, but for what they might learn from us, if they could rule us as +they can rabbits. They cannot tell us anything about heredity, because +they do not know anything about it. But they do quite honestly believe +that they would know something about it, when they had married and +mismarried us for a few hundred years. They cannot tell us who is fit to +wield such authority, for they know that nobody is; but they do quite +honestly believe that when that authority has been abused for n very +long time, somebody somehow will be evolved who is fit for the job. I am +no Puritan, and no one who knows my opinions will consider it a mere +criminal charge if I say that they are simply gambling. The reckless +gambler has no money in his pockets; he has only the ideas in his head. +These gamblers have no ideas in their heads; they have only the money in +their pockets. But they think that if they could use the money to buy a +big society to experiment on, something like an idea might come to them +at last. That is Eugenics. + +I confine myself here to remarking that I do not like it. I may be very +stingy, but I am willing to pay the scientist for what lie does know; I +draw the line at paying him for everything he doesn't know. I may be +very cowardly, but I am willing to be hurt for what I think or what he +thinks---I am not willing to be hurt, or even inconvenienced, for +whatever he might happen to think after he had hurt me. The ordinary +citizen may easily be more magnanimous than I. and take the whole thing +on trust; in which case his career may be happier in the next world, but +(I think) sadder in this. At least, I wish to point out to him that he +will not be giving his glorious body as soldier3 give it: to the glory +of a fixed flag, or martyrs to the glory of a deathless God. He will bc, +in the strict sense of the Latin phrase, giving his vile body for an +experiment---an experiment of which even the experimentalist knows +neither the significance nor the end. ## A Summary of a False Theory -I have up to this point treated the Eugenists, I hope, as -seriously as they treat themselves. I have attempted an -analysis of their theory as if it were an utterly abstract -and disinterested theory; and so considered, there seems to -be very little left of it. But before I go on, in the second -part of this book, to talk of the ugly things that really -are left, I wish to recapitulate the essential points in -their essential order. lest any personal irrelevance or -over-emphasis (to which I know myself to be prone) should -have confused the course of what I believe to be a perfectly -fair and consistent argument. To make it yet clearer, I will -summarise the thing under chapters, and in quite short +I have up to this point treated the Eugenists, I hope, as seriously as +they treat themselves. I have attempted an analysis of their theory as +if it were an utterly abstract and disinterested theory; and so +considered, there seems to be very little left of it. But before I go +on, in the second part of this book, to talk of the ugly things that +really are left, I wish to recapitulate the essential points in their +essential order. lest any personal irrelevance or over-emphasis (to +which I know myself to be prone) should have confused the course of what +I believe to be a perfectly fair and consistent argument. To make it yet +clearer, I will summarise the thing under chapters, and in quite short paragraphs. -In the first chapter I attempted to define the essential -point in which Eugenics can claim, and does claim, to be a -new morality. That point is that it is possible to consider -the baby in considering the bride. I do not adopt the ideal -irresponsibility of the man who said, "What has posterity -done for us?" But I do say, to start with, "What can we do -for posterity, except deal fairly with our contemporaries?" -Unless a man love his wife whom he has seen, how shall he -love his child whom he has not seen? - -In the second chapter I point out that this division in the -conscience cannot be met by mere mental confusions, which -would make any woman refusing any man a Eugenist. There will -always be something in the world which tends to keep -outrageous unions exceptional; that influence is not +In the first chapter I attempted to define the essential point in which +Eugenics can claim, and does claim, to be a new morality. That point is +that it is possible to consider the baby in considering the bride. I do +not adopt the ideal irresponsibility of the man who said, "What has +posterity done for us?" But I do say, to start with, "What can we do for +posterity, except deal fairly with our contemporaries?" Unless a man +love his wife whom he has seen, how shall he love his child whom he has +not seen? + +In the second chapter I point out that this division in the conscience +cannot be met by mere mental confusions, which would make any woman +refusing any man a Eugenist. There will always be something in the world +which tends to keep outrageous unions exceptional; that influence is not Eugenics, but laughter. -In the third chapter I seek to describe the quite -extraordinary atmosphere in which such things have become -possible. I call that atmosphere anarchy; but insist that it -is an anarchy in the centres where there should be -authority. Government has become ungovernable; that is, it -cannot leave off governing. Law has become lawless; that is, -it cannot see where laws should stop. The chief feature of -our time is the meekness of the mob and the madness of the -government. In this atmosphere it is natural enough that -medical experts, being authorities, should go mad, and -attempt so crude and random and immature a dream as this of -petting and patting (and rather spoiling) the babe unborn. - -In chapter four I point out how this impatience has burst -through the narrow channel of the Lunacy Laws, and has -obliterated them by extending them. The whole point of the -madman is that he is the exception that proves the rule. But -Eugenics seeks to treat the whole rule as a series of -exceptions---to make all men mad. And on that ground there -is hope for nobody; for all opinions have an author, and all -authors have a heredity. The mentality of the Eugenist makes -him believe in Eugenics as much as the mentality of the -reckless lover makes him violate Eugenics; and both -mentalities are, on the materialist hypothesis, equally the -irresponsible product of more or less unknown physical -causes. The real security of man against any logical -Eugenics is like the false security of Macbeth. The only -Eugenist that could rationally attack him must be a man of -no woman born. - -In the chapter following this, which is called "The Flying -Authority," I try in vain to locate and fix any authority -that could rationally rule men in so rooted and universal a -matter; little would be gained by ordinary men doing it to -each other; and if ordinary practitioners did it they would -very soon. show, by a thousand whims and quarrels, that they -were ordinary men. I then discussed the enlightened -despotism of a few general professors of hygiene, and found -it unworkable, for an essential reason: that while we can -always get men intelligent enough to know more than the rest -of us about this or that accident or pain or pest, we cannot -count on the appearance of great cosmic philosophers; and -only such men can be even supposed to know more than we do -about normal conduct and common sanity. Every sort of man, -in short, would shirk such a responsibility, except the -worst sort of man, who would accept it. - -I pass on, in the next chapter, to consider whether we know -enough about heredity to act decisively, even if we were -certain who ought to act. Here I refer the Eugenists to the -reply of Mr. Wells, which they have never dealt with to my -knowledge or satisfaction---the important and primary -objection that health is not a quality but a proportion of -qualities; so that even health married to health might -produce the exaggeration called disease. It should be noted -here, of course, that an individual biologist may quite -honestly believe that he has found a fixed principle with -the help of Weissman or Mendel. But we are not discussing -whether he knows enough to be justified in thinking (as is -somewhat the habit of the anthropoid *Homo*) that he is -right. We are discussing whether *we* know enough, as -responsible citizens, to put such powers into the hands of -men who may be deceived of who may be deceivers. I conclude -that we do not. - -In the last chapter of the first half of the book I give -what is, I believe, the real secret of this confusion, the -secret of what the Eugenists really want. They want to be -allowed to find out what they want. Not content with the -endowment of research, they desire the establishment of -research; that is the making of it a thing official and -compulsory, like education or state insurance; but still it -is only research and not discovery. In short, they want a -new kind of State Church, which shall be. an Established -Church of Doubt---instead of Faith. They have no Science of -Eugenics at all, but they do really mean that if we will -give ourselves up to be vivisected they may very probably -have one some day. I point out, in more dignified diction, -that this is a bit thick. - -And now, in the second half of this book, we will proceed to -the consideration of things that really exist. It is, I -deeply regret to say, necessary to return to realities, as -they are in your daily life and mine. Our happy holiday in -the land of nonsense is over; we shall see no more its -beautiful city, with the almost Biblical name of Bosh, nor -the forests full of mares' nests, nor the fields of tares -that are ripened only by moonshine. We shall meet no longer -those delicious monsters that might have talked in the same -wild club with the Snark and the Jabberwocky or the Pobble -or the Dong with the Luminous Nose; the father who can't -make head or tail of the mother, but thoroughly understands -the child she will some day bear; the lawyer who has to run -after his own laws almost as fast as the criminals run away -from them; the two mad doctors who might discuss for a -million years which of them has the right to lock up the -other; the grammarian who clings convulsively to the Passive -Mood, and says it is the duty of something to get itself -done without any human assistance; the man who would marry -giants to giants until the back breaks, as children pile -brick upon brick for the pleasure of seeing the staggering -tower tumble down; and, above all, the superb man of science -who wants you to pay him and crown him because he has so far -found out nothing. These fairy-tale comrades must leave us. -They exist, but they have no influence in what is really -going on. They are honest dupes and tools, as you and I were -very nearly being honest dupes and tools. If we come to -think coolly of the world we live in, if we consider how -very practical is the practical politician, at least where -cash is concerned, how very dull and earthy are most of the -men who own the millions and manage the newspaper trusts, -how very cautious and averse from idealist upheaval are -those that control this capitalist society---when we -consider all this, it is frankly incredible that Eugenics -should be a front bench fashionable topic and almost an Act -of Parliament, if it were in practice only the unfinished -fantasy which it is, as I have shown, in pure reason. Even -if it were a just revolution, it would be much too -revolutionary a revolution for modern statesmen, if there -were not something else behind. Even if it were a true -ideal, it would be much too idealistic an ideal for our -"practical men," if there were not something real as well. -Well, there is something real as well. There is no reason in -Eugenics, but there is plenty of motive. Its supporters are -highly vague about its theory, but they will be painfully -practical about its practice. And while I reiterate that +In the third chapter I seek to describe the quite extraordinary +atmosphere in which such things have become possible. I call that +atmosphere anarchy; but insist that it is an anarchy in the centres +where there should be authority. Government has become ungovernable; +that is, it cannot leave off governing. Law has become lawless; that is, +it cannot see where laws should stop. The chief feature of our time is +the meekness of the mob and the madness of the government. In this +atmosphere it is natural enough that medical experts, being authorities, +should go mad, and attempt so crude and random and immature a dream as +this of petting and patting (and rather spoiling) the babe unborn. + +In chapter four I point out how this impatience has burst through the +narrow channel of the Lunacy Laws, and has obliterated them by extending +them. The whole point of the madman is that he is the exception that +proves the rule. But Eugenics seeks to treat the whole rule as a series +of exceptions---to make all men mad. And on that ground there is hope +for nobody; for all opinions have an author, and all authors have a +heredity. The mentality of the Eugenist makes him believe in Eugenics as +much as the mentality of the reckless lover makes him violate Eugenics; +and both mentalities are, on the materialist hypothesis, equally the +irresponsible product of more or less unknown physical causes. The real +security of man against any logical Eugenics is like the false security +of Macbeth. The only Eugenist that could rationally attack him must be a +man of no woman born. + +In the chapter following this, which is called "The Flying Authority," I +try in vain to locate and fix any authority that could rationally rule +men in so rooted and universal a matter; little would be gained by +ordinary men doing it to each other; and if ordinary practitioners did +it they would very soon. show, by a thousand whims and quarrels, that +they were ordinary men. I then discussed the enlightened despotism of a +few general professors of hygiene, and found it unworkable, for an +essential reason: that while we can always get men intelligent enough to +know more than the rest of us about this or that accident or pain or +pest, we cannot count on the appearance of great cosmic philosophers; +and only such men can be even supposed to know more than we do about +normal conduct and common sanity. Every sort of man, in short, would +shirk such a responsibility, except the worst sort of man, who would +accept it. + +I pass on, in the next chapter, to consider whether we know enough about +heredity to act decisively, even if we were certain who ought to act. +Here I refer the Eugenists to the reply of Mr. Wells, which they have +never dealt with to my knowledge or satisfaction---the important and +primary objection that health is not a quality but a proportion of +qualities; so that even health married to health might produce the +exaggeration called disease. It should be noted here, of course, that an +individual biologist may quite honestly believe that he has found a +fixed principle with the help of Weissman or Mendel. But we are not +discussing whether he knows enough to be justified in thinking (as is +somewhat the habit of the anthropoid *Homo*) that he is right. We are +discussing whether *we* know enough, as responsible citizens, to put +such powers into the hands of men who may be deceived of who may be +deceivers. I conclude that we do not. + +In the last chapter of the first half of the book I give what is, I +believe, the real secret of this confusion, the secret of what the +Eugenists really want. They want to be allowed to find out what they +want. Not content with the endowment of research, they desire the +establishment of research; that is the making of it a thing official and +compulsory, like education or state insurance; but still it is only +research and not discovery. In short, they want a new kind of State +Church, which shall be. an Established Church of Doubt---instead of +Faith. They have no Science of Eugenics at all, but they do really mean +that if we will give ourselves up to be vivisected they may very +probably have one some day. I point out, in more dignified diction, that +this is a bit thick. + +And now, in the second half of this book, we will proceed to the +consideration of things that really exist. It is, I deeply regret to +say, necessary to return to realities, as they are in your daily life +and mine. Our happy holiday in the land of nonsense is over; we shall +see no more its beautiful city, with the almost Biblical name of Bosh, +nor the forests full of mares' nests, nor the fields of tares that are +ripened only by moonshine. We shall meet no longer those delicious +monsters that might have talked in the same wild club with the Snark and +the Jabberwocky or the Pobble or the Dong with the Luminous Nose; the +father who can't make head or tail of the mother, but thoroughly +understands the child she will some day bear; the lawyer who has to run +after his own laws almost as fast as the criminals run away from them; +the two mad doctors who might discuss for a million years which of them +has the right to lock up the other; the grammarian who clings +convulsively to the Passive Mood, and says it is the duty of something +to get itself done without any human assistance; the man who would marry +giants to giants until the back breaks, as children pile brick upon +brick for the pleasure of seeing the staggering tower tumble down; and, +above all, the superb man of science who wants you to pay him and crown +him because he has so far found out nothing. These fairy-tale comrades +must leave us. They exist, but they have no influence in what is really +going on. They are honest dupes and tools, as you and I were very nearly +being honest dupes and tools. If we come to think coolly of the world we +live in, if we consider how very practical is the practical politician, +at least where cash is concerned, how very dull and earthy are most of +the men who own the millions and manage the newspaper trusts, how very +cautious and averse from idealist upheaval are those that control this +capitalist society---when we consider all this, it is frankly incredible +that Eugenics should be a front bench fashionable topic and almost an +Act of Parliament, if it were in practice only the unfinished fantasy +which it is, as I have shown, in pure reason. Even if it were a just +revolution, it would be much too revolutionary a revolution for modern +statesmen, if there were not something else behind. Even if it were a +true ideal, it would be much too idealistic an ideal for our "practical +men," if there were not something real as well. Well, there is something +real as well. There is no reason in Eugenics, but there is plenty of +motive. Its supporters are highly vague about its theory, but they will +be painfully practical about its practice. And while I reiterate that many of its more eloquent agents are probably quite innocent -instruments, there *are* some, even among Eugenists, who by -this time know what they are doing. To them we shall not -say, "What is Eugenics?" or "Where on earth are you going?" -but only "Woe unto you, hypocrites, that devour widows' -houses and for a pretence use long words." +instruments, there *are* some, even among Eugenists, who by this time +know what they are doing. To them we shall not say, "What is Eugenics?" +or "Where on earth are you going?" but only "Woe unto you, hypocrites, +that devour widows' houses and for a pretence use long words." # The Real Aim ## The Impotence of Impenitence -The root formula of an epoch is always an unwritten law, -just as the law that is the first of all laws, that which -protects life from the murderer, is written nowhere in the -Statute Book. Nevertheless there is all the difference -between having and not having a notion of this basic -assumption in an epoch. For instance, the Middle Ages will -simply puzzle us with their charities and cruelties, their -asceticism and bright colours, unless we catch their general -eagerness for building and planning, dividing this from that -by walls and fences---the spirit that made architecture -their most successful art. Thus even a slave seemed sacred; -the divinity that did hedge a king. did also, in one sense, -hedge a serf, for he could not be driven out from behind his -hedges. Thus even liberty became a positive thing like a -privilege; and even, when most men had it, it was not opened -like the freedom of a wilderness, but bestowed, like the -freedom of a city. Or again, the seventeenth century may -seem a chaos of contradictions, with its almost priggish -praise of parliaments and its quite barbaric massacre of -prisoners, until we realise that, if the Middle Ages was a -house half built, the seventeenth century was a house on -fire. Panic was the note of it, and that fierce -fastidiousness and exclusiveness that comes from fear. -Calvinism was its characteristic religion, even in the -Catholic Church, the insistence on the narrowness of the way -and the fewness of the chosen. Suspicion was the note of its -politics---"put not your trust in princes." It tried to -thrash everything out by learned, virulent, and ceaseless -controversy; and it weeded its population by witch-burning. -Or yet again: the eighteenth century will present pictures -that seem utterly opposite, and yet seem singularly typical -of the time: the sack of Versailles and the "Vicar of -Wakefield"; the pastorals of Watteau and the dynamite -speeches of Danton. But we shall understand them all better -if we once catch ght of the idea of *tidying up* which ran -through the whole period, the quietest people being prouder -of their tidiness, civilisation, and sound taste than of any -of their virtues; and the wildest people having (and this is -the most important point) no love of wildness for its own -sake, like Nietzsche or the anarchic poets, but only a -readiness to employ it to get rid of unreason or disorder. -With these epochs it is not altogether impossible to say -that some such form of words is a key. The epoch for which -it is almost impossible to find a form of words is our own. - -Nevertheless, I think that with us the keyword is -"inevitability," or, as I should be inclined to call it, -"impenitence." We are subconsciously dominated in all -departments by the notion that there is no turning back, and -it is rooted in materialism and the denial of free-win. Take -any handful of modern facts and compare them with the -corresponding facts a few hundred years ago. Compare the -modern Party System with the political factions of the -seventeenth century. The difference is that in the older -time the party leaders not only really cut off each other's -heads, but (what is much more alarming) really repealed each -other's laws. With us it has become traditional for one -party to inherit and leave untouched the acts of the other -when made, however bitterly they were attacked in the -making. James II and his nephew William were neither of them -very gay specimens; but they would both have laughed at the -idea of "a continuous foreign policy." The Tories were not -Conservatives; they were, in the literal sense, -reactionaries. They did not merely want to keep the Stuarts; -they wanted to bring them back. - -Or again, consider how obstinately the English mediaeval -monarchy returned again and again to its vision of French -possessions, trying to reverse the decision of fate; how -Edward III returned to the charge after the defeats of John -and Henry III, and Henry V after the failure of Edward III; -and how even Mary had that written on her heart which was -neither her husband nor her religion. And then consider -this: that we have comparatively lately known a universal -orgy of the thing called Imperialism, the unity of the -Empire the only topic, colonies counted like crown jewels, -and the Union Jack waved across the world. And yet no one so -much as dreamed, I will not say of recovering, the American -colonies for the Imperial unity (which would have been too -dangerous a task for modern empire-builders), but even of -re-telling the story from an Imperial standpoint. Henry V -justified the claims of Edward III. Joseph Chamberlain would -not have dreamed of justifying the claims of George III. -Nay, Shakespeare justifies the French War, and sticks to -Talbot and defies the legend of Joan of Arc. Mr. Kipling -would not dare to justify the American War, stick to -Burgoyne, and defy the legend of Washington. Yet there -really was much more to be said for George III than there -ever was for Henry V. It was not said, much less acted upon, -by the modern Imperialists; because of this basic modern -sense, that as the future is inevitable, so is the past -irrevocable. Any fact so complete as the American exodus -from the Empire must be considered as final for aeons, -though it hardly happened more than a hundred years ago. -Merely because it has managed to occur it must be called -first, a necessary evil, and then an indispensable good. I -need not add that I do not want to reconquer America; but -then I am not an Imperialist. - -Then there is another way of testing it: ask yourself how -many people you have met who grumbled at a thing as -incurable, and how many who attacked it as curable? How many -people we have heard abuse the British elementary schools, -as they would abuse the British climate? How few have we met -who realised that British education can be altered, but -British weather cannot? How few there were that knew that -the clouds were more immortal and more solid than the -schools? For a thousand that regret compulsory education, -where is the hundred, or the ten, or the one, who would -repeal compulsory education? Indeed, the very word proves my -case by its unpromising and unfamiliar sound. At the -beginning of our epoch men talked with equal ease about -Reform and Repeal. Now everybody talks about reform; but -nobody talks about repeal. Our fathers did not talk of Free -Trade, but of the Repeal of the Com Laws. They did not talk -of Home Rule, but of the Repeal of the Union. In those days -people talked of a "Repealer" as the most practical of all -politicians, the kind of politician that carries a club. Now -the Repealer is flung far into the province of an impossible -idealism: and the leader of one of our great parties, having -said, in a heat of temporary sincerity, that he would repeal -an Act, actually had to write to all the papers to assure -them that he would only amend it. I need not multiply -instances, though they might be multiplied almost to a -million. The note of the age is to suggest that the past may -just as well be praised, since it cannot be mended. Men -actually in that past have toiled like ants and died like -locusts to undo some previous settlement that seemed secure; -but we cannot do so much as repeal an Act of Parliament. We -entertain the weak-minded notion that what is done can't be -undone. Our view was well summarised in a typical Victorian -song with the refrain: "The mill will never grind again the -water that is past." There are many answers to this. One -(which would involve a disquisition on the phenomena of -Evaporation and Dew) we will here avoid. Another is, that to -the minds of simple country folk, the object of a mill is -not to grind water, but to grind corn, and that (strange as -it may seem) there really have been societies sufficiently -vigilant and valiant to prevent their corn perpetually -flowing away from them, to the tune of a sentimental song. - -Now this modern refusal to undo what has been done is not -only an intellectual fault; it is a moral fault also. It is -not merely our mental inability to understand the mistake we -have made. It is also our spiritual refusal to admit that we -have made a mistake. It was mere vanity in Mr. Brummell when -he sent away trays full of imperfectly knotted neck-cloths, -lightly remarking, "These are our failures." It is a good -instance of the nearness of vanity to humility, for at least -he had to admit that they were failures. But it would have -been spiritual pride in Mr. Brummell if he had tied on all -the cravats, one on top of the other, lest his valet should -discover that he had ever tied one badly. For in spiritual -pride there is always an element of secrecy and solitude. -Mr. Brummell would be satanic; also (which I fear would -affect him more) he would be badly dressed. But he would be -a perfect presentation of the modem publicist, who cannot do -anything right, because he must not admit that he ever did -anything wrong. - -This strange, weak obstinacy, this persistence in the wrong -path of progress, grows weaker and worse, as do all such -weak things. And by the time in which I write its moral -attitude has taken on something of the sinister and even the -horrible. Our mistakes have become our secrets. Editors and -journalists tear up with a guilty air all that reminds them -of the party promises unfulfilled, or the party ideals -reproaching them. It is true of our statesmen (much more -than of our bishops, of whom Mr. Wells said it), that -socially in evidence they are intellectually in hiding. The -society is heavy with unconfessed sins; its mind is sore and -silent with painful subjects; it has a constipation of -conscience. There are many things it has done and allowed to -be done which it does not really dare to think about; it -calls them by other names and tries to talk itself into -faith in a false past, as men make up the things they would -have said in a quarrel. Of these sins one lies buried -deepest but most noisome, and though it is stifled, stinks: -the true story of the relations of the rich man and the poor -in England. The half-starved English proletarian is not only -nearly a skeleton. but he is a skeleton in a cupboard. - -It may be said, in some surprise, that surely we hear to-day -on every side the same story of the destitute proletariat -and the social problem, of the sweating in the unskilled -trades or the overcrowding in the slums. It is granted; but -I said the true story. Untrue stories there are in plenty, -on all sides of the discussion. There is the interesting -story of the Class Conscious Proletarian of All Lands, the -chap who has "solidarity," and is always just going to -abolish war. The Marxian Socialists will tell you all about -him; only he isn't there. A common English workman is just -as incapable of thinking of a German as anything but a -German as he is of thinking of himself as anything but an -Englishman. Then there is the opposite story; the story of -the horrid man who is an atheist and wants to destroy the -home, but who, for some private reason, prefers to call this -Socialism. He isn't there either. The prosperous Socialists -have homes exactly like yours and mine; and the poor -Socialists are not allowed by the Individualists to have any -at all. There is the story of the Two Workmen, which is a -very nice and exciting story, about how one passed all the -public houses in Cheapside and was made Lord Mayor on -arriving at the Guildhall, while the other went into all the -public houses and emerged quite ineligible for such a -dignity. Alas! for this also is vanity. A thief might become -Lord Mayor, but an honest workman certainly couldn't. Then -there is the story of "The Relentless Doom," by which rich -men were, by economic laws, forced to go on taking away -money from poor men, although they simply longed to leave -off: this is an unendurable thought to a free and Christian -man, and the reader will be relieved to hear that it never -happened. The rich could have left off stealing whenever -they wanted to leave off, only this never happened either. -Then there is the story of the cunning Fabian who sat on six -committees at once and so coaxed the rich man to become -quite poor. By simply repeating, in a whisper, that there -are "wheels within wheels," this talented man managed to -take away the millionaire's motor car, one wheel at a time, -till the millionaire had quite forgotten that he ever had -one. It was very clever of him to do this, only he has not -done it. There is not a screw loose in the millionaire's -motor, which is capable of running over the Fabian and -leaving him a flat corpse in the road at a moment's notice. -All these stories are very fascinating stories to be told by -the Individualist and Socialist in turn to the great Sultan -of Capitalism, because if they left off amusing him for an -instant he would cut off their heads. But if they once began -to tell the true story of the Sultan to the Sultan, he would -boil them in oil; and this they wish to a void. - -The true story of the sin of the Sultan he is always trying, -by listening to these stories, to forget. As we have said -before in this chapter, he would prefer not to remember, -because he has made up his mind not to repent. It is a -curious story, and I shall try to tell it truly in the two -chapters that follow. In all ages the tyrant is hard because -he is soft. If his car crashes over bleeding and accusing -crowds, it is because he has chosen the path of least -resistance. It is because it is much easier to ride down a -human race than ride up a moderately steep hill. The fight -of the oppressor is always a pillow-fight; commonly a war -with cushions---always a war for cushions. Saladin, the -great Sultan, if I remember rightly, accounted it the -greatest feat of swordsmanship to cut a cushion. And so -indeed it is, as all of us can attest who have been for -years past trying to cut into the swollen and windy -corpulence of the modern compromise, that is at once cosy -and cruel. For there is really in our world to-day the -colour and silence of the cushioned divan; and that sense of -palace within palace and garden within garden which makes -the rich irresponsibility of the East. Have we not already -the wordless dance, the wineless banquet, and all that -strange unchristian conception of luxury without laughter? -Are we not already in an evil Arabian Nights, and walking -the nightmare cities of an invisible despot? Does not our -hangman strangle secretly, the bearer of the bow string? Are -we not already eugenists---that is, eunuch-makers? Do we not -see the bright eyes, the motionless faces, and all that -presence of something that is dead and yet sleepless? It is -the presence of the sin that is sealed with pride and -impenitence; the story of how the Sultan got his throne. But -it is not the story he is listening to just now, but another -story which has been invented to cover it---the story called -"Eugenius: or the Adventures of One Not Born," a most varied -and entrancing tale, which never fails to send him to sleep. +The root formula of an epoch is always an unwritten law, just as the law +that is the first of all laws, that which protects life from the +murderer, is written nowhere in the Statute Book. Nevertheless there is +all the difference between having and not having a notion of this basic +assumption in an epoch. For instance, the Middle Ages will simply puzzle +us with their charities and cruelties, their asceticism and bright +colours, unless we catch their general eagerness for building and +planning, dividing this from that by walls and fences---the spirit that +made architecture their most successful art. Thus even a slave seemed +sacred; the divinity that did hedge a king. did also, in one sense, +hedge a serf, for he could not be driven out from behind his hedges. +Thus even liberty became a positive thing like a privilege; and even, +when most men had it, it was not opened like the freedom of a +wilderness, but bestowed, like the freedom of a city. Or again, the +seventeenth century may seem a chaos of contradictions, with its almost +priggish praise of parliaments and its quite barbaric massacre of +prisoners, until we realise that, if the Middle Ages was a house half +built, the seventeenth century was a house on fire. Panic was the note +of it, and that fierce fastidiousness and exclusiveness that comes from +fear. Calvinism was its characteristic religion, even in the Catholic +Church, the insistence on the narrowness of the way and the fewness of +the chosen. Suspicion was the note of its politics---"put not your trust +in princes." It tried to thrash everything out by learned, virulent, and +ceaseless controversy; and it weeded its population by witch-burning. Or +yet again: the eighteenth century will present pictures that seem +utterly opposite, and yet seem singularly typical of the time: the sack +of Versailles and the "Vicar of Wakefield"; the pastorals of Watteau and +the dynamite speeches of Danton. But we shall understand them all better +if we once catch ght of the idea of *tidying up* which ran through the +whole period, the quietest people being prouder of their tidiness, +civilisation, and sound taste than of any of their virtues; and the +wildest people having (and this is the most important point) no love of +wildness for its own sake, like Nietzsche or the anarchic poets, but +only a readiness to employ it to get rid of unreason or disorder. With +these epochs it is not altogether impossible to say that some such form +of words is a key. The epoch for which it is almost impossible to find a +form of words is our own. + +Nevertheless, I think that with us the keyword is "inevitability," or, +as I should be inclined to call it, "impenitence." We are subconsciously +dominated in all departments by the notion that there is no turning +back, and it is rooted in materialism and the denial of free-win. Take +any handful of modern facts and compare them with the corresponding +facts a few hundred years ago. Compare the modern Party System with the +political factions of the seventeenth century. The difference is that in +the older time the party leaders not only really cut off each other's +heads, but (what is much more alarming) really repealed each other's +laws. With us it has become traditional for one party to inherit and +leave untouched the acts of the other when made, however bitterly they +were attacked in the making. James II and his nephew William were +neither of them very gay specimens; but they would both have laughed at +the idea of "a continuous foreign policy." The Tories were not +Conservatives; they were, in the literal sense, reactionaries. They did +not merely want to keep the Stuarts; they wanted to bring them back. + +Or again, consider how obstinately the English mediaeval monarchy +returned again and again to its vision of French possessions, trying to +reverse the decision of fate; how Edward III returned to the charge +after the defeats of John and Henry III, and Henry V after the failure +of Edward III; and how even Mary had that written on her heart which was +neither her husband nor her religion. And then consider this: that we +have comparatively lately known a universal orgy of the thing called +Imperialism, the unity of the Empire the only topic, colonies counted +like crown jewels, and the Union Jack waved across the world. And yet no +one so much as dreamed, I will not say of recovering, the American +colonies for the Imperial unity (which would have been too dangerous a +task for modern empire-builders), but even of re-telling the story from +an Imperial standpoint. Henry V justified the claims of Edward III. +Joseph Chamberlain would not have dreamed of justifying the claims of +George III. Nay, Shakespeare justifies the French War, and sticks to +Talbot and defies the legend of Joan of Arc. Mr. Kipling would not dare +to justify the American War, stick to Burgoyne, and defy the legend of +Washington. Yet there really was much more to be said for George III +than there ever was for Henry V. It was not said, much less acted upon, +by the modern Imperialists; because of this basic modern sense, that as +the future is inevitable, so is the past irrevocable. Any fact so +complete as the American exodus from the Empire must be considered as +final for aeons, though it hardly happened more than a hundred years +ago. Merely because it has managed to occur it must be called first, a +necessary evil, and then an indispensable good. I need not add that I do +not want to reconquer America; but then I am not an Imperialist. + +Then there is another way of testing it: ask yourself how many people +you have met who grumbled at a thing as incurable, and how many who +attacked it as curable? How many people we have heard abuse the British +elementary schools, as they would abuse the British climate? How few +have we met who realised that British education can be altered, but +British weather cannot? How few there were that knew that the clouds +were more immortal and more solid than the schools? For a thousand that +regret compulsory education, where is the hundred, or the ten, or the +one, who would repeal compulsory education? Indeed, the very word proves +my case by its unpromising and unfamiliar sound. At the beginning of our +epoch men talked with equal ease about Reform and Repeal. Now everybody +talks about reform; but nobody talks about repeal. Our fathers did not +talk of Free Trade, but of the Repeal of the Com Laws. They did not talk +of Home Rule, but of the Repeal of the Union. In those days people +talked of a "Repealer" as the most practical of all politicians, the +kind of politician that carries a club. Now the Repealer is flung far +into the province of an impossible idealism: and the leader of one of +our great parties, having said, in a heat of temporary sincerity, that +he would repeal an Act, actually had to write to all the papers to +assure them that he would only amend it. I need not multiply instances, +though they might be multiplied almost to a million. The note of the age +is to suggest that the past may just as well be praised, since it cannot +be mended. Men actually in that past have toiled like ants and died like +locusts to undo some previous settlement that seemed secure; but we +cannot do so much as repeal an Act of Parliament. We entertain the +weak-minded notion that what is done can't be undone. Our view was well +summarised in a typical Victorian song with the refrain: "The mill will +never grind again the water that is past." There are many answers to +this. One (which would involve a disquisition on the phenomena of +Evaporation and Dew) we will here avoid. Another is, that to the minds +of simple country folk, the object of a mill is not to grind water, but +to grind corn, and that (strange as it may seem) there really have been +societies sufficiently vigilant and valiant to prevent their corn +perpetually flowing away from them, to the tune of a sentimental song. + +Now this modern refusal to undo what has been done is not only an +intellectual fault; it is a moral fault also. It is not merely our +mental inability to understand the mistake we have made. It is also our +spiritual refusal to admit that we have made a mistake. It was mere +vanity in Mr. Brummell when he sent away trays full of imperfectly +knotted neck-cloths, lightly remarking, "These are our failures." It is +a good instance of the nearness of vanity to humility, for at least he +had to admit that they were failures. But it would have been spiritual +pride in Mr. Brummell if he had tied on all the cravats, one on top of +the other, lest his valet should discover that he had ever tied one +badly. For in spiritual pride there is always an element of secrecy and +solitude. Mr. Brummell would be satanic; also (which I fear would affect +him more) he would be badly dressed. But he would be a perfect +presentation of the modem publicist, who cannot do anything right, +because he must not admit that he ever did anything wrong. + +This strange, weak obstinacy, this persistence in the wrong path of +progress, grows weaker and worse, as do all such weak things. And by the +time in which I write its moral attitude has taken on something of the +sinister and even the horrible. Our mistakes have become our secrets. +Editors and journalists tear up with a guilty air all that reminds them +of the party promises unfulfilled, or the party ideals reproaching them. +It is true of our statesmen (much more than of our bishops, of whom +Mr. Wells said it), that socially in evidence they are intellectually in +hiding. The society is heavy with unconfessed sins; its mind is sore and +silent with painful subjects; it has a constipation of conscience. There +are many things it has done and allowed to be done which it does not +really dare to think about; it calls them by other names and tries to +talk itself into faith in a false past, as men make up the things they +would have said in a quarrel. Of these sins one lies buried deepest but +most noisome, and though it is stifled, stinks: the true story of the +relations of the rich man and the poor in England. The half-starved +English proletarian is not only nearly a skeleton. but he is a skeleton +in a cupboard. + +It may be said, in some surprise, that surely we hear to-day on every +side the same story of the destitute proletariat and the social problem, +of the sweating in the unskilled trades or the overcrowding in the +slums. It is granted; but I said the true story. Untrue stories there +are in plenty, on all sides of the discussion. There is the interesting +story of the Class Conscious Proletarian of All Lands, the chap who has +"solidarity," and is always just going to abolish war. The Marxian +Socialists will tell you all about him; only he isn't there. A common +English workman is just as incapable of thinking of a German as anything +but a German as he is of thinking of himself as anything but an +Englishman. Then there is the opposite story; the story of the horrid +man who is an atheist and wants to destroy the home, but who, for some +private reason, prefers to call this Socialism. He isn't there either. +The prosperous Socialists have homes exactly like yours and mine; and +the poor Socialists are not allowed by the Individualists to have any at +all. There is the story of the Two Workmen, which is a very nice and +exciting story, about how one passed all the public houses in Cheapside +and was made Lord Mayor on arriving at the Guildhall, while the other +went into all the public houses and emerged quite ineligible for such a +dignity. Alas! for this also is vanity. A thief might become Lord Mayor, +but an honest workman certainly couldn't. Then there is the story of +"The Relentless Doom," by which rich men were, by economic laws, forced +to go on taking away money from poor men, although they simply longed to +leave off: this is an unendurable thought to a free and Christian man, +and the reader will be relieved to hear that it never happened. The rich +could have left off stealing whenever they wanted to leave off, only +this never happened either. Then there is the story of the cunning +Fabian who sat on six committees at once and so coaxed the rich man to +become quite poor. By simply repeating, in a whisper, that there are +"wheels within wheels," this talented man managed to take away the +millionaire's motor car, one wheel at a time, till the millionaire had +quite forgotten that he ever had one. It was very clever of him to do +this, only he has not done it. There is not a screw loose in the +millionaire's motor, which is capable of running over the Fabian and +leaving him a flat corpse in the road at a moment's notice. All these +stories are very fascinating stories to be told by the Individualist and +Socialist in turn to the great Sultan of Capitalism, because if they +left off amusing him for an instant he would cut off their heads. But if +they once began to tell the true story of the Sultan to the Sultan, he +would boil them in oil; and this they wish to a void. + +The true story of the sin of the Sultan he is always trying, by +listening to these stories, to forget. As we have said before in this +chapter, he would prefer not to remember, because he has made up his +mind not to repent. It is a curious story, and I shall try to tell it +truly in the two chapters that follow. In all ages the tyrant is hard +because he is soft. If his car crashes over bleeding and accusing +crowds, it is because he has chosen the path of least resistance. It is +because it is much easier to ride down a human race than ride up a +moderately steep hill. The fight of the oppressor is always a +pillow-fight; commonly a war with cushions---always a war for cushions. +Saladin, the great Sultan, if I remember rightly, accounted it the +greatest feat of swordsmanship to cut a cushion. And so indeed it is, as +all of us can attest who have been for years past trying to cut into the +swollen and windy corpulence of the modern compromise, that is at once +cosy and cruel. For there is really in our world to-day the colour and +silence of the cushioned divan; and that sense of palace within palace +and garden within garden which makes the rich irresponsibility of the +East. Have we not already the wordless dance, the wineless banquet, and +all that strange unchristian conception of luxury without laughter? Are +we not already in an evil Arabian Nights, and walking the nightmare +cities of an invisible despot? Does not our hangman strangle secretly, +the bearer of the bow string? Are we not already eugenists---that is, +eunuch-makers? Do we not see the bright eyes, the motionless faces, and +all that presence of something that is dead and yet sleepless? It is the +presence of the sin that is sealed with pride and impenitence; the story +of how the Sultan got his throne. But it is not the story he is +listening to just now, but another story which has been invented to +cover it---the story called "Eugenius: or the Adventures of One Not +Born," a most varied and entrancing tale, which never fails to send him +to sleep. ## True History of a Tramp -He awoke in the Dark Ages and smelt dawn in the dark, and -knew he was not wholly a slave. It was as if, in some tale -of Hans Andersen, a stick or a stool had been left in the -garden all night and had grown alive and struck root like a -tree. For this is the truth behind the old legal fiction of -the servile countries. that the slave is a "chattel," that -is a piece of furniture like a stick or a stool. In the -spiritual sense, I am certain it was never so unwholesome a -fancy as the spawn of Nietzsche suppose to-day. No human -being, pagan or Christian, I am certain, ever thought of -another human being as a chair or a table. The mind cannot -base itself on the idea that a comet is a cabbage; nor can -it on the idea that a man is a stool. No man was ever -unconscious of another's presence---or even indifferent to -another's opinion. The lady who is said to have boasted her -indifference to being naked before male slaves was showing -off---or she meant something different. The lord who fed -fishes by killing a slave was indulging in what most -cannibals indulge in---a satanist affectation. The lady was -consciously shameless and the lord was consciously cruel. -But it simply is not in the human reason to carve men like -wood or examine women like ivory, just as it is not in the -human reason to think that two and two make five. - -But there was this truth in the legal simile of furniture: -that the slave, though certainly a man, was in one sense a -dead man; in the sense that he was *moveable*. His -locomotion was not his own: his master moved his arms and -legs for him as if he were a marionette. Now it is important -in the first degree to realise here what would be involved -in such a fable as I have imagined, of a stool rooting -itself like a shrub. For the general modem notion certainly -is that life and liberty are in some way to be associated -with novelty and not standing still. But it is just because -the stool is lifeless that it moves" about. It is just -because the tree is alive that it does stand still. That was -the main difference between the pagan slave and the -Christian serf. The serf still belonged to the lord, as the -stick that struck root in the garden would have still -belonged to the owner of the garden; but it would have -become a *live* possession. Therefore the owner is forced, -by the laws of nature, to treat it with *some* respect; -something becomes due from him. He cannot pull it up without -killing it; it has gained a *place* in the garden---or the -society. But the modems are quite wrong in supposing that -mere change and holiday and variety have necessarily any -element of this life that is the only seed of liberty. You -may say if you like that an employer, taking all his -workpeople to a new factory in a Garden City, is giving them -the greater freedom of forest landscapes and smokeless -skies. If it comes to that, you can say that the -slave-traders took negroes from their narrow and brutish -African hamlets, and gave them the polish of foreign travel -and medicinal breezes of a sea-voyage. But the tiny seed of -citizenship and independence there already was in the -serfdom of the Dark Ages, had nothing to do with what nice -things the lord might do to the serf. It lay in the fact -that there were some nasty things he could not do to the -serf---there were not many, but there were some, and one of -them was eviction. He could not make the serf utterly -landless and desperate, utterly without access to the means -of production, though doubtless it was rather the field that -owned the serf, than the serf that owned the field. But even -if you call the serf a beast of the field, he was not what -we have tried to make the town workman---a beast with no -field. Foulon said of the French peasants, "Let them eat -grass." If he had said it of the modern London proletariat, -they might well reply, "You have not left us even grass to +He awoke in the Dark Ages and smelt dawn in the dark, and knew he was +not wholly a slave. It was as if, in some tale of Hans Andersen, a stick +or a stool had been left in the garden all night and had grown alive and +struck root like a tree. For this is the truth behind the old legal +fiction of the servile countries. that the slave is a "chattel," that is +a piece of furniture like a stick or a stool. In the spiritual sense, I +am certain it was never so unwholesome a fancy as the spawn of Nietzsche +suppose to-day. No human being, pagan or Christian, I am certain, ever +thought of another human being as a chair or a table. The mind cannot +base itself on the idea that a comet is a cabbage; nor can it on the +idea that a man is a stool. No man was ever unconscious of another's +presence---or even indifferent to another's opinion. The lady who is +said to have boasted her indifference to being naked before male slaves +was showing off---or she meant something different. The lord who fed +fishes by killing a slave was indulging in what most cannibals indulge +in---a satanist affectation. The lady was consciously shameless and the +lord was consciously cruel. But it simply is not in the human reason to +carve men like wood or examine women like ivory, just as it is not in +the human reason to think that two and two make five. + +But there was this truth in the legal simile of furniture: that the +slave, though certainly a man, was in one sense a dead man; in the sense +that he was *moveable*. His locomotion was not his own: his master moved +his arms and legs for him as if he were a marionette. Now it is +important in the first degree to realise here what would be involved in +such a fable as I have imagined, of a stool rooting itself like a shrub. +For the general modem notion certainly is that life and liberty are in +some way to be associated with novelty and not standing still. But it is +just because the stool is lifeless that it moves" about. It is just +because the tree is alive that it does stand still. That was the main +difference between the pagan slave and the Christian serf. The serf +still belonged to the lord, as the stick that struck root in the garden +would have still belonged to the owner of the garden; but it would have +become a *live* possession. Therefore the owner is forced, by the laws +of nature, to treat it with *some* respect; something becomes due from +him. He cannot pull it up without killing it; it has gained a *place* in +the garden---or the society. But the modems are quite wrong in supposing +that mere change and holiday and variety have necessarily any element of +this life that is the only seed of liberty. You may say if you like that +an employer, taking all his workpeople to a new factory in a Garden +City, is giving them the greater freedom of forest landscapes and +smokeless skies. If it comes to that, you can say that the slave-traders +took negroes from their narrow and brutish African hamlets, and gave +them the polish of foreign travel and medicinal breezes of a sea-voyage. +But the tiny seed of citizenship and independence there already was in +the serfdom of the Dark Ages, had nothing to do with what nice things +the lord might do to the serf. It lay in the fact that there were some +nasty things he could not do to the serf---there were not many, but +there were some, and one of them was eviction. He could not make the +serf utterly landless and desperate, utterly without access to the means +of production, though doubtless it was rather the field that owned the +serf, than the serf that owned the field. But even if you call the serf +a beast of the field, he was not what we have tried to make the town +workman---a beast with no field. Foulon said of the French peasants, +"Let them eat grass." If he had said it of the modern London +proletariat, they might well reply, "You have not left us even grass to eat." -There was, therefore, both in theory and practice, *some* -security for the serf, because he had come to life and -rooted. The seigneur could not wait in the field in all -weathers with a battle-axe to prevent the serf scratching -any living out of the ground, any more than the man in my -fairy-tale could sit out in the garden all night with an -umbrella to prevent the shrub getting any rain. The relation -of lord and serf, therefore, involves a combination of two -things: inequality and security. I know there are people who -will at once point wildly to all sorts of examples, true and -false, of insecurity of life in the Middle Ages; but these -are people who do not grasp what we mean by the -characteristic institutions of a society. For the matter of -that, there are plenty of examples of equality in the Middle -Ages, as the craftsmen in their guild or the monks electing -their abbot. But just as modern England is not a feudal -country, though there is a quaint survival called Heralds' -College---or Ireland is not a commercial country, though -there is a quaint survival called Belfast---it is true of -the bulk and shape of that society that came out of the Dark -Ages and ended at the Reformation, that it did not care -about giving everybody an equal position, but did care about -giving everybody a position. So that by the very beginning -of that time even the slave had become a slave one could not -get rid of, like the Scotch servant who stubbornly asserted -that if his master didn't know a good servant he knew a good -master. The free peasant, in ancient or modern times, is -free to go or stay. The slave, in ancient times, was free -neither to go nor stay. The serf was not free to go; but he -was free to stay. - -Now what have we done with this man? It is quite simple. -There is no historical complexity about it in that respect. -We have taken away his freedom to stay. We have turned him -out of his field, and whether it was injustice, like turning -a free farmer out of his field, or only cruelty to animals, -like turning a cow out of its field, the fact remains that -he is out in the road. First and last, we have simply -destroyed the security. We have not in the least destroyed -the inequality. All classes, all creatures, kind or cruel, -still see this lowest stratum of society as separate from -the upper strata and even the middle strata; he is as -separate as the serf. A monster fallen from Mars, ignorant -of our simplest word, would know the tramp was at the bottom -of the ladder, as well as he would have known it of the -serf. The walls of mud are no longer round his boundaries, -but only round his boots. The coarse, bristling hedge is at -the end of his chin, and not of his garden. But mud and -bristles still stand out round him like a horrific halo, and -separate him from his kind. The Martian would have no -difficulty in seeing he was the poorest person in the -nation. It is just as impossible that he should marry an -heiress, or fight a duel with a duke, or contest a seat at -Westminster, or enter a club in Pall Mall, or take a -scholarship at Balliol, or take a seat at an opera, or -propose a good law, or protest against a bad one, as it was -impossible to the serf. Where he differs is in something -very different. He has lost what was possible to the serf. -He can no longer scratch the bare earth by day or sleep on -the bare earth by night, without being collared by a -policeman. - -Now when I say that this man has been oppressed as hardly -any other man on this earth has been oppressed, I am not -using rhetoric: I have a clear meaning which I am confident -of explaining to any honest reader. I do not say he has been -treated worse: I say he has been treated differently from -the unfortunate in an ages. And the difference is this: that -all the others were told to do something, and killed or -tortured if they did anything else. This man is not told to -do something: he is merely forbidden to do anything. When he -was a slave, they said to him, "Sleep in this shed; I win -beat you if you sleep anywhere else." When he was a serf, -they said to him, "Let me find you in this field: I'll hang -you if I find you in anyone else's field." But now he is a -tramp they say to him, "You shall be jailed if I find you in -anyone else's field: *but I will not give you a field.*" -They say,"You shall be punished if you are caught sleeping -outside your shed: *but there is no shed.*" If you say that -modern magistracies could never say such mad contradictions, -I answer with entire certainty that they do say them. A -little while ago two tramps were summoned before a -magistrate, charged with sleeping in the open air when they -had nowhere else to sleep. But this is not the full fun of -the incident. The real fun is that each of them eagerly -produced about twopence, to prove that they could have got a -bed, but deliberately didn't. To which the policeman replied -that twopence would not have got them a bed: that they could -not possibly have got a bed: and *therefore* (argued that -thoughtful officer) they ought to be punished for not -getting one. The intelligent magistrate was much struck with -the argument: and proceeded to imprison these two men for -not doing a thing they could not do. But he was careful to -explain that if they had sinned needlessly and in wanton -lawlessness, they would have left the court without a stain -on their characters; but as they could not a void it, they -were very much to blame. These things are being done in -every part of England every day. They have their parallels -even in every daily paper; but they have no parallel in any -other earthly people or period; except in that insane -command to make bricks without straw which brought down all -the plagues of Egypt. For the common historical joke about -Henry VIII hanging a man for being Catholic and burning him -for being Protestant is a symbolic joke only. The sceptic in -the Tudor time could do something: he could always agree -with Henry VIII. The desperate man to-day can do nothing. -For you cannot agree with a maniac who sits on the bench -with the straws sticking out of his hair and says, "Procure -threepence from nowhere and I will give you leave to do -without it." - -If it be answered that he can go to the workhouse, I reply -that such an answer is founded on confused thinking. It is -true that he is free to go to the workhouse, but only in the -same sense in which he is free to go to jail, only in the -same sense in which the serf under the gibbet was free to -find peace in the grave. Many of the poor greatly prefer the -grave to the workhouse, but that is not at all my argument -here. The point is this: that it could not have been the -general policy of a lord towards serfs to kill them all like -wasps. It could not have been his standing "Advice to Serfs" -to say, "Get hanged." It cannot be the standing advice of -magistrates to citizens to go to prison. And, precisely as -plainly, it cannot be the standing advice of rich men to -very poor men to go to the workhouses. For that would mean -the rich raising their own poor rates enormously to keep a -vast and expensive establishment of slaves. Now it may come -to this, as Mr. Belloc maintains, but it is not the theory -on which what we call the workhouse does in fact rest. The -very shape (and even the very size) of a workhouse express -the fact that it was founded for certain quite exceptional -human failures---like the lunatic asylum. Say to a man, "Go -to the madhouse," and he will say, "Therein am I mad?" Say -to a tramp under a hedge, "Go to the house of exceptional -failures," and he will say with equal reason, "I travel -because I have no house; I walk because I have no horse; I -sleep out because I have no bed. Wherein have I failed?" And -he may have the intelligence to add, "Indeed, your worship, -if somebody has failed, I think it is not I." I concede, -with all due haste, that he might perhaps say "me." - -The speciality then of this man's wrong is that it is the -only historic wrong that has in it the quality of -*nonsense*. It could only happen in a nightmare; not in a -dear and rational hell. It is the top point of that anarchy -in the governing mind which, as I said at the beginning, is -the main trait of modernity, especially in England. But if -the first note in our policy is madness, the next note is -certainly meanness. There are two peculiarly mean and -unmanly legal mantraps in which this wretched man is tripped -up. The first is that which prevents him from doing what any -ordinary savage or nomad would do---take his chance of an +There was, therefore, both in theory and practice, *some* security for +the serf, because he had come to life and rooted. The seigneur could not +wait in the field in all weathers with a battle-axe to prevent the serf +scratching any living out of the ground, any more than the man in my +fairy-tale could sit out in the garden all night with an umbrella to +prevent the shrub getting any rain. The relation of lord and serf, +therefore, involves a combination of two things: inequality and +security. I know there are people who will at once point wildly to all +sorts of examples, true and false, of insecurity of life in the Middle +Ages; but these are people who do not grasp what we mean by the +characteristic institutions of a society. For the matter of that, there +are plenty of examples of equality in the Middle Ages, as the craftsmen +in their guild or the monks electing their abbot. But just as modern +England is not a feudal country, though there is a quaint survival +called Heralds' College---or Ireland is not a commercial country, though +there is a quaint survival called Belfast---it is true of the bulk and +shape of that society that came out of the Dark Ages and ended at the +Reformation, that it did not care about giving everybody an equal +position, but did care about giving everybody a position. So that by the +very beginning of that time even the slave had become a slave one could +not get rid of, like the Scotch servant who stubbornly asserted that if +his master didn't know a good servant he knew a good master. The free +peasant, in ancient or modern times, is free to go or stay. The slave, +in ancient times, was free neither to go nor stay. The serf was not free +to go; but he was free to stay. + +Now what have we done with this man? It is quite simple. There is no +historical complexity about it in that respect. We have taken away his +freedom to stay. We have turned him out of his field, and whether it was +injustice, like turning a free farmer out of his field, or only cruelty +to animals, like turning a cow out of its field, the fact remains that +he is out in the road. First and last, we have simply destroyed the +security. We have not in the least destroyed the inequality. All +classes, all creatures, kind or cruel, still see this lowest stratum of +society as separate from the upper strata and even the middle strata; he +is as separate as the serf. A monster fallen from Mars, ignorant of our +simplest word, would know the tramp was at the bottom of the ladder, as +well as he would have known it of the serf. The walls of mud are no +longer round his boundaries, but only round his boots. The coarse, +bristling hedge is at the end of his chin, and not of his garden. But +mud and bristles still stand out round him like a horrific halo, and +separate him from his kind. The Martian would have no difficulty in +seeing he was the poorest person in the nation. It is just as impossible +that he should marry an heiress, or fight a duel with a duke, or contest +a seat at Westminster, or enter a club in Pall Mall, or take a +scholarship at Balliol, or take a seat at an opera, or propose a good +law, or protest against a bad one, as it was impossible to the serf. +Where he differs is in something very different. He has lost what was +possible to the serf. He can no longer scratch the bare earth by day or +sleep on the bare earth by night, without being collared by a policeman. + +Now when I say that this man has been oppressed as hardly any other man +on this earth has been oppressed, I am not using rhetoric: I have a +clear meaning which I am confident of explaining to any honest reader. I +do not say he has been treated worse: I say he has been treated +differently from the unfortunate in an ages. And the difference is this: +that all the others were told to do something, and killed or tortured if +they did anything else. This man is not told to do something: he is +merely forbidden to do anything. When he was a slave, they said to him, +"Sleep in this shed; I win beat you if you sleep anywhere else." When he +was a serf, they said to him, "Let me find you in this field: I'll hang +you if I find you in anyone else's field." But now he is a tramp they +say to him, "You shall be jailed if I find you in anyone else's field: +*but I will not give you a field.*" They say,"You shall be punished if +you are caught sleeping outside your shed: *but there is no shed.*" If +you say that modern magistracies could never say such mad +contradictions, I answer with entire certainty that they do say them. A +little while ago two tramps were summoned before a magistrate, charged +with sleeping in the open air when they had nowhere else to sleep. But +this is not the full fun of the incident. The real fun is that each of +them eagerly produced about twopence, to prove that they could have got +a bed, but deliberately didn't. To which the policeman replied that +twopence would not have got them a bed: that they could not possibly +have got a bed: and *therefore* (argued that thoughtful officer) they +ought to be punished for not getting one. The intelligent magistrate was +much struck with the argument: and proceeded to imprison these two men +for not doing a thing they could not do. But he was careful to explain +that if they had sinned needlessly and in wanton lawlessness, they would +have left the court without a stain on their characters; but as they +could not a void it, they were very much to blame. These things are +being done in every part of England every day. They have their parallels +even in every daily paper; but they have no parallel in any other +earthly people or period; except in that insane command to make bricks +without straw which brought down all the plagues of Egypt. For the +common historical joke about Henry VIII hanging a man for being Catholic +and burning him for being Protestant is a symbolic joke only. The +sceptic in the Tudor time could do something: he could always agree with +Henry VIII. The desperate man to-day can do nothing. For you cannot +agree with a maniac who sits on the bench with the straws sticking out +of his hair and says, "Procure threepence from nowhere and I will give +you leave to do without it." + +If it be answered that he can go to the workhouse, I reply that such an +answer is founded on confused thinking. It is true that he is free to go +to the workhouse, but only in the same sense in which he is free to go +to jail, only in the same sense in which the serf under the gibbet was +free to find peace in the grave. Many of the poor greatly prefer the +grave to the workhouse, but that is not at all my argument here. The +point is this: that it could not have been the general policy of a lord +towards serfs to kill them all like wasps. It could not have been his +standing "Advice to Serfs" to say, "Get hanged." It cannot be the +standing advice of magistrates to citizens to go to prison. And, +precisely as plainly, it cannot be the standing advice of rich men to +very poor men to go to the workhouses. For that would mean the rich +raising their own poor rates enormously to keep a vast and expensive +establishment of slaves. Now it may come to this, as Mr. Belloc +maintains, but it is not the theory on which what we call the workhouse +does in fact rest. The very shape (and even the very size) of a +workhouse express the fact that it was founded for certain quite +exceptional human failures---like the lunatic asylum. Say to a man, "Go +to the madhouse," and he will say, "Therein am I mad?" Say to a tramp +under a hedge, "Go to the house of exceptional failures," and he will +say with equal reason, "I travel because I have no house; I walk because +I have no horse; I sleep out because I have no bed. Wherein have I +failed?" And he may have the intelligence to add, "Indeed, your worship, +if somebody has failed, I think it is not I." I concede, with all due +haste, that he might perhaps say "me." + +The speciality then of this man's wrong is that it is the only historic +wrong that has in it the quality of *nonsense*. It could only happen in +a nightmare; not in a dear and rational hell. It is the top point of +that anarchy in the governing mind which, as I said at the beginning, is +the main trait of modernity, especially in England. But if the first +note in our policy is madness, the next note is certainly meanness. +There are two peculiarly mean and unmanly legal mantraps in which this +wretched man is tripped up. The first is that which prevents him from +doing what any ordinary savage or nomad would do---take his chance of an uneven subsistence on the rude bounty of nature. -There is something very abject about forbidding this; -because it is precisely this adventurous and vagabond spirit -which the educated classes praise most in their books, poems -and speeches. To feel the drag of the roads, to hunt in -nameless hills and fish in secret streams to have no address -save "Over the Hills and Far Away," to be ready to breakfast -on berries and the daybreak and sup on the sunset and a -sodden crust, to feed on wild things and be a boy again, all -this is the heartiest and sincerest impulse in recent -culture, in the songs and tales of Stevenson, in the cult of -George Borrow and in the delightful little books published -by Mr. E. V. Lucas. It is the one true excuse in the core of -Imperialism; and it faintly softens the squalid prose and -wooden-headed wickedness of the Self-Made Man who "came up -to London with twopence in his pocket." But when a poorer -but braver man with less than twopence in his pocket does -the very thing we are al'ways praising, makes the blue -heavens his house, we send him to a house built for infamy -and flogging. We take poverty itself and only permit it with -a property qualification; we only allow a man to be poor if -he is rich. And we do this most savagely if he has sought to -snatch his life by that particular thing of which our boyish -adventure stories are fullest---hunting and fishing. The -extremely severe English game laws hit most heavily what the -highly reckless English romances praise most irresponsibly. -All our literature is full of praise of the -chase---especially of the wild goose chase. But if a poor -man followed, as Tennyson says, "far as the wild swan wings -to where the world dips down to sea and sands," Tennyson -would scarcely allow him to catch it. If he found the -wildest goose in the wildest fenland in the wildest regions -of the sunset, he would very probably discover that the rich +There is something very abject about forbidding this; because it is +precisely this adventurous and vagabond spirit which the educated +classes praise most in their books, poems and speeches. To feel the drag +of the roads, to hunt in nameless hills and fish in secret streams to +have no address save "Over the Hills and Far Away," to be ready to +breakfast on berries and the daybreak and sup on the sunset and a sodden +crust, to feed on wild things and be a boy again, all this is the +heartiest and sincerest impulse in recent culture, in the songs and +tales of Stevenson, in the cult of George Borrow and in the delightful +little books published by Mr. E. V. Lucas. It is the one true excuse in +the core of Imperialism; and it faintly softens the squalid prose and +wooden-headed wickedness of the Self-Made Man who "came up to London +with twopence in his pocket." But when a poorer but braver man with less +than twopence in his pocket does the very thing we are al'ways praising, +makes the blue heavens his house, we send him to a house built for +infamy and flogging. We take poverty itself and only permit it with a +property qualification; we only allow a man to be poor if he is rich. +And we do this most savagely if he has sought to snatch his life by that +particular thing of which our boyish adventure stories are +fullest---hunting and fishing. The extremely severe English game laws +hit most heavily what the highly reckless English romances praise most +irresponsibly. All our literature is full of praise of the +chase---especially of the wild goose chase. But if a poor man followed, +as Tennyson says, "far as the wild swan wings to where the world dips +down to sea and sands," Tennyson would scarcely allow him to catch it. +If he found the wildest goose in the wildest fenland in the wildest +regions of the sunset, he would very probably discover that the rich never sleep; and that there are no wild things in England. -In short, the English ruler is always appealing to a nation -of sportsmen and concentrating all his efforts on preventing -them from having any sport. The Imperialist is always -pointing out with exultation that the common Englishman can -live by adventure anywhere on the globe, but if the common -Englishman tries to live by adventure in England, he is -treated as harshly as a thief, and almost as harshly as an -honest journalist. This is hypocrisy: the magistrate who -gives his son "Treasure Island" and then imprisons a tramp -is a hypocrite; the squire who is proud of English colonists -and indulgent to English schoolboys, but cruel to English -poachers, is drawing near that deep place wherein all liars -have their part. But our point here is that the baseness is -in the idea of *bewildering* the tramp; of leaving him no -place for repentance. It is quite true, of course, that in -the days of slavery or of serfdom the needy were fenced by -yet fiercer penalties from spoiling the hunting of the rich. -But in the older case there were two very important -differences, the second of which is our main subject in this -chapter. The first is that in a comparatively wild society, -however fond of hunting, it seems impossible that enclosing -and game-keeping can have been so omnipresent and efficient -as in a society full of maps and policemen. The second -difference is the one already noted: that if the slave or -semi-slave was forbidden to get his food in the greenwood, -he was told to get it somewhere else. The note of unreason -was absent. - -This is the first meanness; and the second is like unto it. -If there is one thing of which cultivated modern letters is -full besides adventure it is altruism. We are always being -told to help others, to regard our wealth as theirs, to do -what good we can, for we shall not pass this way again. We -are everywhere urged by humanitarians to help lame dogs over -stiles---though some humanitarians, it is true, seem to feel -a colder interest in the case of lame men and women. Still, -the chief fact of our literature, among all historic -literatures, is human charity. But what is the chief fact of -our legislation? The great outstanding fact of modern -legislation, among all historic legislations, is the -forbidding of human charity. It is this astonishing paradox, -a thing in the teeth of all logic and conscience, that a man -that takes another man's money with his leave can be -punished as if he had taken it without his leave. All -through those dark or dim ages behind us, through times of -servile stagnation, of feudal insolence, of pestilence and -civil strife and all else that can war down the weak, for -the weak to ask for charity was counted lawful, and to give -that charity, admirable. In all other centuries, in short, -the casual bad deeds of bad men could be partly patched and -mended by the casual good deeds of good men. But this is now -forbidden; for it would leave the tramp a last chance if he -could beg. - -Now it will be evident by this time that the interesting -scientific experiment on the tramp entirely depends on -leaving him *no* chance, and not (like the slave) one -chance. Of the economic excuses offered for the persecution -of beggars it will be more natural to speak in the next -chapter. It will suffice here to say that they are mere -excuses, for a policy that has been persistent while -probably largely unconscious, with a selfish and atheistic -unconsciousness. That policy was directed towards -something---or it could never have cut so cleanly and -cruelly across the sentimental but sincere modern trends to -adventure and altruism. Its object is soon stated. It was -directed towards making the very poor man work for the -capitalist, for any wages or none. But all this, which I -shall also deal with in the next chapter, is here only -important as introducing the last truth touching the man of -despair. The game laws have taken from him his human command -of Nature. The mendicancy laws have taken from him his human -demand on Man. There is one human thing left it is much -harder to take from him. Debased by him and his betters, it -is still something brought out of Eden, where God made him a -demigod: it does not depend on money and but little on time. -He can create in his own image. The terrible truth is in the -heart of a hundred legends and mysteries. As Jupiter could -be hidden from all-devouring Time, as the Christ Child could -be hidden from Herod---so the child unborn is still hidden -from the omniscient oppressor. He who lives not yet, he and -he alone is left; and they seek his life to take it away. +In short, the English ruler is always appealing to a nation of sportsmen +and concentrating all his efforts on preventing them from having any +sport. The Imperialist is always pointing out with exultation that the +common Englishman can live by adventure anywhere on the globe, but if +the common Englishman tries to live by adventure in England, he is +treated as harshly as a thief, and almost as harshly as an honest +journalist. This is hypocrisy: the magistrate who gives his son +"Treasure Island" and then imprisons a tramp is a hypocrite; the squire +who is proud of English colonists and indulgent to English schoolboys, +but cruel to English poachers, is drawing near that deep place wherein +all liars have their part. But our point here is that the baseness is in +the idea of *bewildering* the tramp; of leaving him no place for +repentance. It is quite true, of course, that in the days of slavery or +of serfdom the needy were fenced by yet fiercer penalties from spoiling +the hunting of the rich. But in the older case there were two very +important differences, the second of which is our main subject in this +chapter. The first is that in a comparatively wild society, however fond +of hunting, it seems impossible that enclosing and game-keeping can have +been so omnipresent and efficient as in a society full of maps and +policemen. The second difference is the one already noted: that if the +slave or semi-slave was forbidden to get his food in the greenwood, he +was told to get it somewhere else. The note of unreason was absent. + +This is the first meanness; and the second is like unto it. If there is +one thing of which cultivated modern letters is full besides adventure +it is altruism. We are always being told to help others, to regard our +wealth as theirs, to do what good we can, for we shall not pass this way +again. We are everywhere urged by humanitarians to help lame dogs over +stiles---though some humanitarians, it is true, seem to feel a colder +interest in the case of lame men and women. Still, the chief fact of our +literature, among all historic literatures, is human charity. But what +is the chief fact of our legislation? The great outstanding fact of +modern legislation, among all historic legislations, is the forbidding +of human charity. It is this astonishing paradox, a thing in the teeth +of all logic and conscience, that a man that takes another man's money +with his leave can be punished as if he had taken it without his leave. +All through those dark or dim ages behind us, through times of servile +stagnation, of feudal insolence, of pestilence and civil strife and all +else that can war down the weak, for the weak to ask for charity was +counted lawful, and to give that charity, admirable. In all other +centuries, in short, the casual bad deeds of bad men could be partly +patched and mended by the casual good deeds of good men. But this is now +forbidden; for it would leave the tramp a last chance if he could beg. + +Now it will be evident by this time that the interesting scientific +experiment on the tramp entirely depends on leaving him *no* chance, and +not (like the slave) one chance. Of the economic excuses offered for the +persecution of beggars it will be more natural to speak in the next +chapter. It will suffice here to say that they are mere excuses, for a +policy that has been persistent while probably largely unconscious, with +a selfish and atheistic unconsciousness. That policy was directed +towards something---or it could never have cut so cleanly and cruelly +across the sentimental but sincere modern trends to adventure and +altruism. Its object is soon stated. It was directed towards making the +very poor man work for the capitalist, for any wages or none. But all +this, which I shall also deal with in the next chapter, is here only +important as introducing the last truth touching the man of despair. The +game laws have taken from him his human command of Nature. The +mendicancy laws have taken from him his human demand on Man. There is +one human thing left it is much harder to take from him. Debased by him +and his betters, it is still something brought out of Eden, where God +made him a demigod: it does not depend on money and but little on time. +He can create in his own image. The terrible truth is in the heart of a +hundred legends and mysteries. As Jupiter could be hidden from +all-devouring Time, as the Christ Child could be hidden from Herod---so +the child unborn is still hidden from the omniscient oppressor. He who +lives not yet, he and he alone is left; and they seek his life to take +it away. ## True History of a Eugenist -He does not live in a dark lonely tower by the sea, from -which are heard the screams of vivisected men and women. On -the contrary, he lives in Mayfair. He does not wear great -goblin spectacles that magnify his eyes to moons or diminish -his neighbours to beetles. When he is more dignified he -wears a single eyeglass; when more intelligent, a wink. He -is not indeed wholly without interest in heredity and -Eugenical biology; but his studies and experiments in this -science have specialised almost exclusively in *equus -celer*, the rapid or running horse. He is not a doctor; -though he employs doctors to work up a case for Eugenics, -just as he employs doctors to correct the errors of his -dinner. He is not a lawyer, though unfortunately often a -magistrate. He is not an author or a journalist; though he -not infrequently owns a newspaper. He is not a soldier, -though he may have a commission in the yeomanry; nor is he -generally a gentleman, though often a nobleman. His wealth -now commonly comes from a large staff of employed persons -who scurry about in big buildings while he is playing golf. -But he very often laid the foundations of his fortune in a -very curious and poetical way, the nature of which I have -never fully understood. It consisted in his walking about -the street without a hat and going up to another man and -saying, "Suppose I have two hundred whales out of the North -Sea." To which the other man replied, "And let us imagine -that I am in possession of two thousand elephants' tusks." -They then exchange, and the first man goes up to a third man -and says, "Supposing me to have lately come into the -possession of two thousand elephants' tusks, would you, -etc.?" If you play this game well, you become very rich; if -you play it badly you have to kill yourself or try your luck -at the Bar. The man I am speaking about must have played it -well, or at any rate successfully. - -He was born about 1860; and has been a member of Parliament -since about 1890. For the first half of his life he was a -Liberal; for the second half he has been a Conservative; but -his actual policy in Parliament has remained largely -unchanged and consistent. His policy in Parliament is as -follows: he takes a seat in a room downstairs at -Westminster, and takes from his breast pocket an excellent -cigar-case, from which in turn he takes an excellent cigar. -This he lights, and converses with other owners of such -cigars on *equus celer* or such matters as may afford him -entertainment. Two or three times in the afternoon a bell -rings; whereupon he deposits the cigar in an ashtray with -great particularity, taking care not to break the ash, and -proceeds to an upstairs room, flanked with two passages. He -then walks into whichever of the two passages shall be -indicated to him by a young man of the upper classes, -holding a slip of paper. Having gone into this passage he -comes out of it again, is counted by the young man and -proceeds downstairs again; where he takes up the cigar once -more, being careful not to break the ash. This process, -which is known as Representative Government, has never -called for any great variety in the manner of his life. -Nevertheless, while his Parliamentary policy is unchanged, -his change from one side of the House to the other did -correspond with a certain change in his general policy in -commerce and social life. The change of the party label is -by this time quite a trifling matter; but there was in his -case a change of philosophy or at least a change of project; -though it was not so much becoming a Tory, as becoming -rather the' wrong kind of Socialist. He is a man with a -history. It is a sad history, for he is certainly a less -good man than he was when he started. That is why he is the -man who is really behind Eugenics. It is because he has +He does not live in a dark lonely tower by the sea, from which are heard +the screams of vivisected men and women. On the contrary, he lives in +Mayfair. He does not wear great goblin spectacles that magnify his eyes +to moons or diminish his neighbours to beetles. When he is more +dignified he wears a single eyeglass; when more intelligent, a wink. He +is not indeed wholly without interest in heredity and Eugenical biology; +but his studies and experiments in this science have specialised almost +exclusively in *equus celer*, the rapid or running horse. He is not a +doctor; though he employs doctors to work up a case for Eugenics, just +as he employs doctors to correct the errors of his dinner. He is not a +lawyer, though unfortunately often a magistrate. He is not an author or +a journalist; though he not infrequently owns a newspaper. He is not a +soldier, though he may have a commission in the yeomanry; nor is he +generally a gentleman, though often a nobleman. His wealth now commonly +comes from a large staff of employed persons who scurry about in big +buildings while he is playing golf. But he very often laid the +foundations of his fortune in a very curious and poetical way, the +nature of which I have never fully understood. It consisted in his +walking about the street without a hat and going up to another man and +saying, "Suppose I have two hundred whales out of the North Sea." To +which the other man replied, "And let us imagine that I am in possession +of two thousand elephants' tusks." They then exchange, and the first man +goes up to a third man and says, "Supposing me to have lately come into +the possession of two thousand elephants' tusks, would you, etc.?" If +you play this game well, you become very rich; if you play it badly you +have to kill yourself or try your luck at the Bar. The man I am speaking +about must have played it well, or at any rate successfully. + +He was born about 1860; and has been a member of Parliament since about +1890. For the first half of his life he was a Liberal; for the second +half he has been a Conservative; but his actual policy in Parliament has +remained largely unchanged and consistent. His policy in Parliament is +as follows: he takes a seat in a room downstairs at Westminster, and +takes from his breast pocket an excellent cigar-case, from which in turn +he takes an excellent cigar. This he lights, and converses with other +owners of such cigars on *equus celer* or such matters as may afford him +entertainment. Two or three times in the afternoon a bell rings; +whereupon he deposits the cigar in an ashtray with great particularity, +taking care not to break the ash, and proceeds to an upstairs room, +flanked with two passages. He then walks into whichever of the two +passages shall be indicated to him by a young man of the upper classes, +holding a slip of paper. Having gone into this passage he comes out of +it again, is counted by the young man and proceeds downstairs again; +where he takes up the cigar once more, being careful not to break the +ash. This process, which is known as Representative Government, has +never called for any great variety in the manner of his life. +Nevertheless, while his Parliamentary policy is unchanged, his change +from one side of the House to the other did correspond with a certain +change in his general policy in commerce and social life. The change of +the party label is by this time quite a trifling matter; but there was +in his case a change of philosophy or at least a change of project; +though it was not so much becoming a Tory, as becoming rather the' wrong +kind of Socialist. He is a man with a history. It is a sad history, for +he is certainly a less good man than he was when he started. That is why +he is the man who is really behind Eugenics. It is because he has degenerated that he has come to talking of Degeneration. -In his Radical days (to quote from one who corresponded in -some ways to this type) he was a much better man, because he -was a much less enlightened one. The hard impudence of his -first Manchester Individualism was softened by two -relatively humane qualities; the first was a much greater -manliness in his pride; the second was a much greater -sincerity in his optimism. For the first point, the modern -capitalist is merely industrial; but this man was also -industrious. He was proud of hard work; nay, he was even -proud of low work---if he could speak of it in the past and -not the present. In fact, he invented a new kind of -Victorian snobbishness, an inverted snobbishness. While the -snobs of Thackeray turned Muggins into De Mogyns, while the -snobs of Dickens wrote letters describing themselves as -officers' daughters "accustomed to every luxury---except -spelling," the Individualist spent his life in hiding his -prosperous parents. He was more like an American plutocrat -when he began; but he has since lost the American -simplicity. The Frenchman works until he can play. The -American works until he can't play; and then thanks the -devil, his master, that he is donkey enough to die in -harness. But the Englishman, as he has since become, works -until he can pretend that he never worked at all. He becomes -as far as possible another person---a country gentleman who -has never heard of his shop; one whose left hand holding a -gun knows not what his right hand doeth in a ledger. He uses -a peerage as an alias, and a large estate as a sort of -alibi. A stern Scotch minister remarked concerning the game -of golf, with a terrible solemnity of manner, "the man who -plays golf---he neglects his business, he forsakes his wife, -he forgets his God." He did not seem to realise that it is -the chief aim of many a modern capitalist's life to forget -all three. - -This abandonment of a boyish vanity in work, this -substitution of a senile vanity in indolence, this is the -first respect in which the rich Englishman has fallen. He -was more of a man when he was at least a master-workman and -not merely a master. And the second important respect in -which he was better at the beginning is this: that he did -then, in some hazy way, half believe that he was enriching -other people as well as himself. The optimism of the early -Victorian Individualists was not wholly hypocritical. Some -of the clearest-headed and blackest-hearted of them, such as -Malthus, saw where things were going, and boldly based their -Manchester city on pessimism instead of optimism. But this -was not the general case; most of the decent rich of the -Bright and Cobden sort did have a kind of confused faith -that the economic conflict would work well in the long run -for everybody. They thought the troubles of the poor were -incurable by State action (they thought that of all -troubles), but they did not cold-bloodedly contemplate the -prospect of those troubles growing worse and worse. By one -of those tricks or illusions of the brain to which the -luxurious are subject in all ages, they sometimes seemed to -feel as if the populace had triumphed symbolically in their -own persons. They blasphemously thought about their thrones -of gold what can only be said about a cross---that they, -being lifted up, would draw all men after them. They were so -full of the romance that anybody could be Lord Mayor, that -they seemed to have slipped into thinking that everybody -could. It seemed as if a hundred Dick Whittingtons, -accompanied by a hundred cats, could all be accommodated at -the Mansion House. - -It was all nonsense; but it was not (until later) all -humbug. Step by step, however, with a horrid and increasing -clearness, this man discovered what he was doing. It is -generally one of the worst discoveries a man can make. At -the beginning, the British plutocrat was probably quite as -honest in suggesting that every tramp carried a magic cat -like Dick Whittington, as the Bonapartist patriot was in -saying that every French soldier carried a marshal's *baton* -in his knapsack. But it is exactly here that the difference -and the danger appears. There is no comparison between a -well-managed thing like Napoleon's army and an unmanageable -thing like modern competition. Logically, doubtless, it was -impossible that every soldier should carry a marshal's -*baton;* they could not all be marshals any more than they -could all be mayors. But if the French soldier did not -always have a *baton* in his knapsack, he always had a -knapsack. But when that Self-Helper who bore the adorable -name of Smiles told the English tramp that he carried a -coronet in his bundle, the English tramp had an unanswerable -answer. He pointed out that he had no bundle. The powers -that ruled him had not fitted him with a knapsack, any more -than they had fitted him with a future---or even a present. -The destitute Englishman, so far from hoping to become -anything, had never been allowed even to be anything. The -French soldier's ambition may have been in practice not only -a short, but even a deliberately shortened ladder, in which -the top rungs were knocked out. But for the English it was -the bottom rungs that were knocked out, so that they could -not even begin to climb. And sooner or later, in exact -proportion to his intelligence. the English plutocrat began -to understand not only that the poor were impotent, but that -their impotence had been his only power. The truth was not -merely that his riches had left them poor; it was that -nothing but their poverty could have been strong enough to -make him rich. It is this paradox, as we shall see, that -creates the curious difference between him and every other -kind of robber. - -I think it is no more than justice to him to say that the -knowledge, where it has come to him, has come to him slowly; -and I think it came (as most things of common sense come) -rather vaguely and as in a vision---that is, by the mere -look of things. The old Cobdenite employer was quite within -his rights in arguing that earth is not heaven, that the -best obtainable arrangement might contain many necessary -evils; and that Liverpool and Belfast might be growing more -prosperous as a whole in spite of pathetic things that might -be seen there. But I simply do not believe he has been able -to look at Liverpool and Belfast and continue to think this: -that is why he has turned himself into a sham country -gentleman. Earth is not heaven, but the nearest we can get -to heaven ought not to look like hell; and Liverpool and -Belfast *look* like hell, whether they are or not. Such -cities might be growing prosperous as a whole, though a few -citizens were more miserable. But it was more and more -broadly apparent that it was exactly and precisely *as a -whole* that they were not growing more prosperous, but only -the few citizens who were growing more prosperous by their -increasing misery. You could not say a country was becoming -a white man's country when there were more and more black -men in it every day. You could not say a community was more -and more masculine when it was producing more and more -women. Nor can you say that a city is growing richer and -richer when more and more of its inhabitants are very poor -men. There might be a false agitation founded on the pathos -of individual cases in a community pretty normal in bulk. -But the fact is that no one can take a cab across Liverpool -without having a quite complete and unified impression that -the pathos is not a pathos of individual cases, but a pathos -in bulk. People talk of the Celtic sadness; but there are -very few things in Ireland that look so sad as the Irishman -in Liverpool. The desolation of Tara is cheery compared with -the desolation of Belfast. I recommend Mr. Yeats and his -mournful friends to turn their attention to the pathos of -Belfast. I think if they hung up the harp that once in Lord -Furness's factory, there would be a chance of another string +In his Radical days (to quote from one who corresponded in some ways to +this type) he was a much better man, because he was a much less +enlightened one. The hard impudence of his first Manchester +Individualism was softened by two relatively humane qualities; the first +was a much greater manliness in his pride; the second was a much greater +sincerity in his optimism. For the first point, the modern capitalist is +merely industrial; but this man was also industrious. He was proud of +hard work; nay, he was even proud of low work---if he could speak of it +in the past and not the present. In fact, he invented a new kind of +Victorian snobbishness, an inverted snobbishness. While the snobs of +Thackeray turned Muggins into De Mogyns, while the snobs of Dickens +wrote letters describing themselves as officers' daughters "accustomed +to every luxury---except spelling," the Individualist spent his life in +hiding his prosperous parents. He was more like an American plutocrat +when he began; but he has since lost the American simplicity. The +Frenchman works until he can play. The American works until he can't +play; and then thanks the devil, his master, that he is donkey enough to +die in harness. But the Englishman, as he has since become, works until +he can pretend that he never worked at all. He becomes as far as +possible another person---a country gentleman who has never heard of his +shop; one whose left hand holding a gun knows not what his right hand +doeth in a ledger. He uses a peerage as an alias, and a large estate as +a sort of alibi. A stern Scotch minister remarked concerning the game of +golf, with a terrible solemnity of manner, "the man who plays golf---he +neglects his business, he forsakes his wife, he forgets his God." He did +not seem to realise that it is the chief aim of many a modern +capitalist's life to forget all three. + +This abandonment of a boyish vanity in work, this substitution of a +senile vanity in indolence, this is the first respect in which the rich +Englishman has fallen. He was more of a man when he was at least a +master-workman and not merely a master. And the second important respect +in which he was better at the beginning is this: that he did then, in +some hazy way, half believe that he was enriching other people as well +as himself. The optimism of the early Victorian Individualists was not +wholly hypocritical. Some of the clearest-headed and blackest-hearted of +them, such as Malthus, saw where things were going, and boldly based +their Manchester city on pessimism instead of optimism. But this was not +the general case; most of the decent rich of the Bright and Cobden sort +did have a kind of confused faith that the economic conflict would work +well in the long run for everybody. They thought the troubles of the +poor were incurable by State action (they thought that of all troubles), +but they did not cold-bloodedly contemplate the prospect of those +troubles growing worse and worse. By one of those tricks or illusions of +the brain to which the luxurious are subject in all ages, they sometimes +seemed to feel as if the populace had triumphed symbolically in their +own persons. They blasphemously thought about their thrones of gold what +can only be said about a cross---that they, being lifted up, would draw +all men after them. They were so full of the romance that anybody could +be Lord Mayor, that they seemed to have slipped into thinking that +everybody could. It seemed as if a hundred Dick Whittingtons, +accompanied by a hundred cats, could all be accommodated at the Mansion +House. + +It was all nonsense; but it was not (until later) all humbug. Step by +step, however, with a horrid and increasing clearness, this man +discovered what he was doing. It is generally one of the worst +discoveries a man can make. At the beginning, the British plutocrat was +probably quite as honest in suggesting that every tramp carried a magic +cat like Dick Whittington, as the Bonapartist patriot was in saying that +every French soldier carried a marshal's *baton* in his knapsack. But it +is exactly here that the difference and the danger appears. There is no +comparison between a well-managed thing like Napoleon's army and an +unmanageable thing like modern competition. Logically, doubtless, it was +impossible that every soldier should carry a marshal's *baton;* they +could not all be marshals any more than they could all be mayors. But if +the French soldier did not always have a *baton* in his knapsack, he +always had a knapsack. But when that Self-Helper who bore the adorable +name of Smiles told the English tramp that he carried a coronet in his +bundle, the English tramp had an unanswerable answer. He pointed out +that he had no bundle. The powers that ruled him had not fitted him with +a knapsack, any more than they had fitted him with a future---or even a +present. The destitute Englishman, so far from hoping to become +anything, had never been allowed even to be anything. The French +soldier's ambition may have been in practice not only a short, but even +a deliberately shortened ladder, in which the top rungs were knocked +out. But for the English it was the bottom rungs that were knocked out, +so that they could not even begin to climb. And sooner or later, in +exact proportion to his intelligence. the English plutocrat began to +understand not only that the poor were impotent, but that their +impotence had been his only power. The truth was not merely that his +riches had left them poor; it was that nothing but their poverty could +have been strong enough to make him rich. It is this paradox, as we +shall see, that creates the curious difference between him and every +other kind of robber. + +I think it is no more than justice to him to say that the knowledge, +where it has come to him, has come to him slowly; and I think it came +(as most things of common sense come) rather vaguely and as in a +vision---that is, by the mere look of things. The old Cobdenite employer +was quite within his rights in arguing that earth is not heaven, that +the best obtainable arrangement might contain many necessary evils; and +that Liverpool and Belfast might be growing more prosperous as a whole +in spite of pathetic things that might be seen there. But I simply do +not believe he has been able to look at Liverpool and Belfast and +continue to think this: that is why he has turned himself into a sham +country gentleman. Earth is not heaven, but the nearest we can get to +heaven ought not to look like hell; and Liverpool and Belfast *look* +like hell, whether they are or not. Such cities might be growing +prosperous as a whole, though a few citizens were more miserable. But it +was more and more broadly apparent that it was exactly and precisely *as +a whole* that they were not growing more prosperous, but only the few +citizens who were growing more prosperous by their increasing misery. +You could not say a country was becoming a white man's country when +there were more and more black men in it every day. You could not say a +community was more and more masculine when it was producing more and +more women. Nor can you say that a city is growing richer and richer +when more and more of its inhabitants are very poor men. There might be +a false agitation founded on the pathos of individual cases in a +community pretty normal in bulk. But the fact is that no one can take a +cab across Liverpool without having a quite complete and unified +impression that the pathos is not a pathos of individual cases, but a +pathos in bulk. People talk of the Celtic sadness; but there are very +few things in Ireland that look so sad as the Irishman in Liverpool. The +desolation of Tara is cheery compared with the desolation of Belfast. I +recommend Mr. Yeats and his mournful friends to turn their attention to +the pathos of Belfast. I think if they hung up the harp that once in +Lord Furness's factory, there would be a chance of another string breaking. -Broadly, and as things bulk to the eye, towns like Leeds, If -placed beside towns like Rauen or Florence, or Chartres, or -Cologne, do actually look like beggars walking among -burghers. After that overpowering and unpleasant impression -it is really useless to argue that they are richer because a -few of their parasites get rich enough to live somewhere -else. The point may be put another way, thus: that it is not -so much that these more modern cities have this or that -monopoly of good or evil; it is that they have every good in -its fourth-rate form and every evil in its worst form. For -instance, that interesting weekly paper *The Nation* amiably -rebuked fr. Belloc and myself for suggesting that revelry -and the praise of fermented liquor were more characteristic -of Continental and Catholic communities than of communities -with the religion and civilisation of Belfast. It said that -if we would "cross the border" into Scotland, we should find -out our mistake. Now, not only have I crossed the border, -but I have had considerable difficulty in crossing the road -in a Scotch town on a festive evening. Men were literally -lying like piled-up corpses in the gutters, and from broken -bottles whisky was pouring down the drains. I am not likely, -therefore, to attribute a total and arid abstinence to the -whole of industrial Scotland. But I never said that drinking -was a mark rather of the Catholic countries. I said that -*moderate* drinking was a mark rather of the Catholic -countries. In other words, I say of the common type of -Continental citizen, not that he is the only person who is -drinking, but that he is the only person who knows how to -drink. Doubtless gin is as much a feature of Hoxton as beer -is a feature of Munich. But who is the connoisseur who -prefers the gin of Hoxton to the beer of Munich? Doubtless -the Protestant Scotch ask for "Scotch," as the men of -Burgundy ask for Burgundy. But do we find them lying in -heaps on each side of the road when we walk through a -Burgundian village? Do we find the French peasant ready to -let Burgundy escape down a drain-pipe? Now this one point, -on which I accept *The Nation*'s challenge, can be exactly -paralleled on almost every point by which we test a -civilisation. It does not matter whether we are for alcohol -or against it. On either argument Glasgow is more -objectionable than Rouen. The French abstainer makes less -fuss; the French drinker gives less offence. It is so with -property, with war, with everything. I can understand a -teetotaller being horrified, on his principles, at Italian -wine-drinking. I simply cannot believe he could be more -horrified at it than at Haxton gin-drinking. I can -understand a Pacifist, with his special scruples, disliking -the militarism of Belfort. I flatly deny that he can dislike -it *more* than the militarism of Berlin. I can understand a -good Socialist hating the petty cares of the distributed -peasant property. I deny that any good Socialist can hate -them *more* than he hates the large cares of Rockefeller. -That is the unique tragedy of the plutocratic state to-day; -it has *no* successes to hold up against the failures it -alleges to exist in Latin or other methods. You can (if you +Broadly, and as things bulk to the eye, towns like Leeds, If placed +beside towns like Rauen or Florence, or Chartres, or Cologne, do +actually look like beggars walking among burghers. After that +overpowering and unpleasant impression it is really useless to argue +that they are richer because a few of their parasites get rich enough to +live somewhere else. The point may be put another way, thus: that it is +not so much that these more modern cities have this or that monopoly of +good or evil; it is that they have every good in its fourth-rate form +and every evil in its worst form. For instance, that interesting weekly +paper *The Nation* amiably rebuked fr. Belloc and myself for suggesting +that revelry and the praise of fermented liquor were more characteristic +of Continental and Catholic communities than of communities with the +religion and civilisation of Belfast. It said that if we would "cross +the border" into Scotland, we should find out our mistake. Now, not only +have I crossed the border, but I have had considerable difficulty in +crossing the road in a Scotch town on a festive evening. Men were +literally lying like piled-up corpses in the gutters, and from broken +bottles whisky was pouring down the drains. I am not likely, therefore, +to attribute a total and arid abstinence to the whole of industrial +Scotland. But I never said that drinking was a mark rather of the +Catholic countries. I said that *moderate* drinking was a mark rather of +the Catholic countries. In other words, I say of the common type of +Continental citizen, not that he is the only person who is drinking, but +that he is the only person who knows how to drink. Doubtless gin is as +much a feature of Hoxton as beer is a feature of Munich. But who is the +connoisseur who prefers the gin of Hoxton to the beer of Munich? +Doubtless the Protestant Scotch ask for "Scotch," as the men of Burgundy +ask for Burgundy. But do we find them lying in heaps on each side of the +road when we walk through a Burgundian village? Do we find the French +peasant ready to let Burgundy escape down a drain-pipe? Now this one +point, on which I accept *The Nation*'s challenge, can be exactly +paralleled on almost every point by which we test a civilisation. It +does not matter whether we are for alcohol or against it. On either +argument Glasgow is more objectionable than Rouen. The French abstainer +makes less fuss; the French drinker gives less offence. It is so with +property, with war, with everything. I can understand a teetotaller +being horrified, on his principles, at Italian wine-drinking. I simply +cannot believe he could be more horrified at it than at Haxton +gin-drinking. I can understand a Pacifist, with his special scruples, +disliking the militarism of Belfort. I flatly deny that he can dislike +it *more* than the militarism of Berlin. I can understand a good +Socialist hating the petty cares of the distributed peasant property. I +deny that any good Socialist can hate them *more* than he hates the +large cares of Rockefeller. That is the unique tragedy of the +plutocratic state to-day; it has *no* successes to hold up against the +failures it alleges to exist in Latin or other methods. You can (if you are well out of his reach) call the Irish rustic debased and -superstitious. I defy you to contrast his debasement and -superstition with the citizenship and enlightenment of the -English rustic. - -To-day the rich man knows in his heart that he is a cancer -and not an organ of the State. He differs from all other -thieves or parasites for this reason: that the brigand who -takes by force wishes his victims to be rich. But he who -wins by a one-sided contract actually wishes them to be -poor. Rob Roy in a cavern, hearing a company approaching, -will hope (or if in a pious mood, pray) that they may come -laden with gold or goods. But Mr. Rockefeller, in his -factory, knows that if those who pass are laden with goods -they will pass on. He will therefore (if in a pious mood) -pray that they may be destitute, and so be forced to work -his factory for him for a starvation wage. It is said (and -also, I believe, disputed) that Blücher riding through the -richer parts of London exclaimed, "What a city to sack!" But -Blücher was a soldier if he was a bandit. The true sweater -feels quite otherwise. It is when he drives through the -poorest parts of London that he finds the streets paved with -gold, being paved with prostrate servants; it is when he -sees the grey lean leagues of Bow and Poplar that his soul -is uplifted and he knows he is secure. This is not rhetoric, -but economics. - -I repeat that up to a point the profiteer was innocent -because he was ignorant; he had been lured on by easy and -accommodating events. He was innocent as the new Thane of -Glamis was innocent, as the new Thane of Cawdor was -innocent; but the King--- The modern manufacturer, like -Macbeth decided to march on, under the mute menace of the -heavens. He knew that the spoil of the poor was in his -houses; but he could not, after careful calculation, think -of any way in which they could get it out of his houses -without being arrested for housebreaking. He faced the -future with a face flinty with pride and impenitence. This -period can be dated practically by the period when the old -and genuine Protestant religion of England began to fail; -and the average business man began to be agnostic, not so -much because he did not know where he was, as because he -wanted to forget. Many of the rich took to scepticism -exactly as the poor took to drink; because it was a way out. -But in any case, the man who had made a mistake not only -refused to unmake it, but decided to go on making it. But in -this he made yet another most amusing mistake, which was the -beginning of all Eugenics. +superstitious. I defy you to contrast his debasement and superstition +with the citizenship and enlightenment of the English rustic. + +To-day the rich man knows in his heart that he is a cancer and not an +organ of the State. He differs from all other thieves or parasites for +this reason: that the brigand who takes by force wishes his victims to +be rich. But he who wins by a one-sided contract actually wishes them to +be poor. Rob Roy in a cavern, hearing a company approaching, will hope +(or if in a pious mood, pray) that they may come laden with gold or +goods. But Mr. Rockefeller, in his factory, knows that if those who pass +are laden with goods they will pass on. He will therefore (if in a pious +mood) pray that they may be destitute, and so be forced to work his +factory for him for a starvation wage. It is said (and also, I believe, +disputed) that Blücher riding through the richer parts of London +exclaimed, "What a city to sack!" But Blücher was a soldier if he was a +bandit. The true sweater feels quite otherwise. It is when he drives +through the poorest parts of London that he finds the streets paved with +gold, being paved with prostrate servants; it is when he sees the grey +lean leagues of Bow and Poplar that his soul is uplifted and he knows he +is secure. This is not rhetoric, but economics. + +I repeat that up to a point the profiteer was innocent because he was +ignorant; he had been lured on by easy and accommodating events. He was +innocent as the new Thane of Glamis was innocent, as the new Thane of +Cawdor was innocent; but the King--- The modern manufacturer, like +Macbeth decided to march on, under the mute menace of the heavens. He +knew that the spoil of the poor was in his houses; but he could not, +after careful calculation, think of any way in which they could get it +out of his houses without being arrested for housebreaking. He faced the +future with a face flinty with pride and impenitence. This period can be +dated practically by the period when the old and genuine Protestant +religion of England began to fail; and the average business man began to +be agnostic, not so much because he did not know where he was, as +because he wanted to forget. Many of the rich took to scepticism exactly +as the poor took to drink; because it was a way out. But in any case, +the man who had made a mistake not only refused to unmake it, but +decided to go on making it. But in this he made yet another most amusing +mistake, which was the beginning of all Eugenics. ## The Vengeance of the Flesh -By a quaint paradox, we generally miss the meaning of simple -stories because we are not subtle enough to understand their -simplicity. As long as men were in sympathy with some -particular religion or other romance of things in general, -they saw the thing solid and swallowed it whole, knowing -that it could not disagree with them. But the moment men -have lost the instinct of being simple in order to -understand it, they have to be very subtle in order to -understand it. We can find, for instance, a very good -working case in those old puritanical nursery tales about -the terrible punishment of trivial sins; about how Tommy was -drowned for fishing on the Sabbath, or Sammy struck by -lightning for going out after dark. Now these moral stories -are immoral, because Calvinism is immoral. They are wrong, -because Puritanism is wrong. But they are not quite so -wrong, they are not a quarter so wrong, as many superficial -sages have supposed. - -The truth is that everything that ever came out of a human -mouth had a human meaning; and not one of the fixed fools of -history was such a fool as he looks. And when our -great-uncles or great-grandmothers told a child he might be -drowned by breaking the Sabbath, their souls (though -undoubtedly, as Touchstone said, in a parlous state) were -not in quite so simple a state as is suggested by supposing -that their god was a devil who dropped babies into the -Thames for a trifle. This form of religious literature is a -morbid form if taken by itself; but it did correspond to a -certain reality in psychology which most people of any -religion, or even of none, have felt a touch of at some time -or other. Leaving out theological terms as far as possible, -it is the subconscious feeling that one can be wrong with -Nature as well as right with Nature; that the point of -wrongness may be a detail (in the superstitions of heathens -this is often quite a triviality); but that if One is really -wrong with Nature, there is no particular reason why all her -rivers should not drown or all her storm-bolts strike one -who is, by this vague yet vivid hypothesis, her enemy. This -may be a mental sickness, but it is too human or too mortal -a sickness to be called solely a superstition. It is not -solely a superstition; it is not simply superimposed upon -human nature by something that has got on top of it. It -flourishes without check among non-Christian systems, and it -flourishes especially in Calvinism, because Calvinism is the -most non-Christian of Christian systems. But like everything -else that inheres in the natural senses and spirit of man, -it has something in it; it is not stark unreason. If it is -an ill (and it generally is), it is one of the ills that -flesh is heir to, but he is the lawful heir. And like many -other dubious or dangerous human instincts or appetites, it -is sometimes useful as a warning against worse things. - -Now the trouble of the nineteenth century very largely came -from the loss of this; the loss of what we may call the -natural and heathen mysticism. When modem critics say that -Julius Caesar did not believe in Jupiter, or that Pope Leo -did not believe in Catholicism, they overlook an essential -difference between those ages and ours. Perhaps Julius did -not believe in Jupiter; but he did not disbelieve in -Jupiter. There was nothing in his philosophy, or the -philosophy of that age, that could forbid him to think that -there was a spirit personal and predominant in the world. -But the modem materialists are not permitted to doubt; they -are forbidden to believe. Hence, while the heathen might -avail himself of accidental omens, queer coincidences or -casual dreams, without knowing for certain whether they were -really hints from heaven or premonitory movements in his own -brain, the modern Christian turned heathen must not -entertain such notions at all, but must reject the oracle as -the altar. The modem sceptic was drugged against all that -was natural in the supernatural. And this was why the modern -tyrant marched upon his doom, as a tyrant literally pagan -might possibly not have done. - -There is one idea of this kind that runs through most -popular tales (those, for instance, on which Shakespeare is -so often based)---an idea that is profoundly moral even if -the tales are immoral. It is what may be called the flaw in -the deed: the idea that, if I take my advantage to the full, -I shall hear of something to my disadvantage. Thus Midas -fell into a fallacy about the currency; and soon had reason -to become something more than a Bimetallist. Thus Macbeth -had a fallacy about forestry; he could not see the trees for -the wood. He forgot that, though a place cannot be moved, -the trees that grow on it can. Thus Shylock had a fallacy of -physiology; he forgot that, if you break into the house of -life, you find it a bloody house in the most emphatic sense. -But the modern capitalist did not read fairytales, and never -looked for the little omens at the turnings of the road. He -(or the most intelligent section of him) had by now realised -his position, and knew in his heart it was a false position. -He thought a margin of men out of work was good for his -business; he could no longer really think it was good for -his country. He could no longer be the old "hard-headed" man -who simply did not understand things; he could only be the -hard-hearted man who faced them. But he still marched on; he -was sure he had made no mistake. +By a quaint paradox, we generally miss the meaning of simple stories +because we are not subtle enough to understand their simplicity. As long +as men were in sympathy with some particular religion or other romance +of things in general, they saw the thing solid and swallowed it whole, +knowing that it could not disagree with them. But the moment men have +lost the instinct of being simple in order to understand it, they have +to be very subtle in order to understand it. We can find, for instance, +a very good working case in those old puritanical nursery tales about +the terrible punishment of trivial sins; about how Tommy was drowned for +fishing on the Sabbath, or Sammy struck by lightning for going out after +dark. Now these moral stories are immoral, because Calvinism is immoral. +They are wrong, because Puritanism is wrong. But they are not quite so +wrong, they are not a quarter so wrong, as many superficial sages have +supposed. + +The truth is that everything that ever came out of a human mouth had a +human meaning; and not one of the fixed fools of history was such a fool +as he looks. And when our great-uncles or great-grandmothers told a +child he might be drowned by breaking the Sabbath, their souls (though +undoubtedly, as Touchstone said, in a parlous state) were not in quite +so simple a state as is suggested by supposing that their god was a +devil who dropped babies into the Thames for a trifle. This form of +religious literature is a morbid form if taken by itself; but it did +correspond to a certain reality in psychology which most people of any +religion, or even of none, have felt a touch of at some time or other. +Leaving out theological terms as far as possible, it is the subconscious +feeling that one can be wrong with Nature as well as right with Nature; +that the point of wrongness may be a detail (in the superstitions of +heathens this is often quite a triviality); but that if One is really +wrong with Nature, there is no particular reason why all her rivers +should not drown or all her storm-bolts strike one who is, by this vague +yet vivid hypothesis, her enemy. This may be a mental sickness, but it +is too human or too mortal a sickness to be called solely a +superstition. It is not solely a superstition; it is not simply +superimposed upon human nature by something that has got on top of it. +It flourishes without check among non-Christian systems, and it +flourishes especially in Calvinism, because Calvinism is the most +non-Christian of Christian systems. But like everything else that +inheres in the natural senses and spirit of man, it has something in it; +it is not stark unreason. If it is an ill (and it generally is), it is +one of the ills that flesh is heir to, but he is the lawful heir. And +like many other dubious or dangerous human instincts or appetites, it is +sometimes useful as a warning against worse things. + +Now the trouble of the nineteenth century very largely came from the +loss of this; the loss of what we may call the natural and heathen +mysticism. When modem critics say that Julius Caesar did not believe in +Jupiter, or that Pope Leo did not believe in Catholicism, they overlook +an essential difference between those ages and ours. Perhaps Julius did +not believe in Jupiter; but he did not disbelieve in Jupiter. There was +nothing in his philosophy, or the philosophy of that age, that could +forbid him to think that there was a spirit personal and predominant in +the world. But the modem materialists are not permitted to doubt; they +are forbidden to believe. Hence, while the heathen might avail himself +of accidental omens, queer coincidences or casual dreams, without +knowing for certain whether they were really hints from heaven or +premonitory movements in his own brain, the modern Christian turned +heathen must not entertain such notions at all, but must reject the +oracle as the altar. The modem sceptic was drugged against all that was +natural in the supernatural. And this was why the modern tyrant marched +upon his doom, as a tyrant literally pagan might possibly not have done. + +There is one idea of this kind that runs through most popular tales +(those, for instance, on which Shakespeare is so often based)---an idea +that is profoundly moral even if the tales are immoral. It is what may +be called the flaw in the deed: the idea that, if I take my advantage to +the full, I shall hear of something to my disadvantage. Thus Midas fell +into a fallacy about the currency; and soon had reason to become +something more than a Bimetallist. Thus Macbeth had a fallacy about +forestry; he could not see the trees for the wood. He forgot that, +though a place cannot be moved, the trees that grow on it can. Thus +Shylock had a fallacy of physiology; he forgot that, if you break into +the house of life, you find it a bloody house in the most emphatic +sense. But the modern capitalist did not read fairytales, and never +looked for the little omens at the turnings of the road. He (or the most +intelligent section of him) had by now realised his position, and knew +in his heart it was a false position. He thought a margin of men out of +work was good for his business; he could no longer really think it was +good for his country. He could no longer be the old "hard-headed" man +who simply did not understand things; he could only be the hard-hearted +man who faced them. But he still marched on; he was sure he had made no +mistake. However, he had made a mistake---as definite as a mistake in -multiplication. It may be summarised thus: that the same -Inequality and insecurity that makes cheap labour may make -bad labour, and at last no labour at all. It was as if a man -who wanted something from an enemy, should at last reduce -the enemy to come knocking at his door in the despair of -winter, should keep him waiting in the snow to sharpen the -bargain; and then come out to find the man dead upon the -doorstep. - -He had discovered the divine boomerang; his sin had found -him out. The experiment of Individualism---the keeping of -the worker half in and half out of work---was far too -ingenious not to contain a flaw. It was too delicate a -balance to work entirely with the strength of the starved -and the vigilance of the benighted. It was too desperate a -course to rely wholly on desperation. And as time went on -the terrible truth slowly declared itself; the degraded -class was really degenerating. It was right and proper -enough to use a man as a tool; but the tool, ceaselessly -used, was being used up. It was quite reasonable and -respectable, of course, to fling a man away like a tool; but -when it Was flung away in the rain the tool rusted. But the -comparison to a tool was insufficient for an awful reason -that had already begun to dawn upon the master's mind. If -you pick up a hammer, you do not find a whole family of -nails clinging to it. If you fling away a chisel by the -roadside, it does not litter and leave a lot of little -chisels. But the meanest of the tools, Man, had still this -strange privilege which God had given him, doubtless by -mistake. Despite all improvements in machinery, the most -important part of the machinery (the fittings technically -described in the trade as "hands") were apparently growing -worse. The firm was not only encumbered with one useless -servant, but he immediately turned himself into five useless -servants. "The poor should not be emancipated," the old -reactionaries used to say, "until they are fit for freedom." -But if this down-rush went on, it looked a if the poor would +multiplication. It may be summarised thus: that the same Inequality and +insecurity that makes cheap labour may make bad labour, and at last no +labour at all. It was as if a man who wanted something from an enemy, +should at last reduce the enemy to come knocking at his door in the +despair of winter, should keep him waiting in the snow to sharpen the +bargain; and then come out to find the man dead upon the doorstep. + +He had discovered the divine boomerang; his sin had found him out. The +experiment of Individualism---the keeping of the worker half in and half +out of work---was far too ingenious not to contain a flaw. It was too +delicate a balance to work entirely with the strength of the starved and +the vigilance of the benighted. It was too desperate a course to rely +wholly on desperation. And as time went on the terrible truth slowly +declared itself; the degraded class was really degenerating. It was +right and proper enough to use a man as a tool; but the tool, +ceaselessly used, was being used up. It was quite reasonable and +respectable, of course, to fling a man away like a tool; but when it Was +flung away in the rain the tool rusted. But the comparison to a tool was +insufficient for an awful reason that had already begun to dawn upon the +master's mind. If you pick up a hammer, you do not find a whole family +of nails clinging to it. If you fling away a chisel by the roadside, it +does not litter and leave a lot of little chisels. But the meanest of +the tools, Man, had still this strange privilege which God had given +him, doubtless by mistake. Despite all improvements in machinery, the +most important part of the machinery (the fittings technically described +in the trade as "hands") were apparently growing worse. The firm was not +only encumbered with one useless servant, but he immediately turned +himself into five useless servants. "The poor should not be +emancipated," the old reactionaries used to say, "until they are fit for +freedom." But if this down-rush went on, it looked a if the poor would not stand high enough to be fit for slavery. -So at least it seemed, doubtless in a great degree -subconsciously, to the man who had wagered all his wealth on -the usefulness of the poor to the rich and the dependence of -the rich on the poor. The time came at last when the rather -reckless breeding in the abyss below ceased to be a supply, -and began to be something like a wastage; ceased to be -something like keeping foxhounds, and began alarmingly to -resemble a necessity of shooting foxes. The situation was -aggravated by the fact that these sexual pleasures were -often the only ones the very poor could obtain, and were, -therefore, disproportionately pursued, and by the fact that -their conditions were often such that prenatal nourishment -and such things were utterly abnormal. The consequences -began to appear. To a much less extent than the Eugenists -assert, but still to a notable extent, in a much looser -sense than the Eugenists assume, but still in some sort of -sense, the types that were inadequate or incalculable or -uncontrollable began to increase. Under the hedges of the -country, on the seats of the parks, loafing under the -bridges or leaning over the Embankment, began to appear a -new race of men---men who are certainly not mad, whom we -shall gain no scientific light by calling feeble-minded, but -who are, in varying individual degrees, dazed or -drink-sodden, or lazy or tricky or tired in body and spirit. -In a far less degree than the teetotallers tell us, but -still in a large degree, the traffic in gin and bad beer -(itself a capitalist enterprise) fostered the evil, though -it had not begun it. Men who had no human bond with the -instructed man, men who seemed to him monsters and creatures -without mind, became an eyesore in the market-place and a -terror on the empty roads. The rich were afraid. - -Moreover, as I have hinted before, the act of keeping the -destitute out of public life, and crushing them under -confused laws, had an effect on their intelligences which -paralyses them even as a proletariat. Modern people talk of -"Reason versus Authority"; but authority itself involves -reason, or its orders would not even be understood. If you -say to your valet, "Look after the buttons on my waistcoat," -he may do it, even if you throw a boot at his head. But if -you say to him, "Look after the buttons on my top-hat," he -will not do it, though you empty a boot-shop over him. If -you say to a schoolboy, "Write out that Ode of Horace from -memory in the original Latin," he may do it without a -flogging. If you say, "Write out that Ode of Horace in the -original German," he will not do it with a thousand -floggings. If you will not learn logic, he certainly will -not learn Latin. And the ludicrous laws to which the needy -are subject (such as that which punishes the homeless for -not going home) have really, I think, a great deal to do -with a certain increase in their sheepishness and -short-wittedness, and, therefore, in their industrial -inefficiency. By one of the monstrosities of the -feeble-minded theory, a man actually acquitted by judge and -jury could *then* be examined by doctors as to the state of -his mind---presumably in order to discover by what diseased -eccentricity he had refrained from the crime. In other -words, when the police cannot jail a man who is innocent of -doing something, they jail him for being too innocent to do -anything. I do not suppose the man is an idiot at all, but I -can believe he feels more like one after the legal process -than before. Thus all the factors---the bodily exhaustion, -the harassing fear of hunger, the reckless refuge in -sexuality, and the black bothering of bad laws---combined to -make the employee more unemployable. - -Now, it is very important to understand here that there were -two courses of action still open to the disappointed -capitalist confronted by the new peril of this real or -alleged decay. First, he might have reversed his machine, so -to speak, and started unwinding the long rope of dependence -by which he had originally dragged the proletarian to his -feet. In other words, he might have seen that the workmen -had more money, more leisure, more luxuries, more status in -the community, and then trusted to the normal instincts of -reasonably happy human beings to produce a generation better -born, bred and cared for than these tortured types that were -less and less use to him. It might still not be too late to -rebuild the human house upon such an architectural plan that -poverty might fly out of the window, with the reasonable -prospect of love coming in at the door. In short, he might -have let the English poor, the mass of whom were not -weak-minded, though more of them were growing weaker, a -reasonable chance, in the form of more money, of achieving -their eugenical resurrection themselves. It has never been -shown, and it cannot be shown, that the method would have -failed. But it can be shown, and it must be closely and -clearly noted, that the method had very strict limitations -from the employers' own point of view. If they made the -worker too comfortable, he would not work to increase -another's comforts; if they made him too independent, he -would not work like a dependent. If, for instance, his wages -were so good that he could save out of them, he might cease -to be a wage-earner. If his house or garden were his own, he -might stand an economic siege in it. The whole capitalist -experiment had been built on his dependence; but now it was -getting out of hand, not in the direction of freedom, but of -frank helplessness. One might say that his dependence had -got independent of control. - -But there was another way. And towards this the employer's -ideas began, first darkly and unconsciously, but now more -and more clearly, to drift. Giving property, giving leisure, -giving status costs money. But there is one human force that -costs nothing. As it does not cost the beggar a penny to -indulge, so it would not cost the employer a penny to -employ. He could not alter or improve the tables or the -chairs on the cheap. But there were two pieces of furniture -(labelled respectively "the husband" and" the wife ") -whose relations were much cheaper. He could alter the -*marriage* in the house in such a way as to promise himself -the largest possible number of the kind of children he did -want, with the smallest possible number of the kind he did -not. He could divert the force of sex from producing -vagabonds. And he could harness to his high engines unbought -the red unbroken river of the blood of a man in his youth, -as he has already harnessed to them all the wild waste -rivers of the world. +So at least it seemed, doubtless in a great degree subconsciously, to +the man who had wagered all his wealth on the usefulness of the poor to +the rich and the dependence of the rich on the poor. The time came at +last when the rather reckless breeding in the abyss below ceased to be a +supply, and began to be something like a wastage; ceased to be something +like keeping foxhounds, and began alarmingly to resemble a necessity of +shooting foxes. The situation was aggravated by the fact that these +sexual pleasures were often the only ones the very poor could obtain, +and were, therefore, disproportionately pursued, and by the fact that +their conditions were often such that prenatal nourishment and such +things were utterly abnormal. The consequences began to appear. To a +much less extent than the Eugenists assert, but still to a notable +extent, in a much looser sense than the Eugenists assume, but still in +some sort of sense, the types that were inadequate or incalculable or +uncontrollable began to increase. Under the hedges of the country, on +the seats of the parks, loafing under the bridges or leaning over the +Embankment, began to appear a new race of men---men who are certainly +not mad, whom we shall gain no scientific light by calling +feeble-minded, but who are, in varying individual degrees, dazed or +drink-sodden, or lazy or tricky or tired in body and spirit. In a far +less degree than the teetotallers tell us, but still in a large degree, +the traffic in gin and bad beer (itself a capitalist enterprise) +fostered the evil, though it had not begun it. Men who had no human bond +with the instructed man, men who seemed to him monsters and creatures +without mind, became an eyesore in the market-place and a terror on the +empty roads. The rich were afraid. + +Moreover, as I have hinted before, the act of keeping the destitute out +of public life, and crushing them under confused laws, had an effect on +their intelligences which paralyses them even as a proletariat. Modern +people talk of "Reason versus Authority"; but authority itself involves +reason, or its orders would not even be understood. If you say to your +valet, "Look after the buttons on my waistcoat," he may do it, even if +you throw a boot at his head. But if you say to him, "Look after the +buttons on my top-hat," he will not do it, though you empty a boot-shop +over him. If you say to a schoolboy, "Write out that Ode of Horace from +memory in the original Latin," he may do it without a flogging. If you +say, "Write out that Ode of Horace in the original German," he will not +do it with a thousand floggings. If you will not learn logic, he +certainly will not learn Latin. And the ludicrous laws to which the +needy are subject (such as that which punishes the homeless for not +going home) have really, I think, a great deal to do with a certain +increase in their sheepishness and short-wittedness, and, therefore, in +their industrial inefficiency. By one of the monstrosities of the +feeble-minded theory, a man actually acquitted by judge and jury could +*then* be examined by doctors as to the state of his mind---presumably +in order to discover by what diseased eccentricity he had refrained from +the crime. In other words, when the police cannot jail a man who is +innocent of doing something, they jail him for being too innocent to do +anything. I do not suppose the man is an idiot at all, but I can believe +he feels more like one after the legal process than before. Thus all the +factors---the bodily exhaustion, the harassing fear of hunger, the +reckless refuge in sexuality, and the black bothering of bad +laws---combined to make the employee more unemployable. + +Now, it is very important to understand here that there were two courses +of action still open to the disappointed capitalist confronted by the +new peril of this real or alleged decay. First, he might have reversed +his machine, so to speak, and started unwinding the long rope of +dependence by which he had originally dragged the proletarian to his +feet. In other words, he might have seen that the workmen had more +money, more leisure, more luxuries, more status in the community, and +then trusted to the normal instincts of reasonably happy human beings to +produce a generation better born, bred and cared for than these tortured +types that were less and less use to him. It might still not be too late +to rebuild the human house upon such an architectural plan that poverty +might fly out of the window, with the reasonable prospect of love coming +in at the door. In short, he might have let the English poor, the mass +of whom were not weak-minded, though more of them were growing weaker, a +reasonable chance, in the form of more money, of achieving their +eugenical resurrection themselves. It has never been shown, and it +cannot be shown, that the method would have failed. But it can be shown, +and it must be closely and clearly noted, that the method had very +strict limitations from the employers' own point of view. If they made +the worker too comfortable, he would not work to increase another's +comforts; if they made him too independent, he would not work like a +dependent. If, for instance, his wages were so good that he could save +out of them, he might cease to be a wage-earner. If his house or garden +were his own, he might stand an economic siege in it. The whole +capitalist experiment had been built on his dependence; but now it was +getting out of hand, not in the direction of freedom, but of frank +helplessness. One might say that his dependence had got independent of +control. + +But there was another way. And towards this the employer's ideas began, +first darkly and unconsciously, but now more and more clearly, to drift. +Giving property, giving leisure, giving status costs money. But there is +one human force that costs nothing. As it does not cost the beggar a +penny to indulge, so it would not cost the employer a penny to employ. +He could not alter or improve the tables or the chairs on the cheap. But +there were two pieces of furniture (labelled respectively "the husband" +and" the wife ") whose relations were much cheaper. He could alter the +*marriage* in the house in such a way as to promise himself the largest +possible number of the kind of children he did want, with the smallest +possible number of the kind he did not. He could divert the force of sex +from producing vagabonds. And he could harness to his high engines +unbought the red unbroken river of the blood of a man in his youth, as +he has already harnessed to them all the wild waste rivers of the world. ## The Meanness of the Motive -Now, if any ask whether it be imaginable that an ordinary -man of the wealthier type should analyse the problem or -conceive the plan, the inhumanly farseeing plan, as I have -set it forth, the answer is: "Certainly not." Many rich -employers are too generous to do such a thing; many are too -stupid to know what they are doing. The eugenical -opportunity I have described is but an ultimate analysis of -a whole drift of thoughts in the type of man who does not -analyse his thoughts. He sees a slouching tramp, with a sick -wife and a string of rickety children, and honestly wonders -what he can do with them. But prosperity does not favour -self-examination; and he does not even ask himself whether -he means "How can I help them?" or "How can I use -them?"---what he can still do for them, or what they could -still do for him. Probably he sincerely means both, but the -latter much more !than the former; he laments the breaking -of the tools of Mammon much more than the breaking of the -images of God. It would be almost impossible to grape in the -limbo of what he does think; but we can assert that there is -one thing he doesn't think. He doesn't think, "This man -might be as jolly as I am, if he need not come to me for -work or wages." - -That this is so, that at root the Eugenist is the Employer, -there are multitudinous proofs on every side, but they are -of necessity miscellaneous, and in many cases negative. The -most enormous is in a sense the most negative: that no one -seems able to imagine capitalist industrialism being -sacrificed to any other object. By a curious recurrent slip -in the mind, as irritating as a catch in a clock, people -miss the main thing and concentrate on the mean thing. -"Modern conditions" are treated as fixed, though the very -word "modern" implies that they are fugitive. "Old ideas" -are treated as impossible, though their very antiquity often -proves their permanence. Some years ago some ladies -petitioned that the platforms of our big railway stations -should be raised, as it was more convenient for the hobble -skirt. It never occurred to them to change to a sensible -skirt. Still less did it occur to them that, compared with -all the female fashions that have fluttered about on it, by -this time St. Pancras is as historic as St. Peter's. - -I could fill this book with examples of the universal, -unconscious assumption that life and sex must live by the -laws of "business" or industrialism, and not *vice versa;* -examples from all the magazines, novels, and newspapers. In -order to make it brief and typical, I take one case of a -more or less Eugenist sort from a paper that lies open in -front of me---a paper that still bears on its forehead the -boast of being peculiarly an organ of democracy in revolt. -To this a man writes to say that the spread of destitution -will never be stopped until we have educated the lower -classes in the methods by which the upper class s prevent -procreation. The man had the horrible playfulness to sign -his letter "Hopeful." Well, there are certainly many methods -by which people in the upper classes prevent procreation; -one of them is what used to be called "platonic friendship," -till they found another name for it at the Old Bailey. I do -not suppose the hopeful gentleman hopes for this; but some -of us find the abortion he does hope for almost as -abominable. That, however, is not the curious point. The -curious point is that the hopeful one concludes by saying, -"When people have large families and small wages, not only -is there a high infantile death-rate, but often those who do -live to grow up are stunted and weakened by having had to -share the family income for a time with those who died -early. There would be less unhappiness if there were no -unwanted children." You will observe that he tacitly takes -it for granted that the small wages and the income, -desperately shared, are the fixed points, like day and -night, the conditions of human life. Compared with them -marriage and maternity are luxuries, things to be modified -to suit the wage-market. There are unwanted children; but -unwanted by whom? This man does not really mean that the -parents do not want to have them. He means that the -employers do not want to pay them properly. Doubtless, if -you said to him directly, "Are you in favour of low wages?" -he would say, "No." But I am not, in this chapter, talking -about the effect on such modern minds of a cross-examination -to which they do not subject themselves. I am talking about -the way their minds work, the instinctive trick and turn of -their thoughts, the things they assume before argument, and -the way they faintly feel that the world is going. And. -frankly, the turn of their mind is to tell the child he is -not wanted, as the turn of my mind is to tell the profiteer -he is not wanted. fatherhood, they feel, and a full -childhood, and the beauty of brothers and sisters, are good -things in their way, but not so good as a bad wage. About -the mutilation of womanhood, and the massacre of men unborn, -he signs himself "Hopeful." He is hopeful of female -indignity, hopeful of human annihilation. But about -improving the small bad wage he signs himself "Hopeless." - -This is the first evidence of motive: the ubiquitous -assumption that life and love must fit into a fixed -framework of employment, even (as in this case) of bad -employment. The second evidence is the tacit and total -neglect of the scientific question in all the departments in -which it is not an employment question; as, for instance, -the marriages of the princely, patrician, or merely -plutocratic houses. I do not mean, of course, that no -scientific men have rigidly tackled these, though I do not -recall any cases. But I am not talking of the merits of -individual men of science, but of the push and power behind -this movement, the thing that is able to make it fashionable -and politically important. I say, if this power were an -interest in truth, or even in humanity, the first field in -which to study would be in the weddings of the wealthy. Not -only would the records be more lucid, and the examples more -in evidence, but the cases would be more interesting and -more decisive. For the grand marriages have presented both -extremes of the problem of pedigree---first the "breeding in -and in," and later the most incongruous cosmopolitan blends. -It would really be interesting to note which worked the -best, or what point of compromise was safest. For the poor -(about whom the newspaper Eugenists are always talking) -cannot offer any test cases so complete. Waiters never had -to marry waitresses, as princes had to marry princesses. And -(for the other extreme) housemaids seldom marry Red Indians. -It may be because there are none to marry. But to the -millionaires the continents are flying railway stations, and -the most remote races can be rapidly linked together. A -marriage in London or Paris may chain Ravenna to Chicago, or -Ben Cruachan to Baghdad. Many European aristocrats marry -Americans, notoriously the most mixed stock in the world; so -that the disinterested Eugenist, with a little trouble, -might reveal rich stores of Negro or Asiatic blood to his -delighted employer. Instead of which he dulIs our ears and -distresses our refinement by tedious denunciations of the +Now, if any ask whether it be imaginable that an ordinary man of the +wealthier type should analyse the problem or conceive the plan, the +inhumanly farseeing plan, as I have set it forth, the answer is: +"Certainly not." Many rich employers are too generous to do such a +thing; many are too stupid to know what they are doing. The eugenical +opportunity I have described is but an ultimate analysis of a whole +drift of thoughts in the type of man who does not analyse his thoughts. +He sees a slouching tramp, with a sick wife and a string of rickety +children, and honestly wonders what he can do with them. But prosperity +does not favour self-examination; and he does not even ask himself +whether he means "How can I help them?" or "How can I use them?"---what +he can still do for them, or what they could still do for him. Probably +he sincerely means both, but the latter much more !than the former; he +laments the breaking of the tools of Mammon much more than the breaking +of the images of God. It would be almost impossible to grape in the +limbo of what he does think; but we can assert that there is one thing +he doesn't think. He doesn't think, "This man might be as jolly as I am, +if he need not come to me for work or wages." + +That this is so, that at root the Eugenist is the Employer, there are +multitudinous proofs on every side, but they are of necessity +miscellaneous, and in many cases negative. The most enormous is in a +sense the most negative: that no one seems able to imagine capitalist +industrialism being sacrificed to any other object. By a curious +recurrent slip in the mind, as irritating as a catch in a clock, people +miss the main thing and concentrate on the mean thing. "Modern +conditions" are treated as fixed, though the very word "modern" implies +that they are fugitive. "Old ideas" are treated as impossible, though +their very antiquity often proves their permanence. Some years ago some +ladies petitioned that the platforms of our big railway stations should +be raised, as it was more convenient for the hobble skirt. It never +occurred to them to change to a sensible skirt. Still less did it occur +to them that, compared with all the female fashions that have fluttered +about on it, by this time St. Pancras is as historic as St. Peter's. + +I could fill this book with examples of the universal, unconscious +assumption that life and sex must live by the laws of "business" or +industrialism, and not *vice versa;* examples from all the magazines, +novels, and newspapers. In order to make it brief and typical, I take +one case of a more or less Eugenist sort from a paper that lies open in +front of me---a paper that still bears on its forehead the boast of +being peculiarly an organ of democracy in revolt. To this a man writes +to say that the spread of destitution will never be stopped until we +have educated the lower classes in the methods by which the upper class +s prevent procreation. The man had the horrible playfulness to sign his +letter "Hopeful." Well, there are certainly many methods by which people +in the upper classes prevent procreation; one of them is what used to be +called "platonic friendship," till they found another name for it at the +Old Bailey. I do not suppose the hopeful gentleman hopes for this; but +some of us find the abortion he does hope for almost as abominable. +That, however, is not the curious point. The curious point is that the +hopeful one concludes by saying, "When people have large families and +small wages, not only is there a high infantile death-rate, but often +those who do live to grow up are stunted and weakened by having had to +share the family income for a time with those who died early. There +would be less unhappiness if there were no unwanted children." You will +observe that he tacitly takes it for granted that the small wages and +the income, desperately shared, are the fixed points, like day and +night, the conditions of human life. Compared with them marriage and +maternity are luxuries, things to be modified to suit the wage-market. +There are unwanted children; but unwanted by whom? This man does not +really mean that the parents do not want to have them. He means that the +employers do not want to pay them properly. Doubtless, if you said to +him directly, "Are you in favour of low wages?" he would say, "No." But +I am not, in this chapter, talking about the effect on such modern minds +of a cross-examination to which they do not subject themselves. I am +talking about the way their minds work, the instinctive trick and turn +of their thoughts, the things they assume before argument, and the way +they faintly feel that the world is going. And. frankly, the turn of +their mind is to tell the child he is not wanted, as the turn of my mind +is to tell the profiteer he is not wanted. fatherhood, they feel, and a +full childhood, and the beauty of brothers and sisters, are good things +in their way, but not so good as a bad wage. About the mutilation of +womanhood, and the massacre of men unborn, he signs himself "Hopeful." +He is hopeful of female indignity, hopeful of human annihilation. But +about improving the small bad wage he signs himself "Hopeless." + +This is the first evidence of motive: the ubiquitous assumption that +life and love must fit into a fixed framework of employment, even (as in +this case) of bad employment. The second evidence is the tacit and total +neglect of the scientific question in all the departments in which it is +not an employment question; as, for instance, the marriages of the +princely, patrician, or merely plutocratic houses. I do not mean, of +course, that no scientific men have rigidly tackled these, though I do +not recall any cases. But I am not talking of the merits of individual +men of science, but of the push and power behind this movement, the +thing that is able to make it fashionable and politically important. I +say, if this power were an interest in truth, or even in humanity, the +first field in which to study would be in the weddings of the wealthy. +Not only would the records be more lucid, and the examples more in +evidence, but the cases would be more interesting and more decisive. For +the grand marriages have presented both extremes of the problem of +pedigree---first the "breeding in and in," and later the most +incongruous cosmopolitan blends. It would really be interesting to note +which worked the best, or what point of compromise was safest. For the +poor (about whom the newspaper Eugenists are always talking) cannot +offer any test cases so complete. Waiters never had to marry waitresses, +as princes had to marry princesses. And (for the other extreme) +housemaids seldom marry Red Indians. It may be because there are none to +marry. But to the millionaires the continents are flying railway +stations, and the most remote races can be rapidly linked together. A +marriage in London or Paris may chain Ravenna to Chicago, or Ben +Cruachan to Baghdad. Many European aristocrats marry Americans, +notoriously the most mixed stock in the world; so that the disinterested +Eugenist, with a little trouble, might reveal rich stores of Negro or +Asiatic blood to his delighted employer. Instead of which he dulIs our +ears and distresses our refinement by tedious denunciations of the monochrome marriages of the poor. -For there is something really pathetic about the Eugenist's -neglect of the aristocrat and his family affairs. People -still talk about the pride of pedigree; but it strikes me as -the one point on which the aristocrats are almost morbidly -modest. We should be learned Eugenists if we were allowed to -know half as much of their heredity as we are of their -hairdressing. We see the modern aristocrat in the most human -poses in the illustrated papers, playing with his dog or -parrot-nay, we see him playing with his child, or with his -grandchild. But there is something heart-rending in his -refusal to play with his grandfather. There is often -something vague and even fantastic about the antecedents of -our most established families, which would afford the -Eugenist admirable scope not only for investigation but for -experiment. Certainly, if he could obtain the necessary -powers, the Eugenist might bring off some startling effects -with the mixed materials of the governing class. Suppose, to -take wild and hypothetical examples, he were to marry a -Scotch earl, say, to the daughter of a Jewish banker, or an -English duke to an American parvenu of semi-Jewish -extraction? What would happen? NY e have here an unexplored -field. - -It remains unexplored not merely through snobbery and -cowardice, but because the Eugenist (at least the -influential Eugenist) half-consciously knows it is no part -of his job; what he is really wanted for is to get the grip -of the governing classes on to the unmanageable output of -poor people. It would not matter in the least if all Lord -Cowdray's descendants grew up too weak to hold a tool or -turn a wheel. It would matter very much, especially to Lord -Cowdray, if all his employees grew up like that. The -oligarch can be unemployable, because he will not be -employed. Thus the practical and popular exponent of -Eugenics has his face always turned towards the slums, and -instinctively thinks in terms of them. If he talks of -segregating some incurably vicious type of the sexual sort, -he is thinking of a ruffian who assaults girls in lanes. He -is not thinking of a millionaire like White, the victim of -Thaw. If he speaks of the hopelessness of feeble-mindedness, -he is thinking of some stunted creature gaping at hopeless -lessons in a poor school. He is not thinking of a -millionaire like Thaw, the slayer of White. And this not -because he is such a brute as to like people like White or -Thaw any more than we do, but because he knows that his -problem is the degeneration of the useful classes; because -he knows that White would never have been a millionaire if -all his workers had spent themselves on women as White did, -that Thaw would never have been a millionaire if all his -servants had been Thaws. The ornaments may be allowed to -decay, but the machinery must be mended. That is the second -proof of the plutocratic impulse behind all Eugenics: that -no one thinks of applying it to the prominent classes. No -one thinks of applying it where it could most easily be -applied. - -A third proof is the strange new disposition to regard the -poor as a *race;* as if they were a colony of Japs or -Chinese coolies. It can be most clearly seen by comparing it -with the old, more individual, charitable, and (as the -Eugenists might say) sentimental view of poverty. In -Goldsmith or Dickens or Hood there is a basic idea that the -particular poor person ought not to be so poor: it is some -accident or some wrong. Oliver Twist or Tiny Tim are fairy -princes waiting for their fairy godmother. They are held as -slaves, but rather as the hero and heroine of a Spanish or -Italian romance were held as slaves by the floors. The -modern poor are getting to be regarded as slaves in the -separate and sweeping sense of the negroes in the -plantations. The bondage of the white hero to the black -master was regarded as abnormal; the bondage of the black to -the white master as normal. The Eugenist, for all I know, -would regard the mere existence of Tiny Tim as a sufficient -reason for massacring the whole family of Cratchit; but, as -a matter of fact, we have here a very good instance of how -much more practically true to life is sentiment than -cynicism. The poor are not a race or even a type. It is -senseless to talk about breeding them; for they are not a -breed. They are, in cold fact, what Dickens describes: "a -dustbin of individual accidents," of damaged dignity, and -often of damaged gentility. The class very largely consists -of perfectly promising children, lost like Oliver Twist, or -crippled like Tiny Tim. It contains very valuable things, -like most dustbins. But the Eugenist delusion of the -barbaric breed in the abyss affects even those more gracious -philanthropists who almost certainly do want to assist the -destitute and not merely to exploit them. It seems to affect -not only their minds, but their very eyesight. Thus, for -instance, Mrs. Alec Tweedie almost scornfully asks, "When we -go through the slums, do we see beautiful children?" The -answer is, "Yes, very often indeed." I have seen children in -the slums quite pretty enough to be Little Nell or the -outcast whom Hood called "young and so fair." Nor has the -beauty anything necessarily to do with health; there are -beautiful healthy children, beautiful dying children, ugly -dying children, ugly uproarious children in Petticoat Lane -or Park Lane. There are people of every physical and mental -type, of every sort of health and breeding, in a single back -street. They have nothing in common but the wrong we do +For there is something really pathetic about the Eugenist's neglect of +the aristocrat and his family affairs. People still talk about the pride +of pedigree; but it strikes me as the one point on which the aristocrats +are almost morbidly modest. We should be learned Eugenists if we were +allowed to know half as much of their heredity as we are of their +hairdressing. We see the modern aristocrat in the most human poses in +the illustrated papers, playing with his dog or parrot-nay, we see him +playing with his child, or with his grandchild. But there is something +heart-rending in his refusal to play with his grandfather. There is +often something vague and even fantastic about the antecedents of our +most established families, which would afford the Eugenist admirable +scope not only for investigation but for experiment. Certainly, if he +could obtain the necessary powers, the Eugenist might bring off some +startling effects with the mixed materials of the governing class. +Suppose, to take wild and hypothetical examples, he were to marry a +Scotch earl, say, to the daughter of a Jewish banker, or an English duke +to an American parvenu of semi-Jewish extraction? What would happen? NY +e have here an unexplored field. + +It remains unexplored not merely through snobbery and cowardice, but +because the Eugenist (at least the influential Eugenist) +half-consciously knows it is no part of his job; what he is really +wanted for is to get the grip of the governing classes on to the +unmanageable output of poor people. It would not matter in the least if +all Lord Cowdray's descendants grew up too weak to hold a tool or turn a +wheel. It would matter very much, especially to Lord Cowdray, if all his +employees grew up like that. The oligarch can be unemployable, because +he will not be employed. Thus the practical and popular exponent of +Eugenics has his face always turned towards the slums, and instinctively +thinks in terms of them. If he talks of segregating some incurably +vicious type of the sexual sort, he is thinking of a ruffian who +assaults girls in lanes. He is not thinking of a millionaire like White, +the victim of Thaw. If he speaks of the hopelessness of +feeble-mindedness, he is thinking of some stunted creature gaping at +hopeless lessons in a poor school. He is not thinking of a millionaire +like Thaw, the slayer of White. And this not because he is such a brute +as to like people like White or Thaw any more than we do, but because he +knows that his problem is the degeneration of the useful classes; +because he knows that White would never have been a millionaire if all +his workers had spent themselves on women as White did, that Thaw would +never have been a millionaire if all his servants had been Thaws. The +ornaments may be allowed to decay, but the machinery must be mended. +That is the second proof of the plutocratic impulse behind all Eugenics: +that no one thinks of applying it to the prominent classes. No one +thinks of applying it where it could most easily be applied. + +A third proof is the strange new disposition to regard the poor as a +*race;* as if they were a colony of Japs or Chinese coolies. It can be +most clearly seen by comparing it with the old, more individual, +charitable, and (as the Eugenists might say) sentimental view of +poverty. In Goldsmith or Dickens or Hood there is a basic idea that the +particular poor person ought not to be so poor: it is some accident or +some wrong. Oliver Twist or Tiny Tim are fairy princes waiting for their +fairy godmother. They are held as slaves, but rather as the hero and +heroine of a Spanish or Italian romance were held as slaves by the +floors. The modern poor are getting to be regarded as slaves in the +separate and sweeping sense of the negroes in the plantations. The +bondage of the white hero to the black master was regarded as abnormal; +the bondage of the black to the white master as normal. The Eugenist, +for all I know, would regard the mere existence of Tiny Tim as a +sufficient reason for massacring the whole family of Cratchit; but, as a +matter of fact, we have here a very good instance of how much more +practically true to life is sentiment than cynicism. The poor are not a +race or even a type. It is senseless to talk about breeding them; for +they are not a breed. They are, in cold fact, what Dickens describes: "a +dustbin of individual accidents," of damaged dignity, and often of +damaged gentility. The class very largely consists of perfectly +promising children, lost like Oliver Twist, or crippled like Tiny Tim. +It contains very valuable things, like most dustbins. But the Eugenist +delusion of the barbaric breed in the abyss affects even those more +gracious philanthropists who almost certainly do want to assist the +destitute and not merely to exploit them. It seems to affect not only +their minds, but their very eyesight. Thus, for instance, Mrs. Alec +Tweedie almost scornfully asks, "When we go through the slums, do we see +beautiful children?" The answer is, "Yes, very often indeed." I have +seen children in the slums quite pretty enough to be Little Nell or the +outcast whom Hood called "young and so fair." Nor has the beauty +anything necessarily to do with health; there are beautiful healthy +children, beautiful dying children, ugly dying children, ugly uproarious +children in Petticoat Lane or Park Lane. There are people of every +physical and mental type, of every sort of health and breeding, in a +single back street. They have nothing in common but the wrong we do them. -The important point is, however, that there is more fact and -realism in the wildest and most elegant old fictions about -disinherited dukes and long-lost daughters than there is in -this Eugenist attempt to make the poor all of a piece-a sort -of black fungoid growth that is ceaselessly increasing in a -chasm. There is a cheap sneer at poor landladies: that they -always say they have seen better days. Nine times out of ten -they say it because it is true. What can be said of the -great mass of Englishmen, by anyone who knows any history, -except that they have seen better days? And the landlady's -claim is not snobbish, but rather spirited; it is her -testimony to the truth in the old tales of which I spoke: -that she ought not to be so poor or so servile in status; -that a normal person ought to have more property and more -power in the State than that. Such dreams of lost dignity -are perhaps the only things that stand between us and the -cattle-breeding paradise now promised. Nor are such dreams -by any means impotent. I remember Mr. T. P. O'Connor wrote -an interesting article about Madame Humbert, in the course -of which he said that Irish peasants, and probably most -peasants, tended to have a half-fictitious family legend -about an estate to which they were entitled. This was -written in the time when Irish peasants were landless in -their land; and the delusion doubtless seemed all the more -entertaining to the landlords who ruled them and the -moneylenders who ruled the landlords. But the dream has -conquered the realities. The phantom farms have -materialised. Merely by tenaciously affirming the kind of -pride that comes after a fall, by remembering the old -civilisation and refusing the new, by recurring to an old -claim that seemed to most Englishmen like the lie of a -broken-down lodging-house keeper at Margate----by all this -the Irish have got what they want, in solid mud and turf. -That imaginary estate has conquered the Three Estates of the -Realm. - -But the homeless Englishman must not even remember a home. -So far from his house being his castle, he must not have -even a castle in the air. He must have no memories; that is -why he is taught no history. Why is he told none of the -truth about the mediaeval civilisation except a few -cruelties and mistakes in chemistry? Why does a mediaeval -burgher never appear till he can appear in a shirt and a -halter? Why does a mediaeval monastery never appear till it -is "corrupt" enough to shock the innocence of Henry VIII.? -Why do we hear of one charter-that of the barons-and not a -word of the charters of the carpenters, smiths, shipwrights -and all the rest? The reason is that the English peasant is -not only not allowed to have an estate, he is not even -allowed to have lost one. The past has to be painted pitch -black, that it may be worse than the present. - -There is one strong, startling, outstanding thing about -Eugenics, and that is its meanness. Wealth, and the social -science supported by wealth, had tried an inhuman -experiment. The experiment had entirely failed. They sought -to make wealth accumulate-and they made men decay. Then, -instead of confessing the error, and trying to restore the -wealth, or attempting to repair the decay, they are trying -to cover their first cruel experiment with a more cruel -experiment. They put a poisonous plaster on a poisoned -wound. Vilest of all, they actually quote the bewilderment -produced among the poor by their first blunder as a reason -for allowing them to blunder again. They are apparently -ready to arrest all the opponents of their system as mad, -merely because the system was maddening. Suppose a captain -had collected volunteers in a hot, waste country by the -assurance that he could lead them to water, and knew where -to meet the rest of his regiment. Suppose he led them wrong, -to a place where the regiment could not be for days, and -there was no water. And suppose sunstroke struck them down -on the sand man after man, and they kicked and danced and -raved. And, when at last the regiment came, suppose the -captain successfully concealed his mistake, because all his -men had suffered too much from it to testify to its ever -having occurred. What would you think of the gallant -captain? It is pretty much what I think of this particular -captain of industry. - -Of course, nobody supposes that all Capitalists, or most -Capitalists, are conscious of any such intellectual trick. -Most of them are as much bewildered as the battered -proletariat; but there are some who are less well-meaning -and more mean. And these are leading their more generous -colleagues towards the fulfilment of this ungenerous -evasion, if not towards the comprehension of it. Now a ruler -of the Capitalist civilisation, who has come to consider the -idea of ultimately herding and breeding the workers like -cattle, has certain contemporary problems to review. He has -to consider what forces still exist in the modern world for -the frustration of his design. The first question is how -much remains of the old ideal of individual liberty. The -second question is how far the modern mind is committed to -such egalitarian ideas as may be implied in Socialism. The -third is whether there is any power of resistance in the -tradition of the populace itself. These three questions for -the future I shall consider in their order in the final -chapters that follow. It is enough to say here that I think -the progress of these ideals has broken down at the precise -point where they will fail to prevent the experiment. -Briefly, the progress will have deprived the Capitalist of -his old Individualist scruples, without committing him to -his new Collectivist obligations. He is in a very perilous -position; for he has ceased to be a Liberal without becoming -a Socialist, and the bridge by which he was crossing has -broken above an abyss of Anarchy. +The important point is, however, that there is more fact and realism in +the wildest and most elegant old fictions about disinherited dukes and +long-lost daughters than there is in this Eugenist attempt to make the +poor all of a piece-a sort of black fungoid growth that is ceaselessly +increasing in a chasm. There is a cheap sneer at poor landladies: that +they always say they have seen better days. Nine times out of ten they +say it because it is true. What can be said of the great mass of +Englishmen, by anyone who knows any history, except that they have seen +better days? And the landlady's claim is not snobbish, but rather +spirited; it is her testimony to the truth in the old tales of which I +spoke: that she ought not to be so poor or so servile in status; that a +normal person ought to have more property and more power in the State +than that. Such dreams of lost dignity are perhaps the only things that +stand between us and the cattle-breeding paradise now promised. Nor are +such dreams by any means impotent. I remember Mr. T. P. O'Connor wrote +an interesting article about Madame Humbert, in the course of which he +said that Irish peasants, and probably most peasants, tended to have a +half-fictitious family legend about an estate to which they were +entitled. This was written in the time when Irish peasants were landless +in their land; and the delusion doubtless seemed all the more +entertaining to the landlords who ruled them and the moneylenders who +ruled the landlords. But the dream has conquered the realities. The +phantom farms have materialised. Merely by tenaciously affirming the +kind of pride that comes after a fall, by remembering the old +civilisation and refusing the new, by recurring to an old claim that +seemed to most Englishmen like the lie of a broken-down lodging-house +keeper at Margate----by all this the Irish have got what they want, in +solid mud and turf. That imaginary estate has conquered the Three +Estates of the Realm. + +But the homeless Englishman must not even remember a home. So far from +his house being his castle, he must not have even a castle in the air. +He must have no memories; that is why he is taught no history. Why is he +told none of the truth about the mediaeval civilisation except a few +cruelties and mistakes in chemistry? Why does a mediaeval burgher never +appear till he can appear in a shirt and a halter? Why does a mediaeval +monastery never appear till it is "corrupt" enough to shock the +innocence of Henry VIII.? Why do we hear of one charter-that of the +barons-and not a word of the charters of the carpenters, smiths, +shipwrights and all the rest? The reason is that the English peasant is +not only not allowed to have an estate, he is not even allowed to have +lost one. The past has to be painted pitch black, that it may be worse +than the present. + +There is one strong, startling, outstanding thing about Eugenics, and +that is its meanness. Wealth, and the social science supported by +wealth, had tried an inhuman experiment. The experiment had entirely +failed. They sought to make wealth accumulate-and they made men decay. +Then, instead of confessing the error, and trying to restore the wealth, +or attempting to repair the decay, they are trying to cover their first +cruel experiment with a more cruel experiment. They put a poisonous +plaster on a poisoned wound. Vilest of all, they actually quote the +bewilderment produced among the poor by their first blunder as a reason +for allowing them to blunder again. They are apparently ready to arrest +all the opponents of their system as mad, merely because the system was +maddening. Suppose a captain had collected volunteers in a hot, waste +country by the assurance that he could lead them to water, and knew +where to meet the rest of his regiment. Suppose he led them wrong, to a +place where the regiment could not be for days, and there was no water. +And suppose sunstroke struck them down on the sand man after man, and +they kicked and danced and raved. And, when at last the regiment came, +suppose the captain successfully concealed his mistake, because all his +men had suffered too much from it to testify to its ever having +occurred. What would you think of the gallant captain? It is pretty much +what I think of this particular captain of industry. + +Of course, nobody supposes that all Capitalists, or most Capitalists, +are conscious of any such intellectual trick. Most of them are as much +bewildered as the battered proletariat; but there are some who are less +well-meaning and more mean. And these are leading their more generous +colleagues towards the fulfilment of this ungenerous evasion, if not +towards the comprehension of it. Now a ruler of the Capitalist +civilisation, who has come to consider the idea of ultimately herding +and breeding the workers like cattle, has certain contemporary problems +to review. He has to consider what forces still exist in the modern +world for the frustration of his design. The first question is how much +remains of the old ideal of individual liberty. The second question is +how far the modern mind is committed to such egalitarian ideas as may be +implied in Socialism. The third is whether there is any power of +resistance in the tradition of the populace itself. These three +questions for the future I shall consider in their order in the final +chapters that follow. It is enough to say here that I think the progress +of these ideals has broken down at the precise point where they will +fail to prevent the experiment. Briefly, the progress will have deprived +the Capitalist of his old Individualist scruples, without committing him +to his new Collectivist obligations. He is in a very perilous position; +for he has ceased to be a Liberal without becoming a Socialist, and the +bridge by which he was crossing has broken above an abyss of Anarchy. ## The Eclipse of Liberty -If such a thing as the Eugenic sociology had been suggested -in the period from Fox to Gladstone, it would have been far -more fiercely repudiated by the reformers than by the -Conservatives. If Tories had regarded it as an insult to -marriage, Radicals would have far more resolutely regarded -it as an insult to citizenship. But in the interval we have -suffered from a process resembling a sort of mystical -parricide, such as is told of so many gods, and is true of -so many great ideas. Liberty has produced scepticism, and -scepticism has destroyed liberty. The lovers of liberty -thought they were leaving it unlimited, when they were only -leaving it undefined. They thought they were only leaving it -undefined, when they were really leaving it undefended Men -merely finding themselves free found themselves free to -dispute the value of freedom. But the important point to -seize about this reactionary scepticism is that as it is -bound to be unlimited in theory, so it is bound to be -unlimited in practice. In other words, the modern mind is -set in an attitude which would enable it to advance, not -only towards Eugenic legislation, but towards any -conceivable or inconceivable extravagances of Eugenics. - -Those who reply to any plea for freedom invariably fall into -a certain trap. I have debated with numberless different -people on these matters, and I confess I find it amusing to -see them tumbling into it one after another. I remember -discussing it before a club of very active and intelligent -Suffragists, and I cast it here for convenience in the form -which it there assumed. Suppose, for the sake of argument, -that I say that to take away a poor man's pot of beer is to -take away a poor man's personal liberty, it is very vital to -note what is the usual or almost universal reply. People -hardly ever do reply, for some reason or other, by saying -that a man's liberty consists of such and such things, but -that beer is an exception that cannot be classed among them, -for such and such reasons. What they almost invariably do -say is something like this: "After all, what is liberty? Man -must live as a member of a society, and must obey those laws -which, etc., etc." In other words, they collapse into a -complete confession that they *are* attacking all liberty -and any liberty; that they *do* deny the very existence or -the very possibility of liberty. In the very form of the -answer they admit the full scope of the accusation against -them. In trYing to rebut the smaller accusation, they plead -guilty to the larger one. - -This distinction is very important, as can be seen from any -practical parallel. Suppose we wake up in the middle of the -night and find that a neighbour has entered the house not by -the front-door but by the skylight; we may suspect that he -has come after the fine old family jewellery. We may be -reassured if he can refer it to a really exceptional event; -as that he fell on to the roof out of an aeroplane, or -climbed on to the roof to escape from a mad dog. Short of -the incredible, the stranger the story the better the -excuse; for an extraordinary event requires an extraordinary -excuse. But we shall hardly be reassured if he merely gazes -at us in a dreamy and wistful fashion and says, "After all, -what is property? Why should material objects be thus -artificially attached, etc., etc.?" We shall merely realise -that his attitude allows of his taking the jewellery and -everything else. Or if the neighbour approaches us carrying -a large knife dripping with blood, we may be convinced by -his story that he killed another neighbour in self-defence -that the quiet gentleman next door was really a homicidal -maniac. We shall know that homicidal mania is exceptional -and that we ourselves are so happy as not to suffer from it; -and being free from the disease may be free from the danger. -But it will not soothe us for the man with the gory knife to -say softly and pensively "After all, what is human life? Why -should we cling to it? Brief at the best, sad at the -brightest, it is itself but a disease from which, etc., -etc." We shall perceive that the sceptic is in a mood not -only to murder us but to massacre everybody in the street. -Exactly the same effect which would be produced by the -questions of "What is property?" and "What is life?" is -produced by the question of "What is liberty?" It leav or in -other words to take any liberties. The very thing he says is -an anticipatory excuse for anything he may choose to do. If -he gags a man to prevent him from indulging in profane -swearing, or locks him in the coal cellar to guard against -his going on the spree, he can still be satisfied with -saying, "After all, what is liberty? Man is a member of, -etc., etc." - -That is the problem, and that is why there is now no -protection against Eugenic or any other experiments. If the -men who took away beer as an unlawful pleasure had paused -for a moment to define the lawful pleasures, there might be -a different situation. If the men who had denied one liberty -had taken the opportunity to affirm other liberties, there -might be some defence for them. But it never occurs to them -to admit any liberties at all. It never so much as crosses -their minds. - -Hence the excuse for the last oppression will always serve -as well for the next oppression; and to that tyranny there -can be no end. Hence the tyranny has taken but a single -stride to reach the secret and sacred places of personal -freedom, where no sane man ever dreamed of seeing it; and -especially the sanctuary of Sex. It is as easy to take away -a man's wife or baby as to take away his beer when you can -say "What is liberty?"; just as it is as easy to cut off his -head as to cut off his hair if you are free to say "What is -life?" There is no rational philosophy of human rights -generally disseminated among the populace, to which we can -appeal in defence even of the most intimate or individual -things that anybody can imagine. For so far as there was a -vague principle in these things, that principle has been -wholly changed. It used to be said that a man could have -liberty, so long as it did not interfere with the liberty of -others. This did afford some rough justification for the -ordinary legal view of the man with the pot of beer. For -instance, it was logical to allow some degree of distinction -between beer and tea, on the ground that a man may be moved -by excess of beer to throw the pot at somebody's head. And -it may be said that the spinster is seldom moved by excess -of tea to throw the tea-pot at anybody's head. But the whole -ground of argument is now changed. For people do not -consider what the drunkard does to others by throwing the -pot, but what he does to himself by drinking the beer. The -argument is based on health; and it is said that the -Government must safeguard the health of the community. And -the moment that is said, there ceases to be the shadow of a -difference between beer and tea. People can certainly spoil -their health with tea or with tobacco or with twenty other -things. And there is no escape for the hygienic logician -except to restrain and regulate them all. If he is to -control the health of the community, he must necessarily -control all the habits of all the citizens, and among the -rest their habits in the matter of sex. - -But there is more than this. It is not only true that it is -the last liberties of man that are being taken away; and not -merely his first or most superficial liberties. It is also -inevitable that the last liberties should be taken first. It -is inevitable that the most private matters should be most -under public coercion. This inverse variation is very -important, though very little realised. If a man's personal -health is a public concern, his most private acts are more -public than his most public acts. The official must deal -more directly with his cleaning his teeth in the morning -than with his using his tongue in the market-place. The -inspector must interfere *more* with how he sleeps in the -middle of the night than with how he works in the course of -the day. The private citizen must have much *less* to say -about his bath or his bedroom window than about his vote or -his banking account. The policeman must be in a new sense a -private detective; and shadow him in private affairs rather -than in public affairs. A policeman must shut doors behind -him for fear he should sneeze, or shove pillows under him -for fear he should snore. All this and things far more -fantastic follow from the simple formula that the State must -make itself responsible for the health of the citizen. But -the point is that the policeman must deal primarily and -promptly with the citizen in his relation to his home, and -only indirectly and more doubtfully with the citizen in his -relation to his city. By the whole logic of this test, the -king must hear what is said in the inner chamber and hardly -notice what is proclaimed from the house-tops. We have heard -of a revolution that turns everything upside down. But this -is almost literally a revolution that turns everything +If such a thing as the Eugenic sociology had been suggested in the +period from Fox to Gladstone, it would have been far more fiercely +repudiated by the reformers than by the Conservatives. If Tories had +regarded it as an insult to marriage, Radicals would have far more +resolutely regarded it as an insult to citizenship. But in the interval +we have suffered from a process resembling a sort of mystical parricide, +such as is told of so many gods, and is true of so many great ideas. +Liberty has produced scepticism, and scepticism has destroyed liberty. +The lovers of liberty thought they were leaving it unlimited, when they +were only leaving it undefined. They thought they were only leaving it +undefined, when they were really leaving it undefended Men merely +finding themselves free found themselves free to dispute the value of +freedom. But the important point to seize about this reactionary +scepticism is that as it is bound to be unlimited in theory, so it is +bound to be unlimited in practice. In other words, the modern mind is +set in an attitude which would enable it to advance, not only towards +Eugenic legislation, but towards any conceivable or inconceivable +extravagances of Eugenics. + +Those who reply to any plea for freedom invariably fall into a certain +trap. I have debated with numberless different people on these matters, +and I confess I find it amusing to see them tumbling into it one after +another. I remember discussing it before a club of very active and +intelligent Suffragists, and I cast it here for convenience in the form +which it there assumed. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that I say +that to take away a poor man's pot of beer is to take away a poor man's +personal liberty, it is very vital to note what is the usual or almost +universal reply. People hardly ever do reply, for some reason or other, +by saying that a man's liberty consists of such and such things, but +that beer is an exception that cannot be classed among them, for such +and such reasons. What they almost invariably do say is something like +this: "After all, what is liberty? Man must live as a member of a +society, and must obey those laws which, etc., etc." In other words, +they collapse into a complete confession that they *are* attacking all +liberty and any liberty; that they *do* deny the very existence or the +very possibility of liberty. In the very form of the answer they admit +the full scope of the accusation against them. In trYing to rebut the +smaller accusation, they plead guilty to the larger one. + +This distinction is very important, as can be seen from any practical +parallel. Suppose we wake up in the middle of the night and find that a +neighbour has entered the house not by the front-door but by the +skylight; we may suspect that he has come after the fine old family +jewellery. We may be reassured if he can refer it to a really +exceptional event; as that he fell on to the roof out of an aeroplane, +or climbed on to the roof to escape from a mad dog. Short of the +incredible, the stranger the story the better the excuse; for an +extraordinary event requires an extraordinary excuse. But we shall +hardly be reassured if he merely gazes at us in a dreamy and wistful +fashion and says, "After all, what is property? Why should material +objects be thus artificially attached, etc., etc.?" We shall merely +realise that his attitude allows of his taking the jewellery and +everything else. Or if the neighbour approaches us carrying a large +knife dripping with blood, we may be convinced by his story that he +killed another neighbour in self-defence that the quiet gentleman next +door was really a homicidal maniac. We shall know that homicidal mania +is exceptional and that we ourselves are so happy as not to suffer from +it; and being free from the disease may be free from the danger. But it +will not soothe us for the man with the gory knife to say softly and +pensively "After all, what is human life? Why should we cling to it? +Brief at the best, sad at the brightest, it is itself but a disease from +which, etc., etc." We shall perceive that the sceptic is in a mood not +only to murder us but to massacre everybody in the street. Exactly the +same effect which would be produced by the questions of "What is +property?" and "What is life?" is produced by the question of "What is +liberty?" It leav or in other words to take any liberties. The very +thing he says is an anticipatory excuse for anything he may choose to +do. If he gags a man to prevent him from indulging in profane swearing, +or locks him in the coal cellar to guard against his going on the spree, +he can still be satisfied with saying, "After all, what is liberty? Man +is a member of, etc., etc." + +That is the problem, and that is why there is now no protection against +Eugenic or any other experiments. If the men who took away beer as an +unlawful pleasure had paused for a moment to define the lawful +pleasures, there might be a different situation. If the men who had +denied one liberty had taken the opportunity to affirm other liberties, +there might be some defence for them. But it never occurs to them to +admit any liberties at all. It never so much as crosses their minds. + +Hence the excuse for the last oppression will always serve as well for +the next oppression; and to that tyranny there can be no end. Hence the +tyranny has taken but a single stride to reach the secret and sacred +places of personal freedom, where no sane man ever dreamed of seeing it; +and especially the sanctuary of Sex. It is as easy to take away a man's +wife or baby as to take away his beer when you can say "What is +liberty?"; just as it is as easy to cut off his head as to cut off his +hair if you are free to say "What is life?" There is no rational +philosophy of human rights generally disseminated among the populace, to +which we can appeal in defence even of the most intimate or individual +things that anybody can imagine. For so far as there was a vague +principle in these things, that principle has been wholly changed. It +used to be said that a man could have liberty, so long as it did not +interfere with the liberty of others. This did afford some rough +justification for the ordinary legal view of the man with the pot of +beer. For instance, it was logical to allow some degree of distinction +between beer and tea, on the ground that a man may be moved by excess of +beer to throw the pot at somebody's head. And it may be said that the +spinster is seldom moved by excess of tea to throw the tea-pot at +anybody's head. But the whole ground of argument is now changed. For +people do not consider what the drunkard does to others by throwing the +pot, but what he does to himself by drinking the beer. The argument is +based on health; and it is said that the Government must safeguard the +health of the community. And the moment that is said, there ceases to be +the shadow of a difference between beer and tea. People can certainly +spoil their health with tea or with tobacco or with twenty other things. +And there is no escape for the hygienic logician except to restrain and +regulate them all. If he is to control the health of the community, he +must necessarily control all the habits of all the citizens, and among +the rest their habits in the matter of sex. + +But there is more than this. It is not only true that it is the last +liberties of man that are being taken away; and not merely his first or +most superficial liberties. It is also inevitable that the last +liberties should be taken first. It is inevitable that the most private +matters should be most under public coercion. This inverse variation is +very important, though very little realised. If a man's personal health +is a public concern, his most private acts are more public than his most +public acts. The official must deal more directly with his cleaning his +teeth in the morning than with his using his tongue in the market-place. +The inspector must interfere *more* with how he sleeps in the middle of +the night than with how he works in the course of the day. The private +citizen must have much *less* to say about his bath or his bedroom +window than about his vote or his banking account. The policeman must be +in a new sense a private detective; and shadow him in private affairs +rather than in public affairs. A policeman must shut doors behind him +for fear he should sneeze, or shove pillows under him for fear he should +snore. All this and things far more fantastic follow from the simple +formula that the State must make itself responsible for the health of +the citizen. But the point is that the policeman must deal primarily and +promptly with the citizen in his relation to his home, and only +indirectly and more doubtfully with the citizen in his relation to his +city. By the whole logic of this test, the king must hear what is said +in the inner chamber and hardly notice what is proclaimed from the +house-tops. We have heard of a revolution that turns everything upside +down. But this is almost literally a revolution that turns everything inside out. -If a wary reactionary of the tradition of Metternich had -wished in the nineteenth century to reverse the democratic -tendency, he would naturally have begun by depriving the -democracy of its margin of more dubious powers over more -distant things. He might well begin, for instance, by -removing the control of foreign affairs from popular -assemblies; and there is a case for saying that a people may -understand its own affairs, without knowing anything -whatever about foreign affairs. Then he might centralise -great national questions, leaving a great deal of local -government in local questions. This would proceed so for a -long time before it occurred to the blackest terrorist of -the despotic ages to interfere with a man's own habits in -his own house. But the new sociologists and legislators are, -by the nature of their theory, bound to begin where the -despots leave off, even if they leave off where the despots -begin. For them, as they would put it, the first things must -be the very fountains of life, love and birth and babyhood; -and these are always covered fountains, flowing in the quiet -courts of the home. For them, as Mr. H. G. Wells put it, -life itself may be regarded merely as a tissue of births. -Thus they are coerced by their own rational principle to -begin all coercion at the other end; at the inside end. What -happens to the outside end, the external and remote powers -of the citizen, they do not very much care; and it is -probable that the democratic institutions of recent -centuries will be allowed to decay in undisturbed dignity -for a century or two more. Thus our civilisation will find -itself in an interesting situation, not without humour; in -which the citizen is still supposed to wield imperial powers -over the ends of the earth, but has admittedly no power over -his own body and soul at all. He win still be consulted by -politicians about whether opium is good for Chinamen, but -not about whether ale is good for him. He win be -cross-examined for his opinions about the danger of allowing -Kamchatka to have a war-fleet, but not about allowing his -own child to have a wooden sword. About all, he win be -consulted about the delicate diplomatic crisis created by -the proposed marriage of the Emperor of China, and not -allowed to marry as he pleases. - -Part of this prophecy or probability has already been -accomplished; the rest of it, in the absence of any protest, -is in process of accomplishment. It would be easy to give an -almost endless catalogue of examples, to show how, in -dealing with the poorer classes at least, coercion has -already come near to a direct control of the relations of -the sexes. But I am much more concerned in this chapter to -point out that all these things have been adopted in -principle, even where they have not been adopted in -practice. It is much more vital to realise that the -reformers have possessed themselves of a *principle*, which -will cover all such things if it he granted, and which is -not sufficiently comprehended to be contradicted. It is a -principle whereby the deepest things of flesh and spirit -must have the most direct relation with the dictatorship of -the State. They must have it, by the whole reason and -rationale upon which the thing depends. It is a system that -might be symbolised by the telephone from headquarters -standing by a man's bed. He must have a relation to -Government like his relation to God. That is, the more he -goes into the inner chambers, and the more he closes the -doors, the more he is alone with the law. The social -machinery which makes such a State uniform and submissive -will be worked outwards from the household as from a handle, -or a single mechanical knob or button. In a horrible sense, -loaded with fear and shame and every detail of dishonour, it -will be true to say that charity begins at home. - -Charity will begin at home in the sense that all home -children will be like charity children. Philanthropy win -begin at home, for all householders will be like paupers. -Police administration will begÍn at home, for all citizens -will be like convicts. And when health and the humours of -daily life have passed into the domain of this social -discipline, when it is admitted that the community must -primarily control the primary habits, when all law begins, -so to speak, next to the skin or nearest the vitals---then -indeed it will appear absurd that marriage and maternity -should not be similarly ordered. Then indeed it will seem to -be illogical, and it will be illogical, that love should be +If a wary reactionary of the tradition of Metternich had wished in the +nineteenth century to reverse the democratic tendency, he would +naturally have begun by depriving the democracy of its margin of more +dubious powers over more distant things. He might well begin, for +instance, by removing the control of foreign affairs from popular +assemblies; and there is a case for saying that a people may understand +its own affairs, without knowing anything whatever about foreign +affairs. Then he might centralise great national questions, leaving a +great deal of local government in local questions. This would proceed so +for a long time before it occurred to the blackest terrorist of the +despotic ages to interfere with a man's own habits in his own house. But +the new sociologists and legislators are, by the nature of their theory, +bound to begin where the despots leave off, even if they leave off where +the despots begin. For them, as they would put it, the first things must +be the very fountains of life, love and birth and babyhood; and these +are always covered fountains, flowing in the quiet courts of the home. +For them, as Mr. H. G. Wells put it, life itself may be regarded merely +as a tissue of births. Thus they are coerced by their own rational +principle to begin all coercion at the other end; at the inside end. +What happens to the outside end, the external and remote powers of the +citizen, they do not very much care; and it is probable that the +democratic institutions of recent centuries will be allowed to decay in +undisturbed dignity for a century or two more. Thus our civilisation +will find itself in an interesting situation, not without humour; in +which the citizen is still supposed to wield imperial powers over the +ends of the earth, but has admittedly no power over his own body and +soul at all. He win still be consulted by politicians about whether +opium is good for Chinamen, but not about whether ale is good for him. +He win be cross-examined for his opinions about the danger of allowing +Kamchatka to have a war-fleet, but not about allowing his own child to +have a wooden sword. About all, he win be consulted about the delicate +diplomatic crisis created by the proposed marriage of the Emperor of +China, and not allowed to marry as he pleases. + +Part of this prophecy or probability has already been accomplished; the +rest of it, in the absence of any protest, is in process of +accomplishment. It would be easy to give an almost endless catalogue of +examples, to show how, in dealing with the poorer classes at least, +coercion has already come near to a direct control of the relations of +the sexes. But I am much more concerned in this chapter to point out +that all these things have been adopted in principle, even where they +have not been adopted in practice. It is much more vital to realise that +the reformers have possessed themselves of a *principle*, which will +cover all such things if it he granted, and which is not sufficiently +comprehended to be contradicted. It is a principle whereby the deepest +things of flesh and spirit must have the most direct relation with the +dictatorship of the State. They must have it, by the whole reason and +rationale upon which the thing depends. It is a system that might be +symbolised by the telephone from headquarters standing by a man's bed. +He must have a relation to Government like his relation to God. That is, +the more he goes into the inner chambers, and the more he closes the +doors, the more he is alone with the law. The social machinery which +makes such a State uniform and submissive will be worked outwards from +the household as from a handle, or a single mechanical knob or button. +In a horrible sense, loaded with fear and shame and every detail of +dishonour, it will be true to say that charity begins at home. + +Charity will begin at home in the sense that all home children will be +like charity children. Philanthropy win begin at home, for all +householders will be like paupers. Police administration will begÍn at +home, for all citizens will be like convicts. And when health and the +humours of daily life have passed into the domain of this social +discipline, when it is admitted that the community must primarily +control the primary habits, when all law begins, so to speak, next to +the skin or nearest the vitals---then indeed it will appear absurd that +marriage and maternity should not be similarly ordered. Then indeed it +will seem to be illogical, and it will be illogical, that love should be free when life has lost its freedom. -So passed, to all appearance, from the minds of men the -strange dream and fantasy called freedom. Whatever be the -future of these evolutionary experiments and their effect on -civilisation, there is one land at least that has something -to mourn. For us in England something will have perished -which our fathers valued all the more because they hardly -troubled to name it; and whatever be the stars of a more -universal destiny, the great star of our night has set. The -English had missed many other things that men of the same -origins had achieved or retained. Not to them was given, -like the French, to establish eternal communes and clear -codes of equality; not to them, like the South Germans, to -keep the popular culture of their songs; not to them, like -the Irish, was it given to die daily for a great religion. -But a spirit had been with them from the first which fenced, -with a hundred quaint customs and legal fictions, the way of -a man who wished to walk nameless and alone. It was not for -nothing that they forgot all their laws to remember the name -of an outlaw, and filled the green heart of England with the -figure of Robin Hood. It was not for nothing that even their -princes of art and letters had about them something of kings -incognito, undiscovered to formal or academic fame; so that -no eye can follow the young Shakespeare as he came up the -green lanes from Stratford, or the young Dickens when he -first lost himself among the lights of London. It is not for -nothing that the very roads are crooked and capricious, so -that a man looking down on a map like a snaky labyrinth, -could tell that he was looking on the home of a wandering -people. A spirit at once wild and familiar rested upon its -woodlands like a wind at rest. If that spirit be indeed -departed, it matters little that it has been driven out by -perversions it had itself permitted, by monsters it had idly -let loose. Industrialism and Capitalism and the rage for -physical science were English experiments in the sense that -the English lent themselves to their encouragement; but -there was something else behind. them and within them that -was not they---its name was liberty, and it was our life. It -may be that this delicate and tenacious spirit has at last -evaporated. If so, it matters little what becomes of the -external experiments of our nation in later time. That at -which we look will be a dead thing alive with its own -parasites. The English will have destroyed England. +So passed, to all appearance, from the minds of men the strange dream +and fantasy called freedom. Whatever be the future of these evolutionary +experiments and their effect on civilisation, there is one land at least +that has something to mourn. For us in England something will have +perished which our fathers valued all the more because they hardly +troubled to name it; and whatever be the stars of a more universal +destiny, the great star of our night has set. The English had missed +many other things that men of the same origins had achieved or retained. +Not to them was given, like the French, to establish eternal communes +and clear codes of equality; not to them, like the South Germans, to +keep the popular culture of their songs; not to them, like the Irish, +was it given to die daily for a great religion. But a spirit had been +with them from the first which fenced, with a hundred quaint customs and +legal fictions, the way of a man who wished to walk nameless and alone. +It was not for nothing that they forgot all their laws to remember the +name of an outlaw, and filled the green heart of England with the figure +of Robin Hood. It was not for nothing that even their princes of art and +letters had about them something of kings incognito, undiscovered to +formal or academic fame; so that no eye can follow the young Shakespeare +as he came up the green lanes from Stratford, or the young Dickens when +he first lost himself among the lights of London. It is not for nothing +that the very roads are crooked and capricious, so that a man looking +down on a map like a snaky labyrinth, could tell that he was looking on +the home of a wandering people. A spirit at once wild and familiar +rested upon its woodlands like a wind at rest. If that spirit be indeed +departed, it matters little that it has been driven out by perversions +it had itself permitted, by monsters it had idly let loose. +Industrialism and Capitalism and the rage for physical science were +English experiments in the sense that the English lent themselves to +their encouragement; but there was something else behind. them and +within them that was not they---its name was liberty, and it was our +life. It may be that this delicate and tenacious spirit has at last +evaporated. If so, it matters little what becomes of the external +experiments of our nation in later time. That at which we look will be a +dead thing alive with its own parasites. The English will have destroyed +England. ## The Transformation of Socialism -Socialism is one of the simplest ideas in the world. It has -always puzzled me how there came to be so much bewilderment -and misunderstanding and miserable mutual slander about it. -At one time I agreed with Socialism, because it was simple. -Now I disagree with Socialism, because it is too simple. Yet -most of its opponents still seem to treat it, not merely as -an iniquity but as a mystery of iniquity, which seems to -mystify them even more than it maddens them. It may not seem -strange that its antagonists should be puzzled about what it -is. It may appear more curious and interesting that its -admirers are equally puzzled. Its foes used to denounce -Socialism as Anarchy, which is its opposite. Its friends -seemed to suppose that it is a sort of optimism, which is -almost as much of an opposite. Friends and foes alike talked -as if it involved a sort of faith in ideal human nature; why -I could never imagine. The Socialist system, in a more -special sense than any other, is founded not on optimism but -on original sin. It proposes that the State, as the -conscience of the community, should possess all primary -forms of property; and that obviously on the ground that men -cannot be trusted to own or barter or combine or compete -without injury to themselves. Just as a State might own all -the guns lest people should shoot each other, so this State -would own all the gold and land lest they should cheat or -rackrent or exploit each other. It seems extraordinarily -simple and even obvious; and so it is. It is too obvious to -be true. But while it is obvious, it seems almost incredible -that anybody ever thought it optimistic. - -I am myself primarily opposed to Socialism. or Collectivism -or Bolshevism or whatever we call it, for a primary reason -not immediately involved here: the ideal of property. I say -the ideal and not merely the idea; and this alone disposes -of the moral mistake in the matter. It disposes of all the -dreary doubts of the Anti-Socialists about men not yet being -angels, and all the yet drearier hopes of the Socialists -about men soon being supermen. I do not admit that private -property is a concession to baseness and selfishness; I -think it is a point of honour. I think it is the most truly -popular of all points of honour. But this, though it has -everything to do with my plea for a domestic dignity, has -nothing to do with this passing summary of the situation of -Socialism. I only remark in passing that it is vain for the -more vulgar sort of Capitalist, sneering at ideals, to say -to me that in order to have Socialism "You must alter human -nature." I answer "Yes. You must alter it for the worse." - -The clouds were considerably cleared away from the meaning -of Socialism by the Fabians of the 'nineties; by Mr. Bernard -Shaw, a sort of anti-romantic Quixote, who charged chivalry -as chivalry charged windmills, with Sidney Webb for his -Sancho Panza. In so far as these paladins had a castle to -defend, we may say that their castle was the Post Office. -The red pillar-box was the immovable post against which the -irresistible force of Capitalist individualism was arrested. -Business men who said that nothing could be managed by the -State were forced to admit that they trusted all their -business letters and business telegrams to the State. - -After all, it was not found necessary to have an office -competing with another office, trying to send out pinker -postage-stamps or more picturesque postmen. It was not -necessary to efficiency that the postmistress should buy a -penny stamp for a halfpenny and sell it for twopence; or -that she should haggle and beat customers down about the -price of a postal order; or that she should always take -tenders for telegrams. There was obviously nothing actually -impossible about the State management of national needs; and -the Post Office was at least tolerably managed. Though it -was not always a model employer, by any means, it might be -made so by similar methods. It was not impossible that -equitable pay, and even equal pay, could be given to the -Postmaster-General and the postman. We had only to extend -this rule of public responsibility, and we should escape -from all the terror of insecurity and torture of compassion, -which hagrides humanity in the insane extremes of economic -inequality and injustice. As Mr. Shaw put it, "A man must -save Society's honour before he can save his own." - -That was one side of the argument: that the change would -remove inequality; and there was an answer on the other -side. It can be stated most truly by putting another model -institution and edifice side by side with the Post Office. -It is even m0re of an ideal republic, or commonwealth -without competition or private profit. It supplies its -citizens not only with the stamps but with clothes and food -and lodging, and all they require. It observes considerable -level of equality in these things; notably in the clothes. -It not only supervises the letters but all the other human -communications; notably the sort of evil communications that -corrupt good manners. This twin model to the Post Office is -called the Prison. And much of the scheme for a model State -was regarded by its opponents as a scheme for a model -prison; good because it fed men equally, but less acceptable -since it imprisoned them equally. - -It is better to be in a bad prison than in a good one. From -the standpoint of the prisoner this is not at all a paradox; -if only because in a bad prison he is more likely to escape. -But apart from that, a man was in many ways better off in -the old dirty and corrupt prison, where he could bribe -turnkeys to bring him drink and meet fellow-prisoners to -drink with. Now that is exactly the difference between the -present system and the proposed system. Nobody worth talking -about respects the present system. Capitalism is a corrupt -prison. That is the best that can be said for Capitalism. -But it is something to be said for it; for a man is a little -freer in that corrupt prison than he would be in a complete -prison. As a man can find one jailer more lax than another, -so he could find one employer more kind than another; he has -at least a choice of tyrants. In the other case he finds the -same tyrant at every turn. Mr. Shaw and other rational -Socialists have agreed that the State would be in practice -government by a small group. Any independent man who -disliked that group would find his foe waiting for him at -the end of every road. - -It may be said of Socialism, therefore, very briefly, that -its friends recommended it as increasing equality, while its -foes resisted it as decreasing liberty. On the one hand it -was said that the State could provide homes and meals for -all; on the other it was answered that this could only be -done by State officials who would inspect houses and -regulate meals. The compromise eventually made was one of -the most interesting and even curious cases in history. It -was decided to do everything that had ever been denounced in -Socialism, and nothing that had ever been desired in it. -Since it was supposed to gain equality at the sacrifice of -liberty, we proceeded to prove that it was possible to -sacrifice liberty without gaining equality. Indeed, there -was not the faintest attempt to gain equality, least of all -economic equality. But there was a very spirited and -vigorous effort to eliminate liberty, by means of an -entirely new crop of crude regulations and interferences. -But it was not the Socialist State regulating those whom it -fed, like children or even like convicts. It was the -Capitalist State raiding those whom it had trampled and -deserted in every sort of den, like outlaws or broken men. -It occurred to the wiser sociologists that, after all, it -would be easy to proceed more promptly to the main business -of bullying men, without having gone through the laborious -preliminary business of supporting them. After all, it was -easy to inspect the house without having helped to build it; -it was even possible, with luck, to inspect the house in -time to prevent it being built. All that is described in the -documents of the Housing Problem; for the people of this age -loved problems and hated solutions. It was easy to restrict -the diet without providing the dinner. All that can be found -in the documents of what is called Temperance Reform. - -In short, people decided that it was impossible to achieve -any of the good of Socialism, but they comforted themselves -by achieving all the bad. All that official discipline, -about which the Socialists themselves were in doubt or at -least on the defensive, was taken over bodily by the -Capitalists. They have now added all the bureaucratic -tyrannies of a Socialist state to the old plutocratic -tyrannies of a Capitalist State. For the vital point is that -it did not in the smallest degree diminish the inequalities -of a Capitalist State. It simply destroyed such individual -liberties as remained among its victims. It did not enable -any man to build a better house; it only limited the houses -he might live in---or how he might manage to live there; -forbidding him to keep pigs or poultry or to sell beer or -cider. It did not even add anything to a man's wages; it -only took away something from a man's wages and locked it -up, whether he liked it or not, in a sort of money-box which -was regarded as a medicine-chest. It does not send food into -the house to feed the children; it only sends an inspector -into the house to punish the parents for having no food to -feed them. It does not see that they have got a fire; it -only punishes them for not having a fireguard. It does not -even occur to it to provide the fireguard. - -Now this anomalous situation will probably ultimately evolve -into the Servile State of Mr. Belloc's thesis. The poor will -sink into slavery; it might as correctly be said that the -poor will rise into slavery. That is to say, sooner or -later, it is very probable that the rich win take over the -philanthropic as well as the tyrannic side of the bargain; -and will feed men like slaves as well as hunting them like -outlaws. But for the purpose of my own argument it is not -necessary to carry the process so far as this, or indeed any -farther than it has already gone. The purely negative stage -of interference, at which we have stuck for the present, is -in itself quite favourable to all these eugenical -experiments. The capitalist whose half-conscious thought and -course of action I have simplified into a story in the -preceding chapters, finds this insufficient solution quite -sufficient for his purposes. What he has felt for a long -time is that he must check or improve the reckless and -random breeding of the submerged race, which is at once -outstripping his requirements and failing to fulfil his -needs. Now the anomalous situation has already accustomed -him to stopping things. The first interferences with sex -need only be negative; and there are already negative -interferences without number. So that the study of this -stage of Socialism brings us to the same conclusion as that -of the ideal of liberty as formally professed by Liberalism. -The ideal of liberty is lost, and the ideal of Socialism is -changed, till it is a mere excuse for the oppression of the -poor. - -The first movements for intervention in the deepest domestic -concerns of the poor all had this note of negative -interference. Official papers were sent round to the mothers -in poor streets; papers in which a total stranger asked -these respectable women questions which a man would be -killed for asking, in the class of what were called -gentlemen or in the countries of what were called free men. -They were questions supposed to refer to the conditions of -maternity; but the point is here that the reformers did not -begin by building up those economic or material conditions. -They did not attempt to pay money or establish property to -create those conditions. They never give anything---except -orders. Another form of the intervention, and one already -mentioned, is the kidnapping of children upon the most -fantastic excuses of sham psychology. Some people -established an apparatus of tests and trick questions; which -might make an amusing game of riddles for the family -fireside, but seems an insufficient reason for mutilating -and dismembering the family. Others became interested in the -hopeless moral condition of children born in the economic -condition which they did not attempt to improve. They were -great on the fact that crime was a disease; and carried on -their criminological studies so successfully as to open the -reformatory for little boys who played truant; there was no -reformatory for reformers. I need not pause to explain that -crime is not a disease. It is criminology that is a disease. - -Finally one thing may be added which is at least clear. -Whether or no the organisation of industry will issue -positively in a eugenical reconstruction of the family, it -has already issued negatively, as in the negations already -noted, in a partial destruction of it. It took the form of a -propaganda of popular divorce, calculated at least to -accustom the masses to a new notion of the shifting and -re-grouping of families. I do not discuss the question of -divorce here, as I have done elsewhere, in its intrinsic -character; I merely note it as one of these negative reforms -which have been substituted for positive economic equality. -It was preached with a weird hilarity, as if the suicide of -love were something not only humane but happy But it need -not be explained, and certainly it need not be denied, that -the harassed poor of a diseased industrialism were indeed -maintaining marriage under every disadvantage, and often -found individual relief in divorce. Industrialism docs -produce many unhappy marriages, for the same reason that it -produces so many unhappy men. But all the reforms were -directed to rescuing the industrialism rather than the -happiness. Poor couples were to be divorced because they -were already divided. Through all this modern muddle there -runs the curious principle of sacrificing the ancient uses -of things because they do not fit in with the modern abuses. -When the tares are found in the wheat, the greatest -promptitude and practicality is always shown in burning the -wheat and gathering the tares into the barn. And since the -serpent coiled about the chalice had dropped his poison in -the wine of Cana, analysts were instantly active in the -effort to preserve the poison and to pour away the wine. +Socialism is one of the simplest ideas in the world. It has always +puzzled me how there came to be so much bewilderment and +misunderstanding and miserable mutual slander about it. At one time I +agreed with Socialism, because it was simple. Now I disagree with +Socialism, because it is too simple. Yet most of its opponents still +seem to treat it, not merely as an iniquity but as a mystery of +iniquity, which seems to mystify them even more than it maddens them. It +may not seem strange that its antagonists should be puzzled about what +it is. It may appear more curious and interesting that its admirers are +equally puzzled. Its foes used to denounce Socialism as Anarchy, which +is its opposite. Its friends seemed to suppose that it is a sort of +optimism, which is almost as much of an opposite. Friends and foes alike +talked as if it involved a sort of faith in ideal human nature; why I +could never imagine. The Socialist system, in a more special sense than +any other, is founded not on optimism but on original sin. It proposes +that the State, as the conscience of the community, should possess all +primary forms of property; and that obviously on the ground that men +cannot be trusted to own or barter or combine or compete without injury +to themselves. Just as a State might own all the guns lest people should +shoot each other, so this State would own all the gold and land lest +they should cheat or rackrent or exploit each other. It seems +extraordinarily simple and even obvious; and so it is. It is too obvious +to be true. But while it is obvious, it seems almost incredible that +anybody ever thought it optimistic. + +I am myself primarily opposed to Socialism. or Collectivism or +Bolshevism or whatever we call it, for a primary reason not immediately +involved here: the ideal of property. I say the ideal and not merely the +idea; and this alone disposes of the moral mistake in the matter. It +disposes of all the dreary doubts of the Anti-Socialists about men not +yet being angels, and all the yet drearier hopes of the Socialists about +men soon being supermen. I do not admit that private property is a +concession to baseness and selfishness; I think it is a point of honour. +I think it is the most truly popular of all points of honour. But this, +though it has everything to do with my plea for a domestic dignity, has +nothing to do with this passing summary of the situation of Socialism. I +only remark in passing that it is vain for the more vulgar sort of +Capitalist, sneering at ideals, to say to me that in order to have +Socialism "You must alter human nature." I answer "Yes. You must alter +it for the worse." + +The clouds were considerably cleared away from the meaning of Socialism +by the Fabians of the 'nineties; by Mr. Bernard Shaw, a sort of +anti-romantic Quixote, who charged chivalry as chivalry charged +windmills, with Sidney Webb for his Sancho Panza. In so far as these +paladins had a castle to defend, we may say that their castle was the +Post Office. The red pillar-box was the immovable post against which the +irresistible force of Capitalist individualism was arrested. Business +men who said that nothing could be managed by the State were forced to +admit that they trusted all their business letters and business +telegrams to the State. + +After all, it was not found necessary to have an office competing with +another office, trying to send out pinker postage-stamps or more +picturesque postmen. It was not necessary to efficiency that the +postmistress should buy a penny stamp for a halfpenny and sell it for +twopence; or that she should haggle and beat customers down about the +price of a postal order; or that she should always take tenders for +telegrams. There was obviously nothing actually impossible about the +State management of national needs; and the Post Office was at least +tolerably managed. Though it was not always a model employer, by any +means, it might be made so by similar methods. It was not impossible +that equitable pay, and even equal pay, could be given to the +Postmaster-General and the postman. We had only to extend this rule of +public responsibility, and we should escape from all the terror of +insecurity and torture of compassion, which hagrides humanity in the +insane extremes of economic inequality and injustice. As Mr. Shaw put +it, "A man must save Society's honour before he can save his own." + +That was one side of the argument: that the change would remove +inequality; and there was an answer on the other side. It can be stated +most truly by putting another model institution and edifice side by side +with the Post Office. It is even m0re of an ideal republic, or +commonwealth without competition or private profit. It supplies its +citizens not only with the stamps but with clothes and food and lodging, +and all they require. It observes considerable level of equality in +these things; notably in the clothes. It not only supervises the letters +but all the other human communications; notably the sort of evil +communications that corrupt good manners. This twin model to the Post +Office is called the Prison. And much of the scheme for a model State +was regarded by its opponents as a scheme for a model prison; good +because it fed men equally, but less acceptable since it imprisoned them +equally. + +It is better to be in a bad prison than in a good one. From the +standpoint of the prisoner this is not at all a paradox; if only because +in a bad prison he is more likely to escape. But apart from that, a man +was in many ways better off in the old dirty and corrupt prison, where +he could bribe turnkeys to bring him drink and meet fellow-prisoners to +drink with. Now that is exactly the difference between the present +system and the proposed system. Nobody worth talking about respects the +present system. Capitalism is a corrupt prison. That is the best that +can be said for Capitalism. But it is something to be said for it; for a +man is a little freer in that corrupt prison than he would be in a +complete prison. As a man can find one jailer more lax than another, so +he could find one employer more kind than another; he has at least a +choice of tyrants. In the other case he finds the same tyrant at every +turn. Mr. Shaw and other rational Socialists have agreed that the State +would be in practice government by a small group. Any independent man +who disliked that group would find his foe waiting for him at the end of +every road. + +It may be said of Socialism, therefore, very briefly, that its friends +recommended it as increasing equality, while its foes resisted it as +decreasing liberty. On the one hand it was said that the State could +provide homes and meals for all; on the other it was answered that this +could only be done by State officials who would inspect houses and +regulate meals. The compromise eventually made was one of the most +interesting and even curious cases in history. It was decided to do +everything that had ever been denounced in Socialism, and nothing that +had ever been desired in it. Since it was supposed to gain equality at +the sacrifice of liberty, we proceeded to prove that it was possible to +sacrifice liberty without gaining equality. Indeed, there was not the +faintest attempt to gain equality, least of all economic equality. But +there was a very spirited and vigorous effort to eliminate liberty, by +means of an entirely new crop of crude regulations and interferences. +But it was not the Socialist State regulating those whom it fed, like +children or even like convicts. It was the Capitalist State raiding +those whom it had trampled and deserted in every sort of den, like +outlaws or broken men. It occurred to the wiser sociologists that, after +all, it would be easy to proceed more promptly to the main business of +bullying men, without having gone through the laborious preliminary +business of supporting them. After all, it was easy to inspect the house +without having helped to build it; it was even possible, with luck, to +inspect the house in time to prevent it being built. All that is +described in the documents of the Housing Problem; for the people of +this age loved problems and hated solutions. It was easy to restrict the +diet without providing the dinner. All that can be found in the +documents of what is called Temperance Reform. + +In short, people decided that it was impossible to achieve any of the +good of Socialism, but they comforted themselves by achieving all the +bad. All that official discipline, about which the Socialists themselves +were in doubt or at least on the defensive, was taken over bodily by the +Capitalists. They have now added all the bureaucratic tyrannies of a +Socialist state to the old plutocratic tyrannies of a Capitalist State. +For the vital point is that it did not in the smallest degree diminish +the inequalities of a Capitalist State. It simply destroyed such +individual liberties as remained among its victims. It did not enable +any man to build a better house; it only limited the houses he might +live in---or how he might manage to live there; forbidding him to keep +pigs or poultry or to sell beer or cider. It did not even add anything +to a man's wages; it only took away something from a man's wages and +locked it up, whether he liked it or not, in a sort of money-box which +was regarded as a medicine-chest. It does not send food into the house +to feed the children; it only sends an inspector into the house to +punish the parents for having no food to feed them. It does not see that +they have got a fire; it only punishes them for not having a fireguard. +It does not even occur to it to provide the fireguard. + +Now this anomalous situation will probably ultimately evolve into the +Servile State of Mr. Belloc's thesis. The poor will sink into slavery; +it might as correctly be said that the poor will rise into slavery. That +is to say, sooner or later, it is very probable that the rich win take +over the philanthropic as well as the tyrannic side of the bargain; and +will feed men like slaves as well as hunting them like outlaws. But for +the purpose of my own argument it is not necessary to carry the process +so far as this, or indeed any farther than it has already gone. The +purely negative stage of interference, at which we have stuck for the +present, is in itself quite favourable to all these eugenical +experiments. The capitalist whose half-conscious thought and course of +action I have simplified into a story in the preceding chapters, finds +this insufficient solution quite sufficient for his purposes. What he +has felt for a long time is that he must check or improve the reckless +and random breeding of the submerged race, which is at once outstripping +his requirements and failing to fulfil his needs. Now the anomalous +situation has already accustomed him to stopping things. The first +interferences with sex need only be negative; and there are already +negative interferences without number. So that the study of this stage +of Socialism brings us to the same conclusion as that of the ideal of +liberty as formally professed by Liberalism. The ideal of liberty is +lost, and the ideal of Socialism is changed, till it is a mere excuse +for the oppression of the poor. + +The first movements for intervention in the deepest domestic concerns of +the poor all had this note of negative interference. Official papers +were sent round to the mothers in poor streets; papers in which a total +stranger asked these respectable women questions which a man would be +killed for asking, in the class of what were called gentlemen or in the +countries of what were called free men. They were questions supposed to +refer to the conditions of maternity; but the point is here that the +reformers did not begin by building up those economic or material +conditions. They did not attempt to pay money or establish property to +create those conditions. They never give anything---except orders. +Another form of the intervention, and one already mentioned, is the +kidnapping of children upon the most fantastic excuses of sham +psychology. Some people established an apparatus of tests and trick +questions; which might make an amusing game of riddles for the family +fireside, but seems an insufficient reason for mutilating and +dismembering the family. Others became interested in the hopeless moral +condition of children born in the economic condition which they did not +attempt to improve. They were great on the fact that crime was a +disease; and carried on their criminological studies so successfully as +to open the reformatory for little boys who played truant; there was no +reformatory for reformers. I need not pause to explain that crime is not +a disease. It is criminology that is a disease. + +Finally one thing may be added which is at least clear. Whether or no +the organisation of industry will issue positively in a eugenical +reconstruction of the family, it has already issued negatively, as in +the negations already noted, in a partial destruction of it. It took the +form of a propaganda of popular divorce, calculated at least to accustom +the masses to a new notion of the shifting and re-grouping of families. +I do not discuss the question of divorce here, as I have done elsewhere, +in its intrinsic character; I merely note it as one of these negative +reforms which have been substituted for positive economic equality. It +was preached with a weird hilarity, as if the suicide of love were +something not only humane but happy But it need not be explained, and +certainly it need not be denied, that the harassed poor of a diseased +industrialism were indeed maintaining marriage under every disadvantage, +and often found individual relief in divorce. Industrialism docs produce +many unhappy marriages, for the same reason that it produces so many +unhappy men. But all the reforms were directed to rescuing the +industrialism rather than the happiness. Poor couples were to be +divorced because they were already divided. Through all this modern +muddle there runs the curious principle of sacrificing the ancient uses +of things because they do not fit in with the modern abuses. When the +tares are found in the wheat, the greatest promptitude and practicality +is always shown in burning the wheat and gathering the tares into the +barn. And since the serpent coiled about the chalice had dropped his +poison in the wine of Cana, analysts were instantly active in the effort +to preserve the poison and to pour away the wine. ## The End of the Household Gods -The only place where it is possible to find an echo of the -mind of the English masses is either in conversation or in -comic songs. The latter are obviously the more dubious; but -they are the only things recorded and quotable that come -anywhere near it. We talk about the popular Press; but in -truth there is no popular Press. It may be a good thing; -but, anyhow, most readers would be mildly surprised if a -newspaper leading article were written in the language of a -navvy. Sometimes the Press is interested in things in which -the democracy is also genuinely interested; such as -horse-racing. Sometimes the Press is about as popular as the -Press Gang. We talk of Labour leaders in Parliament; but -they would be highly unparliamentary if they talked like -labourers. The Bolshevists, I believe, profess to promote -something that they call "proletarian art," which only shows -that the word Bolshevism can sometimes be abbreviated into -bosh. That sort of Bolshevist is not a proletarian, but -rather the very thing he accuses everybody else of being. -The Bolshevist is above all a bourgeois; a Jewish -intellectual of the town. And the real case against -industrial intellectualism could hardly be put better than -in this very comparison. There has never been such a thing -as proletarian art; but there has emphatically been such a -thing as peasant art. And the only literature which even -reminds us of the real tone and talk of the English working -classes is to be found in the comic song of the English -music-hall. - -I first heard one of them on my voyage to America, in the -midst of the sea within sight of the New World, with the -Statue of Liberty beginning to loom up on the horizon. From -the lips of a young Scotch engineer, of all people in the -world, I heard for the first time these immortal words from -a London music-hall song: +The only place where it is possible to find an echo of the mind of the +English masses is either in conversation or in comic songs. The latter +are obviously the more dubious; but they are the only things recorded +and quotable that come anywhere near it. We talk about the popular +Press; but in truth there is no popular Press. It may be a good thing; +but, anyhow, most readers would be mildly surprised if a newspaper +leading article were written in the language of a navvy. Sometimes the +Press is interested in things in which the democracy is also genuinely +interested; such as horse-racing. Sometimes the Press is about as +popular as the Press Gang. We talk of Labour leaders in Parliament; but +they would be highly unparliamentary if they talked like labourers. The +Bolshevists, I believe, profess to promote something that they call +"proletarian art," which only shows that the word Bolshevism can +sometimes be abbreviated into bosh. That sort of Bolshevist is not a +proletarian, but rather the very thing he accuses everybody else of +being. The Bolshevist is above all a bourgeois; a Jewish intellectual of +the town. And the real case against industrial intellectualism could +hardly be put better than in this very comparison. There has never been +such a thing as proletarian art; but there has emphatically been such a +thing as peasant art. And the only literature which even reminds us of +the real tone and talk of the English working classes is to be found in +the comic song of the English music-hall. + +I first heard one of them on my voyage to America, in the midst of the +sea within sight of the New World, with the Statue of Liberty beginning +to loom up on the horizon. From the lips of a young Scotch engineer, of +all people in the world, I heard for the first time these immortal words +from a London music-hall song: >  "Father's got the sack from the water-works > @@ -4419,16 +3714,14 @@ a London music-hall song: > > 'Cos he might set the water-works on fire." -As I told my friends in America, I think it no part of a -patriot to boast; and boasting itself is certainly not a -thing to boast of. I doubt the persuasive power of English -as exemplified in Kipling, and one can easily force it on -foreigners too much, even as exemplified in Dickens. I am no -Imperialist, and only on rare and proper occasions a Jingo. -But when I hear those words about Father and the -water-works, when I hear under far-off foreign skies -anything so gloriously English as that, then indeed (I said -to them), then indeed:--- +As I told my friends in America, I think it no part of a patriot to +boast; and boasting itself is certainly not a thing to boast of. I doubt +the persuasive power of English as exemplified in Kipling, and one can +easily force it on foreigners too much, even as exemplified in Dickens. +I am no Imperialist, and only on rare and proper occasions a Jingo. But +when I hear those words about Father and the water-works, when I hear +under far-off foreign skies anything so gloriously English as that, then +indeed (I said to them), then indeed:--- >  "I thank the goodness and the grace > @@ -4438,366 +3731,308 @@ to them), then indeed:--- > > A little English child." -But that noble stanza about the water-works has other -elements of nobility besides nationality. It provides a -compact and almost perfect summary of the whole social -problem in industrial countries like England and America. If -I wished to set forth systematically the elements of the -ethical and economic problem in Pittsburg or Sheffield, I -could not do better than take these few words as a text, and -divide them up like the heads of a sermon. Let me note the -points in some rough fashion here. - -1.---*Father.* This word is still in use among the more -ignorant and ill-paid of the industrial community; and is -the badge of an old convention or unit called the family. A -man and woman having vowed to be faithful to each other, the -man makes himself responsible for all the children of the -woman, and is thus generically called "Father." It must not -be supposed that the poet or singer is necessarily one of -the children. It may be the wife, called by the same ritual -"Mother." Poor English wives say "Father" as poor Irish -wives say "Himself," meaning the titular head of the house. -The point to seize is that among the ignorant this -convention or custom still exists. Father and the family are -the foundations of thought; the natural authority still -comes natural to the poet; but it is overlaid and thwarted -with more artificial authorities; the official, the -schoolmaster, the policeman, the employer, and so on. What -these forces fighting the family are we shall see, my dear -brethren, when we pass to our second heading; which is:--- - -2.----*Got the Sack.* This idiom marks a later stage of the -history of the language than the comparatively primitive -word "Father." It is needless to discuss whether the term -comes from Turkey or some other servile society. In America -they say that Father has been fired. But it involves the -whole of the unique economic system under which Father has -now to live. Though assumed by family tradition to be a -master, he can now, by industrial tradition, only be a -particular kind of servant; a servant who has not the -security of a slave. If he owned his own shop and tools, he -could not get the sack. If his master owned him, he could -not get the sack. The slave and the guildsman know where -they will sleep every night; it was only the proletarian of -individualist industrialism who could get the sack, if not -in the style of the Bosphorus, at least in the sense of the -Embankment. We pass to the third heading. - -3.---*From the Water-works.* This detail of Father's life is -very important; for this is the reply to most of the -Socialists, as the last section is to so many of the -Capitalists. The water-works which employed Father is a very -large, official and impersonal institution. Whether it is -technically a bureaucratic department or a big business -makes little or no change in the feelings of Father in -connection with it. The water-works might or might not be -nationalised; and it would make no necessary difference to -Father being fired, and no difference at all to his being -accused of playing with fire. In fact, if the Capitalists -are more likely to give him the sack, the Socialists are -even more likely to forbid him the smoke. There is no -freedom for Father except in some sort of private ownership -of things like water and fire. If he owned his own well his -water could never be cut off, and while he sits by his own -fire his pipe can never be put out. That is the real meaning -of property, and the real argument against Socialism; -probably the only argument against Socialism. - -4.---*For Smoking.* Nothing marks this queer intermediate -phase of industrialism more strangely than the fact that, -while employers still claim the right to sack him like a -stranger, they are already beginning to claim the right to -supervise him like a son. Economically he can go and starve -on the Embankment; but ethically and hygienically he must be -controlled and coddled in the nursery. Government repudiates -all responsibility for seeing that he gets bread. But it -anxiously accepts all responsibility for seeing that he does -not get beer. It passes an Insurance Act to force him to -provide himself 'with medicine; but it is avowedly -indifferent to whether he is able to provide himself with -meals. Thus while the sack is inconsistent with the family, -the supervision is really inconsistent with the sack. The -whole thing is a tangled chain of contradictions. It is true -that in the special and sacred text of scripture we are here -considering, the smoking is forbidden on a general and -public and not on a medicinal and private ground. But it is -none the less relevant to remember that, as his masters have -already proved that alcohol is a poison, they may soon prove -that nicotine is a poison. And it is most significant of all -that this sort of danger is even greater in what is called -the new democracy of America than in what is called the old -oligarchy of England. When I was in America, people were -already "defending" tobacco. People who defend tobacco are -on the road to proving that daylight is defensible, or that -it is not really sinful to sneeze. In other words, they are +But that noble stanza about the water-works has other elements of +nobility besides nationality. It provides a compact and almost perfect +summary of the whole social problem in industrial countries like England +and America. If I wished to set forth systematically the elements of the +ethical and economic problem in Pittsburg or Sheffield, I could not do +better than take these few words as a text, and divide them up like the +heads of a sermon. Let me note the points in some rough fashion here. + +1.---*Father.* This word is still in use among the more ignorant and +ill-paid of the industrial community; and is the badge of an old +convention or unit called the family. A man and woman having vowed to be +faithful to each other, the man makes himself responsible for all the +children of the woman, and is thus generically called "Father." It must +not be supposed that the poet or singer is necessarily one of the +children. It may be the wife, called by the same ritual "Mother." Poor +English wives say "Father" as poor Irish wives say "Himself," meaning +the titular head of the house. The point to seize is that among the +ignorant this convention or custom still exists. Father and the family +are the foundations of thought; the natural authority still comes +natural to the poet; but it is overlaid and thwarted with more +artificial authorities; the official, the schoolmaster, the policeman, +the employer, and so on. What these forces fighting the family are we +shall see, my dear brethren, when we pass to our second heading; which +is:--- + +2.----*Got the Sack.* This idiom marks a later stage of the history of +the language than the comparatively primitive word "Father." It is +needless to discuss whether the term comes from Turkey or some other +servile society. In America they say that Father has been fired. But it +involves the whole of the unique economic system under which Father has +now to live. Though assumed by family tradition to be a master, he can +now, by industrial tradition, only be a particular kind of servant; a +servant who has not the security of a slave. If he owned his own shop +and tools, he could not get the sack. If his master owned him, he could +not get the sack. The slave and the guildsman know where they will sleep +every night; it was only the proletarian of individualist industrialism +who could get the sack, if not in the style of the Bosphorus, at least +in the sense of the Embankment. We pass to the third heading. + +3.---*From the Water-works.* This detail of Father's life is very +important; for this is the reply to most of the Socialists, as the last +section is to so many of the Capitalists. The water-works which employed +Father is a very large, official and impersonal institution. Whether it +is technically a bureaucratic department or a big business makes little +or no change in the feelings of Father in connection with it. The +water-works might or might not be nationalised; and it would make no +necessary difference to Father being fired, and no difference at all to +his being accused of playing with fire. In fact, if the Capitalists are +more likely to give him the sack, the Socialists are even more likely to +forbid him the smoke. There is no freedom for Father except in some sort +of private ownership of things like water and fire. If he owned his own +well his water could never be cut off, and while he sits by his own fire +his pipe can never be put out. That is the real meaning of property, and +the real argument against Socialism; probably the only argument against +Socialism. + +4.---*For Smoking.* Nothing marks this queer intermediate phase of +industrialism more strangely than the fact that, while employers still +claim the right to sack him like a stranger, they are already beginning +to claim the right to supervise him like a son. Economically he can go +and starve on the Embankment; but ethically and hygienically he must be +controlled and coddled in the nursery. Government repudiates all +responsibility for seeing that he gets bread. But it anxiously accepts +all responsibility for seeing that he does not get beer. It passes an +Insurance Act to force him to provide himself 'with medicine; but it is +avowedly indifferent to whether he is able to provide himself with +meals. Thus while the sack is inconsistent with the family, the +supervision is really inconsistent with the sack. The whole thing is a +tangled chain of contradictions. It is true that in the special and +sacred text of scripture we are here considering, the smoking is +forbidden on a general and public and not on a medicinal and private +ground. But it is none the less relevant to remember that, as his +masters have already proved that alcohol is a poison, they may soon +prove that nicotine is a poison. And it is most significant of all that +this sort of danger is even greater in what is called the new democracy +of America than in what is called the old oligarchy of England. When I +was in America, people were already "defending" tobacco. People who +defend tobacco are on the road to proving that daylight is defensible, +or that it is not really sinful to sneeze. In other words, they are quietly going mad. -5.---*Of his old Cherry-briar.* Here we have the -intermediate and anomalous position of the institution of -Property. The sentiment still exists, even among the poor, -or perhaps especially among the poor. But it is attached to -toys rather than tools; to the minor products rather than to -the means of production. But something of the sanity of -ownership is still to be observed; for instance, the element -of custom and continuity. It was an old cherry-briar; -systematically smoked by Father in spite of all wiles and -temptations to Woodbines and gaspers; an old companion -possibly connected with various romantic or diverting events -in Father's life. It is perhaps a relic as well as a -trinket. But because it is not a true tool, because it gives -the man no grip on the creative energies of society, it is, -with all the rest of his self-respect, at the mercy of the -thing called the sack. When he gets the sack from the -water-works, it is only too probable that he win have to -pawn his old cherry-briar. 6.-'Cos he might set the -water-works on fire. And that single line, like the lovely -single lines of the great poets, is so full, so final, so -perfect a picture of all the laws we pass and all the -reasons we give for them, so exact an analysis of the logic -of all our precautions at the present time, that the pen -falls even from the hands of the commentator; and the -masterpiece is left to speak for itself. - -Some such analysis as the above gives a better account than -most of the anomalous attitude and situation of the English -proletarian to-day. It is the more appropriate because it is -expressed in the words he actually uses; which certainly do -not include the word "proletarian." It will be noted that -everything that goes to make up that complexity is in an -unfinished state. Property has not quite vanished; slavery -has not quite arrived; marriage exists under difficulties; -social regimentation exists under restraints, or rather -under subterfuges. The question which remains is which force -is gaining on the other, and whether the old forces are -capable of resisting the new. I hope they are; but I -recognise that they resist under more than one heavy -handicap. The chief of these is that the family feeling of -the workmen is by this time rather an instinct than an -ideal. The obvious thing to protect an ideal is a religion. -The obvious thing to protect the ideal of marriage is the -Christian religion. And for various reasons, which only a -history of England could explain (though it hardly ever -does), the working classes of this country have been very -much cut off from Christianity. I do not dream of denying, -indeed I should take every opportunity of affirming, that -monogamy and its domestic responsibilities can be defended -on rational apart from religious grounds. But a religion is -the practical protection of any moral idea which has to be -popular and which has to be pugnacious. And our ideal, if it -is to survive, will have to be both. - -Those who make merry over the landlady who has seen better -days, of whom something has been said already, commonly -speak, in the same jovial journalese, about her household -goods as her household gods. They would be much startled if -they discovered how right they are. Exactly what is lacking -to the modem materialist is something that can be what the -household gods were to the ancient heathen. The household -gods of the heathen were not only wood and stone; at least -there is always more than that in the stone of the -hearth-stone and the wood of the roof-tree. So long as -Christianity continued the tradition of patron saints and -portable relics, this idea of a blessing on the household -could continue. If men had not domestic divinities, at least -they had divine domesticities. When Christianity was chilled -with Puritanism and rationalism, this inner warmth or secret -fire in the house faded on the hearth. But some of the -embers still glow or at least glimmer; and there is still a -memory among the poor that their material possessions are -something sacred. I know poor men for whom it is the romance -of their lives to refuse big sums of money for an old copper -warming-pan. They do not want it, in any sense of base -utility. They do not use it as a warming-pan; but it warms -them for all that. It is indeed, as Sergeant Buzfuz -humorously observed, a cover for hidden fire. And the fire -is that which burned before the strange and uncouth wooden -gods, like giant dolls, in the huts of ancient Italy. It is -a household god. And I can imagine some such neglected and -unlucky English man dying with his eyes on the red gleam of -that piece of copper, as happier men have died with their -eyes on the golden gleam of a chalice or a cross. - -It will thus be noted that there has always been some -connection between a mystical belief and the materials of -domesticity; that they generally go together; and that now, -in a more mournful sense, they are gone together. The -working classes have no reserves of property with which to -defend their relics of religion. They have no religion with -which to sanctify and dignify their property. Above all, -they are under the enormous disadvantage of being right -without knowing it. They hold their sound principles as if -they were sullen prejudices. They almost secrete their small -property as if it were stolen property. Often a poor woman -will tell a magistrate that she sticks to her husband, With -the defiant and desperate air of a wanton resolved to run -away from her husband. Often she will cry as hopelessly, and -as it were helplessly, when deprived of her child as if she -were a child deprived of her doll. Indeed, a child in the -street, crying for her lost doll, would probably receive -more sympathy than she does. - -Meanwhile the fun goes on; and many such conflicts are -recorded, even in the newspapers, between heart-broken -parents and house-breaking philanthropists; always with one -issue, of course. There are any number of them that never -get into the newspapers. And we have to be flippant about -these things as the only alternative to being rather fierce; -and I have no desire to end on a note of universal ferocity. -I know that many who set such machinery. in motion do so -from motives of sincere but confused compassion, and many -more from a dull but not dishonourable medical or legal -habit. But if I and those who agree with me tend to some -harshness and abruptness of condemnation, these worthy -people need not be altogether impatient with our impatience. -It is surely beneath them, in the scope of their great -schemes, to complain of protests so ineffectual about wrongs -so individual. I have considered in this chapter the chances -of general democratic defence of domestic honour, and have -been compelled to the conclusion that they are not at -present hopeful; and it is at least clear that we cannot be -founding on them any personal hopes. If this conclusion -leaves us defeated, we submit that it leaves us -disinterested. Ours is not the sort of protest, at least, -that promises anything even to the demagogue, let alone the -sycophant. Those we serve will never rule, and those we pity -will never rise. Parliament will never be surrounded by a -mob of submerged grandmothers brandishing pawn-tickets. -There is no trade union of defective children. It is not -very probable that modem government will be overturned by a -few poor dingy devils who are sent to prison by mistake, or -rather by ordinary accident. Surely it is not for those -magnificent Socialists, or those great reformers and -reconstructors of Capitalism, sweeping onward to their -scientific triumphs and caring for none of these things, to -murmur at our vain indignation. At least if it is vain it is -the less venal; and in so far as it is hopeless it is also -thankless. They have their great campaigns and cosmopolitan -systems for the regimentation of millions, and the records -of science and progress. They need not be angry with us, who -plead for those who will never read our words or reward our -effort, even with gratitude. They need surely have no worse -mood towards us than mystification, seeing that in recalling -these small things of broken hearts or homes, we are but -recording what cannot be recorded; trivial tragedies that -will fade faster and faster in the flux of time, cries that -fail in a furious and infinite wind, wild words of despair -that are written only upon running water; unless, indeed, as -some so stubbornly and strangely say, they are somewhere cut -deep into a rock, in the red granite of the wrath of God. +5.---*Of his old Cherry-briar.* Here we have the intermediate and +anomalous position of the institution of Property. The sentiment still +exists, even among the poor, or perhaps especially among the poor. But +it is attached to toys rather than tools; to the minor products rather +than to the means of production. But something of the sanity of +ownership is still to be observed; for instance, the element of custom +and continuity. It was an old cherry-briar; systematically smoked by +Father in spite of all wiles and temptations to Woodbines and gaspers; +an old companion possibly connected with various romantic or diverting +events in Father's life. It is perhaps a relic as well as a trinket. But +because it is not a true tool, because it gives the man no grip on the +creative energies of society, it is, with all the rest of his +self-respect, at the mercy of the thing called the sack. When he gets +the sack from the water-works, it is only too probable that he win have +to pawn his old cherry-briar. 6.-'Cos he might set the water-works on +fire. And that single line, like the lovely single lines of the great +poets, is so full, so final, so perfect a picture of all the laws we +pass and all the reasons we give for them, so exact an analysis of the +logic of all our precautions at the present time, that the pen falls +even from the hands of the commentator; and the masterpiece is left to +speak for itself. + +Some such analysis as the above gives a better account than most of the +anomalous attitude and situation of the English proletarian to-day. It +is the more appropriate because it is expressed in the words he actually +uses; which certainly do not include the word "proletarian." It will be +noted that everything that goes to make up that complexity is in an +unfinished state. Property has not quite vanished; slavery has not quite +arrived; marriage exists under difficulties; social regimentation exists +under restraints, or rather under subterfuges. The question which +remains is which force is gaining on the other, and whether the old +forces are capable of resisting the new. I hope they are; but I +recognise that they resist under more than one heavy handicap. The chief +of these is that the family feeling of the workmen is by this time +rather an instinct than an ideal. The obvious thing to protect an ideal +is a religion. The obvious thing to protect the ideal of marriage is the +Christian religion. And for various reasons, which only a history of +England could explain (though it hardly ever does), the working classes +of this country have been very much cut off from Christianity. I do not +dream of denying, indeed I should take every opportunity of affirming, +that monogamy and its domestic responsibilities can be defended on +rational apart from religious grounds. But a religion is the practical +protection of any moral idea which has to be popular and which has to be +pugnacious. And our ideal, if it is to survive, will have to be both. + +Those who make merry over the landlady who has seen better days, of whom +something has been said already, commonly speak, in the same jovial +journalese, about her household goods as her household gods. They would +be much startled if they discovered how right they are. Exactly what is +lacking to the modem materialist is something that can be what the +household gods were to the ancient heathen. The household gods of the +heathen were not only wood and stone; at least there is always more than +that in the stone of the hearth-stone and the wood of the roof-tree. So +long as Christianity continued the tradition of patron saints and +portable relics, this idea of a blessing on the household could +continue. If men had not domestic divinities, at least they had divine +domesticities. When Christianity was chilled with Puritanism and +rationalism, this inner warmth or secret fire in the house faded on the +hearth. But some of the embers still glow or at least glimmer; and there +is still a memory among the poor that their material possessions are +something sacred. I know poor men for whom it is the romance of their +lives to refuse big sums of money for an old copper warming-pan. They do +not want it, in any sense of base utility. They do not use it as a +warming-pan; but it warms them for all that. It is indeed, as Sergeant +Buzfuz humorously observed, a cover for hidden fire. And the fire is +that which burned before the strange and uncouth wooden gods, like giant +dolls, in the huts of ancient Italy. It is a household god. And I can +imagine some such neglected and unlucky English man dying with his eyes +on the red gleam of that piece of copper, as happier men have died with +their eyes on the golden gleam of a chalice or a cross. + +It will thus be noted that there has always been some connection between +a mystical belief and the materials of domesticity; that they generally +go together; and that now, in a more mournful sense, they are gone +together. The working classes have no reserves of property with which to +defend their relics of religion. They have no religion with which to +sanctify and dignify their property. Above all, they are under the +enormous disadvantage of being right without knowing it. They hold their +sound principles as if they were sullen prejudices. They almost secrete +their small property as if it were stolen property. Often a poor woman +will tell a magistrate that she sticks to her husband, With the defiant +and desperate air of a wanton resolved to run away from her husband. +Often she will cry as hopelessly, and as it were helplessly, when +deprived of her child as if she were a child deprived of her doll. +Indeed, a child in the street, crying for her lost doll, would probably +receive more sympathy than she does. + +Meanwhile the fun goes on; and many such conflicts are recorded, even in +the newspapers, between heart-broken parents and house-breaking +philanthropists; always with one issue, of course. There are any number +of them that never get into the newspapers. And we have to be flippant +about these things as the only alternative to being rather fierce; and I +have no desire to end on a note of universal ferocity. I know that many +who set such machinery. in motion do so from motives of sincere but +confused compassion, and many more from a dull but not dishonourable +medical or legal habit. But if I and those who agree with me tend to +some harshness and abruptness of condemnation, these worthy people need +not be altogether impatient with our impatience. It is surely beneath +them, in the scope of their great schemes, to complain of protests so +ineffectual about wrongs so individual. I have considered in this +chapter the chances of general democratic defence of domestic honour, +and have been compelled to the conclusion that they are not at present +hopeful; and it is at least clear that we cannot be founding on them any +personal hopes. If this conclusion leaves us defeated, we submit that it +leaves us disinterested. Ours is not the sort of protest, at least, that +promises anything even to the demagogue, let alone the sycophant. Those +we serve will never rule, and those we pity will never rise. Parliament +will never be surrounded by a mob of submerged grandmothers brandishing +pawn-tickets. There is no trade union of defective children. It is not +very probable that modem government will be overturned by a few poor +dingy devils who are sent to prison by mistake, or rather by ordinary +accident. Surely it is not for those magnificent Socialists, or those +great reformers and reconstructors of Capitalism, sweeping onward to +their scientific triumphs and caring for none of these things, to murmur +at our vain indignation. At least if it is vain it is the less venal; +and in so far as it is hopeless it is also thankless. They have their +great campaigns and cosmopolitan systems for the regimentation of +millions, and the records of science and progress. They need not be +angry with us, who plead for those who will never read our words or +reward our effort, even with gratitude. They need surely have no worse +mood towards us than mystification, seeing that in recalling these small +things of broken hearts or homes, we are but recording what cannot be +recorded; trivial tragedies that will fade faster and faster in the flux +of time, cries that fail in a furious and infinite wind, wild words of +despair that are written only upon running water; unless, indeed, as +some so stubbornly and strangely say, they are somewhere cut deep into a +rock, in the red granite of the wrath of God. ## A Short Chapter -Round about the year 1913 Eugenics was turned from a fad to -a fashion. Then, if I may so summarise the situation, the -joke began in earnest. The organising mind which we have -seen considering the problem of slum population, the popular -material and the possibility of protests, felt that the time -had come to open the campaign. Eugenics began to appear in -big headlines in the daily Press, and big pictures in the -illustrated papers. A foreign gentleman named Bolce, living -at Hampstead, was advertised on a huge scale as having every -intention of being the father of the Superman. It turned out -to be a Superwoman, and was called Eugenette. The parents -were described as devoting themselves to the production of -perfect pre-natal conditions. They "eliminated everything -from their lives which did not tend towards complete -happiness." Many might indeed be ready to do this; but in -the voluminous contemporary journalism on the subject I can -find no detailed notes about how it is done. Communications -were opened with r. H. G. Wells, with Dr. Saleeby, and -apparently with Dr. Karl Pearson. Every quality desired in -the ideal baby was carefully cultivated in the parents. The -problem of a sense of humour was felt to be a matter of -great gravity. The Eugenist couple, naturally fearing they -might be deficient on this side, were so truly scientific as -to have resort to specialists. To cultivate a sense of fun, -they visited Harry Lauder, and then Wilkie Bard, and -afterwards George Robey; but all, it would appear, in vain. -To the newspaper reader, however, it looked as if the names -of Metchnikoff and Steinmetz and Karl Pearson would soon be -quite as familiar as those of Robey and Lauder and Bard. -Arguments about these Eugenic authorities, reports of the -controversies at the Eugenic Congress, filled countless -columns. The fact that Mr. BoIce, the creator of perfect -pre-natal conditions, was afterwards sued in a law-court for -keeping his own flat in conditions of filth and neglect, -cast but a slight and momentary shadow upon the splendid -dawn of the science. It would be vain to record any of the -thousand testimonies to its triumph. In the nature of -things, this should be the longest chapter in the book, or -rather the beginning of another book. It should record, in -numberless examples, the triumphant popularisation of -Eugenics in England. But as a matter of fact this is not the -first chapter but the last. And this must be a very short -chapter, because the whole of this story was cut short. A -very curious thing happened. England went to war. - -This would in itself have been a sufficiently irritating -interruption in the early life of Eugenette, and in the -early establishment of Eugenics. But a far more dreadful and -disconcerting fact must he noted. With whom, alas, did -England go to war? England went to war with the Superman in -his native home. She went to war with that very land of -scientific culture from which the very ideal of a Superman -had come. She went to war with the whole of Dr. Steinmetz, -and presumably with at least half of Dr. Karl Pearson. She -gave battle to the birthplace of nine-tenths of the -professors who were the prophets of the new hope of -humanity. In a few weeks the very name of a professor was a -matter for hissing and low plebeian mirth. The very name of -Nietzsche, who had held up this hope of something superhuman -to humanity, was laughed at for all the world as if he had -been touched with lunacy. A new mood came upon the whole -people; a mood of marching, of spontaneous soldierly -vigilance and democratic discipline, moving to the faint -tune of bugles far away. Men began to talk strangely of old -and common things, of the counties of England, of its quiet -landscapes, of motherhood and the half-buried religion of -the race. Death shone on the land like a new daylight, -making all things vivid and visibly dear. And in the -presence of this awful actuality it seemed, somehow or -other, as if even Mr. BoIce and the Eugenic baby were things -unaccountably far-away and almost, if one may say so, funny. - -Such a revulsion requires explanation, and it may he briefly -given. There was a province of Europe which had carried -nearer to perfection than any other the type of order and -foresight that are the subject of this book. It had long -been the model State of all those more rational moralists -who saw in science the ordered salvation of society. It was -admittedly ahead of all other States in social reform. All -the systematic social reforms were professedly and proudly -borrowed from it. Therefore when this province of Prussia -found it convenient to extend its imperial system to the -neighbouring and neutral State of Belgium, an these -scientific enthusiasts had a privilege not always granted to -mere theorists. They had the gratification of seeing their -great Utopia at work, on a grand scale and very close at -hand. They had not to wait, like other evolutionary -idealists, for the slow approach of something nearer to -their dreams; or to leave it merely as a promise to -posterity. They had not to wait for it as for a distant -thing like the vision of a future state; but in the flesh -they had seen their Paradise. And they were very silent for -five years. - -The thing died at last, and the stench of it stank to the -sky. It might be thought that so terrible a savour would -never altogether leave the memories of men; but men's -memories are unstable things. It may be that gradually these -dazed dupes will gather again together, and attempt again to -believe their dreams and disbelieve their eyes. There may be -some whose love of slavery is so ideal and disinterested -that they are loyal to it even in its defeat. Wherever a -fragment of that broken chain is found, they will be found -hugging it. But there are limits set in the everlasting -mercy to him who has been once deceived and a second time -deceives himself. They have seen their paragons of science -and organisation playing their part on land and sea; showing -their love of learning at Louvain and their love of humanity -at Lille. For a time at least they ha ve believed the -testimony of their senses. And if they do not believe now, -neither would they believe though one rose from the dead; -though all the millions who died to destroy Prussianism -stood up and testified against it. +Round about the year 1913 Eugenics was turned from a fad to a fashion. +Then, if I may so summarise the situation, the joke began in earnest. +The organising mind which we have seen considering the problem of slum +population, the popular material and the possibility of protests, felt +that the time had come to open the campaign. Eugenics began to appear in +big headlines in the daily Press, and big pictures in the illustrated +papers. A foreign gentleman named Bolce, living at Hampstead, was +advertised on a huge scale as having every intention of being the father +of the Superman. It turned out to be a Superwoman, and was called +Eugenette. The parents were described as devoting themselves to the +production of perfect pre-natal conditions. They "eliminated everything +from their lives which did not tend towards complete happiness." Many +might indeed be ready to do this; but in the voluminous contemporary +journalism on the subject I can find no detailed notes about how it is +done. Communications were opened with r. H. G. Wells, with Dr. Saleeby, +and apparently with Dr. Karl Pearson. Every quality desired in the ideal +baby was carefully cultivated in the parents. The problem of a sense of +humour was felt to be a matter of great gravity. The Eugenist couple, +naturally fearing they might be deficient on this side, were so truly +scientific as to have resort to specialists. To cultivate a sense of +fun, they visited Harry Lauder, and then Wilkie Bard, and afterwards +George Robey; but all, it would appear, in vain. To the newspaper +reader, however, it looked as if the names of Metchnikoff and Steinmetz +and Karl Pearson would soon be quite as familiar as those of Robey and +Lauder and Bard. Arguments about these Eugenic authorities, reports of +the controversies at the Eugenic Congress, filled countless columns. The +fact that Mr. BoIce, the creator of perfect pre-natal conditions, was +afterwards sued in a law-court for keeping his own flat in conditions of +filth and neglect, cast but a slight and momentary shadow upon the +splendid dawn of the science. It would be vain to record any of the +thousand testimonies to its triumph. In the nature of things, this +should be the longest chapter in the book, or rather the beginning of +another book. It should record, in numberless examples, the triumphant +popularisation of Eugenics in England. But as a matter of fact this is +not the first chapter but the last. And this must be a very short +chapter, because the whole of this story was cut short. A very curious +thing happened. England went to war. + +This would in itself have been a sufficiently irritating interruption in +the early life of Eugenette, and in the early establishment of Eugenics. +But a far more dreadful and disconcerting fact must he noted. With whom, +alas, did England go to war? England went to war with the Superman in +his native home. She went to war with that very land of scientific +culture from which the very ideal of a Superman had come. She went to +war with the whole of Dr. Steinmetz, and presumably with at least half +of Dr. Karl Pearson. She gave battle to the birthplace of nine-tenths of +the professors who were the prophets of the new hope of humanity. In a +few weeks the very name of a professor was a matter for hissing and low +plebeian mirth. The very name of Nietzsche, who had held up this hope of +something superhuman to humanity, was laughed at for all the world as if +he had been touched with lunacy. A new mood came upon the whole people; +a mood of marching, of spontaneous soldierly vigilance and democratic +discipline, moving to the faint tune of bugles far away. Men began to +talk strangely of old and common things, of the counties of England, of +its quiet landscapes, of motherhood and the half-buried religion of the +race. Death shone on the land like a new daylight, making all things +vivid and visibly dear. And in the presence of this awful actuality it +seemed, somehow or other, as if even Mr. BoIce and the Eugenic baby were +things unaccountably far-away and almost, if one may say so, funny. + +Such a revulsion requires explanation, and it may he briefly given. +There was a province of Europe which had carried nearer to perfection +than any other the type of order and foresight that are the subject of +this book. It had long been the model State of all those more rational +moralists who saw in science the ordered salvation of society. It was +admittedly ahead of all other States in social reform. All the +systematic social reforms were professedly and proudly borrowed from it. +Therefore when this province of Prussia found it convenient to extend +its imperial system to the neighbouring and neutral State of Belgium, an +these scientific enthusiasts had a privilege not always granted to mere +theorists. They had the gratification of seeing their great Utopia at +work, on a grand scale and very close at hand. They had not to wait, +like other evolutionary idealists, for the slow approach of something +nearer to their dreams; or to leave it merely as a promise to posterity. +They had not to wait for it as for a distant thing like the vision of a +future state; but in the flesh they had seen their Paradise. And they +were very silent for five years. + +The thing died at last, and the stench of it stank to the sky. It might +be thought that so terrible a savour would never altogether leave the +memories of men; but men's memories are unstable things. It may be that +gradually these dazed dupes will gather again together, and attempt +again to believe their dreams and disbelieve their eyes. There may be +some whose love of slavery is so ideal and disinterested that they are +loyal to it even in its defeat. Wherever a fragment of that broken chain +is found, they will be found hugging it. But there are limits set in the +everlasting mercy to him who has been once deceived and a second time +deceives himself. They have seen their paragons of science and +organisation playing their part on land and sea; showing their love of +learning at Louvain and their love of humanity at Lille. For a time at +least they ha ve believed the testimony of their senses. And if they do +not believe now, neither would they believe though one rose from the +dead; though all the millions who died to destroy Prussianism stood up +and testified against it. diff --git a/src/everlasting-man.md b/src/everlasting-man.md index b14d316..839e840 100644 --- a/src/everlasting-man.md +++ b/src/everlasting-man.md @@ -1,7649 +1,6398 @@ ## Prefatory Note -This book needs a preliminary note that its scope be not -misunderstood. The view suggested is historical rather than -theological, and does not deal directly with a religious -change which has been the chief event of my own life; and -about which I am already writing a more purely controversial -volume. It is impossible, I hope, for any Catholic to write -any book on any subject, above all this subject, without -showing that he is a Catholic; but this study is not -specially concerned with the differences between a Catholic -and a Protestant. Much of it is devoted to many sorts of -Pagans rather than any sort of Christians; and its thesis is -that those who say that Christ stands side by side with -similar myths, and his religion side by side with similar -religions, are only repeating a very stale formula -contradicted by a very striking fact. To suggest this I have -not needed to go much beyond matters known to us all; I make -no claim to learning; and have to depend for some things, as -has rather become the fashion, on those who are more -learned. As I have more than once differed from Mr. H. G. -Wells in his view of history, it is the more right that I -should here congratulate him on the courage and constructive -imagination which carried through his vast and varied and -intensely interesting work; but still more on having -asserted the reasonable right of the amateur to do what he -can with the facts which the specialists provide. +This book needs a preliminary note that its scope be not misunderstood. +The view suggested is historical rather than theological, and does not +deal directly with a religious change which has been the chief event of +my own life; and about which I am already writing a more purely +controversial volume. It is impossible, I hope, for any Catholic to +write any book on any subject, above all this subject, without showing +that he is a Catholic; but this study is not specially concerned with +the differences between a Catholic and a Protestant. Much of it is +devoted to many sorts of Pagans rather than any sort of Christians; and +its thesis is that those who say that Christ stands side by side with +similar myths, and his religion side by side with similar religions, are +only repeating a very stale formula contradicted by a very striking +fact. To suggest this I have not needed to go much beyond matters known +to us all; I make no claim to learning; and have to depend for some +things, as has rather become the fashion, on those who are more learned. +As I have more than once differed from Mr. H. G. Wells in his view of +history, it is the more right that I should here congratulate him on the +courage and constructive imagination which carried through his vast and +varied and intensely interesting work; but still more on having asserted +the reasonable right of the amateur to do what he can with the facts +which the specialists provide. ## Introduction: The Plan of this Book -There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to -stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till -we come back to the same place; and I tried to trace such a -journey in a story I once wrote. It is, however, a relief to -turn from that topic to another story that I never wrote. -Like every book I never wrote, it is by far the best book I -have ever written. It is only too probable that I shall -never write it, so I will use it symbolically here; for it -was a symbol of the same truth. I conceived it as a romance -of those vast valleys with sloping sides, like those along -which the ancient White Horses of Wessex are scrawled along -the flanks of the hills. It concerned some boy whose farm or -cottage stood on such a slope, and who went on his travels -to find something, such as the effigy and grave of some -giant; and when he was far enough from home he looked back -and saw that his own farm and kitchen-garden, shining flat -on the hill-side like the colours and quarterings of a -shield, were but parts of some such gigantic figure, on -which he had always lived, but which was too large and too -close to be seen. That, I think, is a true picture of the -progress of any real independent intelligence to-day; and -that is the point of this book. - -The point of this book, in other words, is that the next -best thing to being really inside Christendom is to be -really outside it. And a particular point o it is that the -popular critics of Christianity are not really outside it. -They are on a debatable ground, in every sense of the term. -They are doubtful in their very doubts. Their criticism has -taken on a curious tone; as of a random and illiterate -heckling. Thus they make current an anti-clerical cant as a -sort of small-talk. They will complain of parsons dressing -like parsons; as if we should be any more free if all the -police who shadowed or collared us were plain-clothes -detectives. Or they will complain that a sermon cannot be -interrupted, and call a pulpit a coward's castle; though -they do not call an editor's office a coward's castle. It -would be unjust both to journalists and priests; but it -would be much truer of journalists. The clergyman appears in -person and could easily be kicked as he came out of church; -the journalist conceals even his name so that nobody can -kick him. They write wild and pointless articles and letters -in the press about why the churches are empty, without even -going there to find out if they are empty, or which of them -are empty. Their suggestions are more vapid and vacant than -the most insipid curate in a three-act farce, and move us to -comfort him after the manner of the curate in the Bab -Ballads: "Your mind is not so blank as that of Hopley -Porter." So we may truly say to the very feeblest cleric: -"Your mind is not so blank as that of Indignant Layman or -Plain Man or Man in the Street, or any of your critics in -the newspapers; for they have not the most shadowy notion of -what they want themselves, let alone of what you ought to -give them." They will suddenly turn round and revile the -Church for not having prevented the War, which they -themselves did not want to prevent; and which nobody had -ever professed to be able to prevent, except some of that -very school of progressive and cosmopolitan sceptics who are -the chief enemies of the Church. It was the anticlerical and -agnostic world that was always prophesying the advent of -universal peace; it is that world that was, or should have -been, abashed and confounded by the advent of universal war. -As for the general view that the Church was discredited by -the War they might as well say that the Ark was discredited -by the Flood. When the world goes wrong, it proves rather -that the Church is right. The Church is justified, not -because her children do not sin, but because they do. But -that marks their mood about the whole religious tradition; -they are in a state of reaction against it. It is well with -the boy when he lives on his father's land; and well with -him again when he is far enough from it to look back on it -and see it as a whole. But these people have got into an -intermediate state, have fallen into an intervening valley -from which they can see neither the heights beyond them nor -the heights behind. They cannot get out of the penumbra of -Christian controversy. They cannot be Christians and they -cannot leave off being Anti-Christians. Their whole -atmosphere is the atmosphere of a reaction: sulks, -perversity, petty criticism. They still live in the shadow -of the faith and have lost the light of the faith. - -Now the best relation to our spiritual home is to be near -enough to love it. But the next best is to be far enough -away not to hate it. It is the contention of these pages -that while the best judge of Christianity is a Christian, -the next best judge would be something more like a -Confucian. The worst judge of all is the man now most ready -with his judgments; the ill-educated Christian turning -gradually into the ill-tempered agnostic, entangled in the -end of a feud of which he never understood the beginning, -blighted with a sort of hereditary boredom with he knows not -what, and already weary of hearing what he has never heard. -He does not judge Christianity calmly as a Confucian would; -he does not judge it as he would judge Confucianism. He -cannot by an effort of fancy set the Catholic Church -thousands of miles away in strange skies of morning and -judge it as impartially as a Chinese pagoda. It is said that -the great St. Francis Xavier, who very nearly succeeded in -setting up the Church there as a tower overtopping all -pagodas, failed partly because his followers were accused by -their fellow missionaries of representing the Twelve -Apostles with the garb or attributes of Chinamen. But it -would be far better to see them as Chinamen, and judge them -fairly as Chinamen, than to see them as featureless idols -merely made to be battered by iconoclasts; or rather as -cockshies to be pelted by empty-headed cockneys. It would be -better to see the whole thing as a remote Asiatic cult; the -mitres of its bishops -as the towering head-dresses of -mysterious bonzes; its pastoral staffs as the sticks twisted -like serpents carried in some Asiatic procession; to see the -prayer-book as fantastic as the prayer-wheel and the Cross -as crooked as the Swastika. Then at east we should not lose -our temper as some of the sceptical critics seem to lose -their temper, not to mention their wits. Their -anti-clericalism has become an atmosphere, an atmosphere of -negation and hostility from which they cannot escape. -Compared with that, it would be better to see the whole -thing as something belonging to another continent, or to -another planet. It would be more philosophical to stare -indifferently at bonzes than to be perpetually and -pointlessly grumbling at bishops. It would be better to walk -past a church as if it were a pagoda than to stand -permanently in the porch, impotent either to go inside and -help or to go outside and forget. For those in whom a mere -reaction has thus become an obsession, I do seriously -recommend the imaginative effort of conceiving the Twelve -Apostles as Chinamen. In other words, I recommend these -critics to try to do as much justice to Christian saints as -if they were Pagan sages. - -But with this we come to the final and vital point. I shall -try to show in these pages that when we do make this -imaginative effort to see the whole thing from the outside, -we find that it really looks like what is traditionally said -about it inside. It is exactly when the boy gets far enough -off to see the giant that he sees that he really is a giant. -It is exactly when we do at last see the Christian Church -afar under those clear and level eastern skies that we see -that it is really the Church of Christ. To put it shortly, -the moment we are really impartial about it we know why -people are partial to it. But this second proposition -requires more serious discussion; and I shall here set -myself to discuss it. - -As soon as I had clearly in my mind this conception of -something solid in the solitary and unique character of the -divine story, it struck me that there was exactly the same -strange and yet solid character in the human story that had -led up to it; because that human story also had a root that -was divine. I mean that just as the Church seems to grow -more remarkable when it is fairly compared with the common -religious life of mankind, so mankind itself seems to grow -more remarkable when we compare it with the common life of -nature. And I have noticed that most modern history is -driven to something like sophistry, first to soften the -sharp transition from animals to men, and then to soften the -sharp transition from heathens to Christians. Now the more -we really read in a realistic spirit of those two -transitions the sharper we shall find them to be. It is -because the critics are not detached that they do not see -this detachment; it is because they are not looking at -things in a dry light that they cannot see the difference -between black and white. It is because they are in a -particular mood of reaction and revolt that they have a -motive for making out that all the white is dirty grey and -the black not so black as it is painted. I do not say there -are not human excuses for their revolt; I do not say it is -not in some ways sympathetic; what I say is that it is not -in any way scientific. An iconoclast may be indignant; an -iconoclast may be justly indignant; but an iconoclast is not -impartial. And it is stark hypocrisy to pretend that -nine-tenths of the higher critics and scientific -evolutionists and professors of comparative religion are in -the least impartial. Why should they be impartial, what is -being impartial, when the whole world is at war about -whether one thing is a devouring superstition or a divine -hope? I do not pretend to be impartial in the sense that the -final act of faith fixes a man's mind because it satisfies -his mind. But I do profess to be a great deal more impartial -than they are; in the sense that I can tell the story -fairly, with some sort of imaginative justice to all sides; -and they cannot. I do profess to be impartial in the sense -that I should be ashamed to talk such nonsense about the -Lama of Tibet as they do about the Pope of Rome, or to have -as little sympathy with Julian the Apostate as they have -with the Society of Jesus. They are not impartial; they -never by any chance hold the historical scales even; and -above all they are never impartial upon this point of -evolution and transition. They suggest everywhere the grey -gradations of twilight, because they believe it is the -twilight of the gods. I propose to maintain that whether or -no it is the twilight of gods, it is not the daylight of -men. +There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. +The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same +place; and I tried to trace such a journey in a story I once wrote. It +is, however, a relief to turn from that topic to another story that I +never wrote. Like every book I never wrote, it is by far the best book I +have ever written. It is only too probable that I shall never write it, +so I will use it symbolically here; for it was a symbol of the same +truth. I conceived it as a romance of those vast valleys with sloping +sides, like those along which the ancient White Horses of Wessex are +scrawled along the flanks of the hills. It concerned some boy whose farm +or cottage stood on such a slope, and who went on his travels to find +something, such as the effigy and grave of some giant; and when he was +far enough from home he looked back and saw that his own farm and +kitchen-garden, shining flat on the hill-side like the colours and +quarterings of a shield, were but parts of some such gigantic figure, on +which he had always lived, but which was too large and too close to be +seen. That, I think, is a true picture of the progress of any real +independent intelligence to-day; and that is the point of this book. + +The point of this book, in other words, is that the next best thing to +being really inside Christendom is to be really outside it. And a +particular point o it is that the popular critics of Christianity are +not really outside it. They are on a debatable ground, in every sense of +the term. They are doubtful in their very doubts. Their criticism has +taken on a curious tone; as of a random and illiterate heckling. Thus +they make current an anti-clerical cant as a sort of small-talk. They +will complain of parsons dressing like parsons; as if we should be any +more free if all the police who shadowed or collared us were +plain-clothes detectives. Or they will complain that a sermon cannot be +interrupted, and call a pulpit a coward's castle; though they do not +call an editor's office a coward's castle. It would be unjust both to +journalists and priests; but it would be much truer of journalists. The +clergyman appears in person and could easily be kicked as he came out of +church; the journalist conceals even his name so that nobody can kick +him. They write wild and pointless articles and letters in the press +about why the churches are empty, without even going there to find out +if they are empty, or which of them are empty. Their suggestions are +more vapid and vacant than the most insipid curate in a three-act farce, +and move us to comfort him after the manner of the curate in the Bab +Ballads: "Your mind is not so blank as that of Hopley Porter." So we may +truly say to the very feeblest cleric: "Your mind is not so blank as +that of Indignant Layman or Plain Man or Man in the Street, or any of +your critics in the newspapers; for they have not the most shadowy +notion of what they want themselves, let alone of what you ought to give +them." They will suddenly turn round and revile the Church for not +having prevented the War, which they themselves did not want to prevent; +and which nobody had ever professed to be able to prevent, except some +of that very school of progressive and cosmopolitan sceptics who are the +chief enemies of the Church. It was the anticlerical and agnostic world +that was always prophesying the advent of universal peace; it is that +world that was, or should have been, abashed and confounded by the +advent of universal war. As for the general view that the Church was +discredited by the War they might as well say that the Ark was +discredited by the Flood. When the world goes wrong, it proves rather +that the Church is right. The Church is justified, not because her +children do not sin, but because they do. But that marks their mood +about the whole religious tradition; they are in a state of reaction +against it. It is well with the boy when he lives on his father's land; +and well with him again when he is far enough from it to look back on it +and see it as a whole. But these people have got into an intermediate +state, have fallen into an intervening valley from which they can see +neither the heights beyond them nor the heights behind. They cannot get +out of the penumbra of Christian controversy. They cannot be Christians +and they cannot leave off being Anti-Christians. Their whole atmosphere +is the atmosphere of a reaction: sulks, perversity, petty criticism. +They still live in the shadow of the faith and have lost the light of +the faith. + +Now the best relation to our spiritual home is to be near enough to love +it. But the next best is to be far enough away not to hate it. It is the +contention of these pages that while the best judge of Christianity is a +Christian, the next best judge would be something more like a Confucian. +The worst judge of all is the man now most ready with his judgments; the +ill-educated Christian turning gradually into the ill-tempered agnostic, +entangled in the end of a feud of which he never understood the +beginning, blighted with a sort of hereditary boredom with he knows not +what, and already weary of hearing what he has never heard. He does not +judge Christianity calmly as a Confucian would; he does not judge it as +he would judge Confucianism. He cannot by an effort of fancy set the +Catholic Church thousands of miles away in strange skies of morning and +judge it as impartially as a Chinese pagoda. It is said that the great +St. Francis Xavier, who very nearly succeeded in setting up the Church +there as a tower overtopping all pagodas, failed partly because his +followers were accused by their fellow missionaries of representing the +Twelve Apostles with the garb or attributes of Chinamen. But it would be +far better to see them as Chinamen, and judge them fairly as Chinamen, +than to see them as featureless idols merely made to be battered by +iconoclasts; or rather as cockshies to be pelted by empty-headed +cockneys. It would be better to see the whole thing as a remote Asiatic +cult; the mitres of its bishops -as the towering head-dresses of +mysterious bonzes; its pastoral staffs as the sticks twisted like +serpents carried in some Asiatic procession; to see the prayer-book as +fantastic as the prayer-wheel and the Cross as crooked as the Swastika. +Then at east we should not lose our temper as some of the sceptical +critics seem to lose their temper, not to mention their wits. Their +anti-clericalism has become an atmosphere, an atmosphere of negation and +hostility from which they cannot escape. Compared with that, it would be +better to see the whole thing as something belonging to another +continent, or to another planet. It would be more philosophical to stare +indifferently at bonzes than to be perpetually and pointlessly grumbling +at bishops. It would be better to walk past a church as if it were a +pagoda than to stand permanently in the porch, impotent either to go +inside and help or to go outside and forget. For those in whom a mere +reaction has thus become an obsession, I do seriously recommend the +imaginative effort of conceiving the Twelve Apostles as Chinamen. In +other words, I recommend these critics to try to do as much justice to +Christian saints as if they were Pagan sages. + +But with this we come to the final and vital point. I shall try to show +in these pages that when we do make this imaginative effort to see the +whole thing from the outside, we find that it really looks like what is +traditionally said about it inside. It is exactly when the boy gets far +enough off to see the giant that he sees that he really is a giant. It +is exactly when we do at last see the Christian Church afar under those +clear and level eastern skies that we see that it is really the Church +of Christ. To put it shortly, the moment we are really impartial about +it we know why people are partial to it. But this second proposition +requires more serious discussion; and I shall here set myself to discuss +it. -I maintain that when brought out into the daylight, these -two things look altogether strange and unique; and that it -is only in the false twilight of an imaginary period of -transition that they can be made to look in the least like -anything else. The first of these is the creature called -man, and the second is the man called Christ. I have -therefore divided this book into two parts: the former being -a sketch of the main adventure of the human race in so far -as it remained heathen; and the second a summary of the real -difference that was made by it becoming Christian. Both -motives necessitate a certain method, a method which is not -very easy to manage, and perhaps even less easy to define or -defend. - -In order to strike, in the only sane or possible sense, the -note of impartiality, it is necessary to touch the nerve of -novelty. I mean that in one sense we see things fairly when -we see them first. That, I may remark in passing, is why -children generally have very little difficulty about the -dogmas of the Church. But the Church, being a highly -practical thing for working and fighting, is necessarily a -thing for men and not merely for children. There must be in -it for working purposes a great deal of tradition, of -familiarity, and even of routine. So long as its -fundamentals are sincerely felt, this may even be the saner -condition. But when its fundamentals are doubted, as at -present, we must try to recover the candour and wonder of -the child; the unspoilt realism and objectivity of -innocence. Or if we cannot do that, we must try at least to -shake off the cloud of mere custom and see the thing as new, -if only by seeing it as unnatural. Things that may well be -familiar so long as familiarity breeds-affection had much -better become unfamiliar when familiarity breeds contempt. -For in connection with things so great as are here -considered, whatever our view of them, contempt must be a -mistake. Indeed contempt must be an illusion. We must invoke -the most wild and soaring sort of imagination; the -imagination that can see what is there. - -The only way to suggest the point is by an example of -something, indeed of almost anything, that has been -considered beautiful or wonderful. George Wyndham once told -me that he had seen one of the first aeroplanes rise for the -first time, and it was very wonderful; but not so wonderful -as a horse allowing a man to ride on him. Somebody else has -said that a fine man on a fine horse is the noblest bodily -object in the world. Now, so long as people feel this in the -right way, all is well. The first and best way of -appreciating it is to come of people with a tradition of -treating animals properly; of men in the right relation to -horses. A boy who remembers his father who rode a horse, who -rode it well and treated it well, will know that the -relation can be satisfactory and will be satisfied. He will -be all the more indignant at the ill-treatment of horses -because he knows how they ought to be treated; but he will -see nothing but what is normal in a man riding on a horse. -He will not listen to the great modern philosopher who -explains to him that the horse ought to be riding on the -man. He will not pursue the pessimist fancy of Swift and say -that men must be despised as monkeys, and horses worshipped -as gods. And horse and man together making an image that is -to him human and civilised, it will be easy, as it were, to -lift horse and man together into something heroic or -symbolical; like a vision of St. George in the clouds. The -fable of the winged horse will not be wholly unnatural to -him; and he will know why Ariosto set many a Christian hero -in such an airy saddle, and made him the rider of the sky. -For the horse has really been lifted up along with the man -in the wildest fashion in the very word we use when we speak -of "chivalry." The very name of the horse has been given to -the highest mood and moment of the man; so that we might -almost say that the handsomest compliment to a man is to -call him a horse. - -But if a man has got into a mood in which he is not able to -feel this sort of wonder, then his cure must begin right at -the other end. We must now suppose that he has drifted into -a dull mood, in which somebody sitting on a horse means no -more than somebody sitting on a chair. The wonder of which -Wyndham spoke, the beauty that made the thing seem an -equestrian statue, the meaning of the more chivalric -horseman, may have become to him merely a convention and a -bore. Perhaps they have been merely a fashion; perhaps they -have gone out of fashion; perhaps they have been talked -about too much or talked about in the wrong way; perhaps it -was then difficult to care for horses without the horrible -risk of being horsy. Anyhow, he has got into a condition -when he cares no more for a horse than for a towel-horse. -His grandfather's charge at Balaclava seems to him as dull -and dusty as the album containing such family portraits. -Such a person has not really become enlightened about the -album; on the contrary, he has only become blind with the -dust. But when he has reached that degree of blindness, he -will not be able to look at a horse or a horseman at all -until he has seen the whole thing as a thing entirely -unfamiliar and almost unearthly. - -Out of some dark forest under some ancient dawn there must -come towards us, with lumbering yet dancing motions, one of -the very queerest of the prehistoric creatures. We must see -for the first time the strangely small head set on a neck -not only longer but thicker than itself, as the face of a -gargoyle is thrust out upon a gutter-spout, the one -disproportionate crest of hair running along the ridge of -that heavy neck like a beard in the wrong place; the feet, -each like a solid club of horn, alone amid the feet of so -many cattle; so that the true fear is to be found in showing -not the cloven but the uncloven hoof. Nor is it mere verbal -fancy to see him thus as a unique monster; for in a sense a -monster means what is unique, and he is really unique. But -the point is that when we thus see him as the first man saw -him, we begin once more to have s\<\*me imaginative sense of -what it meant when the first man rode him. In such a dream -he may seem ugly, but he does not seem unimpressive; and -certainly that two-legged dwarf who could get on top of him -will not seem unimpressive. By a longer and more erratic -road we shall come back to the same marvel of the man and -the horse; and the marvel will be, if possible, even more -marvellous. We shall have again a glimpse of St. George; the -more glorious because St. George is not riding on the horse, -but rather riding on the dragon. - -In this example, which I have taken merely because it is an -example, it will be noted that I do not say that the -nightmare seen by the first man of the forest is either more -true or more wonderful than the normal mare of the stable -seen by the civilised person who can appreciate what is -normal. Of the two extremes, I think on the whole that the -traditional grasp of truth is the better. But I say that the -truth is found at one or other of these two extremes, and is -lost in the intermediate condition of mere fatigue and -forgetfulness of tradition. In other words, I say it is -better to see a horse as a monster than to see it only as a -slow substitute for a motor-car. If we have got into that -state of mind about a horse as something stale, it is far -better to be frightened of a horse because it is a good deal -too fresh. - -Now, as it is with the monster that is called a horse, so it -is with the monster that is called a man. Of course the best -condition of all, in my opinion, is always to have regarded -man as he is regarded in my philosophy. He who holds the -Christian and Catholic view of human nature will feel -certain that it is a universal and therefore a sane view, -and will be satisfied. But if he has lost the sane vision, -he can only get it back by something very like a mad vision; -that is, by seeing man as a strange animal and realising how -strange an animal he is. But just as seeing the horse as a -prehistoric prodigy ultimately led back to, and not away -from, an admiration for the mastery of man, so the really -detached consideration of the curious career of man will -lead back to, and not away from, the ancient faith in the -dark designs of God. In other words, it is exactly when we -do see how queer the quadruped is that we praise the man who -mounts him; and exactly when we do see how queer the biped -is that we praise the Providence that made him. - -In short, it is the purpose of this introduction to maintain -this thesis: that it is exactly when we do regard man as an -animal that we know he is not an animal. It is precisely -when we do try to picture him as a sort of horse on its hind -legs that we suddenly realise that he must be something as -miraculous as the winged horse that towered up into the -clouds of heaven. All roads lead to Rome, all ways lead -round again to the central and civilised philosophy, -including this road through elfland and topsyturvydom. But -it may be that it is better never to have left the land of a -reasonable tradition, where men ride lightly upon horses and -are mighty hunters before the Lord. - -So also in the specially Christian case we have to react -against the heavy bias of fatigue. It is almost impossible -to make the facts vivid, because the facts are familiar; and -for fallen men it is often true that familiarity is fatigue. -I am convinced that if we could tell the supernatural story -of Christ word for word as of a Chinese hero call him the -Son of Heaven instead of the Son of God, and trace his rayed -nimbus in the gold thread of Chinese embroideries or the -gold lacquer of Chinese pottery instead of in the gold leaf -of our own old Catholic paintings, there would be a -unanimous testimony to the spiritual purity of the story. We -should hear nothing then of the injustice of substitution or -the illogicality of atonement, of the superstitious -exaggeration of the burden of sin or the impossible -insolence of an invasion of the laws of nature. We should -admire the chivalry of the Chinese conception of a god who -fell from the sky to fight the dragons and save the wicked -from being devoured by their own fault and folly. We should -admire the subtlety of the Chinese view of life, which -perceives that all human imperfection is in very truth a -crying imperfection. We should admire the Chinese esoteric -and superior wisdom, which said there are higher cosmic laws -than the laws we know; we believe every common Indian -conjurer who chooses to come to us and talk in the same -style. If Christianity were only a new oriental fashion, it -would never be reproached with being an old and oriental -faith. I do not propose in this book to follow the alleged -example of St. Francis Xavier with the opposite imaginative -intention, and turn the Twelve Apostles into Mandarins; not -so much to make them look like natives as to make them look -like foreigners. I do not propose to work what I believe -would be a completely successful practical joke; that of -telling the whole story of the Gospel and the whole history -of the Church in a setting of pagodas and pigtails; and -noting with malignant humour how much it was admired as a -heathen story in the very quarters where it is condemned as -a Christian story. But I do propose to strike wherever -possible this note of what is new and strange, and for that -reason the style even on so serious a subject may sometimes -be deliberately grotesque and fanciful. I do desire to help -the reader to see Christendom from the outside in the sense -of seeing it as a whole, against the background of other -historic things; just as I desire him to see humanity as a -whole against the background of natural things. And I say -that in both cases, when seen this, they stand out from -their background like supernatural things. They do not fade -into the rest with the colours of impressionism; they stand -out from the rest with the colours of heraldry; as vivid as -a red cross on a white shield or a black lion on a ground of -gold. So stands the Red Clay against the green field of -nature, or the White Christ against the red clay of his -race. - -But in order to see them clearly we have to see them as a -whole. We have to see how they developed as well as how they -began; for the most incredible part of the story is that -things which began thus should have developed thus. Any one -who chooses to indulge in mere imagination can imagine that -other things might have happened or other entities evolved. -Any one thinking of what might have happened may conceive a -sort of evolutionary equality; but any one facing what did -happen must face an exception and a prodigy. If there was -ever a moment when man was only an animal, we can if we -choose make a fancy picture of his career transferred to -some other animal. An entertaining fantasia might be made in -which elephants built in elephantine architecture, with -towers and turrets like tusks and trunks, cities beyond the -sca\^e of any colossus. A pleasant fable might be conceived -in which a cow had developed a costume, and put on four -boots and two pairs of trousers. We could imagine a -Supermonkey more marvellous than any Superman, a -quadrumanous creature carving and painting with his hands -and cooking and carpentering with his feet. But if we are -considering what did happen, we shall certainly decide that -man has distanced everything else with a distance like that -of the astronomical spaces and a speed like that of the -still thunderbolt of the light. And in the same fashion, -while we can if we choose see the Church amid a mob of -Mithraic or Manichean superstitions squabbling and killing -each other at the end of the Empire, while we can if we -choose imagine the Church killed in the struggle and some -other chance cult taking its place, we shall be the more -surprised (and possibly puzzled) if we meet it two thousand -years afterwards rushing through the ages as the winged -thunderbolt of thought and everlasting enthusiasm; a thing -without rival or resemblance; and still as new as it is old. +As soon as I had clearly in my mind this conception of something solid +in the solitary and unique character of the divine story, it struck me +that there was exactly the same strange and yet solid character in the +human story that had led up to it; because that human story also had a +root that was divine. I mean that just as the Church seems to grow more +remarkable when it is fairly compared with the common religious life of +mankind, so mankind itself seems to grow more remarkable when we compare +it with the common life of nature. And I have noticed that most modern +history is driven to something like sophistry, first to soften the sharp +transition from animals to men, and then to soften the sharp transition +from heathens to Christians. Now the more we really read in a realistic +spirit of those two transitions the sharper we shall find them to be. It +is because the critics are not detached that they do not see this +detachment; it is because they are not looking at things in a dry light +that they cannot see the difference between black and white. It is +because they are in a particular mood of reaction and revolt that they +have a motive for making out that all the white is dirty grey and the +black not so black as it is painted. I do not say there are not human +excuses for their revolt; I do not say it is not in some ways +sympathetic; what I say is that it is not in any way scientific. An +iconoclast may be indignant; an iconoclast may be justly indignant; but +an iconoclast is not impartial. And it is stark hypocrisy to pretend +that nine-tenths of the higher critics and scientific evolutionists and +professors of comparative religion are in the least impartial. Why +should they be impartial, what is being impartial, when the whole world +is at war about whether one thing is a devouring superstition or a +divine hope? I do not pretend to be impartial in the sense that the +final act of faith fixes a man's mind because it satisfies his mind. But +I do profess to be a great deal more impartial than they are; in the +sense that I can tell the story fairly, with some sort of imaginative +justice to all sides; and they cannot. I do profess to be impartial in +the sense that I should be ashamed to talk such nonsense about the Lama +of Tibet as they do about the Pope of Rome, or to have as little +sympathy with Julian the Apostate as they have with the Society of +Jesus. They are not impartial; they never by any chance hold the +historical scales even; and above all they are never impartial upon this +point of evolution and transition. They suggest everywhere the grey +gradations of twilight, because they believe it is the twilight of the +gods. I propose to maintain that whether or no it is the twilight of +gods, it is not the daylight of men. + +I maintain that when brought out into the daylight, these two things +look altogether strange and unique; and that it is only in the false +twilight of an imaginary period of transition that they can be made to +look in the least like anything else. The first of these is the creature +called man, and the second is the man called Christ. I have therefore +divided this book into two parts: the former being a sketch of the main +adventure of the human race in so far as it remained heathen; and the +second a summary of the real difference that was made by it becoming +Christian. Both motives necessitate a certain method, a method which is +not very easy to manage, and perhaps even less easy to define or defend. + +In order to strike, in the only sane or possible sense, the note of +impartiality, it is necessary to touch the nerve of novelty. I mean that +in one sense we see things fairly when we see them first. That, I may +remark in passing, is why children generally have very little difficulty +about the dogmas of the Church. But the Church, being a highly practical +thing for working and fighting, is necessarily a thing for men and not +merely for children. There must be in it for working purposes a great +deal of tradition, of familiarity, and even of routine. So long as its +fundamentals are sincerely felt, this may even be the saner condition. +But when its fundamentals are doubted, as at present, we must try to +recover the candour and wonder of the child; the unspoilt realism and +objectivity of innocence. Or if we cannot do that, we must try at least +to shake off the cloud of mere custom and see the thing as new, if only +by seeing it as unnatural. Things that may well be familiar so long as +familiarity breeds-affection had much better become unfamiliar when +familiarity breeds contempt. For in connection with things so great as +are here considered, whatever our view of them, contempt must be a +mistake. Indeed contempt must be an illusion. We must invoke the most +wild and soaring sort of imagination; the imagination that can see what +is there. + +The only way to suggest the point is by an example of something, indeed +of almost anything, that has been considered beautiful or wonderful. +George Wyndham once told me that he had seen one of the first aeroplanes +rise for the first time, and it was very wonderful; but not so wonderful +as a horse allowing a man to ride on him. Somebody else has said that a +fine man on a fine horse is the noblest bodily object in the world. Now, +so long as people feel this in the right way, all is well. The first and +best way of appreciating it is to come of people with a tradition of +treating animals properly; of men in the right relation to horses. A boy +who remembers his father who rode a horse, who rode it well and treated +it well, will know that the relation can be satisfactory and will be +satisfied. He will be all the more indignant at the ill-treatment of +horses because he knows how they ought to be treated; but he will see +nothing but what is normal in a man riding on a horse. He will not +listen to the great modern philosopher who explains to him that the +horse ought to be riding on the man. He will not pursue the pessimist +fancy of Swift and say that men must be despised as monkeys, and horses +worshipped as gods. And horse and man together making an image that is +to him human and civilised, it will be easy, as it were, to lift horse +and man together into something heroic or symbolical; like a vision of +St. George in the clouds. The fable of the winged horse will not be +wholly unnatural to him; and he will know why Ariosto set many a +Christian hero in such an airy saddle, and made him the rider of the +sky. For the horse has really been lifted up along with the man in the +wildest fashion in the very word we use when we speak of "chivalry." The +very name of the horse has been given to the highest mood and moment of +the man; so that we might almost say that the handsomest compliment to a +man is to call him a horse. + +But if a man has got into a mood in which he is not able to feel this +sort of wonder, then his cure must begin right at the other end. We must +now suppose that he has drifted into a dull mood, in which somebody +sitting on a horse means no more than somebody sitting on a chair. The +wonder of which Wyndham spoke, the beauty that made the thing seem an +equestrian statue, the meaning of the more chivalric horseman, may have +become to him merely a convention and a bore. Perhaps they have been +merely a fashion; perhaps they have gone out of fashion; perhaps they +have been talked about too much or talked about in the wrong way; +perhaps it was then difficult to care for horses without the horrible +risk of being horsy. Anyhow, he has got into a condition when he cares +no more for a horse than for a towel-horse. His grandfather's charge at +Balaclava seems to him as dull and dusty as the album containing such +family portraits. Such a person has not really become enlightened about +the album; on the contrary, he has only become blind with the dust. But +when he has reached that degree of blindness, he will not be able to +look at a horse or a horseman at all until he has seen the whole thing +as a thing entirely unfamiliar and almost unearthly. + +Out of some dark forest under some ancient dawn there must come towards +us, with lumbering yet dancing motions, one of the very queerest of the +prehistoric creatures. We must see for the first time the strangely +small head set on a neck not only longer but thicker than itself, as the +face of a gargoyle is thrust out upon a gutter-spout, the one +disproportionate crest of hair running along the ridge of that heavy +neck like a beard in the wrong place; the feet, each like a solid club +of horn, alone amid the feet of so many cattle; so that the true fear is +to be found in showing not the cloven but the uncloven hoof. Nor is it +mere verbal fancy to see him thus as a unique monster; for in a sense a +monster means what is unique, and he is really unique. But the point is +that when we thus see him as the first man saw him, we begin once more +to have s\<\*me imaginative sense of what it meant when the first man +rode him. In such a dream he may seem ugly, but he does not seem +unimpressive; and certainly that two-legged dwarf who could get on top +of him will not seem unimpressive. By a longer and more erratic road we +shall come back to the same marvel of the man and the horse; and the +marvel will be, if possible, even more marvellous. We shall have again a +glimpse of St. George; the more glorious because St. George is not +riding on the horse, but rather riding on the dragon. + +In this example, which I have taken merely because it is an example, it +will be noted that I do not say that the nightmare seen by the first man +of the forest is either more true or more wonderful than the normal mare +of the stable seen by the civilised person who can appreciate what is +normal. Of the two extremes, I think on the whole that the traditional +grasp of truth is the better. But I say that the truth is found at one +or other of these two extremes, and is lost in the intermediate +condition of mere fatigue and forgetfulness of tradition. In other +words, I say it is better to see a horse as a monster than to see it +only as a slow substitute for a motor-car. If we have got into that +state of mind about a horse as something stale, it is far better to be +frightened of a horse because it is a good deal too fresh. + +Now, as it is with the monster that is called a horse, so it is with the +monster that is called a man. Of course the best condition of all, in my +opinion, is always to have regarded man as he is regarded in my +philosophy. He who holds the Christian and Catholic view of human nature +will feel certain that it is a universal and therefore a sane view, and +will be satisfied. But if he has lost the sane vision, he can only get +it back by something very like a mad vision; that is, by seeing man as a +strange animal and realising how strange an animal he is. But just as +seeing the horse as a prehistoric prodigy ultimately led back to, and +not away from, an admiration for the mastery of man, so the really +detached consideration of the curious career of man will lead back to, +and not away from, the ancient faith in the dark designs of God. In +other words, it is exactly when we do see how queer the quadruped is +that we praise the man who mounts him; and exactly when we do see how +queer the biped is that we praise the Providence that made him. + +In short, it is the purpose of this introduction to maintain this +thesis: that it is exactly when we do regard man as an animal that we +know he is not an animal. It is precisely when we do try to picture him +as a sort of horse on its hind legs that we suddenly realise that he +must be something as miraculous as the winged horse that towered up into +the clouds of heaven. All roads lead to Rome, all ways lead round again +to the central and civilised philosophy, including this road through +elfland and topsyturvydom. But it may be that it is better never to have +left the land of a reasonable tradition, where men ride lightly upon +horses and are mighty hunters before the Lord. + +So also in the specially Christian case we have to react against the +heavy bias of fatigue. It is almost impossible to make the facts vivid, +because the facts are familiar; and for fallen men it is often true that +familiarity is fatigue. I am convinced that if we could tell the +supernatural story of Christ word for word as of a Chinese hero call him +the Son of Heaven instead of the Son of God, and trace his rayed nimbus +in the gold thread of Chinese embroideries or the gold lacquer of +Chinese pottery instead of in the gold leaf of our own old Catholic +paintings, there would be a unanimous testimony to the spiritual purity +of the story. We should hear nothing then of the injustice of +substitution or the illogicality of atonement, of the superstitious +exaggeration of the burden of sin or the impossible insolence of an +invasion of the laws of nature. We should admire the chivalry of the +Chinese conception of a god who fell from the sky to fight the dragons +and save the wicked from being devoured by their own fault and folly. We +should admire the subtlety of the Chinese view of life, which perceives +that all human imperfection is in very truth a crying imperfection. We +should admire the Chinese esoteric and superior wisdom, which said there +are higher cosmic laws than the laws we know; we believe every common +Indian conjurer who chooses to come to us and talk in the same style. If +Christianity were only a new oriental fashion, it would never be +reproached with being an old and oriental faith. I do not propose in +this book to follow the alleged example of St. Francis Xavier with the +opposite imaginative intention, and turn the Twelve Apostles into +Mandarins; not so much to make them look like natives as to make them +look like foreigners. I do not propose to work what I believe would be a +completely successful practical joke; that of telling the whole story of +the Gospel and the whole history of the Church in a setting of pagodas +and pigtails; and noting with malignant humour how much it was admired +as a heathen story in the very quarters where it is condemned as a +Christian story. But I do propose to strike wherever possible this note +of what is new and strange, and for that reason the style even on so +serious a subject may sometimes be deliberately grotesque and fanciful. +I do desire to help the reader to see Christendom from the outside in +the sense of seeing it as a whole, against the background of other +historic things; just as I desire him to see humanity as a whole against +the background of natural things. And I say that in both cases, when +seen this, they stand out from their background like supernatural +things. They do not fade into the rest with the colours of +impressionism; they stand out from the rest with the colours of +heraldry; as vivid as a red cross on a white shield or a black lion on a +ground of gold. So stands the Red Clay against the green field of +nature, or the White Christ against the red clay of his race. + +But in order to see them clearly we have to see them as a whole. We have +to see how they developed as well as how they began; for the most +incredible part of the story is that things which began thus should have +developed thus. Any one who chooses to indulge in mere imagination can +imagine that other things might have happened or other entities evolved. +Any one thinking of what might have happened may conceive a sort of +evolutionary equality; but any one facing what did happen must face an +exception and a prodigy. If there was ever a moment when man was only an +animal, we can if we choose make a fancy picture of his career +transferred to some other animal. An entertaining fantasia might be made +in which elephants built in elephantine architecture, with towers and +turrets like tusks and trunks, cities beyond the sca\^e of any colossus. +A pleasant fable might be conceived in which a cow had developed a +costume, and put on four boots and two pairs of trousers. We could +imagine a Supermonkey more marvellous than any Superman, a quadrumanous +creature carving and painting with his hands and cooking and +carpentering with his feet. But if we are considering what did happen, +we shall certainly decide that man has distanced everything else with a +distance like that of the astronomical spaces and a speed like that of +the still thunderbolt of the light. And in the same fashion, while we +can if we choose see the Church amid a mob of Mithraic or Manichean +superstitions squabbling and killing each other at the end of the +Empire, while we can if we choose imagine the Church killed in the +struggle and some other chance cult taking its place, we shall be the +more surprised (and possibly puzzled) if we meet it two thousand years +afterwards rushing through the ages as the winged thunderbolt of thought +and everlasting enthusiasm; a thing without rival or resemblance; and +still as new as it is old. ## Part I: On the Creature Called Man ### I. The Man in the Cave -Far away in some strange constellation in skies infinitely -remote, there is a small star, which astronomers may some -day discover. At least I could never observe in the faces or -demeanour of most astronomers or men of science any evidence -that they had discovered it; though as a matter of fact they -were walking about on it all the time. It is a star that -brings forth out of itself very strange plants and very -strange animals; and none stranger than the men of science. -That at least is the way in which I should begin a history -of the world if I had to follow the scientific custom of -beginning with an account of the astronomical universe. I -should try to see even this earth from the outside, not by -the hackneyed insistence of its relative position to the -sun, but by some imaginative effort to conceive its remote -position for the dehumanised spectator. Only I do not -believe in being dehumanised in order to study humanity. I -do not believe in dwelling upon the distances that are -supposed to dwarf the world; I think there is even something -a trifle vulgar about this idea of trying to rebuke spirit -by size. And as the first idea is not feasible, that of -making the earth a strange planet so as to make it -significant, I will not stoop to the other trick of making -it a small planet in order to make it insignificant. I would -rather insist that we do not even know that it is a planet -at all, in the sense in which we know that it is a place; -and a very extraordinary place too. That is the note which I -wish to strike from the first, if not in the astronomical, -then in some more familiar fashion. - -One of my first journalistic adventures, or misadventures, -concerned a comment on Grant Allen, who had written a book -about the Evolution of the Idea of God. I happened to remark -that it would be much more interesting if God wrote a book -about the evolution of the idea of Grant Allen. And I -remember that the editor objected to my remark on the ground -that it was blasphemous; which naturally amused me not a -little. For the joke of it was, of course, that it never -occurred to him to notice the title of the book itself, -which really was blasphemous; for it was, when translated -into English, "I will show you how this nonsensical notion -that there is a God grew up among men." My remark was -strictly pious and proper; confessing the divine purpose -even in its most seemingly dark or meaningless -manifestations. In that hour I learned many things, -including the fact that there is something purely acoustic -in much of that agnostic sort of reverence. The editor had -not seen the point, because in the title of the book the -long word came at the beginning and the short word at the -end; whereas in my comment the short word came at the -beginning and gave him a sort of shock. I have noticed that -if you put a word like God into the same sentence with a -word like dog, these abrupt and angular words affect people -like pistol-shots. Whether you say that God made the dog or -the dog made God does not seem to matter; that is only one -of the sterile disputations of the too subtle theologians. -But so long as you begin with a long word like evolution the -rest will roll harmlessly past; very probably the editor had -not read the whole of the title, for it is rather a long +Far away in some strange constellation in skies infinitely remote, there +is a small star, which astronomers may some day discover. At least I +could never observe in the faces or demeanour of most astronomers or men +of science any evidence that they had discovered it; though as a matter +of fact they were walking about on it all the time. It is a star that +brings forth out of itself very strange plants and very strange animals; +and none stranger than the men of science. That at least is the way in +which I should begin a history of the world if I had to follow the +scientific custom of beginning with an account of the astronomical +universe. I should try to see even this earth from the outside, not by +the hackneyed insistence of its relative position to the sun, but by +some imaginative effort to conceive its remote position for the +dehumanised spectator. Only I do not believe in being dehumanised in +order to study humanity. I do not believe in dwelling upon the distances +that are supposed to dwarf the world; I think there is even something a +trifle vulgar about this idea of trying to rebuke spirit by size. And as +the first idea is not feasible, that of making the earth a strange +planet so as to make it significant, I will not stoop to the other trick +of making it a small planet in order to make it insignificant. I would +rather insist that we do not even know that it is a planet at all, in +the sense in which we know that it is a place; and a very extraordinary +place too. That is the note which I wish to strike from the first, if +not in the astronomical, then in some more familiar fashion. + +One of my first journalistic adventures, or misadventures, concerned a +comment on Grant Allen, who had written a book about the Evolution of +the Idea of God. I happened to remark that it would be much more +interesting if God wrote a book about the evolution of the idea of Grant +Allen. And I remember that the editor objected to my remark on the +ground that it was blasphemous; which naturally amused me not a little. +For the joke of it was, of course, that it never occurred to him to +notice the title of the book itself, which really was blasphemous; for +it was, when translated into English, "I will show you how this +nonsensical notion that there is a God grew up among men." My remark was +strictly pious and proper; confessing the divine purpose even in its +most seemingly dark or meaningless manifestations. In that hour I +learned many things, including the fact that there is something purely +acoustic in much of that agnostic sort of reverence. The editor had not +seen the point, because in the title of the book the long word came at +the beginning and the short word at the end; whereas in my comment the +short word came at the beginning and gave him a sort of shock. I have +noticed that if you put a word like God into the same sentence with a +word like dog, these abrupt and angular words affect people like +pistol-shots. Whether you say that God made the dog or the dog made God +does not seem to matter; that is only one of the sterile disputations of +the too subtle theologians. But so long as you begin with a long word +like evolution the rest will roll harmlessly past; very probably the +editor had not read the whole of the title, for it is rather a long title and he was rather a busy man. -But this little incident has always lingered in my mind as a -sort of parable. Most modern histories of mankind begin with -the word evolution, and with a rather wordy exposition of -evolution, for much the same reason that operated in this -case. There is something slow and soothing and gradual about -the word and even about the idea. As a matter of fact, it is -not, touching these primary things, a very practical word or -a very profitable idea. Nobody can imagine how nothing could -turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by -explaining how something could turn into something else. It -is really far more logical to start by saying "In the -beginning God created heaven and earth 99 even if you only -mean"In the beginning some unthinkable power began some -unthinkable process." For God is by its nature a name of -mystery, and nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how -a world was created any more than he could create one. But -evolution really is mistaken for explanation. It has the -fatal quality of leaving on many minds the impression that -they do understand it and everything else; just as many of -them live under a sort of illusion that they have read the -*Origin of Species*. - -But this notion of something smooth and slow, like the -ascent of a slope, is a great part of the illusion. It is an -illogicality as well as an illusion; for slowness has really -nothing to do with the question. An event is not any more -intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the -pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in a -miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a -swift one. The Greek witch may have turned sailors to swine -with a stroke of the wand. But to see a naval gentleman of -our acquaintance looking a little more like a pig every day, -till he ended with four trotters and a curly tail, would not -be any more soothing. It might be rather more creepy and -uncanny. The medieval wizard may have flown through the air -from the top of a tower; but to see an old gentleman walking -through the air, in a leisurely and lounging manner, would -still seem to call for some explanation. Yet there runs -through all the rationalistic treatment of history this -curious and confused idea that difficulty is avoided, or -even mystery eliminated, by dwelling on mere delay or on -something dilatory in the processes of things. There will be -something to be said upon particular examples elsewhere; the -question here is the false atmosphere of facility and ease -given by the mere suggestion of going slow; the sort of -comfort that might be given to a nervous old woman +But this little incident has always lingered in my mind as a sort of +parable. Most modern histories of mankind begin with the word evolution, +and with a rather wordy exposition of evolution, for much the same +reason that operated in this case. There is something slow and soothing +and gradual about the word and even about the idea. As a matter of fact, +it is not, touching these primary things, a very practical word or a +very profitable idea. Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into +something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how +something could turn into something else. It is really far more logical +to start by saying "In the beginning God created heaven and earth 99 +even if you only mean"In the beginning some unthinkable power began some +unthinkable process." For God is by its nature a name of mystery, and +nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how a world was created any +more than he could create one. But evolution really is mistaken for +explanation. It has the fatal quality of leaving on many minds the +impression that they do understand it and everything else; just as many +of them live under a sort of illusion that they have read the *Origin of +Species*. + +But this notion of something smooth and slow, like the ascent of a +slope, is a great part of the illusion. It is an illogicality as well as +an illusion; for slowness has really nothing to do with the question. An +event is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible +because of the pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in +a miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one. +The Greek witch may have turned sailors to swine with a stroke of the +wand. But to see a naval gentleman of our acquaintance looking a little +more like a pig every day, till he ended with four trotters and a curly +tail, would not be any more soothing. It might be rather more creepy and +uncanny. The medieval wizard may have flown through the air from the top +of a tower; but to see an old gentleman walking through the air, in a +leisurely and lounging manner, would still seem to call for some +explanation. Yet there runs through all the rationalistic treatment of +history this curious and confused idea that difficulty is avoided, or +even mystery eliminated, by dwelling on mere delay or on something +dilatory in the processes of things. There will be something to be said +upon particular examples elsewhere; the question here is the false +atmosphere of facility and ease given by the mere suggestion of going +slow; the sort of comfort that might be given to a nervous old woman travelling for the first time in a motor-car. -Mr. H. G. Wells has confessed to being a prophet; and in -this matter he was a prophet at his own expense. It is -curious that his first fairy-tale was a complete answer to -his last book of history. The Time Machine destroyed in -advance all comfortable conclusions founded on the mere -relativity of time. In that sublime nightmare the hero saw -trees shoot up like green rockets, and vegetation spread -visibly like a green conflagration, or the sun shoot across -the sky from east to west with the swiftness of a meteor. -Yet in his sense these things were quite as natural when -they went swiftly; and in our sense they are quite as -supernatural when they go slowly. The ultimate question is -why they go at all; and anybody who really understands that -question will know that it always has been and always will -be a religious question; or at any rate a philosophical or -metaphysical question. And most certainly he will not think -the question answered by some substitution of gradual for -abrupt change; or, in other words, by a merely relative -question of the same story being spun out or rattled rapidly -through, as can be done with any story at a cinema by -turning a handle. - -Now what is needed for these problems of primitive existence -is something more like a primitive spirit. In calling up -this vision of the first things, I would ask the reader to -make with me a sort of experiment in simplicity. And by -simplicity I do not mean stupidity, but rather the sort of -clarity that sees things like life rather than words like -evolution. For this purpose it would really be better to -turn the handle of the Time Machine a little more quickly -and see the grass growing and the trees springing up into -the sky, if that experiment could contract and concentrate -and make vivid the upshot of the whole affair. What we know, -in a sense in which we know nothing else, is that the trees -and the grass did grow and that a number of other -extraordinary things do in fact happen; that queer creatures -support themselves in the empty air by beating it with fans -of various fantastic shapes; that other queer creatures -steer themselves about alive under a load of mighty waters; -that other queer creatures walk about on four legs, and that -the queerest creature of all walks about on two. These are -things and not theories; and compared with them evolution -and the atom and even the solar system are merely theories. -The matter here is one of history and not of philosophy; so -that it need only be noted that no philosopher denies that a -mystery still attaches to the two great transitions: the -origin of the universe itself and the origin of the -principle of life itself. Most philosophers have the -enlightenment to add that a third mystery attaches to the -origin of man himself. In other words, a third bridge was -built across a third abyss of the unthinkable when there -came into the world what we call reason and what we call -will. Man is not merely an evolution but rather a -revolution. That he has a backbone or other parts upon a -similar pattern to birds and fishes is an obvious fact, -whatever be the meaning of the fact. But if we attempt to -regard him, as it were, as a quadruped standing on his hind -legs, we shall find what follows far more fantastic and -subversive than if he were standing on his head. - -I will take one example to serve for an introduction to the -story of man. It illustrates what I mean by saying that a -certain childish directness is needed to see the truth about -the childhood of the world. It illustrates what I mean by -saying that a mixture of popular science and journalistic -jargon has confused the facts about the first things, so -that we cannot see which of them really comes first. It -illustrates, though only in one convenient illustration, all -that I mean by the necessity of seeing the sharp differences -that give its shape to history, instead of being sub' merged -in all these generalisations about slowness and sameness. -For we do indeed require, in Mr. Wells s phrase, an outline -of history. But we may venture to say, in Mr. Mantalini's -phrase, that this evolutionary history has no outline or is -a demd outline. But, above all, it illustrates what I mean -by saying that the more we really look at man as an animal, -the less he will look like one. - -To-day all our novels and newspapers will be found swarming -with numberless allusions to a popular character called a -Cave-Man. He seems to be quite familiar to us, not only as a -public character but as a private character. His psychology -is seriously taken into account in psychological fiction and -psychological medicine. So far as I can understand, his -chief occupation in life was knocking his wife about, or -treating women in general with what is, I believe, known in -the world of the film as "rough stuff." I have never -happened to come upon the evidence for this idea; and I do -not know on what primitive diaries or prehistoric -divorce-reports it is founded. Nor, as I have explained -elsewhere, have I ever been able to see the probability of -it, even considered a priori. We are always told without any -explanation or authority that primitive man waved a club and -knocked the woman down before he carried her off. But on -every animal analogy, it would seem an almost morbid modesty -and reluctance, on the part of the lady, always to insist on -being knocked down before consenting to be carried off. And -I repeat that I can never comprehend why, when the male was -so very rude, the female should have been so very refined. -The cave-man may have been a brute, but there is no reason -why he should have been more brutal than the brutes. And the -loves of the giraffes and the river romances of the -hippopotami are effected without any of this preliminary -fracas or shindy. The cave-man may have been no better than -the cave-bear; but the child she-bear, so famous in -hymnology, is not trained with any such bias for -spinsterhood. In short, these details of the domestic life -of the cave puzzle me upon either the evolutionary or the -static hypothesis; and in any case I should like to look -into the evidence for them; but unfortunately I have never -been able to find it. But the curious thing is this: that -while ten thousand tongues of more or less scientific or -literary gossip seemed to be talking at once about this -unfortunate fellow, under the title of the caveman, the one -connection in which it is really relevant and sensible to -talk about him as the cave-man has been comparatively -neglected. People have used this loose term in twenty loose -ways; but they have never even looked at their own term for -what could really be learned from it. - -In fact, people have been interested in everything about the -cave-man except what he did in the cave Now there does -happen to be some real evidence of what he did in the cave. -It is little enough, like all the prehistoric evidence, but -it is concerned with the real cave-man and his cave and not -the literary cave-man and his club. And it will be valuable -to our sense of reality to consider quite simply what that -real evidence is, and not to go beyond it. What was found in -the cave was not the club, the horrible gory club notched -with the number of women it had knocked on the head. The -cave was not a Bluebeard's Chamber filled with the skeletons -of slaughtered wives; it was not filled with female skulls -all arranged in rows and all cracked like eggs. It was -something quite unconnected, one way or the other, with all -the modern phrases and philosophical implications and -literary rumours which confuse the whole question for us. -And if we wish to see as it really is this authentic glimpse -of the morning of the world, it will be far better to -conceive even the story of its discovery as some such legend -of the land of morning. It would be far better to tell the -tale of what was really found as simply as the tale of -heroes finding the Golden Fleece or the Gardens of the -Hesperides, if we could so escape from a fog of -controversial theories into the clear colours and clean-cut -outlines of such a dawn. The old epic poets at least knew -how to tell a story, possibly a tall story but never a -twisted story, never a story tortured out of its own shape -to fit theories and philosophies invented centuries -afterwards. It would be well if modern investigators could -describe their discoveries in the bald narrative style of -the earliest travellers, and without any of these long -allusive words that are full of irrelevant implication and -suggestion. Then we might realise exactly what we do know -about the cave-man, or at any rate about the cave. - -A priest and a boy entered some time ago a hollow in the -hills and passed into a sort of subterranean tunnel that led -into a labyrinth of such sealed and secret corridors of -rock. They crawled through cracks that seemed almost -impassable, they crept through tunnels that might have been -made for moles, they dropped into holes as hopeless as -wells, they seemed to be burying themselves alive seven -times over beyond the hope of resurrection. This is but the -commonplace of all such courageous exploration; but what is -needed here is some one who shall put such stories in the -primary light, in which they are not commonplace. There is, -for instance, something strangely symbolic in the accident -that the first intruders into that sunken world were a -priest and a boy, the types of the antiquity and of the -youth of the world. But here I am even more concerned with -the symbolism of the boy than with that of the priest. -Nobody who remembers boyhood needs to be told what it might -be to a boy to enter like Peter Pan under a roof of the -roots of all the trees and go deeper and deeper, till he -reach what William Morris called the very roots of the -mountains. Suppose somebody, with that simple and unspoilt -realism that is a part of innocence, to pursue that journey -to its end, not for the sake of what he could deduce or -demonstrate in some dusty magazine controversy, but simply -for the sake of what he could see. What he did see at last -was a cavern so far from the light of day that it might have -been the legendary Domdaniel cavern that was under the floor -of the sea. This secret chamber of rock, when illuminated -after its long night of unnumbered ages, revealed on its -walls large and sprawling outlines diversified with coloured -earths; and when they followed the lines of them they -recognised, across that vast and void of ages, the movement -and the gesture of a man's hand. They were drawings or -paintings of animals; and they were drawn or painted not -only by a man but by an artist. Under whatever archaic -limitations, they showed that love of the long sweeping or -the long wavering line which any man who has ever drawn or -tried to draw will recognise; and about which no artist will -allow himself to be contradicted by any scientist. They -showed the experimental and adventurous spirit of the -artist, the spirit that does not avoid but attempt difficult -things; as where the draughtsman had represented the action -of the stag when he swings his head clean round and noses -towards his tail, an action familiar enough in the horse. -But there are many modern animal-painters who would set -themselves something of a task in rendering it truly. In -this and twenty other details it is clear that the artist -had watched animals with a certain interest and presumably a -certain pleasure. In that sense it would seem that he was -not only an artist but a naturalist; the sort of naturalist -who is really natural. - -Now it is needless to note, except in passing, that there is -nothing whatever in the atmosphere of that cave to suggest -the bleak and pessimistic atmosphere of the journalistic -cave of the winds, that blows and bellows about us with -countless echoes concerning the cave-man. So far as any -human character can be hinted at by such traces of the past, -that human character is quite human and even humane. It is -certainly not the ideal of an inhuman character, like the -abstraction invoked in popular science. When novelists and -educationists and psychologists of all sorts talk about the -cave-man, they never conceive him in connection with -anything that is really in the cave. When the realist of the -sex novel writes, "Red sparks danced in Dagmar Doubledick's -brain; he felt the spirit of the cave-man rising within -him," the novelist's readers would be very much disappointed -if Dagmar only went off and drew large pictures of cows on -the drawing-room wall. When the psychoanalyst writes to a -patient, "The submerged instincts of the cave-man are -doubtless prompting you to gratify a violent impulse," he -does not refer to the impulse to paint in water-colours; or -to make conscientious studies of how cattle swing their -heads when they graze. Yet we do know for a fact that the -cave-man did these mild and innocent things; and we have not -the most minute speck of evidence that he did any of the -violent and ferocious things. In other words, the cave-man -as commonly presented to us is simply a myth or rather a -muddle; for a myth has at least an imaginative outline of -truth. The whole of the current way of talking is simply a -confusion and a misunderstanding, founded on no sort of -scientific evidence and valued only as an excuse for a very -modern mood of anarchy. If any gentleman wants to knock a -woman about, he can surely be a cad without taking away the -character of the cave-man, about whom we know next to -nothing except what we can gather from a few harmless and -pleasing pictures on a wall. - -But this is not the point about the pictures or the -particular moral here to be drawn from them. That moral is -something much larger and simpler, so large and simple that -when it is first stated it will sound childish. And indeed -it is in the highest sense childish; and that is why I have -in this apologue in some sense seen it through the eyes of a -child. It is the biggest of all the facts really facing the -boy in the cavern; and is perhaps too big to be seen. If the -boy was one of the flock of the priest, it may be presumed -that he had been trained in a certain quality of common -sense; that common sense that often comes to us in the form -of tradition. In that case he would simply recognise the -primitive man's work as the work of a man, interesting but -in no way incredible in being primitive. He would see what -was there to see; and he would not be tempted into seeing -what was not there, by any evolutionary excitement or -fashionable speculation. If he had heard of such things he -would admit, of course, that the speculations might be true -and were not incompatible with the facts that were true. The -artist may have had another side to his character besides -that which he has alone left on record in his works of art. -The primitive man may have taken a pleasure in beating women -as well as in drawing animals; all we can say is that the -drawings record the one but not the other. It may be true -that when the caveman finished jumping on his mother, or his -wife as the case may be, he loved to hear the little brook -a-gurgling, and also to watch the deer as they came down to -drink at the brook. These things are not impossible, but -they are irrelevant. The common sense of the child would -confine itself to learning from the facts what the facts -have to teach; and the pictures in the cave are very nearly -all the facts there are. So far as that evidence goes, the -child would be justified in assuming that a man had -represented animals with rock and red ochre for the same -reason as he himself was in the habit of trying to represent -animals with charcoal and red chalk. The man had drawn a -stag just as the child had drawn a horse; because it was -fun. The man had drawn a stag with his head turned as the -child had drawn a pig with his eyes shut; because it was -difficult. The child and the man, being both human, would be -united by the brotherhood of men; and the brotherhood of men -is even nobler when it bridges the abyss of ages than when -it bridges only the chasm of class. But anyhow he would see -no evidence of the cave-man of crude evolutionism; because -there is none to be seen. If somebody told him that the -pictures had all been drawn by St. Francis of Assisi out of -pure and saintly love of animals, there would be nothing in -the cave to contradict it. - -Indeed I once knew a lady who half-humorously suggested that -the cave was a creche, in which the babies were put to be -specially safe, and that coloured animals were drawn on the -walls to amuse them; very much as diagrams of elephants and -giraffes adorn a modern infant school. And though this was -but a jest, it does draw attention to some of the other -assumptions that we make only too readily. The pictures do -not prove even that the cave-men lived in caves, any more -than the discovery of a wine cellar in Balham (long after -that suburb had been destroyed by human or divine wrath) -would prove that the Victorian middle classes lived entirely -underground. The cave might have had a special purpose like -the cellar; it might have been a religious shrine or a -refuge in war or the meeting-place of a secret society or -all sorts of things. But it is quite true that its artistic -decoration has much more of the atmosphere of a nursery than -of any of these nightmares of anarchical fury and fear. I -have conceived a child as standing in the cave; and it is -easy to conceive any child, modern or immeasurably remote, -as making a living gesture as if to pat the painted beasts -upon the wall. In that gesture there is a foreshadowing, as -we shall see later, of another cavern and another child. - -But suppose the boy had not been taught by a priest but by a -professor, by one of the professors who simplify the -relation of men and beasts to a mere evolutionary variation. -Suppose the boy saw himself, with the same simplicity and -sincerity, as a mere Mowgli running with the pack of nature -and roughly indistinguishable from the rest save by a -relative and recent variation. What would be for him the -simplest lesson of that strange stone picture-book? After -all, it would come back to this; that he had dug very deep -and found the place where a man had drawn a picture of a -reindeer. But he would dig a good deal deeper before he -found a place where a reindeer had drawn a picture of a man. -That sounds like a truism, but in this connection it is -really a very tremendous truth. He might descend to depths -unthinkable, he might sink into sunken continents as strange -as remote stars, he might find himself in the inside of the -world as far from men as the other side of the moon; he -might see in those cold chasms or colossal terraces of -stone, traced in the faint hieroglyphic of the fossil, the -ruins of lost dynasties of biological life, rather like the -ruins of successive creations and separate universes than -the stages in the story of one. He would find the trail of -monsters blindly developing in directions outside all our -common imagery of fish and bird; groping and grasping and -touching life with every extravagant elongation of horn and -tongue and tentacle; growing a forest of fantastic -caricatures of the claw and the fin and the finger. But -nowhere would he find one finger that had traced one -significant line upon the sand; nowhere one claw that had -even begun to scratch the faint suggestion of a form. To all -appearance, the thing would be as unthinkable in all those -countless cosmic variations of forgotten aeons as it would -be in the beasts and birds before our eyes. The child would -no more expect to see it than to see the cat scratch on the -wall a vindictive caricature of the dog. The childish common -sense would keep the most evolutionary child from expecting -to see anything like that; yet in the traces of the rude and -recently evolved ancestors of humanity he would have seen -exactly that. It must surely strike him as strange that men -so remote from him should be so near, and that beasts so -near to him should be so remote. To his simplicity it must -seem at least odd that he could not find any trace of the -beginning of any arts among any animals. That is the -simplest lesson to learn in the cavern of the coloured -pictures; only it is too simple to be learnt. It is the -simple truth that man does differ from the brutes in kind -and not in degree; and the proof of it is here; that it -sounds like a truism to say that the most primitive man drew -a picture of a monkey, and that it sounds like a joke to say -that the most intelligent monkey drew a picture of a man. -Something of division and disproportion has appeared; and it -is unique. Art is the signature of man. - -That is the sort of simple truth with which a story of the -beginnings ought really to begin. The evolutionist stands -staring in the painted cavern at the things that are too -large to be seen and too simple to be understood. He tries -to deduce all sorts of other indirect and doubtful things -from the details of the pictures, because he cannot see the -primary significance of the whole; thin and theoretical -deductions about the absence of religion or the presence of -superstition; about tribal government and hunting and human -sacrifice and heaven knows what. In the next chapter I shall -try to trace in a little more detail the much disputed -question about these prehistoric origins of human ideas and -especially of the religious idea. Here I am only taking this -one case of the cave as a sort of symbol of the simpler sort -of truth with which the story ought to start. When all is -said, the main fact that the record of the reindeer men -attests, along with all other records, is that the reindeer -man could draw and the reindeer could not. If the reindeer -man was as much an animal as the reindeer, it was all the -more extraordinary that he could do what all other animals -could not. If he was an ordinary product of biological -growth, like any other beast or bird, then it is all the -more extraordinary that he was not in the least like any -other beast or bird. He seems rather more supernatural as a -natural product than as a supernatural one. - -But I have begun this story in the cave, like the cave of -the speculations of Plato, because it is a sort of model of -the mistake of merely evolutionary introductions and -prefaces. It is useless to begin by saying that everything -was slow and smooth and a mere matter of development and -degree. For in a plain matter like the pictures there is in -fact not a trace of any such development or degree. Monkeys -did not begin pictures and men finish them; Pithecanthropus -did not draw a reindeer badly and Homo Sapiens draw it well. -The higher animals did not draw better and better portraits; -the dog did not paint better in his best period than in his -early bad manner as a jackal; the wild horse was not an -Impressionist and the race-horse a Post-Impressionist. All -we can say of this notion of reproducing things in shadow or -representative shape is that it exists nowhere in nature -except in man; and that we cannot even talk about it without -treating man as something separate from nature. In other -words, every sane sort of history must begin with man as -man, a thing standing absolute and alone. How he came there, -or indeed how anything else came there, is a thing for -theologians and philosophers and scientists and not for -historians. But an excellent test case of this isolation and -mystery is the matter of the impulse of art. This creature -was truly different from all other creatures; because he was -a creator as well as a creature. Nothing in that sense could -be made in any other image but the image of man. But the -truth is so true that, even in the absence of any religious -belief, it must be assumed in the form of some moral or -metaphysical principle. In the next chapter we shall see how -this principle applies to all the historical hypotheses and -evolutionary ethics now in fashion; to the origins of tribal -government or mythological belief. But the clearest and most -convenient example to start with is this popular one of what -the cave-man really did in his cave. It means that somehow -or other a new thing had appeared in the cavernous night of -nature; a mind that is like a mirror. It is like a mirror -because it is truly a thing of reflection. It is like a -mirror because in it alone all the other shapes can be seen -like shining shadows in a vision. Above all, it is like a -mirror because it is the only thing of its kind. Other -things may resemble it or resemble each other in various -ways; other things may excel it or excel each other in -various ways; just as in the furniture of a room a table may -be round like a mirror or a cupboard may be larger than a -mirror. But the mirror is the only thing that can contain -them all. Man is the microcosm; man is the measure of all -things; man is the image of God. These are the only real -lessons to be learnt in the cave, and it is time to leave it +Mr. H. G. Wells has confessed to being a prophet; and in this matter he +was a prophet at his own expense. It is curious that his first +fairy-tale was a complete answer to his last book of history. The Time +Machine destroyed in advance all comfortable conclusions founded on the +mere relativity of time. In that sublime nightmare the hero saw trees +shoot up like green rockets, and vegetation spread visibly like a green +conflagration, or the sun shoot across the sky from east to west with +the swiftness of a meteor. Yet in his sense these things were quite as +natural when they went swiftly; and in our sense they are quite as +supernatural when they go slowly. The ultimate question is why they go +at all; and anybody who really understands that question will know that +it always has been and always will be a religious question; or at any +rate a philosophical or metaphysical question. And most certainly he +will not think the question answered by some substitution of gradual for +abrupt change; or, in other words, by a merely relative question of the +same story being spun out or rattled rapidly through, as can be done +with any story at a cinema by turning a handle. + +Now what is needed for these problems of primitive existence is +something more like a primitive spirit. In calling up this vision of the +first things, I would ask the reader to make with me a sort of +experiment in simplicity. And by simplicity I do not mean stupidity, but +rather the sort of clarity that sees things like life rather than words +like evolution. For this purpose it would really be better to turn the +handle of the Time Machine a little more quickly and see the grass +growing and the trees springing up into the sky, if that experiment +could contract and concentrate and make vivid the upshot of the whole +affair. What we know, in a sense in which we know nothing else, is that +the trees and the grass did grow and that a number of other +extraordinary things do in fact happen; that queer creatures support +themselves in the empty air by beating it with fans of various fantastic +shapes; that other queer creatures steer themselves about alive under a +load of mighty waters; that other queer creatures walk about on four +legs, and that the queerest creature of all walks about on two. These +are things and not theories; and compared with them evolution and the +atom and even the solar system are merely theories. The matter here is +one of history and not of philosophy; so that it need only be noted that +no philosopher denies that a mystery still attaches to the two great +transitions: the origin of the universe itself and the origin of the +principle of life itself. Most philosophers have the enlightenment to +add that a third mystery attaches to the origin of man himself. In other +words, a third bridge was built across a third abyss of the unthinkable +when there came into the world what we call reason and what we call +will. Man is not merely an evolution but rather a revolution. That he +has a backbone or other parts upon a similar pattern to birds and fishes +is an obvious fact, whatever be the meaning of the fact. But if we +attempt to regard him, as it were, as a quadruped standing on his hind +legs, we shall find what follows far more fantastic and subversive than +if he were standing on his head. + +I will take one example to serve for an introduction to the story of +man. It illustrates what I mean by saying that a certain childish +directness is needed to see the truth about the childhood of the world. +It illustrates what I mean by saying that a mixture of popular science +and journalistic jargon has confused the facts about the first things, +so that we cannot see which of them really comes first. It illustrates, +though only in one convenient illustration, all that I mean by the +necessity of seeing the sharp differences that give its shape to +history, instead of being sub' merged in all these generalisations about +slowness and sameness. For we do indeed require, in Mr. Wells s phrase, +an outline of history. But we may venture to say, in Mr. Mantalini's +phrase, that this evolutionary history has no outline or is a demd +outline. But, above all, it illustrates what I mean by saying that the +more we really look at man as an animal, the less he will look like one. + +To-day all our novels and newspapers will be found swarming with +numberless allusions to a popular character called a Cave-Man. He seems +to be quite familiar to us, not only as a public character but as a +private character. His psychology is seriously taken into account in +psychological fiction and psychological medicine. So far as I can +understand, his chief occupation in life was knocking his wife about, or +treating women in general with what is, I believe, known in the world of +the film as "rough stuff." I have never happened to come upon the +evidence for this idea; and I do not know on what primitive diaries or +prehistoric divorce-reports it is founded. Nor, as I have explained +elsewhere, have I ever been able to see the probability of it, even +considered a priori. We are always told without any explanation or +authority that primitive man waved a club and knocked the woman down +before he carried her off. But on every animal analogy, it would seem an +almost morbid modesty and reluctance, on the part of the lady, always to +insist on being knocked down before consenting to be carried off. And I +repeat that I can never comprehend why, when the male was so very rude, +the female should have been so very refined. The cave-man may have been +a brute, but there is no reason why he should have been more brutal than +the brutes. And the loves of the giraffes and the river romances of the +hippopotami are effected without any of this preliminary fracas or +shindy. The cave-man may have been no better than the cave-bear; but the +child she-bear, so famous in hymnology, is not trained with any such +bias for spinsterhood. In short, these details of the domestic life of +the cave puzzle me upon either the evolutionary or the static +hypothesis; and in any case I should like to look into the evidence for +them; but unfortunately I have never been able to find it. But the +curious thing is this: that while ten thousand tongues of more or less +scientific or literary gossip seemed to be talking at once about this +unfortunate fellow, under the title of the caveman, the one connection +in which it is really relevant and sensible to talk about him as the +cave-man has been comparatively neglected. People have used this loose +term in twenty loose ways; but they have never even looked at their own +term for what could really be learned from it. + +In fact, people have been interested in everything about the cave-man +except what he did in the cave Now there does happen to be some real +evidence of what he did in the cave. It is little enough, like all the +prehistoric evidence, but it is concerned with the real cave-man and his +cave and not the literary cave-man and his club. And it will be valuable +to our sense of reality to consider quite simply what that real evidence +is, and not to go beyond it. What was found in the cave was not the +club, the horrible gory club notched with the number of women it had +knocked on the head. The cave was not a Bluebeard's Chamber filled with +the skeletons of slaughtered wives; it was not filled with female skulls +all arranged in rows and all cracked like eggs. It was something quite +unconnected, one way or the other, with all the modern phrases and +philosophical implications and literary rumours which confuse the whole +question for us. And if we wish to see as it really is this authentic +glimpse of the morning of the world, it will be far better to conceive +even the story of its discovery as some such legend of the land of +morning. It would be far better to tell the tale of what was really +found as simply as the tale of heroes finding the Golden Fleece or the +Gardens of the Hesperides, if we could so escape from a fog of +controversial theories into the clear colours and clean-cut outlines of +such a dawn. The old epic poets at least knew how to tell a story, +possibly a tall story but never a twisted story, never a story tortured +out of its own shape to fit theories and philosophies invented centuries +afterwards. It would be well if modern investigators could describe +their discoveries in the bald narrative style of the earliest +travellers, and without any of these long allusive words that are full +of irrelevant implication and suggestion. Then we might realise exactly +what we do know about the cave-man, or at any rate about the cave. + +A priest and a boy entered some time ago a hollow in the hills and +passed into a sort of subterranean tunnel that led into a labyrinth of +such sealed and secret corridors of rock. They crawled through cracks +that seemed almost impassable, they crept through tunnels that might +have been made for moles, they dropped into holes as hopeless as wells, +they seemed to be burying themselves alive seven times over beyond the +hope of resurrection. This is but the commonplace of all such courageous +exploration; but what is needed here is some one who shall put such +stories in the primary light, in which they are not commonplace. There +is, for instance, something strangely symbolic in the accident that the +first intruders into that sunken world were a priest and a boy, the +types of the antiquity and of the youth of the world. But here I am even +more concerned with the symbolism of the boy than with that of the +priest. Nobody who remembers boyhood needs to be told what it might be +to a boy to enter like Peter Pan under a roof of the roots of all the +trees and go deeper and deeper, till he reach what William Morris called +the very roots of the mountains. Suppose somebody, with that simple and +unspoilt realism that is a part of innocence, to pursue that journey to +its end, not for the sake of what he could deduce or demonstrate in some +dusty magazine controversy, but simply for the sake of what he could +see. What he did see at last was a cavern so far from the light of day +that it might have been the legendary Domdaniel cavern that was under +the floor of the sea. This secret chamber of rock, when illuminated +after its long night of unnumbered ages, revealed on its walls large and +sprawling outlines diversified with coloured earths; and when they +followed the lines of them they recognised, across that vast and void of +ages, the movement and the gesture of a man's hand. They were drawings +or paintings of animals; and they were drawn or painted not only by a +man but by an artist. Under whatever archaic limitations, they showed +that love of the long sweeping or the long wavering line which any man +who has ever drawn or tried to draw will recognise; and about which no +artist will allow himself to be contradicted by any scientist. They +showed the experimental and adventurous spirit of the artist, the spirit +that does not avoid but attempt difficult things; as where the +draughtsman had represented the action of the stag when he swings his +head clean round and noses towards his tail, an action familiar enough +in the horse. But there are many modern animal-painters who would set +themselves something of a task in rendering it truly. In this and twenty +other details it is clear that the artist had watched animals with a +certain interest and presumably a certain pleasure. In that sense it +would seem that he was not only an artist but a naturalist; the sort of +naturalist who is really natural. + +Now it is needless to note, except in passing, that there is nothing +whatever in the atmosphere of that cave to suggest the bleak and +pessimistic atmosphere of the journalistic cave of the winds, that blows +and bellows about us with countless echoes concerning the cave-man. So +far as any human character can be hinted at by such traces of the past, +that human character is quite human and even humane. It is certainly not +the ideal of an inhuman character, like the abstraction invoked in +popular science. When novelists and educationists and psychologists of +all sorts talk about the cave-man, they never conceive him in connection +with anything that is really in the cave. When the realist of the sex +novel writes, "Red sparks danced in Dagmar Doubledick's brain; he felt +the spirit of the cave-man rising within him," the novelist's readers +would be very much disappointed if Dagmar only went off and drew large +pictures of cows on the drawing-room wall. When the psychoanalyst writes +to a patient, "The submerged instincts of the cave-man are doubtless +prompting you to gratify a violent impulse," he does not refer to the +impulse to paint in water-colours; or to make conscientious studies of +how cattle swing their heads when they graze. Yet we do know for a fact +that the cave-man did these mild and innocent things; and we have not +the most minute speck of evidence that he did any of the violent and +ferocious things. In other words, the cave-man as commonly presented to +us is simply a myth or rather a muddle; for a myth has at least an +imaginative outline of truth. The whole of the current way of talking is +simply a confusion and a misunderstanding, founded on no sort of +scientific evidence and valued only as an excuse for a very modern mood +of anarchy. If any gentleman wants to knock a woman about, he can surely +be a cad without taking away the character of the cave-man, about whom +we know next to nothing except what we can gather from a few harmless +and pleasing pictures on a wall. + +But this is not the point about the pictures or the particular moral +here to be drawn from them. That moral is something much larger and +simpler, so large and simple that when it is first stated it will sound +childish. And indeed it is in the highest sense childish; and that is +why I have in this apologue in some sense seen it through the eyes of a +child. It is the biggest of all the facts really facing the boy in the +cavern; and is perhaps too big to be seen. If the boy was one of the +flock of the priest, it may be presumed that he had been trained in a +certain quality of common sense; that common sense that often comes to +us in the form of tradition. In that case he would simply recognise the +primitive man's work as the work of a man, interesting but in no way +incredible in being primitive. He would see what was there to see; and +he would not be tempted into seeing what was not there, by any +evolutionary excitement or fashionable speculation. If he had heard of +such things he would admit, of course, that the speculations might be +true and were not incompatible with the facts that were true. The artist +may have had another side to his character besides that which he has +alone left on record in his works of art. The primitive man may have +taken a pleasure in beating women as well as in drawing animals; all we +can say is that the drawings record the one but not the other. It may be +true that when the caveman finished jumping on his mother, or his wife +as the case may be, he loved to hear the little brook a-gurgling, and +also to watch the deer as they came down to drink at the brook. These +things are not impossible, but they are irrelevant. The common sense of +the child would confine itself to learning from the facts what the facts +have to teach; and the pictures in the cave are very nearly all the +facts there are. So far as that evidence goes, the child would be +justified in assuming that a man had represented animals with rock and +red ochre for the same reason as he himself was in the habit of trying +to represent animals with charcoal and red chalk. The man had drawn a +stag just as the child had drawn a horse; because it was fun. The man +had drawn a stag with his head turned as the child had drawn a pig with +his eyes shut; because it was difficult. The child and the man, being +both human, would be united by the brotherhood of men; and the +brotherhood of men is even nobler when it bridges the abyss of ages than +when it bridges only the chasm of class. But anyhow he would see no +evidence of the cave-man of crude evolutionism; because there is none to +be seen. If somebody told him that the pictures had all been drawn by +St. Francis of Assisi out of pure and saintly love of animals, there +would be nothing in the cave to contradict it. + +Indeed I once knew a lady who half-humorously suggested that the cave +was a creche, in which the babies were put to be specially safe, and +that coloured animals were drawn on the walls to amuse them; very much +as diagrams of elephants and giraffes adorn a modern infant school. And +though this was but a jest, it does draw attention to some of the other +assumptions that we make only too readily. The pictures do not prove +even that the cave-men lived in caves, any more than the discovery of a +wine cellar in Balham (long after that suburb had been destroyed by +human or divine wrath) would prove that the Victorian middle classes +lived entirely underground. The cave might have had a special purpose +like the cellar; it might have been a religious shrine or a refuge in +war or the meeting-place of a secret society or all sorts of things. But +it is quite true that its artistic decoration has much more of the +atmosphere of a nursery than of any of these nightmares of anarchical +fury and fear. I have conceived a child as standing in the cave; and it +is easy to conceive any child, modern or immeasurably remote, as making +a living gesture as if to pat the painted beasts upon the wall. In that +gesture there is a foreshadowing, as we shall see later, of another +cavern and another child. + +But suppose the boy had not been taught by a priest but by a professor, +by one of the professors who simplify the relation of men and beasts to +a mere evolutionary variation. Suppose the boy saw himself, with the +same simplicity and sincerity, as a mere Mowgli running with the pack of +nature and roughly indistinguishable from the rest save by a relative +and recent variation. What would be for him the simplest lesson of that +strange stone picture-book? After all, it would come back to this; that +he had dug very deep and found the place where a man had drawn a picture +of a reindeer. But he would dig a good deal deeper before he found a +place where a reindeer had drawn a picture of a man. That sounds like a +truism, but in this connection it is really a very tremendous truth. He +might descend to depths unthinkable, he might sink into sunken +continents as strange as remote stars, he might find himself in the +inside of the world as far from men as the other side of the moon; he +might see in those cold chasms or colossal terraces of stone, traced in +the faint hieroglyphic of the fossil, the ruins of lost dynasties of +biological life, rather like the ruins of successive creations and +separate universes than the stages in the story of one. He would find +the trail of monsters blindly developing in directions outside all our +common imagery of fish and bird; groping and grasping and touching life +with every extravagant elongation of horn and tongue and tentacle; +growing a forest of fantastic caricatures of the claw and the fin and +the finger. But nowhere would he find one finger that had traced one +significant line upon the sand; nowhere one claw that had even begun to +scratch the faint suggestion of a form. To all appearance, the thing +would be as unthinkable in all those countless cosmic variations of +forgotten aeons as it would be in the beasts and birds before our eyes. +The child would no more expect to see it than to see the cat scratch on +the wall a vindictive caricature of the dog. The childish common sense +would keep the most evolutionary child from expecting to see anything +like that; yet in the traces of the rude and recently evolved ancestors +of humanity he would have seen exactly that. It must surely strike him +as strange that men so remote from him should be so near, and that +beasts so near to him should be so remote. To his simplicity it must +seem at least odd that he could not find any trace of the beginning of +any arts among any animals. That is the simplest lesson to learn in the +cavern of the coloured pictures; only it is too simple to be learnt. It +is the simple truth that man does differ from the brutes in kind and not +in degree; and the proof of it is here; that it sounds like a truism to +say that the most primitive man drew a picture of a monkey, and that it +sounds like a joke to say that the most intelligent monkey drew a +picture of a man. Something of division and disproportion has appeared; +and it is unique. Art is the signature of man. + +That is the sort of simple truth with which a story of the beginnings +ought really to begin. The evolutionist stands staring in the painted +cavern at the things that are too large to be seen and too simple to be +understood. He tries to deduce all sorts of other indirect and doubtful +things from the details of the pictures, because he cannot see the +primary significance of the whole; thin and theoretical deductions about +the absence of religion or the presence of superstition; about tribal +government and hunting and human sacrifice and heaven knows what. In the +next chapter I shall try to trace in a little more detail the much +disputed question about these prehistoric origins of human ideas and +especially of the religious idea. Here I am only taking this one case of +the cave as a sort of symbol of the simpler sort of truth with which the +story ought to start. When all is said, the main fact that the record of +the reindeer men attests, along with all other records, is that the +reindeer man could draw and the reindeer could not. If the reindeer man +was as much an animal as the reindeer, it was all the more extraordinary +that he could do what all other animals could not. If he was an ordinary +product of biological growth, like any other beast or bird, then it is +all the more extraordinary that he was not in the least like any other +beast or bird. He seems rather more supernatural as a natural product +than as a supernatural one. + +But I have begun this story in the cave, like the cave of the +speculations of Plato, because it is a sort of model of the mistake of +merely evolutionary introductions and prefaces. It is useless to begin +by saying that everything was slow and smooth and a mere matter of +development and degree. For in a plain matter like the pictures there is +in fact not a trace of any such development or degree. Monkeys did not +begin pictures and men finish them; Pithecanthropus did not draw a +reindeer badly and Homo Sapiens draw it well. The higher animals did not +draw better and better portraits; the dog did not paint better in his +best period than in his early bad manner as a jackal; the wild horse was +not an Impressionist and the race-horse a Post-Impressionist. All we can +say of this notion of reproducing things in shadow or representative +shape is that it exists nowhere in nature except in man; and that we +cannot even talk about it without treating man as something separate +from nature. In other words, every sane sort of history must begin with +man as man, a thing standing absolute and alone. How he came there, or +indeed how anything else came there, is a thing for theologians and +philosophers and scientists and not for historians. But an excellent +test case of this isolation and mystery is the matter of the impulse of +art. This creature was truly different from all other creatures; because +he was a creator as well as a creature. Nothing in that sense could be +made in any other image but the image of man. But the truth is so true +that, even in the absence of any religious belief, it must be assumed in +the form of some moral or metaphysical principle. In the next chapter we +shall see how this principle applies to all the historical hypotheses +and evolutionary ethics now in fashion; to the origins of tribal +government or mythological belief. But the clearest and most convenient +example to start with is this popular one of what the cave-man really +did in his cave. It means that somehow or other a new thing had appeared +in the cavernous night of nature; a mind that is like a mirror. It is +like a mirror because it is truly a thing of reflection. It is like a +mirror because in it alone all the other shapes can be seen like shining +shadows in a vision. Above all, it is like a mirror because it is the +only thing of its kind. Other things may resemble it or resemble each +other in various ways; other things may excel it or excel each other in +various ways; just as in the furniture of a room a table may be round +like a mirror or a cupboard may be larger than a mirror. But the mirror +is the only thing that can contain them all. Man is the microcosm; man +is the measure of all things; man is the image of God. These are the +only real lessons to be learnt in the cave, and it is time to leave it for the open road. -It will be well in this place, however, to sum up once and -for all what is meant by saying that man is at once the -exception to everything and the mirror and the measure of -all things. But to see man as he is, it is necessary once -more to keep close to that simplicity that can clear itself -of accumulated clouds of sophistry. The simplest truth about -man is that he is a very strange being; almost in the sense -of being a stranger on the earth. In all sobriety, he has -much more of the external appearance of one bringing alien -habits from another land than of a mere growth of this one. -He has an unfair advantage and an unfair disadvantage. He -cannot sleep in his own skin; he cannot trust his own -instincts. He is at once a creator moving miraculous hands -and fingers and a kind of cripple. He is wrapped in -artificial bandages called clothes; he is propped on -artificial crutches called furniture. His mind has the same -doubtful liberties and the same wild limitations. Alone -among the animals, he is shaken with the beautiful \> -madness called laughter; as if he had caught sight of some -secret in the very shape of the universe hidden from the -universe itself. Alone among the animals he feels the need -of averting his thoughts from the root realities of his own -bodily being; of hiding them as in the presence of some -higher possibility which creates the mystery of shame. -Whether we praise these things as natural to man or abuse -them as artificial in nature, they remain in the same sense -unique. This is realised by the whole popular instinct -called religion, until disturbed by pedants, especially the -laborious pedants of the Simple Life. The most sophistical -of all sophists are Gymnosophists. - -It is not natural to see man as a natural product. It is not -common sense to call man a common object of the country or -the sea-shore. It is not seeing straight to see him as an -animal. It is not sane. It sins against the light; against -that broad daylight of proportion which is the principle of -all reality. It is reached by stretching a point, by making -out a case, by artificially selecting a certain light and -shade, by bringing into prominence the lesser or lower -things which may happen to be similar. The solid thing -standing in the sunlight, the thing we can walk round and -see from all sides, is quite different. It is also quite -extraordinary; and the more sides we see of it the more -extraordinary it seems. It is emphatically not a thing that -follows or flows naturally from anything else. If we imagine -that an inhuman or impersonal intelligence could have felt -from the first the general nature of the non-human world -sufficiently to see that things would evolve in whatever way -they did evolve, there would have been nothing whatever in -all that natural world to prepare such a mind for such an -unnatural novelty. To such a mind, man would most certainly -not have seemed something like one herd out of a hundred -herds finding richer pasture; or one swallow out of a -hundred swallows making a summer under a strange sky. It -would not be in the same scale and scarcely in the same -dimension. We might as truly say that it would not be in the -same universe. It would be more like seeing one cow out of a -hundred cows suddenly jump over the moon or one pig out of a -hundred pigs grow wings in a flash and fly. It would not be -a question of the cattle finding their own grazing-ground -but of their building their own cattle-sheds, not a question -of one swallow making a summer but of his making a -summer-house. For the very fact that birds do build nests is -one of those similarities that sharpen the startling -difference. The very fact that a bird can get as far as -building a nest, and cannot get any farther, proves that he -has not a mind as man has a mind; it proves it more -completely than if he built nothing at all. If he built -nothing at all, he might possibly be a philosopher of the -Quietist or Buddhistic school, indifferent to all but the -mind within. But when he builds as he does build and is -satisfied and sings aloud with satisfaction, then we know -there is really an invisible veil like a pane of glass -between him and us, like the window on which a bird will -beat in vain. But suppose our abstract onlooker saw one of -the birds begin to build as men build. Suppose in an -incredibly short space of time there were seven styles of -architecture for one style of nest. Suppose the bird -carefully selected forked twigs and pointed leaves to -express the piercing piety of Gothic, but turned to broad -foliage and black mud when he sought in a darker mood to -call up the heavy columns of Bel and Ashtaroth; making his -nest indeed one of the hanging gardens of Babylon. Suppose -the bird made little clay statues of birds celebrated in -letters or politics and stuck them up in front of the nest. -Suppose that one bird out of a thousand birds began to do -one of the thousand things that man had already done even in -the morning of the world; and we can be quite certain that -the onlooker would not regard such a bird as a mere -evolutionary variety of the other birds; he would regard it -as a very fearful wild-fowl indeed; possibly as a bird of -ill-omen, certainly as an omen. That bird would tell the -augurs, not of something that would happen, but of something -that had happened. That something would be the appearance of -a mind with a new dimension of depth; a mind like that of -man. If there be no God, no other mind could conceivably -have foreseen it. - -Now, as a matter of fact, there is not a shadow of evidence -that this thing was evolved at all. There is not a particle -of proof that this transition came slowly, or even that it -came naturally. In a strictly scientific sense, we simply -know nothing whatever about how it grew, or whether it grew, -or what it is. There may be a broken trail of stones and -bones faintly suggesting the development of the human body. -There is nothing even faintly suggesting such a development -of this human mind. It was not and it was; we know not in -what instant or in what infinity of years. Something -happened; and it has all the appearance of a transaction -outside time. It has therefore nothing to do with history in -the ordinary sense. The historian must take it or something -like it for granted; it is not his business as a historian -to explain it. But if he cannot explain it as a historian, -he will not explain it as a biologist. In neither case is -there any disgrace to him in accepting it without explaining -it; for it is a reality, and history and biology deal with -realities. He is quite justified in calmly confronting the -pig with wings and the cow that jumped over the moon, merely -because they have happened. He can reasonably accept man as -a freak, because he accepts man as a fact. He can be -perfectly comfortable in a crazy and disconnected world, or -in a world that can produce such a crazy and disconnected -thing. For reality is a thing in which we can all repose, -even if it hardly seems related to anything else. The thing -is there; and that is enough for most of us. But if we do -indeed want to know how it can conceivably have come there, -if we do indeed wish to see it related realistically to -other things, if we do insist on seeing it evolved before -our very eyes from an environment nearer to its own nature, -then assuredly it is to very different things that we must -go. We must stir very strange memories and return to very -simple dreams if we desire some origin that can make man -other than a monster. We shall have discovered very -different causes before he becomes a creature of causation; -and invoked other authority to turn him into something -reasonable, or even into anything probable. That way lies -all that is at once awful and familiar and forgotten, with -dreadful faces, thronged and fiery arms. We can accept man -as a fact, if we are content with an unexplained fact. We -can accept him as an animal, if we can live with a fabulous -animal. But if we must needs have sequence and necessity, -then indeed we must provide a prelude and crescendo of -mounting miracles, that ushered in with unthinkable thunders -in all the seven heavens of another order, a man may be an -ordinary thing. +It will be well in this place, however, to sum up once and for all what +is meant by saying that man is at once the exception to everything and +the mirror and the measure of all things. But to see man as he is, it is +necessary once more to keep close to that simplicity that can clear +itself of accumulated clouds of sophistry. The simplest truth about man +is that he is a very strange being; almost in the sense of being a +stranger on the earth. In all sobriety, he has much more of the external +appearance of one bringing alien habits from another land than of a mere +growth of this one. He has an unfair advantage and an unfair +disadvantage. He cannot sleep in his own skin; he cannot trust his own +instincts. He is at once a creator moving miraculous hands and fingers +and a kind of cripple. He is wrapped in artificial bandages called +clothes; he is propped on artificial crutches called furniture. His mind +has the same doubtful liberties and the same wild limitations. Alone +among the animals, he is shaken with the beautiful \> madness called +laughter; as if he had caught sight of some secret in the very shape of +the universe hidden from the universe itself. Alone among the animals he +feels the need of averting his thoughts from the root realities of his +own bodily being; of hiding them as in the presence of some higher +possibility which creates the mystery of shame. Whether we praise these +things as natural to man or abuse them as artificial in nature, they +remain in the same sense unique. This is realised by the whole popular +instinct called religion, until disturbed by pedants, especially the +laborious pedants of the Simple Life. The most sophistical of all +sophists are Gymnosophists. + +It is not natural to see man as a natural product. It is not common +sense to call man a common object of the country or the sea-shore. It is +not seeing straight to see him as an animal. It is not sane. It sins +against the light; against that broad daylight of proportion which is +the principle of all reality. It is reached by stretching a point, by +making out a case, by artificially selecting a certain light and shade, +by bringing into prominence the lesser or lower things which may happen +to be similar. The solid thing standing in the sunlight, the thing we +can walk round and see from all sides, is quite different. It is also +quite extraordinary; and the more sides we see of it the more +extraordinary it seems. It is emphatically not a thing that follows or +flows naturally from anything else. If we imagine that an inhuman or +impersonal intelligence could have felt from the first the general +nature of the non-human world sufficiently to see that things would +evolve in whatever way they did evolve, there would have been nothing +whatever in all that natural world to prepare such a mind for such an +unnatural novelty. To such a mind, man would most certainly not have +seemed something like one herd out of a hundred herds finding richer +pasture; or one swallow out of a hundred swallows making a summer under +a strange sky. It would not be in the same scale and scarcely in the +same dimension. We might as truly say that it would not be in the same +universe. It would be more like seeing one cow out of a hundred cows +suddenly jump over the moon or one pig out of a hundred pigs grow wings +in a flash and fly. It would not be a question of the cattle finding +their own grazing-ground but of their building their own cattle-sheds, +not a question of one swallow making a summer but of his making a +summer-house. For the very fact that birds do build nests is one of +those similarities that sharpen the startling difference. The very fact +that a bird can get as far as building a nest, and cannot get any +farther, proves that he has not a mind as man has a mind; it proves it +more completely than if he built nothing at all. If he built nothing at +all, he might possibly be a philosopher of the Quietist or Buddhistic +school, indifferent to all but the mind within. But when he builds as he +does build and is satisfied and sings aloud with satisfaction, then we +know there is really an invisible veil like a pane of glass between him +and us, like the window on which a bird will beat in vain. But suppose +our abstract onlooker saw one of the birds begin to build as men build. +Suppose in an incredibly short space of time there were seven styles of +architecture for one style of nest. Suppose the bird carefully selected +forked twigs and pointed leaves to express the piercing piety of Gothic, +but turned to broad foliage and black mud when he sought in a darker +mood to call up the heavy columns of Bel and Ashtaroth; making his nest +indeed one of the hanging gardens of Babylon. Suppose the bird made +little clay statues of birds celebrated in letters or politics and stuck +them up in front of the nest. Suppose that one bird out of a thousand +birds began to do one of the thousand things that man had already done +even in the morning of the world; and we can be quite certain that the +onlooker would not regard such a bird as a mere evolutionary variety of +the other birds; he would regard it as a very fearful wild-fowl indeed; +possibly as a bird of ill-omen, certainly as an omen. That bird would +tell the augurs, not of something that would happen, but of something +that had happened. That something would be the appearance of a mind with +a new dimension of depth; a mind like that of man. If there be no God, +no other mind could conceivably have foreseen it. + +Now, as a matter of fact, there is not a shadow of evidence that this +thing was evolved at all. There is not a particle of proof that this +transition came slowly, or even that it came naturally. In a strictly +scientific sense, we simply know nothing whatever about how it grew, or +whether it grew, or what it is. There may be a broken trail of stones +and bones faintly suggesting the development of the human body. There is +nothing even faintly suggesting such a development of this human mind. +It was not and it was; we know not in what instant or in what infinity +of years. Something happened; and it has all the appearance of a +transaction outside time. It has therefore nothing to do with history in +the ordinary sense. The historian must take it or something like it for +granted; it is not his business as a historian to explain it. But if he +cannot explain it as a historian, he will not explain it as a biologist. +In neither case is there any disgrace to him in accepting it without +explaining it; for it is a reality, and history and biology deal with +realities. He is quite justified in calmly confronting the pig with +wings and the cow that jumped over the moon, merely because they have +happened. He can reasonably accept man as a freak, because he accepts +man as a fact. He can be perfectly comfortable in a crazy and +disconnected world, or in a world that can produce such a crazy and +disconnected thing. For reality is a thing in which we can all repose, +even if it hardly seems related to anything else. The thing is there; +and that is enough for most of us. But if we do indeed want to know how +it can conceivably have come there, if we do indeed wish to see it +related realistically to other things, if we do insist on seeing it +evolved before our very eyes from an environment nearer to its own +nature, then assuredly it is to very different things that we must go. +We must stir very strange memories and return to very simple dreams if +we desire some origin that can make man other than a monster. We shall +have discovered very different causes before he becomes a creature of +causation; and invoked other authority to turn him into something +reasonable, or even into anything probable. That way lies all that is at +once awful and familiar and forgotten, with dreadful faces, thronged and +fiery arms. We can accept man as a fact, if we are content with an +unexplained fact. We can accept him as an animal, if we can live with a +fabulous animal. But if we must needs have sequence and necessity, then +indeed we must provide a prelude and crescendo of mounting miracles, +that ushered in with unthinkable thunders in all the seven heavens of +another order, a man may be an ordinary thing. ### II. Professors and Prehistoric Men -Science is weak about these prehistoric things in a way that -has hardly been noticed. The science whose modern marvels we -all admire succeeds by incessantly adding to its data. In -all practical inventions, in most natural discoveries, it -can always increase evidence by experiment. But it cannot -experiment in making men; or even in watching to see what -the first men make. An inventor can advance step by step in -the construction of an aeroplane, even if he is only -experimenting with sticks and scraps of metal in his own -back-yard. But he cannot watch the Missing Link evolving in -his own back-yard. If he has made a mistake in his -calculations, the aeroplane will correct it by crashing to -the ground. But if he has made a mistake about the arboreal -habitat of his ancestor, he cannot see his arboreal ancestor -falling off the tree. He cannot keep a cave-man like a cat -in the back-yard and watch him to see whether he does really -practise cannibalism or carry off his mate on the principles -of marriage by capture. He cannot keep a tribe of primitive -men like a pack of hounds and notice how far they are -influenced by the herd instinct. If he sees a particular -bird behave in a particular way, he can get other birds and -see if they behave in that way; but if he finds a skull, or -the scrap of a skull, in the hollow of a hill, he cannot -multiply it into a vision of the valley of dry bones. In -dealing with a past that has almost entirely perished, he -can only go by evidence and not by experiment. And there is -hardly enough evidence to be even evidential. Thus while -most science moves in a sort of curve, being constantly -corrected by new evidence, this science flies off into space -in a straight line uncorrected by anything. But the habit of -forming conclusions, as they can really be formed in more -fruitful fields, is so fixed in the scientific mind that it -cannot resist talking like this. It talks about the idea -suggested by one scrap of bone as if it were something like -the aeroplane which is constructed at last out of whole -scrap-heaps of scraps of metal. The trouble with the -professor of the prehistoric is that he cannot scrap his -scrap. The marvellous and triumphant aeroplane is made out -of a hundred mistakes. The student of origins can only make -one mistake and stick to it. - -We talk very truly of the patience of science; but in this -department it would be truer to talk of the impatience of -science. Owing to the difficulty above described, the -theorist is in far too much of a hurry. We have a series of -hypotheses so hasty that they may well be called fancies, -and cannot in any case be further corrected by facts. The -most empirical anthropologist is here as limited as an -antiquary. He can only cling to a fragment of the past and -has no way of increasing it for the future. He can only -clutch his fragment of fact, almost as the primitive man -clutched his fragment of flint. And indeed he does deal with -it in much the same way and for much the same reason. It is -his tool and his only tool. It is his weapon and his only -weapon. He often wields it with a fanaticism far in excess -of anything shown by men of science when they can collect -more facts from experience and even add new facts by -experiment. Sometimes the professor with his bone becomes -almost as dangerous as a dog with his bone. And the dog at -least does not deduce a theory from it, proving that mankind -is going to the dogs---or that it came from them. - -For instance, I have pointed out the difficulty of keeping a -monkey and watching it evolve into a man. Experimental -evidence of such an evolution being impossible, the -professor is not content to say (as most of us would be -ready to say) that such an evolution is likely enough -anyhow. He produces his little bone, or little collection of -bones, and deduces the most marvellous things from it. He -found in Java a part of a skull, seeming by its contour to -be smaller than the human. Somewhere near it he found an -upright thigh-bone, and in the same scattered fashion some -teeth that were not human. If they all form part of one -creature, which is doubtful, our conception of the creature -would be almost equally doubtful. But the effect on popular -science was to produce a complete and even complex figure, -finished down to the last details of hair and habits He was -given a name as if he were an ordinary historical character. -People talked of Pithecanthropus as of Pitt or Fox or -Napoleon. Popular histories published portraits of him like -the portraits of Charles the First and George the Fourth. A -detailed drawing was reproduced, carefully shaded, to show -that the very hairs of his head were all numbered. No -uninformed person looking at its carefully lined face and -wistful eyes would imagine for a moment that this was the -portrait of a thigh-bone; or of a few teeth and a fragment -of a cranium. In the same way people talked about him as if -he were an individual whose influence and character were -familiar to us all. I have just read a story in a magazine -about Java, and how modern white inhabitants of that island -are prevailed on to misbehave themselves by the personal -influence of poor old Pithecanthropus. That the modern -inhabitants of Java misbehave themselves I can very readily -believe; but I do not imagine that they need any -encouragement from the discovery of a few highly doubtful -bones. Anyhow, those bones are far too few and fragmentary -and dubious to fill up the whole of the vast void that does -in reason and in reality lie between man and his bestial -ancestor if they were his ancestors. On the assumption of -that evolutionary connection (a connection which I am not in -the least concerned to deny), the really arresting and -remarkable fact is the comparative absence of any such -remains recording that connection at that point. The -sincerity of Darwin really admitted this; and that is how we -came to use such a term as the Missing Link. But the -dogmatism of Darwinians has been too strong for the -agnosticism of Darwin; and men have insensibly fallen into -turning this entirely negative term into a positive image. -They talk of searching for the habits and habitat of the -Missing Link; as if one were to talk of being on friendly -terms with the gap in a narrative or the hole in an -argument, of taking a walk with a *non-sequitur* or dining -with an undistributed middle. - -In this sketch, therefore, of man m his relation to certain -religious and historical problems, I shall waste no further -space on these speculations on the nature of man before he -became man. His body may have been evolved from the brutes; -but we know nothing of any such transition that throws the -smallest light upon his soul as it has shown itself in -history. Unfortunately the same school of writers pursue the -same style of reasoning when they come to the first real -evidence about the first real men. Strictly speaking, of -course, we know nothing about prehistoric man, for the -simple reason that he was prehistoric. The history of -prehistoric man is a very obvious contradiction in terms. It -is the sort of unreason in which only rationalists are -allowed to indulge. If a parson had casually observed that -the Flood was antediluvian, it is possible that he might be -a little chaffed about his logic. If a bishop were to say -that Adam was pre-Adamite, we might think it a little odd. -But we are not supposed to notice such verbal trifles when -sceptical historians talk of the part of history that is -prehistoric. The truth is that they are using the terms -historic and prehistoric without any clear test or -definition in their minds. What they mean is that there are -traces of human lives before the beginning of human stories; -and in that sense we do at least know that humanity was -before history. - -Human civilisation is older than human records. That is the -sane way of stating our relations to these remote things. -Humanity has left examples of its other arts earlier than -the art of writing; or at least of any writing that we can -read. But it is certain that the primitive arts were arts; -and it is in every way probable that the primitive -civilisations were, civilisations. The man left a picture of -the reindeer but he did not leave a narrative of how he -hunted the reindeer; and therefore what we say of him is -hypothesis and not history. But the art he did practise was -quite artistic; his drawing was quite intelligent, and there -is no reason to doubt that his story of the hunt would be -quite intelligent, only if it exists it is not intelligible. -In short, the prehistoric period need not mean the primitive -period, in the sense of the barbaric or bestial period. It -does not mean the time before civilisation or the time -before arts and crafts. It simply means the time before any -connected narratives that we can read. This does indeed make -all the practical difference between remembrance and -forgetfulness; but it is perfectly possible that there were -all sorts of forgotten forms of civilisation, as well as all -sorts of forgotten forms of barbarism. And in any case -everything indicated that many of these forgotten or -half-forgotten social stages were much more civilised and -much less barbaric than is vulgarly imagined to-day. But -even about these unwritten histories of humanity, when -humanity was quite certainly human, we can only conjecture -with the greatest doubt and caution. And unfortunately doubt -and caution are the last things commonly encouraged by the -loose evolutionism of current culture. For that culture is -full of curiosity; and the one thing that it cannot endure -is the agony of agnosticism. It was in the Darwinian age -that the word first became known and the thing first became -impossible. - -It is necessary to say plainly that all this ignorance is -simply covered by impudence. Statements are made so plainly -and positively that men have hardly the moral courage to -pause upon them and find that they are without support. The -other day a scientific summary of the state of a prehistoric -tribe began confidently with the words "They wore no -clothes." Not one reader in a hundred probably stopped to -ask himself how we should come to know whether clothes had -once been worn by people of whom everything has perished -except a few chips of bone and stone. It was doubtless hoped -that we should find a stone hat as well as a stone hatchet. -It was evidently anticipated that we might discover an -everlasting pair of trousers of the same substance as the -everlasting rock. But to persons of a less sanguine -temperament it will be immediately apparent that people -might wear simple garments, or even highly ornamental -garments, without leaving any more traces of them than these -people have left. The plaiting of rushes and grasses, for -instance, might have become more and more elaborate without -in the least becoming more eternal. One civilisation might -specialise in things that happened to be perishable, like -weaving and embroidering, and not in things that happen to -be more permanent, like architecture and sculpture. There -have been plenty of examples of such specialist societies. A -man of the future finding the ruins of our factory machinery -might as fairly say that we were acquainted with iron and -with no other substance; and announce the discovery that the -proprietor and manager of the factory undoubtedly walked -about naked---or possibly wore iron hats and trousers. - -It is not contended here that these primitive men did wear -clothes any more than they did weave rushes; but merely that -we have not enough evidence to know whether they did or not. -But it may be worth while to look back for a moment at some -of the very few things that we do know and that they did do. -If we consider them, we shall certainly not find them -inconsistent with such ideas as dress and decoration. We do -not know whether they decorated themselves; but we do know -that they decorated other things. We do not know whether -they had embroideries, and if they had, the embroideries -could not be expected to have remained. But we do know that -they did have pictures; and the pictures have remained. And -there remains with them, as already suggested, the testimony -to something that is absolute and unique; that belongs to -man and to nothing else except man; that is a difference of -kind and not a difference of degree. A monkey does not draw -clumsily and a man cleverly; a monkey does not begin the art -of representation and a man carry it to perfection. A monkey -does not do it at all; he does not begin to do it at all; he -does not begin to begin to do it at all. A line of some kind -is crossed before the first faint line can begin. - -Another distinguished writer, again, in commenting on the -cave-drawings attributed to the neolithic men of the -reindeer period, said that none of their pictures appeared -to have any religious purpose; and he seemed almost to infer -that they had no religion. I can hardly imagine a thinner -thread of argument than this which reconstructs the very -inmost moods of the prehistoric mind from the fact that -somebody who has scrawled a few sketches on a rock, from -what motive we do not know, for what purpose we do not know, -acting under what customs or conventions we do not know, may -possibly have found it easier to draw reindeers than to draw -religion. He may have drawn it because it was his religious -symbol. He may have drawn it because it was not his -religious symbol. He may have drawn anything except his -religious symbol. He may have drawn his real religious -symbol somewhere else; or it may have been deliberately -destroyed when it was drawn. He may have done or not done -half-a-million things; but in any case it is an amazing leap -of logic to infer that he had no religious symbol, or even -to infer from his having no religious symbol that he had no -religion. Now this particular case happens to illustrate the -insecurity of these guesses very clearly. For a little while -afterwards, people discovered not only paintings but -sculptures of animals in the caves. Some of these were said -to be damaged with dints or holes supposed to be the marks -of arrows; and the damaged images were conjectured to be the -remains of some magic rite of killing the beasts in effigy; -while the undamaged images were explained in connection with -another magic rite invoking fertility upon the herds. Here -again there is something faintly humorous about the -scientific habit of having it both ways. If the image is -damaged it proves one superstition and if it is undamaged it -proves another. Here again there is a rather reckless -jumping to conclusions; it has hardly occurred to the -speculators that a crowd of hunters imprisoned in winter in -a cave might conceivably have aimed at a mark for fun, as a -sort of primitive parlour game. But in any case, if it was -done out of superstition, what has become of the thesis that -it had nothing to do with religion? The truth is that all -this guesswork has nothing to do with anything. It is not -half such a good parlour game as shooting arrows at a carved -reindeer, for it is shooting them into the air. - -Such speculators rather tend to forget, for instance, that -men in the modern world also sometimes make marks in caves. -When a crowd of trippers is conducted through the labyrinth -of the Marvellous Grotto or the Magic Stalactite Cavern, it -has been observed that hieroglyphics spring into sight where -they have passed; initials and inscriptions which the -learned refuse to refer to any remote date. But the time -will come when these inscriptions will really be of remote -date. And if the professors of the future are anything like -the professors of the present, they will be able to deduce a -vast number of very vivid and interesting things from these -cave-writings of the twentieth century. If I know anything -about the breed, and if they have not fallen away from the -full-blooded confidence of their fathers, they will be able -to discover the most fascinating facts about us from the -initials left in the Magic Grotto by 'Arry and 'Arriet, -possibly in the form of two intertwined A's. From this alone -they will know (1) That as the letters are rudely chipped -with a blunt pocket-knife, the twentieth century possessed -no delicate graving-tools and was unacquainted with the art -of sculpture. (2) That as the letters are capital letters, -our civilisation never evolved any small letters or anything -like a running hand. (3) That because initial consonants -stand together in an unpronounceable fashion, our language -was possibly akin to Welsh or more probably of the early -Semitic type that ignored vowels. (4) That as the initials -of 'Arry and 'Arriet do not in any special fashion profess -to be religious symbols, our civilisation possessed no -religion. Perhaps the last is about the nearest to the -truth; for a civilisation that had religion would have a -little more reason. - -It is commonly affirmed, again, that religion grew in a very -slow and evolutionary manner; and even that it grew not from -one cause, but from a combination that might be called a -coincidence. Generally speaking, the three chief elements in -the combination are, first, the fear of the chief of the -tribe (whom Mr. Wells insists on calling, with regrettable -familiarity, the Old Man), second, the phenomena of dreams, -and third, the sacrificial associations of the harvest and -the resurrection symbolised in the growing com. I may remark -in passing that it seems to me very doubtful psychology to -refer one living and single spirit to three dead and -disconnected causes, if they were merely dead and -disconnected causes. Suppose Mr. Wells, in one of his -fascinating novels of the future, were to tell us that there -would arise among men a new and as yet nameless passion, of -which men will dream as they dream of first love, for which -they will die as they die for a flag and a fatherland. I -think we should be a little puzzled if he told us that this -singular sentiment would be a combination of the habit of -smoking Woodbines, the increase of the income tax and the -pleasure of a motorist in exceeding the speed limit. We -could not easily imagine this, because we could not imagine -any connection between the three or any common feeling that -could include them all. Nor could any one imagine any -connection between com and dreams and an old chief with a -spear, unless there was already a common feeling to include -them all. But if there was such a common feeling it could -only be the religious feeling; and these things could not be -the beginnings of a religious feeling that existed already. -I think anybody's common sense will tell him that it is far -more likely that this sort of mystical sentiment did exist -already; and that in the light of it dreams and kings and -cornfields could appear mystical then, as they can appear -mystical now. - -For the plain truth is that all this is a trick of making -things seem distant and dehumanised, merely by pretending -not to understand things that we do understand. It is like -saying that prehistoric men had an ugly and uncouth habit of -opening their mouths wide at intervals and stuffing strange -substances into them, as if we had never heard of eating. It -is like saying that the terrible Troglodytes of the Stone -Age lifted alternate legs in rotation, as if we had never -heard of walking. If it were meant to touch the mystical -nerve and awaken us to the wonder of walking and eating, it -might be a legitimate fancy. As it is here intended to kill -the mystical nerve and deaden us to the wonder of religion, -it is irrational rubbish. It pretends to find something -incomprehensible in the feelings that we all comprehend. Who -does not find dreams mysterious, and feel that they lie on -the dark borderland 'of being? Who does not feel the death -and resurrection of the growing things of the earth as -something near to the secret of the universe? Who does not -understand that there must always be the savour of something -sacred about authority and the solidarity that is the soul -of the tribe? If there be any anthropologist who really -finds these things remote and impossible to realise, we can -say nothing of that scientific gentleman except that he has -not got so large and enlightened a mind as a primitive man. -To me it seems obvious that nothing but a spiritual -sentiment already active could have clothed these separate -and diverse things with sanctity. To say that religion came -from reverencing a chief or sacrificing at a harvest is to -put a highly elaborate cart before a really primitive horse. -It is like saying that the impulse to draw pictures came -from the contemplation of the pictures of reindeers in the -cave. In other words it is explaining painting by saying -that it arose out of the work of painters; or accounting for -art by saying that it arose out of art. It is even more like -saying that the thing we call poetry arose as the result of -certain customs; such as that of an ode being officially -composed to celebrate the advent of spring; or that of a -young man rising at a regular hour to listen to the skylark -and then writing his report on a piece of paper. It is quite -true that young men often become poets in the spring; and it -is quite true that when once there are poets, no mortal -power can restrain them from writing about the skylark. But -the poems did not exist before the poets. The poetry did not -arise out of the poetic forms. In other words, it is hardly -an adequate explanation of how a thing appeared for the -first time to say it existed already. Similarly, we cannot -say that religion arose out of the religious forms, because -that is only another way of saying that it only arose when -it existed already. It needed a certain sort of mind to see -that there was anything mystical about the dreams or the -dead, as it needed a particular sort of mind to see that -there was anything poetical about the skylark or the spring. -That mind was presumably what we call the human mind, very -much as it exists to this day; for mystics still meditate -upon death and dreams as poets still write about spring and -skylarks. But there is not the faintest hint to suggest that -anything short of the human mind we know feels any of these -mystical associations at all. A cow in a field seems to -derive no lyrical impulse or instruction from her unrivalled -opportunities for listening to the skylark. And similarly -there is no reason to suppose that live sheep will ever -begin to use dead sheep as the basis of a system of -elaborate ancestor-worship. It is true that in the spring a -young quadruped's fancy may lightly turn to thoughts of -love, but no succession of springs has ever led it to turn -however lightly to thoughts of literature. And in the same -way, while it is true that a dog has dreams, while most -other quadrupeds do not seem even to have that, we have -waited a long time for the dog to develop his dreams into an -elaborate system of religious ceremonial. We have waited so -long that we have really ceased to expect it; and we no more -look to see a dog apply his dreams to ecclesiastical -construction than to see him examine his dreams by the rules -of psycho-analysis. It is obvious, in short, that for some -reason or other these natural experiences, and even natural -excitements, never do pass the line that separates them from -creative expression like art and religion, in any creature -except man. They never do, they never have, and it is now to -all appearance very improbable that they ever will. It is -not impossible, in the sense of self-contradictory, that we -should see cows fasting from grass every Friday or going on -their knees as in the old legend about Christmas Eve. It is -not in that sense impossible that cows should contemplate -death until they can lift up a sublime psalm of lamentation -to the tune the old cow died of. It is not in that sense -impossible that they should express their hopes of a -heavenly career in a symbolical dance, in honour of the cow -that jumped over the moon. It may be that the dog will at -last have laid in a sufficient store of dreams to enable him -to build a temple to Cerberus as a sort of canine trinity. -It may be that his dreams have already begun to turn into -visions capable of verbal expression, in some revelation -about the Dog Star as the spiritual home for lost dogs. -These things are logically possible, in the sense that it is -logically difficult to prove the universal negative which we -call an impossibility. But all that instinct for the -probable, which we call common sense, must long ago have -told us that the animals are not to all appearance evolving -in that sense; and that, to say the least, we are not likely -to have any personal evidence of their passing from the -animal experience to the human experiments. But spring and -death and even dreams, considered merely as experiences, are -their experiences as much as ours. The only possible -conclusion is that these experiences, considered as -experiences, do not generate anything like a religious sense -in any mind except a mind like ours. We come back to the -fact of a certain kind of mind as already alive and alone. -It was unique and it could make creeds as it could make -cave-drawings. The materials for religion had lain there for -countless ages like the materials for everything else; but -the power of religion was in the mind. Man could already see -in these things the riddles and hints and hopes that he -still sees in them. He could not only dream but dream about -dreams. He could not only see the dead but see the shadow of -death; and was possessed with that mysterious mystification -that for ever finds death incredible. - -It is quite true that we have even these hints chiefly about -man when he unmistakably appears as man. We cannot affirm -this or anything else about the alleged animal originally -connecting man and the brutes. But that is only because he -is not an animal but an allegation. We cannot be certain -that Pithecanthropus ever worshipped, because we cannot be -certain that he ever lived. He is only a vision called up to -fill the void that does in fact yawn between the first -creatures who were certainly men and any other creatures -that are certainly apes or other animals. A few very -doubtful fragments are scraped together to suggest such an -intermediate creature because it is required by a certain -philosophy; but nobody supposes that these are sufficient to -establish anything philosophical even in support of that -philosophy. A scrap of skull found in Java cannot establish -anything about religion or about the absence of religion, If -there ever was any such ape-man, he may have exhibited as -much ritual in religion as a man or as much simplicity in -religion as an ape. He may have been a mythologist or he may -have been a myth. It might be interesting to inquire whether -this mystical quality appeared in a transition from the ape -to the man, if there were really any types of the transition -to inquire about. In other words, the missing link might or -might not be mystical if he were not missing. But compared -with the evidence we have of real human beings, we have no -evidence that he was a human being or a half-human being or -a being at all. Even the most extreme evolutionists do not -attempt to deduce any revolutionary views about the origin -of religion from him. Even in trying to prove that religion -grew slowly from rude or irrational sources, they begin -their proof with the first men who were men. But their own -proof only proves that the men who were already men were -already mystics. They used the rude and irrational elements -as only men and mystics can use them. We come back once more -to the simple truth; that at some time too early for these -critics to trace, a transition has occurred to which bones -and stones cannot in their nature bear witness; and man -became a living soul. - -Touching this matter of the origin of religion, the truth is -that those who are thus trying to explain it are trying to -explain it away. Subconsciously they feel that it looks less -formidable when thus lengthened out into a gradual and -almost invisible process. But in fact this perspective -entirely falsifies the reality of experience. They bring -together two things that are totally different, the stray -hints of evolutionary origins and the solid and self-evident -block of humanity, and try to shift their standpoint till -they see them in a single foreshortened line. But it is an -optical illusion. Men do not in fact stand related to -monkeys or missing links in any such chain as that in which -men stand related to men. There may have been intermediate -creatures whose faint traces can be found here and there in -the huge gap. Of these beings, if they ever existed, it may -be true that they were things very unlike men or men very -unlike ourselves. But of prehistoric men, such as those -called the cave-men or the reindeer men, it is not true in -any sense whatever. Prehistoric men of that sort were things -exactly like men and men exceedingly like ourselves. They -only happened to be men about whom we do not know much, for -the simple reason that they have left no records or -chronicles; but all that we do know about them makes them -just as human and ordinary as men in a medieval manor or a -Greek city. - -Looking from our human standpoint up the long perspective of -humanity, we simply recognise this thing as human. If we had -to recognise it as animal we should have had to recognise it -as abnormal. If we chose to look through the other end of -the telescope, as I have done more than once in these -speculations, if we chose to project the human figure -forward out of an unhuman world, we could only say that one -of the animals had obviously gone mad. But seeing the thing -from the right end, or rather from the inside, we know it is -sanity; and we know that these primitive men were sane. We -hail a certain human freemasonry wherever we see it, in -savages, in foreigners or in historical characters. For -instance, all we can infer from primitive legend, and all we -know of barbaric life, supports a certain moral and even -mystical idea of which the commonest symbol is clothes. For -clothes are very literally vestments, and man wears them -because he is a priest. It is true that even as an animal he -is here different from the animals. Nakedness is not nature -to him; it is not his life but rather his death even in the -vulgar sense of his death of cold. But clothes are worn for -dignity or decency or decoration where they are not in any -way wanted for warmth. It would sometimes appear that they -are valued for ornament before they are valued for use. It -would almost always appear that they are felt to have some -connection with decorum. Conventions of this sort vary a -great deal with various times and places; and there are some -who cannot get over this reflection, and for whom it seems a -sufficient argument for letting all conventions slide. They -never tire of repeating, with simple wonder, that dress is -different in the Cannibal Islands and in Camden Town; they -cannot get any further and throw up the whole idea of -decency in despair. They might as well say that because -there have been hats of a good many different shapes, and -some rather eccentric shapes, therefore hats do not matter -or do not exist. They would probably add that there is no -such thing as sunstroke or going bald. Men have felt -everywhere that certain forms were necessary to fence off -and protect certain private things from contempt or coarse -misunderstanding; and the keeping of those forms, whatever -they were, made for dignity and mutual respect. The fact -that they mostly refer, more or less remotely, to the -relations of the sexes illustrates the two facts that must -be put at the very beginning of the record of the race. The -first is the fact that original sin is really original. Not -merely in theology but in history it is a thing rooted in -the origins. Whatever else men have believed, they have all -believed that there is something the matter with mankind. -This sense of sin has made it impossible to be natural and -have no clothes, just as it has made it impossible to be -natural and have no laws. But above all it is to be found in -that other fact, which is the father and mother of all laws -as it is itself founded on a father and mother: the thing -that is before all thrones and even all common-wealths. - -That fact is the family. Here again we must keep the -enormous proportions of a normal thing clear of Various -modifications and degrees and doubts more or less -reasonable, like clouds clinging about a mountain. It may be -that what we call the family had to fight its way from or -through various anarchies gnd aberrations; but it certainly -survived them and is quite as likely as not to have also -preceded them. As we shall see in the case of communism and -nomadism, more formless things could and did lie on the -flank of societies that had taken a fixed form; but there is -nothing to show that the form did not exist before the -formlessness. What is vital is that form is more important -than formlessness; and that the material called mankind has -taken this form. For instance, of the rules revolving round -sex, which were recently mentioned, none is more curious -than the savage custom commonly called the *couvade*. That -seems like a law out of topsyturvydom; by which the father -is treated as if he were the mother. In any case it clearly -involves the mystical sense of sex; but many have maintained -that it is really a symbolic act by which the father accepts -the responsibility of fatherhood. In that case that -grotesque antic is really a very solemn act; for it is the -foundation of all we call the family and all we know as -human society. Some groping in these dark beginnings have -said that mankind was once under a matriarchy; I suppose -that under a matriarchy it would not be called mankind but -womankind. But others have conjectured that what is called -matriarchy was simply moral anarchy, in which the mother -alone remained fixed because all the fathers were fugitive -and irresponsible. Then came the moment when the man decided -to guard and guide what he had created. So he became the -head of the family, not as a bully with a big club to beat -women with, but rather as a respectable person trying to be -a responsible person. Now all that might be perfectly true, -and might even have been the first family act, and it would -still be true that man then for the first time acted like a -man, and therefore for the first time became fully a man. -But it might quite as well be true that the matriarchy or -moral anarchy, or whatever we call it, was only one of the -hundred social dissolutions or barbaric backslidings which -may have occurred at intervals in prehistoric as they -certainly did in historic times. A symbol like the -*couvade*, if it was really such a symbol, may have -commemorated the suppression of a heresy rather than the -first rise of a religion. We cannot conclude with any -certainty about these things, except in their big results in -the building of mankind, but we can say in what style the -bulk of it and the best of it is built. We can say that the -family is the unit of the state; that it is the cell that -makes up the formation. Round the family do indeed gather -the sanctities that separate men from ants and bees. Decency -is the curtain of that tent; liberty is the wall of that -city; property is but the family farm; honour is but the -family flag. In the practical proportions of human history, -we come back to that fundamental of the father and the -mother and the child. It has been said already that if this -story cannot start with religious assumptions, it must none -the less start with some moral or metaphysical assumptions, -or no sense can be made of the story of man. And this is a -very good instance of that alternative necessity. If we are -not of those who begin by invoking a divine Trinity, we must -none the less invoke a human Trinity; and see that triangle -repeated everywhere in the pattern of the world. For the -highest event in history to which all history looks forward -and leads up, is only something that is at once the reversal -and the renewal of that triangle. Or rather it is the one -triangle superimposed so as to intersect the other, making a -sacred pentacle of which, in a mightier sense than that of -the magicians, the fiends are afraid. The old Trinity was of -father and mother and child, and is called the human family. -The new is of child and mother and father, and has the name -of the Holy Family. It is in no way altered except in being -entirely reversed; just as the world which it transformed -was not in the least different, except in being turned -upside-down. +Science is weak about these prehistoric things in a way that has hardly +been noticed. The science whose modern marvels we all admire succeeds by +incessantly adding to its data. In all practical inventions, in most +natural discoveries, it can always increase evidence by experiment. But +it cannot experiment in making men; or even in watching to see what the +first men make. An inventor can advance step by step in the construction +of an aeroplane, even if he is only experimenting with sticks and scraps +of metal in his own back-yard. But he cannot watch the Missing Link +evolving in his own back-yard. If he has made a mistake in his +calculations, the aeroplane will correct it by crashing to the ground. +But if he has made a mistake about the arboreal habitat of his ancestor, +he cannot see his arboreal ancestor falling off the tree. He cannot keep +a cave-man like a cat in the back-yard and watch him to see whether he +does really practise cannibalism or carry off his mate on the principles +of marriage by capture. He cannot keep a tribe of primitive men like a +pack of hounds and notice how far they are influenced by the herd +instinct. If he sees a particular bird behave in a particular way, he +can get other birds and see if they behave in that way; but if he finds +a skull, or the scrap of a skull, in the hollow of a hill, he cannot +multiply it into a vision of the valley of dry bones. In dealing with a +past that has almost entirely perished, he can only go by evidence and +not by experiment. And there is hardly enough evidence to be even +evidential. Thus while most science moves in a sort of curve, being +constantly corrected by new evidence, this science flies off into space +in a straight line uncorrected by anything. But the habit of forming +conclusions, as they can really be formed in more fruitful fields, is so +fixed in the scientific mind that it cannot resist talking like this. It +talks about the idea suggested by one scrap of bone as if it were +something like the aeroplane which is constructed at last out of whole +scrap-heaps of scraps of metal. The trouble with the professor of the +prehistoric is that he cannot scrap his scrap. The marvellous and +triumphant aeroplane is made out of a hundred mistakes. The student of +origins can only make one mistake and stick to it. + +We talk very truly of the patience of science; but in this department it +would be truer to talk of the impatience of science. Owing to the +difficulty above described, the theorist is in far too much of a hurry. +We have a series of hypotheses so hasty that they may well be called +fancies, and cannot in any case be further corrected by facts. The most +empirical anthropologist is here as limited as an antiquary. He can only +cling to a fragment of the past and has no way of increasing it for the +future. He can only clutch his fragment of fact, almost as the primitive +man clutched his fragment of flint. And indeed he does deal with it in +much the same way and for much the same reason. It is his tool and his +only tool. It is his weapon and his only weapon. He often wields it with +a fanaticism far in excess of anything shown by men of science when they +can collect more facts from experience and even add new facts by +experiment. Sometimes the professor with his bone becomes almost as +dangerous as a dog with his bone. And the dog at least does not deduce a +theory from it, proving that mankind is going to the dogs---or that it +came from them. + +For instance, I have pointed out the difficulty of keeping a monkey and +watching it evolve into a man. Experimental evidence of such an +evolution being impossible, the professor is not content to say (as most +of us would be ready to say) that such an evolution is likely enough +anyhow. He produces his little bone, or little collection of bones, and +deduces the most marvellous things from it. He found in Java a part of a +skull, seeming by its contour to be smaller than the human. Somewhere +near it he found an upright thigh-bone, and in the same scattered +fashion some teeth that were not human. If they all form part of one +creature, which is doubtful, our conception of the creature would be +almost equally doubtful. But the effect on popular science was to +produce a complete and even complex figure, finished down to the last +details of hair and habits He was given a name as if he were an ordinary +historical character. People talked of Pithecanthropus as of Pitt or Fox +or Napoleon. Popular histories published portraits of him like the +portraits of Charles the First and George the Fourth. A detailed drawing +was reproduced, carefully shaded, to show that the very hairs of his +head were all numbered. No uninformed person looking at its carefully +lined face and wistful eyes would imagine for a moment that this was the +portrait of a thigh-bone; or of a few teeth and a fragment of a cranium. +In the same way people talked about him as if he were an individual +whose influence and character were familiar to us all. I have just read +a story in a magazine about Java, and how modern white inhabitants of +that island are prevailed on to misbehave themselves by the personal +influence of poor old Pithecanthropus. That the modern inhabitants of +Java misbehave themselves I can very readily believe; but I do not +imagine that they need any encouragement from the discovery of a few +highly doubtful bones. Anyhow, those bones are far too few and +fragmentary and dubious to fill up the whole of the vast void that does +in reason and in reality lie between man and his bestial ancestor if +they were his ancestors. On the assumption of that evolutionary +connection (a connection which I am not in the least concerned to deny), +the really arresting and remarkable fact is the comparative absence of +any such remains recording that connection at that point. The sincerity +of Darwin really admitted this; and that is how we came to use such a +term as the Missing Link. But the dogmatism of Darwinians has been too +strong for the agnosticism of Darwin; and men have insensibly fallen +into turning this entirely negative term into a positive image. They +talk of searching for the habits and habitat of the Missing Link; as if +one were to talk of being on friendly terms with the gap in a narrative +or the hole in an argument, of taking a walk with a *non-sequitur* or +dining with an undistributed middle. + +In this sketch, therefore, of man m his relation to certain religious +and historical problems, I shall waste no further space on these +speculations on the nature of man before he became man. His body may +have been evolved from the brutes; but we know nothing of any such +transition that throws the smallest light upon his soul as it has shown +itself in history. Unfortunately the same school of writers pursue the +same style of reasoning when they come to the first real evidence about +the first real men. Strictly speaking, of course, we know nothing about +prehistoric man, for the simple reason that he was prehistoric. The +history of prehistoric man is a very obvious contradiction in terms. It +is the sort of unreason in which only rationalists are allowed to +indulge. If a parson had casually observed that the Flood was +antediluvian, it is possible that he might be a little chaffed about his +logic. If a bishop were to say that Adam was pre-Adamite, we might think +it a little odd. But we are not supposed to notice such verbal trifles +when sceptical historians talk of the part of history that is +prehistoric. The truth is that they are using the terms historic and +prehistoric without any clear test or definition in their minds. What +they mean is that there are traces of human lives before the beginning +of human stories; and in that sense we do at least know that humanity +was before history. + +Human civilisation is older than human records. That is the sane way of +stating our relations to these remote things. Humanity has left examples +of its other arts earlier than the art of writing; or at least of any +writing that we can read. But it is certain that the primitive arts were +arts; and it is in every way probable that the primitive civilisations +were, civilisations. The man left a picture of the reindeer but he did +not leave a narrative of how he hunted the reindeer; and therefore what +we say of him is hypothesis and not history. But the art he did practise +was quite artistic; his drawing was quite intelligent, and there is no +reason to doubt that his story of the hunt would be quite intelligent, +only if it exists it is not intelligible. In short, the prehistoric +period need not mean the primitive period, in the sense of the barbaric +or bestial period. It does not mean the time before civilisation or the +time before arts and crafts. It simply means the time before any +connected narratives that we can read. This does indeed make all the +practical difference between remembrance and forgetfulness; but it is +perfectly possible that there were all sorts of forgotten forms of +civilisation, as well as all sorts of forgotten forms of barbarism. And +in any case everything indicated that many of these forgotten or +half-forgotten social stages were much more civilised and much less +barbaric than is vulgarly imagined to-day. But even about these +unwritten histories of humanity, when humanity was quite certainly +human, we can only conjecture with the greatest doubt and caution. And +unfortunately doubt and caution are the last things commonly encouraged +by the loose evolutionism of current culture. For that culture is full +of curiosity; and the one thing that it cannot endure is the agony of +agnosticism. It was in the Darwinian age that the word first became +known and the thing first became impossible. + +It is necessary to say plainly that all this ignorance is simply covered +by impudence. Statements are made so plainly and positively that men +have hardly the moral courage to pause upon them and find that they are +without support. The other day a scientific summary of the state of a +prehistoric tribe began confidently with the words "They wore no +clothes." Not one reader in a hundred probably stopped to ask himself +how we should come to know whether clothes had once been worn by people +of whom everything has perished except a few chips of bone and stone. It +was doubtless hoped that we should find a stone hat as well as a stone +hatchet. It was evidently anticipated that we might discover an +everlasting pair of trousers of the same substance as the everlasting +rock. But to persons of a less sanguine temperament it will be +immediately apparent that people might wear simple garments, or even +highly ornamental garments, without leaving any more traces of them than +these people have left. The plaiting of rushes and grasses, for +instance, might have become more and more elaborate without in the least +becoming more eternal. One civilisation might specialise in things that +happened to be perishable, like weaving and embroidering, and not in +things that happen to be more permanent, like architecture and +sculpture. There have been plenty of examples of such specialist +societies. A man of the future finding the ruins of our factory +machinery might as fairly say that we were acquainted with iron and with +no other substance; and announce the discovery that the proprietor and +manager of the factory undoubtedly walked about naked---or possibly wore +iron hats and trousers. + +It is not contended here that these primitive men did wear clothes any +more than they did weave rushes; but merely that we have not enough +evidence to know whether they did or not. But it may be worth while to +look back for a moment at some of the very few things that we do know +and that they did do. If we consider them, we shall certainly not find +them inconsistent with such ideas as dress and decoration. We do not +know whether they decorated themselves; but we do know that they +decorated other things. We do not know whether they had embroideries, +and if they had, the embroideries could not be expected to have +remained. But we do know that they did have pictures; and the pictures +have remained. And there remains with them, as already suggested, the +testimony to something that is absolute and unique; that belongs to man +and to nothing else except man; that is a difference of kind and not a +difference of degree. A monkey does not draw clumsily and a man +cleverly; a monkey does not begin the art of representation and a man +carry it to perfection. A monkey does not do it at all; he does not +begin to do it at all; he does not begin to begin to do it at all. A +line of some kind is crossed before the first faint line can begin. + +Another distinguished writer, again, in commenting on the cave-drawings +attributed to the neolithic men of the reindeer period, said that none +of their pictures appeared to have any religious purpose; and he seemed +almost to infer that they had no religion. I can hardly imagine a +thinner thread of argument than this which reconstructs the very inmost +moods of the prehistoric mind from the fact that somebody who has +scrawled a few sketches on a rock, from what motive we do not know, for +what purpose we do not know, acting under what customs or conventions we +do not know, may possibly have found it easier to draw reindeers than to +draw religion. He may have drawn it because it was his religious symbol. +He may have drawn it because it was not his religious symbol. He may +have drawn anything except his religious symbol. He may have drawn his +real religious symbol somewhere else; or it may have been deliberately +destroyed when it was drawn. He may have done or not done half-a-million +things; but in any case it is an amazing leap of logic to infer that he +had no religious symbol, or even to infer from his having no religious +symbol that he had no religion. Now this particular case happens to +illustrate the insecurity of these guesses very clearly. For a little +while afterwards, people discovered not only paintings but sculptures of +animals in the caves. Some of these were said to be damaged with dints +or holes supposed to be the marks of arrows; and the damaged images were +conjectured to be the remains of some magic rite of killing the beasts +in effigy; while the undamaged images were explained in connection with +another magic rite invoking fertility upon the herds. Here again there +is something faintly humorous about the scientific habit of having it +both ways. If the image is damaged it proves one superstition and if it +is undamaged it proves another. Here again there is a rather reckless +jumping to conclusions; it has hardly occurred to the speculators that a +crowd of hunters imprisoned in winter in a cave might conceivably have +aimed at a mark for fun, as a sort of primitive parlour game. But in any +case, if it was done out of superstition, what has become of the thesis +that it had nothing to do with religion? The truth is that all this +guesswork has nothing to do with anything. It is not half such a good +parlour game as shooting arrows at a carved reindeer, for it is shooting +them into the air. + +Such speculators rather tend to forget, for instance, that men in the +modern world also sometimes make marks in caves. When a crowd of +trippers is conducted through the labyrinth of the Marvellous Grotto or +the Magic Stalactite Cavern, it has been observed that hieroglyphics +spring into sight where they have passed; initials and inscriptions +which the learned refuse to refer to any remote date. But the time will +come when these inscriptions will really be of remote date. And if the +professors of the future are anything like the professors of the +present, they will be able to deduce a vast number of very vivid and +interesting things from these cave-writings of the twentieth century. If +I know anything about the breed, and if they have not fallen away from +the full-blooded confidence of their fathers, they will be able to +discover the most fascinating facts about us from the initials left in +the Magic Grotto by 'Arry and 'Arriet, possibly in the form of two +intertwined A's. From this alone they will know (1) That as the letters +are rudely chipped with a blunt pocket-knife, the twentieth century +possessed no delicate graving-tools and was unacquainted with the art of +sculpture. (2) That as the letters are capital letters, our civilisation +never evolved any small letters or anything like a running hand. (3) +That because initial consonants stand together in an unpronounceable +fashion, our language was possibly akin to Welsh or more probably of the +early Semitic type that ignored vowels. (4) That as the initials of +'Arry and 'Arriet do not in any special fashion profess to be religious +symbols, our civilisation possessed no religion. Perhaps the last is +about the nearest to the truth; for a civilisation that had religion +would have a little more reason. + +It is commonly affirmed, again, that religion grew in a very slow and +evolutionary manner; and even that it grew not from one cause, but from +a combination that might be called a coincidence. Generally speaking, +the three chief elements in the combination are, first, the fear of the +chief of the tribe (whom Mr. Wells insists on calling, with regrettable +familiarity, the Old Man), second, the phenomena of dreams, and third, +the sacrificial associations of the harvest and the resurrection +symbolised in the growing com. I may remark in passing that it seems to +me very doubtful psychology to refer one living and single spirit to +three dead and disconnected causes, if they were merely dead and +disconnected causes. Suppose Mr. Wells, in one of his fascinating novels +of the future, were to tell us that there would arise among men a new +and as yet nameless passion, of which men will dream as they dream of +first love, for which they will die as they die for a flag and a +fatherland. I think we should be a little puzzled if he told us that +this singular sentiment would be a combination of the habit of smoking +Woodbines, the increase of the income tax and the pleasure of a motorist +in exceeding the speed limit. We could not easily imagine this, because +we could not imagine any connection between the three or any common +feeling that could include them all. Nor could any one imagine any +connection between com and dreams and an old chief with a spear, unless +there was already a common feeling to include them all. But if there was +such a common feeling it could only be the religious feeling; and these +things could not be the beginnings of a religious feeling that existed +already. I think anybody's common sense will tell him that it is far +more likely that this sort of mystical sentiment did exist already; and +that in the light of it dreams and kings and cornfields could appear +mystical then, as they can appear mystical now. + +For the plain truth is that all this is a trick of making things seem +distant and dehumanised, merely by pretending not to understand things +that we do understand. It is like saying that prehistoric men had an +ugly and uncouth habit of opening their mouths wide at intervals and +stuffing strange substances into them, as if we had never heard of +eating. It is like saying that the terrible Troglodytes of the Stone Age +lifted alternate legs in rotation, as if we had never heard of walking. +If it were meant to touch the mystical nerve and awaken us to the wonder +of walking and eating, it might be a legitimate fancy. As it is here +intended to kill the mystical nerve and deaden us to the wonder of +religion, it is irrational rubbish. It pretends to find something +incomprehensible in the feelings that we all comprehend. Who does not +find dreams mysterious, and feel that they lie on the dark borderland +'of being? Who does not feel the death and resurrection of the growing +things of the earth as something near to the secret of the universe? Who +does not understand that there must always be the savour of something +sacred about authority and the solidarity that is the soul of the tribe? +If there be any anthropologist who really finds these things remote and +impossible to realise, we can say nothing of that scientific gentleman +except that he has not got so large and enlightened a mind as a +primitive man. To me it seems obvious that nothing but a spiritual +sentiment already active could have clothed these separate and diverse +things with sanctity. To say that religion came from reverencing a chief +or sacrificing at a harvest is to put a highly elaborate cart before a +really primitive horse. It is like saying that the impulse to draw +pictures came from the contemplation of the pictures of reindeers in the +cave. In other words it is explaining painting by saying that it arose +out of the work of painters; or accounting for art by saying that it +arose out of art. It is even more like saying that the thing we call +poetry arose as the result of certain customs; such as that of an ode +being officially composed to celebrate the advent of spring; or that of +a young man rising at a regular hour to listen to the skylark and then +writing his report on a piece of paper. It is quite true that young men +often become poets in the spring; and it is quite true that when once +there are poets, no mortal power can restrain them from writing about +the skylark. But the poems did not exist before the poets. The poetry +did not arise out of the poetic forms. In other words, it is hardly an +adequate explanation of how a thing appeared for the first time to say +it existed already. Similarly, we cannot say that religion arose out of +the religious forms, because that is only another way of saying that it +only arose when it existed already. It needed a certain sort of mind to +see that there was anything mystical about the dreams or the dead, as it +needed a particular sort of mind to see that there was anything poetical +about the skylark or the spring. That mind was presumably what we call +the human mind, very much as it exists to this day; for mystics still +meditate upon death and dreams as poets still write about spring and +skylarks. But there is not the faintest hint to suggest that anything +short of the human mind we know feels any of these mystical associations +at all. A cow in a field seems to derive no lyrical impulse or +instruction from her unrivalled opportunities for listening to the +skylark. And similarly there is no reason to suppose that live sheep +will ever begin to use dead sheep as the basis of a system of elaborate +ancestor-worship. It is true that in the spring a young quadruped's +fancy may lightly turn to thoughts of love, but no succession of springs +has ever led it to turn however lightly to thoughts of literature. And +in the same way, while it is true that a dog has dreams, while most +other quadrupeds do not seem even to have that, we have waited a long +time for the dog to develop his dreams into an elaborate system of +religious ceremonial. We have waited so long that we have really ceased +to expect it; and we no more look to see a dog apply his dreams to +ecclesiastical construction than to see him examine his dreams by the +rules of psycho-analysis. It is obvious, in short, that for some reason +or other these natural experiences, and even natural excitements, never +do pass the line that separates them from creative expression like art +and religion, in any creature except man. They never do, they never +have, and it is now to all appearance very improbable that they ever +will. It is not impossible, in the sense of self-contradictory, that we +should see cows fasting from grass every Friday or going on their knees +as in the old legend about Christmas Eve. It is not in that sense +impossible that cows should contemplate death until they can lift up a +sublime psalm of lamentation to the tune the old cow died of. It is not +in that sense impossible that they should express their hopes of a +heavenly career in a symbolical dance, in honour of the cow that jumped +over the moon. It may be that the dog will at last have laid in a +sufficient store of dreams to enable him to build a temple to Cerberus +as a sort of canine trinity. It may be that his dreams have already +begun to turn into visions capable of verbal expression, in some +revelation about the Dog Star as the spiritual home for lost dogs. These +things are logically possible, in the sense that it is logically +difficult to prove the universal negative which we call an +impossibility. But all that instinct for the probable, which we call +common sense, must long ago have told us that the animals are not to all +appearance evolving in that sense; and that, to say the least, we are +not likely to have any personal evidence of their passing from the +animal experience to the human experiments. But spring and death and +even dreams, considered merely as experiences, are their experiences as +much as ours. The only possible conclusion is that these experiences, +considered as experiences, do not generate anything like a religious +sense in any mind except a mind like ours. We come back to the fact of a +certain kind of mind as already alive and alone. It was unique and it +could make creeds as it could make cave-drawings. The materials for +religion had lain there for countless ages like the materials for +everything else; but the power of religion was in the mind. Man could +already see in these things the riddles and hints and hopes that he +still sees in them. He could not only dream but dream about dreams. He +could not only see the dead but see the shadow of death; and was +possessed with that mysterious mystification that for ever finds death +incredible. + +It is quite true that we have even these hints chiefly about man when he +unmistakably appears as man. We cannot affirm this or anything else +about the alleged animal originally connecting man and the brutes. But +that is only because he is not an animal but an allegation. We cannot be +certain that Pithecanthropus ever worshipped, because we cannot be +certain that he ever lived. He is only a vision called up to fill the +void that does in fact yawn between the first creatures who were +certainly men and any other creatures that are certainly apes or other +animals. A few very doubtful fragments are scraped together to suggest +such an intermediate creature because it is required by a certain +philosophy; but nobody supposes that these are sufficient to establish +anything philosophical even in support of that philosophy. A scrap of +skull found in Java cannot establish anything about religion or about +the absence of religion, If there ever was any such ape-man, he may have +exhibited as much ritual in religion as a man or as much simplicity in +religion as an ape. He may have been a mythologist or he may have been a +myth. It might be interesting to inquire whether this mystical quality +appeared in a transition from the ape to the man, if there were really +any types of the transition to inquire about. In other words, the +missing link might or might not be mystical if he were not missing. But +compared with the evidence we have of real human beings, we have no +evidence that he was a human being or a half-human being or a being at +all. Even the most extreme evolutionists do not attempt to deduce any +revolutionary views about the origin of religion from him. Even in +trying to prove that religion grew slowly from rude or irrational +sources, they begin their proof with the first men who were men. But +their own proof only proves that the men who were already men were +already mystics. They used the rude and irrational elements as only men +and mystics can use them. We come back once more to the simple truth; +that at some time too early for these critics to trace, a transition has +occurred to which bones and stones cannot in their nature bear witness; +and man became a living soul. + +Touching this matter of the origin of religion, the truth is that those +who are thus trying to explain it are trying to explain it away. +Subconsciously they feel that it looks less formidable when thus +lengthened out into a gradual and almost invisible process. But in fact +this perspective entirely falsifies the reality of experience. They +bring together two things that are totally different, the stray hints of +evolutionary origins and the solid and self-evident block of humanity, +and try to shift their standpoint till they see them in a single +foreshortened line. But it is an optical illusion. Men do not in fact +stand related to monkeys or missing links in any such chain as that in +which men stand related to men. There may have been intermediate +creatures whose faint traces can be found here and there in the huge +gap. Of these beings, if they ever existed, it may be true that they +were things very unlike men or men very unlike ourselves. But of +prehistoric men, such as those called the cave-men or the reindeer men, +it is not true in any sense whatever. Prehistoric men of that sort were +things exactly like men and men exceedingly like ourselves. They only +happened to be men about whom we do not know much, for the simple reason +that they have left no records or chronicles; but all that we do know +about them makes them just as human and ordinary as men in a medieval +manor or a Greek city. + +Looking from our human standpoint up the long perspective of humanity, +we simply recognise this thing as human. If we had to recognise it as +animal we should have had to recognise it as abnormal. If we chose to +look through the other end of the telescope, as I have done more than +once in these speculations, if we chose to project the human figure +forward out of an unhuman world, we could only say that one of the +animals had obviously gone mad. But seeing the thing from the right end, +or rather from the inside, we know it is sanity; and we know that these +primitive men were sane. We hail a certain human freemasonry wherever we +see it, in savages, in foreigners or in historical characters. For +instance, all we can infer from primitive legend, and all we know of +barbaric life, supports a certain moral and even mystical idea of which +the commonest symbol is clothes. For clothes are very literally +vestments, and man wears them because he is a priest. It is true that +even as an animal he is here different from the animals. Nakedness is +not nature to him; it is not his life but rather his death even in the +vulgar sense of his death of cold. But clothes are worn for dignity or +decency or decoration where they are not in any way wanted for warmth. +It would sometimes appear that they are valued for ornament before they +are valued for use. It would almost always appear that they are felt to +have some connection with decorum. Conventions of this sort vary a great +deal with various times and places; and there are some who cannot get +over this reflection, and for whom it seems a sufficient argument for +letting all conventions slide. They never tire of repeating, with simple +wonder, that dress is different in the Cannibal Islands and in Camden +Town; they cannot get any further and throw up the whole idea of decency +in despair. They might as well say that because there have been hats of +a good many different shapes, and some rather eccentric shapes, +therefore hats do not matter or do not exist. They would probably add +that there is no such thing as sunstroke or going bald. Men have felt +everywhere that certain forms were necessary to fence off and protect +certain private things from contempt or coarse misunderstanding; and the +keeping of those forms, whatever they were, made for dignity and mutual +respect. The fact that they mostly refer, more or less remotely, to the +relations of the sexes illustrates the two facts that must be put at the +very beginning of the record of the race. The first is the fact that +original sin is really original. Not merely in theology but in history +it is a thing rooted in the origins. Whatever else men have believed, +they have all believed that there is something the matter with mankind. +This sense of sin has made it impossible to be natural and have no +clothes, just as it has made it impossible to be natural and have no +laws. But above all it is to be found in that other fact, which is the +father and mother of all laws as it is itself founded on a father and +mother: the thing that is before all thrones and even all +common-wealths. + +That fact is the family. Here again we must keep the enormous +proportions of a normal thing clear of Various modifications and degrees +and doubts more or less reasonable, like clouds clinging about a +mountain. It may be that what we call the family had to fight its way +from or through various anarchies gnd aberrations; but it certainly +survived them and is quite as likely as not to have also preceded them. +As we shall see in the case of communism and nomadism, more formless +things could and did lie on the flank of societies that had taken a +fixed form; but there is nothing to show that the form did not exist +before the formlessness. What is vital is that form is more important +than formlessness; and that the material called mankind has taken this +form. For instance, of the rules revolving round sex, which were +recently mentioned, none is more curious than the savage custom commonly +called the *couvade*. That seems like a law out of topsyturvydom; by +which the father is treated as if he were the mother. In any case it +clearly involves the mystical sense of sex; but many have maintained +that it is really a symbolic act by which the father accepts the +responsibility of fatherhood. In that case that grotesque antic is +really a very solemn act; for it is the foundation of all we call the +family and all we know as human society. Some groping in these dark +beginnings have said that mankind was once under a matriarchy; I suppose +that under a matriarchy it would not be called mankind but womankind. +But others have conjectured that what is called matriarchy was simply +moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remained fixed because all the +fathers were fugitive and irresponsible. Then came the moment when the +man decided to guard and guide what he had created. So he became the +head of the family, not as a bully with a big club to beat women with, +but rather as a respectable person trying to be a responsible person. +Now all that might be perfectly true, and might even have been the first +family act, and it would still be true that man then for the first time +acted like a man, and therefore for the first time became fully a man. +But it might quite as well be true that the matriarchy or moral anarchy, +or whatever we call it, was only one of the hundred social dissolutions +or barbaric backslidings which may have occurred at intervals in +prehistoric as they certainly did in historic times. A symbol like the +*couvade*, if it was really such a symbol, may have commemorated the +suppression of a heresy rather than the first rise of a religion. We +cannot conclude with any certainty about these things, except in their +big results in the building of mankind, but we can say in what style the +bulk of it and the best of it is built. We can say that the family is +the unit of the state; that it is the cell that makes up the formation. +Round the family do indeed gather the sanctities that separate men from +ants and bees. Decency is the curtain of that tent; liberty is the wall +of that city; property is but the family farm; honour is but the family +flag. In the practical proportions of human history, we come back to +that fundamental of the father and the mother and the child. It has been +said already that if this story cannot start with religious assumptions, +it must none the less start with some moral or metaphysical assumptions, +or no sense can be made of the story of man. And this is a very good +instance of that alternative necessity. If we are not of those who begin +by invoking a divine Trinity, we must none the less invoke a human +Trinity; and see that triangle repeated everywhere in the pattern of the +world. For the highest event in history to which all history looks +forward and leads up, is only something that is at once the reversal and +the renewal of that triangle. Or rather it is the one triangle +superimposed so as to intersect the other, making a sacred pentacle of +which, in a mightier sense than that of the magicians, the fiends are +afraid. The old Trinity was of father and mother and child, and is +called the human family. The new is of child and mother and father, and +has the name of the Holy Family. It is in no way altered except in being +entirely reversed; just as the world which it transformed was not in the +least different, except in being turned upside-down. ### III. The Antiquity of Civilisation -The modern man looking at the most ancient origins has been -like a man watching for daybreak in a strange land; and -expecting to see that dawn breaking behind bare uplands or -solitary peaks. But that dawn is breaking behind the black -bulk of great cities long builded and lost for us in the -original night; colossal cities like the houses of giants, -in which even the carved ornamental animals are taller than -the palm-trees; in which the painted portrait can be twelve -times the size of the man; with tombs like mountains of man -set four-square and pointing to the stars; with winged and -bearded bulls standing and staring enormous at the gates of -temples; standing still eternally as if a stamp would shake -the world. The dawn of history reveals a humanity already -civilised. Perhaps it reveals a civilisation already old. -And among other more important things, it reveals the folly -of most of the generalisations about the previous and -unknown period when it was really young. The two first human -societies of which we have any reliable and detailed record -are Babylon and Egypt. It so happens that these two vast and -splendid achievements of the genius of the ancients bear -witness against two of the commonest and crudest assumptions -of the culture of the moderns. If we want to get rid of half -the nonsense about nomads and cave-men and the old man of -the forest, we need only look steadily at the two solid and -stupendous facts called Egypt and Babylon. - -Of course most of these speculators who are talking about -primitive men are thinking about modern savages. They prove -their progressive evolution by assuming that a great part of -the human race has not progressed or evolved; or even -changed in any way at all. I do not agree with their theory -of change; nor do I agree with their dogma of things -unchangeable. I may not believe that civilised man has had -so rapid and recent a progress; but I cannot quite -understand why uncivilised man should be so mystically -immortal and immutable. A somewhat simpler mode of thought -and speech seems to me to be needed throughout this inquiry. -modern savages cannot be exactly like primitive man, because -they are not primitive. modern savages are not ancient -because they are modern. Something has happened to their -race as much as to ours, during the thousands of years of -our existence and endurance on the earth. They have had some -experiences, and have presumably acted on them if not -profited by them, like the rest of us. They have had some -environment, and even some change of environment, and have -presumably adapted themselves to it in a proper and decorous -evolutionary manner. This would be true even if the -experiences were mild or the environment dreary; for there -is an effect in mere time when it takes the moral form of -monotony. But it has appeared to a good many intelligent and -well-informed people quite as probable that the experience -of the savages has been that of a decline from civilisation. -Most of those who criticise this view do not seem to have -any very clear notion of what a decline from civilisation -would be like. Heaven help them, it is likely enough that -they will soon find out. They seem to be content if cave-men -and cannibal islanders have some things in common, such as -certain particular implements. But it is obvious on the face -of it that any peoples reduced for any reason to a ruder -life would have some things in common. If we lost all our -firearms we should make bows and arrows; but we should not -necessarily resemble in every way the first men who made -bows and arrows. It is said that the Russians in their great -retreat were so short of armament that they fought with -clubs cut in the wood. But a professor of the future would -err in supposing that the Russian Army of 1916 was a naked -Scythian tribe that had never been out of the wood. It is -like saying that a man in his second childhood must exactly -copy his first. A baby is bald like an old man; but it would -be an error for one ignorant of infancy to infer that the -baby had a long white beard. Both a baby and an old man walk -with difficulty; but he who shall expect the old gentleman -to lie on his back, and kick joyfully instead, will be -disappointed. - -It is therefore absurd to argue that the first pioneers of -humanity must have been identical with some of the last and -most stagnant leavings of it. There were almost certainly -some things, there were probably many things, in which the -two were widely different or flatly contrary. An example of -the way in which this distinction works, and an example -essential to our argument here, is that of the nature and -origin of government. I have already alluded to Mr. H. G. -Wells and the Old Man, with whom he appears to be on such -intimate terms. If we consider the cold facts of prehistoric -evidence for this portrait of the prehistoric chief of the -tribe, we could only excuse it by saying that its brilliant -and versatile author simply forgot for a moment that he was -supposed to be writing a history, and dreamed he was writing -one of his own very wonderful and imaginative romances. At -least I cannot imagine how he can possibly know that the -prehistoric ruler was called the Old Man or that court -etiquette requires it to be spelt with capital letters. He -says of the same potentate, "No one was allowed to touch his -spear or to sit in his seat." I have difficulty in believing -that anybody has dug up a prehistoric spear with a -prehistoric label, "Visitors are Requested not to Touch," or -a complete throne with the inscription, "Reserved for the -Old Man." But it may be presumed that the writer, who can -hardly be supposed to be merely making up things out of his -own head, was merely taking for granted this very dubious -parallel between the prehistoric and the decivilised man. It -may be that in certain savage tribes the chief is called the -Old Man and nobody is allowed to touch his spear or sit on -his seat. It may be that in those cases he is surrounded -with superstitious and traditional terrors; and it may be -that in those cases, for all I know, he is despotic and -tyrannical. But there is not a grain of evidence that -primitive government was despotic and tyrannical. It may -have been, of course, for it may have been anything or even -nothing; it may not have existed at all. But the despotism -in certain dingy and decayed tribes in the twentieth century -does not prove that the first men were ruled despotically. -It does not even suggest it; it does not even begin to hint -at it. If there is one fact we really can prove, from the -history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be -a development, often a late development and very often -indeed the end of societies that have been highly -democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired -democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are -less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly -been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm -only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep. -It is also true that they sometimes needed him for some -sudden and militant act of reform; it is equally true that -he often took advantage of being the strong man armed to be -a tyrant like some of the Sultans of the East. But I cannot -see why the Sultan should have appeared any earlier in -history than many other human figures. On the contrary, the -strong man armed obviously depends upon the superiority of -his armour; and armament of that sort comes with more -complex civilisation. One man may kill twenty with a -machine-gun; it is obviously less likely that he could do it -with a piece of flint. .As for the current cant about the -strongest man ruling by force and fear, it is simply a -nursery fairy-tale about a giant with a hundred hands. -Twenty men could hold down the strongest strong man in any -society, ancient or modern. Undoubtedly they might admire, -in a romantic and poetical sense, the man who was really the -strongest; but that is quite a different thing, and is as -purely moral and even mystical as the admiration for the -purest or the wisest. But the spirit that endures the mere -cruelties and caprices of an established despot is the -spirit of an ancient and settled and probably stiffened -society, not the spirit of a new one. As his name implies, -the Old Man is the ruler of an old humanity. - -It is far more probable that a primitive society was -something like a pure democracy. To this day the -comparatively simple agricultural communities are by far the -purest democracies. Democracy is a thing which is always -breaking down through the complexity of civilisation. Any -one who likes may state it by saying that democracy is the -foe of civilisation. But he must remember that some of us -really prefer democracy to civilisation, in the sense of -preferring democracy to complexity. Anyhow, peasants tilling -patches of their own land in a rough equality, and meeting -to vote directly under a village tree, are the most truly -self-governing of men. It is surely as likely as not that -such a simple idea was found in the first condition of even -simpler men. Indeed the despotic vision is exaggerated, even -if we do not regard the men as men. Even on an evolutionary -assumption of the most materialistic sort, there is really -no reason why men should not have had at least as much -camaraderie as rats or rooks. Leadership of some sort they -doubtless had, as have the gregarious animals; but -leadership implies no such irrational servility as that -attributed to the superstitious subjects of the Old Man. -There was doubtless, somebody corresponding, to use -Tennyson's expression, to the many-wintered crow that leads -the clanging rookery home. But I fancy that if that -venerable fowl began to act after the fashion of some -Sultans in ancient and decayed Asia, it would become a very -clanging rookery and the many-wintered crow would not see -many more winters. It may be remarked in this connection, -but even among animals it would seem that something else is -respected more than bestial violence, if it be only the -familiarity which in men is called tradition or the -experience which in men is called wisdom. I do not know if -crows really follow the oldest crow, but if they do they are -certainly not following the strongest crow. And I do know, -in the human case, that if some ritual of seniority keeps -savages reverencing somebody called the Old Man, then at -least they have not our own servile sentimental weakness for -worshipping the Strong Man. - -It may be said then that primitive government, like -primitive art and religion and everything else, is very -imperfectly known or rather guessed at; but that it is at -least as good a guess to suggest that it was as popular as a -Balkan or Pyrenean village as that it was as capricious and -secret as a Turkish divan. Both the mountain democracy and -the oriental palace are modern in the sense that they are -still there, or are some sort of growth of history; but of -the two the palace has much more the look of being an -accumulation and a corruption, the village much more the -look of being a really unchanged and primitive thing. But my -suggestions at this point do not go beyond expressing a -wholesome doubt about the current assumption. I think it -interesting, for instance, that liberal institutions have -been traced even by moderns back to barbarian or undeveloped -states, when it happened to be convenient for the support of -some race or nation or philosophy. So the Socialists profess -that their ideal of communal property existed in very early -times. So the Jews are proud of the Jubilees or juster -redistributions under their ancient law. So the Teutonists -boasted of tracing parliaments and juries and various -popular things among the Germanic tribes of the North. So -the Celtophiles and those testifying to the wrongs of -Ireland have pleaded the more equal justice of the clan -system, to which the Irish chiefs bore witness before -Strongbow. The strength of the case varies in the different -cases; but as there is some case for all of them, I suspect -there is some case for the general proposition that popular -institutions of some sort were by no means uncommon in early -and simple societies. Each of these separate schools were -making the admission to prove a particular modern thesis; -but taken together they suggest a more ancient and general -truth, that there was something more in prehistoric councils -than ferocity and fear. Each of these separate theorists had -his own axe to grind, but he was willing to use a stone axe; -and he manages to suggest that the stone axe might have been -as republican as the guillotine. - -But the truth is that the curtain rises upon the play -already in progress. In one sense it is a true paradox that -there was history before history. But it is not the -irrational paradox implied in prehistoric history; for it is -a history we do not know. Very probably it was exceedingly -like the history we do know, except in the one detail that -we do not know it. It is thus the very opposite of the -pretentious prehistoric history, which professes to trace -everything in a consistent course from the amoeba to the -anthropoid and from the anthropoid to the agnostic. So far -from being a question of our knowing all about queer -creatures very different from ourselves, they were very -probably people very like ourselves, except that we know -nothing about them. In other words, our most ancient records -only reach back to a time when humanity had long been human, -and even long been civilised. The most ancient records we -have not only mention but take for granted things like kings -and priests and princes and assemblies of the people; they -describe communities that are roughly recognisable as -communities in our own sense. Some of them are despotic; but -we cannot tell that they have always been despotic. Some of -them may be already decadent, and nearly all are mentioned -as if they were old. We do not know what really happened in -the world before those records; but the little we do know -would leave us anything but astonished if we learnt that it -was very much like what happens in this world now. There -would be nothing inconsistent or confounding about the -discovery that those unknown ages were full of republics -collapsing under monarchies and rising again as republics, -empires expanding and finding colonies and then losing -colonies, kingdoms combining again into world-states and -breaking up again into small nationalities, classes selling -themselves into slavery and marching out once more into -liberty; all that procession of humanity which may or may -not be a progress but is most assuredly a romance. But the -first chapters of the romance have been torn out of the -book; and we shall never read them. - -It is so also with the more special fancy about evolution -and social stability. According to the real records -available, barbarism and civilisation were not successive -stages in the progress of the world. They were conditions -that existed side by side, as they still exist side by side. -There were civilisations then as there are civilisations -now; there are savages now as there were savages then. It is -suggested that all men passed through a nomadic stage; but -it is certain that there are some who have never passed out -of it, and it seems not unlikely that there were some who -never passed into it. It is probable that from very -primitive times the static tiller of the soil and the -wandering shepherd were two distinct types of men; and the -chronological rearrangement of them is but a mark of that -mania for progressive stages that has largely falsified -history. It is suggested that there was a communist stage, -in which private property was everywhere unknown, a whole -humanity living on the negation of property; but the -evidences of this negation are themselves rather negative. -Redistributions of property, jubilees, and agrarian laws -occur at various intervals and in various forms; but that -humanity inevitably passed through a communist stage seems -as doubtful as the parallel proposition that humanity will -inevitably return to it. It is chiefly interesting as -evidence that the boldest plans for the future invoke the -authority of the past; and that even a revolutionary seeks -to satisfy himself that he is also a reactionary. There is -an amusing parallel example in the case of what is called -feminism. In spite of all the pseudoscientific gossip about -marriage by capture and the cave-man beating the cave-woman -with a club, it may be noted that as soon as feminism became -a fashionable cry, it was insisted that human civilisation -in its first stage had been a matriarchy. Apparently it was -the cave-woman who carried the club. Anyhow all these ideas -are little better than guesses; and they have a curious way -of following the fortune of modern theories and fads. In any -case they are not history in the sense of record; and we may -repeat that when it comes to record, the broad truth is that -barbarism and civilisation have always dwelt side by side in -the world, the civilisation sometimes spreading to absorb -the barbarians, sometimes decaying into relative barbarism, -and in almost all cases possessing in a more finished form -certain ideas and institutions which the barbarians possess -in a ruder form; such as government or social authority, the -arts and especially the decorative arts, mysteries and -taboos of various kinds especially surrounding the matter of -sex, and some form of that fundamental thing which is the -chief concern of this inquiry: the thing that we call -religion. - -Now Egypt and Babylon, those two primeval monsters, might in -this matter have been specially provided as models. They -might almost be called working models to show how these -modern theories do not work. The two great truths we know -about these two great cultures happen to contradict flatly -the two current fallacies which have just been considered. -The story of Egypt might have been invented to point the -moral that man does not necessarily begin with despotism -because he is barbarous, but very often finds his way to -despotism because he is civilised. He finds it because he is -experienced or, what is often much the same thing, because -he is exhausted. And the story of Babylon might have been -invented to point the moral that man need not be a nomad or -a communist before he becomes a peasant or a citizen and -that such cultures are not always in successive stages but -often in contemporary states. Even touching these great -civilisations with which our written history begins, there -is a temptation of course to be too ingenious or too -cocksure. We can read the bricks of Babylon n a very -different sense from that in which we guess about the Cup -and Ring stones; and we do definitely know what is meant by -the animals in the Egyptian hieroglyphic as we know nothing -of the animals in the neolithic cave. But even here the -admirable archeologists who have deciphered line after line -of miles of hieroglyphics may be tempted to read too much -between the lines; even the real authority on Babylon may -forget how fragmentary is his hard-won knowledge; may forget -that Babylon has only heaved half a brick at him, though -half a brick is better than no cuneiform. But some truths, -historic and not prehistoric, dogmatic and not evolutionary, -facts and not fancies, do indeed emerge from Egpyt and -Babylon; and these two truths are among them. - -Egypt is a green ribbon along the river edging the dark red -desolation of the desert. It is a proverb, and one of vast -antiquity, that it is created by the mysterious bounty and -almost sinister benevolence of the Nile. When we first hear -of Egyptians they are living as in a string of river-side -villages, in small and separate but co-operative communities -along the bank of the Nile. Where the river branched into -the broad Delta there was traditionally the beginning of a -somewhat different district or people; but this need not -complicate the main truth. These more or less independent -though interdependent peoples were considerably civilised -already. They had a sort of heraldry; that is, decorative -art used for symbolic and social purposes; each sailing the -Nile under its own ensign representing some bird or animal. -Heraldry involves two things of enormous importance to -normal humanity; the combination of the two making that -noble thing called co-operation; on which rest all -peasantries and peoples that are free. The art of heraldry -means independence; an image chosen by the imagination to -express the individuality. The science of heraldry means -interdependence; an agreement between different bodies to -recognise different images; a science of imagery. We have -here therefore exactly that compromise of co-operation -between free families or groups which is the most normal -mode of life for humanity and is particularly apparent -wherever men own their own land and live on it. With the -very mention of the images of bird and beast the student of -mythology will murmur the word 'totem' almost in his sleep. -But to my mind much of the trouble arises from his habit of -saying such words as if in his sleep. Throughout this rough -outline I have made a necessarily inadequate attempt to keep -on the inside rather than the outside of such things; to -consider them where possible in terms of thought and not -merely in terms of terminology. There is very little value -in talking about totems unless we have some feeling of what -it really felt like to have a totem. Granted that they had -totems and we have no totems; was it because they had more -fear of animals or more familiarity with animals? Did a man -whose totem was a wolf feel like a were-wolf or like a man -running away from a were-wolf? Did he feel like Uncle Remus -about Brer Wolf or like St. Francis about his brother the -wolf? or like Mowgli about his brothers the wolves? Was a -totem a thing like the British lion or a thing like the -British bulldog? Was the worship of a totem like the feeling -of niggers about Mumbo Jumbo, or of children about Jumbo? I -have never read any book of folk-lore, however learned, that -gave me any light upon this question, which I think by far -the most important one. I will confine myself to repeating -that the earliest Egyptian communities had a common -understanding about the images that stood for their -individual states; and that this amount of communication is -prehistoric in the sense that it is already there at the -beginning of history. But as history unfolds itself, this -question of communication is clearly the main question of -these riverside communities. With the need of communication -comes the need of a common government and the growing -greatness and spreading shadow of the king. The other -binding force besides the king, and perhaps older than the -king, is the priesthood; and the priesthood has presumably -even more to do with these ritual symbols and signals by -which men can communicate. And here in Egypt arose probably -the primary and certainly the typical invention to which we -owe all history, and the whole difference between the -historic and the prehistoric: the archetypal script, the art -of writing. - -The popular pictures of these primeval empires are not half -so popular as they might be. There is shed over them the -shadow of an exaggerated gloom, more than the normal and -even healthy sadness of heathen men. It is part of the same -sort of secret pessimism that loves to make primitive man a -crawling creature, whose body is filth and whose soul is -fear. It comes of course from the fact that men are moved -most by their religion; especially when it is irreligion. -For them anything primary and elemental must be evil. But it -is the curious consequence that while we have been deluged -with the wildest experiments in primitive romance, they have -all missed the real romance of being primitive. They have -described scenes that are wholly imaginary, in which the men -of the Stone Age are men of stone like walking statues; in -which the Assyrians or Egyptians are as stiff or as painted -as their own most archaic art. But none of these makers of -imaginary scenes have tried to imagine what it must really -have been like to see those things as fresh which we see as -familiar. They have not seen a man discovering fire like a -child discovering fireworks. They have not seen a man -playing with the wonderful invention called the wheel, like -a boy playing at putting up a wireless station. They have -never put the spirit of youth into their descriptions of the -youth of the world. It follows that amid all their primitive -or prehistoric fancies there are no jokes. There are not -even practical jokes, in connection with the practical -inventions. And this is very sharply defined in the -particular case of hieroglyphics; for there seems to be -serious indication that the whole high human art of +The modern man looking at the most ancient origins has been like a man +watching for daybreak in a strange land; and expecting to see that dawn +breaking behind bare uplands or solitary peaks. But that dawn is +breaking behind the black bulk of great cities long builded and lost for +us in the original night; colossal cities like the houses of giants, in +which even the carved ornamental animals are taller than the palm-trees; +in which the painted portrait can be twelve times the size of the man; +with tombs like mountains of man set four-square and pointing to the +stars; with winged and bearded bulls standing and staring enormous at +the gates of temples; standing still eternally as if a stamp would shake +the world. The dawn of history reveals a humanity already civilised. +Perhaps it reveals a civilisation already old. And among other more +important things, it reveals the folly of most of the generalisations +about the previous and unknown period when it was really young. The two +first human societies of which we have any reliable and detailed record +are Babylon and Egypt. It so happens that these two vast and splendid +achievements of the genius of the ancients bear witness against two of +the commonest and crudest assumptions of the culture of the moderns. If +we want to get rid of half the nonsense about nomads and cave-men and +the old man of the forest, we need only look steadily at the two solid +and stupendous facts called Egypt and Babylon. + +Of course most of these speculators who are talking about primitive men +are thinking about modern savages. They prove their progressive +evolution by assuming that a great part of the human race has not +progressed or evolved; or even changed in any way at all. I do not agree +with their theory of change; nor do I agree with their dogma of things +unchangeable. I may not believe that civilised man has had so rapid and +recent a progress; but I cannot quite understand why uncivilised man +should be so mystically immortal and immutable. A somewhat simpler mode +of thought and speech seems to me to be needed throughout this inquiry. +modern savages cannot be exactly like primitive man, because they are +not primitive. modern savages are not ancient because they are modern. +Something has happened to their race as much as to ours, during the +thousands of years of our existence and endurance on the earth. They +have had some experiences, and have presumably acted on them if not +profited by them, like the rest of us. They have had some environment, +and even some change of environment, and have presumably adapted +themselves to it in a proper and decorous evolutionary manner. This +would be true even if the experiences were mild or the environment +dreary; for there is an effect in mere time when it takes the moral form +of monotony. But it has appeared to a good many intelligent and +well-informed people quite as probable that the experience of the +savages has been that of a decline from civilisation. Most of those who +criticise this view do not seem to have any very clear notion of what a +decline from civilisation would be like. Heaven help them, it is likely +enough that they will soon find out. They seem to be content if cave-men +and cannibal islanders have some things in common, such as certain +particular implements. But it is obvious on the face of it that any +peoples reduced for any reason to a ruder life would have some things in +common. If we lost all our firearms we should make bows and arrows; but +we should not necessarily resemble in every way the first men who made +bows and arrows. It is said that the Russians in their great retreat +were so short of armament that they fought with clubs cut in the wood. +But a professor of the future would err in supposing that the Russian +Army of 1916 was a naked Scythian tribe that had never been out of the +wood. It is like saying that a man in his second childhood must exactly +copy his first. A baby is bald like an old man; but it would be an error +for one ignorant of infancy to infer that the baby had a long white +beard. Both a baby and an old man walk with difficulty; but he who shall +expect the old gentleman to lie on his back, and kick joyfully instead, +will be disappointed. + +It is therefore absurd to argue that the first pioneers of humanity must +have been identical with some of the last and most stagnant leavings of +it. There were almost certainly some things, there were probably many +things, in which the two were widely different or flatly contrary. An +example of the way in which this distinction works, and an example +essential to our argument here, is that of the nature and origin of +government. I have already alluded to Mr. H. G. Wells and the Old Man, +with whom he appears to be on such intimate terms. If we consider the +cold facts of prehistoric evidence for this portrait of the prehistoric +chief of the tribe, we could only excuse it by saying that its brilliant +and versatile author simply forgot for a moment that he was supposed to +be writing a history, and dreamed he was writing one of his own very +wonderful and imaginative romances. At least I cannot imagine how he can +possibly know that the prehistoric ruler was called the Old Man or that +court etiquette requires it to be spelt with capital letters. He says of +the same potentate, "No one was allowed to touch his spear or to sit in +his seat." I have difficulty in believing that anybody has dug up a +prehistoric spear with a prehistoric label, "Visitors are Requested not +to Touch," or a complete throne with the inscription, "Reserved for the +Old Man." But it may be presumed that the writer, who can hardly be +supposed to be merely making up things out of his own head, was merely +taking for granted this very dubious parallel between the prehistoric +and the decivilised man. It may be that in certain savage tribes the +chief is called the Old Man and nobody is allowed to touch his spear or +sit on his seat. It may be that in those cases he is surrounded with +superstitious and traditional terrors; and it may be that in those +cases, for all I know, he is despotic and tyrannical. But there is not a +grain of evidence that primitive government was despotic and tyrannical. +It may have been, of course, for it may have been anything or even +nothing; it may not have existed at all. But the despotism in certain +dingy and decayed tribes in the twentieth century does not prove that +the first men were ruled despotically. It does not even suggest it; it +does not even begin to hint at it. If there is one fact we really can +prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can +be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end +of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be +defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the +citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly +been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single +sentinel to watch the city while they sleep. It is also true that they +sometimes needed him for some sudden and militant act of reform; it is +equally true that he often took advantage of being the strong man armed +to be a tyrant like some of the Sultans of the East. But I cannot see +why the Sultan should have appeared any earlier in history than many +other human figures. On the contrary, the strong man armed obviously +depends upon the superiority of his armour; and armament of that sort +comes with more complex civilisation. One man may kill twenty with a +machine-gun; it is obviously less likely that he could do it with a +piece of flint. .As for the current cant about the strongest man ruling +by force and fear, it is simply a nursery fairy-tale about a giant with +a hundred hands. Twenty men could hold down the strongest strong man in +any society, ancient or modern. Undoubtedly they might admire, in a +romantic and poetical sense, the man who was really the strongest; but +that is quite a different thing, and is as purely moral and even +mystical as the admiration for the purest or the wisest. But the spirit +that endures the mere cruelties and caprices of an established despot is +the spirit of an ancient and settled and probably stiffened society, not +the spirit of a new one. As his name implies, the Old Man is the ruler +of an old humanity. + +It is far more probable that a primitive society was something like a +pure democracy. To this day the comparatively simple agricultural +communities are by far the purest democracies. Democracy is a thing +which is always breaking down through the complexity of civilisation. +Any one who likes may state it by saying that democracy is the foe of +civilisation. But he must remember that some of us really prefer +democracy to civilisation, in the sense of preferring democracy to +complexity. Anyhow, peasants tilling patches of their own land in a +rough equality, and meeting to vote directly under a village tree, are +the most truly self-governing of men. It is surely as likely as not that +such a simple idea was found in the first condition of even simpler men. +Indeed the despotic vision is exaggerated, even if we do not regard the +men as men. Even on an evolutionary assumption of the most materialistic +sort, there is really no reason why men should not have had at least as +much camaraderie as rats or rooks. Leadership of some sort they +doubtless had, as have the gregarious animals; but leadership implies no +such irrational servility as that attributed to the superstitious +subjects of the Old Man. There was doubtless, somebody corresponding, to +use Tennyson's expression, to the many-wintered crow that leads the +clanging rookery home. But I fancy that if that venerable fowl began to +act after the fashion of some Sultans in ancient and decayed Asia, it +would become a very clanging rookery and the many-wintered crow would +not see many more winters. It may be remarked in this connection, but +even among animals it would seem that something else is respected more +than bestial violence, if it be only the familiarity which in men is +called tradition or the experience which in men is called wisdom. I do +not know if crows really follow the oldest crow, but if they do they are +certainly not following the strongest crow. And I do know, in the human +case, that if some ritual of seniority keeps savages reverencing +somebody called the Old Man, then at least they have not our own servile +sentimental weakness for worshipping the Strong Man. + +It may be said then that primitive government, like primitive art and +religion and everything else, is very imperfectly known or rather +guessed at; but that it is at least as good a guess to suggest that it +was as popular as a Balkan or Pyrenean village as that it was as +capricious and secret as a Turkish divan. Both the mountain democracy +and the oriental palace are modern in the sense that they are still +there, or are some sort of growth of history; but of the two the palace +has much more the look of being an accumulation and a corruption, the +village much more the look of being a really unchanged and primitive +thing. But my suggestions at this point do not go beyond expressing a +wholesome doubt about the current assumption. I think it interesting, +for instance, that liberal institutions have been traced even by moderns +back to barbarian or undeveloped states, when it happened to be +convenient for the support of some race or nation or philosophy. So the +Socialists profess that their ideal of communal property existed in very +early times. So the Jews are proud of the Jubilees or juster +redistributions under their ancient law. So the Teutonists boasted of +tracing parliaments and juries and various popular things among the +Germanic tribes of the North. So the Celtophiles and those testifying to +the wrongs of Ireland have pleaded the more equal justice of the clan +system, to which the Irish chiefs bore witness before Strongbow. The +strength of the case varies in the different cases; but as there is some +case for all of them, I suspect there is some case for the general +proposition that popular institutions of some sort were by no means +uncommon in early and simple societies. Each of these separate schools +were making the admission to prove a particular modern thesis; but taken +together they suggest a more ancient and general truth, that there was +something more in prehistoric councils than ferocity and fear. Each of +these separate theorists had his own axe to grind, but he was willing to +use a stone axe; and he manages to suggest that the stone axe might have +been as republican as the guillotine. + +But the truth is that the curtain rises upon the play already in +progress. In one sense it is a true paradox that there was history +before history. But it is not the irrational paradox implied in +prehistoric history; for it is a history we do not know. Very probably +it was exceedingly like the history we do know, except in the one detail +that we do not know it. It is thus the very opposite of the pretentious +prehistoric history, which professes to trace everything in a consistent +course from the amoeba to the anthropoid and from the anthropoid to the +agnostic. So far from being a question of our knowing all about queer +creatures very different from ourselves, they were very probably people +very like ourselves, except that we know nothing about them. In other +words, our most ancient records only reach back to a time when humanity +had long been human, and even long been civilised. The most ancient +records we have not only mention but take for granted things like kings +and priests and princes and assemblies of the people; they describe +communities that are roughly recognisable as communities in our own +sense. Some of them are despotic; but we cannot tell that they have +always been despotic. Some of them may be already decadent, and nearly +all are mentioned as if they were old. We do not know what really +happened in the world before those records; but the little we do know +would leave us anything but astonished if we learnt that it was very +much like what happens in this world now. There would be nothing +inconsistent or confounding about the discovery that those unknown ages +were full of republics collapsing under monarchies and rising again as +republics, empires expanding and finding colonies and then losing +colonies, kingdoms combining again into world-states and breaking up +again into small nationalities, classes selling themselves into slavery +and marching out once more into liberty; all that procession of humanity +which may or may not be a progress but is most assuredly a romance. But +the first chapters of the romance have been torn out of the book; and we +shall never read them. + +It is so also with the more special fancy about evolution and social +stability. According to the real records available, barbarism and +civilisation were not successive stages in the progress of the world. +They were conditions that existed side by side, as they still exist side +by side. There were civilisations then as there are civilisations now; +there are savages now as there were savages then. It is suggested that +all men passed through a nomadic stage; but it is certain that there are +some who have never passed out of it, and it seems not unlikely that +there were some who never passed into it. It is probable that from very +primitive times the static tiller of the soil and the wandering shepherd +were two distinct types of men; and the chronological rearrangement of +them is but a mark of that mania for progressive stages that has largely +falsified history. It is suggested that there was a communist stage, in +which private property was everywhere unknown, a whole humanity living +on the negation of property; but the evidences of this negation are +themselves rather negative. Redistributions of property, jubilees, and +agrarian laws occur at various intervals and in various forms; but that +humanity inevitably passed through a communist stage seems as doubtful +as the parallel proposition that humanity will inevitably return to it. +It is chiefly interesting as evidence that the boldest plans for the +future invoke the authority of the past; and that even a revolutionary +seeks to satisfy himself that he is also a reactionary. There is an +amusing parallel example in the case of what is called feminism. In +spite of all the pseudoscientific gossip about marriage by capture and +the cave-man beating the cave-woman with a club, it may be noted that as +soon as feminism became a fashionable cry, it was insisted that human +civilisation in its first stage had been a matriarchy. Apparently it was +the cave-woman who carried the club. Anyhow all these ideas are little +better than guesses; and they have a curious way of following the +fortune of modern theories and fads. In any case they are not history in +the sense of record; and we may repeat that when it comes to record, the +broad truth is that barbarism and civilisation have always dwelt side by +side in the world, the civilisation sometimes spreading to absorb the +barbarians, sometimes decaying into relative barbarism, and in almost +all cases possessing in a more finished form certain ideas and +institutions which the barbarians possess in a ruder form; such as +government or social authority, the arts and especially the decorative +arts, mysteries and taboos of various kinds especially surrounding the +matter of sex, and some form of that fundamental thing which is the +chief concern of this inquiry: the thing that we call religion. + +Now Egypt and Babylon, those two primeval monsters, might in this matter +have been specially provided as models. They might almost be called +working models to show how these modern theories do not work. The two +great truths we know about these two great cultures happen to contradict +flatly the two current fallacies which have just been considered. The +story of Egypt might have been invented to point the moral that man does +not necessarily begin with despotism because he is barbarous, but very +often finds his way to despotism because he is civilised. He finds it +because he is experienced or, what is often much the same thing, because +he is exhausted. And the story of Babylon might have been invented to +point the moral that man need not be a nomad or a communist before he +becomes a peasant or a citizen and that such cultures are not always in +successive stages but often in contemporary states. Even touching these +great civilisations with which our written history begins, there is a +temptation of course to be too ingenious or too cocksure. We can read +the bricks of Babylon n a very different sense from that in which we +guess about the Cup and Ring stones; and we do definitely know what is +meant by the animals in the Egyptian hieroglyphic as we know nothing of +the animals in the neolithic cave. But even here the admirable +archeologists who have deciphered line after line of miles of +hieroglyphics may be tempted to read too much between the lines; even +the real authority on Babylon may forget how fragmentary is his hard-won +knowledge; may forget that Babylon has only heaved half a brick at him, +though half a brick is better than no cuneiform. But some truths, +historic and not prehistoric, dogmatic and not evolutionary, facts and +not fancies, do indeed emerge from Egpyt and Babylon; and these two +truths are among them. + +Egypt is a green ribbon along the river edging the dark red desolation +of the desert. It is a proverb, and one of vast antiquity, that it is +created by the mysterious bounty and almost sinister benevolence of the +Nile. When we first hear of Egyptians they are living as in a string of +river-side villages, in small and separate but co-operative communities +along the bank of the Nile. Where the river branched into the broad +Delta there was traditionally the beginning of a somewhat different +district or people; but this need not complicate the main truth. These +more or less independent though interdependent peoples were considerably +civilised already. They had a sort of heraldry; that is, decorative art +used for symbolic and social purposes; each sailing the Nile under its +own ensign representing some bird or animal. Heraldry involves two +things of enormous importance to normal humanity; the combination of the +two making that noble thing called co-operation; on which rest all +peasantries and peoples that are free. The art of heraldry means +independence; an image chosen by the imagination to express the +individuality. The science of heraldry means interdependence; an +agreement between different bodies to recognise different images; a +science of imagery. We have here therefore exactly that compromise of +co-operation between free families or groups which is the most normal +mode of life for humanity and is particularly apparent wherever men own +their own land and live on it. With the very mention of the images of +bird and beast the student of mythology will murmur the word 'totem' +almost in his sleep. But to my mind much of the trouble arises from his +habit of saying such words as if in his sleep. Throughout this rough +outline I have made a necessarily inadequate attempt to keep on the +inside rather than the outside of such things; to consider them where +possible in terms of thought and not merely in terms of terminology. +There is very little value in talking about totems unless we have some +feeling of what it really felt like to have a totem. Granted that they +had totems and we have no totems; was it because they had more fear of +animals or more familiarity with animals? Did a man whose totem was a +wolf feel like a were-wolf or like a man running away from a were-wolf? +Did he feel like Uncle Remus about Brer Wolf or like St. Francis about +his brother the wolf? or like Mowgli about his brothers the wolves? Was +a totem a thing like the British lion or a thing like the British +bulldog? Was the worship of a totem like the feeling of niggers about +Mumbo Jumbo, or of children about Jumbo? I have never read any book of +folk-lore, however learned, that gave me any light upon this question, +which I think by far the most important one. I will confine myself to +repeating that the earliest Egyptian communities had a common +understanding about the images that stood for their individual states; +and that this amount of communication is prehistoric in the sense that +it is already there at the beginning of history. But as history unfolds +itself, this question of communication is clearly the main question of +these riverside communities. With the need of communication comes the +need of a common government and the growing greatness and spreading +shadow of the king. The other binding force besides the king, and +perhaps older than the king, is the priesthood; and the priesthood has +presumably even more to do with these ritual symbols and signals by +which men can communicate. And here in Egypt arose probably the primary +and certainly the typical invention to which we owe all history, and the +whole difference between the historic and the prehistoric: the +archetypal script, the art of writing. + +The popular pictures of these primeval empires are not half so popular +as they might be. There is shed over them the shadow of an exaggerated +gloom, more than the normal and even healthy sadness of heathen men. It +is part of the same sort of secret pessimism that loves to make +primitive man a crawling creature, whose body is filth and whose soul is +fear. It comes of course from the fact that men are moved most by their +religion; especially when it is irreligion. For them anything primary +and elemental must be evil. But it is the curious consequence that while +we have been deluged with the wildest experiments in primitive romance, +they have all missed the real romance of being primitive. They have +described scenes that are wholly imaginary, in which the men of the +Stone Age are men of stone like walking statues; in which the Assyrians +or Egyptians are as stiff or as painted as their own most archaic art. +But none of these makers of imaginary scenes have tried to imagine what +it must really have been like to see those things as fresh which we see +as familiar. They have not seen a man discovering fire like a child +discovering fireworks. They have not seen a man playing with the +wonderful invention called the wheel, like a boy playing at putting up a +wireless station. They have never put the spirit of youth into their +descriptions of the youth of the world. It follows that amid all their +primitive or prehistoric fancies there are no jokes. There are not even +practical jokes, in connection with the practical inventions. And this +is very sharply defined in the particular case of hieroglyphics; for +there seems to be serious indication that the whole high human art of scripture or writing began with a joke. -There are some who will learn with regret that it seems to -have begun with a pun. The king or the priests or some -responsible persons, wis hing to send a message up the river -in that inconveniently long and narrow territory, hit on the -idea of sending it in picture-writing, like that of the Red -Indian. Like most people who have written picture-writing -for fun, he found the words did not always fit. But when the -word for taxes sounded rather like the word for pig, he -boldly put down a pig as a bad pun and chanced it. So a -modern hieroglyphist might represent "at once" by -unscrupulously drawing a hat followed by a series of upright -numerals. It was good enough for the Pharaohs and ought to -be good enough for him. But it must have been great fun to -write or even to read these messages, when writing and -reading were really a new thing. And if people must write -romances about ancient Egypt (and it seems that neither -prayers nor tears nor curses can withhold them from the -habit), I suggest that scenes like this would really remind -us that the ancient Egyptians were human beings. I suggest -that somebody should describe the scene of the great monarch -sitting among his priests, and all of them roaring with -laughter and bubbling over with suggestions as the royal -puns grew more and more wild and indefensible. There might -be another scene of almost equal excitement about the -decoding of this cipher; the guesses and clues and -discoveries having all the popular thrill of a detective -story. That is how primitive romance and primitive history -really ought to be written. For whatever was the quality of -the religious or moral fife of remote times, and it was -probably much more human than is conventionally supposed, -the scientific interest of such a time must have been -intense. Words must have been more wonderful than wireless -telegraphy; and experiments with common things a series of -electric shocks. We are still waiting for somebody to write -a lively story of primitive life. The point is in some sense -a parenthesis here; but it is connected with the general -matter of political development, by the institution which is -most active in these first and most fascinating of all the -fairy-tales of science. - -It is admitted that we owe most of this science to the -priests. modern writers like Mr. Wells cannot be accused of -any weakness of sympathy with a pontifical hierarchy; but -they agree at least in recognising what pagan priesthoods -did for the arts and sciences. Among the more ignorant of -the enlightened there was indeed a convention of saying that -priests had obstructed progress in all ages; and a -politician once told me in a debate that I was resisting -modern reforms exactly as some ancient priest probably -resisted the discovery of wheels. I pointed out, in reply, -that it was far more likely that the ancient priest made the -discovery of the wheels. It is overwhelmingly probable that -the ancient priest had a great deal to do with the discovery -of the art of writing. It is obvious enough in the fact that -the very word hieroglyphic is akin to the word hierarchy. -The religion of these priests was apparently a more or less -tangled polytheism of a type that is more particularly -described elsewhere. It passed through a period when it -co-operated with the king, another period when it was -temporarily destroyed by the king, who happened to be a -prince with a private theism of his own, and a third period -when it practically destroyed the king and ruled in his -stead. But the world has to thank it for many things which -it considers common and necessary; and the creators of those -common things ought real ly to have a place among the heroes -of humanity. If we were at rest in a real paganism, instead -of being restless in a rather irrational reaction from -Christianity, we might pay some sort of pagan honour to -these nameless makers of mankind. We might have veiled -statues of the man who first found fire or the man who first -made a boat or the man who first tamed a horse. And if we -brought them garlands or sacrifices, there would be more -sense in it than in disfiguring our cities with cockney -statues of stale politicians and philanthropists. But one of -the strange marks of the strength of Christianity is that, -since it came, no pagan in our civilisation has been able to -be really human. - -The point is here, however, that the Egyptian government, -whether pontifical or royal, found it more and more -necessary to establish communication; and there always went -with communication a certain element of coercion. It is not -necessarily an indefensible thing that the State grew more -despotic as it grew more civilised; it is arguable that it -had to grow more despotic in order to grow more civilised. -That is the argument for autocracy in every age; and the -interest lies in seeing it illustrated in the earliest age. -But it is emphatically not true that it was most despotic in -the earliest age and grew more liberal in a later age; the -practical process of history is exactly the reverse. It is -not true that the tribe began in the extreme of terror of -the Old Man and his seat and spear; it is probable, at least -in Egypt, that the Old Man was rather a New Man armed to -attack new conditions. His spear grew longer and longer and -his throne rose higher and higher, as Egypt rose into a -complex and complete civilisation. That is what I mean by -saying that the history of the Egyptian territory is in this -the history of the earth; and directly denies the vulgar -assumption that terrorism can only come at the beginning and -cannot come at the end. We do not know what was the very -first condition of the more or less feudal amalgam of -landowners, peasants, and slaves in the little commonwealths -beside the Nile; but it may have been a peasantry of an even -more popular sort. What we do know is that it was by -experience and education that little commonwealths lose -their liberty; that absolute sovereignty is something not -merely ancient but rather relatively modern; and it is at -the end of the path called progress that men return to the -king. - -Egypt exhibits, in that brief record of its remotest -beginnings, the primary problem of liberty and civilisation. -It is the fact that men actually lose variety by complexity. -We have not solved the problem properly any more than they -did; but it vulgarises the human dignity of the problem -itself to suggest that even tyranny has no motive save in -tribal terror. And just as the Egyptian example refutes the -fallacy about despotism and civilisation, so does the -Babylonian example refute the fallacy about civilisation and -barbarism. Babylon also we first hear of when it is already -civilised; for the simple reason that we cannot hear of -anything until it is educated enough to talk. It talks to us -in what is called cuneiform; that strange and stiff -triangular symbolism that contrasts with the picturesque -alphabet of Egypt. However relatively rigid Egyptian art may -be, there is always something different from the Babylonian -spirit which was too rigid to have any art. There is always -a living grace in the lines of the lotus and something of -rapidity as well as rigidity in the movement of the arrows -and the birds. Perhaps there is something of the restrained -but living curve of the river, which makes us in talking of -the serpent of old Nile almost think of the Nile as a -serpent. Babylon was a civilisation of diagrams rather than -of drawings. Mr. W. B. Yeats, who has a historical -imagination to match his mythological imagination (and -indeed the former is impossible without the latter), wrote -truly of the men who watched the stars "from their pedantic -Babylon." The cuneiform was cut upon bricks, of which all -their architecture was built up; the bricks were of baked -mud, and perhaps the material had something in it forbidding -the sense of form to develop in sculpture or relief. Theirs -was a static but a scientific civilisation, far advanced in -the machinery of life and in some ways highly modern. It is -said that they had much of the modern cult of the higher -spinsterhood and recognised an official class of independent -working women. There is perhaps something in that mighty -stronghold of hardened mud that suggests the utilitarian -activity of a huge hive. But though it was huge it was -human; we see many of the same social problems as in ancient -Egypt or modern England; and whatever its evils this also -was one of the earliest masterpieces of man. It stood, of -course, in the triangle formed by the almost legendary -rivers of Tigris and Euphrates, and the vast agriculture of -its empire, on which its towns depended, was perfected by a -highly scientific system of canals. It had by tradition a -high intellectual life, though rather philosophic than -artistic; and there preside over its primal foundation those -figures who have come to stand for the star-gazing wisdom of +There are some who will learn with regret that it seems to have begun +with a pun. The king or the priests or some responsible persons, wis +hing to send a message up the river in that inconveniently long and +narrow territory, hit on the idea of sending it in picture-writing, like +that of the Red Indian. Like most people who have written +picture-writing for fun, he found the words did not always fit. But when +the word for taxes sounded rather like the word for pig, he boldly put +down a pig as a bad pun and chanced it. So a modern hieroglyphist might +represent "at once" by unscrupulously drawing a hat followed by a series +of upright numerals. It was good enough for the Pharaohs and ought to be +good enough for him. But it must have been great fun to write or even to +read these messages, when writing and reading were really a new thing. +And if people must write romances about ancient Egypt (and it seems that +neither prayers nor tears nor curses can withhold them from the habit), +I suggest that scenes like this would really remind us that the ancient +Egyptians were human beings. I suggest that somebody should describe the +scene of the great monarch sitting among his priests, and all of them +roaring with laughter and bubbling over with suggestions as the royal +puns grew more and more wild and indefensible. There might be another +scene of almost equal excitement about the decoding of this cipher; the +guesses and clues and discoveries having all the popular thrill of a +detective story. That is how primitive romance and primitive history +really ought to be written. For whatever was the quality of the +religious or moral fife of remote times, and it was probably much more +human than is conventionally supposed, the scientific interest of such a +time must have been intense. Words must have been more wonderful than +wireless telegraphy; and experiments with common things a series of +electric shocks. We are still waiting for somebody to write a lively +story of primitive life. The point is in some sense a parenthesis here; +but it is connected with the general matter of political development, by +the institution which is most active in these first and most fascinating +of all the fairy-tales of science. + +It is admitted that we owe most of this science to the priests. modern +writers like Mr. Wells cannot be accused of any weakness of sympathy +with a pontifical hierarchy; but they agree at least in recognising what +pagan priesthoods did for the arts and sciences. Among the more ignorant +of the enlightened there was indeed a convention of saying that priests +had obstructed progress in all ages; and a politician once told me in a +debate that I was resisting modern reforms exactly as some ancient +priest probably resisted the discovery of wheels. I pointed out, in +reply, that it was far more likely that the ancient priest made the +discovery of the wheels. It is overwhelmingly probable that the ancient +priest had a great deal to do with the discovery of the art of writing. +It is obvious enough in the fact that the very word hieroglyphic is akin +to the word hierarchy. The religion of these priests was apparently a +more or less tangled polytheism of a type that is more particularly +described elsewhere. It passed through a period when it co-operated with +the king, another period when it was temporarily destroyed by the king, +who happened to be a prince with a private theism of his own, and a +third period when it practically destroyed the king and ruled in his +stead. But the world has to thank it for many things which it considers +common and necessary; and the creators of those common things ought real +ly to have a place among the heroes of humanity. If we were at rest in a +real paganism, instead of being restless in a rather irrational reaction +from Christianity, we might pay some sort of pagan honour to these +nameless makers of mankind. We might have veiled statues of the man who +first found fire or the man who first made a boat or the man who first +tamed a horse. And if we brought them garlands or sacrifices, there +would be more sense in it than in disfiguring our cities with cockney +statues of stale politicians and philanthropists. But one of the strange +marks of the strength of Christianity is that, since it came, no pagan +in our civilisation has been able to be really human. + +The point is here, however, that the Egyptian government, whether +pontifical or royal, found it more and more necessary to establish +communication; and there always went with communication a certain +element of coercion. It is not necessarily an indefensible thing that +the State grew more despotic as it grew more civilised; it is arguable +that it had to grow more despotic in order to grow more civilised. That +is the argument for autocracy in every age; and the interest lies in +seeing it illustrated in the earliest age. But it is emphatically not +true that it was most despotic in the earliest age and grew more liberal +in a later age; the practical process of history is exactly the reverse. +It is not true that the tribe began in the extreme of terror of the Old +Man and his seat and spear; it is probable, at least in Egypt, that the +Old Man was rather a New Man armed to attack new conditions. His spear +grew longer and longer and his throne rose higher and higher, as Egypt +rose into a complex and complete civilisation. That is what I mean by +saying that the history of the Egyptian territory is in this the history +of the earth; and directly denies the vulgar assumption that terrorism +can only come at the beginning and cannot come at the end. We do not +know what was the very first condition of the more or less feudal +amalgam of landowners, peasants, and slaves in the little commonwealths +beside the Nile; but it may have been a peasantry of an even more +popular sort. What we do know is that it was by experience and education +that little commonwealths lose their liberty; that absolute sovereignty +is something not merely ancient but rather relatively modern; and it is +at the end of the path called progress that men return to the king. + +Egypt exhibits, in that brief record of its remotest beginnings, the +primary problem of liberty and civilisation. It is the fact that men +actually lose variety by complexity. We have not solved the problem +properly any more than they did; but it vulgarises the human dignity of +the problem itself to suggest that even tyranny has no motive save in +tribal terror. And just as the Egyptian example refutes the fallacy +about despotism and civilisation, so does the Babylonian example refute +the fallacy about civilisation and barbarism. Babylon also we first hear +of when it is already civilised; for the simple reason that we cannot +hear of anything until it is educated enough to talk. It talks to us in +what is called cuneiform; that strange and stiff triangular symbolism +that contrasts with the picturesque alphabet of Egypt. However +relatively rigid Egyptian art may be, there is always something +different from the Babylonian spirit which was too rigid to have any +art. There is always a living grace in the lines of the lotus and +something of rapidity as well as rigidity in the movement of the arrows +and the birds. Perhaps there is something of the restrained but living +curve of the river, which makes us in talking of the serpent of old Nile +almost think of the Nile as a serpent. Babylon was a civilisation of +diagrams rather than of drawings. Mr. W. B. Yeats, who has a historical +imagination to match his mythological imagination (and indeed the former +is impossible without the latter), wrote truly of the men who watched +the stars "from their pedantic Babylon." The cuneiform was cut upon +bricks, of which all their architecture was built up; the bricks were of +baked mud, and perhaps the material had something in it forbidding the +sense of form to develop in sculpture or relief. Theirs was a static but +a scientific civilisation, far advanced in the machinery of life and in +some ways highly modern. It is said that they had much of the modern +cult of the higher spinsterhood and recognised an official class of +independent working women. There is perhaps something in that mighty +stronghold of hardened mud that suggests the utilitarian activity of a +huge hive. But though it was huge it was human; we see many of the same +social problems as in ancient Egypt or modern England; and whatever its +evils this also was one of the earliest masterpieces of man. It stood, +of course, in the triangle formed by the almost legendary rivers of +Tigris and Euphrates, and the vast agriculture of its empire, on which +its towns depended, was perfected by a highly scientific system of +canals. It had by tradition a high intellectual life, though rather +philosophic than artistic; and there preside over its primal foundation +those figures who have come to stand for the star-gazing wisdom of antiquity; the teachers of Abraham; the Chaldees. -Against this solid society, as against some vast bare wall -of brick, there surged age after age the nameless armies of -the Nomads. They came out of the deserts where the nomadic -life had been lived from the beginning and where it is still -lived to-day. It is needless to dwell on the nature of that -life; it was obvious enough and even easy enough to follow a -herd or a flock which generally found its own grazing-ground -and to five on the milt-or meat it provided. Nor is there -any reason to doubt that this habit of life could give -almost every human thing except a home. Many such shepherds -or herdsmen may have talked in the earliest times of all the -truths and enigmas of the Book of Job; and of these were -Abraham and his children, who have given to the modern world -for an endless enigma the almost monomaniac monotheism of -the Jews. But they were a wild people without comprehension -of complex social organisation; and a spirit like the wind -within them made them wage war on it again and again. The -history of Babylonia is largely the history of its defence -against the desert hordes; who came on at intervals of a -century or two and generally retreated as they came. Some -say that an admixture of nomad invasion built at Nineveh the -arrogant kingdom of the Assyrians, who carved great monsters -upon their temples, bearded bulls with wings like cherubim, -and who sent forth many military conquerors who stamped the -world as if with such colossal hooves. Assyria was an -imperial interlude; but it was an interlude. The main story -of all that land is the war between the wandering peoples -and the state that was truly static. Presumably in -prehistoric times, and certainly in historic times, those -wanderers went westward to waste whatever they could find. -The last time they came they found Babylon vanished; but -that was in historic times and the name of their leader was -Muhammad. - -Now it is worth while to pause upon that story because, as -has been suggested, it directly contradicts the impression -still current that nomadism is merely a prehistoric thing -and social settlement a comparatively recent thing. There is -nothing to show that the Babylonians had ever wandered; -there is very little to show that the tribes of the desert -ever settled down. Indeed it is probable that this notion of -a nomadic stage followed by a static stage has already been -abandoned by the sincere and genuine scholars to whose -researches we all owe so much. But I am not at issue in this -book with sincere and genuine scholars, but with a vast and -vague public opinion which has been prematurely spread from -certain imperfect investigations, and which has made -fashionable a false notion of the whole history of humanity. -It is the whole vague notion that a monkey evolved into a -man and in the same way a barbarian evolved into a civilised -man, and therefore at every stage we have to look back to -barbarism and forward to civilisation. Unfortunately this -notion is in a double sense entirely in the air. It is an -atmosphere in which men live rather than a thesis which they -defend. Men in that mood are more easily answered by objects -than by theories; and it will be well if anyone tempted to -make that assumption, in some trivial turn of talk or -writing, can be checked for a moment by shutting his eyes -and seeing for an instant, vast and vaguely crowded, like a -populous precipice, the wonder of the Babylonian wall. - -One fact does certainly fall across us like its shadow. Our -glimpses of both these early empires show that the first -domestic relation had been complicated by something which -was less human, but was often regarded as equally domestic. -The dark giant called Slavery had been called up like a -genii and was labouring on gigantic works of brick and -stone. Here again we must not too easily assume that what -was backward was barbaric; in the matter of manumission the -earlier servitude seems in some ways more liberal than the -later; perhaps more liberal than the servitude of the -future. To insure food for humanity by forcing part of it to -work was after all a very human expedient; which is why it -will probably be tried again. But in one sense there is a -significance in the old slavery. It stands for one -fundamental fact about all antiquity before Christ; -something to be assumed from first to last. It is the -insignificance of the individual before the State. It was as -true of the most democratic City State in Hellas as of any -despotism in Babylon. It is one of the signs of this spirit -that a whole class of individuals could be insignificant or -even invisible. It must be normal because it was needed for -what would now be called "social service." Somebody said, -"The Man is nothing and the Work is all," meaning it for a -breezy Carlylean commonplace. It was the sinister motto of -the heathen Servile State. In that sense there is truth in -the traditional vision of vast pillars and pyramids going up -under those everlasting skies for ever, by the labour of -numberless and nameless men, toiling like ants and dying +Against this solid society, as against some vast bare wall of brick, +there surged age after age the nameless armies of the Nomads. They came +out of the deserts where the nomadic life had been lived from the +beginning and where it is still lived to-day. It is needless to dwell on +the nature of that life; it was obvious enough and even easy enough to +follow a herd or a flock which generally found its own grazing-ground +and to five on the milt-or meat it provided. Nor is there any reason to +doubt that this habit of life could give almost every human thing except +a home. Many such shepherds or herdsmen may have talked in the earliest +times of all the truths and enigmas of the Book of Job; and of these +were Abraham and his children, who have given to the modern world for an +endless enigma the almost monomaniac monotheism of the Jews. But they +were a wild people without comprehension of complex social organisation; +and a spirit like the wind within them made them wage war on it again +and again. The history of Babylonia is largely the history of its +defence against the desert hordes; who came on at intervals of a century +or two and generally retreated as they came. Some say that an admixture +of nomad invasion built at Nineveh the arrogant kingdom of the +Assyrians, who carved great monsters upon their temples, bearded bulls +with wings like cherubim, and who sent forth many military conquerors +who stamped the world as if with such colossal hooves. Assyria was an +imperial interlude; but it was an interlude. The main story of all that +land is the war between the wandering peoples and the state that was +truly static. Presumably in prehistoric times, and certainly in historic +times, those wanderers went westward to waste whatever they could find. +The last time they came they found Babylon vanished; but that was in +historic times and the name of their leader was Muhammad. + +Now it is worth while to pause upon that story because, as has been +suggested, it directly contradicts the impression still current that +nomadism is merely a prehistoric thing and social settlement a +comparatively recent thing. There is nothing to show that the +Babylonians had ever wandered; there is very little to show that the +tribes of the desert ever settled down. Indeed it is probable that this +notion of a nomadic stage followed by a static stage has already been +abandoned by the sincere and genuine scholars to whose researches we all +owe so much. But I am not at issue in this book with sincere and genuine +scholars, but with a vast and vague public opinion which has been +prematurely spread from certain imperfect investigations, and which has +made fashionable a false notion of the whole history of humanity. It is +the whole vague notion that a monkey evolved into a man and in the same +way a barbarian evolved into a civilised man, and therefore at every +stage we have to look back to barbarism and forward to civilisation. +Unfortunately this notion is in a double sense entirely in the air. It +is an atmosphere in which men live rather than a thesis which they +defend. Men in that mood are more easily answered by objects than by +theories; and it will be well if anyone tempted to make that assumption, +in some trivial turn of talk or writing, can be checked for a moment by +shutting his eyes and seeing for an instant, vast and vaguely crowded, +like a populous precipice, the wonder of the Babylonian wall. + +One fact does certainly fall across us like its shadow. Our glimpses of +both these early empires show that the first domestic relation had been +complicated by something which was less human, but was often regarded as +equally domestic. The dark giant called Slavery had been called up like +a genii and was labouring on gigantic works of brick and stone. Here +again we must not too easily assume that what was backward was barbaric; +in the matter of manumission the earlier servitude seems in some ways +more liberal than the later; perhaps more liberal than the servitude of +the future. To insure food for humanity by forcing part of it to work +was after all a very human expedient; which is why it will probably be +tried again. But in one sense there is a significance in the old +slavery. It stands for one fundamental fact about all antiquity before +Christ; something to be assumed from first to last. It is the +insignificance of the individual before the State. It was as true of the +most democratic City State in Hellas as of any despotism in Babylon. It +is one of the signs of this spirit that a whole class of individuals +could be insignificant or even invisible. It must be normal because it +was needed for what would now be called "social service." Somebody said, +"The Man is nothing and the Work is all," meaning it for a breezy +Carlylean commonplace. It was the sinister motto of the heathen Servile +State. In that sense there is truth in the traditional vision of vast +pillars and pyramids going up under those everlasting skies for ever, by +the labour of numberless and nameless men, toiling like ants and dying like flies,wiped out by the work of their own hands. -But there are two other reasons for beginning with the two -fixed points of Egypt and Babylon. For one thing they are -fixed in tradition as the types of antiquity; and history -without tradition is dead. Babylon is still the burden of a -nursery rhyme, and Egypt (with its enormous population of -princesses awaiting reincarnation) is still the topic of an -unnecessary number of novels. But a tradition is generally a -truth; so long as the tradition is sufficiently popular; -even if it is almost vulgar. And there is a significance in -this Babylonian and Egyptian element in nursery rhymes and -novels; even the newspapers, normally so much behind the -times, have already got as far as the reign of Tutankhamen. -The first reason is full of the common sense of popular -legend; it is the simple fact that we do know more of these -traditional things than of other contemporary things; and -that we always did. All travellers from Herodotus to Lord -Carnarvon follow this route. Scientific speculations of -to-day do indeed spread out a map of the whole primitive -world, with streams of racial emigration or admixture marked -in dotted lines everywhere; over spaces which the -unscientific medieval map-maker would have been content to -call "terra incognita," if he did not fill the inviting -blank with a picture of a dragon, to indicate the probable -reception given to pilgrims. But these speculations are only -speculations at the best; and at the worst the dotted lines -can be far more fabulous than the dragon. - -There is unfortunately one fallacy here into which it is -very easy for men to fall, even those who are most -intelligent and perhaps especially those who are most -imaginative. It is the fallacy of supposing that because an -idea is greater in the sense of larger, therefore it is -greater in the sense of more fundamental and fixed and -certain. If a man lives alone in a straw hut in the middle -of Tibet, he may be told that he is living in the Chinese -Empire; and the Chinese Empire is certainly a splendid and -spacious and impressive thing. Or alternatively he may be -told that he is living in the British Empire, and be duly -impressed. But the curious thing is that in certain mental -states he can feel much more certain about the Chinese -Empire that he cannot see than about the straw hut that he -can see. He has some strange magical juggle in his mind, by -which his argument begins with the empire though his -experience begins with the hut. Sometimes he goes mad and -appears to be proving that a straw hut cannot exist in the -domains of the Dragon Throne; that it is impossible for such -a civilisation as he enjoys to contain such a hovel as he -inhabits. But his insanity arises from the intellectual slip -of supposing that because China is a large and all-embracing -hypothesis, therefore it is something more than a -hypothesis. Now modern people are perpetually arguing in -this way; and they extend it to things much less real and -certain than the Chinese Empire. They seem to forget, for -instance, that a man is not even certain of the Solar System -as he is certain of the South Downs. The Solar System is a -deduction, and doubtless a true deduction; but the point is -that it is a very vast and far-reaching deduction, and -therefore he forgets that it is a deduction at all and -treats it as a first principle. He *might* discover that the -whole calculation is a miscalculation; and the sun and stars -and street lamps would look exactly the same. But he has -forgotten that it is a calculation, and is almost ready to -contradict the sun if it does not fit into the Solar System. -If this is a fallacy even in the case of facts pretty well -ascertained, such as the Solar System and the Chinese -Empire, it is an even more devastating fallacy in connection -with theories and other things that are not really -ascertained at all. Thus history, especially prehistoric -history, has a horrible habit of beginning with certain -generalisations about races. I will not describe the -disorder and misery this inversion has produced in modern -politics. Because the race is vaguely supposed to have -produced the nation, men talk as if the nation were -something vaguer than the race. Because they have themselves -invented a reason to explain a result, they almost deny the -result in order to justify the reason. They first treat a -Celt as an axiom and then treat an Irishman as an inference. -And then they are surprised that a great fighting, roaring -Irishman is angry at being treated as an inference. They -cannot see that the Irish are Irish whether or no they are -Celtic, whether or no there ever were any Celts. And what -misleads them once more is the size of the theory; the sense -that the fancy is bigger than the fact. A great scattered -Celtic race is supposed to contain the Irish, so of course -the Irish must depend for their very existence upon it. The -same confusion, of course, has eliminated the English and -the Germans by swamping them in the Teutonic race; and some -tried to prove from the races being at one that the nations -could not be at war. But I only give these vulgar and -hackneyed examples in passing, as more familiar examples of -the fallacy; the matter at issue here is not its application -to these modern things but rather to the most ancient -things. But the more remote and unrecorded was the racial -problem, the more fixed was this curious inverted certainty -in the Victorian man of science. To this day it gives a man -of those scientific traditions the same sort of shock to -question these things, which were only the last inferences -when he turned them into first principles. He is still more -certain that he is an Aryan even than that he is an -Anglo-Saxon, just as he is more certain that he is an -Anglo-Saxon than that he is an Englishman. He has never -really discovered that he is a European. But he has never -doubted that he is an Indo-European. These Victorian -theories have shifted a great deal in their shape and scope; -but this habit of a rapid hardening of a hypothesis into a -theory, and of a theory into an assumption, has hardly yet -gone out of fashion. People cannot easily get rid of the -mental confusion of feeling that the foundations of history -must surely be secure; that the first steps must be safe; -that the biggest generalisation must be obvious. But though -the contradiction may seem to them a paradox, this is the -very contrary of the truth. It is the large thing that is -secret and invisible; it is the small thing that is evident -and enormous. - -Every race on the face of the earth has been the subject of -these speculations, and it is impossible even to suggest an -outline of the subject. But if we take the European race -alone, its history, or rather its prehistory, has undergone -many retrospective revolutions in the short period of my own -lifetime. It used to be called the Caucasian race; and I -read in childhood an account of its collision with the -Mongolian race; it was written by Bret Harte and opened with -the query, "Or is the Caucasian played out." Apparently the -Caucasian was played out, for in a very short time he had -been turned into the Indo-European man; sometimes, I regret -to say, proudly presented as the Indo-Germanic man. It seems -that the Hindu and the German have similar words for mother -or father; there were other similarities between Sanskrit -and various Western tongues; and with that all superficial -differences between a Hindu and a German seemed suddenly to -disappear. Generally this composite person was more -conveniently described as the Aryan, and the really -important point was that he had marched westward out of -those high lands of India where fragments of his language -could still be found. When I read this as a child, I had the -fancy that after all the Aryan need not have marched -westward and left his language behind him; he might also -have marched eastward and taken his language with him. If I -were to read it now, I should content myself with confessing -my ignorance of the whole matter. But as a matter of fact I -have great difficulty in reading it now, because it is not -being written now. It looks as if the Aryan is also played -out. Anyhow he has not merely changed his name but changed -his address; his starting-place and his route of travel. One -new theory maintains that our race did not come to its -present home from the East but from the South. Some say the -Europeans did not come from Asia but from Africa. Some have -even had the wild idea that the Europeans came from Europe; -or rather that they never left it. - -Then there is a certain amount of evidence of a more or less -prehistoric pressure from the North, such as that which -seems to have brought the Greeks to inherit the Cretan -culture and so often brought the Gauls over the hills into -the fields of Italy. But I merely mention this example of -European ethnology to point out that the learned have pretty -well boxed the compass by this time; and that I, who am not -one of the learned, cannot pretend for a moment to decide -where such doctors disagree. But I can use my own common -sense, and I sometimes fancy that theirs is a little rusty -from want of use. The first act of common sense is to -recognise the difference between a cloud and a mountain. And -I will affirm that nobody knows any of these things, in the -sense that we all know of the existence of the Pyramids of -Egypt. - -The truth, it may be repeated, is that what we really see, -as distinct from what we may reasonably guess, in this -earliest phase of history is darkness covering the earth and -great darkness the peoples, with a light or two gleaming -here and there on chance patches of humanity; and that two -of these flames do burn upon two of these tall primeval -towns; upon the high terraces of Babylon and the huge -pyramids of the Nile. There are indeed other ancient lights, -or lights that may be conjectured to be very ancient, in -very remote parts of that vast wilderness of night. Far away -to the East there is a high civilisation of vast antiquity -in China; there are the remains of civilisations in Mexico -and South America and other places, some of them apparently -so high in civilisation as to have reached the most refined -forms of devil-worship. But the difference lies in the -element of tradition; the tradition of these lost cultures -has been broken off, and though the tradition of China still -lives, it is doubtful whether we know anything about it. -Moreover, a man trying to measure the Chinese antiquity has -to use Chinese traditions of measurement; and he has a -strange sensation of having passed into another world under -other laws of time and space. Time is telescoped outwards, -and centuries assume the slow and stiff movement of aeons; -the white man trying to see it as the yellow man sees, feels -as if his head were turning round and wonders wildly whether -it is growing a pigtail. Anyhow he cannot take in a -scientific sense that queer perspective that leads up to the -primeval pagoda of the first of the Sons of Heaven. He is in -the real antipodes; the only true alternative world to -Christendom; and he is after a fashion walking upside down. -I have spoken of the medieval map-maker and his dragon; but -what medieval traveller, however much interested in -monsters, would expect to find a country where a dragon is a -benevolent and amiable being? Of the more serious side of -Chinese tradition something will be said in another -connection; but here I am only talking of tradition and the -test of antiquity. And I only mention China as an antiquity -that is not for us reached by a bridge of tradition; and -Babylon and Egypt as antiquities that are. Herodotus is a -human being, in a sense in which a Chinaman in a billycock -hat, sitting opposite to us in a London tea-shop, is hardly -human. We feel as if we knew what David and Isaiah felt -like, in a way in which we never were quite certain what Li -Hung Chang felt like. The very sins that snatched away Helen -or Bathsheba have passed into a proverb of private human -weakness, of pathos and even of pardon. The very virtues of -the Chinaman have about them something terrifying. This is -the difference made by the destruction or preservation of a -continuous historical inheritance; as from ancient Egypt to -modern Europe. But when we ask what was that world that we -inherit, and why those particular people and places seem to -belong to it, we are led to the central fact of civilised -history. - -That centre was the Mediterranean; which was not so much a -piece of water as a world. But it was a world with something -of the character of such a water; for it became more and -more a place of unification in which the streams of strange -and very diverse cultures met. The Nile and the Tiber alike -flow into the Mediterranean; so did the Egyptian and the -Etrurian alike contribute to a Mediterranean civilisation. -The glamour of the great sea spread indeed very far inland, -and the unity was felt among the Arabs alone in the deserts -and the Galls beyond the Northern hills. But the gradual -building up of a common culture running round all the coasts -of this inner sea is the main business of antiquity. As will -be seen, it was sometimes a bad business as well as a good -business. In that *orbis terrarum* or circle of lands there -were the extremes of evil and of piety, there were -contrasted races and still more contrasted religions. It was -the scene of an endless struggle between Asia and Europe -from the flight of the Persian ships at Salamis to the -flight of the Turkish ships at Lepanto. It was the scene, as -will be more especially suggested later, of a supreme -spiritual struggle between the two types of paganism, -confronting each other in the Latin and the Phoenician -cities; in the Roman forum and the Punic mart. It was the -world of war and peace, the world of good and evil, the -world of all that matters most; with all respect to the -Aztecs and the Mongols of the Far East, they did not matter -as the Mediterranean tradition mattered and still matters. -Between it and the Far East there were, of course, -interesting cults and conquests of various kinds, more or -less in touch with it, and in proportion as they were so -intelligible also to us. The Persians came riding in to make -an end of Babylon; and we are told in a Greek story how -these barbarians learned to draw the bow and tell the truth. -Alexander the great Greek marched with his Macedonians into -the sunrise, and brought back strange birds coloured like -the sunrise clouds and strange flowers and jewels from the -gardens and treasuries of nameless kings. Islam went -eastward into that world and made it partly imaginable to -us; precisely because Islam itself was born in that circle -of lands that fringed our own ancient and ancestral sea. In -the Middle Ages the empire of the Moguls increased its -majesty without losing its mystery; the Tartars conquered -China and the Chinese apparently took very little notice of -them. All these things are interesting in themselves; but it -is impossible to shift the centre of gravity to the inland -spaces of Asia from the inland sea of Europe. When all is -said, if there were nothing in the world but what was said -and done and written and built in the lands lying round the -Mediterranean, it would still be in all the most vital and -valuable things the world in which we live. When that -southern culture spread to the north-west it produced many -very wonderful things; of which doubtless we ourselves are -the most wonderful. When it spread thence to colonies and -new countries, it was still the same culture so long as it -was culture at all. But round that little sea like a lake -were the things themselves, apart from all extensions and -echoes and commentaries on the things; the Republic and the -Church; the Bible and the heroic epics; Islam and Israel and -the memories of the lost empires; Aristotle and the measure -of all things. It is because the first light upon this world -is really light, the daylight in which we are still wa lki -ng to-day, and not merely the doubtful visitation of strange -stars, that I have begun here with noting where that light -first falls on the towered cities of the eastern +But there are two other reasons for beginning with the two fixed points +of Egypt and Babylon. For one thing they are fixed in tradition as the +types of antiquity; and history without tradition is dead. Babylon is +still the burden of a nursery rhyme, and Egypt (with its enormous +population of princesses awaiting reincarnation) is still the topic of +an unnecessary number of novels. But a tradition is generally a truth; +so long as the tradition is sufficiently popular; even if it is almost +vulgar. And there is a significance in this Babylonian and Egyptian +element in nursery rhymes and novels; even the newspapers, normally so +much behind the times, have already got as far as the reign of +Tutankhamen. The first reason is full of the common sense of popular +legend; it is the simple fact that we do know more of these traditional +things than of other contemporary things; and that we always did. All +travellers from Herodotus to Lord Carnarvon follow this route. +Scientific speculations of to-day do indeed spread out a map of the +whole primitive world, with streams of racial emigration or admixture +marked in dotted lines everywhere; over spaces which the unscientific +medieval map-maker would have been content to call "terra incognita," if +he did not fill the inviting blank with a picture of a dragon, to +indicate the probable reception given to pilgrims. But these +speculations are only speculations at the best; and at the worst the +dotted lines can be far more fabulous than the dragon. + +There is unfortunately one fallacy here into which it is very easy for +men to fall, even those who are most intelligent and perhaps especially +those who are most imaginative. It is the fallacy of supposing that +because an idea is greater in the sense of larger, therefore it is +greater in the sense of more fundamental and fixed and certain. If a man +lives alone in a straw hut in the middle of Tibet, he may be told that +he is living in the Chinese Empire; and the Chinese Empire is certainly +a splendid and spacious and impressive thing. Or alternatively he may be +told that he is living in the British Empire, and be duly impressed. But +the curious thing is that in certain mental states he can feel much more +certain about the Chinese Empire that he cannot see than about the straw +hut that he can see. He has some strange magical juggle in his mind, by +which his argument begins with the empire though his experience begins +with the hut. Sometimes he goes mad and appears to be proving that a +straw hut cannot exist in the domains of the Dragon Throne; that it is +impossible for such a civilisation as he enjoys to contain such a hovel +as he inhabits. But his insanity arises from the intellectual slip of +supposing that because China is a large and all-embracing hypothesis, +therefore it is something more than a hypothesis. Now modern people are +perpetually arguing in this way; and they extend it to things much less +real and certain than the Chinese Empire. They seem to forget, for +instance, that a man is not even certain of the Solar System as he is +certain of the South Downs. The Solar System is a deduction, and +doubtless a true deduction; but the point is that it is a very vast and +far-reaching deduction, and therefore he forgets that it is a deduction +at all and treats it as a first principle. He *might* discover that the +whole calculation is a miscalculation; and the sun and stars and street +lamps would look exactly the same. But he has forgotten that it is a +calculation, and is almost ready to contradict the sun if it does not +fit into the Solar System. If this is a fallacy even in the case of +facts pretty well ascertained, such as the Solar System and the Chinese +Empire, it is an even more devastating fallacy in connection with +theories and other things that are not really ascertained at all. Thus +history, especially prehistoric history, has a horrible habit of +beginning with certain generalisations about races. I will not describe +the disorder and misery this inversion has produced in modern politics. +Because the race is vaguely supposed to have produced the nation, men +talk as if the nation were something vaguer than the race. Because they +have themselves invented a reason to explain a result, they almost deny +the result in order to justify the reason. They first treat a Celt as an +axiom and then treat an Irishman as an inference. And then they are +surprised that a great fighting, roaring Irishman is angry at being +treated as an inference. They cannot see that the Irish are Irish +whether or no they are Celtic, whether or no there ever were any Celts. +And what misleads them once more is the size of the theory; the sense +that the fancy is bigger than the fact. A great scattered Celtic race is +supposed to contain the Irish, so of course the Irish must depend for +their very existence upon it. The same confusion, of course, has +eliminated the English and the Germans by swamping them in the Teutonic +race; and some tried to prove from the races being at one that the +nations could not be at war. But I only give these vulgar and hackneyed +examples in passing, as more familiar examples of the fallacy; the +matter at issue here is not its application to these modern things but +rather to the most ancient things. But the more remote and unrecorded +was the racial problem, the more fixed was this curious inverted +certainty in the Victorian man of science. To this day it gives a man of +those scientific traditions the same sort of shock to question these +things, which were only the last inferences when he turned them into +first principles. He is still more certain that he is an Aryan even than +that he is an Anglo-Saxon, just as he is more certain that he is an +Anglo-Saxon than that he is an Englishman. He has never really +discovered that he is a European. But he has never doubted that he is an +Indo-European. These Victorian theories have shifted a great deal in +their shape and scope; but this habit of a rapid hardening of a +hypothesis into a theory, and of a theory into an assumption, has hardly +yet gone out of fashion. People cannot easily get rid of the mental +confusion of feeling that the foundations of history must surely be +secure; that the first steps must be safe; that the biggest +generalisation must be obvious. But though the contradiction may seem to +them a paradox, this is the very contrary of the truth. It is the large +thing that is secret and invisible; it is the small thing that is +evident and enormous. + +Every race on the face of the earth has been the subject of these +speculations, and it is impossible even to suggest an outline of the +subject. But if we take the European race alone, its history, or rather +its prehistory, has undergone many retrospective revolutions in the +short period of my own lifetime. It used to be called the Caucasian +race; and I read in childhood an account of its collision with the +Mongolian race; it was written by Bret Harte and opened with the query, +"Or is the Caucasian played out." Apparently the Caucasian was played +out, for in a very short time he had been turned into the Indo-European +man; sometimes, I regret to say, proudly presented as the Indo-Germanic +man. It seems that the Hindu and the German have similar words for +mother or father; there were other similarities between Sanskrit and +various Western tongues; and with that all superficial differences +between a Hindu and a German seemed suddenly to disappear. Generally +this composite person was more conveniently described as the Aryan, and +the really important point was that he had marched westward out of those +high lands of India where fragments of his language could still be +found. When I read this as a child, I had the fancy that after all the +Aryan need not have marched westward and left his language behind him; +he might also have marched eastward and taken his language with him. If +I were to read it now, I should content myself with confessing my +ignorance of the whole matter. But as a matter of fact I have great +difficulty in reading it now, because it is not being written now. It +looks as if the Aryan is also played out. Anyhow he has not merely +changed his name but changed his address; his starting-place and his +route of travel. One new theory maintains that our race did not come to +its present home from the East but from the South. Some say the +Europeans did not come from Asia but from Africa. Some have even had the +wild idea that the Europeans came from Europe; or rather that they never +left it. + +Then there is a certain amount of evidence of a more or less prehistoric +pressure from the North, such as that which seems to have brought the +Greeks to inherit the Cretan culture and so often brought the Gauls over +the hills into the fields of Italy. But I merely mention this example of +European ethnology to point out that the learned have pretty well boxed +the compass by this time; and that I, who am not one of the learned, +cannot pretend for a moment to decide where such doctors disagree. But I +can use my own common sense, and I sometimes fancy that theirs is a +little rusty from want of use. The first act of common sense is to +recognise the difference between a cloud and a mountain. And I will +affirm that nobody knows any of these things, in the sense that we all +know of the existence of the Pyramids of Egypt. + +The truth, it may be repeated, is that what we really see, as distinct +from what we may reasonably guess, in this earliest phase of history is +darkness covering the earth and great darkness the peoples, with a light +or two gleaming here and there on chance patches of humanity; and that +two of these flames do burn upon two of these tall primeval towns; upon +the high terraces of Babylon and the huge pyramids of the Nile. There +are indeed other ancient lights, or lights that may be conjectured to be +very ancient, in very remote parts of that vast wilderness of night. Far +away to the East there is a high civilisation of vast antiquity in +China; there are the remains of civilisations in Mexico and South +America and other places, some of them apparently so high in +civilisation as to have reached the most refined forms of devil-worship. +But the difference lies in the element of tradition; the tradition of +these lost cultures has been broken off, and though the tradition of +China still lives, it is doubtful whether we know anything about it. +Moreover, a man trying to measure the Chinese antiquity has to use +Chinese traditions of measurement; and he has a strange sensation of +having passed into another world under other laws of time and space. +Time is telescoped outwards, and centuries assume the slow and stiff +movement of aeons; the white man trying to see it as the yellow man +sees, feels as if his head were turning round and wonders wildly whether +it is growing a pigtail. Anyhow he cannot take in a scientific sense +that queer perspective that leads up to the primeval pagoda of the first +of the Sons of Heaven. He is in the real antipodes; the only true +alternative world to Christendom; and he is after a fashion walking +upside down. I have spoken of the medieval map-maker and his dragon; but +what medieval traveller, however much interested in monsters, would +expect to find a country where a dragon is a benevolent and amiable +being? Of the more serious side of Chinese tradition something will be +said in another connection; but here I am only talking of tradition and +the test of antiquity. And I only mention China as an antiquity that is +not for us reached by a bridge of tradition; and Babylon and Egypt as +antiquities that are. Herodotus is a human being, in a sense in which a +Chinaman in a billycock hat, sitting opposite to us in a London +tea-shop, is hardly human. We feel as if we knew what David and Isaiah +felt like, in a way in which we never were quite certain what Li Hung +Chang felt like. The very sins that snatched away Helen or Bathsheba +have passed into a proverb of private human weakness, of pathos and even +of pardon. The very virtues of the Chinaman have about them something +terrifying. This is the difference made by the destruction or +preservation of a continuous historical inheritance; as from ancient +Egypt to modern Europe. But when we ask what was that world that we +inherit, and why those particular people and places seem to belong to +it, we are led to the central fact of civilised history. + +That centre was the Mediterranean; which was not so much a piece of +water as a world. But it was a world with something of the character of +such a water; for it became more and more a place of unification in +which the streams of strange and very diverse cultures met. The Nile and +the Tiber alike flow into the Mediterranean; so did the Egyptian and the +Etrurian alike contribute to a Mediterranean civilisation. The glamour +of the great sea spread indeed very far inland, and the unity was felt +among the Arabs alone in the deserts and the Galls beyond the Northern +hills. But the gradual building up of a common culture running round all +the coasts of this inner sea is the main business of antiquity. As will +be seen, it was sometimes a bad business as well as a good business. In +that *orbis terrarum* or circle of lands there were the extremes of evil +and of piety, there were contrasted races and still more contrasted +religions. It was the scene of an endless struggle between Asia and +Europe from the flight of the Persian ships at Salamis to the flight of +the Turkish ships at Lepanto. It was the scene, as will be more +especially suggested later, of a supreme spiritual struggle between the +two types of paganism, confronting each other in the Latin and the +Phoenician cities; in the Roman forum and the Punic mart. It was the +world of war and peace, the world of good and evil, the world of all +that matters most; with all respect to the Aztecs and the Mongols of the +Far East, they did not matter as the Mediterranean tradition mattered +and still matters. Between it and the Far East there were, of course, +interesting cults and conquests of various kinds, more or less in touch +with it, and in proportion as they were so intelligible also to us. The +Persians came riding in to make an end of Babylon; and we are told in a +Greek story how these barbarians learned to draw the bow and tell the +truth. Alexander the great Greek marched with his Macedonians into the +sunrise, and brought back strange birds coloured like the sunrise clouds +and strange flowers and jewels from the gardens and treasuries of +nameless kings. Islam went eastward into that world and made it partly +imaginable to us; precisely because Islam itself was born in that circle +of lands that fringed our own ancient and ancestral sea. In the Middle +Ages the empire of the Moguls increased its majesty without losing its +mystery; the Tartars conquered China and the Chinese apparently took +very little notice of them. All these things are interesting in +themselves; but it is impossible to shift the centre of gravity to the +inland spaces of Asia from the inland sea of Europe. When all is said, +if there were nothing in the world but what was said and done and +written and built in the lands lying round the Mediterranean, it would +still be in all the most vital and valuable things the world in which we +live. When that southern culture spread to the north-west it produced +many very wonderful things; of which doubtless we ourselves are the most +wonderful. When it spread thence to colonies and new countries, it was +still the same culture so long as it was culture at all. But round that +little sea like a lake were the things themselves, apart from all +extensions and echoes and commentaries on the things; the Republic and +the Church; the Bible and the heroic epics; Islam and Israel and the +memories of the lost empires; Aristotle and the measure of all things. +It is because the first light upon this world is really light, the +daylight in which we are still wa lki ng to-day, and not merely the +doubtful visitation of strange stars, that I have begun here with noting +where that light first falls on the towered cities of the eastern Mediterranean. -But though Babylon and Egypt have thus a sort of first -claim, in the very fact of being familiar and traditional, -fascinating riddles to us but also fascinating riddles to -our fathers, we must not imagine that they were the only old -civilisations on the southern sea, or that all the -civilisation was merely Sumerian or Semitic or Coptic, still -less merely Asiatic or African.. Real research is more and -more exalting the ancient civilisation of Europe and -especially of what we may still vaguely call the Greeks. It -must be understood in the sense that there were Greeks -before the Greeks, as in so many of their mythologies there -were gods before the gods. The island of Crete was the -centre of the civilisation now called Minoan, after the -Minos who lingered in ancient legend and whose labyrinth was -actually discovered by modern archeology. This elaborate -European society with its harbours and its drainage and its -domestic machinery, seems to have gone down before some -invasion of its northern neighbours, who made or inherited -the Hellas we know in history. But that earlier period did -not pass till it had given to the world gifts so great that -the world has ever since been striving in vain to repay -them, if only by plagiarism. - -Somewhere along the Ionian coast opposite Crete and the -islands was a town of some sort, probably of the sort that -we should call a village or hamlet with a wall. It was -called Ilion but it came to be called Troy, and the name -will never perish from the earth. A poet who may have been a -beggar and a ballad-monger, who may have been unable to read -and write, and was described by tradition as blind, composed -a poem about the Greeks going to war with this town to -recover the most beautiful woman in the world. That the most -beautiful woman in the world lived in that one little town -sounds like a legend; that the most beautiful poem in the -world was written by somebody who knew of nothing larger -than such little towns is a historical fact. It is said that -the poem came at the end of the period; that the primitive -culture brought it forth in its decay; in which case one -would like to have seen that culture in its prime. But -anyhow it is true that this, which is our first poem, might -very well be our last poem too. It might well be the last -word as well as the first word spoken by man about his -mortal lot, as seen by merely mortal vision If the world -becomes pagan and perishes, the last man left alive would do -well to quote the Iliad and die. - -But in this one great human revelation of antiquity there is -another element of great historical importance which has -hardly I think been given its proper place in history. The -poet has so conceived the poem that his sympathies -apparently, and those of his reader certainly are on the -side of the vanquished rather than of the victor. And this -is a sentiment which increases in the poetical tradition -even as the poetical origin itself recedes. Achilles had -some status as a sort of demigod m pagan times; but he -disappears altogether in later times. But Hector grows -greater as the ages pass • and it is his name that is the -name of a Knight of the Round Table and his sword that -legend puts into the hand of Roland, laying about him with -the weapon of the defeated Hector m the last ruin and -splendour of his own defeat. The name anticipates all the -defeats through which our race and religion were to pass; -that survival of a hundred defeats that is its triumph. - -The tale of the end of Troy shall have no ending' for it is -lifted up for ever into living echoes, immortal as our -hopelessness and our hope. Troy standing was a small thing -that may have stood nameless for ages. But Troy falling has -been caught up in a flame and suspended in an immortal -instant of annihilation; and because it was destroyed with -fire the fire shall never be destroyed. And as with the city -so with the hero; traced in archaic lines in that primeval -twilight is found the first figure of the Knight. There is a -prophetic coincidence in his title; we have spoken of the -word chivalry and how it seems to mingle the horseman with -the horse. It is almost anticipated ages before in the -thunder of the Homeric hexameter, and that long leaping word -with which the Iliad ends. It is that very unity for which -we can find no name but the holy centaur of chivalry. But -there are other reasons for giving in this g lim pse of -antiquity the flame upon the sacred town. The sanctity of -such towns ran like a fire round the coasts and islands of -the northern Mediterranean; the high-fenced hamlet for which -heroes died. From the smallness of the city came the -greatness of the citizen. Hellas with her hundred statues -produced nothing statelier than that walking statue; the -ideal of the self-commanding man. Hellas of the hundred -statues was one legend and literature; and all that -labyrinth of little walled nations resounded with the lament -of Troy. - -A later legend, an afterthought but not an accident, said -that stragglers from Troy founded a republic on the Italian -shore. It was true in spirit that republican virtue had such -a root. A mystery of honour, that was not bom of Babylon or -the Egyptian pride, there shone like the shield of Hector, -defying Asia and Africa; till the light of a new day was -loosened, with the rushing of the eagles and the coming of -the name; the name that came like a thunderclap, when the -world woke to Rome. +But though Babylon and Egypt have thus a sort of first claim, in the +very fact of being familiar and traditional, fascinating riddles to us +but also fascinating riddles to our fathers, we must not imagine that +they were the only old civilisations on the southern sea, or that all +the civilisation was merely Sumerian or Semitic or Coptic, still less +merely Asiatic or African.. Real research is more and more exalting the +ancient civilisation of Europe and especially of what we may still +vaguely call the Greeks. It must be understood in the sense that there +were Greeks before the Greeks, as in so many of their mythologies there +were gods before the gods. The island of Crete was the centre of the +civilisation now called Minoan, after the Minos who lingered in ancient +legend and whose labyrinth was actually discovered by modern archeology. +This elaborate European society with its harbours and its drainage and +its domestic machinery, seems to have gone down before some invasion of +its northern neighbours, who made or inherited the Hellas we know in +history. But that earlier period did not pass till it had given to the +world gifts so great that the world has ever since been striving in vain +to repay them, if only by plagiarism. + +Somewhere along the Ionian coast opposite Crete and the islands was a +town of some sort, probably of the sort that we should call a village or +hamlet with a wall. It was called Ilion but it came to be called Troy, +and the name will never perish from the earth. A poet who may have been +a beggar and a ballad-monger, who may have been unable to read and +write, and was described by tradition as blind, composed a poem about +the Greeks going to war with this town to recover the most beautiful +woman in the world. That the most beautiful woman in the world lived in +that one little town sounds like a legend; that the most beautiful poem +in the world was written by somebody who knew of nothing larger than +such little towns is a historical fact. It is said that the poem came at +the end of the period; that the primitive culture brought it forth in +its decay; in which case one would like to have seen that culture in its +prime. But anyhow it is true that this, which is our first poem, might +very well be our last poem too. It might well be the last word as well +as the first word spoken by man about his mortal lot, as seen by merely +mortal vision If the world becomes pagan and perishes, the last man left +alive would do well to quote the Iliad and die. + +But in this one great human revelation of antiquity there is another +element of great historical importance which has hardly I think been +given its proper place in history. The poet has so conceived the poem +that his sympathies apparently, and those of his reader certainly are on +the side of the vanquished rather than of the victor. And this is a +sentiment which increases in the poetical tradition even as the poetical +origin itself recedes. Achilles had some status as a sort of demigod m +pagan times; but he disappears altogether in later times. But Hector +grows greater as the ages pass • and it is his name that is the name of +a Knight of the Round Table and his sword that legend puts into the hand +of Roland, laying about him with the weapon of the defeated Hector m the +last ruin and splendour of his own defeat. The name anticipates all the +defeats through which our race and religion were to pass; that survival +of a hundred defeats that is its triumph. + +The tale of the end of Troy shall have no ending' for it is lifted up +for ever into living echoes, immortal as our hopelessness and our hope. +Troy standing was a small thing that may have stood nameless for ages. +But Troy falling has been caught up in a flame and suspended in an +immortal instant of annihilation; and because it was destroyed with fire +the fire shall never be destroyed. And as with the city so with the +hero; traced in archaic lines in that primeval twilight is found the +first figure of the Knight. There is a prophetic coincidence in his +title; we have spoken of the word chivalry and how it seems to mingle +the horseman with the horse. It is almost anticipated ages before in the +thunder of the Homeric hexameter, and that long leaping word with which +the Iliad ends. It is that very unity for which we can find no name but +the holy centaur of chivalry. But there are other reasons for giving in +this g lim pse of antiquity the flame upon the sacred town. The sanctity +of such towns ran like a fire round the coasts and islands of the +northern Mediterranean; the high-fenced hamlet for which heroes died. +From the smallness of the city came the greatness of the citizen. Hellas +with her hundred statues produced nothing statelier than that walking +statue; the ideal of the self-commanding man. Hellas of the hundred +statues was one legend and literature; and all that labyrinth of little +walled nations resounded with the lament of Troy. + +A later legend, an afterthought but not an accident, said that +stragglers from Troy founded a republic on the Italian shore. It was +true in spirit that republican virtue had such a root. A mystery of +honour, that was not bom of Babylon or the Egyptian pride, there shone +like the shield of Hector, defying Asia and Africa; till the light of a +new day was loosened, with the rushing of the eagles and the coming of +the name; the name that came like a thunderclap, when the world woke to +Rome. ### IV. God and Comparative Religion -I was once escorted over the Roman foundations of an ancient -British city by a professor, who said something that seems -to me a satire on a good many other professors. Possibly the -professor saw the joke, though he maintained an iron -gravity, and may or may not have realised that it was a joke -against a great deal of what is called comparative religion. -I pointed out a sculpture of the head of the sun with the -usual halo of rays, but with the difference that the face in -the disc, instead of being boyish like Apollo, was bearded -like Neptune or Jupiter. "Yes," he said with a certain -delicate exactitude, "that is supposed to represent the -local god Sul. The best authorities identify Sul with -Minerva; but this has been held to show that the -identification is not complete." - -That is what we call a powerful understatement. The modern -world is madder than any satires on it; long ago Mr. Belloc -made his burlesque don say that a bust of Ariadne had been -proved by modern research to be a Silenus. But that is not -better than the real appearance of Minerva as the Bearded -Woman of Mr. Barnum. Only both of them are very like many -identifications by "the best authorities" on comparative -religion; and when Catholic creeds are identified with -various wild myths, I do not laugh or curse or misbehave -myself; I confine myself decorously to saying that the -identification is not complete. - -In the days of my youth the Religion of Humanity was a term -commonly applied to Comtism, the theory of certain -rationalists who worshipped corporate mankind as a Supreme -Being. Even in the days of my youth I remarked that there -was something slightly odd about despising and dismissing -the doctrine of the Trinity as a mystical and even maniacal -contradiction; and then asking us to adore a deity who is a -hundred million persons in one God, neither confounding the -persons nor dividing the substance. - -But there is another entity, more or less definable and much -more imaginable than the many-headed and monstrous idol of -mankind. And it has a much better right to be called, in a -reasonable sense, the religion of humanity. Man is not -indeed the idol; but man is almost everywhere the idolator. -And these multitudinous idolatries of mankind have something -about them in many ways more human and sympathetic than -modern metaphysical abstractions. If an, Asiatic god has -three heads and seven arms, there is at least in it an idea -of material incarnation bringing an unknown power nearer to -us and not farther away. But if our friends Brown, Jones, -and Robinson, when out for a Sunday walk, were transformed -and amalgamated into an Asiatic idol before our eyes, they -would surely seem farther away. If the arms of Brown and the -legs of Robinson waved from the same composite body, they -would seem to be waving something of a sad farewell. If the -heads of all three gentlemen appeared smiling on the same -neck, we should hesitate even by what name to address our -new and somewhat abnormal friend. In the many-headed and -many-handed Oriental idol there is a certain sense of -mysteries becoming at least partly intelligible; of formless -forces of nature taking some dark but material form, but -though this may be true of the multiform god it is not so of -the multiform man. The human beings become less human by -becoming less separate; we might say less human in being -less lonely. The human beings become less intelligible as -they become less isolated; we might say with, strict truth -that the closer they are to us the farther they are away. An -Ethical Hymn-book of this humanitarian sort of religion was -carefully selected and expurgated on the principle of -preserving anything human and eliminating anything divine. -One consequence was that a hymn appeared in the amended form -of "Nearer Mankind to Thee, Nearer to Thee." It always -suggested to me the sensations of a straphanger during a -crush on the Tube. But it is strange and wonderful how far -away the souls of men can seem, when their bodies are so -near as all that. - -The human unity with which I deal here is not to be -confounded with this modern industrial monotony and herding, -which is rather a congestion than a communion. It is a thing -to which human groups left to themselves, and even human -individuals left to themselves, have everywhere tended by an -instinct that may truly be called human. Like all healthy -human things, it has varied very much within the limits of a -general character; for that is characteristic of everything -belonging to that ancient land of liberty that lies before -and around the servile industrial town. Industrialism -actually boasts that its products are all of one pattern; -that men in Jamaica or Japan can break the same seal and dr -ink the same bad whisky, that a man at the North Pole and -another at the South might recognise the same optimistic -label on the same dubious tinned salmon. But wine, the gift -of gods to men, can vary with every valley and every -vineyard, can turn into a hundred wines without any wine -once reminding us of whisky; and cheeses can change from -county to county without forgetting the difference between -chalk and cheese. When I am speaking of this thing, -therefore, I am speaking of something that doubtless -includes very wide differences; nevertheless I will here -maintain that it is one thing. I will maintain that most of -the modern botheration comes from not realising that it is -really one thing. I will advance the thesis that before all -talk about comparative religion and the separate religious -founders of the world, the first essential is to recognise -this thing as a whole, as a thing almost native and normal -to the great fellowship that we call mankind. This thing is -Paganism; and I propose to show in these pages that it is -the one real rival to the Church of Christ. - -Comparative religion is very comparative indeed. That is, it -is so much a matter of degree and distance and difference -that it is only comparatively successful when it tries to -compare. When we come to look at it closely we find it -comparing things that are really quite incomparable. We are -accustomed to see a table or catalogue of the world's great -religions in parallel columns, until we fancy they are -really parallel. We are accustomed to see the names of the -great religious founders all in a row: Christ; Mahomet; -Buddha; Confucius. But in truth this is only a trick; -another of these optical illusions by which any objects may -be put into a particular relation by shifting to a -particular point of sight. Those religions and religious -founders, or rather those whom we choose to lump together as -religions and religious founders, do not really show any -common character. The illusion is partly produced by Islam -coming immediately after Christianity in the list; as Islam -did come after Christianity and was largely an imitation of -Christianity. But the other Eastern religions, or what we -call religions, not only do not resemble the Church but do -not resemble each other. When we come to Confucianism at the -end of the list, we come to something in a totally different -world of thought. To compare the Christian and Confucian -religions is like comparing a theist with an English squire -or asking whether a man is a believer in immortality or a -hundred-per-cent American. Confucianism may be a -civilisation but it is not a religion. - -In truth the Church is too unique to prove herself unique. -For most popular and easy proof is by parallel; and here -there is no parallel. It is not easy, therefore, to expose -the fallacy by which a false classification is created to -swamp a unique thing, when it really is a unique thing. As -there is nowhere else exactly the same fact, so there is -nowhere else exactly the same fallacy. But I will take the -nearest thing I can find to such a solitary social -phenomenon, in order to show how it is thus swamped and -assimilated. I imagine most of us would agree that there is -something unusual and unique about the position of the Jews. -There is nothing that is quite in the same sense an -international nation; an ancient culture scattered in -different countries but still distinct and indestructible. -Now this business is like an attempt to make a list of -nomadic nations in order to soften the strange solitude of -the Jew. It would be easy enough to do it, by the same -process of putting a plausible approximation first, and then -tailing off into totally different things thrown in somehow -to make up the list. Thus in the new list of nomadic nations -the Jews would be followed by the Gypsies; who at least are -really nomadic if they are not really national. Then the -professor of the new science of Comparative Nomadics could -pass easily on to something different; even if it was very -different. He could remark on the wandering adventure of the -English who had scattered their colonies over so many seas; -and call *them* nomads. It is quite true that a great many -Englishmen seem to be strangely restless in England. It is -quite true that not all of them have left their country for -ftheir country's good. The moment we mention the wandering -empire of the English, we must add the strange exiled empire -of the Irish. For it is a curious fact, to be noted in our -imperial literature, that the same ubiquity and unrest which -is a proof of English enterprise and triumph is a proof of -Irish futility and failure. Then the professor of Nomadism -would look round thoughtfully and remember that there was -great talk recently of German waiters, German barbers, -German clerks, Germans naturalising themselves in England -and the United States and the South American republics. The -Germans would go down as the fifth nomadic race; the words -Wanderlust and Folk-Wandering would come in very useful -here. For there really have been historians who explained -the Crusades by suggesting that the Germans were found -wandering (as the police say) in what happened to be the -neighbourhood of Palestine. Then the professor, feeling he -was now near the end, would make a last leap in desperation. -He would recall the fact that the French Army has captured -nearly every capital in Europe, that it marched across -countless conquered lands under Charlemagne or Napoleon; and -*that* would be wanderlust, and *that* would be the note of -a nomadic race. Thus he would have his six nomadic nations -all compact and complete, and would feel that the Jew was no -longer a sort of mysterious and even mystical exception. But -people with more common sense would probably realise that he -had only extended nomadism by extending the meaning of -nomadism; and that he had extended that until it really had -no meaning at all. It is quite true that the French soldier -has made some of the finest marches in all military history. -But it is equally true, and far more self-evident, that if -the French peasant is not a rooted reality there is no such -thing as a rooted reality in the world; or in other words, -if he is a nomad there is nobody who is not a nomad. - -Now that is the sort of trick that has been tried in the -case of comparative religion and the world's religious -founders all standing respectably in a row. It seeks to -classify Jesus as the other would classify Jews, by -inventing a new class for the purpose and filling up the -rest of it with stop-gaps and second-rate copies. I do not -mean that these other things are not often great things in -their own real character and class. Confucianism and -Buddhism are great things, but it is not true to call them -churches; just as the French and English are great peoples, -but it is nonsense to call them nomads. There are some -points of resemblance between Christendom and its imitation -in Islam; for that matter there are some points of -resemblance between Jews and Gypsies. But after that the -lists are made up of anything that comes to hand; of -anything that can be put in the same catalogue without being -in the same category. - -In this sketch of religious history, with all decent -deference to men much more learned than myself, I propose to -cut across and disregard this modern method of -classification, which I feel sure has falsified the facts of -history. I shall here submit an alternative classification -of religion or religions, which I believe would be found to -cover all the facts and, what is quite as important here, -all the fancies. Instead of dividing religion -geographically, and as it were vertically, into Christian, -Moslem, Brahmin, Buddhist, and so on, I would divide it -psychologically and in some sense horizontally; into the -strata of spiritual elements and influences that could -sometimes exist in the same country, or even in the same -man. Putting the Church apart for the moment, I should be -disposed to divide the natural religion of the mass of -mankind under such headings as these: God; the Gods; the -Demons; the Philosophers. I believe some such classification -will help us to sort out the spiritual experiences of men -much more successfully than the conventional business of -comparing religions; and that many famous figures will -naturally fall into their place in this way who are only -forced into their place in the other. As I shall make use of -these titles or terms more than once in narrative and -illusion, it will be well to define at first, the simplest -and the most sublime, in this chapter. - -In considering the elements of pagan humanity, we must begin -by an attempt to describe the indescribable. Many get over -the difficulty of describing it by the expedient of denying -it, or at least ignoring it; but the whole point of it is -that it was something that was never quite eliminated even -when it was ignored. They are obsessed by their evolutionary -monomania that every great thing grows from a seed, or -something smaller than itself. They seem to forget that -every seed comes from a tree, or from something larger than -itself. Now there is very good ground for guessing that -religion did not originally come from some detail that was -forgotten because it was too small to be traced. Much more -probably it was an idea that was abandoned because it was -too large to be managed. There is very good reason to -suppose that many people did begin with the simple but -overwhelming idea of one God who governs all; and afterwards -fell away into such things as demon-worship almost as a sort -of secret dissipation. Even the test of savage beliefs, of -which the folk-lore students are so fond, is admittedly -often found to support such a view. Some of the very rudest -savages, primitive in every sense in which anthropologists -use the word, the Australian aborigines for instance, are -found to have a pure monotheism with a high moral tone. A -missionary was preaching to a very wild tribe of -polytheists, who had told him all their polytheistic tales, -and telling them in return of the existence of the one good -God who is a spirit and judges men by spiritual standards. -And there was a sudden buzz of excitement among those stolid -barbarians, as at somebody who was letting out a secret, and -they cried to each other, "Atahocan! He is speaking of -Atahocan!" - -Probably it was a point of politeness and even decency among -those polytheists not to speak of Atahocan. The name is not -perhaps so much adapted as some of our own to direct and -solemn religious exhortation; but many other social forces -are always covering up and confusing such simple ideas. -Possibly the old god stood for an old morality found irksome -in more expansive moments; possibly intercourse with demons -was more fashionable among the best people, as in the modern -fashion of Spiritualism. Anyhow, there are any number of -similar examples. They all testify to the unmistakable -psychology of a thing taken for granted, as distinct from a -thing talked about. There is a striking example in a tale -taken down word for word from a Red Indian in California, -which starts out with hearty legendary and literary relish: -"The sun is the father and ruler of the heavens. He is the -big chief. The moon is his wife and the stars are their -children"; and so on through a most ingenious and -complicated story, in the middle of which is a sudden -parenthesis saying that sun and moon have to do something -because "It is ordered that way by the Great Spirit Who -lives above the place of all." That is exactly the attitude -of most paganism towards God. He is something assumed and -forgotten and remembered by accident; a habit possibly not -peculiar to pagans. Sometimes the higher deity is remembered -in the higher moral grades and is a sort of mystery. But -always, it has been truly said, the savage is talkative -about his mythology and taciturn about his religion. The -Australian savages, indeed, exhibit a topsyturvydom such as -the ancients might have thought truly worthy of the -antipodes. The savage who thinks nothing of tossing off such -a trifle as a tale of the sun and moon being the halves of a -baby chopped in two, or dropping into small-talk about a -colossal cosmic cow milked to make the rain, merely in order -to be sociable, will then retire to secret caverns sealed -against women and white men, temples of terrible initiation -where to the thunder of the bull-roarer and the dripping of -sacrificial blood, the priest whispers the final secrets -known only to the initiate: that honesty is the best policy, -that a little kindness does nobody any harm, that all men -are brothers and that there is but one God, the Father -Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible. - -In other words, we have here the curiosity of religious -history that the savage seems to be parading all the most -repulsive and impossible parts of his belief and concealing -all the most sensible and creditable parts. But the -explanation is that they are not in that sense parts of his -belief; or at least not parts of the same sort of belief. -The myths are merely tall stories, though as tall as the -sky, the waterspout, or the tropic rain. The mysteries are -true stories, and are taken secretly that they may be taken -seriously. Indeed it is only too easy to forget that there -is a thrill in theism. A novel in which a number of separate -characters all turned out to be the same character would -certainly be a sensational novel. It is so with the idea -that sun and tree and river are the disguises of one god and -not of many. Alas, we also find it only too easy to take -Atahocan for granted. But whether he is allowed to fade into -a truism or preserved as a sensation by being preserved as a -secret, it is clear that he is always either an old truism -or an old tradition. There is nothing to show that he is an -improved product of the mere mythology and everything to -show that he preceded it. He is worshipped by the simplest -tribes with no trace of ghosts or grave-offerings, or any of -the complications in which Herbert Spencer and Grant Allen -sought the origin of the simplest of all ideas. Whatever -else there was, there was never any such thing as the -Evolution of the Idea of God. The idea was concealed, was -avoided, was almost forgotten, was even explained away; but -it was never evolved. There are not a few indications of -this change in other places. It is implied, for instance, in -the fact that even polytheism seems often the combination of -several monotheisms. A god will gain only a minor seat on -Mount Olympus, when he had owned earth and heaven and all -the stars while he lived in his own little valley. Like many -a small nation melting in a great empire, he gives up local -universality only to come under universal limitation. The -very name of Pan suggests that he became a god of the wood -when he had been a god of the world. The very name of -Jupiter is almost a pagan translation of the words "Our -Father which art in heaven." As with the Great Father -symbolised by the sky, so with the Great Mother whom we -still call Mother Earth. Demeter and Ceres and Cybele often -seem to be almost incapable of taking over the whole -business of godhood, so that men should need no other gods. -It seems reasonably probable that a good many men did have -no other gods but one of these, worshipped as the author of -all. - -Over some of the most immense and populous tracts of the -world, such as China, it would seem that the simpler idea of -the Great Father has never been very much complicated with -rival cults, though it may have in some sense ceased to be a -cult itself. The best authorities seem to think that though -Confucianism is in one sense agnosticism, it does not -directly contradict the old theism, precisely because it has -become a rather vague theism. It is one in which God is -called Heaven, as in the case of polite persons tempted to -swear in drawing-rooms. But Heaven is still overhead, even -if it is very far overhead. We have all the impression of a -simple truth that has receded, until it was remote without -ceasing to be true. And this phrase alone would bring us -back to the same idea even in the pagan mythology of the -West. There is surely something of this very notion of the -withdrawal of some higher power in all those mysterious and -very imaginative myths about the separation of earth and -sky. In a hundred forms we are told that heaven and earth -were once lovers, or were once at one, when some upstart -thing, often some undutiful child, thrust them apart; and -the world was built on an abyss; upon a division and a -parting. One of its grossest versions was given by Greek -civilisation in the myth of Uranus and Saturn. One of its -most charming versions was that of some savage people, who -say that a little pepper-plant grew taller and taller and -lifted the whole sky like a lid a beautiful barbaric vision -of daybreak for some of our painters who love that tropical -twilight. Of myths, and the highly mythical explanations -which the moderns offer of myths, something will be said in -another section; for I cannot but think that most mythology -is on another and more superficial plane. But in this -primeval vision of the rending of one world into two there -is surely something more of ultimate ideas. As to what it -means, a man will learn far more about it by lying on his -back in a field, and merely looking at the sky, than by -reading all the libraries even of the most learned and -valuable folk-lore. He will know what is meant by saying -that the sky ought to be nearer to us than it is, that -perhaps it was once nearer than it is, that it is not a -thing merely alien and abysmal but in some fashion sundered -from us and saying farewell. There will creep across his -mind the curious suggestion that after all, perhaps, the -myth-maker was not merely a moon-calf or village idiot -thinking he could cut up the clouds like a cake, but had in -him something more than it is fashionable to attribute to -the Troglodyte; that it is just possible that Thomas Hood -was not talking like a Troglodyte when he said that, as time -went on, the tree-tops only told him he was further off from -heaven than when he was a boy. But anyhow the legend of -Uranus the Lord of Heaven dethroned by Saturn the Time -Spirit would mean something to the author of that poem. And -it would mean, among other things, this banishment of the -first fatherhood. There is the idea of God in the very -notion that there were gods before the gods. There is an -idea of greater simplicity in all the allusions to that more -ancient order. The suggestion is supported by the process of -propagation we see in historic times. Gods and demigods and -heroes breed like herrings before our very eyes, and suggest -of themselves that the family may have had one founder; -mythology grows more and more complicated, and the very -complication suggests that at the beginning it was more -simple. Even on the external evidence, of the sort called -scientific, there is therefore a very g°od case for the -suggestion that man began with monotheism before it -developed or degenerated into polytheism. But I am concerned -rather with an internal than an external truth; and, as I -have already said, the internal truth is almost -indescribable. We have to speak of something of which it is -the whole point that people did not speak of it; we have not -merely to translate from a strange tongue or speech, but -from a strange silence. - -I suspect an immense implication behind all polytheism and -paganism. I suspect we have only a hint of it here and there -in these savage creeds or Greek origins. It is not exactly -what we mean by the presence of God; in a sense it might -more truly be called the absence of God. But absence does -not mean nonexistence; and a man drinking the toast of -absent friends does not mean that from his life all -friendship is absent. It is a void but it is not a negation; -it is something as positive as an empty chair. It would be -an exaggeration to say that the pagan saw higher than -Olympus an empty throne. It would be nearer the truth to -take the gigantic imagery of the Old Testament, in which the -prophet saw God from behind; it was as if some immeasurable -presence had turned its back on the world. Yet the meaning -will again be missed if it is supposed to be anything so -conscious and vivid as the monotheism of Moses and his -people. I do not mean that the pagan peoples were in the -least overpowered by this idea merely because it is -overpowering. On the contrary, it was so large that they all -carried it lightly, as we all carry the load of the sky. -Gazing at some detail like a bird or a cloud, we can all -ignore its awful blue background; we can neglect the sky; -and precisely because it bears down upon us with an -annihilating force, it is felt as nothing. A thing of this -kind can only b6 an impression and a rather subtle -impression; but to me it is a very strong impression made by -pagan literature and religion. I repeat that in our special -sacramental sense there is, of course, the absence of the -presence of God. But there is in a very real sense the -presence of the absence of God. We feel it in the -unfathomable sadness of pagan poetry; for I doubt if there -was ever in all the marvellous manhood of antiquity a man -who was happy as St. Francis was happy. We feel it in the -legend of a Golden Age and again in the vague implication -that the gods themselves are ultimately related to something -else, even when that Unknown God has faded into a Fate. -Above all we feel it in those immortal moments when the -pagan literature seems to return to a more innocent -antiquity and speak with a more direct voice, so that no -word is worthy of it except our own monotheistic -monosyllable. We cannot say anything but "God" in a sentence -like that of Socrates bidding farewell to his judges: "I go -to die and you remain to live; and God alone knows which of -us goes the better way." We can use no other word even for -the best moments of Marcus Aurelius: "Can they say dear city -of Cecrops, and canst thou not say dear city of God?" We can -use no other word in that mighty line in which Virgil spoke -to all who suffer with the veritable cry of a Christian -before Christ, in the untranslatable: "O passi graviora -dabit deus his quoque finem." - -In short, there is a feeling that there is something higher -than the gods; but because it is higher it is also further -away. Not yet could even Virgil have read the riddle and the -paradox of that other divinity, who is both higher and -nearer. For them what was truly divine was very distant, so -distant that they dismissed it more and more from their -minds. It had less and less to do with the mere mythology of -which I shall write later. Yet even in this there was a sort -of tacit admission of its intangible purity, when we -consider what most of the mythology is like. As the Jews -would not degrade it by images, so the Greeks did not -degrade it even by imaginations. When the gods were more and -more remembered only by pranks and profligacies, it was -relatively a movement of reverence. It was an act of piety -to forget God. In other words, there is something in the -whole tone of the time suggesting that men had accepted a -lower level, and still were half conscious that it was a -lower level. It is hard to find words for these things; yet -the one really just word stands ready. These men were -conscious of the Fall, if they were conscious of nothing -else; and the same is true of all heathen humanity. Those -who have fallen may remember the fall, even when they forget -the height. Some such tantalising blank or break in memory -is at the back of all pagan sentiment. There is such a thing -as the momentary power to remember that we forget. And the -most ignorant of humanity know by the very look of earth -that they have forgotten heaven. But it remains true that -even for these men there were moments, like the memories of -childhood, when they heard themselves talking with a simpler -language; there were moments when the Roman, like Virgil in -the line already quoted, cut his way with a sword-stroke of -song out of the tangle of the mythologies; the motley mob of -gods and goddesses sank suddenly out of sight and the -Sky-Father was alone in the sky. - -This latter example is very relevant to the next step in the -process. A white light as of a lost morning still lingers on -the figure of Jupiter, of Pan, or of the elder Apollo; and -it may well be, as already noted that each was once a -divinity as solitary as Jehovah or Allah. They lost this -lonely universality by a process it is here very necessary -to note; a process of amalgamation very like what was -afterwards called syncretism. The whole pagan world set -itself to build a Pantheon. They admitted more and more -gods, gods not only of the Greeks but of the barbarians; -gods not only of Europe but of Asia and Africa. The more the -merrier, though some of the Asian and African ones were not -very merry. They admitted them to equal thrones with their -own; sometimes they identified them with their own. They may -have regarded it as an enrichment of their religious life; -but it meant the final loss of all that we now call -religion. It meant that ancient light of simplicity, that -had a single source like the sun, finally fades away in a -dazzle of conflicting lights and colours. God is really -sacrificed to the gods; in a very literal sense of the -flippant phrase, they have been too many for him. - -Polytheism, therefore, was really a sort of pool; in the -sense of the pagans having consented to the pooling of their -pagan religions. And this point is very important in many -controversies ancient and modern. It is regarded as a -liberal and enlightened thing to say that the god of the -stranger may be as good as our own; and doubtless the pagans -thought themselves very liberal and enlightened when they -agreed to add to the gods of the city or the hearth some -wild and fantastic Dionysus coming down from the mountains -or some shaggy and rustic Pan creeping out of the woods. But -exactly what it lost by these larger ideas is the largest -idea of all. It is the idea of the fatherhood that makes the -whole world one. And the converse is also true. Doubtless -those more antiquated men of antiquity who clung to their -solitary statues and their single sacred names were regarded -as superstitious savages benighted and left behind. But -these superstitious savages were preserving something that -is much more like the cosmic power as conceived by -philosophy, or even as conceived by science. This paradox by -which the rude reactionary was a sort of prophetic -progressive has one consequence very much to the point. In a -purely historical sense, and apart from any other -controversies in the same connection, it throws a light, a -single and a steady light, that shines from the beginning on -a little and lonely people. In this paradox, as in some -riddle of religion of which the answer was sealed up for -centuries, lies the mission and the meaning of the Jews. - -It is true in this sense, humanly speaking, that the world -owes God to the Jews. It owes that truth to much that is -blamed in the Jews, possibly to much that is blameable in -the Jews. We have already noted the nomadic position of the -Jews amid the other pastoral peoples upon the fringe of the -Babylonian Empire, and something of that strange erratic -course of theirs blazed across the dark territory of extreme -antiquity, as they passed from the seat of Abraham and the -shepherd princes into Egypt and doubled back into the -Palestinian hills and held them against the Philistines from -Crete and fell into captivity in Babylon; and yet again -returned to their mountain city by the Zionist policy of the -Persian conquerors; and so continued that amazing romance of -restlessness of which we have not yet seen the end. But -through all their wanderings, and especially through all -their early wanderings, they did indeed carry the fate of -the world in that wooden tabernacle, that held perhaps a -featureless symbol and certainly an invisible god. We may -say that one most essential feature was that it was -featureless. Much as we may prefer that creative liberty -which the Christian culture has declared and by which it has -eclipsed even the arts of antiquity, we must not under-rate -the determining importance at the time of the Hebrew -inhibition of images. It is a typical example of one of -those limitations that did in fact preserve and perpetuate -enlargement, like a wall built round a wide open space. The -God who could not have a statue remained a spirit. Nor would -his statue in any case have had the disarming dignity and -grace of the Greek statues then or the Christian statues -afterwards. He was living in a land of monsters. We shall -have occasion to consider more fully what those monsters -were, Moloch and Dagon and Tanit the terrible goddess. If -the deity of Israel had ever had an image, he would have had -a phallic image. By merely giving him a body they would have -brought in all the worst elements of mythology; all the -polygamy of polytheism; the vision of the harem in heaven. -This point about the refusal of art is the first example of -the limitations which are often adversely criticised, only -because the critics themselves are limited. But an even -stronger case can be found in the other criticism offered by -the same critics. It is often said with a sneer that the God -of Israel was only a God of Battles, "a mere barbaric Lord -of Hosts" pitted in rivalry against other gods only as their -envious foe. Well it is for the world that he was a God of -Battles. Well it is for us that he was to all the rest only -a rival and a foe. In the ordinary way, it would have been -only too easy for them to have achieved the desolate -disaster of conceiving him as a friend. It would have been -only too easy for them to have seen him stretching out his -hands in love and reconciliation, embracing Baal and kissing -the painted face of Astarte, feasting in fellowship with the -gods; the last god to sell his crown of stars for the Soma -of the Indian pantheon or the nectar of Olympus or the mead -of Valhalla. It would have been easy enough for his -worshippers to follow the enlightened course of Syncretism -and the pooling of all the pagan traditions. It is obvious -indeed that his followers were always sliding down this easy -slope; and it required the almost demoniac energy of certain -inspired demagogues, who testified to the divine unity in -words that are still like winds of inspiration and ruin. The -more we really understand of the ancient conditions that -contributed to the final culture of the Faith, the more we -shall have a real and even a realistic reverence for the -greatness of the Prophets of Israel. As it was, while the -whole world melted into this mass of confused mythology, -this Deity who is called tribal and narrow, precisely -because he was what is called tribal and narrow, preserved -the primary religion of all mankind. He was tribal enough to -be universal. He was as narrow as the universe. - -In a word, there was a popular pagan god called -Jupiter-Ammon. There was never a god called Jehovah-Ammon. -There was never a god called Jehovah-Jupiter. If there had -been, there would certainly have been another called -Jehovah-Moloch. Long before the liberal and enlightened -amalgamators had got so far afield as Jupiter, the image of -the Lord of Hosts would have been deformed out of all -suggestion of a monotheistic maker and ruler and would have -become an idol far worse than any savage fetish; for he -might have been as civilised as the gods of Tyre and -Carthage. What that civilisation meant we shall consider -more fully in the chapter that follows; when we note how the -power of demons nearly destroyed Europe and even the heathen -health of the world. But the world's destiny would have been -distorted still more fatally if monotheism had failed in the -Mosaic tradition. I hope in a subsequent section to show -that I am not without sympathy with all that health in the -heathen world that made its fairy-tales and its fanciful -romances of religion. But I hope also to show that these -were bound to fail in the long run; and the world would have -been lost if it had been unable to return to that great -original simplicity of a single authority in all things. -That we do preserve something of that primary simplicity, -that poets and philosophers can still indeed in some sense -say an Universal Prayer, that we live in a large and serene -world under a sky that stretches paternally over all the -peoples of the earth, that philosophy and philanthropy are -truisms in a religion of reasonable men, all that we do most -truly owe, under heaven, to a secretive and restless nomadic -people; who bestowed on men the supreme and serene blessing -of a jealous God. - -The unique possession was not available or accessible to the -pagan world, because it was also the possession of a jealous -people. The Jews were unpopular, partly because of this -narrowness already noted in the Roman world, partly perhaps -because they had already fallen into that habit of merely -handling things for exchange instead of working to make them -with their hands. It was partly also because polytheism had -become a sort of jungle in which solitary monotheism could -be lost; but it is strange to realise how completely it -really was lost. Apart from more disputed matters, there -were things in the tradition of Israel which belong to all -humanity now, and might have belonged to all humanity then. -They had one of the colossal corner-stones of the world: the -Book of Job. It obviously stands over against the Iliad and -the Greek tragedies; and even more than they it was an early -meeting and parting of poetry and philosophy in the morning -of the world. It is a solemn and uplifting sight to see -those two eternal fools, the optimist and the pessimist, -destroyed in the dawn of time. And the philosophy really -perfects the pagan tragic irony, precisely because it is -more monotheistic and therefore more mystical. Indeed the -Book of Job avowedly only answers mystery with mystery. Job -is comforted with riddles; but he is comforted. Herein is -indeed a type, in the sense of a prophecy, of things -speaking with authority. For when he who doubts can only -say, "I do not understand," it is true that he who knows can -only reply or repeat, "You do not understand." And under -that rebuke there is always a sudden hope in the heart; and -the sense of something that would be worth understanding. -But this mighty monotheistic poem remained unremarked by the -whole world of antiquity, which was thronged with -polytheistic poetry. It is a sign of the way in which the -Jews stood apart and kept their tradition unshaken and -unshared, that they should have kept a thing like the Book -of Job out of the whole intellectual world of antiquity. It -is as if the Egyptians had modestly concealed the Great -Pyramid. But there were other reasons for a cross-purpose -and an impasse, characteristic of the whole of the end of -paganism. After all, the tradition of Israel had only got -hold of one half of the truth, even if we use the popular -paradox and call it the bigger half. I shall try to sketch -in the next chapter that love of locality and of personality -that ran through mythology; here it need only be said that -there was a truth in it that could not be left out, though -it were a lighter and less essential truth. The sorrow of -Job had to be joined with the sorrow of Hector; and while -the former was the sorrow of the universe the latter was the -sorrow of the city; for Hector could only stand pointing to -heaven as the pillar of holy Troy. When God speaks out of -the whirlwind He may well speak in the wilderness. But the -monotheism of the nomad was not enough for all that varied -civilisation of fields and fences and walled cities and -temples and towns; and the turn of these things also was to -come, when the two could be combined in a more definite and -domestic religion. Here and there in all that pagan crowd -could be found a philosopher whose thoughts ran on pure -theism; but he never had, or supposed that he had, the power -to change the customs of the whole populace. Nor is it easy -even in such philosophies to find a true definition of this -deep business of the relation of polytheism and theism. -Perhaps the nearest we can come to striking the note, or -giving the thing a name, is in something far away from all -that civilisation and more remote from Rome than the -isolation of Israel. It is in a saying I once heard from -some Hindu tradition; that gods as well as men are only the -dreams of Brahma; and will perish when Brahma wakes. There -is indeed in such an image something of the soul of Asia -which is less sane than the soul of Christendom. We should -call it despair, even if they would call it peace This note -of nihilism can be considered later in a fuller comparison -between Asia and Europe. It is enough to say here that there -is more of disillusion in that idea of a divine awakening -than is implied for us in the passage from mythology to -religion. But the symbol is very subtle and exact in one -respect; that it does suggest the disproportion and even -disruption between the very ideas of mythology and religion; -the chasm between the two categories. It is really the -collapse of comparative religion that there is no comparison -between God and the gods. There is no more comparison than -there is between a man and the men who walk about in his -dreams. Under the next heading some attempt will be made to -indicate the twilight of that dream in which the gods walk -about like men. But if any one fancies the contrast of -monotheism and polytheism is only a matter of some people -having one god and others a few more, for him it will be far -nearer the truth to plunge into the elephantine extravagance -of Brahmin cosmology; that he may feel a shudder going -through the veil of things, the many-handed creators, and -the throned and haloed animals and all the network of -entangled stars and rulers of the night, as the awful eyes -of Brahma open like dawn upon the death of all. +I was once escorted over the Roman foundations of an ancient British +city by a professor, who said something that seems to me a satire on a +good many other professors. Possibly the professor saw the joke, though +he maintained an iron gravity, and may or may not have realised that it +was a joke against a great deal of what is called comparative religion. +I pointed out a sculpture of the head of the sun with the usual halo of +rays, but with the difference that the face in the disc, instead of +being boyish like Apollo, was bearded like Neptune or Jupiter. "Yes," he +said with a certain delicate exactitude, "that is supposed to represent +the local god Sul. The best authorities identify Sul with Minerva; but +this has been held to show that the identification is not complete." + +That is what we call a powerful understatement. The modern world is +madder than any satires on it; long ago Mr. Belloc made his burlesque +don say that a bust of Ariadne had been proved by modern research to be +a Silenus. But that is not better than the real appearance of Minerva as +the Bearded Woman of Mr. Barnum. Only both of them are very like many +identifications by "the best authorities" on comparative religion; and +when Catholic creeds are identified with various wild myths, I do not +laugh or curse or misbehave myself; I confine myself decorously to +saying that the identification is not complete. + +In the days of my youth the Religion of Humanity was a term commonly +applied to Comtism, the theory of certain rationalists who worshipped +corporate mankind as a Supreme Being. Even in the days of my youth I +remarked that there was something slightly odd about despising and +dismissing the doctrine of the Trinity as a mystical and even maniacal +contradiction; and then asking us to adore a deity who is a hundred +million persons in one God, neither confounding the persons nor dividing +the substance. + +But there is another entity, more or less definable and much more +imaginable than the many-headed and monstrous idol of mankind. And it +has a much better right to be called, in a reasonable sense, the +religion of humanity. Man is not indeed the idol; but man is almost +everywhere the idolator. And these multitudinous idolatries of mankind +have something about them in many ways more human and sympathetic than +modern metaphysical abstractions. If an, Asiatic god has three heads and +seven arms, there is at least in it an idea of material incarnation +bringing an unknown power nearer to us and not farther away. But if our +friends Brown, Jones, and Robinson, when out for a Sunday walk, were +transformed and amalgamated into an Asiatic idol before our eyes, they +would surely seem farther away. If the arms of Brown and the legs of +Robinson waved from the same composite body, they would seem to be +waving something of a sad farewell. If the heads of all three gentlemen +appeared smiling on the same neck, we should hesitate even by what name +to address our new and somewhat abnormal friend. In the many-headed and +many-handed Oriental idol there is a certain sense of mysteries becoming +at least partly intelligible; of formless forces of nature taking some +dark but material form, but though this may be true of the multiform god +it is not so of the multiform man. The human beings become less human by +becoming less separate; we might say less human in being less lonely. +The human beings become less intelligible as they become less isolated; +we might say with, strict truth that the closer they are to us the +farther they are away. An Ethical Hymn-book of this humanitarian sort of +religion was carefully selected and expurgated on the principle of +preserving anything human and eliminating anything divine. One +consequence was that a hymn appeared in the amended form of "Nearer +Mankind to Thee, Nearer to Thee." It always suggested to me the +sensations of a straphanger during a crush on the Tube. But it is +strange and wonderful how far away the souls of men can seem, when their +bodies are so near as all that. + +The human unity with which I deal here is not to be confounded with this +modern industrial monotony and herding, which is rather a congestion +than a communion. It is a thing to which human groups left to +themselves, and even human individuals left to themselves, have +everywhere tended by an instinct that may truly be called human. Like +all healthy human things, it has varied very much within the limits of a +general character; for that is characteristic of everything belonging to +that ancient land of liberty that lies before and around the servile +industrial town. Industrialism actually boasts that its products are all +of one pattern; that men in Jamaica or Japan can break the same seal and +dr ink the same bad whisky, that a man at the North Pole and another at +the South might recognise the same optimistic label on the same dubious +tinned salmon. But wine, the gift of gods to men, can vary with every +valley and every vineyard, can turn into a hundred wines without any +wine once reminding us of whisky; and cheeses can change from county to +county without forgetting the difference between chalk and cheese. When +I am speaking of this thing, therefore, I am speaking of something that +doubtless includes very wide differences; nevertheless I will here +maintain that it is one thing. I will maintain that most of the modern +botheration comes from not realising that it is really one thing. I will +advance the thesis that before all talk about comparative religion and +the separate religious founders of the world, the first essential is to +recognise this thing as a whole, as a thing almost native and normal to +the great fellowship that we call mankind. This thing is Paganism; and I +propose to show in these pages that it is the one real rival to the +Church of Christ. + +Comparative religion is very comparative indeed. That is, it is so much +a matter of degree and distance and difference that it is only +comparatively successful when it tries to compare. When we come to look +at it closely we find it comparing things that are really quite +incomparable. We are accustomed to see a table or catalogue of the +world's great religions in parallel columns, until we fancy they are +really parallel. We are accustomed to see the names of the great +religious founders all in a row: Christ; Mahomet; Buddha; Confucius. But +in truth this is only a trick; another of these optical illusions by +which any objects may be put into a particular relation by shifting to a +particular point of sight. Those religions and religious founders, or +rather those whom we choose to lump together as religions and religious +founders, do not really show any common character. The illusion is +partly produced by Islam coming immediately after Christianity in the +list; as Islam did come after Christianity and was largely an imitation +of Christianity. But the other Eastern religions, or what we call +religions, not only do not resemble the Church but do not resemble each +other. When we come to Confucianism at the end of the list, we come to +something in a totally different world of thought. To compare the +Christian and Confucian religions is like comparing a theist with an +English squire or asking whether a man is a believer in immortality or a +hundred-per-cent American. Confucianism may be a civilisation but it is +not a religion. + +In truth the Church is too unique to prove herself unique. For most +popular and easy proof is by parallel; and here there is no parallel. It +is not easy, therefore, to expose the fallacy by which a false +classification is created to swamp a unique thing, when it really is a +unique thing. As there is nowhere else exactly the same fact, so there +is nowhere else exactly the same fallacy. But I will take the nearest +thing I can find to such a solitary social phenomenon, in order to show +how it is thus swamped and assimilated. I imagine most of us would agree +that there is something unusual and unique about the position of the +Jews. There is nothing that is quite in the same sense an international +nation; an ancient culture scattered in different countries but still +distinct and indestructible. Now this business is like an attempt to +make a list of nomadic nations in order to soften the strange solitude +of the Jew. It would be easy enough to do it, by the same process of +putting a plausible approximation first, and then tailing off into +totally different things thrown in somehow to make up the list. Thus in +the new list of nomadic nations the Jews would be followed by the +Gypsies; who at least are really nomadic if they are not really +national. Then the professor of the new science of Comparative Nomadics +could pass easily on to something different; even if it was very +different. He could remark on the wandering adventure of the English who +had scattered their colonies over so many seas; and call *them* nomads. +It is quite true that a great many Englishmen seem to be strangely +restless in England. It is quite true that not all of them have left +their country for ftheir country's good. The moment we mention the +wandering empire of the English, we must add the strange exiled empire +of the Irish. For it is a curious fact, to be noted in our imperial +literature, that the same ubiquity and unrest which is a proof of +English enterprise and triumph is a proof of Irish futility and failure. +Then the professor of Nomadism would look round thoughtfully and +remember that there was great talk recently of German waiters, German +barbers, German clerks, Germans naturalising themselves in England and +the United States and the South American republics. The Germans would go +down as the fifth nomadic race; the words Wanderlust and Folk-Wandering +would come in very useful here. For there really have been historians +who explained the Crusades by suggesting that the Germans were found +wandering (as the police say) in what happened to be the neighbourhood +of Palestine. Then the professor, feeling he was now near the end, would +make a last leap in desperation. He would recall the fact that the +French Army has captured nearly every capital in Europe, that it marched +across countless conquered lands under Charlemagne or Napoleon; and +*that* would be wanderlust, and *that* would be the note of a nomadic +race. Thus he would have his six nomadic nations all compact and +complete, and would feel that the Jew was no longer a sort of mysterious +and even mystical exception. But people with more common sense would +probably realise that he had only extended nomadism by extending the +meaning of nomadism; and that he had extended that until it really had +no meaning at all. It is quite true that the French soldier has made +some of the finest marches in all military history. But it is equally +true, and far more self-evident, that if the French peasant is not a +rooted reality there is no such thing as a rooted reality in the world; +or in other words, if he is a nomad there is nobody who is not a nomad. + +Now that is the sort of trick that has been tried in the case of +comparative religion and the world's religious founders all standing +respectably in a row. It seeks to classify Jesus as the other would +classify Jews, by inventing a new class for the purpose and filling up +the rest of it with stop-gaps and second-rate copies. I do not mean that +these other things are not often great things in their own real +character and class. Confucianism and Buddhism are great things, but it +is not true to call them churches; just as the French and English are +great peoples, but it is nonsense to call them nomads. There are some +points of resemblance between Christendom and its imitation in Islam; +for that matter there are some points of resemblance between Jews and +Gypsies. But after that the lists are made up of anything that comes to +hand; of anything that can be put in the same catalogue without being in +the same category. + +In this sketch of religious history, with all decent deference to men +much more learned than myself, I propose to cut across and disregard +this modern method of classification, which I feel sure has falsified +the facts of history. I shall here submit an alternative classification +of religion or religions, which I believe would be found to cover all +the facts and, what is quite as important here, all the fancies. Instead +of dividing religion geographically, and as it were vertically, into +Christian, Moslem, Brahmin, Buddhist, and so on, I would divide it +psychologically and in some sense horizontally; into the strata of +spiritual elements and influences that could sometimes exist in the same +country, or even in the same man. Putting the Church apart for the +moment, I should be disposed to divide the natural religion of the mass +of mankind under such headings as these: God; the Gods; the Demons; the +Philosophers. I believe some such classification will help us to sort +out the spiritual experiences of men much more successfully than the +conventional business of comparing religions; and that many famous +figures will naturally fall into their place in this way who are only +forced into their place in the other. As I shall make use of these +titles or terms more than once in narrative and illusion, it will be +well to define at first, the simplest and the most sublime, in this +chapter. + +In considering the elements of pagan humanity, we must begin by an +attempt to describe the indescribable. Many get over the difficulty of +describing it by the expedient of denying it, or at least ignoring it; +but the whole point of it is that it was something that was never quite +eliminated even when it was ignored. They are obsessed by their +evolutionary monomania that every great thing grows from a seed, or +something smaller than itself. They seem to forget that every seed comes +from a tree, or from something larger than itself. Now there is very +good ground for guessing that religion did not originally come from some +detail that was forgotten because it was too small to be traced. Much +more probably it was an idea that was abandoned because it was too large +to be managed. There is very good reason to suppose that many people did +begin with the simple but overwhelming idea of one God who governs all; +and afterwards fell away into such things as demon-worship almost as a +sort of secret dissipation. Even the test of savage beliefs, of which +the folk-lore students are so fond, is admittedly often found to support +such a view. Some of the very rudest savages, primitive in every sense +in which anthropologists use the word, the Australian aborigines for +instance, are found to have a pure monotheism with a high moral tone. A +missionary was preaching to a very wild tribe of polytheists, who had +told him all their polytheistic tales, and telling them in return of the +existence of the one good God who is a spirit and judges men by +spiritual standards. And there was a sudden buzz of excitement among +those stolid barbarians, as at somebody who was letting out a secret, +and they cried to each other, "Atahocan! He is speaking of Atahocan!" + +Probably it was a point of politeness and even decency among those +polytheists not to speak of Atahocan. The name is not perhaps so much +adapted as some of our own to direct and solemn religious exhortation; +but many other social forces are always covering up and confusing such +simple ideas. Possibly the old god stood for an old morality found +irksome in more expansive moments; possibly intercourse with demons was +more fashionable among the best people, as in the modern fashion of +Spiritualism. Anyhow, there are any number of similar examples. They all +testify to the unmistakable psychology of a thing taken for granted, as +distinct from a thing talked about. There is a striking example in a +tale taken down word for word from a Red Indian in California, which +starts out with hearty legendary and literary relish: "The sun is the +father and ruler of the heavens. He is the big chief. The moon is his +wife and the stars are their children"; and so on through a most +ingenious and complicated story, in the middle of which is a sudden +parenthesis saying that sun and moon have to do something because "It is +ordered that way by the Great Spirit Who lives above the place of all." +That is exactly the attitude of most paganism towards God. He is +something assumed and forgotten and remembered by accident; a habit +possibly not peculiar to pagans. Sometimes the higher deity is +remembered in the higher moral grades and is a sort of mystery. But +always, it has been truly said, the savage is talkative about his +mythology and taciturn about his religion. The Australian savages, +indeed, exhibit a topsyturvydom such as the ancients might have thought +truly worthy of the antipodes. The savage who thinks nothing of tossing +off such a trifle as a tale of the sun and moon being the halves of a +baby chopped in two, or dropping into small-talk about a colossal cosmic +cow milked to make the rain, merely in order to be sociable, will then +retire to secret caverns sealed against women and white men, temples of +terrible initiation where to the thunder of the bull-roarer and the +dripping of sacrificial blood, the priest whispers the final secrets +known only to the initiate: that honesty is the best policy, that a +little kindness does nobody any harm, that all men are brothers and that +there is but one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible +and invisible. + +In other words, we have here the curiosity of religious history that the +savage seems to be parading all the most repulsive and impossible parts +of his belief and concealing all the most sensible and creditable parts. +But the explanation is that they are not in that sense parts of his +belief; or at least not parts of the same sort of belief. The myths are +merely tall stories, though as tall as the sky, the waterspout, or the +tropic rain. The mysteries are true stories, and are taken secretly that +they may be taken seriously. Indeed it is only too easy to forget that +there is a thrill in theism. A novel in which a number of separate +characters all turned out to be the same character would certainly be a +sensational novel. It is so with the idea that sun and tree and river +are the disguises of one god and not of many. Alas, we also find it only +too easy to take Atahocan for granted. But whether he is allowed to fade +into a truism or preserved as a sensation by being preserved as a +secret, it is clear that he is always either an old truism or an old +tradition. There is nothing to show that he is an improved product of +the mere mythology and everything to show that he preceded it. He is +worshipped by the simplest tribes with no trace of ghosts or +grave-offerings, or any of the complications in which Herbert Spencer +and Grant Allen sought the origin of the simplest of all ideas. Whatever +else there was, there was never any such thing as the Evolution of the +Idea of God. The idea was concealed, was avoided, was almost forgotten, +was even explained away; but it was never evolved. There are not a few +indications of this change in other places. It is implied, for instance, +in the fact that even polytheism seems often the combination of several +monotheisms. A god will gain only a minor seat on Mount Olympus, when he +had owned earth and heaven and all the stars while he lived in his own +little valley. Like many a small nation melting in a great empire, he +gives up local universality only to come under universal limitation. The +very name of Pan suggests that he became a god of the wood when he had +been a god of the world. The very name of Jupiter is almost a pagan +translation of the words "Our Father which art in heaven." As with the +Great Father symbolised by the sky, so with the Great Mother whom we +still call Mother Earth. Demeter and Ceres and Cybele often seem to be +almost incapable of taking over the whole business of godhood, so that +men should need no other gods. It seems reasonably probable that a good +many men did have no other gods but one of these, worshipped as the +author of all. + +Over some of the most immense and populous tracts of the world, such as +China, it would seem that the simpler idea of the Great Father has never +been very much complicated with rival cults, though it may have in some +sense ceased to be a cult itself. The best authorities seem to think +that though Confucianism is in one sense agnosticism, it does not +directly contradict the old theism, precisely because it has become a +rather vague theism. It is one in which God is called Heaven, as in the +case of polite persons tempted to swear in drawing-rooms. But Heaven is +still overhead, even if it is very far overhead. We have all the +impression of a simple truth that has receded, until it was remote +without ceasing to be true. And this phrase alone would bring us back to +the same idea even in the pagan mythology of the West. There is surely +something of this very notion of the withdrawal of some higher power in +all those mysterious and very imaginative myths about the separation of +earth and sky. In a hundred forms we are told that heaven and earth were +once lovers, or were once at one, when some upstart thing, often some +undutiful child, thrust them apart; and the world was built on an abyss; +upon a division and a parting. One of its grossest versions was given by +Greek civilisation in the myth of Uranus and Saturn. One of its most +charming versions was that of some savage people, who say that a little +pepper-plant grew taller and taller and lifted the whole sky like a lid +a beautiful barbaric vision of daybreak for some of our painters who +love that tropical twilight. Of myths, and the highly mythical +explanations which the moderns offer of myths, something will be said in +another section; for I cannot but think that most mythology is on +another and more superficial plane. But in this primeval vision of the +rending of one world into two there is surely something more of ultimate +ideas. As to what it means, a man will learn far more about it by lying +on his back in a field, and merely looking at the sky, than by reading +all the libraries even of the most learned and valuable folk-lore. He +will know what is meant by saying that the sky ought to be nearer to us +than it is, that perhaps it was once nearer than it is, that it is not a +thing merely alien and abysmal but in some fashion sundered from us and +saying farewell. There will creep across his mind the curious suggestion +that after all, perhaps, the myth-maker was not merely a moon-calf or +village idiot thinking he could cut up the clouds like a cake, but had +in him something more than it is fashionable to attribute to the +Troglodyte; that it is just possible that Thomas Hood was not talking +like a Troglodyte when he said that, as time went on, the tree-tops only +told him he was further off from heaven than when he was a boy. But +anyhow the legend of Uranus the Lord of Heaven dethroned by Saturn the +Time Spirit would mean something to the author of that poem. And it +would mean, among other things, this banishment of the first fatherhood. +There is the idea of God in the very notion that there were gods before +the gods. There is an idea of greater simplicity in all the allusions to +that more ancient order. The suggestion is supported by the process of +propagation we see in historic times. Gods and demigods and heroes breed +like herrings before our very eyes, and suggest of themselves that the +family may have had one founder; mythology grows more and more +complicated, and the very complication suggests that at the beginning it +was more simple. Even on the external evidence, of the sort called +scientific, there is therefore a very g°od case for the suggestion that +man began with monotheism before it developed or degenerated into +polytheism. But I am concerned rather with an internal than an external +truth; and, as I have already said, the internal truth is almost +indescribable. We have to speak of something of which it is the whole +point that people did not speak of it; we have not merely to translate +from a strange tongue or speech, but from a strange silence. + +I suspect an immense implication behind all polytheism and paganism. I +suspect we have only a hint of it here and there in these savage creeds +or Greek origins. It is not exactly what we mean by the presence of God; +in a sense it might more truly be called the absence of God. But absence +does not mean nonexistence; and a man drinking the toast of absent +friends does not mean that from his life all friendship is absent. It is +a void but it is not a negation; it is something as positive as an empty +chair. It would be an exaggeration to say that the pagan saw higher than +Olympus an empty throne. It would be nearer the truth to take the +gigantic imagery of the Old Testament, in which the prophet saw God from +behind; it was as if some immeasurable presence had turned its back on +the world. Yet the meaning will again be missed if it is supposed to be +anything so conscious and vivid as the monotheism of Moses and his +people. I do not mean that the pagan peoples were in the least +overpowered by this idea merely because it is overpowering. On the +contrary, it was so large that they all carried it lightly, as we all +carry the load of the sky. Gazing at some detail like a bird or a cloud, +we can all ignore its awful blue background; we can neglect the sky; and +precisely because it bears down upon us with an annihilating force, it +is felt as nothing. A thing of this kind can only b6 an impression and a +rather subtle impression; but to me it is a very strong impression made +by pagan literature and religion. I repeat that in our special +sacramental sense there is, of course, the absence of the presence of +God. But there is in a very real sense the presence of the absence of +God. We feel it in the unfathomable sadness of pagan poetry; for I doubt +if there was ever in all the marvellous manhood of antiquity a man who +was happy as St. Francis was happy. We feel it in the legend of a Golden +Age and again in the vague implication that the gods themselves are +ultimately related to something else, even when that Unknown God has +faded into a Fate. Above all we feel it in those immortal moments when +the pagan literature seems to return to a more innocent antiquity and +speak with a more direct voice, so that no word is worthy of it except +our own monotheistic monosyllable. We cannot say anything but "God" in a +sentence like that of Socrates bidding farewell to his judges: "I go to +die and you remain to live; and God alone knows which of us goes the +better way." We can use no other word even for the best moments of +Marcus Aurelius: "Can they say dear city of Cecrops, and canst thou not +say dear city of God?" We can use no other word in that mighty line in +which Virgil spoke to all who suffer with the veritable cry of a +Christian before Christ, in the untranslatable: "O passi graviora dabit +deus his quoque finem." + +In short, there is a feeling that there is something higher than the +gods; but because it is higher it is also further away. Not yet could +even Virgil have read the riddle and the paradox of that other divinity, +who is both higher and nearer. For them what was truly divine was very +distant, so distant that they dismissed it more and more from their +minds. It had less and less to do with the mere mythology of which I +shall write later. Yet even in this there was a sort of tacit admission +of its intangible purity, when we consider what most of the mythology is +like. As the Jews would not degrade it by images, so the Greeks did not +degrade it even by imaginations. When the gods were more and more +remembered only by pranks and profligacies, it was relatively a movement +of reverence. It was an act of piety to forget God. In other words, +there is something in the whole tone of the time suggesting that men had +accepted a lower level, and still were half conscious that it was a +lower level. It is hard to find words for these things; yet the one +really just word stands ready. These men were conscious of the Fall, if +they were conscious of nothing else; and the same is true of all heathen +humanity. Those who have fallen may remember the fall, even when they +forget the height. Some such tantalising blank or break in memory is at +the back of all pagan sentiment. There is such a thing as the momentary +power to remember that we forget. And the most ignorant of humanity know +by the very look of earth that they have forgotten heaven. But it +remains true that even for these men there were moments, like the +memories of childhood, when they heard themselves talking with a simpler +language; there were moments when the Roman, like Virgil in the line +already quoted, cut his way with a sword-stroke of song out of the +tangle of the mythologies; the motley mob of gods and goddesses sank +suddenly out of sight and the Sky-Father was alone in the sky. + +This latter example is very relevant to the next step in the process. A +white light as of a lost morning still lingers on the figure of Jupiter, +of Pan, or of the elder Apollo; and it may well be, as already noted +that each was once a divinity as solitary as Jehovah or Allah. They lost +this lonely universality by a process it is here very necessary to note; +a process of amalgamation very like what was afterwards called +syncretism. The whole pagan world set itself to build a Pantheon. They +admitted more and more gods, gods not only of the Greeks but of the +barbarians; gods not only of Europe but of Asia and Africa. The more the +merrier, though some of the Asian and African ones were not very merry. +They admitted them to equal thrones with their own; sometimes they +identified them with their own. They may have regarded it as an +enrichment of their religious life; but it meant the final loss of all +that we now call religion. It meant that ancient light of simplicity, +that had a single source like the sun, finally fades away in a dazzle of +conflicting lights and colours. God is really sacrificed to the gods; in +a very literal sense of the flippant phrase, they have been too many for +him. + +Polytheism, therefore, was really a sort of pool; in the sense of the +pagans having consented to the pooling of their pagan religions. And +this point is very important in many controversies ancient and modern. +It is regarded as a liberal and enlightened thing to say that the god of +the stranger may be as good as our own; and doubtless the pagans thought +themselves very liberal and enlightened when they agreed to add to the +gods of the city or the hearth some wild and fantastic Dionysus coming +down from the mountains or some shaggy and rustic Pan creeping out of +the woods. But exactly what it lost by these larger ideas is the largest +idea of all. It is the idea of the fatherhood that makes the whole world +one. And the converse is also true. Doubtless those more antiquated men +of antiquity who clung to their solitary statues and their single sacred +names were regarded as superstitious savages benighted and left behind. +But these superstitious savages were preserving something that is much +more like the cosmic power as conceived by philosophy, or even as +conceived by science. This paradox by which the rude reactionary was a +sort of prophetic progressive has one consequence very much to the +point. In a purely historical sense, and apart from any other +controversies in the same connection, it throws a light, a single and a +steady light, that shines from the beginning on a little and lonely +people. In this paradox, as in some riddle of religion of which the +answer was sealed up for centuries, lies the mission and the meaning of +the Jews. + +It is true in this sense, humanly speaking, that the world owes God to +the Jews. It owes that truth to much that is blamed in the Jews, +possibly to much that is blameable in the Jews. We have already noted +the nomadic position of the Jews amid the other pastoral peoples upon +the fringe of the Babylonian Empire, and something of that strange +erratic course of theirs blazed across the dark territory of extreme +antiquity, as they passed from the seat of Abraham and the shepherd +princes into Egypt and doubled back into the Palestinian hills and held +them against the Philistines from Crete and fell into captivity in +Babylon; and yet again returned to their mountain city by the Zionist +policy of the Persian conquerors; and so continued that amazing romance +of restlessness of which we have not yet seen the end. But through all +their wanderings, and especially through all their early wanderings, +they did indeed carry the fate of the world in that wooden tabernacle, +that held perhaps a featureless symbol and certainly an invisible god. +We may say that one most essential feature was that it was featureless. +Much as we may prefer that creative liberty which the Christian culture +has declared and by which it has eclipsed even the arts of antiquity, we +must not under-rate the determining importance at the time of the Hebrew +inhibition of images. It is a typical example of one of those +limitations that did in fact preserve and perpetuate enlargement, like a +wall built round a wide open space. The God who could not have a statue +remained a spirit. Nor would his statue in any case have had the +disarming dignity and grace of the Greek statues then or the Christian +statues afterwards. He was living in a land of monsters. We shall have +occasion to consider more fully what those monsters were, Moloch and +Dagon and Tanit the terrible goddess. If the deity of Israel had ever +had an image, he would have had a phallic image. By merely giving him a +body they would have brought in all the worst elements of mythology; all +the polygamy of polytheism; the vision of the harem in heaven. This +point about the refusal of art is the first example of the limitations +which are often adversely criticised, only because the critics +themselves are limited. But an even stronger case can be found in the +other criticism offered by the same critics. It is often said with a +sneer that the God of Israel was only a God of Battles, "a mere barbaric +Lord of Hosts" pitted in rivalry against other gods only as their +envious foe. Well it is for the world that he was a God of Battles. Well +it is for us that he was to all the rest only a rival and a foe. In the +ordinary way, it would have been only too easy for them to have achieved +the desolate disaster of conceiving him as a friend. It would have been +only too easy for them to have seen him stretching out his hands in love +and reconciliation, embracing Baal and kissing the painted face of +Astarte, feasting in fellowship with the gods; the last god to sell his +crown of stars for the Soma of the Indian pantheon or the nectar of +Olympus or the mead of Valhalla. It would have been easy enough for his +worshippers to follow the enlightened course of Syncretism and the +pooling of all the pagan traditions. It is obvious indeed that his +followers were always sliding down this easy slope; and it required the +almost demoniac energy of certain inspired demagogues, who testified to +the divine unity in words that are still like winds of inspiration and +ruin. The more we really understand of the ancient conditions that +contributed to the final culture of the Faith, the more we shall have a +real and even a realistic reverence for the greatness of the Prophets of +Israel. As it was, while the whole world melted into this mass of +confused mythology, this Deity who is called tribal and narrow, +precisely because he was what is called tribal and narrow, preserved the +primary religion of all mankind. He was tribal enough to be universal. +He was as narrow as the universe. + +In a word, there was a popular pagan god called Jupiter-Ammon. There was +never a god called Jehovah-Ammon. There was never a god called +Jehovah-Jupiter. If there had been, there would certainly have been +another called Jehovah-Moloch. Long before the liberal and enlightened +amalgamators had got so far afield as Jupiter, the image of the Lord of +Hosts would have been deformed out of all suggestion of a monotheistic +maker and ruler and would have become an idol far worse than any savage +fetish; for he might have been as civilised as the gods of Tyre and +Carthage. What that civilisation meant we shall consider more fully in +the chapter that follows; when we note how the power of demons nearly +destroyed Europe and even the heathen health of the world. But the +world's destiny would have been distorted still more fatally if +monotheism had failed in the Mosaic tradition. I hope in a subsequent +section to show that I am not without sympathy with all that health in +the heathen world that made its fairy-tales and its fanciful romances of +religion. But I hope also to show that these were bound to fail in the +long run; and the world would have been lost if it had been unable to +return to that great original simplicity of a single authority in all +things. That we do preserve something of that primary simplicity, that +poets and philosophers can still indeed in some sense say an Universal +Prayer, that we live in a large and serene world under a sky that +stretches paternally over all the peoples of the earth, that philosophy +and philanthropy are truisms in a religion of reasonable men, all that +we do most truly owe, under heaven, to a secretive and restless nomadic +people; who bestowed on men the supreme and serene blessing of a jealous +God. + +The unique possession was not available or accessible to the pagan +world, because it was also the possession of a jealous people. The Jews +were unpopular, partly because of this narrowness already noted in the +Roman world, partly perhaps because they had already fallen into that +habit of merely handling things for exchange instead of working to make +them with their hands. It was partly also because polytheism had become +a sort of jungle in which solitary monotheism could be lost; but it is +strange to realise how completely it really was lost. Apart from more +disputed matters, there were things in the tradition of Israel which +belong to all humanity now, and might have belonged to all humanity +then. They had one of the colossal corner-stones of the world: the Book +of Job. It obviously stands over against the Iliad and the Greek +tragedies; and even more than they it was an early meeting and parting +of poetry and philosophy in the morning of the world. It is a solemn and +uplifting sight to see those two eternal fools, the optimist and the +pessimist, destroyed in the dawn of time. And the philosophy really +perfects the pagan tragic irony, precisely because it is more +monotheistic and therefore more mystical. Indeed the Book of Job +avowedly only answers mystery with mystery. Job is comforted with +riddles; but he is comforted. Herein is indeed a type, in the sense of a +prophecy, of things speaking with authority. For when he who doubts can +only say, "I do not understand," it is true that he who knows can only +reply or repeat, "You do not understand." And under that rebuke there is +always a sudden hope in the heart; and the sense of something that would +be worth understanding. But this mighty monotheistic poem remained +unremarked by the whole world of antiquity, which was thronged with +polytheistic poetry. It is a sign of the way in which the Jews stood +apart and kept their tradition unshaken and unshared, that they should +have kept a thing like the Book of Job out of the whole intellectual +world of antiquity. It is as if the Egyptians had modestly concealed the +Great Pyramid. But there were other reasons for a cross-purpose and an +impasse, characteristic of the whole of the end of paganism. After all, +the tradition of Israel had only got hold of one half of the truth, even +if we use the popular paradox and call it the bigger half. I shall try +to sketch in the next chapter that love of locality and of personality +that ran through mythology; here it need only be said that there was a +truth in it that could not be left out, though it were a lighter and +less essential truth. The sorrow of Job had to be joined with the sorrow +of Hector; and while the former was the sorrow of the universe the +latter was the sorrow of the city; for Hector could only stand pointing +to heaven as the pillar of holy Troy. When God speaks out of the +whirlwind He may well speak in the wilderness. But the monotheism of the +nomad was not enough for all that varied civilisation of fields and +fences and walled cities and temples and towns; and the turn of these +things also was to come, when the two could be combined in a more +definite and domestic religion. Here and there in all that pagan crowd +could be found a philosopher whose thoughts ran on pure theism; but he +never had, or supposed that he had, the power to change the customs of +the whole populace. Nor is it easy even in such philosophies to find a +true definition of this deep business of the relation of polytheism and +theism. Perhaps the nearest we can come to striking the note, or giving +the thing a name, is in something far away from all that civilisation +and more remote from Rome than the isolation of Israel. It is in a +saying I once heard from some Hindu tradition; that gods as well as men +are only the dreams of Brahma; and will perish when Brahma wakes. There +is indeed in such an image something of the soul of Asia which is less +sane than the soul of Christendom. We should call it despair, even if +they would call it peace This note of nihilism can be considered later +in a fuller comparison between Asia and Europe. It is enough to say here +that there is more of disillusion in that idea of a divine awakening +than is implied for us in the passage from mythology to religion. But +the symbol is very subtle and exact in one respect; that it does suggest +the disproportion and even disruption between the very ideas of +mythology and religion; the chasm between the two categories. It is +really the collapse of comparative religion that there is no comparison +between God and the gods. There is no more comparison than there is +between a man and the men who walk about in his dreams. Under the next +heading some attempt will be made to indicate the twilight of that dream +in which the gods walk about like men. But if any one fancies the +contrast of monotheism and polytheism is only a matter of some people +having one god and others a few more, for him it will be far nearer the +truth to plunge into the elephantine extravagance of Brahmin cosmology; +that he may feel a shudder going through the veil of things, the +many-handed creators, and the throned and haloed animals and all the +network of entangled stars and rulers of the night, as the awful eyes of +Brahma open like dawn upon the death of all. ### V. Man and Mythologies -What are here called the Gods might almost alternatively be -called the Day-Dreams. To compare them to dreams is not to -deny that dreams can come true. To compare them to -travellers' tales is not to deny that they may be true -tales, or at least truthful tales. In truth they are the -sort of tales the traveller tells to himself. All this -mythological business belongs to the poetical part of men. -It seems strangely forgotten nowadays that a myth is a work -of imagination and therefore a work of art. It needs a poet -to make it. It needs a poet to criticise it. There are more -poets than non-poets in the world, as is proved by the -popular origin of such legends. But for some reason I have -never heard explained, it is only the minority of unpoetical -people who are allowed to write critical studies of these -popular poems. We do not submit a sonnet to a mathematician -or a song to a calculating boy; but we do indulge the -equally fantastic idea that folklore can be treated as a -science. Unless these things are appreciated artistically -they are not appreciated at all. When the professor is told -by the barbarian that once there was nothing except a great -feathered serpent, unless the learned man feels a thrill and -a half temptation to wish it were true, he is no judge of -such things at all. When he is assured, on the best Red -Indian authority, that a primitive hero carried the sun and -moon and stars in a box, unless he claps his hands and -almost kicks his legs as a child would at such a charming -fancy, he knows nothing about the matter. This test is not -nonsensical; primitive children and barbaric children do -laugh and kick like other children; and we must have a -certain simplicity to repicture the childhood of the world. -When Hiawatha was told by his nurse that a warrior threw his -grandmother up to the moon, he laughed like any English -child told by his nurse that a cow jumped over the moon. The -child sees the joke as well as most men, and better than -some scientific men. But the ultimate test even of the -fantastic is the appropriateness of the inappropriate. And -the test must appear merely arbitrary because it is merely -artistic. If any student tells me that the infant Hiawatha -only laughed out of respect for the tribal custom of -sacrificing the aged to economical housekeeping, I say he -did not. If any scholar tells me that the cow jumped over -the moon only because a heifer was sacrificed to Diana, I -answer that it did not. It happened because it is obviously -the right thing for a cow to jump over the moon. Mythology -is a lost art, one of the few arts that really are lost; but -it is an art. The horned moon and the horned mooncalf make a -harmonious and almost a quiet pattern. And throwing your -grandmother into the sky is not good behaviour; but it is -perfectly good taste. - -Thus scientists seldom understand, as artists understand, -that one branch of the beautiful is the ugly. They seldom -allow for the legitimate liberty of the grotesque. And they -will dismiss a savage myth as merely coarse and clumsy and -an evidence of degradation, because it has not all the -beauty of the herald Mercury new lighted on a heaven-kissing -hill; when it really has the beauty of the Mock Turtle of -the Mad Hatter. It is the supreme proof of a man being -prosaic that he always insists on poetry being poetical. -Sometimes the humour is in the very subject as well as the -style of the fable. The Australian aborigines, regarded as -the rudest of savages, have a story about a giant frog who -had swallowed the sea and all the waters of the world; and -who was only forced to spill them by being made to laugh. -All the animals with all their antics passed before him and, -like Queen Victoria, he was not amused. He collapsed at last -before an eel who stood delicately balanced on the tip of -its tail, doubtless with a rather desperate dignity. Any -amount of fine fantastic literature might be made out of -that fable. There is philosophy in that vision of the dry -world before the beatific Deluge of laughter. There is -imagination in the mountainous monster erupting like an -aqueous volcano; there is plenty of fun in the thought of -his goggling visage as the pelican or the penguin passed by. -Anyhow the frog laughed; but the folk-lore student remains -grave. - -Moreover, even where the fables are inferior as art, they -cannot be properly judged by science; still less properly -judged as science. Some myths are very crude and queer like -the early drawings of the children; but the child is trying -to draw. It is none the less an error to treat his drawing -as if it were a diagram, or intended to be a diagram. The -student cannot make a scientific statement about the savage, -because the savage is not making a scientific statement -about the world. He is saying something quite different; -what might be called the gossip of the gods. We may say, if -we like, that it is believed before there is time to examine -it. It would be truer to say it is accepted before there is +What are here called the Gods might almost alternatively be called the +Day-Dreams. To compare them to dreams is not to deny that dreams can +come true. To compare them to travellers' tales is not to deny that they +may be true tales, or at least truthful tales. In truth they are the +sort of tales the traveller tells to himself. All this mythological +business belongs to the poetical part of men. It seems strangely +forgotten nowadays that a myth is a work of imagination and therefore a +work of art. It needs a poet to make it. It needs a poet to criticise +it. There are more poets than non-poets in the world, as is proved by +the popular origin of such legends. But for some reason I have never +heard explained, it is only the minority of unpoetical people who are +allowed to write critical studies of these popular poems. We do not +submit a sonnet to a mathematician or a song to a calculating boy; but +we do indulge the equally fantastic idea that folklore can be treated as +a science. Unless these things are appreciated artistically they are not +appreciated at all. When the professor is told by the barbarian that +once there was nothing except a great feathered serpent, unless the +learned man feels a thrill and a half temptation to wish it were true, +he is no judge of such things at all. When he is assured, on the best +Red Indian authority, that a primitive hero carried the sun and moon and +stars in a box, unless he claps his hands and almost kicks his legs as a +child would at such a charming fancy, he knows nothing about the matter. +This test is not nonsensical; primitive children and barbaric children +do laugh and kick like other children; and we must have a certain +simplicity to repicture the childhood of the world. When Hiawatha was +told by his nurse that a warrior threw his grandmother up to the moon, +he laughed like any English child told by his nurse that a cow jumped +over the moon. The child sees the joke as well as most men, and better +than some scientific men. But the ultimate test even of the fantastic is +the appropriateness of the inappropriate. And the test must appear +merely arbitrary because it is merely artistic. If any student tells me +that the infant Hiawatha only laughed out of respect for the tribal +custom of sacrificing the aged to economical housekeeping, I say he did +not. If any scholar tells me that the cow jumped over the moon only +because a heifer was sacrificed to Diana, I answer that it did not. It +happened because it is obviously the right thing for a cow to jump over +the moon. Mythology is a lost art, one of the few arts that really are +lost; but it is an art. The horned moon and the horned mooncalf make a +harmonious and almost a quiet pattern. And throwing your grandmother +into the sky is not good behaviour; but it is perfectly good taste. + +Thus scientists seldom understand, as artists understand, that one +branch of the beautiful is the ugly. They seldom allow for the +legitimate liberty of the grotesque. And they will dismiss a savage myth +as merely coarse and clumsy and an evidence of degradation, because it +has not all the beauty of the herald Mercury new lighted on a +heaven-kissing hill; when it really has the beauty of the Mock Turtle of +the Mad Hatter. It is the supreme proof of a man being prosaic that he +always insists on poetry being poetical. Sometimes the humour is in the +very subject as well as the style of the fable. The Australian +aborigines, regarded as the rudest of savages, have a story about a +giant frog who had swallowed the sea and all the waters of the world; +and who was only forced to spill them by being made to laugh. All the +animals with all their antics passed before him and, like Queen +Victoria, he was not amused. He collapsed at last before an eel who +stood delicately balanced on the tip of its tail, doubtless with a +rather desperate dignity. Any amount of fine fantastic literature might +be made out of that fable. There is philosophy in that vision of the dry +world before the beatific Deluge of laughter. There is imagination in +the mountainous monster erupting like an aqueous volcano; there is +plenty of fun in the thought of his goggling visage as the pelican or +the penguin passed by. Anyhow the frog laughed; but the folk-lore +student remains grave. + +Moreover, even where the fables are inferior as art, they cannot be +properly judged by science; still less properly judged as science. Some +myths are very crude and queer like the early drawings of the children; +but the child is trying to draw. It is none the less an error to treat +his drawing as if it were a diagram, or intended to be a diagram. The +student cannot make a scientific statement about the savage, because the +savage is not making a scientific statement about the world. He is +saying something quite different; what might be called the gossip of the +gods. We may say, if we like, that it is believed before there is time +to examine it. It would be truer to say it is accepted before there is time to believe it. -I confess I doubt the whole theory of the dissemination of -myths or (as it commonly is) of one myth. It is true that -something in our nature and conditions makes many stories -similar; but each of them may be original. One man does not -borrow the story from the other man, though he may tell it -from the same motive as the other man. It would be easy to -apply the whole argument about legend to literature; and -turn it into a vulgar monomania of plagiarism. I would -undertake to trace a notion like that of the Golden Bough -through individual modern novels as easily as through -communal and antiquated myths. I would undertake to find -something like a bunch of flowers figuring again and again -from the fatal bouquet of Becky Sharpe to the spray of roses -sent by the Princess of Ruritania. But though these flowers -may spring from the same soil, it is not the same faded -flower that is flung from hand to hand. Those flowers are -always fresh. - -The true origin of all the myths has been discovered much -too often. There are too many keys to mythology, as there -are too many cryptograms in Shakespeare. Everything is -phallic; everything is totemistic; everything is seed-time -and harvest; everything is ghosts and grave-offerings; -everything is the golden bough of sacrifice; everything is -the sun and moon; everything is everything. Every folk-lore -student who knew a little more than his own monomania, every -man of wider reading and critical culture like Andrew Lang, -has practically confessed that the bewilderment of these -things left his brain spinning. Yet the whole trouble comes -from a man trying to look at these stories from the outside, -as if they were scientific objects. He has only to look at -them from the inside, and ask himself how he would begin a -story. A story may start with anything and go anywhere. It -may start with a bird without the bird being a totem; it may -start with the sun without being a solar myth. It is said -there are only ten plots in the world; and there will -certainly be common and recurrent elements. Set ten thousand -children talking at once, and telling tarradiddles about -what they did in the wood; and it will not be hard to find -parallels suggesting sun-worship or animal-worship. Some of -the stories may be pretty and some silly and some perhaps -dirty; but they can only be judged as stories. In the modern -dialect, they can only be judged aesthetically. It is -strange that aesthetics, or mere feeling, which is now -allowed to usurp where it has no rights at all, to wreck -reason with pragmatism and morals with anarchy, is -apparently not allowed to give a purely aesthetic judgment -on what is obviously a purely aesthetic question. We may be -fanciful about everything except fairy-tales. - -Now the first fact is that the most simple people have the -most subtle ideas. Everybody ought to know that, for -everybody has been a child. Ignorant as a child is, he knows -more than he can say and feels not only atmospheres but fine -shades. And in this matter there are several fine shades. -Nobody understands it who has not had what can only be -called the ache of the artist to find some sense and some -story in the beautiful things he sees; his hunger for -secrets and his anger at any tower or tree escaping with its -tale untold. He feels that nothing is perfect unless it is -personal. Without that the blind unconscious beauty of the -world stands in its garden like a headless statue. One need -only be a very minor poet to have wrestled with the tower or -the tree until it spoke like a titan or a dryad. It is often -said that pagan mythology was a personification of the -powers of nature. The phrase is true in a sense, but it is -very unsatisfactory; because it implies that the forces are -abstractions and the personification is artificial. Myths -are not allegories. Natural powers are not in this case -abstractions. It is not as if there were a God of -Gravitation. There may be a genius of the waterfall; but not -of mere falling, even less than of mere water. The -impersonation is not of something impersonal. The point is -that the personality perfects the water with significance. -Father Christmas is not an allegory of snow and holly; he is -not merely the stuff called snow afterwards artificially -given a human form, like a snow man. He is something that -gives a new meaning to the white world and the evergreens; -so that snow itself seems to be warm rather than cold. The -test, therefore, is purely imaginative. But imaginative does -not mean imaginary. It does not follow that it is all what -the moderns call subjective, when they mean false. Every -true artist does feel, consciously or unconsciously, that he -is touching transcendental truths; that his images are -shadows of things seen through the veil. In other words, the -natural mystic does know that there is something *there*; -something behind the clouds or within the trees; but he -believes that the pursuit of beauty is the way to find it; -that imagination is a sort of incantation that can call it -up. - -Now we do not comprehend this process in ourselves, far less -in our most remote fellow-creatures. And the danger of these -things being classified is that they may seem to be -comprehended. A really fine work of folk-lore, like *The -Golden Bough*, will leave too many readers with the idea, -for instance, that this or that story of a giant's or -wizard's heart in a casket or a cave only "means" some -stupid and static superstition called "the external soul." -But we do not know what these things mean, simply because we -do not know what we ourselves mean when we are moved by -them. Suppose somebody in a story says "Pluck this flower -and a princess will die in a castle beyond the sea," we do -not know why something stirs in the subconsciousness, or why -what is impossible seems also inevitable. Suppose we read -"And in the hour when the king extinguished the candle his -ships were wrecked far away on the coast of the Hebrides." -We do not know why the imagination has accepted that image -before the reason can reject it; or why such correspondences -seem really to correspond to something in the soul. Very -deep things in our nature, some dim sense of the dependence -of great things upon small, some dark suggestion that the -things nearest to us stretch far beyond our power, some -sacramental feeling of the magic in material substances, and -many more emotions past finding out, are in an idea like -that of the external soul. The power even in the myths of -savages is like the power in the metaphors of poets. The -soul of such a metaphor is often very emphatically an -external soul. The best critics have remarked that in the -best poets the simile is often a picture that seems quite -separate from the text. It is as irrelevant as the remote -castle to the flower or the Hebridean coast to the candle. -Shelley compares the skylark to a young woman in a turret, -to a rose embedded in thick foliage, to a series of things -that seem to be about as unlike a skylark in the sky as -anything we can imagine. I suppose the most potent piece of -pure magic in English literature is the much-quoted passage -in Keats's *Nightingale* about the casements opening on the -perilous foam. And nobody notices that the image seems to -come from nowhere; that it appears abruptly after some -almost equally irrelevant remarks about Ruth; and that it -has nothing in the world to do with the subject of the poem. -If there is one place in the world where nobody could -reasonably expect to find a nightingale, it is on a -windowsill at the seaside. But it is only in the same sense -that nobody would expect to find a giant's heart in a casket -under the sea. Now, it would be very dangerous to classify -the metaphors of the poets. When Shelley says that the cloud -will rise "like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the -tomb," it would be quite possible to call the first a case -of the coarse primitive birth-myth and the second a survival -of the ghost-worship which became ancestor-worship. But it -is the wrong way of dealing with a cloud; and is liable to -leave the learned in the condition of Polonius, only too +I confess I doubt the whole theory of the dissemination of myths or (as +it commonly is) of one myth. It is true that something in our nature and +conditions makes many stories similar; but each of them may be original. +One man does not borrow the story from the other man, though he may tell +it from the same motive as the other man. It would be easy to apply the +whole argument about legend to literature; and turn it into a vulgar +monomania of plagiarism. I would undertake to trace a notion like that +of the Golden Bough through individual modern novels as easily as +through communal and antiquated myths. I would undertake to find +something like a bunch of flowers figuring again and again from the +fatal bouquet of Becky Sharpe to the spray of roses sent by the Princess +of Ruritania. But though these flowers may spring from the same soil, it +is not the same faded flower that is flung from hand to hand. Those +flowers are always fresh. + +The true origin of all the myths has been discovered much too often. +There are too many keys to mythology, as there are too many cryptograms +in Shakespeare. Everything is phallic; everything is totemistic; +everything is seed-time and harvest; everything is ghosts and +grave-offerings; everything is the golden bough of sacrifice; everything +is the sun and moon; everything is everything. Every folk-lore student +who knew a little more than his own monomania, every man of wider +reading and critical culture like Andrew Lang, has practically confessed +that the bewilderment of these things left his brain spinning. Yet the +whole trouble comes from a man trying to look at these stories from the +outside, as if they were scientific objects. He has only to look at them +from the inside, and ask himself how he would begin a story. A story may +start with anything and go anywhere. It may start with a bird without +the bird being a totem; it may start with the sun without being a solar +myth. It is said there are only ten plots in the world; and there will +certainly be common and recurrent elements. Set ten thousand children +talking at once, and telling tarradiddles about what they did in the +wood; and it will not be hard to find parallels suggesting sun-worship +or animal-worship. Some of the stories may be pretty and some silly and +some perhaps dirty; but they can only be judged as stories. In the +modern dialect, they can only be judged aesthetically. It is strange +that aesthetics, or mere feeling, which is now allowed to usurp where it +has no rights at all, to wreck reason with pragmatism and morals with +anarchy, is apparently not allowed to give a purely aesthetic judgment +on what is obviously a purely aesthetic question. We may be fanciful +about everything except fairy-tales. + +Now the first fact is that the most simple people have the most subtle +ideas. Everybody ought to know that, for everybody has been a child. +Ignorant as a child is, he knows more than he can say and feels not only +atmospheres but fine shades. And in this matter there are several fine +shades. Nobody understands it who has not had what can only be called +the ache of the artist to find some sense and some story in the +beautiful things he sees; his hunger for secrets and his anger at any +tower or tree escaping with its tale untold. He feels that nothing is +perfect unless it is personal. Without that the blind unconscious beauty +of the world stands in its garden like a headless statue. One need only +be a very minor poet to have wrestled with the tower or the tree until +it spoke like a titan or a dryad. It is often said that pagan mythology +was a personification of the powers of nature. The phrase is true in a +sense, but it is very unsatisfactory; because it implies that the forces +are abstractions and the personification is artificial. Myths are not +allegories. Natural powers are not in this case abstractions. It is not +as if there were a God of Gravitation. There may be a genius of the +waterfall; but not of mere falling, even less than of mere water. The +impersonation is not of something impersonal. The point is that the +personality perfects the water with significance. Father Christmas is +not an allegory of snow and holly; he is not merely the stuff called +snow afterwards artificially given a human form, like a snow man. He is +something that gives a new meaning to the white world and the +evergreens; so that snow itself seems to be warm rather than cold. The +test, therefore, is purely imaginative. But imaginative does not mean +imaginary. It does not follow that it is all what the moderns call +subjective, when they mean false. Every true artist does feel, +consciously or unconsciously, that he is touching transcendental truths; +that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil. In other +words, the natural mystic does know that there is something *there*; +something behind the clouds or within the trees; but he believes that +the pursuit of beauty is the way to find it; that imagination is a sort +of incantation that can call it up. + +Now we do not comprehend this process in ourselves, far less in our most +remote fellow-creatures. And the danger of these things being classified +is that they may seem to be comprehended. A really fine work of +folk-lore, like *The Golden Bough*, will leave too many readers with the +idea, for instance, that this or that story of a giant's or wizard's +heart in a casket or a cave only "means" some stupid and static +superstition called "the external soul." But we do not know what these +things mean, simply because we do not know what we ourselves mean when +we are moved by them. Suppose somebody in a story says "Pluck this +flower and a princess will die in a castle beyond the sea," we do not +know why something stirs in the subconsciousness, or why what is +impossible seems also inevitable. Suppose we read "And in the hour when +the king extinguished the candle his ships were wrecked far away on the +coast of the Hebrides." We do not know why the imagination has accepted +that image before the reason can reject it; or why such correspondences +seem really to correspond to something in the soul. Very deep things in +our nature, some dim sense of the dependence of great things upon small, +some dark suggestion that the things nearest to us stretch far beyond +our power, some sacramental feeling of the magic in material substances, +and many more emotions past finding out, are in an idea like that of the +external soul. The power even in the myths of savages is like the power +in the metaphors of poets. The soul of such a metaphor is often very +emphatically an external soul. The best critics have remarked that in +the best poets the simile is often a picture that seems quite separate +from the text. It is as irrelevant as the remote castle to the flower or +the Hebridean coast to the candle. Shelley compares the skylark to a +young woman in a turret, to a rose embedded in thick foliage, to a +series of things that seem to be about as unlike a skylark in the sky as +anything we can imagine. I suppose the most potent piece of pure magic +in English literature is the much-quoted passage in Keats's +*Nightingale* about the casements opening on the perilous foam. And +nobody notices that the image seems to come from nowhere; that it +appears abruptly after some almost equally irrelevant remarks about +Ruth; and that it has nothing in the world to do with the subject of the +poem. If there is one place in the world where nobody could reasonably +expect to find a nightingale, it is on a windowsill at the seaside. But +it is only in the same sense that nobody would expect to find a giant's +heart in a casket under the sea. Now, it would be very dangerous to +classify the metaphors of the poets. When Shelley says that the cloud +will rise "like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb," it +would be quite possible to call the first a case of the coarse primitive +birth-myth and the second a survival of the ghost-worship which became +ancestor-worship. But it is the wrong way of dealing with a cloud; and +is liable to leave the learned in the condition of Polonius, only too ready to think it like a weasel, or very like a whale. -Two facts follow from this psychology of day-dreams, which -must be kept in mind throughout their development in -mythologies and even religions. First, these imaginative -impressions are often strictly local. So far from being -abstractions, turned into allegories, they are often images -almost concentrated into idols. The poet feels the mystery -of a particular forest; not of the science of afforestation -or the department of woods and forests. He worships the peak -of a particular mountain, not the abstract idea of altitude. -So we find the god is not merely water but often one special -river; he may be the sea because the sea is single like a -stream; the river that runs round the world. Ultimately -doubtless many deities are enlarged into elements; but they -are something more than omnipresent. Apollo does not merely -dwell wherever the sun shines; his home is on the rock of -Delphi. Diana is great enough to be in three places at once, -earth and heaven and hell, but greater is Diana of the -Ephesians. This localised feeling has its lowest form in the -mere fetish or talisman, such as millionaires put in their -motor-cars. But it can also harden into something like a -high and serious religion, where it is connected with high -and serious duties; into the gods of the city or even the -gods of the hearth. - -The second consequence is this: that in these pagan cults -there is every shade of sincerity---and insincerity. In what -sense exactly did an Athenian really think he had to -sacrifice to Pallas Athene? What scholar is really certain -of the answer? In what sense did Dr. Johnson really think -that he had to touch all the posts in the street or that he -had to collect orange-peel? In what sense does a child -really think that he ought to step on every alternate -paving-stone? Two things are at least fairly clear. First, -in simpler and less self-conscious times these forms could -become more solid without really becoming more serious. -Day-dreams could be acted in broad daylight, with more -liberty of artistic expression; but still perhaps with -something of the light step of the somnambulist. Wrap -Dr. Johnson in an antique mantle, crown him (by his kind -permission) with a garland, and he will move in state under -those ancient skies of morning; touching a series of sacred -posts carved with the heads of the strange terminal gods, -that stand at the limits of the land and of the life of man. -Make the child free of the marbles and mosaics of some -classical temple, to play on a whole floor inlaid with -squares of black and white; and he will willingly make this -fulfilment of his idle and drifting daydream the clear field -for a grave and graceful dance. But the posts and the -paving-stones are little more and little less real than they -are under modern limits. They are not really much more -serious for being taken seriously. They have the sort of -sincerity that they always had; the sincerity of art as a -symbol that expresses very real spiritualities under the -surface of life. But they are only sincere in the same sense -as art; not sincere in the same sense as morality, The -eccentric's collection of orange-peel may turn to oranges in -a Mediterranean festival or to golden apples in a -Mediterranean myth. But they are never on the same plane -with the difference between giving the orange to a blind -beggar and carefully placing the orange-peel so that the -beggar may fall and break his leg. Between these two things -there is a difference of kind and not of degree. The child -does not think it wrong to step on the paving-stone as he -thinks it wrong to step on a dog's tail. And it is very -certain that whatever jest or sentiment or fancy first set -Johnson touching the wooden posts, he never touched wood -with any of the feeling with which he stretched out his -hands to the timber of that terrible tree, which was the -death of God and the life of man. - -As already noted, this does not mean that there was no -reality or even no religious sentiment in such a mood. As a -matter of fact the Catholic Church has taken over with -uproarious success the whole of this popular business of -giving people local legends and lighter ceremonial -movements. In so far as all this sort of paganism was -innocent and in touch with nature, there is no reason why it -should not be patronised by patron saints as much as by -pagan gods. And in any case there are degrees of seriousness -in the most natural make-believe. There is all the -difference between fancying there are fairies in the wood, -which often only means fancying a certain wood as fit for -fairies, and really frightening ourselves until we will walk -a mile rather than pass a house we have told ourselves is -haunted. Behind all these things is the fact that beauty and -terror are very real things and related to a real spiritual -world; and to touch them at all, even in doubt or fancy, is -to stir the deep things of the soul. We all understand that -and the pagans understood it. The point is that paganism did -not really stir the soul except with these doubts and -fancies with the consequence that we to-day can have little -beyond doubts and fancies about paganism. All the best -critics agree that all the greatest poets, in pagan Hellas -for example, had an attitude towards their gods which is -quite queer and puzzling to men in the Christian era. There -seems to be an admitted conflict between the god and the -man; but everybody seems to be doubtful about which is the -hero and which is the villain. This doubt does not merely -apply to a doubter like Euripides in the Bacchae; it applies -to a moderate conservative like Sophocles in the Antigone; -or even to a regular Tory and reactionary like Aristophanes -in the Progs. Sometimes it would seem that the Greeks -believed above all things in reverence, only they had nobody -to revere. But the point of the puzzle is this: that all -this vagueness and variation arise from the fact that the -whole thing being in fancy and in dreaming; and that there -are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds. - -This is the mighty and branching tree called mythology which -ramifies round the whole world, whose remote branches under -separate skies bear like coloured birds the costly idols of -Asia and the half-baked fetishes of Africa and the fairy -kings and princesses of the folk-tales of the forests, and -buried amid vines and olives the Lares of the Latins, and -carried on the clouds of Olympus the buoyant supremacy of -the gods of Greece. These are the myths: and he who has no -sympathy with myths has no sympathy with men. But he who has -most sympathy with myths will most fully realise that they -are not and never were a religion, in the sense that -Christianity or even Islam is a religion. They satisfy some -of the needs satisfied by a religion; and notably the need -for doing certain things at certain dates; the need of the -twin ideas of festivity and formality. But though they -provide a man with a calendar, they do not provide him with -a creed. A man did not stand up and say "I believe in -Jupiter and Juno and Neptune," etc., as he stands up and -says "I believe in God the Father Almighty" and the rest of -the Apostles' Creed. Many believed in some and not in -others, or more in some and less in others, or only in a -very vague poetical sense in any. There was no moment when -they were all collected into an orthodox order which men -would fight and be tortured to keep intact. Still less did -anybody ever say in that fashion: "I believe in Odin and -Thor and Frey a," for outside Olympus even the Olympian -order grows cloudy and chaotic. It seems clear to me that -Thor was not a god at all but a hero. Nothing resembling a -religion would picture anybody resembling a god as groping -like a pigmy in a great cavern, that turned out to be the -glove of a giant. That is the glorious ignorance called -adventure. Thor may have been a great adventurer; but to -call him a god is like trying to compare Jehovah with Jack -and the Beanstalk. Odin seems to have been a real barbarian -chief, possibly of the Dark Ages after Christianity. -Polytheism fades away at its fringes into fairy-tales or -barbaric memories; it is not a thing like monotheism as held -by serious monotheists. Again it does satisfy the need to -cry out on some uplifted name or some notable memory in -moments that are themselves noble and uplifted; such as the -birth of a child or the saving of a city. But the name was -so used by many to whom it was only a name. Finally it did -satisfy, or rather it partially satisfied, a thing very deep -in humanity indeed; the idea of surrendering something as -the portion of the unknown powers; of pouring out wine upon -the ground of throwing a ring into the sea; in a word, of -sacrifice. It is the wise and worthy idea of not taking our -advantage to the full; of putting something in the other -balance to ballast our dubious pride, of paying tithes to -nature for our land. This deep truth of the danger of -insolence, or being too big for our boots, runs through all -the great Greek tragedies and makes them great. But it runs -side by side with an almost cryptic agnosticism about the -real nature of the gods to be propitiated. Where that -gesture of surrender is most magnificent, as among the great -Greeks, there is really much more idea that the man will be -the better for losing the ox than that the god will be the -better for getting it. It is said that in its grosser forms -there are often actions grotesquely suggestive of the god -really eating the sacrifice. But this fact is falsified by -the error that I put first in this note on mythology. It is -misunderstanding the psychology of day-dreams. A child -pretending there is a goblin in a hollow tree will do a -crude and material thing, like leaving a piece of cake for -him. A poet might do a more dignified and elegant thing, -like bringing to the god fruits as well as flowers. But the -degree of seriousness in both acts may be the same or it may -vary in almost any degree. The crude fancy is no more a -creed than the ideal fancy is a creed. Certainly the pagan -does not disbelieve like an atheist, any more than he -believes like a Christian. He feels the presence of powers -about which he guesses and invents. St. Paul said that the -Greeks had one altar to an unknown god. But in truth all -their gods were unknown gods. And the real break in history -did come when St. Paul declared to them whom they had +Two facts follow from this psychology of day-dreams, which must be kept +in mind throughout their development in mythologies and even religions. +First, these imaginative impressions are often strictly local. So far +from being abstractions, turned into allegories, they are often images +almost concentrated into idols. The poet feels the mystery of a +particular forest; not of the science of afforestation or the department +of woods and forests. He worships the peak of a particular mountain, not +the abstract idea of altitude. So we find the god is not merely water +but often one special river; he may be the sea because the sea is single +like a stream; the river that runs round the world. Ultimately doubtless +many deities are enlarged into elements; but they are something more +than omnipresent. Apollo does not merely dwell wherever the sun shines; +his home is on the rock of Delphi. Diana is great enough to be in three +places at once, earth and heaven and hell, but greater is Diana of the +Ephesians. This localised feeling has its lowest form in the mere fetish +or talisman, such as millionaires put in their motor-cars. But it can +also harden into something like a high and serious religion, where it is +connected with high and serious duties; into the gods of the city or +even the gods of the hearth. + +The second consequence is this: that in these pagan cults there is every +shade of sincerity---and insincerity. In what sense exactly did an +Athenian really think he had to sacrifice to Pallas Athene? What scholar +is really certain of the answer? In what sense did Dr. Johnson really +think that he had to touch all the posts in the street or that he had to +collect orange-peel? In what sense does a child really think that he +ought to step on every alternate paving-stone? Two things are at least +fairly clear. First, in simpler and less self-conscious times these +forms could become more solid without really becoming more serious. +Day-dreams could be acted in broad daylight, with more liberty of +artistic expression; but still perhaps with something of the light step +of the somnambulist. Wrap Dr. Johnson in an antique mantle, crown him +(by his kind permission) with a garland, and he will move in state under +those ancient skies of morning; touching a series of sacred posts carved +with the heads of the strange terminal gods, that stand at the limits of +the land and of the life of man. Make the child free of the marbles and +mosaics of some classical temple, to play on a whole floor inlaid with +squares of black and white; and he will willingly make this fulfilment +of his idle and drifting daydream the clear field for a grave and +graceful dance. But the posts and the paving-stones are little more and +little less real than they are under modern limits. They are not really +much more serious for being taken seriously. They have the sort of +sincerity that they always had; the sincerity of art as a symbol that +expresses very real spiritualities under the surface of life. But they +are only sincere in the same sense as art; not sincere in the same sense +as morality, The eccentric's collection of orange-peel may turn to +oranges in a Mediterranean festival or to golden apples in a +Mediterranean myth. But they are never on the same plane with the +difference between giving the orange to a blind beggar and carefully +placing the orange-peel so that the beggar may fall and break his leg. +Between these two things there is a difference of kind and not of +degree. The child does not think it wrong to step on the paving-stone as +he thinks it wrong to step on a dog's tail. And it is very certain that +whatever jest or sentiment or fancy first set Johnson touching the +wooden posts, he never touched wood with any of the feeling with which +he stretched out his hands to the timber of that terrible tree, which +was the death of God and the life of man. + +As already noted, this does not mean that there was no reality or even +no religious sentiment in such a mood. As a matter of fact the Catholic +Church has taken over with uproarious success the whole of this popular +business of giving people local legends and lighter ceremonial +movements. In so far as all this sort of paganism was innocent and in +touch with nature, there is no reason why it should not be patronised by +patron saints as much as by pagan gods. And in any case there are +degrees of seriousness in the most natural make-believe. There is all +the difference between fancying there are fairies in the wood, which +often only means fancying a certain wood as fit for fairies, and really +frightening ourselves until we will walk a mile rather than pass a house +we have told ourselves is haunted. Behind all these things is the fact +that beauty and terror are very real things and related to a real +spiritual world; and to touch them at all, even in doubt or fancy, is to +stir the deep things of the soul. We all understand that and the pagans +understood it. The point is that paganism did not really stir the soul +except with these doubts and fancies with the consequence that we to-day +can have little beyond doubts and fancies about paganism. All the best +critics agree that all the greatest poets, in pagan Hellas for example, +had an attitude towards their gods which is quite queer and puzzling to +men in the Christian era. There seems to be an admitted conflict between +the god and the man; but everybody seems to be doubtful about which is +the hero and which is the villain. This doubt does not merely apply to a +doubter like Euripides in the Bacchae; it applies to a moderate +conservative like Sophocles in the Antigone; or even to a regular Tory +and reactionary like Aristophanes in the Progs. Sometimes it would seem +that the Greeks believed above all things in reverence, only they had +nobody to revere. But the point of the puzzle is this: that all this +vagueness and variation arise from the fact that the whole thing being +in fancy and in dreaming; and that there are no rules of architecture +for a castle in the clouds. + +This is the mighty and branching tree called mythology which ramifies +round the whole world, whose remote branches under separate skies bear +like coloured birds the costly idols of Asia and the half-baked fetishes +of Africa and the fairy kings and princesses of the folk-tales of the +forests, and buried amid vines and olives the Lares of the Latins, and +carried on the clouds of Olympus the buoyant supremacy of the gods of +Greece. These are the myths: and he who has no sympathy with myths has +no sympathy with men. But he who has most sympathy with myths will most +fully realise that they are not and never were a religion, in the sense +that Christianity or even Islam is a religion. They satisfy some of the +needs satisfied by a religion; and notably the need for doing certain +things at certain dates; the need of the twin ideas of festivity and +formality. But though they provide a man with a calendar, they do not +provide him with a creed. A man did not stand up and say "I believe in +Jupiter and Juno and Neptune," etc., as he stands up and says "I believe +in God the Father Almighty" and the rest of the Apostles' Creed. Many +believed in some and not in others, or more in some and less in others, +or only in a very vague poetical sense in any. There was no moment when +they were all collected into an orthodox order which men would fight and +be tortured to keep intact. Still less did anybody ever say in that +fashion: "I believe in Odin and Thor and Frey a," for outside Olympus +even the Olympian order grows cloudy and chaotic. It seems clear to me +that Thor was not a god at all but a hero. Nothing resembling a religion +would picture anybody resembling a god as groping like a pigmy in a +great cavern, that turned out to be the glove of a giant. That is the +glorious ignorance called adventure. Thor may have been a great +adventurer; but to call him a god is like trying to compare Jehovah with +Jack and the Beanstalk. Odin seems to have been a real barbarian chief, +possibly of the Dark Ages after Christianity. Polytheism fades away at +its fringes into fairy-tales or barbaric memories; it is not a thing +like monotheism as held by serious monotheists. Again it does satisfy +the need to cry out on some uplifted name or some notable memory in +moments that are themselves noble and uplifted; such as the birth of a +child or the saving of a city. But the name was so used by many to whom +it was only a name. Finally it did satisfy, or rather it partially +satisfied, a thing very deep in humanity indeed; the idea of +surrendering something as the portion of the unknown powers; of pouring +out wine upon the ground of throwing a ring into the sea; in a word, of +sacrifice. It is the wise and worthy idea of not taking our advantage to +the full; of putting something in the other balance to ballast our +dubious pride, of paying tithes to nature for our land. This deep truth +of the danger of insolence, or being too big for our boots, runs through +all the great Greek tragedies and makes them great. But it runs side by +side with an almost cryptic agnosticism about the real nature of the +gods to be propitiated. Where that gesture of surrender is most +magnificent, as among the great Greeks, there is really much more idea +that the man will be the better for losing the ox than that the god will +be the better for getting it. It is said that in its grosser forms there +are often actions grotesquely suggestive of the god really eating the +sacrifice. But this fact is falsified by the error that I put first in +this note on mythology. It is misunderstanding the psychology of +day-dreams. A child pretending there is a goblin in a hollow tree will +do a crude and material thing, like leaving a piece of cake for him. A +poet might do a more dignified and elegant thing, like bringing to the +god fruits as well as flowers. But the degree of seriousness in both +acts may be the same or it may vary in almost any degree. The crude +fancy is no more a creed than the ideal fancy is a creed. Certainly the +pagan does not disbelieve like an atheist, any more than he believes +like a Christian. He feels the presence of powers about which he guesses +and invents. St. Paul said that the Greeks had one altar to an unknown +god. But in truth all their gods were unknown gods. And the real break +in history did come when St. Paul declared to them whom they had ignorantly worshipped. -The substance of all such paganism may be summarised thus. -It is an attempt to reach the divine reality through the -imagination alone; in its own field reason does not restrain -it at all. It is vital to the view of all history that -reason is something separate from religion even in the most -rational of these cvilisations. It is only as an -afterthought, when such cults are decadent or on the -defensive, that a few Neo-Platonists or a few Brahmins are -found trying to rationalise them, and even then only by -trying to allegorise them. But in reality the rivers of -mythology and philosophy run parallel and do not mingle till -they meet in the sea of Christendom. Simple secularists -still talk as if the Church had introduced a sort of schism -between reason and religion. The truth is that the Church -was actually the first thing that ever tried to combine -reason and religion. There had never before been any such -union of the priests and the philosophers. Mythology, then, -sought God through the imagination; or sought truth by means -of beauty, in the sense in which beauty includes much of the -most grotesque ugliness. But the imagination has its own -laws and therefore its own triumphs, which neither logicians -nor men of science can understand. It remained true to that -imaginative instinct through a thousand extravagances, -through every crude cosmic pantomime of a pig eating the -moon or the world being cut out of a cow, through all the -dizzy convolutions and mystic malformations of Asiatic art, -through all the stark and staring rigidity of Egyptian and -Assyrian portraiture, through every kind of cracked mirror -of mad art that seemed to deform the world and displace the -sky, it remained true to something about which there can be -no argument; something that makes it possible for some -artist of some school to stand suddenly still before that -particular deformity and say, "My dream has come true." -Therefore do we all in fact feel that pagan or primitive -myths are infinitely suggestive, so long as we are wise -enough not to inquire what they suggest. Therefore we all -feel what is meant by Prometheus stealing fire from heaven, -until some prig of a pessimist or progressive person -explains what it means. Therefore we all know the meaning of -Jack and the Beanstalk, until we are told. In this sense it -is true that it is the ignorant who accept myths, but only -because it is the ignorant who appreciate poems. Imagination -has its own laws and triumphs; and a tremendous power began -to clothe its images, whether images in the mind or in the -mud, whether in the bamboo of the South Sea Islands or the -marble of the mountains of Hellas. But there was always a -trouble in the triumph, which in these pages I have tried to -analyse in vain; but perhaps I might in conclusion state it -thus. - -The crux and crisis is that man found it natural to worship; -even natural to worship unnatural things. The posture of the -idol might be stiff and strange; but the gesture of the -worshipper was generous and beautiful. He not only felt -freer when he bent; he actually felt taller when he bowed. -Henceforth anything that took away the gesture of worship -would stunt and even maim him for ever. Henceforth being -merely secular would be a servitude and an inhibition. If -man cannot pray he is gagged; if he cannot kneel he is in -irons. We therefore feel throughout the whole of paganism a -curious double feeling of trust and distrust. When the man -makes the gesture of salutation and of sacrifice, when he -pours out the libation or lifts up the sword, he knows he is -doing a worthy and a virile thing. He knows he is doing one -of the things for which a man was made. His imaginative -experiment is therefore justified. But precisely because it -began with imagination, there is to the end something of -mockery in it, and especially in the object of it. This -mockery, in the more intense moments of the intellect, -becomes the almost intolerable irony of Greek tragedy. There -seems a disproportion between the priest and the altar or -between the altar and the god. The priest seems more solemn -and almost more sacred than the god. All the order of the -temple is solid and sane and satisfactory to certain parts -of our nature; except the very centre of it, which seems -strangely mutable and dubious, like a dancing flame. It is -the first thought round which the whole has been built; and -the first thought is still a fancy and almost a frivolity. -In that strange place of meeting, the man seems more -statuesque than the statue. He himself can stand for ever in -the noble and natural attitude of the statue of the Praying -Boy. But whatever name be written on the pedestal, whether -Zeus or Ammon or Apollo, the god whom he worships is -Proteus. - -The Praying Boy may be said to express a need rather than to -satisfy a need. It is by a normal and necessary action that -his hands are lifted; but it is no less a parable that his -hands are empty. About the nature of that need there will be -more to say; but at this point it may be said that perhaps -after all this true instinct, that prayer and sacrifice are +The substance of all such paganism may be summarised thus. It is an +attempt to reach the divine reality through the imagination alone; in +its own field reason does not restrain it at all. It is vital to the +view of all history that reason is something separate from religion even +in the most rational of these cvilisations. It is only as an +afterthought, when such cults are decadent or on the defensive, that a +few Neo-Platonists or a few Brahmins are found trying to rationalise +them, and even then only by trying to allegorise them. But in reality +the rivers of mythology and philosophy run parallel and do not mingle +till they meet in the sea of Christendom. Simple secularists still talk +as if the Church had introduced a sort of schism between reason and +religion. The truth is that the Church was actually the first thing that +ever tried to combine reason and religion. There had never before been +any such union of the priests and the philosophers. Mythology, then, +sought God through the imagination; or sought truth by means of beauty, +in the sense in which beauty includes much of the most grotesque +ugliness. But the imagination has its own laws and therefore its own +triumphs, which neither logicians nor men of science can understand. It +remained true to that imaginative instinct through a thousand +extravagances, through every crude cosmic pantomime of a pig eating the +moon or the world being cut out of a cow, through all the dizzy +convolutions and mystic malformations of Asiatic art, through all the +stark and staring rigidity of Egyptian and Assyrian portraiture, through +every kind of cracked mirror of mad art that seemed to deform the world +and displace the sky, it remained true to something about which there +can be no argument; something that makes it possible for some artist of +some school to stand suddenly still before that particular deformity and +say, "My dream has come true." Therefore do we all in fact feel that +pagan or primitive myths are infinitely suggestive, so long as we are +wise enough not to inquire what they suggest. Therefore we all feel what +is meant by Prometheus stealing fire from heaven, until some prig of a +pessimist or progressive person explains what it means. Therefore we all +know the meaning of Jack and the Beanstalk, until we are told. In this +sense it is true that it is the ignorant who accept myths, but only +because it is the ignorant who appreciate poems. Imagination has its own +laws and triumphs; and a tremendous power began to clothe its images, +whether images in the mind or in the mud, whether in the bamboo of the +South Sea Islands or the marble of the mountains of Hellas. But there +was always a trouble in the triumph, which in these pages I have tried +to analyse in vain; but perhaps I might in conclusion state it thus. + +The crux and crisis is that man found it natural to worship; even +natural to worship unnatural things. The posture of the idol might be +stiff and strange; but the gesture of the worshipper was generous and +beautiful. He not only felt freer when he bent; he actually felt taller +when he bowed. Henceforth anything that took away the gesture of worship +would stunt and even maim him for ever. Henceforth being merely secular +would be a servitude and an inhibition. If man cannot pray he is gagged; +if he cannot kneel he is in irons. We therefore feel throughout the +whole of paganism a curious double feeling of trust and distrust. When +the man makes the gesture of salutation and of sacrifice, when he pours +out the libation or lifts up the sword, he knows he is doing a worthy +and a virile thing. He knows he is doing one of the things for which a +man was made. His imaginative experiment is therefore justified. But +precisely because it began with imagination, there is to the end +something of mockery in it, and especially in the object of it. This +mockery, in the more intense moments of the intellect, becomes the +almost intolerable irony of Greek tragedy. There seems a disproportion +between the priest and the altar or between the altar and the god. The +priest seems more solemn and almost more sacred than the god. All the +order of the temple is solid and sane and satisfactory to certain parts +of our nature; except the very centre of it, which seems strangely +mutable and dubious, like a dancing flame. It is the first thought round +which the whole has been built; and the first thought is still a fancy +and almost a frivolity. In that strange place of meeting, the man seems +more statuesque than the statue. He himself can stand for ever in the +noble and natural attitude of the statue of the Praying Boy. But +whatever name be written on the pedestal, whether Zeus or Ammon or +Apollo, the god whom he worships is Proteus. + +The Praying Boy may be said to express a need rather than to satisfy a +need. It is by a normal and necessary action that his hands are lifted; +but it is no less a parable that his hands are empty. About the nature +of that need there will be more to say; but at this point it may be said +that perhaps after all this true instinct, that prayer and sacrifice are a liberty and an enlargement, refers back to that vast and -half-forgotten conception of universal fatherhood, which we -have already seen everywhere fading from the morning sky. -This is true; and yet it is not all the truth. There remains -an indestructible instinct, in the poet as represented by -the pagan, that he is not entirely wrong in localising his -god. It is something in the soul of poetry if not of piety. -And the greatest of poets, when he defined the poet, did not -say that he gave us the universe or the absolute or the -infinite; but, in his own larger language, a local -habitation and a name. No poet is merely a pantheist; those -who are counted most pantheistic, like Shelley, start with -some local and particular image as the pagans did. After -all, Shelley wrote of the skylark because it was a skylark. -You could not issue an imperial or international translation -of it for use in South Africa, in which it was changed to an -ostrich. So the mythological imagination moves as it were in -circles, hovering either to find a place or to return to it. -In a word, mythology is a search; it is something that -combines a recurrent desire with a recurrent doubt, mixing a -most hungry sincerity in the idea of seeking for a place -with a most dark and deep and mysterious levity about all -the places found. So far could the lonely imagination lead, -and we must turn later to the lonely reason. Nowhere along -this road did the two ever travel together. - -That is where all these things differed from religion or the -reality in which these different dimensions met in a sort of -solid. They differed from the reality not in what they -looked like but in what they were. A picture may look like a -landscape; it may look in every detail exactly like a -landscape. The only detail in which it differs is that it is -not a landscape. The difference is only that which divides a -portrait of Queen Elizabeth from Queen Elizabeth. Only in -this mythical and mystical world the portrait could exist -before the person; and the portrait was therefore more vague -and doubtful. But anybody who has felt and fed on the -atmosphere of these myths will know what I mean when I say -that in one sense they did not really profess to be -realities. The pagans had dreams about realities; and they -would have been the first to admit, in their own words, that -some came through the gate of ivory and others through the -gate of horn. The dreams do indeed tend to be very vivid -dreams when they touch on those tender or tragic things, -which can really make a sleeper awaken with the sense that -his heart has been broken in his sleep. They tend -continually to hover over certain passionate themes of -meeting and parting, of a life that ends in death or a death -that is the beginning of life. Demeter wanders over a -stricken world looking for a stolen child; Isis stretches -out her arms over the earth in vain to gather the limbs of -Osiris; and there is lamentation upon the hills for Atys and -through the woods for Adonis. There mingles with all such -mourning the mystical and profound sense that death can be a -deliverer and an appeasement; that such death gives us a -divine blood for a renovating river and that all good is -found in gathering the broken body of the god. We may truly -call these foreshadowings; so long as we remember that -foreshadowings are shadows. And the metaphor of a shadow -happens to hit very exactly the truth that is very vital -here. For a shadow is a shape; a thing which produces shape -but not texture. These things were something like the real -thing; and to say that they were like is to say that they -were different. Saying something is like a dog is another -way of saying it is not a dog; and it is in this sense of -identity that a myth is not a man. Nobody really thought of -Isis as a human being; nobody really thought of Demeter as a -historical character; nobody thought of Adonis as the -founder of a Church. There was no idea that any one of them -had changed the world; but rather that their recurrent death -and life bore the sad and beautiful burden of the -changelessness of the world. Not one of them was a -revolution, save in the sense of the revolution of the sun -and the moon. Their whole meaning is missed if we do not see -that they mean the shadows that we are and the shadows that -we pursue. In certain sacrificial and communal aspects they -naturally suggest what sort of a god might satisfy men; but -they do not profess to be satisfied. Any one who says they -do is a bad judge of poetry. - -Those who talk about Pagan Christs have less sympathy with -Paganism than with Christianity. Those who call these cults -"religions," and "compare" them with the certitude and -challenge of the Church have much less appreciation than we -have of what made heathenism human, or of why classic -literature is still something that hangs in the air like a -song. It is no very human tenderness for the hungry to prove -that hunger is the same as food. It is no very genial -understanding of youth to argue that hope destroys the need -for happiness. And it is utterly unreal to argue that these -images in the mind, admired entirely in the abstract, were -even in the same world with a living man and a living polity -that were worshipped because they were concrete. We might as -well say that a boy playing at robbers is the same as a man -in his first day in the trenches; or that a boy's first -fancies about "the not impossible she" are the same as the -sacrament of marriage. They are fundamentally different -exactly where they are superficially similar; we might -almost say they are not the same even when they are the -same. They are only different because one is real and the -other is not. I do not mean merely that I myself believe -that one is true and the other is not. I mean that one was -never meant to be true in the same sense as the other. The -sense in which it was meant to be true I have tried to -suggest vaguely here, but it is undoubtedly very subtle and -almost indescribable. It is so subtle that the students who -profess to put it up as a rival to our religion miss the -whole meaning and purport of their own study. We know better -than the scholars, even those of us who are no scholars, -what was in that hollow cry that went forth over the dead -Adonis and why the Great Mother had a daughter wedded to -death. We have entered more deeply than they into the -Eleusinian Mysteries and have passed a higher grade, where -gate within gate guarded the wisdom of Orpheus. We know the -meaning of all the myths. We know the last secret revealed -to the perfect initiate. And it is not the voice of a priest -or a prophet saying, "These things are." It is the voice of -a dreamer and an idealist crying, "Why cannot these things -be?" +half-forgotten conception of universal fatherhood, which we have already +seen everywhere fading from the morning sky. This is true; and yet it is +not all the truth. There remains an indestructible instinct, in the poet +as represented by the pagan, that he is not entirely wrong in localising +his god. It is something in the soul of poetry if not of piety. And the +greatest of poets, when he defined the poet, did not say that he gave us +the universe or the absolute or the infinite; but, in his own larger +language, a local habitation and a name. No poet is merely a pantheist; +those who are counted most pantheistic, like Shelley, start with some +local and particular image as the pagans did. After all, Shelley wrote +of the skylark because it was a skylark. You could not issue an imperial +or international translation of it for use in South Africa, in which it +was changed to an ostrich. So the mythological imagination moves as it +were in circles, hovering either to find a place or to return to it. In +a word, mythology is a search; it is something that combines a recurrent +desire with a recurrent doubt, mixing a most hungry sincerity in the +idea of seeking for a place with a most dark and deep and mysterious +levity about all the places found. So far could the lonely imagination +lead, and we must turn later to the lonely reason. Nowhere along this +road did the two ever travel together. + +That is where all these things differed from religion or the reality in +which these different dimensions met in a sort of solid. They differed +from the reality not in what they looked like but in what they were. A +picture may look like a landscape; it may look in every detail exactly +like a landscape. The only detail in which it differs is that it is not +a landscape. The difference is only that which divides a portrait of +Queen Elizabeth from Queen Elizabeth. Only in this mythical and mystical +world the portrait could exist before the person; and the portrait was +therefore more vague and doubtful. But anybody who has felt and fed on +the atmosphere of these myths will know what I mean when I say that in +one sense they did not really profess to be realities. The pagans had +dreams about realities; and they would have been the first to admit, in +their own words, that some came through the gate of ivory and others +through the gate of horn. The dreams do indeed tend to be very vivid +dreams when they touch on those tender or tragic things, which can +really make a sleeper awaken with the sense that his heart has been +broken in his sleep. They tend continually to hover over certain +passionate themes of meeting and parting, of a life that ends in death +or a death that is the beginning of life. Demeter wanders over a +stricken world looking for a stolen child; Isis stretches out her arms +over the earth in vain to gather the limbs of Osiris; and there is +lamentation upon the hills for Atys and through the woods for Adonis. +There mingles with all such mourning the mystical and profound sense +that death can be a deliverer and an appeasement; that such death gives +us a divine blood for a renovating river and that all good is found in +gathering the broken body of the god. We may truly call these +foreshadowings; so long as we remember that foreshadowings are shadows. +And the metaphor of a shadow happens to hit very exactly the truth that +is very vital here. For a shadow is a shape; a thing which produces +shape but not texture. These things were something like the real thing; +and to say that they were like is to say that they were different. +Saying something is like a dog is another way of saying it is not a dog; +and it is in this sense of identity that a myth is not a man. Nobody +really thought of Isis as a human being; nobody really thought of +Demeter as a historical character; nobody thought of Adonis as the +founder of a Church. There was no idea that any one of them had changed +the world; but rather that their recurrent death and life bore the sad +and beautiful burden of the changelessness of the world. Not one of them +was a revolution, save in the sense of the revolution of the sun and the +moon. Their whole meaning is missed if we do not see that they mean the +shadows that we are and the shadows that we pursue. In certain +sacrificial and communal aspects they naturally suggest what sort of a +god might satisfy men; but they do not profess to be satisfied. Any one +who says they do is a bad judge of poetry. + +Those who talk about Pagan Christs have less sympathy with Paganism than +with Christianity. Those who call these cults "religions," and "compare" +them with the certitude and challenge of the Church have much less +appreciation than we have of what made heathenism human, or of why +classic literature is still something that hangs in the air like a song. +It is no very human tenderness for the hungry to prove that hunger is +the same as food. It is no very genial understanding of youth to argue +that hope destroys the need for happiness. And it is utterly unreal to +argue that these images in the mind, admired entirely in the abstract, +were even in the same world with a living man and a living polity that +were worshipped because they were concrete. We might as well say that a +boy playing at robbers is the same as a man in his first day in the +trenches; or that a boy's first fancies about "the not impossible she" +are the same as the sacrament of marriage. They are fundamentally +different exactly where they are superficially similar; we might almost +say they are not the same even when they are the same. They are only +different because one is real and the other is not. I do not mean merely +that I myself believe that one is true and the other is not. I mean that +one was never meant to be true in the same sense as the other. The sense +in which it was meant to be true I have tried to suggest vaguely here, +but it is undoubtedly very subtle and almost indescribable. It is so +subtle that the students who profess to put it up as a rival to our +religion miss the whole meaning and purport of their own study. We know +better than the scholars, even those of us who are no scholars, what was +in that hollow cry that went forth over the dead Adonis and why the +Great Mother had a daughter wedded to death. We have entered more deeply +than they into the Eleusinian Mysteries and have passed a higher grade, +where gate within gate guarded the wisdom of Orpheus. We know the +meaning of all the myths. We know the last secret revealed to the +perfect initiate. And it is not the voice of a priest or a prophet +saying, "These things are." It is the voice of a dreamer and an idealist +crying, "Why cannot these things be?" ### VI. The Demons and the Philosophers -I have dwelt at some little length, on this imaginative sort -of paganism, which has crowded the world with temples and is -everywhere the parent of popular festivity. For the central -history of civilisation, as I see it, consists of two -further stages before the final stage of Christendom. The -first was the struggle between this paganism and something -less worthy than itself, and the second the process by which -it grew in itself less worthy. In this very varied and often -very vague polytheism there was a weakness of original sin. -Pagan gods were depicted as tossing men like dice; and -indeed they are loaded dice. About sex especially men are -born unbalanced; we might almost say men are born mad. They -scarcely reach sanity till they reach sanctity. This -disproportion dragged down the winged fancies; and filled -the end of paganism with a mere filth and litter of spawning -gods. But the first point to realise is that this sort of -paganism had an early collision with another sort of -paganism; and that the issue of that essentially spiritual -struggle really determined the history of the world. In -order to understand it we must pass to a review of the other -kind of paganism. It can be considered much more briefly; -indeed, there is a very real sense in which the less that is -said about it the better. If we have called the first sort -of mythology the day-dream, we might very well call the -second sort of mythology the nightmare. - -Superstition recurs in all ages, and especially in -rationalistic ages. I remember defending the religious -tradition against a whole luncheon-table of distinguished -agnostics; and before the end of our conversation every one -of them had procured from his pocket, or exhibited on his -watch-chain, some charm or talisman from which he admitted -that he was never separated. I was the only person present -who had neglected to provide himself with a fetish. -Superstition recurs in a rationalist age because it rests on -something which, if not identical with rationalism, is not -unconnected with scepticism. It is at least very closely -connected with agnosticism. It rests on something that is -really a very human and intelligible sentiment, like the -local invocations of the numen in popular paganism. But it -is an agnostic sentiment, for it rests on two feelings: -first that we do not really know the laws of the universe; -and second that they may be very different from all that we -call reason. Such men realise the real truth that enormous -things do often turn upon tiny things. When a whisper comes, -from tradition or what not, that one particular tiny thing -is the key or clue, something deep and not altogether -senseless in human nature tells them that it is not -unlikely. This feeling exists in both the forms of paganism -here under consideration. But when we come to the second -form of it, we find it transformed and filled with another -and more terrible spirit. - -In dealing with the lighter thing called mythology, I have -said little about the most disputable aspect of it; the -extent to which such invocation of the spirits of the sea or -the elements can indeed call spirits from the vasty deep; or -rather (as the Shakespearean scoffer put it) whether the -spirits come when they are called. I believe that I am right -in thinking that this problem, practical as it sounds, did -not play a dominant part in the poetical business of -mythology. But I think it even more obvious, on the -evidence, that things of that sort have sometimes appeared, -even if they were only appearances. But when we come to the -world of superstition, in a more subtle sense, there is a -shade of difference; a deepening and a darkening shade. -Doubtless most popular superstition is as frivolous as any -popular mythology. Men do not believe as a dogma that God -would throw a thunderbolt at them for walking under a -ladder; more often they amuse themselves with the not very -laborious exercise of walking round it. There is no more in -it than what I have already adumbrated; a sort of airy -agnosticism about the possibilities of so strange a world. -But there is another sort of superstition that does -definitely look for results; what might be called a -realistic superstition. And with that the question of -whether spirits do answer or do appear becomes much more -serious. As I have said, it seems to me pretty certain that -they sometimes do; but about that there is a distinction -that has been the beginning of much evil in the world. - -Whether it be because the Fall has really brought men nearer -to less desirable neighbours in the spiritual world, or -whether it is merely that the mood of men eager or greedy -finds it easier to imagine evil, I believe that the black -magic of witchcraft has been much more practical and much -less poetical than the white magic of mythology. I fancy the -garden of the witch has been kept much more carefully than -the woodland of the nymph. I fancy the evil field has even -been more fruitful than the good. To start with, some -impulse, perhaps a sort of desperate impulse, drove men to -the darker powers when dealing with practical problems. -There was a sort of secret and perverse feeling that the -darker powers would really do things; that they had no -nonsense about them. And indeed that popular phrase exactly -expresses the point. The gods of mere mythology had a great -deal of nonsense about them. They had a great deal of good -nonsense about them; in the happy and hilarious sense in -which we talk of the nonsense of Jabberwocky or the Land -where the Jumblies live. But the man consulting a demon felt -as many a man has felt in consulting a detective, especially -a private detective: that it was dirty work but the work -would really be done. A man did not exactly go into the wood -to meet a nymph; he rather went with the hope of meeting a -nymph. It was an adventure rather than an assignation. But -the devil really kept his appointments and even in one sense -kept his promises; even if a man sometimes wished -afterwards, like Macbeth, that he had broken them. - -In the accounts given us of many rude or savage races we -gather that the cult of demons often came after the cult of -deities, and even after the cult of one single and supreme -deity. It may be suspected that in almost all such places -the higher deity is felt to be too far off for appeal in -certain petty matters, and men invoke the spirits because -they are in a more literal sense familiar spirits. But with -the idea of employing the demons who get things done, a new -idea appears more worthy of the demons. It may indeed be -truly described as the idea of being worthy of the demons; -of making oneself fit for their fastidious and exacting -society. Superstition of the lighter sort toys with the idea -that some trifle, some small gesture such as throwing the -salt, may touch the hidden spring that works the mysterious -machinery of the world. And there is after all something in -the idea of such an Open Sesame. But with the appeal to -lower spirits comes the horrible notion that the gesture -must not only be very small but very low; that it must be a -monkey trick of an utterly ugly and unworthy sort. Sooner or -later a man deliberately sets himself to do the most -disgusting thing he can think of. It is felt that the -extreme of evil will extort a sort of attention or answer -from the evil powers under the surface of the world. This is -the meaning of most of the cannibalism in the world. For -most cannibalism is not a primitive or even a bestial habit. -It is artificial and even artistic; a sort of art for art's -sake. Men do not do it because they do not think it -horrible; but, on the contrary, because they do think it -horrible. They wish, in the most literal sense, to sup on -horrors. That is why it is often found that rude races like -the Australian natives are not cannibals; while much more -refined and intelligent races, like the New Zealand Maori, -occasionally are. They are refined and intelligent enough to -indulge sometimes in a self-conscious diabolism. But if we -could understand their minds, or even really understand -their language, we should probably find that they were not -acting as ignorant, that is as innocent cannibals. They are -not doing it because they do not think it wrong, but -precisely because they do think it wrong. They are acting -like a Parisian decadent at a Black Mass. But the Black Mass -has to hide underground from the presence of the real Mass. -In other words, the demons have really been in hiding since -the coming of Christ on earth. The cannibalism of the higher -barbarians is in hiding from the civilisation of the white -man. But before Christendom, and especially outside Europe, -this was not always so. In the ancient world the demons -often wandered abroad like dragons. They could be positively -and publicly enthroned as gods. Their enormous images could -be set up in public temples in the centre of populous -cities. And all over the world the traces can be found of -this striking and solid fact, so curiously overlooked by the -moderns who speak of all such evil as primitive and early in -evolution, that as a matter of fact some of the very highest -civilisations of the world were the very places where the -horns of Satan were exalted, not only to the stars but in -the face of the sun. - -Take for example the Aztecs and American Indians of the -ancient empires of Mexico and Peru. They were at least as -elaborate as Egypt or China and only less lively than that -central civilisation which is our own. But those who -criticise that central civilisation (which is always their -own civilisation) have a curious habit of not merely doing -their legitimate duty in condemning its crimes, but of going -out of their way to idealise its victims. They always assume -that before the advent of Europe there was nothing anywhere -but Eden. And Swinburne, in that spirited chorus of the -nations in "Songs before Sunrise," used an expression about -Spain in her South American conquests which always struck me -as very strange. He said something about "her sins and sons -through sinless lands dispersed," and how they "made -accursed the name of man and thrice accursed the name of -God." It may be reasonable enough that he should say the -Spaniards were sinful, but why in the world should he say -that the South Americans were sinless? Why should he have -supposed that continent to be exclusively populated by -archangels or saints perfect in heaven? It would be a strong -thing to say of the most respectable neighbourhood; but when -we come to think of what we really do know of that society -the remark is rather funny. We know that the sinless priests -of this sinless people worshipped sinless gods, who accepted -as the nectar and ambrosia of their sunny paradise nothing -but incessant human sacrifice accompanied by horrible -torments. We may note also in the mythology of this American -civilisation that element of reversal or violence against -instinct of which Dante wrote; which runs backwards -everywhere through the unnatural religion of the demons. It -is notable not only in ethics but in aesthetics. A South -American idol was made as ugly as possible, as a Greek image -was made as beautiful as possible. They were seeking the -secret of power, by working backwards against their own -nature and the nature of things. There was always a sort of -yearning to carve at last, in gold or granite or the dark -red timber of the forests, a face at which the sky itself -would break like a cracked mirror. - -In any case it is clear enough that the painted and gilded -civilisation of tropical America systematically indulged in -human sacrifice. It is by no means clear, so far as I know, -that the Eskimos ever indulged in human sacrifice. They were -not civilised enough. They were too closely imprisoned by -the white winter and the endless dark. Chill penury -repressed their noble rage and froze the genial current of -the soul. It was in brighter days and broader daylight that -the noble rage is found unmistakably raging. It was in -richer and more instructed lands that the genial current -flowed on the altars, to be drunk by great gods wearing -goggling and grinning masks and called on in terror or -torment by long cacophonous names that sound like laughter -in hell. A warmer climate and a more scientific cultivation -were needed to bring forth these blooms; to draw up towards -the sun the large leaves and flamboyant blossoms that gave -their gold and crimson and purple to that garden, which -Swinburne compares to the Hesperides. There was at least no -doubt about the dragon. - -I do not raise in this connection the special contro versy -about Spain and Mexico; but I may remark in passing that it -resembles exactly the question that must in some sense be -raised afterwards about Rome and Carthage. In both cases -there has been a queer habit among the English of always -siding against the Europeans, and representing the rival -civilisation, in Swinburne's phrase, as sinless; when its -sins were obviously crying or rather screaming to heaven. -For Carthage also was a high civilisation, indeed a much -more highly civilised civilisation. And Carthage also -founded that civilisation on a religion of fear, sending up -everywhere the smoke of human sacrifice. Now it is very -right to rebuke our own race or religion for falling short -of our own standards and ideals. But it is absurd to pretend -that they fell lower than the other races and religions that -professed the very opposite standards and ideals. There is a -very real sense in which the Christian is worse than the -heathen, the Spaniard worse than the Red Indian, or even the -Roman potentially worse than the Carthaginian. But there is -only one sense in which he is worse; and that is not in -being positively worse. The Christian is only worse because -it is his business to be better. - -This inverted imagination produces things of which it is -better not to speak. Some of them indeed might almost be -named without being known; for they are of that extreme evil -which seems innocent to the innocent. They are too inhuman -even to be indecent. But without dwelling much longer in -these dark comers, it may be noted as not irrelevant here -that certain anti-human antagonisms seem to recur in this -tradition of black magic. There may be suspected as running -through it everywhere, for instance, a mystical hatred of -the idea of childhood. People would understand better the -popular fury against the witches, if they remembered that -the malice most commonly attributed to them was preventing -the birth of children. The Hebrew prophets were perpetually -protesting against the Hebrew race relapsing into an -idolatry that involved such a war upon children; and it is -probable enough that this abominable apostasy from the God -of Israel has occasionally appeared in Israel since, in the -form of what is called ritual murder; not of course by any -representative of the religion of Judaism, but by individual -and irresponsible diabolists who did happen to be Jews. This -sense that the forces of evil especially threaten childhood -is found again in the enormous popularity of the Child -Martyr of the Middle Ages. Chaucer did but give another -version of a very national English legend, when he conceived -the wickedest of all possible witches as the dark alien -woman watching behind her high lattice and hearing, like the -babble of a brook down the stony street, the singing of -little St. Hugh. - -Anyhow the part of such speculations that concerns this -story centred especially round that eastern end of the -Mediterranean where the nomads had turned gradually into -traders and had begun to trade with the whole world. Indeed -in the sense of trade and travel and colonial extension, it -already had something like an empire of the whole world. Its -purple dye, the emblem of its rich pomp and luxury, had -steeped the wares which were sold far away amid the last -crags of Cornwall and the sails that entered the silence of -tropic seas amid all the mystery of Africa. It might be said -truly to have painted the map purple. It was already a -world-wide success, when the princes of Tyre would hardly -have troubled to notice that one of then-princesses had -condescended to marry the chief of some tribe called Judah; -when the merchants of its African outpost would only have -curled their bearded and Semitic lips with a slight smile at -the mention of a village called Rome. And indeed no two -things could have seemed more distant from each other, not -only in space but in spirit, than the monotheism of the -Palestinian tribe and the very virtues of the small Italian -republic. There was but one thing between them; and the -thing which divided them has united them. Very various and -incompatible were the things that could be loved by the -consuls of Rome and the prophets of Israel; but they were at -one in what they hated. It is very easy in both cases to -represent that hatred as something merely hateful. It is -easy enough to make a merely harsh and inhuman figure either -of Elijah raving above the slaughter of Carmel or Cato -thundering against the amnesty of Africa. These men had -their limitations and their local passions; but this -criticism of them is unimaginative and therefore unreal. It -leaves out something, something immense and intermediate, -facing east and west and calling up this passion in its -eastern and western enemies; and that something is the first -subject of this chapter. - -The civilisation that centred in Tyre and Sidon was above -all things practical. It has left little in the way of art -and nothing in the way of poetry. But it prided itself upon -being very efficient; and it followed in its philosophy and -religion that strange and sometimes secret train of thought -which we have already noted in those who look for immediate -effects. There is always in such a mentality an idea that -there is a short cut to the secret of all success; something -that would shock the world by this sort of shameless -thorough ness. They believed, in the appropriate modern -phrase, in people who delivered the goods. In their dealings -with their god Moloch, they themselves were always careful -to deliver the goods. It was an interesting transaction, -upon which we shall have to touch more than once in the rest -of the narrative; it is enough to say here that it involved -the theory I have suggested about a certain attitude towards -children. This was what called up against it in simultaneous -fury the servant of one God in Palestine and the guardians -of all the household gods in Rome. This is what challenged -two things naturally so much divided by every sort of +I have dwelt at some little length, on this imaginative sort of +paganism, which has crowded the world with temples and is everywhere the +parent of popular festivity. For the central history of civilisation, as +I see it, consists of two further stages before the final stage of +Christendom. The first was the struggle between this paganism and +something less worthy than itself, and the second the process by which +it grew in itself less worthy. In this very varied and often very vague +polytheism there was a weakness of original sin. Pagan gods were +depicted as tossing men like dice; and indeed they are loaded dice. +About sex especially men are born unbalanced; we might almost say men +are born mad. They scarcely reach sanity till they reach sanctity. This +disproportion dragged down the winged fancies; and filled the end of +paganism with a mere filth and litter of spawning gods. But the first +point to realise is that this sort of paganism had an early collision +with another sort of paganism; and that the issue of that essentially +spiritual struggle really determined the history of the world. In order +to understand it we must pass to a review of the other kind of paganism. +It can be considered much more briefly; indeed, there is a very real +sense in which the less that is said about it the better. If we have +called the first sort of mythology the day-dream, we might very well +call the second sort of mythology the nightmare. + +Superstition recurs in all ages, and especially in rationalistic ages. I +remember defending the religious tradition against a whole +luncheon-table of distinguished agnostics; and before the end of our +conversation every one of them had procured from his pocket, or +exhibited on his watch-chain, some charm or talisman from which he +admitted that he was never separated. I was the only person present who +had neglected to provide himself with a fetish. Superstition recurs in a +rationalist age because it rests on something which, if not identical +with rationalism, is not unconnected with scepticism. It is at least +very closely connected with agnosticism. It rests on something that is +really a very human and intelligible sentiment, like the local +invocations of the numen in popular paganism. But it is an agnostic +sentiment, for it rests on two feelings: first that we do not really +know the laws of the universe; and second that they may be very +different from all that we call reason. Such men realise the real truth +that enormous things do often turn upon tiny things. When a whisper +comes, from tradition or what not, that one particular tiny thing is the +key or clue, something deep and not altogether senseless in human nature +tells them that it is not unlikely. This feeling exists in both the +forms of paganism here under consideration. But when we come to the +second form of it, we find it transformed and filled with another and +more terrible spirit. + +In dealing with the lighter thing called mythology, I have said little +about the most disputable aspect of it; the extent to which such +invocation of the spirits of the sea or the elements can indeed call +spirits from the vasty deep; or rather (as the Shakespearean scoffer put +it) whether the spirits come when they are called. I believe that I am +right in thinking that this problem, practical as it sounds, did not +play a dominant part in the poetical business of mythology. But I think +it even more obvious, on the evidence, that things of that sort have +sometimes appeared, even if they were only appearances. But when we come +to the world of superstition, in a more subtle sense, there is a shade +of difference; a deepening and a darkening shade. Doubtless most popular +superstition is as frivolous as any popular mythology. Men do not +believe as a dogma that God would throw a thunderbolt at them for +walking under a ladder; more often they amuse themselves with the not +very laborious exercise of walking round it. There is no more in it than +what I have already adumbrated; a sort of airy agnosticism about the +possibilities of so strange a world. But there is another sort of +superstition that does definitely look for results; what might be called +a realistic superstition. And with that the question of whether spirits +do answer or do appear becomes much more serious. As I have said, it +seems to me pretty certain that they sometimes do; but about that there +is a distinction that has been the beginning of much evil in the world. + +Whether it be because the Fall has really brought men nearer to less +desirable neighbours in the spiritual world, or whether it is merely +that the mood of men eager or greedy finds it easier to imagine evil, I +believe that the black magic of witchcraft has been much more practical +and much less poetical than the white magic of mythology. I fancy the +garden of the witch has been kept much more carefully than the woodland +of the nymph. I fancy the evil field has even been more fruitful than +the good. To start with, some impulse, perhaps a sort of desperate +impulse, drove men to the darker powers when dealing with practical +problems. There was a sort of secret and perverse feeling that the +darker powers would really do things; that they had no nonsense about +them. And indeed that popular phrase exactly expresses the point. The +gods of mere mythology had a great deal of nonsense about them. They had +a great deal of good nonsense about them; in the happy and hilarious +sense in which we talk of the nonsense of Jabberwocky or the Land where +the Jumblies live. But the man consulting a demon felt as many a man has +felt in consulting a detective, especially a private detective: that it +was dirty work but the work would really be done. A man did not exactly +go into the wood to meet a nymph; he rather went with the hope of +meeting a nymph. It was an adventure rather than an assignation. But the +devil really kept his appointments and even in one sense kept his +promises; even if a man sometimes wished afterwards, like Macbeth, that +he had broken them. + +In the accounts given us of many rude or savage races we gather that the +cult of demons often came after the cult of deities, and even after the +cult of one single and supreme deity. It may be suspected that in almost +all such places the higher deity is felt to be too far off for appeal in +certain petty matters, and men invoke the spirits because they are in a +more literal sense familiar spirits. But with the idea of employing the +demons who get things done, a new idea appears more worthy of the +demons. It may indeed be truly described as the idea of being worthy of +the demons; of making oneself fit for their fastidious and exacting +society. Superstition of the lighter sort toys with the idea that some +trifle, some small gesture such as throwing the salt, may touch the +hidden spring that works the mysterious machinery of the world. And +there is after all something in the idea of such an Open Sesame. But +with the appeal to lower spirits comes the horrible notion that the +gesture must not only be very small but very low; that it must be a +monkey trick of an utterly ugly and unworthy sort. Sooner or later a man +deliberately sets himself to do the most disgusting thing he can think +of. It is felt that the extreme of evil will extort a sort of attention +or answer from the evil powers under the surface of the world. This is +the meaning of most of the cannibalism in the world. For most +cannibalism is not a primitive or even a bestial habit. It is artificial +and even artistic; a sort of art for art's sake. Men do not do it +because they do not think it horrible; but, on the contrary, because +they do think it horrible. They wish, in the most literal sense, to sup +on horrors. That is why it is often found that rude races like the +Australian natives are not cannibals; while much more refined and +intelligent races, like the New Zealand Maori, occasionally are. They +are refined and intelligent enough to indulge sometimes in a +self-conscious diabolism. But if we could understand their minds, or +even really understand their language, we should probably find that they +were not acting as ignorant, that is as innocent cannibals. They are not +doing it because they do not think it wrong, but precisely because they +do think it wrong. They are acting like a Parisian decadent at a Black +Mass. But the Black Mass has to hide underground from the presence of +the real Mass. In other words, the demons have really been in hiding +since the coming of Christ on earth. The cannibalism of the higher +barbarians is in hiding from the civilisation of the white man. But +before Christendom, and especially outside Europe, this was not always +so. In the ancient world the demons often wandered abroad like dragons. +They could be positively and publicly enthroned as gods. Their enormous +images could be set up in public temples in the centre of populous +cities. And all over the world the traces can be found of this striking +and solid fact, so curiously overlooked by the moderns who speak of all +such evil as primitive and early in evolution, that as a matter of fact +some of the very highest civilisations of the world were the very places +where the horns of Satan were exalted, not only to the stars but in the +face of the sun. + +Take for example the Aztecs and American Indians of the ancient empires +of Mexico and Peru. They were at least as elaborate as Egypt or China +and only less lively than that central civilisation which is our own. +But those who criticise that central civilisation (which is always their +own civilisation) have a curious habit of not merely doing their +legitimate duty in condemning its crimes, but of going out of their way +to idealise its victims. They always assume that before the advent of +Europe there was nothing anywhere but Eden. And Swinburne, in that +spirited chorus of the nations in "Songs before Sunrise," used an +expression about Spain in her South American conquests which always +struck me as very strange. He said something about "her sins and sons +through sinless lands dispersed," and how they "made accursed the name +of man and thrice accursed the name of God." It may be reasonable enough +that he should say the Spaniards were sinful, but why in the world +should he say that the South Americans were sinless? Why should he have +supposed that continent to be exclusively populated by archangels or +saints perfect in heaven? It would be a strong thing to say of the most +respectable neighbourhood; but when we come to think of what we really +do know of that society the remark is rather funny. We know that the +sinless priests of this sinless people worshipped sinless gods, who +accepted as the nectar and ambrosia of their sunny paradise nothing but +incessant human sacrifice accompanied by horrible torments. We may note +also in the mythology of this American civilisation that element of +reversal or violence against instinct of which Dante wrote; which runs +backwards everywhere through the unnatural religion of the demons. It is +notable not only in ethics but in aesthetics. A South American idol was +made as ugly as possible, as a Greek image was made as beautiful as +possible. They were seeking the secret of power, by working backwards +against their own nature and the nature of things. There was always a +sort of yearning to carve at last, in gold or granite or the dark red +timber of the forests, a face at which the sky itself would break like a +cracked mirror. + +In any case it is clear enough that the painted and gilded civilisation +of tropical America systematically indulged in human sacrifice. It is by +no means clear, so far as I know, that the Eskimos ever indulged in +human sacrifice. They were not civilised enough. They were too closely +imprisoned by the white winter and the endless dark. Chill penury +repressed their noble rage and froze the genial current of the soul. It +was in brighter days and broader daylight that the noble rage is found +unmistakably raging. It was in richer and more instructed lands that the +genial current flowed on the altars, to be drunk by great gods wearing +goggling and grinning masks and called on in terror or torment by long +cacophonous names that sound like laughter in hell. A warmer climate and +a more scientific cultivation were needed to bring forth these blooms; +to draw up towards the sun the large leaves and flamboyant blossoms that +gave their gold and crimson and purple to that garden, which Swinburne +compares to the Hesperides. There was at least no doubt about the +dragon. + +I do not raise in this connection the special contro versy about Spain +and Mexico; but I may remark in passing that it resembles exactly the +question that must in some sense be raised afterwards about Rome and +Carthage. In both cases there has been a queer habit among the English +of always siding against the Europeans, and representing the rival +civilisation, in Swinburne's phrase, as sinless; when its sins were +obviously crying or rather screaming to heaven. For Carthage also was a +high civilisation, indeed a much more highly civilised civilisation. And +Carthage also founded that civilisation on a religion of fear, sending +up everywhere the smoke of human sacrifice. Now it is very right to +rebuke our own race or religion for falling short of our own standards +and ideals. But it is absurd to pretend that they fell lower than the +other races and religions that professed the very opposite standards and +ideals. There is a very real sense in which the Christian is worse than +the heathen, the Spaniard worse than the Red Indian, or even the Roman +potentially worse than the Carthaginian. But there is only one sense in +which he is worse; and that is not in being positively worse. The +Christian is only worse because it is his business to be better. + +This inverted imagination produces things of which it is better not to +speak. Some of them indeed might almost be named without being known; +for they are of that extreme evil which seems innocent to the innocent. +They are too inhuman even to be indecent. But without dwelling much +longer in these dark comers, it may be noted as not irrelevant here that +certain anti-human antagonisms seem to recur in this tradition of black +magic. There may be suspected as running through it everywhere, for +instance, a mystical hatred of the idea of childhood. People would +understand better the popular fury against the witches, if they +remembered that the malice most commonly attributed to them was +preventing the birth of children. The Hebrew prophets were perpetually +protesting against the Hebrew race relapsing into an idolatry that +involved such a war upon children; and it is probable enough that this +abominable apostasy from the God of Israel has occasionally appeared in +Israel since, in the form of what is called ritual murder; not of course +by any representative of the religion of Judaism, but by individual and +irresponsible diabolists who did happen to be Jews. This sense that the +forces of evil especially threaten childhood is found again in the +enormous popularity of the Child Martyr of the Middle Ages. Chaucer did +but give another version of a very national English legend, when he +conceived the wickedest of all possible witches as the dark alien woman +watching behind her high lattice and hearing, like the babble of a brook +down the stony street, the singing of little St. Hugh. + +Anyhow the part of such speculations that concerns this story centred +especially round that eastern end of the Mediterranean where the nomads +had turned gradually into traders and had begun to trade with the whole +world. Indeed in the sense of trade and travel and colonial extension, +it already had something like an empire of the whole world. Its purple +dye, the emblem of its rich pomp and luxury, had steeped the wares which +were sold far away amid the last crags of Cornwall and the sails that +entered the silence of tropic seas amid all the mystery of Africa. It +might be said truly to have painted the map purple. It was already a +world-wide success, when the princes of Tyre would hardly have troubled +to notice that one of then-princesses had condescended to marry the +chief of some tribe called Judah; when the merchants of its African +outpost would only have curled their bearded and Semitic lips with a +slight smile at the mention of a village called Rome. And indeed no two +things could have seemed more distant from each other, not only in space +but in spirit, than the monotheism of the Palestinian tribe and the very +virtues of the small Italian republic. There was but one thing between +them; and the thing which divided them has united them. Very various and +incompatible were the things that could be loved by the consuls of Rome +and the prophets of Israel; but they were at one in what they hated. It +is very easy in both cases to represent that hatred as something merely +hateful. It is easy enough to make a merely harsh and inhuman figure +either of Elijah raving above the slaughter of Carmel or Cato thundering +against the amnesty of Africa. These men had their limitations and their +local passions; but this criticism of them is unimaginative and +therefore unreal. It leaves out something, something immense and +intermediate, facing east and west and calling up this passion in its +eastern and western enemies; and that something is the first subject of +this chapter. + +The civilisation that centred in Tyre and Sidon was above all things +practical. It has left little in the way of art and nothing in the way +of poetry. But it prided itself upon being very efficient; and it +followed in its philosophy and religion that strange and sometimes +secret train of thought which we have already noted in those who look +for immediate effects. There is always in such a mentality an idea that +there is a short cut to the secret of all success; something that would +shock the world by this sort of shameless thorough ness. They believed, +in the appropriate modern phrase, in people who delivered the goods. In +their dealings with their god Moloch, they themselves were always +careful to deliver the goods. It was an interesting transaction, upon +which we shall have to touch more than once in the rest of the +narrative; it is enough to say here that it involved the theory I have +suggested about a certain attitude towards children. This was what +called up against it in simultaneous fury the servant of one God in +Palestine and the guardians of all the household gods in Rome. This is +what challenged two things naturally so much divided by every sort of distance and disunion, whose union was to save the world. -I have called the fourth and final division of the spiritual -elements into which I should divide heathen humanity by the -name of The Philosophers. I confess that it covers in my -mind much that would generally be classified otherwise; and -that what are here called philosophies are very often called -religions. I believe however that my own description will be -found to be much the more realistic and not the less -respectful. But we must first take philosophy in its purest -and clearest form that we may trace its normal outline; and -that is to be found in the world of the purest and clearest -outlines, that culture of the Mediterranean of which we have -been considering the mythologies and idolatries in the last -two chapters. - -Polytheism, or that aspect of paganism, was never to the -pagan what Catholicism is to the Catholic. It was never a -view of the universe satisfying all sides of life; a -complete and complex truth with something to say about -everything. It was only a satisfaction of one side of the -soul of man, even if we call it the religious side; and I -think it is truer to call it the imaginative side. But this -it did satisfy; in the end it satisfied it to satiety. All -that world was a tissue of interwoven tales and cults, and -there ran in and out of it, as w\^e have already seen, that -black thread among its more blameless colours: the darker -paganism that was really diabolism. But we all know that -this did not mean that all pagan men thought of nothing but -pagan gods. Precisely because mythology only satisfied one -mood, they turned in other moods to something totally -different. But it is very important to realise that it was -totally different. It was too different to be inconsistent. -It was so alien that it did not clash. While a mob of people -were pouring on a public holiday to the feast of Adonis or -the games in honour of Apollo, this or that man would prefer -to stop at home and think out a little theory about the -nature of things. Sometimes his hobby would even take the -form of thinking about the nature of God; or even in that -sense about the nature of the gods. But he very seldom -thought of pitting his nature of the gods against the gods -of nature. - -It is necessary to insist on this abstraction in the first -student of abstractions. He was not so much antagonistic as -absent-minded. His hobby might be the universe; but at first -the hobby was as private as if it had been numismatics or -playing draughts. And even when his wisdom came to be a -public possession, and almost a political institution, it -was very seldom on the same plane as the popular and -religious institutions. Aristotle, with his colossal common -sense, was perhaps the greatest of all philosophers; -certainly the most practical of all philosophers. But -Aristotle would no more have set up the Absolute side by -side with the Apollo of Delphi, as a similar or rival -religion, than Archimedes would have thought of setting up -the Lever as a sort of idol or fetish to be substituted for -the Palladium of the city. Or we might as well imagine -Euclid building an altar to an isosceles triangle, or -offering sacrifices to the square on the hypotenuse. The one -man meditated on metaphysics as the other man did on -mathematics; for the love of truth or for curiosity or for -the fun of the thing. But that sort of fun never seems to -have interfered very much with the other sort of fun; the -fun of dancing or singing to celebrate some rascally romance -about Zeus becoming a bull or a swan. It is perhaps the -proof of a certain superficiality and even insincerity about -the popular polytheism, that men could be philosophers and -even sceptics without disturbing it. These thinkers could -move the foundations of the world without altering even the -outline of that coloured cloud that hung above it in the -air. - -For the thinkers did move the foundations of the world; even -when a curious compromise seemed to prevent them from moving -the foundations of the city. The two great philosophers of -antiquity do indeed appear to us as defenders of sane and -even of sacred ideas; their maxims often read like the -answers to sceptical questions too completely answered to be -always recorded. Aristotle annihilated a hundred anarchists -and nature-worshipping cranks by the fundamental statement -that man is a political animal. Plato in some sense -anticipated the Catholic realism, as attacked by the -heretical nominalism, by insisting on the equally -fundamental fact that ideas are realities; that ideas exist -just as men exist. Plato however seemed sometimes almost to -fancy that ideas exist as men do not exist; or that the men -need hardly be considered where they conflict with the -ideas. He had something of the social sentiment that we call -Fabian in his ideal of fitting the citizen to the city, like -an imaginary head to an ideal hat; and great and glorious as -he remains, he has been the father of all faddists. -Aristotle anticipated more fully the sacramental sanity that -was to combine the body and the soul of things; for he -considered the nature of men as well as the nature of -morals, and looked to the eyes as well as to the light. But -though these great men were in that sense constructive and -conservative, they belonged to a world where thought was -free to the point of being fanciful. Many other great -intellects did indeed follow them, some exalting an abstract -vision of virtue, others following more rationalistically -the necessity of the human pursuit of happiness. The former -had the name of Stoics; and their name has passed into a -proverb for what is indeed one of the main moral ideals of -mankind: that of strengthening the mind itself until it is -of a texture to resist calamity or even pain. But it is -admitted that a great number of the philosophers degenerated -into what we still call sophists. They became a sort of -professional sceptics who went about asking uncomfortable -questions, and were handsomely paid for making themselves a -nuisance to normal people. It was perhaps an accidental -resemblance to such questioning quacks that was responsible -for the unpopularity of the great Socrates; whose death -might seem to contradict the suggestion of the permanent -truce between the philosophers and the gods. But Socrates -did not die as a monotheist who denounced polytheism; -certainly not as a prophet who denounced idols. It is clear -to anyone reading between the lines that there was some -notion, right or wrong, of a purely personal influence -affecting morals and perhaps politics. The general -compromise remained; whether it was that the Greeks thought -their myths a joke or that they thought their theories a -joke. There was never any collision in which one really -destroyed the other, and there was never any combination in -which one was really reconciled with the other. They -certainly did not work together; if anything the philosopher -was a rival of the priest. - -But both seemed to have accepted a sort of separation of -functions and remained parts of the same social system. -Another important tradition descends from Pythagoras; who is -significant because he stands nearest to the Oriental -mystics who must be considered in their turn. He taught a -sort of mysticism of mathematics, that number is the -ultimate reality; but he also seems to have taught the -transmigration of souls like the Brahmins; and to have left -to his followers certain traditional tricks of vegetarianism -and water-drinking very common among the eastern sages, -especially those who figure in fashionable drawing-rooms, -like those of the later Roman Empire. But in passing to -eastern sages, and the somewhat different atmosphere of the -East, we may approach a rather important truth by another -path. - -One of the great philosophers said that it would be well if -philosophers were kings, or kings were philosophers. He -spoke as of something too good to be true; but, as a matter -of fact, it not unfrequently was true. A certain type, -perhaps too little noticed in history, may really be called -the royal philosopher. To begin with, apart from actual -royalty, it did occasionally become possible for the sage, -though he was not what we call a religious founder, to be -something like a political founder. And the great example of -this, one of the very greatest in the world, will with the -very thought of it carry us thousands of miles across the -vast spaces of Asia to that very wonderful and in some ways -that very wise world of ideas and institutions, which we -dismiss somewhat cheaply when we talk of China. Men have -served many very strange gods; and trusted themselves -loyally to many ideals and even idols. China is a society -that has really chosen to believe in intellect. It has taken -intellect seriously; and it may be that it stands alone in -the world. From a very early age it faced the dilemma of the -king and the philosopher by actually appointing a -philosopher to advise the king. It made a public institution -out of a private individual, who had nothing in the world to -do but to be intellectual. It had and has, of course, many -other things on the same pattern. It creates all ranks and -privileges by public examination; it has nothing that we -call an aristocracy; it is a democracy dominated by an -intelligentsia. But the point here is that it had -philosophers to advise kings; and one of those philosophers -must have been a great philosopher and a great statesman. - -Confucius was not a religious founder or even a religious -teacher; possibly not even a religious man. He was not an -atheist; he was apparently what we call an agnostic. But the -really vital point is that it is utterly irrelevant to talk -about his religion at all. It is like talking of theology as -the first thing in the story of how Rowland Hill established -the postal system or Baden Powell organised the Boy Scouts. -Confucius was not there to bring a message from heaven to -humanity, but to organise China; and he must have organised -it exceedingly well. It follows that he dealt much with -morals; but he bound them up strictly with manners. The -peculiarity of his scheme, and of his country, in which it -contrasts with its great pendant the system of Christendom, -is that he insisted on perpetuating an external life with -all its forms, that outward continuity might preserve -internal peace. Anyone who knows how much habit has to do -with health, of mind as well as body, will see the truth in -his idea. But he will also see that the ancestor-worship and -the reverence for the Sacred Emperor were habits and not -creeds. It is unfair to the great Confucius to say he was a -religious founder. It is even unfair to him to say he was -not a religious founder. It is as unfair as going out of -one's way to say that Jeremy Bentham was not a Christian -martyr. - -But there is a class of most interesting cases in which -philosophers were kings, and not merely the friends of -kings. The combination is not accidental. It has a great -deal to do with this rather elusive question of the function -of the philosopher. It contains in it some hint of why -philosophy and mythology seldom came to an open rupture. It -was not only because there was something a little frivolous -about the mythology. It was also because there was something -a little supercilious about the philosopher. He despised the -myths, but he also despised the mob; and thought they suited -each other. The pagan philosopher was seldom a man of the -people, at any rate in spirit; he was seldom a democrat and -often a bitter critic of democracy. He had about him an air -of aristocratic and humane leisure; and his part was most -easily played by men who happened to be in such a position. -It was very easy and natural for a prince or a prominent -person to play at being as philosophical as Hamlet, or -Theseus in the Midsummer Night's Dream . And from very early -ages we find ourselves in the presence of these princely -intellectuals. In fact, we find one of them in the very -first recorded ages of the world; sitting on that primeval -throne that looked over ancient Egypt. - -The most intense interest of the incident of Akhenaten, -commonly called the Heretic Pharaoh, lies in the fact that -he was the one example, at any rate before Christian times, -of one of these royal philosophers who set himself to fight -popular mythology in the name of private philosophy. Most of -them assumed the attitude of Marcus Aurelius, who is in many -ways the model of this sort of monarch and sage. Marcus -Aurelius has been blamed for tolerating the pagan -amphitheatre or the Christian martyrdoms. But it was -characteristic; for this sort of man really thought of -popular religion just as he thought of popular circuses. Of -him Professor Phillimore has profoundly said "a great and -good man--- and he knew it." The Heretic Pharaoh had a -philosophy more earnest and perhaps more humble. For there -is a corollary to the conception of being too proud to -fight. It is that the humble have to do most of the -fighting. Anyhow, the Egyptian prince was simple enough to -take his own philosophy seriously, and alone among such -intellectual princes he affected a sort of *coup d'etat*; -hurling down the high gods of Egypt with one imperial -gesture and lifting up for all men, like a blazing mirror of -monotheistic truth, the disc of the universal sun. He had -other interesting ideas often to be found in such idealists. -In the sense in which we speak of a Little Englander he was -a Little Egypter. In art he was a realist because he was an -idealist; for realism is more impossible than any other -ideal. But after all there falls on him something of the -shadow of Marcus Aurelius; stalked by the shadow of -Professor Phillimore. What is the matter with this noble -sort of prince is that he has nowhere quite escaped being -something of a prig. Priggishness is so pungent a smell that -it clings amid the faded spices even to an Egyptian mummy. -What was the matter with the Heretic Pharaoh, as with a good -many other heretics, was that he probably never paused to -ask himself whether there was *anything* in the popular -beliefs and tales of people less educated than himself. And, -as already suggested, there was something in them. There was -a real human hunger in all that element of feature and -locality, that procession of deities like enormous pet -animals, in that unwearied watching at certain haunted -spots, in all the mazy wandering of mythology. Nature may -not have the name of Isis; Isis may not be really looking -for Osiris. But it is true that Nature is really looking for -something. Nature is always looking for the supernatural. -Something much more definite was to satisfy that need; but a -dignified monarch with a disc of the sun did not satisfy it. -The royal experiment failed amid a roaring reaction of -popular superstitions, in which the priests rose on the -shoulders of the people and ascended the throne of the -kings. - -The next great example I shall take of the princely sage is -Gautama, the great Lord Buddha. I know he is not generally -classed merely with the philosophers; but I am more and more -convinced, from all information that reaches me, that this -is the real interpretation of his immense importance. He was -by far the greatest and the best of these intellectuals born -in the purple. His reaction was perhaps the noblest and most -sincere of all the resultant actions of that combination of -thinkers and of thrones. For his reaction was renunciation. -Marcus Aurelius was content to say, with a refined irony, -that even in a palace life could be lived well. The fierier -Egyptian king concluded that it could be lived even better -after a palace revolution. But the great Gautama was the -only one of them who proved he could really do without his -palace. One fell back on toleration and the other on -revolution. But after all there is something more absolute -about abdication. Abdication is perhaps the one really -absolute action of an absolute monarch. The Indian prince, -reared in Oriental luxury and pomp, deliberately went out -and lived the life of a beggar. That is magnificent, but it -is not war; that is, it is not necessarily a Crusade in the -Christian sense. It does not decide the question of whether -the fife of a beggar was the life of a saint or the life of -a philosopher. It does not decide whether this great man is -really to go into the tub of Diogenes or the cave of -St. Jerome. Now those who seem to be nearest to the study of -Buddha, and certainly those who write most clearly and -intelligently about him, convince me for one that he was -simply a philosopher who founded a successful school of -philosophy, and was turned into a sort of *divus* or sacred -being merely by the more mysterious and unscientific -atmosphere of all such traditions in Asia. So that it is -necessary to say at this point a word about that invisible -yet vivid border-line that we cross in passing from the -Mediterranean into the mystery of the East. - -Perhaps there are no things out of which we get so little of -the truth as the truisms; especially when they are really -true. We are all in the habit of saying certain things about -Asia, which are true enough but which hardly help us because -we do not understand their truth; as that Asia is old or -looks to the past or is not progressive. Now it is true that -Christendom is more progressive, in a sense that has very -little to do with the rather provincial notion of an endless -fuss of political improvement. Christendom does believe, for -Christianity does believe, that man can eventually get -somewhere, here or hereafter, or in various ways according -to various doctrines. The world's desire can somehow be -satisfied as desires are satisfied, whether by a new life or -an old love or some form of positive possession and -fulfilment. For the rest, we all know there is a rhythm and -not a mere progress in things, that things rise and fall; -only with us the rhythm is a fairly free and incalculable -rhythm. For most of Asia the rhythm has hardened into a -recurrence. It is no longer merely a rather topsy-turvy sort -of world; it is a wheel. What has happened to all those -highly intelligent and highly civilised peoples is that they -have been caught up in a sort of cosmic rotation, of which -the hollow hub is really nothing. In that sense the worst -part of existence is that it may just as well go on like -that for ever. That is what we really mean when we say that -Asia is old or unprogressive or looking backwards. That is -why we see even her curved swords as arcs broken from that -blinding wheel; why we see her serpentine ornament as -returning everywhere, like a snake that is never slain. It -has very little to do with the political varnish of -progress; all Asiatics might have top-hats on their heads, -but if they had this spirit still in their hearts they would -only think the hats would vanish and come round again like -the planets; not that running after a hat could lead them to -heaven or even to home. - -Now when the genius of Buddha arose to deal with the matter, -this sort of cosmic sentiment was already common to almost -everything in the East. There was indeed the jungle of an -extraordinarily extravagant and almost asphyxiating -mythology. Nevertheless it is possible to have more sympathy -with this popular fruitfulness in folk-lore than with some -of the higher pessimism that might have withered it. It must -always be remembered, however, when all fair allowances are -made, that a great deal of spontaneous eastern imagery -really is idolatry; the local and literal worship of an -idol. This is probably not true of the ancient Brahminical -system, at least as seen by Brahmins. But that phrase alone -will remind us of a reality of much greater moment. This -great reality is the Caste System of ancient India. It may -have had some of the practical advantages of the Guild -System of Medieval Europe. But it contrasts not only with -that Christian democracy, but with every extreme type of -Christian aristocracy, in the fact that it does really -conceive the social superiority as a spiritual superiority. -This not only divides it fundamentally from the fraternity -of Christendom but leaves it standing like a mighty and -terraced mountain of pride between the relatively -egalitarian levels both of Islam and of China. But the -fixity of this formation through thousands of years is -another illustration of that spirit of repetition that has -marked time from time immemorial. Now we may also presume -the prevalence of another idea which we associate with the -Buddhists as interpreted by the Theosophists. As a fact, -some of the strictest - -Buddhists repudiate the idea and still more scornfully -repudiate the Theosophists. But whether the idea is in -Buddhism, or only in the birthplace of Buddhism, or only in -a tradition or a travesty of Buddhism, it is an idea -entirely proper to this principle of recurrence. I mean of -course the idea of Reincarnation. - -But Reincarnation is not really a mystical idea. It is not -really a transcendental idea, or in that sense a religious -idea. Mysticism conceives something transcending experience; -religion seeks glimpses of a better good or a worse evil -than experience can give. Reincarnation need only extend -experiences in the sense of repeating them. It is no more -transcendental for a man to remember what he did in Babylon -before he was born than to remember what he did in Brixton -before he had a knock on the head. His successive lives -*need* not be any more than human lives, under whatever -limitations burden human life. It has nothing to do with -seeing God or even conjuring up the devil. In other words, -reincarnation as such does not necessarily escape from the -wheel of destiny, in some sense it is the wheel of destiny. -And whether it was something that Buddha founded\* or -something that Buddha found, or something that Buddha -entirely renounced when he found, it is certainly something -having the general character of that Asiatic atmosphere in -which he had to play his part. And the part he played was -that of an intellectual philosopher, with a particular -theory about the right intellectual attitude towards it. - -I can understand that Buddhists might resent the view that -Buddhism is merely a philosophy, if we understand by a -philosophy merely an intellectual game such as Greek -sophists played, tossing up worlds and catching them like -balls. Perhaps a more exact statement would be that Buddha -was a man who made a metaphysical discipline; which might -even be called a psychological discipline. He proposed a way -of escaping from all this recurrent sorrow; and that was -simply by getting rid of the delusion that is called desire. -It was emphatically *not* that we should get what we want -better by restraining our impatience for part of it, or that -we should get it in a better way or in a better world. It -was emphatically that we should leave off wanting it. If -once a man realised that there is really no reality, that -everything, including his soul, is in dissolution at every -instant, he would anticipate disappointment and be -intangible to change, existing (in so far as he could be -said to exist) in a sort of ecstasy of indifference. The -Buddhists call this beatitude, and we will not stop our -story to argue the point; certainly to us it is -indistinguishable from despair. I do not see, for instance, -why the disappointment of desire should not apply as much to -the most benevolent desires as to the most selfish ones. -Indeed the Lord of Compassion seems to pity people for -living rather than for dying. For the rest, an intelligent -Buddhist wrote, "The explanation of popular Chinese and -Japanese Buddhism is that it is not Buddhism. *That* has -doubtless ceased to be a mere philosophy, but only by -becoming a mere mythology. One thing is certain: it has -never become anything remotely resembling what we call a -Church. - -It will appear only a jest to say that all religious history -has really been a pattern of noughts and crosses. But I do -not by noughts mean nothings, but only things that are -negative compared with the positive shape or pattern of the -other. And though the symbol is of course only a -coincidence, it is a coincidence that really does coincide. -The mind of Asia can really be represented by a round 0, if -not in the sense of a cypher at least of a circle. The great -Asiatic symbol of a serpent with its tail in its mouth is -really a very perfect image of a certain idea of unity and -recurrence that does indeed belong to the Eastern -philosophies and religions. It really is a curve that in one -sense includes everything, and in another sense ) comes to -nothing. In that sense it does confess, or rather boast, -that all argument is an argument in a circle. And though the -figure is but a symbol, we can see how sound is the symbolic -sense that produces it, the parallel symbol of the Wheel of -Buddha generally called the Swastika. The cross is a thing -at right angles pointing boldly in opposite directions; but -the Swastika is the same thing in the very act of returning -to the recurrent curve. That crooked cross is in fact a -cross turning into a wheel. Before we dismiss even these -symbols as if they were arbitrary symbols, we must remember -how intense was the imaginative instinct that produced them -or selected them both in the East and the West. The cross -has become something more than a historical memory; it does -convey, almost as by a mathematical diagram, the truth about -the real point at issue; the idea of a conflict stretching -outwards into eternity. It is true, and even tautological, -to say that the cross is the crux of the whole matter. - -In other words, the cross, in fact as well as figure, does -really stand for the idea of breaking out of the circle that -is everything and nothing. It does escape from the circular -argument by which everything begins and ends in the mind. -Since we are still dealing in symbols, it might be put in a -parable in the form of that story about St. Francis, which -says that the birds departing with his benediction could -wing their way into the infinities of the four winds of -heaven, their tracks making a vast cross upon the sky; for -compared with the freedom of that flight of birds, the very -shape of the Swastika is like a kitten chasing its tail. In -a more popular allegory, we might say that when St. George -thrust his spear into the monster's jaws, he broke in upon -the solitude of the self-devouring serpent and gave it -something to bite besides its own tail. But while many -fancies might be used as figures of the truth, the truth -itself is abstract and absolute; though it is not very easy -to sum up except by such figures. Christianity does appeal -to a solid truth outside itself; to something which is in -that sense external as well as eternal. It does declare that -things are really there; or in other words that things are -really things. In this Christianity is at one with common -sense; but all religious history shows that this common -sense perishes except where there is Christianity to -preserve it. - -It cannot otherwise exist, or at least endure, because mere -thought does not remain sane. In a sense it becomes too -simple to be sane. The temptation of the philosophers is -simplicity rather than subtlety. They are always attracted -by insane simplifications, as men poised above abysses are -fascinated by death and nothingness and the empty air. It -needed another kind of philosopher to stand poised upon the -pinnacle of the Temple and keep his balance without casting -himself down. One of these obvious, these too obvious -explanations is that everything is a dream and a delusion -and there is nothing outside the ego. Another is that all -things recur; another, which is said to be Buddhist and is -certainly Oriental, is the idea that what is the matter with -us is our creation, in the sense of our coloured -differentiation and personality, and that nothing will be -well till we are again melted into one unity. By this -theory, in short, the Creation was the Fall. It is important -historically because it was stored up in the dark heart of -Asia and went forth at various times in various forms over -the dim borders of Europe. Here we can place the mysterious -figure of Manes or Manichaeus, the mystic of inversion, whom -we should call a pessimist, parent of many sects and -heresies; here, in a higher place, the figure of Zoroaster. -He has been popularly identified with another of these too -simple explanations: the equality of evil and good, balanced -and battling in every atom. He also is of the school of -sages that may be called mystics; and from the same -mysterious Persian garden came upon ponderous wings Mithras, -the unknown god, to trouble the last twilight of Rome. - -That circle or disc of the sun set up in the morning of the -world by the remote Egyptian has been a mirror and a model -for all the philosophers. They have made many things out of -it, and sometimes gone mad about it, especially when as in -these eastern sages the circle became a wheel going round -and round in their heads. But the point about them is that -they all think that existence can be represented by a -diagram instead of a drawing; and the rude drawings of the -childish myth-makers are a sort of crude and spirited -protest against that view. They cannot believe that religion -is really not a pattern but a picture. Still less can they -believe that it is a picture of something that really exists -outside our minds. Sometimes the philosopher paints the disc -all black and calls himself a pessimist; sometimes he paints -it all white and calls himself an optimist; sometimes he -divides it exactly into halves of black and white and calls -himself a dualist, like those Persian mystics to whom I wish -there were space to do justice. None of them could -understand a thing that began to draw the proportions just -as if they were real proportions, disposed in the living -fashion which the mathematical draughtsman would call -disproportionate. Like the first artist in the cave, it -revealed to incredulous eyes the suggestion of a new purpose -in what looked like a wildly crooked pattern; he seemed only -to be distorting his diagram, when he began for the first -time in all the ages to trace the lines of a form---and of a -Face. +I have called the fourth and final division of the spiritual elements +into which I should divide heathen humanity by the name of The +Philosophers. I confess that it covers in my mind much that would +generally be classified otherwise; and that what are here called +philosophies are very often called religions. I believe however that my +own description will be found to be much the more realistic and not the +less respectful. But we must first take philosophy in its purest and +clearest form that we may trace its normal outline; and that is to be +found in the world of the purest and clearest outlines, that culture of +the Mediterranean of which we have been considering the mythologies and +idolatries in the last two chapters. + +Polytheism, or that aspect of paganism, was never to the pagan what +Catholicism is to the Catholic. It was never a view of the universe +satisfying all sides of life; a complete and complex truth with +something to say about everything. It was only a satisfaction of one +side of the soul of man, even if we call it the religious side; and I +think it is truer to call it the imaginative side. But this it did +satisfy; in the end it satisfied it to satiety. All that world was a +tissue of interwoven tales and cults, and there ran in and out of it, as +w\^e have already seen, that black thread among its more blameless +colours: the darker paganism that was really diabolism. But we all know +that this did not mean that all pagan men thought of nothing but pagan +gods. Precisely because mythology only satisfied one mood, they turned +in other moods to something totally different. But it is very important +to realise that it was totally different. It was too different to be +inconsistent. It was so alien that it did not clash. While a mob of +people were pouring on a public holiday to the feast of Adonis or the +games in honour of Apollo, this or that man would prefer to stop at home +and think out a little theory about the nature of things. Sometimes his +hobby would even take the form of thinking about the nature of God; or +even in that sense about the nature of the gods. But he very seldom +thought of pitting his nature of the gods against the gods of nature. + +It is necessary to insist on this abstraction in the first student of +abstractions. He was not so much antagonistic as absent-minded. His +hobby might be the universe; but at first the hobby was as private as if +it had been numismatics or playing draughts. And even when his wisdom +came to be a public possession, and almost a political institution, it +was very seldom on the same plane as the popular and religious +institutions. Aristotle, with his colossal common sense, was perhaps the +greatest of all philosophers; certainly the most practical of all +philosophers. But Aristotle would no more have set up the Absolute side +by side with the Apollo of Delphi, as a similar or rival religion, than +Archimedes would have thought of setting up the Lever as a sort of idol +or fetish to be substituted for the Palladium of the city. Or we might +as well imagine Euclid building an altar to an isosceles triangle, or +offering sacrifices to the square on the hypotenuse. The one man +meditated on metaphysics as the other man did on mathematics; for the +love of truth or for curiosity or for the fun of the thing. But that +sort of fun never seems to have interfered very much with the other sort +of fun; the fun of dancing or singing to celebrate some rascally romance +about Zeus becoming a bull or a swan. It is perhaps the proof of a +certain superficiality and even insincerity about the popular +polytheism, that men could be philosophers and even sceptics without +disturbing it. These thinkers could move the foundations of the world +without altering even the outline of that coloured cloud that hung above +it in the air. + +For the thinkers did move the foundations of the world; even when a +curious compromise seemed to prevent them from moving the foundations of +the city. The two great philosophers of antiquity do indeed appear to us +as defenders of sane and even of sacred ideas; their maxims often read +like the answers to sceptical questions too completely answered to be +always recorded. Aristotle annihilated a hundred anarchists and +nature-worshipping cranks by the fundamental statement that man is a +political animal. Plato in some sense anticipated the Catholic realism, +as attacked by the heretical nominalism, by insisting on the equally +fundamental fact that ideas are realities; that ideas exist just as men +exist. Plato however seemed sometimes almost to fancy that ideas exist +as men do not exist; or that the men need hardly be considered where +they conflict with the ideas. He had something of the social sentiment +that we call Fabian in his ideal of fitting the citizen to the city, +like an imaginary head to an ideal hat; and great and glorious as he +remains, he has been the father of all faddists. Aristotle anticipated +more fully the sacramental sanity that was to combine the body and the +soul of things; for he considered the nature of men as well as the +nature of morals, and looked to the eyes as well as to the light. But +though these great men were in that sense constructive and conservative, +they belonged to a world where thought was free to the point of being +fanciful. Many other great intellects did indeed follow them, some +exalting an abstract vision of virtue, others following more +rationalistically the necessity of the human pursuit of happiness. The +former had the name of Stoics; and their name has passed into a proverb +for what is indeed one of the main moral ideals of mankind: that of +strengthening the mind itself until it is of a texture to resist +calamity or even pain. But it is admitted that a great number of the +philosophers degenerated into what we still call sophists. They became a +sort of professional sceptics who went about asking uncomfortable +questions, and were handsomely paid for making themselves a nuisance to +normal people. It was perhaps an accidental resemblance to such +questioning quacks that was responsible for the unpopularity of the +great Socrates; whose death might seem to contradict the suggestion of +the permanent truce between the philosophers and the gods. But Socrates +did not die as a monotheist who denounced polytheism; certainly not as a +prophet who denounced idols. It is clear to anyone reading between the +lines that there was some notion, right or wrong, of a purely personal +influence affecting morals and perhaps politics. The general compromise +remained; whether it was that the Greeks thought their myths a joke or +that they thought their theories a joke. There was never any collision +in which one really destroyed the other, and there was never any +combination in which one was really reconciled with the other. They +certainly did not work together; if anything the philosopher was a rival +of the priest. + +But both seemed to have accepted a sort of separation of functions and +remained parts of the same social system. Another important tradition +descends from Pythagoras; who is significant because he stands nearest +to the Oriental mystics who must be considered in their turn. He taught +a sort of mysticism of mathematics, that number is the ultimate reality; +but he also seems to have taught the transmigration of souls like the +Brahmins; and to have left to his followers certain traditional tricks +of vegetarianism and water-drinking very common among the eastern sages, +especially those who figure in fashionable drawing-rooms, like those of +the later Roman Empire. But in passing to eastern sages, and the +somewhat different atmosphere of the East, we may approach a rather +important truth by another path. + +One of the great philosophers said that it would be well if philosophers +were kings, or kings were philosophers. He spoke as of something too +good to be true; but, as a matter of fact, it not unfrequently was true. +A certain type, perhaps too little noticed in history, may really be +called the royal philosopher. To begin with, apart from actual royalty, +it did occasionally become possible for the sage, though he was not what +we call a religious founder, to be something like a political founder. +And the great example of this, one of the very greatest in the world, +will with the very thought of it carry us thousands of miles across the +vast spaces of Asia to that very wonderful and in some ways that very +wise world of ideas and institutions, which we dismiss somewhat cheaply +when we talk of China. Men have served many very strange gods; and +trusted themselves loyally to many ideals and even idols. China is a +society that has really chosen to believe in intellect. It has taken +intellect seriously; and it may be that it stands alone in the world. +From a very early age it faced the dilemma of the king and the +philosopher by actually appointing a philosopher to advise the king. It +made a public institution out of a private individual, who had nothing +in the world to do but to be intellectual. It had and has, of course, +many other things on the same pattern. It creates all ranks and +privileges by public examination; it has nothing that we call an +aristocracy; it is a democracy dominated by an intelligentsia. But the +point here is that it had philosophers to advise kings; and one of those +philosophers must have been a great philosopher and a great statesman. + +Confucius was not a religious founder or even a religious teacher; +possibly not even a religious man. He was not an atheist; he was +apparently what we call an agnostic. But the really vital point is that +it is utterly irrelevant to talk about his religion at all. It is like +talking of theology as the first thing in the story of how Rowland Hill +established the postal system or Baden Powell organised the Boy Scouts. +Confucius was not there to bring a message from heaven to humanity, but +to organise China; and he must have organised it exceedingly well. It +follows that he dealt much with morals; but he bound them up strictly +with manners. The peculiarity of his scheme, and of his country, in +which it contrasts with its great pendant the system of Christendom, is +that he insisted on perpetuating an external life with all its forms, +that outward continuity might preserve internal peace. Anyone who knows +how much habit has to do with health, of mind as well as body, will see +the truth in his idea. But he will also see that the ancestor-worship +and the reverence for the Sacred Emperor were habits and not creeds. It +is unfair to the great Confucius to say he was a religious founder. It +is even unfair to him to say he was not a religious founder. It is as +unfair as going out of one's way to say that Jeremy Bentham was not a +Christian martyr. + +But there is a class of most interesting cases in which philosophers +were kings, and not merely the friends of kings. The combination is not +accidental. It has a great deal to do with this rather elusive question +of the function of the philosopher. It contains in it some hint of why +philosophy and mythology seldom came to an open rupture. It was not only +because there was something a little frivolous about the mythology. It +was also because there was something a little supercilious about the +philosopher. He despised the myths, but he also despised the mob; and +thought they suited each other. The pagan philosopher was seldom a man +of the people, at any rate in spirit; he was seldom a democrat and often +a bitter critic of democracy. He had about him an air of aristocratic +and humane leisure; and his part was most easily played by men who +happened to be in such a position. It was very easy and natural for a +prince or a prominent person to play at being as philosophical as +Hamlet, or Theseus in the Midsummer Night's Dream . And from very early +ages we find ourselves in the presence of these princely intellectuals. +In fact, we find one of them in the very first recorded ages of the +world; sitting on that primeval throne that looked over ancient Egypt. + +The most intense interest of the incident of Akhenaten, commonly called +the Heretic Pharaoh, lies in the fact that he was the one example, at +any rate before Christian times, of one of these royal philosophers who +set himself to fight popular mythology in the name of private +philosophy. Most of them assumed the attitude of Marcus Aurelius, who is +in many ways the model of this sort of monarch and sage. Marcus Aurelius +has been blamed for tolerating the pagan amphitheatre or the Christian +martyrdoms. But it was characteristic; for this sort of man really +thought of popular religion just as he thought of popular circuses. Of +him Professor Phillimore has profoundly said "a great and good man--- +and he knew it." The Heretic Pharaoh had a philosophy more earnest and +perhaps more humble. For there is a corollary to the conception of being +too proud to fight. It is that the humble have to do most of the +fighting. Anyhow, the Egyptian prince was simple enough to take his own +philosophy seriously, and alone among such intellectual princes he +affected a sort of *coup d'etat*; hurling down the high gods of Egypt +with one imperial gesture and lifting up for all men, like a blazing +mirror of monotheistic truth, the disc of the universal sun. He had +other interesting ideas often to be found in such idealists. In the +sense in which we speak of a Little Englander he was a Little Egypter. +In art he was a realist because he was an idealist; for realism is more +impossible than any other ideal. But after all there falls on him +something of the shadow of Marcus Aurelius; stalked by the shadow of +Professor Phillimore. What is the matter with this noble sort of prince +is that he has nowhere quite escaped being something of a prig. +Priggishness is so pungent a smell that it clings amid the faded spices +even to an Egyptian mummy. What was the matter with the Heretic Pharaoh, +as with a good many other heretics, was that he probably never paused to +ask himself whether there was *anything* in the popular beliefs and +tales of people less educated than himself. And, as already suggested, +there was something in them. There was a real human hunger in all that +element of feature and locality, that procession of deities like +enormous pet animals, in that unwearied watching at certain haunted +spots, in all the mazy wandering of mythology. Nature may not have the +name of Isis; Isis may not be really looking for Osiris. But it is true +that Nature is really looking for something. Nature is always looking +for the supernatural. Something much more definite was to satisfy that +need; but a dignified monarch with a disc of the sun did not satisfy it. +The royal experiment failed amid a roaring reaction of popular +superstitions, in which the priests rose on the shoulders of the people +and ascended the throne of the kings. + +The next great example I shall take of the princely sage is Gautama, the +great Lord Buddha. I know he is not generally classed merely with the +philosophers; but I am more and more convinced, from all information +that reaches me, that this is the real interpretation of his immense +importance. He was by far the greatest and the best of these +intellectuals born in the purple. His reaction was perhaps the noblest +and most sincere of all the resultant actions of that combination of +thinkers and of thrones. For his reaction was renunciation. Marcus +Aurelius was content to say, with a refined irony, that even in a palace +life could be lived well. The fierier Egyptian king concluded that it +could be lived even better after a palace revolution. But the great +Gautama was the only one of them who proved he could really do without +his palace. One fell back on toleration and the other on revolution. But +after all there is something more absolute about abdication. Abdication +is perhaps the one really absolute action of an absolute monarch. The +Indian prince, reared in Oriental luxury and pomp, deliberately went out +and lived the life of a beggar. That is magnificent, but it is not war; +that is, it is not necessarily a Crusade in the Christian sense. It does +not decide the question of whether the fife of a beggar was the life of +a saint or the life of a philosopher. It does not decide whether this +great man is really to go into the tub of Diogenes or the cave of +St. Jerome. Now those who seem to be nearest to the study of Buddha, and +certainly those who write most clearly and intelligently about him, +convince me for one that he was simply a philosopher who founded a +successful school of philosophy, and was turned into a sort of *divus* +or sacred being merely by the more mysterious and unscientific +atmosphere of all such traditions in Asia. So that it is necessary to +say at this point a word about that invisible yet vivid border-line that +we cross in passing from the Mediterranean into the mystery of the East. + +Perhaps there are no things out of which we get so little of the truth +as the truisms; especially when they are really true. We are all in the +habit of saying certain things about Asia, which are true enough but +which hardly help us because we do not understand their truth; as that +Asia is old or looks to the past or is not progressive. Now it is true +that Christendom is more progressive, in a sense that has very little to +do with the rather provincial notion of an endless fuss of political +improvement. Christendom does believe, for Christianity does believe, +that man can eventually get somewhere, here or hereafter, or in various +ways according to various doctrines. The world's desire can somehow be +satisfied as desires are satisfied, whether by a new life or an old love +or some form of positive possession and fulfilment. For the rest, we all +know there is a rhythm and not a mere progress in things, that things +rise and fall; only with us the rhythm is a fairly free and incalculable +rhythm. For most of Asia the rhythm has hardened into a recurrence. It +is no longer merely a rather topsy-turvy sort of world; it is a wheel. +What has happened to all those highly intelligent and highly civilised +peoples is that they have been caught up in a sort of cosmic rotation, +of which the hollow hub is really nothing. In that sense the worst part +of existence is that it may just as well go on like that for ever. That +is what we really mean when we say that Asia is old or unprogressive or +looking backwards. That is why we see even her curved swords as arcs +broken from that blinding wheel; why we see her serpentine ornament as +returning everywhere, like a snake that is never slain. It has very +little to do with the political varnish of progress; all Asiatics might +have top-hats on their heads, but if they had this spirit still in their +hearts they would only think the hats would vanish and come round again +like the planets; not that running after a hat could lead them to heaven +or even to home. + +Now when the genius of Buddha arose to deal with the matter, this sort +of cosmic sentiment was already common to almost everything in the East. +There was indeed the jungle of an extraordinarily extravagant and almost +asphyxiating mythology. Nevertheless it is possible to have more +sympathy with this popular fruitfulness in folk-lore than with some of +the higher pessimism that might have withered it. It must always be +remembered, however, when all fair allowances are made, that a great +deal of spontaneous eastern imagery really is idolatry; the local and +literal worship of an idol. This is probably not true of the ancient +Brahminical system, at least as seen by Brahmins. But that phrase alone +will remind us of a reality of much greater moment. This great reality +is the Caste System of ancient India. It may have had some of the +practical advantages of the Guild System of Medieval Europe. But it +contrasts not only with that Christian democracy, but with every extreme +type of Christian aristocracy, in the fact that it does really conceive +the social superiority as a spiritual superiority. This not only divides +it fundamentally from the fraternity of Christendom but leaves it +standing like a mighty and terraced mountain of pride between the +relatively egalitarian levels both of Islam and of China. But the fixity +of this formation through thousands of years is another illustration of +that spirit of repetition that has marked time from time immemorial. Now +we may also presume the prevalence of another idea which we associate +with the Buddhists as interpreted by the Theosophists. As a fact, some +of the strictest + +Buddhists repudiate the idea and still more scornfully repudiate the +Theosophists. But whether the idea is in Buddhism, or only in the +birthplace of Buddhism, or only in a tradition or a travesty of +Buddhism, it is an idea entirely proper to this principle of recurrence. +I mean of course the idea of Reincarnation. + +But Reincarnation is not really a mystical idea. It is not really a +transcendental idea, or in that sense a religious idea. Mysticism +conceives something transcending experience; religion seeks glimpses of +a better good or a worse evil than experience can give. Reincarnation +need only extend experiences in the sense of repeating them. It is no +more transcendental for a man to remember what he did in Babylon before +he was born than to remember what he did in Brixton before he had a +knock on the head. His successive lives *need* not be any more than +human lives, under whatever limitations burden human life. It has +nothing to do with seeing God or even conjuring up the devil. In other +words, reincarnation as such does not necessarily escape from the wheel +of destiny, in some sense it is the wheel of destiny. And whether it was +something that Buddha founded\* or something that Buddha found, or +something that Buddha entirely renounced when he found, it is certainly +something having the general character of that Asiatic atmosphere in +which he had to play his part. And the part he played was that of an +intellectual philosopher, with a particular theory about the right +intellectual attitude towards it. + +I can understand that Buddhists might resent the view that Buddhism is +merely a philosophy, if we understand by a philosophy merely an +intellectual game such as Greek sophists played, tossing up worlds and +catching them like balls. Perhaps a more exact statement would be that +Buddha was a man who made a metaphysical discipline; which might even be +called a psychological discipline. He proposed a way of escaping from +all this recurrent sorrow; and that was simply by getting rid of the +delusion that is called desire. It was emphatically *not* that we should +get what we want better by restraining our impatience for part of it, or +that we should get it in a better way or in a better world. It was +emphatically that we should leave off wanting it. If once a man realised +that there is really no reality, that everything, including his soul, is +in dissolution at every instant, he would anticipate disappointment and +be intangible to change, existing (in so far as he could be said to +exist) in a sort of ecstasy of indifference. The Buddhists call this +beatitude, and we will not stop our story to argue the point; certainly +to us it is indistinguishable from despair. I do not see, for instance, +why the disappointment of desire should not apply as much to the most +benevolent desires as to the most selfish ones. Indeed the Lord of +Compassion seems to pity people for living rather than for dying. For +the rest, an intelligent Buddhist wrote, "The explanation of popular +Chinese and Japanese Buddhism is that it is not Buddhism. *That* has +doubtless ceased to be a mere philosophy, but only by becoming a mere +mythology. One thing is certain: it has never become anything remotely +resembling what we call a Church. + +It will appear only a jest to say that all religious history has really +been a pattern of noughts and crosses. But I do not by noughts mean +nothings, but only things that are negative compared with the positive +shape or pattern of the other. And though the symbol is of course only a +coincidence, it is a coincidence that really does coincide. The mind of +Asia can really be represented by a round 0, if not in the sense of a +cypher at least of a circle. The great Asiatic symbol of a serpent with +its tail in its mouth is really a very perfect image of a certain idea +of unity and recurrence that does indeed belong to the Eastern +philosophies and religions. It really is a curve that in one sense +includes everything, and in another sense ) comes to nothing. In that +sense it does confess, or rather boast, that all argument is an argument +in a circle. And though the figure is but a symbol, we can see how sound +is the symbolic sense that produces it, the parallel symbol of the Wheel +of Buddha generally called the Swastika. The cross is a thing at right +angles pointing boldly in opposite directions; but the Swastika is the +same thing in the very act of returning to the recurrent curve. That +crooked cross is in fact a cross turning into a wheel. Before we dismiss +even these symbols as if they were arbitrary symbols, we must remember +how intense was the imaginative instinct that produced them or selected +them both in the East and the West. The cross has become something more +than a historical memory; it does convey, almost as by a mathematical +diagram, the truth about the real point at issue; the idea of a conflict +stretching outwards into eternity. It is true, and even tautological, to +say that the cross is the crux of the whole matter. + +In other words, the cross, in fact as well as figure, does really stand +for the idea of breaking out of the circle that is everything and +nothing. It does escape from the circular argument by which everything +begins and ends in the mind. Since we are still dealing in symbols, it +might be put in a parable in the form of that story about St. Francis, +which says that the birds departing with his benediction could wing +their way into the infinities of the four winds of heaven, their tracks +making a vast cross upon the sky; for compared with the freedom of that +flight of birds, the very shape of the Swastika is like a kitten chasing +its tail. In a more popular allegory, we might say that when St. George +thrust his spear into the monster's jaws, he broke in upon the solitude +of the self-devouring serpent and gave it something to bite besides its +own tail. But while many fancies might be used as figures of the truth, +the truth itself is abstract and absolute; though it is not very easy to +sum up except by such figures. Christianity does appeal to a solid truth +outside itself; to something which is in that sense external as well as +eternal. It does declare that things are really there; or in other words +that things are really things. In this Christianity is at one with +common sense; but all religious history shows that this common sense +perishes except where there is Christianity to preserve it. + +It cannot otherwise exist, or at least endure, because mere thought does +not remain sane. In a sense it becomes too simple to be sane. The +temptation of the philosophers is simplicity rather than subtlety. They +are always attracted by insane simplifications, as men poised above +abysses are fascinated by death and nothingness and the empty air. It +needed another kind of philosopher to stand poised upon the pinnacle of +the Temple and keep his balance without casting himself down. One of +these obvious, these too obvious explanations is that everything is a +dream and a delusion and there is nothing outside the ego. Another is +that all things recur; another, which is said to be Buddhist and is +certainly Oriental, is the idea that what is the matter with us is our +creation, in the sense of our coloured differentiation and personality, +and that nothing will be well till we are again melted into one unity. +By this theory, in short, the Creation was the Fall. It is important +historically because it was stored up in the dark heart of Asia and went +forth at various times in various forms over the dim borders of Europe. +Here we can place the mysterious figure of Manes or Manichaeus, the +mystic of inversion, whom we should call a pessimist, parent of many +sects and heresies; here, in a higher place, the figure of Zoroaster. He +has been popularly identified with another of these too simple +explanations: the equality of evil and good, balanced and battling in +every atom. He also is of the school of sages that may be called +mystics; and from the same mysterious Persian garden came upon ponderous +wings Mithras, the unknown god, to trouble the last twilight of Rome. + +That circle or disc of the sun set up in the morning of the world by the +remote Egyptian has been a mirror and a model for all the philosophers. +They have made many things out of it, and sometimes gone mad about it, +especially when as in these eastern sages the circle became a wheel +going round and round in their heads. But the point about them is that +they all think that existence can be represented by a diagram instead of +a drawing; and the rude drawings of the childish myth-makers are a sort +of crude and spirited protest against that view. They cannot believe +that religion is really not a pattern but a picture. Still less can they +believe that it is a picture of something that really exists outside our +minds. Sometimes the philosopher paints the disc all black and calls +himself a pessimist; sometimes he paints it all white and calls himself +an optimist; sometimes he divides it exactly into halves of black and +white and calls himself a dualist, like those Persian mystics to whom I +wish there were space to do justice. None of them could understand a +thing that began to draw the proportions just as if they were real +proportions, disposed in the living fashion which the mathematical +draughtsman would call disproportionate. Like the first artist in the +cave, it revealed to incredulous eyes the suggestion of a new purpose in +what looked like a wildly crooked pattern; he seemed only to be +distorting his diagram, when he began for the first time in all the ages +to trace the lines of a form---and of a Face. ### VII. The War of the Gods and the Demons -The materialist theory of history, that all politics and -ethics are the expression of economics, is a very simple -fallacy indeed. It consists simply of confusing the -necessary conditions of life with the normal preoccupations -of life, that are quite a different thing. It is like saying -that because a man can only walk about on two legs, -therefore he never walks about except to buy shoes and -stockings. Man cannot live without the two props of food and -drink, which support him like two legs; but to suggest that -they have been the motives of all his movements in history -is like saying that the goal of all his military marches or -religious pilgrimages must have been the Golden Leg of Miss -Kilsmansegg or the ideal and perfect leg of Sir Willoughby -Patterne. But it is such movements that make up the story of -mankind, and without them there would practically be no -story at all. Cows may be purely economic, in the sense that -we cannot see that they do much beyond grazing and seeking -better grazing-grounds; and that is why a history of cows in -twelve volumes would not be very lively reading. Sheep and -goats may be pure economists in their external action at -least; but that is why the sheep has hardly been a hero of -epic wars and empires thought worthy of detailed narration; -and even the more active quadruped has not inspired a book -for boys called Golden Deeds of Gallant Goats or any similar -title. But so far from the movements that make up the story -of man being economic, we may say that the story only begins -where the motive of the cows and sheep leaves off. It will -be hard to maintain that the Crusaders went from their homes -into a howling wilderness because cows go from a wilderness -to a more comfortable grazing-ground. It will be hard to -maintain that the Arctic explorers went north with the same -material motive that made the swallows go south. And if you -leave things like all the religious wars and all the merely -adventurous explorations out of the human story, it will not -only cease to be human at all but cease to be a story at -all. The outline of history is made of these decisive curves -and angles determined by the will of man. Economic history -would not even be history. - -But there is a deeper fallacy besides this obvious fact; -that men need not live for food merely because they cannot -live without food. The truth is that the thing most present -to the mind of man is not the economic machinery necessary -to his existence, but rather that existence itself; the -world which he sees when he wakes every morning and the -nature of his general position in it. There is something -that is nearer to him than livelihood, and that is life. For -once that he remembers exactly what work produces his wages -and exactly what wages produce his meals, he reflects ten -times that it is a fine day or it is a queer world, or -wonders whether life is worth living, or wonders whether -marriage is a failure, or is pleased and puzzled with his -own children, or remembers his own youth, or in any such -fashion vaguely reviews the mysterious lot of man. This is -true of the majority even of the wage-slaves of our morbid -modern industrialism, which by its hideousness and -inhumanity has really forced the economic issue to the -front. It is immeasurably more true of the multitude of -peasants or hunters or fishers who make up the real mass of -mankind. Even those dry pedants who think that ethics depend -on economics must admit that economics depend on existence. -And any number of normal doubts and day-dreams are about -existence; not about how we can live, but about why we do. -And the proof of it is simple; as simple as suicide. Turn -the universe upside down in the mind and you turn all the -political economists upside down with it. Suppose that a man -wishes to die, and the professor of political economy -becomes rather a bore with his elaborate explanations of how -he is to live. And all the departures and decisions that -make our human past into a story have this character of -diverting the direct course of pure economics. As the -economist may be excused from calculating the future salary -of a suicide, so he may be excused from providing an old-age -pension for a martyr. As he need not provide for the future -of a martyr, so he need not provide for the family of a -monk. His plan is modified in lesser and varying degrees by -a man being a soldier and dying for his own country, by a -man being a peasant and specially loving his own land, by a -man being more or less affected by any religion that forbids -or allows him to do this or that. But all these come back -not to an economic calculation about livelihood but to an -elemental outlook upon life. They all come back to what a -man fundamentally feels, when he looks forth from those -strange windows which we call the eyes, upon that strange -vision that we call the world. - -No wise man will wish to bring more long words into the -world. But it may be allowable to say that we need a new -thing; which may be called psychological history. I mean the -consideration of what things meant in the mind of a man, -especially an ordinary man; as distinct from what is defined -or deduced merely from official forms or political -pronouncements. I have already touched on it in such a case -as the totem or indeed any other popular myth. It is not -enough to be told that a tom-cat was called a totem; -especially when it was not called a totem. We want to know -what it felt like. Was it like Whittington's cat or like a -witch's cat? Was its real name Pasht or Puss-In-Boots? That -is the sort of thing we need touching the nature of -political and social relations. We want to know the real -sentiment that was the social bond of many common men, as -sane and as selfish as we are. What did soldiers feel when -they saw splendid in the sky that strange totem that we call -the Golden Eagle of the Legions? What did vassals feel about -those other totems, the lions or the leopards upon the -shield of their lord? So long as we neglect this subjective -side of history, which may more s im ply be called the -inside of history, there will always be a certain limitation -on that science which can be better transcended by art. So -long as the historian cannot do that, fiction will be truer -than fact. There will be more reality in a novel; yes, even -in a historical novel. - -In nothing is this new history needed so much as in the -psychology of war. Our history is stiff with official -documents, public or private, which tell us nothing of the -thing itself. At the worst we only have the official -posters, which could not have been spontaneous precisely -because they were official. At the best we have only the -secret diplomacy, which could not have been popular -precisely because it was secret. Upon one or other of these -is based the historical judgment about the real reasons that -sustained the struggle. Governments fight for colonies or -commercial rights; governments fight about harbours or high -tariffs; governments fight for a gold mine or a pearl -fishery? It seems sufficient to answer that governments do -not fight at all. Why do the fighters fight? What is the -psychology that sustains the terrible and wonderful thing -called a war! Nobody who knows anything of soldiers believes -the silly notion of the dons, that millions of men can be -ruled by force. If they were all to slack, it would be -impossible to punish all the slackers. And the least little -touch of slacking would lose a whole campaign in half a day. -What did men really feel about the policy? If it be said -that they accepted the policy from the politician, what did -they feel about the politician? If the vassals warred -blindly for their prince, what did those blind men see in -their prince? - -There is something we all know which can only be rendered, -in an appropriate language, as *realpolitik*. As a matter of -fact, it is an almost insanely unreal politik. It is always -stubbornly and stupidly repeating that men fight for -material ends, without reflecting for a moment that the -material ends are hardly ever material to the men who fight. -In any case, no man will die for practical politics, just as -no man will die for pay. Nero could not hire a hundred -Christians to be eaten by lions at a shilling an hour; for -men will not be martyred for money. But the vision called up -by real politik, or realistic politics, is beyond example -crazy and incredible. Does anybody in the world believe that -a soldier says, "My leg is nearly dropping off, but I shall -go on till it drops; for after all I shall enjoy all the -advantages of my government obtaining a warm-water port in -the Gulf of Finland." Can anybody suppose that a clerk -turned conscript says, "If I am gassed I shall probably die -in torments; but it is a comfort to reflect that should I -ever decide to become a pearl-diver in the South Seas, that -career is now open to me and my countrymen." Materialist -history is the most madly incredible of all histories, or -even of all romances. Whatever starts wars, the thing that -sustains wars is something in the soul; that is something -akin to religion. It is what men feel about life and about -death. A man near to death is dealing directly with an -absolute; it is nonsense to say he is concerned only with -relative and remote complications that death in any case -will end. If he is sustained by certain loyalties, they must -be loyalties as simple as death. They are generally two -ideas, which are only two sides of one idea. The first is -the love of something said to be threatened, if it be only -vaguely known as home; the second is dislike and defiance of -some strange thing that threatens it. The first is far more -philosophical than it sounds, though we need not discuss it -here. A man does not want his national home destroyed or -even changed, because he cannot even remember all the good -things that go with it; just as he does not want his house -burnt down, because he can hardly count all the things he -would miss. Therefore he fights for what sounds like a hazy -abstraction, but is really a house. But the negative side of -it is quite as noble as well as quite as strong. Men fight -hardest when they feel that the foe is at once an old enemy -and an eternal stranger, that his atmosphere is alien and -antagonistic; as the French feel about the Prussian or the -Eastern Christians about the Turk. If we say it is a -difference of religion, people will drift into dreary -bickerings about sects and dogmas. We will pity them and say -it is a difference about death and daylight; a difference -that does really come like a dark shadow between our eyes -and the day. Men can think of this difference even at the -point of death; for it is a difference about the meaning of -life. - -Men are moved in these things by something far higher and -holier than policy: by hatred. When men hung on in the -darkest days of the Great War, suffering either in their -bodies or in their souls for those they loved, they were -long past caring about details of diplomatic objects as -motives for their refusal to surrender. Of myself and those -I knew best I can answer for the vision that made surrender -impossible. It was the vision of the German Emperor's face -as he rode into Paris. This is not the sentiment which some -of my idealistic friends describe as Love. I am quite -content to call it hatred; the hatred of hell and all its -works, and to agree that as they do not believe in hell they -need not believe in hatred. But in the face of this -prevalent prejudice, this long introduction has been -unfortunately necessary, to ensure an understanding of what -is meant by a religious war. There is a religious war when -two worlds meet; that is, when two visions of the world meet -or in more modern language, when two moral atmospheres meet. -What is the one man's breath is the other man's poison; and -it is vain to talk of giving a pestilence a place in the -sun. And this is what we must understand, even at the -expense of digression, if we would see what really happened -in the Mediterranean; when right athwart the rising of the -Republic on the Tiber, a thing overtopping and disdaining -it, dark with all the riddles of Asia and trailing all the -tribes and dependencies of imperialism, came Carthage riding -on the sea. - -The ancient religion of Italy was on the whole that mixture -which we have considered under the head of mythology; save -that where the Greeks had a natural turn for the mythology, -the Latins seem to have had a real turn for religion. Both -multiplied gods, yet they sometimes seem to have multiplied -them for almost opposite reasons. It would seem sometimes as -if the Greek polytheism branched and blossomed upwards like -the boughs of a tree, while the Italian polytheism ramified -downwards like the roots. Perhaps it would be truer to say -that the former branches lifted themselves lightly, bearing -flowers; while the latter hung down, being heavy with fruit. -I mean that the Latins seem to multiply gods to bring them -nearer to men, while the Greek gods rose and radiated -outwards into the morning sky. What strikes us in the -Italian cults is their local and especially their domestic -character. We gain the impression of divinities swarming -about the house like flies; of deities clustering and -clinging like bats about the pillars or building like birds -under the eaves. We have a vision of a god of roofs and a -god of gateposts, of a god of doors and even a god of -drains. It has been suggested that all mythology was a sort -of fairy-tale; but this was a particular sort of fairytale -which may truly be called a fireside tale, or a -nursery-tale; because it was a tale of the interior of the -home; like those which make chairs and tables talk like -elves. The old household gods of the Italian peasants seem -to have been great, clumsy, wooden images, more featureless -than the figure-head which Quilp battered with the poker. -This religion of the home was very homely. Of course there -were other less human elements in the tangle of Italian -mythology. There were Greek deities superimposed on the -Roman; there were here and there uglier things underneath, -experiments in the cruel kind of paganism, like the Arician -rite of the priest slaying the slayer. But these things were -always potential in paganism; they are certainly not the -peculiar character of Latin paganism. The peculiarity of -that may be roughly covered by saying that if mythology -personified the forces of nature, this mythology personified -nature as transformed by the forces of man. It was the god -of the corn and not of the grass, of the cattle and not the -wild things of the forest; in short, the cult was literally -a culture; as when we speak of it as agriculture. - -With this there was a paradox which is still for many the -puzzle or riddle of the Latins. With religion running -through every domestic detail like a climbing plant, there -went what see ms to many the very opposite spirit: the -spirit of revolt. Imperialists and reactionaries often -invoke Rome as the very model of order and obedience; but -Rome was the very reverse. The real history of ancient Rome -is much more like the history of modern Paris. It might be -called in modern language a city built out of barricades. It -is said that the gate of Janus was never closed because -there was an eternal war without; it is almost as true that -there was an eternal revolution within. From the first -Plebeian riots to the last Servile Wars, the state that -imposed peace on the world was never really at peace. The -rulers were themselves rebels. - -There is a real relation between this religion in private -and this revolution in public life. Stories none the less -heroic for being hackneyed remind us that the Republic was -founded on a tyrannicide that avenged an insult to a wife; -that the Tribunes of the people were re-established after -another which avenged an insult to a daughter. The truth is -that only men to whom the family is sacred will ever have a -standard or a status by which to criticise the state. They -alone can appeal to something more holy than the gods of the -city; the gods of the hearth. That is why men are mystified -in seeing that the same nations that are thought rigid in -domesticity are also thought restless in politics; for -instance, the Irish and the French. It is worth while to -dwell on this domestic point because it is an exact example -of what is meant here by the inside of history, like the -inside of houses. Merely political histories of Rome may be -right enough in saying that this or that was a cynical or -cruel act of the Roman politicians; but the spirit that -lifted Rome from beneath was the spirit of all the Romans; -and it is not a cant to call it the ideal of Cincinnatus -passing from the senate to the plough. Men of that sort had -strengthened their village on every side, had extended its -victories already over Italians and even over Greeks, when -they found themselves confronted with a war that changed the -world. I have called it here the war of the gods and demons. - -There was established on the opposite coast of the inland -sea a city that bore the name of the New Town. It was -already much older, more powerful, and more prosperous than -the Italian town; but there still remained about it an -atmosphere that made the name not inappropriate. It had been -called new because it was a colony like New York or New -Zealand. It was an outpost or settlement of the energy and -expansion of the great commercial cities of Tyre and Sidon. -There was a note of the new countries and colonies about it; -a confident and commercial outlook. It was fond of saying -things that rang with a certain metallic assurance; as that -nobody could wash his hands in the sea without the leave of -the New Town. For it depended almost entirely on the -greatness of its ships, as did the two great ports and -markets from which its people came. It brought from Tyre and -Sidon a prodigious talent for trade and considerable -experience of travel. It brought other things as well. - -In a previous chapter I have hinted at something of the -psychology that lies behind a certain type of religion. -There was a tendency in those hungry for practical results, -apart from poetical results, to call upon spirits of terror -and compulsion; to move Acheron in despair of bending the -gods. There is always a sort of dim idea that these darker -powers will really do things, with no nonsense about it. In -the interior psychology of the Punic peoples this strange -sort of pessimistic practicality had grown to great -proportions. In the New Town, which the Romans called -Carthage, as in the parent cities of Phoenicia, the god who -got things done bore the name of Moloch, who was perhaps -identical with the other deity whom we know as Baal, the -Lord. The Romans did not at first quite know what to call -him or what to make of him; they had to go back to the -grossest myth of Greek or Roman origins and compare him to -Saturn devouring his children. But the worshippers of Moloch -were not gross or primitive. They were members of a mature -and polished civilisation, abounding in refinements and -luxuries; they were probably far more civilised than the -Romans. And Moloch was not a myth; or at any rate his meal -was not a myth. These highly civilised people really met -together to invoke the blessing of heaven on their empire by -throwing hundreds of their infants into a large furnace. We -can only realise the combination by imagining a number of -Manchester merchants with chimney-pot hats and mutton-chop -whiskers, going to church every Sunday at eleven o clock to -see a baby roasted. - -The first stages of the political or commercial quarrel can -be followed in far too much detail, precisely because it is -merely political or commercial. The Punic Wars looked at one -time as if they would never end; and it is not easy to say -when they ever began. The Greeks and the Sicilians had -already been fighting vaguely on the European side against -the African city. Carthage had defeated Greece and conquered -Sicily. Carthage had also planted herself firmly in Spain; -and between Spain and Sicily the Latin city was contained -and would have been crushed; if the Romans had been of the -sort to be easily crushed. Yet the interest of the story -really consists in the fact that Rome was crushed. If there -had not been certain moral elements as well as the material -elements, the story would have ended where Carthage -certainly thought it had ended. It is common enough to blame -Rome for not making peace. But it was a true popular -instinct that there could be no peace with that sort of -people. It is common enough to blame the Roman for his -*Delenda est Carthago*; Carthage must be destroyed. It is -commoner to forget that, to all appearances, Rome itself was -destroyed. The sacred savour that hung round Rome for ever, -it is too often forgotten, clung to her partly because she -had risen suddenly from the dead. - -Carthage was an aristocracy, as are most of such mercantile -states. The pressure of the rich on the poor was impersonal -as well as irresistible. For such aristocracies never permit -personal government, which is perhaps why this one was -jealous of personal talent. But genius can turn up anywhere, -even in a governing class. As if to make the world's supreme -test as terrible as possible, it was ordained that one of -the great houses of Carthage should produce a man who came -out of those gilded palaces with all the energy and -originality of Napoleon coming from nowhere. At the worst -crisis of the war, Rome learned that Italy itself, by a -military miracle, was invaded from the north. Hannibal, the -Grace of Baal as his name ran in his own tongue, had dragged -a ponderous chain of armaments over the starry solitudes of -the Alps; and pointed southward to the city which he had -been pledged by all his dreadful gods to destroy. - -Hannibal marched down the road to Rome, and the Romans who -rushed to war with him felt as if they were fighting with a -magician. Two great armies sank to right and left of him -into the swamps of the Trebia; more and more were sucked -into the horrible whirlpool of Cannae; more and more went -forth only to fall in ruin at his touch. The supreme sign of -all disasters, which is treason, turned tribe after tribe -against the falling cause of Rome, and still the -unconquerable enemy rolled nearer and nearer to the city; -and following their great leader the swelling cosmopolitan -army of Carthage passed like a pageant of the whole world; -the elephants shaking the earth like marching mountains and -the gigantic Gauls with their barbaric panoply and the dark -Spaniards girt in gold and the brown Numidians on their -unbridled desert horses wheeling and darting like hawks, and -whole mobs of deserters and mercenaries and miscellaneous -peoples; and the Grace of Baal went before them. - -The Roman augurs and scribes who said in that hour that it -brought forth unearthly prodigies, that a child was born -with the head of an elephant or that stars fell down like -hailstones, had a far more philosophical grasp of what had -really happened than the modern historian who can see -nothing in it but a success of strategy concluding a rivalry -in commerce. Something far different was felt at the time -and on the spot, as it is always felt by those who -experience a foreign atmosphere entering their own like a -fog or a foul savour. It was no mere military defeat, it was -certainly no mere mercantile rivalry, that filled the Roman -imagination with such hideous omens of nature herself -becoming unnatural It was Moloch upon the mountain of the -Latins, looking with his appalling face across the plain; it -was Baal who trampled the vineyards with his feet of stone; -it was the voice of Tanit the invisible, behind her trailing -veils, whispering of the love that is more horrible than -hate. The burning of the Italian cornfields, the ruin of the -Italian vines, were something more than actual; they were -allegorical. They were the destruction of domestic and -fruitful things, the withering of what was human before that -humanity that is far beyond the human thing called cruelty. -The household gods bowed low in darkness under then-lowly -roofs; and above them went the demons upon a wind from -beyond all walls, blowing the trumpet of the Tramontane. The -door of the Alps was broken down; and in no vulgar but a -very solemn sense, it was Hell let loose. The war of the -gods and demons seemed already to have ended; and the gods -were dead. The eagles were lost, the legions were broken; -and in Rome nothing remained but honour and the cold courage -of despair. - -In the whole world one thing still threatened Carthage, and -that was Carthage. There still remained the inner working of -an element strong in all successful commercial states, and -the presence of a spirit that we know. There was still the -solid sense and shrewdness of the men who manage big -enterprises; there was still the advice of the best -financial experts; there was still business government; -there was still the broad and sane outlook of practical men -of affairs; and in these things could the Romans hope. As -the war trailed on to what seemed its tragic end, there grew -gradually a faint and strange possibility that even now they -might not hope in vain. The plain business men of Carthage, -thinking as such men do in terms of living and dying races, -saw clearly that Rome was not only dying but dead. The war -was over; it was obviously hopeless for the Italian city to -resist any longer, and inconceivable that anybody should -resist when it was hopeless. Under these circumstances, -another set of broad, sound business principles remained to -be considered. Wars were waged with money, and consequently -cost money; perhaps they felt in their hearts, as do so many -of their kind, that after all war must be a little wicked -because it costs money. The time had now come for peace; and -still more for economy. The messages sent by Hannibal from -time to time asking for reinforcements were a ridiculous -anachronism; there were much more important things to attend -to now. It might be true that some consul or other had made -a last dash to the Metaurus, had killed Hannibal's brother -and flung his head, with Latin fury, into Hannibal's camp; -and mad actions of that sort showed how utterly hopeless the -Latins felt about their cause. But even excitable Latins -could not be so mad as to cling to a lost cause for ever. So -argued the best financial experts; and tossed aside more and -more letters, full of rather queer alarmist reports. So -argued and acted the great Carthaginian Empire. That -meaningless prejudice, the curse of commercial states, that -stupidity is in some way practical and that genius is in -some way futile, led them to starve and abandon that great -artist in the school of arms, whom the gods had given them -in vain. - -Why do men entertain this queer idea that what is sordid -must always overthrow what is magnanimous; that there is -some dim connection between brains and brutality, or that it -does not matter if a man is dull so long as he is also mean? -Why do they vaguely think of all chivalry as sentiment and -all sentiment as weakness? They do it because they are, like -all men, primarily inspired by religion. For them, as for -all men, the first fact is their notion of the nature of -things; their idea about what world they are living in. And -it is their faith that the only ultimate thing is fear and -therefore that the very heart of the world is evil. They -believe that death is stronger than life, and therefore dead -things must be stronger than living things; whether those -dead things are gold and iron and machinery or rocks and -rivers and forces of nature. It may sound fanciful to say -that men we meet at tea-tables or talk to at garden-parties -are secretly worshippers of Baal or Moloch. But this sort of -commercial mind has its own cosmic vision and it is the -vision of Carthage. It has in it the brutal blunder that was -the ruin of Carthage. The Punic power fell, because there is -in this materialism a mad indifference to real thought. By -disbelieving in the soul, it comes to disbelieving in the -mind. Being too practical to be moral, it denies what every -practical soldier calls the moral of an army. It fancies -that money will fight when men will no longer fight. So it -was with the Punic merchant princes. Their religion was a -religion of despair, even when their practical fortunes were -hopeful. How could they understand that the Romans could -hope even when their fortunes were hopeless? Their religion -was a religion of force and fear; how could they understand -that men can still despise fear even when they submit to -force? Their philosophy of the world had weariness in its -very heart; above all they were weary of warfare; how should -they understand those who still wage war even when they are -weary of it? In a word, how should they understand the mind -of Man, who had so long bowed down before mindless things, -money and brute force and gods who had the hearts of beasts? -They awoke suddenly to the news that the embers they had -disdained too much even to tread out were again breaking -everywhere into flame; that Hasdrubal was defeated, that -Hannibal was outnumbered, that Scipio had carried the war -into Spain; that he had carried it into Africa. Before the -very gates of the golden city Hannibal fought his last fight -for it and lost; and Carthage fell as nothing has fallen -since Satan. The name of the New City remains only as a -name. There is no stone of it left upon the sand. Another -war was indeed waged before the final destruction; but the -destruction was final. Only men digging in its deep -foundations centuries after found a heap of hundreds of -little skeletons, the holy relics of that religion. For -Carthage fell because she was faithful to her own philosophy -and had followed out to its logical conclusion her own -vision of the universe. Moloch had eaten his children. - -The gods had risen again, and the demons had been defeated -after all. But they had been defeated by the defeated, and -almost defeated by the dead. Nobody understands the romance -of Rome, and why she rose afterwards to a representative -leadership that seemed almost fated and fundamentally -natural, who does not keep in mind the agony of horror and -humiliation through which she had continued to testify to -the sanity that is the soul of Europe. She came to stand -alone in the midst of an empire because she had once stood -alone in the midst of a ruin and a waste. After that all men -knew in their hearts that she had been representative of -mankind, even when she was rejected of men. And there fell -on her the shadow from a shining and as yet invisible light -and the burden of things to be. It is not for us to guess in -what manner or moment the mercy of God might in any case -have rescued the world; but it is certain that the struggle -which established Christendom would have been very different -if there had been an empire of Carthage instead of an empire -of Rome. We have to thank the patience of the Punic wars if, -in after ages, divine things descended at least upon human -things and not inhuman. Europe evolved into its own vices -and its own impotence, as will be suggested on another page; -but the worst into which it evolved was not like what it had -escaped. Can any man in his senses compare the great wooden -doll, whom the children expected to eat a little bit of the -dinner, with the great idol who would have been expected to -eat the children? That is the measure of how far the world -went astray, compared with how far it might have gone -astray. If the Romans were ruthless, it was in a true sense -to an enemy, and certainly not merely a rival. They -remembered not trade routes and regulations, but the faces -of sneering men; and hated the hateful soul of Carthage. And -we owe them something if we never needed to cut down the -groves of Venus exactly as men cut down the groves of Baal. -We owe it partly to their harshness that our thoughts of our -human past are not wholly harsh. If the passage from -heathenry to Christianity was a bridge as well as a breach, -we owe it to those who kept that heathenry human. If, after -all these ages, we are in some sense at peace with paganism, -and can think more kindly of our fathers, it is well to -remember the things that were and the things that might have -been. For this reason alone we can take lightly the load of -antiquity and need not shudder at a nymph on a fountain or a -cupid on a valentine. Laughter and sadness link us with -things long past away and remembered without dishonour; and -we can see not altogether without tenderness the twilight -sinking around the Sabine farm and hear the household gods -rejoice when Catullus comes home to Sirmio. *Deleta est +The materialist theory of history, that all politics and ethics are the +expression of economics, is a very simple fallacy indeed. It consists +simply of confusing the necessary conditions of life with the normal +preoccupations of life, that are quite a different thing. It is like +saying that because a man can only walk about on two legs, therefore he +never walks about except to buy shoes and stockings. Man cannot live +without the two props of food and drink, which support him like two +legs; but to suggest that they have been the motives of all his +movements in history is like saying that the goal of all his military +marches or religious pilgrimages must have been the Golden Leg of Miss +Kilsmansegg or the ideal and perfect leg of Sir Willoughby Patterne. But +it is such movements that make up the story of mankind, and without them +there would practically be no story at all. Cows may be purely economic, +in the sense that we cannot see that they do much beyond grazing and +seeking better grazing-grounds; and that is why a history of cows in +twelve volumes would not be very lively reading. Sheep and goats may be +pure economists in their external action at least; but that is why the +sheep has hardly been a hero of epic wars and empires thought worthy of +detailed narration; and even the more active quadruped has not inspired +a book for boys called Golden Deeds of Gallant Goats or any similar +title. But so far from the movements that make up the story of man being +economic, we may say that the story only begins where the motive of the +cows and sheep leaves off. It will be hard to maintain that the +Crusaders went from their homes into a howling wilderness because cows +go from a wilderness to a more comfortable grazing-ground. It will be +hard to maintain that the Arctic explorers went north with the same +material motive that made the swallows go south. And if you leave things +like all the religious wars and all the merely adventurous explorations +out of the human story, it will not only cease to be human at all but +cease to be a story at all. The outline of history is made of these +decisive curves and angles determined by the will of man. Economic +history would not even be history. + +But there is a deeper fallacy besides this obvious fact; that men need +not live for food merely because they cannot live without food. The +truth is that the thing most present to the mind of man is not the +economic machinery necessary to his existence, but rather that existence +itself; the world which he sees when he wakes every morning and the +nature of his general position in it. There is something that is nearer +to him than livelihood, and that is life. For once that he remembers +exactly what work produces his wages and exactly what wages produce his +meals, he reflects ten times that it is a fine day or it is a queer +world, or wonders whether life is worth living, or wonders whether +marriage is a failure, or is pleased and puzzled with his own children, +or remembers his own youth, or in any such fashion vaguely reviews the +mysterious lot of man. This is true of the majority even of the +wage-slaves of our morbid modern industrialism, which by its hideousness +and inhumanity has really forced the economic issue to the front. It is +immeasurably more true of the multitude of peasants or hunters or +fishers who make up the real mass of mankind. Even those dry pedants who +think that ethics depend on economics must admit that economics depend +on existence. And any number of normal doubts and day-dreams are about +existence; not about how we can live, but about why we do. And the proof +of it is simple; as simple as suicide. Turn the universe upside down in +the mind and you turn all the political economists upside down with it. +Suppose that a man wishes to die, and the professor of political economy +becomes rather a bore with his elaborate explanations of how he is to +live. And all the departures and decisions that make our human past into +a story have this character of diverting the direct course of pure +economics. As the economist may be excused from calculating the future +salary of a suicide, so he may be excused from providing an old-age +pension for a martyr. As he need not provide for the future of a martyr, +so he need not provide for the family of a monk. His plan is modified in +lesser and varying degrees by a man being a soldier and dying for his +own country, by a man being a peasant and specially loving his own land, +by a man being more or less affected by any religion that forbids or +allows him to do this or that. But all these come back not to an +economic calculation about livelihood but to an elemental outlook upon +life. They all come back to what a man fundamentally feels, when he +looks forth from those strange windows which we call the eyes, upon that +strange vision that we call the world. + +No wise man will wish to bring more long words into the world. But it +may be allowable to say that we need a new thing; which may be called +psychological history. I mean the consideration of what things meant in +the mind of a man, especially an ordinary man; as distinct from what is +defined or deduced merely from official forms or political +pronouncements. I have already touched on it in such a case as the totem +or indeed any other popular myth. It is not enough to be told that a +tom-cat was called a totem; especially when it was not called a totem. +We want to know what it felt like. Was it like Whittington's cat or like +a witch's cat? Was its real name Pasht or Puss-In-Boots? That is the +sort of thing we need touching the nature of political and social +relations. We want to know the real sentiment that was the social bond +of many common men, as sane and as selfish as we are. What did soldiers +feel when they saw splendid in the sky that strange totem that we call +the Golden Eagle of the Legions? What did vassals feel about those other +totems, the lions or the leopards upon the shield of their lord? So long +as we neglect this subjective side of history, which may more s im ply +be called the inside of history, there will always be a certain +limitation on that science which can be better transcended by art. So +long as the historian cannot do that, fiction will be truer than fact. +There will be more reality in a novel; yes, even in a historical novel. + +In nothing is this new history needed so much as in the psychology of +war. Our history is stiff with official documents, public or private, +which tell us nothing of the thing itself. At the worst we only have the +official posters, which could not have been spontaneous precisely +because they were official. At the best we have only the secret +diplomacy, which could not have been popular precisely because it was +secret. Upon one or other of these is based the historical judgment +about the real reasons that sustained the struggle. Governments fight +for colonies or commercial rights; governments fight about harbours or +high tariffs; governments fight for a gold mine or a pearl fishery? It +seems sufficient to answer that governments do not fight at all. Why do +the fighters fight? What is the psychology that sustains the terrible +and wonderful thing called a war! Nobody who knows anything of soldiers +believes the silly notion of the dons, that millions of men can be ruled +by force. If they were all to slack, it would be impossible to punish +all the slackers. And the least little touch of slacking would lose a +whole campaign in half a day. What did men really feel about the policy? +If it be said that they accepted the policy from the politician, what +did they feel about the politician? If the vassals warred blindly for +their prince, what did those blind men see in their prince? + +There is something we all know which can only be rendered, in an +appropriate language, as *realpolitik*. As a matter of fact, it is an +almost insanely unreal politik. It is always stubbornly and stupidly +repeating that men fight for material ends, without reflecting for a +moment that the material ends are hardly ever material to the men who +fight. In any case, no man will die for practical politics, just as no +man will die for pay. Nero could not hire a hundred Christians to be +eaten by lions at a shilling an hour; for men will not be martyred for +money. But the vision called up by real politik, or realistic politics, +is beyond example crazy and incredible. Does anybody in the world +believe that a soldier says, "My leg is nearly dropping off, but I shall +go on till it drops; for after all I shall enjoy all the advantages of +my government obtaining a warm-water port in the Gulf of Finland." Can +anybody suppose that a clerk turned conscript says, "If I am gassed I +shall probably die in torments; but it is a comfort to reflect that +should I ever decide to become a pearl-diver in the South Seas, that +career is now open to me and my countrymen." Materialist history is the +most madly incredible of all histories, or even of all romances. +Whatever starts wars, the thing that sustains wars is something in the +soul; that is something akin to religion. It is what men feel about life +and about death. A man near to death is dealing directly with an +absolute; it is nonsense to say he is concerned only with relative and +remote complications that death in any case will end. If he is sustained +by certain loyalties, they must be loyalties as simple as death. They +are generally two ideas, which are only two sides of one idea. The first +is the love of something said to be threatened, if it be only vaguely +known as home; the second is dislike and defiance of some strange thing +that threatens it. The first is far more philosophical than it sounds, +though we need not discuss it here. A man does not want his national +home destroyed or even changed, because he cannot even remember all the +good things that go with it; just as he does not want his house burnt +down, because he can hardly count all the things he would miss. +Therefore he fights for what sounds like a hazy abstraction, but is +really a house. But the negative side of it is quite as noble as well as +quite as strong. Men fight hardest when they feel that the foe is at +once an old enemy and an eternal stranger, that his atmosphere is alien +and antagonistic; as the French feel about the Prussian or the Eastern +Christians about the Turk. If we say it is a difference of religion, +people will drift into dreary bickerings about sects and dogmas. We will +pity them and say it is a difference about death and daylight; a +difference that does really come like a dark shadow between our eyes and +the day. Men can think of this difference even at the point of death; +for it is a difference about the meaning of life. + +Men are moved in these things by something far higher and holier than +policy: by hatred. When men hung on in the darkest days of the Great +War, suffering either in their bodies or in their souls for those they +loved, they were long past caring about details of diplomatic objects as +motives for their refusal to surrender. Of myself and those I knew best +I can answer for the vision that made surrender impossible. It was the +vision of the German Emperor's face as he rode into Paris. This is not +the sentiment which some of my idealistic friends describe as Love. I am +quite content to call it hatred; the hatred of hell and all its works, +and to agree that as they do not believe in hell they need not believe +in hatred. But in the face of this prevalent prejudice, this long +introduction has been unfortunately necessary, to ensure an +understanding of what is meant by a religious war. There is a religious +war when two worlds meet; that is, when two visions of the world meet or +in more modern language, when two moral atmospheres meet. What is the +one man's breath is the other man's poison; and it is vain to talk of +giving a pestilence a place in the sun. And this is what we must +understand, even at the expense of digression, if we would see what +really happened in the Mediterranean; when right athwart the rising of +the Republic on the Tiber, a thing overtopping and disdaining it, dark +with all the riddles of Asia and trailing all the tribes and +dependencies of imperialism, came Carthage riding on the sea. + +The ancient religion of Italy was on the whole that mixture which we +have considered under the head of mythology; save that where the Greeks +had a natural turn for the mythology, the Latins seem to have had a real +turn for religion. Both multiplied gods, yet they sometimes seem to have +multiplied them for almost opposite reasons. It would seem sometimes as +if the Greek polytheism branched and blossomed upwards like the boughs +of a tree, while the Italian polytheism ramified downwards like the +roots. Perhaps it would be truer to say that the former branches lifted +themselves lightly, bearing flowers; while the latter hung down, being +heavy with fruit. I mean that the Latins seem to multiply gods to bring +them nearer to men, while the Greek gods rose and radiated outwards into +the morning sky. What strikes us in the Italian cults is their local and +especially their domestic character. We gain the impression of +divinities swarming about the house like flies; of deities clustering +and clinging like bats about the pillars or building like birds under +the eaves. We have a vision of a god of roofs and a god of gateposts, of +a god of doors and even a god of drains. It has been suggested that all +mythology was a sort of fairy-tale; but this was a particular sort of +fairytale which may truly be called a fireside tale, or a nursery-tale; +because it was a tale of the interior of the home; like those which make +chairs and tables talk like elves. The old household gods of the Italian +peasants seem to have been great, clumsy, wooden images, more +featureless than the figure-head which Quilp battered with the poker. +This religion of the home was very homely. Of course there were other +less human elements in the tangle of Italian mythology. There were Greek +deities superimposed on the Roman; there were here and there uglier +things underneath, experiments in the cruel kind of paganism, like the +Arician rite of the priest slaying the slayer. But these things were +always potential in paganism; they are certainly not the peculiar +character of Latin paganism. The peculiarity of that may be roughly +covered by saying that if mythology personified the forces of nature, +this mythology personified nature as transformed by the forces of man. +It was the god of the corn and not of the grass, of the cattle and not +the wild things of the forest; in short, the cult was literally a +culture; as when we speak of it as agriculture. + +With this there was a paradox which is still for many the puzzle or +riddle of the Latins. With religion running through every domestic +detail like a climbing plant, there went what see ms to many the very +opposite spirit: the spirit of revolt. Imperialists and reactionaries +often invoke Rome as the very model of order and obedience; but Rome was +the very reverse. The real history of ancient Rome is much more like the +history of modern Paris. It might be called in modern language a city +built out of barricades. It is said that the gate of Janus was never +closed because there was an eternal war without; it is almost as true +that there was an eternal revolution within. From the first Plebeian +riots to the last Servile Wars, the state that imposed peace on the +world was never really at peace. The rulers were themselves rebels. + +There is a real relation between this religion in private and this +revolution in public life. Stories none the less heroic for being +hackneyed remind us that the Republic was founded on a tyrannicide that +avenged an insult to a wife; that the Tribunes of the people were +re-established after another which avenged an insult to a daughter. The +truth is that only men to whom the family is sacred will ever have a +standard or a status by which to criticise the state. They alone can +appeal to something more holy than the gods of the city; the gods of the +hearth. That is why men are mystified in seeing that the same nations +that are thought rigid in domesticity are also thought restless in +politics; for instance, the Irish and the French. It is worth while to +dwell on this domestic point because it is an exact example of what is +meant here by the inside of history, like the inside of houses. Merely +political histories of Rome may be right enough in saying that this or +that was a cynical or cruel act of the Roman politicians; but the spirit +that lifted Rome from beneath was the spirit of all the Romans; and it +is not a cant to call it the ideal of Cincinnatus passing from the +senate to the plough. Men of that sort had strengthened their village on +every side, had extended its victories already over Italians and even +over Greeks, when they found themselves confronted with a war that +changed the world. I have called it here the war of the gods and demons. + +There was established on the opposite coast of the inland sea a city +that bore the name of the New Town. It was already much older, more +powerful, and more prosperous than the Italian town; but there still +remained about it an atmosphere that made the name not inappropriate. It +had been called new because it was a colony like New York or New +Zealand. It was an outpost or settlement of the energy and expansion of +the great commercial cities of Tyre and Sidon. There was a note of the +new countries and colonies about it; a confident and commercial outlook. +It was fond of saying things that rang with a certain metallic +assurance; as that nobody could wash his hands in the sea without the +leave of the New Town. For it depended almost entirely on the greatness +of its ships, as did the two great ports and markets from which its +people came. It brought from Tyre and Sidon a prodigious talent for +trade and considerable experience of travel. It brought other things as +well. + +In a previous chapter I have hinted at something of the psychology that +lies behind a certain type of religion. There was a tendency in those +hungry for practical results, apart from poetical results, to call upon +spirits of terror and compulsion; to move Acheron in despair of bending +the gods. There is always a sort of dim idea that these darker powers +will really do things, with no nonsense about it. In the interior +psychology of the Punic peoples this strange sort of pessimistic +practicality had grown to great proportions. In the New Town, which the +Romans called Carthage, as in the parent cities of Phoenicia, the god +who got things done bore the name of Moloch, who was perhaps identical +with the other deity whom we know as Baal, the Lord. The Romans did not +at first quite know what to call him or what to make of him; they had to +go back to the grossest myth of Greek or Roman origins and compare him +to Saturn devouring his children. But the worshippers of Moloch were not +gross or primitive. They were members of a mature and polished +civilisation, abounding in refinements and luxuries; they were probably +far more civilised than the Romans. And Moloch was not a myth; or at any +rate his meal was not a myth. These highly civilised people really met +together to invoke the blessing of heaven on their empire by throwing +hundreds of their infants into a large furnace. We can only realise the +combination by imagining a number of Manchester merchants with +chimney-pot hats and mutton-chop whiskers, going to church every Sunday +at eleven o clock to see a baby roasted. + +The first stages of the political or commercial quarrel can be followed +in far too much detail, precisely because it is merely political or +commercial. The Punic Wars looked at one time as if they would never +end; and it is not easy to say when they ever began. The Greeks and the +Sicilians had already been fighting vaguely on the European side against +the African city. Carthage had defeated Greece and conquered Sicily. +Carthage had also planted herself firmly in Spain; and between Spain and +Sicily the Latin city was contained and would have been crushed; if the +Romans had been of the sort to be easily crushed. Yet the interest of +the story really consists in the fact that Rome was crushed. If there +had not been certain moral elements as well as the material elements, +the story would have ended where Carthage certainly thought it had +ended. It is common enough to blame Rome for not making peace. But it +was a true popular instinct that there could be no peace with that sort +of people. It is common enough to blame the Roman for his *Delenda est +Carthago*; Carthage must be destroyed. It is commoner to forget that, to +all appearances, Rome itself was destroyed. The sacred savour that hung +round Rome for ever, it is too often forgotten, clung to her partly +because she had risen suddenly from the dead. + +Carthage was an aristocracy, as are most of such mercantile states. The +pressure of the rich on the poor was impersonal as well as irresistible. +For such aristocracies never permit personal government, which is +perhaps why this one was jealous of personal talent. But genius can turn +up anywhere, even in a governing class. As if to make the world's +supreme test as terrible as possible, it was ordained that one of the +great houses of Carthage should produce a man who came out of those +gilded palaces with all the energy and originality of Napoleon coming +from nowhere. At the worst crisis of the war, Rome learned that Italy +itself, by a military miracle, was invaded from the north. Hannibal, the +Grace of Baal as his name ran in his own tongue, had dragged a ponderous +chain of armaments over the starry solitudes of the Alps; and pointed +southward to the city which he had been pledged by all his dreadful gods +to destroy. + +Hannibal marched down the road to Rome, and the Romans who rushed to war +with him felt as if they were fighting with a magician. Two great armies +sank to right and left of him into the swamps of the Trebia; more and +more were sucked into the horrible whirlpool of Cannae; more and more +went forth only to fall in ruin at his touch. The supreme sign of all +disasters, which is treason, turned tribe after tribe against the +falling cause of Rome, and still the unconquerable enemy rolled nearer +and nearer to the city; and following their great leader the swelling +cosmopolitan army of Carthage passed like a pageant of the whole world; +the elephants shaking the earth like marching mountains and the gigantic +Gauls with their barbaric panoply and the dark Spaniards girt in gold +and the brown Numidians on their unbridled desert horses wheeling and +darting like hawks, and whole mobs of deserters and mercenaries and +miscellaneous peoples; and the Grace of Baal went before them. + +The Roman augurs and scribes who said in that hour that it brought forth +unearthly prodigies, that a child was born with the head of an elephant +or that stars fell down like hailstones, had a far more philosophical +grasp of what had really happened than the modern historian who can see +nothing in it but a success of strategy concluding a rivalry in +commerce. Something far different was felt at the time and on the spot, +as it is always felt by those who experience a foreign atmosphere +entering their own like a fog or a foul savour. It was no mere military +defeat, it was certainly no mere mercantile rivalry, that filled the +Roman imagination with such hideous omens of nature herself becoming +unnatural It was Moloch upon the mountain of the Latins, looking with +his appalling face across the plain; it was Baal who trampled the +vineyards with his feet of stone; it was the voice of Tanit the +invisible, behind her trailing veils, whispering of the love that is +more horrible than hate. The burning of the Italian cornfields, the ruin +of the Italian vines, were something more than actual; they were +allegorical. They were the destruction of domestic and fruitful things, +the withering of what was human before that humanity that is far beyond +the human thing called cruelty. The household gods bowed low in darkness +under then-lowly roofs; and above them went the demons upon a wind from +beyond all walls, blowing the trumpet of the Tramontane. The door of the +Alps was broken down; and in no vulgar but a very solemn sense, it was +Hell let loose. The war of the gods and demons seemed already to have +ended; and the gods were dead. The eagles were lost, the legions were +broken; and in Rome nothing remained but honour and the cold courage of +despair. + +In the whole world one thing still threatened Carthage, and that was +Carthage. There still remained the inner working of an element strong in +all successful commercial states, and the presence of a spirit that we +know. There was still the solid sense and shrewdness of the men who +manage big enterprises; there was still the advice of the best financial +experts; there was still business government; there was still the broad +and sane outlook of practical men of affairs; and in these things could +the Romans hope. As the war trailed on to what seemed its tragic end, +there grew gradually a faint and strange possibility that even now they +might not hope in vain. The plain business men of Carthage, thinking as +such men do in terms of living and dying races, saw clearly that Rome +was not only dying but dead. The war was over; it was obviously hopeless +for the Italian city to resist any longer, and inconceivable that +anybody should resist when it was hopeless. Under these circumstances, +another set of broad, sound business principles remained to be +considered. Wars were waged with money, and consequently cost money; +perhaps they felt in their hearts, as do so many of their kind, that +after all war must be a little wicked because it costs money. The time +had now come for peace; and still more for economy. The messages sent by +Hannibal from time to time asking for reinforcements were a ridiculous +anachronism; there were much more important things to attend to now. It +might be true that some consul or other had made a last dash to the +Metaurus, had killed Hannibal's brother and flung his head, with Latin +fury, into Hannibal's camp; and mad actions of that sort showed how +utterly hopeless the Latins felt about their cause. But even excitable +Latins could not be so mad as to cling to a lost cause for ever. So +argued the best financial experts; and tossed aside more and more +letters, full of rather queer alarmist reports. So argued and acted the +great Carthaginian Empire. That meaningless prejudice, the curse of +commercial states, that stupidity is in some way practical and that +genius is in some way futile, led them to starve and abandon that great +artist in the school of arms, whom the gods had given them in vain. + +Why do men entertain this queer idea that what is sordid must always +overthrow what is magnanimous; that there is some dim connection between +brains and brutality, or that it does not matter if a man is dull so +long as he is also mean? Why do they vaguely think of all chivalry as +sentiment and all sentiment as weakness? They do it because they are, +like all men, primarily inspired by religion. For them, as for all men, +the first fact is their notion of the nature of things; their idea about +what world they are living in. And it is their faith that the only +ultimate thing is fear and therefore that the very heart of the world is +evil. They believe that death is stronger than life, and therefore dead +things must be stronger than living things; whether those dead things +are gold and iron and machinery or rocks and rivers and forces of +nature. It may sound fanciful to say that men we meet at tea-tables or +talk to at garden-parties are secretly worshippers of Baal or Moloch. +But this sort of commercial mind has its own cosmic vision and it is the +vision of Carthage. It has in it the brutal blunder that was the ruin of +Carthage. The Punic power fell, because there is in this materialism a +mad indifference to real thought. By disbelieving in the soul, it comes +to disbelieving in the mind. Being too practical to be moral, it denies +what every practical soldier calls the moral of an army. It fancies that +money will fight when men will no longer fight. So it was with the Punic +merchant princes. Their religion was a religion of despair, even when +their practical fortunes were hopeful. How could they understand that +the Romans could hope even when their fortunes were hopeless? Their +religion was a religion of force and fear; how could they understand +that men can still despise fear even when they submit to force? Their +philosophy of the world had weariness in its very heart; above all they +were weary of warfare; how should they understand those who still wage +war even when they are weary of it? In a word, how should they +understand the mind of Man, who had so long bowed down before mindless +things, money and brute force and gods who had the hearts of beasts? +They awoke suddenly to the news that the embers they had disdained too +much even to tread out were again breaking everywhere into flame; that +Hasdrubal was defeated, that Hannibal was outnumbered, that Scipio had +carried the war into Spain; that he had carried it into Africa. Before +the very gates of the golden city Hannibal fought his last fight for it +and lost; and Carthage fell as nothing has fallen since Satan. The name +of the New City remains only as a name. There is no stone of it left +upon the sand. Another war was indeed waged before the final +destruction; but the destruction was final. Only men digging in its deep +foundations centuries after found a heap of hundreds of little +skeletons, the holy relics of that religion. For Carthage fell because +she was faithful to her own philosophy and had followed out to its +logical conclusion her own vision of the universe. Moloch had eaten his +children. + +The gods had risen again, and the demons had been defeated after all. +But they had been defeated by the defeated, and almost defeated by the +dead. Nobody understands the romance of Rome, and why she rose +afterwards to a representative leadership that seemed almost fated and +fundamentally natural, who does not keep in mind the agony of horror and +humiliation through which she had continued to testify to the sanity +that is the soul of Europe. She came to stand alone in the midst of an +empire because she had once stood alone in the midst of a ruin and a +waste. After that all men knew in their hearts that she had been +representative of mankind, even when she was rejected of men. And there +fell on her the shadow from a shining and as yet invisible light and the +burden of things to be. It is not for us to guess in what manner or +moment the mercy of God might in any case have rescued the world; but it +is certain that the struggle which established Christendom would have +been very different if there had been an empire of Carthage instead of +an empire of Rome. We have to thank the patience of the Punic wars if, +in after ages, divine things descended at least upon human things and +not inhuman. Europe evolved into its own vices and its own impotence, as +will be suggested on another page; but the worst into which it evolved +was not like what it had escaped. Can any man in his senses compare the +great wooden doll, whom the children expected to eat a little bit of the +dinner, with the great idol who would have been expected to eat the +children? That is the measure of how far the world went astray, compared +with how far it might have gone astray. If the Romans were ruthless, it +was in a true sense to an enemy, and certainly not merely a rival. They +remembered not trade routes and regulations, but the faces of sneering +men; and hated the hateful soul of Carthage. And we owe them something +if we never needed to cut down the groves of Venus exactly as men cut +down the groves of Baal. We owe it partly to their harshness that our +thoughts of our human past are not wholly harsh. If the passage from +heathenry to Christianity was a bridge as well as a breach, we owe it to +those who kept that heathenry human. If, after all these ages, we are in +some sense at peace with paganism, and can think more kindly of our +fathers, it is well to remember the things that were and the things that +might have been. For this reason alone we can take lightly the load of +antiquity and need not shudder at a nymph on a fountain or a cupid on a +valentine. Laughter and sadness link us with things long past away and +remembered without dishonour; and we can see not altogether without +tenderness the twilight sinking around the Sabine farm and hear the +household gods rejoice when Catullus comes home to Sirmio. *Deleta est Carthago*. ### VIII. The End of the World -I was once sitting on a summer day in a meadow in Kent under -the shadow of a little village church, with a rather curious -companion with whom I had just been walking through the -woods. He was one of a group of eccentrics I had come across -in my wanderings who had a new religion called Higher -Thought; in which I had been so far initiated as to realise -a general atmosphere of loftiness or height, and was hoping -at some later and more esoteric stage to discover the -beginnings of thought. My companion was the most amusing of -them, for however he may have stood towards thought, he was -at least very much their superior in experience, having -travelled beyond the tropics while they were meditating in -the suburbs; though he had been charged with excess in -telling travellers' tales. In spite of anything said against -him, I preferred him to his companions and willingly went -with him through the wood; where I could not but feel that -his sunburnt face and fierce tufted eyebrows and pointed -beard gave h im something of the look of Pan. Then we sat -down in the meadow and gazed idly at the tree-tops and the -spire of the village church; while the warm afternoon began -to mellow into early evening and the song of a speck of a -bird was faint far up in the sky and no more than a whisper -of breeze soothed rather than stirred the ancient orchards -of the garden of England. Then my companion said to me: "Do -you know why the spire of that church goes up like that?" I -expressed a respectable agnosticism, and he answered in an -offhand way, "Oh, the same as the obelisks; the phallic -worship of antiquity." Then I looked across at him suddenly -as he lay there leering above his goatlike beard; and for -the moment I thought he was not Pan but the Devil. No mortal -words can express the immense, the insane incongruity and -unnatural perversion of thought involved in saying such a -thing at such a moment and in such a place. For one moment I -was in the mood in which men burned witches; and then a -sense of absurdity equally enormous seemed to open about me -like a dawn. "Why, of course," I said after a moment's -reflection, "if it hadn't been for phallic worship, they -would have built the spire pointing downwards and standing -on its own apex." I could have sat in that field and laughed -for an hour. My friend did not seem offended, for indeed he -was never thin-skinned about his scientific discoveries. I -had only met him by chance and I never met him again, and I -believe he is now dead; but though it has nothing to do with -the argument, it may be worth while to mention the name of -this adherent of Higher Thought and interpreter of primitive -religious origins; or at any rate the name by which he was +I was once sitting on a summer day in a meadow in Kent under the shadow +of a little village church, with a rather curious companion with whom I +had just been walking through the woods. He was one of a group of +eccentrics I had come across in my wanderings who had a new religion +called Higher Thought; in which I had been so far initiated as to +realise a general atmosphere of loftiness or height, and was hoping at +some later and more esoteric stage to discover the beginnings of +thought. My companion was the most amusing of them, for however he may +have stood towards thought, he was at least very much their superior in +experience, having travelled beyond the tropics while they were +meditating in the suburbs; though he had been charged with excess in +telling travellers' tales. In spite of anything said against him, I +preferred him to his companions and willingly went with him through the +wood; where I could not but feel that his sunburnt face and fierce +tufted eyebrows and pointed beard gave h im something of the look of +Pan. Then we sat down in the meadow and gazed idly at the tree-tops and +the spire of the village church; while the warm afternoon began to +mellow into early evening and the song of a speck of a bird was faint +far up in the sky and no more than a whisper of breeze soothed rather +than stirred the ancient orchards of the garden of England. Then my +companion said to me: "Do you know why the spire of that church goes up +like that?" I expressed a respectable agnosticism, and he answered in an +offhand way, "Oh, the same as the obelisks; the phallic worship of +antiquity." Then I looked across at him suddenly as he lay there leering +above his goatlike beard; and for the moment I thought he was not Pan +but the Devil. No mortal words can express the immense, the insane +incongruity and unnatural perversion of thought involved in saying such +a thing at such a moment and in such a place. For one moment I was in +the mood in which men burned witches; and then a sense of absurdity +equally enormous seemed to open about me like a dawn. "Why, of course," +I said after a moment's reflection, "if it hadn't been for phallic +worship, they would have built the spire pointing downwards and standing +on its own apex." I could have sat in that field and laughed for an +hour. My friend did not seem offended, for indeed he was never +thin-skinned about his scientific discoveries. I had only met him by +chance and I never met him again, and I believe he is now dead; but +though it has nothing to do with the argument, it may be worth while to +mention the name of this adherent of Higher Thought and interpreter of +primitive religious origins; or at any rate the name by which he was known. It was Louis de Rougemont. -That insane image of the Kentish church standing on the -point of its spire, as in some old rustic topsyturvy tale, -always comes back into my imagination when I hear these -things said about pagan origins; and calls to my aid the -laughter of the giants. Then I feel as genially and -charitably to all other scientific investigators, higher -critics, and authorities on ancient and modern religion, as -I do to poor Louis de Rougemont. But the memory of that -immense absurdity remains as a sort of measure and check by -which to keep sane, not only on the subject of Christian -churches, but also on the subject of heathen temples. Now a -great many people have talked about heathen origins as the -distinguished traveller talked about Christian origins. -Indeed a great many modern heathens have been very hard on -heathenism. A great many modern humanitarians have been very -hard on the real religion of humanity. They have represented -it as being everywhere and from the first rooted only in -these repulsive arcana; and carrying the character of -something utterly shameless and anarchical. Now I do not -believe this for a moment. I should never dream of thinking -about the whole worship of Apollo what De Rougemont could -think about the worship of Christ. I would never admit that -there was such an atmosphere in a Greek city as that madman -was able to smell in a Kentish village. On the contrary, it -is the whole point, even of this final chapter upon the -final decay of paganism, to insist once more that the worst -sort of paganism had already been defeated by the best sort. -It was the best sort of paganism that conquered the gold of -Carthage. It was the best sort of paganism that wore the -laurels of Rome. It was the best thing the world had yet -seen, all things considered and on any large scale, that -ruled from the wall of the Grampians to the garden of the -Euphrates. It was the best that conquered; it was the best -that ruled; and it was the best that began to decay. - -Unless this broad truth be grasped, the whole story is seen -askew. Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being -tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of -suffering, but in being weary of joy. It is when for some -reason or other the good things in a society no longer work -that the society begins to decline; when its food does not -feed, when its cures do not cure, when its blessings refuse -to bless. We might almost say that in a society without such -good things we should hardly have any test by which to -register a decline; that is why some of the static -commercial oligarchies like Carthage have rather an air in -history of standing and staring like mummies, so dried up -and swathed and embalmed that no man knows when they are new -or old. But Carthage at any rate was dead, and the worst -assault ever made by the demons on mortal society had been -defeated. But how much would it matter that the worst was -dead if the best was dying? - -To begin with, it must be noted that the relation of Rome to -Carthage was partially repeated and extended in her relation -to nations more normal and more nearly akin to her than -Carthage. I am not here concerned to controvert the merely -political view that Roman statesmen acted unscrupulously -towards Corinth or the Greek cities. But I am concerned to -contradict the notion that there was nothing but a -hypocritical excuse in the ordinary Roman dislike of Greek -vices. I am not presenting these pagans as paladins of -chivalry, with a sentiment about nationalism never known -until Christian times. But I am presenting them as men with -the feelings of men; and those feelings were not a pretence. -The truth is that one of the weaknesses in nature-worship -and mere mythology had already produced a perversion among -the Greeks, due to the worst sophistry; the sophistry of -simplicity. Just as they became unnatural by worshipping -nature, so they actually became unmanly by worshipping man. -If Greece led her conqueror, she might have misled her +That insane image of the Kentish church standing on the point of its +spire, as in some old rustic topsyturvy tale, always comes back into my +imagination when I hear these things said about pagan origins; and calls +to my aid the laughter of the giants. Then I feel as genially and +charitably to all other scientific investigators, higher critics, and +authorities on ancient and modern religion, as I do to poor Louis de +Rougemont. But the memory of that immense absurdity remains as a sort of +measure and check by which to keep sane, not only on the subject of +Christian churches, but also on the subject of heathen temples. Now a +great many people have talked about heathen origins as the distinguished +traveller talked about Christian origins. Indeed a great many modern +heathens have been very hard on heathenism. A great many modern +humanitarians have been very hard on the real religion of humanity. They +have represented it as being everywhere and from the first rooted only +in these repulsive arcana; and carrying the character of something +utterly shameless and anarchical. Now I do not believe this for a +moment. I should never dream of thinking about the whole worship of +Apollo what De Rougemont could think about the worship of Christ. I +would never admit that there was such an atmosphere in a Greek city as +that madman was able to smell in a Kentish village. On the contrary, it +is the whole point, even of this final chapter upon the final decay of +paganism, to insist once more that the worst sort of paganism had +already been defeated by the best sort. It was the best sort of paganism +that conquered the gold of Carthage. It was the best sort of paganism +that wore the laurels of Rome. It was the best thing the world had yet +seen, all things considered and on any large scale, that ruled from the +wall of the Grampians to the garden of the Euphrates. It was the best +that conquered; it was the best that ruled; and it was the best that +began to decay. + +Unless this broad truth be grasped, the whole story is seen askew. +Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. +Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of +joy. It is when for some reason or other the good things in a society no +longer work that the society begins to decline; when its food does not +feed, when its cures do not cure, when its blessings refuse to bless. We +might almost say that in a society without such good things we should +hardly have any test by which to register a decline; that is why some of +the static commercial oligarchies like Carthage have rather an air in +history of standing and staring like mummies, so dried up and swathed +and embalmed that no man knows when they are new or old. But Carthage at +any rate was dead, and the worst assault ever made by the demons on +mortal society had been defeated. But how much would it matter that the +worst was dead if the best was dying? + +To begin with, it must be noted that the relation of Rome to Carthage +was partially repeated and extended in her relation to nations more +normal and more nearly akin to her than Carthage. I am not here +concerned to controvert the merely political view that Roman statesmen +acted unscrupulously towards Corinth or the Greek cities. But I am +concerned to contradict the notion that there was nothing but a +hypocritical excuse in the ordinary Roman dislike of Greek vices. I am +not presenting these pagans as paladins of chivalry, with a sentiment +about nationalism never known until Christian times. But I am presenting +them as men with the feelings of men; and those feelings were not a +pretence. The truth is that one of the weaknesses in nature-worship and +mere mythology had already produced a perversion among the Greeks, due +to the worst sophistry; the sophistry of simplicity. Just as they became +unnatural by worshipping nature, so they actually became unmanly by +worshipping man. If Greece led her conqueror, she might have misled her conqueror; but these were things he did originally wish to -conquer---even in himself. It is true that in one sense -there was less inhumanity even in Sodom and Gomorrah than in -Tyre and Sidon. When we consider the war of the demons on -the children, we cannot compare even Greek decadence to -Punic devil-worship. But it is not true that the sincere -revulsion from either need be merely pharisaical. It is not -true to human nature or to common sense. Let any lad who has -had the luck to grow up sane and simple in his daydreams of -love hear for the first time of the cult of Ganymede; he -will not be merely shocked but sickened. And that first -impression, as has been said here so often about first -impressions, will be right. Our cynical indifference is an -illusion; it is the greatest of all illusions: the illusion -of familiarity. It is right to conceive the more or less -rustic virtues of the ruck of the original Romans as -reacting against the very rumour of it, with complete -spontaneity and sincerity. It is right to regard them as -reacting, if in a lesser degree, exactly as they did against -the cruelty of Carthage. Because it was in a less degree -they did not destroy Corinth as they destroyed Carthage. But -if their attitude and action was rather destructive, in -neither case need their indignation have been mere -self-righteousness covering mere selfishness. And if anybody -insists that nothing could have operated in either case but -reasons of state and commercial conspiracies, we can only -tell him that there is something which he does not -understand; something which possibly he will never -understand; something which, until he does understand, he -will never understand the Latins. That something is called -democracy. He has probably heard the word a good many times -and even used it himself; but he has no notion of what it -means. All through the revolutionary history of Rome there -was an incessant drive towards democracy; the state and the -statesman could do nothing without a considerable backing of -democracy; the sort of democracy that never has anything to -do with diplomacy. It is precisely because of the presence -of Roman democracy that we hear so much about Roman -oligarchy. For instance, recent historians have tried to -explain the valour and victory of Rome in terms of that -detestable and detested usury which was practised by some of -the Patricians; as if Curius had conquered the men of the -Macedonian phalanx by lending them money; or the Consul Nero -had negotiated the victory of Metaurus at five per cent. But -we realise the usury of the Patricians because of the -perpetual revolt of the Plebeians. The rule of the Punic -merchant princes had the very soul of usury. But there was -never a Punic mob that dared to call them usurers. - -Burdened like all mortal things with all mortal sin and -weakness, the rise of Rome had really been the rise of -normal and especially of popular things; and in nothing more -than in the thoroughly normal and profoundly popular hatred -of perversion. Now among the Greeks a perversion had become -a convention. It is true that it had become so much of a -convention, especially a literary convention, that it was -sometimes conventionally copied by Roman literary men. But -this is one of those complications that always arise out of -conventions. It must not obscure our sense of the difference -of tone in the two societies as a whole. It is true that -Virgil would once in a way take over a theme of Theocritus; -but nobody can get the impression that Virgil was -particularly fond of that theme. The themes of Virgil were -specially and notably the normal themes, and nowhere more -than in morals; piety and patriotism and the honour of the -countryside. And we may well pause upon the name of the poet -as we pass into the autumn of antiquity: upon his name who -was in so supreme a sense the very voice of autumn, of its -maturity and its melancholy; of its fruits of fulfilment and -its prospect of decay. Nobody who reads even a few lines of -Virgil can doubt that he understood what moral sanity means -to mankind. Nobody can doubt his feelings when the demons -were driven in flight before the household gods. But there -are two particular points about him and his work which are -particularly important to the main thesis here. The first is -that the whole of his great patriotic epic is in a very -peculiar sense founded upon the fall of Troy; that is, upon -an avowed pride in Troy although she had fallen. In tracing -to Trojans the foundation of his beloved race and republic, -he began what may be called the great Trojan tradition which -runs through medieval and modern history. We have already -seen the first hint of it in the pathos of Homer about -Hector. But Virgil turned it not merely into a literature -but into a legend. And it was a legend of the almost divine -dignity that belongs to the defeated. This was one of the -traditions that did truly prepare the world for the coming -of Christianity and especially of Christian chivalry. This -is what did help to sustain civilisation through the -incessant defeats of the Dark Ages and the barbarian wars; -out of which what we call chivalry was born. It is the moral -attitude of the man with his back to the wall; and it was -the wall of Troy. All through medieval and modern times this -version of the virtues in the Homeric conflict can be traced -in a hundred ways co-operating with all that was akin to it -in Christian sentiment. Our own countrymen, and the men of -other countries, loved to claim like Virgil that their own -nation was descended from the heroic Trojans. All sorts of -people thought it the most superb sort of heraldry to claim -to be descended from Hector. Nobody seems to have wanted to -be descended from Achilles. The very fact that the Trojan -name has become a Christian name, and been scattered to the -last limits of Christendom, to Ireland or the Gaelic -Highlands, while the Greek name has remained relatively rare -and pedantic, is a tribute to the same truth. Indeed it -involves a curiosity of language almost in the nature of a -joke. The name has been turned into a verb; and the very -phrase about hectoring, in the sense of swaggering, suggests -the myriads of soldiers who have taken the fallen Trojan for -a model. As a matter of fact, nobody in antiquity was less -given to hectoring than Hector. But even the bully -pretending to be a conqueror took his title from the -conquered. That is why the popularisation of the Trojan -origin by Virgil has a vital relation to all those elements -that have made men say that Virgil was almost a Christian. -It is almost as if two great tools or toys of the same -timber, the divine and the human, had been in the hands of -Providence; and the only thing comparable to the Wooden -Cross of Calvary was the Wooden Horse of Troy. So, in some -wild allegory, pious in purpose if almost profane in form, -the Holy Child might have fought the Dragon with a wooden -sword and a wooden horse. - -The other element in Virgil which is essential to the -argument is the particular nature of his relation to -mythology; or what may here in a special sense be called -folklore, the faiths and fancies of the populace. Everybody -knows that his poetry at its most perfect is less concerned -with the pomposity of Olympus than with the numina of -natural and agricultural life. Every one knows where Virgil -looked for the causes of things. He speaks of finding them -not so much in cosmic allegories of Uranus and Chronos; but -rather in Pan and the sisterhood of the nymphs and the -shaggy old man of the forest. He is perhaps most himself in -some passages of the Eclogues, in which he has perpetuated -for ever the great legend of Arcadia and the shepherds. Here -again it is easy enough to miss the point with petty -criticism about all the things that happen to separate his -literary convention from ours. There is nothing more -artificial than the cry of artificiality, as directed -against the old pastoral poetry. We have entirely missed all -that our fathers meant by looking at the externals of what -they wrote. People have been so much amused with the mere -fact that the china shepherdess was made of china that they -have not even asked why she was made at all. They have been -so content to consider the Merry Peasant as a figure in an -opera that they have not asked even how he came to go to the -opera, or how he strayed on to the stage. - -In short, we have only to ask why there is a china -shepherdess and not a china shopkeeper. Why were not -mantelpieces adorned with figures of city merchants in -elegant attitudes; of ironmasters wrought in iron, or gold -speculators in gold? Why did the opera exhibit a Merry -Peasant and not a Merry Politician? Why was there not a -ballet of bankers, pirouetting upon pointed toes? Because -the ancient instinct and humour of humanity have always told -them, under whatever conventions, that the conventions of -complex cities were less really healthy and happy than the -customs of the countryside. So it is with the eternity of -the Eclogues. A modern poet did indeed write things called -Fleet Street Eclogues, in which poets took the place of the -shepherds. But nobody has yet written anything called Wall -Street Eclogues, in which millionaires should take the place -of the poets. And the reason is that there is a real if only -a recurrent yearning for that sort of simplicity J and there -is never that sort of yearning for that sort of complexity. -The key to the mystery of the Merry Peasant is that the -peasant often is merry. Those who do not believe it are -simply those who do not know anything about him, and -therefore do not know which are his times for merriment. -Those who do not believe in the shepherd's feast or song are -merely ignorant of the shepherd's calendar. The real -shepherd is indeed very different from the ideal shepherd, -but that is no reason for forgetting the reality at the root -of the ideal. It needs a truth to make a tradition. It needs -a tradition to make a convention. Pastoral poetry is -certainly often a convention, especially in a social -decline. It was in a social decline that Watteau shepherds -and shepherdesses lounged about the gardens of Versailles. -It was also in a social decline that shepherds and -shepherdesses continued to pipe and dance through the most -faded imitations of Virgil. But that is no reason for -dismissing the dying paganism without ever understanding its -life. It is no reason for forgetting that the very word -Pagan is the same as the word Peasant. We may say that this -art is only artificiality; but it is not a love of the -artificial. On the contrary, it is in its very nature only -the failure of nature-worship, or the love of the natural. - -For the shepherds were dying because their gods were dying. -Paganism lived upon poetry; that poetry already considered -under the name of mythology. But everywhere, and especially -in Italy, it had been a mythology and a poetry rooted in the -countryside; and that rustic religion had been largely -responsible for the rustic happiness. Only as the whole -society grew in age and experience, there began to appear -that weakness in all mythology already noted in the chapter -under that name. This religion was not quite religion. In -other words, this religion was not quite a reality. It was -the young world's riot with images and ideas like a young -man's riot with wine or love-making; it was not so much -immoral as irresponsible; it had no foresight of the final -test of time. Because it was creative to any extent it was -credulous to any extent. It belonged to the artistic side of -man, yet even considered artistically it had long become -overloaded and entangled. The family trees sprung from the -seed of Jupiter were a jungle rather than a forest; the -claims of the gods and demigods seemed like things to be -settled rather by a lawyer or a professional herald than by -a poet. But it is needless to say that it was not only in -the artistic sense that these things had grown more -anarchic. There had appeared in more and more flagrant -fashion that flower of evil that is really implicit in the -very seed of nature-worship, however natural it may seem. I -have said that I do not believe that natural worship -necessarily begins with this particular passion; I am not of -the De Rougemont school of scientific folk-lore. - -I do not believe that mythology must begin in eroticism. But -I do believe that mythology must end in it. I am quite -certain that mythology did end in it. Moreover, not only did -the poetry grow more immoral, but the immorality grew more -indefensible. Greek vices, oriental vices, hints of the old -horrors of the Semitic demons, began to fill the fancies of -decaying Rome, swarming like flies on a dung-heap. The -psychology of it is really human enough, to any one who will -try that experiment of seeing history from the inside. There -comes an hour in the afternoon when the child is tired of -"pretending"; when he is weary of being a robber or a Red -Indian. It is then that he torments the cat. There comes a -time in the routine of an ordered civilisation when the man -is tired of playing at mythology and pretending that a tree -is a maiden or that the moon made love to a man. The effect -of this staleness is the same everywhere; it is seen in all -drug-taking and dram-taking and every form of the tendency -to increase the dose. Men seek stranger sins or more -startling obscenities as stimulants to their jaded sense. -They seek after mad oriental religions for the same reason. -They try to stab their nerves to life, if it were with the -knives of the priests of Baal. They are walking in their -sleep and try to wake themselves up with nightmares. - -At that stage even of paganism therefore the peasant songs -and dances sound fainter and fainter in the forest. For one -thing, the peasant civilisation was fading, or had already -faded, from the whole countryside. The Empire at the end was -organised more and more on that servile system which -generally goes with the boast of organisation; indeed it was -almost as servile as the modern schemes for the organisation -of industry. It is proverbial that what would once have been -a peasantry became a mere populace of the town dependent for -bread and circuses; which may again suggest to some a mob -dependent upon doles and cinemas. In this as in many other -respects, the modern return to heathenism has been a return -not even to the heathen youth but rather to the heathen old -age. But the causes of it were spiritual in both cases; and -especially the spirit of paganism had departed with its -familiar spirits. The heart had gone out of it with its -household gods, who went along with the gods of the garden -and the field and the forest. The Old Man of the Forest was -too old; he was already dying. It is said truly in a sense -that Pan died because Christ was born. It is almost as true -in another sense that men knew that Christ was born because -Pan was already dead. A void was made by the vanishing of -the whole mythology of mankind, which would have asphyxiated -like a vacuum if it had not been filled with theology. But -the point for the moment is that the mythology could not -have lasted like a theology in any case. Theology is -thought, whether we agree with it or not. Mythology was -never thought, and nobody could really agree with it or -disagree with it. It was a mere mood of glamour, and when -the mood went it could not be recovered. Men not only ceased -to believe in the gods, but they realised that they had -never believed in them. They had sung their praises; they -had danced round their altars. They had played the flute; -they had played the fool. - -So came the twilight upon Arcady, and the last notes of the -pipe sound sadly from the beechen grove. In the great -Virgilian poems there is already something of the sadness; -but the loves and the household gods linger in lovely lines -like that which Mr. Belloc took for a test of understanding; -*incipe*, *parve puer*, *risu cognoscere matrem*. But with -them as with us, the human family itself began to break down -under servile organisation and the herding of the towns. The -urban mob became enlightened; that is, it lost the mental -energy that could create myths. All round the circle of the -Mediterranean cities the people mourned for the loss of gods -and were consoled with gladiators. And meanwhile something -similar was happening to that intellectual aristocracy of -antiquity that had been walking about and talking at large -ever since Socrates and Pythagoras. They began to betray to -the world the fact that they were walking in a circle and -saying the same thing over and over again. Philosophy began -to be a joke; it also began to be a bore. That unnatural -simplification of everything into one system or another, -which we have noted as the fault of the philosopher, -revealed at once its finality and its futility. Everything -was a virtue or everything was happiness or everything was -fate or everything was good or everything was bad; anyhow, -everything was everything and there was no more to be said; -so they said it. Everywhere the sages had degenerated into -sophists;. that is, into hired rhetoricians or askers of -riddles. It is one of the symptoms of this that the sage -begins to turn not only into a sophist but into a magician. -A touch of oriental occultism is very much appreciated in -the best houses. As the philosopher is already a society +conquer---even in himself. It is true that in one sense there was less +inhumanity even in Sodom and Gomorrah than in Tyre and Sidon. When we +consider the war of the demons on the children, we cannot compare even +Greek decadence to Punic devil-worship. But it is not true that the +sincere revulsion from either need be merely pharisaical. It is not true +to human nature or to common sense. Let any lad who has had the luck to +grow up sane and simple in his daydreams of love hear for the first time +of the cult of Ganymede; he will not be merely shocked but sickened. And +that first impression, as has been said here so often about first +impressions, will be right. Our cynical indifference is an illusion; it +is the greatest of all illusions: the illusion of familiarity. It is +right to conceive the more or less rustic virtues of the ruck of the +original Romans as reacting against the very rumour of it, with complete +spontaneity and sincerity. It is right to regard them as reacting, if in +a lesser degree, exactly as they did against the cruelty of Carthage. +Because it was in a less degree they did not destroy Corinth as they +destroyed Carthage. But if their attitude and action was rather +destructive, in neither case need their indignation have been mere +self-righteousness covering mere selfishness. And if anybody insists +that nothing could have operated in either case but reasons of state and +commercial conspiracies, we can only tell him that there is something +which he does not understand; something which possibly he will never +understand; something which, until he does understand, he will never +understand the Latins. That something is called democracy. He has +probably heard the word a good many times and even used it himself; but +he has no notion of what it means. All through the revolutionary history +of Rome there was an incessant drive towards democracy; the state and +the statesman could do nothing without a considerable backing of +democracy; the sort of democracy that never has anything to do with +diplomacy. It is precisely because of the presence of Roman democracy +that we hear so much about Roman oligarchy. For instance, recent +historians have tried to explain the valour and victory of Rome in terms +of that detestable and detested usury which was practised by some of the +Patricians; as if Curius had conquered the men of the Macedonian phalanx +by lending them money; or the Consul Nero had negotiated the victory of +Metaurus at five per cent. But we realise the usury of the Patricians +because of the perpetual revolt of the Plebeians. The rule of the Punic +merchant princes had the very soul of usury. But there was never a Punic +mob that dared to call them usurers. + +Burdened like all mortal things with all mortal sin and weakness, the +rise of Rome had really been the rise of normal and especially of +popular things; and in nothing more than in the thoroughly normal and +profoundly popular hatred of perversion. Now among the Greeks a +perversion had become a convention. It is true that it had become so +much of a convention, especially a literary convention, that it was +sometimes conventionally copied by Roman literary men. But this is one +of those complications that always arise out of conventions. It must not +obscure our sense of the difference of tone in the two societies as a +whole. It is true that Virgil would once in a way take over a theme of +Theocritus; but nobody can get the impression that Virgil was +particularly fond of that theme. The themes of Virgil were specially and +notably the normal themes, and nowhere more than in morals; piety and +patriotism and the honour of the countryside. And we may well pause upon +the name of the poet as we pass into the autumn of antiquity: upon his +name who was in so supreme a sense the very voice of autumn, of its +maturity and its melancholy; of its fruits of fulfilment and its +prospect of decay. Nobody who reads even a few lines of Virgil can doubt +that he understood what moral sanity means to mankind. Nobody can doubt +his feelings when the demons were driven in flight before the household +gods. But there are two particular points about him and his work which +are particularly important to the main thesis here. The first is that +the whole of his great patriotic epic is in a very peculiar sense +founded upon the fall of Troy; that is, upon an avowed pride in Troy +although she had fallen. In tracing to Trojans the foundation of his +beloved race and republic, he began what may be called the great Trojan +tradition which runs through medieval and modern history. We have +already seen the first hint of it in the pathos of Homer about Hector. +But Virgil turned it not merely into a literature but into a legend. And +it was a legend of the almost divine dignity that belongs to the +defeated. This was one of the traditions that did truly prepare the +world for the coming of Christianity and especially of Christian +chivalry. This is what did help to sustain civilisation through the +incessant defeats of the Dark Ages and the barbarian wars; out of which +what we call chivalry was born. It is the moral attitude of the man with +his back to the wall; and it was the wall of Troy. All through medieval +and modern times this version of the virtues in the Homeric conflict can +be traced in a hundred ways co-operating with all that was akin to it in +Christian sentiment. Our own countrymen, and the men of other countries, +loved to claim like Virgil that their own nation was descended from the +heroic Trojans. All sorts of people thought it the most superb sort of +heraldry to claim to be descended from Hector. Nobody seems to have +wanted to be descended from Achilles. The very fact that the Trojan name +has become a Christian name, and been scattered to the last limits of +Christendom, to Ireland or the Gaelic Highlands, while the Greek name +has remained relatively rare and pedantic, is a tribute to the same +truth. Indeed it involves a curiosity of language almost in the nature +of a joke. The name has been turned into a verb; and the very phrase +about hectoring, in the sense of swaggering, suggests the myriads of +soldiers who have taken the fallen Trojan for a model. As a matter of +fact, nobody in antiquity was less given to hectoring than Hector. But +even the bully pretending to be a conqueror took his title from the +conquered. That is why the popularisation of the Trojan origin by Virgil +has a vital relation to all those elements that have made men say that +Virgil was almost a Christian. It is almost as if two great tools or +toys of the same timber, the divine and the human, had been in the hands +of Providence; and the only thing comparable to the Wooden Cross of +Calvary was the Wooden Horse of Troy. So, in some wild allegory, pious +in purpose if almost profane in form, the Holy Child might have fought +the Dragon with a wooden sword and a wooden horse. + +The other element in Virgil which is essential to the argument is the +particular nature of his relation to mythology; or what may here in a +special sense be called folklore, the faiths and fancies of the +populace. Everybody knows that his poetry at its most perfect is less +concerned with the pomposity of Olympus than with the numina of natural +and agricultural life. Every one knows where Virgil looked for the +causes of things. He speaks of finding them not so much in cosmic +allegories of Uranus and Chronos; but rather in Pan and the sisterhood +of the nymphs and the shaggy old man of the forest. He is perhaps most +himself in some passages of the Eclogues, in which he has perpetuated +for ever the great legend of Arcadia and the shepherds. Here again it is +easy enough to miss the point with petty criticism about all the things +that happen to separate his literary convention from ours. There is +nothing more artificial than the cry of artificiality, as directed +against the old pastoral poetry. We have entirely missed all that our +fathers meant by looking at the externals of what they wrote. People +have been so much amused with the mere fact that the china shepherdess +was made of china that they have not even asked why she was made at all. +They have been so content to consider the Merry Peasant as a figure in +an opera that they have not asked even how he came to go to the opera, +or how he strayed on to the stage. + +In short, we have only to ask why there is a china shepherdess and not a +china shopkeeper. Why were not mantelpieces adorned with figures of city +merchants in elegant attitudes; of ironmasters wrought in iron, or gold +speculators in gold? Why did the opera exhibit a Merry Peasant and not a +Merry Politician? Why was there not a ballet of bankers, pirouetting +upon pointed toes? Because the ancient instinct and humour of humanity +have always told them, under whatever conventions, that the conventions +of complex cities were less really healthy and happy than the customs of +the countryside. So it is with the eternity of the Eclogues. A modern +poet did indeed write things called Fleet Street Eclogues, in which +poets took the place of the shepherds. But nobody has yet written +anything called Wall Street Eclogues, in which millionaires should take +the place of the poets. And the reason is that there is a real if only a +recurrent yearning for that sort of simplicity J and there is never that +sort of yearning for that sort of complexity. The key to the mystery of +the Merry Peasant is that the peasant often is merry. Those who do not +believe it are simply those who do not know anything about him, and +therefore do not know which are his times for merriment. Those who do +not believe in the shepherd's feast or song are merely ignorant of the +shepherd's calendar. The real shepherd is indeed very different from the +ideal shepherd, but that is no reason for forgetting the reality at the +root of the ideal. It needs a truth to make a tradition. It needs a +tradition to make a convention. Pastoral poetry is certainly often a +convention, especially in a social decline. It was in a social decline +that Watteau shepherds and shepherdesses lounged about the gardens of +Versailles. It was also in a social decline that shepherds and +shepherdesses continued to pipe and dance through the most faded +imitations of Virgil. But that is no reason for dismissing the dying +paganism without ever understanding its life. It is no reason for +forgetting that the very word Pagan is the same as the word Peasant. We +may say that this art is only artificiality; but it is not a love of the +artificial. On the contrary, it is in its very nature only the failure +of nature-worship, or the love of the natural. + +For the shepherds were dying because their gods were dying. Paganism +lived upon poetry; that poetry already considered under the name of +mythology. But everywhere, and especially in Italy, it had been a +mythology and a poetry rooted in the countryside; and that rustic +religion had been largely responsible for the rustic happiness. Only as +the whole society grew in age and experience, there began to appear that +weakness in all mythology already noted in the chapter under that name. +This religion was not quite religion. In other words, this religion was +not quite a reality. It was the young world's riot with images and ideas +like a young man's riot with wine or love-making; it was not so much +immoral as irresponsible; it had no foresight of the final test of time. +Because it was creative to any extent it was credulous to any extent. It +belonged to the artistic side of man, yet even considered artistically +it had long become overloaded and entangled. The family trees sprung +from the seed of Jupiter were a jungle rather than a forest; the claims +of the gods and demigods seemed like things to be settled rather by a +lawyer or a professional herald than by a poet. But it is needless to +say that it was not only in the artistic sense that these things had +grown more anarchic. There had appeared in more and more flagrant +fashion that flower of evil that is really implicit in the very seed of +nature-worship, however natural it may seem. I have said that I do not +believe that natural worship necessarily begins with this particular +passion; I am not of the De Rougemont school of scientific folk-lore. + +I do not believe that mythology must begin in eroticism. But I do +believe that mythology must end in it. I am quite certain that mythology +did end in it. Moreover, not only did the poetry grow more immoral, but +the immorality grew more indefensible. Greek vices, oriental vices, +hints of the old horrors of the Semitic demons, began to fill the +fancies of decaying Rome, swarming like flies on a dung-heap. The +psychology of it is really human enough, to any one who will try that +experiment of seeing history from the inside. There comes an hour in the +afternoon when the child is tired of "pretending"; when he is weary of +being a robber or a Red Indian. It is then that he torments the cat. +There comes a time in the routine of an ordered civilisation when the +man is tired of playing at mythology and pretending that a tree is a +maiden or that the moon made love to a man. The effect of this staleness +is the same everywhere; it is seen in all drug-taking and dram-taking +and every form of the tendency to increase the dose. Men seek stranger +sins or more startling obscenities as stimulants to their jaded sense. +They seek after mad oriental religions for the same reason. They try to +stab their nerves to life, if it were with the knives of the priests of +Baal. They are walking in their sleep and try to wake themselves up with +nightmares. + +At that stage even of paganism therefore the peasant songs and dances +sound fainter and fainter in the forest. For one thing, the peasant +civilisation was fading, or had already faded, from the whole +countryside. The Empire at the end was organised more and more on that +servile system which generally goes with the boast of organisation; +indeed it was almost as servile as the modern schemes for the +organisation of industry. It is proverbial that what would once have +been a peasantry became a mere populace of the town dependent for bread +and circuses; which may again suggest to some a mob dependent upon doles +and cinemas. In this as in many other respects, the modern return to +heathenism has been a return not even to the heathen youth but rather to +the heathen old age. But the causes of it were spiritual in both cases; +and especially the spirit of paganism had departed with its familiar +spirits. The heart had gone out of it with its household gods, who went +along with the gods of the garden and the field and the forest. The Old +Man of the Forest was too old; he was already dying. It is said truly in +a sense that Pan died because Christ was born. It is almost as true in +another sense that men knew that Christ was born because Pan was already +dead. A void was made by the vanishing of the whole mythology of +mankind, which would have asphyxiated like a vacuum if it had not been +filled with theology. But the point for the moment is that the mythology +could not have lasted like a theology in any case. Theology is thought, +whether we agree with it or not. Mythology was never thought, and nobody +could really agree with it or disagree with it. It was a mere mood of +glamour, and when the mood went it could not be recovered. Men not only +ceased to believe in the gods, but they realised that they had never +believed in them. They had sung their praises; they had danced round +their altars. They had played the flute; they had played the fool. + +So came the twilight upon Arcady, and the last notes of the pipe sound +sadly from the beechen grove. In the great Virgilian poems there is +already something of the sadness; but the loves and the household gods +linger in lovely lines like that which Mr. Belloc took for a test of +understanding; *incipe*, *parve puer*, *risu cognoscere matrem*. But +with them as with us, the human family itself began to break down under +servile organisation and the herding of the towns. The urban mob became +enlightened; that is, it lost the mental energy that could create myths. +All round the circle of the Mediterranean cities the people mourned for +the loss of gods and were consoled with gladiators. And meanwhile +something similar was happening to that intellectual aristocracy of +antiquity that had been walking about and talking at large ever since +Socrates and Pythagoras. They began to betray to the world the fact that +they were walking in a circle and saying the same thing over and over +again. Philosophy began to be a joke; it also began to be a bore. That +unnatural simplification of everything into one system or another, which +we have noted as the fault of the philosopher, revealed at once its +finality and its futility. Everything was a virtue or everything was +happiness or everything was fate or everything was good or everything +was bad; anyhow, everything was everything and there was no more to be +said; so they said it. Everywhere the sages had degenerated into +sophists;. that is, into hired rhetoricians or askers of riddles. It is +one of the symptoms of this that the sage begins to turn not only into a +sophist but into a magician. A touch of oriental occultism is very much +appreciated in the best houses. As the philosopher is already a society entertainer, he may as well also be a conjurer. -Many moderns have insisted on the smallness of that -Mediterranean world; and the wider horizons that might have -awaited it with the discovery of the other continents. But -this is an illusion; one of the many illusions of -materialism. The limits that paganism had reached in Europe -were the limits of human existence; at its best it had only -reached the same limits anywhere else. The Roman stoics did -not need any Chinamen to teach them stoicism. The -Pythagoreans did not need any Hindus to teach them about -recurrence or the simple life or the beauty of being a -vegetarian. In so far as they could get these things from -the East, they had already got rather too much of them from -the East. The Syncretists were as convinced as Theosophists -that all religions are really the same. And how else could -they have extended philosophy merely by extending geography? -It can hardly be proposed that they should learn a purer -religion from the Aztecs or sit at the feet of the Incas of -Peru. All the rest of the world was a welter of barbarism. -It is essential to recognise that the Roman Empire was -recognised as the highest achievement of the human race; and -also as the broadest. A dreadful secret seemed to be written -as in obscure hieroglyphics across those mighty works of -marble and stone, those colossal amphitheatres and +Many moderns have insisted on the smallness of that Mediterranean world; +and the wider horizons that might have awaited it with the discovery of +the other continents. But this is an illusion; one of the many illusions +of materialism. The limits that paganism had reached in Europe were the +limits of human existence; at its best it had only reached the same +limits anywhere else. The Roman stoics did not need any Chinamen to +teach them stoicism. The Pythagoreans did not need any Hindus to teach +them about recurrence or the simple life or the beauty of being a +vegetarian. In so far as they could get these things from the East, they +had already got rather too much of them from the East. The Syncretists +were as convinced as Theosophists that all religions are really the +same. And how else could they have extended philosophy merely by +extending geography? It can hardly be proposed that they should learn a +purer religion from the Aztecs or sit at the feet of the Incas of Peru. +All the rest of the world was a welter of barbarism. It is essential to +recognise that the Roman Empire was recognised as the highest +achievement of the human race; and also as the broadest. A dreadful +secret seemed to be written as in obscure hieroglyphics across those +mighty works of marble and stone, those colossal amphitheatres and aqueducts. Man could do no more. -For it was not the message blazed on the Babylonian wall, -that one king was found wanting or his one kingdom given to -a stranger. It was no such good news as the news of invasion -and conquest. There was nothing left that could conquer -Rome; but there was also nothing left that could improve it. -It was the strongest thing that was growing weak. It was the -best thing that was going to the bad. It is necessary to -insist again and again that many civilisations had met in -one civilisation of the Mediterranean sea; that it was -already universal with a stale and sterile universality. The -peoples had pooled their resources and still there was not -enough. The empires had gone into partnership and they were -still bankrupt. No philosopher who was really philosophical -could think anything except that, in that central sea, the -wave of the world had risen to its highest, seeming to touch -the stars. But the wave was already stooping; for it was -only the wave of the world. - -That mythology and that philosophy into which paganism has -already been analysed had thus both of them been drained -most literally to the dregs. If with the multiplication of -magic the third department, which we have called the demons, -was even increasingly active, it was never anything but -destructive. There remains only the fourth element, or -rather the first; that which had been in a sense forgotten -because it was the first. I mean the primary and -overpowering yet impalpable impression that the universe -after all has one origin and one aim; and because it has an -aim must have an author. What became of this great truth in -the background of men's minds, at this time, it is perhaps -more difficult to determine. Some of the Stoics undoubtedly -saw it more and more clearly as the clouds of mythology -cleared and thinned away; and great men among them did much -even to the last to lay the foundations of a concept of the -moral unity of the world. The Jews still held their secret -certainty of it jealously behind high fences of -exclusiveness; yet it is intensely characteristic of the -society and the situation that some fashionable figures, -especially fashionable ladies, actually embraced Judaism. -But in the case of many others I fancy there entered at this -point a new negation. Atheism became really possible in that -abnormal time; for atheism is abnormality. It is not merely -the denial of a dogma. It is the reversal of a subconscious -assumption in the soul; the sense that there is a meaning -and a direction in the world it sees. Lucretius, the first -evolutionist who endeavoured to substitute Evolution for -God, had already dangled before men's eyes his dance of -glittering atoms, by which he conceived cosmos as created by -chaos. But it was not his strong poetry or his sad -philosophy, as I fancy, that made it possible for men to -entertain such a vision. It was something in the sense of -impotence and despair with which men shook their fists -vainly at the stars, as they saw all the best work of -humanity sinking slowly and helplessly into a swamp. They -could easily believe that even creation itself was not a -creation but a perpetual fall, when they saw that the -weightiest and worthiest of all human creations was falling -by its own weight. They could fancy that all the stars were -faffing stars; and that the very pillars of their own solemn -porticos were bowed under a sort of gradual Deluge. To men -in that mood there was a reason for atheism that is in some -sense reasonable. Mythology might fade and philosophy might -stiffen; but if behind these things there was a reality, -surely that reality might have sustained things as they -sank. There was no God; if there had been a God, surely this -was the very moment when He would have moved and saved the -world. - -The life of the great civilisation went on with dreary -industry and even with dreary festivity. It was the end of -the world, and the worst of it was that it need never end. A -convenient compromise had been made between all the -multitudinous myths and religions of the Empire; that each -group should worship freely and merely give a sort of -official flourish of thanks to the tolerant Emperor, by -tossing a little incense to him under his official title of -Divus. Naturally there was no difficulty about that; or -rather it was a long time before the world realised that -there ever had been even a trivial difficulty anywhere. The -members of some eastern sect or secret society or other -seemed to have made a scene somewhere; nobody could imagine -why. The incident occurred once or twice again and began to -arouse irritation out of proportion to its insignificance. -It was not exactly what these provincials said; though of -course it sounded queer enough. They seemed to be saying -that God was dead and that they themselves had seen him die. -This might be one of the many manias produced by the despair -of the age; only they did not seem particularly despairing. -They seem quite unnaturally joyful about it, and gave the -reason that the death of God had allowed them to eat him and -drink his blood. According to other accounts God was not -exactly dead after all; there trailed through the bewildered -imagination some sort of fantastic procession of the funeral -of God, at which the sun turned black, but which ended with -the dead omnipotence breaking out of the tomb and rising -again like the sun. But it was not the strange story to -which anybody paid any particular attention; people in -that-world had seen queer religions enough to fill a -madhouse. It was something in the tone of the madmen and -their type of formation. They were a scratch company of -barbarians and slaves and poor and unimportant people; but -their formation was military; they moved together and were -very absolute about who and what was really a part of their -little system; and about what they said, however mildly, -there was a ring like iron. Men used to many mythologies and -moralities could make no analysis of the mystery, except the -curious conjecture that they meant what they said. All -attempts to make them see reason in the perfectly simple -matter of the Emperor's statue seemed to be spoken to deaf -men. It was as if a new meteoric metal had fallen on the -earth; it was a difference of substance to the touch. Those -who touched their foundation fancied they had struck a rock. - -With a strange rapidity, like the changes of a dream, the -proportions of things seemed to change in their presence. -Before most men knew what had happened, these few men were -palpably present. They were important enough to be ignored. -People became suddenly silent about them and walked stiffly -past them. We see a new scene, in which the world has drawn -its skirts away from these men and women and they stand in -the centre of a great space like lepers. The scene changes -again and the great space where they stand is overhung on -every side with a cloud of witnesses, interminable terraces -full of faces looking down towards them intently; for -strange things are happening to them. New tortures have been -invented for the madmen who have brought good news. That sad -and weary society seems almost to find a new energy in -establishing its first religious persecution. Nobody yet -knows very clearly why that level world has thus lost its -balance about the people in its midst; but they stand -unnaturally still while the arena and the world seem to -revolve round them. And there shone on them in that dark -hour a light that has never been darkened; a white fire -clinging to that group like an unearthly phosphorescence, -blazing its track through the twilights of history and -confounding every effort to confound it with the mists of -mythology and theory; that shaft of fight or lightning by -which the world itself has struck and isolated and crowned -it; by which its own enemies have made it more illustrious -and its own critics have made it more inexplicable; the halo -of hatred around the Church of God. +For it was not the message blazed on the Babylonian wall, that one king +was found wanting or his one kingdom given to a stranger. It was no such +good news as the news of invasion and conquest. There was nothing left +that could conquer Rome; but there was also nothing left that could +improve it. It was the strongest thing that was growing weak. It was the +best thing that was going to the bad. It is necessary to insist again +and again that many civilisations had met in one civilisation of the +Mediterranean sea; that it was already universal with a stale and +sterile universality. The peoples had pooled their resources and still +there was not enough. The empires had gone into partnership and they +were still bankrupt. No philosopher who was really philosophical could +think anything except that, in that central sea, the wave of the world +had risen to its highest, seeming to touch the stars. But the wave was +already stooping; for it was only the wave of the world. + +That mythology and that philosophy into which paganism has already been +analysed had thus both of them been drained most literally to the dregs. +If with the multiplication of magic the third department, which we have +called the demons, was even increasingly active, it was never anything +but destructive. There remains only the fourth element, or rather the +first; that which had been in a sense forgotten because it was the +first. I mean the primary and overpowering yet impalpable impression +that the universe after all has one origin and one aim; and because it +has an aim must have an author. What became of this great truth in the +background of men's minds, at this time, it is perhaps more difficult to +determine. Some of the Stoics undoubtedly saw it more and more clearly +as the clouds of mythology cleared and thinned away; and great men among +them did much even to the last to lay the foundations of a concept of +the moral unity of the world. The Jews still held their secret certainty +of it jealously behind high fences of exclusiveness; yet it is intensely +characteristic of the society and the situation that some fashionable +figures, especially fashionable ladies, actually embraced Judaism. But +in the case of many others I fancy there entered at this point a new +negation. Atheism became really possible in that abnormal time; for +atheism is abnormality. It is not merely the denial of a dogma. It is +the reversal of a subconscious assumption in the soul; the sense that +there is a meaning and a direction in the world it sees. Lucretius, the +first evolutionist who endeavoured to substitute Evolution for God, had +already dangled before men's eyes his dance of glittering atoms, by +which he conceived cosmos as created by chaos. But it was not his strong +poetry or his sad philosophy, as I fancy, that made it possible for men +to entertain such a vision. It was something in the sense of impotence +and despair with which men shook their fists vainly at the stars, as +they saw all the best work of humanity sinking slowly and helplessly +into a swamp. They could easily believe that even creation itself was +not a creation but a perpetual fall, when they saw that the weightiest +and worthiest of all human creations was falling by its own weight. They +could fancy that all the stars were faffing stars; and that the very +pillars of their own solemn porticos were bowed under a sort of gradual +Deluge. To men in that mood there was a reason for atheism that is in +some sense reasonable. Mythology might fade and philosophy might +stiffen; but if behind these things there was a reality, surely that +reality might have sustained things as they sank. There was no God; if +there had been a God, surely this was the very moment when He would have +moved and saved the world. + +The life of the great civilisation went on with dreary industry and even +with dreary festivity. It was the end of the world, and the worst of it +was that it need never end. A convenient compromise had been made +between all the multitudinous myths and religions of the Empire; that +each group should worship freely and merely give a sort of official +flourish of thanks to the tolerant Emperor, by tossing a little incense +to him under his official title of Divus. Naturally there was no +difficulty about that; or rather it was a long time before the world +realised that there ever had been even a trivial difficulty anywhere. +The members of some eastern sect or secret society or other seemed to +have made a scene somewhere; nobody could imagine why. The incident +occurred once or twice again and began to arouse irritation out of +proportion to its insignificance. It was not exactly what these +provincials said; though of course it sounded queer enough. They seemed +to be saying that God was dead and that they themselves had seen him +die. This might be one of the many manias produced by the despair of the +age; only they did not seem particularly despairing. They seem quite +unnaturally joyful about it, and gave the reason that the death of God +had allowed them to eat him and drink his blood. According to other +accounts God was not exactly dead after all; there trailed through the +bewildered imagination some sort of fantastic procession of the funeral +of God, at which the sun turned black, but which ended with the dead +omnipotence breaking out of the tomb and rising again like the sun. But +it was not the strange story to which anybody paid any particular +attention; people in that-world had seen queer religions enough to fill +a madhouse. It was something in the tone of the madmen and their type of +formation. They were a scratch company of barbarians and slaves and poor +and unimportant people; but their formation was military; they moved +together and were very absolute about who and what was really a part of +their little system; and about what they said, however mildly, there was +a ring like iron. Men used to many mythologies and moralities could make +no analysis of the mystery, except the curious conjecture that they +meant what they said. All attempts to make them see reason in the +perfectly simple matter of the Emperor's statue seemed to be spoken to +deaf men. It was as if a new meteoric metal had fallen on the earth; it +was a difference of substance to the touch. Those who touched their +foundation fancied they had struck a rock. + +With a strange rapidity, like the changes of a dream, the proportions of +things seemed to change in their presence. Before most men knew what had +happened, these few men were palpably present. They were important +enough to be ignored. People became suddenly silent about them and +walked stiffly past them. We see a new scene, in which the world has +drawn its skirts away from these men and women and they stand in the +centre of a great space like lepers. The scene changes again and the +great space where they stand is overhung on every side with a cloud of +witnesses, interminable terraces full of faces looking down towards them +intently; for strange things are happening to them. New tortures have +been invented for the madmen who have brought good news. That sad and +weary society seems almost to find a new energy in establishing its +first religious persecution. Nobody yet knows very clearly why that +level world has thus lost its balance about the people in its midst; but +they stand unnaturally still while the arena and the world seem to +revolve round them. And there shone on them in that dark hour a light +that has never been darkened; a white fire clinging to that group like +an unearthly phosphorescence, blazing its track through the twilights of +history and confounding every effort to confound it with the mists of +mythology and theory; that shaft of fight or lightning by which the +world itself has struck and isolated and crowned it; by which its own +enemies have made it more illustrious and its own critics have made it +more inexplicable; the halo of hatred around the Church of God. ## Part II: On the Man Called Christ ### I. The God in the Cave -This sketch of the human story began in a cave; the cave -which popular science associates with the caveman and in -which practical discovery has really found archaic drawings -of animals. The second half of human history, which was like -a new creation of the world, also begins in a cave. There is -even a shadow of such a fancy in the fact that animals were -again present; for it was a cave used as a stable by the -mountaineers of the uplands about Bethlehem; who still drive -their cattle into such holes and caverns at night. It was -here that a homeless couple had crept underground with the -cattle when the doors of the crowded caravanserai had been -shut in their faces; and it was here beneath the very feet -of the passers-by, in a cellar under the very floor of the -world, that Jesus Christ was born. But in that second -creation there was indeed something symbolical in the roots -of the primeval rock or the horns of the prehistoric herd. -God also was a Cave-Man, and had also traced strange shapes -of creatures, curiously coloured, upon the wall of the -world; but the pictures that he made had come to life. - -A mass of legend and literature, which increases and will -never end, has repeated and rung the changes on that single -paradox; that the hands that had made the sun and stars were -too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle. Upon this -paradox, we might almost say upon this jest, all the -literature of our faith is founded. It is at least like a -jest in this, that it is something which the scientific -critic cannot see. He laboriously explains the difficulty -which we have always defiantly and almost derisively -exaggerated; and mildly condemns as improbable something -that we have almost madly exalted as incredible; as -something that would be much too good to be true, except -that it is true. When that contrast between the cosmic -creation and the little local infancy has been repeated, -reiterated, underlined, emphasised, exulted in, sung, -shouted, roared, not to say howled, in a hundred thousand -hymns, carols, rhymes, rituals, pictures, poems, and popular -sermons, it may be suggested that we hardly need a higher -critic to draw our attention to something a little odd about -it; especially one of the sort that seems to take a long -time to see a joke, even his own joke. But about this -contrast and combination of ideas one thing may be said -here, because it is relevant to the whole thesis of this -book. The sort of modern critic of whom I speak is generally -much impressed with the importance of education in life and -the importance of psychology in education. That sort of man -is never tired of telling us that first impressions fix -character by the law of causation; and he will become quite -nervous if a child's visual sense is poisoned by the wrong -colours on a golliwog or his nervous system prematurely -shaken by a cacophonous rattle. Yet he will think us very -narrow-minded if we say that this is exactly why there -really is a difference between being brought up as a -Christian and being brought up as a Jew or a Moslem or an -atheist. The difference is that every Catholic child has -learned from pictures, and even every Protestant child from -stories, this incredible combination of contrasted ideas as -one of the very first impressions on his mind. It is not -merely a theological difference. It is a psychological -difference which can outlast any theologies. It really is, -as that sort of scientist loves to say about anything, -incurable. Any agnostic or atheist whose childhood has known -a real Christmas has ever afterwards whether he likes it or -not, an association in his mind between two ideas that most -of mankind must regard as remote from each other; the idea -of a baby and the idea of unknown strength that sustains the -stars. His instincts and imagination can still connect them, -when his reason can no longer see the need of the -connection; for him there will always be some savour of -religion about the mere picture of a mother and a baby; some -hint of mercy and softening about the mere mention of the -dreadful name of God. But the two ideas are not naturally or -necessarily combined. They would not be necessarily combined -for an ancient Greek or a Chinaman, even for Aristotle or -Confucius. It is no more inevitable to connect God with an -infant than to connect gravitation with a kitten. It has -been created in our minds by Christmas because we are -Christians; because we are psychological Christians even -when we are not theological ones. In other words, this -combination of ideas has emphatically, in the much disputed -phrase, altered human nature. There is really a difference -between the man who knows it and the man who does not. It -may not be a difference of moral worth, for the Moslem or -the Jew might be worthier according to his lights; but it is -a plain fact about the crossing of two particular lights, -the conjunction of two stars in our particular horoscope. -Omnipotence and impotence, or divinity and infancy, do -definitely make a sort of epigram which a million -repetitions cannot turn into a platitude. It is not -unreasonable to call it unique. Bethlehem is emphatically a -place where extremes meet. - -Here begins, it is needless to say, another mighty influence -for the humanisation of Christendom. If the world wanted -what is called a non-controversial aspect of Christianity, -it would probably select Christmas. Yet it is obviously -bound up with what is supposed to be a controversial aspect -(I could never at any stage of my opinions imagine why); the -respect paid to the Blessed Virgin. When I was a boy a more +This sketch of the human story began in a cave; the cave which popular +science associates with the caveman and in which practical discovery has +really found archaic drawings of animals. The second half of human +history, which was like a new creation of the world, also begins in a +cave. There is even a shadow of such a fancy in the fact that animals +were again present; for it was a cave used as a stable by the +mountaineers of the uplands about Bethlehem; who still drive their +cattle into such holes and caverns at night. It was here that a homeless +couple had crept underground with the cattle when the doors of the +crowded caravanserai had been shut in their faces; and it was here +beneath the very feet of the passers-by, in a cellar under the very +floor of the world, that Jesus Christ was born. But in that second +creation there was indeed something symbolical in the roots of the +primeval rock or the horns of the prehistoric herd. God also was a +Cave-Man, and had also traced strange shapes of creatures, curiously +coloured, upon the wall of the world; but the pictures that he made had +come to life. + +A mass of legend and literature, which increases and will never end, has +repeated and rung the changes on that single paradox; that the hands +that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads +of the cattle. Upon this paradox, we might almost say upon this jest, +all the literature of our faith is founded. It is at least like a jest +in this, that it is something which the scientific critic cannot see. He +laboriously explains the difficulty which we have always defiantly and +almost derisively exaggerated; and mildly condemns as improbable +something that we have almost madly exalted as incredible; as something +that would be much too good to be true, except that it is true. When +that contrast between the cosmic creation and the little local infancy +has been repeated, reiterated, underlined, emphasised, exulted in, sung, +shouted, roared, not to say howled, in a hundred thousand hymns, carols, +rhymes, rituals, pictures, poems, and popular sermons, it may be +suggested that we hardly need a higher critic to draw our attention to +something a little odd about it; especially one of the sort that seems +to take a long time to see a joke, even his own joke. But about this +contrast and combination of ideas one thing may be said here, because it +is relevant to the whole thesis of this book. The sort of modern critic +of whom I speak is generally much impressed with the importance of +education in life and the importance of psychology in education. That +sort of man is never tired of telling us that first impressions fix +character by the law of causation; and he will become quite nervous if a +child's visual sense is poisoned by the wrong colours on a golliwog or +his nervous system prematurely shaken by a cacophonous rattle. Yet he +will think us very narrow-minded if we say that this is exactly why +there really is a difference between being brought up as a Christian and +being brought up as a Jew or a Moslem or an atheist. The difference is +that every Catholic child has learned from pictures, and even every +Protestant child from stories, this incredible combination of contrasted +ideas as one of the very first impressions on his mind. It is not merely +a theological difference. It is a psychological difference which can +outlast any theologies. It really is, as that sort of scientist loves to +say about anything, incurable. Any agnostic or atheist whose childhood +has known a real Christmas has ever afterwards whether he likes it or +not, an association in his mind between two ideas that most of mankind +must regard as remote from each other; the idea of a baby and the idea +of unknown strength that sustains the stars. His instincts and +imagination can still connect them, when his reason can no longer see +the need of the connection; for him there will always be some savour of +religion about the mere picture of a mother and a baby; some hint of +mercy and softening about the mere mention of the dreadful name of God. +But the two ideas are not naturally or necessarily combined. They would +not be necessarily combined for an ancient Greek or a Chinaman, even for +Aristotle or Confucius. It is no more inevitable to connect God with an +infant than to connect gravitation with a kitten. It has been created in +our minds by Christmas because we are Christians; because we are +psychological Christians even when we are not theological ones. In other +words, this combination of ideas has emphatically, in the much disputed +phrase, altered human nature. There is really a difference between the +man who knows it and the man who does not. It may not be a difference of +moral worth, for the Moslem or the Jew might be worthier according to +his lights; but it is a plain fact about the crossing of two particular +lights, the conjunction of two stars in our particular horoscope. +Omnipotence and impotence, or divinity and infancy, do definitely make a +sort of epigram which a million repetitions cannot turn into a +platitude. It is not unreasonable to call it unique. Bethlehem is +emphatically a place where extremes meet. + +Here begins, it is needless to say, another mighty influence for the +humanisation of Christendom. If the world wanted what is called a +non-controversial aspect of Christianity, it would probably select +Christmas. Yet it is obviously bound up with what is supposed to be a +controversial aspect (I could never at any stage of my opinions imagine +why); the respect paid to the Blessed Virgin. When I was a boy a more Puritan generation objected to a statue upon a parish church -representing the Virgin and Child. After much controversy, -they compromised by taking away the Child. One would think -that this was even more corrupted with Mariolatry, unless -the mother was counted less dangerous when deprived of a -sort of weapon. But the practical difficulty is also a -parable. You cannot chip away the statue of a mother from -all round that of a new-born child. You cannot suspend the -new-born child in mid-air; indeed you cannot really have a -statue of a new-born child at all. Similarly, you cannot -suspend the idea of a new-born child in the void or think of -him without thinking of his mother. You cannot visit the -child without visiting the mother; you cannot in common -human life approach the child except through the mother. If -we are to think of Christ in this aspect at all, the other -idea follows as it is followed in history. We must either -leave Christ out of Christmas or Christmas out of Christ, or -we must admit, if only as we admit it in an old picture, -that those holy heads are too near together for the haloes -not to mingle and cross. - -It might be suggested, in a somewhat violent image, that -nothing had happened in that fold or crack in the great grey -hills except that the whole universe had been turned inside -out. I mean that all the eyes of wonder and worship which -had been turned outwards to the largest thing were now -turned inward to the smallest. The very image will suggest -all that multitudinous marvel of converging eyes that makes -so much of the coloured Catholic imagery like a peacock's -tail. But it is true in a sense that God who had been only a -circumference was seen as a centre; and a centre is -infinitely small. It is true that the spiritual spiral -henceforward works inwards instead of outwards, and in that -sense is centripetal and not centrifugal. The faith becomes, -in more ways than one, a religion of little things. But its -traditions in art and literature and popular fable have -quite sufficiently attested, as has been said, this -particular paradox of the divine being in the cradle. -Perhaps they have not so clearly emphasised the significance -of the divine being in the cave. Curiously enough, indeed, -tradition has not very clearly emphasised the cave. It is a -familiar fact that the Bethlehem scene has been represented -in every possible setting of time and country, of landscape -and architecture; and it is a wholly happy and admirable -fact that men have conceived it as quite different according -to their different individual traditions and tastes. But -while all have realised that it was a stable, not so many -have realised that it was a cave. Some critics have even -been so silly as to suppose that there was some -contradiction between the stable and the cave; in which case -they cannot know much about caves or stables in Palestine. -As they see differences that are not there, it is needless -to add that they do not see differences that are there. When -a well-known critic says, for instance, that Christ being -born in a rocky cavern is like Mithras having sprung alive -out of a rock, it sounds like a parody upon comparative -religion. There is such a thing as the point of a story, -even if it is a story in the sense of a lie. And the notion -of a hero appearing, like Pallas from the brain of Zeus, -mature and without a mother, is obviously the very opposite -of the idea of a god being born like an ordinary baby and -entirely dependent on a mother. Whichever ideal we might -prefer, we should surely see that they are contrary ideals. -It is as stupid to connect them because they both contain a -substance called stone as to identify the punishment of the -Deluge with the baptism in the Jordan because they both -contain a substance called water. Whether as a myth or a -mystery, Christ was obviously conceived as born in a hole in -the rocks primarily because it marked the position of one -outcast and homeless. Nevertheless it is true, as I have -said that the cave has not been so commonly or so clearly -used as a symbol as the other realities that surrounded the -first Christmas. - -And the reason for this also refers to the very nature of -that new world. It was in a sense the difficulty of a new -dimension. Christ was not only born on the level ot the -world, but even lower than the world. The first act of the -divine drama was enacted, not only on no stage set up above -the sightseer, but on a dark and curtained stage sunken out -of sight; and that is an idea very difficult to express in -most modes of artistic expression. It is the idea of -simultaneous happenings on different levels of life. -Something like it might have been attempted in the more -archaic and decorative medieval art. But the more the -artists learned of realism and perspective, the less they -could depict at once the angels in the heavens and the -shepherds on the hills, and the glory in the darkness that -was under the mils. Perhaps it could have been best conveyed -by the characteristic expedient of some of the medieval -guilds when they wheeled about the streets a theatre with -three stages one above the other, with heaven above the -earth and hell under the earth. But in the riddle of -Bethlehem it was heaven that was under the earth. - -There is in that alone the touch of a revolution, as of the -world turned upside down. It would be vain to attempt to say -anything adequate, or anything new about the change which -this conception of a deity born hke an outcast or even an -outlaw had upon the whole conception of law and its duties -to the poor and outcast It is profoundly true to say that -after that moment there could be no slaves. There could be -and were people bearing that legal title until the Church -was strong enough to weed them out, but there could be no -more of the pagan repose in the mere advantage to the state -of keeping it a servile state. Individuals became important, -in a sense in which no instruments can be important. A man -could not be a means to an end, at any rate to any other -man's end. All this popular and fraternal element in the -story has been rightly attached by tradition to the episode -of the Shepherds; the hinds who found themselves talking -face to face with the princes of heaven. But there is -another aspect of the popular element as represented by the -shepherds which has not perhaps been so fully developed; and -which is more directly relevant here. - -Men of the people, like the shepherds, men of the popular -tradition, had everywhere been the makers of the -mythologies. It was they who had felt most directly, with -least check or chill from philosophy or the corrupt cults of -civilisation, the need we have already considered; the -images that were adventures of the imagination; the -mythology that was a sort of search; the tempting and -tantalising hints of something half-human in nature; the -dumb significance of seasons and special places. They had -best understood that the soul of a landscape is a story and -the soul of a story is a personality. But rationalism had -already begun to rot away these really irrational though -imaginative treasures of the peasant; even as systematic -slavery had eaten the peasant out of house and home. Upon -all such peasantries everywhere there was descending a dusk -and twilight of disappointment, in the hour when these few -men discovered what they sought. Everywhere else Arcadia was -fading from the forest. Pan was dead and the shepherds were -scattered like sheep. And though no man knew it, the hour -was near which was to end and to fulfil all things; and -though no man heard it, there was one far-off cry in an -unknown tongue upon the heaving wilderness of the mountains. -The shepherds had found their Shepherd. - -And the thing they found was of a kind with the things they -sought. The populace had been wrong in many things; but they -had not been wrong in believing that holy things could have -a habitation and that divinity need not disdain the limits -of time and space. And the barbarian who conceived the -crudest fancy about the sun being stolen and hidden in a -box, or the wildest myth about the god being rescued and his -enemy deceived with a stone, was nearer to the secret of the -cave and knew more about the crisis of the world than all -those in the circle of cities round the Mediterranean who -had become content with cold abstractions or cosmopolitan -generalisations; than all those who were spinning thinner -and thinner threads of thought out of the transcendentalism -of Plato or the orientalism of Pythagoras. The place that -the shepherds found was not an academy or an abstract -republic: it was not a place of myths allegorised or -dissected or explained away. It was a place of dreams come -true. Since that hour no mythologies have been made in the -world. Mythology is a search. - -We all know that the popular presentation of this popular -story, in so many miracle plays and carols, has given to the -shepherds the costume, the language, and the landscape of -the separate English and European countrysides. We all know -that one shepherd will talk in a Somerset dialect or another -talk of driving his sheep from Conway towards the Clyde. -Most of us know by this time how true is that error, how -wise, how artistic, how intensely Christian and Catholic is -that anachronism. But some who have seen it in these scenes -of medieval rusticity have perhaps not seen it in another -sort of poetry, which it is sometimes the fashion to call -artificial rather than artistic. I fear that many modern -critics will see only a faded classicism in the fact that -men like Crashaw and Herrick conceived the shepherds of -Bethlehem under the form of the shepherds of Virgil. Yet -they were profoundly right; and in turning their Bethlehem -play into a Latin Eclogue they took up one of the most -important links in human history. Virgil, as we have already -seen, does stand for all that saner heathenism that had -overthrown the insane heathenism of human sacrifice; but the -very fact that even the Virgilian virtues and the sane -heathenism were in incurable decay is the whole problem to -which the revelation to the shepherds is the solution. If -the world had ever had the chance to grow weary of being -demoniac, it might have been healed merely by becoming sane. -But if it had grown weary even of, being sane, what was to -happen except what did happen? Nor is it false to conceive -the Arcadian shepherd of the Eclogues as rejoicing in what -did happen. One of the Eclogues has even been claimed as a -prophecy of what did happen. But it is quite as much in the -tone and incidental diction of the great poet that we feel -the potential sympathy with the great event; and even in -their own human phrases the voices of the Virgilian -shepherds might more than once have broken upon more than -the tenderness of Italy... *Incipe*, *parve puer*, *risu -cognoscere matrem*... They might have found in that strange -place all that was best in the last traditions of the -Latins; and something better than a wooden idol standing up -for ever for the pillar of the human family; a Household -God. But they and all the other mythologists would be -justified in rejoicing that the event had fulfilled not -merely the mysticism but the materialism of mythology. -Mythology had many sins; but it had not been wrong in being -as carnal as the Incarnation. With something of the ancient -voice that was supposed to have rung through the groves, it -could cry again, "We have seen, he hath seen us, a visible -god." So the ancient shepherds might have danced, and their -feet have been beautiful upon the mountains, rejoicing over -the philosophers. But the philosophers had also heard. - -It is still a strange story, though an old one, how they -came out of orient lands, crowned with the majesty of kings -and clothed with something of the mystery of magicians. That -truth that is tradition has wisely remembered them almost as -unknown quantities, as mysterious as their mysterious and -melodious names: Melchoir, Caspar, Balthazar. But there came -with them all that world of wisdom that had watched the -stars in Chaldea and the sun in Persia; and we shall not be -wrong if we see in them the sam\^ curiosity that moves all -the sages. They would stand for the same human ideal if -their names had really been Confucius or Pythagoras or -Plato. They were those who sought not tales but the truth of -things; and since their thirst for truth was itself a thirst -for God, they also have had their reward. But even in order -to understand that reward, we must understand that for -philosophy as much as mythology, that reward was the -completion of the incomplete. - -Such learned men would doubtless have come, as these learned -men did come, to find themselves confirmed in much that was -true in their own traditions and right in their own -reasoning. Confucius would have found a new foundation for -the family in the very reversal of the Holy Family; Buddha -would have looked upon a new renunciation, of stars rather -than jewels and divinity than royalty. These learned men -would still have the right to say, or rather a new right to -say, that there was truth in their old teaching. But, after -all, these learned men would have come to learn. They would -have come to complete their conceptions \* with something -they had not yet conceived; even to balance their imperfect -universe with something they might once have contradicted. -Buddha would have come from his impersonal paradise to -worship a person. Confucius would have come from his temples -of ancestor-worship to worship a child. - -We must grasp from the first this character in the new -cosmos: that it was larger than the old cosmos. In that -sense Christendom is larger than creation; as creation had -been before Christ. It included things that had not been -there; it also included the things that had been there. The -point happens to be well illustrated in this example of -Chinese piety, but it would be true of other pagan virtues -or pagan beliefs. Nobody can doubt that a reasonable respect -for parents is part of a gospel in which God himself was -subject in childhood to earthly parents. But the other sense -in which the parents were subject to him does introduce an -idea that is not Confucian. The infant Christ is not like -the infant Confucius; our mysticism conceives him in an -immortal infancy. I do not know what Confucius would have -done with the Bambino, had it come to life in his arms as it -did in the arms of St. Francis. But this is true in relation -to all the other religions and philosophies; it is the -challenge of the Church. The Church contains what the world -does not contain. Life itself does not provide as she does -for all sides of life. That every other single system is -narrow and insufficient compared to this one; that is not a -rhetorical boast; it is a real fact and a real dilemma. -Where is the Holy Child amid the Stoics and the -ancestor-worshippers? Where is Our Lady of the Moslems, a -woman made for no man and set above all angels? Where is -St. Michael of the monks of Buddha, rider and master of the -trumpets, guarding for every soldier the honour of the -sword? What could St. Thomas Aquinas do with the mythology -of Brahminism, he \* who set forth all the science and -rationality and even rationalism of Christianity? Yet even -if we compare Aquinas with Aristotle, at the other extreme -of reason, we shall find the same sense of something added. -Aquinas could understand the most logical parts of -Aristotle; it is doubtful if Aristotle could have understood -the most mystical parts of Aquinas. Even where we can hardly -call the Christian greater, we are forced to call him -larger. But it is so to whatever philosophy or heresy or -modern movement we may turn. How would Francis the -Troubadour have fared among the Calvinists, or for that -matter among the Utilitarians of the Manchester School? Yet -men like Bossuet and Pascal could be as stern and logical as -any Calvinist or Utilitarian. How would St. Joan of Arc, a -woman waving on men to war with the sword, have fared among -the Quakers or the Doukhabors or the Tolstoyan sect of -pacifists? Yet any number of Catholic saints have spent -their lives in preaching peace and preventing wars. It is -the same with all the modern attempts at Syncretism. They -are never able to make something larger than the Creed -without leaving something out. - -I do not mean leaving out something divine but something -human; the flag or the inn or the boy's tale of battle or -the hedge at the end of the field. The Theosophists build a -pantheon; but it is only a pantheon for pantheists. They -call a Parliament of Religions as a reunion of all the -peoples; but it is only a reunion of all the prigs. Yet -exactly such a pantheon had been set up two thousand years -before by the shores of the Mediterranean; and Christians -were invited to set up the image of Jesus side by side with -the image of Jupiter, of Mithras, of Osiris, of Atys, or of -Ammon. It was the refusal of the Christians that was the -turning-point of history. If tne Christians had accepted, -they and the whole world would have certainly, in a -grotesque but exact metaphor, gone to pot. They would all -have been boiled down to one lukewarm liquid in that great -pot of cosmopolitan corruption in which all the other \* -myths and mysteries were already melting. It was an awful -and an appalling escape. Nobody understands the nature of -the Church, or the ringing note of the creed descending from -antiquity, who does not realise that the whole world once -very nearly died of broadmindedness and the brotherhood of -all religions. - -Here it is the important point that the Magi, who stand for -mysticism and philosophy, are truly conceived as seeking -something new and even as finding something unexpected. That -tense sense of crisis which still tingles in the Christmas -story, and even in every Christmas celebration, accentuates -the idea of a search and a discovery. The discovery is, in -this case, truly a scientific discovery. For the other -mystical figures in the miracle play, for the angel and the -mother, the shepherds and the soldiers of Herod, there may -be aspects both simpler and more supernatural, more -elemental or more emotional. But the Wise Men must be -seeking wisdom; and for them there must be a light also in -the intellect. And this is the light: that the Catholic -creed is catholic and that nothing else is catholic. The -philosophy of the Church is universal. The philosophy of the -philosophers was not universal. Had Plato and Pythagoras and -Aristotle stood for an instant in the fight that came out of -that little cave, they would have known that their own light -was not universal. It is far from certain, indeed, that they -did not know it already. Philosophy also, like mythology, -had very much the air of a search. It is ft Le realisation -of this truth that gives its traditional majesty and mystery -to the figures of the Three Kings; the discovery that -religion is broader than philosophy and that this is the -broadest of religions, contained within this narrow space. -The Magicians were gazing at the strange pentacle with the -human triangle reversed; and they have never come to the end -of their calculations about it. For it is the paradox of -that group in the cave, that while our emotions about it are -of childish simplicity, our thoughts about it can branch -with a never-ending complexity. And we can never reach the -end even of our own ideas about the child who was a father -and the mother who was a child. - -We might well be content to say that mythology had come with -the shepherds and philosophy with the philosophers; and that -it only remained for them to combine in the reorgnisation of -religion. But there was a third element that must not be -ignored and one which that religion for ever refuses to -ignore, in any revel or reconciliation. There was present in -the primary scenes of the drama that Enemy that had rotted -the legends with lust and frozen the theories into atheism, -but which answered the direct challenge with something of -that more direct method which we have seen in the conscious -cult of the demons. In the description of that -demon-worship, of the devouring detestation of innocence -shown in the works of its witchcraft and the most inhuman of -its human sacrifice, I have said less of its indirect and -secret penetration of the saner paganism; the soaking of -mythological imagination with sex; the rise of imperial -pride into insanity. But both the indirect and the direct -influence make themselves felt in the drama of Bethlehem. A -ruler under the Roman suzerainty, probably equipped and -surrounded with the Roman ornament and order though himself -of eastern blood, seems in that hour to have felt stirring -within him the spirit of strange things. We all know the -story of how Herod, alarmed at some rumour of a mysterious -rival, remembered the wild gesture of the capricious despots -of Asia and ordered a massacre of suspects of the new -generation of the populace. Every one knows the story; but -not every one has perhaps noted its place in the story of -the strange religions of men. Not everybody has seen the -significance even of its very contrast with the Corinthian -columns and Roman pavement of that conquered and -superficially civilised world. Only, as the purpose in this -dark spirit began to show and shine in the eyes of the -Indumean, a seer might perhaps have seen something like a -great grey ghost that looked over his shoulder; have seen -behind him, filling the dome of night and hovering for the -last time over history, that vast and fearful face that was -Moloch of the Carthaginians; awaiting his last tribute from -a ruler of the races of Shem. The demons also, in that first -festival of Christmas, feasted after their own fashion. - -Unless we understand the presence of that Enemy, we shall -not only miss the point of Christianity, but even miss the -point of Christmas. Christmas for us in Christendom has -become one thing, and in one sense even a simple thing. But, -like all the truths of that tradition, it is in another -sense a very complex thing. Its unique note is the -simultaneous striking of many notes; of humility, of gaiety, -of gratitude, of mystical fear, but also of vigilance and of -drama. It is not only an occasion for the peacemakers any -more than for the merrymakers; it is not only a Hindu peace -conference any more than it is only a Scandinavian winter -feast. There is something defiant in it also; something that -makes the abrupt bells at midnight sound like the great guns -of a battle that has just been won. All this indescribable -thing that we call the Christmas atmosphere only hangs in -the air as something like a lingering fragrance or fading -vapour from the exultant explosion of that one hour in the -Judean hills nearly two thousand years ago. But the savour -is still unmistakable, and it is something too subtle or too -solitary to be covered by our use of the word peace. By the -very nature of the story the rejoicings in the cavern were -rejoicings in a fortress or an outlaw's den; properly -understood it is not unduly flippant to say they were -rejoicings in a dug-out. It is not only true that such a -subterranean chamber was a hiding-place from enemies; and -that the enemies were already scouring the stony plain that -lay above it like a sky. It is not only that the very -horse-hoofs of Herod might in that sense have passed like -thunder over the sunken head of Christ. It is also that -there is in that image a true idea of an outpost, of a -piercing through the rock and an entrance into an enemy -territory. There is in this buried divinity an idea of -*undermining* the world; of shaking the towers and palaces -from below; even as Herod the great king felt that -earthquake under him and swayed with his swaying palace. - -That is perhaps the mightiest of the mysteries of the cave. -It is already apparent that though men are said to have -looked for hell under the earth, in this case it is rather -heaven that is under the earth. And there follows in this -strange story the idea of an upheaval of heaven. That is the -paradox of the whole position; that henceforth the highest -thing can only work from below. Royalty can only return to -its own by a sort of rebellion. Indeed the Church from its -beginnings, and perhaps especially in its beginnings, was -not so much a principality as a revolution against the -prince of the world. This sense that the world had been -conquered by the great usurper, and was in his possession, -has been much deplored or derided by those optimists who -identify enlightenment with ease. But it was responsible for -all that thrill of defiance and a beautiful danger that made -the good news seem to be really both good and new. It was in -truth against a huge unconscious usurpation that it raised a -revolt, and originally so obscure a revolt. Olympus still -occupied the sky like a motionless cloud moulded into many -mighty forms; philosophy still sat in the high places and -even on the thrones of the kings, when Christ was born in -the cave and Christianity in the catacombs. - -In both cases we may remark the same paradox of revolution; -the sense of something despised and of something feared. The -cave in one aspect is only a hole or corner into which the -outcasts are swept like rubbish; yet in the other aspect it -is a hiding-place of something valuable which the tyrants -are seeking like treasure. In one sense they are there -because the innkeeper would not even remember them, and in -another because the king can never forget them. We have -already noted that this paradox appeared also in the -treatment of the early Church. It was important while it was -still insignificant, and certainly while it was still -impotent. It was important solely because it was -intolerable; and in that sense it is true to say that it was -intolerable because it was intolerant. It was resented, -because, in its own still and almost secret way, it had -declared war. It had risen out of the ground to wreck the -heaven and earth of heathenism. It did not try to destroy -all that creation of gold and marble; but it contemplated a -world without it. It dared to look right through it as -though the gold and marble had been glass. Those who charged -the Christians with burning down Home with firebrands were -slanderers; but they were at least far nearer to the nature -of Christianity than those among the moderns who tell us -that the Christians were a sort of ethical society, being -martyred in a languid fashion for telling men they had a -duty to their neighbours, and only mildly disliked because -they were meek and mild. - -Herod had his place, therefore, in the miracle play of -Bethlehem because he is the menace to the Church Militant -and shows it from the first as under persecution and -fighting for its life. For those who think this a discord, -it is a discord that sounds simultaneously with the -Christmas bells. For those who think the idea of the Crusade -is one that spoils the idea of the Cross, we can only say -that for them the idea of the Cross is spoiled; the idea of -the Cross is spoiled quite literally in the Cradle. It is -not here to the purpose to argue with them on the abstract -ethics of fighting; the purpose in this place is merely to -sum up the combination of ideas that make up the Christian -and Catholic idea, and to note that all of them are already -crystallised in the first Christmas story. They are three -distinct and commonly contrasted things which are -nevertheless one thing; but this is the only thing which can -make them one. The first is the human instinct for a heaven -that shall be as literal and almost as local as a home. It -is the idea pursued by all poets and pagans making myths; -that a particular place must be the shrine of the god or the -abode of the blest; that fairyland is a land; or that the -return of the ghost must be the resurrection of the body. I -do not here reason about the refusal of rationalism to -satisfy this need. I only say, that if the rationalists -refuse to satisfy it, the pagans will not be satisfied. This -is present in the story of Bethlehem and Jerusalem as it is -present in the story of Delos and Delphi; and as it is not -present in the whole universe of Lucretius or the whole -universe of Herbert Spencer. The second element is a -philosophy larger than other philosophies; larger than that -of Lucretius and infinitely larger than that of Herbert -Spencer. It looks at the world through a hundred windows -where the ancient stoic or the modern agnostic only looks -through one. It sees life with thousands of eyes belonging -to thousands of different sorts of people, where the other -is only the individual standpoint of a stoic or an agnostic. -It has something for all moods of man, it finds work for all -kinds of men, it understands secrets of psychology, it is -aware of depths of evil, it is able to distinguish between -real and unreal marvels and miraculous exceptions, it trains -itself in tact about hard cases, all with a multiplicity and -subtlety and imagination about the varieties of life which -is far beyond the bald or breezy platitudes of most ancient -or modern moral philosophy. In a word, there is more in it; -it finds more in existence to think about; it gets more out -of life. Masses of this material about our many-sided life -have been added since the time of St. Thomas Aquinas. But -St. Thomas Aquinas alone would have found himself limited in -the world of Confucius or of Comte. And the third point is -this; that while it is local enough for poetry and larger -than any other philosophy, it is also a challenge and a -fight. While it is deliberately broadened to embrace every -aspect of truth, it is still stiffly embattled against every -mode of error. It gets every kind of man to fight for it, it -gets every kind of weapon to fight with, it widens its -knowledge of the things that are fought for and against with -every art of curiosity or sympathy; but it never forgets -that it is fighting. It proclaims peace on earth and never -forgets why there was war in heaven. - -This is the trinity of truths symbolised here by the three -types in the old Christmas story: the shepherds and the -kings and that other king who warred upon the children. It -is simply not true to say that other religions and -philosophies are in this respect its rivals. It is not true -to say that any one of them combines these characters; it is -not true to say that any one of them pretends to combine -them. Buddhism may profess to be equally mystical; it does -not even profess to be equally military. Islam may profess -to be equally military; it does not even profess to be -equally metaphysical and subtle. Confucianism may profess to -satisfy the need of the philosophers for order and reason; -it does not even profess to satisfy the need of the mystics -for miracle and sacrament and the consecration of concrete -things. There are many evidences of this presence of a -spirit at once universal and unique. One will serve here -which is the symbol of the subject of this chapter; that no -other story, no pagan legend or philosophical anecdote or -historical event, does in fact affect any of us with that -peculiar and even poignant impression produced on us by the -word Bethlehem. No other birth of a god or childhood of a -sage seems to us to be Christmas or anything like Christmas. -It is either too cold or too frivolous, or too formal and -classical, or too simple and savage, or too occult and -complicated. Not one of us, whatever his opinions, would -ever go to such a scene with the sense that he was going -home. He might admire it because it was poetical, or because -it was philosophical, or any number of other things in -separation; but not because it was itself. The truth is that -there is a quite peculiar and individual character about the -hold of this story on human nature; it is not in its -psychological substance at all like a mere legend or the -life of a great man. It does not exactly in the ordinary -sense turn our minds to greatness; to those extensions and -exaggerations of humanity which are turned into gods and -heroes, even by the healthiest sort of hero-worship. It does -not exactly work outwards, adventurously, to the wonders to -be found at the ends of the earth. It is rather something -that surprises us from behind, from the hidden and personal -part of our being; like that which can sometimes take us off -our guard in the pathos of small objects or the blind -pieties of the poor. It is rather as if a man had found an -inner room in the very heart of his own house which he had -never suspected; and seen a light from within. It is as if -he found something at the back of his own heart that -betrayed him into good. It is not made of what the world -would call strong materials; or rather it is made of -materials whose strength is in that winged levity with which -they brush us and pass. It is all that is in us but a brief -tenderness that is there made eternal; all that means no -more than a momentary softening that is in some strange -fashion become a strengthening and a repose; it is the -broken speech and the lost word that are made positive and -suspended unbroken; as the strange kings fade into a far -country and the mountains resound no more with the feet of -the shepherds; and only the night and the cavern lie in fold +representing the Virgin and Child. After much controversy, they +compromised by taking away the Child. One would think that this was even +more corrupted with Mariolatry, unless the mother was counted less +dangerous when deprived of a sort of weapon. But the practical +difficulty is also a parable. You cannot chip away the statue of a +mother from all round that of a new-born child. You cannot suspend the +new-born child in mid-air; indeed you cannot really have a statue of a +new-born child at all. Similarly, you cannot suspend the idea of a +new-born child in the void or think of him without thinking of his +mother. You cannot visit the child without visiting the mother; you +cannot in common human life approach the child except through the +mother. If we are to think of Christ in this aspect at all, the other +idea follows as it is followed in history. We must either leave Christ +out of Christmas or Christmas out of Christ, or we must admit, if only +as we admit it in an old picture, that those holy heads are too near +together for the haloes not to mingle and cross. + +It might be suggested, in a somewhat violent image, that nothing had +happened in that fold or crack in the great grey hills except that the +whole universe had been turned inside out. I mean that all the eyes of +wonder and worship which had been turned outwards to the largest thing +were now turned inward to the smallest. The very image will suggest all +that multitudinous marvel of converging eyes that makes so much of the +coloured Catholic imagery like a peacock's tail. But it is true in a +sense that God who had been only a circumference was seen as a centre; +and a centre is infinitely small. It is true that the spiritual spiral +henceforward works inwards instead of outwards, and in that sense is +centripetal and not centrifugal. The faith becomes, in more ways than +one, a religion of little things. But its traditions in art and +literature and popular fable have quite sufficiently attested, as has +been said, this particular paradox of the divine being in the cradle. +Perhaps they have not so clearly emphasised the significance of the +divine being in the cave. Curiously enough, indeed, tradition has not +very clearly emphasised the cave. It is a familiar fact that the +Bethlehem scene has been represented in every possible setting of time +and country, of landscape and architecture; and it is a wholly happy and +admirable fact that men have conceived it as quite different according +to their different individual traditions and tastes. But while all have +realised that it was a stable, not so many have realised that it was a +cave. Some critics have even been so silly as to suppose that there was +some contradiction between the stable and the cave; in which case they +cannot know much about caves or stables in Palestine. As they see +differences that are not there, it is needless to add that they do not +see differences that are there. When a well-known critic says, for +instance, that Christ being born in a rocky cavern is like Mithras +having sprung alive out of a rock, it sounds like a parody upon +comparative religion. There is such a thing as the point of a story, +even if it is a story in the sense of a lie. And the notion of a hero +appearing, like Pallas from the brain of Zeus, mature and without a +mother, is obviously the very opposite of the idea of a god being born +like an ordinary baby and entirely dependent on a mother. Whichever +ideal we might prefer, we should surely see that they are contrary +ideals. It is as stupid to connect them because they both contain a +substance called stone as to identify the punishment of the Deluge with +the baptism in the Jordan because they both contain a substance called +water. Whether as a myth or a mystery, Christ was obviously conceived as +born in a hole in the rocks primarily because it marked the position of +one outcast and homeless. Nevertheless it is true, as I have said that +the cave has not been so commonly or so clearly used as a symbol as the +other realities that surrounded the first Christmas. + +And the reason for this also refers to the very nature of that new +world. It was in a sense the difficulty of a new dimension. Christ was +not only born on the level ot the world, but even lower than the world. +The first act of the divine drama was enacted, not only on no stage set +up above the sightseer, but on a dark and curtained stage sunken out of +sight; and that is an idea very difficult to express in most modes of +artistic expression. It is the idea of simultaneous happenings on +different levels of life. Something like it might have been attempted in +the more archaic and decorative medieval art. But the more the artists +learned of realism and perspective, the less they could depict at once +the angels in the heavens and the shepherds on the hills, and the glory +in the darkness that was under the mils. Perhaps it could have been best +conveyed by the characteristic expedient of some of the medieval guilds +when they wheeled about the streets a theatre with three stages one +above the other, with heaven above the earth and hell under the earth. +But in the riddle of Bethlehem it was heaven that was under the earth. + +There is in that alone the touch of a revolution, as of the world turned +upside down. It would be vain to attempt to say anything adequate, or +anything new about the change which this conception of a deity born hke +an outcast or even an outlaw had upon the whole conception of law and +its duties to the poor and outcast It is profoundly true to say that +after that moment there could be no slaves. There could be and were +people bearing that legal title until the Church was strong enough to +weed them out, but there could be no more of the pagan repose in the +mere advantage to the state of keeping it a servile state. Individuals +became important, in a sense in which no instruments can be important. A +man could not be a means to an end, at any rate to any other man's end. +All this popular and fraternal element in the story has been rightly +attached by tradition to the episode of the Shepherds; the hinds who +found themselves talking face to face with the princes of heaven. But +there is another aspect of the popular element as represented by the +shepherds which has not perhaps been so fully developed; and which is +more directly relevant here. + +Men of the people, like the shepherds, men of the popular tradition, had +everywhere been the makers of the mythologies. It was they who had felt +most directly, with least check or chill from philosophy or the corrupt +cults of civilisation, the need we have already considered; the images +that were adventures of the imagination; the mythology that was a sort +of search; the tempting and tantalising hints of something half-human in +nature; the dumb significance of seasons and special places. They had +best understood that the soul of a landscape is a story and the soul of +a story is a personality. But rationalism had already begun to rot away +these really irrational though imaginative treasures of the peasant; +even as systematic slavery had eaten the peasant out of house and home. +Upon all such peasantries everywhere there was descending a dusk and +twilight of disappointment, in the hour when these few men discovered +what they sought. Everywhere else Arcadia was fading from the forest. +Pan was dead and the shepherds were scattered like sheep. And though no +man knew it, the hour was near which was to end and to fulfil all +things; and though no man heard it, there was one far-off cry in an +unknown tongue upon the heaving wilderness of the mountains. The +shepherds had found their Shepherd. + +And the thing they found was of a kind with the things they sought. The +populace had been wrong in many things; but they had not been wrong in +believing that holy things could have a habitation and that divinity +need not disdain the limits of time and space. And the barbarian who +conceived the crudest fancy about the sun being stolen and hidden in a +box, or the wildest myth about the god being rescued and his enemy +deceived with a stone, was nearer to the secret of the cave and knew +more about the crisis of the world than all those in the circle of +cities round the Mediterranean who had become content with cold +abstractions or cosmopolitan generalisations; than all those who were +spinning thinner and thinner threads of thought out of the +transcendentalism of Plato or the orientalism of Pythagoras. The place +that the shepherds found was not an academy or an abstract republic: it +was not a place of myths allegorised or dissected or explained away. It +was a place of dreams come true. Since that hour no mythologies have +been made in the world. Mythology is a search. + +We all know that the popular presentation of this popular story, in so +many miracle plays and carols, has given to the shepherds the costume, +the language, and the landscape of the separate English and European +countrysides. We all know that one shepherd will talk in a Somerset +dialect or another talk of driving his sheep from Conway towards the +Clyde. Most of us know by this time how true is that error, how wise, +how artistic, how intensely Christian and Catholic is that anachronism. +But some who have seen it in these scenes of medieval rusticity have +perhaps not seen it in another sort of poetry, which it is sometimes the +fashion to call artificial rather than artistic. I fear that many modern +critics will see only a faded classicism in the fact that men like +Crashaw and Herrick conceived the shepherds of Bethlehem under the form +of the shepherds of Virgil. Yet they were profoundly right; and in +turning their Bethlehem play into a Latin Eclogue they took up one of +the most important links in human history. Virgil, as we have already +seen, does stand for all that saner heathenism that had overthrown the +insane heathenism of human sacrifice; but the very fact that even the +Virgilian virtues and the sane heathenism were in incurable decay is the +whole problem to which the revelation to the shepherds is the solution. +If the world had ever had the chance to grow weary of being demoniac, it +might have been healed merely by becoming sane. But if it had grown +weary even of, being sane, what was to happen except what did happen? +Nor is it false to conceive the Arcadian shepherd of the Eclogues as +rejoicing in what did happen. One of the Eclogues has even been claimed +as a prophecy of what did happen. But it is quite as much in the tone +and incidental diction of the great poet that we feel the potential +sympathy with the great event; and even in their own human phrases the +voices of the Virgilian shepherds might more than once have broken upon +more than the tenderness of Italy... *Incipe*, *parve puer*, *risu +cognoscere matrem*... They might have found in that strange place all +that was best in the last traditions of the Latins; and something better +than a wooden idol standing up for ever for the pillar of the human +family; a Household God. But they and all the other mythologists would +be justified in rejoicing that the event had fulfilled not merely the +mysticism but the materialism of mythology. Mythology had many sins; but +it had not been wrong in being as carnal as the Incarnation. With +something of the ancient voice that was supposed to have rung through +the groves, it could cry again, "We have seen, he hath seen us, a +visible god." So the ancient shepherds might have danced, and their feet +have been beautiful upon the mountains, rejoicing over the philosophers. +But the philosophers had also heard. + +It is still a strange story, though an old one, how they came out of +orient lands, crowned with the majesty of kings and clothed with +something of the mystery of magicians. That truth that is tradition has +wisely remembered them almost as unknown quantities, as mysterious as +their mysterious and melodious names: Melchoir, Caspar, Balthazar. But +there came with them all that world of wisdom that had watched the stars +in Chaldea and the sun in Persia; and we shall not be wrong if we see in +them the sam\^ curiosity that moves all the sages. They would stand for +the same human ideal if their names had really been Confucius or +Pythagoras or Plato. They were those who sought not tales but the truth +of things; and since their thirst for truth was itself a thirst for God, +they also have had their reward. But even in order to understand that +reward, we must understand that for philosophy as much as mythology, +that reward was the completion of the incomplete. + +Such learned men would doubtless have come, as these learned men did +come, to find themselves confirmed in much that was true in their own +traditions and right in their own reasoning. Confucius would have found +a new foundation for the family in the very reversal of the Holy Family; +Buddha would have looked upon a new renunciation, of stars rather than +jewels and divinity than royalty. These learned men would still have the +right to say, or rather a new right to say, that there was truth in +their old teaching. But, after all, these learned men would have come to +learn. They would have come to complete their conceptions \* with +something they had not yet conceived; even to balance their imperfect +universe with something they might once have contradicted. Buddha would +have come from his impersonal paradise to worship a person. Confucius +would have come from his temples of ancestor-worship to worship a child. + +We must grasp from the first this character in the new cosmos: that it +was larger than the old cosmos. In that sense Christendom is larger than +creation; as creation had been before Christ. It included things that +had not been there; it also included the things that had been there. The +point happens to be well illustrated in this example of Chinese piety, +but it would be true of other pagan virtues or pagan beliefs. Nobody can +doubt that a reasonable respect for parents is part of a gospel in which +God himself was subject in childhood to earthly parents. But the other +sense in which the parents were subject to him does introduce an idea +that is not Confucian. The infant Christ is not like the infant +Confucius; our mysticism conceives him in an immortal infancy. I do not +know what Confucius would have done with the Bambino, had it come to +life in his arms as it did in the arms of St. Francis. But this is true +in relation to all the other religions and philosophies; it is the +challenge of the Church. The Church contains what the world does not +contain. Life itself does not provide as she does for all sides of life. +That every other single system is narrow and insufficient compared to +this one; that is not a rhetorical boast; it is a real fact and a real +dilemma. Where is the Holy Child amid the Stoics and the +ancestor-worshippers? Where is Our Lady of the Moslems, a woman made for +no man and set above all angels? Where is St. Michael of the monks of +Buddha, rider and master of the trumpets, guarding for every soldier the +honour of the sword? What could St. Thomas Aquinas do with the mythology +of Brahminism, he \* who set forth all the science and rationality and +even rationalism of Christianity? Yet even if we compare Aquinas with +Aristotle, at the other extreme of reason, we shall find the same sense +of something added. Aquinas could understand the most logical parts of +Aristotle; it is doubtful if Aristotle could have understood the most +mystical parts of Aquinas. Even where we can hardly call the Christian +greater, we are forced to call him larger. But it is so to whatever +philosophy or heresy or modern movement we may turn. How would Francis +the Troubadour have fared among the Calvinists, or for that matter among +the Utilitarians of the Manchester School? Yet men like Bossuet and +Pascal could be as stern and logical as any Calvinist or Utilitarian. +How would St. Joan of Arc, a woman waving on men to war with the sword, +have fared among the Quakers or the Doukhabors or the Tolstoyan sect of +pacifists? Yet any number of Catholic saints have spent their lives in +preaching peace and preventing wars. It is the same with all the modern +attempts at Syncretism. They are never able to make something larger +than the Creed without leaving something out. + +I do not mean leaving out something divine but something human; the flag +or the inn or the boy's tale of battle or the hedge at the end of the +field. The Theosophists build a pantheon; but it is only a pantheon for +pantheists. They call a Parliament of Religions as a reunion of all the +peoples; but it is only a reunion of all the prigs. Yet exactly such a +pantheon had been set up two thousand years before by the shores of the +Mediterranean; and Christians were invited to set up the image of Jesus +side by side with the image of Jupiter, of Mithras, of Osiris, of Atys, +or of Ammon. It was the refusal of the Christians that was the +turning-point of history. If tne Christians had accepted, they and the +whole world would have certainly, in a grotesque but exact metaphor, +gone to pot. They would all have been boiled down to one lukewarm liquid +in that great pot of cosmopolitan corruption in which all the other \* +myths and mysteries were already melting. It was an awful and an +appalling escape. Nobody understands the nature of the Church, or the +ringing note of the creed descending from antiquity, who does not +realise that the whole world once very nearly died of broadmindedness +and the brotherhood of all religions. + +Here it is the important point that the Magi, who stand for mysticism +and philosophy, are truly conceived as seeking something new and even as +finding something unexpected. That tense sense of crisis which still +tingles in the Christmas story, and even in every Christmas celebration, +accentuates the idea of a search and a discovery. The discovery is, in +this case, truly a scientific discovery. For the other mystical figures +in the miracle play, for the angel and the mother, the shepherds and the +soldiers of Herod, there may be aspects both simpler and more +supernatural, more elemental or more emotional. But the Wise Men must be +seeking wisdom; and for them there must be a light also in the +intellect. And this is the light: that the Catholic creed is catholic +and that nothing else is catholic. The philosophy of the Church is +universal. The philosophy of the philosophers was not universal. Had +Plato and Pythagoras and Aristotle stood for an instant in the fight +that came out of that little cave, they would have known that their own +light was not universal. It is far from certain, indeed, that they did +not know it already. Philosophy also, like mythology, had very much the +air of a search. It is ft Le realisation of this truth that gives its +traditional majesty and mystery to the figures of the Three Kings; the +discovery that religion is broader than philosophy and that this is the +broadest of religions, contained within this narrow space. The Magicians +were gazing at the strange pentacle with the human triangle reversed; +and they have never come to the end of their calculations about it. For +it is the paradox of that group in the cave, that while our emotions +about it are of childish simplicity, our thoughts about it can branch +with a never-ending complexity. And we can never reach the end even of +our own ideas about the child who was a father and the mother who was a +child. + +We might well be content to say that mythology had come with the +shepherds and philosophy with the philosophers; and that it only +remained for them to combine in the reorgnisation of religion. But there +was a third element that must not be ignored and one which that religion +for ever refuses to ignore, in any revel or reconciliation. There was +present in the primary scenes of the drama that Enemy that had rotted +the legends with lust and frozen the theories into atheism, but which +answered the direct challenge with something of that more direct method +which we have seen in the conscious cult of the demons. In the +description of that demon-worship, of the devouring detestation of +innocence shown in the works of its witchcraft and the most inhuman of +its human sacrifice, I have said less of its indirect and secret +penetration of the saner paganism; the soaking of mythological +imagination with sex; the rise of imperial pride into insanity. But both +the indirect and the direct influence make themselves felt in the drama +of Bethlehem. A ruler under the Roman suzerainty, probably equipped and +surrounded with the Roman ornament and order though himself of eastern +blood, seems in that hour to have felt stirring within him the spirit of +strange things. We all know the story of how Herod, alarmed at some +rumour of a mysterious rival, remembered the wild gesture of the +capricious despots of Asia and ordered a massacre of suspects of the new +generation of the populace. Every one knows the story; but not every one +has perhaps noted its place in the story of the strange religions of +men. Not everybody has seen the significance even of its very contrast +with the Corinthian columns and Roman pavement of that conquered and +superficially civilised world. Only, as the purpose in this dark spirit +began to show and shine in the eyes of the Indumean, a seer might +perhaps have seen something like a great grey ghost that looked over his +shoulder; have seen behind him, filling the dome of night and hovering +for the last time over history, that vast and fearful face that was +Moloch of the Carthaginians; awaiting his last tribute from a ruler of +the races of Shem. The demons also, in that first festival of Christmas, +feasted after their own fashion. + +Unless we understand the presence of that Enemy, we shall not only miss +the point of Christianity, but even miss the point of Christmas. +Christmas for us in Christendom has become one thing, and in one sense +even a simple thing. But, like all the truths of that tradition, it is +in another sense a very complex thing. Its unique note is the +simultaneous striking of many notes; of humility, of gaiety, of +gratitude, of mystical fear, but also of vigilance and of drama. It is +not only an occasion for the peacemakers any more than for the +merrymakers; it is not only a Hindu peace conference any more than it is +only a Scandinavian winter feast. There is something defiant in it also; +something that makes the abrupt bells at midnight sound like the great +guns of a battle that has just been won. All this indescribable thing +that we call the Christmas atmosphere only hangs in the air as something +like a lingering fragrance or fading vapour from the exultant explosion +of that one hour in the Judean hills nearly two thousand years ago. But +the savour is still unmistakable, and it is something too subtle or too +solitary to be covered by our use of the word peace. By the very nature +of the story the rejoicings in the cavern were rejoicings in a fortress +or an outlaw's den; properly understood it is not unduly flippant to say +they were rejoicings in a dug-out. It is not only true that such a +subterranean chamber was a hiding-place from enemies; and that the +enemies were already scouring the stony plain that lay above it like a +sky. It is not only that the very horse-hoofs of Herod might in that +sense have passed like thunder over the sunken head of Christ. It is +also that there is in that image a true idea of an outpost, of a +piercing through the rock and an entrance into an enemy territory. There +is in this buried divinity an idea of *undermining* the world; of +shaking the towers and palaces from below; even as Herod the great king +felt that earthquake under him and swayed with his swaying palace. + +That is perhaps the mightiest of the mysteries of the cave. It is +already apparent that though men are said to have looked for hell under +the earth, in this case it is rather heaven that is under the earth. And +there follows in this strange story the idea of an upheaval of heaven. +That is the paradox of the whole position; that henceforth the highest +thing can only work from below. Royalty can only return to its own by a +sort of rebellion. Indeed the Church from its beginnings, and perhaps +especially in its beginnings, was not so much a principality as a +revolution against the prince of the world. This sense that the world +had been conquered by the great usurper, and was in his possession, has +been much deplored or derided by those optimists who identify +enlightenment with ease. But it was responsible for all that thrill of +defiance and a beautiful danger that made the good news seem to be +really both good and new. It was in truth against a huge unconscious +usurpation that it raised a revolt, and originally so obscure a revolt. +Olympus still occupied the sky like a motionless cloud moulded into many +mighty forms; philosophy still sat in the high places and even on the +thrones of the kings, when Christ was born in the cave and Christianity +in the catacombs. + +In both cases we may remark the same paradox of revolution; the sense of +something despised and of something feared. The cave in one aspect is +only a hole or corner into which the outcasts are swept like rubbish; +yet in the other aspect it is a hiding-place of something valuable which +the tyrants are seeking like treasure. In one sense they are there +because the innkeeper would not even remember them, and in another +because the king can never forget them. We have already noted that this +paradox appeared also in the treatment of the early Church. It was +important while it was still insignificant, and certainly while it was +still impotent. It was important solely because it was intolerable; and +in that sense it is true to say that it was intolerable because it was +intolerant. It was resented, because, in its own still and almost secret +way, it had declared war. It had risen out of the ground to wreck the +heaven and earth of heathenism. It did not try to destroy all that +creation of gold and marble; but it contemplated a world without it. It +dared to look right through it as though the gold and marble had been +glass. Those who charged the Christians with burning down Home with +firebrands were slanderers; but they were at least far nearer to the +nature of Christianity than those among the moderns who tell us that the +Christians were a sort of ethical society, being martyred in a languid +fashion for telling men they had a duty to their neighbours, and only +mildly disliked because they were meek and mild. + +Herod had his place, therefore, in the miracle play of Bethlehem because +he is the menace to the Church Militant and shows it from the first as +under persecution and fighting for its life. For those who think this a +discord, it is a discord that sounds simultaneously with the Christmas +bells. For those who think the idea of the Crusade is one that spoils +the idea of the Cross, we can only say that for them the idea of the +Cross is spoiled; the idea of the Cross is spoiled quite literally in +the Cradle. It is not here to the purpose to argue with them on the +abstract ethics of fighting; the purpose in this place is merely to sum +up the combination of ideas that make up the Christian and Catholic +idea, and to note that all of them are already crystallised in the first +Christmas story. They are three distinct and commonly contrasted things +which are nevertheless one thing; but this is the only thing which can +make them one. The first is the human instinct for a heaven that shall +be as literal and almost as local as a home. It is the idea pursued by +all poets and pagans making myths; that a particular place must be the +shrine of the god or the abode of the blest; that fairyland is a land; +or that the return of the ghost must be the resurrection of the body. I +do not here reason about the refusal of rationalism to satisfy this +need. I only say, that if the rationalists refuse to satisfy it, the +pagans will not be satisfied. This is present in the story of Bethlehem +and Jerusalem as it is present in the story of Delos and Delphi; and as +it is not present in the whole universe of Lucretius or the whole +universe of Herbert Spencer. The second element is a philosophy larger +than other philosophies; larger than that of Lucretius and infinitely +larger than that of Herbert Spencer. It looks at the world through a +hundred windows where the ancient stoic or the modern agnostic only +looks through one. It sees life with thousands of eyes belonging to +thousands of different sorts of people, where the other is only the +individual standpoint of a stoic or an agnostic. It has something for +all moods of man, it finds work for all kinds of men, it understands +secrets of psychology, it is aware of depths of evil, it is able to +distinguish between real and unreal marvels and miraculous exceptions, +it trains itself in tact about hard cases, all with a multiplicity and +subtlety and imagination about the varieties of life which is far beyond +the bald or breezy platitudes of most ancient or modern moral +philosophy. In a word, there is more in it; it finds more in existence +to think about; it gets more out of life. Masses of this material about +our many-sided life have been added since the time of St. Thomas +Aquinas. But St. Thomas Aquinas alone would have found himself limited +in the world of Confucius or of Comte. And the third point is this; that +while it is local enough for poetry and larger than any other +philosophy, it is also a challenge and a fight. While it is deliberately +broadened to embrace every aspect of truth, it is still stiffly +embattled against every mode of error. It gets every kind of man to +fight for it, it gets every kind of weapon to fight with, it widens its +knowledge of the things that are fought for and against with every art +of curiosity or sympathy; but it never forgets that it is fighting. It +proclaims peace on earth and never forgets why there was war in heaven. + +This is the trinity of truths symbolised here by the three types in the +old Christmas story: the shepherds and the kings and that other king who +warred upon the children. It is simply not true to say that other +religions and philosophies are in this respect its rivals. It is not +true to say that any one of them combines these characters; it is not +true to say that any one of them pretends to combine them. Buddhism may +profess to be equally mystical; it does not even profess to be equally +military. Islam may profess to be equally military; it does not even +profess to be equally metaphysical and subtle. Confucianism may profess +to satisfy the need of the philosophers for order and reason; it does +not even profess to satisfy the need of the mystics for miracle and +sacrament and the consecration of concrete things. There are many +evidences of this presence of a spirit at once universal and unique. One +will serve here which is the symbol of the subject of this chapter; that +no other story, no pagan legend or philosophical anecdote or historical +event, does in fact affect any of us with that peculiar and even +poignant impression produced on us by the word Bethlehem. No other birth +of a god or childhood of a sage seems to us to be Christmas or anything +like Christmas. It is either too cold or too frivolous, or too formal +and classical, or too simple and savage, or too occult and complicated. +Not one of us, whatever his opinions, would ever go to such a scene with +the sense that he was going home. He might admire it because it was +poetical, or because it was philosophical, or any number of other things +in separation; but not because it was itself. The truth is that there is +a quite peculiar and individual character about the hold of this story +on human nature; it is not in its psychological substance at all like a +mere legend or the life of a great man. It does not exactly in the +ordinary sense turn our minds to greatness; to those extensions and +exaggerations of humanity which are turned into gods and heroes, even by +the healthiest sort of hero-worship. It does not exactly work outwards, +adventurously, to the wonders to be found at the ends of the earth. It +is rather something that surprises us from behind, from the hidden and +personal part of our being; like that which can sometimes take us off +our guard in the pathos of small objects or the blind pieties of the +poor. It is rather as if a man had found an inner room in the very heart +of his own house which he had never suspected; and seen a light from +within. It is as if he found something at the back of his own heart that +betrayed him into good. It is not made of what the world would call +strong materials; or rather it is made of materials whose strength is in +that winged levity with which they brush us and pass. It is all that is +in us but a brief tenderness that is there made eternal; all that means +no more than a momentary softening that is in some strange fashion +become a strengthening and a repose; it is the broken speech and the +lost word that are made positive and suspended unbroken; as the strange +kings fade into a far country and the mountains resound no more with the +feet of the shepherds; and only the night and the cavern lie in fold upon fold over something more human than humanity. ### II. The Riddles of the Gospel -To understand the nature of this chapter, it is necessary to -recur to the nature of this book. The argument which is -meant to be the backbone of the book is of the kind called -the *reductio ad absurdum*. It suggests that the results of -assuming the rationalist thesis are more irrational than -ours; but to prove it we must assume that thesis. Thus in -the first section I often treated man as merely an animal, -to show that the effect was more impossible than if he were -treated as an angel. In the sense in which it was necessary -to treat man merely as an animal, it is necessary to treat -Christ merely as a man. I have to suspend my own beliefs, -which are much more positive; and assume this limitation -even in order to remove it. I must try to imagine what would -happen to a man who did really read the story of Christ as -the story of a man; and even of a man of whom he had never -heard before. And I wish to point out that a really -impartial reading of that kind would lead, if not -immediately to belief, at least to a bewilderment of which -there is really no solution except in belief. In this -chapter, for this reason, I shall bring in nothing of the -spirit of my own creed; I shall exclude the very style of -diction, and even of lettering, which I should think fitting -in speaking in my own person. I am speaking as an imaginary -heathen human being, honestly staring at the Gospel story -for the first time. - -Now it is not at all easy to regard the New Testament as a -New Testament. It is not at all easy to realise the good -news as new. Both for good and evil familiarity fills us -with assumptions and associations; and no man of our -civilisation, whatever he thinks of our religion, can really -read the thing as if he had never heard of it before. Of -course it is in any case utterly unhistorical to talk as if -the New Testament were a neatly bound book that had fallen -from heaven. It is simply the selection made by the -authority of the Church from a mass of early Christian -literature. But apart from any such question, there is a -psychological difficulty in feeling the New Testament as -new. There is a psychological difficulty in seeing those -well-known words simply as they stand and without going -beyond what they intrinsically stand for. And this -difficulty must indeed be very great; for the result of it -is very curious. The result of it is that most modern -critics and most current criticism, even popular criticism, -makes a comment that is the exact reverse of the truth. It -is so completely the reverse of the truth that one could -almost suspect that they had never read the New Testament at -all. - -We have all heard people say a hundred times over, for they -seem never to tire of saying it, that the Jesus of the New -Testament is indeed a most merciful and humane lover of -humanity, but that the Church has hidden this human -character in repellent dogmas and stiffened it with -ecclesiastical terrors till it has taken on an inhuman -character. This is, I venture to repeat, very nearly the -reverse of the truth. The truth is that it is the image of -Christ in the churches that is almost entirely mild and -merciful. It is the image of Christ in the Gospels that is a -good many other things as well. The figure in the Gospels -does indeed utter in words of almost heart-breaking beauty -his pity for our broken hearts. But they are very far from -being the only sort of words that he utters. Nevertheless -they are almost the only kind of words that the Church in -its popular imagery ever represents him as uttering. That -popular imagery is inspired by a perfectly sound popular -instinct. The mass of the poor are broken, and the mass of -the people are poor, and for the mass of mankind the main -thing is to carry the conviction of the incredible -compassion of God. But nobody with his eyes open can doubt -that it is chiefly this idea of compassion that the popular -machinery of the Church does seek to carry. The popular -imagery carries a great deal to excess the sentiment of -"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild." It is the first thing that -the outsider feels and criticises in a Piet& or a shrine of -the Sacred Heart. As I say, while the art may be -insufficient, I am not sure that the instinct is unsound. In -any case there is something appalling, something that makes -the blood run cold, in the idea of having a statue of Christ -in wrath. There is something insupportable even to the -imagination in the idea of turning the corner of a street or -coming out into the spaces of a market-place to meet the -petrifying petrifaction of *that* figure as it turned upon a -generation of vipers, or that face as it looked at the face -of a hypocrite. The Church can reasonably be justified -therefore if she turns the most merciful face or aspect -towards men; but it is certainly the most merciful aspect -that she does turn. And the point is here that it is very -much more specially and exclusively merciful than any -impression that could be formed by a man merely reading the -New Testament for the first time. A man simply taking the -words of the story as they stand would form quite another -impression; an impression full of mystery and possibly of -inconsistency; but certainly not merely an impression of -mildness. It would be intensely interesting; but part of the -interest would consist in its leaving a good deal to be -guessed at or explained. It is full of sudden gestures -evidently significant except that we hardly know what they -signify; of enigmatic silences; of ironical replies. The -outbreaks of wrath, like storms above our atmosphere, do not -seem to break out exactly where we should expect them, but -to follow some higher weather-chart of their own. The Peter -whom popular Church teaching presents is very rightly the -Peter to whom Christ said in forgiveness, "Feed my lambs." -He is not the Peter upon whom Christ turned as if he were -the devil, crying in that obscure wrath, "Get thee behind -me, Satan." Christ lamented with nothing but love and pity -over Jerusalem which was to murder him. We do not know what -strange spiritual atmosphere or spiritual insight led him to -sink Bethsaida lower in the pit than Sodom. I am putting -aside for the moment all questions of doctrinal inferences -or expositions, orthodox or otherwise; I am simply imagining -the'effect on a man's mind if he did really do what these -critics are always talking about doing; if he did really -read the New Testament without reference to orthodoxy and -even without reference to doctrine. He would find a number -of things which fit in far less with the current unorthodoxy -than they do with the current orthodoxy. He would find, for -instance, that if there are any descriptions that deserved -to be called realistic, they are precisely the descriptions -of the supernatural. If there is one aspect of the New -Testament Jesus in which he may be said to present himself -eminently as a practical person, it is in the aspect of an -exorcist. There is nothing meek and mild, there is nothing -even in the ordinary sense mystical, about the tone of the -voice that says "Hold thy peace and come out of him." It is -much more like the tone of a very business-like lion-tamer -or a strong-minded doctor dealing with a homicidal maniac. -But this is only a side issue for the sake of illustration; -I am not now raising these controversies; but considering -the case of the imaginary man from the moon to whom the New -Testament is new. - -Now the first thing to note is that if we take it merely as -a human story, it is in some ways a very strange story. I do -not refer here to its tremendous and tragic culmination or -to any implications involving triumph in that tragedy. I do -not refer to what is commonly called the miraculous element; -for on that point philosophies vary and modern philosophies -very decidedly waver. Indeed the educated Englishman of -to-day may be said to have passed from an old fashion, in -which he would not believe in any miracles unless they were -ancient, and adopted a new fashion in which he will not -believe in any miracles unless they are modern. He used to -hold that miraculous cures stopped with the first Christians -and is now inclined to suspect that they began with the -first Christian Scientists. But I refer here rather -specially to unmiraculous and even to unnoticed and -inconspicuous parts of the story. There are a great many -things about it which nobody would have invented, for they -are things that nobody has ever made any particular use of; -things which if they were remarked at all have remained -rather as puzzles. For instance, there is that long stretch -of silence in the life of Christ up to the age of thirty. It -is of all silences the most immense and imaginatively -impressive. But it is not the sort of thing that anybody is -particularly likely to invent in order to prove something; -and nobody so far as I know has ever tried to prove anything -in particular from it. It is impressive, but it is only -impressive as a fact; there is nothing particularly popular -or obvious about it as a fable. The ordinary trend of -hero-worship and mythmaking is much more likely to say the -precise opposite. It is much more likely to say (as I -believe some of the gospels rejected by the Church do say) -that Jesus displayed a divine precocity and began his -mission at a miraculously early age. And there is indeed -something strange in the thought that he who of all humanity -needed least preparation seems to have had most. Whether it -was some mode of the divine humility, or some truth of which -we see the shadow in the longer domestic tutelage of the -higher creatures of the earth, I do not propose to -speculate; I mention it simply as an example of the sort of -thing that does in any case give rise to speculations, quite -apart from recognised religious speculations. Now the whole -story is full of these things. It is not by any means, as -baldly presented in print, a story that it is easy to get to -the bottom of. It is anything but what these people talk of -as a simple Gospel. Relatively speaking, it is the Gospel -that has the mysticism and the Church that has the -rationalism. As I should put it, of course, it is the Gospel -that is the riddle and the Church that is the answer. But -whatever be the answer, the Gospel as it stands is almost a -book of riddles. - -First, a man reading the Gospel sayings would not find -platitudes. If he had read even in the most respectful -spirit the majority of ancient philosophers and of modern -moralists, he would appreciate the unique importance of -saying that he did not find platitudes. It is more than can -be said even of Plato. It is much more than can be said of -Epictetus or Seneca or Marcus Aurelius or Apollonius of -Tyana. And it is immeasurably more than can be said of most -of the agnostic moralists and the preachers of the ethical -societies; with their songs of service and their religion of -brotherhood. The morality of most moralists, ancient and -modern, has been one solid and polished cataract of -platitudes flowing for ever and ever. That would certainly -not be the impression of the imaginary independent outsider -studying the New Testament. He would be conscious of nothing -so commonplace and in a sense of nothing so continuous as -that stream. He would find a number of strange claims that -might sound like the claim to be the brother of the sun and -moon a number of very startling pieces of advice; a number -of stunning rebukes; a number of strangely beautiful -stories. He would see some very gigantesque figures of -speech about the impossibility of threading a needle with a -camel or the possibility of throwing a mountain into the -sea. He would see a number of very daring simplifications of -the difficulties of life; like the advice to shine upon -everybody indifferently as does the sunshine or not to worry -about the future any more than the birds. He would find on -the other hand some passages of almost impenetrable -darkness, so far as he is concerned, such as the moral of -the parable of the Unjust Steward. Some of these things -might strike him as fables and some as truths; but none as -truisms. For instance, he would not find the ordinary -platitudes in favour of peace. He would find several -paradoxes in favour of peace. He would find several ideals -of non-resistance, which taken as they stand would be rather -too pacific for any pacifist. He would be told in one -passage to treat a robber not with passive resistance, but -rather with positive and enthusiastic encouragement, if the -terms be taken literally; heaping up gifts upon the man who -had stolen goods. But he would not find a word of all that -obvious rhetoric against war which has filled countless -books and odes and orations; not a word about the wickedness -of war, the wastefulness of war, the appalling scale of the -slaughter in war and all the rest of the familiar frenzy; -indeed not a word about war at all. There is nothing that -throws any particular light on Christ's attitude towards -organised warfare, except that he seems to have been rather -fond of Roman soldiers. Indeed it is another perplexity, -speaking from the same external and human standpoint, that -he seems to have got on much better with Romans than he did -with Jews. But the question here is a certain tone to be -appreciated by merely reading a certain text; .and we might -give any number of instances of it. - -The statement that the meek shall inherit the earth is very -far from being a meek statement. I mean it is not meek in -the ordinary sense of mild and moderate and inoffensive. To -justify it, it would be necessary to go very deep into -history and anticipate things undreamed of then and by many -unrealised even now; such as the way in which the mystical -monks reclaimed the lands which the practical kings had -lost. If it was a truth at all, it was because it was a -prophecy. But certainly it was not a truth in the sense of a -truism. The blessing upon the meek would seem to be a very -violent statement; in the sense of doing violence to reason -and probability. And with this we come to another important -stage in the speculation. As a prophecy it really was -fulfilled; but it was only fulfilled long afterwards. The -monasteries were the most practical and prosperous estates -and experiments in reconstruction after the barbaric deluge; -the meek did really inherit the earth. But nobody could have -known anything of the sort at the time---unless indeed there -was one who knew. Something of the same thing may be said -about the incident of Martha and Mary; which has been -interpreted in retrospect and from the inside by the mystics -of the Christian contemplative life. But it was not at all -an obvious view of it; and most moralists, ancient and -modern, could be trusted to make a rush for the obvious. -What torrents of effortless eloquence would have flowed from -them to swell any slight superiority on the part of Martha; -what splendid sermons about the Joy of Service and the -Gospel of Work and the World Left Better Than We Found It, -and generally all the ten thousand platitudes that can be -uttered in favour of taking trouble--- by people who need -take no trouble to utter them. If in Mary the mystic and -child of love Christ was guarding the seed of something more -subtle, who was likely to understand it at the time? Nobody -else could have seen Clare and Catherine and Teresa shining -above the little roof at Bethany. It is so in another way -with that magnificent menace about bringing into the world a -sword to sunder and divide. Nobody could have guessed then -either how it could be fulfilled or how it could be -justified. Indeed some freethinkers are still so simple as -to fall into the trap and be shocked at a phrase so -deliberately defiant. They actually complain of the paradox -for not being a platitude. - -But the point here is that if we *could* read the Gospel -reports as things as new as newspaper reports, they would -puzzle us and perhaps terrify us much more than the same -things as developed by historical Christianity. For -instance; Christ after a clear allusion to the eunuchs of -eastern courts, said there would be eunuchs of the kingdom -of heaven. If this does not mean the voluntary enthusiasm of -virginity, it could only be made to mean something much more -unnatural or uncouth. It is the historical religion that -humanises it for us by experience of Franciscans or of -Sisters of Mercy. The mere statement standing by itself -might very well suggest a rather dehumanised atmosphere; the -sinister and inhuman silence of the Asiatic harem and divan. -This is but one instance out of scores; but the moral is -that the Christ of the Gospel might actually seem more -strange and terrible than the Christ of the Church. - -I am dwelling on the dark or dazzling or defiant or -mysterious side of the Gospel words, not because they had -not obviously a more obvious and popular side, but because -this is the answer to a common criticism on a vital point. -The freethinker frequently says that Jesus of Nazareth was a -man of his time, even if he was in advance of his time; and -that we cannot accept his ethics as final for humanity. The -freethinker then goes on to criticise his ethics, saying -plausibly enough that men cannot turn the other cheek, or -that they must take thought for the morrow, or that the -self-denial is too ascetic or the monogamy too severe. But -the Zealots and the Legionaries did not turn the other cheek -any more than we do, if so much. The Jewish traders and -Roman tax-gatherers took thought for the morrow as much as -we, if not more. We cannot pretend to be abandoning the -morality of the past for one more suited to the present. It -is certainly not the morality of another age, but it might -be of another world. +To understand the nature of this chapter, it is necessary to recur to +the nature of this book. The argument which is meant to be the backbone +of the book is of the kind called the *reductio ad absurdum*. It +suggests that the results of assuming the rationalist thesis are more +irrational than ours; but to prove it we must assume that thesis. Thus +in the first section I often treated man as merely an animal, to show +that the effect was more impossible than if he were treated as an angel. +In the sense in which it was necessary to treat man merely as an animal, +it is necessary to treat Christ merely as a man. I have to suspend my +own beliefs, which are much more positive; and assume this limitation +even in order to remove it. I must try to imagine what would happen to a +man who did really read the story of Christ as the story of a man; and +even of a man of whom he had never heard before. And I wish to point out +that a really impartial reading of that kind would lead, if not +immediately to belief, at least to a bewilderment of which there is +really no solution except in belief. In this chapter, for this reason, I +shall bring in nothing of the spirit of my own creed; I shall exclude +the very style of diction, and even of lettering, which I should think +fitting in speaking in my own person. I am speaking as an imaginary +heathen human being, honestly staring at the Gospel story for the first +time. -In short, we can say that these ideals are impossible in -themselves. Exactly what we cannot say is that they are -impossible for us. They are rather notably marked by a -mysticism which, if it be a sort of madness, would always -have struck the same sort of people as mad. Take, for -instance, the case of marriage and the relations of the -sexes. It might very well have been true that a Galilean -teacher taught things natural to a Galilean environment; but -it is not. It might rationally be expected that a man in the -time of Tiberius would have advanced a view conditioned by -the time of Tiberius; but he did not. What he advanced was -something quite different; something very difficult; but -something no more difficult now than it was then. When, for -instance, Mahomet made his polygamous compromise we may -reasonably say that it was conditioned by a polygamous -society. When he allowed a man four wives he was really -doing something suited to the circumstances, which might -have been less suited to other circumstances. Nobody will -pretend that the four wives were like the four winds, -something seemingly a part of the order of nature; nobody -will say that the figure four was written for ever in stars -upon the sky. But neither will any one say that the figure -four is an inconceivable ideal; that it is beyond the power -of the mind of man to count up to four; or to count the -number of his wives and see whether it amounts to four. It -is a practical compromise carrying with it the character of -a particular society. If Mahomet had been born in Acton in -the nineteenth century, we may well doubt whether he would -instantly have filled that suburb with harems of four wives -apiece. As he was bom in Arabia in the sixth century, he did -in his conjugal arrangements suggest the conditions of -Arabia in the sixth century. But Christ in his view of -marriage does not in the least suggest the conditions of -Palestine in the first century. He does not suggest anything -at all, except the sacramental view of marriage as developed -long afterwards by the Catholic Church. It was quite as -difficult for people then as for people now. It was much -more puzzling to people then than to people now. Jews and -Romans and Greeks did not believe, and did not even -understand enough to disbelieve, the mystical idea that the -man and the woman had become one sacramental substance. We -may think it an incredible or impossible ideal; but we -cannot think it any more incredible or impossible than they -would have thought it. In other words, whatever else is -true, it is not true that the controversy has been altered -by time. Whatever else is true, it is emphatically not true -that the ideas of Jesus of Nazareth were suitable to his -time, but are no longer suitable to our time. Exactly how -suitable they were to his time is perhaps suggested in the -end of his story. - -The same truth might be stated in another way by saying that -if the story be regarded as merely human and historical, it -is extraordinary how very little there is in the recorded -words of Christ that ties him at all to his own time. I do -not mean the details of a period, which even a man of the -period knows to be passing. I mean the fundamentals which -even the wisest man often vaguely assumes to be eternal. For -instance, Aristotle was perhaps the wisest and most -wide-minded man who ever lived. He founded himself entirely -upon fundamentals, which have been generally found to remain -rational and solid through all social and historical -changes. Still, he lived in a world in which it was thought -as natural to have slaves as to have children. And therefore -he did permit himself a serious recognition of a difference -between slaves and free men. Christ as much as Aristotle -lived in a world that took slavery for granted. He did not -particularly denounce slavery. He started a movement that -could exist in a world with slavery. But he started a -movement that could exist in a world without slavery. He -never used a phrase that made his philosophy depend even -upon the very existence of the social order in which he -lived. He spoke as one conscious that everything was -ephemeral, including the things that Aristotle thought -eternal. By that time the Roman Empire had come to be merely -the orbis terrarum, another name for the world. But he never -made his morality dependent on the existence of the Roman -Empire or even on the existence of the world. "Heaven and -earth shall pass away; but my words shall not pass away." - -The truth is that when critics have spoken of the local -limitations of the Galilean, it has always been a case of -the local limitations of the critics. He did undoubtedly -believe in certain things that one particular modern sect of -materialists do not believe. But they were not things -particularly peculiar to his time. It would be nearer the -truth to say that the denial of them is quite peculiar to -our time. Doubtless it would be nearer still to the truth to -say merely that a certain solemn social importance, in the -minority disbelieving them, is peculiar to our time. He -believed, for instance, in evil spirits or in the psychic -healing of bodily ills; but not because he was a Galilean -bom under Augustus. It is absurd to say that a man believed -things because he was a Galilean under Augustus when he -might have believed the same things if he had been an -Egyptian under Tutankhamen or an Indian under Genghis Khan. -But with this general question of the philosophy of -diabolism or of divine miracles I deal elsewhere. It is -enough to say that the materialists have to prove the -impossibility of miracles against the testimony of all -mankind, not against the prejudices of provincials in North -Palestine under the first Roman Emperors. What they have to -prove, for the present argument, is the presence in the -Gospels of those particular prejudices of those particular -provincials. And, humanly speaking, it is astonishing how -little they can produce even to make a beginning of proving -it. +Now it is not at all easy to regard the New Testament as a New +Testament. It is not at all easy to realise the good news as new. Both +for good and evil familiarity fills us with assumptions and +associations; and no man of our civilisation, whatever he thinks of our +religion, can really read the thing as if he had never heard of it +before. Of course it is in any case utterly unhistorical to talk as if +the New Testament were a neatly bound book that had fallen from heaven. +It is simply the selection made by the authority of the Church from a +mass of early Christian literature. But apart from any such question, +there is a psychological difficulty in feeling the New Testament as new. +There is a psychological difficulty in seeing those well-known words +simply as they stand and without going beyond what they intrinsically +stand for. And this difficulty must indeed be very great; for the result +of it is very curious. The result of it is that most modern critics and +most current criticism, even popular criticism, makes a comment that is +the exact reverse of the truth. It is so completely the reverse of the +truth that one could almost suspect that they had never read the New +Testament at all. + +We have all heard people say a hundred times over, for they seem never +to tire of saying it, that the Jesus of the New Testament is indeed a +most merciful and humane lover of humanity, but that the Church has +hidden this human character in repellent dogmas and stiffened it with +ecclesiastical terrors till it has taken on an inhuman character. This +is, I venture to repeat, very nearly the reverse of the truth. The truth +is that it is the image of Christ in the churches that is almost +entirely mild and merciful. It is the image of Christ in the Gospels +that is a good many other things as well. The figure in the Gospels does +indeed utter in words of almost heart-breaking beauty his pity for our +broken hearts. But they are very far from being the only sort of words +that he utters. Nevertheless they are almost the only kind of words that +the Church in its popular imagery ever represents him as uttering. That +popular imagery is inspired by a perfectly sound popular instinct. The +mass of the poor are broken, and the mass of the people are poor, and +for the mass of mankind the main thing is to carry the conviction of the +incredible compassion of God. But nobody with his eyes open can doubt +that it is chiefly this idea of compassion that the popular machinery of +the Church does seek to carry. The popular imagery carries a great deal +to excess the sentiment of "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild." It is the +first thing that the outsider feels and criticises in a Piet& or a +shrine of the Sacred Heart. As I say, while the art may be insufficient, +I am not sure that the instinct is unsound. In any case there is +something appalling, something that makes the blood run cold, in the +idea of having a statue of Christ in wrath. There is something +insupportable even to the imagination in the idea of turning the corner +of a street or coming out into the spaces of a market-place to meet the +petrifying petrifaction of *that* figure as it turned upon a generation +of vipers, or that face as it looked at the face of a hypocrite. The +Church can reasonably be justified therefore if she turns the most +merciful face or aspect towards men; but it is certainly the most +merciful aspect that she does turn. And the point is here that it is +very much more specially and exclusively merciful than any impression +that could be formed by a man merely reading the New Testament for the +first time. A man simply taking the words of the story as they stand +would form quite another impression; an impression full of mystery and +possibly of inconsistency; but certainly not merely an impression of +mildness. It would be intensely interesting; but part of the interest +would consist in its leaving a good deal to be guessed at or explained. +It is full of sudden gestures evidently significant except that we +hardly know what they signify; of enigmatic silences; of ironical +replies. The outbreaks of wrath, like storms above our atmosphere, do +not seem to break out exactly where we should expect them, but to follow +some higher weather-chart of their own. The Peter whom popular Church +teaching presents is very rightly the Peter to whom Christ said in +forgiveness, "Feed my lambs." He is not the Peter upon whom Christ +turned as if he were the devil, crying in that obscure wrath, "Get thee +behind me, Satan." Christ lamented with nothing but love and pity over +Jerusalem which was to murder him. We do not know what strange spiritual +atmosphere or spiritual insight led him to sink Bethsaida lower in the +pit than Sodom. I am putting aside for the moment all questions of +doctrinal inferences or expositions, orthodox or otherwise; I am simply +imagining the'effect on a man's mind if he did really do what these +critics are always talking about doing; if he did really read the New +Testament without reference to orthodoxy and even without reference to +doctrine. He would find a number of things which fit in far less with +the current unorthodoxy than they do with the current orthodoxy. He +would find, for instance, that if there are any descriptions that +deserved to be called realistic, they are precisely the descriptions of +the supernatural. If there is one aspect of the New Testament Jesus in +which he may be said to present himself eminently as a practical person, +it is in the aspect of an exorcist. There is nothing meek and mild, +there is nothing even in the ordinary sense mystical, about the tone of +the voice that says "Hold thy peace and come out of him." It is much +more like the tone of a very business-like lion-tamer or a strong-minded +doctor dealing with a homicidal maniac. But this is only a side issue +for the sake of illustration; I am not now raising these controversies; +but considering the case of the imaginary man from the moon to whom the +New Testament is new. + +Now the first thing to note is that if we take it merely as a human +story, it is in some ways a very strange story. I do not refer here to +its tremendous and tragic culmination or to any implications involving +triumph in that tragedy. I do not refer to what is commonly called the +miraculous element; for on that point philosophies vary and modern +philosophies very decidedly waver. Indeed the educated Englishman of +to-day may be said to have passed from an old fashion, in which he would +not believe in any miracles unless they were ancient, and adopted a new +fashion in which he will not believe in any miracles unless they are +modern. He used to hold that miraculous cures stopped with the first +Christians and is now inclined to suspect that they began with the first +Christian Scientists. But I refer here rather specially to unmiraculous +and even to unnoticed and inconspicuous parts of the story. There are a +great many things about it which nobody would have invented, for they +are things that nobody has ever made any particular use of; things which +if they were remarked at all have remained rather as puzzles. For +instance, there is that long stretch of silence in the life of Christ up +to the age of thirty. It is of all silences the most immense and +imaginatively impressive. But it is not the sort of thing that anybody +is particularly likely to invent in order to prove something; and nobody +so far as I know has ever tried to prove anything in particular from it. +It is impressive, but it is only impressive as a fact; there is nothing +particularly popular or obvious about it as a fable. The ordinary trend +of hero-worship and mythmaking is much more likely to say the precise +opposite. It is much more likely to say (as I believe some of the +gospels rejected by the Church do say) that Jesus displayed a divine +precocity and began his mission at a miraculously early age. And there +is indeed something strange in the thought that he who of all humanity +needed least preparation seems to have had most. Whether it was some +mode of the divine humility, or some truth of which we see the shadow in +the longer domestic tutelage of the higher creatures of the earth, I do +not propose to speculate; I mention it simply as an example of the sort +of thing that does in any case give rise to speculations, quite apart +from recognised religious speculations. Now the whole story is full of +these things. It is not by any means, as baldly presented in print, a +story that it is easy to get to the bottom of. It is anything but what +these people talk of as a simple Gospel. Relatively speaking, it is the +Gospel that has the mysticism and the Church that has the rationalism. +As I should put it, of course, it is the Gospel that is the riddle and +the Church that is the answer. But whatever be the answer, the Gospel as +it stands is almost a book of riddles. + +First, a man reading the Gospel sayings would not find platitudes. If he +had read even in the most respectful spirit the majority of ancient +philosophers and of modern moralists, he would appreciate the unique +importance of saying that he did not find platitudes. It is more than +can be said even of Plato. It is much more than can be said of Epictetus +or Seneca or Marcus Aurelius or Apollonius of Tyana. And it is +immeasurably more than can be said of most of the agnostic moralists and +the preachers of the ethical societies; with their songs of service and +their religion of brotherhood. The morality of most moralists, ancient +and modern, has been one solid and polished cataract of platitudes +flowing for ever and ever. That would certainly not be the impression of +the imaginary independent outsider studying the New Testament. He would +be conscious of nothing so commonplace and in a sense of nothing so +continuous as that stream. He would find a number of strange claims that +might sound like the claim to be the brother of the sun and moon a +number of very startling pieces of advice; a number of stunning rebukes; +a number of strangely beautiful stories. He would see some very +gigantesque figures of speech about the impossibility of threading a +needle with a camel or the possibility of throwing a mountain into the +sea. He would see a number of very daring simplifications of the +difficulties of life; like the advice to shine upon everybody +indifferently as does the sunshine or not to worry about the future any +more than the birds. He would find on the other hand some passages of +almost impenetrable darkness, so far as he is concerned, such as the +moral of the parable of the Unjust Steward. Some of these things might +strike him as fables and some as truths; but none as truisms. For +instance, he would not find the ordinary platitudes in favour of peace. +He would find several paradoxes in favour of peace. He would find +several ideals of non-resistance, which taken as they stand would be +rather too pacific for any pacifist. He would be told in one passage to +treat a robber not with passive resistance, but rather with positive and +enthusiastic encouragement, if the terms be taken literally; heaping up +gifts upon the man who had stolen goods. But he would not find a word of +all that obvious rhetoric against war which has filled countless books +and odes and orations; not a word about the wickedness of war, the +wastefulness of war, the appalling scale of the slaughter in war and all +the rest of the familiar frenzy; indeed not a word about war at all. +There is nothing that throws any particular light on Christ's attitude +towards organised warfare, except that he seems to have been rather fond +of Roman soldiers. Indeed it is another perplexity, speaking from the +same external and human standpoint, that he seems to have got on much +better with Romans than he did with Jews. But the question here is a +certain tone to be appreciated by merely reading a certain text; .and we +might give any number of instances of it. + +The statement that the meek shall inherit the earth is very far from +being a meek statement. I mean it is not meek in the ordinary sense of +mild and moderate and inoffensive. To justify it, it would be necessary +to go very deep into history and anticipate things undreamed of then and +by many unrealised even now; such as the way in which the mystical monks +reclaimed the lands which the practical kings had lost. If it was a +truth at all, it was because it was a prophecy. But certainly it was not +a truth in the sense of a truism. The blessing upon the meek would seem +to be a very violent statement; in the sense of doing violence to reason +and probability. And with this we come to another important stage in the +speculation. As a prophecy it really was fulfilled; but it was only +fulfilled long afterwards. The monasteries were the most practical and +prosperous estates and experiments in reconstruction after the barbaric +deluge; the meek did really inherit the earth. But nobody could have +known anything of the sort at the time---unless indeed there was one who +knew. Something of the same thing may be said about the incident of +Martha and Mary; which has been interpreted in retrospect and from the +inside by the mystics of the Christian contemplative life. But it was +not at all an obvious view of it; and most moralists, ancient and +modern, could be trusted to make a rush for the obvious. What torrents +of effortless eloquence would have flowed from them to swell any slight +superiority on the part of Martha; what splendid sermons about the Joy +of Service and the Gospel of Work and the World Left Better Than We +Found It, and generally all the ten thousand platitudes that can be +uttered in favour of taking trouble--- by people who need take no +trouble to utter them. If in Mary the mystic and child of love Christ +was guarding the seed of something more subtle, who was likely to +understand it at the time? Nobody else could have seen Clare and +Catherine and Teresa shining above the little roof at Bethany. It is so +in another way with that magnificent menace about bringing into the +world a sword to sunder and divide. Nobody could have guessed then +either how it could be fulfilled or how it could be justified. Indeed +some freethinkers are still so simple as to fall into the trap and be +shocked at a phrase so deliberately defiant. They actually complain of +the paradox for not being a platitude. + +But the point here is that if we *could* read the Gospel reports as +things as new as newspaper reports, they would puzzle us and perhaps +terrify us much more than the same things as developed by historical +Christianity. For instance; Christ after a clear allusion to the eunuchs +of eastern courts, said there would be eunuchs of the kingdom of heaven. +If this does not mean the voluntary enthusiasm of virginity, it could +only be made to mean something much more unnatural or uncouth. It is the +historical religion that humanises it for us by experience of +Franciscans or of Sisters of Mercy. The mere statement standing by +itself might very well suggest a rather dehumanised atmosphere; the +sinister and inhuman silence of the Asiatic harem and divan. This is but +one instance out of scores; but the moral is that the Christ of the +Gospel might actually seem more strange and terrible than the Christ of +the Church. + +I am dwelling on the dark or dazzling or defiant or mysterious side of +the Gospel words, not because they had not obviously a more obvious and +popular side, but because this is the answer to a common criticism on a +vital point. The freethinker frequently says that Jesus of Nazareth was +a man of his time, even if he was in advance of his time; and that we +cannot accept his ethics as final for humanity. The freethinker then +goes on to criticise his ethics, saying plausibly enough that men cannot +turn the other cheek, or that they must take thought for the morrow, or +that the self-denial is too ascetic or the monogamy too severe. But the +Zealots and the Legionaries did not turn the other cheek any more than +we do, if so much. The Jewish traders and Roman tax-gatherers took +thought for the morrow as much as we, if not more. We cannot pretend to +be abandoning the morality of the past for one more suited to the +present. It is certainly not the morality of another age, but it might +be of another world. -So it is in this case of the sacrament of marriage. We may -not believe in sacraments, as we may not believe in spirits, -but it is quite clear that Christ believed in this sacrament -in his own way and not in any current or contemporary way. -He certainly did not get his argument against divorce from -the Mosaic law or the Roman law or the habits of the -Palestinian people. It would appear to his critics then -exactly what it appears to his critics now; an arbitrary and -transcendental dogma coming from nowhere save in the sense -that it came from him. I am not at all concerned here to -defend that dogma; the point here is that it is just as easy -to defend it now as it was to defend it then. It is an ideal -altogether outside time; difficult at any period; impossible -at no period. In other words, if any one says it is what -might be expected of a man walking about in that place at -that period, we can quite fairly answer that it is much more -like what might be the mysterious utterance of a being -beyond man, if he walked alive among men. - -I maintain therefore that a man reading the New Testament -frankly and freshly would not get the impression of what is -now often meant by a human Christ. The merely human Christ -is a made-up figure, a piece of artificial selection, like -the merely evolutionary man. Moreover there have been too -many of these human Christs found in the same story, just as -there have been too many keys to mythology found in the same -stories. Three or four separate schools of rationalism have -worked over the ground and produced three or four equally -rational explanations of his life. The first rational -explanation of his life was that he never lived. And this in -turn gave an opportunity for three or four different -explanations; as that he was a sun-myth or a corn-myth, or -any other kind of myth that is also a monomania. Then the -idea that he was a divine being who did not exist gave place -to the idea that he was a human being who did exist. In my -youth it was the fashion to say that he was merely an -ethical teacher in the manner of the Essenes, who had -apparently nothing very much to say that Hillel or a hundred -other Jews might not have said; as that it is a kindly thing -to be kind and an assistance to purification to be pure. -Then somebody said he was a madman with a Messianic -delusion. Then others said he was indeed an original teacher -because he cared about nothing but Socialism; or (as others -said) about nothing but Pacifism. Then a more grimly -scientific character appeared who said that Jesus would -never have been heard of at all except for his prophecies of -the end of the world. He was important merely as a -Millennarian like Dr. Cumming; and created a provincial -scare by announcing the exact date of the crack of doom. -Among other variants on the same theme was the theory that -he was a spiritual healer and nothing else; a view implied -by Christian Science, which has really to expound a -Christianity without the Crucifixion in order to explain the -curing of Peter's wife's mother or the daughter of a -centurion. There is another theory that concentrates -entirely on the business of diabolism and what it would call -the contemporary superstition about demoniacs; as if Christ, -like a young deacon taking his first orders, had got as far -as exorcism and never got any further. Now each of these -explanations in itself seems to me singularly inadequate; -but taken together they do suggest something of the very -mystery which they miss. There must surely have been -something not only mysterious but many-sided about Christ if -so many smaller Christs can be carved out of him. If the -Christian Scientist is satisfied with him as a spiritual -healer and the Christian Socialist is satisfied with him as -a social reformer, so satisfied that they do not even expect -him to be anything else, it looks as if he really covered -rather more ground than they could be expected to expect. -And it does seem to suggest that there might be more than -they fancy in these other mysterious attributes of casting -out devils or prophesying doom. - -Above all, would not such a new reader of the New Testament -stumble over something that would startle him much more than -it startles us? I have here more than once attempted the -rather impossible task of reversing time and the historic -method; and in fancy looking forward to the facts, instead -of backward through the memories. So I have imagined the -monster that man might have seemed at first to the mere -nature around him. We should have a worse shock if we really -imagined the nature of Christ named for the first time. What -should we feel at the first whisper of a certain suggestion -about a certain man? Certainly it is not for us to blame -anybody who should find that first wild whisper merely -impious and insane. On the contrary, stumbling on that rock -of scandal is the first step. Stark staring incredulity is a -far more loyal tribute to that truth than a modernist -metaphysic that would make it out merely a matter of degree. -It were better to rend our robes with a great cry against -blasphemy, like Caiaphas in the judgment, or to lay hold of -the man as a maniac possessed of devils like the kinsmen and -the crowd, rather than to stand stupidly debating fine -shades of pantheism in the presence of so catastrophic a -claim. There is more of the wisdom that is one with surprise -in any simple person, full of the sensitiveness of -simplicity, who should expect the grass to wither and the -birds to drop dead out of the air, when a strolling -carpenter's apprentice said calmly and almost carelessly, -like one looking over his shoulder: "Before Abraham, was, I +In short, we can say that these ideals are impossible in themselves. +Exactly what we cannot say is that they are impossible for us. They are +rather notably marked by a mysticism which, if it be a sort of madness, +would always have struck the same sort of people as mad. Take, for +instance, the case of marriage and the relations of the sexes. It might +very well have been true that a Galilean teacher taught things natural +to a Galilean environment; but it is not. It might rationally be +expected that a man in the time of Tiberius would have advanced a view +conditioned by the time of Tiberius; but he did not. What he advanced +was something quite different; something very difficult; but something +no more difficult now than it was then. When, for instance, Mahomet made +his polygamous compromise we may reasonably say that it was conditioned +by a polygamous society. When he allowed a man four wives he was really +doing something suited to the circumstances, which might have been less +suited to other circumstances. Nobody will pretend that the four wives +were like the four winds, something seemingly a part of the order of +nature; nobody will say that the figure four was written for ever in +stars upon the sky. But neither will any one say that the figure four is +an inconceivable ideal; that it is beyond the power of the mind of man +to count up to four; or to count the number of his wives and see whether +it amounts to four. It is a practical compromise carrying with it the +character of a particular society. If Mahomet had been born in Acton in +the nineteenth century, we may well doubt whether he would instantly +have filled that suburb with harems of four wives apiece. As he was bom +in Arabia in the sixth century, he did in his conjugal arrangements +suggest the conditions of Arabia in the sixth century. But Christ in his +view of marriage does not in the least suggest the conditions of +Palestine in the first century. He does not suggest anything at all, +except the sacramental view of marriage as developed long afterwards by +the Catholic Church. It was quite as difficult for people then as for +people now. It was much more puzzling to people then than to people now. +Jews and Romans and Greeks did not believe, and did not even understand +enough to disbelieve, the mystical idea that the man and the woman had +become one sacramental substance. We may think it an incredible or +impossible ideal; but we cannot think it any more incredible or +impossible than they would have thought it. In other words, whatever +else is true, it is not true that the controversy has been altered by +time. Whatever else is true, it is emphatically not true that the ideas +of Jesus of Nazareth were suitable to his time, but are no longer +suitable to our time. Exactly how suitable they were to his time is +perhaps suggested in the end of his story. + +The same truth might be stated in another way by saying that if the +story be regarded as merely human and historical, it is extraordinary +how very little there is in the recorded words of Christ that ties him +at all to his own time. I do not mean the details of a period, which +even a man of the period knows to be passing. I mean the fundamentals +which even the wisest man often vaguely assumes to be eternal. For +instance, Aristotle was perhaps the wisest and most wide-minded man who +ever lived. He founded himself entirely upon fundamentals, which have +been generally found to remain rational and solid through all social and +historical changes. Still, he lived in a world in which it was thought +as natural to have slaves as to have children. And therefore he did +permit himself a serious recognition of a difference between slaves and +free men. Christ as much as Aristotle lived in a world that took slavery +for granted. He did not particularly denounce slavery. He started a +movement that could exist in a world with slavery. But he started a +movement that could exist in a world without slavery. He never used a +phrase that made his philosophy depend even upon the very existence of +the social order in which he lived. He spoke as one conscious that +everything was ephemeral, including the things that Aristotle thought +eternal. By that time the Roman Empire had come to be merely the orbis +terrarum, another name for the world. But he never made his morality +dependent on the existence of the Roman Empire or even on the existence +of the world. "Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my words shall not +pass away." + +The truth is that when critics have spoken of the local limitations of +the Galilean, it has always been a case of the local limitations of the +critics. He did undoubtedly believe in certain things that one +particular modern sect of materialists do not believe. But they were not +things particularly peculiar to his time. It would be nearer the truth +to say that the denial of them is quite peculiar to our time. Doubtless +it would be nearer still to the truth to say merely that a certain +solemn social importance, in the minority disbelieving them, is peculiar +to our time. He believed, for instance, in evil spirits or in the +psychic healing of bodily ills; but not because he was a Galilean bom +under Augustus. It is absurd to say that a man believed things because +he was a Galilean under Augustus when he might have believed the same +things if he had been an Egyptian under Tutankhamen or an Indian under +Genghis Khan. But with this general question of the philosophy of +diabolism or of divine miracles I deal elsewhere. It is enough to say +that the materialists have to prove the impossibility of miracles +against the testimony of all mankind, not against the prejudices of +provincials in North Palestine under the first Roman Emperors. What they +have to prove, for the present argument, is the presence in the Gospels +of those particular prejudices of those particular provincials. And, +humanly speaking, it is astonishing how little they can produce even to +make a beginning of proving it. + +So it is in this case of the sacrament of marriage. We may not believe +in sacraments, as we may not believe in spirits, but it is quite clear +that Christ believed in this sacrament in his own way and not in any +current or contemporary way. He certainly did not get his argument +against divorce from the Mosaic law or the Roman law or the habits of +the Palestinian people. It would appear to his critics then exactly what +it appears to his critics now; an arbitrary and transcendental dogma +coming from nowhere save in the sense that it came from him. I am not at +all concerned here to defend that dogma; the point here is that it is +just as easy to defend it now as it was to defend it then. It is an +ideal altogether outside time; difficult at any period; impossible at no +period. In other words, if any one says it is what might be expected of +a man walking about in that place at that period, we can quite fairly +answer that it is much more like what might be the mysterious utterance +of a being beyond man, if he walked alive among men. + +I maintain therefore that a man reading the New Testament frankly and +freshly would not get the impression of what is now often meant by a +human Christ. The merely human Christ is a made-up figure, a piece of +artificial selection, like the merely evolutionary man. Moreover there +have been too many of these human Christs found in the same story, just +as there have been too many keys to mythology found in the same stories. +Three or four separate schools of rationalism have worked over the +ground and produced three or four equally rational explanations of his +life. The first rational explanation of his life was that he never +lived. And this in turn gave an opportunity for three or four different +explanations; as that he was a sun-myth or a corn-myth, or any other +kind of myth that is also a monomania. Then the idea that he was a +divine being who did not exist gave place to the idea that he was a +human being who did exist. In my youth it was the fashion to say that he +was merely an ethical teacher in the manner of the Essenes, who had +apparently nothing very much to say that Hillel or a hundred other Jews +might not have said; as that it is a kindly thing to be kind and an +assistance to purification to be pure. Then somebody said he was a +madman with a Messianic delusion. Then others said he was indeed an +original teacher because he cared about nothing but Socialism; or (as +others said) about nothing but Pacifism. Then a more grimly scientific +character appeared who said that Jesus would never have been heard of at +all except for his prophecies of the end of the world. He was important +merely as a Millennarian like Dr. Cumming; and created a provincial +scare by announcing the exact date of the crack of doom. Among other +variants on the same theme was the theory that he was a spiritual healer +and nothing else; a view implied by Christian Science, which has really +to expound a Christianity without the Crucifixion in order to explain +the curing of Peter's wife's mother or the daughter of a centurion. +There is another theory that concentrates entirely on the business of +diabolism and what it would call the contemporary superstition about +demoniacs; as if Christ, like a young deacon taking his first orders, +had got as far as exorcism and never got any further. Now each of these +explanations in itself seems to me singularly inadequate; but taken +together they do suggest something of the very mystery which they miss. +There must surely have been something not only mysterious but many-sided +about Christ if so many smaller Christs can be carved out of him. If the +Christian Scientist is satisfied with him as a spiritual healer and the +Christian Socialist is satisfied with him as a social reformer, so +satisfied that they do not even expect him to be anything else, it looks +as if he really covered rather more ground than they could be expected +to expect. And it does seem to suggest that there might be more than +they fancy in these other mysterious attributes of casting out devils or +prophesying doom. + +Above all, would not such a new reader of the New Testament stumble over +something that would startle him much more than it startles us? I have +here more than once attempted the rather impossible task of reversing +time and the historic method; and in fancy looking forward to the facts, +instead of backward through the memories. So I have imagined the monster +that man might have seemed at first to the mere nature around him. We +should have a worse shock if we really imagined the nature of Christ +named for the first time. What should we feel at the first whisper of a +certain suggestion about a certain man? Certainly it is not for us to +blame anybody who should find that first wild whisper merely impious and +insane. On the contrary, stumbling on that rock of scandal is the first +step. Stark staring incredulity is a far more loyal tribute to that +truth than a modernist metaphysic that would make it out merely a matter +of degree. It were better to rend our robes with a great cry against +blasphemy, like Caiaphas in the judgment, or to lay hold of the man as a +maniac possessed of devils like the kinsmen and the crowd, rather than +to stand stupidly debating fine shades of pantheism in the presence of +so catastrophic a claim. There is more of the wisdom that is one with +surprise in any simple person, full of the sensitiveness of simplicity, +who should expect the grass to wither and the birds to drop dead out of +the air, when a strolling carpenter's apprentice said calmly and almost +carelessly, like one looking over his shoulder: "Before Abraham, was, I am." ### III. The Strangest Story in the World -In the last chapter I have deliberately stressed what seems -to be nowadays a neglected side of the New Testament story, -but nobody will suppose, I imagine, that it is meant to -obscure that side that may truly be called human. That -Christ was and is the most merciful of judges and the most -sympathetic of friends is a fact of considerably more -importance in our own private lives than in anybody's -historical speculations. But the purpose of this book is to -point out that something unique has been swamped in cheap -generalisations; and for that purpose it is relevant to -insist that even what was most universal was also most -original. For instance, we might take a topic which really -is sympathetic to the modern mood, as the ascetic vocations -recently referred to are not. The exaltation of childhood is -something which we do really understand; but it was by no -means a thing that was then in that sense understood. If we -wanted an example of the originality of the Gospel, we could -hardly take a stronger or more startling one. Nearly two -thousand years afterwards we happen to find ourselves in a -mood that does really feel the mystical charm of the child; -we express it in romances and regrets about childhood, in -*Peter Pan* or *The Child's Garden of Verses*. And we can -say of the words of Christ with so angry an anti-Christian -as Swinburne:--- +In the last chapter I have deliberately stressed what seems to be +nowadays a neglected side of the New Testament story, but nobody will +suppose, I imagine, that it is meant to obscure that side that may truly +be called human. That Christ was and is the most merciful of judges and +the most sympathetic of friends is a fact of considerably more +importance in our own private lives than in anybody's historical +speculations. But the purpose of this book is to point out that +something unique has been swamped in cheap generalisations; and for that +purpose it is relevant to insist that even what was most universal was +also most original. For instance, we might take a topic which really is +sympathetic to the modern mood, as the ascetic vocations recently +referred to are not. The exaltation of childhood is something which we +do really understand; but it was by no means a thing that was then in +that sense understood. If we wanted an example of the originality of the +Gospel, we could hardly take a stronger or more startling one. Nearly +two thousand years afterwards we happen to find ourselves in a mood that +does really feel the mystical charm of the child; we express it in +romances and regrets about childhood, in *Peter Pan* or *The Child's +Garden of Verses*. And we can say of the words of Christ with so angry +an anti-Christian as Swinburne:--- > "No sign that ever was given > @@ -7661,3036 +6410,2548 @@ as Swinburne:--- > > It must be heaven indeed." -But that paradise was not clear until Christianity had -gradually cleared it. The pagan world, as such, would not -have understood any such thing as a serious suggestion that -a child is higher or holier than a man. It would have seemed -like the suggestion that a tadpole is higher or holier than -a frog. To the merely rationalistic mind, it would sound -like saying that a bud must be more beautiful than a flower -or that an unripe apple must be better than a ripe one. In -other words, this modern feeling is an entirely mystical -feeling. It is quite as mystical as the cult of virginity; -in fact it is the cult of virginity. But pagan antiquity had -much more idea of the holiness of the virgin than of the -holiness of the child. For various reasons we have come -nowadays to venerate children: perhaps partly because we -envy children for still doing what men used to do; such as -play simple games and enjoy fairy-tales. Over and above -this, however, there is a great deal of real and subtle -psychology in our appreciation of childhood: but if we turn -it into a modern discovery, we must once more admit that the -historical Jesus of Nazareth had already discovered it two -thousand years too soon. There was certainly nothing in the -world around him to help him to the discovery. Here Christ -was indeed human; but more human than a human being was then -likely to be. Peter Pan does not belong to the world of Pan -but the world of Peter. - -Even in the matter of mere literary style, if we suppose -ourselves thus sufficiently detached to look at it in that -light, there is a curious quality to which no critic seems -to have done justice. It had among other things a singular -air of piling tower upon tower by the use of the *a -fortiori*; making a pagoda of degrees like the seven -heavens. I have already noted that almost inverted -imaginative vision which pictured the impossible penance of -the Cities of the Plain. There is perhaps nothing so perfect -in all language or literature as the use of these three -degrees in the parable of the lilies of the field; in which -he seems first to take one small flower in his hand and note -its simplicity and even its impotence; then suddenly expands -it in flamboyant colours into all the palaces and pavilions -full of a great name in national legend and national glory; -and then, by yet a third overturn, shrivels it to nothing -once more with a gesture as if flinging it away "...and if -God so clothes the grass that to-day is and to-morrow is -cast into the oven-how much more..." It is like the building -of a good Babel tower by white magic in a moment and in the -movement of a hand; a tower heaved suddenly lip to heaven on -the top of which can be seen afar off, higher than we had -fancied possible, the figure of man; lifted by three -infinities above all other things, on a starry ladder of -light logic and swift imagination. Merely m a literary sense -it would be more of a masterpiece than most of the -masterpieces in the libraries; yet it seems to have been -uttered almost at random while a man might pull a flower. -But merely in a literary sense also, this use of the -comparative in several degrees has about it a quality which -seems to me to hint of much higher things than the modern -suggestion of the simple teaching of pastoral or communal -ethics. There is nothing that really indicates a subtle and -in the true sense a superior mind so much as this power of -comparing a lower thing with a higher and yet that higher -with a higher still; of thinking on three planes at once. -There is nothing that wants the rarest sort of wisdom so -much as to see, let us say, that the citizen is higher than -the slave and yet that the soul is infinitely higher than -the citizen or the city. It is not by any means a faculty -that commonly belongs to these simplifiers of the Gospel; -those who insist on what they call a simple morality and -others call a sentimental morality. It is not at all covered -by those who are content to tell everybody to remain at -peace. On the contrary, there is a very striking example of -it in the apparent inconsistency between Christ s sayings -about peace and about a sword. It is precisely this power -which perceives that while a good peace is better than a -good war, even a good war is better than a bad peace. These -far-flung comparisons are nowhere so common as in the -Gospels and to me they suggest something very vast. So a -thing solitary and solid, with the added dimension of depth -or height, might tower over the flat creatures living only -on a plane. - -This quality of something that can only be called subtle and -superior, something that is capable of long views and even -of double meanings, is not noted here merely as a -counterblast to the commonplace exaggerations of amiability -and mild idealism. It is also to be noted in connection with -the more tremendous truth touched upon at the end of the -last chapter. For this is the very last character that -commonly goes with mere megalomania; especially such steep -and staggering megalomania as might be involved in that -claim. This quality that can only be called intellectual -distinction is not, of course, an evidence of divinity. But -it is an evidence of a probable distaste for vulgar and -vainglorious claims to divinity. A man of that sort, if he -were only a man, would be the last man in the world to -suffer from that intoxication by one notion from nowhere in -particular, which is the mark of the self-deluding -sensationalist in religion. Nor is it even avoided by -denying that Christ did make this claim. Of no such man as -that, of no other prophet or philosopher of the same -intellectual order, would it be even possible to pretend -that he had made it. Even if the Church had mistaken his -meaning, it would still be true that no other historical -tradition except the Church had ever even made the same -mistake. Muslims did not misunderstand Muhammad and suppose -he was Allah. Jews did not misinterpret Moses and identify -him with Jehovah. Why was this claim alone exaggerated -unless this alone was made? Even if Christianity was one -vast universal blunder, it is still a blunder as solitary as -the Incarnation. - -The purpose of these pages is to fix the falsity of certain -vague and vulgar assumptions; and we have here one of the -most false. There is a sort of notion in the air everywhere -that all the religions are equal because all the religious -founders were rivals; that they are all fighting for the -same starry crown. It is quite false. The claim to that -crown, or anything like that crown, is really so rare as to -be unique. Mahomet did not make it any more than Micah or -Malachi. Confucius did not make it any more than Plato or -Marcus Aurelius. Buddha never said he was Bramah. Zoroaster -no more claimed to be Ormuz than to be Ahriman. The truth is -that, in the common run of cases, it is just as we should -expect it to be, in common sense and certainly in Christian -philosophy. It is exactly the other way. Normally speaking, -the greater a man is, the less likely he is to make the very -greatest claim. Outside the unique case we are considering, -the only kind of man who ever does make that kind of claim -is a very small man; a secretive or self-centred monomaniac. -Nobody can imagine Aristotle claiming to be the father of -gods and men, come down from the sky; though we might -imagine some insane Roman Emperor like Caligula claiming it -for him, or more probably for himself. Nobody can imagine -Shakespeare talking as if he were literally divine; though -we might imagine some crazy American crank finding it as a -cryptogram in Shakespeare's works, or preferably in his own -works. It is possible to find here and there human beings -who make this supremely superhuman claim. It is possible to -find them in lunatic asylums; in padded cells; possibly in -strait waistcoats. But what is much more important than -their mere materialistic fate in our very materialistic -society, under very crude and clumsy laws, about lunacy, the -type we know as tinged with this, or tending towards it, is -a diseased and disproportionate type; narrow yet swollen and -morbid to monstrosity. It is by rather an unlucky metaphor -that we talk of a madman as cracked; for in a sense he is -not cracked enough. He is cramped rather than cracked; there -are not enough holes in his head to ventilate it. This -impossibility of letting in daylight on a delusion does -sometimes cover and conceal a delusion of divinity. It can -be found, not among prophets and sages and founders of -religions, but only among a low set of lunatics. But this is -exactly where the argument becomes intensely interesting; -because the argument proves too much. For nobody supposes -that Jesus of Nazareth was that sort of person. No modern -critic in his five wits thinks that the preacher of the -Sermon on the Mount was a horrible half-witted imbecile that -might be scrawling stars on the walls of a cell. No atheist -or blasphemer believes that the author of the Parable of the -Prodigal Son was a monster with on\$ mad idea like a cyclops -with one eye. Upon any possible historical criticism he must -be put higher in the scale of human beings than that. Yet by -all analogy we have really to put him there or else in the -highest place of - -In fact, those who can really take it (as I here -hypothetically take it) in a quite dry and detached spirit, -have here a most curious and interesting human problem. It -is so intensely interesting, considered as a human problem, -that it is in a spirit quite disinterested, so to speak, -that I wish some of them had turned that intricate human -problem into something like an intelligible human portrait. -If Christ was simply a human character he really was a -highly complex and contradictory human character. For he -combined exactly the two things that lie at the two extremes -of human variation. He was exactly what the man with a -delusion never is; he was wise; he was a good judge. What he -said was always unexpected; but it was always unexpectedly -magnanimous and often unexpectedly moderate. Take a thing -like the point of the parable of the tares and the wheat. It -has the quality that unites sanity and subtlety. It has not -the simplicity of a madman. It has not even the simplicity -of a fanatic. It might be uttered by a philosopher a hundred -years old, at the end of a century of Utopias. Nothing could -be less like this quality of seeing beyond and all round -obvious things, than the condition of the egomaniac with the -one sensitive spot on his brain. I really do not see how -these two characters could be convincingly combined, except -in the astonishing way in which the creed combines them. For -until we reach the full acceptance of the fact as a fact, -however marvellous, all mere approximations to it are -actually further and further away from it. Divinity is great -enough to be divine; it is great enough to call itself -divine. But as humanity grows greater, it grows less and -less likely to do so. God is God, as the Moslems say; but a -great man knows he is not God, and the greater he is the -better he knows it. That is the paradox; everything that is -merely approaching to that point is merely receding from it. -Socrates, the wisest man, knows that he knows nothing. A -lunatic may think he is omniscience, and a fool may talk as -if he were omniscient. But Christ is in another sense -omniscient if he not only knows, but knows that he knows. - -Even on the purely human and sympathetic side, therefore, -the Jesus of the New Testament seems to me to have in a -great many ways the note of something superhuman; that is, -of something human and more than human. But there is another -quality running through all his teachings which seems to me -neglected in most modern talk about them as teachings; and -that is the persistent suggestion that he has not really -come to teach. If there is one incident in the record which -affects me personally as grandly and gloriously human, it is -the incident of giving wine for the wedding-feast. That is -really human in the sense in which a whole crowd of prigs, -having the appearance of human beings, can hardly be -described as human. It rises superior to all superior -persons. It is as human as Herrick and as democratic as -Dickens. But even in that story there is something else that -has that note of things not fully explained; and in a way -here very relevant. I mean the first hesitation, not on any -ground touching the nature of the miracle, but on that of -the propriety of working any miracles at all, at least at -that stage; "My time has not yet come." What did that mean? -At least it certainly meant a general plan or purpose in the -mind, with which certain things did or did not fit in. And -if we leave out that solitary strategic plan, we not only +But that paradise was not clear until Christianity had gradually cleared +it. The pagan world, as such, would not have understood any such thing +as a serious suggestion that a child is higher or holier than a man. It +would have seemed like the suggestion that a tadpole is higher or holier +than a frog. To the merely rationalistic mind, it would sound like +saying that a bud must be more beautiful than a flower or that an unripe +apple must be better than a ripe one. In other words, this modern +feeling is an entirely mystical feeling. It is quite as mystical as the +cult of virginity; in fact it is the cult of virginity. But pagan +antiquity had much more idea of the holiness of the virgin than of the +holiness of the child. For various reasons we have come nowadays to +venerate children: perhaps partly because we envy children for still +doing what men used to do; such as play simple games and enjoy +fairy-tales. Over and above this, however, there is a great deal of real +and subtle psychology in our appreciation of childhood: but if we turn +it into a modern discovery, we must once more admit that the historical +Jesus of Nazareth had already discovered it two thousand years too soon. +There was certainly nothing in the world around him to help him to the +discovery. Here Christ was indeed human; but more human than a human +being was then likely to be. Peter Pan does not belong to the world of +Pan but the world of Peter. + +Even in the matter of mere literary style, if we suppose ourselves thus +sufficiently detached to look at it in that light, there is a curious +quality to which no critic seems to have done justice. It had among +other things a singular air of piling tower upon tower by the use of the +*a fortiori*; making a pagoda of degrees like the seven heavens. I have +already noted that almost inverted imaginative vision which pictured the +impossible penance of the Cities of the Plain. There is perhaps nothing +so perfect in all language or literature as the use of these three +degrees in the parable of the lilies of the field; in which he seems +first to take one small flower in his hand and note its simplicity and +even its impotence; then suddenly expands it in flamboyant colours into +all the palaces and pavilions full of a great name in national legend +and national glory; and then, by yet a third overturn, shrivels it to +nothing once more with a gesture as if flinging it away "...and if God +so clothes the grass that to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the +oven-how much more..." It is like the building of a good Babel tower by +white magic in a moment and in the movement of a hand; a tower heaved +suddenly lip to heaven on the top of which can be seen afar off, higher +than we had fancied possible, the figure of man; lifted by three +infinities above all other things, on a starry ladder of light logic and +swift imagination. Merely m a literary sense it would be more of a +masterpiece than most of the masterpieces in the libraries; yet it seems +to have been uttered almost at random while a man might pull a flower. +But merely in a literary sense also, this use of the comparative in +several degrees has about it a quality which seems to me to hint of much +higher things than the modern suggestion of the simple teaching of +pastoral or communal ethics. There is nothing that really indicates a +subtle and in the true sense a superior mind so much as this power of +comparing a lower thing with a higher and yet that higher with a higher +still; of thinking on three planes at once. There is nothing that wants +the rarest sort of wisdom so much as to see, let us say, that the +citizen is higher than the slave and yet that the soul is infinitely +higher than the citizen or the city. It is not by any means a faculty +that commonly belongs to these simplifiers of the Gospel; those who +insist on what they call a simple morality and others call a sentimental +morality. It is not at all covered by those who are content to tell +everybody to remain at peace. On the contrary, there is a very striking +example of it in the apparent inconsistency between Christ s sayings +about peace and about a sword. It is precisely this power which +perceives that while a good peace is better than a good war, even a good +war is better than a bad peace. These far-flung comparisons are nowhere +so common as in the Gospels and to me they suggest something very vast. +So a thing solitary and solid, with the added dimension of depth or +height, might tower over the flat creatures living only on a plane. + +This quality of something that can only be called subtle and superior, +something that is capable of long views and even of double meanings, is +not noted here merely as a counterblast to the commonplace exaggerations +of amiability and mild idealism. It is also to be noted in connection +with the more tremendous truth touched upon at the end of the last +chapter. For this is the very last character that commonly goes with +mere megalomania; especially such steep and staggering megalomania as +might be involved in that claim. This quality that can only be called +intellectual distinction is not, of course, an evidence of divinity. But +it is an evidence of a probable distaste for vulgar and vainglorious +claims to divinity. A man of that sort, if he were only a man, would be +the last man in the world to suffer from that intoxication by one notion +from nowhere in particular, which is the mark of the self-deluding +sensationalist in religion. Nor is it even avoided by denying that +Christ did make this claim. Of no such man as that, of no other prophet +or philosopher of the same intellectual order, would it be even possible +to pretend that he had made it. Even if the Church had mistaken his +meaning, it would still be true that no other historical tradition +except the Church had ever even made the same mistake. Muslims did not +misunderstand Muhammad and suppose he was Allah. Jews did not +misinterpret Moses and identify him with Jehovah. Why was this claim +alone exaggerated unless this alone was made? Even if Christianity was +one vast universal blunder, it is still a blunder as solitary as the +Incarnation. + +The purpose of these pages is to fix the falsity of certain vague and +vulgar assumptions; and we have here one of the most false. There is a +sort of notion in the air everywhere that all the religions are equal +because all the religious founders were rivals; that they are all +fighting for the same starry crown. It is quite false. The claim to that +crown, or anything like that crown, is really so rare as to be unique. +Mahomet did not make it any more than Micah or Malachi. Confucius did +not make it any more than Plato or Marcus Aurelius. Buddha never said he +was Bramah. Zoroaster no more claimed to be Ormuz than to be Ahriman. +The truth is that, in the common run of cases, it is just as we should +expect it to be, in common sense and certainly in Christian philosophy. +It is exactly the other way. Normally speaking, the greater a man is, +the less likely he is to make the very greatest claim. Outside the +unique case we are considering, the only kind of man who ever does make +that kind of claim is a very small man; a secretive or self-centred +monomaniac. Nobody can imagine Aristotle claiming to be the father of +gods and men, come down from the sky; though we might imagine some +insane Roman Emperor like Caligula claiming it for him, or more probably +for himself. Nobody can imagine Shakespeare talking as if he were +literally divine; though we might imagine some crazy American crank +finding it as a cryptogram in Shakespeare's works, or preferably in his +own works. It is possible to find here and there human beings who make +this supremely superhuman claim. It is possible to find them in lunatic +asylums; in padded cells; possibly in strait waistcoats. But what is +much more important than their mere materialistic fate in our very +materialistic society, under very crude and clumsy laws, about lunacy, +the type we know as tinged with this, or tending towards it, is a +diseased and disproportionate type; narrow yet swollen and morbid to +monstrosity. It is by rather an unlucky metaphor that we talk of a +madman as cracked; for in a sense he is not cracked enough. He is +cramped rather than cracked; there are not enough holes in his head to +ventilate it. This impossibility of letting in daylight on a delusion +does sometimes cover and conceal a delusion of divinity. It can be +found, not among prophets and sages and founders of religions, but only +among a low set of lunatics. But this is exactly where the argument +becomes intensely interesting; because the argument proves too much. For +nobody supposes that Jesus of Nazareth was that sort of person. No +modern critic in his five wits thinks that the preacher of the Sermon on +the Mount was a horrible half-witted imbecile that might be scrawling +stars on the walls of a cell. No atheist or blasphemer believes that the +author of the Parable of the Prodigal Son was a monster with on\$ mad +idea like a cyclops with one eye. Upon any possible historical criticism +he must be put higher in the scale of human beings than that. Yet by all +analogy we have really to put him there or else in the highest place of + +In fact, those who can really take it (as I here hypothetically take it) +in a quite dry and detached spirit, have here a most curious and +interesting human problem. It is so intensely interesting, considered as +a human problem, that it is in a spirit quite disinterested, so to +speak, that I wish some of them had turned that intricate human problem +into something like an intelligible human portrait. If Christ was simply +a human character he really was a highly complex and contradictory human +character. For he combined exactly the two things that lie at the two +extremes of human variation. He was exactly what the man with a delusion +never is; he was wise; he was a good judge. What he said was always +unexpected; but it was always unexpectedly magnanimous and often +unexpectedly moderate. Take a thing like the point of the parable of the +tares and the wheat. It has the quality that unites sanity and subtlety. +It has not the simplicity of a madman. It has not even the simplicity of +a fanatic. It might be uttered by a philosopher a hundred years old, at +the end of a century of Utopias. Nothing could be less like this quality +of seeing beyond and all round obvious things, than the condition of the +egomaniac with the one sensitive spot on his brain. I really do not see +how these two characters could be convincingly combined, except in the +astonishing way in which the creed combines them. For until we reach the +full acceptance of the fact as a fact, however marvellous, all mere +approximations to it are actually further and further away from it. +Divinity is great enough to be divine; it is great enough to call itself +divine. But as humanity grows greater, it grows less and less likely to +do so. God is God, as the Moslems say; but a great man knows he is not +God, and the greater he is the better he knows it. That is the paradox; +everything that is merely approaching to that point is merely receding +from it. Socrates, the wisest man, knows that he knows nothing. A +lunatic may think he is omniscience, and a fool may talk as if he were +omniscient. But Christ is in another sense omniscient if he not only +knows, but knows that he knows. + +Even on the purely human and sympathetic side, therefore, the Jesus of +the New Testament seems to me to have in a great many ways the note of +something superhuman; that is, of something human and more than human. +But there is another quality running through all his teachings which +seems to me neglected in most modern talk about them as teachings; and +that is the persistent suggestion that he has not really come to teach. +If there is one incident in the record which affects me personally as +grandly and gloriously human, it is the incident of giving wine for the +wedding-feast. That is really human in the sense in which a whole crowd +of prigs, having the appearance of human beings, can hardly be described +as human. It rises superior to all superior persons. It is as human as +Herrick and as democratic as Dickens. But even in that story there is +something else that has that note of things not fully explained; and in +a way here very relevant. I mean the first hesitation, not on any ground +touching the nature of the miracle, but on that of the propriety of +working any miracles at all, at least at that stage; "My time has not +yet come." What did that mean? At least it certainly meant a general +plan or purpose in the mind, with which certain things did or did not +fit in. And if we leave out that solitary strategic plan, we not only leave out the point of the story, but the story. -We often hear of Jesus of Nazareth as a wandering teacher; -and there is a vital truth in that view in so far as it -emphasises an attitude towards luxury and convention which -most respectable people would still regard as that of a -vagabond. It is expressed in bis own great saying about the -holes of the foxes and the nests of the birds, and, like -many of his great sayings, it is felt as less powerful than -it is, through lack of appreciation of that great paradox by -which he spoke of his own humanity as in some way -collectively and representatively human; calling himself -simply the Son of Man; that is, in effect, calling himself -simply Man. It is fitting that the New Man or the Second -Adam should repeat in so ringing a voice and with so -arresting a gesture the great fact which came first in the -original story: that man differs from the brutes by -everything, even by deficiency; that he is in a sense less -normal and even less native; a stranger upon the earth. It -is well to speak of his wanderings in this sense and in the -sense that he shared the drifting life of the most homeless -and hopeless of the poor. It is assuredly well to remember -that he would quite certainly have been moved on by the -police, and almost certainly arrested by the police, for -having no visible means of subsistence. For our law has in -it a turn of humour or touch of fancy which Nero and Herod -never happened to think of; that of actually punishing -homeless people for not sleeping at home. - -But in another sense the word "wandering" as applied to his -life is a little misleading. As a matter of fact, a great -many oi the pagan sages and not a few of the pagan sophists -might truly be described as wandering teachers. In some of -them their rambling journeys were not altogether without a -parallel in their rambling remarks. Apollonius of Tyana, who -figured in some fashionable cults as a sort of ideal -philosopher, is represented as rambling as far as the Ganges -and Ethiopia, more or less talking all the time. There was -actually a school of philosophers called the Peripatetics; -and most even of the great philosophers give us a vague -impression of having very little to do except to walk and -talk. The great conversations which give us our glimpses of -the great minds of Socrates or Buddha or even Confucius -often seem to be parts of a never-ending picnic 5 and -especially, which is the important point, to have neither -beginning nor end. Socrates did indeed find the conversation -interrupted by the incident of his execution. But it is the -whole point, and the whole particular merit, of the position -of Socrates that death was only an interruption and an -incident. We miss the real moral importance of the great -philosopher if we miss that point; that he stares at the -executioner with an innocent surprise, and almost an -innocent annoyance, at finding anyone so unreasonable as to -cut short a little conversation for the elucidation of -truth. He is looking for truth and not looking for death. -Death is but a stone in the road which can trip him up. His -work in life is to wander on the roads of the world and talk -about truth for ever. Buddha, on the other hand, did arrest -attention by one gesture; it was the gesture of -renunciation, and therefore in a sense of denial. But by one -dramatic negation he passed into a world of negation that -was not dramatic; which he would have been the first to -insist was not dramatic. Here again we miss the particular -moral importance of the great mystic if we do not see the -distinction; that it was his whole point that he had done -with drama, which consists of desire and struggle and -generally of defeat and disappointment. He passes into peace -and lives to instruct others how to pass into it. Henceforth -his life is that of the ideal philosopher; certainly a far -more really ideal philosopher than Apollonius of Tyana; but -still a philosopher in the sense that it is not his business -to do anything but rather to explain everything; in his -case, we might almost say, mildly and softly to explode -everything. For the messages are basically different. Christ -said "Seek first the kingdom, and all these things shall be -added unto you." Buddha said "Seek first the kingdom and -then you will need none of these things." - -Now, compared to these wanderers the life of Jesus went as -swift and straight as a thunderbolt. It was above all things -dramatic; it did above all things consist in doing something -that had to be done. It emphatically would not have been -done if Jesus had walked about the world for ever doing -nothing except tell the truth. And even the external -movement of it must not be described as a wandering in the -sense of forgetting that it was a journey. This is where it -was a fulfilment of the myths rather than of the -philosophies; it is a journey with a goal and an object, -like Jason going to find the Golden Fleece, or Hercules the -golden apples of the Hesperides. The gold that he was -seeking was death. The primary thing that he was going to do -was to die. He was going to do other things equally definite -and objective; we might almost say equally external and -material. But from first to last the most definite fact is -that he is going to die. No two things could possibly be -more different than the death of Socrates and the death of -Christ. We are meant to feel that the death of Socrates was, -from the point of view of his friends at least, a stupid -muddle and miscarriage of justice interfering with the flow -of a humane and lucid, I had almost said a fight philosophy. -We are meant to feel that Death was the bride of Christ as -Poverty was the bride of St. Francis. We are meant to feel -that his life was in that sense a sort of love-affair with -death, a romance of the pursuit of the ultimate sacrifice. -From the moment when the star goes up like a birthday rocket -to the moment when the sun is extinguished like a funeral -torch, the whole story moves on wings with the speed and -direction of a drama, ending in an act beyond words. - -Therefore the story of Christ is the story of a journey, -almost in the manner of a military march; certainly in the -manner of the quest of a hero moving to his achievement or -his doom. It is a story that begins in the paradise of -Galilee, a pastoral and peaceful land having really some -hint of Eden, and gradually climbs the rising country into -the mountains that are nearer to the storm-clouds and the -stars, as to a Mountain of Purgatory. He may be met as if -straying in strange places, or stopped on the way for -discussion or dispute; but his face is set towards the -mountain city. That is the meaning of that great culmination -when he crested the ridge and stood at the turning of the -road and suddenly cried aloud, lamenting over Jerusalem. -Some light touch of that lament is in every patriotic poem; -or if it is absent, the patriotism stinks with vulgarity. -That is the meaning of the stirring and startling incident -at the gates of the Temple, when the tables were hurled like -lumber down the steps, and the rich merchants driven forth -with bodily blows; the incident that must be at least as -much pf a puzzle to the pacifists as any paradox about -non-resistance can be to any of the militarists. I have -compared the quest to the journey of Jason, but we must -never forget that in a deeper sense it is rather to be -compared to the journey of Ulysses. It was not only a -romance of travel but a romance of return; and of the end of -a usurpation. No healthy boy reading the story regards the -rout of the Ithacan suitors as anything but a happy ending. -But there are doubtless some who regard the rout of the -Jewish merchants and money-changers with that refined -repugnance which never fails to move them in the presence of -violence, and especially of violence against the well-to-do. -The point here, however, is that all these incidents have in -them a character of mounting crisis. In other words, these -incidents are not incidental. When Apollonius the ideal -philosopher is brought before the judgment-seat of Domitian -and vanishes by magic, the miracle is entirely incidental. -It might have occurred at any time in the wandering fife of -the Tyanean; indeed, I believe it is doubtful in date as -well as in substance. The ideal philosopher merely vanished, -and resumed his ideal existence somewhere else for an -indefinite period. It is characteristic of the contrast -perhaps that Apollonius was supposed to have lived to an -almost miraculous old age. Jesus of Nazareth was less -prudent in his miracles. When Jesus was brought before the -judgment-seat of Pontius Pilate, he did not vanish. It was -the crisis and the goal; it was the hour and the power of -darkness. It was the supremely supernatural act, of all his +We often hear of Jesus of Nazareth as a wandering teacher; and there is +a vital truth in that view in so far as it emphasises an attitude +towards luxury and convention which most respectable people would still +regard as that of a vagabond. It is expressed in bis own great saying +about the holes of the foxes and the nests of the birds, and, like many +of his great sayings, it is felt as less powerful than it is, through +lack of appreciation of that great paradox by which he spoke of his own +humanity as in some way collectively and representatively human; calling +himself simply the Son of Man; that is, in effect, calling himself +simply Man. It is fitting that the New Man or the Second Adam should +repeat in so ringing a voice and with so arresting a gesture the great +fact which came first in the original story: that man differs from the +brutes by everything, even by deficiency; that he is in a sense less +normal and even less native; a stranger upon the earth. It is well to +speak of his wanderings in this sense and in the sense that he shared +the drifting life of the most homeless and hopeless of the poor. It is +assuredly well to remember that he would quite certainly have been moved +on by the police, and almost certainly arrested by the police, for +having no visible means of subsistence. For our law has in it a turn of +humour or touch of fancy which Nero and Herod never happened to think +of; that of actually punishing homeless people for not sleeping at home. + +But in another sense the word "wandering" as applied to his life is a +little misleading. As a matter of fact, a great many oi the pagan sages +and not a few of the pagan sophists might truly be described as +wandering teachers. In some of them their rambling journeys were not +altogether without a parallel in their rambling remarks. Apollonius of +Tyana, who figured in some fashionable cults as a sort of ideal +philosopher, is represented as rambling as far as the Ganges and +Ethiopia, more or less talking all the time. There was actually a school +of philosophers called the Peripatetics; and most even of the great +philosophers give us a vague impression of having very little to do +except to walk and talk. The great conversations which give us our +glimpses of the great minds of Socrates or Buddha or even Confucius +often seem to be parts of a never-ending picnic 5 and especially, which +is the important point, to have neither beginning nor end. Socrates did +indeed find the conversation interrupted by the incident of his +execution. But it is the whole point, and the whole particular merit, of +the position of Socrates that death was only an interruption and an +incident. We miss the real moral importance of the great philosopher if +we miss that point; that he stares at the executioner with an innocent +surprise, and almost an innocent annoyance, at finding anyone so +unreasonable as to cut short a little conversation for the elucidation +of truth. He is looking for truth and not looking for death. Death is +but a stone in the road which can trip him up. His work in life is to +wander on the roads of the world and talk about truth for ever. Buddha, +on the other hand, did arrest attention by one gesture; it was the +gesture of renunciation, and therefore in a sense of denial. But by one +dramatic negation he passed into a world of negation that was not +dramatic; which he would have been the first to insist was not dramatic. +Here again we miss the particular moral importance of the great mystic +if we do not see the distinction; that it was his whole point that he +had done with drama, which consists of desire and struggle and generally +of defeat and disappointment. He passes into peace and lives to instruct +others how to pass into it. Henceforth his life is that of the ideal +philosopher; certainly a far more really ideal philosopher than +Apollonius of Tyana; but still a philosopher in the sense that it is not +his business to do anything but rather to explain everything; in his +case, we might almost say, mildly and softly to explode everything. For +the messages are basically different. Christ said "Seek first the +kingdom, and all these things shall be added unto you." Buddha said +"Seek first the kingdom and then you will need none of these things." + +Now, compared to these wanderers the life of Jesus went as swift and +straight as a thunderbolt. It was above all things dramatic; it did +above all things consist in doing something that had to be done. It +emphatically would not have been done if Jesus had walked about the +world for ever doing nothing except tell the truth. And even the +external movement of it must not be described as a wandering in the +sense of forgetting that it was a journey. This is where it was a +fulfilment of the myths rather than of the philosophies; it is a journey +with a goal and an object, like Jason going to find the Golden Fleece, +or Hercules the golden apples of the Hesperides. The gold that he was +seeking was death. The primary thing that he was going to do was to die. +He was going to do other things equally definite and objective; we might +almost say equally external and material. But from first to last the +most definite fact is that he is going to die. No two things could +possibly be more different than the death of Socrates and the death of +Christ. We are meant to feel that the death of Socrates was, from the +point of view of his friends at least, a stupid muddle and miscarriage +of justice interfering with the flow of a humane and lucid, I had almost +said a fight philosophy. We are meant to feel that Death was the bride +of Christ as Poverty was the bride of St. Francis. We are meant to feel +that his life was in that sense a sort of love-affair with death, a +romance of the pursuit of the ultimate sacrifice. From the moment when +the star goes up like a birthday rocket to the moment when the sun is +extinguished like a funeral torch, the whole story moves on wings with +the speed and direction of a drama, ending in an act beyond words. + +Therefore the story of Christ is the story of a journey, almost in the +manner of a military march; certainly in the manner of the quest of a +hero moving to his achievement or his doom. It is a story that begins in +the paradise of Galilee, a pastoral and peaceful land having really some +hint of Eden, and gradually climbs the rising country into the mountains +that are nearer to the storm-clouds and the stars, as to a Mountain of +Purgatory. He may be met as if straying in strange places, or stopped on +the way for discussion or dispute; but his face is set towards the +mountain city. That is the meaning of that great culmination when he +crested the ridge and stood at the turning of the road and suddenly +cried aloud, lamenting over Jerusalem. Some light touch of that lament +is in every patriotic poem; or if it is absent, the patriotism stinks +with vulgarity. That is the meaning of the stirring and startling +incident at the gates of the Temple, when the tables were hurled like +lumber down the steps, and the rich merchants driven forth with bodily +blows; the incident that must be at least as much pf a puzzle to the +pacifists as any paradox about non-resistance can be to any of the +militarists. I have compared the quest to the journey of Jason, but we +must never forget that in a deeper sense it is rather to be compared to +the journey of Ulysses. It was not only a romance of travel but a +romance of return; and of the end of a usurpation. No healthy boy +reading the story regards the rout of the Ithacan suitors as anything +but a happy ending. But there are doubtless some who regard the rout of +the Jewish merchants and money-changers with that refined repugnance +which never fails to move them in the presence of violence, and +especially of violence against the well-to-do. The point here, however, +is that all these incidents have in them a character of mounting crisis. +In other words, these incidents are not incidental. When Apollonius the +ideal philosopher is brought before the judgment-seat of Domitian and +vanishes by magic, the miracle is entirely incidental. It might have +occurred at any time in the wandering fife of the Tyanean; indeed, I +believe it is doubtful in date as well as in substance. The ideal +philosopher merely vanished, and resumed his ideal existence somewhere +else for an indefinite period. It is characteristic of the contrast +perhaps that Apollonius was supposed to have lived to an almost +miraculous old age. Jesus of Nazareth was less prudent in his miracles. +When Jesus was brought before the judgment-seat of Pontius Pilate, he +did not vanish. It was the crisis and the goal; it was the hour and the +power of darkness. It was the supremely supernatural act, of all his miraculous life, that he did not vanish. -Every attempt to amplify that story has diminished it. The -task has been attempted by many men of real genius and -eloquence as well as by only too many vulgar sentimentalists -and self-conscious rhetoricians. The tale has been retold -with patronising pathos by elegant sceptics and with fluent -enthusiasm by boisterous bestsellers. It will not be retold -here. The grinding power of the plain words of the Gospel -story is like the power of mill-stones; and those who can -read them simply enough will feel as if rocks had been -rolled upon them. Criticism is only words about words; and -of what use are words about such words as these? What is the -use of word-painting about the dark garden filled suddenly -with torchlight and furious faces? "Are you come out with -swords and staves as against a robber? All day I sat in your -temple teaching, and you took me not." - -Can anything be added to the massive and gathered restraint -of that irony; like a great wave lifted to the sky and -refusing to fall? "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, -but weep for yourselves and for your children." As the High -Priest asked what further need he had of witnesses, we might -well ask what further need we have of words. Peter in a -panic repudiated him: "and immediately the cock crew; and -Jesus looked upon Peter, and Peter went out and wept -bitterly." Has any one any further remarks to offer? Just -before the murder he prayed for all the murderous race of -men, saying, "They know not what they do"; is there anything -to say to that, except that we know as little what we say? -Is there any need to repeat and spin out the story of how -the tragedy trailed up the Via Dolorosa and how they threw -him in haphazard with two thieves in one of the ordinary -batches of execution; and how in all that horror and howling -wilderness of desertion one voice spoke in homage, a -startling voice from the very last place where it was looked -for, the gibbet of the criminal; and he said to that -nameless ruffian, "This night shalt thou be with me in -Paradise"? Is there anything to put after that but a -full-stop? Or is any one prepared to answer adequately that -farewell gesture to all flesh which created for his Mother a -new Son? - -It is more within my powers, and here more immediately to my -purpose, to point out that in that scene were symbolically -gathered all the human forces that have been vaguely -sketched in this story. As kings and philosophers and the -popular element had been symbolically present at his birth, -so they were more practically concerned in his death; and -with that we come face to face with the essential fact to be -realised. All the great groups that stood about the Cross -represent in one way or another the great historical truth -of the time; that the world could not save itself. Man could -do no more. Rome and Jerusalem and Athens and everything -else were going down like a sea turned into a slow cataract. -Externally indeed the ancient world was still at its -strongest; it is always at that moment that the inmost -weakness begins. But in order to understand that weakness we -must repeat what has been said more than once: that it was -not the weakness of a thing originally weak. It was -emphatically the strength of the world that was turned to -weakness, and the wisdom of the world that was turned to -folly. - -In this story of Good Friday it is the best things in the -world that are at their worst. That is what really shows us -the world at its worst. It was, for instance, the priests of -a true monotheism and the soldiers of an international -civilisation. Rome, the legend, founded upon fallen Troy and -triumphant over fallen Carthage, had stood for a heroism -which was the nearest that any pagan ever came to chivalry. -Rome had defended the household gods and the human decencies -against the ogres of Africa and the hermaphrodite -monstrosities of Greece. But in the lightning flash of this -incident, we see great Rome, the imperial republic, going -downward under her Lucretian doom. Scepticism has eaten away -even the confident sanity of the conquerors of the world. He -who is enthroned to say what is justice can only ask, "What -is truth?" So in that drama which decided the whole fate of -antiquity, one of the central figures is fixed in what seems -the reverse of his true role. Rome was almost another name -for responsibility. Yet he stands for ever as a sort of -rocking statue of the irresponsible. Man could do no more. -Even the practical had become the impracticable. Standing -between the pillars of his own judgment-seat, a Roman had -washed his hands of the world. - -There too were the priests of that pure and original truth -that was behind all the mythologies like the sky behind the -clouds. It was the most important truth in the world; and -even that could not save the world. Perhaps there is -something overpowering in pure personal theism; like seeing -the sun and moon and sky come together to form one staring -face. Perhaps the truth is too tremendous when not broken by -some intermediaries, divine or human; perhaps it is merely -too pure and far away. Anyhow it could not save the world; -it could not even convert the world. There were philosophers -who held it in its highest and noblest form; but they not -only could not convert the world, but they never tried. You -could no more fight the jungle of popular mythology with a -private opinion than you could clear away a forest with a -pocket-knife. The Jewish priests had guarded it jealously in -the good and the bad sense. They had kept it as a gigantic -secret. As savage heroes might have kept the sun in a box, -they kept the Everlasting in the tabernacle. They were proud -that they alone could look upon the blinding sun of a single -deity; and they did not know that they had themselves gone -blind. Since that day their representatives have been like -blind men in broad daylight, striking to right and left with -their staffs, and cursing the darkness. But there has been -that in their monumental monotheism that it has at least -remained like a monument, the last thing of its kind, and in -a sense motionless in the more restless world which it -cannot satisfy. For it is certain that for some reason it -cannot satisfy. Since that day it has never been quite -enough to say that God is in his heaven and all is right -with the world; since the rumour that God had left his +Every attempt to amplify that story has diminished it. The task has been +attempted by many men of real genius and eloquence as well as by only +too many vulgar sentimentalists and self-conscious rhetoricians. The +tale has been retold with patronising pathos by elegant sceptics and +with fluent enthusiasm by boisterous bestsellers. It will not be retold +here. The grinding power of the plain words of the Gospel story is like +the power of mill-stones; and those who can read them simply enough will +feel as if rocks had been rolled upon them. Criticism is only words +about words; and of what use are words about such words as these? What +is the use of word-painting about the dark garden filled suddenly with +torchlight and furious faces? "Are you come out with swords and staves +as against a robber? All day I sat in your temple teaching, and you took +me not." + +Can anything be added to the massive and gathered restraint of that +irony; like a great wave lifted to the sky and refusing to fall? +"Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and +for your children." As the High Priest asked what further need he had of +witnesses, we might well ask what further need we have of words. Peter +in a panic repudiated him: "and immediately the cock crew; and Jesus +looked upon Peter, and Peter went out and wept bitterly." Has any one +any further remarks to offer? Just before the murder he prayed for all +the murderous race of men, saying, "They know not what they do"; is +there anything to say to that, except that we know as little what we +say? Is there any need to repeat and spin out the story of how the +tragedy trailed up the Via Dolorosa and how they threw him in haphazard +with two thieves in one of the ordinary batches of execution; and how in +all that horror and howling wilderness of desertion one voice spoke in +homage, a startling voice from the very last place where it was looked +for, the gibbet of the criminal; and he said to that nameless ruffian, +"This night shalt thou be with me in Paradise"? Is there anything to put +after that but a full-stop? Or is any one prepared to answer adequately +that farewell gesture to all flesh which created for his Mother a new +Son? + +It is more within my powers, and here more immediately to my purpose, to +point out that in that scene were symbolically gathered all the human +forces that have been vaguely sketched in this story. As kings and +philosophers and the popular element had been symbolically present at +his birth, so they were more practically concerned in his death; and +with that we come face to face with the essential fact to be realised. +All the great groups that stood about the Cross represent in one way or +another the great historical truth of the time; that the world could not +save itself. Man could do no more. Rome and Jerusalem and Athens and +everything else were going down like a sea turned into a slow cataract. +Externally indeed the ancient world was still at its strongest; it is +always at that moment that the inmost weakness begins. But in order to +understand that weakness we must repeat what has been said more than +once: that it was not the weakness of a thing originally weak. It was +emphatically the strength of the world that was turned to weakness, and +the wisdom of the world that was turned to folly. + +In this story of Good Friday it is the best things in the world that are +at their worst. That is what really shows us the world at its worst. It +was, for instance, the priests of a true monotheism and the soldiers of +an international civilisation. Rome, the legend, founded upon fallen +Troy and triumphant over fallen Carthage, had stood for a heroism which +was the nearest that any pagan ever came to chivalry. Rome had defended +the household gods and the human decencies against the ogres of Africa +and the hermaphrodite monstrosities of Greece. But in the lightning +flash of this incident, we see great Rome, the imperial republic, going +downward under her Lucretian doom. Scepticism has eaten away even the +confident sanity of the conquerors of the world. He who is enthroned to +say what is justice can only ask, "What is truth?" So in that drama +which decided the whole fate of antiquity, one of the central figures is +fixed in what seems the reverse of his true role. Rome was almost +another name for responsibility. Yet he stands for ever as a sort of +rocking statue of the irresponsible. Man could do no more. Even the +practical had become the impracticable. Standing between the pillars of +his own judgment-seat, a Roman had washed his hands of the world. + +There too were the priests of that pure and original truth that was +behind all the mythologies like the sky behind the clouds. It was the +most important truth in the world; and even that could not save the +world. Perhaps there is something overpowering in pure personal theism; +like seeing the sun and moon and sky come together to form one staring +face. Perhaps the truth is too tremendous when not broken by some +intermediaries, divine or human; perhaps it is merely too pure and far +away. Anyhow it could not save the world; it could not even convert the +world. There were philosophers who held it in its highest and noblest +form; but they not only could not convert the world, but they never +tried. You could no more fight the jungle of popular mythology with a +private opinion than you could clear away a forest with a pocket-knife. +The Jewish priests had guarded it jealously in the good and the bad +sense. They had kept it as a gigantic secret. As savage heroes might +have kept the sun in a box, they kept the Everlasting in the tabernacle. +They were proud that they alone could look upon the blinding sun of a +single deity; and they did not know that they had themselves gone blind. +Since that day their representatives have been like blind men in broad +daylight, striking to right and left with their staffs, and cursing the +darkness. But there has been that in their monumental monotheism that it +has at least remained like a monument, the last thing of its kind, and +in a sense motionless in the more restless world which it cannot +satisfy. For it is certain that for some reason it cannot satisfy. Since +that day it has never been quite enough to say that God is in his heaven +and all is right with the world; since the rumour that God had left his heavens to set it right. -And as it was with these powers that were good, or at least -had once been good, so it was with the element which was -perhaps the best, or which Christ himself seems certainly to -have felt as the best. The poor to whom he preached the good -news, the common people who heard him gladly, the populace -that had made so many popular heroes and demigods in the old -pagan world, showed also the weaknesses that were dissolving -the world. They suffered the evils often seen in the mob of -the city, and especially the mob of the capital, during the -decline of a society. The same thing that makes the rural -population live on tradition makes the urban population live -on rumour. Just as its myths at the best had been -irrational, so its likes and dislikes are easily changed by -baseless assertion that is arbitrary without being -authoritative. Some brigand or other was artificially turned -into a picturesque and popular figure and run as a kind of -candidate against Christ. In all this we recognise the urban -population that we know, with its newspaper scares and -scoops. But there was present in this ancient population an -evil more peculiar to the ancient world. We have noted it -already as the neglect of the individual, even of the -individual voting the condemnation and still more of the -individual condemned. It was the soul of the hive; a heathen -thing. The cry of this spirit also was heard in that hour, -"It is well that one man die for the people." Yet this -spirit in antiquity of devotion to the city and to the state -had also been in itself and in its time a noble spirit. It -had its poets and its martyrs; men still to be honoured for -ever. It was failing through its weakness in not seeing the -separate soul of a man, the shrine of all mysticism; but it -was only failing as everything else was failing. The mob -went along with the Sadducees and the Pharisees, the -philosophers and the moralists. It went along with the -imperial magistrates and the sacred priests, the scribes and -the soldiers, that the one universal human spirit might -suffer a universal condemnation; that there might be one -deep unanimous chorus of approval and harmony when Man was -rejected of men. - -There were solitudes beyond where none shall follow. There -were secrets in the inmost and invisible part of that drama -that have no symbol in speech j or in any severance of a man -from men. Nor is it easy for any words less stark and -single-minded than those of the naked narrative even to hint -at the horror of exaltation that lifted itself above the -hill. Endless expositions have not come to the end of it, or -even to the beginning. And if there be any sound that can -produce a silence, we may surely be silent about the end and -the extremity; when a cry was driven out of that darkness in -words dreadfully distinct and dreadfully unintelligible, -which man shall never understand in all the eternity they -have purchased for him; and for one annihilating instant an -abyss that is not for our thoughts had opened even in the -unity of the absolute; and God had been forsaken of God. - -They took the body down from the cross and one of the few -rich men among the first Christians obtained permission to -bury it in a rock tomb in his garden; the Romans setting a -military guard lest there should be some riot and attempt to -recover the body. There was once more a natural symbolism in -these natural proceedings; it was well that the tomb should -be sealed with all the secrecy of ancient eastern sepulture -and guarded by the authority of the Caesars. For in that -second cavern the whole of that great and glorious humanity -which we call antiquity was gathered up and covered over; -and in that place it was buried. It was the end of a very -great thing called human history; the history that was -merely human. The mythologies and the philosophies were -buried there, the gods and the heroes and the sages. In the -great Roman phrase, they had lived. But as they could only -live, so they could only die; and they were dead. - -On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to -the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. -In varying ways they realised the new wonder; but even they -hardly realised that the world had died in the night. What -they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, -with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the -gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of -the evening but the dawn. +And as it was with these powers that were good, or at least had once +been good, so it was with the element which was perhaps the best, or +which Christ himself seems certainly to have felt as the best. The poor +to whom he preached the good news, the common people who heard him +gladly, the populace that had made so many popular heroes and demigods +in the old pagan world, showed also the weaknesses that were dissolving +the world. They suffered the evils often seen in the mob of the city, +and especially the mob of the capital, during the decline of a society. +The same thing that makes the rural population live on tradition makes +the urban population live on rumour. Just as its myths at the best had +been irrational, so its likes and dislikes are easily changed by +baseless assertion that is arbitrary without being authoritative. Some +brigand or other was artificially turned into a picturesque and popular +figure and run as a kind of candidate against Christ. In all this we +recognise the urban population that we know, with its newspaper scares +and scoops. But there was present in this ancient population an evil +more peculiar to the ancient world. We have noted it already as the +neglect of the individual, even of the individual voting the +condemnation and still more of the individual condemned. It was the soul +of the hive; a heathen thing. The cry of this spirit also was heard in +that hour, "It is well that one man die for the people." Yet this spirit +in antiquity of devotion to the city and to the state had also been in +itself and in its time a noble spirit. It had its poets and its martyrs; +men still to be honoured for ever. It was failing through its weakness +in not seeing the separate soul of a man, the shrine of all mysticism; +but it was only failing as everything else was failing. The mob went +along with the Sadducees and the Pharisees, the philosophers and the +moralists. It went along with the imperial magistrates and the sacred +priests, the scribes and the soldiers, that the one universal human +spirit might suffer a universal condemnation; that there might be one +deep unanimous chorus of approval and harmony when Man was rejected of +men. + +There were solitudes beyond where none shall follow. There were secrets +in the inmost and invisible part of that drama that have no symbol in +speech j or in any severance of a man from men. Nor is it easy for any +words less stark and single-minded than those of the naked narrative +even to hint at the horror of exaltation that lifted itself above the +hill. Endless expositions have not come to the end of it, or even to the +beginning. And if there be any sound that can produce a silence, we may +surely be silent about the end and the extremity; when a cry was driven +out of that darkness in words dreadfully distinct and dreadfully +unintelligible, which man shall never understand in all the eternity +they have purchased for him; and for one annihilating instant an abyss +that is not for our thoughts had opened even in the unity of the +absolute; and God had been forsaken of God. + +They took the body down from the cross and one of the few rich men among +the first Christians obtained permission to bury it in a rock tomb in +his garden; the Romans setting a military guard lest there should be +some riot and attempt to recover the body. There was once more a natural +symbolism in these natural proceedings; it was well that the tomb should +be sealed with all the secrecy of ancient eastern sepulture and guarded +by the authority of the Caesars. For in that second cavern the whole of +that great and glorious humanity which we call antiquity was gathered up +and covered over; and in that place it was buried. It was the end of a +very great thing called human history; the history that was merely +human. The mythologies and the philosophies were buried there, the gods +and the heroes and the sages. In the great Roman phrase, they had lived. +But as they could only live, so they could only die; and they were dead. + +On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place +found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they +realised the new wonder; but even they hardly realised that the world +had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a +new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of +the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the +evening but the dawn. ### IV. The Witness of the Heretics -Christ founded the Church with two great figures of speech; -in the final words to the Apostles who received authority to -found it. The first was the phrase about founding it on -Peter as on a rock; the second was the symbol of the keys. -About the meaning of the former there is naturally no doubt -in my own case; but it does not directly affect the argument -here save in two more secondary aspects. It is yet another -example of a thing that could only fully expand and explain -itself afterwards, and even long afterwards. And it is yet -another example of something the very reverse of simple and -self-evident even in the language, in so far as it described -a man as a rock when he had much more the appearance of a -reed. - -But the other image of the keys has an exactitude that has -hardly been exactly noticed. The keys have been conspicuous -enough in the art and heraldry of Christendom; but not every -one has noted the peculiar aptness of the allegory. We have -now reached the point in history where something must be -said of the first appearance and activities of the Church in -the Roman Empire; and for that brief description nothing -could be more perfect than that ancient metaphor. The Early -Christian was very precisely a person carrying about a key, -or what he said was a key. The whole Christian movement -consisted in claiming to possess that key. It was not merely -a vague forward movement, which might be better represented -by a battering-ram. It was not something that swept along -with it similar and dissimilar things, as does a modern -social movement. As we shall see in a moment, it rather -definitely refused to do so. It definitely asserted that -there was a key and that it possessed that key and that no -other key was like it; in that sense it was as narrow as you -please. Only it happened to be the key that could unlock the -prison of the whole world; and let in the white daylight of -escape. - -The creed was like a key in three respects; which can be -most conveniently summed up under this symbol. First, a key -is above all things a thing with a shape. It is a thing that -depends entirely upon keeping its shape. The Christian creed -is above all things the philosophy of shapes and the enemy -of shapelessness. That is where it differs from all that -formless infinity, Manichean or Buddhist, which makes a sort -of pool of night in the dark heart of Asia; the ideal of -uncreating all the creatures. That is where it differs also -from the analogous vagueness of mere evolutionism; the idea -of creatures constantly losing their shape. A man told that -his solitary latchkey had been melted down with a million -others into a Buddhistic unity would be annoyed. But a man -told that his key was gradually growing and sprouting in his -pocket, and branching into new wards or complications, would -not be more gratified. - -Second, the shape of a key is in itself a rather fantastic -shape. A savage who did not know it was a key would have the -greatest difficulty in guessing what it could possibly be. -And it is fantastic because it is in a sense arbitrary. A -key is not a matter of abstractions; in that sense a key is -not a matter of argument. It either fits the lock or it does -not. It is useless for men to stand disputing over it, -considered by itself; or reconstructing it on pure -principles of geometry or decorative art. It is senseless -for a man to say he would like a simpler key; it would be -far more sensible to do his best with a crowbar. And -thirdly, as the key is necessarily a thing with a pattern, -so this was one having in some ways a rather elaborate -pattern. When people complain of the religion being so early -complicated with theology and things of the kind, they -forget that the world had not only got into a hole, but had -got into a whole maze of holes and corners. The problem -itself was a complicated problem; it did not in the ordinary -sense merely involve anything so simple as sin. It was also -full of secrets, of unexplored and unfathomable fallacies, -of unconscious mental diseases, of dangers in all -directions. If the faith had faced the world only with the -platitudes about peace and simplicity some moralists would -confine it to, it would not have had the faintest effect on -the luxurious and labyrinthine lunatic asylum. What it did -do we must now roughly describe; it is enough to say here -that there was undoubtedly much about the key that seemed -complex; indeed there was only one thing about it that was -simple! It opened the door. - -There are certain recognised and accepted statements in this -matter which may for brevity and convenience be described as -lies. We have all heard people say that Christianity arose -in an age of barbarism. They might just as well say that -Christian Science arose in an age of barbarism. They may -think Christianity was a symptom of social decay, as I think -Christian Science a symptom of mental decay. They may think -Christianity a superstition that ultimately destroyed a -civilisation, as I think Christian Science a superstition -capable (if taken seriously) of destroying any number of -civilisations. But to say that a Christian of the fourth or -fifth centuries was a barbarian living in a barbarous time -is exactly like saying that Mrs. Eddy was a Red Indian. And -if I allowed my constitutional impatience with Mrs. Eddy to -impel me to call her a Red Indian, I should incidentally be -telling a lie. We may like or dislike the imperial -civilisation of Rome in the fourth century; we may like or -dislike the industrial civilisation of America in the -nineteenth century; but that they both were what we commonly -mean by a civilisation no person of common sense could deny -if he wanted to. This is a very obvious fact, but it is also -a very fundamental one; and we must make it the foundation -of any further description of constructive Christianity in -the past. For good or evil, it was pre-eminently the product -of a civilised age, perhaps of an over-civilised age. This -is the first fact apart from all praise or blame; indeed I -am so unfortunate as not to feel that I praise a thing when -I compare it to Christian Science. But it is at least -desirable to know something of the savour of a society in -which we are condemning or praising anything; and the -science that connects Mrs. Eddy with tomahawks or the Mater -Dolorosa with totems may for our general convenience be -eliminated. The dominant fact, not merely about the -Christian religion, but about the whole pagan civilisation, -was that which has been more than once repeated in these -pages. The Mediterranean was a lake in the real sense of a -pool; in which a number of different cults or cultures were, -as the phrase goes, pooled. Those cities facing each other -round the circle of the lake became more and more one -cosmopolitan culture. On its legal and military side it was -the Roman Empire; but it was very many-sided. It might be -called superstitious in the sense that it contained a great -number of varied superstitions; but by no possibility can -any part of it be called barbarous. - -In this level of cosmopolitan culture arose the Christian -religion and the Catholic Church; and everything in the -story suggests that it was felt to be something new and -strange. Those who have tried to suggest that it evolved out -of something much milder or more ordinary have found that in -this case their evolutionary method is very difficult to -apply. They may suggest that Essenes or Ebionites or such -things were the seed; but the seed is invisible; the tree -appears very rapidly full-grown; and the tree is something -totally different. It is certainly a Christmas tree in the -sense that it keeps the kindliness and moral beauty of the -story of Bethlehem; but it was as ritualistic as the -seven-branched candlestick, and the candles it carried were -considerably more than were probably permitted by the first -prayer-book of Edward the Sixth. It might well be asked, -indeed, why any one accepting the Bethlehem tradition should -object to golden or gilded ornament since the Magi -themselves brought gold; why he should dislike incense in -the church since incense was brought even to the stable. But -these are controversies that do not concern me here. I am -concerned only with the historical fact, more and more -admitted by historians, that very early in its history this -thing became visible to the civilisation of antiquity; and -that already the Church appeared as a Church; with -everything that is implied in a Church and much that is -disliked in a Church. We will discuss in a moment how far it -was like other ritualistic or magical or ascetical mysteries -in its own time. It was certainly not in the least like -merely ethical and idealistic movements in our time. It had -a doctrine; it had a discipline; it had sacraments; it had -degrees of initiation; it admitted people and expelled -people; it affirmed one dogma with authority and repudiated -another with anathemas. If all these things be the marks of -Antichrist, the reign of Antichrist followed very rapidly -upon Christ. - -Those who maintain that Christianity was not a Church but a -moral movement of idealists have been forced to push the -period of its perversion or disappearance further and -further back. A bishop of Home writes claiming authority in -the very lifetime of St. John the Evangelist; and it is -described as the first papal aggression. A friend of the -Apostles writes of them as men he knew, and says they taught -him the doctrine of the Sacrament; and Mr. Wells can only -murmur that the reaction towards barbaric blood-rites may -have happened rather earlier than might be expected. The -date of the Fourth Gospel, which at one time was steadily -growing later and later, is now steadily growing earlier and -earlier; until critics are staggered at the dawning and -dreadful possibility that it might be something like what it -professes to be. The last limit of an early date for the -extinction of true Christianity has probably been found by -the latest German professor whose authority is invoked by -Dean Inge. This learned scholar says that Pentecost was the -occasion for the first founding of an ecclesiastical, -dogmatic and despotic Church utterly alien to the simple -ideals of Jesus of Nazareth. This may be called, in a -popular as well as a learned sense, the limit. What do -professors of this kind imagine that men are made of? -Suppose it were a matter of any merely human movement, let -us say that of the Conscientious Objectors. Some say the -early Christians were Pacifists; I do not believe it for a -moment; but I am quite ready to accept the parallel for the -sake of the argument. Tolstoy or some great preacher of +Christ founded the Church with two great figures of speech; in the final +words to the Apostles who received authority to found it. The first was +the phrase about founding it on Peter as on a rock; the second was the +symbol of the keys. About the meaning of the former there is naturally +no doubt in my own case; but it does not directly affect the argument +here save in two more secondary aspects. It is yet another example of a +thing that could only fully expand and explain itself afterwards, and +even long afterwards. And it is yet another example of something the +very reverse of simple and self-evident even in the language, in so far +as it described a man as a rock when he had much more the appearance of +a reed. + +But the other image of the keys has an exactitude that has hardly been +exactly noticed. The keys have been conspicuous enough in the art and +heraldry of Christendom; but not every one has noted the peculiar +aptness of the allegory. We have now reached the point in history where +something must be said of the first appearance and activities of the +Church in the Roman Empire; and for that brief description nothing could +be more perfect than that ancient metaphor. The Early Christian was very +precisely a person carrying about a key, or what he said was a key. The +whole Christian movement consisted in claiming to possess that key. It +was not merely a vague forward movement, which might be better +represented by a battering-ram. It was not something that swept along +with it similar and dissimilar things, as does a modern social movement. +As we shall see in a moment, it rather definitely refused to do so. It +definitely asserted that there was a key and that it possessed that key +and that no other key was like it; in that sense it was as narrow as you +please. Only it happened to be the key that could unlock the prison of +the whole world; and let in the white daylight of escape. + +The creed was like a key in three respects; which can be most +conveniently summed up under this symbol. First, a key is above all +things a thing with a shape. It is a thing that depends entirely upon +keeping its shape. The Christian creed is above all things the +philosophy of shapes and the enemy of shapelessness. That is where it +differs from all that formless infinity, Manichean or Buddhist, which +makes a sort of pool of night in the dark heart of Asia; the ideal of +uncreating all the creatures. That is where it differs also from the +analogous vagueness of mere evolutionism; the idea of creatures +constantly losing their shape. A man told that his solitary latchkey had +been melted down with a million others into a Buddhistic unity would be +annoyed. But a man told that his key was gradually growing and sprouting +in his pocket, and branching into new wards or complications, would not +be more gratified. + +Second, the shape of a key is in itself a rather fantastic shape. A +savage who did not know it was a key would have the greatest difficulty +in guessing what it could possibly be. And it is fantastic because it is +in a sense arbitrary. A key is not a matter of abstractions; in that +sense a key is not a matter of argument. It either fits the lock or it +does not. It is useless for men to stand disputing over it, considered +by itself; or reconstructing it on pure principles of geometry or +decorative art. It is senseless for a man to say he would like a simpler +key; it would be far more sensible to do his best with a crowbar. And +thirdly, as the key is necessarily a thing with a pattern, so this was +one having in some ways a rather elaborate pattern. When people complain +of the religion being so early complicated with theology and things of +the kind, they forget that the world had not only got into a hole, but +had got into a whole maze of holes and corners. The problem itself was a +complicated problem; it did not in the ordinary sense merely involve +anything so simple as sin. It was also full of secrets, of unexplored +and unfathomable fallacies, of unconscious mental diseases, of dangers +in all directions. If the faith had faced the world only with the +platitudes about peace and simplicity some moralists would confine it +to, it would not have had the faintest effect on the luxurious and +labyrinthine lunatic asylum. What it did do we must now roughly +describe; it is enough to say here that there was undoubtedly much about +the key that seemed complex; indeed there was only one thing about it +that was simple! It opened the door. + +There are certain recognised and accepted statements in this matter +which may for brevity and convenience be described as lies. We have all +heard people say that Christianity arose in an age of barbarism. They +might just as well say that Christian Science arose in an age of +barbarism. They may think Christianity was a symptom of social decay, as +I think Christian Science a symptom of mental decay. They may think +Christianity a superstition that ultimately destroyed a civilisation, as +I think Christian Science a superstition capable (if taken seriously) of +destroying any number of civilisations. But to say that a Christian of +the fourth or fifth centuries was a barbarian living in a barbarous time +is exactly like saying that Mrs. Eddy was a Red Indian. And if I allowed +my constitutional impatience with Mrs. Eddy to impel me to call her a +Red Indian, I should incidentally be telling a lie. We may like or +dislike the imperial civilisation of Rome in the fourth century; we may +like or dislike the industrial civilisation of America in the nineteenth +century; but that they both were what we commonly mean by a civilisation +no person of common sense could deny if he wanted to. This is a very +obvious fact, but it is also a very fundamental one; and we must make it +the foundation of any further description of constructive Christianity +in the past. For good or evil, it was pre-eminently the product of a +civilised age, perhaps of an over-civilised age. This is the first fact +apart from all praise or blame; indeed I am so unfortunate as not to +feel that I praise a thing when I compare it to Christian Science. But +it is at least desirable to know something of the savour of a society in +which we are condemning or praising anything; and the science that +connects Mrs. Eddy with tomahawks or the Mater Dolorosa with totems may +for our general convenience be eliminated. The dominant fact, not merely +about the Christian religion, but about the whole pagan civilisation, +was that which has been more than once repeated in these pages. The +Mediterranean was a lake in the real sense of a pool; in which a number +of different cults or cultures were, as the phrase goes, pooled. Those +cities facing each other round the circle of the lake became more and +more one cosmopolitan culture. On its legal and military side it was the +Roman Empire; but it was very many-sided. It might be called +superstitious in the sense that it contained a great number of varied +superstitions; but by no possibility can any part of it be called +barbarous. + +In this level of cosmopolitan culture arose the Christian religion and +the Catholic Church; and everything in the story suggests that it was +felt to be something new and strange. Those who have tried to suggest +that it evolved out of something much milder or more ordinary have found +that in this case their evolutionary method is very difficult to apply. +They may suggest that Essenes or Ebionites or such things were the seed; +but the seed is invisible; the tree appears very rapidly full-grown; and +the tree is something totally different. It is certainly a Christmas +tree in the sense that it keeps the kindliness and moral beauty of the +story of Bethlehem; but it was as ritualistic as the seven-branched +candlestick, and the candles it carried were considerably more than were +probably permitted by the first prayer-book of Edward the Sixth. It +might well be asked, indeed, why any one accepting the Bethlehem +tradition should object to golden or gilded ornament since the Magi +themselves brought gold; why he should dislike incense in the church +since incense was brought even to the stable. But these are +controversies that do not concern me here. I am concerned only with the +historical fact, more and more admitted by historians, that very early +in its history this thing became visible to the civilisation of +antiquity; and that already the Church appeared as a Church; with +everything that is implied in a Church and much that is disliked in a +Church. We will discuss in a moment how far it was like other +ritualistic or magical or ascetical mysteries in its own time. It was +certainly not in the least like merely ethical and idealistic movements +in our time. It had a doctrine; it had a discipline; it had sacraments; +it had degrees of initiation; it admitted people and expelled people; it +affirmed one dogma with authority and repudiated another with anathemas. +If all these things be the marks of Antichrist, the reign of Antichrist +followed very rapidly upon Christ. + +Those who maintain that Christianity was not a Church but a moral +movement of idealists have been forced to push the period of its +perversion or disappearance further and further back. A bishop of Home +writes claiming authority in the very lifetime of St. John the +Evangelist; and it is described as the first papal aggression. A friend +of the Apostles writes of them as men he knew, and says they taught him +the doctrine of the Sacrament; and Mr. Wells can only murmur that the +reaction towards barbaric blood-rites may have happened rather earlier +than might be expected. The date of the Fourth Gospel, which at one time +was steadily growing later and later, is now steadily growing earlier +and earlier; until critics are staggered at the dawning and dreadful +possibility that it might be something like what it professes to be. The +last limit of an early date for the extinction of true Christianity has +probably been found by the latest German professor whose authority is +invoked by Dean Inge. This learned scholar says that Pentecost was the +occasion for the first founding of an ecclesiastical, dogmatic and +despotic Church utterly alien to the simple ideals of Jesus of Nazareth. +This may be called, in a popular as well as a learned sense, the limit. +What do professors of this kind imagine that men are made of? Suppose it +were a matter of any merely human movement, let us say that of the +Conscientious Objectors. Some say the early Christians were Pacifists; I +do not believe it for a moment; but I am quite ready to accept the +parallel for the sake of the argument. Tolstoy or some great preacher of peace among peasants has been shot as a mutineer for defying -conscription; and a month or so after his few followers meet -together in an upper room in remembrance of him. They never -had any reason for coming together except that common -memory; they are men of many kinds with nothing to bind -them, except that the greatest event in all their fives was -this tragedy of the teacher of universal peace. They are -always repeating his words, revolving his problems, trying -to imitate his character. The Pacifists meet at their -Pentecost and are possessed of a sudden ecstasy of -enthusiasm and wild rush of the whirlwind of inspiration, in -the course of which they proceed to establish universal -Conscription, to increase the Navy Estimates, to insist on -everybody going about armed to the teeth and on all the -frontiers bristling with artillery; the proceedings -concluding with the singing of "Boys of the Bulldog Breed" -and "Don't let them scrap the British Navy." That is -something like a fair parallel to the theory of these -critics; that the transition from their idea of Jesus to -their idea of Catholicism could have been made in the little -upper room at Pentecost. Surely anybody's common sense would -tell him that enthusiasts, who only met through their common -enthusiasm for a leader whom they loved, would not instantly -rush away to establish everything that he hated. No, if the -"ecclesiastical and dogmatic system" is as old as Pentecost -it is as old as Christmas. If we trace it back to such very -early Christians we must trace it back to Christ. - -We may begin then with these two negations. It is nonsense -to say that the Christian faith appeared in a simple age; in -the sense of an unlettered and gullible age. It is equally -nonsense to say that the Christian faith was a simple thing; -in the sense of a vague or childish or merely instinctive -thing. Perhaps the only point in which we could possibly say -that the Church fitted into the pagan world is the fact that -they were both not only highly civilised but rather -complicated. They were both emphatically many-sided; but -antiquity was then a many-sided hole, like a hexagonal hole -waiting for an equally hexagonal stopper. In that sense only -the Church was many-sided enough to fit the world. The six -sides of the Mediterranean world faced each other across the -sea and waited for something that should look all ways at -once. The Church had to be both Roman and Greek and Jewish -and African and Asiatic. In the very words of the Apostle of -the Gentiles, it was indeed all things to all men. -Christianity then was not merely crude and simple, and was -the very reverse of the growth of a barbaric time. But when -we come to the contrary charge, we come to a much more -plausible charge. It is very much more tenable that the -Faith was but the final phase of the decay of civilisation, -in the sense of the excess of civilisation; that this -superstition was a sign that Rome was dying, and dying of -being much too civilised. That is an argument much better -worth considering; and we will proceed to consider it. - -At the beginning of this book I ventured on a general -summary of it, in a parallel between the rise of humanity -out of nature and the rise of Christianity out of history. I -pointed out that in both cases what had gone before might -imply something coming after; but did not in the least imply -what did come after. If a detached mind had seen certain -apes it might have deduced more anthropoids; it would not -have deduced man or anything within a thousand miles of what -man has done. In short, it might have seen Pithacanthropus -or the Missing Link looming in the future, if possible -almost as dimly and doubtfully as we see him looming in the -past. But if it foresaw him appearing it would also foresee -him disappearing, and leaving a few faint traces just as he -has left a few faint traces; if they are traces. To foresee -that Missing Link would not be to foresee Man, or anything -like Man. Now this earlier explanation must be kept in mind; -because it is an exact parallel to the true view of the -Church; and the suggestion of it having evolved naturally -out of the Empire in decay. - -The truth is that in one sense a man might very well have -predicted that the imperial decadence would produce -something like Christianity. That is, something a little -like and gigantically different. A man might very well have -said, for instance, "Pleasure has been pursued so -extravagantly that there will be a reaction into pessimism. -Perhaps it will take the form of asceticism; men will -mutilate themselves instead of merely hanging themselves." -Or a man might very reasonably have said, "If we weary of -our Greek and Latin gods we shall be hankering after some -eastern mystery or other; there will be a fashion in -Persians or Hindoos." Or a man of the world might well have -been shrewd enough to say, "Powerful people are picking up -these fads; some day the court will adopt one of them and it -may become official." Or yet another and gloomier prophet -might be pardoned for saying, "The world is going down-hill; -dark and barbarous superstitions will return, it does not -matter much which. They will all be formless and fugitive -like dreams of the night." - -Now it is the intense interest of the case that all these -prophecies were really fulfilled; but it was not the Church -that fulfilled them. It was the Church that escaped from -them, confounded them, and rose above them in triumph. In so -far as it was probable that the mere nature of hedonism -would produce a mere reaction of asceticism, it did produce -a mere reaction of asceticism. It was the movement called -Manichean, and the Church was its mortal enemy. In so far as -it would have naturally appeared at that point of history, -it did appear; it did also disappear, which was equally -natural. The mere pessimist reaction did come with the -Manichees and did go with the Manichees. But the Church did -not come with them or go with them; and she had much more to -do with their going than with their coming. Or again, in so -far as it was probable that even the growth of scepticism -would bring in a fashion of eastern religion, it did bring -it in; Mithras came from far beyond Palestine out of the -heart of Persia, bringing strange mysteries of the blood of -bulls. Certainly there was everything to show that some such -fashion would have come in any case. But certainly there is -nothing in the world to show that it would not have passed -away in any case. Certainly an Oriental fad was something -eminently fitted to the fourth or fifth century; but that -hardly explains it having remained to the twentieth century, -and still going strong. In short, in so far as things of the -kind might have been expected then, things like Mithraism -were experienced then; but it scarcely explains our more -recent experiences. And if we were still Mithraists merely -because Mithraic head-dresses and other Persian apparatuses -might be expected to be all the rage in the days of -Domitian, it would almost seem by this time that we must be -a little dowdy. - -It is the same, as will be suggested in a moment, with the -idea of official favouritism. In so far as such favouritism -shown towards a fad was something that might have been -looked for during the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, -it was something that did exist in that Empire and did -decline and fall with it. It throws no sort of light on the -thing that resolutely refused to decline and fall; that grew -steadily while the other was declining and falling; and -which even at this moment is going forward with fearless -energy, when another aeon has completed its cycle and -another civilisation seems almost ready to fall or to +conscription; and a month or so after his few followers meet together in +an upper room in remembrance of him. They never had any reason for +coming together except that common memory; they are men of many kinds +with nothing to bind them, except that the greatest event in all their +fives was this tragedy of the teacher of universal peace. They are +always repeating his words, revolving his problems, trying to imitate +his character. The Pacifists meet at their Pentecost and are possessed +of a sudden ecstasy of enthusiasm and wild rush of the whirlwind of +inspiration, in the course of which they proceed to establish universal +Conscription, to increase the Navy Estimates, to insist on everybody +going about armed to the teeth and on all the frontiers bristling with +artillery; the proceedings concluding with the singing of "Boys of the +Bulldog Breed" and "Don't let them scrap the British Navy." That is +something like a fair parallel to the theory of these critics; that the +transition from their idea of Jesus to their idea of Catholicism could +have been made in the little upper room at Pentecost. Surely anybody's +common sense would tell him that enthusiasts, who only met through their +common enthusiasm for a leader whom they loved, would not instantly rush +away to establish everything that he hated. No, if the "ecclesiastical +and dogmatic system" is as old as Pentecost it is as old as Christmas. +If we trace it back to such very early Christians we must trace it back +to Christ. + +We may begin then with these two negations. It is nonsense to say that +the Christian faith appeared in a simple age; in the sense of an +unlettered and gullible age. It is equally nonsense to say that the +Christian faith was a simple thing; in the sense of a vague or childish +or merely instinctive thing. Perhaps the only point in which we could +possibly say that the Church fitted into the pagan world is the fact +that they were both not only highly civilised but rather complicated. +They were both emphatically many-sided; but antiquity was then a +many-sided hole, like a hexagonal hole waiting for an equally hexagonal +stopper. In that sense only the Church was many-sided enough to fit the +world. The six sides of the Mediterranean world faced each other across +the sea and waited for something that should look all ways at once. The +Church had to be both Roman and Greek and Jewish and African and +Asiatic. In the very words of the Apostle of the Gentiles, it was indeed +all things to all men. Christianity then was not merely crude and +simple, and was the very reverse of the growth of a barbaric time. But +when we come to the contrary charge, we come to a much more plausible +charge. It is very much more tenable that the Faith was but the final +phase of the decay of civilisation, in the sense of the excess of +civilisation; that this superstition was a sign that Rome was dying, and +dying of being much too civilised. That is an argument much better worth +considering; and we will proceed to consider it. + +At the beginning of this book I ventured on a general summary of it, in +a parallel between the rise of humanity out of nature and the rise of +Christianity out of history. I pointed out that in both cases what had +gone before might imply something coming after; but did not in the least +imply what did come after. If a detached mind had seen certain apes it +might have deduced more anthropoids; it would not have deduced man or +anything within a thousand miles of what man has done. In short, it +might have seen Pithacanthropus or the Missing Link looming in the +future, if possible almost as dimly and doubtfully as we see him looming +in the past. But if it foresaw him appearing it would also foresee him +disappearing, and leaving a few faint traces just as he has left a few +faint traces; if they are traces. To foresee that Missing Link would not +be to foresee Man, or anything like Man. Now this earlier explanation +must be kept in mind; because it is an exact parallel to the true view +of the Church; and the suggestion of it having evolved naturally out of +the Empire in decay. + +The truth is that in one sense a man might very well have predicted that +the imperial decadence would produce something like Christianity. That +is, something a little like and gigantically different. A man might very +well have said, for instance, "Pleasure has been pursued so +extravagantly that there will be a reaction into pessimism. Perhaps it +will take the form of asceticism; men will mutilate themselves instead +of merely hanging themselves." Or a man might very reasonably have said, +"If we weary of our Greek and Latin gods we shall be hankering after +some eastern mystery or other; there will be a fashion in Persians or +Hindoos." Or a man of the world might well have been shrewd enough to +say, "Powerful people are picking up these fads; some day the court will +adopt one of them and it may become official." Or yet another and +gloomier prophet might be pardoned for saying, "The world is going +down-hill; dark and barbarous superstitions will return, it does not +matter much which. They will all be formless and fugitive like dreams of +the night." + +Now it is the intense interest of the case that all these prophecies +were really fulfilled; but it was not the Church that fulfilled them. It +was the Church that escaped from them, confounded them, and rose above +them in triumph. In so far as it was probable that the mere nature of +hedonism would produce a mere reaction of asceticism, it did produce a +mere reaction of asceticism. It was the movement called Manichean, and +the Church was its mortal enemy. In so far as it would have naturally +appeared at that point of history, it did appear; it did also disappear, +which was equally natural. The mere pessimist reaction did come with the +Manichees and did go with the Manichees. But the Church did not come +with them or go with them; and she had much more to do with their going +than with their coming. Or again, in so far as it was probable that even +the growth of scepticism would bring in a fashion of eastern religion, +it did bring it in; Mithras came from far beyond Palestine out of the +heart of Persia, bringing strange mysteries of the blood of bulls. +Certainly there was everything to show that some such fashion would have +come in any case. But certainly there is nothing in the world to show +that it would not have passed away in any case. Certainly an Oriental +fad was something eminently fitted to the fourth or fifth century; but +that hardly explains it having remained to the twentieth century, and +still going strong. In short, in so far as things of the kind might have +been expected then, things like Mithraism were experienced then; but it +scarcely explains our more recent experiences. And if we were still +Mithraists merely because Mithraic head-dresses and other Persian +apparatuses might be expected to be all the rage in the days of +Domitian, it would almost seem by this time that we must be a little +dowdy. + +It is the same, as will be suggested in a moment, with the idea of +official favouritism. In so far as such favouritism shown towards a fad +was something that might have been looked for during the decline and +fall of the Roman Empire, it was something that did exist in that Empire +and did decline and fall with it. It throws no sort of light on the +thing that resolutely refused to decline and fall; that grew steadily +while the other was declining and falling; and which even at this moment +is going forward with fearless energy, when another aeon has completed +its cycle and another civilisation seems almost ready to fall or to decline. -Now the curious fact is this: that the very heresies which -the Early Church is blamed for crushing testify to the -unfairness for which she is blamed. In so far as something -deserved the blame, it was precisely the things that she is -blamed for blaming. In so far as something was merely a -superstition, she herself condemned that superstition. In so -far as something was a mere reaction into barbarism, she -herself resisted it because it was a reaction into -barbarism. In so far as something was a fad of the fading -empire, that died and deserved to die, it was the Church -alone that killed it. The Church is reproached for being -exactly what the heresy was repressed for being. The -explanations of the evolutionary historians and higher -critics do really explain why Arianism and Gnosticism and -Nestorianism were born---and also why they died. They do not -explain why the Church was born or why she has refused to -die. Above all, they do not explain why she should have made -war on the very evils she is supposed to share. - -Let us take a few practical examples of the principle: the -principle that if there was anything that was really a -superstition of the dying empire, it did really die with the -dying empire; and certainly was not the same as the very -thing that destroyed it. For this purpose we will take in -order two or three of the most ordinary explanations of -Christian origins among the modern critics of Christianity. -Nothing is more common, for instance, than to find such a -modern critic writing something like this: "Christianity was -above all a movement of ascetics, a rush into the desert, a -refuge in the cloister, a renunciation of all life and -happiness; and this was a part of a gloomy and inhuman -reaction against nature itself, a hatred of the body, a -horror of the material universe, a sort of universal suicide -of the senses and even of the self. It came from an eastern -fanaticism like that of the fakirs, and was ultimately -founded on an eastern pessimism, which seems to feel +Now the curious fact is this: that the very heresies which the Early +Church is blamed for crushing testify to the unfairness for which she is +blamed. In so far as something deserved the blame, it was precisely the +things that she is blamed for blaming. In so far as something was merely +a superstition, she herself condemned that superstition. In so far as +something was a mere reaction into barbarism, she herself resisted it +because it was a reaction into barbarism. In so far as something was a +fad of the fading empire, that died and deserved to die, it was the +Church alone that killed it. The Church is reproached for being exactly +what the heresy was repressed for being. The explanations of the +evolutionary historians and higher critics do really explain why +Arianism and Gnosticism and Nestorianism were born---and also why they +died. They do not explain why the Church was born or why she has refused +to die. Above all, they do not explain why she should have made war on +the very evils she is supposed to share. + +Let us take a few practical examples of the principle: the principle +that if there was anything that was really a superstition of the dying +empire, it did really die with the dying empire; and certainly was not +the same as the very thing that destroyed it. For this purpose we will +take in order two or three of the most ordinary explanations of +Christian origins among the modern critics of Christianity. Nothing is +more common, for instance, than to find such a modern critic writing +something like this: "Christianity was above all a movement of ascetics, +a rush into the desert, a refuge in the cloister, a renunciation of all +life and happiness; and this was a part of a gloomy and inhuman reaction +against nature itself, a hatred of the body, a horror of the material +universe, a sort of universal suicide of the senses and even of the +self. It came from an eastern fanaticism like that of the fakirs, and +was ultimately founded on an eastern pessimism, which seems to feel existence itself as an evil." -Now the most extraordinary thing about this is that it is -all quite true; it is true in every detail except that it -happens to be attributed entirely to the wrong person. It is -not true of the Church; but it is true of the heretics -condemned by the Church. It is as if one were to write a -most detailed analysis of the mistakes and misgovernment of -the ministers of George the Third, merely with the small -inaccuracy that the whole story was told about George -Washington; or as if somebody made a list of the crimes of -the Bolshevists with no variation except that they were all -attributed to the Czar. The early Church was indeed very -ascetic, in connection with a totally different philosophy; -but the philosophy of a war on life and nature as such -really did exist in the world, if the critics only knew -where to look for it. - -What really happened was this. When the Faith first emerged -into the world, the very first thing that happened to it was -that it was caught in a sort of swarm of mystical and -metaphysical sects, mostly out of the East; like one lonely -golden bee caught in a swarm of wasps. To the ordinary -onlooker, there did not seem to be much difference, or -anything beyond a general buzz; indeed in a sense there was -not much difference, so far as stinging and being stung were -concerned. The difference was that only one golden dot in -all that whirring gold-dust had the power of going forth to -make hives for all humanity; to give the world honey and wax -or (as was so finely said in a context too easily forgotten) -"the two noblest things, which are sweetness and light." The -wasps all died that winter; and half the difficulty is that -hardly any one knows anything about them and most people do -not know that they ever existed; so that the whole story of -that first phase of our religion is lost. Or, to vary the -metaphor, when this movement or some other movement pierced -the dyke between the east and west and brought more mystical -ideas into Europe, it brought with it a whole flood of other -mystical ideas besides its own, most of them ascetical and -nearly all of them pessimistic. They very nearly flooded and -overwhelmed the purely Christian element. They came mostly -from that region that was a sort of dim borderland between -the eastern philosophies and the eastern mythologies, and -which shared with the wilder philosophers that curious craze -for making fantastic patterns of the cosmos in the shape of -maps and genealogical trees. Those that are supposed to -derive from the mysterious Manes are called Manichean; -kindred cults are more generally known as Gnostic; they are -mostly of a labyrinthine complexity, but the point to insist -on is the pessimism; the fact that nearly all in one form or -another regarded the creation of the world as the work of an -evil spirit. Some of them had that Asiatic atmosphere that -surrounds Buddhism; the suggestion that life is a corruption -of the purity of being. Some of them suggested a purely -spiritual order which had been betrayed by the coarse and -clumsy trick of making such toys as the sun and moon and -stars. Anyhow all this dark tide out of the metaphysical sea -in the midst of Asia poured through the dykes simultaneously -with the creed of Christ; but it is the whole point of the -story that the two were not the same; that they flowed like -oil on water. That creed remained in the shape of a miracle; -a river still flowing through the sea. And the proof of the -miracle was practical once more; it was merely that while -all that sea was salt and bitter with the savour of death, -of this one stream in the midst of it a man could drink. - -Now that purity was preserved by dogmatic definitions and -exclusions. It could not possibly have been preserved by -anything else. If the Church had not renounced the -Manicheans it might have become merely Manichean. If it had -not renounced the Gnostics it might have become Gnostic. But -by the very fact that it did renounce them it proved that it -was not either Gnostic or Manichean. At any rate it proved -that something was not either Gnostic or Manichean; and what -could it be that condemned them, if it was not the original -good news of the runners from Bethlehem and the trumpet of -the Resurrection? The early Church was ascetic, but she -proved that she was not pessimistic, simply by condemning -the pessimists. The creed declared that man was sinful, but -it did not declare that life was evil, and it proved it by -damning those who did. The condemnation of the early -heretics is itself condemned as something crabbed and -narrow; but it was in truth the very proof that the Church -meant to be brotherly and broad. It proved that the -primitive Catholics were specially eager to explain that -they did not think man utterly vile; that they did not think -life incurably miserable; that they did not think marriage a -sin or procreation a tragedy. They were ascetic because -asceticism was the only possible purge of the sins of the -world; but in the very thunder of their anathemas they -affirmed for ever that their asceticism was not to be -anti-human or anti-natural; that they did wish to purge the -world and not destroy it. An d nothing else except those -anathemas could possibly have made it clear, amid a -confusion which still confuses them with their mortal -enemies. Nothing else but dogma could have resisted the riot -of imaginative invention with which the pessimists were -waging their war against nature; with their Aeons and their -Demiurge, their strange Logos and their sinister Sophia. If -the Church had not insisted on theology, it would have -melted into a mad mythology of the mystics, yet further -removed from reason or even from rationalism; and, above -all, yet further removed from life and from the love of -life. Remember that it would have been an inverted -mythology, one contradicting everything natural in paganism; -a mythology in which Pluto would be above Jupiter and Hades -hang higher than Olympus; in which Brahma and all that has -the breath of life would be subject to Siva, shining with -the eye of death. - -That the early Church was itself full of an ecstatic -enthusiasm for renunciation and virginity makes this -distinction much more striking and not less so. It makes all -the more important the place where the dogma drew the line. -A man might crawl about on all fours like a beast because he -was an ascetic. He might stand night and day on the top of a -pillar and be adored for being ascetic. But he could not say -that the world was a mistake or the marriage state a sin -without being a heretic. What was it that thus deliberately -disengaged itself from eastern asceticism by sharp -definition and fierce refusal, if it was not something with -an individuality of its own; and one that was quite -different? If the Catholics are to be confused with the -Gnostics, we can only say it was not their fault if they -are. And it is rather hard that the Catholics should be -blamed by the same critics for persecuting the heretics and +Now the most extraordinary thing about this is that it is all quite +true; it is true in every detail except that it happens to be attributed +entirely to the wrong person. It is not true of the Church; but it is +true of the heretics condemned by the Church. It is as if one were to +write a most detailed analysis of the mistakes and misgovernment of the +ministers of George the Third, merely with the small inaccuracy that the +whole story was told about George Washington; or as if somebody made a +list of the crimes of the Bolshevists with no variation except that they +were all attributed to the Czar. The early Church was indeed very +ascetic, in connection with a totally different philosophy; but the +philosophy of a war on life and nature as such really did exist in the +world, if the critics only knew where to look for it. + +What really happened was this. When the Faith first emerged into the +world, the very first thing that happened to it was that it was caught +in a sort of swarm of mystical and metaphysical sects, mostly out of the +East; like one lonely golden bee caught in a swarm of wasps. To the +ordinary onlooker, there did not seem to be much difference, or anything +beyond a general buzz; indeed in a sense there was not much difference, +so far as stinging and being stung were concerned. The difference was +that only one golden dot in all that whirring gold-dust had the power of +going forth to make hives for all humanity; to give the world honey and +wax or (as was so finely said in a context too easily forgotten) "the +two noblest things, which are sweetness and light." The wasps all died +that winter; and half the difficulty is that hardly any one knows +anything about them and most people do not know that they ever existed; +so that the whole story of that first phase of our religion is lost. Or, +to vary the metaphor, when this movement or some other movement pierced +the dyke between the east and west and brought more mystical ideas into +Europe, it brought with it a whole flood of other mystical ideas besides +its own, most of them ascetical and nearly all of them pessimistic. They +very nearly flooded and overwhelmed the purely Christian element. They +came mostly from that region that was a sort of dim borderland between +the eastern philosophies and the eastern mythologies, and which shared +with the wilder philosophers that curious craze for making fantastic +patterns of the cosmos in the shape of maps and genealogical trees. +Those that are supposed to derive from the mysterious Manes are called +Manichean; kindred cults are more generally known as Gnostic; they are +mostly of a labyrinthine complexity, but the point to insist on is the +pessimism; the fact that nearly all in one form or another regarded the +creation of the world as the work of an evil spirit. Some of them had +that Asiatic atmosphere that surrounds Buddhism; the suggestion that +life is a corruption of the purity of being. Some of them suggested a +purely spiritual order which had been betrayed by the coarse and clumsy +trick of making such toys as the sun and moon and stars. Anyhow all this +dark tide out of the metaphysical sea in the midst of Asia poured +through the dykes simultaneously with the creed of Christ; but it is the +whole point of the story that the two were not the same; that they +flowed like oil on water. That creed remained in the shape of a miracle; +a river still flowing through the sea. And the proof of the miracle was +practical once more; it was merely that while all that sea was salt and +bitter with the savour of death, of this one stream in the midst of it a +man could drink. + +Now that purity was preserved by dogmatic definitions and exclusions. It +could not possibly have been preserved by anything else. If the Church +had not renounced the Manicheans it might have become merely Manichean. +If it had not renounced the Gnostics it might have become Gnostic. But +by the very fact that it did renounce them it proved that it was not +either Gnostic or Manichean. At any rate it proved that something was +not either Gnostic or Manichean; and what could it be that condemned +them, if it was not the original good news of the runners from Bethlehem +and the trumpet of the Resurrection? The early Church was ascetic, but +she proved that she was not pessimistic, simply by condemning the +pessimists. The creed declared that man was sinful, but it did not +declare that life was evil, and it proved it by damning those who did. +The condemnation of the early heretics is itself condemned as something +crabbed and narrow; but it was in truth the very proof that the Church +meant to be brotherly and broad. It proved that the primitive Catholics +were specially eager to explain that they did not think man utterly +vile; that they did not think life incurably miserable; that they did +not think marriage a sin or procreation a tragedy. They were ascetic +because asceticism was the only possible purge of the sins of the world; +but in the very thunder of their anathemas they affirmed for ever that +their asceticism was not to be anti-human or anti-natural; that they did +wish to purge the world and not destroy it. An d nothing else except +those anathemas could possibly have made it clear, amid a confusion +which still confuses them with their mortal enemies. Nothing else but +dogma could have resisted the riot of imaginative invention with which +the pessimists were waging their war against nature; with their Aeons +and their Demiurge, their strange Logos and their sinister Sophia. If +the Church had not insisted on theology, it would have melted into a mad +mythology of the mystics, yet further removed from reason or even from +rationalism; and, above all, yet further removed from life and from the +love of life. Remember that it would have been an inverted mythology, +one contradicting everything natural in paganism; a mythology in which +Pluto would be above Jupiter and Hades hang higher than Olympus; in +which Brahma and all that has the breath of life would be subject to +Siva, shining with the eye of death. + +That the early Church was itself full of an ecstatic enthusiasm for +renunciation and virginity makes this distinction much more striking and +not less so. It makes all the more important the place where the dogma +drew the line. A man might crawl about on all fours like a beast because +he was an ascetic. He might stand night and day on the top of a pillar +and be adored for being ascetic. But he could not say that the world was +a mistake or the marriage state a sin without being a heretic. What was +it that thus deliberately disengaged itself from eastern asceticism by +sharp definition and fierce refusal, if it was not something with an +individuality of its own; and one that was quite different? If the +Catholics are to be confused with the Gnostics, we can only say it was +not their fault if they are. And it is rather hard that the Catholics +should be blamed by the same critics for persecuting the heretics and also for sympathising with the heresy. -The Church was not a Manichean movement, if only because it -was not a movement at all. It was not even merely an -ascetical movement, because it was not a movement at all. It -would be nearer the truth to call it the tamer of asceticism -than the mere leader or loosener of it. It was a thing -having its own theory of asceticism, its own type of -asceticism, but most conspicuous at the moment as the -moderator of other theories and types. This is the only -sense that can be made, for instance, of the story of -St. Augustine. As long as he was a mere man of the world, a -mere man drifting with his time, he actually was a -Manichean. It really was quite modern and fashionable to be -a Manichean. But when he became a Catholic, the people he -instantly turned on and rent in pieces were the Manicheans. -The Catholic way of putting it is that he left off being a -pessimist to become an ascetic. But as the pessimists -interpreted asceticism, it might be said that he left off -being an ascetic to become a saint. The war upon life, the -denial of nature, were exactly the things he had already -found in the heathen world outside the Church, and had to -renounce when he entered the Church. The very fact that -St. Augustine remains a somewhat sterner or sadder figure -than St. Francis or St. Teresa only accentuates the dilemma. -Face to face with the gravest or even grimmest of Catholics, -we can still ask, "Why did Catholicism make war on -Manichees, if Catholicism was Manichean?" - -Take another rationalistic explanation of the rise of -Christendom. It is common enough to find another critic -saying, "Christianity did not really rise at all; that is, -it did not merely rise from below; it was imposed from -above. It is an example of the power of the executive, -especially in despotic states. The Empire was really an -Empire; that is, it was really ruled by the Emperor. One of -the Emperors happened to become a Christian. He might just -as well have become a Mithraist or a Jew or a -Fire-Worshipper; it was common in the decline of the Empire -for eminent and educated people to adopt these eccentric -eastern cults. But when he adopted it, it became the -official religion of the Roman Empire; and when it became -the official religion of the Roman Empire, it became as -strong, as universal, and as invincible as the Roman Empire. -It has only remained in the world as a relic of that Empire; -or, as many have put it, it is but the ghost of Caesar still -hovering over Rome." This also is a very ordinary line taken -in criticism of orthodoxy, to say that it was only -officialism that ever made it orthodoxy. And here again we -can call on the heretics to refute it. - -The whole great history of the Arian heresy might have been -invented to explode this idea. It is a very interesting -history often repeated in this connection; and the upshot of -it is in that in so far as there ever was a merely official -religion, it actually died because it was a merely official -religion; and what destroyed it was the real religion. Arius -advanced a version of Christianity which moved, more or less -vaguely, in the direction of what we should call -Unitarianism; though it was not the same, for it gave to -Christ a curious intermediary position between the divine -and human. The point is that it seemed to many more -reasonable and less fanatical; and among these were many of -the educated class in a sort of reaction against the first -romance of conversion. Arians were a sort of moderates and a -sort of modernists. And it was felt that after the first -squabbles this was the final form of rationalised religion -into which civilisation might well settle down. It was -accepted by Divus Caesar himself and became the official -orthodoxy; the generals and military princes drawn from the -new barbarian powers of the north, full of the future, -supported it strongly. But the sequel is still more -important. Exactly as a modern man might pass through -Unitarianism to complete agnosticism, so the greatest of the -Arian emperors ultimately shed the last and thinnest -pretence of Christianity; he abandoned even Arius and -returned to Apollo. He was a Caesar of the Caesars; a -soldier, a scholar, a man of large ambitions and ideals; -another of the philosopher kings. It seemed to him as if at -his signal the sun rose again. The oracles began to speak -like birds beginning to sing at dawn; paganism was itself -again; the gods returned. It seemed the end of that strange -interlude of an alien superstition. And indeed it was the -end of it, so far as there was a mere interlude of mere -superstition. It was the end of it, in so far as it was the -fad of an emperor or the fashion of a generation. If there -really was something that began with Constantine, then it -ended with Julian. - -But there was something that did not end. There had arisen -in that hour of history, defiant above the democratic tumult -of the Councils of the Church, Athanasius against the world. -We may pause upon the point at issue; because it is relevant -to the whole of this religious history, and the modern world -seems to miss the whole point of it. We might put it this -way. If there is one question which the enlightened and -liberal have the habit of deriding and holding up as a -dreadful example of barren dogma and senseless sectarian -strife, it is this Athanasian question of the Co-Eternity of -the Divine Son. On the other hand, if there is one thing -that the same liberals always offer us as a piece of pure -and simple Christianity, untroubled by doctrinal disputes, -it is the single sentence, "God is Love." Yet the two -statements are almost identical; at least one is very nearly -nonsense without the other. The barren dogma is only the -logical way of stating the beautiful sentiment. For if there -be a being without beginning, existing before all things, -was He loving when there was nothing to be loved? If through -that unthinkable eternity He is lonely, what is the meaning -of saying He is love? The only justification of such a -mystery is the mystical conception that in His own nature -there was something analogous to self-expression; something -of what begets and beholds what it has begotten. Without -some such idea, it is really illogical to complicate the -ultimate essence of deity with an idea like love. If the -moderns really want a simple religion of love, they must -look for it in the Athanasian Creed. The truth is that the -trumpet of true Christianity, the challenge of the charities -and simplicities of Bethlehem or Christmas Day, never rang -out more arrestingly and unmistakably than in the defiance -of Athanasius to the cold compromise of the Arians. It was -emphatically he who really was fighting for a God of Love -against a God of colourless and remote cosmic control; the -God of the stoics and the agnostics. - -It was emphatically he who was fighting for the Holy Child -against the grey deity of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. -He was fighting for that very balance of beautiful -interdependence and intimacy, in the very Trinity of the -Divine Nature, that draws our hearts to the Trinity of the -Holy Family. His dogma, if the phrase be not misunderstood, -turns even God into a Holy Family. - -That this purely Christian dogma actually for a second time -rebelled against the Empire, and actually for a second time -refounded the Church in spite of the Empire, is itself a -proof that there was something positive and personal working -in the world, other than whatever official faith the Empire -chose to adopt. This power utterly destroyed the official -faith that the Empire did adopt. It went on its own way as -it is going on its own way still. There are any number of -other examples in which is repeated precisely the same -process we have reviewed in the case of the Manichean and -the Arian. A few centuries afterwards, for instance, the -Church had to maintain the same Trinity, which is simply the -logical side of love, against another appearance of the -isolated and simplified deity in the religion of Islam. Yet -there are some who cannot see what the Crusaders were -fighting for; and some even who talk as if Christianity had -never been anything but a form of what they call Hebraism -coming in with the decay of Hellenism. - -Those people must certainly be very much puzzled by the war -between the Crescent and the Cross. If Christianity had -never been anything but a simpler morality sweeping away -polytheism, there is no reason why Christendom should not -have been swept into Islam. The truth is that Islam itself -was a barbaric reaction against that very humane complexity -that is really a Christian character; that idea of balance -in the deity, as of balance in the family, that makes that -creed a sort of sanity, and that sanity the soul of -civilisation. And that is why the Church is from the first a -thing holding its own position and point of view, quite -apart from the accidents and anarchies of its age. That is -why it deals blows impartially right and left, at the -pessimism of the Manichean or the optimism of the Pelagian. -It was not a Manichean movement because it was not a -movement at all. It was not an official fashion because it -was not a fashion at all. It was something that could -coincide with movements and fashions, could control them and -could survive them. - -So might rise from their graves the great heresiarchs to -confound their comrades of to-day. There is nothing that the -critics now affirm that we cannot call on these great -witnesses to deny. The modern critic will say lightly enough -that Christianity was but a reaction into asceticism and -anti-natural spirituality, a dance of fakirs furious against -life and love. But Manes the great mystic will answer them -from his secret throne and cry,"These Christians have no -right to be called spiritual; these Christians have no title -to be called ascetics; they who compromised with the curse -of life and all the filth of the family. Through them the -earth is still foul with fruit and harvest and polluted with -population. Theirs was no movement against nature, or my -children would have carried it to triumph; but these fools -renewed the world when I would have ended it with a -gesture." And another critic will write that the Church was -but the shadow of the Empire, the fad of a chance Emperor, -and that it remains in Europe only as the ghost of the power -of Rome. And Arius the deacon will answer out of the -darkness of oblivion: "No, indeed, or the world would have -followed my more reasonable religion. For mine went down -before demagogues and men defying Caesar; and around my -champion was the purple cloak and mine was the glory of the -eagles. It was not for lack of these things that I failed." -And yet a third modern will maintain that the creed spread -only as a sort of panic of hell-fire; men everywhere -attempting impossible things in fleeing from incredible -vengeance; a nightmare of imaginary remorse; and such an -explanation will satisfy many who see something dreadful in -the doctrine of orthodoxy. And then there will go up against -it the terrible voice of Tertullian, saying, "And why then -was I cast out; and why did soft hearts and heads decide -against me when I proclaimed the perdition of all sinners; -and what was this power that thwarted me when I threatened -all backsliders with hell? For none ever vrent up that hard -road so far as I; and mine was the *Credo Quia Impossible.*" -Then there is the fourth suggestion that there was something -of the Semitic society in the whole matter; that it was a -new invasion of the nomad spirit shaking a kindlier and more -comfortable paganism, its cities and its household gods; -whereby the jealous monotheistic races could after all -establish their jealous God. And Mahomet shall answer out of -the whirlwind, the red whirlwind of the desert, "Who ever -served the jealousy of God as I did or left him more lonely -in the sky? Who ever paid more honour to Moses and Abraham -or won more victories over idols and the images of paganism? -And what was this thing that thrust me back with the energy -of a thing alive; whose fanaticism could drive me from -Sicily and tear up my deep roots out of the rock of Spain? -What faith was theirs who thronged in thousands of every -class and country crying out that my ruin was the will of -God; and that hurled great Godfrey as from a catapult over -the wall of Jerusalem''; and what brought great Sobieski -like a thunderbolt to the gates of Vienna? I think there was -more than you fancy in the religion that has so matched -itself with mine." - -Those who would suggest that the faith was a fanaticism are -doomed to an eternal perplexity. In their account it is -bound to appear as fanatical for nothing, and fanatical -against everything. It is ascetical and at war with -ascetics. Roman and in revolt against Rome, monotheistic and -fighting furiously against monotheism; harsh in its -condemnation of harshness; a riddle not to be explained even -as unreason. And what sort of unreason is it that seems -reasonable to millions of educated Europeans through all the -revolutions of some sixteen hundred years? People are not -amused with a puzzle or a paradox or a mere muddle in the -mind for all that time. I know of no explanation except that -such a thing is not unreason but reason; that if it is -fanatical it is fanatical for reason and fanatical against -all the unreasonable things. That is the only explanation I -can find of a thing from the first so detached and so -confident, condemning things that looked so like itself, -refusing help from powers that seemed so essential to its -existence, sharing on its human side all the passions of the -age, yet always at the supreme moment suddenly rising -superior to them, never saying exactly what it was expected -to say and never needing to unsay what it had said; I can -find no explanation except that, like Pallas from the brain -of Jove, it had indeed come forth out of the mind of God, -mature and mighty and armed for judgment and for war. +The Church was not a Manichean movement, if only because it was not a +movement at all. It was not even merely an ascetical movement, because +it was not a movement at all. It would be nearer the truth to call it +the tamer of asceticism than the mere leader or loosener of it. It was a +thing having its own theory of asceticism, its own type of asceticism, +but most conspicuous at the moment as the moderator of other theories +and types. This is the only sense that can be made, for instance, of the +story of St. Augustine. As long as he was a mere man of the world, a +mere man drifting with his time, he actually was a Manichean. It really +was quite modern and fashionable to be a Manichean. But when he became a +Catholic, the people he instantly turned on and rent in pieces were the +Manicheans. The Catholic way of putting it is that he left off being a +pessimist to become an ascetic. But as the pessimists interpreted +asceticism, it might be said that he left off being an ascetic to become +a saint. The war upon life, the denial of nature, were exactly the +things he had already found in the heathen world outside the Church, and +had to renounce when he entered the Church. The very fact that +St. Augustine remains a somewhat sterner or sadder figure than +St. Francis or St. Teresa only accentuates the dilemma. Face to face +with the gravest or even grimmest of Catholics, we can still ask, "Why +did Catholicism make war on Manichees, if Catholicism was Manichean?" + +Take another rationalistic explanation of the rise of Christendom. It is +common enough to find another critic saying, "Christianity did not +really rise at all; that is, it did not merely rise from below; it was +imposed from above. It is an example of the power of the executive, +especially in despotic states. The Empire was really an Empire; that is, +it was really ruled by the Emperor. One of the Emperors happened to +become a Christian. He might just as well have become a Mithraist or a +Jew or a Fire-Worshipper; it was common in the decline of the Empire for +eminent and educated people to adopt these eccentric eastern cults. But +when he adopted it, it became the official religion of the Roman Empire; +and when it became the official religion of the Roman Empire, it became +as strong, as universal, and as invincible as the Roman Empire. It has +only remained in the world as a relic of that Empire; or, as many have +put it, it is but the ghost of Caesar still hovering over Rome." This +also is a very ordinary line taken in criticism of orthodoxy, to say +that it was only officialism that ever made it orthodoxy. And here again +we can call on the heretics to refute it. + +The whole great history of the Arian heresy might have been invented to +explode this idea. It is a very interesting history often repeated in +this connection; and the upshot of it is in that in so far as there ever +was a merely official religion, it actually died because it was a merely +official religion; and what destroyed it was the real religion. Arius +advanced a version of Christianity which moved, more or less vaguely, in +the direction of what we should call Unitarianism; though it was not the +same, for it gave to Christ a curious intermediary position between the +divine and human. The point is that it seemed to many more reasonable +and less fanatical; and among these were many of the educated class in a +sort of reaction against the first romance of conversion. Arians were a +sort of moderates and a sort of modernists. And it was felt that after +the first squabbles this was the final form of rationalised religion +into which civilisation might well settle down. It was accepted by Divus +Caesar himself and became the official orthodoxy; the generals and +military princes drawn from the new barbarian powers of the north, full +of the future, supported it strongly. But the sequel is still more +important. Exactly as a modern man might pass through Unitarianism to +complete agnosticism, so the greatest of the Arian emperors ultimately +shed the last and thinnest pretence of Christianity; he abandoned even +Arius and returned to Apollo. He was a Caesar of the Caesars; a soldier, +a scholar, a man of large ambitions and ideals; another of the +philosopher kings. It seemed to him as if at his signal the sun rose +again. The oracles began to speak like birds beginning to sing at dawn; +paganism was itself again; the gods returned. It seemed the end of that +strange interlude of an alien superstition. And indeed it was the end of +it, so far as there was a mere interlude of mere superstition. It was +the end of it, in so far as it was the fad of an emperor or the fashion +of a generation. If there really was something that began with +Constantine, then it ended with Julian. + +But there was something that did not end. There had arisen in that hour +of history, defiant above the democratic tumult of the Councils of the +Church, Athanasius against the world. We may pause upon the point at +issue; because it is relevant to the whole of this religious history, +and the modern world seems to miss the whole point of it. We might put +it this way. If there is one question which the enlightened and liberal +have the habit of deriding and holding up as a dreadful example of +barren dogma and senseless sectarian strife, it is this Athanasian +question of the Co-Eternity of the Divine Son. On the other hand, if +there is one thing that the same liberals always offer us as a piece of +pure and simple Christianity, untroubled by doctrinal disputes, it is +the single sentence, "God is Love." Yet the two statements are almost +identical; at least one is very nearly nonsense without the other. The +barren dogma is only the logical way of stating the beautiful sentiment. +For if there be a being without beginning, existing before all things, +was He loving when there was nothing to be loved? If through that +unthinkable eternity He is lonely, what is the meaning of saying He is +love? The only justification of such a mystery is the mystical +conception that in His own nature there was something analogous to +self-expression; something of what begets and beholds what it has +begotten. Without some such idea, it is really illogical to complicate +the ultimate essence of deity with an idea like love. If the moderns +really want a simple religion of love, they must look for it in the +Athanasian Creed. The truth is that the trumpet of true Christianity, +the challenge of the charities and simplicities of Bethlehem or +Christmas Day, never rang out more arrestingly and unmistakably than in +the defiance of Athanasius to the cold compromise of the Arians. It was +emphatically he who really was fighting for a God of Love against a God +of colourless and remote cosmic control; the God of the stoics and the +agnostics. + +It was emphatically he who was fighting for the Holy Child against the +grey deity of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He was fighting for that +very balance of beautiful interdependence and intimacy, in the very +Trinity of the Divine Nature, that draws our hearts to the Trinity of +the Holy Family. His dogma, if the phrase be not misunderstood, turns +even God into a Holy Family. + +That this purely Christian dogma actually for a second time rebelled +against the Empire, and actually for a second time refounded the Church +in spite of the Empire, is itself a proof that there was something +positive and personal working in the world, other than whatever official +faith the Empire chose to adopt. This power utterly destroyed the +official faith that the Empire did adopt. It went on its own way as it +is going on its own way still. There are any number of other examples in +which is repeated precisely the same process we have reviewed in the +case of the Manichean and the Arian. A few centuries afterwards, for +instance, the Church had to maintain the same Trinity, which is simply +the logical side of love, against another appearance of the isolated and +simplified deity in the religion of Islam. Yet there are some who cannot +see what the Crusaders were fighting for; and some even who talk as if +Christianity had never been anything but a form of what they call +Hebraism coming in with the decay of Hellenism. + +Those people must certainly be very much puzzled by the war between the +Crescent and the Cross. If Christianity had never been anything but a +simpler morality sweeping away polytheism, there is no reason why +Christendom should not have been swept into Islam. The truth is that +Islam itself was a barbaric reaction against that very humane complexity +that is really a Christian character; that idea of balance in the deity, +as of balance in the family, that makes that creed a sort of sanity, and +that sanity the soul of civilisation. And that is why the Church is from +the first a thing holding its own position and point of view, quite +apart from the accidents and anarchies of its age. That is why it deals +blows impartially right and left, at the pessimism of the Manichean or +the optimism of the Pelagian. It was not a Manichean movement because it +was not a movement at all. It was not an official fashion because it was +not a fashion at all. It was something that could coincide with +movements and fashions, could control them and could survive them. + +So might rise from their graves the great heresiarchs to confound their +comrades of to-day. There is nothing that the critics now affirm that we +cannot call on these great witnesses to deny. The modern critic will say +lightly enough that Christianity was but a reaction into asceticism and +anti-natural spirituality, a dance of fakirs furious against life and +love. But Manes the great mystic will answer them from his secret throne +and cry,"These Christians have no right to be called spiritual; these +Christians have no title to be called ascetics; they who compromised +with the curse of life and all the filth of the family. Through them the +earth is still foul with fruit and harvest and polluted with population. +Theirs was no movement against nature, or my children would have carried +it to triumph; but these fools renewed the world when I would have ended +it with a gesture." And another critic will write that the Church was +but the shadow of the Empire, the fad of a chance Emperor, and that it +remains in Europe only as the ghost of the power of Rome. And Arius the +deacon will answer out of the darkness of oblivion: "No, indeed, or the +world would have followed my more reasonable religion. For mine went +down before demagogues and men defying Caesar; and around my champion +was the purple cloak and mine was the glory of the eagles. It was not +for lack of these things that I failed." And yet a third modern will +maintain that the creed spread only as a sort of panic of hell-fire; men +everywhere attempting impossible things in fleeing from incredible +vengeance; a nightmare of imaginary remorse; and such an explanation +will satisfy many who see something dreadful in the doctrine of +orthodoxy. And then there will go up against it the terrible voice of +Tertullian, saying, "And why then was I cast out; and why did soft +hearts and heads decide against me when I proclaimed the perdition of +all sinners; and what was this power that thwarted me when I threatened +all backsliders with hell? For none ever vrent up that hard road so far +as I; and mine was the *Credo Quia Impossible.*" Then there is the +fourth suggestion that there was something of the Semitic society in the +whole matter; that it was a new invasion of the nomad spirit shaking a +kindlier and more comfortable paganism, its cities and its household +gods; whereby the jealous monotheistic races could after all establish +their jealous God. And Mahomet shall answer out of the whirlwind, the +red whirlwind of the desert, "Who ever served the jealousy of God as I +did or left him more lonely in the sky? Who ever paid more honour to +Moses and Abraham or won more victories over idols and the images of +paganism? And what was this thing that thrust me back with the energy of +a thing alive; whose fanaticism could drive me from Sicily and tear up +my deep roots out of the rock of Spain? What faith was theirs who +thronged in thousands of every class and country crying out that my ruin +was the will of God; and that hurled great Godfrey as from a catapult +over the wall of Jerusalem''; and what brought great Sobieski like a +thunderbolt to the gates of Vienna? I think there was more than you +fancy in the religion that has so matched itself with mine." + +Those who would suggest that the faith was a fanaticism are doomed to an +eternal perplexity. In their account it is bound to appear as fanatical +for nothing, and fanatical against everything. It is ascetical and at +war with ascetics. Roman and in revolt against Rome, monotheistic and +fighting furiously against monotheism; harsh in its condemnation of +harshness; a riddle not to be explained even as unreason. And what sort +of unreason is it that seems reasonable to millions of educated +Europeans through all the revolutions of some sixteen hundred years? +People are not amused with a puzzle or a paradox or a mere muddle in the +mind for all that time. I know of no explanation except that such a +thing is not unreason but reason; that if it is fanatical it is +fanatical for reason and fanatical against all the unreasonable things. +That is the only explanation I can find of a thing from the first so +detached and so confident, condemning things that looked so like itself, +refusing help from powers that seemed so essential to its existence, +sharing on its human side all the passions of the age, yet always at the +supreme moment suddenly rising superior to them, never saying exactly +what it was expected to say and never needing to unsay what it had said; +I can find no explanation except that, like Pallas from the brain of +Jove, it had indeed come forth out of the mind of God, mature and mighty +and armed for judgment and for war. ### V. The Escape from Paganism -The modern missionary, with his palm-leaf hat and his -umbrella, has become rather a figure of fun. He is chaffed -among men of the world for the ease with which he can be -eaten by cannibals and the narrow bigotry which makes him -regard the cannibal culture as lower than his own. Perhaps -the best part of the joke is that the men of the world do -not see that the joke is against themselves. It is rather -ridiculous to ask a man just about to be boiled in a pot and -eaten, at a purely religious feast, why he does not regard -all religions as equally friendly and fraternal. But there -is a more subtle criticism uttered against the more -old-fashioned missionary; to the effect that he generalises -too broadly about the heathen and pays too little attention -to the difference between Mahomet and Mumbo-Jumbo. There was -probably truth in this complaint, especially in the past; -but it is my main contention here that the exaggeration is -all the other way at present. It is the temptation of the -professors to treat mythologies too much as theologies; as -things thoroughly thought out and seriously held. It is the -temptation of the intellectuals to take much too seriously -the fine shades of various schools in the rather -irresponsible metaphysics of Asia. Above all, it is their -temptation to miss the real truth implied in the idea of -Aquinas contra Gentiles or Athanasius contra mundum. - -If the missionary says, in fact, that he is exceptional in -being a Christian, and that the rest of the races and -religions can be collectively classified as heathen, he is -perfectly right. He may say it in quite the wrong spirit, in -which case he is spiritually wrong. But in the cold light of -philosophy and history, he is intellectually right. He may -not be right-minded, but he is right. He may not even have a -right to be right, but he is right. The outer world to which -he brings his creed really is something subject to certain -generalisations covering all its varieties, and is not -merely a variety of similar creeds. Perhaps it is in any -case too much of a temptation to pride or hypocrisy to call -it heathenry. Perhaps it would be better simply to call it -humanity. But there are certain broad characteristics of -what we call humanity while it remains in what we call -heathenry. They are not necessarily bad characteristics; -some of them are worthy of the respect of Christendom; some -of them have been absorbed and transfigured in the substance -of Christendom. But they existed before Christendom and they -still exist outside Christendom, as certainly as the sea -existed before a boat and all round a boat; and they have as -strong and as universal and as unmistakable a savour as the -sea. - -For instance, all real scholars who have studied the Greek -and Roman culture say one thing about it. They agree that in -the ancient world religion was one thing and philosophy -quite another. There was very little effort to rationalise -and at the same time to realise a real belief in the gods. -There was very little pretence of any such real belief among -the philosophers. But neither had the passion or perhaps the -power to persecute the other, save in particular and -peculiar cases; and neither the philosopher in his school -nor the priest in his temple seems ever to have seriously -contemplated his own concept as covering the world. A priest -sacrificing to Artemis in Calydon did not seem to think the -people would some day sacrifice to her instead of to Isis +The modern missionary, with his palm-leaf hat and his umbrella, has +become rather a figure of fun. He is chaffed among men of the world for +the ease with which he can be eaten by cannibals and the narrow bigotry +which makes him regard the cannibal culture as lower than his own. +Perhaps the best part of the joke is that the men of the world do not +see that the joke is against themselves. It is rather ridiculous to ask +a man just about to be boiled in a pot and eaten, at a purely religious +feast, why he does not regard all religions as equally friendly and +fraternal. But there is a more subtle criticism uttered against the more +old-fashioned missionary; to the effect that he generalises too broadly +about the heathen and pays too little attention to the difference +between Mahomet and Mumbo-Jumbo. There was probably truth in this +complaint, especially in the past; but it is my main contention here +that the exaggeration is all the other way at present. It is the +temptation of the professors to treat mythologies too much as +theologies; as things thoroughly thought out and seriously held. It is +the temptation of the intellectuals to take much too seriously the fine +shades of various schools in the rather irresponsible metaphysics of +Asia. Above all, it is their temptation to miss the real truth implied +in the idea of Aquinas contra Gentiles or Athanasius contra mundum. + +If the missionary says, in fact, that he is exceptional in being a +Christian, and that the rest of the races and religions can be +collectively classified as heathen, he is perfectly right. He may say it +in quite the wrong spirit, in which case he is spiritually wrong. But in +the cold light of philosophy and history, he is intellectually right. He +may not be right-minded, but he is right. He may not even have a right +to be right, but he is right. The outer world to which he brings his +creed really is something subject to certain generalisations covering +all its varieties, and is not merely a variety of similar creeds. +Perhaps it is in any case too much of a temptation to pride or hypocrisy +to call it heathenry. Perhaps it would be better simply to call it +humanity. But there are certain broad characteristics of what we call +humanity while it remains in what we call heathenry. They are not +necessarily bad characteristics; some of them are worthy of the respect +of Christendom; some of them have been absorbed and transfigured in the +substance of Christendom. But they existed before Christendom and they +still exist outside Christendom, as certainly as the sea existed before +a boat and all round a boat; and they have as strong and as universal +and as unmistakable a savour as the sea. + +For instance, all real scholars who have studied the Greek and Roman +culture say one thing about it. They agree that in the ancient world +religion was one thing and philosophy quite another. There was very +little effort to rationalise and at the same time to realise a real +belief in the gods. There was very little pretence of any such real +belief among the philosophers. But neither had the passion or perhaps +the power to persecute the other, save in particular and peculiar cases; +and neither the philosopher in his school nor the priest in his temple +seems ever to have seriously contemplated his own concept as covering +the world. A priest sacrificing to Artemis in Calydon did not seem to +think the people would some day sacrifice to her instead of to Isis beyond the sea; a sage following the vegetarian rule of the -Neo-Pythagoreans did not seem to think it would universally -prevail and exclude the methods of Epictetus or Epicurus. We -may call this liberality if we like; I am not dealing with -an argument but describing an atmosphere. All this, I say, -is admitted by all scholars; but what neither the learned -nor the unlearned have fully realised, perhaps, is that this -description is really an exact description of all -non-Christian civilisation to-day; and especially of the -great civilisations of the East. Eastern paganism really is -much more all of a piece, just as ancient paganism was much -more all of a piece, than the modern critics admit. It is a -many-coloured Persian carpet as the others was a varied and -tessellated Roman pavement but the one real crack right -across that pavement came from the earthquake of the -Crucifixion. . . - -The modern European seeking his religion m Asia is reading -his religion into Asia. Religion there is something -different; it is both more and less. He is like a man -mapping out the sea as land; marking waves as mountains; not -understanding the nature of its peculiar permanence. It is -perfectly true that Asia has its own dignity and poetry and -high civilisation. But it is not in the least true that Asia -has its own definite dominions of moral government, where -all loyalty is conceived in terms of morality; as when we -say that Ireland is Catholic or that New England was -Puritan. The map is not marked out in religions, in our -sense of churches. The state of mind is far more subtle, -more relative, more secretive, more varied and changing, -like the colours of the snake. The Moslem is the nearest -approach to a militant Christian; and that is precisely -because he is a much nearer approach to an envoy from -western civilisation. The Moslem in the heart of Asia almost -stands for the soul of Europe. And as he stands between them -and Europe in the matter of space, so he stands between them -and Christianity in the matter of time. In that sense the -Moslems in Asia are merely like the Nestorians in Asia. -Islam, historically speaking, is the greatest of the eastern +Neo-Pythagoreans did not seem to think it would universally prevail and +exclude the methods of Epictetus or Epicurus. We may call this +liberality if we like; I am not dealing with an argument but describing +an atmosphere. All this, I say, is admitted by all scholars; but what +neither the learned nor the unlearned have fully realised, perhaps, is +that this description is really an exact description of all +non-Christian civilisation to-day; and especially of the great +civilisations of the East. Eastern paganism really is much more all of a +piece, just as ancient paganism was much more all of a piece, than the +modern critics admit. It is a many-coloured Persian carpet as the others +was a varied and tessellated Roman pavement but the one real crack right +across that pavement came from the earthquake of the Crucifixion. . . + +The modern European seeking his religion m Asia is reading his religion +into Asia. Religion there is something different; it is both more and +less. He is like a man mapping out the sea as land; marking waves as +mountains; not understanding the nature of its peculiar permanence. It +is perfectly true that Asia has its own dignity and poetry and high +civilisation. But it is not in the least true that Asia has its own +definite dominions of moral government, where all loyalty is conceived +in terms of morality; as when we say that Ireland is Catholic or that +New England was Puritan. The map is not marked out in religions, in our +sense of churches. The state of mind is far more subtle, more relative, +more secretive, more varied and changing, like the colours of the snake. +The Moslem is the nearest approach to a militant Christian; and that is +precisely because he is a much nearer approach to an envoy from western +civilisation. The Moslem in the heart of Asia almost stands for the soul +of Europe. And as he stands between them and Europe in the matter of +space, so he stands between them and Christianity in the matter of time. +In that sense the Moslems in Asia are merely like the Nestorians in +Asia. Islam, historically speaking, is the greatest of the eastern heresies. It owed something to the quite isolated and unique -individuality of Israel, but it owed more to Byzantium and -the theological enthusiasm of Christendom. It owed something -even to\^the Crusades. It owed nothing whatever to Asia. It -owed nothing to the atmosphere of the ancient and -traditional world of Asia, with its immemorial etiquette and -its bottomless or bewildering philosophies. All that ancient -and actual Asia felt the entrance of Islam as something +individuality of Israel, but it owed more to Byzantium and the +theological enthusiasm of Christendom. It owed something even to\^the +Crusades. It owed nothing whatever to Asia. It owed nothing to the +atmosphere of the ancient and traditional world of Asia, with its +immemorial etiquette and its bottomless or bewildering philosophies. All +that ancient and actual Asia felt the entrance of Islam as something foreign and western and warlike, piercing it like a spear. -Even where we might trace in dotted lines the domains of -Asiatic religions, we should probably be reading into them -something dogmatic and ethical belonging to our own -religion. It is as if a European ignorant of the American -atmosphere were to suppose that each "state" was a separate -sovereign state as patriotic as France or Poland; or that -when a Yankee referred fondly to his home town" he meant he -had no other nation, like a citizen of ancient Athens or -Rome. As he would be reading a particular sort of loyalty -into America, so we are reading a particular sort of loyalty -into Asia. There are loyalties of other kinds; but not what -men on the West mean by being a believer, by trying to be a -Christian, by being a good Protestant or a practising -Catholic. In the intellectual world it means something far -more vague and varied by doubts and speculations. In the -moral world it means something far more loose and drifting. -A professor of Persian at one of our great universities, so -passionate a partisan of the East as practically to profess -a contempt for the West, said to a friend of mine: "You will -never understand oriental religions, because you always -conceive religion as connected with ethics. This kind has -really nothing to do with ethics." We have most of us known -some Masters of the Higher Wisdom, some Pilgrims upon the -Path to Power, some eastern esoteric saints and seers, who -had really nothing to do with ethics. Something different, -something detached and irresponsible, tinges the moral -atmosphere of Asia and touches even that of Islam. He was -very realistically caught in the atmosphere of Hassan; and a -very horrible atmosphere too. It is even more vivid in such -glimpses as we get of the genuine and ancient cults of Asia. -Deeper than the depths of metaphysics, far down in the -abysses of mystical meditations, under all that solemn -universe of spiritual things, is a secret, an intangible and -a terrible levity. It does not really very much matter what -one does. Either because they do not believe in a devil, or -because they do believe in a destiny, or because experience -here is everything and eternal life something totally -different, but for some reason they are totally different. I -have read somewhere that there were three great friends -famous in medieval Persia for their unity of mbid. One -became the responsible and respected Vizier of the Great -King; the second was the poet Omar, pessimist and epicurean, -drinking wine in mockery of Mohamet; the third was the Old -Man of the Mountain who maddened his people with hashish -that they might murder other people with daggers. It does -not really much matter what one does. - -The Sultan in *Hassan* would have understood all those three -men; indeed he was all those three men. But this sort of -universalist cannot have what we call a character; it is -what we call a chaos. He cannot choose; he cannot fight; he -cannot repent; he cannot hope. He is not in the same sense -creating something; for creation means rejection. He is not, -in our religious phrase, making his soul. For our doctrine -of salvation does really mean a labour like that of a man -trying to make a statue beautiful; a victory with wings. For -that there must be a final choice: for a man cannot make -statues without rejecting stone. And there really is this -ultimate immorality behind the metaphysics of Asia. And the -reason is that there has been nothing through all those -unthinkable ages to bring the human mind sharply to the -point; to tell it that the time has come to choose. The mind -has lived too much in eternity. The soul has been too -immortal; in the special sense that it ignores the idea of -mortal sin. It has had too much of eternity, in the sense -that it has had not enough of the hour of death and the day -of judgment. It is not crucial enough; in the literal sense -that it has not had enough of the cross. That is what we -mean when we say that Asia is very old. But strictly -speaking Europe is quite as old as Asia; indeed in a sense -any place is as old as any other place. What we mean is that -Europe has not merely gone on growing older. It has been -born again. - -Asia is all humanity; as it has worked out its human doom. -Asia, in its vast territory, in its varied populations, in -its heights of past achievement and its depths of dark -speculation, is itself a world; and represents something of -what we mean when we speak of the world. It is a cosmos -rather than a continent. It is the world as man has made it; -and contains many of the most wonderful things that man has -made. Therefore Asia stands as the one representative of -paganism and the one rival to Christendom. But everywhere -else where we get glimpses of that mortal destiny, they -suggest stages in the same story. Where Asia trails away -into the southern archipelagoes of the savages; or where a -darkness full of nameless shapes dwells in the heart of -Africa, or where the last survivors of lost races linger in -the cold volcano of prehistoric America, it is all the same -story; sometimes perhaps later chapters of the same story. -It is men entangled in the forest of their own mythology; it -is men drowned in the sea of their own metaphysics. -Polytheists have grown weary of the wildest of fictions. -Monotheists have grown weary of the most wonderful truths. -Diabolists here and there have such a hatred of heaven and -earth that they have tried to take refuge in hell. It is the -Fall of Man; and it is exactly that fall that was being felt -by our own fathers at the first moment of the Roman decline. -We also were going down that wide road; down that easy -slope; following the magnificent procession of the high -civilisations of the world. - -If the Church had not entered the world then, it seems -probable that Europe would be now very much what Asia is -now. Something may be allowed for a real difference of race -and environment, visible in the ancient as in the modern -world. But after all we talk about the changeless East very -largely because it has not suffered the great change. -Paganism in its last phase showed considerable signs of -becoming equally changeless. This would not mean that new -schools or sects of philosophy would not arise; as new -schools did arise in Antiquity and do arise in Asia. It does -not mean that there would be no real mystics or visionaries; -as there were mystics in Antiquity and are mystics in Asia. -It does not mean that there would be no social codes, as -there were codes in Antiquity and are codes in Asia. It does -not mean that there could not be good men or happy lives, -for God has given all men a conscience and conscience can -give all men a kind of peace. But it does mean that the tone -and proportion of all these things, and especially the -proportion of good and evil things, would be in the -unchanged West what they are in the changeless East. And -nobody who looks at that changeless East honestly, and with -a real sympathy, can believe that there is anything there -remotely resembling the challenge and revolution of the -Faith. - -In short, if classic paganism had lingered until now, a -number of things might well have lingered with it; and they -would look very like what we call the religions of the East. -There would still be Pythagoreans teaching reincarnation, as -there are still Hindus teaching reincarnation. There would -still be Stoics making a religion out of reason and virtue, -as there are still Confucians making a religion out of -reason and virtue. There would still be Neo-Platonists -studying transcendental truths, the meaning of which was -mysterious to other people and disputed even amongst -themselves; as the Buddhists still study a transcendentalism -mysterious to others and disputed among themselves. There -would still be intelligent Apollonians apparently -worshipping the sun-god but explaining that they were -worshipping the divine principle; just as there are still -intelligent Parsees apparently worshipping the sun but -explaining that they are worshipping the deity. There would -still be wild Dionysians dancing on the mountain as there -are still wild Dervishes dancing in the desert. There would -still be crowds of people attending the popular feasts of -the gods, in pagan Europe as in pagan Asia. There would -still be crowds of gods, local and other, for them to -worship. And there would still be a great many more people -who worshipped them than people who believed in them. -Finally there would still be a very large number of people -who did worship gods and did believe in gods; and who -believed in gods and worshipped gods simply because they -were demons. There would still be Levantines secretly -sacrificing to Moloch as there are still Thugs secretly -sacrificing to Kalee. There would still be a great deal of -magic; and a great deal of it would be black magic. There -would still be a considerable admiration of Seneca and a -considerable imitation of Nero; just as the exalted epigrams -of Confucius could coexist with the tortures of China. And -over all that tangled forest of traditions growing wild or -withering would brood the broad silence of a singular and -even nameless mood; but the nearest name of it is nothing. -All these things, good and bad, would have an indescribable -air of being too old to die. - -None of these things occupying Europe in the absence of -Christendom would bear the least likeness to Christendom. -Since the Pythagorean Metempsychosis would still be there, -we might call it the Pythagorean religion as we talk about -the Buddhist religion. As the noble maxims of Socrates would -still be there, we might call it the Socratic religion as we -talk about the Confucian religion. As the popular holiday -was still marked by a mythological hymn to Adonis, we might -call it the religion of Adonis as we talk about the religion -of Juggernaut. As literature would still be based on the -Greek mythology, we might call that mythology a religion, as -we call the Hindu mythology a religion. We might say that -there were so many thousands or millions of people belonging -to that religion, in the sense of frequenting such temples -or merely living in a land, full of such temples. But if we -called the last tradition of Pythagoras or the lingering -legend of Adonis by the name of a religion, then we must -find some other name for the Church of Christ. - -If anybody says that philosophic maxims preserved through -many ages, or mythological temples frequented by many -people, are things of the same class and category as the -Church, it is enough to answer quite simply that they are -not. Nobody thinks they are the same when he sees them in -the old civilisation of Greece and Rome; nobody would think -they were the same if that civilisation had lasted two -thousand years longer and existed at the present day; nobody -can in reason think they are the same in the parallel pagan -civilisation in the East, as it is at the present day. None -of these philosophies or mythologies are anything like a -Church; certainly nothing like a Church Militant. And, as I -have shown elsewhere, even if this rule were not already -proved, the exception would prove the rule. The rule is that -pre-Christian or pagan history does not produce a Church -Militant; and the exception, or what some would call the -exception, is that Islam is at least militant if it is not -Church. And that is precisely because Islam is the one -religious rival that is not pre-Christian and therefore not -in that sense pagan. Islam was a product of Christianity; -even if it was a by-product; even if it was a bad product. -It was a heresy or parody emulating and therefore imitating -the Church. It is no more surprising that Mahomedanism had -something of her fighting spirit than that Quakerism had -something of her peaceful spirit. After Christianity there -are any number of such emulations or extensions. Before it -there are none. - -The Church Militant is thus unique because it is an army -marching to effect a universal deliverance. The bondage from -which the world is thus to be delivered is something that is -very well symbolised by the state of Asia as by the state of -pagan Europe. I do not mean merely their moral or immoral -state. The missionary, as a matter of fact, has much more to -say for himself than the enlightened imagine, even when he -says that the heathen are idolatrous and immoral. A touch or -two of realistic experience about Eastern religion, even -about Moslem religion, will reveal some startling -insensibilities in ethics; such as the practical -indifference to the line between passion and perversion. It -is not prejudice but practical experience which says that -Asia is full of demons as well as gods. But the evil I mean -is in the mind. And it is in the mind wherever the mind has -worked for a long time alone. It is what happens when all -dreaming and thinking have come to an end in an emptiness -that is at once negation and necessity. It sounds like an -anarchy, but it is also a slavery. It is what has been -called already the wheel of Asia; all those recurrent -arguments about cause and effect or things beginning and -ending in the mind, which make it impossible for the soul -really to strike out and go anywhere or do anything. And the -point is that it is not necessarily peculiar to Asiatics; it -would have been true in the end of Europeans---if something -had not happened. If the Church Militant had not been a -thing marching, all men would have been marking time. If the -Church Militant had not endured a discipline, all men would -have endured a slavery. - -What that universal yet fighting faith brought into the -world was hope. Perhaps the one thing common to mythology -and philosophy was that both were really sad; in the sense -that they had not this hope even if they had touches of -faith or charity. We may call Buddhism a faith; though to us -it seems more like a doubt. We may call the Lord of -Compassion a Lord of Charity; though it seems to us a very -pessimist sort of pity. But those who insist most on the -antiquity and size of such cults must agree that in all -their ages they have not covered all their areas with that -sort of practical and pugnacious hope. In Christendom hope -has never been absent; rather it has been errant, -extravagant, excessively fixed upon fugitive chances. Its -perpetual revolution and reconstruction has at least been an -evidence of people being in better spirits. Europe did very -truly renew its youth like the eagles; just as the eagles of -Rome rose again over the legions of Napoleon, or we have -seen soaring but yesterday the silver eagle of Poland. But -in the Polish case even revolution always went with -religion. Napoleon himself sought a reconciliation with -religion. Religion could never be finally separated even -from the most hostile of the hopes; simply because it was -the real source of the hopefulness. And the cause of this is -to be found simply in the religion itself. Those who quarrel -about it seldom even consider it in itself. There is neither -space nor place for such a full consideration here; but a -word may be said to explain a reconciliation that always -recurs and still seems to require explanation. - -There will be no end to the weary debates about liberalising -theology, until people face the fact that the only liberal -part of it is really the dogmatic part. If dogma is -incredible, it is because it is incredibly liberal. If it is -irrational, it can only be in giving us more assurance of -freedom than is justified by reason. The obvious example is -that essential form of freedom which we call free-will. It -is absurd to say that a man shows his liberality in denying -his liberty. But it is tenable that he has to affirm a -transcendental doctrine in order to affirm his liberty. -There is a sense in which we might reasonably say that if -man has a primary power of choice, he has in that fact a -supernatural power of creation, as if he could raise the -dead or give birth to the unbegotten. Possibly in that case -a man must be a miracle; and certainly in that case he must -be a miracle in order to be a man; and most certainly in -order to be a free man. But it is absurd to forbid him to be -a free man and do it in the name of a more free religion. - -But it is true in twenty other matters. Anybody who believes -at all in God must believe in the absolute supremacy of God. -But in so far as that supremacy does allow of any degrees -that can be called liberal or illiberal, it is self-evident -that the illiberal power is the deity of the rationalists -and the liberal power is the deity of the dogmatists. -Exactly in proportion as you turn monotheism into monism you -turn it into despotism. It is precisely the unknown God of -the scientist, with his impenetrable purpose and his -inevitable and unalterable law, that reminds us of a -Prussian autocrat making rigid plans in a remote tent and -moving mankind like machinery. It is precisely the God of -miracles and of answered prayers who reminds us of a liberal -and popular prince, receiving petitions, listening to -parliaments and considering the cases of a whole people. I -am not now arguing the rationality of this conception in -other respects; as a matter of fact it is not, as some -suppose, irrational; for there is nothing irrational in the -wisest and most well-informed king acting differently -according to the action of those he wishes to save. But I am -here only noting the general nature of liberality, or of -free or enlarged atmosphere of action. And in this respect -it is certain that the king can only be what we call -magnanimous if he is what some call capricious. It is the -Catholic, who has the feeling that his prayers do make a -difference when offered for the lining and the dead, who -also has the feeling of living like a free citizen in -something almost like a constitutional commonwealth. It is -the monist who lives under a single iron law who must have -the feeling of living like a slave under a sultan. Indeed I -believe that the original use of the word *suffragism*, -which we now use in politics for a vote, was that employed -in theology about a prayer. The dead in Purgatory were said -to have the suffrages of the living. And in this sense, of a -sort of right of petition to the supreme ruler, we may truly -say that the whole of the Communion of Saints, as well as -the whole of the Church Militant, is founded on universal -suffrage. - -But above all, it is true of the most tremendous issue; of -that tragedy which has created the divine comedy of our -creed. Nothing short of the extreme and strong and startling -doctrine of the divinity of Christ will give that particular -effect that can truly stir the popular sense like a trumpet; -the idea of the king himself serving in the ranks like a -common soldier. By making that figure merely human we make -that story much less human. We take away the point of the -story which actually pierces humanity; the point of the -story which was quite literally the point of a spear. It -does not especially humanise the universe to say that good -and wise men can die for their opinions; any more than it -would be any sort of uproariously popular news in an army -that good soldiers may easily get killed. It is no news that -King Leonidas is dead any more than that Queen Anne is dead; -and men did not wait for Christianity to be men, in the full -sense of being heroes. But if we are describing, for the -moment, the atmosphere of what is generous and popular and -even picturesque, any knowledge of human nature will tell us -that no sufferings of the sons of men, or even of the -servants of God, strike the same note as the notion of the -master suffering instead of his servants. And this is given -by the theological and emphatically not by the scientific -deity. No mysterious monarch, hidden in his starry pavilion -at the base of the cosmic campaign, is in the least like -that celestial chivalry of the Captain who carries his five -wounds in the front of battle. - -What the denouncer of dogma really means is not that dogma -is bad; but rather that dogma is too good to be true. That -is, he means that dogma is too liberal to be likely. Dogma -gives man too much freedom when it permits him to fall. -Dogma gives even God too much freedom when it permits him to -die. That is what the intelligent sceptics ought to say; and -it is not in the least my intention to deny that there is -something to be said for it. They mean that the universe is -itself a universal prison; that existence itself is a -limitation and a control:■ and it is not for nothing that -they call causation a chain. In a word they mean quite -simply that they cannot believe these things; not in the -least that they are unworthy of belief. We say, not lightly -but very literally, that the truth has made us free. They -say that it makes us so free that it cannot be the truth. To -them it is like believing in fairyland to believe in such -freedom as we enjoy. It is like believing in men with wings -to entertain the fancy of men with wills. It is like -accepting a fable about a squirrel in conversation with a -mountain to believe in a man who is free to ask or a God who -is free to answer. This is a manly and a rational negation, -for which I for one shall always show respect. But I decline -to show any respect for those who first of all clip the bird -and cage the squirrel, rivet the chains and refuse the -freedom, close all the doors of the cosmic prison on us with -a clang of eternal iron, tell us that our emancipation is a -dream and our dungeon a necessity; and then calmly turn -round and tell us they have a freer thought and a more -liberal theology. - -The moral of all this is an old one; and religion is -revelation. In other words, it is a vision, and a vision -received by faith; but it is a vision of reality. The faith -consists in a conviction of its reality. That, for example, -is the difference between a vision and a daydream. And that -is the difference between religion and mythology. That is -the difference between faith and all that fancy-work, quite -human and more or less healthy, which we considered under -the head of mythology. There is something in the reasonable -use of the very word vision that implies two things about -it; first that it comes very rarely, possibly that it comes -only once; and secondly that it probably comes once and for -all. A day-dream may come every day. A day-dream may be -different every day. It is something more than the -difference between telling ghost-stories and meeting a -ghost. - -But if it is not a mythology neither is it a philosophy. It -is not a philosophy because, being a vision, it is not a -pattern but a picture. It is not one of these -simplifications which resolve everything into an abstract -explanation; as that everything is recurrent; or everything -is relative; or everything is inevitable; or everything is -illusive. It is not a process but a story. It has -proportions of the sort seen in a picture or a story; it has -not the regular repetitions of a pattern or a process; but -it replaces them by being convincing as a picture or a story -is convincing. In other words it is exactly, as the phrase -goes, like life. For indeed it is life. An example of what -is meant here might well be found in the treatment of the -problem of evil. It is easy enough to make a plan of life of -which the background is black, as the pessimists do; and -then admit a speck or two of star-dust more or less -accidental, or at least in the literal sense insignificant. -And it is easy enough to make another plan on white paper, -as the Christian Scientists do, and explain or explain away -somehow such dots or smudges as may be difficult to deny. -Lastly it is easiest of all, perhaps, to say as the dualists -do, that life is like a chess-board in which the two are -equal; and can as truly be said to consist of white squares -on a black board or of black squares on a white board. But -every man feels in his heart that none of these three paper -plans is like life; that none of these worlds is one in -which he can live. Something tells him that the ultimate -idea of a world is not bad or even neutral; staring at the -sky or the grass or the truths of mathematics or even a -new-laid egg, he has a vague feeling like the shadow of that -saying of the great Christian philosopher, St. Thomas -Aquinas, "Every existence, as such, is good." On the other -hand, something else tells him that it is unmanly and -debased and even diseased to minimise evil to a dot or even -a blot. He realises that optimism is morbid. It is if -possible even more morbid than pessimism. These vague but -healthy feelings, if he followed them out, would result in -the idea that evil is in some way an exception but an -enormous exception; and ultimately that evil is an invasion -or yet more truly a rebellion. He does not think that -everything is right or that everything is wrong, or that -everything is equally right and wrong. But he does think -that right has a right to be right and therefore a right to -be there; and wrong has no right to be wrong and therefore -no right to be there. It is the prince of the world; but it -is also a usurper. So he will apprehend vaguely what the -vision will give to him vividly; no less than all that -strange story of treason in heaven and the great desertion -by which evil damaged and tried to destroy a cosmos that it -could not create. It is a very strange story and its -proportions and its lines and colours are as arbitrary and -absolute as the artistic composition of a picture. It is a, -vision which we do in fact symbolise in pictures by titanic -limbs and passionate tints of plumage; all that abysmal -vision of falling stars and the peacock panoplies of the -night. But that strange story has one small advantage over -the diagrams. It is like life. - -Another example might be found, not in the problem of evil, -but in what is called the problem of progress. One of the -ablest agnostics of the age once asked me whether I thought -mankind grew better or grew worse or remained the same. He -was confident that the alternative covered all -possibilities. He did not see that it only covered patterns -and not pictures; processes and not stories. I asked him -whether he thought that Mr. Smith of Golder's Green got -better or worse or remained exactly the same between the age -of thirty and forty. It then seemed to dawn on him that it -would rather depend on Mr. Smith; and how he chose to go on. -It had never occurred to him that it might depend on how -mankind chose to go on; and that its course was not a -straight line or an upward or downward curve, but a track -like tl\^at of a man across a valley, going where he liked -and stopping where he chose, going into a church or falling -drunk in a ditch. The life of man is a story; an adventure -story; and in our vision the same is true even of the story -of God. \^The Cflt frolic faith is the reconciliation -because it is the realisation both of mythology and -philosophy. It is a story and in that sense one of a hundred -stories; only it is a true story. It is a philosophy and in -that sense one of a hundred philosophies; only it is a -philosophy that is like life. But above all, it is a -reconciliation because it is something that can only be -called the philosophy of stories. That normal narrative -instinct which produced all the fairy-tales is something -that is neglected by all the philosophies---except one. The -Faith is the justification of that popular instinct; the -finding of a philosophy for it or the analysis of the -philosophy in it. Exactly as a man in an adventure story has -to pass various tests to save his life, so the man in this -philosophy has to pass several tests and save his soul. In -both there is an idea of free will operating under -conditions of design; in other words, there is an aim and it -is the business of a man to aim at it; we therefore watch to -see whether he will hit it. Now this deep and democratic and -dramatic instinct is derided and dismissed in all the other -philosophies. For all the other philosophies avowedly end -where they begin; and it is the definition of a story that -it ends differently; that it begins in one place and ends in -another. From Buddha and his wheel to Akhen-Aten and his -disc, from Pythagoras with his abstraction of number to -Confucius with his religion of routine, there is not one of -them that does not in some way sin against the soul of a -story. There is none of them that really grasps this human -notion of the tale, the test, the adventure; the ordeal of -the free man. Each of them starves the story-telling -instinct, so to speak, and does something to spoil human -life considered as a romance; either by fatalism (pessimist -or optimist) and that destiny that is the death of -adventure; or by indifference and that detachment that is -the death of drama; or by a fundamental scepticism that -dissolves the actors into atoms; or by a materialistic -limitation blocking the vista of moral consequences; or a -mechanical recurrence making even moral tests monotonous; or -a bottomless relativity making even practical tests -insecure. There is such a thing as a human story; and there -is such a thing as the divine story which is also a human -story. But there is no such thing as a Hegelian story or a -Monist story or a relativist story or a determinist story. -For every story, yes, even a penny dreadful or a cheap -novelette, has something in it that belongs to our universe -and not theirs. Every short story does truly begin with +Even where we might trace in dotted lines the domains of Asiatic +religions, we should probably be reading into them something dogmatic +and ethical belonging to our own religion. It is as if a European +ignorant of the American atmosphere were to suppose that each "state" +was a separate sovereign state as patriotic as France or Poland; or that +when a Yankee referred fondly to his home town" he meant he had no other +nation, like a citizen of ancient Athens or Rome. As he would be reading +a particular sort of loyalty into America, so we are reading a +particular sort of loyalty into Asia. There are loyalties of other +kinds; but not what men on the West mean by being a believer, by trying +to be a Christian, by being a good Protestant or a practising Catholic. +In the intellectual world it means something far more vague and varied +by doubts and speculations. In the moral world it means something far +more loose and drifting. A professor of Persian at one of our great +universities, so passionate a partisan of the East as practically to +profess a contempt for the West, said to a friend of mine: "You will +never understand oriental religions, because you always conceive +religion as connected with ethics. This kind has really nothing to do +with ethics." We have most of us known some Masters of the Higher +Wisdom, some Pilgrims upon the Path to Power, some eastern esoteric +saints and seers, who had really nothing to do with ethics. Something +different, something detached and irresponsible, tinges the moral +atmosphere of Asia and touches even that of Islam. He was very +realistically caught in the atmosphere of Hassan; and a very horrible +atmosphere too. It is even more vivid in such glimpses as we get of the +genuine and ancient cults of Asia. Deeper than the depths of +metaphysics, far down in the abysses of mystical meditations, under all +that solemn universe of spiritual things, is a secret, an intangible and +a terrible levity. It does not really very much matter what one does. +Either because they do not believe in a devil, or because they do +believe in a destiny, or because experience here is everything and +eternal life something totally different, but for some reason they are +totally different. I have read somewhere that there were three great +friends famous in medieval Persia for their unity of mbid. One became +the responsible and respected Vizier of the Great King; the second was +the poet Omar, pessimist and epicurean, drinking wine in mockery of +Mohamet; the third was the Old Man of the Mountain who maddened his +people with hashish that they might murder other people with daggers. It +does not really much matter what one does. + +The Sultan in *Hassan* would have understood all those three men; indeed +he was all those three men. But this sort of universalist cannot have +what we call a character; it is what we call a chaos. He cannot choose; +he cannot fight; he cannot repent; he cannot hope. He is not in the same +sense creating something; for creation means rejection. He is not, in +our religious phrase, making his soul. For our doctrine of salvation +does really mean a labour like that of a man trying to make a statue +beautiful; a victory with wings. For that there must be a final choice: +for a man cannot make statues without rejecting stone. And there really +is this ultimate immorality behind the metaphysics of Asia. And the +reason is that there has been nothing through all those unthinkable ages +to bring the human mind sharply to the point; to tell it that the time +has come to choose. The mind has lived too much in eternity. The soul +has been too immortal; in the special sense that it ignores the idea of +mortal sin. It has had too much of eternity, in the sense that it has +had not enough of the hour of death and the day of judgment. It is not +crucial enough; in the literal sense that it has not had enough of the +cross. That is what we mean when we say that Asia is very old. But +strictly speaking Europe is quite as old as Asia; indeed in a sense any +place is as old as any other place. What we mean is that Europe has not +merely gone on growing older. It has been born again. + +Asia is all humanity; as it has worked out its human doom. Asia, in its +vast territory, in its varied populations, in its heights of past +achievement and its depths of dark speculation, is itself a world; and +represents something of what we mean when we speak of the world. It is a +cosmos rather than a continent. It is the world as man has made it; and +contains many of the most wonderful things that man has made. Therefore +Asia stands as the one representative of paganism and the one rival to +Christendom. But everywhere else where we get glimpses of that mortal +destiny, they suggest stages in the same story. Where Asia trails away +into the southern archipelagoes of the savages; or where a darkness full +of nameless shapes dwells in the heart of Africa, or where the last +survivors of lost races linger in the cold volcano of prehistoric +America, it is all the same story; sometimes perhaps later chapters of +the same story. It is men entangled in the forest of their own +mythology; it is men drowned in the sea of their own metaphysics. +Polytheists have grown weary of the wildest of fictions. Monotheists +have grown weary of the most wonderful truths. Diabolists here and there +have such a hatred of heaven and earth that they have tried to take +refuge in hell. It is the Fall of Man; and it is exactly that fall that +was being felt by our own fathers at the first moment of the Roman +decline. We also were going down that wide road; down that easy slope; +following the magnificent procession of the high civilisations of the +world. + +If the Church had not entered the world then, it seems probable that +Europe would be now very much what Asia is now. Something may be allowed +for a real difference of race and environment, visible in the ancient as +in the modern world. But after all we talk about the changeless East +very largely because it has not suffered the great change. Paganism in +its last phase showed considerable signs of becoming equally changeless. +This would not mean that new schools or sects of philosophy would not +arise; as new schools did arise in Antiquity and do arise in Asia. It +does not mean that there would be no real mystics or visionaries; as +there were mystics in Antiquity and are mystics in Asia. It does not +mean that there would be no social codes, as there were codes in +Antiquity and are codes in Asia. It does not mean that there could not +be good men or happy lives, for God has given all men a conscience and +conscience can give all men a kind of peace. But it does mean that the +tone and proportion of all these things, and especially the proportion +of good and evil things, would be in the unchanged West what they are in +the changeless East. And nobody who looks at that changeless East +honestly, and with a real sympathy, can believe that there is anything +there remotely resembling the challenge and revolution of the Faith. + +In short, if classic paganism had lingered until now, a number of things +might well have lingered with it; and they would look very like what we +call the religions of the East. There would still be Pythagoreans +teaching reincarnation, as there are still Hindus teaching +reincarnation. There would still be Stoics making a religion out of +reason and virtue, as there are still Confucians making a religion out +of reason and virtue. There would still be Neo-Platonists studying +transcendental truths, the meaning of which was mysterious to other +people and disputed even amongst themselves; as the Buddhists still +study a transcendentalism mysterious to others and disputed among +themselves. There would still be intelligent Apollonians apparently +worshipping the sun-god but explaining that they were worshipping the +divine principle; just as there are still intelligent Parsees apparently +worshipping the sun but explaining that they are worshipping the deity. +There would still be wild Dionysians dancing on the mountain as there +are still wild Dervishes dancing in the desert. There would still be +crowds of people attending the popular feasts of the gods, in pagan +Europe as in pagan Asia. There would still be crowds of gods, local and +other, for them to worship. And there would still be a great many more +people who worshipped them than people who believed in them. Finally +there would still be a very large number of people who did worship gods +and did believe in gods; and who believed in gods and worshipped gods +simply because they were demons. There would still be Levantines +secretly sacrificing to Moloch as there are still Thugs secretly +sacrificing to Kalee. There would still be a great deal of magic; and a +great deal of it would be black magic. There would still be a +considerable admiration of Seneca and a considerable imitation of Nero; +just as the exalted epigrams of Confucius could coexist with the +tortures of China. And over all that tangled forest of traditions +growing wild or withering would brood the broad silence of a singular +and even nameless mood; but the nearest name of it is nothing. All these +things, good and bad, would have an indescribable air of being too old +to die. + +None of these things occupying Europe in the absence of Christendom +would bear the least likeness to Christendom. Since the Pythagorean +Metempsychosis would still be there, we might call it the Pythagorean +religion as we talk about the Buddhist religion. As the noble maxims of +Socrates would still be there, we might call it the Socratic religion as +we talk about the Confucian religion. As the popular holiday was still +marked by a mythological hymn to Adonis, we might call it the religion +of Adonis as we talk about the religion of Juggernaut. As literature +would still be based on the Greek mythology, we might call that +mythology a religion, as we call the Hindu mythology a religion. We +might say that there were so many thousands or millions of people +belonging to that religion, in the sense of frequenting such temples or +merely living in a land, full of such temples. But if we called the last +tradition of Pythagoras or the lingering legend of Adonis by the name of +a religion, then we must find some other name for the Church of Christ. + +If anybody says that philosophic maxims preserved through many ages, or +mythological temples frequented by many people, are things of the same +class and category as the Church, it is enough to answer quite simply +that they are not. Nobody thinks they are the same when he sees them in +the old civilisation of Greece and Rome; nobody would think they were +the same if that civilisation had lasted two thousand years longer and +existed at the present day; nobody can in reason think they are the same +in the parallel pagan civilisation in the East, as it is at the present +day. None of these philosophies or mythologies are anything like a +Church; certainly nothing like a Church Militant. And, as I have shown +elsewhere, even if this rule were not already proved, the exception +would prove the rule. The rule is that pre-Christian or pagan history +does not produce a Church Militant; and the exception, or what some +would call the exception, is that Islam is at least militant if it is +not Church. And that is precisely because Islam is the one religious +rival that is not pre-Christian and therefore not in that sense pagan. +Islam was a product of Christianity; even if it was a by-product; even +if it was a bad product. It was a heresy or parody emulating and +therefore imitating the Church. It is no more surprising that +Mahomedanism had something of her fighting spirit than that Quakerism +had something of her peaceful spirit. After Christianity there are any +number of such emulations or extensions. Before it there are none. + +The Church Militant is thus unique because it is an army marching to +effect a universal deliverance. The bondage from which the world is thus +to be delivered is something that is very well symbolised by the state +of Asia as by the state of pagan Europe. I do not mean merely their +moral or immoral state. The missionary, as a matter of fact, has much +more to say for himself than the enlightened imagine, even when he says +that the heathen are idolatrous and immoral. A touch or two of realistic +experience about Eastern religion, even about Moslem religion, will +reveal some startling insensibilities in ethics; such as the practical +indifference to the line between passion and perversion. It is not +prejudice but practical experience which says that Asia is full of +demons as well as gods. But the evil I mean is in the mind. And it is in +the mind wherever the mind has worked for a long time alone. It is what +happens when all dreaming and thinking have come to an end in an +emptiness that is at once negation and necessity. It sounds like an +anarchy, but it is also a slavery. It is what has been called already +the wheel of Asia; all those recurrent arguments about cause and effect +or things beginning and ending in the mind, which make it impossible for +the soul really to strike out and go anywhere or do anything. And the +point is that it is not necessarily peculiar to Asiatics; it would have +been true in the end of Europeans---if something had not happened. If +the Church Militant had not been a thing marching, all men would have +been marking time. If the Church Militant had not endured a discipline, +all men would have endured a slavery. + +What that universal yet fighting faith brought into the world was hope. +Perhaps the one thing common to mythology and philosophy was that both +were really sad; in the sense that they had not this hope even if they +had touches of faith or charity. We may call Buddhism a faith; though to +us it seems more like a doubt. We may call the Lord of Compassion a Lord +of Charity; though it seems to us a very pessimist sort of pity. But +those who insist most on the antiquity and size of such cults must agree +that in all their ages they have not covered all their areas with that +sort of practical and pugnacious hope. In Christendom hope has never +been absent; rather it has been errant, extravagant, excessively fixed +upon fugitive chances. Its perpetual revolution and reconstruction has +at least been an evidence of people being in better spirits. Europe did +very truly renew its youth like the eagles; just as the eagles of Rome +rose again over the legions of Napoleon, or we have seen soaring but +yesterday the silver eagle of Poland. But in the Polish case even +revolution always went with religion. Napoleon himself sought a +reconciliation with religion. Religion could never be finally separated +even from the most hostile of the hopes; simply because it was the real +source of the hopefulness. And the cause of this is to be found simply +in the religion itself. Those who quarrel about it seldom even consider +it in itself. There is neither space nor place for such a full +consideration here; but a word may be said to explain a reconciliation +that always recurs and still seems to require explanation. + +There will be no end to the weary debates about liberalising theology, +until people face the fact that the only liberal part of it is really +the dogmatic part. If dogma is incredible, it is because it is +incredibly liberal. If it is irrational, it can only be in giving us +more assurance of freedom than is justified by reason. The obvious +example is that essential form of freedom which we call free-will. It is +absurd to say that a man shows his liberality in denying his liberty. +But it is tenable that he has to affirm a transcendental doctrine in +order to affirm his liberty. There is a sense in which we might +reasonably say that if man has a primary power of choice, he has in that +fact a supernatural power of creation, as if he could raise the dead or +give birth to the unbegotten. Possibly in that case a man must be a +miracle; and certainly in that case he must be a miracle in order to be +a man; and most certainly in order to be a free man. But it is absurd to +forbid him to be a free man and do it in the name of a more free +religion. + +But it is true in twenty other matters. Anybody who believes at all in +God must believe in the absolute supremacy of God. But in so far as that +supremacy does allow of any degrees that can be called liberal or +illiberal, it is self-evident that the illiberal power is the deity of +the rationalists and the liberal power is the deity of the dogmatists. +Exactly in proportion as you turn monotheism into monism you turn it +into despotism. It is precisely the unknown God of the scientist, with +his impenetrable purpose and his inevitable and unalterable law, that +reminds us of a Prussian autocrat making rigid plans in a remote tent +and moving mankind like machinery. It is precisely the God of miracles +and of answered prayers who reminds us of a liberal and popular prince, +receiving petitions, listening to parliaments and considering the cases +of a whole people. I am not now arguing the rationality of this +conception in other respects; as a matter of fact it is not, as some +suppose, irrational; for there is nothing irrational in the wisest and +most well-informed king acting differently according to the action of +those he wishes to save. But I am here only noting the general nature of +liberality, or of free or enlarged atmosphere of action. And in this +respect it is certain that the king can only be what we call magnanimous +if he is what some call capricious. It is the Catholic, who has the +feeling that his prayers do make a difference when offered for the +lining and the dead, who also has the feeling of living like a free +citizen in something almost like a constitutional commonwealth. It is +the monist who lives under a single iron law who must have the feeling +of living like a slave under a sultan. Indeed I believe that the +original use of the word *suffragism*, which we now use in politics for +a vote, was that employed in theology about a prayer. The dead in +Purgatory were said to have the suffrages of the living. And in this +sense, of a sort of right of petition to the supreme ruler, we may truly +say that the whole of the Communion of Saints, as well as the whole of +the Church Militant, is founded on universal suffrage. + +But above all, it is true of the most tremendous issue; of that tragedy +which has created the divine comedy of our creed. Nothing short of the +extreme and strong and startling doctrine of the divinity of Christ will +give that particular effect that can truly stir the popular sense like a +trumpet; the idea of the king himself serving in the ranks like a common +soldier. By making that figure merely human we make that story much less +human. We take away the point of the story which actually pierces +humanity; the point of the story which was quite literally the point of +a spear. It does not especially humanise the universe to say that good +and wise men can die for their opinions; any more than it would be any +sort of uproariously popular news in an army that good soldiers may +easily get killed. It is no news that King Leonidas is dead any more +than that Queen Anne is dead; and men did not wait for Christianity to +be men, in the full sense of being heroes. But if we are describing, for +the moment, the atmosphere of what is generous and popular and even +picturesque, any knowledge of human nature will tell us that no +sufferings of the sons of men, or even of the servants of God, strike +the same note as the notion of the master suffering instead of his +servants. And this is given by the theological and emphatically not by +the scientific deity. No mysterious monarch, hidden in his starry +pavilion at the base of the cosmic campaign, is in the least like that +celestial chivalry of the Captain who carries his five wounds in the +front of battle. + +What the denouncer of dogma really means is not that dogma is bad; but +rather that dogma is too good to be true. That is, he means that dogma +is too liberal to be likely. Dogma gives man too much freedom when it +permits him to fall. Dogma gives even God too much freedom when it +permits him to die. That is what the intelligent sceptics ought to say; +and it is not in the least my intention to deny that there is something +to be said for it. They mean that the universe is itself a universal +prison; that existence itself is a limitation and a control: and it is +not for nothing that they call causation a chain. In a word they mean +quite simply that they cannot believe these things; not in the least +that they are unworthy of belief. We say, not lightly but very +literally, that the truth has made us free. They say that it makes us so +free that it cannot be the truth. To them it is like believing in +fairyland to believe in such freedom as we enjoy. It is like believing +in men with wings to entertain the fancy of men with wills. It is like +accepting a fable about a squirrel in conversation with a mountain to +believe in a man who is free to ask or a God who is free to answer. This +is a manly and a rational negation, for which I for one shall always +show respect. But I decline to show any respect for those who first of +all clip the bird and cage the squirrel, rivet the chains and refuse the +freedom, close all the doors of the cosmic prison on us with a clang of +eternal iron, tell us that our emancipation is a dream and our dungeon a +necessity; and then calmly turn round and tell us they have a freer +thought and a more liberal theology. + +The moral of all this is an old one; and religion is revelation. In +other words, it is a vision, and a vision received by faith; but it is a +vision of reality. The faith consists in a conviction of its reality. +That, for example, is the difference between a vision and a daydream. +And that is the difference between religion and mythology. That is the +difference between faith and all that fancy-work, quite human and more +or less healthy, which we considered under the head of mythology. There +is something in the reasonable use of the very word vision that implies +two things about it; first that it comes very rarely, possibly that it +comes only once; and secondly that it probably comes once and for all. A +day-dream may come every day. A day-dream may be different every day. It +is something more than the difference between telling ghost-stories and +meeting a ghost. + +But if it is not a mythology neither is it a philosophy. It is not a +philosophy because, being a vision, it is not a pattern but a picture. +It is not one of these simplifications which resolve everything into an +abstract explanation; as that everything is recurrent; or everything is +relative; or everything is inevitable; or everything is illusive. It is +not a process but a story. It has proportions of the sort seen in a +picture or a story; it has not the regular repetitions of a pattern or a +process; but it replaces them by being convincing as a picture or a +story is convincing. In other words it is exactly, as the phrase goes, +like life. For indeed it is life. An example of what is meant here might +well be found in the treatment of the problem of evil. It is easy enough +to make a plan of life of which the background is black, as the +pessimists do; and then admit a speck or two of star-dust more or less +accidental, or at least in the literal sense insignificant. And it is +easy enough to make another plan on white paper, as the Christian +Scientists do, and explain or explain away somehow such dots or smudges +as may be difficult to deny. Lastly it is easiest of all, perhaps, to +say as the dualists do, that life is like a chess-board in which the two +are equal; and can as truly be said to consist of white squares on a +black board or of black squares on a white board. But every man feels in +his heart that none of these three paper plans is like life; that none +of these worlds is one in which he can live. Something tells him that +the ultimate idea of a world is not bad or even neutral; staring at the +sky or the grass or the truths of mathematics or even a new-laid egg, he +has a vague feeling like the shadow of that saying of the great +Christian philosopher, St. Thomas Aquinas, "Every existence, as such, is +good." On the other hand, something else tells him that it is unmanly +and debased and even diseased to minimise evil to a dot or even a blot. +He realises that optimism is morbid. It is if possible even more morbid +than pessimism. These vague but healthy feelings, if he followed them +out, would result in the idea that evil is in some way an exception but +an enormous exception; and ultimately that evil is an invasion or yet +more truly a rebellion. He does not think that everything is right or +that everything is wrong, or that everything is equally right and wrong. +But he does think that right has a right to be right and therefore a +right to be there; and wrong has no right to be wrong and therefore no +right to be there. It is the prince of the world; but it is also a +usurper. So he will apprehend vaguely what the vision will give to him +vividly; no less than all that strange story of treason in heaven and +the great desertion by which evil damaged and tried to destroy a cosmos +that it could not create. It is a very strange story and its proportions +and its lines and colours are as arbitrary and absolute as the artistic +composition of a picture. It is a, vision which we do in fact symbolise +in pictures by titanic limbs and passionate tints of plumage; all that +abysmal vision of falling stars and the peacock panoplies of the night. +But that strange story has one small advantage over the diagrams. It is +like life. + +Another example might be found, not in the problem of evil, but in what +is called the problem of progress. One of the ablest agnostics of the +age once asked me whether I thought mankind grew better or grew worse or +remained the same. He was confident that the alternative covered all +possibilities. He did not see that it only covered patterns and not +pictures; processes and not stories. I asked him whether he thought that +Mr. Smith of Golder's Green got better or worse or remained exactly the +same between the age of thirty and forty. It then seemed to dawn on him +that it would rather depend on Mr. Smith; and how he chose to go on. It +had never occurred to him that it might depend on how mankind chose to +go on; and that its course was not a straight line or an upward or +downward curve, but a track like tl\^at of a man across a valley, going +where he liked and stopping where he chose, going into a church or +falling drunk in a ditch. The life of man is a story; an adventure +story; and in our vision the same is true even of the story of God. +\^The Cflt frolic faith is the reconciliation because it is the +realisation both of mythology and philosophy. It is a story and in that +sense one of a hundred stories; only it is a true story. It is a +philosophy and in that sense one of a hundred philosophies; only it is a +philosophy that is like life. But above all, it is a reconciliation +because it is something that can only be called the philosophy of +stories. That normal narrative instinct which produced all the +fairy-tales is something that is neglected by all the +philosophies---except one. The Faith is the justification of that +popular instinct; the finding of a philosophy for it or the analysis of +the philosophy in it. Exactly as a man in an adventure story has to pass +various tests to save his life, so the man in this philosophy has to +pass several tests and save his soul. In both there is an idea of free +will operating under conditions of design; in other words, there is an +aim and it is the business of a man to aim at it; we therefore watch to +see whether he will hit it. Now this deep and democratic and dramatic +instinct is derided and dismissed in all the other philosophies. For all +the other philosophies avowedly end where they begin; and it is the +definition of a story that it ends differently; that it begins in one +place and ends in another. From Buddha and his wheel to Akhen-Aten and +his disc, from Pythagoras with his abstraction of number to Confucius +with his religion of routine, there is not one of them that does not in +some way sin against the soul of a story. There is none of them that +really grasps this human notion of the tale, the test, the adventure; +the ordeal of the free man. Each of them starves the story-telling +instinct, so to speak, and does something to spoil human life considered +as a romance; either by fatalism (pessimist or optimist) and that +destiny that is the death of adventure; or by indifference and that +detachment that is the death of drama; or by a fundamental scepticism +that dissolves the actors into atoms; or by a materialistic limitation +blocking the vista of moral consequences; or a mechanical recurrence +making even moral tests monotonous; or a bottomless relativity making +even practical tests insecure. There is such a thing as a human story; +and there is such a thing as the divine story which is also a human +story. But there is no such thing as a Hegelian story or a Monist story +or a relativist story or a determinist story. For every story, yes, even +a penny dreadful or a cheap novelette, has something in it that belongs +to our universe and not theirs. Every short story does truly begin with creation and end with a last judgment. -And *that* is the reason why the myths and the philosophers -were at war until Christ came. That is why the Athenian -democracy killed Socrates out of respect for the gods; and -why every strolling sophist gave himself the airs of a -Socrates whenever he could talk in a superior fashion of the -gods; and why the heretic Pharaoh wrecked his huge idols and -temples for an abstraction and why the priests could return -in triumph and trample his dynasty under foot; and why -Buddhism had to divide itself from Brahminism, and why in -every age and country outside Christendom there has been a -feud for ever between the philosopher and the priest. It is -easy enough to say that the philosopher is generally the -more rational; it is easier still to forget that the priest -is always the more popular. For the priest told the people -stories; and the philosopher did not understand the -philosophy of stories. It came into the world with the story -of Christ. - -And this is why it had to be a revelation or vision given -from above. Any one who will think of the theory of stories -or pictures will easily see the point. The true story of the -world must be told by somebody to somebody else. By the very -nature of a story it cannot be left to occur to anybody. A -story has proportions, variations, surprises, particular -dispositions, which cannot be worked out by rule in the -abstract, like a sum. We could not deduce whether or no -Achilles would give back the body of Hector from a -Pythagorean theory of number or recurrence; and we could not -infer for ourselves in what way the world would get back the -body of Christ, merely from being told that all things go -round and round upon the wheel of Buddha. A man might -perhaps work out a proposition of Euclid without having -heard of Euclid; but he would not work out the precise -legend of Eurydice without having heard of Eurydice. At any -rate he would not be certain how the story would end and -whether Orpheus was ultimately defeated. Still less could he -guess the end of our story; or the legend of our Orpheus -rising, not defeated, from the dead. - -To B um up; the sanity of the world was restored and the -soul of man offered salvation by something which did indeed -satisfy the two warring tendencies of the past; which had -never been satisfied in full and most certainly never -satisfied together. It met the mythological search for -romance by being a story and the philosophical search for -truth by being a true story. That is "why the ideal figure -had to be a historical character, as nobody had ever felt -Adonis or Pan to be a historical character. But that is also -why the historical character had to be the ideal figure; and -even fulfil many of the functions given to these other ideal -figures; why he was at once the sacrifice and the feast, why -he could be shown under the emblems of the growing vine or -the rising sun. The more deeply we think-of the matter the -more we shall conclude that, if there be indeed a God, his -creation could hardly have reached any other culmination -than this granting of a real romance to the world. Otherwise -the two sides of the human mind could never have touched at -all; and the brain of man would have remained cloven and -double; one lobe of it dreaming impossible dreams and the -other repeating invariable calculations. The picture-makers -would have remained for ever painting the portrait of -nobody. The sages would have remained for ever adding up -numerals that came to nothing. It was that abyss that -nothing but an incarnation could cover; a divine embodiment -of our dreams; and he stands above that chasm whose name is -more than priest and older even than Christendom; Pontifex -Maximus, the mightiest maker of a bridge. - -But even with that we return to the more specially Christian -symbol in the same tradition; the perfect pattern of the -keys. This is a historical and not a theological outline, -and it is not my duty here to defend in detail that -theology, but merely to point out that it could not even be -justified in design without being justified in detail---like -a key. Beyond the broad suggestion of this chapter I attempt -no apologetic about why the creed should be accepted. But in -answer to the historical query of why it was accepted, and -is accepted, I answer for millions of others in my reply; -because it fits the lock; because it is like life. It is one -among many stories; only it happens to be a true story. It -is one among many philosophies; only it happens to be the -truth. We accept it; and the ground is solid under our feet -and the road is open before us. It does not imprison us in a -dream of destiny or a consciousness of the universal -delusion. It opens to us not only incredible heavens, but -what seems to some an equally incredible earth, and makes it -credible. This is the sort of truth that is hard to explain -because it is a fact; but it is a fact to which we can call -witnesses. We are Christians and Catholics not because we -worship a key, but because we have passed a door; and felt -the wind that is the trumpet of liberty blow over the land -of the living. +And *that* is the reason why the myths and the philosophers were at war +until Christ came. That is why the Athenian democracy killed Socrates +out of respect for the gods; and why every strolling sophist gave +himself the airs of a Socrates whenever he could talk in a superior +fashion of the gods; and why the heretic Pharaoh wrecked his huge idols +and temples for an abstraction and why the priests could return in +triumph and trample his dynasty under foot; and why Buddhism had to +divide itself from Brahminism, and why in every age and country outside +Christendom there has been a feud for ever between the philosopher and +the priest. It is easy enough to say that the philosopher is generally +the more rational; it is easier still to forget that the priest is +always the more popular. For the priest told the people stories; and the +philosopher did not understand the philosophy of stories. It came into +the world with the story of Christ. + +And this is why it had to be a revelation or vision given from above. +Any one who will think of the theory of stories or pictures will easily +see the point. The true story of the world must be told by somebody to +somebody else. By the very nature of a story it cannot be left to occur +to anybody. A story has proportions, variations, surprises, particular +dispositions, which cannot be worked out by rule in the abstract, like a +sum. We could not deduce whether or no Achilles would give back the body +of Hector from a Pythagorean theory of number or recurrence; and we +could not infer for ourselves in what way the world would get back the +body of Christ, merely from being told that all things go round and +round upon the wheel of Buddha. A man might perhaps work out a +proposition of Euclid without having heard of Euclid; but he would not +work out the precise legend of Eurydice without having heard of +Eurydice. At any rate he would not be certain how the story would end +and whether Orpheus was ultimately defeated. Still less could he guess +the end of our story; or the legend of our Orpheus rising, not defeated, +from the dead. + +To B um up; the sanity of the world was restored and the soul of man +offered salvation by something which did indeed satisfy the two warring +tendencies of the past; which had never been satisfied in full and most +certainly never satisfied together. It met the mythological search for +romance by being a story and the philosophical search for truth by being +a true story. That is "why the ideal figure had to be a historical +character, as nobody had ever felt Adonis or Pan to be a historical +character. But that is also why the historical character had to be the +ideal figure; and even fulfil many of the functions given to these other +ideal figures; why he was at once the sacrifice and the feast, why he +could be shown under the emblems of the growing vine or the rising sun. +The more deeply we think-of the matter the more we shall conclude that, +if there be indeed a God, his creation could hardly have reached any +other culmination than this granting of a real romance to the world. +Otherwise the two sides of the human mind could never have touched at +all; and the brain of man would have remained cloven and double; one +lobe of it dreaming impossible dreams and the other repeating invariable +calculations. The picture-makers would have remained for ever painting +the portrait of nobody. The sages would have remained for ever adding up +numerals that came to nothing. It was that abyss that nothing but an +incarnation could cover; a divine embodiment of our dreams; and he +stands above that chasm whose name is more than priest and older even +than Christendom; Pontifex Maximus, the mightiest maker of a bridge. + +But even with that we return to the more specially Christian symbol in +the same tradition; the perfect pattern of the keys. This is a +historical and not a theological outline, and it is not my duty here to +defend in detail that theology, but merely to point out that it could +not even be justified in design without being justified in detail---like +a key. Beyond the broad suggestion of this chapter I attempt no +apologetic about why the creed should be accepted. But in answer to the +historical query of why it was accepted, and is accepted, I answer for +millions of others in my reply; because it fits the lock; because it is +like life. It is one among many stories; only it happens to be a true +story. It is one among many philosophies; only it happens to be the +truth. We accept it; and the ground is solid under our feet and the road +is open before us. It does not imprison us in a dream of destiny or a +consciousness of the universal delusion. It opens to us not only +incredible heavens, but what seems to some an equally incredible earth, +and makes it credible. This is the sort of truth that is hard to explain +because it is a fact; but it is a fact to which we can call witnesses. +We are Christians and Catholics not because we worship a key, but +because we have passed a door; and felt the wind that is the trumpet of +liberty blow over the land of the living. ### VI. The Five Deaths of the Faith -It is not the purpose of this book to trace the subsequent -history of Christianity, especially the later history of -Christianity; which involves controversies of which I hope -to write more fully elsewhere. It is devoted only to the -suggestion that Christianity, appearing amid heathen -humanity, had all the character of a unique thing and even -of a supernatural thing. It was not like any of the other -things; and the more we study it the less it looks like any -of them. But there is a certain rather peculiar character -which marked it henceforward even down to the present -moment, with a note on which this book may well conclude. - -I have said that Asia and the ancient world had an air of -being too old to die. Christendom has had the very opposite -fate. Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in -each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has -died many times and risen again; for it had a god who knew -the way out of the grave. But the first extraordinary fact -which marks this history is this: that Europe has been -turned upside down over and over again; and that at the end -of each of these revolutions the same religion has again -been found on top. The Faith is always converting the age, -not as an old religion but as a new religion. This truth is -hidden from many by a convention that is too little noticed. -Curiously enough, it is a convention of the sort which those -who ignore it claim especially to detect and denounce. They -are always telling us that priests and ceremonies are not -religion and that religious organisation can be a hollow -sham; but they hardly realise how true it is. It is so true -that three or four times at least in the history of -Christendom the whole soul seemed to have gone out of -Christianity; and almost every man in his heart expected its -end. This fact is only masked in medieval and other times by -that very official religion which such critics pride -themselves on seeing through. Christianity remained the -official religion of a Renaissance prince or the official -religion of an eighteenth-century bishop, just as an ancient -mythology remained the official religion of Julius Caesar or -the Arian creed long remained the official religion of -Julian the Apostate. But there was a difference between the -cases of Julius and of Julian; because the Church had begun -its strange career. There was no reason why men like Julius -should not worship gods like Jupiter for ever in public and -laugh at them for ever in private. But when Julian treated -Christianity as dead, he found it had come to life again. He -also found, incidentally, that there was not the faintest -sign of Jupiter ever coming to life again. This case of -Julian and the episode of Arianism is but the first of a -series of examples that can only be roughly indicated here. -Arianism, as has been said, had every human appearance of -being the natural way in which that particular superstition -of Constantine might be expected to peter out. All the -ordinary stages had been passed through; the creed had -become a respectable thing, had become a ritual thing, had -then been modified into a rational thing: and the -rationalists were ready to dissipate the last remains of it, -just as they do to-day. When Christianity rose again -suddenly and threw them, it was almost as unexpected as -Christ rising from the dead. But there are many other -examples of the same thing even about the same time. The -rush of missionaries from Ireland, for instance, has all the -air of an unexpected onslaught of young men on an old world, -and even on a Church that showed signs of growing old. Some -of them were martyred on the coast of Cornwall; and the -chief authority on Cornish antiquities told me that he did -not believe for a moment that they were martyred by heathens -but (as he expressed it with some humour) "by rather slack -Christians." - -Now if we were to dip below the surface of history, as it is -not in the scope of this argument to do, I suspect that we -should find several occasions when Christendom was thus to -all appearance hollowed out from within by doubt and -indifference, so that only the old Christian shell stood as -the Pagan shell had stood so long. But the difference is -that in every such case, the sons were fanatical for the -faith where the fathers had been slack about it. This is -obvious in the case of the transition from the Renaissance -to the Counter-Reformation. It is obvious in the case of a -transition from the eighteenth century to the many Catholic -revivals of our own time. But I suspect many other examples -which would be worthy of separate studies. - -The Faith is not a survival. It is not as if the Druids had -managed somehow to survive somewhere for two thousand years. -That is what might have happened in Asia or ancient Europe, -in that indifference or tolerance in which mythologies and -philosophies could live for ever side by side. It has not -survived; it has returned again and again in this western -world of rapid change and institutions perpetually -perishing. Europe, in the tradition of Rome, was always -trying revolution and reconstruction; rebuilding a universal -republic. And it always began by rejecting this old stone -and ended by making it the head of the corner; by bringing -it back from the rubbish-heap to make it the crown of the -capitol. Some stones of Stonehenge are standing and some are -fallen; and as the stone falleth so shall it lie. There has -not been a Druidic renaissance every century or two, with -the young Druids crowned with fresh mistletoe, dancing in -the sun on Salisbury Plain. Stonehenge has not been rebuilt -in every style of architecture from the rude round Norman to -the last rococo of the Baroque. The sacred place of the -Druids is safe from the vandalism of restoration. - -But the Church in the West was not in a world where things -were too old to die; but in one in which they were always -young enough to get killed. The consequence was that -superficially and externally it often did get killed; nay, -it sometimes wore out even without getting killed. And there -follows a fact I find it somewhat difficult to describe, yet -which I believe to be very real and rather important. As a -ghost is the shadow of a man, and in that sense the shadow -of fife, so at intervals there passed across this endless -life a sort of shadow of death. It came at the moment when -it would have perished had it been perishable. It withered -away everything that was perishable. If such animal -parallels were worthy of the occasion, we might say that the -snake shuddered and shed a skin and went on, or even that -the cat went into convulsions as it lost only one of its -nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine fives. It is truer to say, in a -more dignified image, that a clock struck and nothing -happened; or that a bell tolled for an execution that was -everlastingly postponed. - -What was the meaning of all that dim but vast unrest of the -twelfth century; when, as it has been so finely said, Julian -stirred in his sleep? W 7 hy did there appear so strangely -early, in the twilight of dawn after the Dark Ages, so deep -a scepticism as that involved in urging nominalism against -realism? For realism against nominalism was really realism -against rationalism, or something more destructive than what -we call rationalism. The answer is that just as some might -have thought the Church simply a part of the Roman Empire, -so others later might have thought the Church only a part of -the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages ended as the Empire had ended; -and the Church should have departed with them, if she had -been also one of the shades of night. It was another of -those spectral deaths or simulations of death. I mean that -if nominalism had succeeded, it would have been as if -Arianism had succeeded; it would have been the beginning of -a confession that Christianity had failed. For nominalism is -a far more fundamental scepticism than mere atheism. Such -was the question that was openly asked as the Dark Ages -broadened into that daylight that we call the modern world. -But what was the answer? The answer was Aquinas in the chair -of Aristotle, taking all knowledge for his province; and -tens of thousands of lads, down to the lowest ranks of -peasant and serf, living in rags and on crusts about the -great colleges, to listen to the scholastic philosophy. - -What was the meaning of all that whisper of fear that ran -round the West under the shadow of Islam, and fills every -old romance with incongruous images of Saracen knights -swaggering in Norway or the Hebrides? Why were men in the -extreme West, such as King John if I remember rightly, -accused of being secretly Moslems, as men are accused of -being secretly atheists 1 Why was there that fierce alarm -among some of the authorities about the rationalistic Arab -version or Aristotle? Authorities are seldom alarmed like -that except when it is too late. The answer is that hundreds -of people probably believed in their hearts that Islam would -conquer Christendom; that Averroes was more rational jthan -Anselm; that the Saracen culture was really, as it was -superficially, a superior\_ culture. Here again we should -probably find a whole generation, the older generation, very -doubtful and depressed and weary. The coming of Islam would -only have been the coming of Unitarianism a thousand years -before its time. To many it may have seemed quite reasonable -and quite probable and quite likely to happen. If so, they -would have been surprised at what did happen. What did -happen was a roar like thunder from thousands and thousands -of young men, throwing all their youth into one exultant -counter-charge; the Crusades. It was the sons of -St. Francis, the Jugglers of God, wandering singing over all -the roads of the world; it was the Gothic going up like a -flight of arrows; it was the waking of the world. In -considering the war of the Albigensians, we come to the -breach in the heart of Europe and the landslide of a new -philosophy that nearly ended Christendom for ever. In that -case the new philosophy was also a very new philosophy; it -was pessimism. It was none the less like modern ideas -because it was as old as Asia; most modern ideas are. It was -the Gnostics returning; but why did the Gnostics return? -Because it was the end of an epoch, like the end of the -Empire; and should have been the end of the Church. It was -Schopenhauer hovering over the future; but it was also -Manichaeus rising from the dead; that men might have death -and that they might have it more abundantly. - -It is rather more obvious in the case of the Renaissance, s -im ply because the period is so much nearer to us and people -know so much more about it. But there is more even in that -example than most people know. Apart from the particular -controversies which I wish to reserve for a separate study, -the period was far more chaotic than those controversies -commonly imply. When Protestants call Latimer a martyr to -Protestantism, and Catholics reply that Campion was a martyr -to Catholicism, it is often forgotten that many perished in -such persecutions who could only be described as Martyrs to -atheism or anarchism or even diabolism. That world was -almost as wild as our own; the men wandering about in it -included the sort of man who says there is no God, the sort -of man who says he is himself God, the sort of man who says -something that nobody can make head or tail of. If we could -have the conversation of the age following the Renaissance, -we should probably be shocked by its shameless negations. -The remarks attributed to Marlowe are probably pretty -typical of the talk in many intellectual taverns. The -transition from Pre-Reformation to Post-Reformation Europe -was through a void of very yawning questions; yet again in -the long run the answer was the same. It was one of those -moments when, as Christ walked on the water, so was -Christianity walking in the air. - -But all these cases are remote in date and could only be -proved in detail. We can see the fact much more clearly in -the case when the paganism of the Renaissance ended -Christianity and Christianity unaccountably began all over -again. But we can see it most clearly of all in the case -which is close to us and full of manifest and minute -evidence; the case of the great decline of religion that -began about the time of Voltaire. For indeed it is our own -case; and we ourselves have seen the decline of that -decline. The two hundred years since Voltaire do not flash -past us at a glance like the fourth and fifth centuries or -the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In our own case we can -see this oft-repeated process close at hand; we know how -completely a society can lose its fundamental religion -without abolishing its official religion; we know how men -can all become agnostics long before they abolish bishops. -And we know that also in this last ending, which really did -look to us like the final ending, the incredible thing has -happened again; the Faith has a better following among the -young men than among the old. When Ibsen spoke of the new -generation knocking at the door, he certainly never expected -that it would be the church-door. - -At least five times, therefore, with the Arian and the -Albigensian, with the Humanist sceptic, after Voltaire and -after Darwin, the Faith has to all appearance gone to the -dogs. In each of these five cases it was the dog that died. -How complete was the collapse and how strange the reversal, -we can only see in detail in the case nearest to our own -time. - -A thousand things have been said about the Oxford M ovement -and the parallel French Catholic revival; but few have made -us feel the simplest fact about it; that it was a surprise. -It was a puzzle as well as a surprise; because it seemed to -most people like a river turning backwards from the sea and -trying to climb back into the mountains. To have read the -literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is to -know that nearly everybody had come to take it for granted -that religion was a thing that would continually broaden -like a river, till it reached an infinite sea. Some of them -expected it to go down in a cataract of catastrophe, most of -them expected it to widen into an estuary of equality and -moderation; but all of them thought its returning on itself -a prodigy as incredible as witchcraft. In other words, most -moderate people thought that faith like freedom would be -slowly broadened down; and some advanced people thought that -it would be very rapidly broadened down, not to say -flattened out. All that world of Guizot and Macaulay and the -commercial and scientific liberality was perhaps more -certain than any men before or since about the direction in -which the world is going. People were so certain about the -direction that they only differed about the pace. Many -anticipated with alarm, and a few with sympathy, a Jacobin -revolt that should guillotine the Archbishop of Canterbury -or a Chartist riot that should hang the parsons on the -lamp-posts. But it seemed like a convulsion in nature that -the Archbishop instead of losing his head should be looking -for his mitre; and that instead of diminishing the respect -due to parsons we should strengthen it to the respect due to -priests. It revolutionised their very vision of revolution; -and turned their very topsy-turvydom topsy-turvy. - -In short, the whole world being divided about whether the -stream was going slower or faster, became conscious of -something vague but vast that was going against the stream. -Both in fact and figure there is something deeply disturbing -about this, and that for an essential reason. A dead thing -can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go -against it. A dead dog can be lifted on the leaping water -with all the swiftness of a leaping hound; but only a live -dog can swim backwards. A paper boat can ride the rising -deluge with all the airy arrogance of a fairy ship; but if -the fairy ship sails upstream it is really rowed by the -fairies. And among the things that merely went with the tide -of apparent progress and enlargement, there was many a -demagogue or sophist whose wild gestures were in truth as -lifeless as the movement of a dead dog's lim bs wavering in -the eddying water; and many a philosophy uncommonly like a -paper boat, of the sort that it is not difficult to knock -into a cocked hat. But even the truly living and even -life-giving things that went with that stream did not -thereby prove that they were living or life-giving. It was -this other force that was unquestionably and unaccountably -alive; the mysterious and unmeasured energy that was -thrusting back the river. That was felt to be like the -movement of some great monster; and it was none the less -clearly a living monster because most people thought it a -prehistoric monster. It was none the less an unnatural, an -incongruous, and to some a comic upheaval; as if the Great -Sea Serpent had suddenly risen out of the Round -Pond---unless we consider the Sea Serpent as more likely to -live in the Serpentine. This flippant element in the fantasy -must not be missed, for it was one of the clearest -testimonies to the unexpected nature of the reversal. That -age did really feel that a preposterous quality in -prehistoric animals belonged also to historic rituals; that -mitres and tiaras were like the horns or crests of -antediluvian creatures; and that appealing to a Primitive -Church was like dressing up as a Primitive Man. - -The world is still puzzled by that movement; but most of all -because it still moves. I have said something elsewhere of -the rather random sort of reproaches that are still directed -against it and its much greater consequences; it is enough -to say here that the more such critics reproach it the less -they explain it. In a sense it is my concern here, if not to -explain it, at least to suggest the direction of the -explanation; but above all, it is my concern to point out -one particular thing about it. And that is that it had all -happened before; and even many times before. - -To s um up, in so far as it is true that recent centuries -have seen an attenuation of Christian doctrine, recent -centuries have only seen what the most remote centuries have -seen. And even the modern example has only ended as the -medieval and pre-medieval examples ended. It is already -clear, and grows clearer every day, that it is not going to -end in the disappearance of the diminished creed; but rather -in the return of those parts of it that had really -disappeared. It is going to end as the Arian compromise -ended, as the attempts at a compromise with Nominalism and -even with Albigensianism ended. But the point to seize in -the modern case, as in all the other cases, is that what -returns is not in that sense a simplified theology; not -according to that view a purified theology; it is simply -theology. It is that enthusiasm for theological studies that -marked the most doctrinal ages; it is the divine science. An -old Don with D.D. after his name may have become the typical -figure of a bore; but that was because he was himself bored -with his theology, not because he was excited about it. It -was precisely because he was admittedly more interested in -the Latin of Plautus than in the Latin of Augustine, in the -Greek of Xenophon than in the Greek of Chrysostom. It was -precisely because he was more interested in a dead tradition -than in a decidedly living tradition. In short, it was -precisely because he was himself a type of the time in which -Christian faith was weak. It was not because men would not -hail, if they could, the wonderful and almost wild vision of -a Doctor of Divinity. - -There are people who say they wish Christianity to remain as -a spirit. They mean, very literally, that they wish it to -remain as a ghost. But it is not going to remain as a ghost. -What follows this process of apparent death is not the -lingering of the shade; it is the resurrection of the body. -These people are quite prepared to shed pious and -reverential tears over the Sepulchre of the Son of Man; what -they are not prepared for is the Son of God walking once -more upon the hills of morning. These people, and indeed -most people, were indeed by this time quite accustomed to -the idea that the old Christian candlelight would fade into -the light of common day. To many of them it did quite -honestly appear like that pale yellow flame of a candle when -it is left burning in daylight. It was all the more -unexpected, and therefore all the more unmistakable, that -the seven-branched candle-stick suddenly towered to\* heaven -like a miraculous tree and flamed until the sun turned pale. -But other ages have seen the day conquer the candlelight and -then the candle-light conquer the day. Again and again, -before our time, men have grown content with a diluted -doctrine. And again and again there has followed on that -dilution, coming as out of the darkness in a crimson -cataract, the strength of the red original wine. And we only -say once more to-day as has been said many times by our -fathers: "Long years and centuries ago our fathers or the -founders of our people drank, as they dreamed, of the blood -of God. Long years and centuries have passed since the -strength of that giant vintage has been anything but a -legend of the age of giants. Centuries ago already is the -dark time of the second fermentation, when the wine of -Catholicism turned into the vinegar of Calvinism. Long since -that bitter drink has been itself diluted; rinsed out and -washed away by the waters of oblivion and the wave of the -world. Never did we think to taste again even that bitter -tang of sincerity and the spirit, still less the richer and -the sweeter strength of the purple vineyards in our dreams -of the age of gold. Day by day and year by year we have -lowered our hopes and lessened our convictions; we have -grown more and more used to seeing those vats and vineyards -overwhelmed in the water-floods and the last savour and -suggestion of that special element fading like a stain of -purple upon a sea of grey. We have grown used to dilution, -to dissolution, to a watering down that went on for ever. -But Thou hast kept the good wine until now." - -This is the final fact, and it is the most extraordinary of -all. The faith has not only often died but it has often died -of old age. It has not only been often killed but it has -often died a natural death; in the sense of coming to a -natural and necessary end. It is obvious that it has -survived the most savage and the most universal persecutions -from the shock of the Diocletian fury to the shock of the -French Revolution. But it has a more strange and even a more -weird tenacity; it has survived not only war but peace. It -has not only died often but degenerated often and decayed -often; it has survived its own weakness and even its own -surrender. We need not repeat what is so obvious about the -beauty of the end of Christ in its wedding of youth and -death. But this is almost as if Christ had lived to the last -possible span, had been a white-haired sage of a hundred and -died of natural decay, and then had risen again rejuvenated, -with trumpets and the rending of the sky. It was said truly -enough that human Christianity in its recurrent weakness was -sometimes too much wedded to the powers of the world; but if -it was wedded it has very often been widowed. It is a -strangely immortal sort of widow. An enemy may have said at -one moment that it was but an aspect of the power of the -Caesars; and it sounds as strange to-day as to call it an -aspect of the Pharaohs. An enemy might say that it was the -official faith of feudalism; and it sounds as convincing now -as to say that it was bound to perish with the ancient Roman -villa. All these things did indeed run their course to its -normal end; and there seemed no course for the religion but -to end with them. It ended and it began again. - -"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not -pass away." The civilisation of antiquity was the whole -world; and men no more dreamed of its ending than of the -ending of daylight. They could not imagine another order -unless it were in another world. The civilisation of the -world has passed away and those words have not passed away. -In the long night of the Dark Ages feudalism was so familiar -a thing that no man could imagine himself without a lord; -and religion was so woven into that network that no man -would have believed they could be torn asunder. Feudalism -itself was torn to rags and rotted away in the popular life -of the true Middle Ages; and the first and freshest power in -that new freedom was the old religion. Feudalism had parsed -away, and the words did not pass away. The whole medieval -order, in many ways so complete and almost cosmic a home for -man, wore out gradually in its turn: and here at least it -was thought that the words would die. They went forth across -the radiant abyss of the Renaissance and in fifty years were -using all its light and learning for new religious -foundations, new apologetics, new saints. It was supposed to -have been withered up at last in the dry light of the Age of -Reason; it was supposed to have disappeared ultimately in -the earthquake of the Age of Revolution. Science explained -it away; and it was still there. History disinterred it in -the past; and it appeared suddenly in the future. To-day it -stands once more in our path; and even as we watch it, it +It is not the purpose of this book to trace the subsequent history of +Christianity, especially the later history of Christianity; which +involves controversies of which I hope to write more fully elsewhere. It +is devoted only to the suggestion that Christianity, appearing amid +heathen humanity, had all the character of a unique thing and even of a +supernatural thing. It was not like any of the other things; and the +more we study it the less it looks like any of them. But there is a +certain rather peculiar character which marked it henceforward even down +to the present moment, with a note on which this book may well conclude. + +I have said that Asia and the ancient world had an air of being too old +to die. Christendom has had the very opposite fate. Christendom has had +a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. +Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a god who +knew the way out of the grave. But the first extraordinary fact which +marks this history is this: that Europe has been turned upside down over +and over again; and that at the end of each of these revolutions the +same religion has again been found on top. The Faith is always +converting the age, not as an old religion but as a new religion. This +truth is hidden from many by a convention that is too little noticed. +Curiously enough, it is a convention of the sort which those who ignore +it claim especially to detect and denounce. They are always telling us +that priests and ceremonies are not religion and that religious +organisation can be a hollow sham; but they hardly realise how true it +is. It is so true that three or four times at least in the history of +Christendom the whole soul seemed to have gone out of Christianity; and +almost every man in his heart expected its end. This fact is only masked +in medieval and other times by that very official religion which such +critics pride themselves on seeing through. Christianity remained the +official religion of a Renaissance prince or the official religion of an +eighteenth-century bishop, just as an ancient mythology remained the +official religion of Julius Caesar or the Arian creed long remained the +official religion of Julian the Apostate. But there was a difference +between the cases of Julius and of Julian; because the Church had begun +its strange career. There was no reason why men like Julius should not +worship gods like Jupiter for ever in public and laugh at them for ever +in private. But when Julian treated Christianity as dead, he found it +had come to life again. He also found, incidentally, that there was not +the faintest sign of Jupiter ever coming to life again. This case of +Julian and the episode of Arianism is but the first of a series of +examples that can only be roughly indicated here. Arianism, as has been +said, had every human appearance of being the natural way in which that +particular superstition of Constantine might be expected to peter out. +All the ordinary stages had been passed through; the creed had become a +respectable thing, had become a ritual thing, had then been modified +into a rational thing: and the rationalists were ready to dissipate the +last remains of it, just as they do to-day. When Christianity rose again +suddenly and threw them, it was almost as unexpected as Christ rising +from the dead. But there are many other examples of the same thing even +about the same time. The rush of missionaries from Ireland, for +instance, has all the air of an unexpected onslaught of young men on an +old world, and even on a Church that showed signs of growing old. Some +of them were martyred on the coast of Cornwall; and the chief authority +on Cornish antiquities told me that he did not believe for a moment that +they were martyred by heathens but (as he expressed it with some humour) +"by rather slack Christians." + +Now if we were to dip below the surface of history, as it is not in the +scope of this argument to do, I suspect that we should find several +occasions when Christendom was thus to all appearance hollowed out from +within by doubt and indifference, so that only the old Christian shell +stood as the Pagan shell had stood so long. But the difference is that +in every such case, the sons were fanatical for the faith where the +fathers had been slack about it. This is obvious in the case of the +transition from the Renaissance to the Counter-Reformation. It is +obvious in the case of a transition from the eighteenth century to the +many Catholic revivals of our own time. But I suspect many other +examples which would be worthy of separate studies. + +The Faith is not a survival. It is not as if the Druids had managed +somehow to survive somewhere for two thousand years. That is what might +have happened in Asia or ancient Europe, in that indifference or +tolerance in which mythologies and philosophies could live for ever side +by side. It has not survived; it has returned again and again in this +western world of rapid change and institutions perpetually perishing. +Europe, in the tradition of Rome, was always trying revolution and +reconstruction; rebuilding a universal republic. And it always began by +rejecting this old stone and ended by making it the head of the corner; +by bringing it back from the rubbish-heap to make it the crown of the +capitol. Some stones of Stonehenge are standing and some are fallen; and +as the stone falleth so shall it lie. There has not been a Druidic +renaissance every century or two, with the young Druids crowned with +fresh mistletoe, dancing in the sun on Salisbury Plain. Stonehenge has +not been rebuilt in every style of architecture from the rude round +Norman to the last rococo of the Baroque. The sacred place of the Druids +is safe from the vandalism of restoration. + +But the Church in the West was not in a world where things were too old +to die; but in one in which they were always young enough to get killed. +The consequence was that superficially and externally it often did get +killed; nay, it sometimes wore out even without getting killed. And +there follows a fact I find it somewhat difficult to describe, yet which +I believe to be very real and rather important. As a ghost is the shadow +of a man, and in that sense the shadow of fife, so at intervals there +passed across this endless life a sort of shadow of death. It came at +the moment when it would have perished had it been perishable. It +withered away everything that was perishable. If such animal parallels +were worthy of the occasion, we might say that the snake shuddered and +shed a skin and went on, or even that the cat went into convulsions as +it lost only one of its nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine fives. It is truer +to say, in a more dignified image, that a clock struck and nothing +happened; or that a bell tolled for an execution that was everlastingly +postponed. + +What was the meaning of all that dim but vast unrest of the twelfth +century; when, as it has been so finely said, Julian stirred in his +sleep? W 7 hy did there appear so strangely early, in the twilight of +dawn after the Dark Ages, so deep a scepticism as that involved in +urging nominalism against realism? For realism against nominalism was +really realism against rationalism, or something more destructive than +what we call rationalism. The answer is that just as some might have +thought the Church simply a part of the Roman Empire, so others later +might have thought the Church only a part of the Dark Ages. The Dark +Ages ended as the Empire had ended; and the Church should have departed +with them, if she had been also one of the shades of night. It was +another of those spectral deaths or simulations of death. I mean that if +nominalism had succeeded, it would have been as if Arianism had +succeeded; it would have been the beginning of a confession that +Christianity had failed. For nominalism is a far more fundamental +scepticism than mere atheism. Such was the question that was openly +asked as the Dark Ages broadened into that daylight that we call the +modern world. But what was the answer? The answer was Aquinas in the +chair of Aristotle, taking all knowledge for his province; and tens of +thousands of lads, down to the lowest ranks of peasant and serf, living +in rags and on crusts about the great colleges, to listen to the +scholastic philosophy. + +What was the meaning of all that whisper of fear that ran round the West +under the shadow of Islam, and fills every old romance with incongruous +images of Saracen knights swaggering in Norway or the Hebrides? Why were +men in the extreme West, such as King John if I remember rightly, +accused of being secretly Moslems, as men are accused of being secretly +atheists 1 Why was there that fierce alarm among some of the authorities +about the rationalistic Arab version or Aristotle? Authorities are +seldom alarmed like that except when it is too late. The answer is that +hundreds of people probably believed in their hearts that Islam would +conquer Christendom; that Averroes was more rational jthan Anselm; that +the Saracen culture was really, as it was superficially, a superior\_ +culture. Here again we should probably find a whole generation, the +older generation, very doubtful and depressed and weary. The coming of +Islam would only have been the coming of Unitarianism a thousand years +before its time. To many it may have seemed quite reasonable and quite +probable and quite likely to happen. If so, they would have been +surprised at what did happen. What did happen was a roar like thunder +from thousands and thousands of young men, throwing all their youth into +one exultant counter-charge; the Crusades. It was the sons of +St. Francis, the Jugglers of God, wandering singing over all the roads +of the world; it was the Gothic going up like a flight of arrows; it was +the waking of the world. In considering the war of the Albigensians, we +come to the breach in the heart of Europe and the landslide of a new +philosophy that nearly ended Christendom for ever. In that case the new +philosophy was also a very new philosophy; it was pessimism. It was none +the less like modern ideas because it was as old as Asia; most modern +ideas are. It was the Gnostics returning; but why did the Gnostics +return? Because it was the end of an epoch, like the end of the Empire; +and should have been the end of the Church. It was Schopenhauer hovering +over the future; but it was also Manichaeus rising from the dead; that +men might have death and that they might have it more abundantly. + +It is rather more obvious in the case of the Renaissance, s im ply +because the period is so much nearer to us and people know so much more +about it. But there is more even in that example than most people know. +Apart from the particular controversies which I wish to reserve for a +separate study, the period was far more chaotic than those controversies +commonly imply. When Protestants call Latimer a martyr to Protestantism, +and Catholics reply that Campion was a martyr to Catholicism, it is +often forgotten that many perished in such persecutions who could only +be described as Martyrs to atheism or anarchism or even diabolism. That +world was almost as wild as our own; the men wandering about in it +included the sort of man who says there is no God, the sort of man who +says he is himself God, the sort of man who says something that nobody +can make head or tail of. If we could have the conversation of the age +following the Renaissance, we should probably be shocked by its +shameless negations. The remarks attributed to Marlowe are probably +pretty typical of the talk in many intellectual taverns. The transition +from Pre-Reformation to Post-Reformation Europe was through a void of +very yawning questions; yet again in the long run the answer was the +same. It was one of those moments when, as Christ walked on the water, +so was Christianity walking in the air. + +But all these cases are remote in date and could only be proved in +detail. We can see the fact much more clearly in the case when the +paganism of the Renaissance ended Christianity and Christianity +unaccountably began all over again. But we can see it most clearly of +all in the case which is close to us and full of manifest and minute +evidence; the case of the great decline of religion that began about the +time of Voltaire. For indeed it is our own case; and we ourselves have +seen the decline of that decline. The two hundred years since Voltaire +do not flash past us at a glance like the fourth and fifth centuries or +the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In our own case we can see this +oft-repeated process close at hand; we know how completely a society can +lose its fundamental religion without abolishing its official religion; +we know how men can all become agnostics long before they abolish +bishops. And we know that also in this last ending, which really did +look to us like the final ending, the incredible thing has happened +again; the Faith has a better following among the young men than among +the old. When Ibsen spoke of the new generation knocking at the door, he +certainly never expected that it would be the church-door. + +At least five times, therefore, with the Arian and the Albigensian, with +the Humanist sceptic, after Voltaire and after Darwin, the Faith has to +all appearance gone to the dogs. In each of these five cases it was the +dog that died. How complete was the collapse and how strange the +reversal, we can only see in detail in the case nearest to our own time. + +A thousand things have been said about the Oxford M ovement and the +parallel French Catholic revival; but few have made us feel the simplest +fact about it; that it was a surprise. It was a puzzle as well as a +surprise; because it seemed to most people like a river turning +backwards from the sea and trying to climb back into the mountains. To +have read the literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is +to know that nearly everybody had come to take it for granted that +religion was a thing that would continually broaden like a river, till +it reached an infinite sea. Some of them expected it to go down in a +cataract of catastrophe, most of them expected it to widen into an +estuary of equality and moderation; but all of them thought its +returning on itself a prodigy as incredible as witchcraft. In other +words, most moderate people thought that faith like freedom would be +slowly broadened down; and some advanced people thought that it would be +very rapidly broadened down, not to say flattened out. All that world of +Guizot and Macaulay and the commercial and scientific liberality was +perhaps more certain than any men before or since about the direction in +which the world is going. People were so certain about the direction +that they only differed about the pace. Many anticipated with alarm, and +a few with sympathy, a Jacobin revolt that should guillotine the +Archbishop of Canterbury or a Chartist riot that should hang the parsons +on the lamp-posts. But it seemed like a convulsion in nature that the +Archbishop instead of losing his head should be looking for his mitre; +and that instead of diminishing the respect due to parsons we should +strengthen it to the respect due to priests. It revolutionised their +very vision of revolution; and turned their very topsy-turvydom +topsy-turvy. + +In short, the whole world being divided about whether the stream was +going slower or faster, became conscious of something vague but vast +that was going against the stream. Both in fact and figure there is +something deeply disturbing about this, and that for an essential +reason. A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can +go against it. A dead dog can be lifted on the leaping water with all +the swiftness of a leaping hound; but only a live dog can swim +backwards. A paper boat can ride the rising deluge with all the airy +arrogance of a fairy ship; but if the fairy ship sails upstream it is +really rowed by the fairies. And among the things that merely went with +the tide of apparent progress and enlargement, there was many a +demagogue or sophist whose wild gestures were in truth as lifeless as +the movement of a dead dog's lim bs wavering in the eddying water; and +many a philosophy uncommonly like a paper boat, of the sort that it is +not difficult to knock into a cocked hat. But even the truly living and +even life-giving things that went with that stream did not thereby prove +that they were living or life-giving. It was this other force that was +unquestionably and unaccountably alive; the mysterious and unmeasured +energy that was thrusting back the river. That was felt to be like the +movement of some great monster; and it was none the less clearly a +living monster because most people thought it a prehistoric monster. It +was none the less an unnatural, an incongruous, and to some a comic +upheaval; as if the Great Sea Serpent had suddenly risen out of the +Round Pond---unless we consider the Sea Serpent as more likely to live +in the Serpentine. This flippant element in the fantasy must not be +missed, for it was one of the clearest testimonies to the unexpected +nature of the reversal. That age did really feel that a preposterous +quality in prehistoric animals belonged also to historic rituals; that +mitres and tiaras were like the horns or crests of antediluvian +creatures; and that appealing to a Primitive Church was like dressing up +as a Primitive Man. + +The world is still puzzled by that movement; but most of all because it +still moves. I have said something elsewhere of the rather random sort +of reproaches that are still directed against it and its much greater +consequences; it is enough to say here that the more such critics +reproach it the less they explain it. In a sense it is my concern here, +if not to explain it, at least to suggest the direction of the +explanation; but above all, it is my concern to point out one particular +thing about it. And that is that it had all happened before; and even +many times before. + +To s um up, in so far as it is true that recent centuries have seen an +attenuation of Christian doctrine, recent centuries have only seen what +the most remote centuries have seen. And even the modern example has +only ended as the medieval and pre-medieval examples ended. It is +already clear, and grows clearer every day, that it is not going to end +in the disappearance of the diminished creed; but rather in the return +of those parts of it that had really disappeared. It is going to end as +the Arian compromise ended, as the attempts at a compromise with +Nominalism and even with Albigensianism ended. But the point to seize in +the modern case, as in all the other cases, is that what returns is not +in that sense a simplified theology; not according to that view a +purified theology; it is simply theology. It is that enthusiasm for +theological studies that marked the most doctrinal ages; it is the +divine science. An old Don with D.D. after his name may have become the +typical figure of a bore; but that was because he was himself bored with +his theology, not because he was excited about it. It was precisely +because he was admittedly more interested in the Latin of Plautus than +in the Latin of Augustine, in the Greek of Xenophon than in the Greek of +Chrysostom. It was precisely because he was more interested in a dead +tradition than in a decidedly living tradition. In short, it was +precisely because he was himself a type of the time in which Christian +faith was weak. It was not because men would not hail, if they could, +the wonderful and almost wild vision of a Doctor of Divinity. + +There are people who say they wish Christianity to remain as a spirit. +They mean, very literally, that they wish it to remain as a ghost. But +it is not going to remain as a ghost. What follows this process of +apparent death is not the lingering of the shade; it is the resurrection +of the body. These people are quite prepared to shed pious and +reverential tears over the Sepulchre of the Son of Man; what they are +not prepared for is the Son of God walking once more upon the hills of +morning. These people, and indeed most people, were indeed by this time +quite accustomed to the idea that the old Christian candlelight would +fade into the light of common day. To many of them it did quite honestly +appear like that pale yellow flame of a candle when it is left burning +in daylight. It was all the more unexpected, and therefore all the more +unmistakable, that the seven-branched candle-stick suddenly towered to\* +heaven like a miraculous tree and flamed until the sun turned pale. But +other ages have seen the day conquer the candlelight and then the +candle-light conquer the day. Again and again, before our time, men have +grown content with a diluted doctrine. And again and again there has +followed on that dilution, coming as out of the darkness in a crimson +cataract, the strength of the red original wine. And we only say once +more to-day as has been said many times by our fathers: "Long years and +centuries ago our fathers or the founders of our people drank, as they +dreamed, of the blood of God. Long years and centuries have passed since +the strength of that giant vintage has been anything but a legend of the +age of giants. Centuries ago already is the dark time of the second +fermentation, when the wine of Catholicism turned into the vinegar of +Calvinism. Long since that bitter drink has been itself diluted; rinsed +out and washed away by the waters of oblivion and the wave of the world. +Never did we think to taste again even that bitter tang of sincerity and +the spirit, still less the richer and the sweeter strength of the purple +vineyards in our dreams of the age of gold. Day by day and year by year +we have lowered our hopes and lessened our convictions; we have grown +more and more used to seeing those vats and vineyards overwhelmed in the +water-floods and the last savour and suggestion of that special element +fading like a stain of purple upon a sea of grey. We have grown used to +dilution, to dissolution, to a watering down that went on for ever. But +Thou hast kept the good wine until now." + +This is the final fact, and it is the most extraordinary of all. The +faith has not only often died but it has often died of old age. It has +not only been often killed but it has often died a natural death; in the +sense of coming to a natural and necessary end. It is obvious that it +has survived the most savage and the most universal persecutions from +the shock of the Diocletian fury to the shock of the French Revolution. +But it has a more strange and even a more weird tenacity; it has +survived not only war but peace. It has not only died often but +degenerated often and decayed often; it has survived its own weakness +and even its own surrender. We need not repeat what is so obvious about +the beauty of the end of Christ in its wedding of youth and death. But +this is almost as if Christ had lived to the last possible span, had +been a white-haired sage of a hundred and died of natural decay, and +then had risen again rejuvenated, with trumpets and the rending of the +sky. It was said truly enough that human Christianity in its recurrent +weakness was sometimes too much wedded to the powers of the world; but +if it was wedded it has very often been widowed. It is a strangely +immortal sort of widow. An enemy may have said at one moment that it was +but an aspect of the power of the Caesars; and it sounds as strange +to-day as to call it an aspect of the Pharaohs. An enemy might say that +it was the official faith of feudalism; and it sounds as convincing now +as to say that it was bound to perish with the ancient Roman villa. All +these things did indeed run their course to its normal end; and there +seemed no course for the religion but to end with them. It ended and it +began again. + +"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." +The civilisation of antiquity was the whole world; and men no more +dreamed of its ending than of the ending of daylight. They could not +imagine another order unless it were in another world. The civilisation +of the world has passed away and those words have not passed away. In +the long night of the Dark Ages feudalism was so familiar a thing that +no man could imagine himself without a lord; and religion was so woven +into that network that no man would have believed they could be torn +asunder. Feudalism itself was torn to rags and rotted away in the +popular life of the true Middle Ages; and the first and freshest power +in that new freedom was the old religion. Feudalism had parsed away, and +the words did not pass away. The whole medieval order, in many ways so +complete and almost cosmic a home for man, wore out gradually in its +turn: and here at least it was thought that the words would die. They +went forth across the radiant abyss of the Renaissance and in fifty +years were using all its light and learning for new religious +foundations, new apologetics, new saints. It was supposed to have been +withered up at last in the dry light of the Age of Reason; it was +supposed to have disappeared ultimately in the earthquake of the Age of +Revolution. Science explained it away; and it was still there. History +disinterred it in the past; and it appeared suddenly in the future. +To-day it stands once more in our path; and even as we watch it, it grows. -If our social relations and records retain their continuity, -if men really learn to apply reason to the accumulating -facts of so crushing a story, it would seem that sooner or -later even its enemies will learn from their incessant and -interminable disappointments not to look for anything so -simple as its death. They may continue to war with it, but -it will be as they war with nature; as they war with the -landscape, as they war with the skies. "Heaven and earth -shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." They -will watch for it to stumble; they will watch for it to err; -they will no longer watch for it to end. Insensibly, even -unconsciously, they will in their own silent anticipations -fulfil the relative terms of that astounding prophecy; they -will forget to watch for the mere extinction of what has so -often been vainly extinguished; and will learn instinctively -to look first for the coming of the comet or the freezing of -the star. +If our social relations and records retain their continuity, if men +really learn to apply reason to the accumulating facts of so crushing a +story, it would seem that sooner or later even its enemies will learn +from their incessant and interminable disappointments not to look for +anything so simple as its death. They may continue to war with it, but +it will be as they war with nature; as they war with the landscape, as +they war with the skies. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words +shall not pass away." They will watch for it to stumble; they will watch +for it to err; they will no longer watch for it to end. Insensibly, even +unconsciously, they will in their own silent anticipations fulfil the +relative terms of that astounding prophecy; they will forget to watch +for the mere extinction of what has so often been vainly extinguished; +and will learn instinctively to look first for the coming of the comet +or the freezing of the star. ## Conclusion: The Summary of the Book -I have taken the liberty once or twice of borrowing the -excellent phrase about an Outline of History; though this -study of a special truth and a special error can of course -claim no sort of comparison with the rich and many-sided -encyclopedia of history, for which that name was chosen. And -yet there is a certain reason in the reference; and a sense -in which the one thing touches and even cuts across the -other. For the story of the world as told by Mr. Wells could -here only be criticised as an outline. And, strangely -enough, it seems to me that it is only wrong as an outline. -It is admirable as an accumulation of history; it is -splendid as a storehouse or treasury of history; it is a -fascinating disquisition on history; it is most attractive -as an amplification of history; but it is quite false as an -outline of history. The one thing that seems to me quite -wrong about it is the outline; the sort of outline that can -really be a single line, like that which makes all the -difference between a caricature of the profile of -Mr. Winston Churchill and of Sir Alfred Mond. In simple and -homely language, I mean the things that stick out; the -things that make the simplicity of a silhouette. I think the -proportions are wrong; the proportions of what is certain as -compared with what is uncertain, of what played a great part -as compared with what played a smaller part, of what is -ordinary and what is extraordinary, of what really lies -level with an average and what stands out as an exception. - -I do not say it as a small criticism of a great writer, and -I have no reason to do so; for in my own much smaller task I -feel I have failed in very much the same way. I am very -doubtful whether I have conveyed to the reader the main -point I meant about the proportions of history, and why I -have dwelt so much more on some things than others. I doubt -whether I have clearly fulfilled the plan that I set out in -the introductory chapter; and for that reason I add these -lines as a sort of summary in a concluding chapter. I do -believe that the things on which I have insisted are more -essential to an outline of history than the things which I -have subordinated or dismissed. I do not believe that the -past is most truly pictured as a thing in which humanity -merely fades away into nature, or civilisation merely fades -away into barbarism, or religion fades away into mythology, -or our own religion fades away into the religions of the -world. In short, I do not believe that the best way to -produce an outline of history is to rub out the lines. I -believe that, of the two, it would be far nearer the truth -to tell the tale very simply, like a primitive myth about a -man who made the sun and stars or a god who entered the body -of a sacred monkey. I will therefore sum up all that has -gone before in what seems to me a realistic and reasonably +I have taken the liberty once or twice of borrowing the excellent phrase +about an Outline of History; though this study of a special truth and a +special error can of course claim no sort of comparison with the rich +and many-sided encyclopedia of history, for which that name was chosen. +And yet there is a certain reason in the reference; and a sense in which +the one thing touches and even cuts across the other. For the story of +the world as told by Mr. Wells could here only be criticised as an +outline. And, strangely enough, it seems to me that it is only wrong as +an outline. It is admirable as an accumulation of history; it is +splendid as a storehouse or treasury of history; it is a fascinating +disquisition on history; it is most attractive as an amplification of +history; but it is quite false as an outline of history. The one thing +that seems to me quite wrong about it is the outline; the sort of +outline that can really be a single line, like that which makes all the +difference between a caricature of the profile of Mr. Winston Churchill +and of Sir Alfred Mond. In simple and homely language, I mean the things +that stick out; the things that make the simplicity of a silhouette. I +think the proportions are wrong; the proportions of what is certain as +compared with what is uncertain, of what played a great part as compared +with what played a smaller part, of what is ordinary and what is +extraordinary, of what really lies level with an average and what stands +out as an exception. + +I do not say it as a small criticism of a great writer, and I have no +reason to do so; for in my own much smaller task I feel I have failed in +very much the same way. I am very doubtful whether I have conveyed to +the reader the main point I meant about the proportions of history, and +why I have dwelt so much more on some things than others. I doubt +whether I have clearly fulfilled the plan that I set out in the +introductory chapter; and for that reason I add these lines as a sort of +summary in a concluding chapter. I do believe that the things on which I +have insisted are more essential to an outline of history than the +things which I have subordinated or dismissed. I do not believe that the +past is most truly pictured as a thing in which humanity merely fades +away into nature, or civilisation merely fades away into barbarism, or +religion fades away into mythology, or our own religion fades away into +the religions of the world. In short, I do not believe that the best way +to produce an outline of history is to rub out the lines. I believe +that, of the two, it would be far nearer the truth to tell the tale very +simply, like a primitive myth about a man who made the sun and stars or +a god who entered the body of a sacred monkey. I will therefore sum up +all that has gone before in what seems to me a realistic and reasonably proportioned statement: the short story of mankind. -In the land lit by that neighbouring star, whose blaze is -the broad daylight, there are many and very various things, -motionless and moving. There moves among them a race that is -in its relation to the others a race of gods. The fact is -not lessened but emphasised because it can behave like a -race of demons. Its distinction is not an individual -illusion, like one bird pluming itself on its own plumes; it -is a solid and a many-sided thing. It is demonstrated in the -very speculations that have led to its being denied. That -men, the gods of this lower world, are linked with it in -various ways is true; but it is another aspect of the same -truth. That they grow as the grass grows and walk as the -beasts walk is a secondary necessity that sharpens the -primary distinction. It is like saying that a magician must -after all have the appearance of a man; or that even the -fairies could not dance without feet. It has lately been the -fashion to focus the mind entirely on these mild and -subordinate resemblances and to forget the main fact -altogether. It is customary to insist that man resembles the -other creatures. Yes; and that very resemblance he alone can -see. The fish does not trace the fish-bone pattern in the -fowls of the air; or the elephant and the emu compare -skeletons. Even in the sense in which man is at one with the -universe it is an utterly lonely universality. The very -sense that he is united with all things is enough to sunder -him from all. - -Looking around him by this unique light, as lonely as the -literal flame that he alone has kindled, this demigod or -demon of the visible world makes that world visible. He sees -around him a world of a certain style or type. It seems to -proceed by certain rules or at least repetitions. He sees a -green architecture that builds itself without visible hands; -but which builds itself into a very exact plan or pattern, -like a design already drawn in the air by an invisible -finger. It is not, as is now vaguely suggested, a vague -thing. It is not a growth or a groping of blind life. Each -seeks an end; a glorious and radiant end, even for every -daisy or dandelion we see in looking across the level of a -common field. In the very shape of things there is more than -green growth; there is the finality of the flower. It is a -world of crowns. This impression, whether or no it be an -illusion, has so profoundly influenced this race of thinkers -and masters of the material world, that the vast majority -have been moved to take a certain view of that world. They -have concluded, rightly or wrongly, that the world had a -plan as the tree seemed to have a plan; and an end and crown -like the flower. But so long as the race of thinkers was -able to think, it was obvious that the admission of this -idea of a plan brought with it another thought more -thrilling and even terrible. There was some one else, some -strange and unseen being, who had designed these things, if -indeed they were designed. There was a stranger who was also -a friend; a mysterious benefactor who had been before them -and built up the woods and hills for their coming, and had -kindled the sunrise against their rising, as a servant -kindles a fire. Now this idea of a mind that gives a meaning -to the universe has received more and more confirmation -within the minds of men, by meditations and experiences much -more subtle and searching than any such argument about the -external plan of the world. But I am concerned here with -keeping the story in its most simple and even concrete -terms; and it is enough to say here that most men, including -the wisest men, have come to the conclusion that the world -has such a final purpose and therefore such a first cause. -But most men in some sense separated themselves from the -wisest men, when it came to the treatment of that idea. -There came into existence two ways of treating that idea; -which between them make up most of the religious history of +In the land lit by that neighbouring star, whose blaze is the broad +daylight, there are many and very various things, motionless and moving. +There moves among them a race that is in its relation to the others a +race of gods. The fact is not lessened but emphasised because it can +behave like a race of demons. Its distinction is not an individual +illusion, like one bird pluming itself on its own plumes; it is a solid +and a many-sided thing. It is demonstrated in the very speculations that +have led to its being denied. That men, the gods of this lower world, +are linked with it in various ways is true; but it is another aspect of +the same truth. That they grow as the grass grows and walk as the beasts +walk is a secondary necessity that sharpens the primary distinction. It +is like saying that a magician must after all have the appearance of a +man; or that even the fairies could not dance without feet. It has +lately been the fashion to focus the mind entirely on these mild and +subordinate resemblances and to forget the main fact altogether. It is +customary to insist that man resembles the other creatures. Yes; and +that very resemblance he alone can see. The fish does not trace the +fish-bone pattern in the fowls of the air; or the elephant and the emu +compare skeletons. Even in the sense in which man is at one with the +universe it is an utterly lonely universality. The very sense that he is +united with all things is enough to sunder him from all. + +Looking around him by this unique light, as lonely as the literal flame +that he alone has kindled, this demigod or demon of the visible world +makes that world visible. He sees around him a world of a certain style +or type. It seems to proceed by certain rules or at least repetitions. +He sees a green architecture that builds itself without visible hands; +but which builds itself into a very exact plan or pattern, like a design +already drawn in the air by an invisible finger. It is not, as is now +vaguely suggested, a vague thing. It is not a growth or a groping of +blind life. Each seeks an end; a glorious and radiant end, even for +every daisy or dandelion we see in looking across the level of a common +field. In the very shape of things there is more than green growth; +there is the finality of the flower. It is a world of crowns. This +impression, whether or no it be an illusion, has so profoundly +influenced this race of thinkers and masters of the material world, that +the vast majority have been moved to take a certain view of that world. +They have concluded, rightly or wrongly, that the world had a plan as +the tree seemed to have a plan; and an end and crown like the flower. +But so long as the race of thinkers was able to think, it was obvious +that the admission of this idea of a plan brought with it another +thought more thrilling and even terrible. There was some one else, some +strange and unseen being, who had designed these things, if indeed they +were designed. There was a stranger who was also a friend; a mysterious +benefactor who had been before them and built up the woods and hills for +their coming, and had kindled the sunrise against their rising, as a +servant kindles a fire. Now this idea of a mind that gives a meaning to +the universe has received more and more confirmation within the minds of +men, by meditations and experiences much more subtle and searching than +any such argument about the external plan of the world. But I am +concerned here with keeping the story in its most simple and even +concrete terms; and it is enough to say here that most men, including +the wisest men, have come to the conclusion that the world has such a +final purpose and therefore such a first cause. But most men in some +sense separated themselves from the wisest men, when it came to the +treatment of that idea. There came into existence two ways of treating +that idea; which between them make up most of the religious history of the world. -The majority, like the minority, had this strong sense of a -second meaning in things; of a strange master who knew the -secret of the world. But the majority, the mob or mass of -men, naturally tended to treat it rather in the spirit of -gossip. The gossip, like all gossip, contained a great deal -of truth and falsehood. The world began to tell itself tales -about the unknown being or his sons or servants or -messengers. Some of the tales may truly be called old wives' -tales; as professing only to be very remote memories of the -morning of the world; myths about the baby moon or the -half-baked mountains. Some of them might more truly be -called travellers' tales; as being curious but contemporary -tales brought from certain borderlands of experience; such -as miraculous cures or those that bring whispers of what has -happened to the dead. Many of them are probably true tales; -enough of them are probably true to keep a person of real -common sense more or less conscious that there really is -something rather marvellous behind the cosmic curtain. But -in a sense it is only going by appearances; even if the -appearances are called apparitions. It is a matter of -appearances---and disappearances. At the most these gods are -ghosts; that is, they are glimpses. For most of us they are -rather gossip about glimpses. And for the rest, the whole -world is full of rumours, most of which are almost avowedly -romances. The great majority of the tales about gods and -ghosts and the invisible king are told, if not for the sake -of the tale, at least for the sake of the topic. They are -evidence of the eternal interest of the theme; they are not -evidence of anything else, and they are not meant to be. -They are mythology, or the poetry that is not bound in -books---or bound in any other way. - -Meanwhile the minority, the sages or thinkers, had withdrawn -apart and had taken up an equally congenial trade. They were -drawing up plans of the world; of the world which all -believed to have a plan. They were trying to set forth the -plan seriously and to scale. They were setting their minds -directly to the mind that had made the mysterious world; -considering what sort of a mind it mig ht be and what its -ultimate purpose might be. Some of them made that mind, much -more impersonal than mankind has generally made it; some -simplified it almost to a blank; a few, a very few, doubted -it altogether. One or two of the more morbid fancied that it -might be evil and an enemy; just one or two of the more -degraded in the other class worshipped demons instead of -gods. But most of these theorists were theists; and they not -only saw a moral plan in nature, but they generally laid -down a moral plan for humanity. Most of them were good men -who did good work; and they were remembered and reverenced -in various ways. They were scribes; and their scriptures -became more or less holy scriptures. They were lawgivers; -and their tradition became not only legal but ceremonial. We -may say that they received divine honours, in the sense in -which kings and great captains in certain countries often -received divine honours. In a word, wherever the other -popular spirit, the spirit of legend and gossip, could come -into play, it surrounded them with the more mystical -atmosphere of the myths. Popular poetry turned the sages -into saints. But that was all it did. They remained -themselves; men never really forgot that they were men, only -made into gods in the sense that they were made into heroes. -Divine Plato, like Divus Caesar, was a title and not a -dogma. In Asia, where the atmosphere was more mythological, -the man was made to look more like a myth, but he remained a -man. He remained a man of a certain special class or school -of men, receiving and deserving great honour from mankind. -It is the order or school of the philosophers; the men who -have set themselves seriously to trace the order across any -apparent chaos in the vision of life. Instead of living on -imaginative rumours and remote traditions and the tail-end -of exceptional experiences about the mind and meaning behind -the world, they have tried in a sense to project the primary -purpose of that mind a 'priori . They have tried to put on -paper a possible plan of the world; almost as if the world -were not yet made. - -Right in the middle of all these things stands up an -enormous exception. It is quite unlike anything else. It is -a thing final like the trump of doom, though it is also a -piece of good news; or news that seems too good to be true. -It is nothing less than the loud assertion that this -mysterious maker of the world has visited his world in -person. It declares that really and even recently, or right -in the middle of historic times, there did walk into the -world this original invisible being; about whom the thinkers -make theories and the mythologists hand down myths; the Man -Who Made the World. That such a higher personality exists -behind all things had indeed always been implied by all the -best thinkers, as well as by all the most beautiful legends. -But nothing of this sort had ever been implied in any of -them. It is simply false to say that the other sages and -heroes had claimed to be that mysterious master and maker, -of whom the world had dreamed and disputed. Not one of them -had ever claimed to be anything of the sort. Not one of -their sects or schools had ever claimed that they had -claimed to be anything of the sort. The most that any -religious prophet had said was that he was the true servant -of such a being. The most that any visionary had ever said -was that men might catch glimpses of the glory of that -spiritual being; or much more often of lesser spiritual -beings. The most that any primitive myth had ever suggested -was that the Creator was present at the Creation. But that -the Creator was present at scenes a little subsequent to the -supper-parties of Horace, and talked with tax-collectors and -government officials in the detailed daily life of the Roman -Empire, and that this fact continued to be firmly asserted -by the whole of that great civilisation for more than a -thousand years---that is something utterly unlike anything -else in nature. It is the one great startling statement that -man has made since he spoke his first articulate word, -instead of barking like a dog. Its unique character can be -used as an argument against it as well as for it. It would -be easy to concentrate on it as a case of isolated insanity; -but it makes nothing but dust and nonsense of comparative -religion. - -It came on the world with a wind and rush of running -messengers proclaiming that apocalyptic portent; and it is -not unduly fanciful to say they are running still. What -puzzles the world, and its wise philosophers and fanciful -pagan poets, about the priests and people of the Catholic -Church, is that they still behave as if they were -messengers. A messenger does not dream about what his -message might be, or argue about what it probably would be; -he delivers it as it is. It is not a theory or a fancy but a -fact. It is not relevant to this intentionally rudimentary -outline to prove in detail that it is a fact; but merely to -point out that these messengers do deal with it as men deal -with a fact. All that is condemned in Catholic tradition, -authority, and dogmatism and the refusal to retract and -modify, are but the natural human attributes of a man with a -message relating to a fact. I desire to avoid in this last -summary all the controversial complexities that may once -more cloud the simple lines of that strange story; which I -have already called, in words that are much too weak, the -strangest story in the world. I desire merely to mark those -main lines and specially to mark where the great line is -really to be drawn. The religion of the world, in its right -proportions, is not divided into fine shades of mysticism or -more or less rational forms of mythology. It is divided by -the line between the men who are bringing that message and +The majority, like the minority, had this strong sense of a second +meaning in things; of a strange master who knew the secret of the world. +But the majority, the mob or mass of men, naturally tended to treat it +rather in the spirit of gossip. The gossip, like all gossip, contained a +great deal of truth and falsehood. The world began to tell itself tales +about the unknown being or his sons or servants or messengers. Some of +the tales may truly be called old wives' tales; as professing only to be +very remote memories of the morning of the world; myths about the baby +moon or the half-baked mountains. Some of them might more truly be +called travellers' tales; as being curious but contemporary tales +brought from certain borderlands of experience; such as miraculous cures +or those that bring whispers of what has happened to the dead. Many of +them are probably true tales; enough of them are probably true to keep a +person of real common sense more or less conscious that there really is +something rather marvellous behind the cosmic curtain. But in a sense it +is only going by appearances; even if the appearances are called +apparitions. It is a matter of appearances---and disappearances. At the +most these gods are ghosts; that is, they are glimpses. For most of us +they are rather gossip about glimpses. And for the rest, the whole world +is full of rumours, most of which are almost avowedly romances. The +great majority of the tales about gods and ghosts and the invisible king +are told, if not for the sake of the tale, at least for the sake of the +topic. They are evidence of the eternal interest of the theme; they are +not evidence of anything else, and they are not meant to be. They are +mythology, or the poetry that is not bound in books---or bound in any +other way. + +Meanwhile the minority, the sages or thinkers, had withdrawn apart and +had taken up an equally congenial trade. They were drawing up plans of +the world; of the world which all believed to have a plan. They were +trying to set forth the plan seriously and to scale. They were setting +their minds directly to the mind that had made the mysterious world; +considering what sort of a mind it mig ht be and what its ultimate +purpose might be. Some of them made that mind, much more impersonal than +mankind has generally made it; some simplified it almost to a blank; a +few, a very few, doubted it altogether. One or two of the more morbid +fancied that it might be evil and an enemy; just one or two of the more +degraded in the other class worshipped demons instead of gods. But most +of these theorists were theists; and they not only saw a moral plan in +nature, but they generally laid down a moral plan for humanity. Most of +them were good men who did good work; and they were remembered and +reverenced in various ways. They were scribes; and their scriptures +became more or less holy scriptures. They were lawgivers; and their +tradition became not only legal but ceremonial. We may say that they +received divine honours, in the sense in which kings and great captains +in certain countries often received divine honours. In a word, wherever +the other popular spirit, the spirit of legend and gossip, could come +into play, it surrounded them with the more mystical atmosphere of the +myths. Popular poetry turned the sages into saints. But that was all it +did. They remained themselves; men never really forgot that they were +men, only made into gods in the sense that they were made into heroes. +Divine Plato, like Divus Caesar, was a title and not a dogma. In Asia, +where the atmosphere was more mythological, the man was made to look +more like a myth, but he remained a man. He remained a man of a certain +special class or school of men, receiving and deserving great honour +from mankind. It is the order or school of the philosophers; the men who +have set themselves seriously to trace the order across any apparent +chaos in the vision of life. Instead of living on imaginative rumours +and remote traditions and the tail-end of exceptional experiences about +the mind and meaning behind the world, they have tried in a sense to +project the primary purpose of that mind a 'priori . They have tried to +put on paper a possible plan of the world; almost as if the world were +not yet made. + +Right in the middle of all these things stands up an enormous exception. +It is quite unlike anything else. It is a thing final like the trump of +doom, though it is also a piece of good news; or news that seems too +good to be true. It is nothing less than the loud assertion that this +mysterious maker of the world has visited his world in person. It +declares that really and even recently, or right in the middle of +historic times, there did walk into the world this original invisible +being; about whom the thinkers make theories and the mythologists hand +down myths; the Man Who Made the World. That such a higher personality +exists behind all things had indeed always been implied by all the best +thinkers, as well as by all the most beautiful legends. But nothing of +this sort had ever been implied in any of them. It is simply false to +say that the other sages and heroes had claimed to be that mysterious +master and maker, of whom the world had dreamed and disputed. Not one of +them had ever claimed to be anything of the sort. Not one of their sects +or schools had ever claimed that they had claimed to be anything of the +sort. The most that any religious prophet had said was that he was the +true servant of such a being. The most that any visionary had ever said +was that men might catch glimpses of the glory of that spiritual being; +or much more often of lesser spiritual beings. The most that any +primitive myth had ever suggested was that the Creator was present at +the Creation. But that the Creator was present at scenes a little +subsequent to the supper-parties of Horace, and talked with +tax-collectors and government officials in the detailed daily life of +the Roman Empire, and that this fact continued to be firmly asserted by +the whole of that great civilisation for more than a thousand +years---that is something utterly unlike anything else in nature. It is +the one great startling statement that man has made since he spoke his +first articulate word, instead of barking like a dog. Its unique +character can be used as an argument against it as well as for it. It +would be easy to concentrate on it as a case of isolated insanity; but +it makes nothing but dust and nonsense of comparative religion. + +It came on the world with a wind and rush of running messengers +proclaiming that apocalyptic portent; and it is not unduly fanciful to +say they are running still. What puzzles the world, and its wise +philosophers and fanciful pagan poets, about the priests and people of +the Catholic Church, is that they still behave as if they were +messengers. A messenger does not dream about what his message might be, +or argue about what it probably would be; he delivers it as it is. It is +not a theory or a fancy but a fact. It is not relevant to this +intentionally rudimentary outline to prove in detail that it is a fact; +but merely to point out that these messengers do deal with it as men +deal with a fact. All that is condemned in Catholic tradition, +authority, and dogmatism and the refusal to retract and modify, are but +the natural human attributes of a man with a message relating to a fact. +I desire to avoid in this last summary all the controversial +complexities that may once more cloud the simple lines of that strange +story; which I have already called, in words that are much too weak, the +strangest story in the world. I desire merely to mark those main lines +and specially to mark where the great line is really to be drawn. The +religion of the world, in its right proportions, is not divided into +fine shades of mysticism or more or less rational forms of mythology. It +is divided by the line between the men who are bringing that message and the men who have not yet heard it, or cannot yet believe it. -But when we translate the terms of that strange tale back -into the more concrete and complicated terminology of our -time, we find it covered by names and memories of which the -very familiarity is a falsification. For instance, when we -say that a country contains so many Moslems, we really mean -that it contains so many monotheists; and we really mean, by -that, that it contains so many men; men with the old average -assumption of men---that the invisible ruler remains -invisible. They hold it along with the customs of a certain -culture and under the simpler laws of a certain law-giver; -but so they would if their law-giver were Lycurgus or Solon. -They testify to something which is a necessary and noble -truth; but was never a new truth. Their creed is not a new -colour; it is the neutral and normal tint that is the -background of the many-coloured fife of man. Mahomet did -not, like the Magi, find a new star; he saw through his own -particular window a glimpse of the great grey field of the -ancient starlight. So when we say that the country contains -so many Confucians or Buddhists, we mean that it contains so -many Pagans whose prophets have given them another and -rathe, vaguer version of the invisible power; making it not -only invisible but almost impersonal. When we say that they -also have temples and idols and priests and periodical -festivals, we simply mean that this sort of heathen is -enough of a human being to admit the popular element of pomp -and pictures and feasts and fairy-tales. We only mean that -Pagans have more sense than Puritans. But what the gods are -supposed to be, what the priests are commissioned to say, is -not a sensational secret like what those running messengers -of the Gospel had to say. Nobody else except those -messengers has any Gospel; nobody else has any good news; -for the simple reason that nobody else has any news. - -Those runners gather impetus as they run. Ages afterwards -they still speak as if something had just happened. They -have not lost the speed and momentum of messengers; they -have hardly lost, as it were, the wild eyes of witnesses. In -the Catholic Church, which is the cohort of the message, -there are still those headlong acts of holiness that speak -of something rapid and recent; a self-sacrifice that -startles the world like a suicide. But it is not a suicide; -it is not pessimistic; it is still as optimistic as -St. Francis of the flowers and birds. It is newer in spirit -than the newest schools of thought; and it is almost -certainly on the eve of new triumphs. For these men serve a -mother who seems to grow more beautiful as new generations -rise up and call her blessed. We might sometimes fancy that -the Church grows younger as the world grows old. +But when we translate the terms of that strange tale back into the more +concrete and complicated terminology of our time, we find it covered by +names and memories of which the very familiarity is a falsification. For +instance, when we say that a country contains so many Moslems, we really +mean that it contains so many monotheists; and we really mean, by that, +that it contains so many men; men with the old average assumption of +men---that the invisible ruler remains invisible. They hold it along +with the customs of a certain culture and under the simpler laws of a +certain law-giver; but so they would if their law-giver were Lycurgus or +Solon. They testify to something which is a necessary and noble truth; +but was never a new truth. Their creed is not a new colour; it is the +neutral and normal tint that is the background of the many-coloured fife +of man. Mahomet did not, like the Magi, find a new star; he saw through +his own particular window a glimpse of the great grey field of the +ancient starlight. So when we say that the country contains so many +Confucians or Buddhists, we mean that it contains so many Pagans whose +prophets have given them another and rathe, vaguer version of the +invisible power; making it not only invisible but almost impersonal. +When we say that they also have temples and idols and priests and +periodical festivals, we simply mean that this sort of heathen is enough +of a human being to admit the popular element of pomp and pictures and +feasts and fairy-tales. We only mean that Pagans have more sense than +Puritans. But what the gods are supposed to be, what the priests are +commissioned to say, is not a sensational secret like what those running +messengers of the Gospel had to say. Nobody else except those messengers +has any Gospel; nobody else has any good news; for the simple reason +that nobody else has any news. + +Those runners gather impetus as they run. Ages afterwards they still +speak as if something had just happened. They have not lost the speed +and momentum of messengers; they have hardly lost, as it were, the wild +eyes of witnesses. In the Catholic Church, which is the cohort of the +message, there are still those headlong acts of holiness that speak of +something rapid and recent; a self-sacrifice that startles the world +like a suicide. But it is not a suicide; it is not pessimistic; it is +still as optimistic as St. Francis of the flowers and birds. It is newer +in spirit than the newest schools of thought; and it is almost certainly +on the eve of new triumphs. For these men serve a mother who seems to +grow more beautiful as new generations rise up and call her blessed. We +might sometimes fancy that the Church grows younger as the world grows +old. For this is the last proof of the miracle: that something so -supernatural should have become so natural. I mean that -anything so unique when seen from the outside should only -seem universal when seen from the inside. I have not -minimised the scale of the miracle, as some of our milder -theologians think it wise to do. Rather have I deliberately -dwelt on that incredible interruption, as a blow that broke +supernatural should have become so natural. I mean that anything so +unique when seen from the outside should only seem universal when seen +from the inside. I have not minimised the scale of the miracle, as some +of our milder theologians think it wise to do. Rather have I +deliberately dwelt on that incredible interruption, as a blow that broke the very backbone of history. I have great sympathy with the -monotheists, the Moslems, or the Jews, to whom it seems a -blasphemy; a blasphemy that might shake the world. But it -did not shake the world; it steadied the world. That fact, -the more we consider it, will seem more solid and more -strange. I think it a piece of plain justice to all the -unbelievers to insist upon the audacity of the act of faith -that is demanded of them. I willingly and warmly agree that -it is, in itself, a suggestion at which we might expect even -the brain of the believer to reel, when he realised his own -belief. But the brain of the believer does not reel; it is -the brains of the unbelievers that reel. We can see their -brains reeling on every side and into every extravagance of -ethics and psychology; into pessimism and the denial of -life; into pragmatism and the denial of logic; seeking their -omens in nightmares and their canons in contradictions; -shrieking for fear at the far-off sight of things beyond -good and evil, or whispering of strange stars where two and -two make five. Meanwhile this solitary thing that seems at -first so outrageous in outline remains solid and sane in -substance. It remains the moderator of all these manias; -rescuing reason from the Pragmatists exactly as it rescued -laughter from the Puritans. I repeat that I have -deliberately emphasised its intrinsically defiant and -dogmatic character. The mystery is how anything so startling -should have remained defiant and dogmatic and yet become -perfectly normal and natural. I have admitted freely that, -considering the incident in itself, a man who says he is God -may be classed with a man who says he is glass. But the\* -man who says he is glass is not a glazier making windows for -all the world. He does not remain for after ages as a -shining and crystalline figure, iii whose light everything -is as clear as crystal. - -But this madness has remained sane. The madness has remained -sane when everything else went mad. The madhouse has been a -house to which, age after age, men are continually coming -back as to a home. That is the riddle that remains; that -anything so abrupt and abnormal should still be found a -habitable and hospitable thing. I care not if the sceptic -says it is a tall story; I cannot see how so toppling a -tower could stand so long without foundation. Still less can -I see how it could become, as it has become, the home of -man. Had it merely appeared and disappeared it might -possibly have been remembered or explained as the last leap -of the rage of illusion, the ultimate myth of the ultimate -mood, in which the mind struck the sky and broke. But the -mind did not break. It is the one mind that remains unbroken -in the break-up of the world. If it were an error, it seems -as if the error could hardly have lasted a day. If it were a -mere ecstasy, it would seem that such an ecstasy could not -endure for an hour. It has endured for nearly two thousand -years; and the world within it has been more lucid, more -level-headed, more reasonable in its hopes, more healthy in -its instincts, more humorous and cheerful in the face of -fate and death, than all the world outside. For it was the -soul of Christendom that came forth from the incredible -Christ; and the soul of it was common sense. Though we dared -not look on His face we could look on His fruits; and by His -fruits we should know Him. The fruits are solid and the -fruitfulness is much more than a metaphor; and nowhere in -this sad world are boys happier in apple-trees, or men in -more equal chorus singing as they tread the vine, than under -the fixed flash of this instant and intolerant -enlightenment; the lightning made eternal as the light. +monotheists, the Moslems, or the Jews, to whom it seems a blasphemy; a +blasphemy that might shake the world. But it did not shake the world; it +steadied the world. That fact, the more we consider it, will seem more +solid and more strange. I think it a piece of plain justice to all the +unbelievers to insist upon the audacity of the act of faith that is +demanded of them. I willingly and warmly agree that it is, in itself, a +suggestion at which we might expect even the brain of the believer to +reel, when he realised his own belief. But the brain of the believer +does not reel; it is the brains of the unbelievers that reel. We can see +their brains reeling on every side and into every extravagance of ethics +and psychology; into pessimism and the denial of life; into pragmatism +and the denial of logic; seeking their omens in nightmares and their +canons in contradictions; shrieking for fear at the far-off sight of +things beyond good and evil, or whispering of strange stars where two +and two make five. Meanwhile this solitary thing that seems at first so +outrageous in outline remains solid and sane in substance. It remains +the moderator of all these manias; rescuing reason from the Pragmatists +exactly as it rescued laughter from the Puritans. I repeat that I have +deliberately emphasised its intrinsically defiant and dogmatic +character. The mystery is how anything so startling should have remained +defiant and dogmatic and yet become perfectly normal and natural. I have +admitted freely that, considering the incident in itself, a man who says +he is God may be classed with a man who says he is glass. But the\* man +who says he is glass is not a glazier making windows for all the world. +He does not remain for after ages as a shining and crystalline figure, +iii whose light everything is as clear as crystal. + +But this madness has remained sane. The madness has remained sane when +everything else went mad. The madhouse has been a house to which, age +after age, men are continually coming back as to a home. That is the +riddle that remains; that anything so abrupt and abnormal should still +be found a habitable and hospitable thing. I care not if the sceptic +says it is a tall story; I cannot see how so toppling a tower could +stand so long without foundation. Still less can I see how it could +become, as it has become, the home of man. Had it merely appeared and +disappeared it might possibly have been remembered or explained as the +last leap of the rage of illusion, the ultimate myth of the ultimate +mood, in which the mind struck the sky and broke. But the mind did not +break. It is the one mind that remains unbroken in the break-up of the +world. If it were an error, it seems as if the error could hardly have +lasted a day. If it were a mere ecstasy, it would seem that such an +ecstasy could not endure for an hour. It has endured for nearly two +thousand years; and the world within it has been more lucid, more +level-headed, more reasonable in its hopes, more healthy in its +instincts, more humorous and cheerful in the face of fate and death, +than all the world outside. For it was the soul of Christendom that came +forth from the incredible Christ; and the soul of it was common sense. +Though we dared not look on His face we could look on His fruits; and by +His fruits we should know Him. The fruits are solid and the fruitfulness +is much more than a metaphor; and nowhere in this sad world are boys +happier in apple-trees, or men in more equal chorus singing as they +tread the vine, than under the fixed flash of this instant and +intolerant enlightenment; the lightning made eternal as the light. ## Appendix I: On Prehistoric Man -In a sense it would be better if history were more -superficial. What is wanted is a reminder of the things that -are seen so quickly that they are forgotten almost as -quickly. The one moral of this book, in a manner of -speaking, is that first thoughts are best. So a flash might -reveal a landscape, with the Eiffel Tower or the Matterhorn -standing up in it as they would never stand up again in the -light of common day. I ended the book with an image of -everlasting lightning; in a very different sense, alas, this -little flash has lasted only too long. But the method has -also certain practical disadvantages upon which I think it -well to add these two notes. It may seem to simplify too -much and to ignore out of ignorance. I feel this especially -in the passage about the prehistoric pictures; which is not -concerned with all that the learned may learn from -prehistoric pictures, but with the single point of what -anybody could learn from there being any prehistoric -pictures at all. I am conscious that this attempt to express -it in terms of innocence may exaggerate even my own -ignorance. Without any pretence of scientific research, I -should be sorry to have it thought that I knew no mere than -I had occasion to say in that passage of the stages into -which primitive humanity has been divided. I am aware, of -course, that the story is elaborately stratified; and that -there were many such stages before the Cro-Magnan or any -peoples with whom we associate such pictures. Indeed recent -studies about the Neanderthal and other races rather tend to -repeat the moral that is here most relevant. The notion, -noted in these pages, of something necessarily slow or late -in the development of religion will gain little indeed from -these later revelations about the precursors of the reindeer -picture-maker. The learned appear to hold that, whether the -reindeer picture could be religious or not, the people that -lived before it were religious already. Men were already -burying their dead with the care that is the significant -sign of mystery and hope. This obviously brings us back to -the same argument; an argument that is not approached by any -measurement of the earlier man's skull. It is little use to -compare the head of the man with the head of the monkey, if -it certainly has never come into the head of the monkey to -bury another monkey with nuts in his grave to help him -towards a heavenly monkey-house. Talking of skulls, we all -know the story of the finding of a Cro-Magnan skull that is -much larger and finer than a modern skull. It is a very -funny story; because an eminent evolutionist, awakening to a -somewhat belated caution, protested against anything being -inferred from one specimen. It is the duty of a solitary -skull to prove that our fathers were our inferiors. Any -solitary skull presuming to prove that they were superior is -felt to be suffering from swelled head. +In a sense it would be better if history were more superficial. What is +wanted is a reminder of the things that are seen so quickly that they +are forgotten almost as quickly. The one moral of this book, in a manner +of speaking, is that first thoughts are best. So a flash might reveal a +landscape, with the Eiffel Tower or the Matterhorn standing up in it as +they would never stand up again in the light of common day. I ended the +book with an image of everlasting lightning; in a very different sense, +alas, this little flash has lasted only too long. But the method has +also certain practical disadvantages upon which I think it well to add +these two notes. It may seem to simplify too much and to ignore out of +ignorance. I feel this especially in the passage about the prehistoric +pictures; which is not concerned with all that the learned may learn +from prehistoric pictures, but with the single point of what anybody +could learn from there being any prehistoric pictures at all. I am +conscious that this attempt to express it in terms of innocence may +exaggerate even my own ignorance. Without any pretence of scientific +research, I should be sorry to have it thought that I knew no mere than +I had occasion to say in that passage of the stages into which primitive +humanity has been divided. I am aware, of course, that the story is +elaborately stratified; and that there were many such stages before the +Cro-Magnan or any peoples with whom we associate such pictures. Indeed +recent studies about the Neanderthal and other races rather tend to +repeat the moral that is here most relevant. The notion, noted in these +pages, of something necessarily slow or late in the development of +religion will gain little indeed from these later revelations about the +precursors of the reindeer picture-maker. The learned appear to hold +that, whether the reindeer picture could be religious or not, the people +that lived before it were religious already. Men were already burying +their dead with the care that is the significant sign of mystery and +hope. This obviously brings us back to the same argument; an argument +that is not approached by any measurement of the earlier man's skull. It +is little use to compare the head of the man with the head of the +monkey, if it certainly has never come into the head of the monkey to +bury another monkey with nuts in his grave to help him towards a +heavenly monkey-house. Talking of skulls, we all know the story of the +finding of a Cro-Magnan skull that is much larger and finer than a +modern skull. It is a very funny story; because an eminent evolutionist, +awakening to a somewhat belated caution, protested against anything +being inferred from one specimen. It is the duty of a solitary skull to +prove that our fathers were our inferiors. Any solitary skull presuming +to prove that they were superior is felt to be suffering from swelled +head. ## Appendix II: On Authority and Accuracy -In this book, which is merely meant as a popular criticism -of popular fallacies, often indeed of very vulgar errors, I -feel that I have sometimes given an impression of scoffing -at serious scientific work. It was, however, the very -reverse of my intention. I am not arguing with the scientist -who explains the elephant, but only with the sophist who -explains it away. And as a matter of fact the sophist plays -to the gallery, as he did in ancient Greece. He appeals to -the ignorant, especially when he appeals to the learned. But -I never meant my own criticism to be an impertinence to the -truly learned. We all owe an infinite debt to the -researches, especially the recent researches, of -single-minded students in these matters; and I have only -professed to pick up things here and there from them. I have -not loaded my abstract argument with quotations and -references, which only make a man look more learned than he -is; but in some cases I find that my own loose fashion of -allusion is rather misleading about my own meaning. The -passage about Chaucer and the Child Martyr is badly -expressed; I only mean that the English poet probably had in -mind the English saint; of whose story he gives a sort of -foreign version. In the same way two statements in the -chapter on Mythology follow each other in such a way that it -may seem to be suggested that the second story about -Monotheism refers to the Southern Seas. I may explain that -Atahocan belongs not to Australasian but to American -savages. So in the chapter called "The Antiquity of -Civilisation," which I feel to v be the most unsatisfactory, -I have given my own impression of the meaning of the -development of Egyptian monarchy too much, perhaps, as if it -were identical with the facts on which it was founded, as -given in works like those of Professor J. L Myres. - -But the confusion was not intentional; still less was there -any intention to imply, in the remainder of the chapter, -that the anthropological speculations about races are less -valuable than they undoubtedly are. My criticism is strictly -relative; I may say that the Pyramids are plainer than the -tracks of the desert, without denying that wiser men than I -may see tracks in what is to me the trackless sand. +In this book, which is merely meant as a popular criticism of popular +fallacies, often indeed of very vulgar errors, I feel that I have +sometimes given an impression of scoffing at serious scientific work. It +was, however, the very reverse of my intention. I am not arguing with +the scientist who explains the elephant, but only with the sophist who +explains it away. And as a matter of fact the sophist plays to the +gallery, as he did in ancient Greece. He appeals to the ignorant, +especially when he appeals to the learned. But I never meant my own +criticism to be an impertinence to the truly learned. We all owe an +infinite debt to the researches, especially the recent researches, of +single-minded students in these matters; and I have only professed to +pick up things here and there from them. I have not loaded my abstract +argument with quotations and references, which only make a man look more +learned than he is; but in some cases I find that my own loose fashion +of allusion is rather misleading about my own meaning. The passage about +Chaucer and the Child Martyr is badly expressed; I only mean that the +English poet probably had in mind the English saint; of whose story he +gives a sort of foreign version. In the same way two statements in the +chapter on Mythology follow each other in such a way that it may seem to +be suggested that the second story about Monotheism refers to the +Southern Seas. I may explain that Atahocan belongs not to Australasian +but to American savages. So in the chapter called "The Antiquity of +Civilisation," which I feel to v be the most unsatisfactory, I have +given my own impression of the meaning of the development of Egyptian +monarchy too much, perhaps, as if it were identical with the facts on +which it was founded, as given in works like those of Professor J. L +Myres. + +But the confusion was not intentional; still less was there any +intention to imply, in the remainder of the chapter, that the +anthropological speculations about races are less valuable than they +undoubtedly are. My criticism is strictly relative; I may say that the +Pyramids are plainer than the tracks of the desert, without denying that +wiser men than I may see tracks in what is to me the trackless sand. diff --git a/src/flight-from-city.md b/src/flight-from-city.md index e699d59..6e0613c 100644 --- a/src/flight-from-city.md +++ b/src/flight-from-city.md @@ -1,25 +1,22 @@ # Prelude -THIS book is written in response to hundreds of requests for -some detailed description of the way of life and of the -experiments with domestic production referred to in my -previous book, *This Ugly Civilization*. Since the collapse -of the great boom in October, 1929, these requests have -greatly increased in number. - -It is not an exaggeration of the situation today to say that -millions of urban families are considering the possibility -of flight from the city to the country. But the realization -that there had been for fully half a century a flight of -millions from the country to the city seems to me an -essential prelude to consideration of any move back to the -land. Not only had the *proportion* of farm population to -city population in the United States declined over a long -period of years, but for many years prior to 1930, the -*total farm population* of the nation itself declined. Since -1930, and the ending of the last period of city -"prosperity," the movement has completely reversed itself, -as is shown by the table on the following page. +THIS book is written in response to hundreds of requests for some +detailed description of the way of life and of the experiments with +domestic production referred to in my previous book, *This Ugly +Civilization*. Since the collapse of the great boom in October, 1929, +these requests have greatly increased in number. + +It is not an exaggeration of the situation today to say that millions of +urban families are considering the possibility of flight from the city +to the country. But the realization that there had been for fully half a +century a flight of millions from the country to the city seems to me an +essential prelude to consideration of any move back to the land. Not +only had the *proportion* of farm population to city population in the +United States declined over a long period of years, but for many years +prior to 1930, the *total farm population* of the nation itself +declined. Since 1930, and the ending of the last period of city +"prosperity," the movement has completely reversed itself, as is shown +by the table on the following page. ------------------------------------------------------------ During year Total farm Persons Persons Net @@ -59,1688 +56,1439 @@ as is shown by the table on the following page. 1933 32,242,000 --- --- --- ------------------------------------------------------------ -**Note:** Births and deaths not taken into account in -estimates of the movement. - -This migration of millions, back and forth, between city and -country, is to me evidence of profound dissatisfaction with -living conditions both in the country and in the city. It is -something which those considering a change in their ways of -living should carefully ponder. The industrialization of -agriculture during the past century---its transformation -from a way of life to a commercial business---has very -clearly increased the migration of farmers and farm-bred -people from the country to the city. And since most of the -migrants in the other direction---from the city to the -country---actually consist of people who at one time had -lived on farms, it is evident that what we have had for many -years are intolerable conditions in the country driving -people out of the country, and then intolerable conditions -in the city, driving them back again. - -The question to which I have been seeking an answer is -whether the way of life described in this book is a way out -for a population evidently unhappy both in the city and in -the country. Those who are interested in this question, and -those who are considering such a way of living, may find in -this volume an answer to many of the problems which perplex -them in connection with it. Those who are interested in the -broader implications of the Borsodi family's quest of -comfort in a civilization evidently intolerably -uncomfortable will find them fully discussed in *This Ugly -Civilization*. - -We are living in one of the most interesting periods in the -world's history. Industrial civilization is either on the -verge of collapse or of rebirth on a new social basis. Men -and women who desire to escape from dependence upon the -present industrial system and who have no desire to -substitute for it dependence upon a state controlled system, -are beginning to experiment with a way of living which is -neither city life nor farm life, but which is an effort to -combine the advantages and to escape the disadvantages of -both. Reports of the Department of Agriculture call -attention to the revival of handicraft industries---the -making of rugs and other textiles, furniture, baskets and -pottery---for sale along the roads, in near-by farmers' -markets, or for barter for other products for the farm and -home. Farmers, according to the Bureau of Home Economics, -are turning back to custom milling of flour because they can -thus get a barrel of flour for five bushels of wheat, -whereas by depending upon the milling industry they have to -"pay" eighteen bushels of wheat for the same quantity of -flour. - -According to the same authority, meat clubs have been -growing in number; a heavier canning and preserving program -is being carried out; bread-baking, churning, cheese-making -and other home food-production activities have been revived; -home sewing has increased greatly, and on some farms where -sheep are raised, skills and equipment little used for many -years are being called upon to convert home-grown wool into -clothing and bed coverings; soap-making for family use has -increased; farm-produced fuel is being used more freely; -lumber made from the farm wood-lot is being used for repairs -to the house and for furniture-making. The movement toward -subsistence farming is receiving extraordinary official -recognition and support. President Roosevelt flatly and -frankly announces as a major policy of his administration -and as a primary purpose of his life to *put into effect a -back-to-the-land movement that will work*. "There is a -necessary limit," he said early in 1930, "to the continuance -of the migration from the country to the city, and I look, -in fact, for a swing of the pendulum in the other direction. -All things point that way... The great objective... aims at -making country life in every way as desirable as city -life---an objective which will, from the economic side, make -possible the earning of an adequate compensation, and on the -social side, the enjoyment of all the necessary advantages -which exist today in the cities." Under the President's -leadership, appropriations by the Congress for the promotion -of subsistence farming and for the development of self-help -organizations have already been made. - -In Dayton, Ohio, for nearly a year, a sociological -experiment of far-reaching significance has been under way. -In this industrial city, the support of the Council of -Social Agencies has been given to an organized movement -based upon production for use (as contrasted with production -for the market), and for homesteading with domestic -production, as described in this book. As consulting -economist for the Dayton movement, it has been my privilege -to watch a development which promises, because of the -interest other cities are taking in it, to make social -history. The recent development of the homestead movement in -Dayton is described in the chapter entitled "Postlude," a -sort of postscript to this book. Even if this movement fails -to develop a new and better social order, as many of those -working in it have faith that it will, there is no doubt in -my mind that innumerable families will be helped by it to a -more secure, more independent, more expressive way of life. +**Note:** Births and deaths not taken into account in estimates of the +movement. + +This migration of millions, back and forth, between city and country, is +to me evidence of profound dissatisfaction with living conditions both +in the country and in the city. It is something which those considering +a change in their ways of living should carefully ponder. The +industrialization of agriculture during the past century---its +transformation from a way of life to a commercial business---has very +clearly increased the migration of farmers and farm-bred people from the +country to the city. And since most of the migrants in the other +direction---from the city to the country---actually consist of people +who at one time had lived on farms, it is evident that what we have had +for many years are intolerable conditions in the country driving people +out of the country, and then intolerable conditions in the city, driving +them back again. + +The question to which I have been seeking an answer is whether the way +of life described in this book is a way out for a population evidently +unhappy both in the city and in the country. Those who are interested in +this question, and those who are considering such a way of living, may +find in this volume an answer to many of the problems which perplex them +in connection with it. Those who are interested in the broader +implications of the Borsodi family's quest of comfort in a civilization +evidently intolerably uncomfortable will find them fully discussed in +*This Ugly Civilization*. + +We are living in one of the most interesting periods in the world's +history. Industrial civilization is either on the verge of collapse or +of rebirth on a new social basis. Men and women who desire to escape +from dependence upon the present industrial system and who have no +desire to substitute for it dependence upon a state controlled system, +are beginning to experiment with a way of living which is neither city +life nor farm life, but which is an effort to combine the advantages and +to escape the disadvantages of both. Reports of the Department of +Agriculture call attention to the revival of handicraft industries---the +making of rugs and other textiles, furniture, baskets and pottery---for +sale along the roads, in near-by farmers' markets, or for barter for +other products for the farm and home. Farmers, according to the Bureau +of Home Economics, are turning back to custom milling of flour because +they can thus get a barrel of flour for five bushels of wheat, whereas +by depending upon the milling industry they have to "pay" eighteen +bushels of wheat for the same quantity of flour. + +According to the same authority, meat clubs have been growing in number; +a heavier canning and preserving program is being carried out; +bread-baking, churning, cheese-making and other home food-production +activities have been revived; home sewing has increased greatly, and on +some farms where sheep are raised, skills and equipment little used for +many years are being called upon to convert home-grown wool into +clothing and bed coverings; soap-making for family use has increased; +farm-produced fuel is being used more freely; lumber made from the farm +wood-lot is being used for repairs to the house and for +furniture-making. The movement toward subsistence farming is receiving +extraordinary official recognition and support. President Roosevelt +flatly and frankly announces as a major policy of his administration and +as a primary purpose of his life to *put into effect a back-to-the-land +movement that will work*. "There is a necessary limit," he said early in +1930, "to the continuance of the migration from the country to the city, +and I look, in fact, for a swing of the pendulum in the other direction. +All things point that way... The great objective... aims at making +country life in every way as desirable as city life---an objective which +will, from the economic side, make possible the earning of an adequate +compensation, and on the social side, the enjoyment of all the necessary +advantages which exist today in the cities." Under the President's +leadership, appropriations by the Congress for the promotion of +subsistence farming and for the development of self-help organizations +have already been made. + +In Dayton, Ohio, for nearly a year, a sociological experiment of +far-reaching significance has been under way. In this industrial city, +the support of the Council of Social Agencies has been given to an +organized movement based upon production for use (as contrasted with +production for the market), and for homesteading with domestic +production, as described in this book. As consulting economist for the +Dayton movement, it has been my privilege to watch a development which +promises, because of the interest other cities are taking in it, to make +social history. The recent development of the homestead movement in +Dayton is described in the chapter entitled "Postlude," a sort of +postscript to this book. Even if this movement fails to develop a new +and better social order, as many of those working in it have faith that +it will, there is no doubt in my mind that innumerable families will be +helped by it to a more secure, more independent, more expressive way of +life. **Ralph Borsodi.** # Flight From the City In 1920 the Borsodi family---my wife, my two small sons, and -myself---lived in a *rented* home. We *bought* our food and -clothing and furnishings from retail stores. We were -*dependent* entirely upon my income from a none too certain -white-collar job. - -We lived in New York City---the metropolis of the country. -We had the opportunity to enjoy the incredible variety of -foodstuffs which pour into that great city from every corner -of the continent; to live in the most luxurious apartments -built to house men and women in this country; to use the -speedy subways, the smart restaurants, the great office -buildings, the libraries, theaters, public schools---all the -thousand and one conveniences which make New York one of the -most fantastic creations in the history of man. Yet in the -truest sense, we could not enjoy any of them. - -How could we enjoy them when we were financially insecure -and never knew when we might be without a job; when we -lacked the zest of living which comes from real health and -suffered all the minor and sometimes major ailments which -come from too much excitement, too much artificial food, too -much sedentary work, and too much of the smoke and noise and -dust of the city; when we had to work just as hard to get to -the places in which we tried to entertain ourselves as we -had to get to the places in which we worked; when our lives -were barren of real beauty---the beauty which comes only -from contact with nature and from the growth of the soil, -from flowers and fruits, from gardens and trees, from birds -and animals? - -We couldn't. Even though we were able for years and years, -like so many others, to forget the fact---to ignore it amid -the host of distractions which make up city life. - -And then in 1920, the year of the great housing shortage, -the house in which we were living was sold over our heads. -New York in 1920 was no place for a houseless family. Rents, -owing to the shortage of building which dated back to the -World War, were outrageously high. Evictions were -epidemic---to enable rapacious landlords to secure higher -rents from new tenants---and most of the renters in the city -seemed to be in the courts trying to secure the protection -of the Emergency Rent Laws. We had the choice of looking for -an equally endurable home in the city, of reading endless -numbers of classified advertisements, of visiting countless -real estate agents, of walking weary miles and climbing -endless flights of steps, in an effort to rent another home, -or of flight from the city. And while we were trying to -prepare ourselves for the struggle with this typical city -problem, we were overcome with longing for the country---for -the security, the health, the leisure, the beauty we felt it -must be possible to achieve there. Thus we came to make the -experiment in living which we had often discussed but which -we had postponed time and again because it involved so -radical a change in our manner of life. - -Instead, therefore, of starting the irritating task of house -and apartment hunting, we wrote to real estate dealers -within commuting distance of the city. We asked them for a -house which could be readily remodelled; a location near the -railroad station because we had no automobile; five to ten -acres of land with fruit trees, garden space, pasturage, a -wood-lot, and if possible a brook; a location where -electricity was available, and last but not least, a low -purchase price. Even if the place we could afford only -barely complied with these specifications, we felt confident -that we could achieve economic freedom on it and a degree of -comfort we never enjoyed in the city. All the other -essentials of the good life, not even excepting schooling -for our two sons, we decided we could produce for ourselves -if we were unable to buy in a neighborhood which already -possessed them. - -We finally bought a place located about an hour and -three-quarters from the city. It included a small frame -house, one and a half stories high, containing not a single -modern improvement---there was no plumbing, no running -water, no gas, no electricity, no steam heat. There were an -old barn, and a chicken-house which was on the verge of -collapse, and a little over seven acres of land. There was a -little fruit in the orchard---some apples, cherries, and -plums, but of the apples at least there were plenty. An idea -of the modesty of the first Borsodi homestead can be secured -from the picture on page 64, though the picture shows it -after we had spent nearly two years repainting and -remodelling the tiny little building. Yet "Sevenacres," as -we called the place, was large enough for our initial -experiment. Four years later we were able to select a more -suitable site and begin the building of the sort of home we -really wanted. +myself---lived in a *rented* home. We *bought* our food and clothing and +furnishings from retail stores. We were *dependent* entirely upon my +income from a none too certain white-collar job. + +We lived in New York City---the metropolis of the country. We had the +opportunity to enjoy the incredible variety of foodstuffs which pour +into that great city from every corner of the continent; to live in the +most luxurious apartments built to house men and women in this country; +to use the speedy subways, the smart restaurants, the great office +buildings, the libraries, theaters, public schools---all the thousand +and one conveniences which make New York one of the most fantastic +creations in the history of man. Yet in the truest sense, we could not +enjoy any of them. + +How could we enjoy them when we were financially insecure and never knew +when we might be without a job; when we lacked the zest of living which +comes from real health and suffered all the minor and sometimes major +ailments which come from too much excitement, too much artificial food, +too much sedentary work, and too much of the smoke and noise and dust of +the city; when we had to work just as hard to get to the places in which +we tried to entertain ourselves as we had to get to the places in which +we worked; when our lives were barren of real beauty---the beauty which +comes only from contact with nature and from the growth of the soil, +from flowers and fruits, from gardens and trees, from birds and animals? + +We couldn't. Even though we were able for years and years, like so many +others, to forget the fact---to ignore it amid the host of distractions +which make up city life. + +And then in 1920, the year of the great housing shortage, the house in +which we were living was sold over our heads. New York in 1920 was no +place for a houseless family. Rents, owing to the shortage of building +which dated back to the World War, were outrageously high. Evictions +were epidemic---to enable rapacious landlords to secure higher rents +from new tenants---and most of the renters in the city seemed to be in +the courts trying to secure the protection of the Emergency Rent Laws. +We had the choice of looking for an equally endurable home in the city, +of reading endless numbers of classified advertisements, of visiting +countless real estate agents, of walking weary miles and climbing +endless flights of steps, in an effort to rent another home, or of +flight from the city. And while we were trying to prepare ourselves for +the struggle with this typical city problem, we were overcome with +longing for the country---for the security, the health, the leisure, the +beauty we felt it must be possible to achieve there. Thus we came to +make the experiment in living which we had often discussed but which we +had postponed time and again because it involved so radical a change in +our manner of life. + +Instead, therefore, of starting the irritating task of house and +apartment hunting, we wrote to real estate dealers within commuting +distance of the city. We asked them for a house which could be readily +remodelled; a location near the railroad station because we had no +automobile; five to ten acres of land with fruit trees, garden space, +pasturage, a wood-lot, and if possible a brook; a location where +electricity was available, and last but not least, a low purchase price. +Even if the place we could afford only barely complied with these +specifications, we felt confident that we could achieve economic freedom +on it and a degree of comfort we never enjoyed in the city. All the +other essentials of the good life, not even excepting schooling for our +two sons, we decided we could produce for ourselves if we were unable to +buy in a neighborhood which already possessed them. + +We finally bought a place located about an hour and three-quarters from +the city. It included a small frame house, one and a half stories high, +containing not a single modern improvement---there was no plumbing, no +running water, no gas, no electricity, no steam heat. There were an old +barn, and a chicken-house which was on the verge of collapse, and a +little over seven acres of land. There was a little fruit in the +orchard---some apples, cherries, and plums, but of the apples at least +there were plenty. An idea of the modesty of the first Borsodi homestead +can be secured from the picture on page 64, though the picture shows it +after we had spent nearly two years repainting and remodelling the tiny +little building. Yet "Sevenacres," as we called the place, was large +enough for our initial experiment. Four years later we were able to +select a more suitable site and begin the building of the sort of home +we really wanted. We began the experiment with three principal assets, -courage---foolhardiness, our city friends called it; a -vision of what modern methods and modern domestic machinery -might be made to do in the way of eliminating drudgery, and -the fact that my wife had been born and had lived up to her -twelfth year on a ranch in the West. She at least had had -childhood experience of life in the country. - -But we had plenty of liabilities. We had little capital and -only a modest salary. We knew nothing about raising -vegetables, fruit, and poultry. All these things we had to -learn. While I was a handy man, I had hardly ever had -occasion to use a hammer and saw (a man working in an office -rarely does), and yet if our experiment was to succeed it -required that I should make myself a master of all trades. -We cut ourselves off from the city comforts to which we had -become so accustomed, without the countryman's material and -spiritual compensations for them. - -We went to the country with nothing but our city furniture. -We began by adding to this wholly unsuitable equipment for -pioneering, an electric range. This was the first purchase -in the long list of domestic machines with which we proposed -to test our theory that it was possible to be more -comfortable in the country than in the city, with security, -independence, and freedom to do the work to which we aspired -thrown in for good measure. - -Discomforts were plentiful in the beginning. The hardships -of those early years are now fading into a romantic haze, -but they were real enough at the time. A family starting -with our handicaps had to expect them. But almost from the -beginning there were compensations for the discomforts. - -Before the end of the first year, the year of the depression -of 1921 when millions were tramping the streets of our -cities looking for work, we began to enjoy the feeling of -plenty which the city-dweller never experiences. We cut our -hay; gathered our fruit; made gallons and gallons of cider. -We had a cow, and produced our own milk and butter, but -finally gave her up. By furnishing us twenty quarts of milk -a day she threatened to put us in the dairy business. So we -changed to a pair of blooded Swiss goats. We equipped a -poultry-yard, and had eggs, chickens, and fat roast capons. -We ended the year with plenty not only for our own needs but -for a generous hospitality to our friends---some of whom -were out of work---a hospitality which, unlike city -hospitality, did not involve purchasing everything we served -our guests. - -To these things which we produced in our first year, we have -since added ducks, guineas, and turkeys; bees for honey; -pigeons for appearance; and dogs for company. We have in the -past twelve years built three houses and a barn from stones -picked up on our place; we weave suitings, blankets, -carpets, and draperies; we make some of our own clothing; we -do all of our own laundry work; we grind flour, corn meal, -and breakfast cereals; we have our own workshops, including -a printing plant; and we have a swimming-pool, tennis-court, -and even a billiard-room. - -In certain important respects our experiment was very -different from the ordinary back-to-the-land adventure. We -quickly abandoned all efforts to raise anything to sell. -After the first year, during which we raised some poultry -for the market, this became an inviolable principle. We -produced only for our own consumption. If we found it -difficult to consume or give away any surplus, we cut down -our production of that particular thing and devoted the time -to producing something else which we were then buying. We -used machinery wherever we could, and tried to apply the -most approved scientific methods to small-scale production. -We acted on the theory that there was always some way of -doing what we wanted to do, if we only sought long enough -for the necessary information, and that efficient machinery -would pay for itself in the home precisely as it pays for -itself in the factory. - -The part which domestic machinery has played in making our -adventure in homesteading a success cannot be too strongly -emphasized. Machinery enabled us to eliminate drudgery; it -furnished us skills which we did not possess, and it reduced -the costs of production both in terms of money and in terms -of labor. Not only do we use machines to pump our water, to -do our laundry, to run our refrigerator---we use them to +courage---foolhardiness, our city friends called it; a vision of what +modern methods and modern domestic machinery might be made to do in the +way of eliminating drudgery, and the fact that my wife had been born and +had lived up to her twelfth year on a ranch in the West. She at least +had had childhood experience of life in the country. + +But we had plenty of liabilities. We had little capital and only a +modest salary. We knew nothing about raising vegetables, fruit, and +poultry. All these things we had to learn. While I was a handy man, I +had hardly ever had occasion to use a hammer and saw (a man working in +an office rarely does), and yet if our experiment was to succeed it +required that I should make myself a master of all trades. We cut +ourselves off from the city comforts to which we had become so +accustomed, without the countryman's material and spiritual +compensations for them. + +We went to the country with nothing but our city furniture. We began by +adding to this wholly unsuitable equipment for pioneering, an electric +range. This was the first purchase in the long list of domestic machines +with which we proposed to test our theory that it was possible to be +more comfortable in the country than in the city, with security, +independence, and freedom to do the work to which we aspired thrown in +for good measure. + +Discomforts were plentiful in the beginning. The hardships of those +early years are now fading into a romantic haze, but they were real +enough at the time. A family starting with our handicaps had to expect +them. But almost from the beginning there were compensations for the +discomforts. + +Before the end of the first year, the year of the depression of 1921 +when millions were tramping the streets of our cities looking for work, +we began to enjoy the feeling of plenty which the city-dweller never +experiences. We cut our hay; gathered our fruit; made gallons and +gallons of cider. We had a cow, and produced our own milk and butter, +but finally gave her up. By furnishing us twenty quarts of milk a day +she threatened to put us in the dairy business. So we changed to a pair +of blooded Swiss goats. We equipped a poultry-yard, and had eggs, +chickens, and fat roast capons. We ended the year with plenty not only +for our own needs but for a generous hospitality to our friends---some +of whom were out of work---a hospitality which, unlike city hospitality, +did not involve purchasing everything we served our guests. + +To these things which we produced in our first year, we have since added +ducks, guineas, and turkeys; bees for honey; pigeons for appearance; and +dogs for company. We have in the past twelve years built three houses +and a barn from stones picked up on our place; we weave suitings, +blankets, carpets, and draperies; we make some of our own clothing; we +do all of our own laundry work; we grind flour, corn meal, and breakfast +cereals; we have our own workshops, including a printing plant; and we +have a swimming-pool, tennis-court, and even a billiard-room. + +In certain important respects our experiment was very different from the +ordinary back-to-the-land adventure. We quickly abandoned all efforts to +raise anything to sell. After the first year, during which we raised +some poultry for the market, this became an inviolable principle. We +produced only for our own consumption. If we found it difficult to +consume or give away any surplus, we cut down our production of that +particular thing and devoted the time to producing something else which +we were then buying. We used machinery wherever we could, and tried to +apply the most approved scientific methods to small-scale production. We +acted on the theory that there was always some way of doing what we +wanted to do, if we only sought long enough for the necessary +information, and that efficient machinery would pay for itself in the +home precisely as it pays for itself in the factory. + +The part which domestic machinery has played in making our adventure in +homesteading a success cannot be too strongly emphasized. Machinery +enabled us to eliminate drudgery; it furnished us skills which we did +not possess, and it reduced the costs of production both in terms of +money and in terms of labor. Not only do we use machines to pump our +water, to do our laundry, to run our refrigerator---we use them to produce food, to produce clothing, to produce shelter. Some of the machines we have purchased have proved -unsatisfactory---something which is to be expected since so -little real thought has been devoted by our -factory-dominated inventors and engineers to the development -of household equipment and domestic machinery. But taking -the machines and appliances which we have used as a whole, -it is no exaggeration to say that we started our quest of -comfort with all the discomforts possible in the country, -and, because of the machines, we have now achieved more -comforts than the average prosperous city man enjoys. - -What we have managed to accomplish is the outcome of nothing -but a conscious determination to use machinery for the -purpose of eliminating drudgery from the home and to produce -for ourselves enough of the essentials of living to free us -from the thralldom of our factory-dominated civilization. - -What are the social, economic, political, and philosophical -implications of such a type of living? What would be the -consequence of a widespread transference of production from -factories to the home? - -If enough families were to make their homes economically -productive, cash-crop farmers specializing in one crop would -have to abandon farming as a business and go back to it as a -way of life. The packing-houses, mills, and canneries, not -to mention the railroads, wholesalers, and retailers, which -now distribute agricultural products would find their -business combined to the production and distribution of -exotic foodstuffs. Food is our most important industry. A -war of attrition, such as we have been carrying on all -alone, if extended on a large enough scale, would put the -food industry out of its misery, for miserable it certainly -is, all the way from the farmers who produce the raw -materials to the men, women, and children who toil in the -canneries, mills, and packing-towns, and in addition reduce -proportionately the congestion, adulteration, unemployment, -and unpleasant odors to all of which the food industry -contributes liberally. - -If enough families were to make their homes economically -productive, the textile and clothing industries, with their -low wages, seasonal unemployment, cheap and shoddy products, -would shrink to the production of those fabrics and those -garments which it is impractical for the average family to -produce for itself. - -If enough families were to make their homes economically -productive, undesirable and non-essential factories of all -sorts would disappear and only those which would be -desirable and essential because they would be making tools -and machines, electric light bulbs, iron and copper pipe, -wire of all kinds, and the myriad of things which can best -be made in factories, would remain to furnish employment to -those benighted human beings who prefer to work in -factories. - -Domestic production, if enough people turned to it, would -not only annihilate the undesirable and non-essential -factory by depriving it of a market for its products. It -would do more. It would release men and women from their -present thralldom to the factory and make them masters of -machines instead of servants to them; it would end the power -of exploiting them which ruthless, acquisitive, and -predatory men now possess; it would free them for the -conquest of comfort, beauty and understanding. +unsatisfactory---something which is to be expected since so little real +thought has been devoted by our factory-dominated inventors and +engineers to the development of household equipment and domestic +machinery. But taking the machines and appliances which we have used as +a whole, it is no exaggeration to say that we started our quest of +comfort with all the discomforts possible in the country, and, because +of the machines, we have now achieved more comforts than the average +prosperous city man enjoys. + +What we have managed to accomplish is the outcome of nothing but a +conscious determination to use machinery for the purpose of eliminating +drudgery from the home and to produce for ourselves enough of the +essentials of living to free us from the thralldom of our +factory-dominated civilization. + +What are the social, economic, political, and philosophical implications +of such a type of living? What would be the consequence of a widespread +transference of production from factories to the home? + +If enough families were to make their homes economically productive, +cash-crop farmers specializing in one crop would have to abandon farming +as a business and go back to it as a way of life. The packing-houses, +mills, and canneries, not to mention the railroads, wholesalers, and +retailers, which now distribute agricultural products would find their +business combined to the production and distribution of exotic +foodstuffs. Food is our most important industry. A war of attrition, +such as we have been carrying on all alone, if extended on a large +enough scale, would put the food industry out of its misery, for +miserable it certainly is, all the way from the farmers who produce the +raw materials to the men, women, and children who toil in the canneries, +mills, and packing-towns, and in addition reduce proportionately the +congestion, adulteration, unemployment, and unpleasant odors to all of +which the food industry contributes liberally. + +If enough families were to make their homes economically productive, the +textile and clothing industries, with their low wages, seasonal +unemployment, cheap and shoddy products, would shrink to the production +of those fabrics and those garments which it is impractical for the +average family to produce for itself. + +If enough families were to make their homes economically productive, +undesirable and non-essential factories of all sorts would disappear and +only those which would be desirable and essential because they would be +making tools and machines, electric light bulbs, iron and copper pipe, +wire of all kinds, and the myriad of things which can best be made in +factories, would remain to furnish employment to those benighted human +beings who prefer to work in factories. + +Domestic production, if enough people turned to it, would not only +annihilate the undesirable and non-essential factory by depriving it of +a market for its products. It would do more. It would release men and +women from their present thralldom to the factory and make them masters +of machines instead of servants to them; it would end the power of +exploiting them which ruthless, acquisitive, and predatory men now +possess; it would free them for the conquest of comfort, beauty and +understanding. # Domestic Production -With Newton, it was the falling of an apple which led to the -discovery of gravitation. With Watts, it was the popping of -the lid of a boiling kettle which led to the invention of -the steam-engine. With the Borsodi family, it was the -canning of tomatoes which led to the discovery of domestic -production. Out of that discovery came not only an entirely -new theory of living; it led to my writing several books -dealing with various phases of the discover--*National -Advertising vs. Prosperity* was the first; then came *The -Distribution Age*, finally *This Ugly Civilization*. - -In the summer of 1920---the first summer after our flight -from the city---Mrs. Borsodi began to can and preserve a -supply of fruits and vegetables for winter use. I remember -distinctly the pride with which she showed me, on my return -from the city one evening, the first jars of tomatoes which -she had canned. But with my incurable bent for economics, -the question "Does it really pay?" instantly popped into my -head. Mrs. Borsodi had rather unusual equipment for doing -the work efficiently. She cooked on an electric range; she -used a steam-pressure cooker; she had most of the latest -gadgets for reducing the labor to a minimum. I looked around -the kitchen, and then at the table covered with shining -glass jars filled with tomatoes and tomato juice. +With Newton, it was the falling of an apple which led to the discovery +of gravitation. With Watts, it was the popping of the lid of a boiling +kettle which led to the invention of the steam-engine. With the Borsodi +family, it was the canning of tomatoes which led to the discovery of +domestic production. Out of that discovery came not only an entirely new +theory of living; it led to my writing several books dealing with +various phases of the discover--*National Advertising vs. Prosperity* +was the first; then came *The Distribution Age*, finally *This Ugly +Civilization*. + +In the summer of 1920---the first summer after our flight from the +city---Mrs. Borsodi began to can and preserve a supply of fruits and +vegetables for winter use. I remember distinctly the pride with which +she showed me, on my return from the city one evening, the first jars of +tomatoes which she had canned. But with my incurable bent for economics, +the question "Does it really pay?" instantly popped into my head. +Mrs. Borsodi had rather unusual equipment for doing the work +efficiently. She cooked on an electric range; she used a steam-pressure +cooker; she had most of the latest gadgets for reducing the labor to a +minimum. I looked around the kitchen, and then at the table covered with +shining glass jars filled with tomatoes and tomato juice. "It's great," I said, "but does it really pay?" "Of course it does," was her reply. -"Then it ought to be possible to prove that it does---even -if we take into consideration every cost---the cost of raw -materials, the value of the labor put into the work -yourself, the fuel, the equipment." +"Then it ought to be possible to prove that it does---even if we take +into consideration every cost---the cost of raw materials, the value of +the labor put into the work yourself, the fuel, the equipment." "That ought to be easy," she maintained. -It didn't prove as easy as we anticipated. We spent not only -that evening, but many evenings, trying to arrive at a -fairly accurate answer to the question. It wasn't even easy -to arrive at a satisfactory figure on the cost of raw -materials she had used. Some of the tomatoes had been grown -in our own garden; some had been purchased. How much had it -cost us to produce the tomatoes we had raised? We had kept -no figures on gardening costs. Even if we had kept track of -all the odd times during which we had worked in the garden, -that would have helped little without a record of the time -put into caring for the single row of tomato plants we had -planted. - -It proved equally difficult to determine how much time -should be charged to the actual work of canning---since -several different kinds of household tasks in addition to -canning were often performed at the same time. While the -jars were processing in the pressure cooker, work having +It didn't prove as easy as we anticipated. We spent not only that +evening, but many evenings, trying to arrive at a fairly accurate answer +to the question. It wasn't even easy to arrive at a satisfactory figure +on the cost of raw materials she had used. Some of the tomatoes had been +grown in our own garden; some had been purchased. How much had it cost +us to produce the tomatoes we had raised? We had kept no figures on +gardening costs. Even if we had kept track of all the odd times during +which we had worked in the garden, that would have helped little without +a record of the time put into caring for the single row of tomato plants +we had planted. + +It proved equally difficult to determine how much time should be charged +to the actual work of canning---since several different kinds of +household tasks in addition to canning were often performed at the same +time. While the jars were processing in the pressure cooker, work having nothing to do with canning was often performed. -And when it came to determining how much electric current -had been used---how much to charge for salt, spices, and -other supplies---the very smallness of the quantities used -made it difficult to arrive at a figure which approximated -the facts. However, by abandoning the effort to determine -gardening costs, and labor costs, and substituting the -market value for both raw materials and for labor, we did -finally come to figures which I felt we might use. - -Then we still had the problem of determining what it had -cost to buy canned tomatoes; we had to buy canned goods in a -number of different stores so as to get a fair average price -on the cannery-made product; of making certain that they -were of a quality similar to those which we had produced at -home, and of reducing the quantity in each can and each jar -to some unit which would make comparison possible -quantitatively as well as qualitatively. *When we finally -made the comparison, the cost of the home-made product was -between 20% and 30% lower than the price of the factory-made -merchandise*. - -The result astonished me. That there would be a saving, if -no charge were made for labor, I expected. I was prepared to -find that it paid to can tomatoes whenever the cash income -of a family was so low that anything which might be secured -for the housewife's labor was a gain. But after every item -of expense had been taken into account, and after analysing -the costs of domestic production as carefully as I would -have analyzed similar costs in such a cannery as that of the -Campbell Soup Company, that a saving should be shown was -astonishing. How was it possible, I kept asking myself, for -a woman, working all alone, to produce canned goods at a -lower cost than could the Campbell Soup Company with its -fine division of labor, its efficient management, its -labor-saving machinery, its quantity buying, its -mass-production economies? Unless there was some mistake in -our calculations this experiment knocked all the elaborate -theories framed by economists to explain the industrial -revolution, into a cocked hat. Unless we had failed to take -some element of which I was ignorant into consideration, the -economic activities of mankind for nearly two hundred years -had been based upon a theory as false as its maritime -activities prior to the discovery of the fact that the world -was round. - -Slowly I evolved an explanation of the paradox. First I -sought for it in advertising. I wrote a whole book, -*National Advertising vs. Prosperity*, about my excursions -into, the much-neglected field of advertising economics. -Advertising, however, furnished only a partial answer to the -question. While I did come to the conclusion that certain -kinds of advertising involved economic wastes, I discovered -that the bulk of advertising had no more effect upon prices -than any other activities incidental to the creation of time -and place utilities. Articles discussing my analysis of the -economics of advertising were published in the trade press -in 1922; my book appeared a year later, in 1923. - -My voyage of discovery into the realm of advertising -economics led to a deeper search for the truth. Three years -later, in 1926, I published the results of several years of -study in a book (for which Lew Hahn wrote the introduction) -, which I called *The Distribution Age*. - -Here I came much nearer to a satisfactory explanation of the -curious results of our cost studies of home canning. Factory -production costs had, it is true, decreased year after year -as industry had developed. Nothing had developed to stop the -factory in its successful competition with handicraft -industry, so far as costs of production were concerned. Our -economists, therefore, took it for granted that the -superiority of the factory in competition with the home -would continue indefinitely into the future. What they -overlooked, however, was that while production costs -decrease year after year, distribution costs increase. The -tendency of distribution and transportation to absorb more -and more of the economies made possible by factory -production was ignored. Transportation, warehousing, -advertising, salesmanship, wholesaling, retailing all these -aspects of distribution cost more than the whole cost of -fabricating the goods themselves. Less than one-third of -what the consumer pays when actually buying goods at retail -is paid for the raw materials and costs of manufacturing -finished commodities; over two-thirds is paid for -distribution. While we were busily reducing the amount of -labor needed to produce things---as the technocrats recently -discovered---we were busily engaged in increasing the -numbers employed to transport, and sell, and deliver the -products which we were consuming. That a time might come -when all the economies of factory production would be lost -in the cost of getting the product from the points of -production to the points of consumption had been generally +And when it came to determining how much electric current had been +used---how much to charge for salt, spices, and other supplies---the +very smallness of the quantities used made it difficult to arrive at a +figure which approximated the facts. However, by abandoning the effort +to determine gardening costs, and labor costs, and substituting the +market value for both raw materials and for labor, we did finally come +to figures which I felt we might use. + +Then we still had the problem of determining what it had cost to buy +canned tomatoes; we had to buy canned goods in a number of different +stores so as to get a fair average price on the cannery-made product; of +making certain that they were of a quality similar to those which we had +produced at home, and of reducing the quantity in each can and each jar +to some unit which would make comparison possible quantitatively as well +as qualitatively. *When we finally made the comparison, the cost of the +home-made product was between 20% and 30% lower than the price of the +factory-made merchandise*. + +The result astonished me. That there would be a saving, if no charge +were made for labor, I expected. I was prepared to find that it paid to +can tomatoes whenever the cash income of a family was so low that +anything which might be secured for the housewife's labor was a gain. +But after every item of expense had been taken into account, and after +analysing the costs of domestic production as carefully as I would have +analyzed similar costs in such a cannery as that of the Campbell Soup +Company, that a saving should be shown was astonishing. How was it +possible, I kept asking myself, for a woman, working all alone, to +produce canned goods at a lower cost than could the Campbell Soup +Company with its fine division of labor, its efficient management, its +labor-saving machinery, its quantity buying, its mass-production +economies? Unless there was some mistake in our calculations this +experiment knocked all the elaborate theories framed by economists to +explain the industrial revolution, into a cocked hat. Unless we had +failed to take some element of which I was ignorant into consideration, +the economic activities of mankind for nearly two hundred years had been +based upon a theory as false as its maritime activities prior to the +discovery of the fact that the world was round. + +Slowly I evolved an explanation of the paradox. First I sought for it in +advertising. I wrote a whole book, *National Advertising +vs. Prosperity*, about my excursions into, the much-neglected field of +advertising economics. Advertising, however, furnished only a partial +answer to the question. While I did come to the conclusion that certain +kinds of advertising involved economic wastes, I discovered that the +bulk of advertising had no more effect upon prices than any other +activities incidental to the creation of time and place utilities. +Articles discussing my analysis of the economics of advertising were +published in the trade press in 1922; my book appeared a year later, in +1923. + +My voyage of discovery into the realm of advertising economics led to a +deeper search for the truth. Three years later, in 1926, I published the +results of several years of study in a book (for which Lew Hahn wrote +the introduction) , which I called *The Distribution Age*. + +Here I came much nearer to a satisfactory explanation of the curious +results of our cost studies of home canning. Factory production costs +had, it is true, decreased year after year as industry had developed. +Nothing had developed to stop the factory in its successful competition +with handicraft industry, so far as costs of production were concerned. +Our economists, therefore, took it for granted that the superiority of +the factory in competition with the home would continue indefinitely +into the future. What they overlooked, however, was that while +production costs decrease year after year, distribution costs increase. +The tendency of distribution and transportation to absorb more and more +of the economies made possible by factory production was ignored. +Transportation, warehousing, advertising, salesmanship, wholesaling, +retailing all these aspects of distribution cost more than the whole +cost of fabricating the goods themselves. Less than one-third of what +the consumer pays when actually buying goods at retail is paid for the +raw materials and costs of manufacturing finished commodities; over +two-thirds is paid for distribution. While we were busily reducing the +amount of labor needed to produce things---as the technocrats recently +discovered---we were busily engaged in increasing the numbers employed +to transport, and sell, and deliver the products which we were +consuming. That a time might come when all the economies of factory +production would be lost in the cost of getting the product from the +points of production to the points of consumption had been generally ignored. -Eventually I stumbled on an economic law which still seems -to me the only satisfactory explanation of our adventure -with the canned tomatoes: *Distribution costs tend to move -in inverse relationship to production costs*. The more -production costs are reduced in our factories, the higher -distribution costs on factory products become. At some point -in the case of most products a time comes when it is cheaper -to produce them individually than to buy them factory made. -Nothing that we can do to lower distribution costs by -increasing the efficiency of our railroads, and nothing that -we can do to eliminate competition as socialists propose, -upsets this law. As long as we stick to the industrial -production of goods this law is operative. - -A simple illustration makes this clear. With factory -production, large quantities of one product are made in one -spot. To use automatic machinery, to divide labor most -efficiently, to transport raw materials inexpensively, it is -necessary to manufacture in quantity. Raw materials and fuel -must therefore be assembled from long distances before the -process of fabrication can begin. After the raw materials -have been fabricated into finished goods---a process which -may require movement of the semi-manufactured goods back and -forth among several plants located at different points of -the country---the finished goods must be transported and -stored at the points of consumption until the public is -ready to use them. The larger factories are made in order to -lower production costs, the greater become the distances and -the more intricate the problems involved in assembling the -raw materials and distributing the finished goods. Thus the -lower we make the factory costs, the higher become the -distribution costs. - -It cost the Campbell Soup Company much less to produce a can -of tomatoes in their great factories than it cost -Mrs. Borsodi to produce one in her kitchen. But after they -had produced theirs, all the costs of getting it from their -factory to the ultimate consumer had to be added. In Mrs. -Borsodi's case the first cost was the final cost. No -distribution costs had to be added because the point of -production and the point of consumption was the same. - -All the orthodox economic teachings to which I had -subscribed underwent a complete transformation as soon as I -fully digested the implications of this discovery. - -I discovered that more than two-thirds of the things which -the average family now buys could be produced more -economically at home than they could be bought factory made; - ---that the average man and woman could earn more by -producing at home than by working for money in an office or -factory and that, therefore, the less time they spent -working away from home and the more time they spent working -at home, the better off they would be; - ---finally, that the home itself was still capable of being -made into a productive and creative institution and that an -investment in a homestead equipped with efficient domestic -machinery would yield larger returns per dollar of -investment than investments in insurance, in mortgages, in -stocks and bonds. - -The most modern and expensive domestic machinery need not, -therefore, be a luxury. It can be a productive investment, -in spite of the fact that most manufacturers of appliances -still sell their machines on the basis of a luxury appeal. -Even appliances like vacuum cleaners can be made paying -investments, if the time they save is used productively in -the garden, the kitchen, the sewing and loom room. - -These discoveries led to our experimenting year after year -with domestic appliances and machines. We began to -experiment with the problem of bringing back into the home, -and thus under our own direct control, the various machines -which the textile-mill, the cannery and packing house, the -flour-mill, the clothing and garment factory, had taken over -from the home during the past two hundred years. Needless to -say, we have thus far only begun to explore the -possibilities of domestic production. - -In the main the economies of factory production, which are -so obvious and which have led economists so far astray, -consist of three things: (1) quantity buying of materials -and supplies; (2) the division of labor with each worker in -industry confined to the performance of a single operation; -and (3) the use of power to eliminate labor and permit the -operation of automatic machinery. Of these, the use of power -is unquestionably the most important. Today, however, power -is something which the home can use to reduce costs of -production just as well as can the factory. The situation -which prevailed in the days when water power and -steam-engines furnished the only forms of power is at an -end. As long as the only available form of power was -*centralized* power, the transfer of machinery and -production from the home and the individual, to the factory -and the group, was inevitable. But with the development of -the gas-engine and the electric motor, power became -available in *decentralized* forms. The home, so far as -power was concerned, had been put in position to compete -with the factory. - -With this advantage of the factory nullified, its other -advantages are in themselves insufficient to offset the -burden of distribution costs on most products. Furthermore, -even these advantages are not as great as they seem. What is -saved through minute division and subdivision of labor tends -often to be nullified by the higher costs of supervision and -management. And the savings in the factory made possible by -quantity buying become more and more minute when the home -begins to produce raw materials itself. - -The average factory, no doubt, does produce food and -clothing cheaper than we produce them even with our -power-driven machinery on the Borsodi homestead. But factory -costs, because of the problem of distribution, are only -first costs. They cannot, therefore, be compared with home -costs, which are final costs. The final cost of factory -products, after distribution costs have been added, make the -great bulk of consumer goods actually more expensive than -home-made products of the same quality. - -This is what we learned from Mrs. Borsodi's adventure with -the tomatoes. +Eventually I stumbled on an economic law which still seems to me the +only satisfactory explanation of our adventure with the canned tomatoes: +*Distribution costs tend to move in inverse relationship to production +costs*. The more production costs are reduced in our factories, the +higher distribution costs on factory products become. At some point in +the case of most products a time comes when it is cheaper to produce +them individually than to buy them factory made. Nothing that we can do +to lower distribution costs by increasing the efficiency of our +railroads, and nothing that we can do to eliminate competition as +socialists propose, upsets this law. As long as we stick to the +industrial production of goods this law is operative. + +A simple illustration makes this clear. With factory production, large +quantities of one product are made in one spot. To use automatic +machinery, to divide labor most efficiently, to transport raw materials +inexpensively, it is necessary to manufacture in quantity. Raw materials +and fuel must therefore be assembled from long distances before the +process of fabrication can begin. After the raw materials have been +fabricated into finished goods---a process which may require movement of +the semi-manufactured goods back and forth among several plants located +at different points of the country---the finished goods must be +transported and stored at the points of consumption until the public is +ready to use them. The larger factories are made in order to lower +production costs, the greater become the distances and the more +intricate the problems involved in assembling the raw materials and +distributing the finished goods. Thus the lower we make the factory +costs, the higher become the distribution costs. + +It cost the Campbell Soup Company much less to produce a can of tomatoes +in their great factories than it cost Mrs. Borsodi to produce one in her +kitchen. But after they had produced theirs, all the costs of getting it +from their factory to the ultimate consumer had to be added. In Mrs. +Borsodi's case the first cost was the final cost. No distribution costs +had to be added because the point of production and the point of +consumption was the same. + +All the orthodox economic teachings to which I had subscribed underwent +a complete transformation as soon as I fully digested the implications +of this discovery. + +I discovered that more than two-thirds of the things which the average +family now buys could be produced more economically at home than they +could be bought factory made; + +--that the average man and woman could earn more by producing at home +than by working for money in an office or factory and that, therefore, +the less time they spent working away from home and the more time they +spent working at home, the better off they would be; + +--finally, that the home itself was still capable of being made into a +productive and creative institution and that an investment in a +homestead equipped with efficient domestic machinery would yield larger +returns per dollar of investment than investments in insurance, in +mortgages, in stocks and bonds. + +The most modern and expensive domestic machinery need not, therefore, be +a luxury. It can be a productive investment, in spite of the fact that +most manufacturers of appliances still sell their machines on the basis +of a luxury appeal. Even appliances like vacuum cleaners can be made +paying investments, if the time they save is used productively in the +garden, the kitchen, the sewing and loom room. + +These discoveries led to our experimenting year after year with domestic +appliances and machines. We began to experiment with the problem of +bringing back into the home, and thus under our own direct control, the +various machines which the textile-mill, the cannery and packing house, +the flour-mill, the clothing and garment factory, had taken over from +the home during the past two hundred years. Needless to say, we have +thus far only begun to explore the possibilities of domestic production. + +In the main the economies of factory production, which are so obvious +and which have led economists so far astray, consist of three things: +(1) quantity buying of materials and supplies; (2) the division of labor +with each worker in industry confined to the performance of a single +operation; and (3) the use of power to eliminate labor and permit the +operation of automatic machinery. Of these, the use of power is +unquestionably the most important. Today, however, power is something +which the home can use to reduce costs of production just as well as can +the factory. The situation which prevailed in the days when water power +and steam-engines furnished the only forms of power is at an end. As +long as the only available form of power was *centralized* power, the +transfer of machinery and production from the home and the individual, +to the factory and the group, was inevitable. But with the development +of the gas-engine and the electric motor, power became available in +*decentralized* forms. The home, so far as power was concerned, had been +put in position to compete with the factory. + +With this advantage of the factory nullified, its other advantages are +in themselves insufficient to offset the burden of distribution costs on +most products. Furthermore, even these advantages are not as great as +they seem. What is saved through minute division and subdivision of +labor tends often to be nullified by the higher costs of supervision and +management. And the savings in the factory made possible by quantity +buying become more and more minute when the home begins to produce raw +materials itself. + +The average factory, no doubt, does produce food and clothing cheaper +than we produce them even with our power-driven machinery on the Borsodi +homestead. But factory costs, because of the problem of distribution, +are only first costs. They cannot, therefore, be compared with home +costs, which are final costs. The final cost of factory products, after +distribution costs have been added, make the great bulk of consumer +goods actually more expensive than home-made products of the same +quality. + +This is what we learned from Mrs. Borsodi's adventure with the tomatoes. # Food, Pure Food, and Fresh Food -It is a mistake, however, to think of our experiments in -domestic production purely in terms of economics. -Particularly is this true of food. For ours was not only a -revolt against the high cost of food. It was a revolt -against the kind of food with which mass production and mass -distribution provides the American consumer. - -In common with the overwhelming majority of people, we -suffered the usual run of digestive and catarrhal ailments. -We all had colds several times each year; constipation was -something every member of the family had to fight; between -periods of biliousness, headaches, fevers, and similar -visitations, we enjoyed only what might at best be described -as tolerable health. I would not give the impression that we -were a sickly family. On the contrary, so far as health was -concerned we were probably better rather than worse than the -average family. Our ailments were almost never severe enough -to keep us in bed. None of us had ever been confined in a -hospital. But saying that our health was slightly better +It is a mistake, however, to think of our experiments in domestic +production purely in terms of economics. Particularly is this true of +food. For ours was not only a revolt against the high cost of food. It +was a revolt against the kind of food with which mass production and +mass distribution provides the American consumer. + +In common with the overwhelming majority of people, we suffered the +usual run of digestive and catarrhal ailments. We all had colds several +times each year; constipation was something every member of the family +had to fight; between periods of biliousness, headaches, fevers, and +similar visitations, we enjoyed only what might at best be described as +tolerable health. I would not give the impression that we were a sickly +family. On the contrary, so far as health was concerned we were probably +better rather than worse than the average family. Our ailments were +almost never severe enough to keep us in bed. None of us had ever been +confined in a hospital. But saying that our health was slightly better than average is not saying much. -Partly as a result of an accumulation of accidents and -coincidences, and partly because of our own efforts to find -the answer to the riddle of good health, we finally arrived -at the conviction that most of our ailments, and probably -most of the ailments of mankind, were caused by wrong foods -and incorrect eating habits. I remember how amusing this -idea sounded the first time it was propounded to me. -Mrs. Borsodi and I, happening to meet Hereward Carrington, -just as we were on our way to lunch in the city, asked him -to join us. - -"I'm sorry," he said, "but I seem to be catching cold, so I -am eating nothing at all today." - -I looked at him with astonishment. The old adage about -feeding a cold and starving a fever came into my mind. What -in the world, I thought, could eating have to do with a -cold? "Join us, anyway," I said. "You can watch us eat, and -the sight of food may tempt you to order something yourself. -And besides, I'm curious to know upon what theory you cut -out eating when you have a cold." - -Carrington accepted the invitation and in the course of that -luncheon Mrs. Borsodi and I listened for the first time to a -disinterested exponent of the theory that improper eating is -the cause of most disease. Up to that time I had always -dismissed the idea as the vaporing of vegetarian and -physical culture faddists. But I was by no means convinced -by what Carrington said. I still argued valiantly for the -orthodox medical explanation of disease in terms of germs. -The luncheon failed to convert us to the extreme position -which he maintained and which we have since come to accept. -But the incident prepared us for real conversion shortly -thereafter. - -Among the books published by the corporation by which I was -then employed were a number of volumes by a Dr. R. L. -Alsaker. I had never read them, principally because they had -seemed to me the works of a dietetic crank. But I brought -some of them home after the Carrington argument and -Mrs. Borsodi and I both read them. Alsaker's arguments -seemed to us quite reasonable. We saw no reason why we -should hesitate about experimenting with diet as a means of -maintaining health, the medical profession having signally -failed to keep us healthy. But we did not find this as easy -as might be imagined. Indeed, it was only after a period of -years and after we had moved to the country that we -completely changed our diet from the conventional pattern to -our present one. During this period Mrs. Borsodi made quite -a study of the chemistry of food; we dug up what we could -about the fight for pure and unadulterated foods which -Dr. Harvey W. Wiley had waged back in President Theodore -Roosevelt's administration, and as a result developed a -thoroughgoing distaste for the commercialized foodstuffs -which up to that time we had eaten. - -One after another we gave up predigested breakfast foods, -white bread, factory-made biscuits and crackers and cakes, -polished rice, white sugar. But it wasn't easy to secure -suitable substitutes for all the foods which we believed -unfit for human consumption. What should we do in order to -secure clean, raw milk, fresh vegetables, and decent -chickens? The pasteurized milk which we had been drinking -for years was a crime against the human stomach even though -the germs which got into the milk in the course of its -progress from the cow-stable to our back doors were all -embalmed and thus rendered harmless. The fresh vegetables -and fruits in the city markets were of necessity of inferior -qualities; they had to be picked green, before they ripened -naturally, in order to make it possible to transport them -without too much spoilage. In addition, they withered and -dried out while being shipped, stored and displayed for -sale. Meat came to us from a spick and span butcher shop, -but we could never forget that it had first passed through -the packing-houses which Upton Sinclair had called "the -jungle." After we moved to the country and acquired the -habit of eating fresh-killed chicken, we could hardly force -ourselves to eat chicken in the city. Nothing which a cook -can do to a chicken in the kitchen can disguise for us the -flavor which develops in a chicken after it has been kept -for weeks and possibly for many months in cold storage with -all its intestines intact inside. In the course of our -studies of diet we became conscious for the first time of -the fact that all these things were part and parcel of city -living and of the factory packing of foodstuffs to which -industrialism seemed to have irretrievably condemned the -consuming public. - -Actually our moving to the country was inspired less by the -notion that we could reduce the cost of living than by the -conviction that we could live better than we had in the -city. So far as food was concerned, better health was more -in our minds than saving money. We sought pure food and -fresh food rather than cheap food. The discovery that home -production made it possible for us to enjoy better food *at -a lower cost* than we had in the city, came later. - -We landed in the country on April 1st, a little late in the -season, we have since learned for starting chickens. But -since raising chickens was almost the first item in our food -raising program, we went ahead, anyway. Eggs had always been -an important factor in our dietary, we wanted to have plenty -of them, and the supply of fresh chicken which would -accompany egg production would, we felt, cut down what we -had been in the habit of spending for meat of all kinds. - -We knew nothing about chickens. For instructions we turned -to the bulletins of the Department of Agriculture in -Washington and of the state agricultural university. We -pored over bulletins dealing with incubation, with raising -chicks, with feeding hens for egg production and fattening -poultry for the table. We followed in a general way the -instructions in the bulletins about equipment and housing -them. But we nevertheless decided to feel our way and to try -out our book-taught knowledge before venturing on any -considerable investment in our poultry-yard. Unless -experienced personal guidance is available, no amount of -mere reading can prevent the beginner from making mistakes. -If the initial venture is a large one, the mistake may prove -financially disastrous. Some years after we moved to the -country, a small, completely equipped farm near us was -purchased by another city migrant. Ill-health and inability -to keep up his work in the city (he was a newspaper man) had -forced this move upon him. It was his idea to raise chickens -for a living. He, too, started out knowing nothing about -chickens and having to rely upon book knowledge for -information. But unlike the Borsodi family, he started out -on a large scale, buying 500 day-old chicks from commercial -hatcheries to begin. The poultry books told him that the -chicks were to be fed grit and water before they received -their first regular feed. To a countryman, the word grit -would have been self-explanatory. No doubt the author of the -bulletin upon which this man relied did not feel it -necessary to explain what grit was, or, if there was such an -explanation in the book, its significance did not register -on our neighbor. At any rate, what he did do was to go to -his barns and look for a sack of grit. Having found what he -thought was grit, he proceeded to feed it to his chickens as -instructed. Within a short time the chickens began to die -right and left. He began to lose chicks in batches of fifty -in a single day. And he had hardly any of his original 500 -chicks left when he discovered that what he had thought -grit, in reality was linseed meal. Here was the first of -what proved a series of catastrophic losses for this family. -Precious money and even more precious time was lost, owing -to this mistake. Before this man learned enough about living -in the country to produce with any degree of efficiency -(though I believe nothing could have enabled him to produce -profitably for the market), his losses were so great that he -had to abandon the place he had purchased and to return to -the city, broken in pocket and even more broken in spirit. I -cannot, therefore, make this point too strongly---the only -alternative to experienced guidance is experimenting on a -small scale. Mistakes then can be considered part of one's -education. - -It is difficult today, when the care of our poultry-yard -takes so little original thinking on our part, to realize -how bewildered we were when we first began with chickens. -There was, to begin with, the problem of breeds. Roughly, -all the various breeds of chickens fall into three -categories: egg-laying machines, like the Leghorns; -meat-making chickens, like the Jersey Giants; and -all-purpose breeds, like the Plymouth Rocks and the Rhode -Island Reds. The Leghorns do lay more eggs than the other -types, but they are small and wiry birds, hardly fit for the -table. As we wanted plenty of eggs, we decided against the -Jersey Giants. To secure both eggs and decent meat, we -finally decided on one of the all-purpose breeds, Rhode -Island Reds, a decision we have never regretted. The Reds -are probably no better than others of the same general type; -there was no special reason for selecting them unless it was -that it was easier for us to get hens and eggs of this breed -in our neighborhood than the others. - -We started operations that first spring with a broody hen -and a setting of eggs which we purchased from a neighbor. -Later, we repeated this purchase three or four times. But -the first hen had not finished hatching out her setting (it -takes three weeks) when we decided that hatching eggs out -nature's way wouldn't give us enough chicks for our needs. -We purchased a sixty-egg incubator, heated by a -kerosene-lamp. While we still set hens, perhaps because -"breaking up" broody hens each year is almost as much -trouble as setting them, we believe a good, small incubator -an essential part of an ideal homestead. We purchased eggs -enough to fill the incubator twice that year from farmers -who had flocks of Reds. And we managed to hatch out an -exceptionally large proportion of them. My recollection is -that we started our poultry-yard that first year with about -150 chicks. - -This number dwindled down, as is to be expected, to about -100 chickens---half of them pullets and half of them -cockerels. The first year we killed a good many of the -cockerels for fries in the course of the summer. But the -second year we came to the conclusion that this was a most -wasteful proceeding, and ordered a set of instruments for -caponizing. Eventually every member of the family learned -how to caponize the cockerels. The operation is rather -interesting; it need never be bloody; and by fattening the -capons for six or eight months, we had eight- and nine-pound -capons to eat---a luxury which we had never enjoyed at home -in the city. Indeed, when I came across Philadelphia capons -on restaurant menus, I hadn't the least notion what a capon -really was; vaguely I thought them some particularly choice -breed of chicken. - -The annual food contribution of our poultry-yard, after it -was once established, usually averages twenty or twenty-five -capons, an equal number of old hens, and all the eggs we can -eat. There is always a surplus of eggs in the spring. -Sometimes we sell them or turn them in to our grocer, but -usually we prefer to put them down and preserve them in -water glass, which keeps them fit for cooking purposes for -the fall and winter when the production of fresh eggs falls -short of our needs. However, if the chicken-house is of warm -construction and especially if it is electrically lighted in -the winter so as to give the hens a full day at the -feed-boxes, a plentiful supply of fresh eggs can be secured +Partly as a result of an accumulation of accidents and coincidences, and +partly because of our own efforts to find the answer to the riddle of +good health, we finally arrived at the conviction that most of our +ailments, and probably most of the ailments of mankind, were caused by +wrong foods and incorrect eating habits. I remember how amusing this +idea sounded the first time it was propounded to me. Mrs. Borsodi and I, +happening to meet Hereward Carrington, just as we were on our way to +lunch in the city, asked him to join us. + +"I'm sorry," he said, "but I seem to be catching cold, so I am eating +nothing at all today." + +I looked at him with astonishment. The old adage about feeding a cold +and starving a fever came into my mind. What in the world, I thought, +could eating have to do with a cold? "Join us, anyway," I said. "You can +watch us eat, and the sight of food may tempt you to order something +yourself. And besides, I'm curious to know upon what theory you cut out +eating when you have a cold." + +Carrington accepted the invitation and in the course of that luncheon +Mrs. Borsodi and I listened for the first time to a disinterested +exponent of the theory that improper eating is the cause of most +disease. Up to that time I had always dismissed the idea as the vaporing +of vegetarian and physical culture faddists. But I was by no means +convinced by what Carrington said. I still argued valiantly for the +orthodox medical explanation of disease in terms of germs. The luncheon +failed to convert us to the extreme position which he maintained and +which we have since come to accept. But the incident prepared us for +real conversion shortly thereafter. + +Among the books published by the corporation by which I was then +employed were a number of volumes by a Dr. R. L. Alsaker. I had never +read them, principally because they had seemed to me the works of a +dietetic crank. But I brought some of them home after the Carrington +argument and Mrs. Borsodi and I both read them. Alsaker's arguments +seemed to us quite reasonable. We saw no reason why we should hesitate +about experimenting with diet as a means of maintaining health, the +medical profession having signally failed to keep us healthy. But we did +not find this as easy as might be imagined. Indeed, it was only after a +period of years and after we had moved to the country that we completely +changed our diet from the conventional pattern to our present one. +During this period Mrs. Borsodi made quite a study of the chemistry of +food; we dug up what we could about the fight for pure and unadulterated +foods which Dr. Harvey W. Wiley had waged back in President Theodore +Roosevelt's administration, and as a result developed a thoroughgoing +distaste for the commercialized foodstuffs which up to that time we had +eaten. + +One after another we gave up predigested breakfast foods, white bread, +factory-made biscuits and crackers and cakes, polished rice, white +sugar. But it wasn't easy to secure suitable substitutes for all the +foods which we believed unfit for human consumption. What should we do +in order to secure clean, raw milk, fresh vegetables, and decent +chickens? The pasteurized milk which we had been drinking for years was +a crime against the human stomach even though the germs which got into +the milk in the course of its progress from the cow-stable to our back +doors were all embalmed and thus rendered harmless. The fresh vegetables +and fruits in the city markets were of necessity of inferior qualities; +they had to be picked green, before they ripened naturally, in order to +make it possible to transport them without too much spoilage. In +addition, they withered and dried out while being shipped, stored and +displayed for sale. Meat came to us from a spick and span butcher shop, +but we could never forget that it had first passed through the +packing-houses which Upton Sinclair had called "the jungle." After we +moved to the country and acquired the habit of eating fresh-killed +chicken, we could hardly force ourselves to eat chicken in the city. +Nothing which a cook can do to a chicken in the kitchen can disguise for +us the flavor which develops in a chicken after it has been kept for +weeks and possibly for many months in cold storage with all its +intestines intact inside. In the course of our studies of diet we became +conscious for the first time of the fact that all these things were part +and parcel of city living and of the factory packing of foodstuffs to +which industrialism seemed to have irretrievably condemned the consuming +public. + +Actually our moving to the country was inspired less by the notion that +we could reduce the cost of living than by the conviction that we could +live better than we had in the city. So far as food was concerned, +better health was more in our minds than saving money. We sought pure +food and fresh food rather than cheap food. The discovery that home +production made it possible for us to enjoy better food *at a lower +cost* than we had in the city, came later. + +We landed in the country on April 1st, a little late in the season, we +have since learned for starting chickens. But since raising chickens was +almost the first item in our food raising program, we went ahead, +anyway. Eggs had always been an important factor in our dietary, we +wanted to have plenty of them, and the supply of fresh chicken which +would accompany egg production would, we felt, cut down what we had been +in the habit of spending for meat of all kinds. + +We knew nothing about chickens. For instructions we turned to the +bulletins of the Department of Agriculture in Washington and of the +state agricultural university. We pored over bulletins dealing with +incubation, with raising chicks, with feeding hens for egg production +and fattening poultry for the table. We followed in a general way the +instructions in the bulletins about equipment and housing them. But we +nevertheless decided to feel our way and to try out our book-taught +knowledge before venturing on any considerable investment in our +poultry-yard. Unless experienced personal guidance is available, no +amount of mere reading can prevent the beginner from making mistakes. If +the initial venture is a large one, the mistake may prove financially +disastrous. Some years after we moved to the country, a small, +completely equipped farm near us was purchased by another city migrant. +Ill-health and inability to keep up his work in the city (he was a +newspaper man) had forced this move upon him. It was his idea to raise +chickens for a living. He, too, started out knowing nothing about +chickens and having to rely upon book knowledge for information. But +unlike the Borsodi family, he started out on a large scale, buying 500 +day-old chicks from commercial hatcheries to begin. The poultry books +told him that the chicks were to be fed grit and water before they +received their first regular feed. To a countryman, the word grit would +have been self-explanatory. No doubt the author of the bulletin upon +which this man relied did not feel it necessary to explain what grit +was, or, if there was such an explanation in the book, its significance +did not register on our neighbor. At any rate, what he did do was to go +to his barns and look for a sack of grit. Having found what he thought +was grit, he proceeded to feed it to his chickens as instructed. Within +a short time the chickens began to die right and left. He began to lose +chicks in batches of fifty in a single day. And he had hardly any of his +original 500 chicks left when he discovered that what he had thought +grit, in reality was linseed meal. Here was the first of what proved a +series of catastrophic losses for this family. Precious money and even +more precious time was lost, owing to this mistake. Before this man +learned enough about living in the country to produce with any degree of +efficiency (though I believe nothing could have enabled him to produce +profitably for the market), his losses were so great that he had to +abandon the place he had purchased and to return to the city, broken in +pocket and even more broken in spirit. I cannot, therefore, make this +point too strongly---the only alternative to experienced guidance is +experimenting on a small scale. Mistakes then can be considered part of +one's education. + +It is difficult today, when the care of our poultry-yard takes so little +original thinking on our part, to realize how bewildered we were when we +first began with chickens. There was, to begin with, the problem of +breeds. Roughly, all the various breeds of chickens fall into three +categories: egg-laying machines, like the Leghorns; meat-making +chickens, like the Jersey Giants; and all-purpose breeds, like the +Plymouth Rocks and the Rhode Island Reds. The Leghorns do lay more eggs +than the other types, but they are small and wiry birds, hardly fit for +the table. As we wanted plenty of eggs, we decided against the Jersey +Giants. To secure both eggs and decent meat, we finally decided on one +of the all-purpose breeds, Rhode Island Reds, a decision we have never +regretted. The Reds are probably no better than others of the same +general type; there was no special reason for selecting them unless it +was that it was easier for us to get hens and eggs of this breed in our +neighborhood than the others. + +We started operations that first spring with a broody hen and a setting +of eggs which we purchased from a neighbor. Later, we repeated this +purchase three or four times. But the first hen had not finished +hatching out her setting (it takes three weeks) when we decided that +hatching eggs out nature's way wouldn't give us enough chicks for our +needs. We purchased a sixty-egg incubator, heated by a kerosene-lamp. +While we still set hens, perhaps because "breaking up" broody hens each +year is almost as much trouble as setting them, we believe a good, small +incubator an essential part of an ideal homestead. We purchased eggs +enough to fill the incubator twice that year from farmers who had flocks +of Reds. And we managed to hatch out an exceptionally large proportion +of them. My recollection is that we started our poultry-yard that first +year with about 150 chicks. + +This number dwindled down, as is to be expected, to about 100 +chickens---half of them pullets and half of them cockerels. The first +year we killed a good many of the cockerels for fries in the course of +the summer. But the second year we came to the conclusion that this was +a most wasteful proceeding, and ordered a set of instruments for +caponizing. Eventually every member of the family learned how to +caponize the cockerels. The operation is rather interesting; it need +never be bloody; and by fattening the capons for six or eight months, we +had eight- and nine-pound capons to eat---a luxury which we had never +enjoyed at home in the city. Indeed, when I came across Philadelphia +capons on restaurant menus, I hadn't the least notion what a capon +really was; vaguely I thought them some particularly choice breed of +chicken. + +The annual food contribution of our poultry-yard, after it was once +established, usually averages twenty or twenty-five capons, an equal +number of old hens, and all the eggs we can eat. There is always a +surplus of eggs in the spring. Sometimes we sell them or turn them in to +our grocer, but usually we prefer to put them down and preserve them in +water glass, which keeps them fit for cooking purposes for the fall and +winter when the production of fresh eggs falls short of our needs. +However, if the chicken-house is of warm construction and especially if +it is electrically lighted in the winter so as to give the hens a full +day at the feed-boxes, a plentiful supply of fresh eggs can be secured the year round. -A small flock of chickens, kept up each year by raising -about seventy-five chicks, is all that the average family -needs. The dividends per dollar of investment are really -enormous, even if all the feed for them has to be purchased. -Owing to the fact that land in our section is not adapted to -grain farming and the fact that we have had to clear every -bit of land for garden purposes, we have purchased nearly -all of our chicken feed. There is no reason, however, why -the feed should not be produced on the homestead if the soil -is suitable. This simply increases the dividends earned and -proportionately reduces the family's dependence upon income -and purchases from the outside. The labor of feeding and -caring for such a flock of chickens is not great, especially -if good equipment and housing is provided. A large poultry -project, from which money is to be made, is an altogether -different affair. The poultry business seems to have a -universal popularity. It looks like an easy way to make a -living. But it takes much more experience and much more -ability than the average man possesses to make money at it. -We tried it one year and, while we lost no money on the -project (on the contrary, by ordinary standards it might -have been considered a success), it was one of the -experiences which made us decide against the home production -of anything for sale. - -A few years after we moved to the country a brother of mine -was ordered to the country by his doctor. We invited him to -come to "Sevenacres" and suggested that he make his expenses -by raising eggs and chickens for the market. So that year we -had the opportunity of watching what happened when the flock -grew in size to something like commercial proportions. The -eggs raised sold well and at high prices. The cockerels were -all caponized and in the fall sold to a restaurant in the -city. Yet when we were all through with the year there was -precious little to show for the labor which had been put -into them. By the time that feed and supplies were paid for, -pocket money was all that my brother had to show for his -summer's work. The experiment was well worth while, however, -because it proved one of the things which helped us to -decide that any extra time which we could put into -production could be more profitably used raising other -things for our own use than by raising a surplus of one -thing, such as eggs and chickens, for sale. - -We have applied this principle to the poultry-yard itself, -keeping the number of chickens down and raising other fowls. -We have raised Peking ducks and found that the Peking duck -furnishes almost as many eggs as do many breeds of chickens, -and in addition furnishes a welcome variation in the diet. -We also raise turkeys; we plan to raise at least one bird -for each month for the table, and a flock to be used as -Christmas presents. This particular experiment in the home -production of gifts has been among our most successful; the -sentiment surrounding the turkeys savors of Christmas much -more than factory-made gadgets usually bought in crowded -stores. We have also raised pigeons, principally because -they were decorative, and have hatched pheasants principally -for the sake of romance. It is part of our yearly spring -thrill to watch for the first appearance of the cock -pheasants and to see them in all their finery as they begin -their courting dances. - -A few words must be added on the subject of fresh eggs. We -used to buy so-called fresh eggs in the city, but in the -very nature of things it was impossible for them to be -really fresh. Even near-by eggs rarely get to the city -before they are two weeks old. True, the palate of the city -man is so little cultivated that the finer flavors of all -sorts of foods have lost their importance to him. -Industrialism and urbanism have combined to blunt his taste. -As to fresh eggs, the Borsodi family consists of gourmets. -The fact that the humble egg has developed a new value for -us is typical of the trans-valuations which have come to us +A small flock of chickens, kept up each year by raising about +seventy-five chicks, is all that the average family needs. The dividends +per dollar of investment are really enormous, even if all the feed for +them has to be purchased. Owing to the fact that land in our section is +not adapted to grain farming and the fact that we have had to clear +every bit of land for garden purposes, we have purchased nearly all of +our chicken feed. There is no reason, however, why the feed should not +be produced on the homestead if the soil is suitable. This simply +increases the dividends earned and proportionately reduces the family's +dependence upon income and purchases from the outside. The labor of +feeding and caring for such a flock of chickens is not great, especially +if good equipment and housing is provided. A large poultry project, from +which money is to be made, is an altogether different affair. The +poultry business seems to have a universal popularity. It looks like an +easy way to make a living. But it takes much more experience and much +more ability than the average man possesses to make money at it. We +tried it one year and, while we lost no money on the project (on the +contrary, by ordinary standards it might have been considered a +success), it was one of the experiences which made us decide against the +home production of anything for sale. + +A few years after we moved to the country a brother of mine was ordered +to the country by his doctor. We invited him to come to "Sevenacres" and +suggested that he make his expenses by raising eggs and chickens for the +market. So that year we had the opportunity of watching what happened +when the flock grew in size to something like commercial proportions. +The eggs raised sold well and at high prices. The cockerels were all +caponized and in the fall sold to a restaurant in the city. Yet when we +were all through with the year there was precious little to show for the +labor which had been put into them. By the time that feed and supplies +were paid for, pocket money was all that my brother had to show for his +summer's work. The experiment was well worth while, however, because it +proved one of the things which helped us to decide that any extra time +which we could put into production could be more profitably used raising +other things for our own use than by raising a surplus of one thing, +such as eggs and chickens, for sale. + +We have applied this principle to the poultry-yard itself, keeping the +number of chickens down and raising other fowls. We have raised Peking +ducks and found that the Peking duck furnishes almost as many eggs as do +many breeds of chickens, and in addition furnishes a welcome variation +in the diet. We also raise turkeys; we plan to raise at least one bird +for each month for the table, and a flock to be used as Christmas +presents. This particular experiment in the home production of gifts has +been among our most successful; the sentiment surrounding the turkeys +savors of Christmas much more than factory-made gadgets usually bought +in crowded stores. We have also raised pigeons, principally because they +were decorative, and have hatched pheasants principally for the sake of +romance. It is part of our yearly spring thrill to watch for the first +appearance of the cock pheasants and to see them in all their finery as +they begin their courting dances. + +A few words must be added on the subject of fresh eggs. We used to buy +so-called fresh eggs in the city, but in the very nature of things it +was impossible for them to be really fresh. Even near-by eggs rarely get +to the city before they are two weeks old. True, the palate of the city +man is so little cultivated that the finer flavors of all sorts of foods +have lost their importance to him. Industrialism and urbanism have +combined to blunt his taste. As to fresh eggs, the Borsodi family +consists of gourmets. The fact that the humble egg has developed a new +value for us is typical of the trans-valuations which have come to us from our return to nature. -Milk, cream, buttermilk, butter, cheese, ice-cream---all the -various milk products---constituted one of the large items -in our food budget when we lived in the city. Our fluid milk -supply consisted of grade A milk, delivered daily in glass -bottles. This milk was pasteurized. We used creamery butter -which at that time was made from raw cream. Since then -efforts have been made to compel creameries to use only -pasteurized milk. Buttermilk we drank only occasionally. -After we moved to the country it became a part of our -regular diet; it proved a most healthful and nourishing -foodstuff. Ice-cream we ate in much greater moderation in -the city than we do today, perhaps because of some -Puritanical inhibition about eating too much dessert. But -probably the notion was actually correct, at least with -regard to commercial ice-cream, which is what we used to -eat. Certainly the bulk of commercial ice-cream, often made -from rancid cream, artificial coloring, and synthetic -flavoring, is not a desirable food. But even the best -commercial ice-cream cannot be compared with home-made -ice-cream and frozen desserts made from clean, sweet cream, -fresh eggs, and real fruit juices. Much of the cheese now -consumed in the city is synthetic, made from something which -the breweries invented and which ought not to be called -cheese at all. We ate little cheese before we left the city; -after we went to the country we began to eat all the pot -cheese we could enjoy, and when we learned how useful a part -of the diet cheese can be, we began to buy the kinds of -cheese which we could not make at home. - -Our revolt against commercial milk products was helped by -one of those fortuitous incidents which shape all of our -lives, though we are seldom conscious of their importance at -the time. Mrs. Borsodi, before she gave up business, had -occasion to visit one of the largest creameries in the -country to secure information for an advertising campaign. -Her disillusionment about the dairy industry and creamery -butter was complete. Modern science, she found, was being -used to produce a tasty and attractive-looking butter from -raw materials which often came into the creamery only fit -for slopping to hogs. Of superficial cleanliness there was -plenty, but underneath the scrupulous surface was the fact -that the system was so perfect that no matter what sort of -cream was used, a product which had the appearance of -quality was produced. No doubt in a perfectly organized -industrial state, in which the profit motive has in some way -been legislated out of existence, the technicians who will -operate the creameries will eliminate some of the worst of -present-day mass-production evils. We, however, were not -only somewhat cynical about the benefits of unlimited -government supervision, but saw no good reason why we should -postpone the eating of pure and fresh foods until the -distant day when a social revolution would wipe out all the -blots on present-day industrial production. Besides, -contacts with state institutions---hospitals, for -instance---prevented us from sharing the sanguine hopes of -socialist friends about the quality of foodstuffs which -would be produced in a socialist heaven. - -As soon as we were well settled in the country we bought a -cow---too good a cow, I am afraid. When fresh she gave us as -much as twenty quarts of milk a day. Most of the time we had -so much milk that it seemed as if we could bathe in it. But -what milk it was! In spite of the fact that we drank all we -desired, made our own butter and pot cheese, there was still -a surplus of milk to be disposed of. A few neighbors begged -us to sell them milk, but this experience, just like our -experience in selling eggs and chickens, only confirmed our -determination not to produce for the market. We were -producing a quality of milk far superior to that in the -market; what we received for it hardly paid for the labor of -cleaning bottles and delivering it. We wondered what we -could buy with the money half so precious as the milk. We -needed two or three quarts of milk daily. Twenty was too -much of a good thing. We had no intention of living on milk -alone, nor of going into the dairy business. For a family of -four, the cow was evidently not the best solution of the -milk problem. With a family of six or more persons, it would -perhaps have been different. But for us, using a cow to -produce milk was like using a sledge hammer to drive carpet -tacks. We sold the cow and decided to try Swiss milch goats. - -The milch goat is still somewhat of a novelty, handicapped -by the fact that the goat is supposed to be funny. In our -judgment it is an ideal solution of the problem of producing -milk for use within the family. Its milk is richer than -cow's milk in butter fat, and easier to digest. When the -goats are properly fed, it is hard to distinguish its taste -from cow's milk. We have repeatedly fooled friends of ours -who were prejudiced against it. We bought one pure-blooded -Toggenburg doe, and one grade doe. The grade doe was -probably a half-blood; there is no reason why one should go -to the expense of buying pure bloods unless one intends to -go into goat-breeding. Properly selected grade goats will -give practically as much milk and are much less expensive. -Two does, however, should be purchased. Goats are evidently -very gregarious; they fret and hold back their milk if they -are without companionship. The buck is a smelly and -obnoxious animal, and the does should be taken to a buck -when ready for breeding. Unlike a cow, which is a perfect -nuisance when in heat, bellowing and carrying on in a most -disgraceful manner, the does are so small that they can be -put into any automobile and quickly taken to a buck for -breeding. By breeding one doe so that it kids in the spring -and the other in the fall, two does will furnish a supply of -milk the year round. When fresh, our does gave us about -three quarts of milk daily. - -Among the great advantages of the goats was the great -reduction in the labor of milking and caring for them. To -milk a quart or two morning and evening proved a trifling -job in comparison with having to fill a ten-quart pail twice -a day. And the goats, unlike the cow, kept themselves clean. -As a matter of fact, they are rather fastidious in their -habits. They will not eat grain or hay which has been -trampled under foot, though they will eat almost any kind of -vegetation and are fond of eating the bark off of trees. -This partiality for bark probably explains their fondness -for paper, most of which is made of wood pulp. They will -probably eat the paper off of a tin can, but the notion that -they will eat the tin itself seems to me a silly -superstition. - -One disadvantage of goats has to do with butter. The fat -globule in goat's milk does not separate or rise as readily -as that in cow's milk. If butter is to be made, a cream -separator has to be used. With this piece of apparatus to -overcome this disadvantage, it seems to me that for the -small family all the advantages lie on the side of the goat. -We found butter-making, using an efficient rotary churn, a -most profitable activity. There is simply no comparison -between fresh, home-made butter and creamery butter. With a -good refrigerator to get the cream to the proper -temperature, the butter forms very quickly. Most of the -operations in butter-making can be done mechanically with an -efficient kitchen mixer. - -When we purchased "Sevenacres," we found ourselves in -possession of a small "farm" little of which was really -suitable for farming. There was plenty of room for garden, -though no vegetables and berries had been raised on the -place for many years; there was an old orchard containing -some apple, plum, and cherry trees; there was a hay-field, -and a piece of woodland suitable for a wood-lot. Actual -farming operations for us, when we began to develop our -theory of self-sufficiency, seemed to fall into two -divisions one having to do with the growing of vegetables, -berries, fruit, and foodstuffs for our own consumption, and -the other with the growing of feed for the chickens, the -goats, and other livestock. We have had considerable success -with the first; with the second we have tried to do -relatively little as yet. - -During the four years we were on "Sevenacres" we did not get -around to grain-farming at all, though there was room enough -for raising grain enough for both feed and for our own -table. On the "Dogwoods" we have not as yet cleared enough -ground. We have always managed to produce some hay, and on -our new place have usually managed to put away a load of -oats each year which we fed to the Toggenbergs. Eventually -we hope to produce all our own feed, as we believe it -thoroughly practicable and extremely profitable for -homesteaders to do so. An acre devoted to corn and wheat, -and a half acre devoted to alfalfa, soy-beans, or closer, -would take care of the feed for all the livestock needed by -the average family, especially if the fields are well -fertilized and properly cultivated. Commercial feed has cost -us consistently two or three times as much as farmers in the -grain-growing sections of the country receive for corn and -other grain. Sometimes it has been four times as high. By -the time freight, storage, and handling charges are added to -the price the farmer has received, the price has no -resemblance to that in the primary markets. Even though it -costs the homesteader much more to raise feed than it does -the farmer who operates a grain "factory" in the West, it -would cost him less to do so than to buy feed. - -Since we have raised so little of our feed, what we have -actually done with our livestock operations has been to -substitute a feed bill monthly for the milk and butter bill, -and the egg and poultry bill, which we used to receive in -the city. The feed bills, however, have not only been much -smaller, but have enabled us to enjoy a quality of dairy and -poultry products much higher than we were able to secure in -the city. Some day we shall clear away enough stumps and -roots on our new place so that we can cut out the feed bill -as well. When that time comes, it will be hard for the -industrial system to starve us out, no matter how badly +Milk, cream, buttermilk, butter, cheese, ice-cream---all the various +milk products---constituted one of the large items in our food budget +when we lived in the city. Our fluid milk supply consisted of grade A +milk, delivered daily in glass bottles. This milk was pasteurized. We +used creamery butter which at that time was made from raw cream. Since +then efforts have been made to compel creameries to use only pasteurized +milk. Buttermilk we drank only occasionally. After we moved to the +country it became a part of our regular diet; it proved a most healthful +and nourishing foodstuff. Ice-cream we ate in much greater moderation in +the city than we do today, perhaps because of some Puritanical +inhibition about eating too much dessert. But probably the notion was +actually correct, at least with regard to commercial ice-cream, which is +what we used to eat. Certainly the bulk of commercial ice-cream, often +made from rancid cream, artificial coloring, and synthetic flavoring, is +not a desirable food. But even the best commercial ice-cream cannot be +compared with home-made ice-cream and frozen desserts made from clean, +sweet cream, fresh eggs, and real fruit juices. Much of the cheese now +consumed in the city is synthetic, made from something which the +breweries invented and which ought not to be called cheese at all. We +ate little cheese before we left the city; after we went to the country +we began to eat all the pot cheese we could enjoy, and when we learned +how useful a part of the diet cheese can be, we began to buy the kinds +of cheese which we could not make at home. + +Our revolt against commercial milk products was helped by one of those +fortuitous incidents which shape all of our lives, though we are seldom +conscious of their importance at the time. Mrs. Borsodi, before she gave +up business, had occasion to visit one of the largest creameries in the +country to secure information for an advertising campaign. Her +disillusionment about the dairy industry and creamery butter was +complete. Modern science, she found, was being used to produce a tasty +and attractive-looking butter from raw materials which often came into +the creamery only fit for slopping to hogs. Of superficial cleanliness +there was plenty, but underneath the scrupulous surface was the fact +that the system was so perfect that no matter what sort of cream was +used, a product which had the appearance of quality was produced. No +doubt in a perfectly organized industrial state, in which the profit +motive has in some way been legislated out of existence, the technicians +who will operate the creameries will eliminate some of the worst of +present-day mass-production evils. We, however, were not only somewhat +cynical about the benefits of unlimited government supervision, but saw +no good reason why we should postpone the eating of pure and fresh foods +until the distant day when a social revolution would wipe out all the +blots on present-day industrial production. Besides, contacts with state +institutions---hospitals, for instance---prevented us from sharing the +sanguine hopes of socialist friends about the quality of foodstuffs +which would be produced in a socialist heaven. + +As soon as we were well settled in the country we bought a cow---too +good a cow, I am afraid. When fresh she gave us as much as twenty quarts +of milk a day. Most of the time we had so much milk that it seemed as if +we could bathe in it. But what milk it was! In spite of the fact that we +drank all we desired, made our own butter and pot cheese, there was +still a surplus of milk to be disposed of. A few neighbors begged us to +sell them milk, but this experience, just like our experience in selling +eggs and chickens, only confirmed our determination not to produce for +the market. We were producing a quality of milk far superior to that in +the market; what we received for it hardly paid for the labor of +cleaning bottles and delivering it. We wondered what we could buy with +the money half so precious as the milk. We needed two or three quarts of +milk daily. Twenty was too much of a good thing. We had no intention of +living on milk alone, nor of going into the dairy business. For a family +of four, the cow was evidently not the best solution of the milk +problem. With a family of six or more persons, it would perhaps have +been different. But for us, using a cow to produce milk was like using a +sledge hammer to drive carpet tacks. We sold the cow and decided to try +Swiss milch goats. + +The milch goat is still somewhat of a novelty, handicapped by the fact +that the goat is supposed to be funny. In our judgment it is an ideal +solution of the problem of producing milk for use within the family. Its +milk is richer than cow's milk in butter fat, and easier to digest. When +the goats are properly fed, it is hard to distinguish its taste from +cow's milk. We have repeatedly fooled friends of ours who were +prejudiced against it. We bought one pure-blooded Toggenburg doe, and +one grade doe. The grade doe was probably a half-blood; there is no +reason why one should go to the expense of buying pure bloods unless one +intends to go into goat-breeding. Properly selected grade goats will +give practically as much milk and are much less expensive. Two does, +however, should be purchased. Goats are evidently very gregarious; they +fret and hold back their milk if they are without companionship. The +buck is a smelly and obnoxious animal, and the does should be taken to a +buck when ready for breeding. Unlike a cow, which is a perfect nuisance +when in heat, bellowing and carrying on in a most disgraceful manner, +the does are so small that they can be put into any automobile and +quickly taken to a buck for breeding. By breeding one doe so that it +kids in the spring and the other in the fall, two does will furnish a +supply of milk the year round. When fresh, our does gave us about three +quarts of milk daily. + +Among the great advantages of the goats was the great reduction in the +labor of milking and caring for them. To milk a quart or two morning and +evening proved a trifling job in comparison with having to fill a +ten-quart pail twice a day. And the goats, unlike the cow, kept +themselves clean. As a matter of fact, they are rather fastidious in +their habits. They will not eat grain or hay which has been trampled +under foot, though they will eat almost any kind of vegetation and are +fond of eating the bark off of trees. This partiality for bark probably +explains their fondness for paper, most of which is made of wood pulp. +They will probably eat the paper off of a tin can, but the notion that +they will eat the tin itself seems to me a silly superstition. + +One disadvantage of goats has to do with butter. The fat globule in +goat's milk does not separate or rise as readily as that in cow's milk. +If butter is to be made, a cream separator has to be used. With this +piece of apparatus to overcome this disadvantage, it seems to me that +for the small family all the advantages lie on the side of the goat. We +found butter-making, using an efficient rotary churn, a most profitable +activity. There is simply no comparison between fresh, home-made butter +and creamery butter. With a good refrigerator to get the cream to the +proper temperature, the butter forms very quickly. Most of the +operations in butter-making can be done mechanically with an efficient +kitchen mixer. + +When we purchased "Sevenacres," we found ourselves in possession of a +small "farm" little of which was really suitable for farming. There was +plenty of room for garden, though no vegetables and berries had been +raised on the place for many years; there was an old orchard containing +some apple, plum, and cherry trees; there was a hay-field, and a piece +of woodland suitable for a wood-lot. Actual farming operations for us, +when we began to develop our theory of self-sufficiency, seemed to fall +into two divisions one having to do with the growing of vegetables, +berries, fruit, and foodstuffs for our own consumption, and the other +with the growing of feed for the chickens, the goats, and other +livestock. We have had considerable success with the first; with the +second we have tried to do relatively little as yet. + +During the four years we were on "Sevenacres" we did not get around to +grain-farming at all, though there was room enough for raising grain +enough for both feed and for our own table. On the "Dogwoods" we have +not as yet cleared enough ground. We have always managed to produce some +hay, and on our new place have usually managed to put away a load of +oats each year which we fed to the Toggenbergs. Eventually we hope to +produce all our own feed, as we believe it thoroughly practicable and +extremely profitable for homesteaders to do so. An acre devoted to corn +and wheat, and a half acre devoted to alfalfa, soy-beans, or closer, +would take care of the feed for all the livestock needed by the average +family, especially if the fields are well fertilized and properly +cultivated. Commercial feed has cost us consistently two or three times +as much as farmers in the grain-growing sections of the country receive +for corn and other grain. Sometimes it has been four times as high. By +the time freight, storage, and handling charges are added to the price +the farmer has received, the price has no resemblance to that in the +primary markets. Even though it costs the homesteader much more to raise +feed than it does the farmer who operates a grain "factory" in the West, +it would cost him less to do so than to buy feed. + +Since we have raised so little of our feed, what we have actually done +with our livestock operations has been to substitute a feed bill monthly +for the milk and butter bill, and the egg and poultry bill, which we +used to receive in the city. The feed bills, however, have not only been +much smaller, but have enabled us to enjoy a quality of dairy and +poultry products much higher than we were able to secure in the city. +Some day we shall clear away enough stumps and roots on our new place so +that we can cut out the feed bill as well. When that time comes, it will +be hard for the industrial system to starve us out, no matter how badly business goes to pot. -A completely vegetarian family could live entirely out of a -kitchen garden and orchard occupying no more than an acre of -land. But we never subscribed to the tenets of this dietetic -cult, though we are convinced that the average American -family consumes much more meat than good health requires. -Most of us, so to speak, are digging our graves with our -teeth. Over-eating meat is one of the ways in which the -public generally practices this form of suicide. For this -reason we have tried to increase our consumption of fruits -and vegetables and to decrease correspondingly our -consumption of meat. This has made the vegetable garden and -the orchard acquire a place of much greater economic -importance on our homestead than is usual on the average -farm, and to correspondingly decrease the importance of the -livestock. For instance, we have never gone in for -hog-raising, even though we are fond of pork. Between -chickens, ducks, and turkeys, and an occasional "bull" calf -or "buck" kid which we did not wish to raise and therefore -slaughtered, we have had plenty of meat. When particularly -hungry for ham and pork, we patronized the local meat -market. Families hungrier for meat than the Borsodi family -should raise a couple of pigs each year, buying the young -pigs and fattening them for the fall and winter. This would -also furnish a plentiful supply of lard, a natural food, -instead of the chemical fats which people now use. Butter -and chicken fat, however, have enabled us to get along -without purchasing any fats except olive oil. - -The vegetable garden should be large enough to supply the -family with fresh vegetables during the growing season and -with enough for canning and dehydrating for the winter. In -our garden we go in heavily for staples such as peas, beans, -radishes, carrots, lettuce, cabbages, turnips, asparagus, -rhubarb, potatoes, and sweet corn, but we have always -selected the more toothsome varieties of even these old -standbys. The varieties developed for commercial purposes -are notable usually for size and color rather than flavor. -Sweet corn is an instance of this. For many years we have -raised nothing but yellow bantam corn, which we believe far -superior in quality to the large, white ears which we used -to get in the city markets. Incidentally, sweet corn fresh -from the garden, before the sugar in the corn has had a -chance to turn into starch, is a very different foodstuff -from sweet corn after it has been shipped to the city and -more or less dried out in the process. Even a dull palate -has no difficulty in noticing the difference. - -Such a garden is a much larger undertaking than the usual -suburban backyard project. Unless one is content to devote -oneself to back-breaking drudgery, the garden cannot be -taken care of with a spade for "plowing" and an -old-fashioned hoe for "cultivation." We turned to the wheel -hoe, one of the simplest of agricultural implements, for -help in reducing the labor to manageable proportions. This -relatively inexpensive piece of machinery reduced the labor -to a point where it demanded no more of my time and strength -than should be given to some form of exercise regularly -every day. The investment of \$3.50 to \$5 in this implement -with its set of attachments of plows, weeders, cultivators -and rakes, pays for itself over and over again in a single -year. Except when plowing and planting, it makes it possible -to use our "man" power without abusing it. In the spring and -the fall, when planting or harvesting is under way, the -whole family goes to the garden and the heavier labor at -that time is turned into a sort of family game. It is an -amusing fact that the garden has furnished me exercise for -which we had to pay money in the city. There, to keep -oneself fit, one has to turn to gymnasiums or to golf. - -We have experimented with the use of power in farming. But -power is really unnecessary on the scale we have operated. -We have a Fordson tractor on our place, but it was purchased -only because we had to clear the land on which we built our -new home. It more than paid for itself in excavating, in -road-making, and in hauling timbers and stones at the -"Dogwoods." Even the small garden tractor, which represents -an investment of around \$200 today, is of doubtful utility -unless the homestead goes in for field corn, wheat, and -other grains. Then, of course, either a horse or small -tractor becomes a paying investment, with the horse perhaps -the better of the two under present conditions. It takes -money to buy gasoline and oil; the fuel for the horse can be -produced on the farm. The horse, too, makes it possible to -reduce expenditures for fertilizer. No wonder that since the -depression there has been a decided increase in the use of -horses for farming and a corresponding decline in the use of -tractors. - -Both on economic and on nutritional grounds we have revolted -against the commercial cereals and ordinary white flour. A -small grist-mill, to which we attached a motor from a -discarded dishwasher, has made it possible for us to grind -our own flour, and to crack cereals for breakfast foods. We -have even managed to cut down the cost of the mash we feed -to our chickens by buying whole grains and grinding them -ourselves. That this simple piece of machinery should be in -every homestead can certainly be demonstrated on the basis -of what it saves on the cost of whole-wheat flour, which is -the only kind we use. - -We, of course, have had to buy our wheat. The wheat is, -therefore, our first cost. If wheat and oats and corn are -grown on the homestead, this would no longer be the first -cost. First cost would be whatever we had to spend in labor -and money to raise the wheat. After paying for the wheat, -and adding the value of the labor and the cost of current -and similar expenses of operating our mill, our whole-wheat -flour costs us about 1 ½ cents per pound. Whole-wheat flour -of the same quality now sells in the grocery store for 6 ½ -cents per pound. The difference between the two is alone -sufficient to make the investment in the flour-mill pay us -handsome dividends. But the saving on white flour is, I -believe, much greater, and consists of other savings than -those calculable in terms of money. - -We use no white flour, except occasionally for pastry. White -flour, I believe, along with white sugar and white rice, is -one of the most harmful products for which we are indebted -to the factory system. All these bleached and whitened -foodstuffs are made white by the mills which produce them -not only for the sake of their appearance, but in order to -preserve them during the long period of time which elapses -between the time when they are ground in the mill and the -time they are consumed by the public. Dentists will tell you -that these white foods soften the teeth; dietitians and -doctors that they cause constipation. Personally, I hold -them suspect for the great white plague of tuberculosis. - -White flour is only one of the three products into which -wheat is converted by our mills. The white flour we consume -in bread and pastry; the middlings are bleached and sold to -us for breakfast food as Wheatena of Cream of Wheat, and the -bran is sold to us in neat packages to cure us of the -constipation which the white flour causes. Dr. Kellogg, of -the Battle Creek Sanitarium, who first hit on the bright -idea of marketing bran for this purpose, has made a fortune -out of selling this by-product of modern milling to the -deluded American public. Yet as long as they insist upon -consuming white flour, the bran is an almost essential -purchase. All three of these products are present in the -whole-wheat flour we use, and which costs us about 1 ½ cents -a pound. When we buy wheat after it has been split into -three parts by our milling industry, we pay about 2 cents -per pound for the white flour; about 13 cents per pound for -the middlings in the form of breakfast food, and 20 cents -per pound for the bran. - -What is true of wheat is also true of corn. The home -grist-mill makes it possible for us to grind our own corn -meal at a cost of about 1 ¼ cents per pound. But this is -whole corn meal and not the pale ghost of the old-fashioned -corn meal of our grandmothers. Yet the desiccated starchy -substance which is now sold in our stores as corn meal costs -9 cents per pound. This corn meal is made from the dregs of -whole corn after the best part, the germ, has been cut out -of it to be chemically treated and turned into glucose and -corn syrup. These chemical substances in turn have replaced -the honey, the maple sugar, the molasses, and the brown -sugar which were consumed in their places years ago, and -which it is still possible for each individual family to -produce for itself. Industrial production of these -foodstuffs, instead of representing progress, has resulted -in furnishing us inferior food and at a much higher price. - -The American housewife tends constantly to buy more prepared -or partly prepared food, and to cook and preserve less and -less in her kitchen. After we moved to the country, the -Borsodi kitchen showed an exact reversal of the general -trend. It was not only the room in which we cooked or heated -prepared foods for the table it became the family cannery -and packing-house and creamery. And in such a kitchen, we -have found that the average woman could earn much more than -most of them were earning in the factories, stores and -offices for which so many millions of women have abandoned -home-making. - -One of our first extravagances when we began to re-equip and -redesign our kitchen for production was the purchase of a -steam pressure cooker---price in 1920 \$25. We justified -this seeming extravagance with the hope that it could be -made into a profitable investment. Today pressure cookers of -the same size with many improvements over the type we -installed can be purchased for \$8.50. This piece of -domestic machinery enabled the family to cut the labor of -canning to from one-quarter to one-third of that necessary -with old-fashioned methods. Its sterilization proved as -reliable as any job of processing in the largest canneries -of the country. Without the pressure cooker, canning a -sufficient supply for winter would have been as great a -labor for us as trying to garden with a spade and hoe. With -the pressure cooker it became quite practical to put up -four-hundred quarts of vegetables and fruits an ample supply -for a family of our size for the whole winter. In addition -to the staples usually canned, the pressure cooker enabled -us to can veal, chicken, mushrooms, and gelatine. - -It made it possible for us to go into the winter with jar -after jar of delicacies such as chicken breasts, veal -gelatine, and genuine mint jelly. These cost us so little, -aside from labor, which the pressure cooker and the kitchen -mixer reduced to a minimum, that we soon abandoned the task -of making detailed comparisons between the cost of the -home-made product and the high-priced and inferior canned -goods we formerly consumed. - -As time went on we kept adding to the kitchen a good many -appliances which are usually considered luxuries. I have -mentioned that we purchased an electric range for use in the -country. There was no gas available on "Sevenacres"; to cook -with oil seemed out of question, while the old-fashioned -kitchen range, however desirable in the winter, made -kitchens an inferno in summer. Our old electric range, which -cost us \$75 ten years ago, was finally replaced by a \$250 -range a few years ago---a range equipped with all the modern -controls developed during that period of time. But even here -we refused to concede that we were going in for luxuries; we -were merely bringing our productive kitchen machinery up to -date. A test made at the time the new range was installed -confirmed us in our belief that the new range, the \$200 -kitchen mixer with all sorts of attachments, and the -electric refrigerator were all dividend-paying investments. -Two complete meals consisting of chicken, string beans, -diced carrots, prunes, and chocolate cakes were prepared by -Mrs. Borsodi and a demonstrator sent up by the General -Electric Company, and served to a group of friends. One of -the meals was completely factory made from "boughten" -products, with nothing added in the kitchen except heat to -the product as they came from the packers, canners, and -bakers. The total cost of this meal was \$3.46. The other -was exactly the same as to menu but completely home-made. -After figuring the cost of materials at market prices, -electric current, investment on machinery and equipment, and -making allowance for the difference in the weight of the two -meals, the total cost of the home-made meal was \$1.59---a -saving of \$1.87 on a single meal. This proved a saving of -\$1.40 cents per hour for the time used in cooking the -meal---pretty good earnings in comparison with what most -women received in industry. Multiply such savings by the -more than one thousand meals which are eaten every year by -the average family and it is easy to see why we feel that a -well-equipped kitchen is no luxury but an absolute essential -to the productive home. - -It is, however, possible to stress the economic argument -unduly. The kitchen is not only a place in which the average -woman can earn money. It is even more one of the places in a -home in which she can exercise her creative and artistic -faculties. Cookery is an art. It is one of those arts much -neglected today because we have so generally subscribed to -the fallacy that only that is art which has no utility. - -But cookery is even more than art. It is science as well. -The chemistry of food is a fascinating subject. And if women -but knew it, health is more apt to be maintained by what is -done by them in the kitchen than by what all the doctors and -druggists can do for their families. +A completely vegetarian family could live entirely out of a kitchen +garden and orchard occupying no more than an acre of land. But we never +subscribed to the tenets of this dietetic cult, though we are convinced +that the average American family consumes much more meat than good +health requires. Most of us, so to speak, are digging our graves with +our teeth. Over-eating meat is one of the ways in which the public +generally practices this form of suicide. For this reason we have tried +to increase our consumption of fruits and vegetables and to decrease +correspondingly our consumption of meat. This has made the vegetable +garden and the orchard acquire a place of much greater economic +importance on our homestead than is usual on the average farm, and to +correspondingly decrease the importance of the livestock. For instance, +we have never gone in for hog-raising, even though we are fond of pork. +Between chickens, ducks, and turkeys, and an occasional "bull" calf or +"buck" kid which we did not wish to raise and therefore slaughtered, we +have had plenty of meat. When particularly hungry for ham and pork, we +patronized the local meat market. Families hungrier for meat than the +Borsodi family should raise a couple of pigs each year, buying the young +pigs and fattening them for the fall and winter. This would also furnish +a plentiful supply of lard, a natural food, instead of the chemical fats +which people now use. Butter and chicken fat, however, have enabled us +to get along without purchasing any fats except olive oil. + +The vegetable garden should be large enough to supply the family with +fresh vegetables during the growing season and with enough for canning +and dehydrating for the winter. In our garden we go in heavily for +staples such as peas, beans, radishes, carrots, lettuce, cabbages, +turnips, asparagus, rhubarb, potatoes, and sweet corn, but we have +always selected the more toothsome varieties of even these old standbys. +The varieties developed for commercial purposes are notable usually for +size and color rather than flavor. Sweet corn is an instance of this. +For many years we have raised nothing but yellow bantam corn, which we +believe far superior in quality to the large, white ears which we used +to get in the city markets. Incidentally, sweet corn fresh from the +garden, before the sugar in the corn has had a chance to turn into +starch, is a very different foodstuff from sweet corn after it has been +shipped to the city and more or less dried out in the process. Even a +dull palate has no difficulty in noticing the difference. + +Such a garden is a much larger undertaking than the usual suburban +backyard project. Unless one is content to devote oneself to +back-breaking drudgery, the garden cannot be taken care of with a spade +for "plowing" and an old-fashioned hoe for "cultivation." We turned to +the wheel hoe, one of the simplest of agricultural implements, for help +in reducing the labor to manageable proportions. This relatively +inexpensive piece of machinery reduced the labor to a point where it +demanded no more of my time and strength than should be given to some +form of exercise regularly every day. The investment of \$3.50 to \$5 in +this implement with its set of attachments of plows, weeders, +cultivators and rakes, pays for itself over and over again in a single +year. Except when plowing and planting, it makes it possible to use our +"man" power without abusing it. In the spring and the fall, when +planting or harvesting is under way, the whole family goes to the garden +and the heavier labor at that time is turned into a sort of family game. +It is an amusing fact that the garden has furnished me exercise for +which we had to pay money in the city. There, to keep oneself fit, one +has to turn to gymnasiums or to golf. + +We have experimented with the use of power in farming. But power is +really unnecessary on the scale we have operated. We have a Fordson +tractor on our place, but it was purchased only because we had to clear +the land on which we built our new home. It more than paid for itself in +excavating, in road-making, and in hauling timbers and stones at the +"Dogwoods." Even the small garden tractor, which represents an +investment of around \$200 today, is of doubtful utility unless the +homestead goes in for field corn, wheat, and other grains. Then, of +course, either a horse or small tractor becomes a paying investment, +with the horse perhaps the better of the two under present conditions. +It takes money to buy gasoline and oil; the fuel for the horse can be +produced on the farm. The horse, too, makes it possible to reduce +expenditures for fertilizer. No wonder that since the depression there +has been a decided increase in the use of horses for farming and a +corresponding decline in the use of tractors. + +Both on economic and on nutritional grounds we have revolted against the +commercial cereals and ordinary white flour. A small grist-mill, to +which we attached a motor from a discarded dishwasher, has made it +possible for us to grind our own flour, and to crack cereals for +breakfast foods. We have even managed to cut down the cost of the mash +we feed to our chickens by buying whole grains and grinding them +ourselves. That this simple piece of machinery should be in every +homestead can certainly be demonstrated on the basis of what it saves on +the cost of whole-wheat flour, which is the only kind we use. + +We, of course, have had to buy our wheat. The wheat is, therefore, our +first cost. If wheat and oats and corn are grown on the homestead, this +would no longer be the first cost. First cost would be whatever we had +to spend in labor and money to raise the wheat. After paying for the +wheat, and adding the value of the labor and the cost of current and +similar expenses of operating our mill, our whole-wheat flour costs us +about 1 ½ cents per pound. Whole-wheat flour of the same quality now +sells in the grocery store for 6 ½ cents per pound. The difference +between the two is alone sufficient to make the investment in the +flour-mill pay us handsome dividends. But the saving on white flour is, +I believe, much greater, and consists of other savings than those +calculable in terms of money. + +We use no white flour, except occasionally for pastry. White flour, I +believe, along with white sugar and white rice, is one of the most +harmful products for which we are indebted to the factory system. All +these bleached and whitened foodstuffs are made white by the mills which +produce them not only for the sake of their appearance, but in order to +preserve them during the long period of time which elapses between the +time when they are ground in the mill and the time they are consumed by +the public. Dentists will tell you that these white foods soften the +teeth; dietitians and doctors that they cause constipation. Personally, +I hold them suspect for the great white plague of tuberculosis. + +White flour is only one of the three products into which wheat is +converted by our mills. The white flour we consume in bread and pastry; +the middlings are bleached and sold to us for breakfast food as Wheatena +of Cream of Wheat, and the bran is sold to us in neat packages to cure +us of the constipation which the white flour causes. Dr. Kellogg, of the +Battle Creek Sanitarium, who first hit on the bright idea of marketing +bran for this purpose, has made a fortune out of selling this by-product +of modern milling to the deluded American public. Yet as long as they +insist upon consuming white flour, the bran is an almost essential +purchase. All three of these products are present in the whole-wheat +flour we use, and which costs us about 1 ½ cents a pound. When we buy +wheat after it has been split into three parts by our milling industry, +we pay about 2 cents per pound for the white flour; about 13 cents per +pound for the middlings in the form of breakfast food, and 20 cents per +pound for the bran. + +What is true of wheat is also true of corn. The home grist-mill makes it +possible for us to grind our own corn meal at a cost of about 1 ¼ cents +per pound. But this is whole corn meal and not the pale ghost of the +old-fashioned corn meal of our grandmothers. Yet the desiccated starchy +substance which is now sold in our stores as corn meal costs 9 cents per +pound. This corn meal is made from the dregs of whole corn after the +best part, the germ, has been cut out of it to be chemically treated and +turned into glucose and corn syrup. These chemical substances in turn +have replaced the honey, the maple sugar, the molasses, and the brown +sugar which were consumed in their places years ago, and which it is +still possible for each individual family to produce for itself. +Industrial production of these foodstuffs, instead of representing +progress, has resulted in furnishing us inferior food and at a much +higher price. + +The American housewife tends constantly to buy more prepared or partly +prepared food, and to cook and preserve less and less in her kitchen. +After we moved to the country, the Borsodi kitchen showed an exact +reversal of the general trend. It was not only the room in which we +cooked or heated prepared foods for the table it became the family +cannery and packing-house and creamery. And in such a kitchen, we have +found that the average woman could earn much more than most of them were +earning in the factories, stores and offices for which so many millions +of women have abandoned home-making. + +One of our first extravagances when we began to re-equip and redesign +our kitchen for production was the purchase of a steam pressure +cooker---price in 1920 \$25. We justified this seeming extravagance with +the hope that it could be made into a profitable investment. Today +pressure cookers of the same size with many improvements over the type +we installed can be purchased for \$8.50. This piece of domestic +machinery enabled the family to cut the labor of canning to from +one-quarter to one-third of that necessary with old-fashioned methods. +Its sterilization proved as reliable as any job of processing in the +largest canneries of the country. Without the pressure cooker, canning a +sufficient supply for winter would have been as great a labor for us as +trying to garden with a spade and hoe. With the pressure cooker it +became quite practical to put up four-hundred quarts of vegetables and +fruits an ample supply for a family of our size for the whole winter. In +addition to the staples usually canned, the pressure cooker enabled us +to can veal, chicken, mushrooms, and gelatine. + +It made it possible for us to go into the winter with jar after jar of +delicacies such as chicken breasts, veal gelatine, and genuine mint +jelly. These cost us so little, aside from labor, which the pressure +cooker and the kitchen mixer reduced to a minimum, that we soon +abandoned the task of making detailed comparisons between the cost of +the home-made product and the high-priced and inferior canned goods we +formerly consumed. + +As time went on we kept adding to the kitchen a good many appliances +which are usually considered luxuries. I have mentioned that we +purchased an electric range for use in the country. There was no gas +available on "Sevenacres"; to cook with oil seemed out of question, +while the old-fashioned kitchen range, however desirable in the winter, +made kitchens an inferno in summer. Our old electric range, which cost +us \$75 ten years ago, was finally replaced by a \$250 range a few years +ago---a range equipped with all the modern controls developed during +that period of time. But even here we refused to concede that we were +going in for luxuries; we were merely bringing our productive kitchen +machinery up to date. A test made at the time the new range was +installed confirmed us in our belief that the new range, the \$200 +kitchen mixer with all sorts of attachments, and the electric +refrigerator were all dividend-paying investments. Two complete meals +consisting of chicken, string beans, diced carrots, prunes, and +chocolate cakes were prepared by Mrs. Borsodi and a demonstrator sent up +by the General Electric Company, and served to a group of friends. One +of the meals was completely factory made from "boughten" products, with +nothing added in the kitchen except heat to the product as they came +from the packers, canners, and bakers. The total cost of this meal was +\$3.46. The other was exactly the same as to menu but completely +home-made. After figuring the cost of materials at market prices, +electric current, investment on machinery and equipment, and making +allowance for the difference in the weight of the two meals, the total +cost of the home-made meal was \$1.59---a saving of \$1.87 on a single +meal. This proved a saving of \$1.40 cents per hour for the time used in +cooking the meal---pretty good earnings in comparison with what most +women received in industry. Multiply such savings by the more than one +thousand meals which are eaten every year by the average family and it +is easy to see why we feel that a well-equipped kitchen is no luxury but +an absolute essential to the productive home. + +It is, however, possible to stress the economic argument unduly. The +kitchen is not only a place in which the average woman can earn money. +It is even more one of the places in a home in which she can exercise +her creative and artistic faculties. Cookery is an art. It is one of +those arts much neglected today because we have so generally subscribed +to the fallacy that only that is art which has no utility. + +But cookery is even more than art. It is science as well. The chemistry +of food is a fascinating subject. And if women but knew it, health is +more apt to be maintained by what is done by them in the kitchen than by +what all the doctors and druggists can do for their families. # The Loom and the Sewing-Machine -When I first became interested in the possibilities of home -weaving, my father told me a story which I have told over -and over again because it illustrates most vividly the -economic advantages of what I call domestic production. - -When he left his home in Hungary to come to this country he -was twenty-five years of age. That was not quite fifty years -ago. At the time he left Hungary the sheets which were in -use in the family's ancestral home were the same sheets -which had been included in the hand-spun and hand-woven -linens given to his mother as a wedding gift thirty years -before. What is more, at the time he left home they were -still in perfect condition and apparently good for a -lifetime of further service. After thirty years of -continuous service those home-spun, home-woven, -home-bleached, and home-laundered sheets were still snowy -white, heavy linen of a quality it is impossible to -duplicate today. - -Now let us contrast the sheets which were in my -grandmother's home with the sheets in our home today and in -that of practically all of the homes of industrialized -America. Compared with the luxurious heavy linen in my -grandmother's home, we use a relatively cheap, sleazy, -factory-spun, factory-woven and factory-finished sheet, -which we used to send out to commercial laundries, and which -we replaced about every two years. With domestic laundering -they last about twice as long. True, the first cost of our -factory-made sheets is much less than the cost of the -hand-made linens, but the final and complete cost is much -greater and at no time do we have the luxury of using the -linens which in my grandmother's home were accepted as their -everyday due. I do not know what her linen sheets cost in -labor and materials fifty years ago. We pay about \$1.25 for -ours, and on the basis of commercial laundering, have to -purchase new ones every two years. Our expenditure for -sheets for thirty years, with a family one-quarter the size -of grandmother's, would therefore be \$18.75 per -sheet---much more, I am sure, than was spent for sheets -during the same period of time in my grandmother's home. And -at the end of thirty years, we would have nothing but a pile -of sleazy cotton rags, while in the old home they still had -the original sheets probably good for again as much service. - -Before the era of factory spinning and factory weaving, -which began with the first Arkwright mill in Nottingham, -England, in 1768, fabrics and clothing were made in the -homes and workshops of each community. Men raised the flax -and wool and then did the weaving. Women did the spinning -and later sewed and knitted the yarns into garments of all -kinds. The music of the spinning-wheel and the rhythm of the -loom filled the land. Perhaps one-third of the time of men -and women---one-third of their total time at labor---was -devoted to producing yarns and fabrics which they consumed. - -In the place of loom-rooms in its homes, America now has -thousands of mills employing hundreds of thousands of -wage-earners. Many of the wage-earners in these textile -mills are children in spite of the campaigns against child -labor. And the wages paid by these mills are notoriously the -lowest which prevail in industry in this country. Instead of -healthy and creative work in the homes, we have monotonous +When I first became interested in the possibilities of home weaving, my +father told me a story which I have told over and over again because it +illustrates most vividly the economic advantages of what I call domestic +production. + +When he left his home in Hungary to come to this country he was +twenty-five years of age. That was not quite fifty years ago. At the +time he left Hungary the sheets which were in use in the family's +ancestral home were the same sheets which had been included in the +hand-spun and hand-woven linens given to his mother as a wedding gift +thirty years before. What is more, at the time he left home they were +still in perfect condition and apparently good for a lifetime of further +service. After thirty years of continuous service those home-spun, +home-woven, home-bleached, and home-laundered sheets were still snowy +white, heavy linen of a quality it is impossible to duplicate today. + +Now let us contrast the sheets which were in my grandmother's home with +the sheets in our home today and in that of practically all of the homes +of industrialized America. Compared with the luxurious heavy linen in my +grandmother's home, we use a relatively cheap, sleazy, factory-spun, +factory-woven and factory-finished sheet, which we used to send out to +commercial laundries, and which we replaced about every two years. With +domestic laundering they last about twice as long. True, the first cost +of our factory-made sheets is much less than the cost of the hand-made +linens, but the final and complete cost is much greater and at no time +do we have the luxury of using the linens which in my grandmother's home +were accepted as their everyday due. I do not know what her linen sheets +cost in labor and materials fifty years ago. We pay about \$1.25 for +ours, and on the basis of commercial laundering, have to purchase new +ones every two years. Our expenditure for sheets for thirty years, with +a family one-quarter the size of grandmother's, would therefore be +\$18.75 per sheet---much more, I am sure, than was spent for sheets +during the same period of time in my grandmother's home. And at the end +of thirty years, we would have nothing but a pile of sleazy cotton rags, +while in the old home they still had the original sheets probably good +for again as much service. + +Before the era of factory spinning and factory weaving, which began with +the first Arkwright mill in Nottingham, England, in 1768, fabrics and +clothing were made in the homes and workshops of each community. Men +raised the flax and wool and then did the weaving. Women did the +spinning and later sewed and knitted the yarns into garments of all +kinds. The music of the spinning-wheel and the rhythm of the loom filled +the land. Perhaps one-third of the time of men and women---one-third of +their total time at labor---was devoted to producing yarns and fabrics +which they consumed. + +In the place of loom-rooms in its homes, America now has thousands of +mills employing hundreds of thousands of wage-earners. Many of the +wage-earners in these textile mills are children in spite of the +campaigns against child labor. And the wages paid by these mills are +notoriously the lowest which prevail in industry in this country. +Instead of healthy and creative work in the homes, we have monotonous and deadly labor in mills. -A trifle over a third of the production of the cotton -industry is used for industrial purposes. It is used by -manufacturers in fabricating tires, automobile bodies, -electric wire, and similar industrial products. Two-thirds -of the production of cotton and nearly all of the production -of the silk and wool industry goes to the consumer either as -piece goods for home sewing, or cut up into wearing apparel -by clothing manufacturers. This means that only 10-15% of -the total number of factories and workers in the entire -industry are engaged in producing for the needs of other -industries. All of the rest are doing work which used to be -done in the home and much of which might still be done -there. And our experiments with sewing and weaving tend to -show that it can be done at an actual saving of labor or -money. - -If all the resources of modern science and industry were to -be utilized for the purpose of making the spinning-wheel, -the reel, and the loom into really efficient domestic -machines (as efficient relatively as is the average domestic -sewing-machine), the number of textile-mills which could -meet the competition of the home producer would be -insignificant. And if modern inventive genius were thus -applied to these appliances for weaving, there would be no -drudgery in domestic weaving; a saving of time and money -would be effected; the quality and design of fabrics would -be improved, and everybody of high and low degree would be -furnished an opportunity to engage in interesting and -expressive work. Such improved machinery would occupy no -more space than is now wasted in many homes and the -loom-room would give to the home a new practical and +A trifle over a third of the production of the cotton industry is used +for industrial purposes. It is used by manufacturers in fabricating +tires, automobile bodies, electric wire, and similar industrial +products. Two-thirds of the production of cotton and nearly all of the +production of the silk and wool industry goes to the consumer either as +piece goods for home sewing, or cut up into wearing apparel by clothing +manufacturers. This means that only 10-15% of the total number of +factories and workers in the entire industry are engaged in producing +for the needs of other industries. All of the rest are doing work which +used to be done in the home and much of which might still be done there. +And our experiments with sewing and weaving tend to show that it can be +done at an actual saving of labor or money. + +If all the resources of modern science and industry were to be utilized +for the purpose of making the spinning-wheel, the reel, and the loom +into really efficient domestic machines (as efficient relatively as is +the average domestic sewing-machine), the number of textile-mills which +could meet the competition of the home producer would be insignificant. +And if modern inventive genius were thus applied to these appliances for +weaving, there would be no drudgery in domestic weaving; a saving of +time and money would be effected; the quality and design of fabrics +would be improved, and everybody of high and low degree would be +furnished an opportunity to engage in interesting and expressive work. +Such improved machinery would occupy no more space than is now wasted in +many homes and the loom-room would give to the home a new practical and economic function. -Our loom, in spite of the attachment of a flying shuttle, -which has increased its efficiency greatly, remains one of -the most primitive pieces of machinery in our home. There is -at present no really efficient domestic loom upon the -market. Most of the looms made for what is called "hand -weaving" with emphasis on the silent word "art," are built -upon archaic models or devised so as to make weaving as -difficult as possible instead of as easy as possible. - -The biggest market for these looms is, I believe, in the -institutional field. Weaving is one of the favored methods -of "occupational therapy" in the ever-increasing number of -institutions for nervous and mental disorders which we are -erecting all over the country. The strain of repetitive work -in our factories and offices, and the absence of creative -and productive work in our homes, particularly for women, -children, and the aged, is turning us into a race of -neurotics. Weaving is being revived, after a fashion, as a -therapeutic measure to restore these unfortunates to health. -What a ghastly commentary upon what we have called progress. -Having taken the looms out of homes during the past century -and transferred them to factories, we now find that the -absence of the creative work they used to furnish is -producing an ever-increasing number of neurotic men and -women, and an endless number of "problem" children. So our -physicians are putting the loom into their institutions in -order to make the victims of this deprivation well again. -Then they turn them, after curing them, back into their -loomless homes to break down again. - -The looms built for occupational therapy and hand-weaving -generally are deliberately designed to increase the amount -of manual work which those who operate them have to perform -for every yard of cloth produced. As a result the actual -production of cloth is slow and laborious. Yet there is no -reason why this should be so. The right kind of loom would -enable the average family to produce suitings, blankets, -rugs, draperies, and domestics of all kinds of a quality -superior to those generally produced in factories and on -sale in stores at a far lower cost after taking time and all -materials and supplies into consideration. The artistic and -emotional gains from the practice of this craft would -therefore be a clear gain. - -In the average home, a loom which will weave a width of a -yard is sufficient. Ours is able to handle fabrics up to -forty-four inches in width. While many things can be made on -a simple two-harness loom, we find the four-harness loom a -more useful type because of its greater range of design. But -every loom should be equipped with an efficient system for -warping, and with a flying shuttle, if it is to enable the -home-weaver to compete upon an economic basis with the -factory. Neither of these are expensive---in fact, the whole -investment in equipment in order to weave need not exceed -\$75 if one can make the flying-shuttle arrangement oneself. -The shuttle attachment on my loom was home-made and took me -only three or four hours to put together. With such a loom, -even an average weaver can produce a yard of cloth an -hour---and a speedy weaver, willing to exert himself, can -produce thirty yards per day. Since it takes only seven -yards of twenty-seven-inch cloth to make a three-piece suit -for a man, it is possible to weave the cloth for a suit in a -single day on a small loom, and in less than a day on a loom -able to handle fifty-four-inch cloth. - -Some idea of the possibilities of weaving, even without much -experience, can be gained from our first experiences with -blankets one was woven by a friend of mine who had never had -any experience at all, in a little less than eight hours. A -similar one was the first blanket woven by my son---a -somewhat better piece of work---in less than six hours. A -third was a somewhat more elaborate affair on which three -members of the family each did a turn, and so I have no -record of the time it took to weave it. The yarn used in -these blankets cost about \$2.50 for each blanket---at a -time when blankets of similar quality couldn't have been -purchased for many times that sum. Even if the loom is only -used occasionally, it will earn handsome dividends on the -investment at this rate. - -Our experiments in the weaving of woollens for men's and -women's clothing have demonstrated the practicability not -only of cutting out of the budget most of the expenditures -for ready-made garments, but even the expenditures for -fabrics. The accompanying illustrations of garments made -from fabrics woven in the Borsodi homestead suggest not only -the great variety of garments for which it is possible to -weave the fabrics, but the fact that they are, if anything, -more attractive than those which are usually on sale in -retail stores ready-made. - -The suit shown in the accompanying picture was made from -yarn home-spun in the Kentucky mountains; the cloth was -woven and finished in our home; the suit was made up by a -tailor operating a one-man shop near our place. The yarn -cost \$4.50; the tailoring \$30. I had it appraised by -various so-called experts at the time, and they valued it -all the way from \$60 to \$90. One friend, who could not -qualify as an expert but who has his suits made by Fifth -Avenue tailors, said that he had paid \$125 for suits no -better than this one. Incidentally, the suiting was the -first which I ever wove. - -This matter of tailoring brings up one of the amusing -follies of modern civilization to which we pay no attention -but for which we pay, nevertheless, over and over again. The -strictly tailored costumes which men now wear have nothing -but custom to recommend them. They require great skill in -sewing; they are therefore impractical for manufacture at -home. Yet they are artistic monstrosities. They do nothing -to set off the human form. They are not even utilitarian. -Most of the hard work of the world is done by men who wear -over-alls or cotton garments which are not tailored at all. -While suits are practical enough for the work which men do -in offices, they are much too hot for indoor -use---especially in houses which are steam heated. A foolish -convention, however, makes us all wear them. If we, however, -once again took the designing of our garments into our own -hands, it is possible that something much more attractive -and useful might develop. We might experiment with blouses, -or even with costumes such as the Chinese wear. And apropos -of blouses for men, it is an amusing commentary upon the -industrialization of Russian life under the Soviets, that -the old Russian blouses, which could be made in any -household, are now being replaced by the conventional -costume of Western civilization---which has to be made in +Our loom, in spite of the attachment of a flying shuttle, which has +increased its efficiency greatly, remains one of the most primitive +pieces of machinery in our home. There is at present no really efficient +domestic loom upon the market. Most of the looms made for what is called +"hand weaving" with emphasis on the silent word "art," are built upon +archaic models or devised so as to make weaving as difficult as possible +instead of as easy as possible. + +The biggest market for these looms is, I believe, in the institutional +field. Weaving is one of the favored methods of "occupational therapy" +in the ever-increasing number of institutions for nervous and mental +disorders which we are erecting all over the country. The strain of +repetitive work in our factories and offices, and the absence of +creative and productive work in our homes, particularly for women, +children, and the aged, is turning us into a race of neurotics. Weaving +is being revived, after a fashion, as a therapeutic measure to restore +these unfortunates to health. What a ghastly commentary upon what we +have called progress. Having taken the looms out of homes during the +past century and transferred them to factories, we now find that the +absence of the creative work they used to furnish is producing an +ever-increasing number of neurotic men and women, and an endless number +of "problem" children. So our physicians are putting the loom into their +institutions in order to make the victims of this deprivation well +again. Then they turn them, after curing them, back into their loomless +homes to break down again. + +The looms built for occupational therapy and hand-weaving generally are +deliberately designed to increase the amount of manual work which those +who operate them have to perform for every yard of cloth produced. As a +result the actual production of cloth is slow and laborious. Yet there +is no reason why this should be so. The right kind of loom would enable +the average family to produce suitings, blankets, rugs, draperies, and +domestics of all kinds of a quality superior to those generally produced +in factories and on sale in stores at a far lower cost after taking time +and all materials and supplies into consideration. The artistic and +emotional gains from the practice of this craft would therefore be a +clear gain. + +In the average home, a loom which will weave a width of a yard is +sufficient. Ours is able to handle fabrics up to forty-four inches in +width. While many things can be made on a simple two-harness loom, we +find the four-harness loom a more useful type because of its greater +range of design. But every loom should be equipped with an efficient +system for warping, and with a flying shuttle, if it is to enable the +home-weaver to compete upon an economic basis with the factory. Neither +of these are expensive---in fact, the whole investment in equipment in +order to weave need not exceed \$75 if one can make the flying-shuttle +arrangement oneself. The shuttle attachment on my loom was home-made and +took me only three or four hours to put together. With such a loom, even +an average weaver can produce a yard of cloth an hour---and a speedy +weaver, willing to exert himself, can produce thirty yards per day. +Since it takes only seven yards of twenty-seven-inch cloth to make a +three-piece suit for a man, it is possible to weave the cloth for a suit +in a single day on a small loom, and in less than a day on a loom able +to handle fifty-four-inch cloth. + +Some idea of the possibilities of weaving, even without much experience, +can be gained from our first experiences with blankets one was woven by +a friend of mine who had never had any experience at all, in a little +less than eight hours. A similar one was the first blanket woven by my +son---a somewhat better piece of work---in less than six hours. A third +was a somewhat more elaborate affair on which three members of the +family each did a turn, and so I have no record of the time it took to +weave it. The yarn used in these blankets cost about \$2.50 for each +blanket---at a time when blankets of similar quality couldn't have been +purchased for many times that sum. Even if the loom is only used +occasionally, it will earn handsome dividends on the investment at this +rate. + +Our experiments in the weaving of woollens for men's and women's +clothing have demonstrated the practicability not only of cutting out of +the budget most of the expenditures for ready-made garments, but even +the expenditures for fabrics. The accompanying illustrations of garments +made from fabrics woven in the Borsodi homestead suggest not only the +great variety of garments for which it is possible to weave the fabrics, +but the fact that they are, if anything, more attractive than those +which are usually on sale in retail stores ready-made. + +The suit shown in the accompanying picture was made from yarn home-spun +in the Kentucky mountains; the cloth was woven and finished in our home; +the suit was made up by a tailor operating a one-man shop near our +place. The yarn cost \$4.50; the tailoring \$30. I had it appraised by +various so-called experts at the time, and they valued it all the way +from \$60 to \$90. One friend, who could not qualify as an expert but +who has his suits made by Fifth Avenue tailors, said that he had paid +\$125 for suits no better than this one. Incidentally, the suiting was +the first which I ever wove. + +This matter of tailoring brings up one of the amusing follies of modern +civilization to which we pay no attention but for which we pay, +nevertheless, over and over again. The strictly tailored costumes which +men now wear have nothing but custom to recommend them. They require +great skill in sewing; they are therefore impractical for manufacture at +home. Yet they are artistic monstrosities. They do nothing to set off +the human form. They are not even utilitarian. Most of the hard work of +the world is done by men who wear over-alls or cotton garments which are +not tailored at all. While suits are practical enough for the work which +men do in offices, they are much too hot for indoor use---especially in +houses which are steam heated. A foolish convention, however, makes us +all wear them. If we, however, once again took the designing of our +garments into our own hands, it is possible that something much more +attractive and useful might develop. We might experiment with blouses, +or even with costumes such as the Chinese wear. And apropos of blouses +for men, it is an amusing commentary upon the industrialization of +Russian life under the Soviets, that the old Russian blouses, which +could be made in any household, are now being replaced by the +conventional costume of Western civilization---which has to be made in factories. -With women's garments, the field for weaving and for the -needle-crafts, even with prevailing styles, is much broader. -The garments illustrated show coats, suits, and dresses all -made from fabrics woven in our home. I presume I am rather -prejudiced in the matter, but it seems to me that the -garments Mrs. Borsodi has produced in our home compare -favorably with those which most women buy ready to wear -today. - -The sewing-machine is a most important piece of domestic -machinery. It is doubtful whether any other piece of -machinery pays larger dividends upon the investment made in -it. Yet it remains a tool, to be used when needed and laid -aside, perhaps for months at a time, when no sewing has to -be done. In combination with the loom, the sewing-machine -takes on new significance both economically and -artistically. What I have here in mind can be made clear by -quoting from an article by Mrs. Borsodi in *The -Handicrafter*, which describes one of her suits: - -The suit was made from a twill suiting. The yarn was a -weaving special; the warp tan No. 136, and the weft a lovely -green, No. 755. The weave was a simple twill made with four -treadles operated 1, 2, 3, 4 and repeat. Four yards of -material 27 inches wide were used. The suit was based upon a -*Vogue* pattern, which was modified in many details. Since I -had never before tailored homespun, it took many more hours -of time to produce the suit than a second one could possibly -take. Immediately upon cutting the material by the pattern, -I stitched twice around the cut edges on the sewing-machine. -This prevented the material from unravelling. I then -proceeded much the same as in making any other coat and -dress. Finally, after much pressing into shape, I have a -suit which has repeatedly been called very good-looking, and -which I know gave me more joy in the weaving and making than -I ever had in purchasing a similar product from any store. -Outside of fur, it is the warmest coat I have ever worn. - -It is difficult to compare the cost with a factory product, -because I could not afford to purchase this quality and -character of material made up. To get this quality of -material one would have to go to an expensive house indeed, -and to get this particular style of material at the time I -finished the suit, it would have been necessary to go to a -stylish and even exclusive house because it was just coming -in. Taking all these things into consideration, a valuation -of \$50 would represent a most conservative price. - -In judging the hours spent in weaving and sewing, please -remember that this was the first time I had done either, -and, even on a second garment of this type, the time of -weaving and the time spent in sewing could be considerably -reduced. Also, I could make an even better-looking suit a +With women's garments, the field for weaving and for the needle-crafts, +even with prevailing styles, is much broader. The garments illustrated +show coats, suits, and dresses all made from fabrics woven in our home. +I presume I am rather prejudiced in the matter, but it seems to me that +the garments Mrs. Borsodi has produced in our home compare favorably +with those which most women buy ready to wear today. + +The sewing-machine is a most important piece of domestic machinery. It +is doubtful whether any other piece of machinery pays larger dividends +upon the investment made in it. Yet it remains a tool, to be used when +needed and laid aside, perhaps for months at a time, when no sewing has +to be done. In combination with the loom, the sewing-machine takes on +new significance both economically and artistically. What I have here in +mind can be made clear by quoting from an article by Mrs. Borsodi in +*The Handicrafter*, which describes one of her suits: + +The suit was made from a twill suiting. The yarn was a weaving special; +the warp tan No. 136, and the weft a lovely green, No. 755. The weave +was a simple twill made with four treadles operated 1, 2, 3, 4 and +repeat. Four yards of material 27 inches wide were used. The suit was +based upon a *Vogue* pattern, which was modified in many details. Since +I had never before tailored homespun, it took many more hours of time to +produce the suit than a second one could possibly take. Immediately upon +cutting the material by the pattern, I stitched twice around the cut +edges on the sewing-machine. This prevented the material from +unravelling. I then proceeded much the same as in making any other coat +and dress. Finally, after much pressing into shape, I have a suit which +has repeatedly been called very good-looking, and which I know gave me +more joy in the weaving and making than I ever had in purchasing a +similar product from any store. Outside of fur, it is the warmest coat I +have ever worn. + +It is difficult to compare the cost with a factory product, because I +could not afford to purchase this quality and character of material made +up. To get this quality of material one would have to go to an expensive +house indeed, and to get this particular style of material at the time I +finished the suit, it would have been necessary to go to a stylish and +even exclusive house because it was just coming in. Taking all these +things into consideration, a valuation of \$50 would represent a most +conservative price. + +In judging the hours spent in weaving and sewing, please remember that +this was the first time I had done either, and, even on a second garment +of this type, the time of weaving and the time spent in sewing could be +considerably reduced. Also, I could make an even better-looking suit a second time. -In charging fifty cents an hour for my time, I think I have -given the benefit of a relatively high rate to the factory, -for few factories pay this price for such operations as were -performed. To be sure, the factory has its designers who are -well paid, but then I paid for my share of such service in -the *Vogue* pattern upon which I relied for assured fit and -style. And in addition to the saving on the suit, I had the -pleasure of developing a creation of my own. +In charging fifty cents an hour for my time, I think I have given the +benefit of a relatively high rate to the factory, for few factories pay +this price for such operations as were performed. To be sure, the +factory has its designers who are well paid, but then I paid for my +share of such service in the *Vogue* pattern upon which I relied for +assured fit and style. And in addition to the saving on the suit, I had +the pleasure of developing a creation of my own. Item Cost ------------------------------- --------- @@ -1754,24 +1502,21 @@ pleasure of developing a creation of my own. Labor sewing, 12 hours at 50c \$6.00 Total Cost \$18.85 -It should be borne in mind that the above costs refer to a -period when prices were in general fully twice as high as -they are today. Both the cost above as well as the price of -a garment with which to compare this suit should therefore -be understood as establishing relative savings rather than -actual savings today. The record, however, can stand -examination no matter from what standpoint it is viewed. It -would show a nice dividend upon the investment in domestic -machinery even after full allowance is made for the time -spent in making the suit. It is significant that the two -yards of silk lining---purchased factory made---cost almost -as much as all the rest of the fabric for both materials and -weaving. - -What the sewing-machine alone can do is shown from another -record from Mrs. Borsodi's cost book. This covered an -afternoon frock, appraised at the time it was made as worth -\$49.50. +It should be borne in mind that the above costs refer to a period when +prices were in general fully twice as high as they are today. Both the +cost above as well as the price of a garment with which to compare this +suit should therefore be understood as establishing relative savings +rather than actual savings today. The record, however, can stand +examination no matter from what standpoint it is viewed. It would show a +nice dividend upon the investment in domestic machinery even after full +allowance is made for the time spent in making the suit. It is +significant that the two yards of silk lining---purchased factory +made---cost almost as much as all the rest of the fabric for both +materials and weaving. + +What the sewing-machine alone can do is shown from another record from +Mrs. Borsodi's cost book. This covered an afternoon frock, appraised at +the time it was made as worth \$49.50. --------------------------------------------------------- Item Cost @@ -1801,386 +1546,330 @@ afternoon frock, appraised at the time it was made as worth Value of afternoon frock \$49.50 --------------------------------------------------------- -Some of the value in this frock lay, I presume, in its -"style," something for which women pay a great deal if they -are intent on keeping on with the latest developments in -Paris. The sewing-machine makes it possible to secure style -without having to patronize the most expensive stores and to -pay a premium for this service. - -The coat shown on page 55 was made on the same warp as the -man's suit previously referred to, but with a heavier weft. -It cost about \$3.50 in yarn and about 24 hours for sewing -and weaving. The fabric is a distinctive herringbone effect; -it is exceedingly warm; it promises to wear almost -indefinitely; the design and color express Mrs. Borsodi's -personality. What more could be expected of any garment than -that it should be attractive, useful, inexpensive, and that -its production should furnish a creative outlet for the -artistic abilities of its maker? - -To me the part which our loom and sewing-machine have played -in creative living is, if anything, more important than the -service they have rendered in making us less dependent upon -earning money. +Some of the value in this frock lay, I presume, in its "style," +something for which women pay a great deal if they are intent on keeping +on with the latest developments in Paris. The sewing-machine makes it +possible to secure style without having to patronize the most expensive +stores and to pay a premium for this service. + +The coat shown on page 55 was made on the same warp as the man's suit +previously referred to, but with a heavier weft. It cost about \$3.50 in +yarn and about 24 hours for sewing and weaving. The fabric is a +distinctive herringbone effect; it is exceedingly warm; it promises to +wear almost indefinitely; the design and color express Mrs. Borsodi's +personality. What more could be expected of any garment than that it +should be attractive, useful, inexpensive, and that its production +should furnish a creative outlet for the artistic abilities of its +maker? + +To me the part which our loom and sewing-machine have played in creative +living is, if anything, more important than the service they have +rendered in making us less dependent upon earning money. # Shelter -For many years, shelter for us had meant the four walls of -an apartment in New York City with all the conveniences and -services which were included in the rent we paid. We took -electricity and gas, running hot and cold water, steam heat -and modern plumbing, and janitor service, quite for granted. -It is true that a few years before our flight from the city -we had moved into a house in Flushing, a half-hour from the -center of the city. We then made the discovery that it was -possible for us to run a house and that we could have much -more room, for the same rent, if we were willing to burden -ourselves with the responsibility for producing our own hot -water and our own heat in the winter. This experience helped -to get us into a frame of mind in which we could seriously -consider living in a house in the country in which there -were none of the comforts to which we were accustomed, until -we installed them and maintained them for ourselves. The -purchase of a home in which they were already present was -out of question because our funds were too small, and -besides, that would have reduced the field in which we might +For many years, shelter for us had meant the four walls of an apartment +in New York City with all the conveniences and services which were +included in the rent we paid. We took electricity and gas, running hot +and cold water, steam heat and modern plumbing, and janitor service, +quite for granted. It is true that a few years before our flight from +the city we had moved into a house in Flushing, a half-hour from the +center of the city. We then made the discovery that it was possible for +us to run a house and that we could have much more room, for the same +rent, if we were willing to burden ourselves with the responsibility for +producing our own hot water and our own heat in the winter. This +experience helped to get us into a frame of mind in which we could +seriously consider living in a house in the country in which there were +none of the comforts to which we were accustomed, until we installed +them and maintained them for ourselves. The purchase of a home in which +they were already present was out of question because our funds were too +small, and besides, that would have reduced the field in which we might experiment with building and making things for ourselves. -The house on the place which we purchased when we moved to -the country twelve years ago---our present home is not on -the same place---was in part very old. Hewn timbers, fitted -together with wooden pins, had been used in the construction -of one part of the building. The newer section must have -been added many years later, since the timbers were -regulation stuff. In addition, this new section must have at -one time been a separate building, because the ceilings in -the two sections were of different heights with the floor -levels of the second story varying correspondingly. The -entrance was at one side of the house and the front door -decorated with a stupid little porch. Study of the lines of -the building led us to the conclusion that the door would -have to be shifted to the center and the window in the -center moved to where the door was. The front porch, we -decided, was an anachronism which had no place in our -picture of the sort of house we wanted. At the back was a -door which for some unknown reason opened into the thin air -with a sheer drop of three feet to the ground. There were -partitions inside where openings should have been, and doors -had been cut where there should have been solid walls. - -There was no electricity, no gas, no bathroom, no heating -system. There wasn't even a fireplace, something for which -we had romantically hungered. The only thing approaching a -convenience was an old-fashioned hand suction pump in the -kitchen connected to an iron sink. But we found out that it -didn't work, and besides, that it was connected to a cistern +The house on the place which we purchased when we moved to the country +twelve years ago---our present home is not on the same place---was in +part very old. Hewn timbers, fitted together with wooden pins, had been +used in the construction of one part of the building. The newer section +must have been added many years later, since the timbers were regulation +stuff. In addition, this new section must have at one time been a +separate building, because the ceilings in the two sections were of +different heights with the floor levels of the second story varying +correspondingly. The entrance was at one side of the house and the front +door decorated with a stupid little porch. Study of the lines of the +building led us to the conclusion that the door would have to be shifted +to the center and the window in the center moved to where the door was. +The front porch, we decided, was an anachronism which had no place in +our picture of the sort of house we wanted. At the back was a door which +for some unknown reason opened into the thin air with a sheer drop of +three feet to the ground. There were partitions inside where openings +should have been, and doors had been cut where there should have been +solid walls. + +There was no electricity, no gas, no bathroom, no heating system. There +wasn't even a fireplace, something for which we had romantically +hungered. The only thing approaching a convenience was an old-fashioned +hand suction pump in the kitchen connected to an iron sink. But we found +out that it didn't work, and besides, that it was connected to a cistern in which there was rarely any water. -To make this house over into what would furnish us the -equivalent of the comforts to which we were accustomed would -have required the employment of carpenters, of joiners, of -plasterers, of plumbers, of steam-fitters, of electricians. - -To us these necessary alterations loomed up portentously. If -the house was to be made livable, all of them would have to -be made, and since we lacked the means to employ contractors -to make all of them for us, there was only one way out of -the dilemma, and that was to undertake to make most of them -myself. An initial experience with contractors helped to -strengthen our determination in this direction. We had -purchased an electric range---price \$75---for use in the -country. We made arrangements with an electrician to install -the range the day after we arrived, and received a bill for -\$35 for the work---nearly half the cost of the range. -Whether the charge was exorbitant or not, it seemed to us -high, and to me it did not seem to involve much in the way -of skills which I could not master. - -I began to accumulate tools from that moment, and decided to -train myself for the job of jack-of-all-trades by -undertaking to build something on which my 'prentice hand -could do no irretrievable damage. A new chicken-house was -elected. The shanty we had found on the place, and which had -been used for a chicken-house, was such a dirty, hopelessly -inefficient mess that it had to be torn down. With what -could be retrieved from the lumber in the old chicken-house -and a few new two-by-fours and boards, I began to build a -chicken-house. - -The building of that chicken-house proved a liberal -education. If it did not make me into a finished carpenter, -it at least gave me the courage to undertake the remodelling -of the house, and eventually make it over to something -nearer to our idea of what a modest country home should look -like. - -In the course of the year during which I spent all my spare -hours remodelling the house, building in cupboards and -closets and furniture, putting in electric lights, -installing an automatic pumping system, I acquired a -wholesome confidence in my ability to work with tools. I -learned that deficiencies of experience and skill could be -offset by the time and pains put into each job. Before I was -through with my building operations on "Sevenacres," I came -to the conclusion that most of the work which we think only -skilled mechanics can do is quite within the capacities of -any intelligent and persevering man. While some of the work -which they do, and certainly the speed with which they can -work, requires years of experience, most of their skills -involve relatively simple techniques. The mysterious -knowledge which makes the average city man, in his -ignorance, telephone for an electrician whenever a fuse -blows out or an electric-light fixture fails to function, -and to hunt for the janitor or call for a plumber when a -faucet leaks, hasn't the right to be mysterious to anyone -over the age of fifteen. - -The effort to produce shelter for ourselves in this way -produced a number of dividends upon which we had not counted -in the beginning. We, of course, counted most upon reducing -the cost of shelter. In the city, a full quarter of our -income had been spent for rent. By owning our home, and -above all by making our investment small because we were -willing to put some of our own labor into rebuilding, we cut -down the cost of shelter to not much more than I earned by -one or two days' work a month. That left just so much more -of what we used to spend for rent available for other -purposes than shelter; we had the income for from four to -five days more each month to save or spend. - -One of the dividends upon which we had not counted was that -of health. We found that this sort of work, if it was not -overdone (of which there is a real danger when one's -enthusiasm is great), furnishes wholesome and necessary -exercise. And instead of being just the mechanical exercise -of gymnasium work, it is exercise for the intellect and the +To make this house over into what would furnish us the equivalent of the +comforts to which we were accustomed would have required the employment +of carpenters, of joiners, of plasterers, of plumbers, of steam-fitters, +of electricians. + +To us these necessary alterations loomed up portentously. If the house +was to be made livable, all of them would have to be made, and since we +lacked the means to employ contractors to make all of them for us, there +was only one way out of the dilemma, and that was to undertake to make +most of them myself. An initial experience with contractors helped to +strengthen our determination in this direction. We had purchased an +electric range---price \$75---for use in the country. We made +arrangements with an electrician to install the range the day after we +arrived, and received a bill for \$35 for the work---nearly half the +cost of the range. Whether the charge was exorbitant or not, it seemed +to us high, and to me it did not seem to involve much in the way of +skills which I could not master. + +I began to accumulate tools from that moment, and decided to train +myself for the job of jack-of-all-trades by undertaking to build +something on which my 'prentice hand could do no irretrievable damage. A +new chicken-house was elected. The shanty we had found on the place, and +which had been used for a chicken-house, was such a dirty, hopelessly +inefficient mess that it had to be torn down. With what could be +retrieved from the lumber in the old chicken-house and a few new +two-by-fours and boards, I began to build a chicken-house. + +The building of that chicken-house proved a liberal education. If it did +not make me into a finished carpenter, it at least gave me the courage +to undertake the remodelling of the house, and eventually make it over +to something nearer to our idea of what a modest country home should +look like. + +In the course of the year during which I spent all my spare hours +remodelling the house, building in cupboards and closets and furniture, +putting in electric lights, installing an automatic pumping system, I +acquired a wholesome confidence in my ability to work with tools. I +learned that deficiencies of experience and skill could be offset by the +time and pains put into each job. Before I was through with my building +operations on "Sevenacres," I came to the conclusion that most of the +work which we think only skilled mechanics can do is quite within the +capacities of any intelligent and persevering man. While some of the +work which they do, and certainly the speed with which they can work, +requires years of experience, most of their skills involve relatively +simple techniques. The mysterious knowledge which makes the average city +man, in his ignorance, telephone for an electrician whenever a fuse +blows out or an electric-light fixture fails to function, and to hunt +for the janitor or call for a plumber when a faucet leaks, hasn't the +right to be mysterious to anyone over the age of fifteen. + +The effort to produce shelter for ourselves in this way produced a +number of dividends upon which we had not counted in the beginning. We, +of course, counted most upon reducing the cost of shelter. In the city, +a full quarter of our income had been spent for rent. By owning our +home, and above all by making our investment small because we were +willing to put some of our own labor into rebuilding, we cut down the +cost of shelter to not much more than I earned by one or two days' work +a month. That left just so much more of what we used to spend for rent +available for other purposes than shelter; we had the income for from +four to five days more each month to save or spend. + +One of the dividends upon which we had not counted was that of health. +We found that this sort of work, if it was not overdone (of which there +is a real danger when one's enthusiasm is great), furnishes wholesome +and necessary exercise. And instead of being just the mechanical +exercise of gymnasium work, it is exercise for the intellect and the emotions as well. -Another dividend was the discovery that building could be -fun. Slowly but surely the things we conceived first as an -idea finally became realities embodied in sticks and stones. -The space where we decided that a cupboard was needed was -eventually occupied by one, and the cupboard we dreamed and -designed on a piece of paper eventually grew into a real +Another dividend was the discovery that building could be fun. Slowly +but surely the things we conceived first as an idea finally became +realities embodied in sticks and stones. The space where we decided that +a cupboard was needed was eventually occupied by one, and the cupboard +we dreamed and designed on a piece of paper eventually grew into a real cupboard which served a functional purpose in our lives. The -satisfaction of standing off and looking at it when the last -stroke of the paint-brush had been laid upon it was -emotionally much the same thing felt by an artist when -surveying a painting which he had finally finished. The -creative artist and the creative carpenter are brothers -under the skin. Creating and making things has its pains, no -doubt, but it has pleasures so great that they offset the -pains. - -One dividend upon which we had not counted was the discovery -that the right kind of machines often made up for the lack -of skill---and the lack of strength---of an inexperienced -craftsman such as myself. A concrete-mixer can furnish the -strength for mixing sand and stone and cement to a man who -ordinarily never does any work heavier than shoving a pen -across the papers on a desk. And an electric saw can furnish -him the skill to make a square and plumb cut on a rafter -which he might never be able to acquire with a hand saw. - -Out of this discovery grew our workshop, equipped with all -sorts of power-driven machines which furnished skill, -supplied strength, and saved labor. In spite of the fact -that in my case I had to start with zero in the way of -experience in buying tools and machines, most of the -purchases made for the shop have proved to be paying -investments. I use the term workshop symbolically rather -than geographically, for many kinds of work are done and -many of our tools are kept outside of the workshop itself. -Our shop now includes equipment for building with stone and -cement, for carpentry, for plumbing and steam-fitting, for -electrical wiring, for painting, and for heavier work such -as hauling, grading and excavating, pulling stumps, and even -blasting. We ought to have, but haven't as yet, a forge and -a lathe. When we install these machines for metal-working we -shall be able to do almost any job which may develop in -connection with the running and development of our +satisfaction of standing off and looking at it when the last stroke of +the paint-brush had been laid upon it was emotionally much the same +thing felt by an artist when surveying a painting which he had finally +finished. The creative artist and the creative carpenter are brothers +under the skin. Creating and making things has its pains, no doubt, but +it has pleasures so great that they offset the pains. + +One dividend upon which we had not counted was the discovery that the +right kind of machines often made up for the lack of skill---and the +lack of strength---of an inexperienced craftsman such as myself. A +concrete-mixer can furnish the strength for mixing sand and stone and +cement to a man who ordinarily never does any work heavier than shoving +a pen across the papers on a desk. And an electric saw can furnish him +the skill to make a square and plumb cut on a rafter which he might +never be able to acquire with a hand saw. + +Out of this discovery grew our workshop, equipped with all sorts of +power-driven machines which furnished skill, supplied strength, and +saved labor. In spite of the fact that in my case I had to start with +zero in the way of experience in buying tools and machines, most of the +purchases made for the shop have proved to be paying investments. I use +the term workshop symbolically rather than geographically, for many +kinds of work are done and many of our tools are kept outside of the +workshop itself. Our shop now includes equipment for building with stone +and cement, for carpentry, for plumbing and steam-fitting, for +electrical wiring, for painting, and for heavier work such as hauling, +grading and excavating, pulling stumps, and even blasting. We ought to +have, but haven't as yet, a forge and a lathe. When we install these +machines for metal-working we shall be able to do almost any job which +may develop in connection with the running and development of our homestead. -This equipment wasn't all purchased at once. It was acquired -piece by piece as necessity dictated and as our purse -permitted. I never, however, hesitated to buy a piece of -machinery on credit or instalments if I felt confident that -it would pay for itself eventually out of its savings. The -concrete-mixer, for instance, was purchased when we decided -to build our new home of stone instead of wood. It has been -used not only to build one house, but four houses, and the -last considerable job for which it was used was the mixing -of the concrete for our swimming-pool. This was built almost -wholely by our two boys, and but for this piece of machinery -and the tractor and scraper used in excavating the ground, -it would have been an impossible task for them. The mixer -has paid for itself over and over again, and it still -stands, old and battered, it is true, but ready for the same -sort of service it has furnished us in the past. - -Another piece of machinery which served in many different -ways was a combination circular saw, planing-machine, and -drill. These combination machines are, on the basis of my -experience, a mistake. Separate machines are better in the -long run, even though the investment in them is somewhat -greater. We have used the drill on this combination hardly -at all, and a separate band saw and separate planing-machine -would be better than the machine which we purchased. The -band saw can handle heavy timber as well as ordinary lumber, -timbers for which the circular saw is too small. -Nevertheless we have used our saw machine on many jobs, -though it is now relegated mainly to the job of cutting wood -for our fireplaces and kitchen stove. Recently we managed to -rig up an attachment which enabled us to use a much larger -saw on this machine, and we have discovered that it is -possible for us to rip boards up to six inches in width out -of logs grown in our own wood lot. In our section of the -country the blight has killed all the chestnut trees, and we -have quantities of this fine hardwood which we were burning -until it occurred to me that we might use this chestnut for -making furniture. By this coming winter we shall have -accumulated a quantity of chestnut lumber and shall then -turn in earnest to furniture-making. - -Our circular-saw machine was supplemented after a time with -an electric hand saw---one of the most useful tools on our -place. It has proved not only a great time and muscle saver, -but has added immensely to the skill of everyone who has -used it. It takes a skilled carpenter to make a perfectly -square cut with a hand saw. The electric saw makes it -possible for any handy man to do an extremely workman-like -job. And of course when it comes to ripping boards, the -speed with which it does the work delights the heart. - -An equally useful tool has been our electric hand drill. It -has, for one thing, almost relegated the brace and bit to -limbo. We never use so slow a tool except for holes too -large for our electric drill. We use this tool not only for -drilling in wood and iron, but also for reaming pipes, and -sometimes for sharpening tools. We have other machines which -are not quite so often used---a sander, and a paint-machine, -for example. As all our houses are built of stone, we do not -have much painting of large surfaces with which to bother, -so we have not the need of a painting-machine which those -who build of wood would have. Taking them as a whole, these -machines have made it possible for us to build up our place -steadily, and to add improvements during odd times which -would otherwise be wasted. It is largely because of these -machines that we have built four stone houses on our -places---three residences and a stone barn. - -Our determination to build in stone dates back to discovery -of Ernest Flagg's experiments in the building of attractive -and economical small houses. Flagg developed a system of -building out of stone and concrete, using forms in which to -lay the walls, which greatly reduced the cost of stone -construction. Relatively unskilled labor could build Flagg -walls which were attractive, which were sound, and which -were true. As a result, we found ourselves building of -stone---the natural building material for a county with the -name Rockland---at a cost not much higher than that of good -frame construction. - -My enthusiasm for many of Flagg's ideas has not abated. For -instance, he calls attention to the absurdity of cellars -under houses built in the country. The cellar usually -represents a fifth of the cost of the house. For much less -money, the storage space ordinarily furnished by a cellar -can be provided by adding to the area of the building. -Except where the contour of the ground calls for a basement -or cellar, all our houses are built on what are virtually -concrete platforms, over which the regular floors have been -laid. - -Another idea of his has been the building of one-story -houses, without attics and with low walls, using dormers -over doors and windows to secure height where height is -needed. This makes it possible to build outside stone walls -which are not more than four or five feet in height for the -most part, so that stone and concrete do not have to be -carried up to a considerable height and scaffolds erected on -which to work. The use of what he calls ridge dormers or -ridge skylights makes it easy to ventilate these one-story -houses in summer. - -But one of the things most attractive to me in Flagg's type -of construction is the number of designs which can be built -around courts, section by section. This makes it possible to -build a part of a house to begin with, and add to it as -means permit. When we started to build our main house on the -new place, we first finished one wing of the house, and -lived in it until the main part was finished. That took us -over a year. The whole house is not even now finished---nor -do I see any reason why it should ever be. A home, it seems -to me, should grow like the human beings it shelters. -Building one's shelter in this way, section by section, made -it much easier for us to finance the building of the sort of -home to which we aspired. And it should make it very much -easier for those who have not enough money at the beginning -for all the home that their vision paints for them. +This equipment wasn't all purchased at once. It was acquired piece by +piece as necessity dictated and as our purse permitted. I never, +however, hesitated to buy a piece of machinery on credit or instalments +if I felt confident that it would pay for itself eventually out of its +savings. The concrete-mixer, for instance, was purchased when we decided +to build our new home of stone instead of wood. It has been used not +only to build one house, but four houses, and the last considerable job +for which it was used was the mixing of the concrete for our +swimming-pool. This was built almost wholely by our two boys, and but +for this piece of machinery and the tractor and scraper used in +excavating the ground, it would have been an impossible task for them. +The mixer has paid for itself over and over again, and it still stands, +old and battered, it is true, but ready for the same sort of service it +has furnished us in the past. + +Another piece of machinery which served in many different ways was a +combination circular saw, planing-machine, and drill. These combination +machines are, on the basis of my experience, a mistake. Separate +machines are better in the long run, even though the investment in them +is somewhat greater. We have used the drill on this combination hardly +at all, and a separate band saw and separate planing-machine would be +better than the machine which we purchased. The band saw can handle +heavy timber as well as ordinary lumber, timbers for which the circular +saw is too small. Nevertheless we have used our saw machine on many +jobs, though it is now relegated mainly to the job of cutting wood for +our fireplaces and kitchen stove. Recently we managed to rig up an +attachment which enabled us to use a much larger saw on this machine, +and we have discovered that it is possible for us to rip boards up to +six inches in width out of logs grown in our own wood lot. In our +section of the country the blight has killed all the chestnut trees, and +we have quantities of this fine hardwood which we were burning until it +occurred to me that we might use this chestnut for making furniture. By +this coming winter we shall have accumulated a quantity of chestnut +lumber and shall then turn in earnest to furniture-making. + +Our circular-saw machine was supplemented after a time with an electric +hand saw---one of the most useful tools on our place. It has proved not +only a great time and muscle saver, but has added immensely to the skill +of everyone who has used it. It takes a skilled carpenter to make a +perfectly square cut with a hand saw. The electric saw makes it possible +for any handy man to do an extremely workman-like job. And of course +when it comes to ripping boards, the speed with which it does the work +delights the heart. + +An equally useful tool has been our electric hand drill. It has, for one +thing, almost relegated the brace and bit to limbo. We never use so slow +a tool except for holes too large for our electric drill. We use this +tool not only for drilling in wood and iron, but also for reaming pipes, +and sometimes for sharpening tools. We have other machines which are not +quite so often used---a sander, and a paint-machine, for example. As all +our houses are built of stone, we do not have much painting of large +surfaces with which to bother, so we have not the need of a +painting-machine which those who build of wood would have. Taking them +as a whole, these machines have made it possible for us to build up our +place steadily, and to add improvements during odd times which would +otherwise be wasted. It is largely because of these machines that we +have built four stone houses on our places---three residences and a +stone barn. + +Our determination to build in stone dates back to discovery of Ernest +Flagg's experiments in the building of attractive and economical small +houses. Flagg developed a system of building out of stone and concrete, +using forms in which to lay the walls, which greatly reduced the cost of +stone construction. Relatively unskilled labor could build Flagg walls +which were attractive, which were sound, and which were true. As a +result, we found ourselves building of stone---the natural building +material for a county with the name Rockland---at a cost not much higher +than that of good frame construction. + +My enthusiasm for many of Flagg's ideas has not abated. For instance, he +calls attention to the absurdity of cellars under houses built in the +country. The cellar usually represents a fifth of the cost of the house. +For much less money, the storage space ordinarily furnished by a cellar +can be provided by adding to the area of the building. Except where the +contour of the ground calls for a basement or cellar, all our houses are +built on what are virtually concrete platforms, over which the regular +floors have been laid. + +Another idea of his has been the building of one-story houses, without +attics and with low walls, using dormers over doors and windows to +secure height where height is needed. This makes it possible to build +outside stone walls which are not more than four or five feet in height +for the most part, so that stone and concrete do not have to be carried +up to a considerable height and scaffolds erected on which to work. The +use of what he calls ridge dormers or ridge skylights makes it easy to +ventilate these one-story houses in summer. + +But one of the things most attractive to me in Flagg's type of +construction is the number of designs which can be built around courts, +section by section. This makes it possible to build a part of a house to +begin with, and add to it as means permit. When we started to build our +main house on the new place, we first finished one wing of the house, +and lived in it until the main part was finished. That took us over a +year. The whole house is not even now finished---nor do I see any reason +why it should ever be. A home, it seems to me, should grow like the +human beings it shelters. Building one's shelter in this way, section by +section, made it much easier for us to finance the building of the sort +of home to which we aspired. And it should make it very much easier for +those who have not enough money at the beginning for all the home that +their vision paints for them. # Water, Hot Water, and Waste Water -The great adventure, on which we had embarked when we left -the city, did not contemplate any return to primitive ways -of life. - -We had no intentions of going in for manual labor just for -the sweet discipline of hard work. We had no intention, -therefore, of being satisfied with drawing water hand over -hand from a well---a laborious form of drudgery still -prevailing on many of the farms of the country. And -certainly we had no romantic notions about carrying water -from a flowing brook---good enough for a camping trip, but -ridiculous as a permanent way of living. We were not after -any such return to nature. What we wanted were all the -comforts of the city in addition to the comforts which -country life had to offer. There would be enough hard work, -we knew, without making a virtue of doing things the hardest -way. - -The water supply on "Sevenacres" when we purchased it came -from a well about twenty-five feet from the kitchen door, -and from a cistern fed by rain water from the eve troughs of -the house. Water was drawn from the well by two oak buckets -on chains which were pulled up over a pulley. A suction pump -in the kitchen was supposed to draw water from the cistern. -This pump was out of order, but after being repaired, in the -course of which we all received our first lesson in applied -hydraulics, we discovered that this was a most uncertain -source of water, since the cistern was too small to carry a -supply between most spells of wet weather. So we installed -an automatic electric pumping system---an outfit which at -that time represented an investment of \$125 but which can -now be purchased for around \$50. With the services of a -plumber to connect it up, an expenditure of \$150 put -running water into the house. - -What did it cost us for water? Did it cost us more than in -the city, where we had the benefits of mass pumping and mass -distribution through water mains? On "Sevenacres" I had no -occasion to work out this problem, but when we dug our well -and installed our pumping system on the "Dogwoods," I -decided to find out, and kept records, so that at the end of -a number of years I would be in position to answer the -question with some degree of accuracy. - -Some years after we were living in our new home I had quite -an argument with my friend, Ralph W. Hench, who lives in -Suffern, upon this point. The Hench family, of course, -enjoyed the luxury of city water. Water cost them, he told -me, \$20 per year. And he was quite certain that mine cost -me much more than that. There was no man better equipped -than Hench with whom to argue the point, since he was in -charge o the accounting for one o the largest corporations -of the country, and the question could only be correctly -answered if approached from an accounting standpoint. - -We made a detailed calculation of what it had cost us to -supply ourselves with water on the "Dogwoods" during the -seven years we had lived there. The capital investment in -our system was as follows: +The great adventure, on which we had embarked when we left the city, did +not contemplate any return to primitive ways of life. + +We had no intentions of going in for manual labor just for the sweet +discipline of hard work. We had no intention, therefore, of being +satisfied with drawing water hand over hand from a well---a laborious +form of drudgery still prevailing on many of the farms of the country. +And certainly we had no romantic notions about carrying water from a +flowing brook---good enough for a camping trip, but ridiculous as a +permanent way of living. We were not after any such return to nature. +What we wanted were all the comforts of the city in addition to the +comforts which country life had to offer. There would be enough hard +work, we knew, without making a virtue of doing things the hardest way. + +The water supply on "Sevenacres" when we purchased it came from a well +about twenty-five feet from the kitchen door, and from a cistern fed by +rain water from the eve troughs of the house. Water was drawn from the +well by two oak buckets on chains which were pulled up over a pulley. A +suction pump in the kitchen was supposed to draw water from the cistern. +This pump was out of order, but after being repaired, in the course of +which we all received our first lesson in applied hydraulics, we +discovered that this was a most uncertain source of water, since the +cistern was too small to carry a supply between most spells of wet +weather. So we installed an automatic electric pumping system---an +outfit which at that time represented an investment of \$125 but which +can now be purchased for around \$50. With the services of a plumber to +connect it up, an expenditure of \$150 put running water into the house. + +What did it cost us for water? Did it cost us more than in the city, +where we had the benefits of mass pumping and mass distribution through +water mains? On "Sevenacres" I had no occasion to work out this problem, +but when we dug our well and installed our pumping system on the +"Dogwoods," I decided to find out, and kept records, so that at the end +of a number of years I would be in position to answer the question with +some degree of accuracy. + +Some years after we were living in our new home I had quite an argument +with my friend, Ralph W. Hench, who lives in Suffern, upon this point. +The Hench family, of course, enjoyed the luxury of city water. Water +cost them, he told me, \$20 per year. And he was quite certain that mine +cost me much more than that. There was no man better equipped than Hench +with whom to argue the point, since he was in charge o the accounting +for one o the largest corporations of the country, and the question +could only be correctly answered if approached from an accounting +standpoint. + +We made a detailed calculation of what it had cost us to supply +ourselves with water on the "Dogwoods" during the seven years we had +lived there. The capital investment in our system was as follows: Item Cost ------------------------- ------- @@ -2189,14 +1878,12 @@ our system was as follows: Labor \$20 Total Cost \$340 -The labor costs are, if anything, high, since I was my own -contractor and only unskilled labor was used. These figures -are too high according to present-day price levels. Our -outfit can probably be duplicated for a third less than it -cost us. Not only have prices come down owing to the -depression, but technological advances in pump manufacture, -motors, tanks, fittings, etc., have brought down costs -materially. +The labor costs are, if anything, high, since I was my own contractor +and only unskilled labor was used. These figures are too high according +to present-day price levels. Our outfit can probably be duplicated for a +third less than it cost us. Not only have prices come down owing to the +depression, but technological advances in pump manufacture, motors, +tanks, fittings, etc., have brought down costs materially. We then projected costs upon an annual basis as follows: @@ -2208,756 +1895,634 @@ We then projected costs upon an annual basis as follows: Electric current \$12.00 Annual cost of water \$45.19 -The moment we had these figures my friend exclaimed: "There -you are---it is costing you over twice as much as it costs -me in Suffern." +The moment we had these figures my friend exclaimed: "There you are---it +is costing you over twice as much as it costs me in Suffern." -I went to the telephone and called up a mutual acquaintance -who we both agreed was the best judge of realty values in -Suffern, and asked him this question: "Suppose there were -two lots for sale in Suffern, both of them equally desirable -in every respect except one. Suppose one of them was located -on the Suffern water system, and suppose the other was -located where no water could be supplied to the owner by the -city. What would the difference in the price of the two lots -be?" +I went to the telephone and called up a mutual acquaintance who we both +agreed was the best judge of realty values in Suffern, and asked him +this question: "Suppose there were two lots for sale in Suffern, both of +them equally desirable in every respect except one. Suppose one of them +was located on the Suffern water system, and suppose the other was +located where no water could be supplied to the owner by the city. What +would the difference in the price of the two lots be?" After considering the matter a moment, he replied, "About -\$500---perhaps a little more or a little less." Then I -started out to figure what it cost my friend Hench for water -in Suffern. And these were the figures at which we finally -agreed: +\$500---perhaps a little more or a little less." Then I started out to +figure what it cost my friend Hench for water in Suffern. And these were +the figures at which we finally agreed: | Item \| Cost \| | Interest on capital of \$500 at 6% \| \$30.00 \| -| Taxes on added land value---3.2% of the \$250 assessment - \| \$8.50 \| +| Taxes on added land value---3.2% of the \$250 assessment \| \$8.50 \| | Water tax \| \$20.00 \| | Total cost \| \$58.00 \| -This showed a clear saving of \$12.81 per year in favor of -the individual pumping system. "But I am not through yet," I -said. "This figure of \$58," I went on, "represents what it -costs for water in Suffern on a single lot. But many homes -in Suffern are built upon two or more lots, thus doubling -the initial investment, and correspondingly raising the -hidden cost of securing water from the city mains. While if -there were eighteen acres of land around a home, as there is -around mine, the cost of water would be prohibitive for any -but the wealthiest of families." - -Here with regard to water we have another of the many -illustrations available of the mistaken idea that mass -production is of necessity economical. With water, as with -other conveniences and with most products, what is saved by -mass production tends to be lost in the costs of -distribution. It undoubtedly costs the city of Suffern less -to pump water than it costs me in the country. My small and -relatively inefficient pumping system cannot hope to compete -in cost per gallon of water raised with the large and -relatively efficient pumping system of a city of many -thousands of people. But when I pump my water on the -"Dogwoods," all costs in connection with water end. When the -city pumps its water, its real costs of supplying water only -begin. It is the cost of distributing the water through an -expensive system of water-mains which absorbs the economies -of the "mass" pumping, and replaces them with an actual -higher cost than that of the individual homesteader. The -city's investment and operating costs for its pumping system -are negligible in comparison with its investment and -maintenance costs for its water-mains. The pumping costs are -taken care of by the water tax, but the distribution costs -are hidden in higher land values, except right when the -mains are laid when they are made visible in the form of -assessments against the lots before which they have been -laid. - -What is true of water is true of many of the public services -which are enjoyed by those living in cities today. Just as -mains are laid to distribute water, sewers are laid to -assemble waste water. The two functioned for us in the city -without our being hardly conscious of the fact. If we were -to be equally comfortable in the country, we would have to -solve the waste-water problem as we had that of running -water. - -A decent sewage-disposal system is unquestionably one of the -essentials of a civilized existence. I can see nothing -charming in the way in which this problem is handled by -savages in a so-called state of nature, and the way in which -it is handled in most country homes today, with -uncomfortable and sometimes unsanitary outhouses, seems to -me but little better. When we began to study this problem, -we found, as we had with so many others, that the benefits -of a modern sewage-disposal system could be enjoyed in the -country without the expense of paying for maintaining the -sewers and sewage-disposal plants for the operation of which -city dwellers pay such an unconscionable sum. Looked at from -its broadest standpoint, the system generally used today -involves a shocking waste of the nation's soil resources. It -is no exaggeration of the actual situation to say that we -are now taking up organic material from the soil, converting -it into foodstuffs, and then destroying that organic matter -irretrievably with fire and chemicals in the sewage disposal +This showed a clear saving of \$12.81 per year in favor of the +individual pumping system. "But I am not through yet," I said. "This +figure of \$58," I went on, "represents what it costs for water in +Suffern on a single lot. But many homes in Suffern are built upon two or +more lots, thus doubling the initial investment, and correspondingly +raising the hidden cost of securing water from the city mains. While if +there were eighteen acres of land around a home, as there is around +mine, the cost of water would be prohibitive for any but the wealthiest +of families." + +Here with regard to water we have another of the many illustrations +available of the mistaken idea that mass production is of necessity +economical. With water, as with other conveniences and with most +products, what is saved by mass production tends to be lost in the costs +of distribution. It undoubtedly costs the city of Suffern less to pump +water than it costs me in the country. My small and relatively +inefficient pumping system cannot hope to compete in cost per gallon of +water raised with the large and relatively efficient pumping system of a +city of many thousands of people. But when I pump my water on the +"Dogwoods," all costs in connection with water end. When the city pumps +its water, its real costs of supplying water only begin. It is the cost +of distributing the water through an expensive system of water-mains +which absorbs the economies of the "mass" pumping, and replaces them +with an actual higher cost than that of the individual homesteader. The +city's investment and operating costs for its pumping system are +negligible in comparison with its investment and maintenance costs for +its water-mains. The pumping costs are taken care of by the water tax, +but the distribution costs are hidden in higher land values, except +right when the mains are laid when they are made visible in the form of +assessments against the lots before which they have been laid. + +What is true of water is true of many of the public services which are +enjoyed by those living in cities today. Just as mains are laid to +distribute water, sewers are laid to assemble waste water. The two +functioned for us in the city without our being hardly conscious of the +fact. If we were to be equally comfortable in the country, we would have +to solve the waste-water problem as we had that of running water. + +A decent sewage-disposal system is unquestionably one of the essentials +of a civilized existence. I can see nothing charming in the way in which +this problem is handled by savages in a so-called state of nature, and +the way in which it is handled in most country homes today, with +uncomfortable and sometimes unsanitary outhouses, seems to me but little +better. When we began to study this problem, we found, as we had with so +many others, that the benefits of a modern sewage-disposal system could +be enjoyed in the country without the expense of paying for maintaining +the sewers and sewage-disposal plants for the operation of which city +dwellers pay such an unconscionable sum. Looked at from its broadest +standpoint, the system generally used today involves a shocking waste of +the nation's soil resources. It is no exaggeration of the actual +situation to say that we are now taking up organic material from the +soil, converting it into foodstuffs, and then destroying that organic +matter irretrievably with fire and chemicals in the sewage disposal plants of our cities. -In studying this problem, we became aware of the fact that -we had, in common with others who enjoyed the benefits of -city life, paid for sewage disposal even though we had been -unaware of the fact. Unless the city man happens to own his -own home---and the vast majority do not---he has no direct -knowledge of what taxes are paid for. All he knows is that -he pays rent. The fact that part of his rent really pays for -running water, for sewage, garbage and ash disposal, is -hardly realized by him, just as when he lives in an -apartment he forgets that another substantial part of his -rent really pays for heat, hot water, janitor service and -all the conveniences of his apartment. What we discovered -was that we could have practically every service of this -sort essential to our comfort, without having to pay a -premium price for them. - -A simple and inexpensive septic tank, with a drainage tile -system to dispose of the overflow from the tank, is all that -is needed in order not only to dodge the heavy cost of -sewage disposal in the city, but for converting the waste -into a contribution to soil fertility. What is taken from -the soil is then returned. After we installed such a system -on our place in the country, the sewage problem vanished for -us. - -Hot water, and plenty of it, is necessary to comfort by -present standards of living. In the apartment houses in -which we used to live we secured our supply from the -hot-water taps in seemingly unlimited quantities. We were -determined to solve the problem of producing it for -ourselves with practically no labor and at a lower cost than -we had paid for it in the city---concealed inside the rent -we had paid each month. - -It is almost impossible to be clean without a plentiful -supply of really hot water. For dish-washing, water which is -merely lukewarm is an irritation rather than a comfort. Yet -in spite of the fact that plenty of hot water is essential -to comfort, millions of homes in America still depend upon -such primitive methods as tea-kettles and side-arm-stove +In studying this problem, we became aware of the fact that we had, in +common with others who enjoyed the benefits of city life, paid for +sewage disposal even though we had been unaware of the fact. Unless the +city man happens to own his own home---and the vast majority do not---he +has no direct knowledge of what taxes are paid for. All he knows is that +he pays rent. The fact that part of his rent really pays for running +water, for sewage, garbage and ash disposal, is hardly realized by him, +just as when he lives in an apartment he forgets that another +substantial part of his rent really pays for heat, hot water, janitor +service and all the conveniences of his apartment. What we discovered +was that we could have practically every service of this sort essential +to our comfort, without having to pay a premium price for them. + +A simple and inexpensive septic tank, with a drainage tile system to +dispose of the overflow from the tank, is all that is needed in order +not only to dodge the heavy cost of sewage disposal in the city, but for +converting the waste into a contribution to soil fertility. What is +taken from the soil is then returned. After we installed such a system +on our place in the country, the sewage problem vanished for us. + +Hot water, and plenty of it, is necessary to comfort by present +standards of living. In the apartment houses in which we used to live we +secured our supply from the hot-water taps in seemingly unlimited +quantities. We were determined to solve the problem of producing it for +ourselves with practically no labor and at a lower cost than we had paid +for it in the city---concealed inside the rent we had paid each month. + +It is almost impossible to be clean without a plentiful supply of really +hot water. For dish-washing, water which is merely lukewarm is an +irritation rather than a comfort. Yet in spite of the fact that plenty +of hot water is essential to comfort, millions of homes in America still +depend upon such primitive methods as tea-kettles and side-arm-stove heaters for their supply of hot water. -The tea-kettle, we found, furnishes some really hot water, -if the fire under it is always a brisk one. But the quantity -which can be heated is hardly enough for the needs of the -kitchen alone. And of course it requires dozens of trips -back and forth filling the tea-kettle with water and -emptying the hot water into the vessel in which it is to be -used. The labor and strength involved in making these trips -may seem trifling, but repeated dozens of times daily, it -totals up to a surprising amount of time and a considerable -amount of fatigue, for neither of which there is any real -necessity. Modern offices and factories are efficient just -in proportion to the extent to which they eliminate all such -wastes of time and strength. There is no reason why our -homes should be run at lower standards of efficiency. And -such efficiency pays in dollars as well as in happiness. - -Every bit of time and strength saved from unnecessary -labor---especially non-creative labor such as that involved -in cleaning, carrying water, washing, and similar -work---frees an equivalent amount of time and strength for -productive and creative work. Some of Mrs. Borsodi's friends -wonder how she, even with the assistance of servants, gets -the time to do the quantities of cooking, baking, -preserving, sewing, and even weaving which go on in her -home. By using labor-saving appliances and machines to -eliminate as much non-productive work as possible, time is -saved which can be used to produce these things. An -investment in an efficient water-heating system, for -instance, which eliminates the non-productive work of -carrying water back and forth, pays for itself over and over -again by what it enables the family to save in making things -which it would otherwise have to buy. It is for this reason -that the tea-kettle method of producing hot water seems to -us as obsolete as the Dutch oven. It doesn't pay. It not -only is unequal to the requirements for hot water in -bathing; it makes a supplementary method of heating -absolutely essential for laundering. And we have found doing -our own laundry at home is one of the easiest ways in which -to pay for an efficient system of hot-water heating. - -We started to get away from the tyranny of the tea-kettle -with a small coal heater in the cellar. Water was piped from -it to a storage tank, and from the tank to the various -hot-water faucets. This was an inexpensive installation, and -furnished a good supply of hot water without too much -expense. The fire, however, had to be attended to several -times each day, and the ashes carried out periodically. - -In an effort to get rid of this labor we installed a -kerosene heater. The first one we tried out was wickless. -Our kerosene was evidently not clear enough for this type of -heater, and the burners frequently crusted, thus interfering -with its efficiency as well as creating an unpleasant -cleaning job. True, we had a plentiful supply of hot water; -the cost, however, was a little higher than coal, and we -still had the unpleasant chore of filling the oil-reservoir -daily and cleaning the heater occasionally. - -Next we tried a kerosene heater with wicks. This proved an -improvement in one respect only---if we changed the wicks -frequently enough we avoided the unpleasant cleaning job -with which we had to struggle before. We still had the daily -filling of the oil-tank on our hands---so the job was still -by no means automatic. - -Finally we decided to go in for a completely automatic -installation. A very low rate permitted us to install an -electric heater on an off-peak rate. Where the power company -has established such a rate, this type of heater is -economical and efficient, and it requires no attention -whatever. The off-peak rate is still a new idea; in many -cases completely automatic hot water can be most -inexpensively secured with gas. In country homes not reached -by the mains of a gas company, portable gas-tanks can be -used and while the cost is higher, it is still, in our -judgment, not so different from ordinary gas as to warrant +The tea-kettle, we found, furnishes some really hot water, if the fire +under it is always a brisk one. But the quantity which can be heated is +hardly enough for the needs of the kitchen alone. And of course it +requires dozens of trips back and forth filling the tea-kettle with +water and emptying the hot water into the vessel in which it is to be +used. The labor and strength involved in making these trips may seem +trifling, but repeated dozens of times daily, it totals up to a +surprising amount of time and a considerable amount of fatigue, for +neither of which there is any real necessity. Modern offices and +factories are efficient just in proportion to the extent to which they +eliminate all such wastes of time and strength. There is no reason why +our homes should be run at lower standards of efficiency. And such +efficiency pays in dollars as well as in happiness. + +Every bit of time and strength saved from unnecessary labor---especially +non-creative labor such as that involved in cleaning, carrying water, +washing, and similar work---frees an equivalent amount of time and +strength for productive and creative work. Some of Mrs. Borsodi's +friends wonder how she, even with the assistance of servants, gets the +time to do the quantities of cooking, baking, preserving, sewing, and +even weaving which go on in her home. By using labor-saving appliances +and machines to eliminate as much non-productive work as possible, time +is saved which can be used to produce these things. An investment in an +efficient water-heating system, for instance, which eliminates the +non-productive work of carrying water back and forth, pays for itself +over and over again by what it enables the family to save in making +things which it would otherwise have to buy. It is for this reason that +the tea-kettle method of producing hot water seems to us as obsolete as +the Dutch oven. It doesn't pay. It not only is unequal to the +requirements for hot water in bathing; it makes a supplementary method +of heating absolutely essential for laundering. And we have found doing +our own laundry at home is one of the easiest ways in which to pay for +an efficient system of hot-water heating. + +We started to get away from the tyranny of the tea-kettle with a small +coal heater in the cellar. Water was piped from it to a storage tank, +and from the tank to the various hot-water faucets. This was an +inexpensive installation, and furnished a good supply of hot water +without too much expense. The fire, however, had to be attended to +several times each day, and the ashes carried out periodically. + +In an effort to get rid of this labor we installed a kerosene heater. +The first one we tried out was wickless. Our kerosene was evidently not +clear enough for this type of heater, and the burners frequently +crusted, thus interfering with its efficiency as well as creating an +unpleasant cleaning job. True, we had a plentiful supply of hot water; +the cost, however, was a little higher than coal, and we still had the +unpleasant chore of filling the oil-reservoir daily and cleaning the +heater occasionally. + +Next we tried a kerosene heater with wicks. This proved an improvement +in one respect only---if we changed the wicks frequently enough we +avoided the unpleasant cleaning job with which we had to struggle +before. We still had the daily filling of the oil-tank on our hands---so +the job was still by no means automatic. + +Finally we decided to go in for a completely automatic installation. A +very low rate permitted us to install an electric heater on an off-peak +rate. Where the power company has established such a rate, this type of +heater is economical and efficient, and it requires no attention +whatever. The off-peak rate is still a new idea; in many cases +completely automatic hot water can be most inexpensively secured with +gas. In country homes not reached by the mains of a gas company, +portable gas-tanks can be used and while the cost is higher, it is +still, in our judgment, not so different from ordinary gas as to warrant some of the methods which we discarded. -Our experiments with the various methods of heating water, -as with other domestic appliances, have thoroughly convinced -us that the investment and cost of maintaining the most -efficient means for furnishing the home with utilities and -comforts are quite within the income limitations of most -families in this country. It may not be possible to install -all of these comforts in the very beginning, any more than -we were able to, but they are distinctly economical if the -time which they save is used for productive work in reducing -and eliminating butcher, baker, grocer, and clothier bills. +Our experiments with the various methods of heating water, as with other +domestic appliances, have thoroughly convinced us that the investment +and cost of maintaining the most efficient means for furnishing the home +with utilities and comforts are quite within the income limitations of +most families in this country. It may not be possible to install all of +these comforts in the very beginning, any more than we were able to, but +they are distinctly economical if the time which they save is used for +productive work in reducing and eliminating butcher, baker, grocer, and +clothier bills. # Education---The School of Living -When we were considering shaking the dust of the city from -our feet, the school question was one which caused us a -great deal of worry. Our boys were seven and eight years -old; they had been going to school from the time they had -entered the kindergarten classes in the city's public -schools. At the time we were planning to leave the city they -had already made more scholastic progress than other -children of their age; one was a half-year ahead, and the -other a full year ahead, of their chronological age. The -credit for this, we now know, was due less to the -elaborately organized public schools of New York City than -to our use at home of some of the methods of child-training -developed by Dr. Maria Montessori, the Italian educator, in -whose theories the country was just then becoming -interested. We had used the Montessori methods from the -moment the boys were old enough to start feeding and -dressing themselves. So impressed were we by her approach to -the problem of child education that we constructed our own -"didactic" apparatus because none of it was at that time on -sale in this country. - -Without having pushed our boys, but merely by giving them a -chance to take advantage of the opportunities which the -schools offered them, they were making excellent progress. -Now we were committing ourselves to a way of living which -would take them away from the educational advantages of city -schools. Should we risk what would happen to them in one of -the "little red schoolhouses" which still abounded in 1920 -in New York State? If we were confronted by such an -emergency, would we prove equal to teaching them at home? We -decided we would. When I compared Mrs. Borsodi to the -average school-teacher in the public schools, I saw no -reason why she could not teach the children just as well, if -not better, at home. She might lack the technique for -handling a large class, and she might not have been drilled -in the syllabus required by the state Board of Regents, but -when it came to individual instruction, I was confident that -she could do more for the children than could public -schools, no matter how well managed. When we finally got to -the country, our worst expectations were realized. The -school in our district was impossible. The school board -consisted of "old-timers" whose principal concern was to -keep the tax rate down. Not only were the teachers which the -board selected unequal to their responsibilities, but the -social and moral atmosphere was bad. In that respect it was -worse than the city. There at least the contacts of our boys -with children whom we considered undesirable were limited. -And the number of children made it possible to select only -those for companionship of whom we approved. In a small -school, such as that with which we had to contend, the -damage which the bullies or perverts are able to do is all -out of proportion to the damage which they can do in a large -one. The situation in our district, and I believe in the -country generally, has in the past decade shown great -improvement. The coming of the school bus has made it -possible to eliminate most of the impoverished one-room -schools, and in the large consolidated schools which have -taken their place, city conditions of school organization -are to a large extent duplicated. - -We first tried cooperation with the school board and with -the teachers. Most of the board members proved impossible. -When we talked about educational problems to them, we found -ourselves talking in a foreign tongue. The teachers were, in -general, not quite so hopeless; at least they knew what we -were talking about. But most of them were immature; most of -them had been more or less ruined by the rigid regimentation -which the state required of them. We did manage to win the -cooperation of the first teacher to whom the boys were -turned over, and as long as she was in charge of the school -she tried to make the conventional scheme work. But the next -teacher resented bitterly our interest, and reluctantly we -decided that this method of trying to make the country +When we were considering shaking the dust of the city from our feet, the +school question was one which caused us a great deal of worry. Our boys +were seven and eight years old; they had been going to school from the +time they had entered the kindergarten classes in the city's public +schools. At the time we were planning to leave the city they had already +made more scholastic progress than other children of their age; one was +a half-year ahead, and the other a full year ahead, of their +chronological age. The credit for this, we now know, was due less to the +elaborately organized public schools of New York City than to our use at +home of some of the methods of child-training developed by Dr. Maria +Montessori, the Italian educator, in whose theories the country was just +then becoming interested. We had used the Montessori methods from the +moment the boys were old enough to start feeding and dressing +themselves. So impressed were we by her approach to the problem of child +education that we constructed our own "didactic" apparatus because none +of it was at that time on sale in this country. + +Without having pushed our boys, but merely by giving them a chance to +take advantage of the opportunities which the schools offered them, they +were making excellent progress. Now we were committing ourselves to a +way of living which would take them away from the educational advantages +of city schools. Should we risk what would happen to them in one of the +"little red schoolhouses" which still abounded in 1920 in New York +State? If we were confronted by such an emergency, would we prove equal +to teaching them at home? We decided we would. When I compared +Mrs. Borsodi to the average school-teacher in the public schools, I saw +no reason why she could not teach the children just as well, if not +better, at home. She might lack the technique for handling a large +class, and she might not have been drilled in the syllabus required by +the state Board of Regents, but when it came to individual instruction, +I was confident that she could do more for the children than could +public schools, no matter how well managed. When we finally got to the +country, our worst expectations were realized. The school in our +district was impossible. The school board consisted of "old-timers" +whose principal concern was to keep the tax rate down. Not only were the +teachers which the board selected unequal to their responsibilities, but +the social and moral atmosphere was bad. In that respect it was worse +than the city. There at least the contacts of our boys with children +whom we considered undesirable were limited. And the number of children +made it possible to select only those for companionship of whom we +approved. In a small school, such as that with which we had to contend, +the damage which the bullies or perverts are able to do is all out of +proportion to the damage which they can do in a large one. The situation +in our district, and I believe in the country generally, has in the past +decade shown great improvement. The coming of the school bus has made it +possible to eliminate most of the impoverished one-room schools, and in +the large consolidated schools which have taken their place, city +conditions of school organization are to a large extent duplicated. + +We first tried cooperation with the school board and with the teachers. +Most of the board members proved impossible. When we talked about +educational problems to them, we found ourselves talking in a foreign +tongue. The teachers were, in general, not quite so hopeless; at least +they knew what we were talking about. But most of them were immature; +most of them had been more or less ruined by the rigid regimentation +which the state required of them. We did manage to win the cooperation +of the first teacher to whom the boys were turned over, and as long as +she was in charge of the school she tried to make the conventional +scheme work. But the next teacher resented bitterly our interest, and +reluctantly we decided that this method of trying to make the country school endurable was love's labor lost. -We finally decided to take the boys out of school -altogether. - -A talk with the county superintendent of education won his -cooperation. In fact, he decided that the sort of education -our boys would receive under the plan we outlined would more -than meet the requirements of the law. Our plan was to use -the regular textbooks, to follow the state procedure in -teaching as laid down in the syllabus of each subject, and -to have one of the public-school teachers who lived in the -neighborhood come in once each month to put the boys through -an examination which would insure their finishing up each -year precisely as well as did the boys attending public -school. This plan, we believed, would prepare them for -high-school even though they had none of the "benefits" of -class work for a few years. - -Thus began our experiment in domestic education. And again, -individual production proved its superiority to mass -production. Mrs. Borsodi found it possible to give the boys, -in two hours' desk work, all the training which they were -supposed to get, according to the state, in a whole school -day plus the work which they were supposed to do at home. -One of her first discoveries was that the training of the -boys on such sheer fundamentals as addition, subtraction, -multiplication, and division had been so poor that -mathematical progress and understanding were almost -impossible. She made the boys retrace their steps. Some -conscientious drilling on the A, B, Cs, and they were then -able to gallop through the more difficult parts of -arithmetic. Working closely with them, she knew whether or -not they really understood. She did not have to rely upon an -examination to find out---an examination which revealed -little to the teacher because of its mechanical limitations. -Two hours of such study, I agreed with Mrs. Borsodi, were -sufficient for the sort of thing upon which the public -schools concentrated; the rest of the day would prove of -more educational value to the boys if devoted to reading and -play. The play, in such a home, was just as educational as -the reading. Productive and creative activities in the -garden, the kitchen, the workshop, the loom-room furnished -the boys opportunities to "play" in ways since adopted as -regular procedure by the progressive schools. In our home, -however, such play was directly related to useful functions; +We finally decided to take the boys out of school altogether. + +A talk with the county superintendent of education won his cooperation. +In fact, he decided that the sort of education our boys would receive +under the plan we outlined would more than meet the requirements of the +law. Our plan was to use the regular textbooks, to follow the state +procedure in teaching as laid down in the syllabus of each subject, and +to have one of the public-school teachers who lived in the neighborhood +come in once each month to put the boys through an examination which +would insure their finishing up each year precisely as well as did the +boys attending public school. This plan, we believed, would prepare them +for high-school even though they had none of the "benefits" of class +work for a few years. + +Thus began our experiment in domestic education. And again, individual +production proved its superiority to mass production. Mrs. Borsodi found +it possible to give the boys, in two hours' desk work, all the training +which they were supposed to get, according to the state, in a whole +school day plus the work which they were supposed to do at home. One of +her first discoveries was that the training of the boys on such sheer +fundamentals as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division had +been so poor that mathematical progress and understanding were almost +impossible. She made the boys retrace their steps. Some conscientious +drilling on the A, B, Cs, and they were then able to gallop through the +more difficult parts of arithmetic. Working closely with them, she knew +whether or not they really understood. She did not have to rely upon an +examination to find out---an examination which revealed little to the +teacher because of its mechanical limitations. Two hours of such study, +I agreed with Mrs. Borsodi, were sufficient for the sort of thing upon +which the public schools concentrated; the rest of the day would prove +of more educational value to the boys if devoted to reading and play. +The play, in such a home, was just as educational as the reading. +Productive and creative activities in the garden, the kitchen, the +workshop, the loom-room furnished the boys opportunities to "play" in +ways since adopted as regular procedure by the progressive schools. In +our home, however, such play was directly related to useful functions; they were not merely interesting exercises. -Best of all, the new scheme furnished plenty of time for -reading. The reading seemed to us all important. One of the -terrible things which the average school does to its pupils -is to kill their love for books. All books, to the child who -has had to "read" in class, tend to become textbooks. The -poetry, plays, novels, essays which are parts of their -courses in English are read, not to furnish rich experiences -and to expand the imagination, but as subjects for -recitation and grammatical analysis. This is a process which -dissects what should be a living thing, and the corpse of a -poem which the child is made to study is no more what the -artists who created it intended it to be than the corpse -which medical students dissect is a living, breathing human -being. The reading of *Ivanhoe* was a part of the prescribed -course of English in the public school during the years they -attended the district school. They were required to read in -class a paragraph at a time daily. The idea horrified me. So -I suggested that they read the whole story through at home -without regard to their class work. The result more than -pleased me. The boys discovered that *Ivanhoe* was a -fascinating story; one of them read it through several times -before tiring of it. Instead of hating the story, they -learned to love it. - -As a result of our insistence upon the fact that reading was -fun, rather than work, books came to play naturally the part -in their lives which they should play in every educated -person's existence. Their imaginations were broadened; the -provincialism of city and country so prevalent today became -impossible to them; even the textbooks acquired, by -sympathetic magic, an entirely different significance from -that which they develop in schools. Instead of consisting of -lessons to be memorized in preparation for "exams," they -were found to be keys to the accumulated knowledge of -mankind. We found, however, that the Encyclopaedia -Britannica was better for this purpose than all their +Best of all, the new scheme furnished plenty of time for reading. The +reading seemed to us all important. One of the terrible things which the +average school does to its pupils is to kill their love for books. All +books, to the child who has had to "read" in class, tend to become +textbooks. The poetry, plays, novels, essays which are parts of their +courses in English are read, not to furnish rich experiences and to +expand the imagination, but as subjects for recitation and grammatical +analysis. This is a process which dissects what should be a living +thing, and the corpse of a poem which the child is made to study is no +more what the artists who created it intended it to be than the corpse +which medical students dissect is a living, breathing human being. The +reading of *Ivanhoe* was a part of the prescribed course of English in +the public school during the years they attended the district school. +They were required to read in class a paragraph at a time daily. The +idea horrified me. So I suggested that they read the whole story through +at home without regard to their class work. The result more than pleased +me. The boys discovered that *Ivanhoe* was a fascinating story; one of +them read it through several times before tiring of it. Instead of +hating the story, they learned to love it. + +As a result of our insistence upon the fact that reading was fun, rather +than work, books came to play naturally the part in their lives which +they should play in every educated person's existence. Their +imaginations were broadened; the provincialism of city and country so +prevalent today became impossible to them; even the textbooks acquired, +by sympathetic magic, an entirely different significance from that which +they develop in schools. Instead of consisting of lessons to be +memorized in preparation for "exams," they were found to be keys to the +accumulated knowledge of mankind. We found, however, that the +Encyclopaedia Britannica was better for this purpose than all their textbooks put together. -Most parents will probably shrink from considering such an -undertaking because of the amount of time they believe they -would have to devote to it. But such a supposition is a -mistaken one. It really does not take much time. We have -acquired our notions about the number of hours children -should study daily from the amount of time which they -usually spend in school. There is a dreary waste o time -inescapable in the process of mass education. Most of the -time of the children in public schools is devoted to -waiting, not studying. Studying of a sort is prescribed as a -means of filling in the time devoted to waiting. The -children wait in classes, and they wait between classes. -Occasionally there is an educational contact between teacher -and pupil. In between these contacts, the children are kept -out of mischief by an amazingly ingenious series of -time-filling exercises. What I consider an educational -contact is usually a fortunate accident in our conventional -schools. Education is the exception, not the rule, because -only when a child feels a need for information and -explanation, and feels it emotionally and intellectually and -not mechanically, is that educational contact established. -Mostly when these needs develop in the lives of school -children, the routine of the schoolroom prevents the teacher -from responding to it, and the hunger is dissipated and -replaced by boredom. - -Our experience showed that in such a home as we were -establishing these opportunities abounded. Education was -really reciprocal; in the very effort to educate the boys, -we educated ourselves. Indeed, it is a notion of mine that -no real educational influence is exerted upon the pupil -unless there is also an incidental educational effect upon -the teacher. The average public school is operated upon the -theory that this personal relationship is unwise; that the -relationship should be impersonal, objective, and -mechanical, the example of Socrates and the peripatetic -school to the contrary notwithstanding. - -With our method, we not only managed to avoid the handicap -of a poor school, but the whole Borsodi family seemed to be -going to school. But it proved to be a school so different -from that to which most of us have become accustomed that I -have had to invent a special name for it---the school of -living. - -In this school the members of the family, old and young, and -those who have lived with us, have been both faculty and -students. The subject which they studied has been *living*, -the pedagogic system has been what might be called the -*work-play* method, the textbooks have been anything and -everything printed which touched upon the problems of the -good life in any way. The absence of formality in this -school may deceive the uninitiated, and the fact that a -systematic educational activity is going forward may be -overlooked. For that reason I once put down the various -projects which have in one way or another been the subjects -of our study, and found that they formed a fairly -comprehensive curriculum falling into four major -divisions---Art and Science, Management, History, -Philosophy. - -Philosophy is a subject remote and distant from life as it -comes to most people in school. Yet there is no reason why -it should be. We need desperately philosophy as a guide to -life. We need it as a tool with which to train -thought---logic for everyday use. But we need it also to -form values and habits. We need for every-day living (1) -economic policies, (2) physiological, (3) social, (4) -biological, (5) psychological habits; and (6) religious, (7) -moral, (8) political (9) educational, (10) individual -values. Why should we not approach the practical questions -which fall under these various academic classifications from -a philosophic point of view? Yet as a matter of fact we make -most of our decisions---or acceptances of decisions made by -others---with utter disregard of their philosophic -implications. - -History is another subject which undergoes a transformation -when it too is domesticated. History really has three -aspects with us: (1) past---which is the aspect to which it -is usually confined; (2) current history---to which the -schools have only in recent years awakened; and (3) future -history, which is to me most important of all. We have to -make plans, we have to adopt policies, we have to determine -values---but these cannot be formulated wisely unless one -projects past and present into the future. Yet there is -scarcely a day in our lives when such planning might not be -made to add immensely to our comfort and happiness if it -were approached from a historical standpoint. - -Art and science---sundered by the specialists into whose -care their study has been intrusted by our schools---need to -be brought together in selecting and preparing food, in -designing clothes and costumes, in building and furnishing -our homes. We need more chemists in our kitchens, and fewer -in our laboratories; just as we need more artists in them -and fewer in our large advertising agencies. Every single -step in practical living has both its artistic and its -scientific aspects, and we do not live richly unless we -bring to bear upon these apparently humble and yet -all-important living problems all the accumulated wisdom and -skill of the ages. - -Finally, we need to study management---the management of -living, not of business. We have management problems as -individuals, as families, as civic groups---why should we -not apply to home problems the care and thought and -attention which we now bestow upon production, purchasing, -marketing, and finance in business? Every family has to -finance itself; every family has purchasing of many kinds to -carry on---and how poorly that is done only those familiar -with Consumers' Research can realize; every family markets -services or produce, and practically every family produces -more or less in its kitchens, sewing-rooms, gardens. Under -the scheme of living with which we have been experimenting, -domestic and individual production becomes so immeasurably -more important, that study of it is essential if it is to be -efficiently carried on. - -Here are most of the subjects taught in our schools and -universities, but in a new guise. As we have studied them -they are not subjects so much as essential parts of the -whole problem of living. In the schools, specialization and -the division of labor among the teachers, and preparation -for a life of specialization and the division of labor among -the students, has led to the isolation of each particular -subject. In the intense concentration upon each narrow -field, the relationship of each subject to life as a whole -is distorted and the true significance of what is studied is -obscured. We ought, for instance, to study chemistry in -order that we may live more richly; instead, we live in -order to develop and promote and expand chemical activity -and chemical industry. Means and ends are thus reversed, -just as in our factories today men and women take it quite -for granted that it is sane to devote their lives to the -production of something to be sold or marketed, instead of -devoting the best part of each day to the creation or +Most parents will probably shrink from considering such an undertaking +because of the amount of time they believe they would have to devote to +it. But such a supposition is a mistaken one. It really does not take +much time. We have acquired our notions about the number of hours +children should study daily from the amount of time which they usually +spend in school. There is a dreary waste o time inescapable in the +process of mass education. Most of the time of the children in public +schools is devoted to waiting, not studying. Studying of a sort is +prescribed as a means of filling in the time devoted to waiting. The +children wait in classes, and they wait between classes. Occasionally +there is an educational contact between teacher and pupil. In between +these contacts, the children are kept out of mischief by an amazingly +ingenious series of time-filling exercises. What I consider an +educational contact is usually a fortunate accident in our conventional +schools. Education is the exception, not the rule, because only when a +child feels a need for information and explanation, and feels it +emotionally and intellectually and not mechanically, is that educational +contact established. Mostly when these needs develop in the lives of +school children, the routine of the schoolroom prevents the teacher from +responding to it, and the hunger is dissipated and replaced by boredom. + +Our experience showed that in such a home as we were establishing these +opportunities abounded. Education was really reciprocal; in the very +effort to educate the boys, we educated ourselves. Indeed, it is a +notion of mine that no real educational influence is exerted upon the +pupil unless there is also an incidental educational effect upon the +teacher. The average public school is operated upon the theory that this +personal relationship is unwise; that the relationship should be +impersonal, objective, and mechanical, the example of Socrates and the +peripatetic school to the contrary notwithstanding. + +With our method, we not only managed to avoid the handicap of a poor +school, but the whole Borsodi family seemed to be going to school. But +it proved to be a school so different from that to which most of us have +become accustomed that I have had to invent a special name for it---the +school of living. + +In this school the members of the family, old and young, and those who +have lived with us, have been both faculty and students. The subject +which they studied has been *living*, the pedagogic system has been what +might be called the *work-play* method, the textbooks have been anything +and everything printed which touched upon the problems of the good life +in any way. The absence of formality in this school may deceive the +uninitiated, and the fact that a systematic educational activity is +going forward may be overlooked. For that reason I once put down the +various projects which have in one way or another been the subjects of +our study, and found that they formed a fairly comprehensive curriculum +falling into four major divisions---Art and Science, Management, +History, Philosophy. + +Philosophy is a subject remote and distant from life as it comes to most +people in school. Yet there is no reason why it should be. We need +desperately philosophy as a guide to life. We need it as a tool with +which to train thought---logic for everyday use. But we need it also to +form values and habits. We need for every-day living (1) economic +policies, (2) physiological, (3) social, (4) biological, (5) +psychological habits; and (6) religious, (7) moral, (8) political (9) +educational, (10) individual values. Why should we not approach the +practical questions which fall under these various academic +classifications from a philosophic point of view? Yet as a matter of +fact we make most of our decisions---or acceptances of decisions made by +others---with utter disregard of their philosophic implications. + +History is another subject which undergoes a transformation when it too +is domesticated. History really has three aspects with us: (1) +past---which is the aspect to which it is usually confined; (2) current +history---to which the schools have only in recent years awakened; and +(3) future history, which is to me most important of all. We have to +make plans, we have to adopt policies, we have to determine values---but +these cannot be formulated wisely unless one projects past and present +into the future. Yet there is scarcely a day in our lives when such +planning might not be made to add immensely to our comfort and happiness +if it were approached from a historical standpoint. + +Art and science---sundered by the specialists into whose care their +study has been intrusted by our schools---need to be brought together in +selecting and preparing food, in designing clothes and costumes, in +building and furnishing our homes. We need more chemists in our +kitchens, and fewer in our laboratories; just as we need more artists in +them and fewer in our large advertising agencies. Every single step in +practical living has both its artistic and its scientific aspects, and +we do not live richly unless we bring to bear upon these apparently +humble and yet all-important living problems all the accumulated wisdom +and skill of the ages. + +Finally, we need to study management---the management of living, not of +business. We have management problems as individuals, as families, as +civic groups---why should we not apply to home problems the care and +thought and attention which we now bestow upon production, purchasing, +marketing, and finance in business? Every family has to finance itself; +every family has purchasing of many kinds to carry on---and how poorly +that is done only those familiar with Consumers' Research can realize; +every family markets services or produce, and practically every family +produces more or less in its kitchens, sewing-rooms, gardens. Under the +scheme of living with which we have been experimenting, domestic and +individual production becomes so immeasurably more important, that study +of it is essential if it is to be efficiently carried on. + +Here are most of the subjects taught in our schools and universities, +but in a new guise. As we have studied them they are not subjects so +much as essential parts of the whole problem of living. In the schools, +specialization and the division of labor among the teachers, and +preparation for a life of specialization and the division of labor among +the students, has led to the isolation of each particular subject. In +the intense concentration upon each narrow field, the relationship of +each subject to life as a whole is distorted and the true significance +of what is studied is obscured. We ought, for instance, to study +chemistry in order that we may live more richly; instead, we live in +order to develop and promote and expand chemical activity and chemical +industry. Means and ends are thus reversed, just as in our factories +today men and women take it quite for granted that it is sane to devote +their lives to the production of something to be sold or marketed, +instead of devoting the best part of each day to the creation or production of something which enriches their own lives. -In nothing is the present-day mistakes of educational -institutions more apparent to me than in the separation of -art and science into separate, air-tight, and mutually -opposed specialities. We have not only separate teachers and -separate courses---we have separate schools for the arts and -for the sciences, with not a little contempt on the part of -each group for those devoting themselves to the other. As a -result, we are busily producing artists who are ignorant of -science, and engineers who are ignorant of art. If beauty -and richness be considered the ends and objects of living, -and the scientific and engineering techniques the means for -attaining this end, then we are actually producing painters, -writers, sculptors, poets who are supposed to specialize on -the ends or objects of living, and scientists, engineers, -chemists who are taught the means but not the ends to be -attained. The result is a sterile art, divorced from life, -and a meaningless multiplication of sky-scrapers, subways, -sewers, dams, bridges, and engineering works of all kinds. - -In the homely things of life, so important in the aggregate, -this separation of art and science is now almost universal. -For instance, take such a homely thing as bread---the staff -of life. Bread ought to be nutritious and it ought to be -tasty. One without the other is an absurdity. Yet we have -chemists in our universities studying bread scientifically. -They produce all sorts of facts about vitamins, about -fermentation, about nutrition. And then we have, even today, -many housewives baking bread and governing their approach to -the problem primarily by taste. The one sees bread as an -object, scientifically; the other sees it as a flavor much -as might an artist. Because of the housewife's ignorance of -science, she may ruin her family's health; because of the -scientist's ignorance of art, bread is produced which is -unfit for consumption by cultivated palates. Of the two, the -scientist may actually do more harm than the housewife, -though it is hard to be certain about the matter. At least -the housewife's bread may taste well and so add to the -pleasures of the table, but the scientist may reduce eating -to the level of stoking a boiler. - -Some day I hope a group of intelligent and cultured people -may find it worth while to establish such a school of -living. Such a school, if it included enough families to -determine really what is the good life experimentally, would -furnish a demonstration of how to live to which the whole -world might listen. Such a group would demonstrate that it -is possible for men and women to make themselves independent -and economically secure, and that centering educational -activities directly upon the problems of living would add -immeasurably to mankind's happiness and comfort. - -The world is badly in need of such a demonstration. All that -the Borsodi family has thus far managed to do has been to -show how badly it is needed. +In nothing is the present-day mistakes of educational institutions more +apparent to me than in the separation of art and science into separate, +air-tight, and mutually opposed specialities. We have not only separate +teachers and separate courses---we have separate schools for the arts +and for the sciences, with not a little contempt on the part of each +group for those devoting themselves to the other. As a result, we are +busily producing artists who are ignorant of science, and engineers who +are ignorant of art. If beauty and richness be considered the ends and +objects of living, and the scientific and engineering techniques the +means for attaining this end, then we are actually producing painters, +writers, sculptors, poets who are supposed to specialize on the ends or +objects of living, and scientists, engineers, chemists who are taught +the means but not the ends to be attained. The result is a sterile art, +divorced from life, and a meaningless multiplication of sky-scrapers, +subways, sewers, dams, bridges, and engineering works of all kinds. + +In the homely things of life, so important in the aggregate, this +separation of art and science is now almost universal. For instance, +take such a homely thing as bread---the staff of life. Bread ought to be +nutritious and it ought to be tasty. One without the other is an +absurdity. Yet we have chemists in our universities studying bread +scientifically. They produce all sorts of facts about vitamins, about +fermentation, about nutrition. And then we have, even today, many +housewives baking bread and governing their approach to the problem +primarily by taste. The one sees bread as an object, scientifically; the +other sees it as a flavor much as might an artist. Because of the +housewife's ignorance of science, she may ruin her family's health; +because of the scientist's ignorance of art, bread is produced which is +unfit for consumption by cultivated palates. Of the two, the scientist +may actually do more harm than the housewife, though it is hard to be +certain about the matter. At least the housewife's bread may taste well +and so add to the pleasures of the table, but the scientist may reduce +eating to the level of stoking a boiler. + +Some day I hope a group of intelligent and cultured people may find it +worth while to establish such a school of living. Such a school, if it +included enough families to determine really what is the good life +experimentally, would furnish a demonstration of how to live to which +the whole world might listen. Such a group would demonstrate that it is +possible for men and women to make themselves independent and +economically secure, and that centering educational activities directly +upon the problems of living would add immeasurably to mankind's +happiness and comfort. + +The world is badly in need of such a demonstration. All that the Borsodi +family has thus far managed to do has been to show how badly it is +needed. # Capital -Just what to say about the capital needed to establish a -homestead is one of the most difficult matters with which I -find that I have undertaken to grapple. Yet it is one -question about which I am asked more frequently than almost -any other by those who express a liking for the way of -living with which the Borsodi family has been experimenting. -Before attempting to deal with the matter, however, I think -it important to dispel an illusion under which many people -who have heard about our experiment seem to labor. Typical -of these people is one man, connected with one of our -agricultural schools, who assumed that because the houses, -land, machinery, and livestock comprising our homestead -represented an investment of at least \$15,000 (according to -his estimate), that therefore the capital with which I began -the experiment must have been \$15,000. "With \$15,000,O he -wrote me,"I would not need such a homestead in order to make -myself independent. Invested in stocks and bonds, that sum -would furnish a comfortable living without going to all the -trouble of producing everything for one's own use on a small -farm. For most people who desire independence and security -the problem is how to get the \$15,000 not what to do with -it after they get it." - -It is an interesting commentary upon the tenacity with which -even intelligent people maintain conventional illusions that -such a letter was written to me after the collapse of the -securities market in 1929. In spite of the collapse of the -houses of cards which buyers of securities everywhere were -discovering they had erected for themselves, this man still -believed that dependence upon investments in stocks and -bonds was superior to dependence upon a homestead equipped -with livestock, tools, and machinery with which a family -could produce a plentiful living for themselves no matter -what happened to the business world. If the depression -should have taught him anything, it should have made him sec -that stocks and bonds furnish no one real security. The only -possible security in our present chaos is direct access to -the opportunity to produce for oneself the essentials of a -comfortable living. - -But even if it were true, as my friendly critic believed, -that there were such things as *secure* securities, the -point remains that in the beginning there was no \$15,000 -invested in the Borsodi homestead. Certainly I was never -confronted with the alternative of investing \$15,000 in -stocks and bonds or of investing it in a homestead. Yet it -is true that today, after twelve years of slow growth, the -homestead does represent a large investment, an investment -much greater than the sum at which this critic valued it. It -is the way in which we started out to live, not the fact -that we had the capital before we left the city, which -explains our possession today of a fairly well-equipped -home. If one can lay hands upon just enough with which to -start, then a \$15,000 homestead should come ultimately by -the sheer development which such a way of living makes -possible. - -The question, therefore, is not how to secure \$15,000, but -how to secure enough with which to start. And enough with -which to start can be saved by many families, I maintain, in -spite of the inequalities and injustices of our present -social system. How much, then, is really needed in the -beginning? That depends in most cases on two things: what -sort of income from "jobs" the family can depend upon while -it is establishing itself, and how much it is willing to -endure in the way of hardships for the first year or two. If -the income is an average "white collar" salary, hardships -can be quickly eliminated. If the income is very much -smaller, the original investment must be larger or the -family must be willing to endure a rather Spartan regime -until the equipment for producing the comforts of country -life is gradually purchased. Our own experience illustrates -the principles involved. - -When we left the city, we had as capital only the small -savings which we had managed to accumulate in spite of the -"accidents" which periodically prevent savings accounts from -growing as they theoretically should. In addition, I had a -salary of \$50 per week---not a very high one for the -post-war period. We purchased a place for \$4,000, paying -down \$500, and arranged to pay off the balance in monthly -installments of \$50. This was smaller than the rent of \$65 -we had been accustomed to pay in the city even when interest -and taxes are included. After paying for our place we found -ourselves with hardly enough cash on hand to move and get -settled in the new place. We did invest \$75 in the electric -range. But all purchases of livestock, of tools, of -labor-saving comforts, had to come out of income. Two -things, however, made that income go farther in equipping -the homestead than might at first be anticipated. One was -that since we spent less than we had in the city for rent -and for food, even the first year, we had more money with -which to make investments in equipment than we would -ordinarily have saved out of salary. The other was that the -investments in the more expensive equipment could be made on -the installment plan. One month, for instance, we made all -the purchases for our poultry-yard---incubator, eggs and -setting hens. The next month we purchased our steam pressure -cooker---which cost \$25 at that time. Such purchases we -made for cash out of what we saved from week to week. When -it came to installing our automatic pumping system---an -investment which ran into hundreds of dollars---we purchased -it on the installment plan and had the satisfaction of -seeing it save us enough to pay for itself month by month. - -Yet in spite of the relatively small initial investment and -the modest income in the beginning, and in spite of periods -of no income or little income after I quit my job to write -my first book, the homestead grew steadily and came more and -more to represent that large investment which so chilled my -skeptical critic. Eventually income began to go up as I cut -down the time I devoted to earning money, or perhaps it -would be more accurate to say I was able to secure more for -my time as I became less and less dependent upon those to -whom I sold my services. That made the development of the -place just that much easier, and made it possible for us to -start building the "Dogwoods" and to equip it as experience -had taught us such a homestead should be equipped. This -possibility of earning more, by needing to work less, is -cumulative and is open to an immense number of professional -workers. It is remarkable how much more appreciative of -one's work employers and patrons become when they know that -one is independent enough to decline unattractive -commissions. And of course, if the wage-earning classes were -generally to develop this sort of independence, employers -would have to compete and bid up wages to secure workers -instead of workers competing by cutting wages in order to -get jobs. - -That it is possible to start homesteading with even less -than the Borsodi family started was demonstrated to my -satisfaction by the studies I was retained to make by the -Unit Committee of the Dayton, Ohio, Council of Social -Agencies in connection with the establishment of homesteads -for the unemployed of that city. These victims of the -machine age had nothing in the way of income other than part -time or odd jobs, and what they were making for their own -needs through their Production Units. They had no capital at -all with which to start, except the things they had managed -to hang on to in the way of furniture, utensils, and -personal belongings. Plans had, therefore, to be made, first -to establish them on homesteads at the minimum of possible -investment, and then to furnish them some sort of cash -income to meet the expenses for things which they would not -be able to produce for themselves. Part-time work for others -in business or industry or professional life, and the sale -of surplus produce, was expected to furnish an income -equivalent to one or two days' work per week for at least -one member of the family. With an income of between five and -ten dollars per week, I estimated the homesteaders would be -able to repay the advances made to them for investment in -the homestead and its equipment, meet all ordinary -expenditures for taxation, light, fuel, transportation, and -purchase essential commodities and articles which they could -not make themselves. Eventually, as their homesteads were -developed they would attain a higher standard of living than -that which they had previously enjoyed. - -Now in determining how much was needed for the initial -investment, the food to be produced---which determined the -land area---was the deciding factor. A typical dietary for a -middle-class family of five persons may be used as a base -for this purpose, variations from it increasing or -decreasing the investment. A variation toward a vegetarian -diet would both decrease the land area and the investment in -livestock; on the other hand, a variation toward a heavier -meat diet would increase the investment in these directions. -The typical dietused in the studies I made for the Dayton -Homestead Units was as follows: +Just what to say about the capital needed to establish a homestead is +one of the most difficult matters with which I find that I have +undertaken to grapple. Yet it is one question about which I am asked +more frequently than almost any other by those who express a liking for +the way of living with which the Borsodi family has been experimenting. +Before attempting to deal with the matter, however, I think it important +to dispel an illusion under which many people who have heard about our +experiment seem to labor. Typical of these people is one man, connected +with one of our agricultural schools, who assumed that because the +houses, land, machinery, and livestock comprising our homestead +represented an investment of at least \$15,000 (according to his +estimate), that therefore the capital with which I began the experiment +must have been \$15,000. "With \$15,000,O he wrote me,"I would not need +such a homestead in order to make myself independent. Invested in stocks +and bonds, that sum would furnish a comfortable living without going to +all the trouble of producing everything for one's own use on a small +farm. For most people who desire independence and security the problem +is how to get the \$15,000 not what to do with it after they get it." + +It is an interesting commentary upon the tenacity with which even +intelligent people maintain conventional illusions that such a letter +was written to me after the collapse of the securities market in 1929. +In spite of the collapse of the houses of cards which buyers of +securities everywhere were discovering they had erected for themselves, +this man still believed that dependence upon investments in stocks and +bonds was superior to dependence upon a homestead equipped with +livestock, tools, and machinery with which a family could produce a +plentiful living for themselves no matter what happened to the business +world. If the depression should have taught him anything, it should have +made him sec that stocks and bonds furnish no one real security. The +only possible security in our present chaos is direct access to the +opportunity to produce for oneself the essentials of a comfortable +living. + +But even if it were true, as my friendly critic believed, that there +were such things as *secure* securities, the point remains that in the +beginning there was no \$15,000 invested in the Borsodi homestead. +Certainly I was never confronted with the alternative of investing +\$15,000 in stocks and bonds or of investing it in a homestead. Yet it +is true that today, after twelve years of slow growth, the homestead +does represent a large investment, an investment much greater than the +sum at which this critic valued it. It is the way in which we started +out to live, not the fact that we had the capital before we left the +city, which explains our possession today of a fairly well-equipped +home. If one can lay hands upon just enough with which to start, then a +\$15,000 homestead should come ultimately by the sheer development which +such a way of living makes possible. + +The question, therefore, is not how to secure \$15,000, but how to +secure enough with which to start. And enough with which to start can be +saved by many families, I maintain, in spite of the inequalities and +injustices of our present social system. How much, then, is really +needed in the beginning? That depends in most cases on two things: what +sort of income from "jobs" the family can depend upon while it is +establishing itself, and how much it is willing to endure in the way of +hardships for the first year or two. If the income is an average "white +collar" salary, hardships can be quickly eliminated. If the income is +very much smaller, the original investment must be larger or the family +must be willing to endure a rather Spartan regime until the equipment +for producing the comforts of country life is gradually purchased. Our +own experience illustrates the principles involved. + +When we left the city, we had as capital only the small savings which we +had managed to accumulate in spite of the "accidents" which periodically +prevent savings accounts from growing as they theoretically should. In +addition, I had a salary of \$50 per week---not a very high one for the +post-war period. We purchased a place for \$4,000, paying down \$500, +and arranged to pay off the balance in monthly installments of \$50. +This was smaller than the rent of \$65 we had been accustomed to pay in +the city even when interest and taxes are included. After paying for our +place we found ourselves with hardly enough cash on hand to move and get +settled in the new place. We did invest \$75 in the electric range. But +all purchases of livestock, of tools, of labor-saving comforts, had to +come out of income. Two things, however, made that income go farther in +equipping the homestead than might at first be anticipated. One was that +since we spent less than we had in the city for rent and for food, even +the first year, we had more money with which to make investments in +equipment than we would ordinarily have saved out of salary. The other +was that the investments in the more expensive equipment could be made +on the installment plan. One month, for instance, we made all the +purchases for our poultry-yard---incubator, eggs and setting hens. The +next month we purchased our steam pressure cooker---which cost \$25 at +that time. Such purchases we made for cash out of what we saved from +week to week. When it came to installing our automatic pumping +system---an investment which ran into hundreds of dollars---we purchased +it on the installment plan and had the satisfaction of seeing it save us +enough to pay for itself month by month. + +Yet in spite of the relatively small initial investment and the modest +income in the beginning, and in spite of periods of no income or little +income after I quit my job to write my first book, the homestead grew +steadily and came more and more to represent that large investment which +so chilled my skeptical critic. Eventually income began to go up as I +cut down the time I devoted to earning money, or perhaps it would be +more accurate to say I was able to secure more for my time as I became +less and less dependent upon those to whom I sold my services. That made +the development of the place just that much easier, and made it possible +for us to start building the "Dogwoods" and to equip it as experience +had taught us such a homestead should be equipped. This possibility of +earning more, by needing to work less, is cumulative and is open to an +immense number of professional workers. It is remarkable how much more +appreciative of one's work employers and patrons become when they know +that one is independent enough to decline unattractive commissions. And +of course, if the wage-earning classes were generally to develop this +sort of independence, employers would have to compete and bid up wages +to secure workers instead of workers competing by cutting wages in order +to get jobs. + +That it is possible to start homesteading with even less than the +Borsodi family started was demonstrated to my satisfaction by the +studies I was retained to make by the Unit Committee of the Dayton, +Ohio, Council of Social Agencies in connection with the establishment of +homesteads for the unemployed of that city. These victims of the machine +age had nothing in the way of income other than part time or odd jobs, +and what they were making for their own needs through their Production +Units. They had no capital at all with which to start, except the things +they had managed to hang on to in the way of furniture, utensils, and +personal belongings. Plans had, therefore, to be made, first to +establish them on homesteads at the minimum of possible investment, and +then to furnish them some sort of cash income to meet the expenses for +things which they would not be able to produce for themselves. Part-time +work for others in business or industry or professional life, and the +sale of surplus produce, was expected to furnish an income equivalent to +one or two days' work per week for at least one member of the family. +With an income of between five and ten dollars per week, I estimated the +homesteaders would be able to repay the advances made to them for +investment in the homestead and its equipment, meet all ordinary +expenditures for taxation, light, fuel, transportation, and purchase +essential commodities and articles which they could not make themselves. +Eventually, as their homesteads were developed they would attain a +higher standard of living than that which they had previously enjoyed. + +Now in determining how much was needed for the initial investment, the +food to be produced---which determined the land area---was the deciding +factor. A typical dietary for a middle-class family of five persons may +be used as a base for this purpose, variations from it increasing or +decreasing the investment. A variation toward a vegetarian diet would +both decrease the land area and the investment in livestock; on the +other hand, a variation toward a heavier meat diet would increase the +investment in these directions. The typical dietused in the studies I +made for the Dayton Homestead Units was as follows: Item Amount -------------------------------- -------------- @@ -2969,66 +2534,55 @@ Homestead Units was as follows: Eggs 200 dozen Milk 1,200 quarts -With the exception of sugar---for which it might be possible -to substitute in its entirety honey, maple sugar, and -molasses---all of this food was to be produced on the -proposed homesteads. Only the food items such as coffee, -tea, spices, etc., would have to be purchased by the -homesteaders. And of course exotic foodstuffs---oranges, -pineapples, oysters, olive oil---would have to be purchased, -though life could very well be maintained on whatever native -foods there were which furnished the same sort of nutritive -elements. - -The production of 4,750 pounds of various foods, 200 dozen -eggs, and the 1,200 quarts of milk above listed would -require from three to five acres of land. A homestead of -this size would make it possible to raise not only the food -for the table, but the feed for the livestock, the livestock -consisting of 25 laying hens and 25 cockerels or capons -(raised from 75 chicks); two grade or pure-blooded Swiss -goats with their four kids each year (two of these kids, the -bucks, could be slaughtered and added to the meat diet, the -does being raised and probably sold), and two hogs raised -from pigs purchased each year. The bees, of which there -ought to be three or four hives, would, of course, feed -themselves. A considerable number of variations in this -livestock scheme are possible without materially changing -the land area needed to raise feed. Turkeys, ducks, and -other fowls may be added or substituted for some of the -chickens; sheep raised in place of hogs; a cow used instead -of milch goats. The cow would require more land than the -goats; the addition of sheep or an increase in the quantity -of hogs would also increase the area of land needed for -grain and pasturage. The area devoted to the orchard and the -kitchen garden would have to be large enough to supply about -500 quarts of vegetables and fruits to be canned and -preserved for winter, or to be dehydrated if that method of -food preservation is preferred. - -On a three-acre homestead, about one and a half acres of the -land would need to be put in grain for the goats, hogs, and -chickens; about a quarter of an acre into alfalfa, soy beans -or some similar crop, and a half acre reserved for -pasturage. A quarter of an acre would be needed for the corn -or wheat for the family's cereals. This means about two -acres for field crops. The remaining acre would be all that -was needed for the vegetable garden, the orchard, the -barnyard, the flower-gardens and lawns, and the home-site -itself. Indeed, if the family were content to live -exclusively on vegetables and nuts, all its food could be -raised on this one acre of land. On this general plan, three -acres would be all that would be needed, while five acres -would be a generous allowance. If a common pasture were made -available, the three acres would be ample. I therefore -suggested that the Dayton Homestead Units should consist of -160-acre tracts laid out for between thirty and thirty-five -homesteads of three acres each, with the remainder of the -land for common use. - -Upon the basis of the land area and food program above -outlined, the investment needed to establish a homestead was -calculated as follows: +With the exception of sugar---for which it might be possible to +substitute in its entirety honey, maple sugar, and molasses---all of +this food was to be produced on the proposed homesteads. Only the food +items such as coffee, tea, spices, etc., would have to be purchased by +the homesteaders. And of course exotic foodstuffs---oranges, pineapples, +oysters, olive oil---would have to be purchased, though life could very +well be maintained on whatever native foods there were which furnished +the same sort of nutritive elements. + +The production of 4,750 pounds of various foods, 200 dozen eggs, and the +1,200 quarts of milk above listed would require from three to five acres +of land. A homestead of this size would make it possible to raise not +only the food for the table, but the feed for the livestock, the +livestock consisting of 25 laying hens and 25 cockerels or capons +(raised from 75 chicks); two grade or pure-blooded Swiss goats with +their four kids each year (two of these kids, the bucks, could be +slaughtered and added to the meat diet, the does being raised and +probably sold), and two hogs raised from pigs purchased each year. The +bees, of which there ought to be three or four hives, would, of course, +feed themselves. A considerable number of variations in this livestock +scheme are possible without materially changing the land area needed to +raise feed. Turkeys, ducks, and other fowls may be added or substituted +for some of the chickens; sheep raised in place of hogs; a cow used +instead of milch goats. The cow would require more land than the goats; +the addition of sheep or an increase in the quantity of hogs would also +increase the area of land needed for grain and pasturage. The area +devoted to the orchard and the kitchen garden would have to be large +enough to supply about 500 quarts of vegetables and fruits to be canned +and preserved for winter, or to be dehydrated if that method of food +preservation is preferred. + +On a three-acre homestead, about one and a half acres of the land would +need to be put in grain for the goats, hogs, and chickens; about a +quarter of an acre into alfalfa, soy beans or some similar crop, and a +half acre reserved for pasturage. A quarter of an acre would be needed +for the corn or wheat for the family's cereals. This means about two +acres for field crops. The remaining acre would be all that was needed +for the vegetable garden, the orchard, the barnyard, the flower-gardens +and lawns, and the home-site itself. Indeed, if the family were content +to live exclusively on vegetables and nuts, all its food could be raised +on this one acre of land. On this general plan, three acres would be all +that would be needed, while five acres would be a generous allowance. If +a common pasture were made available, the three acres would be ample. I +therefore suggested that the Dayton Homestead Units should consist of +160-acre tracts laid out for between thirty and thirty-five homesteads +of three acres each, with the remainder of the land for common use. + +Upon the basis of the land area and food program above outlined, the +investment needed to establish a homestead was calculated as follows: Item Cost ---------------------------------------------- ------- @@ -3043,133 +2597,114 @@ calculated as follows: Preserving and kitchen equipment \$25 Total Cost \$900 -To this investment there was added about \$120 for groceries -and feed for use during the first six months after movement -to the land. Assuming that the homesteading started in the -winter or spring, within six months production would develop -to a point so that no further outside purchases would have -to be made for this purpose. The total investment would -therefore be around \$1,000 per family. But not more than -\$350 to \$400 of this would have to be in cash. - -Farms of about 160 acres were to be laid out for the -homesteads, and were to be known as Homestead Units to -distinguish them from the Production Units already -established by the unemployed in the city itself. In the -Homestead Units the group activities and cooperative -manufacturing carried on by the Production Units in the city -might be continued to whatever extent the individuals in -each group desired. The whole tract of land would be owned -by the unit; title to the individual homesteads would be -based upon perpetual leases, thus preventing speculation in -land. If the farm buildings already on the tract were not -suitable for use as community buildings, they would be -gradually altered for this purpose. The pasture, wood lot, -and community buildings would be owned by the unit as a -whole and used by the individual homesteaders under rules -and regulations established by the group. Tractors or -horses, trucks, and heavy agricultural implements might also -be cooperatively owned. Grain farming might be carried on by -some units cooperatively, just as the city units produced -clothes, bread, and other goods cooperatively. As much or as -little communal life as the group desired was thus provided -for, the balance between collectivism and individualism -swinging in whatever direction experience and inclination -pointed. Each family was expected, however, to build its own -home, poultry-house, cow-shed, and workshop; to cultivate -its own garden, and set out its own orchard and berry patch, -and become in this new and modernized setting almost as -self-sufficient and independent as were the pioneers of the -country a hundred years ago. Trades and crafts were expected -to develop and selling and bartering of produce of which -individual homesteads had a surplus, but no such emphasis -was to be placed upon this as to force a trend toward -large-scale production. - -The plans looked toward the building of permanent and -beautiful homes. Construction was to follow lines developed -by Ernest Flagg for the building of beautiful and -inexpensive small homes. The high cost and wastes involved -in building cellars was therefore to be avoided. While -building the first wing of their homes, the homesteaders -were to commute between Dayton and their new homes, though -some of them might camp out, more or less, if the farm -buildings on the site made it practicable to do so. As soon -as they were on the site, they were to begin to garden, to -build their own furniture in their own workshops, to weave -cloth on their own looms, and to make their own clothes on -their own sewing-machines. Electricity was to be brought in -for both light and power, and domestic machinery and -appliances used to reduce drudgery to a minimum. The -crushing burdens of elaborate water and sewage systems were -to be avoided by the use of individual automatic pumps and +To this investment there was added about \$120 for groceries and feed +for use during the first six months after movement to the land. Assuming +that the homesteading started in the winter or spring, within six months +production would develop to a point so that no further outside purchases +would have to be made for this purpose. The total investment would +therefore be around \$1,000 per family. But not more than \$350 to \$400 +of this would have to be in cash. + +Farms of about 160 acres were to be laid out for the homesteads, and +were to be known as Homestead Units to distinguish them from the +Production Units already established by the unemployed in the city +itself. In the Homestead Units the group activities and cooperative +manufacturing carried on by the Production Units in the city might be +continued to whatever extent the individuals in each group desired. The +whole tract of land would be owned by the unit; title to the individual +homesteads would be based upon perpetual leases, thus preventing +speculation in land. If the farm buildings already on the tract were not +suitable for use as community buildings, they would be gradually altered +for this purpose. The pasture, wood lot, and community buildings would +be owned by the unit as a whole and used by the individual homesteaders +under rules and regulations established by the group. Tractors or +horses, trucks, and heavy agricultural implements might also be +cooperatively owned. Grain farming might be carried on by some units +cooperatively, just as the city units produced clothes, bread, and other +goods cooperatively. As much or as little communal life as the group +desired was thus provided for, the balance between collectivism and +individualism swinging in whatever direction experience and inclination +pointed. Each family was expected, however, to build its own home, +poultry-house, cow-shed, and workshop; to cultivate its own garden, and +set out its own orchard and berry patch, and become in this new and +modernized setting almost as self-sufficient and independent as were the +pioneers of the country a hundred years ago. Trades and crafts were +expected to develop and selling and bartering of produce of which +individual homesteads had a surplus, but no such emphasis was to be +placed upon this as to force a trend toward large-scale production. + +The plans looked toward the building of permanent and beautiful homes. +Construction was to follow lines developed by Ernest Flagg for the +building of beautiful and inexpensive small homes. The high cost and +wastes involved in building cellars was therefore to be avoided. While +building the first wing of their homes, the homesteaders were to commute +between Dayton and their new homes, though some of them might camp out, +more or less, if the farm buildings on the site made it practicable to +do so. As soon as they were on the site, they were to begin to garden, +to build their own furniture in their own workshops, to weave cloth on +their own looms, and to make their own clothes on their own +sewing-machines. Electricity was to be brought in for both light and +power, and domestic machinery and appliances used to reduce drudgery to +a minimum. The crushing burdens of elaborate water and sewage systems +were to be avoided by the use of individual automatic pumps and individual septic tanks. -Dayton, which is this year establishing its first homestead -units, is demonstrating what can be done with very little -cash even by unemployed families. But that an individual -family can establish itself on a homestead with an even -smaller cash investment than provided for in the Dayton plan -was demonstrated to my satisfaction by a case with which I -happen to be personally familiar. This family consisted of a -man, wife, and boy eight years old. The man had made an -indifferent living for many years as a chauffeur in and -around New York, and when out of work came to live with his -parents, who had a small country home in our section. One -day he came to me with a project for building a road stand -on a plot of land belonging to me. He had, however, no -capital with which to buy the land and barely enough money -to equip a stand. He asked for a lease on the lot, with the -privilege of buying it if he managed to make a success of -his stand. I gave him the lease for which he asked, and this +Dayton, which is this year establishing its first homestead units, is +demonstrating what can be done with very little cash even by unemployed +families. But that an individual family can establish itself on a +homestead with an even smaller cash investment than provided for in the +Dayton plan was demonstrated to my satisfaction by a case with which I +happen to be personally familiar. This family consisted of a man, wife, +and boy eight years old. The man had made an indifferent living for many +years as a chauffeur in and around New York, and when out of work came +to live with his parents, who had a small country home in our section. +One day he came to me with a project for building a road stand on a plot +of land belonging to me. He had, however, no capital with which to buy +the land and barely enough money to equip a stand. He asked for a lease +on the lot, with the privilege of buying it if he managed to make a +success of his stand. I gave him the lease for which he asked, and this is what happened: -He went to a local lumber-yard and secured a large quantity -of building material on credit. With this he first built a -small stand, and equipped it to sell ice-cream, drinks, and -the usual line of roadside refreshments. While his wife took -care of the stand, he built a four-room house on the back of -the lot, though the interior was unfinished at the time he -came to me and told me that the lumber-yard was pressing him -for money. I discovered that he had gone ahead and built the -house, expecting that the stand would earn enough not only -to enable him to buy the lot but to pay for the materials he -used in building. To straighten out the tangle into which -his over-optimism had led him, I arranged a mortgage for him -with the building and loan association from the proceeds of -which he paid for his lot, paid for the building materials -for which he was already in debt, and then purchased enough -materials with which to finish his home. His road stand -folded up and disappeared the next winter---it never did -make very much money. But in spite of this disappointment, -he managed to earn enough during the periods when he worked -to meet his loan payments, to keep adding to his homestead, -until he finally had a substantial house, a garden and -chicken-yard, and found himself living at a level of comfort -and security which he had never before enjoyed. - -Now if a family with virtually no capital and having to rely -mainly on the earnings of occasional periods of work as a -chauffeur, can establish itself in a country home, it ought -to be possible for families with some capital and more -earning power to do so. What such a family need---in -addition to courage---according to our experience is enough -capital for the down payment on the purchase price of a -place and enough cash to pay for such materials and -equipment as cannot be purchased on credit. For the rest, -they must rely upon their incomes. But that a modest income, -especially during the first few years, will enable them not -only to pay for their place but to develop it into a -substantial and comfortable home, is not difficult to -demonstrate on the basis of our own experience. - -Assume that we are dealing with the problem of a family -having enough capital for the first payment on a suitable -place, enough cash with which to equip itself at least as -well as we were able to, and with an income of \$2,500 a -year---approximately the income with which we worked our -first year. Such a family living in the city would spend its -income about as follows: +He went to a local lumber-yard and secured a large quantity of building +material on credit. With this he first built a small stand, and equipped +it to sell ice-cream, drinks, and the usual line of roadside +refreshments. While his wife took care of the stand, he built a +four-room house on the back of the lot, though the interior was +unfinished at the time he came to me and told me that the lumber-yard +was pressing him for money. I discovered that he had gone ahead and +built the house, expecting that the stand would earn enough not only to +enable him to buy the lot but to pay for the materials he used in +building. To straighten out the tangle into which his over-optimism had +led him, I arranged a mortgage for him with the building and loan +association from the proceeds of which he paid for his lot, paid for the +building materials for which he was already in debt, and then purchased +enough materials with which to finish his home. His road stand folded up +and disappeared the next winter---it never did make very much money. But +in spite of this disappointment, he managed to earn enough during the +periods when he worked to meet his loan payments, to keep adding to his +homestead, until he finally had a substantial house, a garden and +chicken-yard, and found himself living at a level of comfort and +security which he had never before enjoyed. + +Now if a family with virtually no capital and having to rely mainly on +the earnings of occasional periods of work as a chauffeur, can establish +itself in a country home, it ought to be possible for families with some +capital and more earning power to do so. What such a family need---in +addition to courage---according to our experience is enough capital for +the down payment on the purchase price of a place and enough cash to pay +for such materials and equipment as cannot be purchased on credit. For +the rest, they must rely upon their incomes. But that a modest income, +especially during the first few years, will enable them not only to pay +for their place but to develop it into a substantial and comfortable +home, is not difficult to demonstrate on the basis of our own +experience. + +Assume that we are dealing with the problem of a family having enough +capital for the first payment on a suitable place, enough cash with +which to equip itself at least as well as we were able to, and with an +income of \$2,500 a year---approximately the income with which we worked +our first year. Such a family living in the city would spend its income +about as follows: Item Cost ---------------- --------- @@ -3180,10 +2715,10 @@ income about as follows: Savings ? Total Cost \$2,500 -Assuming that production upon the homestead increases -gradually, and does not go as far toward self-sufficiency as -is planned for the Dayton experiment, the family budget -after moving to the country would look something like this: +Assuming that production upon the homestead increases gradually, and +does not go as far toward self-sufficiency as is planned for the Dayton +experiment, the family budget after moving to the country would look +something like this: Item Cost ------------------------------------------- --------- @@ -3194,1468 +2729,1246 @@ after moving to the country would look something like this: Available for investment in the homestead \$1,250 Total Cost \$2,500 -With the family producing its own shelter, instead of -renting it, there is a saving of \$500 a year between what -would be spent for taxes and upkeep on their own home and -that paid out in rent in the city. In the case of food, a -cut of 50% is possible the moment the garden, the orchard, -and the chicken-yard contribute to the family larder. -Between the sewing-room, the workshop, and the laundry, -substantial savings are possible on clothing and other -expenses. A fund of about \$1,250 is therefore made -available for investment in the homestead and its equipment, -provided the family does all of its own work. To whatever -extent servants are employed, this fund is reduced. In our -own case, we much preferred to spend a part of it for help -and to make our investment at a slower rate than to try to -put so much into "saving" and take so much out of ourselves. - -Surely I have said enough about the problems involved to -make it clear why it is so difficult to answer the questions -which are asked us about how much capital is needed for -establishing a homestead in the country. Whenever I am asked -the question I always think of that old poser, Which is the -most important leg of a three-legged stool? The amount of -capital needed is just one part of an equation in three -terms, of which the other two are the income upon which the -family can rely, and the degree to which the family is -willing to endure pioneering. +With the family producing its own shelter, instead of renting it, there +is a saving of \$500 a year between what would be spent for taxes and +upkeep on their own home and that paid out in rent in the city. In the +case of food, a cut of 50% is possible the moment the garden, the +orchard, and the chicken-yard contribute to the family larder. Between +the sewing-room, the workshop, and the laundry, substantial savings are +possible on clothing and other expenses. A fund of about \$1,250 is +therefore made available for investment in the homestead and its +equipment, provided the family does all of its own work. To whatever +extent servants are employed, this fund is reduced. In our own case, we +much preferred to spend a part of it for help and to make our investment +at a slower rate than to try to put so much into "saving" and take so +much out of ourselves. + +Surely I have said enough about the problems involved to make it clear +why it is so difficult to answer the questions which are asked us about +how much capital is needed for establishing a homestead in the country. +Whenever I am asked the question I always think of that old poser, Which +is the most important leg of a three-legged stool? The amount of capital +needed is just one part of an equation in three terms, of which the +other two are the income upon which the family can rely, and the degree +to which the family is willing to endure pioneering. # Security versus Insecurity -More than a decade has passed since the Borsodi family took -flight from the city. Experimentation, and interpretation of -the experiments, on the Borsodi homestead finally reached a -point where what had been learned had to be given utterance. -The result was that protesting essay which I called *This -Ugly Civilization*. It was an effort to interpret our quest -of comfort and to develop from it a program which might lead -to the conquest of comfort for individuals and families, if -not for society as a whole. But it appeared in 1929, when -the country was most deliriously celebrating the great boom -of which Henry Ford was the prophet and mass production the -gospel. Virtually no one wanted to be told that the whole -industrialized world was mistaken; that there was another -way and a better way of making a living and of providing -ourselves with our hearts' desires than through organized, -integrated, centralized labor. The way which I urged as -desirable for the individual and essential to the salvation -of society seemed romantic to some who read my book; -practicable only for exceptional families to other readers, -and hostile to the social centralization for which others -were working. +More than a decade has passed since the Borsodi family took flight from +the city. Experimentation, and interpretation of the experiments, on the +Borsodi homestead finally reached a point where what had been learned +had to be given utterance. The result was that protesting essay which I +called *This Ugly Civilization*. It was an effort to interpret our quest +of comfort and to develop from it a program which might lead to the +conquest of comfort for individuals and families, if not for society as +a whole. But it appeared in 1929, when the country was most deliriously +celebrating the great boom of which Henry Ford was the prophet and mass +production the gospel. Virtually no one wanted to be told that the whole +industrialized world was mistaken; that there was another way and a +better way of making a living and of providing ourselves with our +hearts' desires than through organized, integrated, centralized labor. +The way which I urged as desirable for the individual and essential to +the salvation of society seemed romantic to some who read my book; +practicable only for exceptional families to other readers, and hostile +to the social centralization for which others were working. The situation is different today. -As I write these lines, the newspapers are carrying a story -to the effect that 15,252,000 men and women are unemployed. -This means, according to *The Business Week*, which was -responsible for this estimate, that during November, 1932, -over 31.2% of those who are normally employed in the United -States were unable to earn a living: 46% of those ordinarily -employed in manufacturing; 45% of those in mining; 40% of -those in forestry and fishing; 38% of those in -transportation; 35% of those in domestic and personal -service; 21% of those in trade; 17% of those in agriculture; -10% of those in public service; and 10% of our professional -classes were unemployed. On the basis of one and a half -dependents for each worker, 37,500,000 men, women, and -children were directly affected by unemployment. And the -situation since that estimate was made has become steadily -worse. But these millions by no means number fully all those -affected by the economic catastrophe which struck the -country four years ago. It would be safe to say that again -as many have had their standards of living sharply reduced -by reductions in wages, by part-time work, and by declines -in the price of what they produce or possess. And if we were -to add those who live in terror of unemployment or of -financial ruin, almost every person in the country would -have to be included. - -After nearly two centuries of industrial expansion and a -full century of social reforms during which we destroyed -monarchical tyranny, abolished human slavery, established a -sound currency, reduced greatly the hours of labor, granted -universal suffrage, and adopted countless other reforms, we -find most of the country unemployed, reduced to poverty, -dependent upon charity, in terror of ruin! In spite of the -fact that the whole history of industrial expansion and -social reform is filled with demonstrations of the -impossibility of establishing security, much less happiness, -by any measures which still leave the individual dependent -for his living upon the industrial behemoth, what has thus -far been done and what is now proposed by industrial -leaders, politicians, and economists is in the main merely a -continuance of the futile process of trying to produce -prosperity by creating new industries, expanding credit, -cheapening money, spreading work, shortening hours of labor, -or establishing unemployment insurance. +As I write these lines, the newspapers are carrying a story to the +effect that 15,252,000 men and women are unemployed. This means, +according to *The Business Week*, which was responsible for this +estimate, that during November, 1932, over 31.2% of those who are +normally employed in the United States were unable to earn a living: 46% +of those ordinarily employed in manufacturing; 45% of those in mining; +40% of those in forestry and fishing; 38% of those in transportation; +35% of those in domestic and personal service; 21% of those in trade; +17% of those in agriculture; 10% of those in public service; and 10% of +our professional classes were unemployed. On the basis of one and a half +dependents for each worker, 37,500,000 men, women, and children were +directly affected by unemployment. And the situation since that estimate +was made has become steadily worse. But these millions by no means +number fully all those affected by the economic catastrophe which struck +the country four years ago. It would be safe to say that again as many +have had their standards of living sharply reduced by reductions in +wages, by part-time work, and by declines in the price of what they +produce or possess. And if we were to add those who live in terror of +unemployment or of financial ruin, almost every person in the country +would have to be included. + +After nearly two centuries of industrial expansion and a full century of +social reforms during which we destroyed monarchical tyranny, abolished +human slavery, established a sound currency, reduced greatly the hours +of labor, granted universal suffrage, and adopted countless other +reforms, we find most of the country unemployed, reduced to poverty, +dependent upon charity, in terror of ruin! In spite of the fact that the +whole history of industrial expansion and social reform is filled with +demonstrations of the impossibility of establishing security, much less +happiness, by any measures which still leave the individual dependent +for his living upon the industrial behemoth, what has thus far been done +and what is now proposed by industrial leaders, politicians, and +economists is in the main merely a continuance of the futile process of +trying to produce prosperity by creating new industries, expanding +credit, cheapening money, spreading work, shortening hours of labor, or +establishing unemployment insurance. Yesterday a young married man I know lost his position. The -manufacturing company for which he had been working for four -years as a salesman had to let him go. There had been -nothing wrong with his work; the volume of the company's -business had simply declined to a point which made it -imperative that they lay off another man, and as the -youngest salesman on the staff, he was the one to be -dropped. - -For months he and his wife had lived in terror of this -possibility. A six-months-old baby, with the added financial -responsibilities involved, had increased the fear with which -they had contemplated the possibility of unemployment---at a -time when millions were unemployed. Now the blow had fallen. -With only three weeks' pay in his pocket, he and his wife, +manufacturing company for which he had been working for four years as a +salesman had to let him go. There had been nothing wrong with his work; +the volume of the company's business had simply declined to a point +which made it imperative that they lay off another man, and as the +youngest salesman on the staff, he was the one to be dropped. + +For months he and his wife had lived in terror of this possibility. A +six-months-old baby, with the added financial responsibilities involved, +had increased the fear with which they had contemplated the possibility +of unemployment---at a time when millions were unemployed. Now the blow +had fallen. With only three weeks' pay in his pocket, he and his wife, neither of them over twenty-five years of age, were simply terror-stricken. The landlord, the milkman, the butcher, the -grocer---those upon whom they were immediately dependent for -food and shelter---were suddenly transformed into menaces. -Some idea of what this terror meant to this couple, as in -one degree or another it has meant to millions of others in -these troublous times, can be gathered from the fact that -when my wife called the young mother on the phone, shortly -after the husband left for work the morning following his -discharge, to ask her not to remain alone if she was -worrying, the hysterical answer received was that she -couldn't come over just then---that she had suffered some -kind of hysterical spell after her husband left her, had -become nauseated, and vomited, but that after she -straightened herself out, she would come right over. - -Then there is the Segerstrom family. This is not their -name---but it suggests their real name. Segerstrom is a -carpenter. He has recently worked for me a little at odd -jobs, so that I know him to be a hard-working, conscientious -workman. He has an equally hard-working wife, and five -children. Up to the collapse of the building boom in the -fall of 1929, as far as I can now learn, he worked steadily -month after month, earned high wages, and lived according to -the conventional standard of skilled workingmen of his -class. The Segerstroms then lived in a home which they had -bought for a little down and a little each month; they owned -a Ford car; they had the usual kind of furniture in their -home, a radio, and all the comforts to which they felt an -American standard of living entitled them. They had even -managed to save a little money, some of which had been -invested in securities recommended to them by the bank in -which they deposited their money. - -Then came the crash. Regular employment ended. At the end of -the fourth winter of occasional work at odd jobs they had -lost their home, lost and sold virtually all their -furniture, and when we first heard of them they were living -in a rented house in the country without a single modern -convenience, and dependent upon the wood which they could -cut in the woods about their house for fuel with which to -keep warm during the wintry weather in this climate. His -wife was working as a maid three days a week, and this -managed to bring in just enough cash with which to pay the -rent and occasionally buy some groceries. For the rest, they -were engaged in a desperate struggle to get enough odd jobs -and occasionally a little work at his trade of carpenter to -keep the family from descending to the charitable agencies -for relief. - -As I write, Mrs. Segerstrom has lost her job as a maid, the -family which had employed her having decided to move to -another part of suburban New York. As far as I can judge, -through no fault of their own but merely because of their -blind reliance and dependence upon the scheme of living -which is conventional in our industrial civilization, this -family is going to become an object of public charity. In -that respect their problem is the problem of millions of -equally sober, decent, and useful human beings today. - -Or take the case of the Smythes, which also is not their -name, but suggests the two of them. - -The Smythes were a rather proud couple in their fifties. -They had no children. They had a nice home of their own in -one of the most fashionable sections of northern Jersey. -They drove a Chrysler, purchased when that meant more than -it does today. Their home was much more than comfortably -furnished. Smythe had been cashier and confidential man in -some kind of brokerage business for over twenty years. His -firm decided to liquidate, owing to the losses sustained -when commodity prices slumped early in the depression. -Through no fault of his own, Smythe found himself at fifty -trying to secure any sort of position at all in which his -knowledge of bookkeeping might be used. But not only was -there an oversupply of bookkeepers---there was no demand at -all for bookkeepers of his age. In spite of his efforts to -locate himself for a period of nearly two years, the time -finally came when the Smythes were reduced to a state in -which they were without coal with which to heat their house, -their telephone was being disconnected, and they had -virtually nothing left to set upon the table. But so far as -the neighbors could see, nothing was wrong. The Smythes -seemed to be living substantially as they had been living -for the past two years. - -But one day the neighbors became conscious of the fact that -the Smythes had disappeared. Investigation showed that two -days before Smythe had picked up a hatchet, split open his -wife's skull as she lay in bed, gone down to his garage, -started the motor in his car, lain down by the exhaust, and -asphyxiated himself. - -Then there was the case of Jones---which promises to end -more hopefully than that of Smythe. - -One day I received a letter from a man named Jones, or a -name very similar to Jones, begging the privilege of an -interview. He had read *This Ugly Civilization*, he wrote, -and had a straightforward question he wanted to put to me. -He asked me to give him a few minutes in which to put his -case before me if I possibly could spare the time, since he -was prepared to stake all he had upon my answer to it. Of -course I saw him. And this is the story he told me. - -"Mr. Borsodi," he said, "I am an accountant. The firm for -which I used to work failed just about a year ago. I had -worked for them for nine years. But I had made such a good -record and had managed to save \$1,500, so that I wasn't -particularly worried. But that was a year ago. Since that -time I have walked the streets of New York without a single, -real chance to secure any kind of a position which would -enable me to support my wife and daughter. I have tried -almost everything. I have answered every help-wanted -advertisement in the newspapers, registered with all sorts -of employment agencies, called on all my friends and -relatives and almost everybody with whom I was even remotely -acquainted, in an effort to find some sort of work which I -might do. Fortunately, my wife was able to secure occasional -employment in a department store, clerking at the counter. -She would leave our little girl with her grandmother during -the period she worked. But in spite of the money she managed -to earn, and a little which I managed to pick up, we have -been steadily wiping out our savings. Even after practicing -every sort of economy, the rent makes big holes in our -savings each month, though we have managed to even reduce -this by doubling up with my wife's parents. Today I have -only \$500 left of my original savings. And I can see the +grocer---those upon whom they were immediately dependent for food and +shelter---were suddenly transformed into menaces. Some idea of what this +terror meant to this couple, as in one degree or another it has meant to +millions of others in these troublous times, can be gathered from the +fact that when my wife called the young mother on the phone, shortly +after the husband left for work the morning following his discharge, to +ask her not to remain alone if she was worrying, the hysterical answer +received was that she couldn't come over just then---that she had +suffered some kind of hysterical spell after her husband left her, had +become nauseated, and vomited, but that after she straightened herself +out, she would come right over. + +Then there is the Segerstrom family. This is not their name---but it +suggests their real name. Segerstrom is a carpenter. He has recently +worked for me a little at odd jobs, so that I know him to be a +hard-working, conscientious workman. He has an equally hard-working +wife, and five children. Up to the collapse of the building boom in the +fall of 1929, as far as I can now learn, he worked steadily month after +month, earned high wages, and lived according to the conventional +standard of skilled workingmen of his class. The Segerstroms then lived +in a home which they had bought for a little down and a little each +month; they owned a Ford car; they had the usual kind of furniture in +their home, a radio, and all the comforts to which they felt an American +standard of living entitled them. They had even managed to save a little +money, some of which had been invested in securities recommended to them +by the bank in which they deposited their money. + +Then came the crash. Regular employment ended. At the end of the fourth +winter of occasional work at odd jobs they had lost their home, lost and +sold virtually all their furniture, and when we first heard of them they +were living in a rented house in the country without a single modern +convenience, and dependent upon the wood which they could cut in the +woods about their house for fuel with which to keep warm during the +wintry weather in this climate. His wife was working as a maid three +days a week, and this managed to bring in just enough cash with which to +pay the rent and occasionally buy some groceries. For the rest, they +were engaged in a desperate struggle to get enough odd jobs and +occasionally a little work at his trade of carpenter to keep the family +from descending to the charitable agencies for relief. + +As I write, Mrs. Segerstrom has lost her job as a maid, the family which +had employed her having decided to move to another part of suburban New +York. As far as I can judge, through no fault of their own but merely +because of their blind reliance and dependence upon the scheme of living +which is conventional in our industrial civilization, this family is +going to become an object of public charity. In that respect their +problem is the problem of millions of equally sober, decent, and useful +human beings today. + +Or take the case of the Smythes, which also is not their name, but +suggests the two of them. + +The Smythes were a rather proud couple in their fifties. They had no +children. They had a nice home of their own in one of the most +fashionable sections of northern Jersey. They drove a Chrysler, +purchased when that meant more than it does today. Their home was much +more than comfortably furnished. Smythe had been cashier and +confidential man in some kind of brokerage business for over twenty +years. His firm decided to liquidate, owing to the losses sustained when +commodity prices slumped early in the depression. Through no fault of +his own, Smythe found himself at fifty trying to secure any sort of +position at all in which his knowledge of bookkeeping might be used. But +not only was there an oversupply of bookkeepers---there was no demand at +all for bookkeepers of his age. In spite of his efforts to locate +himself for a period of nearly two years, the time finally came when the +Smythes were reduced to a state in which they were without coal with +which to heat their house, their telephone was being disconnected, and +they had virtually nothing left to set upon the table. But so far as the +neighbors could see, nothing was wrong. The Smythes seemed to be living +substantially as they had been living for the past two years. + +But one day the neighbors became conscious of the fact that the Smythes +had disappeared. Investigation showed that two days before Smythe had +picked up a hatchet, split open his wife's skull as she lay in bed, gone +down to his garage, started the motor in his car, lain down by the +exhaust, and asphyxiated himself. + +Then there was the case of Jones---which promises to end more hopefully +than that of Smythe. + +One day I received a letter from a man named Jones, or a name very +similar to Jones, begging the privilege of an interview. He had read +*This Ugly Civilization*, he wrote, and had a straightforward question +he wanted to put to me. He asked me to give him a few minutes in which +to put his case before me if I possibly could spare the time, since he +was prepared to stake all he had upon my answer to it. Of course I saw +him. And this is the story he told me. + +"Mr. Borsodi," he said, "I am an accountant. The firm for which I used +to work failed just about a year ago. I had worked for them for nine +years. But I had made such a good record and had managed to save +\$1,500, so that I wasn't particularly worried. But that was a year ago. +Since that time I have walked the streets of New York without a single, +real chance to secure any kind of a position which would enable me to +support my wife and daughter. I have tried almost everything. I have +answered every help-wanted advertisement in the newspapers, registered +with all sorts of employment agencies, called on all my friends and +relatives and almost everybody with whom I was even remotely acquainted, +in an effort to find some sort of work which I might do. Fortunately, my +wife was able to secure occasional employment in a department store, +clerking at the counter. She would leave our little girl with her +grandmother during the period she worked. But in spite of the money she +managed to earn, and a little which I managed to pick up, we have been +steadily wiping out our savings. Even after practicing every sort of +economy, the rent makes big holes in our savings each month, though we +have managed to even reduce this by doubling up with my wife's parents. +Today I have only \$500 left of my original savings. And I can see the end of that this coming year. -"Like lots of other men, when tired of walking around, I -have dropped into the public libraries to read and get my -mind off my troubles. About a week ago I happened to pick up -your book, *This Ugly Civilization*, and I raced through -it---it seemed to be written just for me. I don't need to -tell you how it affected me. It seemed to furnish the -complete answer to just such problems as the one with which -I had been struggling. But what a ghastly joke that I should -have stumbled upon your book only after most of my capital -had been sunk in the sheer cost of keeping my family alive -this past year. I have been torturing myself ever since -thinking about what I might have done to maintain them if I -had worked in a garden of my own instead of just tramping -the streets of New York trying to find jobs under conditions -such as prevail at present! - -"Now, Mr. Borsodi, the question I would like to ask you is -this: Should I take a chance with my last \$500 and try to -get to the country, where we would have a chance at least to -partially support ourselves, even if we couldn't do it -completely right away, or should I take a chance on finding -work before my \$500 has all gone to the milkman, the -grocer, and the landlord? Is it possible, with only \$500 -cash, to make a start toward the independence of a job which -you advocate in your book? This is the question which my -wife and I have been debating night after night ever since I -read your book. What do you think? I am perfectly willing to -work. I think I can make a success of such a homestead as -you describe; my wife is willing to work just as hard as I -am---but will \$500 enable us to make a start toward -independence?" - -The terror, the suffering, and the tragedies of my young -neighbor, of the Segerstrom family, of the Smythes, of Jones -the accountant, and of most of the millions of men and women -who are unemployed today, are consequences of that -mysterious phenomenon known as the business +"Like lots of other men, when tired of walking around, I have dropped +into the public libraries to read and get my mind off my troubles. About +a week ago I happened to pick up your book, *This Ugly Civilization*, +and I raced through it---it seemed to be written just for me. I don't +need to tell you how it affected me. It seemed to furnish the complete +answer to just such problems as the one with which I had been +struggling. But what a ghastly joke that I should have stumbled upon +your book only after most of my capital had been sunk in the sheer cost +of keeping my family alive this past year. I have been torturing myself +ever since thinking about what I might have done to maintain them if I +had worked in a garden of my own instead of just tramping the streets of +New York trying to find jobs under conditions such as prevail at +present! + +"Now, Mr. Borsodi, the question I would like to ask you is this: Should +I take a chance with my last \$500 and try to get to the country, where +we would have a chance at least to partially support ourselves, even if +we couldn't do it completely right away, or should I take a chance on +finding work before my \$500 has all gone to the milkman, the grocer, +and the landlord? Is it possible, with only \$500 cash, to make a start +toward the independence of a job which you advocate in your book? This +is the question which my wife and I have been debating night after night +ever since I read your book. What do you think? I am perfectly willing +to work. I think I can make a success of such a homestead as you +describe; my wife is willing to work just as hard as I am---but will +\$500 enable us to make a start toward independence?" + +The terror, the suffering, and the tragedies of my young neighbor, of +the Segerstrom family, of the Smythes, of Jones the accountant, and of +most of the millions of men and women who are unemployed today, are +consequences of that mysterious phenomenon known as the business cycle---mysterious as to cause but not as to effects---which -periodically produces in our industrial civilization a -decline in the volume of trade, a sharp drop in prices, a -shrinkage in the amount of credit, a decrease in the demand -for goods, a decline in the volume of production, and in -consequence an increase in the number of unemployed. Men and -women at work in factories and offices and stores, workers -in building and in railroading, all the myriads engaged in -the services, trades, and professions---barbers, waiters, -actors, artists, reporters, architects, who are busily at -work during periods of prosperity and good times---suddenly -find themselves out of work, while those who remained -employed find themselves in most cases working only a part -of each week and at lower wages and salaries. A force beyond -their control and in most cases utterly beyond their -comprehension suddenly leaves them without the income with -which to pay rent, buy food, purchase clothing, and pay -their debts. - -But equally through no fault of their own, other millions of -cogs in our industrialized world and inter-dependent -economic system find themselves periodically without the -income which will enable them to buy the necessaries of life -because of seasonal unemployment, or technological -unemployment, or what I call style unemployment. Just as the -winter season tends to throw building-workers out of -employment, and the invention of new machines and new -techniques tends to throw out of employment those engaged in -manufacturing staple and established products, so style -changes with their shifts in demand from wool dress goods to -silk, from short skirts to long skirts, from crockery to -glassware, and from phonographs to radios, create -unemployment for workers in some industries even though -employment is created for other workers in other industries. - -And quite without regard to whether the cause is seasonal, -or cyclical, or technological, or style unemployment, all -these victims of unemployment are alike in this respect, -that they are periodically unable to support themselves and -their families through no fault of their own because of -*their dependence upon what they earn as a cog in some part -of the complex machinery of our factory-dominated -civilization*. If the period of unemployment proves to be a -short one, their savings are reduced or wiped out and debts -accumulated which impair their ability to save for some time -after they are again employed, while if the period proves a -long one---as long as the period through which twelve or -thirteen millions of Americans are now struggling---they are -apt to become social charges, to become utterly demoralized -by public charity, and in the end not only to loathe but to -become revolters against a social system which subjects them -to such treatment. - -The popular formula of social reformers for mitigating the -evils of unemployment is unemployment insurance---which -deals with the effect of the trouble, and the popular -formula for ending unemployment altogether---is to have the -government in some way or other control if not own and -operate all industry. - -Neither the formula for mitigation which merely shifts the -cost of unemployment from those unemployed to those -employed, nor the formula for ending unemployment---which -merely shifts the control of our economic life from -capitalists to public officials of some sort or -other---appeals particularly to me. Neither furnishes, in my -opinion, a cure for the fundamental defect in our present -economic system---the excessive dependence of individual men -and women for their livelihoods upon the smooth functioning -of nation-wide and even international economic activities. - -There remains to be considered the formula of despair---that -the unemployed should leave our cities and turn to farming -to support their families. But the modern farmer, -specializing in the production for sale of wheat or cotton -or milk, has just as difficult a problem in employing -himself profitably as has the wage-worker or the -office-worker. For the unemployed to exchange their present -dependence upon industrial activity for dependence upon -agricultural prices---for them to exchange the insecurities -of the labor market for the insecurities of the grain or -cattle or produce markets---is merely to jump out of the -frying-pan into the fire. - -The only reason that everybody does not as yet recognize the -fact that the average farmer has a problem of employment is -because the evil effects of a decline in the price of the -crop he produces do not put him on charity as quickly as the -evil effects of a decline in the sales of the products of -some industry. With declines in sales of manufactured -products, industrial workers are promptly laid off or fired, -but with declines in agricultural prices, unemployment only -appears after foreclosure of farms for non-payment of -interest and taxes leaves farmers without farms on which to -work. It is true, of course, that the evil effects of -dependence upon the general condition of business are -smaller in degree in the case of farmers, even for those who -specialize in cash crops such as wheat and cotton and hogs, -because most farmers tend to produce some of their own -necessities of life. If they own their own farms, they at -least provide their own shelter instead of renting it. If -they have a vegetable-garden and orchard, or a cow and some -chickens, they at least produce some of their own -foodstuffs. Even though they are in the long run affected -disastrously by their dependence upon the growing of crops -sold in the produce markets at prices fixed by the total -supply and demand for what they produce, this limited degree -of production for use gives to farmers in general a position -somewhat more secure than that of industrial workers. But -that is all. The more dependent the farmer is upon his cash -crop, the more he is apt to suffer from the problem of -employment. - -The essence of the matter is that when the farmer shifted -his productive activities from production for his own use to -production for sale, he subjected himself to economic -insecurities of a type roughly comparable in nature to the -insecurities to which the wage-worker and the office-worker -are now subjected. The farmer at one time was -self-sufficient. He not only produced his own foodstuffs; he -produced his own fabrics and clothing. Weaving and knitting -were as much the activities of the homestead as farming. -Sheep furnished him wool; the cattle he slaughtered -furnished him leather; a wood lot furnished him fuel for -heat and cooking. The farmer of the past, in most instances, -spent the part of the year when farming operations could not -be performed because of the season, operating grist-mills or -lumber-mills, or working at some craft or trade. Such a life -had only the insecurities which nature itself seems to -impose upon human activities, and the possible damage from -storm and drought, from locusts and hail, was reduced by -storage of supplies and diversification of production. The -threat of dispossession and unemployment which the -dependence of the farmer upon the cash market has brought -into farming was then unknown. Today farmers have abandoned -not only the production of fabrics and clothing, but on -about 20% of the farms in this country there is not even a -cow or a chicken; on 30% there is not a single hog, and on -approximately 90% not even one sheep. What is more, on many -of the farms in our banner agricultural states no gardens -are kept and almost every article of food is purchased at -the store. If the unemployed of the cities turn to that kind -of farming, they will merely have exchanged one kind of -economic insecurity for another. - -What is called subsistence farming, however, is a step, -though only a step, in the right direction. - -But no return to farming, no establishment of unemployment -insurance, and not even the planning or socialization of -industrial activities, will furnish an adequate alternative -way of life to the artist and craftsman for whom the problem -of living includes some sort of escape from the repetitive -work which is all that an industrial civilization offers -them. - -A short time ago I received the following letter from a man -with quite a reputation as a poet. The situation with which -he has been confronted by our industrial civilization is -quite typical of that with which countless numbers of -talented men and women are today faced. Since my book -appeared I have received scores of similar letters: - ->  The question that persisted in my mind after reading the -> necessarily incomplete account of your ideas and their -> operation in that interview, is this: Can your plans, -> obviously sound and salutary in their application to a -> crisis like the present, be made continuously operative; -> not only, that is, to provide self-sustaining work instead -> of wasteful charity to the jobless victims of hard times, -> but to afford a continuous way of living through all kinds -> of times? But by "way of living" I do not mean an -> existence just beyond the margin of want, nor a way devoid -> of participation in the characteristic conveniences of -> modern times; I do not mean a mere throw-back to the -> simplicity that characterized American farm and rural-town -> life up to fifty or sixty years ago; but I mean, can a -> community organized on your principles not only afford a -> sane, healthful existence to its members, but also, as -> long as a capitalistic organization of society endures, a -> modest and constant increment of usable wealth in the form -> of money, to give access to the world and its goods -> outside the community, to provide insurance against age -> and casualty, and to provide some inheritance for the next -> generation? - -Consider my own position. Born and raised in a city, reared -and educated not to use my hands but to use my head to "get -along" in life; overlooked by nature, however, in the -distribution of the acquisitive instinct; I have drifted and -tumbled along through life, never producing anything (except -some negligible literature and criticism), but precariously -holding and losing various parasitical jobs, seldom quite -earning my way. Finally comes a small inheritance, some of -which was lost in Wall Street; the bulk of it, small enough, -is in the soundest investments the country affords; which -nowadays yield diminished income, have in part lost their -liquidity, and are slowly melting as I draw on them to eke -out earnings, by myself and my wife, insufficient to meet -the expenses of a modest scale of living. I can in the -nature of things have no program but to live carefully and -keep alert for another chance at parasitical employment, in -government or in private business. - -Is there a saner way, not as a temporary expedient, but as a -permanent program? - ---and a way which would enable us not only to keep housed, -clothed, and fed, but to have some freedom of movement, some -chance to participate in the good things which our -urbanized, industrialized, capitalistic civilization does -afford, along with its evils? - -That there is such a program is shown by the letters which -follow, one from a letter received shortly after *This Ugly -Civilization* was published and the other, from a letter -received from the same writer two and a half years later: - ->  I have just finished reading *This Ugly Civilization*, -> and cannot rest until I have made an effort to let you -> know what it means to me. Though I attained the age of -> thirty only a few days ago, I have long been preaching -> many of the reforms you advocate. And as librarian and -> instructor in an institution filled with herd-minded -> students and instructors, controlled by quantity-minded -> capitalists and politicians, and located in a hopelessly -> conventional and very religious college community, you may -> be able to imagine the inhibitions and morbid mental -> confinement of my existence. Having the sweet -> companionship of your book in such an iron-clad -> environment of bondage is comparable to the Mormon -> conception of Joseph Smith finding the golden tablets. +periodically produces in our industrial civilization a decline in the +volume of trade, a sharp drop in prices, a shrinkage in the amount of +credit, a decrease in the demand for goods, a decline in the volume of +production, and in consequence an increase in the number of unemployed. +Men and women at work in factories and offices and stores, workers in +building and in railroading, all the myriads engaged in the services, +trades, and professions---barbers, waiters, actors, artists, reporters, +architects, who are busily at work during periods of prosperity and good +times---suddenly find themselves out of work, while those who remained +employed find themselves in most cases working only a part of each week +and at lower wages and salaries. A force beyond their control and in +most cases utterly beyond their comprehension suddenly leaves them +without the income with which to pay rent, buy food, purchase clothing, +and pay their debts. + +But equally through no fault of their own, other millions of cogs in our +industrialized world and inter-dependent economic system find themselves +periodically without the income which will enable them to buy the +necessaries of life because of seasonal unemployment, or technological +unemployment, or what I call style unemployment. Just as the winter +season tends to throw building-workers out of employment, and the +invention of new machines and new techniques tends to throw out of +employment those engaged in manufacturing staple and established +products, so style changes with their shifts in demand from wool dress +goods to silk, from short skirts to long skirts, from crockery to +glassware, and from phonographs to radios, create unemployment for +workers in some industries even though employment is created for other +workers in other industries. + +And quite without regard to whether the cause is seasonal, or cyclical, +or technological, or style unemployment, all these victims of +unemployment are alike in this respect, that they are periodically +unable to support themselves and their families through no fault of +their own because of *their dependence upon what they earn as a cog in +some part of the complex machinery of our factory-dominated +civilization*. If the period of unemployment proves to be a short one, +their savings are reduced or wiped out and debts accumulated which +impair their ability to save for some time after they are again +employed, while if the period proves a long one---as long as the period +through which twelve or thirteen millions of Americans are now +struggling---they are apt to become social charges, to become utterly +demoralized by public charity, and in the end not only to loathe but to +become revolters against a social system which subjects them to such +treatment. + +The popular formula of social reformers for mitigating the evils of +unemployment is unemployment insurance---which deals with the effect of +the trouble, and the popular formula for ending unemployment +altogether---is to have the government in some way or other control if +not own and operate all industry. + +Neither the formula for mitigation which merely shifts the cost of +unemployment from those unemployed to those employed, nor the formula +for ending unemployment---which merely shifts the control of our +economic life from capitalists to public officials of some sort or +other---appeals particularly to me. Neither furnishes, in my opinion, a +cure for the fundamental defect in our present economic system---the +excessive dependence of individual men and women for their livelihoods +upon the smooth functioning of nation-wide and even international +economic activities. + +There remains to be considered the formula of despair---that the +unemployed should leave our cities and turn to farming to support their +families. But the modern farmer, specializing in the production for sale +of wheat or cotton or milk, has just as difficult a problem in employing +himself profitably as has the wage-worker or the office-worker. For the +unemployed to exchange their present dependence upon industrial activity +for dependence upon agricultural prices---for them to exchange the +insecurities of the labor market for the insecurities of the grain or +cattle or produce markets---is merely to jump out of the frying-pan into +the fire. + +The only reason that everybody does not as yet recognize the fact that +the average farmer has a problem of employment is because the evil +effects of a decline in the price of the crop he produces do not put him +on charity as quickly as the evil effects of a decline in the sales of +the products of some industry. With declines in sales of manufactured +products, industrial workers are promptly laid off or fired, but with +declines in agricultural prices, unemployment only appears after +foreclosure of farms for non-payment of interest and taxes leaves +farmers without farms on which to work. It is true, of course, that the +evil effects of dependence upon the general condition of business are +smaller in degree in the case of farmers, even for those who specialize +in cash crops such as wheat and cotton and hogs, because most farmers +tend to produce some of their own necessities of life. If they own their +own farms, they at least provide their own shelter instead of renting +it. If they have a vegetable-garden and orchard, or a cow and some +chickens, they at least produce some of their own foodstuffs. Even +though they are in the long run affected disastrously by their +dependence upon the growing of crops sold in the produce markets at +prices fixed by the total supply and demand for what they produce, this +limited degree of production for use gives to farmers in general a +position somewhat more secure than that of industrial workers. But that +is all. The more dependent the farmer is upon his cash crop, the more he +is apt to suffer from the problem of employment. + +The essence of the matter is that when the farmer shifted his productive +activities from production for his own use to production for sale, he +subjected himself to economic insecurities of a type roughly comparable +in nature to the insecurities to which the wage-worker and the +office-worker are now subjected. The farmer at one time was +self-sufficient. He not only produced his own foodstuffs; he produced +his own fabrics and clothing. Weaving and knitting were as much the +activities of the homestead as farming. Sheep furnished him wool; the +cattle he slaughtered furnished him leather; a wood lot furnished him +fuel for heat and cooking. The farmer of the past, in most instances, +spent the part of the year when farming operations could not be +performed because of the season, operating grist-mills or lumber-mills, +or working at some craft or trade. Such a life had only the insecurities +which nature itself seems to impose upon human activities, and the +possible damage from storm and drought, from locusts and hail, was +reduced by storage of supplies and diversification of production. The +threat of dispossession and unemployment which the dependence of the +farmer upon the cash market has brought into farming was then unknown. +Today farmers have abandoned not only the production of fabrics and +clothing, but on about 20% of the farms in this country there is not +even a cow or a chicken; on 30% there is not a single hog, and on +approximately 90% not even one sheep. What is more, on many of the farms +in our banner agricultural states no gardens are kept and almost every +article of food is purchased at the store. If the unemployed of the +cities turn to that kind of farming, they will merely have exchanged one +kind of economic insecurity for another. + +What is called subsistence farming, however, is a step, though only a +step, in the right direction. + +But no return to farming, no establishment of unemployment insurance, +and not even the planning or socialization of industrial activities, +will furnish an adequate alternative way of life to the artist and +craftsman for whom the problem of living includes some sort of escape +from the repetitive work which is all that an industrial civilization +offers them. + +A short time ago I received the following letter from a man with quite a +reputation as a poet. The situation with which he has been confronted by +our industrial civilization is quite typical of that with which +countless numbers of talented men and women are today faced. Since my +book appeared I have received scores of similar letters: + +>  The question that persisted in my mind after reading the necessarily +> incomplete account of your ideas and their operation in that +> interview, is this: Can your plans, obviously sound and salutary in +> their application to a crisis like the present, be made continuously +> operative; not only, that is, to provide self-sustaining work instead +> of wasteful charity to the jobless victims of hard times, but to +> afford a continuous way of living through all kinds of times? But by +> "way of living" I do not mean an existence just beyond the margin of +> want, nor a way devoid of participation in the characteristic +> conveniences of modern times; I do not mean a mere throw-back to the +> simplicity that characterized American farm and rural-town life up to +> fifty or sixty years ago; but I mean, can a community organized on +> your principles not only afford a sane, healthful existence to its +> members, but also, as long as a capitalistic organization of society +> endures, a modest and constant increment of usable wealth in the form +> of money, to give access to the world and its goods outside the +> community, to provide insurance against age and casualty, and to +> provide some inheritance for the next generation? + +Consider my own position. Born and raised in a city, reared and educated +not to use my hands but to use my head to "get along" in life; +overlooked by nature, however, in the distribution of the acquisitive +instinct; I have drifted and tumbled along through life, never producing +anything (except some negligible literature and criticism), but +precariously holding and losing various parasitical jobs, seldom quite +earning my way. Finally comes a small inheritance, some of which was +lost in Wall Street; the bulk of it, small enough, is in the soundest +investments the country affords; which nowadays yield diminished income, +have in part lost their liquidity, and are slowly melting as I draw on +them to eke out earnings, by myself and my wife, insufficient to meet +the expenses of a modest scale of living. I can in the nature of things +have no program but to live carefully and keep alert for another chance +at parasitical employment, in government or in private business. + +Is there a saner way, not as a temporary expedient, but as a permanent +program? + +--and a way which would enable us not only to keep housed, clothed, and +fed, but to have some freedom of movement, some chance to participate in +the good things which our urbanized, industrialized, capitalistic +civilization does afford, along with its evils? + +That there is such a program is shown by the letters which follow, one +from a letter received shortly after *This Ugly Civilization* was +published and the other, from a letter received from the same writer two +and a half years later: + +>  I have just finished reading *This Ugly Civilization*, and cannot +> rest until I have made an effort to let you know what it means to me. +> Though I attained the age of thirty only a few days ago, I have long +> been preaching many of the reforms you advocate. And as librarian and +> instructor in an institution filled with herd-minded students and +> instructors, controlled by quantity-minded capitalists and +> politicians, and located in a hopelessly conventional and very +> religious college community, you may be able to imagine the +> inhibitions and morbid mental confinement of my existence. Having the +> sweet companionship of your book in such an iron-clad environment of +> bondage is comparable to the Mormon conception of Joseph Smith finding +> the golden tablets. > -> As librarian I am ever searching the publications which -> list and advertise new books and when I first saw yours -> advertised, I began to hope that my long search, with its -> many disappointments, had at last found its reward. In -> reading page after page I rejoiced to find not only my own -> ideas, but a great many more which I had not yet arrived -> at, all expressed in clear, logical language. You see, for -> years I have been slowly yet carefully gathering notes... -> building up my case against the masses who control my -> every action... gradually preparing myself for the time -> when I might stand high on my firm and ever-accumulating -> foundation of fact and reason and denounce them all. -> Somehow I can't get over the feeling that the book was -> prepared especially for me, that I might grasp it eagerly: -> a complete and carefully constructed basis upon which to -> rest my own peculiar philosophy of life. +> As librarian I am ever searching the publications which list and +> advertise new books and when I first saw yours advertised, I began to +> hope that my long search, with its many disappointments, had at last +> found its reward. In reading page after page I rejoiced to find not +> only my own ideas, but a great many more which I had not yet arrived +> at, all expressed in clear, logical language. You see, for years I +> have been slowly yet carefully gathering notes... building up my case +> against the masses who control my every action... gradually preparing +> myself for the time when I might stand high on my firm and +> ever-accumulating foundation of fact and reason and denounce them all. +> Somehow I can't get over the feeling that the book was prepared +> especially for me, that I might grasp it eagerly: a complete and +> carefully constructed basis upon which to rest my own peculiar +> philosophy of life. > -> My most cherished dream has long been the establishment of -> my own "little island of intelligence and beauty" that -> should stand gallantly and undefiled "amidst the chaotic -> seas of human stupidity and ugliness." Nearly a year ago I -> selected and purchased ten acres of land and will soon be -> able to make the final payment on it. We have managed to -> erect a habitable building, dig and equip a well, and -> raise a small flock of pullets; and my dear old mother is -> heroically holding the fort until we can achieve the -> financial status necessary for me to join her. And if -> nothing happens this should be within the present year. -> Then, with my mother, the two children of my deceased -> brother, and a distant young lady who has promised to -> share the trans-valuation with me, I plan to sacrifice the -> present emoluments and future prospects of my profession -> and begin the great experiment of my life. +> My most cherished dream has long been the establishment of my own +> "little island of intelligence and beauty" that should stand gallantly +> and undefiled "amidst the chaotic seas of human stupidity and +> ugliness." Nearly a year ago I selected and purchased ten acres of +> land and will soon be able to make the final payment on it. We have +> managed to erect a habitable building, dig and equip a well, and raise +> a small flock of pullets; and my dear old mother is heroically holding +> the fort until we can achieve the financial status necessary for me to +> join her. And if nothing happens this should be within the present +> year. Then, with my mother, the two children of my deceased brother, +> and a distant young lady who has promised to share the trans-valuation +> with me, I plan to sacrifice the present emoluments and future +> prospects of my profession and begin the great experiment of my life. > -> Your book comes at an opportune time to serve as my -> handbook of procedure and inspiration. And, having the -> encouragement it has brought and my plans for the -> reasonable life so far along, I feel sufficiently -> independent to begin to voice more openly the ideas which -> I have so long considered in secret. Hereafter I shall not -> only speak on the subject, but I intend to quote -> appropriate passages from your book. Of course I shall -> place one or more copies of it on the library shelves. -> However, there is every reason to believe that, if it -> reaches the hands of any of the more conservative members -> of the faculty (and it probably will), they will request -> its removal because of the remarks on religion. +> Your book comes at an opportune time to serve as my handbook of +> procedure and inspiration. And, having the encouragement it has +> brought and my plans for the reasonable life so far along, I feel +> sufficiently independent to begin to voice more openly the ideas which +> I have so long considered in secret. Hereafter I shall not only speak +> on the subject, but I intend to quote appropriate passages from your +> book. Of course I shall place one or more copies of it on the library +> shelves. However, there is every reason to believe that, if it reaches +> the hands of any of the more conservative members of the faculty (and +> it probably will), they will request its removal because of the +> remarks on religion. > > But why worry over trifles? -About two and a half years later and over a year after the -writer of this letter had moved to his own "island of -intelligence and beauty," I received, the following letter -from him: - ->  Since receiving your letter some two years ago, I have -> had ample time to consider the truth of your statement -> that the cards were stacked against the farmer. However, -> we may console ourselves with the fact that the farmer is -> not now suffering alone. Here I did not plan to farm on a -> large scale, but only to have some chickens. With the -> chickens I have used plenty of caution and as yet have not -> suffered any losses. Despite the depression, things have -> gone on quite well. I have a position at the local -> university library and divide my time between this seat of -> learning and the ranch. We have a comfortable home, ten -> acres and the first three units of the chicken arrangement -> finished and it is all paid for so we feel fairly -> independent. +About two and a half years later and over a year after the writer of +this letter had moved to his own "island of intelligence and beauty," I +received, the following letter from him: + +>  Since receiving your letter some two years ago, I have had ample time +> to consider the truth of your statement that the cards were stacked +> against the farmer. However, we may console ourselves with the fact +> that the farmer is not now suffering alone. Here I did not plan to +> farm on a large scale, but only to have some chickens. With the +> chickens I have used plenty of caution and as yet have not suffered +> any losses. Despite the depression, things have gone on quite well. I +> have a position at the local university library and divide my time +> between this seat of learning and the ranch. We have a comfortable +> home, ten acres and the first three units of the chicken arrangement +> finished and it is all paid for so we feel fairly independent. > -> We are all well satisfied and like the open spaces more -> all the time. In some respects our situation is ideal. -> Although it takes less than fifteen minutes to reach the -> city, we are far enough out to hear the coyotes howl now -> and then. We enjoy (more than I had thought possible) the -> attractions of the city along with the peace and freedom -> of the desert. I think this type of community will be more -> and more popular in the future. As yet no house is closer -> than a quarter of a mile to us, yet we have all the -> essential conveniences of the city such as electricity for -> light, power, and heating; telephone, daily newspaper -> service, all kinds of city delivery such as ice, coal, -> milk, laundry, and the like. +> We are all well satisfied and like the open spaces more all the time. +> In some respects our situation is ideal. Although it takes less than +> fifteen minutes to reach the city, we are far enough out to hear the +> coyotes howl now and then. We enjoy (more than I had thought possible) +> the attractions of the city along with the peace and freedom of the +> desert. I think this type of community will be more and more popular +> in the future. As yet no house is closer than a quarter of a mile to +> us, yet we have all the essential conveniences of the city such as +> electricity for light, power, and heating; telephone, daily newspaper +> service, all kinds of city delivery such as ice, coal, milk, laundry, +> and the like. > -> But what I like most is the diversified work that I have -> to do out here; it is such a delightful variety in -> contrast to the routine work I have been used to. Out here -> no day seems half long enough, for there is everything -> from writing poetry to cleaning the hen-house to be done, -> and every type of activity is interesting. +> But what I like most is the diversified work that I have to do out +> here; it is such a delightful variety in contrast to the routine work +> I have been used to. Out here no day seems half long enough, for there +> is everything from writing poetry to cleaning the hen-house to be +> done, and every type of activity is interesting. Need anything more be said on this subject? -For this man, and for any man who will similarly start on -the road to independence, the problem of employment can -hardly be said to exist. +For this man, and for any man who will similarly start on the road to +independence, the problem of employment can hardly be said to exist. # Independence versus Dependence -It is a simple dictate of the heart which says: If a man is -hungry, feed him; if he is naked, clothe him; if he is -homeless, shelter him. - -But it is a dictate neither of the heart nor of the head, -which says, if a man is unemployed, support him. - -Yet in one way or another, most of what is being done to -relieve the distress and suffering of the millions who are -unemployed as a result of the depression amounts to nothing -more than that those who are employed shall support those -who are not. Most relief, and most plans for relief, are -merely measures for supporting (or tiding over) the -unemployed for that indefinite period of time which they -will have to spend looking for work or waiting for work to -turn up. That home relief, and food tickets, and bread -lines, are measures for supporting the unemployed is -obvious. It is not so obvious---but it is nevertheless the -same thing---to "make work" for them; that is, to invent -such work as cleaning the parks of a city as a mere excuse -for doling out cash to them. And it is still the same -thing---supporting the unemployed---to make those who are -employed "share" their work with them so that both shall be -partly employed and partly unemployed. And many of the -remedies for unemployment, such as unemployment insurance, -however ingeniously they may be dressed up, are still merely -measures for supporting the unemployed. For unemployment -insurance is merely a device by which contributions from -those employed, from the employers, and from the government -are doled out to support those who are unemployed. - -My first point, therefore, is this: I am utterly opposed to -all measures for relief which upon analysis show themselves -to be mere measures for supporting the unemployed. I am -opposed to them on three grounds. - -First, because they are evasions of the problem of the -unemployed. They are not solutions of their problem. The -public gives for relief, and the public pays taxes for -relief, and the public hopes, just like Mr. Micawber, that -"something will turn up" to end the depression and that the -problem will then vanish. - -Secondly, I am opposed to mere support of the unemployed -because of the financial drain which such support inflicts -upon their friends and relatives (to whom they first turn) ; -to the financial drain which it puts upon industry to -whatever extent industry and commerce try to support them; -and to the drain upon taxpayers to whatever extent -municipal, and state, and national funds are used to support -them. - -Finally, I am opposed to them because they are demoralizing -to the unemployed. They break down their self-respect. They -destroy their sense of responsibility and self-reliance; in -short, they pauperize them. - -There is, however, in my opposition to supporting the -unemployed, and what I said in the beginning about the -imperious duty of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, -and sheltering the homeless, no contradiction. What we do -for the temporary assistance of unfortunate fellow -creatures, particularly when their misfortune is not of -their own contriving, is true charity. I do not like the -word charity, though it is the only one that I can think of -in this connection. For this sort of assistance is really a -species of hospitality; when we give this sort of temporary -assistance we are only doing, indirectly, what used to be -the universal custom for us to do for every stranger who -knocked at the doors of the pioneer homesteads of America's -past. - -But if we are not to support the unemployed---beyond giving -them what I have spoken of as temporary assistance---what -then are we to do for them at this time? - -I have an answer for this question. And unlike most of the -answers to it, it is so completely the obvious answer that I -dare not state it until some sort of background for it has -been prepared. For my answer cannot be fully appreciated, it -cannot be fully understood, its complete practicality cannot -be realized, until we have first thought through completely -what the problem of unemployment really is. - -We have in this country at present about fifteen million men -and women, formerly employed, who are today unemployed. In -the aggregate, this army of ex-factory-workers, -ex-farm-laborers, ex-railroad-workers, ex-office and store -workers, has created such a stupendous and complex problem -that it is easy for us to forget that in its fundamentals -the problem of every one of these fifteen million human -beings is exactly the same. If we consider it from the -standpoint of the individual unemployed workers, we shall -avoid the danger of being deceived by the sheer size of the -problem. Now if we consider it this way, here is what we -find: John Doe, who was formerly employed---perhaps in an -office, perhaps in a factory---is now no longer employed by -that office or that factory. What is more, he cannot find -employment in other offices or factories. - -What, now, is the difference in John Doe's situation before -unemployment and after? Before unemployment and while he was -still employed, he received every pay day a certain sum of -money as wages or salary for the time he spent working for -the firm which employed him. John Doe, if he was the -breadwinner of a family, took this money and with it his -family bought food and clothes and entertainment; they paid -for housing in the form of rent (or if they owned their own -home, in the form of taxes or interest), and they paid the -installments on debts which they had contracted in buying -their furniture, their automobile, their home, and if they -were thrifty, they saved a part of the pay for a rainy day -by depositing it in a savings-bank, paying for insurance, or -in some cases actually investing it in stocks and bonds. - -After unemployment, John Doe no longer received any wages or -salary. If the family had been fortunate and thrifty up to -that time and had accumulated something in the way of -savings, these savings were drawn upon to meet current -expenses. When the savings were exhausted, they began to -sell their investments, their automobile, their home, their -furniture, in order to get the money with which to maintain -the family. Then they began to borrow from friends and -relatives in order to do so; they bought on credit from the -merchants whom they had formerly been able to pay regularly; -finally, when all these means of securing the things they -needed to keep body and soul together were exhausted, they -turned to the charitable and relief agencies. Then these -agencies began to give them the money directly with which to -buy them or they gave them indirectly---by paying it to -those stores upon whom John Doe and his family were given -orders for food or by paying it to the landlords who +It is a simple dictate of the heart which says: If a man is hungry, feed +him; if he is naked, clothe him; if he is homeless, shelter him. + +But it is a dictate neither of the heart nor of the head, which says, if +a man is unemployed, support him. + +Yet in one way or another, most of what is being done to relieve the +distress and suffering of the millions who are unemployed as a result of +the depression amounts to nothing more than that those who are employed +shall support those who are not. Most relief, and most plans for relief, +are merely measures for supporting (or tiding over) the unemployed for +that indefinite period of time which they will have to spend looking for +work or waiting for work to turn up. That home relief, and food tickets, +and bread lines, are measures for supporting the unemployed is obvious. +It is not so obvious---but it is nevertheless the same thing---to "make +work" for them; that is, to invent such work as cleaning the parks of a +city as a mere excuse for doling out cash to them. And it is still the +same thing---supporting the unemployed---to make those who are employed +"share" their work with them so that both shall be partly employed and +partly unemployed. And many of the remedies for unemployment, such as +unemployment insurance, however ingeniously they may be dressed up, are +still merely measures for supporting the unemployed. For unemployment +insurance is merely a device by which contributions from those employed, +from the employers, and from the government are doled out to support +those who are unemployed. + +My first point, therefore, is this: I am utterly opposed to all measures +for relief which upon analysis show themselves to be mere measures for +supporting the unemployed. I am opposed to them on three grounds. + +First, because they are evasions of the problem of the unemployed. They +are not solutions of their problem. The public gives for relief, and the +public pays taxes for relief, and the public hopes, just like +Mr. Micawber, that "something will turn up" to end the depression and +that the problem will then vanish. + +Secondly, I am opposed to mere support of the unemployed because of the +financial drain which such support inflicts upon their friends and +relatives (to whom they first turn) ; to the financial drain which it +puts upon industry to whatever extent industry and commerce try to +support them; and to the drain upon taxpayers to whatever extent +municipal, and state, and national funds are used to support them. + +Finally, I am opposed to them because they are demoralizing to the +unemployed. They break down their self-respect. They destroy their sense +of responsibility and self-reliance; in short, they pauperize them. + +There is, however, in my opposition to supporting the unemployed, and +what I said in the beginning about the imperious duty of feeding the +hungry, clothing the naked, and sheltering the homeless, no +contradiction. What we do for the temporary assistance of unfortunate +fellow creatures, particularly when their misfortune is not of their own +contriving, is true charity. I do not like the word charity, though it +is the only one that I can think of in this connection. For this sort of +assistance is really a species of hospitality; when we give this sort of +temporary assistance we are only doing, indirectly, what used to be the +universal custom for us to do for every stranger who knocked at the +doors of the pioneer homesteads of America's past. + +But if we are not to support the unemployed---beyond giving them what I +have spoken of as temporary assistance---what then are we to do for them +at this time? + +I have an answer for this question. And unlike most of the answers to +it, it is so completely the obvious answer that I dare not state it +until some sort of background for it has been prepared. For my answer +cannot be fully appreciated, it cannot be fully understood, its complete +practicality cannot be realized, until we have first thought through +completely what the problem of unemployment really is. + +We have in this country at present about fifteen million men and women, +formerly employed, who are today unemployed. In the aggregate, this army +of ex-factory-workers, ex-farm-laborers, ex-railroad-workers, ex-office +and store workers, has created such a stupendous and complex problem +that it is easy for us to forget that in its fundamentals the problem of +every one of these fifteen million human beings is exactly the same. If +we consider it from the standpoint of the individual unemployed workers, +we shall avoid the danger of being deceived by the sheer size of the +problem. Now if we consider it this way, here is what we find: John Doe, +who was formerly employed---perhaps in an office, perhaps in a +factory---is now no longer employed by that office or that factory. What +is more, he cannot find employment in other offices or factories. + +What, now, is the difference in John Doe's situation before unemployment +and after? Before unemployment and while he was still employed, he +received every pay day a certain sum of money as wages or salary for the +time he spent working for the firm which employed him. John Doe, if he +was the breadwinner of a family, took this money and with it his family +bought food and clothes and entertainment; they paid for housing in the +form of rent (or if they owned their own home, in the form of taxes or +interest), and they paid the installments on debts which they had +contracted in buying their furniture, their automobile, their home, and +if they were thrifty, they saved a part of the pay for a rainy day by +depositing it in a savings-bank, paying for insurance, or in some cases +actually investing it in stocks and bonds. + +After unemployment, John Doe no longer received any wages or salary. If +the family had been fortunate and thrifty up to that time and had +accumulated something in the way of savings, these savings were drawn +upon to meet current expenses. When the savings were exhausted, they +began to sell their investments, their automobile, their home, their +furniture, in order to get the money with which to maintain the family. +Then they began to borrow from friends and relatives in order to do so; +they bought on credit from the merchants whom they had formerly been +able to pay regularly; finally, when all these means of securing the +things they needed to keep body and soul together were exhausted, they +turned to the charitable and relief agencies. Then these agencies began +to give them the money directly with which to buy them or they gave them +indirectly---by paying it to those stores upon whom John Doe and his +family were given orders for food or by paying it to the landlords who furnished the shelter for the family. -In the meantime, what had John Doe been doing? He was doing -what he was expected to do---spending his time looking for -employment; going from one factory to another, from one -employment agency to the next, answering one help-wanted -advertisement after another, and trying to find odd jobs for -which he could get some money to help in the emergency. And -when physically or spiritually too exhausted to spend his -time looking for work, he spent it waiting for business to -pick up, so that he could get back to his old job, whatever -it may have been. And in doing this, and spending his time -in this way, he is encouraged by virtually all the relief -agencies established to cope with the depression up to the -present time. - -But not only the relief agencies. He is encouraged in the -course outlined by the whole commercial world. All our big -industrial and financial leaders tell him that he has only -to wait---that in time a readjustment will be effected and -that then employment will again become normal. And they tell -him to remember that while he is unemployed their capital is -unemployed. While he has to worry about himself and his -family, they have the burden not only of trying to manage -their plants and to employ as many people as possible, but -also the worry of protecting the investors in their -business. So he is assured that everybody is in the same -boat; that it is only necessary to avoid rocking the boat -and sooner or later the pilots will get it back safely into -harbor. - -And of course the "pilots" or political leaders tell him -substantially the same thing. Great economic forces about -which they are often extremely vague have upset the markets -of the world. For the moment, they are just as powerless in -coping with these economic forces as they used to be -powerless in the face of natural forces such as famines and -plagues. While the government and Congress experiments with -one expedient after another in its efforts to create a -revival of trade, a feeling of confidence among business -men, and a rise in prices, there is nothing for John Doe and -the millions like him to do but wait until things pick up -again. - -But what is even worse, our social reformers in slightly -different words tell him virtually the same thing. There is -nothing particularly wrong, according to them, with the -complex industrial system which had formerly employed him. -It is still a marvelous system, far superior to any which -had ever previously been relied upon by mankind for -supplying it with its needs and desires. *What is wrong is -the control or ownership of the system*. It is the profit -system, not the industrial system, which is responsible for -his plight. According to them, all that is necessary is to -establish a plan board---to adopt a five-year plan of our -own---or to have the state take over the ownership of -industry altogether and run it for use and not for profit. -In the meantime, while we are still struggling with the -follies of capitalism and individualism, all that can be -done as a sort of stop-gap for the emergency is to establish -government employment agencies, increase the numbers -employed directly or indirectly by the government, and adopt -a system of unemployment insurance. - -I disagree with all of them. The unemployed, if they can't -be given work here and now by our industrial system, should -not be asked to live half hungry, half naked, half cold, -while waiting for business to pick up. Above all they should -not be fed upon promises of blissful security in the distant -future after our reformers have finished tinkering with the -industrial system and remolding all our institutions nearest -to their heart's desire. - -When a family cannot support itself, and secure the food, -clothing, and shelter it needs by getting employment in a -factory, or an office, or a store, the only sensible thing -for it to do is to support itself by producing these things -for itself on its own homestead. If the unemployed are to be -made secure at least as to the needs of life, nothing short -of this is adequate. They surely cannot be made secure by -shifting their dependence for their livelihood from the -business cycle to the political cycle, neither of which is -capable of coping with the inherent insecurity of industrial -production. - -Let us not fool ourselves about what the future holds in -store for us. There are at present no grounds whatever for -expecting any return to normal business very soon. No -responsible student of business conditions expects any -complete solution of the problem of unemployment during the -coming year. Eventually another period of expansion may -come, but as in the depression of 1873, it may take ten -years to get back to full employment again. - -These facts are so generally recognized that everywhere -plans are being made for the continuation of direct relief -programs. In New York City, where the situation is in many -ways typical of that in all our industrial cities, there are -over 200,000 unemployed families. Without including the -uncounted number of destitute single men and women, this -means that over 1,000,000 human beings are now dependent -upon relief and charity for their food, clothing, and -shelter. With no prospects of business improvement, plans -are being made to support this number of families for the -whole of 1933. It is true that from time to time some of -these families secure work and so become self-supporting, -but others are laid off to take their place. The same issue -of the *New York Times* which carried a story about a slight -improvement in business in the fall of 1932, carried another -story about the laying off of 2,800 men by a single -corporation in New York City. - -At the request of the Emergency Home Relief Bureau, the New -York City Welfare Agencies prepared a budget covering the -merest necessities for these families. On the basis of that -budget, the taxpayers, the contributors to relief funds, and -the relatives of the unemployed, are faced with the -appalling problem of raising \$161,370,000 for the support -of these families for the single year of 1933. - -Now what does this sort of relief mean to the individual -family? - -While the breadwinners of the family are supposed to be out -looking for work, each family of five is to receive a bare -subsistence ration of \$6.85 in food each week; a minimum -clothing budget of \$2.45 per week; a fuel and light budget -of \$2.9 5 per week; a minimum rent budget of \$4.50 per -week. This is a total for each family, each week of \$15.85, -without provision for accident and illness, birth and death. -In the course of one year, even on this minimum basis, -\$824.20 will have to be expended on each unemployed family -consisting of five persons. - -Eight hundred dollars, at the present purchasing power of -the dollar, is a lot of money. Yet I know, upon the basis of -my own experience, that it is more than is required as the -initial capital with which to establish a self-sufficient -homestead. - -It is much more than the amount with which many of our -pioneer forefathers established themselves in the country -and supported themselves indefinitely. - -If even half that sum---not more than five hundred -dollars---were to be intelligently laid out for land and -lumber, for seeds, livestock, and implements, the average -family could produce for itself the bare essentials of -living, and have plenty of time left for part-time or -seasonal employment in industry. With proper instruction and -leadership, not much more than half the sum which is now -being spent to support a family for a year would be -sufficient to take one family permanently off the relief -list. It would do more. It would not only enable them to -support themselves; it would ultimately make it possible for -them to repay the money and materials furnished them. - -The problem of unemployment would for them have been solved. -The drain upon the community for their support would have -been ended, the self-respect of the unemployed restored. - -We have raised hundreds of millions already for unemployment -relief. Since we have used it merely to support the -unemployed, we now find ourselves face to face with the -necessity of doing the same thing over and over again. -Instead of spending more and more millions to support the -unemployed while the depression is dragging its weary way -over the years, why shouldn't we use the public's -"will-to-give" to enable the unemployed to support -themselves? Why shouldn't we furnish them land, tools, -lumber, seed, livestock, wool, leather, raw materials of all -kinds to enable them to establish themselves once again in -the homesteads which they should never have abandoned as -many of them did perhaps generations back? Above all, while -doing so, let us use our universities and our social -agencies for the purpose of guiding and instructing those of -them who may have forgotten, or never learned, how to wrest -the necessities of life directly from their own land and -their own efforts. +In the meantime, what had John Doe been doing? He was doing what he was +expected to do---spending his time looking for employment; going from +one factory to another, from one employment agency to the next, +answering one help-wanted advertisement after another, and trying to +find odd jobs for which he could get some money to help in the +emergency. And when physically or spiritually too exhausted to spend his +time looking for work, he spent it waiting for business to pick up, so +that he could get back to his old job, whatever it may have been. And in +doing this, and spending his time in this way, he is encouraged by +virtually all the relief agencies established to cope with the +depression up to the present time. + +But not only the relief agencies. He is encouraged in the course +outlined by the whole commercial world. All our big industrial and +financial leaders tell him that he has only to wait---that in time a +readjustment will be effected and that then employment will again become +normal. And they tell him to remember that while he is unemployed their +capital is unemployed. While he has to worry about himself and his +family, they have the burden not only of trying to manage their plants +and to employ as many people as possible, but also the worry of +protecting the investors in their business. So he is assured that +everybody is in the same boat; that it is only necessary to avoid +rocking the boat and sooner or later the pilots will get it back safely +into harbor. + +And of course the "pilots" or political leaders tell him substantially +the same thing. Great economic forces about which they are often +extremely vague have upset the markets of the world. For the moment, +they are just as powerless in coping with these economic forces as they +used to be powerless in the face of natural forces such as famines and +plagues. While the government and Congress experiments with one +expedient after another in its efforts to create a revival of trade, a +feeling of confidence among business men, and a rise in prices, there is +nothing for John Doe and the millions like him to do but wait until +things pick up again. + +But what is even worse, our social reformers in slightly different words +tell him virtually the same thing. There is nothing particularly wrong, +according to them, with the complex industrial system which had formerly +employed him. It is still a marvelous system, far superior to any which +had ever previously been relied upon by mankind for supplying it with +its needs and desires. *What is wrong is the control or ownership of the +system*. It is the profit system, not the industrial system, which is +responsible for his plight. According to them, all that is necessary is +to establish a plan board---to adopt a five-year plan of our own---or to +have the state take over the ownership of industry altogether and run it +for use and not for profit. In the meantime, while we are still +struggling with the follies of capitalism and individualism, all that +can be done as a sort of stop-gap for the emergency is to establish +government employment agencies, increase the numbers employed directly +or indirectly by the government, and adopt a system of unemployment +insurance. + +I disagree with all of them. The unemployed, if they can't be given work +here and now by our industrial system, should not be asked to live half +hungry, half naked, half cold, while waiting for business to pick up. +Above all they should not be fed upon promises of blissful security in +the distant future after our reformers have finished tinkering with the +industrial system and remolding all our institutions nearest to their +heart's desire. + +When a family cannot support itself, and secure the food, clothing, and +shelter it needs by getting employment in a factory, or an office, or a +store, the only sensible thing for it to do is to support itself by +producing these things for itself on its own homestead. If the +unemployed are to be made secure at least as to the needs of life, +nothing short of this is adequate. They surely cannot be made secure by +shifting their dependence for their livelihood from the business cycle +to the political cycle, neither of which is capable of coping with the +inherent insecurity of industrial production. + +Let us not fool ourselves about what the future holds in store for us. +There are at present no grounds whatever for expecting any return to +normal business very soon. No responsible student of business conditions +expects any complete solution of the problem of unemployment during the +coming year. Eventually another period of expansion may come, but as in +the depression of 1873, it may take ten years to get back to full +employment again. + +These facts are so generally recognized that everywhere plans are being +made for the continuation of direct relief programs. In New York City, +where the situation is in many ways typical of that in all our +industrial cities, there are over 200,000 unemployed families. Without +including the uncounted number of destitute single men and women, this +means that over 1,000,000 human beings are now dependent upon relief and +charity for their food, clothing, and shelter. With no prospects of +business improvement, plans are being made to support this number of +families for the whole of 1933. It is true that from time to time some +of these families secure work and so become self-supporting, but others +are laid off to take their place. The same issue of the *New York Times* +which carried a story about a slight improvement in business in the fall +of 1932, carried another story about the laying off of 2,800 men by a +single corporation in New York City. + +At the request of the Emergency Home Relief Bureau, the New York City +Welfare Agencies prepared a budget covering the merest necessities for +these families. On the basis of that budget, the taxpayers, the +contributors to relief funds, and the relatives of the unemployed, are +faced with the appalling problem of raising \$161,370,000 for the +support of these families for the single year of 1933. + +Now what does this sort of relief mean to the individual family? + +While the breadwinners of the family are supposed to be out looking for +work, each family of five is to receive a bare subsistence ration of +\$6.85 in food each week; a minimum clothing budget of \$2.45 per week; +a fuel and light budget of \$2.9 5 per week; a minimum rent budget of +\$4.50 per week. This is a total for each family, each week of \$15.85, +without provision for accident and illness, birth and death. In the +course of one year, even on this minimum basis, \$824.20 will have to be +expended on each unemployed family consisting of five persons. + +Eight hundred dollars, at the present purchasing power of the dollar, is +a lot of money. Yet I know, upon the basis of my own experience, that it +is more than is required as the initial capital with which to establish +a self-sufficient homestead. + +It is much more than the amount with which many of our pioneer +forefathers established themselves in the country and supported +themselves indefinitely. + +If even half that sum---not more than five hundred dollars---were to be +intelligently laid out for land and lumber, for seeds, livestock, and +implements, the average family could produce for itself the bare +essentials of living, and have plenty of time left for part-time or +seasonal employment in industry. With proper instruction and leadership, +not much more than half the sum which is now being spent to support a +family for a year would be sufficient to take one family permanently off +the relief list. It would do more. It would not only enable them to +support themselves; it would ultimately make it possible for them to +repay the money and materials furnished them. + +The problem of unemployment would for them have been solved. The drain +upon the community for their support would have been ended, the +self-respect of the unemployed restored. + +We have raised hundreds of millions already for unemployment relief. +Since we have used it merely to support the unemployed, we now find +ourselves face to face with the necessity of doing the same thing over +and over again. Instead of spending more and more millions to support +the unemployed while the depression is dragging its weary way over the +years, why shouldn't we use the public's "will-to-give" to enable the +unemployed to support themselves? Why shouldn't we furnish them land, +tools, lumber, seed, livestock, wool, leather, raw materials of all +kinds to enable them to establish themselves once again in the +homesteads which they should never have abandoned as many of them did +perhaps generations back? Above all, while doing so, let us use our +universities and our social agencies for the purpose of guiding and +instructing those of them who may have forgotten, or never learned, how +to wrest the necessities of life directly from their own land and their +own efforts. We should not only relieve them temporarily. -If we did it on a sufficiently large scale, we would end the -problem of unemployment for the whole country, and end it -permanently. - -For a hundred years America has been developing its factory -system. - -Year after year we have been building up our cities; -steadily we have been shifting our population from the -country (where they used to at one time support themselves) -into cities (where they became wholly dependent upon -industry for their livelihood). And while doing this, we -have boasted about the glorious conquests of the machine -age. The machine age was shortening the hours of labor; it -was annihilating space and enabling us to fly; it was -furnishing even the humblest of us magical -amusements--"pictures" which moved and talked, and "radios" -which brought song and speech on the waves of the air. - -Yet today, millions of the beneficiaries of this machine age -are no longer worrying about maintaining the high standard -of living about which we have been boasting. They have lost -their aspirations for two-car garages, and new models each -year. They are no longer trying to keep up with the Joneses. - -We have dotted the landscape with our factories. We have -filled the cities with skyscrapers. We have covered the -continent with a network of rails and roadways. But in spite -of all these things, we have been unable to furnish the -American people security even as to such bare essentials as -food and clothing and shelter. - -During the depression of 1837 they were told that the -Central Bank of the United States was responsible for the -country's depression. So they abolished it. - -During the depression of 1854 they were told that the state -banks and their wild-cat currency were responsible for the -country's depression. So they established national banks and -a national currency. - -During the depression of 1907, they were told that the lack -of a central banking system was responsible for the -country's depressions. So they established the Federal -Reserve system. - -Today they are being told that the lack of balance between -production and consumption is responsible for the country's -depression, and that economic planning will end the -country's depressions. - -During the last few years they have read endlessly in books -and magazines and newspapers about the wonders of the -Russian five-year plan. They have been told that planning -was not only the way out of the depression, but also the way -to security and a better way of life. - -Once again they are pricking up their hopes. Once again they -are asking themselves whether at last the doctors haven't -found the one thing which will tame the machine age and -furnish the country the security it has long been denied. -But suppose they establish a plan board for industry. -Suppose America adopts a five-year plan of her own. Suppose -it tries out economic planning. It has tried nearly -everything else. I have no doubt that it will try planning, -too. +If we did it on a sufficiently large scale, we would end the problem of +unemployment for the whole country, and end it permanently. + +For a hundred years America has been developing its factory system. + +Year after year we have been building up our cities; steadily we have +been shifting our population from the country (where they used to at one +time support themselves) into cities (where they became wholly dependent +upon industry for their livelihood). And while doing this, we have +boasted about the glorious conquests of the machine age. The machine age +was shortening the hours of labor; it was annihilating space and +enabling us to fly; it was furnishing even the humblest of us magical +amusements--"pictures" which moved and talked, and "radios" which +brought song and speech on the waves of the air. + +Yet today, millions of the beneficiaries of this machine age are no +longer worrying about maintaining the high standard of living about +which we have been boasting. They have lost their aspirations for +two-car garages, and new models each year. They are no longer trying to +keep up with the Joneses. + +We have dotted the landscape with our factories. We have filled the +cities with skyscrapers. We have covered the continent with a network of +rails and roadways. But in spite of all these things, we have been +unable to furnish the American people security even as to such bare +essentials as food and clothing and shelter. + +During the depression of 1837 they were told that the Central Bank of +the United States was responsible for the country's depression. So they +abolished it. + +During the depression of 1854 they were told that the state banks and +their wild-cat currency were responsible for the country's depression. +So they established national banks and a national currency. + +During the depression of 1907, they were told that the lack of a central +banking system was responsible for the country's depressions. So they +established the Federal Reserve system. + +Today they are being told that the lack of balance between production +and consumption is responsible for the country's depression, and that +economic planning will end the country's depressions. + +During the last few years they have read endlessly in books and +magazines and newspapers about the wonders of the Russian five-year +plan. They have been told that planning was not only the way out of the +depression, but also the way to security and a better way of life. + +Once again they are pricking up their hopes. Once again they are asking +themselves whether at last the doctors haven't found the one thing which +will tame the machine age and furnish the country the security it has +long been denied. But suppose they establish a plan board for industry. +Suppose America adopts a five-year plan of her own. Suppose it tries out +economic planning. It has tried nearly everything else. I have no doubt +that it will try planning, too. And then it shall be once again disappointed. -After all, the planning board will have to be composed of -human beings, and human beings are all too human. They make -mistakes. Even if the members of the Supreme Economic -Council, or whatever the planning board would be called, -prove all to be chaste, incorruptible, and without ambition -(which I refuse to believe a reasonable expectation), there -is no guarantee that even the most virtuous board will not -make mistakes. - -The Russians, in spite of their revolutionary zeal, have -made them. Their five-year plan called for the socialization -of agriculture. Farming was to be mechanized. Farming was to -be collectivized. The little, inefficient farms of the -peasants were to be merged into giant, efficient farms run -by machinery, and transformed into wheat factories. - -Within a year and a half from the time they started to carry -out their plan, the Russians socialized more of these farms -than they expected to take over in five years. The plan was -hailed as a tremendous success, not only by the Russians, -but by the advocates of planning everywhere in the world. -But, unfortunately, something went wrong. The planners -miscalculated. With that sublime indifference to the human -equation which they borrowed from engineering, the Gosplan -overlooked how the peasants would react to this -appropriation of what had been their personal property. -During the process of converting the little farms into giant -farms, millions of horses and cows and pigs and chickens -were slaughtered by the peasants who couldn't see eye to eye -with the agents of the Soviet. Within a short time, not only -was there a shortage of meat for the table, there were no -horses for plowing and cultivating and harvesting. The -effect upon food production was cumulatively bad. Today, in -spite of their five-year plan, in spite of their pathetic -faith in the efficacy of socialism, the whole of Russia is -on a starvation diet. True, some sections of the -population---the proletariat---are specially favored. But -then so are certain sections of the population with us, only -we call them the rich. And as for the unfortunate fact that -with us some of the unemployed are subjected to inhuman -suffering---the Russians match that by subjecting the -kulaks, the nobles, and the clergy to similar inhuman -suffering. - -The truth about the matter is that neither the things -proposed in previous depressions nor the economic planning -proposed in this one is capable of ending the insecurity -from which we suffer. - -Insecurity and industrialism are Siamese twins. You cannot -have one without having to accept the other. - -Insecurity is the price we pay for our dependence upon -industrialism for the essentials of life. - -A very old Biblical story makes it clear that when one man -becomes dependent upon another for the opportunity to secure -the food with which to keep himself alive, he may be forced -to sacrifice his birthright of freedom and happiness. Isaac, -it will be remembered, was a wealthy man. He had rich lands, -large flocks, and many servants. Esau was his oldest son and -favorite. Custom made him his father's exclusive heir. But -he was a reckless hunter, while his more conservative -brother Jacob, who coveted Esau's birthright, was a farmer. -The story of what happened to Esau, as the Bible tells it, -runs as follows: +After all, the planning board will have to be composed of human beings, +and human beings are all too human. They make mistakes. Even if the +members of the Supreme Economic Council, or whatever the planning board +would be called, prove all to be chaste, incorruptible, and without +ambition (which I refuse to believe a reasonable expectation), there is +no guarantee that even the most virtuous board will not make mistakes. + +The Russians, in spite of their revolutionary zeal, have made them. +Their five-year plan called for the socialization of agriculture. +Farming was to be mechanized. Farming was to be collectivized. The +little, inefficient farms of the peasants were to be merged into giant, +efficient farms run by machinery, and transformed into wheat factories. + +Within a year and a half from the time they started to carry out their +plan, the Russians socialized more of these farms than they expected to +take over in five years. The plan was hailed as a tremendous success, +not only by the Russians, but by the advocates of planning everywhere in +the world. But, unfortunately, something went wrong. The planners +miscalculated. With that sublime indifference to the human equation +which they borrowed from engineering, the Gosplan overlooked how the +peasants would react to this appropriation of what had been their +personal property. During the process of converting the little farms +into giant farms, millions of horses and cows and pigs and chickens were +slaughtered by the peasants who couldn't see eye to eye with the agents +of the Soviet. Within a short time, not only was there a shortage of +meat for the table, there were no horses for plowing and cultivating and +harvesting. The effect upon food production was cumulatively bad. Today, +in spite of their five-year plan, in spite of their pathetic faith in +the efficacy of socialism, the whole of Russia is on a starvation diet. +True, some sections of the population---the proletariat---are specially +favored. But then so are certain sections of the population with us, +only we call them the rich. And as for the unfortunate fact that with us +some of the unemployed are subjected to inhuman suffering---the Russians +match that by subjecting the kulaks, the nobles, and the clergy to +similar inhuman suffering. + +The truth about the matter is that neither the things proposed in +previous depressions nor the economic planning proposed in this one is +capable of ending the insecurity from which we suffer. + +Insecurity and industrialism are Siamese twins. You cannot have one +without having to accept the other. + +Insecurity is the price we pay for our dependence upon industrialism for +the essentials of life. + +A very old Biblical story makes it clear that when one man becomes +dependent upon another for the opportunity to secure the food with which +to keep himself alive, he may be forced to sacrifice his birthright of +freedom and happiness. Isaac, it will be remembered, was a wealthy man. +He had rich lands, large flocks, and many servants. Esau was his oldest +son and favorite. Custom made him his father's exclusive heir. But he +was a reckless hunter, while his more conservative brother Jacob, who +coveted Esau's birthright, was a farmer. The story of what happened to +Esau, as the Bible tells it, runs as follows: >  And Jacob had pottage. > > And Esau came from the hunt, and he was faint. > -> And Esau said to Jacob: "Feed me, I pray thee, with that -> same pottage for I am faint." +> And Esau said to Jacob: "Feed me, I pray thee, with that same pottage +> for I am faint." > > And Jacob said, "Sell me this day thy birthright." > -> And Esau said, "Behold I am at the point to die, and what -> profit shall this birthright do me?" +> And Esau said, "Behold I am at the point to die, and what profit shall +> this birthright do me?" > > And Jacob said, "Swear me this day." > > And Esau swore to him and sold his birthright unto Jacob. > -> Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils, and he -> did eat and drink and rose up, and went his way. +> Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils, and he did eat and +> drink and rose up, and went his way. > > Thus Esau lost his birthright. -Surely it is unnecessary to draw a moral. Surely it is plain -that no man can afford to be dependent upon some other man -for the bare necessities of life without running the risk of -losing all that is most precious to him. Yet that is -precisely and exactly what most of us are doing today. -Everybody seems to be dependent upon some one else for the -opportunity to acquire the essentials of life. The -factory-worker is dependent upon the man who employs him; -both of them are dependent upon the salesmen and the -retailers who sell the goods they make, and all of them are -dependent upon the consuming public, which may not want, or -may not be able, to buy what they may have made. - -What the depression has done has been immensely to increase -the evil effects of this interdependence. What difference -does it make to the man who is unemployed why the demand for -coal, or for automobiles, or for cotton goods has fallen -off? All he knows is that for some reason beyond his control -he has been laid off. If being laid off merely resulted in -his having to curtail his enjoyment of the luxuries of life, -the situation would be bad enough, but at least it would not -be tragic. But when being laid off means that he and his -wife and children may be deprived of food, when it means -that they may find themselves without a roof over their -heads, when it means that they may be ragged and cold and -sick, except in so far as charity helps them---then you have -stark, staring tragedy. - -Compare the position of the millions of men who are today -unemployed to the position of our pioneer forefathers of a -hundred years ago. At the beginning of the last century, -Brillat-Savarin, the famous Frenchman who wrote *The -Physiology of Taste*, made a long visit to the United -States. In the fourth chapter of his book he tells the story -of a visit of several weeks which he made to a farm which is -now within the densely populated region of Hartford, -Connecticut. As he was leaving, his host took him aside and -said: - ->  "You behold in me, my dear sir, a happy man, if there is -> one on earth; everything you see around you, and what you -> have seen at my house, is produced on my farm. These -> stockings have been knitted by my daughters; my shoes and -> clothes came from my herds; they, with my garden and my -> farmyard, supply me with plain and substantial food. The -> greatest praise of our government is that in Connecticut -> there are thousands of farmers quite as content as myself, -> and whose doors, like mine, are never locked." - -Today the farm on which that happy man once lived is cut up -into city streets and covered with city buildings. The men -and women of Hartford no longer produce their own food, -clothing, and shelter. They work for them in stores and -offices and factories. And in that same city, descendants of -that pioneer farmer are probably walking the streets, not -knowing what to do in order to be able to secure food, -clothing and shelter. +Surely it is unnecessary to draw a moral. Surely it is plain that no man +can afford to be dependent upon some other man for the bare necessities +of life without running the risk of losing all that is most precious to +him. Yet that is precisely and exactly what most of us are doing today. +Everybody seems to be dependent upon some one else for the opportunity +to acquire the essentials of life. The factory-worker is dependent upon +the man who employs him; both of them are dependent upon the salesmen +and the retailers who sell the goods they make, and all of them are +dependent upon the consuming public, which may not want, or may not be +able, to buy what they may have made. + +What the depression has done has been immensely to increase the evil +effects of this interdependence. What difference does it make to the man +who is unemployed why the demand for coal, or for automobiles, or for +cotton goods has fallen off? All he knows is that for some reason beyond +his control he has been laid off. If being laid off merely resulted in +his having to curtail his enjoyment of the luxuries of life, the +situation would be bad enough, but at least it would not be tragic. But +when being laid off means that he and his wife and children may be +deprived of food, when it means that they may find themselves without a +roof over their heads, when it means that they may be ragged and cold +and sick, except in so far as charity helps them---then you have stark, +staring tragedy. + +Compare the position of the millions of men who are today unemployed to +the position of our pioneer forefathers of a hundred years ago. At the +beginning of the last century, Brillat-Savarin, the famous Frenchman who +wrote *The Physiology of Taste*, made a long visit to the United States. +In the fourth chapter of his book he tells the story of a visit of +several weeks which he made to a farm which is now within the densely +populated region of Hartford, Connecticut. As he was leaving, his host +took him aside and said: + +>  "You behold in me, my dear sir, a happy man, if there is one on +> earth; everything you see around you, and what you have seen at my +> house, is produced on my farm. These stockings have been knitted by my +> daughters; my shoes and clothes came from my herds; they, with my +> garden and my farmyard, supply me with plain and substantial food. The +> greatest praise of our government is that in Connecticut there are +> thousands of farmers quite as content as myself, and whose doors, like +> mine, are never locked." + +Today the farm on which that happy man once lived is cut up into city +streets and covered with city buildings. The men and women of Hartford +no longer produce their own food, clothing, and shelter. They work for +them in stores and offices and factories. And in that same city, +descendants of that pioneer farmer are probably walking the streets, not +knowing what to do in order to be able to secure food, clothing and +shelter. # Postlude ## The New Frontier -Since I made the study of homesteading for Dayton, Ohio, -described in Chapter 10, last winter, the First Homestead -Unit of Dayton has become a reality. A farm of 160 acres -located about three miles from the city limits has been -purchased and laid out in three-acre plots; the old farm -buildings have been rehabilitated for use as a community -center; thirty-five families are now developing the tract, -building homes, and planting crops. It is possible, -therefore, to add to this book a detailed account based upon -an actual rather than a theoretical adventure in -homesteading by a group of families developing the same idea -upon which the individual adventure of the Borsodi family -was predicated. The Dayton project is due mainly to the -vision and leadership of Dr. Elizabeth H. Nutting, the -Executive Secretary of the Character Building Division of -the Council of Social Agencies of Dayton. If I have hope for -the success of this particular experiment, it is primarily -due to the fact that Dr. Nutting's leadership is educational +Since I made the study of homesteading for Dayton, Ohio, described in +Chapter 10, last winter, the First Homestead Unit of Dayton has become a +reality. A farm of 160 acres located about three miles from the city +limits has been purchased and laid out in three-acre plots; the old farm +buildings have been rehabilitated for use as a community center; +thirty-five families are now developing the tract, building homes, and +planting crops. It is possible, therefore, to add to this book a +detailed account based upon an actual rather than a theoretical +adventure in homesteading by a group of families developing the same +idea upon which the individual adventure of the Borsodi family was +predicated. The Dayton project is due mainly to the vision and +leadership of Dr. Elizabeth H. Nutting, the Executive Secretary of the +Character Building Division of the Council of Social Agencies of Dayton. +If I have hope for the success of this particular experiment, it is +primarily due to the fact that Dr. Nutting's leadership is educational in philosophy. -But Dr. Nutting could not have developed the project but for -the fortunate coincidence that Dayton possessed at the same -time a group of social-minded men and women in key positions -in the city's public life. Outstanding in this group are -Mrs. Virginia P. Wood, Chairman of the Character Building -Division of the Council of Social Agencies; Mr. Arch Mandel, -Executive Secretary of the Dayton Bureau of Community -Service; Mr. E. V. Stoecklein, Director of Public Welfare of -the city; Mr. S. H. Thai, of S. H. Thai, Inc., Chairman of -the Homestead Committee; and Mr. Walter Locke, editor of -*The Dayton News*. Other members of the Unit Committee of -the Council of Social Agencies, as the group sponsoring the -movement is called, are the Rev. Charles Lyon Seasholes, -President of the committee, Pastor of the First Baptist -Church; Mr. Wm. A. Chryst, Consulting Engineer, Delco -Products Company; Robert G. Corwin, attorney, McMahon, -Corwin, Landis and Markham, President of the Council of -Social Agencies; J. N. Garwood, Assembly Foreman, National -Cash Register Company; Mrs. Daisy T. Greene; Mr. W. A. -Keyes, Vice-President, Bureau of Community Service; -Mrs. Mabel M. Pierce; Mr. Frank D. Slutz, educator; Mr. N. -M. Stanley, President, The Univis Corporation; Mr. E. C. -Wells, Vice-President, Platt Iron Works; Gen. Geo. H. Wood, -Veteran's Administration, U. S. A. An advisory board in -accounting, agriculture, arts and crafts, engineering, -health, home economics, law, and education, including many -nationally known personalities, is assisting the committee. -Under the chairmanship of Dr. Harold Rugg of Columbia -University, the national implications of the Dayton -experiment are being studied by a group interested in -education particularly from the standpoint of adult ed -cation. This committee includes Dr. C. F. Ansley of Columbia -University, Dr. B. H. Bode of Ohio State University, Dr. Wm. -H. Kilpatrick of Columbia University, Dr. E. C. Lindeman, -New York School for Social Work, and Dr. H. A. Overstreet of -the College of the City of New York. Dr. Nutting and I are -also members of this group. - -The self-sacrificing members of Dr. Nutting's staff in -starting the movement should not be forgotten---Howard -Keeler, production manager; T. J. Wood, assistant production -manager; Hazel Lehman, bookkeeper; Margaret Hutchison, Hazel -Boe, Alberta Tucker, secretaries. Their willingness to work -day and night and in most cases for no more than "board and -room," has been one of the most important factors in the +But Dr. Nutting could not have developed the project but for the +fortunate coincidence that Dayton possessed at the same time a group of +social-minded men and women in key positions in the city's public life. +Outstanding in this group are Mrs. Virginia P. Wood, Chairman of the +Character Building Division of the Council of Social Agencies; Mr. Arch +Mandel, Executive Secretary of the Dayton Bureau of Community Service; +Mr. E. V. Stoecklein, Director of Public Welfare of the city; Mr. S. H. +Thai, of S. H. Thai, Inc., Chairman of the Homestead Committee; and +Mr. Walter Locke, editor of *The Dayton News*. Other members of the Unit +Committee of the Council of Social Agencies, as the group sponsoring the +movement is called, are the Rev. Charles Lyon Seasholes, President of +the committee, Pastor of the First Baptist Church; Mr. Wm. A. Chryst, +Consulting Engineer, Delco Products Company; Robert G. Corwin, attorney, +McMahon, Corwin, Landis and Markham, President of the Council of Social +Agencies; J. N. Garwood, Assembly Foreman, National Cash Register +Company; Mrs. Daisy T. Greene; Mr. W. A. Keyes, Vice-President, Bureau +of Community Service; Mrs. Mabel M. Pierce; Mr. Frank D. Slutz, +educator; Mr. N. M. Stanley, President, The Univis Corporation; Mr. E. +C. Wells, Vice-President, Platt Iron Works; Gen. Geo. H. Wood, Veteran's +Administration, U. S. A. An advisory board in accounting, agriculture, +arts and crafts, engineering, health, home economics, law, and +education, including many nationally known personalities, is assisting +the committee. Under the chairmanship of Dr. Harold Rugg of Columbia +University, the national implications of the Dayton experiment are being +studied by a group interested in education particularly from the +standpoint of adult ed cation. This committee includes Dr. C. F. Ansley +of Columbia University, Dr. B. H. Bode of Ohio State University, Dr. Wm. +H. Kilpatrick of Columbia University, Dr. E. C. Lindeman, New York +School for Social Work, and Dr. H. A. Overstreet of the College of the +City of New York. Dr. Nutting and I are also members of this group. + +The self-sacrificing members of Dr. Nutting's staff in starting the +movement should not be forgotten---Howard Keeler, production manager; T. +J. Wood, assistant production manager; Hazel Lehman, bookkeeper; +Margaret Hutchison, Hazel Boe, Alberta Tucker, secretaries. Their +willingness to work day and night and in most cases for no more than +"board and room," has been one of the most important factors in the development of this experiment. -An account of the movement which I wrote at the request of -Freda Kirchway, one of the editors of *The Nation*, and -which appeared in that magazine on April 19, 1933, is -reprinted here because it furnishes a compact summary of -what took place up to that time. +An account of the movement which I wrote at the request of Freda +Kirchway, one of the editors of *The Nation*, and which appeared in that +magazine on April 19, 1933, is reprinted here because it furnishes a +compact summary of what took place up to that time. ## Dayton makes social history -"Dayton, Ohio, is setting the stage for an important -economic, social, and educational experiment. Out of the -Production Units, established in the summer of last year, is -growing a movement to ring the city of Dayton with what will -be known as Homestead Units. The Homestead Unit represents -an attempt to solve the dilemmas of the machine age along +"Dayton, Ohio, is setting the stage for an important economic, social, +and educational experiment. Out of the Production Units, established in +the summer of last year, is growing a movement to ring the city of +Dayton with what will be known as Homestead Units. The Homestead Unit +represents an attempt to solve the dilemmas of the machine age along entirely new lines. -"In one respect the Dayton movement is quite different from -the hundreds of self-help, barter, and scrip movements which -have sprung up all over the country. It is an experiment in -production for use as against production for sale or -exchange. From the very beginning the leaders of the Dayton -group have had in mind not only a temporary solution for the -problem of the unemployed but a permanently better way of -living for every man, woman, and child now struggling for -happiness in our industrial civilization. - -"The original Production Units, of which there are now ten, -are located in various sections of the city. They now have a -membership of around 800 families and are the principal -source of support of nearly 4,000 men, women, and children. -The tenth unit was organized the week I was in Dayton in the -middle of January. A unit was also being organized in one of -the largest high schools in the city to include boys and -girls who have graduated from school and who now find that -the jobs in industry and business for which they spent years -in training do not exist. These younger folk, like the -adults in the older units, are being made to see this -movement not merely as a stop-gap for the period of the -depression but as an entirely new way of living. More and -more Production Units will be established in the city and at -the same time the movement will be extended into the -country. - -"Superficially the Production Units are much like other -groups in which the unemployed are organized for self-help, -though the Dayton groups are smaller than most. The unit -secures an empty house or store for headquarters, acquires -sewing machines, shoe-making machinery, abandoned bakery -ovens, and begins to make dresses and shirts, to bake bread, -to repair shoes, to cut wood. What the members of the group -cannot consume they trade to the city relief stores, to the -farmers of the surrounding country, and among themselves for -foodstuffs, cloth, raw materials, and other products. The -Dayton plan is unlike most self-help schemes in that barter -is merely incidental. Within each unit, distribution to the -membership is made according to need, each member being -required to put in a certain amount of work. Usually the -time which the members devote to the unit is greatly in -excess of the minimum required. Volunteer work is common and -a spirit of comradeship and mutual helpfulness prevails. - -"The limitations within which the Production Units operate -are obvious. In the city no raw materials can be produced. -In order to obtain cloth, raw wool, and groceries which they -do not produce, surpluses of clothing and bread and other -products must be manufactured. This requires large-scale -operations and is dependent upon the unit's ability to -secure factory machinery. These large-scale operations -thrust upon each organization problems of management -actually much more difficult than those in an average -factory, because the management has to be democratic. -Politics, of course, arise. Revolutions within each unit -have taken place, though each has managed ultimately to -develop leadership and select a general manager and an -executive committee efficient enough to carry on. The larger -the units become---that is, the more nearly their operations -approach factory proportions---the more difficult become the -problems of management and distribution. As long as the -units remain in the city and as long as they produce by -factory methods surpluses which they can exchange for the -commodities they do not make, they will have all the -limitations under which cooperative organizations generally -labor. Only exceptional leadership will in my opinion enable -the units to maintain themselves when opportunities for +"In one respect the Dayton movement is quite different from the hundreds +of self-help, barter, and scrip movements which have sprung up all over +the country. It is an experiment in production for use as against +production for sale or exchange. From the very beginning the leaders of +the Dayton group have had in mind not only a temporary solution for the +problem of the unemployed but a permanently better way of living for +every man, woman, and child now struggling for happiness in our +industrial civilization. + +"The original Production Units, of which there are now ten, are located +in various sections of the city. They now have a membership of around +800 families and are the principal source of support of nearly 4,000 +men, women, and children. The tenth unit was organized the week I was in +Dayton in the middle of January. A unit was also being organized in one +of the largest high schools in the city to include boys and girls who +have graduated from school and who now find that the jobs in industry +and business for which they spent years in training do not exist. These +younger folk, like the adults in the older units, are being made to see +this movement not merely as a stop-gap for the period of the depression +but as an entirely new way of living. More and more Production Units +will be established in the city and at the same time the movement will +be extended into the country. + +"Superficially the Production Units are much like other groups in which +the unemployed are organized for self-help, though the Dayton groups are +smaller than most. The unit secures an empty house or store for +headquarters, acquires sewing machines, shoe-making machinery, abandoned +bakery ovens, and begins to make dresses and shirts, to bake bread, to +repair shoes, to cut wood. What the members of the group cannot consume +they trade to the city relief stores, to the farmers of the surrounding +country, and among themselves for foodstuffs, cloth, raw materials, and +other products. The Dayton plan is unlike most self-help schemes in that +barter is merely incidental. Within each unit, distribution to the +membership is made according to need, each member being required to put +in a certain amount of work. Usually the time which the members devote +to the unit is greatly in excess of the minimum required. Volunteer work +is common and a spirit of comradeship and mutual helpfulness prevails. + +"The limitations within which the Production Units operate are obvious. +In the city no raw materials can be produced. In order to obtain cloth, +raw wool, and groceries which they do not produce, surpluses of clothing +and bread and other products must be manufactured. This requires +large-scale operations and is dependent upon the unit's ability to +secure factory machinery. These large-scale operations thrust upon each +organization problems of management actually much more difficult than +those in an average factory, because the management has to be +democratic. Politics, of course, arise. Revolutions within each unit +have taken place, though each has managed ultimately to develop +leadership and select a general manager and an executive committee +efficient enough to carry on. The larger the units become---that is, the +more nearly their operations approach factory proportions---the more +difficult become the problems of management and distribution. As long as +the units remain in the city and as long as they produce by factory +methods surpluses which they can exchange for the commodities they do +not make, they will have all the limitations under which cooperative +organizations generally labor. Only exceptional leadership will in my +opinion enable the units to maintain themselves when opportunities for outside employment increase for the members. -"The Homestead Unit, the new experiment to which Dayton is -now committing itself as fast as suitable tracts of land can -be secured and the necessary funds raised, goes far beyond -the Production Unit. In the Homestead Units, which are to be -located within a fifteen-mile radius of the city, the -families belonging to each unit will build their own homes -and grow their own crops in addition to carrying on the -group activities which the unit as a whole may decide on. -Each tract will be owned by the unit as a whole; the -homesteads will be granted to members under perpetual -leaseholds and will consist of about three acres each. The -pasture, wood-lot, and community buildings will be owned by -the unit and used by the members under rules and regulations -established by the whole group. Each family in the unit is -expected to build its own home, poultry-house, cow-shed, and -workshop; to cultivate a garden, set out an orchard and -berry patch, and become as nearly self-sufficient as were -the pioneers of a hundred years ago. Trades and crafts will -be permitted to develop toward specialization as far as the -members desire, but there will be no emphasis on -specialization as a good in itself. Large-scale farming -operations may be carried on by the group as a unit, just as -the city units are now producing clothes, bread, and other -goods. - -"The plans presented for the first Homestead Unit look -toward the building of permanent and beautiful homes. The -house walls will probably be made of rammed earth. Cellars -and garrets will be avoided and the construction will be -along lines developed by Ernest Flagg for beautiful and -inexpensive small homes. The homesteaders will commute -between the homesteads and their homes in Dayton while -building the first wing of their house. As soon as these -wings are completed, they will move in and begin to garden, -to make their own furniture in their own workshops, to weave -cloth on their own looms, and to make their own clothes on -their own sewing machines. Electricity will be available not -only for light but for power. Machinery will be used to -reduce drudgery to a minimum. The crushing tax burden of -elaborate water and sewerage systems will be avoided by the -use of individual automatic pumps and individual septic +"The Homestead Unit, the new experiment to which Dayton is now +committing itself as fast as suitable tracts of land can be secured and +the necessary funds raised, goes far beyond the Production Unit. In the +Homestead Units, which are to be located within a fifteen-mile radius of +the city, the families belonging to each unit will build their own homes +and grow their own crops in addition to carrying on the group activities +which the unit as a whole may decide on. Each tract will be owned by the +unit as a whole; the homesteads will be granted to members under +perpetual leaseholds and will consist of about three acres each. The +pasture, wood-lot, and community buildings will be owned by the unit and +used by the members under rules and regulations established by the whole +group. Each family in the unit is expected to build its own home, +poultry-house, cow-shed, and workshop; to cultivate a garden, set out an +orchard and berry patch, and become as nearly self-sufficient as were +the pioneers of a hundred years ago. Trades and crafts will be permitted +to develop toward specialization as far as the members desire, but there +will be no emphasis on specialization as a good in itself. Large-scale +farming operations may be carried on by the group as a unit, just as the +city units are now producing clothes, bread, and other goods. + +"The plans presented for the first Homestead Unit look toward the +building of permanent and beautiful homes. The house walls will probably +be made of rammed earth. Cellars and garrets will be avoided and the +construction will be along lines developed by Ernest Flagg for beautiful +and inexpensive small homes. The homesteaders will commute between the +homesteads and their homes in Dayton while building the first wing of +their house. As soon as these wings are completed, they will move in and +begin to garden, to make their own furniture in their own workshops, to +weave cloth on their own looms, and to make their own clothes on their +own sewing machines. Electricity will be available not only for light +but for power. Machinery will be used to reduce drudgery to a minimum. +The crushing tax burden of elaborate water and sewerage systems will be +avoided by the use of individual automatic pumps and individual septic tanks. -"Ambitious as this venture may sound from the standpoint of -capital required, the financial basis on which the project -has been planned by the responsible group of Dayton citizens -who are backing it is entirely sound. The funds to purchase -the land and to build and equip the homesteads---the labor -being supplied by the members of each unit---are to be lent -to the units and to the homesteaders for a long term of -years on the building-and-loan-association plan. Advances -will be made for building material, for machinery, for -tools, for live stock, and so on, by a Finance Credit -Committee of which General George H. Wood is chairman. -Part-time employment and the sale or exchange of any surplus -products will enable the homesteaders to repay the loans and -keep intact the revolving fund with which additional -homesteads may be established. - -"One feature of the plan shows the foresight with which the -whole project is being launched. In order to prevent the -possibility of speculation in land either at present or at -some future time, perpetual leaseholds are to be substituted -for the usual deeds to land. Thus all the advantages which -flow from individual use and individual ownership of the -homesteads will be retained, while injustices to the -community flowing from the withholding of the land allotted -to any homesteader from use will be prevented. The taxes -levied upon the whole unit are to be apportioned among the -leaseholders in accordance with the value of the piece of -land leased to them. - -"The outstanding fact about these homesteads is that they -are designed not only for family gardening but for family -weaving and sewing and family activities in all the crafts -which have been neglected for so many years. The loom room -and the workshop, with all their opportunities for -self-expression and creative education, are once again to -become part of the American scene. They are being brought -back to the home in Dayton to fulfil the same functions that -they fulfilled in the early American home---to furnish -economic independence, security, and self-sufficiency. The -tools and machines which will be used, however, instead of -duplicating, with false romanticism, the clumsy appliances -of pioneer days, will be modern and efficient. Power will be -used both to eliminate drudgery and to speed up production. -Modern inventions will supply comfort. The homestead will -furnish the security of which industrialism has deprived us. -What I called domestic machinery in my last book, in -contrast to factory machinery, is to be given a chance to -free the unemployed of Dayton from their dependence upon -industry and make possible a higher standard of living than -they ever before enjoyed. - -"Dayton is not waiting for economic planning in order to -find some way of taming the machine. It is decentralizing -production, instead of integrating it; and eliminating -distribution costs by making the point of production and the -point of consumption one and the same. It is making the -home, rather than the factory, the economic center of life, -and turning to education, and the artist-teacher rather than -to the politician and the technical specialist for a way -out. Dayton promises to make social history. Something -really new is emerging from its struggle with the problem of -relief." - -Since the above was written, the goal for the coming year in -Dayton, provided the necessary capital can be secured, is to -establish fifty Homestead Units to enable between 1,750 and -2,000 families to make themselves self-sufficient and secure -even under present-day depression conditions. These units -will form a ring around the city, as can be seen from one of -the drawings reproduced. While an effort will be made to -keep the units as close to the city as possible, the -tentative limit set by the committee is fifteen miles from -the center of the city. Within this limit, the homesteaders -will be able to move back and forth between their homes, and -work, schools, theaters and stores in the city, with +"Ambitious as this venture may sound from the standpoint of capital +required, the financial basis on which the project has been planned by +the responsible group of Dayton citizens who are backing it is entirely +sound. The funds to purchase the land and to build and equip the +homesteads---the labor being supplied by the members of each unit---are +to be lent to the units and to the homesteaders for a long term of years +on the building-and-loan-association plan. Advances will be made for +building material, for machinery, for tools, for live stock, and so on, +by a Finance Credit Committee of which General George H. Wood is +chairman. Part-time employment and the sale or exchange of any surplus +products will enable the homesteaders to repay the loans and keep intact +the revolving fund with which additional homesteads may be established. + +"One feature of the plan shows the foresight with which the whole +project is being launched. In order to prevent the possibility of +speculation in land either at present or at some future time, perpetual +leaseholds are to be substituted for the usual deeds to land. Thus all +the advantages which flow from individual use and individual ownership +of the homesteads will be retained, while injustices to the community +flowing from the withholding of the land allotted to any homesteader +from use will be prevented. The taxes levied upon the whole unit are to +be apportioned among the leaseholders in accordance with the value of +the piece of land leased to them. + +"The outstanding fact about these homesteads is that they are designed +not only for family gardening but for family weaving and sewing and +family activities in all the crafts which have been neglected for so +many years. The loom room and the workshop, with all their opportunities +for self-expression and creative education, are once again to become +part of the American scene. They are being brought back to the home in +Dayton to fulfil the same functions that they fulfilled in the early +American home---to furnish economic independence, security, and +self-sufficiency. The tools and machines which will be used, however, +instead of duplicating, with false romanticism, the clumsy appliances of +pioneer days, will be modern and efficient. Power will be used both to +eliminate drudgery and to speed up production. Modern inventions will +supply comfort. The homestead will furnish the security of which +industrialism has deprived us. What I called domestic machinery in my +last book, in contrast to factory machinery, is to be given a chance to +free the unemployed of Dayton from their dependence upon industry and +make possible a higher standard of living than they ever before enjoyed. + +"Dayton is not waiting for economic planning in order to find some way +of taming the machine. It is decentralizing production, instead of +integrating it; and eliminating distribution costs by making the point +of production and the point of consumption one and the same. It is +making the home, rather than the factory, the economic center of life, +and turning to education, and the artist-teacher rather than to the +politician and the technical specialist for a way out. Dayton promises +to make social history. Something really new is emerging from its +struggle with the problem of relief." + +Since the above was written, the goal for the coming year in Dayton, +provided the necessary capital can be secured, is to establish fifty +Homestead Units to enable between 1,750 and 2,000 families to make +themselves self-sufficient and secure even under present-day depression +conditions. These units will form a ring around the city, as can be seen +from one of the drawings reproduced. While an effort will be made to +keep the units as close to the city as possible, the tentative limit set +by the committee is fifteen miles from the center of the city. Within +this limit, the homesteaders will be able to move back and forth between +their homes, and work, schools, theaters and stores in the city, with comparative ease. -This expansion of the program for this year is being based -mainly upon the co-operation of some of the city's largest -industrial and commercial enterprises which will aid in the -selection of the families and in spreading work so as to -furnish some employment to families which but for -homesteading would be forced upon public relief. Some of the -families included in the first unit have already been on -relief, and will be taken entirely off relief as a result of -this cooperation. Living conditions for the homesteading -families will be improved at the same time that the burden -upon the community for relief is reduced. - -The financial plan upon which the First Homestead Unit is -being established, and which will be followed with all -subsequent units, begins with a loan by the Unit Committee -of the Council of Social Agencies, which is for all -practical purposes in this connection a mortgage-loan bank, -to the First Homestead Unit for the purchase of the land and -farm buildings, the community machinery and road materials. -This loan is to be repaid to the committee over a period of -fifteen years. The original farm buildings on each tract -purchased, which will usually be farms of about 160 acres -each, are to be converted by the homesteaders into community -buildings. After the community loan, individual loans are -made to each family for the building materials, machinery, -livestock and other equipment, and supplies needed for the -building of their homes, barns, and workshops, and for the -operation of the homesteads. The money for the loans to be -made to the First Homestead Unit is being secured locally -through the sale of the first issue of a series of -Independence Bonds, bearing 4.5% interest and maturing in -fifteen years, and secured by all the property of the unit. -The capital for the subsequent units is to be secured by the -issuance of further series of Independence Bonds, except in -so far as government aid makes this unnecessary. Of course, -the local situation is such that without government aid the -expansion of the homestead movement cannot proceed as -rapidly as hoped for. Application has therefore been made -for a loan of \$2,500,000 from the Federal Emergency Relief -Administration and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation -for this purpose. - -The estimated expenditure for the fifty units, which will -homestead between 1,750 and 2,000 families of five persons -each, is as follows: +This expansion of the program for this year is being based mainly upon +the co-operation of some of the city's largest industrial and commercial +enterprises which will aid in the selection of the families and in +spreading work so as to furnish some employment to families which but +for homesteading would be forced upon public relief. Some of the +families included in the first unit have already been on relief, and +will be taken entirely off relief as a result of this cooperation. +Living conditions for the homesteading families will be improved at the +same time that the burden upon the community for relief is reduced. + +The financial plan upon which the First Homestead Unit is being +established, and which will be followed with all subsequent units, +begins with a loan by the Unit Committee of the Council of Social +Agencies, which is for all practical purposes in this connection a +mortgage-loan bank, to the First Homestead Unit for the purchase of the +land and farm buildings, the community machinery and road materials. +This loan is to be repaid to the committee over a period of fifteen +years. The original farm buildings on each tract purchased, which will +usually be farms of about 160 acres each, are to be converted by the +homesteaders into community buildings. After the community loan, +individual loans are made to each family for the building materials, +machinery, livestock and other equipment, and supplies needed for the +building of their homes, barns, and workshops, and for the operation of +the homesteads. The money for the loans to be made to the First +Homestead Unit is being secured locally through the sale of the first +issue of a series of Independence Bonds, bearing 4.5% interest and +maturing in fifteen years, and secured by all the property of the unit. +The capital for the subsequent units is to be secured by the issuance of +further series of Independence Bonds, except in so far as government aid +makes this unnecessary. Of course, the local situation is such that +without government aid the expansion of the homestead movement cannot +proceed as rapidly as hoped for. Application has therefore been made for +a loan of \$2,500,000 from the Federal Emergency Relief Administration +and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation for this purpose. + +The estimated expenditure for the fifty units, which will homestead +between 1,750 and 2,000 families of five persons each, is as follows: --------------------------------------------------------- Item Cost @@ -4688,139 +4001,121 @@ each, is as follows: Total Cost \$2,495,330.00 --------------------------------------------------------- -With this development, a new frontier will have been -established around Dayton to which the enterprising, -industrious, and ambitious families shipwrecked in some way -by the depression can migrate, just as in all the great -depressions of the past century, they migrated from the +With this development, a new frontier will have been established around +Dayton to which the enterprising, industrious, and ambitious families +shipwrecked in some way by the depression can migrate, just as in all +the great depressions of the past century, they migrated from the industrial East to settle on the old frontier. ## Extracts from the Constitution of the First Homestead Unit -The preamble to the constitution tentatively adopted states -clearly the object of the members of the First Homestead -Unit: +The preamble to the constitution tentatively adopted states clearly the +object of the members of the First Homestead Unit: ->  We, the undersigned, in order to secure the opportunity -> to +>  We, the undersigned, in order to secure the opportunity to > -> 1. Satisfy our needs and desires directly by production -> for our own use through intensive husbandry and home -> craftsmanship, +> 1. Satisfy our needs and desires directly by production for our own +> use through intensive husbandry and home craftsmanship, > -> 2. Achieve a permanent basis of economic independence and -> security, +> 2. Achieve a permanent basis of economic independence and security, > > 3. Develop a progressively higher standard of living, > -> 4. Provide for our youth as soon as they are ready, and -> assure our aged as long as they are able, -> participation in productive and creative activities, +> 4. Provide for our youth as soon as they are ready, and assure our +> aged as long as they are able, participation in productive and +> creative activities, > -> 5. Enrich family and home life by reducing drudgery and -> releasing creative activity through the use of -> domestic machinery, +> 5. Enrich family and home life by reducing drudgery and releasing +> creative activity through the use of domestic machinery, > -> 6. Increase control over our own destinies by solving our -> problems through simple family and neighborhood -> activities rather than through large, complicated and -> impersonal civic and industrial relationships, and +> 6. Increase control over our own destinies by solving our problems +> through simple family and neighborhood activities rather than +> through large, complicated and impersonal civic and industrial +> relationships, and > -> 7. Furnish to the community of Dayton, which is assisting -> us to establish ourselves on homesteads, an example of -> effectual and beautiful living, do associate ourselves -> together to form a community of homesteads and pledge -> ourselves to abide by the provisions of this -> constitution. - -The rights of the members to the development of a completely -individual life are safeguarded by the following provision: - -The rights of the members to absolute freedom in religion, -politics, associations, production, and exchange shall never -be abridged or impaired by the Unit or its officers, and the -only limit to the exercise of the free will of the members -shall be the equal rights of all others to their freedom. -Any such specific limitation shall be imposed only by an -affirmative vote of two-thirds of all members at a special -meeting called for that purpose. - -The balance between what is communal and what is individual -activity is provided for in the following section: - -Activities of the unit as a whole shall concern only those -affairs which from time to time by vote of the members shall -be deemed to serve better their economic or social good than -can be achieved by individual activity alone. - -In order to prevent speculation in land, possession of the -homesteads is based upon a leasehold, the terms of which are -made a part of the constitution. The following is the lease -agreement: - -This agreement made this ... day of ... A.D. 19.., -Witnesseth, that ... hereinafter collectively called the -lessee, leases or lease jointly from the Board of Directors -of the First Homestead Unit of Dayton, Ohio, Inc., the plot -of land situated upon its lands in Jefferson Township, -Montgomery County, Ohio, which is designated on its official -community plan as Homestead Number ..., containing about -.... square feet, at a rental of \$.... until January first, -next, and thereafter at such yearly rental, payable in -advance on the first day of January, as shall be assessed -against it by the Board of Directors of the Unit, subject, -however, to appeal to the membership of the Unit within one -month at any regular meeting of the Unit; this said -assessment to equal as nearly as possible the full annual -rental value of the land excluding improvements thereon. - -All rentals so collected from the leaseholders shall be -expended, first, in the payment of all taxes levied by any -authority of Ohio upon the real estate and upon any tangible -property located thereon, so that all leaseholders shall be -exempt and free of all such taxation; secondly, in the -payment of the interest upon the purchase mortgage upon the -land; thirdly, in payment on account upon the principal of -the purchase price of the land, and fourthly, any funds -remaining from such rentals, for such communal purposes as -are properly public. - -The said lessee may terminate this lease at any time by -giving sixty days notice to the Board of Directors of the -Unit, and the said Board of Directors, or their agent, may -terminate this lease at any time on sixty days notice if -lessee shall fail to pay the rent at the time agreed upon, -or if the lessee or anyone for whom the lessee is -responsible shall make use of the land leased or the -communal land in such a way as shall be voted (by two-thirds -of the members at a special meeting called for the purpose), -injurious to the rights of others. - -Upon any termination of this lease except for arrears of -rent, the lessee may within thirty days remove or otherwise -dispose of such improvements as the lessee has provided, if -the land is left in the same condition as when the lease -began. If the lessee fails to do so, then the Unit shall -dispose of the improvements at public auction, the net -proceeds of such sale, less all obligations of the lessee to -the Unit, to be turned over to the lessee. - -If no such notice be given by the lessee to the Board of -Directors, or their agent, this lease shall continue from -year to year upon the same terms as above. - -All rights and liabilities herein given to or imposed upon -either of the parties hereto shall extend to the heirs, -executors, successors, administrators and assigns of such -party. In all leases of land, the Unit reserves the right to -resume the possession of the land for public or community -purposes upon payment of all damages sustained by the lessee -to be determined by three appraisers, one to be chosen by -the Board of Directors, one by the lessee, and the third by -these two. - -Nothing herein shall be construed to invalidate the Unit's -right to eminent domain. +> 7. Furnish to the community of Dayton, which is assisting us to +> establish ourselves on homesteads, an example of effectual and +> beautiful living, do associate ourselves together to form a +> community of homesteads and pledge ourselves to abide by the +> provisions of this constitution. + +The rights of the members to the development of a completely individual +life are safeguarded by the following provision: + +The rights of the members to absolute freedom in religion, politics, +associations, production, and exchange shall never be abridged or +impaired by the Unit or its officers, and the only limit to the exercise +of the free will of the members shall be the equal rights of all others +to their freedom. Any such specific limitation shall be imposed only by +an affirmative vote of two-thirds of all members at a special meeting +called for that purpose. + +The balance between what is communal and what is individual activity is +provided for in the following section: + +Activities of the unit as a whole shall concern only those affairs which +from time to time by vote of the members shall be deemed to serve better +their economic or social good than can be achieved by individual +activity alone. + +In order to prevent speculation in land, possession of the homesteads is +based upon a leasehold, the terms of which are made a part of the +constitution. The following is the lease agreement: + +This agreement made this ... day of ... A.D. 19.., Witnesseth, that ... +hereinafter collectively called the lessee, leases or lease jointly from +the Board of Directors of the First Homestead Unit of Dayton, Ohio, +Inc., the plot of land situated upon its lands in Jefferson Township, +Montgomery County, Ohio, which is designated on its official community +plan as Homestead Number ..., containing about .... square feet, at a +rental of \$.... until January first, next, and thereafter at such +yearly rental, payable in advance on the first day of January, as shall +be assessed against it by the Board of Directors of the Unit, subject, +however, to appeal to the membership of the Unit within one month at any +regular meeting of the Unit; this said assessment to equal as nearly as +possible the full annual rental value of the land excluding improvements +thereon. + +All rentals so collected from the leaseholders shall be expended, first, +in the payment of all taxes levied by any authority of Ohio upon the +real estate and upon any tangible property located thereon, so that all +leaseholders shall be exempt and free of all such taxation; secondly, in +the payment of the interest upon the purchase mortgage upon the land; +thirdly, in payment on account upon the principal of the purchase price +of the land, and fourthly, any funds remaining from such rentals, for +such communal purposes as are properly public. + +The said lessee may terminate this lease at any time by giving sixty +days notice to the Board of Directors of the Unit, and the said Board of +Directors, or their agent, may terminate this lease at any time on sixty +days notice if lessee shall fail to pay the rent at the time agreed +upon, or if the lessee or anyone for whom the lessee is responsible +shall make use of the land leased or the communal land in such a way as +shall be voted (by two-thirds of the members at a special meeting called +for the purpose), injurious to the rights of others. + +Upon any termination of this lease except for arrears of rent, the +lessee may within thirty days remove or otherwise dispose of such +improvements as the lessee has provided, if the land is left in the same +condition as when the lease began. If the lessee fails to do so, then +the Unit shall dispose of the improvements at public auction, the net +proceeds of such sale, less all obligations of the lessee to the Unit, +to be turned over to the lessee. + +If no such notice be given by the lessee to the Board of Directors, or +their agent, this lease shall continue from year to year upon the same +terms as above. + +All rights and liabilities herein given to or imposed upon either of the +parties hereto shall extend to the heirs, executors, successors, +administrators and assigns of such party. In all leases of land, the +Unit reserves the right to resume the possession of the land for public +or community purposes upon payment of all damages sustained by the +lessee to be determined by three appraisers, one to be chosen by the +Board of Directors, one by the lessee, and the third by these two. + +Nothing herein shall be construed to invalidate the Unit's right to +eminent domain. First Homestead Unit of Dayton, Ohio, Inc. @@ -4828,58 +4123,50 @@ By \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Lessee. ## A "City" of Refugee -(From the editorial in *The Dayton News*, by Walter Locke, -vice President of the Unit Committee.) - -"There are few cities where the independence of a certain -sort of citizen has not been brought into relief by the -general difficulties of the depression. In the environs of -all cities there is the soil-loving suburbanite. In some -cases these are small farmers, market gardeners and poultry -raisers who try to make their entire living from their -little acres. More often and more successful there is a -combination of rural and city industry. Some member of the -family, while the others grow their crops, will have a job -in town. A little money, where wages are joined to the -produce of the soil, goes a long way. Here the whole family -has work. The children, almost as soon as they are on their -feet, can do productive chores. Incidentally they gain in -that process a training and an essential education which -city schools with difficulty and only at considerable -expense can supply. Here, too, when men grow too old to keep -the pace of the shops, there is work to do according to +(From the editorial in *The Dayton News*, by Walter Locke, vice +President of the Unit Committee.) + +"There are few cities where the independence of a certain sort of +citizen has not been brought into relief by the general difficulties of +the depression. In the environs of all cities there is the soil-loving +suburbanite. In some cases these are small farmers, market gardeners and +poultry raisers who try to make their entire living from their little +acres. More often and more successful there is a combination of rural +and city industry. Some member of the family, while the others grow +their crops, will have a job in town. A little money, where wages are +joined to the produce of the soil, goes a long way. Here the whole +family has work. The children, almost as soon as they are on their feet, +can do productive chores. Incidentally they gain in that process a +training and an essential education which city schools with difficulty +and only at considerable expense can supply. Here, too, when men grow +too old to keep the pace of the shops, there is work to do according to their speed and strength. -"When the depression came most of these members of these -suburban families who held jobs in town were cut in wages -and hours. In many cases they entirely lost their jobs. -What, then, did they do? Did they have to resort to charity? -The soil and the industries of their home provided them a -job; not a well paying job, of course, but work and a -living, however scant. Except for the comparatively few -dollars required for taxes and a few other items they were -able, under their own sail, to ride out the storm. The -sailing was rough, perhaps; but not to be compared with that -in the wreck-strewn town. - -"The story of ancient Israel tells how, in the old days of -barbarian justice, the"city of refuge" arose. The law of an -eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was still in vogue; -but if an offender against his neighbor could run fast -enough to reach certain designated places known as cities of -refuge, he could lay claim to his life, at least till his +"When the depression came most of these members of these suburban +families who held jobs in town were cut in wages and hours. In many +cases they entirely lost their jobs. What, then, did they do? Did they +have to resort to charity? The soil and the industries of their home +provided them a job; not a well paying job, of course, but work and a +living, however scant. Except for the comparatively few dollars required +for taxes and a few other items they were able, under their own sail, to +ride out the storm. The sailing was rough, perhaps; but not to be +compared with that in the wreck-strewn town. + +"The story of ancient Israel tells how, in the old days of barbarian +justice, the"city of refuge" arose. The law of an eye for an eye and a +tooth for a tooth was still in vogue; but if an offender against his +neighbor could run fast enough to reach certain designated places known +as cities of refuge, he could lay claim to his life, at least till his case could be examined on its merits. -"Farming as an exclusive business, a full means of -livelihood, has collapsed. Talk of 'back to the farms,' in -this meaning, is in view of the condition of the farmers, -the sheerest nonsense, almost a crime. Laboring as an -exclusive means of livelihood has also collapsed. The city -laborer, wholly dependent on a job, is of all men most -precariously placed. Who, then, is for the moment safe and -secure? The nearest to it is this home and acres-owning -family in between, which combines the two. It is the only -city of economic refuge anywhere in sight. Till industry and -agriculture can both, by a growth in wisdom, be made safe -for democracy, this half way place of refuge, the -combination of the two gives challenge to our thought." +"Farming as an exclusive business, a full means of livelihood, has +collapsed. Talk of 'back to the farms,' in this meaning, is in view of +the condition of the farmers, the sheerest nonsense, almost a crime. +Laboring as an exclusive means of livelihood has also collapsed. The +city laborer, wholly dependent on a job, is of all men most precariously +placed. Who, then, is for the moment safe and secure? The nearest to it +is this home and acres-owning family in between, which combines the two. +It is the only city of economic refuge anywhere in sight. Till industry +and agriculture can both, by a growth in wisdom, be made safe for +democracy, this half way place of refuge, the combination of the two +gives challenge to our thought." diff --git a/src/garrison-nonresistance.md b/src/garrison-nonresistance.md index 3f6d474..3443d33 100644 --- a/src/garrison-nonresistance.md +++ b/src/garrison-nonresistance.md @@ -1,75 +1,64 @@ # Preface -My inherited principles of Non-Resistance, which seem as -essential to me as the breath of life and paramount to all -others, and filial affection have made me yield to the -urgent requests of many friends to state as best I may what -part a belief in Non-Resistance played in the life of my -father, William Lloyd Garrison. His undying faith in the -invincible power of Non-Resistance, more than all else, in -my estimation, entitles him to the gratitude of his -fellow-men. "Doing evil that good may come," he ever -regarded as a false and pernicious doctrine. Therefore, his -language had, he felt, to be "as harsh as truth and as -uncompromising as justice." After one of Mr. Garrison's -impassioned utterances, a warm sympathizer said to him, "Oh -my friend, do try to moderate your indignation and keep more -cool; why you are all on fire." Mr. Garrison replied, "I -have need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice -about me to melt." This is perhaps more true of -Non-Resistance than of almost any other cause. - -It was early given to Mr. Garrison to put his Non-Resistant -principles to the test in a way that left no question as to -his sincerity or as to his readiness to face death for his -beliefs. On October 21, 1835, a "broadcloth" mob consisting -of "5000 gentlemen of property and standing" gathered in -Boston to tar and feather the English Abolitionist, George -Thompson. Unable to find Mr. Thompson, who had yielded to -Mr. Garrison's urgent request to leave the city, the mob -surrounded the building in which Mr. Garrison was addressing -the meeting of the "Female Anti-Slavery Society" although he -had been warned in advance and urged to avoid danger. "In -the middle of the uproar," my father later wrote, "an -Abolition brother whose mind had not been previously settled -on the peace question, in his anguish and alarm for my -safety, and in view of the helplessness of the civil -authority, said: 'I must henceforth repudiate the principle -of non-resistance. When the civil arm is powerless, my own -rights are trodden in the dust, and the lives of my friends -are put in imminent peril by ruffians, I will hereafter -prepare to defend myself and them at all hazards.' Putting -my hand upon his shoulder, I said, 'Hold, my dear brother! -You know not what spirit you are of. This is the trial of -our faith, and the test of our endurance. Of what value or -utility are the principles of peace and forgiveness, if we -may repudiate them in the hour of peril and suffering? Do -you wish to become like one of those violent and -bloodthirsty men who are seeking my life? Shall we give blow -for blow, and array sword against sword? God forbid! I will -perish sooner than raise my hand against any man, even in -self-defence, and let none of my friends resort to violence -for my protection. If my life be taken, the cause of -emancipation will not suffer. God reigns---his throne is -undisturbed by this storm---he will make the wrath of man to -praise him, and the remainder he will restrain---his -omnipotence will at length be victorious.'" - -Had weapons been used in my father's defence, death would -certainly have been his portion. As it was the mob placed a -rope around him and dragged him through the streets, -intending to lynch him, until he was rescued by the Mayor of -Boston and a strong force of police. It was stated by -eyewitnesses that Mr. Garrison's composure was never ruffled -during this soul-searching experience. - -To this summary of my father's views I have added a sketch -of his personality, as I, the last of his children, knew it. -Finally, I wish to record in this volume the words of Count -Tolstoy in which he affirms that it was from my father that -he learned of the doctrine of Non-Resistance which he at -once embraced, so that it is indissolubly connected with his -name. +My inherited principles of Non-Resistance, which seem as essential to me +as the breath of life and paramount to all others, and filial affection +have made me yield to the urgent requests of many friends to state as +best I may what part a belief in Non-Resistance played in the life of my +father, William Lloyd Garrison. His undying faith in the invincible +power of Non-Resistance, more than all else, in my estimation, entitles +him to the gratitude of his fellow-men. "Doing evil that good may come," +he ever regarded as a false and pernicious doctrine. Therefore, his +language had, he felt, to be "as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as +justice." After one of Mr. Garrison's impassioned utterances, a warm +sympathizer said to him, "Oh my friend, do try to moderate your +indignation and keep more cool; why you are all on fire." Mr. Garrison +replied, "I have need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice +about me to melt." This is perhaps more true of Non-Resistance than of +almost any other cause. + +It was early given to Mr. Garrison to put his Non-Resistant principles +to the test in a way that left no question as to his sincerity or as to +his readiness to face death for his beliefs. On October 21, 1835, a +"broadcloth" mob consisting of "5000 gentlemen of property and standing" +gathered in Boston to tar and feather the English Abolitionist, George +Thompson. Unable to find Mr. Thompson, who had yielded to Mr. Garrison's +urgent request to leave the city, the mob surrounded the building in +which Mr. Garrison was addressing the meeting of the "Female +Anti-Slavery Society" although he had been warned in advance and urged +to avoid danger. "In the middle of the uproar," my father later wrote, +"an Abolition brother whose mind had not been previously settled on the +peace question, in his anguish and alarm for my safety, and in view of +the helplessness of the civil authority, said: 'I must henceforth +repudiate the principle of non-resistance. When the civil arm is +powerless, my own rights are trodden in the dust, and the lives of my +friends are put in imminent peril by ruffians, I will hereafter prepare +to defend myself and them at all hazards.' Putting my hand upon his +shoulder, I said, 'Hold, my dear brother! You know not what spirit you +are of. This is the trial of our faith, and the test of our endurance. +Of what value or utility are the principles of peace and forgiveness, if +we may repudiate them in the hour of peril and suffering? Do you wish to +become like one of those violent and bloodthirsty men who are seeking my +life? Shall we give blow for blow, and array sword against sword? God +forbid! I will perish sooner than raise my hand against any man, even in +self-defence, and let none of my friends resort to violence for my +protection. If my life be taken, the cause of emancipation will not +suffer. God reigns---his throne is undisturbed by this storm---he will +make the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder he will +restrain---his omnipotence will at length be victorious.'" + +Had weapons been used in my father's defence, death would certainly have +been his portion. As it was the mob placed a rope around him and dragged +him through the streets, intending to lynch him, until he was rescued by +the Mayor of Boston and a strong force of police. It was stated by +eyewitnesses that Mr. Garrison's composure was never ruffled during this +soul-searching experience. + +To this summary of my father's views I have added a sketch of his +personality, as I, the last of his children, knew it. Finally, I wish to +record in this volume the words of Count Tolstoy in which he affirms +that it was from my father that he learned of the doctrine of +Non-Resistance which he at once embraced, so that it is indissolubly +connected with his name. **Fanny Garrison Villard.** @@ -77,1224 +66,1041 @@ name. # William Lloyd Garrison in His Daughter's Eyes, by Fanny Garrison Villard -To put on paper one's recollections of an adored parent is -difficult. Yet it seems to me that a picture of my father's -rare personal and family life from my point of view may be -worth recording. It was an exceptional one because of the -happiness and joy which pervaded it even during the darkest -days of the anti-slavery struggle. Large means my father -never had and the care of his considerable family might well -have hampered his spirit had it not been so joyous and -serene, so fortified in the right, so certain of the -eventual triumph of the good in the world. - -Nowhere, in fact, did my father's calm temperament and sweet -disposition make itself more felt than in the home circle. -No matter how agitated and exciting his experiences in the -outside world might be, nor how uncertain his tenure of -life, he forgot it all when surrounded by his wife and -children. No man was ever blessed with a more faithful, -devoted wife; her burdens were many, but were gladly borne -for his sake. My father's testimony was that she made his -home a heaven on earth. The care of the children, which in -those days included the making of all their garments at -home, devolved wholly upon her, the family means affording -her only one servant. Besides that, her house was a hotel, -for all Abolitionists who came to Boston were made welcome -under her roof, and that was one of her great contributions -to the cause of the slave. It was, in fact, the only house -in the city which was open to them. What would she have done -without my father's help? He it was who carried the water -upstairs when water was a luxury; chopped the wood, made the -fires, blacked the boots, or, in case of need, made the -coffee, all the while singing. But his shining quality was -that of nurse, for his love of children was unbounded and -his care of them most skilful. He used to say: "I believe -that I was born into the world to take care of babies" and -the little ones were drawn to him as if by a magnet. - -In this way he smoothed and lightened my mother's -perplexities, comforting her when she feared the children -might not be worthy of their training, making light of her -anxieties, and helping her at every step. Her splendid -health and quick sense of the ludicrous made her duties -lighter than they otherwise could have been and her -beautiful presence made our home especially attractive. On -account of her injured arm it was my father who prepared the -food for the children, giving himself no time whatever for -eating until their wants were all supplied. At table he was -a most delightful host, full of conversation adapted to the -guests, and his watchful eye never failed to observe and -supply their needs. In short, it was a necessity of his -nature to be of service to some one. - -He dearly loved to take strolls in the suburbs of Boston -with friends and to point out the sites that were "Just the -place for a hotel" because the views were so beautiful. In -whatever part of the world he was he found numberless fine -spots for building and regretted that they should be -overlooked, so many people might be enjoying them. He loved -nature not less, but human beings more, and the country -alone would have been dull and uninteresting to him, in -spite of his keen appreciation of a fine landscape and -fertile fields. In a mountainous region he felt great -exaltation of spirit. Books of poetry he always had at hand -and frequently repeated to us fine passages from them. As he -possessed a peculiarly sympathetic voice the lofty -sentiments he so delighted to utter never failed to stir his -hearers. Newspaper reading absorbed much of his time, and he -was never happier than when seated in his dressing-gown -before a pile of papers, scissors in hand. My mother's sense -of order was always disturbed by the heaps of papers that -were thrown upon the floor, but she never complained and -even saved, where she might have destroyed. To her -forbearance we owe much of the material used by my brothers -in the biography of my father. His handwriting was very -handsome and so plain that he who ran could read. -Unfortunately he held his pen stiffly, and the mechanical -drudgery of writing made him dread to take one in his hand. -This increased his habit of procrastination, for which his -wife gently reproved him, and the wonder is that he, after -all, wrote so voluminously. - -It tried him to have communications for the *Liberator* -written, as he expressed it, "in hieroglyphics," and he was -patience itself with the resulting bad proofs and pitied the -compositors who had to set from such manuscripts. It puzzled -him, however, to account for the fact that even his own -clear copy was sometimes made into "pie," as the saying is. -All at the office testified to the fact that he was -gentleness and consideration itself, no matter how great the -trials, how tired and exhausted he might feel, or how -severely his back ached from bending over the forms. How -happy he would have been had he been able to dictate to a -secretary, or to use a typewriter! Even his letters to -members of his own family did not escape a certain -formality, owing to his careful habits of thought. He once -expressed himself thus: "He who attempts to appear before -the public as a reformer, should so live that all his -actions can be searched with candles and not found wanting." -When writing a speech or resolutions, his first desire was -to make them plain and simple, and thus powerful as appeals -to the heart and the understanding. As a speaker there were -occasions when, inspired by a great theme, he took his rank -as an orator. One felt that it would have been easy for him -to die for the sake of principle, but impossible for him to -swerve a hair's breadth from the line of duty. - -I was hardly more than an infant when my father came to my -crib to give me a good night kiss. He said: "What a nice -warm bed my darling has! The poor little slave child is not -so fortunate and is torn from its mother's arms. How good my -darling ought to be!" Thus early, I was taught the lesson of -pity for those less favored than myself and so tenderly that -it remains after the lapse of more than three-quarters of a -century, a moving appeal to me. I recall that I used to -stand on my father's shoulder, holding fast to his bald -head, while I learned the names of the great and good men -and women whose pictures adorned the walls of our library. -Soon, I could point them out correctly for the edification -of the family and friends. Sometimes I was permitted to sit -on a high stool at *The Liberator* office where my father's -paper was printed and play with the spaces at the -compositor's desk, a very enjoyable pastime I thought. - -As my hands were exceptionally cold in winter, I often -warmed them on my father's bald head. For a long time I -could not understand why he said: "You come to my incendiary -head, my darling, to warm your cold hands?" One day he said -to me: "I met a man this morning who thought that I had -horns." I was greatly puzzled and did my best to find them. -To many friends he said: "I love all my children best, -especially Fanny." I realize more than ever before the -happiness that was mine of being an only daughter. Once I -was asked at school if I had been baptized. Not -understanding the question, I inquired of my father when I -reached home if such was the case, to which he replied: "No, -my darling, you have had a good bath every morning and that -is a great deal better." This, I innocently told my -school-mates the next day. - -*The Liberator* went to press on Wednesday, and as my father -was then so busy that he did not take time to leave the -office for luncheon, it was my privilege to carry a lunch to -him. On such occasions he would always say: "Now you have -brought it to me, my darling, I must eat it." - -My father's call to his children on a Saturday evening to -get *The Liberator* "in advance of the mail"---that is, to -read proof with him---was always answered cheerfully by us. -When it was my turn, I was frequently rewarded by being -given a story to read---often in a supplement of the -Portland (Maine) *Transcript*---sometimes, I must confess, -much more interesting to me than the pages of *The -Liberator*. - -The general impression of my father's critics was that life -under such conditions as ours must be gloomy, but in -reality, there never was a gayer or happier family. My -father's optimistic nature and keen sense of humor could -always be relied upon and in times of financial stress he -would put his arm around my anxious mother, and walk up and -down the room with her, saying: "My dear, the Lord will -provide." - -Musical training was never vouchsafed him and he could only -pick out a melody on the piano with one hand. Therefore, he -was delighted when I was able to play accompaniments for -him. He liked to stand behind me and beat time gently on my -shoulder when singing his favorite hymns. Love of music was -indeed a vital part of my father's being. His voice waked -the household in the morning with song and made the day seem -bright and cheery, though it were ever so stormy and gloomy -outside. As a boy he sang well and could follow, as he said, -"any flute," and he had a correct ear. Anything with a -martial ring to it found an echo in his breast. When asked -how a Non-Resistant could like warlike music, he said: "It -is just as applicable to moral warfare and the army of the -Lord." When I was taught to play classical music on the -piano, he thought that I ought to give more time to what -would affect the hearts of people in general. Afterwards, -however, his taste became cultivated and he finally took -great delight in good concerts, enjoying Von Bülow and -Rubinstein and especially the women pianists, Anna Mehlig -and Mme. Essipoff; also the violinists, Ole Bull, -Wieniawski, Camillo Urso, and Wilhelmy. At the time when the -Monster Peace Jubilee concerts of 1869 and 1873 were held in -Boston, he was so full of enthusiasm and appreciation of -them that he attended almost every performance. - -The company that frequented our house was so delightful that -I never realized until I was fully grown that my father's -devotion to the cause of the slave made him socially -ostracized. I consider it great good fortune to have -listened to discussions on important reform movements of the -day by such men as Wendell Phillips, Edmund Quincy, the -saintly Samuel J. May and his cousin Samuel May and Theodore -Parker---and such women as Maria Weston Chapman---the grande -dame of the Anti-Slavery cause---Lucy Stone, Susan B. -Anthony and the gifted Grimke sisters from South -Carolina---all pioneers in both Anti-Slavery and -Suffrage---as well as hosts of other interesting people. To -us came advocates of Temperance, of the Abolition of -Slavery, of the Woman's Rights Movement, Free Religious -Thought, Prison Reform and Non-Resistance---which stood on a -far higher plane than the Pacifism of today. Many -distinguished reformers from Great Britain paid homage to my -father and were entertained at our home, always simply, as -though members of the family. It would be impossible to -express the joy that my four brothers and I felt in such an -environment. My youngest brother on being put to bed early -when guests were coming told my mother between sobs, that it -was not the supper that he cared for, but the conversation; -Anti-Slavery meetings were our theatre and opera, -Anti-Slavery debates, meat and drink to us. What we learned -was an undying devotion to the principles of justice and -humanity, never-to-be abandoned, come what may. It enabled -me, when pointed out at school as the daughter of an -"infidel," to glory in the accusation. - -I recall the visit of a stranger to my father, who, after -introducing himself, said: "Mr. Garrison, if you have -immediate emancipation you will have chaos." I looked at my -father and wondered what his reply would be. He seemed -absolutely serene and answered: "That is no concern of mine. -I know that slavery is wrong and freedom is right, but what -you will deprecate, my dear sir, will be, not the results of -freedom, but of slavery." I heard my father say during the -Civil War that if slavery went down in blood this nation -would realize that there is such a thing as retributive -justice, for two wrongs can never make a right. He regarded -human life as sacred and inviolable under all circumstances, -and he carried on the struggle for Emancipation on the basis -of Non-Resistance, losing many adherents in consequence of -it, but gaining others who shared his firm belief that we -should never do evil that good may come. - -I had the privilege of being present with my father at the -great celebration in Music Hall, Boston, of that happy -event, the signing of the Proclamation of Emancipation by -Abraham Lincoln in June, 1864. When my father saw Lincoln in -Washington after attending the National Convention for the -nomination of President and Vice-President, Mr. Lincoln told -him that he never could have written the Proclamation of -Emancipation had Mr. Garrison and his coadjutors not made -the public sentiment upon which he, Lincoln, had to rely for -his support. - -Time had brought about a complete change in the public mind -with regard to my beloved parent. He himself declared that: -"The truth is, he who commences any reform which at last -becomes one of transcendent importance and is crowned with -victory, is always ill-judged and unfairly estimated. At the -outset he is looked upon with contempt and treated in the -most opprobrious manner as a wild fanatic or a dangerous -disorganizer. In due time the cause grows and advances to -its sure triumph, and, in proportion as it nears the goal, -the popular estimate of his character changes, till, -finally, excessive panegyric is substituted for outrageous -abuse. The praise on the one hand and the defamation on the -other, are equally unmerited. In the clear light of reason, -it will be seen that he simply stood up to discharge a duty -which he owed to his God, to his fellow-men, to the land of -his nativity." - -The photographs and portraits of my father give one no idea -of his mobile countenance. He used to say: "This is fame---a -poor portrait and a worse bust------"but the bust of him -made by Anne Whitney was very good. At the time when the -City Fathers of Boston decided to erect a statue of him, -Miss Whitney competed for it and won the prize. It is -difficult to believe in these enlightened days that when it -was discovered that the prize-winner was a woman she was not -permitted to make the statue, but such was the case. Olin -Warner was the accepted sculptor and the statue that was -erected on Commonwealth Avenue is a travesty of my father. - -My husband, Henry Villard, speaks of him in his memoirs as -follows: - -"Mr. Garrison's exterior was a complete surprise to me. His -public character as the most determined, fearless -Anti-Slavery champion had so impressed me, as it did most -people, that I had supposed his outward appearance must be -in keeping with it. In other words, I had expected to see a -fighting figure of powerful build, with thick hair, full -beard and fiery defiant eyes. It seemed almost ludicrous to -behold a man of middle size, completely bald and clean -shaven, with kindly eyes behind spectacles, and instead of a -fierce, an entirely benignant expression. He appeared, -indeed, more like the typical New England minister of the -Gospel than the relentless agitator that he was. The inner -man corresponded fully to the outer one. He was forbearing, -and mildness itself, in manner and speech." - -Miss Harriet Martineau records her first meeting with my -father thus: "His aspect put to flight in an instant what -prejudices his slanderers had raised in me. I was wholly -taken by surprise. It was a countenance glowing with health -and wholly expressive of purity, animation and gentleness." - -She further said: "One day in Michigan two friends (who -happened to be Abolitionists) and I were taking a drive with -the Governor of the State who was talking of some recent -commotion, on the slavery question. 'What is Garrison like?' -said he. 'Ask Miss M.,' said the other. I was asked -accordingly and my answer was that I thought Garrison the -most bewitching personage that I had met in the United -States. The testimony of his personal friends, the closest -watchers of his life, may safely be appealed to as to the -charms of his domestic manners. Garrison gaily promised me -that he would come over whenever his work is done in the -United States. I believe that it would be safe to promise -him a hundred thousand welcomes as warm as mine." - -On the occasion of my father's first visit to England where -he arrived in June, 1833, just at the crisis of the -Anti-Slavery cause there, his mission was to expose the work -of the American Colonization Society to the friends of the -colored people in London and elsewhere in Great Britain. -Mr. William Green described him at that time as "a young man -not yet twenty-eight, without means or social standing or a -numerous following; despised, hated, hunted with a price on -his head; armed only with the blessings of an outcast race -and the credentials of an insignificant body of 'fanatics' -who was to present himself before the honorable, powerful -and world-famous advocates of British Emancipation---before -Clarkson and Wilberforce, Macaulay and Buxton." - -After arriving in London my father received an invitation to -take breakfast with Sir Fowell Buxton which he gladly -accepted and reached the house at the appointed time. When -his name was announced Mr. Buxton inquired somewhat -dubiously: "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Garrison -of Boston in the United States ?" The latter replied "Yes, -Sir, I am he, and I am here in accordance with your -invitation." Lifting up his hands Sir Fowell exclaimed: -"Why, my dear sir, I thought that you were a black man!" -Referring to this episode my father said that that was the -only compliment that he cared to remember or to tell, for -Mr. Buxton somehow or other supposed that no white American -could plead for those in bondage as he had done, therefore -he must be black. - -My father was of medium height and he became bald while -still a young man. The remnant of his hair was like fine -silk and quite black, turning gray only late in life. His -eyes were large and full, of a hazel color, hidden somewhat -by glasses, but giving an expression of great benevolence to -his countenance, and his nose was strong and well shaped. -The mouth with its firm deep lines was the feature that -indicated the dauntless courage and iron will of the man who -stood almost alone when he began the agitation which ended -in the emancipation of the slaves. It gave to his face its -intense earnestness of purpose; yet it was wonderfully -mobile and the slightest movement of the lips gave him the -kindest and sunniest of expressions. It was easy to note the -changes of his ever-varying countenance on his smoothly -shaven face. His complexion in youth was singularly white, -his cheeks "like roses in the snow," as one of his old -friends told me. He had, as long as he lived, a fine color -in spite of the fact that he was compelled to keep very -irregular hours because of his labors in the printing office -and his lecturing experiences. He held himself erect and -walked with a firm, brisk step, all his movements indicating -alertness and vigor of mind and body. - -It seems to me that it was my father's marvellously -sympathetic nature, his complete forgetfulness of self, that -drew all hearts to him. Once admitted to his presence, -friend or foe felt the magic of his winning voice, -expressive of a heart overflowing with kindness, and -prejudices melted away before his genial smile. This -endeared him to all who came in contact with him and he -invariably touched responsive chords in his listeners, were -they of high or low degree. - -The winter of 1867 m Y husband and I spent in Paris, and in -the spring my father came over as a delegate from the -American Freedman's Commission to a Paris Anti-Slavery -Conference. It was convened by the British and Foreign -Anti-Slavery Society. Afterwards he visited his numerous -friends in England who had given him unfailing support -during the days of slavery. I had the happiness of joining -him there, together with my brother Frank, and attending the -public breakfast given to my father in London on June 29, -1867, at St. James' Hall by some of the most distinguished -Englishmen of the time. John Bright presided, the Duke of -Argyle made a memorable address, and Earl Russell improved -the occasion to make open amends to the United States for -his attitude during the Rebellion, when he allowed the -Alabama to leave a British port to prey upon American -shipping. The final address was made by John Stuart -Mill---to me the culmination of that brilliant and moving -occasion. He pointed out two lessons from my father's -career. The first was; u Aim at something great; aim at -things which are difficult (and there is no great thing that -is not difficult) . If you aim at something noble and -succeed in it, you will generally find that you have -succeeded not in that alone. A hundred other good and noble -things which you never dreamed of will have been -accomplished by the way." He also said that "though our -best directed efforts may often seem wasted and lost, -nothing coming of them that can be pointed to and distinctly -identified as a definite gain to humanity; though this may -happen ninety-nine times in every hundred, the hundredth -time the result may be so great that we had never dared to -hope for it and should have regarded him who had predicted -it to us as sanguine beyond the bounds of mental sanity." - -My father's reply to the eloquent addresses made on that -occasion was wholly spontaneous and ended thus: "Now in -parting let me say, we must not allow ourselves to be -divided---England from America, America from England. By -every consideration under heaven, let us resolve to keep the -peace. If we have old grudges, let them be thrown to the -winds. Let there be peace---a true and just peace---peace by -forbearance---peace by generous concession---for the sake of -the cause of mankind, and that together England and America -may lead the nations of the world to freedom and glory. -There is your country's flag, there is mine. Let them be -blended." - -My father's Non-Resistant principles were fervently embraced -by all his children except his eldest son, George Thompson -Garrison, who, when the 54th and 55th Massachusetts -regiments were formed of colored men in the Civil War, -joined the former as a lieutenant. Before the final step was -taken my father sent the following letter to him on June ii -? 1863. It indicates more than all else, perhaps, his spirit -of tolerance and respect for the views of another---even -those of a beloved son who differed from the teaching of his -father on so vital a matter as war: "Though I could have -wished that you had been able understandingly and truly to -adopt those principles of peace which are so sacred and -divine to my soul, yet you will bear me witness that I have -not laid a straw in your way to prevent your acting up to -your own highest convictions of duty; for nothing would be -gained, but much lost, to have you violate these. Still, I -tenderly hope that you will once more seriously review the -whole matter before making the irrevocable decision...." - -Love, they say, is blind, but love for our father was -something more than that affection which commonly exists -between parents and children. It was called forth by a life -so pure, so tender, so earnest, so full of compassion and so -joyous, that being part of it, we regarded him almost as one -who had strayed from heaven to earth. Each one of us was -morally stimulated by his fidelity to principle, his -never-failing generosity and touching forgetfulness of self; -and this not only because of his devotion to many good, -though unpopular, causes, but even more for the reason that -these exceptional qualities were ours to emulate in the -daily round of our home life. A greater legacy, a richer -moral inheritance, I cannot believe was ever bestowed upon -children by both parents than that which was so abundantly -ours. - -We could not rise to the height of such a father, but we -kept, as a solemn trust, his clear vision of unbounded love -and sympathy for those suffering from cruelty and injustice. -If it were only possible to give an approximate idea of so -remarkable and lovely a personality and the secret of its -charm my self-imposed task would be easy. But any attempt to -do so must necessarily fall short of the truth, however -imperishable the memory of it. +To put on paper one's recollections of an adored parent is difficult. +Yet it seems to me that a picture of my father's rare personal and +family life from my point of view may be worth recording. It was an +exceptional one because of the happiness and joy which pervaded it even +during the darkest days of the anti-slavery struggle. Large means my +father never had and the care of his considerable family might well have +hampered his spirit had it not been so joyous and serene, so fortified +in the right, so certain of the eventual triumph of the good in the +world. + +Nowhere, in fact, did my father's calm temperament and sweet disposition +make itself more felt than in the home circle. No matter how agitated +and exciting his experiences in the outside world might be, nor how +uncertain his tenure of life, he forgot it all when surrounded by his +wife and children. No man was ever blessed with a more faithful, devoted +wife; her burdens were many, but were gladly borne for his sake. My +father's testimony was that she made his home a heaven on earth. The +care of the children, which in those days included the making of all +their garments at home, devolved wholly upon her, the family means +affording her only one servant. Besides that, her house was a hotel, for +all Abolitionists who came to Boston were made welcome under her roof, +and that was one of her great contributions to the cause of the slave. +It was, in fact, the only house in the city which was open to them. What +would she have done without my father's help? He it was who carried the +water upstairs when water was a luxury; chopped the wood, made the +fires, blacked the boots, or, in case of need, made the coffee, all the +while singing. But his shining quality was that of nurse, for his love +of children was unbounded and his care of them most skilful. He used to +say: "I believe that I was born into the world to take care of babies" +and the little ones were drawn to him as if by a magnet. + +In this way he smoothed and lightened my mother's perplexities, +comforting her when she feared the children might not be worthy of their +training, making light of her anxieties, and helping her at every step. +Her splendid health and quick sense of the ludicrous made her duties +lighter than they otherwise could have been and her beautiful presence +made our home especially attractive. On account of her injured arm it +was my father who prepared the food for the children, giving himself no +time whatever for eating until their wants were all supplied. At table +he was a most delightful host, full of conversation adapted to the +guests, and his watchful eye never failed to observe and supply their +needs. In short, it was a necessity of his nature to be of service to +some one. + +He dearly loved to take strolls in the suburbs of Boston with friends +and to point out the sites that were "Just the place for a hotel" +because the views were so beautiful. In whatever part of the world he +was he found numberless fine spots for building and regretted that they +should be overlooked, so many people might be enjoying them. He loved +nature not less, but human beings more, and the country alone would have +been dull and uninteresting to him, in spite of his keen appreciation of +a fine landscape and fertile fields. In a mountainous region he felt +great exaltation of spirit. Books of poetry he always had at hand and +frequently repeated to us fine passages from them. As he possessed a +peculiarly sympathetic voice the lofty sentiments he so delighted to +utter never failed to stir his hearers. Newspaper reading absorbed much +of his time, and he was never happier than when seated in his +dressing-gown before a pile of papers, scissors in hand. My mother's +sense of order was always disturbed by the heaps of papers that were +thrown upon the floor, but she never complained and even saved, where +she might have destroyed. To her forbearance we owe much of the material +used by my brothers in the biography of my father. His handwriting was +very handsome and so plain that he who ran could read. Unfortunately he +held his pen stiffly, and the mechanical drudgery of writing made him +dread to take one in his hand. This increased his habit of +procrastination, for which his wife gently reproved him, and the wonder +is that he, after all, wrote so voluminously. + +It tried him to have communications for the *Liberator* written, as he +expressed it, "in hieroglyphics," and he was patience itself with the +resulting bad proofs and pitied the compositors who had to set from such +manuscripts. It puzzled him, however, to account for the fact that even +his own clear copy was sometimes made into "pie," as the saying is. All +at the office testified to the fact that he was gentleness and +consideration itself, no matter how great the trials, how tired and +exhausted he might feel, or how severely his back ached from bending +over the forms. How happy he would have been had he been able to dictate +to a secretary, or to use a typewriter! Even his letters to members of +his own family did not escape a certain formality, owing to his careful +habits of thought. He once expressed himself thus: "He who attempts to +appear before the public as a reformer, should so live that all his +actions can be searched with candles and not found wanting." When +writing a speech or resolutions, his first desire was to make them plain +and simple, and thus powerful as appeals to the heart and the +understanding. As a speaker there were occasions when, inspired by a +great theme, he took his rank as an orator. One felt that it would have +been easy for him to die for the sake of principle, but impossible for +him to swerve a hair's breadth from the line of duty. + +I was hardly more than an infant when my father came to my crib to give +me a good night kiss. He said: "What a nice warm bed my darling has! The +poor little slave child is not so fortunate and is torn from its +mother's arms. How good my darling ought to be!" Thus early, I was +taught the lesson of pity for those less favored than myself and so +tenderly that it remains after the lapse of more than three-quarters of +a century, a moving appeal to me. I recall that I used to stand on my +father's shoulder, holding fast to his bald head, while I learned the +names of the great and good men and women whose pictures adorned the +walls of our library. Soon, I could point them out correctly for the +edification of the family and friends. Sometimes I was permitted to sit +on a high stool at *The Liberator* office where my father's paper was +printed and play with the spaces at the compositor's desk, a very +enjoyable pastime I thought. + +As my hands were exceptionally cold in winter, I often warmed them on my +father's bald head. For a long time I could not understand why he said: +"You come to my incendiary head, my darling, to warm your cold hands?" +One day he said to me: "I met a man this morning who thought that I had +horns." I was greatly puzzled and did my best to find them. To many +friends he said: "I love all my children best, especially Fanny." I +realize more than ever before the happiness that was mine of being an +only daughter. Once I was asked at school if I had been baptized. Not +understanding the question, I inquired of my father when I reached home +if such was the case, to which he replied: "No, my darling, you have had +a good bath every morning and that is a great deal better." This, I +innocently told my school-mates the next day. + +*The Liberator* went to press on Wednesday, and as my father was then so +busy that he did not take time to leave the office for luncheon, it was +my privilege to carry a lunch to him. On such occasions he would always +say: "Now you have brought it to me, my darling, I must eat it." + +My father's call to his children on a Saturday evening to get *The +Liberator* "in advance of the mail"---that is, to read proof with +him---was always answered cheerfully by us. When it was my turn, I was +frequently rewarded by being given a story to read---often in a +supplement of the Portland (Maine) *Transcript*---sometimes, I must +confess, much more interesting to me than the pages of *The Liberator*. + +The general impression of my father's critics was that life under such +conditions as ours must be gloomy, but in reality, there never was a +gayer or happier family. My father's optimistic nature and keen sense of +humor could always be relied upon and in times of financial stress he +would put his arm around my anxious mother, and walk up and down the +room with her, saying: "My dear, the Lord will provide." + +Musical training was never vouchsafed him and he could only pick out a +melody on the piano with one hand. Therefore, he was delighted when I +was able to play accompaniments for him. He liked to stand behind me and +beat time gently on my shoulder when singing his favorite hymns. Love of +music was indeed a vital part of my father's being. His voice waked the +household in the morning with song and made the day seem bright and +cheery, though it were ever so stormy and gloomy outside. As a boy he +sang well and could follow, as he said, "any flute," and he had a +correct ear. Anything with a martial ring to it found an echo in his +breast. When asked how a Non-Resistant could like warlike music, he +said: "It is just as applicable to moral warfare and the army of the +Lord." When I was taught to play classical music on the piano, he +thought that I ought to give more time to what would affect the hearts +of people in general. Afterwards, however, his taste became cultivated +and he finally took great delight in good concerts, enjoying Von Bülow +and Rubinstein and especially the women pianists, Anna Mehlig and Mme. +Essipoff; also the violinists, Ole Bull, Wieniawski, Camillo Urso, and +Wilhelmy. At the time when the Monster Peace Jubilee concerts of 1869 +and 1873 were held in Boston, he was so full of enthusiasm and +appreciation of them that he attended almost every performance. + +The company that frequented our house was so delightful that I never +realized until I was fully grown that my father's devotion to the cause +of the slave made him socially ostracized. I consider it great good +fortune to have listened to discussions on important reform movements of +the day by such men as Wendell Phillips, Edmund Quincy, the saintly +Samuel J. May and his cousin Samuel May and Theodore Parker---and such +women as Maria Weston Chapman---the grande dame of the Anti-Slavery +cause---Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony and the gifted Grimke sisters from +South Carolina---all pioneers in both Anti-Slavery and Suffrage---as +well as hosts of other interesting people. To us came advocates of +Temperance, of the Abolition of Slavery, of the Woman's Rights Movement, +Free Religious Thought, Prison Reform and Non-Resistance---which stood +on a far higher plane than the Pacifism of today. Many distinguished +reformers from Great Britain paid homage to my father and were +entertained at our home, always simply, as though members of the family. +It would be impossible to express the joy that my four brothers and I +felt in such an environment. My youngest brother on being put to bed +early when guests were coming told my mother between sobs, that it was +not the supper that he cared for, but the conversation; Anti-Slavery +meetings were our theatre and opera, Anti-Slavery debates, meat and +drink to us. What we learned was an undying devotion to the principles +of justice and humanity, never-to-be abandoned, come what may. It +enabled me, when pointed out at school as the daughter of an "infidel," +to glory in the accusation. + +I recall the visit of a stranger to my father, who, after introducing +himself, said: "Mr. Garrison, if you have immediate emancipation you +will have chaos." I looked at my father and wondered what his reply +would be. He seemed absolutely serene and answered: "That is no concern +of mine. I know that slavery is wrong and freedom is right, but what you +will deprecate, my dear sir, will be, not the results of freedom, but of +slavery." I heard my father say during the Civil War that if slavery +went down in blood this nation would realize that there is such a thing +as retributive justice, for two wrongs can never make a right. He +regarded human life as sacred and inviolable under all circumstances, +and he carried on the struggle for Emancipation on the basis of +Non-Resistance, losing many adherents in consequence of it, but gaining +others who shared his firm belief that we should never do evil that good +may come. + +I had the privilege of being present with my father at the great +celebration in Music Hall, Boston, of that happy event, the signing of +the Proclamation of Emancipation by Abraham Lincoln in June, 1864. When +my father saw Lincoln in Washington after attending the National +Convention for the nomination of President and Vice-President, +Mr. Lincoln told him that he never could have written the Proclamation +of Emancipation had Mr. Garrison and his coadjutors not made the public +sentiment upon which he, Lincoln, had to rely for his support. + +Time had brought about a complete change in the public mind with regard +to my beloved parent. He himself declared that: "The truth is, he who +commences any reform which at last becomes one of transcendent +importance and is crowned with victory, is always ill-judged and +unfairly estimated. At the outset he is looked upon with contempt and +treated in the most opprobrious manner as a wild fanatic or a dangerous +disorganizer. In due time the cause grows and advances to its sure +triumph, and, in proportion as it nears the goal, the popular estimate +of his character changes, till, finally, excessive panegyric is +substituted for outrageous abuse. The praise on the one hand and the +defamation on the other, are equally unmerited. In the clear light of +reason, it will be seen that he simply stood up to discharge a duty +which he owed to his God, to his fellow-men, to the land of his +nativity." + +The photographs and portraits of my father give one no idea of his +mobile countenance. He used to say: "This is fame---a poor portrait and +a worse bust------"but the bust of him made by Anne Whitney was very +good. At the time when the City Fathers of Boston decided to erect a +statue of him, Miss Whitney competed for it and won the prize. It is +difficult to believe in these enlightened days that when it was +discovered that the prize-winner was a woman she was not permitted to +make the statue, but such was the case. Olin Warner was the accepted +sculptor and the statue that was erected on Commonwealth Avenue is a +travesty of my father. + +My husband, Henry Villard, speaks of him in his memoirs as follows: + +"Mr. Garrison's exterior was a complete surprise to me. His public +character as the most determined, fearless Anti-Slavery champion had so +impressed me, as it did most people, that I had supposed his outward +appearance must be in keeping with it. In other words, I had expected to +see a fighting figure of powerful build, with thick hair, full beard and +fiery defiant eyes. It seemed almost ludicrous to behold a man of middle +size, completely bald and clean shaven, with kindly eyes behind +spectacles, and instead of a fierce, an entirely benignant expression. +He appeared, indeed, more like the typical New England minister of the +Gospel than the relentless agitator that he was. The inner man +corresponded fully to the outer one. He was forbearing, and mildness +itself, in manner and speech." + +Miss Harriet Martineau records her first meeting with my father thus: +"His aspect put to flight in an instant what prejudices his slanderers +had raised in me. I was wholly taken by surprise. It was a countenance +glowing with health and wholly expressive of purity, animation and +gentleness." + +She further said: "One day in Michigan two friends (who happened to be +Abolitionists) and I were taking a drive with the Governor of the State +who was talking of some recent commotion, on the slavery question. 'What +is Garrison like?' said he. 'Ask Miss M.,' said the other. I was asked +accordingly and my answer was that I thought Garrison the most +bewitching personage that I had met in the United States. The testimony +of his personal friends, the closest watchers of his life, may safely be +appealed to as to the charms of his domestic manners. Garrison gaily +promised me that he would come over whenever his work is done in the +United States. I believe that it would be safe to promise him a hundred +thousand welcomes as warm as mine." + +On the occasion of my father's first visit to England where he arrived +in June, 1833, just at the crisis of the Anti-Slavery cause there, his +mission was to expose the work of the American Colonization Society to +the friends of the colored people in London and elsewhere in Great +Britain. Mr. William Green described him at that time as "a young man +not yet twenty-eight, without means or social standing or a numerous +following; despised, hated, hunted with a price on his head; armed only +with the blessings of an outcast race and the credentials of an +insignificant body of 'fanatics' who was to present himself before the +honorable, powerful and world-famous advocates of British +Emancipation---before Clarkson and Wilberforce, Macaulay and Buxton." + +After arriving in London my father received an invitation to take +breakfast with Sir Fowell Buxton which he gladly accepted and reached +the house at the appointed time. When his name was announced Mr. Buxton +inquired somewhat dubiously: "Have I the pleasure of addressing +Mr. Garrison of Boston in the United States ?" The latter replied "Yes, +Sir, I am he, and I am here in accordance with your invitation." Lifting +up his hands Sir Fowell exclaimed: "Why, my dear sir, I thought that you +were a black man!" Referring to this episode my father said that that +was the only compliment that he cared to remember or to tell, for +Mr. Buxton somehow or other supposed that no white American could plead +for those in bondage as he had done, therefore he must be black. + +My father was of medium height and he became bald while still a young +man. The remnant of his hair was like fine silk and quite black, turning +gray only late in life. His eyes were large and full, of a hazel color, +hidden somewhat by glasses, but giving an expression of great +benevolence to his countenance, and his nose was strong and well shaped. +The mouth with its firm deep lines was the feature that indicated the +dauntless courage and iron will of the man who stood almost alone when +he began the agitation which ended in the emancipation of the slaves. It +gave to his face its intense earnestness of purpose; yet it was +wonderfully mobile and the slightest movement of the lips gave him the +kindest and sunniest of expressions. It was easy to note the changes of +his ever-varying countenance on his smoothly shaven face. His complexion +in youth was singularly white, his cheeks "like roses in the snow," as +one of his old friends told me. He had, as long as he lived, a fine +color in spite of the fact that he was compelled to keep very irregular +hours because of his labors in the printing office and his lecturing +experiences. He held himself erect and walked with a firm, brisk step, +all his movements indicating alertness and vigor of mind and body. + +It seems to me that it was my father's marvellously sympathetic nature, +his complete forgetfulness of self, that drew all hearts to him. Once +admitted to his presence, friend or foe felt the magic of his winning +voice, expressive of a heart overflowing with kindness, and prejudices +melted away before his genial smile. This endeared him to all who came +in contact with him and he invariably touched responsive chords in his +listeners, were they of high or low degree. + +The winter of 1867 m Y husband and I spent in Paris, and in the spring +my father came over as a delegate from the American Freedman's +Commission to a Paris Anti-Slavery Conference. It was convened by the +British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Afterwards he visited his +numerous friends in England who had given him unfailing support during +the days of slavery. I had the happiness of joining him there, together +with my brother Frank, and attending the public breakfast given to my +father in London on June 29, 1867, at St. James' Hall by some of the +most distinguished Englishmen of the time. John Bright presided, the +Duke of Argyle made a memorable address, and Earl Russell improved the +occasion to make open amends to the United States for his attitude +during the Rebellion, when he allowed the Alabama to leave a British +port to prey upon American shipping. The final address was made by John +Stuart Mill---to me the culmination of that brilliant and moving +occasion. He pointed out two lessons from my father's career. The first +was; u Aim at something great; aim at things which are difficult (and +there is no great thing that is not difficult) . If you aim at something +noble and succeed in it, you will generally find that you have succeeded +not in that alone. A hundred other good and noble things which you never +dreamed of will have been accomplished by the way." He also said that +"though our best directed efforts may often seem wasted and lost, +nothing coming of them that can be pointed to and distinctly identified +as a definite gain to humanity; though this may happen ninety-nine times +in every hundred, the hundredth time the result may be so great that we +had never dared to hope for it and should have regarded him who had +predicted it to us as sanguine beyond the bounds of mental sanity." + +My father's reply to the eloquent addresses made on that occasion was +wholly spontaneous and ended thus: "Now in parting let me say, we must +not allow ourselves to be divided---England from America, America from +England. By every consideration under heaven, let us resolve to keep the +peace. If we have old grudges, let them be thrown to the winds. Let +there be peace---a true and just peace---peace by forbearance---peace by +generous concession---for the sake of the cause of mankind, and that +together England and America may lead the nations of the world to +freedom and glory. There is your country's flag, there is mine. Let them +be blended." + +My father's Non-Resistant principles were fervently embraced by all his +children except his eldest son, George Thompson Garrison, who, when the +54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments were formed of colored men in the +Civil War, joined the former as a lieutenant. Before the final step was +taken my father sent the following letter to him on June ii ? 1863. It +indicates more than all else, perhaps, his spirit of tolerance and +respect for the views of another---even those of a beloved son who +differed from the teaching of his father on so vital a matter as war: +"Though I could have wished that you had been able understandingly and +truly to adopt those principles of peace which are so sacred and divine +to my soul, yet you will bear me witness that I have not laid a straw in +your way to prevent your acting up to your own highest convictions of +duty; for nothing would be gained, but much lost, to have you violate +these. Still, I tenderly hope that you will once more seriously review +the whole matter before making the irrevocable decision...." + +Love, they say, is blind, but love for our father was something more +than that affection which commonly exists between parents and children. +It was called forth by a life so pure, so tender, so earnest, so full of +compassion and so joyous, that being part of it, we regarded him almost +as one who had strayed from heaven to earth. Each one of us was morally +stimulated by his fidelity to principle, his never-failing generosity +and touching forgetfulness of self; and this not only because of his +devotion to many good, though unpopular, causes, but even more for the +reason that these exceptional qualities were ours to emulate in the +daily round of our home life. A greater legacy, a richer moral +inheritance, I cannot believe was ever bestowed upon children by both +parents than that which was so abundantly ours. + +We could not rise to the height of such a father, but we kept, as a +solemn trust, his clear vision of unbounded love and sympathy for those +suffering from cruelty and injustice. If it were only possible to give +an approximate idea of so remarkable and lovely a personality and the +secret of its charm my self-imposed task would be easy. But any attempt +to do so must necessarily fall short of the truth, however imperishable +the memory of it. # William Lloyd Garrison on Non-Resistance -As early as August 30, 1838, Mr. Garrison wrote to his -intimate friend and coadjutor, Samuel J. May, of Leicester, -Mass. as follows in regard to the peace convention to be -held in Boston on Sept. 18-20 of that year: - -"We shall probably find no difficulty in bringing a large -majority of the Convention to set their seal of condemnation -upon the present militia system and its ridiculous and -pernicious accompaniments. They will also, I presume, -reprobate all wars, defensive as well as offensive. They -will not agree so cordially as to the inviolability of human -life. But few, I think, will be ready to concede that -Christianity forbids the use of physical force in the -punishment of evil-doers; yet nothing is plainer to my -understanding or more congenial to the feelings of my heart. - -"... I feel the excellence and sublimity of that precept -which bids me pray for those who despitefully use me; and -that other precept which enjoins upon me when smitten on the -one cheek to turn the other also. - -"... We degrade our spirits in a brutal conflict. To talk of -courts of justice and of punishing evil and disobedient -men---of protecting the weak and avenging the wronged by a -posse comitatus or a company of soldiers---has a taking -sound but it is hollow in my ears." - -A part of the "Declaration of Sentiments" adopted by this -Peace Convention in Boston, on September 18th, 19th and -20th, 1838, which was written by Mr. Garrison at a single -sitting on the forenoon of the 20th of September is as -follows: - -"Assembled in Convention, from various sections of the -American Union, for the promotion of peace on earth and -good-will among men, we, the undersigned, regard it as due -to ourselves, to the cause which we love, to the country in -which we live, and to the world, to publish a Declaration, -expressive of the principles we cherish, the purposes we aim -to accomplish, and the measures we shall adopt to carry -forward the work of peaceful, universal reformation. - -"Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. -We love the land of our nativity only as we love all other -lands. The interests, rights, liberties of American citizens -are no more dear to us than are those of the whole human -race. Hence, we can allow no appeal to patriotism, to -revenge any national insult or injury. The Prince of Peace, -under whose stainless banner we rally, came not to destroy, -but to save, even the worst of enemies. - -"We conceive that if a nation has no right to defend itself -against foreign enemies, or to punish its invaders, no -individual possesses that right in his own case. The unit -cannot be of greater importance than the aggregate. If one -man may take life, to obtain or defend his rights, the same -license must necessarily be granted to the communities, -states and nations. If he may use a dagger or a pistol, they -may employ cannon, bombshells, land and naval forces. The -means of self-preservation must be in proportion to the -magnitude of interests at stake and the number of lives -exposed to destruction. But if a rapacious and bloodthirsty -soldiery, thronging these shores from abroad, with intent to -commit rapine and destroy life, may not be resisted by the -people or magistracy, then ought no resistance to be offered -to domestic troublers of the public peace or of private -security. No obligation can rest upon Americans to regard -foreigners as more sacred in their persons than themselves, -or to give them a monopoly of wrong-doing with impunity. - -"The dogma that all the governments of the world are -approvingly ordained of God, and that the powers that be in -the United States, in Russia, in Turkey, are in accordance -with His will, is not less absurd than impious. It makes the -impartial Author of human freedom and equality unequal and -tyrannical. - -"We register our testimony, not only against all wars, -whether offensive or defensive, but all preparations for -war; against every naval ship, every arsenal, every -fortification; against the militia system and a standing -army; against all military chieftains and soldiers; against -all monuments commemorative of victory over a fallen foe, -all trophies won in battle, all celebrations in honor of -military or naval exploits; against all appropriations for -the defence of a nation by force and arms, on the part of -any legislative body; against every edict of government -requiring of its subjects military service. Hence we deem it +As early as August 30, 1838, Mr. Garrison wrote to his intimate friend +and coadjutor, Samuel J. May, of Leicester, Mass. as follows in regard +to the peace convention to be held in Boston on Sept. 18-20 of that +year: + +"We shall probably find no difficulty in bringing a large majority of +the Convention to set their seal of condemnation upon the present +militia system and its ridiculous and pernicious accompaniments. They +will also, I presume, reprobate all wars, defensive as well as +offensive. They will not agree so cordially as to the inviolability of +human life. But few, I think, will be ready to concede that Christianity +forbids the use of physical force in the punishment of evil-doers; yet +nothing is plainer to my understanding or more congenial to the feelings +of my heart. + +"... I feel the excellence and sublimity of that precept which bids me +pray for those who despitefully use me; and that other precept which +enjoins upon me when smitten on the one cheek to turn the other also. + +"... We degrade our spirits in a brutal conflict. To talk of courts of +justice and of punishing evil and disobedient men---of protecting the +weak and avenging the wronged by a posse comitatus or a company of +soldiers---has a taking sound but it is hollow in my ears." + +A part of the "Declaration of Sentiments" adopted by this Peace +Convention in Boston, on September 18th, 19th and 20th, 1838, which was +written by Mr. Garrison at a single sitting on the forenoon of the 20th +of September is as follows: + +"Assembled in Convention, from various sections of the American Union, +for the promotion of peace on earth and good-will among men, we, the +undersigned, regard it as due to ourselves, to the cause which we love, +to the country in which we live, and to the world, to publish a +Declaration, expressive of the principles we cherish, the purposes we +aim to accomplish, and the measures we shall adopt to carry forward the +work of peaceful, universal reformation. + +"Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love the +land of our nativity only as we love all other lands. The interests, +rights, liberties of American citizens are no more dear to us than are +those of the whole human race. Hence, we can allow no appeal to +patriotism, to revenge any national insult or injury. The Prince of +Peace, under whose stainless banner we rally, came not to destroy, but +to save, even the worst of enemies. + +"We conceive that if a nation has no right to defend itself against +foreign enemies, or to punish its invaders, no individual possesses that +right in his own case. The unit cannot be of greater importance than the +aggregate. If one man may take life, to obtain or defend his rights, the +same license must necessarily be granted to the communities, states and +nations. If he may use a dagger or a pistol, they may employ cannon, +bombshells, land and naval forces. The means of self-preservation must +be in proportion to the magnitude of interests at stake and the number +of lives exposed to destruction. But if a rapacious and bloodthirsty +soldiery, thronging these shores from abroad, with intent to commit +rapine and destroy life, may not be resisted by the people or +magistracy, then ought no resistance to be offered to domestic troublers +of the public peace or of private security. No obligation can rest upon +Americans to regard foreigners as more sacred in their persons than +themselves, or to give them a monopoly of wrong-doing with impunity. + +"The dogma that all the governments of the world are approvingly +ordained of God, and that the powers that be in the United States, in +Russia, in Turkey, are in accordance with His will, is not less absurd +than impious. It makes the impartial Author of human freedom and +equality unequal and tyrannical. + +"We register our testimony, not only against all wars, whether offensive +or defensive, but all preparations for war; against every naval ship, +every arsenal, every fortification; against the militia system and a +standing army; against all military chieftains and soldiers; against all +monuments commemorative of victory over a fallen foe, all trophies won +in battle, all celebrations in honor of military or naval exploits; +against all appropriations for the defence of a nation by force and +arms, on the part of any legislative body; against every edict of +government requiring of its subjects military service. Hence we deem it unlawful to bear arms or to hold a military office. -"The history of mankind is crowded with evidences proving -that physical coercion is not adapted to moral regeneration; -that the sinful dispositions of men can be subdued only by -love; that evil can be exterminated from the earth only by -goodness; that it is not safe to rely upon an arm of flesh, -upon man whose breath is in his nostrils, to preserve us -from harm; that there is great security in being gentle, -harmless, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy; that it is -only the meek who shall inherit the earth, for the violent -who resort to the sword are destined to perish with the -sword. Hence as a measure of sound policy---of safety to -property, life, and liberty---of public quietude and private -enjoyment---as well as on the ground of allegiance to Him -who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, we cordially adopt -the Non-Resistance principle, being confident that it -provides for all possible consequences, will ensure all -things needful to us, is armed with omnipotent power, and -must ultimately triumph over every assailing force. - -"If we abide by our principles, it is impossible for us to -be disorderly, or plot treason, or participate in any evil -work; we shall submit to every ordinance of man; obey all -the requirements of Government, except such as we deem -contrary to the commands of the gospel, and in no case -resist the operation of the law, except by meekly submitting -to the penalty of disobedience. - -"But, while we shall adhere to the doctrine of -Non-Resistance and passive submission to enemies, we -purpose, in a moral and spiritual sense, to speak and act -boldly; to assail iniquity, in high places and in low -places; to apply our principles to all existing civil, -political, legal and ecclesiastical institutions. - -"It appears to us a self-evident truth, that, whatever the -gospel is designed to destroy at any period of the world, -being contrary to it, ought now to be abandoned. - -"We expect to prevail through the foolishness of -preaching---striving to commend ourselves unto every man's -conscience, in the sight of God. From the press we shall -promulgate our sentiments as widely as practicable. We shall -endeavor to secure the cooperation of all persons, of -whatever name or sect. The triumphant progress of the cause -of Temperance and of Abolition in our land, through the -instrumentality of benevolent and voluntary associations, -encourages us to combine our own means and efforts for the -promotion of a still greater cause. Hence, we shall employ -lecturers, circulate tracts and publications, form -societies, and petition our State and national governments, -in relation to the subject of *universal peace*. It will be -our leading object to devise ways and means for effecting a -radical change in the views, feelings and practices of -society, respecting the sinfulness of war and the treatment +"The history of mankind is crowded with evidences proving that physical +coercion is not adapted to moral regeneration; that the sinful +dispositions of men can be subdued only by love; that evil can be +exterminated from the earth only by goodness; that it is not safe to +rely upon an arm of flesh, upon man whose breath is in his nostrils, to +preserve us from harm; that there is great security in being gentle, +harmless, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy; that it is only the +meek who shall inherit the earth, for the violent who resort to the +sword are destined to perish with the sword. Hence as a measure of sound +policy---of safety to property, life, and liberty---of public quietude +and private enjoyment---as well as on the ground of allegiance to Him +who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, we cordially adopt the +Non-Resistance principle, being confident that it provides for all +possible consequences, will ensure all things needful to us, is armed +with omnipotent power, and must ultimately triumph over every assailing +force. + +"If we abide by our principles, it is impossible for us to be +disorderly, or plot treason, or participate in any evil work; we shall +submit to every ordinance of man; obey all the requirements of +Government, except such as we deem contrary to the commands of the +gospel, and in no case resist the operation of the law, except by meekly +submitting to the penalty of disobedience. + +"But, while we shall adhere to the doctrine of Non-Resistance and +passive submission to enemies, we purpose, in a moral and spiritual +sense, to speak and act boldly; to assail iniquity, in high places and +in low places; to apply our principles to all existing civil, political, +legal and ecclesiastical institutions. + +"It appears to us a self-evident truth, that, whatever the gospel is +designed to destroy at any period of the world, being contrary to it, +ought now to be abandoned. + +"We expect to prevail through the foolishness of preaching---striving to +commend ourselves unto every man's conscience, in the sight of God. From +the press we shall promulgate our sentiments as widely as practicable. +We shall endeavor to secure the cooperation of all persons, of whatever +name or sect. The triumphant progress of the cause of Temperance and of +Abolition in our land, through the instrumentality of benevolent and +voluntary associations, encourages us to combine our own means and +efforts for the promotion of a still greater cause. Hence, we shall +employ lecturers, circulate tracts and publications, form societies, and +petition our State and national governments, in relation to the subject +of *universal peace*. It will be our leading object to devise ways and +means for effecting a radical change in the views, feelings and +practices of society, respecting the sinfulness of war and the treatment of enemies. -"In entering upon the great work before us, we are not -unmindful that, in its prosecution, we may be called to test -our sincerity, even as in a fiery ordeal. It may subject us -to insult, outrage, suffering, yea, even death itself. We -anticipate no small amount of misconception, +"In entering upon the great work before us, we are not unmindful that, +in its prosecution, we may be called to test our sincerity, even as in a +fiery ordeal. It may subject us to insult, outrage, suffering, yea, even +death itself. We anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, calumny. -"Firmly relying upon the certain and universal triumph of -the sentiments contained in this Declaration, however -formidable may be the opposition arrayed against them---in -solemn testimony of our faith in their divine origin---we -hereby affix our signatures to it; commending it to the -reason and conscience of mankind, giving ourselves no -anxiety as to what may befall us." - -On another occasion Mr. Garrison said of this Declaration: -"This instrument contemplates nothing, repudiates nothing, -but the spirit of violence in thought, word and deed. -Whatever, therefore, may be done without provoking that -spirit, and in accordance with the spirit of disinterested -benevolence, is not touched or alluded to in the instrument. -The sum total of affirmation is this---that, we are -resolved, come what may, as Christians, to have -long-suffering toward those who may despitefully use and -persecute us---to pray for them---to forgive them in all -cases. This is the head and front of our offending---nothing -more, nothing less." - -Referring to the work of this convention, Mr. Garrison wrote -as follows: "Our Non-Resistance Convention is over, and the -peace and blessing of heaven have attended our -deliberations. Such a mass of free mind as was brought -together I have never seen before in any one assembly. 'Not -many mighty,' 'not many rich,' 'not many honorable' were -found among us---of course; but there was much talent, and a -great deal of soul. Not a single set speech was made by -anyone, but everyone spoke in a familiar manner, just as -though we constituted but a mere social party." - -As a matter of course, the new peace organization received -the condemnation of the religious press, with hardly an -exception, and especially that of the American Peace Society -and the New York Peace Society. - -Replying to a correspondent Mr. Garrison declared that -"Non-Resistance is not a state of passivity, on the -contrary, it is a state of activity, ever fighting the good -fight of faith, ever foremost to assail unjust power, ever -struggling for 'liberty, equality, fraternity,' in no -national sense, but in a world-wide spirit. It is passive -only in this sense---that it will not return evil for evil, -nor give blow for blow, nor resort to murderous weapons for -protection or defense." - -The author of the Declaration of Sentiments then asks "On -what are right and wrong dependent? On recorded -declarations? On ancient parchments or modern manuscripts? -On sacred books? No. Though every parchment, manuscript and -book in the world were given to the consuming fire, the loss -would not in the least affect the right or wrong of moral -actions. Truth and duty, the principle of justice and -equity, the obligations of mercy and brotherly kindness, are -older than all books, and more enduring than tablets of -stone... - -"The question at issue is---war, its nature, tendencies, -results: war, whether in ancient or modern times, whether -under the Jewish or Christian dispensation; is it right? was -it ever justifiable?... - -"Why should we go to a book to settle the character of war -when we could judge of it by its fruits?... - -"War is as capable of moral analysis as slavery, -intemperance, licentiousness, or idolatry. It is not an -abstraction, which admits of doubt or uncertainty, but as -tangible as bombs, cannon, mangled corpses, smouldering -ruins, desolated towns and villages, rivers of blood. It is -substantially the same in all ages, and cannot change its -moral features. To trace it in all its ramifications is not -a difficult matter. In fact, nothing is more terribly -distinct than its career; it leaves its impress on -everything it touches, whether physical, mental, or moral. -Why, then, not look it in the face? Why look anywhere else?" - -Mr. Garrison presided at a Non-Resistance Convention held in -Worcester on March 24 and 25, 1854, and drew up several -resolutions, one of them being the following: - -"Resolved, that the plan of supporting governments by -tariffs and other indirect taxes, is a cunning contrivance -of tyrants to enable them to attain their ambitions and -bloody aims without exciting the alarm of the people by a -direct appeal to their pockets; therefore, one most potent -way to put an end to war and tyranny is to abolish all -tariffs and indirect taxes and substitute free trade and -direct taxation as the means of sustaining political -institutions." - -In May, 1838, just after the dedication of Marlboro' Chapel, -which was founded in Boston "mainly by Abolitionists, upon -the rock of universal emancipation, and to advance the cause -of humanity and free discussion," Mr. Garrison wrote to -George W. Benson: "The spirit of mobocracy, like the -pestilence, is contagious; and Boston is once more ready to -re-enact the riotous scenes of 1835. The Marlboro' Chapel, -having just been completed, and standing in relation to our -cause just as did Pennsylvania Hall, is an object of -pro-slavery malevolence. Ever since my return, threats have -been given out that the Chapel should share the fate of the -Hall. Last evening was the time for its dedication; and, so -threatening was the aspect of things, four companies of -light infantry were ordered to be in readiness, each being -provided with 100 *ball* cartridges, to rush to the scene of -riot on the tolling of the bells. The lancers, a powerful -body of horsemen, were also in readiness. During the day -placards were posted at the corners of the streets, -denouncing the Abolitionists, and calling upon the citizens -to rally at the Chapel in the evening, in order to put them -down... Non-Resistance versus brickbats and bowie-knives. -Omnipotence against a worm of the dust. Divine law against -lynch law. How unequal!" - -Commenting upon Henry Ward Beecher's statement that u there -are those who will scoff at the idea of holding a sword or a -rifle, in a Christian state of mind," Mr. Garrison wrote in -the *Liberator:* "We know not where to look for Christianity -if not to its founder; and, taking the record of his life -and death, of his teaching and example, we can discover -nothing which even remotely, under any conceivable -circumstances, justifies the use of the sword or rifle on -the part of his followers; on the contrary, we find nothing -but self-sacrifice, willing martyrdom (if need be), peace -and good-will and the prohibition of all retaliatory -feelings, enjoined upon all who would be his disciples. When -he said: 'Fear not those who kill the body,' he broke every -deadly weapon. When he said: 'My kingdom is not of this -world, else would my servants fight that I should not be -delivered to the Jews,' he plainly prohibited war in -self-defence and substituted martyrdom therefore. When he -said 'Love your enemies,' he did not mean 'Kill them if they -go too far.' When he said, while expiring on the cross: -'Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,' he -did not treat them as"a herd of buffaloes," but as poor, -misguided and lost men. We believe in his philosophy; we -accept his instruction; we are thrilled by his example; we -rejoice in his fidelity." - -At the New England Convention in Boston on May 26, 1858, -where Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Theodore Parker -expressed their opinion that the slavery question could be -settled only by bloodshed, Mr. Garrison, though he had long -considered such a solution inevitable, deplored the -rejection of Non-Resistance principles on the part of the -Abolitionists: "When the antislavery cause was launched," he -said, "it was baptized in the spirit of peace. We -proclaimed to the country and the world that the weapons of -our warfare were not carnal, but spiritual, and we believed -them to be mighty through God to the pulling down even of -the stronghold of slavery; and for several years great moral -power accompanied our cause wherever presented. Alas in the -course of the fearful developments of the Slave Power, and -its continued aggressions on the rights of the people of the -North, in my judgment a sad change has come over the spirit -of anti-slavery men, generally speaking. We are growing more -and more warlike, more and more disposed to repudiate the -principles of peace, more and more disposed to talk about -'finding a joint in the neck of the tyrant,' and breaking -that neck, 'cleaving tyrants down from the crown to the -groin,' with the sword which is carnal, and so inflaming one -another with the spirit of violence and for a bloody work. -Just in proportion as this spirit prevails, I feel that our -moral power is departing and will depart. I say this not so -much as an Abolitionist as a man. I believe in the spirit of -peace, and in sole and absolute reliance on truth and the -application of it to the hearts and consciences of the -people. I do not believe that the weapons of liberty ever -have been, or ever can be, the weapons of despotism. I know -that those of despotism are the sword, the revolver, the -cannon, the bomb-shell; and, therefore, the weapons to which -tyrants cling, and upon which they depend, are not the -weapons for me, as a friend of liberty. I will not trust the -war spirit anywhere in the universe of God, because the -experience of six thousand years proves it not to be at all -reliable in such a struggle as ours... - -"I pray you, Abolitionists, still to adhere to that truth. -Do not get impatient; do not become exasperated; do not -attempt any new political organization; do not make -yourselves familiar with the idea that blood must flow. -Perhaps blood will flow---God knows, I do not; but it shall -not flow through any counsel of mine. Much as I detest the -oppression exercised by the Southern slaveholder, he is a -man, sacred before me. He is a man, not to be harmed by my -hand nor with my consent. He is a man, who is grievously and -wickedly trampling upon the rights of his fellowmen; but all -I have to do with him is to rebuke his sin, to call him to -repentance, to leave him without excuse for his tyranny. He -is a sinner before God---a great sinner; yet, while I will -not cease reprobating his horrible injustice, I will let him -see that in my heart there is no desire to do him -harm---that I wish to bless him here, and bless him -everlastingly---and that I have no other weapon to wield -against him but the simple truth of God, which is the great -instrument for the overthrow of all iniquity, and the -salvation of the world." - -At a meeting in Tremont Temple, held on the day of John -Brown's execution, December 2, 1859, Mr. Garrison said: "A -word upon the subject of Peace. I am a Non-Resistant---a -believer in the inviolability of human life, under all -circumstances; I, therefore, in the name of God, disarm John -Brown and every slave at the South. But I do not stop there; -if I did I should be a monster. I also disarm, in the name -of God, every slaveholder and tyrant in the world. For, -wherever that principle is adopted all fetters must -instantly melt, and there can be no oppressed and no -oppressor, in the nature of things. - -"... But whenever there is a contest between the oppressed -and the oppressor--- the weapons being equal between the -parties---God knows that my heart must be with the oppressed -and always against the oppressor." - -Many questions that are asked Non-Resistants today were put -to Mr. Garrison at the time of the Civil War. When thus -interrogated in regard to his peace views he replied: "This -question is exultingly put to the friends of peace and -Non-Resistance by those whose military ardor is now at a -white heat, as though it could not be satisfactorily -answered, and deserved nothing but ridicule. Our reply to it -is, that the peace principles are as beneficent and glorious -as ever and are neither disproved nor modified by anything -now transpiring in the country of a warlike character. If -they had been long since embraced and carried out by the -people, neither slavery nor war would now be filling the -land with violence and blood. Where they prevail no man is -in peril of life or liberty; where they are rejected, and -precisely to the extent they are rejected, neither life nor -liberty is secure. How their violation, under any -circumstances, is better than a faithful adherence to them, -we have not the moral vision to perceive. They are to be -held responsible for nothing which they do not legitimately -produce or sanction. As they neither produce nor sanction -any oppression or wrongdoing, but elevate the character, -control the passions and lead to the performance of all good -offices, they are not to be discarded for those of a hostile -character." - -"What is war? Is it not the opposite of peace, as slavery -is of liberty, as sin is of holiness, as Belial is of -Christ? And is slavery sometimes to be enforced---is sin in -cases of emergency to be committed---is Belial occasionally -to be preferred to Christ, as circumstances may require? -These are grave questions, and the redemption of the world -is dependent on the answers that may be given to them. - -"The better the object, the less need, the less -justification there is to behave as they do, who have one -that is altogether execrable. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, -life for life, is not the way to redeem or bless our race. -Sword against sword, cannon against cannon, army against -army, is it thus that love and good-will are diffused -through the world, or that right conquers wrong? Why not, -then, seek by falsehood to counteract falsehood---by cruelty -to terminate cruelty---by sin to abolish sin? Can men gather -grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles ?" - -"As for the governments of the world, all history shows that -they cannot be maintained, except by naval and military -power; that all their mandates being a dead letter without -such power to enforce them in the last extremity, are -virtually written in blood." - -"To palliate crime is to be guilty of its perpetration. To -ask for a postponement of the case, till a more convenient -season, is to call for a suspension of the moral law, and to -assume that it is right to do wrong, under present -circumstances." - -"The truth that we utter is impalpable, yet real: It cannot -be thrust down by brute force, nor pierced with a dagger, -nor bribed with gold, nor overcome by the application of a -coat of tar and feathers. The cause that we espouse is the -cause of human liberty, formidable to tyrants, and dear to -the oppressed, throughout the world---containing the -elements of immortality, sublime as heaven, and far-reaching -as eternity---embracing every interest that appertains to -the welfare of the bodies and souls of men, and sustained by -the omnipotence of the Lord Almighty. The principles that we -inculcate are those of equity, mercy, and love... - -"Moral influence, when in vigorous exercise, is -irresistible. It has an immortal essence. It can no more be -trod out of existence by the iron foot of time, or by the -ponderous march of iniquity, than matter can be annihilated. -It may disappear for a time; but it lives in some shape or -other, in some place or other, and will rise with renovated -strength." +"Firmly relying upon the certain and universal triumph of the sentiments +contained in this Declaration, however formidable may be the opposition +arrayed against them---in solemn testimony of our faith in their divine +origin---we hereby affix our signatures to it; commending it to the +reason and conscience of mankind, giving ourselves no anxiety as to what +may befall us." + +On another occasion Mr. Garrison said of this Declaration: "This +instrument contemplates nothing, repudiates nothing, but the spirit of +violence in thought, word and deed. Whatever, therefore, may be done +without provoking that spirit, and in accordance with the spirit of +disinterested benevolence, is not touched or alluded to in the +instrument. The sum total of affirmation is this---that, we are +resolved, come what may, as Christians, to have long-suffering toward +those who may despitefully use and persecute us---to pray for them---to +forgive them in all cases. This is the head and front of our +offending---nothing more, nothing less." + +Referring to the work of this convention, Mr. Garrison wrote as follows: +"Our Non-Resistance Convention is over, and the peace and blessing of +heaven have attended our deliberations. Such a mass of free mind as was +brought together I have never seen before in any one assembly. 'Not many +mighty,' 'not many rich,' 'not many honorable' were found among us---of +course; but there was much talent, and a great deal of soul. Not a +single set speech was made by anyone, but everyone spoke in a familiar +manner, just as though we constituted but a mere social party." + +As a matter of course, the new peace organization received the +condemnation of the religious press, with hardly an exception, and +especially that of the American Peace Society and the New York Peace +Society. + +Replying to a correspondent Mr. Garrison declared that "Non-Resistance +is not a state of passivity, on the contrary, it is a state of activity, +ever fighting the good fight of faith, ever foremost to assail unjust +power, ever struggling for 'liberty, equality, fraternity,' in no +national sense, but in a world-wide spirit. It is passive only in this +sense---that it will not return evil for evil, nor give blow for blow, +nor resort to murderous weapons for protection or defense." + +The author of the Declaration of Sentiments then asks "On what are right +and wrong dependent? On recorded declarations? On ancient parchments or +modern manuscripts? On sacred books? No. Though every parchment, +manuscript and book in the world were given to the consuming fire, the +loss would not in the least affect the right or wrong of moral actions. +Truth and duty, the principle of justice and equity, the obligations of +mercy and brotherly kindness, are older than all books, and more +enduring than tablets of stone... + +"The question at issue is---war, its nature, tendencies, results: war, +whether in ancient or modern times, whether under the Jewish or +Christian dispensation; is it right? was it ever justifiable?... + +"Why should we go to a book to settle the character of war when we could +judge of it by its fruits?... + +"War is as capable of moral analysis as slavery, intemperance, +licentiousness, or idolatry. It is not an abstraction, which admits of +doubt or uncertainty, but as tangible as bombs, cannon, mangled corpses, +smouldering ruins, desolated towns and villages, rivers of blood. It is +substantially the same in all ages, and cannot change its moral +features. To trace it in all its ramifications is not a difficult +matter. In fact, nothing is more terribly distinct than its career; it +leaves its impress on everything it touches, whether physical, mental, +or moral. Why, then, not look it in the face? Why look anywhere else?" + +Mr. Garrison presided at a Non-Resistance Convention held in Worcester +on March 24 and 25, 1854, and drew up several resolutions, one of them +being the following: + +"Resolved, that the plan of supporting governments by tariffs and other +indirect taxes, is a cunning contrivance of tyrants to enable them to +attain their ambitions and bloody aims without exciting the alarm of the +people by a direct appeal to their pockets; therefore, one most potent +way to put an end to war and tyranny is to abolish all tariffs and +indirect taxes and substitute free trade and direct taxation as the +means of sustaining political institutions." + +In May, 1838, just after the dedication of Marlboro' Chapel, which was +founded in Boston "mainly by Abolitionists, upon the rock of universal +emancipation, and to advance the cause of humanity and free discussion," +Mr. Garrison wrote to George W. Benson: "The spirit of mobocracy, like +the pestilence, is contagious; and Boston is once more ready to re-enact +the riotous scenes of 1835. The Marlboro' Chapel, having just been +completed, and standing in relation to our cause just as did +Pennsylvania Hall, is an object of pro-slavery malevolence. Ever since +my return, threats have been given out that the Chapel should share the +fate of the Hall. Last evening was the time for its dedication; and, so +threatening was the aspect of things, four companies of light infantry +were ordered to be in readiness, each being provided with 100 *ball* +cartridges, to rush to the scene of riot on the tolling of the bells. +The lancers, a powerful body of horsemen, were also in readiness. During +the day placards were posted at the corners of the streets, denouncing +the Abolitionists, and calling upon the citizens to rally at the Chapel +in the evening, in order to put them down... Non-Resistance versus +brickbats and bowie-knives. Omnipotence against a worm of the dust. +Divine law against lynch law. How unequal!" + +Commenting upon Henry Ward Beecher's statement that u there are those +who will scoff at the idea of holding a sword or a rifle, in a Christian +state of mind," Mr. Garrison wrote in the *Liberator:* "We know not +where to look for Christianity if not to its founder; and, taking the +record of his life and death, of his teaching and example, we can +discover nothing which even remotely, under any conceivable +circumstances, justifies the use of the sword or rifle on the part of +his followers; on the contrary, we find nothing but self-sacrifice, +willing martyrdom (if need be), peace and good-will and the prohibition +of all retaliatory feelings, enjoined upon all who would be his +disciples. When he said: 'Fear not those who kill the body,' he broke +every deadly weapon. When he said: 'My kingdom is not of this world, +else would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the +Jews,' he plainly prohibited war in self-defence and substituted +martyrdom therefore. When he said 'Love your enemies,' he did not mean +'Kill them if they go too far.' When he said, while expiring on the +cross: 'Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,' he did +not treat them as"a herd of buffaloes," but as poor, misguided and lost +men. We believe in his philosophy; we accept his instruction; we are +thrilled by his example; we rejoice in his fidelity." + +At the New England Convention in Boston on May 26, 1858, where Thomas +Wentworth Higginson and Theodore Parker expressed their opinion that the +slavery question could be settled only by bloodshed, Mr. Garrison, +though he had long considered such a solution inevitable, deplored the +rejection of Non-Resistance principles on the part of the Abolitionists: +"When the antislavery cause was launched," he said, "it was baptized in +the spirit of peace. We proclaimed to the country and the world that the +weapons of our warfare were not carnal, but spiritual, and we believed +them to be mighty through God to the pulling down even of the stronghold +of slavery; and for several years great moral power accompanied our +cause wherever presented. Alas in the course of the fearful developments +of the Slave Power, and its continued aggressions on the rights of the +people of the North, in my judgment a sad change has come over the +spirit of anti-slavery men, generally speaking. We are growing more and +more warlike, more and more disposed to repudiate the principles of +peace, more and more disposed to talk about 'finding a joint in the neck +of the tyrant,' and breaking that neck, 'cleaving tyrants down from the +crown to the groin,' with the sword which is carnal, and so inflaming +one another with the spirit of violence and for a bloody work. Just in +proportion as this spirit prevails, I feel that our moral power is +departing and will depart. I say this not so much as an Abolitionist as +a man. I believe in the spirit of peace, and in sole and absolute +reliance on truth and the application of it to the hearts and +consciences of the people. I do not believe that the weapons of liberty +ever have been, or ever can be, the weapons of despotism. I know that +those of despotism are the sword, the revolver, the cannon, the +bomb-shell; and, therefore, the weapons to which tyrants cling, and upon +which they depend, are not the weapons for me, as a friend of liberty. I +will not trust the war spirit anywhere in the universe of God, because +the experience of six thousand years proves it not to be at all reliable +in such a struggle as ours... + +"I pray you, Abolitionists, still to adhere to that truth. Do not get +impatient; do not become exasperated; do not attempt any new political +organization; do not make yourselves familiar with the idea that blood +must flow. Perhaps blood will flow---God knows, I do not; but it shall +not flow through any counsel of mine. Much as I detest the oppression +exercised by the Southern slaveholder, he is a man, sacred before me. He +is a man, not to be harmed by my hand nor with my consent. He is a man, +who is grievously and wickedly trampling upon the rights of his +fellowmen; but all I have to do with him is to rebuke his sin, to call +him to repentance, to leave him without excuse for his tyranny. He is a +sinner before God---a great sinner; yet, while I will not cease +reprobating his horrible injustice, I will let him see that in my heart +there is no desire to do him harm---that I wish to bless him here, and +bless him everlastingly---and that I have no other weapon to wield +against him but the simple truth of God, which is the great instrument +for the overthrow of all iniquity, and the salvation of the world." + +At a meeting in Tremont Temple, held on the day of John Brown's +execution, December 2, 1859, Mr. Garrison said: "A word upon the subject +of Peace. I am a Non-Resistant---a believer in the inviolability of +human life, under all circumstances; I, therefore, in the name of God, +disarm John Brown and every slave at the South. But I do not stop there; +if I did I should be a monster. I also disarm, in the name of God, every +slaveholder and tyrant in the world. For, wherever that principle is +adopted all fetters must instantly melt, and there can be no oppressed +and no oppressor, in the nature of things. + +"... But whenever there is a contest between the oppressed and the +oppressor--- the weapons being equal between the parties---God knows +that my heart must be with the oppressed and always against the +oppressor." + +Many questions that are asked Non-Resistants today were put to +Mr. Garrison at the time of the Civil War. When thus interrogated in +regard to his peace views he replied: "This question is exultingly put +to the friends of peace and Non-Resistance by those whose military ardor +is now at a white heat, as though it could not be satisfactorily +answered, and deserved nothing but ridicule. Our reply to it is, that +the peace principles are as beneficent and glorious as ever and are +neither disproved nor modified by anything now transpiring in the +country of a warlike character. If they had been long since embraced and +carried out by the people, neither slavery nor war would now be filling +the land with violence and blood. Where they prevail no man is in peril +of life or liberty; where they are rejected, and precisely to the extent +they are rejected, neither life nor liberty is secure. How their +violation, under any circumstances, is better than a faithful adherence +to them, we have not the moral vision to perceive. They are to be held +responsible for nothing which they do not legitimately produce or +sanction. As they neither produce nor sanction any oppression or +wrongdoing, but elevate the character, control the passions and lead to +the performance of all good offices, they are not to be discarded for +those of a hostile character." + +"What is war? Is it not the opposite of peace, as slavery is of liberty, +as sin is of holiness, as Belial is of Christ? And is slavery sometimes +to be enforced---is sin in cases of emergency to be committed---is +Belial occasionally to be preferred to Christ, as circumstances may +require? These are grave questions, and the redemption of the world is +dependent on the answers that may be given to them. + +"The better the object, the less need, the less justification there is +to behave as they do, who have one that is altogether execrable. Eye for +eye, tooth for tooth, life for life, is not the way to redeem or bless +our race. Sword against sword, cannon against cannon, army against army, +is it thus that love and good-will are diffused through the world, or +that right conquers wrong? Why not, then, seek by falsehood to +counteract falsehood---by cruelty to terminate cruelty---by sin to +abolish sin? Can men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles ?" + +"As for the governments of the world, all history shows that they cannot +be maintained, except by naval and military power; that all their +mandates being a dead letter without such power to enforce them in the +last extremity, are virtually written in blood." + +"To palliate crime is to be guilty of its perpetration. To ask for a +postponement of the case, till a more convenient season, is to call for +a suspension of the moral law, and to assume that it is right to do +wrong, under present circumstances." + +"The truth that we utter is impalpable, yet real: It cannot be thrust +down by brute force, nor pierced with a dagger, nor bribed with gold, +nor overcome by the application of a coat of tar and feathers. The cause +that we espouse is the cause of human liberty, formidable to tyrants, +and dear to the oppressed, throughout the world---containing the +elements of immortality, sublime as heaven, and far-reaching as +eternity---embracing every interest that appertains to the welfare of +the bodies and souls of men, and sustained by the omnipotence of the +Lord Almighty. The principles that we inculcate are those of equity, +mercy, and love... + +"Moral influence, when in vigorous exercise, is irresistible. It has an +immortal essence. It can no more be trod out of existence by the iron +foot of time, or by the ponderous march of iniquity, than matter can be +annihilated. It may disappear for a time; but it lives in some shape or +other, in some place or other, and will rise with renovated strength." # *The Non-Resistant* -After the formation of The Non-Resistant Society on -September 18, 1838, and the appearance in the columns of the -Liberator of articles espousing the cause of Non-Resistance, -objections began to arise as to the use of the space of the -Liberator, for any subject not directly relating to slavery. -On November n, 1838, Anne Warren Weston, an ardent apostle -of both causes, wrote a letter to Mr. Garrison urging him to -edit a monthly paper devoted to Non-Resistance on the ground -of her belief that continued advocacy of Non-Resistance by -the *Liberator* would damage the paper and cause vexation -and discord among Abolitionists. After careful consideration -of the matter the executive committee of the Non-Resistance -Society accepted this point of view and determined upon the -publication of a semi-monthly organ called *The -Non-Resistant*. When it came to be published, however, it -was found that it could not be gotten out oftener than -monthly and its publication was continued from January, -1839, until the 29th of June, 1842, when it came to an end, -like many another hopeful publication, because of lack of -means---which is clear enough proof that the Non-Resistant -movement was not identical with the Abolition movement -itself, for the *Liberator* went its triumphal way until -Abolition was achieved. - -*The Non-Resistant* itself was a small folio nineteen inches -by twelve, its four columns to the page being of the same -width as those of the *Liberator* to permit the use of the -same type in both publications. Its motto was, "Resist not -evil---Jesus Christ." The burden of the editorial work was -carried by Mrs. Maria Weston Chapman and Edmund Quincy, -together with Mr. Garrison, who stated, however, at the end -of *The Non-Resistant*'s existence, that he had not spent -half a day during the whole period of the paper's life in -preparing editorial matter for it. The bulk of the work was, -therefore, done by Mrs. Chapman and Mr. Quincy, assisted by -Charles K. Whipple, the Treasurer of the Non-Resistant -Society, and by Henry C. Wright, one of Mr. Garrison's -closest friends and associates. He was the sole missionary -in the field and was authorized in 1 41 to go abroad as a -"sort of missionary for the cause of peace, abolition, -temperance, chastity, and a pure and equal +After the formation of The Non-Resistant Society on September 18, 1838, +and the appearance in the columns of the Liberator of articles espousing +the cause of Non-Resistance, objections began to arise as to the use of +the space of the Liberator, for any subject not directly relating to +slavery. On November n, 1838, Anne Warren Weston, an ardent apostle of +both causes, wrote a letter to Mr. Garrison urging him to edit a monthly +paper devoted to Non-Resistance on the ground of her belief that +continued advocacy of Non-Resistance by the *Liberator* would damage the +paper and cause vexation and discord among Abolitionists. After careful +consideration of the matter the executive committee of the +Non-Resistance Society accepted this point of view and determined upon +the publication of a semi-monthly organ called *The Non-Resistant*. When +it came to be published, however, it was found that it could not be +gotten out oftener than monthly and its publication was continued from +January, 1839, until the 29th of June, 1842, when it came to an end, +like many another hopeful publication, because of lack of means---which +is clear enough proof that the Non-Resistant movement was not identical +with the Abolition movement itself, for the *Liberator* went its +triumphal way until Abolition was achieved. + +*The Non-Resistant* itself was a small folio nineteen inches by twelve, +its four columns to the page being of the same width as those of the +*Liberator* to permit the use of the same type in both publications. Its +motto was, "Resist not evil---Jesus Christ." The burden of the editorial +work was carried by Mrs. Maria Weston Chapman and Edmund Quincy, +together with Mr. Garrison, who stated, however, at the end of *The +Non-Resistant*'s existence, that he had not spent half a day during the +whole period of the paper's life in preparing editorial matter for it. +The bulk of the work was, therefore, done by Mrs. Chapman and +Mr. Quincy, assisted by Charles K. Whipple, the Treasurer of the +Non-Resistant Society, and by Henry C. Wright, one of Mr. Garrison's +closest friends and associates. He was the sole missionary in the field +and was authorized in 1 41 to go abroad as a "sort of missionary for the +cause of peace, abolition, temperance, chastity, and a pure and equal Christianity"---surely a large order. -The success of the paper at the outset was very encouraging -and was greater than its organizers had dared to hope. It -paid for itself in 1840. At the outset Gerrit Smith, the -rich Abolitionist of Peterboro, N. Y., sent \\\$100 towards -its support, and this was considered very daring because of -the intense feeling among many of the Abolitionists that it -was traitorous to the great cause to espouse any other. -Arthur Tappan, the New York Abolitionist, who freed -Mr. Garrison from jail at the time of his incarceration in -Baltimore by paying his fine, on June 5, 1830, was so -incensed by *The Non-Resistant* that he returned the copy -sent to him and declared that he would have nothing to do -with an organ that proclaimed itself against the use of -force by the government and disseminated other -non-governmental sentiments. - -Curiously enough, it was the sending of Mr. Wright on his -all-embracing mission to Europe which contributed more to -the death of *The Non-Resistant* than anything else. He was -that rare person among the Abolitionists, a good business -man and organizer, and his absence in England seriously -interfered with the development of the paper. But the chief -cause was, as Mr. Garrison wrote to Mr. Wright, "our time, -our means, our labors are so absorbed in seeking the -emancipation of our enslaved countrymen that we cannot do as -much specifically and directly for non-resistance as would -otherwise be in our power to perform." The Non-Resistant -Society kept alive until 1849, then it, too, gave up the -ghost, and presumably for the same reason. With every year -the anti-slavery struggle was growing bitterer and more -thrilling, and was absorbing more and more the energy and -the strength of all connected with it. +The success of the paper at the outset was very encouraging and was +greater than its organizers had dared to hope. It paid for itself in +1840. At the outset Gerrit Smith, the rich Abolitionist of Peterboro, N. +Y., sent \\\$100 towards its support, and this was considered very +daring because of the intense feeling among many of the Abolitionists +that it was traitorous to the great cause to espouse any other. Arthur +Tappan, the New York Abolitionist, who freed Mr. Garrison from jail at +the time of his incarceration in Baltimore by paying his fine, on June +5, 1830, was so incensed by *The Non-Resistant* that he returned the +copy sent to him and declared that he would have nothing to do with an +organ that proclaimed itself against the use of force by the government +and disseminated other non-governmental sentiments. + +Curiously enough, it was the sending of Mr. Wright on his all-embracing +mission to Europe which contributed more to the death of *The +Non-Resistant* than anything else. He was that rare person among the +Abolitionists, a good business man and organizer, and his absence in +England seriously interfered with the development of the paper. But the +chief cause was, as Mr. Garrison wrote to Mr. Wright, "our time, our +means, our labors are so absorbed in seeking the emancipation of our +enslaved countrymen that we cannot do as much specifically and directly +for non-resistance as would otherwise be in our power to perform." The +Non-Resistant Society kept alive until 1849, then it, too, gave up the +ghost, and presumably for the same reason. With every year the +anti-slavery struggle was growing bitterer and more thrilling, and was +absorbing more and more the energy and the strength of all connected +with it. # What I Owe to Garrison, by Leo Tolstoy (A Letter to V. Tchertkoff) -I thank you very much for sending me your biography of -Garrison. - -Reading it, I lived again through the spring of my awakening -to true life. While reading Garrison's speeches and articles -I vividly recalled to mind the spiritual joy which I -experienced twenty years ago, when I found out that the law -of non-resistance---to which I had been inevitably brought -by the recognition of the Christian teaching in its full -meaning, and which revealed to me the great joyous ideal to -be realized in Christian life---was even as far back as the -forties not only recognized and proclaimed by Garrison -(about Ballou I learned later), but also placed by him at -the foundation of his practical activity in the emancipation -of the slaves. - -My joy was at that time mingled with bewilderment as to how -it was that this great Gospel truth, fifty years ago -explained by Garrison, could have been so hushed up that I -had now to express it as something new. - -My bewilderment was especially increased by the circumstance -that not only people antagonistic to the progress of -mankind, but also the most advanced and progressive men, -were either completely indifferent to this law or actually -opposed to the promulgation of that which lies at the +I thank you very much for sending me your biography of Garrison. + +Reading it, I lived again through the spring of my awakening to true +life. While reading Garrison's speeches and articles I vividly recalled +to mind the spiritual joy which I experienced twenty years ago, when I +found out that the law of non-resistance---to which I had been +inevitably brought by the recognition of the Christian teaching in its +full meaning, and which revealed to me the great joyous ideal to be +realized in Christian life---was even as far back as the forties not +only recognized and proclaimed by Garrison (about Ballou I learned +later), but also placed by him at the foundation of his practical +activity in the emancipation of the slaves. + +My joy was at that time mingled with bewilderment as to how it was that +this great Gospel truth, fifty years ago explained by Garrison, could +have been so hushed up that I had now to express it as something new. + +My bewilderment was especially increased by the circumstance that not +only people antagonistic to the progress of mankind, but also the most +advanced and progressive men, were either completely indifferent to this +law or actually opposed to the promulgation of that which lies at the foundation of all true progress. -But as time went on it became clearer and clearer to me that -the general indifference and opposition which were then -expressed, and still continue to be -expressed---pre-eminently amongst political -workers---towards this law of non-resistance are merely -symptoms of the great significance of this law. - -"The motto upon our banner," wrote Garrison in the midst of -his activity, "has been from the commencement of our moral -warfare 'OUR COUNTRY IS THE WORLD; OUR COUNTRYMEN ARE ALL -MANKIND.' We trust that it will be our only epitaph. Another -motto we have chosen is, 'UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION.' Up to -this time we have limited its application to those who in -this country are held by Southern taskmasters as marketable -commodities, goods and chattels, and implements of -husbandry. Henceforth we shall use it in its widest -latitude---the emancipation of our whole race from the -dominion of man, from the thralldom of self, from the -government of brute force, from the bondage of sin, and the -bringing it under the dominion of God, the control of an -inward spirit, the government of the law of love..." - -Garrison, as a man enlightened by the Christian teaching, -having begun with the practical aim of strife against -slavery, very soon understood that the cause of slavery was -not the casual temporary seizure by the Southerners of a few -millions of negroes, but the ancient and universal -recognition, contrary to the Christian teaching, of the -right of coercion on the part of certain people in regard to -certain others. A pretext for recognizing this right has -always been that men regarded it as possible to eradicate or -diminish evil by brute force, i.e., also by evil. Having -once realized this fallacy, Garrison put forward against +But as time went on it became clearer and clearer to me that the general +indifference and opposition which were then expressed, and still +continue to be expressed---pre-eminently amongst political +workers---towards this law of non-resistance are merely symptoms of the +great significance of this law. + +"The motto upon our banner," wrote Garrison in the midst of his +activity, "has been from the commencement of our moral warfare 'OUR +COUNTRY IS THE WORLD; OUR COUNTRYMEN ARE ALL MANKIND.' We trust that it +will be our only epitaph. Another motto we have chosen is, 'UNIVERSAL +EMANCIPATION.' Up to this time we have limited its application to those +who in this country are held by Southern taskmasters as marketable +commodities, goods and chattels, and implements of husbandry. Henceforth +we shall use it in its widest latitude---the emancipation of our whole +race from the dominion of man, from the thralldom of self, from the +government of brute force, from the bondage of sin, and the bringing it +under the dominion of God, the control of an inward spirit, the +government of the law of love..." + +Garrison, as a man enlightened by the Christian teaching, having begun +with the practical aim of strife against slavery, very soon understood +that the cause of slavery was not the casual temporary seizure by the +Southerners of a few millions of negroes, but the ancient and universal +recognition, contrary to the Christian teaching, of the right of +coercion on the part of certain people in regard to certain others. A +pretext for recognizing this right has always been that men regarded it +as possible to eradicate or diminish evil by brute force, i.e., also by +evil. Having once realized this fallacy, Garrison put forward against slavery neither the suffering of slaves, nor the cruelty of -slaveholders, nor the social equality of men, but the -eternal Christian law of refraining from opposing evil by -violence, i.e., of "non-resistance." Garrison understood -that which the most advanced among the fighters against -slavery did not understand: that the only irrefutable -argument against slavery is the denial of the right of any -man over the liberty of another under any conditions -whatsoever. - -The Abolitionists endeavored to prove that slavery was -unlawful, disadvantageous, cruel; that it depraved men, and -so on; but the defenders of slavery in their turn proved the -untimeliness and danger of emancipation, and the evil -results liable to follow it. Neither the one nor the other -could convince his opponent. Whereas Garrison, understanding -that the slavery of the negroes was only a particular -instance of universal coercion, put forward a general -principle with which it was impossible not to agree--- the -principle that under no pretext has any man the right to -dominate, i.e., to use coercion over his fellows. Garrison -did not so much insist on the right of negroes to be free as -he denied the right of any man whatsoever, or of any body of -men, forcibly to coerce another man in any way. For the -purpose of combating slavery he advanced the principle of -struggle against all the evil of the world. - -This principle advanced by Garrison was irrefutable, but it -affected and even overthrew all the foundations of -established social order, and therefore those who valued -their position in that existing order were frightened at its -announcement, and still more at its application to life; -they endeavored to ignore it, to elude it; they hoped to -attain their object without the declaration of the principle -of non-resistance to evil by violence, and that application -of it to life which would destroy, as they thought, all -orderly organization of human life. The result of this -evasion of the recognition of the unlawfulness of coercion -was that fratricidal war which, having externally solved the -slavery question, introduced into the life of the American -people the new---perhaps still greater---evil of that -corruption which accompanies every war. - -Meanwhile the substance of the question remained unsolved, -and the same problem, only in a new form, now stands before -the people of the United States. Formerly the question was -how to free the negroes from the violence of the -slaveholders; now the question is how to free the negroes -from the violence of all the whites, and the whites from the +slaveholders, nor the social equality of men, but the eternal Christian +law of refraining from opposing evil by violence, i.e., of +"non-resistance." Garrison understood that which the most advanced among +the fighters against slavery did not understand: that the only +irrefutable argument against slavery is the denial of the right of any +man over the liberty of another under any conditions whatsoever. + +The Abolitionists endeavored to prove that slavery was unlawful, +disadvantageous, cruel; that it depraved men, and so on; but the +defenders of slavery in their turn proved the untimeliness and danger of +emancipation, and the evil results liable to follow it. Neither the one +nor the other could convince his opponent. Whereas Garrison, +understanding that the slavery of the negroes was only a particular +instance of universal coercion, put forward a general principle with +which it was impossible not to agree--- the principle that under no +pretext has any man the right to dominate, i.e., to use coercion over +his fellows. Garrison did not so much insist on the right of negroes to +be free as he denied the right of any man whatsoever, or of any body of +men, forcibly to coerce another man in any way. For the purpose of +combating slavery he advanced the principle of struggle against all the +evil of the world. + +This principle advanced by Garrison was irrefutable, but it affected and +even overthrew all the foundations of established social order, and +therefore those who valued their position in that existing order were +frightened at its announcement, and still more at its application to +life; they endeavored to ignore it, to elude it; they hoped to attain +their object without the declaration of the principle of non-resistance +to evil by violence, and that application of it to life which would +destroy, as they thought, all orderly organization of human life. The +result of this evasion of the recognition of the unlawfulness of +coercion was that fratricidal war which, having externally solved the +slavery question, introduced into the life of the American people the +new---perhaps still greater---evil of that corruption which accompanies +every war. + +Meanwhile the substance of the question remained unsolved, and the same +problem, only in a new form, now stands before the people of the United +States. Formerly the question was how to free the negroes from the +violence of the slaveholders; now the question is how to free the +negroes from the violence of all the whites, and the whites from the violence of all the blacks. -The solution of this problem in a new form is to be -accomplished certainly not by the lynching of the negroes, -nor by any skilful and liberal measures of American -politicians, but only by the application to life of that -same principle which was proclaimed by Garrison half a +The solution of this problem in a new form is to be accomplished +certainly not by the lynching of the negroes, nor by any skilful and +liberal measures of American politicians, but only by the application to +life of that same principle which was proclaimed by Garrison half a century ago. -The other day in one of the most progressive periodicals I -read the opinion of an educated and intelligent writer, -expressed with complete assurance in its correctness, that -the recognition by me of the principle of non-resistance to -evil by violence is a lamentable and somewhat comic delusion -which, taking into consideration my old age and certain -merits, can only be passed over in indulgent silence. - -Exactly the same attitude towards this question did I -encounter in my conversation with the remarkably intelligent -and progressive American Bryan. He also, with the evident -intention of gently and courteously showing me my delusion, -asked me how I explained my strange principle of -non-resistance to evil by violence, and as usual he brought -forward the argument, which seems to everyone irrefutable, -of the brigand who kills or violates a child. I told him -that I recognize non-resistance to evil by violence because, -having lived seventy-five years, I have never, except in -discussions, encountered that fantastic brigand, who, before -my eyes, desired to kill or violate a child, but that -perpetually I did and do see not one but millions of -brigands using violence towards children and women and men -and old people and all the laborers in the name of the -recognized right of violence over one's fellows. When I said -this my kind interlocutor, with his naturally quick -perception, not giving me time to finish, laughed, and -recognized that my argument was satisfactory. - -No one has seen the fantastic brigand, but the world, -groaning under violence, lies before everyone's eyes. Yet no -one sees, nor desires to see, that the strife which can -liberate man from violence is not a strife with the -fantastic brigand, but with those actual brigands who +The other day in one of the most progressive periodicals I read the +opinion of an educated and intelligent writer, expressed with complete +assurance in its correctness, that the recognition by me of the +principle of non-resistance to evil by violence is a lamentable and +somewhat comic delusion which, taking into consideration my old age and +certain merits, can only be passed over in indulgent silence. + +Exactly the same attitude towards this question did I encounter in my +conversation with the remarkably intelligent and progressive American +Bryan. He also, with the evident intention of gently and courteously +showing me my delusion, asked me how I explained my strange principle of +non-resistance to evil by violence, and as usual he brought forward the +argument, which seems to everyone irrefutable, of the brigand who kills +or violates a child. I told him that I recognize non-resistance to evil +by violence because, having lived seventy-five years, I have never, +except in discussions, encountered that fantastic brigand, who, before +my eyes, desired to kill or violate a child, but that perpetually I did +and do see not one but millions of brigands using violence towards +children and women and men and old people and all the laborers in the +name of the recognized right of violence over one's fellows. When I said +this my kind interlocutor, with his naturally quick perception, not +giving me time to finish, laughed, and recognized that my argument was +satisfactory. + +No one has seen the fantastic brigand, but the world, groaning under +violence, lies before everyone's eyes. Yet no one sees, nor desires to +see, that the strife which can liberate man from violence is not a +strife with the fantastic brigand, but with those actual brigands who practise violence over men. -Non-resistance to evil by violence really means only that -the mutual interaction of rational beings upon each other -should consist not in violence (which can be only admitted -in relation to lower organisms deprived of reason) but in -rational persuasion; and that, consequently, towards this -substitution of rational persuasion for coercion all those +Non-resistance to evil by violence really means only that the mutual +interaction of rational beings upon each other should consist not in +violence (which can be only admitted in relation to lower organisms +deprived of reason) but in rational persuasion; and that, consequently, +towards this substitution of rational persuasion for coercion all those should strive who desire to further the welfare of mankind. -It would seem quite clear that in the course of the last -century, fourteen million people were killed, and that now -the labor and lives of millions of men are spent on wars -necessary to no one, and that all the land is in the hands -of those who do not work on it, and that all the produce of -human labor is swallowed up by those who do not work, and -that all the deceits which reign in the world exist only -because violence is allowed for the purpose of suppressing -that which appears evil to some people, and that therefore -one should endeavor to replace violence by persuasion. That -this may become possible it is necessary first of all to -renounce the right of coercion. - -Strange to say, the most progressive people of our circle -regard it as dangerous to repudiate the right of violence -and to endeavor to replace it by persuasion. These people, -having decided that it is impossible to persuade a brigand -not to kill a child, think it also impossible to persuade -the working men not to take the land and the produce of -their labor from those who do not work, and therefore these -people find it necessary to coerce the laborers. - -So that, however sad it is to say so, the only explanation -of the non-understanding of the significance of the -principle of non-resistance to evil by violence consists in -this, that the conditions of human life are so distorted -that those who examine the principle of nonresistance -imagine that its adaptation to life and the substitution of -persuasion for coercion would destroy all possibility of -that social organization and of those conveniences of life -which they enjoy. - -But the change need not be feared; the principle of -non-resistance is not a principle of coercion but of concord -and love, and therefore it cannot be made coercively binding -upon men. The principle of non-resistance to evil by -violence, which consists in the substitution of persuasion -for brute force, can be only accepted voluntarily, and in +It would seem quite clear that in the course of the last century, +fourteen million people were killed, and that now the labor and lives of +millions of men are spent on wars necessary to no one, and that all the +land is in the hands of those who do not work on it, and that all the +produce of human labor is swallowed up by those who do not work, and +that all the deceits which reign in the world exist only because +violence is allowed for the purpose of suppressing that which appears +evil to some people, and that therefore one should endeavor to replace +violence by persuasion. That this may become possible it is necessary +first of all to renounce the right of coercion. + +Strange to say, the most progressive people of our circle regard it as +dangerous to repudiate the right of violence and to endeavor to replace +it by persuasion. These people, having decided that it is impossible to +persuade a brigand not to kill a child, think it also impossible to +persuade the working men not to take the land and the produce of their +labor from those who do not work, and therefore these people find it +necessary to coerce the laborers. + +So that, however sad it is to say so, the only explanation of the +non-understanding of the significance of the principle of non-resistance +to evil by violence consists in this, that the conditions of human life +are so distorted that those who examine the principle of nonresistance +imagine that its adaptation to life and the substitution of persuasion +for coercion would destroy all possibility of that social organization +and of those conveniences of life which they enjoy. + +But the change need not be feared; the principle of non-resistance is +not a principle of coercion but of concord and love, and therefore it +cannot be made coercively binding upon men. The principle of +non-resistance to evil by violence, which consists in the substitution +of persuasion for brute force, can be only accepted voluntarily, and in whatever measure it is freely accepted by men and applied to -life---i.e., according to the measure in which people -renounce violence and establish their relations upon -rational persuasion---only in that measure is true progress -in the life of men accomplished. - -Therefore, whether men desire it or not, it is only in the -name of this principle that they can free themselves from -the enslavement and oppression of each other. Whether men -desire it or not, this principle lies at the basis of all -true improvement in the life of men which has taken place -and is still to take place. - -Garrison was the first to proclaim this principle as a rule -for the organization of the life of men. In this is his -great merit. If at the time he did not attain the pacific -liberation of the slaves in America, he indicated the way of -liberating men in general from the power of brute force. - -Therefore Garrison will forever remain one of the greatest -reformers and promoters of true human progress. - -I think that the publication of this short biography will be -useful to many. +life---i.e., according to the measure in which people renounce violence +and establish their relations upon rational persuasion---only in that +measure is true progress in the life of men accomplished. + +Therefore, whether men desire it or not, it is only in the name of this +principle that they can free themselves from the enslavement and +oppression of each other. Whether men desire it or not, this principle +lies at the basis of all true improvement in the life of men which has +taken place and is still to take place. + +Garrison was the first to proclaim this principle as a rule for the +organization of the life of men. In this is his great merit. If at the +time he did not attain the pacific liberation of the slaves in America, +he indicated the way of liberating men in general from the power of +brute force. + +Therefore Garrison will forever remain one of the greatest reformers and +promoters of true human progress. + +I think that the publication of this short biography will be useful to +many. **Leo Tolstoy.** @@ -1304,622 +1110,546 @@ Yasnaya Polyana, January, 1904. ## I -When I was asked to set down on paper an estimate of William -Lloyd Garrison, I at first declined. A grandson to write -modestly and usefully about a beloved grandsire? It appeared -an impossible undertaking, but others far more competent -being not available and I being again urged, it seemed but -right that I should at least make the effort and leave it to -the readers to decide how largely I had failed to preserve -the unbiased historical attitude. - -It is perhaps in my favor that I am too far removed from the -great Abolition conflict to have even a memory of that -heroic era. Yet something of the spirit of it must have -surrounded my cradle, since nothing in all my life has -seemed as vital as the fundamental doctrines of the -Abolitionists or as thrilling as the greatest of moral wars -in America. As a small child I was never wholly unconscious -of the gracious personality, of the kindly, benevolent, and -serene spirit which dominated that home in Roxbury, to which -every member of the family came in completed love and -devotion in order to round out a circle of extraordinary -gaiety and happiness unmarred by discord of any kind. - -But even to the child there was something in those mild eyes -behind the gold spectacles and those wonderfully firm lines -around the generous mouth of the patriarch of the home that -gave the little boy concern if he strayed from the straight -and narrow path. One of his childish recollections is of the -nonresistant grandfather leading a terrified, and therefore -decidedly non-resistant, imp of a grandson into durance vile -in a cupboard-prison, not for defending anybody's human -rights, but for having wickedly and malevolently assailed -other urchins with what the Abolitionists would, in their -Biblical language, have called "carnal weapons." In the -transformation which then came over the kindly eyes and in -the set of the firm mouth of the Liberator, now turned -jailer, the little boy found much that in later years, as he -has looked back upon that incident, has made it easy for him -to picture his grandfather in the heat of most -uncompromising attacks upon the powers of evil, to see him, -in his mind's eye, facing the Rynders' mob, in New York -City, or writing that ringing declaration that he would not -retreat a single inch and that he would be heard. - -If the little boy quailed and retreated when militant -destiny in grand-parental form overtook him in the midst of -wrongdoing, he never had any desire to question the justice -of the penalty awarded. And here again a chance bit of -discipline has made the then little offender feel -instinctively throughout his existence that the great -moving, abiding desire of that unusual life which touched -his own so briefly, yet influenced it so profoundly, was the -desire for justice, for "exact justice," to use that homely, -vigorous and redundant phrase that so often appears in the -grandfather s writings. No love for the offender, however -dear, no hatred of wrongdoing, but was governed in him by -that one great principle of doing justice that justice might -come out of it all. - -It was not only a happy, but a rarely serene home over which -the boy's grandfather presided from the time that he had a -home of his own. The world at large might think of it as one -forever stirred by intense emotions, now swayed by vibrant -gusts of passion, now thrilled by the prospect of personal -violence, now roused to extremes by hot fits of outraged -indignation. But within its walls were singular peace and -content. Where the spirit of the leader was so cheerful and -so unfailingly serene there could be no question as to the -correctness of the chart of life or of the methods of -pursuing that great and all controlling objective of human -freedom. Could such dauntless poise, such durable -satisfaction in living---to borrow a phrase of ex-President -Eliot's---such equanimity of spirit, such an atmosphere of -joy and of absolute faith be possible if the fundamental -philosophy were wrong? No one could enter his house and -doubt the uplifting nature of the struggle in which Garrison -was engaged, or its righteousness. There is no more concrete -example among all the many Abolition homes of similar worth -and similarly unselfish devotion, of the spiritual rewards -which come to those who labor in the vineyards of humanity. +When I was asked to set down on paper an estimate of William Lloyd +Garrison, I at first declined. A grandson to write modestly and usefully +about a beloved grandsire? It appeared an impossible undertaking, but +others far more competent being not available and I being again urged, +it seemed but right that I should at least make the effort and leave it +to the readers to decide how largely I had failed to preserve the +unbiased historical attitude. + +It is perhaps in my favor that I am too far removed from the great +Abolition conflict to have even a memory of that heroic era. Yet +something of the spirit of it must have surrounded my cradle, since +nothing in all my life has seemed as vital as the fundamental doctrines +of the Abolitionists or as thrilling as the greatest of moral wars in +America. As a small child I was never wholly unconscious of the gracious +personality, of the kindly, benevolent, and serene spirit which +dominated that home in Roxbury, to which every member of the family came +in completed love and devotion in order to round out a circle of +extraordinary gaiety and happiness unmarred by discord of any kind. + +But even to the child there was something in those mild eyes behind the +gold spectacles and those wonderfully firm lines around the generous +mouth of the patriarch of the home that gave the little boy concern if +he strayed from the straight and narrow path. One of his childish +recollections is of the nonresistant grandfather leading a terrified, +and therefore decidedly non-resistant, imp of a grandson into durance +vile in a cupboard-prison, not for defending anybody's human rights, but +for having wickedly and malevolently assailed other urchins with what +the Abolitionists would, in their Biblical language, have called "carnal +weapons." In the transformation which then came over the kindly eyes and +in the set of the firm mouth of the Liberator, now turned jailer, the +little boy found much that in later years, as he has looked back upon +that incident, has made it easy for him to picture his grandfather in +the heat of most uncompromising attacks upon the powers of evil, to see +him, in his mind's eye, facing the Rynders' mob, in New York City, or +writing that ringing declaration that he would not retreat a single inch +and that he would be heard. + +If the little boy quailed and retreated when militant destiny in +grand-parental form overtook him in the midst of wrongdoing, he never +had any desire to question the justice of the penalty awarded. And here +again a chance bit of discipline has made the then little offender feel +instinctively throughout his existence that the great moving, abiding +desire of that unusual life which touched his own so briefly, yet +influenced it so profoundly, was the desire for justice, for "exact +justice," to use that homely, vigorous and redundant phrase that so +often appears in the grandfather s writings. No love for the offender, +however dear, no hatred of wrongdoing, but was governed in him by that +one great principle of doing justice that justice might come out of it +all. + +It was not only a happy, but a rarely serene home over which the boy's +grandfather presided from the time that he had a home of his own. The +world at large might think of it as one forever stirred by intense +emotions, now swayed by vibrant gusts of passion, now thrilled by the +prospect of personal violence, now roused to extremes by hot fits of +outraged indignation. But within its walls were singular peace and +content. Where the spirit of the leader was so cheerful and so +unfailingly serene there could be no question as to the correctness of +the chart of life or of the methods of pursuing that great and all +controlling objective of human freedom. Could such dauntless poise, such +durable satisfaction in living---to borrow a phrase of ex-President +Eliot's---such equanimity of spirit, such an atmosphere of joy and of +absolute faith be possible if the fundamental philosophy were wrong? No +one could enter his house and doubt the uplifting nature of the struggle +in which Garrison was engaged, or its righteousness. There is no more +concrete example among all the many Abolition homes of similar worth and +similarly unselfish devotion, of the spiritual rewards which come to +those who labor in the vineyards of humanity. ## II -Do we not often overlook what the cause did for the reformer -while asking what the reformer did for the cause? Well, here -is a case where a cause took hold of a youth, untutored and -unknown, but gifted with absolute truth and the power of -terrible expression. It gave him the opportunity to expand -and enrich his own spirit, and every day of his living. To -each wrong Garrison's soul vibrated as the strings of -aeolian harps to the winds of the forest; but the tones that -his human instrument gave forth varied according to where -you stood when you heard. To some who listened there came -only the most rasping dissonances and discords, portending -nothing but treason to the existing order of society; to -other auditors the sounds were of divine sweetness. Whatever -the message of the tones or their timbre, there can be no -question as to their power to stir. You might hate or you -might love, but listen unaffected you could not, and always -the evolution of the man himself made him the truer -philosopher at home and the more stinging a censor outside. - -And that evolution became so noteworthy because his own self -was so completely subordinated. He had no ambitions save to -serve; he found in serving his causes the most complete -happiness. The opportunity for leadership was his -unrestricted because there was nothing to hold him back. -When Wendell Phillips was paying for his audacity by social -ostracism, by the loss of his Harvard friends, by forfeiting -chances of political preferment, Garrison had practically no -sacrifices to make. He had no social position to lose. He -was in debt to nobody. No one had any hold upon him with -which to padlock his utterance. And so it was only a -question of how far his abilities would carry him in the -leadership of the movement. The strain of caring for his -family he bore more easily than most men. He had sublime -faith that the Lord would provide even if he gave away his -one reserve suit to someone who needed it more than he, or -if he should perish at the hands of a broadcloth mob. The -wolf might be at the door, but the guest was there, too, and -the latch-string ever hung out, no matter how bare the -cupboard or how anxious the housewife. Then he insisted on -leading an absolutely blameless private life, to the great -vexation of his enemies, whom his use of Biblical language -and apt quotation of the Scriptures embarrassed and amazed -beyond words. In short, he was the despair of all opponents. - -What could you do with a man like this? You threw him in -jail and he liked it immensely and utilized the opportunity -to strike off his best bit of verse. You put a price upon -his head and he gloried in it. You threatened him with death -and dragged him through the streets with a rope around his -waist and he showed his courage by failing even to be -excited, and then went home to utilize your outbreak against -him in a most effective sermon against the thing you were -trying to uphold. You ridiculed him as a nobody and he -calmly admitted it and went on preaching his gospel of -liberty. You tried to close the mails to him, to undermine -his influence, to destroy his reputation, his judgment and -his sanity, and he went on pounding you, convicting you out -of your own mouth and printing in his column in *The -Liberator* headed "The Refuge of Oppression" tell-tale -happenings which portrayed at its worst the institution you -were seeking to defend. And then when in despair you sought -the aid of the law and of the officials of his State to -prosecute him you found that he so walked by day and by -night that you could not even indict him for running an -underground railroad station, which he was careful not to -because of his conspicuousness. - -You called him an effeminate fanatic because he would stand -up for the cause of woman in a day when there were fewer -suffragists than Abolitionists, and he went calmly on -insisting that his platform was not occupied unless women -stood upon it. You called him crack-brained because he -crossed 'the ocean to plead for the slave and then declined -to speak for what was dearest to his soul because the women -delegates with him were not admitted to the Convention. You -denounced him as the friend and ally of Susan B. Anthony and -Lucy Stone, yes, of Mary Walker, and Garrison's hopelessly -addled brain took it all as a compliment and gloried in -'these spiritual alliances which some would have dubbed his -shame. How could you keep your patience with a man like -this,---one who would not only let loose the savage Negro on -the community, but believed that every walk of life, every -sphere of intellectual activity should be open to the -despised sex and actually preached that women, not men, -should decide what place women should occupy in modern -society. - -And always he insisted upon being happy, no matter what you -said or did to him. His heart was as the heart of a child -even when he denounced a whole class in language of complete -immoderation. It did not affect that heart when you assured -him for the five thousandth time that he had thrown away his -influence by his unbridled pen, ruined his cause by his -vituperation and his denunciation of good men and women who -did their duty by their slaves like Christians, or by taking -up the despicable case of those masculine females who wished -the ballot. You certainly cannot wage polemical warfare with -an antagonist like this. He will not play fair; he does not -follow the rules of the game. He enters the combat in such a -shining armor of happiness and personal righteousness and -complete unselfishness as to make it impossible for the -point of your sword to enter at any point. And all the time -he is belaboring you with his heavy broadsword with the -utmost of calmness and most annoying vigor. +Do we not often overlook what the cause did for the reformer while +asking what the reformer did for the cause? Well, here is a case where a +cause took hold of a youth, untutored and unknown, but gifted with +absolute truth and the power of terrible expression. It gave him the +opportunity to expand and enrich his own spirit, and every day of his +living. To each wrong Garrison's soul vibrated as the strings of aeolian +harps to the winds of the forest; but the tones that his human +instrument gave forth varied according to where you stood when you +heard. To some who listened there came only the most rasping dissonances +and discords, portending nothing but treason to the existing order of +society; to other auditors the sounds were of divine sweetness. Whatever +the message of the tones or their timbre, there can be no question as to +their power to stir. You might hate or you might love, but listen +unaffected you could not, and always the evolution of the man himself +made him the truer philosopher at home and the more stinging a censor +outside. + +And that evolution became so noteworthy because his own self was so +completely subordinated. He had no ambitions save to serve; he found in +serving his causes the most complete happiness. The opportunity for +leadership was his unrestricted because there was nothing to hold him +back. When Wendell Phillips was paying for his audacity by social +ostracism, by the loss of his Harvard friends, by forfeiting chances of +political preferment, Garrison had practically no sacrifices to make. He +had no social position to lose. He was in debt to nobody. No one had any +hold upon him with which to padlock his utterance. And so it was only a +question of how far his abilities would carry him in the leadership of +the movement. The strain of caring for his family he bore more easily +than most men. He had sublime faith that the Lord would provide even if +he gave away his one reserve suit to someone who needed it more than he, +or if he should perish at the hands of a broadcloth mob. The wolf might +be at the door, but the guest was there, too, and the latch-string ever +hung out, no matter how bare the cupboard or how anxious the housewife. +Then he insisted on leading an absolutely blameless private life, to the +great vexation of his enemies, whom his use of Biblical language and apt +quotation of the Scriptures embarrassed and amazed beyond words. In +short, he was the despair of all opponents. + +What could you do with a man like this? You threw him in jail and he +liked it immensely and utilized the opportunity to strike off his best +bit of verse. You put a price upon his head and he gloried in it. You +threatened him with death and dragged him through the streets with a +rope around his waist and he showed his courage by failing even to be +excited, and then went home to utilize your outbreak against him in a +most effective sermon against the thing you were trying to uphold. You +ridiculed him as a nobody and he calmly admitted it and went on +preaching his gospel of liberty. You tried to close the mails to him, to +undermine his influence, to destroy his reputation, his judgment and his +sanity, and he went on pounding you, convicting you out of your own +mouth and printing in his column in *The Liberator* headed "The Refuge +of Oppression" tell-tale happenings which portrayed at its worst the +institution you were seeking to defend. And then when in despair you +sought the aid of the law and of the officials of his State to prosecute +him you found that he so walked by day and by night that you could not +even indict him for running an underground railroad station, which he +was careful not to because of his conspicuousness. + +You called him an effeminate fanatic because he would stand up for the +cause of woman in a day when there were fewer suffragists than +Abolitionists, and he went calmly on insisting that his platform was not +occupied unless women stood upon it. You called him crack-brained +because he crossed 'the ocean to plead for the slave and then declined +to speak for what was dearest to his soul because the women delegates +with him were not admitted to the Convention. You denounced him as the +friend and ally of Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone, yes, of Mary Walker, +and Garrison's hopelessly addled brain took it all as a compliment and +gloried in 'these spiritual alliances which some would have dubbed his +shame. How could you keep your patience with a man like this,---one who +would not only let loose the savage Negro on the community, but believed +that every walk of life, every sphere of intellectual activity should be +open to the despised sex and actually preached that women, not men, +should decide what place women should occupy in modern society. + +And always he insisted upon being happy, no matter what you said or did +to him. His heart was as the heart of a child even when he denounced a +whole class in language of complete immoderation. It did not affect that +heart when you assured him for the five thousandth time that he had +thrown away his influence by his unbridled pen, ruined his cause by his +vituperation and his denunciation of good men and women who did their +duty by their slaves like Christians, or by taking up the despicable +case of those masculine females who wished the ballot. You certainly +cannot wage polemical warfare with an antagonist like this. He will not +play fair; he does not follow the rules of the game. He enters the +combat in such a shining armor of happiness and personal righteousness +and complete unselfishness as to make it impossible for the point of +your sword to enter at any point. And all the time he is belaboring you +with his heavy broadsword with the utmost of calmness and most annoying +vigor. ## III -From Garrison came ever a torrent of denunciation of -wrong-doing too Niagara-like, if you please, and marked, -perhaps, as his latest biographer, Mr. John Jay Chapman -avers, with a restricted and uncertain intellectual grasp. -But it was what the hour called for; with all its -ponderousness, with all its Biblical allusions and -quotations, it was clear, wonderfully telling and still more -wonderfully suited to the sturdy middle-class audience and -the time to which it appealed. Mr. Chapman realizes this, -for side by side with his criticism he writes: - ->  "Garrison was not a man of this kind. His mission was -> more lowly, more popular, more visible; and his -> intellectual grasp was restricted and uncertain. Garrison -> was a man of the market place. Language to him was not the -> mere means of stating truth, but a mace to break a jail. -> He was to be the instrument of great and rapid changes in -> public opinion during an epoch of terrible and fluctuating -> excitement. The thing which he is to see, to say, and to -> proclaim, from moment to moment, is as freshly given to -> him by prodigal nature, is as truly spontaneous, as the -> song of the thrush. He never calculates, he acts upon -> inspiration; he is always ingenuous, innocent, -> self-poised, and, as it were, inside of some self-acting -> machinery which controls his course, and rolls out the -> carpet of his life for him to walk on. +From Garrison came ever a torrent of denunciation of wrong-doing too +Niagara-like, if you please, and marked, perhaps, as his latest +biographer, Mr. John Jay Chapman avers, with a restricted and uncertain +intellectual grasp. But it was what the hour called for; with all its +ponderousness, with all its Biblical allusions and quotations, it was +clear, wonderfully telling and still more wonderfully suited to the +sturdy middle-class audience and the time to which it appealed. +Mr. Chapman realizes this, for side by side with his criticism he +writes: + +>  "Garrison was not a man of this kind. His mission was more lowly, +> more popular, more visible; and his intellectual grasp was restricted +> and uncertain. Garrison was a man of the market place. Language to him +> was not the mere means of stating truth, but a mace to break a jail. +> He was to be the instrument of great and rapid changes in public +> opinion during an epoch of terrible and fluctuating excitement. The +> thing which he is to see, to say, and to proclaim, from moment to +> moment, is as freshly given to him by prodigal nature, is as truly +> spontaneous, as the song of the thrush. He never calculates, he acts +> upon inspiration; he is always ingenuous, innocent, self-poised, and, +> as it were, inside of some self-acting machinery which controls his +> course, and rolls out the carpet of his life for him to walk on. And he adds: ->  "All this part of Garrison's mental activity is his true -> vocation. Here he rages like a lion of Judah. By these -> onslaughts he is freeing people from their mental bonds; -> he is shaking down the palaces of Babylon." - -Out of the Bible he drew not only his spiritual weapons, but -from it came much of his calm philosophy, his complete -adoption of the example of Jesus as the model for himself, -his belief in the necessity of non-resistance. To quote -Mr. Chapman again: - ->  "To Garrison, the Bible was the many-piped organ to which -> he sang the song of his life, and the arsenal from which -> he drew the weapons of his warfare. I doubt if any man -> ever knew the Bible so well, or could produce a text to -> fit a political emergency with such startling felicity as -> Garrison... I doubt whether Cromwell or Milton could have -> rivaled Garrison in this field of quotation; and the power -> of quotation is as dreadful a weapon as any which the -> human intellect can forge. From his boyhood upward -> Garrison's mind was soaked in the Bible and in no other -> book." - -Yet while poring thus over the greatest of books has made a -gloomy or somber nature out of many a man, the spontaneity, -the gaiety, the serenity of Garrison's nature was never -affected by it. John Brown by contrast was a typical -Roundhead, gravely earnest and intense and usually dull, as -well as ponderous, both in his writings and in the dourness -of his life, while Garrison's was full of cheer and sunshine -and optimism, distinguished by its benevolence as well as by -its unwavering faith in the eventual victory. This is the -point I would most dwell upon---the essential richness of -Garrison's life and its complete happiness, good-humor, -sweetness and kindliness. There is a story of a Southerner -who, meeting Garrison on a boat, fell into conversation with +>  "All this part of Garrison's mental activity is his true vocation. +> Here he rages like a lion of Judah. By these onslaughts he is freeing +> people from their mental bonds; he is shaking down the palaces of +> Babylon." + +Out of the Bible he drew not only his spiritual weapons, but from it +came much of his calm philosophy, his complete adoption of the example +of Jesus as the model for himself, his belief in the necessity of +non-resistance. To quote Mr. Chapman again: + +>  "To Garrison, the Bible was the many-piped organ to which he sang the +> song of his life, and the arsenal from which he drew the weapons of +> his warfare. I doubt if any man ever knew the Bible so well, or could +> produce a text to fit a political emergency with such startling +> felicity as Garrison... I doubt whether Cromwell or Milton could have +> rivaled Garrison in this field of quotation; and the power of +> quotation is as dreadful a weapon as any which the human intellect can +> forge. From his boyhood upward Garrison's mind was soaked in the Bible +> and in no other book." + +Yet while poring thus over the greatest of books has made a gloomy or +somber nature out of many a man, the spontaneity, the gaiety, the +serenity of Garrison's nature was never affected by it. John Brown by +contrast was a typical Roundhead, gravely earnest and intense and +usually dull, as well as ponderous, both in his writings and in the +dourness of his life, while Garrison's was full of cheer and sunshine +and optimism, distinguished by its benevolence as well as by its +unwavering faith in the eventual victory. This is the point I would most +dwell upon---the essential richness of Garrison's life and its complete +happiness, good-humor, sweetness and kindliness. There is a story of a +Southerner who, meeting Garrison on a boat, fell into conversation with him and wound up by saying: ->  "I have been much interested, sir, in what you have said, -> and the exceedingly frank and temperate manner in which -> you have treated the subject. If all Abolitionists were -> like you, there would be much less opposition to your -> enterprise. But, sir, depend upon it, that hare-brained, -> reckless, violent fanatic Garrison will damage, if he does -> not shipwreck, any cause." - -Men and women were invariably amazed as they met him at the -gentleness of his spirit and marvelled that such harsh and -bitter language, such prophet-like denunciation could issue -from one whose countenance was so benign. They soon saw that -there was no personal animus, no sense of personal wrong -save that which Jesus Himself might have felt at the -wronging of one of His fellow human beings. It was the sense -of impersonal justice which was the mainspring of it all. -Hard as it is for even a sympathizer to read it today into -Garrison's utterances, a real desire to help the -slave-holder was ever active within him. If it be said that -he often concealed his affection for that particular -fellow-man beneath torrential excoriation, the answer is -that the grandson who writes these lines is not wrong in -feeling that the abiding desire of his unusual life was -absolute justice. The very fact that the grandfather loved -or cared for any one or anybody made all the more vigorous -the pointing out of wrong-doing; his discipline became the -more stern, his blows more like those of a sledgehammer, if -he but felt that he could thus serve best the erring he -really cared for. +>  "I have been much interested, sir, in what you have said, and the +> exceedingly frank and temperate manner in which you have treated the +> subject. If all Abolitionists were like you, there would be much less +> opposition to your enterprise. But, sir, depend upon it, that +> hare-brained, reckless, violent fanatic Garrison will damage, if he +> does not shipwreck, any cause." + +Men and women were invariably amazed as they met him at the gentleness +of his spirit and marvelled that such harsh and bitter language, such +prophet-like denunciation could issue from one whose countenance was so +benign. They soon saw that there was no personal animus, no sense of +personal wrong save that which Jesus Himself might have felt at the +wronging of one of His fellow human beings. It was the sense of +impersonal justice which was the mainspring of it all. Hard as it is for +even a sympathizer to read it today into Garrison's utterances, a real +desire to help the slave-holder was ever active within him. If it be +said that he often concealed his affection for that particular +fellow-man beneath torrential excoriation, the answer is that the +grandson who writes these lines is not wrong in feeling that the abiding +desire of his unusual life was absolute justice. The very fact that the +grandfather loved or cared for any one or anybody made all the more +vigorous the pointing out of wrong-doing; his discipline became the more +stern, his blows more like those of a sledgehammer, if he but felt that +he could thus serve best the erring he really cared for. ## IV -The enigma of personality---what can surpass it in its -profound mystery? The fundamental whys we ask about it -remain unanswered though the analysis of the spirit's -feelings and of the brain's methods go on apace. Why should -the love of mankind and the readiness to give one's life to -the lowly and despised have so controlled the existence of -three such different spirits as Wendell Phillips, John Brown -and William Lloyd Garrison? Why did this inspiration come to -their souls and not to any other three of the multitude of -their generation? John Brown, at the age of fifty-five -years, when most men's thoughts begin to turn from the -activities of life to the past and the future, suddenly -changed from a simple guardian of flocks and tiller of the -soil, a farmer, surveyor, cattle expert and wool merchant, -to an arch plotter of many disguises, a belligerent pioneer, -an assailant of sovereign government, bent on overthrowing -human bondage by raising the banner of physical revolt. - -The contagion of reform affected Garrison and Phillips, on -the other hand, in early youth---but the very dissimilarity -of their early lives, their social surroundings, and their -prospects makes all the more amazing the fact that both -should on this fundamental issue of human brotherhood have -seen eye to eye. Sometimes I think this all a question of -birth; that there is no such thing as changing other -people's opinions, once formed, or eradicating the seeds of -hatred and oppression if once they begin to open and sprout -within one; that all moral reform means marshalling those -who are unfettered and unprejudiced, stirring them morally -and then proving that they are in the majority, either -because of numbers or because of the ethical soundness of -their cause. Certainly Garrison, the son of an errant sea -captain, and Wendell Phillips, the scion of aristocracy, -would seem to bear out part of this theory at least. But why -must they needs become latter-day disciples to revivify -faith in the brotherhood of man, the fundamental doctrines -of Christ? - -For one thing, the three similar yet strongly dissimilar men -illustrate the essential democracy of any such great reform -as the liberation of the slaves. Irresistibly such a -movement draws from all classes of society those made free -by communion with the eternal truths; those who are willing -to apply fundamental principles to any given situation and -measure each by the yard-stick of an ideal, no matter how -impractical the test may seem. The difference between the -reformer and the non-reforming citizen is defined by the -readiness of the one to take his stand on a principle and to -face obloquy, ridicule and hate while striving to apply that -principle to all conditions, under all circumstances. Most -important of all, there enters into the soul of the reformer -the divine desire to serve, no matter what the price, if -only thereby the world can be made to advance by as much as -the fraction of an inch. - -\[*This essay reprinted by kind permission from* The World -Tomorrow.\] +The enigma of personality---what can surpass it in its profound mystery? +The fundamental whys we ask about it remain unanswered though the +analysis of the spirit's feelings and of the brain's methods go on +apace. Why should the love of mankind and the readiness to give one's +life to the lowly and despised have so controlled the existence of three +such different spirits as Wendell Phillips, John Brown and William Lloyd +Garrison? Why did this inspiration come to their souls and not to any +other three of the multitude of their generation? John Brown, at the age +of fifty-five years, when most men's thoughts begin to turn from the +activities of life to the past and the future, suddenly changed from a +simple guardian of flocks and tiller of the soil, a farmer, surveyor, +cattle expert and wool merchant, to an arch plotter of many disguises, a +belligerent pioneer, an assailant of sovereign government, bent on +overthrowing human bondage by raising the banner of physical revolt. + +The contagion of reform affected Garrison and Phillips, on the other +hand, in early youth---but the very dissimilarity of their early lives, +their social surroundings, and their prospects makes all the more +amazing the fact that both should on this fundamental issue of human +brotherhood have seen eye to eye. Sometimes I think this all a question +of birth; that there is no such thing as changing other people's +opinions, once formed, or eradicating the seeds of hatred and oppression +if once they begin to open and sprout within one; that all moral reform +means marshalling those who are unfettered and unprejudiced, stirring +them morally and then proving that they are in the majority, either +because of numbers or because of the ethical soundness of their cause. +Certainly Garrison, the son of an errant sea captain, and Wendell +Phillips, the scion of aristocracy, would seem to bear out part of this +theory at least. But why must they needs become latter-day disciples to +revivify faith in the brotherhood of man, the fundamental doctrines of +Christ? + +For one thing, the three similar yet strongly dissimilar men illustrate +the essential democracy of any such great reform as the liberation of +the slaves. Irresistibly such a movement draws from all classes of +society those made free by communion with the eternal truths; those who +are willing to apply fundamental principles to any given situation and +measure each by the yard-stick of an ideal, no matter how impractical +the test may seem. The difference between the reformer and the +non-reforming citizen is defined by the readiness of the one to take his +stand on a principle and to face obloquy, ridicule and hate while +striving to apply that principle to all conditions, under all +circumstances. Most important of all, there enters into the soul of the +reformer the divine desire to serve, no matter what the price, if only +thereby the world can be made to advance by as much as the fraction of +an inch. + +\[*This essay reprinted by kind permission from* The World Tomorrow.\] # Bibliography ## Works About William Lloyd Garrison -An American Hero; the Story of William Lloyd Garrison. -Written for Young People by Frances E. Cooke. London: Swan -Sonnenschein & Co. 1888. +An American Hero; the Story of William Lloyd Garrison. Written for Young +People by Frances E. Cooke. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 1888. -A Brief Sketch of the Trial of William Lloyd Garrison for an -Alleged Libel on Francis Todd, of Massachusetts. -\[Baltimore, 1830?\] +A Brief Sketch of the Trial of William Lloyd Garrison for an Alleged +Libel on Francis Todd, of Massachusetts. \[Baltimore, 1830?\] -A Discourse on William Lloyd Garrison and the Anti-Slavery -Movement. Delivered at the Church of the Saviour, Brooklyn, -N. Y., by A. P. Putnam, June 1, 1879. Brooklyn, N. Y., -Tremlett & Co., 1879. +A Discourse on William Lloyd Garrison and the Anti-Slavery Movement. +Delivered at the Church of the Saviour, Brooklyn, N. Y., by A. P. +Putnam, June 1, 1879. Brooklyn, N. Y., Tremlett & Co., 1879. The Garrison Mob in Boston, October 21, 1835. By Ellis Ames. -(Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. -February, 1881, p. 340-344.) - -Garrison, the Non-Resistant. By Ernest Howard Crosby. -Chicago, The Public Publishing Co., 1905. - -The Martyr Age of the United States. By Harriet Martineau. -(London and Westminster Review, December, 1838. Reprinted in -pamphlet form. New York: S. W. Benedict, 1839.) - -A Memorial of William Lloyd Garrison from the City of -Boston. Boston: Printed by order of the City Council, 1886. - -The Moral Crusader, William Lloyd Garrison; a Biographical -Essay founded on The Story of Garrison's Life told by his -children. By Goldwin Smith. Toronto: Williamson & Co. 1892. -Also New York: Funk & Wagnalls. *The difference between -these editions is in the typography and the frontispiece -portrait.* - -A National Testimonial to William Lloyd Garrison. Boston: -1866. *An invitation to contribute towards a national -testimonial of not less than fifty thousand dollars to -William Lloyd Garrison. Signed by many subscribers and the -Executive Committee, J. A. Andrew, chairman.* - -Papers Relating to the Garrison Mob. Edited by Th. Lyman, -3rd. Cambridge: Welch, Bigelow & Co. 1870. - -Rebels and Reformers, Biographies for Young People. By -Arthur and Dorothea P. Ponsonby. London: G. Allen & Unwin -Ltd. \[1917.\] - -A Short Biography of William Lloyd Garrison. By V. -Tchertkoff and F. Holah; with an Introductory Appreciation -of his Life and Work by Leo Tolstoy. London: The Free Age -Press. 1904. - -A Sketch of the Character and Defence of the Principles of -William Lloyd Garrison; being an Address delivered before -the Managers of the "Maine Anti-Slavery Society," in -Portland, Me., on the evening of the 1st of November, 1833, -by One of the Board. Published by request. New York: Printed -by Henry R. Piercy, 7 Theatre Alley. 1833. - -Pamphlet, with imprint: Memoir of William Lloyd Garrison. -*The author was James Frederic Otis, one of the founders of -the American Anti-Slavery Society and signers of the -Declaration of Sentiments at Philadelphia in the month -following the Address. (He was afterwards a backslider from -the abolition faith, but survived emancipation, dying +(Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. February, 1881, +p. 340-344.) + +Garrison, the Non-Resistant. By Ernest Howard Crosby. Chicago, The +Public Publishing Co., 1905. + +The Martyr Age of the United States. By Harriet Martineau. (London and +Westminster Review, December, 1838. Reprinted in pamphlet form. New +York: S. W. Benedict, 1839.) + +A Memorial of William Lloyd Garrison from the City of Boston. Boston: +Printed by order of the City Council, 1886. + +The Moral Crusader, William Lloyd Garrison; a Biographical Essay founded +on The Story of Garrison's Life told by his children. By Goldwin Smith. +Toronto: Williamson & Co. 1892. Also New York: Funk & Wagnalls. *The +difference between these editions is in the typography and the +frontispiece portrait.* + +A National Testimonial to William Lloyd Garrison. Boston: 1866. *An +invitation to contribute towards a national testimonial of not less than +fifty thousand dollars to William Lloyd Garrison. Signed by many +subscribers and the Executive Committee, J. A. Andrew, chairman.* + +Papers Relating to the Garrison Mob. Edited by Th. Lyman, 3rd. +Cambridge: Welch, Bigelow & Co. 1870. + +Rebels and Reformers, Biographies for Young People. By Arthur and +Dorothea P. Ponsonby. London: G. Allen & Unwin Ltd. \[1917.\] + +A Short Biography of William Lloyd Garrison. By V. Tchertkoff and F. +Holah; with an Introductory Appreciation of his Life and Work by Leo +Tolstoy. London: The Free Age Press. 1904. + +A Sketch of the Character and Defence of the Principles of William Lloyd +Garrison; being an Address delivered before the Managers of the "Maine +Anti-Slavery Society," in Portland, Me., on the evening of the 1st of +November, 1833, by One of the Board. Published by request. New York: +Printed by Henry R. Piercy, 7 Theatre Alley. 1833. + +Pamphlet, with imprint: Memoir of William Lloyd Garrison. *The author +was James Frederic Otis, one of the founders of the American +Anti-Slavery Society and signers of the Declaration of Sentiments at +Philadelphia in the month following the Address. (He was afterwards a +backslider from the abolition faith, but survived emancipation, dying February 2, 1867.)* -The Story of a Noble Life: William Lloyd Garrison. By -William E. A. Axon. London: S. W. Partridge & Co. 1890. -(Onward Series.) +The Story of a Noble Life: William Lloyd Garrison. By William E. A. +Axon. London: S. W. Partridge & Co. 1890. (Onward Series.) -Tributes to William Lloyd Garrison at the Funeral Services, -May 28, 1879. Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Co. 1879. +Tributes to William Lloyd Garrison at the Funeral Services, May 28, +1879. Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Co. 1879. -The frontispiece a profile view (heliotype) of the portrait -bust by Anne Whitney. +The frontispiece a profile view (heliotype) of the portrait bust by Anne +Whitney. -Visit of William Lloyd Garrison to Manchester. Manchester, -England, United Kingdom Alliance. \[1867?\] +Visit of William Lloyd Garrison to Manchester. Manchester, England, +United Kingdom Alliance. \[1867?\] -William Lloyd Garrison. By John Jay Chapman. New York: -Moffat, Yard & Co. 1913. Second edition, revised and -enlarged. Boston: The Atlantic Monthly Press. 1921. +William Lloyd Garrison. By John Jay Chapman. New York: Moffat, Yard & +Co. 1913. Second edition, revised and enlarged. Boston: The Atlantic +Monthly Press. 1921. -William Lloyd Garrison. By Lindsay Swift. Philadelphia: G. -W. Jacobs & Company. 1911. (American Crisis Biographies.) +William Lloyd Garrison. By Lindsay Swift. Philadelphia: G. W. Jacobs & +Company. 1911. (American Crisis Biographies.) -William Lloyd Garrison. By N. Moore. Boston: Ginn & -Co. 1888. +William Lloyd Garrison. By N. Moore. Boston: Ginn & Co. 1888. -William Lloyd Garrison. Von Georg Gizycki. Berlin: A. Asher -& Co. 1890. *(Authorized German translation and condensation -of the Story of His Life told by His Children.)* +William Lloyd Garrison. Von Georg Gizycki. Berlin: A. Asher & Co. 1890. +*(Authorized German translation and condensation of the Story of His +Life told by His Children.)* -William Lloyd Garrison. By Mary Howitt. *In the "People's -Journal" for September 12, 19, 26, and October 3, 1846; with -a portrait on wood drawn by H. Anelay, and probably engraved -by W. J. Linton. The Memoir was reprinted in the -"Pennsylvania Freeman" for March 25, 1847.* +William Lloyd Garrison. By Mary Howitt. *In the "People's Journal" for +September 12, 19, 26, and October 3, 1846; with a portrait on wood drawn +by H. Anelay, and probably engraved by W. J. Linton. The Memoir was +reprinted in the "Pennsylvania Freeman" for March 25, 1847.* -William Lloyd Garrison; a Commemoration Discourse preached -at the First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia. By Joseph May. -Boston: G. H. Ellis. 1879. +William Lloyd Garrison; a Commemoration Discourse preached at the First +Unitarian Church, Philadelphia. By Joseph May. Boston: G. H. Ellis. +1879. -William Lloyd Garrison and his Times. By Oliver Johnson; -with an Introduction by John G. Whittier. Boston: B. B. -Russell & Co. 1880. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1881.) +William Lloyd Garrison and his Times. By Oliver Johnson; with an +Introduction by John G. Whittier. Boston: B. B. Russell & Co. 1880. +(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1881.) -William Lloyd Garrison, the Abolitionist; by Archibald H. -Grimke. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1891. +William Lloyd Garrison, the Abolitionist; by Archibald H. Grimke. New +York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1891. -William Lloyd Garrison; the Story of his Life told by his -Children. New York: The Century Co. Volumes I, II, 1885, -volumes III, IV, 1889. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & -Co. 1894.) *The documentary Life by way of eminency. It -contains six portraits of Garrison, and many more of his -principal coadjutors on both sides of the Atlantic; maps, -facsimiles of handwriting, etc. It is the quarry from which -all subsequent lives have necessarily been constructed.* +William Lloyd Garrison; the Story of his Life told by his Children. New +York: The Century Co. Volumes I, II, 1885, volumes III, IV, 1889. +(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1894.) *The documentary Life by way of +eminency. It contains six portraits of Garrison, and many more of his +principal coadjutors on both sides of the Atlantic; maps, facsimiles of +handwriting, etc. It is the quarry from which all subsequent lives have +necessarily been constructed.* ## Writings and Speeches of William Lloyd Garrison -The Abolitionists and their Relations to the War; a Lecture -at the Cooper Institute, New York, January 14, 1862. New -York: E. D. Barker. 1862. +The Abolitionists and their Relations to the War; a Lecture at the +Cooper Institute, New York, January 14, 1862. New York: E. D. Barker. +1862. -An Address delivered at the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, -August 1, 1838, by request of the People of Color of that -city, in commemoration of the complete emancipation of -600,000 slaves on that day in the British West Indies. -Boston: Isaac Knapp. 1838. +An Address delivered at the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, August 1, +1838, by request of the People of Color of that city, in commemoration +of the complete emancipation of 600,000 slaves on that day in the +British West Indies. Boston: Isaac Knapp. 1838. -An Address delivered before the Old Colony Anti-Slavery -Society at South Scituate, Mass., July 4, 1839. Boston: Dow -& Jackson. 1839. +An Address delivered before the Old Colony Anti-Slavery Society at South +Scituate, Mass., July 4, 1839. Boston: Dow & Jackson. 1839. -An Address delivered before the Free People of Color, in -Philadelphia, New York, and other places during the month of -June, 1831. Boston: Stephen Foster. 1831. +An Address delivered before the Free People of Color, in Philadelphia, +New York, and other places during the month of June, 1831. Boston: +Stephen Foster. 1831. -Address delivered in Boston, New York and Philadelphia -before the Free People of Color in April, 1833. New York: -Printed for the Free People of Color. 1833. +Address delivered in Boston, New York and Philadelphia before the Free +People of Color in April, 1833. New York: Printed for the Free People of +Color. 1833. -An Address delivered in Marlboro Chapel, Boston, July 4, -1838. Boston: Isaac Knapp. 1838. +An Address delivered in Marlboro Chapel, Boston, July 4, 1838. Boston: +Isaac Knapp. 1838. -An Address on the Progress of the Abolition Cause, delivered -before the African Abolition Freehold Society of Boston, -July 16, 1832. Boston: Garrison & Knapp. 1832. +An Address on the Progress of the Abolition Cause, delivered before the +African Abolition Freehold Society of Boston, July 16, 1832. Boston: +Garrison & Knapp. 1832. -Address on the Subject of American Slavery delivered in the -National Hall, Holborn, September 2, 1846. London: Richard -Kinder. 1846. +Address on the Subject of American Slavery delivered in the National +Hall, Holborn, September 2, 1846. London: Richard Kinder. 1846. -Anti-Slavery Melodies for the Friends of Freedom., Prepared -for the Hingham Anti-Slavery Society. Hingham, Mass.: Elijah -B. Gill. 1843. *Set to music. The hymns 3, 18, 27, and -lyrics on pages 64, 70, are Garrison's---the first hymn -curiously razeed to fit the metre.* +Anti-Slavery Melodies for the Friends of Freedom., Prepared for the +Hingham Anti-Slavery Society. Hingham, Mass.: Elijah B. Gill. 1843. *Set +to music. The hymns 3, 18, 27, and lyrics on pages 64, 70, are +Garrison's---the first hymn curiously razeed to fit the metre.* -Helen Eliza Garrison; a Memorial. Cambridge \[Mass.\]: -Riverside Press. 1876. +Helen Eliza Garrison; a Memorial. Cambridge \[Mass.\]: Riverside Press. +1876. The "Infidelity" of Abolitionism. New York. 1860. -Joseph Mazzini, His Life, Writings, and Political -Principles; with an Introduction by William Lloyd Garrison. -New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1872. +Joseph Mazzini, His Life, Writings, and Political Principles; with an +Introduction by William Lloyd Garrison. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1872. -Lectures of George Thompson. Compiled from various English -editions; also a Brief History of His Connection with the -Anti-Slavery Cause in England, by William Lloyd Garrison. -Boston: Isaac Knapp. 1836. +Lectures of George Thompson. Compiled from various English editions; +also a Brief History of His Connection with the Anti-Slavery Cause in +England, by William Lloyd Garrison. Boston: Isaac Knapp. 1836. -A Letter on the Political Obligations of Abolitionists. By -James G. Birney; with a Reply by William Lloyd Garrison. -Boston: Dow & Jackson. 1839. +A Letter on the Political Obligations of Abolitionists. By James G. +Birney; with a Reply by William Lloyd Garrison. Boston: Dow & Jackson. +1839. -Letter to Louis Kossuth concerning Freedom and Slavery in -the United States. Boston: R. F. Wallcut. 1852. +Letter to Louis Kossuth concerning Freedom and Slavery in the United +States. Boston: R. F. Wallcut. 1852. -Letters relative to the So-Called Southern Policy of -President Hayes. By William E. Chandler, together with a -Letter to Mr. Chandler of Mr. William Lloyd Garrison. -Concord, N. H., Monitor & Statesman Office. 1878. +Letters relative to the So-Called Southern Policy of President Hayes. By +William E. Chandler, together with a Letter to Mr. Chandler of +Mr. William Lloyd Garrison. Concord, N. H., Monitor & Statesman Office. +1878. -The Loyalty and Devotion of the Colored Americans in the -Revolution and War of 1812. Boston: R. F. Wallcut. 1861. -Reprinted in 1918 by Young's Book Exchange, New York. +The Loyalty and Devotion of the Colored Americans in the Revolution and +War of 1812. Boston: R. F. Wallcut. 1861. Reprinted in 1918 by Young's +Book Exchange, New York. -"The New Reign of Terror" in the Slaveholding States, for -1859-60. Compiled by W. L. Garrison. New York: American -Anti-Slavery Society. 1860. (Anti-Slavery Tracts, No. 4. New -series.) +"The New Reign of Terror" in the Slaveholding States, for 1859-60. +Compiled by W. L. Garrison. New York: American Anti-Slavery Society. +1860. (Anti-Slavery Tracts, No. 4. New series.) -No Compromise with Slavery, an Address delivered in New -York, February 14, 1854. New York: American Anti-Slavery -Society, 1854. +No Compromise with Slavery, an Address delivered in New York, February +14, 1854. New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1854. -No Fetters in the Bay State; Speech before the Committee on -Federal Relations \[of the Massachusetts Legislature\], -Thursday, February 24, 1859. Boston. 1859. +No Fetters in the Bay State; Speech before the Committee on Federal +Relations \[of the Massachusetts Legislature\], Thursday, February 24, +1859. Boston. 1859. -Principles and Mode of Action of the American Anti-Slavery -Society; a Speech. London: William Tweedie. \[1853.\] (Leeds -Anti-Slavery Series, No. 86.) +Principles and Mode of Action of the American Anti-Slavery Society; a +Speech. London: William Tweedie. \[1853.\] (Leeds Anti-Slavery Series, +No. 86.) -Proceedings at the Public Breakfast held in honor of William -Lloyd Garrison, Esq., of Boston, Massachusetts, in -St. James's Hall, London, on Saturday, June 29th, 1867. -London: William Tweedie. 1868. +Proceedings at the Public Breakfast held in honor of William Lloyd +Garrison, Esq., of Boston, Massachusetts, in St. James's Hall, London, +on Saturday, June 29th, 1867. London: William Tweedie. 1868. -Proceedings of a crowded Meeting of the Colored Population -of Boston, assembled the 15th July, 1846, for the purpose of -bidding farewell to William Lloyd Garrison, on His Departure -for England; with His Speech on the Occasion. Dublin: Webb & -Chapman. 1846. +Proceedings of a crowded Meeting of the Colored Population of Boston, +assembled the 15th July, 1846, for the purpose of bidding farewell to +William Lloyd Garrison, on His Departure for England; with His Speech on +the Occasion. Dublin: Webb & Chapman. 1846. -A Selection of Anti-Slavery Hymns, for the use of the -Friends of Emancipation. Boston: Garrison & Knapp. 1834. -Preface signed by William Lloyd Garrison. +A Selection of Anti-Slavery Hymns, for the use of the Friends of +Emancipation. Boston: Garrison & Knapp. 1834. Preface signed by William +Lloyd Garrison. -Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Lloyd -Garrison. Boston: R. F. Wallcut. 1852. +Selections from the Writings and Speeches of William Lloyd Garrison. +Boston: R. F. Wallcut. 1852. Slavery in the United States of America, an 7 8 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON -Appeal to the Friends of Negro Emancipation throughout Great -Britain. London. 1833. Signed W. L. Garrison. +Appeal to the Friends of Negro Emancipation throughout Great Britain. +London. 1833. Signed W. L. Garrison. Sonnets and Other Poems. Boston: Oliver Johnson. 1843. -Southern Hatred of the American Government, the People of -the North, and Free Institutions. Compiled by W. L. -Garrison. Boston: R. F. Wallcut. 1862. +Southern Hatred of the American Government, the People of the North, and +Free Institutions. Compiled by W. L. Garrison. Boston: R. F. Wallcut. +1862. -Speeches of William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass at -the great Anti-Slavery Meeting held at Paisley, Scotland, -23d September, 1846. \[Glasgow?\] Alex. Gardner. 1846. +Speeches of William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass at the great +Anti-Slavery Meeting held at Paisley, Scotland, 23d September, 1846. +\[Glasgow?\] Alex. Gardner. 1846. -Spirit of the South towards Northern Freemen and Soldiers -defending the American Flag against Traitors of the Deepest -Dye. Boston: R. F. Wallcut. 1861. +Spirit of the South towards Northern Freemen and Soldiers defending the +American Flag against Traitors of the Deepest Dye. Boston: R. F. +Wallcut. 1861. -Thoughts on African Colonization; or, An Impartial -Exhibition of the Doctrines, Principles, and Purposes of the -American Colonization Society; together with the -Resolutions, Addresses, and Remonstrances of the Free People -of Color. "Out of thine own mouth will I condemn thee." -"Prove all things, hold fast that which is good." Boston: -Garrison & Knapp. 1832. +Thoughts on African Colonization; or, An Impartial Exhibition of the +Doctrines, Principles, and Purposes of the American Colonization +Society; together with the Resolutions, Addresses, and Remonstrances of +the Free People of Color. "Out of thine own mouth will I condemn thee." +"Prove all things, hold fast that which is good." Boston: Garrison & +Knapp. 1832. -Three Unlike Speeches. By W. L. Garrison, G. Davis, A. H. -Stephens. The Abolitionists and their relation to the War. -New York: E. D. Barker. 1862. (Pulpit and Rostrum, numbers -26-27.) +Three Unlike Speeches. By W. L. Garrison, G. Davis, A. H. Stephens. The +Abolitionists and their relation to the War. New York: E. D. Barker. +1862. (Pulpit and Rostrum, numbers 26-27.) -West India Emancipation; a Speech delivered at Abington, -Mass., on the first day of August, 1854. Boston. 1854. +West India Emancipation; a Speech delivered at Abington, Mass., on the +first day of August, 1854. Boston. 1854. -William Lloyd Garrison on State Regulation of Vice. \[New -York? 1879?\] +William Lloyd Garrison on State Regulation of Vice. \[New York? 1879?\] -Words of Garrison; a centennial selection. Boston: Houghton, -Mifflin and Company. 1905. *Compiled by his sons Wendell -Phillips and Francis Jackson Garrison.* +Words of Garrison; a centennial selection. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and +Company. 1905. *Compiled by his sons Wendell Phillips and Francis +Jackson Garrison.* diff --git a/src/guilds-crisis.md b/src/guilds-crisis.md index e281b58..7def3ad 100644 --- a/src/guilds-crisis.md +++ b/src/guilds-crisis.md @@ -1,56 +1,48 @@ # Preface -This book is, among other things, an attempt to formulate a -policy for Guildsmen in the event of a revolution. Prophecy -is always dangerous, and it is, of course, conceivable that -a sudden enlightenment might descend upon the governing -class of this country such as would enable them to steer -safely through the social rapids which lie ahead. It must be -confessed, however, that such a miracle is highly -improbable, considering that they do riot apparently possess -sufficient understanding to retain the loyalty of such a -naturally conservative body of men as the police. Prudence, -therefore, suggests the wisdom of accepting revolution as -inevitable, and of shaping Guild policy in the light of it, -in order that we may not be taken by surprise. For -revolution is at the same time a great opportunity and a -great danger. If it should come upon us while we are -unprepared, it is almost a certainty we should drift into -anarchy. On the other hand, if anticipated, it might be used -for the purposes of reconstruction. - -The circumstance that, owing to the excesses of the -Bolshevik regime in Russia, the idea oi revolution is no -longer popular in this country does not affect the position -one iota. For revolutions are not definite political acts -which owe their origin to a more or less temporary mood of -the people, but are forced upon people by the fact that a -particular political and economic system has reached a -deadlock. For when normal activities can no longer find an -outlet there is bound to come a bursting of barriers. Such -an impasse, I hope to show, is bound to follow the economic -policy of the Government, which may be summarized in the -term "Maximum production." It is a policy which must either -issue in revolution or other wars, which if the public allow -could be used to relieve the pressure of the markets by the -creation of a demand for armaments. It has been said that -Governments are never overthrown, but that they commit -suicide, and, frankly confessed, our Government seems +This book is, among other things, an attempt to formulate a policy for +Guildsmen in the event of a revolution. Prophecy is always dangerous, +and it is, of course, conceivable that a sudden enlightenment might +descend upon the governing class of this country such as would enable +them to steer safely through the social rapids which lie ahead. It must +be confessed, however, that such a miracle is highly improbable, +considering that they do riot apparently possess sufficient +understanding to retain the loyalty of such a naturally conservative +body of men as the police. Prudence, therefore, suggests the wisdom of +accepting revolution as inevitable, and of shaping Guild policy in the +light of it, in order that we may not be taken by surprise. For +revolution is at the same time a great opportunity and a great danger. +If it should come upon us while we are unprepared, it is almost a +certainty we should drift into anarchy. On the other hand, if +anticipated, it might be used for the purposes of reconstruction. + +The circumstance that, owing to the excesses of the Bolshevik regime in +Russia, the idea oi revolution is no longer popular in this country does +not affect the position one iota. For revolutions are not definite +political acts which owe their origin to a more or less temporary mood +of the people, but are forced upon people by the fact that a particular +political and economic system has reached a deadlock. For when normal +activities can no longer find an outlet there is bound to come a +bursting of barriers. Such an impasse, I hope to show, is bound to +follow the economic policy of the Government, which may be summarized in +the term "Maximum production." It is a policy which must either issue in +revolution or other wars, which if the public allow could be used to +relieve the pressure of the markets by the creation of a demand for +armaments. It has been said that Governments are never overthrown, but +that they commit suicide, and, frankly confessed, our Government seems impelled by a kind of fate towards such an ending. -As the assumption underlying my arguments is that Germany -will not repay our War Loan, it is necessary to point out -that even if she were made to pay, the crisis would not be -averted. In this event we should have to provide her with -work, and this would react to increase unemployment in this -country. I wish it were otherwise, for justice demands that -Germany should be made to suffer; but I cannot overlook the -fact that its economic reaction upon ourselves would be as -unfavourable as the introduction of slaves was to the -freemen of the Roman Empire. +As the assumption underlying my arguments is that Germany will not repay +our War Loan, it is necessary to point out that even if she were made to +pay, the crisis would not be averted. In this event we should have to +provide her with work, and this would react to increase unemployment in +this country. I wish it were otherwise, for justice demands that Germany +should be made to suffer; but I cannot overlook the fact that its +economic reaction upon ourselves would be as unfavourable as the +introduction of slaves was to the freemen of the Roman Empire. -It remains for me to thank the Editor of the *New Age* for -permission to reprint the two concluding chapters. +It remains for me to thank the Editor of the *New Age* for permission to +reprint the two concluding chapters. A. J. P. @@ -60,2279 +52,1914 @@ September 1918 # The Economic Cul-de-sac -In spite of the repeated assurances of Cabinet Ministers and -others that things after the war are going to be very -different from what they were before, there is little either -in their words or actions to suggest that they have any idea -of what the forthcoming changes are likely to be. Though -they talk a great deal about reconstruction, and have set up -a Ministry of Reconstruction to elaborate plans for our -guidance in the future, it becomes more evident every day -that it is readjustment rather than reconstruction that -engages their attention There is nothing either in the -general principles laid down for the guidance of the -Committees set up by the Ministry,or in such of their -reports as have already come to hand, to suggest that the -governing class are in any way conscious of the need of -reconstruction. On the contrary, all the reports agree in -taking existing society in its main essentials for granted -as a thing of permanence and stability, little suspecting -the real peril that confronts us and seeking only to effect -such detailed adjustments as they suppose are necessary to -enable society to recover from the shock and dislocations -occasioned by the war. One of the Committees only that -concerned with the Labour Unrest shows any sign of alarm, -while even here there is little or no suspicion that the -trouble is irremovable so long as industrialism exists. On -the contrary, the trouble is regarded merely as a form of -distemper to be remedied by the balm and plaster of the -Whitley Report. - -While making this general comment on the work of the -Ministry, I must not be interpreted as deprecating entirely -the work of the Committees. The problems of demobilization -and the supply and distribution of raw materials are -problems of fundamental importance, though they partake of -the nature of readjustment rather than of reconstruction. -However much our eyes are fixed on the future, however much -we may be persuaded that the only way to avoid catastrophe -is finally to take such measures to strengthen the base of -society as are involved in a return to first principles, the -fact remains that we must live from day to day during the -period of transition. And in order that we may so live, in -order that the economic reaction of the war may not -precipitate anarchy, society as it exists to-day must be -propped up. To such an extent the work of the Committees is -valuable, and to such an extent the various systems of -control which are being introduced into so many departments -of production and distribution are to be approved, even -though they do involve bureaucratic methods of -administration. If the temporary nature of these -arrangements be admitted, then no harm can come of them. The -danger is that these props, instead of being regarded as -scaffolding necessary to the rebuilding of society, should -be mistaken for permanent structural arrangements, for they -touch no vital social issue. Though at the moment they put a -boundary to the growth of anarchy, they do not seek to -remove its cause, and no scheme which does not seek first -and foremost to remove the cause of social anarchy is worthy -of the name of reconstruction. - -That readjustment rather than reconstruction was the aim of -the Ministry is apparent not only from the terms of -reference to the Committees, but from their manner of -setting to work. Had reconstruction been their aim, they -would not immediately have set up a number of Committees to -deal with the various aspects of the problem presented, but -would have sought first to establish some general unanimity -of opinion as to its cause. It was, I suppose, because they -regarded the war as a colossal accident rather than as the -goal towards which industrialism inevitably tended that they -made no such effort. And this is where they went astray. If -the war were entirely due to the personal ambition of the -Kaiser and the lust for conquest of the Pan-Germans, then -there would be no more to be said. But if on inquiry we find -there to be causes much more fundamental and intimately -connected with the economic expansion to which industrialism -had committed all the nations of the West, the situation -wears a very different complexion. For it will then be seen -that readjustment is not only insufficient to meet the -perfectly legitimate demands of labour, but cannot even save -the governing class itself from complete annihilation in the -near future. - -In such circumstances it becomes apparent that if a scheme -of reconstruction is to be formulated which shall be in -relation to the facts of the case, we must make our -starting-point an inquiry into the causes of the war, and in -this connection it will be convenient to begin with the -Kaiser and his personal responsibility. Evidence seems to -point to the fact that though the Kaiser's arrogant and -bombastic spirit was a great factor in the development of -the war spirit in Germany, yet at the last moment he was -reluctant to sign the declaration of war. The Kaiser is -evidently a weak man, and had doubtless to screw his courage -up to take the final step, as is evidenced by the testimony -of Dr. Mühlon, formerly a director of Krupps, who has told -the world the story of how r early in July 1914 the Kaiser -informed Herr Krupp von Bohlen that he would declare war as -soon as Russia mobilized, adding "and this time the people -would see that he would not turn back." - -That is conclusive. But there is a question arising out of -this. Why did the Kaiser say "this time"? It had reference -to the Agadir crisis of 1911, when the Kaiser came to an -agreement with France over matters in dispute in Morocco -without having occasion to resort to war. This pacific act -of the Kaiser did not please the Pan-Germans, who denounced -him in the Berlin Press as a coward and a traitor, and so, -being a weak man, he yielded to their clamour. But why did -the Pan-Germans desire war? - -Prince Lichnowsky has told us that when the British -Government showed the utmost readiness to meet the wishes of -Germany in its desire for colonial expansion and a treaty -defining the respective spheres of influence of the two -Powers had been arranged, the German Government refused to -sign it upon the only terms on which Sir Edward Grey would -become a party to it---namely, that it should be given -publicity. The answer is, of course, that as the Pan-Germans -desired war under all circumstances and determined that -nothing should stand in its way, they deprecated the -publication 6f a treaty which would have knocked the bottom -out of their propaganda. Had the treaty been published, it -would have been impossible publicly to maintain the theory -that Germany was surrounded by a world of enemies, cut off -from any peaceful expansion by the envious jealousy and the -encirclement policy of British statesmen. +In spite of the repeated assurances of Cabinet Ministers and others that +things after the war are going to be very different from what they were +before, there is little either in their words or actions to suggest that +they have any idea of what the forthcoming changes are likely to be. +Though they talk a great deal about reconstruction, and have set up a +Ministry of Reconstruction to elaborate plans for our guidance in the +future, it becomes more evident every day that it is readjustment rather +than reconstruction that engages their attention There is nothing either +in the general principles laid down for the guidance of the Committees +set up by the Ministry,or in such of their reports as have already come +to hand, to suggest that the governing class are in any way conscious of +the need of reconstruction. On the contrary, all the reports agree in +taking existing society in its main essentials for granted as a thing of +permanence and stability, little suspecting the real peril that +confronts us and seeking only to effect such detailed adjustments as +they suppose are necessary to enable society to recover from the shock +and dislocations occasioned by the war. One of the Committees only that +concerned with the Labour Unrest shows any sign of alarm, while even +here there is little or no suspicion that the trouble is irremovable so +long as industrialism exists. On the contrary, the trouble is regarded +merely as a form of distemper to be remedied by the balm and plaster of +the Whitley Report. + +While making this general comment on the work of the Ministry, I must +not be interpreted as deprecating entirely the work of the Committees. +The problems of demobilization and the supply and distribution of raw +materials are problems of fundamental importance, though they partake of +the nature of readjustment rather than of reconstruction. However much +our eyes are fixed on the future, however much we may be persuaded that +the only way to avoid catastrophe is finally to take such measures to +strengthen the base of society as are involved in a return to first +principles, the fact remains that we must live from day to day during +the period of transition. And in order that we may so live, in order +that the economic reaction of the war may not precipitate anarchy, +society as it exists to-day must be propped up. To such an extent the +work of the Committees is valuable, and to such an extent the various +systems of control which are being introduced into so many departments +of production and distribution are to be approved, even though they do +involve bureaucratic methods of administration. If the temporary nature +of these arrangements be admitted, then no harm can come of them. The +danger is that these props, instead of being regarded as scaffolding +necessary to the rebuilding of society, should be mistaken for permanent +structural arrangements, for they touch no vital social issue. Though at +the moment they put a boundary to the growth of anarchy, they do not +seek to remove its cause, and no scheme which does not seek first and +foremost to remove the cause of social anarchy is worthy of the name of +reconstruction. + +That readjustment rather than reconstruction was the aim of the Ministry +is apparent not only from the terms of reference to the Committees, but +from their manner of setting to work. Had reconstruction been their aim, +they would not immediately have set up a number of Committees to deal +with the various aspects of the problem presented, but would have sought +first to establish some general unanimity of opinion as to its cause. It +was, I suppose, because they regarded the war as a colossal accident +rather than as the goal towards which industrialism inevitably tended +that they made no such effort. And this is where they went astray. If +the war were entirely due to the personal ambition of the Kaiser and the +lust for conquest of the Pan-Germans, then there would be no more to be +said. But if on inquiry we find there to be causes much more fundamental +and intimately connected with the economic expansion to which +industrialism had committed all the nations of the West, the situation +wears a very different complexion. For it will then be seen that +readjustment is not only insufficient to meet the perfectly legitimate +demands of labour, but cannot even save the governing class itself from +complete annihilation in the near future. + +In such circumstances it becomes apparent that if a scheme of +reconstruction is to be formulated which shall be in relation to the +facts of the case, we must make our starting-point an inquiry into the +causes of the war, and in this connection it will be convenient to begin +with the Kaiser and his personal responsibility. Evidence seems to point +to the fact that though the Kaiser's arrogant and bombastic spirit was a +great factor in the development of the war spirit in Germany, yet at the +last moment he was reluctant to sign the declaration of war. The Kaiser +is evidently a weak man, and had doubtless to screw his courage up to +take the final step, as is evidenced by the testimony of Dr. Mühlon, +formerly a director of Krupps, who has told the world the story of how r +early in July 1914 the Kaiser informed Herr Krupp von Bohlen that he +would declare war as soon as Russia mobilized, adding "and this time the +people would see that he would not turn back." + +That is conclusive. But there is a question arising out of this. Why did +the Kaiser say "this time"? It had reference to the Agadir crisis of +1911, when the Kaiser came to an agreement with France over matters in +dispute in Morocco without having occasion to resort to war. This +pacific act of the Kaiser did not please the Pan-Germans, who denounced +him in the Berlin Press as a coward and a traitor, and so, being a weak +man, he yielded to their clamour. But why did the Pan-Germans desire +war? + +Prince Lichnowsky has told us that when the British Government showed +the utmost readiness to meet the wishes of Germany in its desire for +colonial expansion and a treaty defining the respective spheres of +influence of the two Powers had been arranged, the German Government +refused to sign it upon the only terms on which Sir Edward Grey would +become a party to it---namely, that it should be given publicity. The +answer is, of course, that as the Pan-Germans desired war under all +circumstances and determined that nothing should stand in its way, they +deprecated the publication 6f a treaty which would have knocked the +bottom out of their propaganda. Had the treaty been published, it would +have been impossible publicly to maintain the theory that Germany was +surrounded by a world of enemies, cut off from any peaceful expansion by +the envious jealousy and the encirclement policy of British statesmen. But why did the Pan-Germans desire war apparently under any -circumstances? The usual answer is, of course, to say that -Germany was ambitious, desired world dominion, that she had -become so saturated with the spirit of war and conquest that -she had become incapable of thinking politically except in -the terms of war. While this undoubtedly was the case, it -does not explain why war broke out in 1914 instead of -before, for such a spirit had been present in Germany since -1871. The reason is, I think, to be found in the economic -condition at which Germany had then arrived. The financial -strain in Germany in the three or four years preceding the -war had become so terrible that it is conceivable that the -war was as much caused by the desire, for relief from such -trying circumstances as by the warlike proclivities of the -German ruling class. German trade had been built up upon a -highly organized system of credit; and as that system showed -signs of breaking down, German statesmen and financiers -apparently had come to the conclusion that the only way to -save the country from financial disaster was to secure the -huge indemnities which would follow upon a successful war. -That is the reason, I believe, why Germany refused to sign -the treaty with Great Britain. It was because its statesmen -felt that while it would make war impossible, it would not -solve the economic problem with which Germany was confronted -in 1914. - -Before the outbreak of the war the joint-stock system of -banking in Germany was in a very rotten condition. Germany -was trading upon a broadly extended system of credit, -controlled through the Reichsbank by the Government. Under -the Reichsbank flourished a system of four hundred and -twenty-one joint-stock banks. In February 1914 the -ninety-one principal joints-tock banks had owing to them -from various debtors 6,068,000,000 marks, while their -indebtedness was 8,600,000,000 marks, or in other words, -they were insolvent---a fact which is not surprising when we -learn the highly speculative nature of the enterprises which -they were accustomed to finance. The stability hitherto of -the English banks rests on the fact that they can only -invest in gilt-edged securities. But the German banks would -apparently finance anything, no matter how speculative. Many -of them had been heavily engaged in promoting doubtful -ventures at home and abroad, such as the building of -railways in Russia, Asia Minor and South America, while in -order to encourage German export trade they were accustomed -to grant long credits to foreign customers without near -prospects of payment. It w r as by such means that Germany -had hoped to secure the commercial hegemony of the world. -But she had overreached herself. The system was clearly +circumstances? The usual answer is, of course, to say that Germany was +ambitious, desired world dominion, that she had become so saturated with +the spirit of war and conquest that she had become incapable of thinking +politically except in the terms of war. While this undoubtedly was the +case, it does not explain why war broke out in 1914 instead of before, +for such a spirit had been present in Germany since 1871. The reason is, +I think, to be found in the economic condition at which Germany had then +arrived. The financial strain in Germany in the three or four years +preceding the war had become so terrible that it is conceivable that the +war was as much caused by the desire, for relief from such trying +circumstances as by the warlike proclivities of the German ruling class. +German trade had been built up upon a highly organized system of credit; +and as that system showed signs of breaking down, German statesmen and +financiers apparently had come to the conclusion that the only way to +save the country from financial disaster was to secure the huge +indemnities which would follow upon a successful war. That is the +reason, I believe, why Germany refused to sign the treaty with Great +Britain. It was because its statesmen felt that while it would make war +impossible, it would not solve the economic problem with which Germany +was confronted in 1914. + +Before the outbreak of the war the joint-stock system of banking in +Germany was in a very rotten condition. Germany was trading upon a +broadly extended system of credit, controlled through the Reichsbank by +the Government. Under the Reichsbank flourished a system of four hundred +and twenty-one joint-stock banks. In February 1914 the ninety-one +principal joints-tock banks had owing to them from various debtors +6,068,000,000 marks, while their indebtedness was 8,600,000,000 marks, +or in other words, they were insolvent---a fact which is not surprising +when we learn the highly speculative nature of the enterprises which +they were accustomed to finance. The stability hitherto of the English +banks rests on the fact that they can only invest in gilt-edged +securities. But the German banks would apparently finance anything, no +matter how speculative. Many of them had been heavily engaged in +promoting doubtful ventures at home and abroad, such as the building of +railways in Russia, Asia Minor and South America, while in order to +encourage German export trade they were accustomed to grant long credits +to foreign customers without near prospects of payment. It w r as by +such means that Germany had hoped to secure the commercial hegemony of +the world. But she had overreached herself. The system was clearly breaking down. -It will be unnecessary for me to go deeply into this matter, -but a moment or two spent over the greatest of the -joint-stock banks---the Deutschebank---will be worth while. -"On paper this limited company, which must not be mistaken -for the Imperial State Bank, is an imposing institution. Its -securities and reserves amount to 425,000,000 marks, or -21,000,000, of which 250,000,000 marks are capital and -175,000,000 reserve, figures which will compare reasonably -well with one or other of the smaller joint-stock banks of -this country or of France. But where the English joint-stock -banks or the Credit-Lyonnais, let us say, are largely -institutions of deposit, doing only very conservative -financial business, the Deutschebank, which has lately -absorbed the Bergisch-Marckischebank, employs the greater -part of its capital and its resources in speculations of a -very doubtful type, or definitely and absolutely employs the -deposits entrusted to it for political ends or the extension -of German interests. In Turkey, for instance, the -Deutschebank has employed itself in the building of -railways, in the farming of the octrois; in Berlin it has -attempted to found a petroleum monopoly under the control of -the Government, and it has advanced more than 100,000,000 -marks for the purpose of saving the Fuersten-Conzern. - -"This Princes-Concern was an immense syndicate of princes -and courtiers who were determined to obtain their share of -the industrial development of Germany. They built hotels, -factories, immense shops, where they traded in every -possible article of commerce; they speculated in building -land; and last year (1914) the whole concern came to the -ground with an immense crash, threatening with absolute ruin -several of the princely houses of Germany. That the -Deutschebank should have tried to come to the rescue of this -concern was nothing more or less than dishonesty to its -depositors, or, if that is too strong a statement, it is -exact to say that at the date of the outbreak of the war the -Deutschebank, in spite of its advance of 100,000,000 marks, -was very far from having established the Fuersten-Conzern on -anything like a satisfactory basis." - -Corroborative testimony to the economic depression which had -overtaken Germany prior to the war is to be found in the -Reports of H.B.M.'s Consular Agents in Germany. Reading them -makes it fairly apparent that by the end of 1912 the German -industrial system had reached its limit of expansion, and -that the competition of French, Japanese, English, and -Scotch manufacturers was either closing markets to the -Germans, or was actually making inroads in the German home -trade, and it becomes evident that the German financial -system, built on an inverted pyramid of credit, could not -for long bear the strain of adverse conditions. Germany was -committed to a policy of indefinite industrial expansion, -and signs were not wanting that that expansion had reached -its limit. Professor Hausertells us in this connection that -the ratio of productivity, due to never-slackening energy, -technique and scientific development, was before the war far -outstripping the ratio of demand. Production was no longer -controlled by demand, but by plant. What the Americans call -overhead expenses had increased to such an enormous extent -that no furnace could be damped down and no machine stopped, -or the overhead expenses would eat up the profits, and the -whole industrial organization come crashing down, bringing -with it national bankruptcy. In other words, the commercial -history of the German Empire was one of enormous artificial -expansion obtained not infrequently by cutting prices to -such an extent that there were no available profits when the -expansions were secured. Since the opening years of the -present century the whole financial position of Germany has, -in fact, been one of long anxieties, qualified by short -periods of hectic confidence. - -But, it will be said, if the German economic system was -really breaking down before the war, how is it that she has -been able to finance the war for four years? For if such had -been the case, would not the strain of the war have broken -it down long ago? - -The answer is that though in the long run the continuance of -war tends to wreck every economic system, its immediate -effects may be otherwise, inasmuch as the exigencies of war -can be used by an all-powerful Government to perpetuate a -financial system which is moving towards bankruptcy by -changing temporarily the basis on which it rests. Let me +It will be unnecessary for me to go deeply into this matter, but a +moment or two spent over the greatest of the joint-stock banks---the +Deutschebank---will be worth while. "On paper this limited company, +which must not be mistaken for the Imperial State Bank, is an imposing +institution. Its securities and reserves amount to 425,000,000 marks, or +21,000,000, of which 250,000,000 marks are capital and 175,000,000 +reserve, figures which will compare reasonably well with one or other of +the smaller joint-stock banks of this country or of France. But where +the English joint-stock banks or the Credit-Lyonnais, let us say, are +largely institutions of deposit, doing only very conservative financial +business, the Deutschebank, which has lately absorbed the +Bergisch-Marckischebank, employs the greater part of its capital and its +resources in speculations of a very doubtful type, or definitely and +absolutely employs the deposits entrusted to it for political ends or +the extension of German interests. In Turkey, for instance, the +Deutschebank has employed itself in the building of railways, in the +farming of the octrois; in Berlin it has attempted to found a petroleum +monopoly under the control of the Government, and it has advanced more +than 100,000,000 marks for the purpose of saving the Fuersten-Conzern. + +"This Princes-Concern was an immense syndicate of princes and courtiers +who were determined to obtain their share of the industrial development +of Germany. They built hotels, factories, immense shops, where they +traded in every possible article of commerce; they speculated in +building land; and last year (1914) the whole concern came to the ground +with an immense crash, threatening with absolute ruin several of the +princely houses of Germany. That the Deutschebank should have tried to +come to the rescue of this concern was nothing more or less than +dishonesty to its depositors, or, if that is too strong a statement, it +is exact to say that at the date of the outbreak of the war the +Deutschebank, in spite of its advance of 100,000,000 marks, was very far +from having established the Fuersten-Conzern on anything like a +satisfactory basis." + +Corroborative testimony to the economic depression which had overtaken +Germany prior to the war is to be found in the Reports of H.B.M.'s +Consular Agents in Germany. Reading them makes it fairly apparent that +by the end of 1912 the German industrial system had reached its limit of +expansion, and that the competition of French, Japanese, English, and +Scotch manufacturers was either closing markets to the Germans, or was +actually making inroads in the German home trade, and it becomes evident +that the German financial system, built on an inverted pyramid of +credit, could not for long bear the strain of adverse conditions. +Germany was committed to a policy of indefinite industrial expansion, +and signs were not wanting that that expansion had reached its limit. +Professor Hausertells us in this connection that the ratio of +productivity, due to never-slackening energy, technique and scientific +development, was before the war far outstripping the ratio of demand. +Production was no longer controlled by demand, but by plant. What the +Americans call overhead expenses had increased to such an enormous +extent that no furnace could be damped down and no machine stopped, or +the overhead expenses would eat up the profits, and the whole industrial +organization come crashing down, bringing with it national bankruptcy. +In other words, the commercial history of the German Empire was one of +enormous artificial expansion obtained not infrequently by cutting +prices to such an extent that there were no available profits when the +expansions were secured. Since the opening years of the present century +the whole financial position of Germany has, in fact, been one of long +anxieties, qualified by short periods of hectic confidence. + +But, it will be said, if the German economic system was really breaking +down before the war, how is it that she has been able to finance the war +for four years? For if such had been the case, would not the strain of +the war have broken it down long ago? + +The answer is that though in the long run the continuance of war tends +to wreck every economic system, its immediate effects may be otherwise, +inasmuch as the exigencies of war can be used by an all-powerful +Government to perpetuate a financial system which is moving towards +bankruptcy by changing temporarily the basis on which it rests. Let me explain how this works. -It will not be disputed that under normal peace conditions -every financial system rests upon confidence. The -maintenance of this confidence In these days rests upon an -ability to make profits, for it is only by making profits -that interest on loans and other financial obligations can -be met. Should the pressure of competition become so severe -that the margin of profit is reduced beyond the point at -which obligations can be met, confidence goes, and if the -great majority of people in a community are in these -difficult straits economic stagnation results. Such a state -of things might exist in a society in which a small minority -of the community was very wealthy. Economic stagnation in -such circumstances would not mean that there was not wealth -in a country, but that the possessors of wealth withhold -their money from circulation because they cannot see a -return for their capital. The evidence I have given appears -to show that some such state of financial stagnation had -overtaken Germany in the two years preceding the war. -Competition had become so keen and profits so reduced that -confidence had been largely destroyed, and money withdrawn -from circulation. But once war was declared the system began -to work again, because finance rested no longer on -confidence but on force. In other words, war introduced a -change in financial operations to the extent that confidence -came to rest no longer upon personal solvency, but upon -Government solvency, which in turn rested upon faith in -German arms to secure huge war indemnities at the conclusion -of peace. Realizing the root trouble in German finance, -namely, small profits which disposed the possessors of -wealth to withhold money from circulation, I do not see how -war indemnities could provide a remedy. But that is by the -way. The important thing was the German people thought so, -and that set the financial machine in motion again. - -Enjoying this illusion, the possessors of wealth, who in -peace times withheld their money from circulation because -they could see no return for it, lent it to the Government -when it declared war, partly out of fear, lest if they did -not support the Government their country might be invaded or -they might be compelled to acquiesce in an unfavourable -peace, but primarily because the Government promised them -interest on their loans. Further, under the plea of urgency -to which the war gave justification, the credit of the -German subject was propped up by the Government, which, -acting through the Reichsbank, put a value by fiat on -securities which are now unsaleable, and can only have value -on the hypothesis of a German victory: values on German -business concerns abroad sequestrated and possibly to be -confiscated, values of concessions that may never be -returned to Germany, values of export houses that may never -be able to regain their markets, values of ships seized or -sunk, etc. By placing a credit value on such securities, the -Government could borrow money. The expenditure of these -loans by the Government put money into circulation, which -the German Government borrowed again from the people into -whose hands it had passed, paying the interest out of -further borrowing. This process could be continued so long -as the belief persisted that the country would be ultimately -victorious, and it took a long time to destroy this belief, -for by the exercise of arbitrary power the German Government -had managed to merge with its shaky structure of public -credit the whole structure of private credit as well. The -limit is only reached when the accumulations of interest to -be paid cannot be met out of further borrowings. - -It will be with the return of peace that the real troubles -will begin. This will be not merely because of the political -and financial complications which will arise in every -belligerent country over the repayment of their war loans, -and the problems of demobilization and unemployment, but -because the economic lesson which the war should have taught -has not been heeded. The war is still regarded by most -people as a colossal accident, a stupendous misfortune which -has overtaken the world. Individual thinkers here and there -have seen its connection with industrialism, have seen that -the war was precipitated by the fact that industrialism, at -least in Germany, had reached its limit of expansion. But -nowhere is there any public recognition of the fact, and -this is where the danger lies. For it is certain that the -whole of Western civilization was travelling in the same -direction, and, apart from the war, would soon have found -itself in this same economic cul-de-sac, from which the only -escape is backwards. It is a paradox, but it is nevertheless -true, that what we term expansion ends finally in -congestion. The congestion which for so long followed every -attempt to break the line in France symbolizes the -congestion which has entered into every department of modern -activity. Everything in modern life is congested---our -politics, our trade, our professions and cities have one -thing in common: they are all congested. There is no -elbow-room anywhere, and, as I have said, there can be but -one path of escape, and that is backwards. - -Modern thinkers, although they will sometimes admit that -many things in life have their limits, nevertheless find it -difficult to believe that there is such a thing as a limit -to economic development. Somehow or other they imagine that -economic expansion can go on for ever, and deny absolutely -the possibility of such a thing as an economic deadlock -overtaking industry. I believe that a terrible -disillusionment awaits them, for events very soon after the -war will prove my contention in a way more forcible than -logic unless, of course, in the meantime .the danger is -clearly recognized and measures are taken for meeting it. -Judging by the trend of opinion, such a course seems -extremely unlikely. - -Let me try to show why industrial expansion must eventuate -in an economic deadlock. I will begin by defining an -economic deadlock as a state of affairs in which the balance -between demand and supply is so completely upset that only -changes so drastic and fundamental as to amount to a -revolution can by any possibility restore it again. What is -there improbable about such a situation arising? The balance -has been upset many times during the last hundred years, and -after a time it is true things have adjusted themselves -again. But what reason is there to suppose that the balance -will always be restored, any more than to suppose that -because a man has recovered several times from some serious -illness he will always be able to offer effective -resistance? We know that such is not the case, and that the -constant recurrence of illness will so weaken a man's -constitution that in the end he succumbs. The same holds -good with respect to economic evils which attack the body -politic. They undermine this and undermine that until -finally they bring disaster. That this is not popularly -recognized is due to the long period of time which elapses -between the first symptoms and the final catastrophe. When -the evil first appears it gives rise to alarm. People -predict dreadful consequences, and they are right, but the -delay seems to disprove them. Familiarity breeds -indifference. Then apologists appear, and the various stages -of the disease are heralded as signs of progress, until -finally all ideas of right and wrong become so confused that -when the final crisis arrives the foundations of right -thinking have become so completely undermined that nothing -can prevent collapse. - -Let me argue the point another way. If there is no limit to -the possibilities of production there must be no limit to -consumption, because the volume of production can only -increase on the assumption that there is a corresponding -increase in consumption. But is it not apparent that there -must be a limit to the possibilities of consumption? If by -automatic machinery we could increase production a -thousandfold the balance between demand and supply would be -upset and an economic deadlock created, for it is a -certainty we could not increase our consumption to a -corresponding degree, except by recourse to a war a +It will not be disputed that under normal peace conditions every +financial system rests upon confidence. The maintenance of this +confidence In these days rests upon an ability to make profits, for it +is only by making profits that interest on loans and other financial +obligations can be met. Should the pressure of competition become so +severe that the margin of profit is reduced beyond the point at which +obligations can be met, confidence goes, and if the great majority of +people in a community are in these difficult straits economic stagnation +results. Such a state of things might exist in a society in which a +small minority of the community was very wealthy. Economic stagnation in +such circumstances would not mean that there was not wealth in a +country, but that the possessors of wealth withhold their money from +circulation because they cannot see a return for their capital. The +evidence I have given appears to show that some such state of financial +stagnation had overtaken Germany in the two years preceding the war. +Competition had become so keen and profits so reduced that confidence +had been largely destroyed, and money withdrawn from circulation. But +once war was declared the system began to work again, because finance +rested no longer on confidence but on force. In other words, war +introduced a change in financial operations to the extent that +confidence came to rest no longer upon personal solvency, but upon +Government solvency, which in turn rested upon faith in German arms to +secure huge war indemnities at the conclusion of peace. Realizing the +root trouble in German finance, namely, small profits which disposed the +possessors of wealth to withhold money from circulation, I do not see +how war indemnities could provide a remedy. But that is by the way. The +important thing was the German people thought so, and that set the +financial machine in motion again. + +Enjoying this illusion, the possessors of wealth, who in peace times +withheld their money from circulation because they could see no return +for it, lent it to the Government when it declared war, partly out of +fear, lest if they did not support the Government their country might be +invaded or they might be compelled to acquiesce in an unfavourable +peace, but primarily because the Government promised them interest on +their loans. Further, under the plea of urgency to which the war gave +justification, the credit of the German subject was propped up by the +Government, which, acting through the Reichsbank, put a value by fiat on +securities which are now unsaleable, and can only have value on the +hypothesis of a German victory: values on German business concerns +abroad sequestrated and possibly to be confiscated, values of +concessions that may never be returned to Germany, values of export +houses that may never be able to regain their markets, values of ships +seized or sunk, etc. By placing a credit value on such securities, the +Government could borrow money. The expenditure of these loans by the +Government put money into circulation, which the German Government +borrowed again from the people into whose hands it had passed, paying +the interest out of further borrowing. This process could be continued +so long as the belief persisted that the country would be ultimately +victorious, and it took a long time to destroy this belief, for by the +exercise of arbitrary power the German Government had managed to merge +with its shaky structure of public credit the whole structure of private +credit as well. The limit is only reached when the accumulations of +interest to be paid cannot be met out of further borrowings. + +It will be with the return of peace that the real troubles will begin. +This will be not merely because of the political and financial +complications which will arise in every belligerent country over the +repayment of their war loans, and the problems of demobilization and +unemployment, but because the economic lesson which the war should have +taught has not been heeded. The war is still regarded by most people as +a colossal accident, a stupendous misfortune which has overtaken the +world. Individual thinkers here and there have seen its connection with +industrialism, have seen that the war was precipitated by the fact that +industrialism, at least in Germany, had reached its limit of expansion. +But nowhere is there any public recognition of the fact, and this is +where the danger lies. For it is certain that the whole of Western +civilization was travelling in the same direction, and, apart from the +war, would soon have found itself in this same economic cul-de-sac, from +which the only escape is backwards. It is a paradox, but it is +nevertheless true, that what we term expansion ends finally in +congestion. The congestion which for so long followed every attempt to +break the line in France symbolizes the congestion which has entered +into every department of modern activity. Everything in modern life is +congested---our politics, our trade, our professions and cities have one +thing in common: they are all congested. There is no elbow-room +anywhere, and, as I have said, there can be but one path of escape, and +that is backwards. + +Modern thinkers, although they will sometimes admit that many things in +life have their limits, nevertheless find it difficult to believe that +there is such a thing as a limit to economic development. Somehow or +other they imagine that economic expansion can go on for ever, and deny +absolutely the possibility of such a thing as an economic deadlock +overtaking industry. I believe that a terrible disillusionment awaits +them, for events very soon after the war will prove my contention in a +way more forcible than logic unless, of course, in the meantime .the +danger is clearly recognized and measures are taken for meeting it. +Judging by the trend of opinion, such a course seems extremely unlikely. + +Let me try to show why industrial expansion must eventuate in an +economic deadlock. I will begin by defining an economic deadlock as a +state of affairs in which the balance between demand and supply is so +completely upset that only changes so drastic and fundamental as to +amount to a revolution can by any possibility restore it again. What is +there improbable about such a situation arising? The balance has been +upset many times during the last hundred years, and after a time it is +true things have adjusted themselves again. But what reason is there to +suppose that the balance will always be restored, any more than to +suppose that because a man has recovered several times from some serious +illness he will always be able to offer effective resistance? We know +that such is not the case, and that the constant recurrence of illness +will so weaken a man's constitution that in the end he succumbs. The +same holds good with respect to economic evils which attack the body +politic. They undermine this and undermine that until finally they bring +disaster. That this is not popularly recognized is due to the long +period of time which elapses between the first symptoms and the final +catastrophe. When the evil first appears it gives rise to alarm. People +predict dreadful consequences, and they are right, but the delay seems +to disprove them. Familiarity breeds indifference. Then apologists +appear, and the various stages of the disease are heralded as signs of +progress, until finally all ideas of right and wrong become so confused +that when the final crisis arrives the foundations of right thinking +have become so completely undermined that nothing can prevent collapse. + +Let me argue the point another way. If there is no limit to the +possibilities of production there must be no limit to consumption, +because the volume of production can only increase on the assumption +that there is a corresponding increase in consumption. But is it not +apparent that there must be a limit to the possibilities of consumption? +If by automatic machinery we could increase production a thousandfold +the balance between demand and supply would be upset and an economic +deadlock created, for it is a certainty we could not increase our +consumption to a corresponding degree, except by recourse to a war a thousandfold more destructive than the present one. -That is the answer, I think, to those people who agree in -theory that there is a limit to consumption, but deny that -we are in any way reaching this limit. The proof that there -is such a thing as a limit to consumption lies in the fact -that we are at war. We are at war to decide, among other -things, which nation or group of nations shall have the -right to dominate the markets of the world. If the limit of -consumption has not been reached, why should there be this -struggle, why this intensification of competition? Surely it -can only mean that, having reached this limit, we are in an -economic cul-de-sac, that we are unable to go forward and -too proud to go back. +That is the answer, I think, to those people who agree in theory that +there is a limit to consumption, but deny that we are in any way +reaching this limit. The proof that there is such a thing as a limit to +consumption lies in the fact that we are at war. We are at war to +decide, among other things, which nation or group of nations shall have +the right to dominate the markets of the world. If the limit of +consumption has not been reached, why should there be this struggle, why +this intensification of competition? Surely it can only mean that, +having reached this limit, we are in an economic cul-de-sac, that we are +unable to go forward and too proud to go back. # Maximum Production and Scientific Management -THE underlying cause of the destruction of the balance -between demand and supply, which in turn has been the -economic cause of the war and will lead us afterwards into -an economic cul-de-sac, is the sin of avarice, which leads -people to be for ever reinvesting their surplus wealth for -further increase instead of spending it upon crafts and -arts. - -This mania---for it is nothing less---is of quite modern -origin. In the Middle Ages, as in the East to-day, it was -the custom of people to spend or invest their wealth in -beautiful things. They would spend their all upon fine -buildings, furniture, metal-work, rugs, or jewellery. -Incidentally, this is why people who were poor according to -modern standards invariably lived in a beautiful -environment. It was natural for these people to spend their -wealth in this way because when the laws against usury were -strict there was no other way to spend it. But with the -relaxation of the Mediaeval laws against usury, and the rise -of Protestantism, which sought to accommodate morals to the -practice of the rich, a change gradually took place. Still, -in spite of gross inequalities in the division of wealth, -the balance between demand and supply was fairly maintained, -since, so long as hand production obtained, a natural -boundary prevented the growing tendency of people to -reinvest surplus wealth for further increase from developing -beyond a certain point. But with the coming of machinery and -the limited liability company this boundary was removed, and -opportunities for investment presented themselves at every -turn. It was thus that the old idea that surplus wealth -should be spent upon the arts first fell into disuse, and -then was forgotten. When people build nowadays they no -longer regard it as a means of consuming a surplus, but as a -speculation by which they hope to increase their riches. -This applies not only to building, but to pictures, which -are bought to-day as investments. - -Had the governing class any grip of the economic situation, -they would have seized upon this issue as being the central -one for themselves, and by diverting surplus wealth into its -proper channel have sought to readjust the balance between -demand and supply. But in spite of all that has happened, -and is happening, they seem to be entirely blind to the -situation. They never for one moment reflect on the general -economic situation, which in their minds appears to be -entirely obscured by two issues considered by them of more -immediate importance, namely, how to secure our commercial -supremacy after the war against the competition of Germany, -and how to repay the war loan. Being practical men---that -is, men who can never see the wood for the trees---they -concentrate on these two issues, disregarding entirely the -wider considerations involved. Faced, apparently, by a -dilemma and seeing no sure path of escape, they close their -eyes to half of the facts of the situation and plunge wildly -forward in a desperate bid for safety. How else can the -advocacy of maximum production and scientific management be -explained? If it is not a policy of desperation, what is it? -For no one could advocate it who has made any attempt to see -the problem as a whole. It is a gambler's last throw with -the dice loaded against him. - -I feel well advised in making this assertion, for all the -facts of the situation point to this conclusion. The -advocates of maximum production and scientific management -make no attempt to think as statesmen who take all sides of -a problem into consideration; they do not even think of the -class interests of capitalists, for maximum production can -be shown to be contrary to their interests as a class; they -think as individual capitalists who interpret national -problems in the terms of their own businesses. There can be -no doubt about this, for it is only by thinking in such -terms that it is possible to make out a case for these -proposed innovations. Their reasoning is arcadian in its -simplicity. To repay the war loan and to maintain our -commercial supremacy after the war, it is necessary to make -more money and to produce more cheaply. These ends are to be -attained by maximum production on a basis of scientific -management. What could be simpler? Scientific management -will reduce the cost of production, and will therefore allow -us to compete more successfully with Germany, while maximum -production increases opportunities for the making of -profits. Such a policy is without doubt a sound business -proposition from the point of view of the individual -capitalist who has to consider ways and means of holding his -own in the market and meeting his financial obligations -after the war. But it is not possible for many of them to -adopt it without imperilling the stability of the whole -social and economic system. For it has this defect, when -considered from a national point of view, that it increases -immeasurably the discrepancy between demand and supply. It -trespasses further on the margin of economic safety. In a -word, it is a proposal to take a short cut by sailing too -near the wind, and as after the war the political and -economic atmosphere will be charged with storms and -tempests, the chances are that the ship of state will -capsize. - -To realize the danger of this proposal it is only necessary -to enlarge the area of the problem. Granted that maximum -production and scientific management would enable our -manufacturers to produce more cheaply and to make more -money, would it enable them to give more employment? For -unemployment is going to be the problem of problems after -the war, and a policy which does not make this issue its -starting-point is no policy at all. It is an evasion of the -whole difficulty. In comparison, how to repay the war loan, -and how to maintain our position in the markets of the world -are matters of quite secondary importance, since the whole +THE underlying cause of the destruction of the balance between demand +and supply, which in turn has been the economic cause of the war and +will lead us afterwards into an economic cul-de-sac, is the sin of +avarice, which leads people to be for ever reinvesting their surplus +wealth for further increase instead of spending it upon crafts and arts. + +This mania---for it is nothing less---is of quite modern origin. In the +Middle Ages, as in the East to-day, it was the custom of people to spend +or invest their wealth in beautiful things. They would spend their all +upon fine buildings, furniture, metal-work, rugs, or jewellery. +Incidentally, this is why people who were poor according to modern +standards invariably lived in a beautiful environment. It was natural +for these people to spend their wealth in this way because when the laws +against usury were strict there was no other way to spend it. But with +the relaxation of the Mediaeval laws against usury, and the rise of +Protestantism, which sought to accommodate morals to the practice of the +rich, a change gradually took place. Still, in spite of gross +inequalities in the division of wealth, the balance between demand and +supply was fairly maintained, since, so long as hand production +obtained, a natural boundary prevented the growing tendency of people to +reinvest surplus wealth for further increase from developing beyond a +certain point. But with the coming of machinery and the limited +liability company this boundary was removed, and opportunities for +investment presented themselves at every turn. It was thus that the old +idea that surplus wealth should be spent upon the arts first fell into +disuse, and then was forgotten. When people build nowadays they no +longer regard it as a means of consuming a surplus, but as a speculation +by which they hope to increase their riches. This applies not only to +building, but to pictures, which are bought to-day as investments. + +Had the governing class any grip of the economic situation, they would +have seized upon this issue as being the central one for themselves, and +by diverting surplus wealth into its proper channel have sought to +readjust the balance between demand and supply. But in spite of all that +has happened, and is happening, they seem to be entirely blind to the +situation. They never for one moment reflect on the general economic +situation, which in their minds appears to be entirely obscured by two +issues considered by them of more immediate importance, namely, how to +secure our commercial supremacy after the war against the competition of +Germany, and how to repay the war loan. Being practical men---that is, +men who can never see the wood for the trees---they concentrate on these +two issues, disregarding entirely the wider considerations involved. +Faced, apparently, by a dilemma and seeing no sure path of escape, they +close their eyes to half of the facts of the situation and plunge wildly +forward in a desperate bid for safety. How else can the advocacy of +maximum production and scientific management be explained? If it is not +a policy of desperation, what is it? For no one could advocate it who +has made any attempt to see the problem as a whole. It is a gambler's +last throw with the dice loaded against him. + +I feel well advised in making this assertion, for all the facts of the +situation point to this conclusion. The advocates of maximum production +and scientific management make no attempt to think as statesmen who take +all sides of a problem into consideration; they do not even think of the +class interests of capitalists, for maximum production can be shown to +be contrary to their interests as a class; they think as individual +capitalists who interpret national problems in the terms of their own +businesses. There can be no doubt about this, for it is only by thinking +in such terms that it is possible to make out a case for these proposed +innovations. Their reasoning is arcadian in its simplicity. To repay the +war loan and to maintain our commercial supremacy after the war, it is +necessary to make more money and to produce more cheaply. These ends are +to be attained by maximum production on a basis of scientific +management. What could be simpler? Scientific management will reduce the +cost of production, and will therefore allow us to compete more +successfully with Germany, while maximum production increases +opportunities for the making of profits. Such a policy is without doubt +a sound business proposition from the point of view of the individual +capitalist who has to consider ways and means of holding his own in the +market and meeting his financial obligations after the war. But it is +not possible for many of them to adopt it without imperilling the +stability of the whole social and economic system. For it has this +defect, when considered from a national point of view, that it increases +immeasurably the discrepancy between demand and supply. It trespasses +further on the margin of economic safety. In a word, it is a proposal to +take a short cut by sailing too near the wind, and as after the war the +political and economic atmosphere will be charged with storms and +tempests, the chances are that the ship of state will capsize. + +To realize the danger of this proposal it is only necessary to enlarge +the area of the problem. Granted that maximum production and scientific +management would enable our manufacturers to produce more cheaply and to +make more money, would it enable them to give more employment? For +unemployment is going to be the problem of problems after the war, and a +policy which does not make this issue its starting-point is no policy at +all. It is an evasion of the whole difficulty. In comparison, how to +repay the war loan, and how to maintain our position in the markets of +the world are matters of quite secondary importance, since the whole future of our civilization depends upon our capacity to deal -successfully with unemployment. Failure means not only -revolution, but a relapse into anarchy and barbarism. - -"But," it will be said by the advocates of this insane -policy, "making good the shortage which has been occasioned -by the war, the revival of agriculture, protection for home -markets, and bounties for key industries will provide work -for some time to come, and so there is no immediate danger. -Unemployment there probably will be, but it will not be of -such dimensions as to imperil the stability of society." To -which I answer that though by such means we may put off the -evil day, they leave the central problem essentially -unaltered. The reason for this is to be found by again -enlarging its area. For the problem is really an -international one. All the other belligerent nations will -have to face the same problems as ourselves. If we adopt -maximum production, they in turn will be compelled to adopt -it in self-defence, while in so far as by means of -Protection and bounties we encourage home industries at the -expense of foreign ones, the result will be a decreased -purchasing power in other nations, which in turn will -deprive us of markets for our surplus goods. On this issue -the Free Trade argument is perfectly sound. I am in favour -of Protection for other reasons---for military and political -reasons, and because apart from it the regulation of our -internal economic arrangements will remain impossible. But -the idea that by means of Protection our volume of trade can -be increased appears to me to be altogether illusory. - -I said that if we adopt maximum production other nations -will be compelled to do the same in self-defence. Where -shall we be then? The competition will be more severe than -ever. Profits will decline, and how is that going to help us -to repay the war loan? So that finally we see that maximum -production defeats its own ends, even from the point of view -of its promoters. Sooner or later the truth will have to be -faced (and the sooner the better) that the only way to repay -the war loan is to effect such a radical revolution in our -methods of taxation as w r ill enable the wealthy class to -liquidate the debt among themselves. All efforts of the -wealthy to evade their responsibilities by attempts to shift -the burden on to the shoulders of other classes must in the -nature of things not only fail in the end, but will be -accompanied by a measure of retribution that they will not -easily forget. The new world, it is true, is going to be -different from the old, but it rests with the wealthy class -whether the transition is going to be one of orderly -progression or revolution. For if it be true, as I have -already shown, that industrialism before the war had reached -its limit of expansion, then it follows that the -reorganization of industry on a basis of scientific -management must be accompanied by the growth of a -permanently unemployed class---a class which tends gradually -to increase. For, as the whole underlying basis of modern -industry is one of expansion, it follows that once the limit -is reached, contraction must take its place. Here again -there will be no stopping the tendency, once it gets fairly -in motion, apart from a return to those first principles of -social organization which we abandoned four hundred years -ago. - -While maximum production is calculated to make trouble for -us in the markets, scientific management will make trouble -for us in the workshop. It is not a policy calculated to -pour oil on troubled waters, but rather to add fuel to the -flames of discontent. For the moment appearances are to the -contrary. Labour Ministers have been brought into line, and -are doing their best to induce the workers to scrap their -old prejudices in favour of limitation of output, while -holding out promises of increased earnings if they will join -hands with the employers in an effort to increase the volume -of production by accepting scientific management. But -promises are one thing and fulfilment is another. The -workers' instinct in favour of limiting output is not -altogether a prejudice, though it may appear as such to -capitalists and others. On the contrary, it is born of -experience, and an experience not to be gainsaid. The -workers know that such a policy keeps them employed, whereas -when more than the average is produced the markets are -glutted and unemployment results. This has been the -experience of the maximum production policy in America, -where a factory will work at full pressure for several -months and then close down until its surplus stock can be -disposed of. It is experiences of this kind which have led -the American Labour Unions to adopt an attitude of -uncompromising hostility towards scientific management. It -may be possible for our Labour Ministers to persuade the -workers to give it a trial. But they will not acquiesce for -long, for the old difficulties will soon reappear, and then -the old troubles will begin again. - -But there are other and deeper reasons for the hostility of -labour. Scientific management irritates the workers. They -dislike the kind of supervision which it entails. Labour is -essentially human and does not care about being -scientifically managed. Its idea is to manage industry some -day itself, and so it naturally looks with suspicion upon a -system which proposes to deprive the worker of what remains -of his skill and to transfer all labour knowledge to the -management. For scientific management is a good scavenger. -It is out for every scrap of trade knowledge it can get. -Following the machine, it proposes to clean up the last -vestiges of craftsmanship, and to put the ship-shape touches -to modern industry, "Each one of these 'scientific' -propositions is perfectly familiar to the workman in spite -of the rather naive assurance of the efficiency engineers -that they are new. He has known them in slightly different -guise for a century past. The new thing is the proposition -to develop what has been in the past the tricks of the trade -into a principle of production. Scientific management -logically follows, and completes the factory process." - -It is important to note that it *completes* the factory -process. As such it is a cul-de-sac. Mr. J. A. Hobson, in an -article on scientific management, brings home the truth of -that assertion. "Indeed," he says, "were the full rigour of -scientific management to be applied throughout the staple -industries, not only would the human costs of labour appear -to be enhanced, but progress in the industrial arts itself -would probably be damaged. For the whole strain of progress -would be thrown upon the scientific manager and the -consulting psychologist. The large assistance given to -technical intervention by the observation and experiments of -intelligent workmen, the constant flow of suggestion for -detailed improvements would cease. The elements of creative -work still surviving in most creative labour would -disappear. On the one hand there would be small bodies of -efficient taskmasters carefully administering the orders of -expert managers; on the other, large masses of physically -efficient but mentally inert executive machines. Though the -productivity of existing industrial processes might be -greatly increased by this economy, the future of industrial -progress might be imperilled. For not only would the arts of -invention and improvement be confined to the few, but the -mechanization of the great mass of workmen would render them -less capable of adapting their labour to any other method -than that to which they had been drilled. Again, such -automatism in the workers would react injuriously upon their -character as consumers, damaging their capacity to get full -human gain out of any higher remuneration that they might -obtain. It would also injure them as citizens, disabling -them from taking an intelligent part in the arts of -political self-government. For industrial servitude is -inimical to political liberty. It would become more -difficult than now for a majority of men, accustomed in -their workday to mechanical obedience, to stand up in their -capacity as citizens against their industrial rulers when, -as often happens, upon critical occasions, political -interests correspond with economic cleavages." - -There is one comment to make on this quotation. Mr. Hobson's -reference to "large masses of physically efficient executive -machines" does not receive medical support. *American -Medicine* comments editorially on the result to labour of -efficiency schemes designed to relieve it of "wasted" -effort. - -"Working along with his partner the efficiency engineer, -the speeder-up has managed to obtain from the factory worker -a larger output in the same period of time. This is done by -eliminating the so-called superfluous motions of the arms -and lingers i.e. those which do not contribute directly to -the fashioning of the article under process of -manufacture... The movements thought to be superfluous -simply represent Nature's attempt to rest the strained and -tired muscles. Whenever the muscles of the arms and fingers, -or of any part of the body for that matter, undertake to do -a definite piece of work, it is physiologically imperative -that they do not accomplish it by the shortest mathematical -route. A rigid to-and-fro movement is possible only to -machinery; muscles necessarily move in curves, and that is -why grace is characteristic of muscular movement and is -absent from a machine. The more finished the technique of a -workman and the greater his strength, the more graceful are -his movements, and, what is more important in this -connection, vice versa. A certain flourish, superfluous only -to the untrained eye, is absolutely characteristic to the -efficient workman's motions. - -"Speeding-up eliminates grace and the curved movements of -physiological repose, and thus induces an irresistible -fatigue, first in small muscles, second in the trunk, -ultimately in the brain and nervous system. The early result -is a fagged and spiritless worker of the very sort that the -speeder-up's partner---the efficiency engineer---will be -anxious to replace by a younger and fresher candidate, who, -in his turn, will soon follow his predecessor if the same -relentless process is enforced. - -"It will always be necessary to consider workers as human -beings, and charity and moderation in the exaction of -results will usually be found the part of wisdom, as -representing a wise economy of resources. This scientific -charity, however, is something quite apart from the moral -effect on the personnel of due recognition of their long -service, and of loyalty which is likely to accompany it." - -So after all it appears that the workers' prejudice is not -altogether without some foundation, and as it so happens -that the workers are masters oi the position to the extent -that they must be willing to co-operate with the efficiency -engineer if a scheme is to be evolved suitable to a -particular trade, the pill has to be gilded if they are to -swallow it. This is the secret of the bonus system and -promises of high wages, as it is doubtless the secret of the -Whitley scheme. For, according to Mr. F. W. Taylor, its -pioneer, scientific management requires of industry a new -ethical standard, and involves a complete revolution both on -the part of the management and the men. But if I am not -mistaken, the anxiety of our new industrialists to introduce -this new ethical standard is a case of crying peace, peace, -when there is no peace. For industrialism has exhibited -disruptive tendencies since the day of its -birth---disruptive tendencies which have hitherto only been -held in check by the military organization. But for the -military, industrialism could never have been introduced. -The Luddite anti-machinery riots bear witness to the -opposition that had to be overcome, while every stage of its -development has been punctuated by the military on whose -assistance capitalists have been able to rely in their -warfare with the workers for the suppression of riots which -developed out of strikes. So there is a sense in which it -may be affirmed that industrialism and militarism rest -to-day on a common foundation. The war, as I have already -shown, was precipitated by the economic crisis which had -overtaken industrialism in Germany. The idea that militarism -could be abolished and industrialism retained is quite -illusory. For if militarism went, a check would be removed -which so far has prevented industrialism from bearing its -bitterest fruit. The workers would rise against its tyranny -if they felt that they no longer need submit, and it looks -as if scientific management would bring the trouble to an -issue. Under the new dispensation it is to play the part of -*agent provocateur* until the workers rise and rebel. - -Meanwhile, there is some consolation in the fact that as -every industrialized nation after the war will be confronted -by the same problems, all the nations involved in the -struggle are learning the same lesson at the same time. All -of them will discover that industrialism is a cul-de-sac -from which the only escape is backwards. There is reason -therefore to hope that beneath the fierce and cruel -oppositions of the hour a profound principle of unity is at -work, and that when after the war the dream of a glorified -industrialism is dispelled, common action may be taken to -put an end not only to militarism, but also to the +successfully with unemployment. Failure means not only revolution, but a +relapse into anarchy and barbarism. + +"But," it will be said by the advocates of this insane policy, "making +good the shortage which has been occasioned by the war, the revival of +agriculture, protection for home markets, and bounties for key +industries will provide work for some time to come, and so there is no +immediate danger. Unemployment there probably will be, but it will not +be of such dimensions as to imperil the stability of society." To which +I answer that though by such means we may put off the evil day, they +leave the central problem essentially unaltered. The reason for this is +to be found by again enlarging its area. For the problem is really an +international one. All the other belligerent nations will have to face +the same problems as ourselves. If we adopt maximum production, they in +turn will be compelled to adopt it in self-defence, while in so far as +by means of Protection and bounties we encourage home industries at the +expense of foreign ones, the result will be a decreased purchasing power +in other nations, which in turn will deprive us of markets for our +surplus goods. On this issue the Free Trade argument is perfectly sound. +I am in favour of Protection for other reasons---for military and +political reasons, and because apart from it the regulation of our +internal economic arrangements will remain impossible. But the idea that +by means of Protection our volume of trade can be increased appears to +me to be altogether illusory. + +I said that if we adopt maximum production other nations will be +compelled to do the same in self-defence. Where shall we be then? The +competition will be more severe than ever. Profits will decline, and how +is that going to help us to repay the war loan? So that finally we see +that maximum production defeats its own ends, even from the point of +view of its promoters. Sooner or later the truth will have to be faced +(and the sooner the better) that the only way to repay the war loan is +to effect such a radical revolution in our methods of taxation as w r +ill enable the wealthy class to liquidate the debt among themselves. All +efforts of the wealthy to evade their responsibilities by attempts to +shift the burden on to the shoulders of other classes must in the nature +of things not only fail in the end, but will be accompanied by a measure +of retribution that they will not easily forget. The new world, it is +true, is going to be different from the old, but it rests with the +wealthy class whether the transition is going to be one of orderly +progression or revolution. For if it be true, as I have already shown, +that industrialism before the war had reached its limit of expansion, +then it follows that the reorganization of industry on a basis of +scientific management must be accompanied by the growth of a permanently +unemployed class---a class which tends gradually to increase. For, as +the whole underlying basis of modern industry is one of expansion, it +follows that once the limit is reached, contraction must take its place. +Here again there will be no stopping the tendency, once it gets fairly +in motion, apart from a return to those first principles of social +organization which we abandoned four hundred years ago. + +While maximum production is calculated to make trouble for us in the +markets, scientific management will make trouble for us in the workshop. +It is not a policy calculated to pour oil on troubled waters, but rather +to add fuel to the flames of discontent. For the moment appearances are +to the contrary. Labour Ministers have been brought into line, and are +doing their best to induce the workers to scrap their old prejudices in +favour of limitation of output, while holding out promises of increased +earnings if they will join hands with the employers in an effort to +increase the volume of production by accepting scientific management. +But promises are one thing and fulfilment is another. The workers' +instinct in favour of limiting output is not altogether a prejudice, +though it may appear as such to capitalists and others. On the contrary, +it is born of experience, and an experience not to be gainsaid. The +workers know that such a policy keeps them employed, whereas when more +than the average is produced the markets are glutted and unemployment +results. This has been the experience of the maximum production policy +in America, where a factory will work at full pressure for several +months and then close down until its surplus stock can be disposed of. +It is experiences of this kind which have led the American Labour Unions +to adopt an attitude of uncompromising hostility towards scientific +management. It may be possible for our Labour Ministers to persuade the +workers to give it a trial. But they will not acquiesce for long, for +the old difficulties will soon reappear, and then the old troubles will +begin again. + +But there are other and deeper reasons for the hostility of labour. +Scientific management irritates the workers. They dislike the kind of +supervision which it entails. Labour is essentially human and does not +care about being scientifically managed. Its idea is to manage industry +some day itself, and so it naturally looks with suspicion upon a system +which proposes to deprive the worker of what remains of his skill and to +transfer all labour knowledge to the management. For scientific +management is a good scavenger. It is out for every scrap of trade +knowledge it can get. Following the machine, it proposes to clean up the +last vestiges of craftsmanship, and to put the ship-shape touches to +modern industry, "Each one of these 'scientific' propositions is +perfectly familiar to the workman in spite of the rather naive assurance +of the efficiency engineers that they are new. He has known them in +slightly different guise for a century past. The new thing is the +proposition to develop what has been in the past the tricks of the trade +into a principle of production. Scientific management logically follows, +and completes the factory process." + +It is important to note that it *completes* the factory process. As such +it is a cul-de-sac. Mr. J. A. Hobson, in an article on scientific +management, brings home the truth of that assertion. "Indeed," he says, +"were the full rigour of scientific management to be applied throughout +the staple industries, not only would the human costs of labour appear +to be enhanced, but progress in the industrial arts itself would +probably be damaged. For the whole strain of progress would be thrown +upon the scientific manager and the consulting psychologist. The large +assistance given to technical intervention by the observation and +experiments of intelligent workmen, the constant flow of suggestion for +detailed improvements would cease. The elements of creative work still +surviving in most creative labour would disappear. On the one hand there +would be small bodies of efficient taskmasters carefully administering +the orders of expert managers; on the other, large masses of physically +efficient but mentally inert executive machines. Though the productivity +of existing industrial processes might be greatly increased by this +economy, the future of industrial progress might be imperilled. For not +only would the arts of invention and improvement be confined to the few, +but the mechanization of the great mass of workmen would render them +less capable of adapting their labour to any other method than that to +which they had been drilled. Again, such automatism in the workers would +react injuriously upon their character as consumers, damaging their +capacity to get full human gain out of any higher remuneration that they +might obtain. It would also injure them as citizens, disabling them from +taking an intelligent part in the arts of political self-government. For +industrial servitude is inimical to political liberty. It would become +more difficult than now for a majority of men, accustomed in their +workday to mechanical obedience, to stand up in their capacity as +citizens against their industrial rulers when, as often happens, upon +critical occasions, political interests correspond with economic +cleavages." + +There is one comment to make on this quotation. Mr. Hobson's reference +to "large masses of physically efficient executive machines" does not +receive medical support. *American Medicine* comments editorially on the +result to labour of efficiency schemes designed to relieve it of +"wasted" effort. + +"Working along with his partner the efficiency engineer, the speeder-up +has managed to obtain from the factory worker a larger output in the +same period of time. This is done by eliminating the so-called +superfluous motions of the arms and lingers i.e. those which do not +contribute directly to the fashioning of the article under process of +manufacture... The movements thought to be superfluous simply represent +Nature's attempt to rest the strained and tired muscles. Whenever the +muscles of the arms and fingers, or of any part of the body for that +matter, undertake to do a definite piece of work, it is physiologically +imperative that they do not accomplish it by the shortest mathematical +route. A rigid to-and-fro movement is possible only to machinery; +muscles necessarily move in curves, and that is why grace is +characteristic of muscular movement and is absent from a machine. The +more finished the technique of a workman and the greater his strength, +the more graceful are his movements, and, what is more important in this +connection, vice versa. A certain flourish, superfluous only to the +untrained eye, is absolutely characteristic to the efficient workman's +motions. + +"Speeding-up eliminates grace and the curved movements of physiological +repose, and thus induces an irresistible fatigue, first in small +muscles, second in the trunk, ultimately in the brain and nervous +system. The early result is a fagged and spiritless worker of the very +sort that the speeder-up's partner---the efficiency engineer---will be +anxious to replace by a younger and fresher candidate, who, in his turn, +will soon follow his predecessor if the same relentless process is +enforced. + +"It will always be necessary to consider workers as human beings, and +charity and moderation in the exaction of results will usually be found +the part of wisdom, as representing a wise economy of resources. This +scientific charity, however, is something quite apart from the moral +effect on the personnel of due recognition of their long service, and of +loyalty which is likely to accompany it." + +So after all it appears that the workers' prejudice is not altogether +without some foundation, and as it so happens that the workers are +masters oi the position to the extent that they must be willing to +co-operate with the efficiency engineer if a scheme is to be evolved +suitable to a particular trade, the pill has to be gilded if they are to +swallow it. This is the secret of the bonus system and promises of high +wages, as it is doubtless the secret of the Whitley scheme. For, +according to Mr. F. W. Taylor, its pioneer, scientific management +requires of industry a new ethical standard, and involves a complete +revolution both on the part of the management and the men. But if I am +not mistaken, the anxiety of our new industrialists to introduce this +new ethical standard is a case of crying peace, peace, when there is no +peace. For industrialism has exhibited disruptive tendencies since the +day of its birth---disruptive tendencies which have hitherto only been +held in check by the military organization. But for the military, +industrialism could never have been introduced. The Luddite +anti-machinery riots bear witness to the opposition that had to be +overcome, while every stage of its development has been punctuated by +the military on whose assistance capitalists have been able to rely in +their warfare with the workers for the suppression of riots which +developed out of strikes. So there is a sense in which it may be +affirmed that industrialism and militarism rest to-day on a common +foundation. The war, as I have already shown, was precipitated by the +economic crisis which had overtaken industrialism in Germany. The idea +that militarism could be abolished and industrialism retained is quite +illusory. For if militarism went, a check would be removed which so far +has prevented industrialism from bearing its bitterest fruit. The +workers would rise against its tyranny if they felt that they no longer +need submit, and it looks as if scientific management would bring the +trouble to an issue. Under the new dispensation it is to play the part +of *agent provocateur* until the workers rise and rebel. + +Meanwhile, there is some consolation in the fact that as every +industrialized nation after the war will be confronted by the same +problems, all the nations involved in the struggle are learning the same +lesson at the same time. All of them will discover that industrialism is +a cul-de-sac from which the only escape is backwards. There is reason +therefore to hope that beneath the fierce and cruel oppositions of the +hour a profound principle of unity is at work, and that when after the +war the dream of a glorified industrialism is dispelled, common action +may be taken to put an end not only to militarism, but also to the industrial warfare of which it is the bitter fruit. # The Return to Mediaevalism -A consideration of the issues raised in the foregoing -chapters points to the conclusion that capitalism is about -to commit suicide. Having reared the industrial system upon -a basis of social and economic injustice, capitalists are -driven from one desperate expedient to another in a vain -effort to attain economic, stability. But these efforts will -avail nothing, for the crisis ahead cannot be met by men -whose primary interest is in maintaining the capitalist -system. Hence their dilemma. - -It is because industrialism is finally based upon social -injustice that the balance between demand and supply has -been upset For this phenomenon is but the reflection in the -economic sphere of the destruction of the balance of power -in the body politic which followed the destruction of the -Guilds at the time of the Reformation, when the people lost -control of those things which immediately affected their -lives. Uncontrolled by Guilds, industry could no longer be -related to human needs. It became subject to mass movements -entirely incapable of control by any human agency -whatsoever, whether collective or individual, and it has -gone on floundering ever since, while Parliament, which came -to usurp all power in the State, has in turn been drawn into -the sweep of these invisible world-currents. - -In one sense it is true to say that the present state of -things marks a condition into which civilization has -drifted, and is the result of no policy, no forethought, no -design. And yet in another sense this is not true. The -modern State has become what it is because for the last four -hundred years the governing class have sought to perpetuate -the injustices established by the Reformation. It was -because the governing class was living on the plunder of the -monasteries and the Guilds that they were in the past led to -blacken Catholicism, to condone usury, to misrepresent the -Guilds and to give support to .false political and economic -theories. They did this because in no other way could they -justify themselves. While they denied the people the right -to manage their own affairs through the agency of -Guilds---the only institution through which the people are -capable of exercising control---they found that they -themselves were unable to control the economic situation. -When they found that their meddling only made matters worse, -they came to drift, to adopt the policy of *laissez-faire*, -which the force of circumstances has brought to an end, but -which leaves them in a sad dilemma. For whereas things have -reached such a pass that something must be done, they find -that not only are they without any rational social theory to -guide them in the task of reconstruction, but that the -prejudice against Mediaeval society which has been created -by lying historians in the past stands in their way, because -it has led men to look with suspicion upon all normal social -arrangements. In rejecting the Guild, political philosophers -denied the chief corner stone of any sane political theory, -and have in consequence been driven into error after error -and into compromise after compromise in a vain endeavour to -find solutions to problems which for minds with their -perverted outlook are insoluble. - -To Mediaeval social arrangements we shall return, not only -because we shall never be able to regain complete control -over the economic forces in society except through the -agency of restored Guilds, but because it is imperative to -return to a simpler state of society. Further development -along present lines can only lead to anarchy. For anarchy is -the product of complexity. It comes about in this way: the -growth of complexity leads to confusion, because when any -society develops beyond a certain point the human mind is -unable to get a grip of all the details necessary to its -proper ordering. Confusion leads to misunderstandings and -suspicions, and these things engender a spirit of anarchy. -No one will deny that such a spirit is rife to-day, and it -is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it is a sign that -modern society is beginning to break up. We are certainly -beginning to turn the corner, and once it is turned there -will be no stopping until we get back to the Mediaeval -basis. We shall travel of course by stages. But we shall get -there eventually because we shall find no rest, no -stability, until we reach our destination. There will be no -stopping at any half-way house; so much is certain. - -Meanwhile it is interesting to note how Mediaeval economic -principles are insinuating themselves into latter-day -practice as a consequence of the force of circumstances. We -have not yet attained to the Mediaeval conception of a Just -Price, but the necessity of putting a boundary to the -depredations of the profiteer has revived its Mediaeval -corollary--the Fixed Price. Being a practical people with -machinery as our god, we indignantly repudiate the idea that -it is in the interests of society that machinery be -controlled. Yet all the same machinery is being controlled -in Lancashire and Yorkshire to-day---it is true as measures -of war emergency consequent upon the shortage of cotton and -wool, but it is none the less significant on that account; -for if the war is not to be regarded as a colossal accident -but as something towards which the whole modern polity -inevitably tended then we may be sure that the forces at -work which make control necessary to-day will make it -necessary in the future. The cotton shortage may come to an -end; but Lancashire is losing its Indian market because of -an adverse tariff, as indeed it is losing other markets -through the growth of competition---circumstances which -bring home to us the fact that industrialism has reached its -limit of expansion. Wisdom might have suggested years ago -the desirability of regulating the output of cotton. For it -would surely have been better to have introduced such -regulations than to be for ever lowering the standard of -quality in order to adjust the balance between demand and -supply which the use of an ever-increasing number of -spindles necessitated. Is it not strange that nothing short -of a war of universal dimensions could induce Lancashire to -face up to the situation? I should like to believe that wars -would be impossible in the future, but the unwillingness or -inability of mankind to face the simple facts of society -apart from them does not leave much room for hope. - -The examples I have given of the tendency of latter-day -economic practice to follow Mediaeval lines are interesting, -but the strongest evidence of all in support of the -hypothesis that a return to Mediaevalism is essential to the -preservation of society is to be found in the success of the -National Guild movement which proposes to transform the -Trade Unions into Guilds. For there is historical continuity -in the idea, inasmuch as the Trade Unions are the legitimate -successors of the Mediaeval Guilds, not only because the -issues with which they have concerned themselves have arisen -as a result of the suppression of the Guilds, but because -they acknowledge in their organization a corresponding -principle of growth. The Unions to-day with their elaborate -organizations exercise many of the functions which were -formerly performed by the Guilds---such as the regulation of -wages and hours of labour, in addition to the more social -duty of giving timely help to the sick and unfortunate. Like -the Guilds, the Unions have grown from small beginnings -until they now control whole trades. Like the Guilds also, -they are not political creations, but voluntary -organizations which have arisen spontaneously to protect the -weaker members of society against the oppression of the more -powerful. They differ from the Guilds only to the extent -that, not being in possession of industry and of -corresponding privileges, they are unable to accept -responsibility for the quality of work done and to regulate -the prices, The National Guild proposal therefore to -transform the Trade Unions into Guilds by giving them a -monopoly of industry is thus seen to be an effort to give -conscious direction to a movement which hitherto has been -entirely instinctive---which is, to use Mr. Chesterton's -words, "a return to the past by men ignorant of the past, -like the subconscious action of some man who has lost his -memory."And the propaganda has met with a phenomenal -success---a success which I have some right to say has been -out of all proportion to the amount of work put into it or -the means at the disposal of its advocates, and which -therefore can only be finally explained on the assumption -that it voices a felt need; that the balance of power in -society has become so upset that men instinctively support -the Guild idea as a means of restoring the equilibrium. - -It is safe to say that the Guild propaganda would not have -been followed with the success it has had but for the -co-operation of certain external happenings. In the first -place there is the growing distrust of Parliament and -centralized government. In the next there is the increasing -sense of personal insecurity and loss of personal -independence which has followed the growth of large -organizations. Then there is the war and the Munitions Act, -which gave the workers a taste of Collectivism and the -enormous growth of bureaucracy, which has brought home to -many people the utter inadequacy of such a method for -meeting really vital problems. In consequence almost -everybody has come to feel that some fundamental change must -be made, and as the road forward is impassable, there is no -alternative but to go back. I am aware of course that many -National Guildsmen would not go to such lengths. Their -concern is with the problem of transforming the Unions into -Guilds, which they can justify as going forward. All the -same it is a step backwards of a very fundamental order, for -it is nothing less than a proposal to reverse the practice -and judgment of the last four hundred years. I say "practice -and judgment," but I place practice first because I do not -seriously think that the present state of things owes its -existence to any reasoned judgment whatsoever. It was -established first by force and attempted justifications were -made afterwards. That is the history of all modern ideas. - -We may agree with the National Guildsmen that the first step -is for the workers to take over the control of industry, and -that in order to do this they must for the present accept -industry as it actually exists. [^1] But if they are not to -be involved in the catastrophe which threatens the modern -world, they should be sufficiently frank with themselves to -know in what direction we are travelling; for there will be -no time to discuss properly the issues involved when the -transfer actually takes place. One fundamental issue---the -incompatibility of democratic control with highly -centralized organization---is being realized, so there is -nothing to fear in that direction. No difficulties are -likely to be put in the way of the growth of local autonomy. -The trouble is likely to come over the unemployed problem -which will certainly follow the demobilization of the forces -and the closing down of the munition factories in spite of -the shortage which must be made good. National Guildsmen -will be as powerless as capitalists to face this problem -unless in the meantime they make up their minds in what -direction society is travelling.Socialists generally have -not emancipated themselves entirely from Capitalist ways of -thinking. Almost without exception they still think about -finance in commercial terms, while Guildsmen have not always -learned to think primarily in the terms of things. Yet Guild -finance must differ as fundamentally from commercial finance -as Guild organization differs from commercial organization. -To make a long story short, Guild finance means the -abolition of finance as we understand it. For finance to-day -means nothing more than finding ways and means of using -money for the purposes of increase, and obviously Guilds can -have nothing to do with such a motive. It follows that in -proportion as the Guild principle of fixed prices can be -applied, opportunities for making money by the manipulation -of exchange will tend to disappear, while in proportion as -the workers come into the possession of industry, -opportunities for investment will likewise come to an end. -Bookkeeping there will be, but bookkeeping is not what we -understand by finance. From this point of view the primary -aim of the Guild is to guard society against the evils of an -unregulated currency by restricting currency to its -legitimate use as a medium of exchange. - -The introduction of a change so fundamental in the conduct -of industry will create a host of problems with which it -will be necessary to deal. For with the change many -occupations will automatically come to an end, and if -society is not to relapse speedily into anarchy it is -important that the situation should be intelligently -anticipated. All who find themselves unemployed should be -put upon free rations until such time arrives as they can -become absorbed in the new social system. There is no other -way of preventing bloodshed. Meanwhile the surplus workers -should be put upon the land, for not only would this measure -have the merit of immediately relieving the situation, but -the revival of agriculture would confer the permanent -benefit of strengthening society at its base, while it would -react to restore normal conditions in industry. Of course -some discrimination would need to be shown, as in the case -of old people who would be unable to adjust themselves to -the new conditions and should be pensioned off. - -While the revival of agriculture would relieve the -unemployed problem, it would by no means solve it. Such a -*desideratum* can only be reached by such a complete change -in the purpose and scope of industry as is involved in the -substitution of a qualitative for the present quantitative -ideal of industry. This is a big question, and presupposes a -revolution not only in our methods of production but in our -ways of thinking, habits of life and personal expenditure. -As I have discussed this question and its implications at -some length in my *Old Worlds for New*,\[\^5\] it will not -be necessary for me to repeat the argument I there used. -Suffice it here only to say that such a change in concrete -terms means the revival of handicraft together with a -definite limitation of the use of machinery. That the -revival of handicraft would assist us in our efforts to cope -with the unemployed problem becomes apparent when we realize -that with a reversion to handicraft we should no longer be -haunted by the problem of surplus goods which has followed -in the wake of unregulated machine production. Anyway it is -apparent that if men are unemployed they must either be -provided for or left to starve. Would it not be wiser to -employ them as handicraftsmen than to compel them to live on -doles while being employed on some useless and unnecessary -work? This issue must be faced. It cannot be evaded any -longer, because nowadays, when there are no new markets left -to exploit, it will be impossible to put off the evil day by -dumping our surplus products in foreign markets. - -To ordinary sane men such reasoning is conclusive. -Unfortunately, however, the decision in such matters does -not rest with them to-day, but with the "politically -educated" members of society---that is with men whose -natural instincts have been perverted by the training of -their minds on false issues in the supposed interests of -capitalists and the *status quo*. That Socialists and Labour -men generally are just as much victims of our false academic -tradition as members of the governing class does not lessen -but increases the danger, for by depriving the working class -of their natural leaders, it is surely bringing about the -rule of the mob. It is tragic, but still it is nevertheless -true to say that, generally speaking, the more highly -educated a man is to-day the more likely he is to be wrong. -This is the secret of the power of the Northcliffe Press, of -the Billing verdict, as of the impotence of our governing -class. The feeling against leaders, rightly interpreted, is -really a demand for leaders whose instincts are sound. The -good men believe the wrong things. That is our root trouble -to-day. +A consideration of the issues raised in the foregoing chapters points to +the conclusion that capitalism is about to commit suicide. Having reared +the industrial system upon a basis of social and economic injustice, +capitalists are driven from one desperate expedient to another in a vain +effort to attain economic, stability. But these efforts will avail +nothing, for the crisis ahead cannot be met by men whose primary +interest is in maintaining the capitalist system. Hence their dilemma. + +It is because industrialism is finally based upon social injustice that +the balance between demand and supply has been upset For this phenomenon +is but the reflection in the economic sphere of the destruction of the +balance of power in the body politic which followed the destruction of +the Guilds at the time of the Reformation, when the people lost control +of those things which immediately affected their lives. Uncontrolled by +Guilds, industry could no longer be related to human needs. It became +subject to mass movements entirely incapable of control by any human +agency whatsoever, whether collective or individual, and it has gone on +floundering ever since, while Parliament, which came to usurp all power +in the State, has in turn been drawn into the sweep of these invisible +world-currents. + +In one sense it is true to say that the present state of things marks a +condition into which civilization has drifted, and is the result of no +policy, no forethought, no design. And yet in another sense this is not +true. The modern State has become what it is because for the last four +hundred years the governing class have sought to perpetuate the +injustices established by the Reformation. It was because the governing +class was living on the plunder of the monasteries and the Guilds that +they were in the past led to blacken Catholicism, to condone usury, to +misrepresent the Guilds and to give support to .false political and +economic theories. They did this because in no other way could they +justify themselves. While they denied the people the right to manage +their own affairs through the agency of Guilds---the only institution +through which the people are capable of exercising control---they found +that they themselves were unable to control the economic situation. When +they found that their meddling only made matters worse, they came to +drift, to adopt the policy of *laissez-faire*, which the force of +circumstances has brought to an end, but which leaves them in a sad +dilemma. For whereas things have reached such a pass that something must +be done, they find that not only are they without any rational social +theory to guide them in the task of reconstruction, but that the +prejudice against Mediaeval society which has been created by lying +historians in the past stands in their way, because it has led men to +look with suspicion upon all normal social arrangements. In rejecting +the Guild, political philosophers denied the chief corner stone of any +sane political theory, and have in consequence been driven into error +after error and into compromise after compromise in a vain endeavour to +find solutions to problems which for minds with their perverted outlook +are insoluble. + +To Mediaeval social arrangements we shall return, not only because we +shall never be able to regain complete control over the economic forces +in society except through the agency of restored Guilds, but because it +is imperative to return to a simpler state of society. Further +development along present lines can only lead to anarchy. For anarchy is +the product of complexity. It comes about in this way: the growth of +complexity leads to confusion, because when any society develops beyond +a certain point the human mind is unable to get a grip of all the +details necessary to its proper ordering. Confusion leads to +misunderstandings and suspicions, and these things engender a spirit of +anarchy. No one will deny that such a spirit is rife to-day, and it is +difficult to avoid the conclusion that it is a sign that modern society +is beginning to break up. We are certainly beginning to turn the corner, +and once it is turned there will be no stopping until we get back to the +Mediaeval basis. We shall travel of course by stages. But we shall get +there eventually because we shall find no rest, no stability, until we +reach our destination. There will be no stopping at any half-way house; +so much is certain. + +Meanwhile it is interesting to note how Mediaeval economic principles +are insinuating themselves into latter-day practice as a consequence of +the force of circumstances. We have not yet attained to the Mediaeval +conception of a Just Price, but the necessity of putting a boundary to +the depredations of the profiteer has revived its Mediaeval +corollary--the Fixed Price. Being a practical people with machinery as +our god, we indignantly repudiate the idea that it is in the interests +of society that machinery be controlled. Yet all the same machinery is +being controlled in Lancashire and Yorkshire to-day---it is true as +measures of war emergency consequent upon the shortage of cotton and +wool, but it is none the less significant on that account; for if the +war is not to be regarded as a colossal accident but as something +towards which the whole modern polity inevitably tended then we may be +sure that the forces at work which make control necessary to-day will +make it necessary in the future. The cotton shortage may come to an end; +but Lancashire is losing its Indian market because of an adverse tariff, +as indeed it is losing other markets through the growth of +competition---circumstances which bring home to us the fact that +industrialism has reached its limit of expansion. Wisdom might have +suggested years ago the desirability of regulating the output of cotton. +For it would surely have been better to have introduced such regulations +than to be for ever lowering the standard of quality in order to adjust +the balance between demand and supply which the use of an +ever-increasing number of spindles necessitated. Is it not strange that +nothing short of a war of universal dimensions could induce Lancashire +to face up to the situation? I should like to believe that wars would be +impossible in the future, but the unwillingness or inability of mankind +to face the simple facts of society apart from them does not leave much +room for hope. + +The examples I have given of the tendency of latter-day economic +practice to follow Mediaeval lines are interesting, but the strongest +evidence of all in support of the hypothesis that a return to +Mediaevalism is essential to the preservation of society is to be found +in the success of the National Guild movement which proposes to +transform the Trade Unions into Guilds. For there is historical +continuity in the idea, inasmuch as the Trade Unions are the legitimate +successors of the Mediaeval Guilds, not only because the issues with +which they have concerned themselves have arisen as a result of the +suppression of the Guilds, but because they acknowledge in their +organization a corresponding principle of growth. The Unions to-day with +their elaborate organizations exercise many of the functions which were +formerly performed by the Guilds---such as the regulation of wages and +hours of labour, in addition to the more social duty of giving timely +help to the sick and unfortunate. Like the Guilds, the Unions have grown +from small beginnings until they now control whole trades. Like the +Guilds also, they are not political creations, but voluntary +organizations which have arisen spontaneously to protect the weaker +members of society against the oppression of the more powerful. They +differ from the Guilds only to the extent that, not being in possession +of industry and of corresponding privileges, they are unable to accept +responsibility for the quality of work done and to regulate the prices, +The National Guild proposal therefore to transform the Trade Unions into +Guilds by giving them a monopoly of industry is thus seen to be an +effort to give conscious direction to a movement which hitherto has been +entirely instinctive---which is, to use Mr. Chesterton's words, "a +return to the past by men ignorant of the past, like the subconscious +action of some man who has lost his memory."And the propaganda has met +with a phenomenal success---a success which I have some right to say has +been out of all proportion to the amount of work put into it or the +means at the disposal of its advocates, and which therefore can only be +finally explained on the assumption that it voices a felt need; that the +balance of power in society has become so upset that men instinctively +support the Guild idea as a means of restoring the equilibrium. + +It is safe to say that the Guild propaganda would not have been followed +with the success it has had but for the co-operation of certain external +happenings. In the first place there is the growing distrust of +Parliament and centralized government. In the next there is the +increasing sense of personal insecurity and loss of personal +independence which has followed the growth of large organizations. Then +there is the war and the Munitions Act, which gave the workers a taste +of Collectivism and the enormous growth of bureaucracy, which has +brought home to many people the utter inadequacy of such a method for +meeting really vital problems. In consequence almost everybody has come +to feel that some fundamental change must be made, and as the road +forward is impassable, there is no alternative but to go back. I am +aware of course that many National Guildsmen would not go to such +lengths. Their concern is with the problem of transforming the Unions +into Guilds, which they can justify as going forward. All the same it is +a step backwards of a very fundamental order, for it is nothing less +than a proposal to reverse the practice and judgment of the last four +hundred years. I say "practice and judgment," but I place practice first +because I do not seriously think that the present state of things owes +its existence to any reasoned judgment whatsoever. It was established +first by force and attempted justifications were made afterwards. That +is the history of all modern ideas. + +We may agree with the National Guildsmen that the first step is for the +workers to take over the control of industry, and that in order to do +this they must for the present accept industry as it actually exists. +[^1] But if they are not to be involved in the catastrophe which +threatens the modern world, they should be sufficiently frank with +themselves to know in what direction we are travelling; for there will +be no time to discuss properly the issues involved when the transfer +actually takes place. One fundamental issue---the incompatibility of +democratic control with highly centralized organization---is being +realized, so there is nothing to fear in that direction. No difficulties +are likely to be put in the way of the growth of local autonomy. The +trouble is likely to come over the unemployed problem which will +certainly follow the demobilization of the forces and the closing down +of the munition factories in spite of the shortage which must be made +good. National Guildsmen will be as powerless as capitalists to face +this problem unless in the meantime they make up their minds in what +direction society is travelling.Socialists generally have not +emancipated themselves entirely from Capitalist ways of thinking. Almost +without exception they still think about finance in commercial terms, +while Guildsmen have not always learned to think primarily in the terms +of things. Yet Guild finance must differ as fundamentally from +commercial finance as Guild organization differs from commercial +organization. To make a long story short, Guild finance means the +abolition of finance as we understand it. For finance to-day means +nothing more than finding ways and means of using money for the purposes +of increase, and obviously Guilds can have nothing to do with such a +motive. It follows that in proportion as the Guild principle of fixed +prices can be applied, opportunities for making money by the +manipulation of exchange will tend to disappear, while in proportion as +the workers come into the possession of industry, opportunities for +investment will likewise come to an end. Bookkeeping there will be, but +bookkeeping is not what we understand by finance. From this point of +view the primary aim of the Guild is to guard society against the evils +of an unregulated currency by restricting currency to its legitimate use +as a medium of exchange. + +The introduction of a change so fundamental in the conduct of industry +will create a host of problems with which it will be necessary to deal. +For with the change many occupations will automatically come to an end, +and if society is not to relapse speedily into anarchy it is important +that the situation should be intelligently anticipated. All who find +themselves unemployed should be put upon free rations until such time +arrives as they can become absorbed in the new social system. There is +no other way of preventing bloodshed. Meanwhile the surplus workers +should be put upon the land, for not only would this measure have the +merit of immediately relieving the situation, but the revival of +agriculture would confer the permanent benefit of strengthening society +at its base, while it would react to restore normal conditions in +industry. Of course some discrimination would need to be shown, as in +the case of old people who would be unable to adjust themselves to the +new conditions and should be pensioned off. + +While the revival of agriculture would relieve the unemployed problem, +it would by no means solve it. Such a *desideratum* can only be reached +by such a complete change in the purpose and scope of industry as is +involved in the substitution of a qualitative for the present +quantitative ideal of industry. This is a big question, and presupposes +a revolution not only in our methods of production but in our ways of +thinking, habits of life and personal expenditure. As I have discussed +this question and its implications at some length in my *Old Worlds for +New*,\[\^5\] it will not be necessary for me to repeat the argument I +there used. Suffice it here only to say that such a change in concrete +terms means the revival of handicraft together with a definite +limitation of the use of machinery. That the revival of handicraft would +assist us in our efforts to cope with the unemployed problem becomes +apparent when we realize that with a reversion to handicraft we should +no longer be haunted by the problem of surplus goods which has followed +in the wake of unregulated machine production. Anyway it is apparent +that if men are unemployed they must either be provided for or left to +starve. Would it not be wiser to employ them as handicraftsmen than to +compel them to live on doles while being employed on some useless and +unnecessary work? This issue must be faced. It cannot be evaded any +longer, because nowadays, when there are no new markets left to exploit, +it will be impossible to put off the evil day by dumping our surplus +products in foreign markets. + +To ordinary sane men such reasoning is conclusive. Unfortunately, +however, the decision in such matters does not rest with them to-day, +but with the "politically educated" members of society---that is with +men whose natural instincts have been perverted by the training of their +minds on false issues in the supposed interests of capitalists and the +*status quo*. That Socialists and Labour men generally are just as much +victims of our false academic tradition as members of the governing +class does not lessen but increases the danger, for by depriving the +working class of their natural leaders, it is surely bringing about the +rule of the mob. It is tragic, but still it is nevertheless true to say +that, generally speaking, the more highly educated a man is to-day the +more likely he is to be wrong. This is the secret of the power of the +Northcliffe Press, of the Billing verdict, as of the impotence of our +governing class. The feeling against leaders, rightly interpreted, is +really a demand for leaders whose instincts are sound. The good men +believe the wrong things. That is our root trouble to-day. # The Spiritual Change -The danger inherent in the growing disrespect for all forms -of authority is that from being a perfectly legitimate -protest against spurious forms of authority and culture it -may develop into a revolt against authority and culture in -general. To the Neo-Marxist whose faith is absolute in the -materialist interpretation of history this may seem a matter -of no consequence. But to those who realize the dependence -of a healthy social system on living traditions of culture -it is a matter of some concern. For whereas a false culture -like the academic one of to-day tends to separate people by -dividing them in classes and groups and finally isolating -them as individuals, a true culture like the great cultures -of the past unites them by the creation of a common bond of -sympathy and understanding between the various members of -the community. - -The recovery of such a culture is one of our most urgent -needs, for some such unifying principle is needed if society -is to be reconstituted. If the overthrow of capitalism is -not to be followed by anarchy, this dual nature of the -social problem must be acknowledged. For it is apparent that -if a change in the economic system is to be made permanent -it will need to be accompanied and fortified by a change in -the spirit of man. Most Socialist activity to-day is based -upon the assumption that one will necessarily follow more or -less automatically as a consequence of the other, and that -all it is necessary to do is to seek to abolish economic -insecurity under a restored Guild system and the materialist -spirit would disappear as a matter of course. But such -reasoning, I submit, is fallacious. Even granting that it -could be proved that the social problem had its origin in a -purely economic cause, it does not follow that to effect -economic change in the right direction would automatically -produce the change we desire on the spiritual side of life, -because, as we are all creatures of habit, the materialist -habit of mind would tend to persist when the cause which -originally created it had been removed. What most Socialists -fail to realize is that the material and spiritual sides of -the problem must be attacked simultaneously if reaction is -not to result. Otherwise it is a certainty that the one -which at the moment is left standing would wreck the other. -We know that a religious revival to-day would not effect -permanent results unless it were accompanied by a change in -the economic system. For precisely the same reason a change -in the economic system cannot be permanent unless -accompanied by a corresponding change in the spirit of man. -Apart from a change in the spirit of man, it is conceivable -that a restored Guild system, instead of laying the basis of -a happy and prosperous society, would, under materialist -direction, degenerate into a number of warring groups, in -which the groups in an economically weak position would be -ground down by those in a stronger one. All the -circumstances which now so rightly shock the Socialist -conscience would be reproduced. The tree would still only -bear thistles, for self-interested human nature must ever -inflict suffering on those that are weak. Economic change is -therefore impotent to redeem society unless it is -accompanied by such a change in the spirit of man as is -tantamount to a religious awakening, "For," to quote de -Maeztu, "men cannot unite immediately among one another; -they unite in things, in common values, in common ends."The -materialist philosophy of organized Socialism supplies no -common aim capable of uniting men for the purposes of -reconstruction; on the contrary, it can only unite them for -the purposes of destruction, for the overthrow of the -existing system. Once that is done, Socialists must split up -among themselves, for their lives are governed by no common -denominator. Like the builders of Babel, they will be -overtaken by a confusion of tongues---for such is the -inevitable end of all materialist systems. - -The more one thinks about the social problem the more one -comes to see that economic health in a community is -dependent upon morals; and the more one thinks about morals -the more one comes to realize that their roots are finally -to be found in religious conviction. Brotherhood is only -possible on the assumption that evil motives can be kept in -subjection, and the experience of history seems to prove -that only a religion which appeals to the heart and -conscience of men is capable of this. If evil motives can be -kept in subjection, then the kingdom of God upon earth can -be realized, but on no other terms. This, I take it, was the -central truth and purpose of Christianity throughout its -great historic period. By strengthening man it sought to -establish and fortify the normal in life and society. That -Christians at times have been drawn to other ideals is true, -but that the central aim of Christianity was the -establishment of the kingdom of God upon earth the wonderful -architecture and social organization of the Middle Ages -bears witness. - -We have moved so far away from the Middle Ages that it is -difficult for us to conceive of life as it was then lived or -religion as it was then understood. Religion then was not a -thing to be indulged in by people who had a bias in that -direction and ignored by others---something apart from life -with little or no influence on the main current of -affairs---but was the creative force at the centre of -society; the mainspring and guiding principle that shaped -art, politics, business and all other activities to a common -end. It was moreover a culture which united king and -peasant, craftsman and priest in a common bond of sympathy -and understanding; for, unlike modern culture, it did not -depend upon books and so did not raise an intellectual -barrier between the literate and the illiterate, but united -all, however varying the extent of their knowledge and -understanding. The mason who carved the ornaments of a -chapel or cathedral drew his inspiration from the same -source of religious tradition as the ploughman who sang as -he worked in the field or the minstrel who chanted a story -in the evening. Modern education at the best is a poor -substitute for the old culture which came to a man at his -work. The utmost it can do is to give us an opportunity of -reading in books descriptions of a beautiful life which once -existed in reality. And let us never forget that the central -mystery around which this life moved was religion. This fact -is the last one the modernists are willing to admit. They -may be fascinated by the glamour and romance of the Middle -Ages, by its wonderful architecture and its social -organization. But it may be said of them what Mr. Chesterton -said of Ruskin, "that he wanted all parts of the cathedral -except the altar." - -In accounting for the changes which destroyed Mediaeval -Society and inaugurated the modern world, it is customary in -economic circles to ascribe them to the Reformation and the -Great Pillage which accompanied it. But the Reformation -itself was the consequence of that many-sided movement which -we know as the Renaissance which in turn was the direct -consequence of that awakened interest in Greek and Roman -literature, science and art in the fourteenth century in -Italy which followed the Revival of Learning. So that when -we search for the impulse which first set in motion the -forces which have created the modern world we find it in the -labour of scholars who ransacked libraries in their -enthusiasm for the culture of the pagan world. - -The immediate results of their labour were full of promise. -The rediscovery of the literature and art of the ancient -world had a wonderfully stimulating effect on the -imagination of Europe, inclining as it did at the beginning -to give a certain added grace and refinement to the vigorous -traditions of Mediaevalism. It seemed, indeed, for a time as -if the Renaissance was really what its name implies---a -rebirth---and that life itself, casting off the fetters -which bound it, was to come to its own at last. But it was -not to be. Early in the sixteenth century its morning -splendour in Italy received a check, and as time wore on it -became more and more evident that the glories of the -Renaissance were over and that its tyrannies had begun. For -what happened in Italy happened wherever it succeeded in -establishing itself. Its immediate effect was always that of -a stimulant which for a time quickened things into a -vigorous life. After this reaction set in. A kind of -staleness overcame everything. Mankind suffered spiritual -atrophy. Religion and art withered as a consequence of the -forces set in motion, and in spite of attempted revivals, -I've never succeeded in becoming properly rooted again, nor -will they ever do so until the false values which the -Renaissance imposed upon the world are banished. For, -briefly, it may be said that the fundamental error of the -Renaissance was that it everywhere concentrated attention -upon secondary things to the neglect of the primary ones. In -its enthusiasm for learning it came to exalt knowledge above -wisdom, science above religion, mechanism above art. The -misdirection of energy which has followed these false -valuations has literally turned the world upside down, so -that, like a pyramid balanced upon its apex, it remains in a -state of unstable equilibrium. For there can be no peace so -long as the major powers which alone are capable of giving -direction to society are subjected to the caprice and -domination of the minor ones. - -It is a fact not without significance that science alone has -profited by the changes associated with the Renaissance. I -say it is not without significance because science is not a -creative but a destructive force. Let there be no mistake -about this. Science always destroys. There are of course -some things---disease, for instance---which need to be -destroyed, and in destroying these science does useful work. -But the usefulness of science is strictly limited. As the -handmaid of religion and art its services may be invaluable. -For it is their function to know the *why* of things, -whereas science only concerns itself with the *how*. And in -a healthy society the *why* would take precedence to the -*how*. When this natural order is reversed and science -assumes the leadership, society lives in peril of its -existence. For the liberation of natural forces which -science aims at effecting is to liberate forces which man is -powerless to control. It is no accident that science has -become the servant of militarism. Too proud to accept -spiritual direction, it was left no choice in the matter. - -The materialist spirit which science has helped to engender -shows itself irreconcilably hostile to all the higher -interests of mankind. All men who care for spiritual things -are conscious of this antagonism. But hitherto opinion has -been divided as to the best means of combating it. Feeling -themselves more or less powerless in the face of the vast -mechanism of industrialism, many such men are inclined to -take the view that industrialism must be accepted to-day as -an established fact, and urge upon all who are conscious of -its limitations to seek to supplant its materialist -direction by a spiritual one. This view, which has the -advantage of appearing broad and magnanimous, has the -further one of reconciling men temporarily to the servitude -to which they must submit. Nevertheless, it is both -impracticable and fallacious. The very magnitude of the -industrial system forbids it, thus making of our would be -industrial reformers utterly impracticable dreamers. Small -machines may be used by man, but large machinery acquires a -will of its own. The men who direct it soon find out that -they can only remain solvent on the assumption that they are -willing to sacrifice everything to the all-absorbing -interest of keeping the vast machinery in commission. Hence -it comes about that it is the tendency of industrialism to -throw out all men who are unwilling to bend their will to -the will of the machine. It is in the nature of things that -this should be so. For there are only two possible lines of -development. Either industry must be brought into relation -with what we regard as the permanent needs of human nature, -or human nature is not to be regarded as a fixed quantity -and must adapt itself to the needs of industry. There is no -third position such as the proposed spiritual control of -industrialism would suggest. - -Though there exists to-day an undoubted antagonism between -the material and spiritual sides of life, it has not always -been so. Whether such antagonism exists or not is all a -matter of proportion. Up to a certain point in the -development of civilization no antagonism is felt. The -material and spiritual aspects of life go hand in hand. But -beyond a certain point this is no longer the case. -Separation begins. Henceforth further development of one -side can only be at the expense of the other. It is not a -case of any one definitely willing this separation. It +The danger inherent in the growing disrespect for all forms of authority +is that from being a perfectly legitimate protest against spurious forms +of authority and culture it may develop into a revolt against authority +and culture in general. To the Neo-Marxist whose faith is absolute in +the materialist interpretation of history this may seem a matter of no +consequence. But to those who realize the dependence of a healthy social +system on living traditions of culture it is a matter of some concern. +For whereas a false culture like the academic one of to-day tends to +separate people by dividing them in classes and groups and finally +isolating them as individuals, a true culture like the great cultures of +the past unites them by the creation of a common bond of sympathy and +understanding between the various members of the community. + +The recovery of such a culture is one of our most urgent needs, for some +such unifying principle is needed if society is to be reconstituted. If +the overthrow of capitalism is not to be followed by anarchy, this dual +nature of the social problem must be acknowledged. For it is apparent +that if a change in the economic system is to be made permanent it will +need to be accompanied and fortified by a change in the spirit of man. +Most Socialist activity to-day is based upon the assumption that one +will necessarily follow more or less automatically as a consequence of +the other, and that all it is necessary to do is to seek to abolish +economic insecurity under a restored Guild system and the materialist +spirit would disappear as a matter of course. But such reasoning, I +submit, is fallacious. Even granting that it could be proved that the +social problem had its origin in a purely economic cause, it does not +follow that to effect economic change in the right direction would +automatically produce the change we desire on the spiritual side of +life, because, as we are all creatures of habit, the materialist habit +of mind would tend to persist when the cause which originally created it +had been removed. What most Socialists fail to realize is that the +material and spiritual sides of the problem must be attacked +simultaneously if reaction is not to result. Otherwise it is a certainty +that the one which at the moment is left standing would wreck the other. +We know that a religious revival to-day would not effect permanent +results unless it were accompanied by a change in the economic system. +For precisely the same reason a change in the economic system cannot be +permanent unless accompanied by a corresponding change in the spirit of +man. Apart from a change in the spirit of man, it is conceivable that a +restored Guild system, instead of laying the basis of a happy and +prosperous society, would, under materialist direction, degenerate into +a number of warring groups, in which the groups in an economically weak +position would be ground down by those in a stronger one. All the +circumstances which now so rightly shock the Socialist conscience would +be reproduced. The tree would still only bear thistles, for +self-interested human nature must ever inflict suffering on those that +are weak. Economic change is therefore impotent to redeem society unless +it is accompanied by such a change in the spirit of man as is tantamount +to a religious awakening, "For," to quote de Maeztu, "men cannot unite +immediately among one another; they unite in things, in common values, +in common ends."The materialist philosophy of organized Socialism +supplies no common aim capable of uniting men for the purposes of +reconstruction; on the contrary, it can only unite them for the purposes +of destruction, for the overthrow of the existing system. Once that is +done, Socialists must split up among themselves, for their lives are +governed by no common denominator. Like the builders of Babel, they will +be overtaken by a confusion of tongues---for such is the inevitable end +of all materialist systems. + +The more one thinks about the social problem the more one comes to see +that economic health in a community is dependent upon morals; and the +more one thinks about morals the more one comes to realize that their +roots are finally to be found in religious conviction. Brotherhood is +only possible on the assumption that evil motives can be kept in +subjection, and the experience of history seems to prove that only a +religion which appeals to the heart and conscience of men is capable of +this. If evil motives can be kept in subjection, then the kingdom of God +upon earth can be realized, but on no other terms. This, I take it, was +the central truth and purpose of Christianity throughout its great +historic period. By strengthening man it sought to establish and fortify +the normal in life and society. That Christians at times have been drawn +to other ideals is true, but that the central aim of Christianity was +the establishment of the kingdom of God upon earth the wonderful +architecture and social organization of the Middle Ages bears witness. + +We have moved so far away from the Middle Ages that it is difficult for +us to conceive of life as it was then lived or religion as it was then +understood. Religion then was not a thing to be indulged in by people +who had a bias in that direction and ignored by others---something apart +from life with little or no influence on the main current of +affairs---but was the creative force at the centre of society; the +mainspring and guiding principle that shaped art, politics, business and +all other activities to a common end. It was moreover a culture which +united king and peasant, craftsman and priest in a common bond of +sympathy and understanding; for, unlike modern culture, it did not +depend upon books and so did not raise an intellectual barrier between +the literate and the illiterate, but united all, however varying the +extent of their knowledge and understanding. The mason who carved the +ornaments of a chapel or cathedral drew his inspiration from the same +source of religious tradition as the ploughman who sang as he worked in +the field or the minstrel who chanted a story in the evening. Modern +education at the best is a poor substitute for the old culture which +came to a man at his work. The utmost it can do is to give us an +opportunity of reading in books descriptions of a beautiful life which +once existed in reality. And let us never forget that the central +mystery around which this life moved was religion. This fact is the last +one the modernists are willing to admit. They may be fascinated by the +glamour and romance of the Middle Ages, by its wonderful architecture +and its social organization. But it may be said of them what +Mr. Chesterton said of Ruskin, "that he wanted all parts of the +cathedral except the altar." + +In accounting for the changes which destroyed Mediaeval Society and +inaugurated the modern world, it is customary in economic circles to +ascribe them to the Reformation and the Great Pillage which accompanied +it. But the Reformation itself was the consequence of that many-sided +movement which we know as the Renaissance which in turn was the direct +consequence of that awakened interest in Greek and Roman literature, +science and art in the fourteenth century in Italy which followed the +Revival of Learning. So that when we search for the impulse which first +set in motion the forces which have created the modern world we find it +in the labour of scholars who ransacked libraries in their enthusiasm +for the culture of the pagan world. + +The immediate results of their labour were full of promise. The +rediscovery of the literature and art of the ancient world had a +wonderfully stimulating effect on the imagination of Europe, inclining +as it did at the beginning to give a certain added grace and refinement +to the vigorous traditions of Mediaevalism. It seemed, indeed, for a +time as if the Renaissance was really what its name implies---a +rebirth---and that life itself, casting off the fetters which bound it, +was to come to its own at last. But it was not to be. Early in the +sixteenth century its morning splendour in Italy received a check, and +as time wore on it became more and more evident that the glories of the +Renaissance were over and that its tyrannies had begun. For what +happened in Italy happened wherever it succeeded in establishing itself. +Its immediate effect was always that of a stimulant which for a time +quickened things into a vigorous life. After this reaction set in. A +kind of staleness overcame everything. Mankind suffered spiritual +atrophy. Religion and art withered as a consequence of the forces set in +motion, and in spite of attempted revivals, I've never succeeded in +becoming properly rooted again, nor will they ever do so until the false +values which the Renaissance imposed upon the world are banished. For, +briefly, it may be said that the fundamental error of the Renaissance +was that it everywhere concentrated attention upon secondary things to +the neglect of the primary ones. In its enthusiasm for learning it came +to exalt knowledge above wisdom, science above religion, mechanism above +art. The misdirection of energy which has followed these false +valuations has literally turned the world upside down, so that, like a +pyramid balanced upon its apex, it remains in a state of unstable +equilibrium. For there can be no peace so long as the major powers which +alone are capable of giving direction to society are subjected to the +caprice and domination of the minor ones. + +It is a fact not without significance that science alone has profited by +the changes associated with the Renaissance. I say it is not without +significance because science is not a creative but a destructive force. +Let there be no mistake about this. Science always destroys. There are +of course some things---disease, for instance---which need to be +destroyed, and in destroying these science does useful work. But the +usefulness of science is strictly limited. As the handmaid of religion +and art its services may be invaluable. For it is their function to know +the *why* of things, whereas science only concerns itself with the +*how*. And in a healthy society the *why* would take precedence to the +*how*. When this natural order is reversed and science assumes the +leadership, society lives in peril of its existence. For the liberation +of natural forces which science aims at effecting is to liberate forces +which man is powerless to control. It is no accident that science has +become the servant of militarism. Too proud to accept spiritual +direction, it was left no choice in the matter. + +The materialist spirit which science has helped to engender shows itself +irreconcilably hostile to all the higher interests of mankind. All men +who care for spiritual things are conscious of this antagonism. But +hitherto opinion has been divided as to the best means of combating it. +Feeling themselves more or less powerless in the face of the vast +mechanism of industrialism, many such men are inclined to take the view +that industrialism must be accepted to-day as an established fact, and +urge upon all who are conscious of its limitations to seek to supplant +its materialist direction by a spiritual one. This view, which has the +advantage of appearing broad and magnanimous, has the further one of +reconciling men temporarily to the servitude to which they must submit. +Nevertheless, it is both impracticable and fallacious. The very +magnitude of the industrial system forbids it, thus making of our would +be industrial reformers utterly impracticable dreamers. Small machines +may be used by man, but large machinery acquires a will of its own. The +men who direct it soon find out that they can only remain solvent on the +assumption that they are willing to sacrifice everything to the +all-absorbing interest of keeping the vast machinery in commission. +Hence it comes about that it is the tendency of industrialism to throw +out all men who are unwilling to bend their will to the will of the +machine. It is in the nature of things that this should be so. For there +are only two possible lines of development. Either industry must be +brought into relation with what we regard as the permanent needs of +human nature, or human nature is not to be regarded as a fixed quantity +and must adapt itself to the needs of industry. There is no third +position such as the proposed spiritual control of industrialism would +suggest. + +Though there exists to-day an undoubted antagonism between the material +and spiritual sides of life, it has not always been so. Whether such +antagonism exists or not is all a matter of proportion. Up to a certain +point in the development of civilization no antagonism is felt. The +material and spiritual aspects of life go hand in hand. But beyond a +certain point this is no longer the case. Separation begins. Henceforth +further development of one side can only be at the expense of the other. +It is not a case of any one definitely willing this separation. It simply happens as a loss of balance consequent upon an undue -concentration upon the problems appertaining to one side of -life. In this sense things are to be regarded not as -necessarily good or bad in themselves, but may be either -according to the proportion they bear to each other. As in -chemistry we know that the elements composing any compound -substance will combine with others in a certain definite and -fixed proportion, and in no other, so it appears that in -society the material and spiritual elements can only combine -organically when they co-exist in a certain definite -proportion. - -Exactly what that proportion is it is impossible in words to -say. What, however, we do know is that the material side of -life is to-day abnormally over-developed while the spiritual -side is to an equal extent under-developed, and this is -sufficient for practical purposes. For our business being to -restore the balance now destroyed, we are right in -supporting whatsoever tends to increase spiritual activities -on the one hand and to limit material ones on the other. In -reality, however, this is not two forms of activity but one, -inasmuch as both reforms must proceed simultaneously. The -material development is to-day so overwhelming and its force -is so irresistible that there can be no such thing as a -widespread spiritual reawakening so long as the material -crust in which our life is embedded remains unimpaired. That -crust will need to be broken before the spirit of man can -move freely again, and there is every reason to believe it -will be broken before long. For the determination of the -Government, capitalists and others to carry the industrial -system after the war to its logical conclusion is the surest -way of ending it, for all the contradictions which now -underlie our civilization will then come into the light of -day. Once that happens, the system will not be able to go -on. The lie upon which it is built will be out, and there -will be no hiding the truth any longer. We shall have to -face the facts because the facts will be facing us. Unable -so much as to entertain the idea of a limit to material -expansion or to conceive of a social order fundamentally -different from our own, the governing class are nevertheless -unconsciously preparing the way for the new social order by -seeking political suicide, which of course is the only thing -they can do considering they cannot go forward and are too +concentration upon the problems appertaining to one side of life. In +this sense things are to be regarded not as necessarily good or bad in +themselves, but may be either according to the proportion they bear to +each other. As in chemistry we know that the elements composing any +compound substance will combine with others in a certain definite and +fixed proportion, and in no other, so it appears that in society the +material and spiritual elements can only combine organically when they +co-exist in a certain definite proportion. + +Exactly what that proportion is it is impossible in words to say. What, +however, we do know is that the material side of life is to-day +abnormally over-developed while the spiritual side is to an equal extent +under-developed, and this is sufficient for practical purposes. For our +business being to restore the balance now destroyed, we are right in +supporting whatsoever tends to increase spiritual activities on the one +hand and to limit material ones on the other. In reality, however, this +is not two forms of activity but one, inasmuch as both reforms must +proceed simultaneously. The material development is to-day so +overwhelming and its force is so irresistible that there can be no such +thing as a widespread spiritual reawakening so long as the material +crust in which our life is embedded remains unimpaired. That crust will +need to be broken before the spirit of man can move freely again, and +there is every reason to believe it will be broken before long. For the +determination of the Government, capitalists and others to carry the +industrial system after the war to its logical conclusion is the surest +way of ending it, for all the contradictions which now underlie our +civilization will then come into the light of day. Once that happens, +the system will not be able to go on. The lie upon which it is built +will be out, and there will be no hiding the truth any longer. We shall +have to face the facts because the facts will be facing us. Unable so +much as to entertain the idea of a limit to material expansion or to +conceive of a social order fundamentally different from our own, the +governing class are nevertheless unconsciously preparing the way for the +new social order by seeking political suicide, which of course is the +only thing they can do considering they cannot go forward and are too proud to go back. For "pride goeth before a fall." -Far be it that any words of mine should deter our governing -class from the pursuit of a policy which is so full of -beneficent promise for the future of mankind. My concern is -not with them, but with the Socialist and Labour movements, -which I fear may fall into the same pit. For the situation -after the war will be full of dangers for men who have -hitherto based their policy upon the assumption that -industrialism has come to stay. They have assured themselves -so often that "we cannot go back" that they will be entirely -helpless when confronted with a situation through which they -cannot go forward. If therefore they are not to be taken by -surprise, if after the war we are not to go to pieces as -Russia did after her revolution, it is urgent that the -leaders of the Socialist and Labour movements should pause -and think. If they do not, then the collapse of the present -order will leave society entirely without leaders, at the -mercy of our Jacobins and Bolsheviks, who, like their -predecessors in the French and Russian Revolutions, will -make the anarchy complete by facing every issue as it -arises, not with the understanding which comes from broad -and humane sympathies, but in the narrow and mechanical way -which is only possible to minds drilled in the materialist -misinterpretation of history. - -That is where I will leave the matter. I have drawn -attention to the danger which threatens us, and I have -suggested within certain limits the direction in which a -solution may be found. If you ask for a more detailed plan I -reply that such is undesirable, for a purpose wedded to -details may easily suffer shipwreck. Our need, on the -contrary, is an aim sufficiently noble to unite men coupled -with an understanding and determination to mould -circumstances as they arise. A precedent condition of -success upon such lines is a clear and widespread -recognition of the problem confronting us as it actually -exists. If this could be secured half of the battle would be -won, and we need have no fear as to our ability to improvise -measures when the crisis comes. Meanwhile two prejudices -stand in the way of such a desideratum. One is our utterly -irrational faith in the stability of industrialism; the -other is an ignorance where it is not a wilful -misrepresentation of the past. Let us not forget that in -history, as Mr. Chesterton has reminded us, there has never -been a Revolution which did not in some measure aim at being -a Restoration. +Far be it that any words of mine should deter our governing class from +the pursuit of a policy which is so full of beneficent promise for the +future of mankind. My concern is not with them, but with the Socialist +and Labour movements, which I fear may fall into the same pit. For the +situation after the war will be full of dangers for men who have +hitherto based their policy upon the assumption that industrialism has +come to stay. They have assured themselves so often that "we cannot go +back" that they will be entirely helpless when confronted with a +situation through which they cannot go forward. If therefore they are +not to be taken by surprise, if after the war we are not to go to pieces +as Russia did after her revolution, it is urgent that the leaders of the +Socialist and Labour movements should pause and think. If they do not, +then the collapse of the present order will leave society entirely +without leaders, at the mercy of our Jacobins and Bolsheviks, who, like +their predecessors in the French and Russian Revolutions, will make the +anarchy complete by facing every issue as it arises, not with the +understanding which comes from broad and humane sympathies, but in the +narrow and mechanical way which is only possible to minds drilled in the +materialist misinterpretation of history. + +That is where I will leave the matter. I have drawn attention to the +danger which threatens us, and I have suggested within certain limits +the direction in which a solution may be found. If you ask for a more +detailed plan I reply that such is undesirable, for a purpose wedded to +details may easily suffer shipwreck. Our need, on the contrary, is an +aim sufficiently noble to unite men coupled with an understanding and +determination to mould circumstances as they arise. A precedent +condition of success upon such lines is a clear and widespread +recognition of the problem confronting us as it actually exists. If this +could be secured half of the battle would be won, and we need have no +fear as to our ability to improvise measures when the crisis comes. +Meanwhile two prejudices stand in the way of such a desideratum. One is +our utterly irrational faith in the stability of industrialism; the +other is an ignorance where it is not a wilful misrepresentation of the +past. Let us not forget that in history, as Mr. Chesterton has reminded +us, there has never been a Revolution which did not in some measure aim +at being a Restoration. # The Function of the State ->  This is the reason why the law was made, that the -> wickedness of men should be restrained through fear of it, -> and that good men could safely live amongst bad men; and -> that bad men should be punished by the law and should -> cease to do evil for fear of the punishment. +>  This is the reason why the law was made, that the wickedness of men +> should be restrained through fear of it, and that good men could +> safely live amongst bad men; and that bad men should be punished by +> the law and should cease to do evil for fear of the punishment. > -> (From the Feuro Juzzo, a collection of laws Gothic and -> Roman in origin, made by the Hispano-Gothic King -> Chindasvinto, A.D. 640. In the National Library of Spain, -> Madrid.) - -It is typical of the confusion in which a generation of -Collectivist thinking has involved social theory that when -to-day men speculate on the attributes of the State in the -society of the future they invariably proceed upon the -assumption that its primary function is that of -organization. The syndicalist, with his firmer grip on -reality, realizing that the State is an extremely bad and -incompetent organizer, rightly comes to the conclusion that -if the State can find no better apology for its existence it -is an encumbrance---a conclusion from which I can see no -escape for such as conceive organization to be the primary +> (From the Feuro Juzzo, a collection of laws Gothic and Roman in +> origin, made by the Hispano-Gothic King Chindasvinto, A.D. 640. In the +> National Library of Spain, Madrid.) + +It is typical of the confusion in which a generation of Collectivist +thinking has involved social theory that when to-day men speculate on +the attributes of the State in the society of the future they invariably +proceed upon the assumption that its primary function is that of +organization. The syndicalist, with his firmer grip on reality, +realizing that the State is an extremely bad and incompetent organizer, +rightly comes to the conclusion that if the State can find no better +apology for its existence it is an encumbrance---a conclusion from which +I can see no escape for such as conceive organization to be the primary function of the State. -National Guildsmen, though accepting the State as essential -to a well-ordered society, have not always been able to -escape from this dilemma. Mr. Hobsondismisses the idea of -organization being the primary function of the State, but -conceives of it as spiritual, though the examples he gives -in support of his contention, with the exception of -education, namely, foreign policy, public health and local -government, appear to me to be more mundane than spiritual. -This contention, however, is begging the question. It is not -a satisfactory answer to the Syndicalist. It suggests the -existence of activities with which a Guild Congress may not -be qualified to deal, but it offers us no clear principle -for guidance. Mr. Hobson's understanding of "spiritual" is -different from mine; and I would say that if the State -cannot justify itself as an organizer, it certainly cannot -do so as a spiritual influence. Not only does it not -exercise any spiritual influence to-day, but it is -questionable if the State has ever done so in the past. On -the contrary, the State appears to exercise a baneful -influence on whatever spiritual activities it has taken -under its protection. Most people would agree that the -influence of the State upon the Anglican Church has been a -most depressing one; while it is significant that in the one +National Guildsmen, though accepting the State as essential to a +well-ordered society, have not always been able to escape from this +dilemma. Mr. Hobsondismisses the idea of organization being the primary +function of the State, but conceives of it as spiritual, though the +examples he gives in support of his contention, with the exception of +education, namely, foreign policy, public health and local government, +appear to me to be more mundane than spiritual. This contention, +however, is begging the question. It is not a satisfactory answer to the +Syndicalist. It suggests the existence of activities with which a Guild +Congress may not be qualified to deal, but it offers us no clear +principle for guidance. Mr. Hobson's understanding of "spiritual" is +different from mine; and I would say that if the State cannot justify +itself as an organizer, it certainly cannot do so as a spiritual +influence. Not only does it not exercise any spiritual influence to-day, +but it is questionable if the State has ever done so in the past. On the +contrary, the State appears to exercise a baneful influence on whatever +spiritual activities it has taken under its protection. Most people +would agree that the influence of the State upon the Anglican Church has +been a most depressing one; while it is significant that in the one section of this Church which is to-day alive---the High -Church---advocates of disestablishment are to be found. -Nobody will be found to defend our national educational -system or to maintain that the participation of the State in -the task of education has in any way fulfilled the -expectations of its promoters. Nor, again, can any one -maintain that the patronage of the arts by the State -exhibits any degree of insight or understanding. It is, I -believe, in the nature of things that this should be so, for -the State is of the earth earthy. The problem of temporal -power which engages its attention does not tend to create an -atmosphere favourable to the growth and development of -things spiritual. - -If, then, the State is not to be justified as an organizer -nor can it exercise spiritual functions, on what grounds is -it to be justified? The experience of history provides the -answer. The function of the State is to give protection to -the community---military protection in the first place, -civil protection in the next, and economic protection in the -last. Let me deal with economic protection first; for if I -am to be understood at all it is necessary to make it clear -that I refer to something very different from the Protection -of current politics. Protection is a double-edged sword and -may just as easily be a curse as a blessing. Protection -against the economic enemy beyond the seas is the necessary -corollary of any stable economic system. But protection -against the economic enemy at home is the primary necessity, -for it means the protection of the workers against -exploitation. It involves a restoration of the Guilds. By -chartering these the State gives economic protection to the -community. - -The connection between an economic protection of this order -and military and civil protection may not at first sight be -obvious. But a little thought will perhaps show that they -are mutually dependent. All these forms of protection have -this one thing in common---they seek to guard society -against the depredations of the man of prey. Economic -protection or privilege is demanded for the Guild in order -to prevent the man of prey from securing his ends by means -of trickery. Civil protection is demanded in order to -prevent the same type of man from securing his ends by means -of personal violence. Military protection is demanded in -order to secure the community against attacks from without, -which is the inevitable consequence of the domination of an -adjacent people by men of this type. From this point of view -the differing psychology of nations is to be explained. The -internationalist may be right in affirming that, taken in -the mass, men are very much alike all over the world. But in -practical affairs what makes the difference is the type of -man that dominates a civilization, for the dominating type -gives the tone to a community, and it is that which in -politics must be reckoned with. - -The manifest truth of this view of the function of the State -has been obscured by two things: firstly, by the undoubted -fact that in our day the State is very much at the mercy of -the man of prey; and secondly, by the acceptance of -reformers of Rousseau's doctrine of the "natural perfection -of mankind." The first may or may not be a reason for giving -the existing State an unqualified support, since law is no -longer enacted to enable *good men to live among bad*, but -to enable *rich men to live among poor*. The second is a -more serious matter, because it tends to confirm the man of -prey in the possession of the State by standing in the way -of the only thing that can finally dislodge him---the growth -of a true social philosophy. It has always been a mystery to -me why Rousseau's doctrine should have found acceptance -among Socialists. How they reconcile their belief in the -natural perfection of mankind with their violent hatred of -capitalists I am entirely at a loss to understand. If the -domination of the modern world by capitalists is not to be -explained on the hypothesis that when the State withdrew -economic protection from its citizens by suppressing the -Guilds the capitalists, by a process of natural selection, -came to dominate the lives of the more scrupulous members of -society, then how is it to be explained? To exonerate -capitalists from personal responsibility by blaming the -"system" is pure nonsense, because it presupposes the -existence of a social system independent of the wills of its -individual members, and especially of capitalists who are -its dominating type. Moreover to speak of capitalism as the -capitalist system is itself a misnomer, for it is not in any -sense a system. On the contrary, capitalism is a chaotic and -disorderly growth, while every effort to bring order into it -reacts to increase the prevailing confusion. Socialists are -right in hating capitalists; they are wrong in denying the -only rational justification for that hatred---original sin. -I insist upon a frank recognition of this fact because I do -not see how the Guilds are to be restored apart from it. -Just in the same way as the modern Parliamentary system is -the political expression of the doctrine of the natural -perfection of mankind, so the Guild system in the Middle -Ages was the political expression of the doctrine of -original sin. About this no two opinions are possible. The -Mediaevalists realized that rogues are born as well as made, -and that the only way to prevent the growth of a cult of -roguery such as oppresses the modern world is to recognize -frankly the existence of evil tendencies in men and to -legislate accordingly. It was for this reason that they -sought to suppress profiteering in its various forms of -forestalling, regrating and adulteration; for they realized -that rogues are dangerous men, and that the only way to -control them is to suppress them at the start by insisting -that all men who set up in business should conform to a -strict code of morality in their business dealings and daily -life. Liberalism, with its faith in the natural perfection -of mankind, was based upon the opposite assumption---that -the best will come to the top if men are left free to follow -their own desires. They sought to inaugurate an industrial -millennium by denying economic protection to the workers, -while they dreamed of a day when military protection would -no longer be necessary. Both of these illusions have been -shattered by the war, but the doctrine upon which they were -built---the natural perfection of mankind---remains to -perpetuate our confusion. When it, too, is shattered we may -recover the theory of the State. +Church---advocates of disestablishment are to be found. Nobody will be +found to defend our national educational system or to maintain that the +participation of the State in the task of education has in any way +fulfilled the expectations of its promoters. Nor, again, can any one +maintain that the patronage of the arts by the State exhibits any degree +of insight or understanding. It is, I believe, in the nature of things +that this should be so, for the State is of the earth earthy. The +problem of temporal power which engages its attention does not tend to +create an atmosphere favourable to the growth and development of things +spiritual. + +If, then, the State is not to be justified as an organizer nor can it +exercise spiritual functions, on what grounds is it to be justified? The +experience of history provides the answer. The function of the State is +to give protection to the community---military protection in the first +place, civil protection in the next, and economic protection in the +last. Let me deal with economic protection first; for if I am to be +understood at all it is necessary to make it clear that I refer to +something very different from the Protection of current politics. +Protection is a double-edged sword and may just as easily be a curse as +a blessing. Protection against the economic enemy beyond the seas is the +necessary corollary of any stable economic system. But protection +against the economic enemy at home is the primary necessity, for it +means the protection of the workers against exploitation. It involves a +restoration of the Guilds. By chartering these the State gives economic +protection to the community. + +The connection between an economic protection of this order and military +and civil protection may not at first sight be obvious. But a little +thought will perhaps show that they are mutually dependent. All these +forms of protection have this one thing in common---they seek to guard +society against the depredations of the man of prey. Economic protection +or privilege is demanded for the Guild in order to prevent the man of +prey from securing his ends by means of trickery. Civil protection is +demanded in order to prevent the same type of man from securing his ends +by means of personal violence. Military protection is demanded in order +to secure the community against attacks from without, which is the +inevitable consequence of the domination of an adjacent people by men of +this type. From this point of view the differing psychology of nations +is to be explained. The internationalist may be right in affirming that, +taken in the mass, men are very much alike all over the world. But in +practical affairs what makes the difference is the type of man that +dominates a civilization, for the dominating type gives the tone to a +community, and it is that which in politics must be reckoned with. + +The manifest truth of this view of the function of the State has been +obscured by two things: firstly, by the undoubted fact that in our day +the State is very much at the mercy of the man of prey; and secondly, by +the acceptance of reformers of Rousseau's doctrine of the "natural +perfection of mankind." The first may or may not be a reason for giving +the existing State an unqualified support, since law is no longer +enacted to enable *good men to live among bad*, but to enable *rich men +to live among poor*. The second is a more serious matter, because it +tends to confirm the man of prey in the possession of the State by +standing in the way of the only thing that can finally dislodge +him---the growth of a true social philosophy. It has always been a +mystery to me why Rousseau's doctrine should have found acceptance among +Socialists. How they reconcile their belief in the natural perfection of +mankind with their violent hatred of capitalists I am entirely at a loss +to understand. If the domination of the modern world by capitalists is +not to be explained on the hypothesis that when the State withdrew +economic protection from its citizens by suppressing the Guilds the +capitalists, by a process of natural selection, came to dominate the +lives of the more scrupulous members of society, then how is it to be +explained? To exonerate capitalists from personal responsibility by +blaming the "system" is pure nonsense, because it presupposes the +existence of a social system independent of the wills of its individual +members, and especially of capitalists who are its dominating type. +Moreover to speak of capitalism as the capitalist system is itself a +misnomer, for it is not in any sense a system. On the contrary, +capitalism is a chaotic and disorderly growth, while every effort to +bring order into it reacts to increase the prevailing confusion. +Socialists are right in hating capitalists; they are wrong in denying +the only rational justification for that hatred---original sin. I insist +upon a frank recognition of this fact because I do not see how the +Guilds are to be restored apart from it. Just in the same way as the +modern Parliamentary system is the political expression of the doctrine +of the natural perfection of mankind, so the Guild system in the Middle +Ages was the political expression of the doctrine of original sin. About +this no two opinions are possible. The Mediaevalists realized that +rogues are born as well as made, and that the only way to prevent the +growth of a cult of roguery such as oppresses the modern world is to +recognize frankly the existence of evil tendencies in men and to +legislate accordingly. It was for this reason that they sought to +suppress profiteering in its various forms of forestalling, regrating +and adulteration; for they realized that rogues are dangerous men, and +that the only way to control them is to suppress them at the start by +insisting that all men who set up in business should conform to a strict +code of morality in their business dealings and daily life. Liberalism, +with its faith in the natural perfection of mankind, was based upon the +opposite assumption---that the best will come to the top if men are left +free to follow their own desires. They sought to inaugurate an +industrial millennium by denying economic protection to the workers, +while they dreamed of a day when military protection would no longer be +necessary. Both of these illusions have been shattered by the war, but +the doctrine upon which they were built---the natural perfection of +mankind---remains to perpetuate our confusion. When it, too, is +shattered we may recover the theory of the State. # The Class War ## I -There can be little doubt that the struggle which will -decide the form which Socialist thought and action must -finally take will be fought between the Neo-Marxists and -Guild Socialists. For though the immediate practical -proposals of the two movements have sufficient in common for -the differences to appear to a Collectivist as the -differences between the moderate and extreme parties into -which all movements tend to divide, yet they are finally -separated by principles which are as the poles asunder, and -Socialists must before long choose between them. As the -situation develops they must cleave either to a purely -materialist or to a spiritual conception of the nature of -the problem which confronts us. They cannot remain in their -present indeterminate state. - -Though a collision between the two movements is inevitable, -so far nothing more than skirmishes between outposts have -taken place. Yet they are sufficient to indicate upon what -lines the attack of the Neo-Marxists is likely to develop -Guild Socialism, it appears, is not acceptable to men whose -central article of faith is the class war Though Guild -Socialism has arisen in opposition to Collectivism, and -though, I believe, when has reached its final form, it will -be found to be farther removed from Collectivism than -Neo-Marxism itself, nevertheless, Mr. Walton Newboldtells us -that the Neo-Marxists firmly and honestly believe it to be a -bureaucratic variation of Collectivism intended to +There can be little doubt that the struggle which will decide the form +which Socialist thought and action must finally take will be fought +between the Neo-Marxists and Guild Socialists. For though the immediate +practical proposals of the two movements have sufficient in common for +the differences to appear to a Collectivist as the differences between +the moderate and extreme parties into which all movements tend to +divide, yet they are finally separated by principles which are as the +poles asunder, and Socialists must before long choose between them. As +the situation develops they must cleave either to a purely materialist +or to a spiritual conception of the nature of the problem which +confronts us. They cannot remain in their present indeterminate state. + +Though a collision between the two movements is inevitable, so far +nothing more than skirmishes between outposts have taken place. Yet they +are sufficient to indicate upon what lines the attack of the +Neo-Marxists is likely to develop Guild Socialism, it appears, is not +acceptable to men whose central article of faith is the class war Though +Guild Socialism has arisen in opposition to Collectivism, and though, I +believe, when has reached its final form, it will be found to be farther +removed from Collectivism than Neo-Marxism itself, nevertheless, +Mr. Walton Newboldtells us that the Neo-Marxists firmly and honestly +believe it to be a bureaucratic variation of Collectivism intended to perpetuate the authority of the middle class. -That the Neo-Marxists should have chosen this line of attack -is significant. It testifies to what is uppermost in their -minds. For though in their propaganda they demand social -justice for the workers, it is manifest that class-hatred -rather than the desire for justice is the mainspring of -their actions. I hold no brief for the middle class. It has -many and grievous faults, and it pays for them dearly in -defeat, in isolation, in lack of hold upon the modern world. -So far from seeking to save itself in the manner which the -Neo-Marxists suspect, it has not to-day sufficient faith to -believe it might be successful if it made the attempt, and -it is increasingly reconciling itself to an idea of Marx -which the Neo-Marxists appear to have forgotten---that the -middle class will become merged in the proletariat. Anyway, -on no other hypothesis except pure idealism can I explain -the action of those middle-class Socialists who have sought -to advocate the Guilds. For if they imagine they are going -to save the middle class by the promotion of a system of -democratic organization in every unit of which they would be -in a hopeless minority, then all I can say is that they must -be fools of the first order and are entitled to the contempt -with which Mr. Newbold regards them. Further, if the -Neo-Marxist contention is correct they must explain why the -National Guilds League opposed the Whitley Report, for the -middle class has certainly nothing to lose by its adoption. - -Facts of this kind are not to be gainsaid. The reason why -Guild Socialists propose to include the salariat in the -Guild is a purely practical one. The simplest way to bring -the capitalist system to an end is for the workers to take -over the industries of the country as they actually exist. -This is common sense and nothing more. Modern industry is a -very complex affair, and our daily needs require that the -various people concerned in industry can be persuaded to -co-operate together. But if any radical change is to be -brought about, and the spirit of co-operation maintained, it -can only be on the assumption that the workers are -magnanimous when they are victorious. This is the way all -the world's great conquerors have consolidated their power; -and the workers will never be able to carry through a -successful revolution until they understand it. For -magnanimity disarms opposition. But to preach the class war -is to court failure in advance, for it is to seek the -establishment of power, not on a basis of magnanimity, but -of suspicion; and this robs victory of its fruits by -rendering politically impracticable those very measures -which, if enacted, would make victory permanent. In such -circumstances, the defeated become desperate, are afraid to -give in, and, seeing no hope for themselves in the new -order, they band themselves together to restore the old. It -is thus that revolution is followed by counter-revolution -and the workers are defeated. - -The right method, it seems to me, is not to preach -revolution, but to preach ideas. It is necessary to form in -the mind of the people some conception of what the new -social order will be like. When the mind of the people is -saturated with such ideas one of two things must happen -Either the Government must acquiesce in the popular demand, -or revolution will ensue. The former is preferable because, -as the change can then be inaugurated with cool heads, it is -more likely to be permanent. It is no argument against this -method to say that the Labour Party has failed. Firstly, -because the Labour Party is an insignificant minority and -therefore cannot exercise power; and, secondly, because the -Labour Party never made up its mind what it really wanted. -This latter reason makes it fairly safe to say that if the -Labour Party should get into power at the next election it -would not be able to effect radical change. In these -circumstances our immediate work should not be to bully the -Labour Party, which, in the nature of things, can only -reflect opinion, but so to clarify our ideas that unanimity -of opinion will make its appearance in the Labour movement. -The danger is that the people may succeed to power before -ideas are ripe. We might then expect a succession of violent -conflicts proceeding from the attempt to realize an -unrealizable thing. This is what happened in the French -Revolution, when the Jacobins, obsessed with the idea of a -democratic centralized government, refused to tolerate any -other organizations within the State, thus opposing the -formation of those very organizations which render a real -democracy possible. The Neo-Marxists by repudiating -State-action altogether seem to Guild Socialists to be -falling into an error the exact opposite to that of the -French Revolutionists. Their society would fall to pieces -for lack of a co-ordinating power; if the present order were -thrown over in its entirety, it would be impossible to -improvise arrangements to meet the situation which would be -created. We should be starved at the end of a fortnight. - -If starvation has been the fate of Russia, which is an -agricultural country, and where the class war in the main -has meant only the abolition of landlords, how much more -will it be the case in a highly industrialized State like -our own which can be maintained only by a very high degree -of co-operation, and where the middle class forms such a -large proportion of the community. If the working class of -Russia could not abolish 2% of the population without -precipitating social chaos, what chance have the working -class in this country after abolishing 30%? On the other -hand, if the advice of Guild Socialists is followed and -industries are taken over in the first place as they exist, -the complete democratization of industry could at the most -only be a matter of a few years, for the working class would -be in a majority in every Guild. - -That a scheme calculated to have such an effect should have -originated among middle-class Socialists only appears -incredible to Mr. Newbold and his friends because they will -persist in approaching every question from the point of view -of class. But it is not incredible when we realize that -middle-class Socialists are often as much "fed up" with the -existing system as members of the proletariat, though -perhaps for different reasons. The misunderstanding and -Consequent suspicion which Neo-Marxists have for -middle-class Socialists is largely due to the fact that -different motives bring them into the movement. Viewing -everything from a purely economic point of view, the -Neo-Marxists are unable to understand that men may be very -dissatisfied with the existing state of society though they -are in fairly comfortable circumstances. They may dislike -the work they are compelled to do, or they may be interested -in the arts, or some other subject, and finding -commercialism opposed to all they want to do, come to hate -the system. The more educated and the more imaginative a man -is the more restless he will become under the present -system, because the more he may find himself balked and -thwarted in life. Most men love to do good work, and they -learn to despise a system which compels them to do bad. With -the typical Fabian the motive is apt to be purely -philanthropic. It is this that has led them astray. They -came to support bureaucracy because they wanted an -instrument with which to abolish poverty; and in regard to -anti-sweating legislation they have proved to be right. -Their mistake was to advocate as a general principle a form -of organization which is only to be justified under very -exceptional circumstances for dealing with exceptional -problems. - -The idea that bureaucracy is a method of organization -peculiarly acceptable to the middle class is a romantic -illusion which exists entirely in the Marxist imagination. -Some years ago (ten or more) I attended a meeting of the -Fabian Society and heard Mr. Webb, while protesting against -the attitude of certain Fabians who objected to officials, -affirm that under Socialism all men would be officials. The -announcement was received in dead silence as something -altogether incredible. It was clear even then that Fabians -did not altogether relish the idea of society being -organized on a bureaucratic basis. Mr. Webb got his own way, -not because the feeling of the meeting was with him, but -because his critics could not at the time offer any -alternative. The triumph of Mr. Webb in the Socialist -movement was due entirely to the fact that he was definite -and knew exactly what he wanted; whereas those who were -opposed to him did not, and those who supported him were -entirely unconscious of where his policy was leading. Many -evil things come about this way; there are more fools in the -world than rogues, and, generally speaking, we are much more -likely to get at the truth of things by assuming that most -men are fools than by assuming they are rogues. Let us not -forget that the road to hell is often paved with good -intentions. If Marxists would think more of psychology they -would not be so full of suspicions. They would begin to -understand that man is a many-sided and complex creature and -is not to be explained entirely in terms of economics. - -Such an understanding would revolutionize their policy. From -being exclusive they would seek to become inclusive. Instead -of espousing a doctrine which sets every man's hand against -his neighbour, they would seek the creation of a synthesis -sufficiently wide to be capable of welding together -different types of men in the effort to establish a new -social order. Their present policy leads nowhere. -Neo-Marxists may begin by repudiating middle-class -Socialists as men whose interests are opposed to those of -the working class. But if I am not mistaken, it will not end -there. Before long they will be required to repudiate the -parasitic proletariat as dependents of the rich; after which -they will have to repudiate skilled workers as members of a -privileged class. Where will working-class solidarity be -then? Nowhere, I imagine; for the working class will be a -house divided against itself. I say it will be. Truth to -tell, it already is. +That the Neo-Marxists should have chosen this line of attack is +significant. It testifies to what is uppermost in their minds. For +though in their propaganda they demand social justice for the workers, +it is manifest that class-hatred rather than the desire for justice is +the mainspring of their actions. I hold no brief for the middle class. +It has many and grievous faults, and it pays for them dearly in defeat, +in isolation, in lack of hold upon the modern world. So far from seeking +to save itself in the manner which the Neo-Marxists suspect, it has not +to-day sufficient faith to believe it might be successful if it made the +attempt, and it is increasingly reconciling itself to an idea of Marx +which the Neo-Marxists appear to have forgotten---that the middle class +will become merged in the proletariat. Anyway, on no other hypothesis +except pure idealism can I explain the action of those middle-class +Socialists who have sought to advocate the Guilds. For if they imagine +they are going to save the middle class by the promotion of a system of +democratic organization in every unit of which they would be in a +hopeless minority, then all I can say is that they must be fools of the +first order and are entitled to the contempt with which Mr. Newbold +regards them. Further, if the Neo-Marxist contention is correct they +must explain why the National Guilds League opposed the Whitley Report, +for the middle class has certainly nothing to lose by its adoption. + +Facts of this kind are not to be gainsaid. The reason why Guild +Socialists propose to include the salariat in the Guild is a purely +practical one. The simplest way to bring the capitalist system to an end +is for the workers to take over the industries of the country as they +actually exist. This is common sense and nothing more. Modern industry +is a very complex affair, and our daily needs require that the various +people concerned in industry can be persuaded to co-operate together. +But if any radical change is to be brought about, and the spirit of +co-operation maintained, it can only be on the assumption that the +workers are magnanimous when they are victorious. This is the way all +the world's great conquerors have consolidated their power; and the +workers will never be able to carry through a successful revolution +until they understand it. For magnanimity disarms opposition. But to +preach the class war is to court failure in advance, for it is to seek +the establishment of power, not on a basis of magnanimity, but of +suspicion; and this robs victory of its fruits by rendering politically +impracticable those very measures which, if enacted, would make victory +permanent. In such circumstances, the defeated become desperate, are +afraid to give in, and, seeing no hope for themselves in the new order, +they band themselves together to restore the old. It is thus that +revolution is followed by counter-revolution and the workers are +defeated. + +The right method, it seems to me, is not to preach revolution, but to +preach ideas. It is necessary to form in the mind of the people some +conception of what the new social order will be like. When the mind of +the people is saturated with such ideas one of two things must happen +Either the Government must acquiesce in the popular demand, or +revolution will ensue. The former is preferable because, as the change +can then be inaugurated with cool heads, it is more likely to be +permanent. It is no argument against this method to say that the Labour +Party has failed. Firstly, because the Labour Party is an insignificant +minority and therefore cannot exercise power; and, secondly, because the +Labour Party never made up its mind what it really wanted. This latter +reason makes it fairly safe to say that if the Labour Party should get +into power at the next election it would not be able to effect radical +change. In these circumstances our immediate work should not be to bully +the Labour Party, which, in the nature of things, can only reflect +opinion, but so to clarify our ideas that unanimity of opinion will make +its appearance in the Labour movement. The danger is that the people may +succeed to power before ideas are ripe. We might then expect a +succession of violent conflicts proceeding from the attempt to realize +an unrealizable thing. This is what happened in the French Revolution, +when the Jacobins, obsessed with the idea of a democratic centralized +government, refused to tolerate any other organizations within the +State, thus opposing the formation of those very organizations which +render a real democracy possible. The Neo-Marxists by repudiating +State-action altogether seem to Guild Socialists to be falling into an +error the exact opposite to that of the French Revolutionists. Their +society would fall to pieces for lack of a co-ordinating power; if the +present order were thrown over in its entirety, it would be impossible +to improvise arrangements to meet the situation which would be created. +We should be starved at the end of a fortnight. + +If starvation has been the fate of Russia, which is an agricultural +country, and where the class war in the main has meant only the +abolition of landlords, how much more will it be the case in a highly +industrialized State like our own which can be maintained only by a very +high degree of co-operation, and where the middle class forms such a +large proportion of the community. If the working class of Russia could +not abolish 2% of the population without precipitating social chaos, +what chance have the working class in this country after abolishing 30%? +On the other hand, if the advice of Guild Socialists is followed and +industries are taken over in the first place as they exist, the complete +democratization of industry could at the most only be a matter of a few +years, for the working class would be in a majority in every Guild. + +That a scheme calculated to have such an effect should have originated +among middle-class Socialists only appears incredible to Mr. Newbold and +his friends because they will persist in approaching every question from +the point of view of class. But it is not incredible when we realize +that middle-class Socialists are often as much "fed up" with the +existing system as members of the proletariat, though perhaps for +different reasons. The misunderstanding and Consequent suspicion which +Neo-Marxists have for middle-class Socialists is largely due to the fact +that different motives bring them into the movement. Viewing everything +from a purely economic point of view, the Neo-Marxists are unable to +understand that men may be very dissatisfied with the existing state of +society though they are in fairly comfortable circumstances. They may +dislike the work they are compelled to do, or they may be interested in +the arts, or some other subject, and finding commercialism opposed to +all they want to do, come to hate the system. The more educated and the +more imaginative a man is the more restless he will become under the +present system, because the more he may find himself balked and thwarted +in life. Most men love to do good work, and they learn to despise a +system which compels them to do bad. With the typical Fabian the motive +is apt to be purely philanthropic. It is this that has led them astray. +They came to support bureaucracy because they wanted an instrument with +which to abolish poverty; and in regard to anti-sweating legislation +they have proved to be right. Their mistake was to advocate as a general +principle a form of organization which is only to be justified under +very exceptional circumstances for dealing with exceptional problems. + +The idea that bureaucracy is a method of organization peculiarly +acceptable to the middle class is a romantic illusion which exists +entirely in the Marxist imagination. Some years ago (ten or more) I +attended a meeting of the Fabian Society and heard Mr. Webb, while +protesting against the attitude of certain Fabians who objected to +officials, affirm that under Socialism all men would be officials. The +announcement was received in dead silence as something altogether +incredible. It was clear even then that Fabians did not altogether +relish the idea of society being organized on a bureaucratic basis. +Mr. Webb got his own way, not because the feeling of the meeting was +with him, but because his critics could not at the time offer any +alternative. The triumph of Mr. Webb in the Socialist movement was due +entirely to the fact that he was definite and knew exactly what he +wanted; whereas those who were opposed to him did not, and those who +supported him were entirely unconscious of where his policy was leading. +Many evil things come about this way; there are more fools in the world +than rogues, and, generally speaking, we are much more likely to get at +the truth of things by assuming that most men are fools than by assuming +they are rogues. Let us not forget that the road to hell is often paved +with good intentions. If Marxists would think more of psychology they +would not be so full of suspicions. They would begin to understand that +man is a many-sided and complex creature and is not to be explained +entirely in terms of economics. + +Such an understanding would revolutionize their policy. From being +exclusive they would seek to become inclusive. Instead of espousing a +doctrine which sets every man's hand against his neighbour, they would +seek the creation of a synthesis sufficiently wide to be capable of +welding together different types of men in the effort to establish a new +social order. Their present policy leads nowhere. Neo-Marxists may begin +by repudiating middle-class Socialists as men whose interests are +opposed to those of the working class. But if I am not mistaken, it will +not end there. Before long they will be required to repudiate the +parasitic proletariat as dependents of the rich; after which they will +have to repudiate skilled workers as members of a privileged class. +Where will working-class solidarity be then? Nowhere, I imagine; for the +working class will be a house divided against itself. I say it will be. +Truth to tell, it already is. ## II -While the Guild movement acknowledges a different -starting-point from that of the Neo-Marxists, it moves -towards a different goal. That goal is symbolized in the -word "Guild." I wonder how many Neo-Marxists have ever -pondered over the significance of that word. For it is a -symbol of the past a past to which many Guildsmen hope to -return. It was not idly chosen. The right to use it had to -be fought for. It could not have been used by the National -Guild movement had not the formulation of its policy been -preceded by a movement or agitation which for a generation -sought to remove prejudices against an institution in the -past which an ever-increasing number of men to-day are -coming to recognize as the normal form of social -organization. This battle was fought out among our -much-despised intellectuals---by historians, craftsmen, -architects and others, who realized that the prejudice which -had been created by interested persons in the past against -Mediaeval institutions had become a peril to society. -Leading men to look with suspicion upon all normal social -arrangements, it tended to thwart all efforts to reconstruct -society on a democratic basis by diverting the energies of -the people into false channels. How much of the discord and -ill-feeling which prevails between the different sections of -the reform movement had its origin in prejudice against the -past it is impossible to say; but it is a certainty that -Collectivism as a theory of social salvation could only have -been formulated by men whose minds had been formed on a -false reading of history. And as the gospel of the class war -owes its present popularity to the disappointment which -followed attempts to reduce Collectivism to practice, the -popular misconceptions of history are to be held responsible -for much. - -That the Neo-Marxists should consider the Guild movement to -be merely a variation of Collectivism shows how completely -they misunderstand not only the underlying purpose of the -movement, but its history too. For not only are the -principles of Collectivism and Guilds fundamentally opposed, -inasmuch as the method of the former is control from without -by the consumer, while the method of the latter is control -from within by the producer, but Guildsmen were accustomed -to attack Collectivism long before Marxists came to suspect -it. But it was not until Socialists were disillusioned over -Collectivism that Guildsmen could get a popular hearing. -When in February 1906 my *Restoration of the Guild System*, -which contained a destructive analysis of Collectivism, -appeared, it was held up to ridicule by the Socialist and -Labour Press.And now at last, when the current of opinion -has turned in our favour, Mr. Newbold tells us that the -Neo-Marxists regard the Guild movement as a variation of -bureaucratic Collectivism. This opinion they arrive at, not -from any careful economic analysis such as we have a right -to expect from men who profess economic infallibility, but -because, knowing something about psychology, which they do -not, we refuse to join them in the class war; just as if the -only differences which could possibly divide vSocialists -were differences of policy and that differences of principle -were matters of no importance. Twelve years ago they wanted -to rend us because we were not Collectivists; to-day, -because they imagine we are. - -The fundamental differences of principle which separate -Guildsmen from Collectivists and Neo-Marxists alike will -become more pronounced as the Guild scheme unfolds. The *New -Age* has said that National Guilds "is rather the first than -the last word in national industrial organization." It is in -this light that the present proposals of the movement should -be regarded. If a fuller programme has not hitherto been put -forward it is not because Guildsmen will be satisfied with -the present minimum, but because a general agreement has not -yet been reached with respect to the more ultimate issues. -Guildsmen have been forewarned by the fate of Collectivists -from advancing a wide and comprehensive programme which has -not been properly thought out, since only disaster can -follow such a course. All the same, some unanimity of -opinion is coming into existence in regard to wider issues, -and as, generally speaking, it is in the direction I should -like to see things go, I will venture my opinion for what it -is worth as to our ultimate destination. - -As I interpret the Guild movement, it is the first sign of a -change in thought which will seek to I solve the social -problem, not by a further development along present lines, -which can only lead us to fresh disasters, but by effecting -a return to the civilization of the Middle Ages. I do not -mean by this that we shall in the future recover every -feature of that era or that many things which exist to-day -will not be retained in the future. I mean that in the first -place we shall resume in general terms the Mediaeval point -of view and that this will involve a return to Mediaeval -ideas of organization. My reasons for believing this are -that I think we are moving into an economic cul-de-sac from -which the only escape is backwards; and that if the -interests of life are to take precedence of the interests of -capital we are inevitably driven into a position which -approximates to that of the Mediaeval economists. The whole -trend of economic development from Renaissance times onward, -which has led to the enthronement of capitalism, has been to -reverse the Mediaeval order. - -In believing thus that capitalism will reach a climax in its -development beyond which it can proceed no farther, I am at -one with Marx in his interpretation of the evolution of -capitalism. It seems to me that Marx predicted very -accurately the trend of capitalist development. He foresaw -that industry would tend to get into fewer and fewer hands, -but it cannot be claimed that the deductions he made from -this forecast are proving to be correct, for he did not -foresee this war.Not having foreseen this war, Marx did not -foresee the anti-climax in which the present system seems -destined to end. And this is fatal to his whole social -theory, because it brings into the light of day a weakness -which runs through all that he says---his inability to -understand the psychological factor, and hence to make -allowances for it in his calculations. Marx saw the material -forces at work in society up to a certain point very clearly -and from this point of view he is worthy of study. But he -never understood that this was only one half of the problem -and finally the less important half. Although Marx clearly -foresaw the trend of economic development, he did not see -that it had been accompanied by a loss of spirituality, and -that simultaneously with the concentration of attention upon -material things, religion and art had lost their hold over -men. From this historical consideration it may be affirmed -that the spirit of avarice grows in inverse ratio to the -interest anc activity in religion and art. And as both of -these activities were undermined by the changed outlook -towards life and the forces set in motion by the -Renaissance, the spirit of avarice became triumphant. In the -same way that an epidemic to which healthy people are immune -tends to spread rapidly among people of a low physical -vitality, so avarice claims its victims among people to-day -because, owing to the separation of religion and art from -life, the mass of the people live in a state of low -spiritual vitality. - -An understanding of what I may call "the spiritual -interpretation of history" will bring us nearer to an -understanding of the Guild movement. It has been well -described as a religion, an art and a philosophy, with -economic feet. That is really what it is. For its aim is -nothing less than to restore that unity to life which the -Renaissance destroyed. Recognizing that every social system -is but the reflection of certain ways of thinking certain -ideas of life it seeks to change society by changing the -substance of thought and life. But, unlike other movements -which have aimed at spiritual regeneration, it deems it -advisable to begin at the economic end of the problem in the -belief that it is only by and through attacking material and -concrete evils that a spiritual awakening is possible. For -to quote the words of Mr. de Maeztu"men cannot unite -immediately among one another; they unite in things, in +While the Guild movement acknowledges a different starting-point from +that of the Neo-Marxists, it moves towards a different goal. That goal +is symbolized in the word "Guild." I wonder how many Neo-Marxists have +ever pondered over the significance of that word. For it is a symbol of +the past a past to which many Guildsmen hope to return. It was not idly +chosen. The right to use it had to be fought for. It could not have been +used by the National Guild movement had not the formulation of its +policy been preceded by a movement or agitation which for a generation +sought to remove prejudices against an institution in the past which an +ever-increasing number of men to-day are coming to recognize as the +normal form of social organization. This battle was fought out among our +much-despised intellectuals---by historians, craftsmen, architects and +others, who realized that the prejudice which had been created by +interested persons in the past against Mediaeval institutions had become +a peril to society. Leading men to look with suspicion upon all normal +social arrangements, it tended to thwart all efforts to reconstruct +society on a democratic basis by diverting the energies of the people +into false channels. How much of the discord and ill-feeling which +prevails between the different sections of the reform movement had its +origin in prejudice against the past it is impossible to say; but it is +a certainty that Collectivism as a theory of social salvation could only +have been formulated by men whose minds had been formed on a false +reading of history. And as the gospel of the class war owes its present +popularity to the disappointment which followed attempts to reduce +Collectivism to practice, the popular misconceptions of history are to +be held responsible for much. + +That the Neo-Marxists should consider the Guild movement to be merely a +variation of Collectivism shows how completely they misunderstand not +only the underlying purpose of the movement, but its history too. For +not only are the principles of Collectivism and Guilds fundamentally +opposed, inasmuch as the method of the former is control from without by +the consumer, while the method of the latter is control from within by +the producer, but Guildsmen were accustomed to attack Collectivism long +before Marxists came to suspect it. But it was not until Socialists were +disillusioned over Collectivism that Guildsmen could get a popular +hearing. When in February 1906 my *Restoration of the Guild System*, +which contained a destructive analysis of Collectivism, appeared, it was +held up to ridicule by the Socialist and Labour Press.And now at last, +when the current of opinion has turned in our favour, Mr. Newbold tells +us that the Neo-Marxists regard the Guild movement as a variation of +bureaucratic Collectivism. This opinion they arrive at, not from any +careful economic analysis such as we have a right to expect from men who +profess economic infallibility, but because, knowing something about +psychology, which they do not, we refuse to join them in the class war; +just as if the only differences which could possibly divide vSocialists +were differences of policy and that differences of principle were +matters of no importance. Twelve years ago they wanted to rend us +because we were not Collectivists; to-day, because they imagine we are. + +The fundamental differences of principle which separate Guildsmen from +Collectivists and Neo-Marxists alike will become more pronounced as the +Guild scheme unfolds. The *New Age* has said that National Guilds "is +rather the first than the last word in national industrial +organization." It is in this light that the present proposals of the +movement should be regarded. If a fuller programme has not hitherto been +put forward it is not because Guildsmen will be satisfied with the +present minimum, but because a general agreement has not yet been +reached with respect to the more ultimate issues. Guildsmen have been +forewarned by the fate of Collectivists from advancing a wide and +comprehensive programme which has not been properly thought out, since +only disaster can follow such a course. All the same, some unanimity of +opinion is coming into existence in regard to wider issues, and as, +generally speaking, it is in the direction I should like to see things +go, I will venture my opinion for what it is worth as to our ultimate +destination. + +As I interpret the Guild movement, it is the first sign of a change in +thought which will seek to I solve the social problem, not by a further +development along present lines, which can only lead us to fresh +disasters, but by effecting a return to the civilization of the Middle +Ages. I do not mean by this that we shall in the future recover every +feature of that era or that many things which exist to-day will not be +retained in the future. I mean that in the first place we shall resume +in general terms the Mediaeval point of view and that this will involve +a return to Mediaeval ideas of organization. My reasons for believing +this are that I think we are moving into an economic cul-de-sac from +which the only escape is backwards; and that if the interests of life +are to take precedence of the interests of capital we are inevitably +driven into a position which approximates to that of the Mediaeval +economists. The whole trend of economic development from Renaissance +times onward, which has led to the enthronement of capitalism, has been +to reverse the Mediaeval order. + +In believing thus that capitalism will reach a climax in its development +beyond which it can proceed no farther, I am at one with Marx in his +interpretation of the evolution of capitalism. It seems to me that Marx +predicted very accurately the trend of capitalist development. He +foresaw that industry would tend to get into fewer and fewer hands, but +it cannot be claimed that the deductions he made from this forecast are +proving to be correct, for he did not foresee this war.Not having +foreseen this war, Marx did not foresee the anti-climax in which the +present system seems destined to end. And this is fatal to his whole +social theory, because it brings into the light of day a weakness which +runs through all that he says---his inability to understand the +psychological factor, and hence to make allowances for it in his +calculations. Marx saw the material forces at work in society up to a +certain point very clearly and from this point of view he is worthy of +study. But he never understood that this was only one half of the +problem and finally the less important half. Although Marx clearly +foresaw the trend of economic development, he did not see that it had +been accompanied by a loss of spirituality, and that simultaneously with +the concentration of attention upon material things, religion and art +had lost their hold over men. From this historical consideration it may +be affirmed that the spirit of avarice grows in inverse ratio to the +interest anc activity in religion and art. And as both of these +activities were undermined by the changed outlook towards life and the +forces set in motion by the Renaissance, the spirit of avarice became +triumphant. In the same way that an epidemic to which healthy people are +immune tends to spread rapidly among people of a low physical vitality, +so avarice claims its victims among people to-day because, owing to the +separation of religion and art from life, the mass of the people live in +a state of low spiritual vitality. + +An understanding of what I may call "the spiritual interpretation of +history" will bring us nearer to an understanding of the Guild movement. +It has been well described as a religion, an art and a philosophy, with +economic feet. That is really what it is. For its aim is nothing less +than to restore that unity to life which the Renaissance destroyed. +Recognizing that every social system is but the reflection of certain +ways of thinking certain ideas of life it seeks to change society by +changing the substance of thought and life. But, unlike other movements +which have aimed at spiritual regeneration, it deems it advisable to +begin at the economic end of the problem in the belief that it is only +by and through attacking material and concrete evils that a spiritual +awakening is possible. For to quote the words of Mr. de Maeztu"men +cannot unite immediately among one another; they unite in things, in common values, in the pursuit of common ends." -We can agree with the Neo-Marxists in recognizing that under -the existing economic system the interests of capital and -labour are irreconcilably opposed, and that no compromise is -possible. Where we differ from them is in respect of issues -about which we are not prepared to compromise. They envisage -the problem primarily in the terms of persons and as a -warfare between the classes We, on the contrary, see this -conflict of interests as the inevitable accompaniment of a -materialist ideal of life which rejects religion and art -with their sweetening and humanizing influence. Tracing the -existence of the problem to a different origin, we naturally -seek for it a different solution. We meet the Marxist -affirmation that the problem is material by affirming that -it is both spiritual and material. And we part company by -reminding them that "man does not live by bread alone." - -Finally, I would plead for a more generous attitude of mind -among the various sections of the Socialist movement. If the -existing economic system based upon competition is to be -replaced by one based upon co-operation, the communal spirit -must be substituted for the present individualist one. But -the no-compromise policy of the Neo-Marxists tends to -postpone the arrival of that spirit indefinitely by sowing -the seeds of discord and suspicion everywhere. All movements -rest upon trust and confidence, and these are impossible -apart from a certain charity of spirit which will make some -allowance for human weakness and mistaken judgments. For all -men at times are apt to err. Would it not be wiser, -therefore, instead of always accusing others of interested -motives, to try first to understand them---to see whether -difficulties are not to be explained on other grounds? If -Neo-Marxists refuse such counsel and still maintain that -their suspicions are justified and that only self-interests -prevail, then in the name of logic I do not see how even -they can claim to be an exception to this rule. What -guarantee have we that they, like others, are not on the -make? How are we to know that they are not seeking the -support of the working classes for their own selfish ends? I -do not say that this is so. What I do say is that it is the -logical deduction from their position. And it is a deduction -from the consequences of which they may not be able finally -to escape. For if, by some chance, power should pass into -their hands, they will be expected to live up to their -promises. When they are in difficult circumstances, as all -men in power find themselves at times, and have to choose -between two evils, they must not be surprised if those whom -they have had no option but to disappoint apply the same -standards to themselves. It will be no use for them to plead -extenuating circumstances, for extenuating circumstances are -no part of the Neo-Marxist philosophy. And they must not -expect more generosity from their supporters than they have -extended to others. Out of fear of them they will be driven -from one act of desperation to another, until finally they -bring into existence a circle of enemies sufficiently strong -to encompass their downfall. And their enemies will show -them no mercy. Such was the fate of the uncompromising -Jacobins of the French Revolution, and if I am not mistaken -it will be the fate of Lenin and Trotsky to-morrow It is the -fate of all political extremists who seek to establish power -on a basis of suspicion. +We can agree with the Neo-Marxists in recognizing that under the +existing economic system the interests of capital and labour are +irreconcilably opposed, and that no compromise is possible. Where we +differ from them is in respect of issues about which we are not prepared +to compromise. They envisage the problem primarily in the terms of +persons and as a warfare between the classes We, on the contrary, see +this conflict of interests as the inevitable accompaniment of a +materialist ideal of life which rejects religion and art with their +sweetening and humanizing influence. Tracing the existence of the +problem to a different origin, we naturally seek for it a different +solution. We meet the Marxist affirmation that the problem is material +by affirming that it is both spiritual and material. And we part company +by reminding them that "man does not live by bread alone." + +Finally, I would plead for a more generous attitude of mind among the +various sections of the Socialist movement. If the existing economic +system based upon competition is to be replaced by one based upon +co-operation, the communal spirit must be substituted for the present +individualist one. But the no-compromise policy of the Neo-Marxists +tends to postpone the arrival of that spirit indefinitely by sowing the +seeds of discord and suspicion everywhere. All movements rest upon trust +and confidence, and these are impossible apart from a certain charity of +spirit which will make some allowance for human weakness and mistaken +judgments. For all men at times are apt to err. Would it not be wiser, +therefore, instead of always accusing others of interested motives, to +try first to understand them---to see whether difficulties are not to be +explained on other grounds? If Neo-Marxists refuse such counsel and +still maintain that their suspicions are justified and that only +self-interests prevail, then in the name of logic I do not see how even +they can claim to be an exception to this rule. What guarantee have we +that they, like others, are not on the make? How are we to know that +they are not seeking the support of the working classes for their own +selfish ends? I do not say that this is so. What I do say is that it is +the logical deduction from their position. And it is a deduction from +the consequences of which they may not be able finally to escape. For +if, by some chance, power should pass into their hands, they will be +expected to live up to their promises. When they are in difficult +circumstances, as all men in power find themselves at times, and have to +choose between two evils, they must not be surprised if those whom they +have had no option but to disappoint apply the same standards to +themselves. It will be no use for them to plead extenuating +circumstances, for extenuating circumstances are no part of the +Neo-Marxist philosophy. And they must not expect more generosity from +their supporters than they have extended to others. Out of fear of them +they will be driven from one act of desperation to another, until +finally they bring into existence a circle of enemies sufficiently +strong to encompass their downfall. And their enemies will show them no +mercy. Such was the fate of the uncompromising Jacobins of the French +Revolution, and if I am not mistaken it will be the fate of Lenin and +Trotsky to-morrow It is the fate of all political extremists who seek to +establish power on a basis of suspicion. ## III -Though the criticisms which Mr. Newbold has made against -middle-class Socialists can be easily refuted, it is -possible they have not been finally disposed of, inasmuch as -the differences are much more fundamental than a mere -misunderstanding. As always happens in respect of issues of -a fundamental nature, people find it extremely difficult to -say exactly what they mean, and it may be that the -Neo-Marxists in their relations with the middle-class -Socialists feel an instinctive antipathy which so far they -have been unable to define. - -Whatever may be the explanation of the antipathy shown by -Mr. Newbold, I can scarcely think he really means what he -says when he questions the right of middle-class Socialists -to take part in Labour activities; for on that basis not -only would he, as a middle-class person, be excluded, but it -may be said that nearly all Socialist literature has been -written and all the pioneer work has been done by -middle-class persons, so that but for their assistance the -Socialist movement would never have come into existence. I -conclude, therefore, that he must mean something else. - -It has been suggested that the secret of the trouble may be -that Labour has "come of age," and in consequence the advice -of middle-class Socialists is resented much in the same way -that a son is apt to resent the advice of a father who fails -to realize that his son has grown up. The father's advice -may be right, but it is necessary for the son to act on his -own initiative in order that he may feel his feet in the -world. - -Though this is an explanation of the estrangement, it does -not satisfy me. I can scarcely think that the Labour -movement is so short-sighted as to resent advice given by -those outside of its class if it found such advice really -helpful. The trouble is, I think, that until quite recently, -when the Guild propaganda began to make headway, the -intellectual leadership of the Socialist movement was -entirely in the hands of the Fabians, and I fear they have -queered the pitch for us. For their sympathies were not -really democratic. It was poverty rather than wage-slavery -they were anxious to abolish, and so, instead of seeking to -interpret the subconscious instincts of the workers and to -direct them into their proper channels, they sought to -impose an economic system upon them which left human nature -entirely out of account. As might have been expected, human -nature has rebelled. The workers, having thrown over -Collectivism, are trying to grope their way towards a -solution of their problems. Left to their own resources, the -workers have undoubtedly seized upon an important -truth---that any solution of the economic problem must come -as the result of a struggle---a truth that Guildsmen alone -among intellectuals have recognized. Meanwhile, the -repudiation by Labour of its leaders is not to be -interpreted as a denial of the necessity for leadership, but -rather as a protest against leaders who cannot lead, because -their eyes are turned in the wrong direction. - -Looking at the situation from this point of view, our -immediate need is to define our position in regard to -industrialism in terms that admit of no ambiguity. As a -means towards this end it is imperative that we should in -the first place not only look round and take stock of the -situation which is developing, but anticipate within certain -limits the situation which will have to be faced after the -war. In this connection everything points to the coming of a -great struggle between Capital and Labour. At the moment -Labour has Capital at a disadvantage. But after the war -Capital intends to get even again. According to all reports -capitalists are everywhere sharpening their knives, -determined, if they must die, that they will die fighting. -Though I doubt not that in the long run Labour will be -triumphant, I am by no means sure that victory will follow -the first encounter---unless the Army makes common cause -with Labour when it returns from France, which is not at all -unlikely when we consider the bitter resentment which has -been caused by the utterly inadequate pay and separation -allowances. But in any case the outlook is not immediately -very promising whichever side wins. If Capital is victorious -we shall be committed to an industrial policy which can only -eventuate in further wars; for a state of things in which -war is an ever-present contingency must be the inevitable -consequence of the insane policy of for ever seeking to -effect an increase in the volume of production, remembering -that markets were already filled to overflowing before the -war. On the other hand, if Labour wins, the immediate -prospects are no more reassuring. There is a danger that in -such an event we may pass through all the phases common to -social revolutions ere sanity will prevail. - -I say there is this danger. I do not, however, think it is -inevitable. Whether or no we pass through all these phases -depends upon the extent to which we can intelligently -anticipate possible happenings in the future and can guard -ourselves against pitfalls. This task should not be -impossible, considering that we have the experiences of the -Russian Revolution to draw upon. In our anticipated -revolution, as in the Russian, the moderate party will come -first. For we may be assured that whenever the Labour Party -arrives with a majority in the House of Commons it will be -composed of moderate men. It is the very moderation of the -Labour Party that will be its undoing, for it will be unable -to act decisively in any direction. This is easily -understood when we remember that its members are held -together by no common bond of principle. It is only -necessary to read the reports of the Labour conferences to -realize that the Labour Party does not know where it stands. -Though Collectivism as a social theory is entirely -discredited, the Labour Party is still vaguely Collectivist -in one direction, while in the other its members are simple -trade unionists with no general social theory---vaguely -Liberal if they are anything at all. - -Naturally it will be impossible for such a heterogeneous -body to act with any unanimity and decision. It will be the -old story over again. Just as after 1906, when the workers -were dis appointed with the doings of the Labour Party they -turned against it in violent disgust and inaugurated an -internecine warfare which continued almost until the -outbreak of war, so it may be expected that a similar -disgust will follow the establishment of a Labour -Government. For it will dilly-dally with things, and all its -actions will be feeble. Then the great crisis will arrive, -and our future history will depend entirely on the way it is -met. Once confidence is destroyed in moderate men, there is -a danger of things rushing to the opposite extreme. The -Neo-Marxists (our Bolsheviks) will get their chance. They -will point to the impotence of the Labour Party, accuse its -leaders of lack of courage and a desire to make terms with -the enemy and conspire to seize power and inaugurate the -class war. If they succeed we shall go the way Russia has -gone---to anarchy. But there is no reason why they should -succeed. It will be our fault if they do. The situation -could be steadied by a vigorous propaganda which would -change the basis of the struggle from a warfare about -persons to a warfare about ideas or things. Let me explain. - -It is apparent, when we think about it, that the anticipated -failure of a Labour Government could be accounted for in one -of two ways. It could be ascribed to the corruption and -moral cowardice of its members, or it could be attributed to -lack of ideas---the absence of a social theory adequate to -the situation which confronted them. The Neo-Marxists, -envisaging the problem primarily in the terms of persons as -a warfare between classes, would doubtless seize upon the -personal aspect of the failure. Guildsmen, I hope, would be -more generous in their criticisms. They should not accuse -the Labour men of being knaves when they are transparently -as innocent as fools. For who but fools would imagine it -possible to find a solution to a political and economic -problem the like of which has never been seen in history -merely by means of a parliamentary majority united not by -the possession of common principles but only in common -aspirations? Who but fools could imagine that a majority so -constituted could stand for one moment the shock of -actuality? Realizing that the failure of a Labour Government -may safely be predicted from its entire absence of social -principles, Guildsmen should take every opportunity of -driving this point home, insisting that goodwill is no -substitute for ideas. They should, moreover, be careful to -point out that Neo-Marxists differ from the Labour Party -only to the extent of substituting ill will for good will -inasmuch as the Labour Party and the Neo-Marxists have alike -occupied their minds entirely with the problem of how power -may be won to the utter neglect of the problem how it may be -retained and used. - -Not only are the Neo-Marxists without any social theory in -the sense that they have never applied themselves to the -task of elaborating the principles upon which a democratic -and communal society must rest, but they appear to be -unaware that one is necessary. All they see is that power -to-day is in the hands of capitalists, and they want to see -it transferred into those of the workers. That is very good -so far as it goes. But it is insufficient for the purpose of -reconstructing society, which they would be called upon to -do if ever they succeeded to power; because if industry -suddenly changed hands and the salariat were banished, as -they propose, everything would not go on sweetly as before. -The centre of gravity of industry would have completely -changed. This change would introduce a host of problems that -would demand immediate solution. It is vain to suppose that -without clearly defined principles to guide them men -unaccustomed to power would prove equal to the task. They -would be like amateurs in possession of a powerful and -unfamiliar weapon which, mishandled, would be much more -likely to destroy them than the enemy. - -As herculean a task as the solution of the economic problem -is for any Government, its difficulties will be increased a -thousandfold for the Neo-Marxists if ever they get into -power; for their class-war policy carried into execution -will complicate the economic problem by a psychological one -of equal magnitude which, like the Bolsheviks, they will -have no idea how to meet except by force. Now force in the -hands of materialists always produces the very opposite -effect to that which is intended, for materialists never -understand psychology. But I fear it is useless to reason -with Neo-Marxists about such things. They will never know -anything about these problems until they are up against -them, when they will be the most surprised people in the -world. - -Recognizing, then, the danger which would follow the success -of the Neo-Marxists in such a crisis, Guildsmen should, by -an intelligent anticipation of events, take measures to -protect their flank. They should inaugurate a vigorous -propaganda against the impossibilism of the Neo-Marxists. If -in such an effort they are to succeed, it is essential -before all things that the good faith of the Neo-Marxists be -taken for granted, and that Guildsmen should seek to -discredit them by carrying NeoMarxist ideas to their logical -conclusion, showing how their excess of zeal must defeat -their own ends by provoking reaction, since the mass of the -people will become so weary of the anarchy which must follow -the inauguration of the class war, that they will come to -welcome a return of the old regime merely for the sake of -peace and quietness. It should not be difficult to drive -these truths home considering that both the Russian and the -French Revolutions provide abundant illustrations of how +Though the criticisms which Mr. Newbold has made against middle-class +Socialists can be easily refuted, it is possible they have not been +finally disposed of, inasmuch as the differences are much more +fundamental than a mere misunderstanding. As always happens in respect +of issues of a fundamental nature, people find it extremely difficult to +say exactly what they mean, and it may be that the Neo-Marxists in their +relations with the middle-class Socialists feel an instinctive antipathy +which so far they have been unable to define. + +Whatever may be the explanation of the antipathy shown by Mr. Newbold, I +can scarcely think he really means what he says when he questions the +right of middle-class Socialists to take part in Labour activities; for +on that basis not only would he, as a middle-class person, be excluded, +but it may be said that nearly all Socialist literature has been written +and all the pioneer work has been done by middle-class persons, so that +but for their assistance the Socialist movement would never have come +into existence. I conclude, therefore, that he must mean something else. + +It has been suggested that the secret of the trouble may be that Labour +has "come of age," and in consequence the advice of middle-class +Socialists is resented much in the same way that a son is apt to resent +the advice of a father who fails to realize that his son has grown up. +The father's advice may be right, but it is necessary for the son to act +on his own initiative in order that he may feel his feet in the world. + +Though this is an explanation of the estrangement, it does not satisfy +me. I can scarcely think that the Labour movement is so short-sighted as +to resent advice given by those outside of its class if it found such +advice really helpful. The trouble is, I think, that until quite +recently, when the Guild propaganda began to make headway, the +intellectual leadership of the Socialist movement was entirely in the +hands of the Fabians, and I fear they have queered the pitch for us. For +their sympathies were not really democratic. It was poverty rather than +wage-slavery they were anxious to abolish, and so, instead of seeking to +interpret the subconscious instincts of the workers and to direct them +into their proper channels, they sought to impose an economic system +upon them which left human nature entirely out of account. As might have +been expected, human nature has rebelled. The workers, having thrown +over Collectivism, are trying to grope their way towards a solution of +their problems. Left to their own resources, the workers have +undoubtedly seized upon an important truth---that any solution of the +economic problem must come as the result of a struggle---a truth that +Guildsmen alone among intellectuals have recognized. Meanwhile, the +repudiation by Labour of its leaders is not to be interpreted as a +denial of the necessity for leadership, but rather as a protest against +leaders who cannot lead, because their eyes are turned in the wrong +direction. + +Looking at the situation from this point of view, our immediate need is +to define our position in regard to industrialism in terms that admit of +no ambiguity. As a means towards this end it is imperative that we +should in the first place not only look round and take stock of the +situation which is developing, but anticipate within certain limits the +situation which will have to be faced after the war. In this connection +everything points to the coming of a great struggle between Capital and +Labour. At the moment Labour has Capital at a disadvantage. But after +the war Capital intends to get even again. According to all reports +capitalists are everywhere sharpening their knives, determined, if they +must die, that they will die fighting. Though I doubt not that in the +long run Labour will be triumphant, I am by no means sure that victory +will follow the first encounter---unless the Army makes common cause +with Labour when it returns from France, which is not at all unlikely +when we consider the bitter resentment which has been caused by the +utterly inadequate pay and separation allowances. But in any case the +outlook is not immediately very promising whichever side wins. If +Capital is victorious we shall be committed to an industrial policy +which can only eventuate in further wars; for a state of things in which +war is an ever-present contingency must be the inevitable consequence of +the insane policy of for ever seeking to effect an increase in the +volume of production, remembering that markets were already filled to +overflowing before the war. On the other hand, if Labour wins, the +immediate prospects are no more reassuring. There is a danger that in +such an event we may pass through all the phases common to social +revolutions ere sanity will prevail. + +I say there is this danger. I do not, however, think it is inevitable. +Whether or no we pass through all these phases depends upon the extent +to which we can intelligently anticipate possible happenings in the +future and can guard ourselves against pitfalls. This task should not be +impossible, considering that we have the experiences of the Russian +Revolution to draw upon. In our anticipated revolution, as in the +Russian, the moderate party will come first. For we may be assured that +whenever the Labour Party arrives with a majority in the House of +Commons it will be composed of moderate men. It is the very moderation +of the Labour Party that will be its undoing, for it will be unable to +act decisively in any direction. This is easily understood when we +remember that its members are held together by no common bond of +principle. It is only necessary to read the reports of the Labour +conferences to realize that the Labour Party does not know where it +stands. Though Collectivism as a social theory is entirely discredited, +the Labour Party is still vaguely Collectivist in one direction, while +in the other its members are simple trade unionists with no general +social theory---vaguely Liberal if they are anything at all. + +Naturally it will be impossible for such a heterogeneous body to act +with any unanimity and decision. It will be the old story over again. +Just as after 1906, when the workers were dis appointed with the doings +of the Labour Party they turned against it in violent disgust and +inaugurated an internecine warfare which continued almost until the +outbreak of war, so it may be expected that a similar disgust will +follow the establishment of a Labour Government. For it will dilly-dally +with things, and all its actions will be feeble. Then the great crisis +will arrive, and our future history will depend entirely on the way it +is met. Once confidence is destroyed in moderate men, there is a danger +of things rushing to the opposite extreme. The Neo-Marxists (our +Bolsheviks) will get their chance. They will point to the impotence of +the Labour Party, accuse its leaders of lack of courage and a desire to +make terms with the enemy and conspire to seize power and inaugurate the +class war. If they succeed we shall go the way Russia has gone---to +anarchy. But there is no reason why they should succeed. It will be our +fault if they do. The situation could be steadied by a vigorous +propaganda which would change the basis of the struggle from a warfare +about persons to a warfare about ideas or things. Let me explain. + +It is apparent, when we think about it, that the anticipated failure of +a Labour Government could be accounted for in one of two ways. It could +be ascribed to the corruption and moral cowardice of its members, or it +could be attributed to lack of ideas---the absence of a social theory +adequate to the situation which confronted them. The Neo-Marxists, +envisaging the problem primarily in the terms of persons as a warfare +between classes, would doubtless seize upon the personal aspect of the +failure. Guildsmen, I hope, would be more generous in their criticisms. +They should not accuse the Labour men of being knaves when they are +transparently as innocent as fools. For who but fools would imagine it +possible to find a solution to a political and economic problem the like +of which has never been seen in history merely by means of a +parliamentary majority united not by the possession of common principles +but only in common aspirations? Who but fools could imagine that a +majority so constituted could stand for one moment the shock of +actuality? Realizing that the failure of a Labour Government may safely +be predicted from its entire absence of social principles, Guildsmen +should take every opportunity of driving this point home, insisting that +goodwill is no substitute for ideas. They should, moreover, be careful +to point out that Neo-Marxists differ from the Labour Party only to the +extent of substituting ill will for good will inasmuch as the Labour +Party and the Neo-Marxists have alike occupied their minds entirely with +the problem of how power may be won to the utter neglect of the problem +how it may be retained and used. + +Not only are the Neo-Marxists without any social theory in the sense +that they have never applied themselves to the task of elaborating the +principles upon which a democratic and communal society must rest, but +they appear to be unaware that one is necessary. All they see is that +power to-day is in the hands of capitalists, and they want to see it +transferred into those of the workers. That is very good so far as it +goes. But it is insufficient for the purpose of reconstructing society, +which they would be called upon to do if ever they succeeded to power; +because if industry suddenly changed hands and the salariat were +banished, as they propose, everything would not go on sweetly as before. +The centre of gravity of industry would have completely changed. This +change would introduce a host of problems that would demand immediate +solution. It is vain to suppose that without clearly defined principles +to guide them men unaccustomed to power would prove equal to the task. +They would be like amateurs in possession of a powerful and unfamiliar +weapon which, mishandled, would be much more likely to destroy them than +the enemy. + +As herculean a task as the solution of the economic problem is for any +Government, its difficulties will be increased a thousandfold for the +Neo-Marxists if ever they get into power; for their class-war policy +carried into execution will complicate the economic problem by a +psychological one of equal magnitude which, like the Bolsheviks, they +will have no idea how to meet except by force. Now force in the hands of +materialists always produces the very opposite effect to that which is +intended, for materialists never understand psychology. But I fear it is +useless to reason with Neo-Marxists about such things. They will never +know anything about these problems until they are up against them, when +they will be the most surprised people in the world. + +Recognizing, then, the danger which would follow the success of the +Neo-Marxists in such a crisis, Guildsmen should, by an intelligent +anticipation of events, take measures to protect their flank. They +should inaugurate a vigorous propaganda against the impossibilism of the +Neo-Marxists. If in such an effort they are to succeed, it is essential +before all things that the good faith of the Neo-Marxists be taken for +granted, and that Guildsmen should seek to discredit them by carrying +NeoMarxist ideas to their logical conclusion, showing how their excess +of zeal must defeat their own ends by provoking reaction, since the mass +of the people will become so weary of the anarchy which must follow the +inauguration of the class war, that they will come to welcome a return +of the old regime merely for the sake of peace and quietness. It should +not be difficult to drive these truths home considering that both the +Russian and the French Revolutions provide abundant illustrations of how class warfare fails to achieve its ends. -Further, Guildsmen must show the Neo-Marxists that their -ideas are not only subversive of others but of themselves. -Neo-Marxists are very fond of insisting "that the method -prevailing in any society of producing the material -livelihood determines the social, political and intellectual -life of men in general," but it never apparently occurs to -them to make the deduction that in that case they and their -gospel also become a part of the disease of society---a -deduction which is not only evidenced by the fact that the -Neo-Marxist gospel finds its warmest supports in those -districts where industrialism is most highly developed, but -that Neo-Marxists are so much a part of the system as to be -incapable of imagining any other. They do not propose to -change the system, but only its ownership. - -From this point of view, it could easily be shown that in -comparison with Guildsmen the Neo-Marxists are merely -Conservatives; for Guildsmen have not only questioned -industrialism, they have some idea of what to put in its -place. They realize that as its retention must involve -society in successive wars they must destroy it, or it will -destroy them. It is the clear recognition of this fact that -inclines an ever increasing number of Guildsmen to look back -to the Middle Ages for inspiration and guidance. They do -this not as romanticists but in soberness and truth. - -[^1]: Something approximating to National Guilds was - organized under the Menshevik Regime in the Russian - Revolution. But the good work which was then done was - rendered nugatory by the action of the Bolsheviks, who, - raising the cry that the capitalists were creeping back - to the control of industry, urged the workers to elect - to their Workshop and Factory Committees not those best - qualified to administer the work, but those who were the - exponents of Bolshevik views. It was thus the reign of - the demagogue was inaugurated in Russia and industrial - chaos made its appearance. It is to be hoped that we +Further, Guildsmen must show the Neo-Marxists that their ideas are not +only subversive of others but of themselves. Neo-Marxists are very fond +of insisting "that the method prevailing in any society of producing the +material livelihood determines the social, political and intellectual +life of men in general," but it never apparently occurs to them to make +the deduction that in that case they and their gospel also become a part +of the disease of society---a deduction which is not only evidenced by +the fact that the Neo-Marxist gospel finds its warmest supports in those +districts where industrialism is most highly developed, but that +Neo-Marxists are so much a part of the system as to be incapable of +imagining any other. They do not propose to change the system, but only +its ownership. + +From this point of view, it could easily be shown that in comparison +with Guildsmen the Neo-Marxists are merely Conservatives; for Guildsmen +have not only questioned industrialism, they have some idea of what to +put in its place. They realize that as its retention must involve +society in successive wars they must destroy it, or it will destroy +them. It is the clear recognition of this fact that inclines an ever +increasing number of Guildsmen to look back to the Middle Ages for +inspiration and guidance. They do this not as romanticists but in +soberness and truth. + +[^1]: Something approximating to National Guilds was organized under the + Menshevik Regime in the Russian Revolution. But the good work which + was then done was rendered nugatory by the action of the Bolsheviks, + who, raising the cry that the capitalists were creeping back to the + control of industry, urged the workers to elect to their Workshop + and Factory Committees not those best qualified to administer the + work, but those who were the exponents of Bolshevik views. It was + thus the reign of the demagogue was inaugurated in Russia and + industrial chaos made its appearance. It is to be hoped that we shall have the sense not to fall into this pitfall. diff --git a/src/guilds-trade.md b/src/guilds-trade.md index 1fa823f..c9af1f9 100644 --- a/src/guilds-trade.md +++ b/src/guilds-trade.md @@ -1,2714 +1,2287 @@ # Preface -In a series of articles recently contributed to the *Daily -News* under the title "Europe in Chaos," the writer deduced -the doom of modern civilization from the general tendency of -the ratio of exchange to fall since the Armistice. In his -last article he suggested that "Perhaps the Guild Socialists -have seen a vision of the ultimate solution," and then went -on to say, "but if so they must descend from the clouds and -begin to construct their system here and now." For "if -things are allowed to drift for another two or three years -it will be too late." - -This little book accepts the general point of view of -European affairs as enunciated in those articles and seeks -to carry the discussion one stage nearer to practical -politics. If Guild Socialists are not to be seen everywhere -at work constructing their system, it is not due to the -absence of any will or desire in the matter but to the fact -that except in respect of Building Guilds they have no clear -notion of how exactly to get to work. We believe we know the -ultimate solution; but hitherto it has not been quite clear -to us what is the next step. The recent divisions among -Guild Socialists witness only too clearly to the perplexity -that has overtaken the movement. It occurred to me whilst -reading the articles already mentioned, that perhaps this -perplexity was due to the fact that the Guild theory and -policy was inadequate to the extent that it had been built -up around the problem of production to the neglect of the -problem of exchange. It was inevitable perhaps that this -should be so, since we were led in the first instance to -believe in the essential Tightness of Guild organization -from a study of the problems of production rather than of -exchange. Moreover, the particular form that Guild theory -has taken is in no small measure due to the fact that it -arose to combat the bureaucratic tendencies of Collectivism. -In this light the defect of the Guild theory is not that -what it affirms is not true, but that other aspects of truth -have escaped its attention. - -The present volume aims at remedying this defect by stating -Guild theory and policy from the point of view of exchange. -In so far as it differs from the previous Guild theory it is -a difference of emphasis. Instead of making the -establishment of Guilds the central issue, it treats Guilds -as a means to an end the end being the maintenance of the -Just Price---in the belief that the establishment of the -Just Price is the solution of the problem of exchange in so -far as this problem is a question of money, and values. It -moreover shows that as far as England is concerned, the -revival of agriculture is the necessary corollary of any -stabilization of the exchanges. By thus widening the issues -it becomes possible to carry the Guild idea into spheres -where hitherto it has not entered. - -Mention has been made of the articles entitled "Europe in -Chaos." By the kind permission of their author, Mr. J. S. M. -Ward, and the Editor of the *Daily News*, I am able to -include them in this volume as an Appendix. The articles are -the summary of Mr. Ward's book, since published, entitled -*Can our Industrial System Survive?* (W. Rider & Sons, Ltd., -2s. 6d.). It is a book I cannot speak too highly of, for if -facts and figures could awaken us to the realities of the -situation that confronts us it should do so, while it is -entirely indispensable to any one who is anxious to -understand the problem. - -It remains for me to thank Dr. P. B. Ballard for his -assistance in preparing the MS. for press. +In a series of articles recently contributed to the *Daily News* under +the title "Europe in Chaos," the writer deduced the doom of modern +civilization from the general tendency of the ratio of exchange to fall +since the Armistice. In his last article he suggested that "Perhaps the +Guild Socialists have seen a vision of the ultimate solution," and then +went on to say, "but if so they must descend from the clouds and begin +to construct their system here and now." For "if things are allowed to +drift for another two or three years it will be too late." + +This little book accepts the general point of view of European affairs +as enunciated in those articles and seeks to carry the discussion one +stage nearer to practical politics. If Guild Socialists are not to be +seen everywhere at work constructing their system, it is not due to the +absence of any will or desire in the matter but to the fact that except +in respect of Building Guilds they have no clear notion of how exactly +to get to work. We believe we know the ultimate solution; but hitherto +it has not been quite clear to us what is the next step. The recent +divisions among Guild Socialists witness only too clearly to the +perplexity that has overtaken the movement. It occurred to me whilst +reading the articles already mentioned, that perhaps this perplexity was +due to the fact that the Guild theory and policy was inadequate to the +extent that it had been built up around the problem of production to the +neglect of the problem of exchange. It was inevitable perhaps that this +should be so, since we were led in the first instance to believe in the +essential Tightness of Guild organization from a study of the problems +of production rather than of exchange. Moreover, the particular form +that Guild theory has taken is in no small measure due to the fact that +it arose to combat the bureaucratic tendencies of Collectivism. In this +light the defect of the Guild theory is not that what it affirms is not +true, but that other aspects of truth have escaped its attention. + +The present volume aims at remedying this defect by stating Guild theory +and policy from the point of view of exchange. In so far as it differs +from the previous Guild theory it is a difference of emphasis. Instead +of making the establishment of Guilds the central issue, it treats +Guilds as a means to an end the end being the maintenance of the Just +Price---in the belief that the establishment of the Just Price is the +solution of the problem of exchange in so far as this problem is a +question of money, and values. It moreover shows that as far as England +is concerned, the revival of agriculture is the necessary corollary of +any stabilization of the exchanges. By thus widening the issues it +becomes possible to carry the Guild idea into spheres where hitherto it +has not entered. + +Mention has been made of the articles entitled "Europe in Chaos." By the +kind permission of their author, Mr. J. S. M. Ward, and the Editor of +the *Daily News*, I am able to include them in this volume as an +Appendix. The articles are the summary of Mr. Ward's book, since +published, entitled *Can our Industrial System Survive?* (W. Rider & +Sons, Ltd., 2s. 6d.). It is a book I cannot speak too highly of, for if +facts and figures could awaken us to the realities of the situation that +confronts us it should do so, while it is entirely indispensable to any +one who is anxious to understand the problem. + +It remains for me to thank Dr. P. B. Ballard for his assistance in +preparing the MS. for press. A. J. P. 66 Strand-on-Green, W. 4. *February* 1921. # The Need of a Social Theory -Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the best way -of facing the problem confronting society, a general -consensus is growing up that the present order is doomed. It -is agreed that things are going from bad to worse, and that -it is only a matter of time---a few years at the -most---before the great crisis will arrive that will -determine whether England is to go the way of Russia and -Central Europe---to anarchy and barbarism---or to be -reconstructed on some co-operative or communal basis. - -Which of these two ways things will go depends upon our -action in the immediate future. If we allow ourselves to -drift, then in a few years' time we shall arrive at the -state of affairs we know by the name of Bolshevism. For -"Bolshevism is the last resort of desperate starving -men";and starvation is at the end of our story, as we shall -begin to understand more clearly when the reasons for the -present impasse are understood. From this fate there is no -possible means of escape, except by boldly facing the -problem that confronts us and resolutely taking in hand the -reconstruction of society from its very foundations upwards. -Nothing less than that is any use at all. For it is the -foundations that are giving way. And so, unless we act while -yet there is time, there can be no saving of our -civilization. - -Meanwhile the difficulty that confronts reformers and -statesmen alike is to know how to act. All their lives they -have lived on certain phrases and shibboleths, and in a very -literal sense taken no thought of the morrow. They have -talked about progress and emancipation and our glorious -civilization, which, in spite of defects, they have never -failed to remind us is superior to any civilization of the -past. And now Nemesis is overtaking us. A few years of war -and our glorious civilization is seen to be crumbling and -our statesmen and reformers are entirely at a loss to -explain how such a thing could possibly happen, for they -lack any comprehension of the problem of our society as a -whole. They have for so long been concerned with the -secondary things in society and have so persistently -neglected the discussion of primary and fundamental -principles, that they are without the mental equipment which +Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the best way of facing +the problem confronting society, a general consensus is growing up that +the present order is doomed. It is agreed that things are going from bad +to worse, and that it is only a matter of time---a few years at the +most---before the great crisis will arrive that will determine whether +England is to go the way of Russia and Central Europe---to anarchy and +barbarism---or to be reconstructed on some co-operative or communal +basis. + +Which of these two ways things will go depends upon our action in the +immediate future. If we allow ourselves to drift, then in a few years' +time we shall arrive at the state of affairs we know by the name of +Bolshevism. For "Bolshevism is the last resort of desperate starving +men";and starvation is at the end of our story, as we shall begin to +understand more clearly when the reasons for the present impasse are +understood. From this fate there is no possible means of escape, except +by boldly facing the problem that confronts us and resolutely taking in +hand the reconstruction of society from its very foundations upwards. +Nothing less than that is any use at all. For it is the foundations that +are giving way. And so, unless we act while yet there is time, there can +be no saving of our civilization. + +Meanwhile the difficulty that confronts reformers and statesmen alike is +to know how to act. All their lives they have lived on certain phrases +and shibboleths, and in a very literal sense taken no thought of the +morrow. They have talked about progress and emancipation and our +glorious civilization, which, in spite of defects, they have never +failed to remind us is superior to any civilization of the past. And now +Nemesis is overtaking us. A few years of war and our glorious +civilization is seen to be crumbling and our statesmen and reformers are +entirely at a loss to explain how such a thing could possibly happen, +for they lack any comprehension of the problem of our society as a +whole. They have for so long been concerned with the secondary things in +society and have so persistently neglected the discussion of primary and +fundamental principles, that they are without the mental equipment which a great crisis demands. -Evidence of their lack of grip on reality is forthcoming on -every hand. Men who know what they want go straight ahead. -They act with promptitude and decision. But in these days, -if one were to judge only by appearance, one would say that -the great idea in politics is to wait until you are pushed, -and then to yield with a becoming dignity. But of course -that is only appearance. The real explanation is that our -statesmen and politicians have lost their way, and they are -without a compass to guide them. In other words they have -become opportunists because they have lost their faith, and -they have lost their faith because the social theories upon -which they relied have become untenable. Before the war the -gospel of economic individualism that had been the faith of -the nineteenth century was already discredited, while -collectivism, which sought to take its place, was proving -unworkable in practice. But the war has completed the -destruction of these beliefs, and in consequence their -adherents flounder about, attempting first this and then -that in the hope that by some unexpected turn of events a -path will be open to them. But it all avails nothing. For -without a belief they lack conviction; and this prevents -them from acting with unity of purpose or continuity of -effort in any direction. Among the thousand and one things -that claim their immediate attention they are unable to -distinguish those which are of primary and fundamental -importance from those that are secondary. So when by chance -they stumble upon something which if persisted in would give -results, they lack the determination to go forward, and the -moment they come up against some obstacle they turn round -and run. So it will be until we can establish a social -theory that will give such an explanation of the facts as -will guide them. For there is no such thing as a purely -practical problem, inasmuch as behind every practical -question is to be found a theoretical one. - -Now the underlying cause of the collapse since the war of -all social and economic theories that had secured any -widespread organized support is that one and all of them -took our industrial system for granted as a thing of -permanence and stability. This is just as true of Socialist -as of capitalist economics, inasmuch as all Socialist -theories presupposed that a time would come when the workers -would be able to take over capitalist industry as a going -concern. The consequence is that Socialist and Labour -leaders are as much perplexed as capitalists themselves at -the sight of the system crumbling to pieces. The possibility -of this dissolution had never occurred to them, and they -have no idea how to stop it. And this is no wonder. For -their belief in the permanence of industrial organization -was so absolute that it led them to reject all ideas that -were incompatible with the industrial system; and as all -ideas of a fundamental nature inevitably came into collision -with the industrial system it meant in practice that they -refused to recognize any fundamental ideas whatsoever, so -they are consequently left stranded without an idea that has -any relevance to the present situation. The Bolsheviks alone -are not disillusioned; and they are not disillusioned -because in spite of their economic formulae their faith is -in the class war. So firm are they in their belief that -things will naturally right themselves once the workers -attain to power, that they actually discourage speculation -regarding the future as something that diverts energy from -their central object of attaining power. - -Recognizing, then, that the collapse of existing economic -theories is due to the fact that they accepted industrialism -as a thing of permanence and stability, it follows that any -new social theory adequate to the situation must be based -upon principles that are antipathetic to industrialism. Such -principles are, I believe, to be deduced from the informal -philosophy of the Socialist movement which is to be -distinguished from its formal and official theories. The -formal theories of Socialism based upon the permanence of -industrialism are now happily discredited for ever. But the -informal philosophy of the movement stands unimpaired, for -it is based upon something far more fundamental than any -economic theory---the permanent needs of human nature. On -its negative side it is a moral revolt against capitalism; -on the positive side it rests upon the affirmation of the -principles of brotherhood, mutual aid, fellowship, the -common life. These are the things that the Socialist -movement finally stands for; and they grow by reaction. In -proportion as existing society becomes more hopeless, more -corrupt, more unstable, men will tend to take refuge in -idealism; and this idealism the informal philosophy of the -Socialist philosophy supplies. Such people have hitherto -accepted the economic theories of Socialism as convenient -formulae to give shape to their moral protests. But -intellectual comprehension among them was rare, inasmuch as -most of them swallowed the theories without tasting them. -When they do taste them, they spew them out. - -The deduction to be made from all this is that Socialism is -finally a moral rather than an economic movement. It is -because of this that it has gathered strength in spite of -the discrediting of its successive theories. It is this that -we must build upon. Our aim should be to bring economic -theory into a direct relationship with this informal moral -philosophy, to dig as it were a channel in which its whole -strength may flow instead of being wasted in the sands of -contradictory beliefs and impossible doctrines. +Evidence of their lack of grip on reality is forthcoming on every hand. +Men who know what they want go straight ahead. They act with promptitude +and decision. But in these days, if one were to judge only by +appearance, one would say that the great idea in politics is to wait +until you are pushed, and then to yield with a becoming dignity. But of +course that is only appearance. The real explanation is that our +statesmen and politicians have lost their way, and they are without a +compass to guide them. In other words they have become opportunists +because they have lost their faith, and they have lost their faith +because the social theories upon which they relied have become +untenable. Before the war the gospel of economic individualism that had +been the faith of the nineteenth century was already discredited, while +collectivism, which sought to take its place, was proving unworkable in +practice. But the war has completed the destruction of these beliefs, +and in consequence their adherents flounder about, attempting first this +and then that in the hope that by some unexpected turn of events a path +will be open to them. But it all avails nothing. For without a belief +they lack conviction; and this prevents them from acting with unity of +purpose or continuity of effort in any direction. Among the thousand and +one things that claim their immediate attention they are unable to +distinguish those which are of primary and fundamental importance from +those that are secondary. So when by chance they stumble upon something +which if persisted in would give results, they lack the determination to +go forward, and the moment they come up against some obstacle they turn +round and run. So it will be until we can establish a social theory that +will give such an explanation of the facts as will guide them. For there +is no such thing as a purely practical problem, inasmuch as behind every +practical question is to be found a theoretical one. + +Now the underlying cause of the collapse since the war of all social and +economic theories that had secured any widespread organized support is +that one and all of them took our industrial system for granted as a +thing of permanence and stability. This is just as true of Socialist as +of capitalist economics, inasmuch as all Socialist theories presupposed +that a time would come when the workers would be able to take over +capitalist industry as a going concern. The consequence is that +Socialist and Labour leaders are as much perplexed as capitalists +themselves at the sight of the system crumbling to pieces. The +possibility of this dissolution had never occurred to them, and they +have no idea how to stop it. And this is no wonder. For their belief in +the permanence of industrial organization was so absolute that it led +them to reject all ideas that were incompatible with the industrial +system; and as all ideas of a fundamental nature inevitably came into +collision with the industrial system it meant in practice that they +refused to recognize any fundamental ideas whatsoever, so they are +consequently left stranded without an idea that has any relevance to the +present situation. The Bolsheviks alone are not disillusioned; and they +are not disillusioned because in spite of their economic formulae their +faith is in the class war. So firm are they in their belief that things +will naturally right themselves once the workers attain to power, that +they actually discourage speculation regarding the future as something +that diverts energy from their central object of attaining power. + +Recognizing, then, that the collapse of existing economic theories is +due to the fact that they accepted industrialism as a thing of +permanence and stability, it follows that any new social theory adequate +to the situation must be based upon principles that are antipathetic to +industrialism. Such principles are, I believe, to be deduced from the +informal philosophy of the Socialist movement which is to be +distinguished from its formal and official theories. The formal theories +of Socialism based upon the permanence of industrialism are now happily +discredited for ever. But the informal philosophy of the movement stands +unimpaired, for it is based upon something far more fundamental than any +economic theory---the permanent needs of human nature. On its negative +side it is a moral revolt against capitalism; on the positive side it +rests upon the affirmation of the principles of brotherhood, mutual aid, +fellowship, the common life. These are the things that the Socialist +movement finally stands for; and they grow by reaction. In proportion as +existing society becomes more hopeless, more corrupt, more unstable, men +will tend to take refuge in idealism; and this idealism the informal +philosophy of the Socialist philosophy supplies. Such people have +hitherto accepted the economic theories of Socialism as convenient +formulae to give shape to their moral protests. But intellectual +comprehension among them was rare, inasmuch as most of them swallowed +the theories without tasting them. When they do taste them, they spew +them out. + +The deduction to be made from all this is that Socialism is finally a +moral rather than an economic movement. It is because of this that it +has gathered strength in spite of the discrediting of its successive +theories. It is this that we must build upon. Our aim should be to bring +economic theory into a direct relationship with this informal moral +philosophy, to dig as it were a channel in which its whole strength may +flow instead of being wasted in the sands of contradictory beliefs and +impossible doctrines. # On Wages and Foreign Trade -In the preceding chapter I urged the necessity of a social -theory that would bring economics into a direct relationship -with the informal Socialist philosophy with its ideas of -brotherhood, mutual aid, fellowship and the common life. -Recent events have brought into a new prominence the -antagonism that exists between the head and the heart of +In the preceding chapter I urged the necessity of a social theory that +would bring economics into a direct relationship with the informal +Socialist philosophy with its ideas of brotherhood, mutual aid, +fellowship and the common life. Recent events have brought into a new +prominence the antagonism that exists between the head and the heart of Socialism. -During the war wages were raised to keep pace with the -increasing cost of living. Nowadays, when prices are -falling, the demand is made by employers that a -corresponding reduction shall be made in wages. Behind this -demand is the contention of employers that foreign trade -cannot be restored and unemployment lessened while costs of -production in this country remain as high as at present. The -more reasonable trade unionists are disposed to accept this -view on the assumption that the employers are willing to -accept a corresponding reduction in profits. But the -extremists refuse to accept any lowering of existing -standards of wages without a struggle. - -Now, from the point of view of formal Socialist theory, the -extremists who refuse to consider a reduction in wages are -in the right. If the relations of Capital and Labour are the -mechanical ones postulated of Socialist theory the workers -are justified in demanding that they shall enjoy a permanent -increase in wages. Nor can there be any doubt whatsoever -that they are ultimately in the right. If it was possible in -the fifteenth century for the town worker to be paid a wage -that worked out six or seven times the cost of his board and -the agricultural worker two-thirds of this amount,it is on -the face of things extraordinary that with our enormously -increased productivity it should yet be impossible to pay -the workers a wage which covers little more than bare -necessities. Yet a close examination reveals the fact that -the present system of industry is so wasteful and built up -on a basis so false that it cannot be made to pay the wages -that the workers are theoretically justified in demanding. -It is apparent that the increases cannot come in the -particular way Labour expects or by their particular -methods. It is not in the nature of things. Industry as it -exists to-day in our great industrial centres is dependent -upon foreign trade, and so long as it is so dependent it -will be necessary to compete. Except, therefore, where we -enjoy some monopoly or other artificial advantage, we shall -only be able to compete successfully by producing as cheaply -as possible, and that involves lower wages than were paid -during the war. There is no getting away from this. If we -are to remain an industrial competing nation, the workers -must be prepared to accept such wages as will enable our -manufacturers to compete successfully.If they are not -satisfied with so little---and there is no reason why they -should be---the present system must be changed. - -It is here we come to the popular Socialist fallacy. The -present system is not changed merely by changing its -ownership, since if the workers succeeded in getting -possession of industry to-morrow they would be subject to -the same economic laws to which employers are subject -to-day, and they would be compelled to act much in the same -way because they would be required to run the same machine. -But if we wish to change the system we must recognize the -necessity for industry to become as far as possible -independent of foreign markets. This involves the revival of -agriculture, for only by such means can the home markets be -restored. In so far as industry could depend upon the home -markets, we should be able to exercise control over the -conditions of industry, and real fundamental changes in the -position of the workers could be introduced. But it is vain -to suppose that any such change can be introduced so long as -industry rests on the economic quicksand of foreign markets. -It becomes apparent therefore that if the position of the -workers is to be improved they must take longer views. There -is no such thing as "Socialism now." But there is such a -thing as Socialism in ten years' time if the workers could -be persuaded to follow a consistent policy over such a -period of time. The trouble is that the workers, as indeed -most people in every class, think of the social problem in -the terms of their own jobs. The engineer wants a solution -in the terms of engineering; the bootmaker in the terms of -boots; the clerk in the terms of clerking. It is natural, -perhaps, but none the less impossible, for it disregards the -action of those world-wide economic forces which dominate -all nations in proportion as they become dependent upon -foreign trade. - -I said that if the position of the workers is to be improved -they must take longer views. It is clear that modern -industrial activities are essentially transitory in their -nature. Quite apart from the war, it is manifest that sooner -or later the situation that exists to-day must have arisen, -for the existing arrangement whereby goods are produced at -one end of the earth and food at the other does not possess -within itself the elements of permanence. It owes its -existence to many things, but by far the most important to -the fact that we were the first to employ machinery in -production. This virtual monopoly that we had for so long -encouraged the growth of cross-distribution. But it is -uneconomic and therefore cannot last, for it is apparent -that other things being equal, it must be cheaper to produce -goods near the markets than at a distance from them. An -arrangement may be uneconomic, but custom and inertia will -combine to perpetuate it long after the circumstances which -brought it into existence have disappeared. The war woke up -many of our former customers to this fact. Before the war -they were content to produce food and raw materials, and -relied upon us in the main for their manufactured goods. -During the war we could not supply their wants, and they -took to manufacturing all kinds of things for themselves. As -these manufactures are carried on near to where the raw -materials are found or produced, it is manifest that we -cannot hope to recover these markets. They must gradually -slip from our hands. We cannot expect to export in the -future such large quantities of manufactured goods to -Australia, Canada, South America and elsewhere as hitherto. -Meanwhile, in order to finance the war, we disposed of most -of our foreign investments. The result of it all is that our -industries will be unable to provide work for such numbers -as hitherto. Not being able to sell goods to the -food-producing nations, we shall soon be without the money -to pay for the food we must import to keep our population -alive---a fact that is brought home to us by the constant -falling of the rate of exchange. - -It appears therefore that though the reversal of our Russian -policy, the complete removal of blockades and the provision -of credits for the restoration of European trade would -relieve the unemployed problem, it cannot hope to solve it, -since a wider view of the situation leads to the conclusion -that such relief can only be temporary. The renewal of trade -facilities with Russia and Central Europe might relieve the -congested state of the home market, but it will not provide -us with the wherewithal to buy food, because Europe has no -food to give us in exchange for our goods. If food is to be -obtained, we must give something in exchange to the -countries which produce it or we must produce it for -ourselves. And as those countries upon which we have been -accustomed to rely for a supply of food are beginning to -produce their industrial wares for themselves, it follows -that the only way to meet the situation is to take measures -to produce as much food as possible for ourselves by the -revival of agriculture. By no other means can the balance of -exchange be restored. Agriculture is fundamental, since the -price of food determines the cost of everything else. If -therefore we neglect to revive agriculture, we shall be -exploited by the countries who do produce food, and this, by -raising the price of our manufactures, will in turn increase -our difficulties in competing in other markets. It is -insufficiently recognized that during the war the -agricultural populations all over the world have been -becoming rich while the industrial ones have become poor. It -is not improbable therefore that capitalism, declining in -the towns, may rehabilitate itself through agriculture. It -certainly will do so unless Socialists are very much more -wide awake than they have hitherto been. - -Though at the moment the change which we are required to -make will be difficult and inconvenient to the people -affected, it will, if taken in hand with resolution, prove -undoubtedly to be a blessing, for our society is top heavy, -and the revival of agriculture is a movement in the -direction of a return to the normal. But even with -agriculture revived it is questionable whether we shall in -the long run be able to support our present population. In -so far as this is true, there is only one remedy, and that -is emigration. And here the real trouble begins. Emigration -has so often been advocated as an excuse for postponing -reforms at home that a natural and justifiable suspicion -attaches to any one who advocates it, as Mr. Lloyd George -found out recently when he suggested it as a remedy for -unemployment. But it was not only with critics at home that -he had to contend. The Dominions themselves lost no time in -announcing that they had unemployed problems of their own -and therefore could not assume responsibility for ours. And -there the matter was allowed to drop. Nevertheless I am -persuaded that emigration is a necessary part of the -solution of our problem, and by one means or another it must -be rendered practicable. That England, having sold her -foreign investments and lost her oversea markets, cannot -hope even with agriculture revived to support her present -population is demonstrable beyond doubt. But that our -Dominions, with their vast empty spaces of fertile land that -can produce the food and supply the raw materials of -industry, cannot find room for our surplus population is a -paradox a paradox moreover that needs to be explained, since -it is impossible to deny that such is the situation in our -colonies to-day. It suggests the question: Why does our -economic system produce such contradictory results? What is -it that has got such a strangle-hold upon all modern +During the war wages were raised to keep pace with the increasing cost +of living. Nowadays, when prices are falling, the demand is made by +employers that a corresponding reduction shall be made in wages. Behind +this demand is the contention of employers that foreign trade cannot be +restored and unemployment lessened while costs of production in this +country remain as high as at present. The more reasonable trade +unionists are disposed to accept this view on the assumption that the +employers are willing to accept a corresponding reduction in profits. +But the extremists refuse to accept any lowering of existing standards +of wages without a struggle. + +Now, from the point of view of formal Socialist theory, the extremists +who refuse to consider a reduction in wages are in the right. If the +relations of Capital and Labour are the mechanical ones postulated of +Socialist theory the workers are justified in demanding that they shall +enjoy a permanent increase in wages. Nor can there be any doubt +whatsoever that they are ultimately in the right. If it was possible in +the fifteenth century for the town worker to be paid a wage that worked +out six or seven times the cost of his board and the agricultural worker +two-thirds of this amount,it is on the face of things extraordinary that +with our enormously increased productivity it should yet be impossible +to pay the workers a wage which covers little more than bare +necessities. Yet a close examination reveals the fact that the present +system of industry is so wasteful and built up on a basis so false that +it cannot be made to pay the wages that the workers are theoretically +justified in demanding. It is apparent that the increases cannot come in +the particular way Labour expects or by their particular methods. It is +not in the nature of things. Industry as it exists to-day in our great +industrial centres is dependent upon foreign trade, and so long as it is +so dependent it will be necessary to compete. Except, therefore, where +we enjoy some monopoly or other artificial advantage, we shall only be +able to compete successfully by producing as cheaply as possible, and +that involves lower wages than were paid during the war. There is no +getting away from this. If we are to remain an industrial competing +nation, the workers must be prepared to accept such wages as will enable +our manufacturers to compete successfully.If they are not satisfied with +so little---and there is no reason why they should be---the present +system must be changed. + +It is here we come to the popular Socialist fallacy. The present system +is not changed merely by changing its ownership, since if the workers +succeeded in getting possession of industry to-morrow they would be +subject to the same economic laws to which employers are subject to-day, +and they would be compelled to act much in the same way because they +would be required to run the same machine. But if we wish to change the +system we must recognize the necessity for industry to become as far as +possible independent of foreign markets. This involves the revival of +agriculture, for only by such means can the home markets be restored. In +so far as industry could depend upon the home markets, we should be able +to exercise control over the conditions of industry, and real +fundamental changes in the position of the workers could be introduced. +But it is vain to suppose that any such change can be introduced so long +as industry rests on the economic quicksand of foreign markets. It +becomes apparent therefore that if the position of the workers is to be +improved they must take longer views. There is no such thing as +"Socialism now." But there is such a thing as Socialism in ten years' +time if the workers could be persuaded to follow a consistent policy +over such a period of time. The trouble is that the workers, as indeed +most people in every class, think of the social problem in the terms of +their own jobs. The engineer wants a solution in the terms of +engineering; the bootmaker in the terms of boots; the clerk in the terms +of clerking. It is natural, perhaps, but none the less impossible, for +it disregards the action of those world-wide economic forces which +dominate all nations in proportion as they become dependent upon foreign +trade. + +I said that if the position of the workers is to be improved they must +take longer views. It is clear that modern industrial activities are +essentially transitory in their nature. Quite apart from the war, it is +manifest that sooner or later the situation that exists to-day must have +arisen, for the existing arrangement whereby goods are produced at one +end of the earth and food at the other does not possess within itself +the elements of permanence. It owes its existence to many things, but by +far the most important to the fact that we were the first to employ +machinery in production. This virtual monopoly that we had for so long +encouraged the growth of cross-distribution. But it is uneconomic and +therefore cannot last, for it is apparent that other things being equal, +it must be cheaper to produce goods near the markets than at a distance +from them. An arrangement may be uneconomic, but custom and inertia will +combine to perpetuate it long after the circumstances which brought it +into existence have disappeared. The war woke up many of our former +customers to this fact. Before the war they were content to produce food +and raw materials, and relied upon us in the main for their manufactured +goods. During the war we could not supply their wants, and they took to +manufacturing all kinds of things for themselves. As these manufactures +are carried on near to where the raw materials are found or produced, it +is manifest that we cannot hope to recover these markets. They must +gradually slip from our hands. We cannot expect to export in the future +such large quantities of manufactured goods to Australia, Canada, South +America and elsewhere as hitherto. Meanwhile, in order to finance the +war, we disposed of most of our foreign investments. The result of it +all is that our industries will be unable to provide work for such +numbers as hitherto. Not being able to sell goods to the food-producing +nations, we shall soon be without the money to pay for the food we must +import to keep our population alive---a fact that is brought home to us +by the constant falling of the rate of exchange. + +It appears therefore that though the reversal of our Russian policy, the +complete removal of blockades and the provision of credits for the +restoration of European trade would relieve the unemployed problem, it +cannot hope to solve it, since a wider view of the situation leads to +the conclusion that such relief can only be temporary. The renewal of +trade facilities with Russia and Central Europe might relieve the +congested state of the home market, but it will not provide us with the +wherewithal to buy food, because Europe has no food to give us in +exchange for our goods. If food is to be obtained, we must give +something in exchange to the countries which produce it or we must +produce it for ourselves. And as those countries upon which we have been +accustomed to rely for a supply of food are beginning to produce their +industrial wares for themselves, it follows that the only way to meet +the situation is to take measures to produce as much food as possible +for ourselves by the revival of agriculture. By no other means can the +balance of exchange be restored. Agriculture is fundamental, since the +price of food determines the cost of everything else. If therefore we +neglect to revive agriculture, we shall be exploited by the countries +who do produce food, and this, by raising the price of our manufactures, +will in turn increase our difficulties in competing in other markets. It +is insufficiently recognized that during the war the agricultural +populations all over the world have been becoming rich while the +industrial ones have become poor. It is not improbable therefore that +capitalism, declining in the towns, may rehabilitate itself through +agriculture. It certainly will do so unless Socialists are very much +more wide awake than they have hitherto been. + +Though at the moment the change which we are required to make will be +difficult and inconvenient to the people affected, it will, if taken in +hand with resolution, prove undoubtedly to be a blessing, for our +society is top heavy, and the revival of agriculture is a movement in +the direction of a return to the normal. But even with agriculture +revived it is questionable whether we shall in the long run be able to +support our present population. In so far as this is true, there is only +one remedy, and that is emigration. And here the real trouble begins. +Emigration has so often been advocated as an excuse for postponing +reforms at home that a natural and justifiable suspicion attaches to any +one who advocates it, as Mr. Lloyd George found out recently when he +suggested it as a remedy for unemployment. But it was not only with +critics at home that he had to contend. The Dominions themselves lost no +time in announcing that they had unemployed problems of their own and +therefore could not assume responsibility for ours. And there the matter +was allowed to drop. Nevertheless I am persuaded that emigration is a +necessary part of the solution of our problem, and by one means or +another it must be rendered practicable. That England, having sold her +foreign investments and lost her oversea markets, cannot hope even with +agriculture revived to support her present population is demonstrable +beyond doubt. But that our Dominions, with their vast empty spaces of +fertile land that can produce the food and supply the raw materials of +industry, cannot find room for our surplus population is a paradox a +paradox moreover that needs to be explained, since it is impossible to +deny that such is the situation in our colonies to-day. It suggests the +question: Why does our economic system produce such contradictory +results? What is it that has got such a strangle-hold upon all modern industrial nations? # The Tyranny of Big Business -I concluded the last chapter by asking what it was in the -economic system of industrial nations that had got such a -strangle-hold upon them. - -The usual answer is of course to ascribe the general -paralysis to the economic reactions that followed the war. -In the immediate sense this is partially true. But of itself -it is an insufficient explanation, for it is evident that -the disease existed and was rapidly developing before the -war. Let us therefore begin our inquiry by focusing our -attention upon a most evident symptom and consider the -widespread tyranny of big business. The success of these -large organizations has been so dazzling that they have -almost succeeded in silencing critics as to the ultimate -validity of their activities. They have claimed to be the -last word in efficiency, and to be justified as evidence of -the survival of the fittest. For most people this has been a -sufficient apology, and they have inquired no further. But -we are unwilling to accept them at their own valuation, -since we are persuaded that in them and their methods the -immediate cause of the paralysis that is overtaking industry -is to be discovered. - -It will not be denied that expansion is to our industrial -system the breath of life. So long as the system could -continue expanding, it worked in spite of its shortcomings -and injustices. But our economic system is so fearfully and -wonderfully made that it cannot remain stationary. Once the -limit of expansion is reached, contraction sets in, and with -it all manner of internal complications begin to make their -appearance. The honour of placing a limit to this process of -expansion belongs to large financial and industrial -organizations which have overreached themselves. So keen -have they been on making money that they have ignored all -other considerations, and for a generation they have been at -work undermining the very foundations on which their -prosperity ultimately rested. The changed position of the -pioneer since big business got under way will bring this -point home. The pioneer is the advance guard of -civilization. He goes out into uninhabited places, he clears -the land, and it is by means of his conquests that the area -of civilization is extended. That he should continue his -work is necessary for the continuance of our civilization; -for, as I have already said, expansion is to it the breath -of life. And how has big business treated the pioneer? The -answer is, it has simply strangled him. The pioneer is -isolated. He is dependent upon dealers for his supplies and -for the marketing of his produce. In the old days of -colonial expansion there were many such competing dealers, -and this fact ensured him favourable terms; but a time came -when big business got the upper hand. And then tilings -changed. The pioneer found himself at the mercy of some -trust or syndicate that was in a position to bleed him white -and did not hesitate to do so. When news was noised abroad -of the treatment to which those who went on the land in the -colonies were subjected, no new men ventured. They no longer -went forth with the proverbial half a crown in their pockets -to embark upon some new enterprise with a feeling of -assurance and confidence. For they began to realize that -they had not a dog's chance of success. It was thus that the -initiative and enterprise that made our colonies was -strangled. The age of expansion came to an end and our -colonies began to develop their own unemployed problems. -That is why nowadays they have no place for the emigrant. -Contraction has set in. - -A generation ago it was the custom to belaud these large -organizations; to assume that because they were successful -they represented a higher form of industrial organization; -and, on the grounds of the necessities of social evolution, -to condone the immorality of their methods as inevitable in -a time of transition. It was supposed that by suppressing +I concluded the last chapter by asking what it was in the economic +system of industrial nations that had got such a strangle-hold upon +them. + +The usual answer is of course to ascribe the general paralysis to the +economic reactions that followed the war. In the immediate sense this is +partially true. But of itself it is an insufficient explanation, for it +is evident that the disease existed and was rapidly developing before +the war. Let us therefore begin our inquiry by focusing our attention +upon a most evident symptom and consider the widespread tyranny of big +business. The success of these large organizations has been so dazzling +that they have almost succeeded in silencing critics as to the ultimate +validity of their activities. They have claimed to be the last word in +efficiency, and to be justified as evidence of the survival of the +fittest. For most people this has been a sufficient apology, and they +have inquired no further. But we are unwilling to accept them at their +own valuation, since we are persuaded that in them and their methods the +immediate cause of the paralysis that is overtaking industry is to be +discovered. + +It will not be denied that expansion is to our industrial system the +breath of life. So long as the system could continue expanding, it +worked in spite of its shortcomings and injustices. But our economic +system is so fearfully and wonderfully made that it cannot remain +stationary. Once the limit of expansion is reached, contraction sets in, +and with it all manner of internal complications begin to make their +appearance. The honour of placing a limit to this process of expansion +belongs to large financial and industrial organizations which have +overreached themselves. So keen have they been on making money that they +have ignored all other considerations, and for a generation they have +been at work undermining the very foundations on which their prosperity +ultimately rested. The changed position of the pioneer since big +business got under way will bring this point home. The pioneer is the +advance guard of civilization. He goes out into uninhabited places, he +clears the land, and it is by means of his conquests that the area of +civilization is extended. That he should continue his work is necessary +for the continuance of our civilization; for, as I have already said, +expansion is to it the breath of life. And how has big business treated +the pioneer? The answer is, it has simply strangled him. The pioneer is +isolated. He is dependent upon dealers for his supplies and for the +marketing of his produce. In the old days of colonial expansion there +were many such competing dealers, and this fact ensured him favourable +terms; but a time came when big business got the upper hand. And then +tilings changed. The pioneer found himself at the mercy of some trust or +syndicate that was in a position to bleed him white and did not hesitate +to do so. When news was noised abroad of the treatment to which those +who went on the land in the colonies were subjected, no new men +ventured. They no longer went forth with the proverbial half a crown in +their pockets to embark upon some new enterprise with a feeling of +assurance and confidence. For they began to realize that they had not a +dog's chance of success. It was thus that the initiative and enterprise +that made our colonies was strangled. The age of expansion came to an +end and our colonies began to develop their own unemployed problems. +That is why nowadays they have no place for the emigrant. Contraction +has set in. + +A generation ago it was the custom to belaud these large organizations; +to assume that because they were successful they represented a higher +form of industrial organization; and, on the grounds of the necessities +of social evolution, to condone the immorality of their methods as +inevitable in a time of transition. It was supposed that by suppressing competition they were laying the foundations of the communal -civilization of the future, and that when their great work -of amalgamation and centralization was completed they would -pass into the hands of the people. To-day we realize that -this was a vain delusion. We no longer justify them as the -fittest to survive. We have begun to ask the question as to -whether they can survive at all. For they have been too -short-sighted to make any provision for the future. Systems -of organizations that have endured in the past were always -careful to see that a ladder existed whereby the coming -generation could rise step by step until they reached the -summit of their callings. By such means these organizations -renewed themselves. With such an eye to the future the -Mediaeval Guilds jealously guarded the position of the -apprentice. Apprenticeship was "an integral element in the -constitution of the craft guilds, because in no other way -was it possible to ensure the permanency of practice and -continuity of tradition whereby alone the regulations of the -guilds for honourable dealing and sound workmanship could be -carried on from generation to generation."And this principle -was not only understood by the craftsmen, but it was -understood by the merchants in the past who, we read, were -accustomed to sneer at the East India Company because it -could not "breed up" merchants of initiative and -independence. And this feeling against joint-stock -enterprises continued until the middle of last century, when -it yielded at last to the force of circumstances consequent -upon the industrial revolution, and the principle of limited -liability became admitted in law. - -The evil inherent in joint-stock companies was not fatal to -them at first, since before the acknowledgment of the -principle of limited liability in law they were few and far -between, and so it became possible for them to renew their -organization, wherever it was defective, by recruiting from -outside their ranks. But once they become general, the evil -inherent in them rapidly developed; for it soon became -apparent that the divorce of ownership from management upon -which they were based brought into existence horizontal and -class divisions between those in their employ; and this -spread disaffection everywhere. For men began to find that -their future depended less on themselves than on the -attitude of their immediate superiors towards them. In the -higher ranks, these circumstances led to those jealousies -and feuds by which all large organizations are distracted. -In the lower ones it led to apathy and indifference; for -when large organizations took away liberty from the -individual they took away from him all living interest in -his work. The effect of it all has been the destruction of -the sense of responsibility. This results in a loss of -efficiency. Expenses go up and up, and there seems to be no -stopping them. Recourse is had to amalgamations. But it is -all of no avail; for the soul has gone out of the body and -there is no restoring it. - -There is no restoring the *morale* of these large -organizations, because they have succeeded in destroying -confidence and goodwill everywhere by the short-sightedness -of their policy. For not only are limited companies -responsible for the flood of commercial dishonesty and -legalized fraud that have simply overwhelmed modern society, -but under their aegis Labour has become more and more -embittered. It is widely recognized nowadays that the mass -of men have no disposition to do any more work than they can -help. This is in the main due to these large organizations -which lead men to feel that not they but others are going to -profit by their labour. So long as competence was rewarded -and honour appreciated there was an incentive for men to -work. If they became efficient they might get on to their -own feet, and the presence of a number of men with such -ambitions in industry gave a certain moral tone to it that -reacted upon others. But when, owing to the spread of -limited companies, all such hopes were definitely removed; -when technical ability, however great, went unrecognized and -unrewarded, and proficiency in any department of industry -incurred the jealousy of "duds" in high places, -demoralization set in. All the old incentives were gone, and -no one was left to set a standard. The suppressed impulses -of men whose ambitions were thwarted turned into destructive -channels. The rising generation, feeling themselves the -defenceless victims of exploitation, are in open rebellion. -They refuse any longer to make profits for others, and this -refusal is accompanied by a spirit that is anything but -conciliatory. There is, I am persuaded, a close connection -between the spread of Bolshevism and the exploitation of the -young. The hopeless position in which they find themselves, -without prospects of any kind, is largely responsible for -their uncompromising temper and a certain impatience and -ruthlessness that disregards circumstances. It is -insufficiently recognized that Bolshevism here is in no -small degree a rising of the younger generation against the -old. Can we wonder? - -While on the one hand big business finds itself threatened -by the disaffection of the workers, on the other it is -perplexed by the contradictions of its own finance. The -faith of financiers has hitherto been placed in reducing the -costs of production. It was assumed that any reduction of -costs would be automatically followed by an increase of -demand. But is this so? Such a policy is no doubt a sound -business proposition from the point of view of the -individual capitalist who is anxious to find ways and means -of increasing his market. But it has obvious limitations -when applied generally. To the individual capitalist bent on -increasing his market it matters nothing how the costs of -production are reduced. But when generally applied it makes -all the difference in the world whether such reductions are -effected by improved methods of production or by lowering -wages. For the latter method, by reducing purchasing power, -undermines demand. We see therefore that demand does not -depend ultimately upon a reduction of costs, but on the -distribution of wealth. In so far therefore as big business -sets about to centralize wealth it undermines demand. But -again, in so far as increased production is necessary to -maintain its financial stability, there is necessitated an -increased demand. We see then that to seek to centralize -wealth and to increase production is to travel in opposite -directions at the same time; for while centralization of -wealth tends to undermine demand, increased production -presupposes increased demand. Can we wonder that a deadlock -has overtaken industry? The immediate cause may be the war, -but it is clear that the problem is far more fundamental, -and that the deadlock would have arrived quite apart from -the war. Like political despots our commercial magnates are -beginning to find that the successes of despotism exhaust -its resources and mortgage its future. +civilization of the future, and that when their great work of +amalgamation and centralization was completed they would pass into the +hands of the people. To-day we realize that this was a vain delusion. We +no longer justify them as the fittest to survive. We have begun to ask +the question as to whether they can survive at all. For they have been +too short-sighted to make any provision for the future. Systems of +organizations that have endured in the past were always careful to see +that a ladder existed whereby the coming generation could rise step by +step until they reached the summit of their callings. By such means +these organizations renewed themselves. With such an eye to the future +the Mediaeval Guilds jealously guarded the position of the apprentice. +Apprenticeship was "an integral element in the constitution of the craft +guilds, because in no other way was it possible to ensure the permanency +of practice and continuity of tradition whereby alone the regulations of +the guilds for honourable dealing and sound workmanship could be carried +on from generation to generation."And this principle was not only +understood by the craftsmen, but it was understood by the merchants in +the past who, we read, were accustomed to sneer at the East India +Company because it could not "breed up" merchants of initiative and +independence. And this feeling against joint-stock enterprises continued +until the middle of last century, when it yielded at last to the force +of circumstances consequent upon the industrial revolution, and the +principle of limited liability became admitted in law. + +The evil inherent in joint-stock companies was not fatal to them at +first, since before the acknowledgment of the principle of limited +liability in law they were few and far between, and so it became +possible for them to renew their organization, wherever it was +defective, by recruiting from outside their ranks. But once they become +general, the evil inherent in them rapidly developed; for it soon became +apparent that the divorce of ownership from management upon which they +were based brought into existence horizontal and class divisions between +those in their employ; and this spread disaffection everywhere. For men +began to find that their future depended less on themselves than on the +attitude of their immediate superiors towards them. In the higher ranks, +these circumstances led to those jealousies and feuds by which all large +organizations are distracted. In the lower ones it led to apathy and +indifference; for when large organizations took away liberty from the +individual they took away from him all living interest in his work. The +effect of it all has been the destruction of the sense of +responsibility. This results in a loss of efficiency. Expenses go up and +up, and there seems to be no stopping them. Recourse is had to +amalgamations. But it is all of no avail; for the soul has gone out of +the body and there is no restoring it. + +There is no restoring the *morale* of these large organizations, because +they have succeeded in destroying confidence and goodwill everywhere by +the short-sightedness of their policy. For not only are limited +companies responsible for the flood of commercial dishonesty and +legalized fraud that have simply overwhelmed modern society, but under +their aegis Labour has become more and more embittered. It is widely +recognized nowadays that the mass of men have no disposition to do any +more work than they can help. This is in the main due to these large +organizations which lead men to feel that not they but others are going +to profit by their labour. So long as competence was rewarded and honour +appreciated there was an incentive for men to work. If they became +efficient they might get on to their own feet, and the presence of a +number of men with such ambitions in industry gave a certain moral tone +to it that reacted upon others. But when, owing to the spread of limited +companies, all such hopes were definitely removed; when technical +ability, however great, went unrecognized and unrewarded, and +proficiency in any department of industry incurred the jealousy of +"duds" in high places, demoralization set in. All the old incentives +were gone, and no one was left to set a standard. The suppressed +impulses of men whose ambitions were thwarted turned into destructive +channels. The rising generation, feeling themselves the defenceless +victims of exploitation, are in open rebellion. They refuse any longer +to make profits for others, and this refusal is accompanied by a spirit +that is anything but conciliatory. There is, I am persuaded, a close +connection between the spread of Bolshevism and the exploitation of the +young. The hopeless position in which they find themselves, without +prospects of any kind, is largely responsible for their uncompromising +temper and a certain impatience and ruthlessness that disregards +circumstances. It is insufficiently recognized that Bolshevism here is +in no small degree a rising of the younger generation against the old. +Can we wonder? + +While on the one hand big business finds itself threatened by the +disaffection of the workers, on the other it is perplexed by the +contradictions of its own finance. The faith of financiers has hitherto +been placed in reducing the costs of production. It was assumed that any +reduction of costs would be automatically followed by an increase of +demand. But is this so? Such a policy is no doubt a sound business +proposition from the point of view of the individual capitalist who is +anxious to find ways and means of increasing his market. But it has +obvious limitations when applied generally. To the individual capitalist +bent on increasing his market it matters nothing how the costs of +production are reduced. But when generally applied it makes all the +difference in the world whether such reductions are effected by improved +methods of production or by lowering wages. For the latter method, by +reducing purchasing power, undermines demand. We see therefore that +demand does not depend ultimately upon a reduction of costs, but on the +distribution of wealth. In so far therefore as big business sets about +to centralize wealth it undermines demand. But again, in so far as +increased production is necessary to maintain its financial stability, +there is necessitated an increased demand. We see then that to seek to +centralize wealth and to increase production is to travel in opposite +directions at the same time; for while centralization of wealth tends to +undermine demand, increased production presupposes increased demand. Can +we wonder that a deadlock has overtaken industry? The immediate cause +may be the war, but it is clear that the problem is far more +fundamental, and that the deadlock would have arrived quite apart from +the war. Like political despots our commercial magnates are beginning to +find that the successes of despotism exhaust its resources and mortgage +its future. # On Investing and Spending -Considering the anti-climax in which big business is seen to -be ending, the question arises: What is it that has impelled -it on such a fatal course? - -With the individuals immediately concerned, love of money, -power and personal ambition has doubtless been the -mainspring of their activity. But it is a mistake to -attribute too much to purely personal influences, inasmuch -as such men are the instruments rather than the cause of -developments. Their freedom of choice can be exercised only -within certain well-defined limits. Those limits are -determined by the current ideas and practice of finance, to -which all their activities must have reference. To -understand therefore the cause of the deadlock that is -overtaking industry, we must inquire into those principles -of finance which are accepted by all who engage in -commercial activities. - -In this connection it may be held that there is a sense in -which it is true to say that the City has been the victim of -a false economic philosophy. For though the principles of -that philosophy have on the whole followed and justified -economic practice rather than directed it, yet there can be -little doubt that commercial men would not have embarked -upon their latter-day enterprises with such abandon and -self-confidence had they not believed that they were -supported by the thought of the age. And indeed, apart from -Ruskin and his followers, who were comparatively few in -number, the thought of the age did on the whole, until a few -years before the war, support the City in its doings. -Collectivists objected to the proceeds of industry going -into the pockets of a few, but they accepted the principles -governing City finance. They did not perceive that apart -from the way the earnings of industry were distributed there -was anything fundamentally wrong in these principles of -finance. Yet that there must be something very fundamentally -wrong needs no demonstration to-day. Big business is too -manifestly breaking down to be able to justify itself any -longer. - -Ultimately of course what is wrong is the modern philosophy -of life, with its worship of wealth---its belief that the -acquisition of money precedes the attainment of all other -good things in this universe. But to change these values -(and they must be changed) is the work of time, and we are -unfortunately faced with immediate issues, the legacy of -generations of false philosophy. To deal with them it is -necessary to know the proximate cause of things, and the -proximate cause of the activities of big business is -undoubtedly the theory of investments as popularly -understood. That theory teaches that money is never so -usefully employed as when it is invested in some productive -enterprise, and it recognize no limit to the possibility of -such investments. Nearly all people with money accept this -theory as a truth that is axiomatic, and consider themselves -as doing a positive service to the community when they -reinvest any spare money they may have for further increase -instead of spending it in some way or other. For, as they -are accustomed to say, money so invested provides -employment. - -This is the philosophy of the rich to-day. If we went back a -couple of generations to the old Tory school we should find -that they believed it was not the investing but the spending -of money that gave employment. Though neither of these -conflicting philosophies is ultimately true, the old Tory -idea is infinitely nearer the truth than the current one; -while as a practical working philosophy for the rich there -is simply no comparison between the two. For whereas money -spent does return into general circulation, the effect of -investing and reinvesting surplus money is in the long run -to withdraw it from circulation, much in the same way as if -it were hoarded. Nay, it is actually worse than if it were -hoarded. Hoarded money may undermine demand, but it does not -increase supply, whereas when reinvestment proceeds beyond a -certain point it increases supply and undermines demand at -the same time. - -It is apparent that in a society in which economic -conditions were stable a balance between demand and supply -would be maintained. The money made by trade would be spent, -and in this way it would return into general circulation. -Thus a reciprocal relationship would be maintained between -demand and supply. In former times money was spent upon such -things as architecture, the patronage of arts and letters, -the endowment of religion, education, charitable -institutions, and such-like ways. Expenditure upon such -things stimulated demand and created employment, while it -tended to bridge the gulf between rich and poor. The only -defence that is ever made for the existence of a wealthy -class in society is that but for their expenditure in such -ways our great monuments of architecture, educational and -other endowments would never have come into existence. I am -not quite sure how far this is true. But it is manifest that -when the rich did dispose of their wealth in such public -ways they were in a position that could be defended on the -grounds of expediency if not of equity. But what defence can -be put up for the rich to-day who have so completely lost -all idea of function as to be unwilling to spend at all -except upon themselves; who fail to support charitable -institutions; who are so inaccessible to culture as to -neglect the patronage of arts and letters; who so lack -confidence in their own judgment as to be unable to -patronize the crafts of to-day and take refuge in antiques; -who are unwilling to spend money upon architecture, nay, who -can only be persuaded to buy pictures when assured they are -good investments---in a word, who have no idea what to do -with their surplus wealth except to reinvest it for further -increase, that is to use it for the purpose of undermining -the economic system that permits them to live such useless -existences. But perhaps they know best! - -This is no exaggeration. The misuse of surplus wealth by the -rich upsets the balance between demand and supply. And this -is productive of waste. For when more money is invested in -any industry than is required for its proper conduct, the -pressure of competition is increased; for any increase in -the pressure of competition means that money that should be -spent is invested to increase supply; and this increases the -selling costs by encouraging the growth of the number of -middlemen who levy toll upon industry, while it increases -the expenditure on advertisements and other overhead -charges. Thus we see it transfers labour from useful to -useless work. Further, it encourages the over-capitalization -of industry by burdening industry with a dead load of -watered capital. These things react to raise the price of -commodities on the one hand and to demoralize production on -the other. For in the effort to produce dividends on this -watered capital all moral scruples are thrown overboard. -Thus we see there is a direct connection between the -perpetual reinvestment of surplus money for further increase -and the unscrupulous methods of big business. Once an -industry has experienced a boom on the Stock Exchange, its -doom is sealed. It becomes grossly over-capitalized, and -every kind of dirty trick and smart practice is resorted to -in the attempt to produce dividends on the watered capital. -Attempts are invariably made to squeeze more out of labour. -The disaffection of labour to-day is in no small measure the -reaction against this kind of thing. - -In former times the rich appeared to have some notion that -there was such a thing as a limit to the possibilities of -compound interest. But after the introduction of machinery -the possibilities of making money increased so enormously as -to remove from their minds any sense of limitations. In -demanding that all money shall bear compound interest, -finance is committed to an absolutely impossible principle; -as must be apparent to any one who reflects on the famous -arithmetical calculation that a halfpenny put out to 5%, -compound interest on the first day of the Christian era -would by now amount to more money than the earth could -contain. This calculation clearly demonstrates that there is -such a thing as a limit to the possibilities of compound -interest; yet what we call "sound finance" to-day proceeds -upon the assumption that there is no limit. In consequence, -it invests and reinvests surplus wealth and loads industry -with a burden it cannot bear. For if wages were reduced to -the lowest figure capable of keeping body and soul together -and prices raised to the highest limit, productive industry -could not be made to yield the returns which the -conventional system of invested funds now requires. Can we -wonder that capitalism is breaking down? +Considering the anti-climax in which big business is seen to be ending, +the question arises: What is it that has impelled it on such a fatal +course? + +With the individuals immediately concerned, love of money, power and +personal ambition has doubtless been the mainspring of their activity. +But it is a mistake to attribute too much to purely personal influences, +inasmuch as such men are the instruments rather than the cause of +developments. Their freedom of choice can be exercised only within +certain well-defined limits. Those limits are determined by the current +ideas and practice of finance, to which all their activities must have +reference. To understand therefore the cause of the deadlock that is +overtaking industry, we must inquire into those principles of finance +which are accepted by all who engage in commercial activities. + +In this connection it may be held that there is a sense in which it is +true to say that the City has been the victim of a false economic +philosophy. For though the principles of that philosophy have on the +whole followed and justified economic practice rather than directed it, +yet there can be little doubt that commercial men would not have +embarked upon their latter-day enterprises with such abandon and +self-confidence had they not believed that they were supported by the +thought of the age. And indeed, apart from Ruskin and his followers, who +were comparatively few in number, the thought of the age did on the +whole, until a few years before the war, support the City in its doings. +Collectivists objected to the proceeds of industry going into the +pockets of a few, but they accepted the principles governing City +finance. They did not perceive that apart from the way the earnings of +industry were distributed there was anything fundamentally wrong in +these principles of finance. Yet that there must be something very +fundamentally wrong needs no demonstration to-day. Big business is too +manifestly breaking down to be able to justify itself any longer. + +Ultimately of course what is wrong is the modern philosophy of life, +with its worship of wealth---its belief that the acquisition of money +precedes the attainment of all other good things in this universe. But +to change these values (and they must be changed) is the work of time, +and we are unfortunately faced with immediate issues, the legacy of +generations of false philosophy. To deal with them it is necessary to +know the proximate cause of things, and the proximate cause of the +activities of big business is undoubtedly the theory of investments as +popularly understood. That theory teaches that money is never so +usefully employed as when it is invested in some productive enterprise, +and it recognize no limit to the possibility of such investments. Nearly +all people with money accept this theory as a truth that is axiomatic, +and consider themselves as doing a positive service to the community +when they reinvest any spare money they may have for further increase +instead of spending it in some way or other. For, as they are accustomed +to say, money so invested provides employment. + +This is the philosophy of the rich to-day. If we went back a couple of +generations to the old Tory school we should find that they believed it +was not the investing but the spending of money that gave employment. +Though neither of these conflicting philosophies is ultimately true, the +old Tory idea is infinitely nearer the truth than the current one; while +as a practical working philosophy for the rich there is simply no +comparison between the two. For whereas money spent does return into +general circulation, the effect of investing and reinvesting surplus +money is in the long run to withdraw it from circulation, much in the +same way as if it were hoarded. Nay, it is actually worse than if it +were hoarded. Hoarded money may undermine demand, but it does not +increase supply, whereas when reinvestment proceeds beyond a certain +point it increases supply and undermines demand at the same time. + +It is apparent that in a society in which economic conditions were +stable a balance between demand and supply would be maintained. The +money made by trade would be spent, and in this way it would return into +general circulation. Thus a reciprocal relationship would be maintained +between demand and supply. In former times money was spent upon such +things as architecture, the patronage of arts and letters, the endowment +of religion, education, charitable institutions, and such-like ways. +Expenditure upon such things stimulated demand and created employment, +while it tended to bridge the gulf between rich and poor. The only +defence that is ever made for the existence of a wealthy class in +society is that but for their expenditure in such ways our great +monuments of architecture, educational and other endowments would never +have come into existence. I am not quite sure how far this is true. But +it is manifest that when the rich did dispose of their wealth in such +public ways they were in a position that could be defended on the +grounds of expediency if not of equity. But what defence can be put up +for the rich to-day who have so completely lost all idea of function as +to be unwilling to spend at all except upon themselves; who fail to +support charitable institutions; who are so inaccessible to culture as +to neglect the patronage of arts and letters; who so lack confidence in +their own judgment as to be unable to patronize the crafts of to-day and +take refuge in antiques; who are unwilling to spend money upon +architecture, nay, who can only be persuaded to buy pictures when +assured they are good investments---in a word, who have no idea what to +do with their surplus wealth except to reinvest it for further increase, +that is to use it for the purpose of undermining the economic system +that permits them to live such useless existences. But perhaps they know +best! + +This is no exaggeration. The misuse of surplus wealth by the rich upsets +the balance between demand and supply. And this is productive of waste. +For when more money is invested in any industry than is required for its +proper conduct, the pressure of competition is increased; for any +increase in the pressure of competition means that money that should be +spent is invested to increase supply; and this increases the selling +costs by encouraging the growth of the number of middlemen who levy toll +upon industry, while it increases the expenditure on advertisements and +other overhead charges. Thus we see it transfers labour from useful to +useless work. Further, it encourages the over-capitalization of industry +by burdening industry with a dead load of watered capital. These things +react to raise the price of commodities on the one hand and to +demoralize production on the other. For in the effort to produce +dividends on this watered capital all moral scruples are thrown +overboard. Thus we see there is a direct connection between the +perpetual reinvestment of surplus money for further increase and the +unscrupulous methods of big business. Once an industry has experienced a +boom on the Stock Exchange, its doom is sealed. It becomes grossly +over-capitalized, and every kind of dirty trick and smart practice is +resorted to in the attempt to produce dividends on the watered capital. +Attempts are invariably made to squeeze more out of labour. The +disaffection of labour to-day is in no small measure the reaction +against this kind of thing. + +In former times the rich appeared to have some notion that there was +such a thing as a limit to the possibilities of compound interest. But +after the introduction of machinery the possibilities of making money +increased so enormously as to remove from their minds any sense of +limitations. In demanding that all money shall bear compound interest, +finance is committed to an absolutely impossible principle; as must be +apparent to any one who reflects on the famous arithmetical calculation +that a halfpenny put out to 5%, compound interest on the first day of +the Christian era would by now amount to more money than the earth could +contain. This calculation clearly demonstrates that there is such a +thing as a limit to the possibilities of compound interest; yet what we +call "sound finance" to-day proceeds upon the assumption that there is +no limit. In consequence, it invests and reinvests surplus wealth and +loads industry with a burden it cannot bear. For if wages were reduced +to the lowest figure capable of keeping body and soul together and +prices raised to the highest limit, productive industry could not be +made to yield the returns which the conventional system of invested +funds now requires. Can we wonder that capitalism is breaking down? # On Producing More and Consuming Less -The development of foreign trade was a primary cause in -leading the rich to abandon their habit of spending their -surplus wealth in public ways and to invest and reinvest it -for the purpose of further increase. The discovery of -America and the sea route to India transferred prosperity -from the Hanseatic and other inland towns to seaports and -countries with a good seaboard. The change was very -profitable to English merchants, who began to secure a -larger share of the commerce of the world. Moreover, it -stimulated British industries, and the rich began to find +The development of foreign trade was a primary cause in leading the rich +to abandon their habit of spending their surplus wealth in public ways +and to invest and reinvest it for the purpose of further increase. The +discovery of America and the sea route to India transferred prosperity +from the Hanseatic and other inland towns to seaports and countries with +a good seaboard. The change was very profitable to English merchants, +who began to secure a larger share of the commerce of the world. +Moreover, it stimulated British industries, and the rich began to find increasing opportunities for profitable investment. -These changes were accompanied by certain changes in -economic thought. In the seventeenth century there arose the -Mercantile school of economists whose central idea was to -increase the wealth of the nation by foreign trade; and as a -means towards this end they taught that the rule to follow -was "to sell more to strangers yearly than we consume of -theirs in value." Translated into the terms of industry this -doctrine becomes that of "producing more and consuming -less." By following this advice, money was made, and in the -terms of cash men became wealthy. But unfortunately this was -not the only consequence, for this policy brought into -existence the problem of surplus production. This surplus -was in the first instance deliberately created in order to -take advantage of the opportunities of making money that the -exploitation of distant markets afforded. But after -machinery was invented, it became the plague of our society, -for surplus goods increased so enormously in volume that it -became a matter of life and death with us to find markets in -which to dispose of our goods. For, as a consequence of this -money-making policy our society has become economically so -constituted that we cannot live merely by producing what we -need, but must produce all manner of unnecessary things in -order that we may have the money to buy the necessary -things, of which we produce too little. - -But the evil does not end with ourselves. In the long run, -this policy defeats its own ends. It is obviously impossible -as a world policy because all the nations cannot be -increasing their production and decreasing their consumption -at the same time. The thing is simply impossible. Hence it -came about that once the employment of machinery began to -give us an unfair advantage in exchange, one nation after -another was drawn into the whirlpool of industrial -production. And in proportion as this came about we were -driven further and further afield in the search for markets, -until a day came at last when there were no new markets left -to exploit. When that point was reached competition became -fiercer and fiercer, until the breaking-point arrived and -war was precipitated. - -The crisis came in Germany. Immediately it is to be traced -to the Balkan War, which closed the Balkan markets to her, -and to the fact that after the Agadir crisis in 1911 the -French capitalists withdrew their loans from Germany, and -these things combined to bring the German financial system -into a state of bankruptcy; for this system, built upon an -inverted pyramid of credit, could not for long bear the -strain of adverse conditions. But the ultimate reason why -the crisis made its appearance first in Germany was -undoubtedly due to the fact that more than any other nation -she had forced the pace of competition. In the fifteen years -before the war Germany had quadrupled her output. The rate -of productivity, due to never-slackening energy, technique -and scientific development, was far out-stripping the rate -of demand, and there was no stopping, for production was no -longer controlled by demand but by plant. In consequence, a -day came when all the world that would take German-made -goods was choked to the lips. Economic difficulties -appeared, and then the Prussian doctrine of force spread -with alarming rapidity. War was decided upon for the purpose -of relieving the pressure of competition by forcing goods -upon other markets, and to cheapen production by getting -control of additional sources of raw material. Hence the -demand for colonial expansion, the destruction of the towns -and industries of Belgium and Northern France, and the -wholesale destruction of shipping by the submarine campaign. -They all had one object in view: to relieve the pressure of -competition and to get more elbow-room for German -industries. The idea of relieving the pressure of -competition by such commercial sabotage was not a new one. -It had been employed by Rome when she destroyed Carthage and -Corinth and the vineyards and olive groves in Gaul out of -commercial rivalry. The Germans, who copied the methods of -the Romans in so many ways, followed them also here. - -Had Germany succeeded in bringing the war to an early -conclusion, it is possible that this policy would have been -successful to the extent of giving her industries a -temporary relief from the pressure of competition. But -instead of being terminated in a few months as she had -intended, the war dragged on for over four years, and this -exhausted the economic resources of Europe. When the -Armistice was signed there was a world shortage of the -necessaries of life and it became necessary, if Europe was -not to disintegrate economically, that efforts should be -made to resume at once normal trade relationships. But -unfortunately the Big Four into whose hands arrangements for -Peace had fallen, were not, as Mr. Keynes has told us, -interested in economics. What they were interested in was -military guarantees against a renewal of hostilities, -territorial questions and indemnities. And so it came about -that the realities of the economic situation, the urgency of -which permitted no delay, were entirely disregarded. For -while on the one hand the Peace terms ignored the fact that -the war had left many in a state of economic exhaustion, and -that therefore she could only pay indemnities on the -assumption that she experienced a trade revival; on the -other hand the huge figures at which the indemnities were -fixed, and the continuance of the blockade, by interfering -with the operations of normal economic forces, precluded the -possibility of any such revival. - -Meanwhile, unmindful that the war had been precipitated by -the fact that the industrial system had reached its maximum -of expansion, the doctrine was preached in this country that -salvation was to be found in a policy of maximum production. -That the world shortage of the necessaries of life demanded -that efforts should be made to make good the deficiency, no -one will be found to deny, for in many directions making -good the deficiency was a race against time. But the -advocates of a policy of maximum production were as little -concerned as the Peace Conference with the realities of the -economic situation. They were not interested in the -increased production of food, or finally in any other form -of necessary production, but in finding ways and means of -repaying the War Loan without resort to a capital levy. And -this is where they went astray. For not only was Labour -alienated inasmuch as it saw in this policy an attempt to -shift the burden of war taxation on to the shoulders of the -producers, but it led its advocates to demand the increased -production of everything and anything regardless of the fact -that the policy of the Peace Conference both in regard to -Russia and to Central Europe was to close their markets to -us, and that during the war other nations deprived of their -accustomed supplies from us had taken to manufacturing for -themselves. The result has been what various writers on -economics foresaw---that indiscriminate production was -followed by a glut, and the unemployed are on our streets. - -To add to the public bewilderment, the cry has gone up of -late that the needs of national economy demand that we -consume less; and the average man is a little concerned to -know what is meant when he is urged to produce more and to -consume less. The answer is that, absurd and contradictory -as it sounds, it is nevertheless the principle upon which -our glorious civilization has been built. It is a principle -with four hundred years of history to support it, but at -last the limits of industrial expansion necessary to its -continuance have been reached. For, as I have said before, -our economic system must either be expanding or contracting. -And as it so happens that as the age of expansion has come -to an end, the age of contraction naturally follows. The -Government, impervious to arguments, has at length had to -yield to the force of facts. It has ceased to admonish all -and sundry to increase their production, and the word has -gone round to reduce production and ration employment, and -for each man to work fewer hour; for the opinion in the -commercial world to-day is that less production rather than -more is the remedy for our present difficulties. - -Though there may probably be temporary revivals of trade, -the process of contraction now definitely inaugurated will, -I am persuaded, continue. For just as hitherto the normal -trend of affairs was, in spite of recurring depressions, -from expansion to expansion, so now when the tide has turned -the normal trend will be from contraction to contraction a -tendency that can only be checked by a complete change in -the spirit and conduct of industry such as is involved in -return to fundamentals. This truth is vaguely apprehended -to-day, though at the moment men are at a loss to know how -to translate it into the terms of actuality. But now when -disillusionment has overtaken society there is a prospect -that right reasoning may prevail and a path be found. Let us -try to discover it. +These changes were accompanied by certain changes in economic thought. +In the seventeenth century there arose the Mercantile school of +economists whose central idea was to increase the wealth of the nation +by foreign trade; and as a means towards this end they taught that the +rule to follow was "to sell more to strangers yearly than we consume of +theirs in value." Translated into the terms of industry this doctrine +becomes that of "producing more and consuming less." By following this +advice, money was made, and in the terms of cash men became wealthy. But +unfortunately this was not the only consequence, for this policy brought +into existence the problem of surplus production. This surplus was in +the first instance deliberately created in order to take advantage of +the opportunities of making money that the exploitation of distant +markets afforded. But after machinery was invented, it became the plague +of our society, for surplus goods increased so enormously in volume that +it became a matter of life and death with us to find markets in which to +dispose of our goods. For, as a consequence of this money-making policy +our society has become economically so constituted that we cannot live +merely by producing what we need, but must produce all manner of +unnecessary things in order that we may have the money to buy the +necessary things, of which we produce too little. + +But the evil does not end with ourselves. In the long run, this policy +defeats its own ends. It is obviously impossible as a world policy +because all the nations cannot be increasing their production and +decreasing their consumption at the same time. The thing is simply +impossible. Hence it came about that once the employment of machinery +began to give us an unfair advantage in exchange, one nation after +another was drawn into the whirlpool of industrial production. And in +proportion as this came about we were driven further and further afield +in the search for markets, until a day came at last when there were no +new markets left to exploit. When that point was reached competition +became fiercer and fiercer, until the breaking-point arrived and war was +precipitated. + +The crisis came in Germany. Immediately it is to be traced to the Balkan +War, which closed the Balkan markets to her, and to the fact that after +the Agadir crisis in 1911 the French capitalists withdrew their loans +from Germany, and these things combined to bring the German financial +system into a state of bankruptcy; for this system, built upon an +inverted pyramid of credit, could not for long bear the strain of +adverse conditions. But the ultimate reason why the crisis made its +appearance first in Germany was undoubtedly due to the fact that more +than any other nation she had forced the pace of competition. In the +fifteen years before the war Germany had quadrupled her output. The rate +of productivity, due to never-slackening energy, technique and +scientific development, was far out-stripping the rate of demand, and +there was no stopping, for production was no longer controlled by demand +but by plant. In consequence, a day came when all the world that would +take German-made goods was choked to the lips. Economic difficulties +appeared, and then the Prussian doctrine of force spread with alarming +rapidity. War was decided upon for the purpose of relieving the pressure +of competition by forcing goods upon other markets, and to cheapen +production by getting control of additional sources of raw material. +Hence the demand for colonial expansion, the destruction of the towns +and industries of Belgium and Northern France, and the wholesale +destruction of shipping by the submarine campaign. They all had one +object in view: to relieve the pressure of competition and to get more +elbow-room for German industries. The idea of relieving the pressure of +competition by such commercial sabotage was not a new one. It had been +employed by Rome when she destroyed Carthage and Corinth and the +vineyards and olive groves in Gaul out of commercial rivalry. The +Germans, who copied the methods of the Romans in so many ways, followed +them also here. + +Had Germany succeeded in bringing the war to an early conclusion, it is +possible that this policy would have been successful to the extent of +giving her industries a temporary relief from the pressure of +competition. But instead of being terminated in a few months as she had +intended, the war dragged on for over four years, and this exhausted the +economic resources of Europe. When the Armistice was signed there was a +world shortage of the necessaries of life and it became necessary, if +Europe was not to disintegrate economically, that efforts should be made +to resume at once normal trade relationships. But unfortunately the Big +Four into whose hands arrangements for Peace had fallen, were not, as +Mr. Keynes has told us, interested in economics. What they were +interested in was military guarantees against a renewal of hostilities, +territorial questions and indemnities. And so it came about that the +realities of the economic situation, the urgency of which permitted no +delay, were entirely disregarded. For while on the one hand the Peace +terms ignored the fact that the war had left many in a state of economic +exhaustion, and that therefore she could only pay indemnities on the +assumption that she experienced a trade revival; on the other hand the +huge figures at which the indemnities were fixed, and the continuance of +the blockade, by interfering with the operations of normal economic +forces, precluded the possibility of any such revival. + +Meanwhile, unmindful that the war had been precipitated by the fact that +the industrial system had reached its maximum of expansion, the doctrine +was preached in this country that salvation was to be found in a policy +of maximum production. That the world shortage of the necessaries of +life demanded that efforts should be made to make good the deficiency, +no one will be found to deny, for in many directions making good the +deficiency was a race against time. But the advocates of a policy of +maximum production were as little concerned as the Peace Conference with +the realities of the economic situation. They were not interested in the +increased production of food, or finally in any other form of necessary +production, but in finding ways and means of repaying the War Loan +without resort to a capital levy. And this is where they went astray. +For not only was Labour alienated inasmuch as it saw in this policy an +attempt to shift the burden of war taxation on to the shoulders of the +producers, but it led its advocates to demand the increased production +of everything and anything regardless of the fact that the policy of the +Peace Conference both in regard to Russia and to Central Europe was to +close their markets to us, and that during the war other nations +deprived of their accustomed supplies from us had taken to manufacturing +for themselves. The result has been what various writers on economics +foresaw---that indiscriminate production was followed by a glut, and the +unemployed are on our streets. + +To add to the public bewilderment, the cry has gone up of late that the +needs of national economy demand that we consume less; and the average +man is a little concerned to know what is meant when he is urged to +produce more and to consume less. The answer is that, absurd and +contradictory as it sounds, it is nevertheless the principle upon which +our glorious civilization has been built. It is a principle with four +hundred years of history to support it, but at last the limits of +industrial expansion necessary to its continuance have been reached. +For, as I have said before, our economic system must either be expanding +or contracting. And as it so happens that as the age of expansion has +come to an end, the age of contraction naturally follows. The +Government, impervious to arguments, has at length had to yield to the +force of facts. It has ceased to admonish all and sundry to increase +their production, and the word has gone round to reduce production and +ration employment, and for each man to work fewer hour; for the opinion +in the commercial world to-day is that less production rather than more +is the remedy for our present difficulties. + +Though there may probably be temporary revivals of trade, the process of +contraction now definitely inaugurated will, I am persuaded, continue. +For just as hitherto the normal trend of affairs was, in spite of +recurring depressions, from expansion to expansion, so now when the tide +has turned the normal trend will be from contraction to contraction a +tendency that can only be checked by a complete change in the spirit and +conduct of industry such as is involved in return to fundamentals. This +truth is vaguely apprehended to-day, though at the moment men are at a +loss to know how to translate it into the terms of actuality. But now +when disillusionment has overtaken society there is a prospect that +right reasoning may prevail and a path be found. Let us try to discover +it. # Fixed Prices versus Speculation -We have seen that the existing system of industry and -finance is rapidly reaching a deadlock. What is to be done -in the circumstances? - -The first thing to do is to effect such repairs of the old -machine as will enable it to run a little longer in order to -gain time to build the new one, which we must have in -running order before the existing machine breaks down -completely. For such a purpose such measures as the reversal -of our Russian policy, the removal of all blockades, and the -provision of credits for the renewal of trade with Central -Europe are indispensable. It will be unnecessary for me to -do more than mention them, as steps towards their fulfilment -have already been taken. But it is necessary to insist that -though these measures may bring relief by enabling our -merchants to dispose of their surplus stocks, yet the relief -would only be temporary, inasmuch as if the Continental -nations get on their feet again they will begin to compete -with us in other markets. If on the contrary they do not -recover their industrial position but relapse into more -primitive conditions, they will not have sufficient surplus -to enable them to buy our manufactures. If these facts were -clearly recognized and the necessary measures taken in hand, -then we should have nothing to fear. But the danger is that -the moment any improvement in trade is felt we shall stop -thinking and pursue the silly old game, comforting ourselves -with the illusion that the dislocation of trade was due -entirely to the war, and that there is nothing organically -wrong with the industrial system. - -The truth, however, must be faced. We are in an economic -cul-de-sac, and there is but one path of escape; and that is -to get back somehow to the primary realities of life. It -must be recognized that we are up against the consequences -of centuries of injustice, usury, and Machiavellianism in -politics and business, and that there is finally no escape -except to return to the principles of justice, honesty and -fair dealing, upon which all civilizations rest. - -Reduced to its simplest terms, the change necessary to -enable society to escape from the deadlock that is -threatening industry is conveniently expressed in the -well-known formula:--"the substitution of production for -profit by production for use"; and the first step in that -direction will be taken when we begin to establish a system -of fixed prices throughout industry. For though the Just -Price rather than the fixed price is the ideal to be -attained, yet it can only be realized by stages. The fixed -price therefore is to be regarded as a step towards the Just -Price, because the people will never be satisfied with a -fixed price that is not a Just Price. - -The difference between a fixed price and the Just Price -almost explains itself. Fixed prices are those that are -uniform and are not determined by competition; but such -prices may be anything but just, as many fixed prices during -the war were anything but just. A Just Price would bear a -certain definite relationship to the cost of production, -measured in labour units. It would mean that some things -would be sold for more and other things for less than at -present. In the case of a few useful and necessary things it -might mean that they would be sold for more than at present, -because useful labour is invariably underpaid; while it so -happens that they are often sold by retail dealers with -little or no profit in order to attract customers, and -provide opportunities for selling other goods, generally -useless and unnecessary things, that carry a handsome -profit. It will be necessary therefore, if production for -profit is to give way to production for use, to readjust all -such selling prices so that the price in each case may -correspond to the actual cost of production, since until -prices are so adjusted no change in the motive of industry -is possible. For with prices determined by competition the -producer must think primarily in the terms of profits if he -is to remain solvent. - -In all kinds of ways the present system of prices is -demoralizing. Some years ago when I had some experience of -the furniture trade, I made the interesting discovery that -it stereotyped the forms of design. It came about this way. -Profits were put on certain things and not on others. -Certain things in general demand, such as chests of drawers, -bureaus, chairs and small tables were sold without profit, -while other things such as dining tables, bookcases, -sideboards, heavy curtains and carpets carried good profits. -Simpler kinds of furniture were sold at cost price and sham -ornamental pieces at exorbitant ones. A designer therefore, -in the employ of the furnishing houses, could only exercise -his fancy within certain narrow limits. The furniture had to -be elaborate, and the curtains had to be heavy or there -would be no profits. He might know that some other -arrangement would be infinitely more effective, but he was -not allowed to carry it out, for in that case the public -would not be prepared to pay a price that would give a -working profit, though to provide such a profit it might -only cost half of what the sham elaborate design cost. The -public would not think they were getting value for money, -and therefore would refuse to buy. This illustration may -serve to show how unjust prices strangle creative work. They -have strangled the effort to revive design and handicraft; -for when conditions obtain which will not allow men to do -things in the way they know they should be done, they lose -interest in their work and begin to think only of profits. - -No doubt many who have had experience of other trades could -add their testimony of the peculiar effect unjust prices -have had. But in general it may be said that the effect of -unjust prices is to transfer labour from useful to useless -work, with its corollary that useful work is nearly always -badly paid. The result is that men insensibly learn that it -is easier and more honourable to live by exploiting labour -for profit or by trafficking or by money-lending, or by -speculating, or by some parasitic art---by any means in fact -except by doing work which is useful and desirable for the -purposes of human life. It is thus that occupations have -come to be esteemed in proportion as they win money, afford -comfort and leisure, and confer individual power and -distinction. The effect of it all is to produce social -demoralization. It exalts false social values; this in turns -corrupts everything else, for it encourages lying and fraud -of every kind, and ends by creating an atmosphere of social -lies so dense that few people know where they are. Divorced -from all useful work they have no final test of truth. In -consequence they become dissatisfied, they are at the mercy -of every fashion of opinion, and finally like the builders -of Babel they end in a confusion of tongues, no man being -able to make himself intelligible to any one else. - -Thus we see that unfixed and unjust prices divert energy -from production to speculation. It will remain impossible -for people to be interested in the ultimate social utility -of anything they do so long as the price they are to get for -their labour is settled by competition. The reason why the -commercial motive is for the most part absent among -professional men is precisely because the price of their -services is fixed; and it will tend to disappear from -industry once prices are fixed. The professional man is able -to put his best into his work because he has not to worry -about how much he has to receive for his services, and it -will be the same in industry when the same conditions -obtain. - -Uncertainty as to price dislocates industry in every -direction, and has handed production over to the speculator -with consequences that are grossly demoralizing. It is only -possible for a man to plan ahead if he knows where he -stands. The farmer, for instance, must plan four years -ahead. He must arrange for a rotation of crops. If he knows -he can dispose of his produce at a certain definite fixed -price he can concentrate all his attention upon getting the -best out of his land. He can go ahead. But if uncertainty as -to price surrounds him on every side he will not produce on -such a large scale, for he will need to keep a greater -reserve of capital in case of need. Moreover he will have to -be for ever thinking about prices, of when and where to -sell, and this will prevent him from making the best use of -his land. There is no greater illusion than to suppose that -the motive of profit stimulates efficiency. Only love of -work can do that, and nothing detracts from love of work so -much as economic uncertainty. I am convinced that the -decline of quality in production is due far less to avarice -than to the demoralization that accompanies such -uncertainty. - -Further, the determination of prices by competition leads -inevitably to injustice. In the event of a shortage the -producer exploits the consumer; in the event of a surplus -the consumer exploits the producer. The producer may be -ruined as English farmers were in the years 1879-90. This -ruin has reacted to make living increasingly expensive for -everybody. It is thus that unfixed prices leads to unrest -among the workers by introducing an element of uncertainty -into the real value of wages. It leads moreover to -disaffection all round. The consumer is indignant when he is -exploited by the producer, and the producer when ruined -becomes a centre of discontent. On the other hand the -producer who has profited by the system hardens his heart -towards the rest of the community because he believes that -they would have done the same as he has done if they had had -the chance. He therefore resents criticism as a personal -injustice. It is thus that competition in prices ends in the -promotion of class hatred---of enmity between the haves and -the have-nots. - -Then again unfixed prices lead to economic instability. -Before the war, because we were living upon the moral -capital of centuries of tradition and stability, the danger -inherent in allowing prices to be determined by competition -was apparent only to a few, though as a matter of fact -economic conditions every year became more unstable. But -during the war, when restraining influences were removed, -profiteering became rampant and what hitherto had only been -apparent to a few was seen by the many. It was seen that no -society could endure that allowed prices to be fixed in this -way, inasmuch as it could only end by shaking to pieces the -economic system itself. Hence it was that, faced with this -peril, the Government sought to limit by means of fixed -prices the profits that could be made by any manufacturer or -middleman. After the war, the Government brought in the -Profiteering Act to enable it to continue to exercise the -power of fixing maximum prices of articles in general use, -which fixing had during the war been done under D.O.R.A. Its -operation, however, was limited to six months, and since its -expiration there has been a return to the system of -competitive prices for such articles, and prices have begun -to fall. Some of the controls, however, that deal with the -price of food and raw material still remain. They exist +We have seen that the existing system of industry and finance is rapidly +reaching a deadlock. What is to be done in the circumstances? + +The first thing to do is to effect such repairs of the old machine as +will enable it to run a little longer in order to gain time to build the +new one, which we must have in running order before the existing machine +breaks down completely. For such a purpose such measures as the reversal +of our Russian policy, the removal of all blockades, and the provision +of credits for the renewal of trade with Central Europe are +indispensable. It will be unnecessary for me to do more than mention +them, as steps towards their fulfilment have already been taken. But it +is necessary to insist that though these measures may bring relief by +enabling our merchants to dispose of their surplus stocks, yet the +relief would only be temporary, inasmuch as if the Continental nations +get on their feet again they will begin to compete with us in other +markets. If on the contrary they do not recover their industrial +position but relapse into more primitive conditions, they will not have +sufficient surplus to enable them to buy our manufactures. If these +facts were clearly recognized and the necessary measures taken in hand, +then we should have nothing to fear. But the danger is that the moment +any improvement in trade is felt we shall stop thinking and pursue the +silly old game, comforting ourselves with the illusion that the +dislocation of trade was due entirely to the war, and that there is +nothing organically wrong with the industrial system. + +The truth, however, must be faced. We are in an economic cul-de-sac, and +there is but one path of escape; and that is to get back somehow to the +primary realities of life. It must be recognized that we are up against +the consequences of centuries of injustice, usury, and Machiavellianism +in politics and business, and that there is finally no escape except to +return to the principles of justice, honesty and fair dealing, upon +which all civilizations rest. + +Reduced to its simplest terms, the change necessary to enable society to +escape from the deadlock that is threatening industry is conveniently +expressed in the well-known formula:--"the substitution of production +for profit by production for use"; and the first step in that direction +will be taken when we begin to establish a system of fixed prices +throughout industry. For though the Just Price rather than the fixed +price is the ideal to be attained, yet it can only be realized by +stages. The fixed price therefore is to be regarded as a step towards +the Just Price, because the people will never be satisfied with a fixed +price that is not a Just Price. + +The difference between a fixed price and the Just Price almost explains +itself. Fixed prices are those that are uniform and are not determined +by competition; but such prices may be anything but just, as many fixed +prices during the war were anything but just. A Just Price would bear a +certain definite relationship to the cost of production, measured in +labour units. It would mean that some things would be sold for more and +other things for less than at present. In the case of a few useful and +necessary things it might mean that they would be sold for more than at +present, because useful labour is invariably underpaid; while it so +happens that they are often sold by retail dealers with little or no +profit in order to attract customers, and provide opportunities for +selling other goods, generally useless and unnecessary things, that +carry a handsome profit. It will be necessary therefore, if production +for profit is to give way to production for use, to readjust all such +selling prices so that the price in each case may correspond to the +actual cost of production, since until prices are so adjusted no change +in the motive of industry is possible. For with prices determined by +competition the producer must think primarily in the terms of profits if +he is to remain solvent. + +In all kinds of ways the present system of prices is demoralizing. Some +years ago when I had some experience of the furniture trade, I made the +interesting discovery that it stereotyped the forms of design. It came +about this way. Profits were put on certain things and not on others. +Certain things in general demand, such as chests of drawers, bureaus, +chairs and small tables were sold without profit, while other things +such as dining tables, bookcases, sideboards, heavy curtains and carpets +carried good profits. Simpler kinds of furniture were sold at cost price +and sham ornamental pieces at exorbitant ones. A designer therefore, in +the employ of the furnishing houses, could only exercise his fancy +within certain narrow limits. The furniture had to be elaborate, and the +curtains had to be heavy or there would be no profits. He might know +that some other arrangement would be infinitely more effective, but he +was not allowed to carry it out, for in that case the public would not +be prepared to pay a price that would give a working profit, though to +provide such a profit it might only cost half of what the sham elaborate +design cost. The public would not think they were getting value for +money, and therefore would refuse to buy. This illustration may serve to +show how unjust prices strangle creative work. They have strangled the +effort to revive design and handicraft; for when conditions obtain which +will not allow men to do things in the way they know they should be +done, they lose interest in their work and begin to think only of +profits. + +No doubt many who have had experience of other trades could add their +testimony of the peculiar effect unjust prices have had. But in general +it may be said that the effect of unjust prices is to transfer labour +from useful to useless work, with its corollary that useful work is +nearly always badly paid. The result is that men insensibly learn that +it is easier and more honourable to live by exploiting labour for profit +or by trafficking or by money-lending, or by speculating, or by some +parasitic art---by any means in fact except by doing work which is +useful and desirable for the purposes of human life. It is thus that +occupations have come to be esteemed in proportion as they win money, +afford comfort and leisure, and confer individual power and distinction. +The effect of it all is to produce social demoralization. It exalts +false social values; this in turns corrupts everything else, for it +encourages lying and fraud of every kind, and ends by creating an +atmosphere of social lies so dense that few people know where they are. +Divorced from all useful work they have no final test of truth. In +consequence they become dissatisfied, they are at the mercy of every +fashion of opinion, and finally like the builders of Babel they end in a +confusion of tongues, no man being able to make himself intelligible to +any one else. + +Thus we see that unfixed and unjust prices divert energy from production +to speculation. It will remain impossible for people to be interested in +the ultimate social utility of anything they do so long as the price +they are to get for their labour is settled by competition. The reason +why the commercial motive is for the most part absent among professional +men is precisely because the price of their services is fixed; and it +will tend to disappear from industry once prices are fixed. The +professional man is able to put his best into his work because he has +not to worry about how much he has to receive for his services, and it +will be the same in industry when the same conditions obtain. + +Uncertainty as to price dislocates industry in every direction, and has +handed production over to the speculator with consequences that are +grossly demoralizing. It is only possible for a man to plan ahead if he +knows where he stands. The farmer, for instance, must plan four years +ahead. He must arrange for a rotation of crops. If he knows he can +dispose of his produce at a certain definite fixed price he can +concentrate all his attention upon getting the best out of his land. He +can go ahead. But if uncertainty as to price surrounds him on every side +he will not produce on such a large scale, for he will need to keep a +greater reserve of capital in case of need. Moreover he will have to be +for ever thinking about prices, of when and where to sell, and this will +prevent him from making the best use of his land. There is no greater +illusion than to suppose that the motive of profit stimulates +efficiency. Only love of work can do that, and nothing detracts from +love of work so much as economic uncertainty. I am convinced that the +decline of quality in production is due far less to avarice than to the +demoralization that accompanies such uncertainty. + +Further, the determination of prices by competition leads inevitably to +injustice. In the event of a shortage the producer exploits the +consumer; in the event of a surplus the consumer exploits the producer. +The producer may be ruined as English farmers were in the years 1879-90. +This ruin has reacted to make living increasingly expensive for +everybody. It is thus that unfixed prices leads to unrest among the +workers by introducing an element of uncertainty into the real value of +wages. It leads moreover to disaffection all round. The consumer is +indignant when he is exploited by the producer, and the producer when +ruined becomes a centre of discontent. On the other hand the producer +who has profited by the system hardens his heart towards the rest of the +community because he believes that they would have done the same as he +has done if they had had the chance. He therefore resents criticism as a +personal injustice. It is thus that competition in prices ends in the +promotion of class hatred---of enmity between the haves and the +have-nots. + +Then again unfixed prices lead to economic instability. Before the war, +because we were living upon the moral capital of centuries of tradition +and stability, the danger inherent in allowing prices to be determined +by competition was apparent only to a few, though as a matter of fact +economic conditions every year became more unstable. But during the war, +when restraining influences were removed, profiteering became rampant +and what hitherto had only been apparent to a few was seen by the many. +It was seen that no society could endure that allowed prices to be fixed +in this way, inasmuch as it could only end by shaking to pieces the +economic system itself. Hence it was that, faced with this peril, the +Government sought to limit by means of fixed prices the profits that +could be made by any manufacturer or middleman. After the war, the +Government brought in the Profiteering Act to enable it to continue to +exercise the power of fixing maximum prices of articles in general use, +which fixing had during the war been done under D.O.R.A. Its operation, +however, was limited to six months, and since its expiration there has +been a return to the system of competitive prices for such articles, and +prices have begun to fall. Some of the controls, however, that deal with +the price of food and raw material still remain. They exist independently of this Act. -It can occasion no surprise that measures that interfered so -much with the ways of business should be unpopular in the -commercial world. The business man has the conviction that -what is in his personal interest is necessarily in the -interests of the community, since as society lives by -commerce he assumes that anything that interferes with the -liberty of commerce can be in the interests of nobody. -Moreover, to him speculation is the soul of business, and as -any extension of fixed prices over industry would put an end -to speculation he can see nothing but demoralization -overtaking the world when business loses its soul. No doubt -he is perfectly honest in believing this. To men who accept -business operations at their face value there is no other -conclusion. The question to us, however, is whether the -world does not want another soul quite different from the -one that business affords; whether, if the moral tone of -industry is ever to be raised, business as we understand it -must not go, nay, whether business itself can carry on much -longer at all on its present basis. - -But it was not only business men who objected. Socialists -and Labour men also objected. But their objection was of a -different order, and was due to the fact that, having *a -priori* ideas in their minds as to the way the millennium is -to be ushered in, they look with suspicion upon any idea -that has not hitherto found a place in their programme. To -them the fixation of prices was nothing more than a means of -satisfying popular clamour and postponing the day of -substantial reform, and for this reason they never seriously -considered it. Perhaps they may, when they awaken to the -fact that it is an idea with potentialities in it little +It can occasion no surprise that measures that interfered so much with +the ways of business should be unpopular in the commercial world. The +business man has the conviction that what is in his personal interest is +necessarily in the interests of the community, since as society lives by +commerce he assumes that anything that interferes with the liberty of +commerce can be in the interests of nobody. Moreover, to him speculation +is the soul of business, and as any extension of fixed prices over +industry would put an end to speculation he can see nothing but +demoralization overtaking the world when business loses its soul. No +doubt he is perfectly honest in believing this. To men who accept +business operations at their face value there is no other conclusion. +The question to us, however, is whether the world does not want another +soul quite different from the one that business affords; whether, if the +moral tone of industry is ever to be raised, business as we understand +it must not go, nay, whether business itself can carry on much longer at +all on its present basis. + +But it was not only business men who objected. Socialists and Labour men +also objected. But their objection was of a different order, and was due +to the fact that, having *a priori* ideas in their minds as to the way +the millennium is to be ushered in, they look with suspicion upon any +idea that has not hitherto found a place in their programme. To them the +fixation of prices was nothing more than a means of satisfying popular +clamour and postponing the day of substantial reform, and for this +reason they never seriously considered it. Perhaps they may, when they +awaken to the fact that it is an idea with potentialities in it little suspected by its promoters. -But there are other and more valid objections to the -Government's policy of fixed prices. Their enforcement was -accompanied by vexatious and irritating interferences of all -kinds. With this objection I can entirely sympathize. But I -would point out that it does not invalidate the principle of -fixed prices. What it does invalidate is the instrument that -was used for enforcing them. That instrument was the -bureaucratic machine---the system of control from without. -It is clumsy and irritating, but the Government had no -option but to use it, for the Guild the system of control -from within---was non-existent. And the Guild, as we shall -see later, is the only instrument that can fix prices +But there are other and more valid objections to the Government's policy +of fixed prices. Their enforcement was accompanied by vexatious and +irritating interferences of all kinds. With this objection I can +entirely sympathize. But I would point out that it does not invalidate +the principle of fixed prices. What it does invalidate is the instrument +that was used for enforcing them. That instrument was the bureaucratic +machine---the system of control from without. It is clumsy and +irritating, but the Government had no option but to use it, for the +Guild the system of control from within---was non-existent. And the +Guild, as we shall see later, is the only instrument that can fix prices properly. -Then there is the objection that certain things went off the -market as soon as prices were fixed. This again does not -invalidate the principle of fixed prices. What it does do is -to demonstrate the impossibility of enforcing fixed prices -against the will of a trade. Here again the solution is to -be found in the institution of Guilds. For a Guild would -contain everybody who worked in a trade, not the few people -who were in a position to exploit it, and if everybody in a -trade had a voice in the matter we may be assured that they -would act democratically for the good of all, and not merely -in the interests of a few. - -Finally there is the objection of the man-in-the-street, to -whom fixed prices were popular during the war when they -prevented prices going higher, but who turned against them -when the control prevented them falling to a lower level. -This objection again is valid. But it does not invalidate -the principle of fixed prices. What it does invalidate is -the fixed price that is not a Just Price; and as the fixed -prices during the war were not Just Prices, it was desirable -that control should be removed to enable prices to return to -the normal. +Then there is the objection that certain things went off the market as +soon as prices were fixed. This again does not invalidate the principle +of fixed prices. What it does do is to demonstrate the impossibility of +enforcing fixed prices against the will of a trade. Here again the +solution is to be found in the institution of Guilds. For a Guild would +contain everybody who worked in a trade, not the few people who were in +a position to exploit it, and if everybody in a trade had a voice in the +matter we may be assured that they would act democratically for the good +of all, and not merely in the interests of a few. + +Finally there is the objection of the man-in-the-street, to whom fixed +prices were popular during the war when they prevented prices going +higher, but who turned against them when the control prevented them +falling to a lower level. This objection again is valid. But it does not +invalidate the principle of fixed prices. What it does invalidate is the +fixed price that is not a Just Price; and as the fixed prices during the +war were not Just Prices, it was desirable that control should be +removed to enable prices to return to the normal. # Guilds and the Just Price -I concluded the last chapter by pointing out that the -man-in-the-street does not object to the principle of a -fixed price but to the fixed price that is not a Just Price. -As it happens that the Just Price was the central economic -idea of the Middle Ages, let us pause to consider what it -meant in those days. - -The Just Price in the Middle Ages was primarily a moral -idea. By that I mean that it owed its establishment to moral -rather than to economic considerations. It was the idea that -between two persons bent on honest and straightforward -dealing it is possible to arrive at something that may be -regarded as a Just Price. Indeed, as a matter of fact, when -this idea pervades the whole community, as it did at one -time in the Middle Ages, conditions are created that make it -a comparatively easy matter to translate such a principle -into practice; for under such circumstances prices remain -more or less stationary, and every article acquires a -traditional price. As a moral precept, the idea of the Just -Price was maintained by the Church and supported by the -words of the Gospel, "Whatsoever that men should do unto -you, do ye also unto them." To buy a thing for less or sell -a thing for more than its real value was considered in -itself unallowable and unjust, and therefore sinful, though -exceptional circumstances might sometimes make it -permissible. The institution of buying and selling wares, it -was held, was introduced for the common advantage, and this -common advantage could only be maintained if there was equal -advantage to both parties. Such equality was defeated if the -price which one of the parties received was more or less -than the article sold was worth. - -Under the auspices of the Guilds, the Just Price became a -fixed price. Indeed it is true to say that the Guilds were -organized to maintain the Just Price. For it is only by -relating the Guild regulations to this central idea that -they become intelligible. To maintain the Just and Fixed -Price, the Guilds had to be privileged bodies having an -entire monopoly of their respective trades over the area of -a particular town or city; for it was only by the possession -of a monopoly that a fixed price could be maintained, as -society found to its cost when the Guilds lost their -monopolies. Only through the exercise of authority over its -individual members could the Guild prevent profiteering in -its forms of forestalling, regrating, engrossing and -adulteration. Trade abuses of this kind were ruthlessly -suppressed in the Middle Ages. For the first offence a -member was fined; the most severe penalty was expulsion from -the Guild, which meant that a man lost the privilege of -following his trade in his native city. - -But a Just and Fixed Price cannot be maintained by moral -action alone. If prices are to be fixed throughout industry, -it can only be done on the assumption that a standard of -quality can be upheld. As a standard of quality cannot -finally be defined in the terms of law, it is necessary for -the maintenance of a standard, to place authority in the -hands of craft-masters a consensus of whose opinion -constitutes the final court of appeal. In order to ensure a -supply of masters it is necessary to train apprentices, to -regulate the size of the workshop, the hours of labour, the -volume of production, and so forth; for only when attention -is given to such matters are workshop conditions created -that are favourable to the production of masters. Thus we -see that all the regulations---as indeed the whole hierarchy -of the Guild---arise out of the primary object of -maintaining the Just Price. - -The Just and Fixed Price when maintained by the Guilds left -no room for the growth of capitalism by the manipulation of -exchange currency, for it demanded that money should be -restricted to its legitimate use as a medium of exchange. -Unconsciously, the Mediaeval Guilds stumbled upon the -solution of the problem of currency which had perplexed the -lawgivers of Greece and Rome and broke up their -civilizations, as in these days it is breaking up ours. The -idea is a simple one---so simple in fact that one wonders -how ever it came to be overlooked. Currency, or in other -words money, is a medium of exchange. The problem is how to -restrict it to its legitimate use. So long as it is fairly -and honourably used to give value for value; so long in fact -as money is used merely as a token for the exchange of -goods, then a society will remain economically stable and -healthy. But unfortunately such a desideratum does not -follow naturally from the unrestricted freedom of exchange, -that is by allowing prices to be determined by the higgling -of the market; because under such circumstances there is no -equality of bargaining power. The merchants and middlemen, -because they specialize in market conditions, find -themselves in a position to exploit the community by -speculating in values. Standing between producers and -consumers, they are in a position to levy tribute from each -of them. By refusing to buy they can compel producers to -sell things to them at less than their real value; while by -refusing to sell they can compel consumers to buy things -from them at more than their real value; and by pocketing -the difference they become rich. The principle remains the -same when the merchant becomes a manufacturer, the only -difference being that the exploitation becomes then more -direct. For whereas as merchant he exploits the producer -indirectly by buying the product of his labour at too low a -cost, in his capacity as manufacturer he exploits labour -direct. All commercial operations partake of this nature. -Their aim is always to defeat the ends of fair exchange by -manipulating values. By so doing, money is *made* as we say, -and the problem of riches and poverty is created. It is a -bye-product of this abuse of exchange. For this evil there -is only one solution---the solution provided by the -Guilds---to fix the price of everything; for when all prices -are fixed there is no room left for the speculator. There is -nothing to speculate in. - -The Guilds in the Middle Ages existed in the towns. But they -never came into existence in the rural areas. There were no -agricultural Guilds. This was the weak place in the -Mediaeval economic armour; for it is obvious that if the -Just Price was finally to be maintained at all, it would -have to be maintained everywhere, both in town and country. -That Guilds were never organized in the rural areas is to be -explained immediately by the fact that in the eleventh and -twelfth centuries, when Guilds were organized in the towns, -currency had not spread into rural areas, for Feudalism -existed there and exchange was still carried on by barter. -But the ultimate reason is to be found in the fact that the -function that the Guilds performed in the regulation of -exchange and currency was not understood at the time, while -by the time currency had spread into rural areas the -validity of the Just Price had come to be challenged by the -lawyers, who maintained the right of every man to make the -best bargain he could for himself. They found authority for -their attitude in the Justinian Code, belief in the -infallibility of which had accompanied the revival of Roman -law. This challenge undermined the moral sanction on which -the Just Price ultimately rested. It had the success of an -appeal to a lower motive,, and it was thus that the revival -of Roman law introduced into Mediaeval society those very -elements of corruption with which it had been associated at -Rome. Its ultimate effect has been to reproduce in the -modern world those very same economic difficulties and -social disorders that paved the way for the break up of the -Roman Empire. For Roman law was not, like Mediaeval law, -designed to enable good men to live among bad, but to enable -rich men to live among poor; and as such it had been -designed to bolster up, in the interests of public order -rather than for the maintenance of justice, a society that -had been rendered corrupt by an unregulated currency. - -While the lawyers were blind to the significance of the Just -Price, the Church was equally blind to the need of Guild -organization for its maintenance. It thought, as many -religious people think to-day, that the world can be -regenerated by individual moral action alone. It never -realized that a high standard of commercial morality can -only be maintained if organizations exist to suppress a -lower standard. Hence it came about that while the Church -inculcated the doctrine of the Just Price in the pulpit, the -confessional and the ecclesiastical courts, it never -stressed the need of organization; and so the peasants who -accepted such teaching found themselves eventually at the -mercy of those who followed the teaching of the lawyers. It -was thus that the moral sanction of the Just Price lost its -hold on the country population and the way was opened for -the growth of capitalism and speculation. The moral sanction -of the Just Price being undermined, the Guilds found it -increasingly difficult to maintain fixed prices. In the -sixteenth century the whole system broke down entirely, as a -consequence of the suppression of the monasteries, which -upset the economic equilibrium of society, producing -widespread unemployment, and the wholesale importation of -gold from South America, which doubled prices all over +I concluded the last chapter by pointing out that the man-in-the-street +does not object to the principle of a fixed price but to the fixed price +that is not a Just Price. As it happens that the Just Price was the +central economic idea of the Middle Ages, let us pause to consider what +it meant in those days. + +The Just Price in the Middle Ages was primarily a moral idea. By that I +mean that it owed its establishment to moral rather than to economic +considerations. It was the idea that between two persons bent on honest +and straightforward dealing it is possible to arrive at something that +may be regarded as a Just Price. Indeed, as a matter of fact, when this +idea pervades the whole community, as it did at one time in the Middle +Ages, conditions are created that make it a comparatively easy matter to +translate such a principle into practice; for under such circumstances +prices remain more or less stationary, and every article acquires a +traditional price. As a moral precept, the idea of the Just Price was +maintained by the Church and supported by the words of the Gospel, +"Whatsoever that men should do unto you, do ye also unto them." To buy a +thing for less or sell a thing for more than its real value was +considered in itself unallowable and unjust, and therefore sinful, +though exceptional circumstances might sometimes make it permissible. +The institution of buying and selling wares, it was held, was introduced +for the common advantage, and this common advantage could only be +maintained if there was equal advantage to both parties. Such equality +was defeated if the price which one of the parties received was more or +less than the article sold was worth. + +Under the auspices of the Guilds, the Just Price became a fixed price. +Indeed it is true to say that the Guilds were organized to maintain the +Just Price. For it is only by relating the Guild regulations to this +central idea that they become intelligible. To maintain the Just and +Fixed Price, the Guilds had to be privileged bodies having an entire +monopoly of their respective trades over the area of a particular town +or city; for it was only by the possession of a monopoly that a fixed +price could be maintained, as society found to its cost when the Guilds +lost their monopolies. Only through the exercise of authority over its +individual members could the Guild prevent profiteering in its forms of +forestalling, regrating, engrossing and adulteration. Trade abuses of +this kind were ruthlessly suppressed in the Middle Ages. For the first +offence a member was fined; the most severe penalty was expulsion from +the Guild, which meant that a man lost the privilege of following his +trade in his native city. + +But a Just and Fixed Price cannot be maintained by moral action alone. +If prices are to be fixed throughout industry, it can only be done on +the assumption that a standard of quality can be upheld. As a standard +of quality cannot finally be defined in the terms of law, it is +necessary for the maintenance of a standard, to place authority in the +hands of craft-masters a consensus of whose opinion constitutes the +final court of appeal. In order to ensure a supply of masters it is +necessary to train apprentices, to regulate the size of the workshop, +the hours of labour, the volume of production, and so forth; for only +when attention is given to such matters are workshop conditions created +that are favourable to the production of masters. Thus we see that all +the regulations---as indeed the whole hierarchy of the Guild---arise out +of the primary object of maintaining the Just Price. + +The Just and Fixed Price when maintained by the Guilds left no room for +the growth of capitalism by the manipulation of exchange currency, for +it demanded that money should be restricted to its legitimate use as a +medium of exchange. Unconsciously, the Mediaeval Guilds stumbled upon +the solution of the problem of currency which had perplexed the +lawgivers of Greece and Rome and broke up their civilizations, as in +these days it is breaking up ours. The idea is a simple one---so simple +in fact that one wonders how ever it came to be overlooked. Currency, or +in other words money, is a medium of exchange. The problem is how to +restrict it to its legitimate use. So long as it is fairly and +honourably used to give value for value; so long in fact as money is +used merely as a token for the exchange of goods, then a society will +remain economically stable and healthy. But unfortunately such a +desideratum does not follow naturally from the unrestricted freedom of +exchange, that is by allowing prices to be determined by the higgling of +the market; because under such circumstances there is no equality of +bargaining power. The merchants and middlemen, because they specialize +in market conditions, find themselves in a position to exploit the +community by speculating in values. Standing between producers and +consumers, they are in a position to levy tribute from each of them. By +refusing to buy they can compel producers to sell things to them at less +than their real value; while by refusing to sell they can compel +consumers to buy things from them at more than their real value; and by +pocketing the difference they become rich. The principle remains the +same when the merchant becomes a manufacturer, the only difference being +that the exploitation becomes then more direct. For whereas as merchant +he exploits the producer indirectly by buying the product of his labour +at too low a cost, in his capacity as manufacturer he exploits labour +direct. All commercial operations partake of this nature. Their aim is +always to defeat the ends of fair exchange by manipulating values. By so +doing, money is *made* as we say, and the problem of riches and poverty +is created. It is a bye-product of this abuse of exchange. For this evil +there is only one solution---the solution provided by the Guilds---to +fix the price of everything; for when all prices are fixed there is no +room left for the speculator. There is nothing to speculate in. + +The Guilds in the Middle Ages existed in the towns. But they never came +into existence in the rural areas. There were no agricultural Guilds. +This was the weak place in the Mediaeval economic armour; for it is +obvious that if the Just Price was finally to be maintained at all, it +would have to be maintained everywhere, both in town and country. That +Guilds were never organized in the rural areas is to be explained +immediately by the fact that in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when +Guilds were organized in the towns, currency had not spread into rural +areas, for Feudalism existed there and exchange was still carried on by +barter. But the ultimate reason is to be found in the fact that the +function that the Guilds performed in the regulation of exchange and +currency was not understood at the time, while by the time currency had +spread into rural areas the validity of the Just Price had come to be +challenged by the lawyers, who maintained the right of every man to make +the best bargain he could for himself. They found authority for their +attitude in the Justinian Code, belief in the infallibility of which had +accompanied the revival of Roman law. This challenge undermined the +moral sanction on which the Just Price ultimately rested. It had the +success of an appeal to a lower motive,, and it was thus that the +revival of Roman law introduced into Mediaeval society those very +elements of corruption with which it had been associated at Rome. Its +ultimate effect has been to reproduce in the modern world those very +same economic difficulties and social disorders that paved the way for +the break up of the Roman Empire. For Roman law was not, like Mediaeval +law, designed to enable good men to live among bad, but to enable rich +men to live among poor; and as such it had been designed to bolster up, +in the interests of public order rather than for the maintenance of +justice, a society that had been rendered corrupt by an unregulated +currency. + +While the lawyers were blind to the significance of the Just Price, the +Church was equally blind to the need of Guild organization for its +maintenance. It thought, as many religious people think to-day, that the +world can be regenerated by individual moral action alone. It never +realized that a high standard of commercial morality can only be +maintained if organizations exist to suppress a lower standard. Hence it +came about that while the Church inculcated the doctrine of the Just +Price in the pulpit, the confessional and the ecclesiastical courts, it +never stressed the need of organization; and so the peasants who +accepted such teaching found themselves eventually at the mercy of those +who followed the teaching of the lawyers. It was thus that the moral +sanction of the Just Price lost its hold on the country population and +the way was opened for the growth of capitalism and speculation. The +moral sanction of the Just Price being undermined, the Guilds found it +increasingly difficult to maintain fixed prices. In the sixteenth +century the whole system broke down entirely, as a consequence of the +suppression of the monasteries, which upset the economic equilibrium of +society, producing widespread unemployment, and the wholesale +importation of gold from South America, which doubled prices all over Europe. -So ended the Guilds; and it is only recently that we have -begun to realize what the world lost with them. For they -fulfilled a function of fundamental importance to society, -since in maintaining the Just Price they prevented people -from speculating in exchange. With their disappearance -society lost entire control over its economic arrangements, -and the world has been at the mercy of economic forces ever -since. It is no exaggeration to say that society will -continue to be at their mercy until the Guilds are restored, -for by no other means can speculating in exchange be -suppressed. The restoration of the Guilds therefore provides -the key to the economic problem. The control of prices is a -precedent condition of success in any effort to secure -economic reform, inasmuch as until prices are fixed it will -be impossible to plan or arrange anything that may not be -subsequently upset by the fluctuations of the market. It is -a necessary preliminary to any securing of the unearned -increment for the community, since until prices are fixed it -will always be possible for the rich to evade attempts to -reduce their wealth by transferring any taxation imposed -upon them on to the shoulders of other members of the -community. +So ended the Guilds; and it is only recently that we have begun to +realize what the world lost with them. For they fulfilled a function of +fundamental importance to society, since in maintaining the Just Price +they prevented people from speculating in exchange. With their +disappearance society lost entire control over its economic +arrangements, and the world has been at the mercy of economic forces +ever since. It is no exaggeration to say that society will continue to +be at their mercy until the Guilds are restored, for by no other means +can speculating in exchange be suppressed. The restoration of the Guilds +therefore provides the key to the economic problem. The control of +prices is a precedent condition of success in any effort to secure +economic reform, inasmuch as until prices are fixed it will be +impossible to plan or arrange anything that may not be subsequently +upset by the fluctuations of the market. It is a necessary preliminary +to any securing of the unearned increment for the community, since until +prices are fixed it will always be possible for the rich to evade +attempts to reduce their wealth by transferring any taxation imposed +upon them on to the shoulders of other members of the community. # How the Great Change may Come -Granted then that it is essential to the solution of the -problems confronting us that prices be fixed and the Guilds -restored, we must try to answer the question: How is it to -be done? - -Here, to some extent, we enter the realm of uncertainty. The -translation of any idea into the terms of actuality depends -upon circumstances, and as it is impossible to foresee with -precision what will happen in the future, it is impossible -to define exactly every step that must be taken. On the -other hand the popularization and acceptance of any idea -will, if there is any truth in it, tend to create the -circumstances necessary to its practical attainment. To some -extent, therefore, salvation is by faith and propaganda. - -But it is not entirely a matter of faith. We have certain -definite things to go upon. We have unmistakable evidence -that "the new social order is developing its embryo within -the womb of existing society." In the Trade Union movement, -for instance, we have, to use Mr. Chesterton's words, "a -return to the past by men ignorant of the past, like the -subconscious action of some man who has lost his memory." In -which light the proposal to transform the Unions into Guilds -is seen to be an effort to give conscious direction to a -movement which hitherto has been entirely instinctive. There -is, moreover, historical continuity in this idea, inasmuch -as the Trade Unions are the legitimate successors of the -Mediaeval Guilds; not only because the issues which -concerned them could not have arisen but for the defeat of -the Guilds, but because they acknowledge in their -organizations a corresponding principle of growth. The -Unions to-day with their elaborate organizations exercise -many of the functions that were formerly performed by the -Guilds---such as the regulation of wages and hours of -labour, in addition to the more social duty of giving timely -help to the sick and unfortunate. Like the Guilds, the -Unions have grown from small beginnings until they now -control whole trades. Like the Guilds also, they are not -political creations, but voluntary organizations that have -arisen spontaneously to protect the weaker members of -society against the oppression of the powerful. They differ -from the Guilds only to the extent that, not being in -possession of industry and corresponding privileges, they -are unable to accept responsibility for the quality of work -done and to regulate prices. But their performance of this -latter function cannot be withheld much longer, for the -growth of economic instability and uncertainty is exercising -such a paralysing influence upon the conduct of industry -that the instinct of self-preservation must before long -compel a return to the idea of a fixed and Just Price; and, -as we saw that it is impossible to maintain fixed prices for -more than a few staple articles, by means of bureaucratic -control from without, it follows that any general fixation -of prices is impossible apart from the co-operation of each -trade as a whole. When membership of a trade organization is -confined to employers it exhibits the vices of a trust. But -when it includes every worker by hand or brain, it will -display the virtues of a Guild. For honesty and fair dealing -will always find the support of the majority. - -But how may this necessity be translated into the terms of -practical politics? The success that has followed the -organization of Building Guilds in different parts of the -country might appear to suggest that the future is to be -found by working upon such lines. But it is manifest that -there is a limit to such a policy of encroaching control. -The organization of Building Guilds was possible because of -circumstances peculiar to the building trade, i.e. the -housing shortage which provided the immediate opportunity; -Labour controlled municipal councils that were in a position -to give them work; and the fact that in the building trades -the element of fixed capital, so important in other large -industries, is unimportant in comparison with the charges -connected with each particular job,---materials and labour -entailing almost the whole costs of the building industry. -These circumstances made the application of the principle of -industrial self-government a fairly simple proposition. But -it obviously could not be applied to other large industries -where immense fixed capital is required, and where the -market is not so easily localized. - -Considerations of this kind lead me to the conclusion that -the Guilds will arrive some other way. Recent developments -lead me to suppose that if the change will not be -catastrophic it will at any rate be dramatic, inasmuch as it -is possible that their organization may be encouraged to -stabilize the exchanges. The demand of Labour that the -Government should step in and organize trade by barter with -other nations, in order to break down the barriers set up by -the fluctuations of exchange, is evidence that thought is -moving in some such direction, for such a departure would -necessitate the organization of Guilds, as the only way of -avoiding the evils consequent upon the creation of enormous -Government departments to carry through the work. Moreover, -except on a Guild basis it will be impossible to guard -against abuses. For if trade were organized on a basis of -national barter it would be necessary in order to adjust -shares of the industries engaged to put some price on the -outgoing and incoming goods. If this were left in the hands -of Government officials it would become as scandalous as the -munition contracts were during the war, for the Government -would have to deal with a crowd of profiteers who would -think of nothing except how to secure advantages for -themselves, and the public outcry and dissatisfaction would -be as great as against the profiteers during the war. For -this problem there is but one solution, and that is for each -trade to be organized on a basis of self-government in order -that prices may be fixed and standards of conduct enforced -or in other words by the organization of Guilds. Precedent -for such development is to be found in the later days of the -Roman Empire when the Government, having assumed -responsibility for the provision of an adequate food supply, -began to delegate functions to organized groups of workers. -Our knowledge of what happened in this way is very scanty, -but there is sufficient evidence to believe that a time came -when efforts were made to balance the centralizing -bureaucratic tendency by decentralization as much as -possible, and that group organization on something -resembling a Guild basis came into existence. - -Development upon such lines appears to me to be the probable -thing. But. meanwhile our manufacturers, who have taken -fright at the prospect of being undersold in the home -markets, are pressing the Government to bring in an -Anti-Dumping Bill as it is called by those who are opposed -to it, or "The Safeguarding of our Industries Bill," as it -is called in Government circles. The demand is evidently the -result of panic, since as far as I can ascertain the fear of -dumping is largely unsupported by facts. The Continent is -not in a position to export goods in vast quantities. On the -contrary the depreciation of the exchange that has scared -our manufacturers is itself evidence that the Continent is -importing more than it is exporting,and the only remedy is -for the Continent to produce more. But if we refuse to take -their goods it is evident that their exports will cease and -therefore our exports to them. - -It is to be observed that when things go wrong and people -are at a loss to understand the cause, they invariably seek -salvation in the adoption of a reversal of policy, whether -it has anything to do with the facts or not. Thus because it -has so happened that since the war things have not -automatically adjusted themselves by Free Trade, they -imagine a remedy is to be found in Protection. But what -reason is there to think that this proposed remedy would not -be worse than the disease? The application of the principle -of Free Trade in the past regardless of circumstances may be -regrettable. But is a general tariff imposed still more -regardless of circumstances likely to produce better -results? Free Trade may not contain all the truth some of -its advocates claim. But it does contain some truth that is -valuable in a period of transition like the present when -exchanges have to be built up again. - -The true alternative to Free Trade is not Protection, but a -system of fixed prices under Guild regulation. To the -capitalist demand for Protection the workers should reply -that as it is undesirable for the State to grant privileges -except to those who are willing to accept corresponding -responsibilities, the only terms on which they may ask for -Protection is that they are willing to submit to Guild -regulation; which means that they must agree to sell their -goods, in the home market at any rate, at Fixed and Just -Prices, and that they give the workers a status in their -respective industries. If such conditions were accepted, the -issue between Free Trade and Protection disappears, and here -I would observe that the function of a Guild is not to -organize industry but to regulate it in the same way that -professional societies to-day enforce a discipline among -their members. All other issues, such as whether the members -of the Guild should be organized in self-governing -workshops, or whether they should have small workshops of -their own as happened in the Middle Ages, are secondary. -They are matters of opinion, preference or experience. But -they are not germane to the idea of a Guild as an -organization enforcing a certain standard of conduct and -efficiency over a whole trade. My own opinion is that under -the control of the Guilds, different forms of workshop -organization would exist. Men of gregarious instincts would -prefer the self-governing workshop, while men of a masterful -or solitary disposition would prefer to work alone. But they -would all have to abide by the Guild regulations, or suffer -expulsion. However, these things' are largely a matter of -opinion. If the Guilds are to arrive dramatically it is -manifest that they will have to adapt themselves to the -circumstances that exist. If we can secure a return to the -principles of honesty and fair dealing, that is all we can -expect at the beginning. The rest will follow in due course. - -Once the guildization of industry takes place in one -country, the example will speedily be followed by others. -For the problem is international. All the nations of the -earth are having to face the same problem and learn the same -lesson at the same time. All are engaged together in the -bitter but salutary process of discovering their -souls---some as victors, the others as vanquished. They are -all getting heartily sick of the economic struggle; while -the rich who hitherto have obstructed the path of reform are -nowadays on the defensive. We may be assured therefore that -whatever vision is coming to ourselves as a result of the -breakdown of our civilization, similar visions are coming to -others; and may it not be that beneath the class hatreds, -beneath the oppositions of the hour, a profound principle of -unity is at work, and that our late enemies may, when at -last some ray of light breaks, rise simultaneously with -ourselves to substitute international co-operation for -international strife and competition? With fixed prices -throughout industry, economic competition would -automatically come to an end, and with it cross distribution -would tend to disappear; for no one would be tempted to buy -goods at a distance for some temporary advantage of gain. -The qualitative ideal of production would tend to replace -the quantitative one, for as the reinvestment of surplus -wealth would no longer be possible it would no longer go to -provide more machinery for more cut-throat competition, but -would tend to be spent on the arts, upon building, -education, and the other amenities of civilization. Pleasure -would be restored to work. - -It will have been noticed that I have discussed the coming -of the new social order in the terms of Guilds and currency -rather than in the terms of property, as customary in -Socialist circles. The reason for this is that I am -persuaded that to begin with property is to tackle the -problem at the wrong end, and the difficulty experienced in -translating the labour programme into action is due finally -to that fact. At every step in the reconstruction of society -it will be necessary to interfere with property, yet all the -same the centre of gravity of the economic problem is to be -found in currency rather than property; for currency is the -vital thing, the thing of movement, it is the active -principle in economic development, while property is the -passive. It is true that profits that are made by the -manipulation of currency sooner or later assume the form of -property, but the root mischief is not to be found in -property but in unregulated currency. To solve the problem -of currency by the institution of the Just Price under a -system of Guilds, is to bring order into the economic -problem at its active centre. Having solved the problem at -its centre, it will be a comparatively easy matter to deal -with property, which lies at the circumference. Property -owners would be able to offer no more effective resistance -to change than hitherto landlordism has been able to offer -to the growth of capitalism. By such means the -reconstruction of society would proceed upon orderly lines. -All it would be necessary to do would be to exert a steady -and constant pressure over a decade or so, and society would -be transformed completely. But to begin with property is to -get things out of their natural order, for it is to proceed -from the circumference to the centre, which is contrary to -the law of growth. It is to precipitate economic confusion -by dragging up society by its roots; and this defeats the -ends of revolution by strengthening the hands of the -profiteer; for the profiteer thrives on economic confusion. -Of what use is it to seek to effect a redistribution of -wealth before the profiteer has been got under control? -since so long as men are at liberty to manipulate exchange, -they will manage somehow to get the wealth of the community -into their hands. Thus, we see that the solution of the -social problem, as indeed of every other problem in this -universe, resolves itself finally into one of order. Take -issues in their natural order and everything will straighten -itself out beautifully. All the minor details or secondary -parts will fall into their proper places. But approach these -same issues in a wrong order and confusion results. No -subsequent adjustments can remedy the initial error. This -principle is universally true. It is as true of writing a -book or of designing a building, as of conducting a -revolution. The secret of success in each case will be found -finally to rest upon the perception of the order in which -the various issues should be taken. +Granted then that it is essential to the solution of the problems +confronting us that prices be fixed and the Guilds restored, we must try +to answer the question: How is it to be done? + +Here, to some extent, we enter the realm of uncertainty. The translation +of any idea into the terms of actuality depends upon circumstances, and +as it is impossible to foresee with precision what will happen in the +future, it is impossible to define exactly every step that must be +taken. On the other hand the popularization and acceptance of any idea +will, if there is any truth in it, tend to create the circumstances +necessary to its practical attainment. To some extent, therefore, +salvation is by faith and propaganda. + +But it is not entirely a matter of faith. We have certain definite +things to go upon. We have unmistakable evidence that "the new social +order is developing its embryo within the womb of existing society." In +the Trade Union movement, for instance, we have, to use Mr. Chesterton's +words, "a return to the past by men ignorant of the past, like the +subconscious action of some man who has lost his memory." In which light +the proposal to transform the Unions into Guilds is seen to be an effort +to give conscious direction to a movement which hitherto has been +entirely instinctive. There is, moreover, historical continuity in this +idea, inasmuch as the Trade Unions are the legitimate successors of the +Mediaeval Guilds; not only because the issues which concerned them could +not have arisen but for the defeat of the Guilds, but because they +acknowledge in their organizations a corresponding principle of growth. +The Unions to-day with their elaborate organizations exercise many of +the functions that were formerly performed by the Guilds---such as the +regulation of wages and hours of labour, in addition to the more social +duty of giving timely help to the sick and unfortunate. Like the Guilds, +the Unions have grown from small beginnings until they now control whole +trades. Like the Guilds also, they are not political creations, but +voluntary organizations that have arisen spontaneously to protect the +weaker members of society against the oppression of the powerful. They +differ from the Guilds only to the extent that, not being in possession +of industry and corresponding privileges, they are unable to accept +responsibility for the quality of work done and to regulate prices. But +their performance of this latter function cannot be withheld much +longer, for the growth of economic instability and uncertainty is +exercising such a paralysing influence upon the conduct of industry that +the instinct of self-preservation must before long compel a return to +the idea of a fixed and Just Price; and, as we saw that it is impossible +to maintain fixed prices for more than a few staple articles, by means +of bureaucratic control from without, it follows that any general +fixation of prices is impossible apart from the co-operation of each +trade as a whole. When membership of a trade organization is confined to +employers it exhibits the vices of a trust. But when it includes every +worker by hand or brain, it will display the virtues of a Guild. For +honesty and fair dealing will always find the support of the majority. + +But how may this necessity be translated into the terms of practical +politics? The success that has followed the organization of Building +Guilds in different parts of the country might appear to suggest that +the future is to be found by working upon such lines. But it is manifest +that there is a limit to such a policy of encroaching control. The +organization of Building Guilds was possible because of circumstances +peculiar to the building trade, i.e. the housing shortage which provided +the immediate opportunity; Labour controlled municipal councils that +were in a position to give them work; and the fact that in the building +trades the element of fixed capital, so important in other large +industries, is unimportant in comparison with the charges connected with +each particular job,---materials and labour entailing almost the whole +costs of the building industry. These circumstances made the application +of the principle of industrial self-government a fairly simple +proposition. But it obviously could not be applied to other large +industries where immense fixed capital is required, and where the market +is not so easily localized. + +Considerations of this kind lead me to the conclusion that the Guilds +will arrive some other way. Recent developments lead me to suppose that +if the change will not be catastrophic it will at any rate be dramatic, +inasmuch as it is possible that their organization may be encouraged to +stabilize the exchanges. The demand of Labour that the Government should +step in and organize trade by barter with other nations, in order to +break down the barriers set up by the fluctuations of exchange, is +evidence that thought is moving in some such direction, for such a +departure would necessitate the organization of Guilds, as the only way +of avoiding the evils consequent upon the creation of enormous +Government departments to carry through the work. Moreover, except on a +Guild basis it will be impossible to guard against abuses. For if trade +were organized on a basis of national barter it would be necessary in +order to adjust shares of the industries engaged to put some price on +the outgoing and incoming goods. If this were left in the hands of +Government officials it would become as scandalous as the munition +contracts were during the war, for the Government would have to deal +with a crowd of profiteers who would think of nothing except how to +secure advantages for themselves, and the public outcry and +dissatisfaction would be as great as against the profiteers during the +war. For this problem there is but one solution, and that is for each +trade to be organized on a basis of self-government in order that prices +may be fixed and standards of conduct enforced or in other words by the +organization of Guilds. Precedent for such development is to be found in +the later days of the Roman Empire when the Government, having assumed +responsibility for the provision of an adequate food supply, began to +delegate functions to organized groups of workers. Our knowledge of what +happened in this way is very scanty, but there is sufficient evidence to +believe that a time came when efforts were made to balance the +centralizing bureaucratic tendency by decentralization as much as +possible, and that group organization on something resembling a Guild +basis came into existence. + +Development upon such lines appears to me to be the probable thing. But. +meanwhile our manufacturers, who have taken fright at the prospect of +being undersold in the home markets, are pressing the Government to +bring in an Anti-Dumping Bill as it is called by those who are opposed +to it, or "The Safeguarding of our Industries Bill," as it is called in +Government circles. The demand is evidently the result of panic, since +as far as I can ascertain the fear of dumping is largely unsupported by +facts. The Continent is not in a position to export goods in vast +quantities. On the contrary the depreciation of the exchange that has +scared our manufacturers is itself evidence that the Continent is +importing more than it is exporting,and the only remedy is for the +Continent to produce more. But if we refuse to take their goods it is +evident that their exports will cease and therefore our exports to them. + +It is to be observed that when things go wrong and people are at a loss +to understand the cause, they invariably seek salvation in the adoption +of a reversal of policy, whether it has anything to do with the facts or +not. Thus because it has so happened that since the war things have not +automatically adjusted themselves by Free Trade, they imagine a remedy +is to be found in Protection. But what reason is there to think that +this proposed remedy would not be worse than the disease? The +application of the principle of Free Trade in the past regardless of +circumstances may be regrettable. But is a general tariff imposed still +more regardless of circumstances likely to produce better results? Free +Trade may not contain all the truth some of its advocates claim. But it +does contain some truth that is valuable in a period of transition like +the present when exchanges have to be built up again. + +The true alternative to Free Trade is not Protection, but a system of +fixed prices under Guild regulation. To the capitalist demand for +Protection the workers should reply that as it is undesirable for the +State to grant privileges except to those who are willing to accept +corresponding responsibilities, the only terms on which they may ask for +Protection is that they are willing to submit to Guild regulation; which +means that they must agree to sell their goods, in the home market at +any rate, at Fixed and Just Prices, and that they give the workers a +status in their respective industries. If such conditions were accepted, +the issue between Free Trade and Protection disappears, and here I would +observe that the function of a Guild is not to organize industry but to +regulate it in the same way that professional societies to-day enforce a +discipline among their members. All other issues, such as whether the +members of the Guild should be organized in self-governing workshops, or +whether they should have small workshops of their own as happened in the +Middle Ages, are secondary. They are matters of opinion, preference or +experience. But they are not germane to the idea of a Guild as an +organization enforcing a certain standard of conduct and efficiency over +a whole trade. My own opinion is that under the control of the Guilds, +different forms of workshop organization would exist. Men of gregarious +instincts would prefer the self-governing workshop, while men of a +masterful or solitary disposition would prefer to work alone. But they +would all have to abide by the Guild regulations, or suffer expulsion. +However, these things' are largely a matter of opinion. If the Guilds +are to arrive dramatically it is manifest that they will have to adapt +themselves to the circumstances that exist. If we can secure a return to +the principles of honesty and fair dealing, that is all we can expect at +the beginning. The rest will follow in due course. + +Once the guildization of industry takes place in one country, the +example will speedily be followed by others. For the problem is +international. All the nations of the earth are having to face the same +problem and learn the same lesson at the same time. All are engaged +together in the bitter but salutary process of discovering their +souls---some as victors, the others as vanquished. They are all getting +heartily sick of the economic struggle; while the rich who hitherto have +obstructed the path of reform are nowadays on the defensive. We may be +assured therefore that whatever vision is coming to ourselves as a +result of the breakdown of our civilization, similar visions are coming +to others; and may it not be that beneath the class hatreds, beneath the +oppositions of the hour, a profound principle of unity is at work, and +that our late enemies may, when at last some ray of light breaks, rise +simultaneously with ourselves to substitute international co-operation +for international strife and competition? With fixed prices throughout +industry, economic competition would automatically come to an end, and +with it cross distribution would tend to disappear; for no one would be +tempted to buy goods at a distance for some temporary advantage of gain. +The qualitative ideal of production would tend to replace the +quantitative one, for as the reinvestment of surplus wealth would no +longer be possible it would no longer go to provide more machinery for +more cut-throat competition, but would tend to be spent on the arts, +upon building, education, and the other amenities of civilization. +Pleasure would be restored to work. + +It will have been noticed that I have discussed the coming of the new +social order in the terms of Guilds and currency rather than in the +terms of property, as customary in Socialist circles. The reason for +this is that I am persuaded that to begin with property is to tackle the +problem at the wrong end, and the difficulty experienced in translating +the labour programme into action is due finally to that fact. At every +step in the reconstruction of society it will be necessary to interfere +with property, yet all the same the centre of gravity of the economic +problem is to be found in currency rather than property; for currency is +the vital thing, the thing of movement, it is the active principle in +economic development, while property is the passive. It is true that +profits that are made by the manipulation of currency sooner or later +assume the form of property, but the root mischief is not to be found in +property but in unregulated currency. To solve the problem of currency +by the institution of the Just Price under a system of Guilds, is to +bring order into the economic problem at its active centre. Having +solved the problem at its centre, it will be a comparatively easy matter +to deal with property, which lies at the circumference. Property owners +would be able to offer no more effective resistance to change than +hitherto landlordism has been able to offer to the growth of capitalism. +By such means the reconstruction of society would proceed upon orderly +lines. All it would be necessary to do would be to exert a steady and +constant pressure over a decade or so, and society would be transformed +completely. But to begin with property is to get things out of their +natural order, for it is to proceed from the circumference to the +centre, which is contrary to the law of growth. It is to precipitate +economic confusion by dragging up society by its roots; and this defeats +the ends of revolution by strengthening the hands of the profiteer; for +the profiteer thrives on economic confusion. Of what use is it to seek +to effect a redistribution of wealth before the profiteer has been got +under control? since so long as men are at liberty to manipulate +exchange, they will manage somehow to get the wealth of the community +into their hands. Thus, we see that the solution of the social problem, +as indeed of every other problem in this universe, resolves itself +finally into one of order. Take issues in their natural order and +everything will straighten itself out beautifully. All the minor details +or secondary parts will fall into their proper places. But approach +these same issues in a wrong order and confusion results. No subsequent +adjustments can remedy the initial error. This principle is universally +true. It is as true of writing a book or of designing a building, as of +conducting a revolution. The secret of success in each case will be +found finally to rest upon the perception of the order in which the +various issues should be taken. # Agriculture and Emigration -The corollary of the substitution for international -competition of international co-operation is the revival of -agriculture, for it implies a return to the idea of -communities that are as self-contained as circumstances will -allow; and such communities inevitably rest upon +The corollary of the substitution for international competition of +international co-operation is the revival of agriculture, for it implies +a return to the idea of communities that are as self-contained as +circumstances will allow; and such communities inevitably rest upon agriculture. -In an earlier chapter I showed that the revival of -agriculture was necessary alike to the solution of our -unemployed problem and to provide us with food now that the -days of our industrial supremacy are numbered. But it is -necessary also for another reason: to ensure a healthy -population. It came as a surprise to most people in this -country that recruiting statistics revealed the fact that we -had a larger percentage of physical inefficients than any -other country at war. But it is not surprising, remembering -that no other country in the world has such a large -proportion of her population living in crowded towns nor -been industrialized for anything like the same length of -time. These statistics prove that a town population -gradually loses its vitality. In the past this vitality was -every generation renewed by a stream of population from the -country. In this light a peasantry on the soil is to be -regarded as a reservoir from which the towns replenish their -stock, and therefore agriculture stands on a different basis -to that of any other industry, and its welfare should be -protected at all costs. From a mercantile point of view it -matters little whether the population be engaged in the -production of food or motor-cars. But from a national point -of view there is all the difference in the world, since the -production of food guarantees a nation's future while the -production of motor-cars does not. Yet when we remember how -big business dominates national policy we cannot be -surprised that, being, as we saw, heedless of its own future -it should be equally heedless of that of the nation. If, -therefore, one aspect of the return to fundamentals is a -return to the principles of justice, honesty and fair -dealing, the other aspect is a return to the land; to a life -lived in closer contact with the elemental forces of nature. - -When one thinks of the revival of agriculture, or the -colonization of England as some would prefer to call it, the -first obstacle one feels to be in its path is the great -discrepancy between the earnings of the town and of the -country workers. The first step towards reform therefore -demands that the wages of agricultural workers be raised. -The recently formed unions of agricultural workers are doing -invaluable work in this direction. But they are meeting and -will continue to meet with the resistance of the farmers to -their demands, and it is doubtful whether the farm labourers -will ever be in a sufficiently strong position to force the -hands of the farmers very much. For there is only one time -in the year when they could strike with advantage to -themselves, and that is at harvest time. Even then their -success would be doubtful. The resistance of the farmers to -such demands we are apt to ascribe to a grasping nature. But -I doubt whether it can entirely be attributed to that. The -uncertainties of farming due to natural causes are increased -tenfold by the effects of speculation, and the returns of -one harvest may be swept away by the manipulation of prices -in distant financial centres. So the farmer's one idea is to -build up a reserve against a possible change of fortune, and -this constant preoccupation tends to develop in time a mean -and grasping disposition.But the difficulty could be got -over by a changed attitude towards questions relating to -agriculture. Prices must continue to be guaranteed by the -Government, and there must be no question of a return to the -old system of competitive prices, as there would be no -question if the implications were understood. In -consideration for such guaranteed prices, the farmers should -agree to raise the wages of their labourers. - -At first sight this suggestion seems to be rather Utopian; -and no doubt it will so remain as long as the Coalition -remains in power. But would it be different if a Labour -Government held the reins? I am not sure. For while the -Coalition would doubtless refuse to act in this way out of -fear of Labour becoming too powerful, a Labour Government -might find difficulties owing to jealousies in the ranks of -Labour. The Labour Party is responsible to its own -supporters, and as it consists mainly of town workers it is -possible that it would object to such action on the grounds -that it was creating a privileged class of workers. This is -not entirely a matter of imagination. The Building Guilds -have found themselves up against this kind of thing. -Propagandists on their behalf have found opposition to them -from other classes of workers who fear that the workers in -the building trade may become a privileged class. This is -one of the weaknesses of the Socialist appeal. For whereas -the doctrine of Socialism is espoused by many (I hope the -majority) from altruistic motives, it has nevertheless -secured the support of large bodies of workers by its appeal -to their immediate self-interest; and self-interest is apt -to be short-sighted. In this case it has led the workers to -demand an impossibility---that any advantages that accrue to +In an earlier chapter I showed that the revival of agriculture was +necessary alike to the solution of our unemployed problem and to provide +us with food now that the days of our industrial supremacy are numbered. +But it is necessary also for another reason: to ensure a healthy +population. It came as a surprise to most people in this country that +recruiting statistics revealed the fact that we had a larger percentage +of physical inefficients than any other country at war. But it is not +surprising, remembering that no other country in the world has such a +large proportion of her population living in crowded towns nor been +industrialized for anything like the same length of time. These +statistics prove that a town population gradually loses its vitality. In +the past this vitality was every generation renewed by a stream of +population from the country. In this light a peasantry on the soil is to +be regarded as a reservoir from which the towns replenish their stock, +and therefore agriculture stands on a different basis to that of any +other industry, and its welfare should be protected at all costs. From a +mercantile point of view it matters little whether the population be +engaged in the production of food or motor-cars. But from a national +point of view there is all the difference in the world, since the +production of food guarantees a nation's future while the production of +motor-cars does not. Yet when we remember how big business dominates +national policy we cannot be surprised that, being, as we saw, heedless +of its own future it should be equally heedless of that of the nation. +If, therefore, one aspect of the return to fundamentals is a return to +the principles of justice, honesty and fair dealing, the other aspect is +a return to the land; to a life lived in closer contact with the +elemental forces of nature. + +When one thinks of the revival of agriculture, or the colonization of +England as some would prefer to call it, the first obstacle one feels to +be in its path is the great discrepancy between the earnings of the town +and of the country workers. The first step towards reform therefore +demands that the wages of agricultural workers be raised. The recently +formed unions of agricultural workers are doing invaluable work in this +direction. But they are meeting and will continue to meet with the +resistance of the farmers to their demands, and it is doubtful whether +the farm labourers will ever be in a sufficiently strong position to +force the hands of the farmers very much. For there is only one time in +the year when they could strike with advantage to themselves, and that +is at harvest time. Even then their success would be doubtful. The +resistance of the farmers to such demands we are apt to ascribe to a +grasping nature. But I doubt whether it can entirely be attributed to +that. The uncertainties of farming due to natural causes are increased +tenfold by the effects of speculation, and the returns of one harvest +may be swept away by the manipulation of prices in distant financial +centres. So the farmer's one idea is to build up a reserve against a +possible change of fortune, and this constant preoccupation tends to +develop in time a mean and grasping disposition.But the difficulty could +be got over by a changed attitude towards questions relating to +agriculture. Prices must continue to be guaranteed by the Government, +and there must be no question of a return to the old system of +competitive prices, as there would be no question if the implications +were understood. In consideration for such guaranteed prices, the +farmers should agree to raise the wages of their labourers. + +At first sight this suggestion seems to be rather Utopian; and no doubt +it will so remain as long as the Coalition remains in power. But would +it be different if a Labour Government held the reins? I am not sure. +For while the Coalition would doubtless refuse to act in this way out of +fear of Labour becoming too powerful, a Labour Government might find +difficulties owing to jealousies in the ranks of Labour. The Labour +Party is responsible to its own supporters, and as it consists mainly of +town workers it is possible that it would object to such action on the +grounds that it was creating a privileged class of workers. This is not +entirely a matter of imagination. The Building Guilds have found +themselves up against this kind of thing. Propagandists on their behalf +have found opposition to them from other classes of workers who fear +that the workers in the building trade may become a privileged class. +This is one of the weaknesses of the Socialist appeal. For whereas the +doctrine of Socialism is espoused by many (I hope the majority) from +altruistic motives, it has nevertheless secured the support of large +bodies of workers by its appeal to their immediate self-interest; and +self-interest is apt to be short-sighted. In this case it has led the +workers to demand an impossibility---that any advantages that accrue to Labour shall accrue to all at one and the same time. -Perhaps the most practical way of meeting this difficulty is -to get into the minds of the workers some idea of the -structure of society, and the need of drastic -reconstruction. Very few of them to-day have any idea that -society needs to be reconstructed. They are of course -familiar with the word, but not, I fear, with the idea. The -evils of society, they have been told, are incident to -capitalism, and they imagine that once a Labour Government -is returned to power capitalism will be abolished and we -shall live happily ever afterwards. Beyond that they do not -go. They have no idea that society is crumbling to pieces, -and needs to be rebuilt in the same way that a house that is -falling down will need to be rebuilt, and that in rebuilding -society it is no more possible for the benefits that are to -be conferred upon Labour to be conferred simultaneously upon -all, than it is possible in building a house for all the -bricks to be laid at one and the same time. Nor can they -have any idea until differentiation is made between primary -and secondary production, and they come to realize that in -any rebuilding of society it is necessary to deal with -primary activities before it is possible to deal with -secondary ones. - -The idea needs to be popularized that agriculture is -fundamental; that it forms the base of the pyramid of -production; and that as it has been allowed to decline in -this country the reconstruction of agriculture must take -precedence over all other industries. The revival of -agriculture is immediately important, because it would -absorb so many of our unemployed; a thing that is so obvious -that one wonders how it is that in the present crisis the -two are never connected by our leaders. But the case is even -stronger still in the long run, since, if we neglect to -revive agriculture, it is a certainty that in a few years' -time we shall be left without food; for, as I have already -pointed out, the countries that supplied us with food are -taking to manufactures, so they will not require our goods. -Therefore, as we shall have nothing to give them in exchange -for food, we must take to growing our own. - -But there are deeper reasons than these of mere expediency -why agriculture should be revived. If the economic problem -is to be handled successfully we must be as self-supporting -as possible. It is simply impossible to initiate drastic -reform so long as our industries are dependent upon foreign -markets, for in this case the factors governing the problem -are outside of our control. The modification of a tariff or -a war, the discovery of some new raw material or some other -such event in some remote corner of the globe, dislocates -the labour of those at home, while all the time our fortunes -remain in the hands of capitalist adventurers. Under a -system of international markets the workers become parasitic -upon the capitalist, because he alone can find outlets for -goods. Indeed, so long as industry is dependent upon foreign -markets, production will be very much of a gamble. It will -depend upon speculation, and this is incompatible with the -reconstruction of society. But if agriculture were revived, -a large home market would become available. If the -agricultural worker were paid as he should be paid, it would -react to the benefit of the town workers by relieving the -pressure of competition in the towns. We should soon find -that a prosperous peasantry was our greatest economic asset. -The raising of the wages of the agricultural workers would, -moreover by putting the labourers on their feet again, pave -the way for the organization of Agricultural Guilds. Such -Guilds would regulate prices, be centres of mutual aid, buy -and sell and do the other work undertaken by agricultural -organization societies. They should, moreover, administer -the land; and in this connection I would suggest that the -land should be owned as well as administered by the local -Guilds. This suggestion is offered as an alternative to -nationalization, in order to avoid the evils of bureaucracy. +Perhaps the most practical way of meeting this difficulty is to get into +the minds of the workers some idea of the structure of society, and the +need of drastic reconstruction. Very few of them to-day have any idea +that society needs to be reconstructed. They are of course familiar with +the word, but not, I fear, with the idea. The evils of society, they +have been told, are incident to capitalism, and they imagine that once a +Labour Government is returned to power capitalism will be abolished and +we shall live happily ever afterwards. Beyond that they do not go. They +have no idea that society is crumbling to pieces, and needs to be +rebuilt in the same way that a house that is falling down will need to +be rebuilt, and that in rebuilding society it is no more possible for +the benefits that are to be conferred upon Labour to be conferred +simultaneously upon all, than it is possible in building a house for all +the bricks to be laid at one and the same time. Nor can they have any +idea until differentiation is made between primary and secondary +production, and they come to realize that in any rebuilding of society +it is necessary to deal with primary activities before it is possible to +deal with secondary ones. + +The idea needs to be popularized that agriculture is fundamental; that +it forms the base of the pyramid of production; and that as it has been +allowed to decline in this country the reconstruction of agriculture +must take precedence over all other industries. The revival of +agriculture is immediately important, because it would absorb so many of +our unemployed; a thing that is so obvious that one wonders how it is +that in the present crisis the two are never connected by our leaders. +But the case is even stronger still in the long run, since, if we +neglect to revive agriculture, it is a certainty that in a few years' +time we shall be left without food; for, as I have already pointed out, +the countries that supplied us with food are taking to manufactures, so +they will not require our goods. Therefore, as we shall have nothing to +give them in exchange for food, we must take to growing our own. + +But there are deeper reasons than these of mere expediency why +agriculture should be revived. If the economic problem is to be handled +successfully we must be as self-supporting as possible. It is simply +impossible to initiate drastic reform so long as our industries are +dependent upon foreign markets, for in this case the factors governing +the problem are outside of our control. The modification of a tariff or +a war, the discovery of some new raw material or some other such event +in some remote corner of the globe, dislocates the labour of those at +home, while all the time our fortunes remain in the hands of capitalist +adventurers. Under a system of international markets the workers become +parasitic upon the capitalist, because he alone can find outlets for +goods. Indeed, so long as industry is dependent upon foreign markets, +production will be very much of a gamble. It will depend upon +speculation, and this is incompatible with the reconstruction of +society. But if agriculture were revived, a large home market would +become available. If the agricultural worker were paid as he should be +paid, it would react to the benefit of the town workers by relieving the +pressure of competition in the towns. We should soon find that a +prosperous peasantry was our greatest economic asset. The raising of the +wages of the agricultural workers would, moreover by putting the +labourers on their feet again, pave the way for the organization of +Agricultural Guilds. Such Guilds would regulate prices, be centres of +mutual aid, buy and sell and do the other work undertaken by +agricultural organization societies. They should, moreover, administer +the land; and in this connection I would suggest that the land should be +owned as well as administered by the local Guilds. This suggestion is +offered as an alternative to nationalization, in order to avoid the +evils of bureaucracy. The Agricultural Guilds would be mixed or undifferentiated -organizations. They might be likened to the Guilds Merchants -of the Middle Ages to the extent that the village -carpenters, smiths and other isolated workers would be -included in them, and also that the functions of the parish -councils would be merged in them in the same way that the -Guilds merchant and municipalities were identical; or they -might be likened to the village communes of pre-feudal days, -differing from them to the extent that whereas the village -communes exchanged by barter, these Agriculture Guilds would -regulate currency by means of fixed prices. It may also be -assumed that the strip system would not be reverted to. As -to whether land is best cultivated on large or small -holdings I am not prepared to dogmatize, as opinion of those -with practical experience is so divided. But, after all, it -is a secondary matter, and one that may well be left for the -Guilds themselves to decide. It would be an important issue -if our ideal were one of peasant proprietors, but not if the -country is to be colonized by groups of workers organized -into Guilds. - -Colonization by groups is also the key to the problem of -emigration. What is so distasteful to most people in -connection with emigration to-day is the isolated feeling of -the man who emigrates alone; for not only is he separated -from his friends, but he is left entirely to his own -initiative; and town-bred people naturally hesitate from -venturing upon a career so full of hazards. Such men when -they do emigrate rarely settle down in the land of their -adoption. They cherish the hope of making a pile and -returning home. It is this spirit that has corrupted -colonial life, and has brought into existence in our -colonies in less than a century social problems as bad if -not worse than ours which have taken centuries to develop. -This was not the case with the early emigrants who settled -in America and elsewhere. They founded societies which were -comparatively stable; and not the least of the things that -enabled them to found such societies was that some of the -old Mediaeval communal spirit survived among them; and so -they emigrated in groups, a custom that has survived among -Italians and Eastern Europeans to this day. And this fact -makes all the difference. For when men and women emigrate in -groups they are held together by personal and human ties, -and can render each other mutual aid and support. In -consequence they settle down in a way that emigrants who go -individually never do. We were successful in the past as a -colonizing power because this communal spirit obtained; -colonization has become impossible with us now because of -the individualism that is rampant. For this individualism -has built up trusts and syndicates and other monopolies that -suck the life-blood out of the emigrant +organizations. They might be likened to the Guilds Merchants of the +Middle Ages to the extent that the village carpenters, smiths and other +isolated workers would be included in them, and also that the functions +of the parish councils would be merged in them in the same way that the +Guilds merchant and municipalities were identical; or they might be +likened to the village communes of pre-feudal days, differing from them +to the extent that whereas the village communes exchanged by barter, +these Agriculture Guilds would regulate currency by means of fixed +prices. It may also be assumed that the strip system would not be +reverted to. As to whether land is best cultivated on large or small +holdings I am not prepared to dogmatize, as opinion of those with +practical experience is so divided. But, after all, it is a secondary +matter, and one that may well be left for the Guilds themselves to +decide. It would be an important issue if our ideal were one of peasant +proprietors, but not if the country is to be colonized by groups of +workers organized into Guilds. + +Colonization by groups is also the key to the problem of emigration. +What is so distasteful to most people in connection with emigration +to-day is the isolated feeling of the man who emigrates alone; for not +only is he separated from his friends, but he is left entirely to his +own initiative; and town-bred people naturally hesitate from venturing +upon a career so full of hazards. Such men when they do emigrate rarely +settle down in the land of their adoption. They cherish the hope of +making a pile and returning home. It is this spirit that has corrupted +colonial life, and has brought into existence in our colonies in less +than a century social problems as bad if not worse than ours which have +taken centuries to develop. This was not the case with the early +emigrants who settled in America and elsewhere. They founded societies +which were comparatively stable; and not the least of the things that +enabled them to found such societies was that some of the old Mediaeval +communal spirit survived among them; and so they emigrated in groups, a +custom that has survived among Italians and Eastern Europeans to this +day. And this fact makes all the difference. For when men and women +emigrate in groups they are held together by personal and human ties, +and can render each other mutual aid and support. In consequence they +settle down in a way that emigrants who go individually never do. We +were successful in the past as a colonizing power because this communal +spirit obtained; colonization has become impossible with us now because +of the individualism that is rampant. For this individualism has built +up trusts and syndicates and other monopolies that suck the life-blood +out of the emigrant # Machinery and Unemployment -The revival of agriculture raises the question of the -employment of machinery, and this in turn raises so many -other questions that it is necessary to pause and consider -them. - -At the moment, I am not concerned to discuss whether, -considered in the abstract, machinery is or is not a -desirable thing, since making no claims to be anything more -than a means to an end, it can be demonstrated to be either -good or bad, according to the philosophy we hold. It is -hopeless, therefore, to attempt to secure acceptance of any -conclusion regarding its ultimate use until some unanimity -of opinion is first established in the realms of philosophy -and belief. But meanwhile we are confronted with a very -practical question about which we must make up our minds: -What is to be our primary aim in reviving agriculture? Is it -to provide us with food, or to find work for the unemployed, -or what? The question is a pertinent one, because the -defence of unregulated machinery has hitherto rested on the -belief that in the long run it would emancipate mankind from -the curse of Adam by reducing labour to a minimum and thus -set us free to pursue the higher ends of life. As to whether -most of those who may claim to have been so liberated show -any disposition to follow higher pursuits, I do not for the -moment inquire, though the "Gentleman with a Duster" has a -different tale to tell. But it may be observed that nowadays -when this prophecy that machinery is destined to liberate -mankind from the necessity of toil shows some signs of being -fulfilled, when for the moment we have produced enough and -to spare, we are panic-stricken at the army of unemployed in -our streets and worry ourselves to death to find them some -work to do. The situation reminds us of an ancient Hindu -story of a man who went to a great yogi for a formula to -raise the devil. The yogi was quite willing to oblige him, -but warned him before doing so that once the devil was -raised up he must be kept in employment or he would turn and -devour him. The man, however, was not to be intimidated, so -he took the formula and raised the devil by his -incantations; he had plenty of work, and managed for a long -time to keep the devil fully occupied. But a time came when -work began to run out, and he lived in terror of his -destruction at the hands of the unemployed monster. In -desperation he went back to the yogi to seek advice. "Well," -said the yogi, "I told you what to expect. But do not -despair. Take this dog to your devil and ask him to -straighten its tail. That will keep him busy for ever." Even -so is it with our industrial system, not leisure but terror -is at the end of its story. We must find it work to do, and -the only work we can find is about as utilitarian as -straightening the dog's tail. - -Now the reason why we act in such illogical, contradictory -ways towards machinery is because in proportion as it tends -to become automatic it raises questions which nobody can -answer. If machinery is to reduce labour to a minimum, then -it follows that some other method of payment must be -instituted from the one customary to-day. For payment to-day -is for work done, and that is no use if work is to be -abolished. The necessity of making some such fundamental -change is at the back of the minds of some of those who -devise credit schemes and advocate consumer's credits which -are to be distributed independent of work done. None of -these schemes will bear looking into. But they do face up to -a difficulty that the modern world prefers to ignore: how -people are to be paid in the machine society. Perhaps an -effort to find a solution of this problem is the clue to -Marx, and is what he was really after when he advocated the -abolition of the wage system. Anyway, he makes his whole -theory of social evolution dependent upon the development of -machinery. He saw clearly that the machine era would end in -the dilemma that faces us to-day, inasmuch as the end of -machine production was to be the creation of an unemployed -problem that could not be solved by the time-honoured -methods. The solution he proposed was of the nature of a -leap in the dark. The unemployed were to rise, take -possession of the means of production and exchange, and at -the end of it was his structureless Communist state. That -was as far as he saw. His thinking came to an end at the -point where the real difficulties begin, and viewing the -problem to-day at closer quarters it is not quite as simple -as it appeared to Marx. We can see the unemployed problem -but not the Communist state arising out of it, though we do -see the possibility of revolution. - -For my own part, I do not believe that there is a solution -of this problem on modernist lines. It seems to me that the -tradition of payment for work done is so deep-rooted that -men will continue to think and act in such terms in spite of -the fact that this tradition is challenged by the use of -machinery. The difficulty is to think in any other terms, -and I feel it to be a part of wisdom to accept the present -method of distributing purchasing power by means of payment -for work done as irrevocable, whatever the implications may -be. For of the choices before us, either the abolition of -such a means of distributing purchasing power or limiting -the use of machinery, the latter seems to me simplicity -itself compared with the former, for I can think in the -terms of the latter but not of the former, and neither, -apparently, can any one else. Those who try go mad. - -Assuming, then, that the present method of distributing -purchasing power is to persist, it follows that our aim -should be to regulate machinery in such a way as not to -dislocate our method of payment for work done, and in this -connection it is to be observed that the opportunity for -reducing such a principle to practice presents itself in -connection with the revival of agriculture. For agriculture -is fundamental, and we could build on its base a new society -that would gradually replace our present one. In this sense -we get a new start, and it is up to us to make up our minds -now. The question arises in connection with the use of -agricultural machinery. To what extent is it to be used? -During the war it was everywhere encouraged because it was a -matter of urgency to produce food. But if agriculture is to -be revived now it will have the further object of providing -work for the unemployed. Let us therefore face the fact that -the more machinery we employ the less work there will be for -the unemployed. Hence, if our primary aim be to provide work -for the unemployed, the less machinery we use the better. On -the contrary, if we decide that it is foolishness not to use -machinery, let us be clear what we are going to do with the -unemployed. To my way of thinking, there is only one sane -thing to do if machinery is to be used, and that is to -employ the same number of men as would be required if no -machinery were used, and to reduce the number of hours -worked as more machinery is used. For I insist that in all -such questions consideration of the human factor should come -first. I believe the ultimate cause of our confusion is to -be found in the fact that it is our custom to put it last, -and to assume that the right thing to do is to put other -considerations---financial or mechanical---first, leaving -the human factor to take care of itself as best it can. Let -us hope that the magnitude of the present unemployed problem -which refuses to solve itself will be the precursor of -better things by forcing upon us the necessity of giving -human considerations the first place. - -One of the advantages of the solution I suggest is that -while machinery would be used, we should not be at its -mercy, for the economic system would be independent of it. -Supposing, for instance, a day came when owing to the -shortage of petrol the use of tractors had to be abandoned, -the economic system would not break down, for it would be -constructed with a margin of safety. All it would mean would -be that those employed upon the land would have to work -longer hours. If machinery were employed in this way it -would do the things it professes to do. It would reduce -drudgery, and it would give more leisure, and it is possible -that craft developments might follow, for there is no reason -why home crafts should not be joined up to the pursuit of -agriculture in the future as in the past, when the long -winter evenings were employed in this way. Any additional -leisure that the use of machinery would give might be so -employed, though as a man's living would be secured by his -agricultural earnings, it would be optional. The objection -to the use of machinery would fall to the ground if its -actual use corresponded to its theoretical justification. -But what hitherto has made all discussion on the subject so -hopeless, is that while in practice machinery is used for -one purpose, it is theoretically justified for another, -while belief in its benevolence was so confident and -absolute that it seemed to matter little to people what -motive prompted its use so long as it was used. We must -break with this sloppy-minded attitude towards machinery, -and learn to reason about it as we reason about other -things, for it is a certainty we shall never be able to -control it until we think intelligently about it. - -But there are other and more fundamental questions connected -with the use of machinery that must not be lost sight of. -One of these is the exhaustion of natural resources which -follows its unregulated use. Mention has been made of the -petrol shortage. It is estimated that the supply in America -will only last another twenty-five years. We are engaged in -a war in Mesopotamia to secure another source of supply. -America has designs upon Mexico for the same object. Borings -are being made to discover a source of supply in this -country; no doubt there are others. But some day or other -there will be no more, and it is sheer folly, to say the -least, to commit ourselves to methods of production and -transport that depend upon supplies that are limited. For -under such circumstances our position will become desperate -as natural resources tend to become exhausted. To reduce the -position to its lowest denomination in the terms of cash, -the cost of the wars in which we shall be involved in order -to get possession of new sources of supply ought to be -counted against any savings that are made in other -directions, and what is true of petrol is true of other -materials. Industrial production uses up all materials at -such an alarming rate that some day we shall be left hard -and dry if the matter is not taken in hand. It would be well -for us to be forewarned in time, and now that the -opportunity of a fresh start presents itself, some reason -should be brought to bear on the question. If we lay it down -as a maxim that the first principle of a normal civilization -is that it should be as self-contained as possible, the -second is that it should in no sense be living upon capital, -but should arrange its production in such a way that it -should largely reproduce itself. This is not entirely -possible, for we must make use of mineral wealth to some -extent. But wisdom suggests that our resources should be -conserved and not wasted in the reckless, spend-thrift way -we are accustomed to do. Our newspapers are full of -indignation against the waste by Government Departments, but -scarcely a word is ever said of the thousand times more -serious waste of natural resources, though one would have -thought that the paper shortage should have made them think. - -The modern problem is so elusive that it is generally -difficult to prove a certain tendency to be evil or -dangerous. We may, however, test the truth of many -tendencies by their bearing upon agriculture, and here it is -to be observed that the tendency of all modern developments -is to rob agriculture of its manures. Human and animal -manures are natural fertilizers. In this respect hitherto -there existed a reciprocal relationship between man and -nature. Food consumed was returned to the earth as manures. -But when the water-carriage system of sewage came along with -its superior convenience, which is undeniable, this chain of -reciprocity was broken, and resource was had to chemical -manures, and the guano deposits of South America. Attention -was called to this problem twenty-five years ago by -Dr. Vivien Poore, who wrote a book on the subject, *Rural -Hygiene*, the object of which was to prevent the spread of -the water-carriage system of sewage into rural areas. He -showed how the water-carriage of sewage produced the typhoid -fever germ; that our sanitary measures were designed to -protect ourselves against this germ; how introduced into -rural areas it poisoned water supplies and necessitated -enormous expenditure on schemes to get water from distant -and unpolluted sources; that the manurial value of the human -excrement was destroyed by water-carriage, and that chemical -manures were no substitute for the natural organic manures. -But the warning was ignored, the water-carriage system was -convenient, and the manufacture of sanitary goods was a -vested interest, and so nothing was done. One more problem -was added for posterity to solve. Since the development of -motor transport the problem is aggravated, for it robs -agriculture of horse manures. When mention is made of these -things, the reply we get is, that in the future it will be -possible to extract the nitrogen from the air. Whether or -not this is a really practical proposition, or whether the -nitrogen will remain eternally in the air I do not know, but -it illustrates the thoughtless way in which we are content -to go on. We study only our immediate convenience, create -enormous problems, and trust to sheer chance to getting out -of them. The many and wonderful discoveries of science have -apparently reacted to create this spirit. It prevents us -from exercising any forethought in respect to things of a -fundamental nature by confirming us in the belief that -something is bound to turn up. Our national life is lived -after the manner of a spendthrift who is prepared to -squander one fortune on the chance of another being left to -him. - -Again, this thoughtlessness is encouraged by the complexity -and pace of modern life---a consequence of the -misapplication of machinery---which militates against -reflection and clear thinking of all kinds. Nowadays there -is no time for anything, the complexity of our society -bewilders people. No one can deny these things, yet if it is -true that the development of speed and complexity beyond a -certain point is evil, then we have a clear case for the -regulation of machinery. But here we run up against the -prejudices of the thoughtful just as much as the +The revival of agriculture raises the question of the employment of +machinery, and this in turn raises so many other questions that it is +necessary to pause and consider them. + +At the moment, I am not concerned to discuss whether, considered in the +abstract, machinery is or is not a desirable thing, since making no +claims to be anything more than a means to an end, it can be +demonstrated to be either good or bad, according to the philosophy we +hold. It is hopeless, therefore, to attempt to secure acceptance of any +conclusion regarding its ultimate use until some unanimity of opinion is +first established in the realms of philosophy and belief. But meanwhile +we are confronted with a very practical question about which we must +make up our minds: What is to be our primary aim in reviving +agriculture? Is it to provide us with food, or to find work for the +unemployed, or what? The question is a pertinent one, because the +defence of unregulated machinery has hitherto rested on the belief that +in the long run it would emancipate mankind from the curse of Adam by +reducing labour to a minimum and thus set us free to pursue the higher +ends of life. As to whether most of those who may claim to have been so +liberated show any disposition to follow higher pursuits, I do not for +the moment inquire, though the "Gentleman with a Duster" has a different +tale to tell. But it may be observed that nowadays when this prophecy +that machinery is destined to liberate mankind from the necessity of +toil shows some signs of being fulfilled, when for the moment we have +produced enough and to spare, we are panic-stricken at the army of +unemployed in our streets and worry ourselves to death to find them some +work to do. The situation reminds us of an ancient Hindu story of a man +who went to a great yogi for a formula to raise the devil. The yogi was +quite willing to oblige him, but warned him before doing so that once +the devil was raised up he must be kept in employment or he would turn +and devour him. The man, however, was not to be intimidated, so he took +the formula and raised the devil by his incantations; he had plenty of +work, and managed for a long time to keep the devil fully occupied. But +a time came when work began to run out, and he lived in terror of his +destruction at the hands of the unemployed monster. In desperation he +went back to the yogi to seek advice. "Well," said the yogi, "I told you +what to expect. But do not despair. Take this dog to your devil and ask +him to straighten its tail. That will keep him busy for ever." Even so +is it with our industrial system, not leisure but terror is at the end +of its story. We must find it work to do, and the only work we can find +is about as utilitarian as straightening the dog's tail. + +Now the reason why we act in such illogical, contradictory ways towards +machinery is because in proportion as it tends to become automatic it +raises questions which nobody can answer. If machinery is to reduce +labour to a minimum, then it follows that some other method of payment +must be instituted from the one customary to-day. For payment to-day is +for work done, and that is no use if work is to be abolished. The +necessity of making some such fundamental change is at the back of the +minds of some of those who devise credit schemes and advocate consumer's +credits which are to be distributed independent of work done. None of +these schemes will bear looking into. But they do face up to a +difficulty that the modern world prefers to ignore: how people are to be +paid in the machine society. Perhaps an effort to find a solution of +this problem is the clue to Marx, and is what he was really after when +he advocated the abolition of the wage system. Anyway, he makes his +whole theory of social evolution dependent upon the development of +machinery. He saw clearly that the machine era would end in the dilemma +that faces us to-day, inasmuch as the end of machine production was to +be the creation of an unemployed problem that could not be solved by the +time-honoured methods. The solution he proposed was of the nature of a +leap in the dark. The unemployed were to rise, take possession of the +means of production and exchange, and at the end of it was his +structureless Communist state. That was as far as he saw. His thinking +came to an end at the point where the real difficulties begin, and +viewing the problem to-day at closer quarters it is not quite as simple +as it appeared to Marx. We can see the unemployed problem but not the +Communist state arising out of it, though we do see the possibility of +revolution. + +For my own part, I do not believe that there is a solution of this +problem on modernist lines. It seems to me that the tradition of payment +for work done is so deep-rooted that men will continue to think and act +in such terms in spite of the fact that this tradition is challenged by +the use of machinery. The difficulty is to think in any other terms, and +I feel it to be a part of wisdom to accept the present method of +distributing purchasing power by means of payment for work done as +irrevocable, whatever the implications may be. For of the choices before +us, either the abolition of such a means of distributing purchasing +power or limiting the use of machinery, the latter seems to me +simplicity itself compared with the former, for I can think in the terms +of the latter but not of the former, and neither, apparently, can any +one else. Those who try go mad. + +Assuming, then, that the present method of distributing purchasing power +is to persist, it follows that our aim should be to regulate machinery +in such a way as not to dislocate our method of payment for work done, +and in this connection it is to be observed that the opportunity for +reducing such a principle to practice presents itself in connection with +the revival of agriculture. For agriculture is fundamental, and we could +build on its base a new society that would gradually replace our present +one. In this sense we get a new start, and it is up to us to make up our +minds now. The question arises in connection with the use of +agricultural machinery. To what extent is it to be used? During the war +it was everywhere encouraged because it was a matter of urgency to +produce food. But if agriculture is to be revived now it will have the +further object of providing work for the unemployed. Let us therefore +face the fact that the more machinery we employ the less work there will +be for the unemployed. Hence, if our primary aim be to provide work for +the unemployed, the less machinery we use the better. On the contrary, +if we decide that it is foolishness not to use machinery, let us be +clear what we are going to do with the unemployed. To my way of +thinking, there is only one sane thing to do if machinery is to be used, +and that is to employ the same number of men as would be required if no +machinery were used, and to reduce the number of hours worked as more +machinery is used. For I insist that in all such questions consideration +of the human factor should come first. I believe the ultimate cause of +our confusion is to be found in the fact that it is our custom to put it +last, and to assume that the right thing to do is to put other +considerations---financial or mechanical---first, leaving the human +factor to take care of itself as best it can. Let us hope that the +magnitude of the present unemployed problem which refuses to solve +itself will be the precursor of better things by forcing upon us the +necessity of giving human considerations the first place. + +One of the advantages of the solution I suggest is that while machinery +would be used, we should not be at its mercy, for the economic system +would be independent of it. Supposing, for instance, a day came when +owing to the shortage of petrol the use of tractors had to be abandoned, +the economic system would not break down, for it would be constructed +with a margin of safety. All it would mean would be that those employed +upon the land would have to work longer hours. If machinery were +employed in this way it would do the things it professes to do. It would +reduce drudgery, and it would give more leisure, and it is possible that +craft developments might follow, for there is no reason why home crafts +should not be joined up to the pursuit of agriculture in the future as +in the past, when the long winter evenings were employed in this way. +Any additional leisure that the use of machinery would give might be so +employed, though as a man's living would be secured by his agricultural +earnings, it would be optional. The objection to the use of machinery +would fall to the ground if its actual use corresponded to its +theoretical justification. But what hitherto has made all discussion on +the subject so hopeless, is that while in practice machinery is used for +one purpose, it is theoretically justified for another, while belief in +its benevolence was so confident and absolute that it seemed to matter +little to people what motive prompted its use so long as it was used. We +must break with this sloppy-minded attitude towards machinery, and learn +to reason about it as we reason about other things, for it is a +certainty we shall never be able to control it until we think +intelligently about it. + +But there are other and more fundamental questions connected with the +use of machinery that must not be lost sight of. One of these is the +exhaustion of natural resources which follows its unregulated use. +Mention has been made of the petrol shortage. It is estimated that the +supply in America will only last another twenty-five years. We are +engaged in a war in Mesopotamia to secure another source of supply. +America has designs upon Mexico for the same object. Borings are being +made to discover a source of supply in this country; no doubt there are +others. But some day or other there will be no more, and it is sheer +folly, to say the least, to commit ourselves to methods of production +and transport that depend upon supplies that are limited. For under such +circumstances our position will become desperate as natural resources +tend to become exhausted. To reduce the position to its lowest +denomination in the terms of cash, the cost of the wars in which we +shall be involved in order to get possession of new sources of supply +ought to be counted against any savings that are made in other +directions, and what is true of petrol is true of other materials. +Industrial production uses up all materials at such an alarming rate +that some day we shall be left hard and dry if the matter is not taken +in hand. It would be well for us to be forewarned in time, and now that +the opportunity of a fresh start presents itself, some reason should be +brought to bear on the question. If we lay it down as a maxim that the +first principle of a normal civilization is that it should be as +self-contained as possible, the second is that it should in no sense be +living upon capital, but should arrange its production in such a way +that it should largely reproduce itself. This is not entirely possible, +for we must make use of mineral wealth to some extent. But wisdom +suggests that our resources should be conserved and not wasted in the +reckless, spend-thrift way we are accustomed to do. Our newspapers are +full of indignation against the waste by Government Departments, but +scarcely a word is ever said of the thousand times more serious waste of +natural resources, though one would have thought that the paper shortage +should have made them think. + +The modern problem is so elusive that it is generally difficult to prove +a certain tendency to be evil or dangerous. We may, however, test the +truth of many tendencies by their bearing upon agriculture, and here it +is to be observed that the tendency of all modern developments is to rob +agriculture of its manures. Human and animal manures are natural +fertilizers. In this respect hitherto there existed a reciprocal +relationship between man and nature. Food consumed was returned to the +earth as manures. But when the water-carriage system of sewage came +along with its superior convenience, which is undeniable, this chain of +reciprocity was broken, and resource was had to chemical manures, and +the guano deposits of South America. Attention was called to this +problem twenty-five years ago by Dr. Vivien Poore, who wrote a book on +the subject, *Rural Hygiene*, the object of which was to prevent the +spread of the water-carriage system of sewage into rural areas. He +showed how the water-carriage of sewage produced the typhoid fever germ; +that our sanitary measures were designed to protect ourselves against +this germ; how introduced into rural areas it poisoned water supplies +and necessitated enormous expenditure on schemes to get water from +distant and unpolluted sources; that the manurial value of the human +excrement was destroyed by water-carriage, and that chemical manures +were no substitute for the natural organic manures. But the warning was +ignored, the water-carriage system was convenient, and the manufacture +of sanitary goods was a vested interest, and so nothing was done. One +more problem was added for posterity to solve. Since the development of +motor transport the problem is aggravated, for it robs agriculture of +horse manures. When mention is made of these things, the reply we get +is, that in the future it will be possible to extract the nitrogen from +the air. Whether or not this is a really practical proposition, or +whether the nitrogen will remain eternally in the air I do not know, but +it illustrates the thoughtless way in which we are content to go on. We +study only our immediate convenience, create enormous problems, and +trust to sheer chance to getting out of them. The many and wonderful +discoveries of science have apparently reacted to create this spirit. It +prevents us from exercising any forethought in respect to things of a +fundamental nature by confirming us in the belief that something is +bound to turn up. Our national life is lived after the manner of a +spendthrift who is prepared to squander one fortune on the chance of +another being left to him. + +Again, this thoughtlessness is encouraged by the complexity and pace of +modern life---a consequence of the misapplication of machinery---which +militates against reflection and clear thinking of all kinds. Nowadays +there is no time for anything, the complexity of our society bewilders +people. No one can deny these things, yet if it is true that the +development of speed and complexity beyond a certain point is evil, then +we have a clear case for the regulation of machinery. But here we run up +against the prejudices of the thoughtful just as much as the thoughtless. Let us examine them. -Take first the economists. They will deny *in toto* the -existence of a machine problem, affirming that the evils -that have accompanied the use of machinery are due entirely -to the peculiar economic conditions which existed at the -time of its introduction, or in other words, that machinery -has been misapplied because it arrived at a time when the -accepted social gospel was that of economic individualism, -from which it follows that what we have to do is to -substitute some form of economic co-operation for economic -individualism when the machine problem would automatically -solve itself. But is such reasoning valid? If it be true, as -I am willing to admit, that the economic problem preceded -the machine problem, and is therefore more fundamental, it -is equally true that morals are more fundamental than -economics. If, therefore, our practical activity is to be -related only to those things that are fundamental, then it -must be based upon morals and not upon economics. Economists -can't have it both ways. Either we base our activities upon -ultimate truth, in which case we abandon economics and -pursue morals, or we base them upon a series of proximate -truths, in which case the problem of machinery takes its -place alongside that of economics. We may agree that the -substitution of economic co-operation for economic -individualism must precede the control of machinery, but -such co-operation would not ensure its control in the face -of the popular prejudice in favour of its unrestricted use. - -But economists are not the only people with prejudices on -this question. There are the moralists who affirm that there -is no such thing as a machine problem, inasmuch as machinery -is non-moral, and its application will, therefore, be good -or bad according to the motive that inspires its use. The -weakness of this argument is that it assumes that the -intelligence of the user corresponds always with his moral -intention. We know that in other departments of activity -this does not by any means follow, and that a man's motive -may be good and his actions bad, or *vice versa*. The case, -therefore, for regulating machinery rests finally on -precisely the same grounds as any other kind of regulation. -Firstly, to restrain those whose motives are bad from -injuring society by their actions, and secondly, to prevent -those who with the best of motives do through ignorance -things which in their ultimate effects are harmful. - -But how may machinery be regulated? What kind of regulation -is needed? The answer is that our attack must not be -directed primarily at machinery, but at the system of the -division of labour that lies behind it. For that system was -the great factor in the destruction of the creative impulse -in industry, and we may be sure it will not reappear until -it is destroyed. Moreover, the abolition of the division of -labour cuts at the very base of the quantitative ideal of -production, which is immediately responsible for the -misapplication of machinery. If we keep in mind the central -idea---the general principle that machinery needs to be -subordinated to man---I think we shall find that, generally -speaking, the issue is one between large and small machines. -We should forbid large machines in production on the -principle that large machinery tends to enslave man because -he must sacrifice himself mentally and morally to keep it in -commission, whereas the use of small machines has not this -effect, because they can be turned on and off at will, as, -for instance, is the case with a sewing machine. Exceptions -would have to be made to this rule, as in the case of -pumping and lifting machinery where no question of keeping -it in commission necessarily enters. The difficulty of -deciding whether a machine was or was not harmful would not -be difficult to determine once the general principle were -admitted that machinery needs to be subordinated to man. +Take first the economists. They will deny *in toto* the existence of a +machine problem, affirming that the evils that have accompanied the use +of machinery are due entirely to the peculiar economic conditions which +existed at the time of its introduction, or in other words, that +machinery has been misapplied because it arrived at a time when the +accepted social gospel was that of economic individualism, from which it +follows that what we have to do is to substitute some form of economic +co-operation for economic individualism when the machine problem would +automatically solve itself. But is such reasoning valid? If it be true, +as I am willing to admit, that the economic problem preceded the machine +problem, and is therefore more fundamental, it is equally true that +morals are more fundamental than economics. If, therefore, our practical +activity is to be related only to those things that are fundamental, +then it must be based upon morals and not upon economics. Economists +can't have it both ways. Either we base our activities upon ultimate +truth, in which case we abandon economics and pursue morals, or we base +them upon a series of proximate truths, in which case the problem of +machinery takes its place alongside that of economics. We may agree that +the substitution of economic co-operation for economic individualism +must precede the control of machinery, but such co-operation would not +ensure its control in the face of the popular prejudice in favour of its +unrestricted use. + +But economists are not the only people with prejudices on this question. +There are the moralists who affirm that there is no such thing as a +machine problem, inasmuch as machinery is non-moral, and its application +will, therefore, be good or bad according to the motive that inspires +its use. The weakness of this argument is that it assumes that the +intelligence of the user corresponds always with his moral intention. We +know that in other departments of activity this does not by any means +follow, and that a man's motive may be good and his actions bad, or +*vice versa*. The case, therefore, for regulating machinery rests +finally on precisely the same grounds as any other kind of regulation. +Firstly, to restrain those whose motives are bad from injuring society +by their actions, and secondly, to prevent those who with the best of +motives do through ignorance things which in their ultimate effects are +harmful. + +But how may machinery be regulated? What kind of regulation is needed? +The answer is that our attack must not be directed primarily at +machinery, but at the system of the division of labour that lies behind +it. For that system was the great factor in the destruction of the +creative impulse in industry, and we may be sure it will not reappear +until it is destroyed. Moreover, the abolition of the division of labour +cuts at the very base of the quantitative ideal of production, which is +immediately responsible for the misapplication of machinery. If we keep +in mind the central idea---the general principle that machinery needs to +be subordinated to man---I think we shall find that, generally speaking, +the issue is one between large and small machines. We should forbid +large machines in production on the principle that large machinery tends +to enslave man because he must sacrifice himself mentally and morally to +keep it in commission, whereas the use of small machines has not this +effect, because they can be turned on and off at will, as, for instance, +is the case with a sewing machine. Exceptions would have to be made to +this rule, as in the case of pumping and lifting machinery where no +question of keeping it in commission necessarily enters. The difficulty +of deciding whether a machine was or was not harmful would not be +difficult to determine once the general principle were admitted that +machinery needs to be subordinated to man. # On Morals and Economics -I concluded the last chapter by answering objections of -doctrinaire economists and moralists to the regulation of -machinery. As it is not improbable that they will object to -my general position, it is necessary for me to anticipate -their attacks. The economists will object to the conception -of the Just Price because it involves moral considerations, -and they demand an economic solution of the problem of -society that is independent of morals; the moralists, on the -contrary, will maintain that my policy is impracticable -inasmuch as it presupposes a moral revolution to make it -effective. - -Respecting the economic objection, I deny *in toto* that -there is any such thing as a purely economic solution of our -problems, because I do not believe that there is such a -thing as a fool-proof society. The search for it is as -hopeless as the search for perpetual motion, and it has been -at the bottom of all the confusion in Socialist economics -and policy in the past. It is responsible, too, for the gulf -that separates formal Socialist theory from its informal -philosophy. Of course it is to be admitted that there are -certain things in economics in which morals play no part. -Such factors in the economic situation as the inequalities -of nature, the fluctuations due to a good or bad harvest, -have nothing to do with morals. But such things do not -impugn the fact that economics in the larger sense -presupposes certain moral assumptions any more than because -a man's life is determined partly by accidental -circumstances it is to be explained apart from morals. This -heresy goes back to Ricardo. Before he wrote economists -always based their reasoning upon certain moral assumptions. -They were either like the Mediaeval economists concerned to -understand how economic managements could be brought into -relation with the highest morality, or like Adam Smith they -postulated human selfishness as the motive force of economic -activity. But what they never thought of doing was to affirm -the existence of economics apart from morals. In the hands -of Marx this heresy received a new development. He turned -the tables completely, inasmuch as he made morals dependent -upon economics, and this way of reasoning has persisted -among the more doctrinaire elements in the Socialist -movement ever since, in spite of the fact that Ruskin nearly -fifty years ago exposed the fallacy in the first few pages -of *Unto this Last*. The reason for the survival of this -fallacy is perhaps to be found in the fact that at the -present time it seems impossible to interfere with the -course of economic development by action of a purely moral -order. But this is to be misled by appearance, for moral -action only influences economic development over a long -period of time, the moral action of one generation -determining the economic environment of the next. It is this -that leads so many people to suppose that economics and -morals exist apart. - -I have more sympathy with the objection that will be raised -by the moralists, because they happen to be right in theory, -but mistaken as to the actual facts. It is not true to say -that the maintenance of the Just Price presupposes a higher -moral development than that which exists to-day. For this -again is to be misled by appearances. The popular outcry -during the war against profiteering demonstrates that moral -standards still exist among the people, while the success of -the Socialist movement as I explained in the first chapter -is due to the fact that it has some qualities of a moral -revolt. It is true that Socialists have been primarily -concerned with the popularization of certain economic -doctrines, but in order to obtain a hearing for them they -have been obliged to attack the ideal of wealth. It has thus -come about as a consequence of these attacks, repeated from -one end of the country to the other during this last thirty -years, that a changed moral attitude towards wealth has come -into existence, and has influenced large bodies of people -entirely unaffected by Socialist theories. I think it is no -exaggeration to say that in this direction the Socialist -movement has accomplished a moral revolution comparable only -to that effected by the Early Christians, who attacked -wealth as vigorously as any Socialist, though perhaps with a -different object. Recognizing this, I feel it ill becomes -moralists who have rarely attacked wealth at all to talk -about the need of a moral revolution before the Just Price -and other measures could be established. They should be told -that the moral revolution in this direction is an -accomplished fact. - -The awakening of the public conscience in regard to -collective morality should not be overlooked because -simultaneously with it personal morality has suffered a -decline. To some extent that decline is doubtless due to -certain Socialist teachers, though not to the influence of -the movement as a whole. To a far greater extent it is to be -attributed to the economic pressure under which most people -live in these days. Sexual morality is not improved by the -fact that such a large proportion of the rising generation -find it difficult to marry, nor does overcrowding and the -housing shortage improve matters. While again the commercial -morality imposed by large concerns upon those they employ -gets steadily lower and lower. But what men do under duress -scarcely affects their character at all. Father Dolling, -after years of intimate experience of the Portsmouth -underworld, an environment of almost inevitable vice and -crime, came to the conclusion that its inhabitants were -comparatively spiritually innocent. "Our falls in -Portsmouth," he says, "entailed no complete destruction of -character, hardly any disfigurement at all. Boys stole, -because stealing seemed to them the only method of -living---girls sinned---unconscious of any shame in it, -regarding it as a necessary circumstance of life if they -were to live at all. The soul unquickened, the body alone is -depraved, and, therefore, the highest part is still capable -of the most beautiful development."It is the same in the -commercial world. Men pursue immoral methods in business, -because it seems to them the only way of living, and remain -unconscious of any sin in the matter. When they do become -conscious they revolt. The Socialist movement draws its -recruits from among those who are in moral revolt, and that -is why I am persuaded it is only finally to be understood as -a moral revival. Socialists talk about changing the system, -not because they are indifferent to morality, but because -they realize the impossibility of acting on moral precepts -amid such adverse circumstances. Such being the motive force -behind the demand for a change of the system, there is no -reason to doubt that the moral effort necessary to the -enforcement of the Just Price will be forthcoming. Nay, it -can be said that nothing less than a desire to enforce such -principles of honesty and fair dealing could suffice to +I concluded the last chapter by answering objections of doctrinaire +economists and moralists to the regulation of machinery. As it is not +improbable that they will object to my general position, it is necessary +for me to anticipate their attacks. The economists will object to the +conception of the Just Price because it involves moral considerations, +and they demand an economic solution of the problem of society that is +independent of morals; the moralists, on the contrary, will maintain +that my policy is impracticable inasmuch as it presupposes a moral +revolution to make it effective. + +Respecting the economic objection, I deny *in toto* that there is any +such thing as a purely economic solution of our problems, because I do +not believe that there is such a thing as a fool-proof society. The +search for it is as hopeless as the search for perpetual motion, and it +has been at the bottom of all the confusion in Socialist economics and +policy in the past. It is responsible, too, for the gulf that separates +formal Socialist theory from its informal philosophy. Of course it is to +be admitted that there are certain things in economics in which morals +play no part. Such factors in the economic situation as the inequalities +of nature, the fluctuations due to a good or bad harvest, have nothing +to do with morals. But such things do not impugn the fact that economics +in the larger sense presupposes certain moral assumptions any more than +because a man's life is determined partly by accidental circumstances it +is to be explained apart from morals. This heresy goes back to Ricardo. +Before he wrote economists always based their reasoning upon certain +moral assumptions. They were either like the Mediaeval economists +concerned to understand how economic managements could be brought into +relation with the highest morality, or like Adam Smith they postulated +human selfishness as the motive force of economic activity. But what +they never thought of doing was to affirm the existence of economics +apart from morals. In the hands of Marx this heresy received a new +development. He turned the tables completely, inasmuch as he made morals +dependent upon economics, and this way of reasoning has persisted among +the more doctrinaire elements in the Socialist movement ever since, in +spite of the fact that Ruskin nearly fifty years ago exposed the fallacy +in the first few pages of *Unto this Last*. The reason for the survival +of this fallacy is perhaps to be found in the fact that at the present +time it seems impossible to interfere with the course of economic +development by action of a purely moral order. But this is to be misled +by appearance, for moral action only influences economic development +over a long period of time, the moral action of one generation +determining the economic environment of the next. It is this that leads +so many people to suppose that economics and morals exist apart. + +I have more sympathy with the objection that will be raised by the +moralists, because they happen to be right in theory, but mistaken as to +the actual facts. It is not true to say that the maintenance of the Just +Price presupposes a higher moral development than that which exists +to-day. For this again is to be misled by appearances. The popular +outcry during the war against profiteering demonstrates that moral +standards still exist among the people, while the success of the +Socialist movement as I explained in the first chapter is due to the +fact that it has some qualities of a moral revolt. It is true that +Socialists have been primarily concerned with the popularization of +certain economic doctrines, but in order to obtain a hearing for them +they have been obliged to attack the ideal of wealth. It has thus come +about as a consequence of these attacks, repeated from one end of the +country to the other during this last thirty years, that a changed moral +attitude towards wealth has come into existence, and has influenced +large bodies of people entirely unaffected by Socialist theories. I +think it is no exaggeration to say that in this direction the Socialist +movement has accomplished a moral revolution comparable only to that +effected by the Early Christians, who attacked wealth as vigorously as +any Socialist, though perhaps with a different object. Recognizing this, +I feel it ill becomes moralists who have rarely attacked wealth at all +to talk about the need of a moral revolution before the Just Price and +other measures could be established. They should be told that the moral +revolution in this direction is an accomplished fact. + +The awakening of the public conscience in regard to collective morality +should not be overlooked because simultaneously with it personal +morality has suffered a decline. To some extent that decline is +doubtless due to certain Socialist teachers, though not to the influence +of the movement as a whole. To a far greater extent it is to be +attributed to the economic pressure under which most people live in +these days. Sexual morality is not improved by the fact that such a +large proportion of the rising generation find it difficult to marry, +nor does overcrowding and the housing shortage improve matters. While +again the commercial morality imposed by large concerns upon those they +employ gets steadily lower and lower. But what men do under duress +scarcely affects their character at all. Father Dolling, after years of +intimate experience of the Portsmouth underworld, an environment of +almost inevitable vice and crime, came to the conclusion that its +inhabitants were comparatively spiritually innocent. "Our falls in +Portsmouth," he says, "entailed no complete destruction of character, +hardly any disfigurement at all. Boys stole, because stealing seemed to +them the only method of living---girls sinned---unconscious of any shame +in it, regarding it as a necessary circumstance of life if they were to +live at all. The soul unquickened, the body alone is depraved, and, +therefore, the highest part is still capable of the most beautiful +development."It is the same in the commercial world. Men pursue immoral +methods in business, because it seems to them the only way of living, +and remain unconscious of any sin in the matter. When they do become +conscious they revolt. The Socialist movement draws its recruits from +among those who are in moral revolt, and that is why I am persuaded it +is only finally to be understood as a moral revival. Socialists talk +about changing the system, not because they are indifferent to morality, +but because they realize the impossibility of acting on moral precepts +amid such adverse circumstances. Such being the motive force behind the +demand for a change of the system, there is no reason to doubt that the +moral effort necessary to the enforcement of the Just Price will be +forthcoming. Nay, it can be said that nothing less than a desire to +enforce such principles of honesty and fair dealing could suffice to bring the Guilds into existence. -What may be doubted, it seems to me, is not whether the -moral effort necessary to the maintenance of the Just Price -under a system of Guilds would, in the event of their -establishment, be forthcoming, but whether our attachment to -city life may not stand in the way of a revival of -agriculture until it is too late. The town worker has become -accustomed to a life of bustle, crowded streets, trams, -railways, cinemas, etc., that makes him restless under -simpler conditions. He has, moreover, become dependent upon -a complicated machine. That machine allots to him a single -specialized task and supplies his other needs. In -consequence he has lost the habit of doing things for -himself, and depends more and more upon buying what he -needs, and this has undermined those qualities of -resourcefulness, forethought and patience that are the -necessary accompaniment of an agricultural life. To break -with this tradition before the system comes to grief is the -real obstacle in our path, for everything combines against -us. We have not only to contend with the inertia common to -all reform, but with the rooted habits of city populations. -And it may be that just as it was impossible to make people -realize the possibility of a European War before it was upon -us, so it will be impossible to induce people to realize our -industrial position until starvation threatens us if more -food is not produced. If this is the case we shall drift and -drift until the only way of meeting the situation will be -some form of agricultural conscription, and our countryside -will be dotted with tents and huts to house workers engaged -in a desperate effort to cope with the problem of food. That -is what things must come to if we do not wake up before -long. Meanwhile it is the plain duty of publicists of all -kinds to bring home to the people the realities of the -situation---to make them face the facts, and in the short -space of time allotted to us to assist in the cultivation by -every means at our disposal of such habits of industry and -self-reliance as will enable the people to change their ways -of life with the minimum of dislocation. +What may be doubted, it seems to me, is not whether the moral effort +necessary to the maintenance of the Just Price under a system of Guilds +would, in the event of their establishment, be forthcoming, but whether +our attachment to city life may not stand in the way of a revival of +agriculture until it is too late. The town worker has become accustomed +to a life of bustle, crowded streets, trams, railways, cinemas, etc., +that makes him restless under simpler conditions. He has, moreover, +become dependent upon a complicated machine. That machine allots to him +a single specialized task and supplies his other needs. In consequence +he has lost the habit of doing things for himself, and depends more and +more upon buying what he needs, and this has undermined those qualities +of resourcefulness, forethought and patience that are the necessary +accompaniment of an agricultural life. To break with this tradition +before the system comes to grief is the real obstacle in our path, for +everything combines against us. We have not only to contend with the +inertia common to all reform, but with the rooted habits of city +populations. And it may be that just as it was impossible to make people +realize the possibility of a European War before it was upon us, so it +will be impossible to induce people to realize our industrial position +until starvation threatens us if more food is not produced. If this is +the case we shall drift and drift until the only way of meeting the +situation will be some form of agricultural conscription, and our +countryside will be dotted with tents and huts to house workers engaged +in a desperate effort to cope with the problem of food. That is what +things must come to if we do not wake up before long. Meanwhile it is +the plain duty of publicists of all kinds to bring home to the people +the realities of the situation---to make them face the facts, and in the +short space of time allotted to us to assist in the cultivation by every +means at our disposal of such habits of industry and self-reliance as +will enable the people to change their ways of life with the minimum of +dislocation. # Industrialism and Credit -IT has been my aim in this little volume to concentrate -attention on certain issues that I feel to be primary and -fundamental. There are other things that must be done, such -as the liquidation of the war loan, but on this issue I have -nothing to add to what has already been said by others. The -expenditure of surplus wealth by the rich in the ways it +IT has been my aim in this little volume to concentrate attention on +certain issues that I feel to be primary and fundamental. There are +other things that must be done, such as the liquidation of the war loan, +but on this issue I have nothing to add to what has already been said by +others. The expenditure of surplus wealth by the rich in the ways it used to be spent would also do much to mitigate the evils of -unemployment. But no one at the present time can act in -these matters except the rich, and as it seems impossible to -persuade them to do anything that ultimately matters, it is -just as well to base our politics upon the assumption that -they will continue as at present---hoping against hope and -doing nothing. - -The reason why we should concentrate our attention upon the -things that are fundamental is precisely because they have -been for so long neglected, while their importance to us is -proportionate to their neglect. They were neglected because, -as I have said before, they are antipathetic to -industrialism, and industrialism appeared before the war to -be built upon a rock, and few believed it carried within -itself the seeds of its own destruction. On the contrary, -the world was cursed with an easy-going belief that though -evils undoubtedly existed they were merely incidental to the -system, and could be remedied by half-baked measures of -reform. But that serene self-confidence nowadays is gone, -and I can write in a different way. It is no longer -necessary for me to plead for recognition of the fact that -internal evidence pointed to the break-up of our industrial -civilization, since nowadays we can see it dissolving before -our very eyes---the only evidence which the modern world is -prepared to believe. In these circumstances -self-preservation suggests that delay is dangerous, and that -it is necessary to get to work at once to build the new -society before the existing one breaks down completely. - -Meanwhile, those who still retain any belief in the -possibility of saving existing society from disruption are -concentrating on the problems of credit. With the effort of -those who are attempting to overcome the barriers to a -revival of foreign trade set up by the depreciation of the -exchanges, and with those who would break the monopoly of -the banks, I have every sympathy. But with those who imagine -that the problems of credit can be cured by some Morrison's -Pill it is different. In my opinion they are living in a -world of illusions. One of these pill schemes, that -formulated by Major C. H. Douglas, and for which the *New -Age* has stood sponsor, demands special consideration, -since, as the editor of that journal acted as sponsor for -National Guilds, it has come to be discussed as if it were -an approach to the Guilds. - -It will not be necessary for us to consider this scheme in -all its details. It will be sufficient for us to discuss its -central idea. And here I would observe that though I cannot -accept Major Douglas's scheme, I recognize that he has -attacked a real problem, though I may add that to some of us -it is not a new one. Briefly, then, Major Douglas faces the -fact that the policy of Maximum Production inevitably -results in a deadlock, upsetting the balance between demand -and supply, but instead of tracing it to the causes I have -enumerated in Chapters 3, 4 and 5---that is ultimately to -certain moral causes---he ignores morals entirely, and -traces the phenomenon entirely to its immediate cause in our -system of credit. This leads him to seek a solution of the -problem in the terms of accountancy. He proposes to correct -the discrepancy between demand and supply by selling goods -below cost. There is, of course, nothing new in selling -below cost. Manufacturers have resorted to it in every -financial crisis when they have overproduced, to get rid of -their surplus stocks. What is new is this: Appreciating the -fact that the present financial crisis is no ordinary one -that will pass by the normal operations of supply and -demand, he exalts a practice that has hitherto been resorted -to as a measure of temporary expediency into a permanent -principle of finance. For according to Major Douglas, the -selling price of articles must always be below cost, while -he proposes that the difference between the actual costs of -production and the selling price shall be made up to the -producers by the Government in treasury notes. That is the -gist of the scheme. It is the only idea we need discuss, as -the others are merely accessory to it. - -Now, the first and most obvious objection to this scheme is -that such a wholesale issue of paper money would depreciate -the currency. Major Douglas proposes to guard against this -by the fixation of prices. To which I answer that if this -measure were to be effective, prices would have to be fixed -simultaneously for all commodities in all industries, since -if the scheme were applied gradually and prices fixed below -cost in one industry and not in the others the prices of -commodities that were unfixed would rise to restore the -balance. But to fix prices simultaneously in all industries -is impossible, for in these days of international markets -the unit to be considered is not this country, but the -world. Under such circumstances the proposition is -unthinkable. It is the *reductio ad absurdum* of our -economic system. I have advocated fixed prices (but not -selling below cost), but I recognize clearly that a system -of fixed prices could only be introduced gradually, and it -seems to me that any scheme to be practical must be based -upon that assumption. - -The truth is Major Douglas has confused cause and effect. He -sees that the operations of industry to-day are governed by -the credit facilities in the control of the banks, and so he -concludes that the whole problem is that of credit---or if -that is not entirely true, it is true to say that he thinks -the problem of credit is capable of a separate and detached -solution. It will clear the air to say that the problem of -credit is not the central but the last phase of the disease -It is the dilemma in which a civilization based upon usury -finds itself at the finish. It makes its appearance because -the limit of usury has been reached. And it is because of -this that the problem is not to be resolved finally in the -terms of accountancy, but of morals. For centuries the -desire for profits has been the driving force in industry. -It has been behind our industrial developments and brought -into existence our vast complicated civilization. Nowadays -the limits of this development have been reached because the -limits of compound interest have been reached, and the -centralizing process is complete. Recognizing the -fundamental nature of this problem, it is vain to suppose -that a solution can be found for this misdirection of -activities merely by a re-shuffling of the cards, which is -what Major Douglas's scheme amounts to. On the contrary, the -only thing that can lift us out of the economic morass into -which we have fallen is finally the discovery of a new -principle, the emergence of a new motive, a new driving -force. The experience of history teaches us that there is -finally only one power in this universe capable of supplying -this need and successfully challenging this commercial -spirit, and that is religion. To be more -precise---Christianity, and Christianity as it was -understood by the Early Christians who attacked the ideal of -wealth and property as vigorously as any Socialist. It was -Christianity that re-created civilization after it had been -disintegrated by the capitalism of Greece and Rome, and if -our civilization is to survive, it will be due to the +unemployment. But no one at the present time can act in these matters +except the rich, and as it seems impossible to persuade them to do +anything that ultimately matters, it is just as well to base our +politics upon the assumption that they will continue as at +present---hoping against hope and doing nothing. + +The reason why we should concentrate our attention upon the things that +are fundamental is precisely because they have been for so long +neglected, while their importance to us is proportionate to their +neglect. They were neglected because, as I have said before, they are +antipathetic to industrialism, and industrialism appeared before the war +to be built upon a rock, and few believed it carried within itself the +seeds of its own destruction. On the contrary, the world was cursed with +an easy-going belief that though evils undoubtedly existed they were +merely incidental to the system, and could be remedied by half-baked +measures of reform. But that serene self-confidence nowadays is gone, +and I can write in a different way. It is no longer necessary for me to +plead for recognition of the fact that internal evidence pointed to the +break-up of our industrial civilization, since nowadays we can see it +dissolving before our very eyes---the only evidence which the modern +world is prepared to believe. In these circumstances self-preservation +suggests that delay is dangerous, and that it is necessary to get to +work at once to build the new society before the existing one breaks +down completely. + +Meanwhile, those who still retain any belief in the possibility of +saving existing society from disruption are concentrating on the +problems of credit. With the effort of those who are attempting to +overcome the barriers to a revival of foreign trade set up by the +depreciation of the exchanges, and with those who would break the +monopoly of the banks, I have every sympathy. But with those who imagine +that the problems of credit can be cured by some Morrison's Pill it is +different. In my opinion they are living in a world of illusions. One of +these pill schemes, that formulated by Major C. H. Douglas, and for +which the *New Age* has stood sponsor, demands special consideration, +since, as the editor of that journal acted as sponsor for National +Guilds, it has come to be discussed as if it were an approach to the +Guilds. + +It will not be necessary for us to consider this scheme in all its +details. It will be sufficient for us to discuss its central idea. And +here I would observe that though I cannot accept Major Douglas's scheme, +I recognize that he has attacked a real problem, though I may add that +to some of us it is not a new one. Briefly, then, Major Douglas faces +the fact that the policy of Maximum Production inevitably results in a +deadlock, upsetting the balance between demand and supply, but instead +of tracing it to the causes I have enumerated in Chapters 3, 4 and +5---that is ultimately to certain moral causes---he ignores morals +entirely, and traces the phenomenon entirely to its immediate cause in +our system of credit. This leads him to seek a solution of the problem +in the terms of accountancy. He proposes to correct the discrepancy +between demand and supply by selling goods below cost. There is, of +course, nothing new in selling below cost. Manufacturers have resorted +to it in every financial crisis when they have overproduced, to get rid +of their surplus stocks. What is new is this: Appreciating the fact that +the present financial crisis is no ordinary one that will pass by the +normal operations of supply and demand, he exalts a practice that has +hitherto been resorted to as a measure of temporary expediency into a +permanent principle of finance. For according to Major Douglas, the +selling price of articles must always be below cost, while he proposes +that the difference between the actual costs of production and the +selling price shall be made up to the producers by the Government in +treasury notes. That is the gist of the scheme. It is the only idea we +need discuss, as the others are merely accessory to it. + +Now, the first and most obvious objection to this scheme is that such a +wholesale issue of paper money would depreciate the currency. Major +Douglas proposes to guard against this by the fixation of prices. To +which I answer that if this measure were to be effective, prices would +have to be fixed simultaneously for all commodities in all industries, +since if the scheme were applied gradually and prices fixed below cost +in one industry and not in the others the prices of commodities that +were unfixed would rise to restore the balance. But to fix prices +simultaneously in all industries is impossible, for in these days of +international markets the unit to be considered is not this country, but +the world. Under such circumstances the proposition is unthinkable. It +is the *reductio ad absurdum* of our economic system. I have advocated +fixed prices (but not selling below cost), but I recognize clearly that +a system of fixed prices could only be introduced gradually, and it +seems to me that any scheme to be practical must be based upon that +assumption. + +The truth is Major Douglas has confused cause and effect. He sees that +the operations of industry to-day are governed by the credit facilities +in the control of the banks, and so he concludes that the whole problem +is that of credit---or if that is not entirely true, it is true to say +that he thinks the problem of credit is capable of a separate and +detached solution. It will clear the air to say that the problem of +credit is not the central but the last phase of the disease It is the +dilemma in which a civilization based upon usury finds itself at the +finish. It makes its appearance because the limit of usury has been +reached. And it is because of this that the problem is not to be +resolved finally in the terms of accountancy, but of morals. For +centuries the desire for profits has been the driving force in industry. +It has been behind our industrial developments and brought into +existence our vast complicated civilization. Nowadays the limits of this +development have been reached because the limits of compound interest +have been reached, and the centralizing process is complete. Recognizing +the fundamental nature of this problem, it is vain to suppose that a +solution can be found for this misdirection of activities merely by a +re-shuffling of the cards, which is what Major Douglas's scheme amounts +to. On the contrary, the only thing that can lift us out of the economic +morass into which we have fallen is finally the discovery of a new +principle, the emergence of a new motive, a new driving force. The +experience of history teaches us that there is finally only one power in +this universe capable of supplying this need and successfully +challenging this commercial spirit, and that is religion. To be more +precise---Christianity, and Christianity as it was understood by the +Early Christians who attacked the ideal of wealth and property as +vigorously as any Socialist. It was Christianity that re-created +civilization after it had been disintegrated by the capitalism of Greece +and Rome, and if our civilization is to survive, it will be due to the re-emergence of this same spirit. -But it will be said that if we are to wait until a revival -of Christianity is accomplished we are lost, for it is -impossible to expect wholesale conversions while the problem -confronting us develops with such rapidity. To which I -answer that I am speaking of the ultimate solution; not of -immediate measures. But it would clarify our thinking -enormously about immediate practical measures if we -considered them in the light of the teachings of -Christianity instead of the materialist philosophy. No one -who thought clearly in the terms of Christianity could ever -fall into the credit or Bolshevik heresies because he would -not think in the terms of Industrialism. And he would not -think in the terms of Industrialism because he would realize -its central principle was a denial of everything that -Christianity stands for: "Take no thought saying, What shall -we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be -clothed? (for after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) -for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all -these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his -righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto -you." This is the method of Christianity. But Industrialism -is the organization of society on the opposite assumption. -Seek ye first material prosperity, and all other things -shall be added unto you it says. But experience proves not -only that they are not added, but in the long run the -material things themselves which have been so anxiously -sought are taken away. - -Meanwhile, let us accept the fact that the day of our -industrial supremacy is over, and that we cannot hope any -longer to export such vast quantities of goods to distant -markets as hitherto. As our industries will not be able to -give employment to such vast numbers of workers, agriculture -must be revived to provide at the same time work for the -unemployed, and the food we shall in the future be unable to -obtain unless we produce it for ourselves. This will -necessitate a drastic land policy. It is a matter of life -and death to us, and no vested interests must be allowed to -stand in the way, any more than they were allowed to stand -in the way of the conduct of the war. Men must be trained in -agriculture and planted on the land with their families. And +But it will be said that if we are to wait until a revival of +Christianity is accomplished we are lost, for it is impossible to expect +wholesale conversions while the problem confronting us develops with +such rapidity. To which I answer that I am speaking of the ultimate +solution; not of immediate measures. But it would clarify our thinking +enormously about immediate practical measures if we considered them in +the light of the teachings of Christianity instead of the materialist +philosophy. No one who thought clearly in the terms of Christianity +could ever fall into the credit or Bolshevik heresies because he would +not think in the terms of Industrialism. And he would not think in the +terms of Industrialism because he would realize its central principle +was a denial of everything that Christianity stands for: "Take no +thought saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, +Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (for after all these things do the +Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of +all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his +righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." This is +the method of Christianity. But Industrialism is the organization of +society on the opposite assumption. Seek ye first material prosperity, +and all other things shall be added unto you it says. But experience +proves not only that they are not added, but in the long run the +material things themselves which have been so anxiously sought are taken +away. + +Meanwhile, let us accept the fact that the day of our industrial +supremacy is over, and that we cannot hope any longer to export such +vast quantities of goods to distant markets as hitherto. As our +industries will not be able to give employment to such vast numbers of +workers, agriculture must be revived to provide at the same time work +for the unemployed, and the food we shall in the future be unable to +obtain unless we produce it for ourselves. This will necessitate a +drastic land policy. It is a matter of life and death to us, and no +vested interests must be allowed to stand in the way, any more than they +were allowed to stand in the way of the conduct of the war. Men must be +trained in agriculture and planted on the land with their families. And they must be organized in groups under Agricultural Guilds. -As it is improbable, even with agriculture revived and -England colonized, for work to be provided for more than a -part of our unemployed, we must be prepared for emigration -on a vast scale. Here again organization must be in groups. -We must in fact plant new societies as the Greeks did when -they colonized. There must be agriculturalists, craftsmen, -doctors and others necessary to fulfil the various needs of -these communities. - -In order that our colonies may absorb our surplus population -the individualistic commercial philosophy which has -dominated life must be abandoned and a return made to those -old principles of organization and fair dealing which are -crystallized for us in the idea of the Guilds and the Just -Price. The popularization of these ideas should accompany -all efforts of reform, for they are the two poles, as it -were, of sanity in social arrangements. - -Then the handicrafts must be revived and machinery -controlled, otherwise the problems which perplex us will -speedily reappear in these new centres. It is possible that -in the future machinery may turn out to be a blessing -instead of the curse which it is to-day. But if its course -is to be turned from destruction to construction we shall -need to think about it intelligently, and the first sign of -grace in this direction will be a determination to control -it. Once the principle were admitted its practical -application would not be difficult. It could be gradually -brought under control by taxing its use where it was -socially undesirable. In other directions its use might be -prohibited entirely. Where questions of foreign trade were -involved agreement would have to be reached with other -countries. - -The measures I have enumerated are the things most -fundamental. They would become the first practical steps -towards the creation of the new world order. Though the -unemployed problem is at the moment a great perplexity to -us, its appearance is a necessary circumstance in the -transition to a better order. Henceforth politics will -orientate themselves around the problem of the unemployed, -and the association of the unemployed problem with social -reconstruction should convert idealism into the terms of -practical politics. For just consider what a fundamental -change of attitude this unemployed problem may bring about. -Hitherto it has been the custom in all questions of policy -to put the material factor first and to let the human factor -shift for itself as best it could---to put the interests of -capital before the interests of life. Henceforth this order -will be reversed. The urgency of the unemployed problem will -compel us to give human considerations the first place, and -it must continue to do so. This of itself will effect an -intellectual revolution. Political science, which in modern -times has been literally upside down, inasmuch as it put the -last things first, should develop into a real science of -human affairs. - -Whether, however, these plans are to be realized or not, all -depends on the attitude of the next two or three years. -Afterwards it will be too late. Unless the present -extraordinary spirit of apathy can be shaken and drastic -action taken to deal with the situation, it is to be feared -we shall drift into a state of anarchy, lawlessness and wild -revolt from which there can be no appeal except to force. -The danger is that instead of getting to work to lay the -foundation of the new social order, of building the new -system while the old one is falling to pieces, we may, -encouraged by some brief revival of trade, deceive ourselves -into believing that there is no need of fundamental change, -or waste our time in discussing all kinds of secondary -issues---things against which we are for the most part -powerless, inasmuch as they are symptomatic of the break-up -of the old order---all kinds of temporary measures, -excessive Government expenditure, high prices, high wages, -diminished output, etc., anything in fact except the real -central issues upon which our whole future depends. Then -nothing will get done until it is too late, and starvation -becomes chronic among us, and Bolshevism as the scourge of -God comes upon us. If Bolshevism does come here we shall -have deserved it. For we are in an infinitely better -position to face the problems that the war has left than the -Continental nations, for not only is our rate of exchange -better, but we are an Empire with vast empty spaces ready to -take our surplus population. One thing alone can defeat us, -and that is **Apathy**. +As it is improbable, even with agriculture revived and England +colonized, for work to be provided for more than a part of our +unemployed, we must be prepared for emigration on a vast scale. Here +again organization must be in groups. We must in fact plant new +societies as the Greeks did when they colonized. There must be +agriculturalists, craftsmen, doctors and others necessary to fulfil the +various needs of these communities. + +In order that our colonies may absorb our surplus population the +individualistic commercial philosophy which has dominated life must be +abandoned and a return made to those old principles of organization and +fair dealing which are crystallized for us in the idea of the Guilds and +the Just Price. The popularization of these ideas should accompany all +efforts of reform, for they are the two poles, as it were, of sanity in +social arrangements. + +Then the handicrafts must be revived and machinery controlled, otherwise +the problems which perplex us will speedily reappear in these new +centres. It is possible that in the future machinery may turn out to be +a blessing instead of the curse which it is to-day. But if its course is +to be turned from destruction to construction we shall need to think +about it intelligently, and the first sign of grace in this direction +will be a determination to control it. Once the principle were admitted +its practical application would not be difficult. It could be gradually +brought under control by taxing its use where it was socially +undesirable. In other directions its use might be prohibited entirely. +Where questions of foreign trade were involved agreement would have to +be reached with other countries. + +The measures I have enumerated are the things most fundamental. They +would become the first practical steps towards the creation of the new +world order. Though the unemployed problem is at the moment a great +perplexity to us, its appearance is a necessary circumstance in the +transition to a better order. Henceforth politics will orientate +themselves around the problem of the unemployed, and the association of +the unemployed problem with social reconstruction should convert +idealism into the terms of practical politics. For just consider what a +fundamental change of attitude this unemployed problem may bring about. +Hitherto it has been the custom in all questions of policy to put the +material factor first and to let the human factor shift for itself as +best it could---to put the interests of capital before the interests of +life. Henceforth this order will be reversed. The urgency of the +unemployed problem will compel us to give human considerations the first +place, and it must continue to do so. This of itself will effect an +intellectual revolution. Political science, which in modern times has +been literally upside down, inasmuch as it put the last things first, +should develop into a real science of human affairs. + +Whether, however, these plans are to be realized or not, all depends on +the attitude of the next two or three years. Afterwards it will be too +late. Unless the present extraordinary spirit of apathy can be shaken +and drastic action taken to deal with the situation, it is to be feared +we shall drift into a state of anarchy, lawlessness and wild revolt from +which there can be no appeal except to force. The danger is that instead +of getting to work to lay the foundation of the new social order, of +building the new system while the old one is falling to pieces, we may, +encouraged by some brief revival of trade, deceive ourselves into +believing that there is no need of fundamental change, or waste our time +in discussing all kinds of secondary issues---things against which we +are for the most part powerless, inasmuch as they are symptomatic of the +break-up of the old order---all kinds of temporary measures, excessive +Government expenditure, high prices, high wages, diminished output, +etc., anything in fact except the real central issues upon which our +whole future depends. Then nothing will get done until it is too late, +and starvation becomes chronic among us, and Bolshevism as the scourge +of God comes upon us. If Bolshevism does come here we shall have +deserved it. For we are in an infinitely better position to face the +problems that the war has left than the Continental nations, for not +only is our rate of exchange better, but we are an Empire with vast +empty spaces ready to take our surplus population. One thing alone can +defeat us, and that is **Apathy**. # Appendix. Europe in Chaos @@ -2722,639 +2295,553 @@ To-day the rates of exchange on London are: > > Paris, 58.75-58.80 (franc about 4d.). -The evidence, on which rests the arguments of these -articles, is found in the London rates of exchange current -since the Armistice. Thus it will be advisable to give a few -of the outstanding rates. - -In the case of the United States the par of exchange is -\$4.8665 to the £; on December 5, 1918, the rate was -\$4.770; while on November 20, 1920, the rate was \$3.470. -The rates for the Argentine were 5.040 pesos to the £ -(parity), 4.665 (December 5, 1918), and 4.582 (November 20, -1920). For Japan the corresponding figures are 9.800, 8.972 -and 6.857 yen to the £. - -Thus it will be seen that the rates between London and the -two great industrial nations of the East and of the West -have moved considerably in a direction adverse to London. In -other words, the dollar is now 40.2%, and the yen 42.9% -above their par value. - -In the case of the Argentine, the movement is not so -pronounced, and the peso is only 10%, above its par value. -Still, this is sufficiently disquieting when one remembers -the foodstuffs that we are in the habit of buying from that -country. - -Returning to Europe, there are only two countries whose -London rates of exchange are above par. These are Holland -and Switzerland, both small nations that remained neutral -while the tide of war swept round them. The Dutch florin on -November 11, 1920, was 6.3%, and the Swiss franc 13.7%, -above their par values, the actual rates being 11.39 florins -and 22.19 francs respectively. - -The remaining neutral nations of Europe are now at or below -par---Sweden exactly at par, Norway and Denmark 29.7%, Spain -4.5%. But when we consider our late allies, and enemies, we -find as we progress eastwards the position getting worse and -worse. On November 11th, two years after the Armistice, the -franc in Paris was 56.2%, below its par value, the Italian -lira 72.6%, the Portuguese escudo 85.8%, the German mark -91.9%, the Bohemian kroner 91.4%, the Austrian kroner 97.9%, -and the Polish mark 98.6%. - -Now let us understand these percentages. Remember that a -depreciation of 100%, means that a currency is worth -literally nothing for exchange purposes. Then we can see how -near the currencies of Europe are approaching to this -absolute zero. - -Now what is the meaning of this? And how does it affect you -and me? And what is the future of Europe? Before we can -answer these grave questions we must understand the economic -structure of Europe as it existed before the war. - -The present industrial system is of recent growth. It was -only at the close of the eighteenth century that the -ingenuity of man devised means by which the processes of -manufacture could be carried out by power instead of hand -labour. It is only during the last century that the +The evidence, on which rests the arguments of these articles, is found +in the London rates of exchange current since the Armistice. Thus it +will be advisable to give a few of the outstanding rates. + +In the case of the United States the par of exchange is \$4.8665 to the +£; on December 5, 1918, the rate was \$4.770; while on November 20, +1920, the rate was \$3.470. The rates for the Argentine were 5.040 pesos +to the £ (parity), 4.665 (December 5, 1918), and 4.582 (November 20, +1920). For Japan the corresponding figures are 9.800, 8.972 and 6.857 +yen to the £. + +Thus it will be seen that the rates between London and the two great +industrial nations of the East and of the West have moved considerably +in a direction adverse to London. In other words, the dollar is now +40.2%, and the yen 42.9% above their par value. + +In the case of the Argentine, the movement is not so pronounced, and the +peso is only 10%, above its par value. Still, this is sufficiently +disquieting when one remembers the foodstuffs that we are in the habit +of buying from that country. + +Returning to Europe, there are only two countries whose London rates of +exchange are above par. These are Holland and Switzerland, both small +nations that remained neutral while the tide of war swept round them. +The Dutch florin on November 11, 1920, was 6.3%, and the Swiss franc +13.7%, above their par values, the actual rates being 11.39 florins and +22.19 francs respectively. + +The remaining neutral nations of Europe are now at or below par---Sweden +exactly at par, Norway and Denmark 29.7%, Spain 4.5%. But when we +consider our late allies, and enemies, we find as we progress eastwards +the position getting worse and worse. On November 11th, two years after +the Armistice, the franc in Paris was 56.2%, below its par value, the +Italian lira 72.6%, the Portuguese escudo 85.8%, the German mark 91.9%, +the Bohemian kroner 91.4%, the Austrian kroner 97.9%, and the Polish +mark 98.6%. + +Now let us understand these percentages. Remember that a depreciation of +100%, means that a currency is worth literally nothing for exchange +purposes. Then we can see how near the currencies of Europe are +approaching to this absolute zero. + +Now what is the meaning of this? And how does it affect you and me? And +what is the future of Europe? Before we can answer these grave questions +we must understand the economic structure of Europe as it existed before +the war. + +The present industrial system is of recent growth. It was only at the +close of the eighteenth century that the ingenuity of man devised means +by which the processes of manufacture could be carried out by power +instead of hand labour. It is only during the last century that the physicist and the chemist entered into our industrial life. -The results of the "industrial revolution" were -far-reaching. It was directly responsible for the modern -factory system, which gathered the peoples into large towns -and enabled the industrial countries of Europe to maintain a -vastly increased population. In fact, one can say that if -the present industrial system were destroyed half the -population of Europe must either emigrate or starve. - -The system by which Europe lived in pre-war days may be -described very shortly. Europe imported her food and raw -materials from overseas and exported, in exchange, the -products manufactured from the raw materials she had -imported the year before. These products were of greater -value than the raw materials owing to the skill and labour -Europe put into them, and on this difference Europe lived. +The results of the "industrial revolution" were far-reaching. It was +directly responsible for the modern factory system, which gathered the +peoples into large towns and enabled the industrial countries of Europe +to maintain a vastly increased population. In fact, one can say that if +the present industrial system were destroyed half the population of +Europe must either emigrate or starve. -This is a rough outline of the system, but it needs several -qualifications. In the first place, the difference in value -mentioned above was greater than Europe's actual needs. This -difference was invested by Europe either in home or overseas -industries. This capital, in turn, helped to create more -wealth. Thus the European shareholders received additional -payments from abroad in the shape of interest. - -Secondly, Europe rendered many services to the rest of the -world; her vessels carried American and Japanese goods, her -merchants dealt in them, her banks financed the movements of -these goods, and her insurance companies protected them. All -these services were paid for and the payment, like the -interest, came in the form of goods---chiefly food and raw -materials. - -The essence of this system was exchange. We gave our -finished products and our services in exchange for our food -and raw materials. And the lever that operated this system -was called the Bill of Exchange. - -A Bill of Exchange is, in simple words, a statement of claim -by a creditor on his debtor. Now an American creditor needs -payment in dollars, and a British creditor in sterling, a -Frenchman in francs. The weight of gold in a sovereign, a 10 -dollar piece, etc., is fixed by each country's laws. - -Thus the gold exchange value between sovereigns and dollars -can be easily calculated, and this is called the par of -exchange. So it is normally open to the debtor to send gold -in payment to his creditor. But the actual shipment of gold -involves expense, so he usually adopted the second method. - -This method is for him to find a creditor in his own country -who will sell him a Bill of Exchange or claim upon a debtor -in the country to which he himself owes money, or in other -words, an Englishman importing cotton from America has to -buy dollars with which to pay for his cotton: for the -American exporter, as a rule, needs payment in his own -currency. +The system by which Europe lived in pre-war days may be described very +shortly. Europe imported her food and raw materials from overseas and +exported, in exchange, the products manufactured from the raw materials +she had imported the year before. These products were of greater value +than the raw materials owing to the skill and labour Europe put into +them, and on this difference Europe lived. -Similarly an American buying goods from England has to buy -sterling, so he gets in touch with the Englishman who wishes -to buy dollars, and the transaction is arranged to their -mutual advantage. But if England has imported more than she -has exported, there will be several Englishmen trying to buy -dollars for each American who wishes to sell dollars for -sterling. So the price of dollars rises---for the demand -exceeds the supply. - -In other words, the rate of exchange will move against -England. Normally this movement will have a limit, for -English debtors will find it cheaper to ship gold. But if we -have prohibited the export of gold, or if we have a paper -currency which can be expanded at will, then, as we see -to-day, there is no automatic check to the amount an -exchange may depreciate. - -It must be remembered that an expansion of currency means a -rise in prices, and the price of foreign bills or foreign -currency is not exempt from this law. Again, a paper -currency brings Gresham's law into operation, and drives the -gold out of circulation. Thus there is no gold available -which can be used for payment of foreign debts, and the -importers in that country are forced to pay inflated prices -for their foreign bills. - -We have now described the system by which Europe lived -before the war. We see that it depended on a cycle of -exchange, and that the cycle was operated by the bill of -exchange, and the value of the bill of exchange was -maintained, if necessary, by gold shipments. We see that an -unsound currency destroys that safeguard, and thus strikes a -heavy blow at the system on which Europe lived. - -The next point to consider is the effect of the war. During -the four years of war every effort of the various -belligerents was directed towards their mutual destruction. -Thus in England the Government took control of the -industries of the country and directed their energies to the -manufacture of munitions, which were used, not only to -destroy themselves, but also the products and factories of -pre-war industry. The effect of this was to reduce the -country's exports to a minimum, while the imports of raw -materials for munitions increased enormously. The same -applied to all the Allies, and the effect was to pile up an +This is a rough outline of the system, but it needs several +qualifications. In the first place, the difference in value mentioned +above was greater than Europe's actual needs. This difference was +invested by Europe either in home or overseas industries. This capital, +in turn, helped to create more wealth. Thus the European shareholders +received additional payments from abroad in the shape of interest. + +Secondly, Europe rendered many services to the rest of the world; her +vessels carried American and Japanese goods, her merchants dealt in +them, her banks financed the movements of these goods, and her insurance +companies protected them. All these services were paid for and the +payment, like the interest, came in the form of goods---chiefly food and +raw materials. + +The essence of this system was exchange. We gave our finished products +and our services in exchange for our food and raw materials. And the +lever that operated this system was called the Bill of Exchange. + +A Bill of Exchange is, in simple words, a statement of claim by a +creditor on his debtor. Now an American creditor needs payment in +dollars, and a British creditor in sterling, a Frenchman in francs. The +weight of gold in a sovereign, a 10 dollar piece, etc., is fixed by each +country's laws. + +Thus the gold exchange value between sovereigns and dollars can be +easily calculated, and this is called the par of exchange. So it is +normally open to the debtor to send gold in payment to his creditor. But +the actual shipment of gold involves expense, so he usually adopted the +second method. + +This method is for him to find a creditor in his own country who will +sell him a Bill of Exchange or claim upon a debtor in the country to +which he himself owes money, or in other words, an Englishman importing +cotton from America has to buy dollars with which to pay for his cotton: +for the American exporter, as a rule, needs payment in his own currency. + +Similarly an American buying goods from England has to buy sterling, so +he gets in touch with the Englishman who wishes to buy dollars, and the +transaction is arranged to their mutual advantage. But if England has +imported more than she has exported, there will be several Englishmen +trying to buy dollars for each American who wishes to sell dollars for +sterling. So the price of dollars rises---for the demand exceeds the +supply. + +In other words, the rate of exchange will move against England. Normally +this movement will have a limit, for English debtors will find it +cheaper to ship gold. But if we have prohibited the export of gold, or +if we have a paper currency which can be expanded at will, then, as we +see to-day, there is no automatic check to the amount an exchange may +depreciate. + +It must be remembered that an expansion of currency means a rise in +prices, and the price of foreign bills or foreign currency is not exempt +from this law. Again, a paper currency brings Gresham's law into +operation, and drives the gold out of circulation. Thus there is no gold +available which can be used for payment of foreign debts, and the +importers in that country are forced to pay inflated prices for their +foreign bills. + +We have now described the system by which Europe lived before the war. +We see that it depended on a cycle of exchange, and that the cycle was +operated by the bill of exchange, and the value of the bill of exchange +was maintained, if necessary, by gold shipments. We see that an unsound +currency destroys that safeguard, and thus strikes a heavy blow at the +system on which Europe lived. + +The next point to consider is the effect of the war. During the four +years of war every effort of the various belligerents was directed +towards their mutual destruction. Thus in England the Government took +control of the industries of the country and directed their energies to +the manufacture of munitions, which were used, not only to destroy +themselves, but also the products and factories of pre-war industry. The +effect of this was to reduce the country's exports to a minimum, while +the imports of raw materials for munitions increased enormously. The +same applied to all the Allies, and the effect was to pile up an enormous debt owed by the Allies to America. -To liquidate this debt, the Allies were forced in the first -place to sell their overseas investments. This entailed the -loss of the interest Europe had been receiving from -overseas. Later on the Allies in turn were forced to borrow -money from overseas. +To liquidate this debt, the Allies were forced in the first place to +sell their overseas investments. This entailed the loss of the interest +Europe had been receiving from overseas. Later on the Allies in turn +were forced to borrow money from overseas. Thus, in addition to the loss of her former interest, Europe -henceforward had to pay interest abroad. This meant that to -preserve the trade balance Europe ought to increase her -exports at a time when all her energies were absorbed in the -war. - -Again, before the war, Europe paid for many of her imports -by rendering services to the world. But in time of war she -was unable to render these services, and so lost another -source of payment. Since the war this has been partially -recovered. But the Mercantile Marine of Europe has not yet -recovered from its war losses. Moreover, there has been a -noticeable increase in the shipping owned by the rest of the -world. Similarly, the banking and merchant system had been -thoroughly disorganized. - -Finally, every belligerent had to find the money necessary -for the prosecution of the war. This was done in the first -place by means of taxes and long-term loans. These absorbed -the surplus income and the savings of the various countries, -and so diverted them from their normal purpose of developing -the economic life of Europe, and turned them to the purposes -of war and destruction. But no country wholly paid for the -war by these means, and so the deficit had to be met by an -increase in their "floating debt." - -The effect of a large floating debt, in its best form, is to -absorb all the ready money of the country, which normally is -put to a productive use; in its worst form a large floating -debt leads to inflation of the credit and the currency of a -nation. By inflation is meant the artificial creation of -fresh purchasing power without a corresponding supply of -commodities which can absorb this purchasing power. Thus the -prices of commodities rise, and with them the price of -foreign currencies. Or in other words, the foreign exchanges -of the belligerents were depreciated as a result of -inflation. - -Thus the effect of the war was to shatter in every possible -way the cycle of trade which upheld the pre-war economic -structure of Europe. It dammed the pre-war flow of exports -from Europe. It reversed the pre-war flow of interest which -formerly paid for some of Europe's imports. It disorganized -the means Europe had of rendering services to the world. It -used up and destroyed the stocks of raw materials which -Europe possessed. And finally it artificially inflated the -currency and credit of Europe, and by depreciating her -exchanges rendered it even more difficult for her to obtain -those raw materials she needed to restart her flow of -exports. The cycle has been broken, and it remains an open +henceforward had to pay interest abroad. This meant that to preserve the +trade balance Europe ought to increase her exports at a time when all +her energies were absorbed in the war. + +Again, before the war, Europe paid for many of her imports by rendering +services to the world. But in time of war she was unable to render these +services, and so lost another source of payment. Since the war this has +been partially recovered. But the Mercantile Marine of Europe has not +yet recovered from its war losses. Moreover, there has been a noticeable +increase in the shipping owned by the rest of the world. Similarly, the +banking and merchant system had been thoroughly disorganized. + +Finally, every belligerent had to find the money necessary for the +prosecution of the war. This was done in the first place by means of +taxes and long-term loans. These absorbed the surplus income and the +savings of the various countries, and so diverted them from their normal +purpose of developing the economic life of Europe, and turned them to +the purposes of war and destruction. But no country wholly paid for the +war by these means, and so the deficit had to be met by an increase in +their "floating debt." + +The effect of a large floating debt, in its best form, is to absorb all +the ready money of the country, which normally is put to a productive +use; in its worst form a large floating debt leads to inflation of the +credit and the currency of a nation. By inflation is meant the +artificial creation of fresh purchasing power without a corresponding +supply of commodities which can absorb this purchasing power. Thus the +prices of commodities rise, and with them the price of foreign +currencies. Or in other words, the foreign exchanges of the belligerents +were depreciated as a result of inflation. + +Thus the effect of the war was to shatter in every possible way the +cycle of trade which upheld the pre-war economic structure of Europe. It +dammed the pre-war flow of exports from Europe. It reversed the pre-war +flow of interest which formerly paid for some of Europe's imports. It +disorganized the means Europe had of rendering services to the world. It +used up and destroyed the stocks of raw materials which Europe +possessed. And finally it artificially inflated the currency and credit +of Europe, and by depreciating her exchanges rendered it even more +difficult for her to obtain those raw materials she needed to restart +her flow of exports. The cycle has been broken, and it remains an open question whether it can be repaired. ## II -WE have seen that the effect of the war was to make Europe -break every law upon which her economic structure rested. -The position at the Armistice was tragically simple, but -most of us were too blind to see it. - -Briefly, Europe was swept bare of raw materials, and had no -finished products with which to buy them. Her overseas -investments had been sold and, in addition, money had been -borrowed from abroad with which to pay for the war. Her -commercial and financial system was shattered, and her -mercantile marine crippled by the submarine campaign. All -her savings, all her energy, had been directed to the -purposes of destruction. - -There was very little left with which to re-start the -industries on which her very life depended. All she -possessed was large quantities of paper money, which were -more or less useless for the purpose of replenishing her -stocks of raw material. - -Even so, the full story has not yet been told. The war's -toll in life and suffering must still be reckoned in the -account. Even those who returned unharmed found that they -had lost their habits of regular work. Again, no account has -been taken of the actual destruction that the war was the -cause of---the farm-lands of the Somme, and the coal-mines -of Lens. - -Above all, we must add in the loss caused by the collapse of -Russia, which was the granary of Europe. If we total up all -these items, we see how great was the danger facing us at -the conclusion of the war. - -It may be urged that Europe recovered from the Napoleonic -wars a century ago. This is true, but it should be -remembered that our industrial system was still in its -infancy. Practically every country was still -self-supporting, and had a far smaller population to -maintain. At that date Europe was still mainly agricultural, -and the different countries were not then bound together -into the component parts of one huge machine. - -But if the facts in 1918-19 were as we have stated them, -what steps were taken at the Peace Conference to save Europe -from the effects of the war? To speak quite frankly, the -Peace Conference hardly recognized their existence. - -Thus they discussed the possibilities of obtaining -indemnities from Germany. They did not realize that the only -possible way was to take over all German industries, supply -them with raw materials, and the people with food, and run -them as a "going concern" for what they could get by way of -profit. This might have been brutal, but the German people +WE have seen that the effect of the war was to make Europe break every +law upon which her economic structure rested. The position at the +Armistice was tragically simple, but most of us were too blind to see +it. + +Briefly, Europe was swept bare of raw materials, and had no finished +products with which to buy them. Her overseas investments had been sold +and, in addition, money had been borrowed from abroad with which to pay +for the war. Her commercial and financial system was shattered, and her +mercantile marine crippled by the submarine campaign. All her savings, +all her energy, had been directed to the purposes of destruction. + +There was very little left with which to re-start the industries on +which her very life depended. All she possessed was large quantities of +paper money, which were more or less useless for the purpose of +replenishing her stocks of raw material. + +Even so, the full story has not yet been told. The war's toll in life +and suffering must still be reckoned in the account. Even those who +returned unharmed found that they had lost their habits of regular work. +Again, no account has been taken of the actual destruction that the war +was the cause of---the farm-lands of the Somme, and the coal-mines of +Lens. + +Above all, we must add in the loss caused by the collapse of Russia, +which was the granary of Europe. If we total up all these items, we see +how great was the danger facing us at the conclusion of the war. + +It may be urged that Europe recovered from the Napoleonic wars a century +ago. This is true, but it should be remembered that our industrial +system was still in its infancy. Practically every country was still +self-supporting, and had a far smaller population to maintain. At that +date Europe was still mainly agricultural, and the different countries +were not then bound together into the component parts of one huge +machine. + +But if the facts in 1918-19 were as we have stated them, what steps were +taken at the Peace Conference to save Europe from the effects of the +war? To speak quite frankly, the Peace Conference hardly recognized +their existence. + +Thus they discussed the possibilities of obtaining indemnities from +Germany. They did not realize that the only possible way was to take +over all German industries, supply them with raw materials, and the +people with food, and run them as a "going concern" for what they could +get by way of profit. This might have been brutal, but the German people would have been properly fed. -Again, under the name of self-determination, the old -Austrian Empire was dismembered. The new States that arose -out of it promptly erected customs barriers one against the -other, thus failing to realize that they could only exist if -they looked upon themselves as one economic unit. The result -is now too obvious namely, that a state of financial and -economic chaos has given rise to a state of destitution and +Again, under the name of self-determination, the old Austrian Empire was +dismembered. The new States that arose out of it promptly erected +customs barriers one against the other, thus failing to realize that +they could only exist if they looked upon themselves as one economic +unit. The result is now too obvious namely, that a state of financial +and economic chaos has given rise to a state of destitution and starvation. -Finally, as a result of the Peace Treaties the Allies have -been left with huge military commitments all over the world -at a time when every penny was needed to re-start the -industrial machine. It is clear now what should have been -done. It should have been seen that the restarting of -European industries was a race against time, and that -compared to this nothing else was of the slightest -importance. Food, materials and labour should have been sent -at once to where they were needed, and no effort should have -been spared to ensure that this was done. - -Instead of this petty quarrels have broken out in Fiume, in -Poland, in Asia Minor, in Mesopotamia, and, in fact, all -over the world. These have all involved expense, and forced -the Governments of Europe to resort to further inflation. No -Government is guiltless, and least of all the Peace -Conference. - -The result of this is seen in the exchange movements that -have taken place since the Armistice. They show us the -result of national extravagance, especially of our military -adventures. At this season of the year Europe has to -purchase the world's crops of wheat, cotton, etc., without -which she cannot exist. She has nothing with which to pay -for them, except a few manufactured products and paper -money. - -The value that the world attaches to this paper money is -shown by the present rates of exchange. Compare, too, the -present rates with those current a year ago, when Europe was -purchasing last year's crops, and it ill be clear that -Europe is slowly sinking under the burden that the war +Finally, as a result of the Peace Treaties the Allies have been left +with huge military commitments all over the world at a time when every +penny was needed to re-start the industrial machine. It is clear now +what should have been done. It should have been seen that the restarting +of European industries was a race against time, and that compared to +this nothing else was of the slightest importance. Food, materials and +labour should have been sent at once to where they were needed, and no +effort should have been spared to ensure that this was done. + +Instead of this petty quarrels have broken out in Fiume, in Poland, in +Asia Minor, in Mesopotamia, and, in fact, all over the world. These have +all involved expense, and forced the Governments of Europe to resort to +further inflation. No Government is guiltless, and least of all the +Peace Conference. + +The result of this is seen in the exchange movements that have taken +place since the Armistice. They show us the result of national +extravagance, especially of our military adventures. At this season of +the year Europe has to purchase the world's crops of wheat, cotton, +etc., without which she cannot exist. She has nothing with which to pay +for them, except a few manufactured products and paper money. + +The value that the world attaches to this paper money is shown by the +present rates of exchange. Compare, too, the present rates with those +current a year ago, when Europe was purchasing last year's crops, and it +ill be clear that Europe is slowly sinking under the burden that the war placed on her shoulders. -Thus, in December 1919 our pound was worth 3 dollars 8 1 -cents in New York; in November 1920 only 3 dollars 44 cents. -In December 1919 our pound would buy 41.03 francs, 49.63 -lire, and 181.53 marks (contrast even these rates with the -par of exchange). In November 1920 these rates were 57.17 -francs, 95.13 lire, and 262.89 marks. This shows the extent +Thus, in December 1919 our pound was worth 3 dollars 8 1 cents in New +York; in November 1920 only 3 dollars 44 cents. In December 1919 our +pound would buy 41.03 francs, 49.63 lire, and 181.53 marks (contrast +even these rates with the par of exchange). In November 1920 these rates +were 57.17 francs, 95.13 lire, and 262.89 marks. This shows the extent to which the dry rot has spread during the year. -The cause of this rot is plain---Europe must buy in order to -live, but she has nothing to sell. And unless the cycle of -trade is restarted, she will still have nothing to sell. +The cause of this rot is plain---Europe must buy in order to live, but +she has nothing to sell. And unless the cycle of trade is restarted, she +will still have nothing to sell. -It may be asked: "What steps have the Governments taken in -order to rectify this position?" The answer is that most -steps taken by the Governments have resulted in aggravating -the position. +It may be asked: "What steps have the Governments taken in order to +rectify this position?" The answer is that most steps taken by the +Governments have resulted in aggravating the position. -There is no need to call attention to the extravagance of -the various Governments. The word is on every one's lips, -and the pity is that people do not realize the direction in -which extravagance is leading us. For every fresh load of -debt, every fresh issue of paper money brings the final -tragedy nearer---when the machine on which we depend, and -which is already tottering under the blows dealt it by the -war, will be unable to serve us any longer. +There is no need to call attention to the extravagance of the various +Governments. The word is on every one's lips, and the pity is that +people do not realize the direction in which extravagance is leading us. +For every fresh load of debt, every fresh issue of paper money brings +the final tragedy nearer---when the machine on which we depend, and +which is already tottering under the blows dealt it by the war, will be +unable to serve us any longer. It is easy to give examples of the results of this -extravagance---Continental inflation and British E.P.D. The -first renders it more and more impossible for the Continent -to buy, the second renders it difficult for our industries -to produce the goods the Continent needs at a price they can -pay. But whatever it results in, one thing is clear: This -extravagance must cease, if Europe is to be saved. - -Among other steps taken, various Governments have attempted -to regulate their exchanges. This was done during the war -with fair success; but it meant the loss of our overseas -securities, and also the raising of foreign loans. But after -the war the exchanges had to be left to find their own -level, with the result we now see. - -Sporadic attempts, however, have been made to arrest their -fall. The fall in sterling was arrested temporarily by the -shipment of gold last March to New York, and by reduction in -purchases. A month later France arrested the fall of the -franc by a very drastic series of import restrictions. That -they were only partly successful was probably due to further -Government extravagance. - -The Portuguese Government tried to fix their exchanges by an -arbitrary decree, but found that the only result was to cut -off their imports. Lastly, our own attempts to regulate the -currency in India and East Africa have met with a large -amount of justifiable criticism. - -Any attempt of this kind is bound to fail, for the rates of -exchange are but a symptom of the economic illness from -which a country is suffering. It is useless to remove the -symptom without removing the cause of the illness, and so it -is useless to regulate a rate of exchange while leaving the -cause of its depreciation untouched. - -If any further evidence is needed of the breakdown of the -economic machine, it is found in the wild price fluctuations -that have been rampant during the past two years. It is -comparatively easy to trace these price movements and also -their causes. The Armistice found Europe swept bare of all -her stocks of goods. Her industries were all mobilized for -the production of munitions, while her peoples had an +extravagance---Continental inflation and British E.P.D. The first +renders it more and more impossible for the Continent to buy, the second +renders it difficult for our industries to produce the goods the +Continent needs at a price they can pay. But whatever it results in, one +thing is clear: This extravagance must cease, if Europe is to be saved. + +Among other steps taken, various Governments have attempted to regulate +their exchanges. This was done during the war with fair success; but it +meant the loss of our overseas securities, and also the raising of +foreign loans. But after the war the exchanges had to be left to find +their own level, with the result we now see. + +Sporadic attempts, however, have been made to arrest their fall. The +fall in sterling was arrested temporarily by the shipment of gold last +March to New York, and by reduction in purchases. A month later France +arrested the fall of the franc by a very drastic series of import +restrictions. That they were only partly successful was probably due to +further Government extravagance. + +The Portuguese Government tried to fix their exchanges by an arbitrary +decree, but found that the only result was to cut off their imports. +Lastly, our own attempts to regulate the currency in India and East +Africa have met with a large amount of justifiable criticism. + +Any attempt of this kind is bound to fail, for the rates of exchange are +but a symptom of the economic illness from which a country is suffering. +It is useless to remove the symptom without removing the cause of the +illness, and so it is useless to regulate a rate of exchange while +leaving the cause of its depreciation untouched. + +If any further evidence is needed of the breakdown of the economic +machine, it is found in the wild price fluctuations that have been +rampant during the past two years. It is comparatively easy to trace +these price movements and also their causes. The Armistice found Europe +swept bare of all her stocks of goods. Her industries were all mobilized +for the production of munitions, while her peoples had an ever-increasing supply of paper money in their pockets. -As industry resumed a peace footing, orders flowed in from -all over the world, and every factory was filled up with -orders for months ahead. It is no wonder that prices began -to soar, while speculation was rampant, and huge profits -became the rule. Nor is it surprising that the workers -claimed a share in these profits, and a better wage with -which to meet the rise in prices. - -Disastrous strikes followed until these higher wages were -granted, and the mere granting of them entailed a rise in -production costs, which forced the manufacturer to maintain -his swollen prices. Nor can the Governments be absolved from -profiteering. The British Government enforced a Profiteering -Act at home, while they were selling coal at £10 per ton on -the Continent. - -The effect of these high prices quickly showed itself in the -rates of exchange, and by the middle of this year the -Continental exchanges had depreciated so badly that Europe -was unable to buy our goods. Then the break came, and prices -began to fall. This fall brought with it dwindling profits, -in some cases enforced liquidation, and in most trades -unemployment for the workers. The boom in British trade was +As industry resumed a peace footing, orders flowed in from all over the +world, and every factory was filled up with orders for months ahead. It +is no wonder that prices began to soar, while speculation was rampant, +and huge profits became the rule. Nor is it surprising that the workers +claimed a share in these profits, and a better wage with which to meet +the rise in prices. + +Disastrous strikes followed until these higher wages were granted, and +the mere granting of them entailed a rise in production costs, which +forced the manufacturer to maintain his swollen prices. Nor can the +Governments be absolved from profiteering. The British Government +enforced a Profiteering Act at home, while they were selling coal at £10 +per ton on the Continent. + +The effect of these high prices quickly showed itself in the rates of +exchange, and by the middle of this year the Continental exchanges had +depreciated so badly that Europe was unable to buy our goods. Then the +break came, and prices began to fall. This fall brought with it +dwindling profits, in some cases enforced liquidation, and in most +trades unemployment for the workers. The boom in British trade was broken, and the slump is only now beginning. -This is the position to-day. Europe is dying for lack of our -goods, but Europe cannot produce the goods she needs in -order to pay for ours. For we cannot take payment in paper -money and depreciated currencies. So our export trade is -going, our industries are being slowly strangled, and our -men are being thrown out of work. That is what the collapse -of Europe means to us, and now we can only see the -beginning. Remember that as we go eastward from the Bay of -Biscay the exchanges become worse and worse until we reach -Russia, where the rouble is absolutely worthless. Watch the -rates of exchange, and then ask yourself, "What will be the +This is the position to-day. Europe is dying for lack of our goods, but +Europe cannot produce the goods she needs in order to pay for ours. For +we cannot take payment in paper money and depreciated currencies. So our +export trade is going, our industries are being slowly strangled, and +our men are being thrown out of work. That is what the collapse of +Europe means to us, and now we can only see the beginning. Remember that +as we go eastward from the Bay of Biscay the exchanges become worse and +worse until we reach Russia, where the rouble is absolutely worthless. +Watch the rates of exchange, and then ask yourself, "What will be the end?" ## III -We have seen that before the war Europe supported a larger -population than she could have fed from her own produce by -exporting finished goods, by the interest on her overseas -loans and the payment for her services. - -The war has decreased or destroyed the last two sources of -income and replaced them by claims for interest on war -loans, which means that henceforth she must export more than -she imports instead of being able to do the reverse as she -did in 1913. - -Moreover, the supply of finished goods with which she bought -next year's food and raw materials no longer exists. Unless, -however, she can get these essentials she cannot restart her -industrial system, and having no goods to give she can only -offer paper money. This being only of use if foreigners can -exchange it for goods, has continued to depreciate steadily -since peace was made, as there are not the goods. - -In short, the position, after two years' peace, is, as shown -by the rates of exchange, far worse than in 1918. Therefore, -Europe is slowly drifting into a state of bankruptcy, which -means that ultimately she will no longer be able to buy the -bare necessities of life. When that happens the whole system -must collapse. What that means is shown by the condition of -affairs in Russia, a country, which, being mainly -agricultural, should have been able to feed itself if any -European country could. - -The possibility of such a catastrophe is so terrible that so -far no one has dared to suggest it, but the writers feel -that unless people realize where they are drifting no -efforts to avert it will be made till it is too late. They -do not say that even now it is impossible to save Europe, -though it will be no easy task, but they do say, if things -are allowed to drift for another two or three years it will -be too late then. It is certainly possible to save Great -Britain to-day; by then it may be too late. - -Unfortunately there are not wanting other indications that -our civilization is in danger. We can only tabulate these -briefly, but whenever in history a civilization has been -approaching its end similar indications have appeared. - -They include a marked laxity in the morals and an open -challenge to the established moral codes. For example, "The -Right to Motherhood" shows what is meant. The failing -influence of the orthodox faiths, love of luxury and -extravagance at a time when tens of thousands are suffering -from want; a spirit of lawless violence, coupled with a -strange apathy on the part of a large section of the -community, are characteristic indications of a decaying -civilization. - -Though these vices are noticeable in Great Britain to-day, -they are not nearly so marked as in many Continental -countries, and only emphasize the more the fact that Great -Britain is still healthier than the Continent. - -As the situation on the Continent goes from bad to worse, we -find it increasingly difficult to sell our goods. We, above -all countries, are dependent on our export trade, and it is -poor consolation for us to know that America is suffering in -proportion, even more severely in her export trade, from the -same cause. America can feed herself still, whereas we -cannot. To her, external trade is almost a luxury, to us it -is an absolute necessity. Without it, half our population -will starve. - -Already we are witnessing the gradual closing of our -Continental markets, and almost a panic among our -manufacturers at the possibility of being undersold in the -home markets by the Continent, but this aspect of the case -was dealt with in the *Daily News* on November 26th. - -Unless the decline on the Continent is stopped, this -strangling of our industries will continue, and it behoves -us now to consider seriously what we shall do in that event. -There is no need for panic, but that is far less likely than -apathy and contemptuous unbelief till the crisis is on us. -By then it will be too late. Rather let us take such a -possibility into our reckoning, and begin to prepare -alternative plans. - -If Europe can be saved, then gradually things will right -themselves, and the first thing to be done is for every -Government at home or abroad to reduce its expenditure to -the very lowest that is possible, even if this entails the -abandonment of desirable social schemes or valuable military +We have seen that before the war Europe supported a larger population +than she could have fed from her own produce by exporting finished +goods, by the interest on her overseas loans and the payment for her +services. + +The war has decreased or destroyed the last two sources of income and +replaced them by claims for interest on war loans, which means that +henceforth she must export more than she imports instead of being able +to do the reverse as she did in 1913. + +Moreover, the supply of finished goods with which she bought next year's +food and raw materials no longer exists. Unless, however, she can get +these essentials she cannot restart her industrial system, and having no +goods to give she can only offer paper money. This being only of use if +foreigners can exchange it for goods, has continued to depreciate +steadily since peace was made, as there are not the goods. + +In short, the position, after two years' peace, is, as shown by the +rates of exchange, far worse than in 1918. Therefore, Europe is slowly +drifting into a state of bankruptcy, which means that ultimately she +will no longer be able to buy the bare necessities of life. When that +happens the whole system must collapse. What that means is shown by the +condition of affairs in Russia, a country, which, being mainly +agricultural, should have been able to feed itself if any European +country could. + +The possibility of such a catastrophe is so terrible that so far no one +has dared to suggest it, but the writers feel that unless people realize +where they are drifting no efforts to avert it will be made till it is +too late. They do not say that even now it is impossible to save Europe, +though it will be no easy task, but they do say, if things are allowed +to drift for another two or three years it will be too late then. It is +certainly possible to save Great Britain to-day; by then it may be too +late. + +Unfortunately there are not wanting other indications that our +civilization is in danger. We can only tabulate these briefly, but +whenever in history a civilization has been approaching its end similar +indications have appeared. + +They include a marked laxity in the morals and an open challenge to the +established moral codes. For example, "The Right to Motherhood" shows +what is meant. The failing influence of the orthodox faiths, love of +luxury and extravagance at a time when tens of thousands are suffering +from want; a spirit of lawless violence, coupled with a strange apathy +on the part of a large section of the community, are characteristic +indications of a decaying civilization. + +Though these vices are noticeable in Great Britain to-day, they are not +nearly so marked as in many Continental countries, and only emphasize +the more the fact that Great Britain is still healthier than the +Continent. + +As the situation on the Continent goes from bad to worse, we find it +increasingly difficult to sell our goods. We, above all countries, are +dependent on our export trade, and it is poor consolation for us to know +that America is suffering in proportion, even more severely in her +export trade, from the same cause. America can feed herself still, +whereas we cannot. To her, external trade is almost a luxury, to us it +is an absolute necessity. Without it, half our population will starve. + +Already we are witnessing the gradual closing of our Continental +markets, and almost a panic among our manufacturers at the possibility +of being undersold in the home markets by the Continent, but this aspect +of the case was dealt with in the *Daily News* on November 26th. + +Unless the decline on the Continent is stopped, this strangling of our +industries will continue, and it behoves us now to consider seriously +what we shall do in that event. There is no need for panic, but that is +far less likely than apathy and contemptuous unbelief till the crisis is +on us. By then it will be too late. Rather let us take such a +possibility into our reckoning, and begin to prepare alternative plans. + +If Europe can be saved, then gradually things will right themselves, and +the first thing to be done is for every Government at home or abroad to +reduce its expenditure to the very lowest that is possible, even if this +entails the abandonment of desirable social schemes or valuable military positions. We simply cannot afford them. -Every country must not merely increase production, but see -that the goods made are exchanged for the things they must -have. It is no use filling warehouses with goods which our -neighbours cannot buy because their exchanges are so badly -depreciated. We in Great Britain must open up new markets, -if necessary, by means of barter, particularly with -countries other than the United States of America, from -which we can get food or raw materials---for example, Poland -and Russia. - -But supposing Europe cannot be saved, what will happen? -Briefly it will be impossible to transport the excessive -millions in Europe overseas. What will happen to them is -what has happened in Russia, and to-day is happening in -Poland and Austria they will die. - -Those who survive will revert to an agricultural race, with -but simple industries and no elaborate industrial system. Do -not think that this picture is too highly coloured. Five -years ago, would you have thought it possible that Russia -would have reached the condition she is in to-day? Russia, -remember, represents one-quarter of the earth's surface. As -we move eastward from the Bay of Biscay to the frontiers of -Russia, we find that the exchanges fall consistently. On -November 30th France was 57.80 francs to the, Italy 95.50, -Germany 250, Austria 1,175, Poland 1,750, Hungary not -quoted, Russia ---! And on the frontiers of Poland gather a -pack of starving men looking hungrily westward. - -What is the alternative to the present system if it does not -recover? It is not Bolshevism. That is the last resort of -desperate, starving men. It may come when the last agony of -dissolution is upon Europe, but it cannot reorganize and -feed the present large population. It has already appeared -sporadically in Hungary, Germany and Italy. It has been -driven underground---perhaps---but only for a time. If you -want to prevent Bolshevism see that the people are well fed. -That, however, is just what we are unable to do in many -parts of Europe. The machine that did is broken by the war, -it is still freely rotating, but each month it moves slower -and with more difficulty. +Every country must not merely increase production, but see that the +goods made are exchanged for the things they must have. It is no use +filling warehouses with goods which our neighbours cannot buy because +their exchanges are so badly depreciated. We in Great Britain must open +up new markets, if necessary, by means of barter, particularly with +countries other than the United States of America, from which we can get +food or raw materials---for example, Poland and Russia. + +But supposing Europe cannot be saved, what will happen? Briefly it will +be impossible to transport the excessive millions in Europe overseas. +What will happen to them is what has happened in Russia, and to-day is +happening in Poland and Austria they will die. + +Those who survive will revert to an agricultural race, with but simple +industries and no elaborate industrial system. Do not think that this +picture is too highly coloured. Five years ago, would you have thought +it possible that Russia would have reached the condition she is in +to-day? Russia, remember, represents one-quarter of the earth's surface. +As we move eastward from the Bay of Biscay to the frontiers of Russia, +we find that the exchanges fall consistently. On November 30th France +was 57.80 francs to the, Italy 95.50, Germany 250, Austria 1,175, Poland +1,750, Hungary not quoted, Russia ---! And on the frontiers of Poland +gather a pack of starving men looking hungrily westward. + +What is the alternative to the present system if it does not recover? It +is not Bolshevism. That is the last resort of desperate, starving men. +It may come when the last agony of dissolution is upon Europe, but it +cannot reorganize and feed the present large population. It has already +appeared sporadically in Hungary, Germany and Italy. It has been driven +underground---perhaps---but only for a time. If you want to prevent +Bolshevism see that the people are well fed. That, however, is just what +we are unable to do in many parts of Europe. The machine that did is +broken by the war, it is still freely rotating, but each month it moves +slower and with more difficulty. If we cannot save Europe, can we at least save ourselves? -Yes! if we prepare in time, Great Britain can be saved, but -it will not be the Great Britain we knew and loved before -the war. With our Continental markets gone, and our export -trade crippled, we shall not be able to support our present -population. - -A drastic land policy would settle on the countryside -millions who are now congregated into industrial areas. -Millions would have to emigrate to our Overseas Dominions -and Colonies. Herein lies our strength. We are an Empire -with vast empty spaces, with lands which can produce the -food and raw materials we shall still need, and supply us -with the simple things of life, which we can barter with the -more primitive peoples of Europe. - -Our industries will dwindle, but our geographical position -will enable us to remain a great seafaring and merchant -race. As the last outpost of the industrial west (by then -the United States of America) we can still carry the -merchandise of those countries which cluster round the -Pacific to those who dwell in Russia and barter them for the -minerals and raw materials they are prepared to offer. - -But it will be a smaller England with probably less than -half its present population and perhaps a humbler member of -the British Empire than it is to-day. Do not let us suppose -that we can continue indefinitely to export huge quantities -of manufactured goods to Australia, Canada, or even South -Africa. During the war these countries have been developing -their own manufactures near the spot where they produce raw -materials. This process is bound to continue. - -Has it ever struck you how the centre of industry, commerce -and civilization has shifted ever westward? In classical -days the Mediterranean was the centre, in the Middle Ages it -was the Baltic, where the Hanseatic League ruled. In the -sixteenth century it shifted to the Atlantic. What if it is -again moving to the Pacific, where America and Australia -face China and Japan? Look at the rates of exchange of Japan -and the United States of America if this possibility seems +Yes! if we prepare in time, Great Britain can be saved, but it will not +be the Great Britain we knew and loved before the war. With our +Continental markets gone, and our export trade crippled, we shall not be +able to support our present population. + +A drastic land policy would settle on the countryside millions who are +now congregated into industrial areas. Millions would have to emigrate +to our Overseas Dominions and Colonies. Herein lies our strength. We are +an Empire with vast empty spaces, with lands which can produce the food +and raw materials we shall still need, and supply us with the simple +things of life, which we can barter with the more primitive peoples of +Europe. + +Our industries will dwindle, but our geographical position will enable +us to remain a great seafaring and merchant race. As the last outpost of +the industrial west (by then the United States of America) we can still +carry the merchandise of those countries which cluster round the Pacific +to those who dwell in Russia and barter them for the minerals and raw +materials they are prepared to offer. + +But it will be a smaller England with probably less than half its +present population and perhaps a humbler member of the British Empire +than it is to-day. Do not let us suppose that we can continue +indefinitely to export huge quantities of manufactured goods to +Australia, Canada, or even South Africa. During the war these countries +have been developing their own manufactures near the spot where they +produce raw materials. This process is bound to continue. + +Has it ever struck you how the centre of industry, commerce and +civilization has shifted ever westward? In classical days the +Mediterranean was the centre, in the Middle Ages it was the Baltic, +where the Hanseatic League ruled. In the sixteenth century it shifted to +the Atlantic. What if it is again moving to the Pacific, where America +and Australia face China and Japan? Look at the rates of exchange of +Japan and the United States of America if this possibility seems fantastic. -But it takes time to move millions of men, and if the -industrial system is breaking down, what will take its -place? State Socialism cannot, for it presupposes a huge -industrial machine. Perhaps the Guild Socialists have seen a -vision of the ultimate solution, but, if so, they must -descend from the clouds and begin to construct their system -here and now. - -It is useless to imagine our Guildsman will straightaway -become a saint. He will be exactly the same man who at -present forms part of the industrial system. In time a -better system may produce more perfect men, but they must -evolve by degrees. - -Meanwhile, the wise man uses the material he has to hand, -and in truth the average Briton, despite his faults, is -still the cream of the earth. In short, why not begin to -build the new system to-day, so that it is a running machine -by the time the old one breaks down completely? But still, -perhaps, this appears a nightmare dream. What if, after all, -it is but the darkness before the dawn of better things? -Nightmare or vision of the dawn, take your choice, but look -at the writing on the wall and ask which country follows -Russia, and the answer is given to you by *the rates of -Exchange*. +But it takes time to move millions of men, and if the industrial system +is breaking down, what will take its place? State Socialism cannot, for +it presupposes a huge industrial machine. Perhaps the Guild Socialists +have seen a vision of the ultimate solution, but, if so, they must +descend from the clouds and begin to construct their system here and +now. + +It is useless to imagine our Guildsman will straightaway become a saint. +He will be exactly the same man who at present forms part of the +industrial system. In time a better system may produce more perfect men, +but they must evolve by degrees. + +Meanwhile, the wise man uses the material he has to hand, and in truth +the average Briton, despite his faults, is still the cream of the earth. +In short, why not begin to build the new system to-day, so that it is a +running machine by the time the old one breaks down completely? But +still, perhaps, this appears a nightmare dream. What if, after all, it +is but the darkness before the dawn of better things? Nightmare or +vision of the dawn, take your choice, but look at the writing on the +wall and ask which country follows Russia, and the answer is given to +you by *the rates of Exchange*. diff --git a/src/guildsman-history.md b/src/guildsman-history.md index cd163b1..0fbbe52 100644 --- a/src/guildsman-history.md +++ b/src/guildsman-history.md @@ -1,200 +1,167 @@ # Preface -The primary object of this history is to relate the social -problem to the experience of the past and so to help bring -about a clearer comprehension of its nature. "The reason," -says the author of *Erewhon*, "why we cannot see the future -as plainly as the past is because we know too little of the -actual past and the actual present. The future depends upon -the present, and the present depends upon the past, and the -past is unalterable." It is by studying the past in the -light of the experience of the present and the present in -the light of the past that we may attain to a fuller -understanding both of the present and the past. Certain -aspects of industrialism are new to the world, and the past -offers us no ready-made solution for them, but to understand -them it is necessary to be familiar with Mediaeval -principles, for such Mediaeval problems as those of law and -currency, of the State and the Guilds, lie behind -industrialism and have determined its peculiar development. -If we were more familiar with history we should see the -problems of industrialism in a truer perspective and would -have less disposition to evolve social theories from our -inner consciousness. This neglect of the experience of the -past is no new thing; it is as old as civilization itself. -Thus in criticizing some of the fantastic proposals of Plato -for the reorganization of Greek society, Aristotle says: -"Let us remember that we should not disregard the experience -of the ages; in the multitude of years, these things, if -they were good, would certainly not have been unknown; for -almost everything has been found out, although sometimes -they are not put together; in other cases men do not use the -knowledge that they have." It would be a mistake to push -this idea too far, and refuse to entertain any proposal -which could not claim the authority of history, but it would -be just as well before embarking on any new enterprise to -inquire if history has anything to say about it. If we did -we should find that debatable matter was confined within -very narrow limits, and with minds enriched through the -study of history we should not waste so much of our time in -fruitless discussion. Above all, we should speedily discover -that there is no such thing as a cure-all for social ills. -We should become more interested in principles and have less -regard for schemes. +The primary object of this history is to relate the social problem to +the experience of the past and so to help bring about a clearer +comprehension of its nature. "The reason," says the author of *Erewhon*, +"why we cannot see the future as plainly as the past is because we know +too little of the actual past and the actual present. The future depends +upon the present, and the present depends upon the past, and the past is +unalterable." It is by studying the past in the light of the experience +of the present and the present in the light of the past that we may +attain to a fuller understanding both of the present and the past. +Certain aspects of industrialism are new to the world, and the past +offers us no ready-made solution for them, but to understand them it is +necessary to be familiar with Mediaeval principles, for such Mediaeval +problems as those of law and currency, of the State and the Guilds, lie +behind industrialism and have determined its peculiar development. If we +were more familiar with history we should see the problems of +industrialism in a truer perspective and would have less disposition to +evolve social theories from our inner consciousness. This neglect of the +experience of the past is no new thing; it is as old as civilization +itself. Thus in criticizing some of the fantastic proposals of Plato for +the reorganization of Greek society, Aristotle says: "Let us remember +that we should not disregard the experience of the ages; in the +multitude of years, these things, if they were good, would certainly not +have been unknown; for almost everything has been found out, although +sometimes they are not put together; in other cases men do not use the +knowledge that they have." It would be a mistake to push this idea too +far, and refuse to entertain any proposal which could not claim the +authority of history, but it would be just as well before embarking on +any new enterprise to inquire if history has anything to say about it. +If we did we should find that debatable matter was confined within very +narrow limits, and with minds enriched through the study of history we +should not waste so much of our time in fruitless discussion. Above all, +we should speedily discover that there is no such thing as a cure-all +for social ills. We should become more interested in principles and have +less regard for schemes. Though the Guild theory is ultimately based upon historical -considerations, the absence hitherto of a history written -from the Guildsman's point of view has been a serious -handicap to the movement. Not only has this lack pre vented -it from giving historical considerations the prominence they -deserve, but when Guild ideas are adopted by Socialists who -have not been historical students they are apt to be -distorted by the materialist conception of history which -lies in the background of the minds of so many. Hence it -becomes urgent, if the movement is not to be side-tracked, -that Guildsmen should have a history of their own which -gathers together information of importance to them. In this -volume are gathered together such facts from a hundred -volumes, and it is hoped by organizing them into a -consistent theory to show not only that history is capable -of a very different interpretation from the one that -materialists affirm but that the Guild Movement has a -definite historical significance. Indeed, we are persuaded -that the success which has followed its propaganda is -ultimately due to the fact that it has such a significance. - -That the materialist conception of history is a one-sided -and distorted conception, all students of history who are -not materialists by temperament are well aware. It is made -plausible by isolating a single factor in history and -ignoring other factors. The theory of the Class War is as -grotesque and false an explanation of the history of society -as a history of marriage would be that was built up from the -records of Divorce Courts, which carefully took note of all -the unhappy marriages and denied the existence of happy ones -because they were not supported by documentary evidence. The -heresies of Marx stand on precisely such a footing. They are -false, not because of what they say, but because of what -they leave unsaid. Such theories gain credence to-day -because capitalism has undermined all the great traditions -of the past, and thus emptied life of its contents. It is -true that by the light of the materialist conception -considerable patches of history, including the history of -the present day, may be explained. It is true of the later -history of Greece and Rome as of Europe after the -Reformation; for in the decline of all civilizations the -material factor comes to predominate. But as an explanation -of history as a whole and of the Mediaeval period in -particular it is most demonstrably false, and only -ignorance, if not the deliberate falsification in the past, -of Mediaeval history could have made such an explanation -plausible. It is important that this should be recognized, -not merely because it is an injustice to the past to have -its reality distorted, but because of its reaction upon the -mind of to-day. It makes all the difference to our thinking -about the problems of the present day whether we believe -modern society has developed from a social system which was -inhuman and based upon class tyranny, in which ignorance and -superstition prevailed, or from one which enjoyed freedom -and understood the nature of liberty in its widest and most -philosophic sense. If a man believes that society in the -past was based upon class tyranny he will see everything in -an inverted perspective, he will be predisposed to support -all the forces of social disintegration which masquerade -under the name of "progress" because he will view with -suspicion all traditions which have survived from the past -and have a prejudice against all normal forms of social -organization. If it be true that the Middle Ages was a time -of tyranny, ignorance and superstition, then to a logically -minded person it naturally follows that the emancipation of -the people is bound up with the destruction of such -traditions as have survived, for to such a mind tradition -and tyranny become synonymous terms. But if, on the -contrary, he knows that such was not the case, that the -Middle Ages was an age of real enlightenment, he will not be -so readily deceived. He will know how to estimate at their -proper value the movements he sees around him, and not be so -disposed to place his faith in quack remedies, for he will -know that for the masses the transition from the Middle Ages -has not been one from bondage to freedom, from poverty to -well-being, but from security to insecurity, from status to -wage-slavery, from well-being to poverty. He will know, -moreover, that the Servile State is not a new menace, but -that it has been extending its tentacles ever since the days +considerations, the absence hitherto of a history written from the +Guildsman's point of view has been a serious handicap to the movement. +Not only has this lack pre vented it from giving historical +considerations the prominence they deserve, but when Guild ideas are +adopted by Socialists who have not been historical students they are apt +to be distorted by the materialist conception of history which lies in +the background of the minds of so many. Hence it becomes urgent, if the +movement is not to be side-tracked, that Guildsmen should have a history +of their own which gathers together information of importance to them. +In this volume are gathered together such facts from a hundred volumes, +and it is hoped by organizing them into a consistent theory to show not +only that history is capable of a very different interpretation from the +one that materialists affirm but that the Guild Movement has a definite +historical significance. Indeed, we are persuaded that the success which +has followed its propaganda is ultimately due to the fact that it has +such a significance. + +That the materialist conception of history is a one-sided and distorted +conception, all students of history who are not materialists by +temperament are well aware. It is made plausible by isolating a single +factor in history and ignoring other factors. The theory of the Class +War is as grotesque and false an explanation of the history of society +as a history of marriage would be that was built up from the records of +Divorce Courts, which carefully took note of all the unhappy marriages +and denied the existence of happy ones because they were not supported +by documentary evidence. The heresies of Marx stand on precisely such a +footing. They are false, not because of what they say, but because of +what they leave unsaid. Such theories gain credence to-day because +capitalism has undermined all the great traditions of the past, and thus +emptied life of its contents. It is true that by the light of the +materialist conception considerable patches of history, including the +history of the present day, may be explained. It is true of the later +history of Greece and Rome as of Europe after the Reformation; for in +the decline of all civilizations the material factor comes to +predominate. But as an explanation of history as a whole and of the +Mediaeval period in particular it is most demonstrably false, and only +ignorance, if not the deliberate falsification in the past, of Mediaeval +history could have made such an explanation plausible. It is important +that this should be recognized, not merely because it is an injustice to +the past to have its reality distorted, but because of its reaction upon +the mind of to-day. It makes all the difference to our thinking about +the problems of the present day whether we believe modern society has +developed from a social system which was inhuman and based upon class +tyranny, in which ignorance and superstition prevailed, or from one +which enjoyed freedom and understood the nature of liberty in its widest +and most philosophic sense. If a man believes that society in the past +was based upon class tyranny he will see everything in an inverted +perspective, he will be predisposed to support all the forces of social +disintegration which masquerade under the name of "progress" because he +will view with suspicion all traditions which have survived from the +past and have a prejudice against all normal forms of social +organization. If it be true that the Middle Ages was a time of tyranny, +ignorance and superstition, then to a logically minded person it +naturally follows that the emancipation of the people is bound up with +the destruction of such traditions as have survived, for to such a mind +tradition and tyranny become synonymous terms. But if, on the contrary, +he knows that such was not the case, that the Middle Ages was an age of +real enlightenment, he will not be so readily deceived. He will know how +to estimate at their proper value the movements he sees around him, and +not be so disposed to place his faith in quack remedies, for he will +know that for the masses the transition from the Middle Ages has not +been one from bondage to freedom, from poverty to well-being, but from +security to insecurity, from status to wage-slavery, from well-being to +poverty. He will know, moreover, that the Servile State is not a new +menace, but that it has been extending its tentacles ever since the days when Roman Law was revived. -Looked at from this point of view, the materialist -conception of history, with its prejudice against -Medievalism, is a useful doctrine for the purposes of -destroying existing society, but must prevent the arrival of -a new one. I feel fairly safe in affirming this, because -Marx's forecasts of the future are in these days being -falsified. Up to a certain point Marx was right. He foresaw -that the trend of things would be for industry to get into -fewer and fewer hands, but it cannot be claimed that the -deductions he made from this forecast are proving to be -correct, for he did not foresee this war. The circumstance -that Marx gave it as his opinion that the annexation of -Alsace and Lorraine by Germany would lead in fifty years -time to a great European war does not acquit him, since the -war that he foresaw was a war of. revenge in which France -was to be the aggressor and had nothing whatsoever to do -with industrial development, which this one certainly had. -Not having foreseen this war, Marx did not foresee the -anti-climax in which the present system seems destined to -end. And this is fatal to the whole social theory, because -it brings to the light of day a weakness which runs through -all his theory---his inability to understand the moral -factor and hence to make allowances for it in his theories. -Marx saw the material forces at work in society up to a -certain point very clearly, and from this point of view he -is worthy of study. But he never understood that this was -only one half of the problem and finally the less important -half. For along with all material change there go -psychological changes; and these he entirely ignores. In the -case in question Marx failed to foresee that the growth of -the pressure of competition would be accompanied by an -increase in national jealousies. On the contrary, he tells -us in the *Communist Manifesto* (written in 1847) that -national antagonisms are steadily to diminish. But if he -misjudged national---I might almost say -industrial---psychology on this most fundamental point, it -demonstrates that for practical purposes Marx and his -materialist conception of history are anything but an -infallible guide. And so we are led to inquire whether, if -Marx, owing to his neglect of psychology, proved to be wrong -on this issue, he may not be equally untrustworthy in other -directions; whether, in fact, the anti-climax which has -overtaken national relationships may not likewise take place -in industry; whether the process of industrial -centralization which Marx foresaw is not being accompanied -by internal disintegration, and whether the issue of it all -is to be his proletarian industrialized State or a relapse -into social anarchy. Such, indeed, does appear to me to be -the normal trend of economic development; for when -everything but economic considerations have been excluded -from life---and the development of industrialism tends to -exclude everything else---men tend naturally to quarrel, -because there is nothing positive left to bind men together -in a communal life. Looking at history from this point of -view, it may be said that if Marx's view is correct, and if -exploitation has played the part in history which he affirms -it has, then, frankly, I do not see how civilization ever -came into existence. We know that exploitation is breaking -civilisation up; we may be equally sure it did not create -it. Moreover/it leaves us with no hope for the future. For -if it be true that the history of civilization is merely the -history of class struggles, what reason is there to suppose -that with the end of the reign of capitalism class struggle -will come to an end? May it not merely change its form? The -experience of the Bolshevik regime in Russia would appear to -suggest such a continuation. - -It remains for me to thank Mr. J. Pla, Mr. M. B. Reckitt, -Mr. G. R. S. Taylor, Mr. L. Ward and Mr. C. White for the -interesting material they so generously placed at my -disposal, and the Editor of the *New Age* for permission to -reprint such chapters and parts of chapters as appeared in +Looked at from this point of view, the materialist conception of +history, with its prejudice against Medievalism, is a useful doctrine +for the purposes of destroying existing society, but must prevent the +arrival of a new one. I feel fairly safe in affirming this, because +Marx's forecasts of the future are in these days being falsified. Up to +a certain point Marx was right. He foresaw that the trend of things +would be for industry to get into fewer and fewer hands, but it cannot +be claimed that the deductions he made from this forecast are proving to +be correct, for he did not foresee this war. The circumstance that Marx +gave it as his opinion that the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine by +Germany would lead in fifty years time to a great European war does not +acquit him, since the war that he foresaw was a war of. revenge in which +France was to be the aggressor and had nothing whatsoever to do with +industrial development, which this one certainly had. Not having +foreseen this war, Marx did not foresee the anti-climax in which the +present system seems destined to end. And this is fatal to the whole +social theory, because it brings to the light of day a weakness which +runs through all his theory---his inability to understand the moral +factor and hence to make allowances for it in his theories. Marx saw the +material forces at work in society up to a certain point very clearly, +and from this point of view he is worthy of study. But he never +understood that this was only one half of the problem and finally the +less important half. For along with all material change there go +psychological changes; and these he entirely ignores. In the case in +question Marx failed to foresee that the growth of the pressure of +competition would be accompanied by an increase in national jealousies. +On the contrary, he tells us in the *Communist Manifesto* (written in +1847) that national antagonisms are steadily to diminish. But if he +misjudged national---I might almost say industrial---psychology on this +most fundamental point, it demonstrates that for practical purposes Marx +and his materialist conception of history are anything but an infallible +guide. And so we are led to inquire whether, if Marx, owing to his +neglect of psychology, proved to be wrong on this issue, he may not be +equally untrustworthy in other directions; whether, in fact, the +anti-climax which has overtaken national relationships may not likewise +take place in industry; whether the process of industrial centralization +which Marx foresaw is not being accompanied by internal disintegration, +and whether the issue of it all is to be his proletarian industrialized +State or a relapse into social anarchy. Such, indeed, does appear to me +to be the normal trend of economic development; for when everything but +economic considerations have been excluded from life---and the +development of industrialism tends to exclude everything else---men tend +naturally to quarrel, because there is nothing positive left to bind men +together in a communal life. Looking at history from this point of view, +it may be said that if Marx's view is correct, and if exploitation has +played the part in history which he affirms it has, then, frankly, I do +not see how civilization ever came into existence. We know that +exploitation is breaking civilisation up; we may be equally sure it did +not create it. Moreover/it leaves us with no hope for the future. For if +it be true that the history of civilization is merely the history of +class struggles, what reason is there to suppose that with the end of +the reign of capitalism class struggle will come to an end? May it not +merely change its form? The experience of the Bolshevik regime in Russia +would appear to suggest such a continuation. + +It remains for me to thank Mr. J. Pla, Mr. M. B. Reckitt, Mr. G. R. S. +Taylor, Mr. L. Ward and Mr. C. White for the interesting material they +so generously placed at my disposal, and the Editor of the *New Age* for +permission to reprint such chapters and parts of chapters as appeared in his journal. A. J. P. @@ -205,2705 +172,2264 @@ A. J. P. # Greece and Rome -The first fact in history which has significance for -Guildsmen is that of the introduction of currency, which -took place in the seventh century before Christ when the -Lydian kings introduced stamped metal bars of fixed weight -as a medium of exchange. In the course of a generation or -two this uniform measure entirely replaced the bars of -unfixed weight which the Greeks had made use of when -exchange was not by barter. It was a simple device from -which no social change was expected, but the development -which followed upon it was simply stupendous. -Civilization---that is, the development of the material -accessories of life, may be said to date from that simple -invention, for by facilitating exchange it made foreign -trade, differentiation of occupation and specialization on -the crafts and arts possible. But along with the undoubted -advantages which a fixed currency brought with it there came -an evil unknown to primitive society---the economic problem; -for the introduction of currency created an economic -revolution, comparable only to that which followed the -invention of the steam engine in more recent times, by -completely undermining the communist base of the -Mediterranean societies. "We can watch it in Greece, in -Palestine and in Italy, and see the temper of the sufferers -reflected in Hesiod and Theognis, Amos and Hosea, and in the -legends of early Rome." - -The progress of economic individualism soon divided Greek -society into two distinct and hostile classes---the -prosperous landowners, the merchants and money-lending class -on the one hand, and the peasantry and the debt-slaves on -the other. Hitherto no one had ever thought of claiming -private property in land. It had never been treated as a -commodity to be bought and sold. The man who tilled the soil -thought of it as belonging to the family, to his ancestors -and descendants as much as to himself. But within a -generation or two after the introduction of currency the -peasantry everywhere began to find themselves in need of -money, and they found that it could be borrowed by pledging -their holdings as security for loans. It was thus that -private property in land first came into existence. Land -tended to pass into the hands of the Eupatrid by default. -For lean years have a way of running in cycles, and at such -times the "haves" can take advantage of the necessities of +The first fact in history which has significance for Guildsmen is that +of the introduction of currency, which took place in the seventh century +before Christ when the Lydian kings introduced stamped metal bars of +fixed weight as a medium of exchange. In the course of a generation or +two this uniform measure entirely replaced the bars of unfixed weight +which the Greeks had made use of when exchange was not by barter. It was +a simple device from which no social change was expected, but the +development which followed upon it was simply stupendous. +Civilization---that is, the development of the material accessories of +life, may be said to date from that simple invention, for by +facilitating exchange it made foreign trade, differentiation of +occupation and specialization on the crafts and arts possible. But along +with the undoubted advantages which a fixed currency brought with it +there came an evil unknown to primitive society---the economic problem; +for the introduction of currency created an economic revolution, +comparable only to that which followed the invention of the steam engine +in more recent times, by completely undermining the communist base of +the Mediterranean societies. "We can watch it in Greece, in Palestine +and in Italy, and see the temper of the sufferers reflected in Hesiod +and Theognis, Amos and Hosea, and in the legends of early Rome." + +The progress of economic individualism soon divided Greek society into +two distinct and hostile classes---the prosperous landowners, the +merchants and money-lending class on the one hand, and the peasantry and +the debt-slaves on the other. Hitherto no one had ever thought of +claiming private property in land. It had never been treated as a +commodity to be bought and sold. The man who tilled the soil thought of +it as belonging to the family, to his ancestors and descendants as much +as to himself. But within a generation or two after the introduction of +currency the peasantry everywhere began to find themselves in need of +money, and they found that it could be borrowed by pledging their +holdings as security for loans. It was thus that private property in +land first came into existence. Land tended to pass into the hands of +the Eupatrid by default. For lean years have a way of running in cycles, +and at such times the "haves" can take advantage of the necessities of the "have-nots." -The reason for these developments is not far to seek. So -long as exchange was carried on by barter, a natural limit -was placed to the development of trade, because people would -only exchange for their own personal use. Exchange would -only be possible when each party to the bargain possessed -articles which the other wanted. But with the introduction -of currency this limitation was removed, and for the first -time in history there came into existence a class of men who -bought and sold entirely for the purposes of gain. These -middlemen or merchants became specialists in finance. They -knew better than the peasantry the market value of things, -and so found little difficulty in taking advantage of them. -Little by little they became wealthy and the peasantry their -debtors. It is the same story wherever currency is -unregulated---the distributor enslaves the producer. So it -is not surprising that the Greeks always maintained a -certain prejudice against all occupations connected with -buying and selling, which they held were of a degrading -nature. For though it is manifest that society cannot get -along without traders, it is imperative for the well-being -of society that they do not exercise too much power. The -Greeks found by experience that such men were no better than -they ought to be and that the association of trading with -money-making reflected itself in their outlook on life, -leading them eventually to suppose that everything could be -bought and that there was nothing too great to be expressed -in terms of money. - -Though the Greeks thought much about the problem which had -followed the introduction of currency, to the end it eluded -the efforts of their lawgivers and statesmen to solve it, -and mankind had to wait until the coming of Mediaevalism -before a solution was forthcoming. Then the Guilds solved -the problem by restricting currency to its legitimate use as -a medium of exchange by means of fixing prices. Plato, it is -true, anticipated the Mediaeval solution. In *Laws* (917) he -actually forbids bargaining and insists upon fixed prices. -But nothing came of his suggestion. Perhaps it was too late -in the day to give practical application to such a -principle. For Plato wrote in the period following the -Peloponnesian War when profiteering was rampant, and a -restoration of the communal spirit to society, such as -followed the rise of Christianity, was necessary before such -a measure could be applied. Hence it was that Aristotle -reverted to the principle of Solon that the cultivation of -good habits must accompany the promulgation of good laws. - -All the early Greek lawgivers who attempted to solve the -economic problem which currency had introduced sought the -solution not along Guild lines, by seeking to restrict -currency to its legitimate use as a medium of exchange, but -by restricting the use of wealth. Lycurgus preserves the -communal life of Sparta for centuries against disruption on -the one hand by inducing his fellow-citizens to resume the -habits of their forefathers, to sacrifice all artificial -distinctions, under the rigid but equal discipline of a camp -which included among other things the taking of meals in -common, and on the other by enforcing a division of the -lands equally among the families and by the institution of a -currency deliberately created to restrict business -operations within the narrowest limits. It took the form of -bundles of iron bars, and it appears to have answered the -purpose for which it was designed very well, for the -Spartans never became a commercial nation. - -This state of things continued down to the Peloponnesian -War, when the Spartans, finding themselves at a disadvantage -with Athens, inasmuch as without coined money they could -have no fleet, departed from the law of Lycurgus. About the -same time they threw over their system of land tenure. -Continual warfare reduced the number of Spartans, and the -accumulation of several estates in one family created -disproportionate wealth, a tendency which was facilitated by -a law promoted by the Ephor Epitadeus who granted liberty to -bequeath property. Thus it came to pass that instead of the -9,000 property-owning Spartansmentioned in the regislation -of Lycurgus, their numbers were reduced to 600, of whom only -100 were in full enjoyment of all civil rights. Naturally -such economic inequalities broke up the communal life. The -poorer citizens found themselves excluded from the active -exercise of their civil rights, and could not keep pace with -the rich in their mode of living, nor fulfil the -indispensable conditions which had been imposed by Lycurgus -upon every Spartan citizen. - -In Attica the problem was faced in a different way. Lycurgus -solution consisted not merely in putting the clock back, as -such measures would be called in these days, but by causing -the clock to stand still. His solution was a democratic one -in so far as democracy is possible among a slave-owning -people. But Solon in Attica sought a remedy along different -lines. He accepted currency and the social changes which -came with it, and substituted property for birth as the -standard for determining the rights and duties of the -citizens. He divided them into four classes, which were -distinguished from each other by their mode of military -service and the proportion of their incomes which was paid -in taxation. The lowest class paid no taxes at all, were -excluded from public offices, but were allowed to take part -in the popular assembly as well as in the courts in which -justice was administered by the people. Like Lycurgus, he -sought to redress the inequalities of wealth, but, unlike -him, he sought a solution, not in the enforcement of a rigid -discipline upon the citizens, but by removing the temptation -to accumulate wealth. This was the object of his sumptuary -laws, which were designed to make the rich and poor look as -much alike as possible, in order to promote a democracy of -personal habits if not of income. But though he did not put -the clock back as far as Lycurgus, he did put it back to the -extent of giving things in many directions a fresh start. It -was for this purpose that he cancelled the debts of the -peasantry and effected a redistribution of property, -re-establishing the farmers on their ancestral holdings. -Though he failed to restrain usury, he sought to mitigate to -some extent its hardships by forbidding men to borrow money -on the security of their persons, while he took steps to -redeem those defaulting debtors who had been sold into -slavery by their creditors, using any public or private -funds he could secure for the purpose; while, further, he -allowed the Athenians to leave their money to whom they -liked provided there were no legitimate male heirs. These -reforms, together with certain changes in the juridical -administration, were the most important of Solon's laws. He -refused the supreme position in the State, and after making -his laws he went abroad for ten years to give his -constitution a fair trial. When he returned he found his -juridical reforms were very successful, but the economic -troubles, though they had been allayed, had not been -eradicated. The peasants had been put back on their -holdings, but they had no capital and could not borrow -money. They did not blame Solon for his laws, but the -magistrates for the way they were administered. The State -became divided into three hostile parties---the men of the -Shore, of the Plain, and of the Mountains---each prepared to -fight for its own economic and territorial interests. - -Fortunately at this crisis a man arose capable of handling -the situation. Pisistratus, who led the mountaineers, was -not only a man of statesmanlike qualities, but a noted -soldier and a man of large private means, and after some -vicissitudes he succeeded in making himself absolute master -of the country. When in power he found a remedy for the -shortage of capital among the peasants, which was the source -of their economic difficulty, by advancing to them capital -out of his own private fortune. This provided them with a -nest-egg which enabled them to tide over the lean years, or -while their trees were growing to maturity. Their troubles -were now at an end, and we hear no more about the land -question until the Spartans, towards the close of the -Peloponnesian War, came and ruined the cultivation. - -Meanwhile, as a consequence of the development of foreign -trade, Athens became a maritime, commercial and industrial -city in which stock-jobbing, lending at usury, and every -form of financial speculation broke loose. This led to the -division of the social body into two distinct and hostile -factions---a minority which possessed most of the capital -and whose chief concern was its increase, and a mass of -proletarians who were filled with enmity towards this -aristocracy of finance, which began to monopolize all -political power. It was thus that the religious aristocracy -which for so long a period had governed Greece was -superseded by a plutocracy whose triumph Solon had -unconsciously prepared when he took income as a basis for -the division of the classes. During the Peloponnesian War -the plutocracy became very unpopular presumably for -profiteering, to which wars give every opportunity---and in -Samos, Messenia and Megara the people, tired of economic -subjection, revolted, slew the rich, did away with all -taxes, and confiscated and divided landed property. The war -entirely undermined all stability in the Greek States, -leaving behind it as a heritage an unemployed class of -soldiers and rowers which the social system was powerless to -absorb. They became a constant source of trouble, and from -the Peloponnesian War until the Roman Conquest "the cities -of Greece wavered between two revolutions; one that -despoiled the rich, and another that reinstated them in the -possession of their fortunes." It was in order to find a -solution for this unemployed problem that Alexander the -Great, at the recommendation of Isocrates, undertook the -conquest of Asia and planted unemployed farm colonies of -Greeks as far East as Kabul. - -Reading Greek history reminds us of the fact that the Class -War is not a doctrine peculiar to the present age. But it is -interesting to observe that it entirely failed to effect a -solution of the economic problem which distracted Greece. -Unregulated currency having given rise to economic -individualism and destroyed the common ownership of -property, the solidarity of society slowly fell to pieces. -It had under mined alike the independence of the peasantry -and the old religious aristocracy which had hitherto -governed Greece, and had concentrated power entirely in the -hands of a plutocracy which, like all plutocracies, was -blind to everything except its own immediate interests. It -was thus that Greek society, from being united, became -divided into two distinct and hostile classes in which the -possibility of revolution became an ever-present -contingency. The frequent revolutions excited by the abuse -of power of the plutocracy led to the thinning of the -agricultural population and the misery of the inhabitants, -and prepared the people to suffer without resistance---nay, +The reason for these developments is not far to seek. So long as +exchange was carried on by barter, a natural limit was placed to the +development of trade, because people would only exchange for their own +personal use. Exchange would only be possible when each party to the +bargain possessed articles which the other wanted. But with the +introduction of currency this limitation was removed, and for the first +time in history there came into existence a class of men who bought and +sold entirely for the purposes of gain. These middlemen or merchants +became specialists in finance. They knew better than the peasantry the +market value of things, and so found little difficulty in taking +advantage of them. Little by little they became wealthy and the +peasantry their debtors. It is the same story wherever currency is +unregulated---the distributor enslaves the producer. So it is not +surprising that the Greeks always maintained a certain prejudice against +all occupations connected with buying and selling, which they held were +of a degrading nature. For though it is manifest that society cannot get +along without traders, it is imperative for the well-being of society +that they do not exercise too much power. The Greeks found by experience +that such men were no better than they ought to be and that the +association of trading with money-making reflected itself in their +outlook on life, leading them eventually to suppose that everything +could be bought and that there was nothing too great to be expressed in +terms of money. + +Though the Greeks thought much about the problem which had followed the +introduction of currency, to the end it eluded the efforts of their +lawgivers and statesmen to solve it, and mankind had to wait until the +coming of Mediaevalism before a solution was forthcoming. Then the +Guilds solved the problem by restricting currency to its legitimate use +as a medium of exchange by means of fixing prices. Plato, it is true, +anticipated the Mediaeval solution. In *Laws* (917) he actually forbids +bargaining and insists upon fixed prices. But nothing came of his +suggestion. Perhaps it was too late in the day to give practical +application to such a principle. For Plato wrote in the period following +the Peloponnesian War when profiteering was rampant, and a restoration +of the communal spirit to society, such as followed the rise of +Christianity, was necessary before such a measure could be applied. +Hence it was that Aristotle reverted to the principle of Solon that the +cultivation of good habits must accompany the promulgation of good laws. + +All the early Greek lawgivers who attempted to solve the economic +problem which currency had introduced sought the solution not along +Guild lines, by seeking to restrict currency to its legitimate use as a +medium of exchange, but by restricting the use of wealth. Lycurgus +preserves the communal life of Sparta for centuries against disruption +on the one hand by inducing his fellow-citizens to resume the habits of +their forefathers, to sacrifice all artificial distinctions, under the +rigid but equal discipline of a camp which included among other things +the taking of meals in common, and on the other by enforcing a division +of the lands equally among the families and by the institution of a +currency deliberately created to restrict business operations within the +narrowest limits. It took the form of bundles of iron bars, and it +appears to have answered the purpose for which it was designed very +well, for the Spartans never became a commercial nation. + +This state of things continued down to the Peloponnesian War, when the +Spartans, finding themselves at a disadvantage with Athens, inasmuch as +without coined money they could have no fleet, departed from the law of +Lycurgus. About the same time they threw over their system of land +tenure. Continual warfare reduced the number of Spartans, and the +accumulation of several estates in one family created disproportionate +wealth, a tendency which was facilitated by a law promoted by the Ephor +Epitadeus who granted liberty to bequeath property. Thus it came to pass +that instead of the 9,000 property-owning Spartansmentioned in the +regislation of Lycurgus, their numbers were reduced to 600, of whom only +100 were in full enjoyment of all civil rights. Naturally such economic +inequalities broke up the communal life. The poorer citizens found +themselves excluded from the active exercise of their civil rights, and +could not keep pace with the rich in their mode of living, nor fulfil +the indispensable conditions which had been imposed by Lycurgus upon +every Spartan citizen. + +In Attica the problem was faced in a different way. Lycurgus solution +consisted not merely in putting the clock back, as such measures would +be called in these days, but by causing the clock to stand still. His +solution was a democratic one in so far as democracy is possible among a +slave-owning people. But Solon in Attica sought a remedy along different +lines. He accepted currency and the social changes which came with it, +and substituted property for birth as the standard for determining the +rights and duties of the citizens. He divided them into four classes, +which were distinguished from each other by their mode of military +service and the proportion of their incomes which was paid in taxation. +The lowest class paid no taxes at all, were excluded from public +offices, but were allowed to take part in the popular assembly as well +as in the courts in which justice was administered by the people. Like +Lycurgus, he sought to redress the inequalities of wealth, but, unlike +him, he sought a solution, not in the enforcement of a rigid discipline +upon the citizens, but by removing the temptation to accumulate wealth. +This was the object of his sumptuary laws, which were designed to make +the rich and poor look as much alike as possible, in order to promote a +democracy of personal habits if not of income. But though he did not put +the clock back as far as Lycurgus, he did put it back to the extent of +giving things in many directions a fresh start. It was for this purpose +that he cancelled the debts of the peasantry and effected a +redistribution of property, re-establishing the farmers on their +ancestral holdings. Though he failed to restrain usury, he sought to +mitigate to some extent its hardships by forbidding men to borrow money +on the security of their persons, while he took steps to redeem those +defaulting debtors who had been sold into slavery by their creditors, +using any public or private funds he could secure for the purpose; +while, further, he allowed the Athenians to leave their money to whom +they liked provided there were no legitimate male heirs. These reforms, +together with certain changes in the juridical administration, were the +most important of Solon's laws. He refused the supreme position in the +State, and after making his laws he went abroad for ten years to give +his constitution a fair trial. When he returned he found his juridical +reforms were very successful, but the economic troubles, though they had +been allayed, had not been eradicated. The peasants had been put back on +their holdings, but they had no capital and could not borrow money. They +did not blame Solon for his laws, but the magistrates for the way they +were administered. The State became divided into three hostile +parties---the men of the Shore, of the Plain, and of the +Mountains---each prepared to fight for its own economic and territorial +interests. + +Fortunately at this crisis a man arose capable of handling the +situation. Pisistratus, who led the mountaineers, was not only a man of +statesmanlike qualities, but a noted soldier and a man of large private +means, and after some vicissitudes he succeeded in making himself +absolute master of the country. When in power he found a remedy for the +shortage of capital among the peasants, which was the source of their +economic difficulty, by advancing to them capital out of his own private +fortune. This provided them with a nest-egg which enabled them to tide +over the lean years, or while their trees were growing to maturity. +Their troubles were now at an end, and we hear no more about the land +question until the Spartans, towards the close of the Peloponnesian War, +came and ruined the cultivation. + +Meanwhile, as a consequence of the development of foreign trade, Athens +became a maritime, commercial and industrial city in which +stock-jobbing, lending at usury, and every form of financial speculation +broke loose. This led to the division of the social body into two +distinct and hostile factions---a minority which possessed most of the +capital and whose chief concern was its increase, and a mass of +proletarians who were filled with enmity towards this aristocracy of +finance, which began to monopolize all political power. It was thus that +the religious aristocracy which for so long a period had governed Greece +was superseded by a plutocracy whose triumph Solon had unconsciously +prepared when he took income as a basis for the division of the classes. +During the Peloponnesian War the plutocracy became very unpopular +presumably for profiteering, to which wars give every opportunity---and +in Samos, Messenia and Megara the people, tired of economic subjection, +revolted, slew the rich, did away with all taxes, and confiscated and +divided landed property. The war entirely undermined all stability in +the Greek States, leaving behind it as a heritage an unemployed class of +soldiers and rowers which the social system was powerless to absorb. +They became a constant source of trouble, and from the Peloponnesian War +until the Roman Conquest "the cities of Greece wavered between two +revolutions; one that despoiled the rich, and another that reinstated +them in the possession of their fortunes." It was in order to find a +solution for this unemployed problem that Alexander the Great, at the +recommendation of Isocrates, undertook the conquest of Asia and planted +unemployed farm colonies of Greeks as far East as Kabul. + +Reading Greek history reminds us of the fact that the Class War is not a +doctrine peculiar to the present age. But it is interesting to observe +that it entirely failed to effect a solution of the economic problem +which distracted Greece. Unregulated currency having given rise to +economic individualism and destroyed the common ownership of property, +the solidarity of society slowly fell to pieces. It had under mined +alike the independence of the peasantry and the old religious +aristocracy which had hitherto governed Greece, and had concentrated +power entirely in the hands of a plutocracy which, like all +plutocracies, was blind to everything except its own immediate +interests. It was thus that Greek society, from being united, became +divided into two distinct and hostile classes in which the possibility +of revolution became an ever-present contingency. The frequent +revolutions excited by the abuse of power of the plutocracy led to the +thinning of the agricultural population and the misery of the +inhabitants, and prepared the people to suffer without resistance---nay, perhaps to welcome the Roman invasion and conquest. -Uncontrolled currency brought the same evils into existence -in Rome, where the concentration of capital in the hands of -a few and its accompanying abuses developed to a greater -extent and far more rapidly than in Greece, once they got -under way. That they developed much more slowly in the first -instance was perhaps due to the fact that whereas capitalism -in Athens was a consequence of foreign trade, in Rome it was -intimately connected with the growth of militarism. This -difference is in all respects parallel to the difference in -modern times between capitalist development in England and -Germany. For while in Greece, as in England, the development -of capitalism was a private affair due to the initiative and -enterprise of individual traders, in Rome, as in Germany, it -was closely associated with the policy of the Government. - -Rome was originally a small agricultural state governed by -an aristocracy in which the Patrons and Clients, as the two -classes of society were called, bore much the same relation -to each other as the lord and serf of feudal times. The -Patrons or Patricians, as they were called at a later date, -were expected by law and custom to defend the Clients from -all wrong or oppression on the part of others, while the -Clients were bound to render certain services to the -Patrons. Just as the spread of currency undermined the -personal relationship existing between the lord and the serf -in the Middle Ages, substituting money payments for payments -in kind, so it may be assumed that the relationship of the -Patrons and Clients in the early days of Rome was -transformed by means of the same agency, for it was about -the time of the spread of currency among the Mediterranean -communities that a new order of things began to come into -existence, when the hitherto harmonious relationship -existing between the Patrons and Clients was replaced by one -of personal bitterness. The bone of contention was the -severity of the law against debtors whereby the defaulting -debtor became the slave of the creditor, and as the debtor -in nearly all cases was a Client, it created bad feeling -between the two classes. - -The unpopularity of this law against debtors led to its -abolition after the fall of the Decemvirate in the fifth -century before Christ. Interest on loans was limited to 10%, -and later to 5%, while an attempt was made to abolish usury -altogether. But the laws to abolish it proved ineffectual. -Needy borrowers resorted to usurious lenders, who took good -care that repayment was made one way or another. The -Patricians appear to have become very grasping and -tyrannical, for we read of a series of social disturbances -between them and the peasantry over the question of debts -and the unwillingness of the Patricians to allow the -peasantry to have small holdings of their own. These -disturbances were at length brought to an end in the year -286 B.C., when the poorer citizens left Rome in a body, out -of protest, and encamped in an oak wood upon the Janiculum. -To appease this secession they were granted 14 jugera (about -9 acres) of land each and their debts reduced. For a hundred -and fifty years from this date until the appearance of the -Gracchi we hear no more of civil dissensions in Rome. - -The great change which transformed Rome from an aristocratic -and agricultural society into a capitalistic and military -one came about as a result of the Punic Wars. Italy was left -in a state of economic distress and confusion, and the -Romans were led to embark on a career of conquest abroad in -order to avoid troubles at home. Moreover, the Punic Wars -completely transformed the Roman character. From being a -community of hardy, thrifty, self-denying and religious -people they became avaricious, spendthrift and licentious. -The immediate effect of these wars was to depopulate rural -Italy, for the substantial burgesses of the towns and the -stout yeomen of the country fell in great numbers during -these wars. To this evil must be added the further one that -when the campaigns were over and the soldiers returned home -they had often contracted licentious tastes and formed -irregular habits which were ill suited to the frugal life of -the Italian husbandman. So it came about that many who -possessed small estates were eager to sell them in order -that they might enjoy the irregular pleasures of the city, -while those who possessed nothing also tended to gravitate -there. Thus a flood of emigration took place from the -country to the towns. The countryside became more and more -depopulated, while the towns, and Rome most of all, swarmed -with needy and reckless men ready for any outrage. - -These small estates and holdings passed into the hands of -the great Senatorial families, who were every day growing -richer by the acquisition of commands and administrative -posts which were multiplied by every successive war. They -cultivated them by means of slaves, which as a result of the -wars now came on to the market in vast numbers, and were -sold by public auction to the highest bidders. The cheapness -of slave labour reacted to destroy the prosperity of such -small free cultivators as had remained on the land. These -privately owned large estates in turn tended to be replaced -by enormous ones, administered by joint-stock companies -which Pliny believed to be the real cause of the -depopulation and decay of Italy. All the Public Lands of -certain provinces belonged at one time to a few families, -and the Roman dominions in Africa, comprising a great part -of the north of that continent, belonged to six persons -only, whom Nero, later on, thought well to put to death. - -The growth of these joint-stock companies which made -themselves the masters of the commercial movement is to be -traced to a law, passed just before the second Punic War, -which made it illegal for Senators to engage in any -commercial venture. In order, therefore, to furnish supplies -for the army and navy it became necessary to form companies -with sufficient capital to undertake the contracts, and in -these companies all the wealthy Romans, as well as officers -of State, soldiers and politicians, held shares. The -Patrician families were no exception to this rule, though -they preferred to hold their shares in secret, not caring to -be compromised in the eyes of the public, or to show that -they were in any way indebted to the bankers and publicani -(tax-gatherers), who were at the head of the commercial -movement and until the fall of the Republic were the -greatest power in Rome. Well has it been said that "the -history of Roman Property Law is the history of the -assimilation of *res mancipi* to *res nec mancipi*";I in -other words, the assimilation of real estate to movable -property, of land to currency, of aristocracy to plutocracy. - -It was thus in Rome, as in Greece, that uncontrolled -currency replaced the class divisions based upon differences -of function by class divisions based upon differences of -wealth. Financial companies invaded all the conquered -nations. There were companies for Sicily, for Asia, for -Greece, Macedonia, Africa, Bithynia, Cilicia, Syria, Judea, -Spain and Gaul. They had their headquarters at Rome, and the -Forum became a kind of stock-exchange in which the buying or -selling of shares was always going on and where every man -was trying to outwit his neighbour. These companies -speculated in everything: in land, building, mines, -transport and supplies for the army and navy, and in the -customs. This latter was the central source of corruption. -Every five years the taxes of the provinces were put up to -public auction, and that company which made the highest bid -secured the contract if proper security could be given. When -the contract was secured the successful company paid into -the Imperial Treasury the amount of their bid and made what -profit they could out of the transaction. All they collected -over and above the amount of their contract they kept for -themselves. Naturally the system led to extortion, since the -more money the companies could extort from the taxpayers the -greater was their profit. The extortions incident to this -iniquitous system form a principal topic in the provincial -history of Rome, for the Roman Governors found it to their -interest to support the tax-gatherers on condition of -sharing in the plunder. It has been said that a Roman -Governor needed to make three fortunes. The first was to -provide him with the means of buying the suffrages of the -people or of discharging the debts incurred in buying them; -the second was to keep for himself; and the third was to -provide him with the wherewithal to fight the actions in the -courts which were certain to be brought against him when he -relinquished office. - -It goes without saying that a system so corrupt could not -but react to corrupt Rome itself. The frequent laws against -bribery at elections which may be dated from the year 181 -B.C. testify to the change that was taking place. While -money was extorted from the provincials, Rome itself escaped -taxation altogether, and this reacted to render the Senate -an entirely irresponsible body, for when they had now no -longer any need to ask the people for money they were -subject to no real control and no obstacle stood in the way -of their acting as best suited their own personal interest. -All lucrative employments were seized by members of the -great Senatorial families, while a family that had once been -ennobled by office had so many opportunities for making -money that it became more difficult every day for a new man -to make his way to the Consulship or even into the Senate, -which was fast becoming a hereditary body of legislators. It -was only when difficult military services were required that -they called in the services of independent men. - -Now that successful warfare had proved itself so profit able -to the Senatorial families and the people had entirely lost -control over them, the lust for conquest became general. -Wars were now no longer defensive, even in pretence. Like -the Germans, who appear to have copied the methods of the -Romans, the Senate resorted to the most detestable practices -in order to create internal dissensions in other countries. -They were determined to have a voice in all matters within -their sphere of interest, to make every possible excuse for -Roman interference. Senatorial commissions were continually -being despatched to arrange the affairs of other nations, -for the Roman Senator had no doubt whatsoever in his mind -that his people were the strongest and most competent to -rule the world. And in the furtherance of their aims they -were entirely unscrupulous. The arrogance and brutality of -this new aristocracy of wealth knew no limits. They -destroyed Carthage and Corinth out of commercial rivalry, -while Cicero relates that the Senate caused the vineyards -and olive-groves of Gaul to be destroyed, in order to avoid -a damaging competition with the rich Roman landlords,just as -the Germans for similar reasons sought to destroy the towns -and industries of Belgium and Northern France. - -This period of Roman history should be particularly -interesting to us, as it presents so many striking analogies -to the present day. Just as the war promoted by the -militarist capitalism of Germany has brought in its train -Bolshevism and the Class War, so the militarist capitalism -of Rome bore fruit in the slave revolts. As early as 181 -B.C. 7,000 slaves in Apulia were condemned to death for -brigandage, where travelling had become dangerous without an -armed retinue. From attacking travellers they had begun to -plunder the smaller country houses, and all except the very -rich were obliged to leave the country. But there was not -any general revolt until 133 B.C., when the slaves of Sicily -revolted. The Romans there were now to feel the vengeance of -men brutalized by oppression. Clad in skins, and armed with -stakes and reaping-hooks, they broke into the houses and -massacred all persons of free condition, from the old man -and matron to the infant in arms. Once the standard of -revolt was raised, thousands joined in, while the -insurrection not only spread over the whole of the island, -but broke out in various parts of the Empire. No one could -tell where it would stop. For a time they met with success, -and defeated an army of 8,000 Romans, but in the end the -revolt was suppressed with great cruelty, though it took two -years to effect it. A second Slave War broke out in Sicily -thirty years later, and a third after the lapse of another -thirty years, the latter being led by a gladiator named -Spartacus, after whom the German Bolsheviks named their -secret organization. Both of these revolts were suppressed -like the first one, and when at length slavery came to an -end it was not due to a successful revolt but to a changed -attitude of the Roman citizen towards the institution of -slavery. During the first century of the Empire, chiefly -under the influence of the Stoic philosophy, as later under -that of Christianity, there had been growing up a feeling -that a slave was, after all, a human being, and had some -claim to be treated as such under the Roman law. Antoninus -followed out this idea both in legislation and in his -private life, as did his successor also, who adored his -memory. They limited the right of a master over his slaves -in several ways; ordaining that if cruelty were proved -against a master, he should be compelled to sell the slave -he had ill-treated."By such means slavery gradually gives -way to Feudalism, which we shall consider in a later -chapter. - -Though these revolts were successfully suppressed, they -shook the complacency of the Romans. A force was set in -motion which by a natural sequence led to the Civil Wars and -eventually to the Dictatorship and the Empire. Before the -Slave War actually broke out it was becoming evident to -thinking men that things could not go on in the way they -were going and that reform was becoming a matter of urgency. -Tiberius Gracchus, who now came to the front as a reformer, -was the son of one of the few Romans in whom any public -spirit had survived. When travelling through Etruria he had -noted her broad lands tilled, not by free yeoman as of old, -but by slaves. Soon after this the Slave War broke out, and -as he had previously spoken his mind freely on this matter, -public opinion in Rome fastened on him as the man to -undertake the work of reform. After being elected a Tribune, -he proposed to revive the Licinian Law of 364 B.C. by which -it was enacted that no head of a family could hold more than -500 jugera (nearly 320 acres) of the Public Land, modifying -it only to the extent that permission was to be given to -every son to hold half that quantity in addition on becoming -his own master. It should be explained that by Public Land -was meant land owned by the Roman State of which there was -much; for the Senate had retained its hold on a large part -of the land of Italy acquired by Rome, though it was mostly -leased to the great proprietors. To propose, therefore, that -no one should hold more than 500 jugera was to attack the -great landholders and companies who administered the vast -estates, worked by slave labour, and to seek to replace them -by a free yeomanry. Those who gave up possession were to -receive compensation for improvements they had effected. - -After some difficulty Gracchus succeeded in getting his bill -carried by acclamation by the Assembly of Tribes. Within -certain limits it was put into operation, and there is -reason to believe that it did some good in regard both to -depopulation and agriculture. But in order to get it carried -during his year of office---and if he could not manage it -then he would have to give it up for some time---he -deliberately broke with law and usage by carrying a bill -deposing the Tribune who acted for the Senate and was -opposed to him. This violent and irregular procedure -provoked a resistance which cost him his life. He had laid -himself open to the charge of attempting to make himself -master of the State, and as it was a maxim of Roman Law that -the man who aimed at tyranny might be slain by any one, his -enemies were not slow to take advantage of his imprudence. -He and many of his supporters were killed on the Capitol -when he had been Tribune for seven months, and the populace -of Rome made no attempt to save him. Nine years later his -brother Caius Gracchus was elected Tribune and took up his -work, but he and his supporters were likewise slain by their -political enemies. - -Whatever the Gracchi failed to do, they certainly shook the -power and prestige of the Senate. They gave it a blow from -which it never recovered. The cruel times that followed made -the best men of both parties regret the untimely end of -those who had sacrificed wealth, rank and tranquillity in -the hope of reforming the State by peaceful methods. But it -was not to be done. The path to reform was blocked by the -forms of a constitution which had served their purpose while -Rome was a small City State, but became an anachronism when -Rome became a world-wide Empire; by the narrow spirit of the -oligarchical faction, which was opposed to all change from -self-interested reasons; and lastly by the mean and fickle -temper of the mongrel population of Rome whose power was -sovereign in legislation and elections. These three factors -in the situation reacted upon each other, and finally -precipitated political chaos. The refusal of the Senate to -face boldly the situation which was developing and their -resolve to keep power entirely in their own hands ended by -bringing them into contempt. They refused to listen to the -Gracchi; they had to listen to Marius. It was a true epigram -that ran "the blood of Gracchus was the seed sown and Marius -was the fruit." For there is a definite connection between -the two. It was precisely because the Senate refused the -legitimate demands of reform that a situation developed -which mastered them. The Senate, like our own Government, -being entirely under the control of capitalist influences, -developed that same total incapacity to act except when -pressure was brought to bear upon it. And so it happened -that a time came when unscrupulous adventurers rose to power -who understood the art of exploiting their stupidity. While -the oligarchy controlling the Senate found themselves able -to suppress revolts against their power from below, they -found them selves powerless to control the growing power of -their own generals, the jealousies between whom became a -constant source of danger and anxiety to the State, whose -interests they were supposed to serve, and led eventually to -the civil wars which in the last century before Christ +Uncontrolled currency brought the same evils into existence in Rome, +where the concentration of capital in the hands of a few and its +accompanying abuses developed to a greater extent and far more rapidly +than in Greece, once they got under way. That they developed much more +slowly in the first instance was perhaps due to the fact that whereas +capitalism in Athens was a consequence of foreign trade, in Rome it was +intimately connected with the growth of militarism. This difference is +in all respects parallel to the difference in modern times between +capitalist development in England and Germany. For while in Greece, as +in England, the development of capitalism was a private affair due to +the initiative and enterprise of individual traders, in Rome, as in +Germany, it was closely associated with the policy of the Government. + +Rome was originally a small agricultural state governed by an +aristocracy in which the Patrons and Clients, as the two classes of +society were called, bore much the same relation to each other as the +lord and serf of feudal times. The Patrons or Patricians, as they were +called at a later date, were expected by law and custom to defend the +Clients from all wrong or oppression on the part of others, while the +Clients were bound to render certain services to the Patrons. Just as +the spread of currency undermined the personal relationship existing +between the lord and the serf in the Middle Ages, substituting money +payments for payments in kind, so it may be assumed that the +relationship of the Patrons and Clients in the early days of Rome was +transformed by means of the same agency, for it was about the time of +the spread of currency among the Mediterranean communities that a new +order of things began to come into existence, when the hitherto +harmonious relationship existing between the Patrons and Clients was +replaced by one of personal bitterness. The bone of contention was the +severity of the law against debtors whereby the defaulting debtor became +the slave of the creditor, and as the debtor in nearly all cases was a +Client, it created bad feeling between the two classes. + +The unpopularity of this law against debtors led to its abolition after +the fall of the Decemvirate in the fifth century before Christ. Interest +on loans was limited to 10%, and later to 5%, while an attempt was made +to abolish usury altogether. But the laws to abolish it proved +ineffectual. Needy borrowers resorted to usurious lenders, who took good +care that repayment was made one way or another. The Patricians appear +to have become very grasping and tyrannical, for we read of a series of +social disturbances between them and the peasantry over the question of +debts and the unwillingness of the Patricians to allow the peasantry to +have small holdings of their own. These disturbances were at length +brought to an end in the year 286 B.C., when the poorer citizens left +Rome in a body, out of protest, and encamped in an oak wood upon the +Janiculum. To appease this secession they were granted 14 jugera (about +9 acres) of land each and their debts reduced. For a hundred and fifty +years from this date until the appearance of the Gracchi we hear no more +of civil dissensions in Rome. + +The great change which transformed Rome from an aristocratic and +agricultural society into a capitalistic and military one came about as +a result of the Punic Wars. Italy was left in a state of economic +distress and confusion, and the Romans were led to embark on a career of +conquest abroad in order to avoid troubles at home. Moreover, the Punic +Wars completely transformed the Roman character. From being a community +of hardy, thrifty, self-denying and religious people they became +avaricious, spendthrift and licentious. The immediate effect of these +wars was to depopulate rural Italy, for the substantial burgesses of the +towns and the stout yeomen of the country fell in great numbers during +these wars. To this evil must be added the further one that when the +campaigns were over and the soldiers returned home they had often +contracted licentious tastes and formed irregular habits which were ill +suited to the frugal life of the Italian husbandman. So it came about +that many who possessed small estates were eager to sell them in order +that they might enjoy the irregular pleasures of the city, while those +who possessed nothing also tended to gravitate there. Thus a flood of +emigration took place from the country to the towns. The countryside +became more and more depopulated, while the towns, and Rome most of all, +swarmed with needy and reckless men ready for any outrage. + +These small estates and holdings passed into the hands of the great +Senatorial families, who were every day growing richer by the +acquisition of commands and administrative posts which were multiplied +by every successive war. They cultivated them by means of slaves, which +as a result of the wars now came on to the market in vast numbers, and +were sold by public auction to the highest bidders. The cheapness of +slave labour reacted to destroy the prosperity of such small free +cultivators as had remained on the land. These privately owned large +estates in turn tended to be replaced by enormous ones, administered by +joint-stock companies which Pliny believed to be the real cause of the +depopulation and decay of Italy. All the Public Lands of certain +provinces belonged at one time to a few families, and the Roman +dominions in Africa, comprising a great part of the north of that +continent, belonged to six persons only, whom Nero, later on, thought +well to put to death. + +The growth of these joint-stock companies which made themselves the +masters of the commercial movement is to be traced to a law, passed just +before the second Punic War, which made it illegal for Senators to +engage in any commercial venture. In order, therefore, to furnish +supplies for the army and navy it became necessary to form companies +with sufficient capital to undertake the contracts, and in these +companies all the wealthy Romans, as well as officers of State, soldiers +and politicians, held shares. The Patrician families were no exception +to this rule, though they preferred to hold their shares in secret, not +caring to be compromised in the eyes of the public, or to show that they +were in any way indebted to the bankers and publicani (tax-gatherers), +who were at the head of the commercial movement and until the fall of +the Republic were the greatest power in Rome. Well has it been said that +"the history of Roman Property Law is the history of the assimilation of +*res mancipi* to *res nec mancipi*";I in other words, the assimilation +of real estate to movable property, of land to currency, of aristocracy +to plutocracy. + +It was thus in Rome, as in Greece, that uncontrolled currency replaced +the class divisions based upon differences of function by class +divisions based upon differences of wealth. Financial companies invaded +all the conquered nations. There were companies for Sicily, for Asia, +for Greece, Macedonia, Africa, Bithynia, Cilicia, Syria, Judea, Spain +and Gaul. They had their headquarters at Rome, and the Forum became a +kind of stock-exchange in which the buying or selling of shares was +always going on and where every man was trying to outwit his neighbour. +These companies speculated in everything: in land, building, mines, +transport and supplies for the army and navy, and in the customs. This +latter was the central source of corruption. Every five years the taxes +of the provinces were put up to public auction, and that company which +made the highest bid secured the contract if proper security could be +given. When the contract was secured the successful company paid into +the Imperial Treasury the amount of their bid and made what profit they +could out of the transaction. All they collected over and above the +amount of their contract they kept for themselves. Naturally the system +led to extortion, since the more money the companies could extort from +the taxpayers the greater was their profit. The extortions incident to +this iniquitous system form a principal topic in the provincial history +of Rome, for the Roman Governors found it to their interest to support +the tax-gatherers on condition of sharing in the plunder. It has been +said that a Roman Governor needed to make three fortunes. The first was +to provide him with the means of buying the suffrages of the people or +of discharging the debts incurred in buying them; the second was to keep +for himself; and the third was to provide him with the wherewithal to +fight the actions in the courts which were certain to be brought against +him when he relinquished office. + +It goes without saying that a system so corrupt could not but react to +corrupt Rome itself. The frequent laws against bribery at elections +which may be dated from the year 181 B.C. testify to the change that was +taking place. While money was extorted from the provincials, Rome itself +escaped taxation altogether, and this reacted to render the Senate an +entirely irresponsible body, for when they had now no longer any need to +ask the people for money they were subject to no real control and no +obstacle stood in the way of their acting as best suited their own +personal interest. All lucrative employments were seized by members of +the great Senatorial families, while a family that had once been +ennobled by office had so many opportunities for making money that it +became more difficult every day for a new man to make his way to the +Consulship or even into the Senate, which was fast becoming a hereditary +body of legislators. It was only when difficult military services were +required that they called in the services of independent men. + +Now that successful warfare had proved itself so profit able to the +Senatorial families and the people had entirely lost control over them, +the lust for conquest became general. Wars were now no longer defensive, +even in pretence. Like the Germans, who appear to have copied the +methods of the Romans, the Senate resorted to the most detestable +practices in order to create internal dissensions in other countries. +They were determined to have a voice in all matters within their sphere +of interest, to make every possible excuse for Roman interference. +Senatorial commissions were continually being despatched to arrange the +affairs of other nations, for the Roman Senator had no doubt whatsoever +in his mind that his people were the strongest and most competent to +rule the world. And in the furtherance of their aims they were entirely +unscrupulous. The arrogance and brutality of this new aristocracy of +wealth knew no limits. They destroyed Carthage and Corinth out of +commercial rivalry, while Cicero relates that the Senate caused the +vineyards and olive-groves of Gaul to be destroyed, in order to avoid a +damaging competition with the rich Roman landlords,just as the Germans +for similar reasons sought to destroy the towns and industries of +Belgium and Northern France. + +This period of Roman history should be particularly interesting to us, +as it presents so many striking analogies to the present day. Just as +the war promoted by the militarist capitalism of Germany has brought in +its train Bolshevism and the Class War, so the militarist capitalism of +Rome bore fruit in the slave revolts. As early as 181 B.C. 7,000 slaves +in Apulia were condemned to death for brigandage, where travelling had +become dangerous without an armed retinue. From attacking travellers +they had begun to plunder the smaller country houses, and all except the +very rich were obliged to leave the country. But there was not any +general revolt until 133 B.C., when the slaves of Sicily revolted. The +Romans there were now to feel the vengeance of men brutalized by +oppression. Clad in skins, and armed with stakes and reaping-hooks, they +broke into the houses and massacred all persons of free condition, from +the old man and matron to the infant in arms. Once the standard of +revolt was raised, thousands joined in, while the insurrection not only +spread over the whole of the island, but broke out in various parts of +the Empire. No one could tell where it would stop. For a time they met +with success, and defeated an army of 8,000 Romans, but in the end the +revolt was suppressed with great cruelty, though it took two years to +effect it. A second Slave War broke out in Sicily thirty years later, +and a third after the lapse of another thirty years, the latter being +led by a gladiator named Spartacus, after whom the German Bolsheviks +named their secret organization. Both of these revolts were suppressed +like the first one, and when at length slavery came to an end it was not +due to a successful revolt but to a changed attitude of the Roman +citizen towards the institution of slavery. During the first century of +the Empire, chiefly under the influence of the Stoic philosophy, as +later under that of Christianity, there had been growing up a feeling +that a slave was, after all, a human being, and had some claim to be +treated as such under the Roman law. Antoninus followed out this idea +both in legislation and in his private life, as did his successor also, +who adored his memory. They limited the right of a master over his +slaves in several ways; ordaining that if cruelty were proved against a +master, he should be compelled to sell the slave he had ill-treated."By +such means slavery gradually gives way to Feudalism, which we shall +consider in a later chapter. + +Though these revolts were successfully suppressed, they shook the +complacency of the Romans. A force was set in motion which by a natural +sequence led to the Civil Wars and eventually to the Dictatorship and +the Empire. Before the Slave War actually broke out it was becoming +evident to thinking men that things could not go on in the way they were +going and that reform was becoming a matter of urgency. Tiberius +Gracchus, who now came to the front as a reformer, was the son of one of +the few Romans in whom any public spirit had survived. When travelling +through Etruria he had noted her broad lands tilled, not by free yeoman +as of old, but by slaves. Soon after this the Slave War broke out, and +as he had previously spoken his mind freely on this matter, public +opinion in Rome fastened on him as the man to undertake the work of +reform. After being elected a Tribune, he proposed to revive the +Licinian Law of 364 B.C. by which it was enacted that no head of a +family could hold more than 500 jugera (nearly 320 acres) of the Public +Land, modifying it only to the extent that permission was to be given to +every son to hold half that quantity in addition on becoming his own +master. It should be explained that by Public Land was meant land owned +by the Roman State of which there was much; for the Senate had retained +its hold on a large part of the land of Italy acquired by Rome, though +it was mostly leased to the great proprietors. To propose, therefore, +that no one should hold more than 500 jugera was to attack the great +landholders and companies who administered the vast estates, worked by +slave labour, and to seek to replace them by a free yeomanry. Those who +gave up possession were to receive compensation for improvements they +had effected. + +After some difficulty Gracchus succeeded in getting his bill carried by +acclamation by the Assembly of Tribes. Within certain limits it was put +into operation, and there is reason to believe that it did some good in +regard both to depopulation and agriculture. But in order to get it +carried during his year of office---and if he could not manage it then +he would have to give it up for some time---he deliberately broke with +law and usage by carrying a bill deposing the Tribune who acted for the +Senate and was opposed to him. This violent and irregular procedure +provoked a resistance which cost him his life. He had laid himself open +to the charge of attempting to make himself master of the State, and as +it was a maxim of Roman Law that the man who aimed at tyranny might be +slain by any one, his enemies were not slow to take advantage of his +imprudence. He and many of his supporters were killed on the Capitol +when he had been Tribune for seven months, and the populace of Rome made +no attempt to save him. Nine years later his brother Caius Gracchus was +elected Tribune and took up his work, but he and his supporters were +likewise slain by their political enemies. + +Whatever the Gracchi failed to do, they certainly shook the power and +prestige of the Senate. They gave it a blow from which it never +recovered. The cruel times that followed made the best men of both +parties regret the untimely end of those who had sacrificed wealth, rank +and tranquillity in the hope of reforming the State by peaceful methods. +But it was not to be done. The path to reform was blocked by the forms +of a constitution which had served their purpose while Rome was a small +City State, but became an anachronism when Rome became a world-wide +Empire; by the narrow spirit of the oligarchical faction, which was +opposed to all change from self-interested reasons; and lastly by the +mean and fickle temper of the mongrel population of Rome whose power was +sovereign in legislation and elections. These three factors in the +situation reacted upon each other, and finally precipitated political +chaos. The refusal of the Senate to face boldly the situation which was +developing and their resolve to keep power entirely in their own hands +ended by bringing them into contempt. They refused to listen to the +Gracchi; they had to listen to Marius. It was a true epigram that ran +"the blood of Gracchus was the seed sown and Marius was the fruit." For +there is a definite connection between the two. It was precisely because +the Senate refused the legitimate demands of reform that a situation +developed which mastered them. The Senate, like our own Government, +being entirely under the control of capitalist influences, developed +that same total incapacity to act except when pressure was brought to +bear upon it. And so it happened that a time came when unscrupulous +adventurers rose to power who understood the art of exploiting their +stupidity. While the oligarchy controlling the Senate found themselves +able to suppress revolts against their power from below, they found them +selves powerless to control the growing power of their own generals, the +jealousies between whom became a constant source of danger and anxiety +to the State, whose interests they were supposed to serve, and led +eventually to the civil wars which in the last century before Christ brought the whole Roman system to the very brink of ruin. -The reason for these troubles is not far to seek. When -Tiberius Gracchus said, "The wild animals of Italy have -their dens and lairs; the men who have fought for Italy have -light and air and nothing more. They are styled the masters -of the world, though they have not a clod of earth they can -call their own," he put his finger on the central weakness -of the Roman policy of warfare which created in Italy a -landless proletariat of desperate men. It became clearer to -the people every day that the governing class expected them -to do the lighting while they themselves were to take all -the plunder. This realization led to the growth of -dissatisfaction which broke loose when the governing class, -by opposing the reforms of Gracchus, destroyed the -confidence of the people in their good intentions. The -consequence was that as nobody felt any loyalty to the -Government, the instinct of loyalty which is natural to the -vast majority of men was transferred from the Republic to -individual generals, whom they regarded as their patrons. -The Roman armies, which were such excellent fighting -machines, were composed of the soldiers of Marius, of Sulla, -of Pompey or of Caesar. Their swords were at the command of -any leader who offered a chance of booty. This new state of -things, which reached its height during the civil wars, took -its origin with the great Scipio. He had been refused levies -by the Senate which he deemed necessary for the invasion of -Africa, and he raised volunteers on his own credit, -rewarding them with grants of land in Southern Italy. Marius -and Sulla held out prospects of booty to the men who served -under them, and so on until the fall of the Empire---the -loyalty of the soldiers had to be bought. It was the natural -and inevitable consequence of the destruction of a free -yeomanry in Italy and the rise of a professional soldier -class. It is thus to be seen that there is a very definite -connection between the attitude of the governing class to -the reforms of Gracchus and the civil wars that followed -forty-five years later and which were finally brought to an -end by the triumph of Augustus. - -With the advent of Augustus a new chapter in Roman history -is opened. The Republic gives way to the Empire, Roman -society takes a new lease of life; order begins to get the -upper hand of anarchy. The immediate cause of the change was -that the Senate and Roman people, after bitter experience -became at last reconciled to the idea of despotism. They no -longer claimed the exclusive right to deal with the -ever-increasing administrative business of the Empire, and -allowed Augustus a free hand to deal with the chaos which -had overtaken it as best he could. This he did in the only -way it is possible for a despot to govern---by means of a -highly centralized bureaucracy, which he superimposed over -popular institutions, many of which he restored, in form at -least, where they had fallen into decay. This may not have -been an ideal solution of the problems of the Roman Empire, -but it was eminently practical. It preserved Roman -civilization for centuries from the fear of invasion from -without and from disruption from within. Augustus curbed the -power of the capitalists and placed the taxation of the -Empire on a new basis by the preparation of a Survey in -which every house, field and wood was duly valued by -responsible officials, thus getting rid once and for all of -the system of extortion which was the central source of -political corruption. With his capable and loyal helper -Agrippa, he travelled over the whole Empire working hard at -making settlements of all kinds, and carrying on military -operations where they were absolutely necessary. Augustus -found the Empire in a state of chaos, he left it a strongly +The reason for these troubles is not far to seek. When Tiberius Gracchus +said, "The wild animals of Italy have their dens and lairs; the men who +have fought for Italy have light and air and nothing more. They are +styled the masters of the world, though they have not a clod of earth +they can call their own," he put his finger on the central weakness of +the Roman policy of warfare which created in Italy a landless +proletariat of desperate men. It became clearer to the people every day +that the governing class expected them to do the lighting while they +themselves were to take all the plunder. This realization led to the +growth of dissatisfaction which broke loose when the governing class, by +opposing the reforms of Gracchus, destroyed the confidence of the people +in their good intentions. The consequence was that as nobody felt any +loyalty to the Government, the instinct of loyalty which is natural to +the vast majority of men was transferred from the Republic to individual +generals, whom they regarded as their patrons. The Roman armies, which +were such excellent fighting machines, were composed of the soldiers of +Marius, of Sulla, of Pompey or of Caesar. Their swords were at the +command of any leader who offered a chance of booty. This new state of +things, which reached its height during the civil wars, took its origin +with the great Scipio. He had been refused levies by the Senate which he +deemed necessary for the invasion of Africa, and he raised volunteers on +his own credit, rewarding them with grants of land in Southern Italy. +Marius and Sulla held out prospects of booty to the men who served under +them, and so on until the fall of the Empire---the loyalty of the +soldiers had to be bought. It was the natural and inevitable consequence +of the destruction of a free yeomanry in Italy and the rise of a +professional soldier class. It is thus to be seen that there is a very +definite connection between the attitude of the governing class to the +reforms of Gracchus and the civil wars that followed forty-five years +later and which were finally brought to an end by the triumph of +Augustus. + +With the advent of Augustus a new chapter in Roman history is opened. +The Republic gives way to the Empire, Roman society takes a new lease of +life; order begins to get the upper hand of anarchy. The immediate cause +of the change was that the Senate and Roman people, after bitter +experience became at last reconciled to the idea of despotism. They no +longer claimed the exclusive right to deal with the ever-increasing +administrative business of the Empire, and allowed Augustus a free hand +to deal with the chaos which had overtaken it as best he could. This he +did in the only way it is possible for a despot to govern---by means of +a highly centralized bureaucracy, which he superimposed over popular +institutions, many of which he restored, in form at least, where they +had fallen into decay. This may not have been an ideal solution of the +problems of the Roman Empire, but it was eminently practical. It +preserved Roman civilization for centuries from the fear of invasion +from without and from disruption from within. Augustus curbed the power +of the capitalists and placed the taxation of the Empire on a new basis +by the preparation of a Survey in which every house, field and wood was +duly valued by responsible officials, thus getting rid once and for all +of the system of extortion which was the central source of political +corruption. With his capable and loyal helper Agrippa, he travelled over +the whole Empire working hard at making settlements of all kinds, and +carrying on military operations where they were absolutely necessary. +Augustus found the Empire in a state of chaos, he left it a strongly compacted union of provinces and dependent kingdoms. -But Augustus was too clear-headed a man to trust entirely to -the machinery of State. He understood that the satisfactory -working of any system of government depended ultimately on -the character of the people, and so he sought to promote a -revival of the old Roman spirit. He called the poets to his -aid, and is said to have suggested to Virgil the subject of -the *Aeneid*, which came to be looked upon as almost a -sacred book, loved and honoured as much by Christian Fathers -as by Pagan scholars. He saw that if his government was to -be stable, Rome and Italy must be loyal, contented and at -peace; and this he secured by what in these days is called -welfare work. "The city of Rome, with a population of -perhaps half a million, of all races and degrees, had been a -constant anxiety to Augustus so far, and had exercised far -more power in the Empire than such a mixed and idle -population was entitled to. He saw that this population must -be well policed, and induced to keep itself in order as far -as possible; that it must be made quite comfortable, run no -risk of starvation, have confidence in the goodwill of the -gods, and enjoy plenty of amusements. Above all, it must -believe in himself, in order to be loyal to his policy. When -he returned to Rome after crushing Antony and Cleopatra, the -Romans were already disposed to believe in him, and he did -all he could to make them permanently and freely loyal. He -divided the city into new sections for police purposes, and -recruited corps of watchmen from the free population; he -restored temples and priesthoods, erected many pleasant and -convenient public buildings (this incidentally giving plenty -of employment), organized the supply of corn and of water, -and encouraged public amusements by his own presence at -them. He took care that no one should starve, or become so -uncomfortable as to murmur or rebel. On the other hand, he -did not mean this motley population to continue to have -undue influence on the affairs of the Empire. True, he gave -them back their Free State, and you might see magistrates, -Senate and assemblies in the city, just as under the -Republic. But the people of the city henceforth had little -political power. The consuls and Senate, indeed, were far -from idle, but the assemblies for election and legislation -soon ceased to be realities. In elections no money was now -to be gained by a vote, and in legislation the people were -quite content with sanctioning the wisdom of Augustus and -his advisers." - -Though the reforms of Augustus preserved the Empire for -centuries, they preserved it at the expense of its vitality, -for what Augustus introduced was essentially what in these -days we call the Servile State. He maintained order by -undermining the independence and initiative of the citizens. -This weakness gradually made itself felt, for as time wore -on the Roman Empire became increasingly an automatic -movement of machinery dependent entirely on the Caesar of -Rome. The great extension of governmental control led -eventually to the incorporation of the Collegia as -subordinate adjuncts of the State. Exactly what these -Collegia originally were or eventually became we are not -quite sure, for our information about them is very scanty, -and it is therefore unwise to call them Guilds. It is -probable they were originally friendly societies, and we -know that in the early days of the Empire they began to -undertake public duties. The Collegia of the building trade, -for instance, began to undertake the duties of a -fire-brigade in Roman towns, and this system of delegating -functions to organized groups of workers led to the -formation of Collegia in different trades. The Government -having assumed responsibility for the provision of an -adequate food supply, privileges were granted to bakers, -corn merchants and shippers in the provinces. This happened -at least as early as the reign of Antoninus Pius. In the -year A.D. 271 all the incorporated Collegia were pressed -into public service by Aurelian in order to fortify Rome, -and this appears to have been the beginning of a closer -association between the Collegia and the State. Severus -Alexander, we are told, "pursued the old policy of -stimulating enterprise by bounties," and incorporated "all -industries whatsoever in Guilds and regulated their status -in the eyes of the law, which was doubtless a step in the -direction of finally converting them into the strictly -hereditary castes whose existence is pre supposed by the -legislation of the Constantinian epoch. Though the whole -subject is one of great uncertainty, it does appear that -efforts were made in Rome to balance the centralizing -movement by decentralization as much as possible, and that -group organization began to come into existence. - -The great defect in the constitution of the Empire was that -as the position of Emperor was elective the succession was -never guaranteed, and in the third century after Christ this -led to serious disorders, which, lasting for a hundred -years, were finally brought to a close by the Emperor -Diocletian. But these things were only incidents in a -decline in which a certain demoralization overtook -everything. The provincial cities lost their initiative and -energy. They became too dependent upon the centralized -Government which daily became more paternal. The old virtues -of courage and sacrifice vanished before the growth of -pessimism in which the populations, enervated by luxury and -sensuality, became feebler and feebler, until finally they -were unable any longer to offer effective resistance to the -inroads of the barbarians. - -We may be sure then that Roman civilization would not have -fallen had not Roman society suffered from internal decay. -The reforms of Augustus merely delayed the final -catastrophe; they could not prevent it, for Roman -civilization for centuries before, as we have seen, had been -rotten at the core. Successful warfare had made Rome -wealthy, but it left the increased wealth of the community -entirely at the mercy of the jugglers of finance, who were -destitute of patriotism except in so far as its claims -coincided with the protection of their interests. It was to -protect the interests of these economic vampires that the -*enlightened* system of Roman Law was formulated. So often -have we been reminded of the gift that Roman Law is to -civilization that most people have accepted it without -question, little suspecting the iniquity that reigns at its -heart. For the aim of Roman Law, unlike Greek Law, was not -to secure justice but to bolster up a corrupt society in the -interests of public order. Uncontrolled currency having led -to capitalism and capitalism having given rise to social -disorders, Roman Law stepped into the breach and sought by -legalizing injustices to preserve order. It was not -concerned with moral principles. Its aim was not, like -Mediaeval Law, *to enable good men to live among badbut to -enable rich men to live among poor*. This it did by -following the line of least resistance, which was to give -legal sanction to social injustices once established. Hence -the infamous Statute of Limitations, by which, after the -expiration of a certain period, the actual holder of an -estate could no longer be compelled to restore it to the -true owner, unless the latter should be able to show that -within the prescribed time he had demanded restitution with -all the prescribed formalities. Well did Heine say of this -last condition that it "opened wide the door of chicanery, -particularly in a state where despotism and jurisprudence -were at their zenith, and where the unjust possessor had at -command all means of intimidation, especially against the -poor who might be unable to defray the cost of litigation. -The Roman was both soldier and lawyer, and that which he -conquered with the strong arm he knew how to defend by the -tricks of law. Only a nation of robbers and casuists could -have invented the Law of Prescription, the Statute of -Limitations, and consecrated it in that detestable book -which may be called the bible of the Devil---I mean the -codex of Roman Civil Law." - -But the evil does not end here. Not only did the revived -study of Roman Law during the Middle Ages operate to -undermine the communal relations of society and re-establish -private property, but in more recent times it has brought -confusion into thought about social questions by diverting -attention from the primary issue of currency and its -regulation to concentrate it upon the relatively secondary -issue ot. property. We shall see its sinister influence at -work corrupting the thought of the French Revolution as -indeed of the Socialist Movement to-day. +But Augustus was too clear-headed a man to trust entirely to the +machinery of State. He understood that the satisfactory working of any +system of government depended ultimately on the character of the people, +and so he sought to promote a revival of the old Roman spirit. He called +the poets to his aid, and is said to have suggested to Virgil the +subject of the *Aeneid*, which came to be looked upon as almost a sacred +book, loved and honoured as much by Christian Fathers as by Pagan +scholars. He saw that if his government was to be stable, Rome and Italy +must be loyal, contented and at peace; and this he secured by what in +these days is called welfare work. "The city of Rome, with a population +of perhaps half a million, of all races and degrees, had been a constant +anxiety to Augustus so far, and had exercised far more power in the +Empire than such a mixed and idle population was entitled to. He saw +that this population must be well policed, and induced to keep itself in +order as far as possible; that it must be made quite comfortable, run no +risk of starvation, have confidence in the goodwill of the gods, and +enjoy plenty of amusements. Above all, it must believe in himself, in +order to be loyal to his policy. When he returned to Rome after crushing +Antony and Cleopatra, the Romans were already disposed to believe in +him, and he did all he could to make them permanently and freely loyal. +He divided the city into new sections for police purposes, and recruited +corps of watchmen from the free population; he restored temples and +priesthoods, erected many pleasant and convenient public buildings (this +incidentally giving plenty of employment), organized the supply of corn +and of water, and encouraged public amusements by his own presence at +them. He took care that no one should starve, or become so uncomfortable +as to murmur or rebel. On the other hand, he did not mean this motley +population to continue to have undue influence on the affairs of the +Empire. True, he gave them back their Free State, and you might see +magistrates, Senate and assemblies in the city, just as under the +Republic. But the people of the city henceforth had little political +power. The consuls and Senate, indeed, were far from idle, but the +assemblies for election and legislation soon ceased to be realities. In +elections no money was now to be gained by a vote, and in legislation +the people were quite content with sanctioning the wisdom of Augustus +and his advisers." + +Though the reforms of Augustus preserved the Empire for centuries, they +preserved it at the expense of its vitality, for what Augustus +introduced was essentially what in these days we call the Servile State. +He maintained order by undermining the independence and initiative of +the citizens. This weakness gradually made itself felt, for as time wore +on the Roman Empire became increasingly an automatic movement of +machinery dependent entirely on the Caesar of Rome. The great extension +of governmental control led eventually to the incorporation of the +Collegia as subordinate adjuncts of the State. Exactly what these +Collegia originally were or eventually became we are not quite sure, for +our information about them is very scanty, and it is therefore unwise to +call them Guilds. It is probable they were originally friendly +societies, and we know that in the early days of the Empire they began +to undertake public duties. The Collegia of the building trade, for +instance, began to undertake the duties of a fire-brigade in Roman +towns, and this system of delegating functions to organized groups of +workers led to the formation of Collegia in different trades. The +Government having assumed responsibility for the provision of an +adequate food supply, privileges were granted to bakers, corn merchants +and shippers in the provinces. This happened at least as early as the +reign of Antoninus Pius. In the year A.D. 271 all the incorporated +Collegia were pressed into public service by Aurelian in order to +fortify Rome, and this appears to have been the beginning of a closer +association between the Collegia and the State. Severus Alexander, we +are told, "pursued the old policy of stimulating enterprise by +bounties," and incorporated "all industries whatsoever in Guilds and +regulated their status in the eyes of the law, which was doubtless a +step in the direction of finally converting them into the strictly +hereditary castes whose existence is pre supposed by the legislation of +the Constantinian epoch. Though the whole subject is one of great +uncertainty, it does appear that efforts were made in Rome to balance +the centralizing movement by decentralization as much as possible, and +that group organization began to come into existence. + +The great defect in the constitution of the Empire was that as the +position of Emperor was elective the succession was never guaranteed, +and in the third century after Christ this led to serious disorders, +which, lasting for a hundred years, were finally brought to a close by +the Emperor Diocletian. But these things were only incidents in a +decline in which a certain demoralization overtook everything. The +provincial cities lost their initiative and energy. They became too +dependent upon the centralized Government which daily became more +paternal. The old virtues of courage and sacrifice vanished before the +growth of pessimism in which the populations, enervated by luxury and +sensuality, became feebler and feebler, until finally they were unable +any longer to offer effective resistance to the inroads of the +barbarians. + +We may be sure then that Roman civilization would not have fallen had +not Roman society suffered from internal decay. The reforms of Augustus +merely delayed the final catastrophe; they could not prevent it, for +Roman civilization for centuries before, as we have seen, had been +rotten at the core. Successful warfare had made Rome wealthy, but it +left the increased wealth of the community entirely at the mercy of the +jugglers of finance, who were destitute of patriotism except in so far +as its claims coincided with the protection of their interests. It was +to protect the interests of these economic vampires that the +*enlightened* system of Roman Law was formulated. So often have we been +reminded of the gift that Roman Law is to civilization that most people +have accepted it without question, little suspecting the iniquity that +reigns at its heart. For the aim of Roman Law, unlike Greek Law, was not +to secure justice but to bolster up a corrupt society in the interests +of public order. Uncontrolled currency having led to capitalism and +capitalism having given rise to social disorders, Roman Law stepped into +the breach and sought by legalizing injustices to preserve order. It was +not concerned with moral principles. Its aim was not, like Mediaeval +Law, *to enable good men to live among badbut to enable rich men to live +among poor*. This it did by following the line of least resistance, +which was to give legal sanction to social injustices once established. +Hence the infamous Statute of Limitations, by which, after the +expiration of a certain period, the actual holder of an estate could no +longer be compelled to restore it to the true owner, unless the latter +should be able to show that within the prescribed time he had demanded +restitution with all the prescribed formalities. Well did Heine say of +this last condition that it "opened wide the door of chicanery, +particularly in a state where despotism and jurisprudence were at their +zenith, and where the unjust possessor had at command all means of +intimidation, especially against the poor who might be unable to defray +the cost of litigation. The Roman was both soldier and lawyer, and that +which he conquered with the strong arm he knew how to defend by the +tricks of law. Only a nation of robbers and casuists could have invented +the Law of Prescription, the Statute of Limitations, and consecrated it +in that detestable book which may be called the bible of the Devil---I +mean the codex of Roman Civil Law." + +But the evil does not end here. Not only did the revived study of Roman +Law during the Middle Ages operate to undermine the communal relations +of society and re-establish private property, but in more recent times +it has brought confusion into thought about social questions by +diverting attention from the primary issue of currency and its +regulation to concentrate it upon the relatively secondary issue ot. +property. We shall see its sinister influence at work corrupting the +thought of the French Revolution as indeed of the Socialist Movement +to-day. # Christianity and the Guilds -The underlying cause of the failure of Greece and Rome to -grapple with the economic problems which followed the -introduction of currency is to be found in the Pagan -philosophy of life. That philosophy was one of -self-sufficiency and self assertiveness on a basis of -sensuous enjoyment, and as such was incapable of exercising -a restraining influence upon men when and where foreign -trade and successful warfare brought great wealth within -their reach. The worship of materialism had ended in leaving -society at the mercy of economic problems which eluded the -efforts of statesmen and reformers alike. If, therefore, -society were ever again to recover its old-time solidarity -and be lifted out of the slough of despondency into which it -had fallen, it was essential that life and its problems -should be faced in a spirit fundamentally different from -that of Paganism. This new spirit the world found in -Christianity: with the spread of its teachings the tide -begins to turn and a new chapter opened in the history of -mankind. - -In these days we are so accustomed to regard religious faith -as something essentially divorced from the ordinary routine -of life that it is difficult to realize that Christianity in -the Early Church was as much a gospel of social salvation in -this world as of happiness in a life to come. The two went -hand in hand, and it was this that gave Christianity the -wonderful power which made it such a driving force. The -Early Church continued the communistic tradition of the -Apostles. Thus we read in Acts 2:-- - ->  Then they which gladly received this word were baptized; -> and the same day there were added unto them about three -> thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the -> apostles doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of -> bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul; and -> many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all -> that believed were together, and had all things common, -> and parted them to all men, as every man had need. - -And again, at the end of Acts 4 there is to be found another -description of their life:-- - ->  And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart -> and of one soul: neither said any of them that aught of -> the things which he possessed was his own; but they had -> all things in common. And with great power gave the -> apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: -> and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any -> among them that lacked; for as many as were possessors of -> lands or houses sold them, and brought the price of the -> things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles -> feet: and distribution was made unto every man according -> as he had need. And Joses, who by the apostles was +The underlying cause of the failure of Greece and Rome to grapple with +the economic problems which followed the introduction of currency is to +be found in the Pagan philosophy of life. That philosophy was one of +self-sufficiency and self assertiveness on a basis of sensuous +enjoyment, and as such was incapable of exercising a restraining +influence upon men when and where foreign trade and successful warfare +brought great wealth within their reach. The worship of materialism had +ended in leaving society at the mercy of economic problems which eluded +the efforts of statesmen and reformers alike. If, therefore, society +were ever again to recover its old-time solidarity and be lifted out of +the slough of despondency into which it had fallen, it was essential +that life and its problems should be faced in a spirit fundamentally +different from that of Paganism. This new spirit the world found in +Christianity: with the spread of its teachings the tide begins to turn +and a new chapter opened in the history of mankind. + +In these days we are so accustomed to regard religious faith as +something essentially divorced from the ordinary routine of life that it +is difficult to realize that Christianity in the Early Church was as +much a gospel of social salvation in this world as of happiness in a +life to come. The two went hand in hand, and it was this that gave +Christianity the wonderful power which made it such a driving force. The +Early Church continued the communistic tradition of the Apostles. Thus +we read in Acts 2:-- + +>  Then they which gladly received this word were baptized; and the same +> day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they +> continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and in +> breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul; and +> many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that +> believed were together, and had all things common, and parted them to +> all men, as every man had need. + +And again, at the end of Acts 4 there is to be found another description +of their life:-- + +>  And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one +> soul: neither said any of them that aught of the things which he +> possessed was his own; but they had all things in common. And with +> great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord +> Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among +> them that lacked; for as many as were possessors of lands or houses +> sold them, and brought the price of the things that were sold, and +> laid them down at the apostles feet: and distribution was made unto +> every man according as he had need. And Joses, who by the apostles was > surnamed Barnabas (which is, being interpreted, the son of -> consolation), a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, -> having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it -> at the apostles feet - -Looking at Christianity in the light of these texts, we find -ourselves in the presence of a creed whose aim it was to -promote communal relationships in society, for it is -manifest that in the mind of the Early Christians the -Fatherhood of God involved the Brotherhood of man, and *vice -versa*. If men and women were to live together as equals, if -they were to share a common life and hold goods in common, -they must have in common ideas as well as goods, or there -would be no cement to bind them together. In order that -common ideas might prevail amongst them, they must -acknowledge some supreme authority, some principle of -conduct which was above and beyond personal opinion. Above -all, they must be fortified in spirit against any temptation -to private gain. If wealth was not to obtain a hold upon -them they must cultivate an attitude of indifference towards -riches. This was the gospel of Christ in its social aspect. -It taught men not to despise the world but to renounce it, -in order that they might acquire the strength to conquer. In -teaching this gospel Christianity introduced the world to a -new moral principle. Hitherto the world was divided between -two opposed theories of life or moral principles Paganism -and Buddhism. The gospel of Paganism had been to urge men to -conquer the world, and it found an end in despondency. -Buddhism, realizing the moral failure which must necessarily -follow the pursuit of purely material aims, sought to solve -the problem by teaching men to renounce the world, which it -taught was illusion. Such an attitude towards life is -repugnant to healthy-minded men, as being merely an evasion -of the whole problem of life. Nevertheless, the choice was -ultimately between Paganism and Buddhism---for all religions -clove to one or the other idea, until Christianity appeared -in the world, when by teaching men to renounce the world in -order that they might conquer it, it fused the two -apparently contradictory moral principles. It sought, as it -were, by a strong appeal to what was centripetal in his -nature, to counteract the natural centrifugal tendencies in -man. It was through this new moral principle that -Christianity triumphed, for it proved itself to be a -principle of great dynamic power, capable of bracing up the -moral fibre, and inspiring heroism and a great awakening of -human forces. The founders of Christianity conclude by an -earnest invocation of the end of the world---i.e. the end of -the existing social order, and not of the earth, as is -generally supposed and strange to say, their invocation was -realized. The lowly quiet man not desirous of riches came -into his own. He began to be respected, and was no longer -treated with scorn, as he had been under Paganism. From this -point of view, the triumph of Christianity may justly be -regarded as a triumph of democracy. "In the fourth century -the Council of Constantinople was composed of bishops who -were ploughmen, weavers, tanners, black smiths, and the -like." - -Although pure communism survives to-day in the monastic -orders of the Roman Church, the communism of laymen did not -last very long. Exactly how long we are not quite sure, but -it is generally assumed that it did not survive apostolic -days for any lengthy period. The reason does not seem far to -seek. Experience proves that communism in household -possessions is not compatible with family life, and it is to -be assumed that the Early Christians were not long in -finding this out. But the communal ownership of land is a -different matter, and the effect of the Christian teaching -was undoubtedly to preserve for centuries the communal -system of land ownership of the barbarian tribes who overran -the Empire in the west, as it doubtless restored communal -ownership in places where it had disappeared. That confusion -should exist in regard to the attitude of Christianity and -the Mediaeval world towards property is, I am persuaded, due -to the fact that St. Thomas Aquinas is regarded as -representative of the Mediaeval point of view. It is -insufficiently realized that his teaching about property was -of the nature of a compromise intended to reconcile stubborn -facts with the communistic teaching of the Gospel. In the -thirteenth century, when he wrote, the Church was already -defeated. It had failed in the attempt to suppress the -revival of Roman Law, and the practical consequence of the -failure was that landlordism was beginning to supplant -communal ownership. To attack the institution of property as -such was difficult, for the Church itself was implicated. It -was already immensely rich. It is said it was in possession -of a third of the land. In such circumstance, Aquinas -apparently thought the only practicable thing to do was to -seek to moralize property. Hence his endorsement of -Aristotle's dictum "private property and common use." -Possession was not to be considered absolute, but -conditional upon the fulfilment of duties. A man might not -hold more property than that for which he had personal need. -Although certain forms of private property might be held, it -must be administered in accordance with the necessities of -the holder's own position. Superfluity was common, and the -right and property of the poor. In certain cases of -necessity "all things became common." - -It was the communistic spirit of Christianity that gave rise -to the Guilds. They were called into existence by the needs -of protection and mutual aid. The earliest Guilds, as might -be expected, were religious Guilds, and were voluntary -associations. Their purposes were what we would call social, -as well as religious; their funds being expended on feasts, -masses for the dead, the Church burial fees, charitable aid, -and the like. Brentano tells us that the Guilds had a dual -origin, and resulted from the amalgamation of the -sacrificial societies of the barbarians with the religious -societies of Christendom; he tells us that the word Guild -meant originally a festival or sacrificial feast, and was -applied subsequently to the company who thus feasted -together.The Guilds probably had historical continuity with -the Roman Collegia, some of which were partly craft and -partly religious, others entirely religious. +> consolation), a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, having land, +> sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles feet + +Looking at Christianity in the light of these texts, we find ourselves +in the presence of a creed whose aim it was to promote communal +relationships in society, for it is manifest that in the mind of the +Early Christians the Fatherhood of God involved the Brotherhood of man, +and *vice versa*. If men and women were to live together as equals, if +they were to share a common life and hold goods in common, they must +have in common ideas as well as goods, or there would be no cement to +bind them together. In order that common ideas might prevail amongst +them, they must acknowledge some supreme authority, some principle of +conduct which was above and beyond personal opinion. Above all, they +must be fortified in spirit against any temptation to private gain. If +wealth was not to obtain a hold upon them they must cultivate an +attitude of indifference towards riches. This was the gospel of Christ +in its social aspect. It taught men not to despise the world but to +renounce it, in order that they might acquire the strength to conquer. +In teaching this gospel Christianity introduced the world to a new moral +principle. Hitherto the world was divided between two opposed theories +of life or moral principles Paganism and Buddhism. The gospel of +Paganism had been to urge men to conquer the world, and it found an end +in despondency. Buddhism, realizing the moral failure which must +necessarily follow the pursuit of purely material aims, sought to solve +the problem by teaching men to renounce the world, which it taught was +illusion. Such an attitude towards life is repugnant to healthy-minded +men, as being merely an evasion of the whole problem of life. +Nevertheless, the choice was ultimately between Paganism and +Buddhism---for all religions clove to one or the other idea, until +Christianity appeared in the world, when by teaching men to renounce the +world in order that they might conquer it, it fused the two apparently +contradictory moral principles. It sought, as it were, by a strong +appeal to what was centripetal in his nature, to counteract the natural +centrifugal tendencies in man. It was through this new moral principle +that Christianity triumphed, for it proved itself to be a principle of +great dynamic power, capable of bracing up the moral fibre, and +inspiring heroism and a great awakening of human forces. The founders of +Christianity conclude by an earnest invocation of the end of the +world---i.e. the end of the existing social order, and not of the earth, +as is generally supposed and strange to say, their invocation was +realized. The lowly quiet man not desirous of riches came into his own. +He began to be respected, and was no longer treated with scorn, as he +had been under Paganism. From this point of view, the triumph of +Christianity may justly be regarded as a triumph of democracy. "In the +fourth century the Council of Constantinople was composed of bishops who +were ploughmen, weavers, tanners, black smiths, and the like." + +Although pure communism survives to-day in the monastic orders of the +Roman Church, the communism of laymen did not last very long. Exactly +how long we are not quite sure, but it is generally assumed that it did +not survive apostolic days for any lengthy period. The reason does not +seem far to seek. Experience proves that communism in household +possessions is not compatible with family life, and it is to be assumed +that the Early Christians were not long in finding this out. But the +communal ownership of land is a different matter, and the effect of the +Christian teaching was undoubtedly to preserve for centuries the +communal system of land ownership of the barbarian tribes who overran +the Empire in the west, as it doubtless restored communal ownership in +places where it had disappeared. That confusion should exist in regard +to the attitude of Christianity and the Mediaeval world towards property +is, I am persuaded, due to the fact that St. Thomas Aquinas is regarded +as representative of the Mediaeval point of view. It is insufficiently +realized that his teaching about property was of the nature of a +compromise intended to reconcile stubborn facts with the communistic +teaching of the Gospel. In the thirteenth century, when he wrote, the +Church was already defeated. It had failed in the attempt to suppress +the revival of Roman Law, and the practical consequence of the failure +was that landlordism was beginning to supplant communal ownership. To +attack the institution of property as such was difficult, for the Church +itself was implicated. It was already immensely rich. It is said it was +in possession of a third of the land. In such circumstance, Aquinas +apparently thought the only practicable thing to do was to seek to +moralize property. Hence his endorsement of Aristotle's dictum "private +property and common use." Possession was not to be considered absolute, +but conditional upon the fulfilment of duties. A man might not hold more +property than that for which he had personal need. Although certain +forms of private property might be held, it must be administered in +accordance with the necessities of the holder's own position. +Superfluity was common, and the right and property of the poor. In +certain cases of necessity "all things became common." + +It was the communistic spirit of Christianity that gave rise to the +Guilds. They were called into existence by the needs of protection and +mutual aid. The earliest Guilds, as might be expected, were religious +Guilds, and were voluntary associations. Their purposes were what we +would call social, as well as religious; their funds being expended on +feasts, masses for the dead, the Church burial fees, charitable aid, and +the like. Brentano tells us that the Guilds had a dual origin, and +resulted from the amalgamation of the sacrificial societies of the +barbarians with the religious societies of Christendom; he tells us that +the word Guild meant originally a festival or sacrificial feast, and was +applied subsequently to the company who thus feasted together.The Guilds +probably had historical continuity with the Roman Collegia, some of +which were partly craft and partly religious, others entirely religious. With the dissolution of the Roman Empire it was natural that -associations should be formed for the purposes of defence. -Such were the Frith Guilds, which were compulsory -associations, each with a corporate responsibility for the -conduct of its members. They provided also for common aid in -legal matters, such as defence against false accusation. -These Guilds, however, need not detain us any more than the -great number of other Guilds which existed for particular -purposes, such as hunting and fishing, for the repairing of -the highways and bridges, and for various other objects. We -must pass on to the Middle Ages, when the Guilds definitely -became economic organizations, under the protection of -patron saints, for it is with economic Guilds that we are -specially concerned. - -"The primary purpose of the craft Guild was to establish a -complete system of industrial control over all who were -associated together in the pursuit of a common calling. It -enveloped the life of the Mediaeval craftsman in a network -of restrictions which bound him hand and foot. It did not -suffer the minutest detail to escape its rigid scrutiny and -observation. It embodied in its regulations a whole social -system, into which the individual was completely absorbed by -the force of public opinion and the pressure of moral and -social conventions. It embraced within its scope not only -the strictly technical, but also the religious, the -artistic, and the economic activities of Mediaeval society. -It was first and foremost undoubtedly an industrial -organization, but the altar and the pageant, the care for -the poor and the education of the young, were no less part -of its functions than the regulation of wages and hours and -all the numerous concerns of economic life." - -There can be little doubt that it was because the Guilds of -the Middle Ages were pervaded by religious sentiment that -they were so successful as economic organizations, for we -must not forget that the sense of brotherhood and human -solidarity was restored to the world by Christianity after -it had been broken up by the growth of capitalism under the -Roman Empire. This sense of the brotherhood of mankind made -possible the Just Price which was the central economic idea -of the Middle Ages. It was an idea unthinkable in Rome, -where conquest and exploitation seemed but the natural order -of the universe. The Just Price left no room for the growth -of capitalism by the manipulation of exchange, for it -demanded that currency should be restricted to its primary -and proper use as a medium of exchange. - -It was this Mediaeval conception of the Just Price that, for -the first time in history, made the regulation of currency -possible, and it is only by relating all the Guild -regulations to this central idea that so many of them become -intelligible. The Just Price is necessarily a fixed price, -and, in order to maintain it, the Guilds had to be -privileged bodies having an entire monopoly of their -respective trades over the area of a particular town or -city; for it was only by monopoly that a fixed price could -be maintained, as society found to its cost when the Guilds -were no longer able to exercise this function. Only through -the exercise of authority over its individual members could -the Guild prevent profiteering, in its forms of -forestalling, regrating, engrossing, and adulteration. Trade -abuses of this kind were ruthlessly suppressed in the Middle -Ages. For the first offence a member was fined; the most -severe penalty was expulsion from the Guild, which meant -that a man lost the privilege of practising his craft in his -native town. - -But a Just and Fixed Price cannot be maintained by moral -action alone. If prices are to be fixed throughout -production, it can be done only on the assumption that a -standard of quality can be upheld. As a standard of quality -cannot finally be defined in the terms of law, it is -necessary, for the maintenance of a standard, to place -authority in the hands of craftmasters, a consensus of whose -opinion constitutes the final court of appeal. In order to -ensure a supply of masters it is necessary to train -apprentices, to regulate the size of the workshop, the hours -of labour, the volume of production, and the like; for only -when attention is given to such matters are workshop -conditions created which are favourable to the production of -masters. It is thus that we see all the regulations---as, -indeed, the whole hierarchy of the Guild---arising out of -the primary necessity of maintaining the Just Price. - -The elaborate organizations of the Guilds did not spring -full-grown, but were evolved gradually, as a result of -experience in the light of the central idea of the Just -Price. Support is given to the thesis that, as economic -organizations, the Guilds grew up around the idea of the -Just Price, by the fact that when Guilds first made their -appearance they were not differentiated into separate -trades. The first Guilds which assumed economic functions -were the Guilds Merchant,which the various charters -acknowledged as the ruling power within cities, and upon -which they confer not only the right of regulating trade, -but the right of municipal self-government. Being mixed -organizations, they would naturally be concerned primarily -with the maintenance of a standard of morality in commercial -transactions. In the eleventh century, when the first of -these charters in this country was granted by the sovereign, -the towns were small, the largest not containing more than -seven or eight thousand inhabitants. Agriculture was still -one of the main occupations of the burgesses, and its -produce one of the principal elements of their trade. It -was, perhaps, the smallness of the towns that accounts for -the fact that at that date craftsmen did not organize -themselves separately but became members of the Guilds -Merchant, or, in other words, of the municipality, for in -those days the two were identical. All concerned in -industry, in whatsoever capacity, joined the same -organization. A comparatively small town would contain -merchants enough---each of them trading in several -commodities---to form a Guild Merchant, and at that time -anybody who bought and sold anything beyond provisions for -daily use ranked as a merchant. The population, indeed, -would need to be much greater before separate trades could -support organizations of their own. This point of -development was reached about a hundred years later, when -the Craft Guilds, after making their separate appearance, -finally substituted their collective power for that of the -Guilds Merchant, which survived as the municipality -controlling the separate Craft Guilds. - -The immediate grievance that precipitated the struggle which -ended in the establishment of the Craft Guilds was the fact -that membership of the Guilds Merchant was confined to such -as owned land in the towns. At first there was no objection -to this, because in those early days every burgess held -land. Gradually, however, a class of craftsmen appeared that -did not own land, and as these were excluded from the Guilds -Merchant, they rebelled. No doubt the craftsmen who were -members of the Guilds Merchant had their own grievances, for -in a mixed organization it invariably happens that those -things which concern the majority or dominant party receive -attention, while the interests of the minority are -neglected. As, a century after the formation of the Guilds -Merchant, the craftsmen everywhere were in revolt, it is a -fair assumption that it was because they found their -particular interests neglected. Anyway, it is interesting to -observe that the craftsmen who were the first to rebel---the -weavers and fullers---were those who did not produce -exclusively for a local market, and who would consequently -be the first to feel the tyranny of the middleman. When all -circumstances are taken into account, this explanation of -the rebellion of the craftsmen seems to me to be the only -probable one. The explanation generally given by economic -historians, that the quarrel between the weavers and the -Guilds Merchant was due to the fact that as the Flemings had -originally introduced the weaving industry into England a -certain proportion of the men engaged in that craft would be -of alien ancestry, and the Guild merchants would in -consequence be inclined to act unfavourably towards them, -has been disposed of by Mr. Lipson,who contends that it was -not that the Guilds Merchant desired to exclude the weavers, -but that the weavers declined to be brought within the -jurisdiction of the Guilds Merchant. It seems to me, -however, that he errs when he offers as an explanation of -their refusal the purely selfish one that, having secured -special royal charters for themselves, the weavers strove to -evade the control of the Guilds Merchant in order to avoid -the payment of taxes, because it is reasonable to assume -that special royal charters would not have been granted -unless the weavers could show due cause why they should be -accorded exceptional treatment, which suggests the existence -of a real grievance against the Guilds Merchant. If the -motive had been such as Mr. Lipson suggests, it is certain -that all other crafts would have supported the endeavour of -the Guilds Merchant to bring the weavers into line. The fact -that the submission of weavers in the year 1300 was speedily -followed by the formation of separate Guilds for other -crafts clearly demonstrates that there was some general -economic cause at work, and this, I submit, was the -grievance under which the producer has at all times -laboured---the tendency to fall under the domination of the -middleman. On the Continent these struggles between the -Guilds Merchant and the craftsmen developed into fierce -civil wars, but in England the struggle was not so violent. -In both cases, however, the end was the same. Political -equality was secured, and political power in the -municipality passed out of the hands of the merchants into -those of the craftsmen, who organized separate Craft Guilds -for each trade, these Guilds henceforth buying the raw -materials for their members and, in certain cases, marketing -their goods. The services of the merchants were now -dispensed with. What became of the merchants we hardly know, -but probably the Merchant Adventurers about whom we read -later are a revival of them. The whole subject, however, is -obscure. - -Within a century of the general establishment of Craft -Guilds we find that monopolies began to appear among them, -and are followed by struggles between the journeymen and the -masters. Hitherto it had been possible for every craftsman -who had attained to "sufficient cunning and understanding in -the exercise of his craft" to look forward to a day when he -would be able to set up in business on his own account, and -to qualify as a master of his Guild, and in this connection -it must be understood that the Mediaeval Guild was not an -organization which sought to supplant the private individual -producer by a system of co-operative production. The Guild -did not seek to organize self-governing workshops, but to -regulate industry in such a way as to ensure equality of -opportunity for all who entered it. About the middle of the -fifteenth century, however, a time came when this ideal -could be upheld only with increasing difficulty, for a class -of skilled craftsmen came into existence who had no other -prospect beyond remaining as journeymen all their lives. -When once the permanent nature of these decayed -circumstances had become recognized, the journeymen began to -organize themselves into societies which are called by -Brentano "Journeymen Fraternities," and in Mr. Lipson's -recent work "Yeomen's Guilds" which, while accepting an -inferior status as unalterable, sought to improve the -position of their members as wage-earners. There were -strikes for higher wages, sometimes with success. These -fraternities, in other cases, acted merely as defensive -organizations, to combat a tendency towards a lowering of -the standard of living which seems to have made its -appearance about that time, and which was due to the same -group of economic causes which precipitated the Peasants' -Revolt. The Peasants Revolt will be dealt with in a later -chapter. - -It is interesting to observe that in the formation and -organization of the journeymen societies the Friars played -an important part, as they did in the organization of the -Peasant's Revolt, a circumstance which probably accounts for -the fact that these fraternities were in the first place -formed as religious ones. The Master Saddlers of London -complained that "under a feigned colour of sanctity the -journey men formed covins to raise wages greatly in -excess."From the outset the London Guilds adopted a policy -of repression towards them, but in other towns---as at -Northampton and at Oxford---spirit of compromise prevailed. -At Chester the bitterness became so intense that the quarrel -was fought in quite a Continental style, the Master Weavers -attacking the journeymen with pole-axes, baselards, and -iron-pointed poles. Generally speaking, no solution of the -difficulty was arrived at. The journeymen waged a kind of -guerilla warfare against the masters, much as trade unions -do against capitalists to-day. In 1548 an Act of Parliament -forbade the formation of unions for improving conditions of -labour, but this was when the Guilds had for all practical -purposes ceased to exist as organizations regulating the -conditions of production. - -Critics of the Guilds are accustomed to point to these -struggles as testifying to the prevalence of a tyrannical -spirit within the Guilds, but such, however, is to misjudge -the situation. It becomes abundantly clear from a wider -survey of the economic conditions of the later Middle -Ages---as we shall discover when we consider the defeat of -the Guilds in a later chapter---that, whatever evils the -Guilds may have developed, the changes which overtook them -came about as the result of external influences operating -upon them from without, rather than through defects which -were inherent in their structure from the beginning. It -cannot be said of them that they carried within themselves -the seeds of their own destruction, as will readily be -understood when it is remembered that, as Mr. Lipson has -said, "their underlying principle was order rather than -progress, stability rather than expansion"; or, as I would -prefer to put it, order rather than expansion, stability -rather than mobility. While it is clear that in the -fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the masters endeavoured, -by making their admission fees prohibitive, to exclude -others from their ranks, it is manifest that this policy was -dictated by the instinct of self-preservation, when they -were beginning to feel the pressure of the com petition of -capitalist manufacture. This spirit of exclusiveness did not -actuate the Guilds in their early days. The problem then was -not how to keep people out of the Guilds, but how to get -them in. The Guilds Merchant were willing at the start to -extend privileges to all who agreed to abide by the Just -Price. When the Guilds changed, it was because they had -failed in their original aim of making the Just Price -co-extensive with industry, and were suffering from the -consequence of their failure. Looked at from this point of -view, the internal quarrels of the Guilds appear as the -dissensions not of victorious but of defeated men, not of -the spirit which created the Guilds, but of the spirit that -destroyed them. - -Even if this interpretation be not accepted, it would be -irrational to condemn the Guilds because they laboured under -internal dissensions, for on such grounds every human -organization which existed in the past or exists to-day -stands condemned within certain limits, such dissensions -being in the nature of things. The experience of history -teaches us that all organizations need readjustment from -time to time: the growth of population alone is sufficient -to cause thh. Moreover, every social organization tends to -develop little oligarchies within itself. Mr. Chesterton has -well said that "there happen to be some sins that go with -power and prosperity, while it is certain that whoever holds -power will have some motive for abusing it." From this point -of view, the test of righteousness in social constitutions -is not that they do not develop oligarchies and tyrannies, -for all institutions tend to do this. Rather let us ask what -resistance may be organized against any such encroachments -on popular liberty, and it is the eternal glory of the Guild -system that such rebellion was always possible. The motto of -the old Liberals, that "the price of liberty is eternal -vigilance," is, says Mr. de Maeztu, no more than the -organization of this jealousy of the Guilds."I would -respectfully recommend this idea to the consideration of the -Fabian and the Marxian alike, for it is the failure to -perceive this central truth of the Guilds that leads the one -to place faith in a soul-destroying bureaucracy, and the -other in class war. These ideas are but different aspects of -the same error a complete inability to understand what is -the norm in social relationships. Shrinking from the very -thought of rebellion, the Fabian seeks the creation of a -Leviathan against which rebellion would be in vain; while, -with an outlook equally perverted, the Marxian imagines that -the social struggle which is inherent in any healthy -society, and is necessary to effect periodic readjustments, -can, by a grand supreme effort be abolished once and +associations should be formed for the purposes of defence. Such were the +Frith Guilds, which were compulsory associations, each with a corporate +responsibility for the conduct of its members. They provided also for +common aid in legal matters, such as defence against false accusation. +These Guilds, however, need not detain us any more than the great number +of other Guilds which existed for particular purposes, such as hunting +and fishing, for the repairing of the highways and bridges, and for +various other objects. We must pass on to the Middle Ages, when the +Guilds definitely became economic organizations, under the protection of +patron saints, for it is with economic Guilds that we are specially +concerned. + +"The primary purpose of the craft Guild was to establish a complete +system of industrial control over all who were associated together in +the pursuit of a common calling. It enveloped the life of the Mediaeval +craftsman in a network of restrictions which bound him hand and foot. It +did not suffer the minutest detail to escape its rigid scrutiny and +observation. It embodied in its regulations a whole social system, into +which the individual was completely absorbed by the force of public +opinion and the pressure of moral and social conventions. It embraced +within its scope not only the strictly technical, but also the +religious, the artistic, and the economic activities of Mediaeval +society. It was first and foremost undoubtedly an industrial +organization, but the altar and the pageant, the care for the poor and +the education of the young, were no less part of its functions than the +regulation of wages and hours and all the numerous concerns of economic +life." + +There can be little doubt that it was because the Guilds of the Middle +Ages were pervaded by religious sentiment that they were so successful +as economic organizations, for we must not forget that the sense of +brotherhood and human solidarity was restored to the world by +Christianity after it had been broken up by the growth of capitalism +under the Roman Empire. This sense of the brotherhood of mankind made +possible the Just Price which was the central economic idea of the +Middle Ages. It was an idea unthinkable in Rome, where conquest and +exploitation seemed but the natural order of the universe. The Just +Price left no room for the growth of capitalism by the manipulation of +exchange, for it demanded that currency should be restricted to its +primary and proper use as a medium of exchange. + +It was this Mediaeval conception of the Just Price that, for the first +time in history, made the regulation of currency possible, and it is +only by relating all the Guild regulations to this central idea that so +many of them become intelligible. The Just Price is necessarily a fixed +price, and, in order to maintain it, the Guilds had to be privileged +bodies having an entire monopoly of their respective trades over the +area of a particular town or city; for it was only by monopoly that a +fixed price could be maintained, as society found to its cost when the +Guilds were no longer able to exercise this function. Only through the +exercise of authority over its individual members could the Guild +prevent profiteering, in its forms of forestalling, regrating, +engrossing, and adulteration. Trade abuses of this kind were ruthlessly +suppressed in the Middle Ages. For the first offence a member was fined; +the most severe penalty was expulsion from the Guild, which meant that a +man lost the privilege of practising his craft in his native town. + +But a Just and Fixed Price cannot be maintained by moral action alone. +If prices are to be fixed throughout production, it can be done only on +the assumption that a standard of quality can be upheld. As a standard +of quality cannot finally be defined in the terms of law, it is +necessary, for the maintenance of a standard, to place authority in the +hands of craftmasters, a consensus of whose opinion constitutes the +final court of appeal. In order to ensure a supply of masters it is +necessary to train apprentices, to regulate the size of the workshop, +the hours of labour, the volume of production, and the like; for only +when attention is given to such matters are workshop conditions created +which are favourable to the production of masters. It is thus that we +see all the regulations---as, indeed, the whole hierarchy of the +Guild---arising out of the primary necessity of maintaining the Just +Price. + +The elaborate organizations of the Guilds did not spring full-grown, but +were evolved gradually, as a result of experience in the light of the +central idea of the Just Price. Support is given to the thesis that, as +economic organizations, the Guilds grew up around the idea of the Just +Price, by the fact that when Guilds first made their appearance they +were not differentiated into separate trades. The first Guilds which +assumed economic functions were the Guilds Merchant,which the various +charters acknowledged as the ruling power within cities, and upon which +they confer not only the right of regulating trade, but the right of +municipal self-government. Being mixed organizations, they would +naturally be concerned primarily with the maintenance of a standard of +morality in commercial transactions. In the eleventh century, when the +first of these charters in this country was granted by the sovereign, +the towns were small, the largest not containing more than seven or +eight thousand inhabitants. Agriculture was still one of the main +occupations of the burgesses, and its produce one of the principal +elements of their trade. It was, perhaps, the smallness of the towns +that accounts for the fact that at that date craftsmen did not organize +themselves separately but became members of the Guilds Merchant, or, in +other words, of the municipality, for in those days the two were +identical. All concerned in industry, in whatsoever capacity, joined the +same organization. A comparatively small town would contain merchants +enough---each of them trading in several commodities---to form a Guild +Merchant, and at that time anybody who bought and sold anything beyond +provisions for daily use ranked as a merchant. The population, indeed, +would need to be much greater before separate trades could support +organizations of their own. This point of development was reached about +a hundred years later, when the Craft Guilds, after making their +separate appearance, finally substituted their collective power for that +of the Guilds Merchant, which survived as the municipality controlling +the separate Craft Guilds. + +The immediate grievance that precipitated the struggle which ended in +the establishment of the Craft Guilds was the fact that membership of +the Guilds Merchant was confined to such as owned land in the towns. At +first there was no objection to this, because in those early days every +burgess held land. Gradually, however, a class of craftsmen appeared +that did not own land, and as these were excluded from the Guilds +Merchant, they rebelled. No doubt the craftsmen who were members of the +Guilds Merchant had their own grievances, for in a mixed organization it +invariably happens that those things which concern the majority or +dominant party receive attention, while the interests of the minority +are neglected. As, a century after the formation of the Guilds Merchant, +the craftsmen everywhere were in revolt, it is a fair assumption that it +was because they found their particular interests neglected. Anyway, it +is interesting to observe that the craftsmen who were the first to +rebel---the weavers and fullers---were those who did not produce +exclusively for a local market, and who would consequently be the first +to feel the tyranny of the middleman. When all circumstances are taken +into account, this explanation of the rebellion of the craftsmen seems +to me to be the only probable one. The explanation generally given by +economic historians, that the quarrel between the weavers and the Guilds +Merchant was due to the fact that as the Flemings had originally +introduced the weaving industry into England a certain proportion of the +men engaged in that craft would be of alien ancestry, and the Guild +merchants would in consequence be inclined to act unfavourably towards +them, has been disposed of by Mr. Lipson,who contends that it was not +that the Guilds Merchant desired to exclude the weavers, but that the +weavers declined to be brought within the jurisdiction of the Guilds +Merchant. It seems to me, however, that he errs when he offers as an +explanation of their refusal the purely selfish one that, having secured +special royal charters for themselves, the weavers strove to evade the +control of the Guilds Merchant in order to avoid the payment of taxes, +because it is reasonable to assume that special royal charters would not +have been granted unless the weavers could show due cause why they +should be accorded exceptional treatment, which suggests the existence +of a real grievance against the Guilds Merchant. If the motive had been +such as Mr. Lipson suggests, it is certain that all other crafts would +have supported the endeavour of the Guilds Merchant to bring the weavers +into line. The fact that the submission of weavers in the year 1300 was +speedily followed by the formation of separate Guilds for other crafts +clearly demonstrates that there was some general economic cause at work, +and this, I submit, was the grievance under which the producer has at +all times laboured---the tendency to fall under the domination of the +middleman. On the Continent these struggles between the Guilds Merchant +and the craftsmen developed into fierce civil wars, but in England the +struggle was not so violent. In both cases, however, the end was the +same. Political equality was secured, and political power in the +municipality passed out of the hands of the merchants into those of the +craftsmen, who organized separate Craft Guilds for each trade, these +Guilds henceforth buying the raw materials for their members and, in +certain cases, marketing their goods. The services of the merchants were +now dispensed with. What became of the merchants we hardly know, but +probably the Merchant Adventurers about whom we read later are a revival +of them. The whole subject, however, is obscure. + +Within a century of the general establishment of Craft Guilds we find +that monopolies began to appear among them, and are followed by +struggles between the journeymen and the masters. Hitherto it had been +possible for every craftsman who had attained to "sufficient cunning and +understanding in the exercise of his craft" to look forward to a day +when he would be able to set up in business on his own account, and to +qualify as a master of his Guild, and in this connection it must be +understood that the Mediaeval Guild was not an organization which sought +to supplant the private individual producer by a system of co-operative +production. The Guild did not seek to organize self-governing workshops, +but to regulate industry in such a way as to ensure equality of +opportunity for all who entered it. About the middle of the fifteenth +century, however, a time came when this ideal could be upheld only with +increasing difficulty, for a class of skilled craftsmen came into +existence who had no other prospect beyond remaining as journeymen all +their lives. When once the permanent nature of these decayed +circumstances had become recognized, the journeymen began to organize +themselves into societies which are called by Brentano "Journeymen +Fraternities," and in Mr. Lipson's recent work "Yeomen's Guilds" which, +while accepting an inferior status as unalterable, sought to improve the +position of their members as wage-earners. There were strikes for higher +wages, sometimes with success. These fraternities, in other cases, acted +merely as defensive organizations, to combat a tendency towards a +lowering of the standard of living which seems to have made its +appearance about that time, and which was due to the same group of +economic causes which precipitated the Peasants' Revolt. The Peasants +Revolt will be dealt with in a later chapter. + +It is interesting to observe that in the formation and organization of +the journeymen societies the Friars played an important part, as they +did in the organization of the Peasant's Revolt, a circumstance which +probably accounts for the fact that these fraternities were in the first +place formed as religious ones. The Master Saddlers of London complained +that "under a feigned colour of sanctity the journey men formed covins +to raise wages greatly in excess."From the outset the London Guilds +adopted a policy of repression towards them, but in other towns---as at +Northampton and at Oxford---spirit of compromise prevailed. At Chester +the bitterness became so intense that the quarrel was fought in quite a +Continental style, the Master Weavers attacking the journeymen with +pole-axes, baselards, and iron-pointed poles. Generally speaking, no +solution of the difficulty was arrived at. The journeymen waged a kind +of guerilla warfare against the masters, much as trade unions do against +capitalists to-day. In 1548 an Act of Parliament forbade the formation +of unions for improving conditions of labour, but this was when the +Guilds had for all practical purposes ceased to exist as organizations +regulating the conditions of production. + +Critics of the Guilds are accustomed to point to these struggles as +testifying to the prevalence of a tyrannical spirit within the Guilds, +but such, however, is to misjudge the situation. It becomes abundantly +clear from a wider survey of the economic conditions of the later Middle +Ages---as we shall discover when we consider the defeat of the Guilds in +a later chapter---that, whatever evils the Guilds may have developed, +the changes which overtook them came about as the result of external +influences operating upon them from without, rather than through defects +which were inherent in their structure from the beginning. It cannot be +said of them that they carried within themselves the seeds of their own +destruction, as will readily be understood when it is remembered that, +as Mr. Lipson has said, "their underlying principle was order rather +than progress, stability rather than expansion"; or, as I would prefer +to put it, order rather than expansion, stability rather than mobility. +While it is clear that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the +masters endeavoured, by making their admission fees prohibitive, to +exclude others from their ranks, it is manifest that this policy was +dictated by the instinct of self-preservation, when they were beginning +to feel the pressure of the com petition of capitalist manufacture. This +spirit of exclusiveness did not actuate the Guilds in their early days. +The problem then was not how to keep people out of the Guilds, but how +to get them in. The Guilds Merchant were willing at the start to extend +privileges to all who agreed to abide by the Just Price. When the Guilds +changed, it was because they had failed in their original aim of making +the Just Price co-extensive with industry, and were suffering from the +consequence of their failure. Looked at from this point of view, the +internal quarrels of the Guilds appear as the dissensions not of +victorious but of defeated men, not of the spirit which created the +Guilds, but of the spirit that destroyed them. + +Even if this interpretation be not accepted, it would be irrational to +condemn the Guilds because they laboured under internal dissensions, for +on such grounds every human organization which existed in the past or +exists to-day stands condemned within certain limits, such dissensions +being in the nature of things. The experience of history teaches us that +all organizations need readjustment from time to time: the growth of +population alone is sufficient to cause thh. Moreover, every social +organization tends to develop little oligarchies within itself. +Mr. Chesterton has well said that "there happen to be some sins that go +with power and prosperity, while it is certain that whoever holds power +will have some motive for abusing it." From this point of view, the test +of righteousness in social constitutions is not that they do not develop +oligarchies and tyrannies, for all institutions tend to do this. Rather +let us ask what resistance may be organized against any such +encroachments on popular liberty, and it is the eternal glory of the +Guild system that such rebellion was always possible. The motto of the +old Liberals, that "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance," is, says +Mr. de Maeztu, no more than the organization of this jealousy of the +Guilds."I would respectfully recommend this idea to the consideration of +the Fabian and the Marxian alike, for it is the failure to perceive this +central truth of the Guilds that leads the one to place faith in a +soul-destroying bureaucracy, and the other in class war. These ideas are +but different aspects of the same error a complete inability to +understand what is the norm in social relationships. Shrinking from the +very thought of rebellion, the Fabian seeks the creation of a Leviathan +against which rebellion would be in vain; while, with an outlook equally +perverted, the Marxian imagines that the social struggle which is +inherent in any healthy society, and is necessary to effect periodic +readjustments, can, by a grand supreme effort be abolished once and forever. # The Mediaeval Hierarchy -"Heavy laborious work," says Heinrich von Langenstein, the -Mediaeval economist, " is the inevitable yoke of punishment -which according to God's righteous verdict has been laid on -all the sons of Adam. But many of Adam's descend ants seek -in all sorts of cunning ways to escape from this yoke and -live in idleness without labour, and at the same time to -have a superfluity of useful and necessary things; some by -robbery and plunder, some by usurious dealings, others by -lying, deceit, and the countless forms of dishonest and -fraudulent gain by which men are for ever seeking to get -riches and abundance without toil." - -It is because in every society a minority of men have always -been, and probably always will be, actuated by such -anti-social motives that government all at times is -necessary. They bring to naught the dreams of the -philosophic anarchist and other kinds of social idealists -the moment any attempt is made to give practical effect to -their theories. As it was understood in the Middle Ages, the -function of government was to give protection to the -community by keeping this type of man---the man of prey---in -a strict subjection. By insisting upon the maintenance of a -Just and Fixed Price, the Guilds were able to keep him under -in the towns where their jurisdiction obtained. It is for -this reason that the Guilds are to be regarded as the normal -form of social organization in the Middle Ages, for as the -Mediaeval idea was that man should live by the sweat of his -brow, no other form of organization would have been -necessary, had all men been actuated by the best intentions. -Outside the towns, however, such economic control had not -been established, because a precedent condition of such -control was never attained. In rural areas the man of prey -had never been brought entirely under military and civil -control, and it was the attempt to subjugate him that -brought into existence the Feudal System. The primary -necessity of self-defence was its *raison d'être*. - -Such appears to be the probable explanation of the -phenomenon of Feudalism, for exactly how it came into -existence is largely a matter of conjecture. After the -break-up of the Roman Empire, when Europe was overrun by -barbarian tribes and orderly government had broken down, the -man of prey found himself at large. Robber knights (or -brigands, as they would be termed in those days) made their -appearance everywhere in Western Europe, and preyed upon the -industrious part of the population. Divided into groups or -clans, these people would find it expedient to be -permanently organized for the purposes of self-defence, -ready always to repel the raider whenever he chanced to make -his appearance. It would be necessary in such communities to -carry on the dual vocations of agriculture and defence. The -clan would be divided into two sections, the more -adventurous spirits taking upon themselves the -responsibility of military defence, while the rest would -agree to feed them: out of such an arrangement it can be -seen that the Feudal manor might gradually arise. The -fighting-men would tend to become a class apart, and would -claim rights and privileges over the non-combatant section -of the community. The chieftain of the fighting-men would -become the lord, and the fighting-men would be his -retainers. This system would be imposed upon other clans by -means of conquest. The successful chief would divide the -conquered territory among his followers, and compel the -conquered peoples to become their serfs. In other cases, the -Feudal relationship would be established because some group -of people sought the protection of a superior lord. - -Looking at Feudalism from this point of view, it may be said -that while its existence was due to the depredations of the -robber knights, and though these knights would have certain -groups of workers at their mercy, there would be other -knights, or lords, who came into being as protectors of the -communal rights of the people. Such were the chivalrous -knights of romance and legend. By reason of the different -circumstances which had created the various Feudal -groups---in fact, according to whether they owed their -existence to depredation or defence---a different social -life would obtain within the group. The serfs would enjoy -varying degrees of liberty. The serfs of the robber knights -would be tyrannized over, because the robber knights would -never feel their position to be secure; but the serfs of the -chivalrous knights would enjoy all the advantages of a -communal life, for the chivalrous knights, owing their -position to popular election, would have no desire to -tyrannize. After the lapse of centuries and the changes -inevitable in an hereditary institution, the original -character of the groups, influenced by the changing -personalities of the lords, would tend to become modified. - -Anyway, although William the Conqueror is popularly supposed -to have introduced the Feudal System into England, it is -nowadays admitted that it existed here long before the -Norman Conquest, that much of it was not developed until -after the Norman period, and that at no time was Feudalism a -uniform and logical system, outside of historical and legal -textbooks. Feudal land was held in various ways and on -various terms by the villains, the cottiers, and the serfs. -According to Domesday Book, the last-mentioned did not -exceed more than 16%, of the whole population. In addition -to these, however, there were the free tenants, who did no -regular work for the manor, but whose services were -requisitioned at certain periods---such as -harvest-time---when labour was required. - -The principle governing the Feudal System was that of -reciprocal rights and duties, for lord and serf alike were -tied to the soil. Although the serf had to give half of his -labour to his lord, it was not exploitation, as we -understand the term; for in return for his labour, which -went to support the lord and his retainers, military -protection was given to the serf. The amount of labour which -a lord could exact was a definite and fixed quantity, and -was not determined merely by the greed of the lord. The -class division was primarily a difference of function rather -than a difference of wealth. The baron did not own the land, -but held it from the king on definite terms, such as -furnishing him with men in times of war, and of -administering justice within his domains. But in this -country the baron rarely possessed that criminal -jurisdiction in matters of life and death which was common -in continental feudalism. He assisted at the King's Council -Board, when requested. To suit their own convenience, the -barons divided up these territories among their retainers, -on terms corresponding to those on which they held their -own. It was thus that the whole organization outside of the -towns was graduated from the king, through the greater -barons, to tenants who held their possessions from a -superior lord to whom they owed allegiance. - -Such was the principle of the Feudal System. Although the -system was in no way uniform in the majority of cases, it -probably worked fairly well, for the relation between the -lords and the serfs was an essentially human one. Based upon -recognized services and rights, it was not a barrier to good -understanding and fellowship. In countries where semi-feudal -relationships still exist---as on many of the large estates -in these countries---in Cuba and Mexico, there is no feeling -of personal inferiority between master and man. A traveller -from these parts tells me that in Cuba it is the custom for -owners of big plantations to breakfast with their men. The -owner sits at the head of the table with his overseers, -friends, and guests, and below the "salt" sit the workmen, -according to rank and seniority, down to the newest black -boy. Meeting on the plantation, the owner exchanges -cigarettes with his men, and they discuss with animation -politics, cock-fighting, or the prospects of the crop. -Feudal England, I imagine, was something like this, and not -the horrible nightmare conjured up by lying historians, -interested in painting the past as black as possible, in -order to make modern conditions appear tolerable by -comparison. Where there was a good lord life would be -pleasant, for the serf lived in rude plenty. The defect of -the system would be the defect of all aristocracies---that -where there was a bad lord redress would be difficult to -obtain. For though a lord might, in theory, be deprived of -his fief for abuse of power, the abuse would have to be very -gross before such a thing could happen. We are safe, I -think, in concluding that where the lord was inclined to be -arbitrary it would be difficult to restrain him, though, of -course, as the people would in those days have the Church on -their side, their action would tend to modify the original -proposition. - -The Feudal System was essentially a form of organization -adapted to a stage of transition with no finality about it. -A. the relationships existing between the lords and the -serfs were dictated primarily by military necessity and -based upon payment in kind, they were bound to have been -disintegrated by the growth of orderly government on the one +"Heavy laborious work," says Heinrich von Langenstein, the Mediaeval +economist, " is the inevitable yoke of punishment which according to +God's righteous verdict has been laid on all the sons of Adam. But many +of Adam's descend ants seek in all sorts of cunning ways to escape from +this yoke and live in idleness without labour, and at the same time to +have a superfluity of useful and necessary things; some by robbery and +plunder, some by usurious dealings, others by lying, deceit, and the +countless forms of dishonest and fraudulent gain by which men are for +ever seeking to get riches and abundance without toil." + +It is because in every society a minority of men have always been, and +probably always will be, actuated by such anti-social motives that +government all at times is necessary. They bring to naught the dreams of +the philosophic anarchist and other kinds of social idealists the moment +any attempt is made to give practical effect to their theories. As it +was understood in the Middle Ages, the function of government was to +give protection to the community by keeping this type of man---the man +of prey---in a strict subjection. By insisting upon the maintenance of a +Just and Fixed Price, the Guilds were able to keep him under in the +towns where their jurisdiction obtained. It is for this reason that the +Guilds are to be regarded as the normal form of social organization in +the Middle Ages, for as the Mediaeval idea was that man should live by +the sweat of his brow, no other form of organization would have been +necessary, had all men been actuated by the best intentions. Outside the +towns, however, such economic control had not been established, because +a precedent condition of such control was never attained. In rural areas +the man of prey had never been brought entirely under military and civil +control, and it was the attempt to subjugate him that brought into +existence the Feudal System. The primary necessity of self-defence was +its *raison d'être*. + +Such appears to be the probable explanation of the phenomenon of +Feudalism, for exactly how it came into existence is largely a matter of +conjecture. After the break-up of the Roman Empire, when Europe was +overrun by barbarian tribes and orderly government had broken down, the +man of prey found himself at large. Robber knights (or brigands, as they +would be termed in those days) made their appearance everywhere in +Western Europe, and preyed upon the industrious part of the population. +Divided into groups or clans, these people would find it expedient to be +permanently organized for the purposes of self-defence, ready always to +repel the raider whenever he chanced to make his appearance. It would be +necessary in such communities to carry on the dual vocations of +agriculture and defence. The clan would be divided into two sections, +the more adventurous spirits taking upon themselves the responsibility +of military defence, while the rest would agree to feed them: out of +such an arrangement it can be seen that the Feudal manor might gradually +arise. The fighting-men would tend to become a class apart, and would +claim rights and privileges over the non-combatant section of the +community. The chieftain of the fighting-men would become the lord, and +the fighting-men would be his retainers. This system would be imposed +upon other clans by means of conquest. The successful chief would divide +the conquered territory among his followers, and compel the conquered +peoples to become their serfs. In other cases, the Feudal relationship +would be established because some group of people sought the protection +of a superior lord. + +Looking at Feudalism from this point of view, it may be said that while +its existence was due to the depredations of the robber knights, and +though these knights would have certain groups of workers at their +mercy, there would be other knights, or lords, who came into being as +protectors of the communal rights of the people. Such were the +chivalrous knights of romance and legend. By reason of the different +circumstances which had created the various Feudal groups---in fact, +according to whether they owed their existence to depredation or +defence---a different social life would obtain within the group. The +serfs would enjoy varying degrees of liberty. The serfs of the robber +knights would be tyrannized over, because the robber knights would never +feel their position to be secure; but the serfs of the chivalrous +knights would enjoy all the advantages of a communal life, for the +chivalrous knights, owing their position to popular election, would have +no desire to tyrannize. After the lapse of centuries and the changes +inevitable in an hereditary institution, the original character of the +groups, influenced by the changing personalities of the lords, would +tend to become modified. + +Anyway, although William the Conqueror is popularly supposed to have +introduced the Feudal System into England, it is nowadays admitted that +it existed here long before the Norman Conquest, that much of it was not +developed until after the Norman period, and that at no time was +Feudalism a uniform and logical system, outside of historical and legal +textbooks. Feudal land was held in various ways and on various terms by +the villains, the cottiers, and the serfs. According to Domesday Book, +the last-mentioned did not exceed more than 16%, of the whole +population. In addition to these, however, there were the free tenants, +who did no regular work for the manor, but whose services were +requisitioned at certain periods---such as harvest-time---when labour +was required. + +The principle governing the Feudal System was that of reciprocal rights +and duties, for lord and serf alike were tied to the soil. Although the +serf had to give half of his labour to his lord, it was not +exploitation, as we understand the term; for in return for his labour, +which went to support the lord and his retainers, military protection +was given to the serf. The amount of labour which a lord could exact was +a definite and fixed quantity, and was not determined merely by the +greed of the lord. The class division was primarily a difference of +function rather than a difference of wealth. The baron did not own the +land, but held it from the king on definite terms, such as furnishing +him with men in times of war, and of administering justice within his +domains. But in this country the baron rarely possessed that criminal +jurisdiction in matters of life and death which was common in +continental feudalism. He assisted at the King's Council Board, when +requested. To suit their own convenience, the barons divided up these +territories among their retainers, on terms corresponding to those on +which they held their own. It was thus that the whole organization +outside of the towns was graduated from the king, through the greater +barons, to tenants who held their possessions from a superior lord to +whom they owed allegiance. + +Such was the principle of the Feudal System. Although the system was in +no way uniform in the majority of cases, it probably worked fairly well, +for the relation between the lords and the serfs was an essentially +human one. Based upon recognized services and rights, it was not a +barrier to good understanding and fellowship. In countries where +semi-feudal relationships still exist---as on many of the large estates +in these countries---in Cuba and Mexico, there is no feeling of personal +inferiority between master and man. A traveller from these parts tells +me that in Cuba it is the custom for owners of big plantations to +breakfast with their men. The owner sits at the head of the table with +his overseers, friends, and guests, and below the "salt" sit the +workmen, according to rank and seniority, down to the newest black boy. +Meeting on the plantation, the owner exchanges cigarettes with his men, +and they discuss with animation politics, cock-fighting, or the +prospects of the crop. Feudal England, I imagine, was something like +this, and not the horrible nightmare conjured up by lying historians, +interested in painting the past as black as possible, in order to make +modern conditions appear tolerable by comparison. Where there was a good +lord life would be pleasant, for the serf lived in rude plenty. The +defect of the system would be the defect of all aristocracies---that +where there was a bad lord redress would be difficult to obtain. For +though a lord might, in theory, be deprived of his fief for abuse of +power, the abuse would have to be very gross before such a thing could +happen. We are safe, I think, in concluding that where the lord was +inclined to be arbitrary it would be difficult to restrain him, though, +of course, as the people would in those days have the Church on their +side, their action would tend to modify the original proposition. + +The Feudal System was essentially a form of organization adapted to a +stage of transition with no finality about it. A. the relationships +existing between the lords and the serfs were dictated primarily by +military necessity and based upon payment in kind, they were bound to +have been disintegrated by the growth of orderly government on the one hand and the spread of the currency on the other. There was, -nevertheless, nothing in the nature of things why when -Feudal society did disintegrate it should have been -transformed into landlordism and capitalism, for as the old -Feudal order was dissolved by the spread of currency the -agricultural population might just as conceivably have been -organized into Guilds. Moreover, I believe they would have -been, but for a change in the legal system which entirely -undermined the old communal relationships of the Feudal -groups; or, to be precise, if the Communal Law which had -hitherto sustained Mediaeval society had not been displaced -by the revival of Roman Law. This issue we shall have to +nevertheless, nothing in the nature of things why when Feudal society +did disintegrate it should have been transformed into landlordism and +capitalism, for as the old Feudal order was dissolved by the spread of +currency the agricultural population might just as conceivably have been +organized into Guilds. Moreover, I believe they would have been, but for +a change in the legal system which entirely undermined the old communal +relationships of the Feudal groups; or, to be precise, if the Communal +Law which had hitherto sustained Mediaeval society had not been +displaced by the revival of Roman Law. This issue we shall have to consider in the next chapter. -Whatever misgivings Mediaevalists may have had respecting -the institution of Feudalism, they had none respecting the -institution of Monarchy. Feudalism they might regard as a -thing of transition which was bound to pass away, but the -institution of Monarchy they contemplated on quite a -different plane. It was a part of the natural order of -things, and almost with one voice Mediaeval publicists -declared monarchy to be the best form of government. -St. Thomas Aquinas defends the institution of monarchy -entirely on the grounds of practical expediency. One man -must be set apart to rule, because "where there are many men -and each one provides whatever he likes for himself, the -energies of the multitude are dissipated unless there is, -also, some who has the care of that which is for the benefit -of the multitude.""A power that is united is more -efficacious in producing its effect than a dispersed or -divided power."The rule of the many nearly always ended in -tyranny, as clearly appears in the Roman Republic, which, -while for some time the magistracy was exercised by many -enmities, dissensions, and civil wars, fell into the hands -of the most cruel tyrants." - -There is here no suggestion of the Divine Right of Kings. -That was a post-Reformation idea and the invention of James -I. The doctrine of the unconditional duty of obedience to -monarchs was wholly foreign to the Mediaeval mind. Monarchs -were instituted for the sake of the people, not the people -for the sake of the monarchs. "As a rule, each prince on his -accession was obliged to swear fidelity to all written and -traditional customs, and it was only after he had conferred -a charter of rights that fealty was pledged to him. Thus, -Duke Albert IV of Bavaria directed that every prince's son -or heir should, on receiving the vow of fealty, secure to -the State deputies of the prelates, nobles, and cities, -their freedom, ancient customs, and respected rights; and -pledge himself not to interfere with them in any way. The -formal clause, 'The land and each inhabitant of it shall be -undisturbed in his rights and customs,' was a sure guarantee -against the arbitrary legislature of the princes without +Whatever misgivings Mediaevalists may have had respecting the +institution of Feudalism, they had none respecting the institution of +Monarchy. Feudalism they might regard as a thing of transition which was +bound to pass away, but the institution of Monarchy they contemplated on +quite a different plane. It was a part of the natural order of things, +and almost with one voice Mediaeval publicists declared monarchy to be +the best form of government. St. Thomas Aquinas defends the institution +of monarchy entirely on the grounds of practical expediency. One man +must be set apart to rule, because "where there are many men and each +one provides whatever he likes for himself, the energies of the +multitude are dissipated unless there is, also, some who has the care of +that which is for the benefit of the multitude.""A power that is united +is more efficacious in producing its effect than a dispersed or divided +power."The rule of the many nearly always ended in tyranny, as clearly +appears in the Roman Republic, which, while for some time the magistracy +was exercised by many enmities, dissensions, and civil wars, fell into +the hands of the most cruel tyrants." + +There is here no suggestion of the Divine Right of Kings. That was a +post-Reformation idea and the invention of James I. The doctrine of the +unconditional duty of obedience to monarchs was wholly foreign to the +Mediaeval mind. Monarchs were instituted for the sake of the people, not +the people for the sake of the monarchs. "As a rule, each prince on his +accession was obliged to swear fidelity to all written and traditional +customs, and it was only after he had conferred a charter of rights that +fealty was pledged to him. Thus, Duke Albert IV of Bavaria directed that +every prince's son or heir should, on receiving the vow of fealty, +secure to the State deputies of the prelates, nobles, and cities, their +freedom, ancient customs, and respected rights; and pledge himself not +to interfere with them in any way. The formal clause, 'The land and each +inhabitant of it shall be undisturbed in his rights and customs,' was a +sure guarantee against the arbitrary legislature of the princes without counsel, knowledge, or will of the Estate-General." -According, then, to the Mediaeval view, the king was not so -much the ruler as the first guardian of the State; not so -much the owner of the realm as the principal administrator -of its powers and interests. His power was not absolute, but -limited within certain bounds. The principle involved is the -one which runs through all Mediaeval polity of reciprocal -rights and duties. All public authority was looked upon as a -responsibility conferred by a higher power, but the duty of -obedience was conditioned by the rightfulness of the -command. "The Mediaeval doctrine taught that every command -which exceeded the limits of the ruler's authority was a -mere nullity, and obliged none to obedience. And then, -again, it proclaimed the right of resistance, and even armed -resistance, against the compulsory enforcement of any -unrighteous and tyrannical measure, such enforcement being -regarded as an act of violence. Nay, more, it taught (though -some men with an enlightened sense of law might always deny -this) that tyrannicide was justified, or, at least, -excusable."Manegold of Lautenbach teaches that the king who -has become a tyrant should be expelled like an unfaithful -shepherd. Similar revolutionary doctrines are frequently -maintained by the Papal party against the wielders of State -power. John of Salisbury emphatically recommends the -slaughter of a tyrant, for a tyranny is nothing less than an -abuse of power granted by God to man. He vouches Biblical -and classical examples, and rejects the use of poison, -breach of trust, breach of oath.St. Thomas Aquinas is -against tyrannicide, but is in favour of active resistance -against tyrants, though he recommends that "if the tyranny -is not excessive it is better to bear it for a time than, by -acting against the tyrant, to be involved in many perils -that are worse than tyranny." - -The paradox of the position was that it was precisely in the -Middle Ages, when there was nothing sacrosanct about the -institution of monarchy, that kings were popular and their -lives were very much safer than they are to-day. They were -supposed to act impartially, to protect the people against -oppression by the nobles, and to be the impersonation of -justice, mercy, generosity, and greatness; and it is to be -presumed that it was because they did to some extent fulfil -such expectations that monarchy was popular. It was an -ancient and generally entertained opinion that the will of -the people was the source of all temporal power; but, while -kings owed their authority immediately to the goodwill of -the people, it was felt that, ultimately, it was derived -from God. Which belief is an entirely rational one, for, -considering that all legitimate monarchies are hereditary, -if God does not choose the actual successor to the throne, -then no one does. To accept God as the ultimate source of -authority was to the Mediaeval mind a much more satisfactory -explanation than the legal fictions with which moderns seek -to escape from the dilemma. - -All earthly lordship is, however, limited by its nature. It -is limited by human and geographical considerations. Hence, -in this world there are many temporal powers. But the -universe is one. If human intercourse is to be possible, if -temporal powers are to prevail, there must be certain common -standards of morals, of thought and of culture. If these are -to be upheld in the world, they must rest on certain fixed -and unalterable dogmas. There must be the recognition of an -ultimate good, a true and a beautiful. But men, owing to -their limitations, are incapable of determining the nature -of these. Left to themselves, they tend to emphasize their -points of difference and to lose what they have in common. -They will worship material things, and, like the builders of -Babel, end in a confusion of tongues, no man knowing what to -or what not to believe. Hence the need of Divine -interposition to reveal to the world the nature of the truth -by which alone mankind can live, and to secure its -recognition among men. Hence, also, the Christian Church, -which exists to uphold in the world the revealed truth which -otherwise would be forgotten, and to transmit the truth, -pure and undented, from generation to generation. And hence, -again, the priority of the Spiritual over the Temporal -Power, of the Church over the State. For the State, being of -its nature earthly, maintains itself by considerations of -expediency, and, apart from the daily reminder of permanent -truth which the existence of a spiritual power gives, would -place its reliance entirely in the sufficiency of material -things. - -Such was the Mediaeval conception of the social order. It -rested upon the constitutive principle of unity underlying -and comprehending the world's plurality. The Medievalists -reconciled the philosophical contradiction implied in the -simultaneous existence of the one and the many by accepting -in the visible world a plurality of temporal powers, -supported and sustained by the indivisible unity of the -spiritual power. Along with this idea, however, came the -necessity of the division of the community between two -organized orders of life, the spiritual and the temporal; -for it was maintained that the care of the spiritual and -moral life of the community---the whole-hearted pursuit of -wisdom---was incompatible with political administrative -work. Granting certain pre supposed conditions, Church and -State were the two necessary embodiments of one and the same -human society, the State taking charge of the temporal -requirements, and the Church of the spiritual and -supernatural. Hence the Holy Roman Empire, the Mediaeval -conception of which was that of two swords to protect -Christianity, the spiritual belonging to the Pope and the -temporal to the Emperor. Although it claimed continuity with -the Roman Empire, it was in no sense an attempt to revive -the idea of universal monarchy, since it was laid down that -the Emperor, though he was the first and august -monarch---the highest of Papal vassals---was not to aim at -the establishment of a universal monarchy, the destruction -of nationalities, or the subjection of other nations to his -personal rule. On the contrary, it was the mission of the -Church to achieve an ideal union of mankind by changing the -heart and the mind of man. What was required of the Emperor -was that, in the first place, he should seek to establish -amongst the nations a system of organization---a League of -Nations, as it were---which should arbitrate on -international questions, in order that war among Christian -nations might be brought to an end. In the next, it was to -be his duty to lead the Christian princes in defence of the -Faith against all unbelievers.This Mediaeval Empire, which -dates from the year 800, when Charlemagne was crowned -Emperor of the West by Pope Leo III, continued to exist -until the end of the eighteenth century, when what remained -of it fell finally before the armies of Napoleon; but until -the thirteenth century, when its decline definitely set in, -it was the centre of European national life and as a matter -of fact it did succeed in preserving peace in Central Europe -for centuries. It is of more than passing interest to note -that the sinister influence which undermined its power was -precisely the same one which corrupted Mediaeval -civilization, and has led to the anarchy and confusion of -the modern world. - -Modern historians are accustomed to look upon the -inauguration of the Holy Roman Empire as the great mistake -of the Middle Ages, inasmuch as, by giving rise to a long -succession of quarrels between the two heads of Christendom -it led to a spirit of religious and political intolerance. -Such a judgment is perhaps a superficial one, for there was -nothing in the original conception of the Empire which would -necessarily have produced such results. At the time of its -first promotion a strong case was to be made in its favour. -Christendom was then in great danger of being overthrown by -the Saracens, while the Papacy lived in fear of the -Lombards. The Church was sorely in need of a temporal -defender. Twice did Charlemagne cross the Alps to rescue the -Papacy from the clutches of the Lombards, thus bringing -temporal security to it. The great quarrel between the Popes -and the Emperors over the Right of Investiture, which -terminated early in the twelfth century, defined the -respective spheres of influence of the Spiritual and the -Temporal Powers. Once this source of difficulty had been -removed, there is no reason to suppose that, in the ordinary -course of things, the doctrine as taught by Pope Gelasius in -the fifteenth century, that "Christian princes are to -respect the priest in things which relate to the soul, while -the priests in their turn are to obey the laws made for the -preservation of order in worldly matters, so that the -soldier of God should not mix in temporal affairs and the -worldly authorities have naught to say in spiritual -things,"which was accepted prior to the quarrel over -Investiture, might not have been resumed when the quarrel -was ended. Unfortunately for the success of the Empire, an -indirect consequence of the quarrel was the revival of Roman -Law, and this, by raising issues of such a nature as to make -compromise impossible, destroyed for ever the possibility of -co-operation between Church and State. After this revival, -the issue was no longer one of defining the respective -spheres of influence between the two authorities, but the -more fundamental one of whether considerations of principle -or of expediency should take precedence; whether, in fact, -there was a higher law which earthly monarchs should obey, -or whether law should be dependent entirely upon the -personal will of princes. This issue was fundamental, and, -as I have already said, it made compromise impossible. As -compromise was impossible, co-operation was impossible. It -became a question of who should rule; whether the Church -would consent to make herself subservient to the ambitions -of princes, or whether political arrangements were to be -regarded as part and parcel of the ecclesiastical -organization. As the Emperors sought to encroach upon the -prerogatives of the Church, the Popes strove to attain -temporal power, and the struggle resulted in corrupting both -Church and State, and in breaking up the Mediaeval social -order. In proportion as the Holy See succeeded in this aim -it became increasingly secularized, its territorial -possessions leading it to subordinate spiritual duties to -acquisitive ambition. When, after the Great Schism in the -earlier part of the fifteenth century, the Popes succeeded -in asserting their final and triumphant absolutism, they -became to all intents and purposes mere secular princes, by -whom religion was used as an instrument for the furtherance -of political ambitions. Their enormous revenues were spent -upon the maintenance of Papal armies and fleets and a court -unrivalled in its magnificence and corruption. This state of -things continued until the Reformation came upon the Church -as a scourge from God and paved the way for the -counter-Reformation, when the Church, after the loss of her -temporal authority, found recompense in a renewal of her -spiritual vitality. +According, then, to the Mediaeval view, the king was not so much the +ruler as the first guardian of the State; not so much the owner of the +realm as the principal administrator of its powers and interests. His +power was not absolute, but limited within certain bounds. The principle +involved is the one which runs through all Mediaeval polity of +reciprocal rights and duties. All public authority was looked upon as a +responsibility conferred by a higher power, but the duty of obedience +was conditioned by the rightfulness of the command. "The Mediaeval +doctrine taught that every command which exceeded the limits of the +ruler's authority was a mere nullity, and obliged none to obedience. And +then, again, it proclaimed the right of resistance, and even armed +resistance, against the compulsory enforcement of any unrighteous and +tyrannical measure, such enforcement being regarded as an act of +violence. Nay, more, it taught (though some men with an enlightened +sense of law might always deny this) that tyrannicide was justified, or, +at least, excusable."Manegold of Lautenbach teaches that the king who +has become a tyrant should be expelled like an unfaithful shepherd. +Similar revolutionary doctrines are frequently maintained by the Papal +party against the wielders of State power. John of Salisbury +emphatically recommends the slaughter of a tyrant, for a tyranny is +nothing less than an abuse of power granted by God to man. He vouches +Biblical and classical examples, and rejects the use of poison, breach +of trust, breach of oath.St. Thomas Aquinas is against tyrannicide, but +is in favour of active resistance against tyrants, though he recommends +that "if the tyranny is not excessive it is better to bear it for a time +than, by acting against the tyrant, to be involved in many perils that +are worse than tyranny." + +The paradox of the position was that it was precisely in the Middle +Ages, when there was nothing sacrosanct about the institution of +monarchy, that kings were popular and their lives were very much safer +than they are to-day. They were supposed to act impartially, to protect +the people against oppression by the nobles, and to be the impersonation +of justice, mercy, generosity, and greatness; and it is to be presumed +that it was because they did to some extent fulfil such expectations +that monarchy was popular. It was an ancient and generally entertained +opinion that the will of the people was the source of all temporal +power; but, while kings owed their authority immediately to the goodwill +of the people, it was felt that, ultimately, it was derived from God. +Which belief is an entirely rational one, for, considering that all +legitimate monarchies are hereditary, if God does not choose the actual +successor to the throne, then no one does. To accept God as the ultimate +source of authority was to the Mediaeval mind a much more satisfactory +explanation than the legal fictions with which moderns seek to escape +from the dilemma. + +All earthly lordship is, however, limited by its nature. It is limited +by human and geographical considerations. Hence, in this world there are +many temporal powers. But the universe is one. If human intercourse is +to be possible, if temporal powers are to prevail, there must be certain +common standards of morals, of thought and of culture. If these are to +be upheld in the world, they must rest on certain fixed and unalterable +dogmas. There must be the recognition of an ultimate good, a true and a +beautiful. But men, owing to their limitations, are incapable of +determining the nature of these. Left to themselves, they tend to +emphasize their points of difference and to lose what they have in +common. They will worship material things, and, like the builders of +Babel, end in a confusion of tongues, no man knowing what to or what not +to believe. Hence the need of Divine interposition to reveal to the +world the nature of the truth by which alone mankind can live, and to +secure its recognition among men. Hence, also, the Christian Church, +which exists to uphold in the world the revealed truth which otherwise +would be forgotten, and to transmit the truth, pure and undented, from +generation to generation. And hence, again, the priority of the +Spiritual over the Temporal Power, of the Church over the State. For the +State, being of its nature earthly, maintains itself by considerations +of expediency, and, apart from the daily reminder of permanent truth +which the existence of a spiritual power gives, would place its reliance +entirely in the sufficiency of material things. + +Such was the Mediaeval conception of the social order. It rested upon +the constitutive principle of unity underlying and comprehending the +world's plurality. The Medievalists reconciled the philosophical +contradiction implied in the simultaneous existence of the one and the +many by accepting in the visible world a plurality of temporal powers, +supported and sustained by the indivisible unity of the spiritual power. +Along with this idea, however, came the necessity of the division of the +community between two organized orders of life, the spiritual and the +temporal; for it was maintained that the care of the spiritual and moral +life of the community---the whole-hearted pursuit of wisdom---was +incompatible with political administrative work. Granting certain pre +supposed conditions, Church and State were the two necessary embodiments +of one and the same human society, the State taking charge of the +temporal requirements, and the Church of the spiritual and supernatural. +Hence the Holy Roman Empire, the Mediaeval conception of which was that +of two swords to protect Christianity, the spiritual belonging to the +Pope and the temporal to the Emperor. Although it claimed continuity +with the Roman Empire, it was in no sense an attempt to revive the idea +of universal monarchy, since it was laid down that the Emperor, though +he was the first and august monarch---the highest of Papal vassals---was +not to aim at the establishment of a universal monarchy, the destruction +of nationalities, or the subjection of other nations to his personal +rule. On the contrary, it was the mission of the Church to achieve an +ideal union of mankind by changing the heart and the mind of man. What +was required of the Emperor was that, in the first place, he should seek +to establish amongst the nations a system of organization---a League of +Nations, as it were---which should arbitrate on international questions, +in order that war among Christian nations might be brought to an end. In +the next, it was to be his duty to lead the Christian princes in defence +of the Faith against all unbelievers.This Mediaeval Empire, which dates +from the year 800, when Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the West by +Pope Leo III, continued to exist until the end of the eighteenth +century, when what remained of it fell finally before the armies of +Napoleon; but until the thirteenth century, when its decline definitely +set in, it was the centre of European national life and as a matter of +fact it did succeed in preserving peace in Central Europe for centuries. +It is of more than passing interest to note that the sinister influence +which undermined its power was precisely the same one which corrupted +Mediaeval civilization, and has led to the anarchy and confusion of the +modern world. + +Modern historians are accustomed to look upon the inauguration of the +Holy Roman Empire as the great mistake of the Middle Ages, inasmuch as, +by giving rise to a long succession of quarrels between the two heads of +Christendom it led to a spirit of religious and political intolerance. +Such a judgment is perhaps a superficial one, for there was nothing in +the original conception of the Empire which would necessarily have +produced such results. At the time of its first promotion a strong case +was to be made in its favour. Christendom was then in great danger of +being overthrown by the Saracens, while the Papacy lived in fear of the +Lombards. The Church was sorely in need of a temporal defender. Twice +did Charlemagne cross the Alps to rescue the Papacy from the clutches of +the Lombards, thus bringing temporal security to it. The great quarrel +between the Popes and the Emperors over the Right of Investiture, which +terminated early in the twelfth century, defined the respective spheres +of influence of the Spiritual and the Temporal Powers. Once this source +of difficulty had been removed, there is no reason to suppose that, in +the ordinary course of things, the doctrine as taught by Pope Gelasius +in the fifteenth century, that "Christian princes are to respect the +priest in things which relate to the soul, while the priests in their +turn are to obey the laws made for the preservation of order in worldly +matters, so that the soldier of God should not mix in temporal affairs +and the worldly authorities have naught to say in spiritual +things,"which was accepted prior to the quarrel over Investiture, might +not have been resumed when the quarrel was ended. Unfortunately for the +success of the Empire, an indirect consequence of the quarrel was the +revival of Roman Law, and this, by raising issues of such a nature as to +make compromise impossible, destroyed for ever the possibility of +co-operation between Church and State. After this revival, the issue was +no longer one of defining the respective spheres of influence between +the two authorities, but the more fundamental one of whether +considerations of principle or of expediency should take precedence; +whether, in fact, there was a higher law which earthly monarchs should +obey, or whether law should be dependent entirely upon the personal will +of princes. This issue was fundamental, and, as I have already said, it +made compromise impossible. As compromise was impossible, co-operation +was impossible. It became a question of who should rule; whether the +Church would consent to make herself subservient to the ambitions of +princes, or whether political arrangements were to be regarded as part +and parcel of the ecclesiastical organization. As the Emperors sought to +encroach upon the prerogatives of the Church, the Popes strove to attain +temporal power, and the struggle resulted in corrupting both Church and +State, and in breaking up the Mediaeval social order. In proportion as +the Holy See succeeded in this aim it became increasingly secularized, +its territorial possessions leading it to subordinate spiritual duties +to acquisitive ambition. When, after the Great Schism in the earlier +part of the fifteenth century, the Popes succeeded in asserting their +final and triumphant absolutism, they became to all intents and purposes +mere secular princes, by whom religion was used as an instrument for the +furtherance of political ambitions. Their enormous revenues were spent +upon the maintenance of Papal armies and fleets and a court unrivalled +in its magnificence and corruption. This state of things continued until +the Reformation came upon the Church as a scourge from God and paved the +way for the counter-Reformation, when the Church, after the loss of her +temporal authority, found recompense in a renewal of her spiritual +vitality. # The Revival of Roman Law -Mention was made in the preceding chapter of the revival of -Roman Law, which was incidental to the quarrels between the -Popes and the Emperors, and eventually broke up Mediaeval -society and inaugurated the modern world. The importance of -this revival demands that more should be said about it. - -To understand exactly what is meant by the revival of Roman -Law it is first of all necessary to realize that though, as -a completely codified system resting upon the will of the -Emperor, Roman Law had fallen largely into desuetude, it did -not disappear entirely from the world after the fall of the -Roman Empire. While retaining their own laws and customs, -which were communal in character, the barbarian tribes that -had invaded the Empire and settled within its borders, -incorporated in their tribal codes certain of the Roman laws -that did not clash with their communal arrangements. -Definite information upon this period is lacking, but it is -to be assumed that the Roman laws which they adopted were of -the nature of rules and regulations rather than such as were -concerned with conduct. It is natural to make this -assumption; because, in the first place, of the existence of -a large body of law, best described as regulations, which -has to do with public convenience, and is not to be directly -deduced from moral considerations (the rule of the road is a -well-known example of this kind of law), might be readily -adopted by peoples possessing a social and economic life -entirely different from the Roman one; and in the next -because, as the Roman method is essentially adapted to the -needs of a personal ruler, it would be natural that the -chiefs of the tribes would avail themselves of the decisions -on delicate points of law which had been arrived at by the -Roman jurists. It was for this reason that the study of -Roman Law had never been entirely abandoned, and the -Visigothic compilation became the standard source of Roman -Law throughout Western Europe during the first half of the -Middle Ages. Together with the Canon Law of the Church, -Roman Civil Law was studied at the ecclesiastical faculties -of jurisprudence, for learning during the so-called Dark -Ages meant little more than the salvage of such fragments of -ancient knowledge as had survived the wreck of Roman -civilization. - -Though parts of the Roman Code which were concerned with -matters of convenience became incorporated in the tribal law -of the barbarians, Roman Law in its fundamental and -philosophic sense had been abandoned in favour of the Canon -Law of the Church. The latter, which consists of the body of -laws and regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical -authority for the government of the Christian organization -and its members, differs as a judicial science from Roman -Law and Civil Law, inasmuch as it is primarily concerned -with the conduct of another society, the Kingdom of God upon -Earth. As such, its ultimate source is God. It consists of -Apostolic letters, ordinances of the Councils, and Papal -Bulls, briefs, or decretals. It was not yet, however, a -definitely codified system, and did not become one until the -twelfth century, when Gratian gave it a systematic form. -Prior to the time of Gratian, the Canon Law took the form of -decisions pronounced in cases submitted to the Pope from all -parts of Christendom. By such means the Christian rule was -brought into relation with the communal life of the tribes, -and a body of law was coming into existence capable of -maintaining the communal life of the people along with a -higher and more complex civilization. But the promise of a -society which might have realized the Kingdom of God upon -Earth was never fulfilled, and it was not fulfilled because -of the sinister influence of Roman Law, which was -resurrected to break up the unity of Christendom. - -The circumstances that led to the revival of Roman Law are -immediately connected with the great quarrel over the Right -of Investiture which became such a burning issue during the -pontificate of Gregory VII. The organization of the Church -had been a haphazard growth. The Church shared in feudal -land-holding; in addition to the tithes, immense estates had -come into her possession, by bequests from the faithful, or -through the labours of the monastic orders, who had -reclaimed vast tracts of waste land. For the defence of her -property the Church resorted to secular means. Bishops and -abbots, confiding their domains to laymen, on condition of -assistance with the sword in case of need, became Temporal -Lords---with vassals to fight for them, and with courts of -justice---exercising all the privileges common to lay lords. -On the other hand, there were bishop-dukes, bishop-counts, -and the like, who were vassals of other lords, and -especially of the king, from whom they received the -investiture of their temporalities. In some cases, abbeys -and churches had been founded by the faithful on condition -that the right of patronage---that is, the choice of -beneficiaries---should be reserved for them and their heirs. -Thus in various ways ecclesiastical benefices were gradually -transformed into fiefs, and lay suzerains claimed the same -rights over ecclesiastics as over other vassals from whom -they received homage and invested them with the emblems of -their spiritual offices. - -Had this system not been grossly abused, it might have -continued indefinitely. During the vacancy of a bishopric or -abbey, its revenues went to fill the royal treasury, and -when short of money, monarchs everywhere took advantage of -their positions as patrons and allowed benefices to remain -without pastors for long periods. The Emperor Otto II was -charged with having practised simony in this connection; -while under Conrad II the abuse became prevalent. At the -close of the reign of William Rufus, one archbishopric, four -bishoprics, and eleven abbeys in England were found to be -without pastors. At a Synod of Reims in 1049 the Bishops of -Nevers and Coutances affirmed that they bought their -bishoprics. The system led, moreover, to favouritism. Lay -authorities interfered in favour of those in whom they were -interested, so that, in one way and another, the system -became a crying scandal and Gregory VII resolved to put a -slop to it. He considered, too, that it was intolerable that -a layman, whether emperor, king, or baron, should invest -ecclesiastics with the emblems of spiritual -office---ecclesiastical investiture should come only from -ecclesiastics. It was this that led to the great struggle -over the Right of Investiture. To the Emperor Henry IV it -was highly undesirable that the advantages and revenues -accruing from lay investiture should be surrendered; it was -reasonable, he thought, that ecclesiastics should receive -investiture of temporalities from their temporal protectors -and suzerains. After a bitter struggle, which was carried on -all over Christendom, a compromise was agreed upon and -ratified at the Diet of Worms in 1122. The Emperor, on the -one hand, preserved his suzerainty over ecclesiastical -benefices; but, on the other hand, he ceased to confer the -ring and crozier, and thereby not only lost the right of -refusing the election on the grounds of unworthiness, but -was deprived also of an efficacious means of maintaining -vacancies in ecclesiastical offices. - -Meanwhile, the dispute led to the establishment at Raven na -of a faculty of jurisprudence, under the patronage of the -Emperor, which had important consequences. Countess Matilda -of Tuscany---a staunch supporter of Gregory VII---in 1084 -sought to counteract the influence of this Imperialistic -school by the creation of a centre for the study of Roman -Law that would act on the Papal behalf; and it was in -connection with this school at Bologna that Irnerius, who -had already taught didactics and rhetoric, began to devote -himself to the study of jurisprudence. Prior to this date -the study of Roman Law had been traditional rather than -scholarly. Exponents of the law did not go back to the -original sources of legal science, but took the law very -much as they found it---as a thing of custom or tradition, -whose credentials they had no reason to suspect. Irnerius, -however, abandoned this more or less casual method study in -favour of a return to the original sources of Roman Law, -taking the Justinian Code as a guide. It is from this new -departure that the revival of Roman Law is to be dated.The -researches undertaken in the first instance to strengthen -the Papal case against the Emperor had results very -different from what had been intended. They resulted in the -revival of a theory of law which was favourable to the -Emperor rather than to the Pope, and which immediately -caused the struggle between them to be embittered, by -raising in an acute form the question of supremacy, and -eventually undermining Mediaeval civilization by dethroning -the Canon Law in favour of the Roman Code. - -That the Glossators, as the pioneers of this revival were -called, did not foresee the consequences of their -work---that they did not see that they were seeking the -promotion of a system of law antipathetic to everything that -Christianity stood for---is probably true. At the same time, -there is no reason to doubt that it was the superficial -brilliance of the Roman Code which led them astray. They -were infatuated by its beauty, its searching analyses, its -logical deductions, and brilliant explanations. It had such -a simple and plausible way of dealing with immediately -practical issues that they came to regard it as the very -embodiment of common sense, and deemed it to be entitled to -the same universality of application as the laws of -mathematics and logic, little suspecting the iniquity that -reigned at its heart. It was, as we saw in the first -chapter, originally formulated for the purpose of preserving -a capitalistic and corrupt society from premature -dissolution, and we shall see that its revival, by seeking -always the promotion of individual and private interests at -the expense of communal and public ones, operated to -introduce into Mediaeval society the same evil elements as -had corrupted Rome. Unable to conceive the practical -possibility of realizing justice in a society whose communal -ties had been dissolved by an unregulated currency, Roman -Law had addressed itself to the more immediately practicable -though less ambitious task of maintaining order. This it -achieved by disregarding moral issues, by inculcating the -policy of following always the line of least resistance -(thus exalting momentary expediency above considerations of -right), by giving legal security and sanction to private -property (no matter by what means it had been obtained) as -the easiest way of avoiding continual strife among -neighbours. It was, in fact, a system of law designed -primarily for the purpose of enabling rich men to live among -bad, as emphatically as the Canon Law was designed to enable -good men to live among bad; for while the Canon Law based -its authority upon the claim of right, the ultimate appeal -of Roman Law was to might rather than to right, since, -according to it, right and wrong are not eternally fixed and -immutable principles not something above and beyond personal -predilections but are dictated entirely by considerations of -expediency and convenience. In a word, the Roman Law does -not conceive of law as a higher authority over men---as a -development of the moral law---but postulates the existence -of a divorce between law and morality as two entirely -incompatible and opposed principles. - -Naturally, systems of law differing so fundamentally as the -Roman and the Canon Laws sought the support of different -sanctions. The Canon Law, as we saw, rested on the -assumption that there was a higher law of the universe, and -that all justice proceeds from God. Accordingly, it happened -under Canon Law that the ruler was merely a -functionary---the agent or director of right---exercising -power conditionally upon the fulfilment of duties which were -enjoined upon him. On the contrary, Roman Law, substituting -order for justice as the aim of law, sought its ultimate -sanction in the will of the Emperor, whom it invested with -sovereign power, declaring him to be the source of all law, -which could only be altered by his own arbitrary decree, in -general as in individual cases. This was a natural and -inevitable deduction from the Roman theory. Making no claim -to supernatural revelation, it was driven by this -self-imposed limitation to search for authority not in the -ascendancy of truth, of ideas, or of things, but in the -authority of persons, finally in one person---the Roman -Emperor. Hence it is that Roman Law is by nature opposed to -democratic ideals. For whereas, under Canon Law, it can be -maintained that if the ruler is merely a functionary -exercising powers conditionally upon the fulfilment of -certain duties he may be challenged if he fail in them, -there can be no appeal on a basis of principle or right -against the kind of authority exalted by Roman Law, for how -can the king do wrong if the source of law resides in his -personal will. In consequence, rebellion against the abuse -of authority in all countries where Roman Law obtains takes -the form of an appeal from the Divine Right of Kings to the -Divine Right of the People; that is, from one will to many -wills. And this can merely increase the confusion, since as -apart from the recognition of the existence of an authority -which transcends the individual will no agreement is -possible among a multitude of wills, reaction to the -authority of an autocracy can only be a matter of time. It -is a vicious circle from which there is no escape, as the -modern world must discover sooner or later. - -The tendency inherent in Roman Law towards autocracy was not -long in manifesting itself. The Commentators, who succeeded -the Glossators, led the way. Perceiving that their own -personal interests were to be served by espousing the cause -of the Emperor rather than that of the Pope, they declared -that the Roman Empire still existed inasmuch as the Roman -Emperors of the German Empire were the legal successors of -the Emperors of Rome, and that, in consequence, the will of -the Emperor was still law and the Justinian Code binding. -This speciousness is, however, to be regarded as the merest -camouflage. In the first place, because subsequent -developments suggest that this dogma of continuity was -advanced only because the lawyers found in it a convenient -fiction whereby the rule of the lawyers might be substituted -for the rule of Emperor and Pope alike; and in the next -place, because it so happened that while, in theory, what -was received was the law of Justinian's books, in practice -what was received was the system which the Italian -Commentators had long been elaborating, and, as Gierke -insists, this was an important difference. The system which -the Commentators advanced was a thing of compromise between -the old Roman Law and the existing German Law. It was the -thin edge of the wedge; it was designed to give immediate -practical results, and it was successful. A start was made, -and as time wore on the system became more and more Roman, -and less and less German, until, eventually, it became -almost purely Roman.The Hohenstaufen family fell into the -trap which the Commentators had so carefully prepared for -them. They accepted the decision of the Commentators as a -justification of their absolutism, and henceforth did all in -their power to secure the acceptance of the new code. -Frederick Barbarossa at once claimed for himself all the -rights which the Caesars had exercised, and Roman Law was -used by the Emperors as a weapon against Canon Law in -ecclesiastical-political disputes. These new developments -aroused the opposition of the Church, which set itself -against the spread of Roman Law. In 1180 Pope Alexander III -forbade the monks to study the Justinian Code. In 1219 -Honorius III extended this prohibition to all priests, and -in the following year he forbade laymen, under pain of -excommunication, to give or listen to lectures on the -Justinian Code in the University of Paris. In 1254 Innocent -IV extended this last prohibition to France, England, -Scotland, Spain, and Hungary. But such prohibitions were of -no avail. Roman Law found support among the secular princes, -and it was proving itself too profitable to those who -followed it to be easily sup pressed under such -circumstances. It is said that so eager were students to -acquire a knowledge of it that at one time the study of -theology was almost abandoned. - -Meanwhile, efforts were made to meet the danger by more -positive measures. In 1151 Gratian published the *Decretum*, -in which the materials collected by a succession of -Canonists were re-edited and arranged with a superior -completeness. His labours paved the way for the first -official code of Canon Law which was promulgated by Gregory -IX in 1234. It was hoped that the publication of this Papal -law-book would, by defining the issues, settle the dispute -once and for all; but, unfortunately, it did nothing of the -kind. The struggle between Church and State increased in -intensity and bitterness. In the year 1302 Boniface VIII -promulgated his famous Bull, Unam Sanctum, in which the case -for Papal supremacy was set forth. Its main propositions -were drawn from the writings of St. Bernard, Hugh of -St. Victor, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the letters of Innocent -III. As such, it summarizes the conclusions of -thirteenth-century thinkers on the relations of Church and -State. The claim for supremacy rests on the affirmation that -the spiritual authority is higher than the temporal -authority, that the Church, as the guardian of the Christian -law of morals, has the right to establish and guide the -secular power, and to judge it when it does not act -rightly.It was the last desperate attempt which the Papacy -made to save Christian morals from corruption at the hands -of the Roman lawyers. It did not have the desired effect, -for the secular authorities treated with scorn the idea that -they should surrender unconditionally to the Pope. It was a -situation that would never have arisen but for the revival -of Roman Law. The Popes found themselves in a difficult -position. The choice, as they saw it, was between allowing -the whole fabric of Mediaeval civilization to be undermined -by the worst of Pagan influences, or of asserting the -supremacy of the Papacy in secular affairs. It was a -desperate remedy to seek, and one conceivably worse than the -disease. It was an attempt to seek to effect by external -means a change that can come only from within. Experience -teaches us that reform cannot be imposed from without in -that kind of way. But what is so easy for us, with the -experience of attempted reform behind us, to see to-day was -not so easy to see in the Middle Ages, when methods were -still untried, and in justice to the Mediaeval Papacy we -ought at least to acknowledge that, whatever motives may -have actuated it, whatever mistakes it may have made, it -fought, at any rate, on the right side. It did not allow -civilization to become corrupted, exploitation to be -legalized, without first making desperate efforts to prevent -it; and, though the Church itself in turn became corrupted -by the evil influences which had been let loose upon the -world, it resolutely fought them so long as the issue was -doubtful. - -Although the Roman lawyers had been encouraged and -patronized by the Emperors, it was not until the fourteenth -century, when Charles IV assigned to jurists of the Roman -School positions in the Imperial chancery, placing them on a -par with the lower nobility, that Roman Law began to -exercise much influence in Germany. Henceforth the Roman -lawyers used all their influence and energy in securing -recognition of the Roman Code as the one most fit for -universal application. In 1495 the -"Reichskammergericht"--the central Imperial -Court---deliberately adopted Roman Law for its guidance as -the common law of the Empire. In 1534 and 1537 the -principalities of Julick and Berg (in the Rhine province) -resolved to remodel their laws on the Roman pattern, in -order to avoid clashing with the central Imperial Court. -Under the influence of such considerations the movement -towards the codification of local laws, on the basis of -their reformation and of the reception of Roman doctrine, -sweeps over Germany. The towns of Worms and Nuremberg (1479) -were among the first to carry through such reformations. -Most of the monarchically organized principalities followed -suit, with the notable exception of some of the North German -States, which remained faithful to the jurisprudence of the -Sachenspeigel--of which we shall speak hereafter. Hitherto -faculties of jurisprudence, consisting mainly of experts in -the Canon Law, had been complements of the theological +Mention was made in the preceding chapter of the revival of Roman Law, +which was incidental to the quarrels between the Popes and the Emperors, +and eventually broke up Mediaeval society and inaugurated the modern +world. The importance of this revival demands that more should be said +about it. + +To understand exactly what is meant by the revival of Roman Law it is +first of all necessary to realize that though, as a completely codified +system resting upon the will of the Emperor, Roman Law had fallen +largely into desuetude, it did not disappear entirely from the world +after the fall of the Roman Empire. While retaining their own laws and +customs, which were communal in character, the barbarian tribes that had +invaded the Empire and settled within its borders, incorporated in their +tribal codes certain of the Roman laws that did not clash with their +communal arrangements. Definite information upon this period is lacking, +but it is to be assumed that the Roman laws which they adopted were of +the nature of rules and regulations rather than such as were concerned +with conduct. It is natural to make this assumption; because, in the +first place, of the existence of a large body of law, best described as +regulations, which has to do with public convenience, and is not to be +directly deduced from moral considerations (the rule of the road is a +well-known example of this kind of law), might be readily adopted by +peoples possessing a social and economic life entirely different from +the Roman one; and in the next because, as the Roman method is +essentially adapted to the needs of a personal ruler, it would be +natural that the chiefs of the tribes would avail themselves of the +decisions on delicate points of law which had been arrived at by the +Roman jurists. It was for this reason that the study of Roman Law had +never been entirely abandoned, and the Visigothic compilation became the +standard source of Roman Law throughout Western Europe during the first +half of the Middle Ages. Together with the Canon Law of the Church, +Roman Civil Law was studied at the ecclesiastical faculties of +jurisprudence, for learning during the so-called Dark Ages meant little +more than the salvage of such fragments of ancient knowledge as had +survived the wreck of Roman civilization. + +Though parts of the Roman Code which were concerned with matters of +convenience became incorporated in the tribal law of the barbarians, +Roman Law in its fundamental and philosophic sense had been abandoned in +favour of the Canon Law of the Church. The latter, which consists of the +body of laws and regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical authority +for the government of the Christian organization and its members, +differs as a judicial science from Roman Law and Civil Law, inasmuch as +it is primarily concerned with the conduct of another society, the +Kingdom of God upon Earth. As such, its ultimate source is God. It +consists of Apostolic letters, ordinances of the Councils, and Papal +Bulls, briefs, or decretals. It was not yet, however, a definitely +codified system, and did not become one until the twelfth century, when +Gratian gave it a systematic form. Prior to the time of Gratian, the +Canon Law took the form of decisions pronounced in cases submitted to +the Pope from all parts of Christendom. By such means the Christian rule +was brought into relation with the communal life of the tribes, and a +body of law was coming into existence capable of maintaining the +communal life of the people along with a higher and more complex +civilization. But the promise of a society which might have realized the +Kingdom of God upon Earth was never fulfilled, and it was not fulfilled +because of the sinister influence of Roman Law, which was resurrected to +break up the unity of Christendom. + +The circumstances that led to the revival of Roman Law are immediately +connected with the great quarrel over the Right of Investiture which +became such a burning issue during the pontificate of Gregory VII. The +organization of the Church had been a haphazard growth. The Church +shared in feudal land-holding; in addition to the tithes, immense +estates had come into her possession, by bequests from the faithful, or +through the labours of the monastic orders, who had reclaimed vast +tracts of waste land. For the defence of her property the Church +resorted to secular means. Bishops and abbots, confiding their domains +to laymen, on condition of assistance with the sword in case of need, +became Temporal Lords---with vassals to fight for them, and with courts +of justice---exercising all the privileges common to lay lords. On the +other hand, there were bishop-dukes, bishop-counts, and the like, who +were vassals of other lords, and especially of the king, from whom they +received the investiture of their temporalities. In some cases, abbeys +and churches had been founded by the faithful on condition that the +right of patronage---that is, the choice of beneficiaries---should be +reserved for them and their heirs. Thus in various ways ecclesiastical +benefices were gradually transformed into fiefs, and lay suzerains +claimed the same rights over ecclesiastics as over other vassals from +whom they received homage and invested them with the emblems of their +spiritual offices. + +Had this system not been grossly abused, it might have continued +indefinitely. During the vacancy of a bishopric or abbey, its revenues +went to fill the royal treasury, and when short of money, monarchs +everywhere took advantage of their positions as patrons and allowed +benefices to remain without pastors for long periods. The Emperor Otto +II was charged with having practised simony in this connection; while +under Conrad II the abuse became prevalent. At the close of the reign of +William Rufus, one archbishopric, four bishoprics, and eleven abbeys in +England were found to be without pastors. At a Synod of Reims in 1049 +the Bishops of Nevers and Coutances affirmed that they bought their +bishoprics. The system led, moreover, to favouritism. Lay authorities +interfered in favour of those in whom they were interested, so that, in +one way and another, the system became a crying scandal and Gregory VII +resolved to put a slop to it. He considered, too, that it was +intolerable that a layman, whether emperor, king, or baron, should +invest ecclesiastics with the emblems of spiritual +office---ecclesiastical investiture should come only from ecclesiastics. +It was this that led to the great struggle over the Right of +Investiture. To the Emperor Henry IV it was highly undesirable that the +advantages and revenues accruing from lay investiture should be +surrendered; it was reasonable, he thought, that ecclesiastics should +receive investiture of temporalities from their temporal protectors and +suzerains. After a bitter struggle, which was carried on all over +Christendom, a compromise was agreed upon and ratified at the Diet of +Worms in 1122. The Emperor, on the one hand, preserved his suzerainty +over ecclesiastical benefices; but, on the other hand, he ceased to +confer the ring and crozier, and thereby not only lost the right of +refusing the election on the grounds of unworthiness, but was deprived +also of an efficacious means of maintaining vacancies in ecclesiastical +offices. + +Meanwhile, the dispute led to the establishment at Raven na of a faculty +of jurisprudence, under the patronage of the Emperor, which had +important consequences. Countess Matilda of Tuscany---a staunch +supporter of Gregory VII---in 1084 sought to counteract the influence of +this Imperialistic school by the creation of a centre for the study of +Roman Law that would act on the Papal behalf; and it was in connection +with this school at Bologna that Irnerius, who had already taught +didactics and rhetoric, began to devote himself to the study of +jurisprudence. Prior to this date the study of Roman Law had been +traditional rather than scholarly. Exponents of the law did not go back +to the original sources of legal science, but took the law very much as +they found it---as a thing of custom or tradition, whose credentials +they had no reason to suspect. Irnerius, however, abandoned this more or +less casual method study in favour of a return to the original sources +of Roman Law, taking the Justinian Code as a guide. It is from this new +departure that the revival of Roman Law is to be dated.The researches +undertaken in the first instance to strengthen the Papal case against +the Emperor had results very different from what had been intended. They +resulted in the revival of a theory of law which was favourable to the +Emperor rather than to the Pope, and which immediately caused the +struggle between them to be embittered, by raising in an acute form the +question of supremacy, and eventually undermining Mediaeval civilization +by dethroning the Canon Law in favour of the Roman Code. + +That the Glossators, as the pioneers of this revival were called, did +not foresee the consequences of their work---that they did not see that +they were seeking the promotion of a system of law antipathetic to +everything that Christianity stood for---is probably true. At the same +time, there is no reason to doubt that it was the superficial brilliance +of the Roman Code which led them astray. They were infatuated by its +beauty, its searching analyses, its logical deductions, and brilliant +explanations. It had such a simple and plausible way of dealing with +immediately practical issues that they came to regard it as the very +embodiment of common sense, and deemed it to be entitled to the same +universality of application as the laws of mathematics and logic, little +suspecting the iniquity that reigned at its heart. It was, as we saw in +the first chapter, originally formulated for the purpose of preserving a +capitalistic and corrupt society from premature dissolution, and we +shall see that its revival, by seeking always the promotion of +individual and private interests at the expense of communal and public +ones, operated to introduce into Mediaeval society the same evil +elements as had corrupted Rome. Unable to conceive the practical +possibility of realizing justice in a society whose communal ties had +been dissolved by an unregulated currency, Roman Law had addressed +itself to the more immediately practicable though less ambitious task of +maintaining order. This it achieved by disregarding moral issues, by +inculcating the policy of following always the line of least resistance +(thus exalting momentary expediency above considerations of right), by +giving legal security and sanction to private property (no matter by +what means it had been obtained) as the easiest way of avoiding +continual strife among neighbours. It was, in fact, a system of law +designed primarily for the purpose of enabling rich men to live among +bad, as emphatically as the Canon Law was designed to enable good men to +live among bad; for while the Canon Law based its authority upon the +claim of right, the ultimate appeal of Roman Law was to might rather +than to right, since, according to it, right and wrong are not eternally +fixed and immutable principles not something above and beyond personal +predilections but are dictated entirely by considerations of expediency +and convenience. In a word, the Roman Law does not conceive of law as a +higher authority over men---as a development of the moral law---but +postulates the existence of a divorce between law and morality as two +entirely incompatible and opposed principles. + +Naturally, systems of law differing so fundamentally as the Roman and +the Canon Laws sought the support of different sanctions. The Canon Law, +as we saw, rested on the assumption that there was a higher law of the +universe, and that all justice proceeds from God. Accordingly, it +happened under Canon Law that the ruler was merely a functionary---the +agent or director of right---exercising power conditionally upon the +fulfilment of duties which were enjoined upon him. On the contrary, +Roman Law, substituting order for justice as the aim of law, sought its +ultimate sanction in the will of the Emperor, whom it invested with +sovereign power, declaring him to be the source of all law, which could +only be altered by his own arbitrary decree, in general as in individual +cases. This was a natural and inevitable deduction from the Roman +theory. Making no claim to supernatural revelation, it was driven by +this self-imposed limitation to search for authority not in the +ascendancy of truth, of ideas, or of things, but in the authority of +persons, finally in one person---the Roman Emperor. Hence it is that +Roman Law is by nature opposed to democratic ideals. For whereas, under +Canon Law, it can be maintained that if the ruler is merely a +functionary exercising powers conditionally upon the fulfilment of +certain duties he may be challenged if he fail in them, there can be no +appeal on a basis of principle or right against the kind of authority +exalted by Roman Law, for how can the king do wrong if the source of law +resides in his personal will. In consequence, rebellion against the +abuse of authority in all countries where Roman Law obtains takes the +form of an appeal from the Divine Right of Kings to the Divine Right of +the People; that is, from one will to many wills. And this can merely +increase the confusion, since as apart from the recognition of the +existence of an authority which transcends the individual will no +agreement is possible among a multitude of wills, reaction to the +authority of an autocracy can only be a matter of time. It is a vicious +circle from which there is no escape, as the modern world must discover +sooner or later. + +The tendency inherent in Roman Law towards autocracy was not long in +manifesting itself. The Commentators, who succeeded the Glossators, led +the way. Perceiving that their own personal interests were to be served +by espousing the cause of the Emperor rather than that of the Pope, they +declared that the Roman Empire still existed inasmuch as the Roman +Emperors of the German Empire were the legal successors of the Emperors +of Rome, and that, in consequence, the will of the Emperor was still law +and the Justinian Code binding. This speciousness is, however, to be +regarded as the merest camouflage. In the first place, because +subsequent developments suggest that this dogma of continuity was +advanced only because the lawyers found in it a convenient fiction +whereby the rule of the lawyers might be substituted for the rule of +Emperor and Pope alike; and in the next place, because it so happened +that while, in theory, what was received was the law of Justinian's +books, in practice what was received was the system which the Italian +Commentators had long been elaborating, and, as Gierke insists, this was +an important difference. The system which the Commentators advanced was +a thing of compromise between the old Roman Law and the existing German +Law. It was the thin edge of the wedge; it was designed to give +immediate practical results, and it was successful. A start was made, +and as time wore on the system became more and more Roman, and less and +less German, until, eventually, it became almost purely Roman.The +Hohenstaufen family fell into the trap which the Commentators had so +carefully prepared for them. They accepted the decision of the +Commentators as a justification of their absolutism, and henceforth did +all in their power to secure the acceptance of the new code. Frederick +Barbarossa at once claimed for himself all the rights which the Caesars +had exercised, and Roman Law was used by the Emperors as a weapon +against Canon Law in ecclesiastical-political disputes. These new +developments aroused the opposition of the Church, which set itself +against the spread of Roman Law. In 1180 Pope Alexander III forbade the +monks to study the Justinian Code. In 1219 Honorius III extended this +prohibition to all priests, and in the following year he forbade laymen, +under pain of excommunication, to give or listen to lectures on the +Justinian Code in the University of Paris. In 1254 Innocent IV extended +this last prohibition to France, England, Scotland, Spain, and Hungary. +But such prohibitions were of no avail. Roman Law found support among +the secular princes, and it was proving itself too profitable to those +who followed it to be easily sup pressed under such circumstances. It is +said that so eager were students to acquire a knowledge of it that at +one time the study of theology was almost abandoned. + +Meanwhile, efforts were made to meet the danger by more positive +measures. In 1151 Gratian published the *Decretum*, in which the +materials collected by a succession of Canonists were re-edited and +arranged with a superior completeness. His labours paved the way for the +first official code of Canon Law which was promulgated by Gregory IX in +1234. It was hoped that the publication of this Papal law-book would, by +defining the issues, settle the dispute once and for all; but, +unfortunately, it did nothing of the kind. The struggle between Church +and State increased in intensity and bitterness. In the year 1302 +Boniface VIII promulgated his famous Bull, Unam Sanctum, in which the +case for Papal supremacy was set forth. Its main propositions were drawn +from the writings of St. Bernard, Hugh of St. Victor, St. Thomas +Aquinas, and the letters of Innocent III. As such, it summarizes the +conclusions of thirteenth-century thinkers on the relations of Church +and State. The claim for supremacy rests on the affirmation that the +spiritual authority is higher than the temporal authority, that the +Church, as the guardian of the Christian law of morals, has the right to +establish and guide the secular power, and to judge it when it does not +act rightly.It was the last desperate attempt which the Papacy made to +save Christian morals from corruption at the hands of the Roman lawyers. +It did not have the desired effect, for the secular authorities treated +with scorn the idea that they should surrender unconditionally to the +Pope. It was a situation that would never have arisen but for the +revival of Roman Law. The Popes found themselves in a difficult +position. The choice, as they saw it, was between allowing the whole +fabric of Mediaeval civilization to be undermined by the worst of Pagan +influences, or of asserting the supremacy of the Papacy in secular +affairs. It was a desperate remedy to seek, and one conceivably worse +than the disease. It was an attempt to seek to effect by external means +a change that can come only from within. Experience teaches us that +reform cannot be imposed from without in that kind of way. But what is +so easy for us, with the experience of attempted reform behind us, to +see to-day was not so easy to see in the Middle Ages, when methods were +still untried, and in justice to the Mediaeval Papacy we ought at least +to acknowledge that, whatever motives may have actuated it, whatever +mistakes it may have made, it fought, at any rate, on the right side. It +did not allow civilization to become corrupted, exploitation to be +legalized, without first making desperate efforts to prevent it; and, +though the Church itself in turn became corrupted by the evil influences +which had been let loose upon the world, it resolutely fought them so +long as the issue was doubtful. + +Although the Roman lawyers had been encouraged and patronized by the +Emperors, it was not until the fourteenth century, when Charles IV +assigned to jurists of the Roman School positions in the Imperial +chancery, placing them on a par with the lower nobility, that Roman Law +began to exercise much influence in Germany. Henceforth the Roman +lawyers used all their influence and energy in securing recognition of +the Roman Code as the one most fit for universal application. In 1495 +the "Reichskammergericht"--the central Imperial Court---deliberately +adopted Roman Law for its guidance as the common law of the Empire. In +1534 and 1537 the principalities of Julick and Berg (in the Rhine +province) resolved to remodel their laws on the Roman pattern, in order +to avoid clashing with the central Imperial Court. Under the influence +of such considerations the movement towards the codification of local +laws, on the basis of their reformation and of the reception of Roman +doctrine, sweeps over Germany. The towns of Worms and Nuremberg (1479) +were among the first to carry through such reformations. Most of the +monarchically organized principalities followed suit, with the notable +exception of some of the North German States, which remained faithful to +the jurisprudence of the Sachenspeigel--of which we shall speak +hereafter. Hitherto faculties of jurisprudence, consisting mainly of +experts in the Canon Law, had been complements of the theological faculties. Now, however, foundations were made in the German -universities for the teaching of Roman Law as a secular -study. - -The reception of Roman Law appears mainly as a movement of -the upper classes and of the political authorities connected -with them. Once it had succeeded in establishing itself at -the top, dependent bodies found it to their advantage to -come into line. Its rapid spread in the German towns in the -early sixteenth century was due primarily to the rapid -expansion of German commerce about that time, which created -a demand for a uniform system of law. Mediaeval Law, where -it was not of Canonical origin (that is, the law of tribal -origin), was a local affair. As a unity, German Law did not -exist at the close of the Middle Ages. It was broken up into -countless local customs, which, for this very reason, were -unable to tackle the wider problems of civil intercourse -consequent upon the expansion of trade. The fundamental -principle of German Customary Law amounted to a recognition -of the right of each group of citizens to apply its own -customary ideas to the dealings of members with one another. -The law of knights and of fees was differentiated not only -from the law of the country in general but also from -municipal law, guild law, and peasant law; while, further, -there was the great cleavage between the lay and the -ecclesiastical courts. The laws of these different groups -remained in close touch with popular conceptions, and -sometimes attained considerable eminence in their treatment -of legal problems, but they were not connected with any -legal system and lacked precision in details. Most legal -questions had to be settled finally by unwritten or -unenacted law, which had to be "found" for the purpose. Thus -it came about that at the very moment when in Germany the -social and economic unit was changing from a local to a -national one, when German society was enjoying a kind of -hothouse prosperity, resulting from its commercial relations -with Italy and the Levant on one side and with the -Scandinavian North, Poland, and Russia on the other, German -Customary Law was crippled by the absence of a common code -of laws and a lack of professional learning. Further -progress was possible only through providing a remedy for -these defects, and this the Roman lawyers were able to do. -They triumphed because at this critical period they were -able to supply a felt need for a uniform system of law. -Mediaeval Customary Law went down not because it was not -good law, not because it was by its nature unfitted for -grappling with the problems of a wider social intercourse, -but because its systematic study had been too long neglected -and it was unable to offer effective resistance to the +universities for the teaching of Roman Law as a secular study. + +The reception of Roman Law appears mainly as a movement of the upper +classes and of the political authorities connected with them. Once it +had succeeded in establishing itself at the top, dependent bodies found +it to their advantage to come into line. Its rapid spread in the German +towns in the early sixteenth century was due primarily to the rapid +expansion of German commerce about that time, which created a demand for +a uniform system of law. Mediaeval Law, where it was not of Canonical +origin (that is, the law of tribal origin), was a local affair. As a +unity, German Law did not exist at the close of the Middle Ages. It was +broken up into countless local customs, which, for this very reason, +were unable to tackle the wider problems of civil intercourse consequent +upon the expansion of trade. The fundamental principle of German +Customary Law amounted to a recognition of the right of each group of +citizens to apply its own customary ideas to the dealings of members +with one another. The law of knights and of fees was differentiated not +only from the law of the country in general but also from municipal law, +guild law, and peasant law; while, further, there was the great cleavage +between the lay and the ecclesiastical courts. The laws of these +different groups remained in close touch with popular conceptions, and +sometimes attained considerable eminence in their treatment of legal +problems, but they were not connected with any legal system and lacked +precision in details. Most legal questions had to be settled finally by +unwritten or unenacted law, which had to be "found" for the purpose. +Thus it came about that at the very moment when in Germany the social +and economic unit was changing from a local to a national one, when +German society was enjoying a kind of hothouse prosperity, resulting +from its commercial relations with Italy and the Levant on one side and +with the Scandinavian North, Poland, and Russia on the other, German +Customary Law was crippled by the absence of a common code of laws and a +lack of professional learning. Further progress was possible only +through providing a remedy for these defects, and this the Roman lawyers +were able to do. They triumphed because at this critical period they +were able to supply a felt need for a uniform system of law. Mediaeval +Customary Law went down not because it was not good law, not because it +was by its nature unfitted for grappling with the problems of a wider +social intercourse, but because its systematic study had been too long +neglected and it was unable to offer effective resistance to the disciplined enemy. -Although Mediaeval Customary Law was defeated, it put up a -good fight towards the finish. In the same way that scholars -set to work to codify the Canon Law when its position was -threatened by the spread of Roman Law, so the Customary Law -found scholars anxious to save it. Many authoritative -treatises on Customary Law now made their appearance. The -most remarkable and influential of these was compiled by -Eike von Repgow on the law of the Saxons. It provided the -courts of Saxon Germany with a firm basis in jurisprudence, -which was widely accepted and maintained. The Northern -Territories, armed with this jurisprudence of the -"Sachenspeigel," opposed a stubborn resistance to the -encroachments of Roman Law. Commenting on this fact, Sir -Paul Vinogradoff says: "This proves that the wholesale -reception of Roman rules is not to be accounted for by any -inherent incompetence in German Law, since where, as in -Saxon lands, excessive particularism and uncertainty were -counteracted, German Law proved quite able to stand its -ground." - -This admission from such a high authority on Roman Law is -important, and it becomes doubly important when considered -in connection with another passage, in which he expresses -his opinion as to the motives which led to the reception of -Roman Law. "It is evident," he says, "that the reception of -Roman Law depended on political causes: the legal system was -subordinated to the idea of the State towering over -individuals and classes, and free from the intermixture of -feudalism. It was bound to appeal to the minds of all the -pioneers of the State conception, to ambitious Emperors, -grasping territorial princes, reforming legists, and even -clerical representatives of law and order. Coming as it did -from an age of highly developed social intercourse, Roman -Law satisfied in many respects the requirements of economic -development."In other words, Roman Law succeeded because it -gave support to the individual who pursued his own private -interests without regard to the common-weal, without concern -even whether others were thereby ruined. Hence it was that -the introduction of the Roman Code created unspeakable -confusion in every grade of society. Exactly in proportion -as it grew and prevailed, freedom and liberty went to the -wall. The lawyers invested avaricious and ambitious princes -and landlords with legal authority not only to deprive the -peasants of their communal rights, but to evict them from -their life-lease possessions and to increase their taxes. -Such immoral procedure destroyed the feeling of brotherhood -in communities and encouraged enormously the spirit of -avarice. The vocation of law degenerated everywhere into a -vulgar moneymaking trade. On every side it sowed the seeds -of discord, and the people lost their confidence in the +Although Mediaeval Customary Law was defeated, it put up a good fight +towards the finish. In the same way that scholars set to work to codify +the Canon Law when its position was threatened by the spread of Roman +Law, so the Customary Law found scholars anxious to save it. Many +authoritative treatises on Customary Law now made their appearance. The +most remarkable and influential of these was compiled by Eike von Repgow +on the law of the Saxons. It provided the courts of Saxon Germany with a +firm basis in jurisprudence, which was widely accepted and maintained. +The Northern Territories, armed with this jurisprudence of the +"Sachenspeigel," opposed a stubborn resistance to the encroachments of +Roman Law. Commenting on this fact, Sir Paul Vinogradoff says: "This +proves that the wholesale reception of Roman rules is not to be +accounted for by any inherent incompetence in German Law, since where, +as in Saxon lands, excessive particularism and uncertainty were +counteracted, German Law proved quite able to stand its ground." + +This admission from such a high authority on Roman Law is important, and +it becomes doubly important when considered in connection with another +passage, in which he expresses his opinion as to the motives which led +to the reception of Roman Law. "It is evident," he says, "that the +reception of Roman Law depended on political causes: the legal system +was subordinated to the idea of the State towering over individuals and +classes, and free from the intermixture of feudalism. It was bound to +appeal to the minds of all the pioneers of the State conception, to +ambitious Emperors, grasping territorial princes, reforming legists, and +even clerical representatives of law and order. Coming as it did from an +age of highly developed social intercourse, Roman Law satisfied in many +respects the requirements of economic development."In other words, Roman +Law succeeded because it gave support to the individual who pursued his +own private interests without regard to the common-weal, without concern +even whether others were thereby ruined. Hence it was that the +introduction of the Roman Code created unspeakable confusion in every +grade of society. Exactly in proportion as it grew and prevailed, +freedom and liberty went to the wall. The lawyers invested avaricious +and ambitious princes and landlords with legal authority not only to +deprive the peasants of their communal rights, but to evict them from +their life-lease possessions and to increase their taxes. Such immoral +procedure destroyed the feeling of brotherhood in communities and +encouraged enormously the spirit of avarice. The vocation of law +degenerated everywhere into a vulgar moneymaking trade. On every side it +sowed the seeds of discord, and the people lost their confidence in the sanctity and impartiality of the law. -There is an amusing story of a French lady who, visiting -Orleans and seeing so many law students, exclaimed: "Oh, -woe, woe ! In our neighbourhood there is but one attorney, -and he keeps the whole country in litigation. What mischief -will not this horde make."Everywhere the lawyers excite the -indignation of public-spirited men. The charge is brought -against them that they create rights and discover wrongs -where none exist, that they encourage greed in the -merchants, that they disgust men with public life by -complicating matters with interminable formalities and -tiresome trifles. Old customs and unwritten laws lose their -force; the lawyers regard as valid nothing that cannot be -sustained by documentary evidence. In a sermon preached in -Germany in 1515 we find the following: "When I warn you to -beware of usurers and of those who would plunder you, I also -warn you to beware of advocates, who now prevail. For the -last twenty or thirty years they have increased like -poison-weeds and are worse than usurers, for they take away -not only your money but your rights and your honour. They -have substituted a foreign code for the national one, and -questions that used to be settled in two or three days now -take as many months and years. What a pity people cannot get -justice as they did before they knew these liars and +There is an amusing story of a French lady who, visiting Orleans and +seeing so many law students, exclaimed: "Oh, woe, woe ! In our +neighbourhood there is but one attorney, and he keeps the whole country +in litigation. What mischief will not this horde make."Everywhere the +lawyers excite the indignation of public-spirited men. The charge is +brought against them that they create rights and discover wrongs where +none exist, that they encourage greed in the merchants, that they +disgust men with public life by complicating matters with interminable +formalities and tiresome trifles. Old customs and unwritten laws lose +their force; the lawyers regard as valid nothing that cannot be +sustained by documentary evidence. In a sermon preached in Germany in +1515 we find the following: "When I warn you to beware of usurers and of +those who would plunder you, I also warn you to beware of advocates, who +now prevail. For the last twenty or thirty years they have increased +like poison-weeds and are worse than usurers, for they take away not +only your money but your rights and your honour. They have substituted a +foreign code for the national one, and questions that used to be settled +in two or three days now take as many months and years. What a pity +people cannot get justice as they did before they knew these liars and deceivers whom no one wanted." -If there be any comfort to be got from this painful story it -is that in the long run the Emperors whose ambitions first -let this evil loose upon the world got nothing out of it for -themselves. They were, as much as the peasantry, a part of -the Mediaeval order of society, and the spread of Roman Law -undermined their power as effectively as it destroyed the -prosperity of the peasantry. The system of private warfare -which existed in pre-Christian times had never been -abolished within the Empire, but it had been kept within -certain bounds. It was permissible only under certain -circumstances, when authorities refused or had not the power -to interfere. Certain formalities were to be observed. -Combatants were not to attack an enemy before giving him -three days notice. Hostilities were to be suspended on -certain days, called "The truce of God." Certain persons, -such as clergymen, pilgrims, labourers, and vine-tenders, -and certain places, such as churches and cemeteries, were to -be respected. But in later times, as a consequence of the -corrupting influence of Roman Law, which spread broadcast -the seeds of discord and increased greed and avarice among -the princes, this spirit of chivalry disappeared, and the -mighty availed them selves of every opportunity to oppress -the weak. Every description of violence and outrage went -unpunished, and the Empire was a prey to anarchy and -confusion. Hence it was that for once ecclesiastics and -lawyers came together in face of a common peril, and the -doctrine was taught that social salvation could be found -only by the Emperor asserting his ancient authority. -Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, the great ecclesiastical and -secular reformer of the fifteenth century, voiced the -popular sentiment when he blamed the Emperors for believing -that a remedy could be found by gentle means. "What but -ruin," he says, "is to be expected when each one thinks of -himself? If the sovereign hand has lost its power to quell -interior dissensions, avarice and greed will prevail, war -and private quarrels will increase, the dismembered Empire -will go to ruin, and what has unjustly been acquired will be -squandered. Let not the princes imagine that they will long -retain what they have plundered from the Empire; when they -have broken all the ties that bind the States, and mangled -the head and the limbs, there must be an end of all -authority; there is none left to whom to turn for help and -where there is no order there is anarchy, there is no more -safety for any one. While the princes are fighting among -themselves a class will arise who will know no right but the -force of arms, and as the princes have destroyed the Empire -they in their turn will be destroyed by the rabble. Men will -seek for the German Empire and not find it. Strangers will -divide our lands and we shall be subject to foreign -powers."But the Emperor was powerless. His Empire had been -disintegrated by Roman Law. +If there be any comfort to be got from this painful story it is that in +the long run the Emperors whose ambitions first let this evil loose upon +the world got nothing out of it for themselves. They were, as much as +the peasantry, a part of the Mediaeval order of society, and the spread +of Roman Law undermined their power as effectively as it destroyed the +prosperity of the peasantry. The system of private warfare which existed +in pre-Christian times had never been abolished within the Empire, but +it had been kept within certain bounds. It was permissible only under +certain circumstances, when authorities refused or had not the power to +interfere. Certain formalities were to be observed. Combatants were not +to attack an enemy before giving him three days notice. Hostilities were +to be suspended on certain days, called "The truce of God." Certain +persons, such as clergymen, pilgrims, labourers, and vine-tenders, and +certain places, such as churches and cemeteries, were to be respected. +But in later times, as a consequence of the corrupting influence of +Roman Law, which spread broadcast the seeds of discord and increased +greed and avarice among the princes, this spirit of chivalry +disappeared, and the mighty availed them selves of every opportunity to +oppress the weak. Every description of violence and outrage went +unpunished, and the Empire was a prey to anarchy and confusion. Hence it +was that for once ecclesiastics and lawyers came together in face of a +common peril, and the doctrine was taught that social salvation could be +found only by the Emperor asserting his ancient authority. Cardinal +Nicholas of Cusa, the great ecclesiastical and secular reformer of the +fifteenth century, voiced the popular sentiment when he blamed the +Emperors for believing that a remedy could be found by gentle means. +"What but ruin," he says, "is to be expected when each one thinks of +himself? If the sovereign hand has lost its power to quell interior +dissensions, avarice and greed will prevail, war and private quarrels +will increase, the dismembered Empire will go to ruin, and what has +unjustly been acquired will be squandered. Let not the princes imagine +that they will long retain what they have plundered from the Empire; +when they have broken all the ties that bind the States, and mangled the +head and the limbs, there must be an end of all authority; there is none +left to whom to turn for help and where there is no order there is +anarchy, there is no more safety for any one. While the princes are +fighting among themselves a class will arise who will know no right but +the force of arms, and as the princes have destroyed the Empire they in +their turn will be destroyed by the rabble. Men will seek for the German +Empire and not find it. Strangers will divide our lands and we shall be +subject to foreign powers."But the Emperor was powerless. His Empire had +been disintegrated by Roman Law. # Roman Law in England -Passing on from a consideration of the reception of Roman -Law in Germany to a consideration of its influence in -England it will be necessary in the first place to challenge -the opinion of the legal profession that law in this country -is English and not Roman. - -In the sense in which the legal profession use the word -Roman, no doubt their judgment is well-founded. The legal -mind is fond of hair-splitting technicalities and -differences, and without doubt they have their reasons for -believing that English Law differs from Roman Law, though I -have not succeeded in discovering what they are. But any -decision in this matter must depend upon how Roman Law is -defined. If emphasis is to be given to secondary details, -then it may be that experts could bring sufficient evidence -to show that English and Roman law are very different. But -if we take our stand upon broad, fundamental propositions, -this is clearly not the case. One does not need to be a -legal expert to understand that English Law to-day is in all -its essentials a law designed to enable rich men to live -among poor as emphatically as Mediaeval Law was designed to -enable good men to live among bad, and that this different -moral aim separates it from English Mediaeval Law as -completely as it identifies it with the Roman Code. English -Law to-day may have historical continuity with the Common -Law of the earlier Middle Ages, but in its informing spirit, -its broad, basic principles and framework, there is no -denying it is Roman through and through. The writers of -legal textbooks such as Bracton based their ideas upon Roman -Law, and it was always in the minds of lawyers for guidance -and comparison if it was not actually quoted from the bench. -Everywhere English Law, like Roman, exalts private interests -at the expense of communal ones, and in consequence -conceives of the State as an instrument for the maintenance -of order rather than the enforcement of justice. For a law -which exalts private interests is essentially an instrument -of anarchy, and maintains order only for the purpose of +Passing on from a consideration of the reception of Roman Law in Germany +to a consideration of its influence in England it will be necessary in +the first place to challenge the opinion of the legal profession that +law in this country is English and not Roman. + +In the sense in which the legal profession use the word Roman, no doubt +their judgment is well-founded. The legal mind is fond of hair-splitting +technicalities and differences, and without doubt they have their +reasons for believing that English Law differs from Roman Law, though I +have not succeeded in discovering what they are. But any decision in +this matter must depend upon how Roman Law is defined. If emphasis is to +be given to secondary details, then it may be that experts could bring +sufficient evidence to show that English and Roman law are very +different. But if we take our stand upon broad, fundamental +propositions, this is clearly not the case. One does not need to be a +legal expert to understand that English Law to-day is in all its +essentials a law designed to enable rich men to live among poor as +emphatically as Mediaeval Law was designed to enable good men to live +among bad, and that this different moral aim separates it from English +Mediaeval Law as completely as it identifies it with the Roman Code. +English Law to-day may have historical continuity with the Common Law of +the earlier Middle Ages, but in its informing spirit, its broad, basic +principles and framework, there is no denying it is Roman through and +through. The writers of legal textbooks such as Bracton based their +ideas upon Roman Law, and it was always in the minds of lawyers for +guidance and comparison if it was not actually quoted from the bench. +Everywhere English Law, like Roman, exalts private interests at the +expense of communal ones, and in consequence conceives of the State as +an instrument for the maintenance of order rather than the enforcement +of justice. For a law which exalts private interests is essentially an +instrument of anarchy, and maintains order only for the purpose of putting off the evil day. -In England, as on the Continent, the principles of Roman Law -were imposed from above, and got a footing by appealing to -the immediate self-interest of the monarchy. Henry II saw -their value as a means of increasing his personal power at -the expense of his barons, and it was in his reign that the -process which culminated in the highly centralized monarchy -of the Tudors began to make headway. Henry had destroyed the -military independence of the barons by instituting scutage, -whereby the barons agreed to a money payment in lieu of -their obligation to provide him with men-at-arms in time of -war. He now set to work with the help of his legal advisers -to undermine their power in their own domains. The manorial -courts of the barons had been partly shorn of their powers -by the judicial reforms of Henry I. Henry II sought to carry -this work further by developing the *curia regis* or Royal -Court of Justice. That court had originally been the court -of the king's barons, corresponding to the court of his -tenants, which every feudal lord possessed. From this -central court, Henry sent out justices on circuit, and so -brought the king's law into touch with all parts of the -kingdom, breaking open the enclosed spheres of influence of -the manorial courts by emptying them of their more serious -cases, and it may be that at the start these justices -dispensed a law which was cheaper, more expeditious, and -more expert than that of the manor and scarcely different in -intention. It was by such means that the idea was gradually -promoted that the king's law and the king's right took -precedence over those of other individuals and groups, and -the people were induced to acquiesce in a change, the +In England, as on the Continent, the principles of Roman Law were +imposed from above, and got a footing by appealing to the immediate +self-interest of the monarchy. Henry II saw their value as a means of +increasing his personal power at the expense of his barons, and it was +in his reign that the process which culminated in the highly centralized +monarchy of the Tudors began to make headway. Henry had destroyed the +military independence of the barons by instituting scutage, whereby the +barons agreed to a money payment in lieu of their obligation to provide +him with men-at-arms in time of war. He now set to work with the help of +his legal advisers to undermine their power in their own domains. The +manorial courts of the barons had been partly shorn of their powers by +the judicial reforms of Henry I. Henry II sought to carry this work +further by developing the *curia regis* or Royal Court of Justice. That +court had originally been the court of the king's barons, corresponding +to the court of his tenants, which every feudal lord possessed. From +this central court, Henry sent out justices on circuit, and so brought +the king's law into touch with all parts of the kingdom, breaking open +the enclosed spheres of influence of the manorial courts by emptying +them of their more serious cases, and it may be that at the start these +justices dispensed a law which was cheaper, more expeditious, and more +expert than that of the manor and scarcely different in intention. It +was by such means that the idea was gradually promoted that the king's +law and the king's right took precedence over those of other individuals +and groups, and the people were induced to acquiesce in a change, the ultimate consequences of which they were unable to foresee. -At first sight these changes have all the appearance of a -change in the right direction. Feudalism rested on local -isolation, on the severance of kingdom from kingdom, and -barony from barony, on the distinction of race and blood, on -local military independence, on an allegiance determined by -accidents of birth and social position. It might appear, -therefore, that now, when the circumstances which had -created feudalism were disappearing, when the spread of -currency was undermining its integrity, that the new -developments that aimed at breaking down this isolation, -destroyed the military independence of the barons, took the -administration of the law out of the hands of men without a -legal training, and placed it in the hands of experts, who -brought order and uniformity into it, was a change in the -right direction. And so it might have been, had not the -justices whose decisions were to leave a lasting impression -on the law of the land been men who despised the common and -traditional law. Their minds had been trained upon Roman -Law, and they set to work to remodel the common law in such -a way as to undermine the basis of Mediaeval institutions -and popular liberty. In the long run, much the same kind of -thing happened in England as in Germany, though the English -lawyers were perhaps more subtle in their methods. They did -not advocate a revival of the Justinian Code; perhaps -because the fiction of continuity could not very well be -applied in this country, but they introduced the changes -piecemeal. Bracton, the great jurist of the time, upon whose -writings our knowledge of the period is largely based, -sought to accomplish this end by fitting English facts into -a framework of Roman Law.Such is the English Common Law. - -The contrast between the old Mediaeval Law and the new -Anglicized Roman Law is most strikingly illustrated by the -new legal attitude towards the question of private property, -and in the treatment of the law of persons. A suspicion -gains ground that a consequence of the introduction of Roman -ideas of law was an attempt in the thirteenth century to -transform feudalism into slavery. Nothing was sacred to the -lawyers that could not be supported by documentary evidence. -The rights and customs of the people they looked upon as -nominal and revocable. "In Anglo-Saxon times, the -predecessor of the villain, the ceorl, was not a slave at -all, but had a standing against his lord in the court of -law."But the Roman Code made no provision for the rights of -different social classes. It recognized only autocrats and -slaves. Hence it was that, when confronted with Feudalism an -institution in which the lords were not autocrats but -functionaries, and the villains not slaves but dependents, -the lawyers were at a loss as to how to apply the Roman -rule. They appear to have vacillated for some time, but -"after some contradictory decisions the court ended by -applying strictly the rule that villains have no claim -against their lords and that in law what is held by the -villain is owned by the lord."Bracton follows Azo as to the -very important generalization "all men are born either free -or slaves."There is no getting round these facts. That a -decision on this issue had to be made suggests that, prior -to the introduction of Roman ideas of law, the right of the -villain to appeal against his lord was presumed, and that -the courts wavered some time between contradictory opinions, -because things were happening behind the scenes which had to -be taken into consideration, or, in other words, that their -final decision was governed by considerations of political -expediency. We saw that, by means of scutage, the military -power of the barons had been destroyed. The Royal Courts of -Justice were now engaged in the task of destroying their -judicial power, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that a -time came when the lords began to ask the question, "Where -do we come in?" under the new order the king and his lawyers -were seeking to establish. It would become daily clearer to -the lawyers that if the development of the Royal Courts of -Justice was to continue and to expand, the lords would have -to be brought to terms. If they were to acquiesce in the -change, their status would have to be guaranteed in some new -way. And I suggest that a bargain was struck. The Crown was -to be allowed to absorb the judicial functions, and the -lords were to be allowed to enslave their serfs. - -But the change could not stop here. If the lord was to be -given absolute control over his serfs, he must be made -absolute owner of the land, for the spread of currency into -rural areas by substituting money payments for payment in -kind was disintegrating the old feudal order. Hence it came -about that the lawyers revived the Roman individualistic -theory of property. The lord was to be acknowledged no -longer as a functionary who held his land conditionally upon -the fulfilment of certain specific duties towards his serfs -and tenants, but was to be recognized as the absolute owner -of the land, while, moreover, he was to be given certain -privileges over the common lands. The foundation of the law -on this subject is in the "Statute of Merton" of 1235, which -laid down that lords might "make their profit" of their -"wastes, woods and pastures," in spite of the complaints of -"knights and freeholders" whom they had "infeoffed of small -tenements in their manors," so long as these feoffees had a -sufficient pasture so much as belongeth to their -tenements."This was the thin end of the wedge. Like all the -law on the subject, it is delightfully and intentionally -vague, in order that the lawyers might twist and twine its -meaning, and the lords bully their dependents as best suited -their ends. The question, of course, arises how much -is"sufficient pasture." This is obviously a matter of -opinion, and as the burden of proof lay upon the tenant, -who, if he objected to enclosures, had to prove that he -could not find sufficient pasture, the statute in effect -granted the lords the right to enclose the common lands to -their hearts content, and allowed the peasantry no redress -against injustice, as the courts were in conspiracy against -them. - -Before the lawyers came along with their Roman Law, -Feudalism was a defensible if not an ideal form of -organization. But the lawyers poisoned the whole system. -They became the stewards of the lords and instructed their -noble patrons "in all the legal methods of taming down the -peasants so that they might not shoot up too high." They put -them up to all the little dodges by means of which the -common lands might be enclosed, and how, by attacking things -piecemeal, they might encroach upon the communal rights of -the people. They were behind the evictions which the new -commercial lords undertook, in order that tillage might be -turned into pasture, when sheep-farming became so -profitable. By such means funds were secured to feed the -ever-increasing taste of the upper classes for luxury and -display, and by such means the unrest was created which led -to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, when the lawyers got all -they were looking for. Every one of them who fell into the -hands of the rebels was put to death; "not until all these -were killed would the land enjoy its *old freedom* again" -the peasants shouted as they fired the houses of the -stewards and flung the records of the manor courts into the -flames. When they entered London they set ablaze the new inn -of the lawyers at the Temple together with the stately -palace of John of Gaunt and the houses of the foreign -merchants, against whom also they had grievances. Whoever -may have had doubts as to the source of the mischief, the -peasants, who were led by the friars, had their minds made -up. It was not a rising against Feudalism as it had existed -a couple of centuries earlier, but a rising against a -corrupted Feudalism in general and the lawyers in -particular, whom the peasants rightly believed had corrupted -it as they believed they were corrupting the mind of the -young sovereign. For one object of their rising was to free -him from evil counsellors whom they believed abused his -youth. - -The Peasants' Revolt is the turning-point in English -history, as similar revolts on the Continent in the latter -half of the fourteenth century are the turning-point in the -history of Continental nations. To ascribe the break-up of -Mediaeval society to the economic changes which followed the -Black Death is to draw a smoke-screen across history. It is -to attribute to a general and indefinable cause social -phenomena which can be most explicitly traced to a very -definite and particular one, since the economic confusion -which followed the Black Death would not have come about had -not the communal relations which held society together a -couple of centuries earlier been disintegrated by the -machinations of the lawyers. The peasants, therefore, in -seeking the destruction of the lawyers put their finger -rightly on the primary cause of the dissolution of the old -Mediaeval order. To this extent their instincts were true. -But unfortunately while they were right as to the cause of -the evils from which they were suffering they were wrong in -regard to their general economic policy. Quite apart from -the lawyers, the old feudal order based upon payment in kind -was being disintegrated by the spread of currency into rural -areas which was substituting money payments for services, -and it was urgent, if economic difficulties were not to -follow upon this change, that currency should be regulated -in rural areas by Guilds. But this aspect of the problem -they appear to have overlooked entirely, for instead of -demanding charters from their sovereign for organization of -agricultural Guilds along with their demand for the -abolition of serfdom, they demanded liberty to buy and sell. -This mistake was a fatal one, since if they had demanded -charters for Guilds the whole course of English history -would have been different. For then the Guilds would have -covered the whole area of production, and as capitalism -would not then have been able to get a foothold, the -position of the Guilds in the towns would not have been -undermined in the sixteenth century by the pressure of the -competition of capitalist industry. After a time such -Agricultural Guilds would have been sufficiently wealthy to -buy out the landlords in the same way that the plutocracy of -Rome came to dispossess the landed aristocracy, or they -would have acquired sufficient power to confiscate the lands -if this policy had recommended itself. But this great -opportunity of recovering the land of England for the people -was lost because the peasants at the time saw only their -immediate interests. Profiting by a rising market, they did -not under stand the dangers to which an unregulated currency -exposed them. But when at last in the sixteenth century they -did become cognizant of the evil, it was too late. The -Guilds in the town had been defeated and capitalism was -already triumphant. It is strange how history repeats -itself. As in Rome we saw that an unregulated currency gave -rise to Roman Law, so in the Middle Ages we see the revival -of Roman Law being accompanied by the spread of an -unregulated currency. There is a definite connection between -these two phenomena. The Roman theory postulating an -individualistic society was not only opposed to all -organizations within the State, because in the time of the -Republic such organizations had been used as a basis of -conspiracy but to the maintenance of the Just Price as well, -for a right to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the -dearest was admitted in the Justinian Code. There can -therefore be no doubt whatsoever that the influence of the -lawyers would be opposed to the spread of Guild organization -in rural areas. - -In spite of the popular feeling against the lawyers which -the Peasants Revolt evinced, the legal profession steadily -strengthened its grip on the government of the country. By -the reign of Elizabeth the lawyers had not only concentrated -all judicial functions into their own hands, but Parliament -itself had become an assembly of lawyers. Bacon, though -himself a lawyer, had a great contempt for the profession. -No amount of legal knowledge, he believed, would make a -statesman or equip a man to deal with matters of high -policy. "The wisdom of a lawyer," he said, "is one, that of -a lawmaker another. Judges ought to remember that their -office is to interpret law, and not to make law or give -law." And so he viewed with alarm the growing influence of -Parliament, as it implied the growing influence of lawyers. -"Without the lawyers," he said, the country gentlemen would -be leaderless." He had no objection to Parliament so long -as they did not attempt to control the Government, but he -clearly foresaw the paralysis that would overtake State -policy if ever the lawyers got the upper hand. For though -later the Revolution taught men that lawyers prefer some -form of monarchy, it is a nominal or limited monarchy in -which they believe. Their ambition is not to occupy the -throne but to be the power behind the throne, and it is this -ambition that makes them at once so powerful and so -irresponsible, which enables them at once to commit -injustice and to visit others with the consequences. - -As against the idea of a sovereign assembly, Bacon exalted -the Crown. The royal prerogative represented in his mind the -case of enterprise and initiative as against pedantry and -routine. But monarchy in his day was beginning to find its -position difficult in the new order which it had been one of -the chief means of promoting. Monarchy, as I insisted -earlier, was essentially a Mediaeval institution. The -monarchs were the highest of temporal authorities, but they -were subject to the spiritual authority of the Popes. -Monarchs did not care very much about this. They were -restive under it even when they acquiesced. They wanted -their rule to be absolute, and it was this that led them to -give support to the Roman lawyers, who made law depend upon -the monarchs will and not ultimately upon a higher and -external authority. After quarrelling with the Popes for -centuries the monarchs succeeded in countries where -Protestantism had triumphed in emancipating themselves from -the control of the Popes. But things did not then work out -exactly as they expected. When the Popes were gone the -religious sanction was gone, and monarchs began to find that -instead of contending against the Popes they had to contend -against their own peoples, who now began to question their -authority. Hence the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings -by which James I sought to rehabilitate monarchy. He wrote -two treatises on the subject in which he expounded his -views. In one of these, *A King's Duty in his Office*, he -distinguished the lawful ruler from the tyrant by the fact -that the former feels responsibility towards God, while the -latter does not. Hence the lawful ruler claims unconditional -obedience from his subjects and was answerable to God alone, -but the people owe no allegiance to the tyrant. But in the -other one, *Basilicon Doron*, which was prepared for his -eldest son Henry and was not written for publication, he -maintains that a king was to be obeyed whether he ruled -justly or unjustly. In the first place because in abolishing -monarchy the State, instead of relieving, would double its -distress, for a king can never be so monstrously vicious -that he will not generally favour justice and maintain -order; and in the next, because a wicked king is sent by God -as a plague on people's sins, and it is unlawful to shake -off the burden which God has laid upon them. "Patience, -earnest prayer and amendment of their lives are the only -lawful means to move God to relieve them of that heavy -curse."It was essentially the philosophy of Protestantism -and Roman Law which treats all rights as subjective as -opposed to the doctrine of objective rights postulated by -Mediaevalism. - -So far from settling matters, the system of government by -prerogative as preached and practised by James only made -matters worse. It brought him into collision with the -lawyers and the Puritans, who shattered the power of the -Stuarts. The opposition which James had to face came from -the lawyers, and particularly from Edward Coke, who was -their leader. He had served successively under Elizabeth as -Speaker and Attorney-General, and in these positions he -appeared mainly as a defender of the Crown against the -dangers of conspiracy. But on being appointed Chief Justice -of Common Pleas his attitude towards the king changed, and -he now began to play the role of champion of the courts -against the encroachments of the king. He was the greatest -legal scholar of his age, and being a conservative by -temperament, he came to exalt the common law above king and -Parliament. It was the sovereign, and supreme over both of -them. His position was altogether too paradoxical to become -a constitutional theory, for the rule of the law, according -to his interpretation, would mean not merely the rule of the -lawyers but finally the rule of the pedant and antiquarian. -To Coke, law was an end in itself, and he believed just as -much in the Divine Right of Law as James believed in the -Divine Right of Kings, and so a collision became inevitable. -Through the patronage of kings, the Roman lawyers had been -gradually raised to positions of highest authority in the -land. Now the time came when the law, which was mainly their -own creation, was to be used as a weapon with which to -challenge the royal authority. - -Though Coke's idea of the sovereignty of law as an esoteric -science interpreted by professional jurists died with its -author, it is customary to regard him as one of the founders -of constitutional government. The contest between King and -Parliament continued for nearly a century and was only -finally brought to an end by deposing the last of the -Stuarts, which was followed by the enactment of the Bill of -Rights passed in 1689 which put .an end for ever in England -to all claim to Divine Right or hereditary right independent -of the law. It was, among other things, a great victory for -the lawyers. Henceforth an English monarch became just as -much the creature of an Act of Parliament as any member of -the Civil Service. Parliament also secured absolute control -over taxation and the Army, which incidentally owed its -existence as a permanent institution to the fact that after -the Revolution the Army of Cromwell refused to be disbanded, -regarding itself as the defender of the liberties of the -people against landlords, royalists and Catholics. With -Parliament supreme the triumph of the lawyers was assured. -Little by little, as their ally, Capitalism, whom they had -succeeded in emancipating from the "fetters of the Middle -Ages," undermined in the economic world what was left of the -old social order, the control of government passed into -their hands until, in our day, they are supreme. But what -kind of government is it? +At first sight these changes have all the appearance of a change in the +right direction. Feudalism rested on local isolation, on the severance +of kingdom from kingdom, and barony from barony, on the distinction of +race and blood, on local military independence, on an allegiance +determined by accidents of birth and social position. It might appear, +therefore, that now, when the circumstances which had created feudalism +were disappearing, when the spread of currency was undermining its +integrity, that the new developments that aimed at breaking down this +isolation, destroyed the military independence of the barons, took the +administration of the law out of the hands of men without a legal +training, and placed it in the hands of experts, who brought order and +uniformity into it, was a change in the right direction. And so it might +have been, had not the justices whose decisions were to leave a lasting +impression on the law of the land been men who despised the common and +traditional law. Their minds had been trained upon Roman Law, and they +set to work to remodel the common law in such a way as to undermine the +basis of Mediaeval institutions and popular liberty. In the long run, +much the same kind of thing happened in England as in Germany, though +the English lawyers were perhaps more subtle in their methods. They did +not advocate a revival of the Justinian Code; perhaps because the +fiction of continuity could not very well be applied in this country, +but they introduced the changes piecemeal. Bracton, the great jurist of +the time, upon whose writings our knowledge of the period is largely +based, sought to accomplish this end by fitting English facts into a +framework of Roman Law.Such is the English Common Law. + +The contrast between the old Mediaeval Law and the new Anglicized Roman +Law is most strikingly illustrated by the new legal attitude towards the +question of private property, and in the treatment of the law of +persons. A suspicion gains ground that a consequence of the introduction +of Roman ideas of law was an attempt in the thirteenth century to +transform feudalism into slavery. Nothing was sacred to the lawyers that +could not be supported by documentary evidence. The rights and customs +of the people they looked upon as nominal and revocable. "In Anglo-Saxon +times, the predecessor of the villain, the ceorl, was not a slave at +all, but had a standing against his lord in the court of law."But the +Roman Code made no provision for the rights of different social classes. +It recognized only autocrats and slaves. Hence it was that, when +confronted with Feudalism an institution in which the lords were not +autocrats but functionaries, and the villains not slaves but dependents, +the lawyers were at a loss as to how to apply the Roman rule. They +appear to have vacillated for some time, but "after some contradictory +decisions the court ended by applying strictly the rule that villains +have no claim against their lords and that in law what is held by the +villain is owned by the lord."Bracton follows Azo as to the very +important generalization "all men are born either free or slaves."There +is no getting round these facts. That a decision on this issue had to be +made suggests that, prior to the introduction of Roman ideas of law, the +right of the villain to appeal against his lord was presumed, and that +the courts wavered some time between contradictory opinions, because +things were happening behind the scenes which had to be taken into +consideration, or, in other words, that their final decision was +governed by considerations of political expediency. We saw that, by +means of scutage, the military power of the barons had been destroyed. +The Royal Courts of Justice were now engaged in the task of destroying +their judicial power, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that a time +came when the lords began to ask the question, "Where do we come in?" +under the new order the king and his lawyers were seeking to establish. +It would become daily clearer to the lawyers that if the development of +the Royal Courts of Justice was to continue and to expand, the lords +would have to be brought to terms. If they were to acquiesce in the +change, their status would have to be guaranteed in some new way. And I +suggest that a bargain was struck. The Crown was to be allowed to absorb +the judicial functions, and the lords were to be allowed to enslave +their serfs. + +But the change could not stop here. If the lord was to be given absolute +control over his serfs, he must be made absolute owner of the land, for +the spread of currency into rural areas by substituting money payments +for payment in kind was disintegrating the old feudal order. Hence it +came about that the lawyers revived the Roman individualistic theory of +property. The lord was to be acknowledged no longer as a functionary who +held his land conditionally upon the fulfilment of certain specific +duties towards his serfs and tenants, but was to be recognized as the +absolute owner of the land, while, moreover, he was to be given certain +privileges over the common lands. The foundation of the law on this +subject is in the "Statute of Merton" of 1235, which laid down that +lords might "make their profit" of their "wastes, woods and pastures," +in spite of the complaints of "knights and freeholders" whom they had +"infeoffed of small tenements in their manors," so long as these +feoffees had a sufficient pasture so much as belongeth to their +tenements."This was the thin end of the wedge. Like all the law on the +subject, it is delightfully and intentionally vague, in order that the +lawyers might twist and twine its meaning, and the lords bully their +dependents as best suited their ends. The question, of course, arises +how much is"sufficient pasture." This is obviously a matter of opinion, +and as the burden of proof lay upon the tenant, who, if he objected to +enclosures, had to prove that he could not find sufficient pasture, the +statute in effect granted the lords the right to enclose the common +lands to their hearts content, and allowed the peasantry no redress +against injustice, as the courts were in conspiracy against them. + +Before the lawyers came along with their Roman Law, Feudalism was a +defensible if not an ideal form of organization. But the lawyers +poisoned the whole system. They became the stewards of the lords and +instructed their noble patrons "in all the legal methods of taming down +the peasants so that they might not shoot up too high." They put them up +to all the little dodges by means of which the common lands might be +enclosed, and how, by attacking things piecemeal, they might encroach +upon the communal rights of the people. They were behind the evictions +which the new commercial lords undertook, in order that tillage might be +turned into pasture, when sheep-farming became so profitable. By such +means funds were secured to feed the ever-increasing taste of the upper +classes for luxury and display, and by such means the unrest was created +which led to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, when the lawyers got all they +were looking for. Every one of them who fell into the hands of the +rebels was put to death; "not until all these were killed would the land +enjoy its *old freedom* again" the peasants shouted as they fired the +houses of the stewards and flung the records of the manor courts into +the flames. When they entered London they set ablaze the new inn of the +lawyers at the Temple together with the stately palace of John of Gaunt +and the houses of the foreign merchants, against whom also they had +grievances. Whoever may have had doubts as to the source of the +mischief, the peasants, who were led by the friars, had their minds made +up. It was not a rising against Feudalism as it had existed a couple of +centuries earlier, but a rising against a corrupted Feudalism in general +and the lawyers in particular, whom the peasants rightly believed had +corrupted it as they believed they were corrupting the mind of the young +sovereign. For one object of their rising was to free him from evil +counsellors whom they believed abused his youth. + +The Peasants' Revolt is the turning-point in English history, as similar +revolts on the Continent in the latter half of the fourteenth century +are the turning-point in the history of Continental nations. To ascribe +the break-up of Mediaeval society to the economic changes which followed +the Black Death is to draw a smoke-screen across history. It is to +attribute to a general and indefinable cause social phenomena which can +be most explicitly traced to a very definite and particular one, since +the economic confusion which followed the Black Death would not have +come about had not the communal relations which held society together a +couple of centuries earlier been disintegrated by the machinations of +the lawyers. The peasants, therefore, in seeking the destruction of the +lawyers put their finger rightly on the primary cause of the dissolution +of the old Mediaeval order. To this extent their instincts were true. +But unfortunately while they were right as to the cause of the evils +from which they were suffering they were wrong in regard to their +general economic policy. Quite apart from the lawyers, the old feudal +order based upon payment in kind was being disintegrated by the spread +of currency into rural areas which was substituting money payments for +services, and it was urgent, if economic difficulties were not to follow +upon this change, that currency should be regulated in rural areas by +Guilds. But this aspect of the problem they appear to have overlooked +entirely, for instead of demanding charters from their sovereign for +organization of agricultural Guilds along with their demand for the +abolition of serfdom, they demanded liberty to buy and sell. This +mistake was a fatal one, since if they had demanded charters for Guilds +the whole course of English history would have been different. For then +the Guilds would have covered the whole area of production, and as +capitalism would not then have been able to get a foothold, the position +of the Guilds in the towns would not have been undermined in the +sixteenth century by the pressure of the competition of capitalist +industry. After a time such Agricultural Guilds would have been +sufficiently wealthy to buy out the landlords in the same way that the +plutocracy of Rome came to dispossess the landed aristocracy, or they +would have acquired sufficient power to confiscate the lands if this +policy had recommended itself. But this great opportunity of recovering +the land of England for the people was lost because the peasants at the +time saw only their immediate interests. Profiting by a rising market, +they did not under stand the dangers to which an unregulated currency +exposed them. But when at last in the sixteenth century they did become +cognizant of the evil, it was too late. The Guilds in the town had been +defeated and capitalism was already triumphant. It is strange how +history repeats itself. As in Rome we saw that an unregulated currency +gave rise to Roman Law, so in the Middle Ages we see the revival of +Roman Law being accompanied by the spread of an unregulated currency. +There is a definite connection between these two phenomena. The Roman +theory postulating an individualistic society was not only opposed to +all organizations within the State, because in the time of the Republic +such organizations had been used as a basis of conspiracy but to the +maintenance of the Just Price as well, for a right to buy in the +cheapest market and sell in the dearest was admitted in the Justinian +Code. There can therefore be no doubt whatsoever that the influence of +the lawyers would be opposed to the spread of Guild organization in +rural areas. + +In spite of the popular feeling against the lawyers which the Peasants +Revolt evinced, the legal profession steadily strengthened its grip on +the government of the country. By the reign of Elizabeth the lawyers had +not only concentrated all judicial functions into their own hands, but +Parliament itself had become an assembly of lawyers. Bacon, though +himself a lawyer, had a great contempt for the profession. No amount of +legal knowledge, he believed, would make a statesman or equip a man to +deal with matters of high policy. "The wisdom of a lawyer," he said, "is +one, that of a lawmaker another. Judges ought to remember that their +office is to interpret law, and not to make law or give law." And so he +viewed with alarm the growing influence of Parliament, as it implied the +growing influence of lawyers. "Without the lawyers," he said, the +country gentlemen would be leaderless." He had no objection to +Parliament so long as they did not attempt to control the Government, +but he clearly foresaw the paralysis that would overtake State policy if +ever the lawyers got the upper hand. For though later the Revolution +taught men that lawyers prefer some form of monarchy, it is a nominal or +limited monarchy in which they believe. Their ambition is not to occupy +the throne but to be the power behind the throne, and it is this +ambition that makes them at once so powerful and so irresponsible, which +enables them at once to commit injustice and to visit others with the +consequences. + +As against the idea of a sovereign assembly, Bacon exalted the Crown. +The royal prerogative represented in his mind the case of enterprise and +initiative as against pedantry and routine. But monarchy in his day was +beginning to find its position difficult in the new order which it had +been one of the chief means of promoting. Monarchy, as I insisted +earlier, was essentially a Mediaeval institution. The monarchs were the +highest of temporal authorities, but they were subject to the spiritual +authority of the Popes. Monarchs did not care very much about this. They +were restive under it even when they acquiesced. They wanted their rule +to be absolute, and it was this that led them to give support to the +Roman lawyers, who made law depend upon the monarchs will and not +ultimately upon a higher and external authority. After quarrelling with +the Popes for centuries the monarchs succeeded in countries where +Protestantism had triumphed in emancipating themselves from the control +of the Popes. But things did not then work out exactly as they expected. +When the Popes were gone the religious sanction was gone, and monarchs +began to find that instead of contending against the Popes they had to +contend against their own peoples, who now began to question their +authority. Hence the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings by which +James I sought to rehabilitate monarchy. He wrote two treatises on the +subject in which he expounded his views. In one of these, *A King's Duty +in his Office*, he distinguished the lawful ruler from the tyrant by the +fact that the former feels responsibility towards God, while the latter +does not. Hence the lawful ruler claims unconditional obedience from his +subjects and was answerable to God alone, but the people owe no +allegiance to the tyrant. But in the other one, *Basilicon Doron*, which +was prepared for his eldest son Henry and was not written for +publication, he maintains that a king was to be obeyed whether he ruled +justly or unjustly. In the first place because in abolishing monarchy +the State, instead of relieving, would double its distress, for a king +can never be so monstrously vicious that he will not generally favour +justice and maintain order; and in the next, because a wicked king is +sent by God as a plague on people's sins, and it is unlawful to shake +off the burden which God has laid upon them. "Patience, earnest prayer +and amendment of their lives are the only lawful means to move God to +relieve them of that heavy curse."It was essentially the philosophy of +Protestantism and Roman Law which treats all rights as subjective as +opposed to the doctrine of objective rights postulated by Mediaevalism. + +So far from settling matters, the system of government by prerogative as +preached and practised by James only made matters worse. It brought him +into collision with the lawyers and the Puritans, who shattered the +power of the Stuarts. The opposition which James had to face came from +the lawyers, and particularly from Edward Coke, who was their leader. He +had served successively under Elizabeth as Speaker and Attorney-General, +and in these positions he appeared mainly as a defender of the Crown +against the dangers of conspiracy. But on being appointed Chief Justice +of Common Pleas his attitude towards the king changed, and he now began +to play the role of champion of the courts against the encroachments of +the king. He was the greatest legal scholar of his age, and being a +conservative by temperament, he came to exalt the common law above king +and Parliament. It was the sovereign, and supreme over both of them. His +position was altogether too paradoxical to become a constitutional +theory, for the rule of the law, according to his interpretation, would +mean not merely the rule of the lawyers but finally the rule of the +pedant and antiquarian. To Coke, law was an end in itself, and he +believed just as much in the Divine Right of Law as James believed in +the Divine Right of Kings, and so a collision became inevitable. Through +the patronage of kings, the Roman lawyers had been gradually raised to +positions of highest authority in the land. Now the time came when the +law, which was mainly their own creation, was to be used as a weapon +with which to challenge the royal authority. + +Though Coke's idea of the sovereignty of law as an esoteric science +interpreted by professional jurists died with its author, it is +customary to regard him as one of the founders of constitutional +government. The contest between King and Parliament continued for nearly +a century and was only finally brought to an end by deposing the last of +the Stuarts, which was followed by the enactment of the Bill of Rights +passed in 1689 which put .an end for ever in England to all claim to +Divine Right or hereditary right independent of the law. It was, among +other things, a great victory for the lawyers. Henceforth an English +monarch became just as much the creature of an Act of Parliament as any +member of the Civil Service. Parliament also secured absolute control +over taxation and the Army, which incidentally owed its existence as a +permanent institution to the fact that after the Revolution the Army of +Cromwell refused to be disbanded, regarding itself as the defender of +the liberties of the people against landlords, royalists and Catholics. +With Parliament supreme the triumph of the lawyers was assured. Little +by little, as their ally, Capitalism, whom they had succeeded in +emancipating from the "fetters of the Middle Ages," undermined in the +economic world what was left of the old social order, the control of +government passed into their hands until, in our day, they are supreme. +But what kind of government is it? >  Parliaments built of paper > @@ -2913,6328 +2439,5300 @@ kind of government is it? > > In the weak aggressor's hold. -Such is Mr. Chesterton's description of a government of -lawyers. Experience is teaching us that Bacon was right in -holding that no amount of legal knowledge will equip a man -for the high policy of State. Roman Law, being divorced from -morals, tends to corrupt the minds, where it does not -corrupt the morals of those who study it. And it comes about +Such is Mr. Chesterton's description of a government of lawyers. +Experience is teaching us that Bacon was right in holding that no amount +of legal knowledge will equip a man for the high policy of State. Roman +Law, being divorced from morals, tends to corrupt the minds, where it +does not corrupt the morals of those who study it. And it comes about this way: without a base in morality, law inevitably becomes -increasingly complicated, for its framework can only be -maintained amid such circumstances by defining precisely -every detail. Instead, therefore, of the mind of the student -being directed towards a comprehension of the broad, basic -facts of life, it is directed towards the study of subtle -controversies and hair-splitting differences which befog the -intelligence. As success in the legal profession follows -preoccupation with such trivialities, a government composed -of lawyers is necessarily a weak government that waits upon -events because it is incapable of decision on vital issues. -But while on the one hand Roman Law reduces its devotees to -impotence so far as constructive statesmanship is concerned, -on the other the very complexity of the law paralyses the -efforts of men without legal training to secure reform. -Hence it is, while parties have changed and battles have -been fought over burning political issues, nothing can get -done. And because reform becomes impossible, anarchy grows -apace, which in turn encourages the growth of legalism in -vain attempts to put a boundary to the growth of disorder. -It is thus the modern world has entered a vicious circle in -which anarchy begets legalism and legalism begets anarchy -and from which there can be no escape so long as the -principles of Roman Law remain unchallenged. - -Considering the iniquity that has been associated with Roman -Law almost from the days of its revival, it is extraordinary -that it should still command respect. But what is more -extraordinary still is that while it succeeded in corrupting -Mediaeval society it has not only succeeded in escaping -censure itself, but has managed to transfer the odium which -belongs to itself to the institutions which it was the means -of corrupting. The Church, the Monarchy, Feudalism and the -Guilds each in turn suffered at its hands. Each and all of -them in turn have been condemned as intolerable tyrannies -because each of them in some measure stood for the communal -idea of society, and as such at different times have offered -resistance to the growth of a system of law whose aim it has -been to dissolve all personal and human ties and to replace -them by the impersonal activity of the State. If Capitalism -to-day is our active enemy, let us clearly recognize that -Roman Law is the power behind the throne. +increasingly complicated, for its framework can only be maintained amid +such circumstances by defining precisely every detail. Instead, +therefore, of the mind of the student being directed towards a +comprehension of the broad, basic facts of life, it is directed towards +the study of subtle controversies and hair-splitting differences which +befog the intelligence. As success in the legal profession follows +preoccupation with such trivialities, a government composed of lawyers +is necessarily a weak government that waits upon events because it is +incapable of decision on vital issues. But while on the one hand Roman +Law reduces its devotees to impotence so far as constructive +statesmanship is concerned, on the other the very complexity of the law +paralyses the efforts of men without legal training to secure reform. +Hence it is, while parties have changed and battles have been fought +over burning political issues, nothing can get done. And because reform +becomes impossible, anarchy grows apace, which in turn encourages the +growth of legalism in vain attempts to put a boundary to the growth of +disorder. It is thus the modern world has entered a vicious circle in +which anarchy begets legalism and legalism begets anarchy and from which +there can be no escape so long as the principles of Roman Law remain +unchallenged. + +Considering the iniquity that has been associated with Roman Law almost +from the days of its revival, it is extraordinary that it should still +command respect. But what is more extraordinary still is that while it +succeeded in corrupting Mediaeval society it has not only succeeded in +escaping censure itself, but has managed to transfer the odium which +belongs to itself to the institutions which it was the means of +corrupting. The Church, the Monarchy, Feudalism and the Guilds each in +turn suffered at its hands. Each and all of them in turn have been +condemned as intolerable tyrannies because each of them in some measure +stood for the communal idea of society, and as such at different times +have offered resistance to the growth of a system of law whose aim it +has been to dissolve all personal and human ties and to replace them by +the impersonal activity of the State. If Capitalism to-day is our active +enemy, let us clearly recognize that Roman Law is the power behind the +throne. # The Conspiracy Against Mediaevalism -An appreciation of the part which Roman Law played in the -corruption of Mediaeval society and in the creation of -modern thought and civilization should go a long way towards -the removal of the prejudice which prevails to-day against -most things Mediaeval, and which distorts out of its proper -perspective everything which then existed. This prejudice -has many roots, and therefore it becomes necessary, ere -proceeding with our story, to seek the removal of the -prejudice by explaining its origin. I hope to show that -though to-day this prejudice may be little more than a -misunderstanding, it did not begin as such, but as a -conspiracy. - -We need not go far to find evidence in support of this -contention. Consider, for one moment, the utterly -irresponsible way in which the word Mediaeval is thrown -about in the daily Press. Among a certain class of writers -it is the custom to designate as Mediaeval anything which -they do not understand or of which they do not approve, -quite regardless of the issue as to whether it actually -existed in the Middle Ages or not. During the war, for -instance, how often did we read of Mediaeval Junkerdom, -notwithstanding the fact that the Middle Ages was the age of -chivalry, and that, as a matter of fact, the spirit of -German militarism approximates very nearly to that of the -military capitalism of Ancient Rome. For the Romans, like -the Germans, did not hesitate to destroy the towns and -industries of their rivals. It was, as I have already -pointed out, for commercial reasons that they burnt Carthage -and Corinth, and caused the vineyards and olive-groves of -Gaul to be destroyed, in order to avoid a damaging -competition with the rich Roman landlords. Or, again, when -anything goes wrong in a government department, for reasons -not apparent on the surface, the shortcoming will be -described as Mediaeval regardless of the fact that -bureaucracy is a peculiarly Roman institution and scarcely -existed in the Middle Ages. There is no need to multiply -instances, as they are to be met with in the Press daily. -But the result is tragic. An all-pervading prejudice is -created, which militates against clear thinking on social -and political questions, for a prejudice against -Mediaevalism is a prejudice against all normal forms of -social organization; it is a prejudice which may spell -Bolshevism in the days to come; for, after all, Bolshevism -is itself nothing more than modern prejudices and historical -falsehoods carried to their logical conclusions. - -Now, it stands to reason that this gross solecism is not -without a cause. Nobody on the Press ever speaks of Rome or -Greece in this irresponsible way, and the question needs to -be answered: Why is the Middle Ages the only period in -history singled out for such thoughtless misrepresentation? -The answer is, that at one time this indiscriminate -mud-slinging had a motive behind it---a motive, however, -that has since disappeared. Cobbett, I think, got at the -bottom of it when, a hundred years ago, he pointed out that -Protestant historians had wilfully misrepresented the Middle -Ages because there were so many people living on the plunder -of the monasteries and the Guilds, and consequently -interested in maintaining a prejudice against the Middle -Ages, as the easiest way of covering their tracks. It was -not for nothing that Cobbett's *History of the -Reformation*was burnt by the public hangman. It was burnt -because it was more than a history---because it exposed a -conspiracy. But the prejudice exists; it has other roots -which require to be attacked. - -We need not pause to consider how the prejudices of -freethinkers have militated against an understanding of the -Middle Ages, as the free thinking of freethinkers is no -longer above suspicion. In so far as their prejudices are in -these days a force to be reckoned with, it is as a part of -the Marxian or Bolshevik gospel. The rise to popularity of -the Marxian creed has given the anti-Mediaeval prejudice a -new lease of life, by refusing in the first place to admit -that any but material forces have ever played more than a -secondary part in the shaping of history, and what naturally -follows from it, distorting or ignoring such facts as do not -happen to fit in with the materialist conception. How gross -are the prejudices which have been impressed upon the minds -of the workers may be understood by any one who will take -the trouble to read such a book as that produced by one of -the Neo-Marxians, *A Worker Looks at History*, by Mr. Mark -Starr. It is an important book because of the wide -circulation it has amongst the workers. Popular -misconceptions and prejudices are exaggerated. In the -chapter entitled "The Renaissance from the Mediaeval Night" -the author, after referring to the schools of Alexandria, -says: "Christianity proscribed philosophy, abolished the -schools, and plunged the world into an abyss of darkness -from which it only emerged after twelve hundred years." -Mr. Starr is indignant at this. But it never occurs to him -to enquire what these schools taught; and this is important. -He assumes that they taught what he admires in the Pagan -philosophers, for whom I have as much regard as has -Mr. Starr. But these schools of the Neo-Platonists were -degenerate institutions. They taught everything that -Mr. Starr would hate. Their teaching was eclectic---a -blending of Christian and Platonic ideas with Oriental -mysticism. They believed in magic. Their reasoning was -audacious andMarxistenious, but it was intellectual slush -without any definite form or structure. Above all, it -encouraged a detachment from the practical affairs of life, -and thus became an obstruction to real enlightenment. It was -well that these schools were suppressed; they needed -suppressing, for no good can come of such misdirection of -intellectual activities, and I doubt not had Mr. Starr been -then alive he would have risen in his wrath against their -unreality. The Early Church was opposed to these degenerate -intellectuals, because, while the Church desired to -establish the Kingdom of God upon Earth, they were content -for it to remain in heaven. But Mr. Starr has been so -prejudiced against Mediaevalism that he attributes to the -Church all the vices which it sought to suppress. - -Though the Early Church closed the schools of the -Neo-Platonists, it did not suppress philosophy. On the -contrary, Greek culture was preserved at Constantinople, -while much of Greek philosophy was absorbed in Christian -theology. Before the close of the New Testament Canon, Greek -philosophy had begun to colour the expression of Christian -doctrine; in the hands of the Fathers of the Church it -entered into its very substance. The logos of Plato -reappears as the doctrine of the Trinity, which, -incidentally, is not an explanation of the universe, but "a -fence to guard a mystery."It reappears, however, not as an -intellectual abstraction, but as a concrete reality, and, as -such, possesses a dynamic power capable of changing the -world. It was this burning desire to change the world which -made the Early Christians so impatient with the -Neo-Platonists, who made speculation an excuse for inaction, -as it makes the Neo-Marxians to-day rightly impatient with a -certain type of Socialist intellectual. Moreover, it was -this insistence upon practical activity which made -Christianity so dogmatic in its theology. Marxians at any -rate ought to realize that strenuous activity must rest upon -dogmas. On the other hand, the weakness of Pagan philosophy -was that it was powerless to influence life. "Cicero, the -well-paid advocate of the publicani and bankers, whom he -frequently calls in the most idyllic style *ornamentum -civitatis*, *firmamentum rei publics flos equitum* while -philosophizing on virtue, despoiled with violence the -inhabitants of the province he administered, realizing, -*salvis legibus*, two million two hundred thousand sestercia -in less than two months. Honest Brutus invested his capital -at Cyprus at 48%; Verres in Sicily at 24%. Much later, when -the economic dissolution of the Republic had led to the -establishing of the Empire, Seneca, who, in his -philosophical writings, preached contempt of riches, -despoiled Britain by his usury." - -While the prejudice against Mediaevalism doubtless had its -origin in malice and forethought, it is encouraged by the -fallacious division of Mediaeval history into the Middle -Ages and the Dark Ages. By means of this artificial and -arbitrary division the popular mind has been led to suppose -that mankind was plunged into darkness and ignorance after -the decline of Roman civilization, while it is generally -inferred that this was due to the spread of Christianity, -which it is supposed exhibited a spirit hostile to learning -and enlightenment rather than to the inroads of the -barbarian tribes. A grosser travesty of historic truth was -never perpetrated. But the travesty is made plausible by the -custom which many historians have of detailing the history -of a particular geographical area, instead of making history -continuous with the traditions of thought and action, the -geographical centres of which change from time to time. -Treating the history of Western Europe according to the -former method, the period of Roman occupation is followed by -one of barbarism, in which almost every trace of -civilization disappears for a time, and no doubt the people -who dwelt in this part of Europe did live through a period -of darkness. That, however, was the case with the Western -Empire only. The Eastern Empire was never overrun by the -barbarians. On the contrary, its capital, Constantinople, -maintained during all this period a high state of -civilization, and was the artistic and cultural centre of -the world. While the barbarian hordes were overrunning the -Western Empire, the Eastern Church preserved the traditions -of Greek culture, which, as order became restored in the -West, gradually filtered through Venice until the fall of -Constantinople in 1453. The subsequent emigration of Greek -scholars and artists to Italy removed the last barrier -between the culture of Eastern and Western Europe. - -It was at Constantinople, during the sixth century, that the -Code of Justinian was made. It is painful for me to have to -record this fact, seeing that it led, unfortunately, to the -revival of Roman Law, and it is mentioned here not as a -recommendation, but merely as testimony to the existence of -intellectual activity during the so-called Dark Ages. The -task of extracting a code from the six camel-loads of -law-book certainly testifies to the existence of learning. -Moreover, it was during this period that the Byzantine -school of architecture flourished. The reputation of the -cathedral church of Santa Sophia, built in the sixth -century, was so great that the twelfth-century William of -Malmesbury knew of it "as surpassing every other edifice in -the world." Of this architecture Professor Lethaby writes:-- - -"The debt of universal architecture to the early Christian -and Byzantine schools of builders is very great. They -evolved the church types; they carried far the exploration -of domical construction, and made wonderful balanced -compositions of vaults and domes over complex plans. They -formed the belfry from the Pharos and fortification towers. -We owe to them the idea of the vaulted basilican church, -which, spreading westward over Europe, made our great -vaulted cathedrals possible. They entirely recast the -secondary forms of architecture; the column was taught to -carry the arch, the capital was reconsidered as a bearing -block and became a feature of extraordinary beauty. The art -of building was made free from formulae, and architecture -became an adventure in building once more. We owe to them a -new type of moulding, the germ of the Gothic system, by the -introduction of the roll-moulding and their application of -it to strings and the margins of doors. The first arch known -to me which has a series of roll-mouldings is in the palace -of Mshatta. The tendency to cast windows into groups, the -ultimate source of tracery and the foiling of arches is to -be mentioned. We owe to these Christian artists the -introduction of delightfully fresh ornamentation, crisp -foliage, and interlaces, and the whole scheme of Christian -iconography." - -This is no small achievement. Only an age as indifferent to -the claims of architecture as our own could underrate its -magnitude. To the average historian, however, this period of -history is a blank, because he lacks the kind of knowledge -and sympathy necessary to assess its achievements at their -proper value. To his mind, enlightenment and criticism are -synonymous; and, finding no criticism, he assumes there was -no enlightenment, not understanding that criticism is the -mark of reflective rather than of creative epochs. For, -though at times they appear contemporaneously, they have -different roots, and the critical spirit soon destroys the -creative, as we shall see when we come to consider the -Renaissance. How false such standards of judgment are may be -understood by comparing the Dark Ages with our own. In those -days there was plenty of architecture, but little, if any, -architectural literature. To-day the volume of architectural -literature and criticism is prodigious, but there is -precious little architecture. - -While the traditions of culture all through this period were -preserved and developed in the Eastern Church with its -centre at Constantinople, the task which fell to the -Western, or Roman, Church was of as different order. Upon it -was thrust the task of civilizing the barbarian races of the -West which had overthrown the Roman Empire, and it is to the -credit of the Early Church that it succeeded where the -Romans had failed. Success was achieved through different -methods. Roman civilization had been imposed by violence and -maintained by compulsion: it was always an exotic affair, -and it fell to pieces when the force of the barbarians -became at last more powerful than that of the Roman Empire. -The success of Christianity is attributable to the fact that -it effected a change in the spirit of the peoples. This -great achievement was the work of the early Monastic Orders, -whose missionary zeal was destined to spread Christianity -throughout Europe. - -The early Christian monks had been characterized by a -decided Oriental tendency to self-contemplation and -abstraction, and in their missionary enterprises their inter -course with the rude populations was limited to instructing -them in the homilies and creeds of Christ. Augustine and his -forty companions, who were sent forth by Gregory the Great -to convert Britain (A.D. 596), "acted on a very different -principle, for in addition to the orthodox weapons of attack -and persuasion which they employed against their opponents, -they made use of other, but equally powerful, methods of -subjugation, by teaching the people many useful arts that -were alike beneficial to their bodies and their minds. As -soon as they settled in Kent, and had begun to spread -themselves towards the north and west, they built barns and -sheds for their cattle side by side with their newly erected -churches, and opened schools in the immediate neighbourhood -of the house of God, where the youth of the nominally -converted population were now for the first time instructed -in reading, and in the formulae of their faith and where -those who were intended for a monastic life or for the -priesthood, received the more advanced instruction necessary -to their earnest calling." - -We read that the Benedictines of Abingdon, in Berkshire, -were required by their canonized founder to perform a daily -portion of field labour, in addition to the prescribed -services of the Church. " In their mode of cultivating the -soil they followed the practices adopted in the warmer and -more systematically tilled lands of the south. They soon -engaged the services of the natives in the vicinity and -repaid their labours with a portion of the fruits of their -toil, and in proportion as the woods and thickets were -cleared, and the swamps and morasses disappeared, the soil -yielded a more plentiful return; while the land, being -leased or sub-let, became the means of placing the -monastery, which was, in fact, the central point of the -entire system, in the position of a rich proprietor. From -such centres as these the beams of a new and hopeful life -radiated in every direction." - -"The requirements of the monks, and the instruction they -were able to impart around them, soon led to the -establishment in their immediate neighbourhood of the first -settlement of artificers and retail dealers, while the -excess of their crops, flocks and herds, gave rise to the -first markets, which were, as a rule, originally held before -the gate of the abbey church. Thus hamlets and towns were -formed, which became the centres of trade and general -intercourse, and thus originated the market tolls, and the -jurisdiction of these spiritual lords. The beneficial -influences of the English monasteries in all departments of -education and mental culture expanded still further, even in -the early times of the Anglo-Saxons, for they had already -then become conspicuous for the proficiency which many of -their members had attained in painting and music, sculpture -and architecture. The study of the sciences, which had been -greatly advanced through the exertions of Bede, was the -means of introducing one of his most celebrated followers, -Alcuin of York, to the court of Charlemagne, for the purpose -of establishing schools and learning in the German Empire. -And although every monastery did not contribute in an equal -degree to all these beneficial results, all aided to the -best of their power and opportunities in bringing about that -special state of cultivation which characterised the Middle -Ages." - -So much for the Dark Ages and the malicious libel which -insinuates that the Mediaeval world was opposed to learning. -So far from such insinuations being true, every Monastic -Order, for whatever purpose originally founded, ended in -becoming a learned order. It was the recognition of this -fact that led St. Francis, who was a genuinely practical -man, to insist that his followers should not become learned -or seek their pleasures in books, "for I am afraid," he -says, "that the doctors will be the destruction of my -vineyard." And here is found the paradox of the situation: -so long as learning was in the hands of men who valued it as -such it made little headway, but when at length the new -impulse did come, it came in no small measure from the -Franciscans, from the men who had the courage to renounce -learning and to lead a life of poverty, for in the course of -time the Franciscans became learned, as had done the other -orders. Thus we see that the central idea of -Christianity---to renounce the world in order to conquer -it---bears fruit not only in the moral but in the -intellectual universe. - -Sufficient has now been said to refute the charge that the -Mediaeval Church was opposed to learning. The case of the -Franciscans in decrying learning is the only one known to -me, and their action, as we shall see in a later chapter, -turned out to be a blessing in disguise. What the Mediaeval -Church was against was heresy, which was often associated -with learning, but the suppression of heresy is a thing -fundamentally different from opposition to learning, and -there is nothing peculiarly Mediaeval about it. The Greeks -condemned Socrates to death for seeking to discredit the -gods, while Plato himself came finally to the conclusion -that in his ideal State to doubt the gods would be -punishable by death. The Roman Emperors persecuted the -Christians for refusing observance to the gods, Marcus -Aurelius himself being no exception to this rule, while we -ourselves show equal readiness to persecute heresy against -the State, as in the case of the pacifist conscientious -objectors. And so it will always be when great issues are at -stake. A people with a firm grip on fundamental truth -attacks heresy at its roots in ideas. A people like -ourselves, that has lost its grip on primary truth, waits -until it begins to influence action, but once the heresy is -recognized, all peoples in all times have sought its -suppression. - -Before going further, let us be clear in our minds as to -what we mean by heresy. At different times it has meant -different things, but, in general, it might be defined as -the advocacy of ideas which, at a given time in a given -place, are considered by those in power as subversive to the -social order, and the instinct of self-preservation has -impelled all peoples in all times to suppress such ideas. In -the Mediaeval period such persecutions were associated with -religion, because in that era all ideas, social and -political, were discussed under a theological aspect. The -position is simple. If it be affirmed that every social -system rests finally upon the common acceptance of certain -beliefs, any attempt to alter beliefs will tend, therefore, -in due course to affect the social system. Plato carried -this idea much farther than the question of religious -beliefs. In the *Republic* he says: "The introduction of a -new style of music must be shunned as imperilling the whole -State; since styles of music are never disturbed without -affecting the most important political institutions." "The -new style," he continues, "gradually gaining a lodgement, -quietly insinuates itself into manners and customs; and from -these it issues in greater force, and makes its way into -mutual compacts; and from making com pacts it goes on to -attack laws and constitutions, displaying the utmost -impudence until it ends by overturning everything, both in -public and in private." Plato here recognizes that if -communal relations in society are to be maintained and men -are to share common life, it can be only on the assumption -that they share common ideas and tastes. From this it -follows that the nearer a society approaches the communal -ideal the more it will insist upon unity of faith, because -the more conscious it will be of ideas that are subversive -of the social order. - -The heretic was the man who challenged this community of -beliefs, and it was for this reason that he was looked upon -as a traitor to society. In the Middle Ages a man was not -originally interfered with because he held unorthodox views. -He was interfered with because he sought by every means in -his power to spread such views among the people, and he met -with much stronger opposition from the public themselves -than from ecclesiastic authority. The ideas for which the -heretics were persecuted were individualist notions -disguised in a communist form. The heretics had no "sense of -the large proportion of things." They were not -catholic-minded in the widest meaning of the term. They had -no sense of reality, and if they had been allowed to have -their own way they would have precipitated social chaos by -preaching impossible ideals. - -The position will be better understood if we translate the -problem into the terms of the present day. Suppose the -Socialists succeeded in abolishing capitalism and -established their ideal State, and then suppose a man came -along preaching individualist ideas, attempting to bring -back capitalism in some underhand way by the popularization -of a theory the implications of which the average man did -not understand. At first, I imagine, he would not be -interfered with. If he began to make converts, however, a -time would come when Socialists would either have to consent -to the overthrow of their society in the interests of -capitalism or take measures against him. If ever they were -faced with this dilemma there can be little doubt how they -would act. The Mediaevalist attitude towards the heretic was -precisely what the Socialist attitude would be towards such -a man. The controversies over the Manichean, Arian, and -Nestorian heresies raged for centuries, and no action was -taken against them until it became clear what were the -issues involved, when the Church, through its Councils, made -definite pronouncements and the heresies were suppressed. -They were suppressed because men had instinctively come to -feel that they imperilled not only the unity of the Faith -but the unity of the social order as well. - -Historical evidence suggests that this is the right avenue -of approach, since the persecution of heretics began with -secular and not with ecclesiastical authority. During the -first three centuries of the Early Church there was no -persecution of heretics. All the influential ecclesiastics -then agreed that the civil arm might be employed to deal -with them, by prohibiting assemblies and in other ways -preventing them from spreading their views, but that the -death penalty was contrary to the spirit of the Gospel. For -centuries such was the ecclesiastical attitude, in both -theory and practice. This attitude did not recommend itself -to the successors of Constantine, however, who, continuing -in the persuasion of the Roman Emperors that the first -concern of the imperial authority was the protection of -religion, persecuted men for not being Christians, in the -same spirit that their predecessors had persecuted men -because they were Christians. At a later date---somewhere -about the year 1000---when Manicheans expelled from Bulgaria -spread themselves over Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, -the people, thinking that the clergy were supine in the -suppression of heresy, took the law into their own hands and -publicly burnt the heretics. Thus it is recorded that in -1114, when the Bishop of Soissons, who had sundry heretics -in durance in his episcopal city, went to Beauvais to ask -advice of the bishops assembled there for a synod, the -"believing folk," fearing the habitual soft-heartedness of -the ecclesiastics, stormed the prison, took the accused out -of the town and burnt them. Such incidents, which suggest -the Lynch law of America, were not uncommon in the early -Middle Ages, when the persecution of heretics was due to the -fanatical outbursts of an over-zealous populace or to the -arbitrary action of individual rulers, but never to -ecclesiastical authority. - -It was not until the latter half of the twelfth century that -the attitude of the Church changed, owing to the rise of the -Catharists, better known to history as the Albigenses, so -called from the town of Albi (in South-west France), where a -council was held against them. The Albigenses taught a creed -that carried the Manichean heresy to its logical and evil -with spirit and matter. According to them, spirit was good -and matter was evil. Hence their contempt of the body, and -hence, too, the Christian dogma of the Resurrection of the -Body, whereby it was sought to combat the evils consequent -upon such a perverted attitude towards life by affirming -"that in any final consummation the bodily life of man must -find a place no less than the spiritual."[^1] The Manichean -heresy had been taught by the Gnostic sects in the early -days of Christianity. It had been suppressed but had -reappeared again from time to time in its old form. Now, -however, it was to receive a new development. If spirit were -good and matter evil, if the bodily life of man on earth -were to be regarded as a form of penance to which man was -condemned because of evil deeds in former lives, then the -sooner he could by self-effacement and rigid discipline pay -the penalty of his misdeeds (that is, to work off the bad -karma, as Theosophists would say) the better it would be for -him. Hence it was that the ascetic rigorists among the -Albigenses preached a doctrine which was tantamount to the -advocacy of suicide---they sought to escape this life by -slow starvation. Although such extremists were at all times -few in number, they were the objects of an adoring reverence -from the people, which led to the rapid spread of such -teachings in Germany, France, and Spain. About the same -time, and mixed up with the Albigenses to some extent, there -occurred an outburst of witchcraft, magic, and sorcery---the -old religion, as the Italians call it---and the Church was -at last roused to action. Terribly afraid of this new -spirit, which she considered menaced not only her own -existence but the very foundations of society as well, the -Church in the end shrank from no cruelty that she might be -rid of it for ever. The action of the Church was rather the -result of panic produced by suspicions in the minds of -normal men than an outburst of primitive savagery. In the -South of France the Albigenses were very powerful, for not -only were they very zealous, but the nobility, for reasons -of their own, supported them, a circumstance which imparted -to the Albigenses the aspect of a powerful political party, -in addition to that of an heretical sect. They were -condemned at various Councils, including the Lateran Council -of 1179, but these condemnations merely increased the -opposition of the Albigenses. Pope Innocent III, whose -juristic mind identified heresy with high treason, resolved -to extirpate the heresy, and in 1198 he sent two Cistercian -monks to try pacific measures. These failing, he began his -serious and deliberate policy of extermination. He ordered a -crusade to be preached against the Albigenses. Indulgences -were promised to all who took part in this holy war, and -soon afterwards Simon de Montfort (father of the founder of -the English parliament) led a crusade which was carried on -until ended politically by the Treaty of Paris in 1229. The -Albigenses, as a political party, were now suppressed, and -an Inquisition was left behind to uproot any sporadic growth -of heresy. The Inquisition then established was a secular -and temporary institution. The definite participation of the -Church in the administration of the Inquisition dates from -1231, when Gregory IX placed it under ecclesiastical -control. Exact information as to the motives which led him -to take this action is lacking, but the hypothesis is -advanced by the writer of the article on the Inquisition in -the *Catholic Encyclopedia* that its introduction might be -due to the anxiety of the Pope to forestall the -encroachments of the Emperor Frederick II in the strictly -ecclesiastical province of doctrine. This hypothesis I am -disposed to accept, for it makes intelligible much that -would otherwise be obscure, and, if it be correct, means -that the establishment of the Inquisition is finally to be -attributed to the influence of Roman Law. - -It will be remembered that the Commentators won the favour -of the Emperors by declaring that, as the successors of the -Roman Emperors, their will was law, and that the -Hohenstaufen family gladly accepted this decision as a -justification of their desire for absolutism. Frederick II, -following in the footsteps of his father, Frederick -Barbarossa, sought by every means to make his power supreme -over Church and State. Bearing this in mind, it is not -unreasonable to suppose that the rigorous legislation that -he enacted against heretics, and which he unscrupulously -made use of to remove any who stood in the path of his -ambitions, was not to be attributed to his affected -eagerness for the purity of the Faith, but because he saw -that the power that persecuted heresy became, *ipso facto*, -the final authority in matters of faith, and that with such -a weapon in his hands he would be in a position to encroach -gradually upon the ecclesiastical province of doctrine, so -that finally Church doctrine would come to be as much -dependent upon the will of the Emperor as the Civil Law. It -is suggested that Gregory perceived whither Frederick's -policy was leading, and that he resolved to resist his -encroachments in the only way that was open to him. He could -not have prevented the persecution of heretics even had he -so desired, for, as we have seen, their persecution was -rooted in popular feeling. What he could do, however, was, -by regularizing the procedure, to prevent Frederick from -abusing his power, and Gregory accordingly instituted a -tribunal of ecclesiastics that would pronounce judgment on -the guilt of those accused of heresy. This action was -immediately of service to the heretics, for the regular -procedure thus introduced did much to abrogate the -arbitrariness, passion, and injustice of the civil courts of -the Emperor. - -The Church, then, undertook the task of deciding who was and -who was not a heretic, and this was as far as interference -went. What was to be done with one found guilty of heresy -was, as heretofore, left to the civil authorities to decide. -Torture had been used in civil courts as a means of -extracting evidence, but its use was for long prohibited in -the ecclesiastical courts. Its introduction into the latter -was due to Pope Clement V, who formulated regulations for -its use, but it was to be resorted to only under very -exceptional circumstances. Why the Pope should have been led -to make this decision---what especial factors should have -impelled him to take a step so fatal---is not evident, but -we do know that torture was most cruelly used when the -Inquisitors were exposed to the pressure of civil -authorities, and that in Spain, where the Inquisitors were -appointed by the Crown, the Inquisition, under the -presidency of Torquemada (1482-94) distinguished itself by -its startling and revolting cruelty. Here again, however, as -in the case of the Emperor Frederick II, it was used as an -instrument to further the political ambitions of the Kings -of Spain, who profited by the confiscation of the property -of the heretics, which was not inconsiderable, remembering -that several hundred thousand Jews at this time quitted -Spain to avoid persecution. Pope Sixtus IV made several -attempts to stop the deadly work, but was obliged through -pressure from Spain to deny the right of appeal to himself. -The situation had then got quite out of hand. The -persecution of heretics ceased to be a popular movement, and -became generally detested. Its cruel punishments, secret -proceedings, and prying methods caused universal alarm, and -led not only to uprisings of the people against a tyranny -which was regarded by many as "worse than death" but, by -investing heretics with the crown of martyrdom, defeated its -own ends and brought orthodox Christianity into discredit. -After the period of the Reformation the Inquisition relaxed -its severity, but it lingered on until it was finally -abolished in Spain in 1835. - -The passions that are aroused by the very name of the -Inquisition make it difficult to judge its work, while an -impartial history of it has yet to be written. From its -history, as from that of the persecution of heresy, there -clearly emerges the fact that religious persecution was due -in the first place to the initiative of the civil authority, -that at a later date it became a popular movement, and that -for centuries the ecclesiastics resisted the demands of both -the civil authorities and the people for persecution. -Furthermore, when the attitude of ecclesiastics changed it -was owing to the heresy of the Catharists, which threatened -at the same time not only the existence of the Church but -the very foundations of society; and that when at last the -Papacy did move in the matter it was because of the danger -that worse things might happen if the persecution of -heretics was to continue independent of ecclesiastical -direction. Looking at the dilemma which presented itself to -Gregory IX, it is extremely difficult to say which was the -less momentous of the two evils between which he had to -choose---whether he was to allow ambitious Emperors to -persecute heretics as a means of furthering their Imperial -desire to control the Church, or whether, by regularizing -the procedure, the Church might mitigate the evils of lay -prosecution, even though she incurred the odium of tyranny -as a consequence. But of this we may be certain, that the -tyranny was not only foreign to the spirit of Christianity -and ecclesiastical authority, but it was directly -attributable to the spread of Roman Law, which, awakening in -the hearts of Emperors and Kings the desire to subordinate -religion to State authority, as had been the case in Rome, -awakened also the Pagan spirit of religious persecution. The -contrary hypothesis generally held, that the religious -persecution is due to the intolerance of ecclesiastical -authority, is untenable, not only because the facts of -history flatly contradict it, but because as compulsion is -emphatically an attribute of the State, the ecclesiastical -authority is finally powerless to use it to further its ends -apart from the co-operation of the State. And the best proof -I can bring in support of this contention is that the Church -was powerless to suppress Roman Law---the heresy that laid -the foundations of materialism and undermined the position -not only of the Church but of Christianity itself---because -it was supported by the secular authorities. +An appreciation of the part which Roman Law played in the corruption of +Mediaeval society and in the creation of modern thought and civilization +should go a long way towards the removal of the prejudice which prevails +to-day against most things Mediaeval, and which distorts out of its +proper perspective everything which then existed. This prejudice has +many roots, and therefore it becomes necessary, ere proceeding with our +story, to seek the removal of the prejudice by explaining its origin. I +hope to show that though to-day this prejudice may be little more than a +misunderstanding, it did not begin as such, but as a conspiracy. + +We need not go far to find evidence in support of this contention. +Consider, for one moment, the utterly irresponsible way in which the +word Mediaeval is thrown about in the daily Press. Among a certain class +of writers it is the custom to designate as Mediaeval anything which +they do not understand or of which they do not approve, quite regardless +of the issue as to whether it actually existed in the Middle Ages or +not. During the war, for instance, how often did we read of Mediaeval +Junkerdom, notwithstanding the fact that the Middle Ages was the age of +chivalry, and that, as a matter of fact, the spirit of German militarism +approximates very nearly to that of the military capitalism of Ancient +Rome. For the Romans, like the Germans, did not hesitate to destroy the +towns and industries of their rivals. It was, as I have already pointed +out, for commercial reasons that they burnt Carthage and Corinth, and +caused the vineyards and olive-groves of Gaul to be destroyed, in order +to avoid a damaging competition with the rich Roman landlords. Or, +again, when anything goes wrong in a government department, for reasons +not apparent on the surface, the shortcoming will be described as +Mediaeval regardless of the fact that bureaucracy is a peculiarly Roman +institution and scarcely existed in the Middle Ages. There is no need to +multiply instances, as they are to be met with in the Press daily. But +the result is tragic. An all-pervading prejudice is created, which +militates against clear thinking on social and political questions, for +a prejudice against Mediaevalism is a prejudice against all normal forms +of social organization; it is a prejudice which may spell Bolshevism in +the days to come; for, after all, Bolshevism is itself nothing more than +modern prejudices and historical falsehoods carried to their logical +conclusions. + +Now, it stands to reason that this gross solecism is not without a +cause. Nobody on the Press ever speaks of Rome or Greece in this +irresponsible way, and the question needs to be answered: Why is the +Middle Ages the only period in history singled out for such thoughtless +misrepresentation? The answer is, that at one time this indiscriminate +mud-slinging had a motive behind it---a motive, however, that has since +disappeared. Cobbett, I think, got at the bottom of it when, a hundred +years ago, he pointed out that Protestant historians had wilfully +misrepresented the Middle Ages because there were so many people living +on the plunder of the monasteries and the Guilds, and consequently +interested in maintaining a prejudice against the Middle Ages, as the +easiest way of covering their tracks. It was not for nothing that +Cobbett's *History of the Reformation*was burnt by the public hangman. +It was burnt because it was more than a history---because it exposed a +conspiracy. But the prejudice exists; it has other roots which require +to be attacked. + +We need not pause to consider how the prejudices of freethinkers have +militated against an understanding of the Middle Ages, as the free +thinking of freethinkers is no longer above suspicion. In so far as +their prejudices are in these days a force to be reckoned with, it is as +a part of the Marxian or Bolshevik gospel. The rise to popularity of the +Marxian creed has given the anti-Mediaeval prejudice a new lease of +life, by refusing in the first place to admit that any but material +forces have ever played more than a secondary part in the shaping of +history, and what naturally follows from it, distorting or ignoring such +facts as do not happen to fit in with the materialist conception. How +gross are the prejudices which have been impressed upon the minds of the +workers may be understood by any one who will take the trouble to read +such a book as that produced by one of the Neo-Marxians, *A Worker Looks +at History*, by Mr. Mark Starr. It is an important book because of the +wide circulation it has amongst the workers. Popular misconceptions and +prejudices are exaggerated. In the chapter entitled "The Renaissance +from the Mediaeval Night" the author, after referring to the schools of +Alexandria, says: "Christianity proscribed philosophy, abolished the +schools, and plunged the world into an abyss of darkness from which it +only emerged after twelve hundred years." Mr. Starr is indignant at +this. But it never occurs to him to enquire what these schools taught; +and this is important. He assumes that they taught what he admires in +the Pagan philosophers, for whom I have as much regard as has Mr. Starr. +But these schools of the Neo-Platonists were degenerate institutions. +They taught everything that Mr. Starr would hate. Their teaching was +eclectic---a blending of Christian and Platonic ideas with Oriental +mysticism. They believed in magic. Their reasoning was audacious +andMarxistenious, but it was intellectual slush without any definite +form or structure. Above all, it encouraged a detachment from the +practical affairs of life, and thus became an obstruction to real +enlightenment. It was well that these schools were suppressed; they +needed suppressing, for no good can come of such misdirection of +intellectual activities, and I doubt not had Mr. Starr been then alive +he would have risen in his wrath against their unreality. The Early +Church was opposed to these degenerate intellectuals, because, while the +Church desired to establish the Kingdom of God upon Earth, they were +content for it to remain in heaven. But Mr. Starr has been so prejudiced +against Mediaevalism that he attributes to the Church all the vices +which it sought to suppress. + +Though the Early Church closed the schools of the Neo-Platonists, it did +not suppress philosophy. On the contrary, Greek culture was preserved at +Constantinople, while much of Greek philosophy was absorbed in Christian +theology. Before the close of the New Testament Canon, Greek philosophy +had begun to colour the expression of Christian doctrine; in the hands +of the Fathers of the Church it entered into its very substance. The +logos of Plato reappears as the doctrine of the Trinity, which, +incidentally, is not an explanation of the universe, but "a fence to +guard a mystery."It reappears, however, not as an intellectual +abstraction, but as a concrete reality, and, as such, possesses a +dynamic power capable of changing the world. It was this burning desire +to change the world which made the Early Christians so impatient with +the Neo-Platonists, who made speculation an excuse for inaction, as it +makes the Neo-Marxians to-day rightly impatient with a certain type of +Socialist intellectual. Moreover, it was this insistence upon practical +activity which made Christianity so dogmatic in its theology. Marxians +at any rate ought to realize that strenuous activity must rest upon +dogmas. On the other hand, the weakness of Pagan philosophy was that it +was powerless to influence life. "Cicero, the well-paid advocate of the +publicani and bankers, whom he frequently calls in the most idyllic +style *ornamentum civitatis*, *firmamentum rei publics flos equitum* +while philosophizing on virtue, despoiled with violence the inhabitants +of the province he administered, realizing, *salvis legibus*, two +million two hundred thousand sestercia in less than two months. Honest +Brutus invested his capital at Cyprus at 48%; Verres in Sicily at 24%. +Much later, when the economic dissolution of the Republic had led to the +establishing of the Empire, Seneca, who, in his philosophical writings, +preached contempt of riches, despoiled Britain by his usury." + +While the prejudice against Mediaevalism doubtless had its origin in +malice and forethought, it is encouraged by the fallacious division of +Mediaeval history into the Middle Ages and the Dark Ages. By means of +this artificial and arbitrary division the popular mind has been led to +suppose that mankind was plunged into darkness and ignorance after the +decline of Roman civilization, while it is generally inferred that this +was due to the spread of Christianity, which it is supposed exhibited a +spirit hostile to learning and enlightenment rather than to the inroads +of the barbarian tribes. A grosser travesty of historic truth was never +perpetrated. But the travesty is made plausible by the custom which many +historians have of detailing the history of a particular geographical +area, instead of making history continuous with the traditions of +thought and action, the geographical centres of which change from time +to time. Treating the history of Western Europe according to the former +method, the period of Roman occupation is followed by one of barbarism, +in which almost every trace of civilization disappears for a time, and +no doubt the people who dwelt in this part of Europe did live through a +period of darkness. That, however, was the case with the Western Empire +only. The Eastern Empire was never overrun by the barbarians. On the +contrary, its capital, Constantinople, maintained during all this period +a high state of civilization, and was the artistic and cultural centre +of the world. While the barbarian hordes were overrunning the Western +Empire, the Eastern Church preserved the traditions of Greek culture, +which, as order became restored in the West, gradually filtered through +Venice until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The subsequent +emigration of Greek scholars and artists to Italy removed the last +barrier between the culture of Eastern and Western Europe. + +It was at Constantinople, during the sixth century, that the Code of +Justinian was made. It is painful for me to have to record this fact, +seeing that it led, unfortunately, to the revival of Roman Law, and it +is mentioned here not as a recommendation, but merely as testimony to +the existence of intellectual activity during the so-called Dark Ages. +The task of extracting a code from the six camel-loads of law-book +certainly testifies to the existence of learning. Moreover, it was +during this period that the Byzantine school of architecture flourished. +The reputation of the cathedral church of Santa Sophia, built in the +sixth century, was so great that the twelfth-century William of +Malmesbury knew of it "as surpassing every other edifice in the world." +Of this architecture Professor Lethaby writes:-- + +"The debt of universal architecture to the early Christian and Byzantine +schools of builders is very great. They evolved the church types; they +carried far the exploration of domical construction, and made wonderful +balanced compositions of vaults and domes over complex plans. They +formed the belfry from the Pharos and fortification towers. We owe to +them the idea of the vaulted basilican church, which, spreading westward +over Europe, made our great vaulted cathedrals possible. They entirely +recast the secondary forms of architecture; the column was taught to +carry the arch, the capital was reconsidered as a bearing block and +became a feature of extraordinary beauty. The art of building was made +free from formulae, and architecture became an adventure in building +once more. We owe to them a new type of moulding, the germ of the Gothic +system, by the introduction of the roll-moulding and their application +of it to strings and the margins of doors. The first arch known to me +which has a series of roll-mouldings is in the palace of Mshatta. The +tendency to cast windows into groups, the ultimate source of tracery and +the foiling of arches is to be mentioned. We owe to these Christian +artists the introduction of delightfully fresh ornamentation, crisp +foliage, and interlaces, and the whole scheme of Christian iconography." + +This is no small achievement. Only an age as indifferent to the claims +of architecture as our own could underrate its magnitude. To the average +historian, however, this period of history is a blank, because he lacks +the kind of knowledge and sympathy necessary to assess its achievements +at their proper value. To his mind, enlightenment and criticism are +synonymous; and, finding no criticism, he assumes there was no +enlightenment, not understanding that criticism is the mark of +reflective rather than of creative epochs. For, though at times they +appear contemporaneously, they have different roots, and the critical +spirit soon destroys the creative, as we shall see when we come to +consider the Renaissance. How false such standards of judgment are may +be understood by comparing the Dark Ages with our own. In those days +there was plenty of architecture, but little, if any, architectural +literature. To-day the volume of architectural literature and criticism +is prodigious, but there is precious little architecture. + +While the traditions of culture all through this period were preserved +and developed in the Eastern Church with its centre at Constantinople, +the task which fell to the Western, or Roman, Church was of as different +order. Upon it was thrust the task of civilizing the barbarian races of +the West which had overthrown the Roman Empire, and it is to the credit +of the Early Church that it succeeded where the Romans had failed. +Success was achieved through different methods. Roman civilization had +been imposed by violence and maintained by compulsion: it was always an +exotic affair, and it fell to pieces when the force of the barbarians +became at last more powerful than that of the Roman Empire. The success +of Christianity is attributable to the fact that it effected a change in +the spirit of the peoples. This great achievement was the work of the +early Monastic Orders, whose missionary zeal was destined to spread +Christianity throughout Europe. + +The early Christian monks had been characterized by a decided Oriental +tendency to self-contemplation and abstraction, and in their missionary +enterprises their inter course with the rude populations was limited to +instructing them in the homilies and creeds of Christ. Augustine and his +forty companions, who were sent forth by Gregory the Great to convert +Britain (A.D. 596), "acted on a very different principle, for in +addition to the orthodox weapons of attack and persuasion which they +employed against their opponents, they made use of other, but equally +powerful, methods of subjugation, by teaching the people many useful +arts that were alike beneficial to their bodies and their minds. As soon +as they settled in Kent, and had begun to spread themselves towards the +north and west, they built barns and sheds for their cattle side by side +with their newly erected churches, and opened schools in the immediate +neighbourhood of the house of God, where the youth of the nominally +converted population were now for the first time instructed in reading, +and in the formulae of their faith and where those who were intended for +a monastic life or for the priesthood, received the more advanced +instruction necessary to their earnest calling." + +We read that the Benedictines of Abingdon, in Berkshire, were required +by their canonized founder to perform a daily portion of field labour, +in addition to the prescribed services of the Church. " In their mode of +cultivating the soil they followed the practices adopted in the warmer +and more systematically tilled lands of the south. They soon engaged the +services of the natives in the vicinity and repaid their labours with a +portion of the fruits of their toil, and in proportion as the woods and +thickets were cleared, and the swamps and morasses disappeared, the soil +yielded a more plentiful return; while the land, being leased or +sub-let, became the means of placing the monastery, which was, in fact, +the central point of the entire system, in the position of a rich +proprietor. From such centres as these the beams of a new and hopeful +life radiated in every direction." + +"The requirements of the monks, and the instruction they were able to +impart around them, soon led to the establishment in their immediate +neighbourhood of the first settlement of artificers and retail dealers, +while the excess of their crops, flocks and herds, gave rise to the +first markets, which were, as a rule, originally held before the gate of +the abbey church. Thus hamlets and towns were formed, which became the +centres of trade and general intercourse, and thus originated the market +tolls, and the jurisdiction of these spiritual lords. The beneficial +influences of the English monasteries in all departments of education +and mental culture expanded still further, even in the early times of +the Anglo-Saxons, for they had already then become conspicuous for the +proficiency which many of their members had attained in painting and +music, sculpture and architecture. The study of the sciences, which had +been greatly advanced through the exertions of Bede, was the means of +introducing one of his most celebrated followers, Alcuin of York, to the +court of Charlemagne, for the purpose of establishing schools and +learning in the German Empire. And although every monastery did not +contribute in an equal degree to all these beneficial results, all aided +to the best of their power and opportunities in bringing about that +special state of cultivation which characterised the Middle Ages." + +So much for the Dark Ages and the malicious libel which insinuates that +the Mediaeval world was opposed to learning. So far from such +insinuations being true, every Monastic Order, for whatever purpose +originally founded, ended in becoming a learned order. It was the +recognition of this fact that led St. Francis, who was a genuinely +practical man, to insist that his followers should not become learned or +seek their pleasures in books, "for I am afraid," he says, "that the +doctors will be the destruction of my vineyard." And here is found the +paradox of the situation: so long as learning was in the hands of men +who valued it as such it made little headway, but when at length the new +impulse did come, it came in no small measure from the Franciscans, from +the men who had the courage to renounce learning and to lead a life of +poverty, for in the course of time the Franciscans became learned, as +had done the other orders. Thus we see that the central idea of +Christianity---to renounce the world in order to conquer it---bears +fruit not only in the moral but in the intellectual universe. + +Sufficient has now been said to refute the charge that the Mediaeval +Church was opposed to learning. The case of the Franciscans in decrying +learning is the only one known to me, and their action, as we shall see +in a later chapter, turned out to be a blessing in disguise. What the +Mediaeval Church was against was heresy, which was often associated with +learning, but the suppression of heresy is a thing fundamentally +different from opposition to learning, and there is nothing peculiarly +Mediaeval about it. The Greeks condemned Socrates to death for seeking +to discredit the gods, while Plato himself came finally to the +conclusion that in his ideal State to doubt the gods would be punishable +by death. The Roman Emperors persecuted the Christians for refusing +observance to the gods, Marcus Aurelius himself being no exception to +this rule, while we ourselves show equal readiness to persecute heresy +against the State, as in the case of the pacifist conscientious +objectors. And so it will always be when great issues are at stake. A +people with a firm grip on fundamental truth attacks heresy at its roots +in ideas. A people like ourselves, that has lost its grip on primary +truth, waits until it begins to influence action, but once the heresy is +recognized, all peoples in all times have sought its suppression. + +Before going further, let us be clear in our minds as to what we mean by +heresy. At different times it has meant different things, but, in +general, it might be defined as the advocacy of ideas which, at a given +time in a given place, are considered by those in power as subversive to +the social order, and the instinct of self-preservation has impelled all +peoples in all times to suppress such ideas. In the Mediaeval period +such persecutions were associated with religion, because in that era all +ideas, social and political, were discussed under a theological aspect. +The position is simple. If it be affirmed that every social system rests +finally upon the common acceptance of certain beliefs, any attempt to +alter beliefs will tend, therefore, in due course to affect the social +system. Plato carried this idea much farther than the question of +religious beliefs. In the *Republic* he says: "The introduction of a new +style of music must be shunned as imperilling the whole State; since +styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important +political institutions." "The new style," he continues, "gradually +gaining a lodgement, quietly insinuates itself into manners and customs; +and from these it issues in greater force, and makes its way into mutual +compacts; and from making com pacts it goes on to attack laws and +constitutions, displaying the utmost impudence until it ends by +overturning everything, both in public and in private." Plato here +recognizes that if communal relations in society are to be maintained +and men are to share common life, it can be only on the assumption that +they share common ideas and tastes. From this it follows that the nearer +a society approaches the communal ideal the more it will insist upon +unity of faith, because the more conscious it will be of ideas that are +subversive of the social order. + +The heretic was the man who challenged this community of beliefs, and it +was for this reason that he was looked upon as a traitor to society. In +the Middle Ages a man was not originally interfered with because he held +unorthodox views. He was interfered with because he sought by every +means in his power to spread such views among the people, and he met +with much stronger opposition from the public themselves than from +ecclesiastic authority. The ideas for which the heretics were persecuted +were individualist notions disguised in a communist form. The heretics +had no "sense of the large proportion of things." They were not +catholic-minded in the widest meaning of the term. They had no sense of +reality, and if they had been allowed to have their own way they would +have precipitated social chaos by preaching impossible ideals. + +The position will be better understood if we translate the problem into +the terms of the present day. Suppose the Socialists succeeded in +abolishing capitalism and established their ideal State, and then +suppose a man came along preaching individualist ideas, attempting to +bring back capitalism in some underhand way by the popularization of a +theory the implications of which the average man did not understand. At +first, I imagine, he would not be interfered with. If he began to make +converts, however, a time would come when Socialists would either have +to consent to the overthrow of their society in the interests of +capitalism or take measures against him. If ever they were faced with +this dilemma there can be little doubt how they would act. The +Mediaevalist attitude towards the heretic was precisely what the +Socialist attitude would be towards such a man. The controversies over +the Manichean, Arian, and Nestorian heresies raged for centuries, and no +action was taken against them until it became clear what were the issues +involved, when the Church, through its Councils, made definite +pronouncements and the heresies were suppressed. They were suppressed +because men had instinctively come to feel that they imperilled not only +the unity of the Faith but the unity of the social order as well. + +Historical evidence suggests that this is the right avenue of approach, +since the persecution of heretics began with secular and not with +ecclesiastical authority. During the first three centuries of the Early +Church there was no persecution of heretics. All the influential +ecclesiastics then agreed that the civil arm might be employed to deal +with them, by prohibiting assemblies and in other ways preventing them +from spreading their views, but that the death penalty was contrary to +the spirit of the Gospel. For centuries such was the ecclesiastical +attitude, in both theory and practice. This attitude did not recommend +itself to the successors of Constantine, however, who, continuing in the +persuasion of the Roman Emperors that the first concern of the imperial +authority was the protection of religion, persecuted men for not being +Christians, in the same spirit that their predecessors had persecuted +men because they were Christians. At a later date---somewhere about the +year 1000---when Manicheans expelled from Bulgaria spread themselves +over Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, the people, thinking that the +clergy were supine in the suppression of heresy, took the law into their +own hands and publicly burnt the heretics. Thus it is recorded that in +1114, when the Bishop of Soissons, who had sundry heretics in durance in +his episcopal city, went to Beauvais to ask advice of the bishops +assembled there for a synod, the "believing folk," fearing the habitual +soft-heartedness of the ecclesiastics, stormed the prison, took the +accused out of the town and burnt them. Such incidents, which suggest +the Lynch law of America, were not uncommon in the early Middle Ages, +when the persecution of heretics was due to the fanatical outbursts of +an over-zealous populace or to the arbitrary action of individual +rulers, but never to ecclesiastical authority. + +It was not until the latter half of the twelfth century that the +attitude of the Church changed, owing to the rise of the Catharists, +better known to history as the Albigenses, so called from the town of +Albi (in South-west France), where a council was held against them. The +Albigenses taught a creed that carried the Manichean heresy to its +logical and evil with spirit and matter. According to them, spirit was +good and matter was evil. Hence their contempt of the body, and hence, +too, the Christian dogma of the Resurrection of the Body, whereby it was +sought to combat the evils consequent upon such a perverted attitude +towards life by affirming "that in any final consummation the bodily +life of man must find a place no less than the spiritual."[^1] The +Manichean heresy had been taught by the Gnostic sects in the early days +of Christianity. It had been suppressed but had reappeared again from +time to time in its old form. Now, however, it was to receive a new +development. If spirit were good and matter evil, if the bodily life of +man on earth were to be regarded as a form of penance to which man was +condemned because of evil deeds in former lives, then the sooner he +could by self-effacement and rigid discipline pay the penalty of his +misdeeds (that is, to work off the bad karma, as Theosophists would say) +the better it would be for him. Hence it was that the ascetic rigorists +among the Albigenses preached a doctrine which was tantamount to the +advocacy of suicide---they sought to escape this life by slow +starvation. Although such extremists were at all times few in number, +they were the objects of an adoring reverence from the people, which led +to the rapid spread of such teachings in Germany, France, and Spain. +About the same time, and mixed up with the Albigenses to some extent, +there occurred an outburst of witchcraft, magic, and sorcery---the old +religion, as the Italians call it---and the Church was at last roused to +action. Terribly afraid of this new spirit, which she considered menaced +not only her own existence but the very foundations of society as well, +the Church in the end shrank from no cruelty that she might be rid of it +for ever. The action of the Church was rather the result of panic +produced by suspicions in the minds of normal men than an outburst of +primitive savagery. In the South of France the Albigenses were very +powerful, for not only were they very zealous, but the nobility, for +reasons of their own, supported them, a circumstance which imparted to +the Albigenses the aspect of a powerful political party, in addition to +that of an heretical sect. They were condemned at various Councils, +including the Lateran Council of 1179, but these condemnations merely +increased the opposition of the Albigenses. Pope Innocent III, whose +juristic mind identified heresy with high treason, resolved to extirpate +the heresy, and in 1198 he sent two Cistercian monks to try pacific +measures. These failing, he began his serious and deliberate policy of +extermination. He ordered a crusade to be preached against the +Albigenses. Indulgences were promised to all who took part in this holy +war, and soon afterwards Simon de Montfort (father of the founder of the +English parliament) led a crusade which was carried on until ended +politically by the Treaty of Paris in 1229. The Albigenses, as a +political party, were now suppressed, and an Inquisition was left behind +to uproot any sporadic growth of heresy. The Inquisition then +established was a secular and temporary institution. The definite +participation of the Church in the administration of the Inquisition +dates from 1231, when Gregory IX placed it under ecclesiastical control. +Exact information as to the motives which led him to take this action is +lacking, but the hypothesis is advanced by the writer of the article on +the Inquisition in the *Catholic Encyclopedia* that its introduction +might be due to the anxiety of the Pope to forestall the encroachments +of the Emperor Frederick II in the strictly ecclesiastical province of +doctrine. This hypothesis I am disposed to accept, for it makes +intelligible much that would otherwise be obscure, and, if it be +correct, means that the establishment of the Inquisition is finally to +be attributed to the influence of Roman Law. + +It will be remembered that the Commentators won the favour of the +Emperors by declaring that, as the successors of the Roman Emperors, +their will was law, and that the Hohenstaufen family gladly accepted +this decision as a justification of their desire for absolutism. +Frederick II, following in the footsteps of his father, Frederick +Barbarossa, sought by every means to make his power supreme over Church +and State. Bearing this in mind, it is not unreasonable to suppose that +the rigorous legislation that he enacted against heretics, and which he +unscrupulously made use of to remove any who stood in the path of his +ambitions, was not to be attributed to his affected eagerness for the +purity of the Faith, but because he saw that the power that persecuted +heresy became, *ipso facto*, the final authority in matters of faith, +and that with such a weapon in his hands he would be in a position to +encroach gradually upon the ecclesiastical province of doctrine, so that +finally Church doctrine would come to be as much dependent upon the will +of the Emperor as the Civil Law. It is suggested that Gregory perceived +whither Frederick's policy was leading, and that he resolved to resist +his encroachments in the only way that was open to him. He could not +have prevented the persecution of heretics even had he so desired, for, +as we have seen, their persecution was rooted in popular feeling. What +he could do, however, was, by regularizing the procedure, to prevent +Frederick from abusing his power, and Gregory accordingly instituted a +tribunal of ecclesiastics that would pronounce judgment on the guilt of +those accused of heresy. This action was immediately of service to the +heretics, for the regular procedure thus introduced did much to abrogate +the arbitrariness, passion, and injustice of the civil courts of the +Emperor. + +The Church, then, undertook the task of deciding who was and who was not +a heretic, and this was as far as interference went. What was to be done +with one found guilty of heresy was, as heretofore, left to the civil +authorities to decide. Torture had been used in civil courts as a means +of extracting evidence, but its use was for long prohibited in the +ecclesiastical courts. Its introduction into the latter was due to Pope +Clement V, who formulated regulations for its use, but it was to be +resorted to only under very exceptional circumstances. Why the Pope +should have been led to make this decision---what especial factors +should have impelled him to take a step so fatal---is not evident, but +we do know that torture was most cruelly used when the Inquisitors were +exposed to the pressure of civil authorities, and that in Spain, where +the Inquisitors were appointed by the Crown, the Inquisition, under the +presidency of Torquemada (1482-94) distinguished itself by its startling +and revolting cruelty. Here again, however, as in the case of the +Emperor Frederick II, it was used as an instrument to further the +political ambitions of the Kings of Spain, who profited by the +confiscation of the property of the heretics, which was not +inconsiderable, remembering that several hundred thousand Jews at this +time quitted Spain to avoid persecution. Pope Sixtus IV made several +attempts to stop the deadly work, but was obliged through pressure from +Spain to deny the right of appeal to himself. The situation had then got +quite out of hand. The persecution of heretics ceased to be a popular +movement, and became generally detested. Its cruel punishments, secret +proceedings, and prying methods caused universal alarm, and led not only +to uprisings of the people against a tyranny which was regarded by many +as "worse than death" but, by investing heretics with the crown of +martyrdom, defeated its own ends and brought orthodox Christianity into +discredit. After the period of the Reformation the Inquisition relaxed +its severity, but it lingered on until it was finally abolished in Spain +in 1835. + +The passions that are aroused by the very name of the Inquisition make +it difficult to judge its work, while an impartial history of it has yet +to be written. From its history, as from that of the persecution of +heresy, there clearly emerges the fact that religious persecution was +due in the first place to the initiative of the civil authority, that at +a later date it became a popular movement, and that for centuries the +ecclesiastics resisted the demands of both the civil authorities and the +people for persecution. Furthermore, when the attitude of ecclesiastics +changed it was owing to the heresy of the Catharists, which threatened +at the same time not only the existence of the Church but the very +foundations of society; and that when at last the Papacy did move in the +matter it was because of the danger that worse things might happen if +the persecution of heretics was to continue independent of +ecclesiastical direction. Looking at the dilemma which presented itself +to Gregory IX, it is extremely difficult to say which was the less +momentous of the two evils between which he had to choose---whether he +was to allow ambitious Emperors to persecute heretics as a means of +furthering their Imperial desire to control the Church, or whether, by +regularizing the procedure, the Church might mitigate the evils of lay +prosecution, even though she incurred the odium of tyranny as a +consequence. But of this we may be certain, that the tyranny was not +only foreign to the spirit of Christianity and ecclesiastical authority, +but it was directly attributable to the spread of Roman Law, which, +awakening in the hearts of Emperors and Kings the desire to subordinate +religion to State authority, as had been the case in Rome, awakened also +the Pagan spirit of religious persecution. The contrary hypothesis +generally held, that the religious persecution is due to the intolerance +of ecclesiastical authority, is untenable, not only because the facts of +history flatly contradict it, but because as compulsion is emphatically +an attribute of the State, the ecclesiastical authority is finally +powerless to use it to further its ends apart from the co-operation of +the State. And the best proof I can bring in support of this contention +is that the Church was powerless to suppress Roman Law---the heresy that +laid the foundations of materialism and undermined the position not only +of the Church but of Christianity itself---because it was supported by +the secular authorities. # Mediaevalism and Science -Everybody nowadays is willing to grant that the Middle Ages -was great in architecture; though I would remind admirers of -Gothic that this appreciation is quite a recent thing. The -right to admire Gothic had to be fought for. Less than a -hundred years ago Sir Walter Scott thought it necessary to -apologize to his readers for his love of it. This change of -opinion as to the merits of Gothic is due to the powerful -advocacy of Ruskin and to the activities of the architects -of the Gothic Revival. We are now beginning to realize that -the Medievalists knew something about economics and social -organization. But few people realize that not only was the -basis of science laid in the Middle Ages but that its -methods remain Mediaeval to this day, for in this respect -science remained unaffected by the influence of the -Renaissance. - -That so much ignorance should obtain on this subject is due -to the conspiracy about things Mediaeval which Cobbett was -the first to expose. The popular notion is that during the -"long Mediaeval night," when the Church held sway over men's -minds, education was hampered; Papal Bulls forbade the study -of chemistry and practical anatomy, as dissection of the -human body was regarded as an heretical experiment; all -reasoning was deductive, and such experimentalists as there -were wasted their time in the search for the philosopher's -stone which was to transmute base metal into gold, or for -the elixir of life; whilst the bulk of the people were kept -in a state of "grovelling ignorance and superstition." All -advance was made by scholars who were persecuted by the -Church in order to keep the people in subjection to its -tyranny, and the results of their labours have enabled -science to confer untold benefits upon civilization. But I -will not press this latter point. Poison gas, liquid fire, -and bombs from aeroplanes, have brought a doubt into many -minds as to the truly beneficial intentions of science, and -there are many in these days who incline to the view that -the "Mediaeval prejudice," so called, was not altogether -unjustified after all. - -In these circumstances it is somewhat distressing to find -that the Medievalists had no such prejudice. It is possible -they might have had, could they have clearly foreseen all -the horrors which science has let loose upon the world. But -they were not sufficiently far-sighted, and as a matter of -fact they applied themselves to the study of science with -great avidity. It will clear the air if we begin by bringing -evidence to refute these popularly accepted notions. The -supposed Papal decree forbidding the study of chemistry -turns out on examination to be nothing of the kind. The -decretal of John XXII (1316-34) did not aim at the chemist, -but at the abuse of chemistry by the alchemist, who incident -ally was not the fool he is popularly imagined to be, but a -trickster who cast counterfeit money and a fraudulent -company promoter who got money out of people by getting them -to subscribe to schemes for extracting gold from -sea-water,and it was on this account that he was condemned. -Legitimate science, as we shall see later, was encouraged -and subsidized by the Popes. Meanwhile it may be observed -that while the Mediaevalists distinguished between chemistry -and alchemy, no such distinction obtains to-day. Our -alchemists do not waste their time in attempting to make -gold out of silver; they have found a much more profitable -business in making wool out of cotton, silk out of wood, and -leather out of paper; while these abuses are not in these -days forbidden by Papal Bulls but are taught and encouraged -at our technical universities. - -Now let us turn to the supposed prohibition of dissection -which it is popularly taught was regarded as an heretical -experiment because it came into collision with the Christian -dogma of the Resurrection of the Body. There may, of course, -have been ignorant people who objected to it on this score, -but such an objection could not have been advanced -officially because, as we saw in the last chapter, the dogma -does not relate to our existing physical bodies but to the -fact "that in any final consummation the bodily life of man -must find a place no less than the spiritual." Such being -the case, it is not surprising to find that in the Middle -Ages no objection was made officially to dissection on -religious grounds. The Bull promulgated by Boniface VIII -which has so often been interpreted as forbidding dissection -had another purpose. Its aim was to stop a barbarous custom -which had grown up of boiling the corpses of distinguished -people who had died in foreign lands in order to remove the -flesh before sending the bones home to be buried. Bene dict -XIV on being asked as to whether this Bull forbade -dissection replied as follows:-- - -"By the singular beneficence of God the study of medicine -flourished in a very wonderful manner in this city (Rome). -Its professors are known for their supreme talents to the -remotest parts of the earth. There is no doubt that they -have greatly benefited by the diligent labour which they -have devoted to dissection. From this practice beyond doubt -they have gained a profound knowledge of their art and a -proficiency that has enabled them to give advice for the -benefit of the ailing as well as a skill in the curing of -disease. Now such dissection of bodies is in no way contrary -to the Bull of Pope Boniface. He indeed imposed the penalty -of excommunication, to be remitted only by the Sovereign -Pontiff himself, upon all those who would dare to disembowel -the body of any dead person and either dismember it or -horribly cut it up, separating the flesh from the bones. -From the rest of this Bull, however, it is clear that this -penalty was only to be inflicted upon those who took bodies -already buried out of their graves, and, by an act horrible -in itself, cut them in pieces in order that they might carry -them elsewhere and place them in another tomb. It is very -clear, however, that by this, the dissection of bodies, -which has proved so necessary for those exercising the -profession of medicine is by no means forbidden."This reply -of the Pope's ought to settle the question, but if further -corroboration is needed it may be mentioned that at this -time dissection was carried on in all the important cities -in Italy, at Verona, Pisa, Naples, Bologna, Florence, Padua, -Venice, and at the Papal Medical School at Rome. - -Let us now pass on to consider the introduction of science -into Europe by the Saracens. As a plain statement of fact, -Europe in the Middle Ages did get science from the Saracens. -This is perfectly true. But the deduction it is usual to -make from this fact---namely, that the lower state of -Western European civilization at that time was due to the -prejudice against science of the Mediaeval mind under the -influence of Christianity---is most demonstrably false. The -difference between the two levels of civilization is to be -accounted for by the simple fact that whereas the Saracens -established their Empire over communities already civilized -in which the traditions of Roman civilization survived, the -Mediaeval Church had the much more difficult task of -rebuilding Western civilization from its very foundations -after it had been entirely destroyed by the barbarians. -Naturally this, in its early stages, was a much slower -process. Bearing in mind these circumstances, there is -nothing remarkable in the fact that the Saracens knew of -Aristotle and the sciences at a time when Western Europeans -did not. But that the Medievalists accepted them from the -Saracens is surely evidence of an open-mindedness which did -not disdain to learn from a heterodox enemy, rather than of -an incurable prejudice against all new kinds of knowledge. -How unsubstantial is this charge against the influence of -Christianity becomes apparent when the question is asked, -Whence did the Saracens get their knowledge of Aristotle and -the sciences? They could not have got it direct from the -Greeks, for Mahomet was not born until the year A.D. 571, -and as Christianity had established itself at least two -centuries before in the communities around and east of the -Mediterranean basin, apart from other evidence it would be a -reasonable speculation to assume that they got their -knowledge from some Christian source. But it so happens that -this is not a matter of speculation but of ascertained -historical fact, the Christian sect of Nestorians having -been the connecting link by which Greek science and -philosophy were transmitted from the conquered to the -conquerors, and it came about this way: - -"When the Caliphate was usurped by the Umayyad, the -fugitive Abbasid princes, Abbas and Ali, sojourned among the -Nestorians of Arabia, Mesopotamia and Western Persia and -from them acquired a knowledge and a love of Greek Science -and philosophy. Upon the accession of the Abbasid dynasty to -the Caliphate in A.D. 750, learned Nestorians were summoned -to court. By them Greek books were translated into Arabic -from the original or from Syriac translations and the -foundations laid of Arabic science and philosophy. In the -ninth century the school of Bagdad began to flourish, just -when the schools of Christendom were falling into decay in -the West and into decrepitude in the East. The newly -awakened Moslem intellect busied itself at first chiefly -with mathematics and medical science; afterwards Aristotle -threw his spell over it and an immense system of -orientalized Aristotelianism was the result. From the East -Moslem learning was carried into Spain; and from Spain -Aristotle re-entered Northern Europe once more and -revolutionized the intellectual life of Christendom far more -completely than he had revolutionized the intellectual life -of Islam. - -"During the course of the twelfth century a struggle had -been going on in the bosom of Islam between the philosophers -and the theologians. It was just at the moment when, through -the favour of the Caliph Al-Mansur, the theologians had -succeeded in crushing the philosophers that the torch of -Aristotelian thought was handed on to Christendom. The -history of Arabic philosophy, which had never succeeded in -touching the religious life of the people or leaving a -permanent stamp upon the religion of Mohammed, ends with the -death of Averroes in 1198. The history of Christian -Aristotelianism and of the new scholastic theology which was -based upon it begins just when the history of Arabic +Everybody nowadays is willing to grant that the Middle Ages was great in +architecture; though I would remind admirers of Gothic that this +appreciation is quite a recent thing. The right to admire Gothic had to +be fought for. Less than a hundred years ago Sir Walter Scott thought it +necessary to apologize to his readers for his love of it. This change of +opinion as to the merits of Gothic is due to the powerful advocacy of +Ruskin and to the activities of the architects of the Gothic Revival. We +are now beginning to realize that the Medievalists knew something about +economics and social organization. But few people realize that not only +was the basis of science laid in the Middle Ages but that its methods +remain Mediaeval to this day, for in this respect science remained +unaffected by the influence of the Renaissance. + +That so much ignorance should obtain on this subject is due to the +conspiracy about things Mediaeval which Cobbett was the first to expose. +The popular notion is that during the "long Mediaeval night," when the +Church held sway over men's minds, education was hampered; Papal Bulls +forbade the study of chemistry and practical anatomy, as dissection of +the human body was regarded as an heretical experiment; all reasoning +was deductive, and such experimentalists as there were wasted their time +in the search for the philosopher's stone which was to transmute base +metal into gold, or for the elixir of life; whilst the bulk of the +people were kept in a state of "grovelling ignorance and superstition." +All advance was made by scholars who were persecuted by the Church in +order to keep the people in subjection to its tyranny, and the results +of their labours have enabled science to confer untold benefits upon +civilization. But I will not press this latter point. Poison gas, liquid +fire, and bombs from aeroplanes, have brought a doubt into many minds as +to the truly beneficial intentions of science, and there are many in +these days who incline to the view that the "Mediaeval prejudice," so +called, was not altogether unjustified after all. + +In these circumstances it is somewhat distressing to find that the +Medievalists had no such prejudice. It is possible they might have had, +could they have clearly foreseen all the horrors which science has let +loose upon the world. But they were not sufficiently far-sighted, and as +a matter of fact they applied themselves to the study of science with +great avidity. It will clear the air if we begin by bringing evidence to +refute these popularly accepted notions. The supposed Papal decree +forbidding the study of chemistry turns out on examination to be nothing +of the kind. The decretal of John XXII (1316-34) did not aim at the +chemist, but at the abuse of chemistry by the alchemist, who incident +ally was not the fool he is popularly imagined to be, but a trickster +who cast counterfeit money and a fraudulent company promoter who got +money out of people by getting them to subscribe to schemes for +extracting gold from sea-water,and it was on this account that he was +condemned. Legitimate science, as we shall see later, was encouraged and +subsidized by the Popes. Meanwhile it may be observed that while the +Mediaevalists distinguished between chemistry and alchemy, no such +distinction obtains to-day. Our alchemists do not waste their time in +attempting to make gold out of silver; they have found a much more +profitable business in making wool out of cotton, silk out of wood, and +leather out of paper; while these abuses are not in these days forbidden +by Papal Bulls but are taught and encouraged at our technical +universities. + +Now let us turn to the supposed prohibition of dissection which it is +popularly taught was regarded as an heretical experiment because it came +into collision with the Christian dogma of the Resurrection of the Body. +There may, of course, have been ignorant people who objected to it on +this score, but such an objection could not have been advanced +officially because, as we saw in the last chapter, the dogma does not +relate to our existing physical bodies but to the fact "that in any +final consummation the bodily life of man must find a place no less than +the spiritual." Such being the case, it is not surprising to find that +in the Middle Ages no objection was made officially to dissection on +religious grounds. The Bull promulgated by Boniface VIII which has so +often been interpreted as forbidding dissection had another purpose. Its +aim was to stop a barbarous custom which had grown up of boiling the +corpses of distinguished people who had died in foreign lands in order +to remove the flesh before sending the bones home to be buried. Bene +dict XIV on being asked as to whether this Bull forbade dissection +replied as follows:-- + +"By the singular beneficence of God the study of medicine flourished in +a very wonderful manner in this city (Rome). Its professors are known +for their supreme talents to the remotest parts of the earth. There is +no doubt that they have greatly benefited by the diligent labour which +they have devoted to dissection. From this practice beyond doubt they +have gained a profound knowledge of their art and a proficiency that has +enabled them to give advice for the benefit of the ailing as well as a +skill in the curing of disease. Now such dissection of bodies is in no +way contrary to the Bull of Pope Boniface. He indeed imposed the penalty +of excommunication, to be remitted only by the Sovereign Pontiff +himself, upon all those who would dare to disembowel the body of any +dead person and either dismember it or horribly cut it up, separating +the flesh from the bones. From the rest of this Bull, however, it is +clear that this penalty was only to be inflicted upon those who took +bodies already buried out of their graves, and, by an act horrible in +itself, cut them in pieces in order that they might carry them elsewhere +and place them in another tomb. It is very clear, however, that by this, +the dissection of bodies, which has proved so necessary for those +exercising the profession of medicine is by no means forbidden."This +reply of the Pope's ought to settle the question, but if further +corroboration is needed it may be mentioned that at this time dissection +was carried on in all the important cities in Italy, at Verona, Pisa, +Naples, Bologna, Florence, Padua, Venice, and at the Papal Medical +School at Rome. + +Let us now pass on to consider the introduction of science into Europe +by the Saracens. As a plain statement of fact, Europe in the Middle Ages +did get science from the Saracens. This is perfectly true. But the +deduction it is usual to make from this fact---namely, that the lower +state of Western European civilization at that time was due to the +prejudice against science of the Mediaeval mind under the influence of +Christianity---is most demonstrably false. The difference between the +two levels of civilization is to be accounted for by the simple fact +that whereas the Saracens established their Empire over communities +already civilized in which the traditions of Roman civilization +survived, the Mediaeval Church had the much more difficult task of +rebuilding Western civilization from its very foundations after it had +been entirely destroyed by the barbarians. Naturally this, in its early +stages, was a much slower process. Bearing in mind these circumstances, +there is nothing remarkable in the fact that the Saracens knew of +Aristotle and the sciences at a time when Western Europeans did not. But +that the Medievalists accepted them from the Saracens is surely evidence +of an open-mindedness which did not disdain to learn from a heterodox +enemy, rather than of an incurable prejudice against all new kinds of +knowledge. How unsubstantial is this charge against the influence of +Christianity becomes apparent when the question is asked, Whence did the +Saracens get their knowledge of Aristotle and the sciences? They could +not have got it direct from the Greeks, for Mahomet was not born until +the year A.D. 571, and as Christianity had established itself at least +two centuries before in the communities around and east of the +Mediterranean basin, apart from other evidence it would be a reasonable +speculation to assume that they got their knowledge from some Christian +source. But it so happens that this is not a matter of speculation but +of ascertained historical fact, the Christian sect of Nestorians having +been the connecting link by which Greek science and philosophy were +transmitted from the conquered to the conquerors, and it came about this +way: + +"When the Caliphate was usurped by the Umayyad, the fugitive Abbasid +princes, Abbas and Ali, sojourned among the Nestorians of Arabia, +Mesopotamia and Western Persia and from them acquired a knowledge and a +love of Greek Science and philosophy. Upon the accession of the Abbasid +dynasty to the Caliphate in A.D. 750, learned Nestorians were summoned +to court. By them Greek books were translated into Arabic from the +original or from Syriac translations and the foundations laid of Arabic +science and philosophy. In the ninth century the school of Bagdad began +to flourish, just when the schools of Christendom were falling into +decay in the West and into decrepitude in the East. The newly awakened +Moslem intellect busied itself at first chiefly with mathematics and +medical science; afterwards Aristotle threw his spell over it and an +immense system of orientalized Aristotelianism was the result. From the +East Moslem learning was carried into Spain; and from Spain Aristotle +re-entered Northern Europe once more and revolutionized the intellectual +life of Christendom far more completely than he had revolutionized the +intellectual life of Islam. + +"During the course of the twelfth century a struggle had been going on +in the bosom of Islam between the philosophers and the theologians. It +was just at the moment when, through the favour of the Caliph Al-Mansur, +the theologians had succeeded in crushing the philosophers that the +torch of Aristotelian thought was handed on to Christendom. The history +of Arabic philosophy, which had never succeeded in touching the +religious life of the people or leaving a permanent stamp upon the +religion of Mohammed, ends with the death of Averroes in 1198. The +history of Christian Aristotelianism and of the new scholastic theology +which was based upon it begins just when the history of Arabic Aristotelianism comes abruptly to a close." -Early in the thirteenth century Aristotle made his debut in -the University of Paris. But the translations studied were -not taken from the Greek but from the Arabic. Thus Aristotle -arrived in an orientalized dress and was accompanied by -commentators and by independent works of Arabian -philosophers, some of which claimed the sanction of -Aristotle's name. This new learning, which brought with it a -whole cargo of heresies, was associated with the name of -Averroes (who incidentally was persecuted by the Saracens as -a heretic during his lifetime and remembered only as a -physician and jurist after his death). "It stirred the -mental powers to recover an earlier and now lost truth -sometimes moving the mind to science, sometimes to strange -apocalyptic vision; now to a conviction that a fresh -outpouring of the Spirit was impending, now to pantheistic -denial of all explicit revelation or positive religion, now -to a defiant sectarianism, now to the wild torture of -ascetic individualism."Whatever the form, all were animated -by a genuine hostility to the powers that were, and Paris -was the scene of an outburst of free thought which at one -time promised to pass far beyond the limits of the schools. -This outbreak of heresy goes far to explain the alarm with -which the advent of the Arabic Aristotle was at first -regarded. It was followed by a persecution of heretics. In -1210 "a batch of persons infected with heresy priests and -clerks from the neighbouring Grand-pont were handed over to -the secular arm, some for the stake, others for perpetual -imprisonment. At the same time the books of Aristotle upon -natural philosophy and his commentators were forbidden to be -read at Paris publicly or privately for a period of three -years." - -The rapidity with which Aristotle, and even his Arabic -commentators, lived down these suspicions and was -transformed into a pillar of orthodoxy is one of the most -remarkable facts in the history of the Middle Ages. The -study of Aristotle had been forbidden by the Council of -Paris. It was renewed by Pope Gregory IX in 1231 but with -the significant reservation "until they have been examined -and purged of all heresy." But this ban was soon removed. -Copies of Aristotle in the original Greek were obtained from -Constantinople, and with the aid of these the theologians -soon learnt the art of distinguishing the genuine Aristotle -from spurious imitations and assisted greatly in the -advancement and purification of science by the resistance -they offered to the study of alchemy, astrology and magic -with which in those days it was associated. In 1254 nearly -the whole range of Aristotelian writings were prescribed by -a statue of the Faculty of Arts at Paris as textbooks for -its masters. - -These facts, then, make it clear that there was no -opposition to the study of Aristotle and the sciences as -such, but to the heresies which were associated with them. -Experience proved that so far from this opposition being -detrimental to the cause of science it had the opposite -effect of furthering its interests by cleansing it of -falsities. The task of proving to the world that faith and -science might go hand in hand was the work of the two great -monastic orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis, which came -into existence about this time and immediately owed their -existence to the need of defending Christendom against the -new forces of wealth and learning which threatened it with -ruin. The intellectual life of Europe for the next two -centuries is so intimately bound up with these two great -orders that it becomes necessary to pause to give a brief -account of them. - -While both of these orders attacked what was ultimately the -same problem, they attacked it in fundamentally different -ways. The problem as St. Francis saw it was that the social -evils and heresies had their root in a corrupted human -nature to which men became increasingly liable as they -acquired wealth and so lost touch with the primary facts of -life. St. Francis was a simple, unintellectual layman, and -confronted with the problems of his age, he turned his back -upon the world with its wealth, its learning and its -heresies, which he regarded as vanities, and taught a gospel -of poverty, work and renunciation. His followers were to -renounce wealth and all intellectual pursuits and seek -salvation through work. They were to labour among the poor, -and in order that they might be of service to them they were -to seek identity with them in position and fortune. In a -word, the Franciscans were the Salvation Army of their day, -differing with them to the extent that they eventually +Early in the thirteenth century Aristotle made his debut in the +University of Paris. But the translations studied were not taken from +the Greek but from the Arabic. Thus Aristotle arrived in an orientalized +dress and was accompanied by commentators and by independent works of +Arabian philosophers, some of which claimed the sanction of Aristotle's +name. This new learning, which brought with it a whole cargo of +heresies, was associated with the name of Averroes (who incidentally was +persecuted by the Saracens as a heretic during his lifetime and +remembered only as a physician and jurist after his death). "It stirred +the mental powers to recover an earlier and now lost truth sometimes +moving the mind to science, sometimes to strange apocalyptic vision; now +to a conviction that a fresh outpouring of the Spirit was impending, now +to pantheistic denial of all explicit revelation or positive religion, +now to a defiant sectarianism, now to the wild torture of ascetic +individualism."Whatever the form, all were animated by a genuine +hostility to the powers that were, and Paris was the scene of an +outburst of free thought which at one time promised to pass far beyond +the limits of the schools. This outbreak of heresy goes far to explain +the alarm with which the advent of the Arabic Aristotle was at first +regarded. It was followed by a persecution of heretics. In 1210 "a batch +of persons infected with heresy priests and clerks from the neighbouring +Grand-pont were handed over to the secular arm, some for the stake, +others for perpetual imprisonment. At the same time the books of +Aristotle upon natural philosophy and his commentators were forbidden to +be read at Paris publicly or privately for a period of three years." + +The rapidity with which Aristotle, and even his Arabic commentators, +lived down these suspicions and was transformed into a pillar of +orthodoxy is one of the most remarkable facts in the history of the +Middle Ages. The study of Aristotle had been forbidden by the Council of +Paris. It was renewed by Pope Gregory IX in 1231 but with the +significant reservation "until they have been examined and purged of all +heresy." But this ban was soon removed. Copies of Aristotle in the +original Greek were obtained from Constantinople, and with the aid of +these the theologians soon learnt the art of distinguishing the genuine +Aristotle from spurious imitations and assisted greatly in the +advancement and purification of science by the resistance they offered +to the study of alchemy, astrology and magic with which in those days it +was associated. In 1254 nearly the whole range of Aristotelian writings +were prescribed by a statue of the Faculty of Arts at Paris as textbooks +for its masters. + +These facts, then, make it clear that there was no opposition to the +study of Aristotle and the sciences as such, but to the heresies which +were associated with them. Experience proved that so far from this +opposition being detrimental to the cause of science it had the opposite +effect of furthering its interests by cleansing it of falsities. The +task of proving to the world that faith and science might go hand in +hand was the work of the two great monastic orders of St. Dominic and +St. Francis, which came into existence about this time and immediately +owed their existence to the need of defending Christendom against the +new forces of wealth and learning which threatened it with ruin. The +intellectual life of Europe for the next two centuries is so intimately +bound up with these two great orders that it becomes necessary to pause +to give a brief account of them. + +While both of these orders attacked what was ultimately the same +problem, they attacked it in fundamentally different ways. The problem +as St. Francis saw it was that the social evils and heresies had their +root in a corrupted human nature to which men became increasingly liable +as they acquired wealth and so lost touch with the primary facts of +life. St. Francis was a simple, unintellectual layman, and confronted +with the problems of his age, he turned his back upon the world with its +wealth, its learning and its heresies, which he regarded as vanities, +and taught a gospel of poverty, work and renunciation. His followers +were to renounce wealth and all intellectual pursuits and seek salvation +through work. They were to labour among the poor, and in order that they +might be of service to them they were to seek identity with them in +position and fortune. In a word, the Franciscans were the Salvation Army +of their day, differing with them to the extent that they eventually became one of the great intellectual forces of the age. -St. Dominic approached the problem from the opposite end. It -was not with him so much that the heart was going wrong as -the head. He accepted civilization and its accompaniments. -Science, music, architecture, painting were each to be -regarded as a path through which truth could be approached. -But he realized clearly as few people to-day did, until -quite recently when the war shook us out of our complacency, -that knowledge may just as easily be an agent for evil as -for good. Nay, more easily; since left to itself without any -central and guiding principle to co-ordinate its activities, -it will, instead of serving the common interests of mankind, -degenerate into mere pedantry by being exalted as an end in -itself, or become a disruptive force by giving rise to -heresies, or be used for selfish and personal ends. Hence it -was that the Dominicans, like the Franciscans, broke with -the monastic tradition of settling in the country and -established themselves in the towns, and firstly in those -where universities were established---at Paris, Bologna and -Oxford---in order to keep themselves informed of all the -learning of the day. They realized that though the -suppression of heresy might prevent foolish people, who were -carried off their feet by the introduction of new ideas, -from bringing truth itself into discredit by seeking the -popularization of immature thought, yet Mediaeval -civilization could not be preserved merely by repressive -measures and that the only final justification for such -repression was as a measure of expediency to gain time for -the proper formulation of thought, in order that it might be -organized into a constructive force instead of dissipating -itself in intellectual subtleties, heresies and disruptive -influences. Their method made for thoroughness and was the -enemy of superficiality. - -The Dominicans were not long in demonstrating to the world -the wisdom of their policy. Two great Dominicans, Albertus -Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas, were the means of purging the -reputation of Aristotle of ill fame by the development of a -great system of orthodox Aristotelianism which drew a clear -line between the provinces of science and religion. "The -lines laid down by Aquinas as to the attitude of reason -towards revelation are, amid all change of belief as to the -actual content of revelation, the lines in which, as much in -the Protestant as in the Mediaeval or Modern Roman Churches, -the main current of thought has moved ever since."It -revolutionized theology. One of their contemporaries insists -on the absolute novelty of their methods, arguments, -reasons, objections and replies. They not only won back the -universities to the allegiance of the Church but secured for -science the patronage of the Church. Henceforth science -becomes a recognized faculty in every Mediaeval university, -and its study is encouraged by the Popes. John XXII was a -great patron of science, as indeed was Pius II. An extract -from his Bull promulgated for the University of Basle in -1460 will bear quotation. It runs: "Among the different -blessings which by the grace of God mortals can attain to in -this earthly life, it is not among the least that, by -persevering study, he can make himself master of the pearls -of science and learning which point the way to a good and -useful life. Furthermore, education brings man to a nearer -likeness to God, and enables him to read clearly the secrets -of this universe. True education and learning lift the -meanest of earth to a level with the highest." "For this -reason," continues the Pope, "the Holy See has always -encouraged the sciences and contributed to the establishment -of places of learning, in order that men might be enabled to -acquire this precious treasure and, having acquired it, -might spread it among their fellow-men." It was his ardent -desire that one of these life-giving fountains should be -established at Basle, so that all who wished might drink -their fill at the waters of learning." - -Such words did not fall upon deaf ears. The annals of the -universities show how zealously the clergy acted on the -Pope's exhortation to study science not only by advising -young men to follow such studies but by attending as -students themselves. For in the Mediaeval universities men -of all ages and from every class of society mingled -together. Young men of peasant origin were there with men of -ripe years and of established position---abbots, provosts, -canons and princes. Never were there more democratic -institutions. The comradeship through the university was one -in which all who went there met on equal terms. The -universities were self-governing corporations, they paid no -taxes, and were accorded many privileges as a token of -respect to learning. All classes contributed to their -support, but the clergy were by far the most generous. - -But to return to our subject. Not only did the labours of -Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas effect a re -conciliation between the Church and science by indicating -the spirit in which the new teaching was to be received, but -they also wrote upon psychology, metaphysics, physics, -physiology, natural history, morals and social science. The -former especially was an indefatigable student of nature. -His twenty-one folio volumes are considered a perfect -encyclopaedia both of the knowledge and polemics of his -time, and it is claimed for them that together with the -compilations of Vincent of Beauvais they laid the basis of -the great scientific encyclopaedias of our day. Albertus, -moreover, applied himself energetically to the experimental -sciences. But the credit for this new departure, which -revolutionized the method of science, belongs to the -Franciscans rather than the Dominicans. "They took up the -study of physics and chemistry, not, however, as heretofore, -by the path of theoretical speculation, but by the -co-operation of experiment an advance in method they were -the first to establish, and by which Roger Bacon arrived at -the most remarkable results in almost every branch of -physical science." - -Now the fact that this new development came through the -Franciscans is interesting, and I think it is fair to assume -that it was no accident. Immediately it was due to the fact -that the care of the sick which was enjoined upon them -tended to direct their minds towards the study of medicine -and natural history. But there was a deeper reason. The -Franciscans had a strong practical bend of mind. Learning -being forbidden them by the rule of their order, they -naturally acquired the invaluable habit of observing facts -for them selves a habit which book-learning is very apt to -destroy. Men who begin life with much book-knowledge are -very apt to look at things from the special angle provided -by the books they have read and to neglect the lessons which -the observation of facts can teach. It was thus that the -Franciscans renunciation of learning stood them in good -stead; it proved to be the means whereby a new impulse was -given to the acquisition of knowledge. The central idea of -Christianity---that the world can only be conquered by those -who are first prepared to renounce it---is a principle of -action that holds good just as much in the intellectual and -scientific as in the moral universe, and I might add that in -so far as any progress has in these days been made in the -revival of architecture, the crafts and arts, it has come -about through the actions of men who proceeded upon this -principle. The return to fundamentals always involves +St. Dominic approached the problem from the opposite end. It was not +with him so much that the heart was going wrong as the head. He accepted +civilization and its accompaniments. Science, music, architecture, +painting were each to be regarded as a path through which truth could be +approached. But he realized clearly as few people to-day did, until +quite recently when the war shook us out of our complacency, that +knowledge may just as easily be an agent for evil as for good. Nay, more +easily; since left to itself without any central and guiding principle +to co-ordinate its activities, it will, instead of serving the common +interests of mankind, degenerate into mere pedantry by being exalted as +an end in itself, or become a disruptive force by giving rise to +heresies, or be used for selfish and personal ends. Hence it was that +the Dominicans, like the Franciscans, broke with the monastic tradition +of settling in the country and established themselves in the towns, and +firstly in those where universities were established---at Paris, Bologna +and Oxford---in order to keep themselves informed of all the learning of +the day. They realized that though the suppression of heresy might +prevent foolish people, who were carried off their feet by the +introduction of new ideas, from bringing truth itself into discredit by +seeking the popularization of immature thought, yet Mediaeval +civilization could not be preserved merely by repressive measures and +that the only final justification for such repression was as a measure +of expediency to gain time for the proper formulation of thought, in +order that it might be organized into a constructive force instead of +dissipating itself in intellectual subtleties, heresies and disruptive +influences. Their method made for thoroughness and was the enemy of +superficiality. + +The Dominicans were not long in demonstrating to the world the wisdom of +their policy. Two great Dominicans, Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas +Aquinas, were the means of purging the reputation of Aristotle of ill +fame by the development of a great system of orthodox Aristotelianism +which drew a clear line between the provinces of science and religion. +"The lines laid down by Aquinas as to the attitude of reason towards +revelation are, amid all change of belief as to the actual content of +revelation, the lines in which, as much in the Protestant as in the +Mediaeval or Modern Roman Churches, the main current of thought has +moved ever since."It revolutionized theology. One of their +contemporaries insists on the absolute novelty of their methods, +arguments, reasons, objections and replies. They not only won back the +universities to the allegiance of the Church but secured for science the +patronage of the Church. Henceforth science becomes a recognized faculty +in every Mediaeval university, and its study is encouraged by the Popes. +John XXII was a great patron of science, as indeed was Pius II. An +extract from his Bull promulgated for the University of Basle in 1460 +will bear quotation. It runs: "Among the different blessings which by +the grace of God mortals can attain to in this earthly life, it is not +among the least that, by persevering study, he can make himself master +of the pearls of science and learning which point the way to a good and +useful life. Furthermore, education brings man to a nearer likeness to +God, and enables him to read clearly the secrets of this universe. True +education and learning lift the meanest of earth to a level with the +highest." "For this reason," continues the Pope, "the Holy See has +always encouraged the sciences and contributed to the establishment of +places of learning, in order that men might be enabled to acquire this +precious treasure and, having acquired it, might spread it among their +fellow-men." It was his ardent desire that one of these life-giving +fountains should be established at Basle, so that all who wished might +drink their fill at the waters of learning." + +Such words did not fall upon deaf ears. The annals of the universities +show how zealously the clergy acted on the Pope's exhortation to study +science not only by advising young men to follow such studies but by +attending as students themselves. For in the Mediaeval universities men +of all ages and from every class of society mingled together. Young men +of peasant origin were there with men of ripe years and of established +position---abbots, provosts, canons and princes. Never were there more +democratic institutions. The comradeship through the university was one +in which all who went there met on equal terms. The universities were +self-governing corporations, they paid no taxes, and were accorded many +privileges as a token of respect to learning. All classes contributed to +their support, but the clergy were by far the most generous. + +But to return to our subject. Not only did the labours of Albertus +Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas effect a re conciliation between the +Church and science by indicating the spirit in which the new teaching +was to be received, but they also wrote upon psychology, metaphysics, +physics, physiology, natural history, morals and social science. The +former especially was an indefatigable student of nature. His twenty-one +folio volumes are considered a perfect encyclopaedia both of the +knowledge and polemics of his time, and it is claimed for them that +together with the compilations of Vincent of Beauvais they laid the +basis of the great scientific encyclopaedias of our day. Albertus, +moreover, applied himself energetically to the experimental sciences. +But the credit for this new departure, which revolutionized the method +of science, belongs to the Franciscans rather than the Dominicans. "They +took up the study of physics and chemistry, not, however, as heretofore, +by the path of theoretical speculation, but by the co-operation of +experiment an advance in method they were the first to establish, and by +which Roger Bacon arrived at the most remarkable results in almost every +branch of physical science." + +Now the fact that this new development came through the Franciscans is +interesting, and I think it is fair to assume that it was no accident. +Immediately it was due to the fact that the care of the sick which was +enjoined upon them tended to direct their minds towards the study of +medicine and natural history. But there was a deeper reason. The +Franciscans had a strong practical bend of mind. Learning being +forbidden them by the rule of their order, they naturally acquired the +invaluable habit of observing facts for them selves a habit which +book-learning is very apt to destroy. Men who begin life with much +book-knowledge are very apt to look at things from the special angle +provided by the books they have read and to neglect the lessons which +the observation of facts can teach. It was thus that the Franciscans +renunciation of learning stood them in good stead; it proved to be the +means whereby a new impulse was given to the acquisition of knowledge. +The central idea of Christianity---that the world can only be conquered +by those who are first prepared to renounce it---is a principle of +action that holds good just as much in the intellectual and scientific +as in the moral universe, and I might add that in so far as any progress +has in these days been made in the revival of architecture, the crafts +and arts, it has come about through the actions of men who proceeded +upon this principle. The return to fundamentals always involves renunciation. -While it is to be acknowledged that the foundations of -modern science were laid in the Middle Ages, it is equally -important to recognize that the new impulse which the -Franciscans gave was essentially a Mediaeval one, and that -science remains Mediaeval in its method to this day. For -when the Franciscans threw over the method of theoretical -speculation in favour of co-operation by experiment, they -gave practical application in the realm of science to the -method of work which in the Middle Ages obtained in the -arts, for, as we shall see in the next chapter, Gothic Art -was the creation of experimental handicraft, and it was the -abandonment of this method owing to Renaissance influences -that finally led to the disappearance of art from the world. -But science never threw over this Mediaeval experimental, -craft basis, which is the secret of its progressive -development, and it remains Mediaeval in method to this day. - -But while science remains Mediaeval in its method, it is no -longer Mediaeval in its spirit, for it has rejected the -discipline by which the Mediaevalists sought to guide it. -The judgment of Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas that -there were two orders of science---the natural, comprising -everything that can be grasped by reason, and the -supernatural, which comprises all the truth known by -revelation was accepted alike by the Church and the students -of science, and the heretical tendencies which had come with -the Arabic Aristotle dwindled to impotence. Averroistic -beliefs lingered on in a more or less disguised and purely -speculative form, disputants in the Arts avoiding the charge -of heresy by taking cover under the convenient distinction -between philosophical and theological truth, maintaining -that what was true in the one might be false in the other -and vice versa. But when in the sixteenth century, owing to -the influence of the Renaissance of which we shall have -something to say hereafter, belief in the absolute truth of -the Christian revelation had come to be widely questioned, +While it is to be acknowledged that the foundations of modern science +were laid in the Middle Ages, it is equally important to recognize that +the new impulse which the Franciscans gave was essentially a Mediaeval +one, and that science remains Mediaeval in its method to this day. For +when the Franciscans threw over the method of theoretical speculation in +favour of co-operation by experiment, they gave practical application in +the realm of science to the method of work which in the Middle Ages +obtained in the arts, for, as we shall see in the next chapter, Gothic +Art was the creation of experimental handicraft, and it was the +abandonment of this method owing to Renaissance influences that finally +led to the disappearance of art from the world. But science never threw +over this Mediaeval experimental, craft basis, which is the secret of +its progressive development, and it remains Mediaeval in method to this +day. + +But while science remains Mediaeval in its method, it is no longer +Mediaeval in its spirit, for it has rejected the discipline by which the +Mediaevalists sought to guide it. The judgment of Albertus Magnus and +St. Thomas Aquinas that there were two orders of science---the natural, +comprising everything that can be grasped by reason, and the +supernatural, which comprises all the truth known by revelation was +accepted alike by the Church and the students of science, and the +heretical tendencies which had come with the Arabic Aristotle dwindled +to impotence. Averroistic beliefs lingered on in a more or less +disguised and purely speculative form, disputants in the Arts avoiding +the charge of heresy by taking cover under the convenient distinction +between philosophical and theological truth, maintaining that what was +true in the one might be false in the other and vice versa. But when in +the sixteenth century, owing to the influence of the Renaissance of +which we shall have something to say hereafter, belief in the absolute +truth of the Christian revelation had come to be widely questioned, there was a new outburst of pantheism and free thought. -It was because of his advocacy of heresies, and not because -of his scientific opinions, that Bruno was put to death. The -case of Galileo is different, and it is too long a story to -be gone into here. There were faults on both sides, but it -cannot be maintained that the attitude of the Church was -determined by hostility to science, and in this connection I -cannot do better than quote Huxley, who, writing to -Professor Mivart in 1885, said: "I gave some attention to -the case of Galileo when I was in Italy, and I arrived at -the conclusion that the Popes and the College of Cardinals -had rather the best of it." - -In judging the attitude of the Church at this period we must -not forget that the Copernican theory had not then been -proved, but was only advanced as a hypothesis and was -violently attacked by scientists at the time. Kepler and -Newton finally proved it. What the Church objected to was -not the theory that the earth was round, but the entirely -illogical deduction which Galileo made from it that -therefore Christianity was false. For Christianity has -nothing to say on the matter at all. It is not a theory of -the universe, but a theory of conduct basing its claim for -acceptance upon Divine sanction. The Church, moreover, bases -its authority upon the Christian tradition, and not upon the -Bible. But the Church was nervous, and justifiably nervous, -at the consequences which might follow the popularization of -such a theory, whether it eventually proved to be true or -not, and had no desire to meet trouble half-way. For the -average man does not discriminate very carefully, and the -fact that the story that Joshua commanded the sun to stand -still upon Gibeon is to be found in the Bible is sufficient -in the minds of many to discredit the whole Christian -theology as a degrading superstition and to release them -from all the moral obligations which Christianity sought to -impose. And this nervousness was not felt only by the Roman -Church. Whereas the Church did its best to handle a -difficult situation in a diplomatic way, demanding no more -than that scientists should not preach unproven hypotheses -as truth, the leaders of Protestantism were violent in their -opposition. Luther denounced Copernicus as an arrogant fool -who would overthrow all scientific astronomy and -contradicted Holy Writ, while Melanchthon wished the -promulgation of such pestilent doctrines to be suppressed by -the civil power.In the turmoil of the Reformation science -and heresy became more closely related though by no means -identified, for science was followed and encouraged as much -by the post-Reformation Church as by the Mediaeval one. - -It is to be observed that heresy is not necessarily a belief -in something false, but an exaggeration of one aspect of -truth insisted upon to the damage or denial of other and -equally important truths. The tendency of scientists to -exaggerate the importance of the material side of things -whilst ignoring as imponderable the spiritual and moral side -of life is their peculiar form of heresy. It results in a -loss of mental balance, a failure to see life as a whole, in -its true proportions. It makes the scientist an -untrustworthy guide in the practical affairs of life. The -publication of Lord Bacon's *Advancement of Learning* and -the *Novum Organum* served only to increase the tendency of -the scientific mind towards monomania---a tendency which -appears to be the inevitable accompaniment of an exclusive -pre occupation with the study of phenomena. The inductive -method is the method of reasoning familiar to all who -concern themselves with the practical arts, and is -invaluable for the attainment of certain immediate and -definite ends. But the attempt of Bacon to give it universal -validity---for, as Macaulay said, it is ridiculous to -suppose he invented it must after the experience of over -three centuries of work upon such lines be judged a failure, -for science is as far from the truth of things as ever. -"After a glorious burst of perhaps fifty years, amid great -acclamation and good hopes that the crafty old universe was -going to be caught in her careful net, science finds herself -in almost every direction in the most hopeless quandaries; -and whether the rib story be true or not, has, at any rate, +It was because of his advocacy of heresies, and not because of his +scientific opinions, that Bruno was put to death. The case of Galileo is +different, and it is too long a story to be gone into here. There were +faults on both sides, but it cannot be maintained that the attitude of +the Church was determined by hostility to science, and in this +connection I cannot do better than quote Huxley, who, writing to +Professor Mivart in 1885, said: "I gave some attention to the case of +Galileo when I was in Italy, and I arrived at the conclusion that the +Popes and the College of Cardinals had rather the best of it." + +In judging the attitude of the Church at this period we must not forget +that the Copernican theory had not then been proved, but was only +advanced as a hypothesis and was violently attacked by scientists at the +time. Kepler and Newton finally proved it. What the Church objected to +was not the theory that the earth was round, but the entirely illogical +deduction which Galileo made from it that therefore Christianity was +false. For Christianity has nothing to say on the matter at all. It is +not a theory of the universe, but a theory of conduct basing its claim +for acceptance upon Divine sanction. The Church, moreover, bases its +authority upon the Christian tradition, and not upon the Bible. But the +Church was nervous, and justifiably nervous, at the consequences which +might follow the popularization of such a theory, whether it eventually +proved to be true or not, and had no desire to meet trouble half-way. +For the average man does not discriminate very carefully, and the fact +that the story that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still upon Gibeon +is to be found in the Bible is sufficient in the minds of many to +discredit the whole Christian theology as a degrading superstition and +to release them from all the moral obligations which Christianity sought +to impose. And this nervousness was not felt only by the Roman Church. +Whereas the Church did its best to handle a difficult situation in a +diplomatic way, demanding no more than that scientists should not preach +unproven hypotheses as truth, the leaders of Protestantism were violent +in their opposition. Luther denounced Copernicus as an arrogant fool who +would overthrow all scientific astronomy and contradicted Holy Writ, +while Melanchthon wished the promulgation of such pestilent doctrines to +be suppressed by the civil power.In the turmoil of the Reformation +science and heresy became more closely related though by no means +identified, for science was followed and encouraged as much by the +post-Reformation Church as by the Mediaeval one. + +It is to be observed that heresy is not necessarily a belief in +something false, but an exaggeration of one aspect of truth insisted +upon to the damage or denial of other and equally important truths. The +tendency of scientists to exaggerate the importance of the material side +of things whilst ignoring as imponderable the spiritual and moral side +of life is their peculiar form of heresy. It results in a loss of mental +balance, a failure to see life as a whole, in its true proportions. It +makes the scientist an untrustworthy guide in the practical affairs of +life. The publication of Lord Bacon's *Advancement of Learning* and the +*Novum Organum* served only to increase the tendency of the scientific +mind towards monomania---a tendency which appears to be the inevitable +accompaniment of an exclusive pre occupation with the study of +phenomena. The inductive method is the method of reasoning familiar to +all who concern themselves with the practical arts, and is invaluable +for the attainment of certain immediate and definite ends. But the +attempt of Bacon to give it universal validity---for, as Macaulay said, +it is ridiculous to suppose he invented it must after the experience of +over three centuries of work upon such lines be judged a failure, for +science is as far from the truth of things as ever. "After a glorious +burst of perhaps fifty years, amid great acclamation and good hopes that +the crafty old universe was going to be caught in her careful net, +science finds herself in almost every direction in the most hopeless +quandaries; and whether the rib story be true or not, has, at any rate, provided no very satisfactory substitute for it." -The reason for this failure is obvious. There is no such -thing as a purely materialist explanation of the universe. -Final causation is not to be found in the material world, -and scientists, in excluding the spiritual side of things -from their calculations as imponderable, exclude the -consideration of those things which might offer an -explanation. For unity is to be found at the centre of life; -it is not to be deduced merely from a study of phenomena on -the circumference. But even if science were to follow the -lead given by Sir Oliver Lodge and carried its -investigations beyond the material into the realm of psychic -phenomena, it could never penetrate the final mystery of -life. The moral principles to which religions give sanction -are finally commandments and incapable of rationalist -explanation, though experience of their working may be able -to give them rationalist justification. They are not to be -deduced from the study of phenomena, but rest finally on the -affirmation of the supernatural. - -While it must be admitted that reasoning based exclusively -upon phenomena has failed to penetrate the mystery of the -universe, the invasion of other departments of inquiry by -the inductive method of reasoning, such as that of sociology -has been followed by results equally disastrous. It has -produced endless confusion. It is possible to deduce -secondary truth from primary truth, but not the reverse, -which science attempts. I sometimes think that the Devil -made his debut in the modern world as the friend of -learning, which he had the insight to see might be used for -the purpose of banishing wisdom by the simple and apparently -innocent device of multiplying knowledge. At any rate, -whether the Devil planned or no, such has been its practical -effect. For the multiplication of knowledge has certainly -introduced confusion into the popular mind. Thus it has come -about that the scientific method of inquiry has had the -effect of burying primary truth under an avalanche of -secondary half-truths. It has exalted knowledge above -wisdom, mechanism above art, science above religion, man -above God. In thus reversing the natural order of the moral -and intellectual universe, it has led to a general state -ofmental bewilderment such as was never before witnessed. -The ambition of the scientist to comprehend all knowledge -has been followed by the unfortunate discovery that -knowledge---the things to be known---is bigger than his -head, and he gets some inkling of the meaning of the -proverb: "A fool's eyes are on the ends of the earth." - -Considerations of this kind lead me to the conclusion that -civilization has reached a turning-point not only in its -political and economic history, but in its very methods and -ideas, and that the next development must be away from the -universal towards a reassertion of the principle of unity -which was the central principle of Mediaeval thought. In the -new synthesis which will appear, science will not attempt to -lead mankind, but will be content with a secondary and -subordinate position. Science has terribly misled the world. -But it is possible that all its work has not been in vain. -For it has explored the universe for us, and as a result of -its labours it may be that when the new order does arrive it -will rest on much surer foundations than ever did the -civilizations of the past. With the knowledge of evil which -science let loose upon the world, we know where the pitfalls -lie. But we shall never be able to conquer this mass of -knowledge which science has given us until we have first the -courage to renounce it. +The reason for this failure is obvious. There is no such thing as a +purely materialist explanation of the universe. Final causation is not +to be found in the material world, and scientists, in excluding the +spiritual side of things from their calculations as imponderable, +exclude the consideration of those things which might offer an +explanation. For unity is to be found at the centre of life; it is not +to be deduced merely from a study of phenomena on the circumference. But +even if science were to follow the lead given by Sir Oliver Lodge and +carried its investigations beyond the material into the realm of psychic +phenomena, it could never penetrate the final mystery of life. The moral +principles to which religions give sanction are finally commandments and +incapable of rationalist explanation, though experience of their working +may be able to give them rationalist justification. They are not to be +deduced from the study of phenomena, but rest finally on the affirmation +of the supernatural. + +While it must be admitted that reasoning based exclusively upon +phenomena has failed to penetrate the mystery of the universe, the +invasion of other departments of inquiry by the inductive method of +reasoning, such as that of sociology has been followed by results +equally disastrous. It has produced endless confusion. It is possible to +deduce secondary truth from primary truth, but not the reverse, which +science attempts. I sometimes think that the Devil made his debut in the +modern world as the friend of learning, which he had the insight to see +might be used for the purpose of banishing wisdom by the simple and +apparently innocent device of multiplying knowledge. At any rate, +whether the Devil planned or no, such has been its practical effect. For +the multiplication of knowledge has certainly introduced confusion into +the popular mind. Thus it has come about that the scientific method of +inquiry has had the effect of burying primary truth under an avalanche +of secondary half-truths. It has exalted knowledge above wisdom, +mechanism above art, science above religion, man above God. In thus +reversing the natural order of the moral and intellectual universe, it +has led to a general state ofmental bewilderment such as was never +before witnessed. The ambition of the scientist to comprehend all +knowledge has been followed by the unfortunate discovery that +knowledge---the things to be known---is bigger than his head, and he +gets some inkling of the meaning of the proverb: "A fool's eyes are on +the ends of the earth." + +Considerations of this kind lead me to the conclusion that civilization +has reached a turning-point not only in its political and economic +history, but in its very methods and ideas, and that the next +development must be away from the universal towards a reassertion of the +principle of unity which was the central principle of Mediaeval thought. +In the new synthesis which will appear, science will not attempt to lead +mankind, but will be content with a secondary and subordinate position. +Science has terribly misled the world. But it is possible that all its +work has not been in vain. For it has explored the universe for us, and +as a result of its labours it may be that when the new order does arrive +it will rest on much surer foundations than ever did the civilizations +of the past. With the knowledge of evil which science let loose upon the +world, we know where the pitfalls lie. But we shall never be able to +conquer this mass of knowledge which science has given us until we have +first the courage to renounce it. # The Arts of the Middle Ages -In an earlier chapter I said that the promise of Medievalism -was never entirely fulfilled. That is true of its life and -social organization. The sinister influence of Roman Law -began to dissolve it before it was as yet firmly -established. But it is not true of the Arts, for in them the -promise was entirely fulfilled, and for this consummation we -are indebted to the two great Mediaeval orders---the -Dominicans and the Francis cans; the former because of their -intellectual orthodoxy, which preserved Mediaeval society -from disruption at the hands of the heretics, and because of -the encouragement and help they gave to the development of -the Arts, and the latter because of the new spirit and -vitality which they breathed into Mediaeval society. It -would not be untrue to say that from the beginning of the -thirteenth century the Mediaeval spirit as it expressed -itself in thought and in the Arts was the resultant of the -action and interaction of the Dominican and Franciscan -minds. The latter, by their emotional temperament and broad -democratic sympathies, tended to widen the range of -experience, to venture on new experiments and to encourage -new developments, while the function of the former was to be -for ever gathering up, as it were, to bring unity and order -out of the diversity to which the Franciscan spirit ever -tended. Yet the more these two orders differed, the more +In an earlier chapter I said that the promise of Medievalism was never +entirely fulfilled. That is true of its life and social organization. +The sinister influence of Roman Law began to dissolve it before it was +as yet firmly established. But it is not true of the Arts, for in them +the promise was entirely fulfilled, and for this consummation we are +indebted to the two great Mediaeval orders---the Dominicans and the +Francis cans; the former because of their intellectual orthodoxy, which +preserved Mediaeval society from disruption at the hands of the +heretics, and because of the encouragement and help they gave to the +development of the Arts, and the latter because of the new spirit and +vitality which they breathed into Mediaeval society. It would not be +untrue to say that from the beginning of the thirteenth century the +Mediaeval spirit as it expressed itself in thought and in the Arts was +the resultant of the action and interaction of the Dominican and +Franciscan minds. The latter, by their emotional temperament and broad +democratic sympathies, tended to widen the range of experience, to +venture on new experiments and to encourage new developments, while the +function of the former was to be for ever gathering up, as it were, to +bring unity and order out of the diversity to which the Franciscan +spirit ever tended. Yet the more these two orders differed, the more they were alike. They were alike in their absolute belief in -Christianity as the truth revealed, and in their detestation -of the pantheistic rationalism which began to show its head -at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and which they -combined to crush. - -Gothic Art, which reached its perfection in the thirteenth, -fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was a tree with very -deep roots, and its progressive development may be dated -from the year A.D. 800, when Charlemagne, after driving the -Saracens out of France, consolidated his power and was -crowned by the Pope Emperor of the West. For this date is -not only a definite landmark in the political history of -Europe, but it marks a turning-point in the history of the -Arts, for Charlemagne was more than a successful warrior; he -was a great patron of culture, and endeavoured successfully -to make the heart of his Empire a centre of culture and -learning. The Palatine Church of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), -built by him as a national monument, may be said to have set -in motion ideas of architecture which affected the whole of -Western Europe. To this Carlovingian centre there came -craftsmen from far and wide---from Spain, Lombardy, and the -Eastern Empire---for it was the ambition of Charlemagne to -gather together such remnants of Roman tradition as had -survived the barbarian invasions in order to effect a -revival of the Arts. His intention was to revive the Roman -Art whose splendid remains then overspread the whole of -Gaul. But from this renaissance there arose results far -different from what he had anticipated, differing from them, -in fact, as widely as his Empire differed from that of the -Caesars. His object of revivifying Art was achieved, but not -in the way he proposed, for in the space of three centuries -the movement he set on foot led to the creation of an -entirely new style, which, though it long bore traces of its -origin, was nevertheless, as a whole, unlike anything the -world had ever seen before; in a word, Gothic Art. - -The immediate reason for this result, so different from what -Charlemagne had anticipated, is to be found in the fact that -the craftsmen whom he gathered together were possessed of -traditions of design differing widely from those of -antiquity. They were, moreover, men of a different order. -The Roman workmen executed designs prepared by an architect -in much the same way as do the workmen of to-day, but their -labour was essentially servile. But these newer craftsmen, -however, not only executed work but were themselves -individually capable of exercising the function of design. -Moreover, they were capable of co-operating together, for -they shared a communal tradition of design in the same way -that people share a communal tradition of language. Each -craftsman worked as a link in this chain of tradition, and -this changed method produced a different type of -architecture. It was a communal architecture, while that of -the Roman was individual. Not individual in the modern -sense, for all Roman architects practised the same style, -but individual in the sense that a Roman building was the -design of one man who directed the workman in regard to the -details of his work, and no room was left for the initiative -of the individual craftsman. - -It is the variety of detail due to the initiative of -individuals that lends an interest to Gothic architecture -far and away beyond that of the personal architecture of the -architect. It has a richer texture. For in a communal art -"each product has a substance and content to which the -greatest individual artists cannot hope to attain---it is -the result of organic processes of thought and work. A great -artist might make a little advance, a poor artist might -stand a little behind; but the work, as a whole, was -customary, and was shaped and perfected by a life-experience -whose span was centuries." - -In the Middle Ages every craft possessed such communal -traditions of design, and each craftsman produced the -designs that he executed. But in the production of -architecture there must needs be some one to co-ordinate the -efforts of the individual craftsmen. This position in the -Mediaeval period was occupied by the master mason or master -carpenter, as the case might be, who exercised a general -control in addition to the ordinary requirements of his -craft. He differed from the architect of Roman times to the -extent that his function was not to give detailed designs -for others to execute, but to co-ordinate the efforts of -living units; it was the custom then for each craft to -supply its own details and ornaments. - -This different system naturally gave different results. -Roman architecture, or, to be more correct, the Greek, from -which it was derived, was refined and intellectual. It was -as Lowell said:-- +Christianity as the truth revealed, and in their detestation of the +pantheistic rationalism which began to show its head at the beginning of +the thirteenth century, and which they combined to crush. + +Gothic Art, which reached its perfection in the thirteenth, fourteenth +and fifteenth centuries, was a tree with very deep roots, and its +progressive development may be dated from the year A.D. 800, when +Charlemagne, after driving the Saracens out of France, consolidated his +power and was crowned by the Pope Emperor of the West. For this date is +not only a definite landmark in the political history of Europe, but it +marks a turning-point in the history of the Arts, for Charlemagne was +more than a successful warrior; he was a great patron of culture, and +endeavoured successfully to make the heart of his Empire a centre of +culture and learning. The Palatine Church of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), +built by him as a national monument, may be said to have set in motion +ideas of architecture which affected the whole of Western Europe. To +this Carlovingian centre there came craftsmen from far and wide---from +Spain, Lombardy, and the Eastern Empire---for it was the ambition of +Charlemagne to gather together such remnants of Roman tradition as had +survived the barbarian invasions in order to effect a revival of the +Arts. His intention was to revive the Roman Art whose splendid remains +then overspread the whole of Gaul. But from this renaissance there arose +results far different from what he had anticipated, differing from them, +in fact, as widely as his Empire differed from that of the Caesars. His +object of revivifying Art was achieved, but not in the way he proposed, +for in the space of three centuries the movement he set on foot led to +the creation of an entirely new style, which, though it long bore traces +of its origin, was nevertheless, as a whole, unlike anything the world +had ever seen before; in a word, Gothic Art. + +The immediate reason for this result, so different from what Charlemagne +had anticipated, is to be found in the fact that the craftsmen whom he +gathered together were possessed of traditions of design differing +widely from those of antiquity. They were, moreover, men of a different +order. The Roman workmen executed designs prepared by an architect in +much the same way as do the workmen of to-day, but their labour was +essentially servile. But these newer craftsmen, however, not only +executed work but were themselves individually capable of exercising the +function of design. Moreover, they were capable of co-operating +together, for they shared a communal tradition of design in the same way +that people share a communal tradition of language. Each craftsman +worked as a link in this chain of tradition, and this changed method +produced a different type of architecture. It was a communal +architecture, while that of the Roman was individual. Not individual in +the modern sense, for all Roman architects practised the same style, but +individual in the sense that a Roman building was the design of one man +who directed the workman in regard to the details of his work, and no +room was left for the initiative of the individual craftsman. + +It is the variety of detail due to the initiative of individuals that +lends an interest to Gothic architecture far and away beyond that of the +personal architecture of the architect. It has a richer texture. For in +a communal art "each product has a substance and content to which the +greatest individual artists cannot hope to attain---it is the result of +organic processes of thought and work. A great artist might make a +little advance, a poor artist might stand a little behind; but the work, +as a whole, was customary, and was shaped and perfected by a +life-experience whose span was centuries." + +In the Middle Ages every craft possessed such communal traditions of +design, and each craftsman produced the designs that he executed. But in +the production of architecture there must needs be some one to +co-ordinate the efforts of the individual craftsmen. This position in +the Mediaeval period was occupied by the master mason or master +carpenter, as the case might be, who exercised a general control in +addition to the ordinary requirements of his craft. He differed from the +architect of Roman times to the extent that his function was not to give +detailed designs for others to execute, but to co-ordinate the efforts +of living units; it was the custom then for each craft to supply its own +details and ornaments. + +This different system naturally gave different results. Roman +architecture, or, to be more correct, the Greek, from which it was +derived, was refined and intellectual. It was as Lowell said:-- >  As unanswerable as Euclid, > > The one thing finished in this hasty world. -In other words, it was a kind of aesthetic cul-de-sac from -which the only escape was backwards by a return to the -crafts: for it is only by and through the actual experiment -with material that new ideas in detail can be evolved. A -skilful architect may have fine general ideas, but he will -have no new ideas of detail. Such details as he does use -will be studied from the work done in the past by actual -craftsmen, for, as I have already said, it is by actually -handling material that new ideas of detail can be evolved. -Hence it was that the Mediaeval system of building, by -giving the master minds opportunities for actually working -on their buildings, developed a richness and wealth of -detail unknown to Greek or Roman work. And what is of -further interest, all the details to which Gothic Art gave -rise had a peculiar relation to the material used. Greek and -Roman architecture is abstract form which is applied more or -less indifferently to any material. But it is one of the -aims of Gothic design to bring out the intrinsic qualities -of the materials. The details in each case are peculiar to -the material used. Thus, in carving any natural object, it -would be the aim of the craftsman not merely to suggest the -general form of the thing intended, but to suggest, in -addition, the qualities of the material in which it is -executed. The treatment would, therefore, be -conventionalized---a lion would emphatically be a wooden -lion, a stone lion or a bronze lion, as the case might be. -It would never be a merely naturalistic lion: in each case -there would be no mistaking the material of which it was -made, for the form would be developed upon lines which the -technical production of each most readily suggests. That is -the secret of convention. - -Now, this change from the Roman to the Gothic method of work -is finally to be accounted for by the fact that, since the -day when the Roman style was practised, Christianity had -triumphed in the world, and with it a new spirit had come -into existence. In Greece and Rome the humble worker had -been treated with scorn by men of science and philosophers. -The ordinary man accepted his inferior status as necessary -to the natural order of things. Even slaves did not regard -their position as contrary to morality and right. In the -thousand revolts of the slaves of antiquity there was never -any appeal to any ethical principle or assertion of human -rights. On the contrary, they were purely and simply appeals -to force by men who thought themselves sufficiently strong -to rebel successfully. But while these revolts failed to -abolish slavery---for there was never a successful slave -revolt---Christianity succeeded, by effecting a change of -spirit which gradually dissolved the old order. It -transformed society by bringing about a state of things in -which human values took precedence over economic values. -Little by little this changed spirit came to affect the -Arts. The humble worker began to gain confidence, and to -think and feel on his own account. This changed feeling, -combined with the communal spirit which Christianity -everywhere fostered, tended to bring into existence those -communal traditions of handicraft which reached their most -consummate expression in Gothic Art. For Gothic Art is just -as democratic in spirit as the Greek and Roman is servile. -Every line of Gothic Art contradicts the popularly accepted -notion that the Middle Ages was a period of gloom and -repression. The riot of carving, the gaiety and vigour of -the little grotesques that peer out from pillars and -cornices, the pure and joyous colour of frescoes and -illuminated manuscripts, the delight in work that overflowed -in free and beautiful details in the common articles of -daily use, tell the tale of a rich and abounding life, just -as much as the unanswerable logic of Greek architecture -tells of a life oppressed with the sense of fate. +In other words, it was a kind of aesthetic cul-de-sac from which the +only escape was backwards by a return to the crafts: for it is only by +and through the actual experiment with material that new ideas in detail +can be evolved. A skilful architect may have fine general ideas, but he +will have no new ideas of detail. Such details as he does use will be +studied from the work done in the past by actual craftsmen, for, as I +have already said, it is by actually handling material that new ideas of +detail can be evolved. Hence it was that the Mediaeval system of +building, by giving the master minds opportunities for actually working +on their buildings, developed a richness and wealth of detail unknown to +Greek or Roman work. And what is of further interest, all the details to +which Gothic Art gave rise had a peculiar relation to the material used. +Greek and Roman architecture is abstract form which is applied more or +less indifferently to any material. But it is one of the aims of Gothic +design to bring out the intrinsic qualities of the materials. The +details in each case are peculiar to the material used. Thus, in carving +any natural object, it would be the aim of the craftsman not merely to +suggest the general form of the thing intended, but to suggest, in +addition, the qualities of the material in which it is executed. The +treatment would, therefore, be conventionalized---a lion would +emphatically be a wooden lion, a stone lion or a bronze lion, as the +case might be. It would never be a merely naturalistic lion: in each +case there would be no mistaking the material of which it was made, for +the form would be developed upon lines which the technical production of +each most readily suggests. That is the secret of convention. + +Now, this change from the Roman to the Gothic method of work is finally +to be accounted for by the fact that, since the day when the Roman style +was practised, Christianity had triumphed in the world, and with it a +new spirit had come into existence. In Greece and Rome the humble worker +had been treated with scorn by men of science and philosophers. The +ordinary man accepted his inferior status as necessary to the natural +order of things. Even slaves did not regard their position as contrary +to morality and right. In the thousand revolts of the slaves of +antiquity there was never any appeal to any ethical principle or +assertion of human rights. On the contrary, they were purely and simply +appeals to force by men who thought themselves sufficiently strong to +rebel successfully. But while these revolts failed to abolish +slavery---for there was never a successful slave revolt---Christianity +succeeded, by effecting a change of spirit which gradually dissolved the +old order. It transformed society by bringing about a state of things in +which human values took precedence over economic values. Little by +little this changed spirit came to affect the Arts. The humble worker +began to gain confidence, and to think and feel on his own account. This +changed feeling, combined with the communal spirit which Christianity +everywhere fostered, tended to bring into existence those communal +traditions of handicraft which reached their most consummate expression +in Gothic Art. For Gothic Art is just as democratic in spirit as the +Greek and Roman is servile. Every line of Gothic Art contradicts the +popularly accepted notion that the Middle Ages was a period of gloom and +repression. The riot of carving, the gaiety and vigour of the little +grotesques that peer out from pillars and cornices, the pure and joyous +colour of frescoes and illuminated manuscripts, the delight in work that +overflowed in free and beautiful details in the common articles of daily +use, tell the tale of a rich and abounding life, just as much as the +unanswerable logic of Greek architecture tells of a life oppressed with +the sense of fate. It is important that these fundamental differences should be -acknowledged. Gothic architecture was the visible -expression, the flowering of the dogmas of Christianity, and -it cannot finally be separated from them. Apart from them, -it would never have come into existence. It was precisely -because the men of the Middle Ages had their minds at rest -about the thousand and one doubts and difficulties which -perplex us, as they perplexed the Greeks, that it was -possible for them to develop that wonderful sense of -romantic beauty which enabled them to build the cathedrals, -abbeys, and churches that cover Europe. If the acceptance of -dogmas puts boundaries to the intellect in one direction, it -does so to break down barriers in another, for dogmas do not -strangle thought, but cause it to flow in a different -direction. Under Paganism thought flowed inwards, giving us -philosophy; under Christianity it flows outwards, giving us -the Arts, Guilds and economics. Gothic Art, like Christian -dogmas, rests finally upon affirmations. It seems to say: -This is the right way of treating stonework; this, -brickwork; this, leadwork; and so on. And it says all these -things with authority in terms that admit of no ambiguity. - -While Gothic Art was democratic in spirit the Mediaeval -craftsman understood clearly the limits of liberty. He knew -that liberty was only possible on the assumption that -boundaries were respected, and that there is no such thing -as liberty absolute. Liberty is possible on certain terms. -It involves in the first place a recognition of the -authority of ultimate truth, or, in other words, of dogmas, -because authority is in the nature of things, and men who -refuse to accept the authority of dogmas will find -themselves finally compelled to acquiesce in the authority -of persons. That is why revolutions which begin by seeking -to overturn the authority of ideas invariably end by -establishing the authority of persons. A respect for -authority of ideas is naturally accompanied by a respect for -mastership, which is a fundamentally different thing from -authority of persons. For whereas, in the latter case, the -authority is necessarily exercised arbitrarily, in the -former it is not so. The pupil asks the master how to do a -thing because he wants to know. But the employer tells the -servant what he requires doing because the servant has no -desire to know. That is the difference between the two -relationships. That feeling of personal antagonism which -exists between employers and workers to-day did not exist -between the masters and journeymen of the Mediaeval Guilds, -because the difference between them was not primarily a -difference of economic status, but of knowledge and skill. -Well has it been said that "producers of good articles -respect one another; producers of bad articles despise one -another." - -A respect for the principle of mastership permeated -Mediaeval society, while it informed the organization of the -Guilds. "In the Middle Ages," says Professor Lethaby, "the -Masons and Carpenters Guilds were faculties or colleges of -education in those arts, and every town was, so to say, a -craft university. Corporations of Masons, Carpenters, and -the like, were established in the towns; each craft aspired -to have a college hall. The universities themselves had been -well named by a recent historian 'Scholars' Guilds.' The -Guild, which recognized all the customs of its trade, -guaranteed the relations of the apprentice and master -craftsman with whom he was placed; but he was really -apprenticed to the craft as a whole, and ultimately to the -city whose freedom he engaged to take up. He was, in fact, a -graduate of his craft college, and wore its robes. At a -later stage the apprentice became a companion or bachelor of -his art, or by producing a master-work, the thesis of his -craft, he was admitted a master. Only then was he permitted -to become an employer of labour, or was admitted as one of -the governing body of his college. As a citizen, city -dignities were open to him. He might become the master in -building some abbey or cathedral, or, as King's mason, -become a member of the royal household, the acknowledged -great master of his time in mason-craft. With such a system, -was it so very wonderful that the buildings of the Middle -Ages, which were, indeed, wonderful, should have been -produced?" - -Such, then, was the foundation on which Gothic architecture -was built. In its earlier phase, as we meet it in this -country in the Norman architecture of the twelfth century, -it is characterized by a strong handling of masses. The -Norman builders had "a sense of the large proportions of -things," a firm grip of things fundamental. In this early -work only a bare minimum of mouldings and ornaments are -used, but such as are used are strong and vigorous. The -general arrangement of parts which we find in Norman work -persists through all the phases of Gothic, but the details -or secondary parts, the trimmings, as it were, receive more -and more attention, until finally, in the sixteenth century, -the last phase is reached in Tudor work, when Gothic -degenerates into an uninspired formula, and the -multiplication of mechanical and accessory parts entirely -destroys the sense of spaciousness, which is the mark of all -fine architecture. This last phase is exemplified in this -country in Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey and King's -College Chapel, Cambridge, as in the various Hotels de Ville -of Flanders. Though architecture of this kind has the -admiration of Baedeker,it is simply awful stuff. It is -Gothic in its dotage, as anybody who knows anything about -architecture is aware. - -Though there is much very beautiful architecture of the -fifteenth century, it is apparent that the decline of Gothic -d?tes from the middle of the century. From that time -onwards, it is, generally speaking, true to say that the -most important buildings in the civic sense are the least -important from an architectural point of view. Most of the -best examples of later Gothic are to be found where there -was not too much money to spend, for after the middle of the -fifteenth century the restraining influence in design does -not appear to come from the taste of the craftsmen, but from -the poverty of their clients. - -The most important examples of Gothic are to be found in -Northern France. In the early part of the twelfth century -Paris became the cultural centre of Europe, and it remained -throughout the Middle Ages the centre of thought and -culture. It was here that the Gothic Cathedral in its -essence as a kind of energetic structure in which the -various parts of pillars, vaults and buttresses balance each -other was developed. In 1140 the abbey church of St. Denis, -a few miles from Paris, was begun, and completed within a -few years, and it established the type and set the tradition -which all subsequent cathedral builders followed. First came -the cathedrals of Paris, Chartres and Rouen, and later the -celebrated culminating group of Amiens, Beauvais, Bourges -and Rheims, which are generally regarded as the high-water -mark of Gothic achievement. - -All other Gothic architecture derives from the parent stock -of France. But to me the branches are more interesting than -the stem. For though there is a magnificence and daring -about French Gothic, and though we are indebted to it for -the germ ideas, there is too much effort about it to satisfy -my taste entirely. It lacks the sobriety and reserve of the -Gothic of England, Flanders, and Italy. The brick cathedrals -and churches of Belgium have a wonderfully fine quality -about them, though their plastered interiors are entirely -devoid of interest. Only in Italy has brickwork been so -successfully treated. Gothic never took root properly in -Italy, and the more ambitious attempts at it, as are to be -seen at Orvieto and Milan cathedrals, are dreadful failures -so far as the exteriors are concerned. But the simpler forms -of Italian Gothic in civil and domestic work and in some of -the smaller churches are exquisite in taste. It is a -thousand pities that the development of Gothic in Italy -should have been arrested by the coming of the Renaissance, -for there are unexplored possibilities in it which may prove -to be the germ of a great revival some day in Italy, if not +acknowledged. Gothic architecture was the visible expression, the +flowering of the dogmas of Christianity, and it cannot finally be +separated from them. Apart from them, it would never have come into +existence. It was precisely because the men of the Middle Ages had their +minds at rest about the thousand and one doubts and difficulties which +perplex us, as they perplexed the Greeks, that it was possible for them +to develop that wonderful sense of romantic beauty which enabled them to +build the cathedrals, abbeys, and churches that cover Europe. If the +acceptance of dogmas puts boundaries to the intellect in one direction, +it does so to break down barriers in another, for dogmas do not strangle +thought, but cause it to flow in a different direction. Under Paganism +thought flowed inwards, giving us philosophy; under Christianity it +flows outwards, giving us the Arts, Guilds and economics. Gothic Art, +like Christian dogmas, rests finally upon affirmations. It seems to say: +This is the right way of treating stonework; this, brickwork; this, +leadwork; and so on. And it says all these things with authority in +terms that admit of no ambiguity. + +While Gothic Art was democratic in spirit the Mediaeval craftsman +understood clearly the limits of liberty. He knew that liberty was only +possible on the assumption that boundaries were respected, and that +there is no such thing as liberty absolute. Liberty is possible on +certain terms. It involves in the first place a recognition of the +authority of ultimate truth, or, in other words, of dogmas, because +authority is in the nature of things, and men who refuse to accept the +authority of dogmas will find themselves finally compelled to acquiesce +in the authority of persons. That is why revolutions which begin by +seeking to overturn the authority of ideas invariably end by +establishing the authority of persons. A respect for authority of ideas +is naturally accompanied by a respect for mastership, which is a +fundamentally different thing from authority of persons. For whereas, in +the latter case, the authority is necessarily exercised arbitrarily, in +the former it is not so. The pupil asks the master how to do a thing +because he wants to know. But the employer tells the servant what he +requires doing because the servant has no desire to know. That is the +difference between the two relationships. That feeling of personal +antagonism which exists between employers and workers to-day did not +exist between the masters and journeymen of the Mediaeval Guilds, +because the difference between them was not primarily a difference of +economic status, but of knowledge and skill. Well has it been said that +"producers of good articles respect one another; producers of bad +articles despise one another." + +A respect for the principle of mastership permeated Mediaeval society, +while it informed the organization of the Guilds. "In the Middle Ages," +says Professor Lethaby, "the Masons and Carpenters Guilds were faculties +or colleges of education in those arts, and every town was, so to say, a +craft university. Corporations of Masons, Carpenters, and the like, were +established in the towns; each craft aspired to have a college hall. The +universities themselves had been well named by a recent historian +'Scholars' Guilds.' The Guild, which recognized all the customs of its +trade, guaranteed the relations of the apprentice and master craftsman +with whom he was placed; but he was really apprenticed to the craft as a +whole, and ultimately to the city whose freedom he engaged to take up. +He was, in fact, a graduate of his craft college, and wore its robes. At +a later stage the apprentice became a companion or bachelor of his art, +or by producing a master-work, the thesis of his craft, he was admitted +a master. Only then was he permitted to become an employer of labour, or +was admitted as one of the governing body of his college. As a citizen, +city dignities were open to him. He might become the master in building +some abbey or cathedral, or, as King's mason, become a member of the +royal household, the acknowledged great master of his time in +mason-craft. With such a system, was it so very wonderful that the +buildings of the Middle Ages, which were, indeed, wonderful, should have +been produced?" + +Such, then, was the foundation on which Gothic architecture was built. +In its earlier phase, as we meet it in this country in the Norman +architecture of the twelfth century, it is characterized by a strong +handling of masses. The Norman builders had "a sense of the large +proportions of things," a firm grip of things fundamental. In this early +work only a bare minimum of mouldings and ornaments are used, but such +as are used are strong and vigorous. The general arrangement of parts +which we find in Norman work persists through all the phases of Gothic, +but the details or secondary parts, the trimmings, as it were, receive +more and more attention, until finally, in the sixteenth century, the +last phase is reached in Tudor work, when Gothic degenerates into an +uninspired formula, and the multiplication of mechanical and accessory +parts entirely destroys the sense of spaciousness, which is the mark of +all fine architecture. This last phase is exemplified in this country in +Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey and King's College Chapel, +Cambridge, as in the various Hotels de Ville of Flanders. Though +architecture of this kind has the admiration of Baedeker,it is simply +awful stuff. It is Gothic in its dotage, as anybody who knows anything +about architecture is aware. + +Though there is much very beautiful architecture of the fifteenth +century, it is apparent that the decline of Gothic d?tes from the middle +of the century. From that time onwards, it is, generally speaking, true +to say that the most important buildings in the civic sense are the +least important from an architectural point of view. Most of the best +examples of later Gothic are to be found where there was not too much +money to spend, for after the middle of the fifteenth century the +restraining influence in design does not appear to come from the taste +of the craftsmen, but from the poverty of their clients. + +The most important examples of Gothic are to be found in Northern +France. In the early part of the twelfth century Paris became the +cultural centre of Europe, and it remained throughout the Middle Ages +the centre of thought and culture. It was here that the Gothic Cathedral +in its essence as a kind of energetic structure in which the various +parts of pillars, vaults and buttresses balance each other was +developed. In 1140 the abbey church of St. Denis, a few miles from +Paris, was begun, and completed within a few years, and it established +the type and set the tradition which all subsequent cathedral builders +followed. First came the cathedrals of Paris, Chartres and Rouen, and +later the celebrated culminating group of Amiens, Beauvais, Bourges and +Rheims, which are generally regarded as the high-water mark of Gothic +achievement. + +All other Gothic architecture derives from the parent stock of France. +But to me the branches are more interesting than the stem. For though +there is a magnificence and daring about French Gothic, and though we +are indebted to it for the germ ideas, there is too much effort about it +to satisfy my taste entirely. It lacks the sobriety and reserve of the +Gothic of England, Flanders, and Italy. The brick cathedrals and +churches of Belgium have a wonderfully fine quality about them, though +their plastered interiors are entirely devoid of interest. Only in Italy +has brickwork been so successfully treated. Gothic never took root +properly in Italy, and the more ambitious attempts at it, as are to be +seen at Orvieto and Milan cathedrals, are dreadful failures so far as +the exteriors are concerned. But the simpler forms of Italian Gothic in +civil and domestic work and in some of the smaller churches are +exquisite in taste. It is a thousand pities that the development of +Gothic in Italy should have been arrested by the coming of the +Renaissance, for there are unexplored possibilities in it which may +prove to be the germ of a great revival some day in Italy, if not elsewhere. -In comparing Gothic with other styles of architecture, the -most extraordinary thing is that Gothic buildings, which are -badly proportioned and entirely indefensible from a strict -architectural standpoint, have a way of looking quaint and -interesting. Take the case of the belfry at Bruges, which -Mr. Chesterton once said was like a swan with a very long -neck. The tower is out of all proportion with the building, -and the various stages of it are out of proportion with each -other; it was added to from time to time, and in any other -style of architecture a building so badly proportioned would -be a monstrosity. Yet there is a charm about this belfry -which it is impossible to deny, and if we seek for the final -cause of it, I think we shall find it in the vagaries of -craftsmanship, in the liberty of the craftsman who was part -of a great tradition. +In comparing Gothic with other styles of architecture, the most +extraordinary thing is that Gothic buildings, which are badly +proportioned and entirely indefensible from a strict architectural +standpoint, have a way of looking quaint and interesting. Take the case +of the belfry at Bruges, which Mr. Chesterton once said was like a swan +with a very long neck. The tower is out of all proportion with the +building, and the various stages of it are out of proportion with each +other; it was added to from time to time, and in any other style of +architecture a building so badly proportioned would be a monstrosity. +Yet there is a charm about this belfry which it is impossible to deny, +and if we seek for the final cause of it, I think we shall find it in +the vagaries of craftsmanship, in the liberty of the craftsman who was +part of a great tradition. # The Franciscans and the Renaissance -The stimulus which was given to thought and discovery in the -thirteenth century by the recovery of the works of Aristotle -was the beginning of an awakened interest in the literature -and art of Paganism which culminated in that many-sided -movement which we know as the Renaissance. The movement -originated in Italy and spread itself over France, England, -and Germany. It is the turning-point in the history of -Western Europe and is not to be understood if it is regarded -as a rebellion against Christianity; for in its origin it -was nothing of the kind, but a reaction against the -perversion of the Christian ideal at the hands of the -Franciscans. The Renaissance was at the same time a -continuation of and a reaction against the forces which -St. Francis set in motion, while only in a secondary sense -is it to be regarded as a reaction against the scholasticism -of the Dominicans. - -In order to see the Renaissance in its proper perspective, -it is necessary to realize the significance and influence of -the Franciscans in the thirteenth century. They stood in the -same relation to the Middle Ages as the Socialist Movement -does to the modern world, in that the Franciscans were the -central driving force which created the issues in morals and -economics which occupied the thought of the Middle Ages. -Moreover, as with the Socialist Movement, the problem of -poverty was their primary concern, but they attacked it from -a different angle and by a different method. They did not -approach it from the point of view of economics, though -their activities led to economic discussions, but from the -point of view of human brotherhood. This different method of -approach was due partly to the fact that they approached it -as Christians appealing to Christians, and partly because in -the Middle Ages poverty was not the problem it is -to-day---something organic with the structure of -society---but a thing that was essentially local and -accidental. It did not owe its existence to the fact that -society was organized on a basis fundamentally false as is -the case to-day, but because the Mediaeval organization, -good as it was, was not co-extensive with society. Poverty -existed on the fringes of society, not at its centres. - -The problem arose as a consequence of the development of -trade. The monastic orders, as we saw, were the pioneers of -civilization in Western Europe. They settled down in the -waste places, cleared the woods and drained the swamps, and -around them there gradually grew up the hamlets and towns of -Mediaeval Europe. But a time came when new towns began to -spring up to meet the requirements of trade, and in the new -mercantile towns of Italy and Southern France the lower -grades of the population were woefully neglected by the -secular clergy, and in consequence had grown up wild and -ignorant of every form of religious worship and secular -instruction, while they lived in poverty and dirt. It was -against such ignorance and neglect that the Franciscans -resolved to fight, and it was in order that they might be of -service to the poor that they sought identity with them in -position and fortune. This was the origin of the gospel of -poverty that they taught, and which by the middle of the -thirteenth century their zeal and militant spirit had -carried far and wide over Christendom; for they were great -preachers. But while they were a force in all the great -centres of Mediaeval Europe, they were exceptionally strong -in their home in Italy. The huge churches built for them -without piers in the interior, and which are found all over -Italy, testify to the large crowds to which they were -accustomed to preach. But with the success which followed -them there came a perversion of their original idea. Poverty -as taught by St. Francis was a means to an end. It was -recommended to his followers in order that they might be of -service to the poor. But after a time this original idea -tended to recede into the background, and in time poverty -came to be looked upon as the essence of religion. When, -therefore, the excesses of this ideal began to make -religious life impossible for all except the very poor, it -produced the inevitable reaction. An influential party among -the Franciscans sought to have the original rule modified in -order to bring it more into accord with the dictates of -reason and experience. But in this effort they were -obstinately opposed by a minority in the Order who refused -to have any part in such relaxations. The recriminations -between these two branches of the Order at last became so -bitter that appeal was made to the Pope to judge between -them. He appointed a commission of cardinals and theologians -to inquire into the issues involved, and quite reasonably -gave a decision in favour of the moderate party. But this -only embittered the extreme party, who now denied the -authority of the Pope to interfere with the internal -discipline of the Order, affirming that only St. Francis -could undo what St. Francis himself had bound up. From -attacking the Pope they went on to attack the wealthy -clergy, maintaining that wealth was incompatible with the -teachings of Christ, and from that they went on to attack -the institution of property as such. It was thus that the -split in the Franciscans led to those discussions about the -ethics of property which occupied so much of the thought of -the Mediaeval economists. This question, studied in the -light of Aristotle, led St. Thomas Aquinas to formulate -those social principles, which became accepted as the -standards of Catholic orthodoxy, as at a later date led -St. Antonino to affirm that "poverty is not a good thing; in -itself it is an evil, and can be considered to lead only -accidentally to any good." - -Without doubt St. Antonino had the Franciscan gospel of -poverty in mind when he made this utterance. He realized the -terrible evils which would follow the divorce of religion -from everyday life if an ideal beyond the capacity of the -average normal man were insisted upon. Moreover, in the -early part of the fourteenth century the Franciscans -themselves had fallen from their high estate. It is a fact -of psychology that an excess of idealism will be followed by -a fall from grace, and the Franciscans fell very low indeed. -The high moral plane on which they sought to live was too -much for them. The moment they relaxed from their strenuous -activity they became corrupted by the degraded environment -in which they found themselves, and rapidly sank to that -depth of coarseness, meanness, and sinfulness which has been -so well described by Chaucer. The once popular Franciscans -now became objects of the same scorn and ridicule as the -monks of the Benedictine and Cistercian Orders. - -We saw there was a reaction against the rule of St. Francis -within the Franciscan Order. There was now to come a -reaction from without, and the immediate form it took was a -reassertion of those very things which St. Francis forbade -his followers scholarship and the world. An insistence upon -the value of these is the keynote of the Humanists whose -labours inaugurated the Renaissance. The men of the Early -Renaissance were not opposed to Christianity, but to what -they conceived to be the perversion of its ideal at the -hands of the Franciscans. Against the Franciscan conception -of life they warred incessantly. Their enthusiasm for Pagan -literature was inspired by the belief that its study would -lead to a fuller understanding of Christianity. In it was to -be found most precious material for the cultivation of the -mind and for the purification of moral life. Its -popularization would, moreover, tend to restore the balance -between the religious and secular sides of life which the -exaggerated teachings of the Franciscans had temporarily -upset. They had no sympathy with the later Humanists who -regarded learning as an end in itself. On the contrary, -classic literature was by them only valued as a means to an -end the end being the Christian life. The position was not a -new one. Classic literature, as such, had never been banned -by the Church. Already in the first centuries of -Christianity the Fathers of the Church had pursued and -advocated the study of the literature of Greece and Rome. -But they had exercised discrimination. They recognized that -while many classic works had been inspired by lofty -sentiments, such was not by any means always the case, and -that while many books had been written in Pagan times merely -to extol vice, there were many other books which, though -they had no such object, might be used by vicious-minded -persons as apologetics for vice, and so discrimination had -been made. The classic authors who were above suspicion were -taken into the bosom of the Church. St. Augustine had based -his theology upon the Platonic philosophy. The *Aeneid* of -Virgil came to be looked upon almost as a sacred book, loved -and honoured as much by Christian Fathers as by Roman -scholars. Virgil had remained with the Church all through -the Dark Ages and lived to inspire the Divine Comedy of -Dante a century and a half before the Revival of Learning -was inaugurated by Petrarch. All through this period great -value was set upon such classic authors as the Church had -sanctioned and had survived the wreck of Roman civilization. -The Benedictines preserved in their monasteries a knowledge -of the Latin classics. Virgil, Horace, Statius, Sallust, -Terence, Cicero, Quintilian, Ovid, Lucan, Martial, Caesar, -Livy and Suetonius were known and studied by them. But -though the Latin classics and the Latin language were never -wholly lost, the fortunes of the Greek classics were very -different. After the fall of the Western Empire in the fifth -century a knowledge of classical Greek rapidly faded out of -the West, becoming practically extinct, and with it -disappeared from Western Europe any knowledge of the works -of Plato, Aristotle and other Greek authors. From about the -end of the tenth century a knowledge of the Latin classics -began to be more widely diffused. But the incipient revival -of a better literary taste was checked at the beginning of -the thirteenth century by the re-discovery of Aristotle -which was followed by such a great awakening that for the -time being he came to monopolize intellectual interests and -the Latin classics that had been studied before Aristotle -came along fell into neglect. In this light the Revival of -Learning appears in the first place as an endeavour to take -up the threads of the Latin culture of the pre-Aristotelian -period of a hundred years before, and in the next to subject -them to a more systematic study. In another later and quite -secondary sense it became a movement of poets or men of -letters against philosophers.In no sense can the Revival of -Learning in its early stages be regarded as a rebellion -against Christianity. The early Humanists were not looked -upon as dangerous and destructive innovators. Aristotle had -been made a bulwark against heresy by the efforts of -Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas, and at the time -there seemed no reason to suppose that the study of other -authors of antiquity could not be similarly reconciled and -incorporated in the Christian theology. This spirit of -reconciliation survived through the greater part of the -fifteenth century, and when, after the fall of -Constantinople in 1453, a priceless cargo of Greek -manuscripts arrived in Italy together with numerous Greek -scholars, Plato was studied in this same spirit of -reconciliation. The proof that the Platonists of the -Renaissance were genuinely inspired by religious motives is -to be found in the fact that both Marsilio Ficino and Pico -della Mirandola eventually came entirely under the influence -of Savonarola. Ficino entered the Church. Pico burned his -love-poems, decided to become a friar, and was only -prevented by death. - -Such was the ideal of the Early Renaissance. The changed -ideal which is the mark of the Later Renaissance is to be -accounted for by a growing consciousness on the part of the -Humanists of the ultimate irreconcilability between the -Pagan and Christian attitudes towards life, if not always -between the Pagan and Christian philosophies. They began to -ask themselves the question whether the Pagan world was not -a bigger, broader and more humane one than the Christian -world with which they were familiar, whether, in fact, the -life of the senses which Paganism avowed was not the life -which it was intended that man should live and whether -Christianity, by placing restraints upon the natural -impulses of man, had not frustrated the ends of life. In an -earlier age under other circumstances such thoughts would -have been resisted as coming from the Devil. But they did -not appear as such to men who lived in an atmosphere of -intellectual and aesthetic intoxication, in a society in -which the recovery of the remains of Greek and Roman Art was +The stimulus which was given to thought and discovery in the thirteenth +century by the recovery of the works of Aristotle was the beginning of +an awakened interest in the literature and art of Paganism which +culminated in that many-sided movement which we know as the Renaissance. +The movement originated in Italy and spread itself over France, England, +and Germany. It is the turning-point in the history of Western Europe +and is not to be understood if it is regarded as a rebellion against +Christianity; for in its origin it was nothing of the kind, but a +reaction against the perversion of the Christian ideal at the hands of +the Franciscans. The Renaissance was at the same time a continuation of +and a reaction against the forces which St. Francis set in motion, while +only in a secondary sense is it to be regarded as a reaction against the +scholasticism of the Dominicans. + +In order to see the Renaissance in its proper perspective, it is +necessary to realize the significance and influence of the Franciscans +in the thirteenth century. They stood in the same relation to the Middle +Ages as the Socialist Movement does to the modern world, in that the +Franciscans were the central driving force which created the issues in +morals and economics which occupied the thought of the Middle Ages. +Moreover, as with the Socialist Movement, the problem of poverty was +their primary concern, but they attacked it from a different angle and +by a different method. They did not approach it from the point of view +of economics, though their activities led to economic discussions, but +from the point of view of human brotherhood. This different method of +approach was due partly to the fact that they approached it as +Christians appealing to Christians, and partly because in the Middle +Ages poverty was not the problem it is to-day---something organic with +the structure of society---but a thing that was essentially local and +accidental. It did not owe its existence to the fact that society was +organized on a basis fundamentally false as is the case to-day, but +because the Mediaeval organization, good as it was, was not co-extensive +with society. Poverty existed on the fringes of society, not at its +centres. + +The problem arose as a consequence of the development of trade. The +monastic orders, as we saw, were the pioneers of civilization in Western +Europe. They settled down in the waste places, cleared the woods and +drained the swamps, and around them there gradually grew up the hamlets +and towns of Mediaeval Europe. But a time came when new towns began to +spring up to meet the requirements of trade, and in the new mercantile +towns of Italy and Southern France the lower grades of the population +were woefully neglected by the secular clergy, and in consequence had +grown up wild and ignorant of every form of religious worship and +secular instruction, while they lived in poverty and dirt. It was +against such ignorance and neglect that the Franciscans resolved to +fight, and it was in order that they might be of service to the poor +that they sought identity with them in position and fortune. This was +the origin of the gospel of poverty that they taught, and which by the +middle of the thirteenth century their zeal and militant spirit had +carried far and wide over Christendom; for they were great preachers. +But while they were a force in all the great centres of Mediaeval +Europe, they were exceptionally strong in their home in Italy. The huge +churches built for them without piers in the interior, and which are +found all over Italy, testify to the large crowds to which they were +accustomed to preach. But with the success which followed them there +came a perversion of their original idea. Poverty as taught by +St. Francis was a means to an end. It was recommended to his followers +in order that they might be of service to the poor. But after a time +this original idea tended to recede into the background, and in time +poverty came to be looked upon as the essence of religion. When, +therefore, the excesses of this ideal began to make religious life +impossible for all except the very poor, it produced the inevitable +reaction. An influential party among the Franciscans sought to have the +original rule modified in order to bring it more into accord with the +dictates of reason and experience. But in this effort they were +obstinately opposed by a minority in the Order who refused to have any +part in such relaxations. The recriminations between these two branches +of the Order at last became so bitter that appeal was made to the Pope +to judge between them. He appointed a commission of cardinals and +theologians to inquire into the issues involved, and quite reasonably +gave a decision in favour of the moderate party. But this only +embittered the extreme party, who now denied the authority of the Pope +to interfere with the internal discipline of the Order, affirming that +only St. Francis could undo what St. Francis himself had bound up. From +attacking the Pope they went on to attack the wealthy clergy, +maintaining that wealth was incompatible with the teachings of Christ, +and from that they went on to attack the institution of property as +such. It was thus that the split in the Franciscans led to those +discussions about the ethics of property which occupied so much of the +thought of the Mediaeval economists. This question, studied in the light +of Aristotle, led St. Thomas Aquinas to formulate those social +principles, which became accepted as the standards of Catholic +orthodoxy, as at a later date led St. Antonino to affirm that "poverty +is not a good thing; in itself it is an evil, and can be considered to +lead only accidentally to any good." + +Without doubt St. Antonino had the Franciscan gospel of poverty in mind +when he made this utterance. He realized the terrible evils which would +follow the divorce of religion from everyday life if an ideal beyond the +capacity of the average normal man were insisted upon. Moreover, in the +early part of the fourteenth century the Franciscans themselves had +fallen from their high estate. It is a fact of psychology that an excess +of idealism will be followed by a fall from grace, and the Franciscans +fell very low indeed. The high moral plane on which they sought to live +was too much for them. The moment they relaxed from their strenuous +activity they became corrupted by the degraded environment in which they +found themselves, and rapidly sank to that depth of coarseness, +meanness, and sinfulness which has been so well described by Chaucer. +The once popular Franciscans now became objects of the same scorn and +ridicule as the monks of the Benedictine and Cistercian Orders. + +We saw there was a reaction against the rule of St. Francis within the +Franciscan Order. There was now to come a reaction from without, and the +immediate form it took was a reassertion of those very things which +St. Francis forbade his followers scholarship and the world. An +insistence upon the value of these is the keynote of the Humanists whose +labours inaugurated the Renaissance. The men of the Early Renaissance +were not opposed to Christianity, but to what they conceived to be the +perversion of its ideal at the hands of the Franciscans. Against the +Franciscan conception of life they warred incessantly. Their enthusiasm +for Pagan literature was inspired by the belief that its study would +lead to a fuller understanding of Christianity. In it was to be found +most precious material for the cultivation of the mind and for the +purification of moral life. Its popularization would, moreover, tend to +restore the balance between the religious and secular sides of life +which the exaggerated teachings of the Franciscans had temporarily +upset. They had no sympathy with the later Humanists who regarded +learning as an end in itself. On the contrary, classic literature was by +them only valued as a means to an end the end being the Christian life. +The position was not a new one. Classic literature, as such, had never +been banned by the Church. Already in the first centuries of +Christianity the Fathers of the Church had pursued and advocated the +study of the literature of Greece and Rome. But they had exercised +discrimination. They recognized that while many classic works had been +inspired by lofty sentiments, such was not by any means always the case, +and that while many books had been written in Pagan times merely to +extol vice, there were many other books which, though they had no such +object, might be used by vicious-minded persons as apologetics for vice, +and so discrimination had been made. The classic authors who were above +suspicion were taken into the bosom of the Church. St. Augustine had +based his theology upon the Platonic philosophy. The *Aeneid* of Virgil +came to be looked upon almost as a sacred book, loved and honoured as +much by Christian Fathers as by Roman scholars. Virgil had remained with +the Church all through the Dark Ages and lived to inspire the Divine +Comedy of Dante a century and a half before the Revival of Learning was +inaugurated by Petrarch. All through this period great value was set +upon such classic authors as the Church had sanctioned and had survived +the wreck of Roman civilization. The Benedictines preserved in their +monasteries a knowledge of the Latin classics. Virgil, Horace, Statius, +Sallust, Terence, Cicero, Quintilian, Ovid, Lucan, Martial, Caesar, Livy +and Suetonius were known and studied by them. But though the Latin +classics and the Latin language were never wholly lost, the fortunes of +the Greek classics were very different. After the fall of the Western +Empire in the fifth century a knowledge of classical Greek rapidly faded +out of the West, becoming practically extinct, and with it disappeared +from Western Europe any knowledge of the works of Plato, Aristotle and +other Greek authors. From about the end of the tenth century a knowledge +of the Latin classics began to be more widely diffused. But the +incipient revival of a better literary taste was checked at the +beginning of the thirteenth century by the re-discovery of Aristotle +which was followed by such a great awakening that for the time being he +came to monopolize intellectual interests and the Latin classics that +had been studied before Aristotle came along fell into neglect. In this +light the Revival of Learning appears in the first place as an endeavour +to take up the threads of the Latin culture of the pre-Aristotelian +period of a hundred years before, and in the next to subject them to a +more systematic study. In another later and quite secondary sense it +became a movement of poets or men of letters against philosophers.In no +sense can the Revival of Learning in its early stages be regarded as a +rebellion against Christianity. The early Humanists were not looked upon +as dangerous and destructive innovators. Aristotle had been made a +bulwark against heresy by the efforts of Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas +Aquinas, and at the time there seemed no reason to suppose that the +study of other authors of antiquity could not be similarly reconciled +and incorporated in the Christian theology. This spirit of +reconciliation survived through the greater part of the fifteenth +century, and when, after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, a priceless +cargo of Greek manuscripts arrived in Italy together with numerous Greek +scholars, Plato was studied in this same spirit of reconciliation. The +proof that the Platonists of the Renaissance were genuinely inspired by +religious motives is to be found in the fact that both Marsilio Ficino +and Pico della Mirandola eventually came entirely under the influence of +Savonarola. Ficino entered the Church. Pico burned his love-poems, +decided to become a friar, and was only prevented by death. + +Such was the ideal of the Early Renaissance. The changed ideal which is +the mark of the Later Renaissance is to be accounted for by a growing +consciousness on the part of the Humanists of the ultimate +irreconcilability between the Pagan and Christian attitudes towards +life, if not always between the Pagan and Christian philosophies. They +began to ask themselves the question whether the Pagan world was not a +bigger, broader and more humane one than the Christian world with which +they were familiar, whether, in fact, the life of the senses which +Paganism avowed was not the life which it was intended that man should +live and whether Christianity, by placing restraints upon the natural +impulses of man, had not frustrated the ends of life. In an earlier age +under other circumstances such thoughts would have been resisted as +coming from the Devil. But they did not appear as such to men who lived +in an atmosphere of intellectual and aesthetic intoxication, in a +society in which the recovery of the remains of Greek and Roman Art was proving a new source of guidance and inspiration. -Now it is important to recognize that the ideas with which -the Humanists had now become familiar fascinated their minds -because at the time they understood neither Paganism nor -Christianity. On the one hand they did not realize the -slough of despondency into which Pagan civilization had -fallen, while they were not familiar with Christianity as it -had been understood at an earlier age but with its -perversion at the hands of the Franciscans. For it is well -to remember that Christianity had never denied the life of -the senses. The doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body is -an eternal witness to that fact. For it was formulated, as -we saw, as a means of combating the Manichean heresy, which -*did* deny the sensuous life of man. But while on the one -hand Christianity thereby acknowledged "that in any final -con summation the bodily life of man must find a place no -less than the spiritual," on the other it clearly -apprehended the dangers to which the sensuous life of man -was exposed, affirming that the exercise of restraint alone -could guarantee emotional continuity. Deprived of a -restraining influence, man rapidly exhausts his emotional -capacity. The man who is for ever seeking experience and -expression, because experience and expression are natural to -the healthy normal man, soon becomes emotionally bankrupt. -He becomes blase. So it was with the later Humanists. When -the spell which bound them to Christian beliefs had been -broken no power on earth could stop them once they were -fairly embarked on the pursuit of pleasure. They went from -excess to excess, from debauchery to debauchery in a vain -search for new experiences, while they took especial -pleasure in the works of Petronius and the other -disreputable authors of Antiquity who sought to make vice -attractive. Whatever else these later Humanists failed to -do, they certainly succeeded in reviving the sensuality and -epicureanism of Rome. The Papacy, which had become -associated with the revival, became a veritable centre of -corruption. When the young Giovanni de Medici went to Rome -his father Lorenzo warned him to beware of his conduct in -that "sink of iniquity." And the warning was not given -without good reason. The best-known Popes between the years -1458-1522 were all more or less unscrupulous evil-doers. -Sixtus IV was an accomplice in the plot against the Medici -which ended in the murder of Giuliano. Alexander VI shows an -almost unparalleled record of crimes. In this society poison -became a fine art, simony and theft everyday occurrences, -and where the Popes led, the cardinals followed. Alexander's -illegitimate son, Caesar Borgia, chief among them, was the -hero of Machiavelli. If these monsters had lived in the -Middle Ages, we should never have heard the last of them. A -record of their crimes would have been considered an -indispensable part of every child's education. But, as it -is, their story is reserved for the few, while they are -treated with a certain curiosity, not to say indulgence, as -patrons of culture. - -What happened to religion happened to the arts. The ideas of -the Renaissance were in each case their destruction. The -spirit of reconciliation which was characteristic of the -thought of the Early Renaissance is reflected in the arts of -the period. This is especially true of the Italian -architecture and the painting and sculpture of the fifteenth -century, which is Gothic in spirit and general conception -combined with details derived from the study of Roman work. -In the work of this period the Gothic and Roman elements are -always present, and the blend is exquisite. But this great -moment of transition did not last for long. The Gothic -element begins to disappear, and with the arrival of -Michelangelo it is entirely eliminated. The decline begins -to set in, for Michelangelo introduced a manner which proved -fatal to all the arts. That delight in natural objects, in -flowers and birds, in quaint things and queer things, which -is so peculiar to Gothic art, which probably owes its origin -to the influence of St. Francis and which made the arts of -the Middle Ages so democratic in their expression, is now no -more. Michelangelo eliminated everything that gave to art -its human interest and concentrated attention entirely upon -abstract form. In the hands of a great master such a -treatment of art is great, though cold and austere, but in -the hands of lesser men it became ridiculous, for the manner -of Michelangelo was just as much beyond the capacity of the -average artist and craftsmen as the life of poverty which -St. Francis recommended to his followers was normally beyond -the capacity of the ordinary man. And Michelangelo set the -fashion in all the arts. Mediaeval sculpture was rich in -decorative detail, but after Michelangelo sculpture became -identified with the nude. Mediaeval painting was rich in -design and colour, but after Michelangelo its primary -concern is with light and shade. Paradoxically, Michelangelo +Now it is important to recognize that the ideas with which the Humanists +had now become familiar fascinated their minds because at the time they +understood neither Paganism nor Christianity. On the one hand they did +not realize the slough of despondency into which Pagan civilization had +fallen, while they were not familiar with Christianity as it had been +understood at an earlier age but with its perversion at the hands of the +Franciscans. For it is well to remember that Christianity had never +denied the life of the senses. The doctrine of the Resurrection of the +Body is an eternal witness to that fact. For it was formulated, as we +saw, as a means of combating the Manichean heresy, which *did* deny the +sensuous life of man. But while on the one hand Christianity thereby +acknowledged "that in any final con summation the bodily life of man +must find a place no less than the spiritual," on the other it clearly +apprehended the dangers to which the sensuous life of man was exposed, +affirming that the exercise of restraint alone could guarantee emotional +continuity. Deprived of a restraining influence, man rapidly exhausts +his emotional capacity. The man who is for ever seeking experience and +expression, because experience and expression are natural to the healthy +normal man, soon becomes emotionally bankrupt. He becomes blase. So it +was with the later Humanists. When the spell which bound them to +Christian beliefs had been broken no power on earth could stop them once +they were fairly embarked on the pursuit of pleasure. They went from +excess to excess, from debauchery to debauchery in a vain search for new +experiences, while they took especial pleasure in the works of Petronius +and the other disreputable authors of Antiquity who sought to make vice +attractive. Whatever else these later Humanists failed to do, they +certainly succeeded in reviving the sensuality and epicureanism of Rome. +The Papacy, which had become associated with the revival, became a +veritable centre of corruption. When the young Giovanni de Medici went +to Rome his father Lorenzo warned him to beware of his conduct in that +"sink of iniquity." And the warning was not given without good reason. +The best-known Popes between the years 1458-1522 were all more or less +unscrupulous evil-doers. Sixtus IV was an accomplice in the plot against +the Medici which ended in the murder of Giuliano. Alexander VI shows an +almost unparalleled record of crimes. In this society poison became a +fine art, simony and theft everyday occurrences, and where the Popes +led, the cardinals followed. Alexander's illegitimate son, Caesar +Borgia, chief among them, was the hero of Machiavelli. If these monsters +had lived in the Middle Ages, we should never have heard the last of +them. A record of their crimes would have been considered an +indispensable part of every child's education. But, as it is, their +story is reserved for the few, while they are treated with a certain +curiosity, not to say indulgence, as patrons of culture. + +What happened to religion happened to the arts. The ideas of the +Renaissance were in each case their destruction. The spirit of +reconciliation which was characteristic of the thought of the Early +Renaissance is reflected in the arts of the period. This is especially +true of the Italian architecture and the painting and sculpture of the +fifteenth century, which is Gothic in spirit and general conception +combined with details derived from the study of Roman work. In the work +of this period the Gothic and Roman elements are always present, and the +blend is exquisite. But this great moment of transition did not last for +long. The Gothic element begins to disappear, and with the arrival of +Michelangelo it is entirely eliminated. The decline begins to set in, +for Michelangelo introduced a manner which proved fatal to all the arts. +That delight in natural objects, in flowers and birds, in quaint things +and queer things, which is so peculiar to Gothic art, which probably +owes its origin to the influence of St. Francis and which made the arts +of the Middle Ages so democratic in their expression, is now no more. +Michelangelo eliminated everything that gave to art its human interest +and concentrated attention entirely upon abstract form. In the hands of +a great master such a treatment of art is great, though cold and +austere, but in the hands of lesser men it became ridiculous, for the +manner of Michelangelo was just as much beyond the capacity of the +average artist and craftsmen as the life of poverty which St. Francis +recommended to his followers was normally beyond the capacity of the +ordinary man. And Michelangelo set the fashion in all the arts. +Mediaeval sculpture was rich in decorative detail, but after +Michelangelo sculpture became identified with the nude. Mediaeval +painting was rich in design and colour, but after Michelangelo its +primary concern is with light and shade. Paradoxically, Michelangelo introduced the very opposite principle into the treatment of -architecture. For he does not simplify, but elaborates it. -Prior to Michelangelo architecture was simple in its -treatment, while elaboration was confined to the decorative -crafts, but now, having robbed painting and sculpture of -their decorative qualities, he sought to obtain the -contrasts he required by making architecture itself a -decorative thing. This he did by multiplying the number of -its mechanical parts. Michelangelo disregarded altogether -the structural basis of architectural design, and in his -hands architecture became a mere theatrical exhibition of -columns, pilasters, pediments, etc. Thus he inaugurated that -evil tradition in which architecture and building are +architecture. For he does not simplify, but elaborates it. Prior to +Michelangelo architecture was simple in its treatment, while elaboration +was confined to the decorative crafts, but now, having robbed painting +and sculpture of their decorative qualities, he sought to obtain the +contrasts he required by making architecture itself a decorative thing. +This he did by multiplying the number of its mechanical parts. +Michelangelo disregarded altogether the structural basis of +architectural design, and in his hands architecture became a mere +theatrical exhibition of columns, pilasters, pediments, etc. Thus he +inaugurated that evil tradition in which architecture and building are divorced, against which we fight in vain to this day. -But Michelangelo was not the only cause of the decline. -Architecture might have survived the introduction of his -mannerisms had it not been that in the sixteenth century the -works of Vitruvius were unearthed. He had reduced Roman -architecture to a system of external rules and pro portions -and his re-discovery was the greatest misfortune which ever -befell architecture. Though Vitruvius was a very inferior -architect, absurd homage was paid to him because he happened -to be the only architectural writer whose works were -preserved from antiquity. He was exalted by the architects -of the time as a most certain and infallible guide as to -what was and what was not a proper proportion. We know from -the writings of Serlio, an architect of the period who did -much to establish the reputation of Vitruvius, that the -craftsmen of the time objected to the pedantic idea that -only one set of proportions was allowable; that there was -one way of doing things and no other, and in a couple of -pamphlets written by two German master builders of the time, -Matthew Boritzer and Lawrence Lacherprotests are made -against this new way of regarding architecture, and they -insist that the highest art is the result of inward laws -controlling the outward form. But such protests availed -nothing against the pedantry of the architects, whose -prestige enabled them to get their own way in spite of the -objections from the building trade. Henceforth there is an -increasing insistence everywhere upon Roman precedents in -design, and care is given to the secondary details, while -the fundamental ideas of plan and grouping are overtaken by -paralysis. Architecture, from being something vital and -organic in the nature of a growth, became a matter of -external rules and proportions, applied more or less -indifferently to any type of building, quite regardless -either of internal convenience or structural necessity. When -this point of development was reached, any co-operation -among the crafts and arts which had survived from the Middle -Ages came to an end. Henceforth painting and sculpture -became entirely separated from architecture and continued an -independent existence in studios and galleries, while the -minor crafts degenerated solely into matters of trade and -commerce. - -The growth of pedantry in architecture was assisted by a -change in the organization of the crafts which followed the -introduction of Renaissance ideas. In the Middle Ages it -was, as we saw, the custom for craftsmen to supply their own -designs, and if every craftsman were not a designer, at any -rate every designer was a craftsman. But with the revival of -Roman ideas of design there came into existence a caste of -architects and designers over and above the craftsmen of the -building trades, who supplied designs which the craftsmen -carried into execution. At first these architects had to -proceed very warily, for the craftsmen did not seem to care -very much about this new arrangement. Thus we read that Sir -Christopher Wren, when sending his small-scale plans and -directions for the library at Trinity College, Cambridge, -adds: "I suppose you have good masons; however, I would -willingly take a further pains to give all the mouldings in -great; we are scrupulous in small matters, and you must -pardon us, the architects are as great pedants as critics -and heralds." This letter is interesting, not only because -it testifies to the existence of trained schools of masons -and carpenters who had their own traditions of design and -could be trusted to apply them, but to the growing spirit of -pedantry which proved to be the death of architecture. So -long as architecture had its roots firmly in the crafts such -a development was impossible. But with the separation of the -functions of design and execution and the rise of a school -of architects who were proud of their scholarly attainments, -pedantry grew apace. The craftsman, compelled to execute -designs made by others, gradually lost his faculty of -design, while the architect, deprived of the suggestion in -design which the actual handling of material gives, -naturally fell back more and more upon Roman precedent, -until, finally, all power of invention in design came to an -end and architecture expired at the end of the eighteenth -century. Since then a succession of revivals have been -attempted which have succeeded in producing a certain number -of interesting buildings but not in effecting a general -revival of architecture. - -Fortunately during this period of decline, architects were -few in number, and were only employed on the most expensive -work. The great mass of building was designed, as well as -executed, by builders. While the architects were engaged in -producing those monstrous platitudes in the "grand manner," -known as monumental architecture, these builders were -engaged in the development of a style of work which carried -on the vigorous traditions of Gothic craftsmanship, while it -made use of such Roman forms as could readily be -assimilated. This vernacular architecture, which in this -country we know by the names of Elizabethan, Jacobean, Queen -Anne and Georgian, is the really genuine architecture of the -Renaissance period, and it reacted to give the architects an -endowment of traditional English taste which kept the -academic tendencies of the Renaissance within certain -bounds. But in the latter half of the eighteenth century the -pedantic ideas of the architects, owing to the prestige of -London, became enforced as stringent standards over the -whole country, and this vernacular architecture came to an -end. +But Michelangelo was not the only cause of the decline. Architecture +might have survived the introduction of his mannerisms had it not been +that in the sixteenth century the works of Vitruvius were unearthed. He +had reduced Roman architecture to a system of external rules and pro +portions and his re-discovery was the greatest misfortune which ever +befell architecture. Though Vitruvius was a very inferior architect, +absurd homage was paid to him because he happened to be the only +architectural writer whose works were preserved from antiquity. He was +exalted by the architects of the time as a most certain and infallible +guide as to what was and what was not a proper proportion. We know from +the writings of Serlio, an architect of the period who did much to +establish the reputation of Vitruvius, that the craftsmen of the time +objected to the pedantic idea that only one set of proportions was +allowable; that there was one way of doing things and no other, and in a +couple of pamphlets written by two German master builders of the time, +Matthew Boritzer and Lawrence Lacherprotests are made against this new +way of regarding architecture, and they insist that the highest art is +the result of inward laws controlling the outward form. But such +protests availed nothing against the pedantry of the architects, whose +prestige enabled them to get their own way in spite of the objections +from the building trade. Henceforth there is an increasing insistence +everywhere upon Roman precedents in design, and care is given to the +secondary details, while the fundamental ideas of plan and grouping are +overtaken by paralysis. Architecture, from being something vital and +organic in the nature of a growth, became a matter of external rules and +proportions, applied more or less indifferently to any type of building, +quite regardless either of internal convenience or structural necessity. +When this point of development was reached, any co-operation among the +crafts and arts which had survived from the Middle Ages came to an end. +Henceforth painting and sculpture became entirely separated from +architecture and continued an independent existence in studios and +galleries, while the minor crafts degenerated solely into matters of +trade and commerce. + +The growth of pedantry in architecture was assisted by a change in the +organization of the crafts which followed the introduction of +Renaissance ideas. In the Middle Ages it was, as we saw, the custom for +craftsmen to supply their own designs, and if every craftsman were not a +designer, at any rate every designer was a craftsman. But with the +revival of Roman ideas of design there came into existence a caste of +architects and designers over and above the craftsmen of the building +trades, who supplied designs which the craftsmen carried into execution. +At first these architects had to proceed very warily, for the craftsmen +did not seem to care very much about this new arrangement. Thus we read +that Sir Christopher Wren, when sending his small-scale plans and +directions for the library at Trinity College, Cambridge, adds: "I +suppose you have good masons; however, I would willingly take a further +pains to give all the mouldings in great; we are scrupulous in small +matters, and you must pardon us, the architects are as great pedants as +critics and heralds." This letter is interesting, not only because it +testifies to the existence of trained schools of masons and carpenters +who had their own traditions of design and could be trusted to apply +them, but to the growing spirit of pedantry which proved to be the death +of architecture. So long as architecture had its roots firmly in the +crafts such a development was impossible. But with the separation of the +functions of design and execution and the rise of a school of architects +who were proud of their scholarly attainments, pedantry grew apace. The +craftsman, compelled to execute designs made by others, gradually lost +his faculty of design, while the architect, deprived of the suggestion +in design which the actual handling of material gives, naturally fell +back more and more upon Roman precedent, until, finally, all power of +invention in design came to an end and architecture expired at the end +of the eighteenth century. Since then a succession of revivals have been +attempted which have succeeded in producing a certain number of +interesting buildings but not in effecting a general revival of +architecture. + +Fortunately during this period of decline, architects were few in +number, and were only employed on the most expensive work. The great +mass of building was designed, as well as executed, by builders. While +the architects were engaged in producing those monstrous platitudes in +the "grand manner," known as monumental architecture, these builders +were engaged in the development of a style of work which carried on the +vigorous traditions of Gothic craftsmanship, while it made use of such +Roman forms as could readily be assimilated. This vernacular +architecture, which in this country we know by the names of Elizabethan, +Jacobean, Queen Anne and Georgian, is the really genuine architecture of +the Renaissance period, and it reacted to give the architects an +endowment of traditional English taste which kept the academic +tendencies of the Renaissance within certain bounds. But in the latter +half of the eighteenth century the pedantic ideas of the architects, +owing to the prestige of London, became enforced as stringent standards +over the whole country, and this vernacular architecture came to an end. The Franciscans and the Renaissance 137 -While thus we see the Renaissance ended by destroying -communal traditions in the arts, it destroyed also the -communal traditions of culture of the Middle Ages. This -culture, which had its basis in common religious ideas, was -a human thing to the extent that it was capable of binding -king and peasant, priest and craftsman together in a common -bond of sympathy and understanding. It was, moreover, a -culture which came to a man at his work. The mason who -carved ornaments of some chapel or cathedral drew his -inspiration from the same source of religious tradition as -the ploughman who sang as he worked in the field or the -minstrel who chanted a song in the evening. It was a part of -the environment in which every man lived. But the later -Renaissance had no sympathy with culture of this kind. It -could not understand craft culture. To it culture was -primarily a matter of books. It became a purely intellectual -affair, whose standards were critical, and, as such, instead -of operating to bind the various classes of the community -together, it raised a barrier between the many and the few. -There is no escape from this state of things so long as -culture remains on a purely intellectual basis, for a time -will never arrive when the majority in any class are vitally -interested in intellectual pursuits. Mediaeval culture did -not expect them to be. It accepted differences among men as -irrevocable, but it knew at the same time that all men had -certain human interests in common, and it built up a culture -to preserve them. - -In the place of a communal culture, the Renaissance promoted -the cult of the individual. Its history bristles with the -names of brilliant men who seem almost to be ends in -themselves. They have all the appearance of being great -creators, but when we examine them more closely we see they -are the great destroyers. For their greatness is not their -own. They were men who inherited great traditions, which -they thoughtlessly destroyed, much in the same way as a -spendthrift squanders the fortune to which he succeeds. But -while the Renaissance destroyed the great traditions, it -could put nothing in their place, for its facile -half-success left it ultimately impotent, and if we search -for the final cause of this failure, I think we shall find -it in this---that it valued means rather than ends. It -concentrated its energy upon science and criticism, but for -what ends it knew not. These, it assumed, might be left to -take care of themselves. And so it remained without a rudder -to steer by or a goal at which to aim. Science and criticism -may be constructive, but only when used by men with -well-defined ends in view. But men of this type believe in -dogmas, which the men of the Renaissance did not. Such men -realize that if criticism has any validity in society it can -only be on the assumption that it is in search of final and -definite conclusions; that if it seeks to destroy one set of -dogmas it does so in order to create others. But the men of -the Renaissance did not understand this. They valued -criticism for the sake of criticism, not for the sake of -truth but for the love of destruction. They never understood -that the final object and justification of criticism is that -it destroys the need of criticism; that the final aim and -object of free thought should be the re-establishment of -dogmas. +While thus we see the Renaissance ended by destroying communal +traditions in the arts, it destroyed also the communal traditions of +culture of the Middle Ages. This culture, which had its basis in common +religious ideas, was a human thing to the extent that it was capable of +binding king and peasant, priest and craftsman together in a common bond +of sympathy and understanding. It was, moreover, a culture which came to +a man at his work. The mason who carved ornaments of some chapel or +cathedral drew his inspiration from the same source of religious +tradition as the ploughman who sang as he worked in the field or the +minstrel who chanted a song in the evening. It was a part of the +environment in which every man lived. But the later Renaissance had no +sympathy with culture of this kind. It could not understand craft +culture. To it culture was primarily a matter of books. It became a +purely intellectual affair, whose standards were critical, and, as such, +instead of operating to bind the various classes of the community +together, it raised a barrier between the many and the few. There is no +escape from this state of things so long as culture remains on a purely +intellectual basis, for a time will never arrive when the majority in +any class are vitally interested in intellectual pursuits. Mediaeval +culture did not expect them to be. It accepted differences among men as +irrevocable, but it knew at the same time that all men had certain human +interests in common, and it built up a culture to preserve them. + +In the place of a communal culture, the Renaissance promoted the cult of +the individual. Its history bristles with the names of brilliant men who +seem almost to be ends in themselves. They have all the appearance of +being great creators, but when we examine them more closely we see they +are the great destroyers. For their greatness is not their own. They +were men who inherited great traditions, which they thoughtlessly +destroyed, much in the same way as a spendthrift squanders the fortune +to which he succeeds. But while the Renaissance destroyed the great +traditions, it could put nothing in their place, for its facile +half-success left it ultimately impotent, and if we search for the final +cause of this failure, I think we shall find it in this---that it valued +means rather than ends. It concentrated its energy upon science and +criticism, but for what ends it knew not. These, it assumed, might be +left to take care of themselves. And so it remained without a rudder to +steer by or a goal at which to aim. Science and criticism may be +constructive, but only when used by men with well-defined ends in view. +But men of this type believe in dogmas, which the men of the Renaissance +did not. Such men realize that if criticism has any validity in society +it can only be on the assumption that it is in search of final and +definite conclusions; that if it seeks to destroy one set of dogmas it +does so in order to create others. But the men of the Renaissance did +not understand this. They valued criticism for the sake of criticism, +not for the sake of truth but for the love of destruction. They never +understood that the final object and justification of criticism is that +it destroys the need of criticism; that the final aim and object of free +thought should be the re-establishment of dogmas. # The Reformation in Germany -Though the Reformation may be regarded at once as a -development and a reaction against the Renaissance, it had -yet at the same time roots of its own. Though it broke out -in the sixteenth century in Germany, its intellectual -foundations were laid in the fourteenth century in England -by Wycliffe--"the Morning Star of the Reformation" as he is -called. His ideas were carried all over Europe by wandering -scholars. He was the inspirer of the Hussite Movement in -Bohemia as well as of the leading men in the Reformation. - -Wycliffe was no Catholic, but a religious pervert. He had no -conception of the function of religion in its broadest and -most catholic sense as an instrument which maintained the -common life by securing the acceptance of certain beliefs -and standards of thought and morals by the whole people and -thus maintaining the Kingdom of God upon Earth. On the +Though the Reformation may be regarded at once as a development and a +reaction against the Renaissance, it had yet at the same time roots of +its own. Though it broke out in the sixteenth century in Germany, its +intellectual foundations were laid in the fourteenth century in England +by Wycliffe--"the Morning Star of the Reformation" as he is called. His +ideas were carried all over Europe by wandering scholars. He was the +inspirer of the Hussite Movement in Bohemia as well as of the leading +men in the Reformation. + +Wycliffe was no Catholic, but a religious pervert. He had no conception +of the function of religion in its broadest and most catholic sense as +an instrument which maintained the common life by securing the +acceptance of certain beliefs and standards of thought and morals by the +whole people and thus maintaining the Kingdom of God upon Earth. On the contrary, his attitude towards religion was a very narrow, -self-regarding and personal one. He was concerned with the -need of a man saving his own individual soul, and his -teaching was a perversion of the whole idea of Christianity. -If we keep steadily in our mind that the central aim of -Christianity is to maintain the common life, it becomes -apparent that the primary object of the priest is the -maintenance of a common standard of thought and morals. A -man by his words may secure respect for them, though in his -individual life he may fall short of their fulfilment. But -Wycliffe, viewing the corruption of the clergy of his day, -laid down the dictum that only a priest who is himself -without sin can preach the word of God. Though a corrupt -clergy is to be deplored, it becomes evident that the remedy -of Wycliffe is worse than the disease, in as much as it -denies the humanity of the priest. Insistence upon such a -standard demands that a priest, instead of, as heretofore, -being acknowledged a sinner like other men, must be a -superior person. Thus he will, knowing himself to be a -sinner, become a hypocrite in the eyes of the world, or, -what is far worse, he will become a prig, committing the -most deadly of all sins, that of spiritual pride, and -endeavour to make his own conduct the standard of truth and +self-regarding and personal one. He was concerned with the need of a man +saving his own individual soul, and his teaching was a perversion of the +whole idea of Christianity. If we keep steadily in our mind that the +central aim of Christianity is to maintain the common life, it becomes +apparent that the primary object of the priest is the maintenance of a +common standard of thought and morals. A man by his words may secure +respect for them, though in his individual life he may fall short of +their fulfilment. But Wycliffe, viewing the corruption of the clergy of +his day, laid down the dictum that only a priest who is himself without +sin can preach the word of God. Though a corrupt clergy is to be +deplored, it becomes evident that the remedy of Wycliffe is worse than +the disease, in as much as it denies the humanity of the priest. +Insistence upon such a standard demands that a priest, instead of, as +heretofore, being acknowledged a sinner like other men, must be a +superior person. Thus he will, knowing himself to be a sinner, become a +hypocrite in the eyes of the world, or, what is far worse, he will +become a prig, committing the most deadly of all sins, that of spiritual +pride, and endeavour to make his own conduct the standard of truth and morals. -This constituted the central heresy of Wycliffe. All the -rest flowed from it. Wycliffe himself was a prig of the -first order; his self-sufficiency was intolerable. It was -the elect, he taught, who constituted the community of -saints---the community of God or the true Church. According -to him, the Church consisted of all true believers who had -access to the Divine mercy, who approached God by their own -prayers without the intervention of a priestly mediator, and -who were to interpret the Scriptures according to the -dictates of their consciences. For by making the Scriptures -rather than the traditions of the Church the final authority -Wycliffe made personal opinion the final test of truth. In -other words, the Church consisted not of the hierarchy and -the people but of all the prigs and self-elected saints -whose standard of self-righteousness was henceforth to -become the standard of conduct and morals. Wycliffe was the -first of the Puritans. - -In the ordinary course of events, Wycliffe would have -suffered death as a heretic, but like all the self-righteous -Puritanical crowd he had in his composition a streak of -worldly wisdom. He took care that his new gospel would be -acceptable to the hierarchy of the State if not to that of -the Church, and made his position safe by securing the -protection of John of Gaunt, whose personal conduct -incidentally was anything but pure. The corruption of the -clergy, Wycliffe maintained, could be traced to their -excessive wealth. It was essential, therefore, to the -promotion of the higher life in the community that the -clergy should be reduced. Hence it was Wycliffe advised the -confiscation of the Church lands by the State. That the -State itself was more corrupt than the Church, that in the -hands of the lawyers who were now controlling it the State -had become a shameless instrument of class oppression which -was for its own ends dispossessing the peasants of their -lands, did not deter Wycliffe from proposing a measure which -would increase enormously the power which was so -unscrupulously used. Such larger issues did not interest -him. As to how the peasants were likely to fare under his -new regime he never, apparently, gave a moment's thought. He -was not concerned with the well-being of the people, but -with the creation of a race of self-righteous plaster saints -to replace the hierarchy of the Church. - -Such was the fundamental heresy of Wycliffe which bore fruit -a thousand-fold when the Reformation broke over Europe. -Immediately, the Reformation owed its inception to the -protest of Luther against the corruption of the Papacy which -had come about as a consequence of the revival of Pagan -thought and morals. In the year 1510, Luther visited Rome on -business connected with his monastic order, and was deeply -moved at the irreligion and corruption of the Papal Court. -Seven years after this visit he took up a stand against the -sale of Indulgences, by which at the time Leo X was seeking -to raise money for the completion of St. Peter's at Rome, in -the belief that the abuses attending their sale were the -main source of corruption. On the 1st of November, 1517, he -nailed to the doors of the Castle Church at Wittenberg his -famous thesis of ninety-five propositions against the sale -of Indulgences. The nailing of theses to the doors of -churches was in the Middle Ages an ordinary academic -procedure, and according to the usage of the times the -author was not supposed to be definitely committed to the -opinions he had expressed. But it was apparent that Luther -did not intend the debate to be an ordinary academic one, -for he had carefully chosen the day on which to nail up his -thesis. For the 1st of November was All Saints Day. It was -the anniversary of the consecration of the church and was -commemorated by a long series of service, while the benefits -of an Indulgence were secured for all who took part in them. -It was the day when the largest concourse of townsmen and -strangers might be expected, and would therefore ensure a -wide reading of his thesis, nor was he disappointed with the -result. He had raised a question in which there happened to -be widespread interest. The printers could not produce -copies of this thesis fast enough to meet the demand which -came from all parts of Germany. - -Now why was it that Luther's act had immediately such -marvellous practical results? The answer is because it had -become widely recognized that the abuse of Indulgences was a -fruitful source of the corruption of the ecclesiastical -organization. It is impossible here properly to discuss this -question, not only because it is very involved, but because -the theory on which Indulgences rest is entirely -unintelligible from a purely rational or ethical standpoint. -It may, however, be said that Mediaeval theology did not -create Indulgences; it only followed and tried to justify -the practices of the Popes and the Roman Curia. They -originated in the early days of the Church. Serious sins -involved separation from the fellowship of Christians, and -readmission to the communion was dependent not merely upon -public confession but also on the manifestation of a true -repentance by the performance of certain *satisfactions*, -such as the manumission of slaves, prolonged fastings, -extensive almsgivings; which were works acceptable to God -and gave outward and visible proof that the penitent really -desired to be received again into the fold. In course of -time public confessions became private confessions to a -priest, and there grew up a system of penances proportionate -to the sins. In the seventh century these, under certain -circumstances, became commuted for money payments, and so -little by little the inward meaning receded into the -background while greater importance became attached to the -outward acts until, under the direction of the Renaissance -Popes, Indulgences had degenerated into purely commercial -transactions. They had been abused everywhere, but -particularly in Germany, for Germany during the Middle Ages -was the richest country in Europe and as such had become the -usual resource of a Pope in financial straits. So long as -the sale of Indulgences was limited and only made use of in -exceptional circumstances, nobody thought of objecting. But -the authority of the Holy See had been severely shaken by -the Great Schism---for the spectacle of two, and at one time -three, Popes claiming the allegiance of Christendom, whilst -hurling anathemas at each other, was anything but an -edifying one. Moreover, the Popes of the Renaissance in -their pursuit of temporal power had to all intents and -purposes become secular princes, using religion merely as an -instrument for the furtherance of their political ambitions. -These Popes greatly increased the sale of Indulgences and -raised tithes and annates under the pretext of war against -the Turks, though no expeditions were sent forth and the -money collected was spent upon other objects. When news of -the corruption of the Papacy had been noised abroad and the -clergy of Germany found, as they asserted in a petition -presented to the Emperor-elect, Maximilian, in 1510, that -the Papacy could be restrained by no agreements or -conventions seeing that it granted dispensations, -suspensions, and revocations for the vilest persons while -employing other devices for nullifying its promises and -evading its own wholesome regulations, a time came when -numberless people began to ask themselves whether the Papacy -was entitled to the allegiance that it claimed and in what -sense the Popes were to be considered the successors of -St. Peter. All efforts at reform having failed, the only -remedy lay in revolution, and Germany was ready for the -signal. In 1521 the Nuncio Alexander wrote "that five years -before he had mentioned to Pope Leo his dread of a German -uprising, he had heard from many Germans that they were only -waiting for some fool to open his mouth against Rome." - -The immediate popularity of Luther's protest, then, was not -due to any desire for doctrinal reform but because he stood -for opposition to Rome. The doctrinal changes associated -with his name were largely improvised dogmas called into -existence by the desire to combat Papal pretensions, for he -was a man of action rather than a careful and logical -thinker and only stated an abstract position when he was -driven to it. The original idea of the Church had been that -of salvation by faith and good works. But when Christianity -triumphed and everybody was born a Christian, the faith came -to be taken more or less for granted and emphasis was put -more and more upon good works, as being the mark of a good -Christian life. It was among other things the emphasis which -had been almost entirely placed upon good works that led to -the abuse of Indulgences. Luther attacked this external idea -of Christianity. He had told an assembly of clergy who met -at Leitzkau in 1512 to discuss the reform of the Church that -reformation must begin with the individual and involved a -change of heart. The penitence which Christ required was -something more than a momentary expression of sorrow. Hence -his cardinal dogma of justification by faith. No Christian, -I imagine, Catholic or Protestant, would object to what he -meant by this. For though he maintained that good works were -not sufficient, it is to be supposed that he meant salvation -by faith and good works. But he did not say this, and the -result was the Reformation produced results very different -from what he had intended. Under Protestantism, stress came -to be laid entirely upon questions of faith to the exclusion -of good works, and morals accommodated them selves to the -practice of the rich. To understand exactly why this came -about we must consider the changes which Luther introduced -into Church government. Like his doctrinal changes, they had +This constituted the central heresy of Wycliffe. All the rest flowed +from it. Wycliffe himself was a prig of the first order; his +self-sufficiency was intolerable. It was the elect, he taught, who +constituted the community of saints---the community of God or the true +Church. According to him, the Church consisted of all true believers who +had access to the Divine mercy, who approached God by their own prayers +without the intervention of a priestly mediator, and who were to +interpret the Scriptures according to the dictates of their consciences. +For by making the Scriptures rather than the traditions of the Church +the final authority Wycliffe made personal opinion the final test of +truth. In other words, the Church consisted not of the hierarchy and the +people but of all the prigs and self-elected saints whose standard of +self-righteousness was henceforth to become the standard of conduct and +morals. Wycliffe was the first of the Puritans. + +In the ordinary course of events, Wycliffe would have suffered death as +a heretic, but like all the self-righteous Puritanical crowd he had in +his composition a streak of worldly wisdom. He took care that his new +gospel would be acceptable to the hierarchy of the State if not to that +of the Church, and made his position safe by securing the protection of +John of Gaunt, whose personal conduct incidentally was anything but +pure. The corruption of the clergy, Wycliffe maintained, could be traced +to their excessive wealth. It was essential, therefore, to the promotion +of the higher life in the community that the clergy should be reduced. +Hence it was Wycliffe advised the confiscation of the Church lands by +the State. That the State itself was more corrupt than the Church, that +in the hands of the lawyers who were now controlling it the State had +become a shameless instrument of class oppression which was for its own +ends dispossessing the peasants of their lands, did not deter Wycliffe +from proposing a measure which would increase enormously the power which +was so unscrupulously used. Such larger issues did not interest him. As +to how the peasants were likely to fare under his new regime he never, +apparently, gave a moment's thought. He was not concerned with the +well-being of the people, but with the creation of a race of +self-righteous plaster saints to replace the hierarchy of the Church. + +Such was the fundamental heresy of Wycliffe which bore fruit a +thousand-fold when the Reformation broke over Europe. Immediately, the +Reformation owed its inception to the protest of Luther against the +corruption of the Papacy which had come about as a consequence of the +revival of Pagan thought and morals. In the year 1510, Luther visited +Rome on business connected with his monastic order, and was deeply moved +at the irreligion and corruption of the Papal Court. Seven years after +this visit he took up a stand against the sale of Indulgences, by which +at the time Leo X was seeking to raise money for the completion of +St. Peter's at Rome, in the belief that the abuses attending their sale +were the main source of corruption. On the 1st of November, 1517, he +nailed to the doors of the Castle Church at Wittenberg his famous thesis +of ninety-five propositions against the sale of Indulgences. The nailing +of theses to the doors of churches was in the Middle Ages an ordinary +academic procedure, and according to the usage of the times the author +was not supposed to be definitely committed to the opinions he had +expressed. But it was apparent that Luther did not intend the debate to +be an ordinary academic one, for he had carefully chosen the day on +which to nail up his thesis. For the 1st of November was All Saints Day. +It was the anniversary of the consecration of the church and was +commemorated by a long series of service, while the benefits of an +Indulgence were secured for all who took part in them. It was the day +when the largest concourse of townsmen and strangers might be expected, +and would therefore ensure a wide reading of his thesis, nor was he +disappointed with the result. He had raised a question in which there +happened to be widespread interest. The printers could not produce +copies of this thesis fast enough to meet the demand which came from all +parts of Germany. + +Now why was it that Luther's act had immediately such marvellous +practical results? The answer is because it had become widely recognized +that the abuse of Indulgences was a fruitful source of the corruption of +the ecclesiastical organization. It is impossible here properly to +discuss this question, not only because it is very involved, but because +the theory on which Indulgences rest is entirely unintelligible from a +purely rational or ethical standpoint. It may, however, be said that +Mediaeval theology did not create Indulgences; it only followed and +tried to justify the practices of the Popes and the Roman Curia. They +originated in the early days of the Church. Serious sins involved +separation from the fellowship of Christians, and readmission to the +communion was dependent not merely upon public confession but also on +the manifestation of a true repentance by the performance of certain +*satisfactions*, such as the manumission of slaves, prolonged fastings, +extensive almsgivings; which were works acceptable to God and gave +outward and visible proof that the penitent really desired to be +received again into the fold. In course of time public confessions +became private confessions to a priest, and there grew up a system of +penances proportionate to the sins. In the seventh century these, under +certain circumstances, became commuted for money payments, and so little +by little the inward meaning receded into the background while greater +importance became attached to the outward acts until, under the +direction of the Renaissance Popes, Indulgences had degenerated into +purely commercial transactions. They had been abused everywhere, but +particularly in Germany, for Germany during the Middle Ages was the +richest country in Europe and as such had become the usual resource of a +Pope in financial straits. So long as the sale of Indulgences was +limited and only made use of in exceptional circumstances, nobody +thought of objecting. But the authority of the Holy See had been +severely shaken by the Great Schism---for the spectacle of two, and at +one time three, Popes claiming the allegiance of Christendom, whilst +hurling anathemas at each other, was anything but an edifying one. +Moreover, the Popes of the Renaissance in their pursuit of temporal +power had to all intents and purposes become secular princes, using +religion merely as an instrument for the furtherance of their political +ambitions. These Popes greatly increased the sale of Indulgences and +raised tithes and annates under the pretext of war against the Turks, +though no expeditions were sent forth and the money collected was spent +upon other objects. When news of the corruption of the Papacy had been +noised abroad and the clergy of Germany found, as they asserted in a +petition presented to the Emperor-elect, Maximilian, in 1510, that the +Papacy could be restrained by no agreements or conventions seeing that +it granted dispensations, suspensions, and revocations for the vilest +persons while employing other devices for nullifying its promises and +evading its own wholesome regulations, a time came when numberless +people began to ask themselves whether the Papacy was entitled to the +allegiance that it claimed and in what sense the Popes were to be +considered the successors of St. Peter. All efforts at reform having +failed, the only remedy lay in revolution, and Germany was ready for the +signal. In 1521 the Nuncio Alexander wrote "that five years before he +had mentioned to Pope Leo his dread of a German uprising, he had heard +from many Germans that they were only waiting for some fool to open his +mouth against Rome." + +The immediate popularity of Luther's protest, then, was not due to any +desire for doctrinal reform but because he stood for opposition to Rome. +The doctrinal changes associated with his name were largely improvised +dogmas called into existence by the desire to combat Papal pretensions, +for he was a man of action rather than a careful and logical thinker and +only stated an abstract position when he was driven to it. The original +idea of the Church had been that of salvation by faith and good works. +But when Christianity triumphed and everybody was born a Christian, the +faith came to be taken more or less for granted and emphasis was put +more and more upon good works, as being the mark of a good Christian +life. It was among other things the emphasis which had been almost +entirely placed upon good works that led to the abuse of Indulgences. +Luther attacked this external idea of Christianity. He had told an +assembly of clergy who met at Leitzkau in 1512 to discuss the reform of +the Church that reformation must begin with the individual and involved +a change of heart. The penitence which Christ required was something +more than a momentary expression of sorrow. Hence his cardinal dogma of +justification by faith. No Christian, I imagine, Catholic or Protestant, +would object to what he meant by this. For though he maintained that +good works were not sufficient, it is to be supposed that he meant +salvation by faith and good works. But he did not say this, and the +result was the Reformation produced results very different from what he +had intended. Under Protestantism, stress came to be laid entirely upon +questions of faith to the exclusion of good works, and morals +accommodated them selves to the practice of the rich. To understand +exactly why this came about we must consider the changes which Luther +introduced into Church government. Like his doctrinal changes, they had their origin in political expediency. -The immediate success of Luther I said was due to the fact -that he stood for opposition to Rome. Of that there can be -no doubt whatsoever. But a question arises out of it that -needs to be answered. If the Reformation, so far as the -majority were concerned, was inspired by opposition to Rome, -how was it that the movement did not take the form of a mere -separation of the Church from Rome as in the first place it -did in England? The answer is that the political condition -of Germany made that impossible. From the date when the -revival of Roman Law led the Emperors to attempt to control -the Papacy, it had been the consistent policy of Rome to -cripple the Empire by encouraging the congeries of sovereign -princes to assert their independence against the Emperors. -The result of this policy was that the power of the Emperor -was only nominal. In reality it did not exist. Consequently -in Germany there could be no appeal from the authority of -the Pope to the authority of State, but only an appeal from -the Pope to the people; that is, to the community of -believers. Hence it came about that when at the Diet of -Worms (1521) Luther maintained that Popes and Councils might -err, in the absence of the support of the Emperor he was in -the position of having either to retract or to appeal to the -people. Having taken this step, certain consequences -logically followed from it. In appealing to the people he -not only made their authority supreme in matters of Church -government, but in the interpretation of the Scriptures; a -development which was made possible by the recent invention -of printing. This was fatal for the ends he had in view, -because it entirely destroyed the value of religion as a -social force capable of binding men together, because if -each individual is to interpret the Scriptures, their -meaning becomes a matter of opinion, in the light of which -every man is a law unto himself. For if truth is declared to -be subjective, it is impossible to insist upon a moral -standard which is necessarily objective. Luther was not long -in finding these things out, though he would never admit to -himself that he could possibly be wrong. The doubts and -qualms of conscience which in later life he had with regard -to the correctness of his course of action he ascribed to -the suggestion of the evil spirit. Often at the beginning of -his crusade Luther had expressed the confident expectation -that his gospel would exercise a beneficent influence both -morally and religiously. But he was terribly disappointed. -It was not long before he was driven to acknowledge that -things had grown seven times worse than before. "People," he -said, "after hearing the Gospel steal, lie, drink, -gluttonize, and indulge in all sorts of vice. Drunkenness -has come upon us like a flood and swamped everything."He -deplored, too, the growing insubordination especially of the -rising generation, but his words fell upon deaf ears. -Writing of the change which followed the transfer of -authority from the hands of the priests to those of the -laity, Erasmus said: "The people will not listen to their -own ministers when the latter do not tickle their ears; on -the contrary, these unhappy preachers must straight-way be -sent about their business the moment that they show any -frankness, and presume to question the conduct of their -hearers." In a letter to Luther in 1524 he wrote: "I see -that these innovations are producing shoals of turbulent +The immediate success of Luther I said was due to the fact that he stood +for opposition to Rome. Of that there can be no doubt whatsoever. But a +question arises out of it that needs to be answered. If the Reformation, +so far as the majority were concerned, was inspired by opposition to +Rome, how was it that the movement did not take the form of a mere +separation of the Church from Rome as in the first place it did in +England? The answer is that the political condition of Germany made that +impossible. From the date when the revival of Roman Law led the Emperors +to attempt to control the Papacy, it had been the consistent policy of +Rome to cripple the Empire by encouraging the congeries of sovereign +princes to assert their independence against the Emperors. The result of +this policy was that the power of the Emperor was only nominal. In +reality it did not exist. Consequently in Germany there could be no +appeal from the authority of the Pope to the authority of State, but +only an appeal from the Pope to the people; that is, to the community of +believers. Hence it came about that when at the Diet of Worms (1521) +Luther maintained that Popes and Councils might err, in the absence of +the support of the Emperor he was in the position of having either to +retract or to appeal to the people. Having taken this step, certain +consequences logically followed from it. In appealing to the people he +not only made their authority supreme in matters of Church government, +but in the interpretation of the Scriptures; a development which was +made possible by the recent invention of printing. This was fatal for +the ends he had in view, because it entirely destroyed the value of +religion as a social force capable of binding men together, because if +each individual is to interpret the Scriptures, their meaning becomes a +matter of opinion, in the light of which every man is a law unto +himself. For if truth is declared to be subjective, it is impossible to +insist upon a moral standard which is necessarily objective. Luther was +not long in finding these things out, though he would never admit to +himself that he could possibly be wrong. The doubts and qualms of +conscience which in later life he had with regard to the correctness of +his course of action he ascribed to the suggestion of the evil spirit. +Often at the beginning of his crusade Luther had expressed the confident +expectation that his gospel would exercise a beneficent influence both +morally and religiously. But he was terribly disappointed. It was not +long before he was driven to acknowledge that things had grown seven +times worse than before. "People," he said, "after hearing the Gospel +steal, lie, drink, gluttonize, and indulge in all sorts of vice. +Drunkenness has come upon us like a flood and swamped everything."He +deplored, too, the growing insubordination especially of the rising +generation, but his words fell upon deaf ears. Writing of the change +which followed the transfer of authority from the hands of the priests +to those of the laity, Erasmus said: "The people will not listen to +their own ministers when the latter do not tickle their ears; on the +contrary, these unhappy preachers must straight-way be sent about their +business the moment that they show any frankness, and presume to +question the conduct of their hearers." In a letter to Luther in 1524 he +wrote: "I see that these innovations are producing shoals of turbulent good-for-nothing people, and I dread a bloody insurrection." -The trouble then, I incline to think, was very much like the -trouble at the present day. Everybody wanted reform, but -they had no intention of changing their own lives. They -would support Luther to get rid of the incubus of Rome, but -that was as far as they desired to go, for they had no -really religious feeling. Germany had become corrupted by -wealth, and as a matter of fact so far as Germany was -concerned it was much truer to say that the people had -corrupted the Church than that the Church had corrupted the -people, for the Humanist Movement in Germany which owed its -inception to the ecclesiastical reformer Cardinal Nicholas -of Cusa never became as corruptly Pagan as in Italy, but had -addressed itself to the higher emotions and had sought to -train the conscience of the individual to recognize his -direct responsibility to God and his fellows. On the other -hand, the corruption in Germany was of secular origin and -had come about as a result of the sinister influence of -Roman Law reacting upon the growth and development of -commerce. At the beginning of the sixteenth century Germany -was the most prosperous country in Europe. It was the great -universal centre of commerce, the great market for the -products of nature and art. This was to be accounted for, -firstly by its central geographical position, which in the -days of the overland trade routes placed it in a position to -trade with Italy and the Levant on the one side and with -Flanders, the Scandinavian North, Poland and Russia on the -other; and secondly by the enterprising character of its -merchants, who knew how to use their favourable position to -the utmost advantage. In the early Middle Ages they had been -averse to the business of usury and had devoted themselves -exclusively to mercantile affairs. The Merchant Guilds of -the German towns had organized themselves into the famous -Hanseatic League,which had settlements in the principal -ports of the countries with which they traded. The one in -London known as the Steelyardwas surrounded by high walls -after the manner of a fortress. It was required that all who -lived within its walls---masters, assistants and -apprentices---should be unmarried men, for they followed a -life of strict discipline which was monastic in its -character. It was upon this monastic basis that the broad -foundations of German trade were laid in the early Middle -Ages. The adventurous and dangerous calling of the merchant -in those days fostered in them a simple and humble piety -which expressed itself in a diligent attendance on the -services of the Church and in the foundation of benevolent -institutions of every kind. It was because of such things -that the merchant of those early days was not looked upon -askance. It was believed that the merchant who engaged in -active trade and visited distant markets was rendering a -service to the community, and it was considered that he was -entitled to some gain for the undoubted risks he was -running. But this old-time sense of responsibility was -gradually undermined by the lawyers, whose teaching -regarding wealth corrupted the merchants; little by little -the early monastic discipline was broken down and the -merchants became avaricious and corrupt. The trading -corporations which had originally come into existence as a -means of affording mutual protection for their members in -foreign parts, for the assurance of exchange, the settling -of questions of justice, taxation, and coinage, and had -recognized definite responsibilities towards society, began -to think of nothing else except of how to secure advantages -for themselves. They became corrupt monopolies which no -longer observed Guild regulations. They kept up an -artificial dearness in all necessary commodities, -adulterated articles of food and clothing, suppressed small -industries, paid low rates of wages, and forced down the -prices of agricultural produce to such an extent that all -through the fifteenth century there were frequent risings of -the peasants against their tyranny and oppression. All these -evils were allowed to grow unhindered because the traders -played into the hands of the great personages either by -lending them money or borrowing it from them to speculate -with. - -Now why did the nobility become a party to these iniquities? -The usual Socialist answer would be, of course, that all -classes exist for the purposes of exploitation, and -therefore it is but natural that they should join with the -merchants to exploit the peasants. This, however, is not -historically true. The Feudal class, as I showed in an -earlier chapter, had a dual origin, and half of it at least, -probably three-quarters of it, came into existence to -perform a function. Their change from protectors of communal -rights to exploiters was ultimately due to the corrupting -influence of Roman Law, but immediately it was due to the -desire to "keep their end up" in a competition of luxury and -display as against the merchants. Many of the latter had -grown to be richer than kings and emperors, and vanity had -prompted them to give visible evidence of their great riches -in the adoption of a higher and higher standard of living. -Feasting and gambling became the order of the day, while -they became very extravagant in dress. Men and women were -alike in this respect, though the wives and daughters of the -merchants were the most extravagant. Fashions changed -constantly and took the form of dressing in the costumes of -other countries, of big sleeves and little sleeves and all -the other foibles with which we are familiar. Many people -saw the dangers in these innovations, and attempts were made -to put a boundary to the growth of extravagance by the -enactments of sumptuary laws. In the year 1485 the Council -of Ratisbon made the following rules with regard to dress -which are interesting as showing the moderate demands of -reformers. "The distinguished wives and daughters of -burghers shall be allowed eight dresses, six long cloaks, -three dancing dresses, and one plaited mantle having three -sets of sleeves, of velvet, brocade and silk: two pearl hair -bands not costing more than twelve florins, a tiara of gold -and pearls worth five florins, not more than three veils -costing eight florins each, a clasp not having more than one -ounce of gold, silk fringes to their dresses, but not gold -or pearl; a pearl necklace not costing more than five -florins, a pearl stomacher worth twelve florins, two rows of -pearl round the sleeve at five florins per ounce, a gold -chain and pendant worth fifteen florins and a necklace of -twenty florins. Except for the engagement or wedding ring, -none were permitted to cost more than twenty-four florins. -Three or four rosaries were allowed, but they were not to -cost more than ten florins; sashes of silk and embroidery -worth three florins."Few people would say that there was -anything very Puritanical about such a law, though no doubt -it would seem so to many women of the day who were said to -wear at one time clothing worth three or four hundred -florins while they had in their wardrobes adornments costing -more than three or four thousand florins. - -I said that many people saw the dangers of such -extravagance. Wimpheling, who was one of the most widely -read authors of his day, writing on the great commercial -prosperity of Germany, which he pointed out she owed to the -untiring industry and the energy of her citizens, artisans -as well as merchants, showed the reverse of the medal adding -"wealth and prosperity are attended with great dangers, as -we see exemplified; they induce extravagance in dress, in -banqueting, and what is still worse, they engender a desire -for still more. This desire debases the mind of man, and -degenerates into contempt of God, His Church and His -Commandments. These evils are to be perceived in all -classes; luxury has crept in among the clergy, particularly -among those who are of noble birth; they have no real love -for souls and they try to equal the rich merchants in their -mode of living." - -Wimpheling saw, as men in all ages have seen, that luxury -leads to social catastrophe. The peril arises from the fact -that it is no longer the wise but the wealthy who set the -social standards, and a kind of social compulsion is brought -to bear upon others to live up to it whether they can afford -to do so or not. As only the very rich can afford to go the -pace, a point is soon reached when the need of money is very -widely felt. When in Germany that point was reached, nobody -wanted to do any really productive work, but everybody -wanted to go into trade where money was to be made. -Mercantile houses, shops and taverns multiplied -inordinately, and complaints were everywhere made that there -was no money but only debts and that all districts and towns -were drained by usury. Then there happened in Germany what -is happening to-day. Each class attempted to save itself -from bankruptcy by transferring its burdens on to the -shoulder of the class beneath it, and it was then there -arose in Germany a bitter enmity between the propertied and -unpropertied classes. While the working class were advancing -towards pauperism, the general rancour and class hatred -increased in intensity as the wealthy more and more indulged -in ostentation and display. - -Such was the social condition of Germany on the eve of the -Peasants War which broke out in the year 1524. It is -apparent that had Luther and his followers never appeared on -the scenes the spirit of discontent and class hatred which -was growing everywhere and which had been fermenting since -the beginning of the fifteenth century would have produced -tumults and seditions in the towns and provinces of Germany. -But it was the special condition of things brought about by -the evangelical preaching of Luther which hastened the -crisis and gave to the Peasants' War its characteristics of -universality and inhuman atrocity. Immediately it was a -movement to restore the old communal system of land-holding -which had been destroyed by the inroads of Roman Law, and -was of a purely agrarian character. The demands of the -peasants were moderate and bore few of the traces of the -intellectual and physical violence which marked its later -course. They demanded the restoration of their old -*Haingerichte* and other courts, the restoration of common -lands and old rights, the abolition of new exactions of -rents and services, and freedom of water, forest and -pasture. The revolt commenced with local risings of peasants -in the south-west. But when once it had started, it gathered -momentum quickly. It was joined first by one and then by -another revolutionary current until it united in one stream -all elements of disaffection and threatened to inundate the -whole of Germany. It convulsed almost every corner of the -Empire from the Alps to the Baltic. Bavaria alone was -unaffected, and this is attributed to the fact that the -Bavarian Government had offered strenuous resistance to -religious innovations. - -As the rebellion extended its area, it assimilated ideas -distinct from the agrarian grievances which had prompted it. -The communist spirit was rampant in the cultivated town -circles, and its effect was to give a religious aspect to -the revolt. "The age of Christian liberty and brotherhood -had come," it was said, "and one class ought to be as rich -as another." It is not improbable that the religious element -came to predominate because it offered a convenient banner -under which sectional interests might unite. While the -merchants blamed the clergy for the troubles, the nobility -blamed the rich merchants, and so it came about that in the -early stages of the revolt the rich middle class gave some -support to the peasants. Waldshut and Memmingen were -friendly, while Zurich, Strasbourg, Nuremberg and Ulm -rendered active assistance. Though the bulk of the -insurgents were peasants, they received others into their -ranks, and along with priests, barons and ex-officials there -came men of criminal tendencies, who are always ready to -join any revolutionary movement because of the prospect of -loot it offers. As generally happens in popular risings, -these baser elements got entirely out of hand and by their -excesses brought odium upon the whole movement. They brought -about the reaction in which the middle class element made -common cause with the nobles in suppressing the revolt. -Luther, who in the early days of the rising had written a -pamphlet in which he deprecates the use of violence, though -admitting that the demands of the peasants were just, now -became genuinely terrified at the size of the revolt and -wrote a second pamphlet in which he urged the princes to -kill and slay the peasants without mercy. The princes took -him at his word. After lasting two years the revolt was put -down with unheard-of cruelty. According to the Emperor -Charles V, a hundred thousand people were killed on both -sides. - -From whatever point of view Luther's action is examined it -remains indefensible. His first pamphlet might be defended -on the grounds that it was consistent with his former -attitude inasmuch as he had always taught the efficacy of -the word and had repudiated appeal to the sword. But there -can be no excuse whatsoever for his second one, for he must -have known that the tide had begun to turn when he wrote it -and that the princes needed no urging to be merciless. From -being a national hero Luther sank to the level of the leader -of a sect, and a sect that depended for its existence on the -support of political and financial interests. Henceforth -Lutheran divines leaned upon the territorial princes and -repaid their support with undue servility. When the princes -began to suppress the monasteries and to seize the Church -lands, Luther appears to have been taken entirely by -surprise. He deplored and censured the selfishness of the -princes, but he was powerless to prevent it. By condemning -the rising, Luther had alienated for ever the sympathy of -the peasants. His action settled the future of Protestantism -by identifying it entirely with vested interests. It is as -supplying a version of Christianity acceptable to -capitalists that the subsequent history of Lutheranism -interests us and is to be studied. - -The appeal of Luther against the authority of the Pope had -been to the traditions of the Early Church. Those traditions -were communist, and it was because the early Christians -despised wealth that they could approach God without the -intervention of a priestly mediator and without the -likelihood of abusing the privilege. But when Luther -alienated the peasants, he separated his gospel from any -possible communist base and identified it with a class whose -traditions were not only extremely individualistic but had -an inordinate love of wealth, and this made a great -difference. For the merchants and shopkeepers who now -supported him were not the kind of people who could be -relied upon to interpret Christian ideas to any but their -own advantage. They came to support Luther, not because they -had any intention of living up to the ideals of the early -Christians, but because they resented supervision and for -long had chafed under a religion which taught that the -pursuit of wealth for wealth's sake was an ignoble and -degrading thing, however far its priests fell short of its -ideal. So they welcomed a gospel which removed such -supervision and made them answerable only to their own -consciences, from which they had little to fear. Luther -might have denounced merchants as usurers and lawyers as -robbers, but Luther's supporters were not thin-skinned -people. They saw that the principle of an elective -priesthood subject to the control of the laity was a -valuable one for the ends they had in view and that -organized on such a basis the priesthood would soon have to -do their bidding. Hence it was that the Protestant Churches -speedily came to accommodate morals to the practice of the -rich. The Scriptures might be studied but not such parts as -denounced the wealthy. On the contrary, immorality became -synonymous with sexual immorality, swearing and -drunkenness---vices to which they were not particularly -prone---while avarice, the one sin towards which they were -powerfully drawn, the new religion was careful not to -forbid. The change of attitude towards usury is not the -least of the triumphs of the Reformation. The history of the -change is interesting, considering that Luther's first -attitude towards the problems it presented was to revert to -earlier and more rigid standards than were current in his -day. - -The Early Church had condemned usury in all forms absolutely -as immoral. But this strict view was modified somewhat by -later moralists and economists, who came to realize that to -forbid the taking of interest, under all circumstances, was -not expedient, inasmuch as it led to serious public -inconvenience. Hence the question which agitated the minds -of moralists and economists in the thirteenth, fourteenth, -and fifteenth centuries was to determine what was and what -was not legitimate. Starting from the principle of Aristotle -that money itself cannot beget money, the Mediaeval -moralists were puzzled as to how to justify the taking of -interest. They were agreed that to seek to increase wealth -in order to live on the labour of others was wrong, and to -this extent the issue with them was a purely moral issue. -But, on the other hand, there was the question of public -convenience, as in the case of travellers who would have to -carry large sums of money about with them in the absence of -bills of exchange, or the question of risk involved in a -loan. To all such difficult and perplexing problems the -Mediaeval moralists addressed themselves, not for -theoretical but for practical reasons. For as commerce -tended to increase, it became urgent to hammer out some -principle whereby the necessities of trade could be related -to some definite moral standard. - -To the end the problem evaded them. In principle all were -against usury, but public convenience demanded that -exception be made under certain circumstances. These -exceptions grew and grew in number, but no sure principle -was forthcoming, and I am left to wonder whether the failure -of the Mediaeval moralists and economists to find an answer -to the problems which usury presented may not have been due -to the fact that the problem is only partly a moral one. The -difficulties in which they found themselves in their -attempts to justify the taking of interest in certain cases -in order that public convenience might not suffer arose -because the function which the usurer performed in such -cases was essentially a public one, and should have been -undertaken by men in some corporate capacity, and not left -to the initiative of individuals. The Franciscans appear to -have come to some such conclusion, for they founded the -*montes pietatis* or lending houses, which advanced loans to -poor people either without interest or at a very low rate, -and thus prevented many from falling into the hands of -usurers. - -In so far as the problem was a moral one, perhaps -St. Antoninogave such answers as were to be given. -St. Antonino was an Archbishop of Florence in the fourteenth -century, and was therefore well placed for one who wished -for information. He was a representative man, and to be -acquainted with him is to be acquainted with the thought of -his generation, for he had read widely and formed judgments -on many of the vexed economic problems of his day. What is -more important, his judgments were of a very practical -nature, for he was constantly referred to by the bankers and -merchants of Florence to give decisions on delicate points -affecting the morality of trade. This fact alone is worth -recording, and should be of particular interest to Marxians -who believe that no other motive but exploitation has ever -existed in trade, more especially when they learn that -St. Antonino anticipated Marx himself in affirming that all -value depends upon labour, whether of hand or head. - -Though in the early days of the Reformation the reformers -were even more opposed to any compromise with usury than the -Catholic theologians, the influence of the Reformation -brought a breach with Mediaeval doctrine in the latter half -of the sixteenth century. Calvin objected to the idea of -regarding money as barren when it was possible to purchase -with it property from which a revenue could be obtained. -Calvin's attitude may therefore justly be regarded as the -turning-point. It had certainly much influence in weakening -the old repugnance towards usury. But Calvin did not allow -the taking of interest under any circumstances. This is +The trouble then, I incline to think, was very much like the trouble at +the present day. Everybody wanted reform, but they had no intention of +changing their own lives. They would support Luther to get rid of the +incubus of Rome, but that was as far as they desired to go, for they had +no really religious feeling. Germany had become corrupted by wealth, and +as a matter of fact so far as Germany was concerned it was much truer to +say that the people had corrupted the Church than that the Church had +corrupted the people, for the Humanist Movement in Germany which owed +its inception to the ecclesiastical reformer Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa +never became as corruptly Pagan as in Italy, but had addressed itself to +the higher emotions and had sought to train the conscience of the +individual to recognize his direct responsibility to God and his +fellows. On the other hand, the corruption in Germany was of secular +origin and had come about as a result of the sinister influence of Roman +Law reacting upon the growth and development of commerce. At the +beginning of the sixteenth century Germany was the most prosperous +country in Europe. It was the great universal centre of commerce, the +great market for the products of nature and art. This was to be +accounted for, firstly by its central geographical position, which in +the days of the overland trade routes placed it in a position to trade +with Italy and the Levant on the one side and with Flanders, the +Scandinavian North, Poland and Russia on the other; and secondly by the +enterprising character of its merchants, who knew how to use their +favourable position to the utmost advantage. In the early Middle Ages +they had been averse to the business of usury and had devoted themselves +exclusively to mercantile affairs. The Merchant Guilds of the German +towns had organized themselves into the famous Hanseatic League,which +had settlements in the principal ports of the countries with which they +traded. The one in London known as the Steelyardwas surrounded by high +walls after the manner of a fortress. It was required that all who lived +within its walls---masters, assistants and apprentices---should be +unmarried men, for they followed a life of strict discipline which was +monastic in its character. It was upon this monastic basis that the +broad foundations of German trade were laid in the early Middle Ages. +The adventurous and dangerous calling of the merchant in those days +fostered in them a simple and humble piety which expressed itself in a +diligent attendance on the services of the Church and in the foundation +of benevolent institutions of every kind. It was because of such things +that the merchant of those early days was not looked upon askance. It +was believed that the merchant who engaged in active trade and visited +distant markets was rendering a service to the community, and it was +considered that he was entitled to some gain for the undoubted risks he +was running. But this old-time sense of responsibility was gradually +undermined by the lawyers, whose teaching regarding wealth corrupted the +merchants; little by little the early monastic discipline was broken +down and the merchants became avaricious and corrupt. The trading +corporations which had originally come into existence as a means of +affording mutual protection for their members in foreign parts, for the +assurance of exchange, the settling of questions of justice, taxation, +and coinage, and had recognized definite responsibilities towards +society, began to think of nothing else except of how to secure +advantages for themselves. They became corrupt monopolies which no +longer observed Guild regulations. They kept up an artificial dearness +in all necessary commodities, adulterated articles of food and clothing, +suppressed small industries, paid low rates of wages, and forced down +the prices of agricultural produce to such an extent that all through +the fifteenth century there were frequent risings of the peasants +against their tyranny and oppression. All these evils were allowed to +grow unhindered because the traders played into the hands of the great +personages either by lending them money or borrowing it from them to +speculate with. + +Now why did the nobility become a party to these iniquities? The usual +Socialist answer would be, of course, that all classes exist for the +purposes of exploitation, and therefore it is but natural that they +should join with the merchants to exploit the peasants. This, however, +is not historically true. The Feudal class, as I showed in an earlier +chapter, had a dual origin, and half of it at least, probably +three-quarters of it, came into existence to perform a function. Their +change from protectors of communal rights to exploiters was ultimately +due to the corrupting influence of Roman Law, but immediately it was due +to the desire to "keep their end up" in a competition of luxury and +display as against the merchants. Many of the latter had grown to be +richer than kings and emperors, and vanity had prompted them to give +visible evidence of their great riches in the adoption of a higher and +higher standard of living. Feasting and gambling became the order of the +day, while they became very extravagant in dress. Men and women were +alike in this respect, though the wives and daughters of the merchants +were the most extravagant. Fashions changed constantly and took the form +of dressing in the costumes of other countries, of big sleeves and +little sleeves and all the other foibles with which we are familiar. +Many people saw the dangers in these innovations, and attempts were made +to put a boundary to the growth of extravagance by the enactments of +sumptuary laws. In the year 1485 the Council of Ratisbon made the +following rules with regard to dress which are interesting as showing +the moderate demands of reformers. "The distinguished wives and +daughters of burghers shall be allowed eight dresses, six long cloaks, +three dancing dresses, and one plaited mantle having three sets of +sleeves, of velvet, brocade and silk: two pearl hair bands not costing +more than twelve florins, a tiara of gold and pearls worth five florins, +not more than three veils costing eight florins each, a clasp not having +more than one ounce of gold, silk fringes to their dresses, but not gold +or pearl; a pearl necklace not costing more than five florins, a pearl +stomacher worth twelve florins, two rows of pearl round the sleeve at +five florins per ounce, a gold chain and pendant worth fifteen florins +and a necklace of twenty florins. Except for the engagement or wedding +ring, none were permitted to cost more than twenty-four florins. Three +or four rosaries were allowed, but they were not to cost more than ten +florins; sashes of silk and embroidery worth three florins."Few people +would say that there was anything very Puritanical about such a law, +though no doubt it would seem so to many women of the day who were said +to wear at one time clothing worth three or four hundred florins while +they had in their wardrobes adornments costing more than three or four +thousand florins. + +I said that many people saw the dangers of such extravagance. +Wimpheling, who was one of the most widely read authors of his day, +writing on the great commercial prosperity of Germany, which he pointed +out she owed to the untiring industry and the energy of her citizens, +artisans as well as merchants, showed the reverse of the medal adding +"wealth and prosperity are attended with great dangers, as we see +exemplified; they induce extravagance in dress, in banqueting, and what +is still worse, they engender a desire for still more. This desire +debases the mind of man, and degenerates into contempt of God, His +Church and His Commandments. These evils are to be perceived in all +classes; luxury has crept in among the clergy, particularly among those +who are of noble birth; they have no real love for souls and they try to +equal the rich merchants in their mode of living." + +Wimpheling saw, as men in all ages have seen, that luxury leads to +social catastrophe. The peril arises from the fact that it is no longer +the wise but the wealthy who set the social standards, and a kind of +social compulsion is brought to bear upon others to live up to it +whether they can afford to do so or not. As only the very rich can +afford to go the pace, a point is soon reached when the need of money is +very widely felt. When in Germany that point was reached, nobody wanted +to do any really productive work, but everybody wanted to go into trade +where money was to be made. Mercantile houses, shops and taverns +multiplied inordinately, and complaints were everywhere made that there +was no money but only debts and that all districts and towns were +drained by usury. Then there happened in Germany what is happening +to-day. Each class attempted to save itself from bankruptcy by +transferring its burdens on to the shoulder of the class beneath it, and +it was then there arose in Germany a bitter enmity between the +propertied and unpropertied classes. While the working class were +advancing towards pauperism, the general rancour and class hatred +increased in intensity as the wealthy more and more indulged in +ostentation and display. + +Such was the social condition of Germany on the eve of the Peasants War +which broke out in the year 1524. It is apparent that had Luther and his +followers never appeared on the scenes the spirit of discontent and +class hatred which was growing everywhere and which had been fermenting +since the beginning of the fifteenth century would have produced tumults +and seditions in the towns and provinces of Germany. But it was the +special condition of things brought about by the evangelical preaching +of Luther which hastened the crisis and gave to the Peasants' War its +characteristics of universality and inhuman atrocity. Immediately it was +a movement to restore the old communal system of land-holding which had +been destroyed by the inroads of Roman Law, and was of a purely agrarian +character. The demands of the peasants were moderate and bore few of the +traces of the intellectual and physical violence which marked its later +course. They demanded the restoration of their old *Haingerichte* and +other courts, the restoration of common lands and old rights, the +abolition of new exactions of rents and services, and freedom of water, +forest and pasture. The revolt commenced with local risings of peasants +in the south-west. But when once it had started, it gathered momentum +quickly. It was joined first by one and then by another revolutionary +current until it united in one stream all elements of disaffection and +threatened to inundate the whole of Germany. It convulsed almost every +corner of the Empire from the Alps to the Baltic. Bavaria alone was +unaffected, and this is attributed to the fact that the Bavarian +Government had offered strenuous resistance to religious innovations. + +As the rebellion extended its area, it assimilated ideas distinct from +the agrarian grievances which had prompted it. The communist spirit was +rampant in the cultivated town circles, and its effect was to give a +religious aspect to the revolt. "The age of Christian liberty and +brotherhood had come," it was said, "and one class ought to be as rich +as another." It is not improbable that the religious element came to +predominate because it offered a convenient banner under which sectional +interests might unite. While the merchants blamed the clergy for the +troubles, the nobility blamed the rich merchants, and so it came about +that in the early stages of the revolt the rich middle class gave some +support to the peasants. Waldshut and Memmingen were friendly, while +Zurich, Strasbourg, Nuremberg and Ulm rendered active assistance. Though +the bulk of the insurgents were peasants, they received others into +their ranks, and along with priests, barons and ex-officials there came +men of criminal tendencies, who are always ready to join any +revolutionary movement because of the prospect of loot it offers. As +generally happens in popular risings, these baser elements got entirely +out of hand and by their excesses brought odium upon the whole movement. +They brought about the reaction in which the middle class element made +common cause with the nobles in suppressing the revolt. Luther, who in +the early days of the rising had written a pamphlet in which he +deprecates the use of violence, though admitting that the demands of the +peasants were just, now became genuinely terrified at the size of the +revolt and wrote a second pamphlet in which he urged the princes to kill +and slay the peasants without mercy. The princes took him at his word. +After lasting two years the revolt was put down with unheard-of cruelty. +According to the Emperor Charles V, a hundred thousand people were +killed on both sides. + +From whatever point of view Luther's action is examined it remains +indefensible. His first pamphlet might be defended on the grounds that +it was consistent with his former attitude inasmuch as he had always +taught the efficacy of the word and had repudiated appeal to the sword. +But there can be no excuse whatsoever for his second one, for he must +have known that the tide had begun to turn when he wrote it and that the +princes needed no urging to be merciless. From being a national hero +Luther sank to the level of the leader of a sect, and a sect that +depended for its existence on the support of political and financial +interests. Henceforth Lutheran divines leaned upon the territorial +princes and repaid their support with undue servility. When the princes +began to suppress the monasteries and to seize the Church lands, Luther +appears to have been taken entirely by surprise. He deplored and +censured the selfishness of the princes, but he was powerless to prevent +it. By condemning the rising, Luther had alienated for ever the sympathy +of the peasants. His action settled the future of Protestantism by +identifying it entirely with vested interests. It is as supplying a +version of Christianity acceptable to capitalists that the subsequent +history of Lutheranism interests us and is to be studied. + +The appeal of Luther against the authority of the Pope had been to the +traditions of the Early Church. Those traditions were communist, and it +was because the early Christians despised wealth that they could +approach God without the intervention of a priestly mediator and without +the likelihood of abusing the privilege. But when Luther alienated the +peasants, he separated his gospel from any possible communist base and +identified it with a class whose traditions were not only extremely +individualistic but had an inordinate love of wealth, and this made a +great difference. For the merchants and shopkeepers who now supported +him were not the kind of people who could be relied upon to interpret +Christian ideas to any but their own advantage. They came to support +Luther, not because they had any intention of living up to the ideals of +the early Christians, but because they resented supervision and for long +had chafed under a religion which taught that the pursuit of wealth for +wealth's sake was an ignoble and degrading thing, however far its +priests fell short of its ideal. So they welcomed a gospel which removed +such supervision and made them answerable only to their own consciences, +from which they had little to fear. Luther might have denounced +merchants as usurers and lawyers as robbers, but Luther's supporters +were not thin-skinned people. They saw that the principle of an elective +priesthood subject to the control of the laity was a valuable one for +the ends they had in view and that organized on such a basis the +priesthood would soon have to do their bidding. Hence it was that the +Protestant Churches speedily came to accommodate morals to the practice +of the rich. The Scriptures might be studied but not such parts as +denounced the wealthy. On the contrary, immorality became synonymous +with sexual immorality, swearing and drunkenness---vices to which they +were not particularly prone---while avarice, the one sin towards which +they were powerfully drawn, the new religion was careful not to forbid. +The change of attitude towards usury is not the least of the triumphs of +the Reformation. The history of the change is interesting, considering +that Luther's first attitude towards the problems it presented was to +revert to earlier and more rigid standards than were current in his day. + +The Early Church had condemned usury in all forms absolutely as immoral. +But this strict view was modified somewhat by later moralists and +economists, who came to realize that to forbid the taking of interest, +under all circumstances, was not expedient, inasmuch as it led to +serious public inconvenience. Hence the question which agitated the +minds of moralists and economists in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and +fifteenth centuries was to determine what was and what was not +legitimate. Starting from the principle of Aristotle that money itself +cannot beget money, the Mediaeval moralists were puzzled as to how to +justify the taking of interest. They were agreed that to seek to +increase wealth in order to live on the labour of others was wrong, and +to this extent the issue with them was a purely moral issue. But, on the +other hand, there was the question of public convenience, as in the case +of travellers who would have to carry large sums of money about with +them in the absence of bills of exchange, or the question of risk +involved in a loan. To all such difficult and perplexing problems the +Mediaeval moralists addressed themselves, not for theoretical but for +practical reasons. For as commerce tended to increase, it became urgent +to hammer out some principle whereby the necessities of trade could be +related to some definite moral standard. + +To the end the problem evaded them. In principle all were against usury, +but public convenience demanded that exception be made under certain +circumstances. These exceptions grew and grew in number, but no sure +principle was forthcoming, and I am left to wonder whether the failure +of the Mediaeval moralists and economists to find an answer to the +problems which usury presented may not have been due to the fact that +the problem is only partly a moral one. The difficulties in which they +found themselves in their attempts to justify the taking of interest in +certain cases in order that public convenience might not suffer arose +because the function which the usurer performed in such cases was +essentially a public one, and should have been undertaken by men in some +corporate capacity, and not left to the initiative of individuals. The +Franciscans appear to have come to some such conclusion, for they +founded the *montes pietatis* or lending houses, which advanced loans to +poor people either without interest or at a very low rate, and thus +prevented many from falling into the hands of usurers. + +In so far as the problem was a moral one, perhaps St. Antoninogave such +answers as were to be given. St. Antonino was an Archbishop of Florence +in the fourteenth century, and was therefore well placed for one who +wished for information. He was a representative man, and to be +acquainted with him is to be acquainted with the thought of his +generation, for he had read widely and formed judgments on many of the +vexed economic problems of his day. What is more important, his +judgments were of a very practical nature, for he was constantly +referred to by the bankers and merchants of Florence to give decisions +on delicate points affecting the morality of trade. This fact alone is +worth recording, and should be of particular interest to Marxians who +believe that no other motive but exploitation has ever existed in trade, +more especially when they learn that St. Antonino anticipated Marx +himself in affirming that all value depends upon labour, whether of hand +or head. + +Though in the early days of the Reformation the reformers were even more +opposed to any compromise with usury than the Catholic theologians, the +influence of the Reformation brought a breach with Mediaeval doctrine in +the latter half of the sixteenth century. Calvin objected to the idea of +regarding money as barren when it was possible to purchase with it +property from which a revenue could be obtained. Calvin's attitude may +therefore justly be regarded as the turning-point. It had certainly much +influence in weakening the old repugnance towards usury. But Calvin did +not allow the taking of interest under any circumstances. This is evident from Calvin's own words:-- -"Although I do not visit usuries (payment for the use of -money) with wholesale condemnation, I cannot give them my -indiscriminate approbation, nor, indeed, do I approve that -any one should make a business of money-lending. Usury for -money may lawfully be taken only under the following -conditions, and not otherwise." Among these conditions are -"That usury should not be demanded from men in need; nor is -it lawful to force any man to pay usury who is oppressed by -need or calamity," and "he who receives a loan on usury -should make at least as much for himself by his labour and -care as he obtains who gives the loan." - -"What Calvin feared took place. In after centuries Calvin's -great authority was invoked for the wide proposition that to -take reward for the loan of money was never sinful; and a -couple of his sentences were taken from their context and -quoted without regard to the conditions by which they were -limited. His carefully qualified approval of the claim for -usury when it was made by one business man on another was -wrested into an approval of every sort of contract -concerning the loan of money." - -What happened with regard to usury happened also in respect -to the institution of property. The communist theory and -practice of the Church had been abandoned and the Church -came to recognize the institution of private property. It -was to be regarded as an evil due to the Fall, and become a -necessity, because of the presence of sin in the world. -Still the Church did not regard possession as absolute but -as conditional, and dependent upon the fulfilment of certain -duties. Such as failed in their duties might be called upon -to surrender it. They had no legal or moral claim. "Private -property and common use"--the formula which Aquinas borrowed -from Aristotle---became the official attitude of the Church. -The Roman lawyers sought to reintroduce into society the old -Pagan idea of absolute property rights in the interests of -the territorial princes. But the Church would have none of -it, and did all in its power to resist the encroachments of -the Roman Code. The Reformation changed all this by removing -opposition to the inroads of Roman Law. The rights of -property, from being objective and dependent upon the -fulfilment of duties, became subjective and absolute. -Luther, who had denounced Roman Law, came to profess the -most restrictive views on property; while Melanchthon went -much further, affirming that property existed by Divine -right, and that to limit it in any way would be contrary to -the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Apostles. - -In the face of such evidence, it is impossible to maintain -the popular notion that the Reformation was a triumph of -democracy. So far from this being true, the Reformation was -in reality the triumph of the State, landlordism and -capitalism over the Church and the people, and this tendency -was present from the very start. The story which has been so -sedulously promoted in order to give the Reformation a -democratic flavour, that Wycliffe, its "morning star," was -one of the instigators of the Peasants Revolt, is absolutely -without any foundation in fact. Considering that John of -Gaunt---whom the peasants associated with the lawyers as the -cause of their oppression---was Wycliffe's best friend and -protector, it is foolish to connect his name with the -revolt. Moreover, there is nothing in Wycliffe's writings to -suggest that he favoured insurrection. Wycliffe desired to -maintain the system of the State precisely as it then was, -while he regarded the growing power of the Church as the -menace, and it was to that he was opposed. On the contrary, -it was the Friars who organized the revolt. If not -officially, at any rate, unofficially; for not a few of them -actually took part in the revolt, leading some of the bands -of peasants who marched to London. Anyway, suspicion fell -upon them, and it may have been one of the reasons why, when -the Reformation burst forth, the monasteries were +"Although I do not visit usuries (payment for the use of money) with +wholesale condemnation, I cannot give them my indiscriminate +approbation, nor, indeed, do I approve that any one should make a +business of money-lending. Usury for money may lawfully be taken only +under the following conditions, and not otherwise." Among these +conditions are "That usury should not be demanded from men in need; nor +is it lawful to force any man to pay usury who is oppressed by need or +calamity," and "he who receives a loan on usury should make at least as +much for himself by his labour and care as he obtains who gives the +loan." + +"What Calvin feared took place. In after centuries Calvin's great +authority was invoked for the wide proposition that to take reward for +the loan of money was never sinful; and a couple of his sentences were +taken from their context and quoted without regard to the conditions by +which they were limited. His carefully qualified approval of the claim +for usury when it was made by one business man on another was wrested +into an approval of every sort of contract concerning the loan of +money." + +What happened with regard to usury happened also in respect to the +institution of property. The communist theory and practice of the Church +had been abandoned and the Church came to recognize the institution of +private property. It was to be regarded as an evil due to the Fall, and +become a necessity, because of the presence of sin in the world. Still +the Church did not regard possession as absolute but as conditional, and +dependent upon the fulfilment of certain duties. Such as failed in their +duties might be called upon to surrender it. They had no legal or moral +claim. "Private property and common use"--the formula which Aquinas +borrowed from Aristotle---became the official attitude of the Church. +The Roman lawyers sought to reintroduce into society the old Pagan idea +of absolute property rights in the interests of the territorial princes. +But the Church would have none of it, and did all in its power to resist +the encroachments of the Roman Code. The Reformation changed all this by +removing opposition to the inroads of Roman Law. The rights of property, +from being objective and dependent upon the fulfilment of duties, became +subjective and absolute. Luther, who had denounced Roman Law, came to +profess the most restrictive views on property; while Melanchthon went +much further, affirming that property existed by Divine right, and that +to limit it in any way would be contrary to the teachings of Jesus +Christ and the Apostles. + +In the face of such evidence, it is impossible to maintain the popular +notion that the Reformation was a triumph of democracy. So far from this +being true, the Reformation was in reality the triumph of the State, +landlordism and capitalism over the Church and the people, and this +tendency was present from the very start. The story which has been so +sedulously promoted in order to give the Reformation a democratic +flavour, that Wycliffe, its "morning star," was one of the instigators +of the Peasants Revolt, is absolutely without any foundation in fact. +Considering that John of Gaunt---whom the peasants associated with the +lawyers as the cause of their oppression---was Wycliffe's best friend +and protector, it is foolish to connect his name with the revolt. +Moreover, there is nothing in Wycliffe's writings to suggest that he +favoured insurrection. Wycliffe desired to maintain the system of the +State precisely as it then was, while he regarded the growing power of +the Church as the menace, and it was to that he was opposed. On the +contrary, it was the Friars who organized the revolt. If not officially, +at any rate, unofficially; for not a few of them actually took part in +the revolt, leading some of the bands of peasants who marched to London. +Anyway, suspicion fell upon them, and it may have been one of the +reasons why, when the Reformation burst forth, the monasteries were suppressed. # The Suppression of the English Monasteries -The great difference between the course of the Reformation -in England and in Germany is to be found in the fact that -whereas in Germany the Reformation was primarily a religious -and popular movement with certain political and economic -complications or consequences, in England the religious -movement was artificially promoted to bolster up the -political and economic changes initiated entirely by the -Crown. For though Wycliffe's gospel had been warmly espoused -on the Continent by Huss, Jerome and Luther, his influence -in England appears to have come to an end with the -suppression of the Lollards in the reign of Richard II, and -at the time when Henry VIII began to suppress the -monasteries there was not in existence any popular movement -demanding change. It is significant that no serious change -was made in the doctrine, worship or ceremonials of the -Church until sixteen years after Henry VIII had repudiated -Papal authority. Though Henry at one time had given the -Protestant Princes of Germany great hopes of a religious -union against both Pope and Emperor, nothing came of it. It -was clearly a piece of bluff intended to ward off a possible -attack by the Emperor. For Henry had no sympathy with -Protestantism. Not only had he opposed it and received from -the Pope as a reward for a book he had written in defence of -the Catholic Faith the title of "Defender of the Faith" (a -title which English sovereigns still use, it being popularly -supposed that the Faith referred to is Protestantism and not -Catholicism, as is actually the case) but he had actually -gone so far as to burn as heretics men who preached -Protestant doctrine. - -However much room there may be for differences of opinion as -to the motives which led Pope Clement VII to refuse to -sanction the divorce of Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon, -there can be no doubt whatsoever that the repudiation of -Papal authority by Henry which prepared the way for the -Reformation in England and immediately led to the -suppression of the monasteries was due to the fact that -Henry entertained a passionate desire to marry Anne Boleyn -and was determined that nothing should stand in his way. As -to why he did so desire, there is again a difference of -opinion. The most generous explanation is that Henry wanted -a son, and remembering that the Wars of the Roses had -resulted in the death of all possible male successors to the -throne, and that while he had three sons and two daughters -by Catherine only one daughter had survived, it was not an -altogether unnatural desire. But such an explanation is -difficult to reconcile with the facts as we know them. It -might be argued that the desire for a son impelled Henry to -seek a divorce if his matrimonial adventures had come to an -end when he married Anne Boleyn, but the evidence in this -case is strong that lust was his ruling passion, for when -within a twelve-month he had grown tired of her he said he -had been induced to marry her by witchcraft, which strongly -suggests he was at the mercy of his lusts. The fact that -Henry's life became a succession of marriages, divorces and -beheadings suggests that he was possessed of a mania which -is equally difficult to reconcile with the natural desire -for a son or the mere pursuit of lust. It should not be -forgotten, moreover, that when he married Jane Seymour he -procured a clause in the Succession Act enabling him in the -event of failure of issue to dispose of the Crown by will; -it being understood at the time that this concession was -made in favour of his illegitimate son the Duke of Richmond, -who died shortly afterwards. If the only object of Henry's -marriages was to secure the succession it may be asked why, -if it was possible for him to secure this concession after -he married Jane Seymour, he could not have done it while he -was married to Catherine of Aragon. The grounds on which he -sought to obtain a divorce from her, that he feared he had -been living in sin with her because she had been formally -married to his brother Prince Arthur, who had died before -the marriage was consummated, will scarcely acquit a man -whose subsequent life proved him to be indifferent to sin. - -Whatever the truth may be as to the secret motives of Henry, -there can be no doubt whatsoever as to the consequences of -his actions, for the whole subsequent history of England -turns on his marriage with Anne Boleyn. Having determined to -marry her, and after six fruitless years being unable to -persuade the Pope to take any steps towards the granting of -a divorce, he resolved to overthrow the power of the Pope in -England by making himself the head of the English Church. In -this task he was aided and abetted by the perfidious and -cold-blooded Thomas Cranmer, whom he immediately afterwards -made Archbishop of Canterbury, and who speedily granted -Henry the divorce he desired. By becoming a party to this -disreputable business Cranmer put himself entirely into -Henry's power and henceforth had to do his bidding, to -perish at last amid those flames which he himself had been -the chief means of kindling. All who refused to acknowledge -the king's supremacy in spiritual affairs Henry mercilessly -sacrificed. Sir Thomas More and John Fisher, Bishop of -Rochester, with many others were executed for refusing. The -executions filled the world with horror both at home and -abroad. The Emperor Charles V is said to have declared that -he would rather have lost the best city in his dominions -than such a councillor as Sir Thomas More. Yet in spite of -all Henry won through. His success is to be attributed in -the first place to the fact that he found himself in an -extraordinary strong position owing to the centralizing -process which had been going on ever since the reign of -Henry II and had concentrated in his hands more powers than -any other king of England enjoyed either before or since, -and in the next to the fact that Henry was a man of -remarkable ability while he was entirely unscrupulous. The -old nobility, who alone might have offered resistance to his -policy, had been for the most part destroyed in the Wars of -the Roses, while such as were left were no match for him in -intelligence. They were superseded in the end by a new -nobility which Henry raised out of the commercial middle -class---a class of sycophants who enriched themselves by -continual peculation. It was thus that covetousness and -fraud came to reign in high places, and the tradition was -established which identified the governing class with +The great difference between the course of the Reformation in England +and in Germany is to be found in the fact that whereas in Germany the +Reformation was primarily a religious and popular movement with certain +political and economic complications or consequences, in England the +religious movement was artificially promoted to bolster up the political +and economic changes initiated entirely by the Crown. For though +Wycliffe's gospel had been warmly espoused on the Continent by Huss, +Jerome and Luther, his influence in England appears to have come to an +end with the suppression of the Lollards in the reign of Richard II, and +at the time when Henry VIII began to suppress the monasteries there was +not in existence any popular movement demanding change. It is +significant that no serious change was made in the doctrine, worship or +ceremonials of the Church until sixteen years after Henry VIII had +repudiated Papal authority. Though Henry at one time had given the +Protestant Princes of Germany great hopes of a religious union against +both Pope and Emperor, nothing came of it. It was clearly a piece of +bluff intended to ward off a possible attack by the Emperor. For Henry +had no sympathy with Protestantism. Not only had he opposed it and +received from the Pope as a reward for a book he had written in defence +of the Catholic Faith the title of "Defender of the Faith" (a title +which English sovereigns still use, it being popularly supposed that the +Faith referred to is Protestantism and not Catholicism, as is actually +the case) but he had actually gone so far as to burn as heretics men who +preached Protestant doctrine. + +However much room there may be for differences of opinion as to the +motives which led Pope Clement VII to refuse to sanction the divorce of +Henry VIII from Catherine of Aragon, there can be no doubt whatsoever +that the repudiation of Papal authority by Henry which prepared the way +for the Reformation in England and immediately led to the suppression of +the monasteries was due to the fact that Henry entertained a passionate +desire to marry Anne Boleyn and was determined that nothing should stand +in his way. As to why he did so desire, there is again a difference of +opinion. The most generous explanation is that Henry wanted a son, and +remembering that the Wars of the Roses had resulted in the death of all +possible male successors to the throne, and that while he had three sons +and two daughters by Catherine only one daughter had survived, it was +not an altogether unnatural desire. But such an explanation is difficult +to reconcile with the facts as we know them. It might be argued that the +desire for a son impelled Henry to seek a divorce if his matrimonial +adventures had come to an end when he married Anne Boleyn, but the +evidence in this case is strong that lust was his ruling passion, for +when within a twelve-month he had grown tired of her he said he had been +induced to marry her by witchcraft, which strongly suggests he was at +the mercy of his lusts. The fact that Henry's life became a succession +of marriages, divorces and beheadings suggests that he was possessed of +a mania which is equally difficult to reconcile with the natural desire +for a son or the mere pursuit of lust. It should not be forgotten, +moreover, that when he married Jane Seymour he procured a clause in the +Succession Act enabling him in the event of failure of issue to dispose +of the Crown by will; it being understood at the time that this +concession was made in favour of his illegitimate son the Duke of +Richmond, who died shortly afterwards. If the only object of Henry's +marriages was to secure the succession it may be asked why, if it was +possible for him to secure this concession after he married Jane +Seymour, he could not have done it while he was married to Catherine of +Aragon. The grounds on which he sought to obtain a divorce from her, +that he feared he had been living in sin with her because she had been +formally married to his brother Prince Arthur, who had died before the +marriage was consummated, will scarcely acquit a man whose subsequent +life proved him to be indifferent to sin. + +Whatever the truth may be as to the secret motives of Henry, there can +be no doubt whatsoever as to the consequences of his actions, for the +whole subsequent history of England turns on his marriage with Anne +Boleyn. Having determined to marry her, and after six fruitless years +being unable to persuade the Pope to take any steps towards the granting +of a divorce, he resolved to overthrow the power of the Pope in England +by making himself the head of the English Church. In this task he was +aided and abetted by the perfidious and cold-blooded Thomas Cranmer, +whom he immediately afterwards made Archbishop of Canterbury, and who +speedily granted Henry the divorce he desired. By becoming a party to +this disreputable business Cranmer put himself entirely into Henry's +power and henceforth had to do his bidding, to perish at last amid those +flames which he himself had been the chief means of kindling. All who +refused to acknowledge the king's supremacy in spiritual affairs Henry +mercilessly sacrificed. Sir Thomas More and John Fisher, Bishop of +Rochester, with many others were executed for refusing. The executions +filled the world with horror both at home and abroad. The Emperor +Charles V is said to have declared that he would rather have lost the +best city in his dominions than such a councillor as Sir Thomas More. +Yet in spite of all Henry won through. His success is to be attributed +in the first place to the fact that he found himself in an extraordinary +strong position owing to the centralizing process which had been going +on ever since the reign of Henry II and had concentrated in his hands +more powers than any other king of England enjoyed either before or +since, and in the next to the fact that Henry was a man of remarkable +ability while he was entirely unscrupulous. The old nobility, who alone +might have offered resistance to his policy, had been for the most part +destroyed in the Wars of the Roses, while such as were left were no +match for him in intelligence. They were superseded in the end by a new +nobility which Henry raised out of the commercial middle class---a class +of sycophants who enriched themselves by continual peculation. It was +thus that covetousness and fraud came to reign in high places, and the +tradition was established which identified the governing class with exploitation. -It is possible that the monasteries would not have been -suppressed had not resistance to Henry been offered by the -Franciscans who maintained the Pope's authority. Henry now -found himself in the position of having either to abandon -his policy of making himself supreme in spiritual affairs or -of suppressing the whole Order, which he did not hesitate to -do. It now became apparent that sweeping confiscations of -monastic lands were to be made. The princes of Germany had -shown him the way, and he was not slow to learn their -lesson. Doubtless many of Henry's councillors and courtiers -who were hoping to share in the plunder were by no means -averse to such measures, for the Reformation could not have -proceeded apart from the concurrence of Parliament. But this -could not be said of Parliament as a whole. For the Act of -1536, which transferred the property of the smaller -monasteries, three hundred and seventy-six in number, to the -King and his heirs, stuck long in the Lower House and was -not passed until Henry threatened to have some of their -heads. - -The agent to whom Henry entrusted the work of suppressing -the monasteries was Thomas Cromwell. He had been an -underling in the service of Cardinal Wolsey. After a roving -youth spent in Italy and elsewhere he had risen by his wits, -recommending himself to Henry by his sycophancy and by his -treachery to his old master. He maintained his position by -utter obsequiousness, and there was no kind of cruelty or -tyranny of which he declined to be the agent. Yet he was a -man of cultivated tastes, with a wide acquaintance of -Italian literature. He had seen Machiavelli's great work in -manuscript, and from it had derived the principles that -guided him throughout his infamous career. He was -emphatically a man of the Renaissance; that strange -combination of taste and rascality which it was so -successful in producing. Henry made him a peer, and -appointed him Royal Vice-regent and Vicar-General. In this -capacity he took first place in all meetings of the clergy, -sitting even before the Archbishop of Canterbury. The -procedure adopted in the suppressions was first to set on -foot a visitation of the monasteries. In this work Cromwell -was assisted by deputies who were as villainous as himself. -They prepared reports full of false accusations in order to -find pretences for confiscating monastic property. They -menaced those who objected with charges of high treason. -Subsequent visitors appointed by Henry from among the -country gentry sent in formal reports distinctly -contradicting many of the facts alleged by Cromwell's -agents. But such protests were of no avail. Henry was out -for plunder, and as Cobbett rightly observes in this -connection, "when men have power to commit and are resolved -to commit acts of injustice, they are never at a loss for -pretences."The monastic orders were never heard in their -defence. There was no charge against any particular -monastery or convent; the charges were loose and general, -and levelled against all whose revenues did not exceed a -certain sum. "This alone," observes Cobbett, "was sufficient -to show that the charges were false; for who will believe -that the alleged wickedness extended to all whose revenues -did not exceed a certain sum, and that when those revenues -got above that point the wickedness stopped?" - -It is clear that the reason for stopping the confiscations -at the point where the revenues did not exceed a certain sum -was that the public had to be brought into line before any -seizure of the great monasteries could be safely attempted. -The weak were first attacked, but means were soon found for -attacking the remainder. Great promises were held out that -the King, when in possession of these estates, would never -more want taxes from the people. "Henry employed preachers -and ministers who went about to preach and persuade the -people that he could employ the ecclesiastical revenues in -hospitals, colleges and other foundations for the public -good, which would be a much better use than that they should -support lazy and useless monks."It is possible, of course, -that Henry may have thought that he would be able to fulfil -these promises; but he soon found out that he would not be -able to keep the plunder for himself, and that the nobles -and gentry could only be persuaded to allow him to continue -his dastardly work on condition that he agreed to share the -spoil with them. They so beset him that he had not a -moment's peace. After four years he found himself no better -off than he was before he confiscated a single convent. -"When complaining to Cromwell of the rapacity of the -applicants for grants he exclaimed:"By Our Lady! the -cormorants, when they have got the garbage, will devour the -dish." Cromwell reminded him that there was much more yet -to come. "Tut, man," said the King, my whole realm would not -staunch their maws."And thus it was that from confiscating -the property of the smaller monasteries he went on to seize -that of the larger ones, for there was no stopping half-way -once he had begun. Where opposition was encountered, -Cromwell and his ruffian visitors procured the murder of the -parties under pretence of their having committed high -treason. Here and there the people rose in rebellion against -the devastations. But the local outbreaks came to nothing, -since as nearly every one of any consequence was sharing in -the plunder the people were deprived of their natural +It is possible that the monasteries would not have been suppressed had +not resistance to Henry been offered by the Franciscans who maintained +the Pope's authority. Henry now found himself in the position of having +either to abandon his policy of making himself supreme in spiritual +affairs or of suppressing the whole Order, which he did not hesitate to +do. It now became apparent that sweeping confiscations of monastic lands +were to be made. The princes of Germany had shown him the way, and he +was not slow to learn their lesson. Doubtless many of Henry's +councillors and courtiers who were hoping to share in the plunder were +by no means averse to such measures, for the Reformation could not have +proceeded apart from the concurrence of Parliament. But this could not +be said of Parliament as a whole. For the Act of 1536, which transferred +the property of the smaller monasteries, three hundred and seventy-six +in number, to the King and his heirs, stuck long in the Lower House and +was not passed until Henry threatened to have some of their heads. + +The agent to whom Henry entrusted the work of suppressing the +monasteries was Thomas Cromwell. He had been an underling in the service +of Cardinal Wolsey. After a roving youth spent in Italy and elsewhere he +had risen by his wits, recommending himself to Henry by his sycophancy +and by his treachery to his old master. He maintained his position by +utter obsequiousness, and there was no kind of cruelty or tyranny of +which he declined to be the agent. Yet he was a man of cultivated +tastes, with a wide acquaintance of Italian literature. He had seen +Machiavelli's great work in manuscript, and from it had derived the +principles that guided him throughout his infamous career. He was +emphatically a man of the Renaissance; that strange combination of taste +and rascality which it was so successful in producing. Henry made him a +peer, and appointed him Royal Vice-regent and Vicar-General. In this +capacity he took first place in all meetings of the clergy, sitting even +before the Archbishop of Canterbury. The procedure adopted in the +suppressions was first to set on foot a visitation of the monasteries. +In this work Cromwell was assisted by deputies who were as villainous as +himself. They prepared reports full of false accusations in order to +find pretences for confiscating monastic property. They menaced those +who objected with charges of high treason. Subsequent visitors appointed +by Henry from among the country gentry sent in formal reports distinctly +contradicting many of the facts alleged by Cromwell's agents. But such +protests were of no avail. Henry was out for plunder, and as Cobbett +rightly observes in this connection, "when men have power to commit and +are resolved to commit acts of injustice, they are never at a loss for +pretences."The monastic orders were never heard in their defence. There +was no charge against any particular monastery or convent; the charges +were loose and general, and levelled against all whose revenues did not +exceed a certain sum. "This alone," observes Cobbett, "was sufficient to +show that the charges were false; for who will believe that the alleged +wickedness extended to all whose revenues did not exceed a certain sum, +and that when those revenues got above that point the wickedness +stopped?" + +It is clear that the reason for stopping the confiscations at the point +where the revenues did not exceed a certain sum was that the public had +to be brought into line before any seizure of the great monasteries +could be safely attempted. The weak were first attacked, but means were +soon found for attacking the remainder. Great promises were held out +that the King, when in possession of these estates, would never more +want taxes from the people. "Henry employed preachers and ministers who +went about to preach and persuade the people that he could employ the +ecclesiastical revenues in hospitals, colleges and other foundations for +the public good, which would be a much better use than that they should +support lazy and useless monks."It is possible, of course, that Henry +may have thought that he would be able to fulfil these promises; but he +soon found out that he would not be able to keep the plunder for +himself, and that the nobles and gentry could only be persuaded to allow +him to continue his dastardly work on condition that he agreed to share +the spoil with them. They so beset him that he had not a moment's peace. +After four years he found himself no better off than he was before he +confiscated a single convent. "When complaining to Cromwell of the +rapacity of the applicants for grants he exclaimed:"By Our Lady! the +cormorants, when they have got the garbage, will devour the dish." +Cromwell reminded him that there was much more yet to come. "Tut, man," +said the King, my whole realm would not staunch their maws."And thus it +was that from confiscating the property of the smaller monasteries he +went on to seize that of the larger ones, for there was no stopping +half-way once he had begun. Where opposition was encountered, Cromwell +and his ruffian visitors procured the murder of the parties under +pretence of their having committed high treason. Here and there the +people rose in rebellion against the devastations. But the local +outbreaks came to nothing, since as nearly every one of any consequence +was sharing in the plunder the people were deprived of their natural leaders. -During the Middle Ages, England had been the most prosperous -and happiest country in Europe, perhaps the happiest country -at any time in history. These monasteries were wealthy and -full of things of gold and silver; and society was so well -ordered that these things remained untouched, though there -was no standing army or police. But Cromwell and his -ruffians stripped them bare of all such things. The only -parallel which history affords of such a rich harvest of -plunder is that of the conquest of Peru, during which Cortes -and Pizarro stripped the temples bare of their gold and -silver linings. - -"The ruffians of Cromwell entered the convents; they tore -down the altars to get away the gold and silver, ran sacked -the chests and drawers of the monks and nuns, tore off the -covers of the books that were ornamented with the precious -metals. These books were all in manuscript. Single books -that had taken half a long lifetime to compose and to copy -out fair; whole libraries, the getting of which together had -taken ages and ages and had cost immense sums of money, were -scattered abroad by these hellish ruffians when they had -robbed the covers of their rich ornaments. The ready money -in the convents, down to the last shilling, was seized." - -Among the libraries so destroyed was that of St. Albans -Abbey, which was the greatest library in England. But the -destruction of libraries at the Reformation was not confined -to those of the monasteries. The original Guildhall Library, -founded by Whittington and Carpenter, was destroyed, as were -also the Library at St. Paul's Cathedral and the predecessor -of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. About the year 1440, -Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, "gave to the University of -Oxford a library containing 600 volumes, only 120 of which -were valued at more than a hundred thou sand pounds. These -books are called *Novi Tractatus*, or New Treatises, in the -University register, and said to be *admirandi apparatus*. -They were the most splendid and costly copies that could be -procured, finely written on vellum, and elegantly -embellished with miniatures and illuminations. Among the -rest was a translation into French of Ovid's -*Metamorphoses*. Only a single specimen of these valuable -volumes was suffered to remain; it is a beautiful MS. in -folio of Valerius Maximus, enriched with the most elegant -decorations, and written in Duke Humphrey's age, evidently -with a design of being placed in this sumptuous collection. -All the rest of the books, which, like this, being highly -ornamented, looked like missals, and conveyed ideas of -Popish superstition, were destroyed or removed by the pious -visitors of the University in the reign of Edward VI, whose -zeal was only equalled by their avarice."Any thing which was -decorated apparently ranked then as Popish superstition, -which was a convenient cloak for the pursuit of plunder. - -After the monasteries were plundered, sacked and gutted, -they were rased to the ground, and in most cases gunpowder -was employed in order to get through the job quickly. For in -granting these estates, it was in most cases stipulated that -they should be destroyed. The reason may be easily -understood. These wonderful Gothic buildings could not be -allowed to stand, for their continued existence would have -been a constant reminder to the people that these estates -had been plundered, while their destruction deprived them of -all hope of the old order ever being restored. The loss of -these splendid buildings, where formerly rich and poor -received hospitality on their travels, brought a feeling of -sadness to the countryside, particularly in solitary and -mountainous districts---a sadness which was not diminished -when the manor-houses of Elizabeth and James I were built -out of their ruins. The only comfort there is in this -terrible story is the knowledge that Cromwell, after he had -plundered, pillaged and devastated England, was sent to the -block by Henry, who had then no further use for him. But -Henry, the chief instigator of these crimes, got off -scot-free. - -It has often been urged that the monastic orders could not -have occupied the same place in the popular affections as -they had done at an earlier date, or Henry would not have -found it possible to suppress them. The answer is that on a -straight issue they could never have been suppressed. The -people would everywhere have risen in their defence. But -Henry was too cunning to create such an issue. He allowed -important people to share in the plunder, disarmed -opposition by promises of putting their funds to a better -use, and quelled rebellions by making promises that he had -never any intention of fulfilling. Thus by trickery he -prevented united action being taken against him. The -suppression of the monasteries was for the people a loss of -the first magnitude, as the following interesting picture of -monastic estates at the time bears witness:-- - -"There was no person that came to them heavy or sad for any -cause that went away comfortless; they never revenged them -of any injury, but were content to forgive it freely upon -submission, and if the price of corn had begun to start up -in the market they made thereunto with wain load of corn, -and sold it under the market to poor people, to the end to -bring down the price thereof. If the highways, bridges, or -causeways were tedious to the passengers that sought their -living by their travel, their great help lacked not towards -the repairing and amending thereof---yea, often times they -amended them on their own proper charges. - -"If any poor householder lacked seed to sow his land, or -bread, corn, or malt before harvest, and came to a monastery -either of men or women, he should not have gone away without -help; for he should have had it until harvest, that he might -easily have paid it again. Yea, if he had made his moan for -an ox, horse, or cow, he might have had it upon his credit, -and such was the good conscience of the borrowers in those -days that the thing borrowed needed not to have been asked -at the day of payment. - -"They never raised their rent, or took any income or -garsomes (fines) of their tenants, nor ever broke in or -improved any commons, although the most part and the -greatest waste grounds belonged to their possessions. - -"If any poor people had made their moan at the day of -marriage to any abbey, they should have had money given to -their great help. And thus all sorts of people were helped -and succoured by abbeys; yea, happy was that person that was -tenant to an abbey, for it was a rare thing to hear that any -tenant was removed by taking his farm over his head, nor he -was not afraid of any re-entry for non-payment of rent, if -necessity drove him there onto. And thus they fulfilled the -works of charity in all the country round about them, to the -good example of all lay persons that now have taken forth -other lessons, that is, *nunc tempus olios postulat mores*." - -When these estates passed into the hands of the land lords -they speedily raised the rents and enclosed the commons. In -other cases the peasantry were simply turned out of their -holdings in order that sheep-farming might be substituted -for tillage. "It seems," observes Cunningham, "that the -lords had the peasantry entirely in their own power, and -that, since they were technically liable for incidents of -the nominal servitude, into which they had returned since -the failure of 1381, their lands were forfeited in law if -not in equity."It may be said that these changes created the -problem of poverty. For though there was some poverty in the -Middle Ages, the monasteries must on the whole have relieved -it, for one of the charges brought against them is that they -were too indiscriminate in their charity and that many -beggars had become dependent on them. It is not necessary to -deny the truth of such statements, but to point out that if -the monasteries supported beggars they were created by the -landlords who, with the help of the Roman lawyers, had -dispossessed the peasants and turned them adrift because -sheep-farming was more profitable than tillage. Are the -monasteries to be condemned for having succoured those whom -the landlords had rendered homeless? After the suppression, -the poor were deprived at one fell swoop of alms, shelter -and schooling. The consequence was that great numbers, left -entirely destitute of the means of existence, took to -begging and thieving. Henry VIII is said to have put 72,000 -thieves to death. Elizabeth complained bitterly that she -could not get the laws enforced against them. Such was the -degree of beggary, of vagabondage, and of thievishness and -robbery, that she resorted particularly in London and its -neighbourhood to martial law." But it was all of no avail. -The people had been rendered destitute, and there were only -two possible policies for dealing with them if economic -injustices were to be maintained---extermination or legal -pauperism. Shrinking from the former, resort at last was -made to the latter, and some general permanent and solid -provision was made for them. In the forty-third year of her -reign there was passed the measure which we know to-day as -the Elizabethan Poor Law, from which our Poor Law derives. - -It was not only in the realm of charity and hospitality that -the monasteries were missed. It was customary for them to -maintain highways and dykes, to build bridges and seawalls -and other such things for the commonwealth. Many arts that -had been brought to a high state of perfection in the -monasteries were paralysed or migrated to the towns. -Sculpture, embroidery, clock-making and bell-founding were -almost entirely monastic arts. The monks had been the -chroniclers and transcribers of manuscripts in the Middle -Ages, and were among the first to set up printing presses. -It is true that monasticism had for long been on the -decline, but the monasteries had come to perform all kinds -of functions which were no part of their original purpose. -The consequence was that their violent suppression -disorganized the social and economic life in the community -in many directions. Their disappearance left a gap in the -educational system of the country which the reforms of the -nineteenth century have attempted in vain to fill, for the -education of the people was largely in the hands of the -monastic establishments; what was not in their hands was in -those of the chantry priests, who were generally the local -schoolmasters. So it came about that when in the reign of -Edward VI the chantries were also suppressed, all provision -for education practically came to an end. The reason why so -many educational endowments date from the reign of Edward VI -is not to be found in the surmise that as a consequence of -the Revival of Learning and the Reformation a sudden desire -for enlightenment came over society, but to the fact that -when the monasteries were suppressed certain people, feeling -the gap which had been made in society, left money for such -foundations. The destruction of the monastic system of -elementary education reacted to undermine the position of -the universities, which nearly disappeared; for the -monasteries not only provided probationers for them but -maintained many there to complete their education. In the -thirteenth century, it is said, there were 30,000students at -Oxford, but to such an extent did university studies decay -that "in the six years from 1542 to 1548 only 191 students -were admitted bachelor of arts at Cambridge and only 173 at -Oxford."When the revival of the universities did take place, -their character was completely changed. They were no longer -the democratic institutions of the Middle Ages, but -finishing-schools for the rich. - -Educationalists might do worse than study the Mediaeval and -monastic system of education, for it obviated one of the -most glaring defects of the present system---the gulf -between elementary and higher education. This it did by a -system of local autonomy, which made every elementary school -part of an institution which was primarily interested in the -pursuit of learning. In consequence of this there were no -elementary school teachers existing as a class apart, cut -off from the main currents of intellectual life, whose -individuality was strangled by the requirements of a code. -On the contrary, the whole system was free and humane, while -it was organic from the top to the bottom; and this was -possible because the Medievalists were not interested in an -abstraction called "education," but in certain definite -things which they were anxious to teach. The problem of -improvising machinery is so simple when you know what you -want it to do, and so perplexing when you don't. +During the Middle Ages, England had been the most prosperous and +happiest country in Europe, perhaps the happiest country at any time in +history. These monasteries were wealthy and full of things of gold and +silver; and society was so well ordered that these things remained +untouched, though there was no standing army or police. But Cromwell and +his ruffians stripped them bare of all such things. The only parallel +which history affords of such a rich harvest of plunder is that of the +conquest of Peru, during which Cortes and Pizarro stripped the temples +bare of their gold and silver linings. + +"The ruffians of Cromwell entered the convents; they tore down the +altars to get away the gold and silver, ran sacked the chests and +drawers of the monks and nuns, tore off the covers of the books that +were ornamented with the precious metals. These books were all in +manuscript. Single books that had taken half a long lifetime to compose +and to copy out fair; whole libraries, the getting of which together had +taken ages and ages and had cost immense sums of money, were scattered +abroad by these hellish ruffians when they had robbed the covers of +their rich ornaments. The ready money in the convents, down to the last +shilling, was seized." + +Among the libraries so destroyed was that of St. Albans Abbey, which was +the greatest library in England. But the destruction of libraries at the +Reformation was not confined to those of the monasteries. The original +Guildhall Library, founded by Whittington and Carpenter, was destroyed, +as were also the Library at St. Paul's Cathedral and the predecessor of +the Bodleian Library at Oxford. About the year 1440, Humphrey, Duke of +Gloucester, "gave to the University of Oxford a library containing 600 +volumes, only 120 of which were valued at more than a hundred thou sand +pounds. These books are called *Novi Tractatus*, or New Treatises, in +the University register, and said to be *admirandi apparatus*. They were +the most splendid and costly copies that could be procured, finely +written on vellum, and elegantly embellished with miniatures and +illuminations. Among the rest was a translation into French of Ovid's +*Metamorphoses*. Only a single specimen of these valuable volumes was +suffered to remain; it is a beautiful MS. in folio of Valerius Maximus, +enriched with the most elegant decorations, and written in Duke +Humphrey's age, evidently with a design of being placed in this +sumptuous collection. All the rest of the books, which, like this, being +highly ornamented, looked like missals, and conveyed ideas of Popish +superstition, were destroyed or removed by the pious visitors of the +University in the reign of Edward VI, whose zeal was only equalled by +their avarice."Any thing which was decorated apparently ranked then as +Popish superstition, which was a convenient cloak for the pursuit of +plunder. + +After the monasteries were plundered, sacked and gutted, they were rased +to the ground, and in most cases gunpowder was employed in order to get +through the job quickly. For in granting these estates, it was in most +cases stipulated that they should be destroyed. The reason may be easily +understood. These wonderful Gothic buildings could not be allowed to +stand, for their continued existence would have been a constant reminder +to the people that these estates had been plundered, while their +destruction deprived them of all hope of the old order ever being +restored. The loss of these splendid buildings, where formerly rich and +poor received hospitality on their travels, brought a feeling of sadness +to the countryside, particularly in solitary and mountainous +districts---a sadness which was not diminished when the manor-houses of +Elizabeth and James I were built out of their ruins. The only comfort +there is in this terrible story is the knowledge that Cromwell, after he +had plundered, pillaged and devastated England, was sent to the block by +Henry, who had then no further use for him. But Henry, the chief +instigator of these crimes, got off scot-free. + +It has often been urged that the monastic orders could not have occupied +the same place in the popular affections as they had done at an earlier +date, or Henry would not have found it possible to suppress them. The +answer is that on a straight issue they could never have been +suppressed. The people would everywhere have risen in their defence. But +Henry was too cunning to create such an issue. He allowed important +people to share in the plunder, disarmed opposition by promises of +putting their funds to a better use, and quelled rebellions by making +promises that he had never any intention of fulfilling. Thus by trickery +he prevented united action being taken against him. The suppression of +the monasteries was for the people a loss of the first magnitude, as the +following interesting picture of monastic estates at the time bears +witness:-- + +"There was no person that came to them heavy or sad for any cause that +went away comfortless; they never revenged them of any injury, but were +content to forgive it freely upon submission, and if the price of corn +had begun to start up in the market they made thereunto with wain load +of corn, and sold it under the market to poor people, to the end to +bring down the price thereof. If the highways, bridges, or causeways +were tedious to the passengers that sought their living by their travel, +their great help lacked not towards the repairing and amending +thereof---yea, often times they amended them on their own proper +charges. + +"If any poor householder lacked seed to sow his land, or bread, corn, or +malt before harvest, and came to a monastery either of men or women, he +should not have gone away without help; for he should have had it until +harvest, that he might easily have paid it again. Yea, if he had made +his moan for an ox, horse, or cow, he might have had it upon his credit, +and such was the good conscience of the borrowers in those days that the +thing borrowed needed not to have been asked at the day of payment. + +"They never raised their rent, or took any income or garsomes (fines) of +their tenants, nor ever broke in or improved any commons, although the +most part and the greatest waste grounds belonged to their possessions. + +"If any poor people had made their moan at the day of marriage to any +abbey, they should have had money given to their great help. And thus +all sorts of people were helped and succoured by abbeys; yea, happy was +that person that was tenant to an abbey, for it was a rare thing to hear +that any tenant was removed by taking his farm over his head, nor he was +not afraid of any re-entry for non-payment of rent, if necessity drove +him there onto. And thus they fulfilled the works of charity in all the +country round about them, to the good example of all lay persons that +now have taken forth other lessons, that is, *nunc tempus olios postulat +mores*." + +When these estates passed into the hands of the land lords they speedily +raised the rents and enclosed the commons. In other cases the peasantry +were simply turned out of their holdings in order that sheep-farming +might be substituted for tillage. "It seems," observes Cunningham, "that +the lords had the peasantry entirely in their own power, and that, since +they were technically liable for incidents of the nominal servitude, +into which they had returned since the failure of 1381, their lands were +forfeited in law if not in equity."It may be said that these changes +created the problem of poverty. For though there was some poverty in the +Middle Ages, the monasteries must on the whole have relieved it, for one +of the charges brought against them is that they were too indiscriminate +in their charity and that many beggars had become dependent on them. It +is not necessary to deny the truth of such statements, but to point out +that if the monasteries supported beggars they were created by the +landlords who, with the help of the Roman lawyers, had dispossessed the +peasants and turned them adrift because sheep-farming was more +profitable than tillage. Are the monasteries to be condemned for having +succoured those whom the landlords had rendered homeless? After the +suppression, the poor were deprived at one fell swoop of alms, shelter +and schooling. The consequence was that great numbers, left entirely +destitute of the means of existence, took to begging and thieving. Henry +VIII is said to have put 72,000 thieves to death. Elizabeth complained +bitterly that she could not get the laws enforced against them. Such was +the degree of beggary, of vagabondage, and of thievishness and robbery, +that she resorted particularly in London and its neighbourhood to +martial law." But it was all of no avail. The people had been rendered +destitute, and there were only two possible policies for dealing with +them if economic injustices were to be maintained---extermination or +legal pauperism. Shrinking from the former, resort at last was made to +the latter, and some general permanent and solid provision was made for +them. In the forty-third year of her reign there was passed the measure +which we know to-day as the Elizabethan Poor Law, from which our Poor +Law derives. + +It was not only in the realm of charity and hospitality that the +monasteries were missed. It was customary for them to maintain highways +and dykes, to build bridges and seawalls and other such things for the +commonwealth. Many arts that had been brought to a high state of +perfection in the monasteries were paralysed or migrated to the towns. +Sculpture, embroidery, clock-making and bell-founding were almost +entirely monastic arts. The monks had been the chroniclers and +transcribers of manuscripts in the Middle Ages, and were among the first +to set up printing presses. It is true that monasticism had for long +been on the decline, but the monasteries had come to perform all kinds +of functions which were no part of their original purpose. The +consequence was that their violent suppression disorganized the social +and economic life in the community in many directions. Their +disappearance left a gap in the educational system of the country which +the reforms of the nineteenth century have attempted in vain to fill, +for the education of the people was largely in the hands of the monastic +establishments; what was not in their hands was in those of the chantry +priests, who were generally the local schoolmasters. So it came about +that when in the reign of Edward VI the chantries were also suppressed, +all provision for education practically came to an end. The reason why +so many educational endowments date from the reign of Edward VI is not +to be found in the surmise that as a consequence of the Revival of +Learning and the Reformation a sudden desire for enlightenment came over +society, but to the fact that when the monasteries were suppressed +certain people, feeling the gap which had been made in society, left +money for such foundations. The destruction of the monastic system of +elementary education reacted to undermine the position of the +universities, which nearly disappeared; for the monasteries not only +provided probationers for them but maintained many there to complete +their education. In the thirteenth century, it is said, there were +30,000students at Oxford, but to such an extent did university studies +decay that "in the six years from 1542 to 1548 only 191 students were +admitted bachelor of arts at Cambridge and only 173 at Oxford."When the +revival of the universities did take place, their character was +completely changed. They were no longer the democratic institutions of +the Middle Ages, but finishing-schools for the rich. + +Educationalists might do worse than study the Mediaeval and monastic +system of education, for it obviated one of the most glaring defects of +the present system---the gulf between elementary and higher education. +This it did by a system of local autonomy, which made every elementary +school part of an institution which was primarily interested in the +pursuit of learning. In consequence of this there were no elementary +school teachers existing as a class apart, cut off from the main +currents of intellectual life, whose individuality was strangled by the +requirements of a code. On the contrary, the whole system was free and +humane, while it was organic from the top to the bottom; and this was +possible because the Medievalists were not interested in an abstraction +called "education," but in certain definite things which they were +anxious to teach. The problem of improvising machinery is so simple when +you know what you want it to do, and so perplexing when you don't. # The Reformation in England -Though as an explanation of the whole course of history the -materialist conception is demonstrably false---since, among -other things, it fails to offer any explanation why -capitalism, after dominating Pagan civilization, was brought -under control during the Mediaeval period---it becomes more -plausible from the Reformation onwards when the material -factor increasingly tends to determine social development. -Before the Reformation, landlordism and capitalism had, -owing to the sinister influence of Roman Law, got a foot -hold in society; but landlords and capitalists did not have -things entirely their own way, for the Church and Crown were -still sufficiently powerful to exercise a restraining -influence. But after the suppression of the monasteries, the -old order received a blow from which it never recovered. The -monastic lands, at least a fifth of the wealth of the -country, were transferred to the great landowners, and this -transference tipped the scale entirely in their favour as -against the peasantry.Landlordism and capitalism were now -triumphant, and with the change the economic equilibrium of -society was upset. This in turn reacted to upset the -religious and political equilibrium. The history of English -politics from now onwards is to be interpreted in the light -of these central facts. Henceforth, policy wavers between -efforts to restore the equilibrium of society by seeking a -return to the past---the direction in which social salvation -was to be found and "progress" or the maintenance of vested -interests---the policy that was eventually adopted. - -With the accession of Edward VI the absolutism of Henry was -relaxed. "The late king was doomed to the usual fate of -despotic monarchs after their death; the very men who during -his life had been the most obsequious ministers of his will, -were now the first to overturn his favourite -projects."Though Henry had separated the English Church from -Rome and had suppressed the monasteries, he had not espoused -the cause of Protestantism. Whether this was from -conscientious reasons, or because in his early years having -written a book in defence of the Catholic Faith, that -obstinacy and pride which were such very strong features in -his character prevented him from appearing to retract, must -be a matter of opinion. But all obstacles in the path of the -spread of the Protestant Faith were removed by his death. -Edward VI was a minor, and entirely in the hands of his -ministers, chief among whom was the Duke of Somerset, his -Protector. Somerset was a moderate man who disliked coercion -and sought to govern on a basis of civil liberty and -religious toleration. The first Parliament that he summoned -effected a complete revolution in the spirit of the laws. -The statute which at the close of Henry's reign had given -the force of law to Royal proclamations was repealed. Nearly -all the treasons created since 1352 were swept away, many of -the felonies, the Act of Six Articles by which Henry had -sought to enforce religious unity, the laws against heresy, -all the prohibitions against printing the Scriptures in -English, against reading, preaching, teaching or expounding -the Scriptures were erased from the statute-book. The -immediate consequence of it all was that the tongues of the -divines were loosed and the land was filled with a Babel. -Heretics and sectarians, Lutherans, Calvinists and -Zwinglians flocked to England, which became one great scene -of religious disputation with London as its centre, few men -knowing what or what not to believe. The more trenchantly a -preacher denounced the old doctrines, the greater were the -crowds that gathered to hear him. The New Learning carried -all before it in the large cities. This was not because the -majority of the nation desired religious change, but because -the Catholic population who had been accustomed to leave -questions of theology to be settled by the priests found -themselves at a tremendous disadvantage when discussion on -religious questions had descended to the streets. Moreover, -the issues were new, and few Catholics knew how to answer -the innovators; and indeed this is never quite easy. We know -to-day how long it often takes to find a satisfactory answer -to some heresy on social questions. We often know a thing is -wrong and yet can't find an answer then and there. The -Catholics were at this disadvantage at the first onslaught. -New interpretations of the Scriptures came upon them like a -flood, and they were no match for the zeal and conviction of -their opponents. The only answer they had for men who -affirmed the right of private judgment was a demand for -respect for the authority of the Church, and this was for -them a very weak defence in an age when the Church had -suffered so many rude shocks. - -The Catholics became very embittered. They blamed Somerset's -leniency and toleration for the Babel of opinion, and were -ready to support any movement to secure his overthrow. The -plunderers, on the contrary, had no objection to such -disputation. Firstly, because it diverted attention from -them and their doings; and secondly, because if it went far -enough it would make reunion with Rome impossible, which was -to their liking. For, they reasoned, if they were to keep -possession of their stolen property England must be -separated from Rome irrevocably. Hence the cry of "No -Popery" which figures so much in all accounts of the -Reformation. It was the watchword of the plunderers, since -popery for them meant restitution. - -But while the plunderers were in accord with Somerset's -policy of religious toleration, they strongly objected to -his attitude towards the agrarian troubles that were -brewing. Though he himself was one of the greatest of the -plunderers, having managed to get into his possession over -two hundred manors, he nevertheless did not stand in with -the others in their refusal of any justice to the peasants. -He was in fact a curious mixture of the spirit of the old -and the new orders. While apparently he thought it right to -get hold of as much property as he could lay his hands on, -for his rapacity knew no bounds, on the other hand he had a -firm conviction that the ownership of property carried with -it certain responsibilities, and he actually got a private -Act of Parliament passed to give his tenants security of -their tenure. It was his known sympathy with the cause of -the peasants that brought the agrarian crisis to a head, -giving rise to the Peasants' Revolt of 1549 that led to his -fall. - -Though the agrarian problem had been intensified by the -suppression of the monasteries, it did not begin with it but -dates from the thirteenth century when the Roman lawyers -transformed the feudal lord, who was a functionary -administering communal land, into a landlord whose -possession of the land was absolute. From that time onwards -land began to be bought and sold, and the peasants lost that -practical security which they had enjoyed under the old -Feudal System. The extension of commerce gave rise to a -moneyed class which established itself on the land and -gradually gained admission into governing circles. To these -new landlords the feudal idea of reciprocal rights and -duties was altogether foreign. They had bought the land, -they regarded it primarily as an investment, and sought to -apply to it the same principles that they had practised in -trade, making it yield the utmost possible return for their -capital. It was not long before they discovered that owing -to the high price of English wool, for which there was a -great market in the Netherlands, the land could be made to -yield much more if employed for sheep-farming instead of -tillage. It is said that by effecting this change a landlord -could double his income. But sheep-farming required larger -holdings and less labour. Hence it became the custom for -these new landlords to exercise their manorial rights to the -full by enclosing the common lands; to buy up several -holdings and turn them into one. The old homesteads were -left to decay, and their former tenants became either -vagabonds or landless labourers.Another means whereby these -new landlords sought to get greater return for their capital -was to raise the rents of their tenants. This departure from -custom and tradition was a thing the old feudal lords would -never have thought of doing, and it was felt to be a stab in -the back. The consequence of all these innovations was to -pauperize a large section of the community. Great numbers -became dependents of the monasteries which had come to the -rescue of these homeless men; when the monasteries were -suppressed they were left entirely destitute. The new -proprietors of the Church lands accepted no responsibility -for them. In consequence they wandered about begging and -stealing, and in other ways became a source of danger to the +Though as an explanation of the whole course of history the materialist +conception is demonstrably false---since, among other things, it fails +to offer any explanation why capitalism, after dominating Pagan +civilization, was brought under control during the Mediaeval period---it +becomes more plausible from the Reformation onwards when the material +factor increasingly tends to determine social development. Before the +Reformation, landlordism and capitalism had, owing to the sinister +influence of Roman Law, got a foot hold in society; but landlords and +capitalists did not have things entirely their own way, for the Church +and Crown were still sufficiently powerful to exercise a restraining +influence. But after the suppression of the monasteries, the old order +received a blow from which it never recovered. The monastic lands, at +least a fifth of the wealth of the country, were transferred to the +great landowners, and this transference tipped the scale entirely in +their favour as against the peasantry.Landlordism and capitalism were +now triumphant, and with the change the economic equilibrium of society +was upset. This in turn reacted to upset the religious and political +equilibrium. The history of English politics from now onwards is to be +interpreted in the light of these central facts. Henceforth, policy +wavers between efforts to restore the equilibrium of society by seeking +a return to the past---the direction in which social salvation was to be +found and "progress" or the maintenance of vested interests---the policy +that was eventually adopted. + +With the accession of Edward VI the absolutism of Henry was relaxed. +"The late king was doomed to the usual fate of despotic monarchs after +their death; the very men who during his life had been the most +obsequious ministers of his will, were now the first to overturn his +favourite projects."Though Henry had separated the English Church from +Rome and had suppressed the monasteries, he had not espoused the cause +of Protestantism. Whether this was from conscientious reasons, or +because in his early years having written a book in defence of the +Catholic Faith, that obstinacy and pride which were such very strong +features in his character prevented him from appearing to retract, must +be a matter of opinion. But all obstacles in the path of the spread of +the Protestant Faith were removed by his death. Edward VI was a minor, +and entirely in the hands of his ministers, chief among whom was the +Duke of Somerset, his Protector. Somerset was a moderate man who +disliked coercion and sought to govern on a basis of civil liberty and +religious toleration. The first Parliament that he summoned effected a +complete revolution in the spirit of the laws. The statute which at the +close of Henry's reign had given the force of law to Royal proclamations +was repealed. Nearly all the treasons created since 1352 were swept +away, many of the felonies, the Act of Six Articles by which Henry had +sought to enforce religious unity, the laws against heresy, all the +prohibitions against printing the Scriptures in English, against +reading, preaching, teaching or expounding the Scriptures were erased +from the statute-book. The immediate consequence of it all was that the +tongues of the divines were loosed and the land was filled with a Babel. +Heretics and sectarians, Lutherans, Calvinists and Zwinglians flocked to +England, which became one great scene of religious disputation with +London as its centre, few men knowing what or what not to believe. The +more trenchantly a preacher denounced the old doctrines, the greater +were the crowds that gathered to hear him. The New Learning carried all +before it in the large cities. This was not because the majority of the +nation desired religious change, but because the Catholic population who +had been accustomed to leave questions of theology to be settled by the +priests found themselves at a tremendous disadvantage when discussion on +religious questions had descended to the streets. Moreover, the issues +were new, and few Catholics knew how to answer the innovators; and +indeed this is never quite easy. We know to-day how long it often takes +to find a satisfactory answer to some heresy on social questions. We +often know a thing is wrong and yet can't find an answer then and there. +The Catholics were at this disadvantage at the first onslaught. New +interpretations of the Scriptures came upon them like a flood, and they +were no match for the zeal and conviction of their opponents. The only +answer they had for men who affirmed the right of private judgment was a +demand for respect for the authority of the Church, and this was for +them a very weak defence in an age when the Church had suffered so many +rude shocks. + +The Catholics became very embittered. They blamed Somerset's leniency +and toleration for the Babel of opinion, and were ready to support any +movement to secure his overthrow. The plunderers, on the contrary, had +no objection to such disputation. Firstly, because it diverted attention +from them and their doings; and secondly, because if it went far enough +it would make reunion with Rome impossible, which was to their liking. +For, they reasoned, if they were to keep possession of their stolen +property England must be separated from Rome irrevocably. Hence the cry +of "No Popery" which figures so much in all accounts of the Reformation. +It was the watchword of the plunderers, since popery for them meant +restitution. + +But while the plunderers were in accord with Somerset's policy of +religious toleration, they strongly objected to his attitude towards the +agrarian troubles that were brewing. Though he himself was one of the +greatest of the plunderers, having managed to get into his possession +over two hundred manors, he nevertheless did not stand in with the +others in their refusal of any justice to the peasants. He was in fact a +curious mixture of the spirit of the old and the new orders. While +apparently he thought it right to get hold of as much property as he +could lay his hands on, for his rapacity knew no bounds, on the other +hand he had a firm conviction that the ownership of property carried +with it certain responsibilities, and he actually got a private Act of +Parliament passed to give his tenants security of their tenure. It was +his known sympathy with the cause of the peasants that brought the +agrarian crisis to a head, giving rise to the Peasants' Revolt of 1549 +that led to his fall. + +Though the agrarian problem had been intensified by the suppression of +the monasteries, it did not begin with it but dates from the thirteenth +century when the Roman lawyers transformed the feudal lord, who was a +functionary administering communal land, into a landlord whose +possession of the land was absolute. From that time onwards land began +to be bought and sold, and the peasants lost that practical security +which they had enjoyed under the old Feudal System. The extension of +commerce gave rise to a moneyed class which established itself on the +land and gradually gained admission into governing circles. To these new +landlords the feudal idea of reciprocal rights and duties was altogether +foreign. They had bought the land, they regarded it primarily as an +investment, and sought to apply to it the same principles that they had +practised in trade, making it yield the utmost possible return for their +capital. It was not long before they discovered that owing to the high +price of English wool, for which there was a great market in the +Netherlands, the land could be made to yield much more if employed for +sheep-farming instead of tillage. It is said that by effecting this +change a landlord could double his income. But sheep-farming required +larger holdings and less labour. Hence it became the custom for these +new landlords to exercise their manorial rights to the full by enclosing +the common lands; to buy up several holdings and turn them into one. The +old homesteads were left to decay, and their former tenants became +either vagabonds or landless labourers.Another means whereby these new +landlords sought to get greater return for their capital was to raise +the rents of their tenants. This departure from custom and tradition was +a thing the old feudal lords would never have thought of doing, and it +was felt to be a stab in the back. The consequence of all these +innovations was to pauperize a large section of the community. Great +numbers became dependents of the monasteries which had come to the +rescue of these homeless men; when the monasteries were suppressed they +were left entirely destitute. The new proprietors of the Church lands +accepted no responsibility for them. In consequence they wandered about +begging and stealing, and in other ways became a source of danger to the rest of the community. -The growth of this evil had not been allowed to pass -unnoticed. Before the monasteries were suppressed Sir Thomas -More had written about the evils following upon enclosures -and sheep-farming. "Sheep are eating men," a phrase which he -used in his *Utopia*, has become classical. In 1517 Cardinal -Wolsey made vigorous efforts to stop enclosures, but without -success. The cause of the peasants had also been advocated -by others in high places during the reign of Henry VIII, but -he was too busy getting himself divorced to trouble about -the condition of the peasants; while the suppression of the -monasteries, to which in the end he found himself committed -if he was to be acknowledged as the head of the Church in -England, not only enormously increased the evil but the -resistance which he encountered from the old order led him -to the creation of a new aristocracy, which differed from -the old one to the extent that it did not arise to exercise -a public function but to act as an instrument of oppression, -and as such it identified the idea of government with -oppression. It is not true, as Marxians maintain, that the -history of all hitherto existing society has been the -history of class struggles. It was not true of the Middle -Ages until the revival of Roman Law began to corrupt -Mediaeval society, but it became entirely true after Henry -VIII created his plunder-loving aristocracy. But while this -generalization applies to the governing class as a whole, -there have at all times been a number of highly placed men -who were exceptions to this rule and sided with the people. -It is of vital importance to any proper understanding of the -social problem that this fact should be recognized, for the -Marxian interpretation of history not only operates to unite -the enemy and to bring division into the reformers camp, but -by creating a prejudice against normal forms of social -organizations tends to thwart all efforts to reconstruct -society on a democratic basis by diverting the energies of -the people into false channels. - -Somerset, as we saw, was one of these men. His known -sympathy with the peasants brought the question to the -front. He had denounced the misdeeds of this new aristocracy -with more warmth than prudence, and a party which came to be -known as the "Commonwealth's men" had come into existence. -*Discourses on the Common-weal* by John Hales, its most -active and earnest member, is one of the most informing -documents of the age. The failure of Parliament to give -satisfaction gave rise to agrarian disturbances in -Hertfordshire in the spring of 1548. The Protector took -advantage of the occasion to appoint a commission to enquire -into enclosures. Though Hales and other reformers were -members of it, the opposition of the new aristocracy was -such as to reduce it to impotence. Hales had obtained from -the Protector a general pardon for those who had made -illegal enclosures presented by the commission. But this did -not lessen the determination of their opposition. They set -themselves resolutely to defeat its ends. They packed the -juries with their own servants and threatened to evict any -tenants who gave evidence against them. They even went so -far as to have them indicted at the assizes. The consequence -of such high-handed procedure was that in the spring of 1549 -there was a general uprising of the peasantry. Commencing in -Somersetshire, it spread to Cornwall and Devonshire, to -Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Dorsetshire, Hampshire, -Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Norfolk and Suffolk. -In the west changes of religion were made the pretext of the -rising. But in Norfolk no such pretext was made. The rebels -demanded satisfaction for their economic grievances. For a -time it was feared that the revolt might develop into a -general rising like the Peasants' War in Germany, and the -new aristocracy was genuinely alarmed. In general, however, -the rebels acted without concert and without leaders; but in -the counties of Devon and Cornwall, and Norfolk and Suffolk, -the risings assumed a more threatening aspect. Armies were -formed which threatened the Government and would probably -have succeeded, but for the fact that England was at the -time at war with France, and the Government was able to use -Italian, Spanish and German mercenaries which had been -raised for service in France. The rebels were defeated in -the west by Lord Russell and in the east by the Earl of -Warwick. The Protector found himself in an awkward position. -His sympathy with the insurgents had weakened his action, -while his readiness to screen and pardon offenders -exasperated his colleagues. It brought to a head the -dissatisfaction with his policy. He was charged with -stirring up class hatred and with unwillingness to take -drastic action against the insurgents, and the Catholics -united with the plunderers to overthrow him. The movement -was successful, and the Earl of Warwick, who had now become -the idol of the new aristocracy, became Protector, with the -title of the Duke of Northumberland. - -Reaction now set in. The masses had risen against the -classes, and the classes resolved to retaliate. "Parliament -met in a spirit of exasperation and revenge, and it went -back not only upon the radical proposals of Somerset, but -also upon the whole tenor of Tudor land legislation. -Enclosures had been forbidden again and again; they were now -expressly declared to be legal; and Parliament enacted that -lords of the manor might 'approve themselves of their -wastes, woods, and pastures notwithstanding the gainsaying -and contra diction of their tenants.' In order that the -process might be without let or hindrance it was made -treason for forty, and felony for twelve, persons to meet -for the purpose of breaking down any enclosure or enforcing -any right of way; to summon such an assembly or incite to -such an act was also felony; and any copyholder refusing to -help in repressing it forfeited his copyhold for life. The -same penalty was attached to hunting in any enclosure and to -assembling with the object of abating rents or the price of -corn; but the prohibition against capitalists conspiring to -raise prices was repealed, and so were the taxes which -Somerset had imposed on sheep and woollen cloths." - -That the reaction should have assumed this form appears to -have taken the Catholics entirely by surprise. They had -assisted the plunderers to overthrow Somerset, not because -they were unsympathetic to the cause of the peasants but -because of the encouragement he had given to heretics and -sectarians, and with the idea, apparently, that his -overthrow would be followed by a return to the Catholic -worship. What they failed entirely to understand was that -Protestantism was acceptable to the new aristocracy because -it made their plunder secure. They failed to perceive that -capitalism was a much more deadly enemy than Protestantism -of the Catholic Faith, and that finally Protestantism was -nothing less than capitalism camouflaged. That they should -have failed to perceive this to the extent of being willing -to support the plunderers to overthrow Somerset, proves -conclusively not only that they misgauged the temper of the -new aristocracy but that they had themselves lost sight of -the communal basis of Christianity. It is, I believe, to -this fact that the defeat of the Catholic Church at the -Reformation is finally to be attributed, for it led it into -every imaginable political error. If the Church had kept the -communal aim of Christianity clearly to the forefront of its -mind, it would have reverted to the policy which it pursued -in the early Middle Ages of supporting the peasants against -the secular authorities. It was because the Church did this -that it was feared by the secular powers, and it remained -powerful so long as this aim was steadily kept in view. But -when at a later date and as a consequence of the revival of -Roman Law the secular powers became more powerful, the -Church made the fatal mistake of seeking to combat the -growing spirit of materialism, not by a reaffirmation of the -communal basis of Christianity, but by an ever-increasing -insistence upon the principle of authority, of obedience to -the Church. And this proved to be fatal by confusing the -issues. For the real issue was finally not whether the -Church or the State was to be uppermost, but whether the -communal basis of society was to be maintained. Yet, strange -to say, though this was the real issue at the back of all -the quarrels between Church and State, it never emerged into -the light of day. The quarrel had begun in the form of a -challenge of the power of the Pope by the Emperor, and so it -remained to the end. The real issue was lost sight of, and -because it was lost sight of the Church lost the power of -popular appeal, and so finally was reduced to attempts to -maintain its position by intrigue. Because the Church gave -emphasis to the authoritarian rather than the communal -aspect of Christianity it sought after the Reformation to -prop itself up by alliance with the temporal powers, and in -order to secure such alliances found itself obliged to -support the exploiters against the peasants, and so it came -about that while the Church succeeded in reforming itself at -the counter-Reformation it still finds it difficult to live -down the suspicions associated with this policy. So often to -appearances has it sided with capitalism that democrats fear -that to submit to the authority of the Church would be to -submit to capitalism. The alliance of the Roman Church with -capitalism in Spain to-day is evidence that this fear is not -altogether unfounded. Socialists who have no prejudice -against Catholicism as such, who realize that during the -Middle Ages it was the sustainer of the communal life, do -feel that though the Church may sympathize with the workers -it must remain powerless to help them so long as it is -anxious to secure the support of the temporal powers, for -under such circumstances when vital issues are at stake the -Church becomes a house divided against itself. "He that -would save his life must lose it" is a moral principle that -has a lesson for the Church as much as for the individual. - -To return to our subject. It was not long before the -Catholics were made to suffer for their mistaken policy. The -motto of the plunderers was: Divide and conquer. Having with -the assistance of the Catholics succeeded in defeating the -peasantry, the plunderers then began to persecute the -Catholics. The first Act of Uniformity, passed early in -Edward's reign, was now enforced against clerical offenders. -Its object had been to secure uniformity in Church services -by means of a compromise, which all might be persuaded or -compelled to observe. A little later a second Act of -Uniformity was passed which extended the scope of religious -persecution by imposing penalties for recusancy upon laymen. -They were required to attend Common Prayer on Sundays and -holidays. If they were absent they were to be subject to -ecclesiastical censures and excommunication; if they -attended any but the authorized form of worship, they were -liable to six months' imprisonment for the first offence, a -year's imprisonment for the second, and lifelong -imprisonment for the third. An incidental object of these -reforms was perhaps to relieve the financial embarrassment -of the Government by the seizure of a large quantity of -Church property which became superfluous by the extensive -reduction of ritual which this Act effected, but its main -object was perhaps to prevent the growth of faction which -was such an embarrassment to the Government. Cranmer, who -during the reign of Henry VIII condemned people to the -flames for not believing in transubstantiation, was now -ready to condemn them for believing in it. - -With the accession of Mary, the policy was reversed. An -attempt was made to return to the *status quo ante*. Mary -was a devout Catholic, she sought the restoration of the -Roman religion and the suppression of the Protestant sects -to which the leading reformers and plunderers belong. -Altogether, two hundred and eighty-six persons were put to -death during her reign. Some of these may have been martyrs -to their opinions, but the majority were the scoundrels who -had plundered the monasteries and who had sought by -treachery to destroy the Queen herself. In restoring the -Catholic Faith and in acting against these scoundrels there -can be little doubt that Mary's actions were popular. Only -three years before her accession, the peasants had risen -against the new aristocracy and religious innovations in -many parts of the kingdom, and the insurrection, as we saw, -had only been put down with the help of foreign mercenaries. -Was it not natural, therefore, that a Queen who sought to -restore the old worship and acted against a gang of ruffians -should be popular? - -It had been Mary's intention to take the stolen property -away from the plunderers and to restore it to the Church. -But this was no easy matter, for there was scarcely a man of -any note who had not in some degree partaken of the spoils. -Moreover, the lapse of time had created a vested interest in -the new order. Though the spoils of the Church had been -originally divided between a few, they had now by sales and -bequests become divided and subdivided among thousands, -while a new economic life had come to organize itself around -the new order. Cardinal Pole, the Pope's envoy, came at last -to the conclusion that to demand the restitution of the -stolen property under conditions which involved the -compulsory surrender of the whole or a part of its -possessions by almost every family of opulence in the -kingdom was impracticable. So the Papacy decided to leave -the plunderers in the undisturbed possession of their -property, and to confine their demands to a restoration of -the Catholic Faith and worship. On these terms, the Houses -of Parliament agreed to recognize the Papal supremacy and -allowed Pole to pronounce the reconciliation of England and -the Church of Rome. - -Though Mary assented to this compromise because no -alternative, except civil war, was open to her, she was -resolved to keep none of the plunder herself. She gave up -the tenth and first-fruits; that is to say, the tenth part -of the annual worth of each Church benefice and the first -year's income of each, which hitherto had gone to the -Papacy, the Church and monastic lands, in fact, everything -which Henry had confiscated and which were in her -possession. Her intention was to apply the revenues as -nearly as possible to their former purposes, and she did, in -fact, make a start with the restoration of institutions -which her predecessors had suppressed, in the face of great -opposition. She did it against the remonstrances of her -Council and of Parliament, which feared that her generous -example would awaken in the people a hatred of themselves -and the desire for vengeance. Not to be undone, the -plunderers entered into a conspiracy against her. Before she -had been on the throne many months a rebellion was raised. -The rebels were defeated and the leaders executed, as was -the case in a second rebellion which followed shortly -afterwards. Mary's experience seems indeed to prove that it -would have been better for her to have risked civil war -against the plunderers at the very start than to have -allowed them to keep their spoil whilst giving hers up; -since from the enmity which she incurred by surrendering the -property her father had confiscated, arose those troubles -which harassed her during the remainder of her short reign, -and which were to some extent responsible for her early -death. - -Had Mary lived, it is possible that, having defeated two -rebellions and disposed of the leading conspirators, her -example might have been followed to some extent by the -nobility and gentry. But she reigned only five years, and -Elizabeth, who succeeded, undid her good work and took back -the plunder. The reasons which led Elizabeth to reverse -Mary's policy are probably to be found in a regard for her -own personal safety. For she had no religious convictions -like her sister, and her choice in favour of Protestantism -was more a matter of policy than of principle. In the first -two years of her reign she ran simultaneously two -policies---a Catholic and a Protestant one---until she could -be sure which way the wind was blowing. The arguments for -and against maintaining the Catholic worship were for her, -apart from personal considerations of safety, almost equally -divided. On the one side of her were the clergy in -possession, who stood for the Roman supremacy and were -determined not to yield, and the peasantry who favoured the -Catholic worship. On the other was the new aristocracy of -plunderers, who clearly understood that their position would -not be safe until Protestantism triumphed, and the -population of the towns which was mainly in favour of -religious change. If, therefore, she chose to continue -Mary's policy, she might have to face conspiracies and be -worn out by them like her sister. On the other hand if she -espoused Protestantism she was probably committed to a -policy of religious persecution so far as the major part of -the nation was concerned. Her choice was a difficult one for -a person without religious convictions, and in the -circumstances it is not surprising that she sought to make -her own position secure by the adoption of Protestantism. -But there was a difficulty in the way. Scotland was -Catholic. Mary Queen of Scots, when married to the Dauphin -of France, was styled at her court the Queen of England and -used the arms of England. So long, therefore, as Scotland -remained Catholic England, if Protestant, could not be free -from attack. Elizabeth therefore decided to second John Knox -in his efforts to win Scot land for the cause of -Protestantism, and to supply him with money and arms. In -1555 he returned from Geneva, to conduct an evangelical -campaign. He was a great organizer as well as preacher, and -as he went through Scotland new Churches sprang into -existence everywhere. His campaign was followed speedily by -an insurrection, for the strife between Catholicism and -Calvinism was also a strife for the delivery of Scotland -from a foreign army. The Scottish Protestants besieged a -small French force in Leith, and a small English force was -sent to support the insurgents. The campaign was soon over. -The French force surrendered, very few Scots openly siding -with the Queen and her French force. Scotland now became -Protestant, and danger was no longer to be apprehended from -an attack by land. - -The issue was now clear. Elizabeth no longer hesitated, but -threw herself into the work of consolidating her position by -forcing Protestantism on England. If the Scottish revolt had -miscarried it would have been different. In the event of -failure she had intended to marry one of the Austrian -cousins of Philip of Spain and to pursue a Catholic policy. -The English people were now irrevocably committed to -Protestantism, landlordism and capitalism, if they were to -retain their national independence. It was only by -supporting Elizabeth through thick and thin that they could -keep themselves free from foreign complications. - -Elizabeth, then, had finally decided that England should -become a Protestant country. To attain this end she stuck at -nothing. In spite of all that had happened, the English -people were still mainly Catholic in their sympathies, and -rivers of blood had to flow before they could be changed. -"The Protestant religion," says Cobbett, "was established by -gibbets, racks, and ripping knives." A series of Acts of -Parliament were passed which by degrees put down the -Catholic worship and reintroduced the Protestant form as it -existed under Edward VI. Catholics were compelled to attend -Protestant worship under enormous penalties, and when this -failed an Act was passed compelling all persons to take the -oath of supremacy, acknowledging her instead of the Pope -supreme in spiritual matters on pain of death. Thus were -thousands of people condemned to death for no other crime -than adhering to the religion of their fathers, the -religion, in fact, in which Elizabeth herself had professed -to believe until she became queen and had turned against it, -not from conscientious motives, but from considerations of -convenience. "Elizabeth," says Cobbett, "put, in one way or -another, more persons to death in one year, for not becoming -apostates to the religion which she had sworn to be hers, -and to be the only true one, than Mary put to death in the -whole of her reign... Yet the former is called or has been -called 'good Queen Bess,' and the latter 'bloody Queen -Mary.'" - -Elizabeth's successor, James I, continued her policy of -persecuting the Catholics. Before he came to the throne he -had promised to mitigate the penal laws which made their -lives a burden, but he actually made them more severe than -ever, while there came with him from Scotland a horde of -rapacious minions who preyed upon the Catholic population, -filling their pockets by extracting from them the maximum in -fines which the statutes allowed. The consequence of this -was the Gunpowder Plot which was organized by a group of -Catholics "to blow the Scotch beggars back to their native -mountains," as Guy Fawkes replied when asked why he had +The growth of this evil had not been allowed to pass unnoticed. Before +the monasteries were suppressed Sir Thomas More had written about the +evils following upon enclosures and sheep-farming. "Sheep are eating +men," a phrase which he used in his *Utopia*, has become classical. In +1517 Cardinal Wolsey made vigorous efforts to stop enclosures, but +without success. The cause of the peasants had also been advocated by +others in high places during the reign of Henry VIII, but he was too +busy getting himself divorced to trouble about the condition of the +peasants; while the suppression of the monasteries, to which in the end +he found himself committed if he was to be acknowledged as the head of +the Church in England, not only enormously increased the evil but the +resistance which he encountered from the old order led him to the +creation of a new aristocracy, which differed from the old one to the +extent that it did not arise to exercise a public function but to act as +an instrument of oppression, and as such it identified the idea of +government with oppression. It is not true, as Marxians maintain, that +the history of all hitherto existing society has been the history of +class struggles. It was not true of the Middle Ages until the revival of +Roman Law began to corrupt Mediaeval society, but it became entirely +true after Henry VIII created his plunder-loving aristocracy. But while +this generalization applies to the governing class as a whole, there +have at all times been a number of highly placed men who were exceptions +to this rule and sided with the people. It is of vital importance to any +proper understanding of the social problem that this fact should be +recognized, for the Marxian interpretation of history not only operates +to unite the enemy and to bring division into the reformers camp, but by +creating a prejudice against normal forms of social organizations tends +to thwart all efforts to reconstruct society on a democratic basis by +diverting the energies of the people into false channels. + +Somerset, as we saw, was one of these men. His known sympathy with the +peasants brought the question to the front. He had denounced the +misdeeds of this new aristocracy with more warmth than prudence, and a +party which came to be known as the "Commonwealth's men" had come into +existence. *Discourses on the Common-weal* by John Hales, its most +active and earnest member, is one of the most informing documents of the +age. The failure of Parliament to give satisfaction gave rise to +agrarian disturbances in Hertfordshire in the spring of 1548. The +Protector took advantage of the occasion to appoint a commission to +enquire into enclosures. Though Hales and other reformers were members +of it, the opposition of the new aristocracy was such as to reduce it to +impotence. Hales had obtained from the Protector a general pardon for +those who had made illegal enclosures presented by the commission. But +this did not lessen the determination of their opposition. They set +themselves resolutely to defeat its ends. They packed the juries with +their own servants and threatened to evict any tenants who gave evidence +against them. They even went so far as to have them indicted at the +assizes. The consequence of such high-handed procedure was that in the +spring of 1549 there was a general uprising of the peasantry. Commencing +in Somersetshire, it spread to Cornwall and Devonshire, to Wiltshire, +Gloucestershire, Dorsetshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, +Surrey, Norfolk and Suffolk. In the west changes of religion were made +the pretext of the rising. But in Norfolk no such pretext was made. The +rebels demanded satisfaction for their economic grievances. For a time +it was feared that the revolt might develop into a general rising like +the Peasants' War in Germany, and the new aristocracy was genuinely +alarmed. In general, however, the rebels acted without concert and +without leaders; but in the counties of Devon and Cornwall, and Norfolk +and Suffolk, the risings assumed a more threatening aspect. Armies were +formed which threatened the Government and would probably have +succeeded, but for the fact that England was at the time at war with +France, and the Government was able to use Italian, Spanish and German +mercenaries which had been raised for service in France. The rebels were +defeated in the west by Lord Russell and in the east by the Earl of +Warwick. The Protector found himself in an awkward position. His +sympathy with the insurgents had weakened his action, while his +readiness to screen and pardon offenders exasperated his colleagues. It +brought to a head the dissatisfaction with his policy. He was charged +with stirring up class hatred and with unwillingness to take drastic +action against the insurgents, and the Catholics united with the +plunderers to overthrow him. The movement was successful, and the Earl +of Warwick, who had now become the idol of the new aristocracy, became +Protector, with the title of the Duke of Northumberland. + +Reaction now set in. The masses had risen against the classes, and the +classes resolved to retaliate. "Parliament met in a spirit of +exasperation and revenge, and it went back not only upon the radical +proposals of Somerset, but also upon the whole tenor of Tudor land +legislation. Enclosures had been forbidden again and again; they were +now expressly declared to be legal; and Parliament enacted that lords of +the manor might 'approve themselves of their wastes, woods, and pastures +notwithstanding the gainsaying and contra diction of their tenants.' In +order that the process might be without let or hindrance it was made +treason for forty, and felony for twelve, persons to meet for the +purpose of breaking down any enclosure or enforcing any right of way; to +summon such an assembly or incite to such an act was also felony; and +any copyholder refusing to help in repressing it forfeited his copyhold +for life. The same penalty was attached to hunting in any enclosure and +to assembling with the object of abating rents or the price of corn; but +the prohibition against capitalists conspiring to raise prices was +repealed, and so were the taxes which Somerset had imposed on sheep and +woollen cloths." + +That the reaction should have assumed this form appears to have taken +the Catholics entirely by surprise. They had assisted the plunderers to +overthrow Somerset, not because they were unsympathetic to the cause of +the peasants but because of the encouragement he had given to heretics +and sectarians, and with the idea, apparently, that his overthrow would +be followed by a return to the Catholic worship. What they failed +entirely to understand was that Protestantism was acceptable to the new +aristocracy because it made their plunder secure. They failed to +perceive that capitalism was a much more deadly enemy than Protestantism +of the Catholic Faith, and that finally Protestantism was nothing less +than capitalism camouflaged. That they should have failed to perceive +this to the extent of being willing to support the plunderers to +overthrow Somerset, proves conclusively not only that they misgauged the +temper of the new aristocracy but that they had themselves lost sight of +the communal basis of Christianity. It is, I believe, to this fact that +the defeat of the Catholic Church at the Reformation is finally to be +attributed, for it led it into every imaginable political error. If the +Church had kept the communal aim of Christianity clearly to the +forefront of its mind, it would have reverted to the policy which it +pursued in the early Middle Ages of supporting the peasants against the +secular authorities. It was because the Church did this that it was +feared by the secular powers, and it remained powerful so long as this +aim was steadily kept in view. But when at a later date and as a +consequence of the revival of Roman Law the secular powers became more +powerful, the Church made the fatal mistake of seeking to combat the +growing spirit of materialism, not by a reaffirmation of the communal +basis of Christianity, but by an ever-increasing insistence upon the +principle of authority, of obedience to the Church. And this proved to +be fatal by confusing the issues. For the real issue was finally not +whether the Church or the State was to be uppermost, but whether the +communal basis of society was to be maintained. Yet, strange to say, +though this was the real issue at the back of all the quarrels between +Church and State, it never emerged into the light of day. The quarrel +had begun in the form of a challenge of the power of the Pope by the +Emperor, and so it remained to the end. The real issue was lost sight +of, and because it was lost sight of the Church lost the power of +popular appeal, and so finally was reduced to attempts to maintain its +position by intrigue. Because the Church gave emphasis to the +authoritarian rather than the communal aspect of Christianity it sought +after the Reformation to prop itself up by alliance with the temporal +powers, and in order to secure such alliances found itself obliged to +support the exploiters against the peasants, and so it came about that +while the Church succeeded in reforming itself at the +counter-Reformation it still finds it difficult to live down the +suspicions associated with this policy. So often to appearances has it +sided with capitalism that democrats fear that to submit to the +authority of the Church would be to submit to capitalism. The alliance +of the Roman Church with capitalism in Spain to-day is evidence that +this fear is not altogether unfounded. Socialists who have no prejudice +against Catholicism as such, who realize that during the Middle Ages it +was the sustainer of the communal life, do feel that though the Church +may sympathize with the workers it must remain powerless to help them so +long as it is anxious to secure the support of the temporal powers, for +under such circumstances when vital issues are at stake the Church +becomes a house divided against itself. "He that would save his life +must lose it" is a moral principle that has a lesson for the Church as +much as for the individual. + +To return to our subject. It was not long before the Catholics were made +to suffer for their mistaken policy. The motto of the plunderers was: +Divide and conquer. Having with the assistance of the Catholics +succeeded in defeating the peasantry, the plunderers then began to +persecute the Catholics. The first Act of Uniformity, passed early in +Edward's reign, was now enforced against clerical offenders. Its object +had been to secure uniformity in Church services by means of a +compromise, which all might be persuaded or compelled to observe. A +little later a second Act of Uniformity was passed which extended the +scope of religious persecution by imposing penalties for recusancy upon +laymen. They were required to attend Common Prayer on Sundays and +holidays. If they were absent they were to be subject to ecclesiastical +censures and excommunication; if they attended any but the authorized +form of worship, they were liable to six months' imprisonment for the +first offence, a year's imprisonment for the second, and lifelong +imprisonment for the third. An incidental object of these reforms was +perhaps to relieve the financial embarrassment of the Government by the +seizure of a large quantity of Church property which became superfluous +by the extensive reduction of ritual which this Act effected, but its +main object was perhaps to prevent the growth of faction which was such +an embarrassment to the Government. Cranmer, who during the reign of +Henry VIII condemned people to the flames for not believing in +transubstantiation, was now ready to condemn them for believing in it. + +With the accession of Mary, the policy was reversed. An attempt was made +to return to the *status quo ante*. Mary was a devout Catholic, she +sought the restoration of the Roman religion and the suppression of the +Protestant sects to which the leading reformers and plunderers belong. +Altogether, two hundred and eighty-six persons were put to death during +her reign. Some of these may have been martyrs to their opinions, but +the majority were the scoundrels who had plundered the monasteries and +who had sought by treachery to destroy the Queen herself. In restoring +the Catholic Faith and in acting against these scoundrels there can be +little doubt that Mary's actions were popular. Only three years before +her accession, the peasants had risen against the new aristocracy and +religious innovations in many parts of the kingdom, and the +insurrection, as we saw, had only been put down with the help of foreign +mercenaries. Was it not natural, therefore, that a Queen who sought to +restore the old worship and acted against a gang of ruffians should be +popular? + +It had been Mary's intention to take the stolen property away from the +plunderers and to restore it to the Church. But this was no easy matter, +for there was scarcely a man of any note who had not in some degree +partaken of the spoils. Moreover, the lapse of time had created a vested +interest in the new order. Though the spoils of the Church had been +originally divided between a few, they had now by sales and bequests +become divided and subdivided among thousands, while a new economic life +had come to organize itself around the new order. Cardinal Pole, the +Pope's envoy, came at last to the conclusion that to demand the +restitution of the stolen property under conditions which involved the +compulsory surrender of the whole or a part of its possessions by almost +every family of opulence in the kingdom was impracticable. So the Papacy +decided to leave the plunderers in the undisturbed possession of their +property, and to confine their demands to a restoration of the Catholic +Faith and worship. On these terms, the Houses of Parliament agreed to +recognize the Papal supremacy and allowed Pole to pronounce the +reconciliation of England and the Church of Rome. + +Though Mary assented to this compromise because no alternative, except +civil war, was open to her, she was resolved to keep none of the plunder +herself. She gave up the tenth and first-fruits; that is to say, the +tenth part of the annual worth of each Church benefice and the first +year's income of each, which hitherto had gone to the Papacy, the Church +and monastic lands, in fact, everything which Henry had confiscated and +which were in her possession. Her intention was to apply the revenues as +nearly as possible to their former purposes, and she did, in fact, make +a start with the restoration of institutions which her predecessors had +suppressed, in the face of great opposition. She did it against the +remonstrances of her Council and of Parliament, which feared that her +generous example would awaken in the people a hatred of themselves and +the desire for vengeance. Not to be undone, the plunderers entered into +a conspiracy against her. Before she had been on the throne many months +a rebellion was raised. The rebels were defeated and the leaders +executed, as was the case in a second rebellion which followed shortly +afterwards. Mary's experience seems indeed to prove that it would have +been better for her to have risked civil war against the plunderers at +the very start than to have allowed them to keep their spoil whilst +giving hers up; since from the enmity which she incurred by surrendering +the property her father had confiscated, arose those troubles which +harassed her during the remainder of her short reign, and which were to +some extent responsible for her early death. + +Had Mary lived, it is possible that, having defeated two rebellions and +disposed of the leading conspirators, her example might have been +followed to some extent by the nobility and gentry. But she reigned only +five years, and Elizabeth, who succeeded, undid her good work and took +back the plunder. The reasons which led Elizabeth to reverse Mary's +policy are probably to be found in a regard for her own personal safety. +For she had no religious convictions like her sister, and her choice in +favour of Protestantism was more a matter of policy than of principle. +In the first two years of her reign she ran simultaneously two +policies---a Catholic and a Protestant one---until she could be sure +which way the wind was blowing. The arguments for and against +maintaining the Catholic worship were for her, apart from personal +considerations of safety, almost equally divided. On the one side of her +were the clergy in possession, who stood for the Roman supremacy and +were determined not to yield, and the peasantry who favoured the +Catholic worship. On the other was the new aristocracy of plunderers, +who clearly understood that their position would not be safe until +Protestantism triumphed, and the population of the towns which was +mainly in favour of religious change. If, therefore, she chose to +continue Mary's policy, she might have to face conspiracies and be worn +out by them like her sister. On the other hand if she espoused +Protestantism she was probably committed to a policy of religious +persecution so far as the major part of the nation was concerned. Her +choice was a difficult one for a person without religious convictions, +and in the circumstances it is not surprising that she sought to make +her own position secure by the adoption of Protestantism. But there was +a difficulty in the way. Scotland was Catholic. Mary Queen of Scots, +when married to the Dauphin of France, was styled at her court the Queen +of England and used the arms of England. So long, therefore, as Scotland +remained Catholic England, if Protestant, could not be free from attack. +Elizabeth therefore decided to second John Knox in his efforts to win +Scot land for the cause of Protestantism, and to supply him with money +and arms. In 1555 he returned from Geneva, to conduct an evangelical +campaign. He was a great organizer as well as preacher, and as he went +through Scotland new Churches sprang into existence everywhere. His +campaign was followed speedily by an insurrection, for the strife +between Catholicism and Calvinism was also a strife for the delivery of +Scotland from a foreign army. The Scottish Protestants besieged a small +French force in Leith, and a small English force was sent to support the +insurgents. The campaign was soon over. The French force surrendered, +very few Scots openly siding with the Queen and her French force. +Scotland now became Protestant, and danger was no longer to be +apprehended from an attack by land. + +The issue was now clear. Elizabeth no longer hesitated, but threw +herself into the work of consolidating her position by forcing +Protestantism on England. If the Scottish revolt had miscarried it would +have been different. In the event of failure she had intended to marry +one of the Austrian cousins of Philip of Spain and to pursue a Catholic +policy. The English people were now irrevocably committed to +Protestantism, landlordism and capitalism, if they were to retain their +national independence. It was only by supporting Elizabeth through thick +and thin that they could keep themselves free from foreign +complications. + +Elizabeth, then, had finally decided that England should become a +Protestant country. To attain this end she stuck at nothing. In spite of +all that had happened, the English people were still mainly Catholic in +their sympathies, and rivers of blood had to flow before they could be +changed. "The Protestant religion," says Cobbett, "was established by +gibbets, racks, and ripping knives." A series of Acts of Parliament were +passed which by degrees put down the Catholic worship and reintroduced +the Protestant form as it existed under Edward VI. Catholics were +compelled to attend Protestant worship under enormous penalties, and +when this failed an Act was passed compelling all persons to take the +oath of supremacy, acknowledging her instead of the Pope supreme in +spiritual matters on pain of death. Thus were thousands of people +condemned to death for no other crime than adhering to the religion of +their fathers, the religion, in fact, in which Elizabeth herself had +professed to believe until she became queen and had turned against it, +not from conscientious motives, but from considerations of convenience. +"Elizabeth," says Cobbett, "put, in one way or another, more persons to +death in one year, for not becoming apostates to the religion which she +had sworn to be hers, and to be the only true one, than Mary put to +death in the whole of her reign... Yet the former is called or has been +called 'good Queen Bess,' and the latter 'bloody Queen Mary.'" + +Elizabeth's successor, James I, continued her policy of persecuting the +Catholics. Before he came to the throne he had promised to mitigate the +penal laws which made their lives a burden, but he actually made them +more severe than ever, while there came with him from Scotland a horde +of rapacious minions who preyed upon the Catholic population, filling +their pockets by extracting from them the maximum in fines which the +statutes allowed. The consequence of this was the Gunpowder Plot which +was organized by a group of Catholics "to blow the Scotch beggars back +to their native mountains," as Guy Fawkes replied when asked why he had collected so many barrels of gunpowder. -Mention has been made of the fact that the Duke of Somerset -encouraged the sectarians who flocked to England from the -Continent to preach their doctrines in order to make the -breach with Rome final and irrevocable. These sectarians -were men of the same mentality as the heretics of the Middle -Ages, that is, men who were temperamentally incapable of -seeing truth as a whole, but would fasten themselves upon -one aspect of it which they insisted upon in a spirit of -narrow fanaticism to the neglect and denial of all other -aspects of truth. At all times men of this type are a danger -to society, and in the Middle Ages they were kept well in -hand. But after the Reformation, when the Bible was -translated, and copies of it multiplied by the thousand by -the printing press, recently invented, these men got their -chance. They challenged the Catholic tradition upon which -the Roman Church had based its authority with the authority -of the Bible, upon which without note or comment they took -their stand. As every one now began to interpret it in his -own way, it led to the growth of innumerable sects who -poisoned the minds of nearly the whole community. "Hence all -sorts of monstrous crimes. At Dover a woman cut off the head -of her child, alleging that, like Abraham, she had had a -particular command from God. A woman was executed at York -for crucifying her mother; she had, at the same time, -sacrificed a calf and a cock. These are only a few amongst -the horrors of that 'thorough godly Reformation.' We read of -killings in the Bible; and if every man is to be his own -interpreter of that book, who is to say that he acts -contrary to his own interpretation?"This is what making -truth subjective comes to in the sphere of religion. Only -the affirmation that truth is objective can make the common -sense of men prevail. - -Out of the medley of conflicting beliefs and opinions there -gradually emerged the Puritan Movement, which became such a -formidable power in the reign of Charles I. Its members were -not bound together by a community of beliefs but by a -community of disbeliefs. They were united in their hatred of -all ritual and ceremonies, and in a longing for liberty of -conscience for all who subscribed to the "No Popery" cry, -but not for such as thought otherwise. This new religious -development is in one sense perhaps to be ascribed to the -separation of religion from the practical affairs of life -which made it a personal rather than a social consideration. -The Catholic and Mediaeval idea had been that of salvation -by faith and good works, but with the rise of Protestantism -there came the idea of salvation by faith alone. This idea, -which found a ready support among the commercial class who -desired to be at liberty to determine their own standards of -morality in respect to their trade relationships, changed -entirely the meaning of the idea of salvation by faith. From -being considered as a means to an end---the end being good -works---faith came to be regarded as the end in itself. And -with this change, religious faith lost its social -significance. Instead of implying the acceptance of certain -moral, objective and revealed truths which experience had -proved to be necessary for the proper ordering of society, -it came to imply the acceptance of certain peculiar views as -to the personal nature of God. Religion became a matter of -keeping on the right side of God, whom the Puritans -interpreted as a narrow-minded, jealously dis posed person, -much inferior to the average human being. Hence the endless -religious discussions to decide the best method of -propitiating the Deity, which naturally came about when -religion lost its original aim of seeking the establishment -of the Kingdom of God upon Earth and concerned itself with -the less dignified aim of saving the individual soul from -eternal damnation. - -Charles I, who came to the throne on the death of his father -in 1625, came into violent collision with this new power. He -was one of the most moral and religious men who ever wore a -crown; but his autocratic methods made him the last person -in the world to deal with the Puritans. Many were the -grounds of quarrel between him and his Parliament and -people, but the great ground was that of religion. So far as -the people were concerned, the quarrel was genuine. They -were Protestants and Puritans by conviction, and they looked -with suspicion upon Charles, who had married a Catholic wife -and was therefore suspected of designs to restore the -Catholic worship. His action in repealing the Sunday -Observance Laws was taken as evidence of such intention. But -with the Parliament the trouble was different. The landlords -of whom it was composed had grievances of their own. Under -the two preceding reigns they had been accustomed to have -things very much their own way, and they resented Charles's -attempts to curb their power. Realizing the troubles which -arise from absenteeism, he requested the landowners to live -on their estates instead of spending their time in London. -He appointed a Com mission--"to inquire touching -Depopulations and conversions of Lands to Pasture"--an evil -which was destroying rural life and pressed hard upon the -poorer inhabitants. Charles was determined to put a stop to -this scandal and imposed heavy fines upon delinquents. Sir -Anthony Roper was fined no less than 30,000 for committing -Depopulations. Further, Charles so arranged matters that the -weight of taxation fell entirely upon the trading and -wealthy class, and for this he was not forgiven. Parliament -resolved to checkmate him. Government was impossible without -supplies, and they refused to vote him any. Charles answered -them by seeking to impose taxation without their consent. -Here was a clear issue about which they could fight with -some prospect of securing popular support. They raised the -cry of arbitrary government. That this arbitrary power was -exercised in the interests of the people against the land -lords did not prevent the cry from catching on, for when -people put their faith in means rather than ends they can be -easily misled. The landlords artfully connected their own -political grievances, the exact nature of which they -concealed from the people, with the Puritan demand for -religious liberty, whatever that may have meant. "If it were -not for their reiterated cry about religion," said Hampden, -"they would never be sure of keeping the people on their -side."It was by such means that Parliament secured the -support of London, which was the centre of Puritanism and -which played such a decisive part in the Civil War. The end -was as we all know. Charles was defeated, and eventually -executed. The landlords triumphed, and Parliament rewarded -the people for their support by transferring to their -shoulders the burden of taxation which was taken off land -and profits on trade and put upon food. It was thus that the -foundations of English "liberty" were laid upon a firm and -democratic basis, and taxation broadened. - -Since the defeat of Charles, no monarch or statesman has -seriously attempted to put a boundary to the depredations of -landlordism and capitalism. In his *Defence of -Aristocracy*Mr. Ludovici has exalted Charles as a national -hero who led a forlorn hope against the stronghold of -capitalism and landlordism under which England still groans. -Though he glosses over the weaker side of Charles's -character, he certainly makes a very strong case out for him -which leaves little doubt in one's mind that Charles did try -to govern England in the interests of the people rather than -in that of the landlords and capitalists; and, moreover, -that it was because he made this valiant attempt that he -eventually came to grief. So much we are willing to grant. -But Mr. Ludovici goes further, and seeks to make of his -example a case for the revival of aristocracy, forgetting, -apparently, that the evil influences against which Charles -fought in vain were largely the creation of another -aristocrat, Henry VIII, and that while it can be shown that -individual aristocrats have placed the public interest -before their own, it is not true of any aristocracy -considered as a class since the revival of Roman Law. - -With the reasons which have led Mr. Ludovici and others to -advocate a revival of aristocracy I have every sympathy. -Like him, I realize the practical difficulty of initiating -measures for the public good, apart from a recognition of -the principle of authority. From one point of view the -problem confronting modern society is that of the -re-establishment of authority. But I contend that this -difficulty is not to be met by any attempted revival of -aristocracy, because the authority of which we stand in need -is not primarily the authority of persons, but of *ideas* or -*things* as Mr. de Maeztu terms them. The authority of the -aristocrat presupposes the existence of certain common -standards of thought and action throughout the community; -and if these are non-existent, as is the case to-day, it is -vain to seek a remedy in the authority of persons. The thing -to do is to seek the re-creation of the intellectual unity -of a common culture by bringing ideas and values into a true -relationship with each other. In proportion as this end can -be attained authority will reappear in society, for ideas -tend to become authoritative once they are accepted. When -this is secured, the difficulties which make Mr. Ludovici -yearn for a revival of aristocracy will have disappeared. -Democracy and authority will no longer present themselves as -mutually exclusive principles, but as complementary ones. +Mention has been made of the fact that the Duke of Somerset encouraged +the sectarians who flocked to England from the Continent to preach their +doctrines in order to make the breach with Rome final and irrevocable. +These sectarians were men of the same mentality as the heretics of the +Middle Ages, that is, men who were temperamentally incapable of seeing +truth as a whole, but would fasten themselves upon one aspect of it +which they insisted upon in a spirit of narrow fanaticism to the neglect +and denial of all other aspects of truth. At all times men of this type +are a danger to society, and in the Middle Ages they were kept well in +hand. But after the Reformation, when the Bible was translated, and +copies of it multiplied by the thousand by the printing press, recently +invented, these men got their chance. They challenged the Catholic +tradition upon which the Roman Church had based its authority with the +authority of the Bible, upon which without note or comment they took +their stand. As every one now began to interpret it in his own way, it +led to the growth of innumerable sects who poisoned the minds of nearly +the whole community. "Hence all sorts of monstrous crimes. At Dover a +woman cut off the head of her child, alleging that, like Abraham, she +had had a particular command from God. A woman was executed at York for +crucifying her mother; she had, at the same time, sacrificed a calf and +a cock. These are only a few amongst the horrors of that 'thorough godly +Reformation.' We read of killings in the Bible; and if every man is to +be his own interpreter of that book, who is to say that he acts contrary +to his own interpretation?"This is what making truth subjective comes to +in the sphere of religion. Only the affirmation that truth is objective +can make the common sense of men prevail. + +Out of the medley of conflicting beliefs and opinions there gradually +emerged the Puritan Movement, which became such a formidable power in +the reign of Charles I. Its members were not bound together by a +community of beliefs but by a community of disbeliefs. They were united +in their hatred of all ritual and ceremonies, and in a longing for +liberty of conscience for all who subscribed to the "No Popery" cry, but +not for such as thought otherwise. This new religious development is in +one sense perhaps to be ascribed to the separation of religion from the +practical affairs of life which made it a personal rather than a social +consideration. The Catholic and Mediaeval idea had been that of +salvation by faith and good works, but with the rise of Protestantism +there came the idea of salvation by faith alone. This idea, which found +a ready support among the commercial class who desired to be at liberty +to determine their own standards of morality in respect to their trade +relationships, changed entirely the meaning of the idea of salvation by +faith. From being considered as a means to an end---the end being good +works---faith came to be regarded as the end in itself. And with this +change, religious faith lost its social significance. Instead of +implying the acceptance of certain moral, objective and revealed truths +which experience had proved to be necessary for the proper ordering of +society, it came to imply the acceptance of certain peculiar views as to +the personal nature of God. Religion became a matter of keeping on the +right side of God, whom the Puritans interpreted as a narrow-minded, +jealously dis posed person, much inferior to the average human being. +Hence the endless religious discussions to decide the best method of +propitiating the Deity, which naturally came about when religion lost +its original aim of seeking the establishment of the Kingdom of God upon +Earth and concerned itself with the less dignified aim of saving the +individual soul from eternal damnation. + +Charles I, who came to the throne on the death of his father in 1625, +came into violent collision with this new power. He was one of the most +moral and religious men who ever wore a crown; but his autocratic +methods made him the last person in the world to deal with the Puritans. +Many were the grounds of quarrel between him and his Parliament and +people, but the great ground was that of religion. So far as the people +were concerned, the quarrel was genuine. They were Protestants and +Puritans by conviction, and they looked with suspicion upon Charles, who +had married a Catholic wife and was therefore suspected of designs to +restore the Catholic worship. His action in repealing the Sunday +Observance Laws was taken as evidence of such intention. But with the +Parliament the trouble was different. The landlords of whom it was +composed had grievances of their own. Under the two preceding reigns +they had been accustomed to have things very much their own way, and +they resented Charles's attempts to curb their power. Realizing the +troubles which arise from absenteeism, he requested the landowners to +live on their estates instead of spending their time in London. He +appointed a Com mission--"to inquire touching Depopulations and +conversions of Lands to Pasture"--an evil which was destroying rural +life and pressed hard upon the poorer inhabitants. Charles was +determined to put a stop to this scandal and imposed heavy fines upon +delinquents. Sir Anthony Roper was fined no less than 30,000 for +committing Depopulations. Further, Charles so arranged matters that the +weight of taxation fell entirely upon the trading and wealthy class, and +for this he was not forgiven. Parliament resolved to checkmate him. +Government was impossible without supplies, and they refused to vote him +any. Charles answered them by seeking to impose taxation without their +consent. Here was a clear issue about which they could fight with some +prospect of securing popular support. They raised the cry of arbitrary +government. That this arbitrary power was exercised in the interests of +the people against the land lords did not prevent the cry from catching +on, for when people put their faith in means rather than ends they can +be easily misled. The landlords artfully connected their own political +grievances, the exact nature of which they concealed from the people, +with the Puritan demand for religious liberty, whatever that may have +meant. "If it were not for their reiterated cry about religion," said +Hampden, "they would never be sure of keeping the people on their +side."It was by such means that Parliament secured the support of +London, which was the centre of Puritanism and which played such a +decisive part in the Civil War. The end was as we all know. Charles was +defeated, and eventually executed. The landlords triumphed, and +Parliament rewarded the people for their support by transferring to +their shoulders the burden of taxation which was taken off land and +profits on trade and put upon food. It was thus that the foundations of +English "liberty" were laid upon a firm and democratic basis, and +taxation broadened. + +Since the defeat of Charles, no monarch or statesman has seriously +attempted to put a boundary to the depredations of landlordism and +capitalism. In his *Defence of Aristocracy*Mr. Ludovici has exalted +Charles as a national hero who led a forlorn hope against the stronghold +of capitalism and landlordism under which England still groans. Though +he glosses over the weaker side of Charles's character, he certainly +makes a very strong case out for him which leaves little doubt in one's +mind that Charles did try to govern England in the interests of the +people rather than in that of the landlords and capitalists; and, +moreover, that it was because he made this valiant attempt that he +eventually came to grief. So much we are willing to grant. But +Mr. Ludovici goes further, and seeks to make of his example a case for +the revival of aristocracy, forgetting, apparently, that the evil +influences against which Charles fought in vain were largely the +creation of another aristocrat, Henry VIII, and that while it can be +shown that individual aristocrats have placed the public interest before +their own, it is not true of any aristocracy considered as a class since +the revival of Roman Law. + +With the reasons which have led Mr. Ludovici and others to advocate a +revival of aristocracy I have every sympathy. Like him, I realize the +practical difficulty of initiating measures for the public good, apart +from a recognition of the principle of authority. From one point of view +the problem confronting modern society is that of the re-establishment +of authority. But I contend that this difficulty is not to be met by any +attempted revival of aristocracy, because the authority of which we +stand in need is not primarily the authority of persons, but of *ideas* +or *things* as Mr. de Maeztu terms them. The authority of the aristocrat +presupposes the existence of certain common standards of thought and +action throughout the community; and if these are non-existent, as is +the case to-day, it is vain to seek a remedy in the authority of +persons. The thing to do is to seek the re-creation of the intellectual +unity of a common culture by bringing ideas and values into a true +relationship with each other. In proportion as this end can be attained +authority will reappear in society, for ideas tend to become +authoritative once they are accepted. When this is secured, the +difficulties which make Mr. Ludovici yearn for a revival of aristocracy +will have disappeared. Democracy and authority will no longer present +themselves as mutually exclusive principles, but as complementary ones. # The French Revolution -"It is no idle Hibernianism," says Mr. Chesterton, "to say -that towards the end of the eighteenth century the most -important event in English history happened in France. It -would seem still more perverse, yet it would be still more -precise, to say that the most important event in English -history was the event that never happened at all---the -English Revolution on the lines of the French Revolution."I -That such a revolution did not materialize in England was -not due to any lack of ardour on the part of those who would -have brought it about, but to the fact that the English -governing classes and the rising manufacturing class, land -lords, churchmen, judges, and manufacturers, stood firmly -together in order to save themselves from the fate which had -overtaken the privileged classes in France. By such means -they postponed the crisis which threatened England towards -the end of the eighteenth century, until the development of -railway building came to their rescue by effecting a general -revival of trade, and, within certain limits, a +"It is no idle Hibernianism," says Mr. Chesterton, "to say that towards +the end of the eighteenth century the most important event in English +history happened in France. It would seem still more perverse, yet it +would be still more precise, to say that the most important event in +English history was the event that never happened at all---the English +Revolution on the lines of the French Revolution."I That such a +revolution did not materialize in England was not due to any lack of +ardour on the part of those who would have brought it about, but to the +fact that the English governing classes and the rising manufacturing +class, land lords, churchmen, judges, and manufacturers, stood firmly +together in order to save themselves from the fate which had overtaken +the privileged classes in France. By such means they postponed the +crisis which threatened England towards the end of the eighteenth +century, until the development of railway building came to their rescue +by effecting a general revival of trade, and, within certain limits, a redistribution of the wealth of the community. -The fact that the experiment in Revolution, to which all -Western European countries were moving towards the end of -the eighteenth century, was tried in France is to be -attributed to the writings of Rousseau. "But for Rousseau," -said Napoleon, "there would have been no Revolution," a -conclusion which it is difficult to avoid, for it was -Rousseau who formulated the ideas which exercised such a -profound influence on the course of the Revolution. Apart -from Rousseau, great social, political, and economic changes -would have taken place; for the contrasts between wealth and -poverty had become so great, famine so prevalent, and the -monarchical system of government so unworkable that -something had to be done. But there is strong evidence to -support the idea that if Rousseau and the intellectuals -associated with him had not inflamed the imagination of the -French people with impossible dreams, the change would not -have taken the direction it did. It would have moved towards -a revival of Mediaeval institutions, for though it so -happened that such Mediaeval institutions as had survived to -their day had been corrupted by Roman Law, the Mediaeval -tradition among the peasants was still strong, as evidenced -by the fact that in the years following the American War, -when systematic and widespread agitations broke out in many -parts of France, notably in the East, against the dearness -of food, the peasants, acting on their own initiative, -sought a solution of the problem by a revival of the central -economic idea of the Middle Ages---the idea of the Just -Price. The rebel bands would compel those who had brought -corn to market to sell it at a Just Price, or else they -seized the corn and divided it among themselves at a Just -Price.This fact alone is of the greatest significance; its -importance cannot be exaggerated, for it indicates clearly -the direction in which a solution would have been sought had -not the influence of Rousseau and the intellectuals of his -generation operated to confuse the issue by the -popularization of ideas which were antipathetic to the -political and economic philosophy of the Middle Ages. - -The social, political and economic crisis which precipitated -the Revolution was accompanied by a paralysis of the body -politic. The Revolution came because the machinery of -government would work no longer. This state of things had -been brought into existence by Louis XIV, whose policy it -had been to concentrate all power in the Crown. Early in his -reign he had sought to exclude the nobility from the chief -posts in the Government. This led to the revolt of the -aristocracy known as the Fronde, which he succeeded in -quelling; after which he summoned the nobles to his court, -where he undermined what independence they still retained by -corrupting them with favours and pleasures. He overcame the -resistance of Parliament to his encroachments by haughtily -imposing upon it a silence and submission of sixty years -duration. Having by such means succeeded in destroying the -independence of all who might offer resistance to his -authority, he directed his immense power internally against -the Protestants and externally in pursuing an aggressive -policy against Germany and the Netherlands. For a time -success seemed to follow him everywhere. Internal -dissatisfaction with his policy was drowned in songs of -victory. But at length the tide turned, the men of genius -died, the victories ceased, industry emigrated with the -Protestants who fled from the country, and money became -scarcer and scarcer. Indeed, before his death Louis began to -find, as other despots have found, that the successes of -despotism exhaust its resources and mortgage its future. - -The death of Louis was the signal of reaction; there was a -sudden transition from intolerance to incredulity, from the -spirit of servility to that of discussion and assertion. -From then onwards, all through the eighteenth century, the -disintegration of society increased daily while the -Government fell into the hands of royal mistresses. -Opposition increased. The Third Estate, which possessed -scarcely a third of the land and was burdened with feudal -rents to the lords of the manor, tithes to the clergy and -taxes to the king, without enjoying any corresponding -political rights and privileges, became more and more -opposed to the nobility who were exempt from taxation arid -to the wealthy clergy who swallowed the rich revenues of the -bishoprics and abbeys. Though they were divided among -themselves, they were united in their desire to remove such -inequality of burdens, while they bitterly resented the -contempt with which they were treated by the upper classes. -As time wore on they became more and more united and -increased in strength, wealth and intelligence, until, -finally, they successfully revolted. Meanwhile, the finances -got into a more and more difficult condition, bringing -about, finally, the state of things that in the reign of -Louis XVI led to the summoning of the States-general which -in turn led immediately to revolution. - -Such was the problem which was developing when Rousseau made -his appearance. There was little or no understanding of the -nature of the problem with which France was then perplexed; -but there was strong and justifiable resentment at certain -obvious and concrete evils. It was apparent that the -concentration of absolute power in the hands of the monarchy -was an evil of the first magnitude, while it was apparent -that the survival of feudal rights---of privileges without -corresponding responsibilities---was not merely an -anachronism that needed to be abolished, but that it imposed -a crushing burden upon the poor, who were called upon to -support the system. Had Rousseau been familiar with the -historical growth of this problem he would have known that -the concentration of power in the hands of the monarchy and -the corruption of Feudalism were alike due to the influence -of Roman Law, and that the solution of the problem demanded, -among other things, its supersession by the Mediaeval Law -which it had replaced. But not only was Rousseau unaware of -the extent to which the evils of society were to be traced -back to the revival of Roman Law but, like most, if not all, -of his contemporaries, he had a great admiration for it. He -was a child of the Renaissance, and as such was an admirer -of the institutions of Greece and Rome, of which, like the -scholars who idealized them, he was altogether uncritical. -He was apparently unaware that the civilizations of both -Greece and Rome had been undermined by the unregulated use -of currency, and that the problem of its regulation which -had eluded the statesmen of Greece had found a solution in -the Guilds of the Middle Ages, which had been rendered -economically possible by the triumph of Christianity. On the -contrary, not understanding that Paganism had proved itself -to be morally weak, he ascribed its decline to the spread of -Christian doctrines, which he considered had undermined the -antique virtues. He was ignorant of the fact that -Christianity had triumphed because it was a moral tonic -capable of bracing up the fibre of decadent civilizations. -He had been prejudiced against Christianity in the days of -his youth because, brought up in Geneva, he had only known -the Calvinist version of it; and being interested in the -things of this world, while Calvinism was only interested in -the things of the next, he jumped to the conclusion that if -ever society was to be regenerated it would be necessary to -abolish Christianity in favour of a revival of Paganism. - -It is in this light that the *Social Contract*, which lit -the flames of the Revolution, should be studied. Rousseau's -ideas on civil religion do not appear until the last -chapter, but they provide the key to his whole position. In -order to understand Rousseau, it is necessary to read him -back wards. The immediate problem with which he was -concerned and which made him favour a Pagan form of worship -was his desire to see an identity between Church and State, -which he recognized did not exist in Christian societies! -That such a union might not be desirable, that its -disadvantages might outweigh the advantages, never for a -moment occurred to him. So obsessed was he with the idea of -unity that he never saw that religion and politics, when -real, never were and never can be the same thing. Hence it -was that in his search for unity he fused the categories of -religious and political thought. It would be more strictly -true to say that he confused them, for clear thinking -demands that they should remain in their separate -categories. While religion concerns itself with the ideal, -politics must concern itself with the real if it is to give -practical results. Hitherto this difference of function had -been clearly recognized. In the normal society as it existed -in the Middle Ages it was clearly recognized that while it -was the function of the Church to make good men, it was the -function of government to build them into the social -structure. Moreover, it was recognized that the success of -the legislator was ultimately dependent upon the success of -the priest. The maintenance of the Just Price presupposes -the existence of just men, and no one in the Middle Ages -ever entertained the contrary idea that the arrival of an -ideal social system could precede the arrival of ideal men. -But when, after the Renaissance, scepticism in regard to -religion invaded the intellectual world and capitalism -triumphed and privileges were abused, men of religious -temperament, instead of entering the Church as they would -have done in the Middle Ages, remained outside and turned to -political speculation. The consequence of this was that they -infused the sphere of politics with the idealism which is -proper to religion, but which can have no place in politics -because politics must concern itself with men as they are -and not with men as they might be. In this mood Rousseau, -realizing that certain evils which he saw around him were -attributable to bad government, and wishing to see them -remedied, turned from speculating on ways and means of -remedying these abuses to speculation on the form which an -ideal State should take. But instead of setting to work in -the way Mediaevalists would have done---to consider, -firstly, how to produce good men, and then to determine what -form of government would be best suited for giving the best -results from the material so produced---good, bad, and -indifferent---Rousseau began by first thinking out how the -ideal State should be constituted, and then turned to -consider how men might be disciplined in order that his -ideal State could be maintained in its integrity. This -inversion of the natural order of thought runs all through -the *Social Contract*, and it was this that led to the -tyrannies and violence of the Revolution. For while religion -seeks to discipline man by an appeal to his heart and -conscience, the State is powerless to maintain a discipline -except through the exercise of force. The Jacobins, when -they sought to regenerate France by sending delegates with -guillotines into the provinces, were in their crude way -attempting to give practical application to a principle -which Rousseau had enunciated. - -It was because Rousseau made morality wholly dependent upon -law, as at a later date Marx made it wholly dependent upon -economic conditions, that he was so anxious to devise a -State which would be mechanically perfect in its workings. -If morality is to be dependent upon law it is a matter of -vital importance that the State should be so constructed -that the evil desires in man will balance and neutralize -each other in an equilibrium of good. But, of course, it -cannot be done. The search for perpetual motion is not a -more hopeless quest, for man cannot by laws be made to go -straight in spite of himself. The utmost laws are capable of -doing is to secure outward observance of the moral standards -of those in power. They may, like Mediaeval Law, aim at -enabling good men to live among bad; or, like Roman Law, at -enabling rich men to live among poor; but to create living -standards of morality they are powerless, for if the law -attempts to get ahead of public opinion it will not be -observed, while the attempt of a Government to secure -observance under such conditions would be to institute a -tyranny that would be its undoing. - -The particular form of government which Rousseau thought -would automatically promote the public welfare was one based -upon the sovereignty of the people. He says: - -"One essential and inevitable defect which will render a -monarchical government inferior to a republican one is that -in the latter the public voice hardly ever raises to the -highest posts any but enlightened and capable men, who fill -them honourably; whereas those who succeed in monarchies are -most frequently only petty mischief-makers, petty knaves, -petty intriguers, whose petty talents, which enable them to -obtain high posts in courts, only serve to show the public -their ineptitude as soon as they have attained them. The -people are much less mistaken about their choice than the -prince is; and a man of real merit is almost as rare in a -royal ministry as a fool at the head of a republican -government. Therefore, when by some fortunate chance one of -these born rulers takes the helm of affairs in a monarchy -almost wrecked by such a fine set of ministers, it is quite -astonishing what resources he finds, and his accession to -power forms an epoch in a country." - -From the foregoing passage as from others which might be -quoted, it is evident that Rousseau did not believe in -Equality as it is understood by democrats to-day. He would -have answered the democrat who asserts that the people have -a right to exercise power regardless of the use which they -make of it, by saying that democrats in that case take their -stand on precisely the same ground as the authoritarian who -believes in the divine right of kings. Both have one thing -in common: they make power subjective and absolute instead -of objective and conditional upon the fulfilment of duties. -This was not Rousseau's idea. Strictly speaking, Rousseau -did not believe in Equality at all, but in natural -inequalities. He wanted to get rid of the inequalities based -upon wealth and influence in order to clear the way for what -may be termed the free movement in society of natural -inequalities. He believed in government by the wise. "It -is," he says, "the best and most natural order of things -that the wise should govern the multitude, when we are sure -they will govern it for its advantage and not for their -own." The wise were to be the executive officers of the -State, but he wanted the people to be sovereign in order -that they might keep a check on them. In this sense only did -Rousseau believe in Equality. He did not regard it as an end -in itself, but as a means to an end, the end being -government by the best and wisest. There is something very -simple and unsophisticated about all this. The whole trouble -of the world from one point of view is precisely that the -best and wisest do not automatically come to the top under -democracy any more than they do under any other form of -government. It is the clever rather than the wise who do, -and, unfortunately, the wise are rarely clever, nor are the -clever usually wise. When the wise do come to the top the -millennium will have arrived. - -Rousseau himself realized this difficulty when he considered -the problem of the legislator. He was of the opinion that -neither the sovereign people nor the executive were wise -enough to frame good laws. The successful accomplishment of -such a task required a superman. Of the legislator or -lawgiver he says:-- - -"Wise men who want to speak to the vulgar in their own -language instead of in a popular way will not be under -stood. Now, there are a thousand kinds of ideas which it is -impossible to translate into the language of the people. -Views very general and objects very remote are alike beyond -its reach; and each individual approving of no other plan of -government than that which promotes his own interests, does -not readily perceive the benefits which he is to derive from -the continual deprivations which good laws impose. In order -that a newly formed nation might approve sound maxims of -politics and observe the fundamental rules of State policy, -it would be necessary that the effect should become the -cause; that the social spirit, which should be the work of -the institution, should preside over the institution itself, -and that men should be, prior to the laws, what they ought -to become by means of them. Since, then, the legislator -cannot employ either force or reasoning, he must needs have -recourse to an authority of a different order, which can +The fact that the experiment in Revolution, to which all Western +European countries were moving towards the end of the eighteenth +century, was tried in France is to be attributed to the writings of +Rousseau. "But for Rousseau," said Napoleon, "there would have been no +Revolution," a conclusion which it is difficult to avoid, for it was +Rousseau who formulated the ideas which exercised such a profound +influence on the course of the Revolution. Apart from Rousseau, great +social, political, and economic changes would have taken place; for the +contrasts between wealth and poverty had become so great, famine so +prevalent, and the monarchical system of government so unworkable that +something had to be done. But there is strong evidence to support the +idea that if Rousseau and the intellectuals associated with him had not +inflamed the imagination of the French people with impossible dreams, +the change would not have taken the direction it did. It would have +moved towards a revival of Mediaeval institutions, for though it so +happened that such Mediaeval institutions as had survived to their day +had been corrupted by Roman Law, the Mediaeval tradition among the +peasants was still strong, as evidenced by the fact that in the years +following the American War, when systematic and widespread agitations +broke out in many parts of France, notably in the East, against the +dearness of food, the peasants, acting on their own initiative, sought a +solution of the problem by a revival of the central economic idea of the +Middle Ages---the idea of the Just Price. The rebel bands would compel +those who had brought corn to market to sell it at a Just Price, or else +they seized the corn and divided it among themselves at a Just +Price.This fact alone is of the greatest significance; its importance +cannot be exaggerated, for it indicates clearly the direction in which a +solution would have been sought had not the influence of Rousseau and +the intellectuals of his generation operated to confuse the issue by the +popularization of ideas which were antipathetic to the political and +economic philosophy of the Middle Ages. + +The social, political and economic crisis which precipitated the +Revolution was accompanied by a paralysis of the body politic. The +Revolution came because the machinery of government would work no +longer. This state of things had been brought into existence by Louis +XIV, whose policy it had been to concentrate all power in the Crown. +Early in his reign he had sought to exclude the nobility from the chief +posts in the Government. This led to the revolt of the aristocracy known +as the Fronde, which he succeeded in quelling; after which he summoned +the nobles to his court, where he undermined what independence they +still retained by corrupting them with favours and pleasures. He +overcame the resistance of Parliament to his encroachments by haughtily +imposing upon it a silence and submission of sixty years duration. +Having by such means succeeded in destroying the independence of all who +might offer resistance to his authority, he directed his immense power +internally against the Protestants and externally in pursuing an +aggressive policy against Germany and the Netherlands. For a time +success seemed to follow him everywhere. Internal dissatisfaction with +his policy was drowned in songs of victory. But at length the tide +turned, the men of genius died, the victories ceased, industry emigrated +with the Protestants who fled from the country, and money became scarcer +and scarcer. Indeed, before his death Louis began to find, as other +despots have found, that the successes of despotism exhaust its +resources and mortgage its future. + +The death of Louis was the signal of reaction; there was a sudden +transition from intolerance to incredulity, from the spirit of servility +to that of discussion and assertion. From then onwards, all through the +eighteenth century, the disintegration of society increased daily while +the Government fell into the hands of royal mistresses. Opposition +increased. The Third Estate, which possessed scarcely a third of the +land and was burdened with feudal rents to the lords of the manor, +tithes to the clergy and taxes to the king, without enjoying any +corresponding political rights and privileges, became more and more +opposed to the nobility who were exempt from taxation arid to the +wealthy clergy who swallowed the rich revenues of the bishoprics and +abbeys. Though they were divided among themselves, they were united in +their desire to remove such inequality of burdens, while they bitterly +resented the contempt with which they were treated by the upper classes. +As time wore on they became more and more united and increased in +strength, wealth and intelligence, until, finally, they successfully +revolted. Meanwhile, the finances got into a more and more difficult +condition, bringing about, finally, the state of things that in the +reign of Louis XVI led to the summoning of the States-general which in +turn led immediately to revolution. + +Such was the problem which was developing when Rousseau made his +appearance. There was little or no understanding of the nature of the +problem with which France was then perplexed; but there was strong and +justifiable resentment at certain obvious and concrete evils. It was +apparent that the concentration of absolute power in the hands of the +monarchy was an evil of the first magnitude, while it was apparent that +the survival of feudal rights---of privileges without corresponding +responsibilities---was not merely an anachronism that needed to be +abolished, but that it imposed a crushing burden upon the poor, who were +called upon to support the system. Had Rousseau been familiar with the +historical growth of this problem he would have known that the +concentration of power in the hands of the monarchy and the corruption +of Feudalism were alike due to the influence of Roman Law, and that the +solution of the problem demanded, among other things, its supersession +by the Mediaeval Law which it had replaced. But not only was Rousseau +unaware of the extent to which the evils of society were to be traced +back to the revival of Roman Law but, like most, if not all, of his +contemporaries, he had a great admiration for it. He was a child of the +Renaissance, and as such was an admirer of the institutions of Greece +and Rome, of which, like the scholars who idealized them, he was +altogether uncritical. He was apparently unaware that the civilizations +of both Greece and Rome had been undermined by the unregulated use of +currency, and that the problem of its regulation which had eluded the +statesmen of Greece had found a solution in the Guilds of the Middle +Ages, which had been rendered economically possible by the triumph of +Christianity. On the contrary, not understanding that Paganism had +proved itself to be morally weak, he ascribed its decline to the spread +of Christian doctrines, which he considered had undermined the antique +virtues. He was ignorant of the fact that Christianity had triumphed +because it was a moral tonic capable of bracing up the fibre of decadent +civilizations. He had been prejudiced against Christianity in the days +of his youth because, brought up in Geneva, he had only known the +Calvinist version of it; and being interested in the things of this +world, while Calvinism was only interested in the things of the next, he +jumped to the conclusion that if ever society was to be regenerated it +would be necessary to abolish Christianity in favour of a revival of +Paganism. + +It is in this light that the *Social Contract*, which lit the flames of +the Revolution, should be studied. Rousseau's ideas on civil religion do +not appear until the last chapter, but they provide the key to his whole +position. In order to understand Rousseau, it is necessary to read him +back wards. The immediate problem with which he was concerned and which +made him favour a Pagan form of worship was his desire to see an +identity between Church and State, which he recognized did not exist in +Christian societies! That such a union might not be desirable, that its +disadvantages might outweigh the advantages, never for a moment occurred +to him. So obsessed was he with the idea of unity that he never saw that +religion and politics, when real, never were and never can be the same +thing. Hence it was that in his search for unity he fused the categories +of religious and political thought. It would be more strictly true to +say that he confused them, for clear thinking demands that they should +remain in their separate categories. While religion concerns itself with +the ideal, politics must concern itself with the real if it is to give +practical results. Hitherto this difference of function had been clearly +recognized. In the normal society as it existed in the Middle Ages it +was clearly recognized that while it was the function of the Church to +make good men, it was the function of government to build them into the +social structure. Moreover, it was recognized that the success of the +legislator was ultimately dependent upon the success of the priest. The +maintenance of the Just Price presupposes the existence of just men, and +no one in the Middle Ages ever entertained the contrary idea that the +arrival of an ideal social system could precede the arrival of ideal +men. But when, after the Renaissance, scepticism in regard to religion +invaded the intellectual world and capitalism triumphed and privileges +were abused, men of religious temperament, instead of entering the +Church as they would have done in the Middle Ages, remained outside and +turned to political speculation. The consequence of this was that they +infused the sphere of politics with the idealism which is proper to +religion, but which can have no place in politics because politics must +concern itself with men as they are and not with men as they might be. +In this mood Rousseau, realizing that certain evils which he saw around +him were attributable to bad government, and wishing to see them +remedied, turned from speculating on ways and means of remedying these +abuses to speculation on the form which an ideal State should take. But +instead of setting to work in the way Mediaevalists would have done---to +consider, firstly, how to produce good men, and then to determine what +form of government would be best suited for giving the best results from +the material so produced---good, bad, and indifferent---Rousseau began +by first thinking out how the ideal State should be constituted, and +then turned to consider how men might be disciplined in order that his +ideal State could be maintained in its integrity. This inversion of the +natural order of thought runs all through the *Social Contract*, and it +was this that led to the tyrannies and violence of the Revolution. For +while religion seeks to discipline man by an appeal to his heart and +conscience, the State is powerless to maintain a discipline except +through the exercise of force. The Jacobins, when they sought to +regenerate France by sending delegates with guillotines into the +provinces, were in their crude way attempting to give practical +application to a principle which Rousseau had enunciated. + +It was because Rousseau made morality wholly dependent upon law, as at a +later date Marx made it wholly dependent upon economic conditions, that +he was so anxious to devise a State which would be mechanically perfect +in its workings. If morality is to be dependent upon law it is a matter +of vital importance that the State should be so constructed that the +evil desires in man will balance and neutralize each other in an +equilibrium of good. But, of course, it cannot be done. The search for +perpetual motion is not a more hopeless quest, for man cannot by laws be +made to go straight in spite of himself. The utmost laws are capable of +doing is to secure outward observance of the moral standards of those in +power. They may, like Mediaeval Law, aim at enabling good men to live +among bad; or, like Roman Law, at enabling rich men to live among poor; +but to create living standards of morality they are powerless, for if +the law attempts to get ahead of public opinion it will not be observed, +while the attempt of a Government to secure observance under such +conditions would be to institute a tyranny that would be its undoing. + +The particular form of government which Rousseau thought would +automatically promote the public welfare was one based upon the +sovereignty of the people. He says: + +"One essential and inevitable defect which will render a monarchical +government inferior to a republican one is that in the latter the public +voice hardly ever raises to the highest posts any but enlightened and +capable men, who fill them honourably; whereas those who succeed in +monarchies are most frequently only petty mischief-makers, petty knaves, +petty intriguers, whose petty talents, which enable them to obtain high +posts in courts, only serve to show the public their ineptitude as soon +as they have attained them. The people are much less mistaken about +their choice than the prince is; and a man of real merit is almost as +rare in a royal ministry as a fool at the head of a republican +government. Therefore, when by some fortunate chance one of these born +rulers takes the helm of affairs in a monarchy almost wrecked by such a +fine set of ministers, it is quite astonishing what resources he finds, +and his accession to power forms an epoch in a country." + +From the foregoing passage as from others which might be quoted, it is +evident that Rousseau did not believe in Equality as it is understood by +democrats to-day. He would have answered the democrat who asserts that +the people have a right to exercise power regardless of the use which +they make of it, by saying that democrats in that case take their stand +on precisely the same ground as the authoritarian who believes in the +divine right of kings. Both have one thing in common: they make power +subjective and absolute instead of objective and conditional upon the +fulfilment of duties. This was not Rousseau's idea. Strictly speaking, +Rousseau did not believe in Equality at all, but in natural +inequalities. He wanted to get rid of the inequalities based upon wealth +and influence in order to clear the way for what may be termed the free +movement in society of natural inequalities. He believed in government +by the wise. "It is," he says, "the best and most natural order of +things that the wise should govern the multitude, when we are sure they +will govern it for its advantage and not for their own." The wise were +to be the executive officers of the State, but he wanted the people to +be sovereign in order that they might keep a check on them. In this +sense only did Rousseau believe in Equality. He did not regard it as an +end in itself, but as a means to an end, the end being government by the +best and wisest. There is something very simple and unsophisticated +about all this. The whole trouble of the world from one point of view is +precisely that the best and wisest do not automatically come to the top +under democracy any more than they do under any other form of +government. It is the clever rather than the wise who do, and, +unfortunately, the wise are rarely clever, nor are the clever usually +wise. When the wise do come to the top the millennium will have arrived. + +Rousseau himself realized this difficulty when he considered the problem +of the legislator. He was of the opinion that neither the sovereign +people nor the executive were wise enough to frame good laws. The +successful accomplishment of such a task required a superman. Of the +legislator or lawgiver he says:-- + +"Wise men who want to speak to the vulgar in their own language instead +of in a popular way will not be under stood. Now, there are a thousand +kinds of ideas which it is impossible to translate into the language of +the people. Views very general and objects very remote are alike beyond +its reach; and each individual approving of no other plan of government +than that which promotes his own interests, does not readily perceive +the benefits which he is to derive from the continual deprivations which +good laws impose. In order that a newly formed nation might approve +sound maxims of politics and observe the fundamental rules of State +policy, it would be necessary that the effect should become the cause; +that the social spirit, which should be the work of the institution, +should preside over the institution itself, and that men should be, +prior to the laws, what they ought to become by means of them. Since, +then, the legislator cannot employ either force or reasoning, he must +needs have recourse to an authority of a different order, which can compel without violence and persuade without convincing. -"It is this which in all ages has constrained the founders -of nations to resort to the intervention of Heaven, and to -give the gods the credit for their own wisdom, in order that -the nations, subjected to the laws of the State as to those -of nature, and recognizing the same power in the formation -of man and in that of the State, might obey willingly and -bear submissively the yoke of the public welfare. The -legislator puts into the mouths of the immortals that -sublime reason which soars beyond the reach of common men, -in order that he may win over by divine authority those whom -human prudence could not move. But it does not belong to -every man to make the gods his oracles, nor to be believed -when he proclaims himself their interpreter. The great soul -of the legislator is the real miracle which must give proof -of his mission... The choice of the moment for the -establishment of a government is one of the surest marks for -distinguishing the work of the legislator from that of the -tyrant." - -Apart from the exceptional problem which the law giver -presents, Rousseau quite rightly realized that in general -there are certain external circumstances which favour the -rise to power of the wise as there are certain others which -tend to obstruct them. He saw that the wise stood the best -chance of success in the world, where men were well known to -each other, and where a certain measure of economic equality -obtained. Hence his advocacy of small States and of small -property. But he was not a leveller. He says, "with regard -to Equality we should not understand that the degrees of -power and wealth should be absolutely the same; but that, as -to power, it should fall short of all violence, and never be -exercised except by virtue of station and of the laws; while -as to wealth, no citizen should be rich enough to be able to -buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sell -himself... It is precisely because the force of -circumstances is ever tending to destroy Equality that the -force of legislation should always tend to maintain it." -Rousseau's attitude towards property was not that of the -Collectivist. - -It will make the position clearer to say that the ideal of -Rousseau was that of the City States of Greece, which -existed independently of each other while they were -federated for the purpose of defence. He saw that this meant -putting the clock back; but this did not deter him. He -realized, as all men do whose reasoning faculties have not -been atrophied by the idea of Progress, that any fundamental -change in the social system involves in some degree a return -to a former social condition. All Socialist ideas imply -reversion, but the fact that Socialists are afraid to admit -it has led them into the maze of intellectual confusion in -which they find themselves. But Rousseau lived in an age -when men were not afraid of words, and so boldly advocated a -return to the conditions of primitive society. In an earlier -work he had demanded the renunciation of cultivated life -which he asserted led to "a distinction of the talents and a -disparagement of the virtues," in favour of a return to -nature which was to be made the starting-point for a nobler -form of existence. His description of the life of primitive -society was so vivid and full of detail, while it gave such -a feeling of reality to the existence of a golden age in the -past, that Voltaire said "it made one desire to walk on all -fours." Though Rousseau's description was a work of pure -fiction---for of primitive man he knew nothing---it came to -be believed in as gospel truth, because it served its -purpose of contrasting a simple, unsophisticated mode of -existence with the artificiality and corruption of France, -and gave emphasis to his denunciations of property, -privileges and tyranny. In the Social Contract his -enthusiasm for primitive man appears to have abated -somewhat. Perhaps, after all, there was something to be said -for civilization. It was not to be regarded merely as a -disease. If many natural advantages are lost, equal or -greater ones are secured. Law and morality replace appetite -and instincts; moreover, there are certain advantages in -co-operation. Hence, though it is necessary to return to the -past, he considers that it will not be necessary to return -to any state of society prior to the civilization of early -Greece. - -It was because Rousseau was mistaken as to the historical -nature of the problem which confronted society that he was -led to regard the Greek States as models. Remembering that -these States were entirely undermined by unregulated -currency, Rousseau, to have been consistent, should have -demanded the abolition of currency. That he did not is to be -explained by the circumstance that he was apparently as -ignorant of the fact that unregulated currency had destroyed -the civilization of Greece and Rome as of the further fact -that the solution of this problem was found by the Mediaeval -Guilds. Had he known these facts, the course of history -might have been different. Instead of seeking a solution -that was primarily political he would have sought one that -was primarily economic. He would have supported the peasants -in their demand for the re-establishment of the Just Price, -and would have considered ways and means of restoring the -Guilds to maintain it. He would, moreover, have seen that -within the Guilds the people were sovereign in the Middle -Ages, while their sovereignty was not based upon slavery, as -was the case with the sovereign peoples of Greece. On this -issue Rousseau was not honest with himself. Though he -condemns slavery, he glosses over the fact that the States -which he exalted as models were based upon slavery. -"Slavery," he says, "is one of the unfortunate -inconveniences of civilized society." - -The technical cause of the confusion in which Rousseau found -himself is to be found in the revived interest in Roman Law -which had established the tradition of thinking about -economic problems entirely in terms of property. In my -chapter on Greece and Rome I drew attention to the mutual -dependence of Roman Law and an unregulated currency, -pointing out that Roman Law came into being not for the -purpose of securing justice, but to postpone the dissolution -of a society which had been rendered politically unstable -through the growth of capitalism---itself the consequence of -unregulated currency. Despairing of the effort to secure -justice, the Roman jurists addressed themselves to the more -immediately urgent task of maintaining order by fol lowing -the line of least resistance. Not understanding how to -regulate currency even if it had been practicable in Rome, -they sought to give protection and security to private -property as the easiest way of avoiding continual strife -among neighbours. The consequence of this was that when -after the Reformation thinkers went to Roman Law for -guidance in their speculations as to how to render -government stable, the tradition became established of -thinking about social and political questions primarily in -terms of property instead of in currency. The result of this -has been that down to this day social theory is presented -statically rather than dynamically. Rousseau's social theory -was no exception to this rule. It did not deal with the -sequential steps which would have to be taken towards the -realization of his ideal society, but presented a new -society already full grown. This limitation of Rousseau's -theory became increasingly apparent as the Revolution -developed. Not only did his constructive ideas bear no -particular relationship to the problems which had to be met, -but they were a positive obstruction in the path of their -solution, by filling the minds of the revolutionaries with -*a priori* ideas which obscured the real issues. The -Revolution rapidly became a collision between theorists -fired with a new ideal and the political, social and -economic conditions of which they had no com prehension. Not -comprehending them, they sought in vain to direct the course -of events until, exasperated by failure, they came to commit -crimes of which they had no presentiment at the beginning. - -Rousseau misled the revolutionaries by focusing attention -upon the wrong aspect of the economic problem. He talked -about property and ignored currency. I make bold to say that -the centre of gravity of the economic problem is not in -property, but in currency, for currency is the vital thing, -the thing of movement. It is the active principle in -economic development, while property is the passive. It is -true that profits which are made by the manipulation of -currency, sooner or later assume the form of property. All -the same, the root mischief is not to be found in property -but in unregulated currency. To solve the problem of -currency by the institution of a Just Price under a system -of Guilds for the regulation of exchanges, and the -adjustment of the balance between demand and supply, is to -bring order into the economic problem at its active centre. -Having solved the problem at its centre, it will be a -comparatively easy matter to deal with property which lies -at the circumference. Property-owners would be able to offer -no more effective resistance to change than hitherto -landlordism has been able to offer to the growth of -capitalism. By such means the reconstruction of society -would proceed upon orderly lines. All that it would be -necessary to do would be for the democratic movement to -exert a steady and constant pressure over a decade or so, -and society would be transformed without so much as a riot, -much less a revolution. But to begin with property is to get -things out of their natural order, for it is to proceed from -the circumference to the centre, which is contrary to the -law of growth. It is to precipitate economic confusion by -dragging society up by its roots; and this defeats the ends -of revolution by strengthening the hands of the profiteer, -for the profiteer thrives on economic confusion. Of what use -is it to seek to effect a redistribution of wealth before -the profiteer has been got under control? So long as men are -at liberty to manipulate exchange, they will manage to get -the wealth of the community into their hands. This is no -idle theory. All through the French Revolution, as, indeed, -according to reports, in the Russian Revolution of to-day, -speculation was rife, paper money depreciated, while a class -of *nouveaux riches* came into existence and the Assemblies -were powerless against them. Marat might call for "the -accursed brood of capitalists, stock-jobbers and monopolists -to be destroyed." But it was easier said than done. For -these men exercised a function which was absolutely -indispensable to the life of the community. They organized -distribution, and it was because the leaders of the -Revolution entirely failed to see the primacy of -distribution that they let the profiteers in. Under the -pressure of circumstances the Jacobins decreed a maximum -price for provisions. But its effect was only to cause -continual dearth. Though the Jacobins could terrorize the -Convention, they could not control the revolutionary -profiteers. For the control of currency and exchange, which -would have been a comparatively simple proposition at the -start, was altogether impracticable when the country was in -the throes of revolution. If instead of beginning with the -destruction of Feudalism, the revolutionaries had begun with -the regulation of currency and exchange, the chaos of the -Revolution would have been avoided, and Feudalism would have -fallen later as dead leaves fall from a tree. The solution -of the social problem, as of every other problem in this -universe, resolves itself finally into one of order. Take -issues in their natural order and everything will straighten -itself out beautifully, all the minor details or secondary -parts will fall into their proper places. But approach these -same issues in a wrong order and confusion results. No -subsequent adjustments can remedy the initial error. This -principle is universally true. It is as true of writing a -book, of designing a building, as of conducting a -revolution. The secret of success in each case will be found -finally to rest upon the perception of the order in which -the various issues should be taken. - -It was because Rousseau had built the elaborate super -structure of his reasoning upon a foundation of false -history that he was driven to postulate the existence of -something at the centre of society which he termed the -General Will, and upon which he relied to usher in the new -social order. Exactly what he meant by this General Will is -most difficult to determine, for while on the one hand he -exalts it into a fetish capable of performing every -imaginable kind of political miracle, on the other he -proceeds to qualify his original proposition in so many ways -as almost to rob it of any definite meaning. "So long," he -says, "as a number of men in combination are considered as a -single body they have but one will, which relates to the -common preservation and the general well-being. In such a -case all the forces of nature are vigorous and simple, and -its principles are clear and luminous; it has no confused -and conflicting interests; the common good is everywhere -plainly manifest, and only good sense is required to -perceive it. Peace, union and equality are foes to political -subtleties. Upright and simple-minded men are hard to -deceive because of their simplicity; allurements and refined -pretexts do not impose upon them; they are not even cunning -enough to be dupes... A State thus governed needs very few -laws; and in so far as it becomes necessary to promulgate -new ones the necessity is universally recognized. The first -man to propose them only gives expression to what all have -previously felt, and neither factions nor eloquence will be -needed to pass into law what every one has already resolved -to do, so soon as he is sure that the rest will act as he -does." The General Will, he goes on to say, is -indestructible. It is always constant, unalterable, and -pure; but when private interests begin to make themselves -felt, it is subordinated to other wills which get the better -of it. After telling us all these fine things he has some -misgivings, and proceeds: "the General Will is always right, -but the judgment which guides it is not always enlightened," -and that "there is no general will with reference to a -particular object." After making these qualifications there -does not appear to be very much of the General Will left, -and we begin to wonder what was at the bottom of his mind. -The only explanation I can offer of these apparent -contradictions is that the General Will is something which -relates to the subliminal consciousness of mankind, but is -not a part of his normal consciousness. Mr. de Maeztu says -there is no such thing as a General Will, since "men cannot -unite immediately among one another; they unite in things, -in common values, in the pursuit of common ends,"and Mr. de -Maeztu, I think, is right. - -What Rousseau feared came about. All the careful detailed -reservations he made to protect possible misapplications of -the principles he enunciated were disregarded by his -followers. All the ideas which he regarded as means to ends -came to be exalted as ends in themselves, and to be believed -in with all the fervour of strong religious conviction. -Nature, the Rights of Man, Liberty, Equality, the Social -Contract, hatred of tyrants and popular sovereignty were for -the Jacobins the articles of a faith which was above and -beyond discussion. They did not believe these things in the -more or less philosophic spirit in which Rousseau believed -them, but in the way that only men of simple and violent -temperaments can believe things. Their firm conviction made -them the driving force of the Revolution, for it gave them -great strength of will, which enabled them completely to -dominate the more intelligent but weaker-willed members of -the Assemblies, while it created a kind of revolutionary -religion in France which inspired the armies of the +"It is this which in all ages has constrained the founders of nations to +resort to the intervention of Heaven, and to give the gods the credit +for their own wisdom, in order that the nations, subjected to the laws +of the State as to those of nature, and recognizing the same power in +the formation of man and in that of the State, might obey willingly and +bear submissively the yoke of the public welfare. The legislator puts +into the mouths of the immortals that sublime reason which soars beyond +the reach of common men, in order that he may win over by divine +authority those whom human prudence could not move. But it does not +belong to every man to make the gods his oracles, nor to be believed +when he proclaims himself their interpreter. The great soul of the +legislator is the real miracle which must give proof of his mission... +The choice of the moment for the establishment of a government is one of +the surest marks for distinguishing the work of the legislator from that +of the tyrant." + +Apart from the exceptional problem which the law giver presents, +Rousseau quite rightly realized that in general there are certain +external circumstances which favour the rise to power of the wise as +there are certain others which tend to obstruct them. He saw that the +wise stood the best chance of success in the world, where men were well +known to each other, and where a certain measure of economic equality +obtained. Hence his advocacy of small States and of small property. But +he was not a leveller. He says, "with regard to Equality we should not +understand that the degrees of power and wealth should be absolutely the +same; but that, as to power, it should fall short of all violence, and +never be exercised except by virtue of station and of the laws; while as +to wealth, no citizen should be rich enough to be able to buy another, +and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself... It is precisely +because the force of circumstances is ever tending to destroy Equality +that the force of legislation should always tend to maintain it." +Rousseau's attitude towards property was not that of the Collectivist. + +It will make the position clearer to say that the ideal of Rousseau was +that of the City States of Greece, which existed independently of each +other while they were federated for the purpose of defence. He saw that +this meant putting the clock back; but this did not deter him. He +realized, as all men do whose reasoning faculties have not been +atrophied by the idea of Progress, that any fundamental change in the +social system involves in some degree a return to a former social +condition. All Socialist ideas imply reversion, but the fact that +Socialists are afraid to admit it has led them into the maze of +intellectual confusion in which they find themselves. But Rousseau lived +in an age when men were not afraid of words, and so boldly advocated a +return to the conditions of primitive society. In an earlier work he had +demanded the renunciation of cultivated life which he asserted led to "a +distinction of the talents and a disparagement of the virtues," in +favour of a return to nature which was to be made the starting-point for +a nobler form of existence. His description of the life of primitive +society was so vivid and full of detail, while it gave such a feeling of +reality to the existence of a golden age in the past, that Voltaire said +"it made one desire to walk on all fours." Though Rousseau's description +was a work of pure fiction---for of primitive man he knew nothing---it +came to be believed in as gospel truth, because it served its purpose of +contrasting a simple, unsophisticated mode of existence with the +artificiality and corruption of France, and gave emphasis to his +denunciations of property, privileges and tyranny. In the Social +Contract his enthusiasm for primitive man appears to have abated +somewhat. Perhaps, after all, there was something to be said for +civilization. It was not to be regarded merely as a disease. If many +natural advantages are lost, equal or greater ones are secured. Law and +morality replace appetite and instincts; moreover, there are certain +advantages in co-operation. Hence, though it is necessary to return to +the past, he considers that it will not be necessary to return to any +state of society prior to the civilization of early Greece. + +It was because Rousseau was mistaken as to the historical nature of the +problem which confronted society that he was led to regard the Greek +States as models. Remembering that these States were entirely undermined +by unregulated currency, Rousseau, to have been consistent, should have +demanded the abolition of currency. That he did not is to be explained +by the circumstance that he was apparently as ignorant of the fact that +unregulated currency had destroyed the civilization of Greece and Rome +as of the further fact that the solution of this problem was found by +the Mediaeval Guilds. Had he known these facts, the course of history +might have been different. Instead of seeking a solution that was +primarily political he would have sought one that was primarily +economic. He would have supported the peasants in their demand for the +re-establishment of the Just Price, and would have considered ways and +means of restoring the Guilds to maintain it. He would, moreover, have +seen that within the Guilds the people were sovereign in the Middle +Ages, while their sovereignty was not based upon slavery, as was the +case with the sovereign peoples of Greece. On this issue Rousseau was +not honest with himself. Though he condemns slavery, he glosses over the +fact that the States which he exalted as models were based upon slavery. +"Slavery," he says, "is one of the unfortunate inconveniences of +civilized society." + +The technical cause of the confusion in which Rousseau found himself is +to be found in the revived interest in Roman Law which had established +the tradition of thinking about economic problems entirely in terms of +property. In my chapter on Greece and Rome I drew attention to the +mutual dependence of Roman Law and an unregulated currency, pointing out +that Roman Law came into being not for the purpose of securing justice, +but to postpone the dissolution of a society which had been rendered +politically unstable through the growth of capitalism---itself the +consequence of unregulated currency. Despairing of the effort to secure +justice, the Roman jurists addressed themselves to the more immediately +urgent task of maintaining order by fol lowing the line of least +resistance. Not understanding how to regulate currency even if it had +been practicable in Rome, they sought to give protection and security to +private property as the easiest way of avoiding continual strife among +neighbours. The consequence of this was that when after the Reformation +thinkers went to Roman Law for guidance in their speculations as to how +to render government stable, the tradition became established of +thinking about social and political questions primarily in terms of +property instead of in currency. The result of this has been that down +to this day social theory is presented statically rather than +dynamically. Rousseau's social theory was no exception to this rule. It +did not deal with the sequential steps which would have to be taken +towards the realization of his ideal society, but presented a new +society already full grown. This limitation of Rousseau's theory became +increasingly apparent as the Revolution developed. Not only did his +constructive ideas bear no particular relationship to the problems which +had to be met, but they were a positive obstruction in the path of their +solution, by filling the minds of the revolutionaries with *a priori* +ideas which obscured the real issues. The Revolution rapidly became a +collision between theorists fired with a new ideal and the political, +social and economic conditions of which they had no com prehension. Not +comprehending them, they sought in vain to direct the course of events +until, exasperated by failure, they came to commit crimes of which they +had no presentiment at the beginning. + +Rousseau misled the revolutionaries by focusing attention upon the wrong +aspect of the economic problem. He talked about property and ignored +currency. I make bold to say that the centre of gravity of the economic +problem is not in property, but in currency, for currency is the vital +thing, the thing of movement. It is the active principle in economic +development, while property is the passive. It is true that profits +which are made by the manipulation of currency, sooner or later assume +the form of property. All the same, the root mischief is not to be found +in property but in unregulated currency. To solve the problem of +currency by the institution of a Just Price under a system of Guilds for +the regulation of exchanges, and the adjustment of the balance between +demand and supply, is to bring order into the economic problem at its +active centre. Having solved the problem at its centre, it will be a +comparatively easy matter to deal with property which lies at the +circumference. Property-owners would be able to offer no more effective +resistance to change than hitherto landlordism has been able to offer to +the growth of capitalism. By such means the reconstruction of society +would proceed upon orderly lines. All that it would be necessary to do +would be for the democratic movement to exert a steady and constant +pressure over a decade or so, and society would be transformed without +so much as a riot, much less a revolution. But to begin with property is +to get things out of their natural order, for it is to proceed from the +circumference to the centre, which is contrary to the law of growth. It +is to precipitate economic confusion by dragging society up by its +roots; and this defeats the ends of revolution by strengthening the +hands of the profiteer, for the profiteer thrives on economic confusion. +Of what use is it to seek to effect a redistribution of wealth before +the profiteer has been got under control? So long as men are at liberty +to manipulate exchange, they will manage to get the wealth of the +community into their hands. This is no idle theory. All through the +French Revolution, as, indeed, according to reports, in the Russian +Revolution of to-day, speculation was rife, paper money depreciated, +while a class of *nouveaux riches* came into existence and the +Assemblies were powerless against them. Marat might call for "the +accursed brood of capitalists, stock-jobbers and monopolists to be +destroyed." But it was easier said than done. For these men exercised a +function which was absolutely indispensable to the life of the +community. They organized distribution, and it was because the leaders +of the Revolution entirely failed to see the primacy of distribution +that they let the profiteers in. Under the pressure of circumstances the +Jacobins decreed a maximum price for provisions. But its effect was only +to cause continual dearth. Though the Jacobins could terrorize the +Convention, they could not control the revolutionary profiteers. For the +control of currency and exchange, which would have been a comparatively +simple proposition at the start, was altogether impracticable when the +country was in the throes of revolution. If instead of beginning with +the destruction of Feudalism, the revolutionaries had begun with the +regulation of currency and exchange, the chaos of the Revolution would +have been avoided, and Feudalism would have fallen later as dead leaves +fall from a tree. The solution of the social problem, as of every other +problem in this universe, resolves itself finally into one of order. +Take issues in their natural order and everything will straighten itself +out beautifully, all the minor details or secondary parts will fall into +their proper places. But approach these same issues in a wrong order and +confusion results. No subsequent adjustments can remedy the initial +error. This principle is universally true. It is as true of writing a +book, of designing a building, as of conducting a revolution. The secret +of success in each case will be found finally to rest upon the +perception of the order in which the various issues should be taken. + +It was because Rousseau had built the elaborate super structure of his +reasoning upon a foundation of false history that he was driven to +postulate the existence of something at the centre of society which he +termed the General Will, and upon which he relied to usher in the new +social order. Exactly what he meant by this General Will is most +difficult to determine, for while on the one hand he exalts it into a +fetish capable of performing every imaginable kind of political miracle, +on the other he proceeds to qualify his original proposition in so many +ways as almost to rob it of any definite meaning. "So long," he says, +"as a number of men in combination are considered as a single body they +have but one will, which relates to the common preservation and the +general well-being. In such a case all the forces of nature are vigorous +and simple, and its principles are clear and luminous; it has no +confused and conflicting interests; the common good is everywhere +plainly manifest, and only good sense is required to perceive it. Peace, +union and equality are foes to political subtleties. Upright and +simple-minded men are hard to deceive because of their simplicity; +allurements and refined pretexts do not impose upon them; they are not +even cunning enough to be dupes... A State thus governed needs very few +laws; and in so far as it becomes necessary to promulgate new ones the +necessity is universally recognized. The first man to propose them only +gives expression to what all have previously felt, and neither factions +nor eloquence will be needed to pass into law what every one has already +resolved to do, so soon as he is sure that the rest will act as he +does." The General Will, he goes on to say, is indestructible. It is +always constant, unalterable, and pure; but when private interests begin +to make themselves felt, it is subordinated to other wills which get the +better of it. After telling us all these fine things he has some +misgivings, and proceeds: "the General Will is always right, but the +judgment which guides it is not always enlightened," and that "there is +no general will with reference to a particular object." After making +these qualifications there does not appear to be very much of the +General Will left, and we begin to wonder what was at the bottom of his +mind. The only explanation I can offer of these apparent contradictions +is that the General Will is something which relates to the subliminal +consciousness of mankind, but is not a part of his normal consciousness. +Mr. de Maeztu says there is no such thing as a General Will, since "men +cannot unite immediately among one another; they unite in things, in +common values, in the pursuit of common ends,"and Mr. de Maeztu, I +think, is right. + +What Rousseau feared came about. All the careful detailed reservations +he made to protect possible misapplications of the principles he +enunciated were disregarded by his followers. All the ideas which he +regarded as means to ends came to be exalted as ends in themselves, and +to be believed in with all the fervour of strong religious conviction. +Nature, the Rights of Man, Liberty, Equality, the Social Contract, +hatred of tyrants and popular sovereignty were for the Jacobins the +articles of a faith which was above and beyond discussion. They did not +believe these things in the more or less philosophic spirit in which +Rousseau believed them, but in the way that only men of simple and +violent temperaments can believe things. Their firm conviction made them +the driving force of the Revolution, for it gave them great strength of +will, which enabled them completely to dominate the more intelligent but +weaker-willed members of the Assemblies, while it created a kind of +revolutionary religion in France which inspired the armies of the Revolution. -In the Constituent Assembly the Jacobins were a small group, -and at no time were they very numerous, though during the -Convention they dominated France. The Revolution had not yet -got its stride. This first Assembly consisted of landlords, -magistrates, physicians, and lawyers. It was what in these -days would be called a business Government; that is, a -Government of men who wanted to see things changed -politically, but not economically, who believed in liberty, -but not in equality. They enjoyed the illusion which -business men generally enjoy, that what is in their personal -interests is necessarily in the interests of the community. -This limitation, though it gives annoyance to others, may -not, under normal conditions, have serious consequences, but -in a time of crisis it is a fatal defect for a class who -seek to wield power, for it raises a barrier between them -and popular feeling. So it was that the Constituent Assembly -forfeited the confidence of the people by two of their -actions. They thought they could decree the abolition of -feudal rights while asking the peasants to pay for their -surrender, and that they could limit the franchise to -property-owners while men were preaching daily Liberty, -Equality and Fraternity. Their attempt to distinguish -between property-owners whom they termed *active citizens*, -and other members of the community whom they termed *passive -citizens*, was unfortunate for them. For this distinction -was open to an interpretation the exact contrary of that -which they had intended. Journalists protested that those -who stormed the Bastille and cleared the lands regarded -themselves as the *active citizens*, and objected to being -treated as the mere raw material of a revolution for the -benefit of others. But such protests were in vain. The -members of the Constituent Assembly were entirely out of -touch with popular feeling. And they remained out of touch -until the people of Paris, armed with pikes, invaded the -Assembly Hall to break up their deliberations---a habit -which, once formed, continued almost daily throughout the -Revolution. The Convention, while under the influence of the -Girondins, corrected the blunder of the Constituent Assembly -by removing the distinction between the *active* and -*passive* citizens, but in other respects it was equally out -of touch with popular sentiment. As a result, power in the -Assembly passed entirely into the hands of the Jacobins, -who, whatever their shortcomings, at least enjoyed the +In the Constituent Assembly the Jacobins were a small group, and at no +time were they very numerous, though during the Convention they +dominated France. The Revolution had not yet got its stride. This first +Assembly consisted of landlords, magistrates, physicians, and lawyers. +It was what in these days would be called a business Government; that +is, a Government of men who wanted to see things changed politically, +but not economically, who believed in liberty, but not in equality. They +enjoyed the illusion which business men generally enjoy, that what is in +their personal interests is necessarily in the interests of the +community. This limitation, though it gives annoyance to others, may +not, under normal conditions, have serious consequences, but in a time +of crisis it is a fatal defect for a class who seek to wield power, for +it raises a barrier between them and popular feeling. So it was that the +Constituent Assembly forfeited the confidence of the people by two of +their actions. They thought they could decree the abolition of feudal +rights while asking the peasants to pay for their surrender, and that +they could limit the franchise to property-owners while men were +preaching daily Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Their attempt to +distinguish between property-owners whom they termed *active citizens*, +and other members of the community whom they termed *passive citizens*, +was unfortunate for them. For this distinction was open to an +interpretation the exact contrary of that which they had intended. +Journalists protested that those who stormed the Bastille and cleared +the lands regarded themselves as the *active citizens*, and objected to +being treated as the mere raw material of a revolution for the benefit +of others. But such protests were in vain. The members of the +Constituent Assembly were entirely out of touch with popular feeling. +And they remained out of touch until the people of Paris, armed with +pikes, invaded the Assembly Hall to break up their deliberations---a +habit which, once formed, continued almost daily throughout the +Revolution. The Convention, while under the influence of the Girondins, +corrected the blunder of the Constituent Assembly by removing the +distinction between the *active* and *passive* citizens, but in other +respects it was equally out of touch with popular sentiment. As a +result, power in the Assembly passed entirely into the hands of the +Jacobins, who, whatever their shortcomings, at least enjoyed the confidence of the people of Paris. -The rise to power of the Jacobins---known in the Convention -as the Mountain as distinguished from the Plain, which -designated all its other members---is to be attributed to -many causes, but the principal one was the imperative -necessity of firm government. The Girondins, who had -hitherto led the Assembly, were Liberals in temperament, and -like Liberals all the world over they had little sense of -reality. They were hostile to a strong executive in the name -of Liberty, hostile to Paris in the name of Federalism, and -hostile to the economic aspirations of the people in the -name of Order. The result was as might be expected: they -were conquered by the force of circumstances. A time came at -length when the growth of economic anarchy and civil war at -home, combined with the need of defending the Republic -against other European Powers, demanded strong and vigorous -measures, and these the Girondins were unable to supply. -Power passed into the hands of the Jacobins, because they -alone were capable of determined action. - -The situation had been of the Jacobins own creating. Earlier -on they had been the means of bringing about the execution -of the King, which proved to be the turning-point of the -Revolution, for not only did it bring about civil war, but -armed Europe against France. In order to save the Republic -from its enemies without, and from disruption within, the -Jacobins resorted to the most ruthless measures. They -massacred people wholesale. In the Vendee alone it is -estimated that over half a million suffered at their hands. -Old men, women, and children were all massacred, and -villages and crops were burned. Yet in spite of all their -savagery, despite the delegates sent with guillotines into -the provinces and the Draconian laws which they enforced, -they had to struggle perpetually against riots, -insurrections and conspiracies. But the reaction upon -themselves is the interesting sequel. They would brook no -opposition, and in order to carry through such ruthless -measures they had to be equally ruthless with their critics. -It was in order to rid themselves of them that they -instituted the Terror, which, after a run of ten months, -came to an end with the execution of Robespierre and the -leading Jacobins. Not that Robespierre was by any means the -worst offender. On the contrary, his influence had not -infrequently been exerted in favour of moderation. At a time -when to be considered an "Indulgent" was an accusation -pointing to the scaffold, he successfully opposed the arrest -of seventy-three members of the Convention, saved Catherine -Théot and her companions, and defended his rival Danton when -his arrest was first suggested; while he repeatedly refused -to sign warrants for intended arrests, and had earned the -lasting enmity of Fouché, Carrier, Collôt, Tallien, -Billaud-Varennes and others by his denunciation of their -atrocities, and had been the means of effecting their return -from the provinces. It was the action of these men that -immediately led to his downfall. So intent was Robespierre -on carrying the *system of virtue* to its logical conclusion -that a time came when they felt their lives were no longer -safe, and so they combined with the Moderates to effect his -overthrow. Robespierre gave them the opportunity. Naturally -suspicious, he complained of conspiracies, and his -over-confidence led him to attempt to get the Assembly to -vote a measure which would permit deputies to be sent to the -Revolutionary Tribunal without authorization of the -Assembly. Certain members, feeling that Robespierre was -aiming at them, and who had therefore nothing to lose, met -this proposal with a vigorous opposition. Such determined -action broke the spell that Robespierre had cast over the -Assembly. Members who had been afraid were afraid i.o -longer, and the next day the attack was vigorously renewed. -Robespierre tried to defend himself, but was met with cries -of "Down with the tyrant!" From that moment Robespierre was -lost. Thanks to mental contagion, the cry instantly became -general, and his voice was drowned in the uproar. Without -losing a moment the Assembly decreed his accusation and -outlawed him. He appealed to the Commune of Paris, but the -Convention was triumphant against his supporters. After the -lapse of a few days Robespierre and his band of Jacobins to -the number of a hundred and four were guillotined. As his -name had become popularly associated with the Terror, his -execution was interpreted by the people as having put an end -to it. The Committee of Public Safety, recognizing this, -acted as if all along such had been their intention, and the -Terror came to an end. - -But there were deeper reasons than personal enmities to -account for the fall of Robespierre. The Revolution had -entered its decadent phase. When the property of the nobles -and clergy had been confiscated, instead of being returned -to the people to be held communally, it was sold by the -Assemblies to private individuals when they were in need of -money. These large estates were on sale for several years on -terms extremely favourable to purchasers, and had not only -been bought by such peasants as could get hold of money, -army contractors and food profiteers, but by members of the -Convention itself; while, moreover, thousands of Jacobins -had secured posts under the Government for themselves. It -was thus that the Revolution had created new vested -interests and the corruption had not only penetrated the -Convention but the Jacobin Party itself. Honest Republicans -found themselves helpless against it. Robespierre was -oblivious to these changes. He remained as upright and -fanatical as ever, never wavering in his revolutionary -faith, for ever reminding the people of the principles of -Republicanism, and threatening those keenest after the -spoils with the guillotine. So a coalition came into -existence which regarded the overthrow of Robespierre as the -first point to be gained. They had supported him so long as -they feared a return of the *ancien régime*, but when the -Allies had been defeated they had no further use for him. -"What," said they, "is the good of a revolutionary -government now that the war is over?" The ends of the -Revolution, so far as the great mass of its supporters were -concerned, having been attained, they desired it to be -brought to an end and to be confirmed in the possession of -their riches. It was because Robespierre failed to realize -the change that had taken place that he eventually came to -grief. The only true Republicans now left were the young -men, and they were to be found in the armies spreading the -revolutionary ideas over Europe. - -The fall of Robespierre prepared the way for the -counter-revolution that took place a little over a -twelvemonth after his death. It took the form of a rebellion -of the *nouveaux riche*. During the course of the Revolution -production steadily declined, and the wholesale issue of -paper money had depreciated the currency to such an extent -that the general want was terrible. A time came when -Republican idealism vanished before the general demand for -food and security, and this played into the hands of the -rich, who asserted that on the maintenance of property -depended the cultivation of the fields, all production, -every means of work and the whole social order. The absence -of it, they contended, had resulted in a general want of -confidence on the part of producers, merchants and traders, -and was responsible for the economic confusion and -depression. Indeed, from the point of view of the -Republicans there was no answer. They had rejected the idea -of the communal ownership of land in favour of private -ownership. They had sold the confiscated estates, and it was -now up to the Government to guarantee the new owners in the -possession of their lands. The counter-revolution was -successful, confidence was restored and trade revived. It -was thus that power passed out of the hands of the nobility -into the hands of the bourgeoisie. The Revolution had -miscarried. - -As the Revolution proceeded, power became concentrated in -fewer and fewer hands. The Committee of Public Safety, which -had dominated the Convention, consisted of eight members. -Under the Directory which followed, the executive power was -vested in the hands of five men. This was provided for in -its constitution, the framing of which was the last act of -the Convention. In so far as the change was accompanied by a -change of policy it was in the direction of not seeking to -reorganize France but to leave it to organize itself, yet -though the Directory left France to make its own economic -readjustment, it was quite as ruthless as the Convention in -its efforts to preserve the Republic, for it had to struggle -against a succession of conspiracies against its power. -Recognizing that a revival of Catholicism was taking place, -the Directors imagined that the priests were conspiring -against them and deported in one year nearly fifteen hundred -of them under conditions which gave them little chance of -survival, to say nothing of large numbers who were summarily -executed, for though the Terror was abandoned, their methods -were no less sanguinary. But in spite of their efforts -things went for them steadily from bad to worse. Finance, -administration, everything, in fact, was crumbling, until at -length a point was reached when the Directors, feeling that -things could not go on much longer, themselves sought a -dictator who was at the same time capable of restoring order -and protecting them. This is the explanation of the *coup -d'état* which placed Napoleon in power. It was arranged by -the Directors themselves as the only escape from an -impossible situation. - -It is a mistake to suppose that Napoleon overthrew the -Revolution. On the contrary, he ratified and consolidated -it. As early as 1795, at the end of the Convention, the idea -had been canvassed of restoring the monarchy, but Louis -XVIII having been tactless enough to declare that he would -restore the *ancien régime* in its entirety, return all -property to its original owners and punish the men of the -Revolution, put himself out of court for the position. -Indeed, the Royalists must have been impossible people. Even -Le Bon says: "The Royalists gave proof during the whole of -the Revolution of an incapacity and narrowness of mind which -justified most of the measures taken against them." The -Monarchy being impossible, it was necessary to find a -general. Only one existed whose name carried -weight---Bonaparte. The campaign of Italy had made him -famous. He had been repeatedly pressed by the most -influential and enlightened generals to place himself at the -head of the Republic, but he refused to act upon their -advice. He saw very clearly the difficulties which would -beset him if he acted prematurely. He saw that the task of -rebuilding France was impossible unless he were in a -position to exercise absolute power in order that measures -might be carried through with the greatest possible speed, -which, of course, was impossible if every measure had to be -preceded by a long discussion in the Assemblies. He saw, -moreover, that he must be beyond the reach of parties, and -so he preferred to wait until the Directorate itself should -seek his assistance. Conscious of the fact that his ideas -upon the art of governing differed fundamentally from -theirs, he refused to have anything to do with the -government of France until they were willing to allow him to -govern in his own way, and he had sufficient insight to see -that a time was bound to come when conditions would have -reached such a pass that they would be willing to grant him -his terms. - -Napoleon reserved to himself the right of initiating all -laws, and he restricted the duties of the Assemblies to -confirming or rejecting them. Yet while he insisted upon -having the last word in the framing of all new laws, he -always conferred with the two other Consuls with whom he was -associated before proceeding even with the most trivial -measures. He chose his agents of government indifferently -from the Royalists, Girondins, or Jacobins, having regard -only to their capacities. But although in his Council he -sought the assistance of eminent jurists, he appears to have -been always up against them, for he is reported to have said -that any measure which is promoted for the public good is -sure to meet with the opposition of lawyers. This fact is -not surprising when we remember that lawyers are trained in -the tenets of Roman Law, which is individualistic in -intention, while measures for the public good are +The rise to power of the Jacobins---known in the Convention as the +Mountain as distinguished from the Plain, which designated all its other +members---is to be attributed to many causes, but the principal one was +the imperative necessity of firm government. The Girondins, who had +hitherto led the Assembly, were Liberals in temperament, and like +Liberals all the world over they had little sense of reality. They were +hostile to a strong executive in the name of Liberty, hostile to Paris +in the name of Federalism, and hostile to the economic aspirations of +the people in the name of Order. The result was as might be expected: +they were conquered by the force of circumstances. A time came at length +when the growth of economic anarchy and civil war at home, combined with +the need of defending the Republic against other European Powers, +demanded strong and vigorous measures, and these the Girondins were +unable to supply. Power passed into the hands of the Jacobins, because +they alone were capable of determined action. + +The situation had been of the Jacobins own creating. Earlier on they had +been the means of bringing about the execution of the King, which proved +to be the turning-point of the Revolution, for not only did it bring +about civil war, but armed Europe against France. In order to save the +Republic from its enemies without, and from disruption within, the +Jacobins resorted to the most ruthless measures. They massacred people +wholesale. In the Vendee alone it is estimated that over half a million +suffered at their hands. Old men, women, and children were all +massacred, and villages and crops were burned. Yet in spite of all their +savagery, despite the delegates sent with guillotines into the provinces +and the Draconian laws which they enforced, they had to struggle +perpetually against riots, insurrections and conspiracies. But the +reaction upon themselves is the interesting sequel. They would brook no +opposition, and in order to carry through such ruthless measures they +had to be equally ruthless with their critics. It was in order to rid +themselves of them that they instituted the Terror, which, after a run +of ten months, came to an end with the execution of Robespierre and the +leading Jacobins. Not that Robespierre was by any means the worst +offender. On the contrary, his influence had not infrequently been +exerted in favour of moderation. At a time when to be considered an +"Indulgent" was an accusation pointing to the scaffold, he successfully +opposed the arrest of seventy-three members of the Convention, saved +Catherine Théot and her companions, and defended his rival Danton when +his arrest was first suggested; while he repeatedly refused to sign +warrants for intended arrests, and had earned the lasting enmity of +Fouché, Carrier, Collôt, Tallien, Billaud-Varennes and others by his +denunciation of their atrocities, and had been the means of effecting +their return from the provinces. It was the action of these men that +immediately led to his downfall. So intent was Robespierre on carrying +the *system of virtue* to its logical conclusion that a time came when +they felt their lives were no longer safe, and so they combined with the +Moderates to effect his overthrow. Robespierre gave them the +opportunity. Naturally suspicious, he complained of conspiracies, and +his over-confidence led him to attempt to get the Assembly to vote a +measure which would permit deputies to be sent to the Revolutionary +Tribunal without authorization of the Assembly. Certain members, feeling +that Robespierre was aiming at them, and who had therefore nothing to +lose, met this proposal with a vigorous opposition. Such determined +action broke the spell that Robespierre had cast over the Assembly. +Members who had been afraid were afraid i.o longer, and the next day the +attack was vigorously renewed. Robespierre tried to defend himself, but +was met with cries of "Down with the tyrant!" From that moment +Robespierre was lost. Thanks to mental contagion, the cry instantly +became general, and his voice was drowned in the uproar. Without losing +a moment the Assembly decreed his accusation and outlawed him. He +appealed to the Commune of Paris, but the Convention was triumphant +against his supporters. After the lapse of a few days Robespierre and +his band of Jacobins to the number of a hundred and four were +guillotined. As his name had become popularly associated with the +Terror, his execution was interpreted by the people as having put an end +to it. The Committee of Public Safety, recognizing this, acted as if all +along such had been their intention, and the Terror came to an end. + +But there were deeper reasons than personal enmities to account for the +fall of Robespierre. The Revolution had entered its decadent phase. When +the property of the nobles and clergy had been confiscated, instead of +being returned to the people to be held communally, it was sold by the +Assemblies to private individuals when they were in need of money. These +large estates were on sale for several years on terms extremely +favourable to purchasers, and had not only been bought by such peasants +as could get hold of money, army contractors and food profiteers, but by +members of the Convention itself; while, moreover, thousands of Jacobins +had secured posts under the Government for themselves. It was thus that +the Revolution had created new vested interests and the corruption had +not only penetrated the Convention but the Jacobin Party itself. Honest +Republicans found themselves helpless against it. Robespierre was +oblivious to these changes. He remained as upright and fanatical as +ever, never wavering in his revolutionary faith, for ever reminding the +people of the principles of Republicanism, and threatening those keenest +after the spoils with the guillotine. So a coalition came into existence +which regarded the overthrow of Robespierre as the first point to be +gained. They had supported him so long as they feared a return of the +*ancien régime*, but when the Allies had been defeated they had no +further use for him. "What," said they, "is the good of a revolutionary +government now that the war is over?" The ends of the Revolution, so far +as the great mass of its supporters were concerned, having been +attained, they desired it to be brought to an end and to be confirmed in +the possession of their riches. It was because Robespierre failed to +realize the change that had taken place that he eventually came to +grief. The only true Republicans now left were the young men, and they +were to be found in the armies spreading the revolutionary ideas over +Europe. + +The fall of Robespierre prepared the way for the counter-revolution that +took place a little over a twelvemonth after his death. It took the form +of a rebellion of the *nouveaux riche*. During the course of the +Revolution production steadily declined, and the wholesale issue of +paper money had depreciated the currency to such an extent that the +general want was terrible. A time came when Republican idealism vanished +before the general demand for food and security, and this played into +the hands of the rich, who asserted that on the maintenance of property +depended the cultivation of the fields, all production, every means of +work and the whole social order. The absence of it, they contended, had +resulted in a general want of confidence on the part of producers, +merchants and traders, and was responsible for the economic confusion +and depression. Indeed, from the point of view of the Republicans there +was no answer. They had rejected the idea of the communal ownership of +land in favour of private ownership. They had sold the confiscated +estates, and it was now up to the Government to guarantee the new owners +in the possession of their lands. The counter-revolution was successful, +confidence was restored and trade revived. It was thus that power passed +out of the hands of the nobility into the hands of the bourgeoisie. The +Revolution had miscarried. + +As the Revolution proceeded, power became concentrated in fewer and +fewer hands. The Committee of Public Safety, which had dominated the +Convention, consisted of eight members. Under the Directory which +followed, the executive power was vested in the hands of five men. This +was provided for in its constitution, the framing of which was the last +act of the Convention. In so far as the change was accompanied by a +change of policy it was in the direction of not seeking to reorganize +France but to leave it to organize itself, yet though the Directory left +France to make its own economic readjustment, it was quite as ruthless +as the Convention in its efforts to preserve the Republic, for it had to +struggle against a succession of conspiracies against its power. +Recognizing that a revival of Catholicism was taking place, the +Directors imagined that the priests were conspiring against them and +deported in one year nearly fifteen hundred of them under conditions +which gave them little chance of survival, to say nothing of large +numbers who were summarily executed, for though the Terror was +abandoned, their methods were no less sanguinary. But in spite of their +efforts things went for them steadily from bad to worse. Finance, +administration, everything, in fact, was crumbling, until at length a +point was reached when the Directors, feeling that things could not go +on much longer, themselves sought a dictator who was at the same time +capable of restoring order and protecting them. This is the explanation +of the *coup d'état* which placed Napoleon in power. It was arranged by +the Directors themselves as the only escape from an impossible +situation. + +It is a mistake to suppose that Napoleon overthrew the Revolution. On +the contrary, he ratified and consolidated it. As early as 1795, at the +end of the Convention, the idea had been canvassed of restoring the +monarchy, but Louis XVIII having been tactless enough to declare that he +would restore the *ancien régime* in its entirety, return all property +to its original owners and punish the men of the Revolution, put himself +out of court for the position. Indeed, the Royalists must have been +impossible people. Even Le Bon says: "The Royalists gave proof during +the whole of the Revolution of an incapacity and narrowness of mind +which justified most of the measures taken against them." The Monarchy +being impossible, it was necessary to find a general. Only one existed +whose name carried weight---Bonaparte. The campaign of Italy had made +him famous. He had been repeatedly pressed by the most influential and +enlightened generals to place himself at the head of the Republic, but +he refused to act upon their advice. He saw very clearly the +difficulties which would beset him if he acted prematurely. He saw that +the task of rebuilding France was impossible unless he were in a +position to exercise absolute power in order that measures might be +carried through with the greatest possible speed, which, of course, was +impossible if every measure had to be preceded by a long discussion in +the Assemblies. He saw, moreover, that he must be beyond the reach of +parties, and so he preferred to wait until the Directorate itself should +seek his assistance. Conscious of the fact that his ideas upon the art +of governing differed fundamentally from theirs, he refused to have +anything to do with the government of France until they were willing to +allow him to govern in his own way, and he had sufficient insight to see +that a time was bound to come when conditions would have reached such a +pass that they would be willing to grant him his terms. + +Napoleon reserved to himself the right of initiating all laws, and he +restricted the duties of the Assemblies to confirming or rejecting them. +Yet while he insisted upon having the last word in the framing of all +new laws, he always conferred with the two other Consuls with whom he +was associated before proceeding even with the most trivial measures. He +chose his agents of government indifferently from the Royalists, +Girondins, or Jacobins, having regard only to their capacities. But +although in his Council he sought the assistance of eminent jurists, he +appears to have been always up against them, for he is reported to have +said that any measure which is promoted for the public good is sure to +meet with the opposition of lawyers. This fact is not surprising when we +remember that lawyers are trained in the tenets of Roman Law, which is +individualistic in intention, while measures for the public good are necessarily communal in aim. -I said that Napoleon ratified and consolidated the -Revolution. His authority speedily put an end to the -Parisian insurrections and attempts at monarchical -resistance and restored moral unity where there had only -been division and hatred. He provided work for the -unemployed in building, the construction of military roads, -and in minor ways, such as giving large orders for furniture -for the Tuilleries. He was wise enough to see that no -restoration of the *ancien régime* was possible, and so made -no such foolish attempt, for he saw that order could only be -restored on the assumption that those in possession of the -land were confirmed in their ownership. With the law passed -by the Convention enacting that all estates should be -divided up at death equally among the children of the owner -he did not interfere, nor with many other useful measures -which had been enacted during the Revolution, such as the -establishment of the metric system and the creation of -important colleges. Indeed, all through the Revolution, much -useful work of this kind was done by technical committees, -in which the majority of the members of the Assemblies took -refuge in order to escape from the political conflicts which -threatened their lives. - -The only statesman in history whose work may be compared -with Napoleon is Augustus, since he undertook the task of -reorganizing the Roman Empire after the Civil Wars as -Napoleon did France after the Revolution. They both had -recourse to similar methods of government. Both sought a -solution in the organization of a highly centralized -bureaucracy. Though we have no love for bureaucracy, we yet -must recognize that when the traditions of a country have -been destroyed there is no other way of delivering it from -anarchy, and the popularity of the Napoleonic regime is a -sure witness that though it was despotic it could not have -been so intolerable as that which the people had endured -during the Revolution. - -The French Revolution does not appear to me to be a thing to -be defended or denounced, but to be studied, for it is a -rich field for the study of economics and psychology. We -should aim at understanding it in order that we may profit -by its mistakes. The convulsions of the Revolution were due -to the fact that it attempted an impossible task. The -revolutionists thought society could be reconstructed anew -on a purely theoretical foundation, not understanding that -the basis of every social order is to be found in certain -traditions, and that it is only possible to reshape them -within definite limits, for society can only exist by -imposing certain restraints, laws, manners and customs to -constitute a check upon the natural instincts of barbarism -which never entirely disappear. The revolutionary gospel of -nature, by removing these restraints, without which no -society can exist, transformed a political society into a -barbarian horde, for, misled by Rousseau, they did not -understand that the aim of civilization was to escape from -nature and not to return to it. Hence it was that while the -Revolution had its moral sanction in the demand for the -redress of certain definite social grievances, the feeling -of unrest was exploited by idealists and theorists in an -attempt to realize an unrealizable thing. Among other -things, the events of the Revolution gave the lie to what -might be called the spontaneous creation theory of -democracy---the idea that the will of the people is -omnipotent and final---for democracy cannot spontaneously -create itself. Democracy will arrive when it knows how to -choose the right ideas and *not a day before*, for there is -a law of gravitation in human affairs which is as constant -as the law of gravitation in the physical universe, and -which all who aspire to govern society must obey. It was -because the revolutionists did not understand this that the -Revolution ended by establishing not the sovereign people, +I said that Napoleon ratified and consolidated the Revolution. His +authority speedily put an end to the Parisian insurrections and attempts +at monarchical resistance and restored moral unity where there had only +been division and hatred. He provided work for the unemployed in +building, the construction of military roads, and in minor ways, such as +giving large orders for furniture for the Tuilleries. He was wise enough +to see that no restoration of the *ancien régime* was possible, and so +made no such foolish attempt, for he saw that order could only be +restored on the assumption that those in possession of the land were +confirmed in their ownership. With the law passed by the Convention +enacting that all estates should be divided up at death equally among +the children of the owner he did not interfere, nor with many other +useful measures which had been enacted during the Revolution, such as +the establishment of the metric system and the creation of important +colleges. Indeed, all through the Revolution, much useful work of this +kind was done by technical committees, in which the majority of the +members of the Assemblies took refuge in order to escape from the +political conflicts which threatened their lives. + +The only statesman in history whose work may be compared with Napoleon +is Augustus, since he undertook the task of reorganizing the Roman +Empire after the Civil Wars as Napoleon did France after the Revolution. +They both had recourse to similar methods of government. Both sought a +solution in the organization of a highly centralized bureaucracy. Though +we have no love for bureaucracy, we yet must recognize that when the +traditions of a country have been destroyed there is no other way of +delivering it from anarchy, and the popularity of the Napoleonic regime +is a sure witness that though it was despotic it could not have been so +intolerable as that which the people had endured during the Revolution. + +The French Revolution does not appear to me to be a thing to be defended +or denounced, but to be studied, for it is a rich field for the study of +economics and psychology. We should aim at understanding it in order +that we may profit by its mistakes. The convulsions of the Revolution +were due to the fact that it attempted an impossible task. The +revolutionists thought society could be reconstructed anew on a purely +theoretical foundation, not understanding that the basis of every social +order is to be found in certain traditions, and that it is only possible +to reshape them within definite limits, for society can only exist by +imposing certain restraints, laws, manners and customs to constitute a +check upon the natural instincts of barbarism which never entirely +disappear. The revolutionary gospel of nature, by removing these +restraints, without which no society can exist, transformed a political +society into a barbarian horde, for, misled by Rousseau, they did not +understand that the aim of civilization was to escape from nature and +not to return to it. Hence it was that while the Revolution had its +moral sanction in the demand for the redress of certain definite social +grievances, the feeling of unrest was exploited by idealists and +theorists in an attempt to realize an unrealizable thing. Among other +things, the events of the Revolution gave the lie to what might be +called the spontaneous creation theory of democracy---the idea that the +will of the people is omnipotent and final---for democracy cannot +spontaneously create itself. Democracy will arrive when it knows how to +choose the right ideas and *not a day before*, for there is a law of +gravitation in human affairs which is as constant as the law of +gravitation in the physical universe, and which all who aspire to govern +society must obey. It was because the revolutionists did not understand +this that the Revolution ended by establishing not the sovereign people, but a bureaucratic despotism. -It is remarkable how slow mankind is to learn by experience. -A crisis has overtaken the modern world which has many -parallels with the crisis which overtook France before the -Revolution, and yet with the experience of the French -Revolution to guide us, there is little or no attempt to -learn the lessons which it has to teach. On the one hand we -have a governing class, crying "Peace, peace," when there is -no peace, as jealous of maintaining their privileges as the -French nobility, and as unwilling as them to meet the need -of additional taxation and equally blind to the inevitable -consequences of their short-sightedness. On the other hand, -just as in France there was a movement of peasants groping -its way back to Medievalism demanding the Just Price, so we -have a popular movement on a similar quest demanding a fixed -price and the control of profiteers. Just as this movement -back to Mediaevalism was frustrated by the French -intellectuals who exploited the popular unrest in the -interests of impossible ideals, so we have the Socialist -Movement doing just the same thing. For in all the big -fundamental things there is little to choose between the -Socialists to-day and the French Revolutionaries. Both have -got their ideas upside down. Rousseau made morality -dependent upon Law, while Marx made it dependent upon -economic condition. In theory this is a difference; in -practice it is not, for both make morality dependent upon -the maintenance of administrative machinery. Both -concentrate upon property and ignore currency. Both search -for a fool-proof State. And so it is in respect of the whole -range of Socialist ideas. They differ from Rousseau only in -being one degree further removed from reality; for Rousseau -did realize that the basis of society must rest upon -agriculture, but Socialists to-day appear to have forgotten -it. The difference of their ideas regarding property is a -matter of minor importance, since the more they differ the -more they are alike. They are alike in their belief that -evil resides finally in institutions and not in men, and in -their faith absolute in the natural perfection of mankind. +It is remarkable how slow mankind is to learn by experience. A crisis +has overtaken the modern world which has many parallels with the crisis +which overtook France before the Revolution, and yet with the experience +of the French Revolution to guide us, there is little or no attempt to +learn the lessons which it has to teach. On the one hand we have a +governing class, crying "Peace, peace," when there is no peace, as +jealous of maintaining their privileges as the French nobility, and as +unwilling as them to meet the need of additional taxation and equally +blind to the inevitable consequences of their short-sightedness. On the +other hand, just as in France there was a movement of peasants groping +its way back to Medievalism demanding the Just Price, so we have a +popular movement on a similar quest demanding a fixed price and the +control of profiteers. Just as this movement back to Mediaevalism was +frustrated by the French intellectuals who exploited the popular unrest +in the interests of impossible ideals, so we have the Socialist Movement +doing just the same thing. For in all the big fundamental things there +is little to choose between the Socialists to-day and the French +Revolutionaries. Both have got their ideas upside down. Rousseau made +morality dependent upon Law, while Marx made it dependent upon economic +condition. In theory this is a difference; in practice it is not, for +both make morality dependent upon the maintenance of administrative +machinery. Both concentrate upon property and ignore currency. Both +search for a fool-proof State. And so it is in respect of the whole +range of Socialist ideas. They differ from Rousseau only in being one +degree further removed from reality; for Rousseau did realize that the +basis of society must rest upon agriculture, but Socialists to-day +appear to have forgotten it. The difference of their ideas regarding +property is a matter of minor importance, since the more they differ the +more they are alike. They are alike in their belief that evil resides +finally in institutions and not in men, and in their faith absolute in +the natural perfection of mankind. # Capitalism and the Guilds -With the French Revolution and the wars that followed it -there fell what remained in Western Europe of the old -Mediaeval Order. Henceforth political thought no longer -troubles itself with the issue of Church and State but with -Capitalism which becomes the dominating power in the world. -It will be necessary therefore for us, before proceeding -further with the political problem, to retrace our steps to -watch the rise of capitalist industry. - -Capitalism, as we saw, had its origin in the growth of -foreign trade, which offered merchants abundant -opportunities for making profits by the manipulation of -currency, unchecked by Guild regulations. But capitalist -exploitation began on the land, when the merchants began to -invest the wealth they had accumulated in land, and -proceeded to convert tillage into pasturage. That such a -development was possible was due, as we saw, to Roman Law, -which corrupted the old Feudal order by instituting private -ownership in land. Apart from Roman Law, the Feudal system -would have been transformed, for the spread of currency into -rural areas had gradually undermined its old stability by -substituting money payments for payments in kind. But the -fact that the transformation proceeded from Feudalism to -landlordism and capitalism instead of from Feudalism to -agricultural Guilds, which would have regulated currency by -a system of fixed prices such as obtained in the towns, was -due entirely to Roman Law, which, by instituting private -property in land, paved the way to capitalist exploitation. -Roman Law, then, created capitalism, and capitalism, we -shall see, destroyed the Guilds. - -From having commercialized agriculture, capitalists turned -their attention to the capture of industry. In the towns, -capitalist exploitation was impossible, for the detailed -regulations of the Guilds covered every condition of -production. But outside of the towns in the rural areas no -such regulations existed. The capitalist there was at -liberty to do as he pleased. He could manufacture what he -liked, use inferior material, pay low wages and sell at -whatever price he liked, and there was no one to stop him. -The capitalists who had taken to sheep-farming were not long -in turning such circumstances to their advantage. They -employed many of those whom they evicted from their holdings -in the manufacture of cloth and articles made from it. It -was thus there came into existence that "domestic system" of -industry which was destined to be the destruction of the -Guilds. As early as the fourteenth century the Guilds began -to feel the competition of this domestic industry. The -Guildsmen complained that the goods so produced were made of -inferior material; that one master would employ many -journeymen, have too man} apprentices, and pay them a lower -wage than was allowed by the Guilds, while some trades, as, -for instance, the cappers and fullers, began to suffer from -the competition of wares produced by machinery driven by -water-mills. This led to so much impoverishment among the -craftsmen of the towns that fulling-mills were forbidden by -statute in 1483. - -Not only were the Guilds at a disadvantage in meeting such -competition owing to the high standard of quality which they -existed to uphold, but they were further handicapped by the -fact that the towns came in for taxation which manufacturers -outside of the towns were able to escape. "The pressure of -the Apprenticeship Act of Henry IV, the heavy assessment -which they paid for the wars with France, and for Henry -VII's unnecessary exactions, and lastly, the regulations -made by the Guilds with regard to apprentices and -journeymen, were all telling against the old corporate -towns; they were at a disadvantage as compared with -neighbouring villages, and there was in consequence a -considerable displacement of industry from old centres to -new ones, or to suburbs."During the fifteenth century a -general decay of English towns set in. Migration was no -longer from the country to the towns, but from the towns -back to the country, and with this change there came the -decay of the Guilds which had grown up within the corporate -towns. - -There can be little doubt that the newer regulations of the -Guilds which were regarded as tyrannical, and which we hear -of in the fifteenth century, were brought about by the -desire of those already in the Guilds to protect themselves -against the competition of the rising capitalist industry. -At an earlier date, it had been possible for every journey -man in the Guild to look forward to a day when he would be -able to set up in business on his own account as a master. -But now, when the monopoly of the Guilds was clearly -breaking down before the rise of capitalist industry, and -the masters were beginning to feel the pressure of -competition, they began to frame regulations not with an eye -to the interests of the craft as a whole, which was beyond -their power, but solely to protect their own individual -interests. Such undoubtedly was the origin of the grievance -of the journeymen, for which they obtained redress in 1536, -whereby, on becoming apprentices, they were made to swear -upon oath not to set up in business in the towns without the -consent and licence of the masters, wardens and fellowship -of their Guild, upon pain of forfeiting their freedom or -like penalty. One of the results of this restriction was to -aggravate the tendency of journeymen to withdraw from the -towns and set up shop in the villages where they were -outside of Guild jurisdiction. To do this was often their -only chance of getting employment, for the competition of -the rural industries inclined the masters more and more to -overstock their shops with an undue proportion of -apprentices. - -The growth of such abuses demonstrated clearly that the -craft Guilds were breaking down before the rise of -capitalist industry; and it became evident that if industry -was to continue to be subject to regulation, the Guild -system would need to be reorganized upon national lines, or, -in other words, that Guild regulation should be made -co-extensive with industry and the various local Guilds -linked up or federated into national ones. Some such general -notion appears to have inspired the attempts at Guild -reorganization by Henry VII and Henry VIII, who tried to get -the Guilds placed entirely under the control of public -authorities by enacting that in the future all Guild -ordinances should be approved by the justices. This was the -one reform which complainants had demanded in 1376 and 1473, -as well as from the Tudors. Subject to such control, the -Guilds were encouraged. But the measures they took were -altogether inadequate to cope with the economic situation -which was developing. Instead of seeking to establish a -national system of Guilds, they merely extended certain -local privileges, giving certain Guilds the right to search -in rural areas within a certain radius of the towns. -Justices of the peace were to appoint searchers for the -shires. - -We can easily imagine why such measures were ineffective. -Capitalism had already got a firm foothold, and it could not -be brought under control except by the most determined -action on the part of the authorities, and justices of the -peace would not be the kind of people to act in such a way. -If regulations are going to be enforced, those empowered to -enforce them must be made to suffer if they neglect in their -duty, as is the case with democratically constituted Guilds. -Such Guilds might have been established in the rural areas -at the time of the Great Revolt. But the opportunity which -then presented itself was lost. The peasants threw away -their opportunity when they demanded the liberty to buy and -sell instead of the protection of Guilds, and now the -problem was not such a simple one. The development of -foreign trade made the fixing and regulating of prices an -extremely difficult one, and nothing short of a great -popular movement demanding such reforms would have sufficed -to render such measures practicable. But no such movement -existed. The peasants, who had been driven off the land to -make room for sheep, resented the monopolies of the Guilds. -They had no idea of the value of their services in -regulating currency, and welcomed action which removed their -monopoly. - -The Guilds received their death-blow when they found -themselves no longer able to fix the prices of commodities, -for everything turns upon this. If prices can be fixed, then -it is a comparatively easy matter to enforce a standard of -quality and maintain the internal discipline of the Guilds, -but if prices cannot be fixed, then a standard of quality -cannot be enforced, and the Guilds jurisdiction over their -members tends to become restricted within increasingly -narrow limits. The Guilds found themselves unable to -determine prices during the sixteenth century. In 1503 they -lost their autonomy in this respect, when it was enacted -that any change in the price of wares had to be "approved by -the Chancellor, Treasurer of England and Chief Justices of -either Bench, or three of them; or before both the Justices -of Assizes in their circuit."But what finally broke the -monopoly of the Guilds was the growing desire of the public -to have prices fixed by *the haggling of the market*.No -doubt they had acquired this taste through buying the -products of the capitalist industry, which was subject to no -regulation; and they came to demand the same terms from the -Guild masters, who, presumably, suffering from competition, -were unable to offer effective resistance. But there was a -deeper cause for the change. The moral sanction of the Just -Price had been undermined by the lawyers, who maintained the -right of every man to make the best bargain he could---a -right which was recognized in the Justinian Code. St. Thomas -Aquinas, in challenging the lawyers, defended the principle -of the Just Price on purely moral grounds. He failed -altogether to perceive its economic significance, contending -that "human law can only prohibit what would break up -society. Other wrong acts it treats as quasi-lawful in the -sense that while not approving them, it does not punish -them"--a strange conclusion to come to, considering how -ruthlessly profiteering all through the Middle Ages was -suppressed, and that failure to suppress it has in these -days nearly broken society up. It is thus we see the -economic significance of the Guilds was not understood, and -they had no official defenders.From this time onwards the -Guilds lose their public functions. In the seventeenth -century, journeymen were excluded from their membership, and -they continue as societies of employers. Two or three, even -a dozen occupations, become united in one company (for they -cease to be called Guilds), which bears the name of the -occupation followed by the more influential citizens. Such -companies continue to exist to this day in old towns in the -provinces, as well as in London, and have given rise to the -various Chambers of Commerce of our day. The property in the -possession of these companies to-day is the property that -remained in the possession of the Guilds after the -confiscations made under the Chantries Bill (1547), in the -reign of Edward VI. This Bill did not attack the Guilds as -economic organizations, as is commonly supposed, nor did it -seek to confiscate the whole of the property of the Guilds, -but only such part of their revenues as had already been -devoted to certain specified religious purposes. A great -part of their wealth had been spent in providing masses for -the souls of the deceased brethren, and it was the lands -whose revenues were spent on such purposes that were -confiscated. The revenues of the craft companies devoted to -social and charitable purposes remained with the Guilds. All -the same "the disendowment of religion in the mysteries -evidently accelerated the transformation of the system; for -it removed one strong bond of union among the members, and -limited their common efforts to the range of their material -interests." - -The Elizabethan Statute of Apprentices, passed in 1563, may -perhaps be regarded as an honest attempt to save something -from the wreck. The Mediaeval policy of regulating prices -having broken down, it sought to protect the position of the -skilled worker from deteriorating under competition. - -"According to it no one could lawfully exercise, either as -master or as journeyman, any art, mystery, or manual -occupation, except he had been brought up therein seven -years, at least, as an apprentice. Every householder -dwelling in a city, town-corporate or market town, might -take apprentices for seven years at least. But only those -youths might be taken as apprentices whose parents possessed -a certain fortune; and none could be bound but those who -were under twenty-one years of age. Whoever had three -apprentices must keep one journeyman; and for every other -apprentice above three, one other journeyman. As to -journeymen, it was enacted that, in most trades, no person -should retain a servant under one whole year, and no servant -was to depart or be put away but upon a quarter's warning. -The hours of work were fixed by the Act to about twelve in -summer, and from day-dawn till night in winter. Wages were -to be assessed yearly by the justices of the peace or the -town magistrates, at every general session first to be -holden after Easter. The same authorities were to settle all -disputes between masters and apprentices, and protect the -latter. - -Though this was, I believe, an honest attempt to protect the -skilled workers, its mischief lay in the power given to the -justices of the peace to determine wages, for in effect it -handed the workers over to the mercy of their employers. -Thorold Rogers condemns it severely on this account, -affirming that it brought down wages to a bare subsistence. -All the same, the Act does not appear to have been unpopular -among the workers, for in the eighteenth century, when the -assessment of wages had fallen into disuse, and wages had -begun to be settled by competition, the workers in the -skilled trades repeatedly petitioned Parliament to compel -the justices to carry out the regulations as to apprentices, -which they recognized would tend, by limiting the number -practising a particular craft, to keep up the standard of -wages. When year after year, notwithstanding all the -petitions of the workmen, the Acts regulating woollen -manufacture were suspended, a factory was burnt down; and in -September, 1805, the London Fire Insurance Companies -received letters of caution from workmen, wherein they -declared that as Parliament refused to protect their rights -they would do it themselves." It was determined action of -this kind that brought the whole question to a head and led -to the repeal of the statute in the woollen trade in 1806, -and for all trades in 1814. And this, in spite of the fact -that in petitions presented to Parliament 300,000 were for -the maintenance of the statute and only 2,000 for its +With the French Revolution and the wars that followed it there fell what +remained in Western Europe of the old Mediaeval Order. Henceforth +political thought no longer troubles itself with the issue of Church and +State but with Capitalism which becomes the dominating power in the +world. It will be necessary therefore for us, before proceeding further +with the political problem, to retrace our steps to watch the rise of +capitalist industry. + +Capitalism, as we saw, had its origin in the growth of foreign trade, +which offered merchants abundant opportunities for making profits by the +manipulation of currency, unchecked by Guild regulations. But capitalist +exploitation began on the land, when the merchants began to invest the +wealth they had accumulated in land, and proceeded to convert tillage +into pasturage. That such a development was possible was due, as we saw, +to Roman Law, which corrupted the old Feudal order by instituting +private ownership in land. Apart from Roman Law, the Feudal system would +have been transformed, for the spread of currency into rural areas had +gradually undermined its old stability by substituting money payments +for payments in kind. But the fact that the transformation proceeded +from Feudalism to landlordism and capitalism instead of from Feudalism +to agricultural Guilds, which would have regulated currency by a system +of fixed prices such as obtained in the towns, was due entirely to Roman +Law, which, by instituting private property in land, paved the way to +capitalist exploitation. Roman Law, then, created capitalism, and +capitalism, we shall see, destroyed the Guilds. + +From having commercialized agriculture, capitalists turned their +attention to the capture of industry. In the towns, capitalist +exploitation was impossible, for the detailed regulations of the Guilds +covered every condition of production. But outside of the towns in the +rural areas no such regulations existed. The capitalist there was at +liberty to do as he pleased. He could manufacture what he liked, use +inferior material, pay low wages and sell at whatever price he liked, +and there was no one to stop him. The capitalists who had taken to +sheep-farming were not long in turning such circumstances to their +advantage. They employed many of those whom they evicted from their +holdings in the manufacture of cloth and articles made from it. It was +thus there came into existence that "domestic system" of industry which +was destined to be the destruction of the Guilds. As early as the +fourteenth century the Guilds began to feel the competition of this +domestic industry. The Guildsmen complained that the goods so produced +were made of inferior material; that one master would employ many +journeymen, have too man} apprentices, and pay them a lower wage than +was allowed by the Guilds, while some trades, as, for instance, the +cappers and fullers, began to suffer from the competition of wares +produced by machinery driven by water-mills. This led to so much +impoverishment among the craftsmen of the towns that fulling-mills were +forbidden by statute in 1483. + +Not only were the Guilds at a disadvantage in meeting such competition +owing to the high standard of quality which they existed to uphold, but +they were further handicapped by the fact that the towns came in for +taxation which manufacturers outside of the towns were able to escape. +"The pressure of the Apprenticeship Act of Henry IV, the heavy +assessment which they paid for the wars with France, and for Henry VII's +unnecessary exactions, and lastly, the regulations made by the Guilds +with regard to apprentices and journeymen, were all telling against the +old corporate towns; they were at a disadvantage as compared with +neighbouring villages, and there was in consequence a considerable +displacement of industry from old centres to new ones, or to +suburbs."During the fifteenth century a general decay of English towns +set in. Migration was no longer from the country to the towns, but from +the towns back to the country, and with this change there came the decay +of the Guilds which had grown up within the corporate towns. + +There can be little doubt that the newer regulations of the Guilds which +were regarded as tyrannical, and which we hear of in the fifteenth +century, were brought about by the desire of those already in the Guilds +to protect themselves against the competition of the rising capitalist +industry. At an earlier date, it had been possible for every journey man +in the Guild to look forward to a day when he would be able to set up in +business on his own account as a master. But now, when the monopoly of +the Guilds was clearly breaking down before the rise of capitalist +industry, and the masters were beginning to feel the pressure of +competition, they began to frame regulations not with an eye to the +interests of the craft as a whole, which was beyond their power, but +solely to protect their own individual interests. Such undoubtedly was +the origin of the grievance of the journeymen, for which they obtained +redress in 1536, whereby, on becoming apprentices, they were made to +swear upon oath not to set up in business in the towns without the +consent and licence of the masters, wardens and fellowship of their +Guild, upon pain of forfeiting their freedom or like penalty. One of the +results of this restriction was to aggravate the tendency of journeymen +to withdraw from the towns and set up shop in the villages where they +were outside of Guild jurisdiction. To do this was often their only +chance of getting employment, for the competition of the rural +industries inclined the masters more and more to overstock their shops +with an undue proportion of apprentices. + +The growth of such abuses demonstrated clearly that the craft Guilds +were breaking down before the rise of capitalist industry; and it became +evident that if industry was to continue to be subject to regulation, +the Guild system would need to be reorganized upon national lines, or, +in other words, that Guild regulation should be made co-extensive with +industry and the various local Guilds linked up or federated into +national ones. Some such general notion appears to have inspired the +attempts at Guild reorganization by Henry VII and Henry VIII, who tried +to get the Guilds placed entirely under the control of public +authorities by enacting that in the future all Guild ordinances should +be approved by the justices. This was the one reform which complainants +had demanded in 1376 and 1473, as well as from the Tudors. Subject to +such control, the Guilds were encouraged. But the measures they took +were altogether inadequate to cope with the economic situation which was +developing. Instead of seeking to establish a national system of Guilds, +they merely extended certain local privileges, giving certain Guilds the +right to search in rural areas within a certain radius of the towns. +Justices of the peace were to appoint searchers for the shires. + +We can easily imagine why such measures were ineffective. Capitalism had +already got a firm foothold, and it could not be brought under control +except by the most determined action on the part of the authorities, and +justices of the peace would not be the kind of people to act in such a +way. If regulations are going to be enforced, those empowered to enforce +them must be made to suffer if they neglect in their duty, as is the +case with democratically constituted Guilds. Such Guilds might have been +established in the rural areas at the time of the Great Revolt. But the +opportunity which then presented itself was lost. The peasants threw +away their opportunity when they demanded the liberty to buy and sell +instead of the protection of Guilds, and now the problem was not such a +simple one. The development of foreign trade made the fixing and +regulating of prices an extremely difficult one, and nothing short of a +great popular movement demanding such reforms would have sufficed to +render such measures practicable. But no such movement existed. The +peasants, who had been driven off the land to make room for sheep, +resented the monopolies of the Guilds. They had no idea of the value of +their services in regulating currency, and welcomed action which removed +their monopoly. + +The Guilds received their death-blow when they found themselves no +longer able to fix the prices of commodities, for everything turns upon +this. If prices can be fixed, then it is a comparatively easy matter to +enforce a standard of quality and maintain the internal discipline of +the Guilds, but if prices cannot be fixed, then a standard of quality +cannot be enforced, and the Guilds jurisdiction over their members tends +to become restricted within increasingly narrow limits. The Guilds found +themselves unable to determine prices during the sixteenth century. In +1503 they lost their autonomy in this respect, when it was enacted that +any change in the price of wares had to be "approved by the Chancellor, +Treasurer of England and Chief Justices of either Bench, or three of +them; or before both the Justices of Assizes in their circuit."But what +finally broke the monopoly of the Guilds was the growing desire of the +public to have prices fixed by *the haggling of the market*.No doubt +they had acquired this taste through buying the products of the +capitalist industry, which was subject to no regulation; and they came +to demand the same terms from the Guild masters, who, presumably, +suffering from competition, were unable to offer effective resistance. +But there was a deeper cause for the change. The moral sanction of the +Just Price had been undermined by the lawyers, who maintained the right +of every man to make the best bargain he could---a right which was +recognized in the Justinian Code. St. Thomas Aquinas, in challenging the +lawyers, defended the principle of the Just Price on purely moral +grounds. He failed altogether to perceive its economic significance, +contending that "human law can only prohibit what would break up +society. Other wrong acts it treats as quasi-lawful in the sense that +while not approving them, it does not punish them"--a strange conclusion +to come to, considering how ruthlessly profiteering all through the +Middle Ages was suppressed, and that failure to suppress it has in these +days nearly broken society up. It is thus we see the economic +significance of the Guilds was not understood, and they had no official +defenders.From this time onwards the Guilds lose their public functions. +In the seventeenth century, journeymen were excluded from their +membership, and they continue as societies of employers. Two or three, +even a dozen occupations, become united in one company (for they cease +to be called Guilds), which bears the name of the occupation followed by +the more influential citizens. Such companies continue to exist to this +day in old towns in the provinces, as well as in London, and have given +rise to the various Chambers of Commerce of our day. The property in the +possession of these companies to-day is the property that remained in +the possession of the Guilds after the confiscations made under the +Chantries Bill (1547), in the reign of Edward VI. This Bill did not +attack the Guilds as economic organizations, as is commonly supposed, +nor did it seek to confiscate the whole of the property of the Guilds, +but only such part of their revenues as had already been devoted to +certain specified religious purposes. A great part of their wealth had +been spent in providing masses for the souls of the deceased brethren, +and it was the lands whose revenues were spent on such purposes that +were confiscated. The revenues of the craft companies devoted to social +and charitable purposes remained with the Guilds. All the same "the +disendowment of religion in the mysteries evidently accelerated the +transformation of the system; for it removed one strong bond of union +among the members, and limited their common efforts to the range of +their material interests." + +The Elizabethan Statute of Apprentices, passed in 1563, may perhaps be +regarded as an honest attempt to save something from the wreck. The +Mediaeval policy of regulating prices having broken down, it sought to +protect the position of the skilled worker from deteriorating under +competition. + +"According to it no one could lawfully exercise, either as master or as +journeyman, any art, mystery, or manual occupation, except he had been +brought up therein seven years, at least, as an apprentice. Every +householder dwelling in a city, town-corporate or market town, might +take apprentices for seven years at least. But only those youths might +be taken as apprentices whose parents possessed a certain fortune; and +none could be bound but those who were under twenty-one years of age. +Whoever had three apprentices must keep one journeyman; and for every +other apprentice above three, one other journeyman. As to journeymen, it +was enacted that, in most trades, no person should retain a servant +under one whole year, and no servant was to depart or be put away but +upon a quarter's warning. The hours of work were fixed by the Act to +about twelve in summer, and from day-dawn till night in winter. Wages +were to be assessed yearly by the justices of the peace or the town +magistrates, at every general session first to be holden after Easter. +The same authorities were to settle all disputes between masters and +apprentices, and protect the latter. + +Though this was, I believe, an honest attempt to protect the skilled +workers, its mischief lay in the power given to the justices of the +peace to determine wages, for in effect it handed the workers over to +the mercy of their employers. Thorold Rogers condemns it severely on +this account, affirming that it brought down wages to a bare +subsistence. All the same, the Act does not appear to have been +unpopular among the workers, for in the eighteenth century, when the +assessment of wages had fallen into disuse, and wages had begun to be +settled by competition, the workers in the skilled trades repeatedly +petitioned Parliament to compel the justices to carry out the +regulations as to apprentices, which they recognized would tend, by +limiting the number practising a particular craft, to keep up the +standard of wages. When year after year, notwithstanding all the +petitions of the workmen, the Acts regulating woollen manufacture were +suspended, a factory was burnt down; and in September, 1805, the London +Fire Insurance Companies received letters of caution from workmen, +wherein they declared that as Parliament refused to protect their rights +they would do it themselves." It was determined action of this kind that +brought the whole question to a head and led to the repeal of the +statute in the woollen trade in 1806, and for all trades in 1814. And +this, in spite of the fact that in petitions presented to Parliament +300,000 were for the maintenance of the statute and only 2,000 for its repeal. The repeal of this statute declared the state of industrial -disorganization and disorder as the only lawful state. This -state became only too soon the prevailing one in all trades. -Parliamentary reports on the condition of the ribbon trade -and the silk manufacture at Coventry, Nuneaton, and -Macclesfield describe as the immediate consequence of the +disorganization and disorder as the only lawful state. This state became +only too soon the prevailing one in all trades. Parliamentary reports on +the condition of the ribbon trade and the silk manufacture at Coventry, +Nuneaton, and Macclesfield describe as the immediate consequence of the repeal, such a growth of the system of sweaters and half-pay -apprentices, that the journeymen were driven to famine, and -the female workers to prostitution. "Whilst the statute of -the 5th Elizabeth was in force," says the report, "the -distressing circumstances now complained of never occurred." -The whole of the masters and weavers therefore petitioned in -1818 for the extension of the Spitalfields Acts to the silk -trade in the said places. Reports of the year 1817 and 1818 -give an absolutely identical account of the condition of the -watchmakers at Coventry. Further, as the justices of the -peace no longer assessed wages after having heard masters -and men, the workmen now endeavoured to introduce regulation -of wages by statement-lists of prices, agreed upon by -masters and men. But they were violated upon every occasion -by the employers. The words which Pitt spoke on the subject -of the Arbitration Act were now completely fulfilled. "The -time will come," he said, "when manufactures will have been -so long established, and the operatives not having any other -business to flee to, that it will be in the power of any one -man in a town to reduce the wages, and all the other -manufacturers must follow. If ever it does arrive at this -pitch, Parliament, if it be not then sitting, ought to be -called together, and if it cannot redress your grievances -its power is at an end. Tell me not that Parliament -cannot---it is omnipotent to protect." The workmen were -quite of the opinion of Pitt, and numberless were the -petitions which, after 1814, they addressed to Parliament -for the legal regulation of their trades. But as Parliament -thought it could not redress their grievances, they tried -self-help. After the repeal of the Act of Elizabeth, -combinations and unions therefore arose in all trades. But -whilst, on the one hand, the workmen were refused legal -protection, self-help, in consequence of the 39th and 40th -George III, c. 106, was considered a crime. In 1818, bail to -the amount of 200 and two sureties for 100 each were -required for the appearance of a common workman at the next -session to answer a charge of combining. The greatest -mischief was, however, that the Combination Laws, by -confounding right and wrong, led men to regard with less -aversion things really vicious. The people, in their -despair, did not shrink from the greatest deeds of violence -and the most infamous crimes in self-defence." - -The consequence of these acts of violence was that in 1825 -the Combination Laws were repealed. A London Radical, -Francis Place, having by dexterously stage-managing the -evidence given before a Royal Commission, succeeded in -persuading the Government that Trade Unions owed their -existence entirely to the irritation caused by the -Combination Laws and that they would disappear with their -repeal. Workmen were not granted full liberty of -association, but a half-liberty. They were allowed to -combine to determine rates of wages and hours of labour, but -they were not allowed to limit the number of apprentices or -to prevent piecework. Six months hard labour was to be -imposed on any one who should resort to violence, threats, -molestation or obstruction in order to secure a rise of -wages. The judges interpreted this clause as extending to -workmen on strike who reproached other workmen for -continuing to labour, thus making picketing illegal. They -also decided that Trade Unions had no legal position, could -not hold title to property nor maintain actions in the -courts in defence of their rights. These grievances, along -with a law which discriminated between the penalties meted -out to employer and employee in the event of either breaking -a contract, were removed by the Trade Union Act of 1871, -which gave the Unions legal recognition. But it was not out -of any largeness of heart of the employers, or any political -insight of the governing class, that such status was given, -but because an outbreak of working-class violence in -Sheffield had led them to suppose that the existing law, by -denying legal status to the Unions, tended rather to provoke -than to repress violent action. It was thus at last the -principles of Roman Law were successfully challenged, and -the lie given to the Roman theory that only by sapping every -tie between man and man could stability be given to the -State. - -In these days we recognize in the Trade Union Movement the -first step towards a restoration of the Guilds. Already the -Unions, with their elaborate organizations, exercise many of -the functions which were formerly performed by the -Guilds---such as the regulation of wages and hours of -labour, in addition to the more social duty of giving timely -help to the sick and unfortunate. Like the Guilds, the -Unions have grown from small beginnings until they now -control whole trades. Like the Guilds also, they are not -political creations, but voluntary organizations which have -arisen spontaneously to protect the weaker members of -society against the oppression of the more powerful. They -differ from them as industrial organizations only to the -extent that, not being in possession of industry and of -corresponding privileges, they are unable to accept -responsibility for the quality of work done, and to regulate -the prices. But these differences are the differences -inherent in a stage of transition, and will disappear as the -Unions trespass on the domains of the capitalist. +apprentices, that the journeymen were driven to famine, and the female +workers to prostitution. "Whilst the statute of the 5th Elizabeth was in +force," says the report, "the distressing circumstances now complained +of never occurred." The whole of the masters and weavers therefore +petitioned in 1818 for the extension of the Spitalfields Acts to the +silk trade in the said places. Reports of the year 1817 and 1818 give an +absolutely identical account of the condition of the watchmakers at +Coventry. Further, as the justices of the peace no longer assessed wages +after having heard masters and men, the workmen now endeavoured to +introduce regulation of wages by statement-lists of prices, agreed upon +by masters and men. But they were violated upon every occasion by the +employers. The words which Pitt spoke on the subject of the Arbitration +Act were now completely fulfilled. "The time will come," he said, "when +manufactures will have been so long established, and the operatives not +having any other business to flee to, that it will be in the power of +any one man in a town to reduce the wages, and all the other +manufacturers must follow. If ever it does arrive at this pitch, +Parliament, if it be not then sitting, ought to be called together, and +if it cannot redress your grievances its power is at an end. Tell me not +that Parliament cannot---it is omnipotent to protect." The workmen were +quite of the opinion of Pitt, and numberless were the petitions which, +after 1814, they addressed to Parliament for the legal regulation of +their trades. But as Parliament thought it could not redress their +grievances, they tried self-help. After the repeal of the Act of +Elizabeth, combinations and unions therefore arose in all trades. But +whilst, on the one hand, the workmen were refused legal protection, +self-help, in consequence of the 39th and 40th George III, c. 106, was +considered a crime. In 1818, bail to the amount of 200 and two sureties +for 100 each were required for the appearance of a common workman at the +next session to answer a charge of combining. The greatest mischief was, +however, that the Combination Laws, by confounding right and wrong, led +men to regard with less aversion things really vicious. The people, in +their despair, did not shrink from the greatest deeds of violence and +the most infamous crimes in self-defence." + +The consequence of these acts of violence was that in 1825 the +Combination Laws were repealed. A London Radical, Francis Place, having +by dexterously stage-managing the evidence given before a Royal +Commission, succeeded in persuading the Government that Trade Unions +owed their existence entirely to the irritation caused by the +Combination Laws and that they would disappear with their repeal. +Workmen were not granted full liberty of association, but a +half-liberty. They were allowed to combine to determine rates of wages +and hours of labour, but they were not allowed to limit the number of +apprentices or to prevent piecework. Six months hard labour was to be +imposed on any one who should resort to violence, threats, molestation +or obstruction in order to secure a rise of wages. The judges +interpreted this clause as extending to workmen on strike who reproached +other workmen for continuing to labour, thus making picketing illegal. +They also decided that Trade Unions had no legal position, could not +hold title to property nor maintain actions in the courts in defence of +their rights. These grievances, along with a law which discriminated +between the penalties meted out to employer and employee in the event of +either breaking a contract, were removed by the Trade Union Act of 1871, +which gave the Unions legal recognition. But it was not out of any +largeness of heart of the employers, or any political insight of the +governing class, that such status was given, but because an outbreak of +working-class violence in Sheffield had led them to suppose that the +existing law, by denying legal status to the Unions, tended rather to +provoke than to repress violent action. It was thus at last the +principles of Roman Law were successfully challenged, and the lie given +to the Roman theory that only by sapping every tie between man and man +could stability be given to the State. + +In these days we recognize in the Trade Union Movement the first step +towards a restoration of the Guilds. Already the Unions, with their +elaborate organizations, exercise many of the functions which were +formerly performed by the Guilds---such as the regulation of wages and +hours of labour, in addition to the more social duty of giving timely +help to the sick and unfortunate. Like the Guilds, the Unions have grown +from small beginnings until they now control whole trades. Like the +Guilds also, they are not political creations, but voluntary +organizations which have arisen spontaneously to protect the weaker +members of society against the oppression of the more powerful. They +differ from them as industrial organizations only to the extent that, +not being in possession of industry and of corresponding privileges, +they are unable to accept responsibility for the quality of work done, +and to regulate the prices. But these differences are the differences +inherent in a stage of transition, and will disappear as the Unions +trespass on the domains of the capitalist. # Political and Economic Thought After the Reformation -By the end of the sixteenth century capitalism had -triumphed. Not only had it succeeded in capturing -agriculture and entirely undermining the position of the -Guilds, but it had come to exercise a preponderating -influence in the counsels of the State. The way for its -advance in England had been opened by Henry VIII, who found -himself compelled to create a new aristocracy out of the -capitalists in order to destroy the power of the Church. It -was not long after the political arrival of this new -aristocracy that there came a new valuation of political and +By the end of the sixteenth century capitalism had triumphed. Not only +had it succeeded in capturing agriculture and entirely undermining the +position of the Guilds, but it had come to exercise a preponderating +influence in the counsels of the State. The way for its advance in +England had been opened by Henry VIII, who found himself compelled to +create a new aristocracy out of the capitalists in order to destroy the +power of the Church. It was not long after the political arrival of this +new aristocracy that there came a new valuation of political and economic philosophy. -During the Middle Ages the theory obtained that national -prosperity and well-being had its foundation in agriculture -rather than commerce. Work and not wealth or property was -the bestower of all worth and dignity. Mediaeval economists -deprecated any politico-economic movement that encouraged -the people to give up the pursuit of agriculture for trade +During the Middle Ages the theory obtained that national prosperity and +well-being had its foundation in agriculture rather than commerce. Work +and not wealth or property was the bestower of all worth and dignity. +Mediaeval economists deprecated any politico-economic movement that +encouraged the people to give up the pursuit of agriculture for trade and commerce. Thus we read:-- -"Among manual industries none stood higher in the estimation -of the Canon Law than agriculture. It was looked upon as the -mother and producer of all social organization and all -culture, as the fosterer of all other industries, and -consequently as the basis of national well-being. The Canon -Law exacted special consideration for agriculture, and -partly for this reason, that it tended in a higher degree -than any other branch of labour to teach those who practised -it godly fear and uprightness. 'The farmer,' so it is -written in *A Christian Admonition*, 'must in all things be -protected and encouraged, for all depends on his labour, -from the Emperor to the humblest of mankind, and his -handiwork is in particular honourable and well-pleasing to -God.' Therefore both the spiritual and the secular law -protect him." - -"Next to agriculture came handiwork. 'This is praiseworthy -in the sight of God, especially in so far as it represents -necessary and useful things.' And when the articles are made -with care and art, then both God and men take plea sure in -them; and it is good and true work when artistic men, by the -skill and cunning of their hands, in beautiful building and -sculpture, spread the glory of God and make men gentle in -their spirits, so that they find delight in beautiful -things, and look reverently on all art and handicraft as a -gift of God for use, enjoyment, and edification of man -kind." - -"Trade and commerce were held in lower esteem. 'An -honourable merchant,' says Trithemius, 'who does not only -think of large profits, and who is guided in all his -dealings by the laws of God and man, and who gladly gives to -the needy of his wealth and earnings, deserves the same -esteem as any other worker. But it is no easy matter to be -always honourable in mercantile dealings, and with the -increase of gain not to become avaricious. Without commerce -no community, of course, can exist, but immoderate commerce -is rather hurtful than beneficial, because it fosters greed -of gain and gold, and enervates and emasculates the nation +"Among manual industries none stood higher in the estimation of the +Canon Law than agriculture. It was looked upon as the mother and +producer of all social organization and all culture, as the fosterer of +all other industries, and consequently as the basis of national +well-being. The Canon Law exacted special consideration for agriculture, +and partly for this reason, that it tended in a higher degree than any +other branch of labour to teach those who practised it godly fear and +uprightness. 'The farmer,' so it is written in *A Christian Admonition*, +'must in all things be protected and encouraged, for all depends on his +labour, from the Emperor to the humblest of mankind, and his handiwork +is in particular honourable and well-pleasing to God.' Therefore both +the spiritual and the secular law protect him." + +"Next to agriculture came handiwork. 'This is praiseworthy in the sight +of God, especially in so far as it represents necessary and useful +things.' And when the articles are made with care and art, then both God +and men take plea sure in them; and it is good and true work when +artistic men, by the skill and cunning of their hands, in beautiful +building and sculpture, spread the glory of God and make men gentle in +their spirits, so that they find delight in beautiful things, and look +reverently on all art and handicraft as a gift of God for use, +enjoyment, and edification of man kind." + +"Trade and commerce were held in lower esteem. 'An honourable merchant,' +says Trithemius, 'who does not only think of large profits, and who is +guided in all his dealings by the laws of God and man, and who gladly +gives to the needy of his wealth and earnings, deserves the same esteem +as any other worker. But it is no easy matter to be always honourable in +mercantile dealings, and with the increase of gain not to become +avaricious. Without commerce no community, of course, can exist, but +immoderate commerce is rather hurtful than beneficial, because it +fosters greed of gain and gold, and enervates and emasculates the nation through love of pleasure and luxury.'" -"The Canonical writers did not think it was conducive to the -well-being of the people that the merchants 'like spiders -should everywhere collect together and draw every thing into -their webs.' With the ever-increasing growth and -predominance of the mercantile spirit before their eyes, -they were sufficiently justified in their condemnation of -the tyranny and iniquity of trade which, as St. Thomas -Aquinas had already said, made all civic life corrupt, and -by the casting aside of good faith and honesty opened the -door wide to fraudulence; while each one thought only of his -personal profit without regard to the public good." +"The Canonical writers did not think it was conducive to the well-being +of the people that the merchants 'like spiders should everywhere collect +together and draw every thing into their webs.' With the ever-increasing +growth and predominance of the mercantile spirit before their eyes, they +were sufficiently justified in their condemnation of the tyranny and +iniquity of trade which, as St. Thomas Aquinas had already said, made +all civic life corrupt, and by the casting aside of good faith and +honesty opened the door wide to fraudulence; while each one thought only +of his personal profit without regard to the public good." This attitude towards social questions came to an end at the -Reformation, when, with the destruction of the Church, power -passed entirely into the hands of the capitalists who came -to dominate the State. The political philosophy which -gradually came into existence under their auspices looks at -things from a very different angle. It makes no attempt to -interpret society in the light of the principle of function, -to conceive of society as a whole the parts of which are -organically related to each other. There is little or no -attempt on the part of Government to protect the interest of -the labourer; to take measures to see that the fruits of his -labour are secured for him. On the contrary, regard is paid -only to the interests of the merchant, while the labourer is -left to shift for himself as best he can, with only such -doubtful protection as the Statute of Apprentices gave to -the town workers. Though the claims of agriculture were not -altogether neglected, yet the tendency in the long run was -for statesmen and theorists to exalt manufacturers above -agriculture and exchange above production. This came about -because it was through foreign trade that the money was made -which was the main source of revenue to the State and -because there was a general tendency in the thought of the -governing and merchant classes to identify money with -wealth. The governing class of capitalists with their -henchmen the lawyers consisted no longer of men capable of -taking large and comprehensive views of society, but of men -whose minds were entirely preoccupied with its material -aspects. They concentrated all their attention upon finding -ways and means to increase the wealth of the nation but for -reasons perhaps best known to themselves they chose to -ignore the problem as to how it was to be distributed. - -External circumstances favoured the growth of this point of -view in the governing class. The suppression of the -monasteries had been followed by a period of great economic -depression, when the people felt the pressure of poverty. -There was great dislocation of industry everywhere and a -debased coinage had not improved matters. The low-water mark -was reached during the reign of Edward VI. Under Elizabeth -things were lifted out of the mire and the country rescued -from economic stagnation and depression by the encouragement -given to manufacturers and foreign trade. The popularity of -Elizabeth---for in spite of her religious persecutions she -was popular---was due to the fact that the support she gave -to the policy of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, had the -effect towards the close of her reign of restoring the -national prosperity. Immediately the policy of Burghley was -prompted by the likelihood of a war with Spain. England had -become Protestant, and as she had hitherto been dependent -for war material both as regards gunpowder and the metals -necessary for the making of ordnance upon supplies that came -from ports controlled by the Roman Catholic Powers, it was -urgent if she was to retain her independence for her to have -a supply of her own. Every means therefore was taken to -foster the manufacture of munitions of war at home, and to -such an extent was the effort successful that when at last -the storm burst and the Spanish Armada sailed for England, -it was found that the leeway had been entirely made up and -that English guns were as good if not better than those of -Spain. - -But the new policy did not end here. Agriculture was -encouraged for military as well as for economic reasons. -Measures were taken to make tillage as profitable as -pasturage by removing the embargo upon the export of grain, -while enclosures were stopped. The fishing trades were -supported not merely for the wealth they produced but as a -school of seamanship to train men for the mercantile and -naval marine. These things did much to mitigate the evil of -unemployment which had become so chronic under previous -reigns, but further measures were taken to deal with it -definitely and to diffuse a general prosperity by the -establishment of a great number of new industries that made -goods in England which hitherto had only been obtainable -from abroad. Industries for the manufacture of hardware, -sailcloth, glass-paper, starch, soap and other commodities -of common consumption were successfully established. Mines -also were opened. The assistance of German engineers was -called in for this. A new method of pumping which they had -invented made mining a more practicable and commercial -proposition. - -The circumstances of the age were particularly favourable to -these new developments. The religious wars in the -Netherlands and elsewhere led to the emigration of great -numbers of skilled workmen, who found a haven of refuge in -England and brought a technical knowledge of new industries -with them. Moreover, there was the change of trade routes so -favourable to English industry. During the Middle Ages these -routes had been overland, and it was this circumstance that -brought such prosperity to the Hanseatic towns of Germany -whose central European position was then so enviable. But -with the invention of the mariner's compass, the discovery -of America and the sea route to India, overland trade routes -gave place to sea routes, and this took prosperity away from -the Hanseatic and other inland towns and countries and -transferred it to seaports and countries with a good -seaboard. This transformation, which occupied the space of -about fifty years, was very profitable to English merchants -and manufacturers, who now began to secure a larger share of -the commerce of the world, and helped enormously to restore -the national prosperity. - -It would have been a fortunate thing for England if the -political speculation which accompanied these changes had -kept its mental balance and reconciled in their true -proportions the old with the new. But unfortunately such was -not the case. Prosperity had been restored not by efforts to -re-establish justice in the internal ordering of society but -by seizing the opportunities which a period of economic -transition afforded for the making of money. And so faith in -the old order tended to decline while confidence in the new -increased. Capitalism had been able to restore prosperity, -and so the opinions of capitalists came to weigh more and -more in the counsels of the State. Success in the new order -depended upon adaptability, and so the opinion grew that a -country lived not by its wisdom or its justice but by its -wits. The State, which during the Middle Ages had concerned -itself exclusively with the functions of military protection -and the administration of the law, and since the reign of -Henry VIII had made itself responsible for the religious -life of the people, now began to concern itself with the -promotion of industry and commerce. According to the new -dispensation, wealth, or to be more strictly correct, -bullion, was the great alchemy. Success in the race for -wealth was the precursor of all other desirable things. -Hence it was the first concern of the State to see to it -that there was always a large store of the precious metal on -hand. To achieve this end, considered of such vital -importance, every expedient was considered legitimate. The -Government might prohibit the import or export of certain -commodities. This industry was to be encouraged to export by -subsidizing it with bounties, that was to be discouraged by -the imposition of duties. Charters were granted giving -private monopolies to certain companies. The test of success -was to show a balance of trade in favour of the nation and -an increase in the gold reserve. This system of the control -of production and exchange by the State is known as -Mercantilism. It is, as its name implies the interpretation, -of national policy in the terms of the counting-house. Its -defect was that it placed the State at the mercy of vested -interests and was a source of political corruption, while it -became a fruitful source of wars. In the Middle Ages wars -had been territorial and dynastic. Now they became economic -and were fought over tariffs, concessions and privileges. It -was the inevitable consequence of the defeat of the Guilds, -which, changing the ideal of industry from a qualitative to -a quantitative one, necessarily brought those who pursued it -in collision with economic interests beyond the seas. The -wars with the Dutch were deliberately provoked by the -Navigation Act, which prohibited the importation in foreign -vessels of any but the products of the countries to which -they belonged. It was intended to strike a fatal blow at the -carrying trade of the Dutch from which they drew their -wealth and to secure our supremacy on the seas; and it was -successful. The Mercantilists clearly grasped the -fundamental economic fact, that under competitive conditions -of industry the commercial advantage of one country is often -only to be obtained at the expense of another, and that -"Trade follows the flag," as Conservatives believe to this -day. Mercantilism is not dead, it is the living faith of the -commercial classes to-day in all countries of the world. -Free Traders in these days are unwilling to face the -unpleasant fact that the terms of the economic struggle are -laid down by law and maintained by force, though Adam Smith -did say, "As defence is of much more importance than -opulence, the Act of Navigation is, perhaps, the wisest of -all the regulations of England." People who believe in -commercialism ought to believe in militarism. If one of -these is to be deprecated, then the other is. To believe in -commercialism and regret militarism is to live in a world of +Reformation, when, with the destruction of the Church, power passed +entirely into the hands of the capitalists who came to dominate the +State. The political philosophy which gradually came into existence +under their auspices looks at things from a very different angle. It +makes no attempt to interpret society in the light of the principle of +function, to conceive of society as a whole the parts of which are +organically related to each other. There is little or no attempt on the +part of Government to protect the interest of the labourer; to take +measures to see that the fruits of his labour are secured for him. On +the contrary, regard is paid only to the interests of the merchant, +while the labourer is left to shift for himself as best he can, with +only such doubtful protection as the Statute of Apprentices gave to the +town workers. Though the claims of agriculture were not altogether +neglected, yet the tendency in the long run was for statesmen and +theorists to exalt manufacturers above agriculture and exchange above +production. This came about because it was through foreign trade that +the money was made which was the main source of revenue to the State and +because there was a general tendency in the thought of the governing and +merchant classes to identify money with wealth. The governing class of +capitalists with their henchmen the lawyers consisted no longer of men +capable of taking large and comprehensive views of society, but of men +whose minds were entirely preoccupied with its material aspects. They +concentrated all their attention upon finding ways and means to increase +the wealth of the nation but for reasons perhaps best known to +themselves they chose to ignore the problem as to how it was to be +distributed. + +External circumstances favoured the growth of this point of view in the +governing class. The suppression of the monasteries had been followed by +a period of great economic depression, when the people felt the pressure +of poverty. There was great dislocation of industry everywhere and a +debased coinage had not improved matters. The low-water mark was reached +during the reign of Edward VI. Under Elizabeth things were lifted out of +the mire and the country rescued from economic stagnation and depression +by the encouragement given to manufacturers and foreign trade. The +popularity of Elizabeth---for in spite of her religious persecutions she +was popular---was due to the fact that the support she gave to the +policy of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, had the effect towards the close +of her reign of restoring the national prosperity. Immediately the +policy of Burghley was prompted by the likelihood of a war with Spain. +England had become Protestant, and as she had hitherto been dependent +for war material both as regards gunpowder and the metals necessary for +the making of ordnance upon supplies that came from ports controlled by +the Roman Catholic Powers, it was urgent if she was to retain her +independence for her to have a supply of her own. Every means therefore +was taken to foster the manufacture of munitions of war at home, and to +such an extent was the effort successful that when at last the storm +burst and the Spanish Armada sailed for England, it was found that the +leeway had been entirely made up and that English guns were as good if +not better than those of Spain. + +But the new policy did not end here. Agriculture was encouraged for +military as well as for economic reasons. Measures were taken to make +tillage as profitable as pasturage by removing the embargo upon the +export of grain, while enclosures were stopped. The fishing trades were +supported not merely for the wealth they produced but as a school of +seamanship to train men for the mercantile and naval marine. These +things did much to mitigate the evil of unemployment which had become so +chronic under previous reigns, but further measures were taken to deal +with it definitely and to diffuse a general prosperity by the +establishment of a great number of new industries that made goods in +England which hitherto had only been obtainable from abroad. Industries +for the manufacture of hardware, sailcloth, glass-paper, starch, soap +and other commodities of common consumption were successfully +established. Mines also were opened. The assistance of German engineers +was called in for this. A new method of pumping which they had invented +made mining a more practicable and commercial proposition. + +The circumstances of the age were particularly favourable to these new +developments. The religious wars in the Netherlands and elsewhere led to +the emigration of great numbers of skilled workmen, who found a haven of +refuge in England and brought a technical knowledge of new industries +with them. Moreover, there was the change of trade routes so favourable +to English industry. During the Middle Ages these routes had been +overland, and it was this circumstance that brought such prosperity to +the Hanseatic towns of Germany whose central European position was then +so enviable. But with the invention of the mariner's compass, the +discovery of America and the sea route to India, overland trade routes +gave place to sea routes, and this took prosperity away from the +Hanseatic and other inland towns and countries and transferred it to +seaports and countries with a good seaboard. This transformation, which +occupied the space of about fifty years, was very profitable to English +merchants and manufacturers, who now began to secure a larger share of +the commerce of the world, and helped enormously to restore the national +prosperity. + +It would have been a fortunate thing for England if the political +speculation which accompanied these changes had kept its mental balance +and reconciled in their true proportions the old with the new. But +unfortunately such was not the case. Prosperity had been restored not by +efforts to re-establish justice in the internal ordering of society but +by seizing the opportunities which a period of economic transition +afforded for the making of money. And so faith in the old order tended +to decline while confidence in the new increased. Capitalism had been +able to restore prosperity, and so the opinions of capitalists came to +weigh more and more in the counsels of the State. Success in the new +order depended upon adaptability, and so the opinion grew that a country +lived not by its wisdom or its justice but by its wits. The State, which +during the Middle Ages had concerned itself exclusively with the +functions of military protection and the administration of the law, and +since the reign of Henry VIII had made itself responsible for the +religious life of the people, now began to concern itself with the +promotion of industry and commerce. According to the new dispensation, +wealth, or to be more strictly correct, bullion, was the great alchemy. +Success in the race for wealth was the precursor of all other desirable +things. Hence it was the first concern of the State to see to it that +there was always a large store of the precious metal on hand. To achieve +this end, considered of such vital importance, every expedient was +considered legitimate. The Government might prohibit the import or +export of certain commodities. This industry was to be encouraged to +export by subsidizing it with bounties, that was to be discouraged by +the imposition of duties. Charters were granted giving private +monopolies to certain companies. The test of success was to show a +balance of trade in favour of the nation and an increase in the gold +reserve. This system of the control of production and exchange by the +State is known as Mercantilism. It is, as its name implies the +interpretation, of national policy in the terms of the counting-house. +Its defect was that it placed the State at the mercy of vested interests +and was a source of political corruption, while it became a fruitful +source of wars. In the Middle Ages wars had been territorial and +dynastic. Now they became economic and were fought over tariffs, +concessions and privileges. It was the inevitable consequence of the +defeat of the Guilds, which, changing the ideal of industry from a +qualitative to a quantitative one, necessarily brought those who pursued +it in collision with economic interests beyond the seas. The wars with +the Dutch were deliberately provoked by the Navigation Act, which +prohibited the importation in foreign vessels of any but the products of +the countries to which they belonged. It was intended to strike a fatal +blow at the carrying trade of the Dutch from which they drew their +wealth and to secure our supremacy on the seas; and it was successful. +The Mercantilists clearly grasped the fundamental economic fact, that +under competitive conditions of industry the commercial advantage of one +country is often only to be obtained at the expense of another, and that +"Trade follows the flag," as Conservatives believe to this day. +Mercantilism is not dead, it is the living faith of the commercial +classes to-day in all countries of the world. Free Traders in these days +are unwilling to face the unpleasant fact that the terms of the economic +struggle are laid down by law and maintained by force, though Adam Smith +did say, "As defence is of much more importance than opulence, the Act +of Navigation is, perhaps, the wisest of all the regulations of +England." People who believe in commercialism ought to believe in +militarism. If one of these is to be deprecated, then the other is. To +believe in commercialism and regret militarism is to live in a world of unrealities, as Free Traders in these days are finding out. -Mercantilism was not a social theory but a commercial policy -evolved by men who were satisfied to assume that a policy -which suited their own immediate interests must be good for -society. It began its career during the reign of James I, -when Gerard Malynes, a specialist in currency, whose advice -on mercantile affairs was often sought by the Privy Council, -set forth his views in a series of pamphlets in which he -urged the Government to forbid the export of bullion. The -idea was a Mediaeval one, and is altogether unintelligible -apart from the Mediaeval system of thought, which, refusing -to divorce economies from moral considerations, placed the -maintenance of the social order before the interests of -capital and trade. Viewing the social and economic evils -which accompanied the growth of foreign trade, it was but -natural that the Medievalists, like Aristotle, should regard -its increase with alarm and suspicion and seek to put -obstructions in the path of its advance, and that the -support of the State should be secured for obstructionist -tactics by the convenient theory that armies and fleets -could only be maintained in distant countries if there is -money to pay for them, and that such money would not be -forthcoming when wanted if bullion were exported from the -country. But Malynes, writing at a later date, urged his -case upon other grounds---that as exchange implied value for -value, the operation of the exchanges defrauded the revenue. - -Taking his stand upon such purely technical grounds, the -first Mercantilists found no difficulty in refuting him. If -the increase of foreign trade was a good and desirable thing -quite apart from how the increased wealth was -distributed---and in official quarters this assumption was -taken for granted---then the Mercantilists were easily able -to show that restrictions on the export of bullion impeded -the growth of foreign trade. "They represented, first, that -the exportation of gold and silver, in order to purchase -foreign goods, did not always diminish the quantity of those -metals in the kingdom. That, on the contrary, it might -frequently increase that quantity; because if the -consumption of foreign goods was not thereby increased in -the country, those goods might be re-exported to foreign -countries, and, being there sold for a large profit, might -bring back much more treasure than was originally sent out -to purchase them."Thomas Mun, who is sometimes described as -the founder of Mercantilism and whose treatise *England's -Treasure in Foreign Trade* which, often reprinted during the -seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, retained almost -canonical authority until it was displaced by *The Wealth of -Nations*, declared that "Money begets trade and trade -increases money." He compared the operations of foreign -trade to the seed-time and harvest of agriculture. "If we -only behold," he says, "the actions of the husbandman in the -seed-time, when he casteth away much good corn unto the -ground, we shall account him rather a madman than a -husbandman. But when we consider his labours in the harvest, -which is the end of his endeavours, we shall find the worth -and plentiful increase of his actions." - -The sub-title of the treatise declares that " the balance -of our foreign trade is the rule of Treasury," and the -object is declared to be to exhibit the means by which a -kingdom may be enriched. "The ordinary means to increase our -wealth and treasure is by foreign trade, wherein we must -ever observe this rule---to sell more to strangers yearly -than we consume of theirs in value. For that part of our -stock which is not returned to us in wares must necessarily -be brought home in treasure." Every effort must therefore be -devoted to increase our exports and to decrease our -consumption of foreign commodities. Waste land should be -used to grow hemp, flax and other articles which are now -imported. We might also diminish our imports if we would -lessen our demand for foreign wares in diet and raiment. The -vagaries and excesses of fashion might be corrected by -adopting sumptuary laws prevailing in other countries. "If -in our raiment we will be prodigal, let this be done by our -own manufactures, where the success of the rich may be the -employment of the poor, whose labours, notwithstanding, -would be more profitable if they were done to the use of -strangers." We may charge a high price for articles which -our neighbours need and which no other country can supply; -but those of which we do not possess the monopoly must be -sold as cheap as possible. Foreign materials worked up in -England for export should be duty free. Our exports should -be carried in our own ships, and our fisheries should be -developed. Writing as a Director of the East India Company, -Mun pronounced our trade with the East Indies the most -profitable of our commercial activities, not only because we -obtain its products cheaply for ourselves, but because we -sell the surplus at a high price to our neighbours. This " -may well stir up our utmost endeavours to maintain and -enlarge this great and noble business, so much importing the -public wealth, strength and happiness." - -Such was the faith of Mercantilism as it was most widely -accepted. Apart from what he has to say about sumptuary -laws, which has a fifteenth-century ring about it, it is the -same faith as that of the average commercial man to-day. -Subsequent writers sought to widen out the Mercantile -theory. They deprecated the exaggerated importance given to -foreign trade and emphasized the importance of home markets -and agriculture. Rejecting the notion that the national -wealth depended on cash, they maintained that goods paid for -goods and that nature and labour were the ultimate source of -wealth. To this extent their thought showed a reversion -towards the Mediaeval point of view. But on the other hand -they were modernist, being the forerunners of the Free -Traders. They attacked the elaborate system of prohibitions, -duties, bounties and monopolies as an impediment rather than -an encouragement to trade. Dudley North anticipated Adam -Smith when he declared, "The world as to trade is but as one -nation, and nations are but as persons. No trade is -unprofitable to the public; for if any prove so, men leave -it off; and wherever the trader thrives the public thrives -also." Charles Davanent, another of the school, maintained -that loss by balance in one trade may cause profit in -another. "Trade," he says, "is in its own nature free, finds -its own channel, and best directeth its own course." But he -forgets that the same arguments may be turned against him. -For while it is true that trade when untrammelled will find -its own channel, it does not follow that the channel it -finds is a socially desirable one; for while loss in one -trade may cause profit in another, one man is called to bear -the loss while another gets the profits, resulting in an -unequal distribution of wealth that is any thing but -socially advantageous. - -The next development of Mercantilism is associated with the -name of Adam Smith. I call it the next development because -though it is true the Manchester School reversed the -economic maxims of the Mercantilists, yet finally they only -differed from them to the extent of carrying their ideas to -their logical conclusion. The Mercantile theory of Mun was a -theory of the business of making money by foreign trade. As -such it provided a theory or policy for a group of interests -which it assumed was in the public interest, but it took no -particular pains to explain how and why. The Free Traders -who followed him attempted to give the theory a wider -application, demanding the abolition of privileges in trade. -But they went little further than making this demand. To -secure acceptance for such proposals something more was -needed. Free Trade would remain unacceptable as an -administrative proposal so long as political and economic -thought was dominated largely by Mediaeval preconceptions, -and it became necessary, therefore, to secure acceptation -for the Free Trade policy to undermine what remained of -Mediaeval political and economic thought. This was the work -of Adam Smith. To the Mediaeval idea of privileges for all -he opposed the idea of the abolition of all privileges and -unfettered individual competition which he associated with -the gospel of Free Trade. To the Mediaeval idea of the Just -Price he opposed the idea that prices were best settled by -competition. "To buy in the cheapest market and to sell in -the dearest" was a policy calculated to secure the greatest -good of the greatest number. But such economic principles -were incompatible with the Mediaeval and Christian ideal of -human unselfishness. Then, concluded Adam Smith, such -principles had no relevance in economics. Not unselfishness -but enlightened self-interest was the ideal to be aimed at. - -In his *Theory of Moral Sentiments* Adam Smith postulates -the doctrine of sympathy as the real bond between human -beings in their ethical relations. But in the *Wealth of -Nations* he makes it clear that human sympathy has no place -in economic relationships. "It is not from the benevolence -of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker," he tells us, -"that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their -own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their -humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of -our necessities, but of their advantage." This perverted -attitude of mind permeates the whole of Adam Smith's -writings. According to him the public well-being was -secured, not by the assertion of communal interests, by the -subordination of individual interests to those of the -community, but by the deliberate removal of all economic -restraints in order that each individual might be at liberty -to pursue his own selfish ends without let or hindrance. -*Laissez-faire*, *laissez passer* was the key to unlock all -economic problems, the sole panacea for all human ills, the -only hope of social regeneration. Give free play to -enlightened self-interest and natural liberty, and -prosperity would soon shine in all its splendour on every -department of the national life, for the effect of urging -each individual to pursue his interests under a system of -unfettered individual competition would be to so stimulate -trade and cheapen production that there would soon be plenty -for all and to spare. - -That Adam Smith should have been hailed as a prophet can -only be explained on the hypothesis that the moral tone of -society had already reached its nadir ere he wrote. Ruskin's -allusion to him as " the half-bred and half-witted -Scotchman who taught the deliberate blasphemy: Thou shalt -hate the Lord thy God, damn His laws and covet thy -neighbour's goods," was well deserved, and is not the less -true because he was sufficiently cunning to wrap up his -devilish advice in language of plausible sophistry instead -of presenting it in the raw. The apology of all who act as -Adam Smith would have them do is that they take the world as -they find it, but they conceal the fact that they are -content to leave it worse than they found it. Of no one is -this truer than of Adam Smith. He was the pioneer of that -economic fatalism which during its fifty years of power -paralysed society. In the hands of his followers all his -half-hearted qualifications were torn away and political -economy became the rigid soulless doctrine of every man for -himself and the devil take the hindermost, and all sympathy -for the exploited was strangled by the Ricardian "iron law -of wages." That Ruskin entirely annihilated the brazen -doctrine in the first three pages of *Unto this Last*, -published in 1862, by exposing the fallacy underlying the -method of reasoning of the Manchester economists, any one -with an ounce of logic in his composition is well aware. Yet -in spite of this it showed no signs of weakening until its -most distinguished adherent, John Stuart Mill, disowned the -superstition seven years afterwards, in 1869. - -Apologists of Adam Smith urge in his defence that the -governing class took only so much from his teaching as -suited them and ignored the rest, and he is therefore not to -be blamed for the misinterpretation or misapplication of his -principles. While this plea may be urged in defence of other -men, it cannot be urged in the case of Adam Smith. Most -pioneers of thought have to complain that their followers -have been true to the letter of their advice while their -spirit has been neglected, but the governing class were true -to the spirit of Adam Smith's gospel if not to the letter. -If Adam Smith really thought that he could on the one hand -urge individuals to pursue their own selfish interests and -at the same time forgo in the public interest any privileges -they might possess, he is to be regarded as a fool of the -first order, half-witted as Ruskin called him, entirely -destitute of any understanding of the human psychology, for -the heartless competition to which he condemned those -without privileges made those who possessed privileges cling -to them more tenaciously than ever. - -But the evil of Adam Smith's gospel does not end with the -fact that it confirmed the governing class in the pursuit of -their own selfish interests; it operated to force the -working class to pursue the same policy in self-defence. -Hence the theory of Adam Smith leads logically to that of -Marx. The doctrine of individualism leads inevitably to that -of the Class War, which is the natural and inevitable -rebellion of the masses against a governing class that has -become, in the words of Sir Thomas More, "a certain -conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under -the name and title of the Common Wealth." +Mercantilism was not a social theory but a commercial policy evolved by +men who were satisfied to assume that a policy which suited their own +immediate interests must be good for society. It began its career during +the reign of James I, when Gerard Malynes, a specialist in currency, +whose advice on mercantile affairs was often sought by the Privy +Council, set forth his views in a series of pamphlets in which he urged +the Government to forbid the export of bullion. The idea was a Mediaeval +one, and is altogether unintelligible apart from the Mediaeval system of +thought, which, refusing to divorce economies from moral considerations, +placed the maintenance of the social order before the interests of +capital and trade. Viewing the social and economic evils which +accompanied the growth of foreign trade, it was but natural that the +Medievalists, like Aristotle, should regard its increase with alarm and +suspicion and seek to put obstructions in the path of its advance, and +that the support of the State should be secured for obstructionist +tactics by the convenient theory that armies and fleets could only be +maintained in distant countries if there is money to pay for them, and +that such money would not be forthcoming when wanted if bullion were +exported from the country. But Malynes, writing at a later date, urged +his case upon other grounds---that as exchange implied value for value, +the operation of the exchanges defrauded the revenue. + +Taking his stand upon such purely technical grounds, the first +Mercantilists found no difficulty in refuting him. If the increase of +foreign trade was a good and desirable thing quite apart from how the +increased wealth was distributed---and in official quarters this +assumption was taken for granted---then the Mercantilists were easily +able to show that restrictions on the export of bullion impeded the +growth of foreign trade. "They represented, first, that the exportation +of gold and silver, in order to purchase foreign goods, did not always +diminish the quantity of those metals in the kingdom. That, on the +contrary, it might frequently increase that quantity; because if the +consumption of foreign goods was not thereby increased in the country, +those goods might be re-exported to foreign countries, and, being there +sold for a large profit, might bring back much more treasure than was +originally sent out to purchase them."Thomas Mun, who is sometimes +described as the founder of Mercantilism and whose treatise *England's +Treasure in Foreign Trade* which, often reprinted during the seventeenth +and eighteenth centuries, retained almost canonical authority until it +was displaced by *The Wealth of Nations*, declared that "Money begets +trade and trade increases money." He compared the operations of foreign +trade to the seed-time and harvest of agriculture. "If we only behold," +he says, "the actions of the husbandman in the seed-time, when he +casteth away much good corn unto the ground, we shall account him rather +a madman than a husbandman. But when we consider his labours in the +harvest, which is the end of his endeavours, we shall find the worth and +plentiful increase of his actions." + +The sub-title of the treatise declares that " the balance of our foreign +trade is the rule of Treasury," and the object is declared to be to +exhibit the means by which a kingdom may be enriched. "The ordinary +means to increase our wealth and treasure is by foreign trade, wherein +we must ever observe this rule---to sell more to strangers yearly than +we consume of theirs in value. For that part of our stock which is not +returned to us in wares must necessarily be brought home in treasure." +Every effort must therefore be devoted to increase our exports and to +decrease our consumption of foreign commodities. Waste land should be +used to grow hemp, flax and other articles which are now imported. We +might also diminish our imports if we would lessen our demand for +foreign wares in diet and raiment. The vagaries and excesses of fashion +might be corrected by adopting sumptuary laws prevailing in other +countries. "If in our raiment we will be prodigal, let this be done by +our own manufactures, where the success of the rich may be the +employment of the poor, whose labours, notwithstanding, would be more +profitable if they were done to the use of strangers." We may charge a +high price for articles which our neighbours need and which no other +country can supply; but those of which we do not possess the monopoly +must be sold as cheap as possible. Foreign materials worked up in +England for export should be duty free. Our exports should be carried in +our own ships, and our fisheries should be developed. Writing as a +Director of the East India Company, Mun pronounced our trade with the +East Indies the most profitable of our commercial activities, not only +because we obtain its products cheaply for ourselves, but because we +sell the surplus at a high price to our neighbours. This " may well stir +up our utmost endeavours to maintain and enlarge this great and noble +business, so much importing the public wealth, strength and happiness." + +Such was the faith of Mercantilism as it was most widely accepted. Apart +from what he has to say about sumptuary laws, which has a +fifteenth-century ring about it, it is the same faith as that of the +average commercial man to-day. Subsequent writers sought to widen out +the Mercantile theory. They deprecated the exaggerated importance given +to foreign trade and emphasized the importance of home markets and +agriculture. Rejecting the notion that the national wealth depended on +cash, they maintained that goods paid for goods and that nature and +labour were the ultimate source of wealth. To this extent their thought +showed a reversion towards the Mediaeval point of view. But on the other +hand they were modernist, being the forerunners of the Free Traders. +They attacked the elaborate system of prohibitions, duties, bounties and +monopolies as an impediment rather than an encouragement to trade. +Dudley North anticipated Adam Smith when he declared, "The world as to +trade is but as one nation, and nations are but as persons. No trade is +unprofitable to the public; for if any prove so, men leave it off; and +wherever the trader thrives the public thrives also." Charles Davanent, +another of the school, maintained that loss by balance in one trade may +cause profit in another. "Trade," he says, "is in its own nature free, +finds its own channel, and best directeth its own course." But he +forgets that the same arguments may be turned against him. For while it +is true that trade when untrammelled will find its own channel, it does +not follow that the channel it finds is a socially desirable one; for +while loss in one trade may cause profit in another, one man is called +to bear the loss while another gets the profits, resulting in an unequal +distribution of wealth that is any thing but socially advantageous. + +The next development of Mercantilism is associated with the name of Adam +Smith. I call it the next development because though it is true the +Manchester School reversed the economic maxims of the Mercantilists, yet +finally they only differed from them to the extent of carrying their +ideas to their logical conclusion. The Mercantile theory of Mun was a +theory of the business of making money by foreign trade. As such it +provided a theory or policy for a group of interests which it assumed +was in the public interest, but it took no particular pains to explain +how and why. The Free Traders who followed him attempted to give the +theory a wider application, demanding the abolition of privileges in +trade. But they went little further than making this demand. To secure +acceptance for such proposals something more was needed. Free Trade +would remain unacceptable as an administrative proposal so long as +political and economic thought was dominated largely by Mediaeval +preconceptions, and it became necessary, therefore, to secure +acceptation for the Free Trade policy to undermine what remained of +Mediaeval political and economic thought. This was the work of Adam +Smith. To the Mediaeval idea of privileges for all he opposed the idea +of the abolition of all privileges and unfettered individual competition +which he associated with the gospel of Free Trade. To the Mediaeval idea +of the Just Price he opposed the idea that prices were best settled by +competition. "To buy in the cheapest market and to sell in the dearest" +was a policy calculated to secure the greatest good of the greatest +number. But such economic principles were incompatible with the +Mediaeval and Christian ideal of human unselfishness. Then, concluded +Adam Smith, such principles had no relevance in economics. Not +unselfishness but enlightened self-interest was the ideal to be aimed +at. + +In his *Theory of Moral Sentiments* Adam Smith postulates the doctrine +of sympathy as the real bond between human beings in their ethical +relations. But in the *Wealth of Nations* he makes it clear that human +sympathy has no place in economic relationships. "It is not from the +benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker," he tells us, +"that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own +self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their +self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities, but of their +advantage." This perverted attitude of mind permeates the whole of Adam +Smith's writings. According to him the public well-being was secured, +not by the assertion of communal interests, by the subordination of +individual interests to those of the community, but by the deliberate +removal of all economic restraints in order that each individual might +be at liberty to pursue his own selfish ends without let or hindrance. +*Laissez-faire*, *laissez passer* was the key to unlock all economic +problems, the sole panacea for all human ills, the only hope of social +regeneration. Give free play to enlightened self-interest and natural +liberty, and prosperity would soon shine in all its splendour on every +department of the national life, for the effect of urging each +individual to pursue his interests under a system of unfettered +individual competition would be to so stimulate trade and cheapen +production that there would soon be plenty for all and to spare. + +That Adam Smith should have been hailed as a prophet can only be +explained on the hypothesis that the moral tone of society had already +reached its nadir ere he wrote. Ruskin's allusion to him as " the +half-bred and half-witted Scotchman who taught the deliberate blasphemy: +Thou shalt hate the Lord thy God, damn His laws and covet thy +neighbour's goods," was well deserved, and is not the less true because +he was sufficiently cunning to wrap up his devilish advice in language +of plausible sophistry instead of presenting it in the raw. The apology +of all who act as Adam Smith would have them do is that they take the +world as they find it, but they conceal the fact that they are content +to leave it worse than they found it. Of no one is this truer than of +Adam Smith. He was the pioneer of that economic fatalism which during +its fifty years of power paralysed society. In the hands of his +followers all his half-hearted qualifications were torn away and +political economy became the rigid soulless doctrine of every man for +himself and the devil take the hindermost, and all sympathy for the +exploited was strangled by the Ricardian "iron law of wages." That +Ruskin entirely annihilated the brazen doctrine in the first three pages +of *Unto this Last*, published in 1862, by exposing the fallacy +underlying the method of reasoning of the Manchester economists, any one +with an ounce of logic in his composition is well aware. Yet in spite of +this it showed no signs of weakening until its most distinguished +adherent, John Stuart Mill, disowned the superstition seven years +afterwards, in 1869. + +Apologists of Adam Smith urge in his defence that the governing class +took only so much from his teaching as suited them and ignored the rest, +and he is therefore not to be blamed for the misinterpretation or +misapplication of his principles. While this plea may be urged in +defence of other men, it cannot be urged in the case of Adam Smith. Most +pioneers of thought have to complain that their followers have been true +to the letter of their advice while their spirit has been neglected, but +the governing class were true to the spirit of Adam Smith's gospel if +not to the letter. If Adam Smith really thought that he could on the one +hand urge individuals to pursue their own selfish interests and at the +same time forgo in the public interest any privileges they might +possess, he is to be regarded as a fool of the first order, half-witted +as Ruskin called him, entirely destitute of any understanding of the +human psychology, for the heartless competition to which he condemned +those without privileges made those who possessed privileges cling to +them more tenaciously than ever. + +But the evil of Adam Smith's gospel does not end with the fact that it +confirmed the governing class in the pursuit of their own selfish +interests; it operated to force the working class to pursue the same +policy in self-defence. Hence the theory of Adam Smith leads logically +to that of Marx. The doctrine of individualism leads inevitably to that +of the Class War, which is the natural and inevitable rebellion of the +masses against a governing class that has become, in the words of Sir +Thomas More, "a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own +commodities under the name and title of the Common Wealth." # The Industrial Revolution -In the latter half of the eighteenth century there was -inaugurated a series of changes in methods of production -which gradually changed England from being a country mainly -rural and agricultural into one largely urban and -industrial. The period of transition is known as the -Industrial Revolution, and is roughly dated from about 1770 -to 1840, though of course these dates are entirely arbitrary -inasmuch as industry had been moving in this direction for -at least the two preceding centuries, while the development -and expansion of the forces then set in motion have -continued ever since. But it was during those years that the -really dramatic changes were made. In 1769 Watts made the -steam engine of Newcomen into a really practical and -commercial thing by the introduction of a separate -condenser, and this invention was the central agency for -transforming industry from a basis of handicraft to machine -production. Meanwhile the textile industry was becoming -rapidly mechanized. In 1730 Kay invented the flying shuttle; -in 1770 Hargreaves the spinning jenny. Arkwright, Compton -and Cartwright followed with their inventions which made -possible the application of steam power to textile -production. The ball was now fairly set rolling; inventions -in one trade promoted inventions in another. The inventions -of the cotton industry were adapted to the woollen and linen -trades, to hosiery, silk and lace-making. First one trade -and then another succumbed to the new inventions until in -our day this tendency has reached its climax in the growth -of automatic machinery to which the war gave such an -impetus. - -For some time before the Industrial Revolution burst upon -the world industry had been becoming more mechanical. The -introduction into the workshops of the system of the -division of labour in the seventeenth century by splitting -up the handicrafts into simple detailed operations paved the -way for change. For as machinery in its infancy was only -capable of performing separate and simplified operations, it -is evident that so long as all the operations necessary to -production in any of the handicrafts were the work of a -skilled handicraftsman machinery could make very little -headway. But when the individual labourer was confined in -his operations to a single simple mechanical task, the road -was paved for the introduction of machinery by simplifying -the problem of the inventor. - -This change from a qualitative to a quantitative basis for -industry was not introduced without a considerable amount of -opposition, which came both from above and from below. The -craftsmen hated it, and it is safe to say the change would -never have been made but for the defeat of the Guilds, since -so long as the workers retained any control over the -conditions of their employment they would resist changes in -production which destroyed pleasure in work and involved -their personal degradation. The instinct of the craftsman is -always against factory production. There is no *Mediaeval -prejudice* about this, for in this respect craftsmen have -not changed since the Middle Ages. The hand-loom weavers -refused to go into the factories in Lancashire, though the -wages were higher, because they hated the discipline of the -factories and felt it a moral sur render to accept -voluntarily such conditions of servitude. "Although to the -authors of the books on the advantages of machinery, -invention seemed to have lightened the drudgery of men and -women, it had introduced a wearing tension; the nervous -strain of watching machinery and working with machinery aged -men and women faster than the heaviest physical -exertions."Every craftsman instinctively knows this, and it -is this that lies at the bottom of their hatred of -machinery. The class to-day, as at the time of the -Industrial Revolution, which is most certain of the benefits -of machinery is the class the farthest removed from it, who -profit by the conveniences it brings them and who are not -called upon to support its burden. As the class which was -required to attend machinery viewed the matter otherwise, it -is apparent that its introduction pre supposes the existence -of a slave class in society that can be exploited. Indeed, -it was from such a class that the first factory operatives -came. "There were three main disturbances of the regular -life of the time to account for the great stream of -population into Lancashire and the adjacent counties. There -was, first, the agrarian revolution in England, -dispossessing a large number of small agriculturists and -breaking down the life and economy of the old village. There -was, secondly, the congestion of Ireland and the acute -distress caused by the exaction? of an absentee -landlord-class. There was, in the third place, the long war; -the disbanding of a huge army let loose a flood of men whose -ties with their own homes were broken. The building of -canals and bridges helped to make labour more mobile, and -these enterprises drew people to the districts where labour -was wanted for the factories." - -Until the middle of the seventeenth century the efforts of -the workers to resist mechanical innovations found support -in high quarters. It is well known that the Tudors were -consistently opposed to the introduction of machinery which -was injurious to handicraftsmen or would lower the standard -of quality in the articles produced. For a long period they -appear to have regarded machinery with the same hostility as -did the Luddites in the early years of the nineteenth -century. Inventive genius was then termed "subtle -imagination," and any substitute for the manufacture by -hands and feet was regarded as the ruin of the industry -concerned. For this reason the fulling mill in 1482, the gig -mill in 1552, and the tucking mill in 1555 were -discountenanced. The advisers of Edward VI and Elizabeth, -though they encouraged foreign trade, were equally opposed -to mechanical innovations. James I and Charles I assumed the -same attitude. They stood by the handicraftsmen and insisted -that manufacturers should not dismiss their workmen owing to -fluctuations of trade which had been artificially created by -themselves in their pursuit of a quantitative ideal in -production. Next to keeping men in employment, the chief -object which the first of the Stuarts set before themselves -was the maintenance of a high standard of quality in the -goods produced, and for this purpose they sought to arrest -that steady deterioration of quality in wares which had -followed the defeat of the Guilds, by providing supervision -for existing industries. - -For a long time the opposition was successful in checking -the mechanical tendency in industry. But it was broken down -finally by the combined influence of two forces---the growth -of foreign trade and the Puritan Movement. The discovery of -America had provided England with an apparently -inexhaustible market for its commodities. This removed the -economic objection to change by providing an outlet for the -surplus products which accompanied efforts to place -production on a quantitative basis. As the fear of -unemployment was diminished the opposition was deprived of -its strongest argument---the only one perhaps that would -carry any weight with the middle-class Puritans, who were -now becoming such a power in the land, and who joined with -the landlords to overthrow Charles at the Civil War. With -the defeat of Charles the old order came to an end. Nothing -now stood in the way of business and enter prise, sweating -and mechanical industry. The mind of the Puritan was hard -and mechanical, devoid alike of any love of beauty or human -sympathy. The Puritans were in the main recruited from the -trading classes of the community, and denounced the -restrictions which Charles imposed on machinery as an -interference with personal liberty. Any thought of putting a -boundary to mechanical development was to them insufferable -tyranny, and there can be little doubt that the attitude of -the Stuarts towards machinery and their attempts to stem the -tide of capitalist industry was a chief contributory cause -of the Civil War. Their interferences naturally gave rise to -discontent among men whose ruling passion was that of -avarice and whose natures were so corrupted as to exalt this -besetting sin of theirs to the level of a virtue, celebrated -at a later day by Samuel Smiles. This perversion of the -nature of the Puritan is to be attributed to the fact that -he denied himself all the normal pleasures of life. He was -cruel to himself, and so he found no difficulty in being -cruel to others, especially when it was of assistance to him -in the making of money. - -It was because the Industrial Revolution was dominated by -the Puritan spirit that it was so relentless in its cruelty. -When we read of the terrible conditions of factory life in -Lancashire during this period, of workers locked in -factories, of the heartless exploitation of women and young -children, of the ceaseless day and night work, of children -working by relays and sleeping in filthy beds that were -never allowed to cool, of weary hands and feet following -rapidly the quick movements of the never-tiring machines, we -realize that it was dominated by men who had become -dehumanized, and that the personal independence of the -workers must have entirely disappeared, for no class of -human beings would consent to submit to such conditions who -retained a scrap of independence. It was not until 1832 that -the factory working day was reduced to twelve hours and to -ten hours in 1847. It was not without good reason that at -Ashton in 1831 it was declared " that the negroes were -slaves in name but the factory employees were slaves in -reality." - -What happened in England appears to have happened wherever -industrialism has been introduced. The Prussian Government -deliberately dispossessed the Polish peasantry of their -lands in order to ensure a cheap supply of labour for their -factories. America still exploits the cheap labour of -Eastern Europeans, while until quite recently child labour -was exploited in the cotton mills of the Southern States -almost as mercilessly as it was in England before the -passing of the Factory Acts. The Swadeshi Movement is -closely associated with the introduction of Industrialism -into India, and under its auspices the same evils are being -created. Just what the factory system is beginning to mean -for India is to be inferred from a recent report of the -Indian Factory Commission: "In daylight mills the average -working time for the whole year is twelve hours and five -minutes; in mills fitted with electric light thirteen to -thirteen and a half hours." But the Commissioners say "in -some provinces the law is ignored to an extent not hitherto -imagined. The law referring to the half-hour's recess is -generally disregarded in rice mills, grinding factories and -flour mills throughout India." In Bombay the factory -operatives inhabit slums of the most wretched character, -crowded and insanitary. Indeed, India appears to be -light-heartedly plunging into the sufferings which are the -inevitable accompaniment of factory production. - -Nowadays the Industrial system encompasses us on all sides, -and the question may be asked, Has the system come to stay -or are the difficulties in which it finds itself to-day the -beginning of the end? If the answer to this question -depended upon votes I doubt not there would be an -overwhelming majority in favour of its retention, for the -mass of people to-day are so much a part of the system as to -be incapable of understanding how the needs of society could -be met apart from our huge machinery. They fail altogether -to realize that in the fifteenth century the wages of the -town artisan worked out at six or seven times the cost of -his board, and the agricultural labourer earned two-thirds -of this amount. Though nearly everybody is dissatisfied with -the present order of society, very few people suspect that -there is any connection between the evils they deplore and -industrial methods of production. Others, realizing that the -social problem preceded the Industrial Revolution, are -disposed to dismiss the industrial problem as a false issue. -Neither our own nor future generations, they contend, can +In the latter half of the eighteenth century there was inaugurated a +series of changes in methods of production which gradually changed +England from being a country mainly rural and agricultural into one +largely urban and industrial. The period of transition is known as the +Industrial Revolution, and is roughly dated from about 1770 to 1840, +though of course these dates are entirely arbitrary inasmuch as industry +had been moving in this direction for at least the two preceding +centuries, while the development and expansion of the forces then set in +motion have continued ever since. But it was during those years that the +really dramatic changes were made. In 1769 Watts made the steam engine +of Newcomen into a really practical and commercial thing by the +introduction of a separate condenser, and this invention was the central +agency for transforming industry from a basis of handicraft to machine +production. Meanwhile the textile industry was becoming rapidly +mechanized. In 1730 Kay invented the flying shuttle; in 1770 Hargreaves +the spinning jenny. Arkwright, Compton and Cartwright followed with +their inventions which made possible the application of steam power to +textile production. The ball was now fairly set rolling; inventions in +one trade promoted inventions in another. The inventions of the cotton +industry were adapted to the woollen and linen trades, to hosiery, silk +and lace-making. First one trade and then another succumbed to the new +inventions until in our day this tendency has reached its climax in the +growth of automatic machinery to which the war gave such an impetus. + +For some time before the Industrial Revolution burst upon the world +industry had been becoming more mechanical. The introduction into the +workshops of the system of the division of labour in the seventeenth +century by splitting up the handicrafts into simple detailed operations +paved the way for change. For as machinery in its infancy was only +capable of performing separate and simplified operations, it is evident +that so long as all the operations necessary to production in any of the +handicrafts were the work of a skilled handicraftsman machinery could +make very little headway. But when the individual labourer was confined +in his operations to a single simple mechanical task, the road was paved +for the introduction of machinery by simplifying the problem of the +inventor. + +This change from a qualitative to a quantitative basis for industry was +not introduced without a considerable amount of opposition, which came +both from above and from below. The craftsmen hated it, and it is safe +to say the change would never have been made but for the defeat of the +Guilds, since so long as the workers retained any control over the +conditions of their employment they would resist changes in production +which destroyed pleasure in work and involved their personal +degradation. The instinct of the craftsman is always against factory +production. There is no *Mediaeval prejudice* about this, for in this +respect craftsmen have not changed since the Middle Ages. The hand-loom +weavers refused to go into the factories in Lancashire, though the wages +were higher, because they hated the discipline of the factories and felt +it a moral sur render to accept voluntarily such conditions of +servitude. "Although to the authors of the books on the advantages of +machinery, invention seemed to have lightened the drudgery of men and +women, it had introduced a wearing tension; the nervous strain of +watching machinery and working with machinery aged men and women faster +than the heaviest physical exertions."Every craftsman instinctively +knows this, and it is this that lies at the bottom of their hatred of +machinery. The class to-day, as at the time of the Industrial +Revolution, which is most certain of the benefits of machinery is the +class the farthest removed from it, who profit by the conveniences it +brings them and who are not called upon to support its burden. As the +class which was required to attend machinery viewed the matter +otherwise, it is apparent that its introduction pre supposes the +existence of a slave class in society that can be exploited. Indeed, it +was from such a class that the first factory operatives came. "There +were three main disturbances of the regular life of the time to account +for the great stream of population into Lancashire and the adjacent +counties. There was, first, the agrarian revolution in England, +dispossessing a large number of small agriculturists and breaking down +the life and economy of the old village. There was, secondly, the +congestion of Ireland and the acute distress caused by the exaction? of +an absentee landlord-class. There was, in the third place, the long war; +the disbanding of a huge army let loose a flood of men whose ties with +their own homes were broken. The building of canals and bridges helped +to make labour more mobile, and these enterprises drew people to the +districts where labour was wanted for the factories." + +Until the middle of the seventeenth century the efforts of the workers +to resist mechanical innovations found support in high quarters. It is +well known that the Tudors were consistently opposed to the introduction +of machinery which was injurious to handicraftsmen or would lower the +standard of quality in the articles produced. For a long period they +appear to have regarded machinery with the same hostility as did the +Luddites in the early years of the nineteenth century. Inventive genius +was then termed "subtle imagination," and any substitute for the +manufacture by hands and feet was regarded as the ruin of the industry +concerned. For this reason the fulling mill in 1482, the gig mill in +1552, and the tucking mill in 1555 were discountenanced. The advisers of +Edward VI and Elizabeth, though they encouraged foreign trade, were +equally opposed to mechanical innovations. James I and Charles I assumed +the same attitude. They stood by the handicraftsmen and insisted that +manufacturers should not dismiss their workmen owing to fluctuations of +trade which had been artificially created by themselves in their pursuit +of a quantitative ideal in production. Next to keeping men in +employment, the chief object which the first of the Stuarts set before +themselves was the maintenance of a high standard of quality in the +goods produced, and for this purpose they sought to arrest that steady +deterioration of quality in wares which had followed the defeat of the +Guilds, by providing supervision for existing industries. + +For a long time the opposition was successful in checking the mechanical +tendency in industry. But it was broken down finally by the combined +influence of two forces---the growth of foreign trade and the Puritan +Movement. The discovery of America had provided England with an +apparently inexhaustible market for its commodities. This removed the +economic objection to change by providing an outlet for the surplus +products which accompanied efforts to place production on a quantitative +basis. As the fear of unemployment was diminished the opposition was +deprived of its strongest argument---the only one perhaps that would +carry any weight with the middle-class Puritans, who were now becoming +such a power in the land, and who joined with the landlords to overthrow +Charles at the Civil War. With the defeat of Charles the old order came +to an end. Nothing now stood in the way of business and enter prise, +sweating and mechanical industry. The mind of the Puritan was hard and +mechanical, devoid alike of any love of beauty or human sympathy. The +Puritans were in the main recruited from the trading classes of the +community, and denounced the restrictions which Charles imposed on +machinery as an interference with personal liberty. Any thought of +putting a boundary to mechanical development was to them insufferable +tyranny, and there can be little doubt that the attitude of the Stuarts +towards machinery and their attempts to stem the tide of capitalist +industry was a chief contributory cause of the Civil War. Their +interferences naturally gave rise to discontent among men whose ruling +passion was that of avarice and whose natures were so corrupted as to +exalt this besetting sin of theirs to the level of a virtue, celebrated +at a later day by Samuel Smiles. This perversion of the nature of the +Puritan is to be attributed to the fact that he denied himself all the +normal pleasures of life. He was cruel to himself, and so he found no +difficulty in being cruel to others, especially when it was of +assistance to him in the making of money. + +It was because the Industrial Revolution was dominated by the Puritan +spirit that it was so relentless in its cruelty. When we read of the +terrible conditions of factory life in Lancashire during this period, of +workers locked in factories, of the heartless exploitation of women and +young children, of the ceaseless day and night work, of children working +by relays and sleeping in filthy beds that were never allowed to cool, +of weary hands and feet following rapidly the quick movements of the +never-tiring machines, we realize that it was dominated by men who had +become dehumanized, and that the personal independence of the workers +must have entirely disappeared, for no class of human beings would +consent to submit to such conditions who retained a scrap of +independence. It was not until 1832 that the factory working day was +reduced to twelve hours and to ten hours in 1847. It was not without +good reason that at Ashton in 1831 it was declared " that the negroes +were slaves in name but the factory employees were slaves in reality." + +What happened in England appears to have happened wherever industrialism +has been introduced. The Prussian Government deliberately dispossessed +the Polish peasantry of their lands in order to ensure a cheap supply of +labour for their factories. America still exploits the cheap labour of +Eastern Europeans, while until quite recently child labour was exploited +in the cotton mills of the Southern States almost as mercilessly as it +was in England before the passing of the Factory Acts. The Swadeshi +Movement is closely associated with the introduction of Industrialism +into India, and under its auspices the same evils are being created. +Just what the factory system is beginning to mean for India is to be +inferred from a recent report of the Indian Factory Commission: "In +daylight mills the average working time for the whole year is twelve +hours and five minutes; in mills fitted with electric light thirteen to +thirteen and a half hours." But the Commissioners say "in some provinces +the law is ignored to an extent not hitherto imagined. The law referring +to the half-hour's recess is generally disregarded in rice mills, +grinding factories and flour mills throughout India." In Bombay the +factory operatives inhabit slums of the most wretched character, crowded +and insanitary. Indeed, India appears to be light-heartedly plunging +into the sufferings which are the inevitable accompaniment of factory +production. + +Nowadays the Industrial system encompasses us on all sides, and the +question may be asked, Has the system come to stay or are the +difficulties in which it finds itself to-day the beginning of the end? +If the answer to this question depended upon votes I doubt not there +would be an overwhelming majority in favour of its retention, for the +mass of people to-day are so much a part of the system as to be +incapable of understanding how the needs of society could be met apart +from our huge machinery. They fail altogether to realize that in the +fifteenth century the wages of the town artisan worked out at six or +seven times the cost of his board, and the agricultural labourer earned +two-thirds of this amount. Though nearly everybody is dissatisfied with +the present order of society, very few people suspect that there is any +connection between the evils they deplore and industrial methods of +production. Others, realizing that the social problem preceded the +Industrial Revolution, are disposed to dismiss the industrial problem as +a false issue. Neither our own nor future generations, they contend, can escape the influence of modern technology. -Now quite apart from the issue as to whether modern -technology is entitled to the respect with which it is -customary to regard it, it is manifest that it has been -reared on a base of social and economic injustice and that -it is maintained to-day by a highly complex system of -finance. It follows, therefore, that any change which -threatens this basis must react on the technology. If the -highly complex system of finance were to break down, as it -already shows signs of doing, modern technology would be -involved in the catastrophe. A very few years of social -confusion and the fabric of technology would be in pieces. -For whereas a simple or primitive technology can speedily -recover from violent upheavals, a highly complex and -artificial one cannot, because its maintenance is dependent -upon a high degree of co-operation. The imminence of an -economic breakdown which is becoming generally admitted, -raises, therefore, the question, Could the modern technology -be rebuilt after the breakdown? - -Now, it is my contention that the economic and psychological -conditions necessary to reconstruct it will be absent. Once -there is a breakdown the spell that blinds the modern world -will be broken and all the anarchistic tendencies of the -modern man will be liberated. Every popular demand to-day is -for something which is incompatible with the industrial -order. That this incompatibility is not recognized is due to -the fact that few people trouble to carry ideas to their -logical conclusions and imagine they can eat their cake and -have it at the same time. The realization of these demands -will, so far as the Industrial system is concerned, be like -putting new wine into old bottles, and it will burst the -bottles. The Industrial system demands for its maintenance -the servitude of the workers, while the workers demand -liberty. The life and soul of the system is the race for -profits; the workers demand production shall be for use and -not for profit. Its finance and technology involve a highly -centralized control; the workers demand a distributive -initiative. This demand for something which is incompatible -with the industrial ideal is not only confined to the -consciously organized political workers; it is made by -individuals in their private capacity in every rank of -society. Industrialism, built upon the division of labour, -denies men pleasure in their work. The consequence is that -men seek happiness in other ways, in the pursuit of pleasure -in their leisure, in the excitement of gambling. Both of -these things tend to undermine the old hard Puritanical -morale which built up and maintained the system. The -gambling spirit in trade has, through profiteering, -dislocated the economic system, and led men to trust to -chance rather than hard work for success in life. The -craving for pleasure has become such that only the external -pressure of circumstances can keep men at work. The reaction -against speeding up has come. Nobody nowadays wants to do -any work. The old incentives are gone. Interest has gone out -of work, and there is no prospect of the workmen setting up -in business on his own account, which up to a generation ago +Now quite apart from the issue as to whether modern technology is +entitled to the respect with which it is customary to regard it, it is +manifest that it has been reared on a base of social and economic +injustice and that it is maintained to-day by a highly complex system of +finance. It follows, therefore, that any change which threatens this +basis must react on the technology. If the highly complex system of +finance were to break down, as it already shows signs of doing, modern +technology would be involved in the catastrophe. A very few years of +social confusion and the fabric of technology would be in pieces. For +whereas a simple or primitive technology can speedily recover from +violent upheavals, a highly complex and artificial one cannot, because +its maintenance is dependent upon a high degree of co-operation. The +imminence of an economic breakdown which is becoming generally admitted, +raises, therefore, the question, Could the modern technology be rebuilt +after the breakdown? + +Now, it is my contention that the economic and psychological conditions +necessary to reconstruct it will be absent. Once there is a breakdown +the spell that blinds the modern world will be broken and all the +anarchistic tendencies of the modern man will be liberated. Every +popular demand to-day is for something which is incompatible with the +industrial order. That this incompatibility is not recognized is due to +the fact that few people trouble to carry ideas to their logical +conclusions and imagine they can eat their cake and have it at the same +time. The realization of these demands will, so far as the Industrial +system is concerned, be like putting new wine into old bottles, and it +will burst the bottles. The Industrial system demands for its +maintenance the servitude of the workers, while the workers demand +liberty. The life and soul of the system is the race for profits; the +workers demand production shall be for use and not for profit. Its +finance and technology involve a highly centralized control; the workers +demand a distributive initiative. This demand for something which is +incompatible with the industrial ideal is not only confined to the +consciously organized political workers; it is made by individuals in +their private capacity in every rank of society. Industrialism, built +upon the division of labour, denies men pleasure in their work. The +consequence is that men seek happiness in other ways, in the pursuit of +pleasure in their leisure, in the excitement of gambling. Both of these +things tend to undermine the old hard Puritanical morale which built up +and maintained the system. The gambling spirit in trade has, through +profiteering, dislocated the economic system, and led men to trust to +chance rather than hard work for success in life. The craving for +pleasure has become such that only the external pressure of +circumstances can keep men at work. The reaction against speeding up has +come. Nobody nowadays wants to do any work. The old incentives are gone. +Interest has gone out of work, and there is no prospect of the workmen +setting up in business on his own account, which up to a generation ago preserved a certain morale in industry. Experience in large -organizations has taught men that success and promotion do -not come to the conscientious or capable worker, but to the -toady and bluffer. All this is demoralizing, and provides no -basis for the future reconstruction of industry on a -mechanical basis. Now that the workers are organized, the -demand of the rank and file is not to control industry. They -have too strong a sense of human values to desire that but -to get through the day with the least possible effort. The -reason for this is that what the workers in their hearts -really desire is control of their own lives in the same way -that the hand-loom weavers had control; and it is because -mass production everywhere stands between them and such -control that subconsciously they everywhere seek the +organizations has taught men that success and promotion do not come to +the conscientious or capable worker, but to the toady and bluffer. All +this is demoralizing, and provides no basis for the future +reconstruction of industry on a mechanical basis. Now that the workers +are organized, the demand of the rank and file is not to control +industry. They have too strong a sense of human values to desire that +but to get through the day with the least possible effort. The reason +for this is that what the workers in their hearts really desire is +control of their own lives in the same way that the hand-loom weavers +had control; and it is because mass production everywhere stands between +them and such control that subconsciously they everywhere seek the destruction of the industrial system. -In these circumstances, if industry is to be rebuilt after -the economic breakdown, it will have to be rebuilt upon a -different foundation, and its central aim must be to give -back to men pleasure in their work. A rebuilt Industrialism -cannot do this, because its central principle is that of the -division of labour. It is all very well for would-be -industrial reformers to talk about stimulating the creative -impulse of industry, but the system of the division of -labour precludes this possibility. I confess to a complete -inability to understand reformers who talk about -"stimulating the impulses of youth for creative existence" -and don't challenge the system of the division of labour. I -doubt very much whether they mean anything. Nay, I do not -doubt it; I am sure of it. We know that the system of the -division of labour was the great factor in the destruction -of the creative impulse, and we may be sure that the impulse -will not reappear until the system is destroyed. It came -into existence for the purposes of exploitation, and it will -go with it. If men are ever to regain control over their -environment, the system of the division of labour will need -to be broken, since so long as it remains the mass of -workers will be at the mercy of the power that directs the -system. - -But, it will be asked, is machinery to disappear? It will -need to in so far as its effect has been to enslave man. -Generally speaking, this would mean that small machines -would be permitted, while large ones would be forbidden on -the principle that a large machine tends to enslave man, -because he must sacrifice himself mentally and morally to -keep it in commission, whereas a small one has not this -effect, because it can be turned on and off at will. -Exceptions would have to be made to this rule, as in the -case of pumping and lifting machinery where no question of -keeping it in commission necessarily enters. The difficulty -of deciding where a machine was and was not harmful would -not be difficult to determine once the general principle -were admitted that machinery needs to be subordinated to -man. +In these circumstances, if industry is to be rebuilt after the economic +breakdown, it will have to be rebuilt upon a different foundation, and +its central aim must be to give back to men pleasure in their work. A +rebuilt Industrialism cannot do this, because its central principle is +that of the division of labour. It is all very well for would-be +industrial reformers to talk about stimulating the creative impulse of +industry, but the system of the division of labour precludes this +possibility. I confess to a complete inability to understand reformers +who talk about "stimulating the impulses of youth for creative +existence" and don't challenge the system of the division of labour. I +doubt very much whether they mean anything. Nay, I do not doubt it; I am +sure of it. We know that the system of the division of labour was the +great factor in the destruction of the creative impulse, and we may be +sure that the impulse will not reappear until the system is destroyed. +It came into existence for the purposes of exploitation, and it will go +with it. If men are ever to regain control over their environment, the +system of the division of labour will need to be broken, since so long +as it remains the mass of workers will be at the mercy of the power that +directs the system. + +But, it will be asked, is machinery to disappear? It will need to in so +far as its effect has been to enslave man. Generally speaking, this +would mean that small machines would be permitted, while large ones +would be forbidden on the principle that a large machine tends to +enslave man, because he must sacrifice himself mentally and morally to +keep it in commission, whereas a small one has not this effect, because +it can be turned on and off at will. Exceptions would have to be made to +this rule, as in the case of pumping and lifting machinery where no +question of keeping it in commission necessarily enters. The difficulty +of deciding where a machine was and was not harmful would not be +difficult to determine once the general principle were admitted that +machinery needs to be subordinated to man. # Parliamentarianism and the Nineteenth Century -By the end of the eighteenth century the regime established -by the Reformation in England began to show signs of -breaking down. The pursuit of wealth which had been the -vitalizing principle of the period was bringing in its train -all manner of economic and political complications. It had -resulted in the concentration of wealth in the hands of the -few. Class divisions and class hatred were increasing. Money -made in trade was employed in land speculation. Rents were -raised and wages reduced. After the Napoleonic wars there -came economic stagnation and widespread unemployment. -Government had fallen into the hands of an oligarchy who -wielded all political power. Spiritually, society was dead. -Religion had reached its lowest ebb. Architecture had become -a lifeless formula. The crafts, from being media of -aesthetic expression, had degenerated into affairs of trade -and commerce. Some slight tradition of art lingered in -painting, which henceforth monopolized the name of art. -Political science as a theory of the social organism had -entirely disappeared, and its place had been taken by a new -political economy which revived the laws of the jungle. -Nothing now remained of the old mediaeval order but its -human tradition which survived among the poor. Mankind was -left +By the end of the eighteenth century the regime established by the +Reformation in England began to show signs of breaking down. The pursuit +of wealth which had been the vitalizing principle of the period was +bringing in its train all manner of economic and political +complications. It had resulted in the concentration of wealth in the +hands of the few. Class divisions and class hatred were increasing. +Money made in trade was employed in land speculation. Rents were raised +and wages reduced. After the Napoleonic wars there came economic +stagnation and widespread unemployment. Government had fallen into the +hands of an oligarchy who wielded all political power. Spiritually, +society was dead. Religion had reached its lowest ebb. Architecture had +become a lifeless formula. The crafts, from being media of aesthetic +expression, had degenerated into affairs of trade and commerce. Some +slight tradition of art lingered in painting, which henceforth +monopolized the name of art. Political science as a theory of the social +organism had entirely disappeared, and its place had been taken by a new +political economy which revived the laws of the jungle. Nothing now +remained of the old mediaeval order but its human tradition which +survived among the poor. Mankind was left >  Wandering between two worlds, one dead, > @@ -9242,2515 +7740,2102 @@ left The nineteenth century is the story of the wandering. -Though the world was dead, it was not without hope. The old -order was gone. Most people thought it had gone for ever, -for out of its ashes new hopes had arisen. The French -Revolution and the Industrial Revolution combined to give -the age a vision. It was not the vision of a new social -order, but of idealized anarchy, for the impulse of the -century was destructive rather than constructive. Social -order is impossible apart from privileges involving -reciprocal rights and duties. But privileges in the -post-Reformation period had come into disrepute, partly -because they were monopolized by the few instead of being -shared by the many, as was the case in the Middle Ages, but -mainly because they were so grossly abused by those who -claimed rights but repudiated responsibilities. Hence it was -that as privileges were associated with tyranny, liberty, in -the minds of Radicals, became associated with the abolition -of privileges, with the negation of social order, with -anarchy. The French Revolution had given men the hope that -the governing class might be overthrown. But its influence -was ephemeral and had evaporated by the middle of the -century. It is less to the influence of the French -Revolution than to that of the Industrial Revolution that we -must look for an interpretation of the nineteenth century, -for it was the central driving force which completely -disrupted what remained of the old social order, reducing it -to atomic units which lacked the principle of cohesion -except for the purposes of economic and military defence. -That so little resistance was offered to the socially -disintegrating influence of machinery was due to the fact -that the automaton came to exercise an influence over the -minds of men akin to that of magic. It hypnotized them into -the belief that there was some virtue in change for the sake -of change, that what was new was in some mysterious way -superior to the old and that in some way unknown to -themselves the machine would, if given free play, solve all -social problems. For so many generations had the descendants -of the men who stole the Church lands drilled into the minds -of the people the idea that the Middle Ages was a period of -black tyranny, ignorance, superstition and poverty, that a -prejudice had been created which was fatal to all clear -thinking on social questions and credence was given to the -idea, enunciated by Adam Smith, that poverty was due to lack -of productive power instead of to gross social and economic -injustice, as was actually the case. It was thus that during -the nineteenth century faith in the benevolence of machinery -became the faith of the people. Its sufficiency was exalted -into a dogma above and beyond discussion. A man might -question God but not the machine---to do so was heresy in -the nineteenth century. Hence the key to the century is not -to be found in ideas, for the great men of the century left -no permanent impression on their age, but in this hypnotic -belief in progress which carried all before it. As the -machine created problem after problem, barrier after barrier -was swept away, and as each one was swept away civilization -found itself somewhere where it never expected to be. - -The change in the material and economic base of society was -accompanied by the growth of an intellectual fluidity which -is really not so much a definite conviction or emotion as a -rotting or a deliquescence, a melting and confounding of the -outlines of beliefs and desires, a going to slush of all -values, a thawing and liquefaction of all that was hard and -permanent in the world... The whole of modernism is an -attempt to obliterate distinctions---to discover similarity -and unity everywhere. All men are equal, men are the same as -women, good is the same as evil, freewill does not exist, -catastrophe has no place in the universe, and everything is -gradually evolved."[^2] The first step in this movement -towards the obliteration of varieties was taken by Adam -Smith in the *Wealth of Nations*; the last was taken by -Mr. Bernard Shaw in the *Quintessence of Ibsenism*. It was -Mr. Shaw's strange ambition to emancipate mankind by -emptying life of its remaining contents, but the more -Mr. Shaw seeks to change things the more he reveals himself -a child of the established material fact, who is content to -take the material achievement for granted as a thing of -permanence and stability. He had lived all his life in a -world of illusions, vainly imagining he was at work laying -the foundations of a new social order, whereas in reality he -was doing nothing more or less than assisting to remove the -last barrier that stood between industrial civilization and -its final catastrophe. For catastrophe became inevitable -from the day it became the fashion for men to deny its -possibility; for when the fear of catastrophe was removed no -power remained capable of restraining the forces of social -destruction. These crazy heretical philosophers were -followed in the nineteenth century because they were the -only people who could set things in motion. After the -Napoleonic wars economic stagnation had overtaken England as -a consequence of the concentration of wealth in the hands of -a few. In the normal course of affairs this undue -concentration would have led to a revolution in England as -it did in France, but this was averted by following the -advice of these false prophets who taught the governing -class the art of postponing the crisis by extending the area -of exploitation. This was the secret of the success of the -Free Trade policy; of the economic relief which uncontrolled -machinery brought. By producing large quantities of goods -cheaply, which enabled our manufacturers to exploit distant -markets, by the development of railway building which -offered new opportunities for investment and caused a great -shifting of the centres of population from villages to small -towns and from small towns to big ones, activity was -stimulated in every direction. This temporarily -decentralized wealth and brought about a distributed -initiative. The prosperity thus artificially created led -people to suppose that the principles of the new political -economy were eternally true instead of being a mere -theoretical justification of measures of economic -expediency, useful at a particular juncture but with no -finality about them. The supposed central truth of the new -economics having been established in this way, sophists -found no difficulty in persuading the world that all other -ideas and traditions which clashed with the demands -of"progress" were of themselves dated. Such ideas, they -affirmed, might be true at one stage of social evolution but -not at another. All truth, they maintained, was relative; +Though the world was dead, it was not without hope. The old order was +gone. Most people thought it had gone for ever, for out of its ashes new +hopes had arisen. The French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution +combined to give the age a vision. It was not the vision of a new social +order, but of idealized anarchy, for the impulse of the century was +destructive rather than constructive. Social order is impossible apart +from privileges involving reciprocal rights and duties. But privileges +in the post-Reformation period had come into disrepute, partly because +they were monopolized by the few instead of being shared by the many, as +was the case in the Middle Ages, but mainly because they were so grossly +abused by those who claimed rights but repudiated responsibilities. +Hence it was that as privileges were associated with tyranny, liberty, +in the minds of Radicals, became associated with the abolition of +privileges, with the negation of social order, with anarchy. The French +Revolution had given men the hope that the governing class might be +overthrown. But its influence was ephemeral and had evaporated by the +middle of the century. It is less to the influence of the French +Revolution than to that of the Industrial Revolution that we must look +for an interpretation of the nineteenth century, for it was the central +driving force which completely disrupted what remained of the old social +order, reducing it to atomic units which lacked the principle of +cohesion except for the purposes of economic and military defence. That +so little resistance was offered to the socially disintegrating +influence of machinery was due to the fact that the automaton came to +exercise an influence over the minds of men akin to that of magic. It +hypnotized them into the belief that there was some virtue in change for +the sake of change, that what was new was in some mysterious way +superior to the old and that in some way unknown to themselves the +machine would, if given free play, solve all social problems. For so +many generations had the descendants of the men who stole the Church +lands drilled into the minds of the people the idea that the Middle Ages +was a period of black tyranny, ignorance, superstition and poverty, that +a prejudice had been created which was fatal to all clear thinking on +social questions and credence was given to the idea, enunciated by Adam +Smith, that poverty was due to lack of productive power instead of to +gross social and economic injustice, as was actually the case. It was +thus that during the nineteenth century faith in the benevolence of +machinery became the faith of the people. Its sufficiency was exalted +into a dogma above and beyond discussion. A man might question God but +not the machine---to do so was heresy in the nineteenth century. Hence +the key to the century is not to be found in ideas, for the great men of +the century left no permanent impression on their age, but in this +hypnotic belief in progress which carried all before it. As the machine +created problem after problem, barrier after barrier was swept away, and +as each one was swept away civilization found itself somewhere where it +never expected to be. + +The change in the material and economic base of society was accompanied +by the growth of an intellectual fluidity which is really not so much a +definite conviction or emotion as a rotting or a deliquescence, a +melting and confounding of the outlines of beliefs and desires, a going +to slush of all values, a thawing and liquefaction of all that was hard +and permanent in the world... The whole of modernism is an attempt to +obliterate distinctions---to discover similarity and unity everywhere. +All men are equal, men are the same as women, good is the same as evil, +freewill does not exist, catastrophe has no place in the universe, and +everything is gradually evolved."[^2] The first step in this movement +towards the obliteration of varieties was taken by Adam Smith in the +*Wealth of Nations*; the last was taken by Mr. Bernard Shaw in the +*Quintessence of Ibsenism*. It was Mr. Shaw's strange ambition to +emancipate mankind by emptying life of its remaining contents, but the +more Mr. Shaw seeks to change things the more he reveals himself a child +of the established material fact, who is content to take the material +achievement for granted as a thing of permanence and stability. He had +lived all his life in a world of illusions, vainly imagining he was at +work laying the foundations of a new social order, whereas in reality he +was doing nothing more or less than assisting to remove the last barrier +that stood between industrial civilization and its final catastrophe. +For catastrophe became inevitable from the day it became the fashion for +men to deny its possibility; for when the fear of catastrophe was +removed no power remained capable of restraining the forces of social +destruction. These crazy heretical philosophers were followed in the +nineteenth century because they were the only people who could set +things in motion. After the Napoleonic wars economic stagnation had +overtaken England as a consequence of the concentration of wealth in the +hands of a few. In the normal course of affairs this undue concentration +would have led to a revolution in England as it did in France, but this +was averted by following the advice of these false prophets who taught +the governing class the art of postponing the crisis by extending the +area of exploitation. This was the secret of the success of the Free +Trade policy; of the economic relief which uncontrolled machinery +brought. By producing large quantities of goods cheaply, which enabled +our manufacturers to exploit distant markets, by the development of +railway building which offered new opportunities for investment and +caused a great shifting of the centres of population from villages to +small towns and from small towns to big ones, activity was stimulated in +every direction. This temporarily decentralized wealth and brought about +a distributed initiative. The prosperity thus artificially created led +people to suppose that the principles of the new political economy were +eternally true instead of being a mere theoretical justification of +measures of economic expediency, useful at a particular juncture but +with no finality about them. The supposed central truth of the new +economics having been established in this way, sophists found no +difficulty in persuading the world that all other ideas and traditions +which clashed with the demands of"progress" were of themselves dated. +Such ideas, they affirmed, might be true at one stage of social +evolution but not at another. All truth, they maintained, was relative; absolute truth did not exist. -Meanwhile people who had preserved their mental balance -found themselves at a disadvantage. To them the fallacies of -the new gospel were manifest. They found it easy to expose -them, but impossible to base any practical activity upon the -truth as they understood it. The reason for this was to be -found in the fact that since the decline of religion and art -the links between them and the popular mind had been broken. -They were no longer understood. Hence it came about that -throughout the nineteenth century efforts were made by means -of experiments and historical research to find lost roads -and to recover lost truths. Efforts were made to revive -religion, art and social science. This is the secret of the -great intellectual and scholastic activity of the nineteenth -century. Its aim was to enable men to regain that grip on -reality which they had lost. To talk about the nineteenth -century as being an age of enlightenment is nonsense. It was -perhaps the darkest period in history, when the great -traditions were dead; when great men groped for the light -and ordinary men were saved from despair by the hypnotism of -the machine. - -But the world heeded such workers little. The problems of -the immediate present pressed so heavily upon the majority -that they were in no mood to listen to any gospel that could -not promise immediate results. They were impatient with men -who took longer views. Hence it was all through the -nineteenth century the blind led the blind. Politics -concerned themselves with appearances; realities lived -underground. Two men only who were prominent in political -life were possessed of a strong sense of reality---Cobbett -and Disraeli. The former made a desperate effort to pump -realities into politics from below; the latter having failed -to pump realities into them from above, came to accept the -situation and exploit it. - -Cobbett towers above all his contemporaries as a man in -touch with realities. He associated himself with all the -Radicals of his age in their demand for the reform of -Parliament. Though he differed with them fundamentally as to -the nature of the problems of society, he saw as clearly as -they did the need of Parliamentary reform. The ideal of -government as it existed in the Middle Ages was to give -protection to the workers. It was for this purpose that -charters were given to the Guilds and the Feudal Lord held -his position. But since the revival of Roman Law, government -had become increasingly associated with exploitation, and -after the Reformation it existed for little else. The -plutocrats who controlled it not only refused to give the -people economic protection, but forbade them to organize to -protect themselves. In these circumstances the necessary -first step towards reform was to change the Government, but -as Parliament was elected upon a franchise which was limited -and corrupt, and the people were deprived of any place in -the social scheme, this involved electoral reform, upon -which, after the Napoleonic wars came to an end, the -Radicals concentrated their attention. - -Though for the attainment of electoral reform Cobbett -co-operated with the Radicals, he took a different view to -them on almost everything, and looking at the situation from -the point of view of to-day it is possible to say that -Cobbett was in the main right. He exhibited a wider grip of -the social problem than perhaps any one in the nineteenth -century, not to forget Ruskin. Though he recognized that the -governing class was corrupt, he nevertheless recognized that -the Tory stood for many things that were true. He did not -fall into that most hopeless of modern errors of assuming -that because men did not live up to their professions -therefore their professed faith was at fault, or that -because a creed contained a certain admixture of error it -might not contain a large element of truth. In the main -Cobbett was content to take the old political philosophies -and traditions for granted, and directed his attacks at the -governing class for misusing them. His fine traditional and -historic sense was here his salvation. Cobbett's *History of -the Reformation* may not be a work of scholarship, but it is -a work of genius. In it he shows an insight into the -Reformation and its political and economic consequence which -throws a flood of light on history and the economic problem. -It is superior to the economic histories of more recent -times to the extent that it recognizes the existence of -other things than economics. - -While Cobbett rose superior to the current historical -prejudices he saw more clearly than any other man the trend -of his age. Industrialism and Adam Smith he hated, and -indeed it was the combination of the two that made -Industrialism such a scourge. But in his protests against -factory life he appears to have stood alone among prominent -reformers. The Radicals who came after him accepted -Industrialism as an established fact, and Radicalism lost -its hold on the rural population. There can but be one -reason for this---that the peasantry felt that the Radicals -in accepting Industrialism and Adam Smith had deserted their -cause and that, bad as the Tories were, the Liberals stood -for something far worse. They felt instinctively that the -Radicals' gospel of salvation was calculated to make things -worse for them by rendering the circumstances of their life -even more unstable; and they were right. - -Not only did Radicalism by the support it gave to the -Manchester School lose the peasantry, but it divided the -forces of reform in the towns. It separated Middle-Class -from Working-Class reformers. The Reform Bill of 1832 -incorporated the new industrial towns and abolished the -rotten boroughs, but it did not secure payment of members. -Disappointment with the Reform Bill led to the Chartist -agitation, which was a combination of the old Radical -political party and the new Socialist and Trade Union -Movements. It revived the Radical programme of 1816. The -agitation, after being carried on for eleven years, reached -a climax when the Revolution of 1848 in France aroused them -to their last great effort. But it all came to nothing. -After 1848 the Trade Unionists retired from political -agitation and directed their attention exclusively to the -work of building up their own internal organizations---a -policy which they continued until in our day the Socialist -agitation brought them once more into the political field. -But in the meantime they succeeded in so consolidating their -strength that with their re-emergence they have become a -force to be reckoned with both in the political and -industrial world. There is no reason to doubt, therefore, -that their decision in 1848 to retire from political -agitation was the one that wisdom dictated. - -But there was another cause for the decline of working-class -political agitation after 1848---the development of railway -building. It was this perhaps more than anything else that -broke the power of the Chartist agitation by providing an -abundance of employment, which, except for short periods of -trade depression, lasted until the end of the century, and -which reconciled the workers to the fact of Industrialism, -if not whole-heartedly, at least to the extent of persuading -them that resistance to it was hopeless. It is well to -remember that the workers at any time have never really -believed in it. In its early days they definitely -disbelieved in it and did all in their power to resist its -encroachments, going so far in the days of the Luddite riots -as to break up machinery. If they came finally to acquiesce -if not to believe in Industrialism, it is because the old -order had so completely disappeared that they had no longer -anything with which to compare it. But still they are -restless under it and must increasingly become so until it -is finally destroyed; for a force so mechanical runs -contrary to every healthy normal human instinct, and no -peace or social and political stability is possible so long -as it remains. - -The immediate political effect of the acquiescence of the -working class in industrialism was their acceptance of the -political leadership of the new capitalists into whose hands -political power had passed. They were wealthy, and were able -successfully to dispute political power with the landed -plutocracy (whom it is customary to call the old -aristocracy), of whose rule the people had had such a bitter -experience. The new capitalists had restored prosperity. -Perhaps after all there was something to be said for them. -There are two sides to every question; the working class -might not be the entire receptacles of political wisdom. In -some such way as this, I imagine, a working man would -reason. Though he could not see eye to eye with the -capitalists, he nevertheless was up against the fact that -trade boomed and the condition of the working class was -improving. In such circumstances perhaps the best policy was -to support the capitalists in their general policy, while by -means of better working-class organization to secure for the -workers a greater share of the wealth produced. It was a -perfectly intelligible position, and it is not sur prising -that it gained the day. - -But there was another reason for the support they gave---the -success of the Free Trade policy as exemplified by the -repeal of the Corn Laws. England had become to some extent -dependent on the supply of foreign corn. During the -Napoleonic wars this supply was so hampered that wheat rose -to famine prices, and with this rise there came an increase -in rents and the price of land. But after peace was made -prices began to fall, and the landlords demanded duties on -corn to keep up the price of wheat. The manufacturers, on -the other hand, wanted cheap food for their workpeople in -order to be able to pay them low wages. As a compromise, the -Corn Laws of 1814 and 1828 were enacted. They provided a -sliding scale of duties which rose as prices fell, and fell -as prices rose. But the compromise did not for long remain -satisfactory to the manufacturers. While the Chartists were -agitating for political reform an Anti-Corn-Law League was -started to procure the abolition of import duties on grain. -The agitation which they carried on all over the country -secured the support of the workers, who were persuaded that -the repeal of the Corn Laws would increase the value of -their wages. As a consequence of the agitation, the failure -of the potato crop in Ireland and a bad harvest in England, -Sir Robert Peel in 1846 carried a measure for the gradual -abolition of the corn duties. The repeal of the duties did -not immediately affect the price of corn, but it enormously -increased the supply. The price of corn fell later, when the -English consumer got the benefit of the decreasing prices -which followed the exploitation of virgin lands in America -and the colonies. The repeal of the Corn Laws was followed -by the abolition of duties on hundreds of articles and the -reduction of duties on others; direct taxation in the form -of income tax being resorted to in order to replace the loss -of revenue. - -Free Trade during the nineteenth century became such a -fundamental principle of English financial policy, and it -coincided so entirely with the period of industrial -expansion and prosperity, that it has come to be believed in -by numberless people as something sacrosanct---the magic -formula of Free being sufficient to invest it for such -people with a halo of sanctity which renders them entirely -oblivious to its practical consequences. But are there any -real grounds for such a faith? As a measure of temporary -economic expediency, the repeal of the Corn Laws may be -justified, though as far as I can see there are no grounds -for supposing that the prosperity of the years which -followed the repeal was caused by it. It coincided with the -period of railway building, and there are far stronger -reasons for supposing that money began to circulate freely -because of the employment that railway building gave than -because of the Free Trade policy. It would have been well -for England if the repeal of the Corn Laws had only been -justified as a measure of expediency, but unfortunately, as -it was exalted into a principle that was sacrosanct, it was -followed at a later date by most serious consequences. -Firstly, it allowed the importation of sweated goods to -bring down the wages of labour in certain trades; then it -operated to destroy agriculture and depopulated rural areas -by bringing the English wheat into competition with the -wheat grown on the virgin lands of America and the colonies; -while, lastly, it has built up a vested interest inimical to -the interests of the country. It is well that we should not -lose sight of the fact that Free Trade confers privileges -just as much as Protection; the difference being that -whereas manufacturers and farmers profit by Protection, -merchants and shippers profit by Free Trade. Both give rise -to political corruption, but whereas in one case it is open -corruption, in the other it is concealed. - -That both Free Trade and Protection should give such -unsatisfactory results is due to the fact that the issue -between them is a false issue that arises in the absence of -Guilds to control production and prices. No stable economic -system would begin with economic expediency, whether in the -interests of manufacturers or merchants, but with the -protection of the standard of life of the worker. In the -absence of Guilds it is better for a community to suffer -from the corruption incidental to Protection than from the -corruption incidental to Free Trade, for its social and -economic effects are less harmful, not only because the -corruption which accompanies Protection is more open, and -can therefore be more easily attacked, but because it must -remain impossible for a community to attain economic -stability that allows the workers in any industry to be -placed at the mercy of the fluctuations of prices in distant -markets and to be undercut by the importation of sweated -goods from other countries as happened under Free Trade. The -only remedy finally is to be found in a restoration of the -Guilds, in connection with which Protection would take its -place as the natural corollary of a system of fixed prices -controlling the currency. - -But there are further evils. Free Trade having placed power -in the hands of merchants and financiers, establishes the -trader's point of view in politics. With it has come the -pernicious habit of viewing social and industrial activities -primarily from the point of view of the profit accruing from -them rather than from that of the well-being of the -community as a whole, and this, as we have had experience -during the war, may on occasion bring disaster. In -peace-times this point of view was operative in the work of -social disintegration. It has led to the decrease of the -production of necessary and desirable things and diverted -labour to the production of useless and undesirable things, -or, in other words, it has exalted secondary above primary -production. Only a Government controlled by trading -interests could be blind to the folly of allowing things to -drift in this way, or if not blind, at any rate powerless to -devise means of changing the current. The Nemesis that is -overtaking us is the natural and inevitable consequence of -allowing the direction of the politics and industry of the -country to be determined solely by considerations of the -markets. Societies that are stable act otherwise. The -Mediaevalists, like Aristotle, recognized the danger +Meanwhile people who had preserved their mental balance found themselves +at a disadvantage. To them the fallacies of the new gospel were +manifest. They found it easy to expose them, but impossible to base any +practical activity upon the truth as they understood it. The reason for +this was to be found in the fact that since the decline of religion and +art the links between them and the popular mind had been broken. They +were no longer understood. Hence it came about that throughout the +nineteenth century efforts were made by means of experiments and +historical research to find lost roads and to recover lost truths. +Efforts were made to revive religion, art and social science. This is +the secret of the great intellectual and scholastic activity of the +nineteenth century. Its aim was to enable men to regain that grip on +reality which they had lost. To talk about the nineteenth century as +being an age of enlightenment is nonsense. It was perhaps the darkest +period in history, when the great traditions were dead; when great men +groped for the light and ordinary men were saved from despair by the +hypnotism of the machine. + +But the world heeded such workers little. The problems of the immediate +present pressed so heavily upon the majority that they were in no mood +to listen to any gospel that could not promise immediate results. They +were impatient with men who took longer views. Hence it was all through +the nineteenth century the blind led the blind. Politics concerned +themselves with appearances; realities lived underground. Two men only +who were prominent in political life were possessed of a strong sense of +reality---Cobbett and Disraeli. The former made a desperate effort to +pump realities into politics from below; the latter having failed to +pump realities into them from above, came to accept the situation and +exploit it. + +Cobbett towers above all his contemporaries as a man in touch with +realities. He associated himself with all the Radicals of his age in +their demand for the reform of Parliament. Though he differed with them +fundamentally as to the nature of the problems of society, he saw as +clearly as they did the need of Parliamentary reform. The ideal of +government as it existed in the Middle Ages was to give protection to +the workers. It was for this purpose that charters were given to the +Guilds and the Feudal Lord held his position. But since the revival of +Roman Law, government had become increasingly associated with +exploitation, and after the Reformation it existed for little else. The +plutocrats who controlled it not only refused to give the people +economic protection, but forbade them to organize to protect themselves. +In these circumstances the necessary first step towards reform was to +change the Government, but as Parliament was elected upon a franchise +which was limited and corrupt, and the people were deprived of any place +in the social scheme, this involved electoral reform, upon which, after +the Napoleonic wars came to an end, the Radicals concentrated their +attention. + +Though for the attainment of electoral reform Cobbett co-operated with +the Radicals, he took a different view to them on almost everything, and +looking at the situation from the point of view of to-day it is possible +to say that Cobbett was in the main right. He exhibited a wider grip of +the social problem than perhaps any one in the nineteenth century, not +to forget Ruskin. Though he recognized that the governing class was +corrupt, he nevertheless recognized that the Tory stood for many things +that were true. He did not fall into that most hopeless of modern errors +of assuming that because men did not live up to their professions +therefore their professed faith was at fault, or that because a creed +contained a certain admixture of error it might not contain a large +element of truth. In the main Cobbett was content to take the old +political philosophies and traditions for granted, and directed his +attacks at the governing class for misusing them. His fine traditional +and historic sense was here his salvation. Cobbett's *History of the +Reformation* may not be a work of scholarship, but it is a work of +genius. In it he shows an insight into the Reformation and its political +and economic consequence which throws a flood of light on history and +the economic problem. It is superior to the economic histories of more +recent times to the extent that it recognizes the existence of other +things than economics. + +While Cobbett rose superior to the current historical prejudices he saw +more clearly than any other man the trend of his age. Industrialism and +Adam Smith he hated, and indeed it was the combination of the two that +made Industrialism such a scourge. But in his protests against factory +life he appears to have stood alone among prominent reformers. The +Radicals who came after him accepted Industrialism as an established +fact, and Radicalism lost its hold on the rural population. There can +but be one reason for this---that the peasantry felt that the Radicals +in accepting Industrialism and Adam Smith had deserted their cause and +that, bad as the Tories were, the Liberals stood for something far +worse. They felt instinctively that the Radicals' gospel of salvation +was calculated to make things worse for them by rendering the +circumstances of their life even more unstable; and they were right. + +Not only did Radicalism by the support it gave to the Manchester School +lose the peasantry, but it divided the forces of reform in the towns. It +separated Middle-Class from Working-Class reformers. The Reform Bill of +1832 incorporated the new industrial towns and abolished the rotten +boroughs, but it did not secure payment of members. Disappointment with +the Reform Bill led to the Chartist agitation, which was a combination +of the old Radical political party and the new Socialist and Trade Union +Movements. It revived the Radical programme of 1816. The agitation, +after being carried on for eleven years, reached a climax when the +Revolution of 1848 in France aroused them to their last great effort. +But it all came to nothing. After 1848 the Trade Unionists retired from +political agitation and directed their attention exclusively to the work +of building up their own internal organizations---a policy which they +continued until in our day the Socialist agitation brought them once +more into the political field. But in the meantime they succeeded in so +consolidating their strength that with their re-emergence they have +become a force to be reckoned with both in the political and industrial +world. There is no reason to doubt, therefore, that their decision in +1848 to retire from political agitation was the one that wisdom +dictated. + +But there was another cause for the decline of working-class political +agitation after 1848---the development of railway building. It was this +perhaps more than anything else that broke the power of the Chartist +agitation by providing an abundance of employment, which, except for +short periods of trade depression, lasted until the end of the century, +and which reconciled the workers to the fact of Industrialism, if not +whole-heartedly, at least to the extent of persuading them that +resistance to it was hopeless. It is well to remember that the workers +at any time have never really believed in it. In its early days they +definitely disbelieved in it and did all in their power to resist its +encroachments, going so far in the days of the Luddite riots as to break +up machinery. If they came finally to acquiesce if not to believe in +Industrialism, it is because the old order had so completely disappeared +that they had no longer anything with which to compare it. But still +they are restless under it and must increasingly become so until it is +finally destroyed; for a force so mechanical runs contrary to every +healthy normal human instinct, and no peace or social and political +stability is possible so long as it remains. + +The immediate political effect of the acquiescence of the working class +in industrialism was their acceptance of the political leadership of the +new capitalists into whose hands political power had passed. They were +wealthy, and were able successfully to dispute political power with the +landed plutocracy (whom it is customary to call the old aristocracy), of +whose rule the people had had such a bitter experience. The new +capitalists had restored prosperity. Perhaps after all there was +something to be said for them. There are two sides to every question; +the working class might not be the entire receptacles of political +wisdom. In some such way as this, I imagine, a working man would reason. +Though he could not see eye to eye with the capitalists, he nevertheless +was up against the fact that trade boomed and the condition of the +working class was improving. In such circumstances perhaps the best +policy was to support the capitalists in their general policy, while by +means of better working-class organization to secure for the workers a +greater share of the wealth produced. It was a perfectly intelligible +position, and it is not sur prising that it gained the day. + +But there was another reason for the support they gave---the success of +the Free Trade policy as exemplified by the repeal of the Corn Laws. +England had become to some extent dependent on the supply of foreign +corn. During the Napoleonic wars this supply was so hampered that wheat +rose to famine prices, and with this rise there came an increase in +rents and the price of land. But after peace was made prices began to +fall, and the landlords demanded duties on corn to keep up the price of +wheat. The manufacturers, on the other hand, wanted cheap food for their +workpeople in order to be able to pay them low wages. As a compromise, +the Corn Laws of 1814 and 1828 were enacted. They provided a sliding +scale of duties which rose as prices fell, and fell as prices rose. But +the compromise did not for long remain satisfactory to the +manufacturers. While the Chartists were agitating for political reform +an Anti-Corn-Law League was started to procure the abolition of import +duties on grain. The agitation which they carried on all over the +country secured the support of the workers, who were persuaded that the +repeal of the Corn Laws would increase the value of their wages. As a +consequence of the agitation, the failure of the potato crop in Ireland +and a bad harvest in England, Sir Robert Peel in 1846 carried a measure +for the gradual abolition of the corn duties. The repeal of the duties +did not immediately affect the price of corn, but it enormously +increased the supply. The price of corn fell later, when the English +consumer got the benefit of the decreasing prices which followed the +exploitation of virgin lands in America and the colonies. The repeal of +the Corn Laws was followed by the abolition of duties on hundreds of +articles and the reduction of duties on others; direct taxation in the +form of income tax being resorted to in order to replace the loss of +revenue. + +Free Trade during the nineteenth century became such a fundamental +principle of English financial policy, and it coincided so entirely with +the period of industrial expansion and prosperity, that it has come to +be believed in by numberless people as something sacrosanct---the magic +formula of Free being sufficient to invest it for such people with a +halo of sanctity which renders them entirely oblivious to its practical +consequences. But are there any real grounds for such a faith? As a +measure of temporary economic expediency, the repeal of the Corn Laws +may be justified, though as far as I can see there are no grounds for +supposing that the prosperity of the years which followed the repeal was +caused by it. It coincided with the period of railway building, and +there are far stronger reasons for supposing that money began to +circulate freely because of the employment that railway building gave +than because of the Free Trade policy. It would have been well for +England if the repeal of the Corn Laws had only been justified as a +measure of expediency, but unfortunately, as it was exalted into a +principle that was sacrosanct, it was followed at a later date by most +serious consequences. Firstly, it allowed the importation of sweated +goods to bring down the wages of labour in certain trades; then it +operated to destroy agriculture and depopulated rural areas by bringing +the English wheat into competition with the wheat grown on the virgin +lands of America and the colonies; while, lastly, it has built up a +vested interest inimical to the interests of the country. It is well +that we should not lose sight of the fact that Free Trade confers +privileges just as much as Protection; the difference being that whereas +manufacturers and farmers profit by Protection, merchants and shippers +profit by Free Trade. Both give rise to political corruption, but +whereas in one case it is open corruption, in the other it is concealed. + +That both Free Trade and Protection should give such unsatisfactory +results is due to the fact that the issue between them is a false issue +that arises in the absence of Guilds to control production and prices. +No stable economic system would begin with economic expediency, whether +in the interests of manufacturers or merchants, but with the protection +of the standard of life of the worker. In the absence of Guilds it is +better for a community to suffer from the corruption incidental to +Protection than from the corruption incidental to Free Trade, for its +social and economic effects are less harmful, not only because the +corruption which accompanies Protection is more open, and can therefore +be more easily attacked, but because it must remain impossible for a +community to attain economic stability that allows the workers in any +industry to be placed at the mercy of the fluctuations of prices in +distant markets and to be undercut by the importation of sweated goods +from other countries as happened under Free Trade. The only remedy +finally is to be found in a restoration of the Guilds, in connection +with which Protection would take its place as the natural corollary of a +system of fixed prices controlling the currency. + +But there are further evils. Free Trade having placed power in the hands +of merchants and financiers, establishes the trader's point of view in +politics. With it has come the pernicious habit of viewing social and +industrial activities primarily from the point of view of the profit +accruing from them rather than from that of the well-being of the +community as a whole, and this, as we have had experience during the +war, may on occasion bring disaster. In peace-times this point of view +was operative in the work of social disintegration. It has led to the +decrease of the production of necessary and desirable things and +diverted labour to the production of useless and undesirable things, or, +in other words, it has exalted secondary above primary production. Only +a Government controlled by trading interests could be blind to the folly +of allowing things to drift in this way, or if not blind, at any rate +powerless to devise means of changing the current. The Nemesis that is +overtaking us is the natural and inevitable consequence of allowing the +direction of the politics and industry of the country to be determined +solely by considerations of the markets. Societies that are stable act +otherwise. The Mediaevalists, like Aristotle, recognized the danger inherent in allowing the trading class to exercise an undue preponderance of influence in national policy. -The reason why in the nineteenth century the trading -interest was able to carry all before it was ultimately due -to the complete disappearance of religion and art and the -communal ideal of society, though immediately it was due to -intellectual confusion, stupidity, and the hypnotic -influence of machinery which prevented men from giving -serious consideration to any line of reasoning that came -into collision with its uncontrolled use. This was the -reason why Ruskin was thrown aside. He laid the basis of a -tradition of thought that might have borne fruit in these -days if men could only have held fast to that which was good -when appearances were against them. But faith in reality was -weak in the nineteenth century; men trusted entirely in -appearances, and so it came about that when the conclusions -of the Manchester School were cast aside they still clung to -its utilitarian philosophy and habit of mind. Disraeli in -the days of his youth made an effort to bring the age back -to realities. *Sybil* was a valiant attempt to persuade the -governing class to face the facts of the situation. He saw -the trouble arising from intellectual confusion, class -stupidity, the absurdity and un reality of the Party System, -and from the stiff-necked attitude of capital towards -labour. *Sybil* having missed fire, he became disheartened, -and by the time he came to write *Lothair* he had abandoned -his generous dreams and taken to ironical badinage. -*Popanilla* is a magnificent burlesque on the utilitarian -philosophy. It demonstrates clearly that he was alive to the -contradictions and absurdities in which the Radicals were -involved. But while he saw clearly what was wrong, he had no -clear vision as to what was right. This was perhaps the -secret of his political career, and has led to much -misunderstanding and misrepresentation. He came to fight on -the Conservative side, not because he believed in the -Conservatives, but because he disbelieved in the Radicals; -not because his sympathies were undemocratic, but because he -disbelieved in the democratic leaders, whom he had -sufficient insight to see did not represent the people. In -his efforts to defeat a party of unconscious humbugs he -became a conscious humbug himself, for he came cynically to -accept plutocracy though inwardly despising it, while -Gladstone idealized its achievements because he never -understood their inwardness. Still, in spite of their -difference, Disraeli and Gladstone really co-operated for -the same end, to retain power for the plutocracy, and under -their combined leadership politics drifted farther and -farther away from realities. The smugness and complacency of -the later Victorian age was only shaken by the emergence of -the Irish problem into the forefront of political issues. -Yet all the while great changes were being prepared -underground. But Parliament was cognizant of none of them. -It floated about on the surface of things, skilfully evading -every real issue until at length, in 1906, it was awakened -from its dreams of false security by the arrival of the -Labour Party at the House of Commons, when the governing -class first became seriously aware of the democratic -upheaval that was taking place. The popular disappointment -with the performances of the Labour Party led to a reaction -against Parliamentarianism which coincided with the great -strikes of 1911, from which time the Industrial Movement may -be dated. +The reason why in the nineteenth century the trading interest was able +to carry all before it was ultimately due to the complete disappearance +of religion and art and the communal ideal of society, though +immediately it was due to intellectual confusion, stupidity, and the +hypnotic influence of machinery which prevented men from giving serious +consideration to any line of reasoning that came into collision with its +uncontrolled use. This was the reason why Ruskin was thrown aside. He +laid the basis of a tradition of thought that might have borne fruit in +these days if men could only have held fast to that which was good when +appearances were against them. But faith in reality was weak in the +nineteenth century; men trusted entirely in appearances, and so it came +about that when the conclusions of the Manchester School were cast aside +they still clung to its utilitarian philosophy and habit of mind. +Disraeli in the days of his youth made an effort to bring the age back +to realities. *Sybil* was a valiant attempt to persuade the governing +class to face the facts of the situation. He saw the trouble arising +from intellectual confusion, class stupidity, the absurdity and un +reality of the Party System, and from the stiff-necked attitude of +capital towards labour. *Sybil* having missed fire, he became +disheartened, and by the time he came to write *Lothair* he had +abandoned his generous dreams and taken to ironical badinage. +*Popanilla* is a magnificent burlesque on the utilitarian philosophy. It +demonstrates clearly that he was alive to the contradictions and +absurdities in which the Radicals were involved. But while he saw +clearly what was wrong, he had no clear vision as to what was right. +This was perhaps the secret of his political career, and has led to much +misunderstanding and misrepresentation. He came to fight on the +Conservative side, not because he believed in the Conservatives, but +because he disbelieved in the Radicals; not because his sympathies were +undemocratic, but because he disbelieved in the democratic leaders, whom +he had sufficient insight to see did not represent the people. In his +efforts to defeat a party of unconscious humbugs he became a conscious +humbug himself, for he came cynically to accept plutocracy though +inwardly despising it, while Gladstone idealized its achievements +because he never understood their inwardness. Still, in spite of their +difference, Disraeli and Gladstone really co-operated for the same end, +to retain power for the plutocracy, and under their combined leadership +politics drifted farther and farther away from realities. The smugness +and complacency of the later Victorian age was only shaken by the +emergence of the Irish problem into the forefront of political issues. +Yet all the while great changes were being prepared underground. But +Parliament was cognizant of none of them. It floated about on the +surface of things, skilfully evading every real issue until at length, +in 1906, it was awakened from its dreams of false security by the +arrival of the Labour Party at the House of Commons, when the governing +class first became seriously aware of the democratic upheaval that was +taking place. The popular disappointment with the performances of the +Labour Party led to a reaction against Parliamentarianism which +coincided with the great strikes of 1911, from which time the Industrial +Movement may be dated. # On Limited Liability Companies -In the middle of the nineteenth century a series of Acts of -Parliament were passed conferring upon joint-stock companies -the privilege of limited liability. As the conduct of -industry has been completely revolutionized and the -structure of society transformed through the promotion of -limited companies which followed the passing of these Acts, -they are to be reckoned among the most important events of -the century, and it is necessary for an understanding of the -problems of to-day that their significance be understood. -Their reaction upon the social and industrial life of the -community has been to place society at the mercy of an -impersonal and intangible tyranny which by paralysing all -healthy and normal activities reacts to introduce a kind of -fatalism into economic, social and political developments by -placing every one at the mercy of an elusive financial -machine. It is to be observed that this new economic -development which carried the principle of exploitation to -its logical conclusion by divorcing possession from the -control of industry was, like all previous economic -developments, preceded by acts of legislation. - -Something approximating to limited liability existed in the -reign of Elizabeth. When in the year 1600 she acceded to the -request of the East India merchants for a Charter of -Incorporation, when they had urged that the trade with the -Indies was too remote to be capable of proper management -without a "joint and united stock," she created *ipso facto* -a limited liability company. For as the Common Law then only -recognized individuals and corporations as legal entities, -the effect of the grant of a charter to a trading company -was to grant a species of limited liability such as exists -in the case of a company limited by shares that are fully -paid up, under the Acts now in force; though as the trade of -the East India Company was so profitable, no question of the -liability for debts ever arose. Hitherto merchants engaged -in foreign trade had been organized under "regulated" -companies like the Russia, the Turkey, and the Eastland -Companies. They were really Merchant Guilds whose members -enjoyed a monopoly of their specific trade in a given -district, but were originally in no sense financially -associated or liable for one another's engagements. The -Charter of the East India Company in acknowledging -joint-stock introduced a new principle of trade organization -which was not by any means popular with merchants generally. -The merchants of the "regulated" companies sneered at the -incorporated joint-stock East India Company because the -latter were unable to "breed-up" merchants, seeing that "any -one who is a master of money may purchase a share of their -trade and joint-stock." - -On account of its unpopularity the joint-stock principle -made little headway. As late as the end of the seventeenth -century there were only three joint-stock companies in -existence---the East India, the Royal African, and the -Hudson Bay Companies. In the early eighteenth century -private joint-stock companies began to be formed whose legal -position was uncertain, for monopolies for foreign trade had -been abolished in the latter part of the reign of James I. -One of these, the South Sea Company, which was organized to -exploit the unknown wealth of South America, managed by -bribes to ministers and by promising to reduce the national -debt to secure in 1720 a Charter of Incorporation. It was in -vain that Walpole warned the Ministry and the country -against this dream of wealth. Both went mad. A wave of -reckless financial speculation overwhelmed the country. -Bubble company was followed by bubble company until the -inevitable crash came, bringing a general ruin in its train. -It was followed by the Bubble Act, which forbade the -formation of companies without the sanction of Crown or -Parliament as "a mischievous delusion calculated to ensnare -the unwary public." The Act appears to have remained largely -a dead letter, probably because after the South Sea Bubble, -in which many companies came to grief in addition to the one -bearing its name, political and mercantile opinion was so -averse to the formation of joint-stock companies that few -attempts at company promotion were made, and so things -remained until the early part of the nineteenth century, -when the Industrial Revolution, by opening out new fields of -industry with which it was impossible for individual -capitalists to cope, gradually introduced a change in public -opinion. In 1825 an Act was passed repealing the Bubble Act, -and encouragement was given to the formation of companies. -By this statute the Crown was empowered to grant Charters of -Incorporation, and at the same time to declare that the -persons incorporated should be individually liable for the -debts of the body corporated. Public opinion in those days -did not think it desirable that the members of joint-stock -companies should be allowed to limit their liability to a -specified amount. In 1834 an Act was passed giving such -companies the privilege of bringing and defending actions -and other legal proceedings in the name of an officer of a +In the middle of the nineteenth century a series of Acts of Parliament +were passed conferring upon joint-stock companies the privilege of +limited liability. As the conduct of industry has been completely +revolutionized and the structure of society transformed through the +promotion of limited companies which followed the passing of these Acts, +they are to be reckoned among the most important events of the century, +and it is necessary for an understanding of the problems of to-day that +their significance be understood. Their reaction upon the social and +industrial life of the community has been to place society at the mercy +of an impersonal and intangible tyranny which by paralysing all healthy +and normal activities reacts to introduce a kind of fatalism into +economic, social and political developments by placing every one at the +mercy of an elusive financial machine. It is to be observed that this +new economic development which carried the principle of exploitation to +its logical conclusion by divorcing possession from the control of +industry was, like all previous economic developments, preceded by acts +of legislation. + +Something approximating to limited liability existed in the reign of +Elizabeth. When in the year 1600 she acceded to the request of the East +India merchants for a Charter of Incorporation, when they had urged that +the trade with the Indies was too remote to be capable of proper +management without a "joint and united stock," she created *ipso facto* +a limited liability company. For as the Common Law then only recognized +individuals and corporations as legal entities, the effect of the grant +of a charter to a trading company was to grant a species of limited +liability such as exists in the case of a company limited by shares that +are fully paid up, under the Acts now in force; though as the trade of +the East India Company was so profitable, no question of the liability +for debts ever arose. Hitherto merchants engaged in foreign trade had +been organized under "regulated" companies like the Russia, the Turkey, +and the Eastland Companies. They were really Merchant Guilds whose +members enjoyed a monopoly of their specific trade in a given district, +but were originally in no sense financially associated or liable for one +another's engagements. The Charter of the East India Company in +acknowledging joint-stock introduced a new principle of trade +organization which was not by any means popular with merchants +generally. The merchants of the "regulated" companies sneered at the +incorporated joint-stock East India Company because the latter were +unable to "breed-up" merchants, seeing that "any one who is a master of +money may purchase a share of their trade and joint-stock." + +On account of its unpopularity the joint-stock principle made little +headway. As late as the end of the seventeenth century there were only +three joint-stock companies in existence---the East India, the Royal +African, and the Hudson Bay Companies. In the early eighteenth century +private joint-stock companies began to be formed whose legal position +was uncertain, for monopolies for foreign trade had been abolished in +the latter part of the reign of James I. One of these, the South Sea +Company, which was organized to exploit the unknown wealth of South +America, managed by bribes to ministers and by promising to reduce the +national debt to secure in 1720 a Charter of Incorporation. It was in +vain that Walpole warned the Ministry and the country against this dream +of wealth. Both went mad. A wave of reckless financial speculation +overwhelmed the country. Bubble company was followed by bubble company +until the inevitable crash came, bringing a general ruin in its train. +It was followed by the Bubble Act, which forbade the formation of +companies without the sanction of Crown or Parliament as "a mischievous +delusion calculated to ensnare the unwary public." The Act appears to +have remained largely a dead letter, probably because after the South +Sea Bubble, in which many companies came to grief in addition to the one +bearing its name, political and mercantile opinion was so averse to the +formation of joint-stock companies that few attempts at company +promotion were made, and so things remained until the early part of the +nineteenth century, when the Industrial Revolution, by opening out new +fields of industry with which it was impossible for individual +capitalists to cope, gradually introduced a change in public opinion. In +1825 an Act was passed repealing the Bubble Act, and encouragement was +given to the formation of companies. By this statute the Crown was +empowered to grant Charters of Incorporation, and at the same time to +declare that the persons incorporated should be individually liable for +the debts of the body corporated. Public opinion in those days did not +think it desirable that the members of joint-stock companies should be +allowed to limit their liability to a specified amount. In 1834 an Act +was passed giving such companies the privilege of bringing and defending +actions and other legal proceedings in the name of an officer of a company. -Hitherto, in order for a joint-stock company to be -incorporated, it was necessary for it to obtain a charter -from the Crown or a special Act of Parliament, but in 1844 a -new departure was made enabling companies, with certain -exceptions, to obtain a Certificate of Incorporation from -the Registrar without having recourse to Crown or -Parliament, but still with unlimited liability. In 1855 the -principle of limited liability triumphed when power was -given to companies to obtain a Certificate of Incorporation -with limited liability. The change of opinion which made -this possible was due to the ruin which unlimited liability -had brought upon innocent men. At the period of the collapse -of the railway boom in 1845 many such men liable for calls -had to fly the country and to live abroad for many years -upon what remnants of their property they could manage to -save from the wreck. But it was not until a bank failure in -Glasgow, when the holder of a small share was made liable -for a thousand times its amount, that public opinion was -roused. The Act of 1855 which first acknowledged the -principle of limited liability was repealed and replaced by -one in 1856, which served in many respects as a model for -the Act of 1862 which forms the basis of the existing code -of Joint-Stock Company Law. - -Before the passing of these Acts, joint-stock companies were -few and far between, but once the principle of limited -liability was admitted in law they rapidly grew in numbers. -They have invaded every branch of industry with the -exception of agriculture, though as these pages are being -written I read of the coming of a movement for applying -limited liability company methods to agriculture and an -announcement that a company is to be formed to exploit an -estate of 19,000 acres in Lincolnshire, the purchase money -for which amounts to over £2,000,000. The great boom when -private concerns were turned into limited companies and new -companies promoted came in the nineties, when, in the eight -years from 1892 to 1899, 30,061 new companies were -registered in the United Kingdom and 10,578 were wound up. -In April, 1899, there were 27,969 registered joint-stock -companies in the United Kingdom with a share capital, having -an aggregate paid-up capital of£ 1,512,098,098. In April, -1914, the latest return before the war broke upon us, the -number of companies had increased to 64,692 with a capital -of £2,531,947,661. The latest return, that of 1916, gives -the number of companies registered as 66,094 with a capital -of £2,719,989,129.These figures are all the more striking -when it is remembered that they do not include most of our -great railway, gas, water, canal and other similar companies +Hitherto, in order for a joint-stock company to be incorporated, it was +necessary for it to obtain a charter from the Crown or a special Act of +Parliament, but in 1844 a new departure was made enabling companies, +with certain exceptions, to obtain a Certificate of Incorporation from +the Registrar without having recourse to Crown or Parliament, but still +with unlimited liability. In 1855 the principle of limited liability +triumphed when power was given to companies to obtain a Certificate of +Incorporation with limited liability. The change of opinion which made +this possible was due to the ruin which unlimited liability had brought +upon innocent men. At the period of the collapse of the railway boom in +1845 many such men liable for calls had to fly the country and to live +abroad for many years upon what remnants of their property they could +manage to save from the wreck. But it was not until a bank failure in +Glasgow, when the holder of a small share was made liable for a thousand +times its amount, that public opinion was roused. The Act of 1855 which +first acknowledged the principle of limited liability was repealed and +replaced by one in 1856, which served in many respects as a model for +the Act of 1862 which forms the basis of the existing code of +Joint-Stock Company Law. + +Before the passing of these Acts, joint-stock companies were few and far +between, but once the principle of limited liability was admitted in law +they rapidly grew in numbers. They have invaded every branch of industry +with the exception of agriculture, though as these pages are being +written I read of the coming of a movement for applying limited +liability company methods to agriculture and an announcement that a +company is to be formed to exploit an estate of 19,000 acres in +Lincolnshire, the purchase money for which amounts to over £2,000,000. +The great boom when private concerns were turned into limited companies +and new companies promoted came in the nineties, when, in the eight +years from 1892 to 1899, 30,061 new companies were registered in the +United Kingdom and 10,578 were wound up. In April, 1899, there were +27,969 registered joint-stock companies in the United Kingdom with a +share capital, having an aggregate paid-up capital of£ 1,512,098,098. In +April, 1914, the latest return before the war broke upon us, the number +of companies had increased to 64,692 with a capital of £2,531,947,661. +The latest return, that of 1916, gives the number of companies +registered as 66,094 with a capital of £2,719,989,129.These figures are +all the more striking when it is remembered that they do not include +most of our great railway, gas, water, canal and other similar companies which have private Acts of Parliament of their own. -To such an extent have limited liability companies got a -grip of modern business that it is impossible to separate -the two. But that they are not an unmixed blessing, from -whatever point of view examined, no one will be found to -deny. There is no doubt whatsoever that they have been the -main factor in the creation of that flood of commercial -dishonesty and legalized fraud which in these days carries -all before it. Companies have been formed simply in order to -put money into the pockets of promoters, to get rid of -declining businesses so that the existing owners may -withdraw their capital to invest in something else while -leaving the shareholders with nothing but the debts to pay. -In other cases companies have been formed in order to create -a dummy behind which some sinister figure might move. Such -abuses are admitted. But to the business man of to-day these -disadvantages are more than counterbalanced by the -advantages they are supposed to bring, in that they have -rendered possible an enormous number of undertakings which -from the amount of capital required could not have been -carried out by an individual capitalist or group of -capitalists. This has been said so often that people are -inclined to accept the statement without further -examination. Yet it very much needs examination, for the -real question is not whether it has rendered possible -undertakings which otherwise could not have been promoted, -but whether it was in the public interest that such -undertakings should be entered upon at all; for remember, -such enterprises as those of railways, water, gas, etc., -rest on private Acts of Parliament and are not to be -confused with the general issue of limited liability. - -Now it will clear the issue if we begin with the opinion of -Adam Smith, who in the *Wealth of Nations* probably -expressed the current view on the subject of joint-stock -companies when he said that the only trades a joint-stock -company not having a monopoly can carry on successfully are -those in which all the operations are capable of being -reduced to routine or of such a uniformity of method as -admits of little or no variation. Only four trades, in his -opinion, answer the test of suitability which he thus laid -down, namely, those of banking, of fire and marine -insurance, of making and maintaining canals, and of water -supply. Railways, tramways, gas and electric supply he would -doubtless have added as belonging to the same category if -such things had existed in his time. Manufacturing by a -joint-stock company, he considers, would not only be -unsuccessful as a business, but would be injurious to the +To such an extent have limited liability companies got a grip of modern +business that it is impossible to separate the two. But that they are +not an unmixed blessing, from whatever point of view examined, no one +will be found to deny. There is no doubt whatsoever that they have been +the main factor in the creation of that flood of commercial dishonesty +and legalized fraud which in these days carries all before it. Companies +have been formed simply in order to put money into the pockets of +promoters, to get rid of declining businesses so that the existing +owners may withdraw their capital to invest in something else while +leaving the shareholders with nothing but the debts to pay. In other +cases companies have been formed in order to create a dummy behind which +some sinister figure might move. Such abuses are admitted. But to the +business man of to-day these disadvantages are more than counterbalanced +by the advantages they are supposed to bring, in that they have rendered +possible an enormous number of undertakings which from the amount of +capital required could not have been carried out by an individual +capitalist or group of capitalists. This has been said so often that +people are inclined to accept the statement without further examination. +Yet it very much needs examination, for the real question is not whether +it has rendered possible undertakings which otherwise could not have +been promoted, but whether it was in the public interest that such +undertakings should be entered upon at all; for remember, such +enterprises as those of railways, water, gas, etc., rest on private Acts +of Parliament and are not to be confused with the general issue of +limited liability. + +Now it will clear the issue if we begin with the opinion of Adam Smith, +who in the *Wealth of Nations* probably expressed the current view on +the subject of joint-stock companies when he said that the only trades a +joint-stock company not having a monopoly can carry on successfully are +those in which all the operations are capable of being reduced to +routine or of such a uniformity of method as admits of little or no +variation. Only four trades, in his opinion, answer the test of +suitability which he thus laid down, namely, those of banking, of fire +and marine insurance, of making and maintaining canals, and of water +supply. Railways, tramways, gas and electric supply he would doubtless +have added as belonging to the same category if such things had existed +in his time. Manufacturing by a joint-stock company, he considers, would +not only be unsuccessful as a business, but would be injurious to the public welfare. -Now the question comes, Was Adam Smith right? Has modern -experience controverted him or are appearances only against -him? I do not hesitate to say that he was absolutely right -when he said that manufacturing by joint-stock companies -would be injurious to the public interest, but experience -has proved him to be wrong when he said they would be -unsuccessful. If success for them depended upon efficiency -as producers, they would certainly fail. But success for -limited liability companies does not depend upon any such -efficiency but upon an ability to corner the market in some -way. The usual ways are either to use their great capital -for keeping others out by advertising; by manipulating -prices in such a way that a market is secured for certain -things at very enhanced prices while underselling small men -in others, thus preventing any one from competing with them -who is not on a similar scale of business; or by securing a -tied market by judiciously distributing shares among those -who can be of service to the company in recommending -business. Each of these methods is corrupting. I will not -enlarge on the evils attendant upon advertising and -manipulated prices,since both of these illegitimate methods -of trade were pursued by private firms before limited -companies held the field, but will dwell upon the third of -these methods, because it is the one thing, apart from its -ease in getting hold of capital, that gives the limited -company an illegitimate advantage over the private firm, -while it is the most corrupting of its corrupting +Now the question comes, Was Adam Smith right? Has modern experience +controverted him or are appearances only against him? I do not hesitate +to say that he was absolutely right when he said that manufacturing by +joint-stock companies would be injurious to the public interest, but +experience has proved him to be wrong when he said they would be +unsuccessful. If success for them depended upon efficiency as producers, +they would certainly fail. But success for limited liability companies +does not depend upon any such efficiency but upon an ability to corner +the market in some way. The usual ways are either to use their great +capital for keeping others out by advertising; by manipulating prices in +such a way that a market is secured for certain things at very enhanced +prices while underselling small men in others, thus preventing any one +from competing with them who is not on a similar scale of business; or +by securing a tied market by judiciously distributing shares among those +who can be of service to the company in recommending business. Each of +these methods is corrupting. I will not enlarge on the evils attendant +upon advertising and manipulated prices,since both of these illegitimate +methods of trade were pursued by private firms before limited companies +held the field, but will dwell upon the third of these methods, because +it is the one thing, apart from its ease in getting hold of capital, +that gives the limited company an illegitimate advantage over the +private firm, while it is the most corrupting of its corrupting influences. -By distributing shares among those who can be of service to -it, the limited company corrupts the public by obtaining -business in an illicit way while at the same time it closes -the market to new men. Henceforward the competent man who -would set up in business is unable to do so because the -market is rigged against him. It is no longer possible for a -man, however competent he may be, to come to any position in -industry apart from the favour of those already established, -except he be possessed of large capital or great influence, -as the case might be, such as would enable him to weather -the storm and difficulties of getting established. These -circumstances immediately produced a change in the -psychology of industry. Hitherto, success had come to the -man of grit and competence. Such qualities were the ones -that made for success under the system of competition. But -men soon found that so far from such qualities being an -asset to them under a system of limited liability companies, -they were a positive hindrance; for success came not to men -of an independent spirit, but to men whose temperament was -characterized by flexibility and subservience, or, in other -words, the qualities of master ship which told to advantage -in the open market when combined, it should be added, with -some commercial instinct were no longer in demand under a -system of large organizations and limited companies; the -demand being entirely for men of secondary talents, not for -men of initiative, but for men of routine. Hence talent was -discouraged and mediocrity preferred. This tendency has -gathered strength ever since limited companies came to -dominate the situation. It has been well denned as "the -principle of inverted selection." Its application guaranteed -company directors a temporary tranquillity, but has so -completely undermined the morale of industry as to leave -them entirely without reliable counsellors when industry is -required to adjust itself to a new situation, as the present -crisis bears witness. - -The reason for these changed circumstances is easy to -understand. They came about because the joint-stock -principle in placing the final authority in shareholders -places it in the hands of amateurs. Amateurs, however, are -never allowed to see things as they really are, but only -what it is convenient for others to let them see. Hence -there is a tendency for reality and appearances to drift -ever farther apart. A man has not to work long inside of a -large organization before he discovers that doing good work -and securing promotion are two entirely separate and -distinct propositions, and that so far from good work -(except of the routine kind) helping him, it may actually -stand in his way by bringing him into collision with others -who have a vested interest in things remaining as they are, -and who therefore will do everything to defeat the ends of -the innovator. Promotion, on the contrary, goes with being a -"good fellow"; with toadying to men in position; with -maintaining an appearance of doing things but not with -actually doing them, since that is much more likely to lead -to trouble; with managing things in such a way as to secure -the credit for things that are successful for oneself and to -shuffle off responsibility for failure on to the shoulders -of others. This is not difficult in large organizations, for -it is generally impossible for any except those inside to -know exactly for what work any particular individual is -responsible. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, -but then there are exceptional circumstances, and an -institution is to be judged by its norm and not by its -exceptions. No one can deny that in large organizations -success goes to the bounder, to the man who studies the game -rather than the work. Certain of these evils arise from the -mere size of such organizations, which by making every -individual dependent on his immediate superior tends to give -priority to personal considerations. These evils would -probably develop, however wise the heads might be, but they -are increased a hundredfold by the fact that in all such -organizations, whether they be limited liability companies -or Government departments, control is from without and -authority rests finally in the hands of amateurs. - -Certain consequences follow from such an abnormal condition -of affairs. Finance having set out to exploit the producer, -finds itself nowadays in turn exploited by sharks who prey -upon the amateurs. These are the clever men who take the -world as they find it. Realizing the stupidity of the men in -control, they play upon their vanity and carefully lay traps -into which they may fall. In exploiting the exploiters they -afford a certain amount of amusement for the exploited, -while they perform a useful function in bringing not only -the commercial but our legal system into discredit, for it -so happens that they are able to pursue their vocation -because they are masters of the law. - -While on the one hand limited companies have given rise to -all manner of legalized fraud, on the other hand they have -created widespread disaffection among the workers. The mass -of men nowadays do not want to do any work, because they -feel that not they but others are going to profit by their -labour. So long as competence was rewarded and honour -appreciated there was an incentive for men to work. If they -became efficient they might get on to their own feet, and -the presence of a number of men with such ambitions in -industry gave a certain moral tone to it that reacted upon -others. But when, owing to the spread of limited companies, -all such hopes were definitely removed and the invention of -automatic machinery rendered work entirely monotonous, when -technical ability, however great, went unrecognized and un -rewarded, and proficiency in any department of industry -incurred the jealousy of "duds" in high places, -demoralization set in. All the old incentives were gone, and -no one was left to set a standard. The subconscious -instincts of men whose ambitions were thwarted turned into -purely destructive channels. Already before the war things -had taken this turn, but the wave of patriotism to which the -war gave rise led to hopes that a new spirit was to enter -industry. But when, through the rapacity of profiteers, it -became apparent that such hopes were doomed to -disappointment, destructive impulses returned with redoubled -energy. That is the secret of the labour unrest. The -profiteers have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. - -It was because limited companies sought from the first to -secure their position by cornering the market rather than by -a regard for their own internal efficiency, that they have -for ever been seeking to establish themselves on a larger -and larger scale. Consideration of internal efficiency would -have urged upon them the advantages of small organizations, -which in the nature of things are more manageable, but the -policy to which they were committed of maintaining -themselves by securing monopolies of the market obliged them -to seek to operate on an increasingly larger scale in order -that they could more successfully hold their own against -competing companies. But the larger the scale they operate -upon, the greater becomes their need of capital; and the -greater their need, the more they tended to fall under the -control of the banks which monopolized credit. Major C. H. -Douglas has given to this new development which has -supplanted capitalism the name of Creditism.Capitalism was -essentially private and individual, and because of its -private and individual nature a natural boundary was placed -to the dimensions of an organization. But when in order to -be successful business had to be started on a big scale, the -possibility of the individual capitalist starting any new -enterprise became dependent in the vast majority of cases -upon being able to get the backing of some bank. Hence it -has come about that while it is an easy matter for a company -already established to secure additional capital to extend -its business operations, it has become almost impossible for -a new man to start; for a new man is an unknown quantity and -is not to be trusted with extensive credit. It has been thus -that the arrival of limited companies has been followed by a -centripetal movement in finance which encourages the -organization of larger and larger concerns, not because of -the needs of efficiency, but because of the exigencies of -credit, which in turn still further widens the discrepancy -between appearances and reality, between control and -potential ability. - -In Germany the attempt was made to counteract this -centripetal tendency of finance by the institution of credit -banks, which it was hoped would restore a distributed -initiative by inducing a centrifugal tendency. It was a -proverbial saying in Germany that with the aid of his bank a -man builds the first floor of his house by mortgaging the -ground floor; his second by mortgaging the first; and puts -on the roof by the aid of a mortgage upon his second floor. -This is no exaggeration, for the banks were accustomed to -advance money to the extent of 90%, to men who desired to -set up in business, on a purely speculative goodwill, and to -accept as security for the remaining 10%, a valuation of -such things as household furniture. But it all availed -nothing. The widespread distribution of credit increased the -efficiency of the industrial machine to such an extent that -in fifteen years Germany quadrupled her output, and this led -to such an intensification of the pace of competition and -profits were so reduced that in the years before the war the -great mass of German industries were rapidly approaching -bankruptcy. The stress of such circumstances doubtless -precipitated the war. I have little doubt that England owed -her comparative immunity from such trying conditions to her -comparative inefficiency. - -The failure of limited liability companies as a system of -industrial control suggests a comparison with the Mediaeval -Guild system; for the difference between them is the -difference between the Mediaeval and modern worlds. Under -the modern system finance plays the all-important part. It -comes first and every other consideration plays a quite -secondary and unimportant part. As the system develops, -technical skill is less and less appreciated, and what -naturally follows from it sinks into a lower and lower -status. On this side limited companies are living on -capital. Their influence tends to undermine all such skill, -and as the final test of an organization from the point of -view of the public is not the profits it makes but what kind -of goods it produces, the limited liability system of -control from without stands condemned as the worst system -under which industry has ever been organized. The Mediaeval -Guild system was the exact reverse of this. The technical -man or craftsman, who under the limited liability company -system is reckoned a man of no account, was in control and -he arranged things very differently. Instead of organizing -industry for the purpose of extracting profits, he organized -it with the aim of producing good work. With this aim in -view finance was reduced to the bare minimum by the simple -device of fixing prices. In large building works a -bookkeeper was employed, but apart from this finance appears -to have been entirely absent in production. The financial -man confined his attention entirely to distribution, and -distribution in those days was a very secondary form of -activity. It did not bulk in anything like the proportion it -does to-day. The change which has taken the control of -industry out of the hands of the technical man and allowed -the financier to spread his tentacles over it is due finally -to the revival of Roman Law, which broke down barrier after -barrier that placed a boundary to financial operations. It -began by transforming the Feudal system, based upon the -principle of function, into landlordism. This enabled -capitalism to get a foothold in rural areas, to develop -domestic industry and undermine the position of the Guilds. -But the two things that made the great change were, first, -the Industrial Revolution, which undermined the position of -the craftsman and gave great opportunities to the financier, -and second, the legalization of limited liability, which -handed over technical trades entirely to commercial -exploitation by divorcing ownership from control and -technical ability. +By distributing shares among those who can be of service to it, the +limited company corrupts the public by obtaining business in an illicit +way while at the same time it closes the market to new men. Henceforward +the competent man who would set up in business is unable to do so +because the market is rigged against him. It is no longer possible for a +man, however competent he may be, to come to any position in industry +apart from the favour of those already established, except he be +possessed of large capital or great influence, as the case might be, +such as would enable him to weather the storm and difficulties of +getting established. These circumstances immediately produced a change +in the psychology of industry. Hitherto, success had come to the man of +grit and competence. Such qualities were the ones that made for success +under the system of competition. But men soon found that so far from +such qualities being an asset to them under a system of limited +liability companies, they were a positive hindrance; for success came +not to men of an independent spirit, but to men whose temperament was +characterized by flexibility and subservience, or, in other words, the +qualities of master ship which told to advantage in the open market when +combined, it should be added, with some commercial instinct were no +longer in demand under a system of large organizations and limited +companies; the demand being entirely for men of secondary talents, not +for men of initiative, but for men of routine. Hence talent was +discouraged and mediocrity preferred. This tendency has gathered +strength ever since limited companies came to dominate the situation. It +has been well denned as "the principle of inverted selection." Its +application guaranteed company directors a temporary tranquillity, but +has so completely undermined the morale of industry as to leave them +entirely without reliable counsellors when industry is required to +adjust itself to a new situation, as the present crisis bears witness. + +The reason for these changed circumstances is easy to understand. They +came about because the joint-stock principle in placing the final +authority in shareholders places it in the hands of amateurs. Amateurs, +however, are never allowed to see things as they really are, but only +what it is convenient for others to let them see. Hence there is a +tendency for reality and appearances to drift ever farther apart. A man +has not to work long inside of a large organization before he discovers +that doing good work and securing promotion are two entirely separate +and distinct propositions, and that so far from good work (except of the +routine kind) helping him, it may actually stand in his way by bringing +him into collision with others who have a vested interest in things +remaining as they are, and who therefore will do everything to defeat +the ends of the innovator. Promotion, on the contrary, goes with being a +"good fellow"; with toadying to men in position; with maintaining an +appearance of doing things but not with actually doing them, since that +is much more likely to lead to trouble; with managing things in such a +way as to secure the credit for things that are successful for oneself +and to shuffle off responsibility for failure on to the shoulders of +others. This is not difficult in large organizations, for it is +generally impossible for any except those inside to know exactly for +what work any particular individual is responsible. There are, of +course, exceptions to this rule, but then there are exceptional +circumstances, and an institution is to be judged by its norm and not by +its exceptions. No one can deny that in large organizations success goes +to the bounder, to the man who studies the game rather than the work. +Certain of these evils arise from the mere size of such organizations, +which by making every individual dependent on his immediate superior +tends to give priority to personal considerations. These evils would +probably develop, however wise the heads might be, but they are +increased a hundredfold by the fact that in all such organizations, +whether they be limited liability companies or Government departments, +control is from without and authority rests finally in the hands of +amateurs. + +Certain consequences follow from such an abnormal condition of affairs. +Finance having set out to exploit the producer, finds itself nowadays in +turn exploited by sharks who prey upon the amateurs. These are the +clever men who take the world as they find it. Realizing the stupidity +of the men in control, they play upon their vanity and carefully lay +traps into which they may fall. In exploiting the exploiters they afford +a certain amount of amusement for the exploited, while they perform a +useful function in bringing not only the commercial but our legal system +into discredit, for it so happens that they are able to pursue their +vocation because they are masters of the law. + +While on the one hand limited companies have given rise to all manner of +legalized fraud, on the other hand they have created widespread +disaffection among the workers. The mass of men nowadays do not want to +do any work, because they feel that not they but others are going to +profit by their labour. So long as competence was rewarded and honour +appreciated there was an incentive for men to work. If they became +efficient they might get on to their own feet, and the presence of a +number of men with such ambitions in industry gave a certain moral tone +to it that reacted upon others. But when, owing to the spread of limited +companies, all such hopes were definitely removed and the invention of +automatic machinery rendered work entirely monotonous, when technical +ability, however great, went unrecognized and un rewarded, and +proficiency in any department of industry incurred the jealousy of +"duds" in high places, demoralization set in. All the old incentives +were gone, and no one was left to set a standard. The subconscious +instincts of men whose ambitions were thwarted turned into purely +destructive channels. Already before the war things had taken this turn, +but the wave of patriotism to which the war gave rise led to hopes that +a new spirit was to enter industry. But when, through the rapacity of +profiteers, it became apparent that such hopes were doomed to +disappointment, destructive impulses returned with redoubled energy. +That is the secret of the labour unrest. The profiteers have killed the +goose that laid the golden eggs. + +It was because limited companies sought from the first to secure their +position by cornering the market rather than by a regard for their own +internal efficiency, that they have for ever been seeking to establish +themselves on a larger and larger scale. Consideration of internal +efficiency would have urged upon them the advantages of small +organizations, which in the nature of things are more manageable, but +the policy to which they were committed of maintaining themselves by +securing monopolies of the market obliged them to seek to operate on an +increasingly larger scale in order that they could more successfully +hold their own against competing companies. But the larger the scale +they operate upon, the greater becomes their need of capital; and the +greater their need, the more they tended to fall under the control of +the banks which monopolized credit. Major C. H. Douglas has given to +this new development which has supplanted capitalism the name of +Creditism.Capitalism was essentially private and individual, and because +of its private and individual nature a natural boundary was placed to +the dimensions of an organization. But when in order to be successful +business had to be started on a big scale, the possibility of the +individual capitalist starting any new enterprise became dependent in +the vast majority of cases upon being able to get the backing of some +bank. Hence it has come about that while it is an easy matter for a +company already established to secure additional capital to extend its +business operations, it has become almost impossible for a new man to +start; for a new man is an unknown quantity and is not to be trusted +with extensive credit. It has been thus that the arrival of limited +companies has been followed by a centripetal movement in finance which +encourages the organization of larger and larger concerns, not because +of the needs of efficiency, but because of the exigencies of credit, +which in turn still further widens the discrepancy between appearances +and reality, between control and potential ability. + +In Germany the attempt was made to counteract this centripetal tendency +of finance by the institution of credit banks, which it was hoped would +restore a distributed initiative by inducing a centrifugal tendency. It +was a proverbial saying in Germany that with the aid of his bank a man +builds the first floor of his house by mortgaging the ground floor; his +second by mortgaging the first; and puts on the roof by the aid of a +mortgage upon his second floor. This is no exaggeration, for the banks +were accustomed to advance money to the extent of 90%, to men who +desired to set up in business, on a purely speculative goodwill, and to +accept as security for the remaining 10%, a valuation of such things as +household furniture. But it all availed nothing. The widespread +distribution of credit increased the efficiency of the industrial +machine to such an extent that in fifteen years Germany quadrupled her +output, and this led to such an intensification of the pace of +competition and profits were so reduced that in the years before the war +the great mass of German industries were rapidly approaching bankruptcy. +The stress of such circumstances doubtless precipitated the war. I have +little doubt that England owed her comparative immunity from such trying +conditions to her comparative inefficiency. + +The failure of limited liability companies as a system of industrial +control suggests a comparison with the Mediaeval Guild system; for the +difference between them is the difference between the Mediaeval and +modern worlds. Under the modern system finance plays the all-important +part. It comes first and every other consideration plays a quite +secondary and unimportant part. As the system develops, technical skill +is less and less appreciated, and what naturally follows from it sinks +into a lower and lower status. On this side limited companies are living +on capital. Their influence tends to undermine all such skill, and as +the final test of an organization from the point of view of the public +is not the profits it makes but what kind of goods it produces, the +limited liability system of control from without stands condemned as the +worst system under which industry has ever been organized. The Mediaeval +Guild system was the exact reverse of this. The technical man or +craftsman, who under the limited liability company system is reckoned a +man of no account, was in control and he arranged things very +differently. Instead of organizing industry for the purpose of +extracting profits, he organized it with the aim of producing good work. +With this aim in view finance was reduced to the bare minimum by the +simple device of fixing prices. In large building works a bookkeeper was +employed, but apart from this finance appears to have been entirely +absent in production. The financial man confined his attention entirely +to distribution, and distribution in those days was a very secondary +form of activity. It did not bulk in anything like the proportion it +does to-day. The change which has taken the control of industry out of +the hands of the technical man and allowed the financier to spread his +tentacles over it is due finally to the revival of Roman Law, which +broke down barrier after barrier that placed a boundary to financial +operations. It began by transforming the Feudal system, based upon the +principle of function, into landlordism. This enabled capitalism to get +a foothold in rural areas, to develop domestic industry and undermine +the position of the Guilds. But the two things that made the great +change were, first, the Industrial Revolution, which undermined the +position of the craftsman and gave great opportunities to the financier, +and second, the legalization of limited liability, which handed over +technical trades entirely to commercial exploitation by divorcing +ownership from control and technical ability. # The War and the Aftermath ->  "Commercial intercourse between nations, it was supposed -> some fifty years ago, would inaugurate an era of peace; -> and there appear to be many among you who still cling to -> this belief. But never was belief more plainly -> contradicted by the facts. The competition for markets -> bids fair to be a more fruitful cause of war than was ever -> in the past the ambition of princes or the bigotry of -> priests. The peoples of Europe fling themselves, like -> hungry beasts of prey, on every yet unexploited quarter of -> the globe. Hitherto they have confined their acts of -> spoliation to those whom they regard as outside their own -> pale. But always, while they divide the spoil, they watch -> one another with a jealous eye; and sooner or later, when -> there is nothing left to divide, they will fall upon one -> another. That is the real meaning of your armaments; you -> must devour or be devoured. And it is precisely those -> trade relations, which it was thought would knit you in -> the bonds of peace, which, by making every one of you -> cut-throat rivals of the rest, have brought you within -> reasonable distance of a general war of extermination" -> (*Letters from John Chinaman*, by **G. Lowes Dickinson**). +>  "Commercial intercourse between nations, it was supposed some fifty +> years ago, would inaugurate an era of peace; and there appear to be +> many among you who still cling to this belief. But never was belief +> more plainly contradicted by the facts. The competition for markets +> bids fair to be a more fruitful cause of war than was ever in the past +> the ambition of princes or the bigotry of priests. The peoples of +> Europe fling themselves, like hungry beasts of prey, on every yet +> unexploited quarter of the globe. Hitherto they have confined their +> acts of spoliation to those whom they regard as outside their own +> pale. But always, while they divide the spoil, they watch one another +> with a jealous eye; and sooner or later, when there is nothing left to +> divide, they will fall upon one another. That is the real meaning of +> your armaments; you must devour or be devoured. And it is precisely +> those trade relations, which it was thought would knit you in the +> bonds of peace, which, by making every one of you cut-throat rivals of +> the rest, have brought you within reasonable distance of a general war +> of extermination" (*Letters from John Chinaman*, by **G. Lowes +> Dickinson**).   -In August, 1914, this prophecy, made some twenty years ago, -was fulfilled. The German army entered Belgium, and the -long-predicted war broke over Europe. Until the day of its -arrival large numbers of people in this country were -sceptical as to the reality of the menace. They had been -warned too often to believe it. Certain definite actions -certainly pointed to the coming of war. But on the other -hand certain general considerations weighed heavily against -it. The industrial system was a highly complex affair. It -could only be maintained by a high degree of reciprocity -between the nations. In consequence a European war between -nations who had adopted conscription would be a -life-and-death struggle which would probably end in the -destruction of modern civilization---in a catastrophe in -which the victorious as well as the vanquished would be -involved. It was difficult to believe that Germany would be -oblivious to this fact. There might be Jingoes bent on war -in Germany, but then there were Jingoes in England, and it -did not necessarily follow that they would get their own -way. What reason was there to suppose that difficulties -could not be arranged by compromise and moderate opinion +In August, 1914, this prophecy, made some twenty years ago, was +fulfilled. The German army entered Belgium, and the long-predicted war +broke over Europe. Until the day of its arrival large numbers of people +in this country were sceptical as to the reality of the menace. They had +been warned too often to believe it. Certain definite actions certainly +pointed to the coming of war. But on the other hand certain general +considerations weighed heavily against it. The industrial system was a +highly complex affair. It could only be maintained by a high degree of +reciprocity between the nations. In consequence a European war between +nations who had adopted conscription would be a life-and-death struggle +which would probably end in the destruction of modern civilization---in +a catastrophe in which the victorious as well as the vanquished would be +involved. It was difficult to believe that Germany would be oblivious to +this fact. There might be Jingoes bent on war in Germany, but then there +were Jingoes in England, and it did not necessarily follow that they +would get their own way. What reason was there to suppose that +difficulties could not be arranged by compromise and moderate opinion prevail? -In some such way as this the mass of moderately minded -people reasoned before the war. That they so entirely -misjudged the situation is perhaps finally to be accounted -for by the fact that its true inwardness was never written -about until after the war had broken out. We were told about -the vast preparations that Germany was making for war; about -the growth of armaments in which other European nations -followed suit. But we were never told *why* Germany was -making such preparations. She had nothing to fear from -France--*La revanche* was dead---nor had she anything to -fear from England. Why was she arming? This at the time was -an enigma to thinking people who were not carried off their -feet by chauvinism. The trade of Germany was advancing by -leaps and bounds. To all appearances her prosperity was -increasing. Why then did she exhibit this querulous spirit? -No satisfactory answer was forthcoming. Perhaps after all it -was only bluff intended to further the ends of her -diplomacy. The hazards of a general European war were so -incalculable that it was to be supposed that even Germany -would not lightly embark upon such an enterprise. - -And indeed it is true to say that Germany did not embark -lightly on war. That she did eventually declare war was due -to the fact that her position had become desperate, and -there can be little doubt that a consciousness that it was -only a matter of time before such a situation would arise -was the motive that all along prompted her to arm. The -exhaustion of markets, foreseen by all who ever reflected on -the trend of industrialism, had come about at last, and -Germany was finding herself in difficulties. The growth of -the pressure of competition had indicated for some time that -other industrialized nations were beginning to feel the -pinch. But they had greater reserves, and their position was -far from desperate. England, for example, had a great -reserve of wealth in raw materials and colonies which -provided an outlet for surplus population and a market for -surplus goods. Moreover, there was India, which provided not -only a market for goods, but posts for civil servants. But -Germany was not so fortunately placed. She was poor in raw -materials and had no first-class colonies and no -dependencies. So it came about that Germany became -accustomed to compare her own position with the more -favourable position of England, and to imagine that if only -she had colonies and dependencies her economic condition -would be different; the pressure of competition would be -relieved and her people would be in a position to pursue -their aims unaccompanied by those financial worries which -since the opening of the present century had been a constant -source of anxiety. This feeling was shared by the whole -nation, from capitalists who were eager for concessions to -the students of the universities. "Any one," says Mr. de -Maeztu, "who has lived in German university circles during -the last few years will be able to confirm my statement, -that the greatest enthusiasts of colonial expansion in -Germany were not the manufacturers, but the students. Their -admiration and envy of British power in India were not -aroused by commercial prospects, but by the possibility of -posts for military and civil bureaucrats. In the future -colonial empire of Germany the student dimly discerned -billets and pensions for hundreds of thousands of German -university graduates."It was the vision of such prospects -that induced them to favour a policy of aggression. - -The part played by bureaucracies in fomenting racial and -international troubles should not be overlooked. The desire -of their bureaucracies for expansion was the one bond of -common interest between Germany and Austria, offering us -some clue as to why the Austrian declaration of war on -Serbia was so popular in Vienna. Writing of the Austrian -bureaucracy before the war, Mr. Wickham Steed says "the -'race struggle' in Austria, of which so much has been -written, is largely a struggle for bureaucratic -appointments. Germans and Czechs have striven for years to -increase on the one hand and defend on the other their -patrimony of official positions. The essence of the language -struggle is that it is a struggle for bureaucratic -influence. Similarly, the demand for new Universities or -High Schools put forward by Czechs, Ruthenes, Slovenes and -Italians but resisted by the Germans, Poles and other -nations, as the case may be, are demands for the creation of -new machines to turn out potential officials whom the -political influence of Parliamentary parties may then be -trusted to hoist into bureaucratic appointments. In the -Austrian Parliament the Government, which consists mainly of -officials, sometimes purchases the support of political -leaders by giving State appointments to their kindred or -*protégés*, or by promoting *protégés* already appointed. -One hand washes the other, and service is rendered for -service. On occasion the votes of a whole party can be -bought by the appointment of one of its prominent members to -a permanent Under-Secretaryship in a Department of State. -Once appointed, he is able to facilitate the appointment of -other officials of his own race or party. Each position thus -conquered forms part of the political patrimony of the race -and party by whom it has been secured, and is stoutly -defended against attack. Appointments are thus multiplied -exceedingly---to the cost of the taxpayer and the -complication of public business." - -Of course this kind of thing has its limits. A point is -reached when the burden of officials becomes so great to the -taxpayer and so inimical to the commercial interest of a -country that the desire for further expansion on the part of -a bureaucracy can only be satisfied by extending their -powers over the inhabitants of other countries, and it must -be understood that the desire for expansion is inherent in -bureaucracies, for expansion provides opportunities for -promotion. In a stationary bureaucracy promotion is slow---a -matter of waiting for dead men's shoes. "For other classes -the national idea of a sovereign State is a disinterested, -sentimental, and romantic ideal. For the officials, on the -other hand, the State is not only an ideal but a source of -income. It has been said---by Mr. Norman Angell, I -believe---that when the Germans annexed Alsace-Lorraine the -rich of Alsace-Lorraine went on being rich, the poor -continued to be poor, labourers were still labourers, and -that the war had been useless from an economic point of -view. And it is quite possible that war may be useless from -the point of view of labourers, workmen and masters. But the -two thousand French professors in both provinces were -replaced by two thousand Germans; and the same thing -happened with the army officers, the judges, the officials -of the public health boards, and so on. From the point of -view of the bureaucratic interests the war was not merely -useless, but positively disastrous for French officialdom -and beneficial to the German. A change of flag may not -substantially alter the economic regime of a specified -district; but what does undoubtedly change is the -bureaucratic personnel. The official follows the flag. The -official is therefore the permanent soldier of the flag." - -Though bureaucracies have an immediate interest in wars of -conquest, they are yet not sufficiently powerful to make -wars on their own account. Before a war can be successfully -launched the nation as a whole must be brought into line. -The terrible financial strain to which Germany had been -subjected in the two or three years preceding the war had -induced a frame of mind favourable to the war party, and it -is conceivable that the war was as much caused by the desire -for relief from such trying circumstances as by the warlike -proclivities of the German ruling class. Germany was -committed to a policy of indefinite industrial expansion, -and signs were not wanting that expansion had reached its -limit, for the enormous competition in the production of -goods had reduced profits to such an extent that it became -evident that the German financial system, built upon an -inverted pyramid of credit, could not for long bear the -strain of such adverse conditions. So long as peace -continued there was no hope of relief, for the ratio of -production due to never slackening energy, technique and -scientific development was outstripping the ratio of demand. -"In the fifteen years before the war Germany had quadrupled -her output, and in consequence a day came when all the world -that would take German-made goods was choked to the lips. -Economic difficulties began to make themselves felt, and -then the Prussian doctrine of force spread with alarming -rapidity. War was decided upon for the purpose of relieving -the pressure of competition by forcing goods upon other -markets."Hence the demand for colonial expansion, the -destruction of the towns and industries of Belgium and -Northern France and the wholesale destruction of shipping by -the submarine campaign. They had all one object in view---to -relieve the pressure of competition, to get more elbow-room -for German industries. The idea of relieving the pressure of -competition by such commercial sabotage was not a new one. -It had been, as I have pointed out, employed by the Romans, -who destroyed Carthage and the vineyards and olive-groves of -Gaul in order to avoid a damaging com petition, but it was a -crazy one all the same, for it embarked Germany upon a -policy from which there was no turning back, and left her no -option but to conquer the world or be annihilated in case of -failure. There was no third alternative, for such action -removed the possibility of a peace by compromise. - -It was finally because every other nation in Western Europe -and America was moving into a similar cul-de-sac that the -desperate remedy sought by Germany was no remedy at all. The -reason why all were beginning to find themselves in -difficulties was because each of them had embarked upon a -policy of indefinite economic expansion on a basis of -economic injustice. Each of them had denied economic justice -to the workers and Nemesis was overtaking them all. It is -only necessary to reflect on the general economic situation -to realize this. Greed had blinded them all to the simple -economic fact that it is impossible in the long run to -increase production except on the assumption that -consumption be correspondingly increased. Such an increase -of consumption, it is apparent, could only be permanently -secured on an assumption that the workers were allowed to -have a proportionate share of the increased wealth which -they assisted to produce. But the policy of capitalists all -over the world being to secure all the advantages of -increased production for themselves, had created great -inequalities of wealth, and so it came about that as the -people only earned a bare subsistence an increased -productivity could only be disposed of finally in two ways: -by the increase of luxuries for the wealthy on the one -hand---for the increase of consumption had to come entirely -from the rich---or by disposing of surplus goods in foreign -markets. But such a policy had well-defined limits. No -nation could afford to be the consumer of machine-produced -goods indefinitely, as in that case the suction would drain -its economic resources, and so one nation after another was -drawn into the whirlpool of industrial production, until a -time came at last when there were no new markets left to -exploit. When that point was reached, the fundamental -falsity of the whole system revealed itself in the economic -paradox that drove Germany into war. - -The declaration of war gave the German economic system a new -lease of life by the enormous demand it created for -munitions, which were sold to the Government at prices which -enabled loans and other financial obligations to be met. The -money for the payment of these munitions was raised by loans -which it was the intention of the German Government to -liquidate by means of the huge indemnities which they hoped -to get from the Entente. As a measure of temporary economic -expediency the war for Germany doubtless served its -immediate purpose of setting the financial machine in motion -again, but even if Germany had been successful it could not -have solved her economic problem when peace returned, -because a policy of indefinite industrial expansion, by -producing goods in greater quantities than the market could -absorb, was bound before long to land her in the same -position in which she found herself in 1914. In the event of -her being victorious, the most optimistic forecast of her -future would place her in the same position as England finds -herself in to-day, which is anything but rosy. - -The outbreak of war caught England unprepared, and seriously -dislocated the old economic order. Accustomed supplies -vanished and exceptional demands immediately sprang up. Into -a market of producers competing with each other for a still -greater number of consumers, which had kept prices -comparatively stationary, though the tendency for prices to -rise had been continuous for the twenty previous years, -there came an enormous demand for war material of one kind -and another, and for this there was only one buyer---the -Government, acting at first through the War Office and later -through it and the Ministry of Munitions and other -Government departments. In the first few months of the war a -wave of patriotism passed over the country which apparently -was so genuine that it led the Yorkshire woollen -manufacturers to offer to supply the Government with khaki -at a fixed price, but this offer, which would probably have -been followed by other manufacturers, was refused by the War -Office, who preferred to continue the system of competitive -contracts. The result was disastrous, for it so happened -that the needs of the Government were soon to become so -great that the large firms found themselves in a position to -hold up the State for ransom, and as the patriotic offer of -the Yorkshire manufacturers had been refused, they did not -scruple to take the fullest advantage of the situation. The -unemployed problem to which the war immediately gave rise -did not last for long, but was speedily followed by a great -demand for labour which in turn was followed by a rise in -wages, and from then onwards prices and wages engaged in a -neck-and-neck race. Meanwhile, in one way or another, the -vast majority of people, either directly or indirectly, were -working in the public service, and all this enormous -artificial activity was kept in motion and stimulated from -above by means of State loans and the wholesale issue of -paper money which depreciated the currency to such an extent -as still further to inflate the already inflated prices. It -was thus that during the war nearly the whole nation came to -be living upon borrowed money, and it still continues to do -so. - -Since the coming of peace the problem has been how to return -to the normal. At the close of other wars the Government -have usually disbanded the troops for which they had no -further use, exploited the loyalty of the soldiers and then -turned them adrift to starve or to make shift as best they -could. In spite of public professions, there is no reason to -suppose that the Government would not have acted any -differently this time, if it had dared to do so. But the -scale of the present war made it dangerous for the -Government to play the old confidence trick with impunity. -The fact that nearly every worker was during the war either -directly or indirectly in the public service and the fact -that the workers are strongly organized made such a policy -unthinkable, and so unemployed allowances are made and the -unemployed draw pay until such time as industry can pick -itself up again. But a suspicion gains ground that it is no -easy matter to get the wheels of industry in motion again. -It appears that the problem of reorganizing for peace is -going to be a much more difficult matter than organization -for war. Consider for a moment what has been taking place. -Speculative finance, the motive force of industrialism, has -for over four years orientated itself around war production. -With peace all this activity has come to an end. Can the old -motive and driving force of speculative finance become again -operative in the industries it has forsaken? It is -questionable. It was an easy matter to transfer the labour -of the community from peace production to war production -because it was a movement that was in accord with the -centrifugal movement in finance. All that was necessary was -for the Government to borrow money, place orders for -munitions right and left, and the thing was accomplished. To -reverse the process will not be such a simple matter, -because it involves a centrifugal movement in finance, and -this is contrary to the normal trend of things in these -days, for whereas the centripetal movement was easy because -it could be accomplished by a centralized initiative, a -centrifugal movement demands a distributed one, and while -our society responds readily to the touch of a centralized -initiative, the organs necessary to the exercise of a -distributed initiative were in the interests of commercial -exploitation destroyed in the past. - -It will make the position clearer to say that a distributed -initiative exists in any society just to the extent that a -man can employ himself. The peasant State enjoys a -distributed initiative because, when every man owns his own -plot of land or shares in a communal holding, he can set -himself to work. This is the reason why peasant nations -recuperate so quickly after wars, even under modern -conditions. When a war is over, every man can go back to his -own plot of land and work away just as he did before the war -broke out. But with highly complex industrial communities, -whose activities are based upon a highly complex system of -finance and which produce largely for distant markets, it is -different, because only a small percentage of the activities -of such communities have a basis in real human and -fundamental needs. Production in such communities comes to -depend upon all manner of things, while most members of such -communities are dependent upon some one else for -employment---ultimately upon the possessors of capital who -in such communities monopolize all initiative. Hence it is -that so long as present conditions of wealth distribution -obtain, if a revival of trade is to take place it must -proceed from the initiative of the small group at the top -who control the financial situation, and this places a -responsibility upon their shoulders heavier than they can -bear. Hitherto industrial initiative proceeded from below -and was exploited by financiers from above. But now the -position is entirely reversed. The short-sighted policy of -financiers has gradually taken away initiative from the man -below. In seeking to concentrate all wealth in his own -hands, the financier has, unfortunately for his own peace of -mind, saddled himself with the responsibility of industrial -initiative, and I doubt not it will prove to be a burden too -heavy for him to support. The man below, so long as he -enjoyed autonomy, could exercise initiative, since the range -of conditions he had to comprehend was limited and familiar. -But as a result of centralization the whole complex economic -phenomenon of our society would have to be comprehended -intellectually if an initiative such as would set the -machinery in motion again is to be exercised, and as the -experience of every man is limited, this becomes an -impossible proposition. Industry can no longer be kept going -by the momentum it inherited from the past, and if trade is -to revive it must be galvanized into activity from above, -and that is a different story. - -Though I am persuaded that there is finally no escape from -the economic cul-de-sac apart from a return to Mediaeval -conditions, involving a redistribution of wealth and -initiative, it is yet possible that the crisis may be -postponed a few years by means of financial jugglery. A -glimmer of light comes from America, which, having become -the financial centre of the world, holds the key to the -position. It is proposed that the United States should raise -an enormous loan for Europe to enable the War Powers to -restore their industry and credit. The principal means to -this end will be a loan and bond issue such as has never -before been seen, of a nature to secure the necessary funds -for these Powers to buy all they require and to extend their -credit as long as may be necessary---ten, twenty, or thirty -years if requisite, until the time comes when the European -countries no longer need assistance. This proposal is not a -purely philanthropic one. In making it the United States is -just as anxious to solve her own economic problem as that of -the European Powers, for America finds herself in a position -the exact reverse to that in which Germany found herself -before the war. Germany found herself in financial -difficulties because her industries made too little profit. -America is in financial difficulties because during the war -she has made too much profit. The consequence is that while -her banks are choked with money for which investments cannot -be found, her industries are producing a plethora of goods -for which markets must be found. In these difficult -circumstances America has hit upon the cunning device of -lending money to the European Powers in order that they may -find themselves in a position to buy the goods which America -must produce, for production in America, as in Germany -before the war, is no longer controlled by demand but by -plant. It is a Gilbertian situation the sequel of which -promises to be interesting. America lends money to the -European Powers in order that they may find themselves in a -position to buy American goods. The European Powers lend -money to their manufacturers in order that they may be in a -position to produce still more goods. But the manufacturers -being persuaded that their salvation is to be found in -keeping wages down, find that while production increases -consumption will not. Hence unemployment and hence -unemployed pay, the amount of which is increased from time -to time in order that people shall be in a position to buy -the goods that must be produced until a point is reached at -which a man may be well off if he won't work but only earns -a bare subsistence if he does. The period for the repayment -of loans is extended from thirty to fifty years, from fifty -to a hundred, from a hundred to a thousand years. It is an -enchanting prospect to which it is difficult to see the end, -for as the tendency of finance is increasingly centripetal -it can only be saved from collapse by a centrifugal movement -which redistributes the wealth produced. If progress is to -be along these lines, a time will come when all Europe will -be living upon borrowed money and can keep on borrowing -because America fears the collapse of her economic system if -she refuses to lend. - -Of course things won't work out exactly like that. Human -nature would soon come in to upset such a purely economic -calculation. But it is as logical and as probable as the -deduction from any other economic theory which disregards -the moral issue. The really interesting thing about the -present situation is that it brings the modern world right -up against the problem of wealth distribution. The immediate -cause of the war I showed was due to over-production in -Germany in the sense that by allowing machinery to proceed -unregulated production had got ahead of demand and more -goods were produced than the markets would absorb. Ignoring -the fact that the war was precipitated because the -industrial system before the war had reached its limit of -expansion, the Government publicists and others nevertheless -advocate a policy of maximum production as the path of -economic salvation. They propose, in fact, to reproduce in -an intensified form the very conditions that brought the war -about. - -Meanwhile the manifest fallacy of such a policy becomes -apparent from the fact that owing to the flood of -profiteering that the war let loose the workers have -rebelled. They are refusing to produce merely to make -profits for others, and under these changed circumstances a -colour is given to the cry for increased production. But it -is a false issue, since, low as production has fallen, we -produce ten, probably fifty, times as much as is necessary -for our needs, considered quantitatively. The present system -is not maintained because an enormous output is necessary -for our needs, but to effect distribution. We employ people -in unnecessary production in order that they may have the -money to buy the necessary things of which we produce too -little. If any one doubts this, let him answer the question -how it came about that in the Middle Ages, when there were -no machines, the town worker earned an equivalent of three -or four pounds a week and the agricultural worker two-thirds -of that amount, taking the value of money as it existed -before the war.Of course it cannot be answered. The -paradoxical situation in which we find ourselves is due -entirely to the fact that since capitalists got the upper -hand they have consistently refused to face the problem of -distribution. But truth will be out. Nemesis seems to say to -the financiers: "If ye will not distribute wealth, neither -shall ye distribute goods; and if ye do not distribute -goods, neither shall ye distribute dividends." It is not -Socialists who have created this problem, but the financiers -themselves. The problem is their own making, due to the -avaricious dog-in-the-manger spirit in which they have -pursued the accumulation of wealth. While they exerted all -their energies towards increasing the volume of production, -they entirely lost sight of the fact that a day would come -when their position would become perilous unless such -increase of production was accompanied by a corresponding -increase in consumption. So blind were they to this fact -that so far from seeking to increase consumption their -constant thought has been how to decrease it by reducing -wages. We are up against the logical ending of the -Mercantile and Manchester School theory of economics---that -the wealth of nations is best secured by increasing -production and decreasing consumption. The Nemesis of such a -false philosophy has overtaken the world at last. - -It is an open question whether a way can be found out of the -present impasse and a financial crash such as might -precipitate revolution averted. For it is to be feared that -the pace at which the crisis is developing is much faster -than any possible counter-measures that could be put into -operation. But if anything at all can be done it is the -wealthy alone who can do it. If they could be induced to -face the facts, to realize that the problem is the -inevitable consequence of their policy of for ever investing -and reinvesting surplus wealth for the purposes of further -increase they might be led to see that the spending of their -surplus wealth in unremunerative ways would ease the -situation if it could not forestall catastrophe. The present -impasse could have been predicted by any one who had -reflected on the famous arithmetical calculation that shows -that a halfpenny put out to 5%, compound interest on the -first day of the Christian era would by now amount to more -money than the earth could contain. This calculation clearly -demonstrates a limit to the possibilities of compound -interest, yet it is to such a principle that what we call -"sound finance" is committed. +In some such way as this the mass of moderately minded people reasoned +before the war. That they so entirely misjudged the situation is perhaps +finally to be accounted for by the fact that its true inwardness was +never written about until after the war had broken out. We were told +about the vast preparations that Germany was making for war; about the +growth of armaments in which other European nations followed suit. But +we were never told *why* Germany was making such preparations. She had +nothing to fear from France--*La revanche* was dead---nor had she +anything to fear from England. Why was she arming? This at the time was +an enigma to thinking people who were not carried off their feet by +chauvinism. The trade of Germany was advancing by leaps and bounds. To +all appearances her prosperity was increasing. Why then did she exhibit +this querulous spirit? No satisfactory answer was forthcoming. Perhaps +after all it was only bluff intended to further the ends of her +diplomacy. The hazards of a general European war were so incalculable +that it was to be supposed that even Germany would not lightly embark +upon such an enterprise. + +And indeed it is true to say that Germany did not embark lightly on war. +That she did eventually declare war was due to the fact that her +position had become desperate, and there can be little doubt that a +consciousness that it was only a matter of time before such a situation +would arise was the motive that all along prompted her to arm. The +exhaustion of markets, foreseen by all who ever reflected on the trend +of industrialism, had come about at last, and Germany was finding +herself in difficulties. The growth of the pressure of competition had +indicated for some time that other industrialized nations were beginning +to feel the pinch. But they had greater reserves, and their position was +far from desperate. England, for example, had a great reserve of wealth +in raw materials and colonies which provided an outlet for surplus +population and a market for surplus goods. Moreover, there was India, +which provided not only a market for goods, but posts for civil +servants. But Germany was not so fortunately placed. She was poor in raw +materials and had no first-class colonies and no dependencies. So it +came about that Germany became accustomed to compare her own position +with the more favourable position of England, and to imagine that if +only she had colonies and dependencies her economic condition would be +different; the pressure of competition would be relieved and her people +would be in a position to pursue their aims unaccompanied by those +financial worries which since the opening of the present century had +been a constant source of anxiety. This feeling was shared by the whole +nation, from capitalists who were eager for concessions to the students +of the universities. "Any one," says Mr. de Maeztu, "who has lived in +German university circles during the last few years will be able to +confirm my statement, that the greatest enthusiasts of colonial +expansion in Germany were not the manufacturers, but the students. Their +admiration and envy of British power in India were not aroused by +commercial prospects, but by the possibility of posts for military and +civil bureaucrats. In the future colonial empire of Germany the student +dimly discerned billets and pensions for hundreds of thousands of German +university graduates."It was the vision of such prospects that induced +them to favour a policy of aggression. + +The part played by bureaucracies in fomenting racial and international +troubles should not be overlooked. The desire of their bureaucracies for +expansion was the one bond of common interest between Germany and +Austria, offering us some clue as to why the Austrian declaration of war +on Serbia was so popular in Vienna. Writing of the Austrian bureaucracy +before the war, Mr. Wickham Steed says "the 'race struggle' in Austria, +of which so much has been written, is largely a struggle for +bureaucratic appointments. Germans and Czechs have striven for years to +increase on the one hand and defend on the other their patrimony of +official positions. The essence of the language struggle is that it is a +struggle for bureaucratic influence. Similarly, the demand for new +Universities or High Schools put forward by Czechs, Ruthenes, Slovenes +and Italians but resisted by the Germans, Poles and other nations, as +the case may be, are demands for the creation of new machines to turn +out potential officials whom the political influence of Parliamentary +parties may then be trusted to hoist into bureaucratic appointments. In +the Austrian Parliament the Government, which consists mainly of +officials, sometimes purchases the support of political leaders by +giving State appointments to their kindred or *protégés*, or by +promoting *protégés* already appointed. One hand washes the other, and +service is rendered for service. On occasion the votes of a whole party +can be bought by the appointment of one of its prominent members to a +permanent Under-Secretaryship in a Department of State. Once appointed, +he is able to facilitate the appointment of other officials of his own +race or party. Each position thus conquered forms part of the political +patrimony of the race and party by whom it has been secured, and is +stoutly defended against attack. Appointments are thus multiplied +exceedingly---to the cost of the taxpayer and the complication of public +business." + +Of course this kind of thing has its limits. A point is reached when the +burden of officials becomes so great to the taxpayer and so inimical to +the commercial interest of a country that the desire for further +expansion on the part of a bureaucracy can only be satisfied by +extending their powers over the inhabitants of other countries, and it +must be understood that the desire for expansion is inherent in +bureaucracies, for expansion provides opportunities for promotion. In a +stationary bureaucracy promotion is slow---a matter of waiting for dead +men's shoes. "For other classes the national idea of a sovereign State +is a disinterested, sentimental, and romantic ideal. For the officials, +on the other hand, the State is not only an ideal but a source of +income. It has been said---by Mr. Norman Angell, I believe---that when +the Germans annexed Alsace-Lorraine the rich of Alsace-Lorraine went on +being rich, the poor continued to be poor, labourers were still +labourers, and that the war had been useless from an economic point of +view. And it is quite possible that war may be useless from the point of +view of labourers, workmen and masters. But the two thousand French +professors in both provinces were replaced by two thousand Germans; and +the same thing happened with the army officers, the judges, the +officials of the public health boards, and so on. From the point of view +of the bureaucratic interests the war was not merely useless, but +positively disastrous for French officialdom and beneficial to the +German. A change of flag may not substantially alter the economic regime +of a specified district; but what does undoubtedly change is the +bureaucratic personnel. The official follows the flag. The official is +therefore the permanent soldier of the flag." + +Though bureaucracies have an immediate interest in wars of conquest, +they are yet not sufficiently powerful to make wars on their own +account. Before a war can be successfully launched the nation as a whole +must be brought into line. The terrible financial strain to which +Germany had been subjected in the two or three years preceding the war +had induced a frame of mind favourable to the war party, and it is +conceivable that the war was as much caused by the desire for relief +from such trying circumstances as by the warlike proclivities of the +German ruling class. Germany was committed to a policy of indefinite +industrial expansion, and signs were not wanting that expansion had +reached its limit, for the enormous competition in the production of +goods had reduced profits to such an extent that it became evident that +the German financial system, built upon an inverted pyramid of credit, +could not for long bear the strain of such adverse conditions. So long +as peace continued there was no hope of relief, for the ratio of +production due to never slackening energy, technique and scientific +development was outstripping the ratio of demand. "In the fifteen years +before the war Germany had quadrupled her output, and in consequence a +day came when all the world that would take German-made goods was choked +to the lips. Economic difficulties began to make themselves felt, and +then the Prussian doctrine of force spread with alarming rapidity. War +was decided upon for the purpose of relieving the pressure of +competition by forcing goods upon other markets."Hence the demand for +colonial expansion, the destruction of the towns and industries of +Belgium and Northern France and the wholesale destruction of shipping by +the submarine campaign. They had all one object in view---to relieve the +pressure of competition, to get more elbow-room for German industries. +The idea of relieving the pressure of competition by such commercial +sabotage was not a new one. It had been, as I have pointed out, employed +by the Romans, who destroyed Carthage and the vineyards and olive-groves +of Gaul in order to avoid a damaging com petition, but it was a crazy +one all the same, for it embarked Germany upon a policy from which there +was no turning back, and left her no option but to conquer the world or +be annihilated in case of failure. There was no third alternative, for +such action removed the possibility of a peace by compromise. + +It was finally because every other nation in Western Europe and America +was moving into a similar cul-de-sac that the desperate remedy sought by +Germany was no remedy at all. The reason why all were beginning to find +themselves in difficulties was because each of them had embarked upon a +policy of indefinite economic expansion on a basis of economic +injustice. Each of them had denied economic justice to the workers and +Nemesis was overtaking them all. It is only necessary to reflect on the +general economic situation to realize this. Greed had blinded them all +to the simple economic fact that it is impossible in the long run to +increase production except on the assumption that consumption be +correspondingly increased. Such an increase of consumption, it is +apparent, could only be permanently secured on an assumption that the +workers were allowed to have a proportionate share of the increased +wealth which they assisted to produce. But the policy of capitalists all +over the world being to secure all the advantages of increased +production for themselves, had created great inequalities of wealth, and +so it came about that as the people only earned a bare subsistence an +increased productivity could only be disposed of finally in two ways: by +the increase of luxuries for the wealthy on the one hand---for the +increase of consumption had to come entirely from the rich---or by +disposing of surplus goods in foreign markets. But such a policy had +well-defined limits. No nation could afford to be the consumer of +machine-produced goods indefinitely, as in that case the suction would +drain its economic resources, and so one nation after another was drawn +into the whirlpool of industrial production, until a time came at last +when there were no new markets left to exploit. When that point was +reached, the fundamental falsity of the whole system revealed itself in +the economic paradox that drove Germany into war. + +The declaration of war gave the German economic system a new lease of +life by the enormous demand it created for munitions, which were sold to +the Government at prices which enabled loans and other financial +obligations to be met. The money for the payment of these munitions was +raised by loans which it was the intention of the German Government to +liquidate by means of the huge indemnities which they hoped to get from +the Entente. As a measure of temporary economic expediency the war for +Germany doubtless served its immediate purpose of setting the financial +machine in motion again, but even if Germany had been successful it +could not have solved her economic problem when peace returned, because +a policy of indefinite industrial expansion, by producing goods in +greater quantities than the market could absorb, was bound before long +to land her in the same position in which she found herself in 1914. In +the event of her being victorious, the most optimistic forecast of her +future would place her in the same position as England finds herself in +to-day, which is anything but rosy. + +The outbreak of war caught England unprepared, and seriously dislocated +the old economic order. Accustomed supplies vanished and exceptional +demands immediately sprang up. Into a market of producers competing with +each other for a still greater number of consumers, which had kept +prices comparatively stationary, though the tendency for prices to rise +had been continuous for the twenty previous years, there came an +enormous demand for war material of one kind and another, and for this +there was only one buyer---the Government, acting at first through the +War Office and later through it and the Ministry of Munitions and other +Government departments. In the first few months of the war a wave of +patriotism passed over the country which apparently was so genuine that +it led the Yorkshire woollen manufacturers to offer to supply the +Government with khaki at a fixed price, but this offer, which would +probably have been followed by other manufacturers, was refused by the +War Office, who preferred to continue the system of competitive +contracts. The result was disastrous, for it so happened that the needs +of the Government were soon to become so great that the large firms +found themselves in a position to hold up the State for ransom, and as +the patriotic offer of the Yorkshire manufacturers had been refused, +they did not scruple to take the fullest advantage of the situation. The +unemployed problem to which the war immediately gave rise did not last +for long, but was speedily followed by a great demand for labour which +in turn was followed by a rise in wages, and from then onwards prices +and wages engaged in a neck-and-neck race. Meanwhile, in one way or +another, the vast majority of people, either directly or indirectly, +were working in the public service, and all this enormous artificial +activity was kept in motion and stimulated from above by means of State +loans and the wholesale issue of paper money which depreciated the +currency to such an extent as still further to inflate the already +inflated prices. It was thus that during the war nearly the whole nation +came to be living upon borrowed money, and it still continues to do so. + +Since the coming of peace the problem has been how to return to the +normal. At the close of other wars the Government have usually disbanded +the troops for which they had no further use, exploited the loyalty of +the soldiers and then turned them adrift to starve or to make shift as +best they could. In spite of public professions, there is no reason to +suppose that the Government would not have acted any differently this +time, if it had dared to do so. But the scale of the present war made it +dangerous for the Government to play the old confidence trick with +impunity. The fact that nearly every worker was during the war either +directly or indirectly in the public service and the fact that the +workers are strongly organized made such a policy unthinkable, and so +unemployed allowances are made and the unemployed draw pay until such +time as industry can pick itself up again. But a suspicion gains ground +that it is no easy matter to get the wheels of industry in motion again. +It appears that the problem of reorganizing for peace is going to be a +much more difficult matter than organization for war. Consider for a +moment what has been taking place. Speculative finance, the motive force +of industrialism, has for over four years orientated itself around war +production. With peace all this activity has come to an end. Can the old +motive and driving force of speculative finance become again operative +in the industries it has forsaken? It is questionable. It was an easy +matter to transfer the labour of the community from peace production to +war production because it was a movement that was in accord with the +centrifugal movement in finance. All that was necessary was for the +Government to borrow money, place orders for munitions right and left, +and the thing was accomplished. To reverse the process will not be such +a simple matter, because it involves a centrifugal movement in finance, +and this is contrary to the normal trend of things in these days, for +whereas the centripetal movement was easy because it could be +accomplished by a centralized initiative, a centrifugal movement demands +a distributed one, and while our society responds readily to the touch +of a centralized initiative, the organs necessary to the exercise of a +distributed initiative were in the interests of commercial exploitation +destroyed in the past. + +It will make the position clearer to say that a distributed initiative +exists in any society just to the extent that a man can employ himself. +The peasant State enjoys a distributed initiative because, when every +man owns his own plot of land or shares in a communal holding, he can +set himself to work. This is the reason why peasant nations recuperate +so quickly after wars, even under modern conditions. When a war is over, +every man can go back to his own plot of land and work away just as he +did before the war broke out. But with highly complex industrial +communities, whose activities are based upon a highly complex system of +finance and which produce largely for distant markets, it is different, +because only a small percentage of the activities of such communities +have a basis in real human and fundamental needs. Production in such +communities comes to depend upon all manner of things, while most +members of such communities are dependent upon some one else for +employment---ultimately upon the possessors of capital who in such +communities monopolize all initiative. Hence it is that so long as +present conditions of wealth distribution obtain, if a revival of trade +is to take place it must proceed from the initiative of the small group +at the top who control the financial situation, and this places a +responsibility upon their shoulders heavier than they can bear. Hitherto +industrial initiative proceeded from below and was exploited by +financiers from above. But now the position is entirely reversed. The +short-sighted policy of financiers has gradually taken away initiative +from the man below. In seeking to concentrate all wealth in his own +hands, the financier has, unfortunately for his own peace of mind, +saddled himself with the responsibility of industrial initiative, and I +doubt not it will prove to be a burden too heavy for him to support. The +man below, so long as he enjoyed autonomy, could exercise initiative, +since the range of conditions he had to comprehend was limited and +familiar. But as a result of centralization the whole complex economic +phenomenon of our society would have to be comprehended intellectually +if an initiative such as would set the machinery in motion again is to +be exercised, and as the experience of every man is limited, this +becomes an impossible proposition. Industry can no longer be kept going +by the momentum it inherited from the past, and if trade is to revive it +must be galvanized into activity from above, and that is a different +story. + +Though I am persuaded that there is finally no escape from the economic +cul-de-sac apart from a return to Mediaeval conditions, involving a +redistribution of wealth and initiative, it is yet possible that the +crisis may be postponed a few years by means of financial jugglery. A +glimmer of light comes from America, which, having become the financial +centre of the world, holds the key to the position. It is proposed that +the United States should raise an enormous loan for Europe to enable the +War Powers to restore their industry and credit. The principal means to +this end will be a loan and bond issue such as has never before been +seen, of a nature to secure the necessary funds for these Powers to buy +all they require and to extend their credit as long as may be +necessary---ten, twenty, or thirty years if requisite, until the time +comes when the European countries no longer need assistance. This +proposal is not a purely philanthropic one. In making it the United +States is just as anxious to solve her own economic problem as that of +the European Powers, for America finds herself in a position the exact +reverse to that in which Germany found herself before the war. Germany +found herself in financial difficulties because her industries made too +little profit. America is in financial difficulties because during the +war she has made too much profit. The consequence is that while her +banks are choked with money for which investments cannot be found, her +industries are producing a plethora of goods for which markets must be +found. In these difficult circumstances America has hit upon the cunning +device of lending money to the European Powers in order that they may +find themselves in a position to buy the goods which America must +produce, for production in America, as in Germany before the war, is no +longer controlled by demand but by plant. It is a Gilbertian situation +the sequel of which promises to be interesting. America lends money to +the European Powers in order that they may find themselves in a position +to buy American goods. The European Powers lend money to their +manufacturers in order that they may be in a position to produce still +more goods. But the manufacturers being persuaded that their salvation +is to be found in keeping wages down, find that while production +increases consumption will not. Hence unemployment and hence unemployed +pay, the amount of which is increased from time to time in order that +people shall be in a position to buy the goods that must be produced +until a point is reached at which a man may be well off if he won't work +but only earns a bare subsistence if he does. The period for the +repayment of loans is extended from thirty to fifty years, from fifty to +a hundred, from a hundred to a thousand years. It is an enchanting +prospect to which it is difficult to see the end, for as the tendency of +finance is increasingly centripetal it can only be saved from collapse +by a centrifugal movement which redistributes the wealth produced. If +progress is to be along these lines, a time will come when all Europe +will be living upon borrowed money and can keep on borrowing because +America fears the collapse of her economic system if she refuses to +lend. + +Of course things won't work out exactly like that. Human nature would +soon come in to upset such a purely economic calculation. But it is as +logical and as probable as the deduction from any other economic theory +which disregards the moral issue. The really interesting thing about the +present situation is that it brings the modern world right up against +the problem of wealth distribution. The immediate cause of the war I +showed was due to over-production in Germany in the sense that by +allowing machinery to proceed unregulated production had got ahead of +demand and more goods were produced than the markets would absorb. +Ignoring the fact that the war was precipitated because the industrial +system before the war had reached its limit of expansion, the Government +publicists and others nevertheless advocate a policy of maximum +production as the path of economic salvation. They propose, in fact, to +reproduce in an intensified form the very conditions that brought the +war about. + +Meanwhile the manifest fallacy of such a policy becomes apparent from +the fact that owing to the flood of profiteering that the war let loose +the workers have rebelled. They are refusing to produce merely to make +profits for others, and under these changed circumstances a colour is +given to the cry for increased production. But it is a false issue, +since, low as production has fallen, we produce ten, probably fifty, +times as much as is necessary for our needs, considered quantitatively. +The present system is not maintained because an enormous output is +necessary for our needs, but to effect distribution. We employ people in +unnecessary production in order that they may have the money to buy the +necessary things of which we produce too little. If any one doubts this, +let him answer the question how it came about that in the Middle Ages, +when there were no machines, the town worker earned an equivalent of +three or four pounds a week and the agricultural worker two-thirds of +that amount, taking the value of money as it existed before the war.Of +course it cannot be answered. The paradoxical situation in which we find +ourselves is due entirely to the fact that since capitalists got the +upper hand they have consistently refused to face the problem of +distribution. But truth will be out. Nemesis seems to say to the +financiers: "If ye will not distribute wealth, neither shall ye +distribute goods; and if ye do not distribute goods, neither shall ye +distribute dividends." It is not Socialists who have created this +problem, but the financiers themselves. The problem is their own making, +due to the avaricious dog-in-the-manger spirit in which they have +pursued the accumulation of wealth. While they exerted all their +energies towards increasing the volume of production, they entirely lost +sight of the fact that a day would come when their position would become +perilous unless such increase of production was accompanied by a +corresponding increase in consumption. So blind were they to this fact +that so far from seeking to increase consumption their constant thought +has been how to decrease it by reducing wages. We are up against the +logical ending of the Mercantile and Manchester School theory of +economics---that the wealth of nations is best secured by increasing +production and decreasing consumption. The Nemesis of such a false +philosophy has overtaken the world at last. + +It is an open question whether a way can be found out of the present +impasse and a financial crash such as might precipitate revolution +averted. For it is to be feared that the pace at which the crisis is +developing is much faster than any possible counter-measures that could +be put into operation. But if anything at all can be done it is the +wealthy alone who can do it. If they could be induced to face the facts, +to realize that the problem is the inevitable consequence of their +policy of for ever investing and reinvesting surplus wealth for the +purposes of further increase they might be led to see that the spending +of their surplus wealth in unremunerative ways would ease the situation +if it could not forestall catastrophe. The present impasse could have +been predicted by any one who had reflected on the famous arithmetical +calculation that shows that a halfpenny put out to 5%, compound interest +on the first day of the Christian era would by now amount to more money +than the earth could contain. This calculation clearly demonstrates a +limit to the possibilities of compound interest, yet it is to such a +principle that what we call "sound finance" is committed. # Bolshevism and the Class War -To the average Englishman Bolshevism came like a bolt from -the blue. He was sympathetic with the Russian Revolution of -March, 1917. He had heard of the Russian bureaucracy, of the -secret police, of the transportations to Siberia, etc., and -he welcomed the overthrow of the Tsarist regime as the -overthrow of an intolerable tyranny. But the Revolution that -put the Bolsheviks in power he neither understood nor -sympathized with, and why the doctrine of the Class War -should have spread with such lightning rapidity over Europe -and America he was entirely incapable of comprehending. The -Press, to all appearances, found itself in the same dilemma -as himself. German gold, Russian gold, Hungarian gold, have -in turn been offered as explanations for its conquests, or -it is represented as a summer madness incapable of rational -explanation. - -Yet such is not the case. The rise to power of the -Bolsheviks and the subsequent spread of their creed is -capable of a perfectly intelligible explanation which would -have found its way into all the papers had it been -convenient to the Government to admit it. It may be true -that the Bolsheviks were at the beginning supplied with -German gold. I do not know whether it is true or not. If it -were offered them I do not suppose they would have refused -it any more than they and other Russian revolutionary -anti-war exiles in Switzerland refused to travel through -Germany in the train that the Kaiser so kindly placed at -their disposal; and the German Government has proved itself -so blind where psychological issues were concerned that it -is quite possible it did in the first instance supply the -Bolsheviks with the wherewithal to carry on their -propaganda. But whether they did or not does not account for -the rise of Bolshevism or the spread of it in other -countries, which is finally to be accounted for by the fact -that capitalists all over the world have refused for so long -to face the facts of modern civilization, that a point was -reached at length when the "evil day," as it is called, -could no longer be postponed. Immediately, however, it was -otherwise. The Bolsheviks rose to power in Russia because, -owing to the incapacity of Kerensky and his colleagues and -the political immaturity of the Russian people, things had -reached such a pass that Russia became entirely incapable of -carrying on the war successfully and was soon obliged to -accept peace on any terms. At the beginning of 1917 Russia -had an army which, though no doubt better equipped than in -the first years of the war, was still far too big. The towns -were full of idle soldiery; the railways were in imminent -peril of breaking down. Some of the Tsar's ministers came to -the conclusion that the best thing to do was to negotiate a -separate peace, but the Tsar, desirous of honouring his -agreement with the Allies, objected, and so an impasse was -reached. These ministers then sought to force the hand of -the Tsar by the provocation of a sham revolution which they -believed they could easily suppress, but which they could -use as an excuse for bringing the war to an end. But things -worked out differently from what they had expected. The -disorder they had provoked turned against them; instead of a -mock revolution, it proved a real one. The Provisional -Government which came into power decided to stand by the -Allies. At the same time, however, Soviets of Workmen's and -Soldiers' Deputies, formed after the model of the -St. Petersburg Workmen's Soviet which was in being in the -unsuccessful Revolution of 1905, sprang up in the towns -under the leadership and control of doctrinaire Socialists -who, relegating the issue of the war to a minor position, -whole-heartedly set about to promote the progress of the -Revolution. The notorious "Ordre No. I" of the Petrograd -Soviet ruined irretrievably the discipline of the army. In -consequence the great effort of national regeneration which, -many people hoped, might spring out of the Revolution and -pull the country together, became more and more remote as -the first patriotic enthusiasm of the Revolution died down. -Instead, the military and economic muddle gradually -increased, until the demand of the anti-war elements for -peace negotiations began to be supported on the plea of -necessity. The growing unpopularity of Kerensky with all -classes led to his downfall in November 1917, and the -Bolsheviks, who knew what they wanted and had the energy and -the armed backing to force their will on the country, came +To the average Englishman Bolshevism came like a bolt from the blue. He +was sympathetic with the Russian Revolution of March, 1917. He had heard +of the Russian bureaucracy, of the secret police, of the transportations +to Siberia, etc., and he welcomed the overthrow of the Tsarist regime as +the overthrow of an intolerable tyranny. But the Revolution that put the +Bolsheviks in power he neither understood nor sympathized with, and why +the doctrine of the Class War should have spread with such lightning +rapidity over Europe and America he was entirely incapable of +comprehending. The Press, to all appearances, found itself in the same +dilemma as himself. German gold, Russian gold, Hungarian gold, have in +turn been offered as explanations for its conquests, or it is +represented as a summer madness incapable of rational explanation. + +Yet such is not the case. The rise to power of the Bolsheviks and the +subsequent spread of their creed is capable of a perfectly intelligible +explanation which would have found its way into all the papers had it +been convenient to the Government to admit it. It may be true that the +Bolsheviks were at the beginning supplied with German gold. I do not +know whether it is true or not. If it were offered them I do not suppose +they would have refused it any more than they and other Russian +revolutionary anti-war exiles in Switzerland refused to travel through +Germany in the train that the Kaiser so kindly placed at their disposal; +and the German Government has proved itself so blind where psychological +issues were concerned that it is quite possible it did in the first +instance supply the Bolsheviks with the wherewithal to carry on their +propaganda. But whether they did or not does not account for the rise of +Bolshevism or the spread of it in other countries, which is finally to +be accounted for by the fact that capitalists all over the world have +refused for so long to face the facts of modern civilization, that a +point was reached at length when the "evil day," as it is called, could +no longer be postponed. Immediately, however, it was otherwise. The +Bolsheviks rose to power in Russia because, owing to the incapacity of +Kerensky and his colleagues and the political immaturity of the Russian +people, things had reached such a pass that Russia became entirely +incapable of carrying on the war successfully and was soon obliged to +accept peace on any terms. At the beginning of 1917 Russia had an army +which, though no doubt better equipped than in the first years of the +war, was still far too big. The towns were full of idle soldiery; the +railways were in imminent peril of breaking down. Some of the Tsar's +ministers came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to +negotiate a separate peace, but the Tsar, desirous of honouring his +agreement with the Allies, objected, and so an impasse was reached. +These ministers then sought to force the hand of the Tsar by the +provocation of a sham revolution which they believed they could easily +suppress, but which they could use as an excuse for bringing the war to +an end. But things worked out differently from what they had expected. +The disorder they had provoked turned against them; instead of a mock +revolution, it proved a real one. The Provisional Government which came +into power decided to stand by the Allies. At the same time, however, +Soviets of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies, formed after the model of +the St. Petersburg Workmen's Soviet which was in being in the +unsuccessful Revolution of 1905, sprang up in the towns under the +leadership and control of doctrinaire Socialists who, relegating the +issue of the war to a minor position, whole-heartedly set about to +promote the progress of the Revolution. The notorious "Ordre No. I" of +the Petrograd Soviet ruined irretrievably the discipline of the army. In +consequence the great effort of national regeneration which, many people +hoped, might spring out of the Revolution and pull the country together, +became more and more remote as the first patriotic enthusiasm of the +Revolution died down. Instead, the military and economic muddle +gradually increased, until the demand of the anti-war elements for peace +negotiations began to be supported on the plea of necessity. The growing +unpopularity of Kerensky with all classes led to his downfall in +November 1917, and the Bolsheviks, who knew what they wanted and had the +energy and the armed backing to force their will on the country, came into power. -Now it is necessary to understand that the Bolsheviks were -not supported by the garrisons and the discontented elements -generally throughout the country because of any widespread -belief in the theories of Marx,but because of the failure of -the other political parties to consolidate their authority -and pursue an energetic and coherent policy. The Bolsheviks -were easily able to paralyse the feeble efforts of the -Provisional Government. At the same time they promised to -save Russia by making peace with the enemy and declaring an -international war upon capitalism. It was natural that their -promises of peace, bread and wealth should appeal to large -sections of the Russian people at such a time. The people in -the towns were hungry. This fact should not be lost sight -of. There was plenty of food in Russia, but the peasants -refused to part with it for money, because money would not -buy any of the things they wanted. It had become impossible, -for example, to buy a spade in Russia. Bolshevism gathered -strength in the towns because it was only by joining the -Bolshevist army that men could get food. These are the root -facts of the Russian situation upon which everything else -hinges. The later history of the Revolution has been, as -might have been expected, a record of ever greater and -greater distress; opinions differ as to the relative blame -of the old regime, the Provisional Government and the -Bolsheviks for the present chaos in Russia, but this is not -a point we need enter into here. Such success as Bolshevism -has had in Germany and Austria-Hungary bears an analogy to -the success in Russia to the extent that in each case it was -due to the combined influence of military defeat, blockade, -hunger in the towns and the intellectual and spiritual -bankruptcy of other parties in the State. Whether it will be -finally victorious remains to be seen. But it is important -to recognize that *Bolshevism enters to fill a vacuum*. It -will come here, as to every other country, if ever our -bankruptcy of policy becomes complete. I do not think we -shall suffer from it, because it so happens that while the -governing class are clearly bankrupt of ideas there are in -England other forces of a constructive nature which gather -strength daily. - -Now this general bankruptcy of policy and the menace of -Bolshevism are alike due to the fact that the governing -classes in this as of all industrialized nations have -consistently refused to recognize the growth of the social -problem. This refusal has been a matter of deliberate -choice, for they have been repeatedly warned of the risks -they were running, but they have turned deaf ears to all -such counsel. It might be urged in extenuation of them that -the demand for reform has invariably been associated with -attacks on their position. But this cannot be said of -Ruskin, who made an appeal to the governing class which -leaves them no possible excuse. He warned them in -unmistakable language that industrial civilization was -shooting the rapids. - -Still nothing was done. The governing and commercial class -comforted themselves with the assurance that what Ruskin -said might be true but it was not practical. But Nemesis has -waited upon them. They refused to listen to Ruskin; they are -having to listen to Marx. If Ruskin chastised them with -whips, Marx chastises them with scorpions. It cannot be said -that Ruskin has failed, for he has inspired an enormous -number of people, and I firmly believe that he will be left -standing when all the intellectually superior people who -disregard him are dead and forgotten. For Ruskin has said -more things that are fundamentally and finally true in -economics than any one else. But Marx was a realist in a -sense that Ruskin was not, and to that extent was more -immediately available for political purposes. Ruskin -appealed to the compassion of the governing class; Marx -realized they hadn't got any, but that while they were not -to be moved by an appeal to their better nature they could -be moved by fear. He based his calculations therefore, upon -that assumption. Hence his doctrine of the Class War, by -which he hoped to transfer power from the hands of the -capitalists to those of the proletariat. While I am of the -opinion that as a policy it is finally mistaken, for the -result of preaching it has not been to create working-class -solidarity but discord everywhere,and while it distorts -history to prove that class warfare has always existed, it -nevertheless rests on---a fact that is undeniably true, -namely, that under the existing economic system the -interests of capital and labour are irreconcilably opposed a -fact which Ruskin himself admitted when he said, "The art of -making yourself rich, in the ordinary mercantile economist's -sense, is equally and necessarily the art of keeping your -neighbour poor." But while Marx interpreted this fact in the -terms of persons as a warfare between classes, Ruskin, on -the contrary, saw this conflict of interests as the -inevitable accompaniment of a materialist ideal of life -which rejects religion and art and their sweetening and -refining influences---an interpretation which I am persuaded -is the true one. For you can construct on Ruskin's -interpretation, but not upon that of Marx, for his -materialism and class warfare end finally in producing -anarchy and bitterness. They destroy confidence and -goodwill, and so finally defeat their own ends. And so it -happens that while Marx, by creating a driving force, has -forced the issue of social reconstruction to the front, -experience will prove that Ruskin laid the foundation that -can be built upon, and I am persuaded he will come into -favour when reconstruction is taken seriously. For Ruskin by -keeping himself clear of class considerations provides a -common ground on which all may meet. - -It was because the Bolsheviks declared the war to be a -capitalist war that their gospel spread so rapidly over -Europe. In the immediate sense this charge was untrue except -in the case of Germany, who definitely undertook the war to -relieve the pressure of competition by forcing German goods -on foreign markets. But ultimately it is true, since but for -the struggle for markets and concessions that capitalism -brought with it there would have been no war. Hence it was -the Bolsheviks in declaring war on the capitalists of all -nations did challenge the reality that lay behind the war, -and it was because of this that their propaganda has been -followed by such success in other countries. The Bolsheviks -touched a subconscious chord of the workers of Europe. Their -gospel found a ready response in the democracies of all -countries, and would certainly have carried all before it -but for the excesses (which there is no reason to doubt) of -the Bolshevik regime in Russia. The attempts of the -governing class to prevent the spread of its doctrines are -the last word in ineptitude, and are more calculated to -further them than to destroy them. Instead of asking -themselves why Bolshevism has arisen in the world and -seeking to remove the evils that are responsible for its -outbreak, they still pursue their stupid old policy of -sitting on the safety-valve and can think of nothing but -repression. Now in the face of any serious social danger, -repression of extremists is absolutely necessary in order to -gain time to do the things that require to be done, and the -sincerest reformer might be driven to employ repression at -times, but there is finally no other excuse for its use. -Unless repression is accompanied by real reform, it only -aggravates the danger. He is a fool who imagines that a -menace of world-wide significance such as Bolshevism is can -be stamped out merely by repression. It can certainly be -eradicated, but only by removing its cause, which is finally -to be found in the gross injustices of our social system. -Partly as a result of the Socialist agitation, and partly as -the result of external causes, of increasing economic -pressure, of motor-cars and luxury which were flaunted in -the eyes of the people before the war, the people were -becoming conscious of the fact that they were the victims of -exploitation, while the outbreak of shameless profiteering -during the war converted what had hitherto been a special -grievance of the working classes into a general grievance -affecting every class of the community; for everybody except -the few profiteers are affected by the decreasing purchasing -power of their earnings. No single thing has so entirely -destroyed the confidence of the people in the good faith of -the governing class as the way they allowed this abuse to -grow up. It has been the last straw that breaks the camel's -back. During the last ten years the governing class have -entirely bartered away their credit, and it can only be -restored by the exercise of a measure of magnanimity equal -to their former short-sightedness. There is no reason to -suppose that such magnanimity will be exercised. Avarice and -stupidity got them into difficulties, and pride prevents -them getting out of them. In desperation, they misrepresent -and heap abuse on the working man in the hope that public -opinion will rally to their support. But such folly only -makes matters worse. It goes down less and less with the -general public and increases the bitterness of the working -class, who have been patient and long-suffering. If they had -not been, things could never have reached such a pass. The -governing class, to retain power, would need to be born -again in order that they might put public interests before -private interests. But they are past praying for. There is a -Turkish saying that "a herring rots from the head." It is -worth remembering when considering the chaotic state of this -country. The governing class are responsible, for with them -power finally resides. Reform must come not merely because -nothing less will satisfy the workers, but because our -economic system is rapidly reaching a deadlock. The old -political game can't be played much longer. - -I said that repression was no remedy for Bolshevism. As a -matter of fact it is in one sense the fruit of repression. -The foundations of Bolshevism were laid in Russia before the -war by the repressive policy of the old regime. Had the -Russian Government permitted freedom of discussion on -political questions, the country would not, when the -Revolution came, have found itself so completely at the -mercy of political extremists, for the psychological factor -that allowed things in Russia so rapidly to assume an -extreme form was that as political discussion was forbidden -by the old regime, both the Government and the people lost -all sense of political realities, and the overthrow of the -old regime was followed by a Babel of political opinion -fatal to reasonable judgment. If in England a more -conservative spirit prevails, it is entirely due to the fact -that on the whole we have enjoyed freedom of discussion. It -is insufficiently recognized that such freedom tends towards -constitutional methods. On the other hand, while we have -enjoyed freedom of speech there have always been reactionary -(I use the word in the accepted sense) elements in English -life which have been plotting against the people, and it is -owing to the gross stupidity of these people that Bolshevism -has any foothold at all among us, since apart from their -activities the extremists would not have been listened to. I -cannot say I am altogether sorry there are a few such stupid -people among us, since indirectly they have been the means -of waking things up. A Bolshevik government is a thing to be -feared as the worst of all tyrannies but it is questionable -whether anything at all would get done were the fear of -Bolshevism entirely removed. A short account of the rise of -Bolshevism in England will make it clear that the "labour +Now it is necessary to understand that the Bolsheviks were not supported +by the garrisons and the discontented elements generally throughout the +country because of any widespread belief in the theories of Marx,but +because of the failure of the other political parties to consolidate +their authority and pursue an energetic and coherent policy. The +Bolsheviks were easily able to paralyse the feeble efforts of the +Provisional Government. At the same time they promised to save Russia by +making peace with the enemy and declaring an international war upon +capitalism. It was natural that their promises of peace, bread and +wealth should appeal to large sections of the Russian people at such a +time. The people in the towns were hungry. This fact should not be lost +sight of. There was plenty of food in Russia, but the peasants refused +to part with it for money, because money would not buy any of the things +they wanted. It had become impossible, for example, to buy a spade in +Russia. Bolshevism gathered strength in the towns because it was only by +joining the Bolshevist army that men could get food. These are the root +facts of the Russian situation upon which everything else hinges. The +later history of the Revolution has been, as might have been expected, a +record of ever greater and greater distress; opinions differ as to the +relative blame of the old regime, the Provisional Government and the +Bolsheviks for the present chaos in Russia, but this is not a point we +need enter into here. Such success as Bolshevism has had in Germany and +Austria-Hungary bears an analogy to the success in Russia to the extent +that in each case it was due to the combined influence of military +defeat, blockade, hunger in the towns and the intellectual and spiritual +bankruptcy of other parties in the State. Whether it will be finally +victorious remains to be seen. But it is important to recognize that +*Bolshevism enters to fill a vacuum*. It will come here, as to every +other country, if ever our bankruptcy of policy becomes complete. I do +not think we shall suffer from it, because it so happens that while the +governing class are clearly bankrupt of ideas there are in England other +forces of a constructive nature which gather strength daily. + +Now this general bankruptcy of policy and the menace of Bolshevism are +alike due to the fact that the governing classes in this as of all +industrialized nations have consistently refused to recognize the growth +of the social problem. This refusal has been a matter of deliberate +choice, for they have been repeatedly warned of the risks they were +running, but they have turned deaf ears to all such counsel. It might be +urged in extenuation of them that the demand for reform has invariably +been associated with attacks on their position. But this cannot be said +of Ruskin, who made an appeal to the governing class which leaves them +no possible excuse. He warned them in unmistakable language that +industrial civilization was shooting the rapids. + +Still nothing was done. The governing and commercial class comforted +themselves with the assurance that what Ruskin said might be true but it +was not practical. But Nemesis has waited upon them. They refused to +listen to Ruskin; they are having to listen to Marx. If Ruskin chastised +them with whips, Marx chastises them with scorpions. It cannot be said +that Ruskin has failed, for he has inspired an enormous number of +people, and I firmly believe that he will be left standing when all the +intellectually superior people who disregard him are dead and forgotten. +For Ruskin has said more things that are fundamentally and finally true +in economics than any one else. But Marx was a realist in a sense that +Ruskin was not, and to that extent was more immediately available for +political purposes. Ruskin appealed to the compassion of the governing +class; Marx realized they hadn't got any, but that while they were not +to be moved by an appeal to their better nature they could be moved by +fear. He based his calculations therefore, upon that assumption. Hence +his doctrine of the Class War, by which he hoped to transfer power from +the hands of the capitalists to those of the proletariat. While I am of +the opinion that as a policy it is finally mistaken, for the result of +preaching it has not been to create working-class solidarity but discord +everywhere,and while it distorts history to prove that class warfare has +always existed, it nevertheless rests on---a fact that is undeniably +true, namely, that under the existing economic system the interests of +capital and labour are irreconcilably opposed a fact which Ruskin +himself admitted when he said, "The art of making yourself rich, in the +ordinary mercantile economist's sense, is equally and necessarily the +art of keeping your neighbour poor." But while Marx interpreted this +fact in the terms of persons as a warfare between classes, Ruskin, on +the contrary, saw this conflict of interests as the inevitable +accompaniment of a materialist ideal of life which rejects religion and +art and their sweetening and refining influences---an interpretation +which I am persuaded is the true one. For you can construct on Ruskin's +interpretation, but not upon that of Marx, for his materialism and class +warfare end finally in producing anarchy and bitterness. They destroy +confidence and goodwill, and so finally defeat their own ends. And so it +happens that while Marx, by creating a driving force, has forced the +issue of social reconstruction to the front, experience will prove that +Ruskin laid the foundation that can be built upon, and I am persuaded he +will come into favour when reconstruction is taken seriously. For Ruskin +by keeping himself clear of class considerations provides a common +ground on which all may meet. + +It was because the Bolsheviks declared the war to be a capitalist war +that their gospel spread so rapidly over Europe. In the immediate sense +this charge was untrue except in the case of Germany, who definitely +undertook the war to relieve the pressure of competition by forcing +German goods on foreign markets. But ultimately it is true, since but +for the struggle for markets and concessions that capitalism brought +with it there would have been no war. Hence it was the Bolsheviks in +declaring war on the capitalists of all nations did challenge the +reality that lay behind the war, and it was because of this that their +propaganda has been followed by such success in other countries. The +Bolsheviks touched a subconscious chord of the workers of Europe. Their +gospel found a ready response in the democracies of all countries, and +would certainly have carried all before it but for the excesses (which +there is no reason to doubt) of the Bolshevik regime in Russia. The +attempts of the governing class to prevent the spread of its doctrines +are the last word in ineptitude, and are more calculated to further them +than to destroy them. Instead of asking themselves why Bolshevism has +arisen in the world and seeking to remove the evils that are responsible +for its outbreak, they still pursue their stupid old policy of sitting +on the safety-valve and can think of nothing but repression. Now in the +face of any serious social danger, repression of extremists is +absolutely necessary in order to gain time to do the things that require +to be done, and the sincerest reformer might be driven to employ +repression at times, but there is finally no other excuse for its use. +Unless repression is accompanied by real reform, it only aggravates the +danger. He is a fool who imagines that a menace of world-wide +significance such as Bolshevism is can be stamped out merely by +repression. It can certainly be eradicated, but only by removing its +cause, which is finally to be found in the gross injustices of our +social system. Partly as a result of the Socialist agitation, and partly +as the result of external causes, of increasing economic pressure, of +motor-cars and luxury which were flaunted in the eyes of the people +before the war, the people were becoming conscious of the fact that they +were the victims of exploitation, while the outbreak of shameless +profiteering during the war converted what had hitherto been a special +grievance of the working classes into a general grievance affecting +every class of the community; for everybody except the few profiteers +are affected by the decreasing purchasing power of their earnings. No +single thing has so entirely destroyed the confidence of the people in +the good faith of the governing class as the way they allowed this abuse +to grow up. It has been the last straw that breaks the camel's back. +During the last ten years the governing class have entirely bartered +away their credit, and it can only be restored by the exercise of a +measure of magnanimity equal to their former short-sightedness. There is +no reason to suppose that such magnanimity will be exercised. Avarice +and stupidity got them into difficulties, and pride prevents them +getting out of them. In desperation, they misrepresent and heap abuse on +the working man in the hope that public opinion will rally to their +support. But such folly only makes matters worse. It goes down less and +less with the general public and increases the bitterness of the working +class, who have been patient and long-suffering. If they had not been, +things could never have reached such a pass. The governing class, to +retain power, would need to be born again in order that they might put +public interests before private interests. But they are past praying +for. There is a Turkish saying that "a herring rots from the head." It +is worth remembering when considering the chaotic state of this country. +The governing class are responsible, for with them power finally +resides. Reform must come not merely because nothing less will satisfy +the workers, but because our economic system is rapidly reaching a +deadlock. The old political game can't be played much longer. + +I said that repression was no remedy for Bolshevism. As a matter of fact +it is in one sense the fruit of repression. The foundations of +Bolshevism were laid in Russia before the war by the repressive policy +of the old regime. Had the Russian Government permitted freedom of +discussion on political questions, the country would not, when the +Revolution came, have found itself so completely at the mercy of +political extremists, for the psychological factor that allowed things +in Russia so rapidly to assume an extreme form was that as political +discussion was forbidden by the old regime, both the Government and the +people lost all sense of political realities, and the overthrow of the +old regime was followed by a Babel of political opinion fatal to +reasonable judgment. If in England a more conservative spirit prevails, +it is entirely due to the fact that on the whole we have enjoyed freedom +of discussion. It is insufficiently recognized that such freedom tends +towards constitutional methods. On the other hand, while we have enjoyed +freedom of speech there have always been reactionary (I use the word in +the accepted sense) elements in English life which have been plotting +against the people, and it is owing to the gross stupidity of these +people that Bolshevism has any foothold at all among us, since apart +from their activities the extremists would not have been listened to. I +cannot say I am altogether sorry there are a few such stupid people +among us, since indirectly they have been the means of waking things up. +A Bolshevik government is a thing to be feared as the worst of all +tyrannies but it is questionable whether anything at all would get done +were the fear of Bolshevism entirely removed. A short account of the +rise of Bolshevism in England will make it clear that the "labour unrest" has been deliberately provoked. -"In the summer of 1900 a strike broke out in South Wales on -the Taff Vale Railway, in the course of which the Company, -naturally enough, suffered a certain amount of injury. They -applied to the High Court for an injunction not only against -alleged individual wrongdoers, but against the Amalgamated -Society of Railway Servants itself, whose agents these -wrongdoers were. They also commenced a civil suit for -damages against the Union in its corporate capacity. To the -surprise of all who were familiar with Trade Union law and -practice, and to the consternation of the Labour world, the -A.S.R.S. was mulcted, in costs and damages, to the tune of -£42,000, and it was decided that a Trade Union could be sued -in its collective capacity, and its corporate funds made -liable for a tortious act committed by any of its officials -or members who could be deemed to be its agents." - -It was this judgment which was subsequently upheld by the -House of Lords that created the Labour Party. Hitherto it -had never occurred to any one to sue a Trade Union for loss -of profits in the case of a strike. It was supposed that the -Trade Union Act of 1871 afforded absolute protection to -Union funds. But this judgment struck a blow at the very -existence of Trade Unionism and immediately led to the -return of forty Labour members to the House of Commons in -1906, which was speedily followed by the passing of the -Trades Disputes Acts that reversed the decision of the +"In the summer of 1900 a strike broke out in South Wales on the Taff +Vale Railway, in the course of which the Company, naturally enough, +suffered a certain amount of injury. They applied to the High Court for +an injunction not only against alleged individual wrongdoers, but +against the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants itself, whose agents +these wrongdoers were. They also commenced a civil suit for damages +against the Union in its corporate capacity. To the surprise of all who +were familiar with Trade Union law and practice, and to the +consternation of the Labour world, the A.S.R.S. was mulcted, in costs +and damages, to the tune of £42,000, and it was decided that a Trade +Union could be sued in its collective capacity, and its corporate funds +made liable for a tortious act committed by any of its officials or +members who could be deemed to be its agents." + +It was this judgment which was subsequently upheld by the House of Lords +that created the Labour Party. Hitherto it had never occurred to any one +to sue a Trade Union for loss of profits in the case of a strike. It was +supposed that the Trade Union Act of 1871 afforded absolute protection +to Union funds. But this judgment struck a blow at the very existence of +Trade Unionism and immediately led to the return of forty Labour members +to the House of Commons in 1906, which was speedily followed by the +passing of the Trades Disputes Acts that reversed the decision of the Courts. -It would have been well for the governing class if they -could have let matters rest there. Once the Trades Disputes -Act was passed the Labour Party rapidly declined in -influence, and so things might have remained but for another -decision of the Courts. Hitherto the Labour Party had been -financed by a levy on the members of affiliated societies, -of which the great majority were Trade Unionists. But this -did not suit a minority who held other political views. -"Mr. W. V. Osborne, the secretary of one of the branches of -the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, strenuously -opposed the right of his Union to levy its members or con -tribute from its funds in support of the Labour Party. An -action in the Chancery Court in 1908 went in favour of the -Society; but the judges of the Court of Appeal reversed this -decision, and their judgment was finally upheld by the House -of Lords."The effect of this decision was doubtless, like -the Taff Vale Judgment, very different from what the Lords -of Appeal had intended. While on the one hand the Liberal -Government found it necessary to come to the rescue of the -Labour members by introducing payment of members, on the -other it took power out of the hands of the moderate men in -the Labour Movement and put it into the hands of extremists -by destroying faith in constitutional reform. The Labour -Party had secured the support of the Trade Unions by -preaching the doctrine that the ends of Labour could be -better secured through Labour representation in Parliament -than by means of strikes. But after the Osborne Judgment -this idea became discredited. It became clear that if Labour -devoted its energies to reform by constitutional means it -could never be sure of its position and any victories it -might win could be snatched from it by decisions of the -Courts. Hence the advocates of direct action, who hitherto -had scarcely been listened to, became very influential. In -less than a twelvemonth after the Osborne Judgment had been -upheld in the House of Lords, and as a direct consequence of -it, there came in 1911 the great strikes of the dockers, the -transport workers and the railwaymen, to be followed after a -few months by the miners. Thus was inaugurated the strike -movement which continued until the outbreak of war, when -strikes were suspended only to be revived by another piece -of stupidity on the part of the powers that be---the -Munitions Act, which by penalizing official Trade Unions in -the event of a strike led to the unofficial movement known -as the Shop Stewards Movement. - -Now the effect of these things---the Taff Vale Judgment, the -Osborne Judgment and the Munitions Act, combined with the -evasive and unsatisfactory policy of the Government in -Labour disputes---instead of crushing the Labour Movement, -has been to turn what was a comparatively sleepy, lethargic -movement into an active fighting force by firmly planting in -the mind of Labour the conviction that a conspiracy is -abroad to defeat their demands for justice. As one -interested in the cause of Labour, I cannot express too -highly my appreciation of the services rendered to the -Labour Movement by the Courts, since in a few years, through -their folly, they have accomplished more in the way of -vitalizing the movement than a century of agitators. But the -question is now whether the pursuit of such folly can any -longer serve a useful purpose, for a suspicion gains ground -that if ever confidence is to be restored, action will have -to be taken against the lawyers. It is not only through the -decisions of the Courts that they create bad blood, but -through more direct industrial activity. Since the spread of -limited liability companies they have become more closely -associated with the administration of industry than was the -case before, and they have created endless trouble by -pursuing everything in a purely legal spirit. Wherever they -make their appearance, good faith can no longer be taken for -granted. If an agreement is made with Labour, they do not -interpret it in the spirit in which it was intended, but -according to the letter. They take their stand on what is -written, and set about to discover loopholes, and there are -always lawyers ready to place their services at the disposal -of any capitalist who wants to evade things. And the Courts -back them up in this kind of thing. They do not take their -stand on the broad principle, but upon what some phrase can -be twisted to mean. No wonder Labour is suspicious. It has -every reason to be. It under stands straightforward dealing -and can respect an enemy who is open in his dealings, but -this kind of twisting and twining is a constant source of -irritation and distrust, provocative of trouble. When the -Government intervenes in any Labour trouble, it too finds -itself at the mercy of these legal influences in the -bureaucracy, which, affected only by documents, appears to -be mentally incapable of sensing a situation. If the law is -being brought into contempt, it is the lawyers who are to +It would have been well for the governing class if they could have let +matters rest there. Once the Trades Disputes Act was passed the Labour +Party rapidly declined in influence, and so things might have remained +but for another decision of the Courts. Hitherto the Labour Party had +been financed by a levy on the members of affiliated societies, of which +the great majority were Trade Unionists. But this did not suit a +minority who held other political views. "Mr. W. V. Osborne, the +secretary of one of the branches of the Amalgamated Society of Railway +Servants, strenuously opposed the right of his Union to levy its members +or con tribute from its funds in support of the Labour Party. An action +in the Chancery Court in 1908 went in favour of the Society; but the +judges of the Court of Appeal reversed this decision, and their judgment +was finally upheld by the House of Lords."The effect of this decision +was doubtless, like the Taff Vale Judgment, very different from what the +Lords of Appeal had intended. While on the one hand the Liberal +Government found it necessary to come to the rescue of the Labour +members by introducing payment of members, on the other it took power +out of the hands of the moderate men in the Labour Movement and put it +into the hands of extremists by destroying faith in constitutional +reform. The Labour Party had secured the support of the Trade Unions by +preaching the doctrine that the ends of Labour could be better secured +through Labour representation in Parliament than by means of strikes. +But after the Osborne Judgment this idea became discredited. It became +clear that if Labour devoted its energies to reform by constitutional +means it could never be sure of its position and any victories it might +win could be snatched from it by decisions of the Courts. Hence the +advocates of direct action, who hitherto had scarcely been listened to, +became very influential. In less than a twelvemonth after the Osborne +Judgment had been upheld in the House of Lords, and as a direct +consequence of it, there came in 1911 the great strikes of the dockers, +the transport workers and the railwaymen, to be followed after a few +months by the miners. Thus was inaugurated the strike movement which +continued until the outbreak of war, when strikes were suspended only to +be revived by another piece of stupidity on the part of the powers that +be---the Munitions Act, which by penalizing official Trade Unions in the +event of a strike led to the unofficial movement known as the Shop +Stewards Movement. + +Now the effect of these things---the Taff Vale Judgment, the Osborne +Judgment and the Munitions Act, combined with the evasive and +unsatisfactory policy of the Government in Labour disputes---instead of +crushing the Labour Movement, has been to turn what was a comparatively +sleepy, lethargic movement into an active fighting force by firmly +planting in the mind of Labour the conviction that a conspiracy is +abroad to defeat their demands for justice. As one interested in the +cause of Labour, I cannot express too highly my appreciation of the +services rendered to the Labour Movement by the Courts, since in a few +years, through their folly, they have accomplished more in the way of +vitalizing the movement than a century of agitators. But the question is +now whether the pursuit of such folly can any longer serve a useful +purpose, for a suspicion gains ground that if ever confidence is to be +restored, action will have to be taken against the lawyers. It is not +only through the decisions of the Courts that they create bad blood, but +through more direct industrial activity. Since the spread of limited +liability companies they have become more closely associated with the +administration of industry than was the case before, and they have +created endless trouble by pursuing everything in a purely legal spirit. +Wherever they make their appearance, good faith can no longer be taken +for granted. If an agreement is made with Labour, they do not interpret +it in the spirit in which it was intended, but according to the letter. +They take their stand on what is written, and set about to discover +loopholes, and there are always lawyers ready to place their services at +the disposal of any capitalist who wants to evade things. And the Courts +back them up in this kind of thing. They do not take their stand on the +broad principle, but upon what some phrase can be twisted to mean. No +wonder Labour is suspicious. It has every reason to be. It under stands +straightforward dealing and can respect an enemy who is open in his +dealings, but this kind of twisting and twining is a constant source of +irritation and distrust, provocative of trouble. When the Government +intervenes in any Labour trouble, it too finds itself at the mercy of +these legal influences in the bureaucracy, which, affected only by +documents, appears to be mentally incapable of sensing a situation. If +the law is being brought into contempt, it is the lawyers who are to blame. -To suspect the lawyers as the *agents provocateurs* of -Labour unrest is not unreasonable, for history teaches us -that, directly or indirectly, the lawyers have been at the -bottom of every rising since Roman Law was revived. -Considering that Roman Law corrupted every Mediaeval -institution and changed government from being an instrument -of protection into an instrument of exploitation, it is to -be maintained that the growth of class hatred in the deeper -and more fundamental sense is finally to be laid to its -charge. Mediaeval society was organized on a basis of -reciprocal rights and duties a man sacrificed his rights who -did not perform his duties. But Roman Law changed all this. -It made rights absolute which had been conditional, while it -made duties optional. It became the friend of property and -the enemy of the people. There are many reasons to suppose -that Roman Law as it existed under the Roman Empire was -animated by an entirely different spirit from that which -animated the lawyers of the revival. Roman Law was not -promoted in Rome to further exploitation, but came into -existence to hold together a corrupt society which had been -rendered unstable by capitalism, and as such its spirit was -opportunist. There are strong reasons for supposing that it -was in this spirit that the Roman jurists gave legal -sanction to private property as the easiest way of avoiding -conflict between neighbours, for they did not, like the -Mediaeval lawyers, seek to enslave the people by the -destruction of communal rights. On the contrary, while one -of the first measures taken by the Emperors was to place -restrictions on the formation of voluntary organizations -because under the Republic they had been used as a basis of -conspiracy, no obstacle was placed in the path of the -formation of such organizations when the danger had passed -away. As early as the reign of Antoninus Pius the Collegia -which undertook public functions were incorporated by -Imperial charter, and the custom of incorporating them was -followed by later Emperors. The same thing happened with -respect to the treatment of slaves. While the Mediaeval -jurists were devising means for the reintroduction of -slavery, the Roman jurists did their best to humanize the -institution. Under the Republic and early Empire, the right -of the owner over the slave was absolute, but after the -Antonines restrictions were placed on the rights of owners, -and provisions made which facilitated the manumission of -slaves. - -It was not from the spirit of the Roman jurists that the -trouble appears to have arisen, but from the fact that the -revival of Roman Law was in the first place a revival of the -Justinian Code, which rested on a theory of absolute -individual ownership of property. It was this that brought -it into collision with the Mediaeval usage under which -community of ownership, or at any rate community of use, was -the prevalent custom. It was because of this that the Roman -Law of the revival became individualistic, provocative and -corrupt, was promoted as an instrument of oppression and has -been used as such ever since. It is the central canker in -our society---the active promoter of class hatred, as +To suspect the lawyers as the *agents provocateurs* of Labour unrest is +not unreasonable, for history teaches us that, directly or indirectly, +the lawyers have been at the bottom of every rising since Roman Law was +revived. Considering that Roman Law corrupted every Mediaeval +institution and changed government from being an instrument of +protection into an instrument of exploitation, it is to be maintained +that the growth of class hatred in the deeper and more fundamental sense +is finally to be laid to its charge. Mediaeval society was organized on +a basis of reciprocal rights and duties a man sacrificed his rights who +did not perform his duties. But Roman Law changed all this. It made +rights absolute which had been conditional, while it made duties +optional. It became the friend of property and the enemy of the people. +There are many reasons to suppose that Roman Law as it existed under the +Roman Empire was animated by an entirely different spirit from that +which animated the lawyers of the revival. Roman Law was not promoted in +Rome to further exploitation, but came into existence to hold together a +corrupt society which had been rendered unstable by capitalism, and as +such its spirit was opportunist. There are strong reasons for supposing +that it was in this spirit that the Roman jurists gave legal sanction to +private property as the easiest way of avoiding conflict between +neighbours, for they did not, like the Mediaeval lawyers, seek to +enslave the people by the destruction of communal rights. On the +contrary, while one of the first measures taken by the Emperors was to +place restrictions on the formation of voluntary organizations because +under the Republic they had been used as a basis of conspiracy, no +obstacle was placed in the path of the formation of such organizations +when the danger had passed away. As early as the reign of Antoninus Pius +the Collegia which undertook public functions were incorporated by +Imperial charter, and the custom of incorporating them was followed by +later Emperors. The same thing happened with respect to the treatment of +slaves. While the Mediaeval jurists were devising means for the +reintroduction of slavery, the Roman jurists did their best to humanize +the institution. Under the Republic and early Empire, the right of the +owner over the slave was absolute, but after the Antonines restrictions +were placed on the rights of owners, and provisions made which +facilitated the manumission of slaves. + +It was not from the spirit of the Roman jurists that the trouble appears +to have arisen, but from the fact that the revival of Roman Law was in +the first place a revival of the Justinian Code, which rested on a +theory of absolute individual ownership of property. It was this that +brought it into collision with the Mediaeval usage under which community +of ownership, or at any rate community of use, was the prevalent custom. +It was because of this that the Roman Law of the revival became +individualistic, provocative and corrupt, was promoted as an instrument +of oppression and has been used as such ever since. It is the central +canker in our society---the active promoter of class hatred, as decisions of the Courts have shown. -This is no idle theory. There is no book that enjoys to-day -a greater popularity among the workers than Mr Paul's book -*The State*,the whole purpose of which is to show that State -Socialists have failed to understand the nature and function -of the State, inasmuch as from the earliest times it has -been an instrument of capitalist exploitation and cannot -therefore be used for the purposes of reconstruction. Though -the theory he maintains suffers from exaggeration, it is -important to recognize that the central idea of the book has -the support of at least one Lord Chancellor, for when Sir -Thomas More asked the question, "What is Government?" and -answered it by saying that it is "a certain conspiracy of -rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and -title of the Common Wealth," he said precisely the same -thing as our Bolsheviks are saying to-day. If I differ from -them, it is not in respect to what exists, but as to the -remedy to be applied. It is true, as our Bolsheviks -maintain, that the State from a very early date has existed -as an instrument of exploitation. But it does not follow -from this that the evils consequent upon such exploitation -are to be remedied by seeking the destruction of the State, -for that would be merely to precipitate chaos. Moreover, the -State cannot be destroyed, as the Bolsheviks in Russia have -found, for in spite of all the abuse of power associated -with it, it does perform a function which at all times is -indispensable, the function of protection, of maintaining -order. Recognizing that to-day this function is exercised in -the interests of the wealthy, the problem that presents -itself is how the State may be so transformed that it -protects the workers against the exploiters instead of, as -is the case to-day, the exploiters against the workers. -This, I contend, is possible by seeking the abolition of -Roman Law, since it was the means of corrupting the State, -and replacing it by Mediaeval Communal Law. In proportion as -this could be done, the spirit of the State would be -changed. Instead of usurping all functions, it would -delegate them to communal groups of workers organized into -Guilds. Instead of being the overwhelming and dominating -power it is to-day, it would, stripped of its illegitimate -functions, become as it was in the Middle Ages, one power -among a plurality of powers. Such a policy, I contend, is -more in harmony with the historical law formulated by Marx, -"that every new social system develops its embryo within the -womb of the old system," than that advocated by his -followers. For whereas such a policy would effect a complete -transformation of society by action from within, their -policy seeks only destruction from without. +This is no idle theory. There is no book that enjoys to-day a greater +popularity among the workers than Mr Paul's book *The State*,the whole +purpose of which is to show that State Socialists have failed to +understand the nature and function of the State, inasmuch as from the +earliest times it has been an instrument of capitalist exploitation and +cannot therefore be used for the purposes of reconstruction. Though the +theory he maintains suffers from exaggeration, it is important to +recognize that the central idea of the book has the support of at least +one Lord Chancellor, for when Sir Thomas More asked the question, "What +is Government?" and answered it by saying that it is "a certain +conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name +and title of the Common Wealth," he said precisely the same thing as our +Bolsheviks are saying to-day. If I differ from them, it is not in +respect to what exists, but as to the remedy to be applied. It is true, +as our Bolsheviks maintain, that the State from a very early date has +existed as an instrument of exploitation. But it does not follow from +this that the evils consequent upon such exploitation are to be remedied +by seeking the destruction of the State, for that would be merely to +precipitate chaos. Moreover, the State cannot be destroyed, as the +Bolsheviks in Russia have found, for in spite of all the abuse of power +associated with it, it does perform a function which at all times is +indispensable, the function of protection, of maintaining order. +Recognizing that to-day this function is exercised in the interests of +the wealthy, the problem that presents itself is how the State may be so +transformed that it protects the workers against the exploiters instead +of, as is the case to-day, the exploiters against the workers. This, I +contend, is possible by seeking the abolition of Roman Law, since it was +the means of corrupting the State, and replacing it by Mediaeval +Communal Law. In proportion as this could be done, the spirit of the +State would be changed. Instead of usurping all functions, it would +delegate them to communal groups of workers organized into Guilds. +Instead of being the overwhelming and dominating power it is to-day, it +would, stripped of its illegitimate functions, become as it was in the +Middle Ages, one power among a plurality of powers. Such a policy, I +contend, is more in harmony with the historical law formulated by Marx, +"that every new social system develops its embryo within the womb of the +old system," than that advocated by his followers. For whereas such a +policy would effect a complete transformation of society by action from +within, their policy seeks only destruction from without. # The Path to the Guilds -It is a commonplace of modern thought to say that "we cannot -put the clock back." But if recorded history has any one -single lesson to teach us more than another, it is -precisely, as Mr. Chesterton has said, that we can. Twice in -European history has it been done. The first time was when -Christianity restored the communal basis of society after it -had been destroyed by the capitalism of Greece and Rome, and -the second was when this communal basis of Mediaeval society -in turn was destroyed and capitalism re-established by the -revival of Roman Law.The recent admission of the Chancellor -of the Exchequer, that ministers are so overwhelmed with the -details of administration that they have no time to think, -suggests to the student of history that before long the -clock will need to be put back again. For it is manifest -that the process of centralization that has been continuous -since the reign of Henry II has at last reached a point -beyond which it can proceed no farther, since the Government -is confessedly at the mercy of forces it cannot control. In -these circumstances there is but one thing to be done---to -substitute control from without by control from within; or, -in other words, to restore the communal basis of society -that Roman Law destroyed. - -It would be fortunate for us if this simple truth could -become acknowledged, as no single thing would be wrought -with such far-reaching consequences and prevent so much -human suffering. A frank acceptance of the principle of -reversion would enable us to arrive at the new social order -by means of orderly progression, and would prevent the -bloodshed that is the inevitable consequence of a refusal to -face the facts. The danger that confronts us is precisely -the same as confronted France on the eve of the Revolution. -It is the danger that a popular though unconscious movement -back to Medievalism may be frustrated by intellectuals whose -eyes are turned in the opposite direction, and revolution be -precipitated by the fact that the instinctive impulses of -the people, instead of being guided into their proper -channels where they would bear fruit a thousandfold, will be -brought into collision with doctrinaire idealists who -believe in economic evolution as it is not. The average man -to-day in his conscious intelligence will subscribe to -modernism in some degree, but his instinctive actions are -always in the direction of a return to Mediaevalism. This -fact is illustrated by the arrival of the Trade Union -Movement, which was well described by Mr. Chesterton as "a -return to the past by men ignorant of the past, like the -subconscious action of some man who has lost his memory." -The circumstance that the Guild propaganda finds such ready -support among Trade Unionists is not due to the economic -theories associated with it. Such could not be the case, for -not one person in a thousand understands economics. The -Guild idea is successful because it is in harmony with the -popular psychology. It attacks the wage system and directs -attention to the danger of the Servile State---evils with -which every working man is familiar---while it presents him -with a vision of a new social order in which he may take -pleasure in his work. These are the things that have -promoted the success of the Guild idea. Approving of such -aims, the majority are willing to take its economics for -granted as things beyond their understanding. They swallow -them without tasting them; just as a previous generation -swallowed Collectivist theories without tasting them because -Socialists held out promises of a co-operative commonwealth. -Those who deny this contention must explain why, if such was -not the case, Socialists rebelled against Collectivism when -they discovered where it was leading them. If they had -understood its economic theories they would have known its -destination all along, and would no more have thought about -rebelling against it than does Mr. Sidney Webb. Mr. Webb -does not rebel against it, because he understands it. I am -inclined to think he is the only man who understands -Collectivism and believes in it. At any rate he is the only -Collectivist I ever met who was prepared to accept the -deductions from his premises. - -While on the one hand we have in the Trade Union Movement -evidence of an instinctive effort by men to return to -Medievalism in their capacity as producers, we have in the -present outcry against profiteering and the demand for a -fixed and Just Price evidence of an instinctive effort of -men to return to Mediaevalism in their capacity as -consumers. It is important that this should be recognized, -for the Trade Union Movement and the movement against -profiteering are the upper and nether millstones between -which capitalism is going to be ground and the Guilds -restored. The movement against profiteering, again, is not -due to any leanings towards Mediaeval economics. On the -contrary, it is purely instinctive. Just as the Trade Union -Movement owes its origin to the instinct of -self-preservation of producers, so the demand for the Just -Price owes its origin to the instinct of self-preservation -of consumers. Yet both are movements back to Mediaevalism. -And so in respect to all of our other ideas of reform: they -all imply reversion to the past. What is democracy but a -form of government that existed among all primitive peoples? -What is the proposal to nationalize the land but a reversion -to the oldest known form of land tenure? What is the demand -for a more equitable distribution of wealth but a reversion -to pre-capitalist conditions of society? What does the -substitution of production for use for production for profit -and the abolition of poverty imply but the reversion to a -state of things that existed before such evils came into -existence? They are all borrowed from the past, and imply -the creation of a social order the exact antithesis of our -present one. But our reformers will not have it. They do not -take the trouble to carry their ideas to their logical -conclusion, and so continue to imagine that all such ideas -may be grafted upon modern industrialism and finance which -is built upon their denial and is finally antipathetic to -them. The result is as might be expected. Modern attempts at -reform invariably produce the opposite effect to that -intended, or if they remedy one evil, it is but to create -another. Instead of being stepping-stones to the millennium, -they prove to be the paved way to the Servile State. The -discovery of this leads the workers to rebel; they become -suspicious of intellectual leadership, and generally -speaking the suspicion is justified, for the intellectuals -have misled them. Their prejudice against the past is the -root of the whole trouble. If we could get rid of this -prejudice it would be easy to bridge the gulf between the -workers and intellectuals. They would pull together, and we -should get real leadership because we should get -understanding. It is easy to understand the modern world if -you visualize it from the Mediaevalist standpoint, but -impossible from the modernist, as the constant change of -intellectual fashions clearly demonstrates. Yet though the -modernist can find certainty nowhere, he still clings -tenaciously to the belief that modernism cannot be entirely -wrong. - -But even when the modernist is convinced of the truth of -Mediaeval principles he hesitates to give them his adherence -because he experiences a difficulty in basing any practical -activity upon them. But that is only a temporary difficulty, -and would disappear if Mediaeval principles were more -generally accepted. Still that is not the issue for which we -are immediately contending. The vital issue is not finally -whether Mediaeval principles can be applied in detail, but -that the neglect of them leads modernists to put their trust -in measures that are foredoomed to failure, while it blinds -them to the significance of movements of popular origin -because of false *a priori* ideas. It would be just as -unreasonable for an engineer to ignore the laws of physics -because he found it difficult to apply them with -mathematical precision in a complex structure as it is for -Socialists to ignore Mediaeval economics because they cannot -always be immediately applied. For just as a knowledge of -the laws of physics keeps the engineer straight within -certain limits by telling him what can and what cannot be -done, so a knowledge of Mediaeval economics would keep -Socialists straight within certain limits, and by relating -all their schemes to a central and coordinating philosophy -prevent them from making fundamental errors. It is precisely -because men who become immersed in the details of politics -are apt to lose sight of first principles that it is so -necessary to keep insisting upon them. Above all, a -familiarity with the Mediaeval philosophy and point of view -would give them some insight into the psychology of the -people, who, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, -are Medievalists still. - -It is because I feel so much the desirability of a -*rapprochement* between intellectuals and the workers that I -so strongly urge the importance of Mediaeval ideas. The -tragedy of the situation is that we live in an age that -cries out for leadership and no leaders are forthcoming, nor -are there likely to be any so long as the modernist -philosophy prevails, since it erects an insurmountable -barrier between the workers and their rightful leaders. Here -I would observe that my comments are just as true of -working-class intellectuals as of those of the middle class, -for the working class that reads has been fed on the -self-same false philosophies. In so far as working-class -culture differs from middle-class culture, it is apt to be -harder and narrower; this is where the real danger lies. -When I say that the danger confronting us is precisely the -same as that which confronted France on the eve of the -Revolution---in that chaos may be precipitated by the fact -that the workers and the intellectuals are pulling different -ways---it is to working-class rather than middle-class -intellectuals that I refer, since the Neo-Marxian -intellectuals are the only modernists sufficiently convinced -of the truth of their creed to be capable of determined -action in the event of a crisis. The leadership must fall -into their hands, unless in the meantime the Medievalist -position can secure wide acceptance, since apart from such -acceptance reformers generally will remain blind to the -significance of present-day developments that are finally -the result of their teaching, but which do not receive -recognition because they come in unexpected forms from -unexpected quarters. We look to things coming to us from the -east and they come to us from the west. And so the very -things which might remove impossible barriers from our path -are treated with suspicion and rejected. - -The Profiteering Act is a case in point. Owing to the fact -that the minds of Socialists are filled with the *a priori* -theory of social evolution, which teaches them that industry -is to get into fewer and fewer hands until a time comes at -length when it will be taken over by the State, they have -entirely missed the significance of this Act, which points -to a very different conclusion. From the point of view of -the average Socialist it is nothing more than a measure of -temporary expediency advocated by the Northcliffe Press and -adopted by the Government as a means of satisfying popular -clamour and of postponing the day of substantial reform. But -to the Guildsman it wears a different aspect. While he is -not prepared to dispute that such motives led to its -enactment, he sees in the effort to fix prices a revival of -the central economic idea of the Middle Ages. History -teaches him it is an idea with great potentialities and may, -if advantage is taken of it by reformers, lead to results -very different from those intended. The control of prices, -he is persuaded, is a precedent condition of success in any -effort to secure economic reform, inasmuch as until prices -are fixed it is impossible to plan or arrange anything that -may not be subsequently upset by fluctuations of the -markets. It is a necessary preliminary to secure the -unearned increment for the community, since until prices are -fixed it will always be possible for the rich to resist -attempts to reduce them by transferring any taxation imposed -upon them to the shoulders of other members of the -community. Moreover, as the Profiteering Act seeks the -co-operation of local authorities, it should operate to -promote a revival of local life. Where local authorities -have fallen into the hands of shopkeepers, the shopkeepers -will be compelled to act in the public interest or be -cleared out. Thus the moral issue will become one of -paramount importance, and this will pave the way for the -arrival of the Just Price, for the people will never be -satisfied with a fixed price that is not finally a Just -Price. As in the Middle Ages the Guilds owed their existence -as economic organizations to the desire for a Just Price, it -is reasonable to suppose that once the Government is -committed to a policy of regulating prices the restoration -of the Guilds can only be a matter of time. Apart from -Guilds, it may be possible to fix the prices of a few staple -articles of general use, but experience must prove that this -is as far as things will go, for there is a limit to the -successful application of the principle of control from -without. The fixing of prices throughout industry -necessitates control from within, and this involves a return -to the Guilds. - -But the Profiteering Act has other implications. It raises -the questions of agriculture, landlordism and Roman Law. It -is evident that any fixing of prices throughout industry -depends ultimately upon our capacity to fix the price of -food, and this must remain impossible so long as we are -dependent upon foreign supplies of food. Hence the attempt -to fix prices leads to the revival of agriculture. The -question as to whether with our large population we shall or -shall not ever be able to be entirely independent of such -supplies is not the issue. We should aim at being as -independent as possible, since the nearer we approach to -such a condition, the more stable our economic arrangements -will become. The movement towards such a revival should be -reinforced by the national urgency of correcting the -discrepancy between imports and exports. Before the war, the -excess of imports was a matter of no concern, as it -represented the returns on our foreign investments and the -earnings of our mercantile marine, but nowadays, when our -foreign investments have been sold to pay for munitions and -our mercantile marine reduced, it is a different matter. It -means we are living on capital, that the country is being -drained of its economic resources, and that this discrepancy -must be corrected if we are to avoid national bankruptcy. -The politician and industrialist, looking at this problem, -cry aloud for increased production, meaning thereby an -increase in the production of industrial wares. But this, as -I have shown, is no solution, for the markets of the world -cannot absorb an increased production. Yet there is a sense -in which they are right. We do not want an increase of -secondary production such as they urge upon us, but we do -need an increase of primary production. We need an increase -of agricultural produce. This is the one direction in which -an increase of output is immediately practicable, and it -would react to our economic advantage. For not only would -it, by decreasing our imports of food, tend to correct the -balance between imports and exports, but it would provide an -increased home market for our industrial wares. It would -increase our national independence and lay for us a firm -economic base on which we could proceed to build. We could -then begin to fix prices with some assurance that what we -did would not be upset by the action of some Food Trust -beyond the seas. The fleeting nature of the prosperity built -upon foreign trade is in these days being brought home to -us. The experience of Carthage and Athens, of Venice and -Genoa, of Hanseatic Germany and of the Dutch, is becoming -our experience. A time came in the life of these States when -they found themselves at the mercy of forces they were -powerless to control, and so it is with us. There is no way -out of the impasse in which we find ourselves but to restore -to society the base that was destroyed by the tyranny of -landlordism on the one hand and the shibboleth of Free Trade -on the other. If a revival of agriculture is to be of real -benefit to society, life in the country must be made -attractive again and the agricultural worker be properly -paid, and I would add he should not be paid less than the -equivalent of what he was able to earn in the Middle Ages, -which at the pre-war value of money would not be less than -three pounds a week. No doubt this will appear entirely -impracticable to our "practical" reformers whose habit of -mind it is to put expediency before principle. But I am -assured that the great increase of demand in the home market -created by such well-paid workers would speedily react to -the advantage of the community by relieving the pressure of -com petition in the towns. We should soon find that a -prosperous peasantry was our greatest economic asset. -Raising the wages of agricultural workers would, moreover, -by putting the labourers on their feet, pave the way for the -organization of agriculture on a Guild basis. As an -intermediate step, however, it would perhaps be necessary to -work for small holdings and restored common lands, a -combination of which would not unlikely prove to be the most -satisfactory form of land-holding. But in no case should -ownership of land be absolute. On the contrary, land should -be held conditionally upon its cultivation and owned by the -local authorities, an arrangement I suggest as an -alternative to land nationalization because it avoids the -evils of bureaucracy. - -So self-evident may appear the policy I recommend that the -question naturally arises, Why is it not adopted? The answer -is because the revival of agriculture raises the land -question, and that touches the governing class in a very -tender place. The outcry that any proposal to tax the land -immediately raises is not due to the fact that it touches -the wealthy in their economic stronghold, for the money -power is in these days infinitely more powerful than the -land power, but because it attacks the honour of the -governing class. All the great landowners are in possession -of stolen property, and it is said that a great part of such -lands have no proper title-deeds. When Mr. Smillie raised -this question at the recent Coal Commission he raised a very -pertinent one. But he neglected a stronger line of attack. -Instead of asking whether the lands held by the dukes had -proper title-deeds, he ought to have asked how it came about -that any land possessed title-deeds; whether it was in the -interests of the community for men to enjoy privileges -without corresponding responsibilities; and how it came -about that landlords found themselves in this irresponsible -position to-day. These questions would have raised the -really fundamental issues; for no men were in this position -before the revival of Roman Law. - -It has been the misfortune of the land question that its -fundamental importance has been disregarded because it has -been associated with moribund solutions of its problems. -Every one with a practical knowledge of the circumstances of -agriculture and building knew very well that the taxation of -land values, though theoretically justifiable, would be -followed by consequences very different from those intended. -We are paying in the housing shortage to-day for the Land -Campaign of 1909---a fact that has been obscured by the -circumstance that the war has rendered cottage-building an -uneconomic proposition. If land reformers had been as keen -on reviving agriculture, for which they professed concern, -as they were for securing the unearned increment of city -sites, they would never have fallen into the economic -fallacies they did, for in that case they would have begun -by enquiring into the circumstances of agriculture, and have -made its revival their primary concern. But it has -unfortunately happened that while agricultural reformers -have shirked the land question, those who have attacked it -have had their eyes fixed upon urban values. So land reform -has fallen between two stools, and will remain so until the -reformers wake up to the fact that the land question is -fundamental to all their schemes. - -It is a paradox, but I believe it is nevertheless true, that -it is this tradition of reformers approaching the problem of -reconstruction from the point of view of unearned increment, -or surplus value, to use Marxian terminology, that in the -past has been their undoing. With their eyes for ever fixed -on the money that goes into the pockets of others who have -no moral right to it, they incline to approach problems in a -ruthless mechanical way that entirely disregards -circumstances. These circumstances in turn have a way of -defeating them, for problems are to be attacked along the -line of their growth and finally in no other way. The root -fallacy that leads reformers to be thus for ever attacking -problems in the wrong way is that they have fallen into the -error of making economics rather than law and morals the -starting-point of their enquiries. It is this that has led -them to the Collectivist way of thinking, that supposes the -solution of the social problem to be nothing more than a -matter of detailed arrangements---a way of thinking that has -survived the formal rejection of Collectivist theories, and -which is still believed in by the Neo-Marxians. For their -quarrel with the Fabians, as with us, is immediately a -quarrel about time. Without any conception of the organic -nature of society, they demand an immediate solution of its -problems They want the millennium at once, and have no -patience with us because we do not believe it possible to -improvise a new social system the day after the revolution. -Though they profess to take their stand upon history, they -are strangely oblivious to its lessons. For if there is one -lesson more than another that it teaches, it is that organic -changes are not brought about in a catastrophic way. On the -contrary, catastrophes, in which history abounds, are -invariably followed by long periods of social disorder and -chaos, and only indirectly can be said to lead to any kind -of good, in that experience proves that men will often -listen to the voice of truth in suffering that they scorned -in their days of prosperity. Yet the neo-Marxians are so -eager for the millennium that they seek catastrophe as a -means of realizing it. - -There is another lesson that history teaches that the -Marxians do not so much ignore as deny---that evils are -never conquered before they are *understood* and faced in -the right spirit. The history of Greece and Rome abounds in -revolutions, but the revolutionaries were unable to abolish -the evils consequent upon an unregulated currency, because -they did not understand *how* to suppress them. Plato might -realize that the technical remedy was to be found in a -system of fixed prices, but the moral atmosphere necessary -to reduce such an idea to practice was absent in Greek -society, and so his suggestion was ignored. It was not until -Christianity had entirely transformed the spirit of society -by replacing the individualistic temper of Pagan society by -the spirit of human brotherhood that a solution was found in -the institution of the Just Price as maintained by the -Guilds. Similarly the transition from Mediaeval to modern -society, from communism to individualism, did not come about -owing to some inexorable law of social evolution, but -because the moral sanction of Mediaeval society was -gradually undermined by the lawyers and their Roman Law. -They undermined the communal spirit that sustained the -Guilds by affirming the right of every man to buy in the -cheapest market and to sell in the dearest, while they -transformed Feudalism into landlordism by denying the -Mediaeval theory of reciprocal rights and duties, and -exalting the rights of the individual at the expense of -those of the community. What Marxians call social evolution -is nothing more or less than the social and economic -consequences of such teaching---a truth which even they -instinctively recognize, for they are not content to leave -the coming of the millennium to the blind workings of the -historic process about which they are so eloquent, but seek -to promote it by inculcating the doctrines of -class-consciousness into the minds of the workers. There is -nothing inevitable about social changes. The direction can -at any time be changed where there is the will and the -understanding. But for the revival of Roman Law and the -immoral teachings associated with it, European society would -have continued to develop on Mediaeval lines to this day as -indeed it continued to develop in Asia and remained until -European capitalism began to undermine it. - -Recognizing, then, that all societies are finally the -expression or materialization of their dominant philosophy, -and that when in the Middle Ages communal relationships -obtained they were sustained by the teachings of -Christianity, the question may reasonably be asked whether -the policy we advocate does not imply a return to -Christianity; must not reformers return to the churches? The -answer is that this would be the case if the churches taught -Christianity as it was understood by the Early Christians. -But such is not the case. The churches in the past made -terms with the mammon of unrighteousness, and though it is -true that they are changing, we have to recognize that they -are changing in response to the rebellion against capitalism -from without rather than from any movement from within at -any rate in so far as their attitude towards social -questions is concerned. If the churches had taken the lead -in attacking capitalism, there would be a case for joining -them, but considering that they did not, and are so much -bound up with the existing order, to advocate such a policy -would not only lead to endless misunderstanding, but would -hamper us in the immediate work that requires to be done. -Hitherto Guildsmen have approached the problem from one -particular angle. They have sought to transform the Trade -Unions into Guilds by urging upon the latter a policy of -encroaching control. This policy is good as far as it goes. -But it is not the only thing that requires to be done. It is -not only necessary to approach the problem of establishing -Guilds from the point of view of the producer; it is equally -necessary to approach it from the point of view of the -consumer. For this reason I would urge that we should not -neglect the new weapon that the Profiteering Act has placed -in our hands. Let us recognize the significance of this Act -as giving legal sanction to the central economic idea of the -Middle Ages. Let us study its implications and make the -working of the Act the basis of activities that will lead -step by step on the one hand to the revival of agriculture -and the abolition of landlordism, and on the other to the -return of the Guilds. For if the public can be persuaded of -the desirability of Guilds from the point of view of -consumers, half our battle would be won. The movement from -above would join hands with the movement from below and -Guilds arise naturally from the union. - -Meanwhile those whom personal bias leads to a consideration -of the more fundamental propositions underlying the problem -of reconstruction should be urged to concentrate their -energies upon the abolition of Roman Law. Such an attack -would tend to create the kind of intellectual back ground of -which the Reform Movement stands so much in need. It would -in the first place prevent the Guild Movement from getting -side-tracked by counteracting the pernicious influence of -the Marxian interpretation of history. In the next it would -impress upon the minds of people the idea that social and -economic changes are preceded by changes in ideas. Then it -would demonstrate the primacy of law over economics; and -lastly it would bring Mediaeval ideas into a direct -relationship with the modern thought, because it so happens -that it is impossible to attack Roman Law without at the -same time affirming Mediaeval principles.Law is the link -between morals and economics as it is between philosophy and -politics and between industrialism and militarism. To attack -Roman Law is therefore to attack the modern system at a very -vital and strategic point. It would create a force that -would restore the communal spirit of the Middle Ages. For -after all there are only two types of society that have -existed since currency was introduced the capitalist -civilizations of Greece and Rome and of modern Europe and -America that did not control currency, and the communal -societies of Mediaeval Europe and Asia that did. There is, -finally, no third type of society, inasmuch as all societies -conform to one or other of these types, differing only to -the extent that in different societies emphasis is given to -different aspects of them. Hence it is reasonable to suppose -that as the capitalist civilization of Rome was followed by -the communal civilization of Mediaevalism, the reaction -against capitalism to-day will carry us along to a future -where the promise of the Middle Ages will be fulfilled. +It is a commonplace of modern thought to say that "we cannot put the +clock back." But if recorded history has any one single lesson to teach +us more than another, it is precisely, as Mr. Chesterton has said, that +we can. Twice in European history has it been done. The first time was +when Christianity restored the communal basis of society after it had +been destroyed by the capitalism of Greece and Rome, and the second was +when this communal basis of Mediaeval society in turn was destroyed and +capitalism re-established by the revival of Roman Law.The recent +admission of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that ministers are so +overwhelmed with the details of administration that they have no time to +think, suggests to the student of history that before long the clock +will need to be put back again. For it is manifest that the process of +centralization that has been continuous since the reign of Henry II has +at last reached a point beyond which it can proceed no farther, since +the Government is confessedly at the mercy of forces it cannot control. +In these circumstances there is but one thing to be done---to substitute +control from without by control from within; or, in other words, to +restore the communal basis of society that Roman Law destroyed. + +It would be fortunate for us if this simple truth could become +acknowledged, as no single thing would be wrought with such far-reaching +consequences and prevent so much human suffering. A frank acceptance of +the principle of reversion would enable us to arrive at the new social +order by means of orderly progression, and would prevent the bloodshed +that is the inevitable consequence of a refusal to face the facts. The +danger that confronts us is precisely the same as confronted France on +the eve of the Revolution. It is the danger that a popular though +unconscious movement back to Medievalism may be frustrated by +intellectuals whose eyes are turned in the opposite direction, and +revolution be precipitated by the fact that the instinctive impulses of +the people, instead of being guided into their proper channels where +they would bear fruit a thousandfold, will be brought into collision +with doctrinaire idealists who believe in economic evolution as it is +not. The average man to-day in his conscious intelligence will subscribe +to modernism in some degree, but his instinctive actions are always in +the direction of a return to Mediaevalism. This fact is illustrated by +the arrival of the Trade Union Movement, which was well described by +Mr. Chesterton as "a return to the past by men ignorant of the past, +like the subconscious action of some man who has lost his memory." The +circumstance that the Guild propaganda finds such ready support among +Trade Unionists is not due to the economic theories associated with it. +Such could not be the case, for not one person in a thousand understands +economics. The Guild idea is successful because it is in harmony with +the popular psychology. It attacks the wage system and directs attention +to the danger of the Servile State---evils with which every working man +is familiar---while it presents him with a vision of a new social order +in which he may take pleasure in his work. These are the things that +have promoted the success of the Guild idea. Approving of such aims, the +majority are willing to take its economics for granted as things beyond +their understanding. They swallow them without tasting them; just as a +previous generation swallowed Collectivist theories without tasting them +because Socialists held out promises of a co-operative commonwealth. +Those who deny this contention must explain why, if such was not the +case, Socialists rebelled against Collectivism when they discovered +where it was leading them. If they had understood its economic theories +they would have known its destination all along, and would no more have +thought about rebelling against it than does Mr. Sidney Webb. Mr. Webb +does not rebel against it, because he understands it. I am inclined to +think he is the only man who understands Collectivism and believes in +it. At any rate he is the only Collectivist I ever met who was prepared +to accept the deductions from his premises. + +While on the one hand we have in the Trade Union Movement evidence of an +instinctive effort by men to return to Medievalism in their capacity as +producers, we have in the present outcry against profiteering and the +demand for a fixed and Just Price evidence of an instinctive effort of +men to return to Mediaevalism in their capacity as consumers. It is +important that this should be recognized, for the Trade Union Movement +and the movement against profiteering are the upper and nether +millstones between which capitalism is going to be ground and the Guilds +restored. The movement against profiteering, again, is not due to any +leanings towards Mediaeval economics. On the contrary, it is purely +instinctive. Just as the Trade Union Movement owes its origin to the +instinct of self-preservation of producers, so the demand for the Just +Price owes its origin to the instinct of self-preservation of consumers. +Yet both are movements back to Mediaevalism. And so in respect to all of +our other ideas of reform: they all imply reversion to the past. What is +democracy but a form of government that existed among all primitive +peoples? What is the proposal to nationalize the land but a reversion to +the oldest known form of land tenure? What is the demand for a more +equitable distribution of wealth but a reversion to pre-capitalist +conditions of society? What does the substitution of production for use +for production for profit and the abolition of poverty imply but the +reversion to a state of things that existed before such evils came into +existence? They are all borrowed from the past, and imply the creation +of a social order the exact antithesis of our present one. But our +reformers will not have it. They do not take the trouble to carry their +ideas to their logical conclusion, and so continue to imagine that all +such ideas may be grafted upon modern industrialism and finance which is +built upon their denial and is finally antipathetic to them. The result +is as might be expected. Modern attempts at reform invariably produce +the opposite effect to that intended, or if they remedy one evil, it is +but to create another. Instead of being stepping-stones to the +millennium, they prove to be the paved way to the Servile State. The +discovery of this leads the workers to rebel; they become suspicious of +intellectual leadership, and generally speaking the suspicion is +justified, for the intellectuals have misled them. Their prejudice +against the past is the root of the whole trouble. If we could get rid +of this prejudice it would be easy to bridge the gulf between the +workers and intellectuals. They would pull together, and we should get +real leadership because we should get understanding. It is easy to +understand the modern world if you visualize it from the Mediaevalist +standpoint, but impossible from the modernist, as the constant change of +intellectual fashions clearly demonstrates. Yet though the modernist can +find certainty nowhere, he still clings tenaciously to the belief that +modernism cannot be entirely wrong. + +But even when the modernist is convinced of the truth of Mediaeval +principles he hesitates to give them his adherence because he +experiences a difficulty in basing any practical activity upon them. But +that is only a temporary difficulty, and would disappear if Mediaeval +principles were more generally accepted. Still that is not the issue for +which we are immediately contending. The vital issue is not finally +whether Mediaeval principles can be applied in detail, but that the +neglect of them leads modernists to put their trust in measures that are +foredoomed to failure, while it blinds them to the significance of +movements of popular origin because of false *a priori* ideas. It would +be just as unreasonable for an engineer to ignore the laws of physics +because he found it difficult to apply them with mathematical precision +in a complex structure as it is for Socialists to ignore Mediaeval +economics because they cannot always be immediately applied. For just as +a knowledge of the laws of physics keeps the engineer straight within +certain limits by telling him what can and what cannot be done, so a +knowledge of Mediaeval economics would keep Socialists straight within +certain limits, and by relating all their schemes to a central and +coordinating philosophy prevent them from making fundamental errors. It +is precisely because men who become immersed in the details of politics +are apt to lose sight of first principles that it is so necessary to +keep insisting upon them. Above all, a familiarity with the Mediaeval +philosophy and point of view would give them some insight into the +psychology of the people, who, in spite of all appearances to the +contrary, are Medievalists still. + +It is because I feel so much the desirability of a *rapprochement* +between intellectuals and the workers that I so strongly urge the +importance of Mediaeval ideas. The tragedy of the situation is that we +live in an age that cries out for leadership and no leaders are +forthcoming, nor are there likely to be any so long as the modernist +philosophy prevails, since it erects an insurmountable barrier between +the workers and their rightful leaders. Here I would observe that my +comments are just as true of working-class intellectuals as of those of +the middle class, for the working class that reads has been fed on the +self-same false philosophies. In so far as working-class culture differs +from middle-class culture, it is apt to be harder and narrower; this is +where the real danger lies. When I say that the danger confronting us is +precisely the same as that which confronted France on the eve of the +Revolution---in that chaos may be precipitated by the fact that the +workers and the intellectuals are pulling different ways---it is to +working-class rather than middle-class intellectuals that I refer, since +the Neo-Marxian intellectuals are the only modernists sufficiently +convinced of the truth of their creed to be capable of determined action +in the event of a crisis. The leadership must fall into their hands, +unless in the meantime the Medievalist position can secure wide +acceptance, since apart from such acceptance reformers generally will +remain blind to the significance of present-day developments that are +finally the result of their teaching, but which do not receive +recognition because they come in unexpected forms from unexpected +quarters. We look to things coming to us from the east and they come to +us from the west. And so the very things which might remove impossible +barriers from our path are treated with suspicion and rejected. + +The Profiteering Act is a case in point. Owing to the fact that the +minds of Socialists are filled with the *a priori* theory of social +evolution, which teaches them that industry is to get into fewer and +fewer hands until a time comes at length when it will be taken over by +the State, they have entirely missed the significance of this Act, which +points to a very different conclusion. From the point of view of the +average Socialist it is nothing more than a measure of temporary +expediency advocated by the Northcliffe Press and adopted by the +Government as a means of satisfying popular clamour and of postponing +the day of substantial reform. But to the Guildsman it wears a different +aspect. While he is not prepared to dispute that such motives led to its +enactment, he sees in the effort to fix prices a revival of the central +economic idea of the Middle Ages. History teaches him it is an idea with +great potentialities and may, if advantage is taken of it by reformers, +lead to results very different from those intended. The control of +prices, he is persuaded, is a precedent condition of success in any +effort to secure economic reform, inasmuch as until prices are fixed it +is impossible to plan or arrange anything that may not be subsequently +upset by fluctuations of the markets. It is a necessary preliminary to +secure the unearned increment for the community, since until prices are +fixed it will always be possible for the rich to resist attempts to +reduce them by transferring any taxation imposed upon them to the +shoulders of other members of the community. Moreover, as the +Profiteering Act seeks the co-operation of local authorities, it should +operate to promote a revival of local life. Where local authorities have +fallen into the hands of shopkeepers, the shopkeepers will be compelled +to act in the public interest or be cleared out. Thus the moral issue +will become one of paramount importance, and this will pave the way for +the arrival of the Just Price, for the people will never be satisfied +with a fixed price that is not finally a Just Price. As in the Middle +Ages the Guilds owed their existence as economic organizations to the +desire for a Just Price, it is reasonable to suppose that once the +Government is committed to a policy of regulating prices the restoration +of the Guilds can only be a matter of time. Apart from Guilds, it may be +possible to fix the prices of a few staple articles of general use, but +experience must prove that this is as far as things will go, for there +is a limit to the successful application of the principle of control +from without. The fixing of prices throughout industry necessitates +control from within, and this involves a return to the Guilds. + +But the Profiteering Act has other implications. It raises the questions +of agriculture, landlordism and Roman Law. It is evident that any fixing +of prices throughout industry depends ultimately upon our capacity to +fix the price of food, and this must remain impossible so long as we are +dependent upon foreign supplies of food. Hence the attempt to fix prices +leads to the revival of agriculture. The question as to whether with our +large population we shall or shall not ever be able to be entirely +independent of such supplies is not the issue. We should aim at being as +independent as possible, since the nearer we approach to such a +condition, the more stable our economic arrangements will become. The +movement towards such a revival should be reinforced by the national +urgency of correcting the discrepancy between imports and exports. +Before the war, the excess of imports was a matter of no concern, as it +represented the returns on our foreign investments and the earnings of +our mercantile marine, but nowadays, when our foreign investments have +been sold to pay for munitions and our mercantile marine reduced, it is +a different matter. It means we are living on capital, that the country +is being drained of its economic resources, and that this discrepancy +must be corrected if we are to avoid national bankruptcy. The politician +and industrialist, looking at this problem, cry aloud for increased +production, meaning thereby an increase in the production of industrial +wares. But this, as I have shown, is no solution, for the markets of the +world cannot absorb an increased production. Yet there is a sense in +which they are right. We do not want an increase of secondary production +such as they urge upon us, but we do need an increase of primary +production. We need an increase of agricultural produce. This is the one +direction in which an increase of output is immediately practicable, and +it would react to our economic advantage. For not only would it, by +decreasing our imports of food, tend to correct the balance between +imports and exports, but it would provide an increased home market for +our industrial wares. It would increase our national independence and +lay for us a firm economic base on which we could proceed to build. We +could then begin to fix prices with some assurance that what we did +would not be upset by the action of some Food Trust beyond the seas. The +fleeting nature of the prosperity built upon foreign trade is in these +days being brought home to us. The experience of Carthage and Athens, of +Venice and Genoa, of Hanseatic Germany and of the Dutch, is becoming our +experience. A time came in the life of these States when they found +themselves at the mercy of forces they were powerless to control, and so +it is with us. There is no way out of the impasse in which we find +ourselves but to restore to society the base that was destroyed by the +tyranny of landlordism on the one hand and the shibboleth of Free Trade +on the other. If a revival of agriculture is to be of real benefit to +society, life in the country must be made attractive again and the +agricultural worker be properly paid, and I would add he should not be +paid less than the equivalent of what he was able to earn in the Middle +Ages, which at the pre-war value of money would not be less than three +pounds a week. No doubt this will appear entirely impracticable to our +"practical" reformers whose habit of mind it is to put expediency before +principle. But I am assured that the great increase of demand in the +home market created by such well-paid workers would speedily react to +the advantage of the community by relieving the pressure of com petition +in the towns. We should soon find that a prosperous peasantry was our +greatest economic asset. Raising the wages of agricultural workers +would, moreover, by putting the labourers on their feet, pave the way +for the organization of agriculture on a Guild basis. As an intermediate +step, however, it would perhaps be necessary to work for small holdings +and restored common lands, a combination of which would not unlikely +prove to be the most satisfactory form of land-holding. But in no case +should ownership of land be absolute. On the contrary, land should be +held conditionally upon its cultivation and owned by the local +authorities, an arrangement I suggest as an alternative to land +nationalization because it avoids the evils of bureaucracy. + +So self-evident may appear the policy I recommend that the question +naturally arises, Why is it not adopted? The answer is because the +revival of agriculture raises the land question, and that touches the +governing class in a very tender place. The outcry that any proposal to +tax the land immediately raises is not due to the fact that it touches +the wealthy in their economic stronghold, for the money power is in +these days infinitely more powerful than the land power, but because it +attacks the honour of the governing class. All the great landowners are +in possession of stolen property, and it is said that a great part of +such lands have no proper title-deeds. When Mr. Smillie raised this +question at the recent Coal Commission he raised a very pertinent one. +But he neglected a stronger line of attack. Instead of asking whether +the lands held by the dukes had proper title-deeds, he ought to have +asked how it came about that any land possessed title-deeds; whether it +was in the interests of the community for men to enjoy privileges +without corresponding responsibilities; and how it came about that +landlords found themselves in this irresponsible position to-day. These +questions would have raised the really fundamental issues; for no men +were in this position before the revival of Roman Law. + +It has been the misfortune of the land question that its fundamental +importance has been disregarded because it has been associated with +moribund solutions of its problems. Every one with a practical knowledge +of the circumstances of agriculture and building knew very well that the +taxation of land values, though theoretically justifiable, would be +followed by consequences very different from those intended. We are +paying in the housing shortage to-day for the Land Campaign of 1909---a +fact that has been obscured by the circumstance that the war has +rendered cottage-building an uneconomic proposition. If land reformers +had been as keen on reviving agriculture, for which they professed +concern, as they were for securing the unearned increment of city sites, +they would never have fallen into the economic fallacies they did, for +in that case they would have begun by enquiring into the circumstances +of agriculture, and have made its revival their primary concern. But it +has unfortunately happened that while agricultural reformers have +shirked the land question, those who have attacked it have had their +eyes fixed upon urban values. So land reform has fallen between two +stools, and will remain so until the reformers wake up to the fact that +the land question is fundamental to all their schemes. + +It is a paradox, but I believe it is nevertheless true, that it is this +tradition of reformers approaching the problem of reconstruction from +the point of view of unearned increment, or surplus value, to use +Marxian terminology, that in the past has been their undoing. With their +eyes for ever fixed on the money that goes into the pockets of others +who have no moral right to it, they incline to approach problems in a +ruthless mechanical way that entirely disregards circumstances. These +circumstances in turn have a way of defeating them, for problems are to +be attacked along the line of their growth and finally in no other way. +The root fallacy that leads reformers to be thus for ever attacking +problems in the wrong way is that they have fallen into the error of +making economics rather than law and morals the starting-point of their +enquiries. It is this that has led them to the Collectivist way of +thinking, that supposes the solution of the social problem to be nothing +more than a matter of detailed arrangements---a way of thinking that has +survived the formal rejection of Collectivist theories, and which is +still believed in by the Neo-Marxians. For their quarrel with the +Fabians, as with us, is immediately a quarrel about time. Without any +conception of the organic nature of society, they demand an immediate +solution of its problems They want the millennium at once, and have no +patience with us because we do not believe it possible to improvise a +new social system the day after the revolution. Though they profess to +take their stand upon history, they are strangely oblivious to its +lessons. For if there is one lesson more than another that it teaches, +it is that organic changes are not brought about in a catastrophic way. +On the contrary, catastrophes, in which history abounds, are invariably +followed by long periods of social disorder and chaos, and only +indirectly can be said to lead to any kind of good, in that experience +proves that men will often listen to the voice of truth in suffering +that they scorned in their days of prosperity. Yet the neo-Marxians are +so eager for the millennium that they seek catastrophe as a means of +realizing it. + +There is another lesson that history teaches that the Marxians do not so +much ignore as deny---that evils are never conquered before they are +*understood* and faced in the right spirit. The history of Greece and +Rome abounds in revolutions, but the revolutionaries were unable to +abolish the evils consequent upon an unregulated currency, because they +did not understand *how* to suppress them. Plato might realize that the +technical remedy was to be found in a system of fixed prices, but the +moral atmosphere necessary to reduce such an idea to practice was absent +in Greek society, and so his suggestion was ignored. It was not until +Christianity had entirely transformed the spirit of society by replacing +the individualistic temper of Pagan society by the spirit of human +brotherhood that a solution was found in the institution of the Just +Price as maintained by the Guilds. Similarly the transition from +Mediaeval to modern society, from communism to individualism, did not +come about owing to some inexorable law of social evolution, but because +the moral sanction of Mediaeval society was gradually undermined by the +lawyers and their Roman Law. They undermined the communal spirit that +sustained the Guilds by affirming the right of every man to buy in the +cheapest market and to sell in the dearest, while they transformed +Feudalism into landlordism by denying the Mediaeval theory of reciprocal +rights and duties, and exalting the rights of the individual at the +expense of those of the community. What Marxians call social evolution +is nothing more or less than the social and economic consequences of +such teaching---a truth which even they instinctively recognize, for +they are not content to leave the coming of the millennium to the blind +workings of the historic process about which they are so eloquent, but +seek to promote it by inculcating the doctrines of class-consciousness +into the minds of the workers. There is nothing inevitable about social +changes. The direction can at any time be changed where there is the +will and the understanding. But for the revival of Roman Law and the +immoral teachings associated with it, European society would have +continued to develop on Mediaeval lines to this day as indeed it +continued to develop in Asia and remained until European capitalism +began to undermine it. + +Recognizing, then, that all societies are finally the expression or +materialization of their dominant philosophy, and that when in the +Middle Ages communal relationships obtained they were sustained by the +teachings of Christianity, the question may reasonably be asked whether +the policy we advocate does not imply a return to Christianity; must not +reformers return to the churches? The answer is that this would be the +case if the churches taught Christianity as it was understood by the +Early Christians. But such is not the case. The churches in the past +made terms with the mammon of unrighteousness, and though it is true +that they are changing, we have to recognize that they are changing in +response to the rebellion against capitalism from without rather than +from any movement from within at any rate in so far as their attitude +towards social questions is concerned. If the churches had taken the +lead in attacking capitalism, there would be a case for joining them, +but considering that they did not, and are so much bound up with the +existing order, to advocate such a policy would not only lead to endless +misunderstanding, but would hamper us in the immediate work that +requires to be done. Hitherto Guildsmen have approached the problem from +one particular angle. They have sought to transform the Trade Unions +into Guilds by urging upon the latter a policy of encroaching control. +This policy is good as far as it goes. But it is not the only thing that +requires to be done. It is not only necessary to approach the problem of +establishing Guilds from the point of view of the producer; it is +equally necessary to approach it from the point of view of the consumer. +For this reason I would urge that we should not neglect the new weapon +that the Profiteering Act has placed in our hands. Let us recognize the +significance of this Act as giving legal sanction to the central +economic idea of the Middle Ages. Let us study its implications and make +the working of the Act the basis of activities that will lead step by +step on the one hand to the revival of agriculture and the abolition of +landlordism, and on the other to the return of the Guilds. For if the +public can be persuaded of the desirability of Guilds from the point of +view of consumers, half our battle would be won. The movement from above +would join hands with the movement from below and Guilds arise naturally +from the union. + +Meanwhile those whom personal bias leads to a consideration of the more +fundamental propositions underlying the problem of reconstruction should +be urged to concentrate their energies upon the abolition of Roman Law. +Such an attack would tend to create the kind of intellectual back ground +of which the Reform Movement stands so much in need. It would in the +first place prevent the Guild Movement from getting side-tracked by +counteracting the pernicious influence of the Marxian interpretation of +history. In the next it would impress upon the minds of people the idea +that social and economic changes are preceded by changes in ideas. Then +it would demonstrate the primacy of law over economics; and lastly it +would bring Mediaeval ideas into a direct relationship with the modern +thought, because it so happens that it is impossible to attack Roman Law +without at the same time affirming Mediaeval principles.Law is the link +between morals and economics as it is between philosophy and politics +and between industrialism and militarism. To attack Roman Law is +therefore to attack the modern system at a very vital and strategic +point. It would create a force that would restore the communal spirit of +the Middle Ages. For after all there are only two types of society that +have existed since currency was introduced the capitalist civilizations +of Greece and Rome and of modern Europe and America that did not control +currency, and the communal societies of Mediaeval Europe and Asia that +did. There is, finally, no third type of society, inasmuch as all +societies conform to one or other of these types, differing only to the +extent that in different societies emphasis is given to different +aspects of them. Hence it is reasonable to suppose that as the +capitalist civilization of Rome was followed by the communal +civilization of Mediaevalism, the reaction against capitalism to-day +will carry us along to a future where the promise of the Middle Ages +will be fulfilled. [^1]: Essays in Orthodoxy, by Oliver Chase Quick. -[^2]: Letter to the New Age, by E. Cowley, November 13, - 1913. +[^2]: Letter to the New Age, by E. Cowley, November 13, 1913. diff --git a/src/kingdom-within.md b/src/kingdom-within.md index 8df9809..58ffeeb 100644 --- a/src/kingdom-within.md +++ b/src/kingdom-within.md @@ -1,453 +1,386 @@ # Introduction -> And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you -> free (John 8:23). +> And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (John +> 8:23). > -> And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to -> kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to -> destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10:28). +> And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the +> soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body +> in hell (Matthew 10:28). > -> Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men -> (1. Corinthians 7:23). - -In the year 1884 I wrote a book under the title, *My -Religion*. In this book I really expounded what my religion -is. - -In expounding my belief in Christ's teaching, I could not -help but express the reason why I do not believe in the -ecclesiastic faith, which is generally called Christianity, -and why I consider it to be a delusion. - -Among the many deviations of this teaching of Christ, I -pointed out the chief deviation, namely, the failure to -acknowledge the commandment of non-resistance to evil, which -more obviously than any other shows the distortion of -Christ's teaching in the church doctrine. - -I knew very little, like the rest of us, as to what had been -done and preached and written in former days on this subject -of non-resistance to evil. I knew what had been said on this -subject by the fathers of the church, Origen, Tertullian, -and others, and I knew also that there have existed certain -so-called sects of the Mennonites, Moravians, Quakers, who -do not admit for a Christian the use of weapons and who do -not enter military service, but what had been done by these -so-called sects for the solution of this question was quite -unknown to me. - -My book, as I expected, was held back by the Russian censor, -but, partly in consequence of my reputation as a writer, -partly because it interested people, this book was -disseminated in manuscripts and lithographic reprints in -Russia and in translations abroad, and called forth, on the -one hand, on the part of men who shared my views, a series -of references to works written on the subject, and, on the -other, a series of criticisms on the thoughts expressed in -that book itself. - -Both, together with the historical phenomena of recent -times, have made many things clear to me and have brought me -to new deductions and conclusions, which I wish to express. - -First I shall tell of the information which I received -concerning the history of the question of non-resistance to -evil, then of the opinions on this subject which were -expressed by ecclesiastic critics, that is, such as profess -the Christian religion, and also by laymen, that is, such as -do not profess the Christian religion; and finally, those -deductions to which I was brought by both and by the -historical events of recent times. +> Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men (1. +> Corinthians 7:23). + +In the year 1884 I wrote a book under the title, *My Religion*. In this +book I really expounded what my religion is. + +In expounding my belief in Christ's teaching, I could not help but +express the reason why I do not believe in the ecclesiastic faith, which +is generally called Christianity, and why I consider it to be a +delusion. + +Among the many deviations of this teaching of Christ, I pointed out the +chief deviation, namely, the failure to acknowledge the commandment of +non-resistance to evil, which more obviously than any other shows the +distortion of Christ's teaching in the church doctrine. + +I knew very little, like the rest of us, as to what had been done and +preached and written in former days on this subject of non-resistance to +evil. I knew what had been said on this subject by the fathers of the +church, Origen, Tertullian, and others, and I knew also that there have +existed certain so-called sects of the Mennonites, Moravians, Quakers, +who do not admit for a Christian the use of weapons and who do not enter +military service, but what had been done by these so-called sects for +the solution of this question was quite unknown to me. + +My book, as I expected, was held back by the Russian censor, but, partly +in consequence of my reputation as a writer, partly because it +interested people, this book was disseminated in manuscripts and +lithographic reprints in Russia and in translations abroad, and called +forth, on the one hand, on the part of men who shared my views, a series +of references to works written on the subject, and, on the other, a +series of criticisms on the thoughts expressed in that book itself. + +Both, together with the historical phenomena of recent times, have made +many things clear to me and have brought me to new deductions and +conclusions, which I wish to express. + +First I shall tell of the information which I received concerning the +history of the question of non-resistance to evil, then of the opinions +on this subject which were expressed by ecclesiastic critics, that is, +such as profess the Christian religion, and also by laymen, that is, +such as do not profess the Christian religion; and finally, those +deductions to which I was brought by both and by the historical events +of recent times. # I -Among the first answers to my book there came some letters -from the American Quakers. In these letters, which express -their sympathy with my views concerning the unlawfulness for -Christianity of all violence and war, the Quakers informed -me of the details of their so-called sect, which for more -than two hundred years has in fact professed Christ's -teaching about non-resistance to evil, and which has used no -arms in order to defend itself. With their letters, the -Quakers sent me their pamphlets, periodicals, and books. -From these periodicals, pamphlets, and books which they sent -me I learned to what extent they had many years ago -incontestably proved the obligation for a Christian to -fulfil the commandment about nonresistance to evil and had -laid bare the incorrectness of the church teaching, which -admitted executions and wars. - -Having proved, by a whole series of considerations and -texts, that war, that is, the maiming and killing of men, is -incompatible with a religion which is based on love of peace -and good-will to men, the Quakers affirm and prove that -nothing has so much contributed to the obscuration of -Christ's truth in the eyes of the pagans and impeded the -dissemination of Christianity in the world as the -non-acknowledgment of this commandment by men who called -themselves Christians,---as the permission granted to a -Christian to wage war and use violence. - -"Christ's teaching, which entered into the consciousness of -men, not by means of the sword and of violence," they say, -"but by means of non-resistance to evil, can be disseminated -in the world only through humility, meekness, peace, -concord, and love among its followers. - -"A Christian, according to the teaching of God Himself, can -be guided in his relations to men by peace only, and so -there cannot be such an authority as would compel a -Christian to act contrary to God's teaching and contrary to -the chief property of a Christian in relation to those who -are near to him. - -"The rule of state necessity," they say, "may compel those -to become untrue to God's law, who for the sake of worldly -advantages try to harmonize what cannot be harmonized, but -for a Christian, who sincerely believes in this, that the -adherence to Christ's teaching gives him salvation, this -rule can have no meaning." - -My acquaintance with the activity of the Quakers and with -their writings,---with Fox, Paine, and especially with -Dymond's book (1827),---showed me that not only had the -impossibility of uniting Christianity with violence and war -been recognized long ago, but that this incompatibility had -long ago been proved so clearly and so incontestably that -one has only to marvel how this impossible connection of the -Christian teaching with violence, which has been preached -all this time by the churches, could have been continued. - -Besides the information received by me from the Quakers, I, -at about the same time, received, again from America, -information in regard to the same subject from an entirely -different source, which had been quite unknown to me before. - -The son of William Lloyd Garrison, the famous champion for -the liberation of the negroes, wrote to me that, when he -read my book, in which he found ideas resembling those -expressed by his father in 1838, he, assuming that it might -be interesting for me to know this, sent me the "Declaration -of Non-resistance," which his father had made about fifty -years ago. - -This declaration had its origin under the following -conditions: William Lloyd Garrison, in speaking before a -society for the establishment of peace among men, which -existed in America in 1838, about the measures for -abolishing war, came to the conclusion that the -establishment of universal peace could be based only on the -obvious recognition of the commandment of non-resistance to -evil (Matthew 5:39) in all its significance, as this was -understood by the Quakers, with whom Garrison stood in -friendly relations. When he came to this conclusion, he -formulated and proposed to the society the following -declaration, which was then, in 1838, signed by many -members. - -**Declaration of Sentiments adopted by the Peace Convention, -held in Boston in 1838.** - -"We, the undersigned, regard it as due to ourselves, to the -cause which we love, to the country in which we live, and to -the world, to publish a Declaration, expressive of the -principles we cherish, the purposes we aim to accomplish, -and the measures we shall adopt to carry forward the work of -peaceful and universal reformation. - -"We cannot acknowledge allegiance to any human government... -We recognize but one King and Lawgiver, one Judge and Ruler -of mankind... - -"Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. -We love the land of our nativity, only as we love all other -lands. The interests, rights, and liberties of American -citizens are no more dear to us than are those of the whole -human race. Hence we can allow no appeal to patriotism, to -revenge any national insult or injury... - -"We conceive, that if a nation has no right to defend itself -against foreign enemies, or to punish its invaders, no -individual possesses that right in his own case. The unit -cannot be of greater importance than the aggregate... But if -a rapacious and bloodthirsty soldiery, thronging these -shores from abroad, with intent to commit rapine and destroy -life, may not be resisted by the people or magistracy, then -ought no resistance to be offered to domestic troublers of -the public peace, or of private security... - -"The dogma, that all the governments of the world are -approvingly ordained of God, and that the powers that be in -the United States, in Russia, in Turkey, are in accordance -with His will, is not less absurd than impious. It makes the -impartial Author of human freedom and equality unequal and -tyrannical. It cannot be affirmed that the powers that be, -in any nation, are actuated by the spirit, or guided by the -example of Christ, in the treatment of enemies: therefore, -they cannot be agreeable to the will of God: and, therefore, -their overthrow, by a spiritual regeneration of their -subjects, is inevitable. - -"We register our testimony, not only against all wars, -whether offensive or defensive, but all preparations for -war; against every naval ship, every arsenal, every -fortification; against the militia system and a standing -army; against all military chieftains and soldiers; against -all monuments commemorative of victory over a foreign foe, -all trophies won in battle, all celebrations in honour of -military or naval exploits: against all appropriations for -the defence of a nation by force and arms on the part of any -legislative body; against every edict of government, -requiring of its subjects military service. Hence, we deem -it unlawful to bear arms, or to hold a military office. - -"As every human government is upheld by physical strength, -and its laws are enforced virtually at the point of the -bayonet, we cannot hold any office which imposes upon its -incumbent the obligation to do right, on pain of -imprisonment or death. We therefore voluntarily exclude -ourselves from every legislative and judicial body, and -repudiate all human politics, worldly honours, and stations -of authority. If we cannot occupy a seat in the legislature, -or on the bench, neither can we elect others to act as our -substitutes in any such capacity. - -"It follows that we cannot sue any man at law, to compel him -by force to restore anything which he may have wrongfully -taken from us or others; but, if he has seized our coat, we -shall surrender up our cloak, rather than subject him to -punishment. - -"We believe that the penal code of the old covenant, An eye -for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, has been abrogated by -Jesus Christ; and that, under the new covenant, the -forgiveness, instead of the punishment of enemies, has been -enjoined upon all His disciples, in all cases whatsoever. To -extort money from enemies, or set them upon a pillory, or -cast them into prison, or hang them upon a gallows, is -obviously not to forgive, but to take retribution... - -"The history of mankind is crowded with evidences, proving -that physical coercion is not adapted to moral regeneration; -that the sinful disposition of man can be subdued only by -love; that evil can be exterminated from the earth only by -goodness; that it is not safe to rely upon an arm of -flesh... to preserve us from harm; that there is great -security in being gentle, harmless, long-suffering, and -abundant in mercy; that it is only the meek who shall -inherit the earth, for the violent, who resort to the sword, -shall perish with the sword. Hence, as a measure of sound -policy, of safety to property, life, and liberty, of public -quietude, and private enjoyment, as well as on the ground of -allegiance to Him who is King of kings, and Lord of lords, -we cordially adopt the nonresistance principle; being -confident that it provides for all possible consequences, -will ensure all things needful to us, is armed with -omnipotent power, and must ultimately triumph over every +Among the first answers to my book there came some letters from the +American Quakers. In these letters, which express their sympathy with my +views concerning the unlawfulness for Christianity of all violence and +war, the Quakers informed me of the details of their so-called sect, +which for more than two hundred years has in fact professed Christ's +teaching about non-resistance to evil, and which has used no arms in +order to defend itself. With their letters, the Quakers sent me their +pamphlets, periodicals, and books. From these periodicals, pamphlets, +and books which they sent me I learned to what extent they had many +years ago incontestably proved the obligation for a Christian to fulfil +the commandment about nonresistance to evil and had laid bare the +incorrectness of the church teaching, which admitted executions and +wars. + +Having proved, by a whole series of considerations and texts, that war, +that is, the maiming and killing of men, is incompatible with a religion +which is based on love of peace and good-will to men, the Quakers affirm +and prove that nothing has so much contributed to the obscuration of +Christ's truth in the eyes of the pagans and impeded the dissemination +of Christianity in the world as the non-acknowledgment of this +commandment by men who called themselves Christians,---as the permission +granted to a Christian to wage war and use violence. + +"Christ's teaching, which entered into the consciousness of men, not by +means of the sword and of violence," they say, "but by means of +non-resistance to evil, can be disseminated in the world only through +humility, meekness, peace, concord, and love among its followers. + +"A Christian, according to the teaching of God Himself, can be guided in +his relations to men by peace only, and so there cannot be such an +authority as would compel a Christian to act contrary to God's teaching +and contrary to the chief property of a Christian in relation to those +who are near to him. + +"The rule of state necessity," they say, "may compel those to become +untrue to God's law, who for the sake of worldly advantages try to +harmonize what cannot be harmonized, but for a Christian, who sincerely +believes in this, that the adherence to Christ's teaching gives him +salvation, this rule can have no meaning." + +My acquaintance with the activity of the Quakers and with their +writings,---with Fox, Paine, and especially with Dymond's book +(1827),---showed me that not only had the impossibility of uniting +Christianity with violence and war been recognized long ago, but that +this incompatibility had long ago been proved so clearly and so +incontestably that one has only to marvel how this impossible connection +of the Christian teaching with violence, which has been preached all +this time by the churches, could have been continued. + +Besides the information received by me from the Quakers, I, at about the +same time, received, again from America, information in regard to the +same subject from an entirely different source, which had been quite +unknown to me before. + +The son of William Lloyd Garrison, the famous champion for the +liberation of the negroes, wrote to me that, when he read my book, in +which he found ideas resembling those expressed by his father in 1838, +he, assuming that it might be interesting for me to know this, sent me +the "Declaration of Non-resistance," which his father had made about +fifty years ago. + +This declaration had its origin under the following conditions: William +Lloyd Garrison, in speaking before a society for the establishment of +peace among men, which existed in America in 1838, about the measures +for abolishing war, came to the conclusion that the establishment of +universal peace could be based only on the obvious recognition of the +commandment of non-resistance to evil (Matthew 5:39) in all its +significance, as this was understood by the Quakers, with whom Garrison +stood in friendly relations. When he came to this conclusion, he +formulated and proposed to the society the following declaration, which +was then, in 1838, signed by many members. + +**Declaration of Sentiments adopted by the Peace Convention, held in +Boston in 1838.** + +"We, the undersigned, regard it as due to ourselves, to the cause which +we love, to the country in which we live, and to the world, to publish a +Declaration, expressive of the principles we cherish, the purposes we +aim to accomplish, and the measures we shall adopt to carry forward the +work of peaceful and universal reformation. + +"We cannot acknowledge allegiance to any human government... We +recognize but one King and Lawgiver, one Judge and Ruler of mankind... + +"Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love the +land of our nativity, only as we love all other lands. The interests, +rights, and liberties of American citizens are no more dear to us than +are those of the whole human race. Hence we can allow no appeal to +patriotism, to revenge any national insult or injury... + +"We conceive, that if a nation has no right to defend itself against +foreign enemies, or to punish its invaders, no individual possesses that +right in his own case. The unit cannot be of greater importance than the +aggregate... But if a rapacious and bloodthirsty soldiery, thronging +these shores from abroad, with intent to commit rapine and destroy life, +may not be resisted by the people or magistracy, then ought no +resistance to be offered to domestic troublers of the public peace, or +of private security... + +"The dogma, that all the governments of the world are approvingly +ordained of God, and that the powers that be in the United States, in +Russia, in Turkey, are in accordance with His will, is not less absurd +than impious. It makes the impartial Author of human freedom and +equality unequal and tyrannical. It cannot be affirmed that the powers +that be, in any nation, are actuated by the spirit, or guided by the +example of Christ, in the treatment of enemies: therefore, they cannot +be agreeable to the will of God: and, therefore, their overthrow, by a +spiritual regeneration of their subjects, is inevitable. + +"We register our testimony, not only against all wars, whether offensive +or defensive, but all preparations for war; against every naval ship, +every arsenal, every fortification; against the militia system and a +standing army; against all military chieftains and soldiers; against all +monuments commemorative of victory over a foreign foe, all trophies won +in battle, all celebrations in honour of military or naval exploits: +against all appropriations for the defence of a nation by force and arms +on the part of any legislative body; against every edict of government, +requiring of its subjects military service. Hence, we deem it unlawful +to bear arms, or to hold a military office. + +"As every human government is upheld by physical strength, and its laws +are enforced virtually at the point of the bayonet, we cannot hold any +office which imposes upon its incumbent the obligation to do right, on +pain of imprisonment or death. We therefore voluntarily exclude +ourselves from every legislative and judicial body, and repudiate all +human politics, worldly honours, and stations of authority. If we cannot +occupy a seat in the legislature, or on the bench, neither can we elect +others to act as our substitutes in any such capacity. + +"It follows that we cannot sue any man at law, to compel him by force to +restore anything which he may have wrongfully taken from us or others; +but, if he has seized our coat, we shall surrender up our cloak, rather +than subject him to punishment. + +"We believe that the penal code of the old covenant, An eye for an eye, +and a tooth for a tooth, has been abrogated by Jesus Christ; and that, +under the new covenant, the forgiveness, instead of the punishment of +enemies, has been enjoined upon all His disciples, in all cases +whatsoever. To extort money from enemies, or set them upon a pillory, or +cast them into prison, or hang them upon a gallows, is obviously not to +forgive, but to take retribution... + +"The history of mankind is crowded with evidences, proving that physical +coercion is not adapted to moral regeneration; that the sinful +disposition of man can be subdued only by love; that evil can be +exterminated from the earth only by goodness; that it is not safe to +rely upon an arm of flesh... to preserve us from harm; that there is +great security in being gentle, harmless, long-suffering, and abundant +in mercy; that it is only the meek who shall inherit the earth, for the +violent, who resort to the sword, shall perish with the sword. Hence, as +a measure of sound policy, of safety to property, life, and liberty, of +public quietude, and private enjoyment, as well as on the ground of +allegiance to Him who is King of kings, and Lord of lords, we cordially +adopt the nonresistance principle; being confident that it provides for +all possible consequences, will ensure all things needful to us, is +armed with omnipotent power, and must ultimately triumph over every assailing foe. -"We advocate no Jacobinical doctrines. The spirit of -Jacobinism is the spirit of retaliation, violence, and -murder. It neither fears God, nor regards man. We would be -filled with the spirit of Christ. If we abide by our -principles, it is impossible for us to be disorderly, or -plot treason, or participate in any evil work: we shall -submit to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake; obey -all the requirements of government, except such as we deem -contrary to the commands of the gospel; and in no wise -resist the operation of law, except by meekly submitting to -the penalty of disobedience. - -"But, while we shall adhere to the doctrines of -nonresistance and passive submission to enemies, we purpose, -in a moral and spiritual sense, to speak and act boldly in -the cause of God; to assail iniquity in high places and in -low places; to apply our principles to all existing civil, -political, legal, and ecclesiastical institutions; and to -hasten the time when the kingdoms of this world shall become -the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall -reign for ever. - -"It appears to us as a self-evident truth, that, whatever -the gospel is designed to destroy, any period of the world, -being contrary to it, ought now to be abandoned. If, then, -the time is predicted, when swords shall be beaten into -ploughshares, and spears into pruning-hooks, and men shall -not learn the art of war any more, it follows that all who -manufacture, sell, or wield these deadly weapons do thus -array themselves against the peaceful dominion of the Son of -God on earth. - -"Having thus briefly, but frankly, stated our principles and -purposes, we proceed to specify the measures we propose to -adopt, in carrying our object into effect. - -"We expect to prevail through the foolishness of -preaching---striving to commend ourselves unto every man's -conscience, in the sight of God. From the press, we shall -promulgate our sentiments as widely as practicable. We shall -endeavour to secure the cooperation of all persons, of -whatever name or sect... Hence we shall employ lectures, -circulate tracts and publications, form societies, and -petition our State and national governments in relation to -the subject of universal peace. It will be our leading -object to devise ways and means for effecting a radical -change in the views, feelings, and practices of society -respecting the sinfulness of war, and the treatment of -enemies. - -"In entering upon the great work before us, we are not -unmindful that, in its prosecution, we may be called to test -our sincerity, even as in a fiery ordeal. It may subject us -to insult, outrage, suffering, yea, even death itself. We -anticipate no small amount of misconception, -misrepresentation, calumny. Tumults may arise against us. -The ungodly and the violent, the proud and Pharisaical, the -ambitious and tyrannical, principalities and powers, and -spiritual wickedness in high places, may combine to crush -us. So they treated the Messiah, whose example we are humbly -striving to imitate... We shall not be afraid of their -terror, neither be troubled. Our confidence is in the Lord -Almighty, not in man. Having withdrawn from human -protection, what can sustain us but that faith which -overcomes the world? We shall not think it strange -concerning the fiery ordeal which is to try us, as though -some strange thing had happened unto us; but rejoice, -inasmuch as we are partakers of Christ's sufferings. -Wherefore, we commit the keeping of our souls to God, in -well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator. 'For every one that -forsakes houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or -mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for Christ's sake, -shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting -life.' - -"Firmly relying upon the certain and universal triumph of -the sentiments contained in this Declaration, however -formidable may be the opposition arrayed against them, in -solemn testimony of our faith in their divine origin, we -hereby affix our signatures to it; commending it to the -reason and conscience of mankind, giving ourselves no -anxiety as to what may befall us, and resolving, in the -strength of the Lord God, calmly and meekly to abide the -issue." - -Immediately after this declaration Garrison founded a -society of non-resistance, and a periodical, called *The -Non-Resistant*, in which was preached the doctrine of -non-resistance in all its significance and with all its -consequences, as it had been expressed in the "Declaration." -The information as to the later fate of the society and the -periodical of non-resistance I received from the beautiful -biography of William Lloyd Garrison, written by his sons. - -The society and the periodical did not exist long: the -majority of Garrison's collaborators in matters of freeing -the slaves, fearing lest the too radical demands, as -expressed in *The Non-Resistant*, might repel people from -the practical work of the liberation of the negroes, refused -to profess the principle of non-resistance, as it had been -expressed in the "Declaration," and the society and the -periodical ceased to exist. - -This "Declaration" by Garrison, which so powerfully and so -beautifully expressed such an important profession of faith, -ought, it seems, to have startled men and to have become -universally known and a subject of wide discussion. But -nothing of the kind happened. It is not only unknown in -Europe, but even among the Americans, who so highly esteem +"We advocate no Jacobinical doctrines. The spirit of Jacobinism is the +spirit of retaliation, violence, and murder. It neither fears God, nor +regards man. We would be filled with the spirit of Christ. If we abide +by our principles, it is impossible for us to be disorderly, or plot +treason, or participate in any evil work: we shall submit to every +ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake; obey all the requirements of +government, except such as we deem contrary to the commands of the +gospel; and in no wise resist the operation of law, except by meekly +submitting to the penalty of disobedience. + +"But, while we shall adhere to the doctrines of nonresistance and +passive submission to enemies, we purpose, in a moral and spiritual +sense, to speak and act boldly in the cause of God; to assail iniquity +in high places and in low places; to apply our principles to all +existing civil, political, legal, and ecclesiastical institutions; and +to hasten the time when the kingdoms of this world shall become the +kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever. + +"It appears to us as a self-evident truth, that, whatever the gospel is +designed to destroy, any period of the world, being contrary to it, +ought now to be abandoned. If, then, the time is predicted, when swords +shall be beaten into ploughshares, and spears into pruning-hooks, and +men shall not learn the art of war any more, it follows that all who +manufacture, sell, or wield these deadly weapons do thus array +themselves against the peaceful dominion of the Son of God on earth. + +"Having thus briefly, but frankly, stated our principles and purposes, +we proceed to specify the measures we propose to adopt, in carrying our +object into effect. + +"We expect to prevail through the foolishness of preaching---striving to +commend ourselves unto every man's conscience, in the sight of God. From +the press, we shall promulgate our sentiments as widely as practicable. +We shall endeavour to secure the cooperation of all persons, of whatever +name or sect... Hence we shall employ lectures, circulate tracts and +publications, form societies, and petition our State and national +governments in relation to the subject of universal peace. It will be +our leading object to devise ways and means for effecting a radical +change in the views, feelings, and practices of society respecting the +sinfulness of war, and the treatment of enemies. + +"In entering upon the great work before us, we are not unmindful that, +in its prosecution, we may be called to test our sincerity, even as in a +fiery ordeal. It may subject us to insult, outrage, suffering, yea, even +death itself. We anticipate no small amount of misconception, +misrepresentation, calumny. Tumults may arise against us. The ungodly +and the violent, the proud and Pharisaical, the ambitious and +tyrannical, principalities and powers, and spiritual wickedness in high +places, may combine to crush us. So they treated the Messiah, whose +example we are humbly striving to imitate... We shall not be afraid of +their terror, neither be troubled. Our confidence is in the Lord +Almighty, not in man. Having withdrawn from human protection, what can +sustain us but that faith which overcomes the world? We shall not think +it strange concerning the fiery ordeal which is to try us, as though +some strange thing had happened unto us; but rejoice, inasmuch as we are +partakers of Christ's sufferings. Wherefore, we commit the keeping of +our souls to God, in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator. 'For every +one that forsakes houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, +or wife, or children, or lands, for Christ's sake, shall receive an +hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.' + +"Firmly relying upon the certain and universal triumph of the sentiments +contained in this Declaration, however formidable may be the opposition +arrayed against them, in solemn testimony of our faith in their divine +origin, we hereby affix our signatures to it; commending it to the +reason and conscience of mankind, giving ourselves no anxiety as to what +may befall us, and resolving, in the strength of the Lord God, calmly +and meekly to abide the issue." + +Immediately after this declaration Garrison founded a society of +non-resistance, and a periodical, called *The Non-Resistant*, in which +was preached the doctrine of non-resistance in all its significance and +with all its consequences, as it had been expressed in the +"Declaration." The information as to the later fate of the society and +the periodical of non-resistance I received from the beautiful biography +of William Lloyd Garrison, written by his sons. + +The society and the periodical did not exist long: the majority of +Garrison's collaborators in matters of freeing the slaves, fearing lest +the too radical demands, as expressed in *The Non-Resistant*, might +repel people from the practical work of the liberation of the negroes, +refused to profess the principle of non-resistance, as it had been +expressed in the "Declaration," and the society and the periodical +ceased to exist. + +This "Declaration" by Garrison, which so powerfully and so beautifully +expressed such an important profession of faith, ought, it seems, to +have startled men and to have become universally known and a subject of +wide discussion. But nothing of the kind happened. It is not only +unknown in Europe, but even among the Americans, who so highly esteem Garrison's memory, this declaration is almost unknown. -The same ingloriousness has fallen to the share of another -champion of non-resistance to evil, the American Adin -Ballou, who lately died, and who preached this doctrine for -fifty years. How little is known of what refers to the -question of non-resistance may be seen from the fact that -Garrison's son, who has written an excellent biography of -his father in four volumes, this son of Garrison, in reply -to my question whether the society of non-resistance was -still in existence, and whether there were any followers of -it, answered me that so far as he knew the society had -fallen to pieces, and there existed no followers of this -doctrine, whereas at the time of his writing, there lived in -Hopedale, Massachusetts, Adin Ballou, who had taken part in -Garrison's labours and had devoted fifty years of his life -to the oral and printed propaganda of the doctrine of -non-resistance. Later on I received a letter from Wilson, a -disciple and assistant of Ballou, and entered into direct -communication with Ballou himself. I wrote to Ballou, and he -answered me and sent me his writings. Here are a few -extracts from them: - -"Jesus Christ is my Lord and Master," says Ballou in one of -the articles,in which he arraigns the inconsistency of the -Christians who recognize the right of defence and war. "I -have covenanted to forsake all and follow Him, through good -and evil report, until death. But I am nevertheless a -Democratic-Republican citizen of the United States, -implicitly sworn to bear true allegiance to my country, and -to support its Constitution, if need be, with my life. Jesus -Christ requires me to do unto others as I would that others -should do unto me. The Constitution of the United States -requires me to do unto twenty-seven hundred slaves" (there -were slaves then, now we may put the working people in their -place) "the very contrary of what I would have them do unto -me, viz., assist to keep them in a grievous bondage... But I -am quite easy. I vote on. I help govern on. I am willing to -hold any office I may be elected to under the Constitution. -And I am still a Christian. I profess on. I find no -difficulty in keeping covenant both with Christ and the -Constitution... - -"Jesus Christ forbids me to resist evil-doers by taking 'eye -for eye, tooth for tooth, blood for blood, and life for -life.' My government requires the very reverse, and depends, -for its own self-preservation, on the halter, the musket, -and the sword, seasonably employed against its domestic and -foreign enemies. Accordingly, the land is well furnished -with gibbets, prisons, arsenals, train-bands, soldiers, and +The same ingloriousness has fallen to the share of another champion of +non-resistance to evil, the American Adin Ballou, who lately died, and +who preached this doctrine for fifty years. How little is known of what +refers to the question of non-resistance may be seen from the fact that +Garrison's son, who has written an excellent biography of his father in +four volumes, this son of Garrison, in reply to my question whether the +society of non-resistance was still in existence, and whether there were +any followers of it, answered me that so far as he knew the society had +fallen to pieces, and there existed no followers of this doctrine, +whereas at the time of his writing, there lived in Hopedale, +Massachusetts, Adin Ballou, who had taken part in Garrison's labours and +had devoted fifty years of his life to the oral and printed propaganda +of the doctrine of non-resistance. Later on I received a letter from +Wilson, a disciple and assistant of Ballou, and entered into direct +communication with Ballou himself. I wrote to Ballou, and he answered me +and sent me his writings. Here are a few extracts from them: + +"Jesus Christ is my Lord and Master," says Ballou in one of the +articles,in which he arraigns the inconsistency of the Christians who +recognize the right of defence and war. "I have covenanted to forsake +all and follow Him, through good and evil report, until death. But I am +nevertheless a Democratic-Republican citizen of the United States, +implicitly sworn to bear true allegiance to my country, and to support +its Constitution, if need be, with my life. Jesus Christ requires me to +do unto others as I would that others should do unto me. The +Constitution of the United States requires me to do unto twenty-seven +hundred slaves" (there were slaves then, now we may put the working +people in their place) "the very contrary of what I would have them do +unto me, viz., assist to keep them in a grievous bondage... But I am +quite easy. I vote on. I help govern on. I am willing to hold any office +I may be elected to under the Constitution. And I am still a Christian. +I profess on. I find no difficulty in keeping covenant both with Christ +and the Constitution... + +"Jesus Christ forbids me to resist evil-doers by taking 'eye for eye, +tooth for tooth, blood for blood, and life for life.' My government +requires the very reverse, and depends, for its own self-preservation, +on the halter, the musket, and the sword, seasonably employed against +its domestic and foreign enemies. Accordingly, the land is well +furnished with gibbets, prisons, arsenals, train-bands, soldiers, and ships-of-war. In the maintenance and use of this expensive -life-destroying apparatus, we can exemplify the virtues of -forgiving our injurers, loving our enemies, blessing them -that curse us, and doing good to those that hate us. For -this reason, we have regular Christian chaplains to pray for -us, and call down the sins of God on our holy murderers... - -"I see it all; and yet I insist that I am as good a -Christian as ever. I fellowship all; I vote on; I help -govern on; I profess on; and I glory in being at once a -devoted Christian, and a no less devoted adherent to the -existing government. I will not give in to those miserable -non-resistant notions. I will not throw away my political -influence, and leave unprincipled men to carry on government -alone... - -"The Constitution says, 'Congress shall have power to -declare war.'... I agree to this. I endorse it. I swear to -help carry it through... What then, am I less a Christian? -Is not war a Christian service? Is it not perfectly -Christian to murder hundreds of thousands of fellow human -beings; to ravish defenceless females, sack and burn cities, -and exact all the other cruelties of war? Out upon these -newfangled scruples! This is the very way to forgive -injuries, and love our enemies! If we only do it all in true -love, nothing can be more Christian than wholesale murder!" - -In another pamphlet, under the title, *How Many Does It -Take?*he says, "How many does it take to metamorphose -wickedness into righteousness? One man must not kill. If he -does, it is murder. Two, ten, one hundred men, acting on -their own responsibility, must not kill. If they do, it is -still murder. But a state or nation may kill as many as they -please, and it is no murder. It is just, necessary, -commendable, and right. Only get people enough to agree to -it, and the butchery of myriads of human beings is perfectly -innocent. But how many men does it take? This is the -question. Just so with theft, robbery, burglary, and all -other crimes... But a whole nation can commit it... But how -many does it take?" - -Here is Ballou's catechism, composed for his flock (*The -Catechism of Non-Resistance*): +life-destroying apparatus, we can exemplify the virtues of forgiving our +injurers, loving our enemies, blessing them that curse us, and doing +good to those that hate us. For this reason, we have regular Christian +chaplains to pray for us, and call down the sins of God on our holy +murderers... + +"I see it all; and yet I insist that I am as good a Christian as ever. I +fellowship all; I vote on; I help govern on; I profess on; and I glory +in being at once a devoted Christian, and a no less devoted adherent to +the existing government. I will not give in to those miserable +non-resistant notions. I will not throw away my political influence, and +leave unprincipled men to carry on government alone... + +"The Constitution says, 'Congress shall have power to declare war.'... I +agree to this. I endorse it. I swear to help carry it through... What +then, am I less a Christian? Is not war a Christian service? Is it not +perfectly Christian to murder hundreds of thousands of fellow human +beings; to ravish defenceless females, sack and burn cities, and exact +all the other cruelties of war? Out upon these newfangled scruples! This +is the very way to forgive injuries, and love our enemies! If we only do +it all in true love, nothing can be more Christian than wholesale +murder!" + +In another pamphlet, under the title, *How Many Does It Take?*he says, +"How many does it take to metamorphose wickedness into righteousness? +One man must not kill. If he does, it is murder. Two, ten, one hundred +men, acting on their own responsibility, must not kill. If they do, it +is still murder. But a state or nation may kill as many as they please, +and it is no murder. It is just, necessary, commendable, and right. Only +get people enough to agree to it, and the butchery of myriads of human +beings is perfectly innocent. But how many men does it take? This is the +question. Just so with theft, robbery, burglary, and all other crimes... +But a whole nation can commit it... But how many does it take?" + +Here is Ballou's catechism, composed for his flock (*The Catechism of +Non-Resistance*): *Q.* Whence originated the term "non-resistance?" @@ -455,5654 +388,4846 @@ Catechism of Non-Resistance*): *Q.* What does the term signify? -*A.* It expresses a high Christian virtue, prescribed by -Christ. +*A.* It expresses a high Christian virtue, prescribed by Christ. -*Q.* Is the word "resistance" to be taken in its widest -meaning, that is, as showing that no resistance whatever is -to be shown to evil? +*Q.* Is the word "resistance" to be taken in its widest meaning, that +is, as showing that no resistance whatever is to be shown to evil? -*A.* No, it is to be taken in the strict sense of the -Saviour's injunction; that is, we are not to retaliate evil -with evil. Evil is to be resisted by all just means, but -never with evil. +*A.* No, it is to be taken in the strict sense of the Saviour's +injunction; that is, we are not to retaliate evil with evil. Evil is to +be resisted by all just means, but never with evil. -*Q.* From what can we see that Christ in such cases -prescribed non-resistance? +*Q.* From what can we see that Christ in such cases prescribed +non-resistance? -*A.* From the words which He then used. He said, "Ye have -heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth -for a tooth. But I say unto you that ye resist not evil; but -whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him -the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and -take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also." +*A.* From the words which He then used. He said, "Ye have heard that it +hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say +unto you that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy +right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at +the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also." -*Q.* To whom does Jesus refer in the words, "It has been -said?" +*Q.* To whom does Jesus refer in the words, "It has been said?" -*A.* To the patriarchs and prophets, to what they said,---to -what is contained in the writings of the Old Testament, -which the Jews generally call the Law and the Prophets. +*A.* To the patriarchs and prophets, to what they said,---to what is +contained in the writings of the Old Testament, which the Jews generally +call the Law and the Prophets. -*Q.* What injunctions did Christ mean by "It hath been -said?" +*Q.* What injunctions did Christ mean by "It hath been said?" -*A.* Those injunctions by which Noah, Moses, and other -prophets authorize men to inflict personal injury on -injurers, in order to punish and destroy evil. +*A.* Those injunctions by which Noah, Moses, and other prophets +authorize men to inflict personal injury on injurers, in order to punish +and destroy evil. *Q.* Quote these precepts. -*A.* Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be -shed: for in the image of God made He man (Genesis 9:6). He -that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to -death, and if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life -for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot -for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for -stripe (Exodus 21:12, 23-25). - -And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death. -And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath -done, so shall it be done to him: breach for breach, eye for -eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, -so shall it be done to him again (Leviticus 24:17, 19, 20). - -And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, -if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified -falsely against his brother; then shall ye do unto him, as -he had thought to have done unto his brother: and thine eye -shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, -tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot (Deuteronomy -19:18, 19, 21). These are the precepts of which Jesus is -speaking. - -Noah, Moses, and the prophets taught that he who kills, -maims, and tortures his neighbours does evil. To resist such -evil and destroy it, the doer of evil is to be punished by -death or maiming or some personal injury. Insult is to be -opposed to insult, murder to murder, torture to torture, -evil to evil. Thus taught Noah, Moses, and the prophets. But -Christ denies it all. "But I say unto you," it says in the -Gospel, "that ye resist not evil, resist not an insult with -an insult, but rather bear the repeated insult from the doer -of evil." What was authorized is prohibited. If we -understand what kind of resistance they taught, we clearly -see what we are taught by Christ's nonresistance. - -*Q.* Did the ancients authorize the resistance of insult -with insult? - -*A.* Yes; but Jesus prohibited this. A Christian has under -no condition the right to deprive of life or to subject to -insult him who does evil to his neighbour. +*A.* Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in +the image of God made He man (Genesis 9:6). He that smiteth a man, so +that he die, shall be surely put to death, and if any mischief follow, +then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand +for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe +for stripe (Exodus 21:12, 23-25). + +And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death. And if a man +cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done +to him: breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath +caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again (Leviticus +24:17, 19, 20). + +And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the +witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his +brother; then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto +his brother: and thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, +eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot (Deuteronomy +19:18, 19, 21). These are the precepts of which Jesus is speaking. + +Noah, Moses, and the prophets taught that he who kills, maims, and +tortures his neighbours does evil. To resist such evil and destroy it, +the doer of evil is to be punished by death or maiming or some personal +injury. Insult is to be opposed to insult, murder to murder, torture to +torture, evil to evil. Thus taught Noah, Moses, and the prophets. But +Christ denies it all. "But I say unto you," it says in the Gospel, "that +ye resist not evil, resist not an insult with an insult, but rather bear +the repeated insult from the doer of evil." What was authorized is +prohibited. If we understand what kind of resistance they taught, we +clearly see what we are taught by Christ's nonresistance. + +*Q.* Did the ancients authorize the resistance of insult with insult? + +*A.* Yes; but Jesus prohibited this. A Christian has under no condition +the right to deprive of life or to subject to insult him who does evil +to his neighbour. *Q.* May a man kill or maim another in self-defence? *A.* No. -*Q.* May he enter a court with a complaint, to have his -insulter punished? +*Q.* May he enter a court with a complaint, to have his insulter +punished? -*A.* No; for what he is doing through others, he is in -reality doing in his own person. +*A.* No; for what he is doing through others, he is in reality doing in +his own person. -*Q.* May he fight with an army against enemies, or against -domestic rebels? +*Q.* May he fight with an army against enemies, or against domestic +rebels? -*A.* Of course not. He cannot take any part in war or -warlike preparations. He cannot use death-dealing arms. He -cannot resist injury with injury, no matter whether he be -alone or with others, through himself or through others. +*A.* Of course not. He cannot take any part in war or warlike +preparations. He cannot use death-dealing arms. He cannot resist injury +with injury, no matter whether he be alone or with others, through +himself or through others. -*Q.* May he choose or fit out military men for the -government? +*Q.* May he choose or fit out military men for the government? -*A.* He can do nothing of the kind, if he wishes to be true -to Christ's law. +*A.* He can do nothing of the kind, if he wishes to be true to Christ's +law. -*Q.* May he voluntarily give money, to aid the government, -which is supported by military forces, capital punishment, -and violence in general? +*Q.* May he voluntarily give money, to aid the government, which is +supported by military forces, capital punishment, and violence in +general? -*A.* No, if the money is not intended for some special -object, just in itself, where the aim and means are good. +*A.* No, if the money is not intended for some special object, just in +itself, where the aim and means are good. *Q.* May he pay taxes to such a government? -*A.* No; he must not voluntarily pay the taxes, but he must -also not resist their collection. The taxes imposed by the -government are collected independently of the will of the -subjects. It is impossible to resist the collection, without -having recourse to violence; but a Christian must not use -violence, and so he must give up his property to the -violence which is exerted by the powers. +*A.* No; he must not voluntarily pay the taxes, but he must also not +resist their collection. The taxes imposed by the government are +collected independently of the will of the subjects. It is impossible to +resist the collection, without having recourse to violence; but a +Christian must not use violence, and so he must give up his property to +the violence which is exerted by the powers. -*Q.* May a Christian vote at elections and take part in a -court or in the government? +*Q.* May a Christian vote at elections and take part in a court or in +the government? -*A.* No; the participation in elections, in the court, or in -the government, is a participation in governmental violence. +*A.* No; the participation in elections, in the court, or in the +government, is a participation in governmental violence. *Q.* In what does the chief significance of the doctrine of non-resistance consist? -*A.* In that it alone makes it possible to tear the evil out -by the root, both out of one's own heart and out of the -neighbour's heart. This doctrine forbids doing that by which -evil is perpetuated and multiplied. He who attacks another -and insults him, engenders in another the sentiment of -hatred, the root of all evil. To offend another, because he -offended us, for the specious reason of removing an evil, -means to repeat an evil deed, both against him and against -ourselves,---to beget, or at least to free, to encourage, -the very demon whom we claim we wish to expel. Satan cannot -be driven out by Satan, untruth cannot be cleansed by -untruth, and evil cannot be vanquished by evil. - -True non-resistance is the one true resistance to evil. It -kills and finally destroys the evil sentiment. - -*Q.* But, if the idea of the doctrine is right, is it -practicable? - -*A.* It is as practicable as any good prescribed by the Law -of God. The good cannot under all circumstances be executed -without self-renunciation, privation, suffering, and, in -extreme cases, without the loss of life itself. But he who -values life more than the fulfilment of God's will is -already dead to the one true life. Such a man, in trying to -save his life, shall lose it. Besides, in general, where -non-resistance costs the sacrifice of one life, or the -sacrifice of some essential good of life, resistance costs -thousands of such sacrifices. +*A.* In that it alone makes it possible to tear the evil out by the +root, both out of one's own heart and out of the neighbour's heart. This +doctrine forbids doing that by which evil is perpetuated and multiplied. +He who attacks another and insults him, engenders in another the +sentiment of hatred, the root of all evil. To offend another, because he +offended us, for the specious reason of removing an evil, means to +repeat an evil deed, both against him and against ourselves,---to beget, +or at least to free, to encourage, the very demon whom we claim we wish +to expel. Satan cannot be driven out by Satan, untruth cannot be +cleansed by untruth, and evil cannot be vanquished by evil. + +True non-resistance is the one true resistance to evil. It kills and +finally destroys the evil sentiment. + +*Q.* But, if the idea of the doctrine is right, is it practicable? + +*A.* It is as practicable as any good prescribed by the Law of God. The +good cannot under all circumstances be executed without +self-renunciation, privation, suffering, and, in extreme cases, without +the loss of life itself. But he who values life more than the fulfilment +of God's will is already dead to the one true life. Such a man, in +trying to save his life, shall lose it. Besides, in general, where +non-resistance costs the sacrifice of one life, or the sacrifice of some +essential good of life, resistance costs thousands of such sacrifices. Non-resistance preserves, resistance destroys. -It is incomparably safer to act justly than unjustly; to -bear an insult than to resist it with violence,---it is -safer even in relation to the present life. If all men did -not resist evil with evil, the world would be blessed. - -*Q.* But if only a few shall act thus, what will become of -them? - -*A.* If only one man acted thus, and all the others agreed -to crucify him, would it not be more glorious for him to die -in the triumph of non-resisting love, praying for his -enemies, than to live wearing the crown of Caesar, -bespattered with the blood of the slain? But one or -thousands who have firmly determined not to resist evil with -evil, whether among the enlightened or among savage -neighbours, are much safer from violence than those who rely -on violence. A robber, murderer, deceiver, will more quickly -leave them alone than those who resist with weapons. They -who take the sword perish with the sword, and those who seek -peace, who act in a friendly manner, inoffensively, who -forget and forgive offences, for the most part enjoy peace -or, if they die, die blessed. - -Thus, if all kept the commandment of non-resistance, it is -evident that there would be no offences, no evil deeds. If -these formed a majority, they would establish the reign of -love and good-will, even toward the ill-disposed, by never -resisting evil with evil, never using violence. If there -were a considerable minority of these, they would have such -a corrective, moral effect upon society that every cruel -punishment would be abolished, and violence and enmity would -be changed to peace and love. If there were but a small -minority of them, they would rarely experience anything -worse than the contempt of the world, and the world would in -the meantime, without noticing it, and without feeling -itself under obligation, become wiser and better from this -secret influence. And if, in the very worst case, a few -members of the minority should be persecuted to death, these -men, dying for the truth, would leave behind them their -teaching, which is already sanctified by their martyr's +It is incomparably safer to act justly than unjustly; to bear an insult +than to resist it with violence,---it is safer even in relation to the +present life. If all men did not resist evil with evil, the world would +be blessed. + +*Q.* But if only a few shall act thus, what will become of them? + +*A.* If only one man acted thus, and all the others agreed to crucify +him, would it not be more glorious for him to die in the triumph of +non-resisting love, praying for his enemies, than to live wearing the +crown of Caesar, bespattered with the blood of the slain? But one or +thousands who have firmly determined not to resist evil with evil, +whether among the enlightened or among savage neighbours, are much safer +from violence than those who rely on violence. A robber, murderer, +deceiver, will more quickly leave them alone than those who resist with +weapons. They who take the sword perish with the sword, and those who +seek peace, who act in a friendly manner, inoffensively, who forget and +forgive offences, for the most part enjoy peace or, if they die, die +blessed. + +Thus, if all kept the commandment of non-resistance, it is evident that +there would be no offences, no evil deeds. If these formed a majority, +they would establish the reign of love and good-will, even toward the +ill-disposed, by never resisting evil with evil, never using violence. +If there were a considerable minority of these, they would have such a +corrective, moral effect upon society that every cruel punishment would +be abolished, and violence and enmity would be changed to peace and +love. If there were but a small minority of them, they would rarely +experience anything worse than the contempt of the world, and the world +would in the meantime, without noticing it, and without feeling itself +under obligation, become wiser and better from this secret influence. +And if, in the very worst case, a few members of the minority should be +persecuted to death, these men, dying for the truth, would leave behind +them their teaching, which is already sanctified by their martyr's death. -Peace be with all who seek peace, and all-conquering love be -the imperishable inheritance of every soul, which -voluntarily submits to the Law of Christ: "Resist not evil." -In the course of fifty years, Ballou wrote and edited books -dealing mainly with the question of nonresistance to evil. -In these works, which are beautiful in their lucidity of -thought and elegance of expression, the question is -discussed from every possible side. He establishes the -obligatoriness of this commandment for every Christian who -professes the Bible as a divine revelation. He adduces all -the customary retorts to the commandment of non-resistance, -both from the Old Testament and from the New, as, for -example, the expulsion from the temple, and so forth, and -all these are overthrown; he shows, independently of -Scripture, the practical wisdom of this rule, and adduces -all the objections which are usually made to it, and meets -all these objections. Thus one chapter of a work of his -treats of non-resistance to evil in exclusive cases, and -here he acknowledges that, if there were cases when the -application of non-resistance to evil were impossible, this -would prove that the rule is altogether untenable. In -adducing these special cases, he proves that it is precisely -in them that the application of this rule is necessary and -rational. There is not a single side of the question, either -for his followers or for his adversaries, which is not -investigated in these works. I say all this, in order to -show the unquestionable interest which such works ought to -have for men who profess Christianity, and that, therefore, -one would think Ballou's activity ought to have been known, -and the thoughts expressed by him ought to have been -accepted or refuted; but there has been nothing of the kind. - -The activity of Garrison the father, with his foundation of -a society of non-resistants and his declaration, convinced -me even more than my relations with the Quakers, that the -departure of state Christianity from Christ's law about -non-resistance to evil is something that has been observed -and pointed out long ago, and that men have without -cessation worked to arraign it. Ballou's activity still more -confirmed this fact to me. But the fate of Garrison and -especially of Ballou, who is not known to any one, in spite -of his fifty years of stubborn and constant work in one and -the same direction, has also confirmed to me the other fact, -that there exists some kind of unexpressed but firm +Peace be with all who seek peace, and all-conquering love be the +imperishable inheritance of every soul, which voluntarily submits to the +Law of Christ: "Resist not evil." In the course of fifty years, Ballou +wrote and edited books dealing mainly with the question of nonresistance +to evil. In these works, which are beautiful in their lucidity of +thought and elegance of expression, the question is discussed from every +possible side. He establishes the obligatoriness of this commandment for +every Christian who professes the Bible as a divine revelation. He +adduces all the customary retorts to the commandment of non-resistance, +both from the Old Testament and from the New, as, for example, the +expulsion from the temple, and so forth, and all these are overthrown; +he shows, independently of Scripture, the practical wisdom of this rule, +and adduces all the objections which are usually made to it, and meets +all these objections. Thus one chapter of a work of his treats of +non-resistance to evil in exclusive cases, and here he acknowledges +that, if there were cases when the application of non-resistance to evil +were impossible, this would prove that the rule is altogether untenable. +In adducing these special cases, he proves that it is precisely in them +that the application of this rule is necessary and rational. There is +not a single side of the question, either for his followers or for his +adversaries, which is not investigated in these works. I say all this, +in order to show the unquestionable interest which such works ought to +have for men who profess Christianity, and that, therefore, one would +think Ballou's activity ought to have been known, and the thoughts +expressed by him ought to have been accepted or refuted; but there has +been nothing of the kind. + +The activity of Garrison the father, with his foundation of a society of +non-resistants and his declaration, convinced me even more than my +relations with the Quakers, that the departure of state Christianity +from Christ's law about non-resistance to evil is something that has +been observed and pointed out long ago, and that men have without +cessation worked to arraign it. Ballou's activity still more confirmed +this fact to me. But the fate of Garrison and especially of Ballou, who +is not known to any one, in spite of his fifty years of stubborn and +constant work in one and the same direction, has also confirmed to me +the other fact, that there exists some kind of unexpressed but firm understanding as to passing all such attempts in silence. -Ballou died in August, 1890, and his obituary was given in -an American periodical with a Christian tendency -(*Religio-Philosophical Journal*, August 23d). +Ballou died in August, 1890, and his obituary was given in an American +periodical with a Christian tendency (*Religio-Philosophical Journal*, +August 23d). -In this eulogistic obituary it says that Ballou was a -spiritual guide of a community, that he delivered between -eight and nine thousand sermons, married one thousand pairs, -and wrote about five hundred articles, but not a word is -said about the aim to which he devoted all his life,---the +In this eulogistic obituary it says that Ballou was a spiritual guide of +a community, that he delivered between eight and nine thousand sermons, +married one thousand pairs, and wrote about five hundred articles, but +not a word is said about the aim to which he devoted all his life,---the word "non-resistance" is not even used. -Like all that which the Quakers have been preaching for two -hundred years, like the activity of Garrison the father, the -foundation of his society and periodical, and his -declaration, so Ballou's whole activity does not seem to -have existed at all. - -A striking example of such an ingloriousness of writings -intended to elucidate non-resistance to evil, and to arraign -those who do not recognize this commandment, is found in the -fate of the book by the Bohemian Chelcicky, which has but -lately become known and has so far not yet been printed. - -Soon after the publication of my book in German, I received -a letter from a professor of the Prague University, which -informed me of the existence of a still unpublished work by -the Bohemian Chelcicky, of the fifteenth century, by the -name of *The Drawnet of Faith*. In this work, as the -professor wrote me, Chelcicky about four centuries ago -expressed the same view in regard to the true and the false -Christianity, which I had expressed in my work, *My -Religion*. The professor wrote to me that Chelcicky's work -was for the first time to be published in Bohemian in the -periodical of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. As I -was unable to procure the work itself, I tried to become -acquainted with what was known of Chelcicky, and such -information I got from a German book sent me by the same -Prague professor, and from Pypin's "History of Bohemian -Literature." This is what Pypin says: - -"*The Drawnet of Faith* is that teaching of Christ which is -to draw man out from the dark depths of the sea of life and -its untruths. True faith consists in believing in God's -words; but now there has come a time when men consider the -true faith to be heresy, and so reason must show wherein the -true faith consists, if one does not know it. Darkness has -concealed it from men. and they do not know Christ's true -law. - -"To explain this law, Chelcicky points out the original -structure of Christian society, which, he says, is now -regarded as rank heresy by the Roman Church. - -"This primitive church was his own ideal of a social -structure, based on equality, freedom, and brotherhood. -Christianity, according to Chelcicky, still treasures these -principles, and all that is necessary is, that society -should return to its pure teaching, and then any other -order, in which kings and popes are needed, would seem -superfluous: in everything the law of love alone is -sufficient. - -"Historically Chelcicky refers the fall of Christianity to -the times of Constantine the Great, whom Pope Sylvester -introduced into Christianity with all the pagan customs and -life. Constantine, in his turn, invested the Pope with -worldly wealth and power. Since then both powers have been -aiding one another and have striven after external glory. -Doctors and masters and the clergy have begun to care only -for the subjugation of the whole world to their dominion, -have armed men against one another for the purpose of -murdering and plundering, and have completely destroyed -Christianity in faith and in life. Chelcicky absolutely -denies the right to wage war and administer capital -punishment; every warrior and even 'knight' is only an -oppressor, malefactor, and murderer." - -The same, except, for some biographical details and excerpts -from Chelcicky's correspondence, is said in the German book. - -Having thus learned the essence of Chelcicky's teaching, I -with much greater impatience waited for the appearance of -*The Drawnet of Faith* in the journal of the Academy. But a -year, two, three years passed, and the book did not appear. -Only in 1888 I learned that the printing of the book, which -had been begun, had come to a stop. I got the proof-sheets -of as much as had been printed, and I read the book. The -book is in every respect remarkable. - -The contents are quite correctly rendered by Pypin. -Chelcicky's fundamental idea is this, that Christianity, -having united with the power in the time of Constantine and -having continued to develop under these conditions, has -become absolutely corrupt and has ceased to be Christianity. -The title "The Drawnet of Faith," was given by Chelcicky to -his work, because, taking for his motto the verse of the -Gospel about calling the disciples to become fishers of men, -Chelcicky, continuing this comparison, says, "Christ by -means of His disciples caught in His drawnet of faith the -whole world, but the larger fish, tearing the net, jumped -out of it, and through the holes, which these larger fish -had made, all the others went away, and the net was left -almost empty." - -The large fish that broke through the net are the rulers, -emperors, popes, kings, who, in not renouncing their power, -did not accept Christianity, but its semblance only. - -Chelcicky taught what has been taught until the present by -the Mennonites and Quakers, and what in former years was -taught by the Bogomils, Paulicians, and many others. He -teaches that Christianity, which demands from its followers -meekness, humility, kindness, forgiveness of sins, the -offering of the other cheek when one cheek has been smitten, -love of enemies, is incompatible with violence, which forms -an indispensable condition of power. - -A Christian, according to Chelcicky's interpretation, can -not only not be a chief or a soldier, but cannot even take -part in the government, be a merchant or even a landowner; -he can be only an artisan or an agriculturist. - -This book is one of the extremely few that have survived the -auto-da-fés of books in which the official Christianity is -arraigned. All such books, which are called heretical, have -been burned together with the authors, so that there are -very few ancient works which arraign the departure of -official Christianity, and so this book is especially +Like all that which the Quakers have been preaching for two hundred +years, like the activity of Garrison the father, the foundation of his +society and periodical, and his declaration, so Ballou's whole activity +does not seem to have existed at all. + +A striking example of such an ingloriousness of writings intended to +elucidate non-resistance to evil, and to arraign those who do not +recognize this commandment, is found in the fate of the book by the +Bohemian Chelcicky, which has but lately become known and has so far not +yet been printed. + +Soon after the publication of my book in German, I received a letter +from a professor of the Prague University, which informed me of the +existence of a still unpublished work by the Bohemian Chelcicky, of the +fifteenth century, by the name of *The Drawnet of Faith*. In this work, +as the professor wrote me, Chelcicky about four centuries ago expressed +the same view in regard to the true and the false Christianity, which I +had expressed in my work, *My Religion*. The professor wrote to me that +Chelcicky's work was for the first time to be published in Bohemian in +the periodical of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. As I was +unable to procure the work itself, I tried to become acquainted with +what was known of Chelcicky, and such information I got from a German +book sent me by the same Prague professor, and from Pypin's "History of +Bohemian Literature." This is what Pypin says: + +"*The Drawnet of Faith* is that teaching of Christ which is to draw man +out from the dark depths of the sea of life and its untruths. True faith +consists in believing in God's words; but now there has come a time when +men consider the true faith to be heresy, and so reason must show +wherein the true faith consists, if one does not know it. Darkness has +concealed it from men. and they do not know Christ's true law. + +"To explain this law, Chelcicky points out the original structure of +Christian society, which, he says, is now regarded as rank heresy by the +Roman Church. + +"This primitive church was his own ideal of a social structure, based on +equality, freedom, and brotherhood. Christianity, according to +Chelcicky, still treasures these principles, and all that is necessary +is, that society should return to its pure teaching, and then any other +order, in which kings and popes are needed, would seem superfluous: in +everything the law of love alone is sufficient. + +"Historically Chelcicky refers the fall of Christianity to the times of +Constantine the Great, whom Pope Sylvester introduced into Christianity +with all the pagan customs and life. Constantine, in his turn, invested +the Pope with worldly wealth and power. Since then both powers have been +aiding one another and have striven after external glory. Doctors and +masters and the clergy have begun to care only for the subjugation of +the whole world to their dominion, have armed men against one another +for the purpose of murdering and plundering, and have completely +destroyed Christianity in faith and in life. Chelcicky absolutely denies +the right to wage war and administer capital punishment; every warrior +and even 'knight' is only an oppressor, malefactor, and murderer." + +The same, except, for some biographical details and excerpts from +Chelcicky's correspondence, is said in the German book. + +Having thus learned the essence of Chelcicky's teaching, I with much +greater impatience waited for the appearance of *The Drawnet of Faith* +in the journal of the Academy. But a year, two, three years passed, and +the book did not appear. Only in 1888 I learned that the printing of the +book, which had been begun, had come to a stop. I got the proof-sheets +of as much as had been printed, and I read the book. The book is in +every respect remarkable. + +The contents are quite correctly rendered by Pypin. Chelcicky's +fundamental idea is this, that Christianity, having united with the +power in the time of Constantine and having continued to develop under +these conditions, has become absolutely corrupt and has ceased to be +Christianity. The title "The Drawnet of Faith," was given by Chelcicky +to his work, because, taking for his motto the verse of the Gospel about +calling the disciples to become fishers of men, Chelcicky, continuing +this comparison, says, "Christ by means of His disciples caught in His +drawnet of faith the whole world, but the larger fish, tearing the net, +jumped out of it, and through the holes, which these larger fish had +made, all the others went away, and the net was left almost empty." + +The large fish that broke through the net are the rulers, emperors, +popes, kings, who, in not renouncing their power, did not accept +Christianity, but its semblance only. + +Chelcicky taught what has been taught until the present by the +Mennonites and Quakers, and what in former years was taught by the +Bogomils, Paulicians, and many others. He teaches that Christianity, +which demands from its followers meekness, humility, kindness, +forgiveness of sins, the offering of the other cheek when one cheek has +been smitten, love of enemies, is incompatible with violence, which +forms an indispensable condition of power. + +A Christian, according to Chelcicky's interpretation, can not only not +be a chief or a soldier, but cannot even take part in the government, be +a merchant or even a landowner; he can be only an artisan or an +agriculturist. + +This book is one of the extremely few that have survived the auto-da-fés +of books in which the official Christianity is arraigned. All such +books, which are called heretical, have been burned together with the +authors, so that there are very few ancient works which arraign the +departure of official Christianity, and so this book is especially interesting. -But besides being interesting, no matter how we look upon -it, this book is one of the most remarkable productions of -thoughts, as judged by the depth of its contents, and the -wonderful force and beauty of the popular language, and its -antiquity. And yet this book has for more than four -centuries remained unprinted, and continues to be unknown, -except to learned specialists. - -One would think that all these kinds of works, by the -Quakers, and Garrison, and Ballou, and Chelcicky, which -assert and prove, on the basis of the Gospel, that our world -comprehends Christ's teaching falsely, ought to rouse -interest, agitation, discussions, in the midst of the -pastors and of the flock. - -Works of this kind, which touch on the essence of the -Christian teaching, ought, it seems, to be analyzed and -recognized as true, or to be rejected and overthrown. - -But nothing of the kind has happened. One and the same thing -is repeated with all these works. People of the most -different views, both those who believe and, what is most -surprising, those who are unbelieving liberals, seem to have -an agreement to pass them stubbornly in silence, and all -that has been done by men to elucidate the true meaning of +But besides being interesting, no matter how we look upon it, this book +is one of the most remarkable productions of thoughts, as judged by the +depth of its contents, and the wonderful force and beauty of the popular +language, and its antiquity. And yet this book has for more than four +centuries remained unprinted, and continues to be unknown, except to +learned specialists. + +One would think that all these kinds of works, by the Quakers, and +Garrison, and Ballou, and Chelcicky, which assert and prove, on the +basis of the Gospel, that our world comprehends Christ's teaching +falsely, ought to rouse interest, agitation, discussions, in the midst +of the pastors and of the flock. + +Works of this kind, which touch on the essence of the Christian +teaching, ought, it seems, to be analyzed and recognized as true, or to +be rejected and overthrown. + +But nothing of the kind has happened. One and the same thing is repeated +with all these works. People of the most different views, both those who +believe and, what is most surprising, those who are unbelieving +liberals, seem to have an agreement to pass them stubbornly in silence, +and all that has been done by men to elucidate the true meaning of Christ's teaching remains unknown or forgotten. -But still more startling is the ingloriousness of two works, -of which I learned also in connection with the appearance of -my book. These are Dymond's book *On War*, published for the -first time in London, in 1824, and Daniel Musser's book *On -Non-Resistance*, written in 1864. The ignorance about these -two books is particularly remarkable, because, to say -nothing of their worth, both books treat not so much of the -theory as of the practical application of the theory to -life, of the relation of Christianity to military service, -which is particularly important and interesting now, in -connection with the universal liability to do military -service. +But still more startling is the ingloriousness of two works, of which I +learned also in connection with the appearance of my book. These are +Dymond's book *On War*, published for the first time in London, in 1824, +and Daniel Musser's book *On Non-Resistance*, written in 1864. The +ignorance about these two books is particularly remarkable, because, to +say nothing of their worth, both books treat not so much of the theory +as of the practical application of the theory to life, of the relation +of Christianity to military service, which is particularly important and +interesting now, in connection with the universal liability to do +military service. -People will, perhaps, ask: "What are the duties of a -subject, who believes that war is incompatible with his -religion, but of whom the government demands a participation -in military service?" - -It seems that this is a very living question, one, the -answer to which is particularly important in connection with -the military service of the present time. All, or a vast -majority of men,---Christians,---all males, are called on to -perform military service. What must a man, as a Christian, -answer in reply to this demand? Dymond's answer is as +People will, perhaps, ask: "What are the duties of a subject, who +believes that war is incompatible with his religion, but of whom the +government demands a participation in military service?" + +It seems that this is a very living question, one, the answer to which +is particularly important in connection with the military service of the +present time. All, or a vast majority of men,---Christians,---all males, +are called on to perform military service. What must a man, as a +Christian, answer in reply to this demand? Dymond's answer is as follows: -"It is his duty, mildly and temperately, yet firmly, to -refuse to serve. - -"There are some persons, who, without any determinate -process of reasoning, appear to conclude that responsibility -for national measures attaches solely to those who direct -them; that it is the business of governments to consider -what is good for the community, and that, in these cases, -the duty of the subject is merged in the will of the -sovereign. Considerations like these are, I believe, often -voluntarily permitted to become opiates of the conscience. -'I have no part,' it is said, 'in the councils of the -government, and am not therefore responsible for its -crimes.' We are, indeed, not responsible for the crimes of -our rulers, but we are responsible for our own; and the -crimes of our rulers are our own, if, whilst we believe them -to be crimes, we promote them by our cooperation. - -"But those who suppose that obedience in all things is -required, or that responsibility in political affairs is -transferred from the subject to the sovereign, reduce -themselves to a great dilemma. - -"It is to say that we must resign our conduct and our -consciences to the will of others, and act wickedly or well, -as their good or evil may preponderate, without merit for -virtue, or responsibility for crime." - -What is remarkable is this, that precisely the same is -expressed in the instruction to the soldiers, which they are -made to learn by rote: it says there that only the general -is responsible for the consequences of his command. But this -is not true. A man cannot shift the responsibility for his -acts. And this may be seen from what follows: - -"If the government direct you to fire your neighbour's -property, or to throw him over a precipice, will you -obey?"If you will not, there is an end of the argument, for -if you may reject its authority in one instance, where is -the limit to rejection? There is no rational limit but that -which is assigned by Christianity, and that is both rational +"It is his duty, mildly and temperately, yet firmly, to refuse to serve. + +"There are some persons, who, without any determinate process of +reasoning, appear to conclude that responsibility for national measures +attaches solely to those who direct them; that it is the business of +governments to consider what is good for the community, and that, in +these cases, the duty of the subject is merged in the will of the +sovereign. Considerations like these are, I believe, often voluntarily +permitted to become opiates of the conscience. 'I have no part,' it is +said, 'in the councils of the government, and am not therefore +responsible for its crimes.' We are, indeed, not responsible for the +crimes of our rulers, but we are responsible for our own; and the crimes +of our rulers are our own, if, whilst we believe them to be crimes, we +promote them by our cooperation. + +"But those who suppose that obedience in all things is required, or that +responsibility in political affairs is transferred from the subject to +the sovereign, reduce themselves to a great dilemma. + +"It is to say that we must resign our conduct and our consciences to the +will of others, and act wickedly or well, as their good or evil may +preponderate, without merit for virtue, or responsibility for crime." + +What is remarkable is this, that precisely the same is expressed in the +instruction to the soldiers, which they are made to learn by rote: it +says there that only the general is responsible for the consequences of +his command. But this is not true. A man cannot shift the responsibility +for his acts. And this may be seen from what follows: + +"If the government direct you to fire your neighbour's property, or to +throw him over a precipice, will you obey?"If you will not, there is an +end of the argument, for if you may reject its authority in one +instance, where is the limit to rejection? There is no rational limit +but that which is assigned by Christianity, and that is both rational and practicable. -"We think, then, that it is the business of every man, who -believes that war is inconsistent with our religion, -respectfully, but steadfastly, to refuse to engage in it. -Let such as these remember that an honourable and an awful -duty is laid upon them. It is upon their fidelity, so far as -human agency is concerned, that the cause of peace is -suspended. Let them be willing to avow their opinions and to -defend them. Neither let them be contented with words, if -more than words, if suffering also, is required. If you -believe that Jesus Christ has prohibited slaughter, let not -the opinion or the commands of a world induce you to join in -it. By this 'steady and determinate pursuit of virtue,' the -benediction which attaches to those who hear the sayings of -God and do them, will rest upon you, and the time will come -when even the world will honour you, as contributors to the -work of human reformation." - -Musser's book is called *Non-Resistance Asserted; or, -Kingdom of Christ and Kingdom of This World Separated*, -1864. - -The book is devoted to the same question, which it analyzes -in relation with the demand made by the government of the -United States on its citizens as regards military service -during that Civil War, and it has the same contemporary -importance, in that it analyzes the question as to how and -under what conditions men must and can refuse to do military +"We think, then, that it is the business of every man, who believes that +war is inconsistent with our religion, respectfully, but steadfastly, to +refuse to engage in it. Let such as these remember that an honourable +and an awful duty is laid upon them. It is upon their fidelity, so far +as human agency is concerned, that the cause of peace is suspended. Let +them be willing to avow their opinions and to defend them. Neither let +them be contented with words, if more than words, if suffering also, is +required. If you believe that Jesus Christ has prohibited slaughter, let +not the opinion or the commands of a world induce you to join in it. By +this 'steady and determinate pursuit of virtue,' the benediction which +attaches to those who hear the sayings of God and do them, will rest +upon you, and the time will come when even the world will honour you, as +contributors to the work of human reformation." + +Musser's book is called *Non-Resistance Asserted; or, Kingdom of Christ +and Kingdom of This World Separated*, 1864. + +The book is devoted to the same question, which it analyzes in relation +with the demand made by the government of the United States on its +citizens as regards military service during that Civil War, and it has +the same contemporary importance, in that it analyzes the question as to +how and under what conditions men must and can refuse to do military service. In the introduction the author says: -"It is well known that in the United States there are many -people who consciously deny war. They are called -'non-resistant' or 'defenceless' Christians. These -Christians refuse to defend their country or to bear arms, -or to engage, at the request of the government, in war -against its enemies. Until now this religious cause has been -respected by the government, and those who professed it were -excused from service. But with the beginning of our civil -war public opinion has been wrought up by this state of -affairs. Naturally, people who consider it their duty to -bear all the burdens and perils of a military life for the -defence of their country feel harsh toward those who for a -long time have with them enjoyed the protection and the -advantages of the government, but in time of necessity and -danger do not wish to share in bearing the labours and -dangers in its defence. It is also natural for the condition -of such men to be considered irrational, monstrous, and -suspicious. - -"Many orators and writers," says the author, "have raised -their voice against this state and have tried to prove the -injustice of non-resistance from common sense and from -Scripture; and. this is quite natural, and in many cases -these authors are right,---they are right in relation to -those persons who, declining the labours connected with -military service, do not decline the advantages which they -receive from the governments,---but they are not right in -relation to the principle of nonresistance itself." - -First of all the author proves the obligatoriness of the -rule of non-resistance for every Christian in that it is -clear and that it is given to a Christian beyond any -possibility of misinterpretation. "Judge yourselves whether -it is right to obey man more than God," said Peter and John. -Similarly every man who wants to be a Christian must act in -relation to the demand that he should go to war, since -Christ has told him, "Resist not evil with violence." - -With this the author considers the question as to principle -itself completely solved. The author analyzes in detail the -other question as to whether persons, who do not decline the -advantages which are obtained through the violence of -government, have a right to refuse to do military service, -and comes to the conclusion that a Christian, who follows -Christ's law and refuses to go to war, can just as little -take part in any governmental affairs,---either in courts or -in elections,---nor can he in private matters have recourse -to power, police or court. Then the book proceeds to analyze -the relation of the Old Testament to the New,---the -significance of government for non-Christians; there are -offered objections to the doctrine of non-resistance, and -these are refuted. The author concludes his book with the -following: - -"Christ chose His disciples in the world," he says. "They do -not expect any worldly goods or worldly happiness, but, on -the contrary, everlasting life. The spirit in which they -live makes them satisfied and happy in every situation. If -the world tolerates them, they are always satisfied. But if -the world will not leave them in peace, they will go -elsewhere, since they are wanderers on the earth and have no -definite place of abode. They consider that the dead can -bury the dead,---they need but one thing, and that is to -follow their teacher." - -Without touching the question whether the duty of a -Christian in relation to war, as established in these two -books, is correct or not, it is impossible not to see the -practical importance and urgency of the solution of this -question. - -There are some people,---hundreds of thousands of -Quakers,---and all our Spirit Wrestlers and Milkers, and -people belonging to no definite sects, who assert that -violence---and so military service---is not compatible with -Christianity, and therefore every year several recruits in -Russia refuse to do military service on the basis of their -religious convictions. What does the government do? Does it -excuse them? No. Does it compel them to serve, and, in case -of a refusal, punish them? No. In 1818 the government acted -as follows. Here is an excerpt, which is almost unknown in -Russia, from a diary by N. N. Muravév-Kárski, which was not -sanctioned by the censor. +"It is well known that in the United States there are many people who +consciously deny war. They are called 'non-resistant' or 'defenceless' +Christians. These Christians refuse to defend their country or to bear +arms, or to engage, at the request of the government, in war against its +enemies. Until now this religious cause has been respected by the +government, and those who professed it were excused from service. But +with the beginning of our civil war public opinion has been wrought up +by this state of affairs. Naturally, people who consider it their duty +to bear all the burdens and perils of a military life for the defence of +their country feel harsh toward those who for a long time have with them +enjoyed the protection and the advantages of the government, but in time +of necessity and danger do not wish to share in bearing the labours and +dangers in its defence. It is also natural for the condition of such men +to be considered irrational, monstrous, and suspicious. + +"Many orators and writers," says the author, "have raised their voice +against this state and have tried to prove the injustice of +non-resistance from common sense and from Scripture; and. this is quite +natural, and in many cases these authors are right,---they are right in +relation to those persons who, declining the labours connected with +military service, do not decline the advantages which they receive from +the governments,---but they are not right in relation to the principle +of nonresistance itself." + +First of all the author proves the obligatoriness of the rule of +non-resistance for every Christian in that it is clear and that it is +given to a Christian beyond any possibility of misinterpretation. "Judge +yourselves whether it is right to obey man more than God," said Peter +and John. Similarly every man who wants to be a Christian must act in +relation to the demand that he should go to war, since Christ has told +him, "Resist not evil with violence." + +With this the author considers the question as to principle itself +completely solved. The author analyzes in detail the other question as +to whether persons, who do not decline the advantages which are obtained +through the violence of government, have a right to refuse to do +military service, and comes to the conclusion that a Christian, who +follows Christ's law and refuses to go to war, can just as little take +part in any governmental affairs,---either in courts or in +elections,---nor can he in private matters have recourse to power, +police or court. Then the book proceeds to analyze the relation of the +Old Testament to the New,---the significance of government for +non-Christians; there are offered objections to the doctrine of +non-resistance, and these are refuted. The author concludes his book +with the following: + +"Christ chose His disciples in the world," he says. "They do not expect +any worldly goods or worldly happiness, but, on the contrary, +everlasting life. The spirit in which they live makes them satisfied and +happy in every situation. If the world tolerates them, they are always +satisfied. But if the world will not leave them in peace, they will go +elsewhere, since they are wanderers on the earth and have no definite +place of abode. They consider that the dead can bury the dead,---they +need but one thing, and that is to follow their teacher." + +Without touching the question whether the duty of a Christian in +relation to war, as established in these two books, is correct or not, +it is impossible not to see the practical importance and urgency of the +solution of this question. + +There are some people,---hundreds of thousands of Quakers,---and all our +Spirit Wrestlers and Milkers, and people belonging to no definite sects, +who assert that violence---and so military service---is not compatible +with Christianity, and therefore every year several recruits in Russia +refuse to do military service on the basis of their religious +convictions. What does the government do? Does it excuse them? No. Does +it compel them to serve, and, in case of a refusal, punish them? No. In +1818 the government acted as follows. Here is an excerpt, which is +almost unknown in Russia, from a diary by N. N. Muravév-Kárski, which +was not sanctioned by the censor. "*Tiflis*, October 2, 1818. -"In the morning the commandant told me that lately five -manorial peasants from the Government of Tambov had been -sent to Georgia. These men had been sent to the army, but -they refused to serve; they have been flogged several times -and have been sent between the rows, but they gladly undergo -the most cruel torments and are prepared for death, if only -they can avoid serving. 'Send us away,' they say, 'and do -not touch us; we shall not touch any one. All men are equal -and the Tsar is just such a man as we are. Why should we pay -him tribute? Why should I subject my life to danger in order -to kill in war a man who has done me no wrong? You may cut -us into small pieces, but we will not change our ideas, we -will not put on the military cloak, and will not eat -rations. He who will pity us will give us an alms, but we -have nothing belonging to the Crown and we want nothing.' -Such are the words of these peasants, who assert that there -is a large number like them in Russia. They have four times -been taken before the Committee of Ministers, and it was -finally decided to refer the matter to the Tsar, who -commanded that they be sent to Georgia to mend their ways, -and ordered the commander-in-chief to report to him every -month concerning the gradual success in turning these -peasants to the proper ideas." - -It is not known how this improvement ended, just as nothing -is known of the whole» episode, which was kept a profound -secret. - -Thus the government acted seventy-five years ago,---thus it -has acted in the vast majority of cases, which are always -cautiously concealed from the people. Thus it acts even at -present, except in relation to the German Mennonites, who -live in the Government of Kherson, for their refusal to do -military service is heeded and they are made to serve their -time in connection with forestry work. - -In the late cases of refusal to do military service in -consequence of religious convictions, other than those of -the Mennonites, the authorities have acted as follows: - -At first they use all means of violence employed in our time -for the purpose of "mending" them and bringing them back to -"the proper ideas," and the whole matter is kept a profound -secret. I know that in the case of one man in Moscow, who in -1884 refused to serve, they wrote up voluminous documents -two months after his refusal, and these were kept in the -ministry as the greatest secret. - -They generally begin by sending the one who refuses to the -priests, who, to their shame be it said, always admonish the -person refusing. But since the admonition, in the name of -Christ, to renounce Christ is generally fruitless, the -refusing person is after the admonition by the clergy sent -to the gendarmes. The gendarmes, finding nothing of a -political nature in the case, generally return him, and then -the refusing person is sent to the learned, to the -physicians, and into the insane asylum. In all these -recommitments the refuser, who is deprived of his liberty, -undergoes all kinds of humiliations and sufferings, like a -condemned criminal. (This was repeated in four cases.) The -physicians dismiss the refuser from the insane asylum, and -then begin all kinds of secret, cunning measures, in order -not to dismiss the refuser and thus encourage others to -refuse like him, and at the same time not to leave him -amidst the soldiers, lest the soldiers might find out from -him that the levy for military service does not at all take -place in accordance with God's law, as they are assured, but -contrary to it. - -The most convenient thing for the government to do would be -to have the refuser executed, beaten to death with sticks, -as they used to do of old, or executed in some other manner. -But it is impossible openly to execute a man for being true -to a teaching which we all profess, and it is equally -impossible to let a man alone, who refuses to serve. And so -the government tries either through suffering to compel the -man to renounce Christ, or in some way imperceptibly to get -rid of the man, without having him publicly executed,---in -some way to conceal this man's act and the man himself from -other people. And so there begin all kinds of devices and -cunning and tortures of this man. Either he is sent to some -outlying region, or he is provoked to commit some act of -insubordination, and then he is tried for breach of -discipline and is locked up in prison, in a disciplinary -battalion, where he is freely tortured in secret, or he is -declared insane and is locked up in an insane asylum. Thus -one man was sent to Tashkent, that is, as though he were -transferred to the Tashkent army, another to Omsk, a third -was tried for insubordination and sent to prison, and a -fourth was put into a lunatic asylum. - -Everywhere the same is repeated. Not only the government, -but also the majority of liberals, of freethinkers, as -though by agreement, carefully turn away from everything -which has been said, written, and done by men to show the -incompatibility of violence in its most terrible, rude, and -lurid form, in the form of militarism, that is, the -readiness to kill anybody, with the teaching, not only of -Christianity, but even of humanitarianism, which society -pretends to be professing. - -Thus the information which I received concerning the extent -to which the true significance of Christ's teaching has been -elucidated and is being elucidated more and more, and -concerning the attitude which the highest ruling classes, -not only in Russia, but also in Europe and in America, take -toward this elucidation and execution of the teaching, -convinced me that in these ruling classes there existed a -consciously hostile relation toward true Christianity, which -found its expression mainly in the silence observed -concerning all its manifestations. +"In the morning the commandant told me that lately five manorial +peasants from the Government of Tambov had been sent to Georgia. These +men had been sent to the army, but they refused to serve; they have been +flogged several times and have been sent between the rows, but they +gladly undergo the most cruel torments and are prepared for death, if +only they can avoid serving. 'Send us away,' they say, 'and do not touch +us; we shall not touch any one. All men are equal and the Tsar is just +such a man as we are. Why should we pay him tribute? Why should I +subject my life to danger in order to kill in war a man who has done me +no wrong? You may cut us into small pieces, but we will not change our +ideas, we will not put on the military cloak, and will not eat rations. +He who will pity us will give us an alms, but we have nothing belonging +to the Crown and we want nothing.' Such are the words of these peasants, +who assert that there is a large number like them in Russia. They have +four times been taken before the Committee of Ministers, and it was +finally decided to refer the matter to the Tsar, who commanded that they +be sent to Georgia to mend their ways, and ordered the +commander-in-chief to report to him every month concerning the gradual +success in turning these peasants to the proper ideas." + +It is not known how this improvement ended, just as nothing is known of +the whole» episode, which was kept a profound secret. + +Thus the government acted seventy-five years ago,---thus it has acted in +the vast majority of cases, which are always cautiously concealed from +the people. Thus it acts even at present, except in relation to the +German Mennonites, who live in the Government of Kherson, for their +refusal to do military service is heeded and they are made to serve +their time in connection with forestry work. + +In the late cases of refusal to do military service in consequence of +religious convictions, other than those of the Mennonites, the +authorities have acted as follows: + +At first they use all means of violence employed in our time for the +purpose of "mending" them and bringing them back to "the proper ideas," +and the whole matter is kept a profound secret. I know that in the case +of one man in Moscow, who in 1884 refused to serve, they wrote up +voluminous documents two months after his refusal, and these were kept +in the ministry as the greatest secret. + +They generally begin by sending the one who refuses to the priests, who, +to their shame be it said, always admonish the person refusing. But +since the admonition, in the name of Christ, to renounce Christ is +generally fruitless, the refusing person is after the admonition by the +clergy sent to the gendarmes. The gendarmes, finding nothing of a +political nature in the case, generally return him, and then the +refusing person is sent to the learned, to the physicians, and into the +insane asylum. In all these recommitments the refuser, who is deprived +of his liberty, undergoes all kinds of humiliations and sufferings, like +a condemned criminal. (This was repeated in four cases.) The physicians +dismiss the refuser from the insane asylum, and then begin all kinds of +secret, cunning measures, in order not to dismiss the refuser and thus +encourage others to refuse like him, and at the same time not to leave +him amidst the soldiers, lest the soldiers might find out from him that +the levy for military service does not at all take place in accordance +with God's law, as they are assured, but contrary to it. + +The most convenient thing for the government to do would be to have the +refuser executed, beaten to death with sticks, as they used to do of +old, or executed in some other manner. But it is impossible openly to +execute a man for being true to a teaching which we all profess, and it +is equally impossible to let a man alone, who refuses to serve. And so +the government tries either through suffering to compel the man to +renounce Christ, or in some way imperceptibly to get rid of the man, +without having him publicly executed,---in some way to conceal this +man's act and the man himself from other people. And so there begin all +kinds of devices and cunning and tortures of this man. Either he is sent +to some outlying region, or he is provoked to commit some act of +insubordination, and then he is tried for breach of discipline and is +locked up in prison, in a disciplinary battalion, where he is freely +tortured in secret, or he is declared insane and is locked up in an +insane asylum. Thus one man was sent to Tashkent, that is, as though he +were transferred to the Tashkent army, another to Omsk, a third was +tried for insubordination and sent to prison, and a fourth was put into +a lunatic asylum. + +Everywhere the same is repeated. Not only the government, but also the +majority of liberals, of freethinkers, as though by agreement, carefully +turn away from everything which has been said, written, and done by men +to show the incompatibility of violence in its most terrible, rude, and +lurid form, in the form of militarism, that is, the readiness to kill +anybody, with the teaching, not only of Christianity, but even of +humanitarianism, which society pretends to be professing. + +Thus the information which I received concerning the extent to which the +true significance of Christ's teaching has been elucidated and is being +elucidated more and more, and concerning the attitude which the highest +ruling classes, not only in Russia, but also in Europe and in America, +take toward this elucidation and execution of the teaching, convinced me +that in these ruling classes there existed a consciously hostile +relation toward true Christianity, which found its expression mainly in +the silence observed concerning all its manifestations. # II -The same impression of a desire to conceal, to pass in -silence, what I attempted so carefully to express in my -book, has been produced on me by the criticisms upon it. - -When my book appeared, it was, as I had expected, -prohibited, and according to the law it ought to have been -burned. But, instead of being burned, it was distributed -among the officials, and it was disseminated in a large -number of written copies and lithographic reprints, and in -translations printed abroad. Very soon there appeared -criticisms upon the book, not only by the clergy, but also -by the laity, which the government not only sanctioned, but -even encouraged, so that the refutation of the book, which -was assumed to be unknown to any one, was made a theme for -theological essays in the academies. - -The critics upon my books, both the Russian and the foreign -critics, can be divided into two classes: into the religious -critics,---people who consider themselves to be -believers,---and lay critics, who are freethinkers. +The same impression of a desire to conceal, to pass in silence, what I +attempted so carefully to express in my book, has been produced on me by +the criticisms upon it. + +When my book appeared, it was, as I had expected, prohibited, and +according to the law it ought to have been burned. But, instead of being +burned, it was distributed among the officials, and it was disseminated +in a large number of written copies and lithographic reprints, and in +translations printed abroad. Very soon there appeared criticisms upon +the book, not only by the clergy, but also by the laity, which the +government not only sanctioned, but even encouraged, so that the +refutation of the book, which was assumed to be unknown to any one, was +made a theme for theological essays in the academies. + +The critics upon my books, both the Russian and the foreign critics, can +be divided into two classes: into the religious critics,---people who +consider themselves to be believers,---and lay critics, who are +freethinkers. I shall begin with the first: -In my book I accuse the church teachers of teaching contrary -to Christ's commandments, which are clearly and definitely -expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, and especially -contrary to the commandment about nonresistance to evil, -thus depriving Christ's teaching of all significance. The -church teachers recognize the Sermon on the Mount with the -commandment about non-resistance to evil as a divine -revelation, and so, if they have found it necessary to write -about my book at all, they ought, it would seem, first of -all to answer this chief point of accusation and say -outright whether they consider the teaching of the Sermon on -the Mount and of the commandment about non-resistance to -evil obligatory for a Christian, or not,---and they must not -answer it as this is generally done, that is, by saying -that, although on the one hand it cannot properly be denied, -on the other it cannot be affirmed, the more so that, and so -forth,---but must answer it just as the question is put by -me in my book: did Christ actually demand from His disciples -the fulfilment of what He taught in the Sermon on the Mount? -and so, can a Christian, remaining a Christian, go to court, -taking part in it and condemning people, or seeking in it -defence by means of violence, or can he not? Can a -Christian, still remaining a Christian, take part in the -government, using violence against his neighbours, or not? -And the chief question, which now, with the universal -military service, stands before all men,---can a Christian, -remaining a Christian, contrary to Christ's injunction, make -any promises as to future acts, which are directly contrary -to the teaching, and, taking part in military service, -prepare himself for the murder of men and commit it? - -The questions are put clearly and frankly, and, it would -seem, they ought to be answered clearly and frankly. But -nothing of the kind has been done in all the criticisms upon -my book, just as nothing of the kind has been done in the -case of all those arraignments of the church teachers for -departing from Christ's law, with which history is filled +In my book I accuse the church teachers of teaching contrary to Christ's +commandments, which are clearly and definitely expressed in the Sermon +on the Mount, and especially contrary to the commandment about +nonresistance to evil, thus depriving Christ's teaching of all +significance. The church teachers recognize the Sermon on the Mount with +the commandment about non-resistance to evil as a divine revelation, and +so, if they have found it necessary to write about my book at all, they +ought, it would seem, first of all to answer this chief point of +accusation and say outright whether they consider the teaching of the +Sermon on the Mount and of the commandment about non-resistance to evil +obligatory for a Christian, or not,---and they must not answer it as +this is generally done, that is, by saying that, although on the one +hand it cannot properly be denied, on the other it cannot be affirmed, +the more so that, and so forth,---but must answer it just as the +question is put by me in my book: did Christ actually demand from His +disciples the fulfilment of what He taught in the Sermon on the Mount? +and so, can a Christian, remaining a Christian, go to court, taking part +in it and condemning people, or seeking in it defence by means of +violence, or can he not? Can a Christian, still remaining a Christian, +take part in the government, using violence against his neighbours, or +not? And the chief question, which now, with the universal military +service, stands before all men,---can a Christian, remaining a +Christian, contrary to Christ's injunction, make any promises as to +future acts, which are directly contrary to the teaching, and, taking +part in military service, prepare himself for the murder of men and +commit it? + +The questions are put clearly and frankly, and, it would seem, they +ought to be answered clearly and frankly. But nothing of the kind has +been done in all the criticisms upon my book, just as nothing of the +kind has been done in the case of all those arraignments of the church +teachers for departing from Christ's law, with which history is filled since the time of Constantine. -Very much has been said in reference to my book about how -incorrectly I interpret this or that passage in the Gospel, -how I err in not acknowledging the Trinity, the redemption, -and the immortality of the soul; very much has been said, -but this one thing, which for every Christian forms the -chief, essential question of life: how to harmonize what was -clearly expressed in the teacher's words and is clearly -expressed in the heart of every one of us,---the teaching -about forgiveness, humility, renunciation, and love of all -men, of our neighbours and of our enemies,---with the demand -of military violence exerted against the men of one's own -nation or another nation. - -Everything which may be called semblances of answers to this -question may be reduced to the five following divisions. I -have tried in this respect to collect everything I could, -not only in reference to the criticisms upon my book, but -also in reference' to what has been written upon the subject -in former times. - -The first, the rudest way of answering, consists in the bold -assertion that violence does not contradict Christ's -teaching, and that it is permitted and even prescribed by -the Old and the New Testament. - -Assertions of this kind issue for the most part from people -high up in the governmental or ecclesiastic hierarchy, who -are, therefore, quite convinced that no one will dare to -contradict their assertions, and that if one actually dared -to do so, they would not hear these objections. These men -have, in consequence of their intoxication with their power, -for the most part to such an extent lost the concept of what -that Christianity is, in the name of which they occupy their -places, that everything of a Christian nature in -Christianity presents itself to them as sectarian; but -everything which in the writings of the Old and the New -Testament may be interpreted in an anti-Christian and pagan -sense, they consider to be the foundation of Christianity. -In favour of their assertion that Christianity does not -contradict violence, these men with the greatest boldness -generally bring forward the most offensive passages from the -Old and the New Testament, and interpret them in the most -non-Christian manner: the execution of Ananias and Sapphira, -the execution of Simon Magus, and so forth. They adduce all -those words of Christ which may be interpreted as a -justification of cruelty, such as the expulsion from the -temple, "It shall be more tolerable on that day for Sodom, -than for that city," and so forth. - -According to the concepts of these men, the Christian -government is not in the least obliged to be guided by the -spirit of humility, forgiveness of offences, and love of our -enemies. - -It is useless to refute such an assertion, because the men -who assert this refute themselves, or rather, turn away from -Christ, inventing their own Christ and their own -Christianity in place of Him in whose name the church exists -and also the position which they occupy in it. If all men -knew that the church preaches Christ punishing, and not -forgiving, and warring, no one would be believing in this -church, and there would be no one to prove what it is -proving. - -The second method is a little less rude. It consists in -asserting that, although Christ really taught to offer one's -cheek and give up a shirt, and this is a very high moral -demand, there are malefactors in the world, and if these are -not curbed by the exercise of force, the whole world and all -good men will perish. This proof I found for the first time -in John Chrysostom and I pointed out its incorrectness in my -book, *My Religion*. - -This argument is ungrounded, because, in the first place, if -we allow ourselves to recognize any men as special -malefactors (Raca), we thus destroy the whole meaning of the -Christian teaching, according to which we are all equal and -brothers, as the sons of one heavenly Father; in the second -place, because, even if God permitted the exertion of -violence against malefactors, it is absolutely impossible to -find that safe and indubitable sign by which a malefactor -may be unerringly told from one who is not, and so every -man, or society of men, would recognize another as a -malefactor, which is the case now; in the third place, -because even if it were possible unerringly to tell -malefactors from those who are not malefactors, it would -still not be possible in a Christian society to execute, or -maim, or lock up these malefactors, because in Christian -society there would be no one to do this, because every -Christian, as a Christian, is enjoined not to use violence -against a malefactor. - -The third method of answering is still shrewder than the -previous one. It consists in asserting that, although the -commandment of non-resistance to evil is obligatory for a -Christian when the evil is directed against him personally, -it ceases to be obligatory when the evil is directed against -his neighbours, and that then a Christian is not only not -obliged to fulfil the commandments, but is also obliged in -the defence of his neighbours, contrary to the commandment, -to use violence against the violators. - -This assertion is quite arbitrary, and in the whole of -Christ's teaching no confirmation of such an interpretation -can be found. Such an interpretation is not only a -limitation of the commandment, but a direct negation and -annihilation of it. If any man has a right to use violence -when another is threatened by danger, then the question as -to the use of violence reduces itself to the question of -defining what constitutes a danger for another person. But -if my private judgment decides the question of danger for -another, then there does not exist such a case of violence -that it could not be explained on the basis of a danger with -which another is threatened. Wizards were executed and -burned, aristocrats and Girondists were executed, and so -were their enemies, because those who were in power -considered them to be dangerous for others. - -If this important limitation, which radically undermines the -meaning of the commandment, entered Christ's mind, there -ought somewhere to be mention made of it. But in all the -preaching and the life of the teacher there is not only no -such limitation, but, on the contrary, there is expressed a -particular caution against such a false and offensive -limitation, which destroys the commandment. The mistake and -the blunder of such a limitation is with particular -clearness shown in the Gospel in connection with the -judgment of Caiaphas, who made this very limitation. He -recognized that it was not good to execute innocent Jesus, -but he saw in Him danger, not for himself, but for the whole -nation, and so he said: "It is expedient for us that one man -should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish -not." And more clearly still was the negation of such a -limitation expressed in the words said to Peter when he -attempted with violence to resist the evil which was -directed against Jesus (Matthew 26:52). Peter was not -defending himself, but his beloved and divine teacher. And -Christ directly forbade him to do so, saying that he who -takes the sword shall perish with the sword. - -Besides, the justification of violence used against a -neighbour for the sake of defending another man against -worse violence is always incorrect, because in using -violence against an evil which is not yet accomplished, it -is impossible to know which evil will be greater,---whether -the evil of my violence or of that against which I wish to -defend my neighbour. We execute a criminal, thus freeing -society from him, and we are positively unable to tell -whether the criminal would not have changed on the morrow -and whether our execution is not a useless cruelty. We lock -up a man whom we suppose to be a dangerous member of -society, but beginning with to-morrow this man may cease to -be dangerous, and his incarceration is futile. I see that a -man whom I know to be a robber is pursuing a girl, and I -have a gun in my hand,---I kill the robber and save the -girl; the robber has certainly been killed or wounded, but -it is unknown to me what would happen if that were not the -case. What an enormous amount of evil must take place, as it -actually does, as the result of arrogating to ourselves the -right to prevent an evil that may occur! Ninety-nine -hundredths of the evil of the world, from the Inquisition to -dynamite bombs and the executions and sufferings of tens of -thousands of so-called political criminals, are based on -this reflection. - -The fourth, still more refined answer to the question as to -how a Christian should act toward Christ's commandment of -non-resistance to evil consists in asserting that the -commandment of non-resistance to evil is not denied by them, -but is accepted like any other; but that they do not ascribe -to this commandment any special exclusive significance, as -the sectarians do. To ascribe to this commandment an -invariable condition of Christian life, as do Garrison, -Ballou, Dymond, the Quakers, the Mennonites, the Shakers, -and as did the Moravian brothers, the Waldenses, Albigenses, -Bogomils, Paulicians, is one-sided sectarianism. This -commandment has neither more nor less significance than all -the others, and a man who in his weakness transgresses any -one of the commandments about non-resistance does not cease -to be a Christian, provided he believes correctly. This -subterfuge is very clever, and men who wish to be deceived -are easily deceived by it. The subterfuge consists in -reducing the direct conscious negation of the commandment to -an accidental violation of the same. But we need only -compare the relation of the church teachers to this -commandment and to others, which they actually recognize, in -order that we may convince ourselves that the relation of -the church teachers to the commandments which they recognize -is quite different from their relation to this one. - -They actually recognize the commandment against fornication, -and so never, under any condition, admit that fornication is -not an evil. The preachers of the church never point out any -cases when the commandment against fornication ought to be -broken, and they always teach that we must avoid the -offences which lead to the temptation of fornication. But -this is not the case with the commandment about -non-resistance. All the church preachers know cases when -this commandment may be broken. And thus they teach men. And -they not only do not teach how to avoid these offences, of -which the chief one is the oath, but themselves commit them. -The church preachers never and under no condition preach the -violation of any other commandment; but in relation to the -commandment of non-resistance they teach outright that this -prohibition must not be understood in too direct a sense, -and not only that this commandment must not be carried out -at all times, but that there are conditions, situations, -when directly the opposite should be done, that is, that we -should judge, wage war, execute. Thus, in reference to the -commandment about non-resistance to evil, they in the -majority of cases preach how not to fulfil it. The -fulfilment of this commandment, they say, is very difficult -and is characteristic only of perfection. But how can it -help but be difficult, when its breach is not only not -prohibited, but is also directly encouraged, when they -directly bless the courts, prisons, guns, cannon, armies, -battles? Consequently it is not true that this commandment -is recognized by the church preachers as of equal -significance with the other commandments. The church -preachers simply do not recognize it, and only because they -do not dare to confess it, try to conceal their failure to -recognize it. +Very much has been said in reference to my book about how incorrectly I +interpret this or that passage in the Gospel, how I err in not +acknowledging the Trinity, the redemption, and the immortality of the +soul; very much has been said, but this one thing, which for every +Christian forms the chief, essential question of life: how to harmonize +what was clearly expressed in the teacher's words and is clearly +expressed in the heart of every one of us,---the teaching about +forgiveness, humility, renunciation, and love of all men, of our +neighbours and of our enemies,---with the demand of military violence +exerted against the men of one's own nation or another nation. + +Everything which may be called semblances of answers to this question +may be reduced to the five following divisions. I have tried in this +respect to collect everything I could, not only in reference to the +criticisms upon my book, but also in reference' to what has been written +upon the subject in former times. + +The first, the rudest way of answering, consists in the bold assertion +that violence does not contradict Christ's teaching, and that it is +permitted and even prescribed by the Old and the New Testament. + +Assertions of this kind issue for the most part from people high up in +the governmental or ecclesiastic hierarchy, who are, therefore, quite +convinced that no one will dare to contradict their assertions, and that +if one actually dared to do so, they would not hear these objections. +These men have, in consequence of their intoxication with their power, +for the most part to such an extent lost the concept of what that +Christianity is, in the name of which they occupy their places, that +everything of a Christian nature in Christianity presents itself to them +as sectarian; but everything which in the writings of the Old and the +New Testament may be interpreted in an anti-Christian and pagan sense, +they consider to be the foundation of Christianity. In favour of their +assertion that Christianity does not contradict violence, these men with +the greatest boldness generally bring forward the most offensive +passages from the Old and the New Testament, and interpret them in the +most non-Christian manner: the execution of Ananias and Sapphira, the +execution of Simon Magus, and so forth. They adduce all those words of +Christ which may be interpreted as a justification of cruelty, such as +the expulsion from the temple, "It shall be more tolerable on that day +for Sodom, than for that city," and so forth. + +According to the concepts of these men, the Christian government is not +in the least obliged to be guided by the spirit of humility, forgiveness +of offences, and love of our enemies. + +It is useless to refute such an assertion, because the men who assert +this refute themselves, or rather, turn away from Christ, inventing +their own Christ and their own Christianity in place of Him in whose +name the church exists and also the position which they occupy in it. If +all men knew that the church preaches Christ punishing, and not +forgiving, and warring, no one would be believing in this church, and +there would be no one to prove what it is proving. + +The second method is a little less rude. It consists in asserting that, +although Christ really taught to offer one's cheek and give up a shirt, +and this is a very high moral demand, there are malefactors in the +world, and if these are not curbed by the exercise of force, the whole +world and all good men will perish. This proof I found for the first +time in John Chrysostom and I pointed out its incorrectness in my book, +*My Religion*. + +This argument is ungrounded, because, in the first place, if we allow +ourselves to recognize any men as special malefactors (Raca), we thus +destroy the whole meaning of the Christian teaching, according to which +we are all equal and brothers, as the sons of one heavenly Father; in +the second place, because, even if God permitted the exertion of +violence against malefactors, it is absolutely impossible to find that +safe and indubitable sign by which a malefactor may be unerringly told +from one who is not, and so every man, or society of men, would +recognize another as a malefactor, which is the case now; in the third +place, because even if it were possible unerringly to tell malefactors +from those who are not malefactors, it would still not be possible in a +Christian society to execute, or maim, or lock up these malefactors, +because in Christian society there would be no one to do this, because +every Christian, as a Christian, is enjoined not to use violence against +a malefactor. + +The third method of answering is still shrewder than the previous one. +It consists in asserting that, although the commandment of +non-resistance to evil is obligatory for a Christian when the evil is +directed against him personally, it ceases to be obligatory when the +evil is directed against his neighbours, and that then a Christian is +not only not obliged to fulfil the commandments, but is also obliged in +the defence of his neighbours, contrary to the commandment, to use +violence against the violators. + +This assertion is quite arbitrary, and in the whole of Christ's teaching +no confirmation of such an interpretation can be found. Such an +interpretation is not only a limitation of the commandment, but a direct +negation and annihilation of it. If any man has a right to use violence +when another is threatened by danger, then the question as to the use of +violence reduces itself to the question of defining what constitutes a +danger for another person. But if my private judgment decides the +question of danger for another, then there does not exist such a case of +violence that it could not be explained on the basis of a danger with +which another is threatened. Wizards were executed and burned, +aristocrats and Girondists were executed, and so were their enemies, +because those who were in power considered them to be dangerous for +others. + +If this important limitation, which radically undermines the meaning of +the commandment, entered Christ's mind, there ought somewhere to be +mention made of it. But in all the preaching and the life of the teacher +there is not only no such limitation, but, on the contrary, there is +expressed a particular caution against such a false and offensive +limitation, which destroys the commandment. The mistake and the blunder +of such a limitation is with particular clearness shown in the Gospel in +connection with the judgment of Caiaphas, who made this very limitation. +He recognized that it was not good to execute innocent Jesus, but he saw +in Him danger, not for himself, but for the whole nation, and so he +said: "It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, +and that the whole nation perish not." And more clearly still was the +negation of such a limitation expressed in the words said to Peter when +he attempted with violence to resist the evil which was directed against +Jesus (Matthew 26:52). Peter was not defending himself, but his beloved +and divine teacher. And Christ directly forbade him to do so, saying +that he who takes the sword shall perish with the sword. + +Besides, the justification of violence used against a neighbour for the +sake of defending another man against worse violence is always +incorrect, because in using violence against an evil which is not yet +accomplished, it is impossible to know which evil will be +greater,---whether the evil of my violence or of that against which I +wish to defend my neighbour. We execute a criminal, thus freeing society +from him, and we are positively unable to tell whether the criminal +would not have changed on the morrow and whether our execution is not a +useless cruelty. We lock up a man whom we suppose to be a dangerous +member of society, but beginning with to-morrow this man may cease to be +dangerous, and his incarceration is futile. I see that a man whom I know +to be a robber is pursuing a girl, and I have a gun in my hand,---I kill +the robber and save the girl; the robber has certainly been killed or +wounded, but it is unknown to me what would happen if that were not the +case. What an enormous amount of evil must take place, as it actually +does, as the result of arrogating to ourselves the right to prevent an +evil that may occur! Ninety-nine hundredths of the evil of the world, +from the Inquisition to dynamite bombs and the executions and sufferings +of tens of thousands of so-called political criminals, are based on this +reflection. + +The fourth, still more refined answer to the question as to how a +Christian should act toward Christ's commandment of non-resistance to +evil consists in asserting that the commandment of non-resistance to +evil is not denied by them, but is accepted like any other; but that +they do not ascribe to this commandment any special exclusive +significance, as the sectarians do. To ascribe to this commandment an +invariable condition of Christian life, as do Garrison, Ballou, Dymond, +the Quakers, the Mennonites, the Shakers, and as did the Moravian +brothers, the Waldenses, Albigenses, Bogomils, Paulicians, is one-sided +sectarianism. This commandment has neither more nor less significance +than all the others, and a man who in his weakness transgresses any one +of the commandments about non-resistance does not cease to be a +Christian, provided he believes correctly. This subterfuge is very +clever, and men who wish to be deceived are easily deceived by it. The +subterfuge consists in reducing the direct conscious negation of the +commandment to an accidental violation of the same. But we need only +compare the relation of the church teachers to this commandment and to +others, which they actually recognize, in order that we may convince +ourselves that the relation of the church teachers to the commandments +which they recognize is quite different from their relation to this one. + +They actually recognize the commandment against fornication, and so +never, under any condition, admit that fornication is not an evil. The +preachers of the church never point out any cases when the commandment +against fornication ought to be broken, and they always teach that we +must avoid the offences which lead to the temptation of fornication. But +this is not the case with the commandment about non-resistance. All the +church preachers know cases when this commandment may be broken. And +thus they teach men. And they not only do not teach how to avoid these +offences, of which the chief one is the oath, but themselves commit +them. The church preachers never and under no condition preach the +violation of any other commandment; but in relation to the commandment +of non-resistance they teach outright that this prohibition must not be +understood in too direct a sense, and not only that this commandment +must not be carried out at all times, but that there are conditions, +situations, when directly the opposite should be done, that is, that we +should judge, wage war, execute. Thus, in reference to the commandment +about non-resistance to evil, they in the majority of cases preach how +not to fulfil it. The fulfilment of this commandment, they say, is very +difficult and is characteristic only of perfection. But how can it help +but be difficult, when its breach is not only not prohibited, but is +also directly encouraged, when they directly bless the courts, prisons, +guns, cannon, armies, battles? Consequently it is not true that this +commandment is recognized by the church preachers as of equal +significance with the other commandments. The church preachers simply do +not recognize it, and only because they do not dare to confess it, try +to conceal their failure to recognize it. Such is the fourth method of answers. -The fifth method, the most refined, most popular, and most -powerful one, consists in begging the question, in making it -appear as though the question had long ago been decided by -some one in an absolutely clear and satisfactory manner, and -as though it were not worth while to speak of it. This -method is employed by more or less cultivated ecclesiastic -writers, that is, such as feel the laws of logic to be -obligatory for them. Knowing that the contradiction which -exists between Christ's teaching, which we profess in words, -and the whole structure of our life cannot be solved with -words, and that, by touching it, we can only make it more -obvious, they with greater or lesser agility get around it, -making it appear that the question about the connection of -Christianity with violence has been decided or does not -exist at all. - -The majority of the ecclesiastic critics of my book employ -this method. I could adduce dozens of such criticisms, in -which without exception one and the same thing is repeated: -they speak of everything but the chief subject of the book. -As a characteristic example of such criticisms, I shall -quote an article by the famous, refined English writer and -preacher, Farrar, a great master, like many learned -theologians, of evasions and reticence. This article was -printed in the American periodical, *Forum*, in October, -1888. - -Having conscientiously given a short review of my book, -Farrar says: - -"Tolstoy came to the conclusion that a coarse deceit was -palmed upon the world when these words were held by civil -society to be compatible with war, courts of justice, -capital punishment, divorce, oaths, national prejudice, and -indeed with most of the institutions of civil and social -life. He now believes that the kingdom of God would come if -all men kept these five commandments,... (1) Live in peace -with all men; (2) be pure; (3) take no oaths; (4) never -resist evil; (5) renounce national distinctions. - -"Tolstoy," he says, "rejects the divine inspiration of the -Old Testament and of the epistles; he rejects all the dogmas -of the church, that of the atonement by blood, that of the -Trinity, that of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the -apostles... and recognizes only the words and commandments -of Christ. - -"Is this interpretation of Christ a true one?" he asks. "Are -all men bound, or is any man bound, to act as Tolstoy has -taught, that is, to fulfil the five commandments of Christ?" - -One just hopes that in reply to this essential question, -which alone could have urged the man to write an article on -the book, he will say that this interpretation of Christ's -teaching is correct, or that it is not correct, and so will -prove why, and will give another, a correct interpretation -to the words which I interpret incorrectly. But nothing of -the kind is done. Farrar only expresses his conviction that, -"though actuated by the noblest sincerity, Tolstoy has been -misled by partial and one-sided interpretations of the -meaning of the Gospel and the mind and will of Christ." - -No explanation is given as to what this error consists in, -but all there is said, is: - -"To enter into the proof of this is impossible in this -article, for I have already exceeded the space at my -command." +The fifth method, the most refined, most popular, and most powerful one, +consists in begging the question, in making it appear as though the +question had long ago been decided by some one in an absolutely clear +and satisfactory manner, and as though it were not worth while to speak +of it. This method is employed by more or less cultivated ecclesiastic +writers, that is, such as feel the laws of logic to be obligatory for +them. Knowing that the contradiction which exists between Christ's +teaching, which we profess in words, and the whole structure of our life +cannot be solved with words, and that, by touching it, we can only make +it more obvious, they with greater or lesser agility get around it, +making it appear that the question about the connection of Christianity +with violence has been decided or does not exist at all. + +The majority of the ecclesiastic critics of my book employ this method. +I could adduce dozens of such criticisms, in which without exception one +and the same thing is repeated: they speak of everything but the chief +subject of the book. As a characteristic example of such criticisms, I +shall quote an article by the famous, refined English writer and +preacher, Farrar, a great master, like many learned theologians, of +evasions and reticence. This article was printed in the American +periodical, *Forum*, in October, 1888. + +Having conscientiously given a short review of my book, Farrar says: + +"Tolstoy came to the conclusion that a coarse deceit was palmed upon the +world when these words were held by civil society to be compatible with +war, courts of justice, capital punishment, divorce, oaths, national +prejudice, and indeed with most of the institutions of civil and social +life. He now believes that the kingdom of God would come if all men kept +these five commandments,... (1) Live in peace with all men; (2) be pure; +(3) take no oaths; (4) never resist evil; (5) renounce national +distinctions. + +"Tolstoy," he says, "rejects the divine inspiration of the Old Testament +and of the epistles; he rejects all the dogmas of the church, that of +the atonement by blood, that of the Trinity, that of the descent of the +Holy Ghost upon the apostles... and recognizes only the words and +commandments of Christ. + +"Is this interpretation of Christ a true one?" he asks. "Are all men +bound, or is any man bound, to act as Tolstoy has taught, that is, to +fulfil the five commandments of Christ?" + +One just hopes that in reply to this essential question, which alone +could have urged the man to write an article on the book, he will say +that this interpretation of Christ's teaching is correct, or that it is +not correct, and so will prove why, and will give another, a correct +interpretation to the words which I interpret incorrectly. But nothing +of the kind is done. Farrar only expresses his conviction that, "though +actuated by the noblest sincerity, Tolstoy has been misled by partial +and one-sided interpretations of the meaning of the Gospel and the mind +and will of Christ." + +No explanation is given as to what this error consists in, but all there +is said, is: + +"To enter into the proof of this is impossible in this article, for I +have already exceeded the space at my command." And he concludes with an easy mind: -"Meanwhile the reader who feels troubled lest it should be -his duty also to forsake all conditions of his life, and to -take up the position and work of a common labourer, may rest -for the present on the principle, *Securus judicat orbis -terrarum*. With few and rare exceptions," he continues,"the -whole of Christendom, from the days of the apostles down to -our own, has come to the firm conclusion that it was the -object of Christ to lay down great eternal principles, but -not disturb the bases and revolutionize the institutions of -all human society, which themselves rest on divine sanction -as well as on inevitable conditions. Were it my object to -prove how untenable is the doctrine of communism, based by -Tolstoy upon the divine paradoxes (*sic!*), which can be -interpreted on only historical principles in accordance with -the whole method of the teaching of Jesus, it would require -an ampler canvas than I have here at my disposal." - -What a misfortune,---he has not any space! And, strange to -say, space has been lacking for fifteen centuries, to prove -that Christ, whom we profess, said something different from -what He said. They could prove it, if they only wanted to. -However, it does not pay to prove what everybody knows. It -is enough to say: "*Securus judicat orbis terrarum.*" - -And such are, without exception, all the criticisms of the -cultivated believers, who, therefore, do not understand the -perilousness of their position. The only way out for them is -the hope that, by using the authority of the church, of -antiquity, of holiness, they may be able to confuse the -reader and draw him away from the thought of reading the -Gospel for himself and of considering the question with his -own mind. And in this they are successful. To whom, indeed, -will it occur that all that which with such assurance and -solemnity is repeated from century to century by all these -archdeacons, bishops, archbishops, most holy synods, and -Popes, is a base lie and calumny, which they foist on Christ -in order to secure the money which they need for the purpose -of leading a life of pleasure, while sitting on the backs of -others,---a lie and a calumny, which is so obvious, -especially now that the only possibility of continuing this -he consists in frightening men into belief by their -assurance, their unscrupulousness? It is precisely the same -that of late years has taken place in the Recruiting -Sessions: at the head of the table, with the Mirror of Laws -upon it, and beneath the full-sized portrait of the emperor, -sit dignified old officials in their regalia, conversing -freely and unreservedly, noting down, commanding, calling -out. Here also, with the cross over his breast and in silk -vestments, with his gray hair falling down straight over his -scapulary, stands an imposing old man, the priest, in front -of the pulpit, on which lies a gold cross and a gold-trimmed -Gospel. - -Ivan Petrov is called out. A young man steps out. He is -poorly and dirtily dressed and looks frightened, and the -muscles of his face tremble, and his fugitive eyes sparkle, -and in a faltering voice, almost in a whisper, he says: -"I---according to the law I, a Christian---I cannot---" - -"What is he muttering there?" impatiently asks the presiding -officer, half-closing his eyes and listening, as he raises -his head from the book. +"Meanwhile the reader who feels troubled lest it should be his duty also +to forsake all conditions of his life, and to take up the position and +work of a common labourer, may rest for the present on the principle, +*Securus judicat orbis terrarum*. With few and rare exceptions," he +continues,"the whole of Christendom, from the days of the apostles down +to our own, has come to the firm conclusion that it was the object of +Christ to lay down great eternal principles, but not disturb the bases +and revolutionize the institutions of all human society, which +themselves rest on divine sanction as well as on inevitable conditions. +Were it my object to prove how untenable is the doctrine of communism, +based by Tolstoy upon the divine paradoxes (*sic!*), which can be +interpreted on only historical principles in accordance with the whole +method of the teaching of Jesus, it would require an ampler canvas than +I have here at my disposal." + +What a misfortune,---he has not any space! And, strange to say, space +has been lacking for fifteen centuries, to prove that Christ, whom we +profess, said something different from what He said. They could prove +it, if they only wanted to. However, it does not pay to prove what +everybody knows. It is enough to say: "*Securus judicat orbis +terrarum.*" + +And such are, without exception, all the criticisms of the cultivated +believers, who, therefore, do not understand the perilousness of their +position. The only way out for them is the hope that, by using the +authority of the church, of antiquity, of holiness, they may be able to +confuse the reader and draw him away from the thought of reading the +Gospel for himself and of considering the question with his own mind. +And in this they are successful. To whom, indeed, will it occur that all +that which with such assurance and solemnity is repeated from century to +century by all these archdeacons, bishops, archbishops, most holy +synods, and Popes, is a base lie and calumny, which they foist on Christ +in order to secure the money which they need for the purpose of leading +a life of pleasure, while sitting on the backs of others,---a lie and a +calumny, which is so obvious, especially now that the only possibility +of continuing this he consists in frightening men into belief by their +assurance, their unscrupulousness? It is precisely the same that of late +years has taken place in the Recruiting Sessions: at the head of the +table, with the Mirror of Laws upon it, and beneath the full-sized +portrait of the emperor, sit dignified old officials in their regalia, +conversing freely and unreservedly, noting down, commanding, calling +out. Here also, with the cross over his breast and in silk vestments, +with his gray hair falling down straight over his scapulary, stands an +imposing old man, the priest, in front of the pulpit, on which lies a +gold cross and a gold-trimmed Gospel. + +Ivan Petrov is called out. A young man steps out. He is poorly and +dirtily dressed and looks frightened, and the muscles of his face +tremble, and his fugitive eyes sparkle, and in a faltering voice, almost +in a whisper, he says: "I---according to the law I, a Christian---I +cannot---" + +"What is he muttering there?" impatiently asks the presiding officer, +half-closing his eyes and listening, as he raises his head from the +book. "Speak louder!" shouts to him the colonel with the shining shoulder-straps. "I---I---I---as a Christian---" -It finally turns out that the young man refuses to do -military service, because he is a Christian. +It finally turns out that the young man refuses to do military service, +because he is a Christian. -"Talk no nonsense! Get your measure! Doctor, be so kind as -to take his measure. Is he fit for the army?" +"Talk no nonsense! Get your measure! Doctor, be so kind as to take his +measure. Is he fit for the army?" "He is." "Reverend father, have him sworn in." -No one is confused; no one even pays any attention to what -this frightened, pitiable young man is muttering. +No one is confused; no one even pays any attention to what this +frightened, pitiable young man is muttering. -"They all mutter something, but we have no time: we have to -receive so many recruits." +"They all mutter something, but we have no time: we have to receive so +many recruits." The recruit wants to say something again. "This is against Christ's law." -"Go, go, we know without you what is according to the -law,---but you get out of here. Reverend father, admonish -him. Next: Vasili Nikitin." - -And the trembling youth is taken away. And to whom---whether -the janitor, or Vasili Nikitin, who is being brought in, or -any one else who witnessed this scene from the side---will -it occur that those indistinct, short words of the youth, -which were at once put out of court by the authorities, -contain the truth, while those loud, solemn speeches of the -self-possessed, calm officials and of the priest are a he, a -deception? - -A similar impression is produced, not only by the articles -of a Farrar but by all those solemn sermons, articles, and -books, which appear on all sides, the moment the truth peeps -out and arraigns the ruling lie. Immediately there begin -long, clever, elegant conversations or writings about -questions which touch closely upon the subject with a shrewd +"Go, go, we know without you what is according to the law,---but you get +out of here. Reverend father, admonish him. Next: Vasili Nikitin." + +And the trembling youth is taken away. And to whom---whether the +janitor, or Vasili Nikitin, who is being brought in, or any one else who +witnessed this scene from the side---will it occur that those +indistinct, short words of the youth, which were at once put out of +court by the authorities, contain the truth, while those loud, solemn +speeches of the self-possessed, calm officials and of the priest are a +he, a deception? + +A similar impression is produced, not only by the articles of a Farrar +but by all those solemn sermons, articles, and books, which appear on +all sides, the moment the truth peeps out and arraigns the ruling lie. +Immediately there begin long, clever, elegant conversations or writings +about questions which touch closely upon the subject with a shrewd reticence concerning the question itself. -In this consists the fifth and most effective means for -removing the contradiction in which the ecclesiastic -Christianity has placed itself by professing Christ in words -and denying His teaching in life, and teaching the same to -others. - -Those who justify themselves by the first method, asserting -outright and rudely that Christ has permitted -violence,---wars, murder,---withdraw themselves from -Christ's teaching; those who defend themselves according to -the second, the third, and the fourth methods get themselves -entangled, and it is easy to point out their untruth; but -these last, who do not discuss, who do not condescend to -discuss, but hide themselves behind their greatness and make -it appear that all this has been decided long ago by them, -or by somebody else, and that it no longer is subject to any -doubt, seem invulnerable, and they will be invulnerable so -long as people will remain under the influence of hypnotic -suggestion, which is induced in them by governments and +In this consists the fifth and most effective means for removing the +contradiction in which the ecclesiastic Christianity has placed itself +by professing Christ in words and denying His teaching in life, and +teaching the same to others. + +Those who justify themselves by the first method, asserting outright and +rudely that Christ has permitted violence,---wars, murder,---withdraw +themselves from Christ's teaching; those who defend themselves according +to the second, the third, and the fourth methods get themselves +entangled, and it is easy to point out their untruth; but these last, +who do not discuss, who do not condescend to discuss, but hide +themselves behind their greatness and make it appear that all this has +been decided long ago by them, or by somebody else, and that it no +longer is subject to any doubt, seem invulnerable, and they will be +invulnerable so long as people will remain under the influence of +hypnotic suggestion, which is induced in them by governments and churches, and will not shake it off. -Such was the attitude which the ecclesiastics, that is, -those who profess Christ's faith, assumed toward me. Nor -could they have acted otherwise: they are bound by the -contradiction in which they live,---the faith in the -divinity of the teacher and the unbelief in His clearest -words,---from which they must in some way extricate -themselves, and so it was not possible to expect from them -any free opinion concerning the essence of the question, -concerning that change in the lives of men which results -from the application of Christ's teaching to the existing -order. Such opinions I expected from the freethinking lay -critics, who are in no way bound to Christ's teaching and -who can look upon it without restraint. I expected that the -freethinking writers would look upon Christ not only as the -establisher of a religion of worship and personal salvation -(as which the ecclesiastics understand him), but, to express -myself in their language, as a reformer, who destroys the -old, and gives the new foundations of life, the reform of -which is not yet accomplished, but continues until the -present. - -Such a view of Christ and His teaching results from my book, -but, to my surprise, out of the large number of criticisms -upon my book, there was not one, either Russian or foreign, -which treated the subject from the same side from which it -is expounded in my book, that is, which looked upon Christ's -teaching as a philosophical, moral, and social doctrine -(again to speak in the language of the learned). This was -not the case in a single criticism. - -The Russian lay critics, who understood my book in such a -way that all its contents reduced themselves to -nonresistance to evil, and who understood the teaching about -non-resistance to evil itself (apparently for convenience of -refutal) as meaning that it prohibited any struggle against -evil, furiously attacked this teaching and very successfully -proved for the period of several years that Christ's -teaching was incorrect, since it taught us not to resist -evil. Their refutals of this supposed teaching of Christ -were the more successful, since they knew in advance that -their views could neither be overthrown nor corrected, -because the censorship, having failed to sanction the book -itself, did not sanction the articles in its defence either. - -What is remarkable in connection with the matter is this, -that with us, where not a word may be said about the Holy -Scripture without a prohibition by the censorship, the -clearly and directly expressed commandment of Matthew 5:39 -has for several years been openly contorted, criticized, -condemned, and ridiculed in all the periodicals. - -The Russian lay critics, who evidently did not know all that -had been done in the development of the question as to -non-resistance to evil, and who at times even seemed to -assume that I personally invented the rule of not resisting -evil with violence, attacked the idea itself, rejecting and -contorting it, and with much fervour advancing arguments -which have long ago been analyzed from every side and -rejected, proved that a man is obliged (with violence) to -defend all the insulted and the oppressed, and that, -therefore, the doctrine about not resisting evil with -violence is immoral. - -The whole significance of Christ's preaching presented -itself to the Russian critics as though maliciously -interfering with a certain activity, which was directed -against what they at a given moment considered to be an -evil, so that it turned out that the principle of not -resisting evil with violence was attacked by two opposite -camps,---by the conservatives, because this principle -interfered with their activity of resisting the evil which -was produced by the revolutionists, and with their -persecutions and executions; and by the revolutionists, -because this principle interfered with the resistance to the -evil which was produced by the conservatives, and with the -overthrow of the conservatives. The conservatives were -provoked, because the doctrine of non-resistance to evil -interfered with the energetic suppression of the -revolutionary elements, who are likely to ruin the welfare -of the nation; while the revolutionists were provoked, -because the doctrine of non-resistance to evil interfered -with the overthrow of the conservatives, who were ruining -the well-being of the nation. - -What is remarkable is, that the revolutionists attacked the -principle of non-resistance, although it is most terrible -and most dangerous for every despotism, because ever since -the beginning of the world the opposite principle of the -necessity of resisting evil with violence has been lying at -the basis of all violence, from the Inquisition to the +Such was the attitude which the ecclesiastics, that is, those who +profess Christ's faith, assumed toward me. Nor could they have acted +otherwise: they are bound by the contradiction in which they live,---the +faith in the divinity of the teacher and the unbelief in His clearest +words,---from which they must in some way extricate themselves, and so +it was not possible to expect from them any free opinion concerning the +essence of the question, concerning that change in the lives of men +which results from the application of Christ's teaching to the existing +order. Such opinions I expected from the freethinking lay critics, who +are in no way bound to Christ's teaching and who can look upon it +without restraint. I expected that the freethinking writers would look +upon Christ not only as the establisher of a religion of worship and +personal salvation (as which the ecclesiastics understand him), but, to +express myself in their language, as a reformer, who destroys the old, +and gives the new foundations of life, the reform of which is not yet +accomplished, but continues until the present. + +Such a view of Christ and His teaching results from my book, but, to my +surprise, out of the large number of criticisms upon my book, there was +not one, either Russian or foreign, which treated the subject from the +same side from which it is expounded in my book, that is, which looked +upon Christ's teaching as a philosophical, moral, and social doctrine +(again to speak in the language of the learned). This was not the case +in a single criticism. + +The Russian lay critics, who understood my book in such a way that all +its contents reduced themselves to nonresistance to evil, and who +understood the teaching about non-resistance to evil itself (apparently +for convenience of refutal) as meaning that it prohibited any struggle +against evil, furiously attacked this teaching and very successfully +proved for the period of several years that Christ's teaching was +incorrect, since it taught us not to resist evil. Their refutals of this +supposed teaching of Christ were the more successful, since they knew in +advance that their views could neither be overthrown nor corrected, +because the censorship, having failed to sanction the book itself, did +not sanction the articles in its defence either. + +What is remarkable in connection with the matter is this, that with us, +where not a word may be said about the Holy Scripture without a +prohibition by the censorship, the clearly and directly expressed +commandment of Matthew 5:39 has for several years been openly contorted, +criticized, condemned, and ridiculed in all the periodicals. + +The Russian lay critics, who evidently did not know all that had been +done in the development of the question as to non-resistance to evil, +and who at times even seemed to assume that I personally invented the +rule of not resisting evil with violence, attacked the idea itself, +rejecting and contorting it, and with much fervour advancing arguments +which have long ago been analyzed from every side and rejected, proved +that a man is obliged (with violence) to defend all the insulted and the +oppressed, and that, therefore, the doctrine about not resisting evil +with violence is immoral. + +The whole significance of Christ's preaching presented itself to the +Russian critics as though maliciously interfering with a certain +activity, which was directed against what they at a given moment +considered to be an evil, so that it turned out that the principle of +not resisting evil with violence was attacked by two opposite +camps,---by the conservatives, because this principle interfered with +their activity of resisting the evil which was produced by the +revolutionists, and with their persecutions and executions; and by the +revolutionists, because this principle interfered with the resistance to +the evil which was produced by the conservatives, and with the overthrow +of the conservatives. The conservatives were provoked, because the +doctrine of non-resistance to evil interfered with the energetic +suppression of the revolutionary elements, who are likely to ruin the +welfare of the nation; while the revolutionists were provoked, because +the doctrine of non-resistance to evil interfered with the overthrow of +the conservatives, who were ruining the well-being of the nation. + +What is remarkable is, that the revolutionists attacked the principle of +non-resistance, although it is most terrible and most dangerous for +every despotism, because ever since the beginning of the world the +opposite principle of the necessity of resisting evil with violence has +been lying at the basis of all violence, from the Inquisition to the Schlusselburg Fortress. -Besides, the Russian critics pointed out that the -application to life of the commandment about non-resistance -to evil would turn humanity away from the path of -civilization, on which it was marching now; but the path of -civilization, on which the European civilization is -marching, is, in their opinion, the one on which all -humanity must always march. +Besides, the Russian critics pointed out that the application to life of +the commandment about non-resistance to evil would turn humanity away +from the path of civilization, on which it was marching now; but the +path of civilization, on which the European civilization is marching, +is, in their opinion, the one on which all humanity must always march. Such was the chief character of the Russian criticisms. -The foreign critics proceeded from the same bases, but their -reviews of my book differed from those of the Russian -critics not only in a lesser degree of irritability and a -greater degree of culture, but also in the essence of the -matter. - -In discussing my book and the Gospel teaching in general, as -it is expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, the foreign -critics asserted that such a teaching is really not -Christian (Christian in their opinion is Catholicism and -Protestantism), and that the doctrine of the Sermon on the -Mount is only a series of very charming, impracticable -reveries "*du charmant docteur*," as Renan used to say, -which were good enough for the na'ive and half-wild -inhabitants of Galilee, who lived eighteen hundred years -ago, and for the Russian peasants, Syutaev and Bondarev, and -the Russian mystic, Tolstoy, but can in no way be applied to -the high degree of European culture. - -The foreign lay critics tried, in a refined manner, without -giving me any offence, to let me know that my opinion that -humanity can be guided by such a naive teaching as the -Sermon on the Mount is due partly to my ignorance, lack of -acquaintance with history, lack of knowledge of all those -vain attempts to realize in life the principles of the -Sermon on the Mount, which have been made in history, and -have led to nothing, thanks to ignorance concerning the -whole significance of that high degree of culture on which -European civilization now stands, with its Krupp guns, -smokeless powder, the colonization of Africa, the government -of Ireland, parliaments, journalism, strikes, constitutions, -and Eiffel Tower. - -Thus wrote Vogüe, and Leroy Beaulieu, and Matthew Arnold, -and the American writer Savage, and Ingersoll, a popular -American preacher of free thought, and many others. - -"Christ's teaching is no good, because it does not harmonize -with our industrial age," naively says Ingersoll, thus -expressing with absolute precision and naivete what the -refined and cultured men of our time think about Christ's -teaching. The teaching is no good for our industrial age, as -though the existence of the industrial age is something -sacred which must not and cannot be changed. It is something -like what drunkards would do, if, in response to advice -about how to get themselves into a sober state, they should -reply that the advice is out of place in connection with -their present alcoholic state. - -The discussions of all the lay writers, both Russian and -foreign, no matter how different their tone and the manner -of their arguments may be, in reality reduce themselves to -one and the same strange misunderstanding, namely, that -Christ's teaching,---one of the consequences of which is -non-resistance to evil, is useless to us, because it demands -that our life be changed. - -Christ's teaching is useless, because, if it were put into -practice, our life could not continue; in other words,---if -we began to live well, as Christ has taught us, we could not -continue to live badly, as we live and are accustomed to -live. The question of non-resistance to evil is not -discussed, and the very mention of the fact that the demand -for non-resistance to evil enters into Christ's teaching is -considered a sufficient proof of the inapplicability of the -whole teaching. - -And yet, it would seem, it is indispensable to point out -some kind of a solution to this question, because it lies at -the foundation of nearly all affairs which interest us. - -The question consists in this: how are we to harmonize the -conflicts of men, when some consider an evil what others -consider to be good, and vice versa? And so, to consider -that an evil which I consider an evil, although my adversary -may consider it good, is no answer. There can be but two -answers: either we have to find a true and indisputable -criterion of what an evil is, or we must not resist evil -with violence. - -The first solution has been tried since the beginning of -historical times, and, as we all know, has so far led to no -satisfactory results. - -The second answer, not to resist with violence what we -consider evil, so long as we have found no common criterion, -was proposed by Christ. - -It may be found that Christ's answer is not correct: it may -be possible to put in its place another, better answer, by -finding a criterion which would indubitably and -simultaneously for all define the evil; we may simply not -recognize the essence of the question, as it is not -recognized by the savage nations,---but it is impossible, as -the learned critics of the Christian teaching do, to make it -appear that such a question does not at all exist, or that -the relegation of the right to determine the evil and resist -it with violence to certain persons or assemblies of men -(much less, if we are these men), solves the question; -whereas we all know that such a relegation does not at all -solve the question, since there are some people who do not -recognize this right as belonging to certain people or to -assemblies of men. - -But it is this recognition that what to us appears evil is -evil, or an absolute failure to comprehend the question, -which serves as a foundation for the judgment of the lay -critics concerning the Christian teaching, so that the -opinions concerning my book, both of the ecclesiastic and -the lay critics, showed me that the majority of men -absolutely fail to comprehend, not only Christ's very -teaching, but even those questions to which it serves as an -answer. +The foreign critics proceeded from the same bases, but their reviews of +my book differed from those of the Russian critics not only in a lesser +degree of irritability and a greater degree of culture, but also in the +essence of the matter. + +In discussing my book and the Gospel teaching in general, as it is +expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, the foreign critics asserted that +such a teaching is really not Christian (Christian in their opinion is +Catholicism and Protestantism), and that the doctrine of the Sermon on +the Mount is only a series of very charming, impracticable reveries "*du +charmant docteur*," as Renan used to say, which were good enough for the +na'ive and half-wild inhabitants of Galilee, who lived eighteen hundred +years ago, and for the Russian peasants, Syutaev and Bondarev, and the +Russian mystic, Tolstoy, but can in no way be applied to the high degree +of European culture. + +The foreign lay critics tried, in a refined manner, without giving me +any offence, to let me know that my opinion that humanity can be guided +by such a naive teaching as the Sermon on the Mount is due partly to my +ignorance, lack of acquaintance with history, lack of knowledge of all +those vain attempts to realize in life the principles of the Sermon on +the Mount, which have been made in history, and have led to nothing, +thanks to ignorance concerning the whole significance of that high +degree of culture on which European civilization now stands, with its +Krupp guns, smokeless powder, the colonization of Africa, the government +of Ireland, parliaments, journalism, strikes, constitutions, and Eiffel +Tower. + +Thus wrote Vogüe, and Leroy Beaulieu, and Matthew Arnold, and the +American writer Savage, and Ingersoll, a popular American preacher of +free thought, and many others. + +"Christ's teaching is no good, because it does not harmonize with our +industrial age," naively says Ingersoll, thus expressing with absolute +precision and naivete what the refined and cultured men of our time +think about Christ's teaching. The teaching is no good for our +industrial age, as though the existence of the industrial age is +something sacred which must not and cannot be changed. It is something +like what drunkards would do, if, in response to advice about how to get +themselves into a sober state, they should reply that the advice is out +of place in connection with their present alcoholic state. + +The discussions of all the lay writers, both Russian and foreign, no +matter how different their tone and the manner of their arguments may +be, in reality reduce themselves to one and the same strange +misunderstanding, namely, that Christ's teaching,---one of the +consequences of which is non-resistance to evil, is useless to us, +because it demands that our life be changed. + +Christ's teaching is useless, because, if it were put into practice, our +life could not continue; in other words,---if we began to live well, as +Christ has taught us, we could not continue to live badly, as we live +and are accustomed to live. The question of non-resistance to evil is +not discussed, and the very mention of the fact that the demand for +non-resistance to evil enters into Christ's teaching is considered a +sufficient proof of the inapplicability of the whole teaching. + +And yet, it would seem, it is indispensable to point out some kind of a +solution to this question, because it lies at the foundation of nearly +all affairs which interest us. + +The question consists in this: how are we to harmonize the conflicts of +men, when some consider an evil what others consider to be good, and +vice versa? And so, to consider that an evil which I consider an evil, +although my adversary may consider it good, is no answer. There can be +but two answers: either we have to find a true and indisputable +criterion of what an evil is, or we must not resist evil with violence. + +The first solution has been tried since the beginning of historical +times, and, as we all know, has so far led to no satisfactory results. + +The second answer, not to resist with violence what we consider evil, so +long as we have found no common criterion, was proposed by Christ. + +It may be found that Christ's answer is not correct: it may be possible +to put in its place another, better answer, by finding a criterion which +would indubitably and simultaneously for all define the evil; we may +simply not recognize the essence of the question, as it is not +recognized by the savage nations,---but it is impossible, as the learned +critics of the Christian teaching do, to make it appear that such a +question does not at all exist, or that the relegation of the right to +determine the evil and resist it with violence to certain persons or +assemblies of men (much less, if we are these men), solves the question; +whereas we all know that such a relegation does not at all solve the +question, since there are some people who do not recognize this right as +belonging to certain people or to assemblies of men. + +But it is this recognition that what to us appears evil is evil, or an +absolute failure to comprehend the question, which serves as a +foundation for the judgment of the lay critics concerning the Christian +teaching, so that the opinions concerning my book, both of the +ecclesiastic and the lay critics, showed me that the majority of men +absolutely fail to comprehend, not only Christ's very teaching, but even +those questions to which it serves as an answer. # III -Thus, both the information received by me after the -publication of my book, as to how the Christian teaching in -its direct and true sense has without interruption been -understood by the minority of men, and the criticisms upon -it, both the ecclesiastic and the lay criticisms, which -denied the possibility of understanding Christ's teaching in -the direct sense, convinced me that, while, on the one hand, -the true comprehension of this teaching never ceased for the -minority, and became clearer and clearer to them, on the -other hand, for the majority, its meaning became more and -more obscure, finally reaching such a degree of obscuration -that men no longer comprehend the simplest propositions, -which are expressed in the Gospel in the simplest words. - -The failure to comprehend Christ's teaching in its true, -simple, and direct sense in our time, when the light of this -teaching has penetrated all the darkest corners of human -consciousness; when, as Christ has said, that which He has -spoken in the ear, they now proclaim upon the housetops; -when this teaching permeates all the sides of human -life,---the domestic, the economic, the civil, the -political, and the international,---this failure to -comprehend would be incomprehensible, if there were no -causes for it. - -One of these causes is this, that both the believers and the -unbelievers are firmly convinced that Christ's teaching has -been comprehended by them long ago, and so completely, -indubitably, and finally, that there can be no other meaning -in it than the one they ascribe to it. This cause is due to -the duration of the tradition of the false comprehension, -and so of the failure to understand the true teaching. - -The most powerful stream of water cannot add a drop to a -vessel that is full. - -It is possible to explain the most intricate matters to a -man of very hard comprehension, so long as he has not formed -any idea about them; but it is impossible to explain the -simplest thing to a very clever man, if he is firmly -convinced that he knows, and, besides, incontestably knows, -what has been transmitted to him. - -The Christian teaching presents itself to the men of our -world precisely as such a teaching, which has for a long -time and in a most indubitable manner been known in its -minutest details, and which cannot be comprehended in any -other manner than it now is. - -Christianity is now understood by those who profess the -church doctrines as a supernatural, miraculous revelation -concerning everything which is given in the symbol of faith, -and by those who do not believe, as an obsolete -manifestation of humanity's need of believing in something -supernatural, as a historical phenomenon, which is -completely expressed in Catholicism, Orthodoxy, -Protestantism, and which has no longer any vital meaning for -us. For the believers the meaning of the teaching is +Thus, both the information received by me after the publication of my +book, as to how the Christian teaching in its direct and true sense has +without interruption been understood by the minority of men, and the +criticisms upon it, both the ecclesiastic and the lay criticisms, which +denied the possibility of understanding Christ's teaching in the direct +sense, convinced me that, while, on the one hand, the true comprehension +of this teaching never ceased for the minority, and became clearer and +clearer to them, on the other hand, for the majority, its meaning became +more and more obscure, finally reaching such a degree of obscuration +that men no longer comprehend the simplest propositions, which are +expressed in the Gospel in the simplest words. + +The failure to comprehend Christ's teaching in its true, simple, and +direct sense in our time, when the light of this teaching has penetrated +all the darkest corners of human consciousness; when, as Christ has +said, that which He has spoken in the ear, they now proclaim upon the +housetops; when this teaching permeates all the sides of human +life,---the domestic, the economic, the civil, the political, and the +international,---this failure to comprehend would be incomprehensible, +if there were no causes for it. + +One of these causes is this, that both the believers and the unbelievers +are firmly convinced that Christ's teaching has been comprehended by +them long ago, and so completely, indubitably, and finally, that there +can be no other meaning in it than the one they ascribe to it. This +cause is due to the duration of the tradition of the false +comprehension, and so of the failure to understand the true teaching. + +The most powerful stream of water cannot add a drop to a vessel that is +full. + +It is possible to explain the most intricate matters to a man of very +hard comprehension, so long as he has not formed any idea about them; +but it is impossible to explain the simplest thing to a very clever man, +if he is firmly convinced that he knows, and, besides, incontestably +knows, what has been transmitted to him. + +The Christian teaching presents itself to the men of our world precisely +as such a teaching, which has for a long time and in a most indubitable +manner been known in its minutest details, and which cannot be +comprehended in any other manner than it now is. + +Christianity is now understood by those who profess the church doctrines +as a supernatural, miraculous revelation concerning everything which is +given in the symbol of faith, and by those who do not believe, as an +obsolete manifestation of humanity's need of believing in something +supernatural, as a historical phenomenon, which is completely expressed +in Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, and which has no longer any +vital meaning for us. For the believers the meaning of the teaching is concealed by the church, for unbelievers by science. I shall begin with the first: -Eighteen hundred years ago there appeared in the pagan Roman -world a strange, new teaching, which resembled nothing which -preceded it, and which was ascribed to the man Christ. - -This new teaching was absolutely new, both in form and in -contents, for the European world, in the midst of which it -arose, and especially in the Roman world, where it was -preached and became diffused. - -Amidst the elaborateness of the religious rules of Judaism, -where, according to Isaiah, there was rule upon rule, and -amidst the Roman legislation, which was worked out to a -great degree of perfection, there appeared a teaching which -not only denied all the divinities,---every fear of them, -every divination and faith in them,---but also all human -institutions and every necessity for them. In the place of -all the rules of former faiths, this teaching advanced only -the model of an inner perfection of truth and of love in the -person of Christ, and the consequences of this inner -perfection, attainable by men,---the external perfection, as -predicted by the prophets,---the kingdom of God, in which -all men-, will stop warring, and all will be taught by God -and united in love, and the lion will lie with the lamb. In -place of the threats of punishments for the non-compliance -with the rules, which were made by the former laws, both -religious and political, in place of the enticement of -rewards for fulfilling them, this teaching called men to -itself only by its being the truth. John 7:17: "If any man -wants to know of this doctrine, whether it be of God, let -him fulfil it." John 8:46: "If I say the truth, why do ye -not believe me?" Why do you seek to kill a man who has told -you the truth? The truth alone will free you. God must be -professed in truth only. The whole teaching will be revealed -and will be made clear by the spirit of truth. Do what I -say, and you will know whether what I say is true. - -No proofs were given of the teaching, except the truth, -except the correspondence of the teaching with the truth. -The whole teaching consisted in the knowledge of the truth -and in following it, in a greater and ever greater -approximation to it, in matters of life. According to this -teaching, there are no acts which can justify a man, make -him righteous; there is only the model of truth which -attracts all hearts, for the inner perfection---in the -person of Christ, and for the outer---in the realization of -the kingdom of God. The fulfilment of the teaching is only -in the motion along a given path, in the approximation to -perfection,---the inner,---the imitation of Christ, and the -outer,---the establishment of the kingdom of God. A man's -greater or lesser good, according to this teaching, depends, -not on the degree of perfection which he attains, but on the -greater or lesser acceleration of motion. - -The motion toward perfection of the publican, of Zacchaeus, -of the harlot, of the robber on the cross, is, according to -this teaching, a greater good than the immovable -righteousness of the Pharisee. A sheep gone astray is more -precious than ninety-nine who have not. The prodigal son, -the lost coin which is found again, is more precious, more -loved by God than those who were not lost. - -Every condition is, according to this teaching, only a -certain step on the road toward the unattainable inner and -outer perfection, and so has no meaning. The good is only in -the motion toward perfection; but the stopping at any stage -whatsoever is only a cessation of the good. - -"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth," and -"No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking -back, is fit for the kingdom of God." "Rejoice not, that the -spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because -your names are written in heaven." - -"Be ye perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is -perfect." "Seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness." - -The fulfilment of the teaching is only in unceasing -motion,---in the attainment of a higher and ever higher -truth, and in an ever greater realization of the same in -oneself by means of an ever increasing love, and outside of -oneself by an ever greater realization of the kingdom of +Eighteen hundred years ago there appeared in the pagan Roman world a +strange, new teaching, which resembled nothing which preceded it, and +which was ascribed to the man Christ. + +This new teaching was absolutely new, both in form and in contents, for +the European world, in the midst of which it arose, and especially in +the Roman world, where it was preached and became diffused. + +Amidst the elaborateness of the religious rules of Judaism, where, +according to Isaiah, there was rule upon rule, and amidst the Roman +legislation, which was worked out to a great degree of perfection, there +appeared a teaching which not only denied all the divinities,---every +fear of them, every divination and faith in them,---but also all human +institutions and every necessity for them. In the place of all the rules +of former faiths, this teaching advanced only the model of an inner +perfection of truth and of love in the person of Christ, and the +consequences of this inner perfection, attainable by men,---the external +perfection, as predicted by the prophets,---the kingdom of God, in which +all men-, will stop warring, and all will be taught by God and united in +love, and the lion will lie with the lamb. In place of the threats of +punishments for the non-compliance with the rules, which were made by +the former laws, both religious and political, in place of the +enticement of rewards for fulfilling them, this teaching called men to +itself only by its being the truth. John 7:17: "If any man wants to know +of this doctrine, whether it be of God, let him fulfil it." John 8:46: +"If I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?" Why do you seek to kill +a man who has told you the truth? The truth alone will free you. God +must be professed in truth only. The whole teaching will be revealed and +will be made clear by the spirit of truth. Do what I say, and you will +know whether what I say is true. + +No proofs were given of the teaching, except the truth, except the +correspondence of the teaching with the truth. The whole teaching +consisted in the knowledge of the truth and in following it, in a +greater and ever greater approximation to it, in matters of life. +According to this teaching, there are no acts which can justify a man, +make him righteous; there is only the model of truth which attracts all +hearts, for the inner perfection---in the person of Christ, and for the +outer---in the realization of the kingdom of God. The fulfilment of the +teaching is only in the motion along a given path, in the approximation +to perfection,---the inner,---the imitation of Christ, and the +outer,---the establishment of the kingdom of God. A man's greater or +lesser good, according to this teaching, depends, not on the degree of +perfection which he attains, but on the greater or lesser acceleration +of motion. + +The motion toward perfection of the publican, of Zacchaeus, of the +harlot, of the robber on the cross, is, according to this teaching, a +greater good than the immovable righteousness of the Pharisee. A sheep +gone astray is more precious than ninety-nine who have not. The prodigal +son, the lost coin which is found again, is more precious, more loved by +God than those who were not lost. + +Every condition is, according to this teaching, only a certain step on +the road toward the unattainable inner and outer perfection, and so has +no meaning. The good is only in the motion toward perfection; but the +stopping at any stage whatsoever is only a cessation of the good. + +"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth," and "No man, +having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the +kingdom of God." "Rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; +but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." + +"Be ye perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." "Seek the +kingdom of God and His righteousness." + +The fulfilment of the teaching is only in unceasing motion,---in the +attainment of a higher and ever higher truth, and in an ever greater +realization of the same in oneself by means of an ever increasing love, +and outside of oneself by an ever greater realization of the kingdom of God. -It is evident that, having appeared in the midst of the -Jewish and the pagan world, this teaching could not have -been accepted by the majority of men, who lived a life -entirely different from the one which this teaching -demanded; and that it could not even be comprehended in its -full significance by those who accepted it, as it was -diametrically opposed to their former views. - -Only by a series of misconceptions, blunders, one-sided -explanations, corrected and supplemented by generations of -men, was the meaning of the Christian teaching made more and -more clear to men. The Christian world-conception affected -the Jewish and the pagan conceptions, and the Jewish and -pagan conceptions affected the Christian world-conception. -And the Christian, as being vital, penetrated the reviving -Jewish and pagan conceptions more and more, and stood forth -more and more clearly, freeing itself from the false -admixture, which was imposed upon it. Men came to comprehend -the meaning better and better, and more and more realized it -in life. - -The longer humanity lived, the more and more was the meaning -of Christianity made clear to it, as indeed it could not and -cannot be otherwise with any teaching about life. - -The subsequent generations corrected the mistakes of their -predecessors, and more and more approached the comprehension -of its true meaning. Thus it has been since the earliest -times of Christianity. And here, in the earliest times, -there appeared men, who began to assert that the meaning -which they ascribed to the teaching was the only true one, -and that as a proof of it served the supernatural phenomena -which confirmed the correctness of their comprehension. - -It was this that was the chief cause, at first, of the -failure to comprehend the teaching, and later, of its -complete corruption. - -It was assumed that Christ's teaching was not transmitted to -men like any other truth, but in a special, supernatural -manner, so that the truth of the comprehension of the -teaching was not proved by the correspondence of what was -transmitted with the demands of reason and of the whole -human nature, but by the miraculousness of the transmission, -which served as an incontrovertible proof of the correctness -of the comprehension. This proposition arose from a lack of -comprehension, and its consequence was an impossibility of -comprehending. - -This began with the very first times, when the teaching was -still understood incompletely and often perversely, as we -may see from the gospels and from the Acts. The less the -teaching was understood, the more obscurely did it present -itself, and the more necessary were the external proofs of -its veracity. The proposition about not doing unto another -what one does not wish to have done to oneself did not need -any proof by means of miracles, and there was no need for -demanding belief in this proposition, because it is -convincing in itself, in that it corresponds to both man's -reason and nature, but the proposition as to Christ being -God had to be proved by means of miracles, which are +It is evident that, having appeared in the midst of the Jewish and the +pagan world, this teaching could not have been accepted by the majority +of men, who lived a life entirely different from the one which this +teaching demanded; and that it could not even be comprehended in its +full significance by those who accepted it, as it was diametrically +opposed to their former views. + +Only by a series of misconceptions, blunders, one-sided explanations, +corrected and supplemented by generations of men, was the meaning of the +Christian teaching made more and more clear to men. The Christian +world-conception affected the Jewish and the pagan conceptions, and the +Jewish and pagan conceptions affected the Christian world-conception. +And the Christian, as being vital, penetrated the reviving Jewish and +pagan conceptions more and more, and stood forth more and more clearly, +freeing itself from the false admixture, which was imposed upon it. Men +came to comprehend the meaning better and better, and more and more +realized it in life. + +The longer humanity lived, the more and more was the meaning of +Christianity made clear to it, as indeed it could not and cannot be +otherwise with any teaching about life. + +The subsequent generations corrected the mistakes of their predecessors, +and more and more approached the comprehension of its true meaning. Thus +it has been since the earliest times of Christianity. And here, in the +earliest times, there appeared men, who began to assert that the meaning +which they ascribed to the teaching was the only true one, and that as a +proof of it served the supernatural phenomena which confirmed the +correctness of their comprehension. + +It was this that was the chief cause, at first, of the failure to +comprehend the teaching, and later, of its complete corruption. + +It was assumed that Christ's teaching was not transmitted to men like +any other truth, but in a special, supernatural manner, so that the +truth of the comprehension of the teaching was not proved by the +correspondence of what was transmitted with the demands of reason and of +the whole human nature, but by the miraculousness of the transmission, +which served as an incontrovertible proof of the correctness of the +comprehension. This proposition arose from a lack of comprehension, and +its consequence was an impossibility of comprehending. + +This began with the very first times, when the teaching was still +understood incompletely and often perversely, as we may see from the +gospels and from the Acts. The less the teaching was understood, the +more obscurely did it present itself, and the more necessary were the +external proofs of its veracity. The proposition about not doing unto +another what one does not wish to have done to oneself did not need any +proof by means of miracles, and there was no need for demanding belief +in this proposition, because it is convincing in itself, in that it +corresponds to both man's reason and nature, but the proposition as to +Christ being God had to be proved by means of miracles, which are absolutely incomprehensible. -The more obscure the comprehension of Christ's teaching was, -the more miraculous elements were mixed in with it; and the -more miraculous elements were mixed in, the more did the -teaching deviate from its meaning and become obscure; and -the more it deviated from its meaning and became obscure, -the more strongly it was necessary to assert one's -infallibility, and the less did the teaching become -comprehensible. - -We can see from the gospels, the Acts, the epistles, how -from the earliest times the failure to comprehend the -teaching called forth the necessity of proving its truth by -means of the miraculous and the incomprehensible. - -According to the Acts, this began with the meeting of the -disciples at Jerusalem, who assembled to settle the question -which had arisen as to baptizing or not baptizing the -uncircumcised who were still eating meats offered to idols. - -The very putting of the question showed that those who were -discussing it did not understand the teaching of Christ, who -rejected all external rites---ablutions, purifications, -fasts, Sabbaths. It says directly that not the things which -enter a man's mouth, but those which come out of his heart, -defile him, and so the question as to the baptism of the -uncircumcised could have arisen only among men who loved -their teacher, dimly felt His greatness, but still very -obscurely comprehended the teaching itself. And so it was. - -In proportion as the members of the assembly did not -understand the teaching, they needed an external -confirmation of their incomplete understanding. And so, to -solve the question, the very putting of which shows the -failure to comprehend the teaching, the strange words, "It -has seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us," which were in -an external manner to confirm the justice of certain -establishments, and which have caused so much evil, were, as -described in the Book of Acts, for the first time pronounced -at this meeting, that is, it was asserted that the justice -of what they decreed was testified to by the miraculous -participation of the Holy Ghost, that is, of God, in this -solution. But the assertion that the Holy Ghost, that is, -God, spoke through the apostles, had again to be proved. And -for this it was necessary to assert that on the day of -Pentecost the Holy Ghost came down in the shape of tongues -of fire on those who asserted this. (In the description the -descent of the Holy Ghost precedes the assembly, but the -Acts were written down much later than either.) But the -descent of the Holy Ghost had to be confirmed for those who -had not seen the tongues of fire (though it is -incomprehensible why a tongue of fire burning above a man's -head should prove that what a man says is an indisputable -truth), and there were needed new miracles, cures, -resurrections, putting to death, and аД those offensive -miracles, with which the Acts are filled, and which not only -can never convince a man of the truth of the Christian -teaching, but can only repel him from it. The consequence of +The more obscure the comprehension of Christ's teaching was, the more +miraculous elements were mixed in with it; and the more miraculous +elements were mixed in, the more did the teaching deviate from its +meaning and become obscure; and the more it deviated from its meaning +and became obscure, the more strongly it was necessary to assert one's +infallibility, and the less did the teaching become comprehensible. + +We can see from the gospels, the Acts, the epistles, how from the +earliest times the failure to comprehend the teaching called forth the +necessity of proving its truth by means of the miraculous and the +incomprehensible. + +According to the Acts, this began with the meeting of the disciples at +Jerusalem, who assembled to settle the question which had arisen as to +baptizing or not baptizing the uncircumcised who were still eating meats +offered to idols. + +The very putting of the question showed that those who were discussing +it did not understand the teaching of Christ, who rejected all external +rites---ablutions, purifications, fasts, Sabbaths. It says directly that +not the things which enter a man's mouth, but those which come out of +his heart, defile him, and so the question as to the baptism of the +uncircumcised could have arisen only among men who loved their teacher, +dimly felt His greatness, but still very obscurely comprehended the +teaching itself. And so it was. + +In proportion as the members of the assembly did not understand the +teaching, they needed an external confirmation of their incomplete +understanding. And so, to solve the question, the very putting of which +shows the failure to comprehend the teaching, the strange words, "It has +seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us," which were in an external +manner to confirm the justice of certain establishments, and which have +caused so much evil, were, as described in the Book of Acts, for the +first time pronounced at this meeting, that is, it was asserted that the +justice of what they decreed was testified to by the miraculous +participation of the Holy Ghost, that is, of God, in this solution. But +the assertion that the Holy Ghost, that is, God, spoke through the +apostles, had again to be proved. And for this it was necessary to +assert that on the day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost came down in the +shape of tongues of fire on those who asserted this. (In the description +the descent of the Holy Ghost precedes the assembly, but the Acts were +written down much later than either.) But the descent of the Holy Ghost +had to be confirmed for those who had not seen the tongues of fire +(though it is incomprehensible why a tongue of fire burning above a +man's head should prove that what a man says is an indisputable truth), +and there were needed new miracles, cures, resurrections, putting to +death, and аД those offensive miracles, with which the Acts are filled, +and which not only can never convince a man of the truth of the +Christian teaching, but can only repel him from it. The consequence of such a method of confirmation was this, that the more these -confirmations of the truth by means of stories of miracles -heaped up upon one another, the more did the teaching itself -depart from its original meaning, and the less -comprehensible did it become. - -Thus it has been since the earliest times, and it has been -increasingly so all the time, until it logically reached in -our time the dogmas of the tran substantiation and of the -infallibility of the Pope, or of the bishops, or of the -writings, that is, something absolutely incomprehensible, -which has reached the point of absurdity and the demand for -a blind faith, not in God, not in Christ, not even in the -teaching, but in a person, as is the case in Catholicism, or -in several persons, as in Orthodoxy, or in a book, as in -Protestantism. The more Christianity became diffused, and -the greater was the crowd of unprepared men which it -embraced, the less it was understood, the more definitely -was the infallibility of the comprehension asserted, and the -less did it become possible to understand the true meaning -of the teaching. As early as the time of Constantine the -whole comprehension of the teaching was reduced to a resume, -confirmed by the worldly power,---a resume of disputes which -took place in a council,---to a symbol of faith, in which it -says, I believe in so and so, and so and so, and finally, in -the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, that is, in -the infallibility of those persons who call themselves the -church, so that everything was reduced to this, that a man -no longer believes in God, nor in Christ, as they have been -revealed to him, but in what the church commands him to -believe. - -But the church is holy,---the church was founded by Christ. -God could not have left it to men to give an arbitrary -interpretation to His teaching,---and so He established the -church. All these expositions are to such an extent unjust -and bold that one feels some compunction in overthrowing -them. - -There is nothing but the assertion of the churches to show -that God or Christ founded anything resembling what the -churchmen understand by church. - -In the Gospel there is an indication against the church, as -an external authority, and this indication is most obvious -and clear in that place where it says that Christ's -disciples should not call any one teachers and fathers. But -nowhere is there anything said about the establishment of -what the churchmen call a church. - -In the gospels the word "church" is used twice,---once, in -the sense of an assembly of men deciding a dispute; the -other time, in connection with the obscure words about the -rock, Peter, and the gates of hell. From these two mentions -of the word "church," which has the meaning of nothing but -an assembly, they deduce what we now understand by the word +confirmations of the truth by means of stories of miracles heaped up +upon one another, the more did the teaching itself depart from its +original meaning, and the less comprehensible did it become. + +Thus it has been since the earliest times, and it has been increasingly +so all the time, until it logically reached in our time the dogmas of +the tran substantiation and of the infallibility of the Pope, or of the +bishops, or of the writings, that is, something absolutely +incomprehensible, which has reached the point of absurdity and the +demand for a blind faith, not in God, not in Christ, not even in the +teaching, but in a person, as is the case in Catholicism, or in several +persons, as in Orthodoxy, or in a book, as in Protestantism. The more +Christianity became diffused, and the greater was the crowd of +unprepared men which it embraced, the less it was understood, the more +definitely was the infallibility of the comprehension asserted, and the +less did it become possible to understand the true meaning of the +teaching. As early as the time of Constantine the whole comprehension of +the teaching was reduced to a resume, confirmed by the worldly +power,---a resume of disputes which took place in a council,---to a +symbol of faith, in which it says, I believe in so and so, and so and +so, and finally, in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, that +is, in the infallibility of those persons who call themselves the +church, so that everything was reduced to this, that a man no longer +believes in God, nor in Christ, as they have been revealed to him, but +in what the church commands him to believe. + +But the church is holy,---the church was founded by Christ. God could +not have left it to men to give an arbitrary interpretation to His +teaching,---and so He established the church. All these expositions are +to such an extent unjust and bold that one feels some compunction in +overthrowing them. + +There is nothing but the assertion of the churches to show that God or +Christ founded anything resembling what the churchmen understand by +church. + +In the Gospel there is an indication against the church, as an external +authority, and this indication is most obvious and clear in that place +where it says that Christ's disciples should not call any one teachers +and fathers. But nowhere is there anything said about the establishment +of what the churchmen call a church. + +In the gospels the word "church" is used twice,---once, in the sense of +an assembly of men deciding a dispute; the other time, in connection +with the obscure words about the rock, Peter, and the gates of hell. +From these two mentions of the word "church," which has the meaning of +nothing but an assembly, they deduce what we now understand by the word "church." -But Christ could certainly not have founded a church, that -is, what we now understand by the word, because neither in -Christ's words, nor in the conceptions of the men of that -time, was there anything resembling the concept of a church, -as we know it now, with its sacraments, its hierarchy, and, -above all, its assertion of infallibility. - -The fact that men named what was formed later by the same -word which Christ had used in respect to something else, -does in no way give them the right to assert that Christ -established the one, true church. - -Besides, if Christ had really founded such an institution as -the church, on which the whole doctrine and the whole faith -are based, He would most likely have expressed this -establishment in such definite and clear words, and would -have given the one, true church, outside of the stories +But Christ could certainly not have founded a church, that is, what we +now understand by the word, because neither in Christ's words, nor in +the conceptions of the men of that time, was there anything resembling +the concept of a church, as we know it now, with its sacraments, its +hierarchy, and, above all, its assertion of infallibility. + +The fact that men named what was formed later by the same word which +Christ had used in respect to something else, does in no way give them +the right to assert that Christ established the one, true church. + +Besides, if Christ had really founded such an institution as the church, +on which the whole doctrine and the whole faith are based, He would most +likely have expressed this establishment in such definite and clear +words, and would have given the one, true church, outside of the stories about the miracles, which are used in connection with every -superstition, such signs as to leave no doubts concerning -its authenticity; there is nothing of the kind, but there -are now, as there have been, all kinds of institutions -which, each of them, call themselves the one, true church. - -The Catholic catechism says: "*L'église est la société de -fideles établie par notre Seigneur Jesus-Christ, répandue -sur toute la terre et soumise à l'autorité des pasteurs -légitimes, principalement notre Saint Père---le Pape*" -meaning by "*pasteurs légitimes*" a human institution, which -has the Pope at its head and which is composed of certain -persons who are connected among themselves by a certain -organization. - -The Orthodox catechism says: "The church is a society, -established by Jesus Christ upon earth, united among -themselves into one whole by the one, divine teaching and -the sacraments, under the guidance and management of the -God-established hierarchy," meaning by "God-established -hierarchy" the Greek hierarchy, which is composed of such -and such persons, who are to be found in such and such -places. - -The Lutheran catechism says: "The church is holy -Christianity, or an assembly of all believers, under Christ, -their chief, in which the Holy Ghost through the Gospel and -the sacraments offers, communicates, and secures divine -salvation," meaning, by this, that the Catholic Church has -gone astray and has fallen away, and that the true tradition -is preserved in Lutheranism. - -For the Catholics the divine church coincides with the Roman -hierarchy and the Pope. For the Greek Orthodox the divine -church coincides with the establishment of the Eastern and -the Russian Church.[^1] For the Lutherans the divine church -coincides with the assembly of men who recognize the Bible -and Luther's catechism. - -Speaking of the origin of Christianity, men who belong to -one or the other of the existing churches generally use the -word "church" in the singular, as though there has been but -one church. But this is quite untrue. The church, as an -institution which asserts of itself that it is in possession -of the unquestionable truth, appeared only when it was not +superstition, such signs as to leave no doubts concerning its +authenticity; there is nothing of the kind, but there are now, as there +have been, all kinds of institutions which, each of them, call +themselves the one, true church. + +The Catholic catechism says: "*L'église est la société de fideles +établie par notre Seigneur Jesus-Christ, répandue sur toute la terre et +soumise à l'autorité des pasteurs légitimes, principalement notre Saint +Père---le Pape*" meaning by "*pasteurs légitimes*" a human institution, +which has the Pope at its head and which is composed of certain persons +who are connected among themselves by a certain organization. + +The Orthodox catechism says: "The church is a society, established by +Jesus Christ upon earth, united among themselves into one whole by the +one, divine teaching and the sacraments, under the guidance and +management of the God-established hierarchy," meaning by +"God-established hierarchy" the Greek hierarchy, which is composed of +such and such persons, who are to be found in such and such places. + +The Lutheran catechism says: "The church is holy Christianity, or an +assembly of all believers, under Christ, their chief, in which the Holy +Ghost through the Gospel and the sacraments offers, communicates, and +secures divine salvation," meaning, by this, that the Catholic Church +has gone astray and has fallen away, and that the true tradition is +preserved in Lutheranism. + +For the Catholics the divine church coincides with the Roman hierarchy +and the Pope. For the Greek Orthodox the divine church coincides with +the establishment of the Eastern and the Russian Church.[^1] For the +Lutherans the divine church coincides with the assembly of men who +recognize the Bible and Luther's catechism. + +Speaking of the origin of Christianity, men who belong to one or the +other of the existing churches generally use the word "church" in the +singular, as though there has been but one church. But this is quite +untrue. The church, as an institution which asserts of itself that it is +in possession of the unquestionable truth, appeared only when it was not alone, but there were at least two of them. -So long as the believers agreed among themselves, and the -assembly was one, it had no need of asserting that it was -the church. Only when the believers divided into opposite -parties, which denied one another, did there appear the -necessity for each side to assert its authenticity, -ascribing infallibility to itself. The concept of the one -church arose only from this, that, when two sides disagreed -and quarrelled, each of them, calling the other a heresy, -recognized only its own as the infallible church. - -If we know that there was a church, which in the year 51 -decided to receive the uncircumcised, this church made its -appearance only because there was an other church, that of -the Judaizing, which had decided not to receive the -uncircumcised. - -If there now is a Catholic Church, which asserts its -infallibility, it does this only because there are the -Graeco-Russian, Orthodox, Lutheran Churches, each of which -asserts its own infallibility, and thus rejects all the -other churches. Thus the one church is only a fantastic +So long as the believers agreed among themselves, and the assembly was +one, it had no need of asserting that it was the church. Only when the +believers divided into opposite parties, which denied one another, did +there appear the necessity for each side to assert its authenticity, +ascribing infallibility to itself. The concept of the one church arose +only from this, that, when two sides disagreed and quarrelled, each of +them, calling the other a heresy, recognized only its own as the +infallible church. + +If we know that there was a church, which in the year 51 decided to +receive the uncircumcised, this church made its appearance only because +there was an other church, that of the Judaizing, which had decided not +to receive the uncircumcised. + +If there now is a Catholic Church, which asserts its infallibility, it +does this only because there are the Graeco-Russian, Orthodox, Lutheran +Churches, each of which asserts its own infallibility, and thus rejects +all the other churches. Thus the one church is only a fantastic conception, which has not the slightest sign of reality. -As an actual, historical phenomenon there have existed only -many assemblies of men, each of which has asserted that it -is the one church, established by Christ, and that all the -others, which call themselves churches, are heresies and -schisms. - -The catechisms of the most widely diffused churches, the -Catholic, the Orthodox, and the Lutheran, say so outright. - -In the Catholic catechism it says: "*Quels sont ceux, qui -sont hors de l'église? Les infidèles, les hérétiques, les -schismatiques.*" As schismatics are regarded the so-called -Orthodox. The Lutherans are considered to be heretics; thus, -according to the Catholic catechism, the Catholics alone are -in the church. - -In the so-called Orthodox catechism it says: "By the one -church of Christ is meant nothing but the Orthodox, which -remains in complete agreement with the ecumenical church. -But as to the Roman Church and the other confessions" (the -church does not even mention the Lutherans and others), -"they cannot be referred to the one, true church, since they +As an actual, historical phenomenon there have existed only many +assemblies of men, each of which has asserted that it is the one church, +established by Christ, and that all the others, which call themselves +churches, are heresies and schisms. + +The catechisms of the most widely diffused churches, the Catholic, the +Orthodox, and the Lutheran, say so outright. + +In the Catholic catechism it says: "*Quels sont ceux, qui sont hors de +l'église? Les infidèles, les hérétiques, les schismatiques.*" As +schismatics are regarded the so-called Orthodox. The Lutherans are +considered to be heretics; thus, according to the Catholic catechism, +the Catholics alone are in the church. + +In the so-called Orthodox catechism it says: "By the one church of +Christ is meant nothing but the Orthodox, which remains in complete +agreement with the ecumenical church. But as to the Roman Church and the +other confessions" (the church does not even mention the Lutherans and +others), "they cannot be referred to the one, true church, since they have themselves separated from it." -According to this definition the Catholics and Lutherans are -outside the church, and in the church are only the Orthodox. - -But the Lutheran catechism runs as follows: "*Die wahre -Kirche wird daran erkannt, dass in ihr das Wort Gottes -lauter und rein ohne Menschenzusätze gelehrt und die -Sacramente treu nach Christi Einsetzung gewahrt werden.*" - -According to this definition, all those who have added -anything to the teaching of Christ and the apostles, as the -Catholic and Greek Churches have done, are outside the -church. And in the church are only the Protestants. - -The Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost has uninterruptedly -operated in their hierarchy; the Orthodox assert that the -same Holy Ghost has operated in their hierarchy; the Arians -asserted that the Holy Ghost operated in their hierarchy -(this they asserted with as much right as the now ruling -churches assert it); the Protestants of every description, -Lutherans, Reformers, Presbyterians, Methodists, -Swedenborgians, Mormons, assert that the Holy Ghost operates -only in their assemblies. - -If the Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost during the -division of the Arian and of the Greek Churches left the -apostatizing churches and remained only in the one, true -church, the Protestants of every denomination can with the -same right assert that during the separation of their church -from the Catholic the Holy Ghost left the Catholic Church -and passed over to the one which they recognize. And so they -do. +According to this definition the Catholics and Lutherans are outside the +church, and in the church are only the Orthodox. + +But the Lutheran catechism runs as follows: "*Die wahre Kirche wird +daran erkannt, dass in ihr das Wort Gottes lauter und rein ohne +Menschenzusätze gelehrt und die Sacramente treu nach Christi Einsetzung +gewahrt werden.*" + +According to this definition, all those who have added anything to the +teaching of Christ and the apostles, as the Catholic and Greek Churches +have done, are outside the church. And in the church are only the +Protestants. + +The Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost has uninterruptedly operated in +their hierarchy; the Orthodox assert that the same Holy Ghost has +operated in their hierarchy; the Arians asserted that the Holy Ghost +operated in their hierarchy (this they asserted with as much right as +the now ruling churches assert it); the Protestants of every +description, Lutherans, Reformers, Presbyterians, Methodists, +Swedenborgians, Mormons, assert that the Holy Ghost operates only in +their assemblies. + +If the Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost during the division of the +Arian and of the Greek Churches left the apostatizing churches and +remained only in the one, true church, the Protestants of every +denomination can with the same right assert that during the separation +of their church from the Catholic the Holy Ghost left the Catholic +Church and passed over to the one which they recognize. And so they do. + +Every church deduces its profession through an uninterrupted tradition +from Christ and the apostles. And, indeed, every Christian confession, +arising from Christ, must have inevitably reached the present generation +through a certain tradition. But this does not prove that any one of +these traditions, excluding all the others, is indubitably the correct +one. + +Every twig on the tree goes uninterruptedly back to the root; but the +fact that every twig comes from the same root does in no way prove that +there is but one twig. The same is true of the churches. Every church +offers precisely the same proofs of its succession and even of the +miracles in favour of its own authenticity; thus there is but one strict +and precise definition of what the church is (not as something +fantastic, which we should like it to be, but as something which in +reality exists), and this is: the church is an assembly of men, who +assert that they, and they only, are in the full possession of the +truth. -Every church deduces its profession through an uninterrupted -tradition from Christ and the apostles. And, indeed, every -Christian confession, arising from Christ, must have -inevitably reached the present generation through a certain -tradition. But this does not prove that any one of these -traditions, excluding all the others, is indubitably the -correct one. - -Every twig on the tree goes uninterruptedly back to the -root; but the fact that every twig comes from the same root -does in no way prove that there is but one twig. The same is -true of the churches. Every church offers precisely the same -proofs of its succession and even of the miracles in favour -of its own authenticity; thus there is but one strict and -precise definition of what the church is (not as something -fantastic, which we should like it to be, but as something -which in reality exists), and this is: the church is an -assembly of men, who assert that they, and they only, are in -the full possession of the truth. - -It was these assemblies, which later on, with the aid of the -support of the temporal power, passed into mighty -institutions, that were the chief impediments in the -dissemination of the true comprehension of Christ's +It was these assemblies, which later on, with the aid of the support of +the temporal power, passed into mighty institutions, that were the chief +impediments in the dissemination of the true comprehension of Christ's teaching. -Nor could it be otherwise: the chief peculiarity of Christ's -teaching, as distinguished from all the former teachings, -consisted in this, that the men who accepted it tried more -and more to understand and fulfil the teaching, whereas the -church doctrine asserted the full and final comprehension -and fulfilment of this teaching. - -However strange it may seem to us people educated in the -false doctrine about the church as a Christian institution, -and in the contempt for heresy, it was only in what is -called heresy that there was true motion, that is, true -Christianity, and it ceased to be such when it stopped its -motion in these heresies and became itself arrested in the -immovable forms of the church. - -Indeed, what is a heresy? Read all the theological works -which treat about heresies, a subject which is the first to -present itself for definition, since every theology speaks -of the true teaching amidst the surrounding false teachings, -that is, heresies, and you will nowhere find anything -resembling a definition of heresy. - -As a specimen of that complete absence of any semblance of a -definition of what is understood by the word "heresy" may -serve the opinion on this subject expressed by the learned -historian of Christianity, E. de Pressensé, in his *Histoire -du Dogme*, with the epigraph, "*Ubi Christies, ibi -Ecclesia*" (Paris, 1869). This is what he says in his -introduction: "*Je sais que Von nous conteste le droit de -califier ainsi"* that is, to call heresies"*les tendances -qui furent si vivement combattues par les premiers Peres. La -désignation même d'hérésie semble une atteinte portée à la -liberté de conscience et de pensée. Nous ne pouvons partager -ces scrupules, car ils n'iraient à rien moins qu'à, enlever -au christianisme tout caractère distinctif.*" - -And after saying that after Constantine the church actually -misused its power in denning the dissenters as heretics and -persecuting them, he passes judgment on the early times and -says: - -"*L'église est une libre association; il у a tout profit à, -se séparer d'elle. La polémique contre l'erreur n'a d'autres -resources que la pensée et le sentiment. Un type doctrinal -uniforme na pas encore été élaboré; les divergences -secondaires se produisent en Orient et en Occident avec une -entière liberté, la théologie n'est point liée à -d'invariables formules. Si au sein de cette diversité -apparaît un fond commun de croyances, n'est-on pas en droit -d'y voir поп pas un système formule et compose par les -représentants d'une autorité d'ecole, mais la foi elle même, -dans son instinct le plus sur et sa manifestation la plus -spontanée? Si cette même unanimité qui se révèle dans les -croyances essentielles, se retrouve pour repousser telles ou -telles tendances, ne seront-nous pas en droit de conclure -que ces tendances étaient en disaccord flagrant avec les -principes fondamentaux du christianisme? Cette présomption -ne se transformera-t-elle pas en certitude si nous -reconnaissons dans la doctrine universellement repoussée par -l'église les traits caractéristiques de l'une des religions -du passé? Pour dire que le gnosticisme ou l'ebionitisme sont -les formes légitimes de la pensee chrétienne, il faut dire -hardiment qxCil n'y a pas de pensee chrétienne, ni de -caractère spécifique qui la fasse reconnaître. Sous prétexte -de l'élargir on la dissent. Personne, au temps de Platon, -n'eut osé de couvrir de son nom une doctrine qui n'eut pas -fait place a la théorie des idles, et l'on eut excite les -justes moqueries de la Grèce, en voulant faire d'Epicure ou -de Zénon un disciple de l'Academic. Reconnaissons donc que -s'il existe une religion et une doctrine qui s'appelle le -christianisme elle peut avoir ses hérésies.*" - -The whole discussion of the author reduces itself to this, -that every opinion which is not in agreement with a code of -dogmas professed by us at a given time is a heresy; but at a -given time and in a given place people profess something, -and this profession of something in some place cannot be a -criterion of the truth. - -Everything reduces itself to this, that "*Ubi Christus, ibi -Ecclesia;*" but Christ is where we are. Every so-called -heresy, by recognizing as the truth what it professes, can -in a similar manner find in the history of the churches a -consistent explanation of what it professes, using for -itself all the arguments of De Pressense and calling only -its own confession truly Christian, precisely what all the -heresies have been doing. - -The only definition of heresy (the word *αίρεσις* means -*part*) is the name given by an assembly of men to every -judgment which rejects part of the teaching, as professed by -the assembly. A more particular meaning, which more -frequently than any other is ascribed to heresy, is that of -an opinion which rejects the church doctrine, as established -and supported by the worldly power. - -There is a remarkable, little known, very large work -(*Unpartheyische Kirchen und Ketzer-Historia*, 1729), by -Gottfried Arnold, which treats directly on this subject and -which shows all the illegality, arbitrariness, -senselessness, and cruelty of using the word "heresy" in the -sense of rejection. This book is an attempt at describing -the history of Christianity in the form of a history of the -heresies. - -In the introduction the author puts a number of questions: -(1) regarding those who make heretics (*von den -Ketzermachern selbst*); (2) concerning those who were made -heretics; (3) concerning the subjects of heresy; (4) -concerning the method of making heretics, and (5) concerning -the aims and consequences of making heretics. - -In connection with each of these points he puts dozens of -questions, answers to which he later gives from the works of -well-known theologians, but he chiefly leaves it to the -reader himself to make the deduction from the exposition of -the whole book. I shall quote the following as samples of -these questions, which partly contain the answers. In -reference to the fourth point, as to how heretics are made, -he says in one of his questions (the seventh): "Does not all -history show that the greatest makers of heretics and the -masters of this work were those same wise men from whom the -Father has hidden His secrets, that is, the hypocrites, -Pharisees, and lawyers, or entirely godless and corrupt -people?" Questions 20 and 21: "And did not, in the most -corrupt times of Christianity, the hypocrites and envious -people reject those very men who were particularly endowed -by God with great gifts, and who in the time of pure -Christianity would have been highly esteemed? And, on the -contrary, would not these men, who during the decadence of -Christianity elevated themselves above everything and -recognized themselves to be the teachers of the purest -Christianity, have been recognized, in apostolic times, as -the basest heretics and antichristians?" - -Expressing in these questions this thought, among others, -that the verbal expression of the essence of faith, which -was demanded by the church, and a departure from which was -considered a heresy, could never completely cover the -world-conception of the believer, and that, therefore, the -demand for an expression of faith by means of particular -words was the cause of heresy, he says, in Questions 21 and -33: - -"And if the divine acts and thoughts present themselves to a -man as so great and profound that he does not find -corresponding words in which to express them, must he be -recognized as a heretic, if he is not able precisely to -express his ideas? And is not this true, that in the early -times there was no heresy, because the Christians did not -judge one another according to verbal expressions, but -according to the heart and acts, in connection with a -complete liberty of expression, without fear of being -recognized as a heretic? Was it not a very common and easy -method with the church," he says in Question 21, "when the -clergy wanted to get rid of a person or ruin him, to make -him suspected as regards his doctrine and to throw over him -the cloak of heresy, and thus to condemn and remove him? - -"Though it is true that amidst the so-called heretics there -were errors and sins, yet it is not less true and obvious -from the numberless examples here adduced"(that is, in the -history of the church and of heresy), he says farther on, -"that there has not been a single sincere and conscientious -man with some standing who has not been ruined by the +Nor could it be otherwise: the chief peculiarity of Christ's teaching, +as distinguished from all the former teachings, consisted in this, that +the men who accepted it tried more and more to understand and fulfil the +teaching, whereas the church doctrine asserted the full and final +comprehension and fulfilment of this teaching. + +However strange it may seem to us people educated in the false doctrine +about the church as a Christian institution, and in the contempt for +heresy, it was only in what is called heresy that there was true motion, +that is, true Christianity, and it ceased to be such when it stopped its +motion in these heresies and became itself arrested in the immovable +forms of the church. + +Indeed, what is a heresy? Read all the theological works which treat +about heresies, a subject which is the first to present itself for +definition, since every theology speaks of the true teaching amidst the +surrounding false teachings, that is, heresies, and you will nowhere +find anything resembling a definition of heresy. + +As a specimen of that complete absence of any semblance of a definition +of what is understood by the word "heresy" may serve the opinion on this +subject expressed by the learned historian of Christianity, E. de +Pressensé, in his *Histoire du Dogme*, with the epigraph, "*Ubi +Christies, ibi Ecclesia*" (Paris, 1869). This is what he says in his +introduction: "*Je sais que Von nous conteste le droit de califier +ainsi"* that is, to call heresies"*les tendances qui furent si vivement +combattues par les premiers Peres. La désignation même d'hérésie semble +une atteinte portée à la liberté de conscience et de pensée. Nous ne +pouvons partager ces scrupules, car ils n'iraient à rien moins qu'à, +enlever au christianisme tout caractère distinctif.*" + +And after saying that after Constantine the church actually misused its +power in denning the dissenters as heretics and persecuting them, he +passes judgment on the early times and says: + +"*L'église est une libre association; il у a tout profit à, se séparer +d'elle. La polémique contre l'erreur n'a d'autres resources que la +pensée et le sentiment. Un type doctrinal uniforme na pas encore été +élaboré; les divergences secondaires se produisent en Orient et en +Occident avec une entière liberté, la théologie n'est point liée à +d'invariables formules. Si au sein de cette diversité apparaît un fond +commun de croyances, n'est-on pas en droit d'y voir поп pas un système +formule et compose par les représentants d'une autorité d'ecole, mais la +foi elle même, dans son instinct le plus sur et sa manifestation la plus +spontanée? Si cette même unanimité qui se révèle dans les croyances +essentielles, se retrouve pour repousser telles ou telles tendances, ne +seront-nous pas en droit de conclure que ces tendances étaient en +disaccord flagrant avec les principes fondamentaux du christianisme? +Cette présomption ne se transformera-t-elle pas en certitude si nous +reconnaissons dans la doctrine universellement repoussée par l'église +les traits caractéristiques de l'une des religions du passé? Pour dire +que le gnosticisme ou l'ebionitisme sont les formes légitimes de la +pensee chrétienne, il faut dire hardiment qxCil n'y a pas de pensee +chrétienne, ni de caractère spécifique qui la fasse reconnaître. Sous +prétexte de l'élargir on la dissent. Personne, au temps de Platon, n'eut +osé de couvrir de son nom une doctrine qui n'eut pas fait place a la +théorie des idles, et l'on eut excite les justes moqueries de la Grèce, +en voulant faire d'Epicure ou de Zénon un disciple de l'Academic. +Reconnaissons donc que s'il existe une religion et une doctrine qui +s'appelle le christianisme elle peut avoir ses hérésies.*" + +The whole discussion of the author reduces itself to this, that every +opinion which is not in agreement with a code of dogmas professed by us +at a given time is a heresy; but at a given time and in a given place +people profess something, and this profession of something in some place +cannot be a criterion of the truth. + +Everything reduces itself to this, that "*Ubi Christus, ibi Ecclesia;*" +but Christ is where we are. Every so-called heresy, by recognizing as +the truth what it professes, can in a similar manner find in the history +of the churches a consistent explanation of what it professes, using for +itself all the arguments of De Pressense and calling only its own +confession truly Christian, precisely what all the heresies have been +doing. + +The only definition of heresy (the word *αίρεσις* means *part*) is the +name given by an assembly of men to every judgment which rejects part of +the teaching, as professed by the assembly. A more particular meaning, +which more frequently than any other is ascribed to heresy, is that of +an opinion which rejects the church doctrine, as established and +supported by the worldly power. + +There is a remarkable, little known, very large work (*Unpartheyische +Kirchen und Ketzer-Historia*, 1729), by Gottfried Arnold, which treats +directly on this subject and which shows all the illegality, +arbitrariness, senselessness, and cruelty of using the word "heresy" in +the sense of rejection. This book is an attempt at describing the +history of Christianity in the form of a history of the heresies. + +In the introduction the author puts a number of questions: (1) regarding +those who make heretics (*von den Ketzermachern selbst*); (2) concerning +those who were made heretics; (3) concerning the subjects of heresy; (4) +concerning the method of making heretics, and (5) concerning the aims +and consequences of making heretics. + +In connection with each of these points he puts dozens of questions, +answers to which he later gives from the works of well-known +theologians, but he chiefly leaves it to the reader himself to make the +deduction from the exposition of the whole book. I shall quote the +following as samples of these questions, which partly contain the +answers. In reference to the fourth point, as to how heretics are made, +he says in one of his questions (the seventh): "Does not all history +show that the greatest makers of heretics and the masters of this work +were those same wise men from whom the Father has hidden His secrets, +that is, the hypocrites, Pharisees, and lawyers, or entirely godless and +corrupt people?" Questions 20 and 21: "And did not, in the most corrupt +times of Christianity, the hypocrites and envious people reject those +very men who were particularly endowed by God with great gifts, and who +in the time of pure Christianity would have been highly esteemed? And, +on the contrary, would not these men, who during the decadence of +Christianity elevated themselves above everything and recognized +themselves to be the teachers of the purest Christianity, have been +recognized, in apostolic times, as the basest heretics and +antichristians?" + +Expressing in these questions this thought, among others, that the +verbal expression of the essence of faith, which was demanded by the +church, and a departure from which was considered a heresy, could never +completely cover the world-conception of the believer, and that, +therefore, the demand for an expression of faith by means of particular +words was the cause of heresy, he says, in Questions 21 and 33: + +"And if the divine acts and thoughts present themselves to a man as so +great and profound that he does not find corresponding words in which to +express them, must he be recognized as a heretic, if he is not able +precisely to express his ideas? And is not this true, that in the early +times there was no heresy, because the Christians did not judge one +another according to verbal expressions, but according to the heart and +acts, in connection with a complete liberty of expression, without fear +of being recognized as a heretic? Was it not a very common and easy +method with the church," he says in Question 21, "when the clergy wanted +to get rid of a person or ruin him, to make him suspected as regards his +doctrine and to throw over him the cloak of heresy, and thus to condemn +and remove him? + +"Though it is true that amidst the so-called heretics there were errors +and sins, yet it is not less true and obvious from the numberless +examples here adduced"(that is, in the history of the church and of +heresy), he says farther on, "that there has not been a single sincere +and conscientious man with some standing who has not been ruined by the churchmen out of envy or for other causes." -Thus, nearly two hundred years ago, was the significance of -heresy understood, and yet this conception continues to -exist until the present time. Nor can it fail to exist, so -long as there is a concept of the church. Heresy is the -reverse of the church. Where there is the church, there is -also heresy. The church is an assembly of men asserting that -they are in possession of the indisputable truth. Heresy is -the opinion of people who do not recognize the -indisputableness of the church truth. - -Heresy is a manifestation of motion in the church, an -attempt at destroying the ossified assertion of the church, -an attempt at a living comprehension of the teaching. Every -step of moving forward, of comprehending and fulfilling the -teaching has been accomplished by the heretics: such -heretics were Tertullian, and Origen, and Augustine, and -Luther, and Huss, and Savonarola, and Chelcicky, and others. -Nor could it be otherwise. - -A disciple of Christ, whose teaching consists in an -eternally greater and greater comprehension of the teaching -and in a greater and greater fulfilment of it, in a motion -toward perfection, cannot, for the very reason that he is a -disciple of Christ, assert concerning himself or concerning -any one else, that he fully understands Christ's teaching -and fulfils it; still less can he assert this concerning any -assembly. - -No matter at what stage of comprehension and perfection a -disciple of Christ may be, he always feels the insufficiency -of his comprehension and of his fulfilment, and always -strives after a greater comprehension and fulfilment. And so -the assertion about myself or about an assembly, that I, or -we, possess the complete comprehension of Christ's teaching, -and completely fulfil it, is a renunciation of the spirit of -Christ's teaching. +Thus, nearly two hundred years ago, was the significance of heresy +understood, and yet this conception continues to exist until the present +time. Nor can it fail to exist, so long as there is a concept of the +church. Heresy is the reverse of the church. Where there is the church, +there is also heresy. The church is an assembly of men asserting that +they are in possession of the indisputable truth. Heresy is the opinion +of people who do not recognize the indisputableness of the church truth. + +Heresy is a manifestation of motion in the church, an attempt at +destroying the ossified assertion of the church, an attempt at a living +comprehension of the teaching. Every step of moving forward, of +comprehending and fulfilling the teaching has been accomplished by the +heretics: such heretics were Tertullian, and Origen, and Augustine, and +Luther, and Huss, and Savonarola, and Chelcicky, and others. Nor could +it be otherwise. + +A disciple of Christ, whose teaching consists in an eternally greater +and greater comprehension of the teaching and in a greater and greater +fulfilment of it, in a motion toward perfection, cannot, for the very +reason that he is a disciple of Christ, assert concerning himself or +concerning any one else, that he fully understands Christ's teaching and +fulfils it; still less can he assert this concerning any assembly. + +No matter at what stage of comprehension and perfection a disciple of +Christ may be, he always feels the insufficiency of his comprehension +and of his fulfilment, and always strives after a greater comprehension +and fulfilment. And so the assertion about myself or about an assembly, +that I, or we, possess the complete comprehension of Christ's teaching, +and completely fulfil it, is a renunciation of the spirit of Christ's +teaching. -No matter how strange this may seem, the churches, as -churches, have always been, and cannot help but be, -institutions that are not only foreign, but even directly -hostile, to Christ's teaching. With good reason Voltaire -called the church "*l'infâme;*" with good reason all, or -nearly all, the Christian so-called sects have recognized -the church to be that whore of whom Revelation prophesies; -with good reason the history of the church is the history of -the greatest cruelties and horrors. - -The churches, as churches, are not certain institutions -which have at their base the Christian principle, though -slightly deviated from the straight path, as some think; the -churches, as churches, as assemblies, which assert their -infallibility, are antichristian institutions. Between the -churches, as churches, and Christianity there is not only -nothing in common but the name, but they are two absolutely -divergent and mutually hostile principles. One is pride, -violence, self-assertion, immobility, and death; the other -is meekness, repentance, humility, motion, and life. - -It is impossible at the same time to serve both -masters,---one or the other has to be chosen. - -The servants of the churches of all denominations have -tried, especially of late, to appear as advocates of motion -in Christianity; they make concessions, wish to mend the -abuses which have stolen into the church, and say that for -the sake of the abuses we ought not to deny the principle of -the Christian church itself, which alone can unite all men -and be a mediator between men and God. But all this is not -true. The churches have not only never united, but have -always been one of the chief causes of the disunion of men, -of the hatred of one another, of wars, slaughters, -inquisitions, nights of St. Bartholomew, and so forth, and -the churches never serve as mediators between men and God, -which is, indeed, unnecessary and is directly forbidden by -Christ, who has revealed the teaching directly to every man, -and they put up dead forms in the place of God, and not only -fail to reveal God to man, but even conceal Him from them. -Churches which have arisen from the failure to comprehend, -and which maintain this lack of comprehension by their -immobility, cannot help persecuting and oppressing every -comprehension of the teaching. They try to conceal this, but -this is impossible, because every motion forward along the -path indicated by Christ destroys their existence. - -As one hears and reads the articles and sermons, in which -the church writers of modern times of all denominations -speak of Christian truths and virtues, as one hears and -reads these clever discussions, admonitions, confessions, -which have been worked out by the ages, and which sometimes -look very much as though they were sincere, one is prepared -to doubt that the churches could be hostile to Christianity: -"It certainly cannot be that these people, who have produced -such men as Chrysostom, Fenelon, Butler, and other preachers -of Christianity, should be hostile to it." One feels like -saying: "The churches may have deviated from Christianity, -may be in error, but cannot be hostile to it." But as one -looks at the fruits, in order to judge the tree, as Christ -has taught us to do, and sees that their fruits have been -evil, that the consequence of their activity has been the -distortion of Christianity, one cannot help but feel that, -no matter how good the men have been, the cause of the -churches in which they have taken part has not been -Christian. The goodness and the deserts of all these men, -who served the churches, were the goodness and the deserts -of men, but not of the cause which they served. All these -good men---like Francis d'Assisi and Francis de Lobes, our -Tikhon Zadonski, Thomas à Kempis, and others---were good -men, in spite of their having served a cause which is -hostile to Christianity, and they would have been better and -more deserving still, if they had not succumbed to the error -which they served. - -But why speak of the past, judge of the past, which may have -been falsely represented to us? The churches with their -foundations and with their activity are not a work of the -past: the churches are now before us, and we can judge of -them directly, by their activity, their influence upon men. - -In what does the activity of the churches now consist? How -do they act upon men? What do the churches do in our -country, among the Catholics, among the Protestants of every -denomination? In what does their activity consist, and what -are the consequences of their activity? - -The activity of our Russian, so-called Orthodox, Church is -in full sight. It is a vast fact, which cannot be concealed, -and about which there can be no dispute. - -In what consists the activity of tins Russian Church, this -enormous, tensely active institution, which consists of an -army of half a million, costing the nation tens of millions? - -The activity of this church consists in using every possible -means for the purpose of instilling in the one hundred -millions of the Russian population those obsolete, backward -faiths, which now have no justification whatsoever, and -which sometime in the past were professed by people that are -alien to our nation, and in which hardly any one now -believes, frequently even not those whose duty it is to -disseminate these false doctrines. - -The inculcation of these alien, obsolete formulas of the -Byzantine clergy, which no longer have any meaning for the -men of our time, about the Trinity, the Holy Virgin, the -sacraments, grace, and so forth, forms one part of the -activity of the Russian Church; another part of its activity -consists in the activity of maintaining idolatry in the -direct sense of the word,---worshipping holy relics and -images, bringing sacrifices to them, and expecting from them -the fulfilment of their wishes. I shall not speak of what is -spoken and written by the clergy with a shade of learning -and liberalism in the clerical periodicals, but of what -actually is done by the clergy over the breadth of the -Russian land among a population of one hundred million -people. What do they carefully, persistently, tensely, -everywhere without exception, teach the people? What is -demanded of them on the strength of the so-called Christian -faith? - -I will begin with the beginning, with the birth of a child: -at the birth of a child, the clergy teaches that a prayer -has to be read over the mother and the child, in order to -purify them, since without this prayer the mother who has -given birth to a child is accursed. For this purpose the -priest takes the child in his hands in front of the -representations of the saints, which the masses simply call -gods, and pronounces exorcising words, and thus purifies the -mother. Then it is impressed on the parents, and even -demanded of them under threat of punishment in case of -non-fulfilment, that the child shall be baptized, that is, -dipped three times in water by the priest, iu connection -with which incomprehensible words are pronounced and even -less comprehensible acts performed,---the smearing of -various parts of the body with oil, the shearing of the -hair, and the blowing and spitting of the sponsors on the -imaginary devil. All this is supposed to cleanse the child -and make him a Christian. Then the parents are impressed -with the necessity of giving the holy sacrament to the -child, that is, of giving him under the form of bread and -wine a particle of Christ's body to eat, in consequence of -which the child will receive the grace of Christ, and so -forth. Then it is demanded that this child, according to his -age, shall learn to pray. To pray means to stand straight in -front of the boards on which the faces of Christ, the -Virgin, the saints, are represented, and incline his head -and his whole body, and with his right hand, with fingers -put together in a certain form, to touch his brow, -shoulders, and stomach, and pronounce Church-Slavic words, -of which all the children are particularly enjoined to -repeat, "Mother of God, Virgin, rejoice!" etc. Then the -pupil is impressed with the necessity of doing the same, -that is, crossing himself, in presence of any church or -image; then he is told that on holidays (holidays are days -on which Christ was born, though no one knows when that was, -and circumcised, on which the Mother of God died, the cross -was brought, the image was carried in, a saintly fool saw a -vision, etc.,) he must put on his best clothes and go to -church, buy tapers there and place them in front of images -of saints, hand in little notes and commemorations and -loaves, that triangles may be cut in them, and then pray -many times for the health and welfare of the Tsar and the -bishops, and for himself and his acts, and then kiss the -cross and the priest's hand. - -Besides this prayer he is enjoined to prepare himself at -least once a year for the holy sacrament. To prepare himself -for the holy sacrament means to go to church and tell the -priest his sins, on the supposition that his imparting his -sins to a stranger will completely cleanse him of his sins, -and then to eat from a spoon a bit of bread with wine, which -purifies him even more. Then it is impressed upon a man and -a woman, who want their carnal intercourse to be sacred, -that they must come to church, put on metallic crowns, drink -potions, to the sound of singing walk three times around a -table, and that then their carnal intercourse will become -sacred and quite distinct from any other carnal intercourse. - -In life people are impressed with the necessity of observing -the following rules: not to eat meat or milk food on certain -days, on other certain days to celebrate masses for the -dead, on holidays to receive the priest and give him money, -and several times a year to take the boards with the -representations out of the church and carry them on sashes -over fields and through houses. Before death a man is -enjoined to eat from a spoon bread with wine, and still -better, if he has time, to have himself smeared with oil. -This secures for him happiness in the next world. After a -man's death, his relatives are enjoined, for the purpose of -saving the soul of the defunct, to put into his hands a -printed sheet with a prayer; it is also useful to have a -certain book read over the dead body and the name of the -dead man pronounced several times in church. +No matter how strange this may seem, the churches, as churches, have +always been, and cannot help but be, institutions that are not only +foreign, but even directly hostile, to Christ's teaching. With good +reason Voltaire called the church "*l'infâme;*" with good reason all, or +nearly all, the Christian so-called sects have recognized the church to +be that whore of whom Revelation prophesies; with good reason the +history of the church is the history of the greatest cruelties and +horrors. + +The churches, as churches, are not certain institutions which have at +their base the Christian principle, though slightly deviated from the +straight path, as some think; the churches, as churches, as assemblies, +which assert their infallibility, are antichristian institutions. +Between the churches, as churches, and Christianity there is not only +nothing in common but the name, but they are two absolutely divergent +and mutually hostile principles. One is pride, violence, self-assertion, +immobility, and death; the other is meekness, repentance, humility, +motion, and life. + +It is impossible at the same time to serve both masters,---one or the +other has to be chosen. + +The servants of the churches of all denominations have tried, especially +of late, to appear as advocates of motion in Christianity; they make +concessions, wish to mend the abuses which have stolen into the church, +and say that for the sake of the abuses we ought not to deny the +principle of the Christian church itself, which alone can unite all men +and be a mediator between men and God. But all this is not true. The +churches have not only never united, but have always been one of the +chief causes of the disunion of men, of the hatred of one another, of +wars, slaughters, inquisitions, nights of St. Bartholomew, and so forth, +and the churches never serve as mediators between men and God, which is, +indeed, unnecessary and is directly forbidden by Christ, who has +revealed the teaching directly to every man, and they put up dead forms +in the place of God, and not only fail to reveal God to man, but even +conceal Him from them. Churches which have arisen from the failure to +comprehend, and which maintain this lack of comprehension by their +immobility, cannot help persecuting and oppressing every comprehension +of the teaching. They try to conceal this, but this is impossible, +because every motion forward along the path indicated by Christ destroys +their existence. + +As one hears and reads the articles and sermons, in which the church +writers of modern times of all denominations speak of Christian truths +and virtues, as one hears and reads these clever discussions, +admonitions, confessions, which have been worked out by the ages, and +which sometimes look very much as though they were sincere, one is +prepared to doubt that the churches could be hostile to Christianity: +"It certainly cannot be that these people, who have produced such men as +Chrysostom, Fenelon, Butler, and other preachers of Christianity, should +be hostile to it." One feels like saying: "The churches may have +deviated from Christianity, may be in error, but cannot be hostile to +it." But as one looks at the fruits, in order to judge the tree, as +Christ has taught us to do, and sees that their fruits have been evil, +that the consequence of their activity has been the distortion of +Christianity, one cannot help but feel that, no matter how good the men +have been, the cause of the churches in which they have taken part has +not been Christian. The goodness and the deserts of all these men, who +served the churches, were the goodness and the deserts of men, but not +of the cause which they served. All these good men---like Francis +d'Assisi and Francis de Lobes, our Tikhon Zadonski, Thomas à Kempis, and +others---were good men, in spite of their having served a cause which is +hostile to Christianity, and they would have been better and more +deserving still, if they had not succumbed to the error which they +served. + +But why speak of the past, judge of the past, which may have been +falsely represented to us? The churches with their foundations and with +their activity are not a work of the past: the churches are now before +us, and we can judge of them directly, by their activity, their +influence upon men. + +In what does the activity of the churches now consist? How do they act +upon men? What do the churches do in our country, among the Catholics, +among the Protestants of every denomination? In what does their activity +consist, and what are the consequences of their activity? + +The activity of our Russian, so-called Orthodox, Church is in full +sight. It is a vast fact, which cannot be concealed, and about which +there can be no dispute. + +In what consists the activity of tins Russian Church, this enormous, +tensely active institution, which consists of an army of half a million, +costing the nation tens of millions? + +The activity of this church consists in using every possible means for +the purpose of instilling in the one hundred millions of the Russian +population those obsolete, backward faiths, which now have no +justification whatsoever, and which sometime in the past were professed +by people that are alien to our nation, and in which hardly any one now +believes, frequently even not those whose duty it is to disseminate +these false doctrines. + +The inculcation of these alien, obsolete formulas of the Byzantine +clergy, which no longer have any meaning for the men of our time, about +the Trinity, the Holy Virgin, the sacraments, grace, and so forth, forms +one part of the activity of the Russian Church; another part of its +activity consists in the activity of maintaining idolatry in the direct +sense of the word,---worshipping holy relics and images, bringing +sacrifices to them, and expecting from them the fulfilment of their +wishes. I shall not speak of what is spoken and written by the clergy +with a shade of learning and liberalism in the clerical periodicals, but +of what actually is done by the clergy over the breadth of the Russian +land among a population of one hundred million people. What do they +carefully, persistently, tensely, everywhere without exception, teach +the people? What is demanded of them on the strength of the so-called +Christian faith? + +I will begin with the beginning, with the birth of a child: at the birth +of a child, the clergy teaches that a prayer has to be read over the +mother and the child, in order to purify them, since without this prayer +the mother who has given birth to a child is accursed. For this purpose +the priest takes the child in his hands in front of the representations +of the saints, which the masses simply call gods, and pronounces +exorcising words, and thus purifies the mother. Then it is impressed on +the parents, and even demanded of them under threat of punishment in +case of non-fulfilment, that the child shall be baptized, that is, +dipped three times in water by the priest, iu connection with which +incomprehensible words are pronounced and even less comprehensible acts +performed,---the smearing of various parts of the body with oil, the +shearing of the hair, and the blowing and spitting of the sponsors on +the imaginary devil. All this is supposed to cleanse the child and make +him a Christian. Then the parents are impressed with the necessity of +giving the holy sacrament to the child, that is, of giving him under the +form of bread and wine a particle of Christ's body to eat, in +consequence of which the child will receive the grace of Christ, and so +forth. Then it is demanded that this child, according to his age, shall +learn to pray. To pray means to stand straight in front of the boards on +which the faces of Christ, the Virgin, the saints, are represented, and +incline his head and his whole body, and with his right hand, with +fingers put together in a certain form, to touch his brow, shoulders, +and stomach, and pronounce Church-Slavic words, of which all the +children are particularly enjoined to repeat, "Mother of God, Virgin, +rejoice!" etc. Then the pupil is impressed with the necessity of doing +the same, that is, crossing himself, in presence of any church or image; +then he is told that on holidays (holidays are days on which Christ was +born, though no one knows when that was, and circumcised, on which the +Mother of God died, the cross was brought, the image was carried in, a +saintly fool saw a vision, etc.,) he must put on his best clothes and go +to church, buy tapers there and place them in front of images of saints, +hand in little notes and commemorations and loaves, that triangles may +be cut in them, and then pray many times for the health and welfare of +the Tsar and the bishops, and for himself and his acts, and then kiss +the cross and the priest's hand. + +Besides this prayer he is enjoined to prepare himself at least once a +year for the holy sacrament. To prepare himself for the holy sacrament +means to go to church and tell the priest his sins, on the supposition +that his imparting his sins to a stranger will completely cleanse him of +his sins, and then to eat from a spoon a bit of bread with wine, which +purifies him even more. Then it is impressed upon a man and a woman, who +want their carnal intercourse to be sacred, that they must come to +church, put on metallic crowns, drink potions, to the sound of singing +walk three times around a table, and that then their carnal intercourse +will become sacred and quite distinct from any other carnal intercourse. + +In life people are impressed with the necessity of observing the +following rules: not to eat meat or milk food on certain days, on other +certain days to celebrate masses for the dead, on holidays to receive +the priest and give him money, and several times a year to take the +boards with the representations out of the church and carry them on +sashes over fields and through houses. Before death a man is enjoined to +eat from a spoon bread with wine, and still better, if he has time, to +have himself smeared with oil. This secures for him happiness in the +next world. After a man's death, his relatives are enjoined, for the +purpose of saving the soul of the defunct, to put into his hands a +printed sheet with a prayer; it is also useful to have a certain book +read over the dead body and the name of the dead man pronounced several +times in church. All this is considered an obligatory faith for everybody. -But if one wants to care for his soul, he is taught, -according to this faith, that the greatest amount of -blessedness is secured for the soul in the world to come by -contributing money for churches and monasteries, by putting -holy men thus under obligation to pray for him. Other -soul-saving measures, according to this faith, are the -visiting of monasteries and the kissing of miracle-working -images and relics. - -According to this faith, miracle-working images and relics -concentrate in themselves particular holiness, strength, and -grace, and nearness to these objects---touching, kissing -them, placing tapers before them, crawling up to -them---contributes very much to a man's salvation, and so do -masses, which are ordered before these sacred objects. - -It is this faith, and no other, which is called Orthodox, -that is, the right faith, and which has, under the guise of -Christianity, been impressed upon the people for many -centuries by the exercise of all kinds of force, and is now -being impressed with particular effort. - -And let it not be said that the Orthodox teachers place the -essence of the teaching in something else, and that these -are only ancient forms which it is not considered right to -destroy. That is not true: throughout all of Russia, nothing -but this faith has of late been impressed upon the people -with particular effort. There is nothing else. Of something -else they talk and write in the capitals, but only this is -being impressed on one hundred million of people, and -nothing else. The churchmen talk of other things, but they -enjoin only this with every means at their command. - -All this, and the worship of persons and images, is -introduced into theologies, into catechisms; the masses are -carefully taught this theoretically, and, being hypnotized -practically, with every means of solemnity, splendour, -authority, and violence, are made to believe in this, and -are jealously guarded against every endeavour to be freed -from these savage superstitions. - -In my very presence, as I said in reference to my book, -Christ's teaching and his own words concerning -non-resistance to evil were a subject of ridicule and circus -jokes, and the churchmen not only did not oppose this, but -even encouraged the blasphemy; but allow yourself to say a -disrespectful word concerning the monstrous idol, which is -blasphemously carried about in Moscow by drunken persons -under the name of the Iberian Virgin, and a groan of -indignation will be raised by these same churchmen. All that -is preached is the external cult of idolatry. Let no one say -that one thing does not interfere with the other, that -"these ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other -undone," that "all, therefore, whatsoever they bid you -observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their -works: for they say, and do not" (Matthew 23:23, 3). This is -said of the Pharisees, who fulfilled all the external -injunctions of the law, and so the words, "whatsoever they -bid you observe, that observe," refer to works of charity -and of goodness, and the words, "but do ye not after their -works, for they say, and do not," refer to the execution of -ceremonies and to the omission of good works, and have -precisely the opposite meaning to what the churchmen want to -ascribe to this passage, when they interpret it as meaning -that ceremonies are to be observed. An external cult and -serving charity and truth are hard to harmonize; for the -most part one thing excludes the other. Thus it was with the -Pharisees, and thus it is now with the church Christians. - -If a man can save himself through redemption, sacraments, -prayer, he no longer needs any good deeds. - -The Sermon on the Mount, or the symbol of faith: it is -impossible to believe in both. And the churchmen have chosen -the latter: the symbol of faith is taught and read as a -prayer in the churches; and the Sermon on the Mount is -excluded even from the Gospel teachings in the churches, so -that in the churches the parishioners never hear it, except -on the days when the whole Gospel is read. Nor can it be -otherwise: men who believe in a bad and senseless God, who -has cursed the human race and who has doomed His son to be a -victim, and has doomed a part of humanity to everlasting -torment, cannot believe in a God of love. A man who believes -in God-Christ, who will come again in glory to judge and -punish the living and the dead, cannot believe in Christ, -who commands a man to offer his cheek to the offender, not -to judge, but to forgive, and to love our enemies. A man who -believes in the divine inspiration of the Old Testament and -the holiness of David, who on his deathbed orders the -killing of an old man who has offended him and whom he could -not kill himself, because he was bound by an oath (1 Kings -2:3), and similar abominations, of which the Old Testament -is full, cannot believe in Christ's moral law; a man who -believes in the doctrine and the preaching of the church -about the compatibility of executions and wars with +But if one wants to care for his soul, he is taught, according to this +faith, that the greatest amount of blessedness is secured for the soul +in the world to come by contributing money for churches and monasteries, +by putting holy men thus under obligation to pray for him. Other +soul-saving measures, according to this faith, are the visiting of +monasteries and the kissing of miracle-working images and relics. + +According to this faith, miracle-working images and relics concentrate +in themselves particular holiness, strength, and grace, and nearness to +these objects---touching, kissing them, placing tapers before them, +crawling up to them---contributes very much to a man's salvation, and so +do masses, which are ordered before these sacred objects. + +It is this faith, and no other, which is called Orthodox, that is, the +right faith, and which has, under the guise of Christianity, been +impressed upon the people for many centuries by the exercise of all +kinds of force, and is now being impressed with particular effort. + +And let it not be said that the Orthodox teachers place the essence of +the teaching in something else, and that these are only ancient forms +which it is not considered right to destroy. That is not true: +throughout all of Russia, nothing but this faith has of late been +impressed upon the people with particular effort. There is nothing else. +Of something else they talk and write in the capitals, but only this is +being impressed on one hundred million of people, and nothing else. The +churchmen talk of other things, but they enjoin only this with every +means at their command. + +All this, and the worship of persons and images, is introduced into +theologies, into catechisms; the masses are carefully taught this +theoretically, and, being hypnotized practically, with every means of +solemnity, splendour, authority, and violence, are made to believe in +this, and are jealously guarded against every endeavour to be freed from +these savage superstitions. + +In my very presence, as I said in reference to my book, Christ's +teaching and his own words concerning non-resistance to evil were a +subject of ridicule and circus jokes, and the churchmen not only did not +oppose this, but even encouraged the blasphemy; but allow yourself to +say a disrespectful word concerning the monstrous idol, which is +blasphemously carried about in Moscow by drunken persons under the name +of the Iberian Virgin, and a groan of indignation will be raised by +these same churchmen. All that is preached is the external cult of +idolatry. Let no one say that one thing does not interfere with the +other, that "these ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other +undone," that "all, therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that +observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do +not" (Matthew 23:23, 3). This is said of the Pharisees, who fulfilled +all the external injunctions of the law, and so the words, "whatsoever +they bid you observe, that observe," refer to works of charity and of +goodness, and the words, "but do ye not after their works, for they say, +and do not," refer to the execution of ceremonies and to the omission of +good works, and have precisely the opposite meaning to what the +churchmen want to ascribe to this passage, when they interpret it as +meaning that ceremonies are to be observed. An external cult and serving +charity and truth are hard to harmonize; for the most part one thing +excludes the other. Thus it was with the Pharisees, and thus it is now +with the church Christians. + +If a man can save himself through redemption, sacraments, prayer, he no +longer needs any good deeds. + +The Sermon on the Mount, or the symbol of faith: it is impossible to +believe in both. And the churchmen have chosen the latter: the symbol of +faith is taught and read as a prayer in the churches; and the Sermon on +the Mount is excluded even from the Gospel teachings in the churches, so +that in the churches the parishioners never hear it, except on the days +when the whole Gospel is read. Nor can it be otherwise: men who believe +in a bad and senseless God, who has cursed the human race and who has +doomed His son to be a victim, and has doomed a part of humanity to +everlasting torment, cannot believe in a God of love. A man who believes +in God-Christ, who will come again in glory to judge and punish the +living and the dead, cannot believe in Christ, who commands a man to +offer his cheek to the offender, not to judge, but to forgive, and to +love our enemies. A man who believes in the divine inspiration of the +Old Testament and the holiness of David, who on his deathbed orders the +killing of an old man who has offended him and whom he could not kill +himself, because he was bound by an oath (1 Kings 2:3), and similar +abominations, of which the Old Testament is full, cannot believe in +Christ's moral law; a man who believes in the doctrine and the preaching +of the church about the compatibility of executions and wars with Christianity, cannot believe in the brotherhood of men. -Above all else, a man who believes in the salvation of men -through faith, in redemption, or in the sacraments, can no -longer employ all his strength in the fulfilment in life of -the moral teaching of Christ. - -A man who is taught by the church the blasphemous doctrine -about his not being able to be saved by his own efforts, but -that there is another means, will inevitably have recourse -to this means, and not to his efforts, on which he is -assured it is a sin to depend. The church doctrine, any -church doctrine, with its redemption and its sacraments, -excludes Christ's teaching, and the Orthodox doctrine, with -its idolatry, does so especially. - -"But the masses have always believed so themselves, and -believe so now," people will say to this." The whole history -of the Russian masses proves this. It is not right to -deprive the masses of their tradition." In this does the -deception consist. The masses at one time, indeed, professed -something like what the church professes now, though it was -far from being the same (among the masses, there has -existed, not only this superstition of the images, house -spirits, relics, and the seventh Thursday after Easter, with -its wreaths and birches, but also a deep moral, vital -comprehension of Christianity, which has never existed in -the whole church, and was met with only in its best -representatives); but the masses, in spite of all the -obstacles, which the government and the church have opposed -to them, have long ago in their best representatives -outlived this coarse stage of comprehension, which is proved -by the spontaneous birth of rationalistic sects, with which -one meets everywhere, with which Russia swarms at the -present time, and with which the churchmen struggle in vain. -The masses move on in the consciousness of the moral, vital -side of Christianity. And it is here that the church appears -with its failure to support, and with its intensified -inculcation of an obsolete paganism in its ossified form, -with its tendency to push the masses back into that -darkness, from which they are struggling with so much effort -to get out. - -"We do not teach the masses anything new, but only what they -believe in, and that in a more perfect form," say the -churchmen. - -This is the same as tying up a growing chick and pushing it -back into the shell from which it has come. - -I have often been struck by this observation, which would be -comical, if its consequences were not so terrible, that men, -taking hold of each other in a circle, deceive one another, -without being able to get out of the enchanted circle. - -The first question, the first doubt of a Russian who is -beginning to think, is the question about the -miracle-working images and, above all, the relics: "Is it -true that they are imperishable, and that they work -miracles?" Hundreds and thousands of men put these questions -to themselves and are troubled about their solution, -especially because the bishops, metropolitans, and all the -dignitaries kiss the relics and the miracle-working images. -Ask the bishops and the dignitaries why they do so, and they -wHl tell you that they do so for the sake of the masses, and -the masses worship the images and relics, because the -bishops and dignitaries do so. - -The activity of the Russian Church, in spite of its external -veneer of modernness, learning, spirituality, which its -members are beginning to assume in their writings, articles, -clerical periodicals, and sermons, consists not only in -keeping the masses in that consciousness of rude and savage -idolatry, in which they are, but also in intensifying and -disseminating superstition and religious ignorance, by -pushing out of the masses the vital comprehension of -Christianity, which has been living in them by the side of -the idolatry. - -I remember, I was once present in the monastery bookstore of -Optin Cloister, when an old peasant was choosing some -religious books for his grandson, who could read. The monk -kept pushing the description of relics, holidays, miraculous -images, psalters, etc., into his hands. I asked the old man -if he had the Gospel. "No." "Give him the Russian Gospel," I -said to the monk. "That is not proper for him," said the +Above all else, a man who believes in the salvation of men through +faith, in redemption, or in the sacraments, can no longer employ all his +strength in the fulfilment in life of the moral teaching of Christ. + +A man who is taught by the church the blasphemous doctrine about his not +being able to be saved by his own efforts, but that there is another +means, will inevitably have recourse to this means, and not to his +efforts, on which he is assured it is a sin to depend. The church +doctrine, any church doctrine, with its redemption and its sacraments, +excludes Christ's teaching, and the Orthodox doctrine, with its +idolatry, does so especially. + +"But the masses have always believed so themselves, and believe so now," +people will say to this." The whole history of the Russian masses proves +this. It is not right to deprive the masses of their tradition." In this +does the deception consist. The masses at one time, indeed, professed +something like what the church professes now, though it was far from +being the same (among the masses, there has existed, not only this +superstition of the images, house spirits, relics, and the seventh +Thursday after Easter, with its wreaths and birches, but also a deep +moral, vital comprehension of Christianity, which has never existed in +the whole church, and was met with only in its best representatives); +but the masses, in spite of all the obstacles, which the government and +the church have opposed to them, have long ago in their best +representatives outlived this coarse stage of comprehension, which is +proved by the spontaneous birth of rationalistic sects, with which one +meets everywhere, with which Russia swarms at the present time, and with +which the churchmen struggle in vain. The masses move on in the +consciousness of the moral, vital side of Christianity. And it is here +that the church appears with its failure to support, and with its +intensified inculcation of an obsolete paganism in its ossified form, +with its tendency to push the masses back into that darkness, from which +they are struggling with so much effort to get out. + +"We do not teach the masses anything new, but only what they believe in, +and that in a more perfect form," say the churchmen. + +This is the same as tying up a growing chick and pushing it back into +the shell from which it has come. + +I have often been struck by this observation, which would be comical, if +its consequences were not so terrible, that men, taking hold of each +other in a circle, deceive one another, without being able to get out of +the enchanted circle. + +The first question, the first doubt of a Russian who is beginning to +think, is the question about the miracle-working images and, above all, +the relics: "Is it true that they are imperishable, and that they work +miracles?" Hundreds and thousands of men put these questions to +themselves and are troubled about their solution, especially because the +bishops, metropolitans, and all the dignitaries kiss the relics and the +miracle-working images. Ask the bishops and the dignitaries why they do +so, and they wHl tell you that they do so for the sake of the masses, +and the masses worship the images and relics, because the bishops and +dignitaries do so. + +The activity of the Russian Church, in spite of its external veneer of +modernness, learning, spirituality, which its members are beginning to +assume in their writings, articles, clerical periodicals, and sermons, +consists not only in keeping the masses in that consciousness of rude +and savage idolatry, in which they are, but also in intensifying and +disseminating superstition and religious ignorance, by pushing out of +the masses the vital comprehension of Christianity, which has been +living in them by the side of the idolatry. + +I remember, I was once present in the monastery bookstore of Optin +Cloister, when an old peasant was choosing some religious books for his +grandson, who could read. The monk kept pushing the description of +relics, holidays, miraculous images, psalters, etc., into his hands. I +asked the old man if he had the Gospel. "No." "Give him the Russian +Gospel," I said to the monk. "That is not proper for him," said the monk. This is in compressed form the activity of our church. -"But this is only true in barbarous Russia," a European or -American reader will say. And such an opinion will be -correct, but only in the measure in which it refers to the -government which aids the church in accomplishing its -stultifying and corrupting influence in Russia. - -It is true that nowhere in Europe is there such a despotic -government and one to such a degree in accord with the -ruling church, and so the participation of the power in the -corruption of the masses in Russia is very strong; but it is -not true that the Russian Church in its influence upon the -masses in any way differs from any other church. - -The churches are everything the same, and if the Catholic, -the Anglican, and the Lutheran Churches have not in hand -such an obedient government as is the Russian, this is not -due to the absence of any desire to make use of the same. - -The church, as a church, no matter what it may be, Catholic, -Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian,---every church, insomuch -as it is a church, cannot help but tend toward the same as -the Russian Church,---toward concealing the true meaning of -Christ's teaching and substituting in its place its own -doctrine, which does not put a person under any obligations, -excludes the possibility of understanding the true activity -of Christ's teaching, and, above all else, justifies the -existence of priests who are living at the expense of the -nation. - -Has Catholicism been doing anything else with its -prohibition of the reading of the Gospel, and with its -demand for unreasoning obedience to the ecclesiastic guides -and the infallible Pope? Does Catholicism preach anything -different from what the Russian Church preaches? We have -here the same external cult, the same relics, miracles, and -statues, the miracle-working Notre-Dames, and processions. -The same elatedly misty judgments concerning Christianity in -books and sermons, and, when it comes to facts, the same -maintenance of a coarse idolatry. - -And is not the same being done in Anglicanism, Lutheranism, -and in every Protestantism which has formed itself into a -church? The same demands from the congregation for a belief -in dogmas which were expressed in the fourth century and -have lost all meaning for the men of our time, and the same -demand for idolatry, if not before relics and images, at -least before the Sabbath and the letter of the Bible. It is -still the same activity, which is directed upon concealing -the real demands of Christianity and substituting for them -externals, which do not put a man under any obligations, and -"cant," as the English beautifully define the occupation to -which they are particularly subject. Among the Protestants -this activity is particularly noticeable, since they do not -even have the excuse of antiquity. And does not the same -take place in the modern Revivalism,---the renovated -Calvinism, Evangelism,---out of which has grown up the -Salvation Army? Just as the condition of all the church -doctrines is the same in reference to Christ's teaching, so -are also their methods. - -Their condition is such that they cannot help but strain all -their efforts, in order to conceal the teaching of Christ, -whose name they use. - -The incompatibility of all the church confessions with -Christ's teaching is such that it takes especial efforts to -conceal this incompatibility from men. Indeed, we need but -stop and think of the condition of any adult, not only -cultured, but even simple, man of our time, who has filled -himself with conceptions, which are in the air, from the -fields of geology, physics, chemistry, cosmography, history, -when he for the first time looks consciously at the beliefs, -instilled in him in childhood and supported by the churches, -that God created the world in six days; that there was light -before the sun; that Noah stuck all the animals into his -ark, and so forth; that Jesus is the same God, the son, who -created everything before this; that this God descended upon -earth for Adam's sin; that He rose from the dead, ascended -to heaven, and sits on the right of the Father, and will -come in the clouds to judge the world, and so forth. - -All these propositions, which were worked out by the men of -the fourth century and had a certain meaning for the men of -that time, have no meaning for the men of the present. The -men of our time may repeat these words with their lips, but -they cannot believe, because these words, like the -statements that God lives in heaven, that the heavens opened -and a voice said something from there, that Christ rose from -the dead and flew somewhere to heaven and will again come -from somewhere in the clouds, and so forth, have no meaning -for us. - -It was possible for a man, who regarded the heaven as a -finite, firm vault, to believe, or not, that God created the -heaven, that heaven was opened, that Christ flew to heaven; -but for us these words have no meaning whatsoever. Men of -our time can only believe that they must believe so; but -they cannot believe in what has no meaning for them. - -But if all these expressions are to have a figurative -meaning and are emblems, we know that, in the first place, -not all churchmen agree in this, but that, on the contrary, -the majority insist on understanding Holy Scripture in a -direct sense, and, secondly, that these interpretations are -varied and not confirmed by anything, - -But even if a man wishes to make himself believe in the -doctrine of the churches, as it is imparted,---the general -diffusion of knowledge and of the Gospels, and the -intercourse of men of various denominations among -themselves, form for this another, even more insuperable -obstacle. - -A man of our time need but buy himself a Gospel for three -kopeks and read Christ's clear words to the woman of -Samaria, which are not subject to any other interpretation, -about the Father needing no worshippers in Jerusalem, -neither in this mountain, nor in that, worshippers in spirit -and in truth, or the words about a Christian's being obliged -to pray, not in temples, as the pagans do, and in the sight -of all, but in secret, that is, in his closet, or that a -disciple of Christ must not call any one father or -teacher,---a man needs but read these words, to become -convinced that nc ecclesiastic pastors, who call themselves -teachers in opposition to Christ's teaching, and who quarrel -among themselves, form an authority, and that that which the -churchmen teach us is not Christianity. But more than that: -if a man of our time continues to believe in miracles and -does not read the Gospel, his mere intercourse with men of -other denominations and faiths, which has become so easy in -our time, will make him doubt in the authenticity of his -faith. It was all very well for a man who never saw any men -of another faith than his own to believe that his own faith -was the correct one; but a thinking man need only come in -contact, as he now does all the time, with equally good and -equally bad men of various denominations, which condemn the -doctrines of one another, in order to lose faith in the -truth of the religion which he professes. In our time only a -very ignorant man or one who is quite indifferent to the -questions of life, which are sanctified by religion, can -stay in the church faith. - -What cunning and what effort must be exerted by the -churches, if, in spite of all these conditions which are -subversive of faith, they are to continue building churches, -celebrating masses, preaching, teaching, converting, and, -above all, receiving for it a fat income, like all these -priests, pastors, intendants, superintendents, abbots, +"But this is only true in barbarous Russia," a European or American +reader will say. And such an opinion will be correct, but only in the +measure in which it refers to the government which aids the church in +accomplishing its stultifying and corrupting influence in Russia. + +It is true that nowhere in Europe is there such a despotic government +and one to such a degree in accord with the ruling church, and so the +participation of the power in the corruption of the masses in Russia is +very strong; but it is not true that the Russian Church in its influence +upon the masses in any way differs from any other church. + +The churches are everything the same, and if the Catholic, the Anglican, +and the Lutheran Churches have not in hand such an obedient government +as is the Russian, this is not due to the absence of any desire to make +use of the same. + +The church, as a church, no matter what it may be, Catholic, Anglican, +Lutheran, Presbyterian,---every church, insomuch as it is a church, +cannot help but tend toward the same as the Russian Church,---toward +concealing the true meaning of Christ's teaching and substituting in its +place its own doctrine, which does not put a person under any +obligations, excludes the possibility of understanding the true activity +of Christ's teaching, and, above all else, justifies the existence of +priests who are living at the expense of the nation. + +Has Catholicism been doing anything else with its prohibition of the +reading of the Gospel, and with its demand for unreasoning obedience to +the ecclesiastic guides and the infallible Pope? Does Catholicism preach +anything different from what the Russian Church preaches? We have here +the same external cult, the same relics, miracles, and statues, the +miracle-working Notre-Dames, and processions. The same elatedly misty +judgments concerning Christianity in books and sermons, and, when it +comes to facts, the same maintenance of a coarse idolatry. + +And is not the same being done in Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and in every +Protestantism which has formed itself into a church? The same demands +from the congregation for a belief in dogmas which were expressed in the +fourth century and have lost all meaning for the men of our time, and +the same demand for idolatry, if not before relics and images, at least +before the Sabbath and the letter of the Bible. It is still the same +activity, which is directed upon concealing the real demands of +Christianity and substituting for them externals, which do not put a man +under any obligations, and "cant," as the English beautifully define the +occupation to which they are particularly subject. Among the Protestants +this activity is particularly noticeable, since they do not even have +the excuse of antiquity. And does not the same take place in the modern +Revivalism,---the renovated Calvinism, Evangelism,---out of which has +grown up the Salvation Army? Just as the condition of all the church +doctrines is the same in reference to Christ's teaching, so are also +their methods. + +Their condition is such that they cannot help but strain all their +efforts, in order to conceal the teaching of Christ, whose name they +use. + +The incompatibility of all the church confessions with Christ's teaching +is such that it takes especial efforts to conceal this incompatibility +from men. Indeed, we need but stop and think of the condition of any +adult, not only cultured, but even simple, man of our time, who has +filled himself with conceptions, which are in the air, from the fields +of geology, physics, chemistry, cosmography, history, when he for the +first time looks consciously at the beliefs, instilled in him in +childhood and supported by the churches, that God created the world in +six days; that there was light before the sun; that Noah stuck all the +animals into his ark, and so forth; that Jesus is the same God, the son, +who created everything before this; that this God descended upon earth +for Adam's sin; that He rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and sits +on the right of the Father, and will come in the clouds to judge the +world, and so forth. + +All these propositions, which were worked out by the men of the fourth +century and had a certain meaning for the men of that time, have no +meaning for the men of the present. The men of our time may repeat these +words with their lips, but they cannot believe, because these words, +like the statements that God lives in heaven, that the heavens opened +and a voice said something from there, that Christ rose from the dead +and flew somewhere to heaven and will again come from somewhere in the +clouds, and so forth, have no meaning for us. + +It was possible for a man, who regarded the heaven as a finite, firm +vault, to believe, or not, that God created the heaven, that heaven was +opened, that Christ flew to heaven; but for us these words have no +meaning whatsoever. Men of our time can only believe that they must +believe so; but they cannot believe in what has no meaning for them. + +But if all these expressions are to have a figurative meaning and are +emblems, we know that, in the first place, not all churchmen agree in +this, but that, on the contrary, the majority insist on understanding +Holy Scripture in a direct sense, and, secondly, that these +interpretations are varied and not confirmed by anything, + +But even if a man wishes to make himself believe in the doctrine of the +churches, as it is imparted,---the general diffusion of knowledge and of +the Gospels, and the intercourse of men of various denominations among +themselves, form for this another, even more insuperable obstacle. + +A man of our time need but buy himself a Gospel for three kopeks and +read Christ's clear words to the woman of Samaria, which are not subject +to any other interpretation, about the Father needing no worshippers in +Jerusalem, neither in this mountain, nor in that, worshippers in spirit +and in truth, or the words about a Christian's being obliged to pray, +not in temples, as the pagans do, and in the sight of all, but in +secret, that is, in his closet, or that a disciple of Christ must not +call any one father or teacher,---a man needs but read these words, to +become convinced that nc ecclesiastic pastors, who call themselves +teachers in opposition to Christ's teaching, and who quarrel among +themselves, form an authority, and that that which the churchmen teach +us is not Christianity. But more than that: if a man of our time +continues to believe in miracles and does not read the Gospel, his mere +intercourse with men of other denominations and faiths, which has become +so easy in our time, will make him doubt in the authenticity of his +faith. It was all very well for a man who never saw any men of another +faith than his own to believe that his own faith was the correct one; +but a thinking man need only come in contact, as he now does all the +time, with equally good and equally bad men of various denominations, +which condemn the doctrines of one another, in order to lose faith in +the truth of the religion which he professes. In our time only a very +ignorant man or one who is quite indifferent to the questions of life, +which are sanctified by religion, can stay in the church faith. + +What cunning and what effort must be exerted by the churches, if, in +spite of all these conditions which are subversive of faith, they are to +continue building churches, celebrating masses, preaching, teaching, +converting, and, above all, receiving for it a fat income, like all +these priests, pastors, intendants, superintendents, abbots, archdeacons, bishops, and archbishops. -Especial, supernatural efforts are needed. And such efforts, -which are strained more and more, are used by the churches. -With us, in Russia, they use (in addition to all other -means) the simple, coarse violence of the civil power, which -is obedient to the church. Persons who depart from the -external expression of faith and who give expression to it -are either directly punished or deprived of their rights; -while persons who strictly adhere to the external forms of -faith are rewarded and given rights. - -Thus do the Orthodox; but even all other churches, without -exception, use for this all such means, of which the chief -is what now is called hypnotization. - -All the arts, from architecture to poetry, are put into -action, to affect the souls of men and to stultify them, and -this action takes place without interruption. Particularly -evident is this necessity of the hypnotizing action upon -men, in order to bring them to a state of stupefaction, in -the activity of the Salvation Army, which uses new, -unfamiliar methods of horns, drums, songs, banners, -uniforms, processions, dances, tears, and dramatic -attitudes. - -But we are startled by them only because they are new -methods. Are not the old methods of the temples, with -especial illumination, with gold, splendour, candles, -choirs, organs, bells, vestments, lackadaisical sermons, and -so forth, the same? - -But, no matter how strong this action of hypnotization may -be, the chief and most deleterious activity of the churches -does not lie in this. The chief, most pernicious activity of -the church is the one which is directed to the deception of -the children, those very children of whom Christ said that -it will be woe to him who shall offend one of these little -ones. With the very first awakening of the child, they begin -to deceive him and to impress upon him with solemnity what -those who impress do not believe in themselves, and they -continue to impress him, until the deception, becoming a -habit, is engrafted on the child's nature. The child is -methodically deceived in the most important matter of life, -and when the deception has so grown up with his life that it -is difficult to tear it away, there is revealed to him the -whole world of science and of reality, which can in no way -harmonize with the beliefs instilled in him, and he is left -to make the best he can out of these contradictions. - -If we should set ourselves the task of entangling a man in -such a way that he should not be able with his sound reason -to get away from the two opposite world-conceptions, which -have been instilled in him since his childhood, we could not -invent anything more powerful than what is accomplished in -the case of every young man who is educated in our so-called -Christian society. - -What the churches do to people is terrible, but if we -reflect on their condition, we shall find that those men who -form the institution of the churches cannot act otherwise. -The churches are confronted with a dilemma,---the Sermon on -the Mount, or the Nicene Creed,---one excludes the other: if -a man sincerely believes in the Sermon on the Mount, the -Nicene Creed, and with it the church and its -representatives, inevitably lose all meaning and -significance for him; but if a man believes in the Nicene -Creed, that is, in the church, that is, in those who call -themselves its representatives, the Sermon on the Mount will -become superfluous to him. And so the churches cannot help -but use every possible effort to obscure the meaning of the -Sermon on the Mount and to attract people toward itself. -Only thanks to the tense activity of the churches in this -direction has the influence of the churches held itself -until now. Let a church for the shortest time arrest this -action upon the masses by means of hypnotizing them and -deceiving the children, and people will understand Christ's -teaching. But the comprehension of the teaching destroys the -churches and their significance. And so the churches do not -for a moment interrupt the tense activity and hypnotization -of the adults and the deception of the children. And it is -this activity of the churches, which instils a false -comprehension of Christ's teaching in men, and serves as an -obstacle in its comprehension for the majority of so-called -believers. +Especial, supernatural efforts are needed. And such efforts, which are +strained more and more, are used by the churches. With us, in Russia, +they use (in addition to all other means) the simple, coarse violence of +the civil power, which is obedient to the church. Persons who depart +from the external expression of faith and who give expression to it are +either directly punished or deprived of their rights; while persons who +strictly adhere to the external forms of faith are rewarded and given +rights. + +Thus do the Orthodox; but even all other churches, without exception, +use for this all such means, of which the chief is what now is called +hypnotization. + +All the arts, from architecture to poetry, are put into action, to +affect the souls of men and to stultify them, and this action takes +place without interruption. Particularly evident is this necessity of +the hypnotizing action upon men, in order to bring them to a state of +stupefaction, in the activity of the Salvation Army, which uses new, +unfamiliar methods of horns, drums, songs, banners, uniforms, +processions, dances, tears, and dramatic attitudes. + +But we are startled by them only because they are new methods. Are not +the old methods of the temples, with especial illumination, with gold, +splendour, candles, choirs, organs, bells, vestments, lackadaisical +sermons, and so forth, the same? + +But, no matter how strong this action of hypnotization may be, the chief +and most deleterious activity of the churches does not lie in this. The +chief, most pernicious activity of the church is the one which is +directed to the deception of the children, those very children of whom +Christ said that it will be woe to him who shall offend one of these +little ones. With the very first awakening of the child, they begin to +deceive him and to impress upon him with solemnity what those who +impress do not believe in themselves, and they continue to impress him, +until the deception, becoming a habit, is engrafted on the child's +nature. The child is methodically deceived in the most important matter +of life, and when the deception has so grown up with his life that it is +difficult to tear it away, there is revealed to him the whole world of +science and of reality, which can in no way harmonize with the beliefs +instilled in him, and he is left to make the best he can out of these +contradictions. + +If we should set ourselves the task of entangling a man in such a way +that he should not be able with his sound reason to get away from the +two opposite world-conceptions, which have been instilled in him since +his childhood, we could not invent anything more powerful than what is +accomplished in the case of every young man who is educated in our +so-called Christian society. + +What the churches do to people is terrible, but if we reflect on their +condition, we shall find that those men who form the institution of the +churches cannot act otherwise. The churches are confronted with a +dilemma,---the Sermon on the Mount, or the Nicene Creed,---one excludes +the other: if a man sincerely believes in the Sermon on the Mount, the +Nicene Creed, and with it the church and its representatives, inevitably +lose all meaning and significance for him; but if a man believes in the +Nicene Creed, that is, in the church, that is, in those who call +themselves its representatives, the Sermon on the Mount will become +superfluous to him. And so the churches cannot help but use every +possible effort to obscure the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount and to +attract people toward itself. Only thanks to the tense activity of the +churches in this direction has the influence of the churches held itself +until now. Let a church for the shortest time arrest this action upon +the masses by means of hypnotizing them and deceiving the children, and +people will understand Christ's teaching. But the comprehension of the +teaching destroys the churches and their significance. And so the +churches do not for a moment interrupt the tense activity and +hypnotization of the adults and the deception of the children. And it is +this activity of the churches, which instils a false comprehension of +Christ's teaching in men, and serves as an obstacle in its comprehension +for the majority of so-called believers. # IV -Now I will speak of another putative comprehension of -Christianity, which interferes with the correct -comprehension of it,---the scientific comprehension. - -The churchmen regard as Christianity that conception of it -which they have formed, and this comprehension of -Christianity they regard as the one indubitably true one. - -The men of science regard as Christianity only what the -different churches have been professing, and, assuming that -these professions exhaust the whole significance of -Christianity, they recognize it as a religious teaching -which has outlived its time. - -To have it made clear how impossible it is with such a view -to understand the Christian teaching, we must form an idea -of the place which the religions in general and Christianity -in particular have in reality occupied in the life of -humanity, and of the significance which is ascribed to -religion by science. - -As an individual man cannot live without having a definite -idea of the meaning of his life, and always, though often -unconsciously, conforms his acts to this meaning which he -ascribes to his life, even so aggregates of men living under -the same conditions,---nations cannot help but have a -conception about the meaning of their collective life and -the activity resulting therefrom. And as an individual, -entering into a new age, invariably changes his -comprehension of life, and a grown man sees its meaning in -something else than in what a child sees it, so an aggregate -of people, a nation, inevitably, according to its age, -changes its comprehension of life and the activity which -results from it. - -The difference between the individual and the whole of -humanity in this respect consists in this, that while the -individual in the determination of the comprehension of -life, proper to the new stage of life into which he enters, -and in the activity which arises from it, makes use of the -indications of men who have lived before him and who have -already passed through the period of life upon which he is -entering, humanity cannot have these indications, because it -all moves along an untrodden path, and there is no one who -can tell how life is to be understood, and how one is to act -under the new conditions into which it is entering, and in +Now I will speak of another putative comprehension of Christianity, +which interferes with the correct comprehension of it,---the scientific +comprehension. + +The churchmen regard as Christianity that conception of it which they +have formed, and this comprehension of Christianity they regard as the +one indubitably true one. + +The men of science regard as Christianity only what the different +churches have been professing, and, assuming that these professions +exhaust the whole significance of Christianity, they recognize it as a +religious teaching which has outlived its time. + +To have it made clear how impossible it is with such a view to +understand the Christian teaching, we must form an idea of the place +which the religions in general and Christianity in particular have in +reality occupied in the life of humanity, and of the significance which +is ascribed to religion by science. + +As an individual man cannot live without having a definite idea of the +meaning of his life, and always, though often unconsciously, conforms +his acts to this meaning which he ascribes to his life, even so +aggregates of men living under the same conditions,---nations cannot +help but have a conception about the meaning of their collective life +and the activity resulting therefrom. And as an individual, entering +into a new age, invariably changes his comprehension of life, and a +grown man sees its meaning in something else than in what a child sees +it, so an aggregate of people, a nation, inevitably, according to its +age, changes its comprehension of life and the activity which results +from it. + +The difference between the individual and the whole of humanity in this +respect consists in this, that while the individual in the determination +of the comprehension of life, proper to the new stage of life into which +he enters, and in the activity which arises from it, makes use of the +indications of men who have lived before him and who have already passed +through the period of life upon which he is entering, humanity cannot +have these indications, because it all moves along an untrodden path, +and there is no one who can tell how life is to be understood, and how +one is to act under the new conditions into which it is entering, and in which no one has lived before. -And yet, as a married man with children cannot continue to -understand life as he understood it when he was a child, so -humanity cannot in connection with all the various changes -which have taken place,---the density of the population, and -the established intercourse between the nations, and the -improvement of the means for struggling against Nature, and -the accumulation of science,---continue to understand life -as before, but must establish a new concept of life, from -which should result the activity which corresponds to that -new condition into which it has entered or is about to -enter. - -To this demand responds the peculiar ability of humanity to -segregate certain people who give a new meaning to the whole -of human life,---a meaning from which results the whole new -activity which is different from the preceding one. The -establishment of the new life-conception, which is proper -for humanity under the new conditions into which it is -entering, and of the activity resulting from it, is what is -called religion. - -And so religion, in the first place, is not, as science -thinks, a phenomenon which at one time accompanied the -evolution of humanity, and later became obsolete, but is a -phenomenon always inherent in the life of humanity, and is -in our time as inevitably inherent in humanity as at any -other time. In the second place, religion is always a -determination of the activity of the future, and not of the -past, and so it is obvious that the investigation of past -phenomena can in no way include the essence of religion. - -The essence of every religious teaching does not consist in -the desire to express the forces of Nature symbolically, or -in the fear of them, or in the demand for the miraculous, or -in the external forms of its manifestation, as the men of -science imagine. The essence of religion lies in the -property of men prophetically to foresee and point out the -path of life, over which humanity must travel, in a new -definition of the meaning of life, from which also results a -new, the whole future activity of humanity. - -This property of foreseeing the path on which humanity must -travel is in a greater or lesser degree common to all men, -but there have always, at all times, been men, in whom this -quality has been manifested with particular force, and these -men expressed clearly and precisely what was dimly felt by -all men, and established a new comprehension of life, from -which resulted an entirely new activity, for hundreds and -thousands of years. - -We know three such conceptions of life: two of them humanity -has already outlived, and the third is the one through which -we are now passing in Christianity. There are three, and -only three, such conceptions, not because we have -arbitrarily united all kinds of life-conceptions into these -three, but because the acts of men always have for. their -base one of these three life-conceptions, because we cannot -understand life in any other way than by one of these three -means. - -The three life-conceptions are these: the first---the -personal, or animal; the second---the social, or the pagan; -and the third---the universal, or the divine. - -According to the first life-conception, man's life is -contained in nothing but his personality; the aim of his -life is the gratification of the will of this personality. -According to the second life-conception, man's life is not -contained in his personality alone, but in the aggregate and -sequence of personalities,---in the tribe, the family, the -race, the state; the aim of life consists in the -gratification of the will of this aggregate of -personalities. According to the third life-conception, man's -life is contained neither in his personality, nor in the -aggregate and sequence of personalities, but in the -beginning and source of life, in God. - -These three life-conceptions serve as the foundation of all -past and present religions. - -The savage recognizes life only in himself, in his personal -desires. The good of his life is centred in himself alone. -The highest good for him is the greatest gratification of -his lust. The prime mover of his life is his personal -enjoyment. His religion consists in appeasing the divinity -in his favour, and in the worship of imaginary personalities -of gods, who live only for personal ends. - -A pagan, a social man, no longer recognizes life in himself -alone, but in the aggregate of personalities,---in the -tribe, the family, the race, the state,---and sacrifices his -personal good for these aggregates. The prime mover of his -life is glory. His religion consists in the glorification of -the heads of unions,---of eponyms, ancestors, kings, and in -the worship of gods, the exclusive protectors of his family, -his race, his nation, his state. - -The man with the divine life-conception no longer recognizes -life to consist in his personality, or in the aggregate of -personalities (in the family, the race, the people, the -country, or the state), but in the source of the -everlasting, immortal life, in God; and to do God's will he -sacrifices his personal and domestic and social good. The -prime mover of his religion is love. And his religion is the -worship in deed and in truth of the beginning of everything, -of God. - -The whole historical life of humanity is nothing but a -gradual transition from the personal, the animal -life-conception, to the social, and from the social to the -divine. The whole history of the ancient nations, which -lasted for thousands of years and which came to a conclusion -with the history of Rome, is the history of the substitution -of the social and the political life-conception for the -animal, the personal. The whole history since the time of -imperial Rome and the appearance of Christianity has been -the history of the substitution of the divine -life-conception for the political, and we are passing -through it even now. - -It is this last life-conception, and the Christian teaching -which is based upon it and which governs our whole life and -lies at the foundation of our whole activity, both the -practical and the theoretical, that the men of so-called -science, considering it in reference to its external signs -only, recognize as something obsolete and meaningless for -us. - -This teaching, which, according to the men of science, is -contained only in its dogmatic part,---in the doctrine of -the Trinity, the redemption, the miracles, the church, the -sacraments, and so forth,---is only one out of a vast number -of religions which have arisen in humanity, and now, having -played its part in history, is outliving its usefulness, +And yet, as a married man with children cannot continue to understand +life as he understood it when he was a child, so humanity cannot in +connection with all the various changes which have taken place,---the +density of the population, and the established intercourse between the +nations, and the improvement of the means for struggling against Nature, +and the accumulation of science,---continue to understand life as +before, but must establish a new concept of life, from which should +result the activity which corresponds to that new condition into which +it has entered or is about to enter. + +To this demand responds the peculiar ability of humanity to segregate +certain people who give a new meaning to the whole of human life,---a +meaning from which results the whole new activity which is different +from the preceding one. The establishment of the new life-conception, +which is proper for humanity under the new conditions into which it is +entering, and of the activity resulting from it, is what is called +religion. + +And so religion, in the first place, is not, as science thinks, a +phenomenon which at one time accompanied the evolution of humanity, and +later became obsolete, but is a phenomenon always inherent in the life +of humanity, and is in our time as inevitably inherent in humanity as at +any other time. In the second place, religion is always a determination +of the activity of the future, and not of the past, and so it is obvious +that the investigation of past phenomena can in no way include the +essence of religion. + +The essence of every religious teaching does not consist in the desire +to express the forces of Nature symbolically, or in the fear of them, or +in the demand for the miraculous, or in the external forms of its +manifestation, as the men of science imagine. The essence of religion +lies in the property of men prophetically to foresee and point out the +path of life, over which humanity must travel, in a new definition of +the meaning of life, from which also results a new, the whole future +activity of humanity. + +This property of foreseeing the path on which humanity must travel is in +a greater or lesser degree common to all men, but there have always, at +all times, been men, in whom this quality has been manifested with +particular force, and these men expressed clearly and precisely what was +dimly felt by all men, and established a new comprehension of life, from +which resulted an entirely new activity, for hundreds and thousands of +years. + +We know three such conceptions of life: two of them humanity has already +outlived, and the third is the one through which we are now passing in +Christianity. There are three, and only three, such conceptions, not +because we have arbitrarily united all kinds of life-conceptions into +these three, but because the acts of men always have for. their base one +of these three life-conceptions, because we cannot understand life in +any other way than by one of these three means. + +The three life-conceptions are these: the first---the personal, or +animal; the second---the social, or the pagan; and the third---the +universal, or the divine. + +According to the first life-conception, man's life is contained in +nothing but his personality; the aim of his life is the gratification of +the will of this personality. According to the second life-conception, +man's life is not contained in his personality alone, but in the +aggregate and sequence of personalities,---in the tribe, the family, the +race, the state; the aim of life consists in the gratification of the +will of this aggregate of personalities. According to the third +life-conception, man's life is contained neither in his personality, nor +in the aggregate and sequence of personalities, but in the beginning and +source of life, in God. + +These three life-conceptions serve as the foundation of all past and +present religions. + +The savage recognizes life only in himself, in his personal desires. The +good of his life is centred in himself alone. The highest good for him +is the greatest gratification of his lust. The prime mover of his life +is his personal enjoyment. His religion consists in appeasing the +divinity in his favour, and in the worship of imaginary personalities of +gods, who live only for personal ends. + +A pagan, a social man, no longer recognizes life in himself alone, but +in the aggregate of personalities,---in the tribe, the family, the race, +the state,---and sacrifices his personal good for these aggregates. The +prime mover of his life is glory. His religion consists in the +glorification of the heads of unions,---of eponyms, ancestors, kings, +and in the worship of gods, the exclusive protectors of his family, his +race, his nation, his state. + +The man with the divine life-conception no longer recognizes life to +consist in his personality, or in the aggregate of personalities (in the +family, the race, the people, the country, or the state), but in the +source of the everlasting, immortal life, in God; and to do God's will +he sacrifices his personal and domestic and social good. The prime mover +of his religion is love. And his religion is the worship in deed and in +truth of the beginning of everything, of God. + +The whole historical life of humanity is nothing but a gradual +transition from the personal, the animal life-conception, to the social, +and from the social to the divine. The whole history of the ancient +nations, which lasted for thousands of years and which came to a +conclusion with the history of Rome, is the history of the substitution +of the social and the political life-conception for the animal, the +personal. The whole history since the time of imperial Rome and the +appearance of Christianity has been the history of the substitution of +the divine life-conception for the political, and we are passing through +it even now. + +It is this last life-conception, and the Christian teaching which is +based upon it and which governs our whole life and lies at the +foundation of our whole activity, both the practical and the +theoretical, that the men of so-called science, considering it in +reference to its external signs only, recognize as something obsolete +and meaningless for us. + +This teaching, which, according to the men of science, is contained only +in its dogmatic part,---in the doctrine of the Trinity, the redemption, +the miracles, the church, the sacraments, and so forth,---is only one +out of a vast number of religions which have arisen in humanity, and +now, having played its part in history, is outliving its usefulness, melting in the light of science and true culture. -What is taking place is what in the majority of cases serves -as a source of the coarsest human errors,---men who are -standing on a lower level of comprehension, coming in -contact with phenomena of a higher order, instead of making -efforts to understand them, instead of rising to the point -of view from which they ought to look upon a subject, judge -it from their lower point of view, and that, too, with -greater daring and determination the less they understand -what they are talking about. - -For the majority of scientific men, who view Christ's vital, -moral teaching from the lower point of the social conception -of life, this teaching is only a very indefinite, clumsy -combination of Hindoo asceticism, Stoical and Neoplatonic -teachings, and Utopian antisocial reveries, which have no -serious significance for our time, and its whole meaning is -centred in its external manifestations,---in Catholicism, -Protestantism, the dogmas, the struggle with the worldly -power. In defining the significance of Christianity -according to these phenomena, they are like deaf persons who -should judge of the meaning and the worth of music according -to the appearance of the motions which the musicians make. - -The result of it is this, that all these men, beginning with -Comte, Strauss, Spencer, and Renan, who do not understand -the meaning of Christ's sermons, who do not understand why -they are uttered and for what purpose, who do not even -understand the question to which they serve as an answer, -who do not even take the trouble to grasp their meaning, if -they are inimically inclined, deny outright the rationality -of the teaching; but if they wish to be condescending to it, -they correct it from the height of their grandeur, assuming -that Christ wanted to say precisely what they have in mind, -but did not know how to say it. They treat his teaching as, -in correcting the words of an interlocutor, self-confident -men generally speak to one whom they regard as standing -below them, "Yes, what you mean to say is this." This -correction is always made in the sense of reducing the -higher, divine life-conception to the lower, social -conception. - -People generally say that the moral teaching of Christianity -is good, but exaggerated,---that, in order that it should be -absolutely good, we must reject from it what is superfluous, -what does not fit in with our structure of life. "For -otherwise the teaching, which demands too much, which cannot -be carried out, is worse than one which demands from men -what is possible and in conformity with their strength," -think and assert the wise interpreters of Christianity, -repeating what was long ago affirmed and still is affirmed, -and could not help but be affirmed, in relation to the -Christian teaching, by those who, having failed to +What is taking place is what in the majority of cases serves as a source +of the coarsest human errors,---men who are standing on a lower level of +comprehension, coming in contact with phenomena of a higher order, +instead of making efforts to understand them, instead of rising to the +point of view from which they ought to look upon a subject, judge it +from their lower point of view, and that, too, with greater daring and +determination the less they understand what they are talking about. + +For the majority of scientific men, who view Christ's vital, moral +teaching from the lower point of the social conception of life, this +teaching is only a very indefinite, clumsy combination of Hindoo +asceticism, Stoical and Neoplatonic teachings, and Utopian antisocial +reveries, which have no serious significance for our time, and its whole +meaning is centred in its external manifestations,---in Catholicism, +Protestantism, the dogmas, the struggle with the worldly power. In +defining the significance of Christianity according to these phenomena, +they are like deaf persons who should judge of the meaning and the worth +of music according to the appearance of the motions which the musicians +make. + +The result of it is this, that all these men, beginning with Comte, +Strauss, Spencer, and Renan, who do not understand the meaning of +Christ's sermons, who do not understand why they are uttered and for +what purpose, who do not even understand the question to which they +serve as an answer, who do not even take the trouble to grasp their +meaning, if they are inimically inclined, deny outright the rationality +of the teaching; but if they wish to be condescending to it, they +correct it from the height of their grandeur, assuming that Christ +wanted to say precisely what they have in mind, but did not know how to +say it. They treat his teaching as, in correcting the words of an +interlocutor, self-confident men generally speak to one whom they regard +as standing below them, "Yes, what you mean to say is this." This +correction is always made in the sense of reducing the higher, divine +life-conception to the lower, social conception. + +People generally say that the moral teaching of Christianity is good, +but exaggerated,---that, in order that it should be absolutely good, we +must reject from it what is superfluous, what does not fit in with our +structure of life. "For otherwise the teaching, which demands too much, +which cannot be carried out, is worse than one which demands from men +what is possible and in conformity with their strength," think and +assert the wise interpreters of Christianity, repeating what was long +ago affirmed and still is affirmed, and could not help but be affirmed, +in relation to the Christian teaching, by those who, having failed to comprehend the teacher of it, crucified Him,---by the Jews. -It turns out that before the judgment of the learned of our -time, the Jewish law, A tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an -eye,---the law of just retaliation, which was known to -humanity five thousand years ago,---is more useful than the -law of love which eighteen hundred years ago was preached by -Christ in place of this very law of justice. - -It turns out that everything which has been done by the men -who comprehended Christ's teaching in a direct manner and -lived in conformity with such a comprehension, everything -which all true Christians, all Christian champions, have -done, everything which now transforms the world under the -guise of socialism and communism,---is exaggeration, of -which it is not worth while to speak. - -Men who have been educated in Christianity for eighteen -centuries have convinced themselves in the persons of their -foremost men, the scholars, that the Christian teaching is a -teaching of dogmas, that the vital teaching is a -misconception, an exaggeration, which violates the true -legitimate demands of morality, which correspond to man's -nature, and that the doctrine of justice, which Christ -rejected and in the place of which he put his own teaching, -is much more profitable for us. - -The learned consider the commandment of non-resistance to -evil an exaggeration and even madness. If it be rejected, it -would be much better, they think, without observing that -they are not talking of Christ's teaching at all, but of -what presents itself to them as such. - -They do not notice that to say that Christ's commandment -about non-resistance to evil is an exaggeration is the same -as saying that in the theory of the circle the statement -about the equality of the radii of a circle is an -exaggeration. And those who say so do precisely what a man, -who did not have any conception as to what a circle is, -would do if he asserted that the demand that all the points -on the circumference should be equally distant from the -centre is an exaggeration. To advise that the statement -concerning the equality of the radii in a circle be rejected -or moderated is the same as not understanding what a circle -is. To advise that the commandment about non-resistance to -evil in the vital teaching of Christ be rejected or -moderated means not to understand the teaching. - -And those who do so actually do not understand it at all. -They do not understand that this teaching is the -establishment of a new comprehension of life, which -corresponds to the new condition into which men have been -entering for these eighteen hundred years, and the -determination of the new activity which results from it. -They do not believe that Christ wanted to say what he did; -or it seems to them that what he said in the Sermon on the -Mount and in other passages He said from infatuation, from -lack of comprehension, from insufficient development. - -Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, -what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your -body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, -and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for -they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; -yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much -better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one -cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? -Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil -not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even -Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. -"Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which -to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not -much more clothe you, О ye of little faith? Therefore take -no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we -drink, or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all -these things do the Gentiles seek: ) for your heavenly -Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But -seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and -all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no -thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought -for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the -evil thereof (Matthew 6:25-34). - -Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags -which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth -not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. -For where your treasure is there win your heart be also -(Luke 7:33-34). - -Go and sell that thou hast, and follow me, and who hath not -forsaken father or mother, or children, or brethren, or -fields, or house, cannot be my disciple. - -Turn away from thyself, take thy cross for every day, and -come after me. My meat is to do the will of Him that sent -me, and to do His work. Not my will be done, but Thine; not -what I want, but what Thou wantest, and not as I want, but -as Thou wantest. The life is in this, not to do one's will, -but the will of God. - -All these propositions seem to men who are standing on a -lower life-conception to be an expression of an ecstatic -transport, which has no direct applicability to life. And -yet these propositions just as strictly result from the -Christian conception of life as the tenet about giving up -one's labour for the common good, about sacrificing one's -life in the defence of one's country, results from the -social conception. - -Just as a man of the social life-conception says to a -savage, "Come to your senses, bethink yourself! The life of -your personality cannot be the true life, because it is -wretched and transitory. Only the life of the aggregate and -of the sequence of personalities, of the tribe, the family, -the race, the state, is continued and lives, and so a man -must sacrifice his personality for the life of the family, -the state." Precisely the same the Christian teaching says -to a man of the aggregate, of the social conception of life. -"Repent, *μετανοειτε*, that is, bethink yourselves, or else -you will perish. Remember that this carnal, personal life, -which originated to-day and will be destroyed to-morrow, -cannot be made secure in any way, that no external measures, -no arrangement of it, can add firmness and rationality to -it. Bethink yourselves and understand that the life which -you live is not the true life: the life of the family, the -life of society, the life of the state will not save you -from ruin." The true, rational life is possible for man only -in proportion as he can be a participant, not in the family -or the state, but in the source of life, the Father; in -proportion as he can blend his life with the life of the -Father. Such indubitably is the Christian -life-comprehension, which may be seen in every utterance of +It turns out that before the judgment of the learned of our time, the +Jewish law, A tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye,---the law of +just retaliation, which was known to humanity five thousand years +ago,---is more useful than the law of love which eighteen hundred years +ago was preached by Christ in place of this very law of justice. + +It turns out that everything which has been done by the men who +comprehended Christ's teaching in a direct manner and lived in +conformity with such a comprehension, everything which all true +Christians, all Christian champions, have done, everything which now +transforms the world under the guise of socialism and communism,---is +exaggeration, of which it is not worth while to speak. + +Men who have been educated in Christianity for eighteen centuries have +convinced themselves in the persons of their foremost men, the scholars, +that the Christian teaching is a teaching of dogmas, that the vital +teaching is a misconception, an exaggeration, which violates the true +legitimate demands of morality, which correspond to man's nature, and +that the doctrine of justice, which Christ rejected and in the place of +which he put his own teaching, is much more profitable for us. + +The learned consider the commandment of non-resistance to evil an +exaggeration and even madness. If it be rejected, it would be much +better, they think, without observing that they are not talking of +Christ's teaching at all, but of what presents itself to them as such. + +They do not notice that to say that Christ's commandment about +non-resistance to evil is an exaggeration is the same as saying that in +the theory of the circle the statement about the equality of the radii +of a circle is an exaggeration. And those who say so do precisely what a +man, who did not have any conception as to what a circle is, would do if +he asserted that the demand that all the points on the circumference +should be equally distant from the centre is an exaggeration. To advise +that the statement concerning the equality of the radii in a circle be +rejected or moderated is the same as not understanding what a circle is. +To advise that the commandment about non-resistance to evil in the vital +teaching of Christ be rejected or moderated means not to understand the +teaching. + +And those who do so actually do not understand it at all. They do not +understand that this teaching is the establishment of a new +comprehension of life, which corresponds to the new condition into which +men have been entering for these eighteen hundred years, and the +determination of the new activity which results from it. They do not +believe that Christ wanted to say what he did; or it seems to them that +what he said in the Sermon on the Mount and in other passages He said +from infatuation, from lack of comprehension, from insufficient +development. + +Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall +eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put +on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold +the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather +into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much +better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto +his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of +the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I +say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like +one of these. "Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which +to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more +clothe you, О ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, +What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink, or, Wherewithal shall we be +clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek: ) for your +heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek +ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things +shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for +the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto +the day is the evil thereof (Matthew 6:25-34). + +Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not +old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief +approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is there +win your heart be also (Luke 7:33-34). + +Go and sell that thou hast, and follow me, and who hath not forsaken +father or mother, or children, or brethren, or fields, or house, cannot +be my disciple. + +Turn away from thyself, take thy cross for every day, and come after me. +My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to do His work. Not +my will be done, but Thine; not what I want, but what Thou wantest, and +not as I want, but as Thou wantest. The life is in this, not to do one's +will, but the will of God. + +All these propositions seem to men who are standing on a lower +life-conception to be an expression of an ecstatic transport, which has +no direct applicability to life. And yet these propositions just as +strictly result from the Christian conception of life as the tenet about +giving up one's labour for the common good, about sacrificing one's life +in the defence of one's country, results from the social conception. + +Just as a man of the social life-conception says to a savage, "Come to +your senses, bethink yourself! The life of your personality cannot be +the true life, because it is wretched and transitory. Only the life of +the aggregate and of the sequence of personalities, of the tribe, the +family, the race, the state, is continued and lives, and so a man must +sacrifice his personality for the life of the family, the state." +Precisely the same the Christian teaching says to a man of the +aggregate, of the social conception of life. "Repent, *μετανοειτε*, that +is, bethink yourselves, or else you will perish. Remember that this +carnal, personal life, which originated to-day and will be destroyed +to-morrow, cannot be made secure in any way, that no external measures, +no arrangement of it, can add firmness and rationality to it. Bethink +yourselves and understand that the life which you live is not the true +life: the life of the family, the life of society, the life of the state +will not save you from ruin." The true, rational life is possible for +man only in proportion as he can be a participant, not in the family or +the state, but in the source of life, the Father; in proportion as he +can blend his life with the life of the Father. Such indubitably is the +Christian life-comprehension, which may be seen in every utterance of the Gospel. -It is possible not to share this life-conception; it is -possible to reject it; it is possible to prove its -inexactness and irregularity; but it is impossible to judge -of the teaching, without having first grasped the -life-conception from which it results; still less possible -is it to judge about a subject of a higher order from a -lower point of view, to judge of the tower by looking at the -foundation. But it is precisely this that the learned men of -our time are doing. They do so because they abide in an -error, which is like the one of the churchmen, the belief -that they are in possession of such methods of the study of -the subject that, as soon as these methods, called -scientific, are used, there can be no longer any doubt as to -the correctness of the comprehension of the subject under -advisement. - -It is this possession of an instrument of cognition, which -they deem infallible, that serves as the chief obstacle in -the comprehension of the Christian teaching by unbelievers -and so-called scientific men, by whose opinion the vast -majority of unbelievers, the so-called cultured men, are -guided. From this imaginary comprehension of theirs arise -all the errors of the scientific men in respect to the -Christian teaching, and especially two strange -misconceptions which more than any other impede the correct -comprehension of it. - -One of these misconceptions is this, that the Christian -vital teaching is impracticable, and so is either entirely -unobligatory, that is, need not be taken for a guide, or -else must be modified and moderated to such an extent as to -make it practicable in our society. Another misunderstanding -is this, that the Christian teaching of love of God, and so -the service of Him, is an obscure, mystical demand, which -has no definite object of love, and so must give way to a -more precise and comprehensible teaching about loving men -and serving humanity. - -The first misconception about the impracticableness of the -teaching consists in this, that the men of the social -comprehension of life, being unable to comprehend the method -by means of which the Christian teaching guides men, and -taking the Christian indications of perfection to be rules -which determine life, think and say that it is impossible to -follow Christ's teaching, because a complete fulfilment of -this teaching destroys life. - -"If a man fulfilled what was preached by Christ, he would -destroy his life; and if all men should fulfil it, the whole -human race would come to an end," they say. - -"If we care not for the morrow, for what we shall eat and -drink and be clothed in; if we do not defend our lives; if -we do not resist evil with force; if we give our lives for -our friends, and observe absolute chastity, no man, nor the -whole human race, can exist," they think and say. - -And they are quite correct, if we take the indications of -perfection, as given by Christ, for rules, which every man -is obliged to carry out, just as in the social teaching -everybody is obliged to carry out the rule about paying the -taxes, about taking part in court, etc. - -The misconception consists in this, that Christ's teaching -guides men in a different way from the way those teachings -guide which are based on a lower life-conception. The -teachings of the social life-conception guide only by -demanding a precise execution of the rules or laws. Christ's -teaching guides men by indicating to them that infinite -perfection of the Father in heaven, toward which it is -proper for each man to strive voluntarily, no matter at what -stage of perfection he may be. - -The misconception of people who judge about the Christian -teaching from the social point of view consists in this, -that they, assuming that the perfection pointed out by -Christ may be attained completely, ask themselves (even as -they question themselves, assuming that the social laws will -be fulfilled) what will happen when all this shall be -fulfilled. This assumption is false, because the perfection -pointed out by Christ is infinite and can never be attained; -and Christ gives His teaching with this in view, that -complete perfection will never be attained, but that the -striving toward complete, infinite perfection will -constantly increase the good of men, and that this good can, +It is possible not to share this life-conception; it is possible to +reject it; it is possible to prove its inexactness and irregularity; but +it is impossible to judge of the teaching, without having first grasped +the life-conception from which it results; still less possible is it to +judge about a subject of a higher order from a lower point of view, to +judge of the tower by looking at the foundation. But it is precisely +this that the learned men of our time are doing. They do so because they +abide in an error, which is like the one of the churchmen, the belief +that they are in possession of such methods of the study of the subject +that, as soon as these methods, called scientific, are used, there can +be no longer any doubt as to the correctness of the comprehension of the +subject under advisement. + +It is this possession of an instrument of cognition, which they deem +infallible, that serves as the chief obstacle in the comprehension of +the Christian teaching by unbelievers and so-called scientific men, by +whose opinion the vast majority of unbelievers, the so-called cultured +men, are guided. From this imaginary comprehension of theirs arise all +the errors of the scientific men in respect to the Christian teaching, +and especially two strange misconceptions which more than any other +impede the correct comprehension of it. + +One of these misconceptions is this, that the Christian vital teaching +is impracticable, and so is either entirely unobligatory, that is, need +not be taken for a guide, or else must be modified and moderated to such +an extent as to make it practicable in our society. Another +misunderstanding is this, that the Christian teaching of love of God, +and so the service of Him, is an obscure, mystical demand, which has no +definite object of love, and so must give way to a more precise and +comprehensible teaching about loving men and serving humanity. + +The first misconception about the impracticableness of the teaching +consists in this, that the men of the social comprehension of life, +being unable to comprehend the method by means of which the Christian +teaching guides men, and taking the Christian indications of perfection +to be rules which determine life, think and say that it is impossible to +follow Christ's teaching, because a complete fulfilment of this teaching +destroys life. + +"If a man fulfilled what was preached by Christ, he would destroy his +life; and if all men should fulfil it, the whole human race would come +to an end," they say. + +"If we care not for the morrow, for what we shall eat and drink and be +clothed in; if we do not defend our lives; if we do not resist evil with +force; if we give our lives for our friends, and observe absolute +chastity, no man, nor the whole human race, can exist," they think and +say. + +And they are quite correct, if we take the indications of perfection, as +given by Christ, for rules, which every man is obliged to carry out, +just as in the social teaching everybody is obliged to carry out the +rule about paying the taxes, about taking part in court, etc. + +The misconception consists in this, that Christ's teaching guides men in +a different way from the way those teachings guide which are based on a +lower life-conception. The teachings of the social life-conception guide +only by demanding a precise execution of the rules or laws. Christ's +teaching guides men by indicating to them that infinite perfection of +the Father in heaven, toward which it is proper for each man to strive +voluntarily, no matter at what stage of perfection he may be. + +The misconception of people who judge about the Christian teaching from +the social point of view consists in this, that they, assuming that the +perfection pointed out by Christ may be attained completely, ask +themselves (even as they question themselves, assuming that the social +laws will be fulfilled) what will happen when all this shall be +fulfilled. This assumption is false, because the perfection pointed out +by Christ is infinite and can never be attained; and Christ gives His +teaching with this in view, that complete perfection will never be +attained, but that the striving toward complete, infinite perfection +will constantly increase the good of men, and that this good can, therefore, be increased infinitely. -Christ does not teach angels, but men, who live an animal -life, who are moved by it. And it is to this animal force of -motion that Christ seems to apply a new, a different force -of the consciousness of divine perfection, and with this He -directs the motion of life along the resultant of two -forces. - -To assume that human life will go in the direction indicated -by Christ is the same as assuming that a boatman, in -crossing a rapid river and directing his boat almost against -the current, will move in that direction. - -Christ recognizes the existence of both sides of the -parallelogram, of both the eternal, indestructible forces, -of which man's life is composed,---the force of the animal -nature and the force of the consciousness of a filial -relation to God. Without saying anything of the animal -force, which, asserting itself, always remains equal to -itself and exists outside of man's power, Christ speaks only -of the divine force, calling man to recognize it in the -highest degree, to free it as much as possible from what is -retarding it, and to bring it to the highest degree of -tension. - -In this liberation and increase of the force does man's true -life, according to Christ's teaching, consist. The true -life, according to the previous conditions, consisted in the -execution of rules, of the law; according to Christ's -teaching, it consists in the greatest approach to the divine -perfection, as pointed out to every man and inwardly felt by -him, in a greater and ever greater approach toward blending -our will with the will of God, a blending toward which a man -strives, and which would be a destruction of life as we know -it. - -Divine perfection is the asymptote of the human life, toward -which it always tends and approaches, and which can be -attained by it only at infinity. - -The Christian teaching seems to exclude the possibility of -life only when men take the indication of the ideal to be a -rule. It is only then that the demands put forth by Christ's -teaching appear to be destructive of life. Without these -demands the true life would be impossible. - -"Too much should not be demanded," people generally say, in -discussing the demands of the Christian teaching. "It is -impossible to demand that we should not care for the future, -as it says in the Gospel; all that we should do is not to -care too much. It is impossible to give everything to the -poor; but we should give a certain, definite part to them. -It is not necessary to strive after chastity; but debauchery -should be avoided. We must not leave our wives and children; -but we should not be too much attached to them," and so -forth. - -But to speak in this manner is the same as telling a man who -is crossing a rapid river, and who is directing his course -against the current, that it is impossible to cross the -river by going against the current, but that to cross it he -should row in the direction he wishes to go. - -Christ's teaching differs from previous teachings in that it -guides men, not by external rules, but by the internal -consciousness of the possibility of attaining divine -perfection. And in man's soul there are not moderated rules -of justice and of philanthropy, but the ideal of the -complete, infinite, divine perfection. Only the striving -after this perfection deflects the direction of man's life -from the animal condition toward the divine, to the extent -to which this is possible in this life. - -In order to land where you wish, you must direct your course -much higher up. - -To lower the demands of the ideal means not only to diminish -the possibility of perfection, but to destroy the ideal -itself. The ideal which operates upon people is not an -invented one, but one which is borne in the soul of every -man. Only this ideal of the complete, infinite perfection -acts upon people and moves them to activity. A moderated -perfection loses its power to act upon men's souls. - -Christ's teaching only then has force, when it demands full -perfection, that is, the blending of God's essence, which -abides in the soul of every man, with the will of God,---the -union of the son and the Father. Only this liberation of the -son of God, who lives in every man, from the animal, and his -approximation to the Father form life according to Christ's -teaching. - -The existence of the animal in man, of nothing but the -animal, is not the human life. Life according to the will of -God alone is also not the human life. The human life is the -resultant from the animal and the divine lives, and the more -this resultant approaches the divine life, the more there is -of life. - -Life, according to the Christian teaching, is a motion -toward divine perfection. No condition, according to this -teaching, can be higher or lower than another. Every -condition, according to this teaching, is only a certain -step, indifferent in itself, toward the unattainable -perfection, and so in itself forms neither a greater nor a -lesser degree of life. The increase of life, according to -this teaching, is only an acceleration of motion toward -perfection, and so the motion toward perfection of the -publican Zacchaeus, of the harlot, of the robber on the -cross, forms a higher degree of life than the immovable -righteousness of the Pharisee. And so there can be no -obligatory rules for this teaching. A man who stands on a -lower step, in moving toward perfection, lives more morally -and better, and better performs the teaching, than a man who -stands on a much higher stage of morality, but who does not -move toward perfection. - -In this sense the lost sheep is dearer to the Father than -one which is not lost. The prodigal son, the lost coin which -is found again, are dearer than those which were not lost. - -The fulfilment of the teaching consists in the motion from -oneself toward God. It is evident that for such a fulfilment -of the teaching there can be no definite laws and rules. All -degrees of perfection and all degrees of imperfection are -equal before this teaching; no fulfilment of the laws -constitutes a fulfilment of the teaching; and so, for this -teaching there are, and there can be, no rules and no laws. - -From this radical distinction of Christ's teaching as -compared with previous teachings, which are based on the -social conception of life, there results the difference -between the social and the Christian commandments. The -social commandments are for the most part positive, -prescribing certain acts, justifying men, giving them -righteousness. But the Christian commandments (the -commandment of love is not a commandment in the strict sense -of the word, but an expression of the very essence of the -teaching)---the five commandments of the Sermon on the -Mount---are all negative, and they all show only what men -may not do at a certain stage of human development. These -commandments are, as it were, signals on the infinite road -to perfection, toward which humanity walks, signals of that -stage of perfection which is possible at a given period of -the development of humanity. - -In the Sermon on the Mount Christ has expressed the eternal -ideal toward which it is proper for men to tend, and that -degree of its attainment which can be reached even in our -time. - -The ideal consists in having no ill-will against any one, in -calling forth no ill-will, in loving all; but the -commandment, below which, in the attainment of this ideal, -it is absolutely possible not to descend, consists in not -offending any one with a word. And this forms the first -commandment. +Christ does not teach angels, but men, who live an animal life, who are +moved by it. And it is to this animal force of motion that Christ seems +to apply a new, a different force of the consciousness of divine +perfection, and with this He directs the motion of life along the +resultant of two forces. + +To assume that human life will go in the direction indicated by Christ +is the same as assuming that a boatman, in crossing a rapid river and +directing his boat almost against the current, will move in that +direction. + +Christ recognizes the existence of both sides of the parallelogram, of +both the eternal, indestructible forces, of which man's life is +composed,---the force of the animal nature and the force of the +consciousness of a filial relation to God. Without saying anything of +the animal force, which, asserting itself, always remains equal to +itself and exists outside of man's power, Christ speaks only of the +divine force, calling man to recognize it in the highest degree, to free +it as much as possible from what is retarding it, and to bring it to the +highest degree of tension. + +In this liberation and increase of the force does man's true life, +according to Christ's teaching, consist. The true life, according to the +previous conditions, consisted in the execution of rules, of the law; +according to Christ's teaching, it consists in the greatest approach to +the divine perfection, as pointed out to every man and inwardly felt by +him, in a greater and ever greater approach toward blending our will +with the will of God, a blending toward which a man strives, and which +would be a destruction of life as we know it. + +Divine perfection is the asymptote of the human life, toward which it +always tends and approaches, and which can be attained by it only at +infinity. + +The Christian teaching seems to exclude the possibility of life only +when men take the indication of the ideal to be a rule. It is only then +that the demands put forth by Christ's teaching appear to be destructive +of life. Without these demands the true life would be impossible. + +"Too much should not be demanded," people generally say, in discussing +the demands of the Christian teaching. "It is impossible to demand that +we should not care for the future, as it says in the Gospel; all that we +should do is not to care too much. It is impossible to give everything +to the poor; but we should give a certain, definite part to them. It is +not necessary to strive after chastity; but debauchery should be +avoided. We must not leave our wives and children; but we should not be +too much attached to them," and so forth. + +But to speak in this manner is the same as telling a man who is crossing +a rapid river, and who is directing his course against the current, that +it is impossible to cross the river by going against the current, but +that to cross it he should row in the direction he wishes to go. + +Christ's teaching differs from previous teachings in that it guides men, +not by external rules, but by the internal consciousness of the +possibility of attaining divine perfection. And in man's soul there are +not moderated rules of justice and of philanthropy, but the ideal of the +complete, infinite, divine perfection. Only the striving after this +perfection deflects the direction of man's life from the animal +condition toward the divine, to the extent to which this is possible in +this life. + +In order to land where you wish, you must direct your course much higher +up. + +To lower the demands of the ideal means not only to diminish the +possibility of perfection, but to destroy the ideal itself. The ideal +which operates upon people is not an invented one, but one which is +borne in the soul of every man. Only this ideal of the complete, +infinite perfection acts upon people and moves them to activity. A +moderated perfection loses its power to act upon men's souls. + +Christ's teaching only then has force, when it demands full perfection, +that is, the blending of God's essence, which abides in the soul of +every man, with the will of God,---the union of the son and the Father. +Only this liberation of the son of God, who lives in every man, from the +animal, and his approximation to the Father form life according to +Christ's teaching. -The ideal is complete chastity, even in thought; the -commandment which points out the degree of attainment, below -which, in the attainment of this ideal, it is absolutely -possible not to descend, is the purity of the marital life, -the abstaining from fornication. And this forms the second +The existence of the animal in man, of nothing but the animal, is not +the human life. Life according to the will of God alone is also not the +human life. The human life is the resultant from the animal and the +divine lives, and the more this resultant approaches the divine life, +the more there is of life. + +Life, according to the Christian teaching, is a motion toward divine +perfection. No condition, according to this teaching, can be higher or +lower than another. Every condition, according to this teaching, is only +a certain step, indifferent in itself, toward the unattainable +perfection, and so in itself forms neither a greater nor a lesser degree +of life. The increase of life, according to this teaching, is only an +acceleration of motion toward perfection, and so the motion toward +perfection of the publican Zacchaeus, of the harlot, of the robber on +the cross, forms a higher degree of life than the immovable +righteousness of the Pharisee. And so there can be no obligatory rules +for this teaching. A man who stands on a lower step, in moving toward +perfection, lives more morally and better, and better performs the +teaching, than a man who stands on a much higher stage of morality, but +who does not move toward perfection. + +In this sense the lost sheep is dearer to the Father than one which is +not lost. The prodigal son, the lost coin which is found again, are +dearer than those which were not lost. + +The fulfilment of the teaching consists in the motion from oneself +toward God. It is evident that for such a fulfilment of the teaching +there can be no definite laws and rules. All degrees of perfection and +all degrees of imperfection are equal before this teaching; no +fulfilment of the laws constitutes a fulfilment of the teaching; and so, +for this teaching there are, and there can be, no rules and no laws. + +From this radical distinction of Christ's teaching as compared with +previous teachings, which are based on the social conception of life, +there results the difference between the social and the Christian +commandments. The social commandments are for the most part positive, +prescribing certain acts, justifying men, giving them righteousness. But +the Christian commandments (the commandment of love is not a commandment +in the strict sense of the word, but an expression of the very essence +of the teaching)---the five commandments of the Sermon on the +Mount---are all negative, and they all show only what men may not do at +a certain stage of human development. These commandments are, as it +were, signals on the infinite road to perfection, toward which humanity +walks, signals of that stage of perfection which is possible at a given +period of the development of humanity. + +In the Sermon on the Mount Christ has expressed the eternal ideal toward +which it is proper for men to tend, and that degree of its attainment +which can be reached even in our time. + +The ideal consists in having no ill-will against any one, in calling +forth no ill-will, in loving all; but the commandment, below which, in +the attainment of this ideal, it is absolutely possible not to descend, +consists in not offending any one with a word. And this forms the first commandment. -The ideal is not to care for the future, to live only in the -present; the commandment which points out the degree of the -attainment, below which it is absolutely possible not to -descend is not to swear, not to promise anything to men. And -this is the third commandment. - -The ideal is never, under any condition, to make use of -violence; the commandment which points out the degree below -which it is absolutely possible not to descend is not to -repay evil with evil, but to suffer insult, to give up one's -cloak. And this is the fourth commandment. - -The ideal is to love our enemies, who hate us; the -commandment which points out the degree of the attainment, -below which it is possible not to descend, is to do no evil -to our enemies, to speak well of them, to make no -distinction between them and our fellow citizens. - -All these commandments are indications of what we are fully -able not to do on the path of striving after perfection, of -what we ought to work over now, of what we must by degrees -transfer into the sphere of habit, into the sphere of the -unconscious. But these commandments fail to form a teaching, -and do not exhaust it, and form only one of the endless +The ideal is complete chastity, even in thought; the commandment which +points out the degree of attainment, below which, in the attainment of +this ideal, it is absolutely possible not to descend, is the purity of +the marital life, the abstaining from fornication. And this forms the +second commandment. + +The ideal is not to care for the future, to live only in the present; +the commandment which points out the degree of the attainment, below +which it is absolutely possible not to descend is not to swear, not to +promise anything to men. And this is the third commandment. + +The ideal is never, under any condition, to make use of violence; the +commandment which points out the degree below which it is absolutely +possible not to descend is not to repay evil with evil, but to suffer +insult, to give up one's cloak. And this is the fourth commandment. + +The ideal is to love our enemies, who hate us; the commandment which +points out the degree of the attainment, below which it is possible not +to descend, is to do no evil to our enemies, to speak well of them, to +make no distinction between them and our fellow citizens. + +All these commandments are indications of what we are fully able not to +do on the path of striving after perfection, of what we ought to work +over now, of what we must by degrees transfer into the sphere of habit, +into the sphere of the unconscious. But these commandments fail to form +a teaching, and do not exhaust it, and form only one of the endless steps in the approximation toward perfection. -After these commandments there must and will follow higher -and higher ones on the path to perfection, which is -indicated by the teaching. - -And so it is the peculiarity of the Christian teaching that -it makes higher demands than those which are expressed in -these commandments, but under no condition minimizes the -demands, either of the ideal itself, or of these -commandments, as is done by people who judge the teaching of -Christianity free from the standpoint of the social +After these commandments there must and will follow higher and higher +ones on the path to perfection, which is indicated by the teaching. + +And so it is the peculiarity of the Christian teaching that it makes +higher demands than those which are expressed in these commandments, but +under no condition minimizes the demands, either of the ideal itself, or +of these commandments, as is done by people who judge the teaching of +Christianity free from the standpoint of the social conception of life. + +Such is one misconception of the scientific men concerning the meaning +and significance of Christ's teaching; the other, which flows from the +same source, consists in the substitution of the love and service of +men, of humanity, for the Christian demand for loving God and serving +Him. + +The Christian teaching of loving God and serving Him, and (only in +consequence of this love and this service) of the love and service of +our neighbour, appears obscure, mystical, and arbitrary to the men of +science, and they completely exclude the demand of love of God and of +serving Him, assuming that the teaching about this love of men, of +humanity, is much more intelligible and firm and better grounded. + +The men of science teach theoretically that the good and sensible life +is only the life of serving the whole of humanity, and in this alone do +they see the meaning of the Christian teaching; to this teaching do they +reduce the Christian teaching; for this their teaching do they seek a +confirmation in the Christian teaching, assuming that their teaching and +the Christian teaching are one and the same. + +This opinion is quite faulty. The Christian teaching, and that of the +positivists, communists, and all the preachers of a universal +brotherhood of men, which is based on the profitableness of such a +brotherhood, have nothing in common among themselves, and differ from +one another more especially in this, that the Christian teaching has +firm, clear foundations in the human soul, while the teaching of the +love of humanity is only a theoretical deduction from analogy. + +The teaching of the love of humanity alone has for its basis the social conception of life. -Such is one misconception of the scientific men concerning -the meaning and significance of Christ's teaching; the -other, which flows from the same source, consists in the -substitution of the love and service of men, of humanity, -for the Christian demand for loving God and serving Him. - -The Christian teaching of loving God and serving Him, and -(only in consequence of this love and this service) of the -love and service of our neighbour, appears obscure, -mystical, and arbitrary to the men of science, and they -completely exclude the demand of love of God and of serving -Him, assuming that the teaching about this love of men, of -humanity, is much more intelligible and firm and better -grounded. - -The men of science teach theoretically that the good and -sensible life is only the life of serving the whole of -humanity, and in this alone do they see the meaning of the -Christian teaching; to this teaching do they reduce the -Christian teaching; for this their teaching do they seek a -confirmation in the Christian teaching, assuming that their -teaching and the Christian teaching are one and the same. - -This opinion is quite faulty. The Christian teaching, and -that of the positivists, communists, and all the preachers -of a universal brotherhood of men, which is based on the -profitableness of such a brotherhood, have nothing in common -among themselves, and differ from one another more -especially in this, that the Christian teaching has firm, -clear foundations in the human soul, while the teaching of -the love of humanity is only a theoretical deduction from -analogy. - -The teaching of the love of humanity alone has for its basis -the social conception of life. - The essence of the social conception of life consists in the -transference of the meaning of our personal lives into the -life of the aggregate of personalities,---the tribe, the -family, the race, the state. This transference has taken -place easily and naturally in its first forms, in the -transference of the meaning of life from the personality to -the tribe, the family. But the transference to the race or -nation is more difficult and demands a special education for -it; and the transference of the consciousness to the state -forms the limit of such a transference. - -It is natural for any one to love himself, and every person -loves himself without any special incitement; to love my -tribe, which supports and defends me, to love my wife, the -joy and helpmate of my life, my children, the pleasure and -hope of my life, and my parents, who have given me life and -an education, is natural: and this kind of love, though far -from being as strong as the love of self, is met with quite +transference of the meaning of our personal lives into the life of the +aggregate of personalities,---the tribe, the family, the race, the +state. This transference has taken place easily and naturally in its +first forms, in the transference of the meaning of life from the +personality to the tribe, the family. But the transference to the race +or nation is more difficult and demands a special education for it; and +the transference of the consciousness to the state forms the limit of +such a transference. + +It is natural for any one to love himself, and every person loves +himself without any special incitement; to love my tribe, which supports +and defends me, to love my wife, the joy and helpmate of my life, my +children, the pleasure and hope of my life, and my parents, who have +given me life and an education, is natural: and this kind of love, +though far from being as strong as the love of self, is met with quite frequently. -To love one's race, one's nation, for the sake of oneself, -of one's pride, though not so natural, is still to be met -with. The love of one's nation, which is of the same race, -tongue, and faith with one, is still possible, though this -sentiment is far from being as strong as the love of self, -or even of family and race; but the love of a country, like -Turkey, Germany, England, Austria, Russia, is almost an -impossible thing, and, in spite of the intensified education -in this direction, is only assumed and does not exist in -reality. With this aggregate there ends for man the -possibility of transferring his consciousness and of -experiencing in this fiction any immediate sensation. But -the positivists and all the preachers of a scientific -brotherhood, who do not take into consideration the -weakening of the sentiment in proportion as the subject is -widened, continue the discussion theoretically along the -same direction: "If," they say, "it was more advantageous -for the personality to transfer its consciousness to the -tribe, the family, and then to the nation, the state, it -will be still more advantageous to transfer the -consciousness to the whole aggregate of humanity, and for -all to live for humanity, just as individuals live for the -family, the state." +To love one's race, one's nation, for the sake of oneself, of one's +pride, though not so natural, is still to be met with. The love of one's +nation, which is of the same race, tongue, and faith with one, is still +possible, though this sentiment is far from being as strong as the love +of self, or even of family and race; but the love of a country, like +Turkey, Germany, England, Austria, Russia, is almost an impossible +thing, and, in spite of the intensified education in this direction, is +only assumed and does not exist in reality. With this aggregate there +ends for man the possibility of transferring his consciousness and of +experiencing in this fiction any immediate sensation. But the +positivists and all the preachers of a scientific brotherhood, who do +not take into consideration the weakening of the sentiment in proportion +as the subject is widened, continue the discussion theoretically along +the same direction: "If," they say, "it was more advantageous for the +personality to transfer its consciousness to the tribe, the family, and +then to the nation, the state, it will be still more advantageous to +transfer the consciousness to the whole aggregate of humanity, and for +all to live for humanity, just as individuals live for the family, the +state." Theoretically it really comes out that way. -Since the consciousness and the love of personality are -transferred to the family, from the family to the race, the -nation, the state, it would be quite logical for men, to -save themselves from struggle and calamities, which are due -to the division of humanity into nations and states, most -naturally to transfer their love to humanity. This would -seem to be the most logical thing, and this is theoretically -advocated by men, who do not observe that love is a -sentiment which one may have, but cannot preach, and that, -besides, for love there must be an object, whereas humanity -is not an object, but only a fiction. - -The tribe, the family, even the state, are not invented by -men, but were formed naturally like a swarm of bees or ants, -and actually exist. A man who loves his family for the sake -of his animal personality, knows whom he loves: Anna, Mary, -John, Peter, and so forth. A man who loves a race and is -proud of it, knows that he loves the whole race of the -Guelphs, or all the Ghibellines; he who loves the state -knows that he loves France as far as the Rhine and the -Pyrenees, and its capital, Paris, and its history, and so -forth. But what does a man love, when he loves humanity? -There is the state, the nation; there is the abstract -conception---man; but there is not, and there cannot be, a -real conception of humanity. - -Humanity? Where is the limit of humanity? Where does it end -and where does it begin? Does humanity stop short of a -savage, an idiot, an alcoholic, an insane person? If we are -going to draw a line of demarcation for humanity, so as to -exclude the lower representatives of the human race, where -are we going to draw it? Are we going to exclude the -negroes, as the Americans do, and the Hindoos, as some -English do, and the Jews, as some do? But if we are going to -include all men without exception, why include men only, and -not the higher animals, many of whom stand higher than the -lower representatives of the human race? - -We do not know humanity as an external object,---we do not -know its limits. Humanity is a fiction, and it cannot be -loved. It would indeed be very convenient, if men could love -humanity just as they love the family; it would be very -convenient, as the communists talk of doing, to substitute -the communal for the competitive tendency of human activity, -and the universal for the individual, so that every man may -be for all, and all for every man, only there are no motives -whatever for it. The positivists, the communists, and all -the preachers of the scientific brotherhood preach the -widening of that love which men have for themselves and for -their families and for the state, so as to embrace all -humanity, forgetting that the love which they advocate is -the personal love, which, by spreading out thinner, could -extend to the family; winch, by spreading out still thinner, -could extend to the natural country of birth, which -completely vanishes as soon as it reaches an artificial -state, as Austria, Turkey, England, and which we are not -even able to imagine, when we come to humanity, an entirely +Since the consciousness and the love of personality are transferred to +the family, from the family to the race, the nation, the state, it would +be quite logical for men, to save themselves from struggle and +calamities, which are due to the division of humanity into nations and +states, most naturally to transfer their love to humanity. This would +seem to be the most logical thing, and this is theoretically advocated +by men, who do not observe that love is a sentiment which one may have, +but cannot preach, and that, besides, for love there must be an object, +whereas humanity is not an object, but only a fiction. + +The tribe, the family, even the state, are not invented by men, but were +formed naturally like a swarm of bees or ants, and actually exist. A man +who loves his family for the sake of his animal personality, knows whom +he loves: Anna, Mary, John, Peter, and so forth. A man who loves a race +and is proud of it, knows that he loves the whole race of the Guelphs, +or all the Ghibellines; he who loves the state knows that he loves +France as far as the Rhine and the Pyrenees, and its capital, Paris, and +its history, and so forth. But what does a man love, when he loves +humanity? There is the state, the nation; there is the abstract +conception---man; but there is not, and there cannot be, a real +conception of humanity. + +Humanity? Where is the limit of humanity? Where does it end and where +does it begin? Does humanity stop short of a savage, an idiot, an +alcoholic, an insane person? If we are going to draw a line of +demarcation for humanity, so as to exclude the lower representatives of +the human race, where are we going to draw it? Are we going to exclude +the negroes, as the Americans do, and the Hindoos, as some English do, +and the Jews, as some do? But if we are going to include all men without +exception, why include men only, and not the higher animals, many of +whom stand higher than the lower representatives of the human race? + +We do not know humanity as an external object,---we do not know its +limits. Humanity is a fiction, and it cannot be loved. It would indeed +be very convenient, if men could love humanity just as they love the +family; it would be very convenient, as the communists talk of doing, to +substitute the communal for the competitive tendency of human activity, +and the universal for the individual, so that every man may be for all, +and all for every man, only there are no motives whatever for it. The +positivists, the communists, and all the preachers of the scientific +brotherhood preach the widening of that love which men have for +themselves and for their families and for the state, so as to embrace +all humanity, forgetting that the love which they advocate is the +personal love, which, by spreading out thinner, could extend to the +family; winch, by spreading out still thinner, could extend to the +natural country of birth, which completely vanishes as soon as it +reaches an artificial state, as Austria, Turkey, England, and which we +are not even able to imagine, when we come to humanity, an entirely mystical subject. -"Man loves himself (his animal life), loves his family, -loves even his country. Why should he not love also -humanity? How nice that would be! By the way, this is -precisely what Christianity teaches." +"Man loves himself (his animal life), loves his family, loves even his +country. Why should he not love also humanity? How nice that would be! +By the way, this is precisely what Christianity teaches." -Thus think the preachers of the positivist, communistic, -socialistic brotherhoods. It would indeed be very nice, but -it cannot be, because love which is based on the personal -and the social conception of life cannot go beyond the -state. +Thus think the preachers of the positivist, communistic, socialistic +brotherhoods. It would indeed be very nice, but it cannot be, because +love which is based on the personal and the social conception of life +cannot go beyond the state. -The error of judgment consists in this, that the social -life-conception, on which is based the love of family and of -country, is built on the love of personality, and that this -love, being transferred from the personality to the family, -the race, the nationality, the state, keeps growing weaker -and weaker, and in the state reaches its extreme limit, +The error of judgment consists in this, that the social life-conception, +on which is based the love of family and of country, is built on the +love of personality, and that this love, being transferred from the +personality to the family, the race, the nationality, the state, keeps +growing weaker and weaker, and in the state reaches its extreme limit, beyond which it cannot go. -The necessity for widening the sphere of love is -incontestable; but at the same time this very necessity for -its widening in reality destroys the possibility of love and -proves the insufficiency of the personal, the human love. - -And here the preachers of the positivist, communistic, -socialistic brotherhoods, to succour the human love, which -has proved insufficient, propose the Christian love,---in -its consequences alone, and not in its foundations: they -propose the love of humanity alone, without the love of God. - -But there can be no such love. There exists no motive for -it. Christian love results only from the Christian -conception of life, according to which the meaning of life -consists in the love of God and in serving Him. - -By a natural progression, from the love of self to the love -of family, of the race, of the nation, of the state, the -social conception of life has brought men to the -consciousness of the necessity for a love of humanity, which -has no limits and blends with everything in existence,---to -something which evokes no sensations in man; it has brought -them to a contradiction, which cannot be solved by the -social conception of life. - -Only the Christian teaching in all its significance, by -giving a new meaning to life, solves it. Christianity -recognizes the love of self, and of the family, and of the -nation, and of humanity,---not only of humanity, but of -everything living, of everything in existence; it recognizes -the necessity for an endless widening of the sphere of love; -but the object of this'love it does not find outside of -self, or in the aggregate of personalities,---in the family, -the race, the state, humanity, in the whole external world, -but in oneself, in one's personality,---which, however, is a -divine personality, the essence of which is the same love, -to the necessity of widening which the animal personality -was brought, in saving itself from the consciousness of its +The necessity for widening the sphere of love is incontestable; but at +the same time this very necessity for its widening in reality destroys +the possibility of love and proves the insufficiency of the personal, +the human love. + +And here the preachers of the positivist, communistic, socialistic +brotherhoods, to succour the human love, which has proved insufficient, +propose the Christian love,---in its consequences alone, and not in its +foundations: they propose the love of humanity alone, without the love +of God. + +But there can be no such love. There exists no motive for it. Christian +love results only from the Christian conception of life, according to +which the meaning of life consists in the love of God and in serving +Him. + +By a natural progression, from the love of self to the love of family, +of the race, of the nation, of the state, the social conception of life +has brought men to the consciousness of the necessity for a love of +humanity, which has no limits and blends with everything in +existence,---to something which evokes no sensations in man; it has +brought them to a contradiction, which cannot be solved by the social +conception of life. + +Only the Christian teaching in all its significance, by giving a new +meaning to life, solves it. Christianity recognizes the love of self, +and of the family, and of the nation, and of humanity,---not only of +humanity, but of everything living, of everything in existence; it +recognizes the necessity for an endless widening of the sphere of love; +but the object of this'love it does not find outside of self, or in the +aggregate of personalities,---in the family, the race, the state, +humanity, in the whole external world, but in oneself, in one's +personality,---which, however, is a divine personality, the essence of +which is the same love, to the necessity of widening which the animal +personality was brought, in saving itself from the consciousness of its perdition. -The difference between the Christian teaching and what -preceded it is this, that the preceding social teaching -said: "Live contrary to your nature (meaning only the animal -nature), subordinate it to the external law of the family, -the society, the state;" but Christianity says: "Live in -accordance with your nature (meaning the divine nature), -subordinating it to nothing,---neither to your own, nor to -anybody else's animal nature,---and you will attain what you -are striving after by subordinating your external nature to -external laws." - -The Christian teaching takes man back to the primitive -consciousness of self, not of self---the animal, but of -self---God, the divine spark, of self---the son of God, of -just such a God as the Father himself, but included in an -animal integument. And the recognition of self as this son -of God, whose chief quality is love, satisfies also all -those demands for the widening of the sphere of love, to -which the man of the social conception of life was brought. -There, with a greater and ever greater widening of the -sphere of love for the salvation of the personality, love -was a necessity and was applied to certain objects,---self, -the family, society, humanity; with the Christian conception -of life, love is not a necessity and is not adapted to -anything, but is an essential quality of man's soul. Man -does not love because it is advantageous for him to love -this man or these men, but because love is the essence of -his soul,---because he cannot help loving. - -The Christian teaching consists in pointing out to man that -the essence of his soul is love, that his good is derived -not from the fact that he will love this or that man, but -from the fact that he will love the beginning of everything, -God, whom he recognizes in himself through love, and so will -love everybody and everything. - -In this does the fundamental difference between the -Christian teaching and the teaching of the positivists and -of all the theorists of the non-Christian universal -brotherhood consist. - -Such are the two chief misconceptions concerning the -Christian teaching, from which originate the majority of the -false opinions in regard to it. One is, that, like the -preceding teachings, Christ's teaching inculcates rules, -which men are obliged to follow, and that these rules are -impracticable; the other is, that the whole significance of -Christianity consists in the teaching about the advantageous -cohabitation of humanity, as one family, for which, without -mentioning the love of God, it is necessary only to follow -the rule of love toward humanity. - -The false opinion of the scientific men, that the teaching -of the supernatural forms the essence of the Christian -teaching, and that Christ's vital teaching is impracticable, -together with the misconception which arises from this false -opinion, forms the second cause why Christianity is not -understood by the men of our time. +The difference between the Christian teaching and what preceded it is +this, that the preceding social teaching said: "Live contrary to your +nature (meaning only the animal nature), subordinate it to the external +law of the family, the society, the state;" but Christianity says: "Live +in accordance with your nature (meaning the divine nature), +subordinating it to nothing,---neither to your own, nor to anybody +else's animal nature,---and you will attain what you are striving after +by subordinating your external nature to external laws." + +The Christian teaching takes man back to the primitive consciousness of +self, not of self---the animal, but of self---God, the divine spark, of +self---the son of God, of just such a God as the Father himself, but +included in an animal integument. And the recognition of self as this +son of God, whose chief quality is love, satisfies also all those +demands for the widening of the sphere of love, to which the man of the +social conception of life was brought. There, with a greater and ever +greater widening of the sphere of love for the salvation of the +personality, love was a necessity and was applied to certain +objects,---self, the family, society, humanity; with the Christian +conception of life, love is not a necessity and is not adapted to +anything, but is an essential quality of man's soul. Man does not love +because it is advantageous for him to love this man or these men, but +because love is the essence of his soul,---because he cannot help +loving. + +The Christian teaching consists in pointing out to man that the essence +of his soul is love, that his good is derived not from the fact that he +will love this or that man, but from the fact that he will love the +beginning of everything, God, whom he recognizes in himself through +love, and so will love everybody and everything. + +In this does the fundamental difference between the Christian teaching +and the teaching of the positivists and of all the theorists of the +non-Christian universal brotherhood consist. + +Such are the two chief misconceptions concerning the Christian teaching, +from which originate the majority of the false opinions in regard to it. +One is, that, like the preceding teachings, Christ's teaching inculcates +rules, which men are obliged to follow, and that these rules are +impracticable; the other is, that the whole significance of Christianity +consists in the teaching about the advantageous cohabitation of +humanity, as one family, for which, without mentioning the love of God, +it is necessary only to follow the rule of love toward humanity. + +The false opinion of the scientific men, that the teaching of the +supernatural forms the essence of the Christian teaching, and that +Christ's vital teaching is impracticable, together with the +misconception which arises from this false opinion, forms the second +cause why Christianity is not understood by the men of our time. # V -There are many causes for the failure to comprehend Christ's -teaching. One cause lies in this, that men assume that they -understand the teaching, when they decide, as the churchmen -do, that it was transmitted to us in a supernatural manner; -or, as the scientific men do, that they understand it, when -they have studied a part of those external phenomena in -which it is expressed. Another cause of a failure to -comprehend lies in the misconceptions as to the -impracticability of the teaching and as to this, that it -ought to give way to the teaching about the love of +There are many causes for the failure to comprehend Christ's teaching. +One cause lies in this, that men assume that they understand the +teaching, when they decide, as the churchmen do, that it was transmitted +to us in a supernatural manner; or, as the scientific men do, that they +understand it, when they have studied a part of those external phenomena +in which it is expressed. Another cause of a failure to comprehend lies +in the misconceptions as to the impracticability of the teaching and as +to this, that it ought to give way to the teaching about the love of humanity; but the chief cause which has engendered all these -misconceptions is this, that Christ's teaching is considered -to be such as can be accepted, or not, without changing -one's life. - -The men who are accustomed to the existing order of things, -who love it and are afraid to change it, try to comprehend -the teaching as a collection of revelations and rules, which -may be accepted, without changing their lives, whereas -Christ's teaching is not merely a teaching about rules which -a man may follow, but the elucidation of a new meaning of -life, which determines the whole, entirely new activity of -humanity for the period upon which it is entering. - -Human life moves, passes, like the life of the individual, -and every age has its corresponding life-conception, and -this life-conception is inevitably accepted by men. Those -men who do not consciously accept the life-conception proper -for their age are brought to it unconsciously. - -What takes place with the change of views on life in the -case of individuals, takes place also with the change of the -views on life in the case of nations and of all humanity. If -a man with a family continues to be guided in his activity -by a childish comprehension of life, his life will become so -hard for him that he will involuntarily seek another -comprehension of life, and will gladly accept the one which +misconceptions is this, that Christ's teaching is considered to be such +as can be accepted, or not, without changing one's life. + +The men who are accustomed to the existing order of things, who love it +and are afraid to change it, try to comprehend the teaching as a +collection of revelations and rules, which may be accepted, without +changing their lives, whereas Christ's teaching is not merely a teaching +about rules which a man may follow, but the elucidation of a new meaning +of life, which determines the whole, entirely new activity of humanity +for the period upon which it is entering. + +Human life moves, passes, like the life of the individual, and every age +has its corresponding life-conception, and this life-conception is +inevitably accepted by men. Those men who do not consciously accept the +life-conception proper for their age are brought to it unconsciously. + +What takes place with the change of views on life in the case of +individuals, takes place also with the change of the views on life in +the case of nations and of all humanity. If a man with a family +continues to be guided in his activity by a childish comprehension of +life, his life will become so hard for him that he will involuntarily +seek another comprehension of life, and will gladly accept the one which is proper for his age. -The same is now taking place in our humanity in the -transition from the pagan conception of life to the -Christian, which is now going on. The social man of our time -is brought by life itself to the necessity of renouncing the -pagan conception of life, which is no longer proper for the -present age of humanity, and of submitting to the demands of -the Christian teaching, the truths of which, no matter how -distorted and misinterpreted they may be, are still known to -him and alone furnish a solution to those contradictions in -which he is losing himself. - -If the demands of the Christian teaching seem strange and -even perilous to the man of the social life-conception, the -demands of the social teaching anciently seemed just as -incomprehensible and perilous to a savage, when he did not -yet fully comprehend them and was unable to foresee their -consequences. - -"It is irrational for me to sacrifice my peace or even my -life," says the savage, "in order to defend something -incomprehensible, intangible, conventional,---the family, -the race, the country, and, above all else, it is dangerous -to give myself over to the disposition of a foreign power." - -But the time came when the savage, on the one hand, -comprehended, however dimly, the significance of the social -life, the significance of its prime mover,---the public -approval or condemnation,---glory; on the other hand, when -the sufferings of his personal life became so great that he -no longer continued to believe in the truth of his former -conception of life, and accepted the social, the political -teaching and submitted to it. +The same is now taking place in our humanity in the transition from the +pagan conception of life to the Christian, which is now going on. The +social man of our time is brought by life itself to the necessity of +renouncing the pagan conception of life, which is no longer proper for +the present age of humanity, and of submitting to the demands of the +Christian teaching, the truths of which, no matter how distorted and +misinterpreted they may be, are still known to him and alone furnish a +solution to those contradictions in which he is losing himself. + +If the demands of the Christian teaching seem strange and even perilous +to the man of the social life-conception, the demands of the social +teaching anciently seemed just as incomprehensible and perilous to a +savage, when he did not yet fully comprehend them and was unable to +foresee their consequences. + +"It is irrational for me to sacrifice my peace or even my life," says +the savage, "in order to defend something incomprehensible, intangible, +conventional,---the family, the race, the country, and, above all else, +it is dangerous to give myself over to the disposition of a foreign +power." + +But the time came when the savage, on the one hand, comprehended, +however dimly, the significance of the social life, the significance of +its prime mover,---the public approval or condemnation,---glory; on the +other hand, when the sufferings of his personal life became so great +that he no longer continued to believe in the truth of his former +conception of life, and accepted the social, the political teaching and +submitted to it. The same now takes place with the social, the political man. -"It is irrational for me," says the social man, "to -sacrifice my good, the good of my family, my country, for -the fulfilment of the conditions of some higher law, which -demands from me the renunciation of the most natural and the -best sentiments of love for myself, my family, my country, -and, above all, it is dangerous to reject the security of -life, which is given by the political structure." - -But the time comes when, on the one hand, the dim -consciousness in his soul of a higher law of love for God -and for his neighbour, and, on the other, the sufferings -which arise from the contradictions of life, compel him to -reject the social life-conception and to accept the new, -Christian conception of life, which is offered to him, and -which solves all the contradictions and removes the -sufferings of his life. And this time has now come. - -To us, who thousands of years ago experienced the transition -from the animal, personal life-conception to the social one, -it seems that that transition was necessary and natural, and -this, the one through which we have been passing these -eighteen hundred years, is arbitrary, unnatural, and -terrible. But that only seems so to us, because the other -transition is already accomplished, and its activity has -already passed into the subconscious, while the present -transition is not yet accomplished, and we have to -accomplish it consciously. - -The social life-conception entered into the consciousness of -men through centuries and millenniums, passed through -several forms, and has now passed for humanity into the -sphere of the subconscious, which is transmitted through -heredity, education, and habit, and so it seems natural to -us. But five thousand years ago it seemed to men just as -unnatural and terrible as now the Christian teaching seems -to us in its true meaning. - -It now seems to us that the demands of the Christian -teaching for a universal brotherhood, abolition of -nationalities, absence of property, the apparently so -strange nonresistance to evil, are impossible demands. But -just so strange, thousands of years ago, seemed the demands, -not only of the state, but also of the family, as, for -example, the demand that the parents should support their -children, and the young---the old, and that husband and wife -should be true to one another. Still more strange, even -senseless, seemed the political demands,---that the citizens -should submit to the powers that be, pay taxes, go to war in -the defence of their country, and so forth. It now seems to -us that all such demands are simple, intelligible, natural, -and have nothing mystical or even strange about them; but -five or three thousand years ago, these demands seemed -impossible. - -The social life-conception served as a basis for religions -for the very reason that, when it manifested itself to men, -it seemed to them quite unintelligible, mystical, and -supernatural. Now, since we have outlived this phase of the -life of humanity, we understand the rational causes of the -union of men in families, communes, states; but in antiquity -the demands for such a union were manifested in the name of -the supernatural, and were confirmed by it. - -The patriarchal religion deified the families, races, -nations: the political religions deified kings and states. -Even now the majority of the men of little culture, such as -our peasants, who call the Tsar an earthly God, submit to -the social laws, not from a rational consciousness of their -necessity, not because they have a conception of the idea of -the state, but from a religious sentiment. - -Even so now the Christian teaching represents itself to the -men of the social, or pagan, world-conception in the form of -a supernatural religion, whereas in reality there is in it -nothing mysterious, or mystical, or supernatural; it is -nothing but the teaching about life, which corresponds to -that stage of the material development, to that age, in -which humanity is, and which must therefore inevitably be +"It is irrational for me," says the social man, "to sacrifice my good, +the good of my family, my country, for the fulfilment of the conditions +of some higher law, which demands from me the renunciation of the most +natural and the best sentiments of love for myself, my family, my +country, and, above all, it is dangerous to reject the security of life, +which is given by the political structure." + +But the time comes when, on the one hand, the dim consciousness in his +soul of a higher law of love for God and for his neighbour, and, on the +other, the sufferings which arise from the contradictions of life, +compel him to reject the social life-conception and to accept the new, +Christian conception of life, which is offered to him, and which solves +all the contradictions and removes the sufferings of his life. And this +time has now come. + +To us, who thousands of years ago experienced the transition from the +animal, personal life-conception to the social one, it seems that that +transition was necessary and natural, and this, the one through which we +have been passing these eighteen hundred years, is arbitrary, unnatural, +and terrible. But that only seems so to us, because the other transition +is already accomplished, and its activity has already passed into the +subconscious, while the present transition is not yet accomplished, and +we have to accomplish it consciously. + +The social life-conception entered into the consciousness of men through +centuries and millenniums, passed through several forms, and has now +passed for humanity into the sphere of the subconscious, which is +transmitted through heredity, education, and habit, and so it seems +natural to us. But five thousand years ago it seemed to men just as +unnatural and terrible as now the Christian teaching seems to us in its +true meaning. + +It now seems to us that the demands of the Christian teaching for a +universal brotherhood, abolition of nationalities, absence of property, +the apparently so strange nonresistance to evil, are impossible demands. +But just so strange, thousands of years ago, seemed the demands, not +only of the state, but also of the family, as, for example, the demand +that the parents should support their children, and the young---the old, +and that husband and wife should be true to one another. Still more +strange, even senseless, seemed the political demands,---that the +citizens should submit to the powers that be, pay taxes, go to war in +the defence of their country, and so forth. It now seems to us that all +such demands are simple, intelligible, natural, and have nothing +mystical or even strange about them; but five or three thousand years +ago, these demands seemed impossible. + +The social life-conception served as a basis for religions for the very +reason that, when it manifested itself to men, it seemed to them quite +unintelligible, mystical, and supernatural. Now, since we have outlived +this phase of the life of humanity, we understand the rational causes of +the union of men in families, communes, states; but in antiquity the +demands for such a union were manifested in the name of the +supernatural, and were confirmed by it. + +The patriarchal religion deified the families, races, nations: the +political religions deified kings and states. Even now the majority of +the men of little culture, such as our peasants, who call the Tsar an +earthly God, submit to the social laws, not from a rational +consciousness of their necessity, not because they have a conception of +the idea of the state, but from a religious sentiment. + +Even so now the Christian teaching represents itself to the men of the +social, or pagan, world-conception in the form of a supernatural +religion, whereas in reality there is in it nothing mysterious, or +mystical, or supernatural; it is nothing but the teaching about life, +which corresponds to that stage of the material development, to that +age, in which humanity is, and which must therefore inevitably be accepted by it. -The time will come, and is already at hand, when the -Christian foundations of life, equality, brotherhood of men, -community of possession, non-resistance to evil, will become -as natural and as simple as the foundations of the family, -the social, and the political life now appear to us. - -Neither man nor humanity can in their motion turn back. The -social, family, and political life-conceptions have been -outlived by men, and it is necessary to go ahead and accept -the higher life-conception, which indeed is being done now. - -This motion takes place from two sides, consciously, in -consequence of spiritual causes, and unconsciously, in -consequence of material causes. - -Just as the individual seldom changes his life merely in -accordance with the indications of reason, but as a rule, in -spite of the new meaning and the new aims indicated by -reason, continues to live his former life and changes it -only when his life becomes entirely contradictory to his -consciousness, and, therefore, agonizing, so also humanity, -having come through its religious guides to know the new -meaning of life, the new aims, toward which it must tend, -even after this knowledge continues for a long time, in the -case of the majority of men, to live the previous life, and -is guided to the acceptance of a new life-conception only +The time will come, and is already at hand, when the Christian +foundations of life, equality, brotherhood of men, community of +possession, non-resistance to evil, will become as natural and as simple +as the foundations of the family, the social, and the political life now +appear to us. + +Neither man nor humanity can in their motion turn back. The social, +family, and political life-conceptions have been outlived by men, and it +is necessary to go ahead and accept the higher life-conception, which +indeed is being done now. + +This motion takes place from two sides, consciously, in consequence of +spiritual causes, and unconsciously, in consequence of material causes. + +Just as the individual seldom changes his life merely in accordance with +the indications of reason, but as a rule, in spite of the new meaning +and the new aims indicated by reason, continues to live his former life +and changes it only when his life becomes entirely contradictory to his +consciousness, and, therefore, agonizing, so also humanity, having come +through its religious guides to know the new meaning of life, the new +aims, toward which it must tend, even after this knowledge continues for +a long time, in the case of the majority of men, to live the previous +life, and is guided to the acceptance of a new life-conception only through the impossibility of continuing the former life. -In spite of the demands for the change of life, as cognized -and expressed by the religious guides and accepted by the -wisest men, the majority of men, in spite of the religious -relation to these guides, that is, the faith in their -teaching, continue in the more complex life to be guided by -the previous teaching, just as a man of a family would act, -if, knowing how he ought to live at his age, he should from -habit and frivolity continue to live a child's life. - -It is this that takes place in the matter of the transition -of humanity from one age to another, such as is now going -on. Humanity has outgrown its social, political age, and has -entered upon a new one. It knows the teaching which ought to -be put at the foundation of the life of this new age, but -from inertia continues to hold on to the previous forms of -life. From this lack of correspondence between the -life-conception and the practice of life there arises a -series of contradictions and sufferings, which poison our -life and demand its change. - -We need only to compare the practice of life with its -theory, in order that we may be frightened at the crying -contradiction of the conditions of life and of our -consciousness, in which we live. - -Our whole life is one solid contradiction to everything we -know and consider necessary and right. This contradiction is -in everything,---in the economic, the political, the -international life. As though forgetting what we know, and -for a time putting aside what we believe in (we cannot help -but believe, because this constitutes our only foundations -of life), we do everything contrary to what our conscience +In spite of the demands for the change of life, as cognized and +expressed by the religious guides and accepted by the wisest men, the +majority of men, in spite of the religious relation to these guides, +that is, the faith in their teaching, continue in the more complex life +to be guided by the previous teaching, just as a man of a family would +act, if, knowing how he ought to live at his age, he should from habit +and frivolity continue to live a child's life. + +It is this that takes place in the matter of the transition of humanity +from one age to another, such as is now going on. Humanity has outgrown +its social, political age, and has entered upon a new one. It knows the +teaching which ought to be put at the foundation of the life of this new +age, but from inertia continues to hold on to the previous forms of +life. From this lack of correspondence between the life-conception and +the practice of life there arises a series of contradictions and +sufferings, which poison our life and demand its change. + +We need only to compare the practice of life with its theory, in order +that we may be frightened at the crying contradiction of the conditions +of life and of our consciousness, in which we live. + +Our whole life is one solid contradiction to everything we know and +consider necessary and right. This contradiction is in everything,---in +the economic, the political, the international life. As though +forgetting what we know, and for a time putting aside what we believe in +(we cannot help but believe, because this constitutes our only +foundations of life), we do everything contrary to what our conscience and our common sense demand of us. -In economic, political, and international relations we are -guided by those foundations which were useful to men three -and five thousand years ago, and which directly contradict -our present consciousness and those conditions of life in -which we now are. - -It was well enough for a man of antiquity to live amidst a -division of men into slaves and masters, when he believed -that this division was from God, and that it could not be -otherwise. But is a similar division possible in our day? - -A man of the ancient world could consider himself in the -right to use the benefits of this world to the disadvantage -of other men, causing them to suffer for generations, -because he believed that men are born of various breeds, -noble and base, of the generation of Japheth and of Ham. Not -only the greatest sages of the world, the teachers of -humanity, Plato, Aristotle, justified the existence of -slaves and proved the legality of it, but even three -centuries ago men who wrote of the imaginary society of the -future, of Utopia, could not imagine it without slaves. - -The men of antiquity, and even of the Middle Ages, believed, -believed firmly, that men are not equal, that only the -Persians, only the Greeks, only the Romans, only the French -were real men. But those men who in our time champion -aristocratism and patriotism do not believe, cannot believe, -in what they say. - -We all know, and we cannot help but know, even if we have -never heard or read this thought clearly expressed and have -never expressed it ourselves, we, having imbibed this -consciousness, which is borne in the Christian atmosphere, -know with our whole heart, and we cannot help but know, that -fundamental truth of the Christian teaching, that we all are -the sons of one Father, all of us, no matter where we may -live or what language we may speak,---that we are all -brothers and are subject only to the law of love, which by -our common Father is implanted in our hearts. - -No matter what the manner of thought and degree of culture -of a man of our time may be, be he a cultured liberal of any -shade whatever, be, he a philosopher of any camp, be he a -scientific man, an economist, of any school, be he an -uncultured, even a religious man of any confession of -faith,---every man of our time knows that all men have the -same right to life and to the benefits of this world, that -no man is better or worse than any one else, that all men -are equal. Everybody knows this with absolute certainty and -with his whole being, and at the same time not only sees all -about him the division of men into two castes: one, which is -working, is oppressed, in need, in suffering, and the other, -idle, oppressing, and living in luxury and pleasure,---he -not only sees this, but involuntarily from one side or -another takes part in this division of men, which his reason -rejects, and he cannot help but suffer from the -consciousness of such a contradiction and from participation -in it. - -Be he master or slave, a man of our time cannot help but -experience a constant agonizing contradiction between his -consciousness and reality, and sufferings which arise from -it. +In economic, political, and international relations we are guided by +those foundations which were useful to men three and five thousand years +ago, and which directly contradict our present consciousness and those +conditions of life in which we now are. + +It was well enough for a man of antiquity to live amidst a division of +men into slaves and masters, when he believed that this division was +from God, and that it could not be otherwise. But is a similar division +possible in our day? + +A man of the ancient world could consider himself in the right to use +the benefits of this world to the disadvantage of other men, causing +them to suffer for generations, because he believed that men are born of +various breeds, noble and base, of the generation of Japheth and of Ham. +Not only the greatest sages of the world, the teachers of humanity, +Plato, Aristotle, justified the existence of slaves and proved the +legality of it, but even three centuries ago men who wrote of the +imaginary society of the future, of Utopia, could not imagine it without +slaves. + +The men of antiquity, and even of the Middle Ages, believed, believed +firmly, that men are not equal, that only the Persians, only the Greeks, +only the Romans, only the French were real men. But those men who in our +time champion aristocratism and patriotism do not believe, cannot +believe, in what they say. + +We all know, and we cannot help but know, even if we have never heard or +read this thought clearly expressed and have never expressed it +ourselves, we, having imbibed this consciousness, which is borne in the +Christian atmosphere, know with our whole heart, and we cannot help but +know, that fundamental truth of the Christian teaching, that we all are +the sons of one Father, all of us, no matter where we may live or what +language we may speak,---that we are all brothers and are subject only +to the law of love, which by our common Father is implanted in our +hearts. + +No matter what the manner of thought and degree of culture of a man of +our time may be, be he a cultured liberal of any shade whatever, be, he +a philosopher of any camp, be he a scientific man, an economist, of any +school, be he an uncultured, even a religious man of any confession of +faith,---every man of our time knows that all men have the same right to +life and to the benefits of this world, that no man is better or worse +than any one else, that all men are equal. Everybody knows this with +absolute certainty and with his whole being, and at the same time not +only sees all about him the division of men into two castes: one, which +is working, is oppressed, in need, in suffering, and the other, idle, +oppressing, and living in luxury and pleasure,---he not only sees this, +but involuntarily from one side or another takes part in this division +of men, which his reason rejects, and he cannot help but suffer from the +consciousness of such a contradiction and from participation in it. + +Be he master or slave, a man of our time cannot help but experience a +constant agonizing contradiction between his consciousness and reality, +and sufferings which arise from it. + +The working masses, the great majority of people, suffering from the +constant, all-absorbing, senseless, dawnless labour and sufferings, +suffer most of all from the consciousness of the crying contradiction +between what exists and what ought to be, as the result of everything +which is professed by them and by those who have placed them in this +position and maintain them in it. + +They know that they are in slavery, and are perishing in want and +darkness, in order to serve the lust of the minority, which keeps them +in slavery. They know this and give expression to it. And this +consciousness not only increases their sufferings, but even forms the +essence of their sufferings. + +The ancient slave knew that he was a slave by nature, but our workman, +feeling himself to be a slave, knows that he should not be a slave, and +so experiences the torments of Tantalus, eternally wishing for and not +receiving what not only could, but even should be. The sufferings of the +working classes which result from the contradiction between what is and +what ought to be, are increased tenfold by the envy and hatred which +result from them. + +A workman of our time, even though his work may be lighter than that of +an ancient slave and he may have attained an eight-hour work-day and a +wage of three dollars per day, will not cease suffering, because, in +manufacturing articles which he will not make use of, and working, not +for himself and at his pleasure, but from necessity, for whims of +luxurious and idle people in general and for the enrichment of one man, +the rich owner of the factory or plant, in particular, he knows that all +this is taking place in a world in which not only they have accepted the +scientific proposition that only work is wealth, that the exploitation +of other men's labour is unjust, illegal, amenable to punishment by law, +but also they profess Christ's teaching, according to which all are +brothers, and a man's worth and merit consists only in serving his +neighbour, and not in making use of him. + +He knows all this, and he cannot help but suffer torments from this +crying contradiction between what ought to be and what actually exists. +"From all the data and from everything which I know all men profess," +the labouring man says to himself, "I ought to be free, equal to all +other men, and loved; but I am a slave,---I am humiliated and hated." +And he himself hates and seeks for means to save himself from this +position, to throw off his foe, who is pressing down on him, and himself +to get on top of him. They say, "The working men are not right in their +desire to take the place of the capitalists, nor the poor in their +desire to take the place of the rich." This is not true: the working men +and the poor would be in the wrong, if they wished for it in a world in +which slaves and masters, the rich and the poor, are established by God; +but they wish for it in a world in which is professed the Gospel +teaching, the first proposition of which is the filial relation of men +to God, and so the brotherhood and equality of all men. And no matter +how much men may try, it is impossible to conceal the fact that one of +the first conditions of a Christian life is love, not in words, but in +work. + +In a still greater contradiction and in still greater sufferings lives +the man of the so-called cultured class. Every such man, if he believes +in anything, believes, if not in the brotherhood of men, at least in +humanitarianism; if not in humanitarianism, at least in justice; if not +in justice, at least in science,---and with all that knows that his +whole life is built on conditions which are quite the reverse of all +that, of all the tenets of Christianity, and humanity, and justice, and +science. + +He knows that all the habits in which he is brought up, and the +deprivation of which would be a torment for him, can be gratified only +by the painful, often perilous labour of oppressed working men, that is, +by the most palpable, coarse violation of those principles of +Christianity, humanitarianism, justice, and even science (I mean the +demands of political economy), which he professes. He professes the +principles of brotherhood, humanitarianism, justice, science, and yet +lives in such a way that he needs that oppression of the labouring men +which he denies, and even in such a way that his whole life is an +exploitation of this oppression, and not only does he live in this way, +bu,t also he directs his activity to the maintenance of this order of +things, which is directly opposed to everything in which he believes. + +We are all brothers, and yet every morning my brother or my sister +carries out my vessel. We are all brothers, and I need every morning my +cigar, sugar, a mirror, and so forth, objects in the manufacture of +which my brothers and my sisters, who are my equals, have been losing +their health, and I employ these articles and even demand them. We are +all brothers, and I live by working in a bank, or in a business house, +or a shop, in order to make all the wares which my brothers need more +expensive for them. We are all brothers, and yet I live by receiving a +salary for arraigning, judging, and punishing a thief or a prostitute, +whose existence is conditioned by the whole composition of my life, and +who, I know myself, ought not to be punished, but corrected. We are all +brothers, and I live by receiving a salary for collecting the taxes from +poor working men, to be used for the luxury of the idle and the rich. We +are all brothers, and I receive a salary for preaching to people what is +supposed to be the Christian religion, in which I do not believe myself, +and which deprives them of the possibility of finding out the real +faith. I receive a salary as a priest, a bishop, for deceiving people in +what is the most important matter for them. We are all brothers, but I +give to the poor my pedagogical, medical, literary labours for money +only. We are all brothers, but I receive a salary for preparing myself +to commit murder, studying how to kill, or making a gun, powder, +fortresses. + +The whole life of our higher classes is one solid contradiction, which +is the more agonizing, the more sensitive man's conscience is. + +The man with a sensitive conscience cannot help but sutler, if he lives +this lif e. There is one means by which he can free himself from this +suffering,---it consists in drowning his conscience; but even if such +men succeed in drowning their conscience, they cannot drown their +terror. -The working masses, the great majority of people, suffering -from the constant, all-absorbing, senseless, dawnless labour -and sufferings, suffer most of all from the consciousness of -the crying contradiction between what exists and what ought -to be, as the result of everything which is professed by -them and by those who have placed them in this position and -maintain them in it. - -They know that they are in slavery, and are perishing in -want and darkness, in order to serve the lust of the -minority, which keeps them in slavery. They know this and -give expression to it. And this consciousness not only -increases their sufferings, but even forms the essence of -their sufferings. - -The ancient slave knew that he was a slave by nature, but -our workman, feeling himself to be a slave, knows that he -should not be a slave, and so experiences the torments of -Tantalus, eternally wishing for and not receiving what not -only could, but even should be. The sufferings of the -working classes which result from the contradiction between -what is and what ought to be, are increased tenfold by the -envy and hatred which result from them. - -A workman of our time, even though his work may be lighter -than that of an ancient slave and he may have attained an -eight-hour work-day and a wage of three dollars per day, -will not cease suffering, because, in manufacturing articles -which he will not make use of, and working, not for himself -and at his pleasure, but from necessity, for whims of -luxurious and idle people in general and for the enrichment -of one man, the rich owner of the factory or plant, in -particular, he knows that all this is taking place in a -world in which not only they have accepted the scientific -proposition that only work is wealth, that the exploitation -of other men's labour is unjust, illegal, amenable to -punishment by law, but also they profess Christ's teaching, -according to which all are brothers, and a man's worth and -merit consists only in serving his neighbour, and not in -making use of him. - -He knows all this, and he cannot help but suffer torments -from this crying contradiction between what ought to be and -what actually exists. "From all the data and from everything -which I know all men profess," the labouring man says to -himself, "I ought to be free, equal to all other men, and -loved; but I am a slave,---I am humiliated and hated." And -he himself hates and seeks for means to save himself from -this position, to throw off his foe, who is pressing down on -him, and himself to get on top of him. They say, "The -working men are not right in their desire to take the place -of the capitalists, nor the poor in their desire to take the -place of the rich." This is not true: the working men and -the poor would be in the wrong, if they wished for it in a -world in which slaves and masters, the rich and the poor, -are established by God; but they wish for it in a world in -which is professed the Gospel teaching, the first -proposition of which is the filial relation of men to God, -and so the brotherhood and equality of all men. And no -matter how much men may try, it is impossible to conceal the -fact that one of the first conditions of a Christian life is -love, not in words, but in work. - -In a still greater contradiction and in still greater -sufferings lives the man of the so-called cultured class. -Every such man, if he believes in anything, believes, if not -in the brotherhood of men, at least in humanitarianism; if -not in humanitarianism, at least in justice; if not in -justice, at least in science,---and with all that knows that -his whole life is built on conditions which are quite the -reverse of all that, of all the tenets of Christianity, and -humanity, and justice, and science. - -He knows that all the habits in which he is brought up, and -the deprivation of which would be a torment for him, can be -gratified only by the painful, often perilous labour of -oppressed working men, that is, by the most palpable, coarse -violation of those principles of Christianity, -humanitarianism, justice, and even science (I mean the -demands of political economy), which he professes. He -professes the principles of brotherhood, humanitarianism, -justice, science, and yet lives in such a way that he needs -that oppression of the labouring men which he denies, and -even in such a way that his whole life is an exploitation of -this oppression, and not only does he live in this way, bu,t -also he directs his activity to the maintenance of this -order of things, which is directly opposed to everything in -which he believes. - -We are all brothers, and yet every morning my brother or my -sister carries out my vessel. We are all brothers, and I -need every morning my cigar, sugar, a mirror, and so forth, -objects in the manufacture of which my brothers and my -sisters, who are my equals, have been losing their health, -and I employ these articles and even demand them. We are all -brothers, and I live by working in a bank, or in a business -house, or a shop, in order to make all the wares which my -brothers need more expensive for them. We are all brothers, -and yet I live by receiving a salary for arraigning, -judging, and punishing a thief or a prostitute, whose -existence is conditioned by the whole composition of my -life, and who, I know myself, ought not to be punished, but -corrected. We are all brothers, and I live by receiving a -salary for collecting the taxes from poor working men, to be -used for the luxury of the idle and the rich. We are all -brothers, and I receive a salary for preaching to people -what is supposed to be the Christian religion, in which I do -not believe myself, and which deprives them of the -possibility of finding out the real faith. I receive a -salary as a priest, a bishop, for deceiving people in what -is the most important matter for them. We are all brothers, -but I give to the poor my pedagogical, medical, literary -labours for money only. We are all brothers, but I receive a -salary for preparing myself to commit murder, studying how -to kill, or making a gun, powder, fortresses. - -The whole life of our higher classes is one solid -contradiction, which is the more agonizing, the more -sensitive man's conscience is. - -The man with a sensitive conscience cannot help but sutler, -if he lives this lif e. There is one means by which he can -free himself from this suffering,---it consists in drowning -his conscience; but even if such men succeed in drowning -their conscience, they cannot drown their terror. - -Insensitive people of the higher, the oppressing classes, -and those who have drowned their consciences, if they do not -suffer from their consciences, suffer from fear and hatred. -Nor can they help but suffer. They know of that hatred -against them which exists, and cannot help but exist, among -the labouring classes; and they know that the working men -know that they are deceived and outraged, and they are -beginning to organize for the purpose of throwing off the -oppression and retaliating upon the oppressors. The higher -classes see the unions, strikes, the First of May, and they -feel the calamity which is threatening them, and this terror -poisons their life. They feel the calamity which is -threatening them, and the terror which they experience -passes into a feeling of self-defence and hatred. They know -that if they weaken for a moment in their struggle with the -slaves oppressed by them, they will themselves perish, -because the slaves are enraged, and this rage is growing -with every day of the oppression. The oppressors cannot stop -oppressing, even if they should wish to do so. They know -that they themselves will perish, the moment they stop or -even weaken in their oppressions. And they do oppress, in -spite of their seeming concern for the welfare of the -labouring people, for an eight-hour day, for the prohibition -to employ children and women, for pensions and rewards. All -this is a deception or a provision for eliciting work from -the slave; but the slave remains a slave, and the master, -who could not live without the slave, is less than ever -prepared to free him. - -The ruling classes are, in relation to the workingmen, in -the position of a man who is astride a man whom he holds -down and does not let go of, not so much because he does not -want to let go of him, as because he knows that he need but -for a moment let go of the subdued man, and the subdued man -will cut his throat, because the subdued man is enraged and -has a knife in his hand. And so, whether they be sensitive -or not, our wealthy classes cannot enjoy the good things -which they have taken from the poor, as the ancients did, -who believed in their right. Their whole life and all their -pleasures are poisoned by rebukes of conscience or by +Insensitive people of the higher, the oppressing classes, and those who +have drowned their consciences, if they do not suffer from their +consciences, suffer from fear and hatred. Nor can they help but suffer. +They know of that hatred against them which exists, and cannot help but +exist, among the labouring classes; and they know that the working men +know that they are deceived and outraged, and they are beginning to +organize for the purpose of throwing off the oppression and retaliating +upon the oppressors. The higher classes see the unions, strikes, the +First of May, and they feel the calamity which is threatening them, and +this terror poisons their life. They feel the calamity which is +threatening them, and the terror which they experience passes into a +feeling of self-defence and hatred. They know that if they weaken for a +moment in their struggle with the slaves oppressed by them, they will +themselves perish, because the slaves are enraged, and this rage is +growing with every day of the oppression. The oppressors cannot stop +oppressing, even if they should wish to do so. They know that they +themselves will perish, the moment they stop or even weaken in their +oppressions. And they do oppress, in spite of their seeming concern for +the welfare of the labouring people, for an eight-hour day, for the +prohibition to employ children and women, for pensions and rewards. All +this is a deception or a provision for eliciting work from the slave; +but the slave remains a slave, and the master, who could not live +without the slave, is less than ever prepared to free him. + +The ruling classes are, in relation to the workingmen, in the position +of a man who is astride a man whom he holds down and does not let go of, +not so much because he does not want to let go of him, as because he +knows that he need but for a moment let go of the subdued man, and the +subdued man will cut his throat, because the subdued man is enraged and +has a knife in his hand. And so, whether they be sensitive or not, our +wealthy classes cannot enjoy the good things which they have taken from +the poor, as the ancients did, who believed in their right. Their whole +life and all their pleasures are poisoned by rebukes of conscience or by terror. -Such is the economical contradiction. More striking still is -the political contradiction. - -All men are above all else educated in the habits of -obedience to the laws of the state. The whole life of the -men of our time is determined by the law of the state. A man -marries or gets a divorce, educates his children, even -professes a faith (in many states) in accordance with the -law. What is this law, which determines the whole life of -men? Do the meu believe in this law? Do they consider it to -be true? Not in the least. In the majority of cases, the men -of our time do not believe in the justice of this law, -despise it, and yet obey it. It was all very well for the -men of antiquity to carry out their laws. They believed -firmly that their law (which for the most part was also -religious) was the one true law which all men must obey. But -we? We know, and we cannot help but know, that the law of -our state is not only not the one eternal law, but that it -is only one of many laws of various countries, equally -imperfect, and frequently and palpably false and unjust, and -widely discussed in the newspapers. It was all very well for -a Jew to submit to his laws, when he had no doubt but that -they were written by God's finger; or, for a Roman, when he -thought that the nymph Egeria had written his laws; or even -when they believed that the kings who gave the laws were the -anointed of the Lord, or even that the legislative bodies -had a desire to find the best laws, and were able to do so. -But we know how laws are made; we have all been behind the -scenes; we all know that laws are the results of greed, -deception, the struggle of parties,---that in them there is -and there can be no true justice. And so the men of our time -cannot believe that obedience to civil or political laws -would satisfy the demands of the rationality of human -nature. Men have known for a long time that it is not -sensible to obey a law of the correctness of which there can -be any doubt, and so they cannot help but suffer, if they -obey a law the rationality and obligatoriness of which they -do not acknowledge. - -A man cannot help but suffer, when his whole life is -determined in advance by laws which he must obey under the -menace of punishment, and in the rationality and justice of -which he does not believe, and the unnaturalness, cruelty, -injustice of which he clearly recognizes. We recognize the -uselessness of custom-houses and import duties, and we must -pay the duties; we recognize the uselessness of the expenses -for the support of royal courts and many governmental -offices; we recognize the harmfulness of the church -propaganda, and we must contribute to the support of these -institutions; we recognize the cruelty and unscrupulousness -of the penalties imposed by courts of justice, and we must -take part in them; we recognize the irregularity and -harmfulness of the distribution of land-ownership, and we -must submit to it; we do not recognize the indispensableness -of armies and of war, and must bear terrible burdens for the -maintenance of armies and the waging of wars, and so forth. - -But these contradictions are as nothing in comparison with -the contradiction which has now arisen among men in their -international relations, and which, under threat of ruining -both human reason and human life, demands a solution. This -is the contradiction between the Christian conscience and -war. +Such is the economical contradiction. More striking still is the +political contradiction. + +All men are above all else educated in the habits of obedience to the +laws of the state. The whole life of the men of our time is determined +by the law of the state. A man marries or gets a divorce, educates his +children, even professes a faith (in many states) in accordance with the +law. What is this law, which determines the whole life of men? Do the +meu believe in this law? Do they consider it to be true? Not in the +least. In the majority of cases, the men of our time do not believe in +the justice of this law, despise it, and yet obey it. It was all very +well for the men of antiquity to carry out their laws. They believed +firmly that their law (which for the most part was also religious) was +the one true law which all men must obey. But we? We know, and we cannot +help but know, that the law of our state is not only not the one eternal +law, but that it is only one of many laws of various countries, equally +imperfect, and frequently and palpably false and unjust, and widely +discussed in the newspapers. It was all very well for a Jew to submit to +his laws, when he had no doubt but that they were written by God's +finger; or, for a Roman, when he thought that the nymph Egeria had +written his laws; or even when they believed that the kings who gave the +laws were the anointed of the Lord, or even that the legislative bodies +had a desire to find the best laws, and were able to do so. But we know +how laws are made; we have all been behind the scenes; we all know that +laws are the results of greed, deception, the struggle of +parties,---that in them there is and there can be no true justice. And +so the men of our time cannot believe that obedience to civil or +political laws would satisfy the demands of the rationality of human +nature. Men have known for a long time that it is not sensible to obey a +law of the correctness of which there can be any doubt, and so they +cannot help but suffer, if they obey a law the rationality and +obligatoriness of which they do not acknowledge. + +A man cannot help but suffer, when his whole life is determined in +advance by laws which he must obey under the menace of punishment, and +in the rationality and justice of which he does not believe, and the +unnaturalness, cruelty, injustice of which he clearly recognizes. We +recognize the uselessness of custom-houses and import duties, and we +must pay the duties; we recognize the uselessness of the expenses for +the support of royal courts and many governmental offices; we recognize +the harmfulness of the church propaganda, and we must contribute to the +support of these institutions; we recognize the cruelty and +unscrupulousness of the penalties imposed by courts of justice, and we +must take part in them; we recognize the irregularity and harmfulness of +the distribution of land-ownership, and we must submit to it; we do not +recognize the indispensableness of armies and of war, and must bear +terrible burdens for the maintenance of armies and the waging of wars, +and so forth. -We are all Christian nations, who live the same spiritual -life, so that every good, fruitful thought, which springs up -in one corner of the earth, is at once communicated to the -whole Christian world, evoking similar sensations of joy and -pride, independently of nationality; we, who not only love -the thinkers, benefactors, poets, scholars of other nations, -but also pride ourselves on the exploit of a Damien, as -though it were our own; we, who just love the men of other -nationalities,---the French, the Germans, the Americans, the -English; we, who not only respect their qualities, but -rejoice when we meet them, who give them a smile of -recognition, who not only could not regard a war with them -as something to be proud of, but who could not even think -without horror that any disagreement may arise between these -men and us,---we are all called to take part in murder, -which must inevitably take place, to-morrow, if not to-day. - -It was all very well for a Jew, a Greek, a Roman not only to -defend the independence of his nation by means of murder, -but by the means of murder also to cause other nations to -submit to him, for he believed firmly that his nation was -the one true, good, kind nation, which was loved by God, and -that all the other nations were Philistines, barbarians. -Even the men of the Middle Ages and the men of the end of -the last and the beginning of this century could have -believed so. But we, no matter how much we may be teased to -do so, can no longer believe in this, and this contradiction -is so terrible for the men of our time that it is impossible -to live, if we do not destroy it. - -"We live in a time which is full of contradictions," Count -Komarovski, professor of international law, writes in his -learned treatise. "In the press of all countries there is -constantly shown a universal tendency toward peace, toward -its necessity for all nations. In the same sense express -themselves the representatives of governments, as private -individuals and as official organs, in parliamentary -debates, in diplomatic exchanges of opinion, and even in -international treaties. At the same time, however, the -governments annually increase the military forces of their -countries, impose new taxes, make loans, and leave to future -generations, as a legacy, the obligation to bear the -blunders of the present senseless politics. What a crying -contradiction between words and deeds! - -"Of course, the governments, to justify these measures, -point to the exclusively defensive character of all these -expenditures and armaments, but none the less it remains a -puzzle for every unbiased man, whence we are to expect -attacks, since all the great powers unanimously in their -politics pursue the one aim of defence. In reality this -looks as though each of these powers waited every moment to -be attacked by another, and these are the -consequences,---universal distrust and a preternatural +But these contradictions are as nothing in comparison with the +contradiction which has now arisen among men in their international +relations, and which, under threat of ruining both human reason and +human life, demands a solution. This is the contradiction between the +Christian conscience and war. + +We are all Christian nations, who live the same spiritual life, so that +every good, fruitful thought, which springs up in one corner of the +earth, is at once communicated to the whole Christian world, evoking +similar sensations of joy and pride, independently of nationality; we, +who not only love the thinkers, benefactors, poets, scholars of other +nations, but also pride ourselves on the exploit of a Damien, as though +it were our own; we, who just love the men of other nationalities,---the +French, the Germans, the Americans, the English; we, who not only +respect their qualities, but rejoice when we meet them, who give them a +smile of recognition, who not only could not regard a war with them as +something to be proud of, but who could not even think without horror +that any disagreement may arise between these men and us,---we are all +called to take part in murder, which must inevitably take place, +to-morrow, if not to-day. + +It was all very well for a Jew, a Greek, a Roman not only to defend the +independence of his nation by means of murder, but by the means of +murder also to cause other nations to submit to him, for he believed +firmly that his nation was the one true, good, kind nation, which was +loved by God, and that all the other nations were Philistines, +barbarians. Even the men of the Middle Ages and the men of the end of +the last and the beginning of this century could have believed so. But +we, no matter how much we may be teased to do so, can no longer believe +in this, and this contradiction is so terrible for the men of our time +that it is impossible to live, if we do not destroy it. + +"We live in a time which is full of contradictions," Count Komarovski, +professor of international law, writes in his learned treatise. "In the +press of all countries there is constantly shown a universal tendency +toward peace, toward its necessity for all nations. In the same sense +express themselves the representatives of governments, as private +individuals and as official organs, in parliamentary debates, in +diplomatic exchanges of opinion, and even in international treaties. At +the same time, however, the governments annually increase the military +forces of their countries, impose new taxes, make loans, and leave to +future generations, as a legacy, the obligation to bear the blunders of +the present senseless politics. What a crying contradiction between +words and deeds! + +"Of course, the governments, to justify these measures, point to the +exclusively defensive character of all these expenditures and armaments, +but none the less it remains a puzzle for every unbiased man, whence we +are to expect attacks, since all the great powers unanimously in their +politics pursue the one aim of defence. In reality this looks as though +each of these powers waited every moment to be attacked by another, and +these are the consequences,---universal distrust and a preternatural endeavour of one power to surpass the force of the others. -Such an emulation in itself increases the danger of war: the -nations cannot for any length of time stand the intensified -arming, and sooner or later will prefer war to all the -disadvantages of the present condition and constant menace. -Thus the most insignificant cause will be sufficient to make -the fire of a universal war flame up in the whole of Europe. -It is incorrect to think that such a crisis can cure us of -the political and economical calamities which oppress us. -Experience from the wars which have been waged in recent -years teaches us that every war has only sharpened the -hostility of the nations, increased the burden and the -unendurableness of the pressure of militarism, and made the -politico-economic condition of Europe more hopeless and -complex." - -"Modern Europe keeps under arms an active army of nine -millions of men," writes Enrico Ferri, "and fifteen millions -of reserves, expending on them four milliards of francs per -year. By arming itself more and more, it paralyzes the -sources of the social and the individual welfare, and may -easily be compared to a man who, to provide himself with a -gun, condemns himself to anaemia, at the same time wasting -all his strength for the purpose of making use of the very -gun with which he is providing himself, and under the burden -of which he will finally fall." - -The same was said by Charles Butt,in his speech which he -delivered in London before the Association for the Reform -and Codification of the Law of Nations, July 26, 1887. After -pointing out the same nine millions and over of the active -armies and seventeen millions of reserves, and the enormous -expenses of the governments for the support of these armies -and equipments, he says: "But this forms only a small part -of the actual cost, for besides the figures mentioned, which -constitute merely the war budgets of the nations, we have to -take into account the enormous loss to society by the -withdrawal of so many able-bodied men... from the -occupations of productive industry, together with the -prodigious capital invested in all warlike preparations and -appliances, and which is absolutely unproductive... One -necessary result of the expenditure on wars and preparations -for war is the steady growth of national debts... The -aggregate national debts of Europe, by far the larger -proportion of which has been contracted for war purposes, -amount at the present time to £4,680,000,000." - -The same Komarovski says in another place: "We are living in -a hard time. Everywhere do we hear complaints as to the -slackness of business and industry and in general as to the -bad economic conditions: people point out the hard -conditions of the life of the labouring classes and the -universal impoverishment of the masses. But, in spite of it, -the governments, in their endeavour to maintain their -independence, reach the extreme limits of madness. -Everywhere they invent new taxes and imposts, and the -financial oppression of the nations knows no limits. If we -look at the budgets of the European states for the last one -hundred years, we shall first of all be struck by their -constantly progressive and rapid growth. How can we explain -this extraordinary phenomenon, which sooner or later -threatens us with inevitable bankruptcy? - -"This is incontestably due to the expenditures caused by the -maintenance of an army, which swallow one-third and even -one-half of the budgets of the European states. What is most -lamentable in connection with it is this, that no end can be -foreseen to this increase of the budgets and impoverishment -of the masses. What is socialism, if not a protest against -this abnormal condition, in which the greater part of the +Such an emulation in itself increases the danger of war: the nations +cannot for any length of time stand the intensified arming, and sooner +or later will prefer war to all the disadvantages of the present +condition and constant menace. Thus the most insignificant cause will be +sufficient to make the fire of a universal war flame up in the whole of +Europe. It is incorrect to think that such a crisis can cure us of the +political and economical calamities which oppress us. Experience from +the wars which have been waged in recent years teaches us that every war +has only sharpened the hostility of the nations, increased the burden +and the unendurableness of the pressure of militarism, and made the +politico-economic condition of Europe more hopeless and complex." + +"Modern Europe keeps under arms an active army of nine millions of men," +writes Enrico Ferri, "and fifteen millions of reserves, expending on +them four milliards of francs per year. By arming itself more and more, +it paralyzes the sources of the social and the individual welfare, and +may easily be compared to a man who, to provide himself with a gun, +condemns himself to anaemia, at the same time wasting all his strength +for the purpose of making use of the very gun with which he is providing +himself, and under the burden of which he will finally fall." + +The same was said by Charles Butt,in his speech which he delivered in +London before the Association for the Reform and Codification of the Law +of Nations, July 26, 1887. After pointing out the same nine millions and +over of the active armies and seventeen millions of reserves, and the +enormous expenses of the governments for the support of these armies and +equipments, he says: "But this forms only a small part of the actual +cost, for besides the figures mentioned, which constitute merely the war +budgets of the nations, we have to take into account the enormous loss +to society by the withdrawal of so many able-bodied men... from the +occupations of productive industry, together with the prodigious capital +invested in all warlike preparations and appliances, and which is +absolutely unproductive... One necessary result of the expenditure on +wars and preparations for war is the steady growth of national debts... +The aggregate national debts of Europe, by far the larger proportion of +which has been contracted for war purposes, amount at the present time +to £4,680,000,000." + +The same Komarovski says in another place: "We are living in a hard +time. Everywhere do we hear complaints as to the slackness of business +and industry and in general as to the bad economic conditions: people +point out the hard conditions of the life of the labouring classes and +the universal impoverishment of the masses. But, in spite of it, the +governments, in their endeavour to maintain their independence, reach +the extreme limits of madness. Everywhere they invent new taxes and +imposts, and the financial oppression of the nations knows no limits. If +we look at the budgets of the European states for the last one hundred +years, we shall first of all be struck by their constantly progressive +and rapid growth. How can we explain this extraordinary phenomenon, +which sooner or later threatens us with inevitable bankruptcy? + +"This is incontestably due to the expenditures caused by the maintenance +of an army, which swallow one-third and even one-half of the budgets of +the European states. What is most lamentable in connection with it is +this, that no end can be foreseen to this increase of the budgets and +impoverishment of the masses. What is socialism, if not a protest +against this abnormal condition, in which the greater part of the population of our part of the world finds itself?" -"We ruin ourselves," says Frederic Passy, in a note read at -the last Congress (1890) of Universal Peace, at London, "in -preparing the means for taking part in the mad butcheries of -the future, or in paying the interests of debts bequeathed -to us by the mad and culpable butcheries of the past."We die -of starvation, in order to be able to kill one another off." - -Farther on, speaking of how France looks upon this subject, -he says: "We believe that one hundred years after the -*Declaration of the rights of man and of a citizen* it is -time to recognize the rights of nations and to renounce for -ever all these enterprises of force and violence, which, -under the name of conquests, are real crimes against -humanity, and which, whatever the ambition of the sovereigns -or the pride of the races... weaken even those who seem to -profit from them." - -"I am always very much surprised at the way religion is -carried on in this country," says Sir Wilfrid Lawson, at the -same Congress. "You send a boy to the Sunday school, and you -tell him, My dear boy, you must love your enemies; if any -boy strikes you, don't strike him again; try to reform him -by loving him.' Well, the boy stays in the Sunday school -till he is fourteen or fifteen years of age, and then his -friends say, 'Put him in the army.' What has he to do in the -army? Why, not to love his enemies, but whenever he sees an -enemy to run him through the body with a bayonet. That is -the nature of all religious teaching in this country. I do -not think that that is a very good way of carrying out the -precepts of religion. I think if it is a good thing for the -boy to love his enemy, it is a good thing for the man to -love his enemy." - -And farther: "The nations of Europe... keep somewhere about -twenty-eight millions of armed men to settle quarrels by -killing one another, instead of by arguing. That is what the -Christian nations of the world are doing at this moment. It -is a very expensive way also; for this publication which I -saw made out that since the year 1872 these nations had -spent the almost incredible amount of £1,500,000,000 of -money in preparing, and settling their quarrels by killing -one another. Now it seems to me that with that state of -things one of two positions must be accepted: either that -Christianity is a failure or, that those who profess to +"We ruin ourselves," says Frederic Passy, in a note read at the last +Congress (1890) of Universal Peace, at London, "in preparing the means +for taking part in the mad butcheries of the future, or in paying the +interests of debts bequeathed to us by the mad and culpable butcheries +of the past."We die of starvation, in order to be able to kill one +another off." + +Farther on, speaking of how France looks upon this subject, he says: "We +believe that one hundred years after the *Declaration of the rights of +man and of a citizen* it is time to recognize the rights of nations and +to renounce for ever all these enterprises of force and violence, which, +under the name of conquests, are real crimes against humanity, and +which, whatever the ambition of the sovereigns or the pride of the +races... weaken even those who seem to profit from them." + +"I am always very much surprised at the way religion is carried on in +this country," says Sir Wilfrid Lawson, at the same Congress. "You send +a boy to the Sunday school, and you tell him, My dear boy, you must love +your enemies; if any boy strikes you, don't strike him again; try to +reform him by loving him.' Well, the boy stays in the Sunday school till +he is fourteen or fifteen years of age, and then his friends say, 'Put +him in the army.' What has he to do in the army? Why, not to love his +enemies, but whenever he sees an enemy to run him through the body with +a bayonet. That is the nature of all religious teaching in this country. +I do not think that that is a very good way of carrying out the precepts +of religion. I think if it is a good thing for the boy to love his +enemy, it is a good thing for the man to love his enemy." + +And farther: "The nations of Europe... keep somewhere about twenty-eight +millions of armed men to settle quarrels by killing one another, instead +of by arguing. That is what the Christian nations of the world are doing +at this moment. It is a very expensive way also; for this publication +which I saw made out that since the year 1872 these nations had spent +the almost incredible amount of £1,500,000,000 of money in preparing, +and settling their quarrels by killing one another. Now it seems to me +that with that state of things one of two positions must be accepted: +either that Christianity is a failure or, that those who profess to expound Christianity have failed in expounding it properly." -"Until our ironclads are withdrawn, and our army disbanded, -we are not entitled to call ourselves a Christian nation," -says Mr. J. Jowet Wilson. - -In a discussion which arose in connection with the question -of the obligatoriness of Christian pastors to preach against -war, Mr. G. D. Bartlett said, among other things: "If I -understand the Scriptures, I say that men are only playing -with Christianity when they ignore this question," that is, -say nothing about war. "I have lived a longish life, I have -heard many sermons, and I can say without any exaggeration -that I never heard universal peace recommended from the -pulpit half a dozen times in my life... Some twenty years -ago I happened to stand in a drawing-room where there were -forty or fifty people, and I dared to moot the proposition -that war was incompatible with Christianity. They looked -upon me as an arrant fanatic. The idea that we could get on -without war was regarded as unmitigated weakness and folly." - -In the same sense spoke the Catholic Abbe Defourny: "One of -the first precepts of this eternal law which burns in the -consciences of men is the one which forbids taking the life -of one's like, shedding human blood without just cause, and -without being constrained by necessity. It is one of those -laws which are most indelibly engraved in the human heart... -But if it is a question of war, that is, of the shedding of -human blood in torrents, the men of the present do not -trouble themselves about a just cause. Those who take part -in it do not think of asking themselves whether these -innumerable murders are justified or not, that is, if the -wars, or what goes by that name, are just or iniquitous, -legal or illegal, permissible or criminal... whether they -violate, or not, the primordial law which prohibits homicide -and murder... without just cause. But their conscience is -mute in this matter. - -"War has ceased for them to be an act which has anything to -do with morality. They have no other joy, in the fatigue and -perils of the camp, than that of being victorious, and no -other sadness than that of being vanquished... Do not tell -me that they serve their country. A long time ago a great -genius told you these words, which have become proverbial, -'Reject justice, and what are the empires but great -societies of brigands?' And are not a band of brigands -themselves small empires? Brigands themselves have certain -laws or conventions by which they are ruled. There, too, -they fight for the conquest of booty and for the honour of -the band... The principle of the institution" (he is talking -of the establishment of an international tribunal) "is this, -that the European nations should stop being a nation of -thieves, and the armies gangs of brigands and of pirates, -and, I must add, of slaves. Yes, the armies are gangs of -slaves, slaves of one or two rulers, or one or two -ministers, who dispose of them tyrannically, without any -other guarantee, we know, than a nominal one. - -"What characterizes the slave is this, that he is in the -hands of his master like a chattel, a tool, and no longer a -man. Just so it is with a soldier, an officer, a general, -who march to murder and to death without any care as to -justice, by the arbitrary will of ministers... Thus military -slavery exists, and it is the worst of slaveries, -particularly now, when by means of enforced military service -it puts the chain about the necks of all free and strong men -of the nations, in order to make of them tools of murder, -killers by profession, butchers of human flesh, for this is -the only *opus servile* for which they are chained up and +"Until our ironclads are withdrawn, and our army disbanded, we are not +entitled to call ourselves a Christian nation," says Mr. J. Jowet +Wilson. + +In a discussion which arose in connection with the question of the +obligatoriness of Christian pastors to preach against war, Mr. G. D. +Bartlett said, among other things: "If I understand the Scriptures, I +say that men are only playing with Christianity when they ignore this +question," that is, say nothing about war. "I have lived a longish life, +I have heard many sermons, and I can say without any exaggeration that I +never heard universal peace recommended from the pulpit half a dozen +times in my life... Some twenty years ago I happened to stand in a +drawing-room where there were forty or fifty people, and I dared to moot +the proposition that war was incompatible with Christianity. They looked +upon me as an arrant fanatic. The idea that we could get on without war +was regarded as unmitigated weakness and folly." + +In the same sense spoke the Catholic Abbe Defourny: "One of the first +precepts of this eternal law which burns in the consciences of men is +the one which forbids taking the life of one's like, shedding human +blood without just cause, and without being constrained by necessity. It +is one of those laws which are most indelibly engraved in the human +heart... But if it is a question of war, that is, of the shedding of +human blood in torrents, the men of the present do not trouble +themselves about a just cause. Those who take part in it do not think of +asking themselves whether these innumerable murders are justified or +not, that is, if the wars, or what goes by that name, are just or +iniquitous, legal or illegal, permissible or criminal... whether they +violate, or not, the primordial law which prohibits homicide and +murder... without just cause. But their conscience is mute in this +matter. + +"War has ceased for them to be an act which has anything to do with +morality. They have no other joy, in the fatigue and perils of the camp, +than that of being victorious, and no other sadness than that of being +vanquished... Do not tell me that they serve their country. A long time +ago a great genius told you these words, which have become proverbial, +'Reject justice, and what are the empires but great societies of +brigands?' And are not a band of brigands themselves small empires? +Brigands themselves have certain laws or conventions by which they are +ruled. There, too, they fight for the conquest of booty and for the +honour of the band... The principle of the institution" (he is talking +of the establishment of an international tribunal) "is this, that the +European nations should stop being a nation of thieves, and the armies +gangs of brigands and of pirates, and, I must add, of slaves. Yes, the +armies are gangs of slaves, slaves of one or two rulers, or one or two +ministers, who dispose of them tyrannically, without any other +guarantee, we know, than a nominal one. + +"What characterizes the slave is this, that he is in the hands of his +master like a chattel, a tool, and no longer a man. Just so it is with a +soldier, an officer, a general, who march to murder and to death without +any care as to justice, by the arbitrary will of ministers... Thus +military slavery exists, and it is the worst of slaveries, particularly +now, when by means of enforced military service it puts the chain about +the necks of all free and strong men of the nations, in order to make of +them tools of murder, killers by profession, butchers of human flesh, +for this is the only *opus servile* for which they are chained up and trained... -"Rulers, to the number of two or three... united into a -secret cabinet, deliberate without control and without -minutes which are intended for publicity... consequently -without any guarantee for the conscience of those whom they -send out to be killed." - -"The protests against the heavy arming do not date from our -day," says Signor E. T. Moneta. "Listen to what Montesquieu -wrote in his time. - -"'France' (you may substitute the word 'Europe') 'will be -ruined by the military. A new malady has spread through -Europe; it has infected our princes and has made them keep a -disproportionate number of troops. It has its exacerbations, -and it necessarily becomes contagious, because, as soon as -one state increases what it calls its troops, the others -suddenly increase theirs, so that nothing is gained by it -but the common ruin. - -"'Every monarch keeps on a war footing all the troops which -he might need in case his people were in danger of being -exterminated, and this state of tension, of all against all, -is called peace. As a result, Europe is so ruined that if -private individuals were in the condition in which the -powers are in this part of the world, the richest of them -would not have anything to live on. We are poor with the -riches and the commerce of the whole universe.' - -"This was written almost 150 years ago; the picture seems to -be made for to-day. One single thing has changed,---the -system of government. In the time of Montesquieu, and also -afterward, they used to say that the cause for the -maintenance of great armies lay in the absolute kings, who -waged war in the hope of finding in the conquests the means -for enriching their private budgets and passing down to -history in the aureole of glory. - -"Then they said, 'Oh, if the peoples could choose themselves -those who have the right to refuse the governments soldiers -and money, for then the politics of war would come to an -end.' - -"We have to-day representative governments in nearly all of -Europe, and none the less the expenditures for war and for -its preparation are increased in a frightful proportion. - -"Evidently the folly of the princes has passed down to the -governing classes. At the present time they no longer make -war because a prince was disrespectful to a courtesan, as -such things happened in the time of Louis XIV, but by -exaggerating the respectable sentiments, like that of the -national dignity and of patriotism, by exciting public -opinion against a neighbouring nation, there will come a day -when it will be sufficient to say, though the information -may not be true, that the ambassador of your government was -not received by the chief of a state, in order to make break -forth the most terrible and disastrous of wars ever seen. - -"At the present time Europe keeps under arms more soldiers -than there were in the time of Napoleon's great wars. All -citizens, with few exceptions, are obliged on our continent -to pass several years in the barracks. They build -fortresses, construct arsenals and ships, constantly -manufacture arms, which after awhile have to be replaced by -others, because science, which ought always to be directed -toward the well-being of men, unfortunately lends its aid to -works of destruction, invents at every instant new engines -for killing great masses of men as rapidly as possible. - -"And in order to maintain so many soldiers and to make such -vast preparations for murder, they spend yearly hundreds of -millions, that is, what would be sufficient for the -education of the people, for the execution of the greatest -works of public utility, and would furnish the means for -solving pacifically the social question. - -"Europe, therefore, finds itself, in spite of the scientific -conquests, in a condition as though it were still living in -the worst times of the ferocious Middle Ages. All men -complain of this situation, which is not yet war, but which -is not peace either, and everybody would like to get out of -it. The chiefs of governments protest that they want peace, -and it is a matter of emulation between them as to who will -make the most solemn pacific declarations. But on the same -day, or the day following, they present to the legislative -chambers propositions for increasing the standing army, and -they say that it is for the purpose of maintaining and -assuring peace that they take so many precautions. - -"But it is not the kind of peace we like; nor are the -nations deceived. True peace has reciprocal confidence for -its basis, while these enormous preparations betray a -profound distrust, if not a concealed hostility, between the -states. What would we say of a man who, wishing to prove his -sentiments of friendship for his neighbour, should invite -him to discuss some question with him, while he himself is -holding a revolver in his hand? It is this flagrant -contradiction between the pacific declarations and the -warlike policy of the governments that all good citizens -want to see stopped at any price and as quickly as -possible." - -They marvel why annually sixty thousand suicides are -committed in Europe, and those only the ones that are -recorded, which excludes Russia and Turkey; but what we -ought to marvel at is not that there are so many suicides, -but so few. Every man of our time, if he grasps the -contradiction between his consciousness and his life, is in -a very desperate condition. To say nothing of all the other -contradictions between life and consciousness, which fill -the life of a man of our time, the contradiction between -this last military condition, in which Europe is, and the -Christian profession of Europe is enough to make a man -despair, doubt the rationality of human nature, and put an -end to his life in this mad and beastly world. This -contradiction, the military contradiction, which is the -quintessence of all others, is so terrible that a man can -live and take part in it only by not thinking of it, by +"Rulers, to the number of two or three... united into a secret cabinet, +deliberate without control and without minutes which are intended for +publicity... consequently without any guarantee for the conscience of +those whom they send out to be killed." + +"The protests against the heavy arming do not date from our day," says +Signor E. T. Moneta. "Listen to what Montesquieu wrote in his time. + +"'France' (you may substitute the word 'Europe') 'will be ruined by the +military. A new malady has spread through Europe; it has infected our +princes and has made them keep a disproportionate number of troops. It +has its exacerbations, and it necessarily becomes contagious, because, +as soon as one state increases what it calls its troops, the others +suddenly increase theirs, so that nothing is gained by it but the common +ruin. + +"'Every monarch keeps on a war footing all the troops which he might +need in case his people were in danger of being exterminated, and this +state of tension, of all against all, is called peace. As a result, +Europe is so ruined that if private individuals were in the condition in +which the powers are in this part of the world, the richest of them +would not have anything to live on. We are poor with the riches and the +commerce of the whole universe.' + +"This was written almost 150 years ago; the picture seems to be made for +to-day. One single thing has changed,---the system of government. In the +time of Montesquieu, and also afterward, they used to say that the cause +for the maintenance of great armies lay in the absolute kings, who waged +war in the hope of finding in the conquests the means for enriching +their private budgets and passing down to history in the aureole of +glory. + +"Then they said, 'Oh, if the peoples could choose themselves those who +have the right to refuse the governments soldiers and money, for then +the politics of war would come to an end.' + +"We have to-day representative governments in nearly all of Europe, and +none the less the expenditures for war and for its preparation are +increased in a frightful proportion. + +"Evidently the folly of the princes has passed down to the governing +classes. At the present time they no longer make war because a prince +was disrespectful to a courtesan, as such things happened in the time of +Louis XIV, but by exaggerating the respectable sentiments, like that of +the national dignity and of patriotism, by exciting public opinion +against a neighbouring nation, there will come a day when it will be +sufficient to say, though the information may not be true, that the +ambassador of your government was not received by the chief of a state, +in order to make break forth the most terrible and disastrous of wars +ever seen. + +"At the present time Europe keeps under arms more soldiers than there +were in the time of Napoleon's great wars. All citizens, with few +exceptions, are obliged on our continent to pass several years in the +barracks. They build fortresses, construct arsenals and ships, +constantly manufacture arms, which after awhile have to be replaced by +others, because science, which ought always to be directed toward the +well-being of men, unfortunately lends its aid to works of destruction, +invents at every instant new engines for killing great masses of men as +rapidly as possible. + +"And in order to maintain so many soldiers and to make such vast +preparations for murder, they spend yearly hundreds of millions, that +is, what would be sufficient for the education of the people, for the +execution of the greatest works of public utility, and would furnish the +means for solving pacifically the social question. + +"Europe, therefore, finds itself, in spite of the scientific conquests, +in a condition as though it were still living in the worst times of the +ferocious Middle Ages. All men complain of this situation, which is not +yet war, but which is not peace either, and everybody would like to get +out of it. The chiefs of governments protest that they want peace, and +it is a matter of emulation between them as to who will make the most +solemn pacific declarations. But on the same day, or the day following, +they present to the legislative chambers propositions for increasing the +standing army, and they say that it is for the purpose of maintaining +and assuring peace that they take so many precautions. + +"But it is not the kind of peace we like; nor are the nations deceived. +True peace has reciprocal confidence for its basis, while these enormous +preparations betray a profound distrust, if not a concealed hostility, +between the states. What would we say of a man who, wishing to prove his +sentiments of friendship for his neighbour, should invite him to discuss +some question with him, while he himself is holding a revolver in his +hand? It is this flagrant contradiction between the pacific declarations +and the warlike policy of the governments that all good citizens want to +see stopped at any price and as quickly as possible." + +They marvel why annually sixty thousand suicides are committed in +Europe, and those only the ones that are recorded, which excludes Russia +and Turkey; but what we ought to marvel at is not that there are so many +suicides, but so few. Every man of our time, if he grasps the +contradiction between his consciousness and his life, is in a very +desperate condition. To say nothing of all the other contradictions +between life and consciousness, which fill the life of a man of our +time, the contradiction between this last military condition, in which +Europe is, and the Christian profession of Europe is enough to make a +man despair, doubt the rationality of human nature, and put an end to +his life in this mad and beastly world. This contradiction, the military +contradiction, which is the quintessence of all others, is so terrible +that a man can live and take part in it only by not thinking of it, by being able to forget it. -How is this? We are all Christians,---we not only profess -love of one another, but actually live one common life, the -pulse of our life beats with the same beats, we aid one -another, learn from one another, more and more approach one -another, for a common joy! In this closer union lies the -meaning of the whole of life,---and tomorrow some maddened -head of a government will say something foolish, another man -like him will answer him, and I shall go, making myself -liable to be killed, to kill men who not only have done me -no harm, but whom I love. And this is not a distant -accident, but what we are preparing ourselves for, and it is +How is this? We are all Christians,---we not only profess love of one +another, but actually live one common life, the pulse of our life beats +with the same beats, we aid one another, learn from one another, more +and more approach one another, for a common joy! In this closer union +lies the meaning of the whole of life,---and tomorrow some maddened head +of a government will say something foolish, another man like him will +answer him, and I shall go, making myself liable to be killed, to kill +men who not only have done me no harm, but whom I love. And this is not +a distant accident, but what we are preparing ourselves for, and it is not only a possible, but even an inevitable event. -It is enough to understand this clearly, in order to lose -our mind and shoot ourselves. And it is precisely what -happens with especial frequency among the military. We need -but think for a moment, in order that we may come to the -necessity of such an ending. It is only thus that we can -explain that terrible tension with which the men of our time -incline to intoxicate themselves with wine, tobacco, opium, -cards, the reading of newspapers, travelling, all kinds of -spectacles, and amusements. All these things are done like -serious, important affairs. They are indeed important -affairs. If there existed no external means for dimming -their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot -themselves, because to live contrary to one's reason is a -most intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such -a state. All men of our time live in a constant crying -contradiction between consciousness and life. These -contradictions are expressed in the economic and political -relations, but most startling is this contradiction between -the recognition of the law of the brotherhood of men, as -professed by Christians, and the necessity, in which all men -are placed by the universal military service, of being -prepared for hostility, for murder,---of being at the same -time a Christian and a gladiator. +It is enough to understand this clearly, in order to lose our mind and +shoot ourselves. And it is precisely what happens with especial +frequency among the military. We need but think for a moment, in order +that we may come to the necessity of such an ending. It is only thus +that we can explain that terrible tension with which the men of our time +incline to intoxicate themselves with wine, tobacco, opium, cards, the +reading of newspapers, travelling, all kinds of spectacles, and +amusements. All these things are done like serious, important affairs. +They are indeed important affairs. If there existed no external means +for dimming their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot +themselves, because to live contrary to one's reason is a most +intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such a state. All men +of our time live in a constant crying contradiction between +consciousness and life. These contradictions are expressed in the +economic and political relations, but most startling is this +contradiction between the recognition of the law of the brotherhood of +men, as professed by Christians, and the necessity, in which all men are +placed by the universal military service, of being prepared for +hostility, for murder,---of being at the same time a Christian and a +gladiator. # VI -The removal of the contradiction between life and -consciousness is possible in two ways,---by a change of life -or by a change of consciousness, and in the choice of one of -the two there can be no doubt. - -A man may stop doing what he considers bad, but he cannot -stop considering bad what is bad. - -Even so the whole of humanity may stop doing what it -considers bad, but is powerless, not only to change, but -even for a time to retard the all-elucidating and expanding -consciousness of what is bad and what, therefore, ought not -to be. It would seem that the choice between the change of -life and that of the consciousness ought to be clear and -above doubt. - -And so, it would seem, it is indispensable for the Christian -humanity of our time to renounce the pagan forms of life, -which it condemns, and to build up its life on the Christian -foundations, which it professes. - -But so it would be, if there did not exist the law of -inertia, which is as invariable in the lives of men and -nations as in inanimate bodies, and which is for men -expressed by the psychological law, so well stated in the -Gospel with the words, "and did not walk toward the light, -because their deeds were evil." This law consists in this, -that the majority of men do not think in order to know the -truth, but in order to assure themselves that the life which -they lead, and which is agreeable and habitual to them, is -the one which coincides with the truth. - -Slavery was contrary to all the moral principles which were -preached by Plato and Aristotle, and yet neither the one nor -the other saw this, because the negation of slavery -destroyed all that life which they lived. The same happens -in our world. - -The division of men into two castes, like the violence of -the state and of the army, is repugnant to all those moral -principles by which our world lives, and at the same time -the leading men of culture of our time do not seem to see -it. +The removal of the contradiction between life and consciousness is +possible in two ways,---by a change of life or by a change of +consciousness, and in the choice of one of the two there can be no +doubt. + +A man may stop doing what he considers bad, but he cannot stop +considering bad what is bad. + +Even so the whole of humanity may stop doing what it considers bad, but +is powerless, not only to change, but even for a time to retard the +all-elucidating and expanding consciousness of what is bad and what, +therefore, ought not to be. It would seem that the choice between the +change of life and that of the consciousness ought to be clear and above +doubt. + +And so, it would seem, it is indispensable for the Christian humanity of +our time to renounce the pagan forms of life, which it condemns, and to +build up its life on the Christian foundations, which it professes. + +But so it would be, if there did not exist the law of inertia, which is +as invariable in the lives of men and nations as in inanimate bodies, +and which is for men expressed by the psychological law, so well stated +in the Gospel with the words, "and did not walk toward the light, +because their deeds were evil." This law consists in this, that the +majority of men do not think in order to know the truth, but in order to +assure themselves that the life which they lead, and which is agreeable +and habitual to them, is the one which coincides with the truth. + +Slavery was contrary to all the moral principles which were preached by +Plato and Aristotle, and yet neither the one nor the other saw this, +because the negation of slavery destroyed all that life which they +lived. The same happens in our world. + +The division of men into two castes, like the violence of the state and +of the army, is repugnant to all those moral principles by which our +world lives, and at the same time the leading men of culture of our time +do not seem to see it. The majority, if not all, of the cultured people of our time -unconsciously try to maintain the previous social concept of -life which justifies their position, and to conceal from -themselves and from men its inadequacy, and, above all, the -necessity of the condition of the Christian life-conception, -which destroys the whole structure of the existing life. -They strive to maintain the orders that are based on the -social life-conception, but themselves do not believe in it, -because it is obsolete, and it is impossible to believe in -it any longer. - -All literature, the philosophic, the political, and that of -the *belles-lettres*, of our time is striking in this -respect. What a wealth of ideas, forms, colours, what -erudition, elegance, abundance of thoughts, and what total -absence of serious contents, and even what fear of every -definiteness of thought and of its expression! -Circumlocutions, allegories, jests, general, extremely broad -reflections, and nothing simple, clear, pertinent to the -matter, that is, to the question of life. - -But it is not enough that they write and say graceful -vapidities; they even write and say abominable, vile things, -they in the most refined manner adduce reflections which -take men back to primeval savagery, to the foundations, not -only of pagan, but even of animal life, which we outlived as -far back as five thousand years ago. - -It can, indeed, not be otherwise. In keeping shy of the -Christian life-conception, which for some impairs only the -habitual order, and for others both the habitual and the -advantageous order, men cannot help but return to the pagan -concept of life, and to the teachings which are based on -them. In our time they not only preach patriotism and -aristocratism, as it was preached two thousand years ago, -but they even preach the coarsest epicurism, animality, with -this one difference, that the men who then preached it -believed in what they preached, while now the preachers -themselves do not believe in what they say, and they cannot -believe, because what they preach no longer has any meaning. -It is impossible to remain in one place, when the soil is in -motion. If you do not go ahead, you fall behind. And, though -it is strange and terrible to say so, the cultured people of -our time, the leaders, with their refined reflections, in -reality are dragging society back, not even to the pagan -state, but to the state of primeval savagery. - -In nothing may this direction of the activity of the leading -men of our time be seen so clearly as in their relation to -the phenomenon in which in our time the whole inadequacy of -the social concept of life has been expressed in a -concentrated form,---in their relation to war, to universal -armaments, and to universal military service. - -The indefiniteness, if not the insincerity, of the relation -of the cultured men of our time to this phenomenon is -striking. The relation to this matter in our cultured -society is threefold: some look upon this phenomenon as -something accidental, which arose from the peculiar -political condition of Europe, and consider it corrigible, -without the change of the whole structure of life, by means -of external, diplomatic, international measures; others look -upon this phenomenon as upon something terrible and cruel, -but inevitable and fatal, like a disease or death; others -again calmly and coolly look upon war as an indispensable, -beneficent, and therefore desirable phenomenon. - -These people look differently at the matter, but all of them -discuss war as an incident which is quite independent of the -will of men who take part in it, and so do not even admit -that natural question, which presents itself to every simple -man, "Must I take part in it?" According to the opinion of -all these men, these questions do not even exist, and every -person, no matter how he himself may look upon war, must in -this respect slavishly submit to the demands of the -government. - -The relation of the first, of those who see a salvation from -wars in diplomatic, international measures, is beautifully -expressed in the result of the last Congress of Peace in -London, and in an article and letters concerning war by -prominent authors in No. 8 of the *Revue des Revues* for -1891. - -Here are the results of the Congress: having collected the -personal or written opinions from learned men all over the -world, the Congress began by а Te Deum in the Cathedral, and -ended with a dinner with speeches, having for the period of -five days listened to a large number of speeches, and having -arrived at the following resolutions: - -"1. The Congress affirms its belief that the brotherhood of -man involves as a necessary consequence a brotherhood of -nations, in which the true interests of all are acknowledged -to be identical. - -"2. The Congress recognizes the important influence which -Christianity exercises upon the moral and political progress -of mankind, and earnestly urges upon ministers of the -Gospel, and other teachers of religion and morality, the -duty of setting forth the principles of Peace and Good-will, -and recommends that the third Sunday in December in each +unconsciously try to maintain the previous social concept of life which +justifies their position, and to conceal from themselves and from men +its inadequacy, and, above all, the necessity of the condition of the +Christian life-conception, which destroys the whole structure of the +existing life. They strive to maintain the orders that are based on the +social life-conception, but themselves do not believe in it, because it +is obsolete, and it is impossible to believe in it any longer. + +All literature, the philosophic, the political, and that of the +*belles-lettres*, of our time is striking in this respect. What a wealth +of ideas, forms, colours, what erudition, elegance, abundance of +thoughts, and what total absence of serious contents, and even what fear +of every definiteness of thought and of its expression! Circumlocutions, +allegories, jests, general, extremely broad reflections, and nothing +simple, clear, pertinent to the matter, that is, to the question of +life. + +But it is not enough that they write and say graceful vapidities; they +even write and say abominable, vile things, they in the most refined +manner adduce reflections which take men back to primeval savagery, to +the foundations, not only of pagan, but even of animal life, which we +outlived as far back as five thousand years ago. + +It can, indeed, not be otherwise. In keeping shy of the Christian +life-conception, which for some impairs only the habitual order, and for +others both the habitual and the advantageous order, men cannot help but +return to the pagan concept of life, and to the teachings which are +based on them. In our time they not only preach patriotism and +aristocratism, as it was preached two thousand years ago, but they even +preach the coarsest epicurism, animality, with this one difference, that +the men who then preached it believed in what they preached, while now +the preachers themselves do not believe in what they say, and they +cannot believe, because what they preach no longer has any meaning. It +is impossible to remain in one place, when the soil is in motion. If you +do not go ahead, you fall behind. And, though it is strange and terrible +to say so, the cultured people of our time, the leaders, with their +refined reflections, in reality are dragging society back, not even to +the pagan state, but to the state of primeval savagery. + +In nothing may this direction of the activity of the leading men of our +time be seen so clearly as in their relation to the phenomenon in which +in our time the whole inadequacy of the social concept of life has been +expressed in a concentrated form,---in their relation to war, to +universal armaments, and to universal military service. + +The indefiniteness, if not the insincerity, of the relation of the +cultured men of our time to this phenomenon is striking. The relation to +this matter in our cultured society is threefold: some look upon this +phenomenon as something accidental, which arose from the peculiar +political condition of Europe, and consider it corrigible, without the +change of the whole structure of life, by means of external, diplomatic, +international measures; others look upon this phenomenon as upon +something terrible and cruel, but inevitable and fatal, like a disease +or death; others again calmly and coolly look upon war as an +indispensable, beneficent, and therefore desirable phenomenon. + +These people look differently at the matter, but all of them discuss war +as an incident which is quite independent of the will of men who take +part in it, and so do not even admit that natural question, which +presents itself to every simple man, "Must I take part in it?" According +to the opinion of all these men, these questions do not even exist, and +every person, no matter how he himself may look upon war, must in this +respect slavishly submit to the demands of the government. + +The relation of the first, of those who see a salvation from wars in +diplomatic, international measures, is beautifully expressed in the +result of the last Congress of Peace in London, and in an article and +letters concerning war by prominent authors in No. 8 of the *Revue des +Revues* for 1891. + +Here are the results of the Congress: having collected the personal or +written opinions from learned men all over the world, the Congress began +by а Te Deum in the Cathedral, and ended with a dinner with speeches, +having for the period of five days listened to a large number of +speeches, and having arrived at the following resolutions: + +"1. The Congress affirms its belief that the brotherhood of man involves +as a necessary consequence a brotherhood of nations, in which the true +interests of all are acknowledged to be identical. + +"2. The Congress recognizes the important influence which Christianity +exercises upon the moral and political progress of mankind, and +earnestly urges upon ministers of the Gospel, and other teachers of +religion and morality, the duty of setting forth the principles of Peace +and Good-will, and recommends that the third Sunday in December in each year be set apart for that purpose. -"3. This Congress expresses its opinion that all teachers of -history should call the attention of the young to the grave -evils inflicted on mankind in all ages by war, and to the -fact that such war has been waged, as a rule, for most -inadequate causes. - -"4. The Congress protests against the use of military -exercises in connection with the physical exercises of -school, and suggests the formation of brigades for saving -life rather than any of a quasi-military character; and it -urges the desirability of impressing on the Board of -Examiners, who formulate the questions for examination, the -propriety of guiding the minds of children into the -principles of Peace. - -"5. The Congress holds that the doctrine of the universal -rights of man requires that aboriginal and weaker races -shall be guarded from injustice and fraud when brought into -contact with civilized peoples, alike as to their -territories, their liberties, and their property, and that -they shall be shielded from the vices which are so prevalent -among the so-called advanced races of men. It further -expresses its conviction that there should be concert of -action among the nations for the accomplishment of these -ends. The Congress desires to express its hearty -appreciation of the conclusions arrived at by the late -Anti-Slavery Conference, held in Brussels, for the -amelioration of the condition of the peoples of Africa. - -"6. The Congress believes that the warlike prejudices and -traditions which are still fostered in the various -nationalities, and the misrepresentations by leaders of -public opinion in legislative assemblies, or through the -press, are not infrequently indirect causes of war. The -Congress is therefore of opinion that these evils should be -counteracted by the publication of accurate statements and -information that would tend to the removal of -misunderstanding among nations, and recommends to the -Inter-Parliamentary Committee the importance of considering -the question of commencing an international newspaper, which +"3. This Congress expresses its opinion that all teachers of history +should call the attention of the young to the grave evils inflicted on +mankind in all ages by war, and to the fact that such war has been +waged, as a rule, for most inadequate causes. + +"4. The Congress protests against the use of military exercises in +connection with the physical exercises of school, and suggests the +formation of brigades for saving life rather than any of a +quasi-military character; and it urges the desirability of impressing on +the Board of Examiners, who formulate the questions for examination, the +propriety of guiding the minds of children into the principles of Peace. + +"5. The Congress holds that the doctrine of the universal rights of man +requires that aboriginal and weaker races shall be guarded from +injustice and fraud when brought into contact with civilized peoples, +alike as to their territories, their liberties, and their property, and +that they shall be shielded from the vices which are so prevalent among +the so-called advanced races of men. It further expresses its conviction +that there should be concert of action among the nations for the +accomplishment of these ends. The Congress desires to express its hearty +appreciation of the conclusions arrived at by the late Anti-Slavery +Conference, held in Brussels, for the amelioration of the condition of +the peoples of Africa. + +"6. The Congress believes that the warlike prejudices and traditions +which are still fostered in the various nationalities, and the +misrepresentations by leaders of public opinion in legislative +assemblies, or through the press, are not infrequently indirect causes +of war. The Congress is therefore of opinion that these evils should be +counteracted by the publication of accurate statements and information +that would tend to the removal of misunderstanding among nations, and +recommends to the Inter-Parliamentary Committee the importance of +considering the question of commencing an international newspaper, which should have such a purpose as one of its primary objects. -"7. The Congress proposes to the Inter-Parliamentary -Conference that the utmost support should be given to every -project for the unification of weights and measures, of -coinage, tariffs, postal and telegraphic arrangements, means -of transport, etc., which would assist in constituting a -commercial, industrial, and scientific union of the peoples. - -"8. The Congress, in view of the vast moral and social -influence of woman, urges upon every woman throughout the -world to sustain the things that make for peace; as -otherwise she incurs grave responsibilities for the -continuance of the systems of war and militarism. - -"9. This Congress expresses the hope that the Financial -Reform Association, and other Similar Societies in Europe -and America, should unite in convoking at an early date a -Conference to consider the best means of establishing -equitable commercial relations between states by the -reduction of import duties. The Congress feels that it can -affirm that the whole of Europe desires Peace, and is -impatiently waiting for the moment when it shall see the end -of those crushing armaments which, under the plea of -defence, become in their turn a danger, by keeping alive -mutual distrust, and are at the same time the cause of that -economic disturbance which stands in the way of settling in -a satisfactory manner the problems of labour and poverty, -which should take precedence of all others. - -"10. The Congress, recognizing that a general disarmament -would be the best guarantee of Peace, and would lead to the -solution, in the general interest, of those questions which -must now divide states, expresses the wish that a Congress -of Representatives of all the states of Europe may be -assembled as soon as possible, to consider the means of -accepting a gradual general disarmament. - -"11. The Congress, considering the timidity of the single -Powers or other causes might delay indefinitely the -convocation of the above-mentioned Congress, is of opinion -that the Government which should first dismiss any -considerable number of soldiers would confer a signal +"7. The Congress proposes to the Inter-Parliamentary Conference that the +utmost support should be given to every project for the unification of +weights and measures, of coinage, tariffs, postal and telegraphic +arrangements, means of transport, etc., which would assist in +constituting a commercial, industrial, and scientific union of the +peoples. + +"8. The Congress, in view of the vast moral and social influence of +woman, urges upon every woman throughout the world to sustain the things +that make for peace; as otherwise she incurs grave responsibilities for +the continuance of the systems of war and militarism. + +"9. This Congress expresses the hope that the Financial Reform +Association, and other Similar Societies in Europe and America, should +unite in convoking at an early date a Conference to consider the best +means of establishing equitable commercial relations between states by +the reduction of import duties. The Congress feels that it can affirm +that the whole of Europe desires Peace, and is impatiently waiting for +the moment when it shall see the end of those crushing armaments which, +under the plea of defence, become in their turn a danger, by keeping +alive mutual distrust, and are at the same time the cause of that +economic disturbance which stands in the way of settling in a +satisfactory manner the problems of labour and poverty, which should +take precedence of all others. + +"10. The Congress, recognizing that a general disarmament would be the +best guarantee of Peace, and would lead to the solution, in the general +interest, of those questions which must now divide states, expresses the +wish that a Congress of Representatives of all the states of Europe may +be assembled as soon as possible, to consider the means of accepting a +gradual general disarmament. + +"11. The Congress, considering the timidity of the single Powers or +other causes might delay indefinitely the convocation of the +above-mentioned Congress, is of opinion that the Government which should +first dismiss any considerable number of soldiers would confer a signal benefit on Europe and mankind, because it would oblige other -Governments, urged on by public opinion, to follow its -example, and by the moral force of this accomplished fact, -would have increased rather than diminished the condition of -its national defence. - -"12. This Congress, considering the question of disarmament, -as well as the Peace question generally, depends upon public -opinion, recommends the Peace Societies here represented, -and all friends of Peace, to carry on an active propaganda -among the people, especially at the time of Parliamentary -elections, in order that the electors should give their vote -to those candidates who have included in their programme -Peace, Disarmament, and Arbitration. - -"13. The Congress congratulates the friends of Peace on the -resolution adopted by the International American Conference -at Washington in April last, by which it was recommended -that arbitration should be obligatory in all controversies -concerning diplomatic and consular privileges, boundaries, -territories, indemnities, right of navigation, and the -validity, construction, and enforcement of treaties, and in -all other cases, whatever their origin, nature, or occasion, -except only those which, in the judgment of any of the -nations involved in the controversy, may imperil its -independence. - -"14. The Congress respectfully recommends this resolution to -the attention of the statesmen of Europe, and expresses the -ardent desire that treaties in similar terms be speedily -entered into between the other nations of the world. - -"15. The Congress expresses its satisfaction at the adoption -by the Spanish Senate, on June 16th last, of a project of -law authorizing the Government to negotiate general or -special treaties of arbitration for the settlement of all -disputes, except those relating to the independence and -internal government of the state affected; also at the -adoption of resolutions to a like effect by the Norwegian -Storthing, and by the Italian Chamber, on July 11th. - -"16. The Congress addresses official communications to the -principal religious, political, commercial, labour, and -peace organizations in civilized countries, requesting them -to send petitions to governmental authorities of their -respective countries, praying that measures be taken for the -formation of suitable tribunals for the adjudicature of any -international questions, so as to avoid the resort to war. - -"17. Seeing (*a*) that the object pursued by all Peace -Societies is the establishment of juridical order between -nations; (*b*) that neutralization by international treaties -constitutes a step toward this juridical state, and lessens -the number of districts in which war can be carried on; the -Congress recommends a larger extension of the rule of -neutralization, and expresses the wish: (*a*) that all -treaties which at present assure to a certain state the -benefit of neutrality remain in force, or, if necessary, be -amended in a manner to render the neutrality more effective, -either by extending neutralization to the whole of the -state, of which a part only may be neutralized, or by -ordering the demolition of fortresses which constitute -rather a peril than a guarantee of neutrality; (*b*) that -new treaties, provided they are in harmony with the wishes -of the population, be concluded for the establishment of the -neutralization of other states. - -"18. The Sub-Committee of the Congress recommends:"I. That -the next Congress be held immediately before or immediately -after the next session of the Inter-Parliamentary -Conference, and at the same place. - -"II. That the question of an international Peace Emblem be -postponed *sine die.* +Governments, urged on by public opinion, to follow its example, and by +the moral force of this accomplished fact, would have increased rather +than diminished the condition of its national defence. + +"12. This Congress, considering the question of disarmament, as well as +the Peace question generally, depends upon public opinion, recommends +the Peace Societies here represented, and all friends of Peace, to carry +on an active propaganda among the people, especially at the time of +Parliamentary elections, in order that the electors should give their +vote to those candidates who have included in their programme Peace, +Disarmament, and Arbitration. + +"13. The Congress congratulates the friends of Peace on the resolution +adopted by the International American Conference at Washington in April +last, by which it was recommended that arbitration should be obligatory +in all controversies concerning diplomatic and consular privileges, +boundaries, territories, indemnities, right of navigation, and the +validity, construction, and enforcement of treaties, and in all other +cases, whatever their origin, nature, or occasion, except only those +which, in the judgment of any of the nations involved in the +controversy, may imperil its independence. + +"14. The Congress respectfully recommends this resolution to the +attention of the statesmen of Europe, and expresses the ardent desire +that treaties in similar terms be speedily entered into between the +other nations of the world. + +"15. The Congress expresses its satisfaction at the adoption by the +Spanish Senate, on June 16th last, of a project of law authorizing the +Government to negotiate general or special treaties of arbitration for +the settlement of all disputes, except those relating to the +independence and internal government of the state affected; also at the +adoption of resolutions to a like effect by the Norwegian Storthing, and +by the Italian Chamber, on July 11th. + +"16. The Congress addresses official communications to the principal +religious, political, commercial, labour, and peace organizations in +civilized countries, requesting them to send petitions to governmental +authorities of their respective countries, praying that measures be +taken for the formation of suitable tribunals for the adjudicature of +any international questions, so as to avoid the resort to war. + +"17. Seeing (*a*) that the object pursued by all Peace Societies is the +establishment of juridical order between nations; (*b*) that +neutralization by international treaties constitutes a step toward this +juridical state, and lessens the number of districts in which war can be +carried on; the Congress recommends a larger extension of the rule of +neutralization, and expresses the wish: (*a*) that all treaties which at +present assure to a certain state the benefit of neutrality remain in +force, or, if necessary, be amended in a manner to render the neutrality +more effective, either by extending neutralization to the whole of the +state, of which a part only may be neutralized, or by ordering the +demolition of fortresses which constitute rather a peril than a +guarantee of neutrality; (*b*) that new treaties, provided they are in +harmony with the wishes of the population, be concluded for the +establishment of the neutralization of other states. + +"18. The Sub-Committee of the Congress recommends:"I. That the next +Congress be held immediately before or immediately after the next +session of the Inter-Parliamentary Conference, and at the same place. + +"II. That the question of an international Peace Emblem be postponed +*sine die.* "III. The adoption of the following resolution: -"(*a*) Resolved, that we express our satisfaction at the -formal and official overtures of the Presbyterian Church in -the United States of America, addressed to the highest -representatives of each church organization in Christendom, -inviting the same to unite with itself in a general -conference, the object of which shall be to promote the -substitution of international arbitration for war; (b) that -this Congress, assembled in London from the 14th to the 19th -July, desires to express its profound reverence for the -memory of Aurelio Sam, the great Italian jurist, a member of -the Committee of the International League of Peace and -Liberty. - -"IV. That the Memorial to the various Heads of Civilized -States, adopted by this Congress and signed by the -President, should so far as practicable be presented to each -power, by an influential deputation. - -"V. That the Organization Committee be empowered to make the -needful verbal emendations in the papers and resolutions -presented. +"(*a*) Resolved, that we express our satisfaction at the formal and +official overtures of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of +America, addressed to the highest representatives of each church +organization in Christendom, inviting the same to unite with itself in a +general conference, the object of which shall be to promote the +substitution of international arbitration for war; (b) that this +Congress, assembled in London from the 14th to the 19th July, desires to +express its profound reverence for the memory of Aurelio Sam, the great +Italian jurist, a member of the Committee of the International League of +Peace and Liberty. + +"IV. That the Memorial to the various Heads of Civilized States, adopted +by this Congress and signed by the President, should so far as +practicable be presented to each power, by an influential deputation. + +"V. That the Organization Committee be empowered to make the needful +verbal emendations in the papers and resolutions presented. "VI. That the following resolutions be adopted: -"(*a*) A resolution of thanks to the Presidents of the -various sittings of the Congress; (*b*) a resolution of -thanks to the Chairman, the Secretary, and the Members of -the Bureau of the Congress; (*c*) a resolution of thanks to -the conveners and members of Sectional Committees; (*d*) a -resolution of thanks to Rev. Cannon Scott Holland, -Rev. Doctor Reuen, and Rev. J. Morgan Gibbon, for their -pulpit addresses before the Congress, and that they be -requested to furnish copies of the same for publication; and -also to the Authorities of St. Paul's Cathedral, the City -Temple, and Stamford Hill Congregational Church for the use -of those buildings for public services; (*e*) a letter of -thanks to Her Majesty for permission to visit Windsor -Castle; (*f*) and also a resolution of thanks to the Lord -Mayor and Lady Mayoress, to Mr. Passmore Edwards, and other -friends, who had extended their hospitality to the members -of the Congress. - -"19. This Congress places on record a heartfelt expression -of gratitude to Almighty God for the" remarkable harmony and -concord which have characterized the meetings of the -Assembly, in which so many men and women of varied nations, -creeds, tongues, and races have gathered in closest -cooperation, and in the conclusion of the labours of the -Congress; it expresses its firm and unshaken belief in the -ultimate triumph of the cause of Peace and of the principles -which have been advocated at these meetings." - -The fundamental idea of the Congress is this, that it is -necessary, in the first place, to diffuse by all means -possible the conviction among men that war is very -unprofitable for people and that peace is a great good, and -in the second, to act upon the governments, impressing them -with the superiority of the international tribunal over -wars, and, therefore, the advantages and the necessity of -disarmament. To attain the first end, the Congress turns to -the teachers of history, to the women, and to the clergy -with the advice that the evil of war and the good of peace -be preached to men on every third Sunday in December; to -attain the second end, the Congress addresses the -governments, proposing that they disarm and substitute -arbitration for war. - -To preach the evil of war and the good of peace to men! But -the evil of war and the good of peace are so well known to -men that, so long as we have known men, the best greeting -has been, "Peace be with you." What need is there, then, in -preaching? - -Not only the Christians, but all the pagans thousands of -years ago knew the evil of war and the good of -peace,---consequently the advice given to the preachers of -the Gospel to preach on the evil of war and the good of -peace on every third Sunday in December is quite -superfluous. - -A Christian cannot help but preach this at all times, on all -the days of his life. If Christians and preachers of -Christianity do not do so, there must be causes for this, -and so long as these causes are not removed, no advice will -be effective. Still less effective can be the advice given -to the governments, to dismiss the armies and substitute -international tribunals for them. The governments themselves -know very well all the difficulty and burdensomeness of -collecting and maintaining armies, and if, in spite of it, -they continue with terrible efforts and tension to collect -and maintain armies, they obviously cannot do otherwise, and -the advice of the Congress cannot change anything. But the -learned do not want to see this, and all hope to find a -combination by which the governments, who produce the wars, -will limit themselves. - -"Is it possible to be freed from war?" writes a learned man -in the *Revue des Revues*. "All admit that when it breaks -loose in Europe, its consequences will be like a great -incursion of the barbarians. In a forthcoming war the -existence of whole nationalities will be at stake, and so it -will be sanguinary, desperate, cruel. - -"It is these considerations, combined with those terrible -implements of war which are at the disposal of modern -science, that are retarding the moment of the declaration of -war and are maintaining the existing temporary order of -things, which might be prolonged for an indefinite time, if -it were not for those terrible expenses that oppress the -European nations and threaten to bring them to no lesser -calamities than those which are produced by war. - -"Startled by this idea, the men of the various countries -have sought for a means for stopping or at least mitigating -the consequences of the terrible slaughter which is menacing -us. - -"Such are the questions that are propounded by the Congress -soon to be held in Rome and in pamphlets dealing with -disarmament. - -"Unfortunately it is certain that with the present structure -of the majority of the European states, which are removed -from one another and are guided by various interests, the -complete cessation of war is a dream with which it would be -dangerous to console ourselves. Still, some more reasonable -laws and regulations, accepted by all, in these duels of the -nations might considerably reduce the horrors of war. - -"Similarly Utopian would be the hope of disarmament, which -is almost impossible, from considerations of a national -character, which are intelligible to our readers." (This, no -doubt, means that France cannot disarm previous to avenging -its wrongs.) "Public opinion is not prepared for the -adoption of projects of disarmament, and, besides, the -international relations are not such as to make their -adoption possible. - -"Disarmament, demanded by one nation of another, is -tantamount to a declaration of war. - -"It must, however, be admitted that the exchange of views -between the interested nations will to a certain extent aid -in the international agreement and will make possible a -considerable diminution of the military expenses, which now -oppress the European nations at the expense of the solution -of social questions, the necessity of which is felt by every -state individually, threatening to provoke an internal war -in the effort to avert one from without. - -"It is possible at least to assume a diminution of the -enormous expenses which are needed in connection with the -present business of war, which aims at the possibility of -seizing the adversary's possessions within twenty-four hours -and giving a decisive battle a week after the declaration of -war." - -What is needed is, that states should not be able to attack -other states and in twenty-four hours to seize the -possessions of others. - -This practical idea was expressed by Maxime du Camp, and to -this the conclusion of the article is reduced. +"(*a*) A resolution of thanks to the Presidents of the various sittings +of the Congress; (*b*) a resolution of thanks to the Chairman, the +Secretary, and the Members of the Bureau of the Congress; (*c*) a +resolution of thanks to the conveners and members of Sectional +Committees; (*d*) a resolution of thanks to Rev. Cannon Scott Holland, +Rev. Doctor Reuen, and Rev. J. Morgan Gibbon, for their pulpit addresses +before the Congress, and that they be requested to furnish copies of the +same for publication; and also to the Authorities of St. Paul's +Cathedral, the City Temple, and Stamford Hill Congregational Church for +the use of those buildings for public services; (*e*) a letter of thanks +to Her Majesty for permission to visit Windsor Castle; (*f*) and also a +resolution of thanks to the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, to +Mr. Passmore Edwards, and other friends, who had extended their +hospitality to the members of the Congress. + +"19. This Congress places on record a heartfelt expression of gratitude +to Almighty God for the" remarkable harmony and concord which have +characterized the meetings of the Assembly, in which so many men and +women of varied nations, creeds, tongues, and races have gathered in +closest cooperation, and in the conclusion of the labours of the +Congress; it expresses its firm and unshaken belief in the ultimate +triumph of the cause of Peace and of the principles which have been +advocated at these meetings." + +The fundamental idea of the Congress is this, that it is necessary, in +the first place, to diffuse by all means possible the conviction among +men that war is very unprofitable for people and that peace is a great +good, and in the second, to act upon the governments, impressing them +with the superiority of the international tribunal over wars, and, +therefore, the advantages and the necessity of disarmament. To attain +the first end, the Congress turns to the teachers of history, to the +women, and to the clergy with the advice that the evil of war and the +good of peace be preached to men on every third Sunday in December; to +attain the second end, the Congress addresses the governments, proposing +that they disarm and substitute arbitration for war. + +To preach the evil of war and the good of peace to men! But the evil of +war and the good of peace are so well known to men that, so long as we +have known men, the best greeting has been, "Peace be with you." What +need is there, then, in preaching? + +Not only the Christians, but all the pagans thousands of years ago knew +the evil of war and the good of peace,---consequently the advice given +to the preachers of the Gospel to preach on the evil of war and the good +of peace on every third Sunday in December is quite superfluous. + +A Christian cannot help but preach this at all times, on all the days of +his life. If Christians and preachers of Christianity do not do so, +there must be causes for this, and so long as these causes are not +removed, no advice will be effective. Still less effective can be the +advice given to the governments, to dismiss the armies and substitute +international tribunals for them. The governments themselves know very +well all the difficulty and burdensomeness of collecting and maintaining +armies, and if, in spite of it, they continue with terrible efforts and +tension to collect and maintain armies, they obviously cannot do +otherwise, and the advice of the Congress cannot change anything. But +the learned do not want to see this, and all hope to find a combination +by which the governments, who produce the wars, will limit themselves. + +"Is it possible to be freed from war?" writes a learned man in the +*Revue des Revues*. "All admit that when it breaks loose in Europe, its +consequences will be like a great incursion of the barbarians. In a +forthcoming war the existence of whole nationalities will be at stake, +and so it will be sanguinary, desperate, cruel. + +"It is these considerations, combined with those terrible implements of +war which are at the disposal of modern science, that are retarding the +moment of the declaration of war and are maintaining the existing +temporary order of things, which might be prolonged for an indefinite +time, if it were not for those terrible expenses that oppress the +European nations and threaten to bring them to no lesser calamities than +those which are produced by war. + +"Startled by this idea, the men of the various countries have sought for +a means for stopping or at least mitigating the consequences of the +terrible slaughter which is menacing us. + +"Such are the questions that are propounded by the Congress soon to be +held in Rome and in pamphlets dealing with disarmament. + +"Unfortunately it is certain that with the present structure of the +majority of the European states, which are removed from one another and +are guided by various interests, the complete cessation of war is a +dream with which it would be dangerous to console ourselves. Still, some +more reasonable laws and regulations, accepted by all, in these duels of +the nations might considerably reduce the horrors of war. + +"Similarly Utopian would be the hope of disarmament, which is almost +impossible, from considerations of a national character, which are +intelligible to our readers." (This, no doubt, means that France cannot +disarm previous to avenging its wrongs.) "Public opinion is not prepared +for the adoption of projects of disarmament, and, besides, the +international relations are not such as to make their adoption possible. + +"Disarmament, demanded by one nation of another, is tantamount to a +declaration of war. + +"It must, however, be admitted that the exchange of views between the +interested nations will to a certain extent aid in the international +agreement and will make possible a considerable diminution of the +military expenses, which now oppress the European nations at the expense +of the solution of social questions, the necessity of which is felt by +every state individually, threatening to provoke an internal war in the +effort to avert one from without. + +"It is possible at least to assume a diminution of the enormous expenses +which are needed in connection with the present business of war, which +aims at the possibility of seizing the adversary's possessions within +twenty-four hours and giving a decisive battle a week after the +declaration of war." + +What is needed is, that states should not be able to attack other states +and in twenty-four hours to seize the possessions of others. + +This practical idea was expressed by Maxime du Camp, and to this the +conclusion of the article is reduced. M. du Camp's propositions are these: "(1) A diplomatic congress ought to meet every year. -"(2) No war can be declared sooner than two months after the -incident provoking it. (The difficulty will be to determine -which incident it is that provokes the war, because with -every war there are a very large number of such incidents, -and it would be necessary to decide from which incident the -two months are to be counted.) +"(2) No war can be declared sooner than two months after the incident +provoking it. (The difficulty will be to determine which incident it is +that provokes the war, because with every war there are a very large +number of such incidents, and it would be necessary to decide from which +incident the two months are to be counted.) -"(3) War cannot be declared before it is submitted to the -vote of the nations preparing for it. +"(3) War cannot be declared before it is submitted to the vote of the +nations preparing for it. -"Military action cannot begin sooner than a month after the -declaration of war." +"Military action cannot begin sooner than a month after the declaration +of war." "War cannot be begun... must..." and so forth. -But who will see to it that war cannot be begun? Who will -see to it that men must do so and so? Who will compel the -power to wait until the proper time? All the other powers -need just as much to be moderated and placed within bounds -and compelled. Who will do the compelling? and how?---Public -opinion.---But if there is a public opinion which can compel -a power to wait for a given time, the same public opinion -can compel the power not to begin the war at all. - -But, they reply to all this, we can have such a balance of -forces, *pondération des forces*, that the powers will -support one another. This has been tried and is being tried -even now. Such were the Holy Alliance, the League of Peace, -and so forth. - -"But if all should agree to it?" we are told. If all should -agree to it, there would be no war, and there would be no -need for supreme tribunals and courts of arbitration. - -"Arbitration will take the place of war. The questions will -be decided by a court of arbitration. The *Alabama* question -was decided by a court of arbitration, it was proposed to -have the question about the Caroline Islands submitted to -the arbitration of the Pope. Switzerland, and Belgium, and -Denmark, and Holland,---all have declared that they prefer -the decisions of a court of arbitration to war." Monaco, it -seems, also declared itself in this way. What is a pity is, -that Germany, Russia, Austria, France have not yet made such -declarations. +But who will see to it that war cannot be begun? Who will see to it that +men must do so and so? Who will compel the power to wait until the +proper time? All the other powers need just as much to be moderated and +placed within bounds and compelled. Who will do the compelling? and +how?---Public opinion.---But if there is a public opinion which can +compel a power to wait for a given time, the same public opinion can +compel the power not to begin the war at all. + +But, they reply to all this, we can have such a balance of forces, +*pondération des forces*, that the powers will support one another. This +has been tried and is being tried even now. Such were the Holy Alliance, +the League of Peace, and so forth. + +"But if all should agree to it?" we are told. If all should agree to it, +there would be no war, and there would be no need for supreme tribunals +and courts of arbitration. + +"Arbitration will take the place of war. The questions will be decided +by a court of arbitration. The *Alabama* question was decided by a court +of arbitration, it was proposed to have the question about the Caroline +Islands submitted to the arbitration of the Pope. Switzerland, and +Belgium, and Denmark, and Holland,---all have declared that they prefer +the decisions of a court of arbitration to war." Monaco, it seems, also +declared itself in this way. What is a pity is, that Germany, Russia, +Austria, France have not yet made such declarations. It is wonderful how men can deceive themselves. -The governments will decide to submit their differences to a -court of arbitration and so will disband their armies. The -differences between Russia and Poland, between England and -Ireland, between Austria and Bohemia, between Turkey and the -Slavs, between France and Germany will be decided by -voluntary consent. - -This is the same as though it should be proposed that -merchants and bankers should not sell anything at a higher -price than at what they have bought the articles, should -busy themselves with the distribution of wealth without -profit, and should abolish the money which has thus become -useless. - -But commerce and the banking industry consist in nothing but -selling at a higher price than that at which the purchases -are made, and so the proposition that articles should not be -sold except at a purchase price, and that money should be -abolished, is tantamount to a proposition that they should -abolish themselves. The same is true of the governments. The -proposition made to the governments that no violence be -used, and that the differences be decided on their merits, -is a proposition that the government as such should abolish -itself, and to this no government can consent. - -Learned men gather in societies (there are many such -societies, more than a hundred of them), congresses are -called (lately such met at Paris and London, and one will -soon meet at Home), speeches are made, people dine, make -toasts, publish periodicals, which are devoted to the cause, -and in all of them it is proved that the tension of the -nations, wh© are compelled to support millions of troops, -has reached the utmost limit, and that this armament -contradicts all the aims, properties, and desires of all the -nations, but that, if a lot of paper is covered with -writing, and a lot of speeches are made, it is possible to -make all people agree and to cause them not to have any -opposing interests, and then there will be no war. - -When I was a little fellow, I was assured that to catch a -bird it was just necessary to pour some salt on its tail. I -went out with the salt to the birds, and immediately -convinced myself that, if I could get near enough to pour -the salt on a bird's tail, I could catch it, and I +The governments will decide to submit their differences to a court of +arbitration and so will disband their armies. The differences between +Russia and Poland, between England and Ireland, between Austria and +Bohemia, between Turkey and the Slavs, between France and Germany will +be decided by voluntary consent. + +This is the same as though it should be proposed that merchants and +bankers should not sell anything at a higher price than at what they +have bought the articles, should busy themselves with the distribution +of wealth without profit, and should abolish the money which has thus +become useless. + +But commerce and the banking industry consist in nothing but selling at +a higher price than that at which the purchases are made, and so the +proposition that articles should not be sold except at a purchase price, +and that money should be abolished, is tantamount to a proposition that +they should abolish themselves. The same is true of the governments. The +proposition made to the governments that no violence be used, and that +the differences be decided on their merits, is a proposition that the +government as such should abolish itself, and to this no government can +consent. + +Learned men gather in societies (there are many such societies, more +than a hundred of them), congresses are called (lately such met at Paris +and London, and one will soon meet at Home), speeches are made, people +dine, make toasts, publish periodicals, which are devoted to the cause, +and in all of them it is proved that the tension of the nations, wh© are +compelled to support millions of troops, has reached the utmost limit, +and that this armament contradicts all the aims, properties, and desires +of all the nations, but that, if a lot of paper is covered with writing, +and a lot of speeches are made, it is possible to make all people agree +and to cause them not to have any opposing interests, and then there +will be no war. + +When I was a little fellow, I was assured that to catch a bird it was +just necessary to pour some salt on its tail. I went out with the salt +to the birds, and immediately convinced myself that, if I could get near +enough to pour the salt on a bird's tail, I could catch it, and I understood that they were making fun of me. -It is the same that must be understood by those who read -books and pamphlets on courts of arbitration and -disarmament. - -If it is possible to pour salt on a bird's tail, this means -that it does not fly, and that there is no need of catching -it. But if a bird has wings and does not want to be caught, -it does not allow any one to pour salt on its tail, because -it is the property of a bird to fly. Even so the property of -a government does not consist in being subjected, but in -subjecting, and a government is a government only in so far -as it is able, not to be subjected, but to subject, and so -it strives to do so, and can never voluntarily renounce its -power; but the power gives it the army, and so it will never -give up the army and its use for purposes of war. - -The mistake is based on this, that learned jurists, -deceiving themselves and others, assert in their books that -the government is not what it is,---a collection of one set -of men, doing violence to another,---but, as science makes -it out to be, a representation of the aggregate of citizens. -The learned have for so long a time assured others of this -fact that they have come themselves to believe in it, and -they often think seriously that justice can be obligatory -for the governments. But history shows that from Caesar to -Napoleon, both the first and the third, and Bismarck, the -government has by its essence always been a -justice-impairing force, as, indeed, it cannot be otherwise. -Justice cannot be obligatory for a man or for men, who keep -in hand deceived men, drilled for violence,---the -soldiers,---and by means of them rule others. And so the -governments cannot agree to the diminution of the number of -these drilled men, who obey them and who form all their +It is the same that must be understood by those who read books and +pamphlets on courts of arbitration and disarmament. + +If it is possible to pour salt on a bird's tail, this means that it does +not fly, and that there is no need of catching it. But if a bird has +wings and does not want to be caught, it does not allow any one to pour +salt on its tail, because it is the property of a bird to fly. Even so +the property of a government does not consist in being subjected, but in +subjecting, and a government is a government only in so far as it is +able, not to be subjected, but to subject, and so it strives to do so, +and can never voluntarily renounce its power; but the power gives it the +army, and so it will never give up the army and its use for purposes of +war. + +The mistake is based on this, that learned jurists, deceiving themselves +and others, assert in their books that the government is not what it +is,---a collection of one set of men, doing violence to another,---but, +as science makes it out to be, a representation of the aggregate of +citizens. The learned have for so long a time assured others of this +fact that they have come themselves to believe in it, and they often +think seriously that justice can be obligatory for the governments. But +history shows that from Caesar to Napoleon, both the first and the +third, and Bismarck, the government has by its essence always been a +justice-impairing force, as, indeed, it cannot be otherwise. Justice +cannot be obligatory for a man or for men, who keep in hand deceived +men, drilled for violence,---the soldiers,---and by means of them rule +others. And so the governments cannot agree to the diminution of the +number of these drilled men, who obey them and who form all their strength and significance. -Such is the relation of one set of learned men to the -contradiction which weighs heavily on our world, and such -are the means for its solution. Tell these men that the -question is only in the personal relation of every man to -the moral, religious question, now standing before all, of -the legitimacy and illegitimacy of his participation in the -universal military service, and these savants will only -shrug their shoulders, and will not even deign to give you -an answer, or pay attention to you. The solution of the -question for them consists in reading addresses, writing -books, choosing presidents, vice-presidents, secretaries, -and meeting and talking, now in this city, and now in that. -From these talks and writings there will, in their opinion, -come this result, that the governments will cease drafting -soldiers, on whom their whole power is based, but will -listen to their speeches and will dismiss their soldiers, -will remain defenceless, not only against their neighbours, -but even against their subjects,---like robbers who, having -bound defenceless men, for the purpose of robbing them, upon -hearing speeches about the pain caused to the bound men by -the rope, should immediately set them free. - -But there are people who believe in it, who busy themselves -with peace congresses, deliver addresses, write little -books; and the governments, of course, express their -sympathy with this, let it appear that they are supporting -this, just as they make it appear that they are supporting a -temperance society, whereas they for the most part live by -the drunkenness of the masses; just as they make it appear -that they are supporting education, whereas their strength -is based on ignorance; just as they make it appear that they -are supporting the liberty of the constitution, whereas -their strength is based only on the absence of a -constitution; just as they make it appear that they are -concerned about the betterment of the labouring classes, -whereas it is on the oppression of the labourer that their -existence is; just as they make it appear that they are -supporting Christianity, whereas Christianity destroys every -government. - -To be able to do this, they have long ago worked out such -provisions for temperance, that drunkenness is not impaired; -such provisions for education, that ignorance is not only -not interfered with, but is even strengthened; such -provisions for liberty and for the constitution, that -despotism is not impeded; such provisions for the labourers, -that they are not freed from slavery; such Christianity as -does not destroy, but maintains the governments. - -Now they have also added their concern about peace. The -governments, simply the kings, who travel about with their -ministers, of their own accord deciding the questions as to -whether they shall begin the slaughter of millions this year -or next, know full well that their talks about peace will -not keep them, whenever they feel like it, from sending -millions to slaughter. The kings even listen with pleasure -to these talks, encourage them, and take part in them. - -All this is not only harmless, but even useful to the -governments, in that it takes people's minds away from the -most essential question, as to whether each individual man, -who is called to become a soldier, should perform the -universal military service or not. - -"Peace will soon be established, thanks to alliances and -congresses and in consequence of books and pamphlets, but in -the meantime go, put on uniforms, and be prepared to oppress -and torture yourselves for our advantage," say the -governments. And the learned authors of congresses and of -writings fully agree to this. - -This is one relation, the most advantageous one for the -governments, and so it is encouraged by all wise +Such is the relation of one set of learned men to the contradiction +which weighs heavily on our world, and such are the means for its +solution. Tell these men that the question is only in the personal +relation of every man to the moral, religious question, now standing +before all, of the legitimacy and illegitimacy of his participation in +the universal military service, and these savants will only shrug their +shoulders, and will not even deign to give you an answer, or pay +attention to you. The solution of the question for them consists in +reading addresses, writing books, choosing presidents, vice-presidents, +secretaries, and meeting and talking, now in this city, and now in that. +From these talks and writings there will, in their opinion, come this +result, that the governments will cease drafting soldiers, on whom their +whole power is based, but will listen to their speeches and will dismiss +their soldiers, will remain defenceless, not only against their +neighbours, but even against their subjects,---like robbers who, having +bound defenceless men, for the purpose of robbing them, upon hearing +speeches about the pain caused to the bound men by the rope, should +immediately set them free. + +But there are people who believe in it, who busy themselves with peace +congresses, deliver addresses, write little books; and the governments, +of course, express their sympathy with this, let it appear that they are +supporting this, just as they make it appear that they are supporting a +temperance society, whereas they for the most part live by the +drunkenness of the masses; just as they make it appear that they are +supporting education, whereas their strength is based on ignorance; just +as they make it appear that they are supporting the liberty of the +constitution, whereas their strength is based only on the absence of a +constitution; just as they make it appear that they are concerned about +the betterment of the labouring classes, whereas it is on the oppression +of the labourer that their existence is; just as they make it appear +that they are supporting Christianity, whereas Christianity destroys +every government. + +To be able to do this, they have long ago worked out such provisions for +temperance, that drunkenness is not impaired; such provisions for +education, that ignorance is not only not interfered with, but is even +strengthened; such provisions for liberty and for the constitution, that +despotism is not impeded; such provisions for the labourers, that they +are not freed from slavery; such Christianity as does not destroy, but +maintains the governments. + +Now they have also added their concern about peace. The governments, +simply the kings, who travel about with their ministers, of their own +accord deciding the questions as to whether they shall begin the +slaughter of millions this year or next, know full well that their talks +about peace will not keep them, whenever they feel like it, from sending +millions to slaughter. The kings even listen with pleasure to these +talks, encourage them, and take part in them. + +All this is not only harmless, but even useful to the governments, in +that it takes people's minds away from the most essential question, as +to whether each individual man, who is called to become a soldier, +should perform the universal military service or not. + +"Peace will soon be established, thanks to alliances and congresses and +in consequence of books and pamphlets, but in the meantime go, put on +uniforms, and be prepared to oppress and torture yourselves for our +advantage," say the governments. And the learned authors of congresses +and of writings fully agree to this. + +This is one relation, the most advantageous one for the governments, and +so it is encouraged by all wise governments. + +Another relation is the tragic relation of the men who assert that the +contradiction between the striving and love for peace and the necessity +of war is terrible, but that such is the fate of men. These for the most +part sensitive, gifted men see and comprehend the whole terror and the +whole madness and cruelty of war, but by some strange turn of mind do +not see and do not look for any issue from this condition, and, as +though irritating their wound, enjoy the desperate plight of humanity. + +Here is a remarkable specimen of such a relation to war, by a famous +French author (Maupassant). As he looks from his yacht at the exercises +and target-shooting of the French soldiers, the following ideas come to +him: + +"War! When I but think of this word, I feel bewildered, as though they +were speaking to me of sorcery, of the Inquisition, of a distant, +finished, abominable, monstrous, unnatural thing. + +"When they speak to us of cannibals, we smile proudly, as we proclaim +our superiority to these savages. Who are the savages, the real savages? +Those who struggle in order to eat those whom they vanquish, or those +who struggle to kill, merely to kill? + +"The little soldiers of the rank and file who are running down there are +destined for death, like flocks of sheep, whom a butcher drives before +him on the highway. They will fall in a plain, their heads cut open by a +sword-stroke, or their chests pierced by bullets; and these are young +men who might have worked, produced, been useful. Their fathers are old +and poor; their mothers, who have loved them for twenty years and adored +them as only mothers can, will learn in six months or, perhaps, in a +year that their son, their child, their grandchild, who had been reared +with so much love, was thrown into a hole, like a dead dog, after he had +been eviscerated by a ball, trampled underfoot, crushed, mashed into +pulp by the charges of cavalry. Why did they kill her boy, her fine boy, +her only hope, her pride, her life? She does not know. Yes, why? + +"War! To tight! To butcher! To massacre people! And to-day, at our +period of the world, with our civilization, with the expansion of +science and the degree of philosophy which we deem the human genius to +have attained, we have schools in which they teach how to kill; to kill +at a great distance, with perfection, a lot of people at the same +time,---to kill poor innocent fellows, who have the care of a family and +are uDder no judicial sentence. + +"And what is most startling is the fact that the people do not rise +against the governments! What difference is there really between the +monarchies and the republics? It is most startling that society does not +rise in a body and revolt at the very mention of the word ' war.' + +"Oh, we shall always live under the burden of the ancient and odious +customs, criminal prejudices, and savage ideas of our barbarous +ancestors, because we are beasts, and shall remain beasts, who are +dominated by instinct and do not change. + +"Would not any other man than Victor Hugo have been disgraced, if he +sent forth this cry of deliverance and truth? + +"'To-day force is called violence and is about to be judged; war is +summoned to court. Civilization, at the instigation of the human race, +institutes proceedings and prepares the great criminal brief of the +conquerors and captains. The nations are coming to understand that the +increase of an offence cannot be its diminution; that if it is a crime +to kill, killing much cannot be an extenuating circumstance; that if +stealing is a disgrace, forcible seizing cannot be a glory. Oh, let us +proclaim these absolute verities,---let us disgrace war!' + +"Vain fury and indignation of a poet! War is honoured more than ever. + +"A versatile artist in these matters, a gifted butcher of men, Mr. von +Moltke, one day spoke the following words to some delegates of peace: + +"'War is sacred and divinely instituted; it is one of the sacred laws of +the world; it nurtures in men all the great and noble +sentiments,---honour, disinterestedness, virtue, courage,---and, to be +short, keeps men from falling into the most hideous materialism.' + +"Thus, uniting into herds of four hundred thousand men, marching day and +night without any rest, not thinking of anything, nor studying anything, +nor learning anything, nor reading anything, not being useful to a +single person, rotting from dirt, sleeping in the mire, living like the +brutes in a constant stupor, pillaging cities, burning villages, ruining +peoples, then meeting another conglomeration of human flesh, rushing +against it, making lakes of blood and fields of battered flesh, mingled +with muddy and blood-stained earth and mounds of corpses, being deprived +of arms or legs, or having the skull crushed without profit to any one, +and dying in the corner of a field, while your old parents, your wife, +and your children are starving,---that's what is called not to fall into +the most hideous materialism. + +"The men of war are the scourges of the world. We struggle against +Nature, against ignorance, against obstacles of every sort, in order to +make our miserable life less hard. Men, benefactors, savants use their +existence in order to work, to find what may help, may succour, may ease +their brothers. They go with vim about their useful business, accumulate +discovery upon discovery, increasing the human spirit, expanding +science, giving every day a sum of new knowledge to the intelligence of +man, giving every day well-being, ease, and force to their country. + +"War arrives. In six months the generals destroy twenty years of effort, +of patience, and of genius. + +"This is what is called not to fall into the most hideous materialism. + +"We have seen what war is. We have seen men turned into brutes, +maddened, killing for the sake of pleasure, of terror, of bravado, of +ostentation. Then, when law no longer exists, when law is dead, when +every notion of right has disappeared, we have seen men shoot innocent +people who are found on the road and who have roused suspicion only +because they showed fear. We have seen dogs chained near the doors of +their masters kiUed, just to try new revolvers on them; we have seen +cows lying in the field shot to pieces, for the sake of pleasure, only +to try a gun on them, to have something to laugh at. + +"This is what is called not to fall into the most hideous materialism. + +"To enter a country, to kill a man who is defending his home, simply +because he wears a blouse and has no cap on his head, to burn the +habitations of wretched people who have no bread, to smash the +furniture, to steal some of it, to drink the wine which is found in the +cellars, to rape the women who are found in the streets, to burn +millions of dollars' worth of powder, and to leave behind them misery +and the cholera,---this is what is called not to fall into the most +hideous materialism. + +"What have the men of war done to give evidence of even a little +intelligence? Nothing. What have they invented? Cannon and guns. That is +all. + +"What has Greece left to us? Books, marbles. Is she great because she +has conquered, or because she has produced? + +"Is it the invasion of the Persians that kept her from falling into the +most hideous materialism? + +"Is it the invasions of the barbarians that saved Rome and regenerated +her? + +"Was it Napoleon I who continued the great intellectual movement which +was begun by the philosophers at the end of the last century? + +"Oh, well, if the governments arrogate to themselves the right to kill +the nations, there is nothing surprising in the fact that the nations +now and then take upon themselves the right to do away with the governments. -Another relation is the tragic relation of the men who -assert that the contradiction between the striving and love -for peace and the necessity of war is terrible, but that -such is the fate of men. These for the most part sensitive, -gifted men see and comprehend the whole terror and the whole -madness and cruelty of war, but by some strange turn of mind -do not see and do not look for any issue from this -condition, and, as though irritating their wound, enjoy the -desperate plight of humanity. - -Here is a remarkable specimen of such a relation to war, by -a famous French author (Maupassant). As he looks from his -yacht at the exercises and target-shooting of the French -soldiers, the following ideas come to him: - -"War! When I but think of this word, I feel bewildered, as -though they were speaking to me of sorcery, of the -Inquisition, of a distant, finished, abominable, monstrous, -unnatural thing. - -"When they speak to us of cannibals, we smile proudly, as we -proclaim our superiority to these savages. Who are the -savages, the real savages? Those who struggle in order to -eat those whom they vanquish, or those who struggle to kill, -merely to kill? - -"The little soldiers of the rank and file who are running -down there are destined for death, like flocks of sheep, -whom a butcher drives before him on the highway. They will -fall in a plain, their heads cut open by a sword-stroke, or -their chests pierced by bullets; and these are young men who -might have worked, produced, been useful. Their fathers are -old and poor; their mothers, who have loved them for twenty -years and adored them as only mothers can, will learn in six -months or, perhaps, in a year that their son, their child, -their grandchild, who had been reared with so much love, was -thrown into a hole, like a dead dog, after he had been -eviscerated by a ball, trampled underfoot, crushed, mashed -into pulp by the charges of cavalry. Why did they kill her -boy, her fine boy, her only hope, her pride, her life? She -does not know. Yes, why? - -"War! To tight! To butcher! To massacre people! And to-day, -at our period of the world, with our civilization, with the -expansion of science and the degree of philosophy which we -deem the human genius to have attained, we have schools in -which they teach how to kill; to kill at a great distance, -with perfection, a lot of people at the same time,---to kill -poor innocent fellows, who have the care of a family and are -uDder no judicial sentence. - -"And what is most startling is the fact that the people do -not rise against the governments! What difference is there -really between the monarchies and the republics? It is most -startling that society does not rise in a body and revolt at -the very mention of the word ' war.' - -"Oh, we shall always live under the burden of the ancient -and odious customs, criminal prejudices, and savage ideas of -our barbarous ancestors, because we are beasts, and shall -remain beasts, who are dominated by instinct and do not -change. - -"Would not any other man than Victor Hugo have been -disgraced, if he sent forth this cry of deliverance and -truth? - -"'To-day force is called violence and is about to be judged; -war is summoned to court. Civilization, at the instigation -of the human race, institutes proceedings and prepares the -great criminal brief of the conquerors and captains. The -nations are coming to understand that the increase of an -offence cannot be its diminution; that if it is a crime to -kill, killing much cannot be an extenuating circumstance; -that if stealing is a disgrace, forcible seizing cannot be a -glory. Oh, let us proclaim these absolute verities,---let us -disgrace war!' - -"Vain fury and indignation of a poet! War is honoured more -than ever. - -"A versatile artist in these matters, a gifted butcher of -men, Mr. von Moltke, one day spoke the following words to -some delegates of peace: - -"'War is sacred and divinely instituted; it is one of the -sacred laws of the world; it nurtures in men all the great -and noble sentiments,---honour, disinterestedness, virtue, -courage,---and, to be short, keeps men from falling into the -most hideous materialism.' - -"Thus, uniting into herds of four hundred thousand men, -marching day and night without any rest, not thinking of -anything, nor studying anything, nor learning anything, nor -reading anything, not being useful to a single person, -rotting from dirt, sleeping in the mire, living like the -brutes in a constant stupor, pillaging cities, burning -villages, ruining peoples, then meeting another -conglomeration of human flesh, rushing against it, making -lakes of blood and fields of battered flesh, mingled with -muddy and blood-stained earth and mounds of corpses, being -deprived of arms or legs, or having the skull crushed -without profit to any one, and dying in the corner of a -field, while your old parents, your wife, and your children -are starving,---that's what is called not to fall into the -most hideous materialism. - -"The men of war are the scourges of the world. We struggle -against Nature, against ignorance, against obstacles of -every sort, in order to make our miserable life less hard. -Men, benefactors, savants use their existence in order to -work, to find what may help, may succour, may ease their -brothers. They go with vim about their useful business, -accumulate discovery upon discovery, increasing the human -spirit, expanding science, giving every day a sum of new -knowledge to the intelligence of man, giving every day -well-being, ease, and force to their country. - -"War arrives. In six months the generals destroy twenty -years of effort, of patience, and of genius. - -"This is what is called not to fall into the most hideous -materialism. - -"We have seen what war is. We have seen men turned into -brutes, maddened, killing for the sake of pleasure, of -terror, of bravado, of ostentation. Then, when law no longer -exists, when law is dead, when every notion of right has -disappeared, we have seen men shoot innocent people who are -found on the road and who have roused suspicion only because -they showed fear. We have seen dogs chained near the doors -of their masters kiUed, just to try new revolvers on them; -we have seen cows lying in the field shot to pieces, for the -sake of pleasure, only to try a gun on them, to have -something to laugh at. - -"This is what is called not to fall into the most hideous -materialism. - -"To enter a country, to kill a man who is defending his -home, simply because he wears a blouse and has no cap on his -head, to burn the habitations of wretched people who have no -bread, to smash the furniture, to steal some of it, to drink -the wine which is found in the cellars, to rape the women -who are found in the streets, to burn millions of dollars' -worth of powder, and to leave behind them misery and the -cholera,---this is what is called not to fall into the most -hideous materialism. +"They defend themselves. They are right. Nobody has the absolute right +to govern others. This can be done only for the good of the governed. +Whoever rules is as much obliged to avoid war as a captain of a boat is +obliged to avoid a shipwreck. + +"When a captain has lost his boat, he is judged and condemned, if he is +found guilty of negligence or even of incapacity. + +"Why should not the governments be judged after the declaration of a +war? If the nations understood this, if they themselves sat in judgment +over the death-dealing powers, if they refused to allow themselves to be +killed without reason, if they made use of their weapons against those +who gave them to them for the purpose of massacring, war would be dead +at once! But this day will not come!" (*Sur l'Eau*, pp. 71-80.) + +The author sees all the horror of war; he sees that its cause is in +this, that the governments, deceiving people, compel them to go out to +kill and die without any need; he sees also that the men composing the +armies might turn their weapons against the governments and demand +accounts from them. But the author thinks that this will never happen, +and that, therefore, there is no way out of this situation. He thinks +that the business of war is terrible, but that it is inevitable and that +the demands of the governments that the soldiers shall go and fight are +as inevitable as death, and that, since the governments will always +demand it, there will always exist wars. + +Thus writes a talented, sincere author, who is endowed with that +penetration into the essence of the matter which forms the essence of +the poetical genius. He presents to us all the cruelty of the +contradiction between men's conscience and their activity, and, without +solving it, seems to recognize that this contradiction must exist and +that in it consists the tragedy of life. + +Another, not less gifted author (E. Rod), describes the cruelty and +madness of the present situation in still more glaring colours, and +similarly, recognizing the tragical element in it, does not offer or +foresee any way out of it. + +"What good is there in doing anything? What good is there in undertaking +anything?" he says. "How can we love men in these troubled times, when +the morrow is but a menace? Everything we have begun, our maturing +ideas, our incepted works, the little good which we shall have been able +to do,---will it not all be carried away by the coming hurricane? +Everywhere the earth is trembling under our feet, and the clouds that +are gathering upon our horizon will not pass by us. + +"Oh, if it were only the Revolution, with which we are frightened, that +we had to fear! As I am incapable of imagining a more detestable society +than is ours, I have more mistrust than fear for the one which will +succeed it. If I were to suffer from the transformation, I should +console myself with the thought that the executioners of today are the +victims of yesterday, and the expectation of what is better would make +me put up with what is worse. But it is not this distant peril that +frightens me,---I see another, nearer, above all, a more cruel peril, +more cruel, because it has no excuse, because it is absurd, because no +good can result from it. Every day men weigh the chances of war for the +morrow, and every day they are more merciless. + +"Thought staggers before the catastrophe which appears at the end of the +century as the limit of the progress of our era,---but we must get used +to it: for twenty years all the forces of science have been exhausting +themselves to invent engines of destruction, and soon a few cannon-shots +will suffice to annihilate a whole army; they no longer arm, as +formerly, a few thousands of poor devils, whose blood was paid for, but +whole nations, who go out to cut each others' throats; they steal their +time, in order later more surely to steal their lives; to prepare them +for the massacre, their hatred is fanned, by pretending that they are +hated. And good people are tricked, and we shall see furious masses of +peaceful citizens, into whose hands the guns will be placed by a stupid +order, rush against one another with the ferocity of wild animals, God +knows for the sake of what ridiculous incident of the border or of what +mercantile colonial interests! They will march, like sheep, to the +slaughter,---but knowing whither they are going, knowing that they are +leaving their wives, knowing that their children will be hungry, and +they will go with anxious fear, but none the less intoxicated by the +sonorous, deceptive words that will be trumpeted into their ears. They +will go without revolt, passive and resigned, though they are the mass +and the force, and could be the power, if they wished and if they knew +how to establish common sense and brotherhood in the place of the savage +trickeries of diplomacy. They will go, so deceived, so duped, that they +will believe the carnage to be a duty, and will ask God to bless their +sanguinary appetites. They will go, trampling on the crops which they +have sown, burning the cities which they have built, with enthusiastic +songs, joyous cries, and festive music. And their sons will erect +statues to those who shall have massacred them better than any one else! + +"The fate of a whole generation depends on the hour at which some sombre +politician will give the signal, which will be followed. We know that +the best among us will be mowed down and that our work will be destroyed +in the germ. We know this, and we tremble from anger, and we are unable +to do anything. We are caught in the net of offices and red tape, which +it would take too violent an effort to break. We belong to the laws +which we have called into life to protect us, but which oppress us. We +are only things of this Antinomian abstraction, the state, which makes +every individual a slave in the name of the will of all, who, taken +separately, would want the very opposite of what they are compelled to +do. -"What have the men of war done to give evidence of even a -little intelligence? Nothing. What have they invented? -Cannon and guns. That is all. - -"What has Greece left to us? Books, marbles. Is she great -because she has conquered, or because she has produced? - -"Is it the invasion of the Persians that kept her from -falling into the most hideous materialism? - -"Is it the invasions of the barbarians that saved Rome and -regenerated her? - -"Was it Napoleon I who continued the great intellectual -movement which was begun by the philosophers at the end of -the last century? - -"Oh, well, if the governments arrogate to themselves the -right to kill the nations, there is nothing surprising in -the fact that the nations now and then take upon themselves -the right to do away with the governments. - -"They defend themselves. They are right. Nobody has the -absolute right to govern others. This can be done only for -the good of the governed. Whoever rules is as much obliged -to avoid war as a captain of a boat is obliged to avoid a -shipwreck. - -"When a captain has lost his boat, he is judged and -condemned, if he is found guilty of negligence or even of -incapacity. - -"Why should not the governments be judged after the -declaration of a war? If the nations understood this, if -they themselves sat in judgment over the death-dealing -powers, if they refused to allow themselves to be killed -without reason, if they made use of their weapons against -those who gave them to them for the purpose of massacring, -war would be dead at once! But this day will not come!" -(*Sur l'Eau*, pp. 71-80.) - -The author sees all the horror of war; he sees that its -cause is in this, that the governments, deceiving people, -compel them to go out to kill and die without any need; he -sees also that the men composing the armies might turn their -weapons against the governments and demand accounts from -them. But the author thinks that this will never happen, and -that, therefore, there is no way out of this situation. He -thinks that the business of war is terrible, but that it is -inevitable and that the demands of the governments that the -soldiers shall go and fight are as inevitable as death, and -that, since the governments will always demand it, there -will always exist wars. - -Thus writes a talented, sincere author, who is endowed with -that penetration into the essence of the matter which forms -the essence of the poetical genius. He presents to us all -the cruelty of the contradiction between men's conscience -and their activity, and, without solving it, seems to -recognize that this contradiction must exist and that in it -consists the tragedy of life. - -Another, not less gifted author (E. Rod), describes the -cruelty and madness of the present situation in still more -glaring colours, and similarly, recognizing the tragical -element in it, does not offer or foresee any way out of it. - -"What good is there in doing anything? What good is there in -undertaking anything?" he says. "How can we love men in -these troubled times, when the morrow is but a menace? -Everything we have begun, our maturing ideas, our incepted -works, the little good which we shall have been able to -do,---will it not all be carried away by the coming -hurricane? Everywhere the earth is trembling under our feet, -and the clouds that are gathering upon our horizon will not -pass by us. - -"Oh, if it were only the Revolution, with which we are -frightened, that we had to fear! As I am incapable of -imagining a more detestable society than is ours, I have -more mistrust than fear for the one which will succeed it. -If I were to suffer from the transformation, I should -console myself with the thought that the executioners of -today are the victims of yesterday, and the expectation of -what is better would make me put up with what is worse. But -it is not this distant peril that frightens me,---I see -another, nearer, above all, a more cruel peril, more cruel, -because it has no excuse, because it is absurd, because no -good can result from it. Every day men weigh the chances of -war for the morrow, and every day they are more merciless. - -"Thought staggers before the catastrophe which appears at -the end of the century as the limit of the progress of our -era,---but we must get used to it: for twenty years all the -forces of science have been exhausting themselves to invent -engines of destruction, and soon a few cannon-shots will -suffice to annihilate a whole army; they no longer arm, as -formerly, a few thousands of poor devils, whose blood was -paid for, but whole nations, who go out to cut each others' -throats; they steal their time, in order later more surely -to steal their lives; to prepare them for the massacre, -their hatred is fanned, by pretending that they are hated. -And good people are tricked, and we shall see furious masses -of peaceful citizens, into whose hands the guns will be -placed by a stupid order, rush against one another with the -ferocity of wild animals, God knows for the sake of what -ridiculous incident of the border or of what mercantile -colonial interests! They will march, like sheep, to the -slaughter,---but knowing whither they are going, knowing -that they are leaving their wives, knowing that their -children will be hungry, and they will go with anxious fear, -but none the less intoxicated by the sonorous, deceptive -words that will be trumpeted into their ears. They will go -without revolt, passive and resigned, though they are the -mass and the force, and could be the power, if they wished -and if they knew how to establish common sense and -brotherhood in the place of the savage trickeries of -diplomacy. They will go, so deceived, so duped, that they -will believe the carnage to be a duty, and will ask God to -bless their sanguinary appetites. They will go, trampling on -the crops which they have sown, burning the cities which -they have built, with enthusiastic songs, joyous cries, and -festive music. And their sons will erect statues to those -who shall have massacred them better than any one else! - -"The fate of a whole generation depends on the hour at which -some sombre politician will give the signal, which will be -followed. We know that the best among us will be mowed down -and that our work will be destroyed in the germ. We know -this, and we tremble from anger, and we are unable to do -anything. We are caught in the net of offices and red tape, -which it would take too violent an effort to break. We -belong to the laws which we have called into life to protect -us, but which oppress us. We are only things of this -Antinomian abstraction, the state, which makes every -individual a slave in the name of the will of all, who, -taken separately, would want the very opposite of what they -are compelled to do. - -"If it were only one generation that is to be sacrificed! -But there are other interests as well. - -"All these salaried shouters, these ambitious exploiters of -the evil passions of the masses and the poor in spirit, who -are deceived by the sonority of words, have to such an -extent envenomed the national hatreds that the war of -to-morrow will stake the existence of a race: one of the -elements which have constituted the modern world is -menaced,---he who will be vanquished must disappear -morally,---and, whatever it be, we shall see a force -annihilated, as if there were one too many for the good! We -shall see a new Europe formed, on bases that are so unjust, -so brutal, so bloody, so soiled with a monstrous blotch, -that it cannot help but be worse than that of to-day,---more -iniquitous, more barbarous, more violent. - -"One feels oneself oppressed by a terrible discouragement. -We are tossing about in a blind alley, with guns trained on -us from all the roofs. Our work is that of sailors going -through their last exercise before the ship goes down. Our -pleasures are those of the condemned criminal, who fifteen -minutes before his execution is offered a choice morsel. -Anguish paralyzes our thought, and the best effort of which -it is capable is to calculate---by spelling out the vague -discourses of ministers, by twisting the sense of the words -uttered by sovereigns, by contorting the words ascribed to -diplomats and reported by the newspapers at the uncertain -risk of their information---whether it is to-morrow or the -day after, this year or next year, that we shall be crushed. -We should, indeed, seek in vain in history for a more -uncertain epoch, one which is so full of anxieties" (E. Rod, -*Le Sens de la Vie*, pp. 208-213). - -It is pointed out that the power is in the hands of those -who are ruining themselves, in the hands of the separate -individuals forming the mass; it is pointed out that the -source of evil is in the state. It would seem clear that the -contradiction of the consciousness and of life has reached -the limit beyond which it is impossible to go and after +"If it were only one generation that is to be sacrificed! But there are +other interests as well. + +"All these salaried shouters, these ambitious exploiters of the evil +passions of the masses and the poor in spirit, who are deceived by the +sonority of words, have to such an extent envenomed the national hatreds +that the war of to-morrow will stake the existence of a race: one of the +elements which have constituted the modern world is menaced,---he who +will be vanquished must disappear morally,---and, whatever it be, we +shall see a force annihilated, as if there were one too many for the +good! We shall see a new Europe formed, on bases that are so unjust, so +brutal, so bloody, so soiled with a monstrous blotch, that it cannot +help but be worse than that of to-day,---more iniquitous, more +barbarous, more violent. + +"One feels oneself oppressed by a terrible discouragement. We are +tossing about in a blind alley, with guns trained on us from all the +roofs. Our work is that of sailors going through their last exercise +before the ship goes down. Our pleasures are those of the condemned +criminal, who fifteen minutes before his execution is offered a choice +morsel. Anguish paralyzes our thought, and the best effort of which it +is capable is to calculate---by spelling out the vague discourses of +ministers, by twisting the sense of the words uttered by sovereigns, by +contorting the words ascribed to diplomats and reported by the +newspapers at the uncertain risk of their information---whether it is +to-morrow or the day after, this year or next year, that we shall be +crushed. We should, indeed, seek in vain in history for a more uncertain +epoch, one which is so full of anxieties" (E. Rod, *Le Sens de la Vie*, +pp. 208-213). + +It is pointed out that the power is in the hands of those who are +ruining themselves, in the hands of the separate individuals forming the +mass; it is pointed out that the source of evil is in the state. It +would seem clear that the contradiction of the consciousness and of life +has reached the limit beyond which it is impossible to go and after which its solution must ensue. -But the author does not think so. He sees in this the -tragedy of human life, and, having pointed out all the -terror of the situation, concludes that human life must take -place in this terror. - -Such is the second relation to war of those men who see -something fatal and tragical in it. - -The third relation is that of men who have lost their -conscience, and so their common sense and human feeling. - -To this class belong Moltke, whose opinion is quoted by -Maupassant, and the majority of military men, who are -educated in this cruel superstition, who live by it, and so -are often naively convinced that war is not only an -inevitable, but even a useful matter. Thus, judge also -nonmilitary, so-called learned, cultured, refined people. - -Here is what the famous Academician, Dousset, writes in the -number of the *Revue des Revues* in which the letters about -war are collected, in reply to the editor's inquiry as to -his views on war: - -"Dear Sir:---When you ask the most peaceable of Academicians -whether he is an advocate of war, his answer is ready in -advance: unfortunately, dear sir, you yourself regard as a -dream the peaceful thoughts which at the present time -inspire our magnanimous countrymen. - -"Ever since I have been living in the world, I have heard -many private people express their indignation against this -terrifying habit of international slaughter. All men -recognize and deplore this evil; but how is it to be mended? -People have very often tried to abolish duels,---this seemed -so easy! But no! All the efforts made for the attainment of -this end have done no good and never will do any good. - -"No matter how much may be said against war and against -duelling at all the congresses of the world, above all -arbitrations, above all treaties, above all legislations, -wHl eternally stand man's honour, which has ever demanded -duelling, and the national advantages, which will eternally +But the author does not think so. He sees in this the tragedy of human +life, and, having pointed out all the terror of the situation, concludes +that human life must take place in this terror. + +Such is the second relation to war of those men who see something fatal +and tragical in it. + +The third relation is that of men who have lost their conscience, and so +their common sense and human feeling. + +To this class belong Moltke, whose opinion is quoted by Maupassant, and +the majority of military men, who are educated in this cruel +superstition, who live by it, and so are often naively convinced that +war is not only an inevitable, but even a useful matter. Thus, judge +also nonmilitary, so-called learned, cultured, refined people. + +Here is what the famous Academician, Dousset, writes in the number of +the *Revue des Revues* in which the letters about war are collected, in +reply to the editor's inquiry as to his views on war: + +"Dear Sir:---When you ask the most peaceable of Academicians whether he +is an advocate of war, his answer is ready in advance: unfortunately, +dear sir, you yourself regard as a dream the peaceful thoughts which at +the present time inspire our magnanimous countrymen. + +"Ever since I have been living in the world, I have heard many private +people express their indignation against this terrifying habit of +international slaughter. All men recognize and deplore this evil; but +how is it to be mended? People have very often tried to abolish +duels,---this seemed so easy! But no! All the efforts made for the +attainment of this end have done no good and never will do any good. + +"No matter how much may be said against war and against duelling at all +the congresses of the world, above all arbitrations, above all treaties, +above all legislations, wHl eternally stand man's honour, which has ever +demanded duelling, and the national advantages, which will eternally demand war. -"I none the less with all my heart hope that the Congress of -Universal Peace will succeed in its very grave and very -honourable problem. +"I none the less with all my heart hope that the Congress of Universal +Peace will succeed in its very grave and very honourable problem. "Receive the assurance, etc. "K. Dousset" -The meaning is this, that men's honour demands that people -should fight, and the advantages of the nations demand that -they should ruin and destroy one another, and that the -attempts at stopping war are only worthy of smiles. - -Similar is the opinion of another famous man, Jules -Claretie: - -"Dear Sir," he writes: "For an intelligent man there can -exist but one opinion in respect to the question of peace -and war. - -"Humanity was created that it should live, being free to -perfect and better (its fate) its condition by means of -peaceful labour. The universal agreement, for which the -Universal Congress of Peace is asking and which it preaches, -may present but a beautiful dream, but it is in any case the -most beautiful dream of all. Man has always before him the -promised land of the future,---the harvest will mature, -without fear of harm from grenades and cannon-wheels. - -"But.... Yes, but! Since the world is not ruled by -philosophers and benefactors, it is fortunate that our -soldiers protect our borders and our hearths, and that their -arms, correctly aimed, appear to us, perhaps, as the very -best guarantee of this peace, which is so fervently loved by -all of us. +The meaning is this, that men's honour demands that people should fight, +and the advantages of the nations demand that they should ruin and +destroy one another, and that the attempts at stopping war are only +worthy of smiles. + +Similar is the opinion of another famous man, Jules Claretie: + +"Dear Sir," he writes: "For an intelligent man there can exist but one +opinion in respect to the question of peace and war. + +"Humanity was created that it should live, being free to perfect and +better (its fate) its condition by means of peaceful labour. The +universal agreement, for which the Universal Congress of Peace is asking +and which it preaches, may present but a beautiful dream, but it is in +any case the most beautiful dream of all. Man has always before him the +promised land of the future,---the harvest will mature, without fear of +harm from grenades and cannon-wheels. + +"But.... Yes, but! Since the world is not ruled by philosophers and +benefactors, it is fortunate that our soldiers protect our borders and +our hearths, and that their arms, correctly aimed, appear to us, +perhaps, as the very best guarantee of this peace, which is so fervently +loved by all of us. "Peace is given only to the strong and the determined. @@ -6110,2434 +5235,2079 @@ all of us. "J. Claretie." -The meaning of this is, that it does no harm to talk of what -no one intends to do, and what ought not to be done at all. -But when it comes to business, we must fight. - -Here is another recent expression of opinion concerning war, -by the most popular novelist of Europe, E. Zola: - -"I consider war a fatal necessity, which appears inevitable -to us in view of its close connection with human nature and -the whole world-structure. I wish war could be removed for -the longest possible time; none the less the moment will -arrive when we shall be compelled to fight. I, at the -present moment, am placing myself on the universal point of -view, and in no way have any reference to our difference -with Germany, which presents itself only as an insignificant -incident in the history of humanity. I say that war is -indispensable and useful, because it appears to humanity as -one of the conditions of its existence. We everywhere meet -with war, not only among various tribes and nations, but -also in domestic and private life. It appears as one of the -chief elements of progress, and every step forward, which -humanity has taken, has been accompanied by bloodshed. - -"People used to speak, and even now speak, of disarmament, -but disarmament is something impossible, and even if it were -possible, we should be obliged to reject it. Only an armed -nation appears powerful and great. I am convinced that a -universal disarmament would bring with it something like a -moral fall, which would find its expression in universal -impotence, and would be in the way of a progressive -advancement of humanity. A martial nation has always enjoyed -virile strength. Military art has brought with it the -development of all the other arts. History testifies to -that. Thus, in Athens and in Rome, commerce, industry, and -literature never reached such development as at the time -when these cities ruled over the then known world by force -of arms. To take an example from times nearer to us, let us -recall the age of Louis XIV. The wars of the great king not -only did not retard the progress of the arts and sciences, -but, on the contrary, seemed to aid and foster their -development." +The meaning of this is, that it does no harm to talk of what no one +intends to do, and what ought not to be done at all. But when it comes +to business, we must fight. + +Here is another recent expression of opinion concerning war, by the most +popular novelist of Europe, E. Zola: + +"I consider war a fatal necessity, which appears inevitable to us in +view of its close connection with human nature and the whole +world-structure. I wish war could be removed for the longest possible +time; none the less the moment will arrive when we shall be compelled to +fight. I, at the present moment, am placing myself on the universal +point of view, and in no way have any reference to our difference with +Germany, which presents itself only as an insignificant incident in the +history of humanity. I say that war is indispensable and useful, because +it appears to humanity as one of the conditions of its existence. We +everywhere meet with war, not only among various tribes and nations, but +also in domestic and private life. It appears as one of the chief +elements of progress, and every step forward, which humanity has taken, +has been accompanied by bloodshed. + +"People used to speak, and even now speak, of disarmament, but +disarmament is something impossible, and even if it were possible, we +should be obliged to reject it. Only an armed nation appears powerful +and great. I am convinced that a universal disarmament would bring with +it something like a moral fall, which would find its expression in +universal impotence, and would be in the way of a progressive +advancement of humanity. A martial nation has always enjoyed virile +strength. Military art has brought with it the development of all the +other arts. History testifies to that. Thus, in Athens and in Rome, +commerce, industry, and literature never reached such development as at +the time when these cities ruled over the then known world by force of +arms. To take an example from times nearer to us, let us recall the age +of Louis XIV. The wars of the great king not only did not retard the +progress of the arts and sciences, but, on the contrary, seemed to aid +and foster their development." War is a useful thing! -But best of all in this sense is the opinion of the most -talented writer of this camp, the opinion of the Academician -Vogue. Here is what he writes in an article about the -exhibition, in visiting the military department: - -"In the Esplanade des Invalides, amidst exotic and colonial -buildings, one structure of a more severe style rises in the -picturesque bazaar; all these representatives of the -terrestrial globe adjoin the Palace of War. A superb subject -of antitheses for humanitarian rhetorics! Indeed, it does -not let pass an occasion for deploring such juxtaposition -and for asserting that this will kill that (*ceci tuera -cela*),that the union of the nations through science and -labour will conquer the martial instincts. We shall not keep -it from fondling the hope of the chimera of a golden age, -which, if it should be realized, would soon become an age of -mire. All history teaches us that blood is needed to speed -and confirm the union of the nations. The natural sciences -have in our time confirmed the mysterious law which was -revealed to Joseph de Maistre by the inspiration of his -genius and the consideration of primitive dogmas; he saw how -the world redeems its hereditary falls by a sacrifice; the -sciences show us how the world is perfected by struggle and -by compulsory selection; this is the assertion from two -sides of the same decree, written out in different -expressions. The assertion is naturally not a pleasant one; -but the laws of the world are not established for our -pleasure,---they are established for our perfection. Let us, -then, enter into this unavoidable, indispensable Palace of -War; and we shall have occasion to observe in what manner -the most stubborn of our instincts, without losing anything -of its force, is transformed, in submitting to the different -demands of historic moments." - -This idea, that the proof of the necessity of war is to be -found in two expressions of Maistre and Darwin, two great -thinkers according to his opinion, pleases VogUe so much -that he repeats it. - -"Dear Sir," he writes to the editor of the *Revue des -Revues:* "You ask for my opinion in regard to the success of -the Universal Congress of Peace. I believe, with Darwin, -that a violent struggle is a law of Nature, by which all -beings are ruled. - -"Like Joseph de Maistre, I believe that it is a divine -law,---two different appellations for one and the same -thing. If, past all expectation, some particle of humanity, -say the whole civilized West, succeeded in arresting the -action of this law, other, more primitive nations would -apply it against us. In these nations the voice of Nature -would vanquish the voice of human reason, and they would act -with success, because the assurance of peace---I do not say -'peace' itself, but the 'full assurance of peace'---would -evoke in men corruption and fall, which act more -destructively than the most terrible war. I find that for -that criminal law, war, it is necessary to do the same as -for all the other criminal laws,---to mitigate them, to try -to make them unnecessary, and to apply them as rarely as -possible. But the whole of history teaches us that it is -impossible to abolish these laws, so long as there are left -in the world two men, money, and a woman between them. - -"I should be very happy, if the Congress could prove the -contrary to me. But I doubt whether it will be able to -overthrow history, the law of Nature, and the law of God. +But best of all in this sense is the opinion of the most talented writer +of this camp, the opinion of the Academician Vogue. Here is what he +writes in an article about the exhibition, in visiting the military +department: + +"In the Esplanade des Invalides, amidst exotic and colonial buildings, +one structure of a more severe style rises in the picturesque bazaar; +all these representatives of the terrestrial globe adjoin the Palace of +War. A superb subject of antitheses for humanitarian rhetorics! Indeed, +it does not let pass an occasion for deploring such juxtaposition and +for asserting that this will kill that (*ceci tuera cela*),that the +union of the nations through science and labour will conquer the martial +instincts. We shall not keep it from fondling the hope of the chimera of +a golden age, which, if it should be realized, would soon become an age +of mire. All history teaches us that blood is needed to speed and +confirm the union of the nations. The natural sciences have in our time +confirmed the mysterious law which was revealed to Joseph de Maistre by +the inspiration of his genius and the consideration of primitive dogmas; +he saw how the world redeems its hereditary falls by a sacrifice; the +sciences show us how the world is perfected by struggle and by +compulsory selection; this is the assertion from two sides of the same +decree, written out in different expressions. The assertion is naturally +not a pleasant one; but the laws of the world are not established for +our pleasure,---they are established for our perfection. Let us, then, +enter into this unavoidable, indispensable Palace of War; and we shall +have occasion to observe in what manner the most stubborn of our +instincts, without losing anything of its force, is transformed, in +submitting to the different demands of historic moments." + +This idea, that the proof of the necessity of war is to be found in two +expressions of Maistre and Darwin, two great thinkers according to his +opinion, pleases VogUe so much that he repeats it. + +"Dear Sir," he writes to the editor of the *Revue des Revues:* "You ask +for my opinion in regard to the success of the Universal Congress of +Peace. I believe, with Darwin, that a violent struggle is a law of +Nature, by which all beings are ruled. + +"Like Joseph de Maistre, I believe that it is a divine law,---two +different appellations for one and the same thing. If, past all +expectation, some particle of humanity, say the whole civilized West, +succeeded in arresting the action of this law, other, more primitive +nations would apply it against us. In these nations the voice of Nature +would vanquish the voice of human reason, and they would act with +success, because the assurance of peace---I do not say 'peace' itself, +but the 'full assurance of peace'---would evoke in men corruption and +fall, which act more destructively than the most terrible war. I find +that for that criminal law, war, it is necessary to do the same as for +all the other criminal laws,---to mitigate them, to try to make them +unnecessary, and to apply them as rarely as possible. But the whole of +history teaches us that it is impossible to abolish these laws, so long +as there are left in the world two men, money, and a woman between them. + +"I should be very happy, if the Congress could prove the contrary to me. +But I doubt whether it will be able to overthrow history, the law of +Nature, and the law of God. "Accept the assurance, etc. "E. M. Vogüé." -The idea is this, that history, man's nature, and God show -us that, so long as there shall be two men and between them -bread, money, and a woman, there will be war; that is, that -no progress will bring men to get away from the one -conception of life, where it is impossible without -quarrelling to divide the bread, the money (the money is -very good here), and the woman. - -How strange the people are that assemble in congresses, to -talk about how to catch birds by throwing salt on their -tails, though they cannot help but know that it is -impossible to do so; queer are those who, like Maupassant, -Eod, and many others, see clearly the whole horror of war, -the whole contradiction which arises from this, that men do -not do what they ought to do, what is advantageous and -necessary for them to do, deplore the tragedy of life, and -do not see that all this tragedy will stop as soon as men -will cease to discuss what they ought not to discuss, and -will begin not to do what is painful for them to do, what -displeases and disgusts them. These people are queer, but -those who, like Vogue and others, professing the law of -evolution, recognize war not only as unavoidable, but even -as useful, and so as desirable, are strange and terrible -with their moral perversion. The others at least say that -they hate the evil and love the good, but these simply +The idea is this, that history, man's nature, and God show us that, so +long as there shall be two men and between them bread, money, and a +woman, there will be war; that is, that no progress will bring men to +get away from the one conception of life, where it is impossible without +quarrelling to divide the bread, the money (the money is very good +here), and the woman. + +How strange the people are that assemble in congresses, to talk about +how to catch birds by throwing salt on their tails, though they cannot +help but know that it is impossible to do so; queer are those who, like +Maupassant, Eod, and many others, see clearly the whole horror of war, +the whole contradiction which arises from this, that men do not do what +they ought to do, what is advantageous and necessary for them to do, +deplore the tragedy of life, and do not see that all this tragedy will +stop as soon as men will cease to discuss what they ought not to +discuss, and will begin not to do what is painful for them to do, what +displeases and disgusts them. These people are queer, but those who, +like Vogue and others, professing the law of evolution, recognize war +not only as unavoidable, but even as useful, and so as desirable, are +strange and terrible with their moral perversion. The others at least +say that they hate the evil and love the good, but these simply recognize that there is no good and no evil. -All the talk about establishing peace, in the place of -eternal war, is a harmful sentimental rodomontade of -babblers. There is a law of evolution, from which it follows -that I must live and act badly. What is to be done? I am an -educated man, and I know the law of evolution, and so I will -act badly. - -"*Entrons au palais de la guerre.*" There is a law of -evolution, and so there is nothing bad, nor good, and we -must live for nothing but our personal life, leaving -everything else to the law of evolution. This is the last -expression of refined culture, and at the same time of that -obscuration of consciousness with which all the cultured -classes of our time are occupied. - -The desire of the cultured classes in one way or another to -maintain their favourite ideas and their life, which is -based upon them, has reached its utmost limits. They lie, -deceive themselves and others in the most refined way, if -only they can in some way obscure and drown their -consciences. - -Instead of changing the life in accord with the -consciousness, they try in every manner possible to obscure -and drown their consciousness. But the light shines even in -the dark, and so it is beginning to shine in our time. +All the talk about establishing peace, in the place of eternal war, is a +harmful sentimental rodomontade of babblers. There is a law of +evolution, from which it follows that I must live and act badly. What is +to be done? I am an educated man, and I know the law of evolution, and +so I will act badly. + +"*Entrons au palais de la guerre.*" There is a law of evolution, and so +there is nothing bad, nor good, and we must live for nothing but our +personal life, leaving everything else to the law of evolution. This is +the last expression of refined culture, and at the same time of that +obscuration of consciousness with which all the cultured classes of our +time are occupied. + +The desire of the cultured classes in one way or another to maintain +their favourite ideas and their life, which is based upon them, has +reached its utmost limits. They lie, deceive themselves and others in +the most refined way, if only they can in some way obscure and drown +their consciences. + +Instead of changing the life in accord with the consciousness, they try +in every manner possible to obscure and drown their consciousness. But +the light shines even in the dark, and so it is beginning to shine in +our time. # VII -The cultured people of the higher classes try to drown the -consciousness of the necessity of changing the present order -of things, which is becoming all the time clearer and -clearer; but life, continuing to develop and to become more -complex in the former direction and intensifying the -contradictions and sufferings of men, brings them to that -last limit, beyond which it is impossible to go. Such a last -limit, beyond which it is impossible to go, is the universal -military service. - -People generally think that universal military service and -the ever increased arming, which is connected with it, and -the consequent increase of taxation and of state debts among -all the nations, are an accidental phenomenon, due to some -political condition of Europe, and may also be removed by -some political considerations, without an internal change of -life. +The cultured people of the higher classes try to drown the consciousness +of the necessity of changing the present order of things, which is +becoming all the time clearer and clearer; but life, continuing to +develop and to become more complex in the former direction and +intensifying the contradictions and sufferings of men, brings them to +that last limit, beyond which it is impossible to go. Such a last limit, +beyond which it is impossible to go, is the universal military service. + +People generally think that universal military service and the ever +increased arming, which is connected with it, and the consequent +increase of taxation and of state debts among all the nations, are an +accidental phenomenon, due to some political condition of Europe, and +may also be removed by some political considerations, without an +internal change of life. + +This is quite erroneous. Universal military service is nothing but an +inner contradiction which, having been carried to its utmost limits and +having at a certain stage of material development become obvious, has +stolen its way into the social concept of life. + +The social concept of life consists in this very fact, that the meaning +of life is transferred from the individual to the aggregate, and its +consequence is transferred to the tribe, the family, the race, or the +state. -This is quite erroneous. Universal military service is -nothing but an inner contradiction which, having been -carried to its utmost limits and having at a certain stage -of material development become obvious, has stolen its way -into the social concept of life. - -The social concept of life consists in this very fact, that -the meaning of life is transferred from the individual to -the aggregate, and its consequence is transferred to the -tribe, the family, the race, or the state. - -From the social concept of life it follows that, in so far -as the meaning of life is contained in the aggregate of -individuals, the individuals themselves voluntarily -sacrifice their interests for the interests of the -aggregate. - -Thus it has always been in reality in the case of certain -forms of the aggregate, in the family or the tribe, -independently of which preceded, or in the race, or even in -the patriarchal state. In consequence of the habit, which is -transmitted by education and confirmed by religious -influences, the individuals have without compulsion blended -their interests with the interests of the aggregate and have -sacrificed their own interests for the common interest. - -But the more societies became complex, the greater they -grew, especially the more frequently conquests were the -causes why men united into societies, the more frequently -did individuals strive after attaining their ends to the -disadvantage of the common good, and the more frequently was -there felt the need of the exercise of power, that is, of -violence, for the sake of curbing these insubmissive -individuals. - -The defenders of the social concept of life generally try to -mix up the concept of power, that is, of violence, with that -of spiritual influence, but this admixture is quite -impossible. - -A spiritual influence is an action upon a man, such that in -consequence of it the very desires of a man are changed and -coincide with what is demanded of him. A man who submits to -a spiritual influence acts in accordance with his desires. -But power, as this word is generally understood, is a means -for compelling a man to act contrary to his wishes. A man -who submits to power does not act as he would wish, but as -the power compels him to act. Now what can compel a man to -do, not what he wishes, but what he does not wish, is -physical violence, or a threat of using such, that is, the -deprivation of liberty, beating, maiming, or executable -menaces that such actions will be carried out. In this has +From the social concept of life it follows that, in so far as the +meaning of life is contained in the aggregate of individuals, the +individuals themselves voluntarily sacrifice their interests for the +interests of the aggregate. + +Thus it has always been in reality in the case of certain forms of the +aggregate, in the family or the tribe, independently of which preceded, +or in the race, or even in the patriarchal state. In consequence of the +habit, which is transmitted by education and confirmed by religious +influences, the individuals have without compulsion blended their +interests with the interests of the aggregate and have sacrificed their +own interests for the common interest. + +But the more societies became complex, the greater they grew, especially +the more frequently conquests were the causes why men united into +societies, the more frequently did individuals strive after attaining +their ends to the disadvantage of the common good, and the more +frequently was there felt the need of the exercise of power, that is, of +violence, for the sake of curbing these insubmissive individuals. + +The defenders of the social concept of life generally try to mix up the +concept of power, that is, of violence, with that of spiritual +influence, but this admixture is quite impossible. + +A spiritual influence is an action upon a man, such that in consequence +of it the very desires of a man are changed and coincide with what is +demanded of him. A man who submits to a spiritual influence acts in +accordance with his desires. But power, as this word is generally +understood, is a means for compelling a man to act contrary to his +wishes. A man who submits to power does not act as he would wish, but as +the power compels him to act. Now what can compel a man to do, not what +he wishes, but what he does not wish, is physical violence, or a threat +of using such, that is, the deprivation of liberty, beating, maiming, or +executable menaces that such actions will be carried out. In this has power always consisted. -In spite of the unceasing efforts made by men in power to -conceal this and to ascribe a different meaning to power, -power is the application of a rope, a chain, by which a man -will be bound and dragged along, or of a whip, with which he -will be flogged, or of a knife, an axe, with which they will -cut off his hands, feet, ears, head,---an application of -these means, or a threat that they will be used. Thus it was -in the time of Nero and of Genghis Khan, and thus it is even -now, in the most liberal of governments, in the republic of -America and in that of France. If men submit to power, they -do so only because they are afraid that in case they do not -submit these actions will be applied to them. All -governmental demands, the payment of taxes, the execution of -public works, the submission to punishments imposed upon -one, exile, penalties, and so forth, to which men seem -voluntarily to submit, have always had bodily violence, or a -threat that such will be used, for their base. +In spite of the unceasing efforts made by men in power to conceal this +and to ascribe a different meaning to power, power is the application of +a rope, a chain, by which a man will be bound and dragged along, or of a +whip, with which he will be flogged, or of a knife, an axe, with which +they will cut off his hands, feet, ears, head,---an application of these +means, or a threat that they will be used. Thus it was in the time of +Nero and of Genghis Khan, and thus it is even now, in the most liberal +of governments, in the republic of America and in that of France. If men +submit to power, they do so only because they are afraid that in case +they do not submit these actions will be applied to them. All +governmental demands, the payment of taxes, the execution of public +works, the submission to punishments imposed upon one, exile, penalties, +and so forth, to which men seem voluntarily to submit, have always had +bodily violence, or a threat that such will be used, for their base. The basis of power is bodily violence. -The possibility of exerting bodily violence against people -is first of all given by an organization of armed men in -which all the armed men act in agreement, submitting to one -will. Such assemblies of armed men, who submit to one will, -are formed by the army. The army has always stood at the -base of power. Power is always found in the hands of those -who command an army, and all potentates---from the Roman -Caesars to the Russian and German emperors---are more than -anything else concerned about the army, knowing that if the -army is with them, the power will remain in their hands. - -It is this formation and increase of the army, which is -necessary for the support of power, that has introduced a -decomposing principle into the social concept of life. - -The end of power and its justification consists in the -limitation of those men who might wish to attain their -interests to the disadvantage of the interests of the -aggregate. But whether the power has been acquired by the -formation of a new power, by inheritance, or by election, -men who possess power by means of an army have in no way -differed from other men, and so have, like other men, been -prone not to subordinate their interests to those of the -aggregate, but, on the contrary, having in their hands the -possibility of doing so, have been more prone than any one -else to subordinate the common interests to their own. No -matter how much men have devised means for depriving men in -power of the possibility of subordinating the common -interests to their own, or for entrusting the power only -into the hands of infallible men, there have so far been -discovered no means for doing either. - -All methods employed, either of divine sanction, or of -election, or of heredity, or of suffrage, or of assemblies, -or of parliaments, or of senates, have proved ineffective. -All men know that not one of these methods attains the aim -of entrusting the power into none but infallible hands, or -of preventing its being misused. All know that, on the -contrary, men in power, be they emperors, ministers, chiefs -of police, policemen, become, by the very fact of having -power, more prone to commit immoralities, that is, to -subordinate the common interests to their own, than men who -have no power, as indeed it could not be otherwise. - -The social concept of life justified itself only so long as -all men voluntarily sacrificed their interests to the common -interests; but the moment there appeared men who did not -voluntarily sacrifice their interests, and power was needed, -that is, violence, for the purpose of limiting these -individuals, the decomposing principle of power, that is, -violence exerted by one set of people against another, -entered into the social concept of life and the structure -which is based upon it. - -For the power of one set of men over another to attain its -end of limiting men who strove after their individual -interests to the disadvantage of those of the aggregate, it -was necessary to have the power vested in the hands of -infallible men, as is assumed to be the case by the Chinese, -and as has been assumed in the Middle Ages and at the -present time by men who believe in the sanctity of -anointment. It was only under this condition that the social -structure received its justification. - -But since this does not exist, and men in power, on the -contrary, by the very fact of their possession of power, are -never saintly, the social structure, which is based on -power, should not have any justification. - -Even if there was a time when, with a certain low level of -morality and with the universal tendency of men to exert -violence against each other, the existence of the power -which limited this violence was advantageous, that is, when -the violence of the state was not so great as that exerted -by individuals against each other, it is impossible to -overlook the fact that such a superiority of the state over -its absence could not be permanent. The more the tendency of -individuals to exert violence was diminished, the more the -manners were softened, and the more the power was corrupted -in consequence of its unrestraint, the more did this +The possibility of exerting bodily violence against people is first of +all given by an organization of armed men in which all the armed men act +in agreement, submitting to one will. Such assemblies of armed men, who +submit to one will, are formed by the army. The army has always stood at +the base of power. Power is always found in the hands of those who +command an army, and all potentates---from the Roman Caesars to the +Russian and German emperors---are more than anything else concerned +about the army, knowing that if the army is with them, the power will +remain in their hands. + +It is this formation and increase of the army, which is necessary for +the support of power, that has introduced a decomposing principle into +the social concept of life. + +The end of power and its justification consists in the limitation of +those men who might wish to attain their interests to the disadvantage +of the interests of the aggregate. But whether the power has been +acquired by the formation of a new power, by inheritance, or by +election, men who possess power by means of an army have in no way +differed from other men, and so have, like other men, been prone not to +subordinate their interests to those of the aggregate, but, on the +contrary, having in their hands the possibility of doing so, have been +more prone than any one else to subordinate the common interests to +their own. No matter how much men have devised means for depriving men +in power of the possibility of subordinating the common interests to +their own, or for entrusting the power only into the hands of infallible +men, there have so far been discovered no means for doing either. + +All methods employed, either of divine sanction, or of election, or of +heredity, or of suffrage, or of assemblies, or of parliaments, or of +senates, have proved ineffective. All men know that not one of these +methods attains the aim of entrusting the power into none but infallible +hands, or of preventing its being misused. All know that, on the +contrary, men in power, be they emperors, ministers, chiefs of police, +policemen, become, by the very fact of having power, more prone to +commit immoralities, that is, to subordinate the common interests to +their own, than men who have no power, as indeed it could not be +otherwise. + +The social concept of life justified itself only so long as all men +voluntarily sacrificed their interests to the common interests; but the +moment there appeared men who did not voluntarily sacrifice their +interests, and power was needed, that is, violence, for the purpose of +limiting these individuals, the decomposing principle of power, that is, +violence exerted by one set of people against another, entered into the +social concept of life and the structure which is based upon it. + +For the power of one set of men over another to attain its end of +limiting men who strove after their individual interests to the +disadvantage of those of the aggregate, it was necessary to have the +power vested in the hands of infallible men, as is assumed to be the +case by the Chinese, and as has been assumed in the Middle Ages and at +the present time by men who believe in the sanctity of anointment. It +was only under this condition that the social structure received its +justification. + +But since this does not exist, and men in power, on the contrary, by the +very fact of their possession of power, are never saintly, the social +structure, which is based on power, should not have any justification. + +Even if there was a time when, with a certain low level of morality and +with the universal tendency of men to exert violence against each other, +the existence of the power which limited this violence was advantageous, +that is, when the violence of the state was not so great as that exerted +by individuals against each other, it is impossible to overlook the fact +that such a superiority of the state over its absence could not be +permanent. The more the tendency of individuals to exert violence was +diminished, the more the manners were softened, and the more the power +was corrupted in consequence of its unrestraint, the more did this superiority grow less and less. -In this change of the relation between the moral development -of the masses and the corruption of the governments does the -whole history of the last two thousand years consist. - -In the simplest form the case was like this: men lived by -tribes, families, races, and waged war, committed acts of -violence, and destroyed and killed one another. These cases -of violence took place on a small and on a large scale: -individual struggled with individual, tribe with tribe, -family with family, race with race, nation with nation. -Larger, more powerful aggregates conquered the weaker, and -the larger and the more powerful the aggregate of people -became, the less internal violence took place in it, and the -more secure did the continuance of the life of the aggregate -seem to be. - -The members of the tribe or of the family, uniting into one -aggregate, war less among themselves, and the tribe and the -family do not die, like one man, but continue their -existence; between the members of one state, who are subject -to one power, the struggle seems even weaker, and the life -of the state seems even more secure. - -These unions into greater and ever greater aggregates, did -not take place because men consciously recognized such -unions as more advantageous to themselves, as is described -in the story about the calling of the Varangians, but in -consequence, on the one hand, of natural growth, and on the -other, of struggle and conquests. - -When the conquest is accomplished, the power of the -conqueror actually puts an end to internecine strife, and -the social concept of life receives its justification. But -this confirmation is only temporary. Internal strifes cease -only in proportion as the pressure of the power is exerted -upon individuals who heretofore have been warring against -one another. The violence of internal struggle, which is -destroyed by the power, is conceived in the power itself. -The power is in the hands of just such people as all men -are, that is, of such as are always or frequently prepared -to sacrifice the common good for the sake of their personal -good, with this one difference, that these men do not have -the tempering force of the counteraction of the violated, -and are subjected to the full corrupting influence of power. -Thus the evil of violence, passing over into the hands of -power, keeps growing more and more, and in time comes to be -greater than the one which it is supposed to destroy, -whereas in the members of society the proneness to violence -keeps weakening more and more, and the violence of power -grows less and less necessary. - -The governmental power, even if it destroys inner violence, -invariably introduces new forms of violence into the lives -of men, and this grows greater and greater in proportion -with its continuance and intensification. - -Thus, although the violence is less perceptible in the state -than the violence of the members of society against one -another, since it is not expressed by struggle, but by -submission, the violence none the less exists and for the -most part in a much more powerful degree than before. - -This cannot be otherwise, because the possession of power -not only corrupts men, but the purpose or even unconscious -tendency of the violators will consist in bringing the -violated to the greatest degree of weakening, since, the -weaker the violated man is, the less effort will it take to -suppress him. - -For this reason the violence which is exerted against him -who is violated keeps growing to the farthest limit which it -can attain without killing the hen that is laying the golden -eggs. But if this hen does not lay, as in the case of the -American Indians, the Fijians, the Negroes, it is killed, in -spite of the sincere protestations of the philanthropists -against such a mode of action. - -The best confirmation of this is found in the condition of -the labouring classes of our time, who in reality are -nothing but subjugated people. - -In spite of all the hypocritical endeavours of the higher -classes to alleviate the condition of the working people, -all the working people of our world are subject to an -invariable iron law, according to which they have only as -much as they need to be always incited by necessity to work -and to have the strength for working for their masters, that -is, for the conquerors. - -Thus it has always been. In proportion with the duration and -increase of power, its advantages have always been lost for -those who subjected themselves to it, and its disadvantages -have been increased. - -Thus it has been independently of those forms of government -under which the nations have lived. The only difference is -this, that in a despotic form of government the power is -concentrated in a small number of violators, and the form of -the violence is more pronounced; in the constitutional -monarchies and republics, as in France and in America, the -power is distributed among a larger number of violators, and -its forms are less pronounced; but the matter of violence, -with which the disadvantages of the power are greater than -its advantages, and its process, which brings the violated -to the extreme limit of weakening to which they can be -brought for the advantage of the violators, are always one -and the same. - -Such has been the condition of all the violated, but before -this they did not know it, and in the majority of cases they -believed naively that governments existed for their good; -that without government they would perish; that the thought -that men could live without governments was a blasphemy -which ought not even be uttered; that this was for some -reason a terrible doctrine of anarchism, with which is -connected the conception of everything terrible. - -Men believed, as in something absolutely proved and so -needing no further proofs, that, since until now all the -nations have developed in a governmental form, this form was -for ever an indispensable condition of the development of -humanity. - -Thus it went on for hundreds and for thousands of years, and -the governments, that is, men in power, have tried, and now -try more and more, to keep the nations in this error. - -Thus it was in the time of the Roman emperors, and thus it -is at present. In spite of the fact that the idea of the -uselessness and even harm of the governmental violence more -and more enters into the consciousness of men, this would -last for ever, if the governments were not obliged to -increase the armies for the purpose of maintaining their +In this change of the relation between the moral development of the +masses and the corruption of the governments does the whole history of +the last two thousand years consist. + +In the simplest form the case was like this: men lived by tribes, +families, races, and waged war, committed acts of violence, and +destroyed and killed one another. These cases of violence took place on +a small and on a large scale: individual struggled with individual, +tribe with tribe, family with family, race with race, nation with +nation. Larger, more powerful aggregates conquered the weaker, and the +larger and the more powerful the aggregate of people became, the less +internal violence took place in it, and the more secure did the +continuance of the life of the aggregate seem to be. + +The members of the tribe or of the family, uniting into one aggregate, +war less among themselves, and the tribe and the family do not die, like +one man, but continue their existence; between the members of one state, +who are subject to one power, the struggle seems even weaker, and the +life of the state seems even more secure. + +These unions into greater and ever greater aggregates, did not take +place because men consciously recognized such unions as more +advantageous to themselves, as is described in the story about the +calling of the Varangians, but in consequence, on the one hand, of +natural growth, and on the other, of struggle and conquests. + +When the conquest is accomplished, the power of the conqueror actually +puts an end to internecine strife, and the social concept of life +receives its justification. But this confirmation is only temporary. +Internal strifes cease only in proportion as the pressure of the power +is exerted upon individuals who heretofore have been warring against one +another. The violence of internal struggle, which is destroyed by the +power, is conceived in the power itself. The power is in the hands of +just such people as all men are, that is, of such as are always or +frequently prepared to sacrifice the common good for the sake of their +personal good, with this one difference, that these men do not have the +tempering force of the counteraction of the violated, and are subjected +to the full corrupting influence of power. Thus the evil of violence, +passing over into the hands of power, keeps growing more and more, and +in time comes to be greater than the one which it is supposed to +destroy, whereas in the members of society the proneness to violence +keeps weakening more and more, and the violence of power grows less and +less necessary. + +The governmental power, even if it destroys inner violence, invariably +introduces new forms of violence into the lives of men, and this grows +greater and greater in proportion with its continuance and +intensification. + +Thus, although the violence is less perceptible in the state than the +violence of the members of society against one another, since it is not +expressed by struggle, but by submission, the violence none the less +exists and for the most part in a much more powerful degree than before. + +This cannot be otherwise, because the possession of power not only +corrupts men, but the purpose or even unconscious tendency of the +violators will consist in bringing the violated to the greatest degree +of weakening, since, the weaker the violated man is, the less effort +will it take to suppress him. + +For this reason the violence which is exerted against him who is +violated keeps growing to the farthest limit which it can attain without +killing the hen that is laying the golden eggs. But if this hen does not +lay, as in the case of the American Indians, the Fijians, the Negroes, +it is killed, in spite of the sincere protestations of the +philanthropists against such a mode of action. + +The best confirmation of this is found in the condition of the labouring +classes of our time, who in reality are nothing but subjugated people. + +In spite of all the hypocritical endeavours of the higher classes to +alleviate the condition of the working people, all the working people of +our world are subject to an invariable iron law, according to which they +have only as much as they need to be always incited by necessity to work +and to have the strength for working for their masters, that is, for the +conquerors. + +Thus it has always been. In proportion with the duration and increase of +power, its advantages have always been lost for those who subjected +themselves to it, and its disadvantages have been increased. + +Thus it has been independently of those forms of government under which +the nations have lived. The only difference is this, that in a despotic +form of government the power is concentrated in a small number of +violators, and the form of the violence is more pronounced; in the +constitutional monarchies and republics, as in France and in America, +the power is distributed among a larger number of violators, and its +forms are less pronounced; but the matter of violence, with which the +disadvantages of the power are greater than its advantages, and its +process, which brings the violated to the extreme limit of weakening to +which they can be brought for the advantage of the violators, are always +one and the same. + +Such has been the condition of all the violated, but before this they +did not know it, and in the majority of cases they believed naively that +governments existed for their good; that without government they would +perish; that the thought that men could live without governments was a +blasphemy which ought not even be uttered; that this was for some reason +a terrible doctrine of anarchism, with which is connected the conception +of everything terrible. + +Men believed, as in something absolutely proved and so needing no +further proofs, that, since until now all the nations have developed in +a governmental form, this form was for ever an indispensable condition +of the development of humanity. + +Thus it went on for hundreds and for thousands of years, and the +governments, that is, men in power, have tried, and now try more and +more, to keep the nations in this error. + +Thus it was in the time of the Roman emperors, and thus it is at +present. In spite of the fact that the idea of the uselessness and even +harm of the governmental violence more and more enters into the +consciousness of men, this would last for ever, if the governments were +not obliged to increase the armies for the purpose of maintaining their power. -People generally think that the armies are increased by the -governments for the purpose of defending the states against -other states, forgetting the fact that armies are needed by -the governments for the purpose of protecting themselves -against their own crushed and enslaved subjects. - -This has always been indispensable, and has become more and -more necessary in proportion as culture has been developed -among the nations, in proportion as the intercourse among -the men of the same and of different nations has been -increased, and it has become particularly indispensable now -in connection with the communistic, socialistic, -anarchistic, and universal movements among the labouring -classes. The governments feel this, and so increase their -main force of the disciplined army. - -Answering lately to a question why money was needed for the -increase of the wages of under-officers, the German -chancellor declared frankly in the German Reichstag that -there was a need of reliable under-officers, in order to -fight against socialism. Caprivi only said in the hearing of -all what everybody knows, though it is carefully concealed -from the nations; he explained why guards of Swiss and -Scotchmen were hired out to French kings and Popes, and why -in Russia they carefully shuffle up the recruits in such a -way that the regiments which are located in the centre are -made up of recruits from the outlying districts, while the -regiments in the outlying districts are completed by -soldiers from the centre of Russia. The meaning of Caprivi's -speech, translated into simple language, is this, that money -was not needed for counteracting the foreign enemies, but -for bribing the under-officers, so as to make them willing -to act against the oppressed labouring masses. - -Caprivi accidentally gave utterance to what everybody knows, -or feels, if he does not know, namely, that the existing -structure of life is such as it is, not because it naturally -must be such, because the nation wants it to be such, but -because it is maintained as such by the violence of the -governments, by the army with its bribed under-officers, +People generally think that the armies are increased by the governments +for the purpose of defending the states against other states, forgetting +the fact that armies are needed by the governments for the purpose of +protecting themselves against their own crushed and enslaved subjects. + +This has always been indispensable, and has become more and more +necessary in proportion as culture has been developed among the nations, +in proportion as the intercourse among the men of the same and of +different nations has been increased, and it has become particularly +indispensable now in connection with the communistic, socialistic, +anarchistic, and universal movements among the labouring classes. The +governments feel this, and so increase their main force of the +disciplined army. + +Answering lately to a question why money was needed for the increase of +the wages of under-officers, the German chancellor declared frankly in +the German Reichstag that there was a need of reliable under-officers, +in order to fight against socialism. Caprivi only said in the hearing of +all what everybody knows, though it is carefully concealed from the +nations; he explained why guards of Swiss and Scotchmen were hired out +to French kings and Popes, and why in Russia they carefully shuffle up +the recruits in such a way that the regiments which are located in the +centre are made up of recruits from the outlying districts, while the +regiments in the outlying districts are completed by soldiers from the +centre of Russia. The meaning of Caprivi's speech, translated into +simple language, is this, that money was not needed for counteracting +the foreign enemies, but for bribing the under-officers, so as to make +them willing to act against the oppressed labouring masses. + +Caprivi accidentally gave utterance to what everybody knows, or feels, +if he does not know, namely, that the existing structure of life is such +as it is, not because it naturally must be such, because the nation +wants it to be such, but because it is maintained as such by the +violence of the governments, by the army with its bribed under-officers, officers, and generals. -If a labouring man has no land, no chance of making use of -the right, so natural for every man, to obtain from the land -his own means of support and those of his family, this is -not so because the nation wants it to be so, but because -certain men, the owners of land, are granted the right to -admit, or not to admit, the labouring people to it. And this -unnatural order of things is maintained by means of the -army. If the immense wealth, accumulated by the labouring -people, is not considered as belonging to all men, but to an -exclusive number of men; if the power to collect taxes from -labour and to use the money for anything they may see fit is -entrusted to a few men; if a few men are permitted to select -the method of the religious and civil instruction and -education of the children; if strikes of the labourers are -opposed and strikes of the capitalists are encouraged; if a -few men are granted the right to compose laws, which all -must obey, and to dispose of men's property and life,---all -this does not take place because the nation wants it so, but -because the governments and the ruling classes want it so, -and by means of bodily violence establish it so. - -Every person who does not know this will find it out in -every attempt at not conforming or at changing this order of -things. Therefore armies are first of all indispensable to -the governments and the ruling classes, in order to maintain -the order of things which not only does not result from the -necessity of the nation, but is frequently opposed to it and -is advantageous only to the government and to the ruling -classes. - -Every government needs armies, first of all, in order to -keep its subjects in submission, and to exploit their -labours. But the government is not alone; side by side with -it there is another government, which exploits its subjects -by means of the same violence, and which is always ready to -take away from another government the labours of its already -enslaved subjects. And so every government needs an army, -not only for internal use, but also for the protection of -its booty against neighbouring ravishers. Every government -is in consequence of this involuntarily led to the necessity -of increasing its army in emulation with the other -governments; but the increasing of armies is contagious, as -Montesquieu remarked 150 years ago. - -Every increase of an army in a state, directed against its -subjects, becomes dangerous even for its neighbours, and -evokes an increase in the neighbouring states. - -The armies have reached their present millions not merely -because the neighbours threatened the states; this resulted -above all from the necessity of crushing all attempts at -revolt on the part of the subjects. The increase of armies -arises simultaneously from two causes, which provoke one -another: armies are needed against domestic enemies and for -the purpose of defending one's position against one's -neighbours. One conditions the other. The despotism of a -government always increases with the increase and -strengthening of armies and external successes, and the -aggressiveness of governments is increased with the -intensification of the internal despotism. - -In consequence of this, the European governments, in -emulating one another in the greater and ever greater -increase of the army, arrived at the inevitable necessity of -the universal military service, since the universal military -service was a means for obtaining in time of war the -greatest quantity of soldiers at the least expense. Germany -was the first to hit upon this plan, and the moment one -government did it, all the others were obliged to do the -same. The moment this happened, it happened that all the -citizens were put under arms for the purpose of maintaining -all that injustice which was committed against them; what -happened was that all the citizens became oppressors of -themselves. - -The universal military service was an inevitable logical -necessity, at which it was impossible not to arrive; at the -same time it is the last expression of the inner -contradiction of the social concept of life, which arose at -a time when violence was needed in order to maintain it. In -the universal military service this contradiction became -obvious. Indeed, the meaning of the social concept of life -consists in this, that a man, recognizing the cruelty of the -struggle of individuals among themselves and the -perishableness of the individual himself, transfers the -meaning of his life to the aggregate of individuals; but in -the universal military service it turns out that men, having -brought all the sacrifices demanded of them, in order to -free themselves from the cruelty of the struggle and the -insecurity of life, are, after all the sacrifices which they -have made, again called to bear all those dangers from which -they thought they had freed themselves, and, besides, that -aggregate, the state, in the name of which the individuals -renounced their advantages, is again subjected to the same -danger of destruction to which the individual himself was -subjected before. - -The governments were to have freed men from the cruelty of -the struggle of individuals and to have given them the -assurance of the inviolability of the order of the state -life; but, instead, they impose upon the individuals the -necessity of the same struggle, except that the struggle -with the nearest individuals is transferred to the struggle -with the individuals of other states, and they leave the -same danger of the destruction of the individual and of the -state. - -The establishment of the universal military service is like -what would happen if a man were to brace up a dilapidated -house: the walls bend inwards---supports are put up; the -ceiling is sagging down---other supports are put up; boards -hang down between the supports---some more supports are put -up. A point is finally reached when the supports indeed hold -the house together, but it is impossible to live in the -house because there are so many supports. - -The same is true of the universal military service. It -destroys all those advantages of the social life which it is -called to preserve. - -The advantages of the social life consist in the security of -property and labour and in the cooperation in the aggregate -perfection of life,---the universal military service -destroys all that. - -The taxes which are collected from the masses for war -preparations swallow the greater share of the production of -labour which the army is supposed to protect. - -The tearing away of the men from the habitual course of life -impairs the possibility of the work itself. - -The menaces of a war that is likely to break out at any time -make all the perfections of the social life useless and in -vain. - -If a man was formerly told that if he did not submit to the -power of the state he would be subjected to the attacks of -evil men, of external and internal enemies; that he would be -compelled himself to struggle with them and to subject -himself to being killed; that therefore it would be -advantageous for him to bear certain privations, in order to -free himself from these calamities,---he was able to believe -it all, because the sacrifices which he made for the state -were only private sacrifices and gave him the hope for a -peaceful life in an imperishable state, in the name of which -he made these sacrifices. But now, when these sacrifices -have not only increased tenfold, but the advantages promised -to him are absent, it is natural for any one to imagine that -his submission to power is quite useless. - -But not in this alone lies the fatal significance of the -universal military service, as a manifestation of that -contradiction which is contained in the social concept of -life. The main manifestation of this contradiction consists -in the fact that with the universal military service every -citizen, upon becoming a soldier, becomes a supporter of the -state structure, and a participant in everything which the -government does and the legality of which he does not -recognize. - -The governments assert that the armies are needed mainly for -the purpose of external defence; but that is not true. They -are needed first of all against their subjects, and every -man who does military service involuntarily becomes a -participant in all the violence which the state exerts over -its own subjects. - -To convince himself that every man who does his military -service becomes a participant in such deeds of the -government as he does not acknowledge and cannot -acknowledge, let a man only remember what is being done in -every state in the name of order and of the good of the -nation, things which the army appears as the executor of. -All the struggles of dynasties and of the various parties, -all the executions, which are connected with these -disturbances, all the suppressions of revolts, all the -employment of military force for the dispersion of popular -crowds, the suppression of strikes, all the extortions of -taxes, all the injustice of the distribution of the -ownership of land, all the oppressions of labour,---all this -is produced, if not directly by the armies, at least by the -police, which is supported by the armies. He who does -military service becomes a participant in all these matters, -which in some cases are doubtful to him and in many cases -are directly opposed to his conscience. Some people do not -wish to leave the land which they have been working for -generations; people do not wish to disperse, as they are -commanded to do by the government; people do not want to pay -the taxes which are exacted of them; people do not wish to -recognize the obligatoriness for them of laws which they -have not made; people do not wish to be deprived of their -nationality,---and I, by doing military service, am obliged -to come and beat these people. Being a participant in these -deeds, I cannot help but ask myself whether these deeds are +If a labouring man has no land, no chance of making use of the right, so +natural for every man, to obtain from the land his own means of support +and those of his family, this is not so because the nation wants it to +be so, but because certain men, the owners of land, are granted the +right to admit, or not to admit, the labouring people to it. And this +unnatural order of things is maintained by means of the army. If the +immense wealth, accumulated by the labouring people, is not considered +as belonging to all men, but to an exclusive number of men; if the power +to collect taxes from labour and to use the money for anything they may +see fit is entrusted to a few men; if a few men are permitted to select +the method of the religious and civil instruction and education of the +children; if strikes of the labourers are opposed and strikes of the +capitalists are encouraged; if a few men are granted the right to +compose laws, which all must obey, and to dispose of men's property and +life,---all this does not take place because the nation wants it so, but +because the governments and the ruling classes want it so, and by means +of bodily violence establish it so. + +Every person who does not know this will find it out in every attempt at +not conforming or at changing this order of things. Therefore armies are +first of all indispensable to the governments and the ruling classes, in +order to maintain the order of things which not only does not result +from the necessity of the nation, but is frequently opposed to it and is +advantageous only to the government and to the ruling classes. + +Every government needs armies, first of all, in order to keep its +subjects in submission, and to exploit their labours. But the government +is not alone; side by side with it there is another government, which +exploits its subjects by means of the same violence, and which is always +ready to take away from another government the labours of its already +enslaved subjects. And so every government needs an army, not only for +internal use, but also for the protection of its booty against +neighbouring ravishers. Every government is in consequence of this +involuntarily led to the necessity of increasing its army in emulation +with the other governments; but the increasing of armies is contagious, +as Montesquieu remarked 150 years ago. + +Every increase of an army in a state, directed against its subjects, +becomes dangerous even for its neighbours, and evokes an increase in the +neighbouring states. + +The armies have reached their present millions not merely because the +neighbours threatened the states; this resulted above all from the +necessity of crushing all attempts at revolt on the part of the +subjects. The increase of armies arises simultaneously from two causes, +which provoke one another: armies are needed against domestic enemies +and for the purpose of defending one's position against one's +neighbours. One conditions the other. The despotism of a government +always increases with the increase and strengthening of armies and +external successes, and the aggressiveness of governments is increased +with the intensification of the internal despotism. + +In consequence of this, the European governments, in emulating one +another in the greater and ever greater increase of the army, arrived at +the inevitable necessity of the universal military service, since the +universal military service was a means for obtaining in time of war the +greatest quantity of soldiers at the least expense. Germany was the +first to hit upon this plan, and the moment one government did it, all +the others were obliged to do the same. The moment this happened, it +happened that all the citizens were put under arms for the purpose of +maintaining all that injustice which was committed against them; what +happened was that all the citizens became oppressors of themselves. + +The universal military service was an inevitable logical necessity, at +which it was impossible not to arrive; at the same time it is the last +expression of the inner contradiction of the social concept of life, +which arose at a time when violence was needed in order to maintain it. +In the universal military service this contradiction became obvious. +Indeed, the meaning of the social concept of life consists in this, that +a man, recognizing the cruelty of the struggle of individuals among +themselves and the perishableness of the individual himself, transfers +the meaning of his life to the aggregate of individuals; but in the +universal military service it turns out that men, having brought all the +sacrifices demanded of them, in order to free themselves from the +cruelty of the struggle and the insecurity of life, are, after all the +sacrifices which they have made, again called to bear all those dangers +from which they thought they had freed themselves, and, besides, that +aggregate, the state, in the name of which the individuals renounced +their advantages, is again subjected to the same danger of destruction +to which the individual himself was subjected before. + +The governments were to have freed men from the cruelty of the struggle +of individuals and to have given them the assurance of the inviolability +of the order of the state life; but, instead, they impose upon the +individuals the necessity of the same struggle, except that the struggle +with the nearest individuals is transferred to the struggle with the +individuals of other states, and they leave the same danger of the +destruction of the individual and of the state. + +The establishment of the universal military service is like what would +happen if a man were to brace up a dilapidated house: the walls bend +inwards---supports are put up; the ceiling is sagging down---other +supports are put up; boards hang down between the supports---some more +supports are put up. A point is finally reached when the supports indeed +hold the house together, but it is impossible to live in the house +because there are so many supports. + +The same is true of the universal military service. It destroys all +those advantages of the social life which it is called to preserve. + +The advantages of the social life consist in the security of property +and labour and in the cooperation in the aggregate perfection of +life,---the universal military service destroys all that. + +The taxes which are collected from the masses for war preparations +swallow the greater share of the production of labour which the army is +supposed to protect. + +The tearing away of the men from the habitual course of life impairs the +possibility of the work itself. + +The menaces of a war that is likely to break out at any time make all +the perfections of the social life useless and in vain. + +If a man was formerly told that if he did not submit to the power of the +state he would be subjected to the attacks of evil men, of external and +internal enemies; that he would be compelled himself to struggle with +them and to subject himself to being killed; that therefore it would be +advantageous for him to bear certain privations, in order to free +himself from these calamities,---he was able to believe it all, because +the sacrifices which he made for the state were only private sacrifices +and gave him the hope for a peaceful life in an imperishable state, in +the name of which he made these sacrifices. But now, when these +sacrifices have not only increased tenfold, but the advantages promised +to him are absent, it is natural for any one to imagine that his +submission to power is quite useless. + +But not in this alone lies the fatal significance of the universal +military service, as a manifestation of that contradiction which is +contained in the social concept of life. The main manifestation of this +contradiction consists in the fact that with the universal military +service every citizen, upon becoming a soldier, becomes a supporter of +the state structure, and a participant in everything which the +government does and the legality of which he does not recognize. + +The governments assert that the armies are needed mainly for the purpose +of external defence; but that is not true. They are needed first of all +against their subjects, and every man who does military service +involuntarily becomes a participant in all the violence which the state +exerts over its own subjects. + +To convince himself that every man who does his military service becomes +a participant in such deeds of the government as he does not acknowledge +and cannot acknowledge, let a man only remember what is being done in +every state in the name of order and of the good of the nation, things +which the army appears as the executor of. All the struggles of +dynasties and of the various parties, all the executions, which are +connected with these disturbances, all the suppressions of revolts, all +the employment of military force for the dispersion of popular crowds, +the suppression of strikes, all the extortions of taxes, all the +injustice of the distribution of the ownership of land, all the +oppressions of labour,---all this is produced, if not directly by the +armies, at least by the police, which is supported by the armies. He who +does military service becomes a participant in all these matters, which +in some cases are doubtful to him and in many cases are directly opposed +to his conscience. Some people do not wish to leave the land which they +have been working for generations; people do not wish to disperse, as +they are commanded to do by the government; people do not want to pay +the taxes which are exacted of them; people do not wish to recognize the +obligatoriness for them of laws which they have not made; people do not +wish to be deprived of their nationality,---and I, by doing military +service, am obliged to come and beat these people. Being a participant +in these deeds, I cannot help but ask myself whether these deeds are good, and whether I ought to contribute to their execution. -Universal military service is for the government the last -degree of violence, which is necessary for the support of -the whole structure; and for the subjects it is the extreme -limit of the possibility of their obedience. It is that -keystone which holds the walls and the extraction of which -causes the building to cave in. - -The time came when the growing abuses of the governments and -their strifes among themselves had this effect, that from -every subject there were demanded, not only material, but -also moral sacrifices, when every man had to stop and ask -himself, "Can I make these sacrifices? And in the name of -what must I make these sacrifices? These sacrifices are -demanded in the name of the state. In the name of the state -they demand of me the renunciation of everything which may -be dear to man, of peace, of family, of security, of human -dignity. What is that state in the name of which such -terrible sacrifices are demanded of me? And why is it so +Universal military service is for the government the last degree of +violence, which is necessary for the support of the whole structure; and +for the subjects it is the extreme limit of the possibility of their +obedience. It is that keystone which holds the walls and the extraction +of which causes the building to cave in. + +The time came when the growing abuses of the governments and their +strifes among themselves had this effect, that from every subject there +were demanded, not only material, but also moral sacrifices, when every +man had to stop and ask himself, "Can I make these sacrifices? And in +the name of what must I make these sacrifices? These sacrifices are +demanded in the name of the state. In the name of the state they demand +of me the renunciation of everything which may be dear to man, of peace, +of family, of security, of human dignity. What is that state in the name +of which such terrible sacrifices are demanded of me? And why is it so indispensably necessary?" -"The state," we are told, "is indispensably necessary, in -the first place, because without the state, I and all of us -would not be protected against violence and the attack of -evil men; in the second place, without the state all of us -would be savages, and would have no religious, nor -educational, nor mercantile institutions, nor roads of -communication, nor any other public establishments; and, in -the third place, because without the state we should be -subject to enslavement by neighbouring nations." - -"Without the state," we are told, "we should be subject to -violence and to the attacks of evil men in our own country." - -But who among us are these evil men, from the violence and -attacks of whom the state and its army save us? If three, -four centuries ago, when men boasted of their military art -and their accoutrements, when it was considered a virtue to -kill men, there existed such men, there are none now, for no -men of the present time use or carry weapons, and all, -professing the rules of philanthropy and of compassion for -their neighbours, wish the same as we,---the possibility of -a calm and peaceful life. There now are no longer those -particular violators against whom the state should defend -us. But if, by the people, from whose attack the state saves -us, we are to understand those men who commit crimes, we -know that they are not some especial beings, like rapacious -animals among the sheep, but just such people as we are, who -are just as disinclined to commit crimes as those against -whom they commit them. We know now that threats and -punishments cannot diminish the number of such men, and that -it is only the change of surroundings and the moral -influence upon people that diminish it. Thus the explanation -of the necessity of governmental violence for the purpose of -defending men against violators may have had a basis three -or four centuries ago, but has none at the present time. Now -the contrary would be more correct, namely, that the -activity of the governments, with their morality which has -fallen behind the common level, with their cruel methods of -punishments, of prisons, of hard labour, of gallows, of -guillotines, rather contributes to the brutalization of the -masses than to the softening of their manners, and so rather -to the increase than to the diminution of the number of -violators. - -"Without the state," they also say, "there would not be all -those institutions of education, of learning, of religion, -of roads of communication, and others. Without the state men -would not be able to establish the public things which are -indispensable for all men." But this argument, too, could -have a basis only several centuries ago. - -If there was a time when men were so disunited among -themselves and the means for a closer union and for the -transmission of thought were so little worked out that they -could not come to any understanding nor agree upon any -common mercantile, or economical, or cultural matter without -the medium of the state, there now no longer exists such a -disunion. The widely developed means for communion and for -the transmission of thought have had this effect, that, for -the formation of societies, assemblies, corporations, -congresses, learned, economic, or political institutions, -the men of our time can get along without any government, -and the governments in the majority of cases are more likely -to interfere with the attainment of these ends than to -cooperate with it. - -Beginning with the end of the last century, almost every -forward step of humanity has not only not been encouraged by -the government, but has always been retarded by it. Thus it -was with the abolition of corporal punishment, of torture, -of slavery, and with the establishment of the freedom of the -press and of assemblies. In our time the power of the state -and the governments not only fail to cooperate with, but are -distinctly opposed to, all that activity by means of which -men work out new forms of life. The solutions of labouring, -agronomic, political, religious questions are not only not -encouraged, but directly interfered with by the power of the -state. - -"Without the state and the government, the nations would be -enslaved by their neighbours." - -It is hardly necessary to retort to this last argument. The -retort is found in itself. - -The governments, so we are told, are necessary with their -armies for the purpose of defending us against our -neighbours, who might enslave us. But this is what all the -governments say of one another, and at the same time we know -that all the European nations profess the same principles of -freedom and of brotherhood, and so are in no need of -defending themselves against one another. But if protection -against barbarians is meant, then one-thousandth of all the -armies now under arms would suffice. Thus the contrary to -what is asserted is what actually happens: the power of the -state, far from saving us from the attacks of our -neighbours, on the contrary causes the danger of the -attacks. - -Thus a man, who by means of his military service is placed -under the necessity of thinking about the significance of -the state, in the name of which the sacrifice of his peace, -his security, and his life is demanded of him, cannot help -but see clearly that for these sacrifices there no longer -exists any basis in our time. - -But it is not only by theoretical reflections that any man -may see that the sacrifices demanded of him by the state -have no foundation whatever; even by reflecting practically, -that is, by weighing all those hard conditions in which a -man is placed by the state, no one can fail to see that for -him personally the fulfilment of the demands of the state -and his submission to military service is in the majority of -cases more disadvantageous than a refusal to do military -service. +"The state," we are told, "is indispensably necessary, in the first +place, because without the state, I and all of us would not be protected +against violence and the attack of evil men; in the second place, +without the state all of us would be savages, and would have no +religious, nor educational, nor mercantile institutions, nor roads of +communication, nor any other public establishments; and, in the third +place, because without the state we should be subject to enslavement by +neighbouring nations." + +"Without the state," we are told, "we should be subject to violence and +to the attacks of evil men in our own country." + +But who among us are these evil men, from the violence and attacks of +whom the state and its army save us? If three, four centuries ago, when +men boasted of their military art and their accoutrements, when it was +considered a virtue to kill men, there existed such men, there are none +now, for no men of the present time use or carry weapons, and all, +professing the rules of philanthropy and of compassion for their +neighbours, wish the same as we,---the possibility of a calm and +peaceful life. There now are no longer those particular violators +against whom the state should defend us. But if, by the people, from +whose attack the state saves us, we are to understand those men who +commit crimes, we know that they are not some especial beings, like +rapacious animals among the sheep, but just such people as we are, who +are just as disinclined to commit crimes as those against whom they +commit them. We know now that threats and punishments cannot diminish +the number of such men, and that it is only the change of surroundings +and the moral influence upon people that diminish it. Thus the +explanation of the necessity of governmental violence for the purpose of +defending men against violators may have had a basis three or four +centuries ago, but has none at the present time. Now the contrary would +be more correct, namely, that the activity of the governments, with +their morality which has fallen behind the common level, with their +cruel methods of punishments, of prisons, of hard labour, of gallows, of +guillotines, rather contributes to the brutalization of the masses than +to the softening of their manners, and so rather to the increase than to +the diminution of the number of violators. + +"Without the state," they also say, "there would not be all those +institutions of education, of learning, of religion, of roads of +communication, and others. Without the state men would not be able to +establish the public things which are indispensable for all men." But +this argument, too, could have a basis only several centuries ago. + +If there was a time when men were so disunited among themselves and the +means for a closer union and for the transmission of thought were so +little worked out that they could not come to any understanding nor +agree upon any common mercantile, or economical, or cultural matter +without the medium of the state, there now no longer exists such a +disunion. The widely developed means for communion and for the +transmission of thought have had this effect, that, for the formation of +societies, assemblies, corporations, congresses, learned, economic, or +political institutions, the men of our time can get along without any +government, and the governments in the majority of cases are more likely +to interfere with the attainment of these ends than to cooperate with +it. -If the majority of men prefer submission to insubmission, -this is not due to any sober weighing of the advantages and -disadvantages, but because the men are attracted to -submission by means of the hypnotization to which they are -subjected in the matter. In submitting, men only surrender -themselves to those demands which are made upon them, -without reflection, and without making any effort of the -will; for in submission there is a need of independent -reflection and of effort, of which not every man is capable. -But if, excluding the moral significance of submission and -insubmission, we should consider nothing but the advantages, -insubmission would in general always be more advantageous to +Beginning with the end of the last century, almost every forward step of +humanity has not only not been encouraged by the government, but has +always been retarded by it. Thus it was with the abolition of corporal +punishment, of torture, of slavery, and with the establishment of the +freedom of the press and of assemblies. In our time the power of the +state and the governments not only fail to cooperate with, but are +distinctly opposed to, all that activity by means of which men work out +new forms of life. The solutions of labouring, agronomic, political, +religious questions are not only not encouraged, but directly interfered +with by the power of the state. + +"Without the state and the government, the nations would be enslaved by +their neighbours." + +It is hardly necessary to retort to this last argument. The retort is +found in itself. + +The governments, so we are told, are necessary with their armies for the +purpose of defending us against our neighbours, who might enslave us. +But this is what all the governments say of one another, and at the same +time we know that all the European nations profess the same principles +of freedom and of brotherhood, and so are in no need of defending +themselves against one another. But if protection against barbarians is +meant, then one-thousandth of all the armies now under arms would +suffice. Thus the contrary to what is asserted is what actually happens: +the power of the state, far from saving us from the attacks of our +neighbours, on the contrary causes the danger of the attacks. + +Thus a man, who by means of his military service is placed under the +necessity of thinking about the significance of the state, in the name +of which the sacrifice of his peace, his security, and his life is +demanded of him, cannot help but see clearly that for these sacrifices +there no longer exists any basis in our time. + +But it is not only by theoretical reflections that any man may see that +the sacrifices demanded of him by the state have no foundation whatever; +even by reflecting practically, that is, by weighing all those hard +conditions in which a man is placed by the state, no one can fail to see +that for him personally the fulfilment of the demands of the state and +his submission to military service is in the majority of cases more +disadvantageous than a refusal to do military service. + +If the majority of men prefer submission to insubmission, this is not +due to any sober weighing of the advantages and disadvantages, but +because the men are attracted to submission by means of the +hypnotization to which they are subjected in the matter. In submitting, +men only surrender themselves to those demands which are made upon them, +without reflection, and without making any effort of the will; for in +submission there is a need of independent reflection and of effort, of +which not every man is capable. But if, excluding the moral significance +of submission and insubmission, we should consider nothing but the +advantages, insubmission would in general always be more advantageous to us than submission. -No matter who I may be, whether I belong to the well-to-do, -oppressing classes, or to the oppressed labouring classes, -the disadvantages of insubmission are less than the -disadvantages of submission, and the advantages of -insubmission are greater than the advantages of submission. - -If I belong to the minority of oppressors, the disadvantages -of insubmission to the demands of the government will -consist in this, that I, refusing to comply with the demands -of the government, shall be tried and at best shall be -discharged or, as they do with the Mennonites, shall be -compelled to serve out my time at some unmilitary work; in -the worst case I shall be condemned to deportation or -imprisonment for two or three years (I speak from examples -that have happened in Russia), or, perhaps, to a longer term -of incarceration, or to death, though the probability of -such a penalty is very small. - -Such are the disadvantages of insubmission; but the -disadvantages of submission will consist in this: at best I -shall not be sent out to kill men, and I myself shall not be -subjected to any great probability of crippling or death, -but shall only be enlisted as a military slave,---I shall be -dressed up in a fool's garments; I shall be at the mercy of -every man above me in rank, from a corporal to a -field-marshal; I shall be compelled to contort my body -according to their desire, and, after being kept from one to -five years, I shall be left for ten years in a condition of -readiness to appear at any moment for the purpose of going -through all these things again. In the worst case I shall, -in addition to all those previous conditions of slavery, be -sent to war, where I shall be compelled to kill men of other -nations, who have done me no harm, where I may be crippled -and killed, and where I may get into a place, as happened at -Sevastopol and as happens in every war, where men are sent -to certain death; and, what is most agonizing, I may be sent -out against my own countrymen, when I shall be compelled to -kill my brothers for dynastic or other reasons, which are -entirely alien to me. Such are the comparative -disadvantages. - -The comparative advantages of submission and of insubmission -are these: - -For him who has not refused, the advantages will consist in -this, that, having submitted to all the humiliations and -having executed all the cruelties demanded of him, he may, -if he is not killed, receive red, golden, tin-foil -decorations over his fool's garments, and he may at best -command hundreds of thousands of just such bestialized men -as himself, and be called a field-marshal, and receive a lot -of money. - -But the advantages of him who refuses will consist in this, -that he will retain his human dignity, will earn the respect -of good men, and, above all else, will know without fail -that he is doing God's work, and so an incontestable good to -men. - -Such are the advantages and the disadvantages on both sides -for a man from the wealthy classes, for an oppressor; for a -man of the poor, working classes the advantages and -disadvantages will be the same, but with an important -addition of disadvantages. The disadvantages for a man of -the labouring classes, who has not refused to do military -service, will also consist in this, that, by entering upon -military service, he by his participation and seeming -consent confirms the very oppression under which he is -suffering. - -But it is not the reflections as to how much the state which -men are called upon to support by their participation in the -military service is necessary and useful to men, much less -the reflections as to the advantages or disadvantages -accruing to each man from his submission or insubmission to -the demands of the government, that decide the question as -to the necessity of the existence or the abolition of the -state. What irrevocably and without appeal decides this -question is the religious consciousness or conscience of -every individual man, before whom, in connection with the -universal military service, involuntarily rises the question -as to the existence or non-existence of the state. +No matter who I may be, whether I belong to the well-to-do, oppressing +classes, or to the oppressed labouring classes, the disadvantages of +insubmission are less than the disadvantages of submission, and the +advantages of insubmission are greater than the advantages of +submission. + +If I belong to the minority of oppressors, the disadvantages of +insubmission to the demands of the government will consist in this, that +I, refusing to comply with the demands of the government, shall be tried +and at best shall be discharged or, as they do with the Mennonites, +shall be compelled to serve out my time at some unmilitary work; in the +worst case I shall be condemned to deportation or imprisonment for two +or three years (I speak from examples that have happened in Russia), or, +perhaps, to a longer term of incarceration, or to death, though the +probability of such a penalty is very small. + +Such are the disadvantages of insubmission; but the disadvantages of +submission will consist in this: at best I shall not be sent out to kill +men, and I myself shall not be subjected to any great probability of +crippling or death, but shall only be enlisted as a military slave,---I +shall be dressed up in a fool's garments; I shall be at the mercy of +every man above me in rank, from a corporal to a field-marshal; I shall +be compelled to contort my body according to their desire, and, after +being kept from one to five years, I shall be left for ten years in a +condition of readiness to appear at any moment for the purpose of going +through all these things again. In the worst case I shall, in addition +to all those previous conditions of slavery, be sent to war, where I +shall be compelled to kill men of other nations, who have done me no +harm, where I may be crippled and killed, and where I may get into a +place, as happened at Sevastopol and as happens in every war, where men +are sent to certain death; and, what is most agonizing, I may be sent +out against my own countrymen, when I shall be compelled to kill my +brothers for dynastic or other reasons, which are entirely alien to me. +Such are the comparative disadvantages. + +The comparative advantages of submission and of insubmission are these: + +For him who has not refused, the advantages will consist in this, that, +having submitted to all the humiliations and having executed all the +cruelties demanded of him, he may, if he is not killed, receive red, +golden, tin-foil decorations over his fool's garments, and he may at +best command hundreds of thousands of just such bestialized men as +himself, and be called a field-marshal, and receive a lot of money. + +But the advantages of him who refuses will consist in this, that he will +retain his human dignity, will earn the respect of good men, and, above +all else, will know without fail that he is doing God's work, and so an +incontestable good to men. + +Such are the advantages and the disadvantages on both sides for a man +from the wealthy classes, for an oppressor; for a man of the poor, +working classes the advantages and disadvantages will be the same, but +with an important addition of disadvantages. The disadvantages for a man +of the labouring classes, who has not refused to do military service, +will also consist in this, that, by entering upon military service, he +by his participation and seeming consent confirms the very oppression +under which he is suffering. + +But it is not the reflections as to how much the state which men are +called upon to support by their participation in the military service is +necessary and useful to men, much less the reflections as to the +advantages or disadvantages accruing to each man from his submission or +insubmission to the demands of the government, that decide the question +as to the necessity of the existence or the abolition of the state. What +irrevocably and without appeal decides this question is the religious +consciousness or conscience of every individual man, before whom, in +connection with the universal military service, involuntarily rises the +question as to the existence or non-existence of the state. # VIII -People frequently say that if Christianity is a truth, it -ought to have been accepted by all men at its very -appearance, and ought at that very moment to have changed -the lives of men and made them better. But to say this is -the same as saying that if the seed is fertile, it must +People frequently say that if Christianity is a truth, it ought to have +been accepted by all men at its very appearance, and ought at that very +moment to have changed the lives of men and made them better. But to say +this is the same as saying that if the seed is fertile, it must immediately produce a sprout, a flower, and a fruit. -The Christian teaching is no legislation which, being -introduced by violence, can at once change the lives of men. -Christianity is another, newer, higher concept of life, -which is different from the previous one. But the new -concept of life cannot be prescribed; it can only be freely +The Christian teaching is no legislation which, being introduced by +violence, can at once change the lives of men. Christianity is another, +newer, higher concept of life, which is different from the previous one. +But the new concept of life cannot be prescribed; it can only be freely adopted. -Now the new life-conception can be acquired only in two -ways: in a spiritual (internal) and an experimental -(external) way. - -Some people---the minority---immediately, at once, by a -prophetic feeling divine the truth of the teaching, abandon -themselves to it, and execute it. Others---the -majority---are led only through a long path of errors, -experiences, and sufferings to the recognition of the truth -of the teaching and the necessity of acquiring it. - -It is to this necessity of acquiring the teaching in an -experimental external way that the whole mass of the men of -the Christian world have now been brought. - -Sometimes we think: what need was there for that corruption -of Christianity which even now more than anything else -interferes with its adoption in its real sense? And yet this -corruption of Christianity, having brought men to the -condition in which they now are, was a necessary condition -for the majority of men to be able to receive it in its real -significance. - -If Christianity had been offered to men in its real, and not -its corrupted, form, it would not have been accepted by the -majority of men, and the majority of men would have remained -alien to it, as the nations of Asia are alien to it at the -present time. But, having received it in its corrupted form, -the nations who received it were subjected to its certain, -though slow, action, and by a long experimental road of -errors and of sufferings resulting therefrom are now brought -to the necessity of acquiring it in its true sense. - -The corruption of Christianity and its acceptance in its -corrupted form by the majority of men was as indispensable -as that a seed, to sprout, should be for a time concealed by -the earth. - -The Christian teaching is a teaching of the truth and at the -same time a prophecy. - -Eighteen hundred years ago the Christian teaching revealed -to men the truth of how they should live, and at the same -time predicted what human life would be if men would not -live thus, but would continue to live by those principles by -which they had lived heretofore5 and what it would be if -they should accept the Christian teaching and should carry -it out in life. - -In imparting in the Sermon on the Mount the teaching which -was to guide the lives of men, Christ said: - -"Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and -doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built -his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the -floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; -and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every -one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, -shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house -upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, -and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: -and great was the fall of it" (Matthew 7:24-27). - -Now, after eighteen hundred years, the prophecy has been -fulfilled. By not following Christ's teaching in general and -its manifestation in public life as non-resistance to evil, -men involuntarily came to that position of inevitable ruin -which was promised by Christ to those who would not follow -His teaching. - -People frequently think that the question of non-resistance -to evil is an invented question, a question which it is -possible to circumvent. It is, however, a question which -life itself puts before all men and before every thinking -man, and which invariably demands a solution. For men in -their public life this question has, ever since the -Christian teaching has been preached, been the same as the -question for a traveller which road to take, when he comes -to a fork on the highway on which he has been walking. He -must go on, and he cannot say, "I will not think, and I will -continue to walk as before." Before this there was one road, -and now there are two of them, and it is impossible to walk -as before, and one of the two roads must inevitably be -chosen. - -Even so it has been impossible to say, ever since Christ's -teaching was made known to men, "I will continue to live as -I lived before, without solving the question as to resisting -or not resisting evil by means of violence." It is -inevitably necessary at the appearance of every struggle to -solve the question, "Shall I with violence resist that which +Now the new life-conception can be acquired only in two ways: in a +spiritual (internal) and an experimental (external) way. + +Some people---the minority---immediately, at once, by a prophetic +feeling divine the truth of the teaching, abandon themselves to it, and +execute it. Others---the majority---are led only through a long path of +errors, experiences, and sufferings to the recognition of the truth of +the teaching and the necessity of acquiring it. + +It is to this necessity of acquiring the teaching in an experimental +external way that the whole mass of the men of the Christian world have +now been brought. + +Sometimes we think: what need was there for that corruption of +Christianity which even now more than anything else interferes with its +adoption in its real sense? And yet this corruption of Christianity, +having brought men to the condition in which they now are, was a +necessary condition for the majority of men to be able to receive it in +its real significance. + +If Christianity had been offered to men in its real, and not its +corrupted, form, it would not have been accepted by the majority of men, +and the majority of men would have remained alien to it, as the nations +of Asia are alien to it at the present time. But, having received it in +its corrupted form, the nations who received it were subjected to its +certain, though slow, action, and by a long experimental road of errors +and of sufferings resulting therefrom are now brought to the necessity +of acquiring it in its true sense. + +The corruption of Christianity and its acceptance in its corrupted form +by the majority of men was as indispensable as that a seed, to sprout, +should be for a time concealed by the earth. + +The Christian teaching is a teaching of the truth and at the same time a +prophecy. + +Eighteen hundred years ago the Christian teaching revealed to men the +truth of how they should live, and at the same time predicted what human +life would be if men would not live thus, but would continue to live by +those principles by which they had lived heretofore5 and what it would +be if they should accept the Christian teaching and should carry it out +in life. + +In imparting in the Sermon on the Mount the teaching which was to guide +the lives of men, Christ said: + +"Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I +will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and +the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat +upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And +every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall +be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and +the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat +upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it" (Matthew +7:24-27). + +Now, after eighteen hundred years, the prophecy has been fulfilled. By +not following Christ's teaching in general and its manifestation in +public life as non-resistance to evil, men involuntarily came to that +position of inevitable ruin which was promised by Christ to those who +would not follow His teaching. + +People frequently think that the question of non-resistance to evil is +an invented question, a question which it is possible to circumvent. It +is, however, a question which life itself puts before all men and before +every thinking man, and which invariably demands a solution. For men in +their public life this question has, ever since the Christian teaching +has been preached, been the same as the question for a traveller which +road to take, when he comes to a fork on the highway on which he has +been walking. He must go on, and he cannot say, "I will not think, and I +will continue to walk as before." Before this there was one road, and +now there are two of them, and it is impossible to walk as before, and +one of the two roads must inevitably be chosen. + +Even so it has been impossible to say, ever since Christ's teaching was +made known to men, "I will continue to live as I lived before, without +solving the question as to resisting or not resisting evil by means of +violence." It is inevitably necessary at the appearance of every +struggle to solve the question, "Shall I with violence resist that which I consider to be an evil and violence, or not?" -The question as to resisting or not resisting evil by means -of violence appeared when there arose the first struggle -among men, since every struggle is nothing but a resistance -by means of violence to what each of the contending parties -considers to be an evil. But the men before Christ did not -see that the resistance by means of violence to what each -considers to be an evil, only because he regards as an evil -what another regards as a good, is only one of the means of -solving the struggle, and that another means consists in not -at all resisting evil by means of violence. - -Previous to Christ's teaching it appeared to men that there -was but one way of solving a struggle, and that was by -resisting evil with violence, and so they did, each of the -contending parties trying to convince himself and others -that what each of them considered to be an evil was a real, -absolute evil. - -And so since most remote times men have endeavoured to -discover such definitions of evil as would be obligatory for -all men, and as such were given out the statutes of law -which, it was assumed, were received in a supernatural -manner, or the injunctions of men or of assemblies of men, -to whom is ascribed the quality of infallibility. Men have -employed violence against other men and have assured -themselves and others that they have employed this violence -against the evil which was acknowledged by all men. - -This means has been employed since remote antiquity, -especially by those men who usurped the power, and men for a -long time did not see the irrationality of this means. - -But the longer men lived, the more complex their relations -became, the more obvious did it become that it was -irrational by means of violence to resist that which is by -every one regarded as an evil, that the struggle was not -diminished by doing so, and that no human definitions could -succeed in making that which was considered to be evil by -one set of men considered such by others. - -Even at the time of the appearance of Christianity, in the -place where it made its appearance, in the Roman Empire, it -was clear for the majority of men that what by Nero and -Caligula was considered to be an evil which ought to be -resisted with violence could not be considered an evil by -other men. Even then men began to understand that human laws -which were given out as being divine had been written by -men, that men could not be infallible, no matter with what -external grandeur they might be vested, and that erring men -could not become infallible simply because they came -together and called themselves a senate or some such name. -This was even then felt and understood by many, and it was -then that Christ preached His teaching, which did not -consist simply in this, that evil ought not to be resisted -by means of violence, but in the teaching of the new -comprehension of life, a part, or rather an application of -which to public life was the teaching about the means for -abolishing the struggle among all men, not by obliging only -one part of men without a struggle to submit to what would -be prescribed to them by certain authorities, but by having -no one, consequently even not those (and preeminently not -those) who rule, employ violence against any one, and under -no consideration. - -The teaching was at that time accepted by but a small number -of disciples; but the majority of men, especially all those -who ruled over men, continued after the nominal acceptance -of Christianity to hold to the rule of violently resisting -that which they considered to be evil. Thus it was in the -time of the Roman and the Byzantine emperors, and so it -continued even afterward. - -The inadequacy of the principle of defining with authority -what is evil and resisting it with violence, which was -already obvious in the first centuries of Christianity, -became even more obvious during the decomposition of the -Roman Empire into many states of equal right, with their -mutual hostilities and the inner struggles which took place -in the separate states. - -But men were not prepared to receive the solution which was -given by Christ, and the former means for the definition of -the evil, which had to be resisted by establishing laws -which, being obligatory for all, were carried out by the use -of force, continued to be applied. The arbiter of what was -to be considered an evil and what was to be resisted by -means of force was now the Pope, now the emperor, now the -king, now an assembly of the elect, now the whole nation. -But both inside and outside the state there always existed -some men who did not recognize the obligatoriness for -themselves either of the injunctions which were given out to -be the commands of the divinity, or of the decrees of men -who were vested with sanctity, or of the institutions which -purported to represent the will of the people, and these -men, who considered to be good what the existing powers -regarded as evil, fought against the powers, using the same -violence which was directed against themselves. - -Men who were vested with sanctity regarded as evil what men -and institutions that were vested with civil power -considered to be good, and vice versa, and the struggle -became ever more acute. And the more such people held to -this method for solving their struggle, the more obvious did -it become that this method was useless, because there is and -there can be no such external authority for the definition -of evil as would be recognized by all men. - -Thus it lasted for eighteen hundred years, and it reached -the present point,---the complete obviousness of the fact -that there is and there can be no external definition of -evil which would be obligatory for all men. It reached such -a point that men ceased to believe in the possibility of -finding this common definition which would be obligatory for -all men, and even in the necessity of putting forward such a -definition. It came to such a pass that the men in power -stopped proving that that which they considered to be an -evil was an evil, and said outright that they considered -that an evil which did not please them; and the men who -obeyed the power began to obey it, not because they believed -that the definitions of evil given by this power were -correct, but only because they could not help but obey. Nice -is added to France, Lorraine to Germany, Bohemia to Austria; -Poland is divided; Ireland and India are subjected to -English rule; war is waged against China and the Africans; -the Americans expel the Chinese, and the Russians oppress -the Jews; the landowners use the land which they do not -work, and the capitalists make use of the labours of others, -not because this is good, useful, and needful to men and -because the contrary is evil, but because those who are in -power want it to be so. What has happened is what happens -now: one set of men commit acts of violence, no longer in -the name of resisting evil, but in the name of their -advantage or whim, while another set submit to violence, not -because they assume, as was the case formerly, that violence -is exerted against them in the name of freeing them from -evil and for their good, but only because they cannot free -themselves from this violence. - -If a Roman, a man of the Middle Ages, a Russian, as I -remember him to have been fifty years ago, was incontestably -convinced that the existing violence of the power was -necessary in order to free him from evil, that taxes, -levies, serf law, prisons, whips, knouts, hard labour, -capital punishment, militarism, wars, must exist,---it will -be hard now to find a man who either believes that all acts -of violence free any one from anything, or even does not see -clearly that the majority of all those cases of violence to -which he is subject and in which he partly shares are in -themselves a great and useless evil. - -There is now no such a man who does not see, not only the -uselessness, but even the insipidity, of collecting taxes -from the labouring classes for the purpose of enriching idle -officials; or the senselessness of imposing punishments upon -corrupt and weak people in the shape of deportation from one -place to another, or in the form of imprisonment in jails, -where they live in security and idleness and become more -corrupted and weakened; or, not the uselessness and -insipidity, but simply the madness and cruelty of military -preparations and wars, which ruin and destroy the masses and -have no explanation and justification,---and yet these cases -of violence are continued and even maintained by the very -men who see their uselessness, insipidity, and cruelty, and -suffer from them. - -If fifty years ago a rich idle man and an ignorant labouring -man were both equally convinced that their condition of an -eternal holiday for the one and of eternal labour for the -other was ordained by God Himself, it is now, not only in -Europe, but even in Russia, thanks to the migration of the -populace, and the dissemination of culture and printing, -hard to find either a rich or a poor man who, from one side -or another, has not been assailed by doubts of the justice -of such an order of things. Not only do the rich know that -they are guilty even because they are rich, and try to -redeem their guilt by offering contributions to art and -science, as formerly they redeemed their sins by means of -contributions to the churches, but even the greater half of -the working people recognize the present order as being -false and subject to destruction or change. One set of -religious people, of whom there are millions in Russia, the -so-called sectarians, recognize this order as false and -subject to destruction on the basis of the Gospel teaching -as taken in its real meaning; others consider it to be false -on the basis of socialistic, communistic, anarchistic -theories, which now have penetrated into the lower strata of -the working people. - -Violence is now no longer maintained on the ground that it -is necessary, but only that it has existed for a long time, -and has been so. organized by men to whom it is -advantageous, that is, by governments and the ruling -classes, that the men who are in their power cannot tear +The question as to resisting or not resisting evil by means of violence +appeared when there arose the first struggle among men, since every +struggle is nothing but a resistance by means of violence to what each +of the contending parties considers to be an evil. But the men before +Christ did not see that the resistance by means of violence to what each +considers to be an evil, only because he regards as an evil what another +regards as a good, is only one of the means of solving the struggle, and +that another means consists in not at all resisting evil by means of +violence. + +Previous to Christ's teaching it appeared to men that there was but one +way of solving a struggle, and that was by resisting evil with violence, +and so they did, each of the contending parties trying to convince +himself and others that what each of them considered to be an evil was a +real, absolute evil. + +And so since most remote times men have endeavoured to discover such +definitions of evil as would be obligatory for all men, and as such were +given out the statutes of law which, it was assumed, were received in a +supernatural manner, or the injunctions of men or of assemblies of men, +to whom is ascribed the quality of infallibility. Men have employed +violence against other men and have assured themselves and others that +they have employed this violence against the evil which was acknowledged +by all men. + +This means has been employed since remote antiquity, especially by those +men who usurped the power, and men for a long time did not see the +irrationality of this means. + +But the longer men lived, the more complex their relations became, the +more obvious did it become that it was irrational by means of violence +to resist that which is by every one regarded as an evil, that the +struggle was not diminished by doing so, and that no human definitions +could succeed in making that which was considered to be evil by one set +of men considered such by others. + +Even at the time of the appearance of Christianity, in the place where +it made its appearance, in the Roman Empire, it was clear for the +majority of men that what by Nero and Caligula was considered to be an +evil which ought to be resisted with violence could not be considered an +evil by other men. Even then men began to understand that human laws +which were given out as being divine had been written by men, that men +could not be infallible, no matter with what external grandeur they +might be vested, and that erring men could not become infallible simply +because they came together and called themselves a senate or some such +name. This was even then felt and understood by many, and it was then +that Christ preached His teaching, which did not consist simply in this, +that evil ought not to be resisted by means of violence, but in the +teaching of the new comprehension of life, a part, or rather an +application of which to public life was the teaching about the means for +abolishing the struggle among all men, not by obliging only one part of +men without a struggle to submit to what would be prescribed to them by +certain authorities, but by having no one, consequently even not those +(and preeminently not those) who rule, employ violence against any one, +and under no consideration. + +The teaching was at that time accepted by but a small number of +disciples; but the majority of men, especially all those who ruled over +men, continued after the nominal acceptance of Christianity to hold to +the rule of violently resisting that which they considered to be evil. +Thus it was in the time of the Roman and the Byzantine emperors, and so +it continued even afterward. + +The inadequacy of the principle of defining with authority what is evil +and resisting it with violence, which was already obvious in the first +centuries of Christianity, became even more obvious during the +decomposition of the Roman Empire into many states of equal right, with +their mutual hostilities and the inner struggles which took place in the +separate states. + +But men were not prepared to receive the solution which was given by +Christ, and the former means for the definition of the evil, which had +to be resisted by establishing laws which, being obligatory for all, +were carried out by the use of force, continued to be applied. The +arbiter of what was to be considered an evil and what was to be resisted +by means of force was now the Pope, now the emperor, now the king, now +an assembly of the elect, now the whole nation. But both inside and +outside the state there always existed some men who did not recognize +the obligatoriness for themselves either of the injunctions which were +given out to be the commands of the divinity, or of the decrees of men +who were vested with sanctity, or of the institutions which purported to +represent the will of the people, and these men, who considered to be +good what the existing powers regarded as evil, fought against the +powers, using the same violence which was directed against themselves. + +Men who were vested with sanctity regarded as evil what men and +institutions that were vested with civil power considered to be good, +and vice versa, and the struggle became ever more acute. And the more +such people held to this method for solving their struggle, the more +obvious did it become that this method was useless, because there is and +there can be no such external authority for the definition of evil as +would be recognized by all men. + +Thus it lasted for eighteen hundred years, and it reached the present +point,---the complete obviousness of the fact that there is and there +can be no external definition of evil which would be obligatory for all +men. It reached such a point that men ceased to believe in the +possibility of finding this common definition which would be obligatory +for all men, and even in the necessity of putting forward such a +definition. It came to such a pass that the men in power stopped proving +that that which they considered to be an evil was an evil, and said +outright that they considered that an evil which did not please them; +and the men who obeyed the power began to obey it, not because they +believed that the definitions of evil given by this power were correct, +but only because they could not help but obey. Nice is added to France, +Lorraine to Germany, Bohemia to Austria; Poland is divided; Ireland and +India are subjected to English rule; war is waged against China and the +Africans; the Americans expel the Chinese, and the Russians oppress the +Jews; the landowners use the land which they do not work, and the +capitalists make use of the labours of others, not because this is good, +useful, and needful to men and because the contrary is evil, but because +those who are in power want it to be so. What has happened is what +happens now: one set of men commit acts of violence, no longer in the +name of resisting evil, but in the name of their advantage or whim, +while another set submit to violence, not because they assume, as was +the case formerly, that violence is exerted against them in the name of +freeing them from evil and for their good, but only because they cannot +free themselves from this violence. + +If a Roman, a man of the Middle Ages, a Russian, as I remember him to +have been fifty years ago, was incontestably convinced that the existing +violence of the power was necessary in order to free him from evil, that +taxes, levies, serf law, prisons, whips, knouts, hard labour, capital +punishment, militarism, wars, must exist,---it will be hard now to find +a man who either believes that all acts of violence free any one from +anything, or even does not see clearly that the majority of all those +cases of violence to which he is subject and in which he partly shares +are in themselves a great and useless evil. + +There is now no such a man who does not see, not only the uselessness, +but even the insipidity, of collecting taxes from the labouring classes +for the purpose of enriching idle officials; or the senselessness of +imposing punishments upon corrupt and weak people in the shape of +deportation from one place to another, or in the form of imprisonment in +jails, where they live in security and idleness and become more +corrupted and weakened; or, not the uselessness and insipidity, but +simply the madness and cruelty of military preparations and wars, which +ruin and destroy the masses and have no explanation and +justification,---and yet these cases of violence are continued and even +maintained by the very men who see their uselessness, insipidity, and +cruelty, and suffer from them. + +If fifty years ago a rich idle man and an ignorant labouring man were +both equally convinced that their condition of an eternal holiday for +the one and of eternal labour for the other was ordained by God Himself, +it is now, not only in Europe, but even in Russia, thanks to the +migration of the populace, and the dissemination of culture and +printing, hard to find either a rich or a poor man who, from one side or +another, has not been assailed by doubts of the justice of such an order +of things. Not only do the rich know that they are guilty even because +they are rich, and try to redeem their guilt by offering contributions +to art and science, as formerly they redeemed their sins by means of +contributions to the churches, but even the greater half of the working +people recognize the present order as being false and subject to +destruction or change. One set of religious people, of whom there are +millions in Russia, the so-called sectarians, recognize this order as +false and subject to destruction on the basis of the Gospel teaching as +taken in its real meaning; others consider it to be false on the basis +of socialistic, communistic, anarchistic theories, which now have +penetrated into the lower strata of the working people. + +Violence is now no longer maintained on the ground that it is necessary, +but only that it has existed for a long time, and has been so. organized +by men to whom it is advantageous, that is, by governments and the +ruling classes, that the men who are in their power cannot tear themselves away from it. -The governments in our time---all governments, the most -despotic and the most liberal---have become what Herzen so -aptly called Genghis Khans with telegraphs, that is, -organizations of violence, which have nothing at their base -but the coarsest arbitrary will, and yet use all those means -which science has worked out for the aggregate social -peaceful activity of free and equal men, and which they now -employ for the enslavement and oppression of men. - -The governments and the ruling classes do not now lean on -the right, not even on the semblance of justice, but on an -artificial organization which, with the aid of the -perfections of science, encloses all men in the circle of -violence, from which there is no possibility of tearing -themselves away. This circle is now composed of four means -of influencing men. All those means are connected and -sustain one another, as the links in the ring of a united -chain. - -The first, the oldest, means is the means of intimidation. -This means consists in representing the existing state -structure (no matter what it may be,---whether a free -republic or the wildest despotism) as something sacred and -invariable, and so in inflicting the severest penalties for -any attempt at changing it. This means, having been used -before, is even now used in an unchanged form wherever there -are governments: in Russia---against the so-called -nihilists; in America---against the anarchists; in -France---against the imperialists, monarchists, communists, -and anarchists. The railways, telegraphs, photographs, and -the perfected method of removing people, without killing -them, into eternal solitary confinement, where, hidden from -men, they perish and are forgotten, and many other modern -inventions, which governments employ more freely than any -one else, give them such strength that as soon as the power -has fallen into certain hands, and the visible and the -secret police, and the administration, and all kinds of -prosecutors, and jailers, and executioners are earnestly at -work, there is no possibility of overthrowing the -government, no matter how senseless or cruel it may be. - -The second means is that of bribery. It consists in taking -the wealth away from the labouring classes in the shape of -monetary taxes, and distributing this wealth among the -officials, who for this remuneration are obliged to maintain -and strengthen the enslavement of the masses. - -These bribed officials, from the highest ministers to the -lowest scribes, who, forming one continuous chain of men, -are united by the same interest of supporting themselves by -the labours of the masses, and grow wealthier in proportion -as they more humbly do the will of their governments, always -and everywhere, stopping short before no means, in all -branches of activity, in word and deed, defend the -governmental violence, upon which their very well-being is -based. - -The third means is what I cannot call by any other name than -the hypnotization of the people. This means consists in -retarding the spiritual development of men and maintaining -them with all kinds of suggestions in a concept of life -which humanity has already outlived, and on which the power -of the governments is based. This hypnotization is at the -present time organized in the most complex manner, and, -beginning its action in childhood, continues over men to -their death. This hypnotization begins at early youth in -compulsory schools which are established for the purpose, -and in which the children are instilled with -world-conceptions which were peculiar to their ancestors and -are directly opposed to the modern consciousness of -humanity. In countries in which there is a state religion, -the children are taught the senseless blasphemies of -ecclesiastical catechisms, in which the necessity of obeying -the powers is pointed out; in republican governments they -are taught the savage superstition of patriotism, aud the -same imaginary obligation of obeying the authorities. At a -more advanced age, this hypnotization is continued by -encouraging the religious and the patriotic superstitions. - -The religious superstition is encouraged by means of the -institution of churches, processions, monuments, -festivities, from the money collected from the masses, and -these, with the aid of painting, architecture, music, -incense, but chiefly by the maintenance of the so-called -clergy, stupefy the masses: their duty consists in this, -that with their representations, the pathos of the services, -their sermons, their interference in the private lives of -the people,---at births, marriages, deaths,---they bedim the -people and keep them in an eternal condition of -stupefaction. The patriotic superstition is encouraged by -means of public celebrations, spectacles, monuments, -festivities, which are arranged by the governments and the -ruling classes on the money collected from the masses, and -which make people prone to recognize the exclusive -importance of their own nation and the grandeur of their own -state and rulers, and to be ill inclined toward all other -nations and even hate them. In connection with this, the -despotic governments directly prohibit the printing and -dissemination of books and the utterance of speeches which -enlighten the masses, and deport or incarcerate all men who -are likely to rouse the masses from their lethargy; besides, -all governments without exception conceal from the masses -everything which could free them, and encourage everything -which could corrupt them, such as the authorship of books -which maintain the masses in the savagery of their religious -and patriotic superstitions, all kinds of sensuous -amusements, spectacles, circuses, theatres, and even all -kinds of physical intoxications, such as tobacco, and -brandy, which furnish the chief income of states; they even -encourage prostitution, which is not only acknowledged, but -even organized by the majority of governments. Such is the -third means. L The fourth means consists in this, that with -the aid of the three preceding means there is segregated, -from the men so fettered and stupefied, a certain small -number of men, who are subjected to intensified methods of -stupefaction and brutalization, and are turned into -involuntary tools of all those cruelties and bestialities -which the governments may need. This stupefaction and -brutalization is accomplished by taking the men at that -youthful age when they have not yet had time to form any -firm convictions in regard to morality, and, having removed -them from all natural conditions of human life, from home, -family, native district, rational labour, locking them all -up together in narrow barracks, dressing them up in peculiar -garments, and making them, under the influence of shouts, -drums, music, glittering objects, perform daily exercises -specially invented for the purpose, and thus inducing such a -state of hypnosis in them that they cease to be men, and -become unthinking machines, which are obedient to the -command of the hypnotizer. These hypnotized, physically -strong young men (all young men, on account of the present -universal military service), who are provided with -instruments of murder, and who are always obedient to the -power of the governments and are prepared to commit any act -of violence at their command, form the fourth and chief -means for the enslavement of men. +The governments in our time---all governments, the most despotic and the +most liberal---have become what Herzen so aptly called Genghis Khans +with telegraphs, that is, organizations of violence, which have nothing +at their base but the coarsest arbitrary will, and yet use all those +means which science has worked out for the aggregate social peaceful +activity of free and equal men, and which they now employ for the +enslavement and oppression of men. + +The governments and the ruling classes do not now lean on the right, not +even on the semblance of justice, but on an artificial organization +which, with the aid of the perfections of science, encloses all men in +the circle of violence, from which there is no possibility of tearing +themselves away. This circle is now composed of four means of +influencing men. All those means are connected and sustain one another, +as the links in the ring of a united chain. + +The first, the oldest, means is the means of intimidation. This means +consists in representing the existing state structure (no matter what it +may be,---whether a free republic or the wildest despotism) as something +sacred and invariable, and so in inflicting the severest penalties for +any attempt at changing it. This means, having been used before, is even +now used in an unchanged form wherever there are governments: in +Russia---against the so-called nihilists; in America---against the +anarchists; in France---against the imperialists, monarchists, +communists, and anarchists. The railways, telegraphs, photographs, and +the perfected method of removing people, without killing them, into +eternal solitary confinement, where, hidden from men, they perish and +are forgotten, and many other modern inventions, which governments +employ more freely than any one else, give them such strength that as +soon as the power has fallen into certain hands, and the visible and the +secret police, and the administration, and all kinds of prosecutors, and +jailers, and executioners are earnestly at work, there is no possibility +of overthrowing the government, no matter how senseless or cruel it may +be. + +The second means is that of bribery. It consists in taking the wealth +away from the labouring classes in the shape of monetary taxes, and +distributing this wealth among the officials, who for this remuneration +are obliged to maintain and strengthen the enslavement of the masses. + +These bribed officials, from the highest ministers to the lowest +scribes, who, forming one continuous chain of men, are united by the +same interest of supporting themselves by the labours of the masses, and +grow wealthier in proportion as they more humbly do the will of their +governments, always and everywhere, stopping short before no means, in +all branches of activity, in word and deed, defend the governmental +violence, upon which their very well-being is based. + +The third means is what I cannot call by any other name than the +hypnotization of the people. This means consists in retarding the +spiritual development of men and maintaining them with all kinds of +suggestions in a concept of life which humanity has already outlived, +and on which the power of the governments is based. This hypnotization +is at the present time organized in the most complex manner, and, +beginning its action in childhood, continues over men to their death. +This hypnotization begins at early youth in compulsory schools which are +established for the purpose, and in which the children are instilled +with world-conceptions which were peculiar to their ancestors and are +directly opposed to the modern consciousness of humanity. In countries +in which there is a state religion, the children are taught the +senseless blasphemies of ecclesiastical catechisms, in which the +necessity of obeying the powers is pointed out; in republican +governments they are taught the savage superstition of patriotism, aud +the same imaginary obligation of obeying the authorities. At a more +advanced age, this hypnotization is continued by encouraging the +religious and the patriotic superstitions. + +The religious superstition is encouraged by means of the institution of +churches, processions, monuments, festivities, from the money collected +from the masses, and these, with the aid of painting, architecture, +music, incense, but chiefly by the maintenance of the so-called clergy, +stupefy the masses: their duty consists in this, that with their +representations, the pathos of the services, their sermons, their +interference in the private lives of the people,---at births, marriages, +deaths,---they bedim the people and keep them in an eternal condition of +stupefaction. The patriotic superstition is encouraged by means of +public celebrations, spectacles, monuments, festivities, which are +arranged by the governments and the ruling classes on the money +collected from the masses, and which make people prone to recognize the +exclusive importance of their own nation and the grandeur of their own +state and rulers, and to be ill inclined toward all other nations and +even hate them. In connection with this, the despotic governments +directly prohibit the printing and dissemination of books and the +utterance of speeches which enlighten the masses, and deport or +incarcerate all men who are likely to rouse the masses from their +lethargy; besides, all governments without exception conceal from the +masses everything which could free them, and encourage everything which +could corrupt them, such as the authorship of books which maintain the +masses in the savagery of their religious and patriotic superstitions, +all kinds of sensuous amusements, spectacles, circuses, theatres, and +even all kinds of physical intoxications, such as tobacco, and brandy, +which furnish the chief income of states; they even encourage +prostitution, which is not only acknowledged, but even organized by the +majority of governments. Such is the third means. L The fourth means +consists in this, that with the aid of the three preceding means there +is segregated, from the men so fettered and stupefied, a certain small +number of men, who are subjected to intensified methods of stupefaction +and brutalization, and are turned into involuntary tools of all those +cruelties and bestialities which the governments may need. This +stupefaction and brutalization is accomplished by taking the men at that +youthful age when they have not yet had time to form any firm +convictions in regard to morality, and, having removed them from all +natural conditions of human life, from home, family, native district, +rational labour, locking them all up together in narrow barracks, +dressing them up in peculiar garments, and making them, under the +influence of shouts, drums, music, glittering objects, perform daily +exercises specially invented for the purpose, and thus inducing such a +state of hypnosis in them that they cease to be men, and become +unthinking machines, which are obedient to the command of the +hypnotizer. These hypnotized, physically strong young men (all young +men, on account of the present universal military service), who are +provided with instruments of murder, and who are always obedient to the +power of the governments and are prepared to commit any act of violence +at their command, form the fourth and chief means for the enslavement of +men. With this means the circle of violence is closed. -Intimidation, bribery, hypnotization, make men desirous to -become soldiers; but it is the soldiers who give the power -and the possibility for punishing people, and picking them -clean (and bribing the officials with the money thus -obtained), and for hypnotizing and enlisting them again as -soldiers, who in turn afford the possibility for doing all +Intimidation, bribery, hypnotization, make men desirous to become +soldiers; but it is the soldiers who give the power and the possibility +for punishing people, and picking them clean (and bribing the officials +with the money thus obtained), and for hypnotizing and enlisting them +again as soldiers, who in turn afford the possibility for doing all this. -The circle is closed, and there is no way of tearing oneself -away from it by means of force. - -If some men affirm that the liberation from violence, or -even its weakening, may be effected, should the oppressed -people overthrow the oppressing government by force and -substitute a new one for it, a government in which such -violence and enslavement would not be necessary, and if some -men actually try to do so, they only deceive themselves and -others by it, and thus fail to improve men's condition, and -even make it worse. The activity of these men only -intensifies the despotism of the governments. The attempts -of these men at freeing themselves only give the governments -a convenient excuse for strengthening their power, and -actually provoke its strengthening. - -Even if we admit that, in consequence of an unfortunate -concurrence of events in the government, as, for example, in -France in the year 1870, some governments may be overthrown -by force and the power pass into other hands, this power -would in no case be less oppressive than the former one, -and, defending itself against the infuriated deposed -enemies, would always be more despotic and cruel than the -former, as indeed has been the case in every revolution. - -If the socialists and communists consider the -individualistic, capitalistic structure of society to be an -evil, and the anarchists consider the government itself to -be an evil, there are also monarchists, conservatives, -capitalists, who consider the socialistic, communistic, and -anarchistic order to be evil; and all these parties have no -other means than force for the purpose of uniting men. No -matter which of these parties may triumph, it will be -compelled, for the materialization of its tenets, as well as -for the maintenance of its power, not only to make use of -all the existing means of violence, but also to invent new -ones. Other men will be enslaved, and men will be compelled -to do something else; but there will be, not only the same, -but even a more cruel form of violence and enslavement, -because, in consequence of the struggle, the hatred of men -toward one another will be intensified, and at the same time -new means of enslavement will be worked out and confirmed. - -Thus it has always been after every revolution, every -attempt at a revolution, every plot, every violent change of -government. Every struggle only strengthens the means of the -enslavement of those who at a given time are in power. - -The condition of the men of our Christian world, and -especially the current ideals themselves prove this in a -striking manner. - -There is left but one sphere of human activity which is not -usurped by the governmental power,---the domestic, economic -sphere, the sphere of the private life and of labour. But -even this sphere, thanks to the struggle of the communists -and socialists, is slowly being usurped by the governments, -so that labour and rest, the domicile, the attire, the food -of men will by degrees be determined and directed by the -governments, if the wishes of the reformers are to be -fulfilled. - -The whole long, eighteen-centuries-old course of the life of -the Christian nations has inevitably brought them back to -the necessity of solving the question, so long evaded by -them, as to the acceptance or non-acceptance of Christ's -teaching, and the solution of the question resulting from it -as regards the social life, whether to resist or not to -resist evil with violence, but with this difference, that -formerly men could accept the solution which Christianity -offered, or not accept it, while now the solution has become -imperative, because it alone frees them from that condition -of slavery in which they have become entangled as in a -snare. - -But it is not merely the wretchedness of men's condition -that brings them to this necessity. - -Side by side with the negative proof of the falseness of the -pagan structure, there went the positive proof of the truth -of the Christian teaching. - -There was a good reason why, in the course of eighteen -centuries, the best men of the whole Christian world, having -recognized the truths of the teaching by means of an inner, -spiritual method, should have borne witness to them before -men, in spite of all threats, privations, calamities, and -torments. With this their martyrdom these best men have put -the stamp of truthfulness upon the teaching and have -transmitted it to the masses. - -Christianity penetrated into the consciousness of humanity, -not merely by the one negative way of proving the -impossibility of continuing the pagan life, but also by its -simplification, elucidation, liberation from the dross of -superstitions, and dissemination among all the classes of -people. - -Eighteen hundred years of the profession of Christianity did -not pass in vain for the men who accepted it, even though -only in an external manner. These eighteen centuries have -had this effect that, continuing to live a pagan life, which -does not correspond to the age of humanity, men have not -only come to see clearly the whole wretchedness of the -condition in which they are, but believe in the depth of -their hearts (they live only because they believe) in this, -that the salvation from this condition is only in the -fulfilment of the Christian teaching in its true -significance. As to when and how this salvation will take -place, all men think differently, in accordance with their -mental development and the current prejudices of their -circle; but every man of our world recognizes the fact that -our salvation lies in the fulfilment of the Christian -teaching. Some believers, recognizing the Christian teaching -as divine, think that the salvation will come when all men -shall believe in Christ, and the second advent shall -approach; others, who also recognize the divinity of -Christ's teaching, think that this salvation will come -through the church, which, subjecting all men to itself, -will educate in them Christian virtues and will change their -lives. Others again, who do not recognize Christ as God, -think that the salvation of men will come through a slow, -gradual progress, when the foundations of the pagan life -will slowly give way to the foundations of liberty, -equality, fraternity, that is, to Christian principles; -others again, who preach a social transformation, think that -the salvation will come when men by a violent revolution -shall be compelled to adopt community of possession, absence -of government, and collective, not individual, labour, that -is, the materialization of one of the sides of the Christian +The circle is closed, and there is no way of tearing oneself away from +it by means of force. + +If some men affirm that the liberation from violence, or even its +weakening, may be effected, should the oppressed people overthrow the +oppressing government by force and substitute a new one for it, a +government in which such violence and enslavement would not be +necessary, and if some men actually try to do so, they only deceive +themselves and others by it, and thus fail to improve men's condition, +and even make it worse. The activity of these men only intensifies the +despotism of the governments. The attempts of these men at freeing +themselves only give the governments a convenient excuse for +strengthening their power, and actually provoke its strengthening. + +Even if we admit that, in consequence of an unfortunate concurrence of +events in the government, as, for example, in France in the year 1870, +some governments may be overthrown by force and the power pass into +other hands, this power would in no case be less oppressive than the +former one, and, defending itself against the infuriated deposed +enemies, would always be more despotic and cruel than the former, as +indeed has been the case in every revolution. + +If the socialists and communists consider the individualistic, +capitalistic structure of society to be an evil, and the anarchists +consider the government itself to be an evil, there are also +monarchists, conservatives, capitalists, who consider the socialistic, +communistic, and anarchistic order to be evil; and all these parties +have no other means than force for the purpose of uniting men. No matter +which of these parties may triumph, it will be compelled, for the +materialization of its tenets, as well as for the maintenance of its +power, not only to make use of all the existing means of violence, but +also to invent new ones. Other men will be enslaved, and men will be +compelled to do something else; but there will be, not only the same, +but even a more cruel form of violence and enslavement, because, in +consequence of the struggle, the hatred of men toward one another will +be intensified, and at the same time new means of enslavement will be +worked out and confirmed. + +Thus it has always been after every revolution, every attempt at a +revolution, every plot, every violent change of government. Every +struggle only strengthens the means of the enslavement of those who at a +given time are in power. + +The condition of the men of our Christian world, and especially the +current ideals themselves prove this in a striking manner. + +There is left but one sphere of human activity which is not usurped by +the governmental power,---the domestic, economic sphere, the sphere of +the private life and of labour. But even this sphere, thanks to the +struggle of the communists and socialists, is slowly being usurped by +the governments, so that labour and rest, the domicile, the attire, the +food of men will by degrees be determined and directed by the +governments, if the wishes of the reformers are to be fulfilled. + +The whole long, eighteen-centuries-old course of the life of the +Christian nations has inevitably brought them back to the necessity of +solving the question, so long evaded by them, as to the acceptance or +non-acceptance of Christ's teaching, and the solution of the question +resulting from it as regards the social life, whether to resist or not +to resist evil with violence, but with this difference, that formerly +men could accept the solution which Christianity offered, or not accept +it, while now the solution has become imperative, because it alone frees +them from that condition of slavery in which they have become entangled +as in a snare. + +But it is not merely the wretchedness of men's condition that brings +them to this necessity. + +Side by side with the negative proof of the falseness of the pagan +structure, there went the positive proof of the truth of the Christian teaching. -In one way or another, all men of our time in their -consciousness not only reject the present obsolete pagan -order of life, but recognize, frequently not knowing it -themselves and regarding themselves as enemies of -Christianity, that our salvation lies only in the -application of the Christian teaching, or of a part of it, -in its true meaning, to life. - -For the majority of men, as its teacher has said, -Christianity could not be realized at once, but had to grow, -like an immense tree, from a small seed. And so it grew and -has spread, if not in reality, at least in the consciousness -of the men of our time. - -Now it is not merely the minority of men, who always -comprehended Christianity internally, that recognizes it in -its true meaning, but also that vast majority of men which -on account of its social life seems to be so far removed -from Christianity. - -Look at the private life of separate individuals; listen to -those valuations of acts, which men make in judging one -another; listen, not only to the public sermons and -lectures, but also to those instructions which parents and -educators give to their charges, and you will see that, no -matter how far the political, social life of men, which is -united through violence, is from the realization of -Christian truths in private life, it is only the Christian -virtues that are by all and for all, without exception and -indubitably, considered to be good, and that the -antiChristian vices are by all and for all, without -exception and indubitably, considered to be bad. Those are -considered to be the best of men who renounce and sacrifice -their lives in the service of humanity and who sacrifice -themselves for others; those are considered to be the worst -who are selfish, who exploit the misery of their neighbours -for their own personal advantage. - -If by some, who have not yet been touched by Christianity, -are recognized the non-Christian ideals, force, valour, -wealth, these are ideals which are not experienced and -shared by all men, and certainly not by men who are -considered to be the best. The condition of our Christian -humanity, if viewed from without, with its cruelty and its -slavery, is really terrible. But if we look upon it from the -side of its consciousness, an entirely different spectacle -is presented to us. - -The whole evil of our life seems to exist for no other -reason than that it was done long ago, and the men who have -done it have not yet had time to learn how not to do it, -though none of them wish to do it." All this evil seems to -exist for some other reason, which is independent of the +There was a good reason why, in the course of eighteen centuries, the +best men of the whole Christian world, having recognized the truths of +the teaching by means of an inner, spiritual method, should have borne +witness to them before men, in spite of all threats, privations, +calamities, and torments. With this their martyrdom these best men have +put the stamp of truthfulness upon the teaching and have transmitted it +to the masses. + +Christianity penetrated into the consciousness of humanity, not merely +by the one negative way of proving the impossibility of continuing the +pagan life, but also by its simplification, elucidation, liberation from +the dross of superstitions, and dissemination among all the classes of +people. + +Eighteen hundred years of the profession of Christianity did not pass in +vain for the men who accepted it, even though only in an external +manner. These eighteen centuries have had this effect that, continuing +to live a pagan life, which does not correspond to the age of humanity, +men have not only come to see clearly the whole wretchedness of the +condition in which they are, but believe in the depth of their hearts +(they live only because they believe) in this, that the salvation from +this condition is only in the fulfilment of the Christian teaching in +its true significance. As to when and how this salvation will take +place, all men think differently, in accordance with their mental +development and the current prejudices of their circle; but every man of +our world recognizes the fact that our salvation lies in the fulfilment +of the Christian teaching. Some believers, recognizing the Christian +teaching as divine, think that the salvation will come when all men +shall believe in Christ, and the second advent shall approach; others, +who also recognize the divinity of Christ's teaching, think that this +salvation will come through the church, which, subjecting all men to +itself, will educate in them Christian virtues and will change their +lives. Others again, who do not recognize Christ as God, think that the +salvation of men will come through a slow, gradual progress, when the +foundations of the pagan life will slowly give way to the foundations of +liberty, equality, fraternity, that is, to Christian principles; others +again, who preach a social transformation, think that the salvation will +come when men by a violent revolution shall be compelled to adopt +community of possession, absence of government, and collective, not +individual, labour, that is, the materialization of one of the sides of +the Christian teaching. + +In one way or another, all men of our time in their consciousness not +only reject the present obsolete pagan order of life, but recognize, +frequently not knowing it themselves and regarding themselves as enemies +of Christianity, that our salvation lies only in the application of the +Christian teaching, or of a part of it, in its true meaning, to life. + +For the majority of men, as its teacher has said, Christianity could not +be realized at once, but had to grow, like an immense tree, from a small +seed. And so it grew and has spread, if not in reality, at least in the +consciousness of the men of our time. + +Now it is not merely the minority of men, who always comprehended +Christianity internally, that recognizes it in its true meaning, but +also that vast majority of men which on account of its social life seems +to be so far removed from Christianity. + +Look at the private life of separate individuals; listen to those +valuations of acts, which men make in judging one another; listen, not +only to the public sermons and lectures, but also to those instructions +which parents and educators give to their charges, and you will see +that, no matter how far the political, social life of men, which is +united through violence, is from the realization of Christian truths in +private life, it is only the Christian virtues that are by all and for +all, without exception and indubitably, considered to be good, and that +the antiChristian vices are by all and for all, without exception and +indubitably, considered to be bad. Those are considered to be the best +of men who renounce and sacrifice their lives in the service of humanity +and who sacrifice themselves for others; those are considered to be the +worst who are selfish, who exploit the misery of their neighbours for +their own personal advantage. + +If by some, who have not yet been touched by Christianity, are +recognized the non-Christian ideals, force, valour, wealth, these are +ideals which are not experienced and shared by all men, and certainly +not by men who are considered to be the best. The condition of our +Christian humanity, if viewed from without, with its cruelty and its +slavery, is really terrible. But if we look upon it from the side of its +consciousness, an entirely different spectacle is presented to us. + +The whole evil of our life seems to exist for no other reason than that +it was done long ago, and the men who have done it have not yet had time +to learn how not to do it, though none of them wish to do it." All this +evil seems to exist for some other reason, which is independent of the consciousness of men. -No matter how strange and contradictory this may seem, all -the men of our time despise the very order of things which -they help to maintain. - -I think it is Max Müller who tells of the surprise of an -Indian converted to Christianity, who, having grasped the -essence of the Christian teaching, arrived in Europe and saw -the life of the Christians. He could not recover from his -astonishment in the presence of the reality, which was the -very opposite of what he had expected to find among the -Christian nations. - -If we are not surprised at the contradiction between our -beliefs, convictions, and acts, this is due only to the fact -that the influences which conceal this contradiction from -men act also upon us. We need only look upon our life from -the standpoint of the Indian, who understood Christianity in -its real significance, without any compromises and -adaptations, and upon those savage bestialities, with which -our life is filled, in order that we may be frightened at -the contradictions amidst which we live, frequently without -noticing them. - -We need but think of warlike preparations, mitrailleuses, -silver-plated bullets, torpedoes,---and the Eed Cross; of -the construction of prisons with solitary cells, of the -experiments at electrocution,---and of the benevolent cares -for the imprisoned; of the philanthropic activity of rich -men,---and of their lives, which are productive of those -very poor whom they benefit. And these contradictions do not -result, as may appear, because people pretend to be -Christians, when in reality they are pagans, but, on the -contrary, because people lack something, or because there is -some force which keeps them from being what they already -feel themselves to be in their consciousness and what they -actually wish to be. The men of our time do not pretend to -hate oppression, inequality, the division of men, and all -kinds of cruelty, not only toward men, but also toward -animals,---they actually do hate all this, but they do not -know how to destroy it all, and they have not the courage to -part with what maintains all this and seems to them to be +No matter how strange and contradictory this may seem, all the men of +our time despise the very order of things which they help to maintain. + +I think it is Max Müller who tells of the surprise of an Indian +converted to Christianity, who, having grasped the essence of the +Christian teaching, arrived in Europe and saw the life of the +Christians. He could not recover from his astonishment in the presence +of the reality, which was the very opposite of what he had expected to +find among the Christian nations. + +If we are not surprised at the contradiction between our beliefs, +convictions, and acts, this is due only to the fact that the influences +which conceal this contradiction from men act also upon us. We need only +look upon our life from the standpoint of the Indian, who understood +Christianity in its real significance, without any compromises and +adaptations, and upon those savage bestialities, with which our life is +filled, in order that we may be frightened at the contradictions amidst +which we live, frequently without noticing them. + +We need but think of warlike preparations, mitrailleuses, silver-plated +bullets, torpedoes,---and the Eed Cross; of the construction of prisons +with solitary cells, of the experiments at electrocution,---and of the +benevolent cares for the imprisoned; of the philanthropic activity of +rich men,---and of their lives, which are productive of those very poor +whom they benefit. And these contradictions do not result, as may +appear, because people pretend to be Christians, when in reality they +are pagans, but, on the contrary, because people lack something, or +because there is some force which keeps them from being what they +already feel themselves to be in their consciousness and what they +actually wish to be. The men of our time do not pretend to hate +oppression, inequality, the division of men, and all kinds of cruelty, +not only toward men, but also toward animals,---they actually do hate +all this, but they do not know how to destroy it all, and they have not +the courage to part with what maintains all this and seems to them to be indispensable. -Indeed, ask any man of our time privately, whether he -considers it laudable or even worthy of a man of our time to -busy himself with collecting taxes from the masses, who -frequently are poverty-stricken, receiving for this work a -salary which is entirely out of proportion with his labour, -this money to be used for the construction of cannon, -torpedoes, and implements for murdering men, with whom we -wish to be at peace, and who wish to be at peace with us; or -for a salary to devote all his life to the construction of -these implements of murder; or to prepare himself and others -to commit murder. And ask him whether it is laudable and -worthy of a man, and proper for a Christian, to busy -himself, again for money, with catching unfortunate, erring, -frequently ignorant, drunken men for appropriating to -themselves other people's possessions in much smaller -quantities than we appropriate things to ourselves, and for -killing men differently from what we are accustomed to kill -men, and for this to put them in prisons, and torment, and -kill them, and whether it is laudable and worthy of a man -and a Christian, again for money, to preach to the masses, -instead of Christianity, what is well known to be insipid -and harmful superstitions; and whether it is laudable and -worthy of a man to take from his neighbour, for the sake of -his own lust, what his neighbour needs for the gratification -of his prime necessities, as is done by the large -landowners; or to compel him to perform labour above his -strength, which ruins his life, in order to increase his own -wealth, as is done by manufacturers, by owners of factories; -or to exploit men's want for the purpose of increasing his -wealth, as is done by merchants. And each of them taken -privately, especially in speaking of another, will tell you -that it is not. And yet this same man, who sees all the -execrableness of these acts, who is himself not urged by any -one, will himself voluntarily, and frequently without the -monetary advantage of a salary, for the sake of childish -vanity, for the sake of a porcelain trinket, a ribbon, a -piece of lace, which he is permitted to put on, go into -military service, become an examining magistrate, a justice -of the peace, a minister, a rural officer, a bishop, a -sexton, that is, he will take an office in which he is -obliged to do things the disgrace and execrableness of which -he cannot help but know. - -I know many of these men will self-conceitedly prove that -they consider their positions not only legitimate, but even -indispensable; they will say in their defence that the power -is from God, that political offices are necessary for the -good of humanity, that wealth is not contrary to -Christianity, that the rich young man was told to give up -his wealth only if he wished to be perfect, that the now -existing distribution of wealth and commerce must be so and -is advantageous for everybody, and so forth. But, no matter -how they may try to deceive themselves and others, all these -men know that what they do is contrary to everything they -believe in, and in the name of which they live, and in the -depth of their hearts, when they are left alone with their -consciences, they think with shame and pain of what they are -doing, especially if the execrableness of their activity has -been pointed out to them. A man of our time, whether he -professes the divinity of Christ or not, cannot help but -know that to take part, whether as a king, a minister, a -governor, or a rural officer, in the sale of a poor family's -last cow for taxes, with which to pay for cannon or the -salaries and pensions of luxuriating, idle, and harmful -officials; or to have a share in putting the provider of a -family into prison, because we ourselves have corrupted him, -and let his family go a-begging; or to take part in the -plunders and murders of war; or to help substitute savage -and idolatrous superstitions for Christ's law; or to detain -a trespassing cow of a man who has no land of his own; or to -deduct a sum from the wages of a factory hand for an article -which he accidentally ruined; or to extort a double price -from a poor fellow, only because he is in need,---a man of -our time cannot help but know that all these things are -disgraceful and execrable, and that they should not be done. -They all know it: they know that what they do is bad, and -they would not be doing it under any consideration, if they -were able to withstand those forces which, closing their -eyes to the criminality of their acts, draw them on to +Indeed, ask any man of our time privately, whether he considers it +laudable or even worthy of a man of our time to busy himself with +collecting taxes from the masses, who frequently are poverty-stricken, +receiving for this work a salary which is entirely out of proportion +with his labour, this money to be used for the construction of cannon, +torpedoes, and implements for murdering men, with whom we wish to be at +peace, and who wish to be at peace with us; or for a salary to devote +all his life to the construction of these implements of murder; or to +prepare himself and others to commit murder. And ask him whether it is +laudable and worthy of a man, and proper for a Christian, to busy +himself, again for money, with catching unfortunate, erring, frequently +ignorant, drunken men for appropriating to themselves other people's +possessions in much smaller quantities than we appropriate things to +ourselves, and for killing men differently from what we are accustomed +to kill men, and for this to put them in prisons, and torment, and kill +them, and whether it is laudable and worthy of a man and a Christian, +again for money, to preach to the masses, instead of Christianity, what +is well known to be insipid and harmful superstitions; and whether it is +laudable and worthy of a man to take from his neighbour, for the sake of +his own lust, what his neighbour needs for the gratification of his +prime necessities, as is done by the large landowners; or to compel him +to perform labour above his strength, which ruins his life, in order to +increase his own wealth, as is done by manufacturers, by owners of +factories; or to exploit men's want for the purpose of increasing his +wealth, as is done by merchants. And each of them taken privately, +especially in speaking of another, will tell you that it is not. And yet +this same man, who sees all the execrableness of these acts, who is +himself not urged by any one, will himself voluntarily, and frequently +without the monetary advantage of a salary, for the sake of childish +vanity, for the sake of a porcelain trinket, a ribbon, a piece of lace, +which he is permitted to put on, go into military service, become an +examining magistrate, a justice of the peace, a minister, a rural +officer, a bishop, a sexton, that is, he will take an office in which he +is obliged to do things the disgrace and execrableness of which he +cannot help but know. + +I know many of these men will self-conceitedly prove that they consider +their positions not only legitimate, but even indispensable; they will +say in their defence that the power is from God, that political offices +are necessary for the good of humanity, that wealth is not contrary to +Christianity, that the rich young man was told to give up his wealth +only if he wished to be perfect, that the now existing distribution of +wealth and commerce must be so and is advantageous for everybody, and so +forth. But, no matter how they may try to deceive themselves and others, +all these men know that what they do is contrary to everything they +believe in, and in the name of which they live, and in the depth of +their hearts, when they are left alone with their consciences, they +think with shame and pain of what they are doing, especially if the +execrableness of their activity has been pointed out to them. A man of +our time, whether he professes the divinity of Christ or not, cannot +help but know that to take part, whether as a king, a minister, a +governor, or a rural officer, in the sale of a poor family's last cow +for taxes, with which to pay for cannon or the salaries and pensions of +luxuriating, idle, and harmful officials; or to have a share in putting +the provider of a family into prison, because we ourselves have +corrupted him, and let his family go a-begging; or to take part in the +plunders and murders of war; or to help substitute savage and idolatrous +superstitions for Christ's law; or to detain a trespassing cow of a man +who has no land of his own; or to deduct a sum from the wages of a +factory hand for an article which he accidentally ruined; or to extort a +double price from a poor fellow, only because he is in need,---a man of +our time cannot help but know that all these things are disgraceful and +execrable, and that they should not be done. They all know it: they know +that what they do is bad, and they would not be doing it under any +consideration, if they were able to withstand those forces which, +closing their eyes to the criminality of their acts, draw them on to committing them. -In nothing is the degree of the contradiction which the -lives of the men of our time have reached so striking, as in -that phenomenon which forms the last means and expression of -violence,---in the universal military service. - -Only because this condition of universal arming and military -service has come step by step and imperceptibly, and because -for its maintenance the governments employ all means in -their power for intimidating, bribing, stupefying, and -ravishing men, we do not see the crying contradiction -between this condition and those Christian feelings and -thoughts, with which all the men of our time are really -permeated. - -This contradiction has become so habitual to us that we do -not even see all the terrifying senselessness and immorality -of the acts, not only of the men who voluntarily choose the -profession of killing as something honourable, but even of -those unfortunate men who agree to perform military duty, or -even of those who in countries where military service is not -introduced, voluntarily give up their labours to hire -soldiers and prepare them to commit murder. All these men, -be they Christians or men who profess humanity and -liberalism, certainly know that, in committing these crimes, -they become the participants, and, in personal military -service, the actors, in the most senseless, aimless, cruel -of murders, and yet they commit them. - -But more than this: in Germany, whence comes the universal -military service, Caprivi said openly, what before was -carefully concealed, that the men who had to be killed were -not merely the foreigners, but the working people, from whom -come the majority of the soldiers. And this confession did -not open men's eyes, did not frighten them. Even after this, -as before, they continue to go like sheep to the enlistment -and to submit to everything demanded of them. - -And this is not enough: lately the German Emperor stated -more definitely the significance and the calling of a -soldier, when distinguishing, thanking, and rewarding a -soldier for having shot a defenceless prisoner, who had -attempted to run away. In thanking and rewarding the man for -an act which has always been regarded as the lowest and -basest by men who stand on the lowest stage of morality, -William showed that the chief duty of a soldier, the one -most valued by the authorities, consisted in being an -executioner, not one like the professional executioners, who -kill only condemned criminals, but one who kills all those -innocent men whom he is ordered by his superiors to kill. - -But more than this: in 1891 this same William, the *enfant -terrible* of the political power, who expresses what others -think, in speaking with some soldiers, said the following in -public, and the next day thousands of newspapers reprinted -these words: - -"Recruits! In the sight of the altar and the servant of God -you swore allegiance to me. You are still too young to -understand the true meaning of everything which is said -here, but see to this, that you first of all follow the -commands and instructions given you. You have sworn -allegiance to me; this, children of my guard, means that you -are now my soldiers, that you have surrendered your souls -and bodies to me. For you there now exists but one enemy, -namely, the one who is my enemy. With the present -socialistic propaganda it may happen that I will command you -to shoot at your own relatives, your brothers, even -parents,---which God forfend,---and then you are obliged -without murmuring to do my commands." - -This man expresses what all wise men know, but carefully -conceal. He says frankly that men who serve in the army -serve him and his advantage, and must be prepared for his -advantage to kill their brothers and fathers. - -He expresses frankly and with the coarsest of words all the -horror of the crime for which the men who enter into -military service are prepared, all that abyss of degradation -which they reach, when they promise obedience. Like a bold -hypnotizer, he tests the degree of the hypnotized man's -sleep: he puts the glowing iron to his body, the body +In nothing is the degree of the contradiction which the lives of the men +of our time have reached so striking, as in that phenomenon which forms +the last means and expression of violence,---in the universal military +service. + +Only because this condition of universal arming and military service has +come step by step and imperceptibly, and because for its maintenance the +governments employ all means in their power for intimidating, bribing, +stupefying, and ravishing men, we do not see the crying contradiction +between this condition and those Christian feelings and thoughts, with +which all the men of our time are really permeated. + +This contradiction has become so habitual to us that we do not even see +all the terrifying senselessness and immorality of the acts, not only of +the men who voluntarily choose the profession of killing as something +honourable, but even of those unfortunate men who agree to perform +military duty, or even of those who in countries where military service +is not introduced, voluntarily give up their labours to hire soldiers +and prepare them to commit murder. All these men, be they Christians or +men who profess humanity and liberalism, certainly know that, in +committing these crimes, they become the participants, and, in personal +military service, the actors, in the most senseless, aimless, cruel of +murders, and yet they commit them. + +But more than this: in Germany, whence comes the universal military +service, Caprivi said openly, what before was carefully concealed, that +the men who had to be killed were not merely the foreigners, but the +working people, from whom come the majority of the soldiers. And this +confession did not open men's eyes, did not frighten them. Even after +this, as before, they continue to go like sheep to the enlistment and to +submit to everything demanded of them. + +And this is not enough: lately the German Emperor stated more definitely +the significance and the calling of a soldier, when distinguishing, +thanking, and rewarding a soldier for having shot a defenceless +prisoner, who had attempted to run away. In thanking and rewarding the +man for an act which has always been regarded as the lowest and basest +by men who stand on the lowest stage of morality, William showed that +the chief duty of a soldier, the one most valued by the authorities, +consisted in being an executioner, not one like the professional +executioners, who kill only condemned criminals, but one who kills all +those innocent men whom he is ordered by his superiors to kill. + +But more than this: in 1891 this same William, the *enfant terrible* of +the political power, who expresses what others think, in speaking with +some soldiers, said the following in public, and the next day thousands +of newspapers reprinted these words: + +"Recruits! In the sight of the altar and the servant of God you swore +allegiance to me. You are still too young to understand the true meaning +of everything which is said here, but see to this, that you first of all +follow the commands and instructions given you. You have sworn +allegiance to me; this, children of my guard, means that you are now my +soldiers, that you have surrendered your souls and bodies to me. For you +there now exists but one enemy, namely, the one who is my enemy. With +the present socialistic propaganda it may happen that I will command you +to shoot at your own relatives, your brothers, even parents,---which God +forfend,---and then you are obliged without murmuring to do my +commands." + +This man expresses what all wise men know, but carefully conceal. He +says frankly that men who serve in the army serve him and his advantage, +and must be prepared for his advantage to kill their brothers and +fathers. + +He expresses frankly and with the coarsest of words all the horror of +the crime for which the men who enter into military service are +prepared, all that abyss of degradation which they reach, when they +promise obedience. Like a bold hypnotizer, he tests the degree of the +hypnotized man's sleep: he puts the glowing iron to his body, the body sizzles and smokes, but the hypnotized man does not wake. -This miserable, ill man, who has lost his mind from the -exercise of power, with these words offends everything which -can be holy for a man of our time, and men,---Christians, -liberals, cultured men of our time,---all of them, are not -only not provoked by this insult, but even do not notice it. -The last, extreme trial, in its coarsest, most glaring form, -is offered to men, and men do not even seem to notice that -this is a trial, that they have a choice. It looks as though -it seemed to them that there was not even any choice, and -that there was but the one path of slavish obedience. One -would think that these senseless words, which offend -everything which a man of our time considers to be sacred, -ought to have provoked people, but nothing of the kind took -place. All the young men of all Europe are year after year -subjected to this trial, and with the rarest exceptions they -all renounce everything which is and can be sacred to a man, -they all express their readiness to kill their brothers, -even their fathers, at the command of the first erring man -who is clad in a red livery embroidered with gold, and all -they ask is when and whom to kill. And they are ready. - -Every savage has something sacred for which he is prepared -to suffer and for which he will make no concessions. But -where is this sacredness for a man of our time? He is told, -"Go into slavery to me, into a slavery in which you have to -kill your own father," and he, who very frequently is a -learned man, who has studied all the sciences in a -university, submissively puts his neck into the yoke. He is -dressed up in a fool's attire, is commanded to jump, to -contort his body, to bow, to kill,---and he does everything -submissively. And when he is let out, he returns briskly to -his former life and continues to talk of man's dignity, -liberty, equality, and fraternity. - -"Yes, but what is to be done?" people frequently ask, in -sincere perplexity. "If all should refuse, it would be well; -otherwise I alone shall suffer, and no one will be helped by -it." - -And, indeed, a man of the social concept of life cannot -refuse. The meaning of his life is the good of his -personality. For the sake of his personality it is better -for him to submit, and he submits. - -No matter what may be done to him, no matter how he may be -tortured and degraded, he will submit, because he can do -nothing himself, because he has not that foundation in the -name of which he could by himself withstand the violence; -but those who govern men will never give them a chance to -unite. It is frequently said that the invention of terrible -implements of murder will abolish war and that war will -abolish itself. That is not true. As it is possible to -increase the means for the slaughter of men, so it is -possible to increase the means for subjugating the men of -the social concept of life. Let them be killed by the -thousand, by the million, and be torn to pieces,---they will -none the less go to the slaughter like senseless cattle, -because they are driven with a goad; others will go, because -for this they will be permitted to put on ribbons and -galloons, and they will even be proud of it. - -And it is in connection with such a contingent of men, who -are so stupefied that they promise to kill their parents, -that the public leaders---the conservatives, liberals, -socialists, anarchists---talk of building up a rational and -moral society. What rational and moral society can be built -up with such men? Just as it is impossible to build a house -with rotten and crooked logs, no matter how one may -transpose them, so it is impossible with such people to -construct a rational and moral society. Such people can only -form a herd of animals which is directed by the shouts and -goads of the shepherds. And so it is. - -And so, on the one hand, Christians by name, who profess -liberty, equality, and fraternity, are side by side with -that prepared in the name of liberty for the most slavish -and degraded submission, in the name of equality for the -most glaring and senseless divisions of men by external -signs alone into superiors and inferiors, their allies and -their enemies, and in the name of fraternity for the murder -of these brothers. - -The contradictions of consciousness and the resulting -wretchedness of life have reached the extremest point, -beyond which it is impossible to go. The life which is built -up on the principles of violence has reached the negation of -those very principles in the name of which it was built up. -The establishment of society on the principles of violence, -which had for its aim the security of the personal, -domestic, and social good, has led men to a complete -negation and destruction of this good. - -The first part of the prophecy has been fulfilled in respect -to men and their generations, who did not accept the -teaching, and their descendants have now been brought to the -necessity of experiencing the justice of its second part. +This miserable, ill man, who has lost his mind from the exercise of +power, with these words offends everything which can be holy for a man +of our time, and men,---Christians, liberals, cultured men of our +time,---all of them, are not only not provoked by this insult, but even +do not notice it. The last, extreme trial, in its coarsest, most glaring +form, is offered to men, and men do not even seem to notice that this is +a trial, that they have a choice. It looks as though it seemed to them +that there was not even any choice, and that there was but the one path +of slavish obedience. One would think that these senseless words, which +offend everything which a man of our time considers to be sacred, ought +to have provoked people, but nothing of the kind took place. All the +young men of all Europe are year after year subjected to this trial, and +with the rarest exceptions they all renounce everything which is and can +be sacred to a man, they all express their readiness to kill their +brothers, even their fathers, at the command of the first erring man who +is clad in a red livery embroidered with gold, and all they ask is when +and whom to kill. And they are ready. + +Every savage has something sacred for which he is prepared to suffer and +for which he will make no concessions. But where is this sacredness for +a man of our time? He is told, "Go into slavery to me, into a slavery in +which you have to kill your own father," and he, who very frequently is +a learned man, who has studied all the sciences in a university, +submissively puts his neck into the yoke. He is dressed up in a fool's +attire, is commanded to jump, to contort his body, to bow, to +kill,---and he does everything submissively. And when he is let out, he +returns briskly to his former life and continues to talk of man's +dignity, liberty, equality, and fraternity. + +"Yes, but what is to be done?" people frequently ask, in sincere +perplexity. "If all should refuse, it would be well; otherwise I alone +shall suffer, and no one will be helped by it." + +And, indeed, a man of the social concept of life cannot refuse. The +meaning of his life is the good of his personality. For the sake of his +personality it is better for him to submit, and he submits. + +No matter what may be done to him, no matter how he may be tortured and +degraded, he will submit, because he can do nothing himself, because he +has not that foundation in the name of which he could by himself +withstand the violence; but those who govern men will never give them a +chance to unite. It is frequently said that the invention of terrible +implements of murder will abolish war and that war will abolish itself. +That is not true. As it is possible to increase the means for the +slaughter of men, so it is possible to increase the means for +subjugating the men of the social concept of life. Let them be killed by +the thousand, by the million, and be torn to pieces,---they will none +the less go to the slaughter like senseless cattle, because they are +driven with a goad; others will go, because for this they will be +permitted to put on ribbons and galloons, and they will even be proud of +it. + +And it is in connection with such a contingent of men, who are so +stupefied that they promise to kill their parents, that the public +leaders---the conservatives, liberals, socialists, anarchists---talk of +building up a rational and moral society. What rational and moral +society can be built up with such men? Just as it is impossible to build +a house with rotten and crooked logs, no matter how one may transpose +them, so it is impossible with such people to construct a rational and +moral society. Such people can only form a herd of animals which is +directed by the shouts and goads of the shepherds. And so it is. + +And so, on the one hand, Christians by name, who profess liberty, +equality, and fraternity, are side by side with that prepared in the +name of liberty for the most slavish and degraded submission, in the +name of equality for the most glaring and senseless divisions of men by +external signs alone into superiors and inferiors, their allies and +their enemies, and in the name of fraternity for the murder of these +brothers. + +The contradictions of consciousness and the resulting wretchedness of +life have reached the extremest point, beyond which it is impossible to +go. The life which is built up on the principles of violence has reached +the negation of those very principles in the name of which it was built +up. The establishment of society on the principles of violence, which +had for its aim the security of the personal, domestic, and social good, +has led men to a complete negation and destruction of this good. + +The first part of the prophecy has been fulfilled in respect to men and +their generations, who did not accept the teaching, and their +descendants have now been brought to the necessity of experiencing the +justice of its second part. # IX -The condition of the Christian nations in our time has -remained as cruel as it was in the times of paganism. In -many relations, especially in the enslavement of men, it has -become even more cruel than in the times of paganism. - -But between the condition of the men of that time and of our -time there is the same difference that there is for the -plants between the last days of autumn and the first days of -spring. There, in the autumnal Nature, the external -lifelessness corresponds to the internal condition of decay; -but here, in the spring, the external lifelessness is in the -sharpest contradiction to the condition of the internal -restoration and the change to a new form of life. - -The same is true of the external resemblance between the -previous pagan life and the present one: the external -condition of men in the times of paganism and in our time is -quite different. - -There the external condition of cruelty and slavery was in -full agreement with the internal consciousness of men, and -every forward movement increased this agreement; but here -the external condition of cruelty and slavery is in complete -disagreement with the Christian consciousness of men, and -every forward step only increases this disagreement. - -"What is taking place is, as it were, useless -sufferings,---something resembling childbirth. Everything is -prepared for the new life, but the life itself has not made -its appearance. - -The situation seems to be without an issue, and it would be -so, if the individual man, and so all men, were not given -the possibility of another, higher conception of life, which -at once frees him from all those fetters which, it seemed, -bound him indissolubly. - -Such is the Christian concept of life, which was pointed out -to humanity eighteen hundred years ago. - -A man need only make this life-concept his own, in order -that the chains which seemed to have fettered him so -indissolubly may fall off of themselves, and that he may -feel himself quite free, something the way a bird would feel -free when it expanded its wings in a place which is fenced -in all around. - -People speak of the liberation of the Christian church from -the state, of granting or not granting liberty to -Christians. In these thoughts and expressions there is some -terrible misconception. Liberty cannot be granted to a -Christian or to Christians, or taken from them. Liberty is a -Christian's inalienable property. - -When people speak of granting liberty to Christians, or -taking it from them, it is evident that they are not -speaking of real Christians, but of men who call themselves -Christians. A Christian cannot be anything else but free, -because the attainment of the end which he has set before -himself cannot be retarded or detained by any one or -anything. - -A man need but understand his life as Christianity teaches -him to understand it, that is, understand that life does not -belong to him, his personality, or the family, or the state, -but to Him who sent him into this life; that, therefore, he -must not fulfil the law of his personality, his family, or -the state, but the unlimited law of Him from whom he has -come, in order that he may feel himself quite free from -every human power and may even stop seeing this power as -something which may be oppressive for any one. - -A man need but understand that the aim of his life is the -fulfilment of God's law, in order that this law, taking for -him the place of all other laws and subjugating him to -itself, by this very subjugation may deprive all the human -laws in his eyes of all their obligatoriness and oppression. - -A Christian is freed from every human power in that he -considers for his life and for the lives of others the -divine law of love, which is implanted in the soul of every -man and is brought into consciousness by Christ, as the only -guide of his life and of that of other men. - -A Christian may submit to external violence, may be deprived -of his bodily freedom, may not be free from his passions (he -who commits a sin is a slave of sin), but he cannot help but -be free, in the sense of not being compelled by some danger -or external threat to commit an act which is contrary to his -consciousness. +The condition of the Christian nations in our time has remained as cruel +as it was in the times of paganism. In many relations, especially in the +enslavement of men, it has become even more cruel than in the times of +paganism. + +But between the condition of the men of that time and of our time there +is the same difference that there is for the plants between the last +days of autumn and the first days of spring. There, in the autumnal +Nature, the external lifelessness corresponds to the internal condition +of decay; but here, in the spring, the external lifelessness is in the +sharpest contradiction to the condition of the internal restoration and +the change to a new form of life. + +The same is true of the external resemblance between the previous pagan +life and the present one: the external condition of men in the times of +paganism and in our time is quite different. + +There the external condition of cruelty and slavery was in full +agreement with the internal consciousness of men, and every forward +movement increased this agreement; but here the external condition of +cruelty and slavery is in complete disagreement with the Christian +consciousness of men, and every forward step only increases this +disagreement. + +"What is taking place is, as it were, useless sufferings,---something +resembling childbirth. Everything is prepared for the new life, but the +life itself has not made its appearance. + +The situation seems to be without an issue, and it would be so, if the +individual man, and so all men, were not given the possibility of +another, higher conception of life, which at once frees him from all +those fetters which, it seemed, bound him indissolubly. + +Such is the Christian concept of life, which was pointed out to humanity +eighteen hundred years ago. + +A man need only make this life-concept his own, in order that the chains +which seemed to have fettered him so indissolubly may fall off of +themselves, and that he may feel himself quite free, something the way a +bird would feel free when it expanded its wings in a place which is +fenced in all around. + +People speak of the liberation of the Christian church from the state, +of granting or not granting liberty to Christians. In these thoughts and +expressions there is some terrible misconception. Liberty cannot be +granted to a Christian or to Christians, or taken from them. Liberty is +a Christian's inalienable property. + +When people speak of granting liberty to Christians, or taking it from +them, it is evident that they are not speaking of real Christians, but +of men who call themselves Christians. A Christian cannot be anything +else but free, because the attainment of the end which he has set before +himself cannot be retarded or detained by any one or anything. + +A man need but understand his life as Christianity teaches him to +understand it, that is, understand that life does not belong to him, his +personality, or the family, or the state, but to Him who sent him into +this life; that, therefore, he must not fulfil the law of his +personality, his family, or the state, but the unlimited law of Him from +whom he has come, in order that he may feel himself quite free from +every human power and may even stop seeing this power as something which +may be oppressive for any one. + +A man need but understand that the aim of his life is the fulfilment of +God's law, in order that this law, taking for him the place of all other +laws and subjugating him to itself, by this very subjugation may deprive +all the human laws in his eyes of all their obligatoriness and +oppression. -He cannot be compelled to do this, because the privations -and sufferings which are produced by violence, and which -form a mighty tool against the men of the social concept of -life, have no compulsory force with him. The privations and -sufferings which take from the men of the social concept of -life the good for which they live, cannot impair the -Christian's good, which consists in the fulfilment of God's -will; they can only strengthen him, when they assail him in -the performance of this will. - -And so a Christian, in submitting to the internal, divine -law, cannot only not perform the prescription of the -external law, when it is not in accord with the divine law -of love as recognized by him, as is the case in the demands -set forth by the government, but cannot even recognize the -obligation of obeying any one or anything,---he cannot -recognize what is called the subject's allegiance. For a -Christian the promise of allegiance to any government---that -very act which is regarded as the foundation of the -political life---is a direct renunciation of Christianity, -because a man who unconditionally promises in advance to -submit to laws which are made and will be made by men, by -this very promise in a very definite manner renounces -Christianity, which consists in this, that in all problems -of life he is to submit only to the divine law of love, of -which he is conscious in himself. - -It was possible with the pagan world-conception to promise -to do the will of the civil authorities, without violating -the will of God, which consisted in circumcision, the -Sabbath, praying at set times, abstaining from a certain -kind of food, and so forth. One did not contradict the -other. But the Christian profession differs in this very -thing from the pagan, in that it does not demand of a man -certain external negative acts, but places him in another -relation to man from what he was in before, a relation from -which may result the most varied acts, which cannot be -ascertained in advance, and so a Christian cannot promise to -do another person's will, without knowing in what the -demands of this will may consist, and cannot obey the -variable human laws; he cannot even promise to do anything -definite at a certain time or to abstain from anything at a -certain time, because he cannot know what at any time that -Christian law of love, the submission to which forms the -meaning of his life, may demand of him. In promising in -advance unconditionally to fulfil the laws of men, a -Christian would by this very promise indicate that the inner -law of God does not form for him the only law of his life. - -For a Christian to promise that he will obey men or human -laws is the same as for a labourer who has hired out to a -master to promise at the same time that he will do -everything which other men may command him to do. It is -impossible to serve two masters. - -A Christian frees himself from human power by recognizing -over himself nothing but God's power, the law of which, -revealed to him by Christ, he recognizes in himself, and to -which alone he submits. - -And this liberation is not accomplished by means of a -struggle, not by the destruction of existing forms of life, -but only by means of the changed comprehension of life. The -liberation takes place in consequence of this, in the first -place, that a Christian recognizes the law of love, which -was revealed to him by his teacher, as quite sufficient for -human relations, and so regards all violence as superfluous -and illegal, and, in the second place, that those -privations, sufferings, threats of sufferings and -privations, with which the public man is brought to the -necessity of obeying, present themselves to a Christian, -with his different concept of life, only as inevitable -conditions of existence, which he, without struggling -against them by exercising violence, bears patiently, like -diseases, hunger, and all other calamities, but which by no -means can serve as a guide for his acts. What serves as a -guide for a Christian's acts is only the divine principle -that lives within him and that cannot be oppressed or -directed by anything. - -A Christian acts according to the word of the prophecy -applied to his teacher, "He shall not strive, nor cry; -neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets; a -bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He -not quench, till He send forth judgment unto victory" +A Christian is freed from every human power in that he considers for his +life and for the lives of others the divine law of love, which is +implanted in the soul of every man and is brought into consciousness by +Christ, as the only guide of his life and of that of other men. + +A Christian may submit to external violence, may be deprived of his +bodily freedom, may not be free from his passions (he who commits a sin +is a slave of sin), but he cannot help but be free, in the sense of not +being compelled by some danger or external threat to commit an act which +is contrary to his consciousness. + +He cannot be compelled to do this, because the privations and sufferings +which are produced by violence, and which form a mighty tool against the +men of the social concept of life, have no compulsory force with him. +The privations and sufferings which take from the men of the social +concept of life the good for which they live, cannot impair the +Christian's good, which consists in the fulfilment of God's will; they +can only strengthen him, when they assail him in the performance of this +will. + +And so a Christian, in submitting to the internal, divine law, cannot +only not perform the prescription of the external law, when it is not in +accord with the divine law of love as recognized by him, as is the case +in the demands set forth by the government, but cannot even recognize +the obligation of obeying any one or anything,---he cannot recognize +what is called the subject's allegiance. For a Christian the promise of +allegiance to any government---that very act which is regarded as the +foundation of the political life---is a direct renunciation of +Christianity, because a man who unconditionally promises in advance to +submit to laws which are made and will be made by men, by this very +promise in a very definite manner renounces Christianity, which consists +in this, that in all problems of life he is to submit only to the divine +law of love, of which he is conscious in himself. + +It was possible with the pagan world-conception to promise to do the +will of the civil authorities, without violating the will of God, which +consisted in circumcision, the Sabbath, praying at set times, abstaining +from a certain kind of food, and so forth. One did not contradict the +other. But the Christian profession differs in this very thing from the +pagan, in that it does not demand of a man certain external negative +acts, but places him in another relation to man from what he was in +before, a relation from which may result the most varied acts, which +cannot be ascertained in advance, and so a Christian cannot promise to +do another person's will, without knowing in what the demands of this +will may consist, and cannot obey the variable human laws; he cannot +even promise to do anything definite at a certain time or to abstain +from anything at a certain time, because he cannot know what at any time +that Christian law of love, the submission to which forms the meaning of +his life, may demand of him. In promising in advance unconditionally to +fulfil the laws of men, a Christian would by this very promise indicate +that the inner law of God does not form for him the only law of his +life. + +For a Christian to promise that he will obey men or human laws is the +same as for a labourer who has hired out to a master to promise at the +same time that he will do everything which other men may command him to +do. It is impossible to serve two masters. + +A Christian frees himself from human power by recognizing over himself +nothing but God's power, the law of which, revealed to him by Christ, he +recognizes in himself, and to which alone he submits. + +And this liberation is not accomplished by means of a struggle, not by +the destruction of existing forms of life, but only by means of the +changed comprehension of life. The liberation takes place in consequence +of this, in the first place, that a Christian recognizes the law of +love, which was revealed to him by his teacher, as quite sufficient for +human relations, and so regards all violence as superfluous and illegal, +and, in the second place, that those privations, sufferings, threats of +sufferings and privations, with which the public man is brought to the +necessity of obeying, present themselves to a Christian, with his +different concept of life, only as inevitable conditions of existence, +which he, without struggling against them by exercising violence, bears +patiently, like diseases, hunger, and all other calamities, but which by +no means can serve as a guide for his acts. What serves as a guide for a +Christian's acts is only the divine principle that lives within him and +that cannot be oppressed or directed by anything. + +A Christian acts according to the word of the prophecy applied to his +teacher, "He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear His +voice in the streets; a bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking +flax shall He not quench, till He send forth judgment unto victory" (Matthew 12:19-20). -A Christian does not quarrel with any one, does not attack -any one, nor use violence against one; on the contrary, he -himself without murmuring bears violence; but by this very -relation to violence he not only frees himself, but also the -world from external power. - -"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you -free" (John 8:32). If there were any doubt as to -Christianity being truth, that complete freedom, which -cannot be oppressed by anything, and which a man experiences -the moment he makes the Christian life-conception his own, +A Christian does not quarrel with any one, does not attack any one, nor +use violence against one; on the contrary, he himself without murmuring +bears violence; but by this very relation to violence he not only frees +himself, but also the world from external power. + +"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John +8:32). If there were any doubt as to Christianity being truth, that +complete freedom, which cannot be oppressed by anything, and which a man +experiences the moment he makes the Christian life-conception his own, would be an undoubted proof of its truth. -In their present condition men are like bees which have just -swarmed and are hanging down a limb in a cluster. The -position of the bees on the limb is temporary, and must -inevitably be changed. They must rise and find a new home -for themselves. Every one of the bees knows that and wishes -to change its position and that of the others, but not one -is able to do so before the others are going to do so. They -cannot rise all at once, because one hangs down from the -other, keeping it from separating itself from the swarm, and -so all continue to hang. It would seem that the bees could -not get out of this state, just as it seems to worldly men -who are entangled in the snare of the social -world-conception. But there would be no way out for the -bees, if each of the bees were not separately a living -being, endowed with wings. So there would also be no way out -for men, if each of them were not a separate living being, -endowed with the ability of acquiring the Christian concept -of life. - -If every bee which can fly did not fly, the rest, too, would -not move, and the swarm would never change its position. And -as one bee need but open its wings, rise up, and fly away, -and after it a second, third, tenth, hundredth, in order -that the immovable cluster may become a freely flying swarm -of bees, so one man need but understand life as Christianity -teaches him to understand it, and begin to live accordingly, -and a second, third, hundredth, to do so after him, in order -that the magic circle of the social life, from which there -seemed to be no way out, be destroyed. - -But people think that the liberation of all men in this -manner is too slow, and that it is necessary to find and use -another such a means, so as to free all at once; something -like what the bees would do, if, wishing to rise and fly -away, they should find that it was too long for them to wait -for the whole swarm to rise one after another, and should -try to find a way where every individual bee would not have -to unfold its wings and fly away, but the whole swarm could -fly at once wherever it wanted. But that is impossible: so -long as the first, second, third, hundredth bee does not -unfold its wings and fly, the swarm, too, will not fly away -or find the new life. So long as every individual man does -not make the Christian life-conception his own, and does not -live in accordance with it, the contradiction of the human -life will not be solved and the new form of life will not be -established. - -One of the striking phenomena of our time is that preaching -of slavery which is disseminated among the masses, not only -by the governments, which need it, but also by those men -who, preaching socialistic theories, imagine that they are -the champions of liberty. - -These people preach that the improvement of life, the -bringing of reality in agreement with consciousness, will -not take place in consequence of personal efforts of -separate men, but of itself, in consequence of a certain -violent transformation of society, which will be inaugurated -by somebody. What is preached is that men do not have to go -with their own feet whither they want and have to go, but -that some kind of a floor will be put under their feet, so -that, without walking, they will get whither they have to -go. And so all their efforts must not be directed toward -going according to one's strength whither one has to go, but -toward constructing this imaginary floor while standing in -one spot. - -In the economic relation they preach a theory, the essence -of which consists in this, that the worse it is, the better -it is, that the more there shall be an accumulation of -capital, and so an oppression of the labourer, the nearer -will the liberation be, and so every personal effort of a -man to free himself from the oppression of capital is -useless; in the relation of the state, they preach that the -greater the power of the state, which according to this -theory has to take in the still unoccupied field of the -private life, the better it will be, and that, therefore, -the interference of the governments in the private life has -to be invoked; in the political and international relations -they preach that the increase of the means of destruction, -the increase of the armies, will lead to the necessity of -disarmament by means of congresses, arbitrations, and so -forth. And, strange to say, the obstinacy of men is so great -that they believe in these theories, although the whole -course of life, every step in advance, betrays its +In their present condition men are like bees which have just swarmed and +are hanging down a limb in a cluster. The position of the bees on the +limb is temporary, and must inevitably be changed. They must rise and +find a new home for themselves. Every one of the bees knows that and +wishes to change its position and that of the others, but not one is +able to do so before the others are going to do so. They cannot rise all +at once, because one hangs down from the other, keeping it from +separating itself from the swarm, and so all continue to hang. It would +seem that the bees could not get out of this state, just as it seems to +worldly men who are entangled in the snare of the social +world-conception. But there would be no way out for the bees, if each of +the bees were not separately a living being, endowed with wings. So +there would also be no way out for men, if each of them were not a +separate living being, endowed with the ability of acquiring the +Christian concept of life. + +If every bee which can fly did not fly, the rest, too, would not move, +and the swarm would never change its position. And as one bee need but +open its wings, rise up, and fly away, and after it a second, third, +tenth, hundredth, in order that the immovable cluster may become a +freely flying swarm of bees, so one man need but understand life as +Christianity teaches him to understand it, and begin to live +accordingly, and a second, third, hundredth, to do so after him, in +order that the magic circle of the social life, from which there seemed +to be no way out, be destroyed. + +But people think that the liberation of all men in this manner is too +slow, and that it is necessary to find and use another such a means, so +as to free all at once; something like what the bees would do, if, +wishing to rise and fly away, they should find that it was too long for +them to wait for the whole swarm to rise one after another, and should +try to find a way where every individual bee would not have to unfold +its wings and fly away, but the whole swarm could fly at once wherever +it wanted. But that is impossible: so long as the first, second, third, +hundredth bee does not unfold its wings and fly, the swarm, too, will +not fly away or find the new life. So long as every individual man does +not make the Christian life-conception his own, and does not live in +accordance with it, the contradiction of the human life will not be +solved and the new form of life will not be established. + +One of the striking phenomena of our time is that preaching of slavery +which is disseminated among the masses, not only by the governments, +which need it, but also by those men who, preaching socialistic +theories, imagine that they are the champions of liberty. + +These people preach that the improvement of life, the bringing of +reality in agreement with consciousness, will not take place in +consequence of personal efforts of separate men, but of itself, in +consequence of a certain violent transformation of society, which will +be inaugurated by somebody. What is preached is that men do not have to +go with their own feet whither they want and have to go, but that some +kind of a floor will be put under their feet, so that, without walking, +they will get whither they have to go. And so all their efforts must not +be directed toward going according to one's strength whither one has to +go, but toward constructing this imaginary floor while standing in one +spot. + +In the economic relation they preach a theory, the essence of which +consists in this, that the worse it is, the better it is, that the more +there shall be an accumulation of capital, and so an oppression of the +labourer, the nearer will the liberation be, and so every personal +effort of a man to free himself from the oppression of capital is +useless; in the relation of the state, they preach that the greater the +power of the state, which according to this theory has to take in the +still unoccupied field of the private life, the better it will be, and +that, therefore, the interference of the governments in the private life +has to be invoked; in the political and international relations they +preach that the increase of the means of destruction, the increase of +the armies, will lead to the necessity of disarmament by means of +congresses, arbitrations, and so forth. And, strange to say, the +obstinacy of men is so great that they believe in these theories, +although the whole course of life, every step in advance, betrays its incorrectness. -Men suffer from oppression, and to save themselves from this -oppression, they are advised to invent common means for the -improvement of their situation, to be applied by the -authorities, while they themselves continue to submit to -them. Obviously, nothing results from it but a strengthening -of the power, and consequently the intensification of the +Men suffer from oppression, and to save themselves from this oppression, +they are advised to invent common means for the improvement of their +situation, to be applied by the authorities, while they themselves +continue to submit to them. Obviously, nothing results from it but a +strengthening of the power, and consequently the intensification of the oppression. -Not one of the errors of men removes them so much from the -end which they have set for themselves as this one. In order -to attain the end which they have set before themselves, men -do all kinds of things, only not the one, simple thing which -all have to do. They invent the most cunning of ways for -changing the situation which oppresses them, except the one, -simple one that none of them should do that which produces -this situation. - -I was told of an incident which happened with a brave rural -judge who, upon arriving at a village where the peasants had -been riotous and whither the army had been called out, -undertook to settle the riot in the spirit of Nicholas I, -all by himself, through his personal influence. He sent for -several wagon-loads of switches, and, collecting all the -peasants in the corn-kiln, locked himself up with them, and -so intimidated the peasants with his shouts, that they, -obeying him, began at his command to flog one another. They -continued flogging one another until there was found a -little fool who did not submit and shouted to his companions -to stop flogging one another. It was only then that the -flogging stopped, and the rural judge ran away from the -kiln. It is this advice of the fool that the men of the -social order do not know how to follow, for they flog one -another without cessation, and men teach this mutual -flogging as the last word of human wisdom. - -Indeed, can we imagine a more striking example of how men -flog themselves than the humbleness with which the men of -our time carry out the very obligations which are imposed -upon them and which lead them into servitude, especially the -military service? Men obviously enslave themselves, suffer -from this slavery, and believe that it must be so, that it -is all right and does not interfere with the liberation of -men, which is being prepared somewhere and somehow, in spite -of the ever increasing and increasing slavery. - -Indeed, let us take a man of our time, whoever he be (I am -not speaking of a true Christian, but of a man of the rank -and file of our time), cultured or uncultured, a believer or -unbeliever, rich or poor, a man of a family or a single man. -Such a man of our time lives, doing his work or enjoying -himself, employing the fruits of his own labour or those of -others for his own sake or for the sake of those who are -near to him, like any other man, despising all kinds of -oppressions and privations, hostility, and sufferings. The -man lives peacefully; suddenly people come to him, who say: -"In the first place, promise and swear to us that you will -slavishly obey us in everything which we shall prescribe to -you, and that everything we shall invent, determine, and -call a law you will consider an indubitable truth and will -submit to; in the second place, give part of your earnings -into our keeping: we shall use this money for keeping you in -slavery and preventing you from forcibly opposing our -decrees; in the third place, choose yourself and others as -imaginary participants in the government, knowing full well -that the government will take place entirely independently -of those stupid speeches which you will utter to your like, -and that it will take place according to our will, in whose -hands is the army; in the fourth place, appear at a set time -in court and take part in all those senseless cruelties -which we commit against the erring men, whom we ourselves -have corrupted, in the shape of imprisonments, exiles, -solitary confinements, and capital punishments. And finally, -in the fifth place, besides all this, though you may be in -the most friendly relations with people belonging to other -nations, be prepared at once, when we command you, to -consider such of these men as we shall point out to you your -enemies, and to cooperate personally or by hiring others in -the ruin, pillage, and murder of their men, women, children, -old people, and, perhaps, your own countrymen, even your -parents, if we want it." - -What could any man of our time who is not stupefied answer -to such demands? - -"Why should I do all this?" every spiritually healthy man, -we should think, ought to say. "Why should I promise to do -all that which I am commanded to do, to-day by Salisbury, -to-morrow by Gladstone, to-day by Boulanger, to-morrow by a -Chamber of just such Boulangers, to-day by Peter III, -to-morrow by Catherine, day after to-morrow by Pugachev, -to-day by the crazy King of Bavaria, to-morrow by William? -Why should I promise to obey them, since I know them to be -bad or trifling men, or do not know them at all? Why should -I in the shape of taxes give them the fruits of my labours, -knowing that the money will be used for bribing the -officials, for prisons, churches, armies, for bad things and -my own enslavement? Why should I flog myself? Why should I -go, losing my time and pulling the wool over my eyes, and -ascribing to the violators a semblance of legality, and take -part in the government, when I know full well that the -government of the state is in the hands of those in whose -hands is the army? Why should I go into courts and take part -in the torture and punishments of men for having erred, -since I know, if I am a Christian, that the law of revenge -has given way to the law of love, and, if I am a cultured -man, that punishments do not make men who are subjected to -them better, but worse? And why should I, above all, simply -because the keys of the temple at Jerusalem will be in the -hands of this bishop and not of that, because in Bulgaria -this and not that German will be prince, and because English -and not American merchants will catch seals, recognize as -enemies the men of a neighbouring nation, with whom I have -heretofore lived at peace and wish to live in love and -concord, and why should I hire soldiers or myself go and -kill and destroy them, and myself be subjected to their -attack? And why, above all else, should I cooperate -personally or by the hiring of a military force in the -enslavement and murder of my own brothers and fathers? Why -should I flog myself? All this I do not need, and all this -is harmful for me, and all this on all sides of me is -immoral, abominable. So why should I do it all? If you tell -me that without it I shall fare ill at somebody's hands, I, -in the first place, do not foresee anything so bad as that -which you cause me if I listen to you; in the second place, -it is quite clear to me that, if you do not flog yourself, -nobody is going to flog us. The government is the kings, the -ministers, the officials with their pens, who cannot compel -me to do anything like what the rural judge compelled the -peasants to do: those who will take me forcibly to court, to -prison, to the execution are not the kings and the officials -with their pens, but those very people who are in the same -condition in which I am. It is just as useless and harmful -and disagreeable for them to be flogged as it is for me, and -so in all probability, if I open their eyes, they not only -must do me no violence, but must even do as I do. - -"In the third place, even if it should happen that I must -suffer for it, it still is more advantageous for me to be -exiled or shut up ina prison, while defending common sense -and the good, which shall triumph, if not to-day, certainly -to-morrow, or in a very short time, than to suffer for a -foolish thing and an evil, which sooner or later must come -to an end. And so it is even in this case more advantageous -for me to risk being deported, locked up in a prison, or -even executed, than through my own fault to pass my whole -life as a slave to other bad men, than to be ruined by an -enemy making an incursion and stupidly to be maimed or -killed by him, while defending a cannon, or a useless piece -of land, or a stupid rag which they call a flag. - -"I do not want to flog myself, and I won't. There is no -reason why I should. Do it yourselves, if you are so minded, -but I won't." - -It would seem that not only the religious or moral feeling, -but the simplest reflection and calculation would make a man -of our time answer and act in this manner. But no: the men -of the social life-conception find that it is not right to -act in this manner, and that it is even harmful to act thus -if we wish to obtain the end of the liberation of men from -slavery, and that it is necessary for us, as in the case of -the rural judge and the peasants, to continue to flog one -another, consoling ourselves with the thought that the fact -that we prattle in Chambers and assemblies, form -labour-unions, parade the streets on the first of May, form -plots, and secretly tease the government which flogs -us,---that all this will have the effect of freeing us very -soon, though we are enslaving ourselves more and more. - -Nothing so much impedes the liberation of men as this -remarkable delusion. Instead of directing all his forces to -the liberation of himself, to the change of his -world-conception, every man seeks for an external aggregate -means for freeing himself, and thus fetters himself more and -more. +Not one of the errors of men removes them so much from the end which +they have set for themselves as this one. In order to attain the end +which they have set before themselves, men do all kinds of things, only +not the one, simple thing which all have to do. They invent the most +cunning of ways for changing the situation which oppresses them, except +the one, simple one that none of them should do that which produces this +situation. + +I was told of an incident which happened with a brave rural judge who, +upon arriving at a village where the peasants had been riotous and +whither the army had been called out, undertook to settle the riot in +the spirit of Nicholas I, all by himself, through his personal +influence. He sent for several wagon-loads of switches, and, collecting +all the peasants in the corn-kiln, locked himself up with them, and so +intimidated the peasants with his shouts, that they, obeying him, began +at his command to flog one another. They continued flogging one another +until there was found a little fool who did not submit and shouted to +his companions to stop flogging one another. It was only then that the +flogging stopped, and the rural judge ran away from the kiln. It is this +advice of the fool that the men of the social order do not know how to +follow, for they flog one another without cessation, and men teach this +mutual flogging as the last word of human wisdom. + +Indeed, can we imagine a more striking example of how men flog +themselves than the humbleness with which the men of our time carry out +the very obligations which are imposed upon them and which lead them +into servitude, especially the military service? Men obviously enslave +themselves, suffer from this slavery, and believe that it must be so, +that it is all right and does not interfere with the liberation of men, +which is being prepared somewhere and somehow, in spite of the ever +increasing and increasing slavery. + +Indeed, let us take a man of our time, whoever he be (I am not speaking +of a true Christian, but of a man of the rank and file of our time), +cultured or uncultured, a believer or unbeliever, rich or poor, a man of +a family or a single man. Such a man of our time lives, doing his work +or enjoying himself, employing the fruits of his own labour or those of +others for his own sake or for the sake of those who are near to him, +like any other man, despising all kinds of oppressions and privations, +hostility, and sufferings. The man lives peacefully; suddenly people +come to him, who say: "In the first place, promise and swear to us that +you will slavishly obey us in everything which we shall prescribe to +you, and that everything we shall invent, determine, and call a law you +will consider an indubitable truth and will submit to; in the second +place, give part of your earnings into our keeping: we shall use this +money for keeping you in slavery and preventing you from forcibly +opposing our decrees; in the third place, choose yourself and others as +imaginary participants in the government, knowing full well that the +government will take place entirely independently of those stupid +speeches which you will utter to your like, and that it will take place +according to our will, in whose hands is the army; in the fourth place, +appear at a set time in court and take part in all those senseless +cruelties which we commit against the erring men, whom we ourselves have +corrupted, in the shape of imprisonments, exiles, solitary confinements, +and capital punishments. And finally, in the fifth place, besides all +this, though you may be in the most friendly relations with people +belonging to other nations, be prepared at once, when we command you, to +consider such of these men as we shall point out to you your enemies, +and to cooperate personally or by hiring others in the ruin, pillage, +and murder of their men, women, children, old people, and, perhaps, your +own countrymen, even your parents, if we want it." + +What could any man of our time who is not stupefied answer to such +demands? + +"Why should I do all this?" every spiritually healthy man, we should +think, ought to say. "Why should I promise to do all that which I am +commanded to do, to-day by Salisbury, to-morrow by Gladstone, to-day by +Boulanger, to-morrow by a Chamber of just such Boulangers, to-day by +Peter III, to-morrow by Catherine, day after to-morrow by Pugachev, +to-day by the crazy King of Bavaria, to-morrow by William? Why should I +promise to obey them, since I know them to be bad or trifling men, or do +not know them at all? Why should I in the shape of taxes give them the +fruits of my labours, knowing that the money will be used for bribing +the officials, for prisons, churches, armies, for bad things and my own +enslavement? Why should I flog myself? Why should I go, losing my time +and pulling the wool over my eyes, and ascribing to the violators a +semblance of legality, and take part in the government, when I know full +well that the government of the state is in the hands of those in whose +hands is the army? Why should I go into courts and take part in the +torture and punishments of men for having erred, since I know, if I am a +Christian, that the law of revenge has given way to the law of love, +and, if I am a cultured man, that punishments do not make men who are +subjected to them better, but worse? And why should I, above all, simply +because the keys of the temple at Jerusalem will be in the hands of this +bishop and not of that, because in Bulgaria this and not that German +will be prince, and because English and not American merchants will +catch seals, recognize as enemies the men of a neighbouring nation, with +whom I have heretofore lived at peace and wish to live in love and +concord, and why should I hire soldiers or myself go and kill and +destroy them, and myself be subjected to their attack? And why, above +all else, should I cooperate personally or by the hiring of a military +force in the enslavement and murder of my own brothers and fathers? Why +should I flog myself? All this I do not need, and all this is harmful +for me, and all this on all sides of me is immoral, abominable. So why +should I do it all? If you tell me that without it I shall fare ill at +somebody's hands, I, in the first place, do not foresee anything so bad +as that which you cause me if I listen to you; in the second place, it +is quite clear to me that, if you do not flog yourself, nobody is going +to flog us. The government is the kings, the ministers, the officials +with their pens, who cannot compel me to do anything like what the rural +judge compelled the peasants to do: those who will take me forcibly to +court, to prison, to the execution are not the kings and the officials +with their pens, but those very people who are in the same condition in +which I am. It is just as useless and harmful and disagreeable for them +to be flogged as it is for me, and so in all probability, if I open +their eyes, they not only must do me no violence, but must even do as I +do. -It is as though men should affirm that, in order to fan a -fire, it is not necessary to make every coal catch fire, but -to place the coals in a certain order. - -In the meantime it has been getting more and more obvious of -late that the liberation of all men will take place only -through the liberation of the individual men. The liberation -of individual persons in the name of the Christian -life-conception from the enslavement of the state, which -used to be an exclusive and imperceptible phenomenon, has of -late received a significance which is menacing to the power -of state. - -If formerly, in the days of Home, in the Middle Ages, it -happened that a Christian, professing his teaching, refused -to take part in sacrifices, to worship the emperors and -gods, or in the Middle Ages refused to worship the images, -to recognize the papal power, these refusals were, in the -first place, accidental; a man might have been put to the -necessity of professing his faith, and he might have lived a -life without being placed in this necessity. But now all men -without exception are subject to these trials. Every man of -our time is put to the necessity of recognizing his -participation in the cruelties of the pagan life, or -rejecting it. And, in the second place, in those days the -refusals to worship the gods, the images, the Pope, did not -present any essential phenomena for the state: no matter how -many men worshipped the gods, the images, or the Pope, the -state remained as strong as ever. But now the refusal to -comply with the non-Christian demands of governments -undermines the power of state to the root, because all the -power of the state is based on these non-Christian demands. - -The worldly powers were led by the course of life to the -proposition that for their own preservation they had to -demand from all men such acts as could not be performed by -those who professed true Christianity. - -And so in our time every profession of true Christianity by -a separate individual most materially undermines the power -of the government and inevitably leads to the emancipation -of all men. - -What importance can there be in such phenomena as the -refusals of a few dozens of madmen, as they are called, who -do not wish to swear to the government, or pay taxes, or -take part in courts and military service? These men are -punished and removed, and life continues as of old. It would -seem that there is nothing important in these phenomena, and -yet it is these very phenomena that more than anything else -undermine the power of the state and prepare the -emancipation of men. They are those individual bees which -begin to separate from the swarm and fly about, awaiting -what cannot be delayed,---the rising of the whole swarm -after them. The governments know this, and are afraid of -these phenomena more than of all socialists, communists, -anarchists, and their plots with their dynamite bombs. - -A new reign begins: according to the general rule and -customary order all the subjects are ordered to swear -allegiance to the new government. A general order is sent -out, and everybody is called to the cathedral to swear. -Suddenly one man in Perm, another in Tula, a third in -Moscow, a fourth in Kaluga declare that they will not swear, -and they base their refusal, every one of them, without -having plotted together, on one and the same reason, which -is, that the oath is prohibited by the Christian law, and -that, even if it were not prohibited, they could not, -according to the spirit of the Christian law, promise to -commit the evil acts which are demanded of them in the oath, -such as denouncing all those who will violate the interests -of the government, defending their government with weapons -in their hands, or attacking its enemies. They are summoned -before the rural judges or chiefs, priests, or governors, -are admonished, implored, threatened, and punished, but they -stick to their determination and do not swear. Among -millions of those who swear, there are a few dozens who do -not. And they are asked: +"In the third place, even if it should happen that I must suffer for it, +it still is more advantageous for me to be exiled or shut up ina prison, +while defending common sense and the good, which shall triumph, if not +to-day, certainly to-morrow, or in a very short time, than to suffer for +a foolish thing and an evil, which sooner or later must come to an end. +And so it is even in this case more advantageous for me to risk being +deported, locked up in a prison, or even executed, than through my own +fault to pass my whole life as a slave to other bad men, than to be +ruined by an enemy making an incursion and stupidly to be maimed or +killed by him, while defending a cannon, or a useless piece of land, or +a stupid rag which they call a flag. + +"I do not want to flog myself, and I won't. There is no reason why I +should. Do it yourselves, if you are so minded, but I won't." + +It would seem that not only the religious or moral feeling, but the +simplest reflection and calculation would make a man of our time answer +and act in this manner. But no: the men of the social life-conception +find that it is not right to act in this manner, and that it is even +harmful to act thus if we wish to obtain the end of the liberation of +men from slavery, and that it is necessary for us, as in the case of the +rural judge and the peasants, to continue to flog one another, consoling +ourselves with the thought that the fact that we prattle in Chambers and +assemblies, form labour-unions, parade the streets on the first of May, +form plots, and secretly tease the government which flogs us,---that all +this will have the effect of freeing us very soon, though we are +enslaving ourselves more and more. + +Nothing so much impedes the liberation of men as this remarkable +delusion. Instead of directing all his forces to the liberation of +himself, to the change of his world-conception, every man seeks for an +external aggregate means for freeing himself, and thus fetters himself +more and more. + +It is as though men should affirm that, in order to fan a fire, it is +not necessary to make every coal catch fire, but to place the coals in a +certain order. + +In the meantime it has been getting more and more obvious of late that +the liberation of all men will take place only through the liberation of +the individual men. The liberation of individual persons in the name of +the Christian life-conception from the enslavement of the state, which +used to be an exclusive and imperceptible phenomenon, has of late +received a significance which is menacing to the power of state. + +If formerly, in the days of Home, in the Middle Ages, it happened that a +Christian, professing his teaching, refused to take part in sacrifices, +to worship the emperors and gods, or in the Middle Ages refused to +worship the images, to recognize the papal power, these refusals were, +in the first place, accidental; a man might have been put to the +necessity of professing his faith, and he might have lived a life +without being placed in this necessity. But now all men without +exception are subject to these trials. Every man of our time is put to +the necessity of recognizing his participation in the cruelties of the +pagan life, or rejecting it. And, in the second place, in those days the +refusals to worship the gods, the images, the Pope, did not present any +essential phenomena for the state: no matter how many men worshipped the +gods, the images, or the Pope, the state remained as strong as ever. But +now the refusal to comply with the non-Christian demands of governments +undermines the power of state to the root, because all the power of the +state is based on these non-Christian demands. + +The worldly powers were led by the course of life to the proposition +that for their own preservation they had to demand from all men such +acts as could not be performed by those who professed true Christianity. + +And so in our time every profession of true Christianity by a separate +individual most materially undermines the power of the government and +inevitably leads to the emancipation of all men. + +What importance can there be in such phenomena as the refusals of a few +dozens of madmen, as they are called, who do not wish to swear to the +government, or pay taxes, or take part in courts and military service? +These men are punished and removed, and life continues as of old. It +would seem that there is nothing important in these phenomena, and yet +it is these very phenomena that more than anything else undermine the +power of the state and prepare the emancipation of men. They are those +individual bees which begin to separate from the swarm and fly about, +awaiting what cannot be delayed,---the rising of the whole swarm after +them. The governments know this, and are afraid of these phenomena more +than of all socialists, communists, anarchists, and their plots with +their dynamite bombs. + +A new reign begins: according to the general rule and customary order +all the subjects are ordered to swear allegiance to the new government. +A general order is sent out, and everybody is called to the cathedral to +swear. Suddenly one man in Perm, another in Tula, a third in Moscow, a +fourth in Kaluga declare that they will not swear, and they base their +refusal, every one of them, without having plotted together, on one and +the same reason, which is, that the oath is prohibited by the Christian +law, and that, even if it were not prohibited, they could not, according +to the spirit of the Christian law, promise to commit the evil acts +which are demanded of them in the oath, such as denouncing all those who +will violate the interests of the government, defending their government +with weapons in their hands, or attacking its enemies. They are summoned +before the rural judges or chiefs, priests, or governors, are +admonished, implored, threatened, and punished, but they stick to their +determination and do not swear. Among millions of those who swear, there +are a few dozens who do not. And they are asked: "So you have not sworn?" @@ -8547,20 +7317,18 @@ not. And they are asked: "Nothing." -All the subjects of a state are obliged to pay taxes. And -all pay; but one man in Kharkov, another in Tver, a third in -Samara, refuse to pay their taxes, all of them repeating, as -though by agreement, one and the same thing. One says that -he will pay only when he is told what the money taken from -him will be used for: if for good things, he says, he will -himself give more than is asked of him; but if for bad -things, he will not give anything voluntarily, because, -according to Christ's teaching, which he follows, he cannot -contribute to evil deeds. The same, though with different -words, is said by the others, who do not voluntarily pay -their taxes. From those who possess anything, the property -is taken by force, but those who have nothing to give are -left alone. +All the subjects of a state are obliged to pay taxes. And all pay; but +one man in Kharkov, another in Tver, a third in Samara, refuse to pay +their taxes, all of them repeating, as though by agreement, one and the +same thing. One says that he will pay only when he is told what the +money taken from him will be used for: if for good things, he says, he +will himself give more than is asked of him; but if for bad things, he +will not give anything voluntarily, because, according to Christ's +teaching, which he follows, he cannot contribute to evil deeds. The +same, though with different words, is said by the others, who do not +voluntarily pay their taxes. From those who possess anything, the +property is taken by force, but those who have nothing to give are left +alone. "Well, you did not pay the taxes?" @@ -8570,5614 +7338,4796 @@ left alone. "Nothing." -Passports are established. All who remove themselves from -their place of abode are obliged to take them and pay a -revenue for them. Suddenly on all sides appear men who say -that it is not necessary to take passports and that it is -not right to recognize one's dependence on a government -which lives by violence, and they take no passports and pay -no revenue. Again it is impossible to make these people -carry out what is demanded of them. - -They are locked up in prisons and let out again, and they -continue to live without passports. - -All the peasants are obliged to serve as hundred-men, -ten-шеп, and so forth. Suddenly a peasant refuses in Kharkov -to perform this office, explaining his refusal by this, -that, according to the Christian law which he professes, he -cannot bind, lock up, and lead a man from one place to -another. The same is asserted by a peasant in Tver, in -Tambov. The peasants are cursed, beaten, locked up, but they -stick to their determination and do not do what is contrary -to their faith. And they are no longer chosen as -hundred-men, and that is the end of it. - -All the citizens must take part in court proceedings in the -capacity of jurymen. Suddenly the greatest variety of men, -wheelwrights, professors, merchants, peasants, gentlemen, as -though by agreement, all refuse to serve, not for causes -which are recognized by the law, but because the court -itself, according to their conviction, is an illegal, -non-Christian thing, which ought not to exist. These men are -fined, without being allowed publicly to express the motives -of their refusal, and others are put in their places. The -same is done to those who on the same grounds refuse to be -witnesses at court. And nothing more happens. - -All men of twenty-one years of age are obliged to draw lots. -Suddenly one young man in Moscow, another in Tver, a third -in Kharkov, a fourth in Kiev, appear, as though by previous -agreement, in court, and declare that they will neither -swear nor serve, because they are Christians. Here are the -details of one of the first cases (since then these refusals -have become more and more frequent), with which I am -acquainted.In all the other cases approximately the same was -done. A young man of medium culture refuses in the Moscow -Council to serve. No attention is paid to his words, and he -is ordered to pronounce the words of the oath, just like the -rest. He refuses, pointing out the definite place in the -Gospel where taking an oath is prohibited. No attention is -paid to his arguments, and they demand that he fulfil their -command, but he does not do so. Then it is assumed that he -is a sectarian and so understands Christianity incorrectly, -that is, not in the way the clergy in the government pay -understand it, and so the young man is sent under convoy to -the priests, to be admonished. The priests begin to admonish -the young man, but their admonitions in the name of Christ -to renounce Christ have apparently no effect upon the young -man, and he is sent back to the army, having been declared -incorrigible. The young man still refuses to take the oath -and openly declines to fulfil his military duties. This case -is not provided for in the laws. It is impossible to admit a -refusal to do the will of the authorities, and it is equally -impossible to rate this as a case of simple disobedience. In -a consultation the military authorities determine to get rid -of the troublesome young man by declaring him to be a -revolutionist, and send him under guard into the office of -the secret police. The police and the gendarmes examine the -young man, but nothing of what he says fits in with the -crimes dealt with in their departments, and there is -absolutely no way of accusing him of revolutionary acts, or -of plotting, since he declares that he does not wish to -destroy anything, but, on the contrary, rejects all -violence, and conceals nothing, but seeks an opportunity for -saying and doing in a most open manner what he says and -does. And the gendarmes, though no laws are binding on them, -like the clergy, find no cause for' an accusation and return -the young man to the army. Again the chiefs confer and -decide to enlist the young man in the army, though he -refuses to take the oath. He is dressed up, entered on the -lists, and sent under guard to the place where the troops -are distributed. Here the chief of the section into which he -enters again demands of the young man the fulfilment of -military duties, and he again refuses to obey, and in the -presence of other soldiers gives the cause for his refusal, -saying that, as a Christian, he cannot voluntarily prepare -himself to commit murder, which was prohibited even by the -laws of Moses. - -The case takes place in a provincial city. It evokes -interest and even sympathy, not only among outsiders, but -also among officers, and so the superiors do not dare to -apply the usual disciplinary measures for a refusal to -serve. However, for decency's sake the young man is locked -up in prison, and an inquiry is sent to the higher military -authority, requesting it to say what is to be done. From the -official point of view a refusal to take part in military -service, in which the Tsar himself serves and which is -blessed by the church, presents itself as madness, and so -they write from St. Petersburg that, since the young man is, -no doubt, out of his mind, no severe measures are to be used -against him, but he is to be sent to an insane asylum, where -his mental health is to be investigated and he is to be -cured. He is sent there in the hope that he will stay there, -just as happened ten years before with another young man, -who in Tver refused to do military service and who was -tortured in an insane asylum until he gave in. But even this -measure does not save the military authorities from the -inconvenient young man. The doctors examine him, are very -much interested in him, and, finding in him no symptoms -whatever of any mental trouble, naturally return him to the -army. He is received, and, pretending that his refusal and -motives are forgotten, they again propose to him that he go -to the exercises; but he again, in the presence of other -soldiers, refuses, and gives the cause for his refusal. This -case more and more attracts the attention of the soldiers -and the inhabitants of the town. Again they write to St. -Petersburg, and from there comes the decision that the young -man be transferred to the army at the frontier, where it is -in a state of siege, and where he may be shot for refusing -to serve, and where the matter may pass unnoticed, since in -that distant country there are few Russians and Christians, -and mostly natives and Mohammedans. And so they do. The -young man is attached to the troops located in the -Transcaspian Territory, and with criminals he is despatched -to a chief who is known for his determination and severity. - -During all this time, with all these transportations from -one place to another, the young man is treated rudely: he is -kept cold, hungry, and dirty, and his life in general is -made a burden for him. But all these tortures do not make -him change his determination. In the Transcaspian Territory, -when told to stand sentry with his gun, he again refuses to -obey. He does not refuse to go and stand near some -haystacks, whither he is sent, but he refuses to take his -gun, declaring that under no condition would he use violence -against any one. All this takes place in the presence of -other soldiers. It is impossible to let such a case go -unpunished, and the young man is tried for violation of -discipline. The trial takes place, and the young man is -sentenced to incarceration in a military prison for two -years. He is again sent by étapes with other criminals to -the Caucasus and is shut up in a prison, where he falls a -prey to the uncontrolled power of the jailer. There he is -tormented for one year and six months, but he still refuses -to change his decision about taking up arms, and he explains -to all those with whom he comes in contact why he does not -do so, and at the end of his second year he is discharged -before the expiration of his term, by counting, contrary to -the law, his time in prison аз part of his service, only to -get rid of him as quickly as possible. - -Just like this man, as though having plotted together, act -other men in various parts of Russia, and in all those cases -the mode of the government's action is as timid, indefinite, -and secretive. Some of these men are sent to insane asylums, -others are enlisted as scribes and are transferred to -service in Siberia, others are made to serve in the forestry -department, others are locked up in prisons, and others are -fined. Even now a few such men who have refused are sitting -in prisons, not for the essential point in the case, the -rejection of the legality of the government's action, but -for the non-fulfilment of the private demands of the -government. Thus an officer of the reserve, who did not keep -the authorities informed of his residence and who declared -that he would not again serve as a military man, was lately, -for not fulfilling the commands of the authorities, fined -thirty roubles, which, too, he refused to pay voluntarily. -Thus several peasants and soldiers, who lately refused to -take part in military exercises and take up arms, were +Passports are established. All who remove themselves from their place of +abode are obliged to take them and pay a revenue for them. Suddenly on +all sides appear men who say that it is not necessary to take passports +and that it is not right to recognize one's dependence on a government +which lives by violence, and they take no passports and pay no revenue. +Again it is impossible to make these people carry out what is demanded +of them. + +They are locked up in prisons and let out again, and they continue to +live without passports. + +All the peasants are obliged to serve as hundred-men, ten-шеп, and so +forth. Suddenly a peasant refuses in Kharkov to perform this office, +explaining his refusal by this, that, according to the Christian law +which he professes, he cannot bind, lock up, and lead a man from one +place to another. The same is asserted by a peasant in Tver, in Tambov. +The peasants are cursed, beaten, locked up, but they stick to their +determination and do not do what is contrary to their faith. And they +are no longer chosen as hundred-men, and that is the end of it. + +All the citizens must take part in court proceedings in the capacity of +jurymen. Suddenly the greatest variety of men, wheelwrights, professors, +merchants, peasants, gentlemen, as though by agreement, all refuse to +serve, not for causes which are recognized by the law, but because the +court itself, according to their conviction, is an illegal, +non-Christian thing, which ought not to exist. These men are fined, +without being allowed publicly to express the motives of their refusal, +and others are put in their places. The same is done to those who on the +same grounds refuse to be witnesses at court. And nothing more happens. + +All men of twenty-one years of age are obliged to draw lots. Suddenly +one young man in Moscow, another in Tver, a third in Kharkov, a fourth +in Kiev, appear, as though by previous agreement, in court, and declare +that they will neither swear nor serve, because they are Christians. +Here are the details of one of the first cases (since then these +refusals have become more and more frequent), with which I am +acquainted.In all the other cases approximately the same was done. A +young man of medium culture refuses in the Moscow Council to serve. No +attention is paid to his words, and he is ordered to pronounce the words +of the oath, just like the rest. He refuses, pointing out the definite +place in the Gospel where taking an oath is prohibited. No attention is +paid to his arguments, and they demand that he fulfil their command, but +he does not do so. Then it is assumed that he is a sectarian and so +understands Christianity incorrectly, that is, not in the way the clergy +in the government pay understand it, and so the young man is sent under +convoy to the priests, to be admonished. The priests begin to admonish +the young man, but their admonitions in the name of Christ to renounce +Christ have apparently no effect upon the young man, and he is sent back +to the army, having been declared incorrigible. The young man still +refuses to take the oath and openly declines to fulfil his military +duties. This case is not provided for in the laws. It is impossible to +admit a refusal to do the will of the authorities, and it is equally +impossible to rate this as a case of simple disobedience. In a +consultation the military authorities determine to get rid of the +troublesome young man by declaring him to be a revolutionist, and send +him under guard into the office of the secret police. The police and the +gendarmes examine the young man, but nothing of what he says fits in +with the crimes dealt with in their departments, and there is absolutely +no way of accusing him of revolutionary acts, or of plotting, since he +declares that he does not wish to destroy anything, but, on the +contrary, rejects all violence, and conceals nothing, but seeks an +opportunity for saying and doing in a most open manner what he says and +does. And the gendarmes, though no laws are binding on them, like the +clergy, find no cause for' an accusation and return the young man to the +army. Again the chiefs confer and decide to enlist the young man in the +army, though he refuses to take the oath. He is dressed up, entered on +the lists, and sent under guard to the place where the troops are +distributed. Here the chief of the section into which he enters again +demands of the young man the fulfilment of military duties, and he again +refuses to obey, and in the presence of other soldiers gives the cause +for his refusal, saying that, as a Christian, he cannot voluntarily +prepare himself to commit murder, which was prohibited even by the laws +of Moses. + +The case takes place in a provincial city. It evokes interest and even +sympathy, not only among outsiders, but also among officers, and so the +superiors do not dare to apply the usual disciplinary measures for a +refusal to serve. However, for decency's sake the young man is locked up +in prison, and an inquiry is sent to the higher military authority, +requesting it to say what is to be done. From the official point of view +a refusal to take part in military service, in which the Tsar himself +serves and which is blessed by the church, presents itself as madness, +and so they write from St. Petersburg that, since the young man is, no +doubt, out of his mind, no severe measures are to be used against him, +but he is to be sent to an insane asylum, where his mental health is to +be investigated and he is to be cured. He is sent there in the hope that +he will stay there, just as happened ten years before with another young +man, who in Tver refused to do military service and who was tortured in +an insane asylum until he gave in. But even this measure does not save +the military authorities from the inconvenient young man. The doctors +examine him, are very much interested in him, and, finding in him no +symptoms whatever of any mental trouble, naturally return him to the +army. He is received, and, pretending that his refusal and motives are +forgotten, they again propose to him that he go to the exercises; but he +again, in the presence of other soldiers, refuses, and gives the cause +for his refusal. This case more and more attracts the attention of the +soldiers and the inhabitants of the town. Again they write to St. +Petersburg, and from there comes the decision that the young man be +transferred to the army at the frontier, where it is in a state of +siege, and where he may be shot for refusing to serve, and where the +matter may pass unnoticed, since in that distant country there are few +Russians and Christians, and mostly natives and Mohammedans. And so they +do. The young man is attached to the troops located in the Transcaspian +Territory, and with criminals he is despatched to a chief who is known +for his determination and severity. + +During all this time, with all these transportations from one place to +another, the young man is treated rudely: he is kept cold, hungry, and +dirty, and his life in general is made a burden for him. But all these +tortures do not make him change his determination. In the Transcaspian +Territory, when told to stand sentry with his gun, he again refuses to +obey. He does not refuse to go and stand near some haystacks, whither he +is sent, but he refuses to take his gun, declaring that under no +condition would he use violence against any one. All this takes place in +the presence of other soldiers. It is impossible to let such a case go +unpunished, and the young man is tried for violation of discipline. The +trial takes place, and the young man is sentenced to incarceration in a +military prison for two years. He is again sent by étapes with other +criminals to the Caucasus and is shut up in a prison, where he falls a +prey to the uncontrolled power of the jailer. There he is tormented for +one year and six months, but he still refuses to change his decision +about taking up arms, and he explains to all those with whom he comes in +contact why he does not do so, and at the end of his second year he is +discharged before the expiration of his term, by counting, contrary to +the law, his time in prison аз part of his service, only to get rid of +him as quickly as possible. + +Just like this man, as though having plotted together, act other men in +various parts of Russia, and in all those cases the mode of the +government's action is as timid, indefinite, and secretive. Some of +these men are sent to insane asylums, others are enlisted as scribes and +are transferred to service in Siberia, others are made to serve in the +forestry department, others are locked up in prisons, and others are +fined. Even now a few such men who have refused are sitting in prisons, +not for the essential point in the case, the rejection of the legality +of the government's action, but for the non-fulfilment of the private +demands of the government. Thus an officer of the reserve, who did not +keep the authorities informed of his residence and who declared that he +would not again serve as a military man, was lately, for not fulfilling +the commands of the authorities, fined thirty roubles, which, too, he +refused to pay voluntarily. Thus several peasants and soldiers, who +lately refused to take part in military exercises and take up arms, were locked up for disobedience and contempt. -And such cases of refusing to comply with the government -demands which are contrary to Christianity, especially -refusals to do military service, have of late occurred not -in Russia alone, but even elsewhere. Thus, I know that in -Servia men of the so-called sect of Nazarenes constantly -refuse to do military service, and the Austrian government -has for several years been vainly struggling with them, -subjecting them to imprisonment. In the year 1885 there were -130 such refusals. In Switzerland, I know men were -incarcerated in the Chillon Fortress in the year 1890 for -refusing to do military service, and they did not change -their determination in consequence of their imprisonment. -Such refusals have also happened in Prussia. I know of an -under-officer of the Guard, who in 1891 declared to the -authorities in Berlin that as a Christian he would not -continue to serve, and, in spite of all admonitions, -threats, and punishments, he stuck to his decision. In -France there has of late arisen in the south a community of -men, who bear the name of Hinschists (this information is -received from the *Peace Herald*, July, 1891), the members -of which on the basis of the Christian profession refuse to -do military service, and at first were inscribed in -hospitals, but now, having increased in numbers, are -subjected to punishments for disobedience, but still refuse -to take up arms. - -The socialists, communists, anarchists, with their bombs, -riots, and revolutions, are by no means so terrible to the -governments as these scattered people, who from various -sides refuse to do military service,---all of them on the -basis of the same well-known teaching. Every government -knows how and why to defend itself against revolutionists, -and they have means for it, and so are not afraid of these -external enemies. But what are the governments to do against -those men who point out the uselessness, superfluity, and -harmfulness of all governments, and do not struggle with -them, but only have no use for them, get along without them, -and do not wish to take part in them? - -The revolutionists say, "The governmental structure is bad -for this and that reason,---it is necessary to put this or -that in its place." But a Christian says, "I know nothing of -the governmental structure, about its being good or bad, and -do not wish to destroy it for the very reason that I do not -know whether it is good or bad, but for the same reason I do -not wish to sustain it. I not only do not wish to, but even -cannot do so, because what is demanded of me is contrary to -my conscience." - -What is contrary to a Christian's conscience is all -obligations of state,---the oath, the taxes, the courts, the -army. But on all these obligations the state is founded. - -The revolutionary enemies struggle with the state from -without; but Christianity does not struggle at all,---it -inwardly destroys all the foundations of government. - -Among the Russian people, where, especially since the time -of Peter I, the protest of Christianity against the -government has never ceased, where the structure of life is -such that men have gone away by whole communities to Turkey, -to China, to uninhabitable lands, and not only are in no -need of the government, but always look upon it as an -unnecessary burden, and only bear it as a calamity, be it -Turkish, Russian, or Chinese,---among the Russian people -there have of late been occurring more and more frequently -cases of the Christian conscious emancipation of separate -individuals from submission to the government. And now -especially these manifestations are very terrible to the -government, because those who refuse frequently do not -belong to the so-called lower uncultured classes, but to the -people with a medium or higher education, and because these -men no longer base their refusals on some mystical exclusive -beliefs, as was the case formerly, nor connect them with -some superstition or savage practices, as is the case with, -the Self-Consumers and Runners, but put forth the simplest -and clearest truths, which are accessible to all men and -recognized by them all. - -Thus they refuse to pay their taxes voluntarily, because the -taxes are used for acts of violence, for salaries to -violators and military men, for the construction of prisons, -fortresses, cannon, while they, as Christians, consider it -sinful and immoral to take part in these things. Those who -refuse to take the common oath do so because to promise to -obey the authorities, that is, men who are given to acts of -violence, is contrary to the Christian teaching; they refuse -to take their oath in courts, because the oath is directly -forbidden in the Gospel. They decline to serve in the -police, because in connection with these duties they have to -use force against their own brothers and torment them, -whereas a Christian may not do so. They decline to take part -in court proceedings, because they consider every court -proceeding a fulfilment of the law of revenge, which is -incompatible with the Christian law of forgiveness and love. -They decline to take part in all military preparations and -in the army, because they do not wish to be and cannot be -executioners, and do not want to prepare themselves for the -office of executioner. - -All the motives of these refusals are such that, no matter -how despotic a government may be, it cannot punish them -openly. To punish them for such refusals, a government must -itself irretrievably renounce reason and the good; whereas -it assures men that it serves only in the name of reason and -of the good. +And such cases of refusing to comply with the government demands which +are contrary to Christianity, especially refusals to do military +service, have of late occurred not in Russia alone, but even elsewhere. +Thus, I know that in Servia men of the so-called sect of Nazarenes +constantly refuse to do military service, and the Austrian government +has for several years been vainly struggling with them, subjecting them +to imprisonment. In the year 1885 there were 130 such refusals. In +Switzerland, I know men were incarcerated in the Chillon Fortress in the +year 1890 for refusing to do military service, and they did not change +their determination in consequence of their imprisonment. Such refusals +have also happened in Prussia. I know of an under-officer of the Guard, +who in 1891 declared to the authorities in Berlin that as a Christian he +would not continue to serve, and, in spite of all admonitions, threats, +and punishments, he stuck to his decision. In France there has of late +arisen in the south a community of men, who bear the name of Hinschists +(this information is received from the *Peace Herald*, July, 1891), the +members of which on the basis of the Christian profession refuse to do +military service, and at first were inscribed in hospitals, but now, +having increased in numbers, are subjected to punishments for +disobedience, but still refuse to take up arms. + +The socialists, communists, anarchists, with their bombs, riots, and +revolutions, are by no means so terrible to the governments as these +scattered people, who from various sides refuse to do military +service,---all of them on the basis of the same well-known teaching. +Every government knows how and why to defend itself against +revolutionists, and they have means for it, and so are not afraid of +these external enemies. But what are the governments to do against those +men who point out the uselessness, superfluity, and harmfulness of all +governments, and do not struggle with them, but only have no use for +them, get along without them, and do not wish to take part in them? + +The revolutionists say, "The governmental structure is bad for this and +that reason,---it is necessary to put this or that in its place." But a +Christian says, "I know nothing of the governmental structure, about its +being good or bad, and do not wish to destroy it for the very reason +that I do not know whether it is good or bad, but for the same reason I +do not wish to sustain it. I not only do not wish to, but even cannot do +so, because what is demanded of me is contrary to my conscience." + +What is contrary to a Christian's conscience is all obligations of +state,---the oath, the taxes, the courts, the army. But on all these +obligations the state is founded. + +The revolutionary enemies struggle with the state from without; but +Christianity does not struggle at all,---it inwardly destroys all the +foundations of government. + +Among the Russian people, where, especially since the time of Peter I, +the protest of Christianity against the government has never ceased, +where the structure of life is such that men have gone away by whole +communities to Turkey, to China, to uninhabitable lands, and not only +are in no need of the government, but always look upon it as an +unnecessary burden, and only bear it as a calamity, be it Turkish, +Russian, or Chinese,---among the Russian people there have of late been +occurring more and more frequently cases of the Christian conscious +emancipation of separate individuals from submission to the government. +And now especially these manifestations are very terrible to the +government, because those who refuse frequently do not belong to the +so-called lower uncultured classes, but to the people with a medium or +higher education, and because these men no longer base their refusals on +some mystical exclusive beliefs, as was the case formerly, nor connect +them with some superstition or savage practices, as is the case with, +the Self-Consumers and Runners, but put forth the simplest and clearest +truths, which are accessible to all men and recognized by them all. + +Thus they refuse to pay their taxes voluntarily, because the taxes are +used for acts of violence, for salaries to violators and military men, +for the construction of prisons, fortresses, cannon, while they, as +Christians, consider it sinful and immoral to take part in these things. +Those who refuse to take the common oath do so because to promise to +obey the authorities, that is, men who are given to acts of violence, is +contrary to the Christian teaching; they refuse to take their oath in +courts, because the oath is directly forbidden in the Gospel. They +decline to serve in the police, because in connection with these duties +they have to use force against their own brothers and torment them, +whereas a Christian may not do so. They decline to take part in court +proceedings, because they consider every court proceeding a fulfilment +of the law of revenge, which is incompatible with the Christian law of +forgiveness and love. They decline to take part in all military +preparations and in the army, because they do not wish to be and cannot +be executioners, and do not want to prepare themselves for the office of +executioner. + +All the motives of these refusals are such that, no matter how despotic +a government may be, it cannot punish them openly. To punish them for +such refusals, a government must itself irretrievably renounce reason +and the good; whereas it assures men that it serves only in the name of +reason and of the good. What are the governments to do against these men? -Indeed, the governments can Mil off, for ever shut up in -prisons and at hard labour their enemies, who wish by the -exercise of violence to overthrow them; they can bury in -gold half of the men, such as they may need, and bribe them; -they can subject to themselves millions of armed men, who -will be ready to destroy all the enemies of the governments. -But what can they do with men who, not wishing to destroy -anything, nor to establish anything, wish only for their own -sakes, for the sake of their lives, to do nothing which is -contrary to the Christian law, and so refuse to fulfil the -most common obligations, which are most indispensable to the -governments? - -If they were revolutionists, who preach violence and murder, -and who practise all these things, it would be easy to -oppose them: part of them would be bribed, part deceived, -part frightened into subjection; and those who could not be -bribed, or deceived, or frightened, would be declared -malefactors and enemies of society, would be executed or -locked up, and the crowd would applaud the action of the -government. If they were some horrible sectarians who -preached a peculiar faith, it would be possible, thanks to -those superstitious of falsehood, which by them are mixed in -with their doctrine, to overthrow whatever truth there is iu -their faith. But what is to be done with men who preach -neither revolution, nor any special religious dogmas, but -only, because they do not wish to harm any one, refuse to -take the oath of allegiance, to pay taxes, to take part in -court proceedings, in military service, and in duties on -which the whole structure of the government is based? What -is to be done with such men? It is impossible to bribe them: -the very risk which they take shows their unselfishness. Nor -can they be deceived by claiming that God wants it so, -because their refusal is based on the explicit, undoubted -law of God, which is professed by the very men who wish to -make them act contrary to it. Still less is it possible to -intimidate them with threats, because the privations and -sufferings to which they are subjected for their faith only -strengthen their desire, and because it says distinctly in -their law that God must be obeyed more than men, and that -they should not fear those who may ruin their bodies, but -that which may ruin both their bodies and their souls. Nor -can they be executed or locked up for ever. These men have a -past, and friends, and their manner of thinking and acting -is known; all know them as meek, good, peaceful men, and it -is impossible to declare them to be malefactors who ought to -be removed for the safety of society. The execution of men -who by all men are recognized to be good will only call -forth defenders of the refusal and commentators on it; and -the causes of the refusal need but be made clear, in order -that it may become clear to all men that the causes which -make these Christians refuse to comply with the demands of -the state are the same for all other men, and that all men -ought to have done so long ago. - -In the presence of the refusals of the Christians the -governments are in a desperate plight. They see that the -prophecy of Christianity is being fulfilled,---it tears -asunder the fetters of the fettered and sets free the men -who lived in slavery, and they see that this liberation will -inevitably destroy those who keep others in slavery. The -governments see this; they know that their hours are -numbered, and are unable to do anything. All they can do for -their salvation is to defer the hour of their ruin. This -they do, but their situation is none the less desperate. - -The situation of the governments is like the situation of a -conqueror who wants to save the city that is fired by its -own inhabitants. He no sooner puts out the fire in one place -than it begins to burn in two other places; he no sooner -gives way to the fire and breaks off what is burning in a -large building, than even this building begins to burn from -two sides. These individual fires are still rare, but having -started with a spark, they will not stop until everything is -consumed. - -And just as the governments find themselves in such -unprotected straits in the presence of men who profess -Christianity, and when but very little is wanting for this -force, which seems so powerful and which was reared through -so many centuries, to fall to pieces, the public leaders -preach that it is not only unnecessary, but even harmful and -immoral, for every individual to try and free himself from -slavery. It is as though some people, to free a dammed up -river, should have all but cut through a ditch, when nothing -but an opening is necessary for the water to flow into this -ditch and do the rest, and there should appear some people -who would persuade them that, rather than let off the water, -they should construct above the river a machine with -buckets, which, drawing the water up on one side, would drop -it into the same river from the other side. +Indeed, the governments can Mil off, for ever shut up in prisons and at +hard labour their enemies, who wish by the exercise of violence to +overthrow them; they can bury in gold half of the men, such as they may +need, and bribe them; they can subject to themselves millions of armed +men, who will be ready to destroy all the enemies of the governments. +But what can they do with men who, not wishing to destroy anything, nor +to establish anything, wish only for their own sakes, for the sake of +their lives, to do nothing which is contrary to the Christian law, and +so refuse to fulfil the most common obligations, which are most +indispensable to the governments? + +If they were revolutionists, who preach violence and murder, and who +practise all these things, it would be easy to oppose them: part of them +would be bribed, part deceived, part frightened into subjection; and +those who could not be bribed, or deceived, or frightened, would be +declared malefactors and enemies of society, would be executed or locked +up, and the crowd would applaud the action of the government. If they +were some horrible sectarians who preached a peculiar faith, it would be +possible, thanks to those superstitious of falsehood, which by them are +mixed in with their doctrine, to overthrow whatever truth there is iu +their faith. But what is to be done with men who preach neither +revolution, nor any special religious dogmas, but only, because they do +not wish to harm any one, refuse to take the oath of allegiance, to pay +taxes, to take part in court proceedings, in military service, and in +duties on which the whole structure of the government is based? What is +to be done with such men? It is impossible to bribe them: the very risk +which they take shows their unselfishness. Nor can they be deceived by +claiming that God wants it so, because their refusal is based on the +explicit, undoubted law of God, which is professed by the very men who +wish to make them act contrary to it. Still less is it possible to +intimidate them with threats, because the privations and sufferings to +which they are subjected for their faith only strengthen their desire, +and because it says distinctly in their law that God must be obeyed more +than men, and that they should not fear those who may ruin their bodies, +but that which may ruin both their bodies and their souls. Nor can they +be executed or locked up for ever. These men have a past, and friends, +and their manner of thinking and acting is known; all know them as meek, +good, peaceful men, and it is impossible to declare them to be +malefactors who ought to be removed for the safety of society. The +execution of men who by all men are recognized to be good will only call +forth defenders of the refusal and commentators on it; and the causes of +the refusal need but be made clear, in order that it may become clear to +all men that the causes which make these Christians refuse to comply +with the demands of the state are the same for all other men, and that +all men ought to have done so long ago. + +In the presence of the refusals of the Christians the governments are in +a desperate plight. They see that the prophecy of Christianity is being +fulfilled,---it tears asunder the fetters of the fettered and sets free +the men who lived in slavery, and they see that this liberation will +inevitably destroy those who keep others in slavery. The governments see +this; they know that their hours are numbered, and are unable to do +anything. All they can do for their salvation is to defer the hour of +their ruin. This they do, but their situation is none the less +desperate. + +The situation of the governments is like the situation of a conqueror +who wants to save the city that is fired by its own inhabitants. He no +sooner puts out the fire in one place than it begins to burn in two +other places; he no sooner gives way to the fire and breaks off what is +burning in a large building, than even this building begins to burn from +two sides. These individual fires are still rare, but having started +with a spark, they will not stop until everything is consumed. + +And just as the governments find themselves in such unprotected straits +in the presence of men who profess Christianity, and when but very +little is wanting for this force, which seems so powerful and which was +reared through so many centuries, to fall to pieces, the public leaders +preach that it is not only unnecessary, but even harmful and immoral, +for every individual to try and free himself from slavery. It is as +though some people, to free a dammed up river, should have all but cut +through a ditch, when nothing but an opening is necessary for the water +to flow into this ditch and do the rest, and there should appear some +people who would persuade them that, rather than let off the water, they +should construct above the river a machine with buckets, which, drawing +the water up on one side, would drop it into the same river from the +other side. But the matter has gone too far: the governments feel their indefensibleness and weakness, and the men of the Christian -consciousness are awakening from their lethargy and are -beginning to feel their strength. +consciousness are awakening from their lethargy and are beginning to +feel their strength. -"I brought the fire upon earth," said Christ, "and how I -long for it to burn up!" +"I brought the fire upon earth," said Christ, "and how I long for it to +burn up!" And this fire is beginning to burn up. # X -Christianity in its true meaning destroys the state. Thus it -was understood from the very beginning, and Christ was -crucified for this very reason, and thus it has always been -understood by men who are not fettered by the necessity of -proving the justification of the Christian state. Only when -the heads of the states accepted the external nominal -Christianity did they begin to invent all those impossible -finely spun theories, according to which Christianity was -compatible with the state. But for every sincere and serious -man of our time it is quite obvious that true -Christianity---the teaching of humility, of forgiveness of +Christianity in its true meaning destroys the state. Thus it was +understood from the very beginning, and Christ was crucified for this +very reason, and thus it has always been understood by men who are not +fettered by the necessity of proving the justification of the Christian +state. Only when the heads of the states accepted the external nominal +Christianity did they begin to invent all those impossible finely spun +theories, according to which Christianity was compatible with the state. +But for every sincere and serious man of our time it is quite obvious +that true Christianity---the teaching of humility, of forgiveness of offences, of love---is incompatible with the state, with its -magnificence, its violence, its executions, and its wars. -The profession of true Christianity not only excludes the -possibility of recognizing the state, but even destroys its -very foundations. - -But if this is so, and it is true that Christianity is -incompatible with the state, there naturally arises the -question: "What is more necessary for the good of humanity, -what more permanently secures the good of men, the political -form of life, or its destruction and the substitution of +magnificence, its violence, its executions, and its wars. The profession +of true Christianity not only excludes the possibility of recognizing +the state, but even destroys its very foundations. + +But if this is so, and it is true that Christianity is incompatible with +the state, there naturally arises the question: "What is more necessary +for the good of humanity, what more permanently secures the good of men, +the political form of life, or its destruction and the substitution of Christianity in its place?" -Some men say that the state is most necessary for humanity, -that the destruction of the political form would lead to the -destruction of everything worked out by humanity, that the -state has been and continues to be the only form of the -development of humanity, and that all that evil which we see -among the nations who live in the political form is not due -to this form, but to the abuses, which can be mended without -destruction, and that humanity, without impairing the -political form, can develop and reach a high degree of -well-being. And the men who think so adduce in confirmation -of their opinion philosophic, historic, and even religious -arguments, which to them seem incontrovertible. But there -are men who assume the opposite, namely, that, as there was -a time when humanity lived without a political form, this -form is only temporary, and the time must arrive when men -shall need a new form, and that this time has arrived even -now. And the men who think so also adduce in confirmation of -their opinion philosophic, and historic, and religious +Some men say that the state is most necessary for humanity, that the +destruction of the political form would lead to the destruction of +everything worked out by humanity, that the state has been and continues +to be the only form of the development of humanity, and that all that +evil which we see among the nations who live in the political form is +not due to this form, but to the abuses, which can be mended without +destruction, and that humanity, without impairing the political form, +can develop and reach a high degree of well-being. And the men who think +so adduce in confirmation of their opinion philosophic, historic, and +even religious arguments, which to them seem incontrovertible. But there +are men who assume the opposite, namely, that, as there was a time when +humanity lived without a political form, this form is only temporary, +and the time must arrive when men shall need a new form, and that this +time has arrived even now. And the men who think so also adduce in +confirmation of their opinion philosophic, and historic, and religious arguments, which also seem incontrovertible to them. -It is possible to write volumes in the defence of the first -opinion (they have been written long ago, and there is still -no end to them), and there can be written much against it -(though but lately begun, many a brilliant thing has been -written against it). - -It is impossible to prove, as the defenders of the state -claim, that the destruction of the state will lead to a -social chaos, mutual rapine, murder, and the destruction of -all public institutions, and the return of humanity to -barbarism; nor can it be proved, as the opponents of the -state claim, that men have already become so wise and good -that they do not rob or kill one another, that they prefer -peace to hostility, that they will themselves without the -aid of the state arrange everything they need, and that -therefore the state not only does not contribute to all -this, but, on the contrary, under the guise of defending -men, exerts a harmful and bestializing influence upon them. -It is impossible to prove either the one or the other by -means of abstract reflections. Still less can it be proved -by experience, since the question consists in this, whether -the experiment is to be made or not. The question as to -whether the time has come for abolishing the state, or not, -would be insoluble, if there did not exist another vital -method for an incontestable solution of the same. - -Quite independently of anybody's reflections as to whether -the chicks are sufficiently matured for him to drive the hen -away from the nest and let the chicks out of their eggs, or -whether they are not yet sufficiently matured, the -incontestable judges of the case will be the chicks -themselves, when, unable to find enough room in their eggs, -they will begin to pick them with their bills, and will -themselves come out of them. - -The same is true of the question whether the time for -destroying the political form and for substituting another -form has come, or not. If a man, in consequence of the -higher consciousness matured in him, is no longer able to -comply with the demands of the state, no longer finds room -in it, and at the same time no longer is in need of the -preservation of the political form, the question as to -whether men have matured for the change of the political -form, or not, is decided from an entirely different side, -and just as incontestably as for the chick that has picked -its shell, into which no power in the world can again return -it, by the men themselves who have outgrown the state and -who cannot be returned to it by any power in the world. - -"It is very likely that the state was necessary and even now -is necessary for all those purposes which you ascribe to -it," says the man who has made the Christian life-conception -his own, "but all I know is that, on the one hand, I no -longer need the state, and, on the other, I can no longer -perform those acts which are necessary for the existence of -the state. Arrange for yourselves what you need for your -lives: I cannot prove either the common necessity, or the -common harm of the state; all I know is what I need and what -not, what I may do and what not. I know for myself that I do -not need any separation from the other nations, and so I -cannot recognize my exclusive belonging to some one nation -or state, and my subjection to any government; I know in my -own case that I do not need all those government offices and -courts, which are the product of violence, and so I cannot -take part in any of them; I know in my own case that I do -not need to attack other nations and kill them, nor defend -myself by taking up arms, and so I cannot take part in wars -and in preparations for them. It is very likely that there -are some people who cannot regard all that as necessary and -indispensable. I cannot dispute with them,---all I know -concerning myself, but that I know incontestably, is that I -do not need it all and am not able to do it. I do not need -it, and I cannot do it, not because I, my personality, do -not want it, but because He who has sent me into life, and -has given me the incontestable law for guidance in my life, -does not want it." - -No matter what arguments men may adduce in proof of the -danger of abolishing the power of the state and that this -abolition may beget calamities, the men who have outgrown -the political form can no longer find their place in it. -And, no matter what arguments may be adduced to a man who -has outgrown the political form, about its -indispensableness, he cannot return to it, cannot take part -in the affairs which are denied by his consciousness, just -as the full-grown chicks can no longer return into the shell -which they have outgrown. - -"But even if this is so," say the defenders of the existing -order, "the abolition of the violence of state would be -possible and desirable only if all men became Christians. So -long as this is not the case, so long as among men who only -call themselves Christians there are men who are no -Christians, evil men, who for the sake of their personal -lust are prepared to do harm to others, the abolition of the -power of state would not only fail to be a good for all the -rest, but would even increase their wretchedness. The -abolition of the political form of life is undesirable, not -only when there is a small proportion of true Christians, -but even when all shall be Christians, while in their midst +It is possible to write volumes in the defence of the first opinion +(they have been written long ago, and there is still no end to them), +and there can be written much against it (though but lately begun, many +a brilliant thing has been written against it). + +It is impossible to prove, as the defenders of the state claim, that the +destruction of the state will lead to a social chaos, mutual rapine, +murder, and the destruction of all public institutions, and the return +of humanity to barbarism; nor can it be proved, as the opponents of the +state claim, that men have already become so wise and good that they do +not rob or kill one another, that they prefer peace to hostility, that +they will themselves without the aid of the state arrange everything +they need, and that therefore the state not only does not contribute to +all this, but, on the contrary, under the guise of defending men, exerts +a harmful and bestializing influence upon them. It is impossible to +prove either the one or the other by means of abstract reflections. +Still less can it be proved by experience, since the question consists +in this, whether the experiment is to be made or not. The question as to +whether the time has come for abolishing the state, or not, would be +insoluble, if there did not exist another vital method for an +incontestable solution of the same. + +Quite independently of anybody's reflections as to whether the chicks +are sufficiently matured for him to drive the hen away from the nest and +let the chicks out of their eggs, or whether they are not yet +sufficiently matured, the incontestable judges of the case will be the +chicks themselves, when, unable to find enough room in their eggs, they +will begin to pick them with their bills, and will themselves come out +of them. + +The same is true of the question whether the time for destroying the +political form and for substituting another form has come, or not. If a +man, in consequence of the higher consciousness matured in him, is no +longer able to comply with the demands of the state, no longer finds +room in it, and at the same time no longer is in need of the +preservation of the political form, the question as to whether men have +matured for the change of the political form, or not, is decided from an +entirely different side, and just as incontestably as for the chick that +has picked its shell, into which no power in the world can again return +it, by the men themselves who have outgrown the state and who cannot be +returned to it by any power in the world. + +"It is very likely that the state was necessary and even now is +necessary for all those purposes which you ascribe to it," says the man +who has made the Christian life-conception his own, "but all I know is +that, on the one hand, I no longer need the state, and, on the other, I +can no longer perform those acts which are necessary for the existence +of the state. Arrange for yourselves what you need for your lives: I +cannot prove either the common necessity, or the common harm of the +state; all I know is what I need and what not, what I may do and what +not. I know for myself that I do not need any separation from the other +nations, and so I cannot recognize my exclusive belonging to some one +nation or state, and my subjection to any government; I know in my own +case that I do not need all those government offices and courts, which +are the product of violence, and so I cannot take part in any of them; I +know in my own case that I do not need to attack other nations and kill +them, nor defend myself by taking up arms, and so I cannot take part in +wars and in preparations for them. It is very likely that there are some +people who cannot regard all that as necessary and indispensable. I +cannot dispute with them,---all I know concerning myself, but that I +know incontestably, is that I do not need it all and am not able to do +it. I do not need it, and I cannot do it, not because I, my personality, +do not want it, but because He who has sent me into life, and has given +me the incontestable law for guidance in my life, does not want it." + +No matter what arguments men may adduce in proof of the danger of +abolishing the power of the state and that this abolition may beget +calamities, the men who have outgrown the political form can no longer +find their place in it. And, no matter what arguments may be adduced to +a man who has outgrown the political form, about its indispensableness, +he cannot return to it, cannot take part in the affairs which are denied +by his consciousness, just as the full-grown chicks can no longer return +into the shell which they have outgrown. + +"But even if this is so," say the defenders of the existing order, "the +abolition of the violence of state would be possible and desirable only +if all men became Christians. So long as this is not the case, so long +as among men who only call themselves Christians there are men who are +no Christians, evil men, who for the sake of their personal lust are +prepared to do harm to others, the abolition of the power of state would +not only fail to be a good for all the rest, but would even increase +their wretchedness. The abolition of the political form of life is +undesirable, not only when there is a small proportion of true +Christians, but even when all shall be Christians, while in their midst or all about them, among other nations, there shall remain -non-Christians, because the non-Christians will with -impunity rob, violate, kill the Christians and make their -life miserable. What will happen will be that the evil men -will with impunity rule the good and do violence to them. -And so the power of state must not be abolished until all -the bad, rapacious men in the world are destroyed. And as -this will not happen for a long time to come, if at all, -this power, in spite of the attempts of individual -Christians at emancipating themselves from the power of -state, must be maintained for the sake of the majority of -men." Thus speak the defenders of the state. "Without the -state the evil men do violence to the good and rule over -them, but the power of state makes it possible for the good -to keep the evil in check," they say. - -But, in asserting this, the defenders of the existing order -of things decide in advance the justice of the position -which it is for them to prove. In saying that without the -power of state the evil men would rule over the good, they -take it for granted that the good are precisely those who at -the present time have power, and the bad the same who are -now subjugated. But it is precisely this that has to be -proved. This would be true only if in our world took place -what really does not take place, but is supposed to take -place, in China, namely, that the good are always in power, -and that, as soon as at the helm of the government stand men -who are not better than those over whom they rule, the -citizens are obliged to depose them. Thus it is supposed to -be in China, but in reality this is not so, and cannot be -so, because, in order to overthrow the power of the -violating government, it is not enough to have the right to -do so,---one must also have the force. Consequently this is -only assumed to be so even in China; but in our Christian -world this has never even been assumed. In our world there -is not even any foundation for assuming that better men or -the best should rule, and not those who have seized the -power and retain it for themselves and for their -descendants. Better men are absolutely unable to seize the -power and to retain it. - -In order to get the power and retain it, it is necessary to -love power; but love of power is not connected with -goodness, but with qualities which are the opposite of -goodness, such as pride, cunning, cruelty. - -Without self-aggrandizement and debasement of others, -without hypocrisy, deceit, prisons, fortresses, executions, -murders, a power can neither arise nor maintain itself. - -"If the power of state be abolished, the more evil men will -rule over the less evil ones," say the defenders of the -state. But if the Egyptians subjugated the Jews, the -Persians the Egyptians, the Macedonians the Persians, the -Romans the Greeks, the barbarians the Romans, is it possible -that all those who have subjugated were better than those -whom they subjugated? - -And similarly, in the transference of the power in one state -from one set of persons to another, has the power always -passed into the hands of those who were better? When Louis -XVI. was deposed, and Robespierre and later Napoleon ruled, -who did rule? Better or worse men? And when did better men -rule, when men from Versailles or from the Commune were in -power? or when Charles I. or Cromwell was at the head of the -government? or when Peter III. was Tsar or when he was -killed, and the sovereign was Catherine for one part of -Russia and Pugachev for the other? Who was then evil and who -good? - -All men in power assert that their power is necessary in -order that the evil men may not do violence to the good, -meaning by this that they are those same good men, who -protect others against the evil men. - -But to rule means to do violence, and to do violence means -to do what the other man, on whom the violence is exerted, -does not wish to have done to him, and what, no doubt, he -who exerts the violence would not wish to have done to -himself; consequently, to rule means to do to another what -we do not wish to have done to ourselves, that is, to do +non-Christians, because the non-Christians will with impunity rob, +violate, kill the Christians and make their life miserable. What will +happen will be that the evil men will with impunity rule the good and do +violence to them. And so the power of state must not be abolished until +all the bad, rapacious men in the world are destroyed. And as this will +not happen for a long time to come, if at all, this power, in spite of +the attempts of individual Christians at emancipating themselves from +the power of state, must be maintained for the sake of the majority of +men." Thus speak the defenders of the state. "Without the state the evil +men do violence to the good and rule over them, but the power of state +makes it possible for the good to keep the evil in check," they say. + +But, in asserting this, the defenders of the existing order of things +decide in advance the justice of the position which it is for them to +prove. In saying that without the power of state the evil men would rule +over the good, they take it for granted that the good are precisely +those who at the present time have power, and the bad the same who are +now subjugated. But it is precisely this that has to be proved. This +would be true only if in our world took place what really does not take +place, but is supposed to take place, in China, namely, that the good +are always in power, and that, as soon as at the helm of the government +stand men who are not better than those over whom they rule, the +citizens are obliged to depose them. Thus it is supposed to be in China, +but in reality this is not so, and cannot be so, because, in order to +overthrow the power of the violating government, it is not enough to +have the right to do so,---one must also have the force. Consequently +this is only assumed to be so even in China; but in our Christian world +this has never even been assumed. In our world there is not even any +foundation for assuming that better men or the best should rule, and not +those who have seized the power and retain it for themselves and for +their descendants. Better men are absolutely unable to seize the power +and to retain it. + +In order to get the power and retain it, it is necessary to love power; +but love of power is not connected with goodness, but with qualities +which are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning, cruelty. + +Without self-aggrandizement and debasement of others, without hypocrisy, +deceit, prisons, fortresses, executions, murders, a power can neither +arise nor maintain itself. + +"If the power of state be abolished, the more evil men will rule over +the less evil ones," say the defenders of the state. But if the +Egyptians subjugated the Jews, the Persians the Egyptians, the +Macedonians the Persians, the Romans the Greeks, the barbarians the +Romans, is it possible that all those who have subjugated were better +than those whom they subjugated? + +And similarly, in the transference of the power in one state from one +set of persons to another, has the power always passed into the hands of +those who were better? When Louis XVI. was deposed, and Robespierre and +later Napoleon ruled, who did rule? Better or worse men? And when did +better men rule, when men from Versailles or from the Commune were in +power? or when Charles I. or Cromwell was at the head of the government? +or when Peter III. was Tsar or when he was killed, and the sovereign was +Catherine for one part of Russia and Pugachev for the other? Who was +then evil and who good? + +All men in power assert that their power is necessary in order that the +evil men may not do violence to the good, meaning by this that they are +those same good men, who protect others against the evil men. + +But to rule means to do violence, and to do violence means to do what +the other man, on whom the violence is exerted, does not wish to have +done to him, and what, no doubt, he who exerts the violence would not +wish to have done to himself; consequently, to rule means to do to +another what we do not wish to have done to ourselves, that is, to do evil. -To submit means to prefer suffering to violence. But to -prefer suffering to violence means to be good, or at least -less evil than those who do to another what they do not wish -to have done to themselves. - -And so all the probabilities are in favour of the fact that -not those who are better than those over whom they rule, -but, on the contrary, those who are worse, have always been -and even now are in power. There may also be worse men among -those who submit to the power, but it cannot be that better -men should rule over worse men. - -This was impossible to assume in case of the pagan inexact -definition of goodness; but with the Christian lucid and -exact definition of goodness and evil, it is impossible to -think so. If more or less good men, more or less bad men, -cannot be distinguished in the pagan world, the Christian -conception of good and evil has so clearly defined the -symptoms of the good and the evil, that they can no longer -be mistaken. According to Christ's teaching the good are -those who humble themselves, suffer, do not resist evil with -force, forgive offences, love their enemies; the evil are -those who exalt themselves, rule, struggle, and do violence -to people, and so, according to Christ's teaching, there is -no doubt as to where the good are among the ruling and the -subjugated. It even sounds ridiculous to speak of ruling -Christians. - -The non-Christians, that is, those who base their lives on -the worldly good, must always rule over Christians, over -those who assume that their lives consist in the -renunciation of this good. - -Thus it has always been and it has become more and more -definite, in proportion as the Christian teaching has been -disseminated and elucidated. - -The more the true Christianity spread and entered into the -consciousness of men, the less it was possible for -Christians to be among the rulers, and the easier it grew -for non-Christians to rule over Christians. - -"The abolition of the violence of state at a time when not -all men in society have become true Christians would have -this effect, that the bad would rule over the good and would -with impunity do violence to them," say the defenders of the -existing order of life. - -"The bad will rule over the good and will do violence to -them." - -But it has never been different, and it never can be. Thus -it has always been since the beginning of the world, and -thus it is now. The bad always rule over the good and always -do violence to them. Cain did violence to Abel, cunning -Jacob to trustful Esau, deceitful Laban to Jacob; Caiaphas -and Pilate ruled over Christ, the Roman emperors ruled over -a Seneca, an Epictetus, and good Romans who lived in their -time. John IV with his oprichniks, the drunken syphilitic -Peter with his fools, the harlot Catherine with her lovers, -ruled over the industrious religious Russians of their time -and did violence to them. William rules over the Germans, -Stambulov over the Bulgarians, Russian officials over the -Russian people. The Germans ruled over the Italians, now -they rule over Hungarians and Slavs; the Turks have ruled -over Greeks and Slavs; the English rule over Hindoos; the -Mongolians rule over the Chinese. - -Thus, whether the political violence be abolished or not, -the condition of the good men who are violated by the bad -will not be changed thereby. - -It is absolutely impossible to frighten men with this, that -the bad will rule over the good, because what they are -frightened with is precisely what has always been and cannot -be otherwise. - -The whole pagan history of humanity consists of only those -cases when the worse seized the power over the less bad, -and, having seized it, maintained it by cruelties and -cunning, and, proclaiming themselves as guardians of justice -and defenders of the good against the bad, ruled over the -good. As to the rulers' saying that, if it were not for -their power, the worse would do violence to the good, it -means only this, that the violators in power do not wish to -cede this power to other violators, who may wish to take it -from them. But, in saying this, the rulers only give -themselves away. They say that their power, that is, -violence, is necessary for the defence of men against some -other violators, or such as may still appear. - -The exercise of violence is dangerous for the very reason -that, as soon as it is exercised, all the arguments adduced -by the violators can, not only with the same, but even with -greater force, be applied against them. They speak of the -past, and more frequently of the imaginary future of -violence, but themselves without cessation commit acts of -violence. "You say that men used to rob and kill others, and -you are afraid that men will rob and kill one another, if -your power does not exist. That may be so or not, but your -ruining thousands of men in prisons, at hard labour, in -fortresses, in exile; your ruining millions of families with -your militarism, and destroying millions of people -physically and morally, is not imaginary, but real violence, -against which, according to your own statement, people ought -to fight by exercising violence. Consequently, those evil -men, against whom, according to your own reflection, it is -absolutely necessary to exercise violence, are you -yourselves," is what the violated ought to say to the -violators, and the non-Christians have always spoken and -thought and acted in this manner. If the violated are worse -than those who exercise violence, they attack them and try -to overthrow them, and, under favourable conditions, do -overthrow them, or, what is most usual, enter the ranks of -the violators and take part in their acts of violence. - -Thus the very thing with which the defenders of the state -frighten men, that, if there did not exist a violating -power, the bad would be ruling over the good, is what -without cessation has been accomplished in the life of -humanity, and so the abolition of political violence can in -no case be the cause of the increase of the violence of the -bad over the good. - -When the violence of the government is destroyed, acts of -violence will, probably, be committed by other men than -before; but the sum of the violence will in no case be -increased, simply because the power will pass from the hands -of one set of men into those of another. - -"The violence of state will be stopped only when the bad men -in society shall be destroyed," say the defenders of the -existing order, meaning by this that, since there will -always be bad men, violence will never come to a stop. That -would be true only if what they assume actually existed, -namely, that the violators are better, and that the only -means for the emancipation of men from evil is violence. In -that case violence could, indeed, never be stopped. But as -this is not the case, and the very opposite is true, namely, -that it is not the better men who exercise violence against -the bad, but the bad who do violence to the good, and that -outside of violence, which never puts a stop to evil, there -is another means for the abolition of violence, the -assertion that violence will never stop is not correct. -Violence grows less and less, and must evidently stop, but -not, as the defenders of the existing order imagine, because -men who are subject to violence will in consequence of the -influence exerted upon them by the governments become better -and better (in consequence of this they will, on the -contrary, always become worse), but because, since all men -are constantly growing better and better, even the worst men -in power, growing less and less evil, will become -sufficiently good to be incapable of exercising violence. - -The forward movement of humanity takes place, not in this -way, that the best elements of society, seizing the power -and using violence against those men who are in their power, -make them better, as the conservatives and revolutionists -think, but, in the first and chief place, in that all men in -general unswervingly and without cessation more and more -consciously acquire the Christian life-conception, and in -the second place, in that, even independently of the -conscious spiritual activity of men, men unconsciously, in -consequence of the very process of seizure of power by one -set of men and transference to another set, and -involuntarily are brought to a more Christian relation to -life. This process takes place in the following manner: the -worst elements of society, having seized the power and being -in possession of it, under the influence of the sobering -quality which always accompanies it, become less and less -cruel and less able to make use of the cruel forms of -violence, and, in consequence of this, give place to others, -in whom again goes on the process of softening and, so to -speak, unconscious Christianization. - -What takes place in men is something like the process of -boiling. All the men of the majority of the non-Christian -life-conception strive after power and struggle to obtain -it. In this struggle the most cruel and coarse, and the -least Christian elements of society, by doing violence to -the meeker, more Christian people, who are more sensible to -the good, rise to the higher strata of society. And here -with the men in this condition there takes place what Christ -predicted, saying: "Woe unto you that are rich, that are -full now, and when all are glorified." What happens is that -men in power, who are in possession of the consequences of -power,---of glory and wealth,---having reached certain -different aims, which they have set to themselves in their -desires, recognize their vanity and return to the position -which they left. Charles V, John IV, Alexander I, having -recognized all the vanity and evil of power, renounced it, -because they saw all its evil and were no longer able calmly -to make use of violence as of a good deed, as they had done -before. - -But it is not only a Charles and an Alexander who travel on -this road and recognize the vanity and evil of power: -through this unconscious process of softening of manners -passes every man who has acquired the power toward which he -has been striving, not only every minister, general, -millionaire, merchant, but also every head of an office, who -has obtained the place he has been ten years waiting for, -every well-to-do peasant, who has laid by a hundred or two -hundred roubles. - -Through this process pass not only separate individuals, but -also aggregates of men, whole nations. - -The temptations of power and of everything which it gives, -of wealth, honours, luxurious life, present themselves as a -worthy aim for the activity of men only so long as the power -is not attained; but the moment a man attains it, they -reveal their emptiness and slowly lose their force of -attraction, like clouds, which have form and beauty only -from a distance: one needs but enter them, in order that -that which seemed beautiful in them should disappear. - -Men who have attained power and wealth, frequently the very -men who have gained them, more frequently their descendants, -stop being so anxious for power and so cruel in attaining -it. - -Having through experience, under the influence of -Christianity, learned the vanity of the fruits of violence, -men, at times in one, at others in a few generations, lose -those vices which are evoked by the passion for power and -wealth, and, becoming less cruel, do not hold their -position, and are pushed out of power by other, less -Christian, more evil men, and return to strata of society -lower in position, but higher in morality, increasing the -average of the Christian consciousness of all men. But -immediately after them other, worse, coarser, less Christian -elements of society rise to the top, again are subjected to -the same process as their predecessors, and again in one or -a few generations, having experienced the vanity of the -fruits of violence and being permeated by Christianity, -descend to the level of the violated, and again make place -for new, less coarse violators than the preceding ones, but -coarser than those whom they oppress. Thus, despite the fact -that the power remains externally the same that it was, -there is with every change of men in power a greater -increase in the number of men who by experience are brought -to the necessity of accepting the Christian life-conception, -and with every change the coarsest, most cruel, and least -Christian of all enter into the possession of the power, but -they are such as are constantly less coarse and cruel and -more Christian than their predecessors. - -Violence selects and attracts the worst elements of society, -works them over, and, improving and softening them, returns -them to society. - -Such is the process by means of which Christianity, in spite -of the violence which is exercised by the power of the state -and which impedes the forward movement of humanity, takes -possession of men more and more. Christianity is penetrating -into the consciousness of men, not only despite the violence -exerted by the power, but even by means of it. - -And thus the assertion of the defenders of the political -structure that, if the violence of the state be abolished, -the evil men will rule over the good, not only does not -prove that this (the ruling of the bad over the good) is -dangerous, for it is precisely what is taking place now, -but, on the contrary, proves that the violence of the state, -which gives the bad a chance to rule over the good, is the -very evil which it is desirable to destroy, and which is -continuously destroyed by life itself. - -"But even if it were true that the violence of the state -will come to an end when those who are in power shall become -Christian enough to renounce the power of their own choice, -and there shall no longer be found any men who are prepared -to take their places, and if it is true that this process is -taking place," say the defenders of the existing order, -"when will that be? If eighteen hundred years have passed -and there are still so many volunteers who are ready to -rule, and so few who are ready to submit, there is no -probability that this will happen very soon, or ever at all. - -"If there are, as there have been among all men, such as -prefer to refuse power rather than to use it, the supply of -men who prefer ruling to submitting is so great that it is -hard to imagine the time when it shall be exhausted. - -"For this process of the Christianization of all men to take -place, for all men one after another to pass over from the -pagan concept of life to the Christian, and voluntarily -renounce power and wealth, and for no one to desire to make -use of them, it is necessary that not only all those rude, -semi-savage men, who are entirely incapable of adopting -Christianity and following it, and of whom there are always -such a great number amidst every Christian society, but also -all savage and non-Christian nations in general, of whom -there are so many outside the Christian society, should be -made Christian. And so, even if we admit that the process of -Christianization win some day be accomplished in the case of -all men, we must assume, judging from how much the matter -has advanced in eighteen hundred years, that this will -happen in several times eighteen hundred years,---and so it -is impossible and useless to think now of the impossible -abolition of power, and all we should think of is that the -power should be vested in the best of hands." - -Thus retort the defenders of the existing order. And this -reflection would be quite correct if the transition of men -from one concept of life to another took place only by force -of the one process where every man learns individually and -one after another by experience the vanity of power, and by -an inner way reaches the Christian truths. - -This process takes place without cessation, and by this way -men one after another pass over to the side of Christianity. - -But men pass over to the side of Christianity not by this -inner-path alone; there is also an external method, with -which the gradualness of this transition is destroyed. - -The transition of men from one structure of life to another -does not always take place in the manner in which the sand -is poured out from an hour-glass,---one kernel of sand after -another, from the first to the last,---but rather like water -pouring into a vessel that is immersed in the water, when it -at first admits the water evenly and slowly at one side, and -then, from the weight of the water already taken in, -suddenly dips down fast and almost all at once receives all -the water which it can hold. - -The same occurs with societies of men at the transition from -one concept, and so from one structure of life, to another. -It is only at first that one after another slowly and -gradually receives the new truth by an inner way and follows -it through life; but after a certain diffusion it is no -longer received in an internal manner, nor gradually, but -all at once, almost involuntarily. - -And so there is no truth in the reflection of the defenders -of the existing order that, if in the course of eighteen -hundred years only a small part of mankind has passed over -to the side of Christianity, it will take several times -eighteen hundred years before the rest of humanity will pass -over to its side; there is no truth in it, because with this -reflection no attention is paid to any other than the -internal attainment of the truth, and the transition from -one form of life to another. - -This other method of attaining a newly revealed truth and -transition to a new structure of life consists in this, that -men do not attain the truth simply because they perceive it -with a prophetic feeling or experience of life, but also -because at a certain stage of the dissemination of the truth -all men who stand on a lower stage of development accept it -all at once, out of confidence in those who have accepted it -in an internal way, and apply it to life. - -Every new truth, which changes the composition of human life -and moves humanity forward, is at first accepted by only a -very small number of men, who understand it in an internal -way. The rest, who out of confidence had accepted the -previous truth, on which the existing order is based, always -oppose the dissemination of the new truth. - -But since, in the first place, men do not stand still, but -incessantly move forward, comprehending the truth more and -more, and approaching it with their lives, and, in the -second place, all of them, through their age, education, and -race, are predisposed to a gradation of men, from those who -are most capable to comprehend newly revealed truths in an -internal way to those who are least capable to do so, the -men who stand nearest to those who have attained the truth -in an internal way one after another, at first after long -periods of time, and then more and more frequently, pass -over to the side of the new truth, and the number of men who -recognize the new truth grows larger and larger, and the +To submit means to prefer suffering to violence. But to prefer suffering +to violence means to be good, or at least less evil than those who do to +another what they do not wish to have done to themselves. + +And so all the probabilities are in favour of the fact that not those +who are better than those over whom they rule, but, on the contrary, +those who are worse, have always been and even now are in power. There +may also be worse men among those who submit to the power, but it cannot +be that better men should rule over worse men. + +This was impossible to assume in case of the pagan inexact definition of +goodness; but with the Christian lucid and exact definition of goodness +and evil, it is impossible to think so. If more or less good men, more +or less bad men, cannot be distinguished in the pagan world, the +Christian conception of good and evil has so clearly defined the +symptoms of the good and the evil, that they can no longer be mistaken. +According to Christ's teaching the good are those who humble themselves, +suffer, do not resist evil with force, forgive offences, love their +enemies; the evil are those who exalt themselves, rule, struggle, and do +violence to people, and so, according to Christ's teaching, there is no +doubt as to where the good are among the ruling and the subjugated. It +even sounds ridiculous to speak of ruling Christians. + +The non-Christians, that is, those who base their lives on the worldly +good, must always rule over Christians, over those who assume that their +lives consist in the renunciation of this good. + +Thus it has always been and it has become more and more definite, in +proportion as the Christian teaching has been disseminated and +elucidated. + +The more the true Christianity spread and entered into the consciousness +of men, the less it was possible for Christians to be among the rulers, +and the easier it grew for non-Christians to rule over Christians. + +"The abolition of the violence of state at a time when not all men in +society have become true Christians would have this effect, that the bad +would rule over the good and would with impunity do violence to them," +say the defenders of the existing order of life. + +"The bad will rule over the good and will do violence to them." + +But it has never been different, and it never can be. Thus it has always +been since the beginning of the world, and thus it is now. The bad +always rule over the good and always do violence to them. Cain did +violence to Abel, cunning Jacob to trustful Esau, deceitful Laban to +Jacob; Caiaphas and Pilate ruled over Christ, the Roman emperors ruled +over a Seneca, an Epictetus, and good Romans who lived in their time. +John IV with his oprichniks, the drunken syphilitic Peter with his +fools, the harlot Catherine with her lovers, ruled over the industrious +religious Russians of their time and did violence to them. William rules +over the Germans, Stambulov over the Bulgarians, Russian officials over +the Russian people. The Germans ruled over the Italians, now they rule +over Hungarians and Slavs; the Turks have ruled over Greeks and Slavs; +the English rule over Hindoos; the Mongolians rule over the Chinese. + +Thus, whether the political violence be abolished or not, the condition +of the good men who are violated by the bad will not be changed thereby. + +It is absolutely impossible to frighten men with this, that the bad will +rule over the good, because what they are frightened with is precisely +what has always been and cannot be otherwise. + +The whole pagan history of humanity consists of only those cases when +the worse seized the power over the less bad, and, having seized it, +maintained it by cruelties and cunning, and, proclaiming themselves as +guardians of justice and defenders of the good against the bad, ruled +over the good. As to the rulers' saying that, if it were not for their +power, the worse would do violence to the good, it means only this, that +the violators in power do not wish to cede this power to other +violators, who may wish to take it from them. But, in saying this, the +rulers only give themselves away. They say that their power, that is, +violence, is necessary for the defence of men against some other +violators, or such as may still appear. + +The exercise of violence is dangerous for the very reason that, as soon +as it is exercised, all the arguments adduced by the violators can, not +only with the same, but even with greater force, be applied against +them. They speak of the past, and more frequently of the imaginary +future of violence, but themselves without cessation commit acts of +violence. "You say that men used to rob and kill others, and you are +afraid that men will rob and kill one another, if your power does not +exist. That may be so or not, but your ruining thousands of men in +prisons, at hard labour, in fortresses, in exile; your ruining millions +of families with your militarism, and destroying millions of people +physically and morally, is not imaginary, but real violence, against +which, according to your own statement, people ought to fight by +exercising violence. Consequently, those evil men, against whom, +according to your own reflection, it is absolutely necessary to exercise +violence, are you yourselves," is what the violated ought to say to the +violators, and the non-Christians have always spoken and thought and +acted in this manner. If the violated are worse than those who exercise +violence, they attack them and try to overthrow them, and, under +favourable conditions, do overthrow them, or, what is most usual, enter +the ranks of the violators and take part in their acts of violence. + +Thus the very thing with which the defenders of the state frighten men, +that, if there did not exist a violating power, the bad would be ruling +over the good, is what without cessation has been accomplished in the +life of humanity, and so the abolition of political violence can in no +case be the cause of the increase of the violence of the bad over the +good. + +When the violence of the government is destroyed, acts of violence will, +probably, be committed by other men than before; but the sum of the +violence will in no case be increased, simply because the power will +pass from the hands of one set of men into those of another. + +"The violence of state will be stopped only when the bad men in society +shall be destroyed," say the defenders of the existing order, meaning by +this that, since there will always be bad men, violence will never come +to a stop. That would be true only if what they assume actually existed, +namely, that the violators are better, and that the only means for the +emancipation of men from evil is violence. In that case violence could, +indeed, never be stopped. But as this is not the case, and the very +opposite is true, namely, that it is not the better men who exercise +violence against the bad, but the bad who do violence to the good, and +that outside of violence, which never puts a stop to evil, there is +another means for the abolition of violence, the assertion that violence +will never stop is not correct. Violence grows less and less, and must +evidently stop, but not, as the defenders of the existing order imagine, +because men who are subject to violence will in consequence of the +influence exerted upon them by the governments become better and better +(in consequence of this they will, on the contrary, always become +worse), but because, since all men are constantly growing better and +better, even the worst men in power, growing less and less evil, will +become sufficiently good to be incapable of exercising violence. + +The forward movement of humanity takes place, not in this way, that the +best elements of society, seizing the power and using violence against +those men who are in their power, make them better, as the conservatives +and revolutionists think, but, in the first and chief place, in that all +men in general unswervingly and without cessation more and more +consciously acquire the Christian life-conception, and in the second +place, in that, even independently of the conscious spiritual activity +of men, men unconsciously, in consequence of the very process of seizure +of power by one set of men and transference to another set, and +involuntarily are brought to a more Christian relation to life. This +process takes place in the following manner: the worst elements of +society, having seized the power and being in possession of it, under +the influence of the sobering quality which always accompanies it, +become less and less cruel and less able to make use of the cruel forms +of violence, and, in consequence of this, give place to others, in whom +again goes on the process of softening and, so to speak, unconscious +Christianization. + +What takes place in men is something like the process of boiling. All +the men of the majority of the non-Christian life-conception strive +after power and struggle to obtain it. In this struggle the most cruel +and coarse, and the least Christian elements of society, by doing +violence to the meeker, more Christian people, who are more sensible to +the good, rise to the higher strata of society. And here with the men in +this condition there takes place what Christ predicted, saying: "Woe +unto you that are rich, that are full now, and when all are glorified." +What happens is that men in power, who are in possession of the +consequences of power,---of glory and wealth,---having reached certain +different aims, which they have set to themselves in their desires, +recognize their vanity and return to the position which they left. +Charles V, John IV, Alexander I, having recognized all the vanity and +evil of power, renounced it, because they saw all its evil and were no +longer able calmly to make use of violence as of a good deed, as they +had done before. + +But it is not only a Charles and an Alexander who travel on this road +and recognize the vanity and evil of power: through this unconscious +process of softening of manners passes every man who has acquired the +power toward which he has been striving, not only every minister, +general, millionaire, merchant, but also every head of an office, who +has obtained the place he has been ten years waiting for, every +well-to-do peasant, who has laid by a hundred or two hundred roubles. + +Through this process pass not only separate individuals, but also +aggregates of men, whole nations. + +The temptations of power and of everything which it gives, of wealth, +honours, luxurious life, present themselves as a worthy aim for the +activity of men only so long as the power is not attained; but the +moment a man attains it, they reveal their emptiness and slowly lose +their force of attraction, like clouds, which have form and beauty only +from a distance: one needs but enter them, in order that that which +seemed beautiful in them should disappear. + +Men who have attained power and wealth, frequently the very men who have +gained them, more frequently their descendants, stop being so anxious +for power and so cruel in attaining it. + +Having through experience, under the influence of Christianity, learned +the vanity of the fruits of violence, men, at times in one, at others in +a few generations, lose those vices which are evoked by the passion for +power and wealth, and, becoming less cruel, do not hold their position, +and are pushed out of power by other, less Christian, more evil men, and +return to strata of society lower in position, but higher in morality, +increasing the average of the Christian consciousness of all men. But +immediately after them other, worse, coarser, less Christian elements of +society rise to the top, again are subjected to the same process as +their predecessors, and again in one or a few generations, having +experienced the vanity of the fruits of violence and being permeated by +Christianity, descend to the level of the violated, and again make place +for new, less coarse violators than the preceding ones, but coarser than +those whom they oppress. Thus, despite the fact that the power remains +externally the same that it was, there is with every change of men in +power a greater increase in the number of men who by experience are +brought to the necessity of accepting the Christian life-conception, and +with every change the coarsest, most cruel, and least Christian of all +enter into the possession of the power, but they are such as are +constantly less coarse and cruel and more Christian than their +predecessors. + +Violence selects and attracts the worst elements of society, works them +over, and, improving and softening them, returns them to society. + +Such is the process by means of which Christianity, in spite of the +violence which is exercised by the power of the state and which impedes +the forward movement of humanity, takes possession of men more and more. +Christianity is penetrating into the consciousness of men, not only +despite the violence exerted by the power, but even by means of it. + +And thus the assertion of the defenders of the political structure that, +if the violence of the state be abolished, the evil men will rule over +the good, not only does not prove that this (the ruling of the bad over +the good) is dangerous, for it is precisely what is taking place now, +but, on the contrary, proves that the violence of the state, which gives +the bad a chance to rule over the good, is the very evil which it is +desirable to destroy, and which is continuously destroyed by life +itself. + +"But even if it were true that the violence of the state will come to an +end when those who are in power shall become Christian enough to +renounce the power of their own choice, and there shall no longer be +found any men who are prepared to take their places, and if it is true +that this process is taking place," say the defenders of the existing +order, "when will that be? If eighteen hundred years have passed and +there are still so many volunteers who are ready to rule, and so few who +are ready to submit, there is no probability that this will happen very +soon, or ever at all. + +"If there are, as there have been among all men, such as prefer to +refuse power rather than to use it, the supply of men who prefer ruling +to submitting is so great that it is hard to imagine the time when it +shall be exhausted. + +"For this process of the Christianization of all men to take place, for +all men one after another to pass over from the pagan concept of life to +the Christian, and voluntarily renounce power and wealth, and for no one +to desire to make use of them, it is necessary that not only all those +rude, semi-savage men, who are entirely incapable of adopting +Christianity and following it, and of whom there are always such a great +number amidst every Christian society, but also all savage and +non-Christian nations in general, of whom there are so many outside the +Christian society, should be made Christian. And so, even if we admit +that the process of Christianization win some day be accomplished in the +case of all men, we must assume, judging from how much the matter has +advanced in eighteen hundred years, that this will happen in several +times eighteen hundred years,---and so it is impossible and useless to +think now of the impossible abolition of power, and all we should think +of is that the power should be vested in the best of hands." + +Thus retort the defenders of the existing order. And this reflection +would be quite correct if the transition of men from one concept of life +to another took place only by force of the one process where every man +learns individually and one after another by experience the vanity of +power, and by an inner way reaches the Christian truths. + +This process takes place without cessation, and by this way men one +after another pass over to the side of Christianity. + +But men pass over to the side of Christianity not by this inner-path +alone; there is also an external method, with which the gradualness of +this transition is destroyed. + +The transition of men from one structure of life to another does not +always take place in the manner in which the sand is poured out from an +hour-glass,---one kernel of sand after another, from the first to the +last,---but rather like water pouring into a vessel that is immersed in +the water, when it at first admits the water evenly and slowly at one +side, and then, from the weight of the water already taken in, suddenly +dips down fast and almost all at once receives all the water which it +can hold. + +The same occurs with societies of men at the transition from one +concept, and so from one structure of life, to another. It is only at +first that one after another slowly and gradually receives the new truth +by an inner way and follows it through life; but after a certain +diffusion it is no longer received in an internal manner, nor gradually, +but all at once, almost involuntarily. + +And so there is no truth in the reflection of the defenders of the +existing order that, if in the course of eighteen hundred years only a +small part of mankind has passed over to the side of Christianity, it +will take several times eighteen hundred years before the rest of +humanity will pass over to its side; there is no truth in it, because +with this reflection no attention is paid to any other than the internal +attainment of the truth, and the transition from one form of life to +another. + +This other method of attaining a newly revealed truth and transition to +a new structure of life consists in this, that men do not attain the +truth simply because they perceive it with a prophetic feeling or +experience of life, but also because at a certain stage of the +dissemination of the truth all men who stand on a lower stage of +development accept it all at once, out of confidence in those who have +accepted it in an internal way, and apply it to life. + +Every new truth, which changes the composition of human life and moves +humanity forward, is at first accepted by only a very small number of +men, who understand it in an internal way. The rest, who out of +confidence had accepted the previous truth, on which the existing order +is based, always oppose the dissemination of the new truth. + +But since, in the first place, men do not stand still, but incessantly +move forward, comprehending the truth more and more, and approaching it +with their lives, and, in the second place, all of them, through their +age, education, and race, are predisposed to a gradation of men, from +those who are most capable to comprehend newly revealed truths in an +internal way to those who are least capable to do so, the men who stand +nearest to those who have attained the truth in an internal way one +after another, at first after long periods of time, and then more and +more frequently, pass over to the side of the new truth, and the number +of men who recognize the new truth grows larger and larger, and the truth grows all the time more and more comprehensible. -The greater the number of men who attain the truth and the -more the truth is comprehensible, the more confidence is -evoked in the rest of the men, who in their ability to -comprehend stand on a lower stage, and the easier does the -attainment of the truth grow for them, and the greater is -the number who make the truth their own. Thus the movement -keeps accelerating and accelerating, expanding and -expanding, like a snowball, until there germinates a public -opinion which is in accord with the new truth, and the -remaining mass of men no longer singly, but in a body, under -the pressure of this force, passes over to the side of the -new truth, and a new structure of life is established, which -is in agreement with this truth. - -Men who pass over to the side of a new truth which has -reached a certain degree of dissemination always do so all -at once, in a mass, and they are like that ballast with -which every vessel is laden all at once for its stable -equilibrium and regular course. If there were no ballast, -the vessel would not stay in the water, and would be -changing its course with the least change in conditions. -This ballast, though at first it seems to be superfluous and -even to retard the ship's motion, is a necessary condition -of its regular motion. - -The same is true of that mass of men who, not one by one, -but always all together, under the influence of a new public -opinion, pass over from one concept of life to another. By -its inertia this mass always retards the rapid, frequent -transitions, unverified by human wisdom, from one structure -of life to another, and for a long time retains every truth -which, verified by a long experience of a struggle, has -entered into the consciousness of humanity. - -And so there is no truth in the reflection that, if only a -small, a very small, part of humanity has attained the -Christian truth in the course of eighteen centuries, the -whole of humanity will attain it only in many, many times -eighteen hundred years, that is, that it is so far away that -we of the present time need not even think of it. It is -untrue, because the men who stand on a lower stage of -development, those very nations and people whom the -defenders of the existing order represent as a hindrance for -the realization of the Christian structure of life, are the -same people who always at once, in a mass, pass over to the -side of a truth which is accepted by public opinion. - -Therefore the change in the life of humanity, the one in -consequence of which men in power will renounce the power -and among the men who submit to power there will not be -found such as are desirous of seizing it, will not arrive -when all men one after another to the very last shall have -consciously attained the Christian life-conception, but when -there arises a definite, easily comprehensible Christian -public opinion which wHl conquer all that inert mass that is -unable by an internal way to attain the truths and so is -always subject to the effect of public opinion. - -But public opinion to arise and be diffused does not need -hundreds and thousands of years, and has the property of -acting infectiously upon people and with great rapidity -embracing large numbers of men. - -"But if it is even true," the defenders of the existing -order will say, "that public opinion, at a certain stage of -its definiteness and lucidity, is able to make the inert -mass of men outside the Christian societies,---the -non-Christian nations,---and corrupt and coarse men, who -live within the societies, submit to it, what are the -symptoms that this Christian public opinion has arisen and -may take the place of violence? - -"It is not right for us to take the risk and reject -violence, by which the existing order is maintained, and to -depend on the impalpable and indefinite force of public -opinion, leaving it to the savage men outside and inside the -societies with impunity to rob, kill, and in every way +The greater the number of men who attain the truth and the more the +truth is comprehensible, the more confidence is evoked in the rest of +the men, who in their ability to comprehend stand on a lower stage, and +the easier does the attainment of the truth grow for them, and the +greater is the number who make the truth their own. Thus the movement +keeps accelerating and accelerating, expanding and expanding, like a +snowball, until there germinates a public opinion which is in accord +with the new truth, and the remaining mass of men no longer singly, but +in a body, under the pressure of this force, passes over to the side of +the new truth, and a new structure of life is established, which is in +agreement with this truth. + +Men who pass over to the side of a new truth which has reached a certain +degree of dissemination always do so all at once, in a mass, and they +are like that ballast with which every vessel is laden all at once for +its stable equilibrium and regular course. If there were no ballast, the +vessel would not stay in the water, and would be changing its course +with the least change in conditions. This ballast, though at first it +seems to be superfluous and even to retard the ship's motion, is a +necessary condition of its regular motion. + +The same is true of that mass of men who, not one by one, but always all +together, under the influence of a new public opinion, pass over from +one concept of life to another. By its inertia this mass always retards +the rapid, frequent transitions, unverified by human wisdom, from one +structure of life to another, and for a long time retains every truth +which, verified by a long experience of a struggle, has entered into the +consciousness of humanity. + +And so there is no truth in the reflection that, if only a small, a very +small, part of humanity has attained the Christian truth in the course +of eighteen centuries, the whole of humanity will attain it only in +many, many times eighteen hundred years, that is, that it is so far away +that we of the present time need not even think of it. It is untrue, +because the men who stand on a lower stage of development, those very +nations and people whom the defenders of the existing order represent as +a hindrance for the realization of the Christian structure of life, are +the same people who always at once, in a mass, pass over to the side of +a truth which is accepted by public opinion. + +Therefore the change in the life of humanity, the one in consequence of +which men in power will renounce the power and among the men who submit +to power there will not be found such as are desirous of seizing it, +will not arrive when all men one after another to the very last shall +have consciously attained the Christian life-conception, but when there +arises a definite, easily comprehensible Christian public opinion which +wHl conquer all that inert mass that is unable by an internal way to +attain the truths and so is always subject to the effect of public +opinion. + +But public opinion to arise and be diffused does not need hundreds and +thousands of years, and has the property of acting infectiously upon +people and with great rapidity embracing large numbers of men. + +"But if it is even true," the defenders of the existing order will say, +"that public opinion, at a certain stage of its definiteness and +lucidity, is able to make the inert mass of men outside the Christian +societies,---the non-Christian nations,---and corrupt and coarse men, +who live within the societies, submit to it, what are the symptoms that +this Christian public opinion has arisen and may take the place of +violence? + +"It is not right for us to take the risk and reject violence, by which +the existing order is maintained, and to depend on the impalpable and +indefinite force of public opinion, leaving it to the savage men outside +and inside the societies with impunity to rob, kill, and in every way violate the Christians. -"If with the aid of the power we with difficulty eddy away -from the non-Christian elements, which are ever ready to -inundate us and destroy all the progress of the Christian -civilization, is there, in the first place, a probability -that public opinion can take the part of this force and make -us secure, and, in the second, how are we to find that -moment when public opinion has become so strong that it can -take the place of the power? To remove the power and to -depend for our self-defence on nothing but public opinion -means to act as senselessly as would a man who in a -menagerie would throw away his weapons and let out all the -lions and tigers from their cages, depending on the fact -that the animals in the cages and in the presence of heated -rods appeared tame. - -"And so the men who have the power, who by fate or by God -are placed in the position of the ruling, have no right to -risk the ruin of all the progress of civilization, only -because they would like to make an experiment as to whether -public opinion can take the place of the protection of -power, and so must not give up their power." - -The French writer, Alphonse Karr, now forgotten, has said -somewhere, when speaking of the impossibility of abolishing -capital punishment, "*Que Messieurs les assassins commencent -par nous donner l'exemple*" and many times after that have I -heard the repetition of this joke by men who thought that -with these words they gave a conclusive and clever argument -against the abolition of capital punishment. And yet it is -impossible more lucidly to express all that falseness of the -argument of those who think that the governments cannot give -up their power so long as men are capable of it, than by -this very joke. - -"Let the assassins," say the defenders of the violence of -state, "set us the example, by abolishing murder, and then -we shall abolish it." But the assassins say the same, only -with greater right. The assassins say, "Let those who have -undertaken to teach and guide us set us the example of -abolishing murder, and then we will follow them." And they -do not say so for a joke, but in all seriousness, because -such indeed is the state of affairs. - -"We cannot desist from violence, because we are on all sides -surrounded by violators." - -Nothing in our day interferes more than this false -consideration with the forward motion of humanity and the -establishment among it of that structure of life which is -already proper for its present consciousness. - -The men in power are convinced that it is only violence that -moves and guides men, and so they boldly use violence for -the maintenance of the present order of things. But the -existing order is not maintained through violence, but -through public opinion, the effect of which is impaired by -violence. - -Thus the activity of violence weakens and impairs precisely -what it intends to maintain. - -Violence, in the best case, if it does not pursue only the -personal ends of men in power, always denies and condemns by -the one immovable form of the law what for the most part has -been denied and condemned before by public opinion, but with -this difference, that, while public opinion denies and -condemns all acts which are contrary to the moral law, -embracing in its condemnation the most varied propositions, -the law which is supported by violence condemns and -persecutes only a certain, very narrow order of acts, thus, -as it were, justifying all the acts of the same order which -have not entered into its definition. Public opinion has -ever since the time of Moses considered avarice, debauchery, -and cruelty to be evil, and has condemned them; and this -public opinion denies and condemns every kind of a -manifestation of avarice,---not only the acquisition of -another man's property by means of violence, deceit, and -cunning, but also a cruel usufruct of the same; it condemns -every kind of debauchery, be it fornication with a -concubine, or a slave, a divorced wife, or even one's own -wife; it condemns every cruelty which is expressed in -assaults, in bad treatment, in the murder, not only of men, -but also of animals. But the law, which is based on -violence, prosecutes only certain forms of avarice, such as -theft, rascality, and certain forms of debauchery and -cruelty, such as the violation of marital fidelity, murders, -crippling,---therefore, as it were, permitting all those -phases of avarice, debauchery, and cruelty which do not fit -in with the narrow definition, which is subject to +"If with the aid of the power we with difficulty eddy away from the +non-Christian elements, which are ever ready to inundate us and destroy +all the progress of the Christian civilization, is there, in the first +place, a probability that public opinion can take the part of this force +and make us secure, and, in the second, how are we to find that moment +when public opinion has become so strong that it can take the place of +the power? To remove the power and to depend for our self-defence on +nothing but public opinion means to act as senselessly as would a man +who in a menagerie would throw away his weapons and let out all the +lions and tigers from their cages, depending on the fact that the +animals in the cages and in the presence of heated rods appeared tame. + +"And so the men who have the power, who by fate or by God are placed in +the position of the ruling, have no right to risk the ruin of all the +progress of civilization, only because they would like to make an +experiment as to whether public opinion can take the place of the +protection of power, and so must not give up their power." + +The French writer, Alphonse Karr, now forgotten, has said somewhere, +when speaking of the impossibility of abolishing capital punishment, +"*Que Messieurs les assassins commencent par nous donner l'exemple*" and +many times after that have I heard the repetition of this joke by men +who thought that with these words they gave a conclusive and clever +argument against the abolition of capital punishment. And yet it is +impossible more lucidly to express all that falseness of the argument of +those who think that the governments cannot give up their power so long +as men are capable of it, than by this very joke. + +"Let the assassins," say the defenders of the violence of state, "set us +the example, by abolishing murder, and then we shall abolish it." But +the assassins say the same, only with greater right. The assassins say, +"Let those who have undertaken to teach and guide us set us the example +of abolishing murder, and then we will follow them." And they do not say +so for a joke, but in all seriousness, because such indeed is the state +of affairs. + +"We cannot desist from violence, because we are on all sides surrounded +by violators." + +Nothing in our day interferes more than this false consideration with +the forward motion of humanity and the establishment among it of that +structure of life which is already proper for its present consciousness. + +The men in power are convinced that it is only violence that moves and +guides men, and so they boldly use violence for the maintenance of the +present order of things. But the existing order is not maintained +through violence, but through public opinion, the effect of which is +impaired by violence. + +Thus the activity of violence weakens and impairs precisely what it +intends to maintain. + +Violence, in the best case, if it does not pursue only the personal ends +of men in power, always denies and condemns by the one immovable form of +the law what for the most part has been denied and condemned before by +public opinion, but with this difference, that, while public opinion +denies and condemns all acts which are contrary to the moral law, +embracing in its condemnation the most varied propositions, the law +which is supported by violence condemns and persecutes only a certain, +very narrow order of acts, thus, as it were, justifying all the acts of +the same order which have not entered into its definition. Public +opinion has ever since the time of Moses considered avarice, debauchery, +and cruelty to be evil, and has condemned them; and this public opinion +denies and condemns every kind of a manifestation of avarice,---not only +the acquisition of another man's property by means of violence, deceit, +and cunning, but also a cruel usufruct of the same; it condemns every +kind of debauchery, be it fornication with a concubine, or a slave, a +divorced wife, or even one's own wife; it condemns every cruelty which +is expressed in assaults, in bad treatment, in the murder, not only of +men, but also of animals. But the law, which is based on violence, +prosecutes only certain forms of avarice, such as theft, rascality, and +certain forms of debauchery and cruelty, such as the violation of +marital fidelity, murders, crippling,---therefore, as it were, +permitting all those phases of avarice, debauchery, and cruelty which do +not fit in with the narrow definition, which is subject to misinterpretations. -But not only does violence distort public opinion,---it also -produces in men that pernicious conviction that men are not -moved by spiritual force, which is the source of every -forward movement of humanity, but by violence,---that very -action which not only does not bring people nearer to truth, -but always removes them from it. This delusion is pernicious -in that it compels men to neglect the fundamental force of -their life,---their spiritual activity,---and to transfer -all their attention and energy to the superficial, idle, and -for the most part harmful, activity of violence. - -This delusion is like the one men would be in if they wished -to make a locomotive move by turning its wheels with their -hands, forgetting entirely that the prime cause of its -motion is the expansion of steam and not the motion of the -wheels. Men who would turn the wheels with their hands and -with levers would produce nothing but a semblance of motion, -in the meantime bending the wheels and interfering with the +But not only does violence distort public opinion,---it also produces in +men that pernicious conviction that men are not moved by spiritual +force, which is the source of every forward movement of humanity, but by +violence,---that very action which not only does not bring people nearer +to truth, but always removes them from it. This delusion is pernicious +in that it compels men to neglect the fundamental force of their +life,---their spiritual activity,---and to transfer all their attention +and energy to the superficial, idle, and for the most part harmful, +activity of violence. + +This delusion is like the one men would be in if they wished to make a +locomotive move by turning its wheels with their hands, forgetting +entirely that the prime cause of its motion is the expansion of steam +and not the motion of the wheels. Men who would turn the wheels with +their hands and with levers would produce nothing but a semblance of +motion, in the meantime bending the wheels and interfering with the possibility of the locomotive's real motion. -It is this that men do when they want to move men by means -of external violence. - -Men say that a Christian life without violence cannot be -established, because there are savage nations outside of -Christian society,---in Africa, in Asia (some people -represent the Chinese as such a peril for our -civilization),---and there are such savage, corrupt, and, -according to the new theory of heredity, confirmed criminals -amidst Christian societies; and that violence is needed for -the purpose of keeping either from destroying our -civilization. - -But those savage men, outside and within the societies, with -whom we frighten ourselves and others, have never submitted -to violence, and are not even now conquered by it. - -Nations have never subjugated other nations by violence -alone. If a nation which subjugated another stood on a lower -stage of development, there was always repeated the -phenomenon that it did not introduce its structure of life -by means of violence, but, on the contrary, always submitted -to the structure of life which existed in the conquered -nation. If a nation, crushed by force, is subjugated or -close to subjugation, it is so only through public opinion, -and by no means through violence, which, on the contrary, -provokes the nation more and more. - -If men have ever been subjugated by whole nations to a new -religious confession, and by whole nations have been -baptized or have passed over to Mohammedanism, these -transformations did not take place because men in power -compelled them to do so (violence has, on the contrary, more -frequently encouraged the movements in the opposite -direction), but because public opinion compelled them to do -so; but the nations that were compelled by force to accept -the faiths of their conquerors have never accepted them. - -The same is true in respect to those savage elements which -exist within the societies: it is not the increase nor the -decrease of the severity of punishments, nor the change of -prisons, nor the increase of the police, that diminish or -increase the number of crimes,---it is changed only in -consequence of the change in public opinion. No severities -have eradicated duels and vendettas in some countries. No -matter how much the Circassians may be punished for theft, -they continue to steal out of bravado, because not one -maiden will marry a man who has not shown his daring, by -stealing a horse, or at least a sheep. If men shall stop -fighting duels and Circassians shall stop stealing, this -will not be so because they are afraid of punishment (the -fear of being punished only increases the charm of the -daring), but because public opinion will be changed. The -same is true in all other crimes. Violence can never destroy -what is accepted by public opinion. On the contrary, public -opinion need only be diametrically opposed to violence to -destroy its every action, as has always been the case with -every martyrdom. - -We do not know what would happen if no violence were exerted -against hostile nations and criminal elements of society. -But that the employment of violence at the present time does -not subjugate either of them, that we know from protracted -experience. - -Indeed, how can we subjugate by force the nations whose -whole education, all whose traditions, even religious -teaching, leads them to see the highest virtue in a struggle -with their enslavers and in striving after liberty? And how -are we forcibly to eradicate crimes in the midst of our -societies, when what by the governments are considered to be -crimes are considered to be virtues by public opinion. It is -possible by means of violence to destroy such nations and -such men, as is indeed done, but it is impossible to -subjugate them. - -The judge of everything, the fundamental force which moves -men and nations, has always been the one invisible, -impalpable force,---the resultant of all the spiritual -forces of a certain aggregate of men and of all humanity, -which is expressed in public opinion. - -Violence only weakens this force, retards, and distorts it, -and puts in its place another activity, which is not only -not useful, but even harmful for the forward movement of -humanity. - -To subjugate to Christianity all the wild people outside the -Christian world,---all the Zulus, Manchurians, and Chinese, -whom many consider to be wild,---and the savages within the -Christian world, there is one, only one means,---the -dissemination among these nations of a Christian public -opinion, which is established only through a Christian life, -Christian acts, Christian examples. And so in order to -conquer the nations which have remained unconquered by -Christianity, the men of our time, who possess one, and only -one, means for this purpose, do precisely the opposite of -what might attain their end. - -To conquer to Christianity the wild nations, who do not -touch us and who do not in any way provoke us to oppress -them, we---instead of leaving them first of all alone, and, -in case of necessity or of a wish to get in closer relations -with them, acting upon them only through a Christian -relation to them, through the Christian teaching as proved -by truly Christian acts of suffering, humility, abstinence, -purity, brotherhood, love---begin by this, that we open -among them new markets for our commerce, with nothing but -our advantage in view, seize their land, that is, rob them, -sell them wine, tobacco, opium, that is, corrupt them, and -establish among them our order, teach them violence and all -its methods, that is, the following of nothing but the -animal law of struggle, below which no man can descend, and -we do everything which can be done in order to conceal from -them whatever of Christianity there is in us. And after that -we send to them about two dozen missionaries, who prattle -some hypocritical ecclesiastic absurdities and, in the shape -of incontrovertible proofs of the impossibility of applying -the Christian truths to life, adduce these our experiments -at the Christianization of the savages. - -The same is true of the so-called criminals, who live within -our societies. To subjugate these men to Christianity, there -is but one, the only way,---the Christian public opinion, -which can be established among these men only by means of -the true Christian teaching, confirmed by a true, Christian -example of life. - -And so, to preach this Christian teaching and confirm it by -a Christian example, we establish among these people -agonizing prisons, guillotines, gallows, capital -punishments, preparations for murder, for which we use all -our strength; we establish for the common people idolatrous -doctrines, which are to stupefy them; we establish the -governmental sale of intoxicants,---wine, tobacco, opium; we -establish even prostitution; we give the land to those who -do not need it; we establish spectacles of senseless luxury -amidst wretchedness; we destroy every possibility of every -semblance of a Christian public opinion; we cautiously -destroy the established Christian public opinion,---and then -we quote these very men, who have carefully been corrupted -by ourselves, and whom we lock up, like wild beasts, in -places from which they cannot get away, and in which they -grow more bestial still, or whom we kill, as examples of the -impossibility of acting upon them otherwise than through +It is this that men do when they want to move men by means of external violence. -What takes place is like what happens when conscientious -ignorant physicians place a patient who has been cured by -the force of Nature under most unhygienic conditions and -stuff him full of poisonous medicines, and then claim that -it was only thanks to their hygiene and care that the -patient did not die, whereas the sick man would have been +Men say that a Christian life without violence cannot be established, +because there are savage nations outside of Christian society,---in +Africa, in Asia (some people represent the Chinese as such a peril for +our civilization),---and there are such savage, corrupt, and, according +to the new theory of heredity, confirmed criminals amidst Christian +societies; and that violence is needed for the purpose of keeping either +from destroying our civilization. + +But those savage men, outside and within the societies, with whom we +frighten ourselves and others, have never submitted to violence, and are +not even now conquered by it. + +Nations have never subjugated other nations by violence alone. If a +nation which subjugated another stood on a lower stage of development, +there was always repeated the phenomenon that it did not introduce its +structure of life by means of violence, but, on the contrary, always +submitted to the structure of life which existed in the conquered +nation. If a nation, crushed by force, is subjugated or close to +subjugation, it is so only through public opinion, and by no means +through violence, which, on the contrary, provokes the nation more and +more. + +If men have ever been subjugated by whole nations to a new religious +confession, and by whole nations have been baptized or have passed over +to Mohammedanism, these transformations did not take place because men +in power compelled them to do so (violence has, on the contrary, more +frequently encouraged the movements in the opposite direction), but +because public opinion compelled them to do so; but the nations that +were compelled by force to accept the faiths of their conquerors have +never accepted them. + +The same is true in respect to those savage elements which exist within +the societies: it is not the increase nor the decrease of the severity +of punishments, nor the change of prisons, nor the increase of the +police, that diminish or increase the number of crimes,---it is changed +only in consequence of the change in public opinion. No severities have +eradicated duels and vendettas in some countries. No matter how much the +Circassians may be punished for theft, they continue to steal out of +bravado, because not one maiden will marry a man who has not shown his +daring, by stealing a horse, or at least a sheep. If men shall stop +fighting duels and Circassians shall stop stealing, this will not be so +because they are afraid of punishment (the fear of being punished only +increases the charm of the daring), but because public opinion will be +changed. The same is true in all other crimes. Violence can never +destroy what is accepted by public opinion. On the contrary, public +opinion need only be diametrically opposed to violence to destroy its +every action, as has always been the case with every martyrdom. + +We do not know what would happen if no violence were exerted against +hostile nations and criminal elements of society. But that the +employment of violence at the present time does not subjugate either of +them, that we know from protracted experience. + +Indeed, how can we subjugate by force the nations whose whole education, +all whose traditions, even religious teaching, leads them to see the +highest virtue in a struggle with their enslavers and in striving after +liberty? And how are we forcibly to eradicate crimes in the midst of our +societies, when what by the governments are considered to be crimes are +considered to be virtues by public opinion. It is possible by means of +violence to destroy such nations and such men, as is indeed done, but it +is impossible to subjugate them. + +The judge of everything, the fundamental force which moves men and +nations, has always been the one invisible, impalpable force,---the +resultant of all the spiritual forces of a certain aggregate of men and +of all humanity, which is expressed in public opinion. + +Violence only weakens this force, retards, and distorts it, and puts in +its place another activity, which is not only not useful, but even +harmful for the forward movement of humanity. + +To subjugate to Christianity all the wild people outside the Christian +world,---all the Zulus, Manchurians, and Chinese, whom many consider to +be wild,---and the savages within the Christian world, there is one, +only one means,---the dissemination among these nations of a Christian +public opinion, which is established only through a Christian life, +Christian acts, Christian examples. And so in order to conquer the +nations which have remained unconquered by Christianity, the men of our +time, who possess one, and only one, means for this purpose, do +precisely the opposite of what might attain their end. + +To conquer to Christianity the wild nations, who do not touch us and who +do not in any way provoke us to oppress them, we---instead of leaving +them first of all alone, and, in case of necessity or of a wish to get +in closer relations with them, acting upon them only through a Christian +relation to them, through the Christian teaching as proved by truly +Christian acts of suffering, humility, abstinence, purity, brotherhood, +love---begin by this, that we open among them new markets for our +commerce, with nothing but our advantage in view, seize their land, that +is, rob them, sell them wine, tobacco, opium, that is, corrupt them, and +establish among them our order, teach them violence and all its methods, +that is, the following of nothing but the animal law of struggle, below +which no man can descend, and we do everything which can be done in +order to conceal from them whatever of Christianity there is in us. And +after that we send to them about two dozen missionaries, who prattle +some hypocritical ecclesiastic absurdities and, in the shape of +incontrovertible proofs of the impossibility of applying the Christian +truths to life, adduce these our experiments at the Christianization of +the savages. + +The same is true of the so-called criminals, who live within our +societies. To subjugate these men to Christianity, there is but one, the +only way,---the Christian public opinion, which can be established among +these men only by means of the true Christian teaching, confirmed by a +true, Christian example of life. + +And so, to preach this Christian teaching and confirm it by a Christian +example, we establish among these people agonizing prisons, guillotines, +gallows, capital punishments, preparations for murder, for which we use +all our strength; we establish for the common people idolatrous +doctrines, which are to stupefy them; we establish the governmental sale +of intoxicants,---wine, tobacco, opium; we establish even prostitution; +we give the land to those who do not need it; we establish spectacles of +senseless luxury amidst wretchedness; we destroy every possibility of +every semblance of a Christian public opinion; we cautiously destroy the +established Christian public opinion,---and then we quote these very +men, who have carefully been corrupted by ourselves, and whom we lock +up, like wild beasts, in places from which they cannot get away, and in +which they grow more bestial still, or whom we kill, as examples of the +impossibility of acting upon them otherwise than through violence. + +What takes place is like what happens when conscientious ignorant +physicians place a patient who has been cured by the force of Nature +under most unhygienic conditions and stuff him full of poisonous +medicines, and then claim that it was only thanks to their hygiene and +care that the patient did not die, whereas the sick man would have been well long ago, if they had left him alone. -Violence, which is put forth as the instrument for -maintaining the Christian structure of life, not only does -not produce this effect, but, on the contrary, prevents the -social structure from being what it could and should be. The -social structure is such as it is, not thanks to violence, -but in spite of it. - -And so there is no truth in the assertion of the defenders -of the existing order, that, if violence barely keeps the -evil non-Christian elements of humanity from attacking us, -the abolition of violence and the substitution of public -opinion for it will not protect humanity. It is not true, -because violence does not protect humanity, but, on the -contrary, deprives humanity of the one possibility of a true -protection through the establishment and diffusion of the -Christian public opinion as regards the existing order of -life. Only with the abolition of violence will Christian -public opinion cease to be corrupt, and receive the -possibility of an unimpeded diffusion, and men will not -direct their strength toward what they do not need, but -toward the one spiritual force which moves them. - -"But how can we reject the visible, palpable protection of -the policeman with his revolver, and depend on something -invisible, impalpable,---the public opinion? Does it still -exist, or not? Above all else, we know the order of things -in which we live. Be it good or bad, we know its defects and -are used to it; we know how to act, what to do under present -conditions; but what will happen when we reject them and -depend on something invisible, impalpable, and entirely -unknown?" And the uncertainty upon which men enter, when -rejecting the known order of things, seems terrible to them. - -It is all very well to be afraid of the uncertainty, when -our position is firm and secure; but our position is not -only not secure,---we know for certain that we are standing -on the brink of perdition. - -If we have to be afraid of something, let us be afraid of -what is really terrible, and not of what we only imagine to -be terrible. - -In our fear to make an effort to tear ourselves away from -the conditions which ruin us, only because the future is not -quite certain to us, we resemble the passengers of a sinking -ship, who, for fear of stepping into a boat which is to take -them to the shore, retreat to their cabins and refuse to -come out from them; or those sheep which, out of fear of the -fire which has enveloped the whole yard, press close under -the penthouses and do not walk through the open gates. - -How can we, who are standing on the threshold of a war of -inner revolutions, which is terrifying by its wretchedness -and destructiveness, and in comparison with which, as those -who are preparing it say, the terrors of the year '93 will -be play, speak of a danger which is threatened us by the -Dahomeans, the Zulus, etc., who live far, far away, and do -not think of attacking us, and by those few thousands of -robbers, thieves, and murderers, whom we ourselves have -stupefied and corrupted, and whose number is not at all -diminishing as the result of all our courts, prisons, and -capital punishments? - -Besides, this fear of the abolition of the visible -protection of the policeman is preeminently a fear of city -people, that is, of people who live under abnormal and -artificial conditions. Men who live under normal conditions -of life, not amidst cities, but amidst Nature, struggling -with it, live without this protection and know how little -violence can protect them against the actual dangers with -which they are surrounded. In this fear there is something -morbid, which depends mainly on those false conditions under -which many of us live and have grown up. - -An alienist told me how one summer day he was accompanied by -his insane patients as far as the gate of the hospital which -he was leaving. "Come with me to the city," the doctor -proposed to them. The patients agreed to it, and a small -crowd followed the doctor. But the farther they proceeded -along the street, where took place the free motion of sound -men, the more did they feel timid, and the more did they -press close to the doctor, retarding his walk. Finally, they -all began to ask him to take them back to the hospital, to -their senseless, but habitual mode of life, to their guards, -their blows, their long sleeves, their solitary cells. - -Even thus men press close and hanker after their senseless -structure of life, their factories, courts, prisons, capital -punishments, wars, though Christianity calls them to -freedom, to the free, rational life of the future, the -imminent age. - -Men say, "By what shall we be made secure, when the existing -order is destroyed? What will the new orders be which will -take the place of those of the present time, and in what -will they consist? So long as we do not know how our life -will be composed, we shall not move on or budge from our -place." - -This demand is what the explorer of new countries might put -forth, in demanding a detailed description of the country -into which he is entering. - -If the life of the individual man, in passing from one age -to another, were fully known to him, he would have no reason -for living. The same is true of the life of humanity: if it -had a programme of the life which awaits it as it enters -upon its new age, this would be the surest symptom that it -is not living, does not move on, but is whirling about in -one spot. - -The conditions of the new structure of life cannot be known -to us, because they have to be worked out by ourselves. In -this alone does life consist, namely, in recognizing the -unknown and conforming our activity to this new cognition. - -In this does the life of every individual and the life of -human societies and of humanity consist. +Violence, which is put forth as the instrument for maintaining the +Christian structure of life, not only does not produce this effect, but, +on the contrary, prevents the social structure from being what it could +and should be. The social structure is such as it is, not thanks to +violence, but in spite of it. + +And so there is no truth in the assertion of the defenders of the +existing order, that, if violence barely keeps the evil non-Christian +elements of humanity from attacking us, the abolition of violence and +the substitution of public opinion for it will not protect humanity. It +is not true, because violence does not protect humanity, but, on the +contrary, deprives humanity of the one possibility of a true protection +through the establishment and diffusion of the Christian public opinion +as regards the existing order of life. Only with the abolition of +violence will Christian public opinion cease to be corrupt, and receive +the possibility of an unimpeded diffusion, and men will not direct their +strength toward what they do not need, but toward the one spiritual +force which moves them. + +"But how can we reject the visible, palpable protection of the policeman +with his revolver, and depend on something invisible, impalpable,---the +public opinion? Does it still exist, or not? Above all else, we know the +order of things in which we live. Be it good or bad, we know its defects +and are used to it; we know how to act, what to do under present +conditions; but what will happen when we reject them and depend on +something invisible, impalpable, and entirely unknown?" And the +uncertainty upon which men enter, when rejecting the known order of +things, seems terrible to them. + +It is all very well to be afraid of the uncertainty, when our position +is firm and secure; but our position is not only not secure,---we know +for certain that we are standing on the brink of perdition. + +If we have to be afraid of something, let us be afraid of what is really +terrible, and not of what we only imagine to be terrible. + +In our fear to make an effort to tear ourselves away from the conditions +which ruin us, only because the future is not quite certain to us, we +resemble the passengers of a sinking ship, who, for fear of stepping +into a boat which is to take them to the shore, retreat to their cabins +and refuse to come out from them; or those sheep which, out of fear of +the fire which has enveloped the whole yard, press close under the +penthouses and do not walk through the open gates. + +How can we, who are standing on the threshold of a war of inner +revolutions, which is terrifying by its wretchedness and +destructiveness, and in comparison with which, as those who are +preparing it say, the terrors of the year '93 will be play, speak of a +danger which is threatened us by the Dahomeans, the Zulus, etc., who +live far, far away, and do not think of attacking us, and by those few +thousands of robbers, thieves, and murderers, whom we ourselves have +stupefied and corrupted, and whose number is not at all diminishing as +the result of all our courts, prisons, and capital punishments? + +Besides, this fear of the abolition of the visible protection of the +policeman is preeminently a fear of city people, that is, of people who +live under abnormal and artificial conditions. Men who live under normal +conditions of life, not amidst cities, but amidst Nature, struggling +with it, live without this protection and know how little violence can +protect them against the actual dangers with which they are surrounded. +In this fear there is something morbid, which depends mainly on those +false conditions under which many of us live and have grown up. + +An alienist told me how one summer day he was accompanied by his insane +patients as far as the gate of the hospital which he was leaving. "Come +with me to the city," the doctor proposed to them. The patients agreed +to it, and a small crowd followed the doctor. But the farther they +proceeded along the street, where took place the free motion of sound +men, the more did they feel timid, and the more did they press close to +the doctor, retarding his walk. Finally, they all began to ask him to +take them back to the hospital, to their senseless, but habitual mode of +life, to their guards, their blows, their long sleeves, their solitary +cells. + +Even thus men press close and hanker after their senseless structure of +life, their factories, courts, prisons, capital punishments, wars, +though Christianity calls them to freedom, to the free, rational life of +the future, the imminent age. + +Men say, "By what shall we be made secure, when the existing order is +destroyed? What will the new orders be which will take the place of +those of the present time, and in what will they consist? So long as we +do not know how our life will be composed, we shall not move on or budge +from our place." + +This demand is what the explorer of new countries might put forth, in +demanding a detailed description of the country into which he is +entering. + +If the life of the individual man, in passing from one age to another, +were fully known to him, he would have no reason for living. The same is +true of the life of humanity: if it had a programme of the life which +awaits it as it enters upon its new age, this would be the surest +symptom that it is not living, does not move on, but is whirling about +in one spot. + +The conditions of the new structure of life cannot be known to us, +because they have to be worked out by ourselves. In this alone does life +consist, namely, in recognizing the unknown and conforming our activity +to this new cognition. + +In this does the life of every individual and the life of human +societies and of humanity consist. # XI -The condition of Christian humanity, with its prisons, hard -labour, gallows, with its factories, accumulations of -capital, with its taxes, churches, saloons, houses of ill -fame, ever growing armaments, and millions of stupefied men, -who are ready, like chained dogs, to thrust themselves upon -those the masters may set them on, would be terrible if it -were the product of violence, whereas it is above all the -product of public opinion. But what is established by public -opinion not only can be, but actually is, destroyed by it. - -Hundreds of millions in money, tens of millions of -disciplined men, implements of destruction of wonderful -power, with an organization which of late has been carried -to the highest degree of perfection, with a whole army of -men whose calling it is to deceive and hypnotize the masses, -and all this, by means of electricity, which annihilates -space, subjected to men, who not only consider such a -structure of society to be advantageous for them, but even -such that without it they would inevitably perish, and who, -therefore, use every effort of their minds in order to -maintain it,---what an invincible force, one would think! - -And yet, one needs but get a conception of what it all tends -to and what no one can keep back,---that among men there -will be established a Christian public opinion, with the -same force and universality as the pagan public opinion, and -that it will take the place of the pagan one, that the -majority of men will be just as ashamed of all participation -in violence and its exploitation as men are now ashamed of -rascality, stealing, beggary, cowardice, and immediately -this complex and apparently powerful structure of life falls -of its own accord, without any struggle. It is not necessary -for anything new to enter into the consciousness of men, but -only for the mist to disappear, which conceals from men the -true meaning of some acts of violence, in order that this -may happen and the growing Christian public opinion should -get the better of the obsolescent pagan public opinion, -which admitted and justified acts of violence. All that is -needed is that men should feel as much ashamed of doing acts -of violence, of taking part in them, and exploiting them, as -it is now a disgrace to pass for a rascal, a thief, a -coward, a beggar. And it is precisely this that is beginning -to happen. We do not notice it, just as men do not notice -any motion, when they move together with everything -surrounding them. - -It is true, the structure of life in its main features -remains as violent in nature as it was one hundred years -ago, and not only the same, but in some relations, -especially in the preparations for war and in the wars -themselves, it appears to be even more cruel; but the -germinating Christian public opinion, which at a certain -stage of its development is to change the whole pagan -structure of life, is beginning to be active. The dried-up -tree stands apparently as firm as before,---it even looks -firmer, because it is rougher,---but it is already weakened -at the pith and is getting ready to fall. The same is true -of the present structure of life, which is based on -violence. The external condition of men is the same: some -are the violators, as before, and others are the violated; -but the view of the violators and the violated upon the -meaning and worth of the position of either has changed. - -The violating people, that is, those who take part in the -government, and those who make use of the violence, that is, -the rich, no longer represent, as formerly, the flower of -society and the ideal of human well-being and grandeur, -toward which all the violated used to strive. Now very -frequently it is not so much the violated who strive after -the position of the violators and try to imitate them, as -the violators, who frequently of their own free will -renounce the advantages of their position, choose the -condition of the violated, and try in simplicity of life to -emulate the violated. - -To say nothing of the now openly despised occupations and -offices, such as those of spies, agents of secret police, -usurers, saloon-keepers, a large number of occupations of -violators, which formerly used to be considered respectable, -such as those of policemen, courtiers, members of courts, -the administration, the clergy, the military, monopolists, -bankers, not only are not considered by all to be desirable, -but are even condemned by a certain most respectable circle -of men. There are now men who voluntarily renounce these -positions, which heretofore were considered to be above -reproach, and who prefer less advantageous positions, which -are not connected with violence. - -It is not only men of the state, but also rich men, who, not -from a religious feeling, as used to be the case, but only -from a peculiar sensitiveness for the germinating public -opinion, refuse to receive their inherited fortunes, -considering it just to use only so much as they earn by -their own labour. - -The conditions of the participant in the government and of -the rich man no longer present themselves, as they presented -themselves formerly and even now present themselves among -the non-Christian nations, as unquestionably honourable and -worthy of respect and as divine blessings. Very sensitive, -moral men (they are for the most part the most highly -cultured) avoid these conditions and prefer more modest -ones, which are independent of violence. - -The best young men, at an age when they are not yet -corrupted by life and when they choose a career, prefer the -activities of physicians, technologists, teachers, artists, -writers, even simply of agriculturists, who live by their -own labour, to positions in courts, in the administration, -in the church, and in the army, which are paid by the -government, or the positions of men who live on their own -incomes. - -The majority of monuments which are now erected are no -longer in commemoration of men of state, of generals, and -less certainly not of the rich, but of the learned, of -artists, of inventors, of men who have not only had nothing -in common with the governments, or with the authorities, but -who frequently have struggled against them. It is not so -much men of state and rich men, as learned men and artists, -who are extolled in poetry, represented in plastic art, and -honoured with festive jubilees. - -The best men of our time tend toward these most honoured -positions, and so the circle from which the men of state and -the rich come is growing smaller and smaller, so that in -intellect, culture, and especially in moral qualities, the -men who now stand at the head of governments, and the rich -no longer represent, as in olden times, the flower of -society, but, on the contrary, stand below the average. - -As in Russia and in Turkey, so in America and in France, no -matter how much the governments may change their officials, -the majority of them are selfish and venal men, who stand on -so low a level of morality that they do not satisfy even -those low demands of simple integrity which the governments -make upon them. We now frequently get to hear the naive -regrets of men of state, because the best men by some -strange accident, as they think, are always in the hostile -camp. It is as though men should complain that by a strange -accident it is always men with little refinement, who are -not particularly good, that become hangmen. - -The majority of rich men, similarly, in our time are no -longer composed of the most refined and cultured men of -society, as used to be the case, but of coarse accumulators -of wealth, who are interested only in their enrichment, for -the most part by dishonest means, or of degenerating -descendants of these accumulators, who not only do not play -any prominent part in society, but in the majority of cases -are subject to universal contempt. - -Not only is the circle of men, from which the servants of -the government and the rich men are chosen, growing all the -time smaller and smaller, and more and more debased, but -these men themselves no longer ascribe to the positions -which they hold their former significance, and frequently, -being ashamed of them, to the disadvantage of the cause -which they serve, neglect to carry out what by their -position they are called upon to do. Kings and emperors have -the management of hardly anything, hardly ever have the -courage to make internal changes and to enter into new -external political conditions, but for the most part leave -the solution of these questions to state institutions or to -public opinion. All their duties reduce themselves to being -the representatives of state unity and supremacy. But even -this duty they are performing worse and worse. The majority -of them not only do not keep themselves in their former -inaccessible grandeur, but, on the contrary, are becoming -more and more democratized, and even keep low company, -throwing off their last external prestige, that is, -violating precisely what they are called upon to maintain. - -The same takes place among the military. The military men of -the higher ranks, instead of encouraging the coarseness and -cruelty of the soldiers, which are necessary for their -business, themselves disseminate culture among the military, -preach humanitarianism, and frequently themselves share the -socialistic convictions of the masses, and reject war. In -the late plots against the Russian government, many of those -mixed up with them were army men. The number of these -military plotters is growing larger and larger. Very -frequently it happens, as was the case lately, that the -soldiers, who are called upon to pacify the inhabitants, -refuse to shoot at them. Military bravado is directly -condemned by army men themselves, and frequently serves as a -subject for ridicule. - -The same is true of judges and prosecuting attorneys: -judges, whose duty it is to judge and sentence criminals, -manage the proceedings in such a way as to discharge them, -so that the Russian government, to have men sentenced that -it wants to have sentenced, never subjects them to common -courts, but turns them over to« so-called military courts, -which represent but a semblance of courts. The same is true -of prosecuting attorneys, who frequently refuse to -prosecute, and, instead of prosecuting, circumvent the law, -defending those whom they should prosecute. Learned jurists, -who are obliged to justify the violence of power, more and -more deny the right to punish, and in its place introduce -theories of irresponsibility, and even not of the -correction, but of the cure of those whom they call -criminals. - -Jailers and superintendents of hard-labour convicts for the -most part become defenders of those whom they are supposed -to torture. Gendarmes and spies constantly save those whom -they are supposed to ruin. Clerical persons preach -toleration, often also the negation of violence, and the -more cultured among them try in their sermons to avoid the -lie which forms the whole meaning of their position and -which they are called upon to preach. Executioners refuse to -carry out their duties, so that in Russia capital punishment -can frequently not be carried out for want of executioners, -since, in spite of the advantages held out to make -hard-labour convicts become executioners, there is an ever -decreasing number of such as are willing to take up the -duty. Governors, rural judges and officers, collectors of -taxes, publicans, pitying the people, frequently try to find -excuses for not collecting the taxes from them. Rich men -cannot make up their minds to use their wealth for -themselves alone, but distribute it for public purposes. -Landowners erect on their lands hospitals and schools, and -some of them even renounce the ownership of land and -transfer it to the agriculturists, or establish communes on -it. Manufacturers build hospitals, schools, houses for their -workmen, and establish savings-banks and pensions; some -establish companies, in which they take an equal share with -other shareholders. Capitalists give part of their capital -for public, educational, artistic, philanthropic -institutions. Unable to part from their wealth during their -lifetime, many of them will it away after their death in +The condition of Christian humanity, with its prisons, hard labour, +gallows, with its factories, accumulations of capital, with its taxes, +churches, saloons, houses of ill fame, ever growing armaments, and +millions of stupefied men, who are ready, like chained dogs, to thrust +themselves upon those the masters may set them on, would be terrible if +it were the product of violence, whereas it is above all the product of +public opinion. But what is established by public opinion not only can +be, but actually is, destroyed by it. + +Hundreds of millions in money, tens of millions of disciplined men, +implements of destruction of wonderful power, with an organization which +of late has been carried to the highest degree of perfection, with a +whole army of men whose calling it is to deceive and hypnotize the +masses, and all this, by means of electricity, which annihilates space, +subjected to men, who not only consider such a structure of society to +be advantageous for them, but even such that without it they would +inevitably perish, and who, therefore, use every effort of their minds +in order to maintain it,---what an invincible force, one would think! + +And yet, one needs but get a conception of what it all tends to and what +no one can keep back,---that among men there will be established a +Christian public opinion, with the same force and universality as the +pagan public opinion, and that it will take the place of the pagan one, +that the majority of men will be just as ashamed of all participation in +violence and its exploitation as men are now ashamed of rascality, +stealing, beggary, cowardice, and immediately this complex and +apparently powerful structure of life falls of its own accord, without +any struggle. It is not necessary for anything new to enter into the +consciousness of men, but only for the mist to disappear, which conceals +from men the true meaning of some acts of violence, in order that this +may happen and the growing Christian public opinion should get the +better of the obsolescent pagan public opinion, which admitted and +justified acts of violence. All that is needed is that men should feel +as much ashamed of doing acts of violence, of taking part in them, and +exploiting them, as it is now a disgrace to pass for a rascal, a thief, +a coward, a beggar. And it is precisely this that is beginning to +happen. We do not notice it, just as men do not notice any motion, when +they move together with everything surrounding them. + +It is true, the structure of life in its main features remains as +violent in nature as it was one hundred years ago, and not only the +same, but in some relations, especially in the preparations for war and +in the wars themselves, it appears to be even more cruel; but the +germinating Christian public opinion, which at a certain stage of its +development is to change the whole pagan structure of life, is beginning +to be active. The dried-up tree stands apparently as firm as +before,---it even looks firmer, because it is rougher,---but it is +already weakened at the pith and is getting ready to fall. The same is +true of the present structure of life, which is based on violence. The +external condition of men is the same: some are the violators, as +before, and others are the violated; but the view of the violators and +the violated upon the meaning and worth of the position of either has +changed. + +The violating people, that is, those who take part in the government, +and those who make use of the violence, that is, the rich, no longer +represent, as formerly, the flower of society and the ideal of human +well-being and grandeur, toward which all the violated used to strive. +Now very frequently it is not so much the violated who strive after the +position of the violators and try to imitate them, as the violators, who +frequently of their own free will renounce the advantages of their +position, choose the condition of the violated, and try in simplicity of +life to emulate the violated. + +To say nothing of the now openly despised occupations and offices, such +as those of spies, agents of secret police, usurers, saloon-keepers, a +large number of occupations of violators, which formerly used to be +considered respectable, such as those of policemen, courtiers, members +of courts, the administration, the clergy, the military, monopolists, +bankers, not only are not considered by all to be desirable, but are +even condemned by a certain most respectable circle of men. There are +now men who voluntarily renounce these positions, which heretofore were +considered to be above reproach, and who prefer less advantageous +positions, which are not connected with violence. + +It is not only men of the state, but also rich men, who, not from a +religious feeling, as used to be the case, but only from a peculiar +sensitiveness for the germinating public opinion, refuse to receive +their inherited fortunes, considering it just to use only so much as +they earn by their own labour. + +The conditions of the participant in the government and of the rich man +no longer present themselves, as they presented themselves formerly and +even now present themselves among the non-Christian nations, as +unquestionably honourable and worthy of respect and as divine blessings. +Very sensitive, moral men (they are for the most part the most highly +cultured) avoid these conditions and prefer more modest ones, which are +independent of violence. + +The best young men, at an age when they are not yet corrupted by life +and when they choose a career, prefer the activities of physicians, +technologists, teachers, artists, writers, even simply of +agriculturists, who live by their own labour, to positions in courts, in +the administration, in the church, and in the army, which are paid by +the government, or the positions of men who live on their own incomes. + +The majority of monuments which are now erected are no longer in +commemoration of men of state, of generals, and less certainly not of +the rich, but of the learned, of artists, of inventors, of men who have +not only had nothing in common with the governments, or with the +authorities, but who frequently have struggled against them. It is not +so much men of state and rich men, as learned men and artists, who are +extolled in poetry, represented in plastic art, and honoured with +festive jubilees. + +The best men of our time tend toward these most honoured positions, and +so the circle from which the men of state and the rich come is growing +smaller and smaller, so that in intellect, culture, and especially in +moral qualities, the men who now stand at the head of governments, and +the rich no longer represent, as in olden times, the flower of society, +but, on the contrary, stand below the average. + +As in Russia and in Turkey, so in America and in France, no matter how +much the governments may change their officials, the majority of them +are selfish and venal men, who stand on so low a level of morality that +they do not satisfy even those low demands of simple integrity which the +governments make upon them. We now frequently get to hear the naive +regrets of men of state, because the best men by some strange accident, +as they think, are always in the hostile camp. It is as though men +should complain that by a strange accident it is always men with little +refinement, who are not particularly good, that become hangmen. + +The majority of rich men, similarly, in our time are no longer composed +of the most refined and cultured men of society, as used to be the case, +but of coarse accumulators of wealth, who are interested only in their +enrichment, for the most part by dishonest means, or of degenerating +descendants of these accumulators, who not only do not play any +prominent part in society, but in the majority of cases are subject to +universal contempt. + +Not only is the circle of men, from which the servants of the government +and the rich men are chosen, growing all the time smaller and smaller, +and more and more debased, but these men themselves no longer ascribe to +the positions which they hold their former significance, and frequently, +being ashamed of them, to the disadvantage of the cause which they +serve, neglect to carry out what by their position they are called upon +to do. Kings and emperors have the management of hardly anything, hardly +ever have the courage to make internal changes and to enter into new +external political conditions, but for the most part leave the solution +of these questions to state institutions or to public opinion. All their +duties reduce themselves to being the representatives of state unity and +supremacy. But even this duty they are performing worse and worse. The +majority of them not only do not keep themselves in their former +inaccessible grandeur, but, on the contrary, are becoming more and more +democratized, and even keep low company, throwing off their last +external prestige, that is, violating precisely what they are called +upon to maintain. + +The same takes place among the military. The military men of the higher +ranks, instead of encouraging the coarseness and cruelty of the +soldiers, which are necessary for their business, themselves disseminate +culture among the military, preach humanitarianism, and frequently +themselves share the socialistic convictions of the masses, and reject +war. In the late plots against the Russian government, many of those +mixed up with them were army men. The number of these military plotters +is growing larger and larger. Very frequently it happens, as was the +case lately, that the soldiers, who are called upon to pacify the +inhabitants, refuse to shoot at them. Military bravado is directly +condemned by army men themselves, and frequently serves as a subject for +ridicule. + +The same is true of judges and prosecuting attorneys: judges, whose duty +it is to judge and sentence criminals, manage the proceedings in such a +way as to discharge them, so that the Russian government, to have men +sentenced that it wants to have sentenced, never subjects them to common +courts, but turns them over to« so-called military courts, which +represent but a semblance of courts. The same is true of prosecuting +attorneys, who frequently refuse to prosecute, and, instead of +prosecuting, circumvent the law, defending those whom they should +prosecute. Learned jurists, who are obliged to justify the violence of +power, more and more deny the right to punish, and in its place +introduce theories of irresponsibility, and even not of the correction, +but of the cure of those whom they call criminals. + +Jailers and superintendents of hard-labour convicts for the most part +become defenders of those whom they are supposed to torture. Gendarmes +and spies constantly save those whom they are supposed to ruin. Clerical +persons preach toleration, often also the negation of violence, and the +more cultured among them try in their sermons to avoid the lie which +forms the whole meaning of their position and which they are called upon +to preach. Executioners refuse to carry out their duties, so that in +Russia capital punishment can frequently not be carried out for want of +executioners, since, in spite of the advantages held out to make +hard-labour convicts become executioners, there is an ever decreasing +number of such as are willing to take up the duty. Governors, rural +judges and officers, collectors of taxes, publicans, pitying the people, +frequently try to find excuses for not collecting the taxes from them. +Rich men cannot make up their minds to use their wealth for themselves +alone, but distribute it for public purposes. Landowners erect on their +lands hospitals and schools, and some of them even renounce the +ownership of land and transfer it to the agriculturists, or establish +communes on it. Manufacturers build hospitals, schools, houses for their +workmen, and establish savings-banks and pensions; some establish +companies, in which they take an equal share with other shareholders. +Capitalists give part of their capital for public, educational, +artistic, philanthropic institutions. Unable to part from their wealth +during their lifetime, many of them will it away after their death in favour of public institutions. -All these phenomena might appear accidental, if they did not -all reduce themselves to one common cause, just as it might -seem accidental that the buds should swell on some of the -trees in spring, if we did not know that the cause of it is -the common spring, and that, if the buds have begun to swell -on some of the trees, the same no doubt will happen with all -of the trees. - -The same is true in the manifestation of the Christian -public opinion as regards the significance of violence and -of what is based upon it. If this public opinion is already -influencing some very sensitive men, and causes them, each -in his own business, to renounce the privileges which -violence grants, or not to use them, it will continue to act -on others, and will act until it will change the whole -activity of men and will bring them in agreement with that -Christian consciousness which is already living among the -leading men of humanity. - -And if there now are rulers who do not have the courage to -undertake anything in the name of their own power, and who -try as much as possible to resemble, not monarchs, but the -simplest mortals, and who show their readiness to renounce -their prerogatives and to become the first citizens of their -republics; and if there are now army men who understand all -the evil and sinfulness of war and do not wish to shoot at -men belonging to another nation, or to their own; and judges -and prosecuting attorneys, who do not wish to prosecute and -condemn criminals; and clergymen, who renounce their he; and -publicans, who try as little as possible to perform what -they are called upon to perform; and rich men, who give up -their wealth,---the same will inevitably happen with other -governments, other army men, other members of the court, -clergymen, publicans, and rich men. And when there shall be -no men to hold these positions, there will be none of these -positions and no violence. - -But it is not by this road alone that public opinion leads -men to the abolition of the existing order and the -substitution of another for it. In proportion as the -positions of violence become less and less attractive, and -there are fewer and fewer men willing to occupy them, their -uselessness becomes more and more apparent. - -In the Christian world there are the same rulers and -governments, the same courts, the same publicans, the same -clergy, the same rich men, landowners, manufacturers, and -capitalists, as before, but there is an entirely different -relation of men toward men and of the men themselves toward -their positions. - -It is still the same rulers, the same meetings, and chases, -and feasts, and balls, and uniforms, and the same diplomats, -and talks about alliances and wars; the same parliaments, in -which they still discuss Eastern and African questions, and -alliances, and breaches of relations, and Home Rule, and an -eight-hour day. And the ministries give way to one another -in the same way, and there are the same speeches, the same -incidents. But men who see how one article in a newspaper -changes the state of affairs more than dozens of meetings of -monarchs and sessions of parliaments, see more and more -clearly that it is not the meetings and rendezvous and the -discussions in the parliaments that guide the affairs of -men, but something independent of all this, which is not +All these phenomena might appear accidental, if they did not all reduce +themselves to one common cause, just as it might seem accidental that +the buds should swell on some of the trees in spring, if we did not know +that the cause of it is the common spring, and that, if the buds have +begun to swell on some of the trees, the same no doubt will happen with +all of the trees. + +The same is true in the manifestation of the Christian public opinion as +regards the significance of violence and of what is based upon it. If +this public opinion is already influencing some very sensitive men, and +causes them, each in his own business, to renounce the privileges which +violence grants, or not to use them, it will continue to act on others, +and will act until it will change the whole activity of men and will +bring them in agreement with that Christian consciousness which is +already living among the leading men of humanity. + +And if there now are rulers who do not have the courage to undertake +anything in the name of their own power, and who try as much as possible +to resemble, not monarchs, but the simplest mortals, and who show their +readiness to renounce their prerogatives and to become the first +citizens of their republics; and if there are now army men who +understand all the evil and sinfulness of war and do not wish to shoot +at men belonging to another nation, or to their own; and judges and +prosecuting attorneys, who do not wish to prosecute and condemn +criminals; and clergymen, who renounce their he; and publicans, who try +as little as possible to perform what they are called upon to perform; +and rich men, who give up their wealth,---the same will inevitably +happen with other governments, other army men, other members of the +court, clergymen, publicans, and rich men. And when there shall be no +men to hold these positions, there will be none of these positions and +no violence. + +But it is not by this road alone that public opinion leads men to the +abolition of the existing order and the substitution of another for it. +In proportion as the positions of violence become less and less +attractive, and there are fewer and fewer men willing to occupy them, +their uselessness becomes more and more apparent. + +In the Christian world there are the same rulers and governments, the +same courts, the same publicans, the same clergy, the same rich men, +landowners, manufacturers, and capitalists, as before, but there is an +entirely different relation of men toward men and of the men themselves +toward their positions. + +It is still the same rulers, the same meetings, and chases, and feasts, +and balls, and uniforms, and the same diplomats, and talks about +alliances and wars; the same parliaments, in which they still discuss +Eastern and African questions, and alliances, and breaches of relations, +and Home Rule, and an eight-hour day. And the ministries give way to one +another in the same way, and there are the same speeches, the same +incidents. But men who see how one article in a newspaper changes the +state of affairs more than dozens of meetings of monarchs and sessions +of parliaments, see more and more clearly that it is not the meetings +and rendezvous and the discussions in the parliaments that guide the +affairs of men, but something independent of all this, which is not centred anywhere. -There are the same generals, and officers, and soldiers, and -guns, and fortresses, and parades, and manoeuvres, but there -has been no war for a year, ten, twenty years, and, besides, -one can depend less on the military for the suppression of -riots, and it is getting clearer and clearer that, -therefore, generals, and officers, and soldiers are only -members of festive processions,---objects of amusement for -rulers, large, rather expensive corps-de-ballet. - -There are the same prosecutors and judges, and the same -proceedings, but it is getting clearer and clearer that, -since civil cases are decided on the basis of all kinds of -considerations except that of justice, and since criminal -cases have no sense, because punishments attain no purpose -admitted even by the judges, these institutions have no -other significance than that of serving as a means for -supporting men who are not fit for anything more useful. - -There are the same clergymen, and bishops, and churches, and -synods, but it is becoming clearer and clearer to all men -that these men have long ago ceased to believe in what they -preach, and that, therefore, they cannot convince any one of -the necessity of believing in what they themselves do not -believe. - -There are the same collectors of taxes, but they are -becoming less and less capable of taking away by force -people's property, and it is becoming clearer and clearer -that people can without collectors of taxes collect all that -is necessary by subscribing it voluntarily. - -There are the same rich men, but it is becoming clearer and -clearer that they can be useful only in proportion as they -cease to be personal managers of their wealth and give to -society all, or at least a part, of their fortunes. - -When all this shall become completely clear to all, it will -be natural for men to ask themselves, "But why should we -feed and maintain all these kings, emperors, presidents, and -members of all kinds of Chambers and ministries, if nothing -results from all their meetings and discussions? Would it -not be better, as some jester said, to make a queen out of -rubber?" - -"And what good to us are the armies, with their generals, -and music, and cavalry, and drums? What good are they when -there is no war and no one wants to conquer any one, and -when, even if there is a war, the other nations do not let -us profit from it, and the troops refuse to shoot at their -own people?" - -"And what good are judges and prosecutors who in civil cases -do not decide according to justice and in criminal cases -know themselves that all punishments are useless?" - -"And of what use are collectors of taxes who unwillingly -collect the taxes, while what is needed is collected without -them?" - -"And of what use is the clergy, which has long ago ceased to -believe in what it preaches?" - -"And of what use is capital in private hands, when it can be -of use only by becoming the common possession?" - -And having once asked themselves this, people cannot help -but come to the conclusion that they ought not to support -all these useless institutions. - -But not only will the men who support these institutions -arrive at the necessity of abolishing them,---the men -themselves who occupy these positions will simultaneously or -even earlier be brought to the necessity of giving up their -positions. - -Public opinion more and more condemns violence, and so men, -more and more submitting to public opinion, are less and -less desirous of holding their positions, which are -maintained by violence, and those who hold these positions -are less and less able to make use of violence. - -But by not using violence, and yet remaining in positions -which are conditioned by violence, the men who occupy these -positions become more and more useless. And this -uselessness, which is more and more felt by those who -maintain these positions and by those who hold them, will -finally be such that there will be found no men to maintain -them and none who would be willing to hold them. - -Once I was present in Moscow at some discussions about -faith, which, as usual, took place during Quasimodo week -near a church in Hunter's Row. About twenty men were -gathered on the sidewalk, and a serious discussion on -religion was going on. At the same time there was some kind -of a concert in the adjoining building of the Assembly of -Noblemen, and an officer of police, noticing a crowd of -people gathered near the church, sent a mounted gendarme to -order them to disperse. The officer had personally no desire -that they should disperse. The crowd of twenty men were in -nobody's way, but the officer had been standing there the -whole morning, and he had to do something. The gendarme, a -young lad, with his right arm jauntily akimbo and clattering -sword, rode up to us and shouted commandingly, "Scatter! -What are you doing there?" Everybody looked at the gendarme, -and one of the speakers, a modest man in a long coat, said -calmly and kindly: We are talking about something important, -and there is no reason why we should scatter. Young man, you -had better get down and listen to what we are talking -about,---it will do you good," and turning away, he -continued his discourse. The gendarme made no reply, wheeled -his horse around, and rode off. - -The same thing must happen in all matters of violence. The -officer feels ennui, he has nothing to do; the poor fellow -is placed in a position where he must command. He is -deprived of all human life, and all he can do is to look and -command, to command ahd look, though his commands and his -watching are of no earthly use. In such a condition as those -unfortunate rulers, ministers, members of parliaments, -governors, generals, officers, bishops, clergymen, even rich -men are now partly and soon will be completely. They can do -nothing else but command, and they command and send their -messengers, as the officer sends his gendarme, to be in -people's way, and since the people whom they trouble turn to -them with the request that they be left alone, they imagine -that they are indispensable. - -But the time is coming, and will soon be here, when it shall -be quite clear for all men that they are not any good and -are only in the way of people, and the people whom they -bother will say to them kindly and meekly, as that man in -the long overcoat, "Please, do not bother us." And all the -messengers and senders will have to follow that good advice, -that is, stop riding with arms akimbo among the people, -bothering them, and get down from their hobbies, take off -their attire, listen to what people have to say, and, -joining them, take hold with them of the true human work. - -The time is coming, and will inevitably come, when all the -institutions of violence of our time will be destroyed in -consequence of their too obvious uselessness, silliness, and -even indecency. - -The time must come, when with the men of our world, who hold -positions that are given by violence, will happen what -happened with the king in Andersen's fable, "The New Royal -Garment," when a small child, seeing the naked king, naively -called out, "Behold, he is naked!" and all those who had -seen it before, but had not expressed it, could no longer +There are the same generals, and officers, and soldiers, and guns, and +fortresses, and parades, and manoeuvres, but there has been no war for a +year, ten, twenty years, and, besides, one can depend less on the +military for the suppression of riots, and it is getting clearer and +clearer that, therefore, generals, and officers, and soldiers are only +members of festive processions,---objects of amusement for rulers, +large, rather expensive corps-de-ballet. + +There are the same prosecutors and judges, and the same proceedings, but +it is getting clearer and clearer that, since civil cases are decided on +the basis of all kinds of considerations except that of justice, and +since criminal cases have no sense, because punishments attain no +purpose admitted even by the judges, these institutions have no other +significance than that of serving as a means for supporting men who are +not fit for anything more useful. + +There are the same clergymen, and bishops, and churches, and synods, but +it is becoming clearer and clearer to all men that these men have long +ago ceased to believe in what they preach, and that, therefore, they +cannot convince any one of the necessity of believing in what they +themselves do not believe. + +There are the same collectors of taxes, but they are becoming less and +less capable of taking away by force people's property, and it is +becoming clearer and clearer that people can without collectors of taxes +collect all that is necessary by subscribing it voluntarily. + +There are the same rich men, but it is becoming clearer and clearer that +they can be useful only in proportion as they cease to be personal +managers of their wealth and give to society all, or at least a part, of +their fortunes. + +When all this shall become completely clear to all, it will be natural +for men to ask themselves, "But why should we feed and maintain all +these kings, emperors, presidents, and members of all kinds of Chambers +and ministries, if nothing results from all their meetings and +discussions? Would it not be better, as some jester said, to make a +queen out of rubber?" + +"And what good to us are the armies, with their generals, and music, and +cavalry, and drums? What good are they when there is no war and no one +wants to conquer any one, and when, even if there is a war, the other +nations do not let us profit from it, and the troops refuse to shoot at +their own people?" + +"And what good are judges and prosecutors who in civil cases do not +decide according to justice and in criminal cases know themselves that +all punishments are useless?" + +"And of what use are collectors of taxes who unwillingly collect the +taxes, while what is needed is collected without them?" + +"And of what use is the clergy, which has long ago ceased to believe in +what it preaches?" + +"And of what use is capital in private hands, when it can be of use only +by becoming the common possession?" + +And having once asked themselves this, people cannot help but come to +the conclusion that they ought not to support all these useless +institutions. + +But not only will the men who support these institutions arrive at the +necessity of abolishing them,---the men themselves who occupy these +positions will simultaneously or even earlier be brought to the +necessity of giving up their positions. + +Public opinion more and more condemns violence, and so men, more and +more submitting to public opinion, are less and less desirous of holding +their positions, which are maintained by violence, and those who hold +these positions are less and less able to make use of violence. + +But by not using violence, and yet remaining in positions which are +conditioned by violence, the men who occupy these positions become more +and more useless. And this uselessness, which is more and more felt by +those who maintain these positions and by those who hold them, will +finally be such that there will be found no men to maintain them and +none who would be willing to hold them. + +Once I was present in Moscow at some discussions about faith, which, as +usual, took place during Quasimodo week near a church in Hunter's Row. +About twenty men were gathered on the sidewalk, and a serious discussion +on religion was going on. At the same time there was some kind of a +concert in the adjoining building of the Assembly of Noblemen, and an +officer of police, noticing a crowd of people gathered near the church, +sent a mounted gendarme to order them to disperse. The officer had +personally no desire that they should disperse. The crowd of twenty men +were in nobody's way, but the officer had been standing there the whole +morning, and he had to do something. The gendarme, a young lad, with his +right arm jauntily akimbo and clattering sword, rode up to us and +shouted commandingly, "Scatter! What are you doing there?" Everybody +looked at the gendarme, and one of the speakers, a modest man in a long +coat, said calmly and kindly: We are talking about something important, +and there is no reason why we should scatter. Young man, you had better +get down and listen to what we are talking about,---it will do you +good," and turning away, he continued his discourse. The gendarme made +no reply, wheeled his horse around, and rode off. + +The same thing must happen in all matters of violence. The officer feels +ennui, he has nothing to do; the poor fellow is placed in a position +where he must command. He is deprived of all human life, and all he can +do is to look and command, to command ahd look, though his commands and +his watching are of no earthly use. In such a condition as those +unfortunate rulers, ministers, members of parliaments, governors, +generals, officers, bishops, clergymen, even rich men are now partly and +soon will be completely. They can do nothing else but command, and they +command and send their messengers, as the officer sends his gendarme, to +be in people's way, and since the people whom they trouble turn to them +with the request that they be left alone, they imagine that they are +indispensable. + +But the time is coming, and will soon be here, when it shall be quite +clear for all men that they are not any good and are only in the way of +people, and the people whom they bother will say to them kindly and +meekly, as that man in the long overcoat, "Please, do not bother us." +And all the messengers and senders will have to follow that good advice, +that is, stop riding with arms akimbo among the people, bothering them, +and get down from their hobbies, take off their attire, listen to what +people have to say, and, joining them, take hold with them of the true +human work. + +The time is coming, and will inevitably come, when all the institutions +of violence of our time will be destroyed in consequence of their too +obvious uselessness, silliness, and even indecency. + +The time must come, when with the men of our world, who hold positions +that are given by violence, will happen what happened with the king in +Andersen's fable, "The New Royal Garment," when a small child, seeing +the naked king, naively called out, "Behold, he is naked!" and all those +who had seen it before, but had not expressed it, could no longer conceal it. -The point of the fable is this, that to the king, a lover of -new garments, there come some tailors who promise to make -him an extraordinary garment. The king hires the tailors, -and they begin to sew, having informed him that the -peculiarity of their garment is this, that he who is useless -in his office cannot see the garments. - -The courtiers come to see the work of the tailors, but they -see nothing, as the tailors stick their needles into empty -space. But, mindful of the condition, all the courtiers say -that they see the garment, and they praise it. The king does -the same. The time arrives for the procession, when the king -is to appear in his new garment. The king undresses himself -and puts on his new garments, that is, he remains naked, and -goes naked through the city. But, mindful of the condition, -no one dares to say that there are no garments, until a -small child calls out, "Behold, he is naked!" - -The same thing must happen with all those who from inertia -hold offices which have long ago become useless, when the -first man who is not interested (as the proverb has it, "One -hand washes the other"), in concealing the uselessness of -these institutions, will point out their uselessness and -will naively call out, "But, good people, they have long ago -ceased to be good for anything." - -The condition of Christian humanity, with its fortresses, -guns, dynamite, cannon, torpedoes, prisons, gallows, -churches, factories, custom-houses, palaces, is indeed -terrible; but neither fortresses, nor cannon, nor guns shoot -themselves at any one, prisons do not themselves lock any -one up, the gallows does not hang any one, the churches do -not of themselves deceive any one, the customhouses hold no -one back, palaces and factories do not erect and maintain -themselves, but everything is done by men. But when men -understand that this ought not to be done, there will be -none of these things. - -Men are already beginning to understand this. If not all men -understand it as yet, the leaders among men do, those after -whom follow all other men. And what the leaders have once -come to understand, they can never stop understanding, and -what the leaders have come to understand, all other men not -only can, but inevitably must understand. - -Thus the prediction that the time will come when all men -shall be instructed by God, shall stop warring, shall forge -the swords into ploughshares and the spears into -pruning-hooks, that is, translating into our language, when -all the prisons, fortresses, barracks, palaces, churches, -shall remain empty, and all the gallows, guns, cannon, shall -remain unused, is no longer a dream, but a definite, new -form of life, toward which humanity is moving with ever -increasing rapidity. +The point of the fable is this, that to the king, a lover of new +garments, there come some tailors who promise to make him an +extraordinary garment. The king hires the tailors, and they begin to +sew, having informed him that the peculiarity of their garment is this, +that he who is useless in his office cannot see the garments. + +The courtiers come to see the work of the tailors, but they see nothing, +as the tailors stick their needles into empty space. But, mindful of the +condition, all the courtiers say that they see the garment, and they +praise it. The king does the same. The time arrives for the procession, +when the king is to appear in his new garment. The king undresses +himself and puts on his new garments, that is, he remains naked, and +goes naked through the city. But, mindful of the condition, no one dares +to say that there are no garments, until a small child calls out, +"Behold, he is naked!" + +The same thing must happen with all those who from inertia hold offices +which have long ago become useless, when the first man who is not +interested (as the proverb has it, "One hand washes the other"), in +concealing the uselessness of these institutions, will point out their +uselessness and will naively call out, "But, good people, they have long +ago ceased to be good for anything." + +The condition of Christian humanity, with its fortresses, guns, +dynamite, cannon, torpedoes, prisons, gallows, churches, factories, +custom-houses, palaces, is indeed terrible; but neither fortresses, nor +cannon, nor guns shoot themselves at any one, prisons do not themselves +lock any one up, the gallows does not hang any one, the churches do not +of themselves deceive any one, the customhouses hold no one back, +palaces and factories do not erect and maintain themselves, but +everything is done by men. But when men understand that this ought not +to be done, there will be none of these things. + +Men are already beginning to understand this. If not all men understand +it as yet, the leaders among men do, those after whom follow all other +men. And what the leaders have once come to understand, they can never +stop understanding, and what the leaders have come to understand, all +other men not only can, but inevitably must understand. + +Thus the prediction that the time will come when all men shall be +instructed by God, shall stop warring, shall forge the swords into +ploughshares and the spears into pruning-hooks, that is, translating +into our language, when all the prisons, fortresses, barracks, palaces, +churches, shall remain empty, and all the gallows, guns, cannon, shall +remain unused, is no longer a dream, but a definite, new form of life, +toward which humanity is moving with ever increasing rapidity. But when shall this be? -Eighteen hundred years ago Christ answered this question by -saying that the end of the present world, that is, of the -pagan structure of the world, would come when the calamities -of men should be increased to their farthest limit and at -the same time the gospel of the kingdom of God, that is, the -possibility of a new, violenceless structure of the world, -should be preached in all the world (Matthew 24:3-28). - -"But of that day and hour knoweth no man, but my Father -only" (Matthew 24:36), is what Christ says, for it may come -any time, at any moment, even when we do not expect it. - -In reply to the question when this hour shall arrive, Christ -says that we cannot know it; but for the very reason that we -do not know the time of its coming, we should not only be at -all times prepared to meet it, as must be the good man -watching the house, and the virgins with their lamps going -forth to meet the bridegroom, but also we should work with -all our strength for the coming of that hour, as the -servants had to work for the talents given to them (Matthew -24:43; 25:1-30). In reply to the question when this hour -should come, Christ admonished all men to work with all -their strength for its quicker coming. - -There can be no other answer. People can nowise know when -the day and the hour of the kingdom of God shall arrive, -because the coming of that hour depends on no one but the -men themselves. - -The answer is the same as that of the sage, who in reply to -the question of a passer-by, how far it was to the city, -answered, "Go." - -How can we know how far it is to the goal toward which -humanity is moving, since we do not know how humanity, on -whom it depends whether to go or not, to stop, to temper the -motion, or to accelerate it, will move toward that goal? - -All we can know is, what we, who compose humanity, must do, -and what not, in order that the kingdom of God may come. -That we all know. And every one need but begin to do what we -must do, and stop doing what we must not do; every one of us -need only live by all that light which is within us, in -order that the promised kingdom of God, toward which the +Eighteen hundred years ago Christ answered this question by saying that +the end of the present world, that is, of the pagan structure of the +world, would come when the calamities of men should be increased to +their farthest limit and at the same time the gospel of the kingdom of +God, that is, the possibility of a new, violenceless structure of the +world, should be preached in all the world (Matthew 24:3-28). + +"But of that day and hour knoweth no man, but my Father only" (Matthew +24:36), is what Christ says, for it may come any time, at any moment, +even when we do not expect it. + +In reply to the question when this hour shall arrive, Christ says that +we cannot know it; but for the very reason that we do not know the time +of its coming, we should not only be at all times prepared to meet it, +as must be the good man watching the house, and the virgins with their +lamps going forth to meet the bridegroom, but also we should work with +all our strength for the coming of that hour, as the servants had to +work for the talents given to them (Matthew 24:43; 25:1-30). In reply to +the question when this hour should come, Christ admonished all men to +work with all their strength for its quicker coming. + +There can be no other answer. People can nowise know when the day and +the hour of the kingdom of God shall arrive, because the coming of that +hour depends on no one but the men themselves. + +The answer is the same as that of the sage, who in reply to the question +of a passer-by, how far it was to the city, answered, "Go." + +How can we know how far it is to the goal toward which humanity is +moving, since we do not know how humanity, on whom it depends whether to +go or not, to stop, to temper the motion, or to accelerate it, will move +toward that goal? + +All we can know is, what we, who compose humanity, must do, and what +not, in order that the kingdom of God may come. That we all know. And +every one need but begin to do what we must do, and stop doing what we +must not do; every one of us need only live by all that light which is +within us, in order that the promised kingdom of God, toward which the heart of every man is drawn, may come at once. # XII ## 1 -I had ended this two years' labour, when, on the ninth of -September, I happened to travel on a train to a locality in -the Governments of Tula and Ryazan, where the peasants had -been starving the year before, and were starving still more -in the present year. At one of the stations the train in -which I was travelling met a special train which, under the -leadership of the governor, was transporting troops with -guns, cartridges, and rods for the torture and killing of -those very famine-stricken peasants. - -The torturing of the peasants with rods for the purpose of -enforcing the decision of the authorities, although corporal -punishment was abolished by law thirty years ago, has of -late been applied more and more freely in Russia. - -I had heard of it, had even read in newspapers of the -terrible tortures of which the Governor of Nizhni-Novgorod, -Baranov, is said to have boasted, of the tortures which had -taken place in Chernigov, Tambov, Saratov, Astrakhan, Orel, -but not once had I had a chance to see men in the process of -executing these deeds. - -Here I saw with my own eyes good Russians, men who are -permeated with the Christian spirit, travelling with guns -and rods, to kill and torture their starving brothers. +I had ended this two years' labour, when, on the ninth of September, I +happened to travel on a train to a locality in the Governments of Tula +and Ryazan, where the peasants had been starving the year before, and +were starving still more in the present year. At one of the stations the +train in which I was travelling met a special train which, under the +leadership of the governor, was transporting troops with guns, +cartridges, and rods for the torture and killing of those very +famine-stricken peasants. + +The torturing of the peasants with rods for the purpose of enforcing the +decision of the authorities, although corporal punishment was abolished +by law thirty years ago, has of late been applied more and more freely +in Russia. + +I had heard of it, had even read in newspapers of the terrible tortures +of which the Governor of Nizhni-Novgorod, Baranov, is said to have +boasted, of the tortures which had taken place in Chernigov, Tambov, +Saratov, Astrakhan, Orel, but not once had I had a chance to see men in +the process of executing these deeds. + +Here I saw with my own eyes good Russians, men who are permeated with +the Christian spirit, travelling with guns and rods, to kill and torture +their starving brothers. The cause that brought them out was the following: -In one of the estates of a wealthy landowner the peasants -had raised a forest on a pasture which they owned in common -with the proprietor (had raised, that is, had watched it -during its growth), and had always made use of it, and so -regarded this forest as their own, at least as a common -possession; but the proprietor, appropriating to himself -this forest, began to cut it down. The peasants handed in a -complaint. The judge of the first instance irregularly (I -say "irregularly," using the word employed by the -prosecuting attorney and the governor, men who ought to know -the case) decided the case in favour of the proprietor. All -the higher courts, among them the senate, though they could -see that the case had been decided irregularly, confirmed -the decision, and the forest was adjudged to the proprietor. -The proprietor began to cut down the forest, but the -peasants, unable to believe that such an obvious injustice -could be done them by a higher court, did not submit to the -decree, and drove away the workmen who were sent to cut down -the forest, declaring that the forest belonged to them, and -that they would petition the Tsar, but would not allow the -proprietor to cut down the forest. - -The case was reported to St. Petersburg, whence the governor -was ordered to enforce the decree of the court. The governor -asked for troops, and now the soldiers, armed with bayonets, -ball-cartridges, and, besides, a supply of rods, purposely -prepared for this occasion and carried in a separate car, -were travelling to enforce this decree of the higher +In one of the estates of a wealthy landowner the peasants had raised a +forest on a pasture which they owned in common with the proprietor (had +raised, that is, had watched it during its growth), and had always made +use of it, and so regarded this forest as their own, at least as a +common possession; but the proprietor, appropriating to himself this +forest, began to cut it down. The peasants handed in a complaint. The +judge of the first instance irregularly (I say "irregularly," using the +word employed by the prosecuting attorney and the governor, men who +ought to know the case) decided the case in favour of the proprietor. +All the higher courts, among them the senate, though they could see that +the case had been decided irregularly, confirmed the decision, and the +forest was adjudged to the proprietor. The proprietor began to cut down +the forest, but the peasants, unable to believe that such an obvious +injustice could be done them by a higher court, did not submit to the +decree, and drove away the workmen who were sent to cut down the forest, +declaring that the forest belonged to them, and that they would petition +the Tsar, but would not allow the proprietor to cut down the forest. + +The case was reported to St. Petersburg, whence the governor was ordered +to enforce the decree of the court. The governor asked for troops, and +now the soldiers, armed with bayonets, ball-cartridges, and, besides, a +supply of rods, purposely prepared for this occasion and carried in a +separate car, were travelling to enforce this decree of the higher authorities. -The enforcement of the decree of the higher authorities is -accomplished by means of killing, of torturing men, or by -means of a threat of doing one or the other, according as to -whether any opposition is shown or not. - -In the first case, if the peasants show any opposition, the -following takes place in Russia (the same things happen -wherever there are a state structure and property rights): -the chief makes a speech and demands submission. The excited -crowd, generally deceived by its leaders, does not -understand a word that the representative of the power says -in official book language, and continues to be agitated. -Then the chief declares that if they do not submit and -disperse, he will be compelled to have recourse to arms. If -the crowd does not submit even then, the chief commands his -men to load their guns and shoot above the heads of the -crowd. If the crowd does not disperse even then, he commands -the soldiers to shoot straight into the crowd, at haphazard, -and the soldiers shoot, and in the street fall wounded and -killed men, and then the crowd generally runs away, and the -troops at the command of the chiefs seize those who present -themselves to them as the main rioters, and lead them away -under guard. - -After that they pick up the blood-stained, dying, maimed, -killed, and wounded men, frequently also women and children; -the dead are buried, and the maimed are sent to the -hospital. But those who are considered to be the plotters -are taken to the city and tried by a special military court. -If on their part there was any violence, they are sentenced -to be hanged. Then they put up a gallows and with the help -of ropes choke to death a few defenceless people, as has -many times been done in Russia and as is being done, and -must be done where the public structure is based on -violence. Thus they do in case of opposition. - -In the second case, when the peasants submit, there takes -place something special and peculiarly Russian. What happens -is this: the governor arrives at the place of action, makes -a speech to the people, rebuking them for their -disobedience, and either stations troops in the farms of the -village, where the soldiers, quartering at times as much as -a month at a time, ruin the peasants, or, satisfied with -threatening them, graciously pardons the people and returns -home, or, which happens more frequently than anything else, -announces to them that the instigators ought to be punished, -and arbitrarily, without trial, selects a certain number of -men, who are declared to be the instigators and in his -presence are subjected to tortures. - -In order to give an idea as to how these things are done, I -will describe an affair which took place at Orel and -received the approval of the higher authorities. - -What happened in Orel was this: just as here, in the -Government of Tula, a proprietor wanted to take away some -property from certain peasants, and the peasants opposed -him, just as they did here. The point was that the landed -proprietor wanted without the consent of the peasants to -keep the water in his mill-pond at so high a level that -their fields were inundated. The peasants objected. The -proprietor entered a complaint before the County Council -chief. The County Council chief illegally (as was later -declared by the court) decided the case in favour of the -proprietor, by permitting him to raise the water. The -proprietor sent his workmen to raise the ditch through which -the water ran down. The peasants were provoked by this -irregular decision, and called out their wives, to prevent -the proprietor's workmen from raising the ditch. The women -went to the dam, overturned the carts, and drove off the -workmen. The proprietor entered a complaint against the -women for taking the law into their hands. The County -Council chief ordered one woman from each peasant farm in -the whole village to be locked up ("in the cold room"). The -decision could not well be carried out; since there were -several women on each farm, it was impossible to determine -which of them was liable to arrest, and so the police did -not carry out the decree. The proprietor complained to the -governor of the inactivity of the police, and the governor, -without looking into the matter, gave the rural chief the -strict order immediately to enforce the decision of the -County Council chief. Obeying the higher authorities, the -rural chief arrived in the village and, with a disrespect -for men which is characteristic of the Russian authorities, -commanded the policemen to seize one woman from each house. -But since there were was more than one woman in each house, -and it was impossible to tell which one of them was subject -to incarceration, there began quarrels, and opposition was -shown. In spite of these quarrels and this opposition, the -rural chief commanded that one woman, no matter who she be, -be seized in each house and led to a place of confinement. -The peasants began to defend their wives and mothers, did -not give them up, and upon this occasion beat the police and -the rural chief. There appeared the first terrible -crime,---an assault on the authorities,---and this new crime -was reported to the city. And so the governor, like the -Governor of Tula, arrived on a special train with a -battalion of soldiers, with guns and rods, having made use -of the telegraph, of telephones, and of the railway, and -brought with him a learned doctor, who was to watch the -hygienic conditions of the flogging, thus fully personifying -Genghis Khan with the telegraphs, as predicted by Herzen. - -Near the township office stood the troops, a squad of -policemen with red cords, to which is attached the revolver, -official persons from among the peasants, and the accused. -Round about stood a crowd of one thousand people or more. -Upon driving up to the township office, the governor -alighted from his carriage, delivered a speech previously -prepared, and called for the guilty and for a bench. This -command was not understood at first. But a policeman, whom -the governor always took with him, and who attended to the -preparation of the tortures, which had more than once been -employed in the Government, explained that what was meant -was a bench for flogging. A bench was brought, the rods, -which had been carried on the train, were piled up, and the -executioners were called for. These had been previously -chosen from among the horse-thieves of the village, because -the soldiers refused to perform this duty. - -When everything was ready, the governor commanded the first -of the twelve men pointed out by the proprietor as the most -guilty to step forward. The one that came out was the father -of a family, a respected member of society of about forty -years of age, who had bravely defended the rights of society -and so enjoyed the respect of the inhabitants. He was led up -to the bench, his body was bared, and he was ordered to lie +The enforcement of the decree of the higher authorities is accomplished +by means of killing, of torturing men, or by means of a threat of doing +one or the other, according as to whether any opposition is shown or +not. + +In the first case, if the peasants show any opposition, the following +takes place in Russia (the same things happen wherever there are a state +structure and property rights): the chief makes a speech and demands +submission. The excited crowd, generally deceived by its leaders, does +not understand a word that the representative of the power says in +official book language, and continues to be agitated. Then the chief +declares that if they do not submit and disperse, he will be compelled +to have recourse to arms. If the crowd does not submit even then, the +chief commands his men to load their guns and shoot above the heads of +the crowd. If the crowd does not disperse even then, he commands the +soldiers to shoot straight into the crowd, at haphazard, and the +soldiers shoot, and in the street fall wounded and killed men, and then +the crowd generally runs away, and the troops at the command of the +chiefs seize those who present themselves to them as the main rioters, +and lead them away under guard. + +After that they pick up the blood-stained, dying, maimed, killed, and +wounded men, frequently also women and children; the dead are buried, +and the maimed are sent to the hospital. But those who are considered to +be the plotters are taken to the city and tried by a special military +court. If on their part there was any violence, they are sentenced to be +hanged. Then they put up a gallows and with the help of ropes choke to +death a few defenceless people, as has many times been done in Russia +and as is being done, and must be done where the public structure is +based on violence. Thus they do in case of opposition. + +In the second case, when the peasants submit, there takes place +something special and peculiarly Russian. What happens is this: the +governor arrives at the place of action, makes a speech to the people, +rebuking them for their disobedience, and either stations troops in the +farms of the village, where the soldiers, quartering at times as much as +a month at a time, ruin the peasants, or, satisfied with threatening +them, graciously pardons the people and returns home, or, which happens +more frequently than anything else, announces to them that the +instigators ought to be punished, and arbitrarily, without trial, +selects a certain number of men, who are declared to be the instigators +and in his presence are subjected to tortures. + +In order to give an idea as to how these things are done, I will +describe an affair which took place at Orel and received the approval of +the higher authorities. + +What happened in Orel was this: just as here, in the Government of Tula, +a proprietor wanted to take away some property from certain peasants, +and the peasants opposed him, just as they did here. The point was that +the landed proprietor wanted without the consent of the peasants to keep +the water in his mill-pond at so high a level that their fields were +inundated. The peasants objected. The proprietor entered a complaint +before the County Council chief. The County Council chief illegally (as +was later declared by the court) decided the case in favour of the +proprietor, by permitting him to raise the water. The proprietor sent +his workmen to raise the ditch through which the water ran down. The +peasants were provoked by this irregular decision, and called out their +wives, to prevent the proprietor's workmen from raising the ditch. The +women went to the dam, overturned the carts, and drove off the workmen. +The proprietor entered a complaint against the women for taking the law +into their hands. The County Council chief ordered one woman from each +peasant farm in the whole village to be locked up ("in the cold room"). +The decision could not well be carried out; since there were several +women on each farm, it was impossible to determine which of them was +liable to arrest, and so the police did not carry out the decree. The +proprietor complained to the governor of the inactivity of the police, +and the governor, without looking into the matter, gave the rural chief +the strict order immediately to enforce the decision of the County +Council chief. Obeying the higher authorities, the rural chief arrived +in the village and, with a disrespect for men which is characteristic of +the Russian authorities, commanded the policemen to seize one woman from +each house. But since there were was more than one woman in each house, +and it was impossible to tell which one of them was subject to +incarceration, there began quarrels, and opposition was shown. In spite +of these quarrels and this opposition, the rural chief commanded that +one woman, no matter who she be, be seized in each house and led to a +place of confinement. The peasants began to defend their wives and +mothers, did not give them up, and upon this occasion beat the police +and the rural chief. There appeared the first terrible crime,---an +assault on the authorities,---and this new crime was reported to the +city. And so the governor, like the Governor of Tula, arrived on a +special train with a battalion of soldiers, with guns and rods, having +made use of the telegraph, of telephones, and of the railway, and +brought with him a learned doctor, who was to watch the hygienic +conditions of the flogging, thus fully personifying Genghis Khan with +the telegraphs, as predicted by Herzen. + +Near the township office stood the troops, a squad of policemen with red +cords, to which is attached the revolver, official persons from among +the peasants, and the accused. Round about stood a crowd of one thousand +people or more. Upon driving up to the township office, the governor +alighted from his carriage, delivered a speech previously prepared, and +called for the guilty and for a bench. This command was not understood +at first. But a policeman, whom the governor always took with him, and +who attended to the preparation of the tortures, which had more than +once been employed in the Government, explained that what was meant was +a bench for flogging. A bench was brought, the rods, which had been +carried on the train, were piled up, and the executioners were called +for. These had been previously chosen from among the horse-thieves of +the village, because the soldiers refused to perform this duty. + +When everything was ready, the governor commanded the first of the +twelve men pointed out by the proprietor as the most guilty to step +forward. The one that came out was the father of a family, a respected +member of society of about forty years of age, who had bravely defended +the rights of society and so enjoyed the respect of the inhabitants. He +was led up to the bench, his body was bared, and he was ordered to lie down. -The peasant tried to beg for mercy, but when he saw that -this was useless, he made the sign of the cross and lay -down. Two policemen rushed forward to hold him down. The -learned doctor stood near by, ready to offer learned medical -aid. The prisoners, spitting into their hands, swished the -rods and began to strike. However, it turned out that the -bench was too narrow and that it was too difficult to keep -the writhing, tortured man upon it. Then the governor -ordered another bench to be brought and to be cleated to the -first. Putting their hands to their visors and muttering: -"Yes, your Excellency," some men hurriedly and humbly -fulfilled the commands; meanwhile the half-naked, pale, -tortured man, frowning and looking earthward, waited with -trembling jaws and bared legs. When the second bench was -attached, he was again put down, and the horse-thieves began -to beat him again. The back, hips, and thighs, and even the -sides of the tortured man began more and more to be covered -with wales and bloody streaks, and with every blow there -were heard dull sounds, which the tortured man was unable to -repress. In the surrounding crowd were heard the sobs of the -wives, mothers, children, relatives of the tortured man and -of all those who were selected for the punishment. - -The unfortunate governor, intoxicated by his power, thought -that he could not do otherwise, and, bending his fingers, -counted the blows, and without stopping smoked cigarettes, -to light which several officious persons hastened every time -to hand him a lighted match. When fifty blows had been -dealt, the peasant stopped crying and stirring, and the -doctor, who had been educated in a Crown institution for the -purpose of serving his Tsar and country with his scientific -knowledge, walked over to the tortured man, felt his pulse, -listened to the beating of his heart, and announced to the -representative of power that the punished man had lost -consciousness and that according to the data of science it -might be dangerous to his life to continue the punishment. -But the unfortunate governor, who was now completely -intoxicated by the sight of blood, commanded the men to go -on, and the torture lasted until they had dealt seventy -blows, to which number it for some reason seemed to him -necessary to carry the number of the blows. When the -seventieth blow was dealt, the governor said, "Enough! The -next!" And the disfigured man, with his swollen back, was -lifted up and carried away in a swoon, and another was taken -up. The sobs and groans of the crowd became louder; but the -representative of the governmental power continued the -torture. - -Thus they flogged the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, -seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth man,---each -man receiving seventy blows. All of them begged for mercy, -groaned, cried. The sobs and groans of the mass of women -grew louder and more heart-rending, and the faces of the men -grew gloomier and gloomier; but the troops stood all about -them, and the torture did not stop until the work was -accomplished in the measure which for some reason appeared -indispensable to the caprice of the unfortunate, -half-drunken, deluded man, called a governor. - -Not only were officials, officers, soldiers present, but -with their presence they took part in this matter and kept -this order of the fulfilment of the state act from being -impaired on the part of the crowd. - -When I asked one of the governors why these tortures are -committed on men, when they have already submitted and -troops are stationed in the village, he replied to me, with -the significant look of a man who has come to know all the -intricacies of state wisdom, that this is done because -experience has shown that if the peasants are not subjected -to torture they will again counteract the decrees of the -power, while the performance of the torture in the case of a -few men for ever confirms the decrees of the authorities. - -And so now the Governor of Tula was travelling with his -officials, officers, and soldiers, in order to perform just -such a work. In just the same manner, that is, by means of -murder or torture, were to be carried out the decree of the -higher authorities, which consisted in this, that a young -fellow, a landed proprietor, who had an income of one -hundred thousand roubles per year, was to receive another -three thousand roubles, for a forest which he had in a -rascally manner taken away from a whole society of hungry -and cold peasants, and be able to spend this money in two or -three weeks in the restaurants of Moscow, St. Petersburg, or -Paris. It was to do such a deed that the men whom I met were -travelling. - -Fate, as though on purpose, after my two years' tension of -thought in one and the same direction, for the first time in -my life brought me in contact with this phenomenon, which -showed me with absolute obviousness in practice what had -become clear to me in theory, namely, that the whole -structure of our life is not based, as men who enjoy an -advantageous position in the existing order of things are -fond of imagining, on any juridical principles, but on the -simplest, coarsest violence, on the murder and torture of -men. +The peasant tried to beg for mercy, but when he saw that this was +useless, he made the sign of the cross and lay down. Two policemen +rushed forward to hold him down. The learned doctor stood near by, ready +to offer learned medical aid. The prisoners, spitting into their hands, +swished the rods and began to strike. However, it turned out that the +bench was too narrow and that it was too difficult to keep the writhing, +tortured man upon it. Then the governor ordered another bench to be +brought and to be cleated to the first. Putting their hands to their +visors and muttering: "Yes, your Excellency," some men hurriedly and +humbly fulfilled the commands; meanwhile the half-naked, pale, tortured +man, frowning and looking earthward, waited with trembling jaws and +bared legs. When the second bench was attached, he was again put down, +and the horse-thieves began to beat him again. The back, hips, and +thighs, and even the sides of the tortured man began more and more to be +covered with wales and bloody streaks, and with every blow there were +heard dull sounds, which the tortured man was unable to repress. In the +surrounding crowd were heard the sobs of the wives, mothers, children, +relatives of the tortured man and of all those who were selected for the +punishment. -Men who own large tracts of land or have large capitals, or -who receive large salaries, which are collected from the -working people, who are in need of the simplest necessities, -as also those who, as merchants, doctors, artists, clerks, -savants, coachmen, cooks, authors, lackeys, lawyers, live -parasitically about these rich people, are fond of believing -that those prerogatives which they enjoy are not due to -violence, but to an absolutely free and regular exchange of -services, and that these prerogatives are not only not the -result of assault upon people, and the murder of them, like -what took place this year in Orel and in many other places -in Russia, and continually takes place in all of Europe and -of America, but has even no connection whatsoever with these -cases of violence. They are fond of believing that the -privileges which they enjoy exist in themselves and take -place and are due to a voluntary agreement among people, -while the violence exerted against people also exists in -itself and is due to some universal and higher juridical, -political, and economical laws. These men try not to see -that they enjoy the privileges which they enjoy only by dint -of the same thing which now would force the peasants, who -raised the forest and who were very much in need of it, to -give it up to the rich proprietor, who took no part in the -preservation of the forest and had no need of it, that is, -that they would be flogged or killed if they did not give up +The unfortunate governor, intoxicated by his power, thought that he +could not do otherwise, and, bending his fingers, counted the blows, and +without stopping smoked cigarettes, to light which several officious +persons hastened every time to hand him a lighted match. When fifty +blows had been dealt, the peasant stopped crying and stirring, and the +doctor, who had been educated in a Crown institution for the purpose of +serving his Tsar and country with his scientific knowledge, walked over +to the tortured man, felt his pulse, listened to the beating of his +heart, and announced to the representative of power that the punished +man had lost consciousness and that according to the data of science it +might be dangerous to his life to continue the punishment. But the +unfortunate governor, who was now completely intoxicated by the sight of +blood, commanded the men to go on, and the torture lasted until they had +dealt seventy blows, to which number it for some reason seemed to him +necessary to carry the number of the blows. When the seventieth blow was +dealt, the governor said, "Enough! The next!" And the disfigured man, +with his swollen back, was lifted up and carried away in a swoon, and +another was taken up. The sobs and groans of the crowd became louder; +but the representative of the governmental power continued the torture. + +Thus they flogged the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, +eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth man,---each man receiving +seventy blows. All of them begged for mercy, groaned, cried. The sobs +and groans of the mass of women grew louder and more heart-rending, and +the faces of the men grew gloomier and gloomier; but the troops stood +all about them, and the torture did not stop until the work was +accomplished in the measure which for some reason appeared indispensable +to the caprice of the unfortunate, half-drunken, deluded man, called a +governor. + +Not only were officials, officers, soldiers present, but with their +presence they took part in this matter and kept this order of the +fulfilment of the state act from being impaired on the part of the +crowd. + +When I asked one of the governors why these tortures are committed on +men, when they have already submitted and troops are stationed in the +village, he replied to me, with the significant look of a man who has +come to know all the intricacies of state wisdom, that this is done +because experience has shown that if the peasants are not subjected to +torture they will again counteract the decrees of the power, while the +performance of the torture in the case of a few men for ever confirms +the decrees of the authorities. + +And so now the Governor of Tula was travelling with his officials, +officers, and soldiers, in order to perform just such a work. In just +the same manner, that is, by means of murder or torture, were to be +carried out the decree of the higher authorities, which consisted in +this, that a young fellow, a landed proprietor, who had an income of one +hundred thousand roubles per year, was to receive another three thousand +roubles, for a forest which he had in a rascally manner taken away from +a whole society of hungry and cold peasants, and be able to spend this +money in two or three weeks in the restaurants of Moscow, +St. Petersburg, or Paris. It was to do such a deed that the men whom I +met were travelling. + +Fate, as though on purpose, after my two years' tension of thought in +one and the same direction, for the first time in my life brought me in +contact with this phenomenon, which showed me with absolute obviousness +in practice what had become clear to me in theory, namely, that the +whole structure of our life is not based, as men who enjoy an +advantageous position in the existing order of things are fond of +imagining, on any juridical principles, but on the simplest, coarsest +violence, on the murder and torture of men. + +Men who own large tracts of land or have large capitals, or who receive +large salaries, which are collected from the working people, who are in +need of the simplest necessities, as also those who, as merchants, +doctors, artists, clerks, savants, coachmen, cooks, authors, lackeys, +lawyers, live parasitically about these rich people, are fond of +believing that those prerogatives which they enjoy are not due to +violence, but to an absolutely free and regular exchange of services, +and that these prerogatives are not only not the result of assault upon +people, and the murder of them, like what took place this year in Orel +and in many other places in Russia, and continually takes place in all +of Europe and of America, but has even no connection whatsoever with +these cases of violence. They are fond of believing that the privileges +which they enjoy exist in themselves and take place and are due to a +voluntary agreement among people, while the violence exerted against +people also exists in itself and is due to some universal and higher +juridical, political, and economical laws. These men try not to see that +they enjoy the privileges which they enjoy only by dint of the same +thing which now would force the peasants, who raised the forest and who +were very much in need of it, to give it up to the rich proprietor, who +took no part in the preservation of the forest and had no need of it, +that is, that they would be flogged or killed if they did not give up this forest. -And yet, if it is quite clear that the Orel mill began to -bring greater returns to the proprietor, and that the -forest, which the peasants raised, is turned over to the -proprietor, only in consequence of assaults or murders, or -the threat of them, it must be just as clear that all the -other exclusive rights of the rich, which deprive the poor -of their prime necessities, are based on the same thing. If -the peasants, who are in need of the land for the support of -their families, do not plough the land which adjoins their -very farms, while this land, which is capable of supporting -something like one thousand families, is in the hands of one -man,---a Russian, Englishman, Austrian, or some large landed -proprietor,---who does not work on this land, and if the -merchant, buying up the corn from the needy agriculturists, -can securely keep this corn in his granaries, amidst -starving people, and sell it at three times its price to the -same agriculturists from whom he bought it at one-third its -present worth, it is evident that this takes place from the -same causes. And if one man cannot buy cheap goods, which -are sold to him from beyond a conventional line called a -border, without paying customs dues to people who had no -share whatsoever in the production of the goods; and if -people cannot help but give up their last cow for taxes, -which are distributed by the government to officials and are -used for the maintenance of soldiers who will kill these -very taxpayers, it would seem to be obvious that even this -does not take place in consequence of some abstract rights, -but in consequence of the same that happened in Orel and -that now may happen in the Government of Tula, and -periodically in one form or another takes place in the whole -world, wherever there is a state structure and there are the -rich and the poor. - -Because not all human relations of violence are accompanied -by tortures and murders, the men who enjoy the exclusive -prerogatives of the ruling classes assure themselves and -others that the privileges which they enjoy are not due to -any tortures or murders, but to other mysterious common -causes, abstract rights, and so forth. And yet, it would -seem, it is clear that, if people, though they consider this -to be an injustice (all working people now do), give the -main portion of their work to the capitalist, the landed -proprietor, and pay taxes, though they know that bad use is -made of them, they do so first of all, not because they -recognize any abstract rights, of which they have never -heard, but only because they know that they will be flogged -and killed, if they do not do so. - -But if there is no occasion to imprison, flog, and kill men, -every time the rent for the land is collected by the landed -proprietor, and the man in need of corn pays to the merchant -who has cheated him a threefold price, and the factory hand -is satisfied with a wage which represents proportionately -half the master's income, and if a poor man gives up his -last rouble for customs dues and taxes, this is due to the -fact that so many men have been beaten and killed for their -attempts to avoid doing what is demanded of them, that they -keep this well in mind. As the trained tiger in the cage -does not take the meat which is placed under his mouth, and -does not lie quiet, but jumps over a stick, whenever he is -ordered to do so, not because he wants to do so, but because -he remembers the heated iron rod or the hunger to which he -was subjected every time he did not obey,---even so men who -submit to what is not advantageous for them, what even is -ruinous to them, do so because they remember what happened -to them for their disobedience. - -But the men who enjoy prerogatives which are the result of -old violence, frequently forget, and like to forget, how -these prerogatives were obtained. We need, however, only -think of history, not the history of the successes of -various dynasties of rulers, but real history, the history -of the oppression of the majority by a small number of men, -to see that the bases of all the prerogatives of the rich -over the poor have originated from nothing but switches, -prisons, hard labour, murders. - -We need but think of that constant, stubborn tendency of men -to increase their well-being, which guides the men of our -time, to become convinced that the prerogatives of the rich -over the poor could not and cannot be maintained in any -other way. - -There may be oppressions, assaults, prisons, executions, -which have not for their purpose the preservation of the -prerogatives of the wealthy classes (though this is very -rare), but we may boldly say that in our society, for each -well-to-do, comfortably living man, there are ten who are -exhausted by labour, who are envious and greedy, and who -frequently suffer with their whole families,---all the -prerogatives of the rich, all their luxury, all that -superfluity which the rich enjoy above the average labourer, -all that is acquired and supported only by tortures, +And yet, if it is quite clear that the Orel mill began to bring greater +returns to the proprietor, and that the forest, which the peasants +raised, is turned over to the proprietor, only in consequence of +assaults or murders, or the threat of them, it must be just as clear +that all the other exclusive rights of the rich, which deprive the poor +of their prime necessities, are based on the same thing. If the +peasants, who are in need of the land for the support of their families, +do not plough the land which adjoins their very farms, while this land, +which is capable of supporting something like one thousand families, is +in the hands of one man,---a Russian, Englishman, Austrian, or some +large landed proprietor,---who does not work on this land, and if the +merchant, buying up the corn from the needy agriculturists, can securely +keep this corn in his granaries, amidst starving people, and sell it at +three times its price to the same agriculturists from whom he bought it +at one-third its present worth, it is evident that this takes place from +the same causes. And if one man cannot buy cheap goods, which are sold +to him from beyond a conventional line called a border, without paying +customs dues to people who had no share whatsoever in the production of +the goods; and if people cannot help but give up their last cow for +taxes, which are distributed by the government to officials and are used +for the maintenance of soldiers who will kill these very taxpayers, it +would seem to be obvious that even this does not take place in +consequence of some abstract rights, but in consequence of the same that +happened in Orel and that now may happen in the Government of Tula, and +periodically in one form or another takes place in the whole world, +wherever there is a state structure and there are the rich and the poor. + +Because not all human relations of violence are accompanied by tortures +and murders, the men who enjoy the exclusive prerogatives of the ruling +classes assure themselves and others that the privileges which they +enjoy are not due to any tortures or murders, but to other mysterious +common causes, abstract rights, and so forth. And yet, it would seem, it +is clear that, if people, though they consider this to be an injustice +(all working people now do), give the main portion of their work to the +capitalist, the landed proprietor, and pay taxes, though they know that +bad use is made of them, they do so first of all, not because they +recognize any abstract rights, of which they have never heard, but only +because they know that they will be flogged and killed, if they do not +do so. + +But if there is no occasion to imprison, flog, and kill men, every time +the rent for the land is collected by the landed proprietor, and the man +in need of corn pays to the merchant who has cheated him a threefold +price, and the factory hand is satisfied with a wage which represents +proportionately half the master's income, and if a poor man gives up his +last rouble for customs dues and taxes, this is due to the fact that so +many men have been beaten and killed for their attempts to avoid doing +what is demanded of them, that they keep this well in mind. As the +trained tiger in the cage does not take the meat which is placed under +his mouth, and does not lie quiet, but jumps over a stick, whenever he +is ordered to do so, not because he wants to do so, but because he +remembers the heated iron rod or the hunger to which he was subjected +every time he did not obey,---even so men who submit to what is not +advantageous for them, what even is ruinous to them, do so because they +remember what happened to them for their disobedience. + +But the men who enjoy prerogatives which are the result of old violence, +frequently forget, and like to forget, how these prerogatives were +obtained. We need, however, only think of history, not the history of +the successes of various dynasties of rulers, but real history, the +history of the oppression of the majority by a small number of men, to +see that the bases of all the prerogatives of the rich over the poor +have originated from nothing but switches, prisons, hard labour, +murders. + +We need but think of that constant, stubborn tendency of men to increase +their well-being, which guides the men of our time, to become convinced +that the prerogatives of the rich over the poor could not and cannot be +maintained in any other way. + +There may be oppressions, assaults, prisons, executions, which have not +for their purpose the preservation of the prerogatives of the wealthy +classes (though this is very rare), but we may boldly say that in our +society, for each well-to-do, comfortably living man, there are ten who +are exhausted by labour, who are envious and greedy, and who frequently +suffer with their whole families,---all the prerogatives of the rich, +all their luxury, all that superfluity which the rich enjoy above the +average labourer, all that is acquired and supported only by tortures, incarcerations, and executions. ## 2 -The train which I came across the ninth of September, and -which carried soldiers, with their guns, cartridges, and -rods, to the starving peasants, in order to secure to the -rich proprietor the small forest, which he had taken from -the peasants and which the peasants were in dire need of, -showed me with striking obviousness to what extent men have -worked out the ability of committing acts which are most -revolting to their convictions and to their conscience, -without seeing that they are doing so. - -The special train with which I fell in consisted of one car -of the first class for the governor, the officials, and the -officers, and of several freight-cars, which were cram-full -of soldiers. - -The dashing young soldiers, in their clean new uniforms, -stood crowding or sat with dangling legs in the wide-open -doors of the freight-cars. Some smoked, others jostled one -another, jested, laughed, displaying their teeth; others -again cracked pumpkin seeds, spitting out the shells with an -air of self-confidence. Some of them were running up and -down the platform, toward the water-barrel, in order to get -a drink, and, upon meeting an officer, tempered their gait, -went through the stupid gesture of putting their hands to -their brows, and with serious faces, as though they were -doing not only something sensible, but even important, -walked past them, seeing them off with their eyes, and then -raced more merrily, thumping with their feet on the planks -of the platform, laughing, and chattering, as is -characteristic of healthy, good lads, who in good company -travel from one place to another. - -They were travelling to slay their hungry fathers and -grandfathers, as though going to some very jolly, or at -least very usual, piece of work. - -The same impression was conveyed by the officials and -officers in gala-uniform, who were scattered on the platform -and in the hall of the first class. At the table, which was -covered with bottles, dressed in his semi-military uniform, -sat the governor, the chief of the expedition, eating -something, and speaking calmly about the weather with an -acquaintance whom he had met, as though the matter which he -was about to attend to were so simple and so common that it -could not impair his calm and his interest in the change of -the weather. - -At some distance away from the table, not partaking of any -food, sat a general of gendarmes, with an impenetrable, but -gloomy look, as though annoyed by the tedious formality. On -all sides moved and chattered officers, in their beautiful, -gold-bedecked uniforms: one, sitting at the table, was -finishing a bottle of beer; another, standing at the buffet, -munched at an appetizing patty, shaking off the crumbs, -which had lodged on the breast of his uniform, and throwing -the money on the table with a self-confident gesture; a -third, vibrating both legs, was walking past the cars of our -train, ogling the feminine faces. - -All these men, who were on their way to torture or kill -hungry, defenceless men, the same that fed them, had the -appearance of men who know conclusively that they are doing -what is right, and even are proud, "stuck up," at what they -are doing. +The train which I came across the ninth of September, and which carried +soldiers, with their guns, cartridges, and rods, to the starving +peasants, in order to secure to the rich proprietor the small forest, +which he had taken from the peasants and which the peasants were in dire +need of, showed me with striking obviousness to what extent men have +worked out the ability of committing acts which are most revolting to +their convictions and to their conscience, without seeing that they are +doing so. + +The special train with which I fell in consisted of one car of the first +class for the governor, the officials, and the officers, and of several +freight-cars, which were cram-full of soldiers. + +The dashing young soldiers, in their clean new uniforms, stood crowding +or sat with dangling legs in the wide-open doors of the freight-cars. +Some smoked, others jostled one another, jested, laughed, displaying +their teeth; others again cracked pumpkin seeds, spitting out the shells +with an air of self-confidence. Some of them were running up and down +the platform, toward the water-barrel, in order to get a drink, and, +upon meeting an officer, tempered their gait, went through the stupid +gesture of putting their hands to their brows, and with serious faces, +as though they were doing not only something sensible, but even +important, walked past them, seeing them off with their eyes, and then +raced more merrily, thumping with their feet on the planks of the +platform, laughing, and chattering, as is characteristic of healthy, +good lads, who in good company travel from one place to another. + +They were travelling to slay their hungry fathers and grandfathers, as +though going to some very jolly, or at least very usual, piece of work. + +The same impression was conveyed by the officials and officers in +gala-uniform, who were scattered on the platform and in the hall of the +first class. At the table, which was covered with bottles, dressed in +his semi-military uniform, sat the governor, the chief of the +expedition, eating something, and speaking calmly about the weather with +an acquaintance whom he had met, as though the matter which he was about +to attend to were so simple and so common that it could not impair his +calm and his interest in the change of the weather. + +At some distance away from the table, not partaking of any food, sat a +general of gendarmes, with an impenetrable, but gloomy look, as though +annoyed by the tedious formality. On all sides moved and chattered +officers, in their beautiful, gold-bedecked uniforms: one, sitting at +the table, was finishing a bottle of beer; another, standing at the +buffet, munched at an appetizing patty, shaking off the crumbs, which +had lodged on the breast of his uniform, and throwing the money on the +table with a self-confident gesture; a third, vibrating both legs, was +walking past the cars of our train, ogling the feminine faces. + +All these men, who were on their way to torture or kill hungry, +defenceless men, the same that fed them, had the appearance of men who +know conclusively that they are doing what is right, and even are proud, +"stuck up," at what they are doing. What is this? -All these men are one half-hour's ride away from the place -where, to secure to a rich fellow some three thousand -useless roubles, which he has taken away from a whole -community of starving peasants, they may be compelled to -perform the most terrible acts that one can imagine, may -begin, just as in Orel, to kill or to torture innocent men, -their brothers, and they calmly approach the place and time -where and when this may happen. - -It is impossible to say that these men, all these officials, -officers, and soldiers, do not know what awaits them, -because they prepared themselves for it. The governor had to -give his orders concerning the rods, the officials had to -purchase birch switches, to haggle for them, and to enter -this item as an expense. The military gave and received and -executed commands concerning the ball-cartridges. All of -them know that they are on the way to torture and, perhaps, -to kill their famished brothers, and that they will begin to -do this, perhaps, within an hour. - -It would be incorrect to say that they do this from -conviction,---as is frequently said and as they themselves -repeat,---from the conviction that they do this because it -is necessary to maintain the state structure, in the first -place, because all these men have hardly ever even thought -of the state structure and of its necessity; in the second -place, they can in no way be convinced that the business in -which they take part maintains the state, instead of -destroying it, and, in the third place, in reality the -majority of these men, if not all, will not only never -sacrifice their peace and pleasure for the purpose of -supporting the state, but will even never miss a chance of -making use, for their peace and pleasure, of everything they -can, even though it be to the disadvantage of the state. -Consequently they do not do so for the sake of the abstract -principle of the state. +All these men are one half-hour's ride away from the place where, to +secure to a rich fellow some three thousand useless roubles, which he +has taken away from a whole community of starving peasants, they may be +compelled to perform the most terrible acts that one can imagine, may +begin, just as in Orel, to kill or to torture innocent men, their +brothers, and they calmly approach the place and time where and when +this may happen. + +It is impossible to say that these men, all these officials, officers, +and soldiers, do not know what awaits them, because they prepared +themselves for it. The governor had to give his orders concerning the +rods, the officials had to purchase birch switches, to haggle for them, +and to enter this item as an expense. The military gave and received and +executed commands concerning the ball-cartridges. All of them know that +they are on the way to torture and, perhaps, to kill their famished +brothers, and that they will begin to do this, perhaps, within an hour. + +It would be incorrect to say that they do this from conviction,---as is +frequently said and as they themselves repeat,---from the conviction +that they do this because it is necessary to maintain the state +structure, in the first place, because all these men have hardly ever +even thought of the state structure and of its necessity; in the second +place, they can in no way be convinced that the business in which they +take part maintains the state, instead of destroying it, and, in the +third place, in reality the majority of these men, if not all, will not +only never sacrifice their peace and pleasure for the purpose of +supporting the state, but will even never miss a chance of making use, +for their peace and pleasure, of everything they can, even though it be +to the disadvantage of the state. Consequently they do not do so for the +sake of the abstract principle of the state. What is it, then? -I know all these men. If I do not know them personally, I -know approximately their characters, their past, their -manner of thought. All of them have mothers, and some have -wives and children. They are, for the most part, -good-hearted, meek, frequently tender men, who despise every -cruelty, to say nothing of the murder of men, and many of -them would be incapable of killing or torturing animals; -besides, they are all people who profess Christianity and -consider violence exerted against defenceless men a low and -disgraceful matter. Not one of these men would be able for -the sake of his smallest advantage to do even one-hundredth -part of what the Governor of Orel did to those people; and -any of them would even be offended, if it were assumed that -in his private life he would be capable of doing anything -like it. - -And yet, here they are, within half an hour's ride from the -place, where they may be led inevitably to the necessity of -doing it. +I know all these men. If I do not know them personally, I know +approximately their characters, their past, their manner of thought. All +of them have mothers, and some have wives and children. They are, for +the most part, good-hearted, meek, frequently tender men, who despise +every cruelty, to say nothing of the murder of men, and many of them +would be incapable of killing or torturing animals; besides, they are +all people who profess Christianity and consider violence exerted +against defenceless men a low and disgraceful matter. Not one of these +men would be able for the sake of his smallest advantage to do even +one-hundredth part of what the Governor of Orel did to those people; and +any of them would even be offended, if it were assumed that in his +private life he would be capable of doing anything like it. + +And yet, here they are, within half an hour's ride from the place, where +they may be led inevitably to the necessity of doing it. What is it, then? -But, besides these people who are travelling on the train, -and who are ready to commit murder and tortures, how could -those people with whom the whole matter began,---the -proprietor, the superintendent, the judges, and those who -from St. Petersburg prescribed this matter and by their -commands are taking part in it,---how could these men, the -minister, the emperor, also good men, who are professing the -Christian religion, have undertaken and ordered such a -thing, knowing its consequences? How can even those who do -not take part in this matter, the spectators, who are -provoked at every special case of violence or at the torture -of a horse, admit the performance of so terrible a deed? How -can they help being provoked at it, standing on the road, -and shouting, "No, we shall not allow hungry people to be -killed and flogged for not giving up their property, which -has been seized from them by force"? But not only does no -one do so,--the majority of men, even those who were the -instigators of the whole thing, like the superintendent, the -proprietor, the judges, and those who were the participants -in it and who gave the orders, like the governor, the -minister, the emperor, are calm, and do not even feel any -pangs of conscience. Just as calm are apparently all those -men who are travelling to commit this evil deed. - -The spectators, too, it seemed, who were not in any way -interested in the matter, for the most part looked with -sympathy, rather than with disapproval, upon the men who -were getting ready for this execrable deed. In the same car -with me there was travelling a merchant, a lumber dealer -from the peasant class, and he loudly proclaimed his -sympathy for those tortures to which the peasants were about -to be subjected: "It is not right not to obey the -authorities," he said; "that's what the authorities are for. -Just wait, they will have their fleas driven out of -them,---they won't think of rioting after that. Serves them -right." +But, besides these people who are travelling on the train, and who are +ready to commit murder and tortures, how could those people with whom +the whole matter began,---the proprietor, the superintendent, the +judges, and those who from St. Petersburg prescribed this matter and by +their commands are taking part in it,---how could these men, the +minister, the emperor, also good men, who are professing the Christian +religion, have undertaken and ordered such a thing, knowing its +consequences? How can even those who do not take part in this matter, +the spectators, who are provoked at every special case of violence or at +the torture of a horse, admit the performance of so terrible a deed? How +can they help being provoked at it, standing on the road, and shouting, +"No, we shall not allow hungry people to be killed and flogged for not +giving up their property, which has been seized from them by force"? But +not only does no one do so,--the majority of men, even those who were +the instigators of the whole thing, like the superintendent, the +proprietor, the judges, and those who were the participants in it and +who gave the orders, like the governor, the minister, the emperor, are +calm, and do not even feel any pangs of conscience. Just as calm are +apparently all those men who are travelling to commit this evil deed. + +The spectators, too, it seemed, who were not in any way interested in +the matter, for the most part looked with sympathy, rather than with +disapproval, upon the men who were getting ready for this execrable +deed. In the same car with me there was travelling a merchant, a lumber +dealer from the peasant class, and he loudly proclaimed his sympathy for +those tortures to which the peasants were about to be subjected: "It is +not right not to obey the authorities," he said; "that's what the +authorities are for. Just wait, they will have their fleas driven out of +them,---they won't think of rioting after that. Serves them right." What is it, then? -It is equally impossible to say that all these men---the -instigators, participants, abettors of this matter---are -such rascals that, knowing all the baseness of what they are -doing, they, either for a salary, or for an advantage, or -out of fear of being punished, do a thing which is contrary -to their convictions. All these men know how, in certain -situations, to defend their convictions. Not one of these -officials would steal a purse, or read another person's -letter, or bear an insult without demanding satisfaction -from the insulter. Not one of these officers would have the -courage to cheat at cards, not to pay his card debts, to -betray a friend, to run away from the field of battle, or to -abandon his flag. Not one of these soldiers would have the -courage to spit out the sacrament or to eat meat on Good -Friday. All these men are prepared to bear all kinds of -privations, sufferings, and dangers, rather than do -something which they consider to be bad. Consequently, there -is in these men a counteracting force, whenever they have to -do something which is contrary to their convictions. - -Still less is it possible to say that all these men are such -beasts that it is proper and not at all painful for them to -do such things. We need but have a talk with these men, to -see that all of them, the proprietor, the judges, the -minister, the Tsar, the governor, the officers, and the -soldiers not only in the depth of their hearts do not -approve of such deeds, but even suffer from the -consciousness of their part in them, when they are reminded -of the significance of this matter. They simply try not to -think of it. - -We need but have a talk with them, with all the participants -in this matter, from the proprietor to the last policeman -and soldier, to see that all of them in the depth of their -hearts know that this is a bad thing and that it would be -better not to take part in it, and that they suffer from it. - -A lady of liberal tendencies, who was travelling on the same -train with us, upon noticing the governor and the officers -in the hall of the first class, and learning of the purpose -of their journey, began on purpose in a loud voice, so as to -be heard, to curse the orders of our time and to put to -shame the men who were taking part in this matter. All -persons present felt ill at ease. Nobody knew whither to -look, but no one dared to answer her. The passengers looked -as though it were not worth while to reply to such empty -talk. But it was evident from the faces and fugitive eyes -that all felt ashamed. This also I noticed in the case of -the soldiers. They, too, knew that the business for which -they were travelling was a bad one, but they did not wish to -think of what awaited them. - -When the lumber dealer began insincerely, as I thought, -merely to show his culture, to speak of how necessary such -measures were, the soldiers who heard it turned away from -him, as though they did not hear him, and frowned. - -All these men, both those who, like the proprietor, the -superintendent, the minister, the Tsar, participated in the -performance of this act, and those who are just now -travelling on the train, and even those who, without taking -part in this matter, look on at the accomplishment of it, -know every one of them that this is a bad business, and are -ashamed of the part which they are taking in it and even of -their presence during its execution. +It is equally impossible to say that all these men---the instigators, +participants, abettors of this matter---are such rascals that, knowing +all the baseness of what they are doing, they, either for a salary, or +for an advantage, or out of fear of being punished, do a thing which is +contrary to their convictions. All these men know how, in certain +situations, to defend their convictions. Not one of these officials +would steal a purse, or read another person's letter, or bear an insult +without demanding satisfaction from the insulter. Not one of these +officers would have the courage to cheat at cards, not to pay his card +debts, to betray a friend, to run away from the field of battle, or to +abandon his flag. Not one of these soldiers would have the courage to +spit out the sacrament or to eat meat on Good Friday. All these men are +prepared to bear all kinds of privations, sufferings, and dangers, +rather than do something which they consider to be bad. Consequently, +there is in these men a counteracting force, whenever they have to do +something which is contrary to their convictions. + +Still less is it possible to say that all these men are such beasts that +it is proper and not at all painful for them to do such things. We need +but have a talk with these men, to see that all of them, the proprietor, +the judges, the minister, the Tsar, the governor, the officers, and the +soldiers not only in the depth of their hearts do not approve of such +deeds, but even suffer from the consciousness of their part in them, +when they are reminded of the significance of this matter. They simply +try not to think of it. + +We need but have a talk with them, with all the participants in this +matter, from the proprietor to the last policeman and soldier, to see +that all of them in the depth of their hearts know that this is a bad +thing and that it would be better not to take part in it, and that they +suffer from it. + +A lady of liberal tendencies, who was travelling on the same train with +us, upon noticing the governor and the officers in the hall of the first +class, and learning of the purpose of their journey, began on purpose in +a loud voice, so as to be heard, to curse the orders of our time and to +put to shame the men who were taking part in this matter. All persons +present felt ill at ease. Nobody knew whither to look, but no one dared +to answer her. The passengers looked as though it were not worth while +to reply to such empty talk. But it was evident from the faces and +fugitive eyes that all felt ashamed. This also I noticed in the case of +the soldiers. They, too, knew that the business for which they were +travelling was a bad one, but they did not wish to think of what awaited +them. + +When the lumber dealer began insincerely, as I thought, merely to show +his culture, to speak of how necessary such measures were, the soldiers +who heard it turned away from him, as though they did not hear him, and +frowned. + +All these men, both those who, like the proprietor, the superintendent, +the minister, the Tsar, participated in the performance of this act, and +those who are just now travelling on the train, and even those who, +without taking part in this matter, look on at the accomplishment of it, +know every one of them that this is a bad business, and are ashamed of +the part which they are taking in it and even of their presence during +its execution. Why, then, have they been doing and tolerating it? -Ask those who, like the proprietor, started this matter, and -those who, like the judges, handed down a formally legal, -but obviously unjust decision, and those who ordered the -enforcement of the decree, and those who, like the soldiers, -the policemen, and the peasants, will with their own hands -carry it into execution,---who will beat and kill their -brothers,---all of them, the instigators, and the -accomplices, and the executors, and the abettors of these -crimes, and all will give you essentially the same answer. - -The men in authority, who provoked the matter and cooperated -in it and directed it, will say that they are doing what -they are doing because such matters are necessary for the -maintenance of the existing order; and the maintenance of -the existing order is necessary for the good of the country -and of humanity, for the possibility of a social life and a +Ask those who, like the proprietor, started this matter, and those who, +like the judges, handed down a formally legal, but obviously unjust +decision, and those who ordered the enforcement of the decree, and those +who, like the soldiers, the policemen, and the peasants, will with their +own hands carry it into execution,---who will beat and kill their +brothers,---all of them, the instigators, and the accomplices, and the +executors, and the abettors of these crimes, and all will give you +essentially the same answer. + +The men in authority, who provoked the matter and cooperated in it and +directed it, will say that they are doing what they are doing because +such matters are necessary for the maintenance of the existing order; +and the maintenance of the existing order is necessary for the good of +the country and of humanity, for the possibility of a social life and a forward movement of progress. -The men from the lower spheres, the peasants and the -soldiers, those who will be compelled with their own hands -to exercise the violence, will say that they are doing what -they are doing because this is prescribed by the higher -authorities, and that the higher authorities know what they -are doing. That the authorities consist of the very men who -ought to be the authorities and that they know what they are -doing, presents itself to them as an incontestable truth. If -these lower executors even admit the possibility of an error -or delusion, they admit it only in the case of the lower -authorities; but the highest power, from whom all this +The men from the lower spheres, the peasants and the soldiers, those who +will be compelled with their own hands to exercise the violence, will +say that they are doing what they are doing because this is prescribed +by the higher authorities, and that the higher authorities know what +they are doing. That the authorities consist of the very men who ought +to be the authorities and that they know what they are doing, presents +itself to them as an incontestable truth. If these lower executors even +admit the possibility of an error or delusion, they admit it only in the +case of the lower authorities; but the highest power, from whom all this proceeds, seems to them to be unquestionably infallible. -Though explaining the motives for their activities in a -different manner, both the rulers and the ruled agree in -this, that they do what they do because the existing order -is precisely the one which is indispensable and which must -exist at the present time, and which, therefore, it is the -sacred duty of every person to maintain. - -On this recognition of the necessity, and so of the -unchangeableness of the existing order, is based the -reflection, which has always been adduced by all the -participants in state violence in their justification, that, -since the present order is unchangeable, the refusal of a -single individual to perform the duties imposed upon him -will not change the essence of the matter, and will have no -other effect than that in place of the person refusing there -will be another man, who may perform the duty less well, -that is, more cruelly, more harmfully for those men against -whom the violence is practised. - -This conviction that the existing order is indispensable, -and so unchangeable, and that it is the sacred duty of every -man to maintain it, is what gives to good people and, in -private life, to moral people the possibility of -participating with a more or less calm conscience in such -affairs as the one which took place in Orel and the one -which the people who were travelling in the Tula train were -getting ready to act in. +Though explaining the motives for their activities in a different +manner, both the rulers and the ruled agree in this, that they do what +they do because the existing order is precisely the one which is +indispensable and which must exist at the present time, and which, +therefore, it is the sacred duty of every person to maintain. + +On this recognition of the necessity, and so of the unchangeableness of +the existing order, is based the reflection, which has always been +adduced by all the participants in state violence in their +justification, that, since the present order is unchangeable, the +refusal of a single individual to perform the duties imposed upon him +will not change the essence of the matter, and will have no other effect +than that in place of the person refusing there will be another man, who +may perform the duty less well, that is, more cruelly, more harmfully +for those men against whom the violence is practised. + +This conviction that the existing order is indispensable, and so +unchangeable, and that it is the sacred duty of every man to maintain +it, is what gives to good people and, in private life, to moral people +the possibility of participating with a more or less calm conscience in +such affairs as the one which took place in Orel and the one which the +people who were travelling in the Tula train were getting ready to act +in. But on what is this conviction based? -It is naturally agreeable and desirable for the proprietor -to believe that the existing order is indispensable and -unchangeable, because it is this very existing order which -secures for him the income from his hundreds and thousands -of desyatinas, thanks to which he leads his habitual idle -and luxurious life. - -Naturally enough, the judge, too, readily believes in the -necessity of the order in consequence of which he receives -fifty times as much as the most industrious labourer. This -is just as comprehensible in the case of the supreme judge, -who receives a salary of six or more thousand, and in the -case of all the higher officials. Only with the present -order can he, as a governor, prosecutor, senator, member of -various councils, receive his salary of several thousands, -without which he would at once perish with all his family, -because, except by the position which he holds, he would not -be able, with his ability, industry, and knowledge, to earn -one hundredth part of what he is getting. In the same -situation are the minister, the emperor, and every higher -authority, but with this difference, that, the higher they -are and the more exclusive their position is, the more -indispensable it is for them to believe that the existing -order is the only possible order, because outside of it they -not only cannot get an equal position, but will have to -stand much lower than the rest of mankind. A man who -voluntarily hires himself out as a policeman at a salary of -ten roubles, which he can easily get in any other position, -has little need of the preservation of the existing order, -and so can get along without believing in its -unchangeableness. But a king or an emperor, who in his -position receives millions; who knows that all around him -there are thousands of men who are willing to depose him and -take his place; who knows that in no other position will he -get such an income and such honours; who in the majority of -cases, with a more or less despotic rule, knows even this, -that, if he should be deposed, he would be tried for -everything he did while in possession of his power, cannot -help but believe in the unchangeableness and sacredness of -the existing order. The higher the position which a man -occupies, the more advantageous and, therefore, the more -unstable it is, and the more terrible and dangerous a fall -from it is, the more does a man who holds that position -believe in the unchangeableness of the existing order, and -with so much greater peace of mind can such a man, as though -not for himself, but for the support of the existing order, -do bad and cruel deeds. - -Thus it is in the case of all the men of the ruling classes -who hold positions that are more advantageous than those -which they could hold without the existing -order,---beginning with the lowest police officials and -ending with the highest authorities. All these men more or -less believe in the unchangeableness of the existing order, -because, above all else, it is advantageous for them. - -But what is it that compels the peasants, the soldiers, who -stand on the lowest rung of the ladder, who have no profit -from the existing order, who are in a condition of the most -abject submission and humiliation, to believe that the -existing order, in consequence of which they are in a most -disadvantageous and humble state, is the very order which -must be, and which, therefore, must be maintained, even by -performing the basest and most unconscionable acts for it. - -What is it that compels these men to make the false -reflection that the existing order is invariable and, -therefore, must be maintained, whereas it is evident that, -on the contrary, it is unchangeable only because it is -maintained as such? - -What is it that compels the men who were but yesterday taken -from the plough, and who are dressed up in these monstrous, -indecent garments with blue collars and gilt buttons, to -travel with guns and swords, in order to kill their hungry -fathers and brothers? They certainly have no advantages, and -are in no danger of losing the position which they hold, -because their condition is worse than the one from which -they are taken. - -The men of the higher ruling classes, the proprietors, -ministers, kings, officers, take part in these matters, thus -supporting the existing order, because it is advantageous -for them. Besides, these frequently good, meek men feel -themselves able to take part in these things for this other -reason, that their participation is limited to instigations, -decrees, and commands. None of these men in authority do -themselves those things which they instigate, determine -upon, and order to be done. For the most part they do not -even see how all those terrible things which they provoke -and prescribe are carried out. - -But the unfortunate people of the lower classes, who derive -no advantage from the existing order, who, on the contrary, -in consequence of this order are held in the greatest -contempt, why do they, who, for the maintenance of this -order, with their own hands tear people away from their -families, who bind them, who lock them up in prisons and at -hard labour, who watch and shoot them, do all these things? - -What is it that compels these men to believe that the -existing order is unchangeable and that it is necessary to -maintain it? - -All violence is based only on them, on those men who with -their own hands beat, bind, lock up, kill. If these men did -not exist,---these soldiers and policemen,---the armed men -in general, who are prepared on command to commit violence -and to kill all those whom they are commanded to kill, not -one of the men who sign the decrees for executions, life -imprisonment, hard labour, would ever have the courage -himself to hang, lock up, torture to death one thousandth -part of those whom now, sitting quietly in their studies, -they order to be hung and to be tortured in every way, only -because they do not see it and it is not done by them, but -somewhere far away by obedient executors. - -All those injustices and cruelties which have entered into -the curriculum of the existing life, have entered there only -because there exist these people, who are always prepared to -maintain these injustices and cruelties. If these men did -not exist, there would not be any one to offer violence to -all these enormous masses of violated people, and those who -give orders would never even dare either to command or even -to dream of what they now command with so much -self-assurance. If there were no people who would be ready -at the command of those whom they obey to torture or to kill -him who is pointed out to them, no one would ever dare to -affirm, what is with so much self-confidence asserted by the -non-working landowners, that the land which surrounds the -peasants, who are dying for lack of land, is the property of -a man who does not work on it, and that the supply of corn, -which has been garnered in a rascally manner, ought to be -kept intact amidst a starving population, because the -merchant needs some profit, and so forth. If there were no -men who would be ready at the will of the authorities to -torture and kill every person pointed out to them, it could -never occur to a landed proprietor to take away from the -peasants a forest which had been raised by them, nor to the -officials to consider legal the payment to them of salaries, -which are collected from the hungry masses, for oppressing -them, to say nothing of executing men, or locking them up, -or exiling them, because they overthrow the lie and preach -the truth. All this is demanded and done only because these -ruling people are firmly convinced that they have always at -hand submissive people, who will be ready to carry any of -their demands into execution by means of tortures and +It is naturally agreeable and desirable for the proprietor to believe +that the existing order is indispensable and unchangeable, because it is +this very existing order which secures for him the income from his +hundreds and thousands of desyatinas, thanks to which he leads his +habitual idle and luxurious life. + +Naturally enough, the judge, too, readily believes in the necessity of +the order in consequence of which he receives fifty times as much as the +most industrious labourer. This is just as comprehensible in the case of +the supreme judge, who receives a salary of six or more thousand, and in +the case of all the higher officials. Only with the present order can +he, as a governor, prosecutor, senator, member of various councils, +receive his salary of several thousands, without which he would at once +perish with all his family, because, except by the position which he +holds, he would not be able, with his ability, industry, and knowledge, +to earn one hundredth part of what he is getting. In the same situation +are the minister, the emperor, and every higher authority, but with this +difference, that, the higher they are and the more exclusive their +position is, the more indispensable it is for them to believe that the +existing order is the only possible order, because outside of it they +not only cannot get an equal position, but will have to stand much lower +than the rest of mankind. A man who voluntarily hires himself out as a +policeman at a salary of ten roubles, which he can easily get in any +other position, has little need of the preservation of the existing +order, and so can get along without believing in its unchangeableness. +But a king or an emperor, who in his position receives millions; who +knows that all around him there are thousands of men who are willing to +depose him and take his place; who knows that in no other position will +he get such an income and such honours; who in the majority of cases, +with a more or less despotic rule, knows even this, that, if he should +be deposed, he would be tried for everything he did while in possession +of his power, cannot help but believe in the unchangeableness and +sacredness of the existing order. The higher the position which a man +occupies, the more advantageous and, therefore, the more unstable it is, +and the more terrible and dangerous a fall from it is, the more does a +man who holds that position believe in the unchangeableness of the +existing order, and with so much greater peace of mind can such a man, +as though not for himself, but for the support of the existing order, do +bad and cruel deeds. + +Thus it is in the case of all the men of the ruling classes who hold +positions that are more advantageous than those which they could hold +without the existing order,---beginning with the lowest police officials +and ending with the highest authorities. All these men more or less +believe in the unchangeableness of the existing order, because, above +all else, it is advantageous for them. + +But what is it that compels the peasants, the soldiers, who stand on the +lowest rung of the ladder, who have no profit from the existing order, +who are in a condition of the most abject submission and humiliation, to +believe that the existing order, in consequence of which they are in a +most disadvantageous and humble state, is the very order which must be, +and which, therefore, must be maintained, even by performing the basest +and most unconscionable acts for it. + +What is it that compels these men to make the false reflection that the +existing order is invariable and, therefore, must be maintained, whereas +it is evident that, on the contrary, it is unchangeable only because it +is maintained as such? + +What is it that compels the men who were but yesterday taken from the +plough, and who are dressed up in these monstrous, indecent garments +with blue collars and gilt buttons, to travel with guns and swords, in +order to kill their hungry fathers and brothers? They certainly have no +advantages, and are in no danger of losing the position which they hold, +because their condition is worse than the one from which they are taken. + +The men of the higher ruling classes, the proprietors, ministers, kings, +officers, take part in these matters, thus supporting the existing +order, because it is advantageous for them. Besides, these frequently +good, meek men feel themselves able to take part in these things for +this other reason, that their participation is limited to instigations, +decrees, and commands. None of these men in authority do themselves +those things which they instigate, determine upon, and order to be done. +For the most part they do not even see how all those terrible things +which they provoke and prescribe are carried out. + +But the unfortunate people of the lower classes, who derive no advantage +from the existing order, who, on the contrary, in consequence of this +order are held in the greatest contempt, why do they, who, for the +maintenance of this order, with their own hands tear people away from +their families, who bind them, who lock them up in prisons and at hard +labour, who watch and shoot them, do all these things? + +What is it that compels these men to believe that the existing order is +unchangeable and that it is necessary to maintain it? + +All violence is based only on them, on those men who with their own +hands beat, bind, lock up, kill. If these men did not exist,---these +soldiers and policemen,---the armed men in general, who are prepared on +command to commit violence and to kill all those whom they are commanded +to kill, not one of the men who sign the decrees for executions, life +imprisonment, hard labour, would ever have the courage himself to hang, +lock up, torture to death one thousandth part of those whom now, sitting +quietly in their studies, they order to be hung and to be tortured in +every way, only because they do not see it and it is not done by them, +but somewhere far away by obedient executors. + +All those injustices and cruelties which have entered into the +curriculum of the existing life, have entered there only because there +exist these people, who are always prepared to maintain these injustices +and cruelties. If these men did not exist, there would not be any one to +offer violence to all these enormous masses of violated people, and +those who give orders would never even dare either to command or even to +dream of what they now command with so much self-assurance. If there +were no people who would be ready at the command of those whom they obey +to torture or to kill him who is pointed out to them, no one would ever +dare to affirm, what is with so much self-confidence asserted by the +non-working landowners, that the land which surrounds the peasants, who +are dying for lack of land, is the property of a man who does not work +on it, and that the supply of corn, which has been garnered in a +rascally manner, ought to be kept intact amidst a starving population, +because the merchant needs some profit, and so forth. If there were no +men who would be ready at the will of the authorities to torture and +kill every person pointed out to them, it could never occur to a landed +proprietor to take away from the peasants a forest which had been raised +by them, nor to the officials to consider legal the payment to them of +salaries, which are collected from the hungry masses, for oppressing +them, to say nothing of executing men, or locking them up, or exiling +them, because they overthrow the lie and preach the truth. All this is +demanded and done only because these ruling people are firmly convinced +that they have always at hand submissive people, who will be ready to +carry any of their demands into execution by means of tortures and murders. -The only reason why they commit deeds like those committed -by all the tyrants from Napoleon down to the last commander -of a company, who shoots into a crowd, is because they are -stupefied by the power behind them, consisting of -subservient men who are ready to do anything they are -commanded. The whole strength, therefore, lies in the men -who with their hands do acts of violence, in the men who -serve with the police, among the soldiers, more especially -among the soldiers, because the police do their work only -when they have an army behind them. - -What is it, then, that has led these good men, who derive no -advantage from it, who are compelled with their hands to do -all these terrible things, men on whom the whole matter -depends, into that remarkable delusion that assures them -that the existing disadvantageous, pernicious, and for them -painful order is the one which must be? +The only reason why they commit deeds like those committed by all the +tyrants from Napoleon down to the last commander of a company, who +shoots into a crowd, is because they are stupefied by the power behind +them, consisting of subservient men who are ready to do anything they +are commanded. The whole strength, therefore, lies in the men who with +their hands do acts of violence, in the men who serve with the police, +among the soldiers, more especially among the soldiers, because the +police do their work only when they have an army behind them. + +What is it, then, that has led these good men, who derive no advantage +from it, who are compelled with their hands to do all these terrible +things, men on whom the whole matter depends, into that remarkable +delusion that assures them that the existing disadvantageous, +pernicious, and for them painful order is the one which must be? Who has led them into this remarkable delusion? -They have certainly not assured themselves that they must do -what is not only painful, disadvantageous, and pernicious to -them and their whole class, which forms nine-tenths of the -whole population, and what is even contrary to their -conscience. - -"How are you going to kill men, when in God's law it says, -'Thou shalt not kill'?" I frequently asked soldiers, and, by -reminding them of what they did not like to think about, I -always made them feel awkward and embarrassed. Such a -soldier knew that there was an obligatory law of God, "Thou -shalt not kill," and he knew that there was an obligatory -military service, but it had never occurred to him that -there was any contradiction there. The sense of the timid -answers that I always received to this question consisted -approximately in this, that murder in war and the execution -of criminals at the command of the government were not -included in the common prohibition of murders. But when I -told them that no such limitation was made in God's law, and -reminded them of the doctrine of brotherhood, of the -forgiveness of offences, of love, which are obligatory for -all Christians and which could in no way be harmonized with -murder, the men of the people generally agreed with me, and -on their side put the question to me as to how it happened -that the government, which, according to their ideas, could -not err, commanded the armies, when necessary, to go to war, -and ordered the execution of prisoners. When I answered them -that the government acted incorrectly when it commanded -these things to be done, my interlocutors became even more -embarrassed, and either broke off the conversation or grew -provoked at me. - -"There must be such a law. I guess the bishops know better -than we," I was told by a Russian soldier. And, having said -this, the soldier apparently felt his conscience eased, -being fully convinced that his guides had found a law, the -same under which his ancestors had served, and the kings and -the kings' heirs, and millions of people, and he himself -served, and that what I was telling him was some piece of +They have certainly not assured themselves that they must do what is not +only painful, disadvantageous, and pernicious to them and their whole +class, which forms nine-tenths of the whole population, and what is even +contrary to their conscience. + +"How are you going to kill men, when in God's law it says, 'Thou shalt +not kill'?" I frequently asked soldiers, and, by reminding them of what +they did not like to think about, I always made them feel awkward and +embarrassed. Such a soldier knew that there was an obligatory law of +God, "Thou shalt not kill," and he knew that there was an obligatory +military service, but it had never occurred to him that there was any +contradiction there. The sense of the timid answers that I always +received to this question consisted approximately in this, that murder +in war and the execution of criminals at the command of the government +were not included in the common prohibition of murders. But when I told +them that no such limitation was made in God's law, and reminded them of +the doctrine of brotherhood, of the forgiveness of offences, of love, +which are obligatory for all Christians and which could in no way be +harmonized with murder, the men of the people generally agreed with me, +and on their side put the question to me as to how it happened that the +government, which, according to their ideas, could not err, commanded +the armies, when necessary, to go to war, and ordered the execution of +prisoners. When I answered them that the government acted incorrectly +when it commanded these things to be done, my interlocutors became even +more embarrassed, and either broke off the conversation or grew provoked +at me. + +"There must be such a law. I guess the bishops know better than we," I +was told by a Russian soldier. And, having said this, the soldier +apparently felt his conscience eased, being fully convinced that his +guides had found a law, the same under which his ancestors had served, +and the kings and the kings' heirs, and millions of people, and he +himself served, and that what I was telling him was some piece of cunning or cleverness, like a riddle. -All the men of our Christian world know, know firmly, from -tradition, and from revelation, and from the irrefutable -voice of conscience, that murder is one of the most terrible -crimes which a man can commit, as the Gospel says, and that -this sin cannot be limited to certain men, that is, that it -is a sin to kill some men, but not a sin to kill others. All +All the men of our Christian world know, know firmly, from tradition, +and from revelation, and from the irrefutable voice of conscience, that +murder is one of the most terrible crimes which a man can commit, as the +Gospel says, and that this sin cannot be limited to certain men, that +is, that it is a sin to kill some men, but not a sin to kill others. All know that if the sin of murder is a sin, it is always a sin, -independently of what men are the victims of it, just like -the sin of adultery and thieving and any other; at the same -time men have seen, since childhood, since youth, that -murder is not only admitted, but even blessed by all those -whom they are accustomed to respect as their spiritual -guides, ordained by God; they see that their worldly guides -with calm assurance institute murders, bear arms of murder, -of which they are proud, and demand of all, in the name of -the civil and even the divine law, that they shall take part -in murder. Men see that there is here some contradiction, -and, being unable to solve it, they involuntarily assume -that this contradiction is due only to their ignorance. The -very coarseness and obviousness of the contradiction -sustains them in this conviction. They cannot imagine that -their enlighteners, learned men, should be able with such -confidence to preach two such seemingly contradictory -propositions,---the obligatoriness for every one of the law -and of murder. A simple, innocent child, and later a youth, -cannot imagine that men who stand so high in his opinion, -whom he considers to be either holy or learned, should for -any reason be deceiving him so unscrupulously. But it is -precisely this that has been done to him all the time. This -is accomplished, in the first place, by impressing all the -labouring people, who have not themselves any time to solve -moral and religious questions, from childhood, and up to old -age, by example and direct teaching, with the idea that -tortures and murders are compatible with Christianity, and -that, for certain purposes of state, tortures and murders -are not only admissible, but even peremptory; in the second -place, by impressing some of them, who are chosen by -enlistment or levy, with the idea that the performance of -tortures and murders with their own hands forms a sacred -duty and even an act which is valorous and worthy of praise -and of reward. - -The common deception, which is disseminated among all men, -consists in this, that in all the catechisms, or the books -which have taken their place and which are now the subject -of obligatory instruction for the children, it says that -violence, that is, tortures, imprisonments, and executions, -as also murders in civil or external wars for the purpose of -maintaining and defending the existing order of the state -(whatever it be, autocratic, monarchical, a convention, a -consulship, an empire of either Napoleon or of Boulanger, a -constitutional monarchy, a commune, or a republic), is quite -legitimate, and does not contradict either morality or -Christianity. - -This it says in all the catechisms or books used in the -schools. And men are so convinced of it that they grow up, -live, and die in this conviction, without doubting it even -once. - -This is one deception, a common deception, which is -practised on all men; there is another, a private deception, -which is practised on soldiers or policemen, who are chosen -in one way or another and who perform the tortures and the -murders which are needed for the support and the defence of -the existing order. - -In all the military codes it says in so many words what in -the Russian military code is expressed as follows: "(Art. -87) Precisely and without discussion to carry out the -commands of the authorities means to carry out precisely the -command given by the authorities, without discussing whether -it is good or bad, and whether it is possible to carry it -out. The chief himself answers for the consequences of a -command given out by him. (Art. 88) The subject may refuse -to carry out the commands of his superior only when he sees -clearly that by carrying out his superior's command -he"---one involuntarily imagines that what will follow is -"when he sees clearly that by carrying out his superior's -command he violates the law of God;" but that is not at all -the case: "when he sees clearly that he is violating the -oath of allegiance and fidelity, and his service to the -emperor." - -It says that a man, being a soldier, must carry out all the -commands of his chief without any exception whatever, which -for a soldier mainly means murder, and so must violate all -divine and human laws, except his fidelity and service to -him who at the given moment happens to be in power. - -Thus it says in the Russian military code, and precisely the -same, though in different words, is said in all the military -codes, as indeed it cannot be otherwise, because in reality -upon this deception of emancipating men from their obedience -to God or to their conscience, and of substituting for this -obedience the obedience to the accidental superior, is all -the power of the army and the state based. - -So it is this on which is founded that strange conviction of -the lower classes that the existing order, which is -pernicious for them, is as it ought to be, and that they -are, therefore, obliged to support it with tortures and -murders. +independently of what men are the victims of it, just like the sin of +adultery and thieving and any other; at the same time men have seen, +since childhood, since youth, that murder is not only admitted, but even +blessed by all those whom they are accustomed to respect as their +spiritual guides, ordained by God; they see that their worldly guides +with calm assurance institute murders, bear arms of murder, of which +they are proud, and demand of all, in the name of the civil and even the +divine law, that they shall take part in murder. Men see that there is +here some contradiction, and, being unable to solve it, they +involuntarily assume that this contradiction is due only to their +ignorance. The very coarseness and obviousness of the contradiction +sustains them in this conviction. They cannot imagine that their +enlighteners, learned men, should be able with such confidence to preach +two such seemingly contradictory propositions,---the obligatoriness for +every one of the law and of murder. A simple, innocent child, and later +a youth, cannot imagine that men who stand so high in his opinion, whom +he considers to be either holy or learned, should for any reason be +deceiving him so unscrupulously. But it is precisely this that has been +done to him all the time. This is accomplished, in the first place, by +impressing all the labouring people, who have not themselves any time to +solve moral and religious questions, from childhood, and up to old age, +by example and direct teaching, with the idea that tortures and murders +are compatible with Christianity, and that, for certain purposes of +state, tortures and murders are not only admissible, but even +peremptory; in the second place, by impressing some of them, who are +chosen by enlistment or levy, with the idea that the performance of +tortures and murders with their own hands forms a sacred duty and even +an act which is valorous and worthy of praise and of reward. + +The common deception, which is disseminated among all men, consists in +this, that in all the catechisms, or the books which have taken their +place and which are now the subject of obligatory instruction for the +children, it says that violence, that is, tortures, imprisonments, and +executions, as also murders in civil or external wars for the purpose of +maintaining and defending the existing order of the state (whatever it +be, autocratic, monarchical, a convention, a consulship, an empire of +either Napoleon or of Boulanger, a constitutional monarchy, a commune, +or a republic), is quite legitimate, and does not contradict either +morality or Christianity. + +This it says in all the catechisms or books used in the schools. And men +are so convinced of it that they grow up, live, and die in this +conviction, without doubting it even once. + +This is one deception, a common deception, which is practised on all +men; there is another, a private deception, which is practised on +soldiers or policemen, who are chosen in one way or another and who +perform the tortures and the murders which are needed for the support +and the defence of the existing order. + +In all the military codes it says in so many words what in the Russian +military code is expressed as follows: "(Art. 87) Precisely and without +discussion to carry out the commands of the authorities means to carry +out precisely the command given by the authorities, without discussing +whether it is good or bad, and whether it is possible to carry it out. +The chief himself answers for the consequences of a command given out by +him. (Art. 88) The subject may refuse to carry out the commands of his +superior only when he sees clearly that by carrying out his superior's +command he"---one involuntarily imagines that what will follow is "when +he sees clearly that by carrying out his superior's command he violates +the law of God;" but that is not at all the case: "when he sees clearly +that he is violating the oath of allegiance and fidelity, and his +service to the emperor." + +It says that a man, being a soldier, must carry out all the commands of +his chief without any exception whatever, which for a soldier mainly +means murder, and so must violate all divine and human laws, except his +fidelity and service to him who at the given moment happens to be in +power. -This conviction is based on a conscious deception, which is -practised upon them by the upper classes. - -Nor can it be otherwise. To compel the lower, most numerous -classes of men to oppress and torment themselves, committing -with this such acts as are contrary to their conscience, it -was necessary to deceive these lower, most numerous classes. -And so it was done. - -The other day I again saw an open practice of this shameless -deceit, and I was again surprised to see with what boldness -and freedom it was practised. - -In the beginning of November, as I was passing through Tula, -I again saw at the gate of the County Council Office the -familiar dense crowd of people, from which proceeded drunken -shouts and the pitiful wail of mothers and of wives. This -was a levy of recruits. - -As upon other occasions, I was unable to drive past this -spectacle: it attracts me as by some evil charm. I again -entered among the crowd, stood, looked, asked questions, and -marvelled at the freedom with which this most terrible crime -is perpetrated in broad daylight and in a populous city. - -As in former years, the elders in all the villages of -Russia, with its one hundred millions of inhabitants, on the -first of November selected from lists a given number of -lads, frequently their own sons, and took them to the city. - -On the way the recruits went on an uninterrupted spree, in -which they were not interfered with by their elders, who -felt that going to such a mad business as the one to which -the recruits were going, abandoning their wives and mothers -and renouncing everything holy to them, in order to become -somebody's senseless instruments of murder, was too painful -a matter, if they did not intoxicate themselves with liquor. - -And so they travelled, drinking, cursing, singing, fighting, -and maiming themselves. The nights they passed in inns. In -the morning they again became drunk and gathered in front of -the County Council Office. - -One part of them, in new short fur coats, with knitted -shawls about their necks, with moist drunken eyes or with -savage self-encouraging shouts, or quiet and dejected, crowd -at the gate amidst weeping mothers and wives, waiting for -their turns (I fell in with them on the very day of the -levy, that is, when those who were sent up were to be -examined); another part at this time crowds in the -waiting-room of the Office. - -In the Office they are busy working. The door is opened, and -the janitor calls Peter Sidorov. Peter Sidorov is startled, -makes the sign of the cross, and enters into a small room -with a glass door. Here the prospective recruits undress -themselves. A naked recruit, a companion of Peter Sidorov, -just accepted, comes in from the Office, with trembling -jaws, and puts on his clothes. Peter Sidorov has heard and -sees by his face that he is accepted. Peter Sidorov wants to -ask him something, but he is told to hurry and undress -himself as quickly as possible. He throws off his fur coat, -pulls off his boots with his feet, takes off his vest, draws -his shirt over his head, and with protruding ribs, naked, -with shivering body, and emitting an odour of liquor, -tobacco, and perspiration, with bare feet, enters into the -Office, without knowing what to do with his bared muscular -arms. - -In the Office there hangs in full sight and in a large gilt -frame the portrait of the emperor in a uniform with a sash, -and in the corner a small portrait of Christ in a shirt and -a crown of thorns. In the middle of the room there stands a -table covered with green cloth, upon which He papers and -stands a triangular thing with an eagle, which is called the -Mirror of Laws. Around the table sit the chiefs, with -confident, calm looks. One of them smokes, another examines -some papers. The moment Sidorov has entered, a janitor comes -up to him, and he is put on the measuring-scale, receives a -knock under his chin, and has his legs straightened out. -There walks up a man with a cigarette. It is the doctor, and -he, without looking into the recruit's face, but somewhere -past him, loathingly touches his body, and measures and -feels, and tells the janitor to open the recruit's mouth -wide, and commands him to breathe and to say something. -Somebody makes some notes. Finally, without looking once -into his eyes, the doctor says, "Able-bodied! Next!" and -with a fatigued expression again seats himself at the table. -Again soldiers push the lad and hurry him off. He somehow -manages in his hurry to pull the shirt over him, after -missing the sleeves, somehow puts on his trousers and -leg-rags, draws on his boots, looks for his shawl and cap, -grasps his fur coat, and is led into the hall, where he is -placed behind a bench. Beyond this bench wait all the -accepted recruits. A village lad, like him, but from a -distant Government, a full-fledged soldier with a gun, with -a sharp bayonet attached to it, keeps watch on him, ready to -run the bayonet through him, if he should think of running -away. - -Meanwhile the crowd of fathers, mothers, wives, pushed by -the policemen, press close to the gate, to find out who is -accepted, and who not. There appears one of the rejected, -and he announces that Peter has been accepted, and there is -heard the wail of Peter's wife, for whom the word "accepted" -means a separation of four or five years, and the life of a +Thus it says in the Russian military code, and precisely the same, +though in different words, is said in all the military codes, as indeed +it cannot be otherwise, because in reality upon this deception of +emancipating men from their obedience to God or to their conscience, and +of substituting for this obedience the obedience to the accidental +superior, is all the power of the army and the state based. + +So it is this on which is founded that strange conviction of the lower +classes that the existing order, which is pernicious for them, is as it +ought to be, and that they are, therefore, obliged to support it with +tortures and murders. + +This conviction is based on a conscious deception, which is practised +upon them by the upper classes. + +Nor can it be otherwise. To compel the lower, most numerous classes of +men to oppress and torment themselves, committing with this such acts as +are contrary to their conscience, it was necessary to deceive these +lower, most numerous classes. And so it was done. + +The other day I again saw an open practice of this shameless deceit, and +I was again surprised to see with what boldness and freedom it was +practised. + +In the beginning of November, as I was passing through Tula, I again saw +at the gate of the County Council Office the familiar dense crowd of +people, from which proceeded drunken shouts and the pitiful wail of +mothers and of wives. This was a levy of recruits. + +As upon other occasions, I was unable to drive past this spectacle: it +attracts me as by some evil charm. I again entered among the crowd, +stood, looked, asked questions, and marvelled at the freedom with which +this most terrible crime is perpetrated in broad daylight and in a +populous city. + +As in former years, the elders in all the villages of Russia, with its +one hundred millions of inhabitants, on the first of November selected +from lists a given number of lads, frequently their own sons, and took +them to the city. + +On the way the recruits went on an uninterrupted spree, in which they +were not interfered with by their elders, who felt that going to such a +mad business as the one to which the recruits were going, abandoning +their wives and mothers and renouncing everything holy to them, in order +to become somebody's senseless instruments of murder, was too painful a +matter, if they did not intoxicate themselves with liquor. + +And so they travelled, drinking, cursing, singing, fighting, and maiming +themselves. The nights they passed in inns. In the morning they again +became drunk and gathered in front of the County Council Office. + +One part of them, in new short fur coats, with knitted shawls about +their necks, with moist drunken eyes or with savage self-encouraging +shouts, or quiet and dejected, crowd at the gate amidst weeping mothers +and wives, waiting for their turns (I fell in with them on the very day +of the levy, that is, when those who were sent up were to be examined); +another part at this time crowds in the waiting-room of the Office. + +In the Office they are busy working. The door is opened, and the janitor +calls Peter Sidorov. Peter Sidorov is startled, makes the sign of the +cross, and enters into a small room with a glass door. Here the +prospective recruits undress themselves. A naked recruit, a companion of +Peter Sidorov, just accepted, comes in from the Office, with trembling +jaws, and puts on his clothes. Peter Sidorov has heard and sees by his +face that he is accepted. Peter Sidorov wants to ask him something, but +he is told to hurry and undress himself as quickly as possible. He +throws off his fur coat, pulls off his boots with his feet, takes off +his vest, draws his shirt over his head, and with protruding ribs, +naked, with shivering body, and emitting an odour of liquor, tobacco, +and perspiration, with bare feet, enters into the Office, without +knowing what to do with his bared muscular arms. + +In the Office there hangs in full sight and in a large gilt frame the +portrait of the emperor in a uniform with a sash, and in the corner a +small portrait of Christ in a shirt and a crown of thorns. In the middle +of the room there stands a table covered with green cloth, upon which He +papers and stands a triangular thing with an eagle, which is called the +Mirror of Laws. Around the table sit the chiefs, with confident, calm +looks. One of them smokes, another examines some papers. The moment +Sidorov has entered, a janitor comes up to him, and he is put on the +measuring-scale, receives a knock under his chin, and has his legs +straightened out. There walks up a man with a cigarette. It is the +doctor, and he, without looking into the recruit's face, but somewhere +past him, loathingly touches his body, and measures and feels, and tells +the janitor to open the recruit's mouth wide, and commands him to +breathe and to say something. Somebody makes some notes. Finally, +without looking once into his eyes, the doctor says, "Able-bodied! +Next!" and with a fatigued expression again seats himself at the table. +Again soldiers push the lad and hurry him off. He somehow manages in his +hurry to pull the shirt over him, after missing the sleeves, somehow +puts on his trousers and leg-rags, draws on his boots, looks for his +shawl and cap, grasps his fur coat, and is led into the hall, where he +is placed behind a bench. Beyond this bench wait all the accepted +recruits. A village lad, like him, but from a distant Government, a +full-fledged soldier with a gun, with a sharp bayonet attached to it, +keeps watch on him, ready to run the bayonet through him, if he should +think of running away. + +Meanwhile the crowd of fathers, mothers, wives, pushed by the policemen, +press close to the gate, to find out who is accepted, and who not. There +appears one of the rejected, and he announces that Peter has been +accepted, and there is heard the wail of Peter's wife, for whom the word +"accepted" means a separation of four or five years, and the life of a soldier's wife as a cook, in debauchery. -But just then a long-haired man in a special attire, which -distinguishes him from all other men, drives up and, getting -down from the carriage, walks up to the house of the County -Council Office. The policemen clear a path for him through -the crowd. "The father has come to administer the oath." And -this father, who has been assured that he is a special, -exclusive servant of Christ, who for the most part does not -himself see the deception under which he is, enters into the -room where the accepted recruits are waiting, puts on a -gold-embroidered apron, draws his hair out from underneath -it, opens the very Gospel in which taking an oath is -prohibited, lifts up a cross, the very cross on which Christ -was crucified for not doing what this His imaginary servant -orders to be done, and puts it on the pulpit, and all these -defenceless and deceived lads repeat after him the lie which -he pronounces boldly and by habit. He reads, and they repeat -after him: "I promise and swear by the Almighty God, before -His holy Gospel... etc., to defend, that is, to kill all -those whom I am commanded to kill, and to do everything I am -ordered to do by those people whom I do not know, and who -need me for nothing else but that I should commit the evil -deeds by which they are kept in their positions, and by -which they oppress my brothers." All the accepted recruits -senselessly repeat these wild words, and the so-called -"father" drives away with the consciousness of having -correctly and scrupulously done his duty, and all these -deceived lads think that all those insipid, incomprehensible -words, which they have just pronounced, have now, for the -whole time of their military service, freed them from their -human obligations and have bound them to new, more -obligatory military obligations. - -And this is done publicly, and no one will shout to the -deceivers and to the deceived: "Bethink yourselves and -scatter, for this is the basest and meanest lie, which ruins -not only our bodies, but also our souls." - -No one does so; on the contrary, when all are accepted, and -it becomes necessary to let them out, the military chief, as -though to scorn them, enters with self-confident, majestic -mien into the hall where the deceived, drunken lads are -locked up, and boldly exclaims to them in military fashion, -"Your health, boys! I congratulate you on your Tsar's -service." And the poor fellows (somebody has instructed them -what to do) babble something with an unaccustomed, -half-intoxicated tongue to the effect that they are glad of -it. - -In the meantime, the crowd of fathers, mothers, and wives -stand at the door and wait. The women look with tearful, -arrested eyes through the door. And the door opens, and out -come, staggering, and with a look of bravado, the accepted -recruits,---Petrukha, and Vanyukha, and Makar,---trying not -to look at their relatives. The wail of the mothers and -wives is heard. Some embrace one another and weep; others -try to look brave; others again console their people. -Mothers and wives, knowing that now they will be orphaned -for three, four, or five years, without a supporter, wail -and lament at the top of their voices. The fathers do not -speak much, and only pitifully smack their tongues and sigh, -knowing that now they will no longer see their helpers, whom -they have raised and instructed, and that there will return -to them, not those peaceful, industrious agriculturists that -they have been, but generally debauched, dandyish soldiers, -who are no longer used to a simple life. - -And now the whole crowd take up seats in their sleighs and -start down the street, in the direction of inns and -restaurants, and still louder are heard, interfering with -one another, songs, sobs, drunken shouts, the laments of the -mothers and wives, the sounds of the accordion, and curses. -All make for saloons and restaurants, the revenue from which -goes to the government, and they abandon themselves to -intoxication, which drowns in them the perceived -consciousness of the illegality of what is being done to -them. - -For two or three weeks they live at home, and for the most -part are having a good time, that is, are out on a spree. - -On a set day they are collected, and driven like cattle to -one place, and are taught military methods and exercises. -They are instructed by just such deceived and bestialized -men as they, who entered the service two or three years ago. -The means of instruction are deception, stupefaction, kicks, -vodka. And not a year passes but that spiritually sound, -bright, good fellows are turned into just such wild beings -as their teachers. - -"Well, and if the prisoner, your father, runs away?" I asked -a young soldier. - -"I can run the bayonet through him," he replied, in the -peculiar, senseless voice of a soldier. "And if he 'removes -himself,' I must shoot," he added, apparently proud of his -knowledge of what to do when his father "removes himself." - -When he, the good young man, is brought to a condition lower -than an animal, he is such as those who use him as an -instrument of violence want him to be. He is all ready: the -man is lost, and a new instrument of violence has been -created. - -And all this takes place every year, every autumn, -everywhere, in the whole of Russia, in broad daylight, in a -populous city, in the sight of all men, and the deception is -so clever, so cunning, that all see it and in the depth of -their hearts know all its baseness, all its terrible +But just then a long-haired man in a special attire, which distinguishes +him from all other men, drives up and, getting down from the carriage, +walks up to the house of the County Council Office. The policemen clear +a path for him through the crowd. "The father has come to administer the +oath." And this father, who has been assured that he is a special, +exclusive servant of Christ, who for the most part does not himself see +the deception under which he is, enters into the room where the accepted +recruits are waiting, puts on a gold-embroidered apron, draws his hair +out from underneath it, opens the very Gospel in which taking an oath is +prohibited, lifts up a cross, the very cross on which Christ was +crucified for not doing what this His imaginary servant orders to be +done, and puts it on the pulpit, and all these defenceless and deceived +lads repeat after him the lie which he pronounces boldly and by habit. +He reads, and they repeat after him: "I promise and swear by the +Almighty God, before His holy Gospel... etc., to defend, that is, to +kill all those whom I am commanded to kill, and to do everything I am +ordered to do by those people whom I do not know, and who need me for +nothing else but that I should commit the evil deeds by which they are +kept in their positions, and by which they oppress my brothers." All the +accepted recruits senselessly repeat these wild words, and the so-called +"father" drives away with the consciousness of having correctly and +scrupulously done his duty, and all these deceived lads think that all +those insipid, incomprehensible words, which they have just pronounced, +have now, for the whole time of their military service, freed them from +their human obligations and have bound them to new, more obligatory +military obligations. + +And this is done publicly, and no one will shout to the deceivers and to +the deceived: "Bethink yourselves and scatter, for this is the basest +and meanest lie, which ruins not only our bodies, but also our souls." + +No one does so; on the contrary, when all are accepted, and it becomes +necessary to let them out, the military chief, as though to scorn them, +enters with self-confident, majestic mien into the hall where the +deceived, drunken lads are locked up, and boldly exclaims to them in +military fashion, "Your health, boys! I congratulate you on your Tsar's +service." And the poor fellows (somebody has instructed them what to do) +babble something with an unaccustomed, half-intoxicated tongue to the +effect that they are glad of it. + +In the meantime, the crowd of fathers, mothers, and wives stand at the +door and wait. The women look with tearful, arrested eyes through the +door. And the door opens, and out come, staggering, and with a look of +bravado, the accepted recruits,---Petrukha, and Vanyukha, and +Makar,---trying not to look at their relatives. The wail of the mothers +and wives is heard. Some embrace one another and weep; others try to +look brave; others again console their people. Mothers and wives, +knowing that now they will be orphaned for three, four, or five years, +without a supporter, wail and lament at the top of their voices. The +fathers do not speak much, and only pitifully smack their tongues and +sigh, knowing that now they will no longer see their helpers, whom they +have raised and instructed, and that there will return to them, not +those peaceful, industrious agriculturists that they have been, but +generally debauched, dandyish soldiers, who are no longer used to a +simple life. + +And now the whole crowd take up seats in their sleighs and start down +the street, in the direction of inns and restaurants, and still louder +are heard, interfering with one another, songs, sobs, drunken shouts, +the laments of the mothers and wives, the sounds of the accordion, and +curses. All make for saloons and restaurants, the revenue from which +goes to the government, and they abandon themselves to intoxication, +which drowns in them the perceived consciousness of the illegality of +what is being done to them. + +For two or three weeks they live at home, and for the most part are +having a good time, that is, are out on a spree. + +On a set day they are collected, and driven like cattle to one place, +and are taught military methods and exercises. They are instructed by +just such deceived and bestialized men as they, who entered the service +two or three years ago. The means of instruction are deception, +stupefaction, kicks, vodka. And not a year passes but that spiritually +sound, bright, good fellows are turned into just such wild beings as +their teachers. + +"Well, and if the prisoner, your father, runs away?" I asked a young +soldier. + +"I can run the bayonet through him," he replied, in the peculiar, +senseless voice of a soldier. "And if he 'removes himself,' I must +shoot," he added, apparently proud of his knowledge of what to do when +his father "removes himself." + +When he, the good young man, is brought to a condition lower than an +animal, he is such as those who use him as an instrument of violence +want him to be. He is all ready: the man is lost, and a new instrument +of violence has been created. + +And all this takes place every year, every autumn, everywhere, in the +whole of Russia, in broad daylight, in a populous city, in the sight of +all men, and the deception is so clever, so cunning, that all see it and +in the depth of their hearts know all its baseness, all its terrible consequences, and are unable to free themselves from it. ## 3 -When the eyes shall be opened to this terrible deception -which is practised on men, one must marvel how preachers of -the religion of Christianity and morality, educators of -youth, simply good, intelligent parents, who always exist in -every society, can preach any doctrine of morality amidst a -society in which all the churches and governments openly -acknowledge that tortures and murders form an indispensable -condition of the life of all men, and that amidst all men -there must always be some special men, who are prepared to -kill their brothers, and that every one of us may be such. - -How can children and youths be taught and men in general be -enlightened, to say nothing of the enlightenment in the -Christian spirit, how can they be taught any morality by the -side of the doctrine that murder is indispensable for the -maintenance of the common, consequently of our own, -well-being, and so is legitimate, and that there are men -(any of us may be these men) whose duty it is to torture and -kill our neighbours and to commit all kinds of crime at the -will of those who have the power in their hands? If it is -possible and right to torture and kill and commit all kinds -of crimes by the will of those who have the power in their -hands, there is, and there can be, no moral teaching, but -there is only the right of the stronger. And so it is. In -reality, such a teaching, which for some men is -theoretically justified by the theory of the struggle for -existence, does exist in our society. - -Really, what kind of a moral teaching can there be, which -would admit murder for any purposes whatsoever? This is as -impossible as any mathematical doctrine, which would admit -that two is equal to three. - -With the admission of the fact that two is equal to three -there may be a semblance of mathematics, but there can be no -real mathematical knowledge. With the admission of murder in -the form of executions, wars, self-defence, there may be a -semblance of morality, but no real morality. The recognition -of the sacredness of every man's life is the first and only -foundation of all morality. - -The doctrine of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a -life for a life was put aside by Christianity for the very -reason that this doctrine is only a justification of -immorality, only a semblance of justice, and is devoid of -sense. Life is a quantity which has no weight and no measure -and which cannot be equalized to any other, and so the -destruction of one life for another can have no meaning. -Besides, every social law is a law which has for its purpose -the improvement of human life. But in what way can the -destruction of the lives of a few individuals improve the -lives of men? The destruction of life is not like its -improvement, but an act of suicide. - -The destruction of another man's life for the purpose of -preserving justice is like what a man would do who, to mend -the calamity which consists in his having lost one arm, -should for the sake of justice cut off his other arm. - -But, to say nothing of the sin of deception, with which the -most terrible crime presents itself to men as their duty; to -say nothing of the terrible crime of using Christ's name and -authority for the purpose of legalizing what is most denied -by this same Christ, as is done in the case of the oath; to -say nothing of the offence by means of which not only the -bodies, but even the souls of "these little ones" are -ruined; to say nothing of all that, how can men, even in -view of their personal security, men who think highly of -their forms of life, their progress, admit the formation -among them of that terrible, senseless, cruel, pernicious -force which is established by every organized government -that rests on the army? The most cruel and terrible of -robber bands is not so terrible as such a state -organization. Every leader of robbers is none the less -limited in his power, because the men who form his band -retain at least a small part of their human liberty and may -oppose the performance of acts contrary to their conscience. -But for men forming a part of a regularly organized -government with an army, with discipline carried to the -point to which it is at the present time, there are no -barriers whatsoever. There are no crimes so terrible that -they would not be committed by men forming a part of the -government and of the army, by the will of him who -accidentally (Boulanger, Pugachev, Napoleon) may stand at -its head. - -Frequently, when I see, not only the levies of recruits, the -military exercises, the manoeuvres, but also the policemen -with loaded revolvers, the sentries standing with guns and -adjusted bayonets; when I hear (as I do in the Khamovniki, -where I live) for whole days the whistling and the pinging -of bullets striking the target; and when I see, in the very -city where every attempt at self-help and violence is -prohibited, where there is a prohibition against the sale of -powder, medicines, fast driving, unlicensed medical -practice, and so forth, when I see in this same city -thousands of disciplined men, who have been taught to commit -murder and who are subject to one man,---I ask myself: "How -can the men who think so highly of their security bear all -this?" To say nothing of the harmfulness and immorality, -nothing can be more dangerous than this. How can all men, I -do not say Christians, Christian pastors, but all -philanthropists, moralists, all those men who value their -lives, their security, their well-being, quietly look on? -This organization will certainly act in the same way, no -matter in whose hands it may be: to-day, let us say, this -power is in the hands of an endurable ruler; to-morrow a -Biron, an Elizabeth, a Catherine, a Pugachev, a Napoleon the -First, a Napoleon the Third may usurp it. And again, the man -in whose hands is the power, and who to-day may be -endurable, may to-morrow turn into a beast, or his place may -be taken by an insane or half-witted heir of his, as was the -case with the King of Bavaria and Paul. - -And not only these higher rulers, but also all those minor -satraps, who are distributed everywhere like so many -Baranovs, chiefs of police, even rural officers, commanders -of companies, under-officers, may commit terrible crimes -before there has been time to depose them, as happens +When the eyes shall be opened to this terrible deception which is +practised on men, one must marvel how preachers of the religion of +Christianity and morality, educators of youth, simply good, intelligent +parents, who always exist in every society, can preach any doctrine of +morality amidst a society in which all the churches and governments +openly acknowledge that tortures and murders form an indispensable +condition of the life of all men, and that amidst all men there must +always be some special men, who are prepared to kill their brothers, and +that every one of us may be such. + +How can children and youths be taught and men in general be enlightened, +to say nothing of the enlightenment in the Christian spirit, how can +they be taught any morality by the side of the doctrine that murder is +indispensable for the maintenance of the common, consequently of our +own, well-being, and so is legitimate, and that there are men (any of us +may be these men) whose duty it is to torture and kill our neighbours +and to commit all kinds of crime at the will of those who have the power +in their hands? If it is possible and right to torture and kill and +commit all kinds of crimes by the will of those who have the power in +their hands, there is, and there can be, no moral teaching, but there is +only the right of the stronger. And so it is. In reality, such a +teaching, which for some men is theoretically justified by the theory of +the struggle for existence, does exist in our society. + +Really, what kind of a moral teaching can there be, which would admit +murder for any purposes whatsoever? This is as impossible as any +mathematical doctrine, which would admit that two is equal to three. + +With the admission of the fact that two is equal to three there may be a +semblance of mathematics, but there can be no real mathematical +knowledge. With the admission of murder in the form of executions, wars, +self-defence, there may be a semblance of morality, but no real +morality. The recognition of the sacredness of every man's life is the +first and only foundation of all morality. + +The doctrine of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a +life was put aside by Christianity for the very reason that this +doctrine is only a justification of immorality, only a semblance of +justice, and is devoid of sense. Life is a quantity which has no weight +and no measure and which cannot be equalized to any other, and so the +destruction of one life for another can have no meaning. Besides, every +social law is a law which has for its purpose the improvement of human +life. But in what way can the destruction of the lives of a few +individuals improve the lives of men? The destruction of life is not +like its improvement, but an act of suicide. + +The destruction of another man's life for the purpose of preserving +justice is like what a man would do who, to mend the calamity which +consists in his having lost one arm, should for the sake of justice cut +off his other arm. + +But, to say nothing of the sin of deception, with which the most +terrible crime presents itself to men as their duty; to say nothing of +the terrible crime of using Christ's name and authority for the purpose +of legalizing what is most denied by this same Christ, as is done in the +case of the oath; to say nothing of the offence by means of which not +only the bodies, but even the souls of "these little ones" are ruined; +to say nothing of all that, how can men, even in view of their personal +security, men who think highly of their forms of life, their progress, +admit the formation among them of that terrible, senseless, cruel, +pernicious force which is established by every organized government that +rests on the army? The most cruel and terrible of robber bands is not so +terrible as such a state organization. Every leader of robbers is none +the less limited in his power, because the men who form his band retain +at least a small part of their human liberty and may oppose the +performance of acts contrary to their conscience. But for men forming a +part of a regularly organized government with an army, with discipline +carried to the point to which it is at the present time, there are no +barriers whatsoever. There are no crimes so terrible that they would not +be committed by men forming a part of the government and of the army, by +the will of him who accidentally (Boulanger, Pugachev, Napoleon) may +stand at its head. + +Frequently, when I see, not only the levies of recruits, the military +exercises, the manoeuvres, but also the policemen with loaded revolvers, +the sentries standing with guns and adjusted bayonets; when I hear (as I +do in the Khamovniki, where I live) for whole days the whistling and the +pinging of bullets striking the target; and when I see, in the very city +where every attempt at self-help and violence is prohibited, where there +is a prohibition against the sale of powder, medicines, fast driving, +unlicensed medical practice, and so forth, when I see in this same city +thousands of disciplined men, who have been taught to commit murder and +who are subject to one man,---I ask myself: "How can the men who think +so highly of their security bear all this?" To say nothing of the +harmfulness and immorality, nothing can be more dangerous than this. How +can all men, I do not say Christians, Christian pastors, but all +philanthropists, moralists, all those men who value their lives, their +security, their well-being, quietly look on? This organization will +certainly act in the same way, no matter in whose hands it may be: +to-day, let us say, this power is in the hands of an endurable ruler; +to-morrow a Biron, an Elizabeth, a Catherine, a Pugachev, a Napoleon the +First, a Napoleon the Third may usurp it. And again, the man in whose +hands is the power, and who to-day may be endurable, may to-morrow turn +into a beast, or his place may be taken by an insane or half-witted heir +of his, as was the case with the King of Bavaria and Paul. + +And not only these higher rulers, but also all those minor satraps, who +are distributed everywhere like so many Baranovs, chiefs of police, even +rural officers, commanders of companies, under-officers, may commit +terrible crimes before there has been time to depose them, as happens constantly. -Involuntarily one asks himself: "How can men permit such -things to happen, if not for the sake of higher -considerations of state, at least for the sake of their -security?" - -The answer to this question is this, that it is not all men -who permit this to happen (one part of them,---the great -majority of men,---the deceived and the subjected, cannot -help but permit anything to be done), but those who with -such an organization hold an advantageous position; they -permit it, because for them the risk of suffering, because -at the head of the government or the army there may be a -senseless or cruel man, is always less than the -disadvantages to which they would be subjected in case of -the destruction of the organization itself. - -The judge, policeman, governor, officer will hold his -position equally under Boulanger, or a republic, or Pugachev -or Catherine; but he will certainly lose his position, if -the existing order, which secures for him his advantageous -position, falls to pieces. And so all these men are not -afraid of who will stand at the head of the organization of -violence,---they adapt themselves to anybody---but only of -the destruction of the organization itself, and so they -always support it, often unconsciously. - -One often marvels why free men, who are not urged to it by -anything, the so-called flower of society, enter the army, -in Russia, in England, Germany, Austria, even France, and -why they seek an opportunity for becoming murderers. Why do -parents, moral men, send their children to institutions -which prepare them for military matters? Why do mothers buy -their children helmets, guns, swords as their favourite -toys? (The children of peasants never play soldier.) Why do -good men, and even women, who are in no way connected with -military affairs, go into ecstasies over the exploits of a -Skobelevski and of others, and why do they take so much -pains to praise them? Why do men, who are not urged to do -so, who do not receive any salary for it, like the marshals -of nobility in Russia, devote whole months of assiduous work -to performing a physically hard and morally agonizing piece -of business,---the reception of recruits? Why do all the -emperors and kings wear military costumes, attend manoeuvres -and parades, distribute rewards to soldiers, erect monuments -to generals and conquerors? Why do free, wealthy men -consider it an honour to perform lackeys' duties to crowned -heads, why do they humble themselves, and flatter them, and -pretend that they believe in the special grandeur of these -persons? Why do men, who have long ago stopped believing in -the mediaeval superstitions of the church, and who are -unable to believe in them, seriously and invariably pretend -that they believe, thus maintaining the offensive and -blasphemous religious institution? Why is the ignorance of -the masses so zealously guarded, not only by the -governments, but also by the free men from the higher -classes? Why do they with such fury attack every attempt at -destroying the religious superstitions, and every true -enlightenment of the masses? Why do men,---historians, -novelists, poets,---who can certainly receive nothing for -their flattery, describe as heroes long deceased emperors, -kings, or generals? Why do men who call themselves learned -devote their whole lives to the formation of theories, from -which it follows that violence which is exerted by the power -against the nation is not violence, but some especial right? - -One often marvels why, for what reason a lady of the world -or an artist, who, it would seem, is interested neither in -social, nor in military questions, condemns labour strikes -and preaches war, and always definitely attacks one side and -defends the other? - -But one marvels at this only so long as one does not know -that this is all done so because all the men of the ruling -classes feel instinctively what it is that maintains and -what destroys the organization under which they can enjoy -the privileges they are enjoying. - -The lady of the world has not even made the reflection that, -if there are no capitalists, and no armies to defend them, -her husband will have no money, and she will have no salon -and no costumes; and the artist has not made the reflection -as to this, that he needs the capitalists, who are protected -by the armies, to buy his pictures; but the instinct, which -in this case takes the place of reason, guides them -unerringly. It is precisely the same instinct that with few -exceptions guides all those men who support all those -political, religious, economic establishments, which are -advantageous to them. - -But can the men of the upper classes maintain this order of -things, only because it is advantageous for them? These men -cannot help but see that this order of things is in itself -irrational, no longer corresponds to the degree of men's -consciousness, not even to public opinion, and is full of -dangers. The men of the ruling classes---the honest, good, -clever men among them---cannot help but suffer from these -internal contradictions, and cannot help but see the dangers -with which this order threatens them. Is it possible the men -of the lower classes, all the millions of these people, can -with a calm conscience perform all these obviously bad acts, -tortures, and murders, which they are compelled to perform, -only because they are afraid of punishment? Indeed, that -could not have been, and neither the men of the one class -nor of the other could help but see the irrationality of -their activity, if the peculiarity of the state structure -did not conceal from them the whole unnaturalness and -irrationality of the acts committed by them. - -This irrationality is concealed by the fact that in the -commission of each of these acts there are so many -instigators, accomplices, abettors, that not one of the men -taking part in it feels himself to be morally responsible. - -Murderers compel all the persons who are present at a murder -to strike the dead victim, so that the responsibility may be -distributed among the largest possible number of men. The -same thing, having assumed definite forms, has established -itself in the structure of the state in the commission of -all those crimes, without the constant commission of which -no state organization is thinkable. The rulers of the state -always try to draw as large a number of citizens as possible -into the greatest possible participation in all the crimes -committed by them and indispensable for them. - -Of late this has found a most lucid expression in the -drafting of the citizens into the courts in the form of -jurors, into the armies in the form of soldiers, and into -the local government and into the legislative assembly in -the form of electors and representatives. - -In the structure of the state, in which, as in a basket made -of rods, all the ends are so concealed that it is not -possible to find them, the responsibility for crimes -committed is so concealed from men that they, in committing -the most awful deeds, do not see their own responsibility in -them. - -In olden times the tyrants were blamed for the commission of -evil deeds, but in our time most awful crimes, unthinkable -even in the time of a Nero, are committed, and there is no -one to blame. - -Some men demanded, others decreed, others again confirmed, -others proposed, others reported, others prescribed, others -executed. Women, old men, innocent people, are killed, -hanged, flogged to death, as lately happened in Russia in -the Yuzov Plant, and as happens everywhere in Europe and in -America, in the struggle with anarchists and all kinds of -violators of the existing order; hundreds, thousands of men -will be shot to death, killed, and hanged, or, as is done in -wars, millions of men will be killed or ruined, or, as is -constantly done, the souls of men are ruined in solitary -confinement, in the debauched condition of militarism,---and -no one is to blame. - -On the lowest stage of the social ladder, soldiers with -guns, pistols, swords, torture and kill men, and with the -same tortures and murders compel men to enter the army, and -are fully convinced that the responsibility for these acts -is taken from them by those authorities who prescribe these -acts to them. - -On the highest stage, kings, presidents, ministers, -Chambers, prescribe these tortures and murders and the -enlistment of soldiers, and are fully convinced that, since -they are put into their places by God, or since the society -which they rule over demands from them precisely what they +Involuntarily one asks himself: "How can men permit such things to +happen, if not for the sake of higher considerations of state, at least +for the sake of their security?" + +The answer to this question is this, that it is not all men who permit +this to happen (one part of them,---the great majority of men,---the +deceived and the subjected, cannot help but permit anything to be done), +but those who with such an organization hold an advantageous position; +they permit it, because for them the risk of suffering, because at the +head of the government or the army there may be a senseless or cruel +man, is always less than the disadvantages to which they would be +subjected in case of the destruction of the organization itself. + +The judge, policeman, governor, officer will hold his position equally +under Boulanger, or a republic, or Pugachev or Catherine; but he will +certainly lose his position, if the existing order, which secures for +him his advantageous position, falls to pieces. And so all these men are +not afraid of who will stand at the head of the organization of +violence,---they adapt themselves to anybody---but only of the +destruction of the organization itself, and so they always support it, +often unconsciously. + +One often marvels why free men, who are not urged to it by anything, the +so-called flower of society, enter the army, in Russia, in England, +Germany, Austria, even France, and why they seek an opportunity for +becoming murderers. Why do parents, moral men, send their children to +institutions which prepare them for military matters? Why do mothers buy +their children helmets, guns, swords as their favourite toys? (The +children of peasants never play soldier.) Why do good men, and even +women, who are in no way connected with military affairs, go into +ecstasies over the exploits of a Skobelevski and of others, and why do +they take so much pains to praise them? Why do men, who are not urged to +do so, who do not receive any salary for it, like the marshals of +nobility in Russia, devote whole months of assiduous work to performing +a physically hard and morally agonizing piece of business,---the +reception of recruits? Why do all the emperors and kings wear military +costumes, attend manoeuvres and parades, distribute rewards to soldiers, +erect monuments to generals and conquerors? Why do free, wealthy men +consider it an honour to perform lackeys' duties to crowned heads, why +do they humble themselves, and flatter them, and pretend that they +believe in the special grandeur of these persons? Why do men, who have +long ago stopped believing in the mediaeval superstitions of the church, +and who are unable to believe in them, seriously and invariably pretend +that they believe, thus maintaining the offensive and blasphemous +religious institution? Why is the ignorance of the masses so zealously +guarded, not only by the governments, but also by the free men from the +higher classes? Why do they with such fury attack every attempt at +destroying the religious superstitions, and every true enlightenment of +the masses? Why do men,---historians, novelists, poets,---who can +certainly receive nothing for their flattery, describe as heroes long +deceased emperors, kings, or generals? Why do men who call themselves +learned devote their whole lives to the formation of theories, from +which it follows that violence which is exerted by the power against the +nation is not violence, but some especial right? + +One often marvels why, for what reason a lady of the world or an artist, +who, it would seem, is interested neither in social, nor in military +questions, condemns labour strikes and preaches war, and always +definitely attacks one side and defends the other? + +But one marvels at this only so long as one does not know that this is +all done so because all the men of the ruling classes feel instinctively +what it is that maintains and what destroys the organization under which +they can enjoy the privileges they are enjoying. + +The lady of the world has not even made the reflection that, if there +are no capitalists, and no armies to defend them, her husband will have +no money, and she will have no salon and no costumes; and the artist has +not made the reflection as to this, that he needs the capitalists, who +are protected by the armies, to buy his pictures; but the instinct, +which in this case takes the place of reason, guides them unerringly. It +is precisely the same instinct that with few exceptions guides all those +men who support all those political, religious, economic establishments, +which are advantageous to them. + +But can the men of the upper classes maintain this order of things, only +because it is advantageous for them? These men cannot help but see that +this order of things is in itself irrational, no longer corresponds to +the degree of men's consciousness, not even to public opinion, and is +full of dangers. The men of the ruling classes---the honest, good, +clever men among them---cannot help but suffer from these internal +contradictions, and cannot help but see the dangers with which this +order threatens them. Is it possible the men of the lower classes, all +the millions of these people, can with a calm conscience perform all +these obviously bad acts, tortures, and murders, which they are +compelled to perform, only because they are afraid of punishment? +Indeed, that could not have been, and neither the men of the one class +nor of the other could help but see the irrationality of their activity, +if the peculiarity of the state structure did not conceal from them the +whole unnaturalness and irrationality of the acts committed by them. + +This irrationality is concealed by the fact that in the commission of +each of these acts there are so many instigators, accomplices, abettors, +that not one of the men taking part in it feels himself to be morally +responsible. + +Murderers compel all the persons who are present at a murder to strike +the dead victim, so that the responsibility may be distributed among the +largest possible number of men. The same thing, having assumed definite +forms, has established itself in the structure of the state in the +commission of all those crimes, without the constant commission of which +no state organization is thinkable. The rulers of the state always try +to draw as large a number of citizens as possible into the greatest +possible participation in all the crimes committed by them and +indispensable for them. + +Of late this has found a most lucid expression in the drafting of the +citizens into the courts in the form of jurors, into the armies in the +form of soldiers, and into the local government and into the legislative +assembly in the form of electors and representatives. + +In the structure of the state, in which, as in a basket made of rods, +all the ends are so concealed that it is not possible to find them, the +responsibility for crimes committed is so concealed from men that they, +in committing the most awful deeds, do not see their own responsibility +in them. + +In olden times the tyrants were blamed for the commission of evil deeds, +but in our time most awful crimes, unthinkable even in the time of a +Nero, are committed, and there is no one to blame. + +Some men demanded, others decreed, others again confirmed, others +proposed, others reported, others prescribed, others executed. Women, +old men, innocent people, are killed, hanged, flogged to death, as +lately happened in Russia in the Yuzov Plant, and as happens everywhere +in Europe and in America, in the struggle with anarchists and all kinds +of violators of the existing order; hundreds, thousands of men will be +shot to death, killed, and hanged, or, as is done in wars, millions of +men will be killed or ruined, or, as is constantly done, the souls of +men are ruined in solitary confinement, in the debauched condition of +militarism,---and no one is to blame. + +On the lowest stage of the social ladder, soldiers with guns, pistols, +swords, torture and kill men, and with the same tortures and murders +compel men to enter the army, and are fully convinced that the +responsibility for these acts is taken from them by those authorities +who prescribe these acts to them. + +On the highest stage, kings, presidents, ministers, Chambers, prescribe +these tortures and murders and the enlistment of soldiers, and are fully +convinced that, since they are put into their places by God, or since +the society which they rule over demands from them precisely what they prescribe, they cannot be blamed. -In the middle between the two are the intermediate persons, -who order the tortures and murders and the enlistment of -soldiers, and they are fully convinced that their -responsibility has been taken from them, partly by the -commands from above, and partly because the same orders are -demanded of them by all those who stand on the lower stages. - -The administrative and the executive powers, which lie at -the two extremes of the structure of the state, meet like -two ends that are united into a ring, and one conditions and -maintains the other and all the intervening links. - -Without the conviction that there exists such a person, or -such a number of persons, who take upon themselves the -responsibility for the acts committed, not one soldier would -be able to raise his hands for the purpose of torturing or -killing. Without the conviction that this is demanded by the -whole nation, not one emperor, king, president, not one -assembly would be able to prescribe these same tortures and -murders. Without the conviction that there are persons who -stand above him and take upon themselves the responsibility -for his act, and men who stand below him and demand the -fulfilment of such acts for their own good, not one of the -men who stand on the stages intermediate between the ruler -and the soldier would be able to commit those acts which he -is committing. - -The structure of the state is such that, no matter on what -rung of the social ladder a man may stand, his degree of -irresponsibility is always one and the same: the higher he -stands, the more is he subjected to the influence of the -demand for orders from below and the less he is subjected to -the influence of the prescriptions from above, and vice +In the middle between the two are the intermediate persons, who order +the tortures and murders and the enlistment of soldiers, and they are +fully convinced that their responsibility has been taken from them, +partly by the commands from above, and partly because the same orders +are demanded of them by all those who stand on the lower stages. + +The administrative and the executive powers, which lie at the two +extremes of the structure of the state, meet like two ends that are +united into a ring, and one conditions and maintains the other and all +the intervening links. + +Without the conviction that there exists such a person, or such a number +of persons, who take upon themselves the responsibility for the acts +committed, not one soldier would be able to raise his hands for the +purpose of torturing or killing. Without the conviction that this is +demanded by the whole nation, not one emperor, king, president, not one +assembly would be able to prescribe these same tortures and murders. +Without the conviction that there are persons who stand above him and +take upon themselves the responsibility for his act, and men who stand +below him and demand the fulfilment of such acts for their own good, not +one of the men who stand on the stages intermediate between the ruler +and the soldier would be able to commit those acts which he is +committing. + +The structure of the state is such that, no matter on what rung of the +social ladder a man may stand, his degree of irresponsibility is always +one and the same: the higher he stands, the more is he subjected to the +influence of the demand for orders from below and the less he is +subjected to the influence of the prescriptions from above, and vice versa. -Thus, in the case before me, every one who had taken part in -the matter was the more under the influence of the demand -for orders from below and the less under the influence of -prescriptions from above, the higher his position was, and -vice versa. - -But not only do all men who are connected with the structure -of the state shift their responsibility for deeds committed -upon others: the peasant who is drafted into the army, upon -the nobleman or merchant who has •become an officer; and the -officer, upon the nobleman who holds the position of -governor; and the governor, upon the son of an official or -nobleman who occupies the position of minister; and the -minister, upon a member of the imperial house who holds the -position of emperor; and the emperor again, upon all these -officials, noblemen, merchants, and peasants; not only do -men in this manner free themselves from the consciousness of -responsibility for acts committed by them,---they even lose -the moral consciousness of their responsibility for this -other reason, that, uniting into a political structure, they -so constantly, continuously, and tensely convince themselves -and others that they are not all identical men, but men who -differ from one another as does "one star from another," -that they begin themselves sincerely to believe so. Thus -they convince one set of men that they are not simple men, -identical with others, but a special kind of men, who have -to be honoured, while they impress others with the idea that -they stand beneath all other men and so must unflinchingly -submit to what they are commanded to do by their superiors. - -On this inequality and exaltation of one class of men and -the annihilation of the other is mainly based the inability -of men to see the irrationality of the existing order and -its cruelty and criminality, and of that deception which is -practised by some and to which the others submit. - -Some, those who are impressed with the idea that they are -vested with some supernatural significance and grandeur, are -so intoxicated by this imaginary grandeur that they stop -seeing their responsibility in the acts committed by them; -the other men, who, on the contrary, are impressed with the -idea that they are insignificant creatures, who must in -everything submit to the higher, in consequence of this -constant condition of humiliation fall into a strange -condition of intoxication of servility, and under the -influence of their intoxication also fail to see the -significance of their acts, and lose the consciousness of -their responsibility for them. The intermediate people, who, -partly submitting to the higher, and partly considering -themselves to be superior, succumb simultaneously to the -intoxication of power and that of servility, and so lose the -consciousness of their responsibility. - -We need but look in any country at a superior chief, -intoxicated by his grandeur, accompanied by his staff, all -of them on magnificently caparisoned horses, in special -uniforms and signs of distinction, as he, to the sound of -the harmonious and festive music produced by wind -instruments, rides past a line of soldiers stiffened up from -a sense of servility and presenting arms,---we need but look -at him, in order that we may understand that at these -moments the highest chief and the soldier and all the -intermediate persons, being in a state of intoxication, are -equally capable of committing acts which they would not -think of committing under other circumstances. - -But the intoxication experienced by men under such phenomena -as are parades, imperial receptions, church solemnities, -coronations, is a temporary and acute condition; there are -also other, chronic, constant conditions of intoxication, -which are equally experienced by all men who have any power, -from the power of the emperor to that of a policeman in the -street, and by men who submit to power and who are in a -condition of intoxication through servility, and who in -justification of this their condition always ascribe, as has -always shown itself in the case of slaves, the greatest -significance and dignity to him whom they obey. +Thus, in the case before me, every one who had taken part in the matter +was the more under the influence of the demand for orders from below and +the less under the influence of prescriptions from above, the higher his +position was, and vice versa. + +But not only do all men who are connected with the structure of the +state shift their responsibility for deeds committed upon others: the +peasant who is drafted into the army, upon the nobleman or merchant who +has •become an officer; and the officer, upon the nobleman who holds the +position of governor; and the governor, upon the son of an official or +nobleman who occupies the position of minister; and the minister, upon a +member of the imperial house who holds the position of emperor; and the +emperor again, upon all these officials, noblemen, merchants, and +peasants; not only do men in this manner free themselves from the +consciousness of responsibility for acts committed by them,---they even +lose the moral consciousness of their responsibility for this other +reason, that, uniting into a political structure, they so constantly, +continuously, and tensely convince themselves and others that they are +not all identical men, but men who differ from one another as does "one +star from another," that they begin themselves sincerely to believe so. +Thus they convince one set of men that they are not simple men, +identical with others, but a special kind of men, who have to be +honoured, while they impress others with the idea that they stand +beneath all other men and so must unflinchingly submit to what they are +commanded to do by their superiors. + +On this inequality and exaltation of one class of men and the +annihilation of the other is mainly based the inability of men to see +the irrationality of the existing order and its cruelty and criminality, +and of that deception which is practised by some and to which the others +submit. + +Some, those who are impressed with the idea that they are vested with +some supernatural significance and grandeur, are so intoxicated by this +imaginary grandeur that they stop seeing their responsibility in the +acts committed by them; the other men, who, on the contrary, are +impressed with the idea that they are insignificant creatures, who must +in everything submit to the higher, in consequence of this constant +condition of humiliation fall into a strange condition of intoxication +of servility, and under the influence of their intoxication also fail to +see the significance of their acts, and lose the consciousness of their +responsibility for them. The intermediate people, who, partly submitting +to the higher, and partly considering themselves to be superior, succumb +simultaneously to the intoxication of power and that of servility, and +so lose the consciousness of their responsibility. + +We need but look in any country at a superior chief, intoxicated by his +grandeur, accompanied by his staff, all of them on magnificently +caparisoned horses, in special uniforms and signs of distinction, as he, +to the sound of the harmonious and festive music produced by wind +instruments, rides past a line of soldiers stiffened up from a sense of +servility and presenting arms,---we need but look at him, in order that +we may understand that at these moments the highest chief and the +soldier and all the intermediate persons, being in a state of +intoxication, are equally capable of committing acts which they would +not think of committing under other circumstances. + +But the intoxication experienced by men under such phenomena as are +parades, imperial receptions, church solemnities, coronations, is a +temporary and acute condition; there are also other, chronic, constant +conditions of intoxication, which are equally experienced by all men who +have any power, from the power of the emperor to that of a policeman in +the street, and by men who submit to power and who are in a condition of +intoxication through servility, and who in justification of this their +condition always ascribe, as has always shown itself in the case of +slaves, the greatest significance and dignity to him whom they obey. On this deception of the inequality of men and the resulting -intoxication of power and of servility is pre-eminently -based the ability of men united into a political structure -to commit, without experiencing any pangs of conscience, -acts which are contrary to their conscience. - -Under the influence of such an intoxication, both of power -and of servility, men present themselves to themselves and -to others, not as what they are in reality,---men,---but as -especial, conventional beings,---noblemen, merchants, -governors, judges, officers, kings, ministers, soldiers, who -no longer are subject to common human obligations, but, -above all else, and before all human, to nobiliary, -commercial, gubernatorial, judicial, military, royal, -ministerial obligations. - -Thus, the proprietor who litigated concerning the forest did -what he did only because he did not present himself to -himself as a simple man, like any of the peasants who were -living by his side, but as a large landed proprietor and a -member of the gentry, and so, under the influence of the -intoxication of power, he felt himself insulted by the -pretensions of the peasants. It was only for this reason -that, without paying any attention to the consequences which -might arise from his demand, he handed in the petition -requesting the restitution of his imaginary right. - -Similarly, the judges who irregularly adjudged the forest to -the proprietor did so only because they do not imagine -themselves to be simple men, just like all other men, and so -under obligation in all cases to be guided only by what is -the truth, but under the intoxication of power they imagine -themselves to be the guardians of justice, who cannot err; -but under the influence of the intoxication of servility -they imagine themselves to be men who are obliged to carry -out certain words which are written in a certain book and -are called the law. As just such conventional persons, and -not as what they are in reality, present themselves, under -the influence of the intoxication of power and of servility, -to themselves and to others, all the other participants in -this matter, from the highest representatives of power, who -sign their approval on documents, from the marshal, who -drafts recruits at the levy of soldiers, and the priest, who -deceives them, to the last soldier, who is now getting ready -to shoot at his brothers. They all did what they did, and -are preparing themselves to do what awaits them, only -because they present themselves to themselves and to others, -not as what they are in reality,---men who are confronted -with the question as to whether they should take part in a -matter which is condemned by their conscience, or not,---but -as different conventional persons,---one, as an anointed -king, a special being, who is called upon to care for the -well-being of one hundred million men; another, as a -representative of nobility; a third, as a priest, who with -his ordainment has received a special grace; a fourth, as a -soldier, who is obliged by his oath to fulfil without -reflection what he is commanded to do. - -Only under the influence of the intoxication of power and -servility, which result from their imaginary positions, can -all these men do what they do. - -If all these men did not have a firm conviction that the -callings of kings, ministers, governors, judges, noblemen, -landed proprietors, marshals, officers, soldiers, are -something actually in existence and very important, not one -of these men would think without terror and disgust of -participating in the acts which he is committing now. - -The conventional positions, which were established hundreds -of years ago, which have been recognized through the ages, -and which are now recognized by all men about us, and which -are designated by especial names and particular attires, and -which, besides, are maintained by means of every kind of -magnificence and effects on the outer senses, are to such a -degree instilled in people that they, forgetting the -habitual conditions of life, common to all, begin to look -upon themselves and upon all men only from this conventional -point of view, and are guided by nothing but this -conventional point of view in the valuation of other men's -acts. - -Thus a mentally sound old man, for no other reason than that -some trinket or fool's dress is put over him, some keys on -his buttocks, or a blue ribbon, which is proper only for a -dressed-up little girl, and that he is on that occasion -impressed with the idea that he is a general, a chamberlain, -a Cavalier of St. Andrews, or some such silliness, suddenly -becomes self-confident, proud, and even happy; or, on the -contrary, because he loses or does not receive a desired -trinket or name, becomes so sad and unhappy that he even -grows sick. Or, what is even more startling, an otherwise -mentally sound, free, and even well-to-do young man, for no -other reason than that he calls himself, and others call -him, an investigating magistrate or County Council chief, -seizes an unfortunate widow away from her minor children, -and locks her up, or has her locked up in a prison, leaving -her children without a mother, and all that because this -unfortunate woman secretly trafficked in liquor and thus -deprived the Crown of twenty-five roubles of revenue, and he -does not feel the least compunction about it. Or, what is -even more startling, an otherwise intelligent and meek man, -only because a brass plate or a uniform is put on him and he -is told that he is a watchman or a customs soldier, begins -to shoot with bullets at men, and neither he nor those who -surround him consider him blameworthy for it, and would even -blame him if he did not shoot; I do not even speak of the -judges and jurors, who sentence to executions, and of the -military, who kill thousands without the least compunction, -only because they have been impressed with the idea that -they are not simply men, but jurors, judges, generals, -soldiers. - -Such a constant, unnatural, and strange condition of men in -the life of the state is generally expressed in words as -follows: "Asa man I pity him, but as a watchman, judge, -general, governor, king, soldier, I must kill or torture -him," as though there can exist a given position, -acknowledged by men, which can make void duties which are -imposed upon each of us by a man's position. - -Thus, for example, in the present case, men are travelling -to commit murder and tortures on hungry people, and they -recognize that in the dispute between the peasants and the -proprietor the peasants are in the right (all men in -authority told me so), and know that the peasants are -unfortunate, poor, and hungry; the proprietor is rich and -does not inspire sympathy, and all these men none the less -are on their way to kill the peasants, in order thus to -secure three thousand roubles to the proprietor, for no -other reason than that these men at this moment do not -consider themselves to be men, but a governor, a general of -gendarmes, an officer, a soldier, and think that not the -eternal demands of their consciences, but the accidental, -temporary demands of their positions as officers and -soldiers are binding on them. - -However strange this may seem, the only explanation for this -remarkable phenomenon is this, that these men are in the -same position as those hypnotized persons who are commanded -to imagine and feel themselves in certain conventional -positions, and to act like those beings whom they represent; -thus, for example, when a hypnotized person receives the -suggestion that he is lame, he begins to limp, or that he is -blind, he does not see, or that he is an animal, he begins -to bite. In this state are not only the men who are -travelling on this train, but also all men who preferably -perform their social and their political duties, to the +intoxication of power and of servility is pre-eminently based the +ability of men united into a political structure to commit, without +experiencing any pangs of conscience, acts which are contrary to their +conscience. + +Under the influence of such an intoxication, both of power and of +servility, men present themselves to themselves and to others, not as +what they are in reality,---men,---but as especial, conventional +beings,---noblemen, merchants, governors, judges, officers, kings, +ministers, soldiers, who no longer are subject to common human +obligations, but, above all else, and before all human, to nobiliary, +commercial, gubernatorial, judicial, military, royal, ministerial +obligations. + +Thus, the proprietor who litigated concerning the forest did what he did +only because he did not present himself to himself as a simple man, like +any of the peasants who were living by his side, but as a large landed +proprietor and a member of the gentry, and so, under the influence of +the intoxication of power, he felt himself insulted by the pretensions +of the peasants. It was only for this reason that, without paying any +attention to the consequences which might arise from his demand, he +handed in the petition requesting the restitution of his imaginary +right. + +Similarly, the judges who irregularly adjudged the forest to the +proprietor did so only because they do not imagine themselves to be +simple men, just like all other men, and so under obligation in all +cases to be guided only by what is the truth, but under the intoxication +of power they imagine themselves to be the guardians of justice, who +cannot err; but under the influence of the intoxication of servility +they imagine themselves to be men who are obliged to carry out certain +words which are written in a certain book and are called the law. As +just such conventional persons, and not as what they are in reality, +present themselves, under the influence of the intoxication of power and +of servility, to themselves and to others, all the other participants in +this matter, from the highest representatives of power, who sign their +approval on documents, from the marshal, who drafts recruits at the levy +of soldiers, and the priest, who deceives them, to the last soldier, who +is now getting ready to shoot at his brothers. They all did what they +did, and are preparing themselves to do what awaits them, only because +they present themselves to themselves and to others, not as what they +are in reality,---men who are confronted with the question as to whether +they should take part in a matter which is condemned by their +conscience, or not,---but as different conventional persons,---one, as +an anointed king, a special being, who is called upon to care for the +well-being of one hundred million men; another, as a representative of +nobility; a third, as a priest, who with his ordainment has received a +special grace; a fourth, as a soldier, who is obliged by his oath to +fulfil without reflection what he is commanded to do. + +Only under the influence of the intoxication of power and servility, +which result from their imaginary positions, can all these men do what +they do. + +If all these men did not have a firm conviction that the callings of +kings, ministers, governors, judges, noblemen, landed proprietors, +marshals, officers, soldiers, are something actually in existence and +very important, not one of these men would think without terror and +disgust of participating in the acts which he is committing now. + +The conventional positions, which were established hundreds of years +ago, which have been recognized through the ages, and which are now +recognized by all men about us, and which are designated by especial +names and particular attires, and which, besides, are maintained by +means of every kind of magnificence and effects on the outer senses, are +to such a degree instilled in people that they, forgetting the habitual +conditions of life, common to all, begin to look upon themselves and +upon all men only from this conventional point of view, and are guided +by nothing but this conventional point of view in the valuation of other +men's acts. + +Thus a mentally sound old man, for no other reason than that some +trinket or fool's dress is put over him, some keys on his buttocks, or a +blue ribbon, which is proper only for a dressed-up little girl, and that +he is on that occasion impressed with the idea that he is a general, a +chamberlain, a Cavalier of St. Andrews, or some such silliness, suddenly +becomes self-confident, proud, and even happy; or, on the contrary, +because he loses or does not receive a desired trinket or name, becomes +so sad and unhappy that he even grows sick. Or, what is even more +startling, an otherwise mentally sound, free, and even well-to-do young +man, for no other reason than that he calls himself, and others call +him, an investigating magistrate or County Council chief, seizes an +unfortunate widow away from her minor children, and locks her up, or has +her locked up in a prison, leaving her children without a mother, and +all that because this unfortunate woman secretly trafficked in liquor +and thus deprived the Crown of twenty-five roubles of revenue, and he +does not feel the least compunction about it. Or, what is even more +startling, an otherwise intelligent and meek man, only because a brass +plate or a uniform is put on him and he is told that he is a watchman or +a customs soldier, begins to shoot with bullets at men, and neither he +nor those who surround him consider him blameworthy for it, and would +even blame him if he did not shoot; I do not even speak of the judges +and jurors, who sentence to executions, and of the military, who kill +thousands without the least compunction, only because they have been +impressed with the idea that they are not simply men, but jurors, +judges, generals, soldiers. + +Such a constant, unnatural, and strange condition of men in the life of +the state is generally expressed in words as follows: "Asa man I pity +him, but as a watchman, judge, general, governor, king, soldier, I must +kill or torture him," as though there can exist a given position, +acknowledged by men, which can make void duties which are imposed upon +each of us by a man's position. + +Thus, for example, in the present case, men are travelling to commit +murder and tortures on hungry people, and they recognize that in the +dispute between the peasants and the proprietor the peasants are in the +right (all men in authority told me so), and know that the peasants are +unfortunate, poor, and hungry; the proprietor is rich and does not +inspire sympathy, and all these men none the less are on their way to +kill the peasants, in order thus to secure three thousand roubles to the +proprietor, for no other reason than that these men at this moment do +not consider themselves to be men, but a governor, a general of +gendarmes, an officer, a soldier, and think that not the eternal demands +of their consciences, but the accidental, temporary demands of their +positions as officers and soldiers are binding on them. + +However strange this may seem, the only explanation for this remarkable +phenomenon is this, that these men are in the same position as those +hypnotized persons who are commanded to imagine and feel themselves in +certain conventional positions, and to act like those beings whom they +represent; thus, for example, when a hypnotized person receives the +suggestion that he is lame, he begins to limp, or that he is blind, he +does not see, or that he is an animal, he begins to bite. In this state +are not only the men who are travelling on this train, but also all men +who preferably perform their social and their political duties, to the disadvantage of their human duties. -The essence of this condition is this, that the men under -the influence of the one idea suggested to them are not able -to reflect upon their acts, and so do, without any -reflection, what is prescribed to them in correspondence -with the suggested idea, and what they are led up to through -example, advice, or hints. - -The difference between those who are hypnotized by -artificial means and those who are under the influence of -the political suggestion consists in this, that to the -artificially hypnotized their imaginary condition is -suggested at once, by one person, and for the briefest space -of time, and so the suggestion presents itself to us in a -glaring form, which sets us to wondering, while to the men -who act under the political suggestion their imaginary -position is suggested by degrees, slowly, imperceptibly, -from childhood, at times not only in a certain number of -years, but through whole generations, and, besides, is not -suggested by one person, but by all those who surround them. - -"But," I shall be told, "in all societies the majority of -men,---all the children, all the women, who are absorbed in -the labour of pregnancy, child-bearing, and nursing, all the -enormous masses of the working people, who are placed under -the necessity of tense and assiduous physical labour, all -the mentally weak by nature, all abnormal men with a -weakened spiritual activity in consequence of nicotine, -alcohol, and opium poisoning, or for some other -reason,---all these men are always in such a condition that, -not being able to reason independently, they submit either -to those men who stand on a higher stage of rational -consciousness, or to family and political traditions, to -what is called public opinion, and in this submission there -is nothing unnatural or contradictory." - -And, indeed, there is nothing unnatural in it, and the -ability of unthinking people to submit to the indications of -men standing on a higher stage of consciousness is a -constant property of men, that property in consequence of -which men, submitting to the same rational principles, are -able to live in societies: some,---the minority,---by -consciously submitting to the same rational principles, on -account of their agreement with the demands of their reason; -the others,---the majority,---by submitting unconsciously to -the same principles, only because these demands have become -the public opinion. Such a subjection of the unthinking to -public opinion presents nothing unnatural so long as the -public opinion is not split up. - -But there are times when the higher truth, as compared with -the former degree of the consciousness of the truth, which -at first is revealed to a few men, in passing by degrees -from one set to another, embraces such a large number of men -that the former public opinion, which is based on a lower -stage of consciousness, begins to waver, and the new is -ready to establish itself, but is not yet established. There -are times, resembling spring, when the old public opinion -has not yet been destroyed and the new is not yet -established, and when men begin to criticize their own acts -and those of others on the basis of the new consciousness, -and yet in life, from inertia, from tradition, continue to -submit to principles which only in former times formed the -higher degree of rational consciousness, but which now are -already in an obvious contradiction to it. And then the men, -feeling, on the one hand, the necessity of submitting to the -new public opinion, and not daring, on the other, to depart -from the former, find themselves in an unnatural, wavering -state. It is in such a condition that, in relation to the -Christian truths, are not only the men on this train, but -also the majority of the men of our time. - -In the same condition are equally the men of the higher -classes, who enjoy exclusive, advantageous positions, and -the men of the lower classes, who without opposition obey -what they are commanded to obey. - -Some, the men of the ruling classes, who no longer possess -any rational explanation for the advantageous positions held -by them, are put to the necessity, for the purpose of -maintaining these positions, of suppressing in themselves -the higher rational faculties of love and of impressing upon -themselves the necessity for their exclusive position; the -others, the lower classes, who are oppressed by labour and -purposely stupefied, are in a constant state of suggestion, -which is unflinchingly and constantly produced on them by -the men of the higher classes. - -Only thus can be explained those remarkable phenomena with -which our life is filled, and as a striking example of which -there presented themselves to me my good, peaceful -acquaintances, whom I met on September 9th, and who with -peace of mind were travelling to commit a most beastly, -senseless, and base crime. If the consciences of these men -had not been in some way put to sleep, not one of them would -be able to do one hundredth part of what they are getting -ready to do, and, in all probability, will do. - -It cannot be said that they do not have the conscience which -forbids them to do what they are about to do, as there was -no such conscience in men four hundred, three hundred, two -hundred, one hundred years ago, when they burned people at -the stake, tortured people, and flogged them to death; it -exists in all these men, but it is put to sleep in -them,---in some, the ruling men, who are in exclusive, -advantageous positions, by means of auto-suggestion, as the -psychiaters call it; in the others, the executors, the -soldiers by a direct, conscious suggestion, hypnotization, -produced by the upper classes. - -The conscience is in these men put to sleep, but it exists -in them, and through the auto-suggestion and suggestion, -which hold sway over them, it already speaks in them and may -awaken any moment. - -All these men are in a condition resembling the one a -hypnotized man would be in, if it were suggested to him and -he were commanded to do an act which is contrary to -everything which he considers rational and good,---to kill -his mother or child. The hypnotized man feels himself bound -by the suggestion induced in him, and it seems to him that -he cannot stop; at the same time, the nearer he comes to the -time and the place of the commission of the crime, the -stronger does the drowned voice of the conscience rise in -him, and he begins to show more and more opposition and to -writhe, and wants to wake up. And it is impossible to say in -advance whether he will do the suggested act, or not, and -what it is that will win, the rational consciousness or the -irrational suggestion. Everything depends on the relative -strength of the two. - -Precisely the same is now taking place in all the men on -this train, and in general in all the men who in our time -commit political acts of violence and exploit them. - -There was a time when men, who went out for the purpose of -torturing and killing people, for the purpose of setting an -example, did not return otherwise than having performed the -act for which they had gone out, and, having performed the -act, they were not tormented by repentance and doubt, but, -having flogged men to death, calmly returned home to their -family, and petted their children,---jested, laughed, and -abandoned themselves to quiet domestic pleasures. It did not -then occur even to those who gained by these acts of -violence, to the landed proprietors and the rich men, that -the advantages which they enjoyed had any direct connection -with these cruelties. But now it is not so: men know -already, or are very near to knowing, what they are doing, -and for what purpose they are doing what they are doing. -They may shut their eyes and cause their consciences to be -inactive, but with eyes unshut and consciences unimpaired -they---both those who commit the acts and those who gain by -them---no longer can fail to see the significance which -these acts have. It happens that men understand the -significance of what they have done only after they have -performed the act; or it happens that they understand it -before the very act. Thus the men who had in charge the -tortures in Nizhni-Novgorod, Saratov, Orel, Yuzov Plant, -understood the significance of what they did only after the -commission of the act, and now they are tormented with shame -before public opinion and before their consciences. Both -those who ordered the tortures and those who executed them -are tormented. I have spoken with soldiers who have executed -such acts, and they have always cautiously evaded all -conversation about it; when they spoke, they did so with -perplexity and terror. Cases happen when men come to their -senses immediately before the commission of the act. Thus I -know a case of a sergeant, who during a pacification was -beaten by two peasants, and who reported accordingly, but -who the next day, when he saw the tortures to which the -peasants were subjected, begged the commander of the company -to tear up the report and to discharge the peasants who had -beaten him. I know a case when the soldiers, who were -commanded to shoot some men, declined to obey; and I know -many cases where the commanders refused to take charge of -tortures and murders. Thus it happens that the men who -establish violence and those who commit acts of violence at -times come to their senses long before the commission of the -act suggested to them, at others before the very act, and at -others again after the act. - -The men who are travelling on this train have gone out to -torture and kill their brothers, but not one of them knows -whether he will do what he has set out to do, or not. No -matter how hidden for each of them is the responsibility in -this matter, no matter how strong the suggestion may be, in -all these men, that they are not men, but governors, rural -judges, officers, soldiers, and that, as such beings, they -may violate their human obligations, the nearer they -approach the place of their destination, the stronger will -the doubt rise in them whether they should do what they have -started out to do, and this doubt will reach the highest -degree when they reach the very moment of the execution. - -The governor, in spite of all the intoxication of the -surrounding circumstance, cannot help but reflect for a -moment, when he has to give his last decisive command -concerning the murder or the torture. He knows that the case -of the Governor of Orel provoked the indignation of the best -men of society, and he himself, under the influence of the -public opinion of those circles to which he belongs, has -more than once expressed his disapproval of it; he knows -that the prosecutor, who was to have gone with them, refused -outright to take part in this business, because he -considered it disgraceful; he knows also that changes may -take place in the government at any time, and that in -consequence of them that which was a desert to-day may -to-morrow be the cause of disfavour; he knows, too, that -there is a press, if not in Russia, at least abroad, which -may describe this matter and so disgrace him for life. He -already scents that new public opinion which is making void -what the former public opinion demanded. Besides, he cannot -be absolutely sure that at the last moment the executors -will obey him. He wavers, and it is impossible to foretell -what he will do. - -The same thing, in a greater or lesser measure, is -experienced by all the officials and officers who are -travelling with him. They all know in the depth of their -hearts that the deed which is to be done is disgraceful, -that participation in it lowers and defiles a man in the -eyes of a few men, whose opinion they already value. They -know that it is a shame to appear after the torture or -murder of defenceless men in the presence of their fiancees -or wives, whom they treat with a show of tenderness. -Besides, like the governor, they are in doubt whether the -soldiers are sure to obey them. And, no matter how unlike it -is to the self-confident look with which all these ruling -men now move in the station and up and down the platform, -they all in the depth of their hearts suffer and even waver. -It is for this very reason that they assume this confident -tone, in order to conceal their inner wavering. And this -sensation increases in proportion as they come nearer to the +The essence of this condition is this, that the men under the influence +of the one idea suggested to them are not able to reflect upon their +acts, and so do, without any reflection, what is prescribed to them in +correspondence with the suggested idea, and what they are led up to +through example, advice, or hints. + +The difference between those who are hypnotized by artificial means and +those who are under the influence of the political suggestion consists +in this, that to the artificially hypnotized their imaginary condition +is suggested at once, by one person, and for the briefest space of time, +and so the suggestion presents itself to us in a glaring form, which +sets us to wondering, while to the men who act under the political +suggestion their imaginary position is suggested by degrees, slowly, +imperceptibly, from childhood, at times not only in a certain number of +years, but through whole generations, and, besides, is not suggested by +one person, but by all those who surround them. + +"But," I shall be told, "in all societies the majority of men,---all the +children, all the women, who are absorbed in the labour of pregnancy, +child-bearing, and nursing, all the enormous masses of the working +people, who are placed under the necessity of tense and assiduous +physical labour, all the mentally weak by nature, all abnormal men with +a weakened spiritual activity in consequence of nicotine, alcohol, and +opium poisoning, or for some other reason,---all these men are always in +such a condition that, not being able to reason independently, they +submit either to those men who stand on a higher stage of rational +consciousness, or to family and political traditions, to what is called +public opinion, and in this submission there is nothing unnatural or +contradictory." + +And, indeed, there is nothing unnatural in it, and the ability of +unthinking people to submit to the indications of men standing on a +higher stage of consciousness is a constant property of men, that +property in consequence of which men, submitting to the same rational +principles, are able to live in societies: some,---the minority,---by +consciously submitting to the same rational principles, on account of +their agreement with the demands of their reason; the others,---the +majority,---by submitting unconsciously to the same principles, only +because these demands have become the public opinion. Such a subjection +of the unthinking to public opinion presents nothing unnatural so long +as the public opinion is not split up. + +But there are times when the higher truth, as compared with the former +degree of the consciousness of the truth, which at first is revealed to +a few men, in passing by degrees from one set to another, embraces such +a large number of men that the former public opinion, which is based on +a lower stage of consciousness, begins to waver, and the new is ready to +establish itself, but is not yet established. There are times, +resembling spring, when the old public opinion has not yet been +destroyed and the new is not yet established, and when men begin to +criticize their own acts and those of others on the basis of the new +consciousness, and yet in life, from inertia, from tradition, continue +to submit to principles which only in former times formed the higher +degree of rational consciousness, but which now are already in an +obvious contradiction to it. And then the men, feeling, on the one hand, +the necessity of submitting to the new public opinion, and not daring, +on the other, to depart from the former, find themselves in an +unnatural, wavering state. It is in such a condition that, in relation +to the Christian truths, are not only the men on this train, but also +the majority of the men of our time. + +In the same condition are equally the men of the higher classes, who +enjoy exclusive, advantageous positions, and the men of the lower +classes, who without opposition obey what they are commanded to obey. + +Some, the men of the ruling classes, who no longer possess any rational +explanation for the advantageous positions held by them, are put to the +necessity, for the purpose of maintaining these positions, of +suppressing in themselves the higher rational faculties of love and of +impressing upon themselves the necessity for their exclusive position; +the others, the lower classes, who are oppressed by labour and purposely +stupefied, are in a constant state of suggestion, which is unflinchingly +and constantly produced on them by the men of the higher classes. + +Only thus can be explained those remarkable phenomena with which our +life is filled, and as a striking example of which there presented +themselves to me my good, peaceful acquaintances, whom I met on +September 9th, and who with peace of mind were travelling to commit a +most beastly, senseless, and base crime. If the consciences of these men +had not been in some way put to sleep, not one of them would be able to +do one hundredth part of what they are getting ready to do, and, in all +probability, will do. + +It cannot be said that they do not have the conscience which forbids +them to do what they are about to do, as there was no such conscience in +men four hundred, three hundred, two hundred, one hundred years ago, +when they burned people at the stake, tortured people, and flogged them +to death; it exists in all these men, but it is put to sleep in +them,---in some, the ruling men, who are in exclusive, advantageous +positions, by means of auto-suggestion, as the psychiaters call it; in +the others, the executors, the soldiers by a direct, conscious +suggestion, hypnotization, produced by the upper classes. + +The conscience is in these men put to sleep, but it exists in them, and +through the auto-suggestion and suggestion, which hold sway over them, +it already speaks in them and may awaken any moment. + +All these men are in a condition resembling the one a hypnotized man +would be in, if it were suggested to him and he were commanded to do an +act which is contrary to everything which he considers rational and +good,---to kill his mother or child. The hypnotized man feels himself +bound by the suggestion induced in him, and it seems to him that he +cannot stop; at the same time, the nearer he comes to the time and the +place of the commission of the crime, the stronger does the drowned +voice of the conscience rise in him, and he begins to show more and more +opposition and to writhe, and wants to wake up. And it is impossible to +say in advance whether he will do the suggested act, or not, and what it +is that will win, the rational consciousness or the irrational +suggestion. Everything depends on the relative strength of the two. + +Precisely the same is now taking place in all the men on this train, and +in general in all the men who in our time commit political acts of +violence and exploit them. + +There was a time when men, who went out for the purpose of torturing and +killing people, for the purpose of setting an example, did not return +otherwise than having performed the act for which they had gone out, +and, having performed the act, they were not tormented by repentance and +doubt, but, having flogged men to death, calmly returned home to their +family, and petted their children,---jested, laughed, and abandoned +themselves to quiet domestic pleasures. It did not then occur even to +those who gained by these acts of violence, to the landed proprietors +and the rich men, that the advantages which they enjoyed had any direct +connection with these cruelties. But now it is not so: men know already, +or are very near to knowing, what they are doing, and for what purpose +they are doing what they are doing. They may shut their eyes and cause +their consciences to be inactive, but with eyes unshut and consciences +unimpaired they---both those who commit the acts and those who gain by +them---no longer can fail to see the significance which these acts have. +It happens that men understand the significance of what they have done +only after they have performed the act; or it happens that they +understand it before the very act. Thus the men who had in charge the +tortures in Nizhni-Novgorod, Saratov, Orel, Yuzov Plant, understood the +significance of what they did only after the commission of the act, and +now they are tormented with shame before public opinion and before their +consciences. Both those who ordered the tortures and those who executed +them are tormented. I have spoken with soldiers who have executed such +acts, and they have always cautiously evaded all conversation about it; +when they spoke, they did so with perplexity and terror. Cases happen +when men come to their senses immediately before the commission of the +act. Thus I know a case of a sergeant, who during a pacification was +beaten by two peasants, and who reported accordingly, but who the next +day, when he saw the tortures to which the peasants were subjected, +begged the commander of the company to tear up the report and to +discharge the peasants who had beaten him. I know a case when the +soldiers, who were commanded to shoot some men, declined to obey; and I +know many cases where the commanders refused to take charge of tortures +and murders. Thus it happens that the men who establish violence and +those who commit acts of violence at times come to their senses long +before the commission of the act suggested to them, at others before the +very act, and at others again after the act. + +The men who are travelling on this train have gone out to torture and +kill their brothers, but not one of them knows whether he will do what +he has set out to do, or not. No matter how hidden for each of them is +the responsibility in this matter, no matter how strong the suggestion +may be, in all these men, that they are not men, but governors, rural +judges, officers, soldiers, and that, as such beings, they may violate +their human obligations, the nearer they approach the place of their +destination, the stronger will the doubt rise in them whether they +should do what they have started out to do, and this doubt will reach +the highest degree when they reach the very moment of the execution. + +The governor, in spite of all the intoxication of the surrounding +circumstance, cannot help but reflect for a moment, when he has to give +his last decisive command concerning the murder or the torture. He knows +that the case of the Governor of Orel provoked the indignation of the +best men of society, and he himself, under the influence of the public +opinion of those circles to which he belongs, has more than once +expressed his disapproval of it; he knows that the prosecutor, who was +to have gone with them, refused outright to take part in this business, +because he considered it disgraceful; he knows also that changes may +take place in the government at any time, and that in consequence of +them that which was a desert to-day may to-morrow be the cause of +disfavour; he knows, too, that there is a press, if not in Russia, at +least abroad, which may describe this matter and so disgrace him for +life. He already scents that new public opinion which is making void +what the former public opinion demanded. Besides, he cannot be +absolutely sure that at the last moment the executors will obey him. He +wavers, and it is impossible to foretell what he will do. + +The same thing, in a greater or lesser measure, is experienced by all +the officials and officers who are travelling with him. They all know in +the depth of their hearts that the deed which is to be done is +disgraceful, that participation in it lowers and defiles a man in the +eyes of a few men, whose opinion they already value. They know that it +is a shame to appear after the torture or murder of defenceless men in +the presence of their fiancees or wives, whom they treat with a show of +tenderness. Besides, like the governor, they are in doubt whether the +soldiers are sure to obey them. And, no matter how unlike it is to the +self-confident look with which all these ruling men now move in the +station and up and down the platform, they all in the depth of their +hearts suffer and even waver. It is for this very reason that they +assume this confident tone, in order to conceal their inner wavering. +And this sensation increases in proportion as they come nearer to the place of action. -However imperceptible this may be, and however strange it -may appear, all this mass of young soldiers, who seem so -subservient, is in the same state. - -They are all of them no longer the soldiers of former days, -men who have renounced their natural life of labour, and who -have devoted their lives exclusively to dissipation, rapine, -and murder, like some Roman legionaries or the warriors of -the Thirty-Years War, or even the late soldiers of -twenty-five years of service; they are, for the most part, -men who have but lately been taken away from their families, -all of them full of recollections of that good, natural, and -sensible life from which they have been taken away. - -All these lads, who for the most part come from the country, -know what business is taking them out on the train; they -know that the proprietors always offend their brothers, the -peasants, and that therefore the same thing is taking place -here. Besides, the greater half of these men know how to -read books, and not all books are those in which the -business of war is lauded,---there are also those in which -its immorality is pointed out. Amidst them frequently serve -freethinking companions,---volunteer soldiers,---and just -such liberal young officers, and into their midst has been -thrown the seed of doubt as to the unconditional legality -and valour of their activity. It is true, all of them have -passed through that terrible, artificial drill, worked out -by ages, which kills all independence in a man, and they are -so accustomed to mechanical obedience that at the words of -command, "Fire by company! Company, fire!" and so forth, -their guns rise mechanically and the habitual motions take -place. But "Fire!" will not mean now having fun while -shooting at a target, but killing their tormented, offended -fathers and brothers, who---here they are---are standing in -crowds, with their women and children in the street, and -shouting and waving their hands. Here they are,---one of -them, with a sparse beard, in a patched caftan and in bast -shoes, just like their own fathers at home in the Government -of Kazan or of Ryazan; another, with a gray beard and -stooping shoulders, carrying a large stick, just like their -father's father, their grandfather; another, a young lad in -boots and red shirt, exactly as the soldier who is now to -shoot at him was a year ago. And here is a woman in bast -shoes and linen skirt, just like mother at home +However imperceptible this may be, and however strange it may appear, +all this mass of young soldiers, who seem so subservient, is in the same +state. + +They are all of them no longer the soldiers of former days, men who have +renounced their natural life of labour, and who have devoted their lives +exclusively to dissipation, rapine, and murder, like some Roman +legionaries or the warriors of the Thirty-Years War, or even the late +soldiers of twenty-five years of service; they are, for the most part, +men who have but lately been taken away from their families, all of them +full of recollections of that good, natural, and sensible life from +which they have been taken away. + +All these lads, who for the most part come from the country, know what +business is taking them out on the train; they know that the proprietors +always offend their brothers, the peasants, and that therefore the same +thing is taking place here. Besides, the greater half of these men know +how to read books, and not all books are those in which the business of +war is lauded,---there are also those in which its immorality is pointed +out. Amidst them frequently serve freethinking companions,---volunteer +soldiers,---and just such liberal young officers, and into their midst +has been thrown the seed of doubt as to the unconditional legality and +valour of their activity. It is true, all of them have passed through +that terrible, artificial drill, worked out by ages, which kills all +independence in a man, and they are so accustomed to mechanical +obedience that at the words of command, "Fire by company! Company, +fire!" and so forth, their guns rise mechanically and the habitual +motions take place. But "Fire!" will not mean now having fun while +shooting at a target, but killing their tormented, offended fathers and +brothers, who---here they are---are standing in crowds, with their women +and children in the street, and shouting and waving their hands. Here +they are,---one of them, with a sparse beard, in a patched caftan and in +bast shoes, just like their own fathers at home in the Government of +Kazan or of Ryazan; another, with a gray beard and stooping shoulders, +carrying a large stick, just like their father's father, their +grandfather; another, a young lad in boots and red shirt, exactly as the +soldier who is now to shoot at him was a year ago. And here is a woman +in bast shoes and linen skirt, just like mother at home Are they really going to shoot at them? -God knows what each soldier will do during this last moment. -One slightest indication as to its not being right, above -all as to the possibility of not doing it, one such word, -one hint, will be sufficient, in order to stop them. - -All men who are travelling on this train will, when they -proceed to execute the deed for which they have set out, be -in the same position in which a hypnotized person would be, -who has received the suggestion to chop a log, and, having -walked up to what has been pointed out to him as a log and -having raised the axe to strike, suddenly sees or is told -that it is not a log, but his sleeping brother. He may -perform the act suggested to him, and he may wake up before -its performance. Even so all these men may awaken, or not. -If they do not, as terrible a deed as the one in Orel will -be done, and in other men the auto-suggestion and the -suggestion under which they act will be increased; if they -awaken, such a deed will not only not be performed, but many -others, upon finding out the turn which the affair has -taken, will be freed from that suggestion in which they are, -or at least will approach such a liberation. - -But if not all men travelling on this train shall awaken and -refrain from doing the deed which has been begun, if only a -few of them shall do so and shall boldly express to other -men the criminality of this affair, these few men even may -have the effect of awakening all the other men from the -suggestion, under which they are, and the proposed evil deed +God knows what each soldier will do during this last moment. One +slightest indication as to its not being right, above all as to the +possibility of not doing it, one such word, one hint, will be +sufficient, in order to stop them. + +All men who are travelling on this train will, when they proceed to +execute the deed for which they have set out, be in the same position in +which a hypnotized person would be, who has received the suggestion to +chop a log, and, having walked up to what has been pointed out to him as +a log and having raised the axe to strike, suddenly sees or is told that +it is not a log, but his sleeping brother. He may perform the act +suggested to him, and he may wake up before its performance. Even so all +these men may awaken, or not. If they do not, as terrible a deed as the +one in Orel will be done, and in other men the auto-suggestion and the +suggestion under which they act will be increased; if they awaken, such +a deed will not only not be performed, but many others, upon finding out +the turn which the affair has taken, will be freed from that suggestion +in which they are, or at least will approach such a liberation. + +But if not all men travelling on this train shall awaken and refrain +from doing the deed which has been begun, if only a few of them shall do +so and shall boldly express to other men the criminality of this affair, +these few men even may have the effect of awakening all the other men +from the suggestion, under which they are, and the proposed evil deed will not take place. -More than that: if only a few men, who do not take part in -this affair, but are only present at the preparations for -the same, or who have heard of similar acts previously -committed, will not remain indifferent, but will frankly and -boldly express their disgust with the participants in these -matters, and will point out to them their whole -senselessness, cruelty, and criminality, even that will not -pass unnoticed. - -Even so it was in the present case. A few persons, -participants and non-participants in this affair, who were -free from suggestion, needed but at the time when they were -getting ready for this affair boldly to express their -indignation with tortures administered in other places, and -their disgust and contempt for those men who took part in -them; in the present Tula affair a few persons needed but to -express their unwillingness to take part in it; the lady -passenger and a few other persons at the station needed but -in the presence of those who were travelling on the train to -express their indignation at the act which was about to be -committed; one of the regimental commanders, a part of whose -troops were demanded for the pacification, needed but to -express his opinion that the military cannot be -executioners,---and thanks to these and certain other, -seemingly unimportant, private influences exerted against -people under suggestion, the affair would take a different -turn, and the troops, upon arriving on the spot, would not -commit any tortures, but would cut down the forest and give -it to the proprietor. If there should not be in certain men -any clear consciousness as to their doing wrong, and if -there should be, in consequence of this, no mutual influence -of men in this sense, there would take place the same as in -Orel. But if this consciousness should be even stronger, and -so the amount of the interactions even greater than what it -was, it is very likely that the governor and his troops -would not even dare to cut down the forest, in order to give -it to the proprietor. If this consciousness had been even -stronger and the amount of interactions greater, it is very -likely the governor would not even have dared to travel to -the place of action. If the consciousness had been stronger -still and the amount of interactions even greater, it is -very likely that the minister would not have made up his -mind to prescribe, and the emperor to confirm such a decree. - -Everything, consequently, depends on the force with which -the Christian truth is cognized by every individual man. - -And so, it would seem, the activity of all the men of our -time, who assert that they wish to continue to the welfare -of humanity, should be directed to the increase of the -lucidity of the demands of the Christian truth. +More than that: if only a few men, who do not take part in this affair, +but are only present at the preparations for the same, or who have heard +of similar acts previously committed, will not remain indifferent, but +will frankly and boldly express their disgust with the participants in +these matters, and will point out to them their whole senselessness, +cruelty, and criminality, even that will not pass unnoticed. + +Even so it was in the present case. A few persons, participants and +non-participants in this affair, who were free from suggestion, needed +but at the time when they were getting ready for this affair boldly to +express their indignation with tortures administered in other places, +and their disgust and contempt for those men who took part in them; in +the present Tula affair a few persons needed but to express their +unwillingness to take part in it; the lady passenger and a few other +persons at the station needed but in the presence of those who were +travelling on the train to express their indignation at the act which +was about to be committed; one of the regimental commanders, a part of +whose troops were demanded for the pacification, needed but to express +his opinion that the military cannot be executioners,---and thanks to +these and certain other, seemingly unimportant, private influences +exerted against people under suggestion, the affair would take a +different turn, and the troops, upon arriving on the spot, would not +commit any tortures, but would cut down the forest and give it to the +proprietor. If there should not be in certain men any clear +consciousness as to their doing wrong, and if there should be, in +consequence of this, no mutual influence of men in this sense, there +would take place the same as in Orel. But if this consciousness should +be even stronger, and so the amount of the interactions even greater +than what it was, it is very likely that the governor and his troops +would not even dare to cut down the forest, in order to give it to the +proprietor. If this consciousness had been even stronger and the amount +of interactions greater, it is very likely the governor would not even +have dared to travel to the place of action. If the consciousness had +been stronger still and the amount of interactions even greater, it is +very likely that the minister would not have made up his mind to +prescribe, and the emperor to confirm such a decree. + +Everything, consequently, depends on the force with which the Christian +truth is cognized by every individual man. + +And so, it would seem, the activity of all the men of our time, who +assert that they wish to continue to the welfare of humanity, should be +directed to the increase of the lucidity of the demands of the Christian +truth. ## 4 -But, strange to say, those very men, who in our time assert -more than any one else that they care for the amelioration -of human life, and who are regarded as the leaders in public -opinion, affirm that it is not necessary to do that, and -that for the amelioration of the condition of men there -exist other, more efficacious means. These men assert that -the amelioration of human life does not take place in -consequence of the internal efforts of the consciousness of -individual men and the elucidation and profession of the -truth, but in consequence of the gradual change of the -common external conditions of life, and that the profession -by every individual man of the truth which is not in -conformity with the existing order is not only useless, but -even harmful, because on the part of the power it provokes -oppressions, which keep these individuals from continuing -their useful activity in the service of society. According -to this doctrine, all the changes in human life take place -under the same laws under which they take place in the life -of the animals. - -Thus, according to this doctrine, all the founders of -religions, such as Moses and the prophets, Confucius, -Lao-tse, Buddha, Christ, and others preached their -teachings, and their followers accepted them, not because -they loved truth, elucidated it to themselves, and professed -it, but because the political, social, and, above all, -economic conditions of the nations among whom these -teachings appeared and were disseminated were favourable for -their manifestation and diffusion. - -And so the chief activity of a man wishing to serve society -and ameliorate the condition of humanity must according to -this doctrine be directed, not to the elucidation of the -truth and its profession, but to the amelioration of the -external political, social, and, above all else, economic -conditions. Now the change of these political, social, and -economic conditions is accomplished partly by means of -serving the government and of introducing into it liberal -and progressive principles, partly by contributing to the -development of industry and the dissemination of socialistic -ideas, and chiefly by the diffusion of scientific education. - -According to this teaching it is not important for a man to -profess in life the truth that has been revealed to him, and -so inevitably be compelled to realize it in life, or at -least not to do acts which are contrary to the professed -truth; not to serve the government and not to increase its -power, if he considers this power to be deleterious; not to -make use of the capitalistic structure, if he considers this -structure to be irregular; not to show any respect for -various ceremonies, if he considers them to be a dangerous -superstition; not to take part in the courts, if he -considers their establishment to be false; not to serve as a -soldier; not to swear; in general, not to lie, not to act as -a scoundrel, but, without changing the existing forms of -life, and submitting to them, contrary to his opinion, he -should introduce liberalism into the existing institutions; -cooperate with industry, the propaganda of socialism, the -advancement of what is called the sciences, and the -diffusion of culture. According to this theory is it -possible, though remaining a landed proprietor, a merchant, -a manufacturer, a judge, an official, receiving a salary -from the government, a soldier, an officer, to be, withal, -not only a humane man, but even a socialist and -revolutionist. - -Hypocrisy, which formerly used to have a religious -foundation in the doctrine about the fall of the human race, -about redemption, and about the church, in this teaching -received in our time a new scientific foundation, and so has -caught in its net all those men who from the degree of their -development can no longer fall back on the religious -hypocrisy. Thus, if formerly only a man who professed the -ecclesiastic religious doctrine could, considering himself -with it pure from every sin, take part in all kinds of -crimes committed by the government, and make use of them, so -long as he at the same time fulfilled the external demands -of his profession, now all men, who do not believe in the -church Christianity, have the same kind of a worldly -scientific basis for recognizing themselves as pure, and -even highly moral men, in spite of their participation in -the evil deeds of the state and of their making use of them. - -There lives---not in Russia alone, but anywhere you please, -in France, England, Germany, America---a rich landed -proprietor, and for the right which he gives to certain -people living on his land, to draw their sustenance from it, -he fleeces these for the most part hungry people to their -fullest extent. This man's right to the possession of the -land is based on this, that at every attempt of the -oppressed people at making use of the lands which he -considers his own, without his consent, there arrive some -troops which subject the men who have seized the lands to -tortures and extermination. One would think that it is -evident that a man who lives in this manner is an -egotistical being and in no way can call himself a Christian -or a liberal. It would seem to be obvious that the first -thing such a man ought to do, if he only wants in some way -to come near to Christianity or to liberalism, would be to -stop plundering and ruining men by means of his right to the -land, which is supported by murders and tortures practised -by the government. Thus it would be if there did not exist -the metaphysics of hypocrisy, which says that from a -religious point of view the possession or non-possession of -the land is a matter of indifference as regards salvation, -and that from the scientific point of view the renunciation -of the ownership of land would be a useless personal effort, -and that the cooperation with the good of men is not -accomplished in this manner, but through the gradual change -of external forms. And so this man, without the least -compunction, and without any misgivings as to his being -believed, arranges an agricultural exhibition, or a -temperance society, or through his wife and children sends -jackets and soup to three old women, and in his family, in -drawing-rooms, committees, the press, boldly preaches the -Gospel or humane love of one's neighbour in general, and of -that working agricultural class in particular which he -constantly torments and oppresses. And the men who are in -the same condition with him believe him, praise him, and -with him solemnly discuss the questions as to what measures -should be used for the amelioration of the condition of the -working masses, on the spoliation of whom their life is -based, inventing for the purpose all kinds of means, except -the one without which no amelioration of the people's -condition is possible, of ceasing to take away from these -people the land, which is necessary for their maintenance. - -A most striking example of such hypocrisy is to be found in -the measures taken last year by the Russian landed -proprietors in the struggle with the famine, which they -themselves had produced, and which they immediately set out -to exploit, when they not only sold the corn at the highest -possible price, but even sold to the freezing peasants as -fuel the potato-tops at five roubles per desyatina. - -Or there lives a merchant, whose whole commerce, like any -commerce, is based on a series of rascalities, by means of -which, exploiting the ignorance and need of men, articles -are bought of them below their value, and, again exploiting -the ignorance, need, and temptation of men, are sold back at -prices above their value. It would seem to be obvious that a -man whose activity is based on what in his own language is -called rascality, so long as these same acts are performed -under different conditions, ought to be ashamed of his -position, and is by no means able, continuing to be a -merchant, to represent himself as a Christian or a liberal. -But the metaphysics of hypocrisy says to him that he may -pass for a virtuous man, even though continuing his harmful -activity: a religious man need only be believed, but a -liberal has only to cooperate with the change of external -conditions,---the progress of industry. And so this -merchant, who frequently, in addition, performs a whole -series of direct rascalities, by selling bad wares for good -ones, cheating in weights and measures, or trading -exclusively in articles which are pernicious to the people's -health (such as wine or opium), boldly considers himself, -and is considered by others, so long as he in business does -not directly cheat his fellows in deception, that is, his -fellow merchants, to be a model of honesty and -conscientiousness. If he spends one-thousandth of the money -stolen by him on some public institution, a hospital, a -museum, an institution of learning, he is also regarded as a -benefactor of those very people on the deception and -corruption of whom all his fortune is based; but if he -contributes part of his stolen money to a church and for the -poor, he is regarded even as a model Christian. - -Or there lives a manufacturer, whose whole income consists -of the pay which is taken away from the workmen, and whose -whole activity is based on compulsory, unnatural labour, -which ruins whole generations of men; it would seem to be -obvious that first of all, if this man professes any -Christian or liberal principles, he must stop ruining human -lives for the sake of his profit. But according to the -existing theory, he is contributing to industry, and he must -not---it would even be injurious to men and to -society---stop his activity. And here this man, the cruel -slaveholder of thousands of men, building for those who have -been crippled while working for him little houses with -little gardens five feet square, and a savings-bank, and a -poorhouse, and a hospital, is fully convinced that in this -way he has more than paid for all those physically and -mentally ruined lives of men, for which he is responsible, -and quietly continues his activity, of which he is proud. - -Or there lives a head of a department, or some civil, -clerical, military servant of the state, who serves for the -purpose of satisfying his ambition or love of power, or, -what is most common, for the purpose of receiving a salary, -which is collected from the masses that are emaciated and -exhausted with labour (taxes, no matter from whom they come, -always originate in labour, that is, in the labouring -people), and if he, which is extremely rare, does not -directly steal the government's money in some unusual -manner, he considers himself and is considered by others -like him to be a most useful and virtuous member of society. - -There lives some judge, prosecutor, head of a department, -and he knows that as the result of his sentence or decree -hundreds and thousands of unfortunate people, torn away from -their families, are lingering in solitary confinement, at -hard labour, going mad and killing themselves with glass, or -starving to death; he knows that these thousands of people -have thousands of mothers, wives, children, who are -suffering from the separation, are deprived of the -possibility of meeting them, are disgraced, vainly implore -forgiveness or even alleviation of the fates of their -fathers, sons, husbands, brothers,---and the judge or head -of a department is so hardened in his hypocrisy that he -himself and his like and their wives and relatives are -firmly convinced that he can with all this be a very good -and sensitive man. According to the metaphysics of -hypocrisy, it turns out that he is doing useful public work. -And this man, having ruined hundreds, thousands of men, who -curse him, and who are in despair, thanks to his activity, -believing in the good and in God, with a beaming, benevolent -smile on his smooth face, goes to mass, hears the Gospel, -makes liberal speeches, pets his children, preaches to them -morality, and feels meek of spirit in the presence of -imaginary sufferings. - -All these men and those who live on them, their wives, -teachers, children, cooks, actors, jockeys, and so forth, -live by the blood which in one way or another, by one class -of leeches or by another, is sucked out of the working -people; thus they live, devouring each day for their -pleasures hundreds and thousands of work-days of the -exhausted labourers, who are driven to work by the threat of -being killed; they see the privations and sufferings of -these labourers, of their children, old men, women, sick -people; they know of the penalties to which the violators of -this established spoliation are subjected, and they not only -do not diminish their luxury, do not conceal it, but -impudently display before these oppressed labourers, who for -the most part hate them, as though on purpose to provoke -them, their parks, castles, theatres, chases, races, and at -the same time assure themselves and one another that they -are all very much concerned about the good of the masses, -whom they never stop treading underfoot; and on Sundays they -dress themselves in costly attire and drive in expensive -carriages into houses especially built for the purpose of -making fun of Christianity, and there listen to men -especially trained in this lie, who in every manner -possible, in vestments and without vestments, in white -neck-ties, preach to one another the love of men, which they -all deny with their whole lives. And, while doing all this, -these men so enter into their parts that they seriously -believe that they actually are what they pretend to be. - -The universal hypocrisy, which has entered into the flesh -and blood of all the classes of our time, has reached such -limits that nothing of this kind ever fills any one with -indignation. Hypocrisy with good reason means the same as -acting, and anybody can pretend,---act a part. Nobody is -amazed at such phenomena as that the successors of Christ -bless the murderers who are lined up and hold the guns which -are loaded for their brothers; that the priests, the pastors -of all kinds of Christian confessions, always, as inevitably -as the executioners, take part in executions, with their -presence recognizing the murder as compatible with -Christianity (at an electrocution in America, a preacher was -present). - -Lately there was an international prison exhibition in -St. Petersburg, where implements of torture were exhibited, -such as manacles, models of solitary cells, that is, worse -implements of torture than knouts and rods, and sensitive -gentlemen and ladies went to look at all this, and they -enjoyed the sight. - -Nor is any one surprised at the way the liberal science -proves, by the side of the assumption of equality, -fraternity, liberty, the necessity of an army, of -executions, customhouses, the censorship, the regulation of -prostitution, the expulsion of cheap labour, and the -prohibition of immigration, and the necessity and justice of -colonization, which is based on the poisoning, plundering, -and destruction of whole tribes of men who are called -savage, and so forth. - -People talk of what will happen when all men shall profess -what is called Christianity (that is, various mutually -hostile professions); when all shall be well fed and well -clothed; when all shall be united with one another from one -end of the world to the other by means of telegraphs and -telephones, and shall communicate with one another by means -of balloons; when all the labourers shall be permeated with -social teachings, and the labour-unions shall have collected -so many millions of members and of roubles; when all men -shall be cultured, and all shall read the papers and know -the sciences. - -But of what use or good can all these improvements be, if -people shall not at the same time speak and do what they -consider to be the truth? - -The calamities of men are certainly due to their disunion, -and the disunion is due to this, that men do not follow the -truth, which is one, but the lies, of which there are many. -The only means for the union of men into one is the union in -truth; and so, the more sincerely men strive toward the -truth, the nearer they are to this union. - -But how can men be united in truth, or even approach it, if -they not only do not express the truth which they know, but -even think that it is unnecessary to do so, and pretend that -they consider to be the truth what they do not regard as the -truth. - -And so no amelioration of the condition of men is possible, -so long as men will pretend, that is, conceal the truth from -themselves, so long as they do not recognize that their -union, and so their good, is possible only in the truth, and -so will not place the recognition and profession of the -truth, the one which has been revealed to them, higher than +But, strange to say, those very men, who in our time assert more than +any one else that they care for the amelioration of human life, and who +are regarded as the leaders in public opinion, affirm that it is not +necessary to do that, and that for the amelioration of the condition of +men there exist other, more efficacious means. These men assert that the +amelioration of human life does not take place in consequence of the +internal efforts of the consciousness of individual men and the +elucidation and profession of the truth, but in consequence of the +gradual change of the common external conditions of life, and that the +profession by every individual man of the truth which is not in +conformity with the existing order is not only useless, but even +harmful, because on the part of the power it provokes oppressions, which +keep these individuals from continuing their useful activity in the +service of society. According to this doctrine, all the changes in human +life take place under the same laws under which they take place in the +life of the animals. + +Thus, according to this doctrine, all the founders of religions, such as +Moses and the prophets, Confucius, Lao-tse, Buddha, Christ, and others +preached their teachings, and their followers accepted them, not because +they loved truth, elucidated it to themselves, and professed it, but +because the political, social, and, above all, economic conditions of +the nations among whom these teachings appeared and were disseminated +were favourable for their manifestation and diffusion. + +And so the chief activity of a man wishing to serve society and +ameliorate the condition of humanity must according to this doctrine be +directed, not to the elucidation of the truth and its profession, but to +the amelioration of the external political, social, and, above all else, +economic conditions. Now the change of these political, social, and +economic conditions is accomplished partly by means of serving the +government and of introducing into it liberal and progressive +principles, partly by contributing to the development of industry and +the dissemination of socialistic ideas, and chiefly by the diffusion of +scientific education. + +According to this teaching it is not important for a man to profess in +life the truth that has been revealed to him, and so inevitably be +compelled to realize it in life, or at least not to do acts which are +contrary to the professed truth; not to serve the government and not to +increase its power, if he considers this power to be deleterious; not to +make use of the capitalistic structure, if he considers this structure +to be irregular; not to show any respect for various ceremonies, if he +considers them to be a dangerous superstition; not to take part in the +courts, if he considers their establishment to be false; not to serve as +a soldier; not to swear; in general, not to lie, not to act as a +scoundrel, but, without changing the existing forms of life, and +submitting to them, contrary to his opinion, he should introduce +liberalism into the existing institutions; cooperate with industry, the +propaganda of socialism, the advancement of what is called the sciences, +and the diffusion of culture. According to this theory is it possible, +though remaining a landed proprietor, a merchant, a manufacturer, a +judge, an official, receiving a salary from the government, a soldier, +an officer, to be, withal, not only a humane man, but even a socialist +and revolutionist. + +Hypocrisy, which formerly used to have a religious foundation in the +doctrine about the fall of the human race, about redemption, and about +the church, in this teaching received in our time a new scientific +foundation, and so has caught in its net all those men who from the +degree of their development can no longer fall back on the religious +hypocrisy. Thus, if formerly only a man who professed the ecclesiastic +religious doctrine could, considering himself with it pure from every +sin, take part in all kinds of crimes committed by the government, and +make use of them, so long as he at the same time fulfilled the external +demands of his profession, now all men, who do not believe in the church +Christianity, have the same kind of a worldly scientific basis for +recognizing themselves as pure, and even highly moral men, in spite of +their participation in the evil deeds of the state and of their making +use of them. + +There lives---not in Russia alone, but anywhere you please, in France, +England, Germany, America---a rich landed proprietor, and for the right +which he gives to certain people living on his land, to draw their +sustenance from it, he fleeces these for the most part hungry people to +their fullest extent. This man's right to the possession of the land is +based on this, that at every attempt of the oppressed people at making +use of the lands which he considers his own, without his consent, there +arrive some troops which subject the men who have seized the lands to +tortures and extermination. One would think that it is evident that a +man who lives in this manner is an egotistical being and in no way can +call himself a Christian or a liberal. It would seem to be obvious that +the first thing such a man ought to do, if he only wants in some way to +come near to Christianity or to liberalism, would be to stop plundering +and ruining men by means of his right to the land, which is supported by +murders and tortures practised by the government. Thus it would be if +there did not exist the metaphysics of hypocrisy, which says that from a +religious point of view the possession or non-possession of the land is +a matter of indifference as regards salvation, and that from the +scientific point of view the renunciation of the ownership of land would +be a useless personal effort, and that the cooperation with the good of +men is not accomplished in this manner, but through the gradual change +of external forms. And so this man, without the least compunction, and +without any misgivings as to his being believed, arranges an +agricultural exhibition, or a temperance society, or through his wife +and children sends jackets and soup to three old women, and in his +family, in drawing-rooms, committees, the press, boldly preaches the +Gospel or humane love of one's neighbour in general, and of that working +agricultural class in particular which he constantly torments and +oppresses. And the men who are in the same condition with him believe +him, praise him, and with him solemnly discuss the questions as to what +measures should be used for the amelioration of the condition of the +working masses, on the spoliation of whom their life is based, inventing +for the purpose all kinds of means, except the one without which no +amelioration of the people's condition is possible, of ceasing to take +away from these people the land, which is necessary for their +maintenance. + +A most striking example of such hypocrisy is to be found in the measures +taken last year by the Russian landed proprietors in the struggle with +the famine, which they themselves had produced, and which they +immediately set out to exploit, when they not only sold the corn at the +highest possible price, but even sold to the freezing peasants as fuel +the potato-tops at five roubles per desyatina. + +Or there lives a merchant, whose whole commerce, like any commerce, is +based on a series of rascalities, by means of which, exploiting the +ignorance and need of men, articles are bought of them below their +value, and, again exploiting the ignorance, need, and temptation of men, +are sold back at prices above their value. It would seem to be obvious +that a man whose activity is based on what in his own language is called +rascality, so long as these same acts are performed under different +conditions, ought to be ashamed of his position, and is by no means +able, continuing to be a merchant, to represent himself as a Christian +or a liberal. But the metaphysics of hypocrisy says to him that he may +pass for a virtuous man, even though continuing his harmful activity: a +religious man need only be believed, but a liberal has only to cooperate +with the change of external conditions,---the progress of industry. And +so this merchant, who frequently, in addition, performs a whole series +of direct rascalities, by selling bad wares for good ones, cheating in +weights and measures, or trading exclusively in articles which are +pernicious to the people's health (such as wine or opium), boldly +considers himself, and is considered by others, so long as he in +business does not directly cheat his fellows in deception, that is, his +fellow merchants, to be a model of honesty and conscientiousness. If he +spends one-thousandth of the money stolen by him on some public +institution, a hospital, a museum, an institution of learning, he is +also regarded as a benefactor of those very people on the deception and +corruption of whom all his fortune is based; but if he contributes part +of his stolen money to a church and for the poor, he is regarded even as +a model Christian. + +Or there lives a manufacturer, whose whole income consists of the pay +which is taken away from the workmen, and whose whole activity is based +on compulsory, unnatural labour, which ruins whole generations of men; +it would seem to be obvious that first of all, if this man professes any +Christian or liberal principles, he must stop ruining human lives for +the sake of his profit. But according to the existing theory, he is +contributing to industry, and he must not---it would even be injurious +to men and to society---stop his activity. And here this man, the cruel +slaveholder of thousands of men, building for those who have been +crippled while working for him little houses with little gardens five +feet square, and a savings-bank, and a poorhouse, and a hospital, is +fully convinced that in this way he has more than paid for all those +physically and mentally ruined lives of men, for which he is +responsible, and quietly continues his activity, of which he is proud. + +Or there lives a head of a department, or some civil, clerical, military +servant of the state, who serves for the purpose of satisfying his +ambition or love of power, or, what is most common, for the purpose of +receiving a salary, which is collected from the masses that are +emaciated and exhausted with labour (taxes, no matter from whom they +come, always originate in labour, that is, in the labouring people), and +if he, which is extremely rare, does not directly steal the government's +money in some unusual manner, he considers himself and is considered by +others like him to be a most useful and virtuous member of society. + +There lives some judge, prosecutor, head of a department, and he knows +that as the result of his sentence or decree hundreds and thousands of +unfortunate people, torn away from their families, are lingering in +solitary confinement, at hard labour, going mad and killing themselves +with glass, or starving to death; he knows that these thousands of +people have thousands of mothers, wives, children, who are suffering +from the separation, are deprived of the possibility of meeting them, +are disgraced, vainly implore forgiveness or even alleviation of the +fates of their fathers, sons, husbands, brothers,---and the judge or +head of a department is so hardened in his hypocrisy that he himself and +his like and their wives and relatives are firmly convinced that he can +with all this be a very good and sensitive man. According to the +metaphysics of hypocrisy, it turns out that he is doing useful public +work. And this man, having ruined hundreds, thousands of men, who curse +him, and who are in despair, thanks to his activity, believing in the +good and in God, with a beaming, benevolent smile on his smooth face, +goes to mass, hears the Gospel, makes liberal speeches, pets his +children, preaches to them morality, and feels meek of spirit in the +presence of imaginary sufferings. + +All these men and those who live on them, their wives, teachers, +children, cooks, actors, jockeys, and so forth, live by the blood which +in one way or another, by one class of leeches or by another, is sucked +out of the working people; thus they live, devouring each day for their +pleasures hundreds and thousands of work-days of the exhausted +labourers, who are driven to work by the threat of being killed; they +see the privations and sufferings of these labourers, of their children, +old men, women, sick people; they know of the penalties to which the +violators of this established spoliation are subjected, and they not +only do not diminish their luxury, do not conceal it, but impudently +display before these oppressed labourers, who for the most part hate +them, as though on purpose to provoke them, their parks, castles, +theatres, chases, races, and at the same time assure themselves and one +another that they are all very much concerned about the good of the +masses, whom they never stop treading underfoot; and on Sundays they +dress themselves in costly attire and drive in expensive carriages into +houses especially built for the purpose of making fun of Christianity, +and there listen to men especially trained in this lie, who in every +manner possible, in vestments and without vestments, in white neck-ties, +preach to one another the love of men, which they all deny with their +whole lives. And, while doing all this, these men so enter into their +parts that they seriously believe that they actually are what they +pretend to be. + +The universal hypocrisy, which has entered into the flesh and blood of +all the classes of our time, has reached such limits that nothing of +this kind ever fills any one with indignation. Hypocrisy with good +reason means the same as acting, and anybody can pretend,---act a part. +Nobody is amazed at such phenomena as that the successors of Christ +bless the murderers who are lined up and hold the guns which are loaded +for their brothers; that the priests, the pastors of all kinds of +Christian confessions, always, as inevitably as the executioners, take +part in executions, with their presence recognizing the murder as +compatible with Christianity (at an electrocution in America, a preacher +was present). + +Lately there was an international prison exhibition in St. Petersburg, +where implements of torture were exhibited, such as manacles, models of +solitary cells, that is, worse implements of torture than knouts and +rods, and sensitive gentlemen and ladies went to look at all this, and +they enjoyed the sight. + +Nor is any one surprised at the way the liberal science proves, by the +side of the assumption of equality, fraternity, liberty, the necessity +of an army, of executions, customhouses, the censorship, the regulation +of prostitution, the expulsion of cheap labour, and the prohibition of +immigration, and the necessity and justice of colonization, which is +based on the poisoning, plundering, and destruction of whole tribes of +men who are called savage, and so forth. + +People talk of what will happen when all men shall profess what is +called Christianity (that is, various mutually hostile professions); +when all shall be well fed and well clothed; when all shall be united +with one another from one end of the world to the other by means of +telegraphs and telephones, and shall communicate with one another by +means of balloons; when all the labourers shall be permeated with social +teachings, and the labour-unions shall have collected so many millions +of members and of roubles; when all men shall be cultured, and all shall +read the papers and know the sciences. + +But of what use or good can all these improvements be, if people shall +not at the same time speak and do what they consider to be the truth? + +The calamities of men are certainly due to their disunion, and the +disunion is due to this, that men do not follow the truth, which is one, +but the lies, of which there are many. The only means for the union of +men into one is the union in truth; and so, the more sincerely men +strive toward the truth, the nearer they are to this union. + +But how can men be united in truth, or even approach it, if they not +only do not express the truth which they know, but even think that it is +unnecessary to do so, and pretend that they consider to be the truth +what they do not regard as the truth. + +And so no amelioration of the condition of men is possible, so long as +men will pretend, that is, conceal the truth from themselves, so long as +they do not recognize that their union, and so their good, is possible +only in the truth, and so will not place the recognition and profession +of the truth, the one which has been revealed to them, higher than anything else. -Let all those external improvements, of which religious and -scientific men may dream, be accomplished; let all men -accept Christianity, and let all those ameliorations, which -all kinds of Bellamys and Richets wish for, take place, with -every imaginable addition and correction---but let with all -that the same hypocrisy remain as before; let men not -profess the truth which they know, but continue to pretend -that they believe in what they really do not believe, and -respect what they really do not respect, and the condition -of men will not only remain the same, but will even grow -worse and worse. The more people shall have to eat, the more -there shall be of telegraphs, telephones, books, newspapers, -journals, the more means will there be for the dissemination -of discordant lies and of hypocrisy, and the more will men -be disunited and, therefore, wretched, as is indeed the case -at present. - -Let all these external changes take place, and the condition -of humanity will not improve. But let each man at once in -his life, according to his strength, profess the truth, as -he knows it, or let him at least not defend the untruth, -which he does, giving it out as the truth, and there would -at once, in this present year 1893, take place such changes -in the direction of the emancipation of men and the -establishment of truth upon earth as we do not dare even to -dream of for centuries to come. - -For good reason Christ's only speech which is not meek, but -reproachful and cruel, was directed to the hypocrites and -against hypocrisy. What corrupts, angers, bestializes, and, -therefore, disunites men, is not thieving, nor spoliation, -nor murder, nor fornication, nor forgery, but the lie, that -especial lie of hypocrisy which in the consciousness of men -destroys the distinction between good and evil, deprives -them of the possibility of avoiding the evil and seeking the -good, deprives them of what forms the essence of the true -human life, and so stands in the way of every perfection of -men. +Let all those external improvements, of which religious and scientific +men may dream, be accomplished; let all men accept Christianity, and let +all those ameliorations, which all kinds of Bellamys and Richets wish +for, take place, with every imaginable addition and correction---but let +with all that the same hypocrisy remain as before; let men not profess +the truth which they know, but continue to pretend that they believe in +what they really do not believe, and respect what they really do not +respect, and the condition of men will not only remain the same, but +will even grow worse and worse. The more people shall have to eat, the +more there shall be of telegraphs, telephones, books, newspapers, +journals, the more means will there be for the dissemination of +discordant lies and of hypocrisy, and the more will men be disunited +and, therefore, wretched, as is indeed the case at present. + +Let all these external changes take place, and the condition of humanity +will not improve. But let each man at once in his life, according to his +strength, profess the truth, as he knows it, or let him at least not +defend the untruth, which he does, giving it out as the truth, and there +would at once, in this present year 1893, take place such changes in the +direction of the emancipation of men and the establishment of truth upon +earth as we do not dare even to dream of for centuries to come. + +For good reason Christ's only speech which is not meek, but reproachful +and cruel, was directed to the hypocrites and against hypocrisy. What +corrupts, angers, bestializes, and, therefore, disunites men, is not +thieving, nor spoliation, nor murder, nor fornication, nor forgery, but +the lie, that especial lie of hypocrisy which in the consciousness of +men destroys the distinction between good and evil, deprives them of the +possibility of avoiding the evil and seeking the good, deprives them of +what forms the essence of the true human life, and so stands in the way +of every perfection of men. + +Men who do not know the truth and who do evil, awakening in others a +sympathetic feeling for their victims and a contempt for their acts, do +evil only to those whom they injure; but the men who know the truth and +do the evil, which is concealed under hypocrisy, do evil to themselves +and to those whom they injure, and to thousands of others who are +offended by the lie, with which they attempt to conceal the evil done by +them. -Men who do not know the truth and who do evil, awakening in -others a sympathetic feeling for their victims and a -contempt for their acts, do evil only to those whom they -injure; but the men who know the truth and do the evil, -which is concealed under hypocrisy, do evil to themselves -and to those whom they injure, and to thousands of others -who are offended by the lie, with which they attempt to -conceal the evil done by them. - -Thieves, plunderers, murderers, cheats, who commit acts that -are recognized as evil by themselves and by all men, serve -as an example of what ought not to be done, and deter men -from evil. But the men who commit the same act of thieving, -plundering, torturing, killing, mantling themselves with -religious and scientific liberal justifications, as is done -by all landed proprietors, merchants, manufacturers, and all -kinds of servants of the government of our time, invite -others to emulate their acts, and do evil, not only to those -who suffer from it, but also to thousands and millions of -men, whom they corrupt, by destroying for these men the -difference between good and evil. - -One fortune acquired by the trade in articles necessary for -the masses or by corrupting the people, or by speculations -on 'Change, or by the acquisition of cheap land, which later -grows more expensive on account of the popular want, or by -the establishment of plants ruining the health and the life -of men, or by civil or military service to the state, or by -any means which pamper to the vices of men---a fortune -gained by such means, not only with the consent, but even -with the approval of the leaders of society, corrupts people -incomparably more than millions of thefts, rascalities, -plunderings, which are committed outside the forms -recognized by law and subject to criminal prosecution. - -One execution, which is performed by well-to-do, cultured -men, not under the influence of passion, but with the -approval and cooperation of Christian pastors, and presented -as something necessary, corrupts and bestializes men more -than hundreds and thousands of murders, committed by -uncultured labouring men, especially under the incitement of -passion. An execution, such as Zhukovski proposed to -arrange, when men, as Zhukovski assumed, would even -experience a religious feeling of meekness of spirit, would -be the most corrupting action that can be imagined. (See -Vol. VI of Zhukovski's Complete Works.) - -Every war, however short its duration, with its usual -accompanying losses, destruction of the crops, thieving, -admissible debauchery, looting, murders, with the invented -justifications of its necessity and its justice, with the -exaltation and eulogizing of military exploits, of love of -flag and country, with the hypocritical cares for the -wounded, and so forth, corrupts in one year more than do -millions of robberies, incendiarisms, murders, committed in -the course of hundreds of years by individual men under the -influence of the passions. - -One luxurious life, running temperately within the limits of -decency, on the part of one respectable, so-called virtuous, -family, which, none the less, spends on itself the products -of as many labouring days as would suffice for the support -of thousands of people living in misery side by side with -this family, corrupts people more than do thousands of -monstrous orgies of coarse merchants, officers, labouring -men, who abandon themselves to drunkenness and debauchery, -who for fun break mirrors, dishes, and so forth. - -One solemn procession, Те Deum, or sermon from the ambo or -pulpit, dealing with a lie in which the preachers themselves -do not believe, produces incomparably more evil than do -thousands of forgeries and adulterations of food, and so -forth. - -We talk of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. But the hypocrisy -of the men of our time far surpasses the comparatively -innocent hypocrisy of the Pharisees. They had at least an -external religious law, in the fulfilment of which they -could overlook their obligations in relation to their -neighbours, and, besides, these obligations were at that -time not yet clearly pointed out; in our time, in the first -place, there is no such religious law which frees men from -their obligations to their neighbours, to all their -neighbours without exception (I do not count those coarse -and stupid men who even now think that sacraments or the -decision of the Pope can absolve one from sins): on the -contrary, that Gospel law, which we all profess in one way -or another, directly points out these obligations, and -besides these obligations, which at that time were expressed -in dim words by only a few prophets, are now expressed so -clearly that they have become truisms, which are repeated by -gymnasts and writers of feuilletons. And so the men of our -time, it would seem, cannot possibly pretend that they do -not know these their obligations. - -The men of our time, who exploit the order of things which -is supported by violence, and who at the same time assert -that they are very fond of their neighbours, and entirely -fail to observe that they are with their whole lives doing -evil to these their neighbours, are like a man who has -incessantly robbed people, and who, being finally caught -with his knife raised over his victim, who is calling for -aid in a desperate voice, should assert that he did not know -that what he was doing was unpleasant for him whom he was -robbing and getting ready to kill. Just as this robber and -murderer cannot deny what is obvious to all men, so, it -would seem, it is impossible for the men of our time, who -live at the expense of the sufferings of oppressed men, to -assure themselves and others that they wish for the good of -those men whom they rob incessantly, and that they did not -know in what manner they acquire what they use as their own. - -It is impossible for us to believe that we do not know of -those one hundred thousand men in Russia alone, who are -always locked up in prisons and at hard labour, for the -purpose of securing our property and our peace; and that we -do not know of those courts, in which we ourselves take -part, and which in consequence of our petitions sentence the -men who assault our property or endanger our security to -imprisonment, deportation, and hard labour, where the men, -who are in no way worse than those who sentence them, perish -and are corrupted; that we do not know that everything we -have we have only because it is acquired and secured for us -by means of murders and tortures. "We cannot pretend that we -do not see the policeman who walks in front of the windows -with a loaded revolver, defending us, while we eat our -savoury dinner or view a new performance, or those soldiers -who will immediately go with their guns and loaded -cartridges to where our property will be violated. - -We certainly know that if we shall finish eating our dinner, -or seeing the latest drama, or having our fun at a ball, at -the Christmas tree, at the skating, at the races, or at the -chase, we do so only thanks to the bullet in the policeman's -revolver and in the soldier's gun, winch will at once bore a -hole through the hungry stomach of the dispossessed man who, -with watering mouth, is staying around the corner and -watching our amusements, and is prepared to violate them the -moment the policeman with the revolver shall go away, or as -soon as there shall be no soldier in the barracks ready to -appear at our first call. - -And so, just as a man caught in broad daylight in a robbery -can in no way assure all men that he did not raise his hand -over the man about to be robbed by him, in order to take his -purse from him, and did not threaten to cut his throat, so -we, it would seem, cannot assure ourselves and others that -the soldiers and policemen with the revolvers are all about -us, not in order to protect us, but to defend us against -external enemies, for the sake of order, for ornament, -amusement, and parades; and that we did not know that men do -not like to starve, having no right to make a living off the -land on which they live, do not like to work underground, in -the water, in hellish heat, from ten to fourteen hours a -day, and in the night, in all kinds of factories and plants, -for the purpose of manufacturing articles for our enjoyment. -It would seem to be impossible to deny that which is so -obvious. And yet it is precisely what is being done. - -Though there are among the rich some honest -people,---fortunately I meet more and more of them, -especially among the young and among women,---who, at the -mention of how and with what their pleasures are bought, do -not try to conceal the truth, and grasp their heads and say, -"Oh, do not speak of it. If it is so, it is impossible to go -on living;" though there are such sincere people, who, -unable to free themselves from their sin, none the less see -it, the vast majority of the men of our time have so entered -into their role of hypocrisy, that they boldly deny what is -so startlingly obvious to every seeing person. - -"All this is unjust," they say; "nobody compels the people -to work for the proprietors and in factories. This is a -question of free agreement. Large possessions and capital -are indispensable, because they organize labour and give -work to the labouring classes; and the work in the factories -and plants is not at all as terrible as you imagine it to -be. If there are some abuses in the factories, the -government and society will see to it that they be removed -and that the work be made still more easy and even more -agreeable for the labourers. The working people are used to -physical labour, and so far are not good for anything else. -The poverty of the masses is not at all due to the ownership -of land, nor to the oppression of capital, but to other -causes: it is due to the ignorance, the coarseness, the -drunkenness of the masses. We, the men of state, who are -counteracting this impoverishment by wise enactments, and -we, the capitalists, who are counteracting it by the -dissemination of useful inventions, we, the clergy, by -religious instruction, and we, the liberals, by the -establishment of labour-unions, the increase and diffusion -of knowledge, in this manner, without changing our position, -increase the welfare of the masses. We do not want all men -to be poor, like the poor, but want them to be rich, like -the rich. The statement that men are tortured and killed to -compel them to work for the rich is nothing but sophistry; -troops are sent out against the masses only when they, -misunderstanding their advantages, become riotous and -disturb the peace, which is necessary for the common good. -Just as much do we need the curbing of malefactors, for whom -are intended the prisons, gallows, and hard labour. We -should ourselves like to do away with them, and we are -working in this direction." - -The hypocrisy of our time, which is supported from two -sides, by the quasi-religion and the quasi-science, has -reached such a point that, if we did not live in the midst -of it, we should not be able to believe that men could reach -such a degree of self-deception. The people have in our time -reached the remarkable state when their hearts are so -hardened that they look and do not see, that they listen and -do not hear or understand. +Thieves, plunderers, murderers, cheats, who commit acts that are +recognized as evil by themselves and by all men, serve as an example of +what ought not to be done, and deter men from evil. But the men who +commit the same act of thieving, plundering, torturing, killing, +mantling themselves with religious and scientific liberal +justifications, as is done by all landed proprietors, merchants, +manufacturers, and all kinds of servants of the government of our time, +invite others to emulate their acts, and do evil, not only to those who +suffer from it, but also to thousands and millions of men, whom they +corrupt, by destroying for these men the difference between good and +evil. + +One fortune acquired by the trade in articles necessary for the masses +or by corrupting the people, or by speculations on 'Change, or by the +acquisition of cheap land, which later grows more expensive on account +of the popular want, or by the establishment of plants ruining the +health and the life of men, or by civil or military service to the +state, or by any means which pamper to the vices of men---a fortune +gained by such means, not only with the consent, but even with the +approval of the leaders of society, corrupts people incomparably more +than millions of thefts, rascalities, plunderings, which are committed +outside the forms recognized by law and subject to criminal prosecution. + +One execution, which is performed by well-to-do, cultured men, not under +the influence of passion, but with the approval and cooperation of +Christian pastors, and presented as something necessary, corrupts and +bestializes men more than hundreds and thousands of murders, committed +by uncultured labouring men, especially under the incitement of passion. +An execution, such as Zhukovski proposed to arrange, when men, as +Zhukovski assumed, would even experience a religious feeling of meekness +of spirit, would be the most corrupting action that can be imagined. +(See Vol. VI of Zhukovski's Complete Works.) + +Every war, however short its duration, with its usual accompanying +losses, destruction of the crops, thieving, admissible debauchery, +looting, murders, with the invented justifications of its necessity and +its justice, with the exaltation and eulogizing of military exploits, of +love of flag and country, with the hypocritical cares for the wounded, +and so forth, corrupts in one year more than do millions of robberies, +incendiarisms, murders, committed in the course of hundreds of years by +individual men under the influence of the passions. + +One luxurious life, running temperately within the limits of decency, on +the part of one respectable, so-called virtuous, family, which, none the +less, spends on itself the products of as many labouring days as would +suffice for the support of thousands of people living in misery side by +side with this family, corrupts people more than do thousands of +monstrous orgies of coarse merchants, officers, labouring men, who +abandon themselves to drunkenness and debauchery, who for fun break +mirrors, dishes, and so forth. + +One solemn procession, Те Deum, or sermon from the ambo or pulpit, +dealing with a lie in which the preachers themselves do not believe, +produces incomparably more evil than do thousands of forgeries and +adulterations of food, and so forth. + +We talk of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. But the hypocrisy of the men +of our time far surpasses the comparatively innocent hypocrisy of the +Pharisees. They had at least an external religious law, in the +fulfilment of which they could overlook their obligations in relation to +their neighbours, and, besides, these obligations were at that time not +yet clearly pointed out; in our time, in the first place, there is no +such religious law which frees men from their obligations to their +neighbours, to all their neighbours without exception (I do not count +those coarse and stupid men who even now think that sacraments or the +decision of the Pope can absolve one from sins): on the contrary, that +Gospel law, which we all profess in one way or another, directly points +out these obligations, and besides these obligations, which at that time +were expressed in dim words by only a few prophets, are now expressed so +clearly that they have become truisms, which are repeated by gymnasts +and writers of feuilletons. And so the men of our time, it would seem, +cannot possibly pretend that they do not know these their obligations. + +The men of our time, who exploit the order of things which is supported +by violence, and who at the same time assert that they are very fond of +their neighbours, and entirely fail to observe that they are with their +whole lives doing evil to these their neighbours, are like a man who has +incessantly robbed people, and who, being finally caught with his knife +raised over his victim, who is calling for aid in a desperate voice, +should assert that he did not know that what he was doing was unpleasant +for him whom he was robbing and getting ready to kill. Just as this +robber and murderer cannot deny what is obvious to all men, so, it would +seem, it is impossible for the men of our time, who live at the expense +of the sufferings of oppressed men, to assure themselves and others that +they wish for the good of those men whom they rob incessantly, and that +they did not know in what manner they acquire what they use as their +own. + +It is impossible for us to believe that we do not know of those one +hundred thousand men in Russia alone, who are always locked up in +prisons and at hard labour, for the purpose of securing our property and +our peace; and that we do not know of those courts, in which we +ourselves take part, and which in consequence of our petitions sentence +the men who assault our property or endanger our security to +imprisonment, deportation, and hard labour, where the men, who are in no +way worse than those who sentence them, perish and are corrupted; that +we do not know that everything we have we have only because it is +acquired and secured for us by means of murders and tortures. "We cannot +pretend that we do not see the policeman who walks in front of the +windows with a loaded revolver, defending us, while we eat our savoury +dinner or view a new performance, or those soldiers who will immediately +go with their guns and loaded cartridges to where our property will be +violated. + +We certainly know that if we shall finish eating our dinner, or seeing +the latest drama, or having our fun at a ball, at the Christmas tree, at +the skating, at the races, or at the chase, we do so only thanks to the +bullet in the policeman's revolver and in the soldier's gun, winch will +at once bore a hole through the hungry stomach of the dispossessed man +who, with watering mouth, is staying around the corner and watching our +amusements, and is prepared to violate them the moment the policeman +with the revolver shall go away, or as soon as there shall be no soldier +in the barracks ready to appear at our first call. + +And so, just as a man caught in broad daylight in a robbery can in no +way assure all men that he did not raise his hand over the man about to +be robbed by him, in order to take his purse from him, and did not +threaten to cut his throat, so we, it would seem, cannot assure +ourselves and others that the soldiers and policemen with the revolvers +are all about us, not in order to protect us, but to defend us against +external enemies, for the sake of order, for ornament, amusement, and +parades; and that we did not know that men do not like to starve, having +no right to make a living off the land on which they live, do not like +to work underground, in the water, in hellish heat, from ten to fourteen +hours a day, and in the night, in all kinds of factories and plants, for +the purpose of manufacturing articles for our enjoyment. It would seem +to be impossible to deny that which is so obvious. And yet it is +precisely what is being done. + +Though there are among the rich some honest people,---fortunately I meet +more and more of them, especially among the young and among +women,---who, at the mention of how and with what their pleasures are +bought, do not try to conceal the truth, and grasp their heads and say, +"Oh, do not speak of it. If it is so, it is impossible to go on living;" +though there are such sincere people, who, unable to free themselves +from their sin, none the less see it, the vast majority of the men of +our time have so entered into their role of hypocrisy, that they boldly +deny what is so startlingly obvious to every seeing person. + +"All this is unjust," they say; "nobody compels the people to work for +the proprietors and in factories. This is a question of free agreement. +Large possessions and capital are indispensable, because they organize +labour and give work to the labouring classes; and the work in the +factories and plants is not at all as terrible as you imagine it to be. +If there are some abuses in the factories, the government and society +will see to it that they be removed and that the work be made still more +easy and even more agreeable for the labourers. The working people are +used to physical labour, and so far are not good for anything else. The +poverty of the masses is not at all due to the ownership of land, nor to +the oppression of capital, but to other causes: it is due to the +ignorance, the coarseness, the drunkenness of the masses. We, the men of +state, who are counteracting this impoverishment by wise enactments, and +we, the capitalists, who are counteracting it by the dissemination of +useful inventions, we, the clergy, by religious instruction, and we, the +liberals, by the establishment of labour-unions, the increase and +diffusion of knowledge, in this manner, without changing our position, +increase the welfare of the masses. We do not want all men to be poor, +like the poor, but want them to be rich, like the rich. The statement +that men are tortured and killed to compel them to work for the rich is +nothing but sophistry; troops are sent out against the masses only when +they, misunderstanding their advantages, become riotous and disturb the +peace, which is necessary for the common good. Just as much do we need +the curbing of malefactors, for whom are intended the prisons, gallows, +and hard labour. We should ourselves like to do away with them, and we +are working in this direction." + +The hypocrisy of our time, which is supported from two sides, by the +quasi-religion and the quasi-science, has reached such a point that, if +we did not live in the midst of it, we should not be able to believe +that men could reach such a degree of self-deception. The people have in +our time reached the remarkable state when their hearts are so hardened +that they look and do not see, that they listen and do not hear or +understand. Men have long been living a life which is contrary to their -consciousness. If it were not for hypocrisy, they would not -be able to live this life. This order of life, which is -contrary to their consciousness, is continued only because -it is hidden under hypocrisy. - -The more the distance is growing between reality and the -consciousness of men, the more does hypocrisy expand, but -there are limits even to hypocrisy, and it seems to me that -in our time we have reached that limit. - -Every man of our time, with the Christian consciousness, -which is involuntarily acquired by him, finds himself in a -situation which is exactly like that of a sleeping man, who -sees in his sleep that he must do what he knows even in his -sleep is not right for him to do. - -He knows this in the very depth of his heart, and yet, as -though unable to change his position, he cannot stop and -cease doing what he knows he ought not to do. And, as -happens in sleep, his condition, becoming more and more -agonizing, finally reaches the utmost degree of tension, and -then he begins to doubt the reality of what presents itself -to him, and he makes an effort of consciousness, in order to -break the spell that holds him fettered. - -In the same condition is the average man of our Christian -world. He feels that everything which is done by himself and -about him is something insipid, monstrous, impossible, and -contrary to his consciousness, that this condition is -becoming more and more agonizing, and has reached the utmost -limit of tension. - -It cannot be: it cannot be that the men of our time, with -our Christian consciousness of the dignity of man, the -equality of men, which has permeated our flesh and blood, -with our need for a peaceful intercourse and union among the -nations, should actually be living in such a way that every -joy of ours, every comfort, should be paid for by the -sufferings, the lives of our brothers, and that we, besides, -should every moment be within a hair's breadth of throwing -ourselves, like wild beasts, upon one another, nation upon -nation, mercilessly destroying labour and life, for no other -reason than that some deluded diplomatist or ruler has said -or written something stupid to another deluded diplomatist -or ruler like himself. - -It cannot be. And yet every man of our time sees that it is -precisely what is being done, and that the same thing awaits -him. The state of affairs is getting more and more -agonizing. - -As the man in his sleep does not believe that what presents -itself to him as reality is actually real, and wants to -awaken to the other, the actual reality, so also the average -man of our time cannot in the depth of his heart believe -that the terrible state in which he is, and which is getting -worse and worse, is the reality, and he wants to awaken to -the actual reality, the reality of the consciousness which -already abides in him. - -And as the man asleep needs but make an effort of his -consciousness and ask himself whether it is not a dream, in -order that what to him appeared as such a hopeless state may -be at once destroyed, and he may awaken to a calm and joyous -reality, even so the modern man needs only make an effort of -his consciousness, needs only doubt in the reality of what -his own and the surrounding hypocrisy presents to him, and -ask himself whether it is not all a deception, in order that -he may immediately feel himself at once passing over, like -the awakened man, from the imaginary, terrible world to the -real, to the calm and joyous reality. - -This man need not perform any acts or exploits, but has only -to make an internal effort of consciousness. +consciousness. If it were not for hypocrisy, they would not be able to +live this life. This order of life, which is contrary to their +consciousness, is continued only because it is hidden under hypocrisy. + +The more the distance is growing between reality and the consciousness +of men, the more does hypocrisy expand, but there are limits even to +hypocrisy, and it seems to me that in our time we have reached that +limit. + +Every man of our time, with the Christian consciousness, which is +involuntarily acquired by him, finds himself in a situation which is +exactly like that of a sleeping man, who sees in his sleep that he must +do what he knows even in his sleep is not right for him to do. + +He knows this in the very depth of his heart, and yet, as though unable +to change his position, he cannot stop and cease doing what he knows he +ought not to do. And, as happens in sleep, his condition, becoming more +and more agonizing, finally reaches the utmost degree of tension, and +then he begins to doubt the reality of what presents itself to him, and +he makes an effort of consciousness, in order to break the spell that +holds him fettered. + +In the same condition is the average man of our Christian world. He +feels that everything which is done by himself and about him is +something insipid, monstrous, impossible, and contrary to his +consciousness, that this condition is becoming more and more agonizing, +and has reached the utmost limit of tension. + +It cannot be: it cannot be that the men of our time, with our Christian +consciousness of the dignity of man, the equality of men, which has +permeated our flesh and blood, with our need for a peaceful intercourse +and union among the nations, should actually be living in such a way +that every joy of ours, every comfort, should be paid for by the +sufferings, the lives of our brothers, and that we, besides, should +every moment be within a hair's breadth of throwing ourselves, like wild +beasts, upon one another, nation upon nation, mercilessly destroying +labour and life, for no other reason than that some deluded diplomatist +or ruler has said or written something stupid to another deluded +diplomatist or ruler like himself. + +It cannot be. And yet every man of our time sees that it is precisely +what is being done, and that the same thing awaits him. The state of +affairs is getting more and more agonizing. + +As the man in his sleep does not believe that what presents itself to +him as reality is actually real, and wants to awaken to the other, the +actual reality, so also the average man of our time cannot in the depth +of his heart believe that the terrible state in which he is, and which +is getting worse and worse, is the reality, and he wants to awaken to +the actual reality, the reality of the consciousness which already +abides in him. + +And as the man asleep needs but make an effort of his consciousness and +ask himself whether it is not a dream, in order that what to him +appeared as such a hopeless state may be at once destroyed, and he may +awaken to a calm and joyous reality, even so the modern man needs only +make an effort of his consciousness, needs only doubt in the reality of +what his own and the surrounding hypocrisy presents to him, and ask +himself whether it is not all a deception, in order that he may +immediately feel himself at once passing over, like the awakened man, +from the imaginary, terrible world to the real, to the calm and joyous +reality. + +This man need not perform any acts or exploits, but has only to make an +internal effort of consciousness. ## 5 Cannot man make this effort? -According to the existing theory, indispensable for -hypocrisy, man is not free and cannot change his life. - -"Man cannot change his life, because he is not free; he is -not free, because all of his acts are conditioned by -previous causes. No matter what a man may do, there always -exist these or those causes, from which the man has -committed these or those acts, and so man cannot be free and -himself change his life," say the defenders of the -metaphysics of hypocrisy. They would be absolutely right, if -man were an unconscious being, immovable in relation to -truth; that is, if, having once come to know the truth, he -always remained on the selfsame stage of his cognition. But -man is a conscious being, recognizing a higher and still -higher degree of the truth, and so, if a man is not free in -the commission of this or that act, because for every act -there exists a cause, the very causes of these acts, which -for conscious man consist in his recognizing this or that -truth as an adequate cause for his action, are within man's -power. - -Thus man, who is not free in the commission of these or -those acts, is free as regards the basis for his acts, -something as the engineer of a locomotive, who is not free -as regards the change of an accomplished or actual motion of -the locomotive, is none the less free in determining +According to the existing theory, indispensable for hypocrisy, man is +not free and cannot change his life. + +"Man cannot change his life, because he is not free; he is not free, +because all of his acts are conditioned by previous causes. No matter +what a man may do, there always exist these or those causes, from which +the man has committed these or those acts, and so man cannot be free and +himself change his life," say the defenders of the metaphysics of +hypocrisy. They would be absolutely right, if man were an unconscious +being, immovable in relation to truth; that is, if, having once come to +know the truth, he always remained on the selfsame stage of his +cognition. But man is a conscious being, recognizing a higher and still +higher degree of the truth, and so, if a man is not free in the +commission of this or that act, because for every act there exists a +cause, the very causes of these acts, which for conscious man consist in +his recognizing this or that truth as an adequate cause for his action, +are within man's power. + +Thus man, who is not free in the commission of these or those acts, is +free as regards the basis for his acts, something as the engineer of a +locomotive, who is not free as regards the change of an accomplished or +actual motion of the locomotive, is none the less free in determining beforehand its future motions. -No matter what a conscious man may do, he acts in this way -or that, and not otherwise, only because he either now -recognizes that the truth is that he ought to act as he -does, or because he formerly recognized it, and now from -inertia, from habit, acts in a manner which now he +No matter what a conscious man may do, he acts in this way or that, and +not otherwise, only because he either now recognizes that the truth is +that he ought to act as he does, or because he formerly recognized it, +and now from inertia, from habit, acts in a manner which now he recognizes to be false. -In either case the cause of his act was not a given -phenomenon, but the recognition of a given condition as the -truth and, consequently, the recognition of this or that -phenomenon as an adequate cause of his act. - -Whether a man eats or abstains from food, whether he works -or rests, runs from danger or is subject to it, if he is a -conscious man, he acts as he does only because he now -considers this to be proper and rational: he considers the -truth to consist in his acting this way, and not otherwise, -or he has considered it so for a long time. - -The recognition of a certain truth or the non-recognition of -it does not depend on external causes, but on some others, -which are in man himself. Thus with all the external, -apparently advantageous conditions for the recognition of -truth, one man at times does not recognize it, and, on the -contrary, another, under all the most unfavourable -conditions, without any apparent cause, does recognize it. -As it says in the Gospel: "No man can come to me, except the -Father draw him" (John 6:44), that is, the recognition of -the truth, which forms the cause of all the phenomena of -human life, does not depend on external phenomena, but on +In either case the cause of his act was not a given phenomenon, but the +recognition of a given condition as the truth and, consequently, the +recognition of this or that phenomenon as an adequate cause of his act. + +Whether a man eats or abstains from food, whether he works or rests, +runs from danger or is subject to it, if he is a conscious man, he acts +as he does only because he now considers this to be proper and rational: +he considers the truth to consist in his acting this way, and not +otherwise, or he has considered it so for a long time. + +The recognition of a certain truth or the non-recognition of it does not +depend on external causes, but on some others, which are in man himself. +Thus with all the external, apparently advantageous conditions for the +recognition of truth, one man at times does not recognize it, and, on +the contrary, another, under all the most unfavourable conditions, +without any apparent cause, does recognize it. As it says in the Gospel: +"No man can come to me, except the Father draw him" (John 6:44), that +is, the recognition of the truth, which forms the cause of all the +phenomena of human life, does not depend on external phenomena, but on some internal qualities of man, which are not subject to his observation. -And so a man, who is not free in his acts, always feels -himself free in what serves as the cause of his -actions,---in the recognition or non-recognition of the -truth, and feels himself free, not only independently of -external conditions taking place outside him, but even of -his own acts. - -Thus a man, having under the influence of passion committed -an act which is contrary to the cognized truth, none the -less remains free in its recognition or non-recognition, -that is, he can, without recognizing the truth, regard his -act as necessary and justify himself in its commission, and -can, by recognizing the truth, consider his act bad and +And so a man, who is not free in his acts, always feels himself free in +what serves as the cause of his actions,---in the recognition or +non-recognition of the truth, and feels himself free, not only +independently of external conditions taking place outside him, but even +of his own acts. + +Thus a man, having under the influence of passion committed an act which +is contrary to the cognized truth, none the less remains free in its +recognition or non-recognition, that is, he can, without recognizing the +truth, regard his act as necessary and justify himself in its +commission, and can, by recognizing the truth, consider his act bad and condemn it in himself. -Thus a gambler or a drunkard, who has not withstood -temptation and has succumbed to his passion, remains none -the less free to recognize his gambling or his intoxication -either as an evil or as an indifferent amusement. In the -first case, he, though not at once, frees himself from his -passion, the more, as he the more sincerely recognizes the -truth; in the second, he strengthens his passion and -deprives himself of every possibility of liberation. - -Even so a man, who could not stand the heat and ran out of a -burning house without having saved his companion, remains -free (by recognizing the truth that a man must serve the -lives of others at the risk of his own life) to consider his -act bad, and so to condemn himself for it, or (by not -recognizing this truth) to consider his act natural, and -necessary, and to justify himself in it. In the first case, -in recognizing the truth, he, in spite of his departure from -it, prepares for himself a whole series of self-sacrificing -acts, which inevitably must result from such a recognition; -in the second case, he prepares a whole series of -egotistical acts, which are opposed to the first. - -Not that a man is always free to recognize every truth, or -not. There are truths which have long ago been recognized by -a man himself or have been transmitted to him by education -and tradition, and have been taken by him on faith, the -execution of which has become to him a habit, a second -nature; and there are truths which present themselves to him -indistinctly, in the distance. A man is equally unfree in -the non-recognition of the first and the recognition of the -second. But there is a third class of truths, which have not -yet become for man an unconscious motive for his activity, -but which at the same time have already revealed themselves -to him with such lucidity that he cannot evade them, and -must inevitably take up this or that relation to them, by -recognizing or not recognizing them. It is in relation to -these same truths that man's freedom is manifested. - -Every man finds himself in his life in relation to truth in -the position of a wanderer who walks in the dark by the -light of a lantern moving in front of him: he does not see -what is not yet illuminated by the lantern, nor what he has -passed over and what is again enveloped in darkness, and it -is not in his power to change his relation to either; but he -sees, no matter on what part of the path he may stand, what -is illuminated by the lantern, and it is always in his power -to select one side of the road on which he is moving, or the -other. - -For every man there always are truths, invisible to him, -which have not yet been revealed to his mental vision; there -are other truths, already outlived, forgotten, and made his -own; and there are certain truths which have arisen before -him in the light of his reason and which demand his -recognition. It is in the recognition or non-recognition of -these truths that there is manifested what we cognize as our -freedom. - -The whole difficulty and seeming insolubility of the -question about man's freedom is due to tins, that the men -who decide this question present man to themselves as -immovable in relation to truth. - -Man is unquestionably not free, if we represent him to -ourselves as immovable, if we forget that the life of man -and of humanity is only a constant motion from darkness to -the light, from the lower stage of the truth to the higher, -from a truth which is mixed with errors to a truth which is -more free from them. - -Man would not be free, if he did not know any truth, and he -would not be free and would not even have any idea about -freedom, if the whole truth, which is to guide him in his -life, were revealed to him in all its purity, without any -admixture of errors. - -But man is not immovable in relation to truth, and every -individual man, as also all humanity, in proportion to its -movement in life, constantly cognizes a greater and ever -greater degree of the truth, and is more and more freed from -error. Therefore men always are in a threefold relation to -truth: one set of truths has been so acquired by them that -these truths have become unconscious causes of their -actions, others have only begun to be revealed to them, and -the third, though not yet made their own, are revealed to -them with such a degree of lucidity that inevitably, in one -way or another, they must take up some stand in relation to -them, must recognize them, or not. - -It is in the recognition or non-recognition of these truths -that man is free. - -Man's freedom does not consist in this, that he can, -independently of the course of his life and of causes -already existing and acting upon him, commit arbitrary acts, -but in this, that he can, by recognizing the truth revealed -to him and by professing it, become a free and joyous -performer of the eternal and infinite act performed by God -or the life of the world, and can, by not recognizing the -truth, become its slave and be forcibly and painfully drawn -in a direction which he does not wish to take. - -Truth not only indicates the path of human life, but also -reveals that one path, on which human life can proceed. And -so all men will inevitably, freely or not freely, walk on -the path of life: some, by naturally doing the work of life -destined for them, others, by involuntarily submitting to -the law of life. Man's freedom is in this choice. - -Such a freedom, within such narrow limits, seems to men to -be so insignificant that they do not notice it: some (the -determinists) consider this portion of freedom to be so -small that they do not recognize it at all; others, the -defenders of complete freedom, having in view their -imaginary freedom, neglect this seemingly insignificant -degree of freedom. The freedom which is contained between -the limits of the ignorance of the truth and of the -recognition of a certain degree of it does not seem to men -to be any freedom, the more so since, whether a man wants to -recognize the truth which is revealed to him or not, he +Thus a gambler or a drunkard, who has not withstood temptation and has +succumbed to his passion, remains none the less free to recognize his +gambling or his intoxication either as an evil or as an indifferent +amusement. In the first case, he, though not at once, frees himself from +his passion, the more, as he the more sincerely recognizes the truth; in +the second, he strengthens his passion and deprives himself of every +possibility of liberation. + +Even so a man, who could not stand the heat and ran out of a burning +house without having saved his companion, remains free (by recognizing +the truth that a man must serve the lives of others at the risk of his +own life) to consider his act bad, and so to condemn himself for it, or +(by not recognizing this truth) to consider his act natural, and +necessary, and to justify himself in it. In the first case, in +recognizing the truth, he, in spite of his departure from it, prepares +for himself a whole series of self-sacrificing acts, which inevitably +must result from such a recognition; in the second case, he prepares a +whole series of egotistical acts, which are opposed to the first. + +Not that a man is always free to recognize every truth, or not. There +are truths which have long ago been recognized by a man himself or have +been transmitted to him by education and tradition, and have been taken +by him on faith, the execution of which has become to him a habit, a +second nature; and there are truths which present themselves to him +indistinctly, in the distance. A man is equally unfree in the +non-recognition of the first and the recognition of the second. But +there is a third class of truths, which have not yet become for man an +unconscious motive for his activity, but which at the same time have +already revealed themselves to him with such lucidity that he cannot +evade them, and must inevitably take up this or that relation to them, +by recognizing or not recognizing them. It is in relation to these same +truths that man's freedom is manifested. + +Every man finds himself in his life in relation to truth in the position +of a wanderer who walks in the dark by the light of a lantern moving in +front of him: he does not see what is not yet illuminated by the +lantern, nor what he has passed over and what is again enveloped in +darkness, and it is not in his power to change his relation to either; +but he sees, no matter on what part of the path he may stand, what is +illuminated by the lantern, and it is always in his power to select one +side of the road on which he is moving, or the other. + +For every man there always are truths, invisible to him, which have not +yet been revealed to his mental vision; there are other truths, already +outlived, forgotten, and made his own; and there are certain truths +which have arisen before him in the light of his reason and which demand +his recognition. It is in the recognition or non-recognition of these +truths that there is manifested what we cognize as our freedom. + +The whole difficulty and seeming insolubility of the question about +man's freedom is due to tins, that the men who decide this question +present man to themselves as immovable in relation to truth. + +Man is unquestionably not free, if we represent him to ourselves as +immovable, if we forget that the life of man and of humanity is only a +constant motion from darkness to the light, from the lower stage of the +truth to the higher, from a truth which is mixed with errors to a truth +which is more free from them. + +Man would not be free, if he did not know any truth, and he would not be +free and would not even have any idea about freedom, if the whole truth, +which is to guide him in his life, were revealed to him in all its +purity, without any admixture of errors. + +But man is not immovable in relation to truth, and every individual man, +as also all humanity, in proportion to its movement in life, constantly +cognizes a greater and ever greater degree of the truth, and is more and +more freed from error. Therefore men always are in a threefold relation +to truth: one set of truths has been so acquired by them that these +truths have become unconscious causes of their actions, others have only +begun to be revealed to them, and the third, though not yet made their +own, are revealed to them with such a degree of lucidity that +inevitably, in one way or another, they must take up some stand in +relation to them, must recognize them, or not. + +It is in the recognition or non-recognition of these truths that man is +free. + +Man's freedom does not consist in this, that he can, independently of +the course of his life and of causes already existing and acting upon +him, commit arbitrary acts, but in this, that he can, by recognizing the +truth revealed to him and by professing it, become a free and joyous +performer of the eternal and infinite act performed by God or the life +of the world, and can, by not recognizing the truth, become its slave +and be forcibly and painfully drawn in a direction which he does not +wish to take. + +Truth not only indicates the path of human life, but also reveals that +one path, on which human life can proceed. And so all men will +inevitably, freely or not freely, walk on the path of life: some, by +naturally doing the work of life destined for them, others, by +involuntarily submitting to the law of life. Man's freedom is in this +choice. + +Such a freedom, within such narrow limits, seems to men to be so +insignificant that they do not notice it: some (the determinists) +consider this portion of freedom to be so small that they do not +recognize it at all; others, the defenders of complete freedom, having +in view their imaginary freedom, neglect this seemingly insignificant +degree of freedom. The freedom which is contained between the limits of +the ignorance of the truth and of the recognition of a certain degree of +it does not seem to men to be any freedom, the more so since, whether a +man wants to recognize the truth which is revealed to him or not, he inevitably will be compelled to fulfil it in life. -A horse that is hitched with others to a wagon is not free -not to walk in front of the wagon; and if it will not draw, -the wagon will strike its legs, and it will go whither the -wagon goes, and will pull it involuntarily. But, in spite of -this limited freedom, it is free itself to pull the wagon or -be dragged along by it. The same is true of man. - -Whether this freedom is great or not, in comparison with -that fantastic freedom which we should like to have, this -freedom unquestionably exists, and this freedom is freedom, -and in this freedom is contained the good which is -accessible to man. - -Not only does this freedom give the good to men, but it is -also the one means for the accomplishment of the work which -is done by the life of the world. - -According to Christ's teaching, the man who sees the meaning -of life in the sphere in which it is not free, in the sphere -of consequences, that is, of acts, has not the true life. -According to the Christian teaching, only he has the true -life who has transferred his life into that sphere in which -it is free, into the sphere of causes, that is, of the -cognition and the recognition of the truth which is -revealing itself, of its profession, and so inevitably of -its consequent fulfilment as the wagon's following the -horse. - -In placing his life in carnal things, a man does that work -which is always in dependence on spatial and temporal -causes, which are outside of him. He himself really does -nothing,---it only seems to him that he is doing something, -but in reality all those things which it seems to him he is -doing are done through him by a higher power, and he is not -the creator of life, but its slave; but in placing his life -in the recognition and profession of the truth that is -revealed to him, he, by uniting with the source of the -universal life, does not do personal, private works, which -depend on conditions of space and time, but works which have -no causes and themselves form causes of everything else, and +A horse that is hitched with others to a wagon is not free not to walk +in front of the wagon; and if it will not draw, the wagon will strike +its legs, and it will go whither the wagon goes, and will pull it +involuntarily. But, in spite of this limited freedom, it is free itself +to pull the wagon or be dragged along by it. The same is true of man. + +Whether this freedom is great or not, in comparison with that fantastic +freedom which we should like to have, this freedom unquestionably +exists, and this freedom is freedom, and in this freedom is contained +the good which is accessible to man. + +Not only does this freedom give the good to men, but it is also the one +means for the accomplishment of the work which is done by the life of +the world. + +According to Christ's teaching, the man who sees the meaning of life in +the sphere in which it is not free, in the sphere of consequences, that +is, of acts, has not the true life. According to the Christian teaching, +only he has the true life who has transferred his life into that sphere +in which it is free, into the sphere of causes, that is, of the +cognition and the recognition of the truth which is revealing itself, of +its profession, and so inevitably of its consequent fulfilment as the +wagon's following the horse. + +In placing his life in carnal things, a man does that work which is +always in dependence on spatial and temporal causes, which are outside +of him. He himself really does nothing,---it only seems to him that he +is doing something, but in reality all those things which it seems to +him he is doing are done through him by a higher power, and he is not +the creator of life, but its slave; but in placing his life in the +recognition and profession of the truth that is revealed to him, he, by +uniting with the source of the universal life, does not do personal, +private works, which depend on conditions of space and time, but works +which have no causes and themselves form causes of everything else, and have an endless, unlimited significance. -By neglecting the essence of the true life, which consists -in the recognition and profession of the truth, and by -straining their efforts for the amelioration of their lives -upon external acts, the men of the pagan life-conception are -like men on a boat, who, in order to reach their goal, -should put out the boiler, which keeps them from -distributing the oarsmen, and, instead of proceeding under -steam and screw, should try in a storm to row with oars that -do not reach to the water. - -The kingdom of God is taken by force and only those who make -an effort get hold of it,---and it is this effort of the -renunciation of the change of the external conditions for -the recognition and profession of truth which is the effort -by means of which the kingdom of God is taken and which must -and can be made in our time. - -Men need but understand this: they need but stop troubling -themselves about external and general matters, in which they -are not free, and use but one hundredth part of the energy, -which they employ on external matters, on what they are free -in, on the recognition and profession of the truth which -stands before them, on the emancipation of themselves and of -men from the lie and hypocrisy which conceal the truth, in -order that without effort and struggle there should at once -be destroyed that false structure of life which torments -people and threatens them with still worse calamities, and -that there should be realized that kingdom of God or at -least that first step of it, for which men are already +By neglecting the essence of the true life, which consists in the +recognition and profession of the truth, and by straining their efforts +for the amelioration of their lives upon external acts, the men of the +pagan life-conception are like men on a boat, who, in order to reach +their goal, should put out the boiler, which keeps them from +distributing the oarsmen, and, instead of proceeding under steam and +screw, should try in a storm to row with oars that do not reach to the +water. + +The kingdom of God is taken by force and only those who make an effort +get hold of it,---and it is this effort of the renunciation of the +change of the external conditions for the recognition and profession of +truth which is the effort by means of which the kingdom of God is taken +and which must and can be made in our time. + +Men need but understand this: they need but stop troubling themselves +about external and general matters, in which they are not free, and use +but one hundredth part of the energy, which they employ on external +matters, on what they are free in, on the recognition and profession of +the truth which stands before them, on the emancipation of themselves +and of men from the lie and hypocrisy which conceal the truth, in order +that without effort and struggle there should at once be destroyed that +false structure of life which torments people and threatens them with +still worse calamities, and that there should be realized that kingdom +of God or at least that first step of it, for which men are already prepared according to their consciousness. -Just as one jolt is sufficient for a liquid that is -saturated with salt suddenly to become crystallized, thus, -perhaps, the smallest effort will suffice for the truth, -which is already revealed to men, to take hold of hundreds, -thousands, millions of men,---for a public opinion to be -established to correspond to the consciousness, and, in -consequence of its establishment, for the whole structure of -the existing life to be changed. And it depends on us to -make this effort. - -If every one of us would only try to understand and -recognize the Christian truth which surrounds us on all -sides in the most varied forms, and begs for admission into -our souls; if we only stopped lying and pretending that we -do not see that truth, or that we wish to carry it out, only -not in what it first of all demands of us; if we only -recognized the truth which calls us and boldly professed it, -we should immediately see that hundreds, thousands, millions -of men are in the same condition that we are in, that they -see the truth, just as we do, and that, like us, they are -only waiting for others to recognize it. - -If men only stopped being hypocritical, they would see at -once that the cruel structure of life, which alone binds -them and which presents itself to them as something firm, -indispensable, and sacred, as something established by God, -is shaking already and is holding only by that lie of -hypocrisy by means of which we and our like support it. - -But if this is so, if it is true that it depends on us to -destroy the existing order of life, have we the right to -destroy it, without knowing clearly what we shall put in its -place? What will become of the world, if the existing order -of things shall be destroyed? - -"What will be there, beyond the walls of the world which we -leave behind?" (Herzen's words.) - -"Terror seizes us,---the void, expanse, freedom... How can -we go, without knowing whither? How can we lose, without -seeing any acquisition? - -"If Columbus had reflected thus, he would never have weighed -anchor. It is madness to sail the sea without knowing the -way, to sail the sea no one has traversed before, to make -for a country, the existence of which is a question. With -this madness he discovered a new world. Of course, if the -nations could move from one *hôtel garni* into another, a -better one, it would be easier, but unfortunately there is -no one to arrange the new quarters. In the future it is -worse than on the sea,---there is nothing,---it will be what -circumstances and men make it. - -"If you are satisfied with the old world, try to preserve -it,---it is very decrepit and will not last long; but if it -is unbearable for you to live in an eternal discord between -convictions and life, to think one thing and do another, -come out from under the whited mediaeval vaults at your -risk. I know full well that this is not easy. It is not a -trifling matter to part from everything a man is accustomed -to from the day of his birth, with what he has grown up with -from childhood. Men are prepared for terrible sacrifices, -but not for those which the new life demands of them. Are -they prepared to sacrifice modern civilization, their manner -of life, their religion, the accepted conventional morality? -Are they prepared to be deprived of all the fruits which -have been worked out with such efforts, of the fruits we -have been boasting of for three centuries, to be deprived of -all the comforts and charms of our existence, to prefer wild -youth to cultured debility, to break up their inherited -palace from the mere pleasure of taking part in laying the -foundation for the new house, which will, no doubt, be built -after us?" (Herzen, Vol. V, p. 55.) - -Thus spoke almost half a century ago a Russian author, who -with his penetrating mind even at that time saw very clearly -what now is seen by the least reflecting man of our -time,---the impossibility of continuing life on its former -foundations, and the necessity for establishing some new -forms of life. - -From the simplest, lowest, worldly point of view it is -already clear that it is madness to remain under the vault -of a building, which does not sustain its weight, and that -it is necessary to leave it. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a -state which is more wretched than the one in which is now -the Christian world, with its nations armed against each -other, with the ever growing taxes for the support of these -ever growing armaments, with the hatred of the labouring -class against the rich, which is being fanned more and more, -with Damocles's sword of war hanging over all, and ready at -any moment to drop down, and inevitably certain to do so -sooner or later. - -Hardly any revolution can be more wretched for the great -mass of the people than the constantly existing order, or -rather disorder, of our life, with its habitual sacrifices -of unnatural labour, poverty, drunkenness, debauchery, and -with all the horrors of an imminent war, which is in one -year to swallow up more victims than all the revolutions of -the present century. - -What will happen with us, with all humanity, when each one -of us shall perform what is demanded of him by God through -the conscience which is implanted in him? Will there be no -calamity, because, finding myself entirely in the power of -the Master, I in the establishment built up and guided by -Him shall do what He commands me to do, but what seems -strange to me, who do not know the final ends of the Master? - -But it is not even this question as to what will happen that -troubles men, when they hesitate to do the Master's will: -they are troubled by the question as to how they could live -without those conditions of their life which they have -become accustomed to, and which we call science, art, -civilization, culture. We feel for ourselves personally the -whole burden of the present life, we even see that the order -of this life, if continued, will inevitably cause our ruin; -but, at the same time, we want the conditions of this our -life, which have grown out of it, our arts, sciences, -civilizations, cultures, to remain unharmed in the change of -our life. It is as though a man living in an old house, -suffering from the cold and the inconveniences of this -house, and knowing, besides, that this house is about to -fall in, should consent to its rebuilding only on condition -that he should not come out of it: a condition which is -equal to a refusal to rebuild the house. "What if I leave -the house, for a time am deprived of all comforts, and the -new house will not be built at all or will be built in such -a way that it will lack what I am used to?" - -But, if the material is on hand and the builders are there, -all the probabilities are in favour of the new house being -better than the old one, and at the same time there is not -only a probability, but even a certainty, that the old house -will fall in and will crush those who are left in it. -Whether the former, habitual conditions of life will be -retained, whether they will be destroyed, or whether -entirely new ones, better ones, will arise, it is inevitably -necessary to leave the old conditions of our life, which -have become impossible and pernicious, and to go ahead and -meet the future conditions. - -"The sciences, arts, civilizations, and cultures will -disappear!" - -All these are only different manifestations of the truth, -and the imminent change is to take place only in the name of -an approximation to truth and its realization. How, then, -can the manifestations of the truth disappear in consequence -of its realization? They will be different, better, and -higher, but they will by no means be destroyed. What will be -destroyed in them is what is false; but what there was of +Just as one jolt is sufficient for a liquid that is saturated with salt +suddenly to become crystallized, thus, perhaps, the smallest effort will +suffice for the truth, which is already revealed to men, to take hold of +hundreds, thousands, millions of men,---for a public opinion to be +established to correspond to the consciousness, and, in consequence of +its establishment, for the whole structure of the existing life to be +changed. And it depends on us to make this effort. + +If every one of us would only try to understand and recognize the +Christian truth which surrounds us on all sides in the most varied +forms, and begs for admission into our souls; if we only stopped lying +and pretending that we do not see that truth, or that we wish to carry +it out, only not in what it first of all demands of us; if we only +recognized the truth which calls us and boldly professed it, we should +immediately see that hundreds, thousands, millions of men are in the +same condition that we are in, that they see the truth, just as we do, +and that, like us, they are only waiting for others to recognize it. + +If men only stopped being hypocritical, they would see at once that the +cruel structure of life, which alone binds them and which presents +itself to them as something firm, indispensable, and sacred, as +something established by God, is shaking already and is holding only by +that lie of hypocrisy by means of which we and our like support it. + +But if this is so, if it is true that it depends on us to destroy the +existing order of life, have we the right to destroy it, without knowing +clearly what we shall put in its place? What will become of the world, +if the existing order of things shall be destroyed? + +"What will be there, beyond the walls of the world which we leave +behind?" (Herzen's words.) + +"Terror seizes us,---the void, expanse, freedom... How can we go, +without knowing whither? How can we lose, without seeing any +acquisition? + +"If Columbus had reflected thus, he would never have weighed anchor. It +is madness to sail the sea without knowing the way, to sail the sea no +one has traversed before, to make for a country, the existence of which +is a question. With this madness he discovered a new world. Of course, +if the nations could move from one *hôtel garni* into another, a better +one, it would be easier, but unfortunately there is no one to arrange +the new quarters. In the future it is worse than on the sea,---there is +nothing,---it will be what circumstances and men make it. + +"If you are satisfied with the old world, try to preserve it,---it is +very decrepit and will not last long; but if it is unbearable for you to +live in an eternal discord between convictions and life, to think one +thing and do another, come out from under the whited mediaeval vaults at +your risk. I know full well that this is not easy. It is not a trifling +matter to part from everything a man is accustomed to from the day of +his birth, with what he has grown up with from childhood. Men are +prepared for terrible sacrifices, but not for those which the new life +demands of them. Are they prepared to sacrifice modern civilization, +their manner of life, their religion, the accepted conventional +morality? Are they prepared to be deprived of all the fruits which have +been worked out with such efforts, of the fruits we have been boasting +of for three centuries, to be deprived of all the comforts and charms of +our existence, to prefer wild youth to cultured debility, to break up +their inherited palace from the mere pleasure of taking part in laying +the foundation for the new house, which will, no doubt, be built after +us?" (Herzen, Vol. V, p. 55.) + +Thus spoke almost half a century ago a Russian author, who with his +penetrating mind even at that time saw very clearly what now is seen by +the least reflecting man of our time,---the impossibility of continuing +life on its former foundations, and the necessity for establishing some +new forms of life. + +From the simplest, lowest, worldly point of view it is already clear +that it is madness to remain under the vault of a building, which does +not sustain its weight, and that it is necessary to leave it. Indeed, it +is hard to imagine a state which is more wretched than the one in which +is now the Christian world, with its nations armed against each other, +with the ever growing taxes for the support of these ever growing +armaments, with the hatred of the labouring class against the rich, +which is being fanned more and more, with Damocles's sword of war +hanging over all, and ready at any moment to drop down, and inevitably +certain to do so sooner or later. + +Hardly any revolution can be more wretched for the great mass of the +people than the constantly existing order, or rather disorder, of our +life, with its habitual sacrifices of unnatural labour, poverty, +drunkenness, debauchery, and with all the horrors of an imminent war, +which is in one year to swallow up more victims than all the revolutions +of the present century. + +What will happen with us, with all humanity, when each one of us shall +perform what is demanded of him by God through the conscience which is +implanted in him? Will there be no calamity, because, finding myself +entirely in the power of the Master, I in the establishment built up and +guided by Him shall do what He commands me to do, but what seems strange +to me, who do not know the final ends of the Master? + +But it is not even this question as to what will happen that troubles +men, when they hesitate to do the Master's will: they are troubled by +the question as to how they could live without those conditions of their +life which they have become accustomed to, and which we call science, +art, civilization, culture. We feel for ourselves personally the whole +burden of the present life, we even see that the order of this life, if +continued, will inevitably cause our ruin; but, at the same time, we +want the conditions of this our life, which have grown out of it, our +arts, sciences, civilizations, cultures, to remain unharmed in the +change of our life. It is as though a man living in an old house, +suffering from the cold and the inconveniences of this house, and +knowing, besides, that this house is about to fall in, should consent to +its rebuilding only on condition that he should not come out of it: a +condition which is equal to a refusal to rebuild the house. "What if I +leave the house, for a time am deprived of all comforts, and the new +house will not be built at all or will be built in such a way that it +will lack what I am used to?" + +But, if the material is on hand and the builders are there, all the +probabilities are in favour of the new house being better than the old +one, and at the same time there is not only a probability, but even a +certainty, that the old house will fall in and will crush those who are +left in it. Whether the former, habitual conditions of life will be +retained, whether they will be destroyed, or whether entirely new ones, +better ones, will arise, it is inevitably necessary to leave the old +conditions of our life, which have become impossible and pernicious, and +to go ahead and meet the future conditions. + +"The sciences, arts, civilizations, and cultures will disappear!" + +All these are only different manifestations of the truth, and the +imminent change is to take place only in the name of an approximation to +truth and its realization. How, then, can the manifestations of the +truth disappear in consequence of its realization? They will be +different, better, and higher, but they will by no means be destroyed. +What will be destroyed in them is what is false; but what there was of truth in them will only blossom out and be strengthened. ## 6 -Come to your senses, men, and believe in the Gospel, in the -teaching of the good. If you shall not come to your senses, -you will all perish, as perished the men who were killed by -Pilate, as perished those who were crushed by the tower of -Siloam, as perished millions and millions of men, slayers -and slain, executioners and executed, tormentors and -tormented, and as foolishly perished that man who filled up -his granaries and prepared himself to live for a long time, -and died the same night on which he wanted to begin his new -life. "Come to your senses and believe in the Gospel," -Christ said eighteen hundred years ago, and says now with -even greater convincingness, through the utter wretchedness -and irrationality of our life, predicted by Him and now an +Come to your senses, men, and believe in the Gospel, in the teaching of +the good. If you shall not come to your senses, you will all perish, as +perished the men who were killed by Pilate, as perished those who were +crushed by the tower of Siloam, as perished millions and millions of +men, slayers and slain, executioners and executed, tormentors and +tormented, and as foolishly perished that man who filled up his +granaries and prepared himself to live for a long time, and died the +same night on which he wanted to begin his new life. "Come to your +senses and believe in the Gospel," Christ said eighteen hundred years +ago, and says now with even greater convincingness, through the utter +wretchedness and irrationality of our life, predicted by Him and now an accomplished fact. -Now, after so many centuries of vain endeavours to make our -life secure by means of the pagan institution of violence, -it would seem to be absolutely obvious to everybody that all -the efforts which are directed toward this end only -introduce new dangers into our personal and social life, but -in no way make it secure. - -No matter what we may call ourselves; what attires we may -put on; what we may smear ourselves with, and in the -presence of what priests; how many millions we may have; -what protection there may be along our path; how many -policemen may protect our wealth; how much we may execute -the so-called revolutionary malefactors and anarchists; what -exploits we ourselves may perform; what kingdoms we may -found, and what fortresses and towers we may erect, from -that of Babel to that of Eiffel,---we are all of us at all -times confronted by two inevitable conditions of our life, -which destroy its whole meaning: (1) by death, which may -overtake any of us at any moment, and (2) by the -impermanency of all the acts performed by us, which are -rapidly and tracklessly destroyed. No matter what we may do, -whether we found kingdoms, build palaces, erect monuments, -compose poems, it is but for a short time, and everything -passes, without leaving a trace. And so, no matter how much -we may conceal the fact from ourselves, we cannot help but -see that the meaning of our life can be neither in our -personal, carnal existence, which is subject to inevitable. -sufferings and inevitable death, nor in any worldly -institution or structure. - -Whoever you, the reader of these lines, may be, think of -your condition and of your duties,---not of the condition of -landowner, merchant, judge, emperor, president, minister, -priest, soldier, which people temporarily ascribe to you, -nor of those imaginary duties, which these positions impose -upon you, but of that real, eternal condition of existence, -which by somebody's will after a whole eternity of -non-existence has issued forth from unconsciousness, and at -any moment by somebody's will may return to where you come -from. Think of your duties,---not of your imaginary duties -as a landowner to your estate, of a merchant to your -capital, of an emperor, minister, official to the -state,---but of those real duties of yours, which result -from your real condition of existence, which is called into -life and is endowed with reason and love. Are you doing what -is demanded of you by Him who has sent you into the world, -and to whom you will very soon return? Are you doing what He -is demanding of you? Are you doing what is right, when, -being a landowner, manufacturer, you take away the -productions of labour from the poor, building up your life -on this spoliation, or when, being a ruler, a judge, you do -violence to people and sentence them to capital punishment, -or when, being a soldier, you prepare yourself for wars, and +Now, after so many centuries of vain endeavours to make our life secure +by means of the pagan institution of violence, it would seem to be +absolutely obvious to everybody that all the efforts which are directed +toward this end only introduce new dangers into our personal and social +life, but in no way make it secure. + +No matter what we may call ourselves; what attires we may put on; what +we may smear ourselves with, and in the presence of what priests; how +many millions we may have; what protection there may be along our path; +how many policemen may protect our wealth; how much we may execute the +so-called revolutionary malefactors and anarchists; what exploits we +ourselves may perform; what kingdoms we may found, and what fortresses +and towers we may erect, from that of Babel to that of Eiffel,---we are +all of us at all times confronted by two inevitable conditions of our +life, which destroy its whole meaning: (1) by death, which may overtake +any of us at any moment, and (2) by the impermanency of all the acts +performed by us, which are rapidly and tracklessly destroyed. No matter +what we may do, whether we found kingdoms, build palaces, erect +monuments, compose poems, it is but for a short time, and everything +passes, without leaving a trace. And so, no matter how much we may +conceal the fact from ourselves, we cannot help but see that the meaning +of our life can be neither in our personal, carnal existence, which is +subject to inevitable. sufferings and inevitable death, nor in any +worldly institution or structure. + +Whoever you, the reader of these lines, may be, think of your condition +and of your duties,---not of the condition of landowner, merchant, +judge, emperor, president, minister, priest, soldier, which people +temporarily ascribe to you, nor of those imaginary duties, which these +positions impose upon you, but of that real, eternal condition of +existence, which by somebody's will after a whole eternity of +non-existence has issued forth from unconsciousness, and at any moment +by somebody's will may return to where you come from. Think of your +duties,---not of your imaginary duties as a landowner to your estate, of +a merchant to your capital, of an emperor, minister, official to the +state,---but of those real duties of yours, which result from your real +condition of existence, which is called into life and is endowed with +reason and love. Are you doing what is demanded of you by Him who has +sent you into the world, and to whom you will very soon return? Are you +doing what He is demanding of you? Are you doing what is right, when, +being a landowner, manufacturer, you take away the productions of labour +from the poor, building up your life on this spoliation, or when, being +a ruler, a judge, you do violence to people and sentence them to capital +punishment, or when, being a soldier, you prepare yourself for wars, and wage war, plunder, and kill? You say that the world is constructed that way, that this is -unavoidable, that you are not doing this of your own will, -but that you are compelled to do so. But is it possible that -the aversion for human sufferings, for tortures, for the -killing of men should be so deeply implanted in you; that -you should be so imbued with the necessity for loving men -and the still more potent necessity of being loved by them; -that you should clearly see that only with the recognition -of the equality of all men, with their mutual service, is -possible the realization of the greatest good which is -accessible to men; that your heart, your intellect, the -religion professed by you should tell you the same; that -science should tell you the same,---and that, in spite of -it, you should be by some very dim, complex considerations -compelled to do what is precisely opposed to it? that, being -a landowner or a capitalist, you should be compelled to -construct all your life on the oppression of the masses? or -that, being an emperor or a president, you should be -compelled to command troops, that is, to be the leader and -guide of murderers? or that, being a government official, -you should be compelled by violence to take from poor people -their hard-earned money, in order to use it yourself and -give it to the rich? or that, being a judge, a juror, you -should be compelled to sentence erring men to tortures and -to death, because the truth has not been revealed to them? -or that,---a thing on which all the evil of the world is -chiefly based,---you, every young man, should be compelled -to become a soldier and, renouncing your own will and all -human sentiments, should promise, at the will of men who are -alien to you, to kill all those men whom they may command -you to kill? +unavoidable, that you are not doing this of your own will, but that you +are compelled to do so. But is it possible that the aversion for human +sufferings, for tortures, for the killing of men should be so deeply +implanted in you; that you should be so imbued with the necessity for +loving men and the still more potent necessity of being loved by them; +that you should clearly see that only with the recognition of the +equality of all men, with their mutual service, is possible the +realization of the greatest good which is accessible to men; that your +heart, your intellect, the religion professed by you should tell you the +same; that science should tell you the same,---and that, in spite of it, +you should be by some very dim, complex considerations compelled to do +what is precisely opposed to it? that, being a landowner or a +capitalist, you should be compelled to construct all your life on the +oppression of the masses? or that, being an emperor or a president, you +should be compelled to command troops, that is, to be the leader and +guide of murderers? or that, being a government official, you should be +compelled by violence to take from poor people their hard-earned money, +in order to use it yourself and give it to the rich? or that, being a +judge, a juror, you should be compelled to sentence erring men to +tortures and to death, because the truth has not been revealed to them? +or that,---a thing on which all the evil of the world is chiefly +based,---you, every young man, should be compelled to become a soldier +and, renouncing your own will and all human sentiments, should promise, +at the will of men who are alien to you, to kill all those men whom they +may command you to kill? It cannot be. -Even though men tell you that all this is necessary for the -maintenance of the existing structure of life; that the -existing order, with its wretchedness, hunger, prisons, -executions, armies, wars, is indispensable for society; -that, if this order should be impaired, there would come -worse calamities,---it is only those to whom this structure -of life is advantageous that tell you this, while -those---and there are ten times as many of them---who are -suffering from this structure of life think and say the very -opposite. You yourself know in the depth of your heart that -this is not true, that the existing structure of life has -outlived its time and soon must be reconstructed on new -principles, and that, therefore, there is no need to -maintain it, while sacrificing human sentiments. - -Above all else, even if we admit that the existing order is -necessary, why do you feel yourself obliged to maintain it, -while trampling on all better human sentiments? Who has -engaged you as a nurse to this decaying order? Neither -society, nor the state, nor any men have ever asked you to -maintain this order, by holding the place of landowner, -merchant, emperor, priest, soldier, which you now hold; and -you know full well that you took up your position, not at -all with the self-sacrificing purpose of maintaining an -order of life which is indispensable for the good of men, -but for your own sake,---for the sake of your greed, love of -glory, ambition, indolence, cowardice. If you did not want -this position, you would not be doing everything it is -necessary for you to do all the time, in order to keep your -place. Just try to stop doing those complex, cruel, tricky, -and mean things, which you are doing without cessation in -order to keep your place, and you will immediately lose it. -Just try, while being a ruler or an official, to stop lying, -committing base acts, taking part in acts of violence, in -executions; being a priest, to stop deceiving; being a -soldier, to stop killing; being a landowner, a manufacturer, -to stop protecting your property by means of the courts and -of violence,---and you will at once lose the position which, -you say, is imposed upon you, and which, you say, weighs +Even though men tell you that all this is necessary for the maintenance +of the existing structure of life; that the existing order, with its +wretchedness, hunger, prisons, executions, armies, wars, is +indispensable for society; that, if this order should be impaired, there +would come worse calamities,---it is only those to whom this structure +of life is advantageous that tell you this, while those---and there are +ten times as many of them---who are suffering from this structure of +life think and say the very opposite. You yourself know in the depth of +your heart that this is not true, that the existing structure of life +has outlived its time and soon must be reconstructed on new principles, +and that, therefore, there is no need to maintain it, while sacrificing +human sentiments. + +Above all else, even if we admit that the existing order is necessary, +why do you feel yourself obliged to maintain it, while trampling on all +better human sentiments? Who has engaged you as a nurse to this decaying +order? Neither society, nor the state, nor any men have ever asked you +to maintain this order, by holding the place of landowner, merchant, +emperor, priest, soldier, which you now hold; and you know full well +that you took up your position, not at all with the self-sacrificing +purpose of maintaining an order of life which is indispensable for the +good of men, but for your own sake,---for the sake of your greed, love +of glory, ambition, indolence, cowardice. If you did not want this +position, you would not be doing everything it is necessary for you to +do all the time, in order to keep your place. Just try to stop doing +those complex, cruel, tricky, and mean things, which you are doing +without cessation in order to keep your place, and you will immediately +lose it. Just try, while being a ruler or an official, to stop lying, +committing base acts, taking part in acts of violence, in executions; +being a priest, to stop deceiving; being a soldier, to stop killing; +being a landowner, a manufacturer, to stop protecting your property by +means of the courts and of violence,---and you will at once lose the +position which, you say, is imposed upon you, and which, you say, weighs heavily upon you. -It cannot be that a man should be placed against his will in -a position which is contrary to his consciousness. - -If you are in this position, it is not because that is -necessary for anybody, but because you want it. And so, -knowing that this position is directly opposed to your -heart, your reason, your faith, and even to science, in -which you believe, you cannot help but meditate on the -question as to whether you are doing right by staying in -this position and, above all, by trying to justify it. - -You might be able to risk making a mistake, if you had time -to see and correct your mistake, and if that in the name of -which you should take your risk had any importance. But when -you know for certain that you may vanish any second, without -the slightest chance of correcting the mistake, either for -your own sake or for the sake of those whom you will draw -into your error, and when you know, besides, that, no matter -what you may do in the external structure of the world, it -will disappear very soon, and just as certainly as you -yourself, without leaving any trace, it is obvious to you -that you have no reason to risk such a terrible mistake. - -This is all so simple and so clear, if only we did not with -hypocrisy bedim the truth which is revealed to us. - -"Share with others what you have, do not amass any wealth, -do not glorify yourself, do not plunder, do not torture, do -not kill any one, do not do unto others what you do not wish -to have done to yourself," was said, not eighteen hundred, -but five thousand years ago, and there could be no doubt as -to the truth of this law, if there were no hypocrisy: it -would have been impossible, if not to do so, at least not to -recognize that we ought always to do so, and that he who -does not do so is doing wrong. - -But you say that there also exists a common good, for which -it is possible and necessary to depart from these -rules,---for the common good it is right to kill, torture, -rob. It is better for one man to perish, than that a whole -nation should perish, you say, like Caiaphas, and you sign -one, two, three death-warrants, load your gun for that man -who is to perish for the common good, put him in prison, -take away his property. You say that you do these cruel -things, because you feel yourself to be a man of society, -the state, under obligation to serve it and to carry out its -laws, a landowner, a judge, an emperor, a soldier. But, -besides your belonging to a certain state, and the -obligations resulting therefrom, you also belong to the -infinite life of the world and to God, and have certain -obligations resulting from this relation. - -And as your duties, which result from your belonging to a -certain family, a certain society, are always subordinated -to the higher duties, which result from your belonging to -the state, so also your obligations, which result from your -belonging to the state, must necessarily be subordinated to -the duties which result from your belonging to the life of -the world, to God. - -And as it would be senseless to cut down the -telegraph-posts, in order to provide fuel for the family or -society, and to increase its well-being, because this would -violate the laws which preserve the good of the state, so it -would be senseless, for the purpose of making the state -secure and increasing its well-being, to torture, execute, -kill a man, because this violates the unquestionable laws -which preserve the good of the world. - -Your obligations, which result from your belonging to the -state, cannot help but be subordinated to the higher eternal -duty, which results from your belonging to the infinite life -of the world, or to God, and cannot contradict them, as -Christ's disciples said eighteen hundred years ago: "Whether -it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more -than unto God, judge ye" (Acts 4:19), and, "We ought to obey -God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). - -You are assured that, in order not to violate the constantly -changing order, which was yesterday established by some men -in some corner of the world, you must commit acts of torture -and murder separate men, who violate the eternal, invariable -order of the universe, which was established by God, or by -reason. Can that be? - -And so you cannot help but meditate on your position as a -landowner, merchant, judge, emperor, president, minister, -priest, soldier, which is connected with oppression, -violence, deception, tortures, and murders, and you cannot -help but recognize their illegality. - -I do not say that, if you are a landowner, you should at -once give your land to the poor; if you are a capitalist, -you should at once give your money, your factory to the -labourers; if you are a king, a minister, an official, a -judge, a general, you should at once give up your -advantageous position; if you are a soldier (that is, occupy -a position on which all violence is based), you should, in -spite of all the dangers of a refusal to obey, at once throw -up your position. +It cannot be that a man should be placed against his will in a position +which is contrary to his consciousness. + +If you are in this position, it is not because that is necessary for +anybody, but because you want it. And so, knowing that this position is +directly opposed to your heart, your reason, your faith, and even to +science, in which you believe, you cannot help but meditate on the +question as to whether you are doing right by staying in this position +and, above all, by trying to justify it. + +You might be able to risk making a mistake, if you had time to see and +correct your mistake, and if that in the name of which you should take +your risk had any importance. But when you know for certain that you may +vanish any second, without the slightest chance of correcting the +mistake, either for your own sake or for the sake of those whom you will +draw into your error, and when you know, besides, that, no matter what +you may do in the external structure of the world, it will disappear +very soon, and just as certainly as you yourself, without leaving any +trace, it is obvious to you that you have no reason to risk such a +terrible mistake. + +This is all so simple and so clear, if only we did not with hypocrisy +bedim the truth which is revealed to us. + +"Share with others what you have, do not amass any wealth, do not +glorify yourself, do not plunder, do not torture, do not kill any one, +do not do unto others what you do not wish to have done to yourself," +was said, not eighteen hundred, but five thousand years ago, and there +could be no doubt as to the truth of this law, if there were no +hypocrisy: it would have been impossible, if not to do so, at least not +to recognize that we ought always to do so, and that he who does not do +so is doing wrong. + +But you say that there also exists a common good, for which it is +possible and necessary to depart from these rules,---for the common good +it is right to kill, torture, rob. It is better for one man to perish, +than that a whole nation should perish, you say, like Caiaphas, and you +sign one, two, three death-warrants, load your gun for that man who is +to perish for the common good, put him in prison, take away his +property. You say that you do these cruel things, because you feel +yourself to be a man of society, the state, under obligation to serve it +and to carry out its laws, a landowner, a judge, an emperor, a soldier. +But, besides your belonging to a certain state, and the obligations +resulting therefrom, you also belong to the infinite life of the world +and to God, and have certain obligations resulting from this relation. + +And as your duties, which result from your belonging to a certain +family, a certain society, are always subordinated to the higher duties, +which result from your belonging to the state, so also your obligations, +which result from your belonging to the state, must necessarily be +subordinated to the duties which result from your belonging to the life +of the world, to God. + +And as it would be senseless to cut down the telegraph-posts, in order +to provide fuel for the family or society, and to increase its +well-being, because this would violate the laws which preserve the good +of the state, so it would be senseless, for the purpose of making the +state secure and increasing its well-being, to torture, execute, kill a +man, because this violates the unquestionable laws which preserve the +good of the world. + +Your obligations, which result from your belonging to the state, cannot +help but be subordinated to the higher eternal duty, which results from +your belonging to the infinite life of the world, or to God, and cannot +contradict them, as Christ's disciples said eighteen hundred years ago: +"Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than +unto God, judge ye" (Acts 4:19), and, "We ought to obey God rather than +men" (Acts 5:29). + +You are assured that, in order not to violate the constantly changing +order, which was yesterday established by some men in some corner of the +world, you must commit acts of torture and murder separate men, who +violate the eternal, invariable order of the universe, which was +established by God, or by reason. Can that be? + +And so you cannot help but meditate on your position as a landowner, +merchant, judge, emperor, president, minister, priest, soldier, which is +connected with oppression, violence, deception, tortures, and murders, +and you cannot help but recognize their illegality. + +I do not say that, if you are a landowner, you should at once give your +land to the poor; if you are a capitalist, you should at once give your +money, your factory to the labourers; if you are a king, a minister, an +official, a judge, a general, you should at once give up your +advantageous position; if you are a soldier (that is, occupy a position +on which all violence is based), you should, in spite of all the dangers +of a refusal to obey, at once throw up your position. If you do so, you will do the very best possible; but it may -happen---and this is most likely---that you will not have -the strength to do so: you have connections, a family, -inferiors, superiors; you may be under such a strong -influence of temptations that you will not be able to do -so,---but you are always able to recognize the truth as a -truth, and to stop lying. Do not assert that you remain a -landed proprietor, a manufacturer, a merchant, an artist, a -writer, because this is useful for men; that you are serving -as a governor, a prosecutor, a king, not because that gives -you pleasure and you are used to it, but for the good of -humanity; that you continue to be a soldier, not because you -are afraid of punishment, but because you consider the army -indispensable for the security of human life; you can always -keep from lying thus to yourself and to men, and you are not -only able, but even must do so, because in this alone, in -the liberation of oneself from the lie and in the profession -of the truth, does the only good of your life consist. - -You need but do this, and your position will inevitably -change of its own accord. There is one, only one thing in -which you are free and almighty in your life,---everything -else is beyond your power. This thing is, to recognize the -truth and to profess it. - -Suddenly, because just such miserable, erring people like -yourself have assured you that you are a soldier, emperor, -landed proprietor, rich man, priest, general, you begin to -do evil, which is obviously and unquestionably contrary to -your reason and heart: you begin to torture, rob, kill men, -to build up your life on their sufferings, and, above all, -instead of doing the one work of your life,---recognizing -and professing the truth which is known to you,---you -carefully pretend that you do not know it, and conceal it -from yourself and from others, doing thus what is directly -opposed to the one thing to which you have been called. - -And under what conditions do you do that? You, who are -likely to die at any moment, sign a sentence of death, -declare war, go to war, sit in judgment, torture, fleece the -labourers, live luxuriously among the poor, and teach weak, -trustful people that this must be so, and that in this does -the duty of men consist, and you are running the chance -that, at the moment that you are doing this, a bacterium or -a bullet will fly into you, and you will rattle in your -throat and die, and will for ever be deprived of the -possibility of correcting and changing the evil which you -have done to others and, above all, to yourself, losing for -nothing the life which is given to you but once in a whole -eternity, without having done the one thing which you ought -unquestionably to have done. - -However simple and old this may be, and however much we may -have stupefied ourselves by hypocrisy and the -auto-suggestion resulting from it, nothing can destroy the -absolute certainty of that simple and clear truth that no -external efforts can safeguard our life, which is inevitably -connected with unavoidable sufferings and which ends in -still more unavoidable death, that may come to each of us at -any moment, and that, therefore, our life can have no other -meaning than the fulfilment, at any moment, of what is -wanted from us by the power that sent us into life and gave -us in this life one sure guide,---our rational +happen---and this is most likely---that you will not have the strength +to do so: you have connections, a family, inferiors, superiors; you may +be under such a strong influence of temptations that you will not be +able to do so,---but you are always able to recognize the truth as a +truth, and to stop lying. Do not assert that you remain a landed +proprietor, a manufacturer, a merchant, an artist, a writer, because +this is useful for men; that you are serving as a governor, a +prosecutor, a king, not because that gives you pleasure and you are used +to it, but for the good of humanity; that you continue to be a soldier, +not because you are afraid of punishment, but because you consider the +army indispensable for the security of human life; you can always keep +from lying thus to yourself and to men, and you are not only able, but +even must do so, because in this alone, in the liberation of oneself +from the lie and in the profession of the truth, does the only good of +your life consist. + +You need but do this, and your position will inevitably change of its +own accord. There is one, only one thing in which you are free and +almighty in your life,---everything else is beyond your power. This +thing is, to recognize the truth and to profess it. + +Suddenly, because just such miserable, erring people like yourself have +assured you that you are a soldier, emperor, landed proprietor, rich +man, priest, general, you begin to do evil, which is obviously and +unquestionably contrary to your reason and heart: you begin to torture, +rob, kill men, to build up your life on their sufferings, and, above +all, instead of doing the one work of your life,---recognizing and +professing the truth which is known to you,---you carefully pretend that +you do not know it, and conceal it from yourself and from others, doing +thus what is directly opposed to the one thing to which you have been +called. + +And under what conditions do you do that? You, who are likely to die at +any moment, sign a sentence of death, declare war, go to war, sit in +judgment, torture, fleece the labourers, live luxuriously among the +poor, and teach weak, trustful people that this must be so, and that in +this does the duty of men consist, and you are running the chance that, +at the moment that you are doing this, a bacterium or a bullet will fly +into you, and you will rattle in your throat and die, and will for ever +be deprived of the possibility of correcting and changing the evil which +you have done to others and, above all, to yourself, losing for nothing +the life which is given to you but once in a whole eternity, without +having done the one thing which you ought unquestionably to have done. + +However simple and old this may be, and however much we may have +stupefied ourselves by hypocrisy and the auto-suggestion resulting from +it, nothing can destroy the absolute certainty of that simple and clear +truth that no external efforts can safeguard our life, which is +inevitably connected with unavoidable sufferings and which ends in still +more unavoidable death, that may come to each of us at any moment, and +that, therefore, our life can have no other meaning than the fulfilment, +at any moment, of what is wanted from us by the power that sent us into +life and gave us in this life one sure guide,---our rational consciousness. And so this power cannot want from us what is irrational and -impossible,---the establishment of our temporal, carnal -life, the life of society or of the state. This power -demands of us what alone is certain and rational and -possible,---our serving the kingdom of God, that is, our -cooperation in the establishment of the greatest union of -everything living, which is possible only in the truth, -and,therefore, the recognition of the truth revealed to us, -and the profession of it, precisely what alone is always in -our power. - -"Seek ye the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all -these things shall be added unto you." The only meaning of -man's life consists in serving the world by cooperating in -the establishment of the kingdom of God; but this service -can be rendered only through the recognition of the truth, -and the profession of it, by every separate individual. - -"The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither -shall they say, Lo here! or, Lo there! for, behold, the -kingdom of God is within you." +impossible,---the establishment of our temporal, carnal life, the life +of society or of the state. This power demands of us what alone is +certain and rational and possible,---our serving the kingdom of God, +that is, our cooperation in the establishment of the greatest union of +everything living, which is possible only in the truth, and,therefore, +the recognition of the truth revealed to us, and the profession of it, +precisely what alone is always in our power. + +"Seek ye the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things +shall be added unto you." The only meaning of man's life consists in +serving the world by cooperating in the establishment of the kingdom of +God; but this service can be rendered only through the recognition of +the truth, and the profession of it, by every separate individual. + +"The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, +Lo here! or, Lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." *Yasnaya Polyana, May 14, 1893.* -[^1]: Khomyakov's definition of the church, which has some - currency among Russians, does not mend matters, if we - recognize with Khomyakov that the Orthodox is the one - true church. Khomyakov asserts that the church is an - assembly of men (of all, both the clergy and the - congregation) united in love, and that the truth is - revealed only to those who are united in love (Let us - love one another, so that in agreement of thought, and - so forth), and that such a church is the one which, in - the first place, recognizes the Nicene symbol, and, in - the second, after the division of the churches, does not - recognize the Pope and the new dogmas. But with such a - definition of the church there appears a still greater - difficulty in harmonizing, as Khomyakov wants to, the - church which is united in love with the church which - recognizes the Nicene symbol and the justice of Photius. - Thus Khomyakov's assertion that this church, which is - united in love and so is holy, is the church as - professed by the Greek hierarchy, is still more - arbitrary than the assertions of the Catholics and of - the ancient Orthodox. If we admit the concept of the - church in the sense which Khomyakov gives to it, that - is, as an assembly of men united in love and in truth, - then everything a man can say in relation to this - assembly is, that it is very desirable to be a member of - such an assembly, if such exists, that is, to be in love - and truth; but there are no external signs by which it - would be possible to count oneself or another in with - this holy assembly, or to exclude oneself from it, as no - external institution can correspond to this - concept.---*Author's Note.* +[^1]: Khomyakov's definition of the church, which has some currency + among Russians, does not mend matters, if we recognize with + Khomyakov that the Orthodox is the one true church. Khomyakov + asserts that the church is an assembly of men (of all, both the + clergy and the congregation) united in love, and that the truth is + revealed only to those who are united in love (Let us love one + another, so that in agreement of thought, and so forth), and that + such a church is the one which, in the first place, recognizes the + Nicene symbol, and, in the second, after the division of the + churches, does not recognize the Pope and the new dogmas. But with + such a definition of the church there appears a still greater + difficulty in harmonizing, as Khomyakov wants to, the church which + is united in love with the church which recognizes the Nicene symbol + and the justice of Photius. Thus Khomyakov's assertion that this + church, which is united in love and so is holy, is the church as + professed by the Greek hierarchy, is still more arbitrary than the + assertions of the Catholics and of the ancient Orthodox. If we admit + the concept of the church in the sense which Khomyakov gives to it, + that is, as an assembly of men united in love and in truth, then + everything a man can say in relation to this assembly is, that it is + very desirable to be a member of such an assembly, if such exists, + that is, to be in love and truth; but there are no external signs by + which it would be possible to count oneself or another in with this + holy assembly, or to exclude oneself from it, as no external + institution can correspond to this concept.---*Author's Note.* diff --git a/src/man-thursday.md b/src/man-thursday.md index ccc90c4..282132c 100644 --- a/src/man-thursday.md +++ b/src/man-thursday.md @@ -1,246 +1,212 @@ # The Two Poets of Saffron Park -The suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, -as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset. It was built of a -bright brick throughout; its skyline was fantastic, and even -its ground plan was wild. It had been the outburst of a -speculative builder, faintly tinged with art, who called its -architecture sometimes Elizabethan and sometimes Queen Anne, -apparently under the impression that the two sovereigns were -identical. It was described with some justice as an artistic -colony, though it never in any definable way produced any -art. But although its pretensions to be an intellectual -centre were a little vague, its pretensions to be a pleasant -place were quite indisputable. The stranger who looked for -the first time at the quaint red houses could only think how -very oddly shaped the people must be who could fit in to -them. Nor when he met the people was he disappointed in this -respect. The place was not only pleasant, but perfect, if -once he could regard it not as a deception but rather as a -dream. Even if the people were not "artists," the whole was -nevertheless artistic. That young man with the long, auburn -hair and the impudent face---that young man was not really a -poet; but surely he was a poem. That old gentleman with the -wild, white beard and the wild, white hat---that venerable -humbug was not really a philosopher; but at least he was the -cause of philosophy in others. That scientific gentleman -with the bald, egg-like head and the bare, bird-like neck -had no real right to the airs of science that he assumed. He -had not discovered anything new in biology; but what -biological creature could he have discovered more singular -than himself? Thus, and thus only, the whole place had -properly to be regarded; it had to be considered not so much -as a workshop for artists, but as a frail but finished work -of art. A man who stepped into its social atmosphere felt as -if he had stepped into a written comedy. - -More especially this attractive unreality fell upon it about -nightfall, when the extravagant roofs were dark against the -afterglow and the whole insane village seemed as separate as -a drifting cloud. This again was more strongly true of the -many nights of local festivity, when the little gardens were -often illuminated, and the big Chinese lanterns glowed in -the dwarfish trees like some fierce and monstrous fruit. And -this was strongest of all on one particular evening, still -vaguely remembered in the locality, of which the -auburn-haired poet was the hero. It was not by any means the -only evening of which he was the hero. On many nights those -passing by his little back garden might hear his high, -didactic voice laying down the law to men and particularly -to women. The attitude of women in such cases was indeed one -of the paradoxes of the place. Most of the women were of the -kind vaguely called emancipated, and professed some protest -against male supremacy. Yet these new women would always pay -to a man the extravagant compliment which no ordinary woman -ever pays to him, that of listening while he is talking. And -Mr. Lucian Gregory, the red-haired poet, was really (in some -sense) a man worth listening to, even if one only laughed at -the end of it. He put the old cant of the lawlessness of art -and the art of lawlessness with a certain impudent freshness -which gave at least a momentary pleasure. He was helped in -some degree by the arresting oddity of his appearance, which -he worked, as the phrase goes, for all it was worth. His -dark red hair parted in the middle was literally like a -woman's, and curved into the slow curls of a virgin in a -pre-Raphaelite picture. From within this almost saintly -oval, however, his face projected suddenly broad and brutal, -the chin carried forward with a look of cockney contempt. -This combination at once tickled and terrified the nerves of -a neurotic population. He seemed like a walking blasphemy, a -blend of the angel and the ape. - -This particular evening, if it is remembered for nothing -else, will be remembered in that place for its strange -sunset. It looked like the end of the world. All the heaven -seemed covered with a quite vivid and palpable plumage; you -could only say that the sky was full of feathers, and of -feathers that almost brushed the face. Across the great part -of the dome they were grey, with the strangest tints of -violet and mauve and an unnatural pink or pale green; but -towards the west the whole grew past description, -transparent and passionate, and the last red-hot plumes of -it covered up the sun like something too good to be seen. -The whole was so close about the earth, as to express -nothing but a violent secrecy. The very empyrean seemed to -be a secret. It expressed that splendid smallness which is -the soul of local patriotism. The very sky seemed small. - -I say that there are some inhabitants who may remember the -evening if only by that oppressive sky. There are others who -may remember it because it marked the first appearance in -the place of the second poet of Saffron Park. For a long -time the red-haired revolutionary had reigned without a -rival; it was upon the night of the sunset that his solitude -suddenly ended. The new poet, who introduced himself by the -name of Gabriel Syme, was a very mild-looking mortal, with a -fair, pointed beard and faint, yellow hair. But an -impression grew that he was less meek than he looked. He -signalised his entrance by differing with the established -poet, Gregory, upon the whole nature of poetry. He said that -he (Syme) was a poet of law, a poet of order; nay, he said -he was a poet of respectability. So all the Saffron Parkers -looked at him as if he had that moment fallen out of that -impossible sky. - -In fact, Mr. Lucian Gregory, the anarchic poet, connected -the two events. - -"It may well be," he said, in his sudden lyrical manner, "it -may well be on such a night of clouds and cruel colours that -there is brought forth upon the earth such a portent as a -respectable poet. You say you are a poet of law; I say you -are a contradiction in terms. I only wonder there were not -comets and earthquakes on the night you appeared in this +The suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, as red and +ragged as a cloud of sunset. It was built of a bright brick throughout; +its skyline was fantastic, and even its ground plan was wild. It had +been the outburst of a speculative builder, faintly tinged with art, who +called its architecture sometimes Elizabethan and sometimes Queen Anne, +apparently under the impression that the two sovereigns were identical. +It was described with some justice as an artistic colony, though it +never in any definable way produced any art. But although its +pretensions to be an intellectual centre were a little vague, its +pretensions to be a pleasant place were quite indisputable. The stranger +who looked for the first time at the quaint red houses could only think +how very oddly shaped the people must be who could fit in to them. Nor +when he met the people was he disappointed in this respect. The place +was not only pleasant, but perfect, if once he could regard it not as a +deception but rather as a dream. Even if the people were not "artists," +the whole was nevertheless artistic. That young man with the long, +auburn hair and the impudent face---that young man was not really a +poet; but surely he was a poem. That old gentleman with the wild, white +beard and the wild, white hat---that venerable humbug was not really a +philosopher; but at least he was the cause of philosophy in others. That +scientific gentleman with the bald, egg-like head and the bare, +bird-like neck had no real right to the airs of science that he assumed. +He had not discovered anything new in biology; but what biological +creature could he have discovered more singular than himself? Thus, and +thus only, the whole place had properly to be regarded; it had to be +considered not so much as a workshop for artists, but as a frail but +finished work of art. A man who stepped into its social atmosphere felt +as if he had stepped into a written comedy. + +More especially this attractive unreality fell upon it about nightfall, +when the extravagant roofs were dark against the afterglow and the whole +insane village seemed as separate as a drifting cloud. This again was +more strongly true of the many nights of local festivity, when the +little gardens were often illuminated, and the big Chinese lanterns +glowed in the dwarfish trees like some fierce and monstrous fruit. And +this was strongest of all on one particular evening, still vaguely +remembered in the locality, of which the auburn-haired poet was the +hero. It was not by any means the only evening of which he was the hero. +On many nights those passing by his little back garden might hear his +high, didactic voice laying down the law to men and particularly to +women. The attitude of women in such cases was indeed one of the +paradoxes of the place. Most of the women were of the kind vaguely +called emancipated, and professed some protest against male supremacy. +Yet these new women would always pay to a man the extravagant compliment +which no ordinary woman ever pays to him, that of listening while he is +talking. And Mr. Lucian Gregory, the red-haired poet, was really (in +some sense) a man worth listening to, even if one only laughed at the +end of it. He put the old cant of the lawlessness of art and the art of +lawlessness with a certain impudent freshness which gave at least a +momentary pleasure. He was helped in some degree by the arresting oddity +of his appearance, which he worked, as the phrase goes, for all it was +worth. His dark red hair parted in the middle was literally like a +woman's, and curved into the slow curls of a virgin in a pre-Raphaelite +picture. From within this almost saintly oval, however, his face +projected suddenly broad and brutal, the chin carried forward with a +look of cockney contempt. This combination at once tickled and terrified +the nerves of a neurotic population. He seemed like a walking blasphemy, +a blend of the angel and the ape. + +This particular evening, if it is remembered for nothing else, will be +remembered in that place for its strange sunset. It looked like the end +of the world. All the heaven seemed covered with a quite vivid and +palpable plumage; you could only say that the sky was full of feathers, +and of feathers that almost brushed the face. Across the great part of +the dome they were grey, with the strangest tints of violet and mauve +and an unnatural pink or pale green; but towards the west the whole grew +past description, transparent and passionate, and the last red-hot +plumes of it covered up the sun like something too good to be seen. The +whole was so close about the earth, as to express nothing but a violent +secrecy. The very empyrean seemed to be a secret. It expressed that +splendid smallness which is the soul of local patriotism. The very sky +seemed small. + +I say that there are some inhabitants who may remember the evening if +only by that oppressive sky. There are others who may remember it +because it marked the first appearance in the place of the second poet +of Saffron Park. For a long time the red-haired revolutionary had +reigned without a rival; it was upon the night of the sunset that his +solitude suddenly ended. The new poet, who introduced himself by the +name of Gabriel Syme, was a very mild-looking mortal, with a fair, +pointed beard and faint, yellow hair. But an impression grew that he was +less meek than he looked. He signalised his entrance by differing with +the established poet, Gregory, upon the whole nature of poetry. He said +that he (Syme) was a poet of law, a poet of order; nay, he said he was a +poet of respectability. So all the Saffron Parkers looked at him as if +he had that moment fallen out of that impossible sky. + +In fact, Mr. Lucian Gregory, the anarchic poet, connected the two +events. + +"It may well be," he said, in his sudden lyrical manner, "it may well be +on such a night of clouds and cruel colours that there is brought forth +upon the earth such a portent as a respectable poet. You say you are a +poet of law; I say you are a contradiction in terms. I only wonder there +were not comets and earthquakes on the night you appeared in this garden." -The man with the meek blue eyes and the pale, pointed beard -endured these thunders with a certain submissive solemnity. -The third party of the group, Gregory's sister Rosamond, who -had her brother's braids of red hair, but a kindlier face -underneath them, laughed with such mixture of admiration and -disapproval as she gave commonly to the family oracle. +The man with the meek blue eyes and the pale, pointed beard endured +these thunders with a certain submissive solemnity. The third party of +the group, Gregory's sister Rosamond, who had her brother's braids of +red hair, but a kindlier face underneath them, laughed with such mixture +of admiration and disapproval as she gave commonly to the family oracle. Gregory resumed in high oratorical good-humour. -"An artist is identical with an anarchist," he cried. "You -might transpose the words anywhere. An anarchist is an -artist. The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he -prefers a great moment to everything. He sees how much more -valuable is one burst of blazing light, one peal of perfect -thunder, than the mere common bodies of a few shapeless -policemen. An artist disregards all governments, abolishes -all conventions. The poet delights in disorder only. If it -were not so, the most poetical thing in the world would be -the Underground Railway." +"An artist is identical with an anarchist," he cried. "You might +transpose the words anywhere. An anarchist is an artist. The man who +throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to +everything. He sees how much more valuable is one burst of blazing +light, one peal of perfect thunder, than the mere common bodies of a few +shapeless policemen. An artist disregards all governments, abolishes all +conventions. The poet delights in disorder only. If it were not so, the +most poetical thing in the world would be the Underground Railway." "So it is," said Mr. Syme. -"Nonsense!" said Gregory, who was very rational when anyone -else attempted paradox. "Why do all the clerks and navvies -in the railway trains look so sad and tired, so very sad and -tired? I will tell you. It is because they know that the -train is going right. It is because they know that whatever -place they have taken a ticket for that place they will -reach. It is because after they have passed Sloane Square -they know that the next station must be Victoria, and -nothing but Victoria. Oh, their wild rapture! oh, their eyes -like stars and their souls again in Eden, if the next -station were unaccountably Baker Street!" - -"It is you who are unpoetical," replied the poet Syme. "If -what you say of clerks is true, they can only be as prosaic -as your poetry. The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; -the gross, obvious thing is to miss it. We feel it is epical -when man with one wild arrow strikes a distant bird. Is it -not also epical when man with one wild engine strikes a -distant station? Chaos is dull; because in chaos the train -might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street or to Bagdad. But -man is a magician, and his whole magic is in this, that he -does say Victoria, and lo! it is Victoria. No, take your -books of mere poetry and prose; let me read a time table, -with tears of pride. Take your Byron, who commemorates the -defeats of man; give me Bradshaw, who commemorates his -victories. Give me Bradshaw, I say!" +"Nonsense!" said Gregory, who was very rational when anyone else +attempted paradox. "Why do all the clerks and navvies in the railway +trains look so sad and tired, so very sad and tired? I will tell you. It +is because they know that the train is going right. It is because they +know that whatever place they have taken a ticket for that place they +will reach. It is because after they have passed Sloane Square they know +that the next station must be Victoria, and nothing but Victoria. Oh, +their wild rapture! oh, their eyes like stars and their souls again in +Eden, if the next station were unaccountably Baker Street!" + +"It is you who are unpoetical," replied the poet Syme. "If what you say +of clerks is true, they can only be as prosaic as your poetry. The rare, +strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious thing is to miss +it. We feel it is epical when man with one wild arrow strikes a distant +bird. Is it not also epical when man with one wild engine strikes a +distant station? Chaos is dull; because in chaos the train might indeed +go anywhere, to Baker Street or to Bagdad. But man is a magician, and +his whole magic is in this, that he does say Victoria, and lo! it is +Victoria. No, take your books of mere poetry and prose; let me read a +time table, with tears of pride. Take your Byron, who commemorates the +defeats of man; give me Bradshaw, who commemorates his victories. Give +me Bradshaw, I say!" "Must you go?" inquired Gregory sarcastically. -"I tell you," went on Syme with passion, "that every time a -train comes in I feel that it has broken past batteries of -besiegers, and that man has won a battle against chaos. You -say contemptuously that when one has left Sloane Square one -must come to Victoria. I say that one might do a thousand -things instead, and that whenever I really come there I have -the sense of hair-breadth escape. And when I hear the guard -shout out the word 'Victoria,' it is not an unmeaning word. -It is to me the cry of a herald announcing conquest. It is -to me indeed 'Victoria;' it is the victory of Adam." - -Gregory wagged his heavy, red head with a slow and sad -smile. +"I tell you," went on Syme with passion, "that every time a train comes +in I feel that it has broken past batteries of besiegers, and that man +has won a battle against chaos. You say contemptuously that when one has +left Sloane Square one must come to Victoria. I say that one might do a +thousand things instead, and that whenever I really come there I have +the sense of hair-breadth escape. And when I hear the guard shout out +the word 'Victoria,' it is not an unmeaning word. It is to me the cry of +a herald announcing conquest. It is to me indeed 'Victoria;' it is the +victory of Adam." -"And even then," he said, "we poets always ask the question, -'And what is Victoria now that you have got there?' You -think Victoria is like the New Jerusalem. We know that the -New Jerusalem will only be like Victoria. Yes, the poet will -be discontented even in the streets of heaven. The poet is -always in revolt." - -"There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical -about being in revolt? You might as well say that it is -poetical to be sea-sick. Being sick is a revolt. Both being -sick and being rebellious may be the wholesome thing on -certain desperate occasions; but I'm hanged if I can see why -they are poetical. Revolt in the abstract is---revolting. -It's mere vomiting." - -The girl winced for a flash at the unpleasant word, but Syme -was too hot to heed her. - -"It is things going right," he cried, "that is poetical! Our -digestions, for instance, going sacredly and silently right, -that is the foundation of all poetry. Yes, the most poetical -thing, more poetical than the flowers, more poetical than -the stars---the most poetical thing in the world is not -being sick." - -"Really," said Gregory superciliously, "the examples you -choose---" - -"I beg your pardon," said Syme grimly, "I forgot we had -abolished all conventions." - -For the first time a red patch appeared on Gregory's -forehead. +Gregory wagged his heavy, red head with a slow and sad smile. + +"And even then," he said, "we poets always ask the question, 'And what +is Victoria now that you have got there?' You think Victoria is like the +New Jerusalem. We know that the New Jerusalem will only be like +Victoria. Yes, the poet will be discontented even in the streets of +heaven. The poet is always in revolt." + +"There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical about being +in revolt? You might as well say that it is poetical to be sea-sick. +Being sick is a revolt. Both being sick and being rebellious may be the +wholesome thing on certain desperate occasions; but I'm hanged if I can +see why they are poetical. Revolt in the abstract is---revolting. It's +mere vomiting." + +The girl winced for a flash at the unpleasant word, but Syme was too hot +to heed her. + +"It is things going right," he cried, "that is poetical! Our digestions, +for instance, going sacredly and silently right, that is the foundation +of all poetry. Yes, the most poetical thing, more poetical than the +flowers, more poetical than the stars---the most poetical thing in the +world is not being sick." + +"Really," said Gregory superciliously, "the examples you choose---" + +"I beg your pardon," said Syme grimly, "I forgot we had abolished all +conventions." + +For the first time a red patch appeared on Gregory's forehead. -"You don't expect me," he said, "to revolutionise society on -this lawn?" +"You don't expect me," he said, "to revolutionise society on this lawn?" Syme looked straight into his eyes and smiled sweetly. -"No, I don't," he said; "but I suppose that if you were -serious about your anarchism, that is exactly what you would -do." +"No, I don't," he said; "but I suppose that if you were serious about +your anarchism, that is exactly what you would do." -Gregory's big bull's eyes blinked suddenly like those of an -angry lion, and one could almost fancy that his red mane -rose. +Gregory's big bull's eyes blinked suddenly like those of an angry lion, +and one could almost fancy that his red mane rose. -"Don't you think, then," he said in a dangerous voice, "that -I am serious about my anarchism?" +"Don't you think, then," he said in a dangerous voice, "that I am +serious about my anarchism?" "I beg your pardon?" said Syme. -"Am I not serious about my anarchism?" cried Gregory, with -knotted fists. +"Am I not serious about my anarchism?" cried Gregory, with knotted +fists. "My dear fellow!" said Syme, and strolled away. -With surprise, but with a curious pleasure, he found -Rosamond Gregory still in his company. +With surprise, but with a curious pleasure, he found Rosamond Gregory +still in his company. -"Mr. Syme," she said, "do the people who talk like you and -my brother often mean what they say? Do you mean what you -say now?" +"Mr. Syme," she said, "do the people who talk like you and my brother +often mean what they say? Do you mean what you say now?" Syme smiled. @@ -248,265 +214,234 @@ Syme smiled. "What do you mean?" asked the girl, with grave eyes. -"My dear Miss Gregory," said Syme gently, "there are many -kinds of sincerity and insincerity. When you say 'thank you' -for the salt, do you mean what you say? No. When you say -'the world is round,' do you mean what you say? No. It is -true, but you don't mean it. Now, sometimes a man like your -brother really finds a thing he does mean. It may be only a -half-truth, quarter-truth, tenth-truth; but then he says -more than he means---from sheer force of meaning it." - -She was looking at him from under level brows; her face was -grave and open, and there had fallen upon it the shadow of -that unreasoning responsibility which is at the bottom of -the most frivolous woman, the maternal watch which is as old -as the world. +"My dear Miss Gregory," said Syme gently, "there are many kinds of +sincerity and insincerity. When you say 'thank you' for the salt, do you +mean what you say? No. When you say 'the world is round,' do you mean +what you say? No. It is true, but you don't mean it. Now, sometimes a +man like your brother really finds a thing he does mean. It may be only +a half-truth, quarter-truth, tenth-truth; but then he says more than he +means---from sheer force of meaning it." + +She was looking at him from under level brows; her face was grave and +open, and there had fallen upon it the shadow of that unreasoning +responsibility which is at the bottom of the most frivolous woman, the +maternal watch which is as old as the world. "Is he really an anarchist, then?" she asked. -"Only in that sense I speak of," replied Syme; "or if you -prefer it, in that nonsense." +"Only in that sense I speak of," replied Syme; "or if you prefer it, in +that nonsense." She drew her broad brows together and said abruptly--- "He wouldn't really use---bombs or that sort of thing?" -Syme broke into a great laugh, that seemed too large for his -slight and somewhat dandified figure. +Syme broke into a great laugh, that seemed too large for his slight and +somewhat dandified figure. "Good Lord, no!" he said, "that has to be done anonymously." -And at that the corners of her own mouth broke into a smile, -and she thought with a simultaneous pleasure of Gregory's -absurdity and of his safety. - -Syme strolled with her to a seat in the corner of the -garden, and continued to pour out his opinions. For he was a -sincere man, and in spite of his superficial airs and -graces, at root a humble one. And it is always the humble -man who talks too much; the proud man watches himself too -closely. He defended respectability with violence and -exaggeration. He grew passionate in his praise of tidiness -and propriety. All the time there was a smell of lilac all -round him. Once he heard very faintly in some distant street -a barrel-organ begin to play, and it seemed to him that his -heroic words were moving to a tiny tune from under or beyond -the world. - -He stared and talked at the girl's red hair and amused face -for what seemed to be a few minutes; and then, feeling that -the groups in such a place should mix, rose to his feet. To -his astonishment, he discovered the whole garden empty. -Everyone had gone long ago, and he went himself with a -rather hurried apology. He left with a sense of champagne in -his head, which he could not afterwards explain. In the wild -events which were to follow this girl had no part at all; he -never saw her again until all his tale was over. And yet, in -some indescribable way, she kept recurring like a motive in -music through all his mad adventures afterwards, and the -glory of her strange hair ran like a red thread through -those dark and ill-drawn tapestries of the night. For what -followed was so improbable, that it might well have been a -dream. - -When Syme went out into the starlit street, he found it for -the moment empty. Then he realised (in some odd way) that -the silence was rather a living silence than a dead one. -Directly outside the door stood a street lamp, whose gleam -gilded the leaves of the tree that bent out over the fence -behind him. About a foot from the lamp-post stood a figure -almost as rigid and motionless as the lam.p-post itself. The -tall hat and long frock-coat were black; the face, in an -abrupt shadow, was almost as dark. Only a fringe of fiery -hair against the light, and also something aggressive in the -attitude, proclaimed that it was the poet Gregory. He had -something of the look of a masked bravo waiting sword in -hand for his foe. - -He made a sort of doubtful salute, which Syme somewhat more -formally returned. - -"I was waiting for you," said Gregory. "Might I have a -moment's conversation?" - -"Certainly. About what?" asked Syme in a sort of weak -wonder. - -Gregory struck out with his stick at the lamp-post, and then -at the tree. - -"About *this* and *this*," he cried;"about order and -anarchy. There is your precious order, that lean, iron lamp, -ugly and barren; and there is anarchy, rich, living, -reproducing itself---there is anarchy, splendid in green and -gold." - -"All the same," replied Syme patiently, "just at present you -only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when -you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree." Then -after a pause he said, "But may I ask if you have been -standing out here in the dark only to resume our little -argument?" - -"No," cried out Gregory, in a voice that rang down the -street, "I did not stand here to resume our argument, but to -end it for ever." - -The silence fell again, and Syme, though he understood -nothing, listened instinctively for something serious. -Gregory began in a smooth voice and with a rather -bewildering smile. - -"Mr. Syme," he said, "this evening you succeeded in doing -something rather remarkable. You did something to me that no -man born of woman has ever succeeded in doing before." +And at that the corners of her own mouth broke into a smile, and she +thought with a simultaneous pleasure of Gregory's absurdity and of his +safety. + +Syme strolled with her to a seat in the corner of the garden, and +continued to pour out his opinions. For he was a sincere man, and in +spite of his superficial airs and graces, at root a humble one. And it +is always the humble man who talks too much; the proud man watches +himself too closely. He defended respectability with violence and +exaggeration. He grew passionate in his praise of tidiness and +propriety. All the time there was a smell of lilac all round him. Once +he heard very faintly in some distant street a barrel-organ begin to +play, and it seemed to him that his heroic words were moving to a tiny +tune from under or beyond the world. + +He stared and talked at the girl's red hair and amused face for what +seemed to be a few minutes; and then, feeling that the groups in such a +place should mix, rose to his feet. To his astonishment, he discovered +the whole garden empty. Everyone had gone long ago, and he went himself +with a rather hurried apology. He left with a sense of champagne in his +head, which he could not afterwards explain. In the wild events which +were to follow this girl had no part at all; he never saw her again +until all his tale was over. And yet, in some indescribable way, she +kept recurring like a motive in music through all his mad adventures +afterwards, and the glory of her strange hair ran like a red thread +through those dark and ill-drawn tapestries of the night. For what +followed was so improbable, that it might well have been a dream. + +When Syme went out into the starlit street, he found it for the moment +empty. Then he realised (in some odd way) that the silence was rather a +living silence than a dead one. Directly outside the door stood a street +lamp, whose gleam gilded the leaves of the tree that bent out over the +fence behind him. About a foot from the lamp-post stood a figure almost +as rigid and motionless as the lam.p-post itself. The tall hat and long +frock-coat were black; the face, in an abrupt shadow, was almost as +dark. Only a fringe of fiery hair against the light, and also something +aggressive in the attitude, proclaimed that it was the poet Gregory. He +had something of the look of a masked bravo waiting sword in hand for +his foe. + +He made a sort of doubtful salute, which Syme somewhat more formally +returned. + +"I was waiting for you," said Gregory. "Might I have a moment's +conversation?" + +"Certainly. About what?" asked Syme in a sort of weak wonder. + +Gregory struck out with his stick at the lamp-post, and then at the +tree. + +"About *this* and *this*," he cried;"about order and anarchy. There is +your precious order, that lean, iron lamp, ugly and barren; and there is +anarchy, rich, living, reproducing itself---there is anarchy, splendid +in green and gold." + +"All the same," replied Syme patiently, "just at present you only see +the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the +lamp by the light of the tree." Then after a pause he said, "But may I +ask if you have been standing out here in the dark only to resume our +little argument?" + +"No," cried out Gregory, in a voice that rang down the street, "I did +not stand here to resume our argument, but to end it for ever." + +The silence fell again, and Syme, though he understood nothing, listened +instinctively for something serious. Gregory began in a smooth voice and +with a rather bewildering smile. + +"Mr. Syme," he said, "this evening you succeeded in doing something +rather remarkable. You did something to me that no man born of woman has +ever succeeded in doing before." "Indeed!" -"Now I remember," resumed Gregory reflectively, "one other -person succeeded in doing it. The captain of a penny steamer -(if I remember correctly) at Southend. You have irritated -me." +"Now I remember," resumed Gregory reflectively, "one other person +succeeded in doing it. The captain of a penny steamer (if I remember +correctly) at Southend. You have irritated me." "I am very sorry," replied Syme with gravity. -"I am afraid my fury and your insult are too shocking to be -wiped out even with an apology," said Gregory very calmly. -"No duel could wipe it out. If I struck you dead I could not -wipe it out. There is only one way by which that insult can -be erased, and that way I choose. I am going, at the -possible sacrifice of my life and honour, to *prove* to you -that you were wrong in what you said." +"I am afraid my fury and your insult are too shocking to be wiped out +even with an apology," said Gregory very calmly. "No duel could wipe it +out. If I struck you dead I could not wipe it out. There is only one way +by which that insult can be erased, and that way I choose. I am going, +at the possible sacrifice of my life and honour, to *prove* to you that +you were wrong in what you said." "In what I said?" "You said I was not serious about being an anarchist." -"There are degrees of seriousness," replied Syme. "I have -never doubted that you were perfectly sincere in this sense, -that you thought what you said well worth saying, that you -thought a paradox might wake men up to a neglected truth." +"There are degrees of seriousness," replied Syme. "I have never doubted +that you were perfectly sincere in this sense, that you thought what you +said well worth saying, that you thought a paradox might wake men up to +a neglected truth." Gregory stared at him steadily and painfully. -"And in no other sense," he asked, "you think me serious? -You think me a *flâneur* who lets fall occasional truths. -You do not think that in a deeper, a more deadly sense, I am -serious." +"And in no other sense," he asked, "you think me serious? You think me a +*flâneur* who lets fall occasional truths. You do not think that in a +deeper, a more deadly sense, I am serious." Syme struck his stick violently on the stones of the road. -"Serious!" he cried. "Good Lord! is this street serious? Are -these damned Chinese lanterns serious? Is the whole caboodle -serious? One comes here and talks a pack of bosh, and -perhaps some sense as well, but I should think very little -of a man who didn't keep something in the background of his -life that was more serious than all this talking---something -more serious, whether it was religion or only drink." +"Serious!" he cried. "Good Lord! is this street serious? Are these +damned Chinese lanterns serious? Is the whole caboodle serious? One +comes here and talks a pack of bosh, and perhaps some sense as well, but +I should think very little of a man who didn't keep something in the +background of his life that was more serious than all this +talking---something more serious, whether it was religion or only +drink." -"Very well," said Gregory, his face darkening, "you shall -see something more serious than either drink or religion." +"Very well," said Gregory, his face darkening, "you shall see something +more serious than either drink or religion." -Syme stood waiting with his usual air of mildness until -Gregory again opened his lips. +Syme stood waiting with his usual air of mildness until Gregory again +opened his lips. -"You spoke just now of having a religion. Is it really true -that you have one?" +"You spoke just now of having a religion. Is it really true that you +have one?" -"Oh," said Syme with a beaming smile, "we are all Catholics -now." +"Oh," said Syme with a beaming smile, "we are all Catholics now." -"Then may I ask you to swear by whatever gods or saints your -religion involves that you will *not* reveal what I am now -going to tell you to any son of Adam, and especially not to -the police? Will you swear that! If you will take upon -yourself this awful abnegation, if you will consent to -burden your soul with a vow that you should never make and a -knowledge you should never dream about, I will promise you -in return---" +"Then may I ask you to swear by whatever gods or saints your religion +involves that you will *not* reveal what I am now going to tell you to +any son of Adam, and especially not to the police? Will you swear that! +If you will take upon yourself this awful abnegation, if you will +consent to burden your soul with a vow that you should never make and a +knowledge you should never dream about, I will promise you in return---" -"You will promise me in return?" inquired Syme, as the other -paused. +"You will promise me in return?" inquired Syme, as the other paused. "I will promise you a very entertaining evening." Syme suddenly took off his hat. -"Your offer," he said, "is far too idiotic to be declined. -You say that a poet is always an anarchist. I disagree; but -I hope at least that he is always a sportsman. Permit me, -here and now, to swear as a Christian, and promise as a good -comrade and a fellow-artist, that I will not report anything -of this, whatever it is, to the police. And now, in the name -of Colney Hatch, what is it?" - -"I think," said Gregory, with placid irrelevancy, "that we -will call a cab." - -He gave two long whistles, and a hansom came rattling down -the road. The two got into it in silence. Gregory gave -through the trap the address of an obscure public-house on -the Chiswick bank of the river. The cab whisked itself away -again, and in it these two fantastics quitted their +"Your offer," he said, "is far too idiotic to be declined. You say that +a poet is always an anarchist. I disagree; but I hope at least that he +is always a sportsman. Permit me, here and now, to swear as a Christian, +and promise as a good comrade and a fellow-artist, that I will not +report anything of this, whatever it is, to the police. And now, in the +name of Colney Hatch, what is it?" + +"I think," said Gregory, with placid irrelevancy, "that we will call a +cab." + +He gave two long whistles, and a hansom came rattling down the road. The +two got into it in silence. Gregory gave through the trap the address of +an obscure public-house on the Chiswick bank of the river. The cab +whisked itself away again, and in it these two fantastics quitted their fantastic town. # The Secret of Gabriel Syme -The cab pulled up before a particularly dreary and greasy -beer-shop, into which Gregory rapidly conducted his -companion. They seated themselves in a close and dim sort of -bar-parlour, at a stained wooden table with one wooden leg. -The room was so small and dark, that very little could be -seen of the attendant who was summoned, beyond a vague and -dark impression of something bulky and bearded. +The cab pulled up before a particularly dreary and greasy beer-shop, +into which Gregory rapidly conducted his companion. They seated +themselves in a close and dim sort of bar-parlour, at a stained wooden +table with one wooden leg. The room was so small and dark, that very +little could be seen of the attendant who was summoned, beyond a vague +and dark impression of something bulky and bearded. -"Will you take a little supper?" asked Gregory politely. -"The *pâte de foie gras* is not good here, but I can -recommend the game." +"Will you take a little supper?" asked Gregory politely. "The *pâte de +foie gras* is not good here, but I can recommend the game." -Syme received the remark with stolidity, imagining it to be -a joke. Accepting the vein of humour, he said, with a -well-bred indifference--- +Syme received the remark with stolidity, imagining it to be a joke. +Accepting the vein of humour, he said, with a well-bred indifference--- "Oh, bring me some lobster mayonnaise." -To his indescribable astonishment, the man only said, -"Certainly, sir!" and went away apparently to get it. +To his indescribable astonishment, the man only said, "Certainly, sir!" +and went away apparently to get it. -"What will you drink?" resumed Gregory, with the same -careless yet apologetic air. "I shall only have a *crème de -menthe* myself; I have dined. But the champagne can really -be trusted. Do let me start you with a half-bottle of -Pommery at least?" +"What will you drink?" resumed Gregory, with the same careless yet +apologetic air. "I shall only have a *crème de menthe* myself; I have +dined. But the champagne can really be trusted. Do let me start you with +a half-bottle of Pommery at least?" "Thank you!" said the motionless Syme. "You are very good." -His further attempts at conversation, somewhat disorganised -in themselves, were cut short finally as by a thunderbolt by -the actual appearance of the lobster. Syme tasted it, and -found it particularly good. Then he suddenly began to eat -with great rapidity and appetite. +His further attempts at conversation, somewhat disorganised in +themselves, were cut short finally as by a thunderbolt by the actual +appearance of the lobster. Syme tasted it, and found it particularly +good. Then he suddenly began to eat with great rapidity and appetite. -"Excuse me if I enjoy myself rather obviously!" he said to -Gregory, smiling. "I don't often have the luck to have a -dream like this. It is new to me for a nightmare to lead to -a lobster. It is commonly the other way." +"Excuse me if I enjoy myself rather obviously!" he said to Gregory, +smiling. "I don't often have the luck to have a dream like this. It is +new to me for a nightmare to lead to a lobster. It is commonly the other +way." -"You are not asleep, I assure you," said Gregory. "You are, -on the contrary, close to the most actual and rousing moment -of your existence. Ah, here comes your champagne! T admit -that there may be a slight disproportion, let us say, -between the inner arrangements of this excellent hotel and -its simple and unpretentious exterior. But that is all our -modesty. We are the most modest men that ever lived on -earth." +"You are not asleep, I assure you," said Gregory. "You are, on the +contrary, close to the most actual and rousing moment of your existence. +Ah, here comes your champagne! T admit that there may be a slight +disproportion, let us say, between the inner arrangements of this +excellent hotel and its simple and unpretentious exterior. But that is +all our modesty. We are the most modest men that ever lived on earth." -"And who are *we*?" asked Syme, emptying his champagne -glass. +"And who are *we*?" asked Syme, emptying his champagne glass. -"It is quite simple," replied Gregory. "*We* are the serious -anarchists, in whom you do not believe." +"It is quite simple," replied Gregory. "*We* are the serious anarchists, +in whom you do not believe." "Oh!" said Syme shortly. "You do yourselves well in drinks." @@ -514,197 +449,168 @@ anarchists, in whom you do not believe." Then after a pause he added--- -"If in a few moments this table begins to turn round a -little, don't put it down to your inroads into the -champagne. I don't wish you to do yourself an injustice." - -"Well, if I am not drunk, I am mad," replied Syme with -perfect calm;" but I trust I can behave like a gentleman in -either condition. May I smoke?" - -"Certainly!" said Gregory, producing a cigar-case. "Try one -of mine." - -Syme took the cigar, clipped the end off with a cigar-cutter -out of his waistcoat pocket, put it in his mouth, lit it -slowly, and let out a long cloud of smoke. It is not a -little to his credit that he performed these rites with so -much composure, for almost before he had begun them the -table at which he sat had begun to revolve, first slowly, -and then rapidly, as if at an insane séance. - -"You must not mind it," said Gregory; "it's a kind of -screw." - -"Quite so," said Syme placidly, "a kind of screw! How simple -that is!" - -The next moment the smoke of his cigar, which had been -wavering across the room in snaky twists, went straight up -as if from a factory chimney, and the two, with their chairs -and table, shot down through the floor as if the earth had -swallowed them. They went rattling down a kind of roaring -chimney as rapidly as a lift cut loose, and they came with -an abrupt bump to the bottom. But when Gregory threw open a -pair of doors and let in a red subterranean light, Syme was -still smoking, with one leg thrown over the other, and had -not turned a yellow hair. - -Gregory led him down a low, vaulted passage, at the end of -which was the red light. It was an enormous crimson lantern, -nearly as big as a fireplace, fixed over a small but heavy -iron door. In the door there was a sort of hatchway or -grating, and on this Gregory struck five times. A heavy -voice with a foreign accent asked him who he was. To this he -gave the more or less unexpected reply, "Mr. Joseph -Chamberlain." The heavy hinges began to move; it was -obviously some kind of password. - -Inside the doorway the passage gleamed as if it were lined -with a network of steel. On a second glance, Syme saw that -the glittering pattern was really made up of ranks and ranks -of rifles and revolvers, closely packed or interlocked. - -"I must ask you to forgive me all these formalities," said -Gregory; "we have to be very strict here." - -"Oh, don't apologise," said Syme. "I know your passion for -law and order," and he stepped into the passage lined with -the steel weapons. With his long, fair hair and rather -foppish frock-coat, he looked a singularly frail and -fanciful figure as he walked down that shining avenue of -death. - -They passed through several such passages, and came out at -last into a queer steel chamber with curved walls, almost -spherical in shape, but presenting, with its tiers of -benches, something of the appearance of a scientific -lecture-theatre. There were no rifles or pistols in this -apartment, but round the walls of it were hung more dubious -and dreadful shapes, things that looked like the bulbs of -iron plants, or the eggs of iron birds. They were bombs, and -the very room itself seemed like the inside of a bomb. Syme -knocked his cigar ash off against the wall, and went in. - -"And now, my dear Mr. Syme," said Gregory, throwing himself -in an expansive manner on the bench under the largest bomb, -"now we are quite cosy, so let us talk properly. Now, no -human words can give you any notion of why I brought you -here. It was one of those quite arbitrary emotions, he -jumping off a cliff or falling in love. Suffice it to say -that you were an inexpressibly irritating fellow, and, to do -you justice, you are still. I would break twenty oaths of -secrecy for the pleasure of taking you down a peg. That way -you have of lighting a cigar would make a priest break the -seal of confession. Well, you said that you were quite -certain I was not a serious anarchist. Does this place +"If in a few moments this table begins to turn round a little, don't put +it down to your inroads into the champagne. I don't wish you to do +yourself an injustice." + +"Well, if I am not drunk, I am mad," replied Syme with perfect calm;" +but I trust I can behave like a gentleman in either condition. May I +smoke?" + +"Certainly!" said Gregory, producing a cigar-case. "Try one of mine." + +Syme took the cigar, clipped the end off with a cigar-cutter out of his +waistcoat pocket, put it in his mouth, lit it slowly, and let out a long +cloud of smoke. It is not a little to his credit that he performed these +rites with so much composure, for almost before he had begun them the +table at which he sat had begun to revolve, first slowly, and then +rapidly, as if at an insane séance. + +"You must not mind it," said Gregory; "it's a kind of screw." + +"Quite so," said Syme placidly, "a kind of screw! How simple that is!" + +The next moment the smoke of his cigar, which had been wavering across +the room in snaky twists, went straight up as if from a factory chimney, +and the two, with their chairs and table, shot down through the floor as +if the earth had swallowed them. They went rattling down a kind of +roaring chimney as rapidly as a lift cut loose, and they came with an +abrupt bump to the bottom. But when Gregory threw open a pair of doors +and let in a red subterranean light, Syme was still smoking, with one +leg thrown over the other, and had not turned a yellow hair. + +Gregory led him down a low, vaulted passage, at the end of which was the +red light. It was an enormous crimson lantern, nearly as big as a +fireplace, fixed over a small but heavy iron door. In the door there was +a sort of hatchway or grating, and on this Gregory struck five times. A +heavy voice with a foreign accent asked him who he was. To this he gave +the more or less unexpected reply, "Mr. Joseph Chamberlain." The heavy +hinges began to move; it was obviously some kind of password. + +Inside the doorway the passage gleamed as if it were lined with a +network of steel. On a second glance, Syme saw that the glittering +pattern was really made up of ranks and ranks of rifles and revolvers, +closely packed or interlocked. + +"I must ask you to forgive me all these formalities," said Gregory; "we +have to be very strict here." + +"Oh, don't apologise," said Syme. "I know your passion for law and +order," and he stepped into the passage lined with the steel weapons. +With his long, fair hair and rather foppish frock-coat, he looked a +singularly frail and fanciful figure as he walked down that shining +avenue of death. + +They passed through several such passages, and came out at last into a +queer steel chamber with curved walls, almost spherical in shape, but +presenting, with its tiers of benches, something of the appearance of a +scientific lecture-theatre. There were no rifles or pistols in this +apartment, but round the walls of it were hung more dubious and dreadful +shapes, things that looked like the bulbs of iron plants, or the eggs of +iron birds. They were bombs, and the very room itself seemed like the +inside of a bomb. Syme knocked his cigar ash off against the wall, and +went in. + +"And now, my dear Mr. Syme," said Gregory, throwing himself in an +expansive manner on the bench under the largest bomb, "now we are quite +cosy, so let us talk properly. Now, no human words can give you any +notion of why I brought you here. It was one of those quite arbitrary +emotions, he jumping off a cliff or falling in love. Suffice it to say +that you were an inexpressibly irritating fellow, and, to do you +justice, you are still. I would break twenty oaths of secrecy for the +pleasure of taking you down a peg. That way you have of lighting a cigar +would make a priest break the seal of confession. Well, you said that +you were quite certain I was not a serious anarchist. Does this place strike you as being serious?" -"It does seem to have a moral under all its gaiety," -assented Syme; "but may I ask you two questions? You need -not fear to give me information, because, as you remember, -you very wisely extorted from me a promise not to tell the -police, a promise I shall certainly keep. So it is in mere -curiosity that I make my queries. First of all, what is it -really all about? What is it you object to? You want to -abolish Government?" - -"To abolish God!" said Gregory, opening the eyes of a -fanatic. "We do not only want to upset a few despotisms and -police regulations; that sort of anarchism does exist, but -it is a mere branch of the Nonconformists. We dig deeper and -we blow you higher. We wish to deny all those arbitrary -distinctions of vice and virtue, honour and treachery, upon -which mere rebels base themselves. The silly sentimentalists -of the French Revolution talked of the Rights of Man! We -hate Rights as we hate Wrongs. We have abolished Right and -Wrong." - -"And Right and Left," said Syme with a simple eagerness, "I -hope you will abolish them too. They are much more -troublesome to me." +"It does seem to have a moral under all its gaiety," assented Syme; "but +may I ask you two questions? You need not fear to give me information, +because, as you remember, you very wisely extorted from me a promise not +to tell the police, a promise I shall certainly keep. So it is in mere +curiosity that I make my queries. First of all, what is it really all +about? What is it you object to? You want to abolish Government?" + +"To abolish God!" said Gregory, opening the eyes of a fanatic. "We do +not only want to upset a few despotisms and police regulations; that +sort of anarchism does exist, but it is a mere branch of the +Nonconformists. We dig deeper and we blow you higher. We wish to deny +all those arbitrary distinctions of vice and virtue, honour and +treachery, upon which mere rebels base themselves. The silly +sentimentalists of the French Revolution talked of the Rights of Man! We +hate Rights as we hate Wrongs. We have abolished Right and Wrong." + +"And Right and Left," said Syme with a simple eagerness, "I hope you +will abolish them too. They are much more troublesome to me." "You spoke of a second question," snapped Gregory. "With pleasure," resumed Syme. "In all your present acts and -surroundings there is a scientific attempt at secrecy. I -have an aunt who lived over a shop, but this is the first -time I have found people living from preference under a -public-house. You have a heavy iron door. You cannot pass it -without submitting to the humiliation of calling yourself -Mr. Chamberlain. You surround yourself with steel -instruments which make the place, if I may say so, more -impressive than homelike. May I ask why, after taking all -this trouble to barricade yourselves in the bowels of the -earth, you then parade your whole secret by talking about -anarchism to every silly woman in Saffron Park?" +surroundings there is a scientific attempt at secrecy. I have an aunt +who lived over a shop, but this is the first time I have found people +living from preference under a public-house. You have a heavy iron door. +You cannot pass it without submitting to the humiliation of calling +yourself Mr. Chamberlain. You surround yourself with steel instruments +which make the place, if I may say so, more impressive than homelike. +May I ask why, after taking all this trouble to barricade yourselves in +the bowels of the earth, you then parade your whole secret by talking +about anarchism to every silly woman in Saffron Park?" Gregory smiled. -"The answer is simple," he said. "I told you I was a serious -anarchist, and you did not believe me. Nor do they believe -me. Unless I took them into this infernal room they would -not believe me." - -Syme smoked thoughtfully, and looked at him with interest. -Gregory went on. - -"The history of the thing might amuse you," he said. "When -first I became one of the New Anarchists I tried all kinds -of respectable disguises. I dressed up as a bishop. I read -up all about bishops in our anarchist pamphlets, in -*Superstition the Vampire* and *Priests of Prey*. I -certainly understood from them that bishops are strange and -terrible old men keeping a cruel secret from mankind. I was -misinformed. When on my first appearing in episcopal gaiters -in a drawing-room I cried out in a voice of thunder,'down! -down! presumptuous human reason!' they found out in some way -that I was not a bishop at all. I was nabbed at once. Then I -made up as a millionaire; but I defended Capital with so -much intelligence that a fool could see that I was quite -poor. Then I tried being a major. Now I am a humanitarian -myself, but I have, I hope, enough intellectual breadth to -understand the position of those who, like Nietzsche, admire -violence---the proud, mad war of Nature and all that, you -know. I threw myself into the major. I drew my sword and -waved it constantly. I called out 'Blood!' abstractedly, -like a man calling for wine. I often said, 'Let the weak -perish; it is the Law.' Well, well, it seems majors don't do -this. I was nabbed again. At last I went in despair to the -President of the Central Anarchist Council, who is the +"The answer is simple," he said. "I told you I was a serious anarchist, +and you did not believe me. Nor do they believe me. Unless I took them +into this infernal room they would not believe me." + +Syme smoked thoughtfully, and looked at him with interest. Gregory went +on. + +"The history of the thing might amuse you," he said. "When first I +became one of the New Anarchists I tried all kinds of respectable +disguises. I dressed up as a bishop. I read up all about bishops in our +anarchist pamphlets, in *Superstition the Vampire* and *Priests of +Prey*. I certainly understood from them that bishops are strange and +terrible old men keeping a cruel secret from mankind. I was misinformed. +When on my first appearing in episcopal gaiters in a drawing-room I +cried out in a voice of thunder,'down! down! presumptuous human reason!' +they found out in some way that I was not a bishop at all. I was nabbed +at once. Then I made up as a millionaire; but I defended Capital with so +much intelligence that a fool could see that I was quite poor. Then I +tried being a major. Now I am a humanitarian myself, but I have, I hope, +enough intellectual breadth to understand the position of those who, +like Nietzsche, admire violence---the proud, mad war of Nature and all +that, you know. I threw myself into the major. I drew my sword and waved +it constantly. I called out 'Blood!' abstractedly, like a man calling +for wine. I often said, 'Let the weak perish; it is the Law.' Well, +well, it seems majors don't do this. I was nabbed again. At last I went +in despair to the President of the Central Anarchist Council, who is the greatest man in Europe." "What is his name?" asked Syme. -"You would not know it," answered Gregory. "That is his -greatness. Caesar and Napoleon put all their genius into -being heard of, and they *were* heard of. He puts all his -genius into not being heard of, and he is not heard of. But -you cannot be for five minutes in the room with him without -feeling that Caesar and Napoleon would have been children in -his hands." - -He was silent and even pale for a moment, and then -resumed--- - -"But whenever he gives advice it is always something as -startling as an epigram, and yet as practical as the Bank of -England. I said to him, 'What disguise will hide me from the -world? What can I find more respectable than bishops and -majors?' He looked at me with his large but indecipherable -face. 'You want a safe disguise, do you? You want a dress -which will guarantee you harmless; a dress in which no one -would ever look for a bomb?' I nodded. He suddenly lifted -his lion's voice. 'Why, then, dress up as an *anarchist*, -you fool!' he roared so that the room shook. 'Nobody will -ever expect you to do anything dangerous then.' And he -turned his broad back on me without another word. I took his -advice, and have never regretted it. I preached blood and -murder to those women day and night, and---by God!---they -would let me wheel their perambulators." - -Syme sat watching him with some respect in his large, blue -eyes. +"You would not know it," answered Gregory. "That is his greatness. +Caesar and Napoleon put all their genius into being heard of, and they +*were* heard of. He puts all his genius into not being heard of, and he +is not heard of. But you cannot be for five minutes in the room with him +without feeling that Caesar and Napoleon would have been children in his +hands." + +He was silent and even pale for a moment, and then resumed--- + +"But whenever he gives advice it is always something as startling as an +epigram, and yet as practical as the Bank of England. I said to him, +'What disguise will hide me from the world? What can I find more +respectable than bishops and majors?' He looked at me with his large but +indecipherable face. 'You want a safe disguise, do you? You want a dress +which will guarantee you harmless; a dress in which no one would ever +look for a bomb?' I nodded. He suddenly lifted his lion's voice. 'Why, +then, dress up as an *anarchist*, you fool!' he roared so that the room +shook. 'Nobody will ever expect you to do anything dangerous then.' And +he turned his broad back on me without another word. I took his advice, +and have never regretted it. I preached blood and murder to those women +day and night, and---by God!---they would let me wheel their +perambulators." + +Syme sat watching him with some respect in his large, blue eyes. "You took me in," he said. "It is really a smart dodge." @@ -712,2517 +618,2191 @@ Then after a pause he added--- "What do you call this tremendous President of yours?" -"We generally call him Sunday," replied Gregory with -simplicity. "You see, there are seven members of the Central -Anarchist Council, and they are named after days of the -week. He is called Sunday, by some of his admirers Bloody -Sunday. It is curious you should mention the matter, because -the very night you have dropped in (if I may so express it) -is the night on which our London branch, which assembles in -this room, has to elect its own deputy to fill a vacancy in -the Council. The gentleman who has for some time past -played, with propriety and general applause, the difficult -part of Thursday, has died quite suddenly. Consequently, we -have called a meeting this very evening to elect a -successor." - -He got to his feet and strolled across the room with a sort -of smiling embarrassment. - -"I feel somehow as if you were my mother, Syme," he -continued casually. "I feel that I can confide anything to -you, as you have promised to tell nobody. In fact, I will -confide to you something that I would not say in so many -words to the anarchists who will be coming to the room in -about ten minutes. We shall, of course, go through a form of -election; but I don't mind telling you that it is -practically certain what the result will be." He looked down -for a moment modestly. "It is almost a settled thing that I -am to be Thursday." - -"My dear fellow," said Syme heartily, "I congratulate you. A -great career!" - -Gregory smiled in deprecation, and walked across the room, -talking rapidly. - -"As a matter of fact, everything is ready for me on this -table," he said, "and the ceremony will probably be the -shortest possible." - -Syme also strolled across to the table, and found lying -across it a walking-stick, which turned out on examination -to be a sword-stick, a large Colt's revolver, a sandwich -case, and a formidable flask of brandy. Over the chair, -beside the table, was thrown a heavy-looking cape or cloak. - -"I have only to get the form of election finished," -continued Gregory with animation, "then I snatch up this -cloak and stick, stuff these other things into my pocket, -step out of a door in this cavern, which opens on the river, -where there is a steam-tug already waiting for me, and -then---then---oh, the wild joy of being Thursday!" And he -clasped his hands. - -Syme, who had sat down once more with his usual insolent -languor, got to his feet with an unusual air of hesitation. - -"Why is it," he asked vaguely, "that I think you are quite a -decent fellow? Why do I positively like you, Gregory?" He -paused a moment, and then added with a sort of fresh -curiosity, "Is it because you are such an ass?" - -There was a thoughtful silence again, and then he cried -out--- - -"Well, damn it all! this is the funniest situation I have -ever been in in my life, and I am going to act accordingly. -Gregory, I gave you a promise before I came into this place. -That promise I would keep under red-hot pincers. Would you -give me, for my own safety, a little promise of the same -kind?" +"We generally call him Sunday," replied Gregory with simplicity. "You +see, there are seven members of the Central Anarchist Council, and they +are named after days of the week. He is called Sunday, by some of his +admirers Bloody Sunday. It is curious you should mention the matter, +because the very night you have dropped in (if I may so express it) is +the night on which our London branch, which assembles in this room, has +to elect its own deputy to fill a vacancy in the Council. The gentleman +who has for some time past played, with propriety and general applause, +the difficult part of Thursday, has died quite suddenly. Consequently, +we have called a meeting this very evening to elect a successor." + +He got to his feet and strolled across the room with a sort of smiling +embarrassment. + +"I feel somehow as if you were my mother, Syme," he continued casually. +"I feel that I can confide anything to you, as you have promised to tell +nobody. In fact, I will confide to you something that I would not say in +so many words to the anarchists who will be coming to the room in about +ten minutes. We shall, of course, go through a form of election; but I +don't mind telling you that it is practically certain what the result +will be." He looked down for a moment modestly. "It is almost a settled +thing that I am to be Thursday." + +"My dear fellow," said Syme heartily, "I congratulate you. A great +career!" + +Gregory smiled in deprecation, and walked across the room, talking +rapidly. + +"As a matter of fact, everything is ready for me on this table," he +said, "and the ceremony will probably be the shortest possible." + +Syme also strolled across to the table, and found lying across it a +walking-stick, which turned out on examination to be a sword-stick, a +large Colt's revolver, a sandwich case, and a formidable flask of +brandy. Over the chair, beside the table, was thrown a heavy-looking +cape or cloak. + +"I have only to get the form of election finished," continued Gregory +with animation, "then I snatch up this cloak and stick, stuff these +other things into my pocket, step out of a door in this cavern, which +opens on the river, where there is a steam-tug already waiting for me, +and then---then---oh, the wild joy of being Thursday!" And he clasped +his hands. + +Syme, who had sat down once more with his usual insolent languor, got to +his feet with an unusual air of hesitation. + +"Why is it," he asked vaguely, "that I think you are quite a decent +fellow? Why do I positively like you, Gregory?" He paused a moment, and +then added with a sort of fresh curiosity, "Is it because you are such +an ass?" + +There was a thoughtful silence again, and then he cried out--- + +"Well, damn it all! this is the funniest situation I have ever been in +in my life, and I am going to act accordingly. Gregory, I gave you a +promise before I came into this place. That promise I would keep under +red-hot pincers. Would you give me, for my own safety, a little promise +of the same kind?" "A promise?" asked Gregory, wondering. -"Yes," said Syme very seriously, "a promise. I swore before -God that I would not tell your secret to the police. Will -you swear by Humanity, or whatever beastly thing you believe -in, that you will not tell my secret to the anarchists?" +"Yes," said Syme very seriously, "a promise. I swore before God that I +would not tell your secret to the police. Will you swear by Humanity, or +whatever beastly thing you believe in, that you will not tell my secret +to the anarchists?" -"Your secret?" asked the staring Gregory. "Have you got a -secret?" +"Your secret?" asked the staring Gregory. "Have you got a secret?" -"Yes," said Syme, "I have a secret." Then after a pause, -"Will you swear?" +"Yes," said Syme, "I have a secret." Then after a pause, "Will you +swear?" -Gregory glared at him gravely for a few moments, and then -said abruptly--- +Gregory glared at him gravely for a few moments, and then said +abruptly--- -"You must have bewitched me, but I feel a furious curiosity -about you. Yes, I will swear not to tell the anarchists -anything you tell me. But look sharp, for they will be here -in a couple of minutes." +"You must have bewitched me, but I feel a furious curiosity about you. +Yes, I will swear not to tell the anarchists anything you tell me. But +look sharp, for they will be here in a couple of minutes." -Syme rose slowly to his feet and thrust his long, white -hands into his long, grey trousers' pockets. Almost as he -did so there came five knocks on the outer grating, -proclaiming the arrival of the first of the conspirators. +Syme rose slowly to his feet and thrust his long, white hands into his +long, grey trousers' pockets. Almost as he did so there came five knocks +on the outer grating, proclaiming the arrival of the first of the +conspirators. -"Well," said Syme slowly, "I don't know how to tell you the -truth more shortly than by saying that your expedient of -dressing up as an aimless poet is not confined to you or -your President. We have known the dodge for some time at -Scotland Yard." +"Well," said Syme slowly, "I don't know how to tell you the truth more +shortly than by saying that your expedient of dressing up as an aimless +poet is not confined to you or your President. We have known the dodge +for some time at Scotland Yard." Gregory tried to spring up straight, but he swayed thrice. "What do you say?" he asked in an inhuman voice. -"Yes," said Syme simply, "I am a police detective. But I -think I hear your friends coming." +"Yes," said Syme simply, "I am a police detective. But I think I hear +your friends coming." -From the doorway there came a murmur of "Mr. Joseph -Chamberlain." It was repeated twice and thrice, and then -thirty times, and the crowd of Joseph Chamberlains (a solemn -thought) could be heard trampling down the corridor. +From the doorway there came a murmur of "Mr. Joseph Chamberlain." It was +repeated twice and thrice, and then thirty times, and the crowd of +Joseph Chamberlains (a solemn thought) could be heard trampling down the +corridor. # The Man who was Thursday -Before one of the fresh faces could appear at the doorway, -Gregory's stunned surprise had fallen from him. He was -beside the table with a bound, and a noise in his throat -like a wild beast. He caught up the Colt's revolver and took -aim at Syme. Syme did not flinch, but he put up a pale and -polite hand. - -"Don't be such a silly man," he said, with the effeminate -dignity of a curate. "Don't you see it's not necessary? -Don't you see that we're both in the same boat? Yes, and -jolly sea-sick." - -Gregory could not speak, but he could not fire either, and -he looked his question. - -"Don't you see we've checkmated each other?" cried Syme. "I -can't tell the police you are an anarchist. You can't tell -the anarchists I'm a policeman. I can only watch you, -knowing what you are; you can only watch me, knowing what I -am. In short, it's a lonely, intellectual duel, my head -against yours. I'm a policeman deprived of the help of the -police. You, my poor fellow, are an anarchist deprived of -the help of that law and organisation which is so essential -to anarchy. The one solitary difference is in your favour. -You are not surrounded by inquisitive policemen; I am -surrounded by inquisitive anarchists. I cannot betray you, -but I might betray myself. Come, come! wait and see me -betray myself. I shall do it so nicely." - -Gregory put the pistol slowly down, still staring at Syme as -if he were a sea-monster. - -"I don't believe in immortality," he said at last, "but if, -after all this, you were to break your word, God would make -a hell only for you, to howl in for ever." - -"I shall not break my word," said Syme sternly, "nor will -you break yours. Here are your friends." - -The mass of the anarchists entered the room heavily, with a -slouching and somewhat weary gait; but one little man, with -a black beard and glasses---a man somewhat of the type of -Mr. Tim Healy---detached himself, and bustled forward with -some papers in his hand. - -"Comrade Gregory," he said, "I suppose this man is a -delegate?" - -Gregory, taken by surprise, looked down and muttered the -name of Syme; but Syme replied almost pertly--- - -"I am glad to see that your gate is well enough guarded to -make it hard for anyone to be here who was not a delegate." - -The brow of the little man with the black beard was, -however, still contracted with something like suspicion. +Before one of the fresh faces could appear at the doorway, Gregory's +stunned surprise had fallen from him. He was beside the table with a +bound, and a noise in his throat like a wild beast. He caught up the +Colt's revolver and took aim at Syme. Syme did not flinch, but he put up +a pale and polite hand. + +"Don't be such a silly man," he said, with the effeminate dignity of a +curate. "Don't you see it's not necessary? Don't you see that we're both +in the same boat? Yes, and jolly sea-sick." + +Gregory could not speak, but he could not fire either, and he looked his +question. + +"Don't you see we've checkmated each other?" cried Syme. "I can't tell +the police you are an anarchist. You can't tell the anarchists I'm a +policeman. I can only watch you, knowing what you are; you can only +watch me, knowing what I am. In short, it's a lonely, intellectual duel, +my head against yours. I'm a policeman deprived of the help of the +police. You, my poor fellow, are an anarchist deprived of the help of +that law and organisation which is so essential to anarchy. The one +solitary difference is in your favour. You are not surrounded by +inquisitive policemen; I am surrounded by inquisitive anarchists. I +cannot betray you, but I might betray myself. Come, come! wait and see +me betray myself. I shall do it so nicely." + +Gregory put the pistol slowly down, still staring at Syme as if he were +a sea-monster. + +"I don't believe in immortality," he said at last, "but if, after all +this, you were to break your word, God would make a hell only for you, +to howl in for ever." + +"I shall not break my word," said Syme sternly, "nor will you break +yours. Here are your friends." + +The mass of the anarchists entered the room heavily, with a slouching +and somewhat weary gait; but one little man, with a black beard and +glasses---a man somewhat of the type of Mr. Tim Healy---detached +himself, and bustled forward with some papers in his hand. + +"Comrade Gregory," he said, "I suppose this man is a delegate?" + +Gregory, taken by surprise, looked down and muttered the name of Syme; +but Syme replied almost pertly--- + +"I am glad to see that your gate is well enough guarded to make it hard +for anyone to be here who was not a delegate." + +The brow of the little man with the black beard was, however, still +contracted with something like suspicion. "What branch do you represent?" he asked sharply. -"I should hardly call it a branch," said Syme, laughing; "I -should call it at the very least a root." +"I should hardly call it a branch," said Syme, laughing; "I should call +it at the very least a root." "What do you mean?" -"The fact is," said Syme serenely, "the truth is I am a -Sabbatarian. I have been specially sent here to see that you -show a due observance of Sunday." - -The little man dropped one of his papers, and a flicker of -fear went over all the faces of the group. Evidently the -awful President, whose name was Sunday, did sometimes send -down such irregular ambassadors to such branch meetings. - -"Well, comrade," said the man with the papers after a pause, -"I suppose we'd better give you a seat in the meeting?" - -"If you ask my advice as a friend," said Syme with severe -benevolence, "I think you'd better." - -When Gregory heard the dangerous dialogue end, with a sudden -safety for his rival, he rose abruptly and paced the floor -in painful thought. He was, indeed, in an agony of -diplomacy. It was clear that Syme's inspired impudence was -likely to bring him out of all merely accidental dilemmas. -Little was to be hoped from them. He could not himself -betray Syme, partly from honour, but partly also because, if -he betrayed him and for some reason failed to destroy him, -the Syme who escaped would be a Syme freed from all -obligation of secrecy, a Syme who would simply walk to the -nearest police station. After all, it was only one night's -discussion, and only one detective who would know of it. He -would let out as little as possible of their plans that -night, and then let Syme go, and chance it. - -He strode across to the group of anarchists, which was -already distributing itself along the benches. - -"I think it is time we began," he said; "the steam-tug is -waiting on the river already. I move that Comrade Buttons -takes the chair." - -This being approved by a show of hands, the little man with -the papers slipped into the presidential seat. - -"Comrades," he began, as sharp as a pistol-shot, "our -meeting to-night is important, though it need not be long. -This branch has always had the honour of electing Thursdays -for the Central European Council. We have elected many and -splendid Thursdays. We all lament the sad decease of the -heroic worker who occupied the post until last week. As you -know, his services to the cause were considerable. He -organised the great dynamite coup of Brighton which, under -happier circumstances, ought to have killed everybody on the -pier. As you also know, his death was as self-denying as his -life, for he died through his faith in a hygienic mixture of -chalk and water as a substitute for milk, which beverage he -regarded as barbaric, and as involving cruelty to the cow. -Cruelty, or anything approaching to cruelty, revolted him -always. But it is not to acclaim his virtues that we are -met, but for a harder task. It is difficult properly to -praise his qualities, but it is more difficult to replace -them. Upon you, comrades, it devolves this evening to choose -out of the company present the man who shall be Thursday. If -any comrade suggests a name I will put it to the vote. If no -comrade suggests a name, I can only tell myself that that -dear dynamiter, who is gone from us, has carried into the -unknowable abysses the last secret of his virtue and his -innocence." - -There was a stir of almost inaudible applause, such as is -sometimes heard in church. Then a large old man, with a long -and venerable white beard, perhaps the only real working-man -present, rose lumberingly and said--- - -"I move that Comrade Gregory be elected Thursday," and sat -lumberingly down again. +"The fact is," said Syme serenely, "the truth is I am a Sabbatarian. I +have been specially sent here to see that you show a due observance of +Sunday." + +The little man dropped one of his papers, and a flicker of fear went +over all the faces of the group. Evidently the awful President, whose +name was Sunday, did sometimes send down such irregular ambassadors to +such branch meetings. + +"Well, comrade," said the man with the papers after a pause, "I suppose +we'd better give you a seat in the meeting?" + +"If you ask my advice as a friend," said Syme with severe benevolence, +"I think you'd better." + +When Gregory heard the dangerous dialogue end, with a sudden safety for +his rival, he rose abruptly and paced the floor in painful thought. He +was, indeed, in an agony of diplomacy. It was clear that Syme's inspired +impudence was likely to bring him out of all merely accidental dilemmas. +Little was to be hoped from them. He could not himself betray Syme, +partly from honour, but partly also because, if he betrayed him and for +some reason failed to destroy him, the Syme who escaped would be a Syme +freed from all obligation of secrecy, a Syme who would simply walk to +the nearest police station. After all, it was only one night's +discussion, and only one detective who would know of it. He would let +out as little as possible of their plans that night, and then let Syme +go, and chance it. + +He strode across to the group of anarchists, which was already +distributing itself along the benches. + +"I think it is time we began," he said; "the steam-tug is waiting on the +river already. I move that Comrade Buttons takes the chair." + +This being approved by a show of hands, the little man with the papers +slipped into the presidential seat. + +"Comrades," he began, as sharp as a pistol-shot, "our meeting to-night +is important, though it need not be long. This branch has always had the +honour of electing Thursdays for the Central European Council. We have +elected many and splendid Thursdays. We all lament the sad decease of +the heroic worker who occupied the post until last week. As you know, +his services to the cause were considerable. He organised the great +dynamite coup of Brighton which, under happier circumstances, ought to +have killed everybody on the pier. As you also know, his death was as +self-denying as his life, for he died through his faith in a hygienic +mixture of chalk and water as a substitute for milk, which beverage he +regarded as barbaric, and as involving cruelty to the cow. Cruelty, or +anything approaching to cruelty, revolted him always. But it is not to +acclaim his virtues that we are met, but for a harder task. It is +difficult properly to praise his qualities, but it is more difficult to +replace them. Upon you, comrades, it devolves this evening to choose out +of the company present the man who shall be Thursday. If any comrade +suggests a name I will put it to the vote. If no comrade suggests a +name, I can only tell myself that that dear dynamiter, who is gone from +us, has carried into the unknowable abysses the last secret of his +virtue and his innocence." + +There was a stir of almost inaudible applause, such as is sometimes +heard in church. Then a large old man, with a long and venerable white +beard, perhaps the only real working-man present, rose lumberingly and +said--- + +"I move that Comrade Gregory be elected Thursday," and sat lumberingly +down again. "Does anyone second?" asked the chairman. A little man with a velvet coat and pointed beard seconded. -"Before I put the matter to the vote," said the chairman, "I -will call on Comrade Gregory to make a statement." - -Gregory rose amid a great rumble of applause. His face was -deadly pale, so that by contrast his queer red hair looked -almost scarlet. But he was smiling, and altogether at ease. -He had made up his mind, and he saw his best policy quite -plain in front of him like a white road. His best chance was -to make a softened and ambiguous speech, such as would leave -on the detective's mind the impression that the anarchist -brotherhood was a very mild affair after all. He believed in -his own literary power, his capacity for suggesting fine -shades and picking perfect words. He thought that with care -he could succeed, in spite of all the people around him, in -conveying an impression of the institution, subtly and -delicately false. Syme had once thought that anarchists, -under all their bravado, were only playing the fool. Could -he not now, in the hour of peril, make Syme think so again? - -"Comrades," began Gregory, in a low but penetrating voice, -"it is not necessary for me to tell you what is my policy, -for it is your policy also. Our belief has been slandered, -it has been disfigured, it has been utterly confused and -concealed, but it has never been altered. Those who talk -about anarchism and its dangers go everywhere and anywhere -to get their information, except to us, except to the -fountain head. They learn about anarchists from sixpenny -novels; they learn about anarchists from tradesmen's -newspapers; they learn about anarchists from *Ally Sloper's -Half-Holiday* and the *Sporting Times*. They never learn -about anarchists from anarchists. We have no chance of -denying the mountainous slanders which are heaped upon our -heads from one end of Europe to another. The man who has -always heard that we are walking plagues has never heard our -reply. I know that he will not hear it to-night, though my -passion were to rend the roof. For it is deep, deep under -the earth that the persecuted are permitted to assemble, as -the Christians assembled in the Catacombs. But if, by some -incredible accident, there were here to-night a man who all -his life had thus immensely misunderstood us, I would put -this question to him: 'When those Christians met in those -Catacombs, what sort of moral reputation had they in the -streets above? What tales were told of their atrocities by -one educated Roman to another? Suppose' (I would say to -him), 'suppose that we are only repeating that still -mysterious paradox of history. Suppose we seem as shocking -as the Christians because we are really as harmless as the -Christians. Suppose we seem as mad as the Christians because -we are really as meek.'" - -The applause that had greeted the opening sentences had been -gradually growing fainter, and at the last word it stopped -suddenly. In the abrupt silence, the man with the velvet -jacket said, in a high, squeaky voice--- +"Before I put the matter to the vote," said the chairman, "I will call +on Comrade Gregory to make a statement." + +Gregory rose amid a great rumble of applause. His face was deadly pale, +so that by contrast his queer red hair looked almost scarlet. But he was +smiling, and altogether at ease. He had made up his mind, and he saw his +best policy quite plain in front of him like a white road. His best +chance was to make a softened and ambiguous speech, such as would leave +on the detective's mind the impression that the anarchist brotherhood +was a very mild affair after all. He believed in his own literary power, +his capacity for suggesting fine shades and picking perfect words. He +thought that with care he could succeed, in spite of all the people +around him, in conveying an impression of the institution, subtly and +delicately false. Syme had once thought that anarchists, under all their +bravado, were only playing the fool. Could he not now, in the hour of +peril, make Syme think so again? + +"Comrades," began Gregory, in a low but penetrating voice, "it is not +necessary for me to tell you what is my policy, for it is your policy +also. Our belief has been slandered, it has been disfigured, it has been +utterly confused and concealed, but it has never been altered. Those who +talk about anarchism and its dangers go everywhere and anywhere to get +their information, except to us, except to the fountain head. They learn +about anarchists from sixpenny novels; they learn about anarchists from +tradesmen's newspapers; they learn about anarchists from *Ally Sloper's +Half-Holiday* and the *Sporting Times*. They never learn about +anarchists from anarchists. We have no chance of denying the mountainous +slanders which are heaped upon our heads from one end of Europe to +another. The man who has always heard that we are walking plagues has +never heard our reply. I know that he will not hear it to-night, though +my passion were to rend the roof. For it is deep, deep under the earth +that the persecuted are permitted to assemble, as the Christians +assembled in the Catacombs. But if, by some incredible accident, there +were here to-night a man who all his life had thus immensely +misunderstood us, I would put this question to him: 'When those +Christians met in those Catacombs, what sort of moral reputation had +they in the streets above? What tales were told of their atrocities by +one educated Roman to another? Suppose' (I would say to him), 'suppose +that we are only repeating that still mysterious paradox of history. +Suppose we seem as shocking as the Christians because we are really as +harmless as the Christians. Suppose we seem as mad as the Christians +because we are really as meek.'" + +The applause that had greeted the opening sentences had been gradually +growing fainter, and at the last word it stopped suddenly. In the abrupt +silence, the man with the velvet jacket said, in a high, squeaky +voice--- "I'm not meek!" -"Comrade Witherspoon tells us," resumed Gregory, "that he is -not meek. Ah, how little he knows himself! His words are, -indeed extravagant; his appearance is ferocious, and even -(to an ordinary taste) unattractive. But only the eye of a -friendship as deep and delicate as mine can perceive the -deep foundation of solid meekness which lies at the base of -him, too deep even for himself to see. I repeat, we are the -true early Christians, only that we come to late. We are -simple, as they were simple---look at Comrade Witherspoon. -We are modest, as they were modest---look at me. We are -merciful---" +"Comrade Witherspoon tells us," resumed Gregory, "that he is not meek. +Ah, how little he knows himself! His words are, indeed extravagant; his +appearance is ferocious, and even (to an ordinary taste) unattractive. +But only the eye of a friendship as deep and delicate as mine can +perceive the deep foundation of solid meekness which lies at the base of +him, too deep even for himself to see. I repeat, we are the true early +Christians, only that we come to late. We are simple, as they were +simple---look at Comrade Witherspoon. We are modest, as they were +modest---look at me. We are merciful---" "No, no!" called out Mr. Witherspoon with the velvet jacket. -"I say we are merciful," repeated Gregory furiously, "as the -early Christians were merciful. Yet this did not prevent -their being accused of eating human flesh. We do not eat -human flesh---" +"I say we are merciful," repeated Gregory furiously, "as the early +Christians were merciful. Yet this did not prevent their being accused +of eating human flesh. We do not eat human flesh---" "Shame!" cried Witherspoon. "Why not?" -"Comrade Witherspoon," said Gregory, with a feverish gaiety, -"is anxious to know why nobody eats him (laughter). In our -society, at any rate, which loves him sincerely, which is -founded upon love---" +"Comrade Witherspoon," said Gregory, with a feverish gaiety, "is anxious +to know why nobody eats him (laughter). In our society, at any rate, +which loves him sincerely, which is founded upon love---" "No, no!" said Witherspoon, "down with love." -"Which is founded upon love," repeated Gregory, grinding his -teeth, "there will be no difficulty about the aims which we -shall pursue as a body, or which I should pursue were I -chosen as the representative of that body. Superbly careless -of the slanders that represent us as assassins and enemies -of human society, we shall pursue, with moral courage and -quiet, intellectual pressure, the permanent ideals of +"Which is founded upon love," repeated Gregory, grinding his teeth, +"there will be no difficulty about the aims which we shall pursue as a +body, or which I should pursue were I chosen as the representative of +that body. Superbly careless of the slanders that represent us as +assassins and enemies of human society, we shall pursue, with moral +courage and quiet, intellectual pressure, the permanent ideals of brotherhood and simplicity." -Gregory resumed his seat and passed his hand across his -forehead. The silence was sudden and awkward, but the -chairman rose like an automaton, and said in a colourless -voice--- +Gregory resumed his seat and passed his hand across his forehead. The +silence was sudden and awkward, but the chairman rose like an automaton, +and said in a colourless voice--- "Does anyone oppose the election of Comrade Gregory?" -The assembly seemed vague and sub-consciously disappointed, -and Comrade Witherspoon moved restlessly on his seat and -muttered in his thick beard. By the sheer rush of routine, -however, the motion would have been put and carried. But as -the chairman was opening his mouth to put it, Syme sprang to -his feet and said in a small and quiet voice--- +The assembly seemed vague and sub-consciously disappointed, and Comrade +Witherspoon moved restlessly on his seat and muttered in his thick +beard. By the sheer rush of routine, however, the motion would have been +put and carried. But as the chairman was opening his mouth to put it, +Syme sprang to his feet and said in a small and quiet voice--- "Yes, Mr. Chairman, I oppose." -The most effective fact in oratory is an unexpected change -in the voice. Mr. Gabriel Syme evidently understood oratory. -Having said these first formal words in a moderated tone and -with a brief simplicity, he made his next word ring and -volley in the vault as if one of the guns had gone off. - -"Comrades!" he cried, in a voice that made every man jump -out of his boots, "have we come here for this? Do we live -underground like rats in order to listen to talk like this? -This is talk we might listen to while eating buns at a -Sunday School treat. Do we line these walls with weapons and -bar that door with death lest anyone should come and hear -Comrade Gregory saying to us, 'Be good, and you will be -happy,' 'Honesty is the best policy,' and 'Virtue is its own -reward'? There was not a word in Comrade Gregory's address -to which a curate could not have listened with pleasure -(hear, hear). But I am not a curate (loud cheers), and I did -not listen to it with pleasure (renewed cheers). The man who -is fitted to make a good curate is not fitted to make a +The most effective fact in oratory is an unexpected change in the voice. +Mr. Gabriel Syme evidently understood oratory. Having said these first +formal words in a moderated tone and with a brief simplicity, he made +his next word ring and volley in the vault as if one of the guns had +gone off. + +"Comrades!" he cried, in a voice that made every man jump out of his +boots, "have we come here for this? Do we live underground like rats in +order to listen to talk like this? This is talk we might listen to while +eating buns at a Sunday School treat. Do we line these walls with +weapons and bar that door with death lest anyone should come and hear +Comrade Gregory saying to us, 'Be good, and you will be happy,' 'Honesty +is the best policy,' and 'Virtue is its own reward'? There was not a +word in Comrade Gregory's address to which a curate could not have +listened with pleasure (hear, hear). But I am not a curate (loud +cheers), and I did not listen to it with pleasure (renewed cheers). The +man who is fitted to make a good curate is not fitted to make a resolute, forcible, and efficient Thursday (hear, hear). -"Comrade Gregory has told us, in only too apologetic a tone, -that we are not the enemies of society. But I say that we -are the enemies of society, and so much the worse for -society. We are the enemies of society, for society is the -enemy of humanity, its oldest and its most pitiless enemy -(hear, hear). Comrade Gregory has told you (apologetically -again) that we are not murderers. There I agree. We are not -murderers, we are executioners (cheers)." +"Comrade Gregory has told us, in only too apologetic a tone, that we are +not the enemies of society. But I say that we are the enemies of +society, and so much the worse for society. We are the enemies of +society, for society is the enemy of humanity, its oldest and its most +pitiless enemy (hear, hear). Comrade Gregory has told you +(apologetically again) that we are not murderers. There I agree. We are +not murderers, we are executioners (cheers)." -Ever since Syme had risen Gregory had sat staring at him, -his face idiotic with astonishment. Now in the pause his hps -of clay parted, and he said, with an automatic and lifeless -distinctness--- +Ever since Syme had risen Gregory had sat staring at him, his face +idiotic with astonishment. Now in the pause his hps of clay parted, and +he said, with an automatic and lifeless distinctness--- "You damnable hypocrite!" -Syme looked straight into those frightful eyes with his own -pale blue ones, and said with dignity--- - -"Comrade Gregory accuses me of hypocrisy. He knows as well -as I do that I am keeping all my engagements and doing -nothing but my duty. I do not mince words. I do not pretend -to. I say that Comrade Gregory is unfit to be Thursday for -all his amiable qualities. He is unfit to be Thursday -because of his amiable qualities. We do not want the Supreme -Council of Anarchy infected with a maudlin mercy (hear, -hear). This is no time for ceremonial politeness, neither is -it a time for ceremonial modesty. I set myself against -Comrade Gregory as I would set myself against all the -Governments of Europe, because the anarchist who has given -himself to anarchy has forgotten modesty as much as he has -forgotten pride (cheers). I am not a man at all; I am a -cause (renewed cheers). I set myself against Comrade Gregory -as impersonally and as calmly as I should choose one pistol -rather than another out of that rack upon the wall; and I -say that rather than have Gregory and his milk-and-water -methods on the Supreme Council, I would offer myself for -election---" - -His sentence was drowned in a deafening cataract of -applause. The faces, that had grown fiercer and fiercer with -approval as his tirade grew more and more uncompromising, -were now distorted with grins of anticipation or cloven with -delighted cries. At the moment when he announced himself as -ready to stand for the post of Thursday, a roar of -excitement and assent broke forth, and became -uncontrollable, and at the same moment Gregory sprang to his -feet, with foam upon his mouth, and shouted against the -shouting. - -"Stop, you blasted madmen!" he cried, at the top of a voice -that tore his throat. "Stop, you---" - -But louder than Gregory's shouting and louder than the roar -of the room came the voice of Syme, still speaking in a peal -of pitiless thunder--- - -"I do not go to the Council to rebut that slander that calls -us murderers; I go to earn it (loud and prolonged cheering). -To the priest who says these men are the enemies of -religion, to the judge who says these men are the enemies of -law, to the fat parliamentarian who says these men are the -enemies of order and public decency, to all these I will -reply, 'You are false kings, but you are true prophets. I am -come to destroy you, and to fulfil your prophecies.'" - -The heavy clamour gradually died away, but before it had -ceased Witherspoon had jumped to his feet, his hair and -beard all on end, and had said--- - -"I move, as an amendment, that Comrade Syme be appointed to -the post." - -"Stop all this, I tell you!" cried Gregory, with frantic -face and hands. "Stop it, it is all---" - -The voice of the chairman clove his speech with a cold -accent. +Syme looked straight into those frightful eyes with his own pale blue +ones, and said with dignity--- + +"Comrade Gregory accuses me of hypocrisy. He knows as well as I do that +I am keeping all my engagements and doing nothing but my duty. I do not +mince words. I do not pretend to. I say that Comrade Gregory is unfit to +be Thursday for all his amiable qualities. He is unfit to be Thursday +because of his amiable qualities. We do not want the Supreme Council of +Anarchy infected with a maudlin mercy (hear, hear). This is no time for +ceremonial politeness, neither is it a time for ceremonial modesty. I +set myself against Comrade Gregory as I would set myself against all the +Governments of Europe, because the anarchist who has given himself to +anarchy has forgotten modesty as much as he has forgotten pride +(cheers). I am not a man at all; I am a cause (renewed cheers). I set +myself against Comrade Gregory as impersonally and as calmly as I should +choose one pistol rather than another out of that rack upon the wall; +and I say that rather than have Gregory and his milk-and-water methods +on the Supreme Council, I would offer myself for election---" + +His sentence was drowned in a deafening cataract of applause. The faces, +that had grown fiercer and fiercer with approval as his tirade grew more +and more uncompromising, were now distorted with grins of anticipation +or cloven with delighted cries. At the moment when he announced himself +as ready to stand for the post of Thursday, a roar of excitement and +assent broke forth, and became uncontrollable, and at the same moment +Gregory sprang to his feet, with foam upon his mouth, and shouted +against the shouting. + +"Stop, you blasted madmen!" he cried, at the top of a voice that tore +his throat. "Stop, you---" + +But louder than Gregory's shouting and louder than the roar of the room +came the voice of Syme, still speaking in a peal of pitiless thunder--- + +"I do not go to the Council to rebut that slander that calls us +murderers; I go to earn it (loud and prolonged cheering). To the priest +who says these men are the enemies of religion, to the judge who says +these men are the enemies of law, to the fat parliamentarian who says +these men are the enemies of order and public decency, to all these I +will reply, 'You are false kings, but you are true prophets. I am come +to destroy you, and to fulfil your prophecies.'" + +The heavy clamour gradually died away, but before it had ceased +Witherspoon had jumped to his feet, his hair and beard all on end, and +had said--- + +"I move, as an amendment, that Comrade Syme be appointed to the post." + +"Stop all this, I tell you!" cried Gregory, with frantic face and hands. +"Stop it, it is all---" + +The voice of the chairman clove his speech with a cold accent. "Does anyone second this amendment?" he said. -A tall, tired man, with melancholy eyes and an American chin -beard, was observed on the back bench to be slowly rising to -his feet. Gregory had been screaming for some time past; now -there was a change in his accent, more shocking than any -scream. +A tall, tired man, with melancholy eyes and an American chin beard, was +observed on the back bench to be slowly rising to his feet. Gregory had +been screaming for some time past; now there was a change in his accent, +more shocking than any scream. -"I end all this!" he said, in a voice as heavy as stone. -"This man cannot be elected. He is a---" +"I end all this!" he said, in a voice as heavy as stone. "This man +cannot be elected. He is a---" "Yes," said Syme, quite motionless, "what is he?" -Gregory's mouth worked twice without sound; then slowly the -blood began to crawl back into his dead face. +Gregory's mouth worked twice without sound; then slowly the blood began +to crawl back into his dead face. -"He is a man quite inexperienced in our work," he said, and -sat down abruptly. +"He is a man quite inexperienced in our work," he said, and sat down +abruptly. -Before he had done so, the long, lean man with the American -beard was again upon his feet, and was repeating in a high -American monotone--- +Before he had done so, the long, lean man with the American beard was +again upon his feet, and was repeating in a high American monotone--- "I beg to second the election of Comrade Syme." -"The amendment will, as usual, be put first," said -Mr. Buttons, the chairman, with mechanical rapidity. "The -question is that Comrade Syme---" +"The amendment will, as usual, be put first," said Mr. Buttons, the +chairman, with mechanical rapidity. "The question is that Comrade +Syme---" -Gregory had again sprung to his feet, panting and -passionate. +Gregory had again sprung to his feet, panting and passionate. "Comrades," he cried out, "I am not a madman." "Oh, oh!" said Mr. Witherspoon. -"I am not a madman," reiterated Gregory, with a frightful -sincerity which for a moment staggered the room, "but I give -you a counsel which you can call mad if you like. No, I will -not call it a counsel, for I can give you no reason for it. -I will call it a command. Call it a mad command, but act -upon it. Strike, but hear me! Kill me, but obey me! Do not -elect this man." +"I am not a madman," reiterated Gregory, with a frightful sincerity +which for a moment staggered the room, "but I give you a counsel which +you can call mad if you like. No, I will not call it a counsel, for I +can give you no reason for it. I will call it a command. Call it a mad +command, but act upon it. Strike, but hear me! Kill me, but obey me! Do +not elect this man." -Truth is so terrible, even in fetters, that for a moment -Syme's slender and insane victory swayed like a reed. But -you could not have guessed it from Syme's bleak blue eyes. -He merely began--- +Truth is so terrible, even in fetters, that for a moment Syme's slender +and insane victory swayed like a reed. But you could not have guessed it +from Syme's bleak blue eyes. He merely began--- "Comrade Gregory commands---" -Then the spell was snapped, and one anarchist called out to -Gregory--- +Then the spell was snapped, and one anarchist called out to Gregory--- -"Who are you? You are not Sunday;" and another anarchist -added in a heavier voice, "And you are not Thursday." +"Who are you? You are not Sunday;" and another anarchist added in a +heavier voice, "And you are not Thursday." -"Comrades," cried Gregory, in a voice like that of a martyr -who in an ecstasy of pain has passed beyond pain, "it is -nothing to me whether you detest me as a tyrant or detest me -as a slave. If you will not take my command, accept my -degradation. I kneel to you. I throw myself at your feet. I -implore you. Do not elect this man." +"Comrades," cried Gregory, in a voice like that of a martyr who in an +ecstasy of pain has passed beyond pain, "it is nothing to me whether you +detest me as a tyrant or detest me as a slave. If you will not take my +command, accept my degradation. I kneel to you. I throw myself at your +feet. I implore you. Do not elect this man." -"Comrade Gregory," said the chairman after a painful pause, -"this is really not quite dignified." +"Comrade Gregory," said the chairman after a painful pause, "this is +really not quite dignified." -For the first time in the proceedings there was for a few -seconds a real silence. Then Gregory fell back in his seat, -a pale wreck of a man, and the chairman repeated, like a -piece of clock-work suddenly started again--- +For the first time in the proceedings there was for a few seconds a real +silence. Then Gregory fell back in his seat, a pale wreck of a man, and +the chairman repeated, like a piece of clock-work suddenly started +again--- -"The question is that Comrade Syme be elected to the post of -Thursday on the General Council." +"The question is that Comrade Syme be elected to the post of Thursday on +the General Council." -The roar rose like the sea, the hands rose like a forest, -and three minutes afterwards Mr. Gabriel Syme, of the Secret -Police Service, was elected to the post of Thursday on the -General Council of the Anarchists of Europe. +The roar rose like the sea, the hands rose like a forest, and three +minutes afterwards Mr. Gabriel Syme, of the Secret Police Service, was +elected to the post of Thursday on the General Council of the Anarchists +of Europe. -Everyone in the room seemed to feel the rug waiting on the -river, the sword-stick and the revolver, waiting on the -table. The instant the election was ended and irrevocable, -and Syme had received the paper proving his election, they -all sprang to their feet, and the fiery groups moved and -mixed in the room. Syme found himself, somehow or other, -face to face with Gregory, who still regarded him with a -stare of stunned hatred. They were silent for many minutes. +Everyone in the room seemed to feel the rug waiting on the river, the +sword-stick and the revolver, waiting on the table. The instant the +election was ended and irrevocable, and Syme had received the paper +proving his election, they all sprang to their feet, and the fiery +groups moved and mixed in the room. Syme found himself, somehow or +other, face to face with Gregory, who still regarded him with a stare of +stunned hatred. They were silent for many minutes. "You are a devil!" said Gregory at last. "And you are a gentleman," said Syme with gravity. -"It was you that entrapped me," began Gregory, shaking from -head to foot, "entrapped me into---" - -"Talk sense," said Syme shortly. "Into what sort of devils' -parliament have you entrapped me, if it comes to that? You -made me swear before I made you. Perhaps we are both doing -what we think right. But what we think right is so damned -different that there can be nothing between us in the way of -concession. There is nothing possible between us but honour -and death," and he pulled the great cloak about his -shoulders and picked up the flask from the table. - -"The boat is quite ready," said Mr. Buttons, bustling up. -"Be good enough to step this way." - -With a gesture that revealed the shopwalker, he led Syme -down a short, iron-bound passage, the still agonised Gregory -following feverishly at their heels. At the end of the -passage was a door, which Buttons opened sharply, showing a -sudden blue and silver picture of the moonlit river, that -looked like a scene in a theatre. Close to the opening lay a -dark, dwarfish steam-launch, like a baby dragon with one red -eye. - -Almost in the act of stepping on board, Gabriel Syme turned -to the gaping Gregory. - -"You have kept your word," he said gently, with his face in -shadow. "You are a man of honour, and I thank you. You have -kept it even down to a small particular. There was one -special thing you promised me at the beginning of the -affair, and which you have certainly given me by the end of -it." +"It was you that entrapped me," began Gregory, shaking from head to +foot, "entrapped me into---" + +"Talk sense," said Syme shortly. "Into what sort of devils' parliament +have you entrapped me, if it comes to that? You made me swear before I +made you. Perhaps we are both doing what we think right. But what we +think right is so damned different that there can be nothing between us +in the way of concession. There is nothing possible between us but +honour and death," and he pulled the great cloak about his shoulders and +picked up the flask from the table. + +"The boat is quite ready," said Mr. Buttons, bustling up. "Be good +enough to step this way." + +With a gesture that revealed the shopwalker, he led Syme down a short, +iron-bound passage, the still agonised Gregory following feverishly at +their heels. At the end of the passage was a door, which Buttons opened +sharply, showing a sudden blue and silver picture of the moonlit river, +that looked like a scene in a theatre. Close to the opening lay a dark, +dwarfish steam-launch, like a baby dragon with one red eye. -"What do you mean?" cried the chaotic Gregory. "What did I -promise you?" +Almost in the act of stepping on board, Gabriel Syme turned to the +gaping Gregory. -"A very entertaining evening," said Syme, and he made a -military salute with the sword-stick as the steamboat slid -away. +"You have kept your word," he said gently, with his face in shadow. "You +are a man of honour, and I thank you. You have kept it even down to a +small particular. There was one special thing you promised me at the +beginning of the affair, and which you have certainly given me by the +end of it." + +"What do you mean?" cried the chaotic Gregory. "What did I promise you?" + +"A very entertaining evening," said Syme, and he made a military salute +with the sword-stick as the steamboat slid away. # The Tale of a Detective -Gabriel Syme was not merely a detective who pretended to be -a poet; he was really a poet who had become a detective. Nor -was his hatred of anarchy hypocritical. He was one of those -who are driven early in life into too conservative an -attitude by the bewildering folly of most revolutionists. He -had not attained it by any tame tradition. His -respectability was spontaneous and sudden, a rebellion -against rebellion. He came of a family of cranks, in which -all the oldest people had all the newest notions. One of his -uncles always walked about without a hat, and another had -made an unsuccessful attempt to walk about with a hat and -nothing else. His father cultivated art and -self-realisation; his mother went in for simplicity and -hygiene. Hence the child, during his tenderer years, was -wholly unacquainted with any drink between the extremes of -absinth and cocoa, of both of which he had a healthy -dislike. The more his mother preached a more than Puritan -abstinence the more did his father expand into a more than -pagan latitude; and by the time the former had come to -enforcing vegetarianism, the latter had pretty well reached -the point of defending cannibalism. - -Being surrounded with every conceivable kind of revolt from -infancy, Gabriel had to revolt into something, so he -revolted into the only thing left---sanity. But there was -just enough in him of the blood of these fanatics to make -even his protest for common-sense a little too fierce to be -sensible. His hatred of modern lawlessness had been crowned -also by an accident. It happened that he was walking in a -side street at the instant of a dynamite outrage. He had -been blind and deaf for a moment, and then seen, the smoke -clearing, the broken windows and the bleeding faces. After -that he went about as usual---quiet, courteous, rather -gentle; but there was a spot on his mind that was not sane. -He did not regard anarchists, as most of us do, as a handful -of morbid men, combining ignorance with intellectualism. He -regarded them as a huge and pitiless peril, like a Chinese -invasion. - -He poured perpetually into newspapers and their waste-paper -baskets a torrent of tales, verses and violent articles, -warning men of this deluge of barbaric denial. But he seemed -to be getting no nearer his enemy, and, what was worse, no -nearer a living. As he paced the Thames embankment, bitterly -biting a cheap cigar and brooding on the advance of Anarchy, -there was no anarchist with a bomb in his pocket so savage -or so solitary as he. Indeed, he always felt that Government -stood alone and desperate, with its back to the wall. He was -too quixotic to have cared for it otherwise. - -He walked on the embankment once under a dark red sunset. -The red river reflected the red sky, and they both reflected -his anger. The sky, indeed, was so swarthy, and the light on -the river relatively so lurid, that the water almost seemed -of fiercer flame than the sunset it mirrored. It looked like -a stream of literal fire winding under the vast caverns of a -subterranean country. - -Syme was shabby in those days. He wore an old-fashioned -black chimney-pot hat; he was wrapped in a yet more -old-fashioned cloak, black and ragged; and the combination -gave him the look of the early villains in Dickens and -Bulwer Lytton. Also his yellow beard and hair were more -unkempt and leonine than when they appeared long afterwards, -cut and pointed, on the lawns of Saffron Park. A long, lean, -black cigar, bought in Soho for twopence, stood out from -between his tightened teeth, and altogether he looked a very -satisfactory specimen of the anarchists upon whom he had -vowed a holy war. Perhaps this was why a policeman on the +Gabriel Syme was not merely a detective who pretended to be a poet; he +was really a poet who had become a detective. Nor was his hatred of +anarchy hypocritical. He was one of those who are driven early in life +into too conservative an attitude by the bewildering folly of most +revolutionists. He had not attained it by any tame tradition. His +respectability was spontaneous and sudden, a rebellion against +rebellion. He came of a family of cranks, in which all the oldest people +had all the newest notions. One of his uncles always walked about +without a hat, and another had made an unsuccessful attempt to walk +about with a hat and nothing else. His father cultivated art and +self-realisation; his mother went in for simplicity and hygiene. Hence +the child, during his tenderer years, was wholly unacquainted with any +drink between the extremes of absinth and cocoa, of both of which he had +a healthy dislike. The more his mother preached a more than Puritan +abstinence the more did his father expand into a more than pagan +latitude; and by the time the former had come to enforcing +vegetarianism, the latter had pretty well reached the point of defending +cannibalism. + +Being surrounded with every conceivable kind of revolt from infancy, +Gabriel had to revolt into something, so he revolted into the only thing +left---sanity. But there was just enough in him of the blood of these +fanatics to make even his protest for common-sense a little too fierce +to be sensible. His hatred of modern lawlessness had been crowned also +by an accident. It happened that he was walking in a side street at the +instant of a dynamite outrage. He had been blind and deaf for a moment, +and then seen, the smoke clearing, the broken windows and the bleeding +faces. After that he went about as usual---quiet, courteous, rather +gentle; but there was a spot on his mind that was not sane. He did not +regard anarchists, as most of us do, as a handful of morbid men, +combining ignorance with intellectualism. He regarded them as a huge and +pitiless peril, like a Chinese invasion. + +He poured perpetually into newspapers and their waste-paper baskets a +torrent of tales, verses and violent articles, warning men of this +deluge of barbaric denial. But he seemed to be getting no nearer his +enemy, and, what was worse, no nearer a living. As he paced the Thames +embankment, bitterly biting a cheap cigar and brooding on the advance of +Anarchy, there was no anarchist with a bomb in his pocket so savage or +so solitary as he. Indeed, he always felt that Government stood alone +and desperate, with its back to the wall. He was too quixotic to have +cared for it otherwise. + +He walked on the embankment once under a dark red sunset. The red river +reflected the red sky, and they both reflected his anger. The sky, +indeed, was so swarthy, and the light on the river relatively so lurid, +that the water almost seemed of fiercer flame than the sunset it +mirrored. It looked like a stream of literal fire winding under the vast +caverns of a subterranean country. + +Syme was shabby in those days. He wore an old-fashioned black +chimney-pot hat; he was wrapped in a yet more old-fashioned cloak, black +and ragged; and the combination gave him the look of the early villains +in Dickens and Bulwer Lytton. Also his yellow beard and hair were more +unkempt and leonine than when they appeared long afterwards, cut and +pointed, on the lawns of Saffron Park. A long, lean, black cigar, bought +in Soho for twopence, stood out from between his tightened teeth, and +altogether he looked a very satisfactory specimen of the anarchists upon +whom he had vowed a holy war. Perhaps this was why a policeman on the Embankment spoke to him, and said "Good evening." -Syme, at a crisis of his morbid fears for humanity, seemed -stung by the mere stolidity of the automatic official, a -mere bulk of blue in the twilight. +Syme, at a crisis of his morbid fears for humanity, seemed stung by the +mere stolidity of the automatic official, a mere bulk of blue in the +twilight. -"A good evening is it?" he said sharply. "You fellows would -call the end of the world a good evening. Look at that -bloody red sun and that bloody river! I tell you that if -that were literally human blood, spilt and shining, you -would still be standing here as solid as ever, looking out -for some poor harmless tramp whom you could move on. You -policemen are cruel to the poor, but I could forgive you -even your cruelty if it were not for your calm." +"A good evening is it?" he said sharply. "You fellows would call the end +of the world a good evening. Look at that bloody red sun and that bloody +river! I tell you that if that were literally human blood, spilt and +shining, you would still be standing here as solid as ever, looking out +for some poor harmless tramp whom you could move on. You policemen are +cruel to the poor, but I could forgive you even your cruelty if it were +not for your calm." -"If we are calm," replied the policeman, "it is the calm of -organised resistance." +"If we are calm," replied the policeman, "it is the calm of organised +resistance." "Eh?" said Syme, staring. -"The soldier must be calm in the thick of the battle," -pursued the policeman. "The composure of an army is the -anger of a nation." +"The soldier must be calm in the thick of the battle," pursued the +policeman. "The composure of an army is the anger of a nation." -"Good God, the Board Schools!" said Syme. "Is this -undenominational education?" +"Good God, the Board Schools!" said Syme. "Is this undenominational +education?" -"No," said the policeman sadly, "I never had any of those -advantages. The Board Schools came after my time. What -education I had was very rough and old-fashioned, I am -afraid." +"No," said the policeman sadly, "I never had any of those advantages. +The Board Schools came after my time. What education I had was very +rough and old-fashioned, I am afraid." "Where did you have it?" asked Syme, wondering. "Oh, at Harrow," said the policeman. -The class sympathies which, false as they are, are the -truest things in so many men, broke out of Syme before he -could control them. +The class sympathies which, false as they are, are the truest things in +so many men, broke out of Syme before he could control them. -"But, good Lord, man," he said, "you oughtn't to be a -policeman!" +"But, good Lord, man," he said, "you oughtn't to be a policeman!" The policeman sighed and shook his head. "I know," he said solemnly, "I know I am not worthy." -"But why did you join the police?" asked Syme with rude -curiosity. +"But why did you join the police?" asked Syme with rude curiosity. -"For much the same reason that you abused the police," -replied the other. "I found that there was a special opening -in the service for those whose fears for humanity were -concerned rather with the aberrations of the scientific -intellect than with the normal and excusable, though -excessive, outbreaks of the human will. I trust I make +"For much the same reason that you abused the police," replied the +other. "I found that there was a special opening in the service for +those whose fears for humanity were concerned rather with the +aberrations of the scientific intellect than with the normal and +excusable, though excessive, outbreaks of the human will. I trust I make myself clear." -"If you mean that you make your opinion clear," said Syme, -"I suppose you do. But as for making yourself clear, it is -the last thing you do. How comes a man like you to be -talking philosophy in a blue helmet on the Thames -embankment?" +"If you mean that you make your opinion clear," said Syme, "I suppose +you do. But as for making yourself clear, it is the last thing you do. +How comes a man like you to be talking philosophy in a blue helmet on +the Thames embankment?" -"You have evidently not heard of the latest development in -our police system," replied the other. "I am not surprised -at it. We are keeping it rather dark from the educated -class, because that class contains most of our enemies. But -you seem to be exactly in the right frame of mind. I think -you might almost join us." +"You have evidently not heard of the latest development in our police +system," replied the other. "I am not surprised at it. We are keeping it +rather dark from the educated class, because that class contains most of +our enemies. But you seem to be exactly in the right frame of mind. I +think you might almost join us." "Join you in what?" asked Syme. -"I will tell you," said the policeman slowly. "This is the -situation: The head of one of our departments, one of the -most celebrated detectives in Europe, has long been of -opinion that a purely intellectual conspiracy would soon -threaten the very existence of civilisation. He is certain -that the scientific and artistic worlds are silently bound -in a crusade against the Family and the State. He has, -therefore, formed a special corps of policemen, policemen -who are also philosophers. It is their business to watch the -beginnings of this conspiracy, not merely in a criminal but -in a controversial sense. I am a democrat myself, and I am -fully aware of the value of the ordinary man in matters of -ordinary valour or virtue. But it would obviously be -undesirable to employ the common policeman in an -investigation which is also a heresy hunt." +"I will tell you," said the policeman slowly. "This is the situation: +The head of one of our departments, one of the most celebrated +detectives in Europe, has long been of opinion that a purely +intellectual conspiracy would soon threaten the very existence of +civilisation. He is certain that the scientific and artistic worlds are +silently bound in a crusade against the Family and the State. He has, +therefore, formed a special corps of policemen, policemen who are also +philosophers. It is their business to watch the beginnings of this +conspiracy, not merely in a criminal but in a controversial sense. I am +a democrat myself, and I am fully aware of the value of the ordinary man +in matters of ordinary valour or virtue. But it would obviously be +undesirable to employ the common policeman in an investigation which is +also a heresy hunt." Syme's eyes were bright with a sympathetic curiosity. "What do you do, then?" he said. -"The work of the philosophical policeman," replied the man -in blue, "is at once bolder and more subtle than that of the -ordinary detective. The ordinary detective goes to -pot-houses to arrest thieves; we go to artistic tea-parties -to detect pessimists. The ordinary detective discovers from -a ledger or a diary that a crime has been committed. We -discover from a book of sonnets that a crime will be -committed. We have to trace the origin of those dreadful -thoughts that drive men on at last to intellectual -fanaticism and intellectual crime. We were only just in time -to prevent the assassination at Hartlepool, and that was -entirely due to the fact that our Mr. Wilks (a smart young -fellow) thoroughly understood a triolet." - -"Do you mean," asked Syme, "that there is really as much -connection between crime and the modern intellect as all -that?" - -"You are not sufficiently democratic," answered the -policeman, "but you were right when you said just now that -our ordinary treatment of the poor criminal was a pretty -brutal business. I tell you I am sometimes sick of my trade -when I see how perpetually it means merely a war upon the -ignorant and the desperate. But this new movement of ours is -a very different affair. We deny the snobbish English -assumption that the uneducated are the dangerous criminals. -We remember the Roman Emperors. We remember the great -poisoning princes of the Renaissance. We say that the -dangerous criminal is the educated criminal. We say that the -most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern -philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are -essentially moral men; my heart goes out to them. They -accept the essential ideal of man; they merely seek it -wrongly. Thieves respect property. They merely wish the -property to become their property that they may more -perfectly respect it. But philosophers dislike property as -property; they wish to destroy the very idea of personal -possession. Bigamists respect marriage, or they would not go -through the highly ceremonial and even ritualistic formality -of bigamy. But philosophers despise marriage as marriage. -Murderers respect human life; they merely wish to attain a -greater fullness of human life in themselves by the -sacrifice of what seems to them to be lesser lives. But -philosophers hate life itself, their own as much as other -people's." - -Syme struck his hands together. "How true that is," he -cried. "I have felt it from my boyhood, but never could -state the verbal antithesis. The common criminal is a bad -man, but at least he is, as it were, a conditional good man. -He says that if only a certain obstacle be removed---say a -wealthy uncle---he is then prepared to accept the universe -and to praise God. He is a reformer, but not an anarchist. -He wishes to cleanse the edifice, but not to destroy it. But -the evil philosopher is not trying to alter things, but to -annihilate them. Yes, the modern world has retained all -those parts of police work which are really oppressive and -ignominious, the harrying of the poor, the spying upon the -unfortunate. It has given up its more dignified work, the -punishment of powerful traitors in the State and powerful -heresiarchs in the Church. The moderns say we must not -punish heretics. My only doubt is whether we have a right to -punish anybody else." - -"But this is absurd!" cried the policeman, clasping his -hands with an excitement uncommon in persons of his figure -and costume, "but it is intolerable! I don't know what -you're doing, but you're wasting your life. You must, you -shall, join our special army against anarchy. Their armies -are on our frontiers. Their bolt is ready to fall. A moment -more, and you may lose the glory of working with us, perhaps -the glory of dying with the last heroes of the world." - -"It is a chance not to be missed, certainly," assented Syme, -"but still I do not quite understand. I know as well as -anybody that the modern world is full of lawless little men -and mad little movements. But, beastly as they are, they -generally have the one merit of disagreeing with each other. -How can you talk of their leading one army or hurling one -bolt. What is this anarchy?" - -"Do not confuse it," replied the constable, "with those -chance dynamite outbreaks from Russia or from Ireland, which -are really the outbreaks of oppressed, if mistaken, men. -This is a vast philosophic movement, consisting of an outer -and an inner ring. You might even call the outer ring the -laity and the inner ring the priesthood. I prefer to call -the outer ring the innocent section, the inner ring the -supremely guilty section. The outer ring---the main mass of -their supporters---are merely anarchists; that is, men who -believe that rules and formulas have destroyed human -happiness. They believe that all the evil results of human -crime are the results of the system that has called it -crime. They do not believe that the crime creates the -punishment. They believe that the punishment has created the -crime. They believe that if a man seduced seven women he -would naturally walk away as blameless as the flowers of -spring. They believe that if a man picked a pocket he would -naturally feel exquisitely good. These I call the innocent -section." +"The work of the philosophical policeman," replied the man in blue, "is +at once bolder and more subtle than that of the ordinary detective. The +ordinary detective goes to pot-houses to arrest thieves; we go to +artistic tea-parties to detect pessimists. The ordinary detective +discovers from a ledger or a diary that a crime has been committed. We +discover from a book of sonnets that a crime will be committed. We have +to trace the origin of those dreadful thoughts that drive men on at last +to intellectual fanaticism and intellectual crime. We were only just in +time to prevent the assassination at Hartlepool, and that was entirely +due to the fact that our Mr. Wilks (a smart young fellow) thoroughly +understood a triolet." + +"Do you mean," asked Syme, "that there is really as much connection +between crime and the modern intellect as all that?" + +"You are not sufficiently democratic," answered the policeman, "but you +were right when you said just now that our ordinary treatment of the +poor criminal was a pretty brutal business. I tell you I am sometimes +sick of my trade when I see how perpetually it means merely a war upon +the ignorant and the desperate. But this new movement of ours is a very +different affair. We deny the snobbish English assumption that the +uneducated are the dangerous criminals. We remember the Roman Emperors. +We remember the great poisoning princes of the Renaissance. We say that +the dangerous criminal is the educated criminal. We say that the most +dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. +Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men; my +heart goes out to them. They accept the essential ideal of man; they +merely seek it wrongly. Thieves respect property. They merely wish the +property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect +it. But philosophers dislike property as property; they wish to destroy +the very idea of personal possession. Bigamists respect marriage, or +they would not go through the highly ceremonial and even ritualistic +formality of bigamy. But philosophers despise marriage as marriage. +Murderers respect human life; they merely wish to attain a greater +fullness of human life in themselves by the sacrifice of what seems to +them to be lesser lives. But philosophers hate life itself, their own as +much as other people's." + +Syme struck his hands together. "How true that is," he cried. "I have +felt it from my boyhood, but never could state the verbal antithesis. +The common criminal is a bad man, but at least he is, as it were, a +conditional good man. He says that if only a certain obstacle be +removed---say a wealthy uncle---he is then prepared to accept the +universe and to praise God. He is a reformer, but not an anarchist. He +wishes to cleanse the edifice, but not to destroy it. But the evil +philosopher is not trying to alter things, but to annihilate them. Yes, +the modern world has retained all those parts of police work which are +really oppressive and ignominious, the harrying of the poor, the spying +upon the unfortunate. It has given up its more dignified work, the +punishment of powerful traitors in the State and powerful heresiarchs in +the Church. The moderns say we must not punish heretics. My only doubt +is whether we have a right to punish anybody else." + +"But this is absurd!" cried the policeman, clasping his hands with an +excitement uncommon in persons of his figure and costume, "but it is +intolerable! I don't know what you're doing, but you're wasting your +life. You must, you shall, join our special army against anarchy. Their +armies are on our frontiers. Their bolt is ready to fall. A moment more, +and you may lose the glory of working with us, perhaps the glory of +dying with the last heroes of the world." + +"It is a chance not to be missed, certainly," assented Syme, "but still +I do not quite understand. I know as well as anybody that the modern +world is full of lawless little men and mad little movements. But, +beastly as they are, they generally have the one merit of disagreeing +with each other. How can you talk of their leading one army or hurling +one bolt. What is this anarchy?" + +"Do not confuse it," replied the constable, "with those chance dynamite +outbreaks from Russia or from Ireland, which are really the outbreaks of +oppressed, if mistaken, men. This is a vast philosophic movement, +consisting of an outer and an inner ring. You might even call the outer +ring the laity and the inner ring the priesthood. I prefer to call the +outer ring the innocent section, the inner ring the supremely guilty +section. The outer ring---the main mass of their supporters---are merely +anarchists; that is, men who believe that rules and formulas have +destroyed human happiness. They believe that all the evil results of +human crime are the results of the system that has called it crime. They +do not believe that the crime creates the punishment. They believe that +the punishment has created the crime. They believe that if a man seduced +seven women he would naturally walk away as blameless as the flowers of +spring. They believe that if a man picked a pocket he would naturally +feel exquisitely good. These I call the innocent section." "Oh!" said Syme. -"Naturally, therefore, these people talk about 'a happy time -coming;' 'the paradise of the future;' 'mankind freed from -the bondage of vice and the bondage of virtue,' and so on. -And so also the men of the inner circle speak---the sacred -priesthood. They also speak to applauding crowds of the -happiness of the future, and of mankind freed at last. But -in their mouths"---and the policeman lowered his voice---"in -their mouths these happy phrases have a horrible meaning. -They are under no illusions; they are too intellectual to -think that man upon this earth can ever be quite free of -original sin and the struggle. And they mean death. When -they say that mankind shall be free at last, they mean that -mankind shall commit suicide. When they talk of a paradise -without right or wrong, they mean the grave. They have but -two objects, to destroy first humanity and then themselves. -That is why they throw bombs instead of firing pistols. The -innocent rank and file are disappointed because the bomb has -not killed the king; but the high-priesthood are happy +"Naturally, therefore, these people talk about 'a happy time coming;' +'the paradise of the future;' 'mankind freed from the bondage of vice +and the bondage of virtue,' and so on. And so also the men of the inner +circle speak---the sacred priesthood. They also speak to applauding +crowds of the happiness of the future, and of mankind freed at last. But +in their mouths"---and the policeman lowered his voice---"in their +mouths these happy phrases have a horrible meaning. They are under no +illusions; they are too intellectual to think that man upon this earth +can ever be quite free of original sin and the struggle. And they mean +death. When they say that mankind shall be free at last, they mean that +mankind shall commit suicide. When they talk of a paradise without right +or wrong, they mean the grave. They have but two objects, to destroy +first humanity and then themselves. That is why they throw bombs instead +of firing pistols. The innocent rank and file are disappointed because +the bomb has not killed the king; but the high-priesthood are happy because it has killed somebody." "How can I join you?" asked Syme, with a sort of passion. -"I know for a fact that there is a vacancy at the moment," -said the policeman, "as I have the honour to be somewhat in -the confidence of the chief of whom I have spoken. You -should really come and see him. Or rather, I should not say -see him, nobody ever sees him; but you can talk to him if -you like." +"I know for a fact that there is a vacancy at the moment," said the +policeman, "as I have the honour to be somewhat in the confidence of the +chief of whom I have spoken. You should really come and see him. Or +rather, I should not say see him, nobody ever sees him; but you can talk +to him if you like." "Telephone?" inquired Syme, with interest. -"No," said the policeman placidly, "he has a fancy for -always sitting in a pitch-dark room. He says it makes his -thoughts brighter. Do come along." +"No," said the policeman placidly, "he has a fancy for always sitting in +a pitch-dark room. He says it makes his thoughts brighter. Do come +along." -Somewhat dazed and considerably excited, Syme allowed -himself to be led to a side-door in the long row of -buildings of Scotland Yard. Almost before he knew what he -was doing, he had been passed through the hands of about -four intermediate officials, and was suddenly shown into a -room, the abrupt blackness of which startled him like a -blaze of light. It was not the ordinary darkness, in which -forms can be faintly traced; it was like going suddenly -stone-blind. +Somewhat dazed and considerably excited, Syme allowed himself to be led +to a side-door in the long row of buildings of Scotland Yard. Almost +before he knew what he was doing, he had been passed through the hands +of about four intermediate officials, and was suddenly shown into a +room, the abrupt blackness of which startled him like a blaze of light. +It was not the ordinary darkness, in which forms can be faintly traced; +it was like going suddenly stone-blind. "Are you the new recruit?" asked a heavy voice. -And in some strange way, though there was not the shadow of -a shape in the gloom, Syme knew two things: first, that it -came from a man of massive stature; and second, that the man -had his back to him. +And in some strange way, though there was not the shadow of a shape in +the gloom, Syme knew two things: first, that it came from a man of +massive stature; and second, that the man had his back to him. -"Are you the new recruit?" said the invisible chief, who -seemed to have heard all about it. "All right. You are -engaged." +"Are you the new recruit?" said the invisible chief, who seemed to have +heard all about it. "All right. You are engaged." -Syme, quite swept off his feet, made a feeble fight against -this irrevocable phrase. +Syme, quite swept off his feet, made a feeble fight against this +irrevocable phrase. "I really have no experience," he began. -"No one has any experience," said the other, "of the Battle -of Armageddon." +"No one has any experience," said the other, "of the Battle of +Armageddon." "But I am really unfit---" "You are willing, that is enough," said the unknown. -"Well, really," said Syme, "I don't know any profession of -which mere willingness is the final test." - -"I do," said the other---"martyrs. I am condemning you to -death. Good-day." - -Thus it was that when Gabriel Syme came out again into the -crimson light of evening, in his shabby black hat and -shabby, lawless cloak, he came out a member of the New -Detective Corps for the frustration of the great conspiracy. -Acting under the advice of his friend the policeman (who was -professionally inclined to neatness), he trimmed his hair -and beard, bought a good hat, clad himself in an exquisite -summer suit of light blue-grey, with a pale yellow flower in -the button-hole, and, in short, became that elegant and -rather insupportable person whom Gregory had first -encountered in the little garden of Saffron Park. Before he -finally left the police premises his friend provided him -with a small blue card, on which was written, "The Last -Crusade," and a number, the sign of his official authority. -He put this carefully in his upper waistcoat pocket, fit a -cigarette, and went forth to track and fight the enemy in -all the drawing-rooms of London. Where his adventure -ultimately led him we have already seen. At about half-past -one on a February night he found himself steaming in a small -tug up the silent Thames, armed with sword-stick and -revolver, the duly elected Thursday of the Central Council -of Anarchists. - -When Syme stepped out on to the steam-tug he had a singular -sensation of stepping out into something entirely new; not -merely into the landscape of a new land, but even into the -landscape of a new planet. This was mainly due to the insane -yet solid decision of that evening, though partly also to an -entire change in the weather and the sky since he entered -the little tavern some two hours before. Every trace of the -passionate plumage of the cloudy sunset had been swept away, -and a naked moon stood in a naked sky. The moon was so -strong and full, that (by a paradox often to be noticed) it -seemed like a weaker sun. It gave, not the sense of bright -moonshine, but rather of a dead daylight. - -Over the whole landscape lay a luminous and unnatural -discoloration, as of that disastrous twilight which Milton -spoke of as shed by the sun in eclipse; so that Syme fell -easily into his first thought, that he was actually on some -other and emptier planet, which circled round some sadder -star. But the more he felt this glittering desolation in the -moonlit land, the more his own chivalric folly glowed in the -night like a great fire. Even the common things he carried -with him---the food and the brandy and the loaded -pistol---took on exactly that concrete and material poetry -which a child feels when he takes a gun upon a journey or a -bun with him to bed. The sword-stick and the brandy-flask, -though in themselves only the tools of morbid conspirators, -became the expressions of his own more healthy romance. The -sword stick became almost the sword of chivalry, and the -brandy the wine of the stirrup-cup. For even the most -dehumanised modern fantasies depend on some older and -simpler figure; the adventures may be mad, but the -adventurer must be sane. The dragon without St. George would -not even be grotesque. So this inhuman landscape was only -imaginative by the presence of a man really human. To Syme's -exaggerative mind the bright, bleak houses and terraces by -the Thames looked as empty as the mountains of the moon. But -even the moon is only poetical because there is a man in the -moon. - -The tug was worked by two men, and with much toil went -comparatively slowly. The clear moon that had lit up -Chiswick had gone down by the time that they passed -Battersea, and when they came under the enormous bulk of -Westminster day had already begun to break. It broke like -the splitting of great bars of lead, showing bars of silver; -and these had brightened like white fire when the tug, -changing its onward course, turned inward to a large landing -stage rather beyond Charing Cross. - -The great stones of the embankment seemed equally dark and -gigantic as Syme looked up at them. They were big and black -against the huge white dawn. They made him feel that he was -landing on the colossal steps of some Egyptian palace; and -indeed the thing suited his mood, for he was, in his own -mind, mounting to attack the solid thrones of horrible and -heathen kings. He leapt out of the boat on to one slimy -step, and stood, a dark and slender figure, amid the -enormous masonry. The two men in the tug put her off again -and turned up stream. They had never spoken a word. +"Well, really," said Syme, "I don't know any profession of which mere +willingness is the final test." + +"I do," said the other---"martyrs. I am condemning you to death. +Good-day." + +Thus it was that when Gabriel Syme came out again into the crimson light +of evening, in his shabby black hat and shabby, lawless cloak, he came +out a member of the New Detective Corps for the frustration of the great +conspiracy. Acting under the advice of his friend the policeman (who was +professionally inclined to neatness), he trimmed his hair and beard, +bought a good hat, clad himself in an exquisite summer suit of light +blue-grey, with a pale yellow flower in the button-hole, and, in short, +became that elegant and rather insupportable person whom Gregory had +first encountered in the little garden of Saffron Park. Before he +finally left the police premises his friend provided him with a small +blue card, on which was written, "The Last Crusade," and a number, the +sign of his official authority. He put this carefully in his upper +waistcoat pocket, fit a cigarette, and went forth to track and fight the +enemy in all the drawing-rooms of London. Where his adventure ultimately +led him we have already seen. At about half-past one on a February night +he found himself steaming in a small tug up the silent Thames, armed +with sword-stick and revolver, the duly elected Thursday of the Central +Council of Anarchists. + +When Syme stepped out on to the steam-tug he had a singular sensation of +stepping out into something entirely new; not merely into the landscape +of a new land, but even into the landscape of a new planet. This was +mainly due to the insane yet solid decision of that evening, though +partly also to an entire change in the weather and the sky since he +entered the little tavern some two hours before. Every trace of the +passionate plumage of the cloudy sunset had been swept away, and a naked +moon stood in a naked sky. The moon was so strong and full, that (by a +paradox often to be noticed) it seemed like a weaker sun. It gave, not +the sense of bright moonshine, but rather of a dead daylight. + +Over the whole landscape lay a luminous and unnatural discoloration, as +of that disastrous twilight which Milton spoke of as shed by the sun in +eclipse; so that Syme fell easily into his first thought, that he was +actually on some other and emptier planet, which circled round some +sadder star. But the more he felt this glittering desolation in the +moonlit land, the more his own chivalric folly glowed in the night like +a great fire. Even the common things he carried with him---the food and +the brandy and the loaded pistol---took on exactly that concrete and +material poetry which a child feels when he takes a gun upon a journey +or a bun with him to bed. The sword-stick and the brandy-flask, though +in themselves only the tools of morbid conspirators, became the +expressions of his own more healthy romance. The sword stick became +almost the sword of chivalry, and the brandy the wine of the +stirrup-cup. For even the most dehumanised modern fantasies depend on +some older and simpler figure; the adventures may be mad, but the +adventurer must be sane. The dragon without St. George would not even be +grotesque. So this inhuman landscape was only imaginative by the +presence of a man really human. To Syme's exaggerative mind the bright, +bleak houses and terraces by the Thames looked as empty as the mountains +of the moon. But even the moon is only poetical because there is a man +in the moon. + +The tug was worked by two men, and with much toil went comparatively +slowly. The clear moon that had lit up Chiswick had gone down by the +time that they passed Battersea, and when they came under the enormous +bulk of Westminster day had already begun to break. It broke like the +splitting of great bars of lead, showing bars of silver; and these had +brightened like white fire when the tug, changing its onward course, +turned inward to a large landing stage rather beyond Charing Cross. + +The great stones of the embankment seemed equally dark and gigantic as +Syme looked up at them. They were big and black against the huge white +dawn. They made him feel that he was landing on the colossal steps of +some Egyptian palace; and indeed the thing suited his mood, for he was, +in his own mind, mounting to attack the solid thrones of horrible and +heathen kings. He leapt out of the boat on to one slimy step, and stood, +a dark and slender figure, amid the enormous masonry. The two men in the +tug put her off again and turned up stream. They had never spoken a +word. # The Feast of Fear -At first the large stone stair seemed to Syme as deserted as -a pyramid; but before he reached the top he had realised -that there was a man leaning over the parapet of the -Embankment and looking out across the river. As a figure he -was quite conventional, clad in a silk hat and frock-coat of -the more formal type of fashion; he had a red flower in his -buttonhole. As Syme drew nearer to him step by step, he did -not even move a hair; and Syme could come close enough to -notice even in the dim, pale morning light that his face was -long, pale and intellectual, and ended in a small triangular -tuft of dark beard at the very point of the chin, all else -being clean-shaven. This scrap of hair almost seemed a mere -oversight; the rest of the face was of the type that is best -shaven---clear-cut, ascetic, and in its way noble. Syme drew -closer and closer, noting all this, and still the figure did -not stir. - -At first an instinct had told Syme that this was the man -whom he was meant to meet. Then, seeing that the man made no -sign, he had concluded that he was not. And now again he had -come back to a certainty that the man had something to do -with his mad adventure. For the man remained more still than -would have been natural if a stranger had come so close. He -was as motionless as a waxwork, and got on the nerves -somewhat in the same way. Syme looked again and again at the -pale, dignified and delicate face, and the face still looked -blankly across the river. Then he took out of his pocket the -note from Buttons proving his election, and put it before -that sad and beautiful face. Then the man smiled; and his -smile was a shock, for it was all on one side, going up in -the right cheek and down in the left. - -There was nothing, rationally speaking, to scare anyone -about this. Many people have this nervous trick of a crooked -smile, and in many it is even attractive. But in all Syme's -circumstances, with the dark dawn and the deadly errand and -the loneliness on the great dripping stones, there was -something unnerving in it. There was the silent river and -the silent man, a man of even classic face. And there was -the last nightmare touch that his smile suddenly went wrong. - -The spasm of smile was instantaneous, and the man's face -dropped at once into its harmonious melancholy. He spoke -without further explanation or inquiry, like a man speaking -to an old colleague. - -"If we walk up towards Leicester Square," he said, "we shall -just be in time for breakfast. Sunday always insists on an -early breakfast. Have you had any sleep?" +At first the large stone stair seemed to Syme as deserted as a pyramid; +but before he reached the top he had realised that there was a man +leaning over the parapet of the Embankment and looking out across the +river. As a figure he was quite conventional, clad in a silk hat and +frock-coat of the more formal type of fashion; he had a red flower in +his buttonhole. As Syme drew nearer to him step by step, he did not even +move a hair; and Syme could come close enough to notice even in the dim, +pale morning light that his face was long, pale and intellectual, and +ended in a small triangular tuft of dark beard at the very point of the +chin, all else being clean-shaven. This scrap of hair almost seemed a +mere oversight; the rest of the face was of the type that is best +shaven---clear-cut, ascetic, and in its way noble. Syme drew closer and +closer, noting all this, and still the figure did not stir. + +At first an instinct had told Syme that this was the man whom he was +meant to meet. Then, seeing that the man made no sign, he had concluded +that he was not. And now again he had come back to a certainty that the +man had something to do with his mad adventure. For the man remained +more still than would have been natural if a stranger had come so close. +He was as motionless as a waxwork, and got on the nerves somewhat in the +same way. Syme looked again and again at the pale, dignified and +delicate face, and the face still looked blankly across the river. Then +he took out of his pocket the note from Buttons proving his election, +and put it before that sad and beautiful face. Then the man smiled; and +his smile was a shock, for it was all on one side, going up in the right +cheek and down in the left. + +There was nothing, rationally speaking, to scare anyone about this. Many +people have this nervous trick of a crooked smile, and in many it is +even attractive. But in all Syme's circumstances, with the dark dawn and +the deadly errand and the loneliness on the great dripping stones, there +was something unnerving in it. There was the silent river and the silent +man, a man of even classic face. And there was the last nightmare touch +that his smile suddenly went wrong. + +The spasm of smile was instantaneous, and the man's face dropped at once +into its harmonious melancholy. He spoke without further explanation or +inquiry, like a man speaking to an old colleague. + +"If we walk up towards Leicester Square," he said, "we shall just be in +time for breakfast. Sunday always insists on an early breakfast. Have +you had any sleep?" "No," said Syme. -"Nor have I," answered the man in an ordinary tone. "I shall -try to get to bed after breakfast." +"Nor have I," answered the man in an ordinary tone. "I shall try to get +to bed after breakfast." -He spoke with casual civility, but in an utterly dead voice -that contradicted the fanaticism of his face. It seemed -almost as if all friendly words were to him lifeless -conveniences, and that his only life was hate. After a pause -the man spoke again. +He spoke with casual civility, but in an utterly dead voice that +contradicted the fanaticism of his face. It seemed almost as if all +friendly words were to him lifeless conveniences, and that his only life +was hate. After a pause the man spoke again. -"Of course, the Secretary of the branch told you everything -that can be told. But the one thing that can never be told -is the last notion of the President, for his notions grow -like a tropical forest. So in case you don't know, I'd -better tell you that he is carrying out his notion of +"Of course, the Secretary of the branch told you everything that can be +told. But the one thing that can never be told is the last notion of the +President, for his notions grow like a tropical forest. So in case you +don't know, I'd better tell you that he is carrying out his notion of concealing ourselves by not concealing ourselves to the most -extraordinary lengths just now. Originally, of course, we -met in a cell underground, just as your branch does. Then -Sunday made us take a private room at an ordinary -restaurant. He said that if you didn't seem to be hiding -nobody hunted you out. Well, he is the only man on earth, I -know; but sometimes I really think that his huge brain is -going a little mad in its old age. For now we flaunt -ourselves before the public. We have our breakfast on a -balcony---on a balcony, if you please---overlooking -Leicester Square." +extraordinary lengths just now. Originally, of course, we met in a cell +underground, just as your branch does. Then Sunday made us take a +private room at an ordinary restaurant. He said that if you didn't seem +to be hiding nobody hunted you out. Well, he is the only man on earth, I +know; but sometimes I really think that his huge brain is going a little +mad in its old age. For now we flaunt ourselves before the public. We +have our breakfast on a balcony---on a balcony, if you +please---overlooking Leicester Square." "And what do the people say?" asked Syme. -"It's quite simple what they say," answered his guide. "They -say we are a lot of jolly gentlemen who pretend they are -anarchists." +"It's quite simple what they say," answered his guide. "They say we are +a lot of jolly gentlemen who pretend they are anarchists." "It seems to me a very clever idea," said Syme. -"Clever! God blast your impudence! Clever!" cried out the -other in a sudden, shrill voice which was as startling and -discordant as his crooked smile. "When you've seen Sunday -for a split second you'll leave off calling him clever." - -With this they emerged out of a narrow street, and saw the -early sunlight filling Leicester Square. It will never be -known, I suppose, why this square itself should look so -alien and in some ways so continental. It will never be -known whether it was the foreign look that attracted the -foreigners or the foreigners who gave it the foreign look. -But on this particular morning the effect seemed singularly -bright and clear. Between the open square and the sunlit -leaves and the statue and the Saracenic outlines of the -Alhambra, it looked the replica of some French or even -Spanish public place. And this effect increased in Syme the -sensation, which in many shapes he had had through the whole -adventure, the eerie sensation of having strayed into a new -world. As a fact, he had bought bad cigars round Leicester -Square ever since he was a boy. But as he turned that comer, -and saw the trees and the Moorish cupolas, he could have -sworn that he was turning into an unknown Place de something -or other in some foreign town. - -At one corner of the square there projected a kind of angle -of a prosperous but quiet hotel, the bulk of which belonged -to a street behind. In the wall there was one large French -window, probably the window of a large coffee-room; and -outside this window, almost literally overhanging the -square, was a formidably buttressed balcony, big enough to -contain a dining-table. In fact, it did contain a -dining-table, or more strictly a breakfast-table; and round -the breakfast-table, glowing in the sunlight and evident to -the street, were a group of noisy and talkative men, all -dressed in the insolence of fashion, with white waistcoats -and expensive button-holes. Some of their jokes could almost -be heard across the square. Then the grave Secretary gave -his unnatural smile, and Syme knew that this boisterous -breakfast party was the secret conclave of the European -Dynamiters. Then, as Syme continued to stare at them, he saw -something that he had not seen before. He had not seen it -literally because it was too large to see. At the nearest -end of the balcony, blocking up a great part of the -perspective, was the back of a great mountain of a man. When -Syme had seen him, his first thought was that the weight of -him must break down the balcony of stone. His vastness did -not lie only in the fact that he was abnormally tall and -quite incredibly fat. This man was planned enormously in his -original proportions, like a statue carved deliberately as -colossal. His head, crowned with white hair, as seen from -behind looked bigger than a head ought to be. The ears that -stood out from it looked larger than human ears. He was -enlarged terribly to scale; and this sense of size was so -staggering, that when Syme saw him all the other figures -seemed quite suddenly to dwindle and become dwarfish. They -were still sitting there as before with their flowers and -frock-coats, but now it looked as if the big man was -entertaining five children to tea. - -As Syme and the guide approached the side door of the hotel, -a waiter came out smiling with every tooth in his head. - -"The gentlemen are up there, sare," he said. "They do talk -and they do laugh at what they talk. They do say they will -throw bombs at ze king." - -And the waiter hurried away with a napkin over his arm, much -pleased with the singular frivolity of the gentlemen -upstairs. +"Clever! God blast your impudence! Clever!" cried out the other in a +sudden, shrill voice which was as startling and discordant as his +crooked smile. "When you've seen Sunday for a split second you'll leave +off calling him clever." + +With this they emerged out of a narrow street, and saw the early +sunlight filling Leicester Square. It will never be known, I suppose, +why this square itself should look so alien and in some ways so +continental. It will never be known whether it was the foreign look that +attracted the foreigners or the foreigners who gave it the foreign look. +But on this particular morning the effect seemed singularly bright and +clear. Between the open square and the sunlit leaves and the statue and +the Saracenic outlines of the Alhambra, it looked the replica of some +French or even Spanish public place. And this effect increased in Syme +the sensation, which in many shapes he had had through the whole +adventure, the eerie sensation of having strayed into a new world. As a +fact, he had bought bad cigars round Leicester Square ever since he was +a boy. But as he turned that comer, and saw the trees and the Moorish +cupolas, he could have sworn that he was turning into an unknown Place +de something or other in some foreign town. + +At one corner of the square there projected a kind of angle of a +prosperous but quiet hotel, the bulk of which belonged to a street +behind. In the wall there was one large French window, probably the +window of a large coffee-room; and outside this window, almost literally +overhanging the square, was a formidably buttressed balcony, big enough +to contain a dining-table. In fact, it did contain a dining-table, or +more strictly a breakfast-table; and round the breakfast-table, glowing +in the sunlight and evident to the street, were a group of noisy and +talkative men, all dressed in the insolence of fashion, with white +waistcoats and expensive button-holes. Some of their jokes could almost +be heard across the square. Then the grave Secretary gave his unnatural +smile, and Syme knew that this boisterous breakfast party was the secret +conclave of the European Dynamiters. Then, as Syme continued to stare at +them, he saw something that he had not seen before. He had not seen it +literally because it was too large to see. At the nearest end of the +balcony, blocking up a great part of the perspective, was the back of a +great mountain of a man. When Syme had seen him, his first thought was +that the weight of him must break down the balcony of stone. His +vastness did not lie only in the fact that he was abnormally tall and +quite incredibly fat. This man was planned enormously in his original +proportions, like a statue carved deliberately as colossal. His head, +crowned with white hair, as seen from behind looked bigger than a head +ought to be. The ears that stood out from it looked larger than human +ears. He was enlarged terribly to scale; and this sense of size was so +staggering, that when Syme saw him all the other figures seemed quite +suddenly to dwindle and become dwarfish. They were still sitting there +as before with their flowers and frock-coats, but now it looked as if +the big man was entertaining five children to tea. + +As Syme and the guide approached the side door of the hotel, a waiter +came out smiling with every tooth in his head. + +"The gentlemen are up there, sare," he said. "They do talk and they do +laugh at what they talk. They do say they will throw bombs at ze king." + +And the waiter hurried away with a napkin over his arm, much pleased +with the singular frivolity of the gentlemen upstairs. The two men mounted the stairs in silence. -Syme had never thought of asking whether the monstrous man -who almost filled and broke the balcony was the great -President of whom the others stood in awe. He knew it was -so, with an unaccountable but instantaneous certainty. Syme, -indeed, was one of those men who are open to all the more -nameless psychological influences in a degree a little -dangerous to mental health. Utterly devoid of fear in -physical dangers, he was a great deal too sensitive to the -smell of spiritual evil. Twice already that night little -unmeaning things had peeped out at him almost pruriently, -and given him a sense of drawing nearer and nearer to the -head-quarters of hell. And this sense became overpowering as -he drew nearer to the great President. - -The form it took was a childish and yet hateful fancy. As he -walked across the inner room towards the balcony, the large -face of Sunday grew larger and larger; and Syme was gripped -with a fear that when he was quite close the face would be -too big to be possible, and that he would scream aloud. He -remembered that as a child he would not look at the mask of -Memnon in the British Museum, because it was a face, and so +Syme had never thought of asking whether the monstrous man who almost +filled and broke the balcony was the great President of whom the others +stood in awe. He knew it was so, with an unaccountable but instantaneous +certainty. Syme, indeed, was one of those men who are open to all the +more nameless psychological influences in a degree a little dangerous to +mental health. Utterly devoid of fear in physical dangers, he was a +great deal too sensitive to the smell of spiritual evil. Twice already +that night little unmeaning things had peeped out at him almost +pruriently, and given him a sense of drawing nearer and nearer to the +head-quarters of hell. And this sense became overpowering as he drew +nearer to the great President. + +The form it took was a childish and yet hateful fancy. As he walked +across the inner room towards the balcony, the large face of Sunday grew +larger and larger; and Syme was gripped with a fear that when he was +quite close the face would be too big to be possible, and that he would +scream aloud. He remembered that as a child he would not look at the +mask of Memnon in the British Museum, because it was a face, and so large. -By an effort braver than that of leaping over a cliff, he -went to an empty seat at the breakfast-table and sat down. -The men greeted him with good-humoured raillery as if they -had always known him. He sobered himself a little by looking -at their conventional coats and solid, shining coffee-pot; -then he looked again at Sunday. His face was very large, but -it was still possible to humanity. - -In the presence of the President the whole company looked -sufficiently commonplace; nothing about them caught the eye -at first, except that by the President's caprice they had -been dressed up with a festive respectability, which gave -the meal the look of a wedding breakfast. One man indeed -stood out at even a superficial glance. He at least was the -common or garden Dynamiter. He wore, indeed, the high white -collar and satin tie that were the uniform of the occasion; -but out of this collar there sprang a head quite -unmanageable and quite unmistakable, a bewildering bush of -brown hair and beard that almost obscured the eyes like -those of a Skye terrier. But the eyes did look out of the -tangle, and they were the sad eyes of some Russian serf. The -effect of this figure was not terrible like that of the -President, but it had every diablerie that can come from the -utterly grotesque. If out of that stiff tie and collar there -had come abruptly the head of a cat or a dog, it could not -have been a more idiotic contrast. - -The man's name, it seemed, was Gogol; he was a Pole, and in -this circle of days he was called Tuesday. His soul and -speech were incurably tragic; he could not force himself to -play the prosperous and frivolous part demanded of him by -President Sunday. And, indeed, when Syme came in the -President, with that daring disregard of public suspicion -which was his policy, was actually chaffing Gogol upon his -inability to assume conventional graces. - -"Our friend Tuesday," said the President in a deep voice at -once of quietude and volume, "our friend Tuesday doesn't -seem to grasp the idea. He dresses up like a gentleman, but -he seems to be too great a soul to behave like one. He -insists on the ways of the stage conspirator. Now if a -gentleman goes about London in a top hat and a frock-coat, -no one need know that he is an anarchist. But if a gentleman -puts on a top hat and a frock-coat, and then goes about on -his hands and knees---well, he may attract attention. That's -what Brother Gogol does. He goes about on his hands and -knees with such inexhaustible diplomacy, that by this time -he finds it quite difficult to walk upright." - -"I am not good at goncealment," said Gogol sulkily, with a -thick foreign accent; "I am not ashamed of the cause." - -"Yes you are, my boy, and so is the cause of you," said the -President good-naturedly. "You hide as much as anybody; but -you can't do it, you see, you're such an ass! You try to -combine two inconsistent methods. When a householder finds a -man under his bed, he will probably pause to note the -circumstance. But if he finds a man under his bed in a top -hat, you will agree with me, my dear Tuesday, that he is not -likely even to forget it. Now when you were found under -Admiral Biffin's bed---" - -"I am not good at deception," said Tuesday gloomily, -flushing. - -"Right, my boy, right," said the President with a ponderous -heartiness, "you aren't good at anything." - -While this stream of conversation continued, Syme was -looking more steadily at the men around him. As he did so, -he gradually felt all his sense of something spiritually -queer return. - -He had thought at first that they were all of common stature -and costume, with the evident exception of the hairy Gogol. -But as he looked at the others, he began to see in each of -them exactly what he had seen in the man by the river, a -demoniac detail somewhere. That lop-sided laugh, which would -suddenly disfigure the fine face of his original guide, was -typical of all these types. Each man had something about -him, perceived perhaps at the tenth or twentieth glance, -which was not normal, and which seemed hardly human. The -only metaphor he could think of was this, that they all -looked as men of fashion and presence would look, with the -additional twist given in a false and curved mirror. - -Only the individual examples will express this -half-concealed eccentricity. Syme's original cicerone bore -the title of Monday; he was the Secretary of the Council, -and his twisted smile was regarded with more terror than -anything, except the President's horrible, happy laughter. -But now that Syme had more space and light to observe him, -there were other touches. His fine face was so emaciated, -that somehow the very distress of his dark eyes denied this. -It was no physical ill that troubled him. His eyes were -alive with intellectual torture, as if pure thought was -pain. - -He was typical of each of the tribe; each man was subtly and -differently wrong. Next to him sat Tuesday, the -towzle-headed Gogol, a man more obviously mad. Next was -Wednesday, a certain Marquis de St. Eustache, a sufficiently -characteristic figure. The first few glances found nothing -unusual about him, except that he was the only man at table -who wore the fashionable clothes as if they were really his -own. He had a black French beard cut square and a black -English frock-coat cut even squarer. But Syme, sensitive to -such things, felt somehow that the man carried a rich -atmosphere with him, a rich atmosphere that suffocated. It -reminded one irrationally of drowsy odours and of dying -lamps in the darker poems of Byron and Poe. With this went a -sense of his being clad, not in lighter colours, but in -softer materials; his black seemed richer and warmer than -the black shades about him, as if it were compounded of -profound colour. His black coat looked as if it were only -black by being too dense a purple. His black beard looked as -if it were only black by being too deep a blue. And in the -gloom and thickness of the beard his dark red mouth showed -sensual and scornful. Whatever he was he was not a -Frenchman; he might be a Jew; he might be something deeper -yet in the dark heart of the East. In the bright coloured -Persian tiles and pictures showing tyrants hunting, you may -see just those almond eyes, those blue-black beards, those -cruel, crimson lips. - -Then came Syme, and next a very old man, Professor de Worms, -who still kept the chair of Friday, though every day it was -expected that his death would leave it empty. Save for his -intellect, he was in the last dissolution of senile decay. -His face was as grey as his long grey beard, his forehead -was lifted and fixed finally in a furrow of mild despair. In -no other case, not even that of Gogol, did the bridegroom -brilliancy of the morning dress express a more painful -contrast. For the red flower in his button-hole showed up -against a face that was literally discoloured like lead; the -whole hideous effect was as if some drunken dandies had put -their clothes upon a corpse. When he rose or sat down, which -was with long labour and peril, something worse was -expressed than mere weakness, something indefinably -connected with the horror of the whole scene. It did not -express decrepitude merely, but corruption. Another hateful -fancy crossed Syme's quivering mind. He could not help -thinking that whenever the man moved a leg or arm might fall -off. - -Right at the end sat the man called Saturday, the simplest -and the most baffling of all. He was a short, square man -with a dark, square face clean-shaven, a medical -practitioner going by the name of Bull. He had that -combination of *savoir-faire* with a sort of well-groomed -coarseness which is not uncommon in young doctors. He -carried his fine clothes with confidence rather than ease, -and he mostly wore a set smile. There was nothing whatever -odd about him, except that he wore a pair of dark, almost -opaque spectacles. It may have been merely a crescendo of -nervous fancy that had gone before, but those black discs -were dreadful to Syme; they reminded him of half-remembered -ugly tales, of some story about pennies being put on the -eyes of the dead. Syme's eye always caught the black glasses -and the blind grin. Had the dying Professor worn them, or -even the pale Secretary, they would have been appropriate. -But on the younger and grosser man they seemed only an -enigma. They took away the key of the face. You could not -tell what his smile or his gravity meant. Partly from this, -and partly because he had a vulgar virility wanting in most -of the others, it seemed to Syme that he might be the -wickedest of all those wicked men. Syme even had the thought -that his eyes might be covered up because they were too +By an effort braver than that of leaping over a cliff, he went to an +empty seat at the breakfast-table and sat down. The men greeted him with +good-humoured raillery as if they had always known him. He sobered +himself a little by looking at their conventional coats and solid, +shining coffee-pot; then he looked again at Sunday. His face was very +large, but it was still possible to humanity. + +In the presence of the President the whole company looked sufficiently +commonplace; nothing about them caught the eye at first, except that by +the President's caprice they had been dressed up with a festive +respectability, which gave the meal the look of a wedding breakfast. One +man indeed stood out at even a superficial glance. He at least was the +common or garden Dynamiter. He wore, indeed, the high white collar and +satin tie that were the uniform of the occasion; but out of this collar +there sprang a head quite unmanageable and quite unmistakable, a +bewildering bush of brown hair and beard that almost obscured the eyes +like those of a Skye terrier. But the eyes did look out of the tangle, +and they were the sad eyes of some Russian serf. The effect of this +figure was not terrible like that of the President, but it had every +diablerie that can come from the utterly grotesque. If out of that stiff +tie and collar there had come abruptly the head of a cat or a dog, it +could not have been a more idiotic contrast. + +The man's name, it seemed, was Gogol; he was a Pole, and in this circle +of days he was called Tuesday. His soul and speech were incurably +tragic; he could not force himself to play the prosperous and frivolous +part demanded of him by President Sunday. And, indeed, when Syme came in +the President, with that daring disregard of public suspicion which was +his policy, was actually chaffing Gogol upon his inability to assume +conventional graces. + +"Our friend Tuesday," said the President in a deep voice at once of +quietude and volume, "our friend Tuesday doesn't seem to grasp the idea. +He dresses up like a gentleman, but he seems to be too great a soul to +behave like one. He insists on the ways of the stage conspirator. Now if +a gentleman goes about London in a top hat and a frock-coat, no one need +know that he is an anarchist. But if a gentleman puts on a top hat and a +frock-coat, and then goes about on his hands and knees---well, he may +attract attention. That's what Brother Gogol does. He goes about on his +hands and knees with such inexhaustible diplomacy, that by this time he +finds it quite difficult to walk upright." + +"I am not good at goncealment," said Gogol sulkily, with a thick foreign +accent; "I am not ashamed of the cause." + +"Yes you are, my boy, and so is the cause of you," said the President +good-naturedly. "You hide as much as anybody; but you can't do it, you +see, you're such an ass! You try to combine two inconsistent methods. +When a householder finds a man under his bed, he will probably pause to +note the circumstance. But if he finds a man under his bed in a top hat, +you will agree with me, my dear Tuesday, that he is not likely even to +forget it. Now when you were found under Admiral Biffin's bed---" + +"I am not good at deception," said Tuesday gloomily, flushing. + +"Right, my boy, right," said the President with a ponderous heartiness, +"you aren't good at anything." + +While this stream of conversation continued, Syme was looking more +steadily at the men around him. As he did so, he gradually felt all his +sense of something spiritually queer return. + +He had thought at first that they were all of common stature and +costume, with the evident exception of the hairy Gogol. But as he looked +at the others, he began to see in each of them exactly what he had seen +in the man by the river, a demoniac detail somewhere. That lop-sided +laugh, which would suddenly disfigure the fine face of his original +guide, was typical of all these types. Each man had something about him, +perceived perhaps at the tenth or twentieth glance, which was not +normal, and which seemed hardly human. The only metaphor he could think +of was this, that they all looked as men of fashion and presence would +look, with the additional twist given in a false and curved mirror. + +Only the individual examples will express this half-concealed +eccentricity. Syme's original cicerone bore the title of Monday; he was +the Secretary of the Council, and his twisted smile was regarded with +more terror than anything, except the President's horrible, happy +laughter. But now that Syme had more space and light to observe him, +there were other touches. His fine face was so emaciated, that somehow +the very distress of his dark eyes denied this. It was no physical ill +that troubled him. His eyes were alive with intellectual torture, as if +pure thought was pain. + +He was typical of each of the tribe; each man was subtly and differently +wrong. Next to him sat Tuesday, the towzle-headed Gogol, a man more +obviously mad. Next was Wednesday, a certain Marquis de St. Eustache, a +sufficiently characteristic figure. The first few glances found nothing +unusual about him, except that he was the only man at table who wore the +fashionable clothes as if they were really his own. He had a black +French beard cut square and a black English frock-coat cut even squarer. +But Syme, sensitive to such things, felt somehow that the man carried a +rich atmosphere with him, a rich atmosphere that suffocated. It reminded +one irrationally of drowsy odours and of dying lamps in the darker poems +of Byron and Poe. With this went a sense of his being clad, not in +lighter colours, but in softer materials; his black seemed richer and +warmer than the black shades about him, as if it were compounded of +profound colour. His black coat looked as if it were only black by being +too dense a purple. His black beard looked as if it were only black by +being too deep a blue. And in the gloom and thickness of the beard his +dark red mouth showed sensual and scornful. Whatever he was he was not a +Frenchman; he might be a Jew; he might be something deeper yet in the +dark heart of the East. In the bright coloured Persian tiles and +pictures showing tyrants hunting, you may see just those almond eyes, +those blue-black beards, those cruel, crimson lips. + +Then came Syme, and next a very old man, Professor de Worms, who still +kept the chair of Friday, though every day it was expected that his +death would leave it empty. Save for his intellect, he was in the last +dissolution of senile decay. His face was as grey as his long grey +beard, his forehead was lifted and fixed finally in a furrow of mild +despair. In no other case, not even that of Gogol, did the bridegroom +brilliancy of the morning dress express a more painful contrast. For the +red flower in his button-hole showed up against a face that was +literally discoloured like lead; the whole hideous effect was as if some +drunken dandies had put their clothes upon a corpse. When he rose or sat +down, which was with long labour and peril, something worse was +expressed than mere weakness, something indefinably connected with the +horror of the whole scene. It did not express decrepitude merely, but +corruption. Another hateful fancy crossed Syme's quivering mind. He +could not help thinking that whenever the man moved a leg or arm might +fall off. + +Right at the end sat the man called Saturday, the simplest and the most +baffling of all. He was a short, square man with a dark, square face +clean-shaven, a medical practitioner going by the name of Bull. He had +that combination of *savoir-faire* with a sort of well-groomed +coarseness which is not uncommon in young doctors. He carried his fine +clothes with confidence rather than ease, and he mostly wore a set +smile. There was nothing whatever odd about him, except that he wore a +pair of dark, almost opaque spectacles. It may have been merely a +crescendo of nervous fancy that had gone before, but those black discs +were dreadful to Syme; they reminded him of half-remembered ugly tales, +of some story about pennies being put on the eyes of the dead. Syme's +eye always caught the black glasses and the blind grin. Had the dying +Professor worn them, or even the pale Secretary, they would have been +appropriate. But on the younger and grosser man they seemed only an +enigma. They took away the key of the face. You could not tell what his +smile or his gravity meant. Partly from this, and partly because he had +a vulgar virility wanting in most of the others, it seemed to Syme that +he might be the wickedest of all those wicked men. Syme even had the +thought that his eyes might be covered up because they were too frightful to see. # The Exposure -Such were the six men who had sworn to destroy the world. -Again and again Syme strove to pull together his common -sense in their presence. Sometimes he saw for an instant -that these notions were subjective, that he was only looking -at ordinary men, one of whom was old, another nervous, -another short-sighted. The sense of an unnatural symbolism -always settled back on him again. Each figure seemed to be, -somehow, on the borderland of things, just as their theory -was on the borderland of thought. He knew that each one of -these men stood at the extreme end, so to speak, of some -wild road of reasoning. He could only fancy, as in some -old-world fable, that if a man went westward to the end of -the world he would find something---say a tree---that was -more or less than a tree, a tree possessed by a spirit; and -that if he went east to the end of the world he would find -something else that was not wholly itself---a tower, -perhaps, of which the very shape was wicked. So these -figures seemed to stand up, violent and unaccountable, -against an ultimate horizon, visions from the verge. The -ends of the earth were closing in. - -Talk had been going on steadily as he took in the scene; and -not the least of the contrasts of that bewildering -breakfast-table was the contrast between the easy and -unobtrusive tone of talk and its terrible purport. They were -deep in the discussion of an actual and immediate plot. The -waiter downstairs had spoken quite correctly when he said -that they were talking about bombs and kings. Only three -days afterwards the Czar was to meet the President of the -French Republic in Paris, and over their bacon and eggs upon -their sunny balcony these beaming gentlemen had decided how -both should die. Even the instrument was chosen; the +Such were the six men who had sworn to destroy the world. Again and +again Syme strove to pull together his common sense in their presence. +Sometimes he saw for an instant that these notions were subjective, that +he was only looking at ordinary men, one of whom was old, another +nervous, another short-sighted. The sense of an unnatural symbolism +always settled back on him again. Each figure seemed to be, somehow, on +the borderland of things, just as their theory was on the borderland of +thought. He knew that each one of these men stood at the extreme end, so +to speak, of some wild road of reasoning. He could only fancy, as in +some old-world fable, that if a man went westward to the end of the +world he would find something---say a tree---that was more or less than +a tree, a tree possessed by a spirit; and that if he went east to the +end of the world he would find something else that was not wholly +itself---a tower, perhaps, of which the very shape was wicked. So these +figures seemed to stand up, violent and unaccountable, against an +ultimate horizon, visions from the verge. The ends of the earth were +closing in. + +Talk had been going on steadily as he took in the scene; and not the +least of the contrasts of that bewildering breakfast-table was the +contrast between the easy and unobtrusive tone of talk and its terrible +purport. They were deep in the discussion of an actual and immediate +plot. The waiter downstairs had spoken quite correctly when he said that +they were talking about bombs and kings. Only three days afterwards the +Czar was to meet the President of the French Republic in Paris, and over +their bacon and eggs upon their sunny balcony these beaming gentlemen +had decided how both should die. Even the instrument was chosen; the black-bearded Marquis, it appeared, was to carry the bomb. -Ordinarily speaking, the proximity of this positive and -objective crime would have sobered Syme, and cured him of -all his merely mystical tremors. He would have thought of -nothing but the need of saving at least two human bodies -from being ripped in pieces with iron and roaring gas. But -the truth was that by this time he had begun to feel a third -kind of fear, more piercing and practical than either his -moral revulsion or his social responsibility. Very simply, -he had no fear to spare for the French President or the -Czar; he had begun to fear for himself. Most of the talkers -took little heed of him, debating now with their faces -closer together, and almost uniformly grave, save when for -an instant the smile of the Secretary ran aslant across his -face as the jagged lightning runs aslant across the sky. But -there was one persistent thing which first troubled Syme and -at last terrified him. The President was always looking at -him, steadily, and with a great and baffling interest. The -enormous man was quite quiet, but his blue eyes stood out of -his head. And they were always fixed on Syme. - -Syme felt moved to spring up and leap over the balcony. When -the President's eyes were on him he felt as if he were made -of glass. He had hardly the shred of a doubt that in some -silent and extraordinary way Sunday had found out that he -was a spy. He looked over the edge of the balcony, and saw a -policeman standing abstractedly just beneath, staring at the -bright railings and the sunlit trees. - -Then there fell upon him the great temptation that was to -torment him for many days. In the presence of these powerful -and repulsive men, who were the princes of anarchy, he had -almost forgotten the frail and fanciful figure of the poet -Gregory, the mere aesthete of anarchism. He even thought of -him now with an old kindness, as if they had played together -when children. But he remembered that he was still tied to -Gregory by a great promise. He had promised never to do the -very thing that he now felt himself almost in the act of -doing. He had promised not to jump over that balcony and -speak to that policeman. He took his cold hand off the cold -stone balustrade. His soul swayed in a vertigo of moral -indecision. He had only to snap the thread of a rash vow -made to a villainous society, and all his life could be as -open and sunny as the square beneath him. He had, on the -other hand, only to keep his antiquated honour, and be -delivered inch by inch into the power of this great enemy of -mankind, whose very intellect was a torture-chamber. -Whenever he looked down into the square he savvy the -comfortable policeman, a pillar of common sense and common -order. Whenever he looked back at the breakfast-table he saw -the President still quietly studying him with big, -unbearable eyes. - -In all the torrent of his thought there were two thoughts -that never crossed his mind. First, it never occurred to him -to doubt that the President and his Council could crush him -if he continued to stand alone. The place might be public, -the project might seem impossible. But Sunday was not the -man who would carry himself thus easily without having, -somehow or somewhere, set open his iron trap. Either by -anonymous poison or sudden street accident, by hypnotism or -by fire from hell, Sunday could certainly strike him. If he -defied the man he was probably dead, either struck stiff -there in his chair or long afterwards as by an innocent -ailment. If he called in the police promptly, arrested -everyone, told all, and set against them the whole energy of -England, he would probably escape; certainly not otherwise. -They were a balconyful of gentlemen overlooking a bright and -busy square; but he felt no more safe with them than if they -had been a boatful of armed pirates overlooking an empty -sea. There was a second thought that never came to him. It -never occurred to him to be spiritually won over to the -enemy. Many moderns, inured to a weak worship of intellect -and force, might have wavered in their allegiance under this -oppression of a great personality. They might have called -Sunday the super-man. If any such creature be conceivable, -he looked, indeed, somewhat like it, with his earthshaking -abstraction, as of a stone statue walking. He might have -been called something above man, with his large plans, which -were too obvious to be detected, with his large face, which -was too frank to be understood. But this was a kind of modem -meanness to which Syme could not sink even in his extreme -morbidity. Like any man, he was coward enough to fear great -force; but he was not quite coward enough to admire it. - -The men were eating as they talked, and even in this they -were typical. Dr. Bull and the Marquis ate casually and -conventionally of the best things on the table---cold -pheasant or Strasbourg pie. But the Secretary was a -vegetarian, and he spoke earnestly of the projected murder -over half a raw tomato and three quarters of a glass of -tepid water. The old Professor had such slops as suggested a -sickening second childhood. And even in this President -Sunday preserved his curious predominance of mere mass. For -he ate like twenty men; he ate incredibly, with a frightful -freshness of appetite, so that it was like watching a -sausage factory. Yet continually, when he had swallowed a -dozen crumpets or drunk a quart of coffee, he would be found -with his great head on one side staring at Syme. - -"I have often wondered," said the Marquis, taking a great -bite out of a slice of bread and jam, "whether it wouldn't -be better for me to do it with a knife. Most of the best -things have been brought off with a knife. And it would be a -new emotion to get a knife into a French President and -wriggle it round." - -"You are wrong," said the Secretary, drawing his black brows -together. "The knife was merely the expression of the old -personal quarrel with a personal tyrant. Dynamite is not -only our best tool, but our best symbol. It is as perfect a -symbol of us as is incense of the prayers of the Christians. -It expands; it only destroys because it broadens; even so, -thought only destroys because it broadens. A man's brain is -a bomb," he cried out, loosening suddenly his strange -passion and striking his own. skull with violence. "My brain -feels like a bomb, night and day. It must expand! It must -expand! A man's brain must expand, if it breaks up the -universe." - -"I don't want the universe broken up just yet," drawled the -Marquis. "I want to do a lot of beastly things before I die. -I thought of one yesterday in bed." - -"No, if the only end of the thing is nothing," said Dr. Bull -with his sphinx-like smile, "it hardly seems worth doing." +Ordinarily speaking, the proximity of this positive and objective crime +would have sobered Syme, and cured him of all his merely mystical +tremors. He would have thought of nothing but the need of saving at +least two human bodies from being ripped in pieces with iron and roaring +gas. But the truth was that by this time he had begun to feel a third +kind of fear, more piercing and practical than either his moral +revulsion or his social responsibility. Very simply, he had no fear to +spare for the French President or the Czar; he had begun to fear for +himself. Most of the talkers took little heed of him, debating now with +their faces closer together, and almost uniformly grave, save when for +an instant the smile of the Secretary ran aslant across his face as the +jagged lightning runs aslant across the sky. But there was one +persistent thing which first troubled Syme and at last terrified him. +The President was always looking at him, steadily, and with a great and +baffling interest. The enormous man was quite quiet, but his blue eyes +stood out of his head. And they were always fixed on Syme. + +Syme felt moved to spring up and leap over the balcony. When the +President's eyes were on him he felt as if he were made of glass. He had +hardly the shred of a doubt that in some silent and extraordinary way +Sunday had found out that he was a spy. He looked over the edge of the +balcony, and saw a policeman standing abstractedly just beneath, staring +at the bright railings and the sunlit trees. + +Then there fell upon him the great temptation that was to torment him +for many days. In the presence of these powerful and repulsive men, who +were the princes of anarchy, he had almost forgotten the frail and +fanciful figure of the poet Gregory, the mere aesthete of anarchism. He +even thought of him now with an old kindness, as if they had played +together when children. But he remembered that he was still tied to +Gregory by a great promise. He had promised never to do the very thing +that he now felt himself almost in the act of doing. He had promised not +to jump over that balcony and speak to that policeman. He took his cold +hand off the cold stone balustrade. His soul swayed in a vertigo of +moral indecision. He had only to snap the thread of a rash vow made to a +villainous society, and all his life could be as open and sunny as the +square beneath him. He had, on the other hand, only to keep his +antiquated honour, and be delivered inch by inch into the power of this +great enemy of mankind, whose very intellect was a torture-chamber. +Whenever he looked down into the square he savvy the comfortable +policeman, a pillar of common sense and common order. Whenever he looked +back at the breakfast-table he saw the President still quietly studying +him with big, unbearable eyes. + +In all the torrent of his thought there were two thoughts that never +crossed his mind. First, it never occurred to him to doubt that the +President and his Council could crush him if he continued to stand +alone. The place might be public, the project might seem impossible. But +Sunday was not the man who would carry himself thus easily without +having, somehow or somewhere, set open his iron trap. Either by +anonymous poison or sudden street accident, by hypnotism or by fire from +hell, Sunday could certainly strike him. If he defied the man he was +probably dead, either struck stiff there in his chair or long afterwards +as by an innocent ailment. If he called in the police promptly, arrested +everyone, told all, and set against them the whole energy of England, he +would probably escape; certainly not otherwise. They were a balconyful +of gentlemen overlooking a bright and busy square; but he felt no more +safe with them than if they had been a boatful of armed pirates +overlooking an empty sea. There was a second thought that never came to +him. It never occurred to him to be spiritually won over to the enemy. +Many moderns, inured to a weak worship of intellect and force, might +have wavered in their allegiance under this oppression of a great +personality. They might have called Sunday the super-man. If any such +creature be conceivable, he looked, indeed, somewhat like it, with his +earthshaking abstraction, as of a stone statue walking. He might have +been called something above man, with his large plans, which were too +obvious to be detected, with his large face, which was too frank to be +understood. But this was a kind of modem meanness to which Syme could +not sink even in his extreme morbidity. Like any man, he was coward +enough to fear great force; but he was not quite coward enough to admire +it. + +The men were eating as they talked, and even in this they were typical. +Dr. Bull and the Marquis ate casually and conventionally of the best +things on the table---cold pheasant or Strasbourg pie. But the Secretary +was a vegetarian, and he spoke earnestly of the projected murder over +half a raw tomato and three quarters of a glass of tepid water. The old +Professor had such slops as suggested a sickening second childhood. And +even in this President Sunday preserved his curious predominance of mere +mass. For he ate like twenty men; he ate incredibly, with a frightful +freshness of appetite, so that it was like watching a sausage factory. +Yet continually, when he had swallowed a dozen crumpets or drunk a quart +of coffee, he would be found with his great head on one side staring at +Syme. + +"I have often wondered," said the Marquis, taking a great bite out of a +slice of bread and jam, "whether it wouldn't be better for me to do it +with a knife. Most of the best things have been brought off with a +knife. And it would be a new emotion to get a knife into a French +President and wriggle it round." + +"You are wrong," said the Secretary, drawing his black brows together. +"The knife was merely the expression of the old personal quarrel with a +personal tyrant. Dynamite is not only our best tool, but our best +symbol. It is as perfect a symbol of us as is incense of the prayers of +the Christians. It expands; it only destroys because it broadens; even +so, thought only destroys because it broadens. A man's brain is a bomb," +he cried out, loosening suddenly his strange passion and striking his +own. skull with violence. "My brain feels like a bomb, night and day. It +must expand! It must expand! A man's brain must expand, if it breaks up +the universe." + +"I don't want the universe broken up just yet," drawled the Marquis. "I +want to do a lot of beastly things before I die. I thought of one +yesterday in bed." + +"No, if the only end of the thing is nothing," said Dr. Bull with his +sphinx-like smile, "it hardly seems worth doing." The old Professor was staring at the ceiling with dull eyes -"Every man knows in his heart," he said, "that nothing is -worth doing." +"Every man knows in his heart," he said, "that nothing is worth doing." There was a singular silence, and then the Secretary said--- -"We are wandering, however, from the point. The only -question is how Wednesday is to strike the blow. I take it -we should all agree with the original notion of a bomb. As -to the actual arrangements, I should suggest that to-morrow -morning he should go first of all to" - -The speech was broken off short under a vast shadow. -President Sunday had risen to his feet, seeming to fill the -sky above them. - -"Before we discuss that," he said in a small, quiet voice, -"let us go into a private room. I have something very -particular to say." - -Syme stood up before any of the others. The instant of -choice had come at last, the pistol was at his head. On the -pavement below he could hear the policeman idly stir and -stamp, for the morning, though bright, was cold. - -A barrel-organ in the street suddenly sprang with a jerk -into a jovial tune. Syme stood up taut, as if it had been a -bugle before the battle. He found himself filled with a -supernatural courage that came from nowhere. That jingling -music seemed full of the vivacity, the vulgarity, and the -irrational valour of the poor, who in all those unclean -streets were all clinging to the decencies and the charities -of Christendom. His youthful prank of being a policeman had -faded from his mind; he did not think of himself as the -representative of the corps of gentlemen turned into fancy -constables, or of the old eccentric who lived in the dark -room. But he did feel himself as the ambassador of all these -common and kindly people in the street, who every day -marched into battle to the music of the barrel-organ. And -this high pride in being human had lifted him unaccountably -to an infinite height above the monstrous m.en around him. -For an instant, at least, he looked down upon all their -sprawling eccentricities from the starry pinnacle of the -commonplace. He felt towards them all that unconscious and -elementary superiority that a brave man feels over powerful -beasts or a wise man over powerful errors. He knew that he -had neither the intellectual nor the physical strength of -President Sunday; but in that moment he minded it no m.ore -than the fact that he had not the muscles of a tiger or a -horn on his nose like a rhinoceros. All was swallowed up in -an ultimate certainty that the President was wrong and that -the barrel-organ was right. There clanged in his mind that -unanswerable and terrible truism in the song of Roland--- +"We are wandering, however, from the point. The only question is how +Wednesday is to strike the blow. I take it we should all agree with the +original notion of a bomb. As to the actual arrangements, I should +suggest that to-morrow morning he should go first of all to" + +The speech was broken off short under a vast shadow. President Sunday +had risen to his feet, seeming to fill the sky above them. + +"Before we discuss that," he said in a small, quiet voice, "let us go +into a private room. I have something very particular to say." + +Syme stood up before any of the others. The instant of choice had come +at last, the pistol was at his head. On the pavement below he could hear +the policeman idly stir and stamp, for the morning, though bright, was +cold. + +A barrel-organ in the street suddenly sprang with a jerk into a jovial +tune. Syme stood up taut, as if it had been a bugle before the battle. +He found himself filled with a supernatural courage that came from +nowhere. That jingling music seemed full of the vivacity, the vulgarity, +and the irrational valour of the poor, who in all those unclean streets +were all clinging to the decencies and the charities of Christendom. His +youthful prank of being a policeman had faded from his mind; he did not +think of himself as the representative of the corps of gentlemen turned +into fancy constables, or of the old eccentric who lived in the dark +room. But he did feel himself as the ambassador of all these common and +kindly people in the street, who every day marched into battle to the +music of the barrel-organ. And this high pride in being human had lifted +him unaccountably to an infinite height above the monstrous m.en around +him. For an instant, at least, he looked down upon all their sprawling +eccentricities from the starry pinnacle of the commonplace. He felt +towards them all that unconscious and elementary superiority that a +brave man feels over powerful beasts or a wise man over powerful errors. +He knew that he had neither the intellectual nor the physical strength +of President Sunday; but in that moment he minded it no m.ore than the +fact that he had not the muscles of a tiger or a horn on his nose like a +rhinoceros. All was swallowed up in an ultimate certainty that the +President was wrong and that the barrel-organ was right. There clanged +in his mind that unanswerable and terrible truism in the song of +Roland--- >  "Païens ont tort et Chrétiens ont droit," -which in the old nasal French has the clang and groan of -great iron. This liberation of his spirit from the load of -his weakness went with a quite clear decision to embrace -death. If the people of the barrel-organ could keep their -old-world obligations, so could he. This very pride in -keeping his word was that he was keeping it to miscreants. -It was his last triumph over these lunatics to go down into -their dark room and die for something that they could not -even understand. The barrel-organ seemed to give the -marching tune with the energy and the mingled noises of a -whole orchestra; and he could hear deep and rolling, under -all the trumpets of the pride of life, the drums of the -pride of death. - -The conspirators were already filing through the open window -and into the rooms behind. Syme went last, outwardly calm, -but with all his brain and body throbbing with romantic -rhythm. The President led them down an irregular side stair, -such as might be used by servants, and into a dim, cold, -empty room, with a table and benches, like an abandoned -board-room. When they were all in, he closed and locked the -door. - -The first to speak was Gogol, the irreconcilable, who seemed -bursting with inarticulate grievance. - -"Zso! Zso!" he cried, with an obscure excitement, his heavy -Polish accent becoming almost impenetrable. "You zay you nod -'ide. You zay you show himselves. It is all nuzzinks. Ven -you vant talk importance you run yourselves in a dark box!" - -The President seemed to take the foreigner's incoherent -satire with entire good humour. - -"You can't get hold of it yet, Gogol," he said in a fatherly -way. "When once they have heard us talking nonsense on that -balcony they will not care where we go afterwards. If we had -come here first, we should have had the whole staff at the -keyhole. You don't seem to know anything about mankind." - -"I die for zem," cried the Pole in thick excitement, "and I -slay zare oppressors. I care not for these games of -gonzealment. I would zmite ze tyrant in ze open square." - -"I see, I see," said the President, nodding kindly as he -seated himself at the top of a long table. "You die for -mankind first, and then you get up and smite their -oppressors. So that is all right. And now may I ask you to -control your beautiful sentiments, and sit down with the -other gentlemen at this table. For the first time this -morning something intelligent is going to be said." - -Syme, with the perturbed promptitude he had shown since the -original summons, sat down first. Gogol sat down last, -grumbling in his brown beard about gombromise. No one except -Syme seemed to have any notion of the blow that was about to -fall. As for him, he had merely the feeling of a man -mounting the scaffold with the intention, at any rate, of +which in the old nasal French has the clang and groan of great iron. +This liberation of his spirit from the load of his weakness went with a +quite clear decision to embrace death. If the people of the barrel-organ +could keep their old-world obligations, so could he. This very pride in +keeping his word was that he was keeping it to miscreants. It was his +last triumph over these lunatics to go down into their dark room and die +for something that they could not even understand. The barrel-organ +seemed to give the marching tune with the energy and the mingled noises +of a whole orchestra; and he could hear deep and rolling, under all the +trumpets of the pride of life, the drums of the pride of death. + +The conspirators were already filing through the open window and into +the rooms behind. Syme went last, outwardly calm, but with all his brain +and body throbbing with romantic rhythm. The President led them down an +irregular side stair, such as might be used by servants, and into a dim, +cold, empty room, with a table and benches, like an abandoned +board-room. When they were all in, he closed and locked the door. + +The first to speak was Gogol, the irreconcilable, who seemed bursting +with inarticulate grievance. + +"Zso! Zso!" he cried, with an obscure excitement, his heavy Polish +accent becoming almost impenetrable. "You zay you nod 'ide. You zay you +show himselves. It is all nuzzinks. Ven you vant talk importance you run +yourselves in a dark box!" + +The President seemed to take the foreigner's incoherent satire with +entire good humour. + +"You can't get hold of it yet, Gogol," he said in a fatherly way. "When +once they have heard us talking nonsense on that balcony they will not +care where we go afterwards. If we had come here first, we should have +had the whole staff at the keyhole. You don't seem to know anything +about mankind." + +"I die for zem," cried the Pole in thick excitement, "and I slay zare +oppressors. I care not for these games of gonzealment. I would zmite ze +tyrant in ze open square." + +"I see, I see," said the President, nodding kindly as he seated himself +at the top of a long table. "You die for mankind first, and then you get +up and smite their oppressors. So that is all right. And now may I ask +you to control your beautiful sentiments, and sit down with the other +gentlemen at this table. For the first time this morning something +intelligent is going to be said." + +Syme, with the perturbed promptitude he had shown since the original +summons, sat down first. Gogol sat down last, grumbling in his brown +beard about gombromise. No one except Syme seemed to have any notion of +the blow that was about to fall. As for him, he had merely the feeling +of a man mounting the scaffold with the intention, at any rate, of making a good speech. -"Comrades," said the President, suddenly rising, "we have -spun out this farce long enough, I have called you down here -to tell you something so simple and shocking that even the -waiters upstairs (long inured to our levities) might hear -some new seriousness in my voice. Comrades, we were -discussing plans and naming places. I propose, before saying -anything else, that those plans and places should not be -voted by this meeting, but should be left wholly in the -control of some one reliable member. I suggest Comrade -Saturday, Dr. Bull." - -They all stared at him; then they all started in their -seats, for the next words, though not loud, had a living and -sensational emphasis. Sunday struck the table, - -"Not one word more about the plans and places must be said -at this meeting. Not one tiny detail more about what we mean -to do must be mentioned in this company." - -Sunday had spent his life in astonishing his followers; but -it seemed as if he had never really astonished them until -now. They all moved feverishly in their seats, except Syme. -He sat stiff in his, with his hand in his pocket, and on the -handle of his loaded revolver. When the attack on him came -he would sell his life dear. He would find out at least if -the President was mortal. +"Comrades," said the President, suddenly rising, "we have spun out this +farce long enough, I have called you down here to tell you something so +simple and shocking that even the waiters upstairs (long inured to our +levities) might hear some new seriousness in my voice. Comrades, we were +discussing plans and naming places. I propose, before saying anything +else, that those plans and places should not be voted by this meeting, +but should be left wholly in the control of some one reliable member. I +suggest Comrade Saturday, Dr. Bull." + +They all stared at him; then they all started in their seats, for the +next words, though not loud, had a living and sensational emphasis. +Sunday struck the table, + +"Not one word more about the plans and places must be said at this +meeting. Not one tiny detail more about what we mean to do must be +mentioned in this company." + +Sunday had spent his life in astonishing his followers; but it seemed as +if he had never really astonished them until now. They all moved +feverishly in their seats, except Syme. He sat stiff in his, with his +hand in his pocket, and on the handle of his loaded revolver. When the +attack on him came he would sell his life dear. He would find out at +least if the President was mortal. Sunday went on smoothly--- -"You will probably understand that there is only one -possible motive for forbidding free speech at this festival -of freedom. Strangers overhearing us matters nothing. They -assume that we are joking. But what would matter, even unto -death, is this, that there should be one actually among us -who is not of us, who knows our grave purpose, but does not -share it, who---" +"You will probably understand that there is only one possible motive for +forbidding free speech at this festival of freedom. Strangers +overhearing us matters nothing. They assume that we are joking. But what +would matter, even unto death, is this, that there should be one +actually among us who is not of us, who knows our grave purpose, but +does not share it, who---" The Secretary screamed out suddenly like a woman. "It can't be!" he cried, leaping. "There can't---" -The President flapped his large flat hand on the table like -the fin of some huge fish. +The President flapped his large flat hand on the table like the fin of +some huge fish. -"Yes," he said slowly, "there is a spy in this room. There -is a traitor at this table. I will waste no more words. His -name---" +"Yes," he said slowly, "there is a spy in this room. There is a traitor +at this table. I will waste no more words. His name---" -Syme half rose from his seat, his finger firm on the -trigger. +Syme half rose from his seat, his finger firm on the trigger. -"His name is Gogol," said the President. "He is that hairy -humbug over there who pretends to be a Pole." +"His name is Gogol," said the President. "He is that hairy humbug over +there who pretends to be a Pole." -Gogol sprang to his feet, a pistol in each hand. With the -same flash three men sprang at his throat. Even the -Professor made an effort to rise. But Syme saw little of the -scene, for he was blinded with a beneficent darkness; he had -sunk down into his seat shuddering, in a palsy of passionate -relief. +Gogol sprang to his feet, a pistol in each hand. With the same flash +three men sprang at his throat. Even the Professor made an effort to +rise. But Syme saw little of the scene, for he was blinded with a +beneficent darkness; he had sunk down into his seat shuddering, in a +palsy of passionate relief. # The Unaccountable Conduct of Professor de Worms -"Sit down!" said Sunday in a voice that he used once or -twice in his life, a voice that made men drop drawn swords. - -The three who had risen fell away from Gogol, and that -equivocal person himself resumed his seat. - -"Well, my man," said the President briskly, addressing him -as one addresses a total stranger, "will you oblige me by -putting your hand in your upper waistcoat pocket and showing -me what you have there?" - -The alleged Pole was a little pale under his tangle of dark -hair, but he put two fingers into the pocket with apparent -coolness and pulled out a blue strip of card. When Syme saw -it lying on the table, he woke up again to the world outside -him. For although the card lay at the other extreme of the -table, and he could read nothing of the inscription on it, -it bore a startling resemblance to the blue card in his own -pocket, the card which had been given to him when he joined -the anti-anarchist constabulary. - -"Pathetic Slav," said the President, "tragic child of -Poland, are you prepared in the presence of that card to -deny that you are in this company---shall we say *de trop*?" - -"Right oh!" said the late Gogol. It made everyone jump to -hear a clear, commercial and somewhat cockney voice coming -out of that forest of foreign hair. It was irrational, as if -a Chinaman had suddenly spoken with a Scotch accent. - -"I gather that you fully understand your position," said -Sunday. - -"You bet," answered the Pole. "I see it's a fair cop. All I -say is, I don't believe any Pole could have imitated my -accent like I did his." - -"I concede the point," said Sunday. "I believe your own -accent to be inimitable, though I shall practise it in my -bath. Do you mind leaving your beard with your card?" - -"Not a bit." answered Gogol; and with one finger he ripped -off the whole of his shaggy head-covering, emerging with -thin red hair and a pale, pert face. "It was hot," he added. - -"I will do you the justice to say," said Sunday, not without -a sort of brutal admiration, "that you seem to have kept -pretty cool under it. Now listen to me. I like you. The -consequence is that it would annoy me for just about two and -a half minutes if I heard that you had died in torments. -Well, if you ever tell the police or any human soul about -us, I shall have that two and a half minutes of discomfort. -On your discomfort I will not dwell. Good day. Mind the -step." - -The red-haired detective who had masqueraded as Gogol rose -to his feet without a word, and walked out of the room with -an air of perfect nonchalance. Yet the astonished Syme was -able to realise that this ease was suddenly assumed; for -there was a slight stumble outside the door, which showed -that the departing detective had not minded the step. - -"Time is flying," said the President in his gayest manner, -after glancing at his watch, which like everything about him -seemed bigger than it ought to be. "I must get off at once; -I have to take the chair at a Humanitarian meeting." +"Sit down!" said Sunday in a voice that he used once or twice in his +life, a voice that made men drop drawn swords. + +The three who had risen fell away from Gogol, and that equivocal person +himself resumed his seat. + +"Well, my man," said the President briskly, addressing him as one +addresses a total stranger, "will you oblige me by putting your hand in +your upper waistcoat pocket and showing me what you have there?" + +The alleged Pole was a little pale under his tangle of dark hair, but he +put two fingers into the pocket with apparent coolness and pulled out a +blue strip of card. When Syme saw it lying on the table, he woke up +again to the world outside him. For although the card lay at the other +extreme of the table, and he could read nothing of the inscription on +it, it bore a startling resemblance to the blue card in his own pocket, +the card which had been given to him when he joined the anti-anarchist +constabulary. + +"Pathetic Slav," said the President, "tragic child of Poland, are you +prepared in the presence of that card to deny that you are in this +company---shall we say *de trop*?" + +"Right oh!" said the late Gogol. It made everyone jump to hear a clear, +commercial and somewhat cockney voice coming out of that forest of +foreign hair. It was irrational, as if a Chinaman had suddenly spoken +with a Scotch accent. + +"I gather that you fully understand your position," said Sunday. + +"You bet," answered the Pole. "I see it's a fair cop. All I say is, I +don't believe any Pole could have imitated my accent like I did his." + +"I concede the point," said Sunday. "I believe your own accent to be +inimitable, though I shall practise it in my bath. Do you mind leaving +your beard with your card?" + +"Not a bit." answered Gogol; and with one finger he ripped off the whole +of his shaggy head-covering, emerging with thin red hair and a pale, +pert face. "It was hot," he added. + +"I will do you the justice to say," said Sunday, not without a sort of +brutal admiration, "that you seem to have kept pretty cool under it. Now +listen to me. I like you. The consequence is that it would annoy me for +just about two and a half minutes if I heard that you had died in +torments. Well, if you ever tell the police or any human soul about us, +I shall have that two and a half minutes of discomfort. On your +discomfort I will not dwell. Good day. Mind the step." + +The red-haired detective who had masqueraded as Gogol rose to his feet +without a word, and walked out of the room with an air of perfect +nonchalance. Yet the astonished Syme was able to realise that this ease +was suddenly assumed; for there was a slight stumble outside the door, +which showed that the departing detective had not minded the step. + +"Time is flying," said the President in his gayest manner, after +glancing at his watch, which like everything about him seemed bigger +than it ought to be. "I must get off at once; I have to take the chair +at a Humanitarian meeting." The Secretary turned to him with working eyebrows. -"Would it not be better," he said a little sharply, to -discuss further the details of our project, now that the spy -has left us?" +"Would it not be better," he said a little sharply, to discuss further +the details of our project, now that the spy has left us?" -"No, I think not," said the President with a yawn like an -unobtrusive earthquake. "Leave it as it is. Let Saturday -settle it. I must be off. Breakfast here next Sunday." +"No, I think not," said the President with a yawn like an unobtrusive +earthquake. "Leave it as it is. Let Saturday settle it. I must be off. +Breakfast here next Sunday." -But the late loud scenes had whipped up the almost naked -nerves of the Secretary. He was one of those men who are -conscientious even in crime. +But the late loud scenes had whipped up the almost naked nerves of the +Secretary. He was one of those men who are conscientious even in crime. -"T must protest. President, that the thing is irregular," he -said. "It is a fundamental rule of our society that all -plans shall be debated in full council. Of course, I fully -appreciate your forethought when in the actual presence of a -traitor---" +"T must protest. President, that the thing is irregular," he said. "It +is a fundamental rule of our society that all plans shall be debated in +full council. Of course, I fully appreciate your forethought when in the +actual presence of a traitor---" -"Secretary," said the President seriously, "if you'd take -your head home and boil it for a turnip it might be useful. -I can't say. But it might." +"Secretary," said the President seriously, "if you'd take your head home +and boil it for a turnip it might be useful. I can't say. But it might." The Secretary reared back in a kind of equine anger. "I really fail to understand---" he began in high offence. -"That's it, that's it," said the President, nodding a great -many times. "That's where you fail right enough. You fail to -understand. Why, you dancing donkey," he roared, rising, -"you didn't want to be overheard by a spy, didn't you? How -do you know you aren't overheard now?" - -And with these words he shouldered his way out of the room, -shaking with incomprehensible scorn. - -Four of the men left behind gaped after him without any -apparent glimmering of his meaning. Syme alone had even a -glimmering, and such as it was it froze him to the bone. If -the last words of the President meant anything, they meant -that he had not after all passed unsuspected. They meant -that while Sunday could not denounce him like Gogol, he -still could not trust him like the others. - -The other four got to their feet grumbling more or less, and -betook themselves elsewhere to find lunch, for it was -already well past midday. The Professor went last, very -slowly and painfully. Syme sat long after the rest had gone, -revolving his strange position. He had escaped a -thunderbolt, but he was still under a cloud. At last he rose -and made his way out of the hotel into Leicester Square. The -bright, cold day had grown increasingly colder, and when he -came out into the street he was surprised by a few flakes of -snow. While he still carried the sword-stick and the rest of -Gregory's portable luggage, he had thrown the cloak down and -left it somewhere,, perhaps on the steam-tug, perhaps on the -balcony. Hoping, therefore, that the snow-shower might be -slight, he stepped back out of the street for a moment and -stood up under the doorway of a small and greasy -hair-dresser's shop, the front window of which was empty, -except for a sickly wax lady in evening dress. - -Snow, however, began to thicken and fall fast; and Syme, -having found one glance at the wax lady quite sufficient to -depress his spirits, stared out instead into the white and -empty street. He was considerably astonished to see, -standing quite still outside the shop and staring into the -window, a man. His top hat was loaded with snow like the hat -of Father Christmas, the white drift was rising round his -boots and ankles; but it seemed as if nothing could tear him -away from the contemplation of the colourless wax doll in -dirty evening dress. That any human being should stand in -such weather looking into such a shop was a matter of -sufficient wonder to Syme; but his idle wonder turned -suddenly into a personal shock; for he realised that the man -standing there was the paralytic old Professor de Worms. It -scarcely seemed the place for a person of his years and -infirmities. - -Syme was ready to believe anything about the perversions of -this dehumanised brotherhood; but even he could not believe -that the Professor had fallen in love with that particular -wax lady. He could only suppose that the man's malady -(whatever it was) involved some momentary fits of rigidity -or trance. He was not inclined, however, to feel in this -case any very compassionate concern. On the contrary, he -rather congratulated himself that the Professor's stroke and -his elaborate and limping walk would make it easy to escape -from him and leave him miles behind. For Syme thirsted first -and last to get clear of the whole poisonous atmosphere, if -only for an hour. Then he could collect his thoughts, -formulate his policy, and decide finally whether he should -or should not keep faith with Gregory. - -He strolled away through the dancing snow, turned up two or -three streets, down through two or three others, and entered -a small Soho restaurant for lunch. He partook reflectively -of four small and quaint courses, drank half a bottle of red -wine, and ended up over black coffee and a black cigar, -still thinking. He had taken his seat in the upper room of -the restaurant, which was full of the chink of knives and -the chatter of foreigners. He remembered that in old days he -had imagined that all these harmless and kindly aliens were -anarchists. He shuddered, remembering the real thing. But -even the shudder had the delightful shame of escape. The -wine, the common food, the familiar place, the faces of -natural and talkative men, made him almost feel as if the -Council of the Seven Days had been a bad dream; and although -he knew it was nevertheless an objective reality, it was at -least a distant one. Tall houses and populous streets lay -between him and his last sight of the shameful seven; he' -was free in free London, and drinking wine among the free. -With a somewhat easier action, he took his hat and stick and +"That's it, that's it," said the President, nodding a great many times. +"That's where you fail right enough. You fail to understand. Why, you +dancing donkey," he roared, rising, "you didn't want to be overheard by +a spy, didn't you? How do you know you aren't overheard now?" + +And with these words he shouldered his way out of the room, shaking with +incomprehensible scorn. + +Four of the men left behind gaped after him without any apparent +glimmering of his meaning. Syme alone had even a glimmering, and such as +it was it froze him to the bone. If the last words of the President +meant anything, they meant that he had not after all passed unsuspected. +They meant that while Sunday could not denounce him like Gogol, he still +could not trust him like the others. + +The other four got to their feet grumbling more or less, and betook +themselves elsewhere to find lunch, for it was already well past midday. +The Professor went last, very slowly and painfully. Syme sat long after +the rest had gone, revolving his strange position. He had escaped a +thunderbolt, but he was still under a cloud. At last he rose and made +his way out of the hotel into Leicester Square. The bright, cold day had +grown increasingly colder, and when he came out into the street he was +surprised by a few flakes of snow. While he still carried the +sword-stick and the rest of Gregory's portable luggage, he had thrown +the cloak down and left it somewhere,, perhaps on the steam-tug, perhaps +on the balcony. Hoping, therefore, that the snow-shower might be slight, +he stepped back out of the street for a moment and stood up under the +doorway of a small and greasy hair-dresser's shop, the front window of +which was empty, except for a sickly wax lady in evening dress. + +Snow, however, began to thicken and fall fast; and Syme, having found +one glance at the wax lady quite sufficient to depress his spirits, +stared out instead into the white and empty street. He was considerably +astonished to see, standing quite still outside the shop and staring +into the window, a man. His top hat was loaded with snow like the hat of +Father Christmas, the white drift was rising round his boots and ankles; +but it seemed as if nothing could tear him away from the contemplation +of the colourless wax doll in dirty evening dress. That any human being +should stand in such weather looking into such a shop was a matter of +sufficient wonder to Syme; but his idle wonder turned suddenly into a +personal shock; for he realised that the man standing there was the +paralytic old Professor de Worms. It scarcely seemed the place for a +person of his years and infirmities. + +Syme was ready to believe anything about the perversions of this +dehumanised brotherhood; but even he could not believe that the +Professor had fallen in love with that particular wax lady. He could +only suppose that the man's malady (whatever it was) involved some +momentary fits of rigidity or trance. He was not inclined, however, to +feel in this case any very compassionate concern. On the contrary, he +rather congratulated himself that the Professor's stroke and his +elaborate and limping walk would make it easy to escape from him and +leave him miles behind. For Syme thirsted first and last to get clear of +the whole poisonous atmosphere, if only for an hour. Then he could +collect his thoughts, formulate his policy, and decide finally whether +he should or should not keep faith with Gregory. + +He strolled away through the dancing snow, turned up two or three +streets, down through two or three others, and entered a small Soho +restaurant for lunch. He partook reflectively of four small and quaint +courses, drank half a bottle of red wine, and ended up over black coffee +and a black cigar, still thinking. He had taken his seat in the upper +room of the restaurant, which was full of the chink of knives and the +chatter of foreigners. He remembered that in old days he had imagined +that all these harmless and kindly aliens were anarchists. He shuddered, +remembering the real thing. But even the shudder had the delightful +shame of escape. The wine, the common food, the familiar place, the +faces of natural and talkative men, made him almost feel as if the +Council of the Seven Days had been a bad dream; and although he knew it +was nevertheless an objective reality, it was at least a distant one. +Tall houses and populous streets lay between him and his last sight of +the shameful seven; he' was free in free London, and drinking wine among +the free. With a somewhat easier action, he took his hat and stick and strolled down the stair into the shop below. -When he entered that lower room he stood stricken and rooted -to the spot. At a small table, close up to the blank window -and the white street of snow, sat the old anarchist -Professor over a glass of milk, with his lifted livid face -and pendent eyelids. For an instant Syme stood as rigid as -the stick he leant upon. Then with a gesture as of blind -hurry, he brushed past the Professor, dashing open the door -and slamming it behind him, and stood outside in the snow. - -"Can that old corpse be following me?" he asked himself, -biting his yellow moustache. "I stopped too long up in that -room, so that even such leaden feet could catch me up. One -comfort is, with a little brisk walking I can put a man like -that as far away as Timbuktu. Or am I too fanciful? Was he -really following me? Surely Sunday would not be such a fool -as to send a lame man?" - -He set off at a smart pace, twisting and whirling his stick, -in the direction of Covent Garden. As he crossed the great -market the snow increased, growing blinding and bewildering -as the afternoon began to darken. The snow-flakes tormented -him like a swarm of silver bees. Getting into his eyes and -beard, they added their unremitting futility to his already -irritated nerves; and by the time that he had come at a -swinging pace to the beginning of Fleet Street, he lost -patience, and finding a Sunday teashop, turned into it to -take shelter. He ordered another cup of black coffee as an -excuse. Scarcely had he done so, when Professor de Worms -hobbled heavily into the shop, sat down with difficulty and -ordered a glass of milk. - -Syme's walking-stick had fallen from his hand with a great -clang, which confessed the concealed steel. But the -Professor did not look round. Syme, who was commonly a cool -character, was literally gaping as a rustic gapes at a -conjuring trick. He had seen no cab following; he had heard -no wheels outside the shop; to all mortal appearances the -man had come on foot. But the old man could only walk like a -snail, and Syme had walked like the wind. He started up and -snatched his stick, half crazy with the contradiction in -mere arithmetic, and swung out of the swinging doors, -leaving his coffee untasted. An omnibus going to the Bank -went rattling by with an unusual rapidity. He had a violent -run of a hundred yards to reach it; but he managed to -spring, swaying upon the splash-board, and pausing for an -instant to pant, he climbed on to the top. When he had been -seated for about half a minute, he heard behind him. a sort -of heavy and asthmatic breathing. - -Turning sharply, he saw rising gradually higher and higher -up the omnibus steps a top hat soiled and dripping with -snow, and under the shadow of its brim the short-sighted -face and shaky shoulders of Professor de Worms. He let -himself into a seat with characteristic care, and wrapped -himself up to the chin in the mackintosh rug. - -Every movement of the old man's tottering figure and vague -hands, every uncertain gesture and panic-stricken pause, -seemed to put it beyond question that he was helpless, that -he was in the last imbecility of the body. He moved by -inches, he let himself down with little gasps of caution. -And yet, unless the philosophical entities called time and -space have no vestige even of a practical existence, it -appeared quite unquestionable that he had run after the -omnibus. - -Syme sprang erect upon the rocking car, and after staring -wildly at the wintry sky, that grew gloomier every moment, -he ran down the steps. He had repressed an elemental impulse -to leap over the side. - -Too bewildered to look back or to reason, he rushed into one -of the little courts at the side of Fleet Street as a rabbit -rushes into a hole. He had a vague idea, if this -incomprehensible old Jack-in-the-box was really pursuing -him, that in that labyrinth of little streets he could soon -throw him off the scent. He dived in and out of those -crooked lanes, which were more like cracks than -thoroughfares; and by the time that he had completed about -twenty alternate angles and described an unthinkable -polygon, he paused to listen for any sound of pursuit. There -was none; there could not in any case have been much, for -the little streets were thick with the soundless snow. -Somewhere behind Red Lion Court, however, he noticed a place -where some energetic citizen had cleared away the snow for a -space of about twenty yards, leaving the wet, glistening -cobble-stones. He thought little of this as he passed it, -only plunging into yet another arm of the maze. But when a -few hundred yards farther on he stood still again to listen, -his heart stood still also, for he heard from that space of -rugged stones the clinking crutch and labouring feet of the -infernal cripple. - -The sky above was loaded with the clouds of snow, leaving -London in a darkness and oppression premature for that hour -of the evening. On each side of Syme the walls of the alley -were blind and featureless; there was no little window or -any kind of eye. He felt a new impulse to break out of this -hive of houses, and to get once more into the open and -lamplit street. Yet he rambled and dodged for a long time -before he struck the main thoroughfare. When he did so, he -struck it much farther up than he had fancied. He came out -into what seemed the vast and void of Ludgate Circus, and -saw St. Paul's Cathedral sitting in the sky. - -At first he was startled to find these great roads so empty, -as if a pestilence had swept through the city Then he told -himself that some degree of emptiness was natural; first -because the snow-storm was even dangerously deep, and -secondly because it was Sunday. And at the very word Sunday -he bit his lip; the word was henceforth for him like some -indecent pun. Under the white fog of snow high up in the -heaven the whole atmosphere of the city was turned to a very -queer kind of green twilight, as of men under the sea. The -sealed and sullen sunset behind the dark dome of St. Paul's -had in it smoky and sinister colours---colours of sickly -green, dead red or decaying bronze, that were just bright -enough to emphasise the solid whiteness of the snow. But -right up against these dreary colours rose the black bulk of -the cathedral; and upon the top of the cathedral was a -random splash and great stain of snow, still clinging as to -an Alpine peak. It had fallen accidentally, but just so -fallen as to half drape the dome from its very topmost -point, and to pick out in perfect silver the great orb and -the cross. When Syme saw it he suddenly straightened -himself, and made with his sword-stick an involuntary -salute. He knew that that evil figure, his shadow, was -creeping quickly or slowly behind him, and he did not care. -It seemed a symbol of human faith and valour that while the -skies were darkening that high place of the earth was -bright. The devils might have captured heaven, but they had -not yet captured the cross. He had a new impulse to tear out -the secret of this dancing, jumping and pursuing paralytic; -and at the entrance of the court as it opened upon the -Circus he turned, stick in hand, to face his pursuer. - -Professor de Worms came slowly round the comer of the -irregular alley behind him, his unnatural form outlined -against a lonely gas-lamp, irresistibly recalling that very -imaginative figure in the nursery rhymes, "the crooked man -who went a crooked mile." He really looked as if he had been -twisted out of shape by the tortuous streets he had been -threading. He came nearer and nearer, the lamplight shining -on his lifted spectacles, his lifted, patient face. Syme -waited for him as St. George waited for the dragon, as a man -waits for a final explanation or for death. And the old -Professor came right up to him and passed him like a total -stranger, without even a blink of his mournful eyelids. - -There was something in this silent and unexpected innocence -that left Syme in a final fury. The man's colourless face -and manner seemed to assert that the whole following had -been an accident. Syme was galvanised with an energy that -was something between bitterness and a burst of boyish -derision. He made a wild gesture as if to knock the old -man's hat off, called out something like "Catch me if you -can," and went racing away across the white, open Circus. -Concealment was impossible now; and looking back over his -shoulder, he could see the black figure of the old gentleman -coming after him with long, swinging strides like a man -winning a mile race. But the head upon that bounding body -was still pale, grave and professional, like the head of a -lecturer upon the body of a harlequin. - -This outrageous chase sped across Ludgate Circus, up Ludgate -Hill, round St. Paul's Cathedral, along Cheapside, Syme -remembering all the nightmares he had ever known. Then Syme -broke away towards the river, and ended almost down by the -docks. He saw the yellow panes of a low, lighted -public-house, flung himself into it and ordered beer. It was -a foul tavern, sprinkled with foreign sailors, a place where -opium might be smoked or knives drawn. - -A moment later Professor de Worms entered the place, sat -down carefully, and asked for a glass of milk. +When he entered that lower room he stood stricken and rooted to the +spot. At a small table, close up to the blank window and the white +street of snow, sat the old anarchist Professor over a glass of milk, +with his lifted livid face and pendent eyelids. For an instant Syme +stood as rigid as the stick he leant upon. Then with a gesture as of +blind hurry, he brushed past the Professor, dashing open the door and +slamming it behind him, and stood outside in the snow. + +"Can that old corpse be following me?" he asked himself, biting his +yellow moustache. "I stopped too long up in that room, so that even such +leaden feet could catch me up. One comfort is, with a little brisk +walking I can put a man like that as far away as Timbuktu. Or am I too +fanciful? Was he really following me? Surely Sunday would not be such a +fool as to send a lame man?" + +He set off at a smart pace, twisting and whirling his stick, in the +direction of Covent Garden. As he crossed the great market the snow +increased, growing blinding and bewildering as the afternoon began to +darken. The snow-flakes tormented him like a swarm of silver bees. +Getting into his eyes and beard, they added their unremitting futility +to his already irritated nerves; and by the time that he had come at a +swinging pace to the beginning of Fleet Street, he lost patience, and +finding a Sunday teashop, turned into it to take shelter. He ordered +another cup of black coffee as an excuse. Scarcely had he done so, when +Professor de Worms hobbled heavily into the shop, sat down with +difficulty and ordered a glass of milk. + +Syme's walking-stick had fallen from his hand with a great clang, which +confessed the concealed steel. But the Professor did not look round. +Syme, who was commonly a cool character, was literally gaping as a +rustic gapes at a conjuring trick. He had seen no cab following; he had +heard no wheels outside the shop; to all mortal appearances the man had +come on foot. But the old man could only walk like a snail, and Syme had +walked like the wind. He started up and snatched his stick, half crazy +with the contradiction in mere arithmetic, and swung out of the swinging +doors, leaving his coffee untasted. An omnibus going to the Bank went +rattling by with an unusual rapidity. He had a violent run of a hundred +yards to reach it; but he managed to spring, swaying upon the +splash-board, and pausing for an instant to pant, he climbed on to the +top. When he had been seated for about half a minute, he heard behind +him. a sort of heavy and asthmatic breathing. + +Turning sharply, he saw rising gradually higher and higher up the +omnibus steps a top hat soiled and dripping with snow, and under the +shadow of its brim the short-sighted face and shaky shoulders of +Professor de Worms. He let himself into a seat with characteristic care, +and wrapped himself up to the chin in the mackintosh rug. + +Every movement of the old man's tottering figure and vague hands, every +uncertain gesture and panic-stricken pause, seemed to put it beyond +question that he was helpless, that he was in the last imbecility of the +body. He moved by inches, he let himself down with little gasps of +caution. And yet, unless the philosophical entities called time and +space have no vestige even of a practical existence, it appeared quite +unquestionable that he had run after the omnibus. + +Syme sprang erect upon the rocking car, and after staring wildly at the +wintry sky, that grew gloomier every moment, he ran down the steps. He +had repressed an elemental impulse to leap over the side. + +Too bewildered to look back or to reason, he rushed into one of the +little courts at the side of Fleet Street as a rabbit rushes into a +hole. He had a vague idea, if this incomprehensible old Jack-in-the-box +was really pursuing him, that in that labyrinth of little streets he +could soon throw him off the scent. He dived in and out of those crooked +lanes, which were more like cracks than thoroughfares; and by the time +that he had completed about twenty alternate angles and described an +unthinkable polygon, he paused to listen for any sound of pursuit. There +was none; there could not in any case have been much, for the little +streets were thick with the soundless snow. Somewhere behind Red Lion +Court, however, he noticed a place where some energetic citizen had +cleared away the snow for a space of about twenty yards, leaving the +wet, glistening cobble-stones. He thought little of this as he passed +it, only plunging into yet another arm of the maze. But when a few +hundred yards farther on he stood still again to listen, his heart stood +still also, for he heard from that space of rugged stones the clinking +crutch and labouring feet of the infernal cripple. + +The sky above was loaded with the clouds of snow, leaving London in a +darkness and oppression premature for that hour of the evening. On each +side of Syme the walls of the alley were blind and featureless; there +was no little window or any kind of eye. He felt a new impulse to break +out of this hive of houses, and to get once more into the open and +lamplit street. Yet he rambled and dodged for a long time before he +struck the main thoroughfare. When he did so, he struck it much farther +up than he had fancied. He came out into what seemed the vast and void +of Ludgate Circus, and saw St. Paul's Cathedral sitting in the sky. + +At first he was startled to find these great roads so empty, as if a +pestilence had swept through the city Then he told himself that some +degree of emptiness was natural; first because the snow-storm was even +dangerously deep, and secondly because it was Sunday. And at the very +word Sunday he bit his lip; the word was henceforth for him like some +indecent pun. Under the white fog of snow high up in the heaven the +whole atmosphere of the city was turned to a very queer kind of green +twilight, as of men under the sea. The sealed and sullen sunset behind +the dark dome of St. Paul's had in it smoky and sinister +colours---colours of sickly green, dead red or decaying bronze, that +were just bright enough to emphasise the solid whiteness of the snow. +But right up against these dreary colours rose the black bulk of the +cathedral; and upon the top of the cathedral was a random splash and +great stain of snow, still clinging as to an Alpine peak. It had fallen +accidentally, but just so fallen as to half drape the dome from its very +topmost point, and to pick out in perfect silver the great orb and the +cross. When Syme saw it he suddenly straightened himself, and made with +his sword-stick an involuntary salute. He knew that that evil figure, +his shadow, was creeping quickly or slowly behind him, and he did not +care. It seemed a symbol of human faith and valour that while the skies +were darkening that high place of the earth was bright. The devils might +have captured heaven, but they had not yet captured the cross. He had a +new impulse to tear out the secret of this dancing, jumping and pursuing +paralytic; and at the entrance of the court as it opened upon the Circus +he turned, stick in hand, to face his pursuer. + +Professor de Worms came slowly round the comer of the irregular alley +behind him, his unnatural form outlined against a lonely gas-lamp, +irresistibly recalling that very imaginative figure in the nursery +rhymes, "the crooked man who went a crooked mile." He really looked as +if he had been twisted out of shape by the tortuous streets he had been +threading. He came nearer and nearer, the lamplight shining on his +lifted spectacles, his lifted, patient face. Syme waited for him as +St. George waited for the dragon, as a man waits for a final explanation +or for death. And the old Professor came right up to him and passed him +like a total stranger, without even a blink of his mournful eyelids. + +There was something in this silent and unexpected innocence that left +Syme in a final fury. The man's colourless face and manner seemed to +assert that the whole following had been an accident. Syme was +galvanised with an energy that was something between bitterness and a +burst of boyish derision. He made a wild gesture as if to knock the old +man's hat off, called out something like "Catch me if you can," and went +racing away across the white, open Circus. Concealment was impossible +now; and looking back over his shoulder, he could see the black figure +of the old gentleman coming after him with long, swinging strides like a +man winning a mile race. But the head upon that bounding body was still +pale, grave and professional, like the head of a lecturer upon the body +of a harlequin. + +This outrageous chase sped across Ludgate Circus, up Ludgate Hill, round +St. Paul's Cathedral, along Cheapside, Syme remembering all the +nightmares he had ever known. Then Syme broke away towards the river, +and ended almost down by the docks. He saw the yellow panes of a low, +lighted public-house, flung himself into it and ordered beer. It was a +foul tavern, sprinkled with foreign sailors, a place where opium might +be smoked or knives drawn. + +A moment later Professor de Worms entered the place, sat down carefully, +and asked for a glass of milk. # The Professor Explains -When Gabriel Syme found himself finally established in a -chair, and opposite to him, fixed and final also, the lifted -eyebrows and leaden eyelids of the Professor, his fears -fully returned. This incomprehensible man from the fierce -council, after all, had certainly pursued him. If the man -had one character as a paralytic and another character as a -pursuer, the antithesis might make him more interesting, but -scarcely more soothing. It would be a very small comfort -that he could not find the Professor out, if by some serious -accident the Professor should find him out. He emptied a -whole pewter pot of ale before the Professor had touched his -milk. - -One possibility, however, kept him hopeful and yet helpless. -It was just possible that this escapade signified something -other than even a slight suspicion of him. Perhaps it was -some regular form or sign. Perhaps the foolish scamper was -some sort of friendly signal that he ought to have -understood. Perhaps it was a ritual. Perhaps the new -Thursday was always chased along Cheapside, as the new Lord -Mayor is always escorted along it. He was just selecting a -tentative inquiry, when the old Professor opposite suddenly -and simply cut him short. Before Syme could ask the first -diplomatic question, the old anarchist had asked suddenly, -without any sort of preparation--- +When Gabriel Syme found himself finally established in a chair, and +opposite to him, fixed and final also, the lifted eyebrows and leaden +eyelids of the Professor, his fears fully returned. This +incomprehensible man from the fierce council, after all, had certainly +pursued him. If the man had one character as a paralytic and another +character as a pursuer, the antithesis might make him more interesting, +but scarcely more soothing. It would be a very small comfort that he +could not find the Professor out, if by some serious accident the +Professor should find him out. He emptied a whole pewter pot of ale +before the Professor had touched his milk. + +One possibility, however, kept him hopeful and yet helpless. It was just +possible that this escapade signified something other than even a slight +suspicion of him. Perhaps it was some regular form or sign. Perhaps the +foolish scamper was some sort of friendly signal that he ought to have +understood. Perhaps it was a ritual. Perhaps the new Thursday was always +chased along Cheapside, as the new Lord Mayor is always escorted along +it. He was just selecting a tentative inquiry, when the old Professor +opposite suddenly and simply cut him short. Before Syme could ask the +first diplomatic question, the old anarchist had asked suddenly, without +any sort of preparation--- "Are you a policeman?" -Whatever else Syme had expected, he had never expected -anything so brutal and actual as this. Even his great -presence of mind could only manage a reply with an air of -rather blundering jocularity. +Whatever else Syme had expected, he had never expected anything so +brutal and actual as this. Even his great presence of mind could only +manage a reply with an air of rather blundering jocularity. -"A policeman?" he said, laughing vaguely. "Whatever made you -think of a policeman in connection with me?" +"A policeman?" he said, laughing vaguely. "Whatever made you think of a +policeman in connection with me?" -"The process was simple enough," answered the Professor -patiently. "I thought you looked like a policeman. I think -so now." +"The process was simple enough," answered the Professor patiently. "I +thought you looked like a policeman. I think so now." -"Did I take a policeman's hat by mistake out of the -restaurant?" asked Syme, smiling wildly. "Have I by any -chance got a number stuck on to me somewhere? Have my boots -got that watchful look? Why must I be a policeman? Do, do -let me be a postman." +"Did I take a policeman's hat by mistake out of the restaurant?" asked +Syme, smiling wildly. "Have I by any chance got a number stuck on to me +somewhere? Have my boots got that watchful look? Why must I be a +policeman? Do, do let me be a postman." -The old Professor shook his head with a gravity that gave no -hope, but Syme ran on with a feverish irony. +The old Professor shook his head with a gravity that gave no hope, but +Syme ran on with a feverish irony. -"But perhaps I misunderstood the delicacies of your German -philosophy. Perhaps policeman is a relative term. In an -evolutionary sense, sir, the ape fades so gradually into the -policeman, that I myself can never detect the shade. The -monkey is only the policeman that may be. Perhaps a maiden -lady on Clapham Common is only the policeman that might have -been. I don't mind being the policeman that might have been. -I don't mind being anything in German thought." +"But perhaps I misunderstood the delicacies of your German philosophy. +Perhaps policeman is a relative term. In an evolutionary sense, sir, the +ape fades so gradually into the policeman, that I myself can never +detect the shade. The monkey is only the policeman that may be. Perhaps +a maiden lady on Clapham Common is only the policeman that might have +been. I don't mind being the policeman that might have been. I don't +mind being anything in German thought." -"Are you in the police service?" said the old man, ignoring -all Syme's improvised and desperate raillery. "Are you a -detective?" +"Are you in the police service?" said the old man, ignoring all Syme's +improvised and desperate raillery. "Are you a detective?" Syme's heart turned to stone, but his face never changed. "Your suggestion is ridiculous," he began. "Why on earth---" -The old man struck his palsied hand passionately on the -rickety table, nearly breaking it. +The old man struck his palsied hand passionately on the rickety table, +nearly breaking it. -"Did you hear me ask a plain question, you paltering spy?" -he shrieked in a high, crazy voice. "Are you, or are you -not, a police detective?" +"Did you hear me ask a plain question, you paltering spy?" he shrieked +in a high, crazy voice. "Are you, or are you not, a police detective?" -"No!" answered Syme, like a man standing on the hangman's -drop. +"No!" answered Syme, like a man standing on the hangman's drop. -"You swear it," said the old man, leaning across to him, his -dead face becoming as it were loathsomely alive. "You swear -it! You swear it! If you swear falsely, will you be damned? -Will you be sure that the devil dances at your funeral? will -you see that the nightmare sits on your grave? Will there -really be no mistake? You are an anarchist, you are a -dynamiter! Above all, you are not in any sense a detective? -You are not in the British police?" +"You swear it," said the old man, leaning across to him, his dead face +becoming as it were loathsomely alive. "You swear it! You swear it! If +you swear falsely, will you be damned? Will you be sure that the devil +dances at your funeral? will you see that the nightmare sits on your +grave? Will there really be no mistake? You are an anarchist, you are a +dynamiter! Above all, you are not in any sense a detective? You are not +in the British police?" -He leant his angular elbow far across the table, and put up -his large loose hand like a flap to his ear. +He leant his angular elbow far across the table, and put up his large +loose hand like a flap to his ear. -"I am not in the British police," said Syme with insane -calm. +"I am not in the British police," said Syme with insane calm. -Professor de Worms fell back in his chair with a curious air -of kindly collapse. +Professor de Worms fell back in his chair with a curious air of kindly +collapse. "That's a pity," he said, "because I am." -Syme sprang up straight, sending back the bench behind him -with a crash. +Syme sprang up straight, sending back the bench behind him with a crash. "Because you are what?" he said thickly. "You are what?" -"I am a policeman," said the Professor with his first broad -smile, and beaming through his spectacles. "But as you think -policeman only a relative term, of course I have nothing to -do with you. I am in the British police force; but as you -tell me you are not in the British police force, I can only -say that I met you in a dynamiters' club. I suppose I ought -to arrest you." And with these words he laid on the table -before Syme an exact facsimile of the blue card which Syme -had in his own waistcoat pocket, the symbol of his power -from the police. - -Syme had for a flash the sensation that the cosmos had -turned exactly upside down, that all trees were growing -downwards and that all stars were under his feet. Then came -slowly the opposite conviction. For the last twenty-four -hours the cosmos had really been upside down, but now the -capsized universe had come right side up again. This devil -from whom he had been fleeing all day was only an elder -brother of his own house, who on the other side of the table -lay back and laughed at him. He did not for the moment ask -any questions of detail; he only knew the happy and silly -fact that this shadow, which had pursued him with an -intolerable oppression of peril, was only the shadow of a -friend trying to catch him up. He knew simultaneously that -he was a fool and a free man. For with any recovery from -morbidity there must go a certain healthy humiliation. There -comes a certain point in such conditions when only three -things are possible: first a perpetuation of Satanic pride, -secondly tears, and third laughter. Syme's egotism held hard -to the first course for a few seconds, and then suddenly -adopted the third. Taking his own blue police ticket from -his own waistcoat pocket, he tossed it on to the table; then -he flung his head back until his spike of yellow beard -almost pointed at the ceiling, and shouted with a barbaric -laughter. - -Even in that close den, perpetually filled with the din of -knives, plates, cans, clamorous voices, sudden struggles and -stampedes, there was something Homeric in Syme's mirth which -made many half-drunken men look round. - -"What yer laughing at, guv'nor?" asked one wondering -labourer from the docks. - -"At myself," answered Syme, and went off again into the -agony of his ecstatic reaction. +"I am a policeman," said the Professor with his first broad smile, and +beaming through his spectacles. "But as you think policeman only a +relative term, of course I have nothing to do with you. I am in the +British police force; but as you tell me you are not in the British +police force, I can only say that I met you in a dynamiters' club. I +suppose I ought to arrest you." And with these words he laid on the +table before Syme an exact facsimile of the blue card which Syme had in +his own waistcoat pocket, the symbol of his power from the police. + +Syme had for a flash the sensation that the cosmos had turned exactly +upside down, that all trees were growing downwards and that all stars +were under his feet. Then came slowly the opposite conviction. For the +last twenty-four hours the cosmos had really been upside down, but now +the capsized universe had come right side up again. This devil from whom +he had been fleeing all day was only an elder brother of his own house, +who on the other side of the table lay back and laughed at him. He did +not for the moment ask any questions of detail; he only knew the happy +and silly fact that this shadow, which had pursued him with an +intolerable oppression of peril, was only the shadow of a friend trying +to catch him up. He knew simultaneously that he was a fool and a free +man. For with any recovery from morbidity there must go a certain +healthy humiliation. There comes a certain point in such conditions when +only three things are possible: first a perpetuation of Satanic pride, +secondly tears, and third laughter. Syme's egotism held hard to the +first course for a few seconds, and then suddenly adopted the third. +Taking his own blue police ticket from his own waistcoat pocket, he +tossed it on to the table; then he flung his head back until his spike +of yellow beard almost pointed at the ceiling, and shouted with a +barbaric laughter. + +Even in that close den, perpetually filled with the din of knives, +plates, cans, clamorous voices, sudden struggles and stampedes, there +was something Homeric in Syme's mirth which made many half-drunken men +look round. + +"What yer laughing at, guv'nor?" asked one wondering labourer from the +docks. + +"At myself," answered Syme, and went off again into the agony of his +ecstatic reaction. "Pull yourself together," said the Profess "You haven't drunk your milk," said Syme. -"My milk!" said the other, in tones of withering and -unfathomable contempt, "my milk! Do you think I'd look at -the beastly stuff when I'm out of sight of the bloody -anarchists? We're all Christians in this room, though -perhaps," he added, glancing around at the reeling crowd, -"not strict ones. Finish my milk? Great blazes! yes, I'll -finish it right enough!"and he knocked the tumbler off the -table, making a crash of glass and a splash of silver fluid. +"My milk!" said the other, in tones of withering and unfathomable +contempt, "my milk! Do you think I'd look at the beastly stuff when I'm +out of sight of the bloody anarchists? We're all Christians in this +room, though perhaps," he added, glancing around at the reeling crowd, +"not strict ones. Finish my milk? Great blazes! yes, I'll finish it +right enough!"and he knocked the tumbler off the table, making a crash +of glass and a splash of silver fluid. Syme was staring at him with a happy curiosity. -"I understand now," he cried; "of course, you're not an old -man at all." +"I understand now," he cried; "of course, you're not an old man at all." -"I can't take my face off here," replied Professor de Worms. -"It's rather an elaborate make-up. As to whether I'm an old -man, that's not for me to say. I was thirty-eight last -birthday." +"I can't take my face off here," replied Professor de Worms. "It's +rather an elaborate make-up. As to whether I'm an old man, that's not +for me to say. I was thirty-eight last birthday." -"Yes, but I mean," said Syme impatiently, "there's nothing -the matter with you." +"Yes, but I mean," said Syme impatiently, "there's nothing the matter +with you." -"Yes," answered the other dispassionately, "I am subject to -colds." +"Yes," answered the other dispassionately, "I am subject to colds." -Syme's laughter at all this had about it a wild weakness of -relief. He laughed at the idea of the paralytic Professor -being really a young actor dressed up as if for the -foot-lights. But he felt that he would have laughed as -loudly if a pepper-pot had fallen over. +Syme's laughter at all this had about it a wild weakness of relief. He +laughed at the idea of the paralytic Professor being really a young +actor dressed up as if for the foot-lights. But he felt that he would +have laughed as loudly if a pepper-pot had fallen over. The false Professor drank and wiped his false beard. -"Did you know," he asked, "that that man Gogol was one of -us?" +"Did you know," he asked, "that that man Gogol was one of us?" -"I? No, I didn't know it," answered Syme in some surprise. -"But didn't you?" +"I? No, I didn't know it," answered Syme in some surprise. "But didn't +you?" -"I knew no more than the dead," replied the man who called -himself de Worms. "I thought the President was talking about -me, and I rattled in my boots." +"I knew no more than the dead," replied the man who called himself de +Worms. "I thought the President was talking about me, and I rattled in +my boots." -"And I thought he was talking about me," said Syme, with his -rather reckless laughter. "I had my hand on my revolver all -the time." +"And I thought he was talking about me," said Syme, with his rather +reckless laughter. "I had my hand on my revolver all the time." -"So had I," said the Professor grimly; "so had Gogol -evidently." +"So had I," said the Professor grimly; "so had Gogol evidently." Syme struck the table with an exclamation. -"Why, there were three of us there!" he cried. "Three out of -seven is a fighting number. If we had only known that we -were three!" +"Why, there were three of us there!" he cried. "Three out of seven is a +fighting number. If we had only known that we were three!" -The face of Professor de Worms darkened, and he did not look -up. +The face of Professor de Worms darkened, and he did not look up. -"We were three," he said. "If we had been three hundred we -could still have done nothing." +"We were three," he said. "If we had been three hundred we could still +have done nothing." -"Not if we were three hundred against four?" asked Syme, -jeering rather boisterously. +"Not if we were three hundred against four?" asked Syme, jeering rather +boisterously. -"No," said the Professor with sobriety," not if we were -three hundred against Sunday." +"No," said the Professor with sobriety," not if we were three hundred +against Sunday." -And the mere name struck Syme cold and serious; his laughter -had died in his heart before it could die on his lips. The -face of the unforgettable President sprang into his mind as -startling as a coloured photograph, and he remarked this -difference between Sunday and all his satellites, that their -faces, however fierce or sinister, became gradually blurred -by memory like other human faces, whereas Sunday's seemed -almost to grow more actual during absence, as if a man's -painted portrait should slowly come alive. +And the mere name struck Syme cold and serious; his laughter had died in +his heart before it could die on his lips. The face of the unforgettable +President sprang into his mind as startling as a coloured photograph, +and he remarked this difference between Sunday and all his satellites, +that their faces, however fierce or sinister, became gradually blurred +by memory like other human faces, whereas Sunday's seemed almost to grow +more actual during absence, as if a man's painted portrait should slowly +come alive. -They were both silent for a measure of moments, and then -Syme's speech came with a rush, like the sudden foaming of -champagne. +They were both silent for a measure of moments, and then Syme's speech +came with a rush, like the sudden foaming of champagne. -"Professor," he cried, "it is intolerable. Are you afraid of -this man?" +"Professor," he cried, "it is intolerable. Are you afraid of this man?" -The Professor lifted his heavy lids, and gazed at Syme with -large, wide-open, blue eyes of an almost ethereal honesty. +The Professor lifted his heavy lids, and gazed at Syme with large, +wide-open, blue eyes of an almost ethereal honesty. "Yes, I am," he said mildly. "So are you." -Syme was dumb for an instant. Then he rose to his feet -erect, like an insulted man, and thrust the chair away from -him. +Syme was dumb for an instant. Then he rose to his feet erect, like an +insulted man, and thrust the chair away from him. -"Yes," he said in a voice indescribable, "you are right. I -am afraid of him. Therefore I swear by God that I will seek -out this man whom I fear until I find him, and strike him on -the mouth. If heaven were his throne and the earth his -footstool, I swear that I would pull him down." +"Yes," he said in a voice indescribable, "you are right. I am afraid of +him. Therefore I swear by God that I will seek out this man whom I fear +until I find him, and strike him on the mouth. If heaven were his throne +and the earth his footstool, I swear that I would pull him down." "How?" asked the staring Professor. "Why?" -"Because I am afraid of him," said Syme; "and no man should -leave in the universe anything of which he is afraid." +"Because I am afraid of him," said Syme; "and no man should leave in the +universe anything of which he is afraid." -De Worms blinked at him with a sort of blind wonder. He made -an effort to speak, but Syme went on in a low voice, but -with an undercurrent of inhuman exaltation--- +De Worms blinked at him with a sort of blind wonder. He made an effort +to speak, but Syme went on in a low voice, but with an undercurrent of +inhuman exaltation--- -"Who would condescend to strike down the mere things that he -does not fear? Who would debase himself to be merely brave, -like any common prizefighter? Who would stoop to be -fearless---like a tree? Fight the thing that you fear. You -remember the old tale of the English clergyman who gave the -last rites to the brigand of Sicily, and how on his -death-bed the great robber said, 'I can give you no money, -but I can give you advice for a lifetime: your thumb on the -blade, and strike upwards.' So I say to you, strike upwards, -if you strike at the stars." The other looked at the -ceiling, one of the tricks of his pose. +"Who would condescend to strike down the mere things that he does not +fear? Who would debase himself to be merely brave, like any common +prizefighter? Who would stoop to be fearless---like a tree? Fight the +thing that you fear. You remember the old tale of the English clergyman +who gave the last rites to the brigand of Sicily, and how on his +death-bed the great robber said, 'I can give you no money, but I can +give you advice for a lifetime: your thumb on the blade, and strike +upwards.' So I say to you, strike upwards, if you strike at the stars." +The other looked at the ceiling, one of the tricks of his pose. -"Sunday is a fixed star," he said. You shall see him a -falling star," said Syme, and put on his hat. +"Sunday is a fixed star," he said. You shall see him a falling star," +said Syme, and put on his hat. -The decision of his gesture drew the Professor vaguely to -his feet. +The decision of his gesture drew the Professor vaguely to his feet. -"Have you any idea," he asked, with a sort of benevolent -bewilderment, "exactly where you are going?" +"Have you any idea," he asked, with a sort of benevolent bewilderment, +"exactly where you are going?" -"Yes," replied Syme shortly, "I am going to prevent this -bomb being thrown in Paris." +"Yes," replied Syme shortly, "I am going to prevent this bomb being +thrown in Paris." "Have you any conception how?" inquired the other. "No," said Syme with equal decision. -"You remember, of course," resumed the soidisant de Worms, -pulling his beard and looking out of the window, "that when -we broke up rather hurriedly the whole arrangements for the -atrocity were left in the private hands of the Marquis and -Dr. Bull. The Marquis is by this time probably crossing the -Channel. But where he will go and what he will do it is -doubtful whether even the President knows; certainly we -don't. The only man who does know is Dr. Bull." +"You remember, of course," resumed the soidisant de Worms, pulling his +beard and looking out of the window, "that when we broke up rather +hurriedly the whole arrangements for the atrocity were left in the +private hands of the Marquis and Dr. Bull. The Marquis is by this time +probably crossing the Channel. But where he will go and what he will do +it is doubtful whether even the President knows; certainly we don't. The +only man who does know is Dr. Bull." "Confound it!" cried Syme. "And we don't know where he is." -"Yes," said the other in his curious, absent-minded way, "I -know where he is myself." +"Yes," said the other in his curious, absent-minded way, "I know where +he is myself." "Will you tell me?" asked Syme with eager eyes. -"I will take you there," said the Professor, and took down -his own hat from a peg. +"I will take you there," said the Professor, and took down his own hat +from a peg. Syme stood looking at him with a sort of rigid excitement. -"What do you mean?" he asked sharply. "Will you join me? -Will you take the risk?" - -"Young man," said the Professor pleasantly, "I am amused to -observe that you think I am a coward. As to that I will say -only one word, and that shall be entirely in the manner of -your own philosophical rhetoric. You think that it is -possible to pull down the President. I know that it is -impossible, and I am going to try it," and opening the -tavern door, which let in a blast of bitter air, they went -out together into the dark streets by the docks. - -Most of the snow was melted or trampled to mud , but here -and there a clot of it still showed grey rather than white -in the gloom. The small streets were sloppy and full of -pools, which reflected the flaming lamps irregularly, and by -accident, like fragments of some other and fallen world. -Syme felt almost dazed as he stepped through this growing -confusion of lights and shadows; but his companion walked on -with a certain briskness towards where, at the end of the -street, an inch or two of the lamplit river looked like a -bar of flame. +"What do you mean?" he asked sharply. "Will you join me? Will you take +the risk?" + +"Young man," said the Professor pleasantly, "I am amused to observe that +you think I am a coward. As to that I will say only one word, and that +shall be entirely in the manner of your own philosophical rhetoric. You +think that it is possible to pull down the President. I know that it is +impossible, and I am going to try it," and opening the tavern door, +which let in a blast of bitter air, they went out together into the dark +streets by the docks. + +Most of the snow was melted or trampled to mud , but here and there a +clot of it still showed grey rather than white in the gloom. The small +streets were sloppy and full of pools, which reflected the flaming lamps +irregularly, and by accident, like fragments of some other and fallen +world. Syme felt almost dazed as he stepped through this growing +confusion of lights and shadows; but his companion walked on with a +certain briskness towards where, at the end of the street, an inch or +two of the lamplit river looked like a bar of flame. "Where are you going?" Syme inquired. -"Just now," answered the Professor, "I am going just round -the corner to see whether Dr. Bull has gone to bed. He is -hygienic, and retires early." +"Just now," answered the Professor, "I am going just round the corner to +see whether Dr. Bull has gone to bed. He is hygienic, and retires +early." "Dr. Bull!" exclaimed Syme. "Does he live round the corner?" -"No," answered his friend. "As a matter of fact he lives -some way off, on the other side of the river, but we can -tell from here whether he has gone to bed." - -Turning the corner as he spoke, and facing the dim river, -flecked with flame, he pointed with his stick to the other -bank. On the Surrey side at this point there ran out into -the Thames, seeming almost to overhang it, a bulk and -cluster of those tall tenements, dotted with lighted -windows, and rising like factory chimneys to an almost -insane height. Their special poise and position made one -block of buildings especially look like a Tower of Babel -with a hundred eyes. Syme had never seen any of the -sky-scraping buildings in America, so he could only think of -the buildings in a dream. - -Even as he stared, the highest light in this innumerably -lighted turret abruptly went out, as if this black Argus had -winked at him with one of his innumerable eyes. - -Professor de Worms swung round on his heel, and struck his -stick against his boot. - -"We are too late," he said, "the hygienic Doctor has gone to -bed." - -"What do you mean?" asked Syme. "Does he live over there, -then?" - -"Yes," said de Worms, "behind that particular window which -you can't see. Come along and get some dinner. We must call -on him to-morrow morning." - -Without further parley, he led the way through several -by-ways until they came out into the flare and clamour of -the East India Dock Road. The Professor, who seemed to know -his way about the neighbourhood, proceeded to a place where -the line of lighted shops fell back into a sort of abrupt -twilight and quiet, in which an old white inn, all out of +"No," answered his friend. "As a matter of fact he lives some way off, +on the other side of the river, but we can tell from here whether he has +gone to bed." + +Turning the corner as he spoke, and facing the dim river, flecked with +flame, he pointed with his stick to the other bank. On the Surrey side +at this point there ran out into the Thames, seeming almost to overhang +it, a bulk and cluster of those tall tenements, dotted with lighted +windows, and rising like factory chimneys to an almost insane height. +Their special poise and position made one block of buildings especially +look like a Tower of Babel with a hundred eyes. Syme had never seen any +of the sky-scraping buildings in America, so he could only think of the +buildings in a dream. + +Even as he stared, the highest light in this innumerably lighted turret +abruptly went out, as if this black Argus had winked at him with one of +his innumerable eyes. + +Professor de Worms swung round on his heel, and struck his stick against +his boot. + +"We are too late," he said, "the hygienic Doctor has gone to bed." + +"What do you mean?" asked Syme. "Does he live over there, then?" + +"Yes," said de Worms, "behind that particular window which you can't +see. Come along and get some dinner. We must call on him to-morrow +morning." + +Without further parley, he led the way through several by-ways until +they came out into the flare and clamour of the East India Dock Road. +The Professor, who seemed to know his way about the neighbourhood, +proceeded to a place where the line of lighted shops fell back into a +sort of abrupt twilight and quiet, in which an old white inn, all out of repair, stood back some twenty feet from the road. -"You can find good English inns left by accident everywhere, -like fossils," explained the Professor. "I once found a -decent place in the West End." +"You can find good English inns left by accident everywhere, like +fossils," explained the Professor. "I once found a decent place in the +West End." -"I suppose," said Syme, smiling, "that this is the -corresponding decent place in the East End?" +"I suppose," said Syme, smiling, "that this is the corresponding decent +place in the East End?" "It is," said the Professor reverently, and went in. -In that place they dined and slept, both very thoroughly. -The beans and bacon, which these unaccountable people cooked -well, the astonishing emergence of Burgundy from their -cellars, crowned Syme's sense of a new comradeship and -comfort. Through all this ordeal his root horror had been -isolation, and there are no words to express the abyss -between isolation and having one ally. It may, be conceded -to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not -twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in -spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always -return to monogamy. - -Syme was able to pour out for the first time the whole of -his outrageous tale, from the time when Gregory had taken -him to the little tavern by the river. He did it idly and -amply, in a luxuriant monologue, as a man speaks with very -old friends. On his side, also, the man who had impersonated -Professor de Worms was not less communicative. His own story -was almost as silly as Syme's. - -"That's a good get-up of yours," said Syme, draining a glass -of Macon; "a lot better than old Gogol's. Even at the start -I thought he was a bit too hairy." - -"A difference of artistic theory" replied the Professor -pensively. "Gogol was an idealist. He made up as the -abstract or platonic ideal of an anarchist. But I am a -realist. I am a portrait painter. But, indeed, to say that I -am a portrait painter is an inadequate expression. I am a +In that place they dined and slept, both very thoroughly. The beans and +bacon, which these unaccountable people cooked well, the astonishing +emergence of Burgundy from their cellars, crowned Syme's sense of a new +comradeship and comfort. Through all this ordeal his root horror had +been isolation, and there are no words to express the abyss between +isolation and having one ally. It may, be conceded to the mathematicians +that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand +times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world +will always return to monogamy. + +Syme was able to pour out for the first time the whole of his outrageous +tale, from the time when Gregory had taken him to the little tavern by +the river. He did it idly and amply, in a luxuriant monologue, as a man +speaks with very old friends. On his side, also, the man who had +impersonated Professor de Worms was not less communicative. His own +story was almost as silly as Syme's. + +"That's a good get-up of yours," said Syme, draining a glass of Macon; +"a lot better than old Gogol's. Even at the start I thought he was a bit +too hairy." + +"A difference of artistic theory" replied the Professor pensively. +"Gogol was an idealist. He made up as the abstract or platonic ideal of +an anarchist. But I am a realist. I am a portrait painter. But, indeed, +to say that I am a portrait painter is an inadequate expression. I am a portrait." "I don't understand you," said Syme. -"I am a portrait," repeated the Professor. "I am a portrait -of the celebrated Professor de Worms, who is, I believe, in -Naples." +"I am a portrait," repeated the Professor. "I am a portrait of the +celebrated Professor de Worms, who is, I believe, in Naples." -"You mean you are made up like him," said Syme. "But doesn't -he know that you are taking his nose in vain?" +"You mean you are made up like him," said Syme. "But doesn't he know +that you are taking his nose in vain?" "He knows it right enough," replied his friend cheerfully. @@ -3232,302 +2812,264 @@ he know that you are taking his nose in vain?" "Do explain yourself," said Syme. -"With pleasure, if you don't mind hearing my story," replied -the eminent foreign philosopher. "I am by profession an -actor, and my name is Wilks. When I was on th6 stage I mixed -with all sorts of Bohemian and blackguard company. Sometimes -I touched the edge of the turf, sometimes the riff-raff of -the arts, and occasionally the political refugee. In some -den of exiled dreamers I was introduced to the great German -Nihilist philosopher, Professor de Worms. I did not gather -much about him beyond his appearance, which was very -disgusting, and which I studied carefully. I understood that -he had proved that the destructive principle in the universe -was God; hence he insisted on the need for a furious and -incessant energy, rending all things in pieces. Energy, he -said, was the All. He was lame, short-sighted, and partially -paralytic. When I met him I was in a frivolous mood, and I -disliked him so much that I resolved to imitate him. If I -had been a draughtsman I would have drawn a caricature. I -was only an actor, I could only act a caricature. I made -myself up into what was meant for a wild exaggeration of the -old Professor's dirty old self. When I went into the room -full of his supporters I expected to be received with a roar -of laughter, or (if they were too far gone) with a roar of -indignation at the insult. I cannot describe the surprise I -felt when my entrance was received with a respectful -silence, followed (when I had first opened my lips) with a -murmur of admiration. The curse of the perfect artist had -fallen upon me. I had been too subtle, I had been too true. -They thought I really was the great Nihilist Professor. I -was a healthy-minded young man at the time, and I confess -that it was a blow. Before I could fully recover, however, -two or three of these admirers ran up to me radiating -indignation, and told me that a public insult had been put -upon me in the next room. I inquired its nature. It seemed -that an impertinent fellow had dressed himself up as a -preposterous parody of myself. I had drunk more champagne -than was good for me, and in a flash of folly I decided to -see the situation through. Consequently it was to meet the -glare of the company and my own lifted eyebrows and freezing -eyes that the real Professor came into the room. - -"I need hardly say there was a collision. The pessimists all -round me looked anxiously from one Professor to the other -Professor to see which was really the more feeble. But I -won. An old man in poor health, like my rival, could not be -expected to be so impressively feeble as a young actor in -the prime of life. You see, he really had paralysis, and -working within this definite limitation, he couldn't be so -jolly paralytic as I was. Then he tried to blast my claims -intellectually. I countered that by a very simple dodge. -Whenever he said something that nobody but he could -understand, I replied with something which I could not even -understand myself. 'I don't fancy,' he said, 'that you could -have worked out the principle that evolution is only -negation, since there inheres in it the introduction of -lacunae, which are an essential of differentiation.' I -replied quite scornfully, 'You read all that up in -Pinckwerts; the notion that involution functioned -eugenically was exposed long ago by Glumpe.' It is -unnecessary for me to say that there never were such people -as Pinckwerts and Glumpe. But the people all round (rather -to my surprise) seemed to remember them quite well, and the -Professor, finding that the learned and mysterious method -left him rather at the mercy of an enemy slightly deficient -in scruples, fell back upon a more popular form of wit. 'I -see,' he sneered, 'you prevail like the false pig in sop.' -'And you fail,' I answered, smiling, 'like the hedgehog in -Montaigne.' Need I say that there is no hedgehog in -Montaigne? 'Your clap-trap comes off,' he said; 'so would -your beard.' I had no intelligent answer to this, which was -quite true and rather witty. But I laughed heartily, -answered, 'Like the Pantheist's boots,' at random, and -turned on my heel with all the honours of victory. The real -Professor was thrown out, but not with violence, though one -man tried very patiently to pull off his nose. He is now, I -believe, received everywhere in Europe as a delightful -impostor. His apparent earnestness and anger, you see, make -him all the more entertaining." - -"Well," said Syme, "I can understand your putting on his -dirty old beard for a night's practical joke, but I don't -understand your never taking it off again." - -"That is the rest of the story." said the impersonator. -"When I myself left the company, followed by reverent -applause, I went limping down the dark street, hoping that I -should soon be far enough away to be able to walk like a -human being. To my astonishment, as I was turning the -corner, I felt a touch on the shoulder, and turning, found -myself under the shadow of an enormous policeman. He told me -I was wanted. I struck a sort of paralytic attitude, and -cried in a high German accent, 'Yes, I am wanted---by the -oppressed of the world. You are arresting me on the charge -of being the great anarchist, Professor de Worms.' The -policeman impassively consulted a paper in his hand, 'No, -sir,' he said civilly, 'at least, not exactly, sir. I am -arresting you on the charge of not being the celebrated -anarchist, Professor de Worms.' This charge, if it was -criminal at all, was certainly the lighter of the two, and I -went along with the man, doubtful, but not greatly dismayed. -I was shown into a number of rooms, and eventually into the -presence of a police officer, who explained that a serious -campaign had been opened against the centres of anarchy, and -that this, my successful masquerade, might be of -considerable value to the public safety. He offered me a -good salary and this little blue card. Though our -conversation was short, he struck me as a man of very -massive common sense and humour; but I cannot tell you much -about him personally, because---" +"With pleasure, if you don't mind hearing my story," replied the eminent +foreign philosopher. "I am by profession an actor, and my name is Wilks. +When I was on th6 stage I mixed with all sorts of Bohemian and +blackguard company. Sometimes I touched the edge of the turf, sometimes +the riff-raff of the arts, and occasionally the political refugee. In +some den of exiled dreamers I was introduced to the great German +Nihilist philosopher, Professor de Worms. I did not gather much about +him beyond his appearance, which was very disgusting, and which I +studied carefully. I understood that he had proved that the destructive +principle in the universe was God; hence he insisted on the need for a +furious and incessant energy, rending all things in pieces. Energy, he +said, was the All. He was lame, short-sighted, and partially paralytic. +When I met him I was in a frivolous mood, and I disliked him so much +that I resolved to imitate him. If I had been a draughtsman I would have +drawn a caricature. I was only an actor, I could only act a caricature. +I made myself up into what was meant for a wild exaggeration of the old +Professor's dirty old self. When I went into the room full of his +supporters I expected to be received with a roar of laughter, or (if +they were too far gone) with a roar of indignation at the insult. I +cannot describe the surprise I felt when my entrance was received with a +respectful silence, followed (when I had first opened my lips) with a +murmur of admiration. The curse of the perfect artist had fallen upon +me. I had been too subtle, I had been too true. They thought I really +was the great Nihilist Professor. I was a healthy-minded young man at +the time, and I confess that it was a blow. Before I could fully +recover, however, two or three of these admirers ran up to me radiating +indignation, and told me that a public insult had been put upon me in +the next room. I inquired its nature. It seemed that an impertinent +fellow had dressed himself up as a preposterous parody of myself. I had +drunk more champagne than was good for me, and in a flash of folly I +decided to see the situation through. Consequently it was to meet the +glare of the company and my own lifted eyebrows and freezing eyes that +the real Professor came into the room. + +"I need hardly say there was a collision. The pessimists all round me +looked anxiously from one Professor to the other Professor to see which +was really the more feeble. But I won. An old man in poor health, like +my rival, could not be expected to be so impressively feeble as a young +actor in the prime of life. You see, he really had paralysis, and +working within this definite limitation, he couldn't be so jolly +paralytic as I was. Then he tried to blast my claims intellectually. I +countered that by a very simple dodge. Whenever he said something that +nobody but he could understand, I replied with something which I could +not even understand myself. 'I don't fancy,' he said, 'that you could +have worked out the principle that evolution is only negation, since +there inheres in it the introduction of lacunae, which are an essential +of differentiation.' I replied quite scornfully, 'You read all that up +in Pinckwerts; the notion that involution functioned eugenically was +exposed long ago by Glumpe.' It is unnecessary for me to say that there +never were such people as Pinckwerts and Glumpe. But the people all +round (rather to my surprise) seemed to remember them quite well, and +the Professor, finding that the learned and mysterious method left him +rather at the mercy of an enemy slightly deficient in scruples, fell +back upon a more popular form of wit. 'I see,' he sneered, 'you prevail +like the false pig in sop.' 'And you fail,' I answered, smiling, 'like +the hedgehog in Montaigne.' Need I say that there is no hedgehog in +Montaigne? 'Your clap-trap comes off,' he said; 'so would your beard.' I +had no intelligent answer to this, which was quite true and rather +witty. But I laughed heartily, answered, 'Like the Pantheist's boots,' +at random, and turned on my heel with all the honours of victory. The +real Professor was thrown out, but not with violence, though one man +tried very patiently to pull off his nose. He is now, I believe, +received everywhere in Europe as a delightful impostor. His apparent +earnestness and anger, you see, make him all the more entertaining." + +"Well," said Syme, "I can understand your putting on his dirty old beard +for a night's practical joke, but I don't understand your never taking +it off again." + +"That is the rest of the story." said the impersonator. "When I myself +left the company, followed by reverent applause, I went limping down the +dark street, hoping that I should soon be far enough away to be able to +walk like a human being. To my astonishment, as I was turning the +corner, I felt a touch on the shoulder, and turning, found myself under +the shadow of an enormous policeman. He told me I was wanted. I struck a +sort of paralytic attitude, and cried in a high German accent, 'Yes, I +am wanted---by the oppressed of the world. You are arresting me on the +charge of being the great anarchist, Professor de Worms.' The policeman +impassively consulted a paper in his hand, 'No, sir,' he said civilly, +'at least, not exactly, sir. I am arresting you on the charge of not +being the celebrated anarchist, Professor de Worms.' This charge, if it +was criminal at all, was certainly the lighter of the two, and I went +along with the man, doubtful, but not greatly dismayed. I was shown into +a number of rooms, and eventually into the presence of a police officer, +who explained that a serious campaign had been opened against the +centres of anarchy, and that this, my successful masquerade, might be of +considerable value to the public safety. He offered me a good salary and +this little blue card. Though our conversation was short, he struck me +as a man of very massive common sense and humour; but I cannot tell you +much about him personally, because---" Syme laid down his knife and fork. -"I know," he said, "because you talked to him in a dark -room." +"I know," he said, "because you talked to him in a dark room." Professor de Worms nodded and drained his glass. # The Man in Spectacles -"Burgundy is a jolly thing," said the Professor sadly, as he -set his glass down. +"Burgundy is a jolly thing," said the Professor sadly, as he set his +glass down. -"You don't look as if it were," said Syme; "you drink it as -if it were medicine." +"You don't look as if it were," said Syme; "you drink it as if it were +medicine." -"You must excuse my manner," said the Professor dismally, -"my position is rather a curious one. Inside I am really -bursting with boyish merriment; but I acted the paralytic -Professor so well, that now I can't leave off. So that when -I am among friends, and have no need at all to disguise -myself, I still can't help speaking slow and wrinkling my -forehead---just as if it were my forehead. I can be quite -happy, you understand, but only in a paralytic sort of way. -The most buoyant exclamations leap up in my heart, but they -come out of my mouth quite different. You should hear me -say, 'Buck up, old cock!' It would bring tears to your -eyes." +"You must excuse my manner," said the Professor dismally, "my position +is rather a curious one. Inside I am really bursting with boyish +merriment; but I acted the paralytic Professor so well, that now I can't +leave off. So that when I am among friends, and have no need at all to +disguise myself, I still can't help speaking slow and wrinkling my +forehead---just as if it were my forehead. I can be quite happy, you +understand, but only in a paralytic sort of way. The most buoyant +exclamations leap up in my heart, but they come out of my mouth quite +different. You should hear me say, 'Buck up, old cock!' It would bring +tears to your eyes." -"It does," said Syme; "but I cannot help thinking that apart -from all that you are really a bit worried." +"It does," said Syme; "but I cannot help thinking that apart from all +that you are really a bit worried." The Professor started a little and looked at him steadily. -"You are a very clever fellow," he said, "it is a pleasure -to work with you. Yes, I have rather a heavy cloud in my -head. There is a great problem to face," and he sank his -bald brow in his two hands. +"You are a very clever fellow," he said, "it is a pleasure to work with +you. Yes, I have rather a heavy cloud in my head. There is a great +problem to face," and he sank his bald brow in his two hands. Then he said in a low voice--- "Can you play the piano?" -"Yes," said Syme in simple wonder, "I'm supposed to have a -good touch." +"Yes," said Syme in simple wonder, "I'm supposed to have a good touch." Then, as the other did not speak, he added--- "I trust the great cloud is lifted." -After a long silence, the Professor said out of the -cavernous shadow of his hands--- +After a long silence, the Professor said out of the cavernous shadow of +his hands--- -"It would have done just as well if you could work a -typewriter." +"It would have done just as well if you could work a typewriter." "Thank you," said Syme, "you flatter me." -"Listen to me," said the other, "and remember whom we have -to see to-morrow. You and I are going to-morrow to attempt -something which is very much more dangerous than trying to -steal the Crown Jewels out of the Tower. We are trying to -steal a secret from a very sharp, very strong, and very -wicked man. I believe there is no man, except the President, -of course, who is so seriously startling and formidable as -that little grinning fellow in goggles. He has not perhaps -the white-hot enthusiasm unto death, the mad martyrdom for -anarchy, which marks the Secretary. But then that very -fanaticism in the Secretary has a human pathos, and is -almost a redeeming trait. But the little Doctor has a brutal -sanity that is more shocking than the Secretary's disease. -Don't you notice his detestable virility and vitality. He -bounces like an India-rubber ball. Depend on it, Sunday was -not asleep (I wonder if he ever sleeps?) when he locked up -all the plans of this outrage in the round, black head of -Dr. Bull." - -"And you think," said Syme, "that this unique monster will -be soothed if I play the piano to him?" - -"Don't be an ass," said his mentor. "I mentioned the piano -because it gives one quick and independent fingers. Syme, if -we are to go through this interview and come out sane or -alive, we must have some code of signals between us that -this brute will not see. I have made a rough alphabetical -cypher corresponding to the five fingers---like this, see," -and he rippled with his fingers on the wooden table---" -BAD, bad, a word we may frequently require." - -Syme poured himself out another glass of wine, and began to -study the scheme. He was abnormally quick with his brains at -puzzles, and with his hands at conjuring, and it did not -take him long to learn how he might convey simple messages -by what would seem to be idle taps upon a table or knee. But -wine and companionship had always the effect of inspiring -him to a farcical ingenuity, and the Professor soon found -himself struggling with the too vast energy of the new -language, as it passed through the heated brain of Syme. - -We must have several word-signs," said Syme "seriously---" -words that we are likely to want, fine shades of meaning. My -favourite word is 'coeval.' What's yours?" - -"Do stop playing the goat," said the Professor plaintively. -"You don't know how serious this is." - -"'Lush,' too," said Syme, shaking his head sagaciously, "we -must have 'lush.'---word applied to grass, don't you know?" - -"Do you imagine," asked the Professor furiously, "that we -are going to talk to Dr. Bull about grass?" - -" here are several ways in which the subject could be -approached," said Syme reflectively, "and the word -introduced without appearing forced. We might say, -'Dr. Bull, as a revolutionist, you remember that a tyrant -once advised us to eat grass; and indeed many of us, looking -on the fresh lush grass of summer---'" - -"Do you understand," said the other, "that this is a -tragedy?" - -"Perfectly," replied Syme; "always be comic in a tragedy. -What the deuce else can you do? I wish this language of -yours had a wider scope. I suppose we could not extend it -from the fingers to the toes? That would involve pulling off -our boots and socks during the conversation, which however -unobtrusively performed---" - -"Syme," said his friend with a stern simplicity, "go to -bed!" - -Syme, however, sat up in bed for a considerable time -mastering the new code. He was awakened next morning while -the east was still sealed with darkness, and found his -grey-bearded ally standing like a ghost beside his bed. - -Syme sat up in bed blinking; then slowly collected his -thoughts, threw off the bed-clothes, and stood up. It seemed -to him in some curious way that all the safety and -sociability of the night before fell with the bed-clothes -off him, and he stood up in an air of cold danger. He still -felt an entire trust and loyalty towards his companion; but -it was the trust between two men going to the scaffold. - -"Well," said Syme with a forced cheerfulness as he pulled on -his trousers, "I dreamt of that alphabet of yours. Did it -take you long to make it up?" - -The Professor made no answer, but gazed in front of him with -eyes the colour of a wintry sea; so Syme repeated his -question. - -"I say, did it take you long to invent all this? I'm -considered good at these things, and it was a good hour's -grind. Did you learn it all on the spot?" - -The Professor was silent; his eyes were wide open, and he -wore a fixed but very small smile. +"Listen to me," said the other, "and remember whom we have to see +to-morrow. You and I are going to-morrow to attempt something which is +very much more dangerous than trying to steal the Crown Jewels out of +the Tower. We are trying to steal a secret from a very sharp, very +strong, and very wicked man. I believe there is no man, except the +President, of course, who is so seriously startling and formidable as +that little grinning fellow in goggles. He has not perhaps the white-hot +enthusiasm unto death, the mad martyrdom for anarchy, which marks the +Secretary. But then that very fanaticism in the Secretary has a human +pathos, and is almost a redeeming trait. But the little Doctor has a +brutal sanity that is more shocking than the Secretary's disease. Don't +you notice his detestable virility and vitality. He bounces like an +India-rubber ball. Depend on it, Sunday was not asleep (I wonder if he +ever sleeps?) when he locked up all the plans of this outrage in the +round, black head of Dr. Bull." + +"And you think," said Syme, "that this unique monster will be soothed if +I play the piano to him?" + +"Don't be an ass," said his mentor. "I mentioned the piano because it +gives one quick and independent fingers. Syme, if we are to go through +this interview and come out sane or alive, we must have some code of +signals between us that this brute will not see. I have made a rough +alphabetical cypher corresponding to the five fingers---like this, see," +and he rippled with his fingers on the wooden table---" BAD, bad, a word +we may frequently require." + +Syme poured himself out another glass of wine, and began to study the +scheme. He was abnormally quick with his brains at puzzles, and with his +hands at conjuring, and it did not take him long to learn how he might +convey simple messages by what would seem to be idle taps upon a table +or knee. But wine and companionship had always the effect of inspiring +him to a farcical ingenuity, and the Professor soon found himself +struggling with the too vast energy of the new language, as it passed +through the heated brain of Syme. + +We must have several word-signs," said Syme "seriously---" words that we +are likely to want, fine shades of meaning. My favourite word is +'coeval.' What's yours?" + +"Do stop playing the goat," said the Professor plaintively. "You don't +know how serious this is." + +"'Lush,' too," said Syme, shaking his head sagaciously, "we must have +'lush.'---word applied to grass, don't you know?" + +"Do you imagine," asked the Professor furiously, "that we are going to +talk to Dr. Bull about grass?" + +" here are several ways in which the subject could be approached," said +Syme reflectively, "and the word introduced without appearing forced. We +might say, 'Dr. Bull, as a revolutionist, you remember that a tyrant +once advised us to eat grass; and indeed many of us, looking on the +fresh lush grass of summer---'" + +"Do you understand," said the other, "that this is a tragedy?" + +"Perfectly," replied Syme; "always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce +else can you do? I wish this language of yours had a wider scope. I +suppose we could not extend it from the fingers to the toes? That would +involve pulling off our boots and socks during the conversation, which +however unobtrusively performed---" + +"Syme," said his friend with a stern simplicity, "go to bed!" + +Syme, however, sat up in bed for a considerable time mastering the new +code. He was awakened next morning while the east was still sealed with +darkness, and found his grey-bearded ally standing like a ghost beside +his bed. + +Syme sat up in bed blinking; then slowly collected his thoughts, threw +off the bed-clothes, and stood up. It seemed to him in some curious way +that all the safety and sociability of the night before fell with the +bed-clothes off him, and he stood up in an air of cold danger. He still +felt an entire trust and loyalty towards his companion; but it was the +trust between two men going to the scaffold. + +"Well," said Syme with a forced cheerfulness as he pulled on his +trousers, "I dreamt of that alphabet of yours. Did it take you long to +make it up?" + +The Professor made no answer, but gazed in front of him with eyes the +colour of a wintry sea; so Syme repeated his question. + +"I say, did it take you long to invent all this? I'm considered good at +these things, and it was a good hour's grind. Did you learn it all on +the spot?" + +The Professor was silent; his eyes were wide open, and he wore a fixed +but very small smile. "How long did it take you?" The Professor did not move. -"Confound you, can't you answer?" called out Syme, in a -sudden anger that had something like fear underneath. -Whether or no the Professor could answer, he did not. - -Syme stood staring back at the stiff face like parchment and -the blank, blue eyes. His first thought was that the -Professor had gone mad, but his second thought was more -frightful. After all, what did he know about this queer -creature whom he had heedlessly accepted as a friend? What -did he know, except that the man had been at the anarchist -breakfast and had told him a ridiculous tale? How improbable -it was that there should be another friend there beside -Gogol! Was this man's silence a sensational way of declaring -war? Was this adamantine stare after all only the awful -sneer of some threefold traitor, who had turned for the last -time? He stood and strained his ears in this heartless -silence He almost fancied he could hear dynamiters come to -capture him shifting softly in the corridor outside. - -Then his eye strayed downwards, and he burst out laughing. -Though the Professor himself stood there as voiceless as a -statue, his five dumb fingers were dancing alive upon the -dead table. Syme watched the twinkling movements of the -talking hand, and read clearly the message--- +"Confound you, can't you answer?" called out Syme, in a sudden anger +that had something like fear underneath. Whether or no the Professor +could answer, he did not. + +Syme stood staring back at the stiff face like parchment and the blank, +blue eyes. His first thought was that the Professor had gone mad, but +his second thought was more frightful. After all, what did he know about +this queer creature whom he had heedlessly accepted as a friend? What +did he know, except that the man had been at the anarchist breakfast and +had told him a ridiculous tale? How improbable it was that there should +be another friend there beside Gogol! Was this man's silence a +sensational way of declaring war? Was this adamantine stare after all +only the awful sneer of some threefold traitor, who had turned for the +last time? He stood and strained his ears in this heartless silence He +almost fancied he could hear dynamiters come to capture him shifting +softly in the corridor outside. + +Then his eye strayed downwards, and he burst out laughing. Though the +Professor himself stood there as voiceless as a statue, his five dumb +fingers were dancing alive upon the dead table. Syme watched the +twinkling movements of the talking hand, and read clearly the message--- "I will only talk like this. We must get used to it." @@ -3535,157 +3077,139 @@ He rapped out the answer with the impatience of relief--- "All right. Let's get out to breakfast." -They took their hats and sticks in silence; but as Syme took -his sword-stick, he held it hard. - -They paused for a few minutes only to stuff down coffee and -coarse thick sandwiches at a coffee stall, and then made -their way across the river, which under the grey and growing -light looked as desolate as Acheron. They reached the bottom -of the huge block of buildings which they had seen from -across the river, and began in silence to mount the naked -and numberless stone steps, only pausing now and then to -make short remarks on the rail of the banisters. At about -every other flight they passed a window; each window showed -them a pale and tragic dawn lifting itself laboriously over -London. From each the innumerable roofs of slate looked like -the leaden surges of a grey, troubled sea after rain. Syme -was increasingly conscious that his new adventure had -somehow a quality of cold sanity worse than the wild -adventures of the past. Last night, for instance, the tall -tenements had seemed to him like a tower in a dream. As he -now went up the weary and perpetual steps, he was daunted -and bewildered by their almost infinite series. But it was -not the hot horror of a dream or of anything that might be -exaggeration or delusion. Their infinity was more like the -empty infinity of arithmetic, something unthinkable, yet -necessary to thought. Or it was like the stunning statements -of astronomy about the distance of the fixed stars. He was -ascending the house of reason, a thing more hideous than -unreason itself. - -By the time they reached Dr. Bull's landing, a last window -showed them a harsh, white dawn edged with banks of a kind -of coarse red, more like red clay than red cloud. And when -they entered Dr. Bull's bare garret it was full of light. - -Syme had been haunted by a half historic memory in -connection with these empty rooms and that austere daybreak. -The moment he saw the garret and Dr. Bull sitting writing at -a table, he remembered what the memory was---the French -Revolution. There should have been the black outline of a -guillotine against that heavy red and white of the morning. -Dr. Bull was in his white shirt and black breeches only; his -cropped, dark head might well have just come out of its wig; -he might have' been Marat or a more slipshod Robespierre. - -Yet when he was seen properly, the French fancy fell away. -The Jacobins were idealists; there was about this man a -murderous materialism. His position gave him a somewhat new -appearance. The strong, white light of morning coming from -one side creating sharp shadows, made him seem both more -pale and more angular than he had looked at the breakfast on -the balcony. Thus the two black glasses that encased his -eyes might really have been black cavities in his skull, -making him look like a death's-head. And indeed, if ever -Death himself sat writing at a wooden table, it might have -been he. - -He looked up and smiled brightly enough as the men came in, -and rose with the resilient rapidity of which the Professor -had spoken. He set chairs for both of them, and going to a -peg behind the door, proceeded to put on a coat and -waistcoat of rough, dark tweed; he buttoned it up neatly, -and came back to sit down at his table. - -The quiet good humour of his manner left his two opponents -helpless. It was with some momentary difficulty that the -Professor broke silence and began, "I'm sorry to disturb you -so early, comrade," said he, with a careful resumption of -the slow de Worms manner. "You have no doubt made all the -arrangements for the Paris affair?" Then he added with -infinite slowness, "We have information which renders -intolerable anything in the nature of a moment's delay." - -Dr. Bull smiled again, but continued to gaze on them without -speaking. The Professor resumed, a pause before each weary -word--- - -"Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you -to alter those plans, or if it is too late for that, to -follow your agent with all the support you can get for him. -Comrade Syme and I have had an experience which it would -take more time to recount than we can afford, if we are to -act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in detail, -even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it -is essential to the understanding of the problem we have to -discuss." - -He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably -long and lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical -little Doctor into an explosion of impatience which might -show his hand. But the little Doctor continued only to stare -and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. Syme began to -feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and -silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and -horrible silence which he had confronted in the Professor -half an hour before. About the Professor's make-up and all -his antics there was always something merely grotesque, like -a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday as -one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here -was daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in -tweeds, not odd save for the accident of his ugly -spectacles, not glaring or grinning at all, but smiling -steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense of -unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the -colours of the Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his -tweeds, grew and expanded outrageously, as such things grow -too important in a realistic novel. But his smile was quite -slight, the pose of his head polite; the only uncanny thing -was his silence. - -"As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling -through heavy sand, "the incident that has occurred to us -and has led us to ask for information about the Marquis, is -one which you may think it better to have narrated; but as -it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than me---" - -His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an -anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers -rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the -message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked me dry!" - -Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of -improvisation which always came to him when he was alarmed. - -"Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I -had the good fortune to fall into conversation with a -detective who took me, thanks to my hat, for a respectable -person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for respectability, -I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under this -influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words -that within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in -France. So unless you or I can get on his track---" - -The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and -his protected eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor -signalled to Syme that he would resume his explanation, and -he began again with the same elaborate calm. - -"Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we -came here together to see what use you would be inclined to -make of it. It seems to me unquestionably urgent that---" - -All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as -steadily as the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite -without the smile. The nerves of both comrades-in-arms were -near snapping under that strain of motionless amiability, -when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped the edge of -the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an +They took their hats and sticks in silence; but as Syme took his +sword-stick, he held it hard. + +They paused for a few minutes only to stuff down coffee and coarse thick +sandwiches at a coffee stall, and then made their way across the river, +which under the grey and growing light looked as desolate as Acheron. +They reached the bottom of the huge block of buildings which they had +seen from across the river, and began in silence to mount the naked and +numberless stone steps, only pausing now and then to make short remarks +on the rail of the banisters. At about every other flight they passed a +window; each window showed them a pale and tragic dawn lifting itself +laboriously over London. From each the innumerable roofs of slate looked +like the leaden surges of a grey, troubled sea after rain. Syme was +increasingly conscious that his new adventure had somehow a quality of +cold sanity worse than the wild adventures of the past. Last night, for +instance, the tall tenements had seemed to him like a tower in a dream. +As he now went up the weary and perpetual steps, he was daunted and +bewildered by their almost infinite series. But it was not the hot +horror of a dream or of anything that might be exaggeration or delusion. +Their infinity was more like the empty infinity of arithmetic, something +unthinkable, yet necessary to thought. Or it was like the stunning +statements of astronomy about the distance of the fixed stars. He was +ascending the house of reason, a thing more hideous than unreason +itself. + +By the time they reached Dr. Bull's landing, a last window showed them a +harsh, white dawn edged with banks of a kind of coarse red, more like +red clay than red cloud. And when they entered Dr. Bull's bare garret it +was full of light. + +Syme had been haunted by a half historic memory in connection with these +empty rooms and that austere daybreak. The moment he saw the garret and +Dr. Bull sitting writing at a table, he remembered what the memory +was---the French Revolution. There should have been the black outline of +a guillotine against that heavy red and white of the morning. Dr. Bull +was in his white shirt and black breeches only; his cropped, dark head +might well have just come out of its wig; he might have' been Marat or a +more slipshod Robespierre. + +Yet when he was seen properly, the French fancy fell away. The Jacobins +were idealists; there was about this man a murderous materialism. His +position gave him a somewhat new appearance. The strong, white light of +morning coming from one side creating sharp shadows, made him seem both +more pale and more angular than he had looked at the breakfast on the +balcony. Thus the two black glasses that encased his eyes might really +have been black cavities in his skull, making him look like a +death's-head. And indeed, if ever Death himself sat writing at a wooden +table, it might have been he. + +He looked up and smiled brightly enough as the men came in, and rose +with the resilient rapidity of which the Professor had spoken. He set +chairs for both of them, and going to a peg behind the door, proceeded +to put on a coat and waistcoat of rough, dark tweed; he buttoned it up +neatly, and came back to sit down at his table. + +The quiet good humour of his manner left his two opponents helpless. It +was with some momentary difficulty that the Professor broke silence and +began, "I'm sorry to disturb you so early, comrade," said he, with a +careful resumption of the slow de Worms manner. "You have no doubt made +all the arrangements for the Paris affair?" Then he added with infinite +slowness, "We have information which renders intolerable anything in the +nature of a moment's delay." + +Dr. Bull smiled again, but continued to gaze on them without speaking. +The Professor resumed, a pause before each weary word--- + +"Please do not think me excessively abrupt; but I advise you to alter +those plans, or if it is too late for that, to follow your agent with +all the support you can get for him. Comrade Syme and I have had an +experience which it would take more time to recount than we can afford, +if we are to act on it. I will, however, relate the occurrence in +detail, even at the risk of losing time, if you really feel that it is +essential to the understanding of the problem we have to discuss." + +He was spinning out his sentences, making them intolerably long and +lingering, in the hope of maddening the practical little Doctor into an +explosion of impatience which might show his hand. But the little Doctor +continued only to stare and smile, and the monologue was uphill work. +Syme began to feel a new sickness and despair. The Doctor's smile and +silence were not at all like the cataleptic stare and horrible silence +which he had confronted in the Professor half an hour before. About the +Professor's make-up and all his antics there was always something merely +grotesque, like a gollywog. Syme remembered those wild woes of yesterday +as one remembers being afraid of Bogy in childhood. But here was +daylight; here was a healthy, square-shouldered man in tweeds, not odd +save for the accident of his ugly spectacles, not glaring or grinning at +all, but smiling steadily and not saying a word. The whole had a sense +of unbearable reality. Under the increasing sunlight the colours of the +Doctor's complexion, the pattern of his tweeds, grew and expanded +outrageously, as such things grow too important in a realistic novel. +But his smile was quite slight, the pose of his head polite; the only +uncanny thing was his silence. + +"As I say," resumed the Professor, like a man toiling through heavy +sand, "the incident that has occurred to us and has led us to ask for +information about the Marquis, is one which you may think it better to +have narrated; but as it came in the way of Comrade Syme rather than +me---" + +His words he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but +Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge +of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has +sucked me dry!" + +Syme plunged into the breach with that bravado of improvisation which +always came to him when he was alarmed. + +"Yes, the thing really happened to me," he said hastily. "I had the good +fortune to fall into conversation with a detective who took me, thanks +to my hat, for a respectable person. Wishing to clinch my reputation for +respectability, I took him and made him very drunk at the Savoy. Under +this influence he became friendly, and told me in so many words that +within a day or two they hope to arrest the Marquis in France. So unless +you or I can get on his track---" + +The Doctor was still smiling in the most friendly way, and his protected +eyes were still impenetrable. The Professor signalled to Syme that he +would resume his explanation, and he began again with the same elaborate +calm. + +"Syme immediately brought this information to me, and we came here +together to see what use you would be inclined to make of it. It seems +to me unquestionably urgent that---" + +All this time Syme had been staring at the Doctor almost as steadily as +the Doctor stared at the Professor, but quite without the smile. The +nerves of both comrades-in-arms were near snapping under that strain of +motionless amiability, when Syme suddenly leant forward and idly tapped +the edge of the table. His message to his ally ran, "I have an intuition." -The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, -signalled back, "Then sit on it." +The Professor, with scarcely a pause in his monologue, signalled back, +"Then sit on it." Syme telegraphed, "It is quite extraordinary." @@ -3695,942 +3219,827 @@ Syme said, "I am a poet." The other retorted, "You are a dead man." -Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes -were burning feverishly. As he said, he had an intuition, -and it had risen to a sort of light-headed certainty. -Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to his friend, "You -scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has that -sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." +Syme had gone quite red up to his yellow hair, and his eyes were burning +feverishly. As he said, he had an intuition, and it had risen to a sort +of light-headed certainty. Resuming his symbolic taps, he signalled to +his friend, "You scarcely realise how poetic my intuition is. It has +that sudden quality we sometimes feel in the coming of spring." -He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The -answer was, "Go to hell!" +He then studied the answer on his friend's fingers. The answer was, "Go +to hell!" -The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue -addressed to the Doctor. +The Professor then resumed his merely verbal monologue addressed to the +Doctor. -"Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, -"that it resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be -found in the heart of lush woods." +"Perhaps I should rather say," said Syme on his fingers, "that it +resembles that sudden smell of the sea which may be found in the heart +of lush woods." His companion disdained to reply. -"Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the -passionate red hair of a beautiful woman." +"Or yet again," tapped Syme, "it is positive, as is the passionate red +hair of a beautiful woman." -The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle -of it Syme decided to act. He leant across the table, and -said in a voice that could not be neglected--- +The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme +decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that +could not be neglected--- "Dr. Bull!" -The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they -could have sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted -towards Syme. - -"Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and -courteous, "would you do me a small favour? Would you be so -kind as to take off your spectacles?" - -The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme -with a sort of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man -who has thrown his life and fortune on the table, leaned -forward with a fiery face. The Doctor did not move. - -For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could -hear a pin drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant -steamer on the Thames. Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still -smiling, and took off his spectacles. - -Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a -chemical lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were -like stars, and for an instant he could only point without -speaking. - -The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his -supposed paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and -stared doubtfully at Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been -turned into a toad before his eyes. And indeed it was almost -as great a transformation scene. - -The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a -very boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy -hazel eyes, an open expression, cockney clothes like those -of a city clerk, and an unquestionable breath about him of -being very good and rather commonplace. The smile was still -there, but it might have been the first smile of a baby. - -"I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I -knew my intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the -spectacles that did it! It was all the spectacles! Given -those beastly black eyes, and all the rest of him, his -health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil among dead -ones." - -"It certainly does make a queer difference," said the -Professor shakily. "But as regards the project of -Dr. Bull---" - -"Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at -him! Look at his face, look at his collar, look at his -blessed boots! You don't suppose, do you, that that thing's -an anarchist?" +The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have +sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme. + +"Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous, +"would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off +your spectacles?" + +The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort of +frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life +and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor +did not move. + +For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin +drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames. +Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles. + +Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical +lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for +an instant he could only point without speaking. + +The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed +paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at +Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes. +And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene. + +The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very +boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an open +expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and an +unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather +commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first +smile of a baby. + +"I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my +intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did +it! It was all the spectacles! Given those beastly black eyes, and all +the rest of him, his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil +among dead ones." + +"It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily. +"But as regards the project of Dr. Bull---" + +"Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look at +his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't +suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?" "Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive agony. -"Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that -myself! Dr. Bull, I am a police officer. There's my card," -and he flung down the blue card upon the table. +"Why, by God," said Syme, "I'll take the risk of that myself! Dr. Bull, +I am a police officer. There's my card," and he flung down the blue card +upon the table. -The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was -loyal. He pulled out his own official card and put it beside -his friend's. Then the third man burst out laughing, and for -the first time that morning they heard his voice. +The Professor still feared that all was lost; but he was loyal. He +pulled out his own official card and put it beside his friend's. Then +the third man burst out laughing, and for the first time that morning +they heard his voice. -"I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, -with a sort of schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start -for France together. Yes, I'm in the force right enough," -and he flicked a blue card towards them lightly as a matter -of form. +"I'm awfully glad you chaps have come so early," he said, with a sort of +schoolboy flippancy, "for we can all start for France together. Yes, I'm +in the force right enough," and he flicked a blue card towards them +lightly as a matter of form. -Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin -glasses, the Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that -the others instinctively followed him. Syme seemed a little -distrait, and as he passed under the doorway he suddenly -struck his stick on the stone passage so that it rang. +Clapping a brisk bowler on his head and resuming his goblin glasses, the +Doctor moved so quickly towards the door, that the others instinctively +followed him. Syme seemed a little distrait, and as he passed under the +doorway he suddenly struck his stick on the stone passage so that it +rang. -"But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all -right, there were more damned detectives than there were -damned dynamiters at the damned Council!" +"But Lord God Almighty," he cried out, "if this is all right, there were +more damned detectives than there were damned dynamiters at the damned +Council!" -"We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four -against three." +"We might have fought easily," said Bull; "we were four against three." -The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came -up from below. +The Professor was descending the stairs, but his voice came up from +below. -"No," said the voice, "we were not four against three---we -were not so lucky. We were four against One." +"No," said the voice, "we were not four against three---we were not so +lucky. We were four against One." The others went down the stairs in silence. -The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy -characteristic of him, insisted on going last until they -reached the street; but there his own robust rapidity -asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly on -ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the -others over his shoulder. +The young man called Bull, with an innocent courtesy characteristic of +him, insisted on going last until they reached the street; but there his +own robust rapidity asserted itself unconsciously, and he walked quickly +on ahead towards a railway inquiry office, talking to the others over +his shoulder. -"It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half -dead with the jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my -arms round Gogol and embraced him, which would have been -imprudent. I hope you won't despise me for having been in a -blue funk." +"It is jolly to get some pals," he said. "I've been half dead with the +jumps, being quite alone. I nearly flung my arms round Gogol and +embraced him, which would have been imprudent. I hope you won't despise +me for having been in a blue funk." -"All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed -to my blue funk! But the worst devil was you and your -infernal goggles." +"All the blue devils in blue hell," said Syme, "contributed to my blue +funk! But the worst devil was you and your infernal goggles." The young man laughed delightedly. -"Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea---not my -own. I haven't got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into -the detective service, especially the anti-dynamite -business. But for that purpose they wanted someone to dress -up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I could -never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was -respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the -British Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too -optimistic, and too reliable and benevolent; they called me -all sorts of names at Scotland Yard. They said that if I had -been a criminal, I might have made my fortune by looking so -like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to be an -honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my -assisting them by ever looking Hke a criminal. But at last I -was brought before some old josser who was high up in the -force, and who seemed to have no end of a head on his -shoulders. And there the others all talked hopelessly. One -asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; -another said that if they blacked my face I might look like -a Negro anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most -extraordinary remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do -it,' he said positively. 'Look at him now; he looks like an -angelic office boy. Put him on a pair of smoked spectacles, -and children will scream at the sight of him.' And so it -was, by George! When once my eyes were covered all the rest, -smile and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a -perfect little devil. As I say, it was simple enough when it -was done, like miracles; but that wasn't the really -miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering thing -about the business, and my head still turns at it." +"Wasn't it a rag?" he said. "Such a simple idea---not my own. I haven't +got the brains. You see, I wanted to go into the detective service, +especially the anti-dynamite business. But for that purpose they wanted +someone to dress up as a dynamiter; and they all swore by blazes that I +could never look like a dynamiter. They said my very walk was +respectable, and that seen from behind I looked like the British +Constitution. They said I looked too healthy and too optimistic, and too +reliable and benevolent; they called me all sorts of names at Scotland +Yard. They said that if I had been a criminal, I might have made my +fortune by looking so like an honest man; but as I had the misfortune to +be an honest man, there was not even the remotest chance of my assisting +them by ever looking Hke a criminal. But at last I was brought before +some old josser who was high up in the force, and who seemed to have no +end of a head on his shoulders. And there the others all talked +hopelessly. One asked whether a bushy beard would hide my nice smile; +another said that if they blacked my face I might look like a Negro +anarchist; but this old chap chipped in with a most extraordinary +remark. 'A pair of smoked spectacles will do it,' he said positively. +'Look at him now; he looks like an angelic office boy. Put him on a pair +of smoked spectacles, and children will scream at the sight of him.' And +so it was, by George! When once my eyes were covered all the rest, smile +and big shoulders and short hair, made me look a perfect little devil. +As I say, it was simple enough when it was done, like miracles; but that +wasn't the really miraculous part of it. There was one really staggering +thing about the business, and my head still turns at it." "What was that?" asked Syme. -"I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big -pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the -goggles would go with my hair and socks---by God, he never -saw me at all!" +"I'll tell you," answered the man in spectacles. "This big pot in the +police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my +hair and socks---by God, he never saw me at all!" -Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he -asked. "I thought you talked to him." +Syme's eyes suddenly flashed on him. "How was that?" he asked. "I +thought you talked to him." -"So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a -pitch-dark room like a coal cellar. There, you would never -have guessed that." +"So I did," said Bull brightly; "but we talked in a pitch-dark room like +a coal cellar. There, you would never have guessed that." "I could not have conceived it," said Syme gravely. "It is indeed a new idea," said the Professor. -Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the -inquiry office he asked with businesslike brevity about the -trains for Dover. Having got his information, he bundled the -company into a cab, and put them and himself inside a -railway carriage before they had properly realised the -breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat +Their new ally was in practical matters a whirlwind. At the inquiry +office he asked with businesslike brevity about the trains for Dover. +Having got his information, he bundled the company into a cab, and put +them and himself inside a railway carriage before they had properly +realised the breathless process. They were already on the Calais boat before conversation flowed freely. -"I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for -my lunch; but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with -me. You see, I had to send that beast, the Marquis, over -with his bomb, because the President had his eye on me, -though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some day. It -was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I -saw the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window -of a club or taking off his hat to me from the top of an -omnibus. I tell you, you can say what you like, that fellow -sold himself to the devil; he can be in six places at once." +"I had already arranged," he explained, "to go to France for my lunch; +but I am delighted to have someone to lunch with me. You see, I had to +send that beast, the Marquis, over with his bomb, because the President +had his eye on me, though God knows how. I'll tell you the story some +day. It was perfectly choking. Whenever I tried to slip out of it I saw +the President somewhere, smiling out of the bow-window of a club or +taking off his hat to me from the top of an omnibus. I tell you, you can +say what you like, that fellow sold himself to the devil; he can be in +six places at once." -"So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the -Professor. "Was it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch -him?" +"So you sent the Marquis off, I understand," asked the Professor. "Was +it long ago? Shall we be in time to catch him?" -"Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll -still be at Calais when we arrive." +"Yes," answered the new guide, "I've timed it all. He'll still be at +Calais when we arrive." -"But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, -"what are we going to do?" +"But when we do catch him at Calais," said the Professor, "what are we +going to do?" -At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the -first time. He reflected a little, and then said--- +At this question the countenance of Dr. Bull fell for the first time. He +reflected a little, and then said--- "Theoretically, I suppose, we ought to call the police." -"Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself -first. I promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern -pessimist, on my word of honour not to tell the police. I'm -no hand at casuistry, but I can't break my word to a modern -pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a child." - -"I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell -the police and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I -took. You see, when I was an actor I was a sort of all-round -beast. Perjury or treason is the only crime I haven't -committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference +"Not I," said Syme. "Theoretically I ought to drown myself first. I +promised a poor fellow, who was a real modern pessimist, on my word of +honour not to tell the police. I'm no hand at casuistry, but I can't +break my word to a modern pessimist. It's like breaking one's word to a +child." + +"I'm in the same boat," said the Professor. "I tried to tell the police +and I couldn't, because of some silly oath I took. You see, when I was +an actor I was a sort of all-round beast. Perjury or treason is the only +crime I haven't committed. If I did that I shouldn't know the difference between right and wrong." -"I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made -up my mind. I gave my promise to the Secretary---you know -him, man who smiles upside down. My friends, that man is the -most utterly unhappy man that was ever human. It may be his -digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his -philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! -Well, I can't turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. -It's like whipping a leper. I may be mad, but that's how I -feel; and there's jolly well the end of it." +"I've been through all that," said Dr. Bull, "and I've made up my mind. +I gave my promise to the Secretary---you know him, man who smiles upside +down. My friends, that man is the most utterly unhappy man that was ever +human. It may be his digestion, or his conscience, or his nerves, or his +philosophy of the universe, but he's damned, he's in hell! Well, I can't +turn on a man like that, and hunt him down. It's like whipping a leper. +I may be mad, but that's how I feel; and there's jolly well the end of +it." -"I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would -decide like that when first you---" +"I don't think you're mad," said Syme. "I knew you would decide like +that when first you---" "Eh?" said Dr. Bull. "When first you took off your spectacles." -Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to -look at the sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking -his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell -between the three men. +Dr. Bull smiled a little, and strolled across the deck to look at the +sunlit sea. Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, +and a companionable silence fell between the three men. + +"Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind of morality +or immorality, so we had better face the fact that comes of it." + +"Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we must hurry +up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from France." + +"The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, that we +three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God knows where; perhaps +the President has smashed him like a fly. On the Council we are three +men against three, like the Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse +off than that, first because they can appeal to their organisation and +we cannot appeal to ours, and second because" + +"Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, "is not a +man." + +Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he said--- + +"My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis in Calais +till to-morrow midday. I have turned over twenty schemes in my head. We +cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; that is agreed. We cannot get him +detained on some trivial charge, for we should have to appear; he knows +us, and he would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on anarchist +business; he might swallow much in that way, but not the notion of +stopping in Calais while the Czar went safely through Paris. We might +try to kidnap him, and lock him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man +here. He has a whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, +and the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is actually to +take advantage of the very things that are in the Marquis's favour. I am +going to profit by the fact that he is a highly respected nobleman. I am +going to profit by the fact that he has many friends and moves in the +best society." -"Well," said Syme, "it seems that we have all the same kind -of morality or immorality, so we had better face the fact -that comes of it." +"What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. -"Yes," assented the Professor, "you're quite right; and we -must hurry up, for I can see the Grey Nose standing out from -France." +"The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," said Syme; +"but there is a tradition that one of them rode behind Bruce at +Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite clear." -"The fact that comes of it," said Syme seriously, "is this, -that we three are alone on this planet. Gogol has gone, God -knows where; perhaps the President has smashed him like a -fly. On the Council we are three men against three, like the -Romans who held the bridge. But we are worse off than that, -first because they can appeal to their organisation and we -cannot appeal to ours, and second because" +"He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. -"Because one of those other three men," said the Professor, -"is not a man." +"Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a chevron gules +charged with three cross crosslets of the field.' The motto varies." -Syme nodded and was silent for a second or two, then he -said--- +The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. -"My idea is this. We must do something to keep the Marquis -in Calais till to-morrow midday. I have turned over twenty -schemes in my head. We cannot denounce him as a dynamiter; -that is agreed. We cannot get him detained on some trivial -charge, for we should have to appear; he knows us, and he -would smell a rat. We cannot pretend to keep him on -anarchist business; he might swallow much in that way, but -not the notion of stopping in Calais while the Czar went -safely through Paris. We might try to kidnap him, and lock -him up ourselves; but he is a well-known man here. He has a -whole bodyguard of friends; he is very strong and brave, and -the event is doubtful. The only thing I can see to do is -actually to take advantage of the very things that are in -the Marquis's favour. I am going to profit by the fact that -he is a highly respected nobleman. I am going to profit by -the fact that he has many friends and moves in the best -society." +"We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking in the wrong +place?" + +"My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, in an +unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is very ancient. The +Marquis cannot deny that he is a gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a +gentleman. And in order to put the matter of my social position quite +beyond a doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his hat +off. But here we are in the harbour." + +They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. Syme, who had +now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in London, led them along a kind +of marine parade until he came to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of +greenery, and overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was +slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He was making +apparently for the extreme end of the line of cafes, but he stopped +abruptly. With a sharp gesture he motioned them to silence, but he +pointed with one gloved finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering +foliage at which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in +his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by a light +yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet sea. -"What the devil are you talking about?" asked the Professor. +# The Duel -"The Symes are first mentioned in the fourteenth century," -said Syme; "but there is a tradition that one of them rode -behind Bruce at Bannockburn. Since 1350 the tree is quite -clear." +Syme sat down at a café table with his companions, his blue eyes +sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a bottle of Saumur with +a pleased impatience. He was for some reason in a condition of curious +hilarity. His spirits were already unnaturally high; they rose as the +Saumur sank, and in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He +professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which was going to +ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. He jotted it down wildly +with a pencil. It was arranged like a printed catechism, with questions +and answers, and was delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of +utterance. -"He's gone off his head," said the little Doctor, staring. +"I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take off my own. I +shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I believe.' He will say, 'The +celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' He will say in the most exquisite +French, 'How are you?' I shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, +just the Syme---'" -"Our bearings," continued Syme calmly, "are 'argent a -chevron gules charged with three cross crosslets of the -field.' The motto varies." +"Oh, shut it!" said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself together, and +chuck away that bit of paper. What are you really going to do?" -The Professor seized Syme roughly by the waistcoat. +"But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do let me read +it you. It has only forty-three questions and answers, and some of the +Marquis's answers are wonderfully witty. I like to be just to my enemy." -"We are just inshore," he said. "Are you seasick or joking -in the wrong place?" - -"My remarks are almost painfully practical," answered Syme, -in an unhurried manner. "The house of St. Eustache also is -very ancient. The Marquis cannot deny that he is a -gentleman. He cannot deny that I am a gentleman. And in -order to put the matter of my social position quite beyond a -doubt, I propose at the earliest opportunity to knock his -hat off. But here we are in the harbour." - -They went on shore under the strong sun in a sort of daze. -Syme, who had now taken the lead as Bull had taken it in -London, led them along a kind of marine parade until he came -to some cafes, embowered in a bulk of greenery, and -overlooking the sea. As he went before them his step was -slightly swaggering, and he swung his stick like a sword. He -was making apparently for the extreme end of the line of -cafes, but he stopped abruptly. With a sharp gesture he -motioned them to silence, but he pointed with one gloved -finger to a cafe table under a bank of flowering foliage at -which sat the Marquis de St. Eustache, his teeth shining in -his thick, black beard, and his bold, brown face shadowed by -a light yellow straw hat and outlined against the violet -sea. +"But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in exasperation. -# The Duel +"It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, beaming. "When +the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, which runs----" -Syme sat down at a café table with his companions, his blue -eyes sparkling like the bright sea below, and ordered a -bottle of Saumur with a pleased impatience. He was for some -reason in a condition of curious hilarity. His spirits were -already unnaturally high; they rose as the Saumur sank, and -in half an hour his talk was a torrent of nonsense. He -professed to be making out a plan of the conversation which -was going to ensue between himself and the deadly Marquis. -He jotted it down wildly with a pencil. It was arranged like -a printed catechism, with questions and answers, and was -delivered with an extraordinary rapidity of utterance. - -"I shall approach. Before taking off his hat, I shall take -off my own. I shall say, 'The Marquis de Saint Eustache, I -believe.' He will say, 'The celebrated Mr. Syme, I presume.' -He will say in the most exquisite French, 'How are you?' I -shall reply in the most exquisite Cockney, 'Oh, just the -Syme---'" - -"Oh, shut it!" said the man in spectacles. "Pull yourself -together, and chuck away that bit of paper. What are you -really going to do?" - -"But it was a lovely catechism," said Syme pathetically. "Do -let me read it you. It has only forty-three questions and -answers, and some of the Marquis's answers are wonderfully -witty. I like to be just to my enemy." - -"But what's the good of it all?" asked Dr. Bull in -exasperation. - -"It leads up to my challenge, don't you see," said Syme, -beaming. "When the Marquis has given the thirty-ninth reply, -which runs----" - -"Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, -with a ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say -all the forty-three things you have put down for him? In -that case, I understand, your own epigrams may appear -somewhat more forced." - -Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true -that is," he said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have -an intellect beyond the common. You will make a name." +"Has it by any chance occurred to you," asked the Professor, with a +ponderous simplicity, "that the Marquis may not say all the forty-three +things you have put down for him? In that case, I understand, your own +epigrams may appear somewhat more forced." + +Syme struck the table with a radiant face. "Why, how true that is," he +said, "and I never thought of it. Sir, you have an intellect beyond the +common. You will make a name." "Oh, you're as drunk as an owl!" said the Doctor. -"It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to -adopt some other method of breaking the ice (if I may so -express it) between myself and the man I wish to kill. And -since the course of a dialogue cannot be predicted by one of -its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such -recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is -for the one party, as far as possible, to do all the -dialogue by himself. And so I will, by George!" And he stood -up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in the slight sea -breeze. - -A band was playing in a *café chantant* hidden somewhere -among the trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On -Syme's heated head the bray of the brass band seemed like -the jar and jingle of that barrel-organ in Leicester Square, -to the tune of which he had once stood up to die. He looked -across to the little table where the Marquis sat. The man -had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and -silk hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of -Honour, evidently people of a solid social position. Beside -these black, cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose -straw hat and light spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even -barbaric; but he looked the Marquis. Indeed, one might say -that he looked the king, with his animal elegance, his -scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the purple -sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, -rather, some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who -in the days when slavery seemed natural looked down on the -Mediterranean, on his galley and his groaning slaves. Just -so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold face of such a tyrant -have shown against the dark green olives and the burning -blue. - -"Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor -peevishly, seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. +"It only remains," continued Syme quite unperturbed, "to adopt some +other method of breaking the ice (if I may so express it) between myself +and the man I wish to kill. And since the course of a dialogue cannot be +predicted by one of its parties alone (as you have pointed out with such +recondite acumen), the only thing to be done, I suppose, is for the one +party, as far as possible, to do all the dialogue by himself. And so I +will, by George!" And he stood up suddenly, his yellow hair blowing in +the slight sea breeze. + +A band was playing in a *café chantant* hidden somewhere among the +trees, and a woman had just stopped singing. On Syme's heated head the +bray of the brass band seemed like the jar and jingle of that +barrel-organ in Leicester Square, to the tune of which he had once stood +up to die. He looked across to the little table where the Marquis sat. +The man had two companions now, solemn Frenchmen in frock-coats and silk +hats, one of them with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour, +evidently people of a solid social position. Beside these black, +cylindrical costumes, the Marquis, in his loose straw hat and light +spring clothes, looked Bohemian and even barbaric; but he looked the +Marquis. Indeed, one might say that he looked the king, with his animal +elegance, his scornful eyes, and his proud head lifted against the +purple sea. But he was no Christian king, at any rate; he was, rather, +some swarthy despot, half Greek, half Asiatic, who in the days when +slavery seemed natural looked down on the Mediterranean, on his galley +and his groaning slaves. Just so, Syme thought, would the brown-gold +face of such a tyrant have shown against the dark green olives and the +burning blue. + +"Are you going to address the meeting?" asked the Professor peevishly, +seeing that Syme still stood up without moving. Syme drained his last glass of sparkling wine. -"I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his -companions, "that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am -going to pull that meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured -nose." +"I am," he said, pointing across to the Marquis and his companions, +"that meeting. That meeting displeases me. I am going to pull that +meeting's great ugly, mahogany-coloured nose." -He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The -Marquis, seeing him, arched his black Assyrian eye-brows in -surprise, but smiled politely. +He stepped across swiftly, if not quite steadily. The Marquis, seeing +him, arched his black Assyrian eye-brows in surprise, but smiled +politely. "You are Mr. Syme, I think," he said. Syme bowed. -"And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said -gracefully. "Permit me to pull your nose." +"And you are the Marquis de Saint Eustache," he said gracefully. "Permit +me to pull your nose." -He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, -upsetting his chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme -back by the shoulders. +He leant over to do so, but the Marquis started backwards, upsetting his +chair, and the two men in top hats held Syme back by the shoulders. -"This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of -explanation. +"This man has insulted me!" said Syme, with gestures of explanation. -"Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, -"when?" +"Insulted you?" cried the gentleman with the red rosette, "when?" -"Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my -mother." +"Oh, just now," said Syme recklessly. "He insulted my mother." -"Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman -incredulously. +"Insulted your mother!" exclaimed the gentleman incredulously. "Well, anyhow," said Syme, conceding a point, "my aunt." -"But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" -said the second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He -has been sitting here all the time." +"But how can the Marquis have insulted your aunt just now?" said the +second gentleman with some legitimate wonder. "He has been sitting here +all the time." " Ah, it was what he said!" said Syme darkly. -"I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something -about the band. I only said that I liked Wagner played -well." +"I said nothing at all," said the Marquis, "except something about the +band. I only said that I liked Wagner played well." -"It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My -aunt played Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are -always being insulted about it." +"It was an allusion to my family," said Syme firmly. "My aunt played +Wagner badly. It was a painful subject. We are always being insulted +about it." -"This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was -*décoré*, looking doubtfully at the Marquis. +"This seems most extraordinary," said the gentleman who was *décoré*, +looking doubtfully at the Marquis. -"Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your -conversation was simply packed with sinister allusions to my -aunt's weaknesses." +"Oh, I assure you," said Syme earnestly, "the whole of your conversation +was simply packed with sinister allusions to my aunt's weaknesses." -"This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one -have said nothing for half an hour except that I liked the -singing of that girl with black hair." +"This is nonsense!" said the second gentleman. "I for one have said +nothing for half an hour except that I liked the singing of that girl +with black hair." -"Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My -aunt's was red." +"Well, there you are again!" said Syme indignantly. "My aunt's was red." -"It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply -seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis." +"It seems to me," said the other, "that you are simply seeking a pretext +to insult the Marquis." -"By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, -"what a clever chap you are!" +"By George!" said Syme, facing round and looking at him, "what a clever +chap you are!" The Marquis started up with eyes flaming like a tiger's. -"Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with -me! By God! there was never a man who had to seek long. -These gentlemen will perhaps act for me. There are still -four hours of daylight. Let us fight this evening." +"Seeking a quarrel with me!" he cried. "Seeking a fight with me! By God! +there was never a man who had to seek long. These gentlemen will perhaps +act for me. There are still four hours of daylight. Let us fight this +evening." Syme bowed with a quite beautiful graciousness. -"Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and -blood. Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen -in whose hands I shall place myself." - -In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, -who had seen his champagne-inspired attack and listened to -his idiotic explanations, were quite startled at the look of -him. For now that he came back to them he was quite sober, a -little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of passionate -practicality. - -"I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on -the beast. But look here, and listen carefully. There is no -time for talk. You are my seconds, and everything must come -from you. Now you must insist, and insist absolutely, on the -duel coming off after seven to-morrow, so as to give me the -chance of preventing him from catching the 7:45 for Paris. -If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to -meet you on such a small point of time and place. But this -is what he will do. He will choose a field somewhere near a -wayside station, where he can pick up the train. He is a -very good swordsman, and he will trust to killing me in time -to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I can -keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then -perhaps he may kill me to console his feelings. You -understand? Very well then, let me introduce you to some -charming friends of mine," and leading them quickly across -the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by -two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously -heard. - -Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not -otherwise a part of his character. They were (as he said of -his impulse about the spectacles) poetic intuitions, and -they sometimes rose to the exaltation of prophecy. - -He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his -opponent. When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that -Syme could only fight in the morning, he must fully have -realised that an obstacle had suddenly arisen between him -and his bomb-throwing business in the capital. Naturally he -could not explain this objection to his friends, so he chose -the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds -to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he -trusted to the fatality of the first engagement. - -When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one -could have guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; -his hands were in his pockets, his straw hat on the back of -his head, his handsome face brazen in the sun. But it might -have struck a stranger as odd that there appeared in his -train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but two -of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon -basket. - -Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, -and Syme was vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers -burning gold and silver in the tall grass in which the whole -company stood almost knee-deep. - -With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in -sombre and solemn morning-dress, with hats like black -chimney-pots; the little Doctor especially, with the -addition of his black spectacles, looked like an undertaker -in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast -between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich -and glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, -indeed, this comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and -the black hats was but a symbol of the tragic contrast -between the yellow blossoms and the black business. On his -right was a little wood; far away to his left lay the long -curve of the railway line, which he was, so to speak, -guarding from the Marquis, whose goal and escape it was. In -front of him, behind the black group of his opponents, he -could see, like a tinted cloud, a small almond bush in -flower against the faint line of the sea. - -The member of the Legion of Honour, whose name it seemed was -Colonel Ducroix, approached the Professor and Dr. Bull with -great politeness, and suggested that the play should -terminate with the first considerable hurt. - -Dr. Bull, however, having been carefully coached by Syme -upon this point of policy, insisted, with great dignity and -in very bad French, that it should continue until one of the -combatants was disabled. Syme had made up his mind that he -could avoid disabling the Marquis and prevent the Marquis -from disabling him for at least twenty minutes. In twenty +"Marquis," he said, "your action is worthy of your fame and blood. +Permit me to consult for a moment with the gentlemen in whose hands I +shall place myself." + +In three long strides he rejoined his companions, and they, who had seen +his champagne-inspired attack and listened to his idiotic explanations, +were quite startled at the look of him. For now that he came back to +them he was quite sober, a little pale, and he spoke in a low voice of +passionate practicality. + +"I have done it," he said hoarsely. "I have fixed a fight on the beast. +But look here, and listen carefully. There is no time for talk. You are +my seconds, and everything must come from you. Now you must insist, and +insist absolutely, on the duel coming off after seven to-morrow, so as +to give me the chance of preventing him from catching the 7:45 for +Paris. If he misses that he misses his crime. He can't refuse to meet +you on such a small point of time and place. But this is what he will +do. He will choose a field somewhere near a wayside station, where he +can pick up the train. He is a very good swordsman, and he will trust to +killing me in time to catch it. But I can fence well too, and I think I +can keep him in play, at any rate, until the train is lost. Then perhaps +he may kill me to console his feelings. You understand? Very well then, +let me introduce you to some charming friends of mine," and leading them +quickly across the parade, he presented them to the Marquis's seconds by +two very aristocratic names of which they had not previously heard. + +Syme was subject to spasms of singular common sense, not otherwise a +part of his character. They were (as he said of his impulse about the +spectacles) poetic intuitions, and they sometimes rose to the exaltation +of prophecy. + +He had correctly calculated in this case the policy of his opponent. +When the Marquis was informed by his seconds that Syme could only fight +in the morning, he must fully have realised that an obstacle had +suddenly arisen between him and his bomb-throwing business in the +capital. Naturally he could not explain this objection to his friends, +so he chose the course which Syme had predicted. He induced his seconds +to settle on a small meadow not far from the railway, and he trusted to +the fatality of the first engagement. + +When he came down very coolly to the field of honour, no one could have +guessed that he had any anxiety about a journey; his hands were in his +pockets, his straw hat on the back of his head, his handsome face brazen +in the sun. But it might have struck a stranger as odd that there +appeared in his train, not only his seconds carrying the sword-case, but +two of his servants carrying a portmanteau and a luncheon basket. + +Early as was the hour, the sun soaked everything in warmth, and Syme was +vaguely surprised to see so many spring flowers burning gold and silver +in the tall grass in which the whole company stood almost knee-deep. + +With the exception of the Marquis, all the men were in sombre and solemn +morning-dress, with hats like black chimney-pots; the little Doctor +especially, with the addition of his black spectacles, looked like an +undertaker in a farce. Syme could not help feeling a comic contrast +between this funereal church parade of apparel and the rich and +glistening meadow, growing wild flowers everywhere. But, indeed, this +comic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black hats was but a +symbol of the tragic contrast between the yellow blossoms and the black +business. On his right was a little wood; far away to his left lay the +long curve of the railway line, which he was, so to speak, guarding from +the Marquis, whose goal and escape it was. In front of him, behind the +black group of his opponents, he could see, like a tinted cloud, a small +almond bush in flower against the faint line of the sea. + +The member of the Legion of Honour, whose name it seemed was Colonel +Ducroix, approached the Professor and Dr. Bull with great politeness, +and suggested that the play should terminate with the first considerable +hurt. + +Dr. Bull, however, having been carefully coached by Syme upon this point +of policy, insisted, with great dignity and in very bad French, that it +should continue until one of the combatants was disabled. Syme had made +up his mind that he could avoid disabling the Marquis and prevent the +Marquis from disabling him for at least twenty minutes. In twenty minutes the Paris train would have gone by. "To a man of the well-known skill and valour of Monsieur de -St. Eustache," said the Professor solemnly, "it must be a -matter of indifference which method is adopted, and our -principal has strong reasons for demanding the longer -encounter, reasons the delicacy of which prevent me from -being explicit, but for the just and honourable nature of -which I can---" - -"*Peste!*" broke from the Marquis behind, whose face had -suddenly darkened, "let us stop talking and begin," and he -slashed off the head of a tall flower with his stick. - -Syme understood his rude impatience, and instinctively -looked over his shoulder to see whether the train was coming -in sight. But there was no smoke on the horizon. - -Colonel Ducroix knelt down and unlocked the case, taking out -a pair of twin swords, which took the sunlight and turned to -two streaks of white fire. He offered one to the Marquis, -who snatched it without ceremony, and another to Syme, who -took it, b nt it, and po:sed it with as much delay as was -consistent with dignity. Then the Colonel took out another -pair of blades, and taking one himself and giving another to -Dr. Bull, proceeded to place the men. - -Both combatants had thrown off their coats and waistcoats, -and stood sword in hand. The seconds stood on each side of -the line of fight with drawn swords also, but still sombre -in their dark frock-coats and hats. The principals saluted. -The Colonel said quietly, "Engage!" and the two blades -touched and ting'ed. - -When the jar of the joined iron ran up Syme's arm, all the -fantastic fears that have been the subject of this story -fell from him. like dreams from a man waking up in bed. He -remembered them clearly and in order as mere delusions of -the nerves---how the fear of the Professor had been the fear -of the tyrannic accidents of nightmare, and how the fear of -the Doctor had been the fear of the airless vacuum of -science. The first was the old fear that any miracle might -happen, the second the more hopeless modem fear that no -miracle can ever happen. But he saw that these fears were -fancies, for he found himself in the presence of the great -fact of the fear of death, with its coarse and pitiless -common sense. He fe:t like a man who had dreamed all night -of falling over precipices, and had woke up on the morning -when he was to be hanged. For as soon as he had seen the -sunlight run down the channel of his foe's foreshortened -blade, and as soon as he had felt the two tongues of steel -touch, vibrating like two living things, he knew that his -enemy was a terrible fighter, and that probably his last -hour had come. - -He felt a strange and vivid value in all the earth around -him, in the grass under his feet; he felt the love of life -in all living things. He could almost fancy that he heard -the grass growing; he could almost fancy that even as he -stood fresh flowers were springing up and breaking into -blossom in the meadow---flowers blood-red and burning gold -and blue, fulfilling the whole pageant of the spring. And -whenever his eyes strayed for a flash from the calm, -staring, hypnotic eyes of the Marquis, they saw the little -tuft of almond tree against the sky-line. He had the feeling -that if by some miracle he escaped he would be ready to sit -for ever before that almond tree, desiring nothing else in -the world. - -But while earth and sky and everything had the living beauty -of a thing lost, the other half of his head was as clear as -glass, and he was parrying his enemy's point with a kind of -clockwork skill of which he had hardly supposed himself -capable. Once his enemy's point ran along his wrist, leaving -a slight streak of blood, but it either was not noticed or -was tacitly ignored. Every now and then he *riposted*, and -once or twice he could almost fancy that he felt his point -go home, but as there was no blood on blade or shirt he -supposed he was mistaken. Then came an interruption and a -change. - -At the risk of losing all, the Marquis, interrupting his -quiet stare, flashed one glance over his shoulder at the -line of railway on his right. Then he turned on Syme a face -transfigured to that of a fiend, and began to fight as if -with twenty weapons. The attack came so fast and furious, -that the one shining sword seemed a shower of shining -arrows. Syme had no chance to look at the railway; but also -he had no need. He could guess the reason of the Marquis's -sudden madness of battle---the Paris train was in sight. - -But the Marquis's morbid energy over-reached itself. Twice -Syme, parrying, knocked his opponent's point far out of the -fighting circle; and the third time his *riposte* was so -rapid, that there was no doubt about the hit this time. -S3aTLe's sword actually bent under the weight of the -Marquis's body, which it had pierced. Syme was as certain -that he had stuck his blade into his enemy as a gardener -that he has stuck his spade into the ground. Yet the Marquis -sprang back from the stroke without a stagger, and Syme -stood staring at his own sword-point like an idiot. There -was no blood on it at all. - -There was an instant of rigid silence, and then Syme in his -turn fell furiously on the other, filled with a flaming -curiosity. The Marquis was probably, in a general sense, a -better fencer than he, as he had surmised at the beginning, -but at the moment the Marquis seemed distraught and at a -disadvantage. He fought wildly and even weakly, and he -constantly looked away at the railway line, almost as if he -feared the train more than the pointed steel. Syme, on the -other hand, fought fiercely but still carefully, in an -intellectual fury, eager to solve the riddle of his own -bloodless sword. For this purpose, he aimed less at the -Marquis's body, and more at his throat and head. A minute -and a half afterwards he felt his point enter the man's neck -below the jaw. It came out clean. Half mad, he thrust again, -and made what should have been a bloody scar on the -Marquis's cheek. But there was no scar. - -For one moment the heaven of Syme again grew black with -supernatural terrors. Surely the man had a charmed life. But -this new spiritual dread was a more awful thing than had -been the mere spiritual topsy-turvydom symbolised by the -paralytic who pursued him. The Professor was only a goblin; -this man was a devil---perhaps he was the Devil! Anyhow, -this was certain, that three times had a human sword been -driven into him and made no mark. When Syme had that thought -he drew himself up, and all that was good in him sang high -up in the air as a high wind sings in the trees. He thought -of all the human things in his story---of the Chinese -lanterns in Saffron Park, of the girl's red hair in the -garden, of the holiest, beer-swilling sailors down by the -dock, of his loyal companions standing by. Perhaps he had -been chosen as a champion of all these fresh and kindly -things to cross swords with the enemy of all creation. -"After all," he said to himself, "I am more than a devil; I -am a man. I can do the one thing which Satan himself cannot -do---I can die," and as the word went through his head, he -heard a faint and far-off hoot, which would soon be the roar -of the Pari, train. - -He fell to fighting again with a supernatural levity, like a -Mohammedan panting for Paradise. As the train came nearer -and nearer he fancied he could see people putting up the -floral arches in Paris; he joined in the growing noise and -the glory of the great Republic whose gate he was guarding -against Hell. His thoughts rose higher and higher with the -rising roar of the train, which ended, as if proudly, in a -long and piercing whistle. The train stopped. - -Suddenly, to the astonishment of everyone, the Marquis -sprang back quite out of sword reach and threw down his -sword. The leap was wonderful, and not the less wonderful -because Syme had plunged his sword a moment before into the -man's thigh. - -"Stop!" said the Marquis in a voice that compelled a -momentary obedience. "I want to say something." - -"What is the matter?" asked Colonel Ducroix, staring. "Has -there been foul play?" - -"There has been foul play somewhere," said Dr. Bull, who was -a little pale. "Our principal has wounded the Marquis four -times at least, and he is none the worse." - -The Marquis put up his hand with a curious air of ghastly -patience. - -"Please let me speak," he said. "It is rather important. -Mr. Syme," he continued, turning to his opponent, "we are -fighting to-day, if I remember right, because you expressed -a wish (which I thought irrational) to pull my nose. Would -you oblige me by pulling my nose now as quickly as possible? -I have to catch a train." - -"I protest that this is most irregular," said Dr. Bull -indignantly. - -"It is certainly somewhat opposed to precedent," said -Colonel Ducroix, looking wistfully at his principal. "There -is, I think, one case on record (Captain Bellegarde and the -Baron Zumpt) in which the weapons were changed in the middle -of the encounter at the request of one of the combatants. -But one can hardly call one's nose a weapon." +St. Eustache," said the Professor solemnly, "it must be a matter of +indifference which method is adopted, and our principal has strong +reasons for demanding the longer encounter, reasons the delicacy of +which prevent me from being explicit, but for the just and honourable +nature of which I can---" + +"*Peste!*" broke from the Marquis behind, whose face had suddenly +darkened, "let us stop talking and begin," and he slashed off the head +of a tall flower with his stick. + +Syme understood his rude impatience, and instinctively looked over his +shoulder to see whether the train was coming in sight. But there was no +smoke on the horizon. + +Colonel Ducroix knelt down and unlocked the case, taking out a pair of +twin swords, which took the sunlight and turned to two streaks of white +fire. He offered one to the Marquis, who snatched it without ceremony, +and another to Syme, who took it, b nt it, and po:sed it with as much +delay as was consistent with dignity. Then the Colonel took out another +pair of blades, and taking one himself and giving another to Dr. Bull, +proceeded to place the men. + +Both combatants had thrown off their coats and waistcoats, and stood +sword in hand. The seconds stood on each side of the line of fight with +drawn swords also, but still sombre in their dark frock-coats and hats. +The principals saluted. The Colonel said quietly, "Engage!" and the two +blades touched and ting'ed. + +When the jar of the joined iron ran up Syme's arm, all the fantastic +fears that have been the subject of this story fell from him. like +dreams from a man waking up in bed. He remembered them clearly and in +order as mere delusions of the nerves---how the fear of the Professor +had been the fear of the tyrannic accidents of nightmare, and how the +fear of the Doctor had been the fear of the airless vacuum of science. +The first was the old fear that any miracle might happen, the second the +more hopeless modem fear that no miracle can ever happen. But he saw +that these fears were fancies, for he found himself in the presence of +the great fact of the fear of death, with its coarse and pitiless common +sense. He fe:t like a man who had dreamed all night of falling over +precipices, and had woke up on the morning when he was to be hanged. For +as soon as he had seen the sunlight run down the channel of his foe's +foreshortened blade, and as soon as he had felt the two tongues of steel +touch, vibrating like two living things, he knew that his enemy was a +terrible fighter, and that probably his last hour had come. + +He felt a strange and vivid value in all the earth around him, in the +grass under his feet; he felt the love of life in all living things. He +could almost fancy that he heard the grass growing; he could almost +fancy that even as he stood fresh flowers were springing up and breaking +into blossom in the meadow---flowers blood-red and burning gold and +blue, fulfilling the whole pageant of the spring. And whenever his eyes +strayed for a flash from the calm, staring, hypnotic eyes of the +Marquis, they saw the little tuft of almond tree against the sky-line. +He had the feeling that if by some miracle he escaped he would be ready +to sit for ever before that almond tree, desiring nothing else in the +world. + +But while earth and sky and everything had the living beauty of a thing +lost, the other half of his head was as clear as glass, and he was +parrying his enemy's point with a kind of clockwork skill of which he +had hardly supposed himself capable. Once his enemy's point ran along +his wrist, leaving a slight streak of blood, but it either was not +noticed or was tacitly ignored. Every now and then he *riposted*, and +once or twice he could almost fancy that he felt his point go home, but +as there was no blood on blade or shirt he supposed he was mistaken. +Then came an interruption and a change. + +At the risk of losing all, the Marquis, interrupting his quiet stare, +flashed one glance over his shoulder at the line of railway on his +right. Then he turned on Syme a face transfigured to that of a fiend, +and began to fight as if with twenty weapons. The attack came so fast +and furious, that the one shining sword seemed a shower of shining +arrows. Syme had no chance to look at the railway; but also he had no +need. He could guess the reason of the Marquis's sudden madness of +battle---the Paris train was in sight. + +But the Marquis's morbid energy over-reached itself. Twice Syme, +parrying, knocked his opponent's point far out of the fighting circle; +and the third time his *riposte* was so rapid, that there was no doubt +about the hit this time. S3aTLe's sword actually bent under the weight +of the Marquis's body, which it had pierced. Syme was as certain that he +had stuck his blade into his enemy as a gardener that he has stuck his +spade into the ground. Yet the Marquis sprang back from the stroke +without a stagger, and Syme stood staring at his own sword-point like an +idiot. There was no blood on it at all. + +There was an instant of rigid silence, and then Syme in his turn fell +furiously on the other, filled with a flaming curiosity. The Marquis was +probably, in a general sense, a better fencer than he, as he had +surmised at the beginning, but at the moment the Marquis seemed +distraught and at a disadvantage. He fought wildly and even weakly, and +he constantly looked away at the railway line, almost as if he feared +the train more than the pointed steel. Syme, on the other hand, fought +fiercely but still carefully, in an intellectual fury, eager to solve +the riddle of his own bloodless sword. For this purpose, he aimed less +at the Marquis's body, and more at his throat and head. A minute and a +half afterwards he felt his point enter the man's neck below the jaw. It +came out clean. Half mad, he thrust again, and made what should have +been a bloody scar on the Marquis's cheek. But there was no scar. + +For one moment the heaven of Syme again grew black with supernatural +terrors. Surely the man had a charmed life. But this new spiritual dread +was a more awful thing than had been the mere spiritual topsy-turvydom +symbolised by the paralytic who pursued him. The Professor was only a +goblin; this man was a devil---perhaps he was the Devil! Anyhow, this +was certain, that three times had a human sword been driven into him and +made no mark. When Syme had that thought he drew himself up, and all +that was good in him sang high up in the air as a high wind sings in the +trees. He thought of all the human things in his story---of the Chinese +lanterns in Saffron Park, of the girl's red hair in the garden, of the +holiest, beer-swilling sailors down by the dock, of his loyal companions +standing by. Perhaps he had been chosen as a champion of all these fresh +and kindly things to cross swords with the enemy of all creation. "After +all," he said to himself, "I am more than a devil; I am a man. I can do +the one thing which Satan himself cannot do---I can die," and as the +word went through his head, he heard a faint and far-off hoot, which +would soon be the roar of the Pari, train. + +He fell to fighting again with a supernatural levity, like a Mohammedan +panting for Paradise. As the train came nearer and nearer he fancied he +could see people putting up the floral arches in Paris; he joined in the +growing noise and the glory of the great Republic whose gate he was +guarding against Hell. His thoughts rose higher and higher with the +rising roar of the train, which ended, as if proudly, in a long and +piercing whistle. The train stopped. + +Suddenly, to the astonishment of everyone, the Marquis sprang back quite +out of sword reach and threw down his sword. The leap was wonderful, and +not the less wonderful because Syme had plunged his sword a moment +before into the man's thigh. + +"Stop!" said the Marquis in a voice that compelled a momentary +obedience. "I want to say something." + +"What is the matter?" asked Colonel Ducroix, staring. "Has there been +foul play?" + +"There has been foul play somewhere," said Dr. Bull, who was a little +pale. "Our principal has wounded the Marquis four times at least, and he +is none the worse." + +The Marquis put up his hand with a curious air of ghastly patience. + +"Please let me speak," he said. "It is rather important. Mr. Syme," he +continued, turning to his opponent, "we are fighting to-day, if I +remember right, because you expressed a wish (which I thought +irrational) to pull my nose. Would you oblige me by pulling my nose now +as quickly as possible? I have to catch a train." + +"I protest that this is most irregular," said Dr. Bull indignantly. + +"It is certainly somewhat opposed to precedent," said Colonel Ducroix, +looking wistfully at his principal. "There is, I think, one case on +record (Captain Bellegarde and the Baron Zumpt) in which the weapons +were changed in the middle of the encounter at the request of one of the +combatants. But one can hardly call one's nose a weapon." "Will you or will you not pull my nose?" said the Marquis in -exasperation. "Come, come, Mr. Syme! You wanted to do it, do -it! You can have no conception of how important it is to me. -Don't be so selfish! Pull my nose at once, when I ask you!" -and he bent slightly forward with a fascinating smile. The -Paris train, panting and groaning, had grated into a little -station behind the neighbouring hill. - -Syme had the feeling he had more than once had in these -adventures---the sense that a horrible and sublime wave -lifted to heaven was just toppling over. Walking in a world -he half understood, he took two paces forward and seized the -Roman nose of this remarkable nobleman. He pulled it hard, -and it came off in his hand. - -He stood for some seconds with a foolish solemnity, with the -pasteboard proboscis still between his fingers, looking at -it, while the sun and the clouds and the wooded hills looked -down upon this imbecile scene. +exasperation. "Come, come, Mr. Syme! You wanted to do it, do it! You can +have no conception of how important it is to me. Don't be so selfish! +Pull my nose at once, when I ask you!" and he bent slightly forward with +a fascinating smile. The Paris train, panting and groaning, had grated +into a little station behind the neighbouring hill. + +Syme had the feeling he had more than once had in these adventures---the +sense that a horrible and sublime wave lifted to heaven was just +toppling over. Walking in a world he half understood, he took two paces +forward and seized the Roman nose of this remarkable nobleman. He pulled +it hard, and it came off in his hand. + +He stood for some seconds with a foolish solemnity, with the pasteboard +proboscis still between his fingers, looking at it, while the sun and +the clouds and the wooded hills looked down upon this imbecile scene. The Marquis broke the silence in a loud and cheerful voice. -"If anyone has any use for my left eyebrow," he said, "he -can have it. Colonel Ducroix, do accept my left eyebrow! -It's the kind of thing that might come in useful any day," -and he gravely tore off one of his swarthy Assyrian brows, -bringing about half his brown forehead with it, and politely -offered it to the Colonel, who stood crimson and speechless +"If anyone has any use for my left eyebrow," he said, "he can have it. +Colonel Ducroix, do accept my left eyebrow! It's the kind of thing that +might come in useful any day," and he gravely tore off one of his +swarthy Assyrian brows, bringing about half his brown forehead with it, +and politely offered it to the Colonel, who stood crimson and speechless with rage. -"If I had known," he spluttered, "that I was acting for a -poltroon who pads himself to fight---" +"If I had known," he spluttered, "that I was acting for a poltroon who +pads himself to fight---" -"Oh, I know, I know!" said the Marquis, recklessly throwing -various parts of himself right and left about the field. -"You are making a mistake; but it can't be explained just -now. I tell you the train has come into the station!" +"Oh, I know, I know!" said the Marquis, recklessly throwing various +parts of himself right and left about the field. "You are making a +mistake; but it can't be explained just now. I tell you the train has +come into the station!" -"Yes," said Dr. Bull fiercely, "and the train shall go out -of the station. It shall go out without you. We know well -enough for what devil's work---" +"Yes," said Dr. Bull fiercely, "and the train shall go out of the +station. It shall go out without you. We know well enough for what +devil's work---" -The mysterious Marquis lifted his hands with a desperate -gesture. He was a strange scarecrow, standing there in the -sun with half his old face peeled off, and half another face -glaring and grinning from underneath. +The mysterious Marquis lifted his hands with a desperate gesture. He was +a strange scarecrow, standing there in the sun with half his old face +peeled off, and half another face glaring and grinning from underneath. "Will you drive me mad?" he cried. "The train---" -"You shall not go by the train," said Syme firmly, and -grasped his sword. +"You shall not go by the train," said Syme firmly, and grasped his +sword. -The wild figure turned towards Syme, and seemed to be -gathering itself for a sublime effort before speaking. +The wild figure turned towards Syme, and seemed to be gathering itself +for a sublime effort before speaking. -"You great fat, blasted, blear-eyed, blundering, thundering, -brainless, God-forsaken, doddering, damned fool!" he said -without taking breath. "You great silly, pink-faced, -tow-headed turnip! You---" +"You great fat, blasted, blear-eyed, blundering, thundering, brainless, +God-forsaken, doddering, damned fool!" he said without taking breath. +"You great silly, pink-faced, tow-headed turnip! You---" "You shall not go by this train," repeated Syme. -"And why the infernal blazes," roared the other, "should I -want to go by the train?" +"And why the infernal blazes," roared the other, "should I want to go by +the train?" -"We know all," said the Professor sternly. "You are going to -Paris to throw a bomb!" +"We know all," said the Professor sternly. "You are going to Paris to +throw a bomb!" -"Going to Jericho to throw a Jabberwock!" cried the other, -tearing his hair, which came off easily. "Have you all got -softening of the brain, that you don't realise what I am? -Did you really think I wanted to catch that train? Twenty -Paris trains might go by for me. Damn Paris trains!" +"Going to Jericho to throw a Jabberwock!" cried the other, tearing his +hair, which came off easily. "Have you all got softening of the brain, +that you don't realise what I am? Did you really think I wanted to catch +that train? Twenty Paris trains might go by for me. Damn Paris trains!" "Then what did you care about?" began the Professor. -" What did I care about? I didn't care about catching the -train; I cared about whether the train caught me, and now, -by God! it has caught me." +" What did I care about? I didn't care about catching the train; I cared +about whether the train caught me, and now, by God! it has caught me." -"I regret to inform you," said Syme with restraint, "that -your remarks convey no impression to my mind. Perhaps if you -were to remove the remains of your original forehead and -some portion of what was once your chin, your meaning would -become clearer. Mental lucidity fulfils itself in many ways. -What do you mean by saying that the train has caught you? It -may be my literary fancy, but somehow I feel that it ought -to mean something." +"I regret to inform you," said Syme with restraint, "that your remarks +convey no impression to my mind. Perhaps if you were to remove the +remains of your original forehead and some portion of what was once your +chin, your meaning would become clearer. Mental lucidity fulfils itself +in many ways. What do you mean by saying that the train has caught you? +It may be my literary fancy, but somehow I feel that it ought to mean +something." -"It means everything," said the other, "and the end of -everything. Sunday has us now in the hollow of his hand." +"It means everything," said the other, "and the end of everything. +Sunday has us now in the hollow of his hand." -"Us!" repeated the Professor, as if stupefied. "What do you -mean by 'us'?" +"Us!" repeated the Professor, as if stupefied. "What do you mean by +'us'?" -"The police, of course!" said the Marquis, and tore off his -scalp and half his face. +"The police, of course!" said the Marquis, and tore off his scalp and +half his face. -The head which emerged was the blonde, well-brushed, -smooth-haired head which is common in the English -constabulary, but the face was terribly pale. +The head which emerged was the blonde, well-brushed, smooth-haired head +which is common in the English constabulary, but the face was terribly +pale. -"I am Inspector Ratcliffe," he said, with a sort of haste -that verged on harshness. "My name is pretty well known to -the police, and I can see well enough that you belong to -them. But if there is any doubt about my position, I have a -card---" and he began to pull a blue card from his pocket. +"I am Inspector Ratcliffe," he said, with a sort of haste that verged on +harshness. "My name is pretty well known to the police, and I can see +well enough that you belong to them. But if there is any doubt about my +position, I have a card---" and he began to pull a blue card from his +pocket. The Professor gave a tired gesture. -"Oh, don't show it us," he said wearily; "we've got enough -of them to equip a paper-chase." - -The little man named Bull had, like many men who seem to be -of a mere vivacious vulgarity sudden movements of good -taste. Here he certainty saved the situation. In the midst -of this staggering transformation scene he stepped forward -with all the gravity and responsibility of a second, and -addressed the two seconds of the Marquis. - -"Gentlemen," he said, "we all owe you a serious apology; but -I assure you that you have not been made the victims of such -a low joke as you imagine, or indeed of anything undignified -in a man of honour. You have not wasted your time; you have -helped to save the world. We are not buffoons, but very -desperate men at war with a vast conspiracy. A secret -society of anarchists is hunting us like hares; not such -unfortunate madmen as may here or there throw a bomb through -starvation or German philosophy, but a rich and powerful and -fanatical church, a church of eastern pessimism, which holds -it holy to destroy mankind like vermin. How hard they hunt -us you can gather from the fact that we are driven to such -disguises as those for which I apologise, and to such pranks -as this one by which you suffer." - -The younger second of the Marquis, a short man with a black -moustache, bowed politely, and said--- - -"Of course, I accept the apology; but you will in your turn -forgive me if I decline to follow you further into your -difficulties, and permit myself to say good morning! The -sight of an acquaintance and distinguished fellow-townsman -coming to pieces in the open air is unusual, and, upon the -whole, sufficient for one day. Colonel Ducroix, I would in -no way influence your actions, but if you feel with me that -our present society is a little abnormal, I am now going to -walk back to the town." - -Colonel Ducroix moved mechanically, but then tugged abruptly -at his white moustache and broke out--- - -"No, by George! I won't. If these gentlemen are really in a -mess with a lot of low wreckers like that, I'll see them -through it. I have fought for France, and it is hard if I -can't fight for civilisation." - -Dr. Bull took off his hat and waved it, cheering as at a -public meeting. - -"Don't make too much noise," said Inspector Ratcliffe, -"Sunday may hear you." +"Oh, don't show it us," he said wearily; "we've got enough of them to +equip a paper-chase." + +The little man named Bull had, like many men who seem to be of a mere +vivacious vulgarity sudden movements of good taste. Here he certainty +saved the situation. In the midst of this staggering transformation +scene he stepped forward with all the gravity and responsibility of a +second, and addressed the two seconds of the Marquis. + +"Gentlemen," he said, "we all owe you a serious apology; but I assure +you that you have not been made the victims of such a low joke as you +imagine, or indeed of anything undignified in a man of honour. You have +not wasted your time; you have helped to save the world. We are not +buffoons, but very desperate men at war with a vast conspiracy. A secret +society of anarchists is hunting us like hares; not such unfortunate +madmen as may here or there throw a bomb through starvation or German +philosophy, but a rich and powerful and fanatical church, a church of +eastern pessimism, which holds it holy to destroy mankind like vermin. +How hard they hunt us you can gather from the fact that we are driven to +such disguises as those for which I apologise, and to such pranks as +this one by which you suffer." + +The younger second of the Marquis, a short man with a black moustache, +bowed politely, and said--- + +"Of course, I accept the apology; but you will in your turn forgive me +if I decline to follow you further into your difficulties, and permit +myself to say good morning! The sight of an acquaintance and +distinguished fellow-townsman coming to pieces in the open air is +unusual, and, upon the whole, sufficient for one day. Colonel Ducroix, I +would in no way influence your actions, but if you feel with me that our +present society is a little abnormal, I am now going to walk back to the +town." + +Colonel Ducroix moved mechanically, but then tugged abruptly at his +white moustache and broke out--- + +"No, by George! I won't. If these gentlemen are really in a mess with a +lot of low wreckers like that, I'll see them through it. I have fought +for France, and it is hard if I can't fight for civilisation." + +Dr. Bull took off his hat and waved it, cheering as at a public meeting. + +"Don't make too much noise," said Inspector Ratcliffe, "Sunday may hear +you." "Sunday!" cried Bull, and dropped his hat. @@ -4642,484 +4051,421 @@ public meeting. "What you say seems utterly wild," began Syme. -"Why, as a matter of fact---But, my God," he cried out -suddenly, like a man who sees an explosion a long way off, -"by God! if this is true the whole bally lot of us on the -Anarchist Council were against anarchy! Every born man was a -detective except the President and his personal secretary. -What can it mean?" - -"Mean!" said the new policeman with incredible violence. "It -means that we are struck dead! Don't you know Sunday? Don't -you know that his jokes are always so big and simple that -one has never thought of them? Can you think of anything -more like Sunday than this, that he should put all his -powerful enemies on the Supreme Council, and then take care -that it was not supreme? I tell you, he has bought every -trust, he has captured every cable, he has control of every -railway line---especially of *that* railway line!" and he -pointed a shaking finger towards the small wayside -station."The whole movement was controlled by him; half the -world was ready to rise for him. But there were just five -people, perhaps, who would have resisted him... and the old -devil put them on the Supreme Council, to waste their time -in watching each other. Idiots that we are, he planned the -whole of our idiocies! Sunday knew that the Professor would -chase Syme through London, and that Syme would fight me in -France. And he was combining great masses of capital, and -seizing great lines of telegraphy, while we five idiots were -running after each other like a lot of confounded babies -playing blind man's buff." +"Why, as a matter of fact---But, my God," he cried out suddenly, like a +man who sees an explosion a long way off, "by God! if this is true the +whole bally lot of us on the Anarchist Council were against anarchy! +Every born man was a detective except the President and his personal +secretary. What can it mean?" + +"Mean!" said the new policeman with incredible violence. "It means that +we are struck dead! Don't you know Sunday? Don't you know that his jokes +are always so big and simple that one has never thought of them? Can you +think of anything more like Sunday than this, that he should put all his +powerful enemies on the Supreme Council, and then take care that it was +not supreme? I tell you, he has bought every trust, he has captured +every cable, he has control of every railway line---especially of *that* +railway line!" and he pointed a shaking finger towards the small wayside +station."The whole movement was controlled by him; half the world was +ready to rise for him. But there were just five people, perhaps, who +would have resisted him... and the old devil put them on the Supreme +Council, to waste their time in watching each other. Idiots that we are, +he planned the whole of our idiocies! Sunday knew that the Professor +would chase Syme through London, and that Syme would fight me in France. +And he was combining great masses of capital, and seizing great lines of +telegraphy, while we five idiots were running after each other like a +lot of confounded babies playing blind man's buff." "Well?" asked Syme with a sort of steadiness. -"Well," replied the other with sudden serenity, "he has -found us playing blind man's buff to-day in a field of great -rustic beauty and extreme solitude. He has probably captured -the world; it only remains to him to capture this field and -all the fools in it. And since you really want to know what -was my objection to the arrival of that train, I will tell -you. My objection was that Sunday or his Secretary has just -this moment got out of it." - -Syme uttered an involuntary cry, and they all turned their -eyes towards the far-off station. It was quite true that a -considerable bulk of people seemed to be moving in their -direction. But they were too distant to be distinguished in -any way. - -"It was a habit of the late Marquis de St. Eustache," said -the new policeman, producing a leather case, "always to -carry a pair of opera glasses. Either the President or the -Secretary is coming after us with that mob. They have caught -us in a nice quiet place where we are under no temptations -to break our oaths by calling the police. Dr. Bull, I have a -suspicion that you will see better through these than -through your own highly decorative spectacles." - -He handed the field-glasses to the Doctor, who immediately -took off his spectacles and put the apparatus to his eyes. - -"It cannot be as bad as you say," said the Professor, -somewhat shaken. "There are a good number of them certainly, -but they may easily be ordinary tourists." - -"Do ordinary tourists," asked Bull, with the field-glass to -his eyes, "wear black masks half-way down the face?" - -Syme almost tore the glasses out of his hand, and looked -through them. Most men in the advancing mob really looked -ordinary enough; but it was quite true that two or three of -the leaders in front wore black half-masks almost down to -their mouths. This disguise is very complete, especially at -such a distance, and Syme found it impossible to conclude -anything from the clean-shaven jaws and chins of the men -talking in the front. But presently as they talked they all -smiled, and one of them smiled on one side. +"Well," replied the other with sudden serenity, "he has found us playing +blind man's buff to-day in a field of great rustic beauty and extreme +solitude. He has probably captured the world; it only remains to him to +capture this field and all the fools in it. And since you really want to +know what was my objection to the arrival of that train, I will tell +you. My objection was that Sunday or his Secretary has just this moment +got out of it." + +Syme uttered an involuntary cry, and they all turned their eyes towards +the far-off station. It was quite true that a considerable bulk of +people seemed to be moving in their direction. But they were too distant +to be distinguished in any way. + +"It was a habit of the late Marquis de St. Eustache," said the new +policeman, producing a leather case, "always to carry a pair of opera +glasses. Either the President or the Secretary is coming after us with +that mob. They have caught us in a nice quiet place where we are under +no temptations to break our oaths by calling the police. Dr. Bull, I +have a suspicion that you will see better through these than through +your own highly decorative spectacles." + +He handed the field-glasses to the Doctor, who immediately took off his +spectacles and put the apparatus to his eyes. + +"It cannot be as bad as you say," said the Professor, somewhat shaken. +"There are a good number of them certainly, but they may easily be +ordinary tourists." + +"Do ordinary tourists," asked Bull, with the field-glass to his eyes, +"wear black masks half-way down the face?" + +Syme almost tore the glasses out of his hand, and looked through them. +Most men in the advancing mob really looked ordinary enough; but it was +quite true that two or three of the leaders in front wore black +half-masks almost down to their mouths. This disguise is very complete, +especially at such a distance, and Syme found it impossible to conclude +anything from the clean-shaven jaws and chins of the men talking in the +front. But presently as they talked they all smiled, and one of them +smiled on one side. # The Criminals Chase the Police -Syme put the field-glass from his eyes with an almost -ghastly relief. - -"The President is not with them, anyhow," he said, and wiped -his forehead. - -"But surely they are right away on the horizon," said the -bewildered Colonel, blinking and but half recovered from -Bull's hasty though polite explanation. "Could you possibly -know your President among all those people?" - -"Could I know a white elephant among all those people!" -answered Syme somewhat irritably. "As you very truly say, -they are on the horizon; but if he were walking with them... -by God! I believe this ground would shake." - -After an instant's pause the new man called Ratcliffe said -with gloomy decision--- - -"Of course the President isn't with them. I wish to Gemini -he were. Much more likely the President is riding in triumph -through Paris, or sitting on the ruins of St. Paul's -Cathedral." - -"This is absurd!" said Syme. "Something may have happened in -our absence; but he cannot have carried the world with a -rush like that. It is quite true," he added, frowning -dubiously at the distant fields that lay towards the little -station, "it is certainly true that there seems to be a -crowd coming this way; but they are not all the army that -you make out." - -"Oh, they," said the new detective contemptuously; "no, they -are not a very valuable force. But let me tell you frankly -that they are precisely calculated to our value---we are not -much, my boy, in Sunday's universe. He has got hold of all -the cables and telegraphs himself. But to kill the Supreme -Council he regards as a trivial matter, like a post card; it -may be left to his private secretary," and he spat on the -grass. +Syme put the field-glass from his eyes with an almost ghastly relief. + +"The President is not with them, anyhow," he said, and wiped his +forehead. + +"But surely they are right away on the horizon," said the bewildered +Colonel, blinking and but half recovered from Bull's hasty though polite +explanation. "Could you possibly know your President among all those +people?" + +"Could I know a white elephant among all those people!" answered Syme +somewhat irritably. "As you very truly say, they are on the horizon; but +if he were walking with them... by God! I believe this ground would +shake." + +After an instant's pause the new man called Ratcliffe said with gloomy +decision--- + +"Of course the President isn't with them. I wish to Gemini he were. Much +more likely the President is riding in triumph through Paris, or sitting +on the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral." + +"This is absurd!" said Syme. "Something may have happened in our +absence; but he cannot have carried the world with a rush like that. It +is quite true," he added, frowning dubiously at the distant fields that +lay towards the little station, "it is certainly true that there seems +to be a crowd coming this way; but they are not all the army that you +make out." + +"Oh, they," said the new detective contemptuously; "no, they are not a +very valuable force. But let me tell you frankly that they are precisely +calculated to our value---we are not much, my boy, in Sunday's universe. +He has got hold of all the cables and telegraphs himself. But to kill +the Supreme Council he regards as a trivial matter, like a post card; it +may be left to his private secretary," and he spat on the grass. Then he turned to the others and said somewhat austerely--- -"There is a great deal to be said for death; but if anyone -has any preference for the other alternative, I strongly -advise him to walk after me." - -With these words, he turned his broad back and strode with -silent energy towards the wood. The others gave one glance -over their shoulders, and saw that the dark cloud of men had -detached itself from the station and was moving with a -mysterious discipline across the plain. They saw already, -even with the naked eye, black blots on the foremost faces, -which marked the masks they wore. They turned and followed -their leader, who had already struck the wood, and -disappeared among the twinkling trees. - -The sun on the grass was dry and hot. So in plunging into -the wood they had a cool shock of shadow, as of divers who -plunge into a dim pool. The inside of the wood was full of -shattered sunlight and shaken shadows. They made a sort of -shuddering veil, almost recalling the dizziness of a -cinematograph. Even the solid figures walking with him Syme -could hardly see for the patterns of sun and shade that -danced upon them. Now a man's head was lit as with a light -of Rembrandt, leaving all else obliterated; now again he had -strong and staring white hands with the face of a negro. The -exMarquis had pulled the old straw hat over his eyes, and -the black shade of the brim cut his face so squarely in two -that it seemed to be wearing one of the black half-masks of -their pursuers. The fancy tinted Syme's overwhelming sense -of wonder. Was he wearing a mask? Was anyone wearing a mask? -Was anyone anything? This wood of witchery, in which men's -faces turned black and white by turns, in which their -figures first swelled into sunlight and then faded into -formless night, this mere chaos of chiaroscuro (after the -clear daylight outside), seemed to Syme a perfect symbol of -the world in which he had been moving for three days, this -world where men took off their beards and their spectacles -and their noses, and turned into other people. That tragic -self-confidence which he had felt when he believed that the -Marquis was a devil had strangely disappeared now that he -knew that the Marquis was a friend. He felt almost inclined -to ask after all these bewilderments what was a friend and -what an enemy. Was there anything that was apart from what -it seemed? The Marquis had taken off his nose and turned out -to be a detective. Might he not just as well take off his -head and turn out to be a hobgoblin? Was not everything, -after all, like this bewildering woodland, this dance of -dark and light? Everything only a glimpse, the glimpse -always unforeseen, and always forgotten. For Gabriel Syme -had found in the heart of that sun-splashed wood what many -modern painters had found there. He had found the thing -which the modern people call Impressionism, which is another -name for that final scepticism which can find no floor to -the universe. - -As a man in an evil dream strains himself to scream and -wake, Syme strove with a sudden effort to fling off this -last and worst of his fancies. With two impatient strides he -overtook the man in the Marquis's straw hat, the man whom he -had come to address as Ratcliffe. In a voice exaggeratively -loud and cheerful, he broke the bottomless silence and made -conversation. +"There is a great deal to be said for death; but if anyone has any +preference for the other alternative, I strongly advise him to walk +after me." + +With these words, he turned his broad back and strode with silent energy +towards the wood. The others gave one glance over their shoulders, and +saw that the dark cloud of men had detached itself from the station and +was moving with a mysterious discipline across the plain. They saw +already, even with the naked eye, black blots on the foremost faces, +which marked the masks they wore. They turned and followed their leader, +who had already struck the wood, and disappeared among the twinkling +trees. + +The sun on the grass was dry and hot. So in plunging into the wood they +had a cool shock of shadow, as of divers who plunge into a dim pool. The +inside of the wood was full of shattered sunlight and shaken shadows. +They made a sort of shuddering veil, almost recalling the dizziness of a +cinematograph. Even the solid figures walking with him Syme could hardly +see for the patterns of sun and shade that danced upon them. Now a man's +head was lit as with a light of Rembrandt, leaving all else obliterated; +now again he had strong and staring white hands with the face of a +negro. The exMarquis had pulled the old straw hat over his eyes, and the +black shade of the brim cut his face so squarely in two that it seemed +to be wearing one of the black half-masks of their pursuers. The fancy +tinted Syme's overwhelming sense of wonder. Was he wearing a mask? Was +anyone wearing a mask? Was anyone anything? This wood of witchery, in +which men's faces turned black and white by turns, in which their +figures first swelled into sunlight and then faded into formless night, +this mere chaos of chiaroscuro (after the clear daylight outside), +seemed to Syme a perfect symbol of the world in which he had been moving +for three days, this world where men took off their beards and their +spectacles and their noses, and turned into other people. That tragic +self-confidence which he had felt when he believed that the Marquis was +a devil had strangely disappeared now that he knew that the Marquis was +a friend. He felt almost inclined to ask after all these bewilderments +what was a friend and what an enemy. Was there anything that was apart +from what it seemed? The Marquis had taken off his nose and turned out +to be a detective. Might he not just as well take off his head and turn +out to be a hobgoblin? Was not everything, after all, like this +bewildering woodland, this dance of dark and light? Everything only a +glimpse, the glimpse always unforeseen, and always forgotten. For +Gabriel Syme had found in the heart of that sun-splashed wood what many +modern painters had found there. He had found the thing which the modern +people call Impressionism, which is another name for that final +scepticism which can find no floor to the universe. + +As a man in an evil dream strains himself to scream and wake, Syme +strove with a sudden effort to fling off this last and worst of his +fancies. With two impatient strides he overtook the man in the Marquis's +straw hat, the man whom he had come to address as Ratcliffe. In a voice +exaggeratively loud and cheerful, he broke the bottomless silence and +made conversation. "May I ask," he said, "where on earth we are all going to?" -So genuine had been the doubts of his soul, that he was -quite glad to hear his companion speak in an easy, human -voice. - -"We must get down through the town of Lancy to the sea," he -said. "I think that part of the country is least likely to -be with them." - -"What can you mean by all this?" cried Syme. "They can't be -running the real world in that way. Surely not many working -men are anarchists, and surely if they were, mere mobs could -not beat modern armies and police." - -"Mere mobs!" repeated his new friend with a snort of scorn. -"So you talk about mobs and the working classes as if they -were the question. You 've got that eternal idiotic idea -that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should -it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been -anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in -there being some decent government. The poor man really has -a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away -to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected -to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to -being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists, +So genuine had been the doubts of his soul, that he was quite glad to +hear his companion speak in an easy, human voice. + +"We must get down through the town of Lancy to the sea," he said. "I +think that part of the country is least likely to be with them." + +"What can you mean by all this?" cried Syme. "They can't be running the +real world in that way. Surely not many working men are anarchists, and +surely if they were, mere mobs could not beat modern armies and police." + +"Mere mobs!" repeated his new friend with a snort of scorn. "So you talk +about mobs and the working classes as if they were the question. You 've +got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from +the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never +been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being +some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. +The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor +have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always +objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists, as you can see from the barons' wars." -"As a lecture on English history for the little ones," said -Syme, "this is all very nice; but I have not yet grasped its -application." +"As a lecture on English history for the little ones," said Syme, "this +is all very nice; but I have not yet grasped its application." -"Its application is," said his informant, "that most of old -Sunday's right-hand men are South African and American -millionaires. That is why he has got hold of all the -communications; and that is why the last four champions of -the anti-anarchist police force are running through a wood +"Its application is," said his informant, "that most of old Sunday's +right-hand men are South African and American millionaires. That is why +he has got hold of all the communications; and that is why the last four +champions of the anti-anarchist police force are running through a wood like rabbits." -"Millionaires I can understand," said Syme thoughtfully, -"they are nearly all mad. But getting hold of a few wicked -old gentlemen with hobbies is one thing; getting hold of -great Christian nations is another. I would bet the nose off -my face (forgive the allusion) that Sunday would stand -perfectly helpless before the task of converting any +"Millionaires I can understand," said Syme thoughtfully, "they are +nearly all mad. But getting hold of a few wicked old gentlemen with +hobbies is one thing; getting hold of great Christian nations is +another. I would bet the nose off my face (forgive the allusion) that +Sunday would stand perfectly helpless before the task of converting any ordinary healthy person anywhere." -"Well," said the other, "it rather depends what sort of -person you mean." - -"Well, for instance," said Syme, "we could never convert -that person," and he pointed straight in front of him. - -They had come to an open space of sunlight, which seemed to -express to Syme the final return of his own good sense; and -in the middle of this forest clearing was a figure that -might well stand for that common sense in an almost awful -actuality. Burnt by the sun and stained with perspiration, -and grave with the bottomless gravity of small necessary -toils, a heavy French peasant was cutting wood with a -hatchet. His cart stood a few yards off, already half full -of timber; and the horse that cropped the grass was, like -his master, valorous but not desperate; like his master, he -was even prosperous, but yet was almost sad. The man was a -Norman, taller than the average of the French and very -angular; and his swarthy figure stood dark against a square -of sunlight, almost like some allegoric figure of labour -frescoed on a ground of gold. - -"Mr. Syme is saying," called out Ratcliffe to the French -Colonel, "that this man, at least, will never be an -anarchist." - -"Mr. Syme is right enough there," answered Colonel Ducroix, -laughing, "if only for the reason that he has plenty of -property to defend. But I forgot that in your country you -are not used to peasants being wealthy." +"Well," said the other, "it rather depends what sort of person you +mean." + +"Well, for instance," said Syme, "we could never convert that person," +and he pointed straight in front of him. + +They had come to an open space of sunlight, which seemed to express to +Syme the final return of his own good sense; and in the middle of this +forest clearing was a figure that might well stand for that common sense +in an almost awful actuality. Burnt by the sun and stained with +perspiration, and grave with the bottomless gravity of small necessary +toils, a heavy French peasant was cutting wood with a hatchet. His cart +stood a few yards off, already half full of timber; and the horse that +cropped the grass was, like his master, valorous but not desperate; like +his master, he was even prosperous, but yet was almost sad. The man was +a Norman, taller than the average of the French and very angular; and +his swarthy figure stood dark against a square of sunlight, almost like +some allegoric figure of labour frescoed on a ground of gold. + +"Mr. Syme is saying," called out Ratcliffe to the French Colonel, "that +this man, at least, will never be an anarchist." + +"Mr. Syme is right enough there," answered Colonel Ducroix, laughing, +"if only for the reason that he has plenty of property to defend. But I +forgot that in your country you are not used to peasants being wealthy." He looks poor," said Dr. Bull doubtfully. "Quite so," said the Colonel; "that is why he is rich." -"I have an idea," called out Dr. Bull suddenly; "how much -would he take to give us a lift in his cart? Those dogs are -all on foot, and we could soon leave them behind." +"I have an idea," called out Dr. Bull suddenly; "how much would he take +to give us a lift in his cart? Those dogs are all on foot, and we could +soon leave them behind." -"Oh, give him anything!" said Syme eagerly. "I have piles of -money on me." +"Oh, give him anything!" said Syme eagerly. "I have piles of money on +me." -"That will never do," said the Colonel; "he will never have -any respect for you unless you drive a bargain." +"That will never do," said the Colonel; "he will never have any respect +for you unless you drive a bargain." "Oh, if he haggles!" began Bull impatiently. -"He haggles because he is a free man," said the other. "You -do not understand; he would not see the meaning of -generosity. He is not being tipped." - -And even while they seemed to hear the heavy feet of their -strange pursuers behind them, they had to stand and stamp -while the French Colonel talked to the French wood-cutter -with all the leisurely badinage and bickering of market-day. -At the end of the four minutes, however, they saw that the -Colonel was right, for the wood-cutter entered into their -plans, not with the vague servility of a tout too-well paid, -but with the seriousness of a solicitor who had been paid -the proper fee. He told them that the best thing they could -do was to make their way down to the little inn on the hills -above Lancy, where the innkeeper, an old soldier who had -become *dévot* in his latter years, would be certain to -sympathise with them, and even to take risks in their -support. The whole company, therefore, piled themselves on -top of the stacks of wood, and went rocking in the rude cart -down the other and steeper side of the woodland. Heavy and -ramshackle as was the vehicle, it was driven quickly enough, -and they soon had the exhilarating impression of distancing -altogether those, whoever they were, who were hunting them. -For, after all, the riddle as to where the anarchists had -got all these followers was still unsolved. One man's -presence had sufficed for them; they had fled at the first -sight of the deformed smile of the Secretary. Syme every now -and then looked back over his shoulder at the army on their +"He haggles because he is a free man," said the other. "You do not +understand; he would not see the meaning of generosity. He is not being +tipped." + +And even while they seemed to hear the heavy feet of their strange +pursuers behind them, they had to stand and stamp while the French +Colonel talked to the French wood-cutter with all the leisurely badinage +and bickering of market-day. At the end of the four minutes, however, +they saw that the Colonel was right, for the wood-cutter entered into +their plans, not with the vague servility of a tout too-well paid, but +with the seriousness of a solicitor who had been paid the proper fee. He +told them that the best thing they could do was to make their way down +to the little inn on the hills above Lancy, where the innkeeper, an old +soldier who had become *dévot* in his latter years, would be certain to +sympathise with them, and even to take risks in their support. The whole +company, therefore, piled themselves on top of the stacks of wood, and +went rocking in the rude cart down the other and steeper side of the +woodland. Heavy and ramshackle as was the vehicle, it was driven quickly +enough, and they soon had the exhilarating impression of distancing +altogether those, whoever they were, who were hunting them. For, after +all, the riddle as to where the anarchists had got all these followers +was still unsolved. One man's presence had sufficed for them; they had +fled at the first sight of the deformed smile of the Secretary. Syme +every now and then looked back over his shoulder at the army on their track. -As the wood grew first thinner and then smaller with -distance, he could see the sunlit slopes beyond it and above -it; and across these was still moving the square black mob -like one monstrous beetle. In the very strong sunlight and -with his own very strong eyes, which were almost telescopic, -Syme could see this mass of men quite plainly. He could see -them as separate human figures; but he was increasingly -surprised by the way in which they moved as one man. They -seemed to be dressed in dark clothes and plain hats, like -any common crowd out of the streets; but they did not spread -and sprawl and trail by various lines to the attack, as -would be natural in an ordinary mob. They moved with a sort -of dreadful and wicked woodenness, like a staring army of -automatons. +As the wood grew first thinner and then smaller with distance, he could +see the sunlit slopes beyond it and above it; and across these was still +moving the square black mob like one monstrous beetle. In the very +strong sunlight and with his own very strong eyes, which were almost +telescopic, Syme could see this mass of men quite plainly. He could see +them as separate human figures; but he was increasingly surprised by the +way in which they moved as one man. They seemed to be dressed in dark +clothes and plain hats, like any common crowd out of the streets; but +they did not spread and sprawl and trail by various lines to the attack, +as would be natural in an ordinary mob. They moved with a sort of +dreadful and wicked woodenness, like a staring army of automatons. Syme pointed this out to Ratcliffe. -"Yes," replied the policeman, "that's discipline. That's -Sunday. He is perhaps five hundred miles off, but the fear -of him is on all of them, like the finger of God. Yes, they -are walking regularly; and you bet your boots that they are -talking regularly, yes, and thinking regularly. But the one -important thing for us is that they are disappearing +"Yes," replied the policeman, "that's discipline. That's Sunday. He is +perhaps five hundred miles off, but the fear of him is on all of them, +like the finger of God. Yes, they are walking regularly; and you bet +your boots that they are talking regularly, yes, and thinking regularly. +But the one important thing for us is that they are disappearing regularly." -Syme nodded. It was true that the black patch of the -pursuing men was growing smaller and smaller as the peasant -belaboured his horse. - -The level of the sunlit landscape, though flat as a whole, -fell away on the farther side of the wood in billows of -heavy slope towards the sea, in a way not unlike the lower -slopes of the Sussex downs. The only difference was that in -Sussex the road would have been broken and angular like a -little brook, but here the white French road fell sheer in -front of them like a waterfall. Down this direct descent the -cart clattered at a considerable angle, and in a few -minutes, the road growing yet steeper, they saw below them -the little harbour of Lancy and a great blue arc of the sea. -The travelling cloud of their enemies had wholly disappeared -from the horizon. - -The horse and cart took a sharp turn round a clump of elms, -and the horse's nose nearly struck the face of an old -gentleman who was sitting on the benches outside the little -cafe of "Le Soleil d'Or." The peasant grunted an apology, -and got down from his seat. The others also descended one by -one, and spoke to the old gentleman with fragmentary phrases -of courtesy, for it was quite evident from his expansive -manner that he was the owner of the little tavern. - -He was a white-haired, apple-faced old boy, with sleepy eyes -and a grey moustache; stout, sedentary, and very innocent, -of a type that may often be found in France, but is still -commoner in Catholic Germany. Everything about him, his -pipe, his pot of beer, his flowers, and his beehive, -suggested an ancestral peace; only when his visitors looked -up as they entered the inn-parlour, they saw the sword upon -the wall. - -The Colonel, who greeted the innkeeper as an old friend, -passed rapidly into the inn-parlour, and sat down ordering -some ritual refreshment. The military decision of his action -interested Syme, who sat next to him, and he took the -opportunity when the old innkeeper had gone out of +Syme nodded. It was true that the black patch of the pursuing men was +growing smaller and smaller as the peasant belaboured his horse. + +The level of the sunlit landscape, though flat as a whole, fell away on +the farther side of the wood in billows of heavy slope towards the sea, +in a way not unlike the lower slopes of the Sussex downs. The only +difference was that in Sussex the road would have been broken and +angular like a little brook, but here the white French road fell sheer +in front of them like a waterfall. Down this direct descent the cart +clattered at a considerable angle, and in a few minutes, the road +growing yet steeper, they saw below them the little harbour of Lancy and +a great blue arc of the sea. The travelling cloud of their enemies had +wholly disappeared from the horizon. + +The horse and cart took a sharp turn round a clump of elms, and the +horse's nose nearly struck the face of an old gentleman who was sitting +on the benches outside the little cafe of "Le Soleil d'Or." The peasant +grunted an apology, and got down from his seat. The others also +descended one by one, and spoke to the old gentleman with fragmentary +phrases of courtesy, for it was quite evident from his expansive manner +that he was the owner of the little tavern. + +He was a white-haired, apple-faced old boy, with sleepy eyes and a grey +moustache; stout, sedentary, and very innocent, of a type that may often +be found in France, but is still commoner in Catholic Germany. +Everything about him, his pipe, his pot of beer, his flowers, and his +beehive, suggested an ancestral peace; only when his visitors looked up +as they entered the inn-parlour, they saw the sword upon the wall. + +The Colonel, who greeted the innkeeper as an old friend, passed rapidly +into the inn-parlour, and sat down ordering some ritual refreshment. The +military decision of his action interested Syme, who sat next to him, +and he took the opportunity when the old innkeeper had gone out of satisfying his curiosity. -"May I ask you. Colonel," he said in a low voice, "why we -have come here?" +"May I ask you. Colonel," he said in a low voice, "why we have come +here?" Colonel Ducroix smiled behind his bristly white moustache. -"For two reasons, sir," he said; "and I will give first, not -the most important, but the most utilitarian. We came here -because this is the only place within twenty miles in which -we can get horses." +"For two reasons, sir," he said; "and I will give first, not the most +important, but the most utilitarian. We came here because this is the +only place within twenty miles in which we can get horses." "Horses!" repeated Syme, looking up quickly. -"Yes," replied the other; "if you people are really to -distance your enemies it is horses or nothing for you, -unless of course you have bicycles and motorcars in your -pocket." - -"And where do you advise us to make for?" asked Syme -doubtfully. - -"Beyond question," replied the Colonel, "you had better make -all haste to the police station beyond the town. My friend, -whom I seconded under somewhat deceptive circumstances, -seems to me to exaggerate very much the possibilities of a -general rising; but even he would hardly maintain, I -suppose, that you were not safe with the gendarmes." - -Syme nodded gravely; then he said abruptly---And your other -reason for coming here? "My other reason for coming here," -said Ducroix soberly, "is that it is just as well to see a -good man or two when one is possibly near to death." - -Syme looked up at the wall, and saw a crudely-painted and -pathetic religious picture. Then he said--- - -"You are right," and then almost immediately afterwards, -"Has anyone seen about the horses?" - -"Yes," answered Ducroix, "you may be quite certain that I -gave orders the moment I came in. Those enemies of yours -gave no impression of hurry, but they were really moving -wonderfully fast, like a well-trained army. I had no idea -that the anarchists had so much discipline. You have not a -moment to waste." - -Almost as he spoke, the old innkeeper with the blue eyes and -white hair came ambling into the room, and announced that -six horses were saddled outside. - -By Ducroix's advice the five others equipped themselves with -some portable form of food and wine, and keeping their -duelling swords as the only weapons available, they -clattered away down the steep, white road. The two servants, -who had carried the Marquis's luggage when he was a marquis, -were left behind to drink at the café by common consent, and +"Yes," replied the other; "if you people are really to distance your +enemies it is horses or nothing for you, unless of course you have +bicycles and motorcars in your pocket." + +"And where do you advise us to make for?" asked Syme doubtfully. + +"Beyond question," replied the Colonel, "you had better make all haste +to the police station beyond the town. My friend, whom I seconded under +somewhat deceptive circumstances, seems to me to exaggerate very much +the possibilities of a general rising; but even he would hardly +maintain, I suppose, that you were not safe with the gendarmes." + +Syme nodded gravely; then he said abruptly---And your other reason for +coming here? "My other reason for coming here," said Ducroix soberly, +"is that it is just as well to see a good man or two when one is +possibly near to death." + +Syme looked up at the wall, and saw a crudely-painted and pathetic +religious picture. Then he said--- + +"You are right," and then almost immediately afterwards, "Has anyone +seen about the horses?" + +"Yes," answered Ducroix, "you may be quite certain that I gave orders +the moment I came in. Those enemies of yours gave no impression of +hurry, but they were really moving wonderfully fast, like a well-trained +army. I had no idea that the anarchists had so much discipline. You have +not a moment to waste." + +Almost as he spoke, the old innkeeper with the blue eyes and white hair +came ambling into the room, and announced that six horses were saddled +outside. + +By Ducroix's advice the five others equipped themselves with some +portable form of food and wine, and keeping their duelling swords as the +only weapons available, they clattered away down the steep, white road. +The two servants, who had carried the Marquis's luggage when he was a +marquis, were left behind to drink at the café by common consent, and not at all against their own inclination. -By this time the afternoon sun was slanting westward, and by -its rays Syme could see the sturdy figure of the old -innkeeper growing smaller and smaller, but still standing -and looking after them quite silently, the sunshine in his -silver hair. Syme had a fixed, superstitious fancy, left in -his mind by the chance phrase of the Colonel, that this was -indeed, perhaps, the last honest stranger whom he should -ever see upon the earth. - -He was still looking at this dwindling figure, which stood -as a mere grey blot touched with a white flame against the -great green wall of the steep down behind him. And as he -stared, over the top of the down behind the innkeeper, there -appeared an army of black-clad and marching men. They seemed -to hang above the good man and his house like a black cloud +By this time the afternoon sun was slanting westward, and by its rays +Syme could see the sturdy figure of the old innkeeper growing smaller +and smaller, but still standing and looking after them quite silently, +the sunshine in his silver hair. Syme had a fixed, superstitious fancy, +left in his mind by the chance phrase of the Colonel, that this was +indeed, perhaps, the last honest stranger whom he should ever see upon +the earth. + +He was still looking at this dwindling figure, which stood as a mere +grey blot touched with a white flame against the great green wall of the +steep down behind him. And as he stared, over the top of the down behind +the innkeeper, there appeared an army of black-clad and marching men. +They seemed to hang above the good man and his house like a black cloud of locusts. The horses had been saddled none too soon. # The Earth in Anarchy -Urging the horses to a gallop, without respect to the rather -rugged descent of the road, the horsemen soon regained their -advantage over the men on the march, and at last the bulk of -the first buildings of Lancy cut off the sight of their -pursuers. Nevertheless, the ride had been a long one, and by -the time they reached the real town the west was warming -with the colour and quality of sunset. The Colonel suggested -that, before making finally for the police station, they -should make the effort, in passing, to attach to themselves -one more individual who might be useful. - -"Four out of the five rich men in this town," he said, "are -common swindlers, I suppose the proportion is pretty equal -all over the world. The fifth is a friend of mine, and a -very fine fellow; and what is even more important from our -point of view, he owns a motor-car." - -"I am afraid," said the Professor in his mirthful way, -looking back along the white road on which the black, -crawling patch might appear at any moment, "I am afraid we -have hardly time for afternoon calls." - -"Doctor Renard's house is only three minutes off," said the -Colonel. +Urging the horses to a gallop, without respect to the rather rugged +descent of the road, the horsemen soon regained their advantage over the +men on the march, and at last the bulk of the first buildings of Lancy +cut off the sight of their pursuers. Nevertheless, the ride had been a +long one, and by the time they reached the real town the west was +warming with the colour and quality of sunset. The Colonel suggested +that, before making finally for the police station, they should make the +effort, in passing, to attach to themselves one more individual who +might be useful. + +"Four out of the five rich men in this town," he said, "are common +swindlers, I suppose the proportion is pretty equal all over the world. +The fifth is a friend of mine, and a very fine fellow; and what is even +more important from our point of view, he owns a motor-car." + +"I am afraid," said the Professor in his mirthful way, looking back +along the white road on which the black, crawling patch might appear at +any moment, "I am afraid we have hardly time for afternoon calls." + +"Doctor Renard's house is only three minutes off," said the Colonel. "Our danger," said Dr. Bull, "is not two minutes off." -" Yes," said Syme, "if we ride on fast we must leave them -behind, for they are on foot." +" Yes," said Syme, "if we ride on fast we must leave them behind, for +they are on foot." "He has a motor-car," said the Colonel. @@ -5129,538 +4475,475 @@ behind, for they are on foot." "But he might be out." -"Hold your tongue," said Syme suddenly. "What is that -noise?" - -For a second they all sat as still as equestrian statues, -and for a second---for two or three or four seconds---heaven -and earth seemed equally still. Then all their ears, in an -agony of attention, heard along the road that indescribable -thrill and throb that means only one thing---horses! - -The Colonel's face had an instantaneous change, as if -lightning had struck it, and yet left it scatheless. - -"They have done us," he said, with brief military irony. -"Prepare to receive cavalry!" - -"Where can they have got the horses?" asked Syme, as he -mechanically urged his steed to a canter. - -The Colonel was silent for a little, then he said in a -strained voice--- - -"I was speaking with strict accuracy when I said that the -'Soleil d'Or' was the only place where one can get horses -within twenty miles." - -"No!" said Syme violently, "I don't believe he'd do it. Not -with all that white hair." - -"He may have been forced," said the Colonel gently. "They -must be at least a hundred strong, for which reason we are -all going to see my friend Renard, who has a motor-car." - -With these words he swung his horse suddenly round a street -corner, and went down the street with such thundering speed, -that the others, though already well at the gallop, had -difficulty in following the flying tail of his horse. - -Dr. Renard inhabited a high and comfortable house at the top -of a steep street, so that when the riders alighted at his -door they could once more see the solid green ridge of the -hill, with the white road across it, standing up above all -the roofs of the town. They breathed again to see that the -road as yet was clear, and they rang the bell. - -Dr. Renard was a beaming, brown-bearded man, a good example -of that silent but very busy professional class which France -has preserved even more perfectly than England. When the -matter was explained to him he pooh-poohed the panic of the -ex-Marquis altogether; he said, with the solid French -scepticism, that there was no conceivable probability of a -general anarchist rising. "Anarchy," he said, shrugging his -shoulders, "it is childishness!" - -"*Et ça,*" cried out the Colonel suddenly, pointing over the -other's shoulder, "and that is childishness, isn't it?" - -They all looked round, and saw a curve of black cavalry come -sweeping over the top of the hill with all the energy of -Attila. Swiftly as they rode, however, the whole rank still -kept well together, and they could see the black vizards of -the first line as level as a line of uniforms. But although -the main black square was the same, though travelling -faster, there was now one sensational difference which they -could see clearly upon the slope of the hill, as if upon a -slanted map. The bulk of the riders were in one block; but -one rider flew far ahead of the column, and with frantic -movements of hand and heel urged his horse faster and -faster, so that one might have fancied that he was not the -pursuer but the pursued. But even at that great distance -they could see something so fanatical, so unquestionable in -his figure, that they knew it was the Secretary himself. - -"I am sorry to cut short a cultured discussion," said the -Colonel, "but can you lend me your motorcar now, in two -minutes?" - -"I have a suspicion that you are all mad," said Dr. Renard, -smiling sociably; "but God forbid that madness should in any -way interrupt friendship. Let us go round to the garage." - -Dr. Renard was a mild man with monstrous wealth; his rooms -were like the Musée de Cluny, and he had three motor-cars. -These, however, he seemed to use very sparingly, having the -simple tastes of the French middle class, and when his -impatient friends came to examine them, it took them some -time to assure themselves that one of them even could be -made to work. This with some difficulty they brought round -into the street before the Doctor's house. When they came -out of the dim garage they were startled to find that -twilight had already fallen with the abruptness of night in -the tropics. Either they had been longer in the place than -they imagined, or some unusual canopy of cloud had gathered -over the town. They looked down the steep streets, and -seemed to see a slight mist coming up from the sea. +"Hold your tongue," said Syme suddenly. "What is that noise?" + +For a second they all sat as still as equestrian statues, and for a +second---for two or three or four seconds---heaven and earth seemed +equally still. Then all their ears, in an agony of attention, heard +along the road that indescribable thrill and throb that means only one +thing---horses! + +The Colonel's face had an instantaneous change, as if lightning had +struck it, and yet left it scatheless. + +"They have done us," he said, with brief military irony. "Prepare to +receive cavalry!" + +"Where can they have got the horses?" asked Syme, as he mechanically +urged his steed to a canter. + +The Colonel was silent for a little, then he said in a strained voice--- + +"I was speaking with strict accuracy when I said that the 'Soleil d'Or' +was the only place where one can get horses within twenty miles." + +"No!" said Syme violently, "I don't believe he'd do it. Not with all +that white hair." + +"He may have been forced," said the Colonel gently. "They must be at +least a hundred strong, for which reason we are all going to see my +friend Renard, who has a motor-car." + +With these words he swung his horse suddenly round a street corner, and +went down the street with such thundering speed, that the others, though +already well at the gallop, had difficulty in following the flying tail +of his horse. + +Dr. Renard inhabited a high and comfortable house at the top of a steep +street, so that when the riders alighted at his door they could once +more see the solid green ridge of the hill, with the white road across +it, standing up above all the roofs of the town. They breathed again to +see that the road as yet was clear, and they rang the bell. + +Dr. Renard was a beaming, brown-bearded man, a good example of that +silent but very busy professional class which France has preserved even +more perfectly than England. When the matter was explained to him he +pooh-poohed the panic of the ex-Marquis altogether; he said, with the +solid French scepticism, that there was no conceivable probability of a +general anarchist rising. "Anarchy," he said, shrugging his shoulders, +"it is childishness!" + +"*Et ça,*" cried out the Colonel suddenly, pointing over the other's +shoulder, "and that is childishness, isn't it?" + +They all looked round, and saw a curve of black cavalry come sweeping +over the top of the hill with all the energy of Attila. Swiftly as they +rode, however, the whole rank still kept well together, and they could +see the black vizards of the first line as level as a line of uniforms. +But although the main black square was the same, though travelling +faster, there was now one sensational difference which they could see +clearly upon the slope of the hill, as if upon a slanted map. The bulk +of the riders were in one block; but one rider flew far ahead of the +column, and with frantic movements of hand and heel urged his horse +faster and faster, so that one might have fancied that he was not the +pursuer but the pursued. But even at that great distance they could see +something so fanatical, so unquestionable in his figure, that they knew +it was the Secretary himself. + +"I am sorry to cut short a cultured discussion," said the Colonel, "but +can you lend me your motorcar now, in two minutes?" + +"I have a suspicion that you are all mad," said Dr. Renard, smiling +sociably; "but God forbid that madness should in any way interrupt +friendship. Let us go round to the garage." + +Dr. Renard was a mild man with monstrous wealth; his rooms were like the +Musée de Cluny, and he had three motor-cars. These, however, he seemed +to use very sparingly, having the simple tastes of the French middle +class, and when his impatient friends came to examine them, it took them +some time to assure themselves that one of them even could be made to +work. This with some difficulty they brought round into the street +before the Doctor's house. When they came out of the dim garage they +were startled to find that twilight had already fallen with the +abruptness of night in the tropics. Either they had been longer in the +place than they imagined, or some unusual canopy of cloud had gathered +over the town. They looked down the steep streets, and seemed to see a +slight mist coming up from the sea. "It is now or never," said Dr. Bull. "I hear horses." "No," corrected the Professor, "a horse." -And as they listened, it was evident that the noise, rapidly -coming nearer on the rattling stones, was not the noise of -the whole cavalcade but that of the one horseman, who had -left it far behind---the insane Secretary. +And as they listened, it was evident that the noise, rapidly coming +nearer on the rattling stones, was not the noise of the whole cavalcade +but that of the one horseman, who had left it far behind---the insane +Secretary. -Syme's family, like most of those who end in the simple -life, had once owned a motor, and he knew all about them. He -had leapt at once into the chauffeur's seat, and with -flushed face was wrenching and tugging at the disused -machinery. He bent his strength upon one handle, and then -said quite quietly--- +Syme's family, like most of those who end in the simple life, had once +owned a motor, and he knew all about them. He had leapt at once into the +chauffeur's seat, and with flushed face was wrenching and tugging at the +disused machinery. He bent his strength upon one handle, and then said +quite quietly--- "I am afraid it's no go." -As he spoke, there swept round the corner a man, rigid on -his rushing horse, with the rush and rigidity of an arrow. -He had a smile that thrust out his chin as if it were -dislocated. He swept alongside of the stationary car, into -which its company had crowded, and laid his hand on the -front. It was the Secretary, and his mouth went quite -straight in the solemnity of triumph. - -Syme was leaning hard upon the steering wheel, and there was -no sound but the rumble of the other pursuers riding into -the town. Then there came quite suddenly a scream of -scraping iron, and the car leapt forward. It plucked the -Secretary clean out of his saddle, as a knife is whipped out -of its sheath, trailed him kicking terribly for twenty -yards, and left him flung flat upon the road far in front of -his frightened horse. As the car took the corner of the -street with a splendid curve, they could just see the other -anarchists filling the street and raising their fallen -leader. - -"I can't understand why it has grown so dark," said the -Professor at last in a low voice. - -"Going to be a storm, I think," said Dr. Bull. "I say, it's -a pity we haven't got a light on this car, if only to see -by." - -"We have," said the Colonel, and from the floor of the car -he fished up a heavy, old-fashioned, carved iron lantern -with a light inside it. It was obviously an antique, and it -would seem as if its original use had been in some way semi --religious, for there was a rude moulding of a cross upon -one of its sides. +As he spoke, there swept round the corner a man, rigid on his rushing +horse, with the rush and rigidity of an arrow. He had a smile that +thrust out his chin as if it were dislocated. He swept alongside of the +stationary car, into which its company had crowded, and laid his hand on +the front. It was the Secretary, and his mouth went quite straight in +the solemnity of triumph. + +Syme was leaning hard upon the steering wheel, and there was no sound +but the rumble of the other pursuers riding into the town. Then there +came quite suddenly a scream of scraping iron, and the car leapt +forward. It plucked the Secretary clean out of his saddle, as a knife is +whipped out of its sheath, trailed him kicking terribly for twenty +yards, and left him flung flat upon the road far in front of his +frightened horse. As the car took the corner of the street with a +splendid curve, they could just see the other anarchists filling the +street and raising their fallen leader. + +"I can't understand why it has grown so dark," said the Professor at +last in a low voice. + +"Going to be a storm, I think," said Dr. Bull. "I say, it's a pity we +haven't got a light on this car, if only to see by." + +"We have," said the Colonel, and from the floor of the car he fished up +a heavy, old-fashioned, carved iron lantern with a light inside it. It +was obviously an antique, and it would seem as if its original use had +been in some way semi -religious, for there was a rude moulding of a +cross upon one of its sides. "Where on earth did you get that?" asked the Professor. -"I got it where I got the car," answered the Colonel, -chuckling, "from my best friend. While our friend here was -fighting with the steering wheel, I ran up the front steps -of the house and spoke to Renard, who was standing in his -own porch, you will remember. 'I suppose,' I said, 'there's -no time to get a lamp.' He looked up, blinking amiably at -the beautiful arched ceiling of his own front hall. From -this was suspended, by chains of exquisite ironwork, this -lantern, one of the hundred treasures of his treasure house. -By sheer force he tore the lamp out of his own ceiling, -shattering the painted panels, and bringing down two blue -vases with his violence. Then he handed me the iron lantern, -and I put it in the car. Was I not right when I said that -Dr. Renard was worth knowing?" - -"You were," said Syme seriously, and hung the heavy lantern -over the front. There was a certain allegory of their whole -position in the contrast between the modern automobile and -its strange, ecclesiastical lamp. - -Hitherto they had passed through the quietest part of the -town, meeting at most one or two pedestrians, who could give -them no hint of the peace or the hostility of the place. -Now, however, the windows in the houses began one by one to -be lit up, giving a greater sense of habitation and -humanity. Dr. Bull turned to the new detective who had led -their flight, and permitted himself one of his natural and -friendly smiles. +"I got it where I got the car," answered the Colonel, chuckling, "from +my best friend. While our friend here was fighting with the steering +wheel, I ran up the front steps of the house and spoke to Renard, who +was standing in his own porch, you will remember. 'I suppose,' I said, +'there's no time to get a lamp.' He looked up, blinking amiably at the +beautiful arched ceiling of his own front hall. From this was suspended, +by chains of exquisite ironwork, this lantern, one of the hundred +treasures of his treasure house. By sheer force he tore the lamp out of +his own ceiling, shattering the painted panels, and bringing down two +blue vases with his violence. Then he handed me the iron lantern, and I +put it in the car. Was I not right when I said that Dr. Renard was worth +knowing?" + +"You were," said Syme seriously, and hung the heavy lantern over the +front. There was a certain allegory of their whole position in the +contrast between the modern automobile and its strange, ecclesiastical +lamp. + +Hitherto they had passed through the quietest part of the town, meeting +at most one or two pedestrians, who could give them no hint of the peace +or the hostility of the place. Now, however, the windows in the houses +began one by one to be lit up, giving a greater sense of habitation and +humanity. Dr. Bull turned to the new detective who had led their flight, +and permitted himself one of his natural and friendly smiles. "These lights make one feel more cheerful." Inspector Ratcliffe drew his brows together. -"There is only one set of lights that make me more -cheerful," he said, "and they are those lights of the police -station which I can see beyond the town. Please God we may -be there in ten minutes." +"There is only one set of lights that make me more cheerful," he said, +"and they are those lights of the police station which I can see beyond +the town. Please God we may be there in ten minutes." -Then all Bull's boiling good sense and optimism broke -suddenly out of him. +Then all Bull's boiling good sense and optimism broke suddenly out of +him. -"Oh, this is all raving nonsense!" he cried. "If you really -think that ordinary people in ordinary houses are -anarchists, you must be madder than an anarchist yourself. -If we turned and fought these fellows, the whole town would -fight for us." +"Oh, this is all raving nonsense!" he cried. "If you really think that +ordinary people in ordinary houses are anarchists, you must be madder +than an anarchist yourself. If we turned and fought these fellows, the +whole town would fight for us." -"No," said the other with an immovable simplicity, "the -whole town would fight for them. We shall see." +"No," said the other with an immovable simplicity, "the whole town would +fight for them. We shall see." -While they were speaking the Professor had leant forward -with sudden excitement. +While they were speaking the Professor had leant forward with sudden +excitement. "What is that noise?" he said. -"Oh, the horses behind us, I suppose," said the Colonel. "I -thought we had got clear of them." +"Oh, the horses behind us, I suppose," said the Colonel. "I thought we +had got clear of them." -"The horses behind us! No," said the Professor, "it is not -horses, and it is not behind us." +"The horses behind us! No," said the Professor, "it is not horses, and +it is not behind us." -Almost as he spoke, across the end of the street before them -two shining and rattling shapes shot past. They were gone -almost in a flash, but everyone could see that they were -motor-cars, and the Professor stood up with a pale face and -swore that they were the other two motor-cars from +Almost as he spoke, across the end of the street before them two shining +and rattling shapes shot past. They were gone almost in a flash, but +everyone could see that they were motor-cars, and the Professor stood up +with a pale face and swore that they were the other two motor-cars from Dr. Renard's garage. -"I tell you they were his," he repeated, with wild eyes, -"and they were full of men in masks!" +"I tell you they were his," he repeated, with wild eyes, "and they were +full of men in masks!" -"Absurd!" said the Colonel angrily. "Dr. Renard would never -give them his cars." +"Absurd!" said the Colonel angrily. "Dr. Renard would never give them +his cars." -"He may have been forced," said Ratcliffe quietly. "The -whole town is on their side." +"He may have been forced," said Ratcliffe quietly. "The whole town is on +their side." "You still believe that," asked the Colonel incredulously. -"You will all believe it soon," said the other with a -hopeless calm. +"You will all believe it soon," said the other with a hopeless calm. -There was a puzzled pause for some little time, and then the -Colonel began again abruptly--- +There was a puzzled pause for some little time, and then the Colonel +began again abruptly--- -"No, I can't believe it. The thing is nonsense. The plain -people of a peaceable French town---" +"No, I can't believe it. The thing is nonsense. The plain people of a +peaceable French town---" -He was cut short by a bang and a blaze of light, which -seemed close to his eyes. As the car sped on it left a -floating patch of white smoke behind it, and Syme had heard -a shot shriek past his ear. +He was cut short by a bang and a blaze of light, which seemed close to +his eyes. As the car sped on it left a floating patch of white smoke +behind it, and Syme had heard a shot shriek past his ear. "My God!" said the Colonel, "someone has shot at us." -"It need not interrupt conversation," said the gloomy -Ratcliffe. "Pray resume your remarks, Colonel. You were -talking, I think, about the plain people of a peaceable -French town." +"It need not interrupt conversation," said the gloomy Ratcliffe. "Pray +resume your remarks, Colonel. You were talking, I think, about the plain +people of a peaceable French town." -The staring Colonel was long past minding satire. He rolled -his eyes all round the street. +The staring Colonel was long past minding satire. He rolled his eyes all +round the street. "It is extraordinary," he said, "most extraordinary." -"A fastidious person," said Syme, "might even call it -unpleasant. However, I suppose those lights out in the field -beyond this street are the Gendarmerie. We shall soon get -there." +"A fastidious person," said Syme, "might even call it unpleasant. +However, I suppose those lights out in the field beyond this street are +the Gendarmerie. We shall soon get there." "No," said Inspector Ratcliffe, "we shall never get there." -He had been standing up and looking keenly ahead of him. Now -he sat down and smoothed his sleek hair with a weary -gesture. +He had been standing up and looking keenly ahead of him. Now he sat down +and smoothed his sleek hair with a weary gesture. "What do you mean?" asked Bull sharply. -"I mean that we shall never get there," said the pessimist -placidly. "they have two rows of armed men across the road -already; I can see them from here. The town is in arms, as I -said it was. I can only wallow in the exquisite comfort of -my own exactitude." - -And Ratcliffe sat down comfortably in the car and lit a -cigarette, but the others rose excitedly and stared down the -road. Syme had slowed down the car as then plans became -doubtful, and he brought it finally to a standstill just at -the corner of a side street that ran down very steeply to -the sea. - -The town was mostly in shadow, but the sun had not sunk; -wherever its level light could break through, it painted -everything a burning gold. Up this side street the last -sunset light shone as sharp and narrow as the shaft of -artificial light at the theatre. It struck the car of the -five friends, and lit it like a burning chariot. But the -rest of the street, especially the two ends of it, was in -the deepest twilight, and for some seconds they could see -nothing. Then Syme, whose eyes were the keenest, broke into -a little bitter whistle, and said - -"It is quite true. There is a crowd or an army or some such -thing across the end of that street." - -"Well, if there is," said Bull impatiently, "it must be -something else---a sham fight or the mayor's birthday or -something. I cannot and will not believe that plain, jolly -people in a place like this walk about with dynamite in -their pockets. Get on a bit, Syme, and let us look at them." - -The car crawled about a hundred yards farther, and then they -were all startled by Dr. Bull breaking into a high crow of -laughter. - -"Why, you silly mugs!" he cried, "what did I tell you. That -crowd's as law-abiding as a cow, and if it weren't, it's on -our side." +"I mean that we shall never get there," said the pessimist placidly. +"they have two rows of armed men across the road already; I can see them +from here. The town is in arms, as I said it was. I can only wallow in +the exquisite comfort of my own exactitude." + +And Ratcliffe sat down comfortably in the car and lit a cigarette, but +the others rose excitedly and stared down the road. Syme had slowed down +the car as then plans became doubtful, and he brought it finally to a +standstill just at the corner of a side street that ran down very +steeply to the sea. + +The town was mostly in shadow, but the sun had not sunk; wherever its +level light could break through, it painted everything a burning gold. +Up this side street the last sunset light shone as sharp and narrow as +the shaft of artificial light at the theatre. It struck the car of the +five friends, and lit it like a burning chariot. But the rest of the +street, especially the two ends of it, was in the deepest twilight, and +for some seconds they could see nothing. Then Syme, whose eyes were the +keenest, broke into a little bitter whistle, and said + +"It is quite true. There is a crowd or an army or some such thing across +the end of that street." + +"Well, if there is," said Bull impatiently, "it must be something +else---a sham fight or the mayor's birthday or something. I cannot and +will not believe that plain, jolly people in a place like this walk +about with dynamite in their pockets. Get on a bit, Syme, and let us +look at them." + +The car crawled about a hundred yards farther, and then they were all +startled by Dr. Bull breaking into a high crow of laughter. + +"Why, you silly mugs!" he cried, "what did I tell you. That crowd's as +law-abiding as a cow, and if it weren't, it's on our side." "How do you know?" asked the Professor, staring. -"You blind bat," cried Bull, "don't you see who is leading -them?" +"You blind bat," cried Bull, "don't you see who is leading them?" -They peered again, and then the Colonel, with a catch in his -voice, cried out--- +They peered again, and then the Colonel, with a catch in his voice, +cried out--- "Why, it's Renard!" -There was, indeed, a rank of dim figures running across the -road, and they could not be clearly seen; but far enough in -front to catch the accident of the evening light was -stalking up and down the unmistakable Dr. Renard, in a white -hat, stroking his long brown beard, and holding a revolver -in his left hand. +There was, indeed, a rank of dim figures running across the road, and +they could not be clearly seen; but far enough in front to catch the +accident of the evening light was stalking up and down the unmistakable +Dr. Renard, in a white hat, stroking his long brown beard, and holding a +revolver in his left hand. -"What a fool I've been!" exclaimed the Colonel. "Of course, -the dear old boy has turned out to help us." +"What a fool I've been!" exclaimed the Colonel. "Of course, the dear old +boy has turned out to help us." -Dr. Bull was bubbling over with laughter, swinging the sword -in his hand as carelessly as a cane. He jumped out of the -car and ran across the intervening space, calling out--- +Dr. Bull was bubbling over with laughter, swinging the sword in his hand +as carelessly as a cane. He jumped out of the car and ran across the +intervening space, calling out--- "Dr. Renard! Dr. Renard!" -An instant after Syme thought his own eyes had gone mad in -his head. For the philanthropic Dr. Renard had deliberately -raised his revolver and fired twice at Bull, so that the -shots rang down the road. - -Almost at the same second as the puff of white cloud went up -from this atrocious explosion a long puff of white cloud -went up also from the cigarette of the cynical Ratcliffe. -Like all the rest he turned a little pale, but he smiled. -Dr. Bull, at whom the bullets had been fired, just missing -his scalp, stood quite still in the middle of the road -without a sign of fear, and then turned very slowly and -crawled back to the car, and climbed in with two holes -through his hat. - -"Well," said the cigarette smoker slowly, "what do you think -now?" - -"I think," said Dr. Bull with precision, "that I am lying in -bed at No. 217 Peabody Buildings, and that I shall soon wake -up with a jump; or, if that's not it, I think that I am -sitting in a small cushioned cell in Hanwell, and that the -doctor can't make much of my case. But if you want to know -what I don't think, I'll tell you. I don't think what you -think. I don't think, and I never shall think, that the mass -of ordinary men are a pack of dirty modern thinkers. No, -sir, I'm a democrat, and I still don't believe that Sunday -could convert one average navvy or counter-jumper. No, I may -be mad, but humanity isn't." - -Syme turned his bright blue eyes on Bull with an earnestness -which he did not commonly make clear. - -"You are a very fine fellow," he said. "You can believe in a -sanity which is not merely your sanity. And you're right -enough about humanity, about peasants and people like that -jolly old innkeeper. But you're not right about Renard. I -suspected him from the first. He is rationalistic, and, -what's worse, he's rich. When duty and religion are really +An instant after Syme thought his own eyes had gone mad in his head. For +the philanthropic Dr. Renard had deliberately raised his revolver and +fired twice at Bull, so that the shots rang down the road. + +Almost at the same second as the puff of white cloud went up from this +atrocious explosion a long puff of white cloud went up also from the +cigarette of the cynical Ratcliffe. Like all the rest he turned a little +pale, but he smiled. Dr. Bull, at whom the bullets had been fired, just +missing his scalp, stood quite still in the middle of the road without a +sign of fear, and then turned very slowly and crawled back to the car, +and climbed in with two holes through his hat. + +"Well," said the cigarette smoker slowly, "what do you think now?" + +"I think," said Dr. Bull with precision, "that I am lying in bed at +No. 217 Peabody Buildings, and that I shall soon wake up with a jump; +or, if that's not it, I think that I am sitting in a small cushioned +cell in Hanwell, and that the doctor can't make much of my case. But if +you want to know what I don't think, I'll tell you. I don't think what +you think. I don't think, and I never shall think, that the mass of +ordinary men are a pack of dirty modern thinkers. No, sir, I'm a +democrat, and I still don't believe that Sunday could convert one +average navvy or counter-jumper. No, I may be mad, but humanity isn't." + +Syme turned his bright blue eyes on Bull with an earnestness which he +did not commonly make clear. + +"You are a very fine fellow," he said. "You can believe in a sanity +which is not merely your sanity. And you're right enough about humanity, +about peasants and people like that jolly old innkeeper. But you're not +right about Renard. I suspected him from the first. He is rationalistic, +and, what's worse, he's rich. When duty and religion are really destroyed, it will be by the rich." -"They are really destroyed now," said the man with a -cigarette, and rose with his hands in his pockets. "The -devils are coming on!" +"They are really destroyed now," said the man with a cigarette, and rose +with his hands in his pockets. "The devils are coming on!" -The men in the motor-car looked anxiously in the direction -of his dreamy gaze, and they saw that the whole regiment at -the end of the road was advancing upon them, Dr. Renard -marching furiously in front, his beard flying in the breeze. +The men in the motor-car looked anxiously in the direction of his dreamy +gaze, and they saw that the whole regiment at the end of the road was +advancing upon them, Dr. Renard marching furiously in front, his beard +flying in the breeze. -The Colonel sprang out of the car with an intolerant -exclamation. +The Colonel sprang out of the car with an intolerant exclamation. -"Gentlemen," he cried, "the thing is incredible. It must be -a practical joke. If you knew Renard as I do---it's like -calling Queen Victoria a dynamiter. If you had got the man's -character into your head---" +"Gentlemen," he cried, "the thing is incredible. It must be a practical +joke. If you knew Renard as I do---it's like calling Queen Victoria a +dynamiter. If you had got the man's character into your head---" -"Dr. Bull," said Syme sardonically, "has at least got it -into his hat." +"Dr. Bull," said Syme sardonically, "has at least got it into his hat." -"I tell you it can't be!" cried the Colonel, stamping. -"Renard shall explain it. He shall explain it to me," and he -strode forward. +"I tell you it can't be!" cried the Colonel, stamping. "Renard shall +explain it. He shall explain it to me," and he strode forward. -"Don't be in such a hurry," drawled the smoker. "He will -very soon explain it to all of us." +"Don't be in such a hurry," drawled the smoker. "He will very soon +explain it to all of us." -But the impatient Colonel was already out of earshot, -advancing towards the advancing enemy. The excited -Dr. Renard lifted his pistol again, but perceiving his -opponent, hesitated, and the Colonel came face to face with -him with frantic gestures of remonstrance. +But the impatient Colonel was already out of earshot, advancing towards +the advancing enemy. The excited Dr. Renard lifted his pistol again, but +perceiving his opponent, hesitated, and the Colonel came face to face +with him with frantic gestures of remonstrance. -"It is no good," said Syme. "He will never get anything out -of that old heathen. I vote we drive bang through the thick -of them, bang as the bullets went through Bull's hat. We may -all be killed, but we must kill a tidy number of them." +"It is no good," said Syme. "He will never get anything out of that old +heathen. I vote we drive bang through the thick of them, bang as the +bullets went through Bull's hat. We may all be killed, but we must kill +a tidy number of them." -"I won't 'ave it," said Dr. Bull, growing more vulgar in the -sincerity of his virtue. "The poor chaps may be making a -mistake. Give the Colonel a chance." +"I won't 'ave it," said Dr. Bull, growing more vulgar in the sincerity +of his virtue. "The poor chaps may be making a mistake. Give the Colonel +a chance." "Shall we go back, then?" asked the Professor. -"No," said Ratcliffe in a cold voice, "the street behind us -is held too. In fact, I seem to see there another friend of -yours, Syme." +"No," said Ratcliffe in a cold voice, "the street behind us is held too. +In fact, I seem to see there another friend of yours, Syme." -Syme spun round smartly, and stared backwards at the track -which they had travelled. He saw an irregular body of -horsemen gathering and galloping towards them in the gloom. -He saw above the foremost saddle the silver gleam of a -sword, and then as it grew nearer the silver gleam of an old -man's hair. The next moment, with shattering violence, he -had swung the motor round and sent it dashing down the steep -side street to the sea, like a man that desired only to die. +Syme spun round smartly, and stared backwards at the track which they +had travelled. He saw an irregular body of horsemen gathering and +galloping towards them in the gloom. He saw above the foremost saddle +the silver gleam of a sword, and then as it grew nearer the silver gleam +of an old man's hair. The next moment, with shattering violence, he had +swung the motor round and sent it dashing down the steep side street to +the sea, like a man that desired only to die. -"What the devil is up?" cried the Professor, seizing his -arm. +"What the devil is up?" cried the Professor, seizing his arm. -"The morning star has fallen!" said Syme, as his own car -went down the darkness like a falling star. +"The morning star has fallen!" said Syme, as his own car went down the +darkness like a falling star. -The others did not understand his words, but when they -looked back at the street above they saw the hostile cavalry -coming round the corner and down the slopes after them; and -foremost of all rode the good innkeeper, flushed with the -fiery innocence of the evening light. +The others did not understand his words, but when they looked back at +the street above they saw the hostile cavalry coming round the corner +and down the slopes after them; and foremost of all rode the good +innkeeper, flushed with the fiery innocence of the evening light. -"The world is insane!" said the Professor, and buried his -face in his hands. +"The world is insane!" said the Professor, and buried his face in his +hands. "No," said Dr. Bull in adamantine humility, "it is I." "What are we going to do?" asked the Professor. -"At this moment," said Syme, with a scientific detachment, -"I think we are going to smash into a lamp-post." +"At this moment," said Syme, with a scientific detachment, "I think we +are going to smash into a lamp-post." -The next instant the automobile had come with a catastrophic -jar against an iron object. The instant after that four men -had crawled out from under a chaos of metal, and a tall lean -lamp-post that had stood up straight on the edge of the -marine parade stood out, bent and twisted, like the branch -of a broken tree. +The next instant the automobile had come with a catastrophic jar against +an iron object. The instant after that four men had crawled out from +under a chaos of metal, and a tall lean lamp-post that had stood up +straight on the edge of the marine parade stood out, bent and twisted, +like the branch of a broken tree. -"Well, we smashed something," said the Professor, with a -faint smile. "That's some comfort." +"Well, we smashed something," said the Professor, with a faint smile. +"That's some comfort." -"You're becoming an anarchist," said Syme, dusting his -clothes with his instinct of daintiness. +"You're becoming an anarchist," said Syme, dusting his clothes with his +instinct of daintiness. "Everyone is," said Ratcliffe. -As they spoke, the white-haired horseman and his followers -came thundering from above, and almost at the same moment a -dark string of men ran shouting along the sea-front. Syme -snatched a sword, and took it in his teeth; he stuck two -others under his arm-pits, took a fourth in his left hand -and the lantern in his right, and leapt off the high parade -on to the beach below. - -The others leapt after him, with a common acceptance of such -decisive action, leaving the debris and the gathering mob -above them. - -"We have one more chance," said Syme, taking the steel out -of his mouth. "Whatever all this pandemonium means, I -suppose the police station will help us. We can't get there, -for they hold the way. But there's a pier or breakwater runs -out into the sea just here, which we could defend longer -than anything else, like Horatius and his bridge. We must -defend it till the Gendarmerie turn out. Keep after me." - -They followed him as he went crunching down the beach, and -in a second or two their boots broke not on the sea gravel, -but on broad, flat stones. They marched down a long, low -jetty, running out in one arm into the dim, boiling sea, and -when they came to the end of it they felt that they had come -to the end of their story. They turned and faced the town. - -That town was transfigured with uproar. All along the high -parade from which they had just descended was a dark and -roaring stream of humanity, with tossing arms and fiery -faces, groping and glaring towards them. The long dark line -was dotted with torches and lanterns; but even where no -flame lit up a furious face, they could see in the farthest -figure, in the most shadowy gesture, an organised hate. It -was clear that they were the accursed of all men, and they -knew not why. - -Two or three men, looking little and black like monkeys, -leapt over the edge as they had done and dropped on to the -beach. These came ploughing down the deep sand, shouting -horribly, and strove to wade into the sea at random. The -example was followed, and the whole black mass of men began -to run and drip over the edge like black treacle. - -Foremost among the men on the beach Syme saw the peasant who -had driven their cart. He splashed into the surf on a huge -cart-horse, and shook his axe at them. - -"The peasant!" cried Syme. "They have not risen since the -Middle Ages." - -"Even if the police do come now," said the Professor -mournfully, "they can do nothing with this mob." - -"Nonsense!" said Bull desperately; "there must be some -people left in the town who are human." - -"No," said the hopeless Inspector, "the human being will -soon be extinct. We are the last of mankind." - -"It may be," said the Professor absently. Then he added in -his dreamy voice, "What is all that at the end of the -'Dunciad'? +As they spoke, the white-haired horseman and his followers came +thundering from above, and almost at the same moment a dark string of +men ran shouting along the sea-front. Syme snatched a sword, and took it +in his teeth; he stuck two others under his arm-pits, took a fourth in +his left hand and the lantern in his right, and leapt off the high +parade on to the beach below. + +The others leapt after him, with a common acceptance of such decisive +action, leaving the debris and the gathering mob above them. + +"We have one more chance," said Syme, taking the steel out of his mouth. +"Whatever all this pandemonium means, I suppose the police station will +help us. We can't get there, for they hold the way. But there's a pier +or breakwater runs out into the sea just here, which we could defend +longer than anything else, like Horatius and his bridge. We must defend +it till the Gendarmerie turn out. Keep after me." + +They followed him as he went crunching down the beach, and in a second +or two their boots broke not on the sea gravel, but on broad, flat +stones. They marched down a long, low jetty, running out in one arm into +the dim, boiling sea, and when they came to the end of it they felt that +they had come to the end of their story. They turned and faced the town. + +That town was transfigured with uproar. All along the high parade from +which they had just descended was a dark and roaring stream of humanity, +with tossing arms and fiery faces, groping and glaring towards them. The +long dark line was dotted with torches and lanterns; but even where no +flame lit up a furious face, they could see in the farthest figure, in +the most shadowy gesture, an organised hate. It was clear that they were +the accursed of all men, and they knew not why. + +Two or three men, looking little and black like monkeys, leapt over the +edge as they had done and dropped on to the beach. These came ploughing +down the deep sand, shouting horribly, and strove to wade into the sea +at random. The example was followed, and the whole black mass of men +began to run and drip over the edge like black treacle. + +Foremost among the men on the beach Syme saw the peasant who had driven +their cart. He splashed into the surf on a huge cart-horse, and shook +his axe at them. + +"The peasant!" cried Syme. "They have not risen since the Middle Ages." + +"Even if the police do come now," said the Professor mournfully, "they +can do nothing with this mob." + +"Nonsense!" said Bull desperately; "there must be some people left in +the town who are human." + +"No," said the hopeless Inspector, "the human being will soon be +extinct. We are the last of mankind." + +"It may be," said the Professor absently. Then he added in his dreamy +voice, "What is all that at the end of the 'Dunciad'? >  'Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine; > @@ -5676,221 +4959,192 @@ his dreamy voice, "What is all that at the end of the "Stop!" cried Bull suddenly, "the gendarmes are out." -The low lights of the police station were indeed blotted and -broken with hurrying figures, and they heard through the -darkness the clash and jingle of a disciplined cavalry. +The low lights of the police station were indeed blotted and broken with +hurrying figures, and they heard through the darkness the clash and +jingle of a disciplined cavalry. "They are charging the mob!" cried Bull in ecstasy or alarm. "No," said Syme, "they are formed along the parade." -"They have unslung their carbines," cried Bull, dancing with -excitement. +"They have unslung their carbines," cried Bull, dancing with excitement. "Yes," said Ratcliffe, "and they are going to fire on us." -As he spoke there came a long crackle of musketry, and -bullets seemed to hop like hailstones on the stones in front -of them. +As he spoke there came a long crackle of musketry, and bullets seemed to +hop like hailstones on the stones in front of them. -"The gendarmes have joined them!" cried the Professor, and -struck his forehead. +"The gendarmes have joined them!" cried the Professor, and struck his +forehead. "I am in the padded cell," said Bull solidly. -There was a long silence, and then Ratcliffe said, looking -out over the swollen sea, all a sort of grey purple--- +There was a long silence, and then Ratcliffe said, looking out over the +swollen sea, all a sort of grey purple--- -"What does it matter who is mad or who is sane? We shall all -be dead soon." +"What does it matter who is mad or who is sane? We shall all be dead +soon." Syme turned to him and said--- "You are quite hopeless, then?" -Mr. Ratcliffe kept a stony silence; then at last he said -quietly--- +Mr. Ratcliffe kept a stony silence; then at last he said quietly--- -"No; oddly enough I am not quite hopeless. There is one -insane little hope that I cannot get out of my mind. The -power of this whole planet is against us, yet I cannot help -wondering whether this one silly little hope is hopeless -yet." +"No; oddly enough I am not quite hopeless. There is one insane little +hope that I cannot get out of my mind. The power of this whole planet is +against us, yet I cannot help wondering whether this one silly little +hope is hopeless yet." "In what or whom is your hope?" asked Syme with curiosity. -"In a man I never saw," said the other, looking at the -leaden sea. +"In a man I never saw," said the other, looking at the leaden sea. -"I know what you mean," said Syme in a low voice, "the man -in the dark room. But Sunday must have killed him by now." +"I know what you mean," said Syme in a low voice, "the man in the dark +room. But Sunday must have killed him by now." -"Perhaps," said the other steadily; "but if so, he was the -only man whom Sunday found it hard to kill." +"Perhaps," said the other steadily; "but if so, he was the only man whom +Sunday found it hard to kill." -"I heard what you said," said the Professor, with his back -turned. "I also am holding hard on to the thing I never -saw." +"I heard what you said," said the Professor, with his back turned. "I +also am holding hard on to the thing I never saw." -All of a sudden Syme, who was standing as if blind with -introspective thought, swung round and cried out, like a man -waking from sleep--- +All of a sudden Syme, who was standing as if blind with introspective +thought, swung round and cried out, like a man waking from sleep--- "Where is the Colonel? I thought he was with us!" -"The Colonel! Yes," cried Bull, "where on earth is the -Colonel?" +"The Colonel! Yes," cried Bull, "where on earth is the Colonel?" "He went to speak to Renard," said the Professor. -"We cannot leave him among all those beasts," cried Syme. -"Let us die like gentlemen if---" - -"Do not pity the Colonel," said Ratcliffe, with a pale -sneer. "He is extremely comfortable. He is---" - -"No! no! no!" cried Syme in a kind of frenzy, "not the -Colonel too! I will never believe it!" - -"Will you believe your eyes?" asked the other, and pointed -to the beach. - -Many of their pursuers had waded into the water shaking -their fists, but the sea was rough, and they could not reach -the pier. Two or three figures, however, stood on the -beginning of the stone footway, and seemed to be cautiously -advancing down it. The glare of a chance lantern lit up the -faces of the two foremost. One face wore a black half-mask, -and under it the mouth was twisting about in such a madness -of nerves that the black tuft of beard wriggled round and -round like a restless, living thing. The other was the red -face and white moustache of Colonel Ducroix. They were in -earnest consultation. - -"Yes, he is gone too," said the Professor, and sat down on a -stone. "Everything's gone. I'm gone! I can't trust my own -bodily machinery. I feel as if my own hand might fly up and -strike me." - -"When my hand flies up," said Syme, "it will strike somebody -else," and he strode along the pier towards the Colonel, the -sword in one hand and the lantern in the other. - -As if to destroy the last hope or doubt, the Colonel, who -saw him coming, pointed his revolver at him and fired. The -shot missed Syme, but struck his sword, breaking it short at -the hilt. Syme rushed on, and swung the iron lantern above -his head. - -"Judas before Herod!" he said, and struck the Colonel down -upon the stones. Then he turned to the Secretary, whose -frightful mouth was almost foaming now, and held the lamp -high with so rigid and arresting a gesture, that the man -was, as it were, frozen for a moment, and forced to hear. - -"Do you see this lantern?" cried Syme in a terrible voice. -"Do you see the cross carved on it, and the flame inside? -You did not make it. You did not light it. Better men than -you, men who could believe and obey, twisted the entrails oi -iron and preserved the legend of fire. There is not a street -you walk on, there is not a thread you wear, that was not -made as this lantern was, by denying your philosophy of dirt -and rats. You can make nothing. You can only destroy. You -w'ill destroy mankind; you will destroy the world. Let that -suffice you. Yet this one old Christian lantern you shall -not destroy. It shall go where your empire of apes will -never have the wit to find it." - -He struck the Secretary once with the lantern so that he -staggered; and then, whirling it twice round his head, sent -it flying far out to sea, where it flared like a roaring -rocket and fell. - -"Swords!" shouted Syme, turning his flaming face to the -three behind him. "Let us charge these dogs, for our time -has come to die." - -His three companions came after him sword in hand. Syme's -sword was broken, but he rent a bludgeon from the fist of a -fisherman, flinging him down. In a moment they would have -flung themselves upon the face of the mob and perished, when -an interruption came. The Secretary, ever since Syme's -speech, had stood with his hand to his stricken head as if +"We cannot leave him among all those beasts," cried Syme. "Let us die +like gentlemen if---" + +"Do not pity the Colonel," said Ratcliffe, with a pale sneer. "He is +extremely comfortable. He is---" + +"No! no! no!" cried Syme in a kind of frenzy, "not the Colonel too! I +will never believe it!" + +"Will you believe your eyes?" asked the other, and pointed to the beach. + +Many of their pursuers had waded into the water shaking their fists, but +the sea was rough, and they could not reach the pier. Two or three +figures, however, stood on the beginning of the stone footway, and +seemed to be cautiously advancing down it. The glare of a chance lantern +lit up the faces of the two foremost. One face wore a black half-mask, +and under it the mouth was twisting about in such a madness of nerves +that the black tuft of beard wriggled round and round like a restless, +living thing. The other was the red face and white moustache of Colonel +Ducroix. They were in earnest consultation. + +"Yes, he is gone too," said the Professor, and sat down on a stone. +"Everything's gone. I'm gone! I can't trust my own bodily machinery. I +feel as if my own hand might fly up and strike me." + +"When my hand flies up," said Syme, "it will strike somebody else," and +he strode along the pier towards the Colonel, the sword in one hand and +the lantern in the other. + +As if to destroy the last hope or doubt, the Colonel, who saw him +coming, pointed his revolver at him and fired. The shot missed Syme, but +struck his sword, breaking it short at the hilt. Syme rushed on, and +swung the iron lantern above his head. + +"Judas before Herod!" he said, and struck the Colonel down upon the +stones. Then he turned to the Secretary, whose frightful mouth was +almost foaming now, and held the lamp high with so rigid and arresting a +gesture, that the man was, as it were, frozen for a moment, and forced +to hear. + +"Do you see this lantern?" cried Syme in a terrible voice. "Do you see +the cross carved on it, and the flame inside? You did not make it. You +did not light it. Better men than you, men who could believe and obey, +twisted the entrails oi iron and preserved the legend of fire. There is +not a street you walk on, there is not a thread you wear, that was not +made as this lantern was, by denying your philosophy of dirt and rats. +You can make nothing. You can only destroy. You w'ill destroy mankind; +you will destroy the world. Let that suffice you. Yet this one old +Christian lantern you shall not destroy. It shall go where your empire +of apes will never have the wit to find it." + +He struck the Secretary once with the lantern so that he staggered; and +then, whirling it twice round his head, sent it flying far out to sea, +where it flared like a roaring rocket and fell. + +"Swords!" shouted Syme, turning his flaming face to the three behind +him. "Let us charge these dogs, for our time has come to die." + +His three companions came after him sword in hand. Syme's sword was +broken, but he rent a bludgeon from the fist of a fisherman, flinging +him down. In a moment they would have flung themselves upon the face of +the mob and perished, when an interruption came. The Secretary, ever +since Syme's speech, had stood with his hand to his stricken head as if dazed; now he suddenly pulled off his black mask. -The pale face thus peeled in the lamplight revealed not so -much rage as astonishment. He put up his hand with an -anxious authority. +The pale face thus peeled in the lamplight revealed not so much rage as +astonishment. He put up his hand with an anxious authority. -"There is some mistake," he said. "Mr. Syme, I hardly think -you understand your position. I arrest you in the name of -the law." +"There is some mistake," he said. "Mr. Syme, I hardly think you +understand your position. I arrest you in the name of the law." "Of the law?" said Syme, and dropped his stick. -"Certainly!" said the Secretary. "I am a detective from -Scotland Yard," and he took a small blue card from his -pocket. +"Certainly!" said the Secretary. "I am a detective from Scotland Yard," +and he took a small blue card from his pocket. -"And what do you suppose we are?" asked the Professor, and -threw up his arms. +"And what do you suppose we are?" asked the Professor, and threw up his +arms. -"You," said the Secretary stiffly, "are, as I know for a -fact, members of the Supreme Anarchist Council. Disguised as -one of you, I---" +"You," said the Secretary stiffly, "are, as I know for a fact, members +of the Supreme Anarchist Council. Disguised as one of you, I---" Dr. Bull tossed his sword into the sea. -"There never was any Supreme Anarchist Council," he said. -"We were all a lot of silly policemen looking at each other. -And all these nice people who have been peppering us with -shot thought we were the dynamiters. I knew I couldn't be -wrong about the mob," he said, beaming over the enormous -multitude, which stretched away to the distance on both -sides. "Vulgar people are never mad. I'm vulgar myself, and -I know. I am now going on shore to stand a drink to -everybody here." +"There never was any Supreme Anarchist Council," he said. "We were all a +lot of silly policemen looking at each other. And all these nice people +who have been peppering us with shot thought we were the dynamiters. I +knew I couldn't be wrong about the mob," he said, beaming over the +enormous multitude, which stretched away to the distance on both sides. +"Vulgar people are never mad. I'm vulgar myself, and I know. I am now +going on shore to stand a drink to everybody here." # The Pursuit of the President -Next morning five bewildered but hilarious people took the -boat for Dover. The poor old Colonel might have had some -cause to complain, having been first forced to fight for two -factions that didn't exist, and then knocked down with an -iron lantern. But he was a magnanimous old gentleman, and -being much relieved that neither party had anything to do -with dynamite, he saw them off on the pier with great -geniality. - -The five reconciled detectives had a hundred details to -explain to each other. The Secretary had to tell Syme how -they had come to wear masks originally in order to approach -the supposed enemy as fellow-conspirators; Syme had to -explain how they had fled with such swiftness through a -civilised country. But above all these matters of detail -which could be explained, rose the central mountain of the -matter that they could not explain. What did it all mean? If -they were all harmless officers, what was Sunday? If he had -not seized the world, what on earth had he been up to? -Inspector Rat cliff e was still gloomy about this. - -"I can't make head or tail of old Sunday's little game any -more than you can," he said. "But whatever else Sunday is, -he isn't a blameless citizen. Damn it! do you remember his -face?" - -"I grant you," answered Syme, "that I have never been able -to forget it." - -"Well," said the Secretary, "I suppose we can find out soon, -for to-morrow we have our next general meeting. You will -excuse me," he said, with a rather ghastly smile, "for being -well acquainted with my secretarial duties." - -"I suppose you are right," said the Professor reflectively. -"I suppose we might find it out from him; but I confess that -I should feel a bit afraid of asking Sunday who he really -is." +Next morning five bewildered but hilarious people took the boat for +Dover. The poor old Colonel might have had some cause to complain, +having been first forced to fight for two factions that didn't exist, +and then knocked down with an iron lantern. But he was a magnanimous old +gentleman, and being much relieved that neither party had anything to do +with dynamite, he saw them off on the pier with great geniality. + +The five reconciled detectives had a hundred details to explain to each +other. The Secretary had to tell Syme how they had come to wear masks +originally in order to approach the supposed enemy as +fellow-conspirators; Syme had to explain how they had fled with such +swiftness through a civilised country. But above all these matters of +detail which could be explained, rose the central mountain of the matter +that they could not explain. What did it all mean? If they were all +harmless officers, what was Sunday? If he had not seized the world, what +on earth had he been up to? Inspector Rat cliff e was still gloomy about +this. + +"I can't make head or tail of old Sunday's little game any more than you +can," he said. "But whatever else Sunday is, he isn't a blameless +citizen. Damn it! do you remember his face?" + +"I grant you," answered Syme, "that I have never been able to forget +it." + +"Well," said the Secretary, "I suppose we can find out soon, for +to-morrow we have our next general meeting. You will excuse me," he +said, with a rather ghastly smile, "for being well acquainted with my +secretarial duties." + +"I suppose you are right," said the Professor reflectively. "I suppose +we might find it out from him; but I confess that I should feel a bit +afraid of asking Sunday who he really is." "Why," asked the Secretary, "for fear of bombs?" @@ -5898,435 +5152,380 @@ is." "Let us have some drinks," said Dr. Bull, after a silence. -Throughout their whole journey by boat and train they were -highly convivial, but they instinctively kept together. -Dr. Bull, who had always been the optimist of the party, -endeavoured to persuade the other four that the whole -company could take the same hansom cab from Victoria; but -this was overruled, and they went in a four-wheeler, with -Dr. Bull on the box, singing. They finished their journey at -an hotel in Piccadilly Circus, so as to be close to the -early breakfast next morning in Leicester Square. Yet even -then the adventures of the day were not entirely over. -Dr. Bull, discontented with the general proposal to go to -bed, had strolled out of the hotel at about eleven to see -and taste some of the beauties of London. Twenty minutes -afterwards, however, he came back and made quite a clamour -in the hall. Syme, who tried at first to soothe him, was -forced at last to listen to his communication with quite new -attention. - -"I tell you I've seen him!" said Dr. Bull, with thick -emphasis. +Throughout their whole journey by boat and train they were highly +convivial, but they instinctively kept together. Dr. Bull, who had +always been the optimist of the party, endeavoured to persuade the other +four that the whole company could take the same hansom cab from +Victoria; but this was overruled, and they went in a four-wheeler, with +Dr. Bull on the box, singing. They finished their journey at an hotel in +Piccadilly Circus, so as to be close to the early breakfast next morning +in Leicester Square. Yet even then the adventures of the day were not +entirely over. Dr. Bull, discontented with the general proposal to go to +bed, had strolled out of the hotel at about eleven to see and taste some +of the beauties of London. Twenty minutes afterwards, however, he came +back and made quite a clamour in the hall. Syme, who tried at first to +soothe him, was forced at last to listen to his communication with quite +new attention. + +"I tell you I've seen him!" said Dr. Bull, with thick emphasis. "Whom?" asked Syme quickly. "Not the President?" -"Not so bad as that," said Dr. Bull, with unnecessary -laughter, "not so bad as that. I've got him here." +"Not so bad as that," said Dr. Bull, with unnecessary laughter, "not so +bad as that. I've got him here." "Got whom here?" asked Syme impatiently. -"Hairy man," said the other lucidly, "man that used to be -hairy man---Gogol. Here he is," and he pulled forward by a -reluctant elbow the identical young man who five days before -had marched out of the Council with thin red hair and a pale -face, the first of all the sham anarchists who had been -exposed. +"Hairy man," said the other lucidly, "man that used to be hairy +man---Gogol. Here he is," and he pulled forward by a reluctant elbow the +identical young man who five days before had marched out of the Council +with thin red hair and a pale face, the first of all the sham anarchists +who had been exposed. -"Why do you worry with me?" he cried. "You have expelled me -as a spy." +"Why do you worry with me?" he cried. "You have expelled me as a spy." "We are all spies!" whispered Syme. -"We're all spies!" shouted Dr. Bull. "Come and have a -drink." +"We're all spies!" shouted Dr. Bull. "Come and have a drink." -Next morning the battalion of the reunited six marched -stolidly towards the hotel in Leicester Square. +Next morning the battalion of the reunited six marched stolidly towards +the hotel in Leicester Square. -"This is more cheerful," said Dr. Bull; "we are six men -going to ask one man what he means." +"This is more cheerful," said Dr. Bull; "we are six men going to ask one +man what he means." -"I think it is a bit queerer than that," said Syme. "I think -it is six men going to ask one man what they mean." +"I think it is a bit queerer than that," said Syme. "I think it is six +men going to ask one man what they mean." -They turned in silence into the Square, and though the hotel -was in the opposite corner, they saw at once the little -balcony and a figure that looked too big for it. He was -sitting alone with bent head, poring over a newspaper. But -all his councillors, who had come to vote him down, crossed -that square as if they were watched out of heaven by a -hundred eyes. +They turned in silence into the Square, and though the hotel was in the +opposite corner, they saw at once the little balcony and a figure that +looked too big for it. He was sitting alone with bent head, poring over +a newspaper. But all his councillors, who had come to vote him down, +crossed that square as if they were watched out of heaven by a hundred +eyes. -They had disputed much upon their policy, about whether they -should leave the unmasked Gogol without and begin -diplomatically, or whether they should bring him in and blow -up the gunpowder at once. The influence of Syme and Bull -prevailed for the latter course, though the Secretary to the -last asked them why they attacked Sunday so rashly. +They had disputed much upon their policy, about whether they should +leave the unmasked Gogol without and begin diplomatically, or whether +they should bring him in and blow up the gunpowder at once. The +influence of Syme and Bull prevailed for the latter course, though the +Secretary to the last asked them why they attacked Sunday so rashly. -"My reason is quite simple," said Syme. "I attack him rashly -because I am afraid of him." +"My reason is quite simple," said Syme. "I attack him rashly because I +am afraid of him." -They followed Syme up the dark stair in silence, and they -all came out simultaneously into the broad sunlight of the -morning and the broad sunlight of Sunday's smile. +They followed Syme up the dark stair in silence, and they all came out +simultaneously into the broad sunlight of the morning and the broad +sunlight of Sunday's smile. -"Delightful!" he said. "So pleased to see you all. What an -exquisite day it is. Is the Czar dead?" +"Delightful!" he said. "So pleased to see you all. What an exquisite day +it is. Is the Czar dead?" -The Secretary, who happened to be foremost, drew himself -together for a dignified outburst. +The Secretary, who happened to be foremost, drew himself together for a +dignified outburst. -"No, sir," he said sternly, "there has been no massacre. I -bring you news of no such disgusting spectacles." +"No, sir," he said sternly, "there has been no massacre. I bring you +news of no such disgusting spectacles." -"Disgusting spectacles?" repeated the President, with a -bright, inquiring smile. "You mean Dr. Bull's spectacles?" +"Disgusting spectacles?" repeated the President, with a bright, +inquiring smile. "You mean Dr. Bull's spectacles?" -The Secretary choked for a moment, and the President went on -with a sort of smooth appeal--- +The Secretary choked for a moment, and the President went on with a sort +of smooth appeal--- -"Of course, we all have our opinions and even our eyes, but -really to call them disgusting before the man himself---" +"Of course, we all have our opinions and even our eyes, but really to +call them disgusting before the man himself---" -Dr. Bull tore off his spectacles and broke them on the -table. +Dr. Bull tore off his spectacles and broke them on the table. -"My spectacles are blackguardly," he said, "but T'm not. -Look at my face." +"My spectacles are blackguardly," he said, "but T'm not. Look at my +face." -"I dare say it's the sort of face that grows on one," said -the President, "in fact, it grows on you; and who am I to -quarrel with the wild fruits upon the Tree of Life? I dare -say it will grow on me some day." +"I dare say it's the sort of face that grows on one," said the +President, "in fact, it grows on you; and who am I to quarrel with the +wild fruits upon the Tree of Life? I dare say it will grow on me some +day." -"We have no time for tomfoolery," said the Secretary, -breaking in savagely. "We have come to know what all this -means. Who are you? What are you? Why did you get us all -here? Do you know who and what we are? Are you a half-witted -man playing the conspirator, or are you a clever man playing -the fool? Answer me, I tell you." +"We have no time for tomfoolery," said the Secretary, breaking in +savagely. "We have come to know what all this means. Who are you? What +are you? Why did you get us all here? Do you know who and what we are? +Are you a half-witted man playing the conspirator, or are you a clever +man playing the fool? Answer me, I tell you." -"Candidates," murmured Sunday, "are only required to answer -eight out of the seventeen questions on the paper. As far as -I can make out, you want me to tell you what I am, and what -you are, and what this table is, and what this Council is, -and what this world is for all I know. Well, I will go so -far as to rend the veil of one mystery. If you want to know -what you are, you are a set of highly well-intentioned young -jackasses." +"Candidates," murmured Sunday, "are only required to answer eight out of +the seventeen questions on the paper. As far as I can make out, you want +me to tell you what I am, and what you are, and what this table is, and +what this Council is, and what this world is for all I know. Well, I +will go so far as to rend the veil of one mystery. If you want to know +what you are, you are a set of highly well-intentioned young jackasses." "And you," said Syme, leaning forward, "what are you?" -"I? What am I?" roared the President, and he rose slowly to -an incredible height, like some enormous wave about to arch -above them and break. "You want to know what I am, do you? -Bull, you are a man of science. Grub in the roots of those -trees and find out the truth about them. Syme, you are a -poet. Stare at those morning clouds, and tell me or anyone -the truth about morning clouds. But I tell you this, that -you will have found out the truth of the last tree and the -topmost cloud before the truth about me. You will understand -the sea, and I shall be still a riddle; you shall know what -the stars are, and not know what I am. Since the beginning -of the world all men have hunted me like a wolf--- kings and -sages, and poets and law-givers, all the churches, and all -the philosophies. But I have never been caught yet, and the -skies will fall in the time I turn to bay. I have given them -a good run for their money, and I will i ow." - -Before one of them could move, the monstrous man had swung -himself like some huge orangutang over the balustrade of the -balcony. Yet before he dropped he pulled himself up again as -on a horizontal bar, and thrusting his great chin over the -edge of the balcony, said solemnly--- - -"There's one thing I'll tell you though about who I am. I am -the man in the dark room, who made you all policemen." - -With that he fell from the balcony, bouncing on the stones -below like a great ball of India-rubber, and went bounding -oh towards the corner of the Alhambra, where he hailed a -hansom-cab and sprang inside it. The six detectives had been -standing thunderstruck and livid in the light of his last -assertion; but when he disappeared into the cab, Syme's -practical senses returned to him, and leaping over the -balcony so recklessly as almost to break his legs, he called -another cab. - -He and Bull sprang into the cab together, the Professor and -the Inspector into another, while the Secretary and the late -Gogol scrambled into a third just in time to pursue the -flying Syme, who was pursuing the flying President. Sunday -led them a wild chase towards the north-west, his cabman, -evidently under the influence of more than common -inducements, urging the horse at breakneck speed. But Syme -was in no mood for delicacies, and he stood up in his own -cab shouting, "Stop thief!" until crowds ran along beside -his cab, and policemen began to stop and ask questions. All -this had its influence upon the President's cabman, who -began to look dubious, and to slow down to a trot. He opened -the trap to talk reasonably to his fare, and in so doing let -the long whip droop over the front of the cab. Sunday leant -forward, seized it, and jerked it violently out of the man's -hand. Then standing up in front of the cab himself, he -lashed the horse and roared aloud, so that they went down -the streets like a flying storm. Through street after street -and square after square went whirling this preposterous -vehicle, in which the fare was urging the horse and the -driver trying desperately to stop it. The other three cabs -came after it (if the phrase be permissible of a cab) like -panting hounds. Shops and streets shot by Hke rattling -arrows. - -At the highest ecstasy of speed, Sunday turned round on the -splashboard where he stood, and sticking his great grinning -head out of the cab, with white hair whistling in the wind, -he made a horrible face at his pursuers, like some colossal -urchin. Then raising his right hand swiftly, he flung a ball -of paper in Syme's face and vanished. Syme caught the thing -while instinctively warding it off, and discovered that it -consisted of two crumpled papers. One was addressed to -himself, and the other to Dr. Bull, with a very long, and it -is to be feared partly ironical, string of letters after his -name. Dr. Bull's address was, at any rate, considerably -longer than his communication, for the communication -consisted entirely of the words:--- +"I? What am I?" roared the President, and he rose slowly to an +incredible height, like some enormous wave about to arch above them and +break. "You want to know what I am, do you? Bull, you are a man of +science. Grub in the roots of those trees and find out the truth about +them. Syme, you are a poet. Stare at those morning clouds, and tell me +or anyone the truth about morning clouds. But I tell you this, that you +will have found out the truth of the last tree and the topmost cloud +before the truth about me. You will understand the sea, and I shall be +still a riddle; you shall know what the stars are, and not know what I +am. Since the beginning of the world all men have hunted me like a +wolf--- kings and sages, and poets and law-givers, all the churches, and +all the philosophies. But I have never been caught yet, and the skies +will fall in the time I turn to bay. I have given them a good run for +their money, and I will i ow." + +Before one of them could move, the monstrous man had swung himself like +some huge orangutang over the balustrade of the balcony. Yet before he +dropped he pulled himself up again as on a horizontal bar, and thrusting +his great chin over the edge of the balcony, said solemnly--- + +"There's one thing I'll tell you though about who I am. I am the man in +the dark room, who made you all policemen." + +With that he fell from the balcony, bouncing on the stones below like a +great ball of India-rubber, and went bounding oh towards the corner of +the Alhambra, where he hailed a hansom-cab and sprang inside it. The six +detectives had been standing thunderstruck and livid in the light of his +last assertion; but when he disappeared into the cab, Syme's practical +senses returned to him, and leaping over the balcony so recklessly as +almost to break his legs, he called another cab. + +He and Bull sprang into the cab together, the Professor and the +Inspector into another, while the Secretary and the late Gogol scrambled +into a third just in time to pursue the flying Syme, who was pursuing +the flying President. Sunday led them a wild chase towards the +north-west, his cabman, evidently under the influence of more than +common inducements, urging the horse at breakneck speed. But Syme was in +no mood for delicacies, and he stood up in his own cab shouting, "Stop +thief!" until crowds ran along beside his cab, and policemen began to +stop and ask questions. All this had its influence upon the President's +cabman, who began to look dubious, and to slow down to a trot. He opened +the trap to talk reasonably to his fare, and in so doing let the long +whip droop over the front of the cab. Sunday leant forward, seized it, +and jerked it violently out of the man's hand. Then standing up in front +of the cab himself, he lashed the horse and roared aloud, so that they +went down the streets like a flying storm. Through street after street +and square after square went whirling this preposterous vehicle, in +which the fare was urging the horse and the driver trying desperately to +stop it. The other three cabs came after it (if the phrase be +permissible of a cab) like panting hounds. Shops and streets shot by Hke +rattling arrows. + +At the highest ecstasy of speed, Sunday turned round on the splashboard +where he stood, and sticking his great grinning head out of the cab, +with white hair whistling in the wind, he made a horrible face at his +pursuers, like some colossal urchin. Then raising his right hand +swiftly, he flung a ball of paper in Syme's face and vanished. Syme +caught the thing while instinctively warding it off, and discovered that +it consisted of two crumpled papers. One was addressed to himself, and +the other to Dr. Bull, with a very long, and it is to be feared partly +ironical, string of letters after his name. Dr. Bull's address was, at +any rate, considerably longer than his communication, for the +communication consisted entirely of the words:--- >  "What about Martin Tupper *now*?" -"What does the old maniac mean?" asked Bull, staring at the -words. "What does yours say, Syme?" - -Syme's message was, at any rate, longer, and ran as -follows:--- - ->  "No one would regret anything in the nature of an -> interference by the Archdeacon more than I. I trust it -> will not come to that. But, for the last time, where are -> your galoshes? The thing is too bad, especially after what -> uncle said." - -The President's cabman seemed to be regaining some control -over his horse, and the pursuers gained a little as they -swept round into the Edgware Road. And here there occurred -what seemed to the allies a providential stoppage. Traffic -of every kind was swerving to right or left or stopping, for -down the long road was coming the unmistakable roar -announcing the fire-engine, which in a few seconds went by -like a brazen thunder-bolt. But quick as it went by, Sunday -had bounded out of his cab, sprung at the fire-engine, -caught it, slung himself on to it, and was seen as he -disappeared in the noisy distance talking to the astonished -fireman with explanatory gestures. - -"After him!" howled Syme. "He can't go astray now. There's -no mistaking a fire-engine." - -The three cabmen, who had been stunned for a moment, whipped -up their horses and slightly decreased the distance between -themselves and their disappearing prey. The President -acknowledged this proximity by coming to the back of the -car, bowing repeatedly, kissing his hand, and finally -flinging a neatly-folded note into the bosom of Inspector -Ratcliffe. When that gentleman opened it, not without -impatience, he found it contained the words:--- - ->  "Fly at once. The truth about your trouser-stretchers is -> known.---**A Friend.**" - -The fire-engine had struck still farther to the north, into -a region that they did not recognise; and as it ran by a -line of high railings shadowed with trees, the six friends -were startled, but somewhat relieved, to see the President -leap from the fire-engine, though whether through another -whim or the increasing protest of his entertainers they -could not see. Before the three cabs, however, could reach -up to the spot, he had gone up the high railings like a huge -grey cat, tossed himself over, and vanished in a darkness of -leaves. - -Syme with a furious gesture stopped his cab, jumped out, and -sprang also to the escalade. When he had one leg over the -fence and his friends were following, he turned a face on -them which shone quite pale in the shadow. - -"What place can this be?" he asked, "Can it be the old -devil's house? I've heard he has a house in North London." - -"All the better," said the Secretary grimly, planting a foot -in a foothold, "we shall find him at home." - -"No, but it isn't that," said Syme, knitting his brows. "I -hear the most horrible noises, like devils laughing and -sneezing and blowing their devilish noses!" +"What does the old maniac mean?" asked Bull, staring at the words. "What +does yours say, Syme?" + +Syme's message was, at any rate, longer, and ran as follows:--- + +>  "No one would regret anything in the nature of an interference by the +> Archdeacon more than I. I trust it will not come to that. But, for the +> last time, where are your galoshes? The thing is too bad, especially +> after what uncle said." + +The President's cabman seemed to be regaining some control over his +horse, and the pursuers gained a little as they swept round into the +Edgware Road. And here there occurred what seemed to the allies a +providential stoppage. Traffic of every kind was swerving to right or +left or stopping, for down the long road was coming the unmistakable +roar announcing the fire-engine, which in a few seconds went by like a +brazen thunder-bolt. But quick as it went by, Sunday had bounded out of +his cab, sprung at the fire-engine, caught it, slung himself on to it, +and was seen as he disappeared in the noisy distance talking to the +astonished fireman with explanatory gestures. + +"After him!" howled Syme. "He can't go astray now. There's no mistaking +a fire-engine." + +The three cabmen, who had been stunned for a moment, whipped up their +horses and slightly decreased the distance between themselves and their +disappearing prey. The President acknowledged this proximity by coming +to the back of the car, bowing repeatedly, kissing his hand, and finally +flinging a neatly-folded note into the bosom of Inspector Ratcliffe. +When that gentleman opened it, not without impatience, he found it +contained the words:--- + +>  "Fly at once. The truth about your trouser-stretchers is known.---**A +> Friend.**" + +The fire-engine had struck still farther to the north, into a region +that they did not recognise; and as it ran by a line of high railings +shadowed with trees, the six friends were startled, but somewhat +relieved, to see the President leap from the fire-engine, though whether +through another whim or the increasing protest of his entertainers they +could not see. Before the three cabs, however, could reach up to the +spot, he had gone up the high railings like a huge grey cat, tossed +himself over, and vanished in a darkness of leaves. + +Syme with a furious gesture stopped his cab, jumped out, and sprang also +to the escalade. When he had one leg over the fence and his friends were +following, he turned a face on them which shone quite pale in the +shadow. + +"What place can this be?" he asked, "Can it be the old devil's house? +I've heard he has a house in North London." + +"All the better," said the Secretary grimly, planting a foot in a +foothold, "we shall find him at home." + +"No, but it isn't that," said Syme, knitting his brows. "I hear the most +horrible noises, like devils laughing and sneezing and blowing their +devilish noses!" "His dogs barking, of course," said the Secretary. -"Why not say his black-beetles barking!" said Syme -furiously, "snails barking! geraniums barking! Did you ever -hear a dog bark like that?" +"Why not say his black-beetles barking!" said Syme furiously, "snails +barking! geraniums barking! Did you ever hear a dog bark like that?" -He held up his hand, and there came out of the thicket a -long growling roar that seemed to get under the skin and -freeze the flesh---a low thrilling roar that made a -throbbing in the air all about them. +He held up his hand, and there came out of the thicket a long growling +roar that seemed to get under the skin and freeze the flesh---a low +thrilling roar that made a throbbing in the air all about them. -"The dogs of Sunday would be no ordinary dogs," said Gogol, -and shuddered. +"The dogs of Sunday would be no ordinary dogs," said Gogol, and +shuddered. -Syme had jumped down on the other side, but he still stood -listening impatiently. +Syme had jumped down on the other side, but he still stood listening +impatiently. -"Well, listen to that," he said, "is that a dog---anybody's -dog?" +"Well, listen to that," he said, "is that a dog---anybody's dog?" -There broke upon their ear a hoarse screaming as of things -protesting and clamouring in sudden pain; and then, far off -like an echo, what sounded like a long nasal trumpet. +There broke upon their ear a hoarse screaming as of things protesting +and clamouring in sudden pain; and then, far off like an echo, what +sounded like a long nasal trumpet. -"Well, his house ought to be hell!" said the Secretary; "and -if it is hell, I'm going in!" and he sprang over the tall -railings almost with one swing. +"Well, his house ought to be hell!" said the Secretary; "and if it is +hell, I'm going in!" and he sprang over the tall railings almost with +one swing. -The others followed. They broke through a tangle of plants -and shrubs, and came out on an open path. Nothing was in -sight, but Dr. Bull suddenly struck his hands together. +The others followed. They broke through a tangle of plants and shrubs, +and came out on an open path. Nothing was in sight, but Dr. Bull +suddenly struck his hands together. "Why, you asses," he cried, "it's the Zoo!" -As they were looking round wildly for any trace of their -wild quarry, a keeper in uniform came running along the path -with a man in plain clothes. +As they were looking round wildly for any trace of their wild quarry, a +keeper in uniform came running along the path with a man in plain +clothes. "Has it come this way?" gasped the keeper. "Has what?" asked Syme. -"The elephant!" cried the keeper. "An elephant has gone mad -and run away!" - -"He has run away with an old gentleman," said the other -stranger breathlessly, "a poor old gentleman with white -hair!" - -"What sort of old gentleman?" asked Syme, with great -curiosity. - -"A very large and fat old gentleman in light grey clothes," -said the keeper eagerly. - -"Well," said Syme, "if he's that particular kind of old -gentleman, if you are quite sure that he's a large and fat -old gentleman in grey clothes, you may take my word for it -that the elephant has not run away with him. He has run away -with the elephant. The elephant is not made by God that -could run away with him if he did not consent to the -elopement. And, by thunder, there he is!" - -There was no doubt about it this time. Clean across the -space of grass, about two hundred yards away, with a crowd -screaming and scampering vainly at his heels, went a huge -grey elephant at an awful stride, with his trunk thrown out -as rigid as a ship's bowsprit, and trumpeting like the -trumpet of doom. On the back of the bellowing and plunging -animal sat President Sunday with all the placidity of a -sultan, but goading the animal to a furious speed with some -sharp object in his hand. - -"Stop him!" screamed the populace. "He'll be out of the -gate!" - -"Stop a landslide!" said the keeper. "He is out of the -gate!" - -And even as he spoke, a final crash and roar of terror -announced that the great grey elephant had broken out of the -gates of the Zoological Gardens, and was careering down -Albany Street like a new and swift sort of omnibus. - -"Great Lord!" cried Bull, "I never knew an elephant could go -so fast. Well, it must be hansom-cabs again if we t.re even -to keep him in sight." - -As they raced along to the gate out of which the elephant -had vanished, Syme felt a glaring panorama of the strange -animals in the cages which they passed. Afterwards he -thought it queer that he should have seen them so clearly. -He remembered especially seeing pelicans, with their -preposterous, pendant throats. He wondered why the pelican -was the symbol of charity, except it was that it wanted a -good deal of charity to admire a pelican. He remembered a -hornbill, which was simply a huge yellow beak with a small -bird tied on behind it. The whole gave him a sensation, the -vividness of which he could not explain, that Nature was -always making quite mysterious jokes. Sunday had told them -that they would understand him when they had understood the -stars. He wondered whether even the archangels understood -the hornbill. - -The six unhappy detectives flung themselves into cabs and -followed the elephant, sharing the terror which he spread -through the long stretch of the streets. This time Sunday -did not turn round, but offered them the solid stretch of -his unconscious back, which maddened them, if possible, more -than his previous mockeries. Just before they came to Baker -Street, however, he was seen to throw something far up into -the air, as a boy does a ball meaning to catch it again. But -at their rate of racing it fell far behind, just by the cab -containing Gogol; and in faint hope of a clue or for some -impulse unexplainable, he stopped his cab so as to pick it -up. It was addressed to himself, and was quite a bulky -parcel. On examination, however, its bulk was found to -consist of thirty-three pieces of paper of no value wrapped -one round the other. When the last covering was torn away it -reduced itself to a small slip of paper, on which was -written:--- +"The elephant!" cried the keeper. "An elephant has gone mad and run +away!" + +"He has run away with an old gentleman," said the other stranger +breathlessly, "a poor old gentleman with white hair!" + +"What sort of old gentleman?" asked Syme, with great curiosity. + +"A very large and fat old gentleman in light grey clothes," said the +keeper eagerly. + +"Well," said Syme, "if he's that particular kind of old gentleman, if +you are quite sure that he's a large and fat old gentleman in grey +clothes, you may take my word for it that the elephant has not run away +with him. He has run away with the elephant. The elephant is not made by +God that could run away with him if he did not consent to the elopement. +And, by thunder, there he is!" + +There was no doubt about it this time. Clean across the space of grass, +about two hundred yards away, with a crowd screaming and scampering +vainly at his heels, went a huge grey elephant at an awful stride, with +his trunk thrown out as rigid as a ship's bowsprit, and trumpeting like +the trumpet of doom. On the back of the bellowing and plunging animal +sat President Sunday with all the placidity of a sultan, but goading the +animal to a furious speed with some sharp object in his hand. + +"Stop him!" screamed the populace. "He'll be out of the gate!" + +"Stop a landslide!" said the keeper. "He is out of the gate!" + +And even as he spoke, a final crash and roar of terror announced that +the great grey elephant had broken out of the gates of the Zoological +Gardens, and was careering down Albany Street like a new and swift sort +of omnibus. + +"Great Lord!" cried Bull, "I never knew an elephant could go so fast. +Well, it must be hansom-cabs again if we t.re even to keep him in +sight." + +As they raced along to the gate out of which the elephant had vanished, +Syme felt a glaring panorama of the strange animals in the cages which +they passed. Afterwards he thought it queer that he should have seen +them so clearly. He remembered especially seeing pelicans, with their +preposterous, pendant throats. He wondered why the pelican was the +symbol of charity, except it was that it wanted a good deal of charity +to admire a pelican. He remembered a hornbill, which was simply a huge +yellow beak with a small bird tied on behind it. The whole gave him a +sensation, the vividness of which he could not explain, that Nature was +always making quite mysterious jokes. Sunday had told them that they +would understand him when they had understood the stars. He wondered +whether even the archangels understood the hornbill. + +The six unhappy detectives flung themselves into cabs and followed the +elephant, sharing the terror which he spread through the long stretch of +the streets. This time Sunday did not turn round, but offered them the +solid stretch of his unconscious back, which maddened them, if possible, +more than his previous mockeries. Just before they came to Baker Street, +however, he was seen to throw something far up into the air, as a boy +does a ball meaning to catch it again. But at their rate of racing it +fell far behind, just by the cab containing Gogol; and in faint hope of +a clue or for some impulse unexplainable, he stopped his cab so as to +pick it up. It was addressed to himself, and was quite a bulky parcel. +On examination, however, its bulk was found to consist of thirty-three +pieces of paper of no value wrapped one round the other. When the last +covering was torn away it reduced itself to a small slip of paper, on +which was written:--- >  "The word, I fancy, should be 'pink'." -The man once known as Gogol said nothing, but the movements -of his hands and feet were like those of a man urging a -horse to renewed efforts. - -Through street after street, through district after -district, went the prodigy of the flying elephant, calling -crowds to every window, and driving the traffic left and -right. And still through all this insane publicity the three -cabs toiled after it, until they came to be regarded as part -of a procession, and perhaps the advertisement of a circus. -They went at such a rate that distances were shortened -beyond belief, and Syme saw the Albert Hall in Kensington -when he thought that he was still in Paddington. The -animal's pace was even more fast and free through the empty, -aristocratic streets of South Kensington, and he finally -headed towards that part of the sky-line where the enormous -Wheel of Earl's Court stood up in the sky. The wheel grew -larger and larger, till it filled heaven like the wheel of -stars. - -The beast outstripped the cabs. They lost him round several -corners, and when they came to one of the gates of the -Earl's Court Exhibition they found themselves finally -blocked. In front of them was an enormous crowd; in the -midst of it was an enormous elephant, heaving and shuddering -as such shapeless creatures do. But the President had +The man once known as Gogol said nothing, but the movements of his hands +and feet were like those of a man urging a horse to renewed efforts. + +Through street after street, through district after district, went the +prodigy of the flying elephant, calling crowds to every window, and +driving the traffic left and right. And still through all this insane +publicity the three cabs toiled after it, until they came to be regarded +as part of a procession, and perhaps the advertisement of a circus. They +went at such a rate that distances were shortened beyond belief, and +Syme saw the Albert Hall in Kensington when he thought that he was still +in Paddington. The animal's pace was even more fast and free through the +empty, aristocratic streets of South Kensington, and he finally headed +towards that part of the sky-line where the enormous Wheel of Earl's +Court stood up in the sky. The wheel grew larger and larger, till it +filled heaven like the wheel of stars. + +The beast outstripped the cabs. They lost him round several corners, and +when they came to one of the gates of the Earl's Court Exhibition they +found themselves finally blocked. In front of them was an enormous +crowd; in the midst of it was an enormous elephant, heaving and +shuddering as such shapeless creatures do. But the President had disappeared. "Where has he gone to?" asked Syme, slipping to the ground. -"Gentleman rushed into the Exhibition, sir!" said an -official in a dazed manner. Then he added in an injured -voice: "Funny gentleman, sir. Asked me to hold his horse, -and gave me this." +"Gentleman rushed into the Exhibition, sir!" said an official in a dazed +manner. Then he added in an injured voice: "Funny gentleman, sir. Asked +me to hold his horse, and gave me this." -He held out with distaste a piece of folded paper, -addressed: "To the Secretary of the Central Anarchist -Council." +He held out with distaste a piece of folded paper, addressed: "To the +Secretary of the Central Anarchist Council." -The Secretary, raging, rent it open, and found written -inside it:--- +The Secretary, raging, rent it open, and found written inside it:--- >  "When the herring runs a mile, > @@ -6338,362 +5537,315 @@ inside it:--- > > ---Rustic Proverb." -"Why the eternal crikey," began the Secretary, "did you let -the man in? Do people commonly come to your Exhibition -riding on mad elephants? Do---" +"Why the eternal crikey," began the Secretary, "did you let the man in? +Do people commonly come to your Exhibition riding on mad elephants? +Do---" "Look!" shouted Syme suddenly. "Look over there!" "Look at what?" asked the Secretary savagely. -"Look at the captive balloon!" said Syme, and pointed in a -frenzy. +"Look at the captive balloon!" said Syme, and pointed in a frenzy. -"Why the blazes should I look at a captive balloon?" -demanded the Secretary. "What is there queer about a captive -balloon?" +"Why the blazes should I look at a captive balloon?" demanded the +Secretary. "What is there queer about a captive balloon?" "Nothing," said Syme, "except that it isn't captive!" -They all turned their eyes to where the balloon swung and -swelled above the Exhibition on a string, like a child's -balloon. A second afterwards the string came in two just -under the car, and the balloon, broken loose, floated away -with the freedom of a soap bubble. +They all turned their eyes to where the balloon swung and swelled above +the Exhibition on a string, like a child's balloon. A second afterwards +the string came in two just under the car, and the balloon, broken +loose, floated away with the freedom of a soap bubble. -"Ten thousand devils!" shrieked the Secretary. "He's got -into it!" and he shook his fists at the sky. +"Ten thousand devils!" shrieked the Secretary. "He's got into it!" and +he shook his fists at the sky. -The balloon, borne by some chance wind, came right above -them, and they could see the great white head of the -President peering over the side and looking benevolently -down on them. +The balloon, borne by some chance wind, came right above them, and they +could see the great white head of the President peering over the side +and looking benevolently down on them. -"God bless my soul!" said the Professor with the elderly -manner that he could never disconnect from his bleached -beard and parchment face. "God bless my soul! I seemed to -fancy that something fell on the top of my hat!" +"God bless my soul!" said the Professor with the elderly manner that he +could never disconnect from his bleached beard and parchment face. "God +bless my soul! I seemed to fancy that something fell on the top of my +hat!" -He put up a trembling hand and took from that shelf a piece -of twisted paper, which he opened absently, only to find it -inscribed with a true lover's knot and the words:--- +He put up a trembling hand and took from that shelf a piece of twisted +paper, which he opened absently, only to find it inscribed with a true +lover's knot and the words:--- >  "Your beauty has not left me indifferent.---From **Little > Snowdrop.**" -There was a short silence, and then Syme said, biting his -beard--- +There was a short silence, and then Syme said, biting his beard--- -"I'm not beaten yet. The blasted thing must come down -somewhere. Let's follow it!" +"I'm not beaten yet. The blasted thing must come down somewhere. Let's +follow it!" # The Six Philosophers -Across green fields, and breaking through blooming hedges, -toiled six draggled detectives, about five miles out of -London. The optimist of the party had at first proposed that -they should follow the balloon across South England in -hansom-cabs. But he was ultimately convinced of the -persistent refusal of the balloon to follow the roads, and -the still more persistent refusal of the cabmen to follow -the balloon. Consequently the tireless though exasperated -travellers broke through black thickets and ploughed through -ploughed fields till each was turned into a figure too -outrageous to be mistaken for a tramp. Those green hills of -Surrey saw the final collapse and tragedy of the admirable -light grey suit in which Syme had set out from Saffron Park. -His silk hat was broken over his nose by a swinging bough, -his coat-tails were torn to the shoulder by arresting -thorns, the clay of England was splashed up to his collar; -but he still carried his yellow beard forward with a silent -and furious determination, and his eyes were still fixed on -that floating ball of gas, which in the full flush of sunset -seemed coloured hke a sunset cloud. +Across green fields, and breaking through blooming hedges, toiled six +draggled detectives, about five miles out of London. The optimist of the +party had at first proposed that they should follow the balloon across +South England in hansom-cabs. But he was ultimately convinced of the +persistent refusal of the balloon to follow the roads, and the still +more persistent refusal of the cabmen to follow the balloon. +Consequently the tireless though exasperated travellers broke through +black thickets and ploughed through ploughed fields till each was turned +into a figure too outrageous to be mistaken for a tramp. Those green +hills of Surrey saw the final collapse and tragedy of the admirable +light grey suit in which Syme had set out from Saffron Park. His silk +hat was broken over his nose by a swinging bough, his coat-tails were +torn to the shoulder by arresting thorns, the clay of England was +splashed up to his collar; but he still carried his yellow beard forward +with a silent and furious determination, and his eyes were still fixed +on that floating ball of gas, which in the full flush of sunset seemed +coloured hke a sunset cloud. "After all," he said, "it is very beautiful!" -"It is singularly and strangely beautiful!" said the -Professor. "I wish the beastly gas-bag would burst!" +"It is singularly and strangely beautiful!" said the Professor. "I wish +the beastly gas-bag would burst!" -"No," said Dr. Bull, "I hope it won't. It might hurt the old -boy." +"No," said Dr. Bull, "I hope it won't. It might hurt the old boy." -"Hurt him!" said the vindictive Professor. "hurt him! Not as -much as I'd hurt him if I could get up with him. Little -Snowdrop!" +"Hurt him!" said the vindictive Professor. "hurt him! Not as much as I'd +hurt him if I could get up with him. Little Snowdrop!" "I don't want him hurt, somehow," said Dr. Bull. -"What!" cried the Secretary bitterly. "Do you believe all -that tale about his being our man in the dark room? Sunday -would say he was anybody." +"What!" cried the Secretary bitterly. "Do you believe all that tale +about his being our man in the dark room? Sunday would say he was +anybody." -"I don't know whether I believe it or not," said Dr. Bull. -"But it isn't that that I mean. I can't wish old Sunday's -balloon to burst because---" +"I don't know whether I believe it or not," said Dr. Bull. "But it isn't +that that I mean. I can't wish old Sunday's balloon to burst because---" "Well," said Syme impatiently, "because?" -"Well, because he's so jolly like a balloon himself," said -Dr. Bull desperately. "I don't understand a word of all that -idea of his being the same man who gave us all our blue -cards. It seems to make everything nonsense. But I don't -care who knows it, I always had a sympathy for old Sunday -himself, wicked as he was. Just as if he was a great -bouncing baby. How can I explain what my queer sympathy was? -It didn't prevent my fighting him like hell! Shall I make it -clear if I say that I liked him because he was so fat?" - -You will not," said the Secretary. I've got it now," cried -Bull, "it was because he was so fat and so light. Just like -a balloon. We always think of fat people as heavy, but he -could have danced against a sylph. I see now what I mean. -Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is -shown in levity. It was like the old speculations---what +"Well, because he's so jolly like a balloon himself," said Dr. Bull +desperately. "I don't understand a word of all that idea of his being +the same man who gave us all our blue cards. It seems to make everything +nonsense. But I don't care who knows it, I always had a sympathy for old +Sunday himself, wicked as he was. Just as if he was a great bouncing +baby. How can I explain what my queer sympathy was? It didn't prevent my +fighting him like hell! Shall I make it clear if I say that I liked him +because he was so fat?" + +You will not," said the Secretary. I've got it now," cried Bull, "it was +because he was so fat and so light. Just like a balloon. We always think +of fat people as heavy, but he could have danced against a sylph. I see +now what I mean. Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme +strength is shown in levity. It was like the old speculations---what would happen if an elephant could leap up in the sky like a grasshopper?" -"Our elephant," said Syme, looking upwards, "has leapt into -the sky like a grasshopper." - -"And somehow," concluded Bull, "that's why I can't help -liking old Sunday. No, it's not an admiration of force, or -any silly thing like that. There is a kind of gaiety in the -thing, as if he were bursting with some good news. Haven't -you sometimes felt it on a spring day? You know Nature plays -tricks, but somehow that day proves they are good-natured -tricks. I never read the Bible myself, but that part they -laugh at is literal truth, 'Why leap ye, ye high hills?' The -hills do leap---at least, they try to... Why do I hke -Sunday?... how can I tell you?... because he's such a -Bounder." - -There was a long silence, and then the Secretary said in a -curious, strained voice--- - -"You do not know Sunday at all. Perhaps it is because you -are better than I, and do not know hell. I was a fierce -fellow, and a trifle morbid from the first. The man who sits -in darkness, and who chose us all, chose me because I had -all the crazy look of a conspirator---because my smile went -crooked, and my eyes were gloomy, even when I smiled. But -there must have been something in me that answered to the -nerves in all these anarchic men. For when I first saw -Sunday he expressed to me, not your airy vitality, but -something both gross and sad in the Nature of Things. I -found him smoking in a twilight room, a room with brown -blind down, infinitely more depressing than the genial -darkness in which our master lives. He sat there on a bench, -a huge heap of a man, dark and out of shape. He listened to -all my words without speaking or even stirring. I poured out -my most passionate appeals, and asked my most eloquent -questions. Then, after a long silence, the Thing began to -shake, and I thought it was shaken by some secret malady. It -shook like a loathsome and living jelly. It reminded me of -everything I had ever read about the base bodies that are -the origin of life---the deep sea lumps and protoplasm. It -seemed like the final form of matter, the most shapeless and -the most shameful. I could only tell myself, from its -shudderings, that it was something at least that such a -monster could be miserable. And then it broke upon me that -the bestial mountain was shaking with a lonely laughter, and -the laughter was at me. Do you ask me to forgive him that? -It is no small thing to be laughed at by something at once -lower and stronger than oneself." - -"Surely you fellows are exaggerating wildly," cut in the -clear voice of Inspector Ratcliffe. "President Sunday is a -terrible fellow for one's intellect, but he is not such a -Barnum's freak physically as you make out. He received me in -an ordinary office, in a grey check coat, in broad daylight. -He talked to me in an ordinary way. But I'll tell you what -is a trifle creepy about Sunday. His room is neat, his -clothes are neat, everything seems in order; but he's -absent-minded. Sometimes his great bright eyes go quite -blind. For hours he forgets that you are there. Now -absent-mindedness is just a bit too awful in a bad man. We -think of a wicked man as vigilant. We can't think of a -wicked man who is honestly and sincerely dreamy because we -daren't think of a wicked man alone with himself. An -absent-minded man means a good-natured man. It means a man -who, if he happens to see you, will apologise. But how will -you bear an absent-minded man who, if he happens to see you, -will kill you? That is what tries the nerves, abstraction -combined with cruelty. Men have felt it sometimes when they -went through wild forests, and felt that the animals there -were at once innocent and pitiless. They might ignore or -slay. How would you like to pass ten mortal hours in a -parlour with an absent-minded tiger?" +"Our elephant," said Syme, looking upwards, "has leapt into the sky like +a grasshopper." + +"And somehow," concluded Bull, "that's why I can't help liking old +Sunday. No, it's not an admiration of force, or any silly thing like +that. There is a kind of gaiety in the thing, as if he were bursting +with some good news. Haven't you sometimes felt it on a spring day? You +know Nature plays tricks, but somehow that day proves they are +good-natured tricks. I never read the Bible myself, but that part they +laugh at is literal truth, 'Why leap ye, ye high hills?' The hills do +leap---at least, they try to... Why do I hke Sunday?... how can I tell +you?... because he's such a Bounder." + +There was a long silence, and then the Secretary said in a curious, +strained voice--- + +"You do not know Sunday at all. Perhaps it is because you are better +than I, and do not know hell. I was a fierce fellow, and a trifle morbid +from the first. The man who sits in darkness, and who chose us all, +chose me because I had all the crazy look of a conspirator---because my +smile went crooked, and my eyes were gloomy, even when I smiled. But +there must have been something in me that answered to the nerves in all +these anarchic men. For when I first saw Sunday he expressed to me, not +your airy vitality, but something both gross and sad in the Nature of +Things. I found him smoking in a twilight room, a room with brown blind +down, infinitely more depressing than the genial darkness in which our +master lives. He sat there on a bench, a huge heap of a man, dark and +out of shape. He listened to all my words without speaking or even +stirring. I poured out my most passionate appeals, and asked my most +eloquent questions. Then, after a long silence, the Thing began to +shake, and I thought it was shaken by some secret malady. It shook like +a loathsome and living jelly. It reminded me of everything I had ever +read about the base bodies that are the origin of life---the deep sea +lumps and protoplasm. It seemed like the final form of matter, the most +shapeless and the most shameful. I could only tell myself, from its +shudderings, that it was something at least that such a monster could be +miserable. And then it broke upon me that the bestial mountain was +shaking with a lonely laughter, and the laughter was at me. Do you ask +me to forgive him that? It is no small thing to be laughed at by +something at once lower and stronger than oneself." + +"Surely you fellows are exaggerating wildly," cut in the clear voice of +Inspector Ratcliffe. "President Sunday is a terrible fellow for one's +intellect, but he is not such a Barnum's freak physically as you make +out. He received me in an ordinary office, in a grey check coat, in +broad daylight. He talked to me in an ordinary way. But I'll tell you +what is a trifle creepy about Sunday. His room is neat, his clothes are +neat, everything seems in order; but he's absent-minded. Sometimes his +great bright eyes go quite blind. For hours he forgets that you are +there. Now absent-mindedness is just a bit too awful in a bad man. We +think of a wicked man as vigilant. We can't think of a wicked man who is +honestly and sincerely dreamy because we daren't think of a wicked man +alone with himself. An absent-minded man means a good-natured man. It +means a man who, if he happens to see you, will apologise. But how will +you bear an absent-minded man who, if he happens to see you, will kill +you? That is what tries the nerves, abstraction combined with cruelty. +Men have felt it sometimes when they went through wild forests, and felt +that the animals there were at once innocent and pitiless. They might +ignore or slay. How would you like to pass ten mortal hours in a parlour +with an absent-minded tiger?" "And what do you think of Sunday, Gogol?" asked Syme. -"I don't think of Sunday on principle," said Gogol simply, -"any more than I stare at the sun at noonday." +"I don't think of Sunday on principle," said Gogol simply, "any more +than I stare at the sun at noonday." -"Well, that is a point of view," said Syme thoughtfully. -"What do you say, Professor?" +"Well, that is a point of view," said Syme thoughtfully. "What do you +say, Professor?" -The Professor was walking with bent head and trailing stick, -and he did not answer at all. +The Professor was walking with bent head and trailing stick, and he did +not answer at all. -"Wake up, Professor!" said Syme genially. "Tell us what you -think of Sunday." +"Wake up, Professor!" said Syme genially. "Tell us what you think of +Sunday." The Professor spoke at last very slowly. -"I think something," he said, "that I cannot say clearly. -Or, rather, I think something that I cannot even think -clearly. But it is something like this. My early life, as -you know, was a bit too large and loose. Well, when I saw -Sunday's face I thought it was too large---everybody does, -but I also thought it was too loose. The face was so big, -that one couldn't focus it or make it a face at all. The eye -was so far away from the nose, that it wasn't an eye. The -mouth was so much by itself, that one had to think of it by -itself. The whole thing is too hard to explain." - -He paused for a little, still trailing his stick, and then -went on--- - -"But put it this way. Walking up a road at night, I have -seen a lamp and a lighted window and a cloud make together a -most complete and unmistakable face. If anyone in heaven has -that face I shall know him again. Yet when I walked a little -farther I found that there was no face, that the window was -ten yards away, the lamp ten hundred yards, the cloud beyond -the world. Well, Sunday's face escaped me; it ran away to -right and left, as such chance pictures run away. And so his -face has made me, somehow, doubt whether there are any -faces. I don't know whether your face. Bull, is a face or a -combination in perspective. Perhaps one black disc of your -beastly glasses is quite close and another fifty miles away. -Oh, the doubts of a materialist are not worth a dump. Sunday -has taught me the last and the worst doubts, the doubts of a -spiritualist. I am a Buddhist, I suppose; and Buddhism is -not a creed, it is a doubt. My poor dear Bull, I do not -believe that you really have a face. I have not faith enough -to believe in matter." - -Syme's eyes were still fixed upon the errant orb, which, -reddened in the evening light, looked like some rosier and -more innocent world. - -"Have you noticed an odd thing," he said, "about all your -descriptions? Each man of you finds Sunday quite different, -yet each man of you can only find one thing to compare him -to---the universe itself. Bull finds him like the earth in -spring, Gogol like the sun at noonday. The Secretary is -reminded of the shapeless protoplasm, and the Inspector of -the carelessness of virgin forests. The Professor says he is -like a changing landscape. This is queer, but it is queerer -still that I also have had my odd notion about the -President, and I also find that I think of Sunday as I think -of the whole world." - -"Got on a little faster, Syme," said Bull; "never mind the -balloon." - -"When I first saw Sunday," said Syme slowly, "I only saw his -back; and when I saw his back, I knew he was the worst man -in the world. His neck and shoulders were brutal, like those -of some apish god. His head had a stoop that was hardly -human, like the stoop of an ox. In fact, I had at once the -revolting fancy that this was not a man at all, but a beast +"I think something," he said, "that I cannot say clearly. Or, rather, I +think something that I cannot even think clearly. But it is something +like this. My early life, as you know, was a bit too large and loose. +Well, when I saw Sunday's face I thought it was too large---everybody +does, but I also thought it was too loose. The face was so big, that one +couldn't focus it or make it a face at all. The eye was so far away from +the nose, that it wasn't an eye. The mouth was so much by itself, that +one had to think of it by itself. The whole thing is too hard to +explain." + +He paused for a little, still trailing his stick, and then went on--- + +"But put it this way. Walking up a road at night, I have seen a lamp and +a lighted window and a cloud make together a most complete and +unmistakable face. If anyone in heaven has that face I shall know him +again. Yet when I walked a little farther I found that there was no +face, that the window was ten yards away, the lamp ten hundred yards, +the cloud beyond the world. Well, Sunday's face escaped me; it ran away +to right and left, as such chance pictures run away. And so his face has +made me, somehow, doubt whether there are any faces. I don't know +whether your face. Bull, is a face or a combination in perspective. +Perhaps one black disc of your beastly glasses is quite close and +another fifty miles away. Oh, the doubts of a materialist are not worth +a dump. Sunday has taught me the last and the worst doubts, the doubts +of a spiritualist. I am a Buddhist, I suppose; and Buddhism is not a +creed, it is a doubt. My poor dear Bull, I do not believe that you +really have a face. I have not faith enough to believe in matter." + +Syme's eyes were still fixed upon the errant orb, which, reddened in the +evening light, looked like some rosier and more innocent world. + +"Have you noticed an odd thing," he said, "about all your descriptions? +Each man of you finds Sunday quite different, yet each man of you can +only find one thing to compare him to---the universe itself. Bull finds +him like the earth in spring, Gogol like the sun at noonday. The +Secretary is reminded of the shapeless protoplasm, and the Inspector of +the carelessness of virgin forests. The Professor says he is like a +changing landscape. This is queer, but it is queerer still that I also +have had my odd notion about the President, and I also find that I think +of Sunday as I think of the whole world." + +"Got on a little faster, Syme," said Bull; "never mind the balloon." + +"When I first saw Sunday," said Syme slowly, "I only saw his back; and +when I saw his back, I knew he was the worst man in the world. His neck +and shoulders were brutal, like those of some apish god. His head had a +stoop that was hardly human, like the stoop of an ox. In fact, I had at +once the revolting fancy that this was not a man at all, but a beast dressed up in men's clothes." "Get on," said Dr. Bull. -"And then the queer thing happened. I had seen his back from -the street, as he sat in the balcony. Then I entered the -hotel, and coming round the other side of him, saw his face -in the sunlight. His face frightened me, as it did everyone; -but not because it was brutal, not because it was evil. On -the contrary, it frightened me because it was so beautiful, +"And then the queer thing happened. I had seen his back from the street, +as he sat in the balcony. Then I entered the hotel, and coming round the +other side of him, saw his face in the sunlight. His face frightened me, +as it did everyone; but not because it was brutal, not because it was +evil. On the contrary, it frightened me because it was so beautiful, because it was so good." "Syme," exclaimed the Secretary, "are you ill?" -"It was like the face of some ancient archangel, judging -justly after heroic wars. There was laughter in the eyes, -and in the mouth honour and sorrow. There was the same white -hair, the same great, grey-clad shoulders that I had seen -from behind. But when I saw him from behind I was certain he -was an animal, and when I saw him in front I knew he was a -god." - -"Pan," said the Professor dreamily, "was a god and an -animal." - -"Then, and again and always," went on Syme, like a man -talking to himself, "that has been for me the mystery of -Sunday, and it is also the mystery of the world. When I see -the horrible back, I am sure the noble face is but a mask. -When I see the face but for an instant, I know the back is -only a jest. Bad is so bad, that we cannot but think good an -accident; good is so good, that we feel certain that evil -could be explained. But the whole came to a kind of crest -yesterday when I raced Sunday for the cab, and was just -behind him all the way." +"It was like the face of some ancient archangel, judging justly after +heroic wars. There was laughter in the eyes, and in the mouth honour and +sorrow. There was the same white hair, the same great, grey-clad +shoulders that I had seen from behind. But when I saw him from behind I +was certain he was an animal, and when I saw him in front I knew he was +a god." + +"Pan," said the Professor dreamily, "was a god and an animal." + +"Then, and again and always," went on Syme, like a man talking to +himself, "that has been for me the mystery of Sunday, and it is also the +mystery of the world. When I see the horrible back, I am sure the noble +face is but a mask. When I see the face but for an instant, I know the +back is only a jest. Bad is so bad, that we cannot but think good an +accident; good is so good, that we feel certain that evil could be +explained. But the whole came to a kind of crest yesterday when I raced +Sunday for the cab, and was just behind him all the way." "Had you time for thinking then?" asked Ratcliffe. -"Time," replied Syme, "for one outrageous thought. I was -suddenly possessed with the idea that the blind, blank back -of his head really was his face---an awful, eyeless face -staring at me! And I fancied that the figure running in -front of me was really a figure running backwards, and -dancing as he ran." +"Time," replied Syme, "for one outrageous thought. I was suddenly +possessed with the idea that the blind, blank back of his head really +was his face---an awful, eyeless face staring at me! And I fancied that +the figure running in front of me was really a figure running backwards, +and dancing as he ran." "Horrible!" said Dr. Bull, and shuddered. -"Horrible is not the word," said Syme. "It was exactly the -worst instant of my life. And yet ten minutes afterwards, -when he put his head out of the cab and made a grimace like -a gargoyle, I knew that he was only like a father playing -hide-and-seek with his children." - -"It is a long game," said the Secretary, and frowned at his -broken boots. +"Horrible is not the word," said Syme. "It was exactly the worst instant +of my life. And yet ten minutes afterwards, when he put his head out of +the cab and made a grimace like a gargoyle, I knew that he was only like +a father playing hide-and-seek with his children." -"Listen to me," cried Syme with extraordinary emphasis. -"Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that -we have only known the back of the world. We see everything -from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but -the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a -cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding -a face? If we could only get round in front---" +"It is a long game," said the Secretary, and frowned at his broken +boots. -"Look!" cried out Bull clamorously, "the balloon is coming -down!" +"Listen to me," cried Syme with extraordinary emphasis. "Shall I tell +you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the +back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. +That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the +back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a +face? If we could only get round in front---" -There was no need to cry out to Syme, who had never taken -his eyes off it. He saw the great luminous globe suddenly -stagger in the sky, right itself, and then sink slowly -behind the trees like a setting sun. +"Look!" cried out Bull clamorously, "the balloon is coming down!" -The man called Gogol, who had hardly spoken through all -their weary travels, suddenly threw up his hands like a lost -spirit. +There was no need to cry out to Syme, who had never taken his eyes off +it. He saw the great luminous globe suddenly stagger in the sky, right +itself, and then sink slowly behind the trees like a setting sun. -"He is dead!" he cried. "And now I know he was my -friend---my friend in the dark!" +The man called Gogol, who had hardly spoken through all their weary +travels, suddenly threw up his hands like a lost spirit. -"Dead!" snorted the Secretary. "You will not find him dead -easily. If he has been tipped out of the car, we shall find -him rolling as a colt rolls in a field, kicking his legs for -fun." +"He is dead!" he cried. "And now I know he was my friend---my friend in +the dark!" -"Clashing his hoofs," said the Professor. "The colts do, and -so did Pan." +"Dead!" snorted the Secretary. "You will not find him dead easily. If he +has been tipped out of the car, we shall find him rolling as a colt +rolls in a field, kicking his legs for fun." -"Pan again!" said Dr. Bull irritably. "You seem to think Pan -is everything." +"Clashing his hoofs," said the Professor. "The colts do, and so did +Pan." -"So he is," said the Professor, "in Greek. He means +"Pan again!" said Dr. Bull irritably. "You seem to think Pan is everything." -"Don't forget," said the Secretary, looking down, "that he -also means Panic." +"So he is," said the Professor, "in Greek. He means everything." + +"Don't forget," said the Secretary, looking down, "that he also means +Panic." Syme had stood without hearing any of the exclamations. @@ -6701,27 +5853,25 @@ Syme had stood without hearing any of the exclamations. Then he added with an indescribable gesture--- -"Oh, if he has cheated us all by getting killed! It would be -like one of his larks." +"Oh, if he has cheated us all by getting killed! It would be like one of +his larks." -He strode off towards the distant trees with a new energy, -his rags and ribbons fluttering in the wind. The others -followed him in a more footsore and dubious manner. And -almost at the same moment all six men realised that they -were not alone in the little field. +He strode off towards the distant trees with a new energy, his rags and +ribbons fluttering in the wind. The others followed him in a more +footsore and dubious manner. And almost at the same moment all six men +realised that they were not alone in the little field. -Across the square of turf a tall man was advancing towards -them, leaning on a strange long staff like a sceptre. He was -clad in a fine but old-fashioned suit with knee-breeches; -its colour was that shade between blue, violet and grey -which can be seen in certain shadows of the woodland. His -hair was whitish grey, and at the first glance, taken along -with his knee-breeches, looked as if it was powdered. His -advance was very quiet; but for the silver frost upon his -head, he might have been one of the shadows of the wood. +Across the square of turf a tall man was advancing towards them, leaning +on a strange long staff like a sceptre. He was clad in a fine but +old-fashioned suit with knee-breeches; its colour was that shade between +blue, violet and grey which can be seen in certain shadows of the +woodland. His hair was whitish grey, and at the first glance, taken +along with his knee-breeches, looked as if it was powdered. His advance +was very quiet; but for the silver frost upon his head, he might have +been one of the shadows of the wood. -"Gentlemen," he said, "my master has a carriage waiting for -you in the road just by." +"Gentlemen," he said, "my master has a carriage waiting for you in the +road just by." "Who is your master?" asked Syme, standing quite still. @@ -6731,528 +5881,463 @@ There was a silence, and then the Secretary said--- "Where is this carriage?" -"It has been waiting only a few moments," said the stranger. -"My master has only just come home." - -Syme looked left and right upon the patch of green field in -which he found himself. The hedges were ordinary hedges, the -trees seemed ordinary trees; yet he felt like a man -entrapped in fairy-land. - -He looked the mysterious ambassador up and down, but he -could discover nothing except that the man's coat was the -exact colour of the purple shadows, and that the man's face -was the exact colour of the red and brown and golden sky. - -"Show us the place," Syme said briefly, and without a word -the man in the violet coat turned his back and walked -towards a gap in the hedge, which let in suddenly the light -of a white road. - -As the six wanderers broke out upon this thoroughfare, they -saw the white road blocked by what looked like a long row of -carriages, such a row of carriages as might close the -approach to some house in Park Lane. Along the side of these -carriages stood a rank of splendid servants, all dressed in -the grey-blue uniform, and all having a certain quality of -stateliness and freedom which would not commonly belong to -the servants of a gentleman, but rather to the officials and -ambassadors of a great king. There were no less than six -carriages waiting, one for each of the tattered and -miserable band. All the attendants (as if in court-dress) -wore swords, and as each man crawled into his carriage they -drew them, and saluted with a sudden blaze of steel. - -"What can it all mean?" asked Bull of Syme as they -separated. "Is this another joke of Sunday's?" - -"I don't know," said Syme as he sank wearily back in the -cushions of his carriage; "but if it is, it's one of the -jokes you talk about. It's a good-natured one." - -The six adventurers had passed through many adventures, but -not one had carried them so utterly off their feet as this -last adventure of comfort. They had all become inured to -things going roughly; but things suddenly going smoothly -swamped them. They could not even feebly imagine what the -carriages were; it was enough for them to know that they -were carriages, and carriages with cushions. They could not -conceive who the old man was who had led them; but it was -quite enough that he had certainly led them to the -carriages. - -Syme drove through a drifting darkness of trees in utter -abandonment. It was typical of him that while he had carried -his bearded chin forward fiercely so long as anything could -be done, when the whole business was taken out of his hands -he fell back on the cushions in a frank collapse. - -Very gradually and very vaguely he realised into what rich -roads the carriage was carrying him. He saw that they passed -the stone gates of what might have been a park, that they -began gradually to climb a hill which, while wooded on both -sides, was somewhat more orderly than a forest. Then there -began to grow upon him, as upon a man slowly waking from a -healthy sleep, a pleasure in everything. He fell that the -hedges were what hedges should be, living walls; that a -hedge is like a human army, disciplined, but all the more -alive. He saw high elms behind the hedges, and vaguely -thought how happy boys would be climbing there. Then his -carriage took a turn of the path, and he saw suddenly and -quietly, like a long, low, sunset cloud, a long, low house, -mellow in the mild light of sunset. All the six friends -compared notes afterwards and quarrelled; but they all -agreed that in some unaccountable way the place reminded -them of their boyhood. It was either this elm-top or that -crooked path, it was either this scrap of orchard or that -shape of a window; but each man of them declared that he -could remember this place before he could remember his -mother. - -When the carriages eventually rolled up to a large, low, -cavernous gateway, another man in the same uniform, but -wearing a silver star on the grey breast of his coat, came -out to meet them. This impressive person said to the -bewildered Syme--- +"It has been waiting only a few moments," said the stranger. "My master +has only just come home." + +Syme looked left and right upon the patch of green field in which he +found himself. The hedges were ordinary hedges, the trees seemed +ordinary trees; yet he felt like a man entrapped in fairy-land. + +He looked the mysterious ambassador up and down, but he could discover +nothing except that the man's coat was the exact colour of the purple +shadows, and that the man's face was the exact colour of the red and +brown and golden sky. + +"Show us the place," Syme said briefly, and without a word the man in +the violet coat turned his back and walked towards a gap in the hedge, +which let in suddenly the light of a white road. + +As the six wanderers broke out upon this thoroughfare, they saw the +white road blocked by what looked like a long row of carriages, such a +row of carriages as might close the approach to some house in Park Lane. +Along the side of these carriages stood a rank of splendid servants, all +dressed in the grey-blue uniform, and all having a certain quality of +stateliness and freedom which would not commonly belong to the servants +of a gentleman, but rather to the officials and ambassadors of a great +king. There were no less than six carriages waiting, one for each of the +tattered and miserable band. All the attendants (as if in court-dress) +wore swords, and as each man crawled into his carriage they drew them, +and saluted with a sudden blaze of steel. + +"What can it all mean?" asked Bull of Syme as they separated. "Is this +another joke of Sunday's?" + +"I don't know," said Syme as he sank wearily back in the cushions of his +carriage; "but if it is, it's one of the jokes you talk about. It's a +good-natured one." + +The six adventurers had passed through many adventures, but not one had +carried them so utterly off their feet as this last adventure of +comfort. They had all become inured to things going roughly; but things +suddenly going smoothly swamped them. They could not even feebly imagine +what the carriages were; it was enough for them to know that they were +carriages, and carriages with cushions. They could not conceive who the +old man was who had led them; but it was quite enough that he had +certainly led them to the carriages. + +Syme drove through a drifting darkness of trees in utter abandonment. It +was typical of him that while he had carried his bearded chin forward +fiercely so long as anything could be done, when the whole business was +taken out of his hands he fell back on the cushions in a frank collapse. + +Very gradually and very vaguely he realised into what rich roads the +carriage was carrying him. He saw that they passed the stone gates of +what might have been a park, that they began gradually to climb a hill +which, while wooded on both sides, was somewhat more orderly than a +forest. Then there began to grow upon him, as upon a man slowly waking +from a healthy sleep, a pleasure in everything. He fell that the hedges +were what hedges should be, living walls; that a hedge is like a human +army, disciplined, but all the more alive. He saw high elms behind the +hedges, and vaguely thought how happy boys would be climbing there. Then +his carriage took a turn of the path, and he saw suddenly and quietly, +like a long, low, sunset cloud, a long, low house, mellow in the mild +light of sunset. All the six friends compared notes afterwards and +quarrelled; but they all agreed that in some unaccountable way the place +reminded them of their boyhood. It was either this elm-top or that +crooked path, it was either this scrap of orchard or that shape of a +window; but each man of them declared that he could remember this place +before he could remember his mother. + +When the carriages eventually rolled up to a large, low, cavernous +gateway, another man in the same uniform, but wearing a silver star on +the grey breast of his coat, came out to meet them. This impressive +person said to the bewildered Syme--- "Refreshments are provided for you in your room." -Syme, under the influence of the same mesmeric sleep of -amazement, went up the large oaken stairs after the -respectful attendant. He entered a splendid suite of -apartments that seemed to be designed specially for him. He -walked up to a long mirror with the ordinary instinct of his -class, to pull his tie straight or to smooth his hair; and -there he saw the frightful figure that he was---blood -running down his face from where the bough had struck him, -his hair standing out like yellow rags of rank grass, his -clothes torn into long, wavering tatters. At once the whole -enigma sprang up, simply as the question of how he had got -there, and how he was to get out again. Exactly at the same -moment a man in blue, who had been appointed as his valet, -said very solemnly--- +Syme, under the influence of the same mesmeric sleep of amazement, went +up the large oaken stairs after the respectful attendant. He entered a +splendid suite of apartments that seemed to be designed specially for +him. He walked up to a long mirror with the ordinary instinct of his +class, to pull his tie straight or to smooth his hair; and there he saw +the frightful figure that he was---blood running down his face from +where the bough had struck him, his hair standing out like yellow rags +of rank grass, his clothes torn into long, wavering tatters. At once the +whole enigma sprang up, simply as the question of how he had got there, +and how he was to get out again. Exactly at the same moment a man in +blue, who had been appointed as his valet, said very solemnly--- "I have put out your clothes, sir." -"Clothes!" said Syme sardonically. "I have no clothes except -these," and he lifted two long strips of his frock-coat in -fascinating festoons, and made a movement as if to twirl -like a ballet girl. - -"My master asks me to say," said the attendant, "that there -is a fancy dress ball to-night, and that he desires you to -put on the costume that I have laid out. Meanwhile, sir, -there is a bottle of Burgundy and some cold pheasant, which -he hopes you will not refuse, as it is some hours before -supper." - -"Cold pheasant is a good thing," said Syme reflectively, -"and Burgundy is a spanking good thing. But really I do not -want either of them so much as I want to know what the devil -all this means, and what sort of costume you have got laid -out for me. Where is it?" - -The servant lifted off a kind of Ottoman a long peacock-blue -drapery, rather of the nature of a domino, on the front of -which was emblazoned a large golden sun, and which was -splashed here and there with flaming stars and crescents. - -"You're to be dressed as Thursday, sir," said the valet -somewhat affably. - -"Dressed as Thursday!" said Syme in meditation. "It doesn't -sound a warm costume." - -"Oh, yes, sir," said the other eagerly, "the Thursday -costume is quite warm, sir. It fastens up to the chin." - -"Well, I don't understand anything," said Syme, sighing. "I -have been used so long to uncomfortable adventures that -comfortable adventures knock me out. Still, I may be allowed -to ask why I should be particularly like Thursday in a green -frock spotted all over with the sun and moon. Those orbs, I -think, shine on other days. I once saw the moon on Tuesday, -I remember." - -"Beg pardon, sir," said the valet, "Bible also provided for -you," and with a respectful and rigid finger he pointed out -a passage in the first chapter of Genesis. Syme read it -wondering. It was that in which the fourth day of the week -is associated with the creation of the sun and moon. Here, -however, they reckoned from a Christian Sunday. - -"This is getting wilder and wilder," said Syme, as he sat -down in a chair. "Who are these people who provide cold -pheasant and Burgundy, and green clothes and Bibles? Do they -provide everything?" - -"Yes, sir, everything," said the attendant gravely. "Shall I -help you on with your costume?" +"Clothes!" said Syme sardonically. "I have no clothes except these," and +he lifted two long strips of his frock-coat in fascinating festoons, and +made a movement as if to twirl like a ballet girl. + +"My master asks me to say," said the attendant, "that there is a fancy +dress ball to-night, and that he desires you to put on the costume that +I have laid out. Meanwhile, sir, there is a bottle of Burgundy and some +cold pheasant, which he hopes you will not refuse, as it is some hours +before supper." + +"Cold pheasant is a good thing," said Syme reflectively, "and Burgundy +is a spanking good thing. But really I do not want either of them so +much as I want to know what the devil all this means, and what sort of +costume you have got laid out for me. Where is it?" + +The servant lifted off a kind of Ottoman a long peacock-blue drapery, +rather of the nature of a domino, on the front of which was emblazoned a +large golden sun, and which was splashed here and there with flaming +stars and crescents. + +"You're to be dressed as Thursday, sir," said the valet somewhat +affably. + +"Dressed as Thursday!" said Syme in meditation. "It doesn't sound a warm +costume." + +"Oh, yes, sir," said the other eagerly, "the Thursday costume is quite +warm, sir. It fastens up to the chin." + +"Well, I don't understand anything," said Syme, sighing. "I have been +used so long to uncomfortable adventures that comfortable adventures +knock me out. Still, I may be allowed to ask why I should be +particularly like Thursday in a green frock spotted all over with the +sun and moon. Those orbs, I think, shine on other days. I once saw the +moon on Tuesday, I remember." + +"Beg pardon, sir," said the valet, "Bible also provided for you," and +with a respectful and rigid finger he pointed out a passage in the first +chapter of Genesis. Syme read it wondering. It was that in which the +fourth day of the week is associated with the creation of the sun and +moon. Here, however, they reckoned from a Christian Sunday. + +"This is getting wilder and wilder," said Syme, as he sat down in a +chair. "Who are these people who provide cold pheasant and Burgundy, and +green clothes and Bibles? Do they provide everything?" + +"Yes, sir, everything," said the attendant gravely. "Shall I help you on +with your costume?" "Oh, hitch the bally thing on!" said Syme impatiently. -But though he affected to despise the mummery, he felt a -curious freedom and naturalness in his movements as the blue -and gold garment fell about him; and when he found that he -had to wear a sword, it stirred a boyish dream. As he passed -out of the room he flung the folds across his shoulder with -a gesture, his sword stood out at an angle, and he had all -the swagger of a troubadour. For these disguises did not -disguise, but reveal. +But though he affected to despise the mummery, he felt a curious freedom +and naturalness in his movements as the blue and gold garment fell about +him; and when he found that he had to wear a sword, it stirred a boyish +dream. As he passed out of the room he flung the folds across his +shoulder with a gesture, his sword stood out at an angle, and he had all +the swagger of a troubadour. For these disguises did not disguise, but +reveal. # The Accuser -As Syme strode along the corridor ire was the Secretary -standing at the top of a great flight of stairs. The man had -never looked so noble. He was draped in a long robe of -starless black, down the centre of which fell a band or -broad stripe of pure white, like a single shaft of light. -The whole looked like some very severe ecclesiastical -vestment. There was no need for Syme to search his memory or -the Bible in order to remember that the first day of -creation marked the mere creation of light out of darkness. -The vestment itself would alone have suggested the symbol; -and Syme felt also how perfectly this pattern of pure white -and black expressed the soul of the pale and austere -Secretary, with his inhuman veracity and his cold frenzy, -which made him so easily make war on the anarchists, and yet -so easily pass for one of them. Syme was scarcely surprised -to notice that, amid all the ease and hospitality of their -new surroundings, this man's eyes were still stern. No smell -of ale or orchards could make the Secretary cease to ask a -reasonable question. - -If Syme had been able to see himself, he would have realised -that he, too, seemed to be for the first time himself and no -one else. For if the Secretary stood for that philosopher -who loves the original and formless light, Syme was a type -of the poet who seeks always to make the light in special -shapes, to split it up into sun and star. The philosopher -may sometimes love the infinite; the poet always loves the -finite. For him the great moment is not the creation of -light, but the creation of the sun and moon. - -As they descended the broad stairs together they overtook -Ratcliffe, who was clad in spring green like a huntsman, and -the pattern upon whose garment was a green tangle of trees. -For he stood for that third day on which the earth and green -things were made, and his square, sensible face, with its -not unfriendly cynicism, seemed appropriate enough to it. - -They were led out of another broad and low gateway into a -very large old English garden, full of torches and bonfires, -by the broken light of which a vast carnival of people were -dancing in motley dress. Syme seemed to see every shape in -Nature imitated in some crazy costume. There was a man -dressed as a windmill with enormous sails, a man dressed as -an elephant, a man dressed as a balloon; the two last, -together, seemed to keep the thread of their farcical -adventures. Syme even saw, with a queer thrill, one dancer -dressed like an enormous hornbill, with a beak twice as big -as himself---the queer bird which had fixed itself on his -fancy like a living question while he was rushing down the -long road at the Zoological Gardens. There were a thousand -other such objects, however. There was a dancing lamp-post, -a dancing apple tree, a dancing ship. One would have thought -that the untameable tune of some mad musician had set all -the common objects of field and street dancing an eternal -jig. And long afterwards, when Syme was middle-aged and at -rest, he could never see one of those particular objects---a -lamp-post, or an apple tree, or a windmill---without -thinking that it was a strayed reveller from that revel of -masquerade. - -On one side of this lawn, alive with dancers, was a sort of -green bank, like the terrace in such old-fashioned gardens. - -Along this, in a kind of crescent, stood seven great chairs, -the thrones of the seven days. Gogol and Dr. Bull were -already in their seats; the Professor was just mounting to -his. Gogol, or Tuesday, had his simplicity well symbolised -by a dress designed upon the division of the waters, a dress -that separated upon his forehead and fell to his feet, grey -and silver, like a sheet of rain. The Professor, whose day -was that on which the birds and fishes---the ruder forms of -life---were created, had a dress of dim purple, over which -sprawled goggle-eyed fishes and outrageous tropical birds, -the union in him of unfathomable fancy and of doubt. -Dr. Bull, the last day of Creation, wore a coat covered with -heraldic animals in red and gold, and on his crest a man -rampant. He lay back in his chair with a broad smile, the -picture of an optimist in his element. - -One by one the wanderers ascended the bank and sat in their -strange seats. As each of them sat down a roar of enthusiasm -rose from the carnival, such as that with which crowds -receive kings. Cups were clashed and torches shaken, and -feathered hats flung in the air. The men for whom these -thrones were reserved were men crowned with some +As Syme strode along the corridor ire was the Secretary standing at the +top of a great flight of stairs. The man had never looked so noble. He +was draped in a long robe of starless black, down the centre of which +fell a band or broad stripe of pure white, like a single shaft of light. +The whole looked like some very severe ecclesiastical vestment. There +was no need for Syme to search his memory or the Bible in order to +remember that the first day of creation marked the mere creation of +light out of darkness. The vestment itself would alone have suggested +the symbol; and Syme felt also how perfectly this pattern of pure white +and black expressed the soul of the pale and austere Secretary, with his +inhuman veracity and his cold frenzy, which made him so easily make war +on the anarchists, and yet so easily pass for one of them. Syme was +scarcely surprised to notice that, amid all the ease and hospitality of +their new surroundings, this man's eyes were still stern. No smell of +ale or orchards could make the Secretary cease to ask a reasonable +question. + +If Syme had been able to see himself, he would have realised that he, +too, seemed to be for the first time himself and no one else. For if the +Secretary stood for that philosopher who loves the original and formless +light, Syme was a type of the poet who seeks always to make the light in +special shapes, to split it up into sun and star. The philosopher may +sometimes love the infinite; the poet always loves the finite. For him +the great moment is not the creation of light, but the creation of the +sun and moon. + +As they descended the broad stairs together they overtook Ratcliffe, who +was clad in spring green like a huntsman, and the pattern upon whose +garment was a green tangle of trees. For he stood for that third day on +which the earth and green things were made, and his square, sensible +face, with its not unfriendly cynicism, seemed appropriate enough to it. + +They were led out of another broad and low gateway into a very large old +English garden, full of torches and bonfires, by the broken light of +which a vast carnival of people were dancing in motley dress. Syme +seemed to see every shape in Nature imitated in some crazy costume. +There was a man dressed as a windmill with enormous sails, a man dressed +as an elephant, a man dressed as a balloon; the two last, together, +seemed to keep the thread of their farcical adventures. Syme even saw, +with a queer thrill, one dancer dressed like an enormous hornbill, with +a beak twice as big as himself---the queer bird which had fixed itself +on his fancy like a living question while he was rushing down the long +road at the Zoological Gardens. There were a thousand other such +objects, however. There was a dancing lamp-post, a dancing apple tree, a +dancing ship. One would have thought that the untameable tune of some +mad musician had set all the common objects of field and street dancing +an eternal jig. And long afterwards, when Syme was middle-aged and at +rest, he could never see one of those particular objects---a lamp-post, +or an apple tree, or a windmill---without thinking that it was a strayed +reveller from that revel of masquerade. + +On one side of this lawn, alive with dancers, was a sort of green bank, +like the terrace in such old-fashioned gardens. + +Along this, in a kind of crescent, stood seven great chairs, the thrones +of the seven days. Gogol and Dr. Bull were already in their seats; the +Professor was just mounting to his. Gogol, or Tuesday, had his +simplicity well symbolised by a dress designed upon the division of the +waters, a dress that separated upon his forehead and fell to his feet, +grey and silver, like a sheet of rain. The Professor, whose day was that +on which the birds and fishes---the ruder forms of life---were created, +had a dress of dim purple, over which sprawled goggle-eyed fishes and +outrageous tropical birds, the union in him of unfathomable fancy and of +doubt. Dr. Bull, the last day of Creation, wore a coat covered with +heraldic animals in red and gold, and on his crest a man rampant. He lay +back in his chair with a broad smile, the picture of an optimist in his +element. + +One by one the wanderers ascended the bank and sat in their strange +seats. As each of them sat down a roar of enthusiasm rose from the +carnival, such as that with which crowds receive kings. Cups were +clashed and torches shaken, and feathered hats flung in the air. The men +for whom these thrones were reserved were men crowned with some extraordinary laurels. But the central chair was empty. -Syme was on the left hand of it and the Secretary on the -right. The Secretary looked across the empty throne at Syme, -and said, compressing his lips--- +Syme was on the left hand of it and the Secretary on the right. The +Secretary looked across the empty throne at Syme, and said, compressing +his lips--- "We do not know yet that he is not dead in a field." -Almost as Syme heard the words, he saw on the sea of human -faces in front of him a frightful and beautiful alteration, -as if heaven had opened behind his head. But Sunday had only -passed silently along the front like a shadow, and had sat -in the central seat. He was draped plainly, in a pure and -terrible white, and his hair was like a silver flame on his -forehead. - -For a long time---it seemed for hours---that huge masquerade -of mankind swayed and stamped in front of them to marching -and exultant music. Every couple dancing seemed a separate -romance; it might be a fairy dancing with a pillar-box, or a -peasant girl dancing with the moon; but in each case it was, -somehow, as absurd as Alice in Wonderland, yet as grave and -kind as a love story. At last, however, the thick crowd -began to thin itself. Couples strolled away into the -garden-walks, or began to drift towards that end of the -building where stood smoking, in huge pots like -fish-kettles, some hot and scented mixtures of old ale or -wine. Above all these, upon a sort of black framework on the -roof of the house, roared in its iron basket a gigantic -bonfire, which lit up the land for miles. It flung the -homely effect of firelight over the face of vast forests of -grey or brown, and it seemed to fill with warmth even the -emptiness of upper night. Yet this also, after a time, was -allowed to grow fainter; the dim groups gathered more and -more round the great cauldrons, or passed, laughing and -clattering, into the inner passages of that ancient house. -Soon there were only some ten loiterers in the garden; soon -only four. Finally the last stray merry-maker ran into the -house whooping to his companions. The fire faded, and the -slow, strong stars came out. And the seven strange men were -left alone, like seven stone statues on their chairs of -stone. Not one of them had spoken a word. - -They seemed in no haste to do so, but heard in silence the -hum of insects and the distant song of one bird. Then Sunday -spoke, but so dreamily that he might have been continuing a -conversation rather than beginning one. - -"We will eat and drink later," he said. "Let us remain -together a little, we who have loved each other so sadly, -and have fought so long. I seem to remember only centuries -of heroic war, in which you were always heroes---epic on -epic, Iliad on Iliad, and you always brothers in arms. -Whether it was but recently (for time is nothing), or at the -beginning of the world, I sent you out to war. I sat in the -darkness, where there is not any created thing, and to you I -was only a voice commanding valour and an unnatural virtue. -You heard the voice in the dark, and you never heard it -again. The sun in heaven denied it, the earth and sky denied -it, all human wisdom denied it. And when T met you in the -daylight I denied it myself." - -Syme stirred sharply in his seat, but otherwise there was -silence, and the incomprehensible went on. - -"But you were men. You did not forget your secret honour, -though the whole cosmos turned an engine of torture to tear -it out of you. I knew how near you were to hell. I know how -you, Thursday, crossed swords with King Satan, and how you, -Wednesday, named me in the hour without hope." - -There was complete silence in the starlit garden, and then -the black-browed Secretary, implacable, turned in his chair -towards Sunday, and said in a harsh voice--- +Almost as Syme heard the words, he saw on the sea of human faces in +front of him a frightful and beautiful alteration, as if heaven had +opened behind his head. But Sunday had only passed silently along the +front like a shadow, and had sat in the central seat. He was draped +plainly, in a pure and terrible white, and his hair was like a silver +flame on his forehead. + +For a long time---it seemed for hours---that huge masquerade of mankind +swayed and stamped in front of them to marching and exultant music. +Every couple dancing seemed a separate romance; it might be a fairy +dancing with a pillar-box, or a peasant girl dancing with the moon; but +in each case it was, somehow, as absurd as Alice in Wonderland, yet as +grave and kind as a love story. At last, however, the thick crowd began +to thin itself. Couples strolled away into the garden-walks, or began to +drift towards that end of the building where stood smoking, in huge pots +like fish-kettles, some hot and scented mixtures of old ale or wine. +Above all these, upon a sort of black framework on the roof of the +house, roared in its iron basket a gigantic bonfire, which lit up the +land for miles. It flung the homely effect of firelight over the face of +vast forests of grey or brown, and it seemed to fill with warmth even +the emptiness of upper night. Yet this also, after a time, was allowed +to grow fainter; the dim groups gathered more and more round the great +cauldrons, or passed, laughing and clattering, into the inner passages +of that ancient house. Soon there were only some ten loiterers in the +garden; soon only four. Finally the last stray merry-maker ran into the +house whooping to his companions. The fire faded, and the slow, strong +stars came out. And the seven strange men were left alone, like seven +stone statues on their chairs of stone. Not one of them had spoken a +word. + +They seemed in no haste to do so, but heard in silence the hum of +insects and the distant song of one bird. Then Sunday spoke, but so +dreamily that he might have been continuing a conversation rather than +beginning one. + +"We will eat and drink later," he said. "Let us remain together a +little, we who have loved each other so sadly, and have fought so long. +I seem to remember only centuries of heroic war, in which you were +always heroes---epic on epic, Iliad on Iliad, and you always brothers in +arms. Whether it was but recently (for time is nothing), or at the +beginning of the world, I sent you out to war. I sat in the darkness, +where there is not any created thing, and to you I was only a voice +commanding valour and an unnatural virtue. You heard the voice in the +dark, and you never heard it again. The sun in heaven denied it, the +earth and sky denied it, all human wisdom denied it. And when T met you +in the daylight I denied it myself." + +Syme stirred sharply in his seat, but otherwise there was silence, and +the incomprehensible went on. + +"But you were men. You did not forget your secret honour, though the +whole cosmos turned an engine of torture to tear it out of you. I knew +how near you were to hell. I know how you, Thursday, crossed swords with +King Satan, and how you, Wednesday, named me in the hour without hope." + +There was complete silence in the starlit garden, and then the +black-browed Secretary, implacable, turned in his chair towards Sunday, +and said in a harsh voice--- "Who and what are you?" -"I am the Sabbath," said the other without moving. "I am the -peace of God." - -The Secretary started up, and stood crushing his costly robe -in his hand. - -"I know what you mean," he cried, "and it is exactly that -that I cannot forgive you. I know you are contentment, -optimism, what do they call the thing, an ultimate -reconciliation. Well, I am not reconciled. If you were the -man in the dark room, why were you also Sunday, an offence -to the sunlight? If you were from the first our father and -our friend, why were you also our greatest enemy? We wept, -we fled in terror; the iron entered into our souls---and you -are the peace of God! Oh, I can forgive God His anger, -though it destroyed nations; but I cannot forgive Him His +"I am the Sabbath," said the other without moving. "I am the peace of +God." + +The Secretary started up, and stood crushing his costly robe in his +hand. + +"I know what you mean," he cried, "and it is exactly that that I cannot +forgive you. I know you are contentment, optimism, what do they call the +thing, an ultimate reconciliation. Well, I am not reconciled. If you +were the man in the dark room, why were you also Sunday, an offence to +the sunlight? If you were from the first our father and our friend, why +were you also our greatest enemy? We wept, we fled in terror; the iron +entered into our souls---and you are the peace of God! Oh, I can forgive +God His anger, though it destroyed nations; but I cannot forgive Him His peace." -Sunday answered not a word, but very slowly he turned his -face of stone upon Syme as if asking a question. +Sunday answered not a word, but very slowly he turned his face of stone +upon Syme as if asking a question. -"No," said Syme, "I do not feel fierce like that. I am -grateful to you, not only for wine and hospitality here, but -for many a fine scamper and free fight. But I should like to -know. My soul and heart are as happy and quiet here as this -old garden, but my reason is still crying out. I should like -to know." +"No," said Syme, "I do not feel fierce like that. I am grateful to you, +not only for wine and hospitality here, but for many a fine scamper and +free fight. But I should like to know. My soul and heart are as happy +and quiet here as this old garden, but my reason is still crying out. I +should like to know." Sunday looked at Ratcliffe, whose clear voice said--- -"It seems so silly that you should have been on both sides -and fought yourself." +"It seems so silly that you should have been on both sides and fought +yourself." Bull said--- -"I understand nothing, but I am happy. In fact, I am going -to sleep." +"I understand nothing, but I am happy. In fact, I am going to sleep." -"I am not happy," said the Professor with his head in his -hands, "because I do not understand. You let me stray a -little too near to hell." +"I am not happy," said the Professor with his head in his hands, +"because I do not understand. You let me stray a little too near to +hell." -And then Gogol said, with the absolute simplicity of a -child--- +And then Gogol said, with the absolute simplicity of a child--- "I wish I knew why I was hurt so much." -Still Sunday said nothing, but only sat with his mighty chin -upon his hand, and gazed at the distance. Then at last he -said--- - -"I have heard your complaints in order. And here, I think, -comes another to complain, and we will hear him also," - -The falling fire in the great cresset threw a last long -gleam, like a bar of burning gold, across the dim grass. -Against this fiery band was outlined in utter black the -advancing legs of a black-clad figure. He seemed to have a -fine close suit with knee-breeches such as that which was -worn by the servants of the house, only that it was not -blue, but of this absolute sable. He had, like the servants, -a kind of sword by his side. It was only when he had come -quite close to the crescent of the seven and flung up his -face to look at them, that Syme saw, with thunderstruck -clearness, that the face was the broad, almost ape-like face -of his old friend Gregory, with its rank red hair and its -insulting smile. +Still Sunday said nothing, but only sat with his mighty chin upon his +hand, and gazed at the distance. Then at last he said--- + +"I have heard your complaints in order. And here, I think, comes another +to complain, and we will hear him also," + +The falling fire in the great cresset threw a last long gleam, like a +bar of burning gold, across the dim grass. Against this fiery band was +outlined in utter black the advancing legs of a black-clad figure. He +seemed to have a fine close suit with knee-breeches such as that which +was worn by the servants of the house, only that it was not blue, but of +this absolute sable. He had, like the servants, a kind of sword by his +side. It was only when he had come quite close to the crescent of the +seven and flung up his face to look at them, that Syme saw, with +thunderstruck clearness, that the face was the broad, almost ape-like +face of his old friend Gregory, with its rank red hair and its insulting +smile. -"Gregory!" gasped Syme, half-rising from his seat. "Why, -this is the real anarchist!" +"Gregory!" gasped Syme, half-rising from his seat. "Why, this is the +real anarchist!" -"Yes," said Gregory, with a great and dangerous restraint, -"I am the real anarchist." +"Yes," said Gregory, with a great and dangerous restraint, "I am the +real anarchist." -"'Now there was a day,'" murmured Bull, who seemed really to -have fallen asleep, "'when the sons of God came to present -themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among -them.'" +"'Now there was a day,'" murmured Bull, who seemed really to have fallen +asleep, "'when the sons of God came to present themselves before the +Lord, and Satan came also among them.'" -"You are right," said Gregory, and gazed all round. "I am a -destroyer. I would destroy the world if I could." +"You are right," said Gregory, and gazed all round. "I am a destroyer. I +would destroy the world if I could." -A sense of a pathos far under the earth stirred up in Syme, -and he spoke brokenly and without sequence. +A sense of a pathos far under the earth stirred up in Syme, and he spoke +brokenly and without sequence. -"Oh, most unhappy man," he cried, "try to be happy! You have -red hair like your sister." +"Oh, most unhappy man," he cried, "try to be happy! You have red hair +like your sister." -"My red hair, like red flames, shall burn up the world," -said Gregory. "I thought I hated everything more than common -men can hate anything; but I find that I do not hate -everything so much as I hate you!" +"My red hair, like red flames, shall burn up the world," said Gregory. +"I thought I hated everything more than common men can hate anything; +but I find that I do not hate everything so much as I hate you!" "I never hated you," said Syme very sadly. -Then out of this unintelligible creature the last thunders -broke. - -"You!" he cried. "You never hated because you never lived. I -know what you are all of you, from first to last---you are -the people in power! You are the police---the great fat, -smiling men in blue and buttons! You are the Law, and you -have never been broken. But is there a free soul alive that -does not long to break yon, only because you have never been -broken? We in revolt talk all kind of nonsense doubtless -about this crime or that crime of the Government. It is all -folly! The only crime of the Government is that it governs. -The unpardonable sin of the supreme power is that it is -supreme. I do not curse you for being cruel. I do not curse -you (though I might) for being kind. I curse you for being -safe! You sit in your chairs of stone, and have never come -down from them. You are the seven angels of heaven, and you -have had no troubles. Oh, I could forgive you everything, -you that rule all mankind, if I could feel for once that you -had suffered for one hour a real agony such as I---" +Then out of this unintelligible creature the last thunders broke. + +"You!" he cried. "You never hated because you never lived. I know what +you are all of you, from first to last---you are the people in power! +You are the police---the great fat, smiling men in blue and buttons! You +are the Law, and you have never been broken. But is there a free soul +alive that does not long to break yon, only because you have never been +broken? We in revolt talk all kind of nonsense doubtless about this +crime or that crime of the Government. It is all folly! The only crime +of the Government is that it governs. The unpardonable sin of the +supreme power is that it is supreme. I do not curse you for being cruel. +I do not curse you (though I might) for being kind. I curse you for +being safe! You sit in your chairs of stone, and have never come down +from them. You are the seven angels of heaven, and you have had no +troubles. Oh, I could forgive you everything, you that rule all mankind, +if I could feel for once that you had suffered for one hour a real agony +such as I---" Syme sprang to his feet, shaking from head to foot. -"I see everything," he cried, "everything that there is. -Why does each thing on the earth war against each other -thing? Why does each small thing in the world have to fight -against the world itself? Why does a fly have to fight the -whole universe? Why does a dandelion have to fight the whole -universe? For the same reason that I had to be alone in the -dreadful Council of the Days. So that each thing that obeys -law may have the glory and isolation of the anarchist. So -that each man fighting for order may be as brave and good a -man as the dynamiter. So that the real He of Satan may be -flung back in the face of this blasphemer, so that by tears -and torture we may earn the right to say to this man, 'You -lie!' No agonies can be too great to buy the right to say to -this accuser, 'We also have suffered.' - -"It is not true that we have never been broken. We have been -broken upon the wheel. It is not true that we have never -descended from these thrones. We have descended into hell. -We were complaining of unforgettable miseries even at the -very moment when this man entered insolently to accuse us of -happiness. I repel the slander; we have not been happy. I -can answer for every one of the great guards of Law whom he -has accused. At least---" - -He had turned his eyes so as to see suddenly the great face -of Sunday, which wore a strange smile. - -"Have you," he cried in a dreadful voice, "have you ever -suffered?" - -As he gazed, the great face grew to an awful size, grew -larger than the colossal mask of Memnon, which had made him -scream as a child. It grew larger and larger, filling the -whole sky; then everything went black. Only in the blackness -before it entirely destroyed his brain he seemed to hear a -distant voice saying a commonplace text that he had heard +"I see everything," he cried, "everything that there is. Why does each +thing on the earth war against each other thing? Why does each small +thing in the world have to fight against the world itself? Why does a +fly have to fight the whole universe? Why does a dandelion have to fight +the whole universe? For the same reason that I had to be alone in the +dreadful Council of the Days. So that each thing that obeys law may have +the glory and isolation of the anarchist. So that each man fighting for +order may be as brave and good a man as the dynamiter. So that the real +He of Satan may be flung back in the face of this blasphemer, so that by +tears and torture we may earn the right to say to this man, 'You lie!' +No agonies can be too great to buy the right to say to this accuser, 'We +also have suffered.' + +"It is not true that we have never been broken. We have been broken upon +the wheel. It is not true that we have never descended from these +thrones. We have descended into hell. We were complaining of +unforgettable miseries even at the very moment when this man entered +insolently to accuse us of happiness. I repel the slander; we have not +been happy. I can answer for every one of the great guards of Law whom +he has accused. At least---" + +He had turned his eyes so as to see suddenly the great face of Sunday, +which wore a strange smile. + +"Have you," he cried in a dreadful voice, "have you ever suffered?" + +As he gazed, the great face grew to an awful size, grew larger than the +colossal mask of Memnon, which had made him scream as a child. It grew +larger and larger, filling the whole sky; then everything went black. +Only in the blackness before it entirely destroyed his brain he seemed +to hear a distant voice saying a commonplace text that he had heard somewhere, "Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?" -When men in books awake from a vision, they commonly find -themselves in some place in which they might have fallen -asleep; they yawn in a chair, or lift themselves with -bruised limbs from a field. Syme's experience was something -much more psychologically strange if there was indeed -anything unreal, in the earthly sense, about the things he -had gone through. For while he could always remember -afterwards that he had swooned before the face of Sunday, he -could not remember having ever come to at all. He could only -remember that gradually and naturally he knew that he was -and had been walking along a country lane with an easy and -conversational companion. That companion had been a part of -his recent drama; it was the red-haired poet Gregory. They -were walking like old friends, and were in the middle of a -conversation about some triviality. But Syme could only feel -an unnatural buoyancy in his body and a crystal simplicity -in his mind that seemed to be superior to everything that he -said or did. He felt he was in possession of some impossible -good news, which made every other thing a triviality, but an +When men in books awake from a vision, they commonly find themselves in +some place in which they might have fallen asleep; they yawn in a chair, +or lift themselves with bruised limbs from a field. Syme's experience +was something much more psychologically strange if there was indeed +anything unreal, in the earthly sense, about the things he had gone +through. For while he could always remember afterwards that he had +swooned before the face of Sunday, he could not remember having ever +come to at all. He could only remember that gradually and naturally he +knew that he was and had been walking along a country lane with an easy +and conversational companion. That companion had been a part of his +recent drama; it was the red-haired poet Gregory. They were walking like +old friends, and were in the middle of a conversation about some +triviality. But Syme could only feel an unnatural buoyancy in his body +and a crystal simplicity in his mind that seemed to be superior to +everything that he said or did. He felt he was in possession of some +impossible good news, which made every other thing a triviality, but an adorable triviality. -Dawn was breaking over everything in colours at once clear -and timid; as if Nature made a first attempt at yellow and a -first attempt at rose. A breeze blew so clean and sweet, -that one could not think that it blew from the sky; it blew -rather through some hole in the sky. Syme felt a simple -surprise when he saw rising all round him on both sides of -the road the red, irregular buildings of Saffron Park. He -had no idea that he had walked so near London. He walked by -instinct along one white road, on which early birds hopped -and sang, and found himself outside a fenced garden. There -he saw the sister of Gregory, the girl with the gold-red -hair, cutting lilac before breakfast, with the great +Dawn was breaking over everything in colours at once clear and timid; as +if Nature made a first attempt at yellow and a first attempt at rose. A +breeze blew so clean and sweet, that one could not think that it blew +from the sky; it blew rather through some hole in the sky. Syme felt a +simple surprise when he saw rising all round him on both sides of the +road the red, irregular buildings of Saffron Park. He had no idea that +he had walked so near London. He walked by instinct along one white +road, on which early birds hopped and sang, and found himself outside a +fenced garden. There he saw the sister of Gregory, the girl with the +gold-red hair, cutting lilac before breakfast, with the great unconscious gravity of a girl. THE END. diff --git a/src/mutual-banking.md b/src/mutual-banking.md index 26ec753..6e618b1 100644 --- a/src/mutual-banking.md +++ b/src/mutual-banking.md @@ -1,116 +1,98 @@ ## Editor's Preface -The payment of interest has been opposed by great thinkers -in all ages. Philosophers have demonstrated that it has no -reason for being. Ethical writers have shown that justice -does not countenance it. Economists have proved it an -unnecessary evil. Among its greatest opponents we find -Aristotle, Berkeley and Proudhon. These three mighty -thinkers, though living at different times and in different -countries, neither using the same methods of research, or -making deductions from the same data, yet, from their -various standpoints, reached the conclusion that interest is -neither wise, just or necessary. Not all the arguments which -any one of these writers employs are used, or would be -accepted by either of the others, but to a considerable -extent the three reason identically, so that we find -Berkeley, the Christian, agreeing with the Pagan, Aristotle, -and confirmed by Proudhon, the Rationalist. Of this trio, -however, Proudhon alone pointed out that interest could be -made to disappear, not by curtailing individual liberty, but -only by extending it. - -In the main the author of this work follows in Proudhon's -path, departing from it in some important particulars, but -in general only so modifying his master's work in finance, -both critical and constructive, as to make it applicable to -the monetary system and economic methods prevailing in the -United States. His assault is upon the system of state banks -that was in existence when he wrote (nearly half a century -ago), and the system of mutual banks by which he proposed to -replace it is an adjustment to American routine of the -essential principles embodied in Proudhon's "Bank of the -People." The reader will have little difficulty in -readjusting the arguments to the new conditions resulting -from the displacement of the state banks by the national -banks. - -Analytical examination of Greene's work will show that it is -written In elucidation and illumination of the discovery -that, considered as a whole, interest payment, as it exists -in modern times, is not what it is professed to be, the -price paid for the use of borrowed capital, but the premium -paid for the insurance of credit. Paying interest is -generally accepted as equitable because it is looked upon as -a reimbursement of the holder of capital for foregoing the -advantage of using his capital himself. Though the so-called -borrower really needs capital, and ultimately gets it as a -result of the transaction between himself and the so-called -lender, this transaction is really not one of borrowing and -lending, but simply a temporary exchange of well-known -credit for credit less well known, but equally good, and the -interest paid is the price of the insurance which the latter -credit receives through the exchange. This, under a system -of free competition in banking, would fall to cost, or less -than 1% per annum. It is now maintained at varying rates, -averaging 5 or 6% by giving a monopoly of this exchange of -credits to banks, which, in addition to the perfectly -sufficient insurance afforded by the centralization of their -customers' credit, furnish a supposed extra security by -pledging, in a prescribed form, capital belonging to -themselves, thus enabling these banks to offer a pretext for -charging an exorbitant premium, the power to exact which -depends in reality solely upon this monopoly. This book aims -at the destruction of their monopoly by allowing perfect -freedom in banking, giving to all credit instruments the -liberty of such circulation as they can command upon their -merits, and thereby enabling producers to monetize their -credit directly and at cost, instead of through the -mediation of a prescribed and privileged commodity and at an -exorbitant price, as well as to increase the circulating -power of their credit by methods of organization and -insurance similar to that which the author proposes under -the name of mutual banking. - -The long-standing feud between the hard-money advocates and -the flatists has been possible only because each has -persisted in looking at only one side of the shield. The -former demand a safe currency; the latter desire the -benefits of paper money, and each party ignores the other's -arguments. This feud the author brings to an end, by -proposing a paper currency secured by real property, thus -combining the safety of coin with the advantages of paper, -and eliminating the evils of both. Whenever a theory of -financial reform is broached that involves the issue of -paper money, the failures of paper money experiments in the -past are brought up as a warning. But the experiments that -failed after a fair trial were characterized by one or more -of three features which almost inevitably bring disaster, -and which mutual banking excludes: - -1. The issue of money by a government, or under an - exclusive privilege granted by one. +The payment of interest has been opposed by great thinkers in all ages. +Philosophers have demonstrated that it has no reason for being. Ethical +writers have shown that justice does not countenance it. Economists have +proved it an unnecessary evil. Among its greatest opponents we find +Aristotle, Berkeley and Proudhon. These three mighty thinkers, though +living at different times and in different countries, neither using the +same methods of research, or making deductions from the same data, yet, +from their various standpoints, reached the conclusion that interest is +neither wise, just or necessary. Not all the arguments which any one of +these writers employs are used, or would be accepted by either of the +others, but to a considerable extent the three reason identically, so +that we find Berkeley, the Christian, agreeing with the Pagan, +Aristotle, and confirmed by Proudhon, the Rationalist. Of this trio, +however, Proudhon alone pointed out that interest could be made to +disappear, not by curtailing individual liberty, but only by extending +it. + +In the main the author of this work follows in Proudhon's path, +departing from it in some important particulars, but in general only so +modifying his master's work in finance, both critical and constructive, +as to make it applicable to the monetary system and economic methods +prevailing in the United States. His assault is upon the system of state +banks that was in existence when he wrote (nearly half a century ago), +and the system of mutual banks by which he proposed to replace it is an +adjustment to American routine of the essential principles embodied in +Proudhon's "Bank of the People." The reader will have little difficulty +in readjusting the arguments to the new conditions resulting from the +displacement of the state banks by the national banks. + +Analytical examination of Greene's work will show that it is written In +elucidation and illumination of the discovery that, considered as a +whole, interest payment, as it exists in modern times, is not what it is +professed to be, the price paid for the use of borrowed capital, but the +premium paid for the insurance of credit. Paying interest is generally +accepted as equitable because it is looked upon as a reimbursement of +the holder of capital for foregoing the advantage of using his capital +himself. Though the so-called borrower really needs capital, and +ultimately gets it as a result of the transaction between himself and +the so-called lender, this transaction is really not one of borrowing +and lending, but simply a temporary exchange of well-known credit for +credit less well known, but equally good, and the interest paid is the +price of the insurance which the latter credit receives through the +exchange. This, under a system of free competition in banking, would +fall to cost, or less than 1% per annum. It is now maintained at varying +rates, averaging 5 or 6% by giving a monopoly of this exchange of +credits to banks, which, in addition to the perfectly sufficient +insurance afforded by the centralization of their customers' credit, +furnish a supposed extra security by pledging, in a prescribed form, +capital belonging to themselves, thus enabling these banks to offer a +pretext for charging an exorbitant premium, the power to exact which +depends in reality solely upon this monopoly. This book aims at the +destruction of their monopoly by allowing perfect freedom in banking, +giving to all credit instruments the liberty of such circulation as they +can command upon their merits, and thereby enabling producers to +monetize their credit directly and at cost, instead of through the +mediation of a prescribed and privileged commodity and at an exorbitant +price, as well as to increase the circulating power of their credit by +methods of organization and insurance similar to that which the author +proposes under the name of mutual banking. + +The long-standing feud between the hard-money advocates and the flatists +has been possible only because each has persisted in looking at only one +side of the shield. The former demand a safe currency; the latter desire +the benefits of paper money, and each party ignores the other's +arguments. This feud the author brings to an end, by proposing a paper +currency secured by real property, thus combining the safety of coin +with the advantages of paper, and eliminating the evils of both. +Whenever a theory of financial reform is broached that involves the +issue of paper money, the failures of paper money experiments in the +past are brought up as a warning. But the experiments that failed after +a fair trial were characterized by one or more of three features which +almost inevitably bring disaster, and which mutual banking excludes: + +1. The issue of money by a government, or under an exclusive privilege + granted by one. 2. The legal tender privilege. 3. Redemption on demand. -When the power to issue money is confined to privileged -banks, the control of the volume of currency and the rate of -interest resides in a cabal, which will sooner or later use -its power to drive producers into bankruptcy. When the power -to issue money is confined to government itself, losses -ultimately ruinous will be suffered through -maladministration by incompetence, or by fraud, two factors -whose operations, in combination or in alternation, -constitute the history of almost all governmental -undertakings. - -The legal tender privilege adds no virtue to good money, and -removes the only effective cure for bad money the right to -reject it. To force bad money on people is as surely -disastrous as to force bad food on them. But to dwell at -length on this point and on the redemption of notes on +When the power to issue money is confined to privileged banks, the +control of the volume of currency and the rate of interest resides in a +cabal, which will sooner or later use its power to drive producers into +bankruptcy. When the power to issue money is confined to government +itself, losses ultimately ruinous will be suffered through +maladministration by incompetence, or by fraud, two factors whose +operations, in combination or in alternation, constitute the history of +almost all governmental undertakings. + +The legal tender privilege adds no virtue to good money, and removes the +only effective cure for bad money the right to reject it. To force bad +money on people is as surely disastrous as to force bad food on them. +But to dwell at length on this point and on the redemption of notes on demand would anticipate the author's argument. H.C. @@ -119,3160 +101,2673 @@ Denver, Colorado, March 1, 1919 # I. The Usury Laws[^1] {#i.-the-usury-laws1} -All usury laws appear to be arbitrary and unjust. Kent paid -for the use of all lands and houses is freely determined in -the contract between the landlord and tenant; freight is -settled by the contract between the shipowner, and the -person hiring of him; profit is determined in the contractor -purchase and sale. But, when we come to interest on money, -principles suddenly change; here the government intervenes -and says to the capitalist, "You shall in no case take more -than 6% interest on the amount of principal you loan. If -competition among capitalists brings down the rate of -interest to 3%, 2%, or 1%, you have no remedy; but if, on -the other hand, competition among borrowers forces that rate -up to 7%, 8% or 9%, you are prohibited, under severe -penalties, from taking any advantage of the rise." Where is -the morality of this restriction? So long as the competition -of the market is permitted to operate without legislative -interference, the charge for the use of capital in all or -any of its forms will be properly determined by the -contracts between capitalists and the persons with whom they -deal. If the capitalist charges too much, the borrower -obtains money at the proper rate from some other person; if -the borrower is unreasonable, the capitalist refuses to part -with his money. If lands, houses, bridges, canals, boats, -wagons, are abundant in proportion to the demand for them, -the charge for the use of them will be proportionally low; -if they are scarce, it will be proportionally high. Upon -what ground can you justify the legislature in making laws -to restrict a particular class of capitalists, depriving -them invidiously of the benefit which they would naturally -derive from a system of unrestricted competition? If a man -owns a sum of money, he must not lend it for more than 6% -interest, but he may buy houses, ships, lands, wagons, with -it, and these he may freely let out at 50%, if he can find -any person willing to pay at that rate. Is not the -distinction drawn by the legislature arbitrary, and -therefore unjust? A man wishes to obtain certain lands, -wagons, etc., and applies to you for money to buy them with; -you can lend the money for 6% interest, and no more; but you -can purchase the articles the man desires, and let them out -to him at any rate of remuneration upon which you mutually -agree. Every sound argument in favor of the intervention of -the legislature to fix by law the charge for the use of -money bears with equal force in favor of legislative -intervention to fix by law the rent of lands and houses, the -freight of ships, the hire of horses and carriages, or the -profit on merchandise sold. Legislative interference, fixing -the rate of interest by law, appears, therefore, to be both +All usury laws appear to be arbitrary and unjust. Kent paid for the use +of all lands and houses is freely determined in the contract between the +landlord and tenant; freight is settled by the contract between the +shipowner, and the person hiring of him; profit is determined in the +contractor purchase and sale. But, when we come to interest on money, +principles suddenly change; here the government intervenes and says to +the capitalist, "You shall in no case take more than 6% interest on the +amount of principal you loan. If competition among capitalists brings +down the rate of interest to 3%, 2%, or 1%, you have no remedy; but if, +on the other hand, competition among borrowers forces that rate up to +7%, 8% or 9%, you are prohibited, under severe penalties, from taking +any advantage of the rise." Where is the morality of this restriction? +So long as the competition of the market is permitted to operate without +legislative interference, the charge for the use of capital in all or +any of its forms will be properly determined by the contracts between +capitalists and the persons with whom they deal. If the capitalist +charges too much, the borrower obtains money at the proper rate from +some other person; if the borrower is unreasonable, the capitalist +refuses to part with his money. If lands, houses, bridges, canals, +boats, wagons, are abundant in proportion to the demand for them, the +charge for the use of them will be proportionally low; if they are +scarce, it will be proportionally high. Upon what ground can you justify +the legislature in making laws to restrict a particular class of +capitalists, depriving them invidiously of the benefit which they would +naturally derive from a system of unrestricted competition? If a man +owns a sum of money, he must not lend it for more than 6% interest, but +he may buy houses, ships, lands, wagons, with it, and these he may +freely let out at 50%, if he can find any person willing to pay at that +rate. Is not the distinction drawn by the legislature arbitrary, and +therefore unjust? A man wishes to obtain certain lands, wagons, etc., +and applies to you for money to buy them with; you can lend the money +for 6% interest, and no more; but you can purchase the articles the man +desires, and let them out to him at any rate of remuneration upon which +you mutually agree. Every sound argument in favor of the intervention of +the legislature to fix by law the charge for the use of money bears with +equal force in favor of legislative intervention to fix by law the rent +of lands and houses, the freight of ships, the hire of horses and +carriages, or the profit on merchandise sold. Legislative interference, +fixing the rate of interest by law, appears, therefore, to be both impolitic and unjust. ## Effect of the Repeal of the Usury Laws -But let logic have her perfect work. Suppose the usury laws -were repealed today, would justice prevail tomorrow? By no -means. The government says to you: "I leave you and your -neighbor to compete with each other; fight out your battles -between yourselves; I will have nothing more to do with your -quarrels." You act upon this hint of the legislature; you -enter into competition with your neighbor. But you find the -government has lied to you; you find the legislature has no -intention of letting you and your neighbor settle your -quarrels between yourselves. Far from it; when the struggle -attains its height, behold! the government quietly steps up -to your antagonist, and furnishes him with a bowie knife and -a revolver. How can you, an unarmed man, contend with one to -whom the legislature sees fit to furnish bowie knives and -revolvers? In fact, you enter the market with your silver -dollar, while another man enters the market with his silver -dollar. Your dollar is a plain silver dollar, nothing more -or nothing less; but his doll ar is something very -different, for, by permission of the legislature, he can -issue bank-bills to the amount of \$1.25 and loan money to -the extent of double his or your capital. You tel your -customer that you can afford to lend your dollar, if he wil -return it after a certain time, with four cents for the use -of it, but that you cannot lend it for anything less. Your -neighbor comes between you and your customer, and says to -him, "I can do better by. you than that. Don't take his -dollar on any such terms, for I will lend you a dollar and -charge you only three cents for the use of it." Thus he gets -your customer away from you; the worst of it is that he -still retains another dollar to seduce away the next -customer to whom you apply. Nay, more, when he has loaned -out his two dollars, he still has 25 cents in specie in his -pocket to fall back upon and carry to Texas in case of -accident, while you, if you succeed in lending your dollar, -must go without money till your debtor pays it back. Yet you -and he entered the market, each with a silver dollar; how is -it that he thus obtains the advantage over you in every -transaction? The **banking privilege** which the government -has given him, is a murderous weapon against which you -cannot contend. +But let logic have her perfect work. Suppose the usury laws were +repealed today, would justice prevail tomorrow? By no means. The +government says to you: "I leave you and your neighbor to compete with +each other; fight out your battles between yourselves; I will have +nothing more to do with your quarrels." You act upon this hint of the +legislature; you enter into competition with your neighbor. But you find +the government has lied to you; you find the legislature has no +intention of letting you and your neighbor settle your quarrels between +yourselves. Far from it; when the struggle attains its height, behold! +the government quietly steps up to your antagonist, and furnishes him +with a bowie knife and a revolver. How can you, an unarmed man, contend +with one to whom the legislature sees fit to furnish bowie knives and +revolvers? In fact, you enter the market with your silver dollar, while +another man enters the market with his silver dollar. Your dollar is a +plain silver dollar, nothing more or nothing less; but his doll ar is +something very different, for, by permission of the legislature, he can +issue bank-bills to the amount of \$1.25 and loan money to the extent of +double his or your capital. You tel your customer that you can afford to +lend your dollar, if he wil return it after a certain time, with four +cents for the use of it, but that you cannot lend it for anything less. +Your neighbor comes between you and your customer, and says to him, "I +can do better by. you than that. Don't take his dollar on any such +terms, for I will lend you a dollar and charge you only three cents for +the use of it." Thus he gets your customer away from you; the worst of +it is that he still retains another dollar to seduce away the next +customer to whom you apply. Nay, more, when he has loaned out his two +dollars, he still has 25 cents in specie in his pocket to fall back upon +and carry to Texas in case of accident, while you, if you succeed in +lending your dollar, must go without money till your debtor pays it +back. Yet you and he entered the market, each with a silver dollar; how +is it that he thus obtains the advantage over you in every transaction? +The **banking privilege** which the government has given him, is a +murderous weapon against which you cannot contend. ## The Usury Laws are Necessary under Present Circumstances -A just balance and just weights! Very well; but if we have -an unjust balance, is it not necessary that the weights -should be unjust also? A just balance and unjust weights -give false measure, and just weights with an unjust balance -give false measure in like manner, but an unjust balance and -unjust weights[^2] may be so adjusted as to give true -measure. Under our present system, the lender who is not -connected with the banks may be oppressed, but the usury -laws (unjust as they are when considered without relation to -the false system under which we live) afford some -protection, at least to the borrower. They are the unjust -weights, which, to a certain extent, justify the false -balance. It would be well to have a just balance and just -weights; that is, it would be well to repeal the usury laws, -and to abolish, not only the banking privilege, but also, as -we shall proceed to show, the exclusively specie basis of -the currency; but it will not do to put new wine into old -bottles, nor to mend old garments with new cloth. When the -bank lends two dollars, while it owns only one, it gets -twice the interest it is actually entitled to. Insist, if -you will, upon retaining your peculiar privileges; but -consent in the name of moderation and justice, to let me -protect myself by the usury laws; for they are not very -severe against you after all. The usury laws confine you to -6% interest on whatever you loan, but, as the banking laws -enable you to loan twice as much as you actually possess, -you obtain 12% interest on all the capital you really own. -You cannot complain that in your case the usury laws -violate, and without due compensation, the right of -property; for you only own one dollar, and yet receive -interest and transact business, as though you owned two -dollars. The usury laws are necessary, not to interfere in -your right to your own property, but to limit you in the -abuse of the unjust and exclusive privileges granted you by -the legislature. The antagonism between the usury and the -banking laws is like the division of Satan against Satan; -and, through their internal conflict and opposition, the -modern Hebrew kingdom may one day be brought to destruction. +A just balance and just weights! Very well; but if we have an unjust +balance, is it not necessary that the weights should be unjust also? A +just balance and unjust weights give false measure, and just weights +with an unjust balance give false measure in like manner, but an unjust +balance and unjust weights[^2] may be so adjusted as to give true +measure. Under our present system, the lender who is not connected with +the banks may be oppressed, but the usury laws (unjust as they are when +considered without relation to the false system under which we live) +afford some protection, at least to the borrower. They are the unjust +weights, which, to a certain extent, justify the false balance. It would +be well to have a just balance and just weights; that is, it would be +well to repeal the usury laws, and to abolish, not only the banking +privilege, but also, as we shall proceed to show, the exclusively specie +basis of the currency; but it will not do to put new wine into old +bottles, nor to mend old garments with new cloth. When the bank lends +two dollars, while it owns only one, it gets twice the interest it is +actually entitled to. Insist, if you will, upon retaining your peculiar +privileges; but consent in the name of moderation and justice, to let me +protect myself by the usury laws; for they are not very severe against +you after all. The usury laws confine you to 6% interest on whatever you +loan, but, as the banking laws enable you to loan twice as much as you +actually possess, you obtain 12% interest on all the capital you really +own. You cannot complain that in your case the usury laws violate, and +without due compensation, the right of property; for you only own one +dollar, and yet receive interest and transact business, as though you +owned two dollars. The usury laws are necessary, not to interfere in +your right to your own property, but to limit you in the abuse of the +unjust and exclusive privileges granted you by the legislature. The +antagonism between the usury and the banking laws is like the division +of Satan against Satan; and, through their internal conflict and +opposition, the modern Hebrew kingdom may one day be brought to +destruction. ## Argument in Favor of the Repeal of the Usury Laws -But let us now examine the great argument in favor of the -immediate repeal of the usury laws---an argument which, -according to those who adduce it, is in every way -unanswerable. It is said that all the above considerations, -though important and certainly to the point, ought to have -very little weight in our minds, and that for the following -reason: **Men do**, notwithstanding the present laws, take -exorbitant interest; and whatever usury laws may be passed, -they will continue so to do. If it be acknowledged that it -is wrong to take too high interest, that acknowledgement -will not help the matter, for, though we acknowledge the -wrong, we are impotent to prevent it. The usury laws merely -add a new evil to one that was bad enough when it was alone. -Without a usury law, men will take too high interest; for -they have the power to do it as credit is now organized, and -no legislation can prevent them; with a usury law they will -continue to take unjust interest, and will have recourse to -expedients of questionable morality to evade the law. If the -taking of too high interest be an evil, is it not still a -greater evil for the community to demoralize itself by -evading the laws; to demoralize itself by allowing -individuals to have recourse to subterranean methods to -accomplish an end they are determined to accomplish at all -events an end which they cannot accomplish in the light of -day, because of the terror of the law? Thus argue the -advocates of immediate repeal, and with much show of reason. -There are a hundred ways in which the usury laws may be -evaded. +But let us now examine the great argument in favor of the immediate +repeal of the usury laws---an argument which, according to those who +adduce it, is in every way unanswerable. It is said that all the above +considerations, though important and certainly to the point, ought to +have very little weight in our minds, and that for the following reason: +**Men do**, notwithstanding the present laws, take exorbitant interest; +and whatever usury laws may be passed, they will continue so to do. If +it be acknowledged that it is wrong to take too high interest, that +acknowledgement will not help the matter, for, though we acknowledge the +wrong, we are impotent to prevent it. The usury laws merely add a new +evil to one that was bad enough when it was alone. Without a usury law, +men will take too high interest; for they have the power to do it as +credit is now organized, and no legislation can prevent them; with a +usury law they will continue to take unjust interest, and will have +recourse to expedients of questionable morality to evade the law. If the +taking of too high interest be an evil, is it not still a greater evil +for the community to demoralize itself by evading the laws; to +demoralize itself by allowing individuals to have recourse to +subterranean methods to accomplish an end they are determined to +accomplish at all events an end which they cannot accomplish in the +light of day, because of the terror of the law? Thus argue the advocates +of immediate repeal, and with much show of reason. There are a hundred +ways in which the usury laws may be evaded. ## Power of Capital in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts -We think few persons are aware of the power of capital in -this Commonwealth. According to a pamphlet quoted by -Mr. Kellogg, containing a list of the wealthy men of Boston, -and an estimate of the value of their property, there are -234 individuals in this city who are worth, in the -aggregate, \$71,855,000; the average wealth of these -individuals would be \$321,781. In this book, no estimate is -made of the wealth of any individual whose property is -supposed to amount to less than \$100,000. Let us be -moderate in our estimates, and suppose that there are, in -all the towns and counties in the state, (including Boston), -3,000 other individuals who are worth \$30,000 each, their -aggregate wealth would amount to \$90,000,000. Add to this -the \$71,855,000 owned by the 224 men, and we have -\$161,855,000. These estimates are more or less incorrect, -but they give the nearest approximation to the truth that we -can obtain at the present time. The assessors' valuation of -the property in the State of Massachusetts in 1840[^3] was -\$299,880,338. We find, therefore, by the above estimates, -that 3,224 individuals own more than half of all the -property in the State. If we suppose each of these 3,224 -persons to be the head of a family of five persons, we shall -have in all 16,120 individuals. In 1840 the State contained -a population of 737,700. Thus 16,120 persons own more -property than the remaining 721,580; that is, three persons -out of every hundred own more property than the remaining -ninety-seven. To be certain that we are within the truth, -let us say that six out of every hundred own more property -than the remaining ninety-four. These wealthy persons are -connected with each other, for the banks are the -organization of their mutual relation, and we think, human -nature being what it is, that their weight would be brought -to bear still more powerfully upon the community if the -usury laws were repealed. These persons might easily obtain -complete control over the banks. They might easily so -arrange matters as to allow very little money to be loaned -by the banks to any but themselves, and thus they would -obtain the power over the money market which a monopoly -always gives to those who wield it---that is, they would be -able to ask and to obtain pretty much what interest they -pleased for their money. Then there would be no remedy; the -indignation of the community would be of no avail. What good -would it do you to be indignant? You would go indignantly, -and pay exorbitant interest, because you would be hard -pushed for money. You would get no money at the bank, -because it would be all taken up by the heavy capitalists -who control those institutions, or by their friends. These -would all get money at 6% interest or less, and they would -get from you precisely that interest which your necessities -might enable them to exact. The usury laws furnish you with -some remedy for these evils; for, under those laws, the -power of demanding and obtaining illegal interest will be -possible only so long as public opinion sees fit to sanction -evasions of the statute. As long as the weight of the system -is not intolerable to the community, every thing will move -quietly; but as soon as the burden of illegal interest -becomes intolerable, the laws will be put in force in -obedience to the demand of the public, and the evil will be -abated to a certain extent. We confess that it is hard for -the borrower to be obliged to pay the broker, to pay also -for the wear and tear of the lender's conscience, but we -think it would be worse for him if a few lenders should -obtain a monopoly of the market. And when the usury laws are -repealed, what earthly power will exist capable of -preventing them from exercising this monopoly? But here an -interesting question presents itself: "What is the limit of -the power of the lender over the borrower?" +We think few persons are aware of the power of capital in this +Commonwealth. According to a pamphlet quoted by Mr. Kellogg, containing +a list of the wealthy men of Boston, and an estimate of the value of +their property, there are 234 individuals in this city who are worth, in +the aggregate, \$71,855,000; the average wealth of these individuals +would be \$321,781. In this book, no estimate is made of the wealth of +any individual whose property is supposed to amount to less than +\$100,000. Let us be moderate in our estimates, and suppose that there +are, in all the towns and counties in the state, (including Boston), +3,000 other individuals who are worth \$30,000 each, their aggregate +wealth would amount to \$90,000,000. Add to this the \$71,855,000 owned +by the 224 men, and we have \$161,855,000. These estimates are more or +less incorrect, but they give the nearest approximation to the truth +that we can obtain at the present time. The assessors' valuation of the +property in the State of Massachusetts in 1840[^3] was \$299,880,338. We +find, therefore, by the above estimates, that 3,224 individuals own more +than half of all the property in the State. If we suppose each of these +3,224 persons to be the head of a family of five persons, we shall have +in all 16,120 individuals. In 1840 the State contained a population of +737,700. Thus 16,120 persons own more property than the remaining +721,580; that is, three persons out of every hundred own more property +than the remaining ninety-seven. To be certain that we are within the +truth, let us say that six out of every hundred own more property than +the remaining ninety-four. These wealthy persons are connected with each +other, for the banks are the organization of their mutual relation, and +we think, human nature being what it is, that their weight would be +brought to bear still more powerfully upon the community if the usury +laws were repealed. These persons might easily obtain complete control +over the banks. They might easily so arrange matters as to allow very +little money to be loaned by the banks to any but themselves, and thus +they would obtain the power over the money market which a monopoly +always gives to those who wield it---that is, they would be able to ask +and to obtain pretty much what interest they pleased for their money. +Then there would be no remedy; the indignation of the community would be +of no avail. What good would it do you to be indignant? You would go +indignantly, and pay exorbitant interest, because you would be hard +pushed for money. You would get no money at the bank, because it would +be all taken up by the heavy capitalists who control those institutions, +or by their friends. These would all get money at 6% interest or less, +and they would get from you precisely that interest which your +necessities might enable them to exact. The usury laws furnish you with +some remedy for these evils; for, under those laws, the power of +demanding and obtaining illegal interest will be possible only so long +as public opinion sees fit to sanction evasions of the statute. As long +as the weight of the system is not intolerable to the community, every +thing will move quietly; but as soon as the burden of illegal interest +becomes intolerable, the laws will be put in force in obedience to the +demand of the public, and the evil will be abated to a certain extent. +We confess that it is hard for the borrower to be obliged to pay the +broker, to pay also for the wear and tear of the lender's conscience, +but we think it would be worse for him if a few lenders should obtain a +monopoly of the market. And when the usury laws are repealed, what +earthly power will exist capable of preventing them from exercising this +monopoly? But here an interesting question presents itself: "What is the +limit of the power of the lender over the borrower?" ## Actual Value and Legal Value -Let us first explain the difference between legal value and -actual value.[^4] It is evident, that, if every bank-bill in -the country should suddenly be destroyed, no actual value -would be destroyed, except perhaps to the extent of the -value of so much waste paper. The holders of the bills would -lose their money, but the banks would gain the same amount, -because they would no longer be liable to be called upon to -redeem their bills in specie. Legal value is the legal claim -which one man has upon property in the hands of another. No -matter how much legal value you destroy, you cannot by that -process banish a single dollar's worth of actual value, -though you may do a great injustice to individuals. But if -you destroy the silver dollars in the banks, you inflict a -great loss on the community; for an importation of specie -would have to be made to meet the exigencies of the -currency, and this importation would have to be paid for in -goods and commodities which are of actual value. When a ship -goes down at sea with her cargo on board, so much actual -value is lost. But, on the other hand, when an owner loses -his ship in some unfortunate speculation, so that the -ownership passes from his hands into the hands of some other -person, there may be no loss of actual value, as in the case -of shipwreck, for the loss may be a mere change of -ownership. - -The national debt of England exceeds \$4,000,000,000. If -there were enough gold sovereigns in the world to pay this -debt, and these sovereigns should be laid beside each other, -touching each other, and in a straight line, the line thus -formed would be much more than long enough to furnish a belt -of gold extending around the earth. Yet all this debt is -mere legal value. If all the obligations by which this debt -is held were destroyed, the holders of the debt would become -poorer by the amount of legal value destroyed; but those who -are bound by the obligations (the tax-paying people of -England) would gain to the same amount. Destroy all this -legal value, and England would be as rich after the -destruction as it was before; because no actual value would -have been affected. The destruction of the legal value would -merely cause a vast change in the ownership of property; -making some classes richer, and, of course, others poorer to -precisely the same extent; but if you should destroy actual -value to. the amount of this debt you would destroy about -thirteen times as much actual value (machinery, houses, -improvements, products, etc.) as exist at present in the -state of Massachusetts. The sudden destruction of -\$4,000,000,000 worth of actual value would turn the British -Islands into a desert. Many persons are unable to account -for the vitality of the English government. The secret is -partly as follows: The whole property of England is taxed -yearly, say 3%, to pay the interest of the public debt. The -amount raised for this purpose is paid over to those who own -the obligations which constitute this legal value. The -people of England are thus divided into classes, one class -is taxed and pays the interest on the debt, the other class -receives the interest and lives upon it. The class which -receives the interest knows very well that a revolution -would be followed by either a repudiation of the national -debt, or its immediate payment by means of a ruinous tax on -property. This class knows that the nation would be no -poorer if the debt were repudiated or paid. It knows that a -large portion of the people look upon the debt as being the -result of aristocratic obstinacy in carrying on aristocratic -wars for the accomplishment of aristocratic purposes. When, -therefore, the government wants votes, it looks to this -privileged class; when it wants orators and writers, it -looks to this same class; when it wants special constables -to put down insurrection, it applies to this same class. The -people of England pay yearly \$120,000,000 (the interest of -the debt) to strengthen the hands of a conservative class, -whose function it is to prevent all change, and therefore -all improvement in the condition of the empire. The owners -of the public debt, the pensioners, the holders of sinecure -offices, the nobility, and the functionaries of the -Established Church, are the Spartans who rule over the -English Laconians, Helots, and Slaves. When such powerful -support is enlisted in favor of an iniquitous social order, -there is very little prospect left of any amelioration in -the condition of the people. +Let us first explain the difference between legal value and actual +value.[^4] It is evident, that, if every bank-bill in the country should +suddenly be destroyed, no actual value would be destroyed, except +perhaps to the extent of the value of so much waste paper. The holders +of the bills would lose their money, but the banks would gain the same +amount, because they would no longer be liable to be called upon to +redeem their bills in specie. Legal value is the legal claim which one +man has upon property in the hands of another. No matter how much legal +value you destroy, you cannot by that process banish a single dollar's +worth of actual value, though you may do a great injustice to +individuals. But if you destroy the silver dollars in the banks, you +inflict a great loss on the community; for an importation of specie +would have to be made to meet the exigencies of the currency, and this +importation would have to be paid for in goods and commodities which are +of actual value. When a ship goes down at sea with her cargo on board, +so much actual value is lost. But, on the other hand, when an owner +loses his ship in some unfortunate speculation, so that the ownership +passes from his hands into the hands of some other person, there may be +no loss of actual value, as in the case of shipwreck, for the loss may +be a mere change of ownership. + +The national debt of England exceeds \$4,000,000,000. If there were +enough gold sovereigns in the world to pay this debt, and these +sovereigns should be laid beside each other, touching each other, and in +a straight line, the line thus formed would be much more than long +enough to furnish a belt of gold extending around the earth. Yet all +this debt is mere legal value. If all the obligations by which this debt +is held were destroyed, the holders of the debt would become poorer by +the amount of legal value destroyed; but those who are bound by the +obligations (the tax-paying people of England) would gain to the same +amount. Destroy all this legal value, and England would be as rich after +the destruction as it was before; because no actual value would have +been affected. The destruction of the legal value would merely cause a +vast change in the ownership of property; making some classes richer, +and, of course, others poorer to precisely the same extent; but if you +should destroy actual value to. the amount of this debt you would +destroy about thirteen times as much actual value (machinery, houses, +improvements, products, etc.) as exist at present in the state of +Massachusetts. The sudden destruction of \$4,000,000,000 worth of actual +value would turn the British Islands into a desert. Many persons are +unable to account for the vitality of the English government. The secret +is partly as follows: The whole property of England is taxed yearly, say +3%, to pay the interest of the public debt. The amount raised for this +purpose is paid over to those who own the obligations which constitute +this legal value. The people of England are thus divided into classes, +one class is taxed and pays the interest on the debt, the other class +receives the interest and lives upon it. The class which receives the +interest knows very well that a revolution would be followed by either a +repudiation of the national debt, or its immediate payment by means of a +ruinous tax on property. This class knows that the nation would be no +poorer if the debt were repudiated or paid. It knows that a large +portion of the people look upon the debt as being the result of +aristocratic obstinacy in carrying on aristocratic wars for the +accomplishment of aristocratic purposes. When, therefore, the government +wants votes, it looks to this privileged class; when it wants orators +and writers, it looks to this same class; when it wants special +constables to put down insurrection, it applies to this same class. The +people of England pay yearly \$120,000,000 (the interest of the debt) to +strengthen the hands of a conservative class, whose function it is to +prevent all change, and therefore all improvement in the condition of +the empire. The owners of the public debt, the pensioners, the holders +of sinecure offices, the nobility, and the functionaries of the +Established Church, are the Spartans who rule over the English +Laconians, Helots, and Slaves. When such powerful support is enlisted in +favor of an iniquitous social order, there is very little prospect left +of any amelioration in the condition of the people. ## The Matter Brought Nearer Home -But let us bring the matter nearer home. The assessors' -valuation of the property in the state of Massachusetts in -1790 was \$44,034,349. In 1840 it was \$399,880,338. The -increase, therefore, during fifty years, was \$255.855,989. -This is the increase of actual value. If, now, the -\$44,034,349 which the state possessed in 1790 had been -owned by a class, and had been loaned to the community on -six months' notes, regularly renewed, at 6% interest per -annum, and the interest, as it fell due, had itself been -continually put out at interest on the same terms, that -accumulated interest would have amounted in fifty years to -\$885,524,246. This is the increase of the legal value. A -simple comparison will show us that the legal value would -have increased three times as fast as the actual value has -increased. - -Suppose 5,000 men to own \$30,000 each; suppose these men to -move, with their families, to some desolate place in the -state, where there is no opportunity for the profitable -pursuit of the occupations either of commerce, agriculture, -or manufacturing. The united capital of these 5,000 men -would be \$150,000,000. Suppose, now, this capital to be -safely invested in different parts of the state; suppose -these men to be, each of them, heads of families, -comprising, on an average, five persons each, this would -give us, in all, 25,000 individuals. A servant to each -family would give us 5,000 persons more, and these added to -the above number would give us 30,000 in all. Suppose, now, -that 5,000 mechanics---shoemakers, bakers, butchers, -etc.---should settle with their families in the neighborhood -of these capitalists, in order to avail themselves of their -custom. Allowing five to a family, as before, we have 25,000 -to add to the above number. We have, therefore, in all, a -city of 55,000 individuals, established in the most desolate -part of the state. The people in the rest of the state would -have to pay to the capitalists of this city 6% on -\$150,000,000 every year; for these capitalists have, by the -supposition, this amount out at interest on bond and -mortgage, or otherwise. The yearly interest on -\$150,000,000, at 6%, is \$9,000,000. These wealthy -individuals may do no useful work whatever, and, -nevertheless, they levy a tax of \$9,000,000 per annum on -the industry of the state. The tax would be paid in this -way. Some money would be brought to the new city, and much -produce; the produce would be sold for money to the -capitalists, and with the money thus obtained, added to the -other, the debtors would pay the interest due. The -capitalists would have their choice of the best the state -produces, and the mechanics of the city, who receive money -from the capitalists, the next choice. Now, how would all -this be looked upon by the people of the commonwealth? There -would be a general rejoicing over the excellent market for -produce which had grown up in so unexpected a place, and the +But let us bring the matter nearer home. The assessors' valuation of the +property in the state of Massachusetts in 1790 was \$44,034,349. In 1840 +it was \$399,880,338. The increase, therefore, during fifty years, was +\$255.855,989. This is the increase of actual value. If, now, the +\$44,034,349 which the state possessed in 1790 had been owned by a +class, and had been loaned to the community on six months' notes, +regularly renewed, at 6% interest per annum, and the interest, as it +fell due, had itself been continually put out at interest on the same +terms, that accumulated interest would have amounted in fifty years to +\$885,524,246. This is the increase of the legal value. A simple +comparison will show us that the legal value would have increased three +times as fast as the actual value has increased. + +Suppose 5,000 men to own \$30,000 each; suppose these men to move, with +their families, to some desolate place in the state, where there is no +opportunity for the profitable pursuit of the occupations either of +commerce, agriculture, or manufacturing. The united capital of these +5,000 men would be \$150,000,000. Suppose, now, this capital to be +safely invested in different parts of the state; suppose these men to +be, each of them, heads of families, comprising, on an average, five +persons each, this would give us, in all, 25,000 individuals. A servant +to each family would give us 5,000 persons more, and these added to the +above number would give us 30,000 in all. Suppose, now, that 5,000 +mechanics---shoemakers, bakers, butchers, etc.---should settle with +their families in the neighborhood of these capitalists, in order to +avail themselves of their custom. Allowing five to a family, as before, +we have 25,000 to add to the above number. We have, therefore, in all, a +city of 55,000 individuals, established in the most desolate part of the +state. The people in the rest of the state would have to pay to the +capitalists of this city 6% on \$150,000,000 every year; for these +capitalists have, by the supposition, this amount out at interest on +bond and mortgage, or otherwise. The yearly interest on \$150,000,000, +at 6%, is \$9,000,000. These wealthy individuals may do no useful work +whatever, and, nevertheless, they levy a tax of \$9,000,000 per annum on +the industry of the state. The tax would be paid in this way. Some money +would be brought to the new city, and much produce; the produce would be +sold for money to the capitalists, and with the money thus obtained, +added to the other, the debtors would pay the interest due. The +capitalists would have their choice of the best the state produces, and +the mechanics of the city, who receive money from the capitalists, the +next choice. Now, how would all this be looked upon by the people of the +commonwealth? There would be a general rejoicing over the excellent +market for produce which had grown up in so unexpected a place, and the people would suppose the existence of this city of financial -horse-leeches to be one of the main pillars of the -prosperity of the state. - -Each of these capitalists would receive yearly \$1,800, the -interest on \$30,000, on which to live. Suppose he lives on -\$900, the half of his income, and lays the other half by to -portion off his children as they come to marriageable age, -that they may start also with \$30,000 capital, even as he -did. This \$900 which he lays by every year would have to be -invested. The men of business, the men of talent, in the -state, would see it well invested for him. Some intelligent -man would discover that a new railroad, canal, or other -public work was needed; he would survey the ground, draw a -plan of the work, and make an estimate of the expenses; then -he would go to this new city and interest the capitalists in -the matter. The capitalists would furnish money, the people -of the state would furnish labor; the people would dig the -dirt, hew the wood, and draw the water. The intelligent man -who devised the plan would receive a salary for -superintending the work, the people would receive day's -wages, and the capitalists would own the whole; for did they -not furnish the money that paid for the construction? Taking -a scientific view of the matter, we may suppose the -capitalists not to work at all; for the mere fact of their -controlling the money would insure all these results. We -suppose them, therefore, not to work at all; we suppose them -to receive, each of them, \$1,800 a year; we suppose them to -live on one-half of this, or \$900, and to lay up the other -half for their children. We suppose new-married couples to -spring up, in their proper season, out of these families, -and that these new couples start, also, each with a capital -of \$30,000. We ask now, is there no danger of this new -city's absorbing unto itself the greater portion of the -wealth of the state? - -There is no city in this commonwealth that comes fully up to -this ideal of a *faineant* and parasite city; but there is -no city in the state in which this ideal is not more or less -completely embodied. - -Suppose, when Virginia was settled in 1607, England had sold -the whole territory of the United States to the first -settlers for \$1,000, and had taken a mortgage for this sum -on the whole property. \$1,000 at 7% per annum, on -half-yearly notes, the interest collected and reloaned as it -fell due, would amount, in the interval between 1607 and -1850, to \$16,777,216,000. All the property in the United -States, several times over, would not pay this debt. - -If the reader is interested in this matter of the -comparative rate of increase of actual and legal value, let -him consult the treatise of Edward Kellogg on "Labor and -Other Capital," where he will find abundant information on -all these points. - -How many farmers are there who can give 6% interest and -ultimately pay for a farm they have bought on credit? +horse-leeches to be one of the main pillars of the prosperity of the +state. + +Each of these capitalists would receive yearly \$1,800, the interest on +\$30,000, on which to live. Suppose he lives on \$900, the half of his +income, and lays the other half by to portion off his children as they +come to marriageable age, that they may start also with \$30,000 +capital, even as he did. This \$900 which he lays by every year would +have to be invested. The men of business, the men of talent, in the +state, would see it well invested for him. Some intelligent man would +discover that a new railroad, canal, or other public work was needed; he +would survey the ground, draw a plan of the work, and make an estimate +of the expenses; then he would go to this new city and interest the +capitalists in the matter. The capitalists would furnish money, the +people of the state would furnish labor; the people would dig the dirt, +hew the wood, and draw the water. The intelligent man who devised the +plan would receive a salary for superintending the work, the people +would receive day's wages, and the capitalists would own the whole; for +did they not furnish the money that paid for the construction? Taking a +scientific view of the matter, we may suppose the capitalists not to +work at all; for the mere fact of their controlling the money would +insure all these results. We suppose them, therefore, not to work at +all; we suppose them to receive, each of them, \$1,800 a year; we +suppose them to live on one-half of this, or \$900, and to lay up the +other half for their children. We suppose new-married couples to spring +up, in their proper season, out of these families, and that these new +couples start, also, each with a capital of \$30,000. We ask now, is +there no danger of this new city's absorbing unto itself the greater +portion of the wealth of the state? + +There is no city in this commonwealth that comes fully up to this ideal +of a *faineant* and parasite city; but there is no city in the state in +which this ideal is not more or less completely embodied. + +Suppose, when Virginia was settled in 1607, England had sold the whole +territory of the United States to the first settlers for \$1,000, and +had taken a mortgage for this sum on the whole property. \$1,000 at 7% +per annum, on half-yearly notes, the interest collected and reloaned as +it fell due, would amount, in the interval between 1607 and 1850, to +\$16,777,216,000. All the property in the United States, several times +over, would not pay this debt. + +If the reader is interested in this matter of the comparative rate of +increase of actual and legal value, let him consult the treatise of +Edward Kellogg on "Labor and Other Capital," where he will find abundant +information on all these points. + +How many farmers are there who can give 6% interest and ultimately pay +for a farm they have bought on credit? ## The Answer -What answer, then, shall we return to the question relating -to the power of the lender over the borrower? We are forced -to answer, that the borrowing community is, under the -existing system of credit, **virtually**, according to -appearances, in the complete control of the lending -community. A considerable time must elapse before this -control is actually as well as virtually established, but as -the ship in the eddy of the maelstrom is bound to be -ultimately engulfed, so the producer of actual value (if no -change is introduced in the system) is bound to be brought -into ultimate complete subjection to the holder of legal -value. +What answer, then, shall we return to the question relating to the power +of the lender over the borrower? We are forced to answer, that the +borrowing community is, under the existing system of credit, +**virtually**, according to appearances, in the complete control of the +lending community. A considerable time must elapse before this control +is actually as well as virtually established, but as the ship in the +eddy of the maelstrom is bound to be ultimately engulfed, so the +producer of actual value (if no change is introduced in the system) is +bound to be brought into ultimate complete subjection to the holder of +legal value. # II. Currency -Gold and silver are peculiarly adapted to act as a -circulating medium. They are: 1. Admitted by common consent -to serve for that purpose. 2. They contain within themselves -actual intrinsic value, equivalent to the sum for which they -circulate, as security against the withdrawal of this -consent, or of the public estimation. 3. They lose less by -the wear and tear and by the effect of time, than almost any -other commodities; and, 4. They are divisible into all and -any of the fractional parts into which value may be, or -necessarily is, divided. There is no occasion to notice -particularly in this place the many other advantages -possessed by the precious metals. But we must remember that -when we exchange anything for specie we barter one commodity -for another. By the adoption of a circulating medium we have -facilitated barter, but we have not done away with it---we -have not destroyed it. Specie is a valuable commodity and -its adoption by society as a medium of exchange does not -destroy its character as a purchasable and salable article. -Let Peter own a horse; let James own a cow and a pig; let -James's cow and pig, taken together, be worth precisely as -much as Peter's horse; let Peter and James desire to make an -exchange; now, what shall prevent them from making the -exchange by direct barter? Again! let Peter own the horse; -let James own the cow; and let John own the pig. Peter -cannot exchange his horse for the cow, because he would lose -by the transaction; neither and for the same reason---can he -exchange it for the pig. The division of the horse would -result in the destruction of its value. The hide, it is -true, possesses an intrinsic value; and a dead horse makes -excellent manure for a grapevine; nevertheless, the division -of a horse results in the destruction of its value as a -living animal. But if Peter barters his horse with Paul for -an equivalent in wheat, what shall prevent him from so -dividing his wheat as to qualify himself to offer to James -an equivalent for his cow and to John an equivalent for his -pig? If Peter trades thus with James and John the -transaction is still barter, though the wheat serves as -currency and obviates the difficulty in making change. Now, -if Paul has gold and silver to dispose of instead of wheat, -the gold and silver are still commodities possessing -intrinsic value, and every exchange which Paul makes of -these for other commodities is always a transaction in -barter. There is a great deal of mystification connected -with the subject of the currency; but if we remember that, -when we sell anything for specie, we BUY the specie, and -that when we buy anything with specie, we SELL the specie -our ideas will grow wonderfully clear. +Gold and silver are peculiarly adapted to act as a circulating medium. +They are: 1. Admitted by common consent to serve for that purpose. 2. +They contain within themselves actual intrinsic value, equivalent to the +sum for which they circulate, as security against the withdrawal of this +consent, or of the public estimation. 3. They lose less by the wear and +tear and by the effect of time, than almost any other commodities; and, +4. They are divisible into all and any of the fractional parts into +which value may be, or necessarily is, divided. There is no occasion to +notice particularly in this place the many other advantages possessed by +the precious metals. But we must remember that when we exchange anything +for specie we barter one commodity for another. By the adoption of a +circulating medium we have facilitated barter, but we have not done away +with it---we have not destroyed it. Specie is a valuable commodity and +its adoption by society as a medium of exchange does not destroy its +character as a purchasable and salable article. Let Peter own a horse; +let James own a cow and a pig; let James's cow and pig, taken together, +be worth precisely as much as Peter's horse; let Peter and James desire +to make an exchange; now, what shall prevent them from making the +exchange by direct barter? Again! let Peter own the horse; let James own +the cow; and let John own the pig. Peter cannot exchange his horse for +the cow, because he would lose by the transaction; neither and for the +same reason---can he exchange it for the pig. The division of the horse +would result in the destruction of its value. The hide, it is true, +possesses an intrinsic value; and a dead horse makes excellent manure +for a grapevine; nevertheless, the division of a horse results in the +destruction of its value as a living animal. But if Peter barters his +horse with Paul for an equivalent in wheat, what shall prevent him from +so dividing his wheat as to qualify himself to offer to James an +equivalent for his cow and to John an equivalent for his pig? If Peter +trades thus with James and John the transaction is still barter, though +the wheat serves as currency and obviates the difficulty in making +change. Now, if Paul has gold and silver to dispose of instead of wheat, +the gold and silver are still commodities possessing intrinsic value, +and every exchange which Paul makes of these for other commodities is +always a transaction in barter. There is a great deal of mystification +connected with the subject of the currency; but if we remember that, +when we sell anything for specie, we BUY the specie, and that when we +buy anything with specie, we SELL the specie our ideas will grow +wonderfully clear. ## The Disadvantages of a Specie Currency -The governments of the different nations have made gold and -silver a legal tender in the payment of debts. Does this -legislation change the nature of the transactions where gold -and silver are exchanged for other desirable commodities? -Not at all. Does it transform the exchange into something -other than barter? By no means. But the exchangeable value -of any article depends upon its utility, and the difficulty -of obtaining it. Now, the legislatures, by making the -precious metals a legal tender enhance their utility in a -remarkable manner. It is not their absolute utility, indeed, -that is enhanced, but their relative utility in the -transactions of trade. As soon as gold and silver are -adopted as the legal tender, they are invested with an -altogether new utility. By means of this new utility, -whoever monopolizes the gold and silver of any country---and -the currency, as we shall soon discover, is more easily -monopolized than any other commodity---obtains control -thenceforth, over the business of that country; for no man -can pay his debts without the permission of the party who -monopolizes the article of legal tender. Thus, since the -courts recognize nothing as money in the payment of debts -except the article of legal tender, this party is enabled to -levy a tax on all transactions except such as take place -without the intervention of credit. 1 - -When a man is obliged to barter his commodity for money, in -order to have money to barter for such other commodities as -he may desire, he at once becomes subject to the impositions -which moneyed men know how to practice on one who wants and -must have money for the commodity he offers for sale. When a -man is called upon suddenly to raise money to pay a debt, -the case is still harder. Men whose property far exceeds the -amount of their debts in value---men who have much more -owing to them than they owe to others---are daily distressed -for the want of money; for the want of that intervening -medium, which, even when it is obtained in sufficient -quantity for the present purposes, acts only as a mere +The governments of the different nations have made gold and silver a +legal tender in the payment of debts. Does this legislation change the +nature of the transactions where gold and silver are exchanged for other +desirable commodities? Not at all. Does it transform the exchange into +something other than barter? By no means. But the exchangeable value of +any article depends upon its utility, and the difficulty of obtaining +it. Now, the legislatures, by making the precious metals a legal tender +enhance their utility in a remarkable manner. It is not their absolute +utility, indeed, that is enhanced, but their relative utility in the +transactions of trade. As soon as gold and silver are adopted as the +legal tender, they are invested with an altogether new utility. By means +of this new utility, whoever monopolizes the gold and silver of any +country---and the currency, as we shall soon discover, is more easily +monopolized than any other commodity---obtains control thenceforth, over +the business of that country; for no man can pay his debts without the +permission of the party who monopolizes the article of legal tender. +Thus, since the courts recognize nothing as money in the payment of +debts except the article of legal tender, this party is enabled to levy +a tax on all transactions except such as take place without the +intervention of credit. 1 + +When a man is obliged to barter his commodity for money, in order to +have money to barter for such other commodities as he may desire, he at +once becomes subject to the impositions which moneyed men know how to +practice on one who wants and must have money for the commodity he +offers for sale. When a man is called upon suddenly to raise money to +pay a debt, the case is still harder. Men whose property far exceeds the +amount of their debts in value---men who have much more owing to them +than they owe to others---are daily distressed for the want of money; +for the want of that intervening medium, which, even when it is obtained +in sufficient quantity for the present purposes, acts only as a mere instrument of exchange. -By adopting the precious metals as the legal tender in the -payment of debts, society confers a new value upon them, -which new value is not inherent in the metals themselves. -This new value becomes a marketable commodity. Thus gold and -silver become a marketable commodity as **(quoad) a medium -of exchange**. This ought not so to be. This new value has -no natural measure, because it is not a natural, but a -social value. This new social value is inestimable, it is -incommensurable with any other known value whatever. Thus -money, instead of retaining its proper relative position, -becomes a superior species of commodity superior not in -degree, but in kind. Thus money becomes the absolute king -and the demigod of commodities.[^5] Hence follow great -social and political evils. The medium of exchange was not -established for the purpose of creating a new, inestimable, -marketable commodity, but for the single end or purpose of -facilitating exchanges. Society established gold and silver -as an instrument to mediate between marketable commodities; -but what new instrument shall it create to mediate between -the old marketable commodities, and the new commodity which -it has itself called into being? And if it succeed in -creating such new instrument, what mediator can it fa'nd for -this new instrument itself, etc.? Here the gulf yawns! No -bridge save that of **usury** has been thrown, as yet, over -this gulf. Our exposition is evidently on the brink of the -infinite series; we are marching rapidly forward to the -abyss of absurdity. The logicians know well what the sudden -appearance of the infinite series in an investigation -signifies; it signifies the recognition of a phenomenon and -the assigning to it of a mere concomitant, to stand to it in -the place of cause. The phenomenon we here recognize is -circulation or exchange, and we ignore its cause, for we -endeavor to account for it by the movement of specie; which -movement is neither circulation nor the cause of -circulation. But more of this hereafter. Let us return to -the subject with which we are more immediately concerned; -noting, meanwhile, that a specie currency is an absurdity. +By adopting the precious metals as the legal tender in the payment of +debts, society confers a new value upon them, which new value is not +inherent in the metals themselves. This new value becomes a marketable +commodity. Thus gold and silver become a marketable commodity as +**(quoad) a medium of exchange**. This ought not so to be. This new +value has no natural measure, because it is not a natural, but a social +value. This new social value is inestimable, it is incommensurable with +any other known value whatever. Thus money, instead of retaining its +proper relative position, becomes a superior species of commodity +superior not in degree, but in kind. Thus money becomes the absolute +king and the demigod of commodities.[^5] Hence follow great social and +political evils. The medium of exchange was not established for the +purpose of creating a new, inestimable, marketable commodity, but for +the single end or purpose of facilitating exchanges. Society established +gold and silver as an instrument to mediate between marketable +commodities; but what new instrument shall it create to mediate between +the old marketable commodities, and the new commodity which it has +itself called into being? And if it succeed in creating such new +instrument, what mediator can it fa'nd for this new instrument itself, +etc.? Here the gulf yawns! No bridge save that of **usury** has been +thrown, as yet, over this gulf. Our exposition is evidently on the brink +of the infinite series; we are marching rapidly forward to the abyss of +absurdity. The logicians know well what the sudden appearance of the +infinite series in an investigation signifies; it signifies the +recognition of a phenomenon and the assigning to it of a mere +concomitant, to stand to it in the place of cause. The phenomenon we +here recognize is circulation or exchange, and we ignore its cause, for +we endeavor to account for it by the movement of specie; which movement +is neither circulation nor the cause of circulation. But more of this +hereafter. Let us return to the subject with which we are more +immediately concerned; noting, meanwhile, that a specie currency is an +absurdity. ## The Evils of a Specie Currency---Usury -Society established gold and silver as a circulating medium, -in order that exchanges of commodities might be -**facilitated**; but society made a mistake in so doing; for -by this very act it gave to a certain class of men the power -of saying what exchanges shall, and what exchanges shall -not, be **facilitated** by means of this very circulating -medium. The monopolizers of the precious metals have an -undue power over the community; they can say whether money -shall, or shall not, be permitted to exercise its legitimate -functions. These men have a VETO on the action of money, and -therefore on exchanges of commodity; and they will not take -off their **veto** until they have received usury, or, as it -is more politely termed, interest on their money. Here is -the great objection to the present currency. Behold the -manner in which the absurdity inherent in a specie -currency---or, what is still worse, in a currency of paper -based upon specie---manifests itself in actual operation! -The mediating value which society hoped would facilitate -exchanges becomes an absolute marketable commodity, itself -transcending all reach of mediation. The great natural -difficulty which originally stood in the way of exchanges is -now the private property of a class, and this class -cultivate this difficulty, and make money out of it, even as -a farmer cultivates his farm and makes money by nis labor. -But there is a difference between the farmer and the usurer; -for the farmer benefits the community as well as himself, -while every dollar made by the usurer is a dollar taken from -the pocket of some other individual, since the usurer -cultivates nothing but an actual obstruction. +Society established gold and silver as a circulating medium, in order +that exchanges of commodities might be **facilitated**; but society made +a mistake in so doing; for by this very act it gave to a certain class +of men the power of saying what exchanges shall, and what exchanges +shall not, be **facilitated** by means of this very circulating medium. +The monopolizers of the precious metals have an undue power over the +community; they can say whether money shall, or shall not, be permitted +to exercise its legitimate functions. These men have a VETO on the +action of money, and therefore on exchanges of commodity; and they will +not take off their **veto** until they have received usury, or, as it is +more politely termed, interest on their money. Here is the great +objection to the present currency. Behold the manner in which the +absurdity inherent in a specie currency---or, what is still worse, in a +currency of paper based upon specie---manifests itself in actual +operation! The mediating value which society hoped would facilitate +exchanges becomes an absolute marketable commodity, itself transcending +all reach of mediation. The great natural difficulty which originally +stood in the way of exchanges is now the private property of a class, +and this class cultivate this difficulty, and make money out of it, even +as a farmer cultivates his farm and makes money by nis labor. But there +is a difference between the farmer and the usurer; for the farmer +benefits the community as well as himself, while every dollar made by +the usurer is a dollar taken from the pocket of some other individual, +since the usurer cultivates nothing but an actual obstruction. ## The Monopoly of the Currency -The exigencies of our exposition render it necessary that we -should state here three distinct points, as a basis for -certain remarks that we propose to submit to the reader: - -1. Let us suppose, in order to make a thorough estimate of - the amount of money circulating in Massachusetts, that - each individual in the state---man, woman, or - child---possesses \$10 in specie, or in the bills of - specie-paying banks. The population of the state was, in - the year 1850, about 1,000,000. Our estimate will give - us, therefore, about \$10,000,000 as the total amount of - the circulating medium of the state. This is perhaps a - very extravagant supposition; but we desire to make a - high estimate, as the greater the amount of the - circulating medium, the less will be the force of our - objections against the existing currency. Now, since - children seldom control any money, our hypothesis - apportions to each full-grown person an average of - \$20---for the children constitute at least one-half of - the community; and since women, who constitute one-half - of the grown population, generally leave their money - with their husbands or fathers, it apportions to each - full-grown man an average of \$40. We feel confident - that the reader will confess, after consulting his - pocket-book, that our estimate marks as high as the - circumstances of the case will warrant. But to be - certain that we do not fall below the truth, let us - double the total sum and say that the amount of money - circulating in Massachusetts is, on an average, - \$20,000,000. This is our first point. - -2. The valuation of the taxable property existing in the - state of Massachusetts, was, for the year 1850, about - \$600,000,000---or an average of about \$600 for every - man, woman and child in the state; or an average of - about \$2,400 for every family of four persons---no - contemptible fortune for a workingman! Now, every person - of ordinary observation will recognize that this - valuation is too high. We are willing to confess that - the wealth of the state is unjustly distributed; but we - are not willing to confess that the distribution is of - the absolutely flagrant character indicated by the - valuation; for if a man possessing a mere average amount - of wealth, owns property to the value of \$600 and a - like amount in addition for his wife and for each of his - children, where is the immense mass of wealth which the - average would apportion to those who actually own less - than \$600; yes, to those who actually own nothing? We - conceive that it is not altogether impossible to - penetrate the motives which induced the Valuation - Committee to mark the wealth of the State as high as - \$600,000,000. Indeed we may take occasion as we proceed - with our observations to indicate those motives. But let - us grant, for the sake of argument, that the people of - Massachusetts, taken as a whole, do actually own - property to the value of 600,000,000. Estimating as we - have done, the total value of the circulating medium at - 820,000,000, it would follow that there is one dollar of - currency for every thirty dollars of taxable property. - This is our second point. - -3. If Mr. Kellogg's statements are worthy of confidence, - there are in the city of Boston 224 individuals who are - worth, in the aggregate, 171,855,000, or property to the - value of about three and one-half times the amount of - the whole circulating medium of the commonwealth. This - is our third point. - -Having stated the three points upon which our reasoning is -to turn, we will now suppose that these individuals in -Boston, or 224 other persons of equal wealth, residing -either in Boston or in other towns or cities in the state, -see fit to combine together for the purpose of bringing the -whole property of the state (1600,000,000) into their own -possession. They may accomplish their object by the -following simple process: Let them gradually buy up -desirable real estate situated in various parts of the -commonwealth, to the value of \$40,000,000---double the -total amount of the circulating medium. Then let them sell -this real estate to different persons, taking mortgages for -half of its value on the property, and stipulating that the -payments on the mortgages shall be made, all of them, on a -certain specified day. Here is the whole story; for mark the -consequences! As the day for payment on the mortgages -approaches, money will grow scarce, for the reason that the -purchasers of the real estate will be preparing themselves -to meet the claims upon them; money will, by consequence, -rise rapidly in value; trade will be gradually blocked up; -and men of undoubted wealth will be closely pressed. If--and -they probably will not---but **if** the purchasers of the -real estate actually pay their debts when the day comes -round, then the 224 confederates will have all the money of -the state in their hands. Meanwhile the other ordinary debts -of the community---debts which arise naturally---will have -to be paid also; and money, the only legal tender, will be -required in order to effect their payment. But as no money -will be obtainable, these last debtors will fail and their -property will be sold under the hammer at a fraction of its -true value to satisfy their creditors. But who will buy this -property? Who besides the 224 confederates will have any -available funds? These 224 individuals, by their operation, -notwithstanding the losses they will inevitably meet with, -will thus obtain control, by means of their \$40,000,000---a -little less than one-half of their aggregate property---of -the greater part of the property of the state. There is no -danger that so extensive an operation will ever take place, -for transactions like this would convulse society to its -foundations, and would necessarily be accompanied by -repudiation, revolution and bloodshed. But similar -operations on a smaller scale are taking place every day. It -is stated in the reports published by the Valuation -Committee that the money loaned out at interest and returned -as such to the assessors for the year 1850, amounted in the -single county of Worcester, to more than \$5,000,000---more -than one-fourth of the whole circulating medium of the -commonwealth. What must have been the consequence if all -these debts had happened to fall due at nearly the same -time? - -You cannot monopolize corn, iron and other commodities, as -you can money; for to do so, you would be obliged to -stipulate in your sales that payment shall be made to you in -those commodities. What a commotion would exist in the -community if a company of capitalists should attempt -permanently to monopolize all the corn! But money, by the -nature of the case, **since it is the only legal tender**, -is **always** monopolized. This fact is the foundation of -the right of society to limit the rate of interest. - -We conclude, therefore, that gold and silver do not furnish -a perfect medium of circulation; that they do not furnish -facilities for the exchange of **all** commodities. Gold and -silver have a value as **money**; a value which is -artificial, and created **unintentionally** by the act of -society establishing the precious metals as a legal tender. -This new artificial value overrides all intrinsic actual -values, and suffers no mediation between itself and them. -Now, money, so far forth as it is mere money, ought to have -**no value**; and the objection to the use of the precious -metals as currency is, that as soon as they are adopted by -society as a legal tender, there is super-added to their -natural value this new, artificial and unnatural value. Gold -and silver cannot facilitate the purchase of this new value -which is added to themselves; "a mediator is not a mediator -of one." **Usury** is the characteristic fact of the present -system of civilization; and usury depends for its existence -upon this super-added, social, unnatural value, which ? -given artificially to the material of the circulating -medium. Destroy the value of this material **as money** (not -its utility or availability in exchange) and you destroy the -possibility of usury. Can this be done so long as material -is gold or silver? No. - -Whatever is adopted as the medium of exchange should be free -from the above-named objections. It should serve the purpose -of facilitating **all** exchanges; it should have no value -**as money**; it should be of such a nature as to permit -nothing marketable, nothing that can be bought or sold, to -transcend the sphere of its mediation. It should exist in -such quantity as to effect all exchanges which may be -desirable. It should be co-existent in time and place with -such property as is destined for the market. It should be -sufficiently abundant and easy of acquirement, to answer all -the legitimate purposes of money. It should be capable of -being expanded to any extent that may be demanded by the -wants of the community; for if the currency be not -sufficiently abundant, it retards instead of facilitating -exchanges. On the other hand, this medium of exchange should -be sufficiently difficult of acquirement to keep it within -just limits. - -Can a currency be devised which shall fulfill all these -conditions? Can a currency be adopted which shall keep money -always just plenty enough, without suffering it ever to -become too plenty? Can such a currency be established on a -firm, scientific foundation, so that we may know beforehand -that it will work well from the very first moment of its -establishment? Can a species of money be found which shall -possess **every no** quality which it is desirable that -money should have, while it possesses quality which it is -desirable that money should not have? To all these questions -we answer, emphatically, **yes!** +The exigencies of our exposition render it necessary that we should +state here three distinct points, as a basis for certain remarks that we +propose to submit to the reader: + +1. Let us suppose, in order to make a thorough estimate of the amount + of money circulating in Massachusetts, that each individual in the + state---man, woman, or child---possesses \$10 in specie, or in the + bills of specie-paying banks. The population of the state was, in + the year 1850, about 1,000,000. Our estimate will give us, + therefore, about \$10,000,000 as the total amount of the circulating + medium of the state. This is perhaps a very extravagant supposition; + but we desire to make a high estimate, as the greater the amount of + the circulating medium, the less will be the force of our objections + against the existing currency. Now, since children seldom control + any money, our hypothesis apportions to each full-grown person an + average of \$20---for the children constitute at least one-half of + the community; and since women, who constitute one-half of the grown + population, generally leave their money with their husbands or + fathers, it apportions to each full-grown man an average of \$40. We + feel confident that the reader will confess, after consulting his + pocket-book, that our estimate marks as high as the circumstances of + the case will warrant. But to be certain that we do not fall below + the truth, let us double the total sum and say that the amount of + money circulating in Massachusetts is, on an average, \$20,000,000. + This is our first point. + +2. The valuation of the taxable property existing in the state of + Massachusetts, was, for the year 1850, about \$600,000,000---or an + average of about \$600 for every man, woman and child in the state; + or an average of about \$2,400 for every family of four persons---no + contemptible fortune for a workingman! Now, every person of ordinary + observation will recognize that this valuation is too high. We are + willing to confess that the wealth of the state is unjustly + distributed; but we are not willing to confess that the distribution + is of the absolutely flagrant character indicated by the valuation; + for if a man possessing a mere average amount of wealth, owns + property to the value of \$600 and a like amount in addition for his + wife and for each of his children, where is the immense mass of + wealth which the average would apportion to those who actually own + less than \$600; yes, to those who actually own nothing? We conceive + that it is not altogether impossible to penetrate the motives which + induced the Valuation Committee to mark the wealth of the State as + high as \$600,000,000. Indeed we may take occasion as we proceed + with our observations to indicate those motives. But let us grant, + for the sake of argument, that the people of Massachusetts, taken as + a whole, do actually own property to the value of 600,000,000. + Estimating as we have done, the total value of the circulating + medium at 820,000,000, it would follow that there is one dollar of + currency for every thirty dollars of taxable property. This is our + second point. + +3. If Mr. Kellogg's statements are worthy of confidence, there are in + the city of Boston 224 individuals who are worth, in the aggregate, + 171,855,000, or property to the value of about three and one-half + times the amount of the whole circulating medium of the + commonwealth. This is our third point. + +Having stated the three points upon which our reasoning is to turn, we +will now suppose that these individuals in Boston, or 224 other persons +of equal wealth, residing either in Boston or in other towns or cities +in the state, see fit to combine together for the purpose of bringing +the whole property of the state (1600,000,000) into their own +possession. They may accomplish their object by the following simple +process: Let them gradually buy up desirable real estate situated in +various parts of the commonwealth, to the value of \$40,000,000---double +the total amount of the circulating medium. Then let them sell this real +estate to different persons, taking mortgages for half of its value on +the property, and stipulating that the payments on the mortgages shall +be made, all of them, on a certain specified day. Here is the whole +story; for mark the consequences! As the day for payment on the +mortgages approaches, money will grow scarce, for the reason that the +purchasers of the real estate will be preparing themselves to meet the +claims upon them; money will, by consequence, rise rapidly in value; +trade will be gradually blocked up; and men of undoubted wealth will be +closely pressed. If--and they probably will not---but **if** the +purchasers of the real estate actually pay their debts when the day +comes round, then the 224 confederates will have all the money of the +state in their hands. Meanwhile the other ordinary debts of the +community---debts which arise naturally---will have to be paid also; and +money, the only legal tender, will be required in order to effect their +payment. But as no money will be obtainable, these last debtors will +fail and their property will be sold under the hammer at a fraction of +its true value to satisfy their creditors. But who will buy this +property? Who besides the 224 confederates will have any available +funds? These 224 individuals, by their operation, notwithstanding the +losses they will inevitably meet with, will thus obtain control, by +means of their \$40,000,000---a little less than one-half of their +aggregate property---of the greater part of the property of the state. +There is no danger that so extensive an operation will ever take place, +for transactions like this would convulse society to its foundations, +and would necessarily be accompanied by repudiation, revolution and +bloodshed. But similar operations on a smaller scale are taking place +every day. It is stated in the reports published by the Valuation +Committee that the money loaned out at interest and returned as such to +the assessors for the year 1850, amounted in the single county of +Worcester, to more than \$5,000,000---more than one-fourth of the whole +circulating medium of the commonwealth. What must have been the +consequence if all these debts had happened to fall due at nearly the +same time? + +You cannot monopolize corn, iron and other commodities, as you can +money; for to do so, you would be obliged to stipulate in your sales +that payment shall be made to you in those commodities. What a commotion +would exist in the community if a company of capitalists should attempt +permanently to monopolize all the corn! But money, by the nature of the +case, **since it is the only legal tender**, is **always** monopolized. +This fact is the foundation of the right of society to limit the rate of +interest. + +We conclude, therefore, that gold and silver do not furnish a perfect +medium of circulation; that they do not furnish facilities for the +exchange of **all** commodities. Gold and silver have a value as +**money**; a value which is artificial, and created **unintentionally** +by the act of society establishing the precious metals as a legal +tender. This new artificial value overrides all intrinsic actual values, +and suffers no mediation between itself and them. Now, money, so far +forth as it is mere money, ought to have **no value**; and the objection +to the use of the precious metals as currency is, that as soon as they +are adopted by society as a legal tender, there is super-added to their +natural value this new, artificial and unnatural value. Gold and silver +cannot facilitate the purchase of this new value which is added to +themselves; "a mediator is not a mediator of one." **Usury** is the +characteristic fact of the present system of civilization; and usury +depends for its existence upon this super-added, social, unnatural +value, which ? given artificially to the material of the circulating +medium. Destroy the value of this material **as money** (not its utility +or availability in exchange) and you destroy the possibility of usury. +Can this be done so long as material is gold or silver? No. + +Whatever is adopted as the medium of exchange should be free from the +above-named objections. It should serve the purpose of facilitating +**all** exchanges; it should have no value **as money**; it should be of +such a nature as to permit nothing marketable, nothing that can be +bought or sold, to transcend the sphere of its mediation. It should +exist in such quantity as to effect all exchanges which may be +desirable. It should be co-existent in time and place with such property +as is destined for the market. It should be sufficiently abundant and +easy of acquirement, to answer all the legitimate purposes of money. It +should be capable of being expanded to any extent that may be demanded +by the wants of the community; for if the currency be not sufficiently +abundant, it retards instead of facilitating exchanges. On the other +hand, this medium of exchange should be sufficiently difficult of +acquirement to keep it within just limits. + +Can a currency be devised which shall fulfill all these conditions? Can +a currency be adopted which shall keep money always just plenty enough, +without suffering it ever to become too plenty? Can such a currency be +established on a firm, scientific foundation, so that we may know +beforehand that it will work well from the very first moment of its +establishment? Can a species of money be found which shall possess +**every no** quality which it is desirable that money should have, while +it possesses quality which it is desirable that money should not have? +To all these questions we answer, emphatically, **yes!** # III. The Currency: Its Evils and Their Remedy -**Bank-bills** are doubly guaranteed. On one side there is -the capital of the bank, which is liable for the redemption -of the bills in circulation; on the other side are the notes -of the debtors of the bank, which notes are (or ought to be, -if the bank officers exercise due caution and discretion) a -sufficient guaranty for all the bills: for no bills are -issued by any bank, except upon notes whereby some -responsible person is bound to restore to the bank, after a -certain lapse of time, money to the amount borne on the face -of the bills. If the notes given by the receivers of the -bills are good, then the bills themselves are also good. If -we reflect a moment upon these facts, we shall see that a -bank of discount and circulation is in reality, two banks in -one. There is one bank which does business on the specie -capital really paid in; there is another and a very -different bank, which does business by issuing bills in -exchange for notes whereby the receivers of the bills give -security that there shall be paid back by a certain time, -money to the amount of the bills issued. Let us now -investigate the nature of these two different banks. +**Bank-bills** are doubly guaranteed. On one side there is the capital +of the bank, which is liable for the redemption of the bills in +circulation; on the other side are the notes of the debtors of the bank, +which notes are (or ought to be, if the bank officers exercise due +caution and discretion) a sufficient guaranty for all the bills: for no +bills are issued by any bank, except upon notes whereby some responsible +person is bound to restore to the bank, after a certain lapse of time, +money to the amount borne on the face of the bills. If the notes given +by the receivers of the bills are good, then the bills themselves are +also good. If we reflect a moment upon these facts, we shall see that a +bank of discount and circulation is in reality, two banks in one. There +is one bank which does business on the specie capital really paid in; +there is another and a very different bank, which does business by +issuing bills in exchange for notes whereby the receivers of the bills +give security that there shall be paid back by a certain time, money to +the amount of the bills issued. Let us now investigate the nature of +these two different banks. ## The Business of Banking -Peter goes into the banking business with one dollar -capital, and immediately issues bills to the amount of one -dollar and twenty-five cents. Let us say that he issues five -bills, each of which is to circulate for the amount of -twenty-five cents. James comes to the bank with four of -Peter's bills, and says: "Here are four of your new -twenty-five cent notes which purport to be payable on -demand, and I will thank you to give me a silver dollar for -them." Peter redeems the bills and in so doing pays out his -whole capital. Afterward comes John, with the fifth note, -and makes a demand similar to that lately made by James. -Peter answers, slowly and hesitatingly: "I -regret---exceedingly---the force of present circumstances; -but---I---just paid---out my whole capital---to James. I -am---under---the painful necessity---of requesting you---to -wait a little longer for your money." John at once becomes -indignant and says: "Your bills state on their face that you -will pay twenty-five cents upon each one of them whenever -they are presented. I present one NOW. Give me the money, -therefore, without more words, for my business is urgent -this morning." Peter answers: "I shall be in a condition to -redeem my bills by the day after tomorrow; but for the -meanwhile, my regard for the interest of the public forces -me unwillingly to suspend specie payments." "Suspend -**specie** payments!" says John. "What other kind of -payment, under Heaven, could you suspend? You agree to pay -**specie**; for specie is the only legal tender and when you -don't pay that, you don't pay anything. When you don't pay -that **you break**. Why don't you own up at once? But while -I am about it I will give you a piece of my mind; this extra -note which you have issued beyond your capital is a vain -phantom, a hollow humbug and a fraud. And as for your bank, -you would better take in your sign; for you have broken." -"These be very bitter words," as said the hostess of the -Boar's Head Tavern at Eastcheap. - -John is right. Peter's capital is all gone and the note for -twenty- eve cents, which professes to represent specie in -Peter's vaults, represent the tangibility of an empty -vision, the shadow of a vacuum. But which bank is it that is -broken? Is it the bank that does business on a specie -capital, or the bank which does business on the notes of the -debtors to the bank? Evidently it is the bank that does -business on the specie capital that is broken; it is the -specie-paying bank that has ceased to exist. - -John understands this very well notwithstanding his violent -language a moment since, he knows that his is the only bill -which Peter has in circulation, and that Peter owes, -consequently, only twenty-five cents; he knows also that the -bank has owing to it one dollar and twenty-five cents. Peter -owes twenty-five cents and has owing to him a dollar and -twenty- five cents. John feels, therefore, perfectly safe. -What is John's security? Is it the specie capital? Not at -all. James has taken the whole of that. He has for his -security the debts which are owing to the bank. Peter's bank -begins now to be placed in a sound, philosophical condition. -At first he promised to pay one dollar and twenty-five cents -in specie, while he actually possessed only one dollar with -which to meet the demands that might be made upon him. How -could he have made a more unreasonable promise, even if he -had tried? Now that he has suspended specie payments, he has -escaped from the unphilosophical situation in which he so -rashly placed himself. Peter's bank is still in operation it -is by no means broken; his bills are good, guaranteed, and -worthy of considerable confidence; only his bank is now a -simple and not a complex bank, being no longer two banks in -one, for the specie-paying element has vanished in infinite -darkness. +Peter goes into the banking business with one dollar capital, and +immediately issues bills to the amount of one dollar and twenty-five +cents. Let us say that he issues five bills, each of which is to +circulate for the amount of twenty-five cents. James comes to the bank +with four of Peter's bills, and says: "Here are four of your new +twenty-five cent notes which purport to be payable on demand, and I will +thank you to give me a silver dollar for them." Peter redeems the bills +and in so doing pays out his whole capital. Afterward comes John, with +the fifth note, and makes a demand similar to that lately made by James. +Peter answers, slowly and hesitatingly: "I regret---exceedingly---the +force of present circumstances; but---I---just paid---out my whole +capital---to James. I am---under---the painful necessity---of requesting +you---to wait a little longer for your money." John at once becomes +indignant and says: "Your bills state on their face that you will pay +twenty-five cents upon each one of them whenever they are presented. I +present one NOW. Give me the money, therefore, without more words, for +my business is urgent this morning." Peter answers: "I shall be in a +condition to redeem my bills by the day after tomorrow; but for the +meanwhile, my regard for the interest of the public forces me +unwillingly to suspend specie payments." "Suspend **specie** payments!" +says John. "What other kind of payment, under Heaven, could you suspend? +You agree to pay **specie**; for specie is the only legal tender and +when you don't pay that, you don't pay anything. When you don't pay that +**you break**. Why don't you own up at once? But while I am about it I +will give you a piece of my mind; this extra note which you have issued +beyond your capital is a vain phantom, a hollow humbug and a fraud. And +as for your bank, you would better take in your sign; for you have +broken." "These be very bitter words," as said the hostess of the Boar's +Head Tavern at Eastcheap. + +John is right. Peter's capital is all gone and the note for twenty- eve +cents, which professes to represent specie in Peter's vaults, represent +the tangibility of an empty vision, the shadow of a vacuum. But which +bank is it that is broken? Is it the bank that does business on a specie +capital, or the bank which does business on the notes of the debtors to +the bank? Evidently it is the bank that does business on the specie +capital that is broken; it is the specie-paying bank that has ceased to +exist. + +John understands this very well notwithstanding his violent language a +moment since, he knows that his is the only bill which Peter has in +circulation, and that Peter owes, consequently, only twenty-five cents; +he knows also that the bank has owing to it one dollar and twenty-five +cents. Peter owes twenty-five cents and has owing to him a dollar and +twenty- five cents. John feels, therefore, perfectly safe. What is +John's security? Is it the specie capital? Not at all. James has taken +the whole of that. He has for his security the debts which are owing to +the bank. Peter's bank begins now to be placed in a sound, philosophical +condition. At first he promised to pay one dollar and twenty-five cents +in specie, while he actually possessed only one dollar with which to +meet the demands that might be made upon him. How could he have made a +more unreasonable promise, even if he had tried? Now that he has +suspended specie payments, he has escaped from the unphilosophical +situation in which he so rashly placed himself. Peter's bank is still in +operation it is by no means broken; his bills are good, guaranteed, and +worthy of considerable confidence; only his bank is now a simple and not +a complex bank, being no longer two banks in one, for the specie-paying +element has vanished in infinite darkness. ## Currency -And here we may notice that Peter has solved, after a rough -manner indeed, one of the most difficult questions in -political economy. His bill for twenty-five cents is -CURRENCY, and yet it is not based upon specie, nor directly -connected in any way with specie. We would request the -reader to be patient with us and not make up his mind in -regard to our statements until he has read to the end of the -chapter; it shall not be very long. Light breaks on us here, -which we would endeavor to impart to the reader. The -security for the bill is legal value, the security in actual -value having been carried away by James that is, the -security for the bill is the legal claim which the bank has -upon the property of its debtors. We see, therefore, that -**legal value** may be made a basis for the issue of notes -to serve as currency; we see, therefore, the faint -indication of a means whereby we may perhaps emancipate -ourselves from the bondage of hard money, and the worse -bondage of paper which pretends to be a representative of -hard money. - -Let the reader not be alarmed. We abominate banks that -suspend specie payment as much as he does. The run of our -argument leads us through this desolate valley; but we shall -soon emerge into the clear day. Good may come out of this -dark region, although we never expected to find it here. For -our part, however, we will freely confess, in private to the -reader, that we have lately been so accustomed to see good -come out of Nazareth that we have acquired the habit of -never expecting it from any other quarter. Let us spend a -moment, therefore, in exploring this banking Nazareth. - -We may notice in considering a bank that has suspended -specie payments: 1. The **bank officers**, who are servants -of the **stockholders**; 2. The **bills** which are issued -by the bank-officers, and which circulate in the community -as money; and, 3. The **notes** of the debtors of the bank, -binding these debtors, which notes, deposited in the safe, -are security for the bills issued. Let us now take for -illustration, a non-specie-paying bank that shall be -"perfect after its kind;" that is a bank whose capital shall -be, in *actual* value, literally---0. Suppose there are 100 -stockholders; suppose \$100,000 worth of bills to be in -circulation and that 8100,000 **legal** value is secured to -the bank by notes given by the bank's debtors. These -stockholders will be remarkable individuals, doing business -after a very singular fashion. For example: The stockholders -own stock in this bank; but as the whole joint stock equals -zero, each stock-holder evidently owns only the -one-hundredth part of nothing a species of property that -counts much or little, according to the skillfulness with -which it is administered. The stockholders, through the -agency of the bank-officers, issue their paper, **bearing no -interest**; exchanging it for other paper, furnished by -those who receive the bills, **bearing interest at the rate -of 6% per annum**. The paper received by the bank binds the -debtor to the bank to pay interest; while the paper issued -by the bank puts it under no obligation to pay any interest -at all. Thus the stockholders doing business with no capital -whatever, make 6% per annum on a pretended \$100,000 of -actual, value which does not exist! Yet, meanwhile, these -stockholders furnish the community with an available -currency; this fact ought always to be borne in mind. -Non-specie-paying banks, of course, make dividends. During -the suspension of 1837 and 1838, all the banks of -Pennsylvania made dividends, although it was prohibited in -the charters of most of them. After the suspension which -took place in Philadelphia in October, 1839, most of the -banks of that city resolved not to declare dividends until -the pleasure of the legislature could be known. By an act -authorizing the continuance of the suspension until the 15th -of January, 1841, permission was granted to make dividends, -contrary to every principle of justice and equity. We do not -know why we speak especially of the Pennsylvania banks in -this connection; as we have yet to hear of the first bank, -either in Pennsylvania or in any other State, that has had -the delicacy to suspend the declaration of dividends merely -because it suspended specie payments. +And here we may notice that Peter has solved, after a rough manner +indeed, one of the most difficult questions in political economy. His +bill for twenty-five cents is CURRENCY, and yet it is not based upon +specie, nor directly connected in any way with specie. We would request +the reader to be patient with us and not make up his mind in regard to +our statements until he has read to the end of the chapter; it shall not +be very long. Light breaks on us here, which we would endeavor to impart +to the reader. The security for the bill is legal value, the security in +actual value having been carried away by James that is, the security for +the bill is the legal claim which the bank has upon the property of its +debtors. We see, therefore, that **legal value** may be made a basis for +the issue of notes to serve as currency; we see, therefore, the faint +indication of a means whereby we may perhaps emancipate ourselves from +the bondage of hard money, and the worse bondage of paper which pretends +to be a representative of hard money. + +Let the reader not be alarmed. We abominate banks that suspend specie +payment as much as he does. The run of our argument leads us through +this desolate valley; but we shall soon emerge into the clear day. Good +may come out of this dark region, although we never expected to find it +here. For our part, however, we will freely confess, in private to the +reader, that we have lately been so accustomed to see good come out of +Nazareth that we have acquired the habit of never expecting it from any +other quarter. Let us spend a moment, therefore, in exploring this +banking Nazareth. + +We may notice in considering a bank that has suspended specie +payments: 1. The **bank officers**, who are servants of the +**stockholders**; 2. The **bills** which are issued by the +bank-officers, and which circulate in the community as money; and, 3. +The **notes** of the debtors of the bank, binding these debtors, which +notes, deposited in the safe, are security for the bills issued. Let us +now take for illustration, a non-specie-paying bank that shall be +"perfect after its kind;" that is a bank whose capital shall be, in +*actual* value, literally---0. Suppose there are 100 stockholders; +suppose \$100,000 worth of bills to be in circulation and that 8100,000 +**legal** value is secured to the bank by notes given by the bank's +debtors. These stockholders will be remarkable individuals, doing +business after a very singular fashion. For example: The stockholders +own stock in this bank; but as the whole joint stock equals zero, each +stock-holder evidently owns only the one-hundredth part of nothing a +species of property that counts much or little, according to the +skillfulness with which it is administered. The stockholders, through +the agency of the bank-officers, issue their paper, **bearing no +interest**; exchanging it for other paper, furnished by those who +receive the bills, **bearing interest at the rate of 6% per annum**. The +paper received by the bank binds the debtor to the bank to pay interest; +while the paper issued by the bank puts it under no obligation to pay +any interest at all. Thus the stockholders doing business with no +capital whatever, make 6% per annum on a pretended \$100,000 of actual, +value which does not exist! Yet, meanwhile, these stockholders furnish +the community with an available currency; this fact ought always to be +borne in mind. Non-specie-paying banks, of course, make dividends. +During the suspension of 1837 and 1838, all the banks of Pennsylvania +made dividends, although it was prohibited in the charters of most of +them. After the suspension which took place in Philadelphia in October, +1839, most of the banks of that city resolved not to declare dividends +until the pleasure of the legislature could be known. By an act +authorizing the continuance of the suspension until the 15th of January, +1841, permission was granted to make dividends, contrary to every +principle of justice and equity. We do not know why we speak especially +of the Pennsylvania banks in this connection; as we have yet to hear of +the first bank, either in Pennsylvania or in any other State, that has +had the delicacy to suspend the declaration of dividends merely because +it suspended specie payments. ## The Mutual Bank -Our non-specie-paying bank being in the interesting position -described, let us inquire whether it is not in the process -of bringing forth something which shall be entirely -different from itself. We ask first, why a non-specie-paying -bank should be permitted to make dividends. Its bills are -perfectly good, whether the bank have any capital or not, -provided the officers exercise due discretion in discounting -notes; and it is evident that the stockholders have no right -to ask to be paid for the use of their capital, since the -capital in question ought to be specie, which they confess, -by suspending specie payments, that they do not furnish. But -if no dividends are to be declared, what are we to do with -the immense amount of interest-money that will accumulate in -the bank. Our answer to this question is so simple that we -are almost ashamed to state it. Justice requires that all -the interest-money accumulated---so much only excepted as is -required to pay the expenses of the institution and the -average of loss by bad debts---should be paid back to the -borrowers in the proportion of the business which they have -individually done with the bank. But since it would be by no -means easy, practically, to thus pay the extra -interest-money back, it would be better for the bank to turn -the difficulty by lending its money at precisely that rate -of interest and no more, say 1% per annum, which would -suffice to pay the expenses of the institution, including -the average loss by bad debts. A bank of this character -would be a **Mutual Bank**. This is not the institution we -advocate and of which we propose to submit a plan to the -reader; but it will serve in this place for the purposes of -illustration. A bank that suspends specie payments may -present two evident advantages to the community first, it -may furnish a currency; second, it may loan out its bills at -1% interest per annum. That such a bank may furnish currency -is proved by abundant experience, for suspending banks go -right on with their business, and that their money -circulates well is proved by the fact that such banks have -hitherto seldom failed to declare good dividends. That they -may loan their money at 1% interest per annum is shown by -the fact that the old banks do not pay more than 1% per -annum for their expenses', including losses by bad debts, -and that the guaranty of the new bills consists in the -excellence of the notes furnished by the borrower, so that, -if there is anything to be paid for this guaranty, it ought -to be paid to the borrower himself, and not to any other -person. We will not prolong this exposition, since a -multiplicity of words would serve only to darken the -subject. We invite the reader to reflect for himself upon -the matter and to form his own conclusions. We repeat that -we do not advocate a bank of the nature here described, -since we conceive that such an institution would be -eminently unsafe and dangerous, and for a hundred reasons -among which may be counted the inordinate power that would -be conferred on the bank's officers; but, as we said before, -it may serve for illustration. Neither do we propose this -plan as a theoretical solution of the difficulties noticed -in the preceding chapters as inseparable from the existing -currency. We reserve our own plan, and shall submit it to -the reader at the end of the next chapter. +Our non-specie-paying bank being in the interesting position described, +let us inquire whether it is not in the process of bringing forth +something which shall be entirely different from itself. We ask first, +why a non-specie-paying bank should be permitted to make dividends. Its +bills are perfectly good, whether the bank have any capital or not, +provided the officers exercise due discretion in discounting notes; and +it is evident that the stockholders have no right to ask to be paid for +the use of their capital, since the capital in question ought to be +specie, which they confess, by suspending specie payments, that they do +not furnish. But if no dividends are to be declared, what are we to do +with the immense amount of interest-money that will accumulate in the +bank. Our answer to this question is so simple that we are almost +ashamed to state it. Justice requires that all the interest-money +accumulated---so much only excepted as is required to pay the expenses +of the institution and the average of loss by bad debts---should be paid +back to the borrowers in the proportion of the business which they have +individually done with the bank. But since it would be by no means easy, +practically, to thus pay the extra interest-money back, it would be +better for the bank to turn the difficulty by lending its money at +precisely that rate of interest and no more, say 1% per annum, which +would suffice to pay the expenses of the institution, including the +average loss by bad debts. A bank of this character would be a **Mutual +Bank**. This is not the institution we advocate and of which we propose +to submit a plan to the reader; but it will serve in this place for the +purposes of illustration. A bank that suspends specie payments may +present two evident advantages to the community first, it may furnish a +currency; second, it may loan out its bills at 1% interest per annum. +That such a bank may furnish currency is proved by abundant experience, +for suspending banks go right on with their business, and that their +money circulates well is proved by the fact that such banks have +hitherto seldom failed to declare good dividends. That they may loan +their money at 1% interest per annum is shown by the fact that the old +banks do not pay more than 1% per annum for their expenses', including +losses by bad debts, and that the guaranty of the new bills consists in +the excellence of the notes furnished by the borrower, so that, if there +is anything to be paid for this guaranty, it ought to be paid to the +borrower himself, and not to any other person. We will not prolong this +exposition, since a multiplicity of words would serve only to darken the +subject. We invite the reader to reflect for himself upon the matter and +to form his own conclusions. We repeat that we do not advocate a bank of +the nature here described, since we conceive that such an institution +would be eminently unsafe and dangerous, and for a hundred reasons among +which may be counted the inordinate power that would be conferred on the +bank's officers; but, as we said before, it may serve for illustration. +Neither do we propose this plan as a theoretical solution of the +difficulties noticed in the preceding chapters as inseparable from the +existing currency. We reserve our own plan, and shall submit it to the +reader at the end of the next chapter. # IV. Mutual Banking -In the title-page of a book on "Money and Banking,[^6]" -published at Cincinnati, the name of William Beck appears, -not as author, but as publisher; yet there is internal -evidence in the book sufficient to prove that Mr. Beck is -the author. But who was or is Mr. Beck? What were his -experience and history? Is he still living? No one appears -to know. He seems to stand like one of Ossian's heroes, -surrounded with clouds, solitude and mystery. In the pages -of Proudhon, socialism appears as an avenging fury, clothed -in garments dipped in the sulphur of the bottomless pit and -armed for the punishment of imbeciles, liars, scoundrels, -cowards and tyrants; in those of Mr. Beck, she presents -herself as a constructive and beneficent genius, the rays of -her heavenly glory intercepted by a double veil of -simplicity and modesty. Mr. Beck's style has none of the -infernal fire and profanity which cause the reader of the -"Contradictions Economiques" to shudder; you seek in vain in -his sentences for the vigor and intense self-consciousness -of Proudhon; yet the thoughts of Proudhon are there. One -would suppose from the naturalness of his manner, that he -was altogether ignorant of the novelty and true magnitude of -his ideas. +In the title-page of a book on "Money and Banking,[^6]" published at +Cincinnati, the name of William Beck appears, not as author, but as +publisher; yet there is internal evidence in the book sufficient to +prove that Mr. Beck is the author. But who was or is Mr. Beck? What were +his experience and history? Is he still living? No one appears to know. +He seems to stand like one of Ossian's heroes, surrounded with clouds, +solitude and mystery. In the pages of Proudhon, socialism appears as an +avenging fury, clothed in garments dipped in the sulphur of the +bottomless pit and armed for the punishment of imbeciles, liars, +scoundrels, cowards and tyrants; in those of Mr. Beck, she presents +herself as a constructive and beneficent genius, the rays of her +heavenly glory intercepted by a double veil of simplicity and modesty. +Mr. Beck's style has none of the infernal fire and profanity which cause +the reader of the "Contradictions Economiques" to shudder; you seek in +vain in his sentences for the vigor and intense self-consciousness of +Proudhon; yet the thoughts of Proudhon are there. One would suppose from +the naturalness of his manner, that he was altogether ignorant of the +novelty and true magnitude of his ideas. ## Mr. Beck's Bank -In Mr. Beck's plan for a Mutual Bank---which consists in a -simple generalization of the system of credit in account -that is well described in the following extract from J. -Stuart Mill's "Political Economy"---there is one fault only; -but that fault is fatal; it is that the people can never be -induced to adopt the complicated method of accounts which -would be rendered necessary: - -"A mode of making credit answer the purposes of money, by -which, when carried far enough, money may be very completely -superseded, consists in making payments by checks. The -custom of keeping the spare cash reserved for immediate use -or against contingent demands, in the hands of a banker and -making all payments, except small ones, by orders on -bankers, is in this country spreading to a continually -larger portion of the public. If the person making the -payment and the person receiving it kept their money with -the same banker, the payment would take place without any -intervention of money, by the mere transfer of its amount in -the banker's books from the credit of the payer to that of -the receiver. If all persons in London kept their cash at -the same banker's and made all their payments by means of -checks, no money would be required or used for any -transactions beginning and terminating in London. This ideal -limit is almost attained in fact, so far as regards -transactions between dealers. It is chiefly in the retail -transactions between dealers and consumers, and in the -payment of wages, that money or bank-notes now pass and then -only when the amounts are small. In London, even -shop-keepers of any amount of capital, or extent of -business, have generally an account with a banker; which, -besides the safety and convenience of the practice, is to -their advantage in another respect, by giving them an -understood claim to have their bills discounted in cases -where they could not otherwise expect it. As for the -merchants and larger dealers, they habitually make all -payments in the course of their business, by checks. They do -not, however, all deal with the same banker; and when A -gives a check to B, B usually pays it, not into the same, -but into another bank. But the convenience of business has -given birth to an arrangement which makes all the -banking-houses of the City of London, for certain purposes, -virtually one establishment. A banker does not send the -checks which are paid into his banking-house to the banks on -which they are drawn and demand money for them. There is a -building called the Clearing House, to which every city -banker sends each afternoon, all the checks on other bankers -which he has received during the day; and they are there -exchanged for the checks on him which have come into the -hands of other bankers, the balances only being paid in -money. By this contrivance, all the business transactions of -the City of London during that day amounting often to -millions of pounds and a vast amount besides of country -transactions, represented by bills which country bankers -have drawn upon their London correspondents, all liquidated -by payments not exceeding, on the average, -£200,000."---(Vol. ii., p. 47). - -"Money," says Mr. Beck, "follows in the track of claim. Its -progress is the discharge and satisfaction of claim. The -payment of money is effectually the discharge of the debtor; -but it is not equally effectual in satisfaction of the -creditor. Though it releases the debtor, it still leaves the -creditor to seek the real object of his desire. It does not -put him in possession of it, but of something which enables -him to obtain it. He must exchange this money by purchase -for the article he wants before that object is attained. In -payment of debts, it passes from claimant to claimant, -discharging and paying claims as it goes. Money follows -claim; both continually revolving through all classes of -society in repeated and perpetual circles, constantly -returning to their several stations, drawn thither by -operations of industry or of business. - -"In the possession of money every one has his turn. It -comes to him in the shape of payment for his sales or his -industry and passes from him in the shape of payment or -expenditure, again to return at its proper time and on a -proper occasion to serve the same purposes as before. - -"Now, I contend that as the progress of money lies in a -circular route, a certain system of account may be made to -supply its place, where its track and extent can, in that -circle, be included and distinguished. - -"By a **circle**, I mean that range of society which -includes the whole circulating movement of money, with the -accompanying causes and effects of its progress; viz, -claims, debts and payments; so that, if we wish to trace its -path, every point of that path will be contained within it. -Such is the great circle of society. This contains the whole -body of debtors and the whole body of creditors. It contains -all the debtors to the creditors and all the creditors to -the debtors. All would be included in the jurisdiction of a -power that by any possibility could preside over the whole. -Creditors are sellers; debtors are buyers. But no man -continually sells without sometimes buying, nor does any man -continually buy without sometimes selling. The creditor who -receives money from his debtor, again expends this money -upon others, who thereby, in their turns, become creditors -and receive their money back again. All these movements are -within the range of the one circle of society. Now, it is -evident that if an account were kept by a presiding power, -the goods which any person receives, being of equal value, -would pay for those which he had previously delivered; would -replace him in his original assets and cancel the obligation -to him without the aid of money. Hence, after the whole -process, it would seem that the intermediate passage and -return of money were superfluous. If the dealings are not -directly backward and forward---that is, between one -creditor and his debtor and back again from the same debtor -to the same creditor the effect will be the same; for as -this whole circle includes every creditor, every debtor and -in fact every individual in that society, so it contains -every account to which the claims of any creditor would -apply, and every account to which the same creditor would be -indebted. The agency of the presiding power would render it -*pro forma*, the representative to every creditor of his -individual debtor; and to every debtor, the representative -of his individual creditor. It would form a common center -for all claims by every creditor on his debtor. It would -form the channel for the discharge of his debts and the -receipt of his claims. It would show the state of his -account with society, and the balance, if in favor, would be -available as so much cash. - -"This is what is meant by a **circle**. Such is the great -circle of society, the only one which is complete and -perfect, and such are the advantages contained in it. - -"Hence the plan I propose is adapted to this circle, to -exhibit the revolving track of money within it; to contain -the several points of its progress; and, at each of these -points, to perform its duty and supply its place by the -revolution of debits and credits in account, instead of the -revolutions of the actual material money." There are many -practical processes by which the business-world make credit -perform the functions of money, among which may be -especially noticed---first, that by credit in account; and -second, that by bills of exchange. Mr, Beck thought out a -Mutual Bank by generalizing credit in account; Proudhon, by +In Mr. Beck's plan for a Mutual Bank---which consists in a simple +generalization of the system of credit in account that is well described +in the following extract from J. Stuart Mill's "Political +Economy"---there is one fault only; but that fault is fatal; it is that +the people can never be induced to adopt the complicated method of +accounts which would be rendered necessary: + +"A mode of making credit answer the purposes of money, by which, when +carried far enough, money may be very completely superseded, consists in +making payments by checks. The custom of keeping the spare cash reserved +for immediate use or against contingent demands, in the hands of a +banker and making all payments, except small ones, by orders on bankers, +is in this country spreading to a continually larger portion of the +public. If the person making the payment and the person receiving it +kept their money with the same banker, the payment would take place +without any intervention of money, by the mere transfer of its amount in +the banker's books from the credit of the payer to that of the receiver. +If all persons in London kept their cash at the same banker's and made +all their payments by means of checks, no money would be required or +used for any transactions beginning and terminating in London. This +ideal limit is almost attained in fact, so far as regards transactions +between dealers. It is chiefly in the retail transactions between +dealers and consumers, and in the payment of wages, that money or +bank-notes now pass and then only when the amounts are small. In London, +even shop-keepers of any amount of capital, or extent of business, have +generally an account with a banker; which, besides the safety and +convenience of the practice, is to their advantage in another respect, +by giving them an understood claim to have their bills discounted in +cases where they could not otherwise expect it. As for the merchants and +larger dealers, they habitually make all payments in the course of their +business, by checks. They do not, however, all deal with the same +banker; and when A gives a check to B, B usually pays it, not into the +same, but into another bank. But the convenience of business has given +birth to an arrangement which makes all the banking-houses of the City +of London, for certain purposes, virtually one establishment. A banker +does not send the checks which are paid into his banking-house to the +banks on which they are drawn and demand money for them. There is a +building called the Clearing House, to which every city banker sends +each afternoon, all the checks on other bankers which he has received +during the day; and they are there exchanged for the checks on him which +have come into the hands of other bankers, the balances only being paid +in money. By this contrivance, all the business transactions of the City +of London during that day amounting often to millions of pounds and a +vast amount besides of country transactions, represented by bills which +country bankers have drawn upon their London correspondents, all +liquidated by payments not exceeding, on the average, £200,000."---(Vol. +ii., p. 47). + +"Money," says Mr. Beck, "follows in the track of claim. Its progress is +the discharge and satisfaction of claim. The payment of money is +effectually the discharge of the debtor; but it is not equally effectual +in satisfaction of the creditor. Though it releases the debtor, it still +leaves the creditor to seek the real object of his desire. It does not +put him in possession of it, but of something which enables him to +obtain it. He must exchange this money by purchase for the article he +wants before that object is attained. In payment of debts, it passes +from claimant to claimant, discharging and paying claims as it goes. +Money follows claim; both continually revolving through all classes of +society in repeated and perpetual circles, constantly returning to their +several stations, drawn thither by operations of industry or of +business. + +"In the possession of money every one has his turn. It comes to him in +the shape of payment for his sales or his industry and passes from him +in the shape of payment or expenditure, again to return at its proper +time and on a proper occasion to serve the same purposes as before. + +"Now, I contend that as the progress of money lies in a circular route, +a certain system of account may be made to supply its place, where its +track and extent can, in that circle, be included and distinguished. + +"By a **circle**, I mean that range of society which includes the whole +circulating movement of money, with the accompanying causes and effects +of its progress; viz, claims, debts and payments; so that, if we wish to +trace its path, every point of that path will be contained within it. +Such is the great circle of society. This contains the whole body of +debtors and the whole body of creditors. It contains all the debtors to +the creditors and all the creditors to the debtors. All would be +included in the jurisdiction of a power that by any possibility could +preside over the whole. Creditors are sellers; debtors are buyers. But +no man continually sells without sometimes buying, nor does any man +continually buy without sometimes selling. The creditor who receives +money from his debtor, again expends this money upon others, who +thereby, in their turns, become creditors and receive their money back +again. All these movements are within the range of the one circle of +society. Now, it is evident that if an account were kept by a presiding +power, the goods which any person receives, being of equal value, would +pay for those which he had previously delivered; would replace him in +his original assets and cancel the obligation to him without the aid of +money. Hence, after the whole process, it would seem that the +intermediate passage and return of money were superfluous. If the +dealings are not directly backward and forward---that is, between one +creditor and his debtor and back again from the same debtor to the same +creditor the effect will be the same; for as this whole circle includes +every creditor, every debtor and in fact every individual in that +society, so it contains every account to which the claims of any +creditor would apply, and every account to which the same creditor would +be indebted. The agency of the presiding power would render it *pro +forma*, the representative to every creditor of his individual debtor; +and to every debtor, the representative of his individual creditor. It +would form a common center for all claims by every creditor on his +debtor. It would form the channel for the discharge of his debts and the +receipt of his claims. It would show the state of his account with +society, and the balance, if in favor, would be available as so much +cash. + +"This is what is meant by a **circle**. Such is the great circle of +society, the only one which is complete and perfect, and such are the +advantages contained in it. + +"Hence the plan I propose is adapted to this circle, to exhibit the +revolving track of money within it; to contain the several points of its +progress; and, at each of these points, to perform its duty and supply +its place by the revolution of debits and credits in account, instead of +the revolutions of the actual material money." There are many practical +processes by which the business-world make credit perform the functions +of money, among which may be especially noticed---first, that by credit +in account; and second, that by bills of exchange. Mr, Beck thought out +a Mutual Bank by generalizing credit in account; Proudhon, by generalizing the bill of exchange. ## Bills of Exchange -Let it be supposed that there are ten shoe-manufacturers in -Lynn, who sell their shoes to ten shopkeepers in Boston ; -let it be supposed, also, that there are ten wholesale -grocers in Boston who furnish goods to ten retail grocers in -Lynn. If the value of the shoes equals the value of the -groceries, the ten retail grocers in Lynn would have no -occasion to send money to Boston to pay their indebtedness -to the wholesale grocers; neither would the ten shopkeepers -in Boston have occasion to send money to Lynn to discharge -their debt to the ten shoe manufacturers; for the Lynn -retail grocers might pay the money to the the Lynn -shoe-manufacturers; these shoe-manufacturers writing to the -Boston shopkeepers, who are their debtors, requesting them -to pay the Boston wholesale grocers, who are the creditors -of the Lynn retail grocers. It is very possible that the -transactions of all these persons with each other might be -settled in this way without the transmission of any money -either from Boston to Lynn, or from Lynn to Boston. The -transfer of debts in the process here indicated gives rise -to what are called, in mercantile language, drafts, or bills -of exchange; though regular bills of exchange are seldom -drawn in this country, except against foreign account. A -bill of exchange reads generally somewhat as follows: - -"To Mr. E. F.---days after sight, on this my **first** bill -of exchange (second and third of the same date and tenor not -paid) pay to A. B., without further advice from me, --- -dollars, value received, and charge the same to account of -your obedient servant, C. D." - -This form evidently implies that the bill is made out in -triplicates. The bill must also, of course be dated. A -**draft** is a bill of exchange drawn up with the omission -of some of the solemnity and particularity of the regular -bill. - -Bills of exchange are useful, not only for the payment of -debts at distant places without transportation of the -precious metals, but also as a means by which a debt due -from one person may be made available for **obtaining -credit** from another. It is usual in every trade to give a -certain length of credit for goods bought---ninety days, six -months, eight months, or a longer time, as may be determined -by the convenience of the parties, or by the custom of the -particular trade and place. If a man has sold goods to -another on six month's credit, he may draw a bill upon his -debtor, payable in six months, get his bill discounted at -the bank and thus qualify himself to purchase such things as -he may require in his business, without waiting for the six -months to expire. But bills of exchange do more than this. -They not only obviate, upon occasions, the necessity for -ready money; they not only enable a man to command ready -money before the debts due to him arrive at maturity; they -often actually take place and perform the functions of money -itself. J. Stuart Mill, quoting from Mr, Thornton, says: -"Let us imagine a farmer in the country to discharge a debt -of £10 to his neighboring grocer, by giving him a bill for -that sum, drawn on his corn-factor in London, for grain sold -in the metropolis; and the grocer to transmit the bill---he -having previously endorsed it---to a neighboring sugar-baker -in discharge of a like debt; and the sugar-baker to send it -when again endorsed, to a West India merchant in an outport; -and the West India merchant to deliver it to his country -banker, who also endorses it and sends it into further -circulation. The bill will in this case have effected five -payments, exactly as if it were a 10 note payable to bearer -on demand. A multitude of bills pass between trader and -trader in the country in the manner which has been -described, and they evidently form in the strictest sense, a -part of the circulating medium of the kingdom." Mr. Mill -adds: "Many bills, both domestic and foreign, are at last -presented for payment quite covered with endorsements, each -of which represents either a fresh discounting, or a -pecuniary transaction in which the bill has performed the -functions of money. Up to twenty years ago, the circulating -medium of Lancashire for sums above £5 was almost entirely +Let it be supposed that there are ten shoe-manufacturers in Lynn, who +sell their shoes to ten shopkeepers in Boston ; let it be supposed, +also, that there are ten wholesale grocers in Boston who furnish goods +to ten retail grocers in Lynn. If the value of the shoes equals the +value of the groceries, the ten retail grocers in Lynn would have no +occasion to send money to Boston to pay their indebtedness to the +wholesale grocers; neither would the ten shopkeepers in Boston have +occasion to send money to Lynn to discharge their debt to the ten shoe +manufacturers; for the Lynn retail grocers might pay the money to the +the Lynn shoe-manufacturers; these shoe-manufacturers writing to the +Boston shopkeepers, who are their debtors, requesting them to pay the +Boston wholesale grocers, who are the creditors of the Lynn retail +grocers. It is very possible that the transactions of all these persons +with each other might be settled in this way without the transmission of +any money either from Boston to Lynn, or from Lynn to Boston. The +transfer of debts in the process here indicated gives rise to what are +called, in mercantile language, drafts, or bills of exchange; though +regular bills of exchange are seldom drawn in this country, except +against foreign account. A bill of exchange reads generally somewhat as +follows: + +"To Mr. E. F.---days after sight, on this my **first** bill of exchange +(second and third of the same date and tenor not paid) pay to A. B., +without further advice from me, --- dollars, value received, and charge +the same to account of your obedient servant, C. D." + +This form evidently implies that the bill is made out in triplicates. +The bill must also, of course be dated. A **draft** is a bill of +exchange drawn up with the omission of some of the solemnity and +particularity of the regular bill. + +Bills of exchange are useful, not only for the payment of debts at +distant places without transportation of the precious metals, but also +as a means by which a debt due from one person may be made available for +**obtaining credit** from another. It is usual in every trade to give a +certain length of credit for goods bought---ninety days, six months, +eight months, or a longer time, as may be determined by the convenience +of the parties, or by the custom of the particular trade and place. If a +man has sold goods to another on six month's credit, he may draw a bill +upon his debtor, payable in six months, get his bill discounted at the +bank and thus qualify himself to purchase such things as he may require +in his business, without waiting for the six months to expire. But bills +of exchange do more than this. They not only obviate, upon occasions, +the necessity for ready money; they not only enable a man to command +ready money before the debts due to him arrive at maturity; they often +actually take place and perform the functions of money itself. J. Stuart +Mill, quoting from Mr, Thornton, says: "Let us imagine a farmer in the +country to discharge a debt of £10 to his neighboring grocer, by giving +him a bill for that sum, drawn on his corn-factor in London, for grain +sold in the metropolis; and the grocer to transmit the bill---he having +previously endorsed it---to a neighboring sugar-baker in discharge of a +like debt; and the sugar-baker to send it when again endorsed, to a West +India merchant in an outport; and the West India merchant to deliver it +to his country banker, who also endorses it and sends it into further +circulation. The bill will in this case have effected five payments, +exactly as if it were a 10 note payable to bearer on demand. A multitude +of bills pass between trader and trader in the country in the manner +which has been described, and they evidently form in the strictest +sense, a part of the circulating medium of the kingdom." Mr. Mill adds: +"Many bills, both domestic and foreign, are at last presented for +payment quite covered with endorsements, each of which represents either +a fresh discounting, or a pecuniary transaction in which the bill has +performed the functions of money. Up to twenty years ago, the +circulating medium of Lancashire for sums above £5 was almost entirely composed of such bills." -In our explanation of the system of banking which results -from a generalization of the bill of exchange, we will let -the master speak for himself: +In our explanation of the system of banking which results from a +generalization of the bill of exchange, we will let the master speak for +himself: ## Proudhon's Bank -"We must destroy the royalty of gold; we must republicanize -specie, by making every product of labor ready money. - -"Let no one be frightened beforehand. I by no means propose -to reproduce under a rejuvenated form, the old ideas of -paper money, money of paper, assignats, bank-bills, etc., -etc.; for all these palliatives have been known, tried and -rejected long ago. These representations on paper, by which -men have believed themselves able to replace the absent god, -are, all of them, nothing other than a homage paid to -metal---an adoration of metal, which has been always present -to men's minds, and which has always been taken by them as -the measure or evaluator of products. - -"Everybody knows what a bill of exchange is. The creditor -requests the debtor to pay to him, or to his order, at such -a place, at such a date, such a sum of money. - -'The promissory note is the bill of exchange inverted; the -debtor promises the creditor that he will pay, etc. - -"'The bill of exchange,' says the statute, 'is drawn from -one place on another. It is dated. It announces the sum to -be paid; the time and place where the payment is to be made; -the value to be furnished in specie, in merchandise, in -account, or in other form. It is to the order of a third -person, or to the order of the drawer himself. If it is by +"We must destroy the royalty of gold; we must republicanize specie, by +making every product of labor ready money. + +"Let no one be frightened beforehand. I by no means propose to reproduce +under a rejuvenated form, the old ideas of paper money, money of paper, +assignats, bank-bills, etc., etc.; for all these palliatives have been +known, tried and rejected long ago. These representations on paper, by +which men have believed themselves able to replace the absent god, are, +all of them, nothing other than a homage paid to metal---an adoration of +metal, which has been always present to men's minds, and which has +always been taken by them as the measure or evaluator of products. + +"Everybody knows what a bill of exchange is. The creditor requests the +debtor to pay to him, or to his order, at such a place, at such a date, +such a sum of money. + +'The promissory note is the bill of exchange inverted; the debtor +promises the creditor that he will pay, etc. + +"'The bill of exchange,' says the statute, 'is drawn from one place on +another. It is dated. It announces the sum to be paid; the time and +place where the payment is to be made; the value to be furnished in +specie, in merchandise, in account, or in other form. It is to the order +of a third person, or to the order of the drawer himself. If it is by 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc., it must be so stated.' -"The bill of exchange supposes, therefore, exchange, -provision and acceptance; that is to say, a value created -and delivered by the drawer; the existence, in the hands of -the drawee, of the funds destined to acquit the bill, and -the promise on the part of the drawee, to acquit it. When -the bill of exchange is clothed with all these formalities; -when it represents a real service actually rendered, or -merchandise delivered; when the drawer and drawee are known -and solvent; when, in a word, it is clothed with all the -conditions necessary to guarantee the accomplishment of the -obligation, the bill of exchange is considered GOOD; it -circulates in the mercantile world like bank-paper, like -specie. No one objects to receiving it under pretext that a -bill of exchange is nothing but a piece of paper. -Only---since, at the end of its circulation, the bill of -exchange, before being destroyed, must be exchanged for -specie---it pays to specie a sort of seigniorial duty, +"The bill of exchange supposes, therefore, exchange, provision and +acceptance; that is to say, a value created and delivered by the drawer; +the existence, in the hands of the drawee, of the funds destined to +acquit the bill, and the promise on the part of the drawee, to acquit +it. When the bill of exchange is clothed with all these formalities; +when it represents a real service actually rendered, or merchandise +delivered; when the drawer and drawee are known and solvent; when, in a +word, it is clothed with all the conditions necessary to guarantee the +accomplishment of the obligation, the bill of exchange is considered +GOOD; it circulates in the mercantile world like bank-paper, like +specie. No one objects to receiving it under pretext that a bill of +exchange is nothing but a piece of paper. Only---since, at the end of +its circulation, the bill of exchange, before being destroyed, must be +exchanged for specie---it pays to specie a sort of seigniorial duty, called **discount**. -"That which, in general, renders the bill of exchange -insecure, is precisely this promise of final conversion into -specie; and thus the idea of metal, like a corrupting -royalty, infects even the bill of exchange and takes from it -its certainty. - -"Now, the whole problem of the circulation consists in -generalizing the bill of exchange; that is to say, in making -of it an anonymous title, exchangeable forever, and -redeemable at sight, but only in merchandise and services. - -"Or, to speak a language more comprehensible to financial -adepts, the problem of the circulation consists in -**basing** bank-paper, not upon specie, nor bullion, nor -immovable property, which can never produce anything but a -miserable oscillation between usury and bankruptcy, between -the five-franc piece and the assignat; but by basing it upon +"That which, in general, renders the bill of exchange insecure, is +precisely this promise of final conversion into specie; and thus the +idea of metal, like a corrupting royalty, infects even the bill of +exchange and takes from it its certainty. + +"Now, the whole problem of the circulation consists in generalizing the +bill of exchange; that is to say, in making of it an anonymous title, +exchangeable forever, and redeemable at sight, but only in merchandise +and services. + +"Or, to speak a language more comprehensible to financial adepts, the +problem of the circulation consists in **basing** bank-paper, not upon +specie, nor bullion, nor immovable property, which can never produce +anything but a miserable oscillation between usury and bankruptcy, +between the five-franc piece and the assignat; but by basing it upon **products**. -"I conceive this generalization of the bill of exchange as -follows: +"I conceive this generalization of the bill of exchange as follows: + +"A hundred thousand manufacturers, miners, merchants, commissioners, +public carriers, agriculturists, etc., throughout France, unite with +each other in obedience to the summons of the the government and by +simple authentic declaration, inserted in the 'Moniteur' newspaper, bind +themselves respectively and reciprocally to adhere to the statutes of +the Bank of Exchange; which shall be no other than the Bank of France +itself, with its constitution and attributes modified on the following +basis: -"A hundred thousand manufacturers, miners, merchants, -commissioners, public carriers, agriculturists, etc., -throughout France, unite with each other in obedience to the -summons of the the government and by simple authentic -declaration, inserted in the 'Moniteur' newspaper, bind -themselves respectively and reciprocally to adhere to the -statutes of the Bank of Exchange; which shall be no other -than the Bank of France itself, with its constitution and -attributes modified on the following basis: - -"1st The Bank of France, become the Bank of Exchange, is an -institution of public interest. It is placed under the -guardianship of the state and is directed by delegates from -all the branches of industry. - -"2nd. Every subscriber shall have an account open at the -Bank of Exchange for the discount of his business paper; and -he shall be served to the same extent as he would have been -under the conditions of discount in specie; that is, in the -known measure of his faculties, the business he does, the -positive guarantees he offers, the real credit he might -reasonably have enjoyed under the old system. - -"3rd. The discount of ordinary commercial paper, whether of -drafts, orders, bills of exchange, notes on demand, will be -made in bills of the Bank of Exchange, of denominations of -25, 50, 100 and 1,000 francs. +"1st The Bank of France, become the Bank of Exchange, is an institution +of public interest. It is placed under the guardianship of the state and +is directed by delegates from all the branches of industry. + +"2nd. Every subscriber shall have an account open at the Bank of +Exchange for the discount of his business paper; and he shall be served +to the same extent as he would have been under the conditions of +discount in specie; that is, in the known measure of his faculties, the +business he does, the positive guarantees he offers, the real credit he +might reasonably have enjoyed under the old system. + +"3rd. The discount of ordinary commercial paper, whether of drafts, +orders, bills of exchange, notes on demand, will be made in bills of the +Bank of Exchange, of denominations of 25, 50, 100 and 1,000 francs. "Specie will be used in making change only. -"4th. The rate of discount will be taxed at ---%, -commission included, no matter how long the paper has to -run. With the Bank of Exchange all business will be finished -on the spot. +"4th. The rate of discount will be taxed at ---%, commission included, +no matter how long the paper has to run. With the Bank of Exchange all +business will be finished on the spot. -"5th. Every subscriber binds himself to receive in all -payments, from whomsoever it ay be and at par, the paper of -the Bank of Exchange. +"5th. Every subscriber binds himself to receive in all payments, from +whomsoever it ay be and at par, the paper of the Bank of Exchange. -"6th. Provisionally and by way of transition, gold and -silver coin will be received in exchange for the paper of -the bank, and at their nominal value. +"6th. Provisionally and by way of transition, gold and silver coin will +be received in exchange for the paper of the bank, and at their nominal +value. "Is this a paper currency? -"I answer unhesitatingly, No! It is neither paper-money, -nor money of paper; it is neither government checks, nor -even bank-bills; it is not of the nature of anything that -has been hitherto invented to make up for the scarcity of -the specie. It is the bill of exchange generalized. +"I answer unhesitatingly, No! It is neither paper-money, nor money of +paper; it is neither government checks, nor even bank-bills; it is not +of the nature of anything that has been hitherto invented to make up for +the scarcity of the specie. It is the bill of exchange generalized. -"The essence of the bill of exchange is -constituted---first, by its being drawn from one place on -another; second, by its representing a real value equal to -the sum it expresses; third, by the promise or obligation on -the part of the drawee to pay it when it falls due. +"The essence of the bill of exchange is constituted---first, by its +being drawn from one place on another; second, by its representing a +real value equal to the sum it expresses; third, by the promise or +obligation on the part of the drawee to pay it when it falls due. -"In three words, that which constitutes the bill of -exchange is exchange, provision, acceptance. +"In three words, that which constitutes the bill of exchange is +exchange, provision, acceptance. -"As to the date of issue, or of falling due; as to the -designation of the places, persons, object---these are -particular circumstances which do not relate to the essence -of the title, but which serve merely to give it a -determinate personal and local actuality. +"As to the date of issue, or of falling due; as to the designation of +the places, persons, object---these are particular circumstances which +do not relate to the essence of the title, but which serve merely to +give it a determinate personal and local actuality. "Now, what is the bank-paper I propose to create? -"It is the bill of exchange stripped of the circumstantial -qualities of date, place, person, object, term of maturity, -and reduced to its essential qualities---exchange, -acceptance, provision. - -"It is, to explain myself still more clearly, the bill of -exchange, payable at sight and forever, drawn from every -place in France upon every other place In France, made by -100,000 drawers, guaranteed by 100,000 endorsers, accepted -by the 100,000 subscribers drawn upon; having provision made -for its payment in the 100,000 workshops, manufactories, -stores, etc., of the same 100,000 subscribers. - -"I say, therefore, that such a title unites every condition -of solidity and security and that it is susceptible of no -depreciation. - -"It is eminently solid; since on one side it represents the -ordinary, local, personal, actual paper of exchange, -determined in its object and representing a real value, a -service rendered, merchandise delivered, or whose delivery -is guaranteed and certain; while on the other side it is -guaranteed by the contract, in solido, of 100,000 -exchangers, who, by their mass, their independence, and at -the same time by the unity and connection of their -operations, offer millions of millions of probability of -payment against one of nonpayment. Gold is a thousand times -less sure. - -"In fact, if in the ordinary conditions of commerce, we may -say that a bill of exchange made by a known merchant offers -two chances of payment against one of non-payment, the same -bill of exchange, if it is endorsed by another known -merchant, will offer four chances of payment against one. If -it is endorsed by three, four or a greater number of -merchants equally well known, there will be eight, sixteen, -thirty-two, etc., to wager against one that three, four, -five, etc., known merchants will not fail at the same time, -since the favorable chances increase in geometrical -proportion with the number of endorsers. What, then, ought -to be the certainty of a bill of exchange made by 100,000 -well-known subscribers, who are all of them interested to -promote its circulation? - -"I add that this title is susceptible of no depreciation. -The reason for this is found, first, in the perfect solidity -of a mass of 100,000 signers. But there exists another -reason, more direct, and if possible, more reassuring; it is -that the issues of the new paper can never be exaggerated -like those of ordinary bank-bills, treasury notes, paper -money, assignats, etc., for the issues take place against -good, commercial paper only, and in the regular, necessarily -limited, measured and proportionate process of discounting. - -"In the combination I propose, the paper (at once sign of -credit and instrument of circulation) grows out of the best -business-paper, which itself represents products delivered, -and by no means merchandise unsold. This paper, I affirm, -can never be refused in payment, since it is subscribed -beforehand by the mass of producers. - -"This paper offers so much the more security and -convenience, inasmuch as it may be tried on a small scale, -and with as few persons as you see fit, and that without the -least violence, without the least peril. - -"Suppose the Bank of Exchange to start at first on a basis -of 1,000 subscribers instead of 100,000; the amount of paper -it would issue would be in proportion to the business of -these 1,000 subscribers, and negotiable only among -themselves. Afterwards, according as other persons should -adhere to the bank, the proportion of bills would be as -5,000, 10,000, 50,000, etc., and their circulation would -grow with the number of subscribers, as a money peculiar to -them. Then, when the whole of France should have adhered to -the statutes of the new bank, the issue of paper would be -equal, at every instant, to the the totality of circulating -values. - -"I do not conceive it necessary to insist longer. Men -acquainted with banking will understand me without -difficulty, and will supply from their own minds the details -of execution. - -"As for the vulgar, who judge of all things by the material -aspect, nothing for them is so similar to an assignat as a -bill of the Bank of Exchange. For the economist, who -searches the idea to the bottom, nothing is so different. -They are two titles, which, under the same matter, the same -form, the same denomination, are diametrically opposed to -each other."---(*Organization du Credit de la -Circulation---Banque d'Exchange*; p. 23). +"It is the bill of exchange stripped of the circumstantial qualities of +date, place, person, object, term of maturity, and reduced to its +essential qualities---exchange, acceptance, provision. + +"It is, to explain myself still more clearly, the bill of exchange, +payable at sight and forever, drawn from every place in France upon +every other place In France, made by 100,000 drawers, guaranteed by +100,000 endorsers, accepted by the 100,000 subscribers drawn upon; +having provision made for its payment in the 100,000 workshops, +manufactories, stores, etc., of the same 100,000 subscribers. + +"I say, therefore, that such a title unites every condition of solidity +and security and that it is susceptible of no depreciation. + +"It is eminently solid; since on one side it represents the ordinary, +local, personal, actual paper of exchange, determined in its object and +representing a real value, a service rendered, merchandise delivered, or +whose delivery is guaranteed and certain; while on the other side it is +guaranteed by the contract, in solido, of 100,000 exchangers, who, by +their mass, their independence, and at the same time by the unity and +connection of their operations, offer millions of millions of +probability of payment against one of nonpayment. Gold is a thousand +times less sure. + +"In fact, if in the ordinary conditions of commerce, we may say that a +bill of exchange made by a known merchant offers two chances of payment +against one of non-payment, the same bill of exchange, if it is endorsed +by another known merchant, will offer four chances of payment against +one. If it is endorsed by three, four or a greater number of merchants +equally well known, there will be eight, sixteen, thirty-two, etc., to +wager against one that three, four, five, etc., known merchants will not +fail at the same time, since the favorable chances increase in +geometrical proportion with the number of endorsers. What, then, ought +to be the certainty of a bill of exchange made by 100,000 well-known +subscribers, who are all of them interested to promote its circulation? + +"I add that this title is susceptible of no depreciation. The reason for +this is found, first, in the perfect solidity of a mass of 100,000 +signers. But there exists another reason, more direct, and if possible, +more reassuring; it is that the issues of the new paper can never be +exaggerated like those of ordinary bank-bills, treasury notes, paper +money, assignats, etc., for the issues take place against good, +commercial paper only, and in the regular, necessarily limited, measured +and proportionate process of discounting. + +"In the combination I propose, the paper (at once sign of credit and +instrument of circulation) grows out of the best business-paper, which +itself represents products delivered, and by no means merchandise +unsold. This paper, I affirm, can never be refused in payment, since it +is subscribed beforehand by the mass of producers. + +"This paper offers so much the more security and convenience, inasmuch +as it may be tried on a small scale, and with as few persons as you see +fit, and that without the least violence, without the least peril. + +"Suppose the Bank of Exchange to start at first on a basis of 1,000 +subscribers instead of 100,000; the amount of paper it would issue would +be in proportion to the business of these 1,000 subscribers, and +negotiable only among themselves. Afterwards, according as other persons +should adhere to the bank, the proportion of bills would be as 5,000, +10,000, 50,000, etc., and their circulation would grow with the number +of subscribers, as a money peculiar to them. Then, when the whole of +France should have adhered to the statutes of the new bank, the issue of +paper would be equal, at every instant, to the the totality of +circulating values. + +"I do not conceive it necessary to insist longer. Men acquainted with +banking will understand me without difficulty, and will supply from +their own minds the details of execution. + +"As for the vulgar, who judge of all things by the material aspect, +nothing for them is so similar to an assignat as a bill of the Bank of +Exchange. For the economist, who searches the idea to the bottom, +nothing is so different. They are two titles, which, under the same +matter, the same form, the same denomination, are diametrically opposed +to each other."---(*Organization du Credit de la Circulation---Banque +d'Exchange*; p. 23). ## Remarks -We have several objections to Proudhon's bank. We propose -them with diffidence, as Proudhon has undoubtedly prepared -an adequate answer to them. Nevertheless, as he has not -given that answer in his writings, we have a right to state -them. They are as follows: - -1st. We ask M. Proudhon how he would punish arbitrary -conduct, partiality, favoritism and self-sufficiency, on the -part of the officers of his bank. When we go to the mutual -bank to borrow money, we desire to be treated politely and -to receive fair play. - -2nd. We ask him how he would prevent intriguing members from -caballing to obtain control of the direction; or how he -would prevent such intrigues from bringing forth evil -results. - -3rd. We ask him how he would prevent the same property, -through the operation of successive sales, from being -represented, at the same time, by several different bills of -exchange, all of which are liable to be presented for -discount. For example: Suppose Peter sells John \$100 worth -of pork at six months credit and takes a bill at six months -for it; and that John sells afterward this same pork to -James at a like credit, taking a like bill; what shall -prevent both Peter and John from presenting their bills for -discount? Both bills are **real** bills, resulting from -sales actually effected. Neither of them can be -characterized as fictitious paper, and meanwhile, only one -represents actual property. The same barrel of pork, by -being sold and resold at credit one hundred times will give -rise to one hundred real bills. But is it not absurd to say -that the bank is safe in discounting all this paper, for the -reason that it is entirely composed of real bills, when we -know only one of them represents the barrel of pork? It -follows, therefore, that not every real bill is adequately -guaranteed. How, then, can Proudhon be certain that his -issues of bank-paper "will never be exaggerated?" - -4th. We ask him how he would cause his bank to operate to -the decentralization of the money power. - -For ourselves, we submit (and for the reason that it is -necessary to have some system that obviates the foregoing -objections) that the issues of mutual money ought---at -least, here in New England, the theory of Proudhon to the -contrary notwithstanding---to be related to a basis of +We have several objections to Proudhon's bank. We propose them with +diffidence, as Proudhon has undoubtedly prepared an adequate answer to +them. Nevertheless, as he has not given that answer in his writings, we +have a right to state them. They are as follows: + +1st. We ask M. Proudhon how he would punish arbitrary conduct, +partiality, favoritism and self-sufficiency, on the part of the officers +of his bank. When we go to the mutual bank to borrow money, we desire to +be treated politely and to receive fair play. + +2nd. We ask him how he would prevent intriguing members from caballing +to obtain control of the direction; or how he would prevent such +intrigues from bringing forth evil results. + +3rd. We ask him how he would prevent the same property, through the +operation of successive sales, from being represented, at the same time, +by several different bills of exchange, all of which are liable to be +presented for discount. For example: Suppose Peter sells John \$100 +worth of pork at six months credit and takes a bill at six months for +it; and that John sells afterward this same pork to James at a like +credit, taking a like bill; what shall prevent both Peter and John from +presenting their bills for discount? Both bills are **real** bills, +resulting from sales actually effected. Neither of them can be +characterized as fictitious paper, and meanwhile, only one represents +actual property. The same barrel of pork, by being sold and resold at +credit one hundred times will give rise to one hundred real bills. But +is it not absurd to say that the bank is safe in discounting all this +paper, for the reason that it is entirely composed of real bills, when +we know only one of them represents the barrel of pork? It follows, +therefore, that not every real bill is adequately guaranteed. How, then, +can Proudhon be certain that his issues of bank-paper "will never be +exaggerated?" + +4th. We ask him how he would cause his bank to operate to the +decentralization of the money power. + +For ourselves, we submit (and for the reason that it is necessary to +have some system that obviates the foregoing objections) that the issues +of mutual money ought---at least, here in New England, the theory of +Proudhon to the contrary notwithstanding---to be related to a basis of determinate actual property. Our plan for a Mutual Bank is as follows: -1st. Any person, by pledging actual property to the bank, -may become a member of the Mutual Banking Company. - -2nd. Any member may borrow the paper money of the bank on -his own note running to maturity (without endorsement) to an -amount not to exceed one-half of the value of the property -by himself pledged. - -3rd. Each member binds himself in legal form, on admission, -to receive in all payments, from whomsoever it may be and at -par, the paper of the Mutual Bank. - -4th. The rate of interest at which said money shall be -loaned shall be determined by, and shall if possible, just -meet and cover, the bare expenses of the institution. As for -interest in the common acceptation of the word, its rate -shall be at the Mutual Bank precisely 0. - -5th. No money shall be loaned to any persons who are not -members of the company; that is, no money shall be loaned, -except on a pledge of actual property. - -6th. Any member, by paying his debts to the bank, may have -his property released from pledge, and be himself released -from all obligations to the bank, or to the holders of the -bank's money, as such. - -7th. As for the bank, it shall never redeem any of its notes -in specie; nor shall it ever receive specie in payments, or -the bills of specie-paying banks, except at a discount of -½%. - -Ships and houses that are insured, machinery, in short, -anything that may be sold under the hammer, may be made a -basis for the issue of mutual money. Mutual Banking opens -the way to no monopoly; for it simply elevates every species -of property to the rank which has hitherto been exclusively -occupied by gold and silver. It may be well (we think it -will be necessary) to begin with real estate; we do not say -it would be well to end there! +1st. Any person, by pledging actual property to the bank, may become a +member of the Mutual Banking Company. + +2nd. Any member may borrow the paper money of the bank on his own note +running to maturity (without endorsement) to an amount not to exceed +one-half of the value of the property by himself pledged. + +3rd. Each member binds himself in legal form, on admission, to receive +in all payments, from whomsoever it may be and at par, the paper of the +Mutual Bank. + +4th. The rate of interest at which said money shall be loaned shall be +determined by, and shall if possible, just meet and cover, the bare +expenses of the institution. As for interest in the common acceptation +of the word, its rate shall be at the Mutual Bank precisely 0. + +5th. No money shall be loaned to any persons who are not members of the +company; that is, no money shall be loaned, except on a pledge of actual +property. + +6th. Any member, by paying his debts to the bank, may have his property +released from pledge, and be himself released from all obligations to +the bank, or to the holders of the bank's money, as such. + +7th. As for the bank, it shall never redeem any of its notes in specie; +nor shall it ever receive specie in payments, or the bills of +specie-paying banks, except at a discount of ½%. + +Ships and houses that are insured, machinery, in short, anything that +may be sold under the hammer, may be made a basis for the issue of +mutual money. Mutual Banking opens the way to no monopoly; for it simply +elevates every species of property to the rank which has hitherto been +exclusively occupied by gold and silver. It may be well (we think it +will be necessary) to begin with real estate; we do not say it would be +well to end there! # V. Petition for a General Mutual Banking Law -*To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of -the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.* - -This prayer of your petitioners humbly showeth, that the -farmers, mechanics and other actual producers, whose names -are hereunto subscribed, believe the present organization of -the currency to be unjust and oppressive. They, therefore, -respectfully request your honorable body to republicanize -gold, silver and bank-bills, by the enactment of a **General -Mutual Banking Law.** - -A law, embracing the following provisions, would be -eminently satisfactory to your petitioners: - -1. The inhabitants or any portion of the inhabitants, of - any town or city in the Commonwealth may organize - themselves into a Mutual Banking Company. - -2. Any person may become a member of the Mutual Banking - Company of any particular town, by pledging **real - estate** situated in that town, or in its immediate - neighborhood, to the Mutual Bank of that town. - -3. The Mutual Bank of any town may issue **paper-money** to - circulate as currency among persons willing to employ it - as such. - -4. Every member of a Mutual Banking Company shall bind - himself, and be bound, in due legal form, on admission, - to receive in payment of debts, at par, and from all - persons, the bills issued, and to be issued, by the - particular Mutual Bank to which he may belong; but no - member shall be obliged to receive, or have in - possession, bills of said Mutual Bank to an amount - exceeding the whole value of the property pledged by - him. - -5. Any member may borrow the paper money of the bank to - which he belongs, on his own note running to maturity - (without endorsement), to an amount not to exceed - one-half of the value of the property pledged by him. - -6. The rate of interest at which said money shall be loaned - by the bank, shall be determined by, and shall, if - possible, just meet and cover the bare expenses of the - institution. - -7. No money shall be loaned by the bank to persons who do - not become members of the company by pledging real - estate to the bank. - -8. Any member, by paying his debts to the Mutual Bank to - which he belongs, may have his property released from - pledge, and be himself released from all obligations to - said Mutual Bank, and to holders of the Mutual-Bank - money, as such. - -9. No Mutual Bank shall receive other than Mutual-Bank - paper-money in payment of debts due to it, except at a - discount of ½%. - -10. The Mutual Banks of the several counties in the - Commonwealth shall he authorized to enter into such - arrangements with each other as shall enable them to - receive each other's bills in payments of debts; so - that, for example, a Fitchburg man may pay his debts to - the Barre Bank in Oxford money, or in such other - Worcester-county money as may suit his convenience. +*To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the +Commonwealth of Massachusetts.* + +This prayer of your petitioners humbly showeth, that the farmers, +mechanics and other actual producers, whose names are hereunto +subscribed, believe the present organization of the currency to be +unjust and oppressive. They, therefore, respectfully request your +honorable body to republicanize gold, silver and bank-bills, by the +enactment of a **General Mutual Banking Law.** + +A law, embracing the following provisions, would be eminently +satisfactory to your petitioners: + +1. The inhabitants or any portion of the inhabitants, of any town or + city in the Commonwealth may organize themselves into a Mutual + Banking Company. + +2. Any person may become a member of the Mutual Banking Company of any + particular town, by pledging **real estate** situated in that town, + or in its immediate neighborhood, to the Mutual Bank of that town. + +3. The Mutual Bank of any town may issue **paper-money** to circulate + as currency among persons willing to employ it as such. + +4. Every member of a Mutual Banking Company shall bind himself, and be + bound, in due legal form, on admission, to receive in payment of + debts, at par, and from all persons, the bills issued, and to be + issued, by the particular Mutual Bank to which he may belong; but no + member shall be obliged to receive, or have in possession, bills of + said Mutual Bank to an amount exceeding the whole value of the + property pledged by him. + +5. Any member may borrow the paper money of the bank to which he + belongs, on his own note running to maturity (without endorsement), + to an amount not to exceed one-half of the value of the property + pledged by him. + +6. The rate of interest at which said money shall be loaned by the + bank, shall be determined by, and shall, if possible, just meet and + cover the bare expenses of the institution. + +7. No money shall be loaned by the bank to persons who do not become + members of the company by pledging real estate to the bank. + +8. Any member, by paying his debts to the Mutual Bank to which he + belongs, may have his property released from pledge, and be himself + released from all obligations to said Mutual Bank, and to holders of + the Mutual-Bank money, as such. + +9. No Mutual Bank shall receive other than Mutual-Bank paper-money in + payment of debts due to it, except at a discount of ½%. + +10. The Mutual Banks of the several counties in the Commonwealth shall + he authorized to enter into such arrangements with each other as + shall enable them to receive each other's bills in payments of + debts; so that, for example, a Fitchburg man may pay his debts to + the Barre Bank in Oxford money, or in such other Worcester-county + money as may suit his convenience. ## Remarks -Let A, B, C, D and E take a mortgage upon real estate owned -by F, to cover a value of, say, \$600; in consideration of -which mortgage, let A, B, C, D and E, who are -timber-dealers, hardware merchants, carpenters, masons, -painters, etc., furnish planks, boards, shingles, nails, -hinges, locks, carpenters' and masons' labor, etc., to the -value of \$600, to F, who is building a house. Let the -mortgage have six months to run. A, B, C, D and E are -perfectly safe; for either F pays at the end of the six -months, and then the whole transaction is closed; or F does -not pay, and then they sell the real estate mortgaged by -him, which is worth much more than \$600, and pay -themselves, thus closing the transaction. This transaction, -generalized, gives the Mutual Bank, and furnishes a currency -based upon products and services, entirely independent of -hard money, or paper based on hard money. For A, B, C, D and -E may give to F, instead of boards, nails, shingles, etc., -600 certificates of his mortgage, said certificates being -receivable by them for services and products, each one in -lieu of a silver dollar; each certificate being, therefore, -in all purchases from them, equivalent to a one-dollar bill. -If A, B, C, D and E agree to receive these certificates, -each one in lieu of a silver dollar, for the redemption of -the mortgage; if, moreover, they agree to receive them, each -one in lieu of a silver dollar, from whomsoever it may be, -in all payments---then A, B, C, D and E are a banking -company that issues mutual money; and as they never issue -money except upon a mortgage of property of double the value -of the money issued, their transactions are always -absolutely safe, and their money is always absolutely good. - -Any community that embraces members of all trades and -professions may totally abolish the use of hard money, and -of paper based on hard money, substituting mutual money in -its stead; and they may always substitute mutual money in -the stead of hard money and bank bills, to the precise -extent of their ability to live within themselves on their -own resources. +Let A, B, C, D and E take a mortgage upon real estate owned by F, to +cover a value of, say, \$600; in consideration of which mortgage, let A, +B, C, D and E, who are timber-dealers, hardware merchants, carpenters, +masons, painters, etc., furnish planks, boards, shingles, nails, hinges, +locks, carpenters' and masons' labor, etc., to the value of \$600, to F, +who is building a house. Let the mortgage have six months to run. A, B, +C, D and E are perfectly safe; for either F pays at the end of the six +months, and then the whole transaction is closed; or F does not pay, and +then they sell the real estate mortgaged by him, which is worth much +more than \$600, and pay themselves, thus closing the transaction. This +transaction, generalized, gives the Mutual Bank, and furnishes a +currency based upon products and services, entirely independent of hard +money, or paper based on hard money. For A, B, C, D and E may give to F, +instead of boards, nails, shingles, etc., 600 certificates of his +mortgage, said certificates being receivable by them for services and +products, each one in lieu of a silver dollar; each certificate being, +therefore, in all purchases from them, equivalent to a one-dollar bill. +If A, B, C, D and E agree to receive these certificates, each one in +lieu of a silver dollar, for the redemption of the mortgage; if, +moreover, they agree to receive them, each one in lieu of a silver +dollar, from whomsoever it may be, in all payments---then A, B, C, D and +E are a banking company that issues mutual money; and as they never +issue money except upon a mortgage of property of double the value of +the money issued, their transactions are always absolutely safe, and +their money is always absolutely good. + +Any community that embraces members of all trades and professions may +totally abolish the use of hard money, and of paper based on hard money, +substituting mutual money in its stead; and they may always substitute +mutual money in the stead of hard money and bank bills, to the precise +extent of their ability to live within themselves on their own +resources. ## The Rate of Interest -As interest-money charged by Mutual Banks covers nothing but -the expenses of the institutions, such banks may lend money, -at **a rate of less than 1% per annum**, to persons offering -good security. +As interest-money charged by Mutual Banks covers nothing but the +expenses of the institutions, such banks may lend money, at **a rate of +less than 1% per annum**, to persons offering good security. ## Advantages of Mutual Banking -It may be asked "What advantage does mutual banking hold out -to individuals who have no real estate to offer in pledge?" -We answer this question by another: What advantage do the -existing banks hold out to individuals who desire to borrow, -but are unable to offer adequate security? If we knew of a -plan whereby, through an act of the legislature, every -member of the community might be made rich, we would destroy -this petition, and draw up another embodying that plan. -Meanwhile, we affirm that no system was ever devised so -beneficial to the poor as the system of mutual banking; for -if a man having nothing to offer in pledge, has a friend who -is a farmer, or other holder of real estate, and that friend -is willing to furnish security for him, he can borrow money -at the mutual bank at a rate of 1% interest a year; whereas, -if he should borrow at the existing banks, he would be -obliged to pay 6%. Again, as mutual banking will make money -exceedingly plenty, it will cause a rise in the rate of -wages, thus benefiting the man who has no property but his -bodily strength; and it will not cause a proportionate -increase in the price of the necessaries of life: for the -price of provisions, etc., depends on supply and demand; and -mutual banking operates, not directly on supply and demand, -but to the diminution of the rate of interest on the medium -of exchange. Mutual banking will indeed cause a certain rise -in the price of commodities by creating a new demand; for, -with mutual money, the poorer classes will be able to -purchase articles which, under the present currency, they +It may be asked "What advantage does mutual banking hold out to +individuals who have no real estate to offer in pledge?" We answer this +question by another: What advantage do the existing banks hold out to +individuals who desire to borrow, but are unable to offer adequate +security? If we knew of a plan whereby, through an act of the +legislature, every member of the community might be made rich, we would +destroy this petition, and draw up another embodying that plan. +Meanwhile, we affirm that no system was ever devised so beneficial to +the poor as the system of mutual banking; for if a man having nothing to +offer in pledge, has a friend who is a farmer, or other holder of real +estate, and that friend is willing to furnish security for him, he can +borrow money at the mutual bank at a rate of 1% interest a year; +whereas, if he should borrow at the existing banks, he would be obliged +to pay 6%. Again, as mutual banking will make money exceedingly plenty, +it will cause a rise in the rate of wages, thus benefiting the man who +has no property but his bodily strength; and it will not cause a +proportionate increase in the price of the necessaries of life: for the +price of provisions, etc., depends on supply and demand; and mutual +banking operates, not directly on supply and demand, but to the +diminution of the rate of interest on the medium of exchange. Mutual +banking will indeed cause a certain rise in the price of commodities by +creating a new demand; for, with mutual money, the poorer classes will +be able to purchase articles which, under the present currency, they never dream of buying. -But certain mechanics and farmers say, "We borrow no money, -and therefore pay no interest. How, then, does this thing -concern us?" Hearken, my friends! let us reason together. I -have an impression on my mind that it is precisely the class -who have no dealings with the banks, and derive no -advantages from them, that ultimately pay all the interest -money that is paid. When a manufacturer borrows money to -carry on his business, he counts the interest he pays as a -part of his expenses, and therefore adds the amount of -interest to the price of his goods. The consumer who buys -the goods pays the interest when he pays for the goods; and -who is the consumer, if not the mechanic and the farmer? If -a manufacturer could borrow money at 1 percent, he could -afford to undersell all his competitors, to the manifest -advantage of the farmer and mechanic. The manufacturer would -neither gain nor lose; the farmer and mechanic, who have no -dealings with the bank, would gain the whole difference; and -the bank which, were it not for the competition of the -Mutual Bank, would have loaned the money at 6% -interest---would lose the whole difference. It is the -indirect relation of the bank to the farmer and mechanic, -and not its direct relation to the manufacturer and -merchant, that enables it to make money. When foreign -competition prevents the manufacturer from keeping up the -price of his goods, the farmer and mechanic, who are -consumers, do not pay the interest-money: but still the -interest is paid by the class that derive no benefit from -the banks; for, in this case, the manufacturer will save -himself from loss by cutting down the wages of his workmen -who are producers. Wages fluctuate, rising and falling -(other things being equal) as the rate of interest falls or -rises. If the farmer, mechanic and operative are not +But certain mechanics and farmers say, "We borrow no money, and +therefore pay no interest. How, then, does this thing concern us?" +Hearken, my friends! let us reason together. I have an impression on my +mind that it is precisely the class who have no dealings with the banks, +and derive no advantages from them, that ultimately pay all the interest +money that is paid. When a manufacturer borrows money to carry on his +business, he counts the interest he pays as a part of his expenses, and +therefore adds the amount of interest to the price of his goods. The +consumer who buys the goods pays the interest when he pays for the +goods; and who is the consumer, if not the mechanic and the farmer? If a +manufacturer could borrow money at 1 percent, he could afford to +undersell all his competitors, to the manifest advantage of the farmer +and mechanic. The manufacturer would neither gain nor lose; the farmer +and mechanic, who have no dealings with the bank, would gain the whole +difference; and the bank which, were it not for the competition of the +Mutual Bank, would have loaned the money at 6% interest---would lose the +whole difference. It is the indirect relation of the bank to the farmer +and mechanic, and not its direct relation to the manufacturer and +merchant, that enables it to make money. When foreign competition +prevents the manufacturer from keeping up the price of his goods, the +farmer and mechanic, who are consumers, do not pay the interest-money: +but still the interest is paid by the class that derive no benefit from +the banks; for, in this case, the manufacturer will save himself from +loss by cutting down the wages of his workmen who are producers. Wages +fluctuate, rising and falling (other things being equal) as the rate of +interest falls or rises. If the farmer, mechanic and operative are not interested in the matter of banking, we know not who is. ## Mutual Money is Generally Competent to Force Its Own Way into General Circulation -Let us suppose the Mutual Bank to be at first established in -a single town, and its circulation to be confined within the -limits of that town. The trader who sells the produce of -that town in the city and buys there such commodities---tea, -coffee, sugar, calico, etc.---as are required for the -consumption of his neighbors, sells and buys on credit. He -does not pay the farmer cash for his produce; he does not -sell that produce for cash in the city; neither does he buy -his groceries, etc., for cash from the city merchant: but he -buys of the farmer at, say, eight months' credit; and he -sells to the city merchant at, say, six months' credit. He -finds, moreover, as a general thing, that the exports of the -town which pass through his hands very nearly balance the -imports that he brings into the town for sale; so that, in -reality, the exports---butter, cheese, pork, beef, eggs, -etc.---pay for the imports---coffee, sugar, etc. And how, -indeed, could it be otherwise? It is not to be supposed that -the town has silver mines and a mint; and, if the people pay -for their imports in money, it will be because they have -become enabled so to do by selling their produce for money. -It follows, therefore, that the people in a country town do -not make the money, whereby they pay for store-goods, off -each other, but that they make it by selling their produce -out of the town. There are, therefore, two kinds of trading -going on at the same time in the town---one trade of the -inhabitants with each other; and another of the inhabitants, -through the store, with individuals living out of town. And -these two kinds of trade are perfectly distinct from each -other. The mutual money would serve all the purposes of the -internal trade; leaving the hard money, and paper based on -hard money, to serve exclusively for the purposes of trade -that reaches out of the town. The mutual money will not -prevent a single dollar of hard money, or paper based on -hard money, from coming into the town; for such hard money -comes into the town, not in consequence of exchanges made -between the inhabitants themselves, but in consequence of -produce sold abroad.[^7] So long as produce is sold out of -the town, so long will the inhabitants be able to buy -commodities that are produced out of the town; and they will -be able to make purchases to the precise extent that they -are able to make sales. The mutual money will therefore -prove to them an unmixed benefit; it will be entirely -independent of the old money, and will open to them a new -trade entirely independent of the old trade. So far as it -can be made available, it will unquestionably prove itself -to be a Rood thing; and, where it cannot be made available, -the inhabitants will only be deprived of a benefit that they -could not have enjoyed---mutual money or no mutual money. -Besides, the comparative cost of the mutual money is almost -nothing; for it can be issued to any amount on good -security, at the mere cost of printing, and the expense of -looking after the safety of the mortgages. If the mutual -money should happen, at any particular time, not to be -issued to any great extent, it would not be as though an -immense mass of value was remaining idle; for interest on -the mutual money is precisely 0. The mutual money is not -itself actual value, but a mere medium for the exchange of -actual values---a mere medium for the facilitation of -barter. - -We have remarked, that when the trader, who does the -out-of-town business of the inhabitants, buys coffee, sugar, -etc., he does not pay cash for them, but buys them at, say, -six months' credit. Now, the existing system of credit -causes, by its very nature, periodical crises in commercial -affairs. When one of these crises occurs, the trader will -say to the city merchant, "I owe you so much for groceries; -but i have no money, for times are hard: I will give you, -however, my note for the debt. Now, we leave it to the -reader, would not the city merchant prefer to take the -mutual money of the town to which the trader belongs, money -that holds real estate and produce in that town, rather than -the private note of a trader who may fail within a week? - -If, under the existing system, all transactions were settled -on the spot in cash, things might be different; but as -almost all transactions are conducted on the credit system, -and as the credit system necessarily involves periodical -commercial crises, the mutual money will find very little -difficulty in ultimately forcing itself into general -circulation. The Mutual Bank is like the stone cut from the -mountain without hands, for let it be once established in a -single village, no matter how obscure, and it will grow till -it covers the whole earth. Nevertheless, it would be better -to obviate all difficulty by starting the Mutual Bank on a -sufficiently extensive scale at the very beginning. +Let us suppose the Mutual Bank to be at first established in a single +town, and its circulation to be confined within the limits of that town. +The trader who sells the produce of that town in the city and buys there +such commodities---tea, coffee, sugar, calico, etc.---as are required +for the consumption of his neighbors, sells and buys on credit. He does +not pay the farmer cash for his produce; he does not sell that produce +for cash in the city; neither does he buy his groceries, etc., for cash +from the city merchant: but he buys of the farmer at, say, eight months' +credit; and he sells to the city merchant at, say, six months' credit. +He finds, moreover, as a general thing, that the exports of the town +which pass through his hands very nearly balance the imports that he +brings into the town for sale; so that, in reality, the +exports---butter, cheese, pork, beef, eggs, etc.---pay for the +imports---coffee, sugar, etc. And how, indeed, could it be otherwise? It +is not to be supposed that the town has silver mines and a mint; and, if +the people pay for their imports in money, it will be because they have +become enabled so to do by selling their produce for money. It follows, +therefore, that the people in a country town do not make the money, +whereby they pay for store-goods, off each other, but that they make it +by selling their produce out of the town. There are, therefore, two +kinds of trading going on at the same time in the town---one trade of +the inhabitants with each other; and another of the inhabitants, through +the store, with individuals living out of town. And these two kinds of +trade are perfectly distinct from each other. The mutual money would +serve all the purposes of the internal trade; leaving the hard money, +and paper based on hard money, to serve exclusively for the purposes of +trade that reaches out of the town. The mutual money will not prevent a +single dollar of hard money, or paper based on hard money, from coming +into the town; for such hard money comes into the town, not in +consequence of exchanges made between the inhabitants themselves, but in +consequence of produce sold abroad.[^7] So long as produce is sold out +of the town, so long will the inhabitants be able to buy commodities +that are produced out of the town; and they will be able to make +purchases to the precise extent that they are able to make sales. The +mutual money will therefore prove to them an unmixed benefit; it will be +entirely independent of the old money, and will open to them a new trade +entirely independent of the old trade. So far as it can be made +available, it will unquestionably prove itself to be a Rood thing; and, +where it cannot be made available, the inhabitants will only be deprived +of a benefit that they could not have enjoyed---mutual money or no +mutual money. Besides, the comparative cost of the mutual money is +almost nothing; for it can be issued to any amount on good security, at +the mere cost of printing, and the expense of looking after the safety +of the mortgages. If the mutual money should happen, at any particular +time, not to be issued to any great extent, it would not be as though an +immense mass of value was remaining idle; for interest on the mutual +money is precisely 0. The mutual money is not itself actual value, but a +mere medium for the exchange of actual values---a mere medium for the +facilitation of barter. + +We have remarked, that when the trader, who does the out-of-town +business of the inhabitants, buys coffee, sugar, etc., he does not pay +cash for them, but buys them at, say, six months' credit. Now, the +existing system of credit causes, by its very nature, periodical crises +in commercial affairs. When one of these crises occurs, the trader will +say to the city merchant, "I owe you so much for groceries; but i have +no money, for times are hard: I will give you, however, my note for the +debt. Now, we leave it to the reader, would not the city merchant prefer +to take the mutual money of the town to which the trader belongs, money +that holds real estate and produce in that town, rather than the private +note of a trader who may fail within a week? + +If, under the existing system, all transactions were settled on the spot +in cash, things might be different; but as almost all transactions are +conducted on the credit system, and as the credit system necessarily +involves periodical commercial crises, the mutual money will find very +little difficulty in ultimately forcing itself into general circulation. +The Mutual Bank is like the stone cut from the mountain without hands, +for let it be once established in a single village, no matter how +obscure, and it will grow till it covers the whole earth. Nevertheless, +it would be better to obviate all difficulty by starting the Mutual Bank +on a sufficiently extensive scale at the very beginning. ## The Measure of Value -The bill of a Mutual Bank is not a standard of value, since -it is itself measured and determined in value by the silver -dollar. If the dollar rises in value, the bill of the Mutual -Bank rises also, since it is receivable in lieu of a silver -dollar. The bills of a Mutual Bank are not standards of -value, but mere instruments of exchange; and as the value of -mutual money is determined, not by the demand and supply of -mutual money, but by the demand and supply of the precious -metals, the Mutual Bank may issue bills to any extent, and -those bills will not be liable to any depreciation from -excess of supply. And, for like reasons, mutual money will -not be liable to rise in value if it happens at any time to -be scarce in the market. The issues of mutual money are -therefore susceptible of any contraction or expansion which -may be necessary to meet the wants of the community, and -such contraction or expansion cannot by any possibility be -attended with any evil consequence whatever: for the silver -dollar, which is the standard of value, will remain -throughout at the natural valuation determined for it by the -general demand and supply of gold and silver throughout the -whole world. - -The bills of Mutual Banks act merely as a medium of -exchange: they do not and cannot pretend to be measures or -standards of value. The medium of exchange is one thing; the -measure of value is another; and the standard of value still -another. The dollar is the measure of value. Silver and -gold, at a certain degree of fineness, are the standard of -value. The bill of a Mutual Bank is a bill of exchange, -drawn by all the members of the mutual banking company upon -themselves, endorsed and accepted by themselves, payable at -sight, but only in services and products. The members of the -company bind themselves to receive their own money at par; -that is, in lieu of as many silver dollars as are denoted by -the denomination on the face of the bill. Services and -products are to be estimated in dollars, and exchanged for -each other without the intervention of specie.[^8] - -Mutual money, which neither is nor can be merchandise, -escapes the law of supply and demand, which is applicable to -merchandise only. +The bill of a Mutual Bank is not a standard of value, since it is itself +measured and determined in value by the silver dollar. If the dollar +rises in value, the bill of the Mutual Bank rises also, since it is +receivable in lieu of a silver dollar. The bills of a Mutual Bank are +not standards of value, but mere instruments of exchange; and as the +value of mutual money is determined, not by the demand and supply of +mutual money, but by the demand and supply of the precious metals, the +Mutual Bank may issue bills to any extent, and those bills will not be +liable to any depreciation from excess of supply. And, for like reasons, +mutual money will not be liable to rise in value if it happens at any +time to be scarce in the market. The issues of mutual money are +therefore susceptible of any contraction or expansion which may be +necessary to meet the wants of the community, and such contraction or +expansion cannot by any possibility be attended with any evil +consequence whatever: for the silver dollar, which is the standard of +value, will remain throughout at the natural valuation determined for it +by the general demand and supply of gold and silver throughout the whole +world. + +The bills of Mutual Banks act merely as a medium of exchange: they do +not and cannot pretend to be measures or standards of value. The medium +of exchange is one thing; the measure of value is another; and the +standard of value still another. The dollar is the measure of value. +Silver and gold, at a certain degree of fineness, are the standard of +value. The bill of a Mutual Bank is a bill of exchange, drawn by all the +members of the mutual banking company upon themselves, endorsed and +accepted by themselves, payable at sight, but only in services and +products. The members of the company bind themselves to receive their +own money at par; that is, in lieu of as many silver dollars as are +denoted by the denomination on the face of the bill. Services and +products are to be estimated in dollars, and exchanged for each other +without the intervention of specie.[^8] + +Mutual money, which neither is nor can be merchandise, escapes the law +of supply and demand, which is applicable to merchandise only. ## The Regulator of Value -The utility of an article is one thing; its exchangeable -value is another; and the cost of its production is still -another. But the amount of labor expended in production, -though not the measure, is, in the long run, the regulator -of value; for every new invention which abridges labor, and -enables an individual or company to offer an increased -supply of valuable articles in the market brings with it an -increase of competition. For, supposing that one dollar -constitutes a fair day's wages, and that one man by a -certain process can produce an article valued in the market -at one dollar in half a day's labor, other men will take -advantage of the same process, and undersell the first man, -in order to get possession of the market. Thus, by the -effect of competition, the price of the article will -probably be ultimately reduced to fifty cents. Labor is the -true regulator of value; for every laboring man who comes -into competition with others increases the supply of the -products of labor, and thus diminishes their value; while at -the same time, and because he is a living man, he increases -the demand for those products to precisely the same extent, -and thus restores the balance: for the laborer must be -housed, clothed and subsisted by the products of his labor. -Thus the addition of a laboring man, or of any number of -laboring men, to the mass of producers, ought to have no -effect either upon the price of labor, or upon that of -commodities; since, if the laborer by his presence increases -the productive power, he at the same time increases the -demand for consumption. We know that things do not always -fall out thus in practice; but the irregularity is explained -by the fact that the laborer, who ought himself to have the -produce of his labor, or its equivalent in exchange, has, by -the present false organization of credit, his wages -abstracted from him. Want and over-production arise -sometimes from mistakes in the direction of labor, but -generally from that false organization of credit which now -obtains throughout the civilized world. There is a market -price of commodities, depending on supply and demand, and a -natural price, depending on the cost of production; and the -market price is in a state of continual oscillation, being -sometimes above, and sometimes below, the natural price: but -in the long run, the average of a series of years being -taken, it coincides with it. It is probable that, under a -true organization of credit, the natural price and market -price would coincide at every moment.[^9] Under the present -system, there are no articles whose market and natural -prices coincide so nearly and so constantly as those of the -precious metals; and it is for this reason that they have -been adopted by the various nations as standards of value. - -When Adam Smith and Malthus[^10] say that labor is a measure -of value, they speak, not of the labor which an article -cost, or ought to have cost, in its production, but of the -quantity of labor which the article may purchase or command. -It is very well, for those who mistake the philosophy of -speculation on human misfortune and necessities for social -science, to assume for measure of value the amount of labor -which different commodities can command. Considered from -this point of view, the price of commodities is regulated, -not in the labor expended in their production, but by the -distress and want of the laboring class. There is no device -of the political economists so infernal as the one which -ranks labor as a commodity, varying in value according to -supply and demand. Neither is there any device so -unphilosophical; since the ratio of the supply of labor to -the demand for it is unvarying: for every producer is also a -consumer, and rightfully, to the precise extent of the -amount of his products; the laborer who saves up his wages -being, so far as society is concerned, and in the long run, -a consumer of those wages. The supply and demand for labor -is virtually unvarying; and its price ought, therefore, to -be constant, Labor is said to be value, not because it is -itself merchandise, but because of the values it contains, -as it were, in solution, or, to use the correct metaphysical -term, *in potentia*. The value of labor is a figurative -expression, and a fiction, like the productiveness of -capital. Labor, like liberty, love, ambition, genius, is -something vague and indeterminate in its nature, and is -rendered definite by its object only; misdirected labor -produces no value. Labor is said to be valuable, not because -it can itself be valued, but because the products of labor -may be truly valuable. When we say "John's labor is worth a -dollar a day," it is as though we said, "The daily product -of John's labor is worth a dollar." To speak of labor as -merchandise is treason; for such speech denies the true -dignity of man, who is the king of the earth. Where labor is -merchandise in fact (not by a mere inaccuracy of language) -there man is merchandise also, whether it be in England or -South Carolina. +The utility of an article is one thing; its exchangeable value is +another; and the cost of its production is still another. But the amount +of labor expended in production, though not the measure, is, in the long +run, the regulator of value; for every new invention which abridges +labor, and enables an individual or company to offer an increased supply +of valuable articles in the market brings with it an increase of +competition. For, supposing that one dollar constitutes a fair day's +wages, and that one man by a certain process can produce an article +valued in the market at one dollar in half a day's labor, other men will +take advantage of the same process, and undersell the first man, in +order to get possession of the market. Thus, by the effect of +competition, the price of the article will probably be ultimately +reduced to fifty cents. Labor is the true regulator of value; for every +laboring man who comes into competition with others increases the supply +of the products of labor, and thus diminishes their value; while at the +same time, and because he is a living man, he increases the demand for +those products to precisely the same extent, and thus restores the +balance: for the laborer must be housed, clothed and subsisted by the +products of his labor. Thus the addition of a laboring man, or of any +number of laboring men, to the mass of producers, ought to have no +effect either upon the price of labor, or upon that of commodities; +since, if the laborer by his presence increases the productive power, he +at the same time increases the demand for consumption. We know that +things do not always fall out thus in practice; but the irregularity is +explained by the fact that the laborer, who ought himself to have the +produce of his labor, or its equivalent in exchange, has, by the present +false organization of credit, his wages abstracted from him. Want and +over-production arise sometimes from mistakes in the direction of labor, +but generally from that false organization of credit which now obtains +throughout the civilized world. There is a market price of commodities, +depending on supply and demand, and a natural price, depending on the +cost of production; and the market price is in a state of continual +oscillation, being sometimes above, and sometimes below, the natural +price: but in the long run, the average of a series of years being +taken, it coincides with it. It is probable that, under a true +organization of credit, the natural price and market price would +coincide at every moment.[^9] Under the present system, there are no +articles whose market and natural prices coincide so nearly and so +constantly as those of the precious metals; and it is for this reason +that they have been adopted by the various nations as standards of +value. + +When Adam Smith and Malthus[^10] say that labor is a measure of value, +they speak, not of the labor which an article cost, or ought to have +cost, in its production, but of the quantity of labor which the article +may purchase or command. It is very well, for those who mistake the +philosophy of speculation on human misfortune and necessities for social +science, to assume for measure of value the amount of labor which +different commodities can command. Considered from this point of view, +the price of commodities is regulated, not in the labor expended in +their production, but by the distress and want of the laboring class. +There is no device of the political economists so infernal as the one +which ranks labor as a commodity, varying in value according to supply +and demand. Neither is there any device so unphilosophical; since the +ratio of the supply of labor to the demand for it is unvarying: for +every producer is also a consumer, and rightfully, to the precise extent +of the amount of his products; the laborer who saves up his wages being, +so far as society is concerned, and in the long run, a consumer of those +wages. The supply and demand for labor is virtually unvarying; and its +price ought, therefore, to be constant, Labor is said to be value, not +because it is itself merchandise, but because of the values it contains, +as it were, in solution, or, to use the correct metaphysical term, *in +potentia*. The value of labor is a figurative expression, and a fiction, +like the productiveness of capital. Labor, like liberty, love, ambition, +genius, is something vague and indeterminate in its nature, and is +rendered definite by its object only; misdirected labor produces no +value. Labor is said to be valuable, not because it can itself be +valued, but because the products of labor may be truly valuable. When we +say "John's labor is worth a dollar a day," it is as though we said, +"The daily product of John's labor is worth a dollar." To speak of labor +as merchandise is treason; for such speech denies the true dignity of +man, who is the king of the earth. Where labor is merchandise in fact +(not by a mere inaccuracy of language) there man is merchandise also, +whether it be in England or South Carolina. ## The Way in which the Affairs of the Mutual Bank may be Closed -When the company votes to issue no more money, the bills it -has already issued will be returned upon it; for, since the -bills were issued in discounting notes running to maturity, -the debtors of the bank, as their notes mature, will pay in -the bills they have received. When the debtors have paid -their debts to the bank, then the bills are all in, every -debtor has discharged his mortgage, and the affairs of the -bank are closed. If any debtor fails to pay, the bank sells -the property mortgaged, and pays itself. The bank lends at a -rate of interest that covers its bare expenses: it makes, -therefore, no profits, and, consequently, aan declare no -dividends. It is by its nature incapable of owing anything: -it has, therefore, no debts to settle. When the bank's -debtors have paid their debts to the bank, then nobody owes -anything to the bank, and the bank owes nothing to anybody. - -In case some of the debtors of the bank redeem their notes, -not in bills of the Mutual Bank, but in bills of -specie-paying banks, then those bills of specie-paying banks -will be at once presented for redemption at the institutions -that issued them; and an amount of specie will come into the -hands of the Mutual Bank, precisely equal to the amount of -its own bills still in circulation; for since the Mutual -Bank never issues money, except in discounting notes running -to maturity, the notes of the debtors to the bank precisely -cover the amount of the bank's money in circulation. When -this specie conies into the hands of the bank, it deposits -it at once in some other institution; which institution -assumes the responsibility of redeeming at sight such of the -bills of the closed bank as may be at any time thereafter -presented for redemption. And such institution will gladly -assume this responsibility, since it is probable that many -of the bills will be lost or destroyed, and therefore never -presented for redemption; and such loss or destruction will -be a clear gain to the institution assuming the -responsibility, since it has specie turned over to it for -the redemption of every one of the bills that remains out. - -Finally: let us conceive, for a moment, of the manifold -imperfections of the existing system of banking. In -Massachusetts, the banks had out, in the year 1849, nine and -one-half dollars of paper[^11] for every one dollar of -specie in their vaults wherewith to redeem them. Can any -thing be more absurd than the solemn promise made by the -banks to redeem nine and one-half paper-dollars with one -dollar in specie? They may get along very well with this -promise in a time of profound calm; but what would they do -on occasions of panic?[^12] - -The paper issued under the existing system is an article of -merchandise, varying in price with the variations of supply -and demand: it is, therefore, unfit to serve as a medium of -exchange. - -The banks depend on the merchants; so that, when the -merchant is poor, it falls out that the bank is always still -poorer. Of what use is the bank, if it calls in its issues -in hard times the very occasions when increased issues are -demanded by the wants of the community? - -The existing bank reproduces the aristocratic organizations; -it has its Spartan element of privileged stockholders, its -Laconian element of obsequious speculators, and, on the -outside, a multitude of Helots who are excluded from its -advantages. Answer us, reader: If we are able, at this time, -to bring forward the existing banking system as a new thing, -and should recommend its adoption, would you not laugh in -our face, and characterize our proposition as ridiculous? -Yet the existing system has an actual and practical being, -in spite of all its imperfections: nay, more, it is the -ruling element of the present civilization of the Christian -world; it has substituted itself, or is now substituting -itself, in the place of monarchies and nobilities. Who is -the noble of the present day, if not the man who lends money -at interest? Who is the emperor, if not Pereire or Baron -Rothschild? Now, if the present system of banking is capable -of actual existence, how much more capable of actual -existence is the system of mutual banking! Mutual banking -combines all the good elements of the method now in -operation, and is capable of securing a thousand benefits -which the present method cannot compass, and is, moreover, -free from all its disadvantages! +When the company votes to issue no more money, the bills it has already +issued will be returned upon it; for, since the bills were issued in +discounting notes running to maturity, the debtors of the bank, as their +notes mature, will pay in the bills they have received. When the debtors +have paid their debts to the bank, then the bills are all in, every +debtor has discharged his mortgage, and the affairs of the bank are +closed. If any debtor fails to pay, the bank sells the property +mortgaged, and pays itself. The bank lends at a rate of interest that +covers its bare expenses: it makes, therefore, no profits, and, +consequently, aan declare no dividends. It is by its nature incapable of +owing anything: it has, therefore, no debts to settle. When the bank's +debtors have paid their debts to the bank, then nobody owes anything to +the bank, and the bank owes nothing to anybody. + +In case some of the debtors of the bank redeem their notes, not in bills +of the Mutual Bank, but in bills of specie-paying banks, then those +bills of specie-paying banks will be at once presented for redemption at +the institutions that issued them; and an amount of specie will come +into the hands of the Mutual Bank, precisely equal to the amount of its +own bills still in circulation; for since the Mutual Bank never issues +money, except in discounting notes running to maturity, the notes of the +debtors to the bank precisely cover the amount of the bank's money in +circulation. When this specie conies into the hands of the bank, it +deposits it at once in some other institution; which institution assumes +the responsibility of redeeming at sight such of the bills of the closed +bank as may be at any time thereafter presented for redemption. And such +institution will gladly assume this responsibility, since it is probable +that many of the bills will be lost or destroyed, and therefore never +presented for redemption; and such loss or destruction will be a clear +gain to the institution assuming the responsibility, since it has specie +turned over to it for the redemption of every one of the bills that +remains out. + +Finally: let us conceive, for a moment, of the manifold imperfections of +the existing system of banking. In Massachusetts, the banks had out, in +the year 1849, nine and one-half dollars of paper[^11] for every one +dollar of specie in their vaults wherewith to redeem them. Can any thing +be more absurd than the solemn promise made by the banks to redeem nine +and one-half paper-dollars with one dollar in specie? They may get along +very well with this promise in a time of profound calm; but what would +they do on occasions of panic?[^12] + +The paper issued under the existing system is an article of merchandise, +varying in price with the variations of supply and demand: it is, +therefore, unfit to serve as a medium of exchange. + +The banks depend on the merchants; so that, when the merchant is poor, +it falls out that the bank is always still poorer. Of what use is the +bank, if it calls in its issues in hard times the very occasions when +increased issues are demanded by the wants of the community? + +The existing bank reproduces the aristocratic organizations; it has its +Spartan element of privileged stockholders, its Laconian element of +obsequious speculators, and, on the outside, a multitude of Helots who +are excluded from its advantages. Answer us, reader: If we are able, at +this time, to bring forward the existing banking system as a new thing, +and should recommend its adoption, would you not laugh in our face, and +characterize our proposition as ridiculous? Yet the existing system has +an actual and practical being, in spite of all its imperfections: nay, +more, it is the ruling element of the present civilization of the +Christian world; it has substituted itself, or is now substituting +itself, in the place of monarchies and nobilities. Who is the noble of +the present day, if not the man who lends money at interest? Who is the +emperor, if not Pereire or Baron Rothschild? Now, if the present system +of banking is capable of actual existence, how much more capable of +actual existence is the system of mutual banking! Mutual banking +combines all the good elements of the method now in operation, and is +capable of securing a thousand benefits which the present method cannot +compass, and is, moreover, free from all its disadvantages! # VI. The Provincial Land Bank[^13] {#vi.-the-provincial-land-bank13} -"In the year 1714," says Governor Hutchinson, in his -"History of Massachusetts," a certain "party had projected -a private bank; or, rather, had taken up a project published -in London in the year 1684; but this not being generally -known in America, a merchant of Boston was the reputed -father of it. There was nothing more in it than issuing -bills of credit, which all the members of the company -promised to receive as money, but at no certain value -compared with silver and gold; and real estate to a -sufficient value were to be bound as a security that the -company should perform their engagements. They were -soliciting the sanction of the General Court, and an act of -government to incorporate them. This party generally -consisted of persons in difficult or involved circumstances -in trade; or such as were possessed of real estates; but had -little or no ready money at command; or men of no substance -at all; and we may well enough suppose the party to be very -numerous. Some, no doubt, joined them from mistaken -principles, and an apprehension that it was a scheme -beneficial to the public; and some for party's sake and +"In the year 1714," says Governor Hutchinson, in his "History of +Massachusetts," a certain "party had projected a private bank; or, +rather, had taken up a project published in London in the year 1684; but +this not being generally known in America, a merchant of Boston was the +reputed father of it. There was nothing more in it than issuing bills of +credit, which all the members of the company promised to receive as +money, but at no certain value compared with silver and gold; and real +estate to a sufficient value were to be bound as a security that the +company should perform their engagements. They were soliciting the +sanction of the General Court, and an act of government to incorporate +them. This party generally consisted of persons in difficult or involved +circumstances in trade; or such as were possessed of real estates; but +had little or no ready money at command; or men of no substance at all; +and we may well enough suppose the party to be very numerous. Some, no +doubt, joined them from mistaken principles, and an apprehension that it +was a scheme beneficial to the public; and some for party's sake and public applause. -"Three of the representatives from Boston---Mr. Cooke; -Mr. Noyes, a gentlemen in great esteem with the inhabitants -in general; and Mr. Payne---were the supporters of the -party. Mr. Hutchinson, the other (an attempt to leave him -out of the House not succeeding), was sent from the House to -the Council, where his opposition would be of less -consequence. The governor was no favorer of the scheme; but -the lieutenant-governor---a gentleman of no great fortune, -and whose stipend from the government was trifling---engaged -in the cause with great zeal. - -"A third party, though very opposite to the private bank, -yet were no enemies to bills of credit. They were in favor -of loan-bills from the government to any of the inhabitants -who would mortgage their estates as a security for the -repayment of the bills with interest in a term of years: the -interest to be paid annually, and applied to the support of -government. This was an easy way of paying public charges; -which, no doubt, they wondered that in so many ages the -wisdom of other governments had never discovered. The -principal men of the Council were in favor of it; and, it -being thought by the first party the least of two evils, -they fell in with the scheme; and, after that, the country -was divided between the public and private bank. The House -of Representatives was nearly equally divided, but rather -favorers of the private bank, from the great influence of -the Boston members in the House, and a great number of -persons of the town out of it. The controversy had a -universal spread, and divided towns, parishes, and +"Three of the representatives from Boston---Mr. Cooke; Mr. Noyes, a +gentlemen in great esteem with the inhabitants in general; and +Mr. Payne---were the supporters of the party. Mr. Hutchinson, the other +(an attempt to leave him out of the House not succeeding), was sent from +the House to the Council, where his opposition would be of less +consequence. The governor was no favorer of the scheme; but the +lieutenant-governor---a gentleman of no great fortune, and whose stipend +from the government was trifling---engaged in the cause with great zeal. + +"A third party, though very opposite to the private bank, yet were no +enemies to bills of credit. They were in favor of loan-bills from the +government to any of the inhabitants who would mortgage their estates as +a security for the repayment of the bills with interest in a term of +years: the interest to be paid annually, and applied to the support of +government. This was an easy way of paying public charges; which, no +doubt, they wondered that in so many ages the wisdom of other +governments had never discovered. The principal men of the Council were +in favor of it; and, it being thought by the first party the least of +two evils, they fell in with the scheme; and, after that, the country +was divided between the public and private bank. The House of +Representatives was nearly equally divided, but rather favorers of the +private bank, from the great influence of the Boston members in the +House, and a great number of persons of the town out of it. The +controversy had a universal spread, and divided towns, parishes, and particular families. -"At length, after a long struggle, the party for the public -bank prevailed in the General Court for a loan of 50,000 in -bills of credit, which were put into the hands of trustees, -and let for five years only, to any of the inhabitants, at -5% interest, one-fifth part of the principal to be paid -annually. This lessened the number of the party for the -private bank; but it increased the zeal, and raised a strong -resentment, in those that remained."---(Thomas Hutchinson: -"History of Massachusetts," vol. ii., p 188). - -It is utterly inconceivable that any company of sane men -should have seriously proposed to issue paper money -destitute of all fixed and determinate value as compared -with gold and silver, imagining that such money would -circulate as currency. If paper money has "no certain value -compared with silver and gold," it has no certain value -compared with any commodity whatever; that is, it has no -certain value at all: for, since gold and silver have a -determinate value as compared with exchangeable commodities, -all paper money that may be estimated in terms of marketable -commodities, may be estimated in terms of silver and gold. -Our author will permit us to suspect that his uncompromising -hostility, not only to the land-bank, but also to everything -else of a democratic tendency, blinded his eyes to the true -nature of the institution he describes. Our suspicion is -strengthened when we read that the paper money in question -was to have a determinate value, since it was to have been -secured by a pledge of "real estate to a sufficient value." -The projectors of the scheme probably intended that the -members of the company should redeem their bills from the -bill-holders by receiving them, in all payments, in lieu of -determinate and specified amounts of gold and silver; and -such a method of redemption would have given the bills "a -certain value as compared with silver and gold."[^14] - -In view of this extract from Governor Hutchinson's history, -we abandon all claims to novelty or originality as regards -our own scheme for a Mutual Bank. We think it very probable -that our theory dates back to "the project published in -London in the year 1684:" but we affirm nothing positively -on this head, since we are altogether ignorant of the -details, not only of the provincial project, but also of the -original London plan. We have no information in regard to -these matters, except that which is now submitted to the -reader. +"At length, after a long struggle, the party for the public bank +prevailed in the General Court for a loan of 50,000 in bills of credit, +which were put into the hands of trustees, and let for five years only, +to any of the inhabitants, at 5% interest, one-fifth part of the +principal to be paid annually. This lessened the number of the party for +the private bank; but it increased the zeal, and raised a strong +resentment, in those that remained."---(Thomas Hutchinson: "History of +Massachusetts," vol. ii., p 188). + +It is utterly inconceivable that any company of sane men should have +seriously proposed to issue paper money destitute of all fixed and +determinate value as compared with gold and silver, imagining that such +money would circulate as currency. If paper money has "no certain value +compared with silver and gold," it has no certain value compared with +any commodity whatever; that is, it has no certain value at all: for, +since gold and silver have a determinate value as compared with +exchangeable commodities, all paper money that may be estimated in terms +of marketable commodities, may be estimated in terms of silver and gold. +Our author will permit us to suspect that his uncompromising hostility, +not only to the land-bank, but also to everything else of a democratic +tendency, blinded his eyes to the true nature of the institution he +describes. Our suspicion is strengthened when we read that the paper +money in question was to have a determinate value, since it was to have +been secured by a pledge of "real estate to a sufficient value." The +projectors of the scheme probably intended that the members of the +company should redeem their bills from the bill-holders by receiving +them, in all payments, in lieu of determinate and specified amounts of +gold and silver; and such a method of redemption would have given the +bills "a certain value as compared with silver and gold."[^14] + +In view of this extract from Governor Hutchinson's history, we abandon +all claims to novelty or originality as regards our own scheme for a +Mutual Bank. We think it very probable that our theory dates back to +"the project published in London in the year 1684:" but we affirm +nothing positively on this head, since we are altogether ignorant of the +details, not only of the provincial project, but also of the original +London plan. We have no information in regard to these matters, except +that which is now submitted to the reader. Our author says, on a subsequent page: -"In 1739, a great part of the Province was disposed to favor -what was called the land bank or manufactory scheme; which -was begun, or rather revived, in this year, and produced -such great and lasting mischiefs, that a particular relation -of the rise, progress and overthrow of it may be of use to -discourage any attempts of the like nature in future +"In 1739, a great part of the Province was disposed to favor what was +called the land bank or manufactory scheme; which was begun, or rather +revived, in this year, and produced such great and lasting mischiefs, +that a particular relation of the rise, progress and overthrow of it may +be of use to discourage any attempts of the like nature in future ages."---("History of Massachusetts," vol. ii., 352). -It appears that after an interval of twenty-five years, the -land-bank scheme rose once again above the surface of the -political and financial waters. Governor Hutchinson says -that this scheme produced "great and lasting mischiefs." Let -us see what these "mischiefs" were: - -"The project of the bank of 1714 was revived. The projector -of that bank now put himself at the head of seven or eight -hundred persons, some few of rank and good estate, but -generally of low condition among the plebeians, and of small -estate, and many of them perhaps insolvent. This notable -company were to give credit to 150,000 lawful money, to be -issued in bills; each person to mortgage a real estate in -proportion to the sums he subscribed and took out, or to -give bond with two sureties: but personal security was not -to be taken for more than 100 from any one person. Ten -directors and a treasurer were to be chosen by the company. -Every subscriber or partner was to pay 3% interest \[per -annum\] for the sum taken out, and 5% of the principal;[^15] -and he that did not pay bills might pay the produce and -manufacture of the Province at such rates as the directors -from time to time should set: and they \[the bills\] should -commonly pass in lawful money. The pretence was, that, by -thus furnishing a medium and instrument of trade, not only -the inhabitants in general would be better able to procure -the Province bills of credit for their taxes, but trade, -foreign and inland, would revive and flourish, The fate of -the project was thought to depend on the opinion which the -General Court should form of it. It was necessary, -therefore, to have a house of representatives well disposed. -Besides the 800 persons subscribers, the needy part of the -Province in general favored the scheme. One of their votes -will go as far in elections as one of the most opulent. The -former are most numerous; and it appeared that by far the -majority of representatives for 1740 were subscribers to or -favorers of the scheme, and they have ever since been -distinguished by the name of the Land-Bank House. - -"Men of estates and the principal merchants of the Province -abhorred the project, and refused to receive the bills; but -great numbers of shop-keepers who had lived for a long time -on the fraud of a depreciating currency, and many small -traders, gave credit to the bills. The directors, it was -said, by a vote of the company, became traders,[^16] and -issued just such bills as they thought proper, without any -fund or security for their ever being redeemed. They -purchased every sort of commodity, ever so much a drug, for -the sake of pushing off their bills; and, by one means or -other, a large sum perhaps fifty or sixty thousand pounds -was floated. To lessen the temptation to receive the bills, -a company of merchants agreed to issue their notes, or -bills, redeemable in silver and gold at distant periods, -much like the scheme in 1733, and attended with no better -effect. The governor exerted himself to blast this -fraudulent undertaking---the land-bank. Not only such civil -and military officers as were directors or partners, but all -who received or paid any of the bills were displaced. The -governor negatived the person chosen speaker of the House, -being a director of the bank; and afterwards negatived -thirteen of the newly elected counsellors, who were -directors or partners in, or favorers of, the scheme. But -all was insufficient to suppress it. Perhaps the major part -in number of the inhabitants of the Province openly or -secretly, were well-wishers of it. One of the directors -afterwards acknowledged to me that, although he entered into -the company with a view to the public interest, yet, when he -found what power and influence they had in all public -concerns, he was convinced it was more than belonged to -them, more than they could make a good use of, and therefore -unwarrantable. Many of the more sensible, discreet persons -of the Province saw a general confusion at hand. The -authority of the Parliament to control all public and -private persons and proceedings in the Colonies, was at that -day questioned by nobody. Application was therefore made to -Parliament for an act to suppress the company; which, -notwithstanding the opposition made by their agent, was very -easily obtained, and therein it was declared that the act of -the Sixth of King George I., chapter xviii., did, does and -shall extend to the colonies and plantations of America. It -was said the act of George I., when it was passed, had no -relation to America; but another act, twenty years after, -gave it force, even from the passing it, which it never -could have had without. This was said to be an instance of -the transcendent power of Parliament. Although the company -was dissolved, yet the act of Parliament gave the possessors -of the bills a right of action against every partner or -director for the sums expressed, **with interest**. The -company was in a maze. At a general meeting, some, it is -said, were for running all hazards, although the act -subjected them to a *proemunire*; but the directors had more -prudence, and advised them to declare that they considered -themselves dissolved, and meet only to consult upon some -method of redeeming their bills of the possessors, which -every man engaged to endeavor in proportion to his interest, -and to pay in to the directors, or some of them, to burn or -destroy. Had the company issued their bills at the value -expressed on the face of them, they would have had no reason -to complain at being obliged to redeem them at the same -rate, but as this was not the case in general, and many of -the possessors of the bills had acquired them for half their -value, as expressed equity could not be done; and, so far as -respected the company, perhaps, the Parliament was not very -anxious; the loss they sustained being but a just penalty -for their unwarrantable undertaking, if it had been properly -applied. Had not the Parliament interposed, the Province -would have been in the utmost confusion, and the authority -of government entirely in the Land-Bank -Company."---(p. 353.) - -The "mischiefs" occasioned by this land-bank seems to have -been political, rather than economical, for our author -nowhere affirms that the bill holders, not members of the -company lost anything by the institution. W would remark -that there are certain "mischiefs" which are regarded not -without indulgence by posterity. Governor Hutchinson ought -to have explained more in detail the nature of the evils he -complains of; and also to have told us why he, a declared -enemy of popular institutions, opposed the advocates of the -bank so uncompromisingly. Mutualism operates, by i ts very -nature, to render political government founded on arbitrary -force, superfluous; that is, it operates to the -decentralization of the political power, and to the -transformation of the state, by substituting self-government -in the stead of government *ab extra*.[^17] The Land-Bank of -1740, which embodied the mutual principle, operated -vigorously in opposition to the government. Can we wonder -that it had to be killed by an arbitrary stretch "of the -supreme power of Parliament," and by an *ex post facto* law -bearing outrageously on the individual members of the -company? For our part, we admire the energy---the confidence -in the principle of mutualism---of those members who -proposed to go on in spite of Parliament, "although the act -subjected them to a *proemunire*." If they had gone on, they -would simply have anticipated the American Revolution by -some thirty years. - -But where is the warning to future ages? According to -Governor Hutchinson's own statement, the fault of the bank -was, that it would have succeeded **too well** if it had had -a fair trial; nay, that it would have succeeded in spite of -all obstacles had it not been for the exertion of "the -transcendent power of Parliament." Where is the bank of -these degenerate days that has shown anything like the same -power of endurance? Some of the existing banks find it -difficult to live with the power of government exerted in -their favor! - -The attempt of the Land-Bank Company to republicanize gold -and silver, and to make all commodities circulate as ready -money was, without question, premature. But our author -misapprehends the matter, mistaking a transformation of the -circulating medium for a mercantile scheme. The "vote of the -company whereby the directors became traders," was an act -for transforming the currency. We do not justify it -altogether; for it put the welfare of the cause at too great -hazard; but it was, nevertheless, not totally out of harmony -with the general system. We remark in conclusion, that the -depreciation in the provincial currency was occasioned, not -by "land-bank," that is, by mutual paper---which the -Parliament forced the issuers, by an arbitrary, vindictive, -and tyrannical law, to redeem **with interest**---but it was -occasioned by government paper, "professing to be ultimately -redeemable in gold and silver."[^18] All arguments, -therefore, against mutual money, derived from the colonial -currency, are foreign to the purpose. - -The main objections against mutual banking are as follows: -1. It is a novelty, and therefore a chimera of the -inventor's brain; 2. It is an old story, borrowed from -provincial history, and therefore of no account! - -How would you have us answer objections like these? Things -new or old may be either good or evil. Every financial -scheme should stand or fall by its own intrinsic merits, and -not be judged from extraneous considerations. +It appears that after an interval of twenty-five years, the land-bank +scheme rose once again above the surface of the political and financial +waters. Governor Hutchinson says that this scheme produced "great and +lasting mischiefs." Let us see what these "mischiefs" were: + +"The project of the bank of 1714 was revived. The projector of that bank +now put himself at the head of seven or eight hundred persons, some few +of rank and good estate, but generally of low condition among the +plebeians, and of small estate, and many of them perhaps insolvent. This +notable company were to give credit to 150,000 lawful money, to be +issued in bills; each person to mortgage a real estate in proportion to +the sums he subscribed and took out, or to give bond with two sureties: +but personal security was not to be taken for more than 100 from any one +person. Ten directors and a treasurer were to be chosen by the company. +Every subscriber or partner was to pay 3% interest \[per annum\] for the +sum taken out, and 5% of the principal;[^15] and he that did not pay +bills might pay the produce and manufacture of the Province at such +rates as the directors from time to time should set: and they \[the +bills\] should commonly pass in lawful money. The pretence was, that, by +thus furnishing a medium and instrument of trade, not only the +inhabitants in general would be better able to procure the Province +bills of credit for their taxes, but trade, foreign and inland, would +revive and flourish, The fate of the project was thought to depend on +the opinion which the General Court should form of it. It was necessary, +therefore, to have a house of representatives well disposed. Besides the +800 persons subscribers, the needy part of the Province in general +favored the scheme. One of their votes will go as far in elections as +one of the most opulent. The former are most numerous; and it appeared +that by far the majority of representatives for 1740 were subscribers to +or favorers of the scheme, and they have ever since been distinguished +by the name of the Land-Bank House. + +"Men of estates and the principal merchants of the Province abhorred the +project, and refused to receive the bills; but great numbers of +shop-keepers who had lived for a long time on the fraud of a +depreciating currency, and many small traders, gave credit to the bills. +The directors, it was said, by a vote of the company, became +traders,[^16] and issued just such bills as they thought proper, without +any fund or security for their ever being redeemed. They purchased every +sort of commodity, ever so much a drug, for the sake of pushing off +their bills; and, by one means or other, a large sum perhaps fifty or +sixty thousand pounds was floated. To lessen the temptation to receive +the bills, a company of merchants agreed to issue their notes, or bills, +redeemable in silver and gold at distant periods, much like the scheme +in 1733, and attended with no better effect. The governor exerted +himself to blast this fraudulent undertaking---the land-bank. Not only +such civil and military officers as were directors or partners, but all +who received or paid any of the bills were displaced. The governor +negatived the person chosen speaker of the House, being a director of +the bank; and afterwards negatived thirteen of the newly elected +counsellors, who were directors or partners in, or favorers of, the +scheme. But all was insufficient to suppress it. Perhaps the major part +in number of the inhabitants of the Province openly or secretly, were +well-wishers of it. One of the directors afterwards acknowledged to me +that, although he entered into the company with a view to the public +interest, yet, when he found what power and influence they had in all +public concerns, he was convinced it was more than belonged to them, +more than they could make a good use of, and therefore unwarrantable. +Many of the more sensible, discreet persons of the Province saw a +general confusion at hand. The authority of the Parliament to control +all public and private persons and proceedings in the Colonies, was at +that day questioned by nobody. Application was therefore made to +Parliament for an act to suppress the company; which, notwithstanding +the opposition made by their agent, was very easily obtained, and +therein it was declared that the act of the Sixth of King George I., +chapter xviii., did, does and shall extend to the colonies and +plantations of America. It was said the act of George I., when it was +passed, had no relation to America; but another act, twenty years after, +gave it force, even from the passing it, which it never could have had +without. This was said to be an instance of the transcendent power of +Parliament. Although the company was dissolved, yet the act of +Parliament gave the possessors of the bills a right of action against +every partner or director for the sums expressed, **with interest**. The +company was in a maze. At a general meeting, some, it is said, were for +running all hazards, although the act subjected them to a *proemunire*; +but the directors had more prudence, and advised them to declare that +they considered themselves dissolved, and meet only to consult upon some +method of redeeming their bills of the possessors, which every man +engaged to endeavor in proportion to his interest, and to pay in to the +directors, or some of them, to burn or destroy. Had the company issued +their bills at the value expressed on the face of them, they would have +had no reason to complain at being obliged to redeem them at the same +rate, but as this was not the case in general, and many of the +possessors of the bills had acquired them for half their value, as +expressed equity could not be done; and, so far as respected the +company, perhaps, the Parliament was not very anxious; the loss they +sustained being but a just penalty for their unwarrantable undertaking, +if it had been properly applied. Had not the Parliament interposed, the +Province would have been in the utmost confusion, and the authority of +government entirely in the Land-Bank Company."---(p. 353.) + +The "mischiefs" occasioned by this land-bank seems to have been +political, rather than economical, for our author nowhere affirms that +the bill holders, not members of the company lost anything by the +institution. W would remark that there are certain "mischiefs" which are +regarded not without indulgence by posterity. Governor Hutchinson ought +to have explained more in detail the nature of the evils he complains +of; and also to have told us why he, a declared enemy of popular +institutions, opposed the advocates of the bank so uncompromisingly. +Mutualism operates, by i ts very nature, to render political government +founded on arbitrary force, superfluous; that is, it operates to the +decentralization of the political power, and to the transformation of +the state, by substituting self-government in the stead of government +*ab extra*.[^17] The Land-Bank of 1740, which embodied the mutual +principle, operated vigorously in opposition to the government. Can we +wonder that it had to be killed by an arbitrary stretch "of the supreme +power of Parliament," and by an *ex post facto* law bearing outrageously +on the individual members of the company? For our part, we admire the +energy---the confidence in the principle of mutualism---of those members +who proposed to go on in spite of Parliament, "although the act +subjected them to a *proemunire*." If they had gone on, they would +simply have anticipated the American Revolution by some thirty years. + +But where is the warning to future ages? According to Governor +Hutchinson's own statement, the fault of the bank was, that it would +have succeeded **too well** if it had had a fair trial; nay, that it +would have succeeded in spite of all obstacles had it not been for the +exertion of "the transcendent power of Parliament." Where is the bank of +these degenerate days that has shown anything like the same power of +endurance? Some of the existing banks find it difficult to live with the +power of government exerted in their favor! + +The attempt of the Land-Bank Company to republicanize gold and silver, +and to make all commodities circulate as ready money was, without +question, premature. But our author misapprehends the matter, mistaking +a transformation of the circulating medium for a mercantile scheme. The +"vote of the company whereby the directors became traders," was an act +for transforming the currency. We do not justify it altogether; for it +put the welfare of the cause at too great hazard; but it was, +nevertheless, not totally out of harmony with the general system. We +remark in conclusion, that the depreciation in the provincial currency +was occasioned, not by "land-bank," that is, by mutual paper---which the +Parliament forced the issuers, by an arbitrary, vindictive, and +tyrannical law, to redeem **with interest**---but it was occasioned by +government paper, "professing to be ultimately redeemable in gold and +silver."[^18] All arguments, therefore, against mutual money, derived +from the colonial currency, are foreign to the purpose. + +The main objections against mutual banking are as follows: 1. It is a +novelty, and therefore a chimera of the inventor's brain; 2. It is an +old story, borrowed from provincial history, and therefore of no +account! + +How would you have us answer objections like these? Things new or old +may be either good or evil. Every financial scheme should stand or fall +by its own intrinsic merits, and not be judged from extraneous +considerations. # VII. Money -The most concise and expressive definition of the term -"capital," which we have seen in the writings of the -political economists, is the one furnished by J. Stuart -Mill, in his table of contents. He says: "Capital is wealth -appropriated to reproductive employment." There is, indeed, -a certain ambiguity attached to the word wealth ; but let -that pass; we accept the definition. A tailor has f5 in -money, which he proposes to employ in his business. This -money is unquestionably capital, since it is wealth -appropriated to reproductive employment: but it may be -expended in the purchase of cloth, in the payment of -journeymen's wages, or in a hundred other ways; what kind of -capital, then, is it? It is evidently, disengaged capital. -Let us say that the tailor takes his money and expends it -for cloth; this cloth is also devoted to reproductive -employment, and is therefore still capital; but what kind of -capital? Evidently, engaged capital. He makes this cloth -into a coat; which coat is more valuable than the cloth, -since it is the result of human labor bestowed upon the -cloth. But the coat is no longer capital; for it is no -longer (so far, at least, as the occupation of the tailor is -concerned), capable of being appropriated to reproductive -employment; what is it, then? It is that for the creation of -which the capital was originally appropriated; it is -product. The tailor takes this coat and sells it in the -market for \$8; which dollars become to him a new disengaged -capital. The circle is complete; the coat becomes engaged -capital to the purchaser; and the money is disengaged -capital, with which the tailor may commence another -operation. Money is disengaged capital, and disengaged -capital is money. Capital passes, therefore, through various -forms; first it is disengaged capital, then it becomes -engaged capital, then it becomes product, afterwards it is -transformed again into disengaged capital, thus recommencing -its circular progress. - -The community is happy and prosperous when all professions -of men easily exchange with each other the products of their -labor; that is, the community is happy and prosperous when -money circulates freely, and each man is able with facility -to transform his product into disengaged capital, for with -disengaged capital, or money, men may command such of the -products of labor as they desire, to the extent, at least, -of the purchasing power of their money. - -The community is unhappy, unprosperous, miserable, when -money is scarce, when exchanges are effected with -difficulty. For notice, that, in the present state of the -world, there is never real over-production to any -appreciable extent; for, whenever the baker has too much -bread, there are always laborers who could produce that of -which the baker has too little, and who are themselves in -want of bread. It is when the tailor and baker cannot -exchange, that there is want and over-production on both -sides. Whatever, therefore, has power to withdraw the -currency from circulation, has power, also, to cause trade -to stagnate; power to overwhelm the community with misery; -power to carry want, and its correlative, over-production, -into every artisan's house and workshop. For the -transformation of product into disengaged capital, is one of -the regular steps of production; and whatever withdraws the -disengaged capital, or money, from circulation, at once -renders this step impossible, and thus puts a drag on all -production. +The most concise and expressive definition of the term "capital," which +we have seen in the writings of the political economists, is the one +furnished by J. Stuart Mill, in his table of contents. He says: "Capital +is wealth appropriated to reproductive employment." There is, indeed, a +certain ambiguity attached to the word wealth ; but let that pass; we +accept the definition. A tailor has f5 in money, which he proposes to +employ in his business. This money is unquestionably capital, since it +is wealth appropriated to reproductive employment: but it may be +expended in the purchase of cloth, in the payment of journeymen's wages, +or in a hundred other ways; what kind of capital, then, is it? It is +evidently, disengaged capital. Let us say that the tailor takes his +money and expends it for cloth; this cloth is also devoted to +reproductive employment, and is therefore still capital; but what kind +of capital? Evidently, engaged capital. He makes this cloth into a coat; +which coat is more valuable than the cloth, since it is the result of +human labor bestowed upon the cloth. But the coat is no longer capital; +for it is no longer (so far, at least, as the occupation of the tailor +is concerned), capable of being appropriated to reproductive employment; +what is it, then? It is that for the creation of which the capital was +originally appropriated; it is product. The tailor takes this coat and +sells it in the market for \$8; which dollars become to him a new +disengaged capital. The circle is complete; the coat becomes engaged +capital to the purchaser; and the money is disengaged capital, with +which the tailor may commence another operation. Money is disengaged +capital, and disengaged capital is money. Capital passes, therefore, +through various forms; first it is disengaged capital, then it becomes +engaged capital, then it becomes product, afterwards it is transformed +again into disengaged capital, thus recommencing its circular progress. + +The community is happy and prosperous when all professions of men easily +exchange with each other the products of their labor; that is, the +community is happy and prosperous when money circulates freely, and each +man is able with facility to transform his product into disengaged +capital, for with disengaged capital, or money, men may command such of +the products of labor as they desire, to the extent, at least, of the +purchasing power of their money. + +The community is unhappy, unprosperous, miserable, when money is scarce, +when exchanges are effected with difficulty. For notice, that, in the +present state of the world, there is never real over-production to any +appreciable extent; for, whenever the baker has too much bread, there +are always laborers who could produce that of which the baker has too +little, and who are themselves in want of bread. It is when the tailor +and baker cannot exchange, that there is want and over-production on +both sides. Whatever, therefore, has power to withdraw the currency from +circulation, has power, also, to cause trade to stagnate; power to +overwhelm the community with misery; power to carry want, and its +correlative, over-production, into every artisan's house and workshop. +For the transformation of product into disengaged capital, is one of the +regular steps of production; and whatever withdraws the disengaged +capital, or money, from circulation, at once renders this step +impossible, and thus puts a drag on all production. ## There are Various Kinds of Money -But all money is not the same money. There is one money of -gold, another of silver, another of brass, another of -leather, and another of paper: and there is a difference in -the glory of these different kinds of money. There is one -money that is a commodity, having its exchangeable value -determined by the law of supply and demand, which money may -be called (though somewhat barbarously) merchandise-money; -as for instance, gold, silver, brass, bank-bills, etc.; -there is another money, which is not a commodity, whose -exchangeable value is altogether independent of the law of -supply and demand, and which may be called mutual money. - -Mr. Edward Kellogg says: "Money becomes worthless whenever -it ceases to be capable of accumulating an income which can -be exchanged for articles of actual value. The value of -money as much depends upon its power of being loaned for an -income, as the value of a farm depends upon its natural -power to produce." And again: "Money is valuable in -proportion to its power to accumulate value by -interest."[^19] Mr. Kellogg is mistaken. Money is a -commodity in a twofold way, and has therefore a twofold -value and a twofold price---one value as an article that can -be exchanged for other commodities, and another value as an -article that can be loaned out at interest; one price which -is determined by the supply and demand of the precious -metals, and another price (the rate of interest) which is -determined by the distress of the borrowing community. -Mr. Kellogg speaks as though this last value and last price -were the only ones deserving consideration; but this is by -no means the case: for this last value and price are so far -from being essential to the nature of money, that the Mutual -Bank will one day utterly abolish them. The natural value of -the silver dollar depends upon the demand and supply of the -metal of which it is composed and not upon its artificial -power to accumulate value by interest. Legislation has -created usury; and the - -Mutual Bank can destroy it. Usury is a result of the -legislation which establishes a particular commodity as the -sole article of legal tender; and, when all commodities are -made to be ready money through the operation of mutual -banking, usury will vanish. +But all money is not the same money. There is one money of gold, another +of silver, another of brass, another of leather, and another of paper: +and there is a difference in the glory of these different kinds of +money. There is one money that is a commodity, having its exchangeable +value determined by the law of supply and demand, which money may be +called (though somewhat barbarously) merchandise-money; as for instance, +gold, silver, brass, bank-bills, etc.; there is another money, which is +not a commodity, whose exchangeable value is altogether independent of +the law of supply and demand, and which may be called mutual money. + +Mr. Edward Kellogg says: "Money becomes worthless whenever it ceases to +be capable of accumulating an income which can be exchanged for articles +of actual value. The value of money as much depends upon its power of +being loaned for an income, as the value of a farm depends upon its +natural power to produce." And again: "Money is valuable in proportion +to its power to accumulate value by interest."[^19] Mr. Kellogg is +mistaken. Money is a commodity in a twofold way, and has therefore a +twofold value and a twofold price---one value as an article that can be +exchanged for other commodities, and another value as an article that +can be loaned out at interest; one price which is determined by the +supply and demand of the precious metals, and another price (the rate of +interest) which is determined by the distress of the borrowing +community. Mr. Kellogg speaks as though this last value and last price +were the only ones deserving consideration; but this is by no means the +case: for this last value and price are so far from being essential to +the nature of money, that the Mutual Bank will one day utterly abolish +them. The natural value of the silver dollar depends upon the demand and +supply of the metal of which it is composed and not upon its artificial +power to accumulate value by interest. Legislation has created usury; +and the + +Mutual Bank can destroy it. Usury is a result of the legislation which +establishes a particular commodity as the sole article of legal tender; +and, when all commodities are made to be ready money through the +operation of mutual banking, usury will vanish. ## Convertible Paper-Money Renders the Standard of Value Uncertain -To show the effect of variations in the volume of the -existing circulating medium, not only on foreign commerce, -but also on the private interests of each individual member -of the community, we will, at the risk of being tedious, -have recourse to an illustration. Let us suppose that the -whole number of dollars (either in specie or convertible -paper) in circulation, at a particular time, is equal to Y; -and that the sum of all these dollars will buy a certain -determinate quantity of land, means of transportation, -merchandise, etc, which may be represented by *x*; for, if -money may be taken as the measure and standard of value for -commodities, then conversely, commodities may be taken as -the standard and measure of value for money. Let us say, -therefore, that the whole mass of the circulating medium is -equal to Y; and that its value, estimated in terms of land, -ships, houses, merchandise, etc., is equal to *x*. If, now, -the quantity of specie and convertible paper we have -supposed to be in circulation be suddenly doubled, so that -the whole mass becomes equal in volume to 2Y, the value of -the whole mass will undergo no change, but will still be -equal to *x*, neither more nor less. This is truly -wonderful! Some young mathematician, fresh from his algebra, -will hasten to contradict us, and say that the value of the -whole mass will be equal to 2*x*, or perhaps to *x* divided -by 2, but it is the young mathematician who is in error, as -may easily be made manifest. The multiplication of the whole -number of dollars by 2 causes money to be twice as easy to -be obtained as it was before. Such multiplication causes, -therefore, each individual dollar to fall to one-half its -former value; and this for the simple reason that the price -of silver dollars, or their equivalents in convertible -paper, depends upon the ratio of the supply of such dollars -to the demand for them, and that every increase in the -supply causes therefore a proportionate decrease in the -price. The variation in the volume does not cause a -variation in the value of the volume, but causes a variation -in the price of the individual dollar. Again, if one-half -the money in circulation be suddenly withdrawn, so that the -whole volume shall equal ½Y, the value of the new volume -will be exactly equal to *x*, for the reason that the -difficulty in procuring money will be doubled, since the -supply will be diminished one-half, causing each individual -dollar to rise to double its former value. The value of the -whole mass in circulation is independent of the variations -of the volume; for every increase in the volume causes a -proportionate decrease in the value of the individual -dollar, and every decrease in the volume causes -proportionate increase in the value of the individual -dollar. If the mass of our existing circulating medium were -increased a hundredfold, the multiplication would have no -effect other than that of reducing the value of the -individual dollar to that of the existing individual cent. -If gold were as plenty as iron, it would command no higher -price than iron. If our money were composed of iron, we -should be obliged to hire an ox-cart for the transportation -of \$100; and it would be as difficult, under such -conditions, to obtain a cartload of iron, as it is now to -obtain its value in our present currency. - -A fall or rise in the price of money, and a rise or fall in -the price of all other commodities besides money, are -precisely the same economical phenomenon. - -The effect of a change in the volume of the currency is -therefore not a change in the value of the whole volume, but -a change in the value of the individual silver dollar, this -change being indicated by a variation in the price of -commodities; a fall in the price of the silver dollar being -indicated by a rise in the price of commodities, and a rise -in the price of the dollar being indicated by a fall in the -price of commodities. "The value of money," says J. Stuart -Mill, other things being the same, "varies inversely as its -quantity; every increase of quantity lowering its value, and -every diminution raising it in a ratio exactly equivalent. -That an increase of the quantity of money raises prices, and -a diminution lowers them, is the most elementary proposition -in the theory of the currency; and, without it, we should -have no key to any of the others." - -Let us use this key for the purpose of unlocking the -practical mysteries attached to variations in the volume of -the existing currency. The banks, since they exercise -control over the volume of the currency by means of the -power they possess of increasing or diminishing, at -pleasure, the amount of paper money in circulation, exercise -control also over the value of every individual dollar in -every private man's pocket. They make great issues, and -money becomes plenty; that is to say, every other commodity -becomes dear. The capitalist sells what he has to sell while -prices are high. The banks draw in their issues, and money -becomes scarce; that is, all other commodities become cheap. -The community is distressed for money. Individuals are -forced to sell property to raise money to pay their debts, -and to sell at a loss on account of the state of the market. -Then the capitalist buys what he desires to buy while prices -are low. These operations are the upper and the nether -millstones, between which the hopes of the people are ground +To show the effect of variations in the volume of the existing +circulating medium, not only on foreign commerce, but also on the +private interests of each individual member of the community, we will, +at the risk of being tedious, have recourse to an illustration. Let us +suppose that the whole number of dollars (either in specie or +convertible paper) in circulation, at a particular time, is equal to Y; +and that the sum of all these dollars will buy a certain determinate +quantity of land, means of transportation, merchandise, etc, which may +be represented by *x*; for, if money may be taken as the measure and +standard of value for commodities, then conversely, commodities may be +taken as the standard and measure of value for money. Let us say, +therefore, that the whole mass of the circulating medium is equal to Y; +and that its value, estimated in terms of land, ships, houses, +merchandise, etc., is equal to *x*. If, now, the quantity of specie and +convertible paper we have supposed to be in circulation be suddenly +doubled, so that the whole mass becomes equal in volume to 2Y, the value +of the whole mass will undergo no change, but will still be equal to +*x*, neither more nor less. This is truly wonderful! Some young +mathematician, fresh from his algebra, will hasten to contradict us, and +say that the value of the whole mass will be equal to 2*x*, or perhaps +to *x* divided by 2, but it is the young mathematician who is in error, +as may easily be made manifest. The multiplication of the whole number +of dollars by 2 causes money to be twice as easy to be obtained as it +was before. Such multiplication causes, therefore, each individual +dollar to fall to one-half its former value; and this for the simple +reason that the price of silver dollars, or their equivalents in +convertible paper, depends upon the ratio of the supply of such dollars +to the demand for them, and that every increase in the supply causes +therefore a proportionate decrease in the price. The variation in the +volume does not cause a variation in the value of the volume, but causes +a variation in the price of the individual dollar. Again, if one-half +the money in circulation be suddenly withdrawn, so that the whole volume +shall equal ½Y, the value of the new volume will be exactly equal to +*x*, for the reason that the difficulty in procuring money will be +doubled, since the supply will be diminished one-half, causing each +individual dollar to rise to double its former value. The value of the +whole mass in circulation is independent of the variations of the +volume; for every increase in the volume causes a proportionate decrease +in the value of the individual dollar, and every decrease in the volume +causes proportionate increase in the value of the individual dollar. If +the mass of our existing circulating medium were increased a +hundredfold, the multiplication would have no effect other than that of +reducing the value of the individual dollar to that of the existing +individual cent. If gold were as plenty as iron, it would command no +higher price than iron. If our money were composed of iron, we should be +obliged to hire an ox-cart for the transportation of \$100; and it would +be as difficult, under such conditions, to obtain a cartload of iron, as +it is now to obtain its value in our present currency. + +A fall or rise in the price of money, and a rise or fall in the price of +all other commodities besides money, are precisely the same economical +phenomenon. + +The effect of a change in the volume of the currency is therefore not a +change in the value of the whole volume, but a change in the value of +the individual silver dollar, this change being indicated by a variation +in the price of commodities; a fall in the price of the silver dollar +being indicated by a rise in the price of commodities, and a rise in the +price of the dollar being indicated by a fall in the price of +commodities. "The value of money," says J. Stuart Mill, other things +being the same, "varies inversely as its quantity; every increase of +quantity lowering its value, and every diminution raising it in a ratio +exactly equivalent. That an increase of the quantity of money raises +prices, and a diminution lowers them, is the most elementary proposition +in the theory of the currency; and, without it, we should have no key to +any of the others." + +Let us use this key for the purpose of unlocking the practical mysteries +attached to variations in the volume of the existing currency. The +banks, since they exercise control over the volume of the currency by +means of the power they possess of increasing or diminishing, at +pleasure, the amount of paper money in circulation, exercise control +also over the value of every individual dollar in every private man's +pocket. They make great issues, and money becomes plenty; that is to +say, every other commodity becomes dear. The capitalist sells what he +has to sell while prices are high. The banks draw in their issues, and +money becomes scarce; that is, all other commodities become cheap. The +community is distressed for money. Individuals are forced to sell +property to raise money to pay their debts, and to sell at a loss on +account of the state of the market. Then the capitalist buys what he +desires to buy while prices are low. These operations are the upper and +the nether millstones, between which the hopes of the people are ground to powder. ## The Evils of Convertible Paper Money -Paper professing to be convertible into silver and gold, by -overstocking the home-market with money, makes specie to be -in less demand in this country than it is abroad, and -renders profitable an undue exportation of gold and silver; -thus occasioning a chronic drain of the precious +Paper professing to be convertible into silver and gold, by overstocking +the home-market with money, makes specie to be in less demand in this +country than it is abroad, and renders profitable an undue exportation +of gold and silver; thus occasioning a chronic drain of the precious metals.[^20] -It increases the volume of the currency, and therefore -decreases the value of the individual silver dollar; thus -causing an enhancement in the price of all domestic -commodities; giving an unnatural advantage in our own -markets to foreign manufacturers, who live in the enjoyment -of a more valuable currency and presenting irresistible -inducements to our own merchants to purchase abroad rather -than at home. - -It operates to give control over the currency to certain -organized bodies of men, enabling them to exercise -partiality, and loan capital to their relatives and -favorites; thus encouraging incapacity, and depressing -merit; and therefore demoralizing the people who are led to -believe that legitimate business, which should be founded -altogether upon capital, industry and talent, partakes of -the nature of court- favor and gambling. - -It operates to encourage unwise speculation; and, by -furnishing artificial facilities to rash, scheming and -incompetent persons, induces the burying of immense masses -of capital in unremunerative enterprises. - -It reduces the value of our own currency below the level of -the value of money throughout the world, rendering -over-importation inevitable, causing our markets to be -overstocked with foreign goods, and thus making the ordinary -production of the country to present all the calamitous -effects of over-production. - -It operates inevitably to involve the country and -individuals doing business in the country, in foreign debts, -It operates also, by blinding the people to the true nature -of money, and encouraging them to raise funds for the -commencement and completion of hazardous enterprises by the -sale of scrip and bonds abroad, to mortgage the country, and -the produce of its industry, to foreign holders of -obligations against us, etc. +It increases the volume of the currency, and therefore decreases the +value of the individual silver dollar; thus causing an enhancement in +the price of all domestic commodities; giving an unnatural advantage in +our own markets to foreign manufacturers, who live in the enjoyment of a +more valuable currency and presenting irresistible inducements to our +own merchants to purchase abroad rather than at home. + +It operates to give control over the currency to certain organized +bodies of men, enabling them to exercise partiality, and loan capital to +their relatives and favorites; thus encouraging incapacity, and +depressing merit; and therefore demoralizing the people who are led to +believe that legitimate business, which should be founded altogether +upon capital, industry and talent, partakes of the nature of court- +favor and gambling. + +It operates to encourage unwise speculation; and, by furnishing +artificial facilities to rash, scheming and incompetent persons, induces +the burying of immense masses of capital in unremunerative enterprises. + +It reduces the value of our own currency below the level of the value of +money throughout the world, rendering over-importation inevitable, +causing our markets to be overstocked with foreign goods, and thus +making the ordinary production of the country to present all the +calamitous effects of over-production. + +It operates inevitably to involve the country and individuals doing +business in the country, in foreign debts, It operates also, by blinding +the people to the true nature of money, and encouraging them to raise +funds for the commencement and completion of hazardous enterprises by +the sale of scrip and bonds abroad, to mortgage the country, and the +produce of its industry, to foreign holders of obligations against us, +etc. ## Advantages of a Mutual Currency -Mutual Banks would furnish an ad equate currency; for -whether money were hard or easy, all legitimate paper would -be discounted by them. At present, banks draw in their -issues when money is scarce (the very time when a large -issue is desirable), because they are afraid there will be a -run upon them for specie; but Mutual Banks, having no fear -of a run upon them---as they have no metallic capital, and -never pretend to pay specie for their bills---can always -discount good paper. - -It may appear to some readers, notwithstanding the -explanations already given[^21], that we go altogether -farther than we are warranted when we affirm that the -creation of an immense mass of mutual money would produce no -depreciation in the price of the silver dollar. The -difficulty experienced in understanding this matter results -from incorrect notions respecting the standard of value, the -measure of value, and the nature of money. This may be made -evident by illustration. The yard is a measure of length; -and a piece of wood, or a rod of glass or metal, is a -corresponding standard of length. The yard, or measure, -being ideal, is unvarying; but all the standards we have -mentioned contract or expand by heat or cold, so that they -vary (to an almost imperceptible degree, perhaps) at every -moment. It is almost impossible to measure off a yard, or -any other given length, with mathematical accuracy. The -measure of value is the dollar; the standard of value, as -fixed by law, is silver or gold at a certain degree of -fineness. Corn, land, or any other merchantable commodity -might serve as a standard of value, but silver and gold form -a more perfect standard, on account of their being less -liable to variation; and they have accordingly been adopted, -by the common consent of all nations, to serve as such. The -dollar, as simple measure of value, has like the yard, which -is a measure of length an ideal existence only. In Naples, -the ducat is the measure of value; but the Neapolitans have -no specific coin of that denomination. Now, it is evident -that the bill of a Mutual Bank is like a note of hand, or -like an ordinary bank bill, neither a measure, nor a -standard of value. It is (1) not a measure; for, unlike all -measures, it has an actual, and not a merely ideal -existence. The bill of a Mutual Bank, being receivable in -lieu of a specified number of silver dollars presupposes the -existence of the silver dollar as measure of value, and -acknowledges itself as amenable to that measure. The silver -dollar differs from a bill of a Mutual Bank receivable in -lieu of a silver dollar, as the measure differs from the -thing measured. The bill of a Mutual Bank is (2) not a -standard of value, because it has in itself no intrinsic -value, like silver and gold; its value being legal, and not -actual. A stick has actual length, and therefore may serve -as a standard of length; silver has actual intrinsic value, -and may therefore serve as a standard of value; but the bill -of a Mutual Bank, having a legal value only, and not an -actual one, cannot serve as a standard of value, but is -referred, on the contrary, to silver and gold as that -standard, without which it would itself be utterly -unintelligible. - -If ordinary bank bills represented specie actually existing -in the vaults of the banks, no mere issue or withdrawal of -them could effect a fall or rise in the value of money; for -every issue of a dollar-bill would correspond to the locking -up of a specie dollar in the bank's vaults; and every -cancelling of a dollar-bill would correspond to the issue by -the banks of a specie dollar. It is by the exercise of -banking privileges---that is, by the issue of bills -purporting to be, but which are not, convertible---that the -banks effect a depreciation in the price of the silver -dollar. It is this fiction (by which legal value is -assimilated to, and becomes, to all business intents and -purposes, actual value) that enables bank-notes to -depreciate the silver dollar. Substitute verity in the place -of fiction, either by permitting the banks to issue no more -paper than they have specie in their vaults, or by effecting -an entire divorce between bank-paper and its pretended -specie basis, and the power of paper to depreciate specie is -at an end. So long as the fiction is kept up, the silver -dollar is depreciated, and tends to emigrate for the purpose -of traveling in foreign parts; but the moment the fiction is -destroyed, the power of paper over metal ceases. By its -intrinsic nature specie is merchandise, having its value -determined, as such, by supply and demand; but on the -contrary, paper-money is, by its intrinsic nature, not -merchandise, but the means whereby merchandise is exchanged, -and as such ought always to be commensurate in quantity with -the amount of merchandise to be exchanged, be that amount -great or small. Mutual money is measured by specie, but is -in no way assimilated to it; and therefore its issue can -have no effect whatever to cause a rise or fall in the price -of the precious metals. +Mutual Banks would furnish an ad equate currency; for whether money were +hard or easy, all legitimate paper would be discounted by them. At +present, banks draw in their issues when money is scarce (the very time +when a large issue is desirable), because they are afraid there will be +a run upon them for specie; but Mutual Banks, having no fear of a run +upon them---as they have no metallic capital, and never pretend to pay +specie for their bills---can always discount good paper. + +It may appear to some readers, notwithstanding the explanations already +given[^21], that we go altogether farther than we are warranted when we +affirm that the creation of an immense mass of mutual money would +produce no depreciation in the price of the silver dollar. The +difficulty experienced in understanding this matter results from +incorrect notions respecting the standard of value, the measure of +value, and the nature of money. This may be made evident by +illustration. The yard is a measure of length; and a piece of wood, or a +rod of glass or metal, is a corresponding standard of length. The yard, +or measure, being ideal, is unvarying; but all the standards we have +mentioned contract or expand by heat or cold, so that they vary (to an +almost imperceptible degree, perhaps) at every moment. It is almost +impossible to measure off a yard, or any other given length, with +mathematical accuracy. The measure of value is the dollar; the standard +of value, as fixed by law, is silver or gold at a certain degree of +fineness. Corn, land, or any other merchantable commodity might serve as +a standard of value, but silver and gold form a more perfect standard, +on account of their being less liable to variation; and they have +accordingly been adopted, by the common consent of all nations, to serve +as such. The dollar, as simple measure of value, has like the yard, +which is a measure of length an ideal existence only. In Naples, the +ducat is the measure of value; but the Neapolitans have no specific coin +of that denomination. Now, it is evident that the bill of a Mutual Bank +is like a note of hand, or like an ordinary bank bill, neither a +measure, nor a standard of value. It is (1) not a measure; for, unlike +all measures, it has an actual, and not a merely ideal existence. The +bill of a Mutual Bank, being receivable in lieu of a specified number of +silver dollars presupposes the existence of the silver dollar as measure +of value, and acknowledges itself as amenable to that measure. The +silver dollar differs from a bill of a Mutual Bank receivable in lieu of +a silver dollar, as the measure differs from the thing measured. The +bill of a Mutual Bank is (2) not a standard of value, because it has in +itself no intrinsic value, like silver and gold; its value being legal, +and not actual. A stick has actual length, and therefore may serve as a +standard of length; silver has actual intrinsic value, and may therefore +serve as a standard of value; but the bill of a Mutual Bank, having a +legal value only, and not an actual one, cannot serve as a standard of +value, but is referred, on the contrary, to silver and gold as that +standard, without which it would itself be utterly unintelligible. + +If ordinary bank bills represented specie actually existing in the +vaults of the banks, no mere issue or withdrawal of them could effect a +fall or rise in the value of money; for every issue of a dollar-bill +would correspond to the locking up of a specie dollar in the bank's +vaults; and every cancelling of a dollar-bill would correspond to the +issue by the banks of a specie dollar. It is by the exercise of banking +privileges---that is, by the issue of bills purporting to be, but which +are not, convertible---that the banks effect a depreciation in the price +of the silver dollar. It is this fiction (by which legal value is +assimilated to, and becomes, to all business intents and purposes, +actual value) that enables bank-notes to depreciate the silver dollar. +Substitute verity in the place of fiction, either by permitting the +banks to issue no more paper than they have specie in their vaults, or +by effecting an entire divorce between bank-paper and its pretended +specie basis, and the power of paper to depreciate specie is at an end. +So long as the fiction is kept up, the silver dollar is depreciated, and +tends to emigrate for the purpose of traveling in foreign parts; but the +moment the fiction is destroyed, the power of paper over metal ceases. +By its intrinsic nature specie is merchandise, having its value +determined, as such, by supply and demand; but on the contrary, +paper-money is, by its intrinsic nature, not merchandise, but the means +whereby merchandise is exchanged, and as such ought always to be +commensurate in quantity with the amount of merchandise to be exchanged, +be that amount great or small. Mutual money is measured by specie, but +is in no way assimilated to it; and therefore its issue can have no +effect whatever to cause a rise or fall in the price of the precious +metals. # VIII. Credit -We are obliged to make a supposition by no means flattering -to the individual presented to the reader. Let us suppose, -therefore, that some miserable mortal, who is utterly devoid -of any personal good quality to recommend him, makes his -advent on the stage of action, and demands credit. Are there -circumstances under which he can obtain it? Most certainly. -Though he possesses neither energy, morality nor business -capacity, yet if he owns a farm worth \$2,000, which he is -willing to mortgage as security for \$1,500 that he desires -to borrow, he will be considered as eminently deserving of -credit. He is neither industrious, punctual, capable, nor -virtuous; but he owns a farm clear of debt worth \$2,000 and -verily he shall raise the \$1,500! - -Personal credit is one thing; real credit is another and a -very different thing. In one case, it is the man who -receives credit; in the other, it is the property, the -thing. Personal credit is in the nature of partnership; real -credit is in the nature of a sale, with a reserved right of -repurchase under conditions. By personal credit, two men or -more are brought into voluntary mutual relations ; by real -credit, a certain amount of fixed property is transformed, -under certain conditions and for a certain time, into -circulating medium; that is, a certain amount of engaged -capital is temporarily transformed into disengaged capital. +We are obliged to make a supposition by no means flattering to the +individual presented to the reader. Let us suppose, therefore, that some +miserable mortal, who is utterly devoid of any personal good quality to +recommend him, makes his advent on the stage of action, and demands +credit. Are there circumstances under which he can obtain it? Most +certainly. Though he possesses neither energy, morality nor business +capacity, yet if he owns a farm worth \$2,000, which he is willing to +mortgage as security for \$1,500 that he desires to borrow, he will be +considered as eminently deserving of credit. He is neither industrious, +punctual, capable, nor virtuous; but he owns a farm clear of debt worth +\$2,000 and verily he shall raise the \$1,500! + +Personal credit is one thing; real credit is another and a very +different thing. In one case, it is the man who receives credit; in the +other, it is the property, the thing. Personal credit is in the nature +of partnership; real credit is in the nature of a sale, with a reserved +right of repurchase under conditions. By personal credit, two men or +more are brought into voluntary mutual relations ; by real credit, a +certain amount of fixed property is transformed, under certain +conditions and for a certain time, into circulating medium; that is, a +certain amount of engaged capital is temporarily transformed into +disengaged capital. ## The Usury Laws -We have already spoken of the absurdity of the usury laws. -But let that pass; we will speak of it again. - -A young man goes to a capitalist, saying: "If you will lend -me \$100, I will go into a certain business, and make -\$1,500 in the course of the present year; and my profits -will thus enable me to pay you back the money you lend me, -and another \$100 for the use of it. Indeed it is nothing -more than fair that I should pay you as much as I offer; -for, after all, there is a great risk in the business, and -you do me a greater favor than I do you." The capitalist -answers: "I cannot lend you money on such terms; for the -transaction would be illegal; nevertheless, I am willing to -help you all I can, if I can devise a way. What do you say -to my buying such rooms and machinery as you require, and -letting them to you on the terms you propose? For, though I -cannot charge more than 6% on money loaned, I can let -buildings, whose total value is only \$100, at a rate of -\$100 per annum, and violate no law. Or, again, as I shall -be obliged to furnish you with the raw material consumed in -your business, what do you say to our entering into a -partnership, so arranging the terms of agreement that the -profits will be divided in fact, as they would be in the -case that I loaned you \$100 at 100 per cent interest per -annum?" The young man will probably permit the capitalist to -arrange the transaction in any form he pleases, provided the -money is actually forthcoming. If the usury laws speak any -intelligible language to the capitalist, it is this: "The -legislature does not intend that you shall lend money to any -young man to help in his business, where the insurance upon -the money you trust in his hands, and which is subjected to -the risk of his transactions, amounts to more than 6% per -annum on the amount loaned." And, in this speech, the deep -wisdom of the legislature is manifested! Why six, rather -than five or seven? Why any restriction at all? - -Now for the other side (for we have thus far spoken of the -usury laws as they bear on mere personal credit): If a man -borrows \$1,500 on the mortgage of a farm, worth, in the -estimation of the creditor himself, \$2,000, why should he -pay 6% interest on the money borrowed? What does this -interest cover? Insurance? Not at all; for the money is -perfectly safe, as the security given is confessedly ample; -the insurance is 0. Does the interest cover the damage which -the creditor suffers by being kept out of his money for the -time specified in the contract? This cannot be the fact for -the damage is also since a man who lends out money at -interest, on perfect security, counts the total amount of -interest as clear gain, and would much prefer letting the -money at ½% to permitting it to remain idle. The rate of -interest upon money lent on perfect security is -commensurate, not with the risk the creditor runs of losing -his money---for that risk is 0; not to the inconvenience to -which the creditor is put by letting the money go out of his -hands---for that inconvenience is also 0,[^22] since the -creditor lends only such money as he himself does not wish -to use; but it is commensurate with the distress of the -borrower. 1% per annum interest on money lent on perfect +We have already spoken of the absurdity of the usury laws. But let that +pass; we will speak of it again. + +A young man goes to a capitalist, saying: "If you will lend me \$100, I +will go into a certain business, and make \$1,500 in the course of the +present year; and my profits will thus enable me to pay you back the +money you lend me, and another \$100 for the use of it. Indeed it is +nothing more than fair that I should pay you as much as I offer; for, +after all, there is a great risk in the business, and you do me a +greater favor than I do you." The capitalist answers: "I cannot lend you +money on such terms; for the transaction would be illegal; nevertheless, +I am willing to help you all I can, if I can devise a way. What do you +say to my buying such rooms and machinery as you require, and letting +them to you on the terms you propose? For, though I cannot charge more +than 6% on money loaned, I can let buildings, whose total value is only +\$100, at a rate of \$100 per annum, and violate no law. Or, again, as I +shall be obliged to furnish you with the raw material consumed in your +business, what do you say to our entering into a partnership, so +arranging the terms of agreement that the profits will be divided in +fact, as they would be in the case that I loaned you \$100 at 100 per +cent interest per annum?" The young man will probably permit the +capitalist to arrange the transaction in any form he pleases, provided +the money is actually forthcoming. If the usury laws speak any +intelligible language to the capitalist, it is this: "The legislature +does not intend that you shall lend money to any young man to help in +his business, where the insurance upon the money you trust in his hands, +and which is subjected to the risk of his transactions, amounts to more +than 6% per annum on the amount loaned." And, in this speech, the deep +wisdom of the legislature is manifested! Why six, rather than five or +seven? Why any restriction at all? + +Now for the other side (for we have thus far spoken of the usury laws as +they bear on mere personal credit): If a man borrows \$1,500 on the +mortgage of a farm, worth, in the estimation of the creditor himself, +\$2,000, why should he pay 6% interest on the money borrowed? What does +this interest cover? Insurance? Not at all; for the money is perfectly +safe, as the security given is confessedly ample; the insurance is 0. +Does the interest cover the damage which the creditor suffers by being +kept out of his money for the time specified in the contract? This +cannot be the fact for the damage is also since a man who lends out +money at interest, on perfect security, counts the total amount of +interest as clear gain, and would much prefer letting the money at ½% to +permitting it to remain idle. The rate of interest upon money lent on +perfect security is commensurate, not with the risk the creditor runs of +losing his money---for that risk is 0; not to the inconvenience to which +the creditor is put by letting the money go out of his hands---for that +inconvenience is also 0,[^22] since the creditor lends only such money +as he himself does not wish to use; but it is commensurate with the +distress of the borrower. 1% per annum interest on money lent on perfect security is, therefore, too high a rate; and all levying of -interest-money on perfect security is profoundly -immoral,[^23] since such interest-money is the fruit of the -speculation of one man upon the misfortune of another. Yet -the legislature permits one citizen to speculate upon the -misfortune of another to the amount of six-hundredths per -annum of the extent to which he gets him into his power! -This is the morality of the usury laws in their bearing on -real credit. +interest-money on perfect security is profoundly immoral,[^23] since +such interest-money is the fruit of the speculation of one man upon the +misfortune of another. Yet the legislature permits one citizen to +speculate upon the misfortune of another to the amount of six-hundredths +per annum of the extent to which he gets him into his power! This is the +morality of the usury laws in their bearing on real credit. ## Legitimate Credit -All the questions connected with credit, the usury laws, -etc., may be forever set at rest by the establishment of -Mutual Banks. Whoever goes to the mutual bank, and offers -real property in pledge, may always obtain money; for the -Mutual Bank can issue money to any extent; and that money -will always be good, since it is all of it based on actual -property, that may be sold under the hammer. The interest -will always be at a less rate than 1% per annum, since it -covers, not the insurance of the money loaned, there being -no such insurance required, as the risk is 0; since it -covers, not the damage which is done the bank by keeping it -out of its money, as that damage is also 0, the bank having -always an unlimited supply remaining on hand, so long as it -has a printing-press and paper; since it covers, plainly and -simply, the mere expenses of the institution---clerk-hire, -rent, paper, printing, etc. And it is fair that such -expenses should be paid under the form of a rate of -interest; for thus each one contributes to bear the expenses -of the bank, and in the precise proportion of the benefits -he individually experiences from it. Thus the interest, -properly so called, is 0; and we venture to predict that the -Mutual Bank will one day give all the real credit that will -be given; for since this bank will give such at per cent -interest per annum, it will be difficult for other -institutions to compete with it for any length of time. The -day is coming when everything that is bought will be paid -for on the spot, and in mutual money; when all payments will -be made, all wages settled, on the spot. The Mutual Bank -will never, of course, give personal credit; for it can -issue bills only on real credit. It cannot enter into -partnership with anybody; for, if it issues bills where -there is no real guarantee furnished for their repayment, it -vitiates the currency, and renders itself unstable. Personal -credit will one day be given by individuals only; that is, -capitalists will one day enter into partnership with -enterprising and capable men who are without capital, and -the profits will be divided between the parties according as -their contract of partnership may run. Whoever, in the times -of the Mutual Bank, has property, will have money also; and -the laborer who has no property will find it very easy to -get it; for every capitalist will seek to secure him as a -partner. All services will then be paid for in ready money; -and the demand for labor will be increased three, four and -five fold. - -As for credit of the kind that is idolized by the present -generation, credit which organizes society on feudal -principles, confused credit, the Mutual Bank will obliterate -it from the face of the earth. Money furnished under the -existing system to individuals and corporations is -principally applied to speculative purposes, advantageous, -perhaps, to those individuals and corporations, if the -speculations answer; but generally disadvantageous to the -community, whether they answer or whether they fail. If they -answer, they generally end in a monopoly of trade, great or -small, and in consequent high prices; if they fail, the loss -falls on the community. Under the existing system, there is -little safety for the merchant. The utmost degree of caution -practicable in business has never yet enabled a company or -individual to proceed for any long time without incurring -bad debts. - -The existing organization of credit is the daughter of hard -money, begotten upon it incestuously by that insufficiency -of circulating medium which results from laws making specie -the sole legal tender. The immediate consequences of -confused credit are want of confidence, loss of time, -commercial frauds, fruitless and repeated applications for -payment, complicated with irregular and ruinous expenses. -The ultimate consequences are compositions, bad debts, -expensive accommodation-loans, lawsuits, insolvency, -bankruptcy, separation of classes, hostility, hunger, -extravagance, distress, riots, civil war, and, finally, -revolution. The natural consequences of mutual banking are, -first of all, the creation of order, and the definite -establishment of due organization in the social body; and, -ultimately, the cure of all the evils which flow from the -present incoherence and disruption in the relations of -production and commerce. +All the questions connected with credit, the usury laws, etc., may be +forever set at rest by the establishment of Mutual Banks. Whoever goes +to the mutual bank, and offers real property in pledge, may always +obtain money; for the Mutual Bank can issue money to any extent; and +that money will always be good, since it is all of it based on actual +property, that may be sold under the hammer. The interest will always be +at a less rate than 1% per annum, since it covers, not the insurance of +the money loaned, there being no such insurance required, as the risk is +0; since it covers, not the damage which is done the bank by keeping it +out of its money, as that damage is also 0, the bank having always an +unlimited supply remaining on hand, so long as it has a printing-press +and paper; since it covers, plainly and simply, the mere expenses of the +institution---clerk-hire, rent, paper, printing, etc. And it is fair +that such expenses should be paid under the form of a rate of interest; +for thus each one contributes to bear the expenses of the bank, and in +the precise proportion of the benefits he individually experiences from +it. Thus the interest, properly so called, is 0; and we venture to +predict that the Mutual Bank will one day give all the real credit that +will be given; for since this bank will give such at per cent interest +per annum, it will be difficult for other institutions to compete with +it for any length of time. The day is coming when everything that is +bought will be paid for on the spot, and in mutual money; when all +payments will be made, all wages settled, on the spot. The Mutual Bank +will never, of course, give personal credit; for it can issue bills only +on real credit. It cannot enter into partnership with anybody; for, if +it issues bills where there is no real guarantee furnished for their +repayment, it vitiates the currency, and renders itself unstable. +Personal credit will one day be given by individuals only; that is, +capitalists will one day enter into partnership with enterprising and +capable men who are without capital, and the profits will be divided +between the parties according as their contract of partnership may run. +Whoever, in the times of the Mutual Bank, has property, will have money +also; and the laborer who has no property will find it very easy to get +it; for every capitalist will seek to secure him as a partner. All +services will then be paid for in ready money; and the demand for labor +will be increased three, four and five fold. + +As for credit of the kind that is idolized by the present generation, +credit which organizes society on feudal principles, confused credit, +the Mutual Bank will obliterate it from the face of the earth. Money +furnished under the existing system to individuals and corporations is +principally applied to speculative purposes, advantageous, perhaps, to +those individuals and corporations, if the speculations answer; but +generally disadvantageous to the community, whether they answer or +whether they fail. If they answer, they generally end in a monopoly of +trade, great or small, and in consequent high prices; if they fail, the +loss falls on the community. Under the existing system, there is little +safety for the merchant. The utmost degree of caution practicable in +business has never yet enabled a company or individual to proceed for +any long time without incurring bad debts. + +The existing organization of credit is the daughter of hard money, +begotten upon it incestuously by that insufficiency of circulating +medium which results from laws making specie the sole legal tender. The +immediate consequences of confused credit are want of confidence, loss +of time, commercial frauds, fruitless and repeated applications for +payment, complicated with irregular and ruinous expenses. The ultimate +consequences are compositions, bad debts, expensive accommodation-loans, +lawsuits, insolvency, bankruptcy, separation of classes, hostility, +hunger, extravagance, distress, riots, civil war, and, finally, +revolution. The natural consequences of mutual banking are, first of +all, the creation of order, and the definite establishment of due +organization in the social body; and, ultimately, the cure of all the +evils which flow from the present incoherence and disruption in the +relations of production and commerce. # Conclusion -The expensive character of the existing circulating medium -is evident on the most superficial inspection. The -assessor's valuation for 1830, of the total taxable property -then existing in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, was -\$208,360,407; the valuation for 1840 was \$299,878,329. We -may safely estimate, that the valuation for 1850 will be to -that of 1840 as that of 1840 was to that of 1830. Performing -these calculations, we find that the total amount of taxable -property possessed by the people of Massachusetts in the -present year, is about \$431,588,724.[^24] The excess of -this last valuation over that of 1840---i. e., -\$131,710,395---is the net gain, the clear profit, of the -total labor of the people in the ten years under -consideration. The average profit for each year was, -therefore, \$13,171,039. In the year 1849, the banks of -Massachusetts paid their tax to the state, their losses on -bad debts, their rents, their officers and lawyers, and then -made dividends of more than **7%** on their capitals. The -people, must, therefore, in the course of that year (1840) -have paid interest money to the banks to the amount of at -least 10% on the whole banking capital of the state. At the -close of the year 1848, the banking capital in the state -amounted to \$32,683,330. 10% on \$32,683,330 is -\$3,268,333---the amount the people paid, during the year -1849, for the use of a currency. If the material of the -currency had been iron, \$3,268,333 would probably have paid -the expenses of the carting and counting. What, then, is the -utility of our present paper money? We have estimated the -total profits of the whole labor of the people of the -Commonwealth for the year 1849, at \$13,171,039. It appears, -therefore, that the total profits of nearly one-fourth part -of the whole population of the state were devoted to the -single purpose of paying for the use of a currency. - -Mutual Banks would have furnished a much better currency at -less than one-tenth of this expense. - -The bills of a Mutual Bank cannot reasonably pretend to be -standards or measures of value; and this fact is put forth -as a recommendation of the mutual money to favorable -consideration. The silver dollar is the measure and standard -of value; and the bills of a Mutual Bank recognize the prior -existence of this measure, since they are receivable in lieu -of so many silver dollars. The bill of a Mutual Bank is not -a measure of value, since it is itself measured and -determined in value by the silver dollar. If the dollar -rises in value, the bill of the Mutual Bank rises also, -since it is receivable in lieu of a silver dollar. The bills -of a Mutual Bank are not measures of value, but mere -instruments of exchange; and, as the value of the mutual -money is determined, not by the demand and supply of the -mutual money, but by the demand and supply of the precious -metals, the Mutual Bank may issue bills to any extent, and -those bills will not be liable to any depreciation from -excess of supply. And for like reasons, the mutual money -will not be liable to rise in value if it happens at any -time to be scarce in the market. The issues of said mutual -money are therefore susceptible of any contraction or -expansion which may be necessary to meet the wants of the -community; and such contraction or expansion cannot, by any -possibility, be attended with any evil consequence whatever; -for the silver dollar, which is the standard of value, will -remain throughout at the natural valuation determined for it -by the general demand and supply of gold and silver -throughout the whole world. - -In order that the silver dollar, which is the standard and -measure of value, may not be driven out of circulation, the -Mutual Bank---which has no vault for specie other than the -pockets of the people---ought to issue no bill of a -denomination less than five dollars. +The expensive character of the existing circulating medium is evident on +the most superficial inspection. The assessor's valuation for 1830, of +the total taxable property then existing in the Commonwealth of +Massachusetts, was \$208,360,407; the valuation for 1840 was +\$299,878,329. We may safely estimate, that the valuation for 1850 will +be to that of 1840 as that of 1840 was to that of 1830. Performing these +calculations, we find that the total amount of taxable property +possessed by the people of Massachusetts in the present year, is about +\$431,588,724.[^24] The excess of this last valuation over that of +1840---i. e., \$131,710,395---is the net gain, the clear profit, of the +total labor of the people in the ten years under consideration. The +average profit for each year was, therefore, \$13,171,039. In the year +1849, the banks of Massachusetts paid their tax to the state, their +losses on bad debts, their rents, their officers and lawyers, and then +made dividends of more than **7%** on their capitals. The people, must, +therefore, in the course of that year (1840) have paid interest money to +the banks to the amount of at least 10% on the whole banking capital of +the state. At the close of the year 1848, the banking capital in the +state amounted to \$32,683,330. 10% on \$32,683,330 is \$3,268,333---the +amount the people paid, during the year 1849, for the use of a currency. +If the material of the currency had been iron, \$3,268,333 would +probably have paid the expenses of the carting and counting. What, then, +is the utility of our present paper money? We have estimated the total +profits of the whole labor of the people of the Commonwealth for the +year 1849, at \$13,171,039. It appears, therefore, that the total +profits of nearly one-fourth part of the whole population of the state +were devoted to the single purpose of paying for the use of a currency. + +Mutual Banks would have furnished a much better currency at less than +one-tenth of this expense. + +The bills of a Mutual Bank cannot reasonably pretend to be standards or +measures of value; and this fact is put forth as a recommendation of the +mutual money to favorable consideration. The silver dollar is the +measure and standard of value; and the bills of a Mutual Bank recognize +the prior existence of this measure, since they are receivable in lieu +of so many silver dollars. The bill of a Mutual Bank is not a measure of +value, since it is itself measured and determined in value by the silver +dollar. If the dollar rises in value, the bill of the Mutual Bank rises +also, since it is receivable in lieu of a silver dollar. The bills of a +Mutual Bank are not measures of value, but mere instruments of exchange; +and, as the value of the mutual money is determined, not by the demand +and supply of the mutual money, but by the demand and supply of the +precious metals, the Mutual Bank may issue bills to any extent, and +those bills will not be liable to any depreciation from excess of +supply. And for like reasons, the mutual money will not be liable to +rise in value if it happens at any time to be scarce in the market. The +issues of said mutual money are therefore susceptible of any contraction +or expansion which may be necessary to meet the wants of the community; +and such contraction or expansion cannot, by any possibility, be +attended with any evil consequence whatever; for the silver dollar, +which is the standard of value, will remain throughout at the natural +valuation determined for it by the general demand and supply of gold and +silver throughout the whole world. + +In order that the silver dollar, which is the standard and measure of +value, may not be driven out of circulation, the Mutual Bank---which has +no vault for specie other than the pockets of the people---ought to +issue no bill of a denomination less than five dollars. **The End.** -[^1]: This work is a compilation of a series of newspaper - articles, hence they are somewhat disconnected, and an - occasional repetition will be found.---**Editor.** +[^1]: This work is a compilation of a series of newspaper articles, + hence they are somewhat disconnected, and an occasional repetition + will be found.---**Editor.** [^2]: Take the **steelyard** for example. -[^3]: This was written before the valuation for 1850 was - taken. As the the question is one of principles rather - than of figures, we have not conceived it necessary to - rewrite the paragraph. - -[^4]: The reader is requested to notice this distinction - between actual and legal value, as we shall have - occasion to refer to it again. - -[^5]: Money is a merchandise just like any other - merchandise, precisely as the **trump** is a card just - like any other card. - -[^6]: "Money and Banking, or Their Nature and Effects - Considered; Together With a Plan for the Universal - Diffusion of Their Legitimate Benefits Without Their - Evils." By A Citizen of Ohio. Cincinnati: Published by - William Beck, 1839.; 16mo, pp. 212. - -[^7]: These remarks may be generalized, and applied to the - commerce which is carried on between nations. - -[^8]: "I now undertake to affirm positively, and without the - least fear that I can be answered, what heretofore I - have but suggested---that a paper issued by the - government, with the simple promise to receive it in all - its dues, leaving its creditors to take it or gold and - silver at their option, would, to the extent that it - would circulate, form a perfect paper-circulation, which - could not be abused by the government; that it would be - as steady and uniform in value as the metals themselves; - and that, if by possibility, it should depreciate, the - loss would fall, not on the people, but on the - government itself," etc.---**J. C. Calhoun**: Speech in - reply to Mr. Webster on the Sub-Treasury Bill, March 22, - 1838. - -[^9]: The theory that the laborer should receive sufficient - wages to buy bach his product, and thus prevent - over-production, was discovered almost simultaneously by - a number of writers about fifty years ago. The value of - this discovery to economics is as great as Newton's was +[^3]: This was written before the valuation for 1850 was taken. As the + the question is one of principles rather than of figures, we have + not conceived it necessary to rewrite the paragraph. + +[^4]: The reader is requested to notice this distinction between actual + and legal value, as we shall have occasion to refer to it again. + +[^5]: Money is a merchandise just like any other merchandise, precisely + as the **trump** is a card just like any other card. + +[^6]: "Money and Banking, or Their Nature and Effects Considered; + Together With a Plan for the Universal Diffusion of Their Legitimate + Benefits Without Their Evils." By A Citizen of Ohio. Cincinnati: + Published by William Beck, 1839.; 16mo, pp. 212. + +[^7]: These remarks may be generalized, and applied to the commerce + which is carried on between nations. + +[^8]: "I now undertake to affirm positively, and without the least fear + that I can be answered, what heretofore I have but suggested---that + a paper issued by the government, with the simple promise to receive + it in all its dues, leaving its creditors to take it or gold and + silver at their option, would, to the extent that it would + circulate, form a perfect paper-circulation, which could not be + abused by the government; that it would be as steady and uniform in + value as the metals themselves; and that, if by possibility, it + should depreciate, the loss would fall, not on the people, but on + the government itself," etc.---**J. C. Calhoun**: Speech in reply to + Mr. Webster on the Sub-Treasury Bill, March 22, 1838. + +[^9]: The theory that the laborer should receive sufficient wages to buy + bach his product, and thus prevent over-production, was discovered + almost simultaneously by a number of writers about fifty years ago. + The value of this discovery to economics is as great as Newton's was to physics, or Darwin to biology.---**Editor.** -[^10]: Malthus says (we quote the substance, and very - possibly the exact words, though we have not the book by - us): "If a man is born into a world already occupied, - and his family is not able to support him, or if society - has no demand for his labor, that man has no right to - claim any nourishment whatever; he is really one too - many on the earth. At the great banquet of nature there - is no plate laid for him. Nature commands him to take - himself away; and she will by no means delay in putting - her own order into execution." - -[^11]: Counting, of course, the certificates of deposit - which are convertible into specie on demand. - -[^12]: Notwithstanding the fact that this work was written - in criticism of the banking system in vogue in 1850, - most people persist in calling it a "revival of the old - wild-cat banks that existed before the - war."---**Editor.** - -[^13]: It is worthy of note that the present-day historians, - who take such pains to show their intimate knowledge of - the financial plans of remote times, studiously avoid - mentioning this one.---**Editor.** - -[^14]: "North Carolina, just after the Revolution, issued a - large amount of paper, which was made receivable in dues - to her. It was also made a legal tender; which, of - course, was not obligatory after the adoption of the - Federal Constitution. A large amount, say between four - and five hundred thousand dollars, remained in - circulation after that period, and continued to - circulate for more than twenty years, at par with gold - and silver during the whole time, with no other - advantage than being received in the revenue of the - State, which was much less than one hundred thousand - dollars per annum."---**John C. Calhoun**: Speech on the - bill authorizing an issue of treasury notes, Sept. 19, - 1837. - -[^15]: Thus the whole principal would be paid up in twenty - years. - -[^16]: See foregoing paragraph where it is said that debts - to the bank might be paid in manufactures and produce. - -[^17]: This is also Proudhon's theory; which he felicitously - called "the dissolution of government in the economic - organism."---**Editor.** - -[^18]: We are told that there is no instance of a government - paper that did not depreciate. In reply I affirm that - there is none assuming the form I propose (notes - receivable by government in payment of dues) that ever - did depreciate. Whenever a paper receivable in the dues - of government had anything like a fair trial, it has - succeeded. Instance the case of North Carolina referred - to in my opening remarks. The drafts of the treasury at - this moment, with all their incumbrance, are nearly at - par with gold and silver; and I might add the instance - alluded to by the distinguished senator from Kentucky, - in which he admits, that as soon as the excess of the - issues of the Commonwealth Bank of Kentucky were reduced - to the proper point, its notes rose to par. The case of - Russia might also be mentioned. In 1827 she had a fixed - paper-circulation in the form of bank-notes, but which - were inconvertible, of upward of \$120,000,000, - estimated in the metallic ruble, and which had for years - remained without fluctuation; having nothing to sustain - it but that it was received in the dues of government, - and that, too, with a revenue of only about \$90,000,000 - annually."---**John C. Calhoun**: Speech on his - amendment to separate the government from the banks, - Oct. 3, 1837. - -[^19]: People who raise the cry of "cheap money" fall into - the same error; money that circulates freely at par, - whether interest-bearing or not, is neither cheap or - dear.---**Editor.** - -[^20]: Persons of little foresight rejoice in the high price - of commodities---that is, in the low price or - plentifulness of money---not reflecting that, when money - is too plenty, the sap and vitality of the country flow - forth in a constant stream to enrich foreign lands. An - excessive supply of money causes a deceitful appearance - of prosperity, and favors temporarily a few - manufacturers, traders and mechanics; but it is always a - source of unnumbered calamities to the whole country. - -[^21]: Perhaps on account of those explanations. As heat - melts wax, and hardens clay, so the same general - principles, as applied to merchandise money and to - mutual money, give opposite results. - -[^22]: If, however, the inconvenience is anything, the - lender ought to be indemnified; but such indemnification - is not properly interest. - -[^23]: Perhaps, we ought rather to say, "would be profoundly - immoral in a more perfect social order." We suppose that - must be considered right, In our present chaotic state, - which is best on the whole, or which---taking men's - passion as they are---is unavoidable. - -[^24]: According to the report of the Valuation Committee, - it appears to have been (in the year 1850) - \$600,000,000---a much larger sum. +[^10]: Malthus says (we quote the substance, and very possibly the exact + words, though we have not the book by us): "If a man is born into a + world already occupied, and his family is not able to support him, + or if society has no demand for his labor, that man has no right to + claim any nourishment whatever; he is really one too many on the + earth. At the great banquet of nature there is no plate laid for + him. Nature commands him to take himself away; and she will by no + means delay in putting her own order into execution." + +[^11]: Counting, of course, the certificates of deposit which are + convertible into specie on demand. + +[^12]: Notwithstanding the fact that this work was written in criticism + of the banking system in vogue in 1850, most people persist in + calling it a "revival of the old wild-cat banks that existed before + the war."---**Editor.** + +[^13]: It is worthy of note that the present-day historians, who take + such pains to show their intimate knowledge of the financial plans + of remote times, studiously avoid mentioning this one.---**Editor.** + +[^14]: "North Carolina, just after the Revolution, issued a large amount + of paper, which was made receivable in dues to her. It was also made + a legal tender; which, of course, was not obligatory after the + adoption of the Federal Constitution. A large amount, say between + four and five hundred thousand dollars, remained in circulation + after that period, and continued to circulate for more than twenty + years, at par with gold and silver during the whole time, with no + other advantage than being received in the revenue of the State, + which was much less than one hundred thousand dollars per + annum."---**John C. Calhoun**: Speech on the bill authorizing an + issue of treasury notes, Sept. 19, 1837. + +[^15]: Thus the whole principal would be paid up in twenty years. + +[^16]: See foregoing paragraph where it is said that debts to the bank + might be paid in manufactures and produce. + +[^17]: This is also Proudhon's theory; which he felicitously called "the + dissolution of government in the economic organism."---**Editor.** + +[^18]: We are told that there is no instance of a government paper that + did not depreciate. In reply I affirm that there is none assuming + the form I propose (notes receivable by government in payment of + dues) that ever did depreciate. Whenever a paper receivable in the + dues of government had anything like a fair trial, it has succeeded. + Instance the case of North Carolina referred to in my opening + remarks. The drafts of the treasury at this moment, with all their + incumbrance, are nearly at par with gold and silver; and I might add + the instance alluded to by the distinguished senator from Kentucky, + in which he admits, that as soon as the excess of the issues of the + Commonwealth Bank of Kentucky were reduced to the proper point, its + notes rose to par. The case of Russia might also be mentioned. In + 1827 she had a fixed paper-circulation in the form of bank-notes, + but which were inconvertible, of upward of \$120,000,000, estimated + in the metallic ruble, and which had for years remained without + fluctuation; having nothing to sustain it but that it was received + in the dues of government, and that, too, with a revenue of only + about \$90,000,000 annually."---**John C. Calhoun**: Speech on his + amendment to separate the government from the banks, Oct. 3, 1837. + +[^19]: People who raise the cry of "cheap money" fall into the same + error; money that circulates freely at par, whether interest-bearing + or not, is neither cheap or dear.---**Editor.** + +[^20]: Persons of little foresight rejoice in the high price of + commodities---that is, in the low price or plentifulness of + money---not reflecting that, when money is too plenty, the sap and + vitality of the country flow forth in a constant stream to enrich + foreign lands. An excessive supply of money causes a deceitful + appearance of prosperity, and favors temporarily a few + manufacturers, traders and mechanics; but it is always a source of + unnumbered calamities to the whole country. + +[^21]: Perhaps on account of those explanations. As heat melts wax, and + hardens clay, so the same general principles, as applied to + merchandise money and to mutual money, give opposite results. + +[^22]: If, however, the inconvenience is anything, the lender ought to + be indemnified; but such indemnification is not properly interest. + +[^23]: Perhaps, we ought rather to say, "would be profoundly immoral in + a more perfect social order." We suppose that must be considered + right, In our present chaotic state, which is best on the whole, or + which---taking men's passion as they are---is unavoidable. + +[^24]: According to the report of the Valuation Committee, it appears to + have been (in the year 1850) \$600,000,000---a much larger sum. diff --git a/src/napoleon-notting.md b/src/napoleon-notting.md index ef0fd5d..a9b98ee 100644 --- a/src/napoleon-notting.md +++ b/src/napoleon-notting.md @@ -2,1156 +2,1011 @@ ## Introductory Remarks on the Art of Prophecy -The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has -been playing at children's games from the beginning, and -will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for -the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it -is most attached is called, "Keep to-morrow dark," and which -is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no -doubt) "Cheat the Prophet." The players listen very -carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have -to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The -players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and -bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That -is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great -fun. - -For human beings, being children, have the childish -wilfulness and the childish secrecy. And they never have -from the beginning of the world done what the wise men have -seen to be inevitable. They stoned the false prophets, it is -said; but they could have stoned true prophets with a -greater and juster enjoyment. Individually, men may present -a more or less rational appearance, eating, sleeping, and -scheming. But humanity as a whole is changeful, mystical, -fickle, delightful. Men are men, but Man is a woman. - -But in the beginning of the twentieth century the game of -Cheat the Prophet was made far more difficult than it had -ever been before. The reason was, that there were so many -prophets and so many prophecies, that it was difficult to -elude all their ingenuities. When a man did something free -and frantic and entirely his own, a horrible thought struck -him afterwards; it might have been predicted. Whenever a -duke climbed a lamp-post, when a dean got drunk, he could -not be really happy, he could not be certain that he was not -fulfilling some prophecy. In the beginning of the twentieth -century you could not see the ground for clever men. They -were so common that a stupid man was quite exceptional, and -when they found him, they followed him in crowds down the -street and treasured him up and gave him some high post in -the State. And all these clever men were at work giving -accounts of what would happen in the next age, all quite -clear, all quite keen-sighted and ruthless, and all quite -different. And it seemed that the good old game of -hoodwinking your ancestors could not really be managed this -time, because the ancestors neglected meat and sleep and -practical politics, so that they might meditate day and -night on what their descendants would be likely to do. - -But the way the prophets of the twentieth century went to -work was this. They took something or other that was -certainly going on in their time, and then said that it -would go on more and more until something extraordinary -happened. And very often they added that in some odd place -that extraordinary thing had happened, and that it showed -the signs of the times. - -Thus, for instance, there were Mr. H. G. Wells and others, -who thought that science would take charge of the future; -and just as the motor-car was quicker than the coach, so -some lovely thing would be quicker than the motor-car; and -so on for ever. And there arose from their ashes Dr. Quilp, -who said that a man could be sent on his machine so fast -round the world that he could keep up a long chatty -conversation in some old-world village by saying a word of a -sentence each time he came round. And it was said that the -experiment had been tried on an apoplectic old major, who -was sent round the world so fast that there seemed to be (to -the inhabitants of some other star) a continuous band round -the earth of white whiskers, red complexion and tweeds---a -thing like the ring of Saturn. - -Then there was the opposite school. There was Mr. Edward -Carpenter, who thought we should in a very short time return -to Nature, and live simply and slowly as the animals do. And -Edward Carpenter was followed by James Pickie, D.D. (of -Pocahontas College), who said that men were immensely -improved by grazing, or taking their food slowly and -continuously, after the manner of cows. And he said that he -had, with the most encouraging results, turned city men out -on all fours in a field covered with veal cutlets. Then -Tolstoy and the Humanitarians said that the world was -growing more merciful, and therefore no one would ever -desire to kill. And Mr. Mick not only became a vegetarian, -but at length declared vegetarianism doomed ("shedding," as -he called it finely, "the green blood of the silent -animals"), and predicted that men in a better age would live -on nothing but salt. And then came the pamphlet from Oregon -(where the thing was tried), the pamphlet called "Why should -Salt suffer?" and there was more trouble. - -And on the other hand, some people were predicting that the -lines of kinship would become narrower and sterner. There -was Mr. Cecil Rhodes, who thought that the one thing of the -future was the British Empire, and that there would be a -gulf between those who were of the Empire and those who were -not, between the Chinaman in Hong Kong and the Chinaman -outside, between the Spaniard on the Rock of Gibraltar and -the Spaniard off it, similar to the gulf between man and the -lower animals. And in the same way his impetuous friend, -Dr. Zoppi ("the Paul of Anglo-Saxonism"), carried it yet -further, and held that, as a result of this view, -cannibalism should be held to mean eating a member of the -Empire, not eating one of the subject peoples, who should, -he said, be killed without needless pain. His horror at the -idea of eating a man in British Guiana showed how they -misunderstood his stoicism who thought him devoid of -feeling. He was, however, in a hard position; as it was said -that he had attempted the experiment, and, living in London, -had to subsist entirely on Italian organ-grinders. And his -end was terrible, for just when he had begun, Sir Paul -Swiller read his great paper at the Royal Society, proving -that the savages were not only quite right in eating their -enemies, but right on moral and hygienic grounds, since it -was true that the qualities of the enemy, when eaten, passed -into the eater. The notion that the nature of an Italian -organ-man was irrevocably growing and burgeoning inside him -was almost more than the kindly old professor could bear. - -There was Mr. Benjamin Kidd, who said that the growing note -of our race would be the care for and knowledge of the -future. His idea was developed more powerfully by William -Borker, who wrote that passage which every schoolboy knows -by heart, about men in future ages weeping by the graves of -their descendants, and tourists being shown over the scene -of the historic battle which was to take place some -centuries afterwards. - -And Mr. Stead, too, was prominent, who thought that England -would in the twentieth century be united to America; and his -young lieutenant, Graham Podge, who included the states of -France, Germany, and Russia in the American Union, the State -of Russia being abbreviated to Ra. - -There was Mr. Sidney Webb, also, who said that the future -would see a continuously increasing order and neatness in -the life of the people, and his poor friend Fipps, who went -mad and ran about the country with an axe, hacking branches -off the trees whenever there were not the same number on -both sides. - -All these clever men were prophesying with every variety of -ingenuity what would happen soon, and they all did it in the -same way, by taking something they saw 'going strong,' as -the saying is, and carrying it as far as ever their -imagination could stretch. This, they said, was the true and -simple way of anticipating the future. "Just as," said Dr. -Pellkins, in a fine passage,--"just as when we see a pig in -a litter larger than the other pigs, we know that by an -unalterable law of the Inscrutable it will some day be -larger than an elephant, just as we know, when we see weeds -and dandelions growing more and more thickly in a garden, -that they must, in spite of all our efforts, grow taller -than the chimney-pots and swallow the house from sight, so -we know and reverently acknowledge, that when any power in -human politics has shown for any period of time any -considerable activity, it will go on until it reaches to the -sky." - -And it did certainly appear that the prophets had put the -people (engaged in the old game of Cheat the Prophet), in a -quite unprecedented difficulty. It seemed really hard to do -anything without fulfilling some of their prophecies. - -But there was, nevertheless, in the eyes of labourers in the -streets, of peasants in the fields, of sailors and children, -and especially women, a strange look that kept the wise men -in a perfect fever of doubt. They could not fathom the -motionless mirth in their eyes. They still had something up -their sleeve; they were still playing the game of Cheat the +The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing +at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the +end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the +games to which it is most attached is called, "Keep to-morrow dark," and +which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) +"Cheat the Prophet." The players listen very carefully and respectfully +to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the +next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are +dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is +all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun. + +For human beings, being children, have the childish wilfulness and the +childish secrecy. And they never have from the beginning of the world +done what the wise men have seen to be inevitable. They stoned the false +prophets, it is said; but they could have stoned true prophets with a +greater and juster enjoyment. Individually, men may present a more or +less rational appearance, eating, sleeping, and scheming. But humanity +as a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle, delightful. Men are men, but +Man is a woman. + +But in the beginning of the twentieth century the game of Cheat the +Prophet was made far more difficult than it had ever been before. The +reason was, that there were so many prophets and so many prophecies, +that it was difficult to elude all their ingenuities. When a man did +something free and frantic and entirely his own, a horrible thought +struck him afterwards; it might have been predicted. Whenever a duke +climbed a lamp-post, when a dean got drunk, he could not be really +happy, he could not be certain that he was not fulfilling some prophecy. +In the beginning of the twentieth century you could not see the ground +for clever men. They were so common that a stupid man was quite +exceptional, and when they found him, they followed him in crowds down +the street and treasured him up and gave him some high post in the +State. And all these clever men were at work giving accounts of what +would happen in the next age, all quite clear, all quite keen-sighted +and ruthless, and all quite different. And it seemed that the good old +game of hoodwinking your ancestors could not really be managed this +time, because the ancestors neglected meat and sleep and practical +politics, so that they might meditate day and night on what their +descendants would be likely to do. + +But the way the prophets of the twentieth century went to work was this. +They took something or other that was certainly going on in their time, +and then said that it would go on more and more until something +extraordinary happened. And very often they added that in some odd place +that extraordinary thing had happened, and that it showed the signs of +the times. + +Thus, for instance, there were Mr. H. G. Wells and others, who thought +that science would take charge of the future; and just as the motor-car +was quicker than the coach, so some lovely thing would be quicker than +the motor-car; and so on for ever. And there arose from their ashes +Dr. Quilp, who said that a man could be sent on his machine so fast +round the world that he could keep up a long chatty conversation in some +old-world village by saying a word of a sentence each time he came +round. And it was said that the experiment had been tried on an +apoplectic old major, who was sent round the world so fast that there +seemed to be (to the inhabitants of some other star) a continuous band +round the earth of white whiskers, red complexion and tweeds---a thing +like the ring of Saturn. + +Then there was the opposite school. There was Mr. Edward Carpenter, who +thought we should in a very short time return to Nature, and live simply +and slowly as the animals do. And Edward Carpenter was followed by James +Pickie, D.D. (of Pocahontas College), who said that men were immensely +improved by grazing, or taking their food slowly and continuously, after +the manner of cows. And he said that he had, with the most encouraging +results, turned city men out on all fours in a field covered with veal +cutlets. Then Tolstoy and the Humanitarians said that the world was +growing more merciful, and therefore no one would ever desire to kill. +And Mr. Mick not only became a vegetarian, but at length declared +vegetarianism doomed ("shedding," as he called it finely, "the green +blood of the silent animals"), and predicted that men in a better age +would live on nothing but salt. And then came the pamphlet from Oregon +(where the thing was tried), the pamphlet called "Why should Salt +suffer?" and there was more trouble. + +And on the other hand, some people were predicting that the lines of +kinship would become narrower and sterner. There was Mr. Cecil Rhodes, +who thought that the one thing of the future was the British Empire, and +that there would be a gulf between those who were of the Empire and +those who were not, between the Chinaman in Hong Kong and the Chinaman +outside, between the Spaniard on the Rock of Gibraltar and the Spaniard +off it, similar to the gulf between man and the lower animals. And in +the same way his impetuous friend, Dr. Zoppi ("the Paul of +Anglo-Saxonism"), carried it yet further, and held that, as a result of +this view, cannibalism should be held to mean eating a member of the +Empire, not eating one of the subject peoples, who should, he said, be +killed without needless pain. His horror at the idea of eating a man in +British Guiana showed how they misunderstood his stoicism who thought +him devoid of feeling. He was, however, in a hard position; as it was +said that he had attempted the experiment, and, living in London, had to +subsist entirely on Italian organ-grinders. And his end was terrible, +for just when he had begun, Sir Paul Swiller read his great paper at the +Royal Society, proving that the savages were not only quite right in +eating their enemies, but right on moral and hygienic grounds, since it +was true that the qualities of the enemy, when eaten, passed into the +eater. The notion that the nature of an Italian organ-man was +irrevocably growing and burgeoning inside him was almost more than the +kindly old professor could bear. + +There was Mr. Benjamin Kidd, who said that the growing note of our race +would be the care for and knowledge of the future. His idea was +developed more powerfully by William Borker, who wrote that passage +which every schoolboy knows by heart, about men in future ages weeping +by the graves of their descendants, and tourists being shown over the +scene of the historic battle which was to take place some centuries +afterwards. + +And Mr. Stead, too, was prominent, who thought that England would in the +twentieth century be united to America; and his young lieutenant, Graham +Podge, who included the states of France, Germany, and Russia in the +American Union, the State of Russia being abbreviated to Ra. + +There was Mr. Sidney Webb, also, who said that the future would see a +continuously increasing order and neatness in the life of the people, +and his poor friend Fipps, who went mad and ran about the country with +an axe, hacking branches off the trees whenever there were not the same +number on both sides. + +All these clever men were prophesying with every variety of ingenuity +what would happen soon, and they all did it in the same way, by taking +something they saw 'going strong,' as the saying is, and carrying it as +far as ever their imagination could stretch. This, they said, was the +true and simple way of anticipating the future. "Just as," said Dr. +Pellkins, in a fine passage,--"just as when we see a pig in a litter +larger than the other pigs, we know that by an unalterable law of the +Inscrutable it will some day be larger than an elephant, just as we +know, when we see weeds and dandelions growing more and more thickly in +a garden, that they must, in spite of all our efforts, grow taller than +the chimney-pots and swallow the house from sight, so we know and +reverently acknowledge, that when any power in human politics has shown +for any period of time any considerable activity, it will go on until it +reaches to the sky." + +And it did certainly appear that the prophets had put the people +(engaged in the old game of Cheat the Prophet), in a quite unprecedented +difficulty. It seemed really hard to do anything without fulfilling some +of their prophecies. + +But there was, nevertheless, in the eyes of labourers in the streets, of +peasants in the fields, of sailors and children, and especially women, a +strange look that kept the wise men in a perfect fever of doubt. They +could not fathom the motionless mirth in their eyes. They still had +something up their sleeve; they were still playing the game of Cheat the Prophet. -Then the wise men grew like wild things, and swayed hither -and thither, crying, "What can it be? What can it be? What -will London be like a century hence? Is there anything we -have not thought of? Houses upside down---more hygienic, -perhaps? Men walking on hands---make feet flexible, don't -you know? Moon... motor-cars... no heads..." And so they +Then the wise men grew like wild things, and swayed hither and thither, +crying, "What can it be? What can it be? What will London be like a +century hence? Is there anything we have not thought of? Houses upside +down---more hygienic, perhaps? Men walking on hands---make feet +flexible, don't you know? Moon... motor-cars... no heads..." And so they swayed and wondered until they died and were buried nicely. -Then the people went and did what they liked. Let me no -longer conceal the painful truth. The people had cheated the -prophets of the twentieth century. When the curtain goes up -on this story, eighty years after the present date, London -is almost exactly like what it is now. +Then the people went and did what they liked. Let me no longer conceal +the painful truth. The people had cheated the prophets of the twentieth +century. When the curtain goes up on this story, eighty years after the +present date, London is almost exactly like what it is now. ## The Man in Green -Very few words are needed to explain why London, a hundred -years hence, will be very like it is now, or rather, since I -must slip into a prophetic past, why London, when my story -opens, was very like it was in those enviable days when I -was still alive. - -The reason can be stated in one sentence. The people had -absolutely lost faith in revolutions. All revolutions are -doctrinal such as the French one, or the one that introduced -Christianity. For it stands to common sense that you cannot -upset all existing things, customs, and compromises, unless -you believe in something outside them, something positive -and divine. Now, England, during this century, lost all -belief in this. It believed in a thing called Evolution. And -it said, "All theoretic changes have ended in blood and -ennui. If we change, we must change slowly and safely, as -the animals do. Nature's revolutions are the only successful -ones. There has been no conservative reaction in favour of -tails." - -And some things did change. Things that were not much -thought of dropped out of sight. Things that had not often -happened did not happen at all. Thus, for instance, the -actual physical force ruling the country, the soldiers and -police, grew smaller and smaller, and at last vanished -almost to a point. The people combined could have swept the -few policemen away in ten minutes: they did not, because -they did not believe it would do them the least good. They -had lost faith in revolutions. - -Democracy was dead; for no one minded the governing class -governing. England was now practically a despotism, but not -an hereditary one. Some one in the official class was made -King. No one cared how: no one cared who. He was merely an -universal secretary. - -In this manner it happened that everything in London was -very quiet. That vague and somewhat depressed reliance upon -things happening as they have always happened, which is with -all Londoners a mood, had become an assumed condition. There -was really no reason for any man doing anything but the -thing he had done the day before. - -There was therefore no reason whatever why the three young -men who had always walked up to their Government office -together should not walk up to it together on this -particular wintry and cloudy morning. Everything in that age -had become mechanical, and Government clerks especially. All -those clerks assembled regularly at their posts. Three of -those clerks always walked into town together. All the -neighbourhood knew them: two of them were tall and one -short. And on this particular morning the short clerk was -only a few seconds late to join the other two as they passed -his gate: he could have overtaken them in three strides; he -could have called after them easily. But he did not. - -For some reason that will never be understood until all -souls are judged (if they are ever judged; the idea was at -this time classed with fetish worship) he did not join his -two companions, but walked steadily behind them. The day was -dull, their dress was dull, everything was dull; but in some -odd impulse he walked through street after street, through -district after district, looking at the backs of the two -men, who would have swung round at the sound of his voice. -Now, there is a law written in the darkest of the Books of -Life, and it is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred -and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look -at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of -seeing it for the first time. - -So the short Government official looked at the coat-tails of -the tall Government officials, and through street after -street, and round corner after corner, saw only coat-tails, -coat-tails, and again coat-tails---when, he did not in the -least know why, something happened to his eyes. - -Two black dragons were walking backwards in front of him. -Two black dragons were looking at him with evil eyes. The -dragons were walking backwards it was true, but they kept -their eyes fixed on him none the less. The eyes which he saw -were, in truth, only the two buttons at the back of a -frock-coat: perhaps some traditional memory of their -meaningless character gave this half-witted prominence to -their gaze. The slit between the tails was the nose-line of -the monster: whenever the tails flapped in the winter wind -the dragons licked their lips. It was only a momentary -fancy, but the small clerk found it embedded in his soul -ever afterwards. He never could again think of men in -frock-coats except as dragons walking backwards. He -explained afterwards, quite tactfully and nicely, to his two -official friends, that while feeling an inexpressible regard -for each of them he could not seriously regard the face of -either of them as anything but a kind of tail. It was, he -admitted, a handsome tail a tail elevated in the air. But -if, he said, any true friend of theirs wished to see their -faces, to look into the eyes of their soul, that friend must -be allowed to walk reverently round behind them, so as to -see them from the rear. There he would see the two black -dragons with the blind eyes. - -But when first the two black dragons sprang out of the fog -upon the small clerk, they had merely the effect of all -miracles---they changed the universe. He discovered the fact -that all romantics know---that adventures happen on dull -days, and not on sunny ones. When the chord of monotony is -stretched most tight, then it breaks with a sound like song. -He had scarcely noticed the weather before, but with the -four dead eyes glaring at him he looked round and realised -the strange dead day. - -The morning was wintry and dim, not misty, but darkened with -that shadow of cloud or snow which steeps everything in a -green or copper twilight. The light there is on such a day -seems not so much to come from the clear heavens as to be a -phosphorescence clinging to the shapes themselves. The load -of heaven and the clouds is like a load of waters, and the -men move like fishes, feeling that they are on the floor of -a sea. Everything in a London street completes the fantasy; -the carriages and cabs themselves resemble deep-sea -creatures with eyes of flame. He had been startled at first -to meet two dragons. Now he found he was among deep-sea -dragons possessing the deep sea. - -The two young men in front were like the small young man -himself, well-dressed. The lines of their frock-coats and -silk hats had that luxuriant severity which makes the modern -fop, hideous as he is, a favourite exercise of the modern -draughtsman; that element which Mr. Max Beerbohm has -admirably expressed in speaking of "certain congruities of +Very few words are needed to explain why London, a hundred years hence, +will be very like it is now, or rather, since I must slip into a +prophetic past, why London, when my story opens, was very like it was in +those enviable days when I was still alive. + +The reason can be stated in one sentence. The people had absolutely lost +faith in revolutions. All revolutions are doctrinal such as the French +one, or the one that introduced Christianity. For it stands to common +sense that you cannot upset all existing things, customs, and +compromises, unless you believe in something outside them, something +positive and divine. Now, England, during this century, lost all belief +in this. It believed in a thing called Evolution. And it said, "All +theoretic changes have ended in blood and ennui. If we change, we must +change slowly and safely, as the animals do. Nature's revolutions are +the only successful ones. There has been no conservative reaction in +favour of tails." + +And some things did change. Things that were not much thought of dropped +out of sight. Things that had not often happened did not happen at all. +Thus, for instance, the actual physical force ruling the country, the +soldiers and police, grew smaller and smaller, and at last vanished +almost to a point. The people combined could have swept the few +policemen away in ten minutes: they did not, because they did not +believe it would do them the least good. They had lost faith in +revolutions. + +Democracy was dead; for no one minded the governing class governing. +England was now practically a despotism, but not an hereditary one. Some +one in the official class was made King. No one cared how: no one cared +who. He was merely an universal secretary. + +In this manner it happened that everything in London was very quiet. +That vague and somewhat depressed reliance upon things happening as they +have always happened, which is with all Londoners a mood, had become an +assumed condition. There was really no reason for any man doing anything +but the thing he had done the day before. + +There was therefore no reason whatever why the three young men who had +always walked up to their Government office together should not walk up +to it together on this particular wintry and cloudy morning. Everything +in that age had become mechanical, and Government clerks especially. All +those clerks assembled regularly at their posts. Three of those clerks +always walked into town together. All the neighbourhood knew them: two +of them were tall and one short. And on this particular morning the +short clerk was only a few seconds late to join the other two as they +passed his gate: he could have overtaken them in three strides; he could +have called after them easily. But he did not. + +For some reason that will never be understood until all souls are judged +(if they are ever judged; the idea was at this time classed with fetish +worship) he did not join his two companions, but walked steadily behind +them. The day was dull, their dress was dull, everything was dull; but +in some odd impulse he walked through street after street, through +district after district, looking at the backs of the two men, who would +have swung round at the sound of his voice. Now, there is a law written +in the darkest of the Books of Life, and it is this: If you look at a +thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you +look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it +for the first time. + +So the short Government official looked at the coat-tails of the tall +Government officials, and through street after street, and round corner +after corner, saw only coat-tails, coat-tails, and again +coat-tails---when, he did not in the least know why, something happened +to his eyes. + +Two black dragons were walking backwards in front of him. Two black +dragons were looking at him with evil eyes. The dragons were walking +backwards it was true, but they kept their eyes fixed on him none the +less. The eyes which he saw were, in truth, only the two buttons at the +back of a frock-coat: perhaps some traditional memory of their +meaningless character gave this half-witted prominence to their gaze. +The slit between the tails was the nose-line of the monster: whenever +the tails flapped in the winter wind the dragons licked their lips. It +was only a momentary fancy, but the small clerk found it embedded in his +soul ever afterwards. He never could again think of men in frock-coats +except as dragons walking backwards. He explained afterwards, quite +tactfully and nicely, to his two official friends, that while feeling an +inexpressible regard for each of them he could not seriously regard the +face of either of them as anything but a kind of tail. It was, he +admitted, a handsome tail a tail elevated in the air. But if, he said, +any true friend of theirs wished to see their faces, to look into the +eyes of their soul, that friend must be allowed to walk reverently round +behind them, so as to see them from the rear. There he would see the two +black dragons with the blind eyes. + +But when first the two black dragons sprang out of the fog upon the +small clerk, they had merely the effect of all miracles---they changed +the universe. He discovered the fact that all romantics know---that +adventures happen on dull days, and not on sunny ones. When the chord of +monotony is stretched most tight, then it breaks with a sound like song. +He had scarcely noticed the weather before, but with the four dead eyes +glaring at him he looked round and realised the strange dead day. + +The morning was wintry and dim, not misty, but darkened with that shadow +of cloud or snow which steeps everything in a green or copper twilight. +The light there is on such a day seems not so much to come from the +clear heavens as to be a phosphorescence clinging to the shapes +themselves. The load of heaven and the clouds is like a load of waters, +and the men move like fishes, feeling that they are on the floor of a +sea. Everything in a London street completes the fantasy; the carriages +and cabs themselves resemble deep-sea creatures with eyes of flame. He +had been startled at first to meet two dragons. Now he found he was +among deep-sea dragons possessing the deep sea. + +The two young men in front were like the small young man himself, +well-dressed. The lines of their frock-coats and silk hats had that +luxuriant severity which makes the modern fop, hideous as he is, a +favourite exercise of the modern draughtsman; that element which Mr. Max +Beerbohm has admirably expressed in speaking of "certain congruities of dark cloth and the rigid perfection of linen." -They walked with the gait of an affected snail, and they -spoke at the longest intervals, dropping a sentence at about -every sixth lamp-post. +They walked with the gait of an affected snail, and they spoke at the +longest intervals, dropping a sentence at about every sixth lamp-post. -They crawled on past the lamp-posts; their mien was so -immovable that a fanciful description might almost say, that -the lamp-posts crawled past the men, as in a dream. Then the -small man suddenly ran after them and said-- +They crawled on past the lamp-posts; their mien was so immovable that a +fanciful description might almost say, that the lamp-posts crawled past +the men, as in a dream. Then the small man suddenly ran after them and +said-- -"I want to get my hair cut. I say, do you know a little shop -anywhere where they cut your hair properly? I keep on having -my hair cut, but it keeps on growing again." +"I want to get my hair cut. I say, do you know a little shop anywhere +where they cut your hair properly? I keep on having my hair cut, but it +keeps on growing again." -One of the tall men looked at him with the air of a pained -naturalist. +One of the tall men looked at him with the air of a pained naturalist. -"Why, here is a little place," cried the small man, with a -sort of imbecile cheerfulness, as the bright bulging window -of a fashionable toilet-saloon glowed abruptly out of the -foggy twilight. "Do you know, I often find hairdressers when -I walk about London. I'll lunch with you at Cicconani's. You -know, I'm awfully fond of hairdressers' shops. They're miles -better than those nasty butchers'." And he disappeared into -the doorway. +"Why, here is a little place," cried the small man, with a sort of +imbecile cheerfulness, as the bright bulging window of a fashionable +toilet-saloon glowed abruptly out of the foggy twilight. "Do you know, I +often find hairdressers when I walk about London. I'll lunch with you at +Cicconani's. You know, I'm awfully fond of hairdressers' shops. They're +miles better than those nasty butchers'." And he disappeared into the +doorway. -The man called James continued to gaze after him, a monocle -screwed into his eye. +The man called James continued to gaze after him, a monocle screwed into +his eye. -"What the devil do you make of that fellow?" he asked his -companion, a pale young man with a high nose. +"What the devil do you make of that fellow?" he asked his companion, a +pale young man with a high nose. -The pale young man reflected conscientiously for some -minutes, and then said-- +The pale young man reflected conscientiously for some minutes, and then +said-- "Had a knock on his head when he was a kid, I should think." -"No, I don't think it's that," replied the Honourable James -Barker. "I've sometimes fancied he was a sort of artist, -Lambert." +"No, I don't think it's that," replied the Honourable James Barker. +"I've sometimes fancied he was a sort of artist, Lambert." "Bosh!" cried Mr. Lambert, briefly. -"I admit I can't make him out," resumed Barker, -abstractedly; "he never opens his mouth without saying -something so indescribably half-witted that to call him a -fool seems the very feeblest attempt at characterisation. -But there's another thing about him that's rather funny. Do -you know that he has the one collection of Japanese lacquer -in Europe? Have you ever seen his books? All Greek poets and -mediaeval French and that sort of thing. Have you ever been -in his rooms? It's like being inside an amethyst. And he -moves about in all that and talks like---like a turnip." - -"Well, damn all books. Your blue books as well," said the -ingenuous Mr. Lambert, with a friendly simplicity. "You -ought to understand such things. What do you make of him?" - -"He's beyond me," returned Barker. "But if you asked me for -my opinion, I should say he was a man with a taste for -nonsense, as they call it---artistic fooling, and all that -kind of thing. And I seriously believe that he has talked -nonsense so much that he has half bewildered his own mind -and doesn't know the difference between sanity and insanity. -He has gone round the mental world, so to speak, and found -the place where the East and the West are one, and extreme -idiocy is as good as sense. But I can't explain these -psychological games." - -"You can't explain them to me," replied Mr. Wilfrid Lambert, -with candour. - -As they passed up the long streets towards their restaurant -the copper twilight cleared slowly to a pale yellow, and by -the time they reached it they stood discernible in a -tolerable winter daylight. The Honourable James Barker, one -of the most powerful officials in the English Government (by -this time a rigidly official one), was a lean and elegant -young man, with a blank handsome face and bleak blue eyes. -He had a great amount of intellectual capacity, of that -peculiar kind which raises a man from throne to throne and -lets him die loaded with honours without having either -amused or enlightened the mind of a single man. Wilfrid -Lambert, the youth with the nose which appeared to -impoverish the rest of his face, had also contributed little -to the enlargement of the human spirit, but he had the -honourable excuse of being a fool. - -Lambert would have been called a silly man; Barker, with all -his cleverness, might have been called a stupid man. But -mere silliness and stupidity sank into insignificance in the -presence of the awful and mysterious treasures of -foolishness apparently stored up in the small figure that -stood waiting for them outside Cicconani's. The little man, -whose name was Auberon Quin, had an appearance compounded of -a baby and an owl. His round head, round eyes, seemed to -have been designed by nature playfully with a pair of -compasses. His flat dark hair and preposterously long -frock-coat gave him something of the look of a child's -"Noah." When he entered a room of strangers, they mistook -him for a small boy, and wanted to take him on their knees, -until he spoke, when they perceived that a boy would have -been more intelligent. - -"I have been waiting quite a long time," said Quin, mildly. -"It's awfully funny I should see you coming up the street at -last." - -"Why?" asked Lambert, staring. "You told us to come here -yourself." - -"My mother used to tell people to come to places," said the -sage. - -They were about to turn into the restaurant with a resigned -air, when their eyes were caught by something in the street. -The weather, though cold and blank, was now quite clear and -across the dull brown of the wood pavement and between the -dull grey terraces was moving something---not to be seen for -miles around not to be seen perhaps at that time in -England---a man dressed in bright colours. A small crowd +"I admit I can't make him out," resumed Barker, abstractedly; "he never +opens his mouth without saying something so indescribably half-witted +that to call him a fool seems the very feeblest attempt at +characterisation. But there's another thing about him that's rather +funny. Do you know that he has the one collection of Japanese lacquer in +Europe? Have you ever seen his books? All Greek poets and mediaeval +French and that sort of thing. Have you ever been in his rooms? It's +like being inside an amethyst. And he moves about in all that and talks +like---like a turnip." + +"Well, damn all books. Your blue books as well," said the ingenuous +Mr. Lambert, with a friendly simplicity. "You ought to understand such +things. What do you make of him?" + +"He's beyond me," returned Barker. "But if you asked me for my opinion, +I should say he was a man with a taste for nonsense, as they call +it---artistic fooling, and all that kind of thing. And I seriously +believe that he has talked nonsense so much that he has half bewildered +his own mind and doesn't know the difference between sanity and +insanity. He has gone round the mental world, so to speak, and found the +place where the East and the West are one, and extreme idiocy is as good +as sense. But I can't explain these psychological games." + +"You can't explain them to me," replied Mr. Wilfrid Lambert, with +candour. + +As they passed up the long streets towards their restaurant the copper +twilight cleared slowly to a pale yellow, and by the time they reached +it they stood discernible in a tolerable winter daylight. The Honourable +James Barker, one of the most powerful officials in the English +Government (by this time a rigidly official one), was a lean and elegant +young man, with a blank handsome face and bleak blue eyes. He had a +great amount of intellectual capacity, of that peculiar kind which +raises a man from throne to throne and lets him die loaded with honours +without having either amused or enlightened the mind of a single man. +Wilfrid Lambert, the youth with the nose which appeared to impoverish +the rest of his face, had also contributed little to the enlargement of +the human spirit, but he had the honourable excuse of being a fool. + +Lambert would have been called a silly man; Barker, with all his +cleverness, might have been called a stupid man. But mere silliness and +stupidity sank into insignificance in the presence of the awful and +mysterious treasures of foolishness apparently stored up in the small +figure that stood waiting for them outside Cicconani's. The little man, +whose name was Auberon Quin, had an appearance compounded of a baby and +an owl. His round head, round eyes, seemed to have been designed by +nature playfully with a pair of compasses. His flat dark hair and +preposterously long frock-coat gave him something of the look of a +child's "Noah." When he entered a room of strangers, they mistook him +for a small boy, and wanted to take him on their knees, until he spoke, +when they perceived that a boy would have been more intelligent. + +"I have been waiting quite a long time," said Quin, mildly. "It's +awfully funny I should see you coming up the street at last." + +"Why?" asked Lambert, staring. "You told us to come here yourself." + +"My mother used to tell people to come to places," said the sage. + +They were about to turn into the restaurant with a resigned air, when +their eyes were caught by something in the street. The weather, though +cold and blank, was now quite clear and across the dull brown of the +wood pavement and between the dull grey terraces was moving +something---not to be seen for miles around not to be seen perhaps at +that time in England---a man dressed in bright colours. A small crowd hung on the man's heels. -He was a tall stately man, clad in a military uniform of -brilliant green, splashed with great silver facings. From -the shoulder swung a short green furred cloak, somewhat like -that of a Hussar, the lining of which gleamed every now and -then with a kind of tawny crimson. His breast glittered with -medals; round his neck was the red ribbon and star of some -foreign order; and a long straight sword, with a blazing -hilt, trailed and clattered along the pavement. At this time -the pacific and utilitarian development of Europe had -relegated all such customs to the Museums. The only -remaining force, the small but well-organised police, were -attired in a sombre and hygienic manner. But even those who -remembered the last Life Guards and Lancers who disappeared -in 1912 must have known at a glance that this was not, and -never had been, an English uniform; and this conviction -would have been heightened by the yellow aquiline face, like -Dante carved in bronze, which rose, crowned with white hair, -out of the green military collar, a keen and distinguished, +He was a tall stately man, clad in a military uniform of brilliant +green, splashed with great silver facings. From the shoulder swung a +short green furred cloak, somewhat like that of a Hussar, the lining of +which gleamed every now and then with a kind of tawny crimson. His +breast glittered with medals; round his neck was the red ribbon and star +of some foreign order; and a long straight sword, with a blazing hilt, +trailed and clattered along the pavement. At this time the pacific and +utilitarian development of Europe had relegated all such customs to the +Museums. The only remaining force, the small but well-organised police, +were attired in a sombre and hygienic manner. But even those who +remembered the last Life Guards and Lancers who disappeared in 1912 must +have known at a glance that this was not, and never had been, an English +uniform; and this conviction would have been heightened by the yellow +aquiline face, like Dante carved in bronze, which rose, crowned with +white hair, out of the green military collar, a keen and distinguished, but not an English face. -The magnificence with which the green-clad gentleman walked -down the centre of the road would be something difficult to -express in human language. For it was an ingrained -simplicity and arrogance, something in the mere carriage of -the head and body, which made ordinary moderns in the street -stare after him; but it had comparatively little to do with -actual conscious gestures or expression. In the matter of -these merely temporary movements, the man appeared to be -rather worried and inquisitive, but he was inquisitive with -the inquisitiveness of a despot and worried as with the -responsibilities of a god. The men who lounged and wondered -behind him followed partly with an astonishment at his -brilliant uniform, that is to say, partly because of that -instinct which makes us all follow one who looks like a -madman, but far more because of that instinct which makes -all men follow (and worship) any one who chooses to behave -like a king. He had to so sublime an extent that great -quality of royalty---an almost imbecile unconsciousness of -everybody, that people went after him as they do after -kings---to see what would be the first thing or person he -would take notice of. And all the time, as we have said, in -spite of his quiet splendour, there was an air about him as -if he were looking for somebody; an expression of inquiry. - -Suddenly that expression of inquiry vanished, none could -tell why, and was replaced by an expression of contentment. -Amid the rapt attention of the mob of idlers, the -magnificent green gentleman deflected himself from his -direct course down the centre of the road and walked to one -side of it. He came to a halt opposite to a large poster of -Colman's Mustard erected on a wooden hoarding. His -spectators almost held their breath. - -He took from a small pocket in his uniform a little -penknife; with this he made a slash at the stretched paper. -Completing the rest of the operation with his fingers, he -tore off a strip or rag of paper, yellow in colour and -wholly irregular in outline. Then for the first time the +The magnificence with which the green-clad gentleman walked down the +centre of the road would be something difficult to express in human +language. For it was an ingrained simplicity and arrogance, something in +the mere carriage of the head and body, which made ordinary moderns in +the street stare after him; but it had comparatively little to do with +actual conscious gestures or expression. In the matter of these merely +temporary movements, the man appeared to be rather worried and +inquisitive, but he was inquisitive with the inquisitiveness of a despot +and worried as with the responsibilities of a god. The men who lounged +and wondered behind him followed partly with an astonishment at his +brilliant uniform, that is to say, partly because of that instinct which +makes us all follow one who looks like a madman, but far more because of +that instinct which makes all men follow (and worship) any one who +chooses to behave like a king. He had to so sublime an extent that great +quality of royalty---an almost imbecile unconsciousness of everybody, +that people went after him as they do after kings---to see what would be +the first thing or person he would take notice of. And all the time, as +we have said, in spite of his quiet splendour, there was an air about +him as if he were looking for somebody; an expression of inquiry. + +Suddenly that expression of inquiry vanished, none could tell why, and +was replaced by an expression of contentment. Amid the rapt attention of +the mob of idlers, the magnificent green gentleman deflected himself +from his direct course down the centre of the road and walked to one +side of it. He came to a halt opposite to a large poster of Colman's +Mustard erected on a wooden hoarding. His spectators almost held their +breath. + +He took from a small pocket in his uniform a little penknife; with this +he made a slash at the stretched paper. Completing the rest of the +operation with his fingers, he tore off a strip or rag of paper, yellow +in colour and wholly irregular in outline. Then for the first time the great being addressed his adoring onlookers-- -"Can any one," he said, with a pleasing foreign accent, -"lend me a pin?" +"Can any one," he said, with a pleasing foreign accent, "lend me a pin?" -Mr. Lambert, who happened to be nearest, and who carried -innumerable pins for the purpose of attaching innumerable -buttonholes, lent him one, which was received with -extravagant but dignified bows, and hyperboles of thanks. +Mr. Lambert, who happened to be nearest, and who carried innumerable +pins for the purpose of attaching innumerable buttonholes, lent him one, +which was received with extravagant but dignified bows, and hyperboles +of thanks. -The gentleman in green, then, with every appearance of being -gratified, and even puffed up, pinned the piece of yellow -paper to the green silk and silver-lace adornments of his -breast. Then he turned his eyes round again, searching and -unsatisfied. +The gentleman in green, then, with every appearance of being gratified, +and even puffed up, pinned the piece of yellow paper to the green silk +and silver-lace adornments of his breast. Then he turned his eyes round +again, searching and unsatisfied. -"Anything else I can do, sir?" asked Lambert, with the -absurd politeness of the Englishman when once embarrassed. +"Anything else I can do, sir?" asked Lambert, with the absurd politeness +of the Englishman when once embarrassed. "Red," said the stranger, vaguely, "red." "I beg your pardon?" -"I beg yours also, Señor," said the stranger, bowing. "I was -wondering whether any of you had any red about you." +"I beg yours also, Señor," said the stranger, bowing. "I was wondering +whether any of you had any red about you." -"Any red about us?--well really---no, I don't think I -have---I used to carry a red bandanna once, but--" +"Any red about us?--well really---no, I don't think I have---I used to +carry a red bandanna once, but--" -"Barker," asked Auberon Quin, suddenly, "where's your red -cockatoo? Where's your red cockatoo?" +"Barker," asked Auberon Quin, suddenly, "where's your red cockatoo? +Where's your red cockatoo?" -"What do you mean?" asked Barker, desperately. "What -cockatoo? You've never seen me with any cockatoo." +"What do you mean?" asked Barker, desperately. "What cockatoo? You've +never seen me with any cockatoo." -"I know," said Auberon, vaguely mollified. "Where's it been -all the time?" +"I know," said Auberon, vaguely mollified. "Where's it been all the +time?" Barker swung round, not without resentment. -"I am sorry, sir," he said, shortly but civilly, "none of us -seem to have anything red to lend you. But why, if one may -ask--" +"I am sorry, sir," he said, shortly but civilly, "none of us seem to +have anything red to lend you. But why, if one may ask--" -"I thank you, Señor, it is nothing. I can, since there is -nothing else, fulfil my own requirements." +"I thank you, Señor, it is nothing. I can, since there is nothing else, +fulfil my own requirements." -And standing for a second of thought with the penknife in -his hand, he stabbed his left palm. The blood fell with so -full a stream that it struck the stones without dripping. -The foreigner pulled out his handkerchief and tore a piece -from it with his teeth. The rag was immediately; soaked in -scarlet. +And standing for a second of thought with the penknife in his hand, he +stabbed his left palm. The blood fell with so full a stream that it +struck the stones without dripping. The foreigner pulled out his +handkerchief and tore a piece from it with his teeth. The rag was +immediately; soaked in scarlet. -"Since you are so generous, Señor," he said, "another pin, -perhaps." +"Since you are so generous, Señor," he said, "another pin, perhaps." Lambert held one out, with eyes protruding like a frog's. -The red linen was pinned beside the yellow paper, and the -foreigner took off his hat. +The red linen was pinned beside the yellow paper, and the foreigner took +off his hat. -"I have to thank you all, gentlemen," he said; and wrapping -the remainder of the handkerchief round his bleeding hand, -he resumed his walk with an overwhelming stateliness. +"I have to thank you all, gentlemen," he said; and wrapping the +remainder of the handkerchief round his bleeding hand, he resumed his +walk with an overwhelming stateliness. -While all the rest paused, in some disorder, little -Mr. Auberon Quin ran after the stranger and stopped him, -with hat in hand. Considerably to everybody's astonishment, -he addressed him in the purest Spanish-- +While all the rest paused, in some disorder, little Mr. Auberon Quin ran +after the stranger and stopped him, with hat in hand. Considerably to +everybody's astonishment, he addressed him in the purest Spanish-- -"Señor," he said in that language, "pardon a hospitality, -perhaps indiscreet, towards one who appears to be a -distinguished, but a solitary guest in London. Will you do -me and my friends, with whom you have held some -conversation, the honour of lunching with us at the +"Señor," he said in that language, "pardon a hospitality, perhaps +indiscreet, towards one who appears to be a distinguished, but a +solitary guest in London. Will you do me and my friends, with whom you +have held some conversation, the honour of lunching with us at the adjoining restaurant?" -The man in the green uniform had turned a fiery colour of -pleasure at the mere sound of his own language, and he -accepted the invitation with that profusion of bows which so -often shows, in the case of the Southern races, the -falsehood of the notion that ceremony has nothing to do with +The man in the green uniform had turned a fiery colour of pleasure at +the mere sound of his own language, and he accepted the invitation with +that profusion of bows which so often shows, in the case of the Southern +races, the falsehood of the notion that ceremony has nothing to do with feeling. -"Señor," he said, "your language is my own; but all my love -for my people shall not lead me to deny to yours the -possession of so chivalrous an entertainer. Let me say that -the tongue is Spanish but the heart English." And he passed -with the rest into Cicconani's. +"Señor," he said, "your language is my own; but all my love for my +people shall not lead me to deny to yours the possession of so +chivalrous an entertainer. Let me say that the tongue is Spanish but the +heart English." And he passed with the rest into Cicconani's. -"Now, perhaps," said Barker, over the fish and sherry, -intensely polite, but burning with curiosity, "perhaps it -would be rude of me to ask why you did that?" +"Now, perhaps," said Barker, over the fish and sherry, intensely polite, +but burning with curiosity, "perhaps it would be rude of me to ask why +you did that?" -"Did what, Señor?" asked the guest, who spoke English quite -well, though in a manner indefinably American. +"Did what, Señor?" asked the guest, who spoke English quite well, though +in a manner indefinably American. -"Well," said the Englishman, in some confusion, "I mean tore -a strip off a hoarding and... er... cut yourself... and..." +"Well," said the Englishman, in some confusion, "I mean tore a strip off +a hoarding and... er... cut yourself... and..." -"To tell you that, Señor," answered the other, with a -certain sad pride, "involves merely telling you who I am. I -am Juan del Fuego, President of Nicaragua." +"To tell you that, Señor," answered the other, with a certain sad pride, +"involves merely telling you who I am. I am Juan del Fuego, President of +Nicaragua." -The manner with which the President of Nicaragua leant back -and drank his sherry showed that to him this explanation -covered all the facts observed and a great deal more. -Barker's brow, however, was still a little clouded. +The manner with which the President of Nicaragua leant back and drank +his sherry showed that to him this explanation covered all the facts +observed and a great deal more. Barker's brow, however, was still a +little clouded. -"And the yellow paper," he began, with anxious friendliness, -"and the red rag..." +"And the yellow paper," he began, with anxious friendliness, "and the +red rag..." -"The yellow paper and the red rag," said Fuego, with -indescribable grandeur, "are the colours of Nicaragua." +"The yellow paper and the red rag," said Fuego, with indescribable +grandeur, "are the colours of Nicaragua." -"But Nicaragua..." began Barker, with great hesitation, -"Nicaragua is no longer a..." +"But Nicaragua..." began Barker, with great hesitation, "Nicaragua is no +longer a..." -"Nicaragua has been conquered like Athens. Nicaragua has -been annexed like Jerusalem," cried the old man, with -amazing fire. "The Yankee and the German and the brute -powers of modernity have trampled it with the hoofs of oxen. -But Nicaragua is not dead. Nicaragua is an idea." +"Nicaragua has been conquered like Athens. Nicaragua has been annexed +like Jerusalem," cried the old man, with amazing fire. "The Yankee and +the German and the brute powers of modernity have trampled it with the +hoofs of oxen. But Nicaragua is not dead. Nicaragua is an idea." Auberon Quin suggested timidly, "A brilliant idea." -"Yes," said the foreigner, snatching at the word. "You are -right, generous Englishman. An idea *brilliant*, a burning -thought. Señor, you asked me why, in my desire to see the -colours of my country, I snatched at paper and blood. Can -you not understand the ancient sanctity of colours? The -Church has her symbolic colours. And think of what colours -mean to us---think of the position of one like myself, who -can see nothing but those two colours, nothing but the red -and the yellow. To me all shapes are equal, all common and -noble things are in a democracy of combination. Wherever -there is a field of marigolds and the red cloak of an old -woman, there is Nicaragua. Wherever there is a field of -poppies and a yellow patch of sand, there is Nicaragua. -Wherever there is a lemon and a red sunset, there is my -country. Wherever I see a red pillar-box and a yellow -sunset, there my heart beats. Blood and a splash of mustard -can be my heraldry. If there be yellow mud and red mud in -the same ditch, it is better to me than white stars." - -"And if," said Quin, with equal enthusiasm, "there should -happen to be yellow wine and red wine at the same lunch, you -could not confine yourself to sherry. Let me order some -Burgundy, and complete, as it were, a sort of Nicaraguan -heraldry in your inside." - -Barker was fiddling with his knife, and was evidently making -up his mind to say something, with the intense nervousness -of the amiable Englishman. - -"I am to understand, then," he said at last, with a cough, -"that you, ahem, were the President of Nicaragua when it -made its---er---one must, of course, agree---its quite -heroic resistance to---er--" +"Yes," said the foreigner, snatching at the word. "You are right, +generous Englishman. An idea *brilliant*, a burning thought. Señor, you +asked me why, in my desire to see the colours of my country, I snatched +at paper and blood. Can you not understand the ancient sanctity of +colours? The Church has her symbolic colours. And think of what colours +mean to us---think of the position of one like myself, who can see +nothing but those two colours, nothing but the red and the yellow. To me +all shapes are equal, all common and noble things are in a democracy of +combination. Wherever there is a field of marigolds and the red cloak of +an old woman, there is Nicaragua. Wherever there is a field of poppies +and a yellow patch of sand, there is Nicaragua. Wherever there is a +lemon and a red sunset, there is my country. Wherever I see a red +pillar-box and a yellow sunset, there my heart beats. Blood and a splash +of mustard can be my heraldry. If there be yellow mud and red mud in the +same ditch, it is better to me than white stars." + +"And if," said Quin, with equal enthusiasm, "there should happen to be +yellow wine and red wine at the same lunch, you could not confine +yourself to sherry. Let me order some Burgundy, and complete, as it +were, a sort of Nicaraguan heraldry in your inside." + +Barker was fiddling with his knife, and was evidently making up his mind +to say something, with the intense nervousness of the amiable +Englishman. + +"I am to understand, then," he said at last, with a cough, "that you, +ahem, were the President of Nicaragua when it made its---er---one must, +of course, agree---its quite heroic resistance to---er--" The ex-President of Nicaragua waved his hand. -"You need not hesitate in speaking to me," he said. "I am -quite fully aware that the whole tendency of the world of -to-day is against Nicaragua and against me. I shall not -consider it any diminution of your evident courtesy if you -say what you think of the misfortunes that have laid my -republic in ruins." +"You need not hesitate in speaking to me," he said. "I am quite fully +aware that the whole tendency of the world of to-day is against +Nicaragua and against me. I shall not consider it any diminution of your +evident courtesy if you say what you think of the misfortunes that have +laid my republic in ruins." Barker looked immeasurably relieved and gratified. -"You are most generous, President," he said, with some -hesitation over the title, "and I will take advantage of -your generosity to express the doubts which, I must confess, -we moderns have about such things as---er---the Nicaraguan -independence." - -"So your sympathies are," said Del Fuego, quite calmly, -"with the big nation which--" - -"Pardon me, pardon me, President," said Barker, warmly; "my -sympathies are with no nation. You misunderstand, I think, -the modern intellect. We do not disapprove of the fire and -extravagance of such commonwealths as yours only to become -more extravagant on a larger scale. We do not condemn -Nicaragua because we think Britain ought to be more -Nicaraguan. We do not discourage small nationalities because -we wish large nationalities to have all their smallness, all -their uniformity of outlook, all their exaggeration of -spirit. If I differ with the greatest respect from your -Nicaraguan enthusiasm, it is not because a nation or ten -nations were against you; it is because civilisation was -against you. We moderns believe in a great cosmopolitan -civilisation, one which shall include all the talents of all -the absorbed peoples--" - -"The Señor will forgive me," said the President. "May I ask -the Señor how, under ordinary circumstances, he catches a -wild horse?" +"You are most generous, President," he said, with some hesitation over +the title, "and I will take advantage of your generosity to express the +doubts which, I must confess, we moderns have about such things +as---er---the Nicaraguan independence." + +"So your sympathies are," said Del Fuego, quite calmly, "with the big +nation which--" + +"Pardon me, pardon me, President," said Barker, warmly; "my sympathies +are with no nation. You misunderstand, I think, the modern intellect. We +do not disapprove of the fire and extravagance of such commonwealths as +yours only to become more extravagant on a larger scale. We do not +condemn Nicaragua because we think Britain ought to be more Nicaraguan. +We do not discourage small nationalities because we wish large +nationalities to have all their smallness, all their uniformity of +outlook, all their exaggeration of spirit. If I differ with the greatest +respect from your Nicaraguan enthusiasm, it is not because a nation or +ten nations were against you; it is because civilisation was against +you. We moderns believe in a great cosmopolitan civilisation, one which +shall include all the talents of all the absorbed peoples--" + +"The Señor will forgive me," said the President. "May I ask the Señor +how, under ordinary circumstances, he catches a wild horse?" "I never catch a wild horse," replied Barker, with dignity. -"Precisely," said the other; "and there ends your absorption -of the talents. That is what I complain of your -cosmopolitanism. When you say you want all peoples to unite, -you really mean that you want all peoples to unite to learn -the tricks of your people. If the Bedouin Arab does not know -how to read, some English missionary or schoolmaster must be -sent to teach him to read, but no one ever says, 'This -schoolmaster does not know how to ride on a camel; let us -pay a Bedouin to teach him.' You say your civilisation will -include all talents. Will it? Do you really mean to say that -at the moment when the Eskimo has learnt to vote for a -County Council, you will have learnt to spear a walrus? I -recur to the example I gave. In Nicaragua we had a way of -catching wild horses by lassoing the fore feet which was -supposed to be the best in South America. If you are going -to include all the talents, go and do it. If not, permit me -to say, what I have always said, that something went from +"Precisely," said the other; "and there ends your absorption of the +talents. That is what I complain of your cosmopolitanism. When you say +you want all peoples to unite, you really mean that you want all peoples +to unite to learn the tricks of your people. If the Bedouin Arab does +not know how to read, some English missionary or schoolmaster must be +sent to teach him to read, but no one ever says, 'This schoolmaster does +not know how to ride on a camel; let us pay a Bedouin to teach him.' You +say your civilisation will include all talents. Will it? Do you really +mean to say that at the moment when the Eskimo has learnt to vote for a +County Council, you will have learnt to spear a walrus? I recur to the +example I gave. In Nicaragua we had a way of catching wild horses by +lassoing the fore feet which was supposed to be the best in South +America. If you are going to include all the talents, go and do it. If +not, permit me to say, what I have always said, that something went from the world when Nicaragua was civilised." -"Something, perhaps," replied Barker, "but that something a -mere barbarian dexterity. I do not know that I could chip -flints as well as a primeval man, but I know that -civilisation can make these knives which are better, and I -trust to civilisation." - -"You have good authority," answered the Nicaraguan. "Many -clever men like you have trusted to civilisation. Many -clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men -at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is -flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what there is -particularly immortal about yours?" - -"I think you do not quite understand, President, what ours -is," answered Barker. "You judge it rather as if England was -still a poor and pugnacious island; you have been long out -of Europe. Many things have happened." - -"And what," asked the other, "would you call the summary of -those things?" - -"The summary of those things," answered Barker, with great -animation, "is that we are rid of the superstitions, and in -becoming so we have not merely become rid of the -superstitions which have been most frequently and most -enthusiastically so described. The superstition of big -nationalities is bad, but the superstition of small -nationalities is worse. The superstition of reverencing our -own country is bad, but the superstition of reverencing -other people's countries is worse. It is so everywhere, and -in a hundred ways. The superstition of monarchy is bad, and -the superstition of aristocracy is bad, but the superstition -of democracy is the worst of all." +"Something, perhaps," replied Barker, "but that something a mere +barbarian dexterity. I do not know that I could chip flints as well as a +primeval man, but I know that civilisation can make these knives which +are better, and I trust to civilisation." + +"You have good authority," answered the Nicaraguan. "Many clever men +like you have trusted to civilisation. Many clever Babylonians, many +clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, +in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what +there is particularly immortal about yours?" + +"I think you do not quite understand, President, what ours is," answered +Barker. "You judge it rather as if England was still a poor and +pugnacious island; you have been long out of Europe. Many things have +happened." + +"And what," asked the other, "would you call the summary of those +things?" + +"The summary of those things," answered Barker, with great animation, +"is that we are rid of the superstitions, and in becoming so we have not +merely become rid of the superstitions which have been most frequently +and most enthusiastically so described. The superstition of big +nationalities is bad, but the superstition of small nationalities is +worse. The superstition of reverencing our own country is bad, but the +superstition of reverencing other people's countries is worse. It is so +everywhere, and in a hundred ways. The superstition of monarchy is bad, +and the superstition of aristocracy is bad, but the superstition of +democracy is the worst of all." The old gentleman opened his eyes with some surprise. -"Are you, then," he said, "no longer a democracy in -England?" +"Are you, then," he said, "no longer a democracy in England?" Barker laughed. -"The situation invites paradox," he said. "We are, in a -sense, the purest democracy. We have become a despotism. -Have you not noticed how continually in history democracy -becomes despotism? People call it the decay of democracy. It -is simply its fulfilment. Why take the trouble to number and -register and enfranchise all the innumerable John Robinsons, -when you can take one John Robinson with the same intellect -or lack of intellect as all the rest, and have done with it? -The old idealistic republicans used to found democracy on -the idea that all men were equally intelligent. Believe me, -the sane and enduring democracy is founded on the fact that -all men are equally idiotic. Why should we not choose out of -them one as much as another? All that we want for Government -is a man not criminal and insane, who can rapidly look over -some petitions and sign some proclamations. To think what -time was wasted in arguing about the House of Lords, Tories -saying it ought to be preserved because it was clever, and -Radicals saying it ought to be destroyed because it was -stupid, and all the time no one saw that it was right -because it was stupid, because that chance mob of ordinary -men thrown there by accident of blood, were a great -democratic protest against the Lower House, against the -eternal insolence of the aristocracy of talents. We have -established now in England, the thing towards which all -systems have dimly groped, the dull popular despotism -without illusions. We want one man at the head of our State, -not because he is brilliant or virtuous, but because he is -one man and not a chattering crowd. To avoid the possible -chance of hereditary diseases or such things, we have -abandoned hereditary monarchy. The King of England is chosen -like a juryman upon an official rotation list. Beyond that -the whole system is quietly despotic, and we have not found -it raise a murmur." - -"Do you really mean," asked the President, incredulously, -"that you choose any ordinary man that comes to hand and -make him despot---that you trust to the chance of some -alphabetical list..." - -"And why not?" cried Barker. "Did not half the historical -nations trust to the chance of the eldest sons of eldest -sons, and did not half of them get on tolerably well? To -have a perfect system is impossible; to have a system is -indispensable. All hereditary monarchies were a matter of -luck: so are alphabetical monarchies. Can you find a deep -philosophical meaning in the difference between the Stuarts -and the Hanoverians? Believe me, I will undertake to find a -deep philosophical meaning in the contrast between the dark -tragedy of the A's, and the solid success of the B's." - -"And you risk it?" asked the other. "Though the man may be a -tyrant or a cynic or a criminal?" - -"We risk it," answered Barker, with a perfect placidity. -"Suppose he is a tyrant he is still a check on a hundred -tyrants. Suppose he is a cynic, it is to his interest to -govern well. Suppose he is a criminal by removing poverty -and substituting power, we put a check on his criminality. -In short, by substituting despotism we have put a total +"The situation invites paradox," he said. "We are, in a sense, the +purest democracy. We have become a despotism. Have you not noticed how +continually in history democracy becomes despotism? People call it the +decay of democracy. It is simply its fulfilment. Why take the trouble to +number and register and enfranchise all the innumerable John Robinsons, +when you can take one John Robinson with the same intellect or lack of +intellect as all the rest, and have done with it? The old idealistic +republicans used to found democracy on the idea that all men were +equally intelligent. Believe me, the sane and enduring democracy is +founded on the fact that all men are equally idiotic. Why should we not +choose out of them one as much as another? All that we want for +Government is a man not criminal and insane, who can rapidly look over +some petitions and sign some proclamations. To think what time was +wasted in arguing about the House of Lords, Tories saying it ought to be +preserved because it was clever, and Radicals saying it ought to be +destroyed because it was stupid, and all the time no one saw that it was +right because it was stupid, because that chance mob of ordinary men +thrown there by accident of blood, were a great democratic protest +against the Lower House, against the eternal insolence of the +aristocracy of talents. We have established now in England, the thing +towards which all systems have dimly groped, the dull popular despotism +without illusions. We want one man at the head of our State, not because +he is brilliant or virtuous, but because he is one man and not a +chattering crowd. To avoid the possible chance of hereditary diseases or +such things, we have abandoned hereditary monarchy. The King of England +is chosen like a juryman upon an official rotation list. Beyond that the +whole system is quietly despotic, and we have not found it raise a +murmur." + +"Do you really mean," asked the President, incredulously, "that you +choose any ordinary man that comes to hand and make him despot---that +you trust to the chance of some alphabetical list..." + +"And why not?" cried Barker. "Did not half the historical nations trust +to the chance of the eldest sons of eldest sons, and did not half of +them get on tolerably well? To have a perfect system is impossible; to +have a system is indispensable. All hereditary monarchies were a matter +of luck: so are alphabetical monarchies. Can you find a deep +philosophical meaning in the difference between the Stuarts and the +Hanoverians? Believe me, I will undertake to find a deep philosophical +meaning in the contrast between the dark tragedy of the A's, and the +solid success of the B's." + +"And you risk it?" asked the other. "Though the man may be a tyrant or a +cynic or a criminal?" + +"We risk it," answered Barker, with a perfect placidity. "Suppose he is +a tyrant he is still a check on a hundred tyrants. Suppose he is a +cynic, it is to his interest to govern well. Suppose he is a criminal by +removing poverty and substituting power, we put a check on his +criminality. In short, by substituting despotism we have put a total check on one criminal and a partial check on all the rest." -The Nicaraguan old gentleman leaned over with a queer -expression in his eyes. +The Nicaraguan old gentleman leaned over with a queer expression in his +eyes. -"My church, sir," he said, "has taught me to respect faith. -I do not wish to speak with any disrespect of yours, however -fantastic. But do you really mean that you will trust to the -ordinary man, the man who may happen to come next, as a good -despot?" +"My church, sir," he said, "has taught me to respect faith. I do not +wish to speak with any disrespect of yours, however fantastic. But do +you really mean that you will trust to the ordinary man, the man who may +happen to come next, as a good despot?" -"I do," said Barker, simply. "He may not be a good man. But -he will be a good despot. For when he comes to a mere -business routine of government he will endeavour to do -ordinary justice. Do we not assume the same thing in a -jury?" +"I do," said Barker, simply. "He may not be a good man. But he will be a +good despot. For when he comes to a mere business routine of government +he will endeavour to do ordinary justice. Do we not assume the same +thing in a jury?" The old President smiled. -"I don't know," he said, "that I have any particular -objection in detail to your excellent scheme of Government. -My only objection is a quite personal one. It is, that if I -were asked whether I would belong to it, I should ask first -of all, if I was not permitted, as an alternative, to be a -toad in a ditch. That is all. You cannot argue with the -choice of the soul." +"I don't know," he said, "that I have any particular objection in detail +to your excellent scheme of Government. My only objection is a quite +personal one. It is, that if I were asked whether I would belong to it, +I should ask first of all, if I was not permitted, as an alternative, to +be a toad in a ditch. That is all. You cannot argue with the choice of +the soul." -"Of the soul," said Barker, knitting his brows, "I cannot -pretend to say anything, but speaking in the interests of -the public--" +"Of the soul," said Barker, knitting his brows, "I cannot pretend to say +anything, but speaking in the interests of the public--" Mr. Auberon Quin rose suddenly to his feet. -"If you'll excuse me, gentlemen," he said, "I will step out -for a moment into the air." +"If you'll excuse me, gentlemen," he said, "I will step out for a moment +into the air." -"I'm so sorry, Auberon," said Lambert, good-naturedly; "do -you feel bad?" +"I'm so sorry, Auberon," said Lambert, good-naturedly; "do you feel +bad?" -"Not bad exactly," said Auberon, with self-restraint; -"rather good, if anything. Strangely and richly good. The -fact is I want to reflect a little on those beautiful words -that have just been uttered. 'Speaking', yes, that was the -phrase, 'speaking in the interests of the public.' One -cannot get the honey from such things without being alone -for a little." +"Not bad exactly," said Auberon, with self-restraint; "rather good, if +anything. Strangely and richly good. The fact is I want to reflect a +little on those beautiful words that have just been uttered. 'Speaking', +yes, that was the phrase, 'speaking in the interests of the public.' One +cannot get the honey from such things without being alone for a little." "Is he really off his chump, do you think?" asked Lambert. -The old President looked after him with queerly vigilant -eyes. +The old President looked after him with queerly vigilant eyes. -"He is a man, I think," he said, "who cares for nothing but -a joke. He is a dangerous man." +"He is a man, I think," he said, "who cares for nothing but a joke. He +is a dangerous man." -Lambert laughed in the act of lifting some macaroni to his -mouth. +Lambert laughed in the act of lifting some macaroni to his mouth. "Dangerous!" he said. "You don't know little Quin, sir!" -"Every man is dangerous," said the old man without moving, -"who cares only for one thing. I was once dangerous myself." +"Every man is dangerous," said the old man without moving, "who cares +only for one thing. I was once dangerous myself." -And with a pleasant smile he finished his coffee and rose, -bowing profoundly, passed out into the fog, which had again -grown dense and sombre. Three days afterwards they heard -that he had died quietly in lodgings in Soho. +And with a pleasant smile he finished his coffee and rose, bowing +profoundly, passed out into the fog, which had again grown dense and +sombre. Three days afterwards they heard that he had died quietly in +lodgings in Soho. -Drowned somewhere else in the dark sea of fog was a little -figure shaking and quaking, with what might at first sight -have seemed terror or ague: but which was really that -strange malady, a lonely laughter. He was repeating over and -over to himself with a rich accent-"But speaking in the -interests of the public..." +Drowned somewhere else in the dark sea of fog was a little figure +shaking and quaking, with what might at first sight have seemed terror +or ague: but which was really that strange malady, a lonely laughter. He +was repeating over and over to himself with a rich accent-"But speaking +in the interests of the public..." ## The Hill of Humour -"In a little square garden of yellow roses, beside the sea," -said Auberon Quin, "there was a Nonconformist minister who -had never been to Wimbledon. His family did not understand -his sorrow or the strange look in his eyes. But one day they -repented their neglect, for they heard that a body had been -found on the shore, battered, but wearing patent leather -boots. As it happened, it turned out not to be the minister -at all. But in the dead man's pocket there was a return -ticket to Maidstone." +"In a little square garden of yellow roses, beside the sea," said +Auberon Quin, "there was a Nonconformist minister who had never been to +Wimbledon. His family did not understand his sorrow or the strange look +in his eyes. But one day they repented their neglect, for they heard +that a body had been found on the shore, battered, but wearing patent +leather boots. As it happened, it turned out not to be the minister at +all. But in the dead man's pocket there was a return ticket to +Maidstone." -There was a short pause as Quin and his friends Barker and -Lambert went swinging on through the slushy grass of -Kensington Gardens. Then Auberon resumed. +There was a short pause as Quin and his friends Barker and Lambert went +swinging on through the slushy grass of Kensington Gardens. Then Auberon +resumed. "That story," he said reverently, "is the test of humour." -They walked on further and faster, wading through higher -grass as they began to climb a slope. +They walked on further and faster, wading through higher grass as they +began to climb a slope. -"I perceive," continued Auberon, "that you have passed the -test, and consider the anecdote excruciatingly funny; since -you say nothing. Only coarse humour is received with -pot-house applause. The great anecdote is received in -silence, like a benediction. You felt pretty benedicted, +"I perceive," continued Auberon, "that you have passed the test, and +consider the anecdote excruciatingly funny; since you say nothing. Only +coarse humour is received with pot-house applause. The great anecdote is +received in silence, like a benediction. You felt pretty benedicted, didn't you, Barker?" "I saw the point," said Barker, somewhat loftily. -"Do you know," said Quin, with a sort of idiot gaiety, "I -have lots of stories as good as that. Listen to this one." +"Do you know," said Quin, with a sort of idiot gaiety, "I have lots of +stories as good as that. Listen to this one." And he slightly cleared his throat. -"Dr. Polycarp was, as you all know, an unusually sallow -bimetallist. 'There,' people of wide experience would say, -'There goes the sallowest bimetallist in Cheshire.' Once -this was said so that he overheard it: it was said by an -actuary, under a sunset of mauve and grey. Polycarp turned -upon him. 'Sallow!' he cried fiercely, 'sallow! *Quis -tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes.*' It was said that -no actuary ever made game of Dr. Polycarp again." +"Dr. Polycarp was, as you all know, an unusually sallow bimetallist. +'There,' people of wide experience would say, 'There goes the sallowest +bimetallist in Cheshire.' Once this was said so that he overheard it: it +was said by an actuary, under a sunset of mauve and grey. Polycarp +turned upon him. 'Sallow!' he cried fiercely, 'sallow! *Quis tulerit +Gracchos de seditione querentes.*' It was said that no actuary ever made +game of Dr. Polycarp again." Barker nodded with a simple sagacity. Lambert only grunted. -"Here is another," continued the insatiable Quin. "In a -hollow of the grey-green hills of rainy Ireland, lived an -old, old woman, whose uncle was always Cambridge at the Boat -Race. But in her grey-green hollows, she knew nothing of -this: she didn't know that there was a Boat Race. Also she -did not know that she had an uncle. She had heard of nobody -at all, except of George the First, of whom she had heard (I -know not why), and in whose historical memory she put her -simple trust. And by and by, in God's good time, it was -discovered that this uncle of hers was not really her uncle, -and they came and told her so. She smiled through her tears, -and said only, 'Virtue is its own reward.'" +"Here is another," continued the insatiable Quin. "In a hollow of the +grey-green hills of rainy Ireland, lived an old, old woman, whose uncle +was always Cambridge at the Boat Race. But in her grey-green hollows, +she knew nothing of this: she didn't know that there was a Boat Race. +Also she did not know that she had an uncle. She had heard of nobody at +all, except of George the First, of whom she had heard (I know not why), +and in whose historical memory she put her simple trust. And by and by, +in God's good time, it was discovered that this uncle of hers was not +really her uncle, and they came and told her so. She smiled through her +tears, and said only, 'Virtue is its own reward.'" Again there was a silence, and then Lambert said "It seems a bit mysterious." -"Mysterious!" cried the other. "The true humour is -mysterious. Do you not realise the chief incident of the -nineteenth and twentieth centuries?" +"Mysterious!" cried the other. "The true humour is mysterious. Do you +not realise the chief incident of the nineteenth and twentieth +centuries?" "And what's that?" asked Lambert, shortly. -"It is very simple," replied the other. "Hitherto it was the -ruin of a joke that people did not see it. Now it is the -sublime victory of a joke that people do not see it. Humour, -my friends, is the one sanctity remaining to mankind. It is -the one thing you are thoroughly afraid of. Look at that -tree." - -His interlocutors looked vaguely towards a beech that leant -out towards them from the ridge of the hill. - -"If," said Mr. Quin, "I were to say that you did not see the -great truths of science exhibited by that tree, though they -stared any man of intellect in the face, what would you -think or say? You would merely regard me as a pedant with -some unimportant theory about vegetable cells. If I were to -say that you did not see in that tree the vile mismanagement -of local politics, you would dismiss me as a Socialist crank -with some particular fad about public parks. If I were to -say that you were guilty of the supreme blasphemy of looking -at that tree and not seeing in it a new religion, a special -revelation of God, you would simply say I was a mystic, and -think no more about me. But if"--and he lifted a pontifical -hand--"if I say that you cannot see the humour of that tree, -and that I see the humour of it---my God! you will roll -about at my feet." +"It is very simple," replied the other. "Hitherto it was the ruin of a +joke that people did not see it. Now it is the sublime victory of a joke +that people do not see it. Humour, my friends, is the one sanctity +remaining to mankind. It is the one thing you are thoroughly afraid of. +Look at that tree." + +His interlocutors looked vaguely towards a beech that leant out towards +them from the ridge of the hill. + +"If," said Mr. Quin, "I were to say that you did not see the great +truths of science exhibited by that tree, though they stared any man of +intellect in the face, what would you think or say? You would merely +regard me as a pedant with some unimportant theory about vegetable +cells. If I were to say that you did not see in that tree the vile +mismanagement of local politics, you would dismiss me as a Socialist +crank with some particular fad about public parks. If I were to say that +you were guilty of the supreme blasphemy of looking at that tree and not +seeing in it a new religion, a special revelation of God, you would +simply say I was a mystic, and think no more about me. But if"--and he +lifted a pontifical hand--"if I say that you cannot see the humour of +that tree, and that I see the humour of it---my God! you will roll about +at my feet." He paused a moment, and then resumed. -"Yes; a sense of humour, a weird and delicate sense of -humour, is the new religion of mankind! It is towards that -men will strain themselves with the asceticism of saints. -Exercises, spiritual exercises, will be set in it. It will -be asked, 'Can you see the humour of this iron railing?' or -'Can you see the humour of this field of corn? Can you see -the humour of the stars? Can you see the humour of the -sunsets?' How often I have laughed myself to sleep over a -violet sunset." +"Yes; a sense of humour, a weird and delicate sense of humour, is the +new religion of mankind! It is towards that men will strain themselves +with the asceticism of saints. Exercises, spiritual exercises, will be +set in it. It will be asked, 'Can you see the humour of this iron +railing?' or 'Can you see the humour of this field of corn? Can you see +the humour of the stars? Can you see the humour of the sunsets?' How +often I have laughed myself to sleep over a violet sunset." -"Quite so," said Mr. Barker, with an intelligent -embarrassment. +"Quite so," said Mr. Barker, with an intelligent embarrassment. -"Let me tell you another story. How often it happens that -the M.P.'s for Essex are less punctual than one would -suppose. The least punctual Essex M.P., perhaps, was James -Wilson, who said, in the very act of plucking a poppy--" +"Let me tell you another story. How often it happens that the M.P.'s for +Essex are less punctual than one would suppose. The least punctual Essex +M.P., perhaps, was James Wilson, who said, in the very act of plucking a +poppy--" -Lambert suddenly faced round and struck his stick into the -ground in a defiant attitude. +Lambert suddenly faced round and struck his stick into the ground in a +defiant attitude. -"Auberon," he said, "chuck it. I won't stand it. It's all -bosh." +"Auberon," he said, "chuck it. I won't stand it. It's all bosh." -Both men stared at him, for there was something very -explosive about the words, as if they had been corked up -painfully for a long time. +Both men stared at him, for there was something very explosive about the +words, as if they had been corked up painfully for a long time. "You have," began Quin, "no--" -"I don't care a curse," said Lambert, violently, "whether I -have 'a delicate sense of humour' or not. I won't stand it. -It's all a confounded fraud. There's no joke in those -infernal tales at all. You know there isn't as well as I -do." - -"Well," replied Quin, slowly, "it is true that I, with my -rather gradual mental processes, did not see any joke in -them. But the finer sense of Barker perceived it." - -Barker turned a fierce red, but continued to stare at the -horizon. - -"You ass," said Lambert; "why can't you be like other -people? Why can't you say something really funny, or hold -your tongue? The man who sits on his hat in a pantomime is a -long sight funnier than you are." - -Quin regarded him steadily. They had reached the top of the -ridge and the wind struck their faces. - -"Lambert," said Auberon, "you are a great and good man, -though I'm hanged if you look it. You are more. You are a -great revolutionist or deliverer of the world, and I look -forward to seeing you carved in marble between Luther and -Danton, if possible in your present attitude, the hat -slightly on one side. I said as I came up the hill that the -new humour was the last of the religions. You have made it -the last of the superstitions. But let me give you a very -serious warning. Be careful how you ask me to do anything -*outré*, to imitate the man in the pantomime, and to sit on -my hat. Because I am a man whose soul has been emptied of -all pleasures but folly. And for twopence I'd do it." - -"Do it then," said Lambert, swinging his stick impatiently. -"It would be funnier than the bosh you and Barker talk." - -Quin, standing on the top of the hill, stretched his hand -out towards the main avenue of Kensington Gardens. +"I don't care a curse," said Lambert, violently, "whether I have 'a +delicate sense of humour' or not. I won't stand it. It's all a +confounded fraud. There's no joke in those infernal tales at all. You +know there isn't as well as I do." + +"Well," replied Quin, slowly, "it is true that I, with my rather gradual +mental processes, did not see any joke in them. But the finer sense of +Barker perceived it." + +Barker turned a fierce red, but continued to stare at the horizon. + +"You ass," said Lambert; "why can't you be like other people? Why can't +you say something really funny, or hold your tongue? The man who sits on +his hat in a pantomime is a long sight funnier than you are." + +Quin regarded him steadily. They had reached the top of the ridge and +the wind struck their faces. + +"Lambert," said Auberon, "you are a great and good man, though I'm +hanged if you look it. You are more. You are a great revolutionist or +deliverer of the world, and I look forward to seeing you carved in +marble between Luther and Danton, if possible in your present attitude, +the hat slightly on one side. I said as I came up the hill that the new +humour was the last of the religions. You have made it the last of the +superstitions. But let me give you a very serious warning. Be careful +how you ask me to do anything *outré*, to imitate the man in the +pantomime, and to sit on my hat. Because I am a man whose soul has been +emptied of all pleasures but folly. And for twopence I'd do it." + +"Do it then," said Lambert, swinging his stick impatiently. "It would be +funnier than the bosh you and Barker talk." + +Quin, standing on the top of the hill, stretched his hand out towards +the main avenue of Kensington Gardens. "Two hundred yards away," he said, "are all your fashionable -acquaintances with nothing on earth to do but to stare at -each other and at us. We are standing upon an elevation -under the open sky, a peak as it were of fantasy, a Sinai of -humour. We are in a great pulpit or platform, lit up with -sunlight, and half London can see us. Be careful how you -suggest things to me. For there is in me a madness which -goes beyond martyrdom, the madness of an utterly idle man." - -"I don't know what you are talking about," said Lambert, -contemptuously. "I only know I'd rather you stood on your -silly head, than talked so much." - -"Auberon! for goodness' sake..." cried Barker, springing -forward; but he was too late. Faces from all the benches and -avenues were turned in their direction. Groups stopped and -small crowds collected; and the sharp sunlight picked out -the whole scene in blue, green and black, like a picture in -a child's toy-book. And on the top of the small hill Mr. -Auberon Quin stood with considerable athletic neatness upon -his head, and waved his patent-leather boots in the air. - -"For God's sake, Quin, get up, and don't be an idiot," cried -Barker, wringing his hands; "we shall have the whole town -here." - -"Yes, get up, get up, man," said Lambert, amused and -annoyed. "I was only fooling; get up." - -Auberon did so with a bound, and flinging his hat higher -than the trees, proceeded to hop about on one leg with a -serious expression. Barker stamped wildly. - -"Oh, let's get home, Barker, and leave him," said Lambert; -"some of your proper and correct police will look after him. -Here they come!" - -Two grave-looking men in quiet uniforms came up the hill -towards them. One held a paper in his hand. - -"There he is, officer," said Lambert, cheerfully; "we ain't -responsible for him." - -The officer looked at the capering Mr. Quin with a quiet -eye. - -"We have not come, gentlemen," he said, "about what I think -you are alluding to. We have come from head-quarters to -announce the selection of His Majesty the King. It is the -rule, inherited from the old *régime*, that the news should -be brought to the new Sovereign immediately, wherever he is; -so we have followed you across Kensington Gardens." - -Barker's eyes were blazing in his pale face. He was consumed -with ambition throughout his life. With a certain dull -magnanimity of the intellect he had really believed in the -chance method of selecting despots. But this sudden -suggestion, that the selection might have fallen upon him, -unnerved him with pleasure. - -"Which of us," he began, and the respectful official -interrupted him. - -"Not you, sir, I am sorry to say. If I may be permitted to -say so, we know your services to the Government, and should -be very thankful if it were. The choice has fallen..." - -"God bless my soul!" said Lambert, jumping back two paces. -"Not me. Don't say I'm autocrat of all the Russias." - -"No, sir," said the officer, with a slight cough and a -glance towards Auberon, who was at that moment putting his -head between his legs and making a noise like a cow; "the -gentleman whom we have to congratulate seems at the -moment---er---er---occupied." - -"Not Quin!" shrieked Barker, rushing up to him; "it can't -be. Auberon, for God's sake pull yourself together. You've -been made King!" - -With his head still upside down between his legs, Mr. Quin -answered modestly-- - -"I am not worthy. I cannot reasonably claim to equal the -great men who have previously swayed the sceptre of Britain. -Perhaps the only peculiarity that I can claim is that I am -probably the first monarch that ever spoke out his soul to -the people of England with his head and body in this -position. This may in some sense give me, to quote a poem +acquaintances with nothing on earth to do but to stare at each other and +at us. We are standing upon an elevation under the open sky, a peak as +it were of fantasy, a Sinai of humour. We are in a great pulpit or +platform, lit up with sunlight, and half London can see us. Be careful +how you suggest things to me. For there is in me a madness which goes +beyond martyrdom, the madness of an utterly idle man." + +"I don't know what you are talking about," said Lambert, contemptuously. +"I only know I'd rather you stood on your silly head, than talked so +much." + +"Auberon! for goodness' sake..." cried Barker, springing forward; but he +was too late. Faces from all the benches and avenues were turned in +their direction. Groups stopped and small crowds collected; and the +sharp sunlight picked out the whole scene in blue, green and black, like +a picture in a child's toy-book. And on the top of the small hill Mr. +Auberon Quin stood with considerable athletic neatness upon his head, +and waved his patent-leather boots in the air. + +"For God's sake, Quin, get up, and don't be an idiot," cried Barker, +wringing his hands; "we shall have the whole town here." + +"Yes, get up, get up, man," said Lambert, amused and annoyed. "I was +only fooling; get up." + +Auberon did so with a bound, and flinging his hat higher than the trees, +proceeded to hop about on one leg with a serious expression. Barker +stamped wildly. + +"Oh, let's get home, Barker, and leave him," said Lambert; "some of your +proper and correct police will look after him. Here they come!" + +Two grave-looking men in quiet uniforms came up the hill towards them. +One held a paper in his hand. + +"There he is, officer," said Lambert, cheerfully; "we ain't responsible +for him." + +The officer looked at the capering Mr. Quin with a quiet eye. + +"We have not come, gentlemen," he said, "about what I think you are +alluding to. We have come from head-quarters to announce the selection +of His Majesty the King. It is the rule, inherited from the old +*régime*, that the news should be brought to the new Sovereign +immediately, wherever he is; so we have followed you across Kensington +Gardens." + +Barker's eyes were blazing in his pale face. He was consumed with +ambition throughout his life. With a certain dull magnanimity of the +intellect he had really believed in the chance method of selecting +despots. But this sudden suggestion, that the selection might have +fallen upon him, unnerved him with pleasure. + +"Which of us," he began, and the respectful official interrupted him. + +"Not you, sir, I am sorry to say. If I may be permitted to say so, we +know your services to the Government, and should be very thankful if it +were. The choice has fallen..." + +"God bless my soul!" said Lambert, jumping back two paces. "Not me. +Don't say I'm autocrat of all the Russias." + +"No, sir," said the officer, with a slight cough and a glance towards +Auberon, who was at that moment putting his head between his legs and +making a noise like a cow; "the gentleman whom we have to congratulate +seems at the moment---er---er---occupied." + +"Not Quin!" shrieked Barker, rushing up to him; "it can't be. Auberon, +for God's sake pull yourself together. You've been made King!" + +With his head still upside down between his legs, Mr. Quin answered +modestly-- + +"I am not worthy. I cannot reasonably claim to equal the great men who +have previously swayed the sceptre of Britain. Perhaps the only +peculiarity that I can claim is that I am probably the first monarch +that ever spoke out his soul to the people of England with his head and +body in this position. This may in some sense give me, to quote a poem that I wrote in my youth-- >   A nobler office on the earth @@ -1164,1271 +1019,1107 @@ The intellect clarified by this posture--" Lambert and Barker made a kind of rush at him. -"Don't you understand?" cried Lambert. "It's not a joke. -They've really made you King. By gosh! they must have rum -taste." - -"The great Bishops of the Middle Ages," said Quin, kicking -his legs in the air, as he was dragged up more or less -upside down, "were in the habit of refusing the honour of -election three times and then accepting it. A mere matter of -detail separates me from those great men. I will accept the -post three times and refuse it afterwards. Oh! I will toil -for you, my faithful people ! You shall have a banquet of -humour." - -By this time he had been landed the right way up, and the -two men were still trying in vain to impress him with the -gravity of the situation. - -"Did you not tell me, Wilfrid Lambert," he said, "that I -should be of more public value if I adopted a more popular -form of humour? And when should a popular form of humour be -more firmly riveted upon me than now, when I have become the -darling of a whole people? Officer," he continued, -addressing the startled messenger, "are there no ceremonies +"Don't you understand?" cried Lambert. "It's not a joke. They've really +made you King. By gosh! they must have rum taste." + +"The great Bishops of the Middle Ages," said Quin, kicking his legs in +the air, as he was dragged up more or less upside down, "were in the +habit of refusing the honour of election three times and then accepting +it. A mere matter of detail separates me from those great men. I will +accept the post three times and refuse it afterwards. Oh! I will toil +for you, my faithful people ! You shall have a banquet of humour." + +By this time he had been landed the right way up, and the two men were +still trying in vain to impress him with the gravity of the situation. + +"Did you not tell me, Wilfrid Lambert," he said, "that I should be of +more public value if I adopted a more popular form of humour? And when +should a popular form of humour be more firmly riveted upon me than now, +when I have become the darling of a whole people? Officer," he +continued, addressing the startled messenger, "are there no ceremonies to celebrate my entry into the city?" -"Ceremonies," began the official, with embarrassment, "have -been more or less neglected for some little time, and--" +"Ceremonies," began the official, with embarrassment, "have been more or +less neglected for some little time, and--" Auberon Quin began gradually to take off his coat. -"All ceremony," he said, "consists in the reversal of the -obvious. Thus men, when they wish to be priests or judges, -dress up like women. Kindly help me on with this coat." And -he held it out. - -"But, your Majesty," said the officer, after a moment's -bewilderment and manipulation, "you're putting it on with -the tails in front." - -"The reversal of the obvious," said the King, calmly, "is as -near as we can come to ritual with our imperfect apparatus. -Lead on." - -The rest of that afternoon and evening was to Barker and -Lambert a nightmare, which they could not properly realise -or recall. The King, with his coat on the wrong way, went -towards the streets that were awaiting him, and the old -Kensington Palace which was the Royal residence. As he -passed small groups of men, the groups turned into crowds, -and gave forth sounds which seemed strange in welcoming an -autocrat. Barker walked behind, his brain reeling, and, as -the crowds grew thicker and thicker, the sounds became more -and more unusual. And when he had reached the great -market-place opposite the church, Barker knew that he had -reached it, though he was roods behind, because a cry went -up such as had never before greeted any of the kings of the -earth. +"All ceremony," he said, "consists in the reversal of the obvious. Thus +men, when they wish to be priests or judges, dress up like women. Kindly +help me on with this coat." And he held it out. + +"But, your Majesty," said the officer, after a moment's bewilderment and +manipulation, "you're putting it on with the tails in front." + +"The reversal of the obvious," said the King, calmly, "is as near as we +can come to ritual with our imperfect apparatus. Lead on." + +The rest of that afternoon and evening was to Barker and Lambert a +nightmare, which they could not properly realise or recall. The King, +with his coat on the wrong way, went towards the streets that were +awaiting him, and the old Kensington Palace which was the Royal +residence. As he passed small groups of men, the groups turned into +crowds, and gave forth sounds which seemed strange in welcoming an +autocrat. Barker walked behind, his brain reeling, and, as the crowds +grew thicker and thicker, the sounds became more and more unusual. And +when he had reached the great market-place opposite the church, Barker +knew that he had reached it, though he was roods behind, because a cry +went up such as had never before greeted any of the kings of the earth. # Book 2 ## The Charter of the Cities -Lambert was standing bewildered outside the door of the -King's apartments amid the scurry of astonishment and -ridicule. He was just passing out into the street, in a -dazed manner, when James Barker dashed by him. +Lambert was standing bewildered outside the door of the King's +apartments amid the scurry of astonishment and ridicule. He was just +passing out into the street, in a dazed manner, when James Barker dashed +by him. "Where are you going?" he asked. -"To stop all this foolery, of course," replied Barker; and -he disappeared into the room. +"To stop all this foolery, of course," replied Barker; and he +disappeared into the room. -He entered it headlong, slamming the door, and slapping his -incomparable silk hat on the table. His mouth opened, but -before he could speak, the King said-- +He entered it headlong, slamming the door, and slapping his incomparable +silk hat on the table. His mouth opened, but before he could speak, the +King said-- "Your hat, if you please." -Fidgeting with his fingers, and scarcely knowing what he was -doing, the young politician held it out. +Fidgeting with his fingers, and scarcely knowing what he was doing, the +young politician held it out. The King placed it on his own chair, and sat on it. -"A quaint old custom," he explained, smiling above the -ruins. "When the King receives the representatives of the -House of Barker, the hat of the latter is immediately -destroyed in this manner. It represents the absolute -finality of the act of homage expressed in the removal of -it. It declares that never until that hat shall once more -appear upon your head (a contingency which I firmly believe -to be remote) shall the House of Barker rebel against the -Crown of England." +"A quaint old custom," he explained, smiling above the ruins. "When the +King receives the representatives of the House of Barker, the hat of the +latter is immediately destroyed in this manner. It represents the +absolute finality of the act of homage expressed in the removal of it. +It declares that never until that hat shall once more appear upon your +head (a contingency which I firmly believe to be remote) shall the House +of Barker rebel against the Crown of England." Barker stood with clenched fist, and shaking -"Your jokes," he began, "and my property--" and then -exploded with an oath, and stopped again. +"Your jokes," he began, "and my property--" and then exploded with an +oath, and stopped again. "Continue, continue," said the King, waving his hands. -"What does it all mean?" cried the other, with a gesture of -passionate rationality. "Are you mad?" - -"Not in the least," replied the King, pleasantly. "Madmen -are always serious; they go mad from lack of humour. You are -looking serious yourself, James." - -"Why can't you keep it to your own private life?" -expostulated the other. "You've got plenty of money, and -plenty of houses now to play the fool in, but in the -interests of the public--" - -"Epigrammatic," said the King, shaking his finger sadly at -him. "None of your daring scintillations here. As to why I -don't do it in private, I rather fail to understand your -question. The answer is of comparative limpidity. I don't do -it in private, because it is funnier to do it in public. You -appear to think that it would be amusing to be dignified in -the banquet hall and in the street, and at my own fireside -(I could procure a fireside) to keep the company in a roar. -But that is what every one does. Every one is grave in -public, and funny in private. My sense of humour suggests -the reversal of this; it suggests that one should be funny -in public, and solemn in private. I desire to make the State -functions, parliaments, coronations, and so on, one roaring -old-fashioned pantomime. But, on the other hand, I shut -myself up alone in a small store-room for two hours a day, -where I am so dignified that I come out quite ill." - -By this time Barker was walking up and down the room, his -frock coat flapping like the black wings of a bird. - -"Well, you will ruin the country, that's all," he said -shortly. - -"It seems to me," said Auberon, "that the tradition of ten -centuries is being broken, and the House of Barker is -rebelling against the Crown of England. It would be with -regret (for I admire your appearance) that I should be -obliged forcibly to decorate your head with the remains of +"What does it all mean?" cried the other, with a gesture of passionate +rationality. "Are you mad?" + +"Not in the least," replied the King, pleasantly. "Madmen are always +serious; they go mad from lack of humour. You are looking serious +yourself, James." + +"Why can't you keep it to your own private life?" expostulated the +other. "You've got plenty of money, and plenty of houses now to play the +fool in, but in the interests of the public--" + +"Epigrammatic," said the King, shaking his finger sadly at him. "None of +your daring scintillations here. As to why I don't do it in private, I +rather fail to understand your question. The answer is of comparative +limpidity. I don't do it in private, because it is funnier to do it in +public. You appear to think that it would be amusing to be dignified in +the banquet hall and in the street, and at my own fireside (I could +procure a fireside) to keep the company in a roar. But that is what +every one does. Every one is grave in public, and funny in private. My +sense of humour suggests the reversal of this; it suggests that one +should be funny in public, and solemn in private. I desire to make the +State functions, parliaments, coronations, and so on, one roaring +old-fashioned pantomime. But, on the other hand, I shut myself up alone +in a small store-room for two hours a day, where I am so dignified that +I come out quite ill." + +By this time Barker was walking up and down the room, his frock coat +flapping like the black wings of a bird. + +"Well, you will ruin the country, that's all," he said shortly. + +"It seems to me," said Auberon, "that the tradition of ten centuries is +being broken, and the House of Barker is rebelling against the Crown of +England. It would be with regret (for I admire your appearance) that I +should be obliged forcibly to decorate your head with the remains of this hat, but--" -"What I can't understand," said Barker, flinging up his -fingers with a feverish American movement, "is why you don't -care about anything else but your games." +"What I can't understand," said Barker, flinging up his fingers with a +feverish American movement, "is why you don't care about anything else +but your games." -The King stopped sharply in the act of lifting the silken -remnants, dropped them, and walked up to Barker, looking at -him steadily. +The King stopped sharply in the act of lifting the silken remnants, +dropped them, and walked up to Barker, looking at him steadily. -"I made a kind of vow," he said, "that I would not talk -seriously, which always means answering silly questions. But -the strong man will always be gentle with politicians. +"I made a kind of vow," he said, "that I would not talk seriously, which +always means answering silly questions. But the strong man will always +be gentle with politicians. >   'The shape my scornful looks deride > > Required a God to form;' -if I may so theologically express myself. And for some -reason I cannot in the least understand, I feel impelled to -answer that question of yours, and to answer it as if there -were really such a thing in the world as a serious subject. -You ask me why I don't care for anything else. Can you tell -me, in the name of all the gods you don't believe in, why I -should care for anything else?" - -"Don't you realise common public necessities?" cried Barker. -"Is it possible that a man of your intelligence does not -know that it is every one's interest--" - -"Don't you believe in Zoroaster? Is it possible that you -neglect Mumbo-Jumbo?" returned the King, with startling -animation. "Does a man of your intelligence come to me with -these damned early Victorian ethics? If, on studying my -features and manner, you detect any particular resemblance -to the Prince Consort, I assure you you are mistaken. Did -Herbert Spencer ever convince you---did he ever convince -anybody---Did he ever for one mad moment convince -himself---that it must be to the interest of the individual -to feel a public spirit? Do you believe that, if you rule -your department badly, you stand any more chance, or one -half of the chance, of being guillotined, that an angler -stands, of being pulled into the river by a strong pike? -Herbert Spencer refrained from theft for the same reason -that he refrained from wearing feathers in his hair, because -he was an English gentleman with different tastes. I am an -English gentleman with different tastes. He liked -philosophy. I like art. He liked writing ten books on the -nature of human society. I like to see the Lord Chamberlain -walking in front of me with a piece of paper pinned to his -coat-tails. It is my humour. Are you answered? At any rate, -I have said my last serious word to-day, and my last serious -word I trust for the remainder of my life in this Paradise -of Fools. The remainder of my conversation with you to-day, -which I trust will be long and stimulating, I propose to -conduct in a new language of my own by means of rapid and -symbolic movements of the left leg." And he began to -pirouette slowly round the room with a preoccupied +if I may so theologically express myself. And for some reason I cannot +in the least understand, I feel impelled to answer that question of +yours, and to answer it as if there were really such a thing in the +world as a serious subject. You ask me why I don't care for anything +else. Can you tell me, in the name of all the gods you don't believe in, +why I should care for anything else?" + +"Don't you realise common public necessities?" cried Barker. "Is it +possible that a man of your intelligence does not know that it is every +one's interest--" + +"Don't you believe in Zoroaster? Is it possible that you neglect +Mumbo-Jumbo?" returned the King, with startling animation. "Does a man +of your intelligence come to me with these damned early Victorian +ethics? If, on studying my features and manner, you detect any +particular resemblance to the Prince Consort, I assure you you are +mistaken. Did Herbert Spencer ever convince you---did he ever convince +anybody---Did he ever for one mad moment convince himself---that it must +be to the interest of the individual to feel a public spirit? Do you +believe that, if you rule your department badly, you stand any more +chance, or one half of the chance, of being guillotined, that an angler +stands, of being pulled into the river by a strong pike? Herbert Spencer +refrained from theft for the same reason that he refrained from wearing +feathers in his hair, because he was an English gentleman with different +tastes. I am an English gentleman with different tastes. He liked +philosophy. I like art. He liked writing ten books on the nature of +human society. I like to see the Lord Chamberlain walking in front of me +with a piece of paper pinned to his coat-tails. It is my humour. Are you +answered? At any rate, I have said my last serious word to-day, and my +last serious word I trust for the remainder of my life in this Paradise +of Fools. The remainder of my conversation with you to-day, which I +trust will be long and stimulating, I propose to conduct in a new +language of my own by means of rapid and symbolic movements of the left +leg." And he began to pirouette slowly round the room with a preoccupied expression. -Barker ran round the room after him, bombarding him with -demands and entreaties. But he received no response except -in the new language. He came out banging the door again, and -sick like a man coming on shore. As he strode along the -streets he found himself suddenly opposite Cicconani's -restaurant, and for some reason there rose up before him the -green fantastic figure of the Spanish General, standing, as -he had seen him last, at the door with the words on his -lips, "You cannot argue with the choice of the soul." +Barker ran round the room after him, bombarding him with demands and +entreaties. But he received no response except in the new language. He +came out banging the door again, and sick like a man coming on shore. As +he strode along the streets he found himself suddenly opposite +Cicconani's restaurant, and for some reason there rose up before him the +green fantastic figure of the Spanish General, standing, as he had seen +him last, at the door with the words on his lips, "You cannot argue with +the choice of the soul." -The King came out from his dancing with the air of a man of -business legitimately tired. He put on an overcoat, lit a -cigar, and went out into the purple night. +The King came out from his dancing with the air of a man of business +legitimately tired. He put on an overcoat, lit a cigar, and went out +into the purple night. "I will go," he said, "and mingle with the people." -He passed swiftly up a street in the neighbourhood of -Notting Hill, when suddenly he felt a hard object driven -into his waistcoat. He paused, put up a single eye-glass, -and beheld a boy with a wooden sword and a paper cocked hat, -wearing that expression of awed satisfaction with which a -child contemplates his work when he has hit some one very -hard. The King gazed thoughtfully for some time at his -assailant, and slowly took a note-book from his -breast-pocket. - -"I have a few notes," he said, "for my dying speech;" and he -turned over the leaves. "Dying speech for political -assassination; ditto, if by former friend---h'm, h'm. Dying -speech for death at hands of injured husband (repentant). -Dying speech for same (cynical). I am not quite sure which -meets the present..." - -"I'm the King of the Castle," said the boy, truculently, and -very pleased with nothing in particular. - -The King was a kind-hearted man, and very fond of children, -like all people who are fond of the ridiculous. - -"Infant," he said, "I'm glad you are so stalwart a defender -of your old inviolate Netting Hill. Look up nightly to that -peak, my child, where it lifts itself among the stars so -ancient, so lonely, so unutterably Notting. So long as you -are ready to die for the sacred mountain, even if it were -ringed with all the armies of Bays water--" +He passed swiftly up a street in the neighbourhood of Notting Hill, when +suddenly he felt a hard object driven into his waistcoat. He paused, put +up a single eye-glass, and beheld a boy with a wooden sword and a paper +cocked hat, wearing that expression of awed satisfaction with which a +child contemplates his work when he has hit some one very hard. The King +gazed thoughtfully for some time at his assailant, and slowly took a +note-book from his breast-pocket. + +"I have a few notes," he said, "for my dying speech;" and he turned over +the leaves. "Dying speech for political assassination; ditto, if by +former friend---h'm, h'm. Dying speech for death at hands of injured +husband (repentant). Dying speech for same (cynical). I am not quite +sure which meets the present..." + +"I'm the King of the Castle," said the boy, truculently, and very +pleased with nothing in particular. + +The King was a kind-hearted man, and very fond of children, like all +people who are fond of the ridiculous. + +"Infant," he said, "I'm glad you are so stalwart a defender of your old +inviolate Netting Hill. Look up nightly to that peak, my child, where it +lifts itself among the stars so ancient, so lonely, so unutterably +Notting. So long as you are ready to die for the sacred mountain, even +if it were ringed with all the armies of Bays water--" The King stopped suddenly, and his eyes shone. -"Perhaps," he said, "perhaps the noblest of all my -conceptions. A revival of the arrogance of the old mediaeval -cities applied to our glorious suburbs. Clapham with a city -guard. Wimbledon with a city wall. Surbiton tolling a bell -to raise its citizens. West Hampstead going into battle with -its own banner. It shall be done. I, the King, have said -it." And hastily presenting the boy with half-a-crown, -remarking, "For the war-chest of Notting Hill," he ran -violently home at such a rate of speed that crowds followed -him for miles. On reaching his study, he ordered a cup of -coffee, and plunged into profound meditation upon the -project. At length he called his favourite Equerry, Captain -Bowler, for whom he had a deep affection, founded -principally upon the shape of his whiskers. - -"Bowler," he said, "isn't there some society of historical -research, or something of which I am an honorary member?" - -"Yes, sir," said Captain Bowler, rubbing his nose, "you are -a member of T'he Encouragers of Egyptian Renaissance,' and -'The Teutonic Tombs Club,' and 'The Society for the Recovery -of London Antiquities,' and--" - -"That is admirable," said the King. "The London Antiquities -does my trick. Go to the Society for the Recovery of London -Antiquities and speak to their secretary, and their -sub-secretary, and their president, and their -vice-president, saying, 'The King of England is proud, but -the honorary member of the Society for the Recovery of -London Antiquities is prouder than kings. I should like to -tell you of certain discoveries I have made touching the -neglected traditions of the London boroughs. The revelations -may cause some excitement, stirring burning memories and -touching old wounds in Shepherd's Bush and Bayswater, in -Pimlico and South Kensington. The King hesitates, but the -honorary member is firm. I approach you invoking the vows of -my initiation, the Sacred Seven Cats, the Poker of -Perfection, and the Ordeal of the Indescribable Instant -(forgive me if I mix you up with the Clan-na-Gael or some -other club I belong to), and ask you to permit me to read a -paper at your next meeting on the 'Wars of the London -Boroughs.' Say all this to the Society, Bowler. Remember it -very carefully, for it is most important, and I have -forgotten it altogether, and send me another cup of coffee -and some of the cigars that we keep for vulgar and -successful people. I am going to write my paper." - -The Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities met a -month after in a corrugated iron hall on the outskirts of -one of the southern suburbs of London. A large number of -people had collected there under the coarse and flaring -gas-jets when the King arrived, perspiring and genial. On -taking off his great-coat, he was perceived to be in evening -dress, wearing the Garter. His appearance at the small -table, adorned only with a glass of water, was received with -respectful cheering. - -The chairman (Mr. Huggins) said that he was sure that they -had all been pleased to listen to such distinguished -lecturers as they had heard for some time past (hear, hear). -Mr. Burton (hear, hear), Mr. Cambridge, Professor King (loud -and continued cheers), our old friend Peter Jessop, Sir -William White (loud laughter), and other eminent men, had -done honour to their little venture (cheers). But there were -other circumstances which lent a certain unique quality to -the present occasion (hear, hear). So far as his -recollection went, and in connection with the Society for -the Recovery of London Antiquities it went very far (loud -cheers), he did not remember that any of their lecturers had -borne the title of King. He would therefore call upon King +"Perhaps," he said, "perhaps the noblest of all my conceptions. A +revival of the arrogance of the old mediaeval cities applied to our +glorious suburbs. Clapham with a city guard. Wimbledon with a city wall. +Surbiton tolling a bell to raise its citizens. West Hampstead going into +battle with its own banner. It shall be done. I, the King, have said +it." And hastily presenting the boy with half-a-crown, remarking, "For +the war-chest of Notting Hill," he ran violently home at such a rate of +speed that crowds followed him for miles. On reaching his study, he +ordered a cup of coffee, and plunged into profound meditation upon the +project. At length he called his favourite Equerry, Captain Bowler, for +whom he had a deep affection, founded principally upon the shape of his +whiskers. + +"Bowler," he said, "isn't there some society of historical research, or +something of which I am an honorary member?" + +"Yes, sir," said Captain Bowler, rubbing his nose, "you are a member of +T'he Encouragers of Egyptian Renaissance,' and 'The Teutonic Tombs +Club,' and 'The Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities,' and--" + +"That is admirable," said the King. "The London Antiquities does my +trick. Go to the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities and +speak to their secretary, and their sub-secretary, and their president, +and their vice-president, saying, 'The King of England is proud, but the +honorary member of the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities is +prouder than kings. I should like to tell you of certain discoveries I +have made touching the neglected traditions of the London boroughs. The +revelations may cause some excitement, stirring burning memories and +touching old wounds in Shepherd's Bush and Bayswater, in Pimlico and +South Kensington. The King hesitates, but the honorary member is firm. I +approach you invoking the vows of my initiation, the Sacred Seven Cats, +the Poker of Perfection, and the Ordeal of the Indescribable Instant +(forgive me if I mix you up with the Clan-na-Gael or some other club I +belong to), and ask you to permit me to read a paper at your next +meeting on the 'Wars of the London Boroughs.' Say all this to the +Society, Bowler. Remember it very carefully, for it is most important, +and I have forgotten it altogether, and send me another cup of coffee +and some of the cigars that we keep for vulgar and successful people. I +am going to write my paper." + +The Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities met a month after in +a corrugated iron hall on the outskirts of one of the southern suburbs +of London. A large number of people had collected there under the coarse +and flaring gas-jets when the King arrived, perspiring and genial. On +taking off his great-coat, he was perceived to be in evening dress, +wearing the Garter. His appearance at the small table, adorned only with +a glass of water, was received with respectful cheering. + +The chairman (Mr. Huggins) said that he was sure that they had all been +pleased to listen to such distinguished lecturers as they had heard for +some time past (hear, hear). Mr. Burton (hear, hear), Mr. Cambridge, +Professor King (loud and continued cheers), our old friend Peter Jessop, +Sir William White (loud laughter), and other eminent men, had done +honour to their little venture (cheers). But there were other +circumstances which lent a certain unique quality to the present +occasion (hear, hear). So far as his recollection went, and in +connection with the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities it +went very far (loud cheers), he did not remember that any of their +lecturers had borne the title of King. He would therefore call upon King Auberon briefly to address the meeting. -The King began by saying that this speech might be regarded -as the first declaration of his new policy for the nation. -"At this supreme hour of my life I feel that to no one but -the members of the Society for the Recovery of London -Antiquities can I open my heart (cheers). If the world turns -upon my policy, and the storms of popular hostility begin to -rise (no, no), I feel that it is here, with my brave -Recoverers around me, that I can best meet them, sword in -hand" (loud cheers). - -His Majesty then went on to explain that, now old age was -creeping upon him, he proposed to devote his remaining -strength to bringing about a keener sense of local -patriotism in the various municipalities of London. How few -of them knew the legends of their own boroughs! How many -there were who had never heard of the true origin of the -Wink of Wandsworth! What a large proportion of the younger -generation in Chelsea neglected to perform the old Chelsea -Chuff! Pimlico no longer pumped the Pimlies. Battersea had -forgotten the name of Blick. +The King began by saying that this speech might be regarded as the first +declaration of his new policy for the nation. "At this supreme hour of +my life I feel that to no one but the members of the Society for the +Recovery of London Antiquities can I open my heart (cheers). If the +world turns upon my policy, and the storms of popular hostility begin to +rise (no, no), I feel that it is here, with my brave Recoverers around +me, that I can best meet them, sword in hand" (loud cheers). + +His Majesty then went on to explain that, now old age was creeping upon +him, he proposed to devote his remaining strength to bringing about a +keener sense of local patriotism in the various municipalities of +London. How few of them knew the legends of their own boroughs! How many +there were who had never heard of the true origin of the Wink of +Wandsworth! What a large proportion of the younger generation in Chelsea +neglected to perform the old Chelsea Chuff! Pimlico no longer pumped the +Pimlies. Battersea had forgotten the name of Blick. There was a short silence, and then a voice said "Shame." -The King continued: "Being called, however unworthily, to -this high estate, I have resolved that, so far as possible, -this neglect shall cease. I desire no military glory. I lay -claim to no constitutional equality with Justinian or -Alfred. If I can go down to history as the man who saved -from extinction a few old English customs, if our -descendants can say it was through this man, humble as he -was, that the Ten Turnips are still eaten in Fulham, and the -Putney parish councillor still shaves one half of his head, -I shall look my great fathers reverently but not fearfully -in the face when I go down to the last house of Kings." - -The King paused, visibly affected, but collecting himself, -resumed once more. - -"I trust that to very few of you, at least, I need dwell on -the sublime origins of these legends. The very names of your -boroughs bear witness to them. So long as Hammersmith is -called Hammersmith, its people will live in the shadow of -that primal hero, the Blacksmith, who led the democracy of -the Broadway into battle till he drove the chivalry of -Kensington before him and overthrew them at that place which -in honour of the best blood of the defeated aristocracy is -still called Kensington Gore. Men of Hammersmith will not -fail to remember that the very name of Kensington originated -from the lips of their hero. For at the great banquet of -reconciliation held after the war, when the disdainful -oligarchs declined to join in the songs of the men of the -Broadway (which are to this day of a rude and popular -character), the great Republican leader, with his rough -humour, said the words which are written in gold upon his -monument, 'Little birds that can sing and won't sing, must -be made to sing.' So that the Eastern Knights were called -Cansings or Kensings ever afterwards. But you also have -great memories, O men of Kensington! You showed that you -could sing, and sing great war-songs. Even after the dark -day of Kensington Gore, history will not forget those three -Knights who guarded your disordered retreat from Hyde Park -(so called from your hiding there), those three Knights -after whom Knightsbridge is named. Nor will it forget the -day of your re-emergence, purged in the fire of calamity, -cleansed of your oligarchic corruptions, when, sword in -hand, you drove the Empire of Hammersmith back mile by mile, -swept it past its own Broadway, and broke it at last in a -battle so long and bloody that the birds of prey have left -their name upon it. Men have called it, with austere irony, -the Ravenscourt. I shall not, I trust, wound the patriotism -of Bayswater, or the lonelier pride of Brompton, or that of -any other historic township, by taking these two special -examples. I select them, not because they are more glorious -than the rest, but partly from personal association (I am -myself descended from one of the three heroes of -Knightsbridge), and partly from the consciousness that I am -an amateur antiquarian, and cannot presume to deal with -times and places more remote and more mysterious. It is not -for me to settle the question between two such men as -Professor Hugg and Sir William Whisky as to whether Notting -Hill means Nutting Hill (in allusion to the rich woods which -no longer cover it), or whether it is a corruption of -Nothing-ill, referring to its reputation among the ancients -as an Earthly Paradise. When a Podkins and a Jossy confess -themselves doubtful about the boundaries of West Kensington -(said to have been traced in the blood of Oxen), I need not -be ashamed to confess a similar doubt. I will ask you to -excuse me from further history, and to assist me with your -encouragement in dealing with the problem which faces us -to-day. Is this ancient spirit of the London townships to -die out? Are our omnibus conductors and policemen to lose -altogether that light which we see so often in their eyes, -the dreamy light of +The King continued: "Being called, however unworthily, to this high +estate, I have resolved that, so far as possible, this neglect shall +cease. I desire no military glory. I lay claim to no constitutional +equality with Justinian or Alfred. If I can go down to history as the +man who saved from extinction a few old English customs, if our +descendants can say it was through this man, humble as he was, that the +Ten Turnips are still eaten in Fulham, and the Putney parish councillor +still shaves one half of his head, I shall look my great fathers +reverently but not fearfully in the face when I go down to the last +house of Kings." + +The King paused, visibly affected, but collecting himself, resumed once +more. + +"I trust that to very few of you, at least, I need dwell on the sublime +origins of these legends. The very names of your boroughs bear witness +to them. So long as Hammersmith is called Hammersmith, its people will +live in the shadow of that primal hero, the Blacksmith, who led the +democracy of the Broadway into battle till he drove the chivalry of +Kensington before him and overthrew them at that place which in honour +of the best blood of the defeated aristocracy is still called Kensington +Gore. Men of Hammersmith will not fail to remember that the very name of +Kensington originated from the lips of their hero. For at the great +banquet of reconciliation held after the war, when the disdainful +oligarchs declined to join in the songs of the men of the Broadway +(which are to this day of a rude and popular character), the great +Republican leader, with his rough humour, said the words which are +written in gold upon his monument, 'Little birds that can sing and won't +sing, must be made to sing.' So that the Eastern Knights were called +Cansings or Kensings ever afterwards. But you also have great memories, +O men of Kensington! You showed that you could sing, and sing great +war-songs. Even after the dark day of Kensington Gore, history will not +forget those three Knights who guarded your disordered retreat from Hyde +Park (so called from your hiding there), those three Knights after whom +Knightsbridge is named. Nor will it forget the day of your re-emergence, +purged in the fire of calamity, cleansed of your oligarchic corruptions, +when, sword in hand, you drove the Empire of Hammersmith back mile by +mile, swept it past its own Broadway, and broke it at last in a battle +so long and bloody that the birds of prey have left their name upon it. +Men have called it, with austere irony, the Ravenscourt. I shall not, I +trust, wound the patriotism of Bayswater, or the lonelier pride of +Brompton, or that of any other historic township, by taking these two +special examples. I select them, not because they are more glorious than +the rest, but partly from personal association (I am myself descended +from one of the three heroes of Knightsbridge), and partly from the +consciousness that I am an amateur antiquarian, and cannot presume to +deal with times and places more remote and more mysterious. It is not +for me to settle the question between two such men as Professor Hugg and +Sir William Whisky as to whether Notting Hill means Nutting Hill (in +allusion to the rich woods which no longer cover it), or whether it is a +corruption of Nothing-ill, referring to its reputation among the +ancients as an Earthly Paradise. When a Podkins and a Jossy confess +themselves doubtful about the boundaries of West Kensington (said to +have been traced in the blood of Oxen), I need not be ashamed to confess +a similar doubt. I will ask you to excuse me from further history, and +to assist me with your encouragement in dealing with the problem which +faces us to-day. Is this ancient spirit of the London townships to die +out? Are our omnibus conductors and policemen to lose altogether that +light which we see so often in their eyes, the dreamy light of >   'Old unhappy far-off things > > And battles long ago' ---to quote the words of a little-known poet who was a friend -of my youth? I have resolved, as I have said, so far as -possible, to preserve the eyes of policemen and omnibus -conductors in their present dreamy state. For what is a -state without dreams? And the remedy I propose is as -follows:-- - -"To-morrow morning at twenty-five minutes past ten, if -Heaven spares my life, I purpose to issue a Proclamation. It -has been the work of my life, and is about half finished. -With the assistance of a whisky and soda, I shall conclude -the other half to-night, and my people will receive it -to-morrow. All these boroughs where you were born, and hope +--to quote the words of a little-known poet who was a friend of my +youth? I have resolved, as I have said, so far as possible, to preserve +the eyes of policemen and omnibus conductors in their present dreamy +state. For what is a state without dreams? And the remedy I propose is +as follows:-- + +"To-morrow morning at twenty-five minutes past ten, if Heaven spares my +life, I purpose to issue a Proclamation. It has been the work of my +life, and is about half finished. With the assistance of a whisky and +soda, I shall conclude the other half to-night, and my people will +receive it to-morrow. All these boroughs where you were born, and hope to lay your bones, shall be reinstated in their ancient -magnificence,---Hammersmith, Kensington, Bayswater, Chelsea, -Battersea, Clapham, Balham, and a hundred others. Each shall -immediately build a city wall with gates to be closed at -sunset. Each shall have a city guard, armed to the teeth. -Each shall have a banner, a coat-of-arms, and, if -convenient, a gathering cry. I will not enter into the -details now, my heart is too full. They will be found in the -proclamation itself. You will all, however, be subject to -enrolment in the local city guards, to be summoned together -by a thing called the Tocsin, the meaning of which I am -studying in my researches into history. Personally, I -believe a tocsin to be some kind of highly paid official. -If, therefore, any of you happen to have such a thing as a -halberd in the house, I should advise you to practise with -it in the garden." - -Here the King buried his face in his handkerchief and -hurriedly left the platform, overcome by emotions. - -The members of the Society for the Recovery of London -Antiquities rose in an indescribable state of vagueness. -Some were purple with indignation; an intellectual few were -purple with laughter; the great majority found their minds a -blank. There remains a tradition that one pale face with -burning blue eyes remained fixed upon the lecturer, and +magnificence,---Hammersmith, Kensington, Bayswater, Chelsea, Battersea, +Clapham, Balham, and a hundred others. Each shall immediately build a +city wall with gates to be closed at sunset. Each shall have a city +guard, armed to the teeth. Each shall have a banner, a coat-of-arms, +and, if convenient, a gathering cry. I will not enter into the details +now, my heart is too full. They will be found in the proclamation +itself. You will all, however, be subject to enrolment in the local city +guards, to be summoned together by a thing called the Tocsin, the +meaning of which I am studying in my researches into history. +Personally, I believe a tocsin to be some kind of highly paid official. +If, therefore, any of you happen to have such a thing as a halberd in +the house, I should advise you to practise with it in the garden." + +Here the King buried his face in his handkerchief and hurriedly left the +platform, overcome by emotions. + +The members of the Society for the Recovery of London Antiquities rose +in an indescribable state of vagueness. Some were purple with +indignation; an intellectual few were purple with laughter; the great +majority found their minds a blank. There remains a tradition that one +pale face with burning blue eyes remained fixed upon the lecturer, and after the lecture a red-haired boy ran out of the room. ## The Council of the Provosts -The King got up early next morning and came down three steps -at a time like a schoolboy. Having eaten his breakfast -hurriedly, but with an appetite, he summoned one of the -highest officials of the Palace, and presented him with a -shilling. "Go and buy me," he said, "a shilling paint-box, -which you will get, unless the mists of time mislead me, in -a shop at the corner of the second and dirtier street that -leads out of Rochester Row. I have already requested the -Master of the Buckhounds to provide me with cardboard. It -seemed to me (I know not why) that it fell within his -department." - -The King was happy all that morning with his cardboard and -his paint-box. He was engaged in designing the uniforms and -coats-of-arms for the various municipalities of London. They -gave him deep and no inconsiderable thought. He felt the -responsibility. - -"I cannot think," he said, "why people should think the -names of places in the country more poetical than those in -London. Shallow romanticists go away in trains and stop in -places called Hugmy-in-the-Hole, or Bumps-on-the-Puddle. And -all the time they could, if they liked, go and live at a -place with the dim, divine name of St. John's Wood. I have -never been to St. John's Wood. I dare not. I should be -afraid of the innumerable night of fir trees, afraid to come -upon a blood-red cup and the beating of the wings of the -Eagle. But all these things can be imagined by remaining -reverently in the Harrow train." - -And he thoughtfully retouched his design for the head-dress -of the halberdier of St. John's Wood, a design in black and -red, compounded of a pine tree and the plumage of an eagle. -Then he turned to another card. "Let us think of milder -matters/' he said."Lavender Hill! Could any of your glebes -and combes and all the rest of it produce so fragrant an -idea? Think of a mountain of lavender lifting itself in -purple poignancy into the silver skies and filling men's -nostrils with a new breath of life---a purple hill of -incense. It is true that upon my few excursions of discovery -on a halfpenny tram I have failed to hit the precise spot. -But it must be there; some poet called it by its name. There -is at least warrant enough for the solemn purple plumes -(following the botanical formation of lavender) which I have -required people to wear in the neighbourhood of Clapham -Junction. It is so everywhere, after all. I have never been -actually to South-fields, but I suppose a scheme of lemons -and olives represent their austral instincts. I have never -visited Parson's Green, or seen either the Green or the -Parson, but surely the pale-green shovel-hats I have -designed must be more or less in the spirit. I must work in -the dark and let my instincts guide me. The great love I -bear to my people will certainly save me from distressing -their noble spirit or violating their great traditions." - -As he was reflecting in this vein, the door was flung open, -and an official announced Mr. Barker and Mr. Lambert. - -Mr. Barker and Mr. Lambert were not particularly surprised -to find the King sitting on the floor amid a litter of -water-colour sketches. They were not particularly surprised -because the last time they had called on him they had found -him sitting on the floor, surrounded by a litter of -children's bricks, and the time before surrounded by a -litter of wholly unsuccessful attempts to make paper darts. -But the trend of the royal infant's remarks, uttered from -amid this infantile chaos, was not quite the same affair. -For some time they let him babble on, conscious that his -remarks meant nothing. And then a horrible thought began to -steal over the mind of James Barker. He began to think that -the King's remarks did not mean nothing. - -"In God's name, Auberon," he suddenly volleyed out, -startling the quiet hall, "you don't mean that you are -really going to have these city guards and city walls and -things?" - -"I am, indeed," said the infant, in a quiet voice. "Why -shouldn't I have them? I have modelled them precisely on -your political principles. Do you know what I've done, -Barker? I've behaved like a true Barkerian. I've... but -perhaps it won't interest you, the account of my Barkerian +The King got up early next morning and came down three steps at a time +like a schoolboy. Having eaten his breakfast hurriedly, but with an +appetite, he summoned one of the highest officials of the Palace, and +presented him with a shilling. "Go and buy me," he said, "a shilling +paint-box, which you will get, unless the mists of time mislead me, in a +shop at the corner of the second and dirtier street that leads out of +Rochester Row. I have already requested the Master of the Buckhounds to +provide me with cardboard. It seemed to me (I know not why) that it fell +within his department." + +The King was happy all that morning with his cardboard and his +paint-box. He was engaged in designing the uniforms and coats-of-arms +for the various municipalities of London. They gave him deep and no +inconsiderable thought. He felt the responsibility. + +"I cannot think," he said, "why people should think the names of places +in the country more poetical than those in London. Shallow romanticists +go away in trains and stop in places called Hugmy-in-the-Hole, or +Bumps-on-the-Puddle. And all the time they could, if they liked, go and +live at a place with the dim, divine name of St. John's Wood. I have +never been to St. John's Wood. I dare not. I should be afraid of the +innumerable night of fir trees, afraid to come upon a blood-red cup and +the beating of the wings of the Eagle. But all these things can be +imagined by remaining reverently in the Harrow train." + +And he thoughtfully retouched his design for the head-dress of the +halberdier of St. John's Wood, a design in black and red, compounded of +a pine tree and the plumage of an eagle. Then he turned to another card. +"Let us think of milder matters/' he said."Lavender Hill! Could any of +your glebes and combes and all the rest of it produce so fragrant an +idea? Think of a mountain of lavender lifting itself in purple poignancy +into the silver skies and filling men's nostrils with a new breath of +life---a purple hill of incense. It is true that upon my few excursions +of discovery on a halfpenny tram I have failed to hit the precise spot. +But it must be there; some poet called it by its name. There is at least +warrant enough for the solemn purple plumes (following the botanical +formation of lavender) which I have required people to wear in the +neighbourhood of Clapham Junction. It is so everywhere, after all. I +have never been actually to South-fields, but I suppose a scheme of +lemons and olives represent their austral instincts. I have never +visited Parson's Green, or seen either the Green or the Parson, but +surely the pale-green shovel-hats I have designed must be more or less +in the spirit. I must work in the dark and let my instincts guide me. +The great love I bear to my people will certainly save me from +distressing their noble spirit or violating their great traditions." + +As he was reflecting in this vein, the door was flung open, and an +official announced Mr. Barker and Mr. Lambert. + +Mr. Barker and Mr. Lambert were not particularly surprised to find the +King sitting on the floor amid a litter of water-colour sketches. They +were not particularly surprised because the last time they had called on +him they had found him sitting on the floor, surrounded by a litter of +children's bricks, and the time before surrounded by a litter of wholly +unsuccessful attempts to make paper darts. But the trend of the royal +infant's remarks, uttered from amid this infantile chaos, was not quite +the same affair. For some time they let him babble on, conscious that +his remarks meant nothing. And then a horrible thought began to steal +over the mind of James Barker. He began to think that the King's remarks +did not mean nothing. + +"In God's name, Auberon," he suddenly volleyed out, startling the quiet +hall, "you don't mean that you are really going to have these city +guards and city walls and things?" + +"I am, indeed," said the infant, in a quiet voice. "Why shouldn't I have +them? I have modelled them precisely on your political principles. Do +you know what I've done, Barker? I've behaved like a true Barkerian. +I've... but perhaps it won't interest you, the account of my Barkerian conduct." "Oh, go on, go on," cried Barker. -"The account of my Barkerian conduct," said Auberon, calmly, -"seems not only to interest, but to alarm you. Yet it is -very simple. It merely consists in choosing all the provosts -under any new scheme by the same principle by which you have -caused the central despot to be appointed. Each provost, of -each city, under my charter, is to be appointed by rotation. -Sleep, therefore, my Barker, a rosy sleep." +"The account of my Barkerian conduct," said Auberon, calmly, "seems not +only to interest, but to alarm you. Yet it is very simple. It merely +consists in choosing all the provosts under any new scheme by the same +principle by which you have caused the central despot to be appointed. +Each provost, of each city, under my charter, is to be appointed by +rotation. Sleep, therefore, my Barker, a rosy sleep." Barker's wild eyes flared. -"But, in God's name, don't you see, Quin, that the thing is -quite different? In the centre it doesn't matter so much, -just because the whole object of despotism is to get some -sort of unity. But if any damned parish can go to any damned -man--" - -"I see your difficulty," said King Auberon, calmly. "You -feel that your talents may be neglected. Listen!" And he -rose with immense magnificence. "I solemnly give to my liege -subject, James Barker, my special and splendid favour, the -right to override the obvious text of the Charter of the -Cities, and to be, in his own right, Lord High Provost of -South Kensington. And now, my dear James, you are all right. +"But, in God's name, don't you see, Quin, that the thing is quite +different? In the centre it doesn't matter so much, just because the +whole object of despotism is to get some sort of unity. But if any +damned parish can go to any damned man--" + +"I see your difficulty," said King Auberon, calmly. "You feel that your +talents may be neglected. Listen!" And he rose with immense +magnificence. "I solemnly give to my liege subject, James Barker, my +special and splendid favour, the right to override the obvious text of +the Charter of the Cities, and to be, in his own right, Lord High +Provost of South Kensington. And now, my dear James, you are all right. Good day." "But--" began Barker. -"The audience is at an end, Provost," said the King, -smiling. - -How far his confidence was justified, it would require a -somewhat complicated description to explain. "The Great -Proclamation of the Charter of the Free Cities" appeared in -due course that morning, and was posted by bill-stickers all -over the front of the Palace, the King assisting them with -animated directions, and standing in the middle of the road, -with his head on one side, contemplating the result. It was -also carried up and down the main thoroughfares by -sandwich-men, and the King was, with difficulty, restrained -from going out in that capacity himself, being, in fact, -found by the Groom of the Stole and Captain Bowler, -struggling between two boards. His excitement had positively -to be quieted like that of a child. - -The reception which the Charter of the Cities met at the -hands of the public may mildly be described as mixed. In one -sense it was popular enough. In many happy homes that -remarkable legal document was read aloud on winter evenings -amid uproarious appreciation, when everything had been -learnt by heart from that quaint but immortal old classic, -Mr. W. W. Jacobs. But when it was discovered that the King -had every intention of seriously requiring the provisions to -be carried out, of insisting that the grotesque cities, with -their tocsins and city guards, should really come into -existence, things were thrown into a far angrier confusion. -Londoners had no particular objection to the King making a -fool of himself, but they became indignant when it became -evident that he wished to make fools of them; and protests -began to come in. - -The Lord High Provost of the Good and Valiant City of West -Kensington wrote a respectful letter to the King, explaining -that upon State occasions it would, of course, be his duty -to observe what formalities the King thought proper, but -that it was really awkward for a decent householder not to -be allowed to go out and put a post-card in a pillar-box -without being escorted by five heralds, who announced, with -formal cries and blasts of a trumpet, that the Lord High -Provost desired to catch the post. - -The Lord High Provost of North Kensington, who was a -prosperous draper, wrote a curt business note, like a man -complaining of a railway company, stating that definite -inconvenience had been caused him by the presence of the -halberdiers, whom he had to take with him everywhere. When -attempting to catch an omnibus to the City, he had found -that while room could have been found for himself, the -halberdiers had a difficulty in getting into the vehicle -believe---him, theirs faithfully. - -The Lord High Provost of Shepherd's Bush said his wife did -not like men hanging round the kitchen. - -The King was always delighted to listen to these grievances, -delivering lenient and kingly answers, but as he always -insisted, as the absolute *sine qua non*, that verbal -complaints should be presented to him with the fullest pomp -of trumpets, plumes, and halberds, only a few resolute -spirits were prepared to run the gauntlet of the little boys -in the street. - -Among these, however, was prominent the abrupt and -business-like gentleman who ruled North Kensington. And he -had before long, occasion to interview the King about a -matter wider and even more urgent than the problem of the -halberdiers and the omnibus. This was the greatest question -which then and for long afterwards brought a stir to the -blood and a flush to the cheek of all the speculative -builders and house agents from Shepherd's Bush to the Marble -Arch, and from Westbourne Grove to High Street, Kensington. -I refer to the great affair of the improvements in Notting -Hill. The scheme was conducted chiefly by Mr. Buck, the -abrupt North Kensington magnate, and by Mr. Wilson, the -Provost of Bayswater. A great thoroughfare was to be driven -through three boroughs, through West Kensington, North -Kensington and Notting Hill, opening at one end into -Hammersmith Broadway, and at the other into Westbourne -Grove. The negotiations, buyings, sellings, bullying and -bribing took ten years, and by the end of it Buck, who had -conducted them almost single-handed, had proved himself a -man of the strongest type of material energy and material -diplomacy. And just as his splendid patience and more -splendid impatience had finally brought him victory, when -workmen were already demolishing houses and walls along the -great line from Hammersmith, a sudden obstacle appeared that -had neither been reckoned with nor dreamed of, a small and -strange obstacle, which, like a speck of grit in a great -machine, jarred the whole vast scheme and brought it to a -standstill, and Mr. Buck, the draper, getting with great -impatience into his robes of office and summoning with -indescribable disgust his halberdiers, hurried over to speak -to the King. - -Ten years had not tired the King of his joke. There were -still new faces to be seen looking out from the symbolic -head-gears he had designed, gazing at him from amid the -pastoral ribbons of Shepherd's Bush or from under the sombre -hoods of the Blackfriars Road. And the interview which was -promised him with the Provost of North Kensington he -anticipated with a particular pleasure, for "he never really -enjoyed," he said, "the full richness of the mediaeval -garments unless the people compelled to wear them were very -angry and businesslike." +"The audience is at an end, Provost," said the King, smiling. + +How far his confidence was justified, it would require a somewhat +complicated description to explain. "The Great Proclamation of the +Charter of the Free Cities" appeared in due course that morning, and was +posted by bill-stickers all over the front of the Palace, the King +assisting them with animated directions, and standing in the middle of +the road, with his head on one side, contemplating the result. It was +also carried up and down the main thoroughfares by sandwich-men, and the +King was, with difficulty, restrained from going out in that capacity +himself, being, in fact, found by the Groom of the Stole and Captain +Bowler, struggling between two boards. His excitement had positively to +be quieted like that of a child. + +The reception which the Charter of the Cities met at the hands of the +public may mildly be described as mixed. In one sense it was popular +enough. In many happy homes that remarkable legal document was read +aloud on winter evenings amid uproarious appreciation, when everything +had been learnt by heart from that quaint but immortal old classic, +Mr. W. W. Jacobs. But when it was discovered that the King had every +intention of seriously requiring the provisions to be carried out, of +insisting that the grotesque cities, with their tocsins and city guards, +should really come into existence, things were thrown into a far angrier +confusion. Londoners had no particular objection to the King making a +fool of himself, but they became indignant when it became evident that +he wished to make fools of them; and protests began to come in. + +The Lord High Provost of the Good and Valiant City of West Kensington +wrote a respectful letter to the King, explaining that upon State +occasions it would, of course, be his duty to observe what formalities +the King thought proper, but that it was really awkward for a decent +householder not to be allowed to go out and put a post-card in a +pillar-box without being escorted by five heralds, who announced, with +formal cries and blasts of a trumpet, that the Lord High Provost desired +to catch the post. + +The Lord High Provost of North Kensington, who was a prosperous draper, +wrote a curt business note, like a man complaining of a railway company, +stating that definite inconvenience had been caused him by the presence +of the halberdiers, whom he had to take with him everywhere. When +attempting to catch an omnibus to the City, he had found that while room +could have been found for himself, the halberdiers had a difficulty in +getting into the vehicle believe---him, theirs faithfully. + +The Lord High Provost of Shepherd's Bush said his wife did not like men +hanging round the kitchen. + +The King was always delighted to listen to these grievances, delivering +lenient and kingly answers, but as he always insisted, as the absolute +*sine qua non*, that verbal complaints should be presented to him with +the fullest pomp of trumpets, plumes, and halberds, only a few resolute +spirits were prepared to run the gauntlet of the little boys in the +street. + +Among these, however, was prominent the abrupt and business-like +gentleman who ruled North Kensington. And he had before long, occasion +to interview the King about a matter wider and even more urgent than the +problem of the halberdiers and the omnibus. This was the greatest +question which then and for long afterwards brought a stir to the blood +and a flush to the cheek of all the speculative builders and house +agents from Shepherd's Bush to the Marble Arch, and from Westbourne +Grove to High Street, Kensington. I refer to the great affair of the +improvements in Notting Hill. The scheme was conducted chiefly by +Mr. Buck, the abrupt North Kensington magnate, and by Mr. Wilson, the +Provost of Bayswater. A great thoroughfare was to be driven through +three boroughs, through West Kensington, North Kensington and Notting +Hill, opening at one end into Hammersmith Broadway, and at the other +into Westbourne Grove. The negotiations, buyings, sellings, bullying and +bribing took ten years, and by the end of it Buck, who had conducted +them almost single-handed, had proved himself a man of the strongest +type of material energy and material diplomacy. And just as his splendid +patience and more splendid impatience had finally brought him victory, +when workmen were already demolishing houses and walls along the great +line from Hammersmith, a sudden obstacle appeared that had neither been +reckoned with nor dreamed of, a small and strange obstacle, which, like +a speck of grit in a great machine, jarred the whole vast scheme and +brought it to a standstill, and Mr. Buck, the draper, getting with great +impatience into his robes of office and summoning with indescribable +disgust his halberdiers, hurried over to speak to the King. + +Ten years had not tired the King of his joke. There were still new faces +to be seen looking out from the symbolic head-gears he had designed, +gazing at him from amid the pastoral ribbons of Shepherd's Bush or from +under the sombre hoods of the Blackfriars Road. And the interview which +was promised him with the Provost of North Kensington he anticipated +with a particular pleasure, for "he never really enjoyed," he said, "the +full richness of the mediaeval garments unless the people compelled to +wear them were very angry and businesslike." Mr. Buck was both. At the King's command the door of the -audience-chamber was thrown open and a herald appeared in -the purple colours of Mr. Buck's commonwealth emblazoned -with the Great Eagle which the King had attributed to North -Kensington, in vague reminiscence of Russia, for he always -insisted on regarding North Kensington as some kind of -semi-arctic neighbourhood. The herald announced that the -Provost of that city desired audience of the King. - -"From North Kensington?" said the King, rising graciously. -"What news does he bring from that land of high hills and -fair women? He is welcome." - -The herald advanced into the room, and was immediately -followed by twelve guards clad in purple, who were followed -by an attendant bearing the banner of the Eagle, who was -followed by another attendant bearing the keys of the city -upon a cushion, who was followed by Mr. Buck in a great -hurry. When the King saw his strong animal face and steady -eyes, he knew that he was in the presence of a great man of -business, and consciously braced himself. - -"Well, well," he said, cheerily coming down two or three -steps from a dais, and striking his hands lightly together, -"I am glad to see you. Never mind, never mind. Ceremony is -not everything." - -"I don't understand your Majesty," said the Provost, -stolidly. - -"Never mind, never mind," said the King, gaily. "A knowledge -of Courts is by no means an unmixed merit; you will do it -next time, no doubt." - -The man of business looked at him sulkily from under his -black brows and said again without show of civility-- +audience-chamber was thrown open and a herald appeared in the purple +colours of Mr. Buck's commonwealth emblazoned with the Great Eagle which +the King had attributed to North Kensington, in vague reminiscence of +Russia, for he always insisted on regarding North Kensington as some +kind of semi-arctic neighbourhood. The herald announced that the Provost +of that city desired audience of the King. + +"From North Kensington?" said the King, rising graciously. "What news +does he bring from that land of high hills and fair women? He is +welcome." + +The herald advanced into the room, and was immediately followed by +twelve guards clad in purple, who were followed by an attendant bearing +the banner of the Eagle, who was followed by another attendant bearing +the keys of the city upon a cushion, who was followed by Mr. Buck in a +great hurry. When the King saw his strong animal face and steady eyes, +he knew that he was in the presence of a great man of business, and +consciously braced himself. + +"Well, well," he said, cheerily coming down two or three steps from a +dais, and striking his hands lightly together, "I am glad to see you. +Never mind, never mind. Ceremony is not everything." + +"I don't understand your Majesty," said the Provost, stolidly. + +"Never mind, never mind," said the King, gaily. "A knowledge of Courts +is by no means an unmixed merit; you will do it next time, no doubt." + +The man of business looked at him sulkily from under his black brows and +said again without show of civility-- "I don't follow you." -"Well, well," replied the King, good-naturedly, "if you ask -me I don't mind telling you, not because I myself attach any -importance to these forms in comparison with the Honest -Heart. But it is usual---it is usual---that is all, for a -man when entering the presence of Royalty to lie down on his -back on the floor and elevating his feet towards heaven (as -the source of Royal power) to say three times 'Monarchical -institutions improve the manners.' But there, there---such -pomp is far less truly dignified than your simple -kindliness." - -The Provost's face was red with anger and he maintained -silence. - -"And now," said the King, lightly, and with the exasperating -air of a man softening a snub; "what delightful weather we -are having! You must find your official robes warm, my Lord. -I designed them for your own snow-bound land." - -"They're as hot as hell," said Buck, briefly. "I came here -on business." - -"Right," said the King, nodding a great number of times with -quite unmeaning solemnity; "right, right, right. Business, -as the sad glad old Persian said, is business. Be punctual. -Rise early. Point the pen to the shoulder. Point the pen to -the shoulder, for you know not whence you come nor why. -Point the pen to the shoulder, for you know not when you go -nor where." - -The Provost pulled a number of papers from his pocket and -savagely flapped them open. - -"Your Majesty may have heard," he began, sarcastically, "of -Hammersmith and a thing called a road. We have been at work -ten years buying property and getting compulsory powers and -fixing compensation and squaring vested interests, and now -at the very end, the thing is stopped by a fool. Old Prout, -who was Provost of Notting Hill, was a business man, and we -dealt with him quite satisfactorily. But he's dead, and the -cursed lot has fallen to a young man named Wayne, who's up -to some game that's perfectly incomprehensible to me. We -offer him a better price than any one ever dreamt of, but he -won't let the road go through. And his Council seem to be -backing him up. It's midsummer madness." - -The King, who was rather inattentively engaged in drawing -the Provost's nose with his finger on the window-pane, heard -the last two words. - -"What a perfect phrase that is," he said. "'Midsummer -madness!'" - -"The chief point is," continued Buck, doggedly, "that the -only part that is really in question is one dirty little -street---Pump Street---a street with nothing in it but a -public house and a penny toy-shop, and that sort of thing. -All the respectable people of Notting Hill have accepted our -compensation. But the ineffable Wayne sticks out over Pump -Street. Says he's Provost of Notting Hill. He's only Provost -of Pump Street." - -"A good thought," replied Auberon. "I like the idea of a -Provost of Pump Street. Why not let him alone?" - -"And drop the whole scheme!" cried out Buck, with a burst of -brutal spirit. "I'll be damned if we do. No. I'm for sending -in workmen to pull down without more ado." - -"Strike for the purple Eagle," cried the King, hot with -historical associations. - -"I'll tell you what it is," said Buck, losing his temper -altogether. "If your Majesty would spend less time in -insulting respectable people with your silly coats-of-arms, -and more time over the business of the nation--" +"Well, well," replied the King, good-naturedly, "if you ask me I don't +mind telling you, not because I myself attach any importance to these +forms in comparison with the Honest Heart. But it is usual---it is +usual---that is all, for a man when entering the presence of Royalty to +lie down on his back on the floor and elevating his feet towards heaven +(as the source of Royal power) to say three times 'Monarchical +institutions improve the manners.' But there, there---such pomp is far +less truly dignified than your simple kindliness." + +The Provost's face was red with anger and he maintained silence. + +"And now," said the King, lightly, and with the exasperating air of a +man softening a snub; "what delightful weather we are having! You must +find your official robes warm, my Lord. I designed them for your own +snow-bound land." + +"They're as hot as hell," said Buck, briefly. "I came here on business." + +"Right," said the King, nodding a great number of times with quite +unmeaning solemnity; "right, right, right. Business, as the sad glad old +Persian said, is business. Be punctual. Rise early. Point the pen to the +shoulder. Point the pen to the shoulder, for you know not whence you +come nor why. Point the pen to the shoulder, for you know not when you +go nor where." + +The Provost pulled a number of papers from his pocket and savagely +flapped them open. + +"Your Majesty may have heard," he began, sarcastically, "of Hammersmith +and a thing called a road. We have been at work ten years buying +property and getting compulsory powers and fixing compensation and +squaring vested interests, and now at the very end, the thing is stopped +by a fool. Old Prout, who was Provost of Notting Hill, was a business +man, and we dealt with him quite satisfactorily. But he's dead, and the +cursed lot has fallen to a young man named Wayne, who's up to some game +that's perfectly incomprehensible to me. We offer him a better price +than any one ever dreamt of, but he won't let the road go through. And +his Council seem to be backing him up. It's midsummer madness." + +The King, who was rather inattentively engaged in drawing the Provost's +nose with his finger on the window-pane, heard the last two words. + +"What a perfect phrase that is," he said. "'Midsummer madness!'" + +"The chief point is," continued Buck, doggedly, "that the only part that +is really in question is one dirty little street---Pump Street---a +street with nothing in it but a public house and a penny toy-shop, and +that sort of thing. All the respectable people of Notting Hill have +accepted our compensation. But the ineffable Wayne sticks out over Pump +Street. Says he's Provost of Notting Hill. He's only Provost of Pump +Street." + +"A good thought," replied Auberon. "I like the idea of a Provost of Pump +Street. Why not let him alone?" + +"And drop the whole scheme!" cried out Buck, with a burst of brutal +spirit. "I'll be damned if we do. No. I'm for sending in workmen to pull +down without more ado." + +"Strike for the purple Eagle," cried the King, hot with historical +associations. + +"I'll tell you what it is," said Buck, losing his temper altogether. "If +your Majesty would spend less time in insulting respectable people with +your silly coats-of-arms, and more time over the business of the +nation--" The King's brow wrinkled thoughtfully. -"The situation is not bad," he said; "the haughty burgher -defying the King in his own Palace. The burgher's head -should be thrown back and the right arm extended; the left -may be lifted towards Heaven, but that I leave to your -private religious sentiment. I have sunk back in this chair, -stricken with baffled fury. Now again, please." +"The situation is not bad," he said; "the haughty burgher defying the +King in his own Palace. The burgher's head should be thrown back and the +right arm extended; the left may be lifted towards Heaven, but that I +leave to your private religious sentiment. I have sunk back in this +chair, stricken with baffled fury. Now again, please." -Buck's mouth opened like a dog's, but before he could speak -another herald appeared at the door. +Buck's mouth opened like a dog's, but before he could speak another +herald appeared at the door. -"The Lord High Provost of Bayswater," he said, "desires an -audience." +"The Lord High Provost of Bayswater," he said, "desires an audience." "Admit him," said Auberon. "This is a jolly day." -The halberdiers of Bayswater wore a prevailing uniform of -green, and the banner which was borne after them was -emblazoned with a green bay-wreath on a silver ground, which -the King, in the course of his researches into a bottle of -champagne, had discovered to be the quaint old punning +The halberdiers of Bayswater wore a prevailing uniform of green, and the +banner which was borne after them was emblazoned with a green bay-wreath +on a silver ground, which the King, in the course of his researches into +a bottle of champagne, had discovered to be the quaint old punning cognisance of the city of Bayswater. -"It is a fit symbol," said the King, "your immortal -bay-wreath. Fulham may seek for wealth, and Kensington for -art, but when did the men of Bayswater care for anything but -glory?" +"It is a fit symbol," said the King, "your immortal bay-wreath. Fulham +may seek for wealth, and Kensington for art, but when did the men of +Bayswater care for anything but glory?" -Immediately behind the banner, and almost completely hidden -by it, came the Provost of the city, clad in splendid robes -of green and silver with white fur and crowned with bay. He -was an anxious little man with red whiskers, originally the -owner of a small sweet-stuff shop. +Immediately behind the banner, and almost completely hidden by it, came +the Provost of the city, clad in splendid robes of green and silver with +white fur and crowned with bay. He was an anxious little man with red +whiskers, originally the owner of a small sweet-stuff shop. -"Our cousin of Bayswater," said the King, with delight; -"what can we get for you?" The King was heard also -distinctly to mutter, "Cold beef, cold 'am, cold chicken," -his voice dying into silence. +"Our cousin of Bayswater," said the King, with delight; "what can we get +for you?" The King was heard also distinctly to mutter, "Cold beef, cold +'am, cold chicken," his voice dying into silence. -"I came to see your Majesty," said the Provost of Bayswater, -whose name was Wilson, "about that Pump Street affair." +"I came to see your Majesty," said the Provost of Bayswater, whose name +was Wilson, "about that Pump Street affair." -"I have just been explaining the situation to his Majesty," -said Buck, curtly, but recovering his civility. "I am not -sure, however, whether his Majesty knows how much the matter -affects you also." +"I have just been explaining the situation to his Majesty," said Buck, +curtly, but recovering his civility. "I am not sure, however, whether +his Majesty knows how much the matter affects you also." -"It affects both of us, yer see, yer Majesty, as this scheme -was started for the benefit of the 'ole neighbourhood. So -Mr. Buck and me we put our 'eads together--" +"It affects both of us, yer see, yer Majesty, as this scheme was started +for the benefit of the 'ole neighbourhood. So Mr. Buck and me we put our +'eads together--" The King clasped his hands. -"Perfect," he cried in ecstasy. "Your heads together! I can -see it! Can't you do it now? Oh, do do it now." +"Perfect," he cried in ecstasy. "Your heads together! I can see it! +Can't you do it now? Oh, do do it now." -A smothered sound of amusement appeared to come from the -halberdiers, but Mr. Wilson looked merely bewildered, and -Mr. Buck merely diabolical. +A smothered sound of amusement appeared to come from the halberdiers, +but Mr. Wilson looked merely bewildered, and Mr. Buck merely diabolical. -"I suppose," he began, bitterly, but the King stopped him -with a gesture of listening. +"I suppose," he began, bitterly, but the King stopped him with a gesture +of listening. -"Hush," he said, "I think I hear some one else coming. I -seem to hear another herald, a herald whose boots creak." +"Hush," he said, "I think I hear some one else coming. I seem to hear +another herald, a herald whose boots creak." As he spoke another voice cried from the doorway-- -"The Lord High Provost of South Kensington desires an -audience." - -"The Lord High Provost of South Kensington!" cried the King. -"Why, that is my old friend James Barker! What does he want -I wonder? If the tender memories of friendship have not -grown misty, I fancy he wants something for himself, -probably money. How are you, James?" - -Mr. James Barker, whose guard was attired in a splendid -blue, and whose blue banner bore three gold birds singing, -rushed, in his blue and gold robes, into the room. Despite -the absurdity of all the dresses, it was worth noticing that -he carried his better than the rest, though he loathed it as -much as any of them. He was a gentleman, and a very handsome -man, and could not help unconsciously wearing even his -preposterous robe as it should be worn. He spoke quickly, -but with the slight initial hesitation he always showed in -addressing the King, due to suppressing an impulse to -address his old acquaintance in the old way. - -"Your Majesty---pray forgive my intrusion. It is about this -man at Pump Street. I see you have Buck here, so you have -probably heard what is necessary. I--" - -The King swept his eyes anxiously round the room, which now -blazed with the trappings of three cities. +"The Lord High Provost of South Kensington desires an audience." + +"The Lord High Provost of South Kensington!" cried the King. "Why, that +is my old friend James Barker! What does he want I wonder? If the tender +memories of friendship have not grown misty, I fancy he wants something +for himself, probably money. How are you, James?" + +Mr. James Barker, whose guard was attired in a splendid blue, and whose +blue banner bore three gold birds singing, rushed, in his blue and gold +robes, into the room. Despite the absurdity of all the dresses, it was +worth noticing that he carried his better than the rest, though he +loathed it as much as any of them. He was a gentleman, and a very +handsome man, and could not help unconsciously wearing even his +preposterous robe as it should be worn. He spoke quickly, but with the +slight initial hesitation he always showed in addressing the King, due +to suppressing an impulse to address his old acquaintance in the old +way. + +"Your Majesty---pray forgive my intrusion. It is about this man at Pump +Street. I see you have Buck here, so you have probably heard what is +necessary. I--" + +The King swept his eyes anxiously round the room, which now blazed with +the trappings of three cities. "There is one thing necessary," he said. -"Yes, your Majesty," said Mr. Wilson of Bayswater, a little -eagerly. "What does yer Majesty think necessary?" +"Yes, your Majesty," said Mr. Wilson of Bayswater, a little eagerly. +"What does yer Majesty think necessary?" -"A little yellow," said the king, firmly. "Send for the -Provost of West Kensington." +"A little yellow," said the king, firmly. "Send for the Provost of West +Kensington." -Amid some materialistic protests he was sent for and arrived -with his yellow halberdiers in his saffron robes, wiping his -forehead with a handkerchief. After all, placed as he was, -he had a good deal to say on the matter. +Amid some materialistic protests he was sent for and arrived with his +yellow halberdiers in his saffron robes, wiping his forehead with a +handkerchief. After all, placed as he was, he had a good deal to say on +the matter. -"Welcome, West Kensington," said the King. "I have long -wished to see you, touching that matter of the Hammersmith -land to the south of the Rowton House. Will you hold it -feudally from the Provost of Hammersmith? You have only to -do him homage by putting his left arm in his overcoat and -then marching home in state." +"Welcome, West Kensington," said the King. "I have long wished to see +you, touching that matter of the Hammersmith land to the south of the +Rowton House. Will you hold it feudally from the Provost of Hammersmith? +You have only to do him homage by putting his left arm in his overcoat +and then marching home in state." -"No, your Majesty; I'd rather not," said the Provost of West -Kensington, who was a pale young man with a fair moustache -and whiskers, who kept a successful dairy. +"No, your Majesty; I'd rather not," said the Provost of West Kensington, +who was a pale young man with a fair moustache and whiskers, who kept a +successful dairy. The King struck him heartily on the shoulder. -"The fierce old West Kensington blood," he said; "they are -not wise who ask it to do homage." +"The fierce old West Kensington blood," he said; "they are not wise who +ask it to do homage." -Then he glanced again round the room. It was full of a -roaring sunset of colour, and he enjoyed the sight, possible -to so few artists---the sight of his own dreams moving and -blazing before him. In the foreground the yellow of the West -Kensington liveries outlined itself against the dark blue -draperies of South Kensington. The crests of these again -brightened suddenly into green as the almost woodland -colours of Bayswater rose behind them. And over and behind -all, the great purple plumes of North Kensington showed -almost funereal and black. +Then he glanced again round the room. It was full of a roaring sunset of +colour, and he enjoyed the sight, possible to so few artists---the sight +of his own dreams moving and blazing before him. In the foreground the +yellow of the West Kensington liveries outlined itself against the dark +blue draperies of South Kensington. The crests of these again brightened +suddenly into green as the almost woodland colours of Bayswater rose +behind them. And over and behind all, the great purple plumes of North +Kensington showed almost funereal and black. -"There is something lacking," said the King, "something -lacking. What can---Ah, there it is!--there it is!" +"There is something lacking," said the King, "something lacking. What +can---Ah, there it is!--there it is!" -In the doorway had appeared a new figure, a herald in -flaming red. He cried in a loud but unemotional voice-- +In the doorway had appeared a new figure, a herald in flaming red. He +cried in a loud but unemotional voice-- "The Lord High Provost of Netting Hill desires an audience." ## Enter a Lunatic -The King of the Fairies, who was, it is to be presumed, the -godfather of King Auberon, must have been very favourable on -this particular day to his fantastic godchild, for with the -entrance of the guard of the Provost of Netting Hill there -was a certain more or less inexplicable addition to his -delight. The wretched navvies and sandwich-men who carried -the colours of Bayswater or South Kensington, engaged merely -for the day to satisfy the Royal hobby, slouched into the -room with a comparatively hang-dog air, and a great part of -the King's intellectual pleasure consisted in the contrast -between the arrogance of their swords and feathers and the -meek misery of their faces. But these Netting Hill -halberdiers in their red tunics belted with gold had the air -rather of an absurd gravity. They seemed, so to speak, to be -taking part in the joke. They marched and wheeled into -position with an almost startling dignity and discipline. - -They carried a yellow banner with a great red lion, named by -the King as the Notting Hill emblem, after a small -public-house in the neighbourhood, which he once frequented. - -Between the two lines of his followers there advanced -towards the King a tall, red-haired young man, with high -features, and bold blue eyes. He would have been called -handsome, but that a certain indefinable air of his nose -being too big for his face, and his feet for his legs, gave -him a look of awkwardness and extreme youth. His robes were -red, according to the King's heraldry, and alone among the -Provosts, he was girt with a great sword. This was Adam -Wayne, the intractable Provost of Netting Hill. - -The King flung himself back in his chair, and rubbed his -hands. - -"What a day, what a day !" he said to himself. "Now there'll -be a row. I'd no idea it would be such fun as it is. These -Provosts are so very indignant, so very reasonable, so very -right. This fellow, by the look in his eyes, is even more -indignant than the rest. No sign in those large blue eyes, -at any rate, of ever having heard of a joke. He'll -remonstrate with the others, and they'll remonstrate with -him, and they'll all make themselves sumptuously happy -remonstrating with me." - -"Welcome, my Lord," he said aloud. "What news from the Hill -of a Hundred Legends? What have you for the ear of your -King? I know that troubles have arisen between you and these -others, our cousins, but these troubles it shall be our -pride to compose. And I doubt not, and cannot doubt, that -your love for me is not less tender, no less ardent than +The King of the Fairies, who was, it is to be presumed, the godfather of +King Auberon, must have been very favourable on this particular day to +his fantastic godchild, for with the entrance of the guard of the +Provost of Netting Hill there was a certain more or less inexplicable +addition to his delight. The wretched navvies and sandwich-men who +carried the colours of Bayswater or South Kensington, engaged merely for +the day to satisfy the Royal hobby, slouched into the room with a +comparatively hang-dog air, and a great part of the King's intellectual +pleasure consisted in the contrast between the arrogance of their swords +and feathers and the meek misery of their faces. But these Netting Hill +halberdiers in their red tunics belted with gold had the air rather of +an absurd gravity. They seemed, so to speak, to be taking part in the +joke. They marched and wheeled into position with an almost startling +dignity and discipline. + +They carried a yellow banner with a great red lion, named by the King as +the Notting Hill emblem, after a small public-house in the +neighbourhood, which he once frequented. + +Between the two lines of his followers there advanced towards the King a +tall, red-haired young man, with high features, and bold blue eyes. He +would have been called handsome, but that a certain indefinable air of +his nose being too big for his face, and his feet for his legs, gave him +a look of awkwardness and extreme youth. His robes were red, according +to the King's heraldry, and alone among the Provosts, he was girt with a +great sword. This was Adam Wayne, the intractable Provost of Netting +Hill. + +The King flung himself back in his chair, and rubbed his hands. + +"What a day, what a day !" he said to himself. "Now there'll be a row. +I'd no idea it would be such fun as it is. These Provosts are so very +indignant, so very reasonable, so very right. This fellow, by the look +in his eyes, is even more indignant than the rest. No sign in those +large blue eyes, at any rate, of ever having heard of a joke. He'll +remonstrate with the others, and they'll remonstrate with him, and +they'll all make themselves sumptuously happy remonstrating with me." + +"Welcome, my Lord," he said aloud. "What news from the Hill of a Hundred +Legends? What have you for the ear of your King? I know that troubles +have arisen between you and these others, our cousins, but these +troubles it shall be our pride to compose. And I doubt not, and cannot +doubt, that your love for me is not less tender, no less ardent than theirs." -Mr. Buck made a bitter face, and James Barker's nostrils -curled; Wilson began to giggle faintly, and the Provost of -West Kensington followed in a smothered way. But the big -blue eyes of Adam Wayne never changed, and he called out in -an odd, boyish voice down the hall-- +Mr. Buck made a bitter face, and James Barker's nostrils curled; Wilson +began to giggle faintly, and the Provost of West Kensington followed in +a smothered way. But the big blue eyes of Adam Wayne never changed, and +he called out in an odd, boyish voice down the hall-- -"I bring homage to my King. I bring him the only thing I -have---my sword." +"I bring homage to my King. I bring him the only thing I have---my +sword." -And with a great gesture he flung it down on the ground, and -knelt on one knee behind it. +And with a great gesture he flung it down on the ground, and knelt on +one knee behind it. There was a dead silence. "I beg your pardon," said the King, blankly. -"You speak well, sire," said Adam Wayne, "as you ever speak, -when you say that my love is not less than the love of -these. Small would it be if it were not more. For I am the -heir of your scheme---the child of the great Charter. I -stand here for the rights the Charter gave me, and I swear, -by your sacred crown, that where I stand, I stand fast." +"You speak well, sire," said Adam Wayne, "as you ever speak, when you +say that my love is not less than the love of these. Small would it be +if it were not more. For I am the heir of your scheme---the child of the +great Charter. I stand here for the rights the Charter gave me, and I +swear, by your sacred crown, that where I stand, I stand fast." The eyes of all five men stood out of their heads. -Then Buck said, in his jolly, jarring voice: "Is the whole -world mad?" +Then Buck said, in his jolly, jarring voice: "Is the whole world mad?" The King sprang to his feet, and his eyes blazed. -"Yes," he cried, in a voice of exultation, "the whole world -is mad, but Adam Wayne and me. It is true as death what I -told you long ago, James Barker, seriousness sends men mad. -You are mad, because you care for politics, as mad as a man -who collects tram tickets. Buck is mad, because he cares for -money, as mad as a man who lives on opium. Wilson is mad, -because he thinks himself right, as mad as a man who thinks -himself God Almighty. The Provost of West Kensington is mad, -because he thinks he is respectable, as mad as a man who -thinks he is a chicken. All men are mad, but the humorist, -who cares for nothing and possesses everything. I thought -that there was only one humorist in England. -Fools!--dolts!--open your cows' eyes; there are two! In -Notting Hill---in that unpromising elevation---there has -been born an artist! You thought to spoil my joke, and bully -me out of it, by becoming more and more modern, more and -more practical, more and more bustling and rational. Oh, -what a feast it was to answer you by becoming more and more -august, more and more gracious, more and more ancient and -mellow ! But this lad has seen how to bowl me out. He has -answered me back, vaunt for vaunt, rhetoric for rhetoric. He -has lifted the only shield I cannot break, the shield of an -impenetrable pomposity. Listen to him. You have come, my -Lord, about Pump Street?" - -"About the city of Notting Hill," answered Wayne, proudly. -"Of which Pump Street is a living and rejoicing part." +"Yes," he cried, in a voice of exultation, "the whole world is mad, but +Adam Wayne and me. It is true as death what I told you long ago, James +Barker, seriousness sends men mad. You are mad, because you care for +politics, as mad as a man who collects tram tickets. Buck is mad, +because he cares for money, as mad as a man who lives on opium. Wilson +is mad, because he thinks himself right, as mad as a man who thinks +himself God Almighty. The Provost of West Kensington is mad, because he +thinks he is respectable, as mad as a man who thinks he is a chicken. +All men are mad, but the humorist, who cares for nothing and possesses +everything. I thought that there was only one humorist in England. +Fools!--dolts!--open your cows' eyes; there are two! In Notting +Hill---in that unpromising elevation---there has been born an artist! +You thought to spoil my joke, and bully me out of it, by becoming more +and more modern, more and more practical, more and more bustling and +rational. Oh, what a feast it was to answer you by becoming more and +more august, more and more gracious, more and more ancient and mellow ! +But this lad has seen how to bowl me out. He has answered me back, vaunt +for vaunt, rhetoric for rhetoric. He has lifted the only shield I cannot +break, the shield of an impenetrable pomposity. Listen to him. You have +come, my Lord, about Pump Street?" + +"About the city of Notting Hill," answered Wayne, proudly. "Of which +Pump Street is a living and rejoicing part." "Not a very large part," said Barker, contemptuously. -"That which is large enough for the rich to covet," said -Wayne, drawing up his head, "is large enough for the poor to -defend." - -The King slapped both his legs, and waved his feet for a -second in the air. - -"Every respectable person in Notting Hill," cut in Buck, -with his cold, coarse voice, "is for us and against you. I -have plenty of friends in Notting Hill." - -"Your friends are those who have taken your gold for other -men's hearthstones, my Lord Buck," said Provost Wayne. "I -can well believe they are your friends." - -"They've never sold dirty toys, anyhow," said Buck, laughing -shortly. - -"They've sold dirtier things," said Wayne, calmly; "they -have sold themselves." - -"It's no good, my Buckling," said the King, rolling about on -his chair. "You can't cope with this chivalrous eloquence. -You can't cope with an artist. You can't cope with the -humorist of Notting Hill. O, *Nunc dimittis*--that I have -lived to see this day! Provost Wayne, you stand firm?" - -"Let them wait and see," said Wayne. "If I stood firm -before, do you think I shall weaken now that I have seen the -face of the King? For I fight for something greater, if -greater there can be, than the hearthstones of my people and -the Lordship of the Lion. I fight for your royal vision, for -the great dream you dreamt of the League of the Free Cities. -You have given me this liberty. If I had been a beggar and -you had flung me a coin, if I had been a peasant in a dance -and you had flung me a favour, do you think I would have let -it be taken by any ruffians on the road? This leadership and -liberty of Notting Hill is a gift from your Majesty. And if -it is taken from me, by God! it shall be taken in battle, -and the noise of that battle shall be heard in the flats of -Chelsea and in the studios of St. John's Wood." - -"It is too much---it is too much," said the King. "Nature is -weak. I must speak to you, brother artist, without further -disguise. Let me ask you a solemn question. Adam Wayne, Lord -High Provost of Notting Hill, don't you think it splendid?" +"That which is large enough for the rich to covet," said Wayne, drawing +up his head, "is large enough for the poor to defend." + +The King slapped both his legs, and waved his feet for a second in the +air. + +"Every respectable person in Notting Hill," cut in Buck, with his cold, +coarse voice, "is for us and against you. I have plenty of friends in +Notting Hill." + +"Your friends are those who have taken your gold for other men's +hearthstones, my Lord Buck," said Provost Wayne. "I can well believe +they are your friends." + +"They've never sold dirty toys, anyhow," said Buck, laughing shortly. + +"They've sold dirtier things," said Wayne, calmly; "they have sold +themselves." + +"It's no good, my Buckling," said the King, rolling about on his chair. +"You can't cope with this chivalrous eloquence. You can't cope with an +artist. You can't cope with the humorist of Notting Hill. O, *Nunc +dimittis*--that I have lived to see this day! Provost Wayne, you stand +firm?" + +"Let them wait and see," said Wayne. "If I stood firm before, do you +think I shall weaken now that I have seen the face of the King? For I +fight for something greater, if greater there can be, than the +hearthstones of my people and the Lordship of the Lion. I fight for your +royal vision, for the great dream you dreamt of the League of the Free +Cities. You have given me this liberty. If I had been a beggar and you +had flung me a coin, if I had been a peasant in a dance and you had +flung me a favour, do you think I would have let it be taken by any +ruffians on the road? This leadership and liberty of Notting Hill is a +gift from your Majesty. And if it is taken from me, by God! it shall be +taken in battle, and the noise of that battle shall be heard in the +flats of Chelsea and in the studios of St. John's Wood." + +"It is too much---it is too much," said the King. "Nature is weak. I +must speak to you, brother artist, without further disguise. Let me ask +you a solemn question. Adam Wayne, Lord High Provost of Notting Hill, +don't you think it splendid?" "Splendid!" cried Adam Wayne. "It has the splendour of God." -"Bowled out again," said the King. "You will keep up the -pose. Funnily, of course, it is serious. But seriously, -isn't it funny?" +"Bowled out again," said the King. "You will keep up the pose. Funnily, +of course, it is serious. But seriously, isn't it funny?" "What?" asked Wayne, with the eyes of a baby. -"Hang it all, don't play any more. The whole business---the -Charter of the Cities. Isn't it immense?" +"Hang it all, don't play any more. The whole business---the Charter of +the Cities. Isn't it immense?" "Immense is no unworthy word for that glorious design." -"Oh, hang you---but, of course, I see. You want me to clear -the room of these reasonable sows. You want the two -humorists alone together. Leave us, gentlemen." +"Oh, hang you---but, of course, I see. You want me to clear the room of +these reasonable sows. You want the two humorists alone together. Leave +us, gentlemen." -Buck threw a sour look at Barker, and at a sullen signal the -whole pageant of blue and green, of red, gold and purple -rolled out of the room, leaving only two in the great hall, -the King sitting in his seat on the dais, and the red-clad -figure still kneeling on the floor before his fallen sword. +Buck threw a sour look at Barker, and at a sullen signal the whole +pageant of blue and green, of red, gold and purple rolled out of the +room, leaving only two in the great hall, the King sitting in his seat +on the dais, and the red-clad figure still kneeling on the floor before +his fallen sword. -The King bounded down the steps and smacked Provost Wayne on -the back. +The King bounded down the steps and smacked Provost Wayne on the back. -"Before the stars were made," he cried, "we were made for -each other. It is too beautiful. Think of the valiant -independence of Pump Street. That is the real thing. It is -the deification of the ludicrous." +"Before the stars were made," he cried, "we were made for each other. It +is too beautiful. Think of the valiant independence of Pump Street. That +is the real thing. It is the deification of the ludicrous." -The kneeling figure sprang to his feet with a fierce -stagger. +The kneeling figure sprang to his feet with a fierce stagger. "Ludicrous!" he cried, with a fiery face. -"Oh come, come," said the King, impatiently. "You needn't -keep it up with me. The augurs must wink sometimes from -sheer fatigue of the eyelids. Let us enjoy this for half an -hour, not as actors, but as dramatic critics. Isn't it a -joke?" +"Oh come, come," said the King, impatiently. "You needn't keep it up +with me. The augurs must wink sometimes from sheer fatigue of the +eyelids. Let us enjoy this for half an hour, not as actors, but as +dramatic critics. Isn't it a joke?" -Adam Wayne looked down like a boy, and answered in a -constrained voice-- +Adam Wayne looked down like a boy, and answered in a constrained voice-- -"I do not understand your Majesty. I cannot believe that -while I fight for your royal charter your Majesty deserts me -for these dogs of the gold hunt." +"I do not understand your Majesty. I cannot believe that while I fight +for your royal charter your Majesty deserts me for these dogs of the +gold hunt." -"Oh, damn your---But what's this? What the devil's this?" -The King stared into the young Provost's face, and in the -twilight of the room began to see that his face was quite -white and his lip shaking. +"Oh, damn your---But what's this? What the devil's this?" The King +stared into the young Provost's face, and in the twilight of the room +began to see that his face was quite white and his lip shaking. -"What in God's name is the matter?" cried Auberon, holding -his wrist. +"What in God's name is the matter?" cried Auberon, holding his wrist. Wayne flung back his face, and the tears were shining on it. -"I am only a boy," he said, "but it's true. I would paint -the Red Lion on my shield if I had only my blood." +"I am only a boy," he said, "but it's true. I would paint the Red Lion +on my shield if I had only my blood." -King Auberon dropped the hand and stood without stirring, -thunderstruck. +King Auberon dropped the hand and stood without stirring, thunderstruck. -"My God in Heaven!" he said; "is it possible that there is -within the four seas of Britain a man who takes Notting Hill -seriously?--" +"My God in Heaven!" he said; "is it possible that there is within the +four seas of Britain a man who takes Notting Hill seriously?--" -"And my God in Heaven!" said Wayne passionately; "is it -possible that there is within the four seas of Britain a man -who does not take it seriously?" +"And my God in Heaven!" said Wayne passionately; "is it possible that +there is within the four seas of Britain a man who does not take it +seriously?" -The King said nothing, but merely went back up the steps of -the da'is, like a man dazed. He fell back in his chair again -and kicked his heels. +The King said nothing, but merely went back up the steps of the da'is, +like a man dazed. He fell back in his chair again and kicked his heels. -"If this sort of thing is to go on," he said weakly, "I -shall begin to doubt the superiority of art to life. In -Heaven's name, do not play with me. Do you really mean that -you are---God help me!--a Notting Hill patriot---that you -are" +"If this sort of thing is to go on," he said weakly, "I shall begin to +doubt the superiority of art to life. In Heaven's name, do not play with +me. Do you really mean that you are---God help me!--a Notting Hill +patriot---that you are" -Wayne made a violent gesture, and the King soothed him -wildly. +Wayne made a violent gesture, and the King soothed him wildly. -"All right---all right---I see you are; but let me take it -in. You do really propose to fight these modern improvers -with their boards and inspectors and surveyors and all the -rest of it--" +"All right---all right---I see you are; but let me take it in. You do +really propose to fight these modern improvers with their boards and +inspectors and surveyors and all the rest of it--" "Are they so terrible?" asked Wayne, scornfully. -The King continued to stare at him as if he were a human -curiosity. +The King continued to stare at him as if he were a human curiosity. -"And I suppose," he said, "that you think that the dentists -and small tradesmen and maiden ladies who inhabit Notting -Hill, will rally with war-hymns to your standard?" +"And I suppose," he said, "that you think that the dentists and small +tradesmen and maiden ladies who inhabit Notting Hill, will rally with +war-hymns to your standard?" "If they have blood they will," said the Provost. -"And I suppose," said the King, with his head back among the -cushions, "that it never crossed your mind that"--his voice -seemed to lose itself luxuriantly--"never crossed your mind -that any one ever thought that the idea of a Notting Hill -idealism was---er---slightly---slightly ridiculous." +"And I suppose," said the King, with his head back among the cushions, +"that it never crossed your mind that"--his voice seemed to lose itself +luxuriantly--"never crossed your mind that any one ever thought that the +idea of a Notting Hill idealism was---er---slightly---slightly +ridiculous." -"Of course they think so," said Wayne. "What was the meaning -of mocking the prophets?" +"Of course they think so," said Wayne. "What was the meaning of mocking +the prophets?" -"Where?" asked the King, leaning forward. "Where in Heaven's -name did you get this miraculously inane idea?" +"Where?" asked the King, leaning forward. "Where in Heaven's name did +you get this miraculously inane idea?" -"You have been my tutor, Sire," said the Provost, "in all -that is high and honourable." +"You have been my tutor, Sire," said the Provost, "in all that is high +and honourable." "Eh?" said the King. -"It was your Majesty who first stirred my dim patriotism -into flame. Ten years ago, when I was a boy (I am only -nineteen), I was playing on the slope of Pump Street, with a -wooden sword and a paper helmet, dreaming of great wars. In -an angry trance I struck out with my sword and stood -petrified, for I saw that I had struck you, Sire, my King, -as you wandered in a noble secrecy, watching over your -people's welfare. But I need have had no fear. Then was I -taught to understand Kingliness. You neither shrank nor -frowned. You summoned no guards. You invoked no punishments. -But in august and burning words, which are written in my -soul, never to be erased, you told me ever to turn my sword -against the enemies of my inviolate city. Like a priest -pointing to the altar, you pointed to the hill of Notting. -'So long,' you said, 'as you are ready to die for the sacred -mountain, even if it were ringed with all the armies of -Bayswater.' I have not forgotten the words, and I have -reason now to remember them, for the hour is come and the -crown of your prophecy. The sacred hill is ringed with the -armies of Bayswater, and I am ready to die." +"It was your Majesty who first stirred my dim patriotism into flame. Ten +years ago, when I was a boy (I am only nineteen), I was playing on the +slope of Pump Street, with a wooden sword and a paper helmet, dreaming +of great wars. In an angry trance I struck out with my sword and stood +petrified, for I saw that I had struck you, Sire, my King, as you +wandered in a noble secrecy, watching over your people's welfare. But I +need have had no fear. Then was I taught to understand Kingliness. You +neither shrank nor frowned. You summoned no guards. You invoked no +punishments. But in august and burning words, which are written in my +soul, never to be erased, you told me ever to turn my sword against the +enemies of my inviolate city. Like a priest pointing to the altar, you +pointed to the hill of Notting. 'So long,' you said, 'as you are ready +to die for the sacred mountain, even if it were ringed with all the +armies of Bayswater.' I have not forgotten the words, and I have reason +now to remember them, for the hour is come and the crown of your +prophecy. The sacred hill is ringed with the armies of Bayswater, and I +am ready to die." The King was lying back in his chair, a kind of wreck. -"O Lord, Lord, Lord," he murmured, "what a life! what a -life! All my work! I seem to have done it all. So you're the -red-haired boy that hit me in the waistcoat. What have I -done? God, what have I done? I thought I would have a joke, -and I have created a passion. I tried to compose a -burlesque, and it seems to be turning halfway through into -an epic. What is to be done with such a world? In the Lord's -name, wasn't the joke broad and bold enough? I abandoned my -subtle humour to amuse you, and I seem to have brought tears -to your eyes. What's to be done with people when you write a -pantomime for them---call the sausages classic festoons, and -the policeman cut in two a tragedy of public duty? But why -am I talking? Why am I asking questions of a nice young -gentleman who is totally mad? What is the good of it? What -is the good of anything? O Lord, O Lord!" +"O Lord, Lord, Lord," he murmured, "what a life! what a life! All my +work! I seem to have done it all. So you're the red-haired boy that hit +me in the waistcoat. What have I done? God, what have I done? I thought +I would have a joke, and I have created a passion. I tried to compose a +burlesque, and it seems to be turning halfway through into an epic. What +is to be done with such a world? In the Lord's name, wasn't the joke +broad and bold enough? I abandoned my subtle humour to amuse you, and I +seem to have brought tears to your eyes. What's to be done with people +when you write a pantomime for them---call the sausages classic +festoons, and the policeman cut in two a tragedy of public duty? But why +am I talking? Why am I asking questions of a nice young gentleman who is +totally mad? What is the good of it? What is the good of anything? O +Lord, O Lord!" Suddenly he pulled himself upright. -"Don't you really think the sacred Notting Hill at all -absurd?" +"Don't you really think the sacred Notting Hill at all absurd?" "Absurd?" asked Wayne, blankly. "Why should I?" @@ -2436,186 +2127,166 @@ The King stared back equally blankly. "I beg your pardon?" he said. -"Notting Hill," said the Provost, simply, "is a rise or high -ground of the common earth, on which men have built houses -to live, in which they are born, fall in love, pray, marry, -and die. Why should I think it absurd?" +"Notting Hill," said the Provost, simply, "is a rise or high ground of +the common earth, on which men have built houses to live, in which they +are born, fall in love, pray, marry, and die. Why should I think it +absurd?" The King smiled. -"Because, my Leonidas--" he began, then suddenly, he knew -not how, found his mind was a total blank. After all, why -was it absurd? Why was it absurd? He felt as if the floor of -his mind had given way. He felt as all men feel when their -first principles are hit hard with a question. Barker always -felt so when the King said, "Why trouble about politics?" +"Because, my Leonidas--" he began, then suddenly, he knew not how, found +his mind was a total blank. After all, why was it absurd? Why was it +absurd? He felt as if the floor of his mind had given way. He felt as +all men feel when their first principles are hit hard with a question. +Barker always felt so when the King said, "Why trouble about politics?" -The King's thoughts were in a kind of rout; he could not -collect them. +The King's thoughts were in a kind of rout; he could not collect them. -"It is generally felt to be a little funny," he said, -vaguely. +"It is generally felt to be a little funny," he said, vaguely. -"I suppose," said Adam, turning on him with a fierce -suddenness, "I suppose you fancy crucifixion was a serious -affair?" +"I suppose," said Adam, turning on him with a fierce suddenness, "I +suppose you fancy crucifixion was a serious affair?" -"Well, I--" began Auberon, "I admit I have generally thought -it had its graver side." +"Well, I--" began Auberon, "I admit I have generally thought it had its +graver side." -"Then you are wrong," said Wayne, with incredible violence. -"Crucifixion is comic. It is exquisitely diverting. It was -an absurd and obscene kind of impaling reserved for people -who were made to be laughed at---for slaves and -provincials---for dentists and small tradesmen, as you would -say. I have seen the grotesque gallows-shape, which the -little Roman gutter-boys scribbled on walls as a vulgar -joke, blazing on the pinnacles of the temples of the world. -And shall I turn back?" +"Then you are wrong," said Wayne, with incredible violence. "Crucifixion +is comic. It is exquisitely diverting. It was an absurd and obscene kind +of impaling reserved for people who were made to be laughed at---for +slaves and provincials---for dentists and small tradesmen, as you would +say. I have seen the grotesque gallows-shape, which the little Roman +gutter-boys scribbled on walls as a vulgar joke, blazing on the +pinnacles of the temples of the world. And shall I turn back?" The King made no answer. Adam went on, his voice ringing in the roof. -"This laughter with which men tyrannise is not the great -power you think it. Peter I was crucified, and crucified -head downwards. What could be funnier than the idea of a -respectable old Apostle upside down? What could be more in -the style of your modern humour? But what was the good of -it? Upside down or right side up, Peter was Peter to -mankind. Upside down he still hangs over Europe, and -millions move and breathe only in the life of his church." +"This laughter with which men tyrannise is not the great power you think +it. Peter I was crucified, and crucified head downwards. What could be +funnier than the idea of a respectable old Apostle upside down? What +could be more in the style of your modern humour? But what was the good +of it? Upside down or right side up, Peter was Peter to mankind. Upside +down he still hangs over Europe, and millions move and breathe only in +the life of his church." King Auberon got up absently. -"There is something in what you say," he said. "You seem to -have been thinking, young man." - -"Only feeling, sire," answered the Provost. "I was born, -like other men, in a spot of the earth which I loved because -I had played boys' games there, and fallen in love, and -talked with my friends through nights that were nights of -the gods. And I feel the riddle. These little gardens where -we told our loves. These streets where we brought out our -dead. Why should they be commonplace? Why should they be -absurd? Why should it be grotesque to say that a pillar-box -is poetic when for a year I could not see a red pillar-box -against the yellow evening in a certain street without being -wracked with something of which God keeps the secret, but -which is stronger than sorrow or joy? Why should any one be -able to raise a laugh by saying 'the Cause of Notting Hill'? -Notting Hill where thousands of immortal spirits blaze with -alternate hope and fear." - -Auberon was flicking dust off his sleeve with quite a new -seriousness on his face, distinct from the owlish solemnity -which was the pose of his humour. - -"It is very difficult," he said at last. "It is a damned -difficult thing. I see what you mean---I agree with you even -up to a point---or I should like to agree with you, if I -were young enough to be a prophet and poet. I feel a truth -in everything you say until you come to the words 'Notting -Hill.' And then I regret to say that the old Adam awakes -roaring with laughter and makes short work of the new Adam, -whose name is Wayne." - -For the first time Provost Wayne was silent, and stood -gazing dreamily at the floor. Evening was closing in, and -the room had grown darker. - -"I know," he said, in a strange, almost sleepy voice, "there -is truth in what you say, too. It is hard not to laugh at -the common names---I only say we should not. I have thought -of a remedy; but such thoughts are rather terrible." +"There is something in what you say," he said. "You seem to have been +thinking, young man." + +"Only feeling, sire," answered the Provost. "I was born, like other men, +in a spot of the earth which I loved because I had played boys' games +there, and fallen in love, and talked with my friends through nights +that were nights of the gods. And I feel the riddle. These little +gardens where we told our loves. These streets where we brought out our +dead. Why should they be commonplace? Why should they be absurd? Why +should it be grotesque to say that a pillar-box is poetic when for a +year I could not see a red pillar-box against the yellow evening in a +certain street without being wracked with something of which God keeps +the secret, but which is stronger than sorrow or joy? Why should any one +be able to raise a laugh by saying 'the Cause of Notting Hill'? Notting +Hill where thousands of immortal spirits blaze with alternate hope and +fear." + +Auberon was flicking dust off his sleeve with quite a new seriousness on +his face, distinct from the owlish solemnity which was the pose of his +humour. + +"It is very difficult," he said at last. "It is a damned difficult +thing. I see what you mean---I agree with you even up to a point---or I +should like to agree with you, if I were young enough to be a prophet +and poet. I feel a truth in everything you say until you come to the +words 'Notting Hill.' And then I regret to say that the old Adam awakes +roaring with laughter and makes short work of the new Adam, whose name +is Wayne." + +For the first time Provost Wayne was silent, and stood gazing dreamily +at the floor. Evening was closing in, and the room had grown darker. + +"I know," he said, in a strange, almost sleepy voice, "there is truth in +what you say, too. It is hard not to laugh at the common names---I only +say we should not. I have thought of a remedy; but such thoughts are +rather terrible." "What thoughts?" asked Auberon. -The Provost of Notting Hill seemed to have fallen into a -kind of trance; in his eyes was an elvish light. +The Provost of Notting Hill seemed to have fallen into a kind of trance; +in his eyes was an elvish light. -"I know of a magic wand, but it is a wand that only one or -two may rightly use, and only seldom. It is a fairy wand of -great fear, stronger than those who use it---often -frightful, often wicked to use. But whatever is touched with -it is never again wholly common. Whatever is touched with it -takes a magic from outside the world. If I touch, with this -fairy wand, the railways and the roads of Notting Hill, men -will love them, and be afraid of them for ever." +"I know of a magic wand, but it is a wand that only one or two may +rightly use, and only seldom. It is a fairy wand of great fear, stronger +than those who use it---often frightful, often wicked to use. But +whatever is touched with it is never again wholly common. Whatever is +touched with it takes a magic from outside the world. If I touch, with +this fairy wand, the railways and the roads of Notting Hill, men will +love them, and be afraid of them for ever." "What the devil are you talking about?" asked the King. "It has made mean landscapes magnificent, and hovels outlast -cathedrals," went on the madman. "Why should it not make -lampposts fairer than Greek lamps, and an omnibus ride like -a painted ship? The touch of it is the finger of a strange -perfection." +cathedrals," went on the madman. "Why should it not make lampposts +fairer than Greek lamps, and an omnibus ride like a painted ship? The +touch of it is the finger of a strange perfection." "What is your wand?" cried the King, impatiently. -"There it is," said Wayne; and pointed to the floor, where -his sword lay flat and shining. +"There it is," said Wayne; and pointed to the floor, where his sword lay +flat and shining. -"The sword!" cried the King; and sprang up straight on the -dais. +"The sword!" cried the King; and sprang up straight on the dais. -"Yes, yes," cried Wayne, hoarsely. "The things touched by -that are not vulgar. The things touched by that--" +"Yes, yes," cried Wayne, hoarsely. "The things touched by that are not +vulgar. The things touched by that--" King Auberon made a gesture of horror. -"You will shed blood for that !" he cried. "For a cursed -point of view--" - -"Oh, you kings, you kings," cried out Adam, in a burst of -scorn. "How humane you are, how tender, how considerate. You -will make war for a frontier, or the imports of a foreign -harbour; you will shed blood for the precise duty on lace, -or the salute to an admiral. But for the things that make -life itself worthy or miserable---how humane you are. I say -here, and I know well what I speak of, there were never any -necessary wars but the religious wars. There were never any -just wars but the religious wars. There were never any -humane wars but the religious wars. For these men were -fighting for something that claimed, at least, to be the -happiness of a man, the virtue of a man. A Crusader thought, -at least, that Islam hurt the soul of every man, king or -tinker, that it could really capture. I think Buck and -Barker and these rich vultures hurt the soul of every man, -hurt every inch of the ground, hurt every brick of the -houses, that they can really capture. Do you think I have no -right to fight for Notting Hill, you whose English -Government has so often fought for tomfooleries? If, as your -rich friends say, there are no gods, and the skies are dark -above us, what should a man fight for, but the place where -he had the Eden of childhood and the short heaven of first -love? If no temples and no scriptures are sacred, what is -sacred if a man's own youth is not sacred?" +"You will shed blood for that !" he cried. "For a cursed point of +view--" + +"Oh, you kings, you kings," cried out Adam, in a burst of scorn. "How +humane you are, how tender, how considerate. You will make war for a +frontier, or the imports of a foreign harbour; you will shed blood for +the precise duty on lace, or the salute to an admiral. But for the +things that make life itself worthy or miserable---how humane you are. I +say here, and I know well what I speak of, there were never any +necessary wars but the religious wars. There were never any just wars +but the religious wars. There were never any humane wars but the +religious wars. For these men were fighting for something that claimed, +at least, to be the happiness of a man, the virtue of a man. A Crusader +thought, at least, that Islam hurt the soul of every man, king or +tinker, that it could really capture. I think Buck and Barker and these +rich vultures hurt the soul of every man, hurt every inch of the ground, +hurt every brick of the houses, that they can really capture. Do you +think I have no right to fight for Notting Hill, you whose English +Government has so often fought for tomfooleries? If, as your rich +friends say, there are no gods, and the skies are dark above us, what +should a man fight for, but the place where he had the Eden of childhood +and the short heaven of first love? If no temples and no scriptures are +sacred, what is sacred if a man's own youth is not sacred?" The King walked a little restlessly up and down the dais. -"It is hard," he said, biting his lips, "to assent to a view -so desperate---so responsible..." +"It is hard," he said, biting his lips, "to assent to a view so +desperate---so responsible..." -As he spoke, the door of the audience chamber fell ajar, and -through the aperture came, like the sudden chatter of a -bird, the high, nasal, but well-bred voice of Barker. +As he spoke, the door of the audience chamber fell ajar, and through the +aperture came, like the sudden chatter of a bird, the high, nasal, but +well-bred voice of Barker. "I said to him quite plainly---the public interests--" Auberon turned on Wayne with violence. -"What the devil is all this? What am I saying? What are you -saying? Have you hypnotised me? Curse your uncanny blue -eyes! Let me go. Give me back my sense of humour. Give it me -back. Give it me back, I say!" +"What the devil is all this? What am I saying? What are you saying? Have +you hypnotised me? Curse your uncanny blue eyes! Let me go. Give me back +my sense of humour. Give it me back. Give it me back, I say!" -"I solemnly assure you," said Wayne, uneasily, with a -gesture, as if feeling all over himself, "that I haven't got -it." +"I solemnly assure you," said Wayne, uneasily, with a gesture, as if +feeling all over himself, "that I haven't got it." -The King fell back in his chair, and went into a roar of -Rabelaisian laughter. +The King fell back in his chair, and went into a roar of Rabelaisian +laughter. "I don't think you have," he cried. @@ -2623,616 +2294,533 @@ Rabelaisian laughter. ## The Mental Condition of Adam Wayne -A little while after the King's accession a small book of -poems appeared, called "Hymns on the Hill." They were not -good poems, nor was the book successful, but it attracted a -certain amount of attention from one particular school of -critics. The King himself, who was a member of the school, -reviewed it in his capacity of literary critic to "Straight -from the Stables," a sporting journal. They were known as -the Hammock School, because it had been calculated -malignantly by an enemy that no less than thirteen of their -delicate criticisms had begun with the words, "I read this -book in a hammock: half asleep in the sleepy sunlight, -I..."; after that there were important differences. Under -these conditions they liked everything, but especially -everything silly. "Next to authentic goodness in a book," -they said--"next to authentic goodness in a book (and that, -alas! we never find) we desire a rich badness." Thus it -happened that their praise (as indicating the presence of a -rich badness) was not universally sought after, and authors -became a little disquieted when they found the eye of the -Hammock School fixed upon them with peculiar favour. - -The peculiarity of "Hymns on the Hill" was the celebration -of the poetry of London as distinct from the poetry of the -country. This sentiment or affectation, was of course, not -uncommon in the twentieth century, nor was it, although -sometimes exaggerated, and sometimes artificial, by any -means without a great truth at its root, for there is one -respect in which a town must be more poetical than the -country, since it is closer to the spirit of man; for -London, if it be not one of the masterpieces of man, is at -least one of his sins. A street is really more poetical than -a meadow, because a street has a secret. A street is going -somewhere, and a meadow nowhere. But, in the case of the -book called "Hymns on the Hill," there was another -peculiarity, which the King pointed out with great acumen in -his review. He was naturally interested in the matter, for -he had himself published a volume of lyrics about London -under his pseudonym of "Daisy Daydream." - -This difference, as the King pointed out, consisted in the -fact that, while mere artificers like "Daisy Daydream" (on -whose elaborate style the King, over his signature of -"Thunderbolt," was perhaps somewhat too severe) thought to -praise London by comparing it to the country---using nature, -that is, as a background from which all poetical images had -to be drawn the more robust author of "Hymns on the Hill" -praised the country, or nature, by comparing it to the town, -and used the town itself as a background. "Take," said the -critic, "the typically feminine lines, 'To the Inventor of -The Hansom Cab'-- +A little while after the King's accession a small book of poems +appeared, called "Hymns on the Hill." They were not good poems, nor was +the book successful, but it attracted a certain amount of attention from +one particular school of critics. The King himself, who was a member of +the school, reviewed it in his capacity of literary critic to "Straight +from the Stables," a sporting journal. They were known as the Hammock +School, because it had been calculated malignantly by an enemy that no +less than thirteen of their delicate criticisms had begun with the +words, "I read this book in a hammock: half asleep in the sleepy +sunlight, I..."; after that there were important differences. Under +these conditions they liked everything, but especially everything silly. +"Next to authentic goodness in a book," they said--"next to authentic +goodness in a book (and that, alas! we never find) we desire a rich +badness." Thus it happened that their praise (as indicating the presence +of a rich badness) was not universally sought after, and authors became +a little disquieted when they found the eye of the Hammock School fixed +upon them with peculiar favour. + +The peculiarity of "Hymns on the Hill" was the celebration of the poetry +of London as distinct from the poetry of the country. This sentiment or +affectation, was of course, not uncommon in the twentieth century, nor +was it, although sometimes exaggerated, and sometimes artificial, by any +means without a great truth at its root, for there is one respect in +which a town must be more poetical than the country, since it is closer +to the spirit of man; for London, if it be not one of the masterpieces +of man, is at least one of his sins. A street is really more poetical +than a meadow, because a street has a secret. A street is going +somewhere, and a meadow nowhere. But, in the case of the book called +"Hymns on the Hill," there was another peculiarity, which the King +pointed out with great acumen in his review. He was naturally interested +in the matter, for he had himself published a volume of lyrics about +London under his pseudonym of "Daisy Daydream." + +This difference, as the King pointed out, consisted in the fact that, +while mere artificers like "Daisy Daydream" (on whose elaborate style +the King, over his signature of "Thunderbolt," was perhaps somewhat too +severe) thought to praise London by comparing it to the country---using +nature, that is, as a background from which all poetical images had to +be drawn the more robust author of "Hymns on the Hill" praised the +country, or nature, by comparing it to the town, and used the town +itself as a background. "Take," said the critic, "the typically feminine +lines, 'To the Inventor of The Hansom Cab'-- >   'Poet, whose cunning carved this amorous shell, > > Where twain may dwell.' -"Surely," wrote the King, "no one but a woman could have -written those lines. A woman has always a weakness for -nature; with her, art is only beautiful as an echo or shadow -of it. She is praising the hansom cab by theme and theory, -but her soul is still a child by the sea, picking up shells. -She can never be utterly of the town, as a man can; indeed, -do we not speak (with sacred propriety) of 'a man about -town'? Who ever spoke of a woman about town? However much, -physically, 'about town' a woman may be, she still models -herself on nature; she tries to carry nature with her; she -bids grasses to grow on her head, and furry beasts to bite -her about the throat. In the heart of a dim city, she models -her hat on a flaring cottage garden of flowers. We, with our -nobler civic sentiment, model ours on a chimney pot; the -ensign of civilisation. And rather than be without birds, -she will commit massacre, that she may turn her head into a -tree, with dead birds to sing on it" - -This kind of thing went on for several pages, and then the -critic remembered his subject, and returned to it. +"Surely," wrote the King, "no one but a woman could have written those +lines. A woman has always a weakness for nature; with her, art is only +beautiful as an echo or shadow of it. She is praising the hansom cab by +theme and theory, but her soul is still a child by the sea, picking up +shells. She can never be utterly of the town, as a man can; indeed, do +we not speak (with sacred propriety) of 'a man about town'? Who ever +spoke of a woman about town? However much, physically, 'about town' a +woman may be, she still models herself on nature; she tries to carry +nature with her; she bids grasses to grow on her head, and furry beasts +to bite her about the throat. In the heart of a dim city, she models her +hat on a flaring cottage garden of flowers. We, with our nobler civic +sentiment, model ours on a chimney pot; the ensign of civilisation. And +rather than be without birds, she will commit massacre, that she may +turn her head into a tree, with dead birds to sing on it" + +This kind of thing went on for several pages, and then the critic +remembered his subject, and returned to it. >   Poet, whose cunning carved this amorous shell, > > Where twain may dwell. -"The peculiarity of these fine though feminine lines," -continued "Thunderbolt," "is, as we have said, that they -praise the hansom cab by comparing it to the shell, to a -natural thing. Now, hear the author of 'Hymns on the Hill,' -and how he deals with the same subject. In his fine -nocturne, entitled 'The Last Omnibus,' he relieves the rich -and poignant melancholy of the theme by a sudden sense of -rushing at the end-- +"The peculiarity of these fine though feminine lines," continued +"Thunderbolt," "is, as we have said, that they praise the hansom cab by +comparing it to the shell, to a natural thing. Now, hear the author of +'Hymns on the Hill,' and how he deals with the same subject. In his fine +nocturne, entitled 'The Last Omnibus,' he relieves the rich and poignant +melancholy of the theme by a sudden sense of rushing at the end-- >   The wind round the old street corner > > Swung sudden and quick as a cab. -"Here the distinction is obvious. 'Daisy Daydream' thinks it -a great compliment to a hansom cab to be compared to one of -the spiral chambers of the sea. And the author of 'Hymns on -the Hill' thinks it a great compliment to the immortal -whirlwind to be compared to a hackney coach. He surely is -the real admirer of London. We have no space to speak of all -his perfect applications of the idea; of the poem in which, -for instance, a lady's eyes are compared, not to stars, but -to two perfect street-lamps guiding the wanderer. We have no -space to speak of the fine lyric, recalling the Elizabethan -spirit, in which the poet, instead of saying that the rose -and the lily contend in her complexion, says, with a purer -modernism, that the red omnibus of Hammersmith and the white -omnibus of Fulham fight there for the mastery. How perfect -the image of two contending omnibuses!" - -Here, somewhat abruptly, the review concluded, probably -because the King had to send off his copy at that moment, as -he was in some want of money. But the King was a very good -critic, whatever he may have been as King, and he had, to a -considerable extent, hit the right nail on the head. "Hymns -on the Hill" was not at all like the poems originally -published in praise of the poetry of London. And the reason -was that it was really written by a man who had seen nothing -else but London, and who regarded it, therefore, as the -universe. It was written by a raw, red-headed lad of -seventeen, named Adam Wayne, who had been born in Notting -Hill. An accident in his seventh year prevented his being -taken away to the seaside, and thus his whole life had been -passed in his own Pump Street, and in its neighbourhood. And -the consequence was, that he saw the street-lamps as things -quite as eternal as the stars; the two fires were mingled. -He saw the houses as things enduring, like the mountains, -and so he wrote about them as one would write about -mountains. Nature puts on a disguise when she speaks to -every man; to this man she put on the disguise of Notting -Hill. Nature would mean to a poet born in the Cumberland -hills, a stormy skyline and sudden rocks. Nature would mean -to a poet born in the Essex flats, a waste of splendid -waters and splendid sunsets. So nature meant to this man -Wayne a line of violet roofs and lemon lamps, the -chiaroscuro of the town. He did not think it clever or funny -to praise the shadows and colours of the town; he had seen -no other shadows or colours, and so he praised -them---because they were shadows and colours. He saw all -this because he was a poet, though in practice a bad poet. -It is too often forgotten that just as a bad man is -nevertheless a man, so a bad poet is nevertheless a poet. - -Mr. Wayne's little volume of verse was a complete failure; -and he submitted to the decision of fate with a quite -rational humility, went back to his work, which was that of -a draper's assistant, and wrote no more. He still retained -his feeling about the town of Notting Hill, because he could -not possibly have any other feeling, because it was the back -and base of his brain. But he does not seem to have made any +"Here the distinction is obvious. 'Daisy Daydream' thinks it a great +compliment to a hansom cab to be compared to one of the spiral chambers +of the sea. And the author of 'Hymns on the Hill' thinks it a great +compliment to the immortal whirlwind to be compared to a hackney coach. +He surely is the real admirer of London. We have no space to speak of +all his perfect applications of the idea; of the poem in which, for +instance, a lady's eyes are compared, not to stars, but to two perfect +street-lamps guiding the wanderer. We have no space to speak of the fine +lyric, recalling the Elizabethan spirit, in which the poet, instead of +saying that the rose and the lily contend in her complexion, says, with +a purer modernism, that the red omnibus of Hammersmith and the white +omnibus of Fulham fight there for the mastery. How perfect the image of +two contending omnibuses!" + +Here, somewhat abruptly, the review concluded, probably because the King +had to send off his copy at that moment, as he was in some want of +money. But the King was a very good critic, whatever he may have been as +King, and he had, to a considerable extent, hit the right nail on the +head. "Hymns on the Hill" was not at all like the poems originally +published in praise of the poetry of London. And the reason was that it +was really written by a man who had seen nothing else but London, and +who regarded it, therefore, as the universe. It was written by a raw, +red-headed lad of seventeen, named Adam Wayne, who had been born in +Notting Hill. An accident in his seventh year prevented his being taken +away to the seaside, and thus his whole life had been passed in his own +Pump Street, and in its neighbourhood. And the consequence was, that he +saw the street-lamps as things quite as eternal as the stars; the two +fires were mingled. He saw the houses as things enduring, like the +mountains, and so he wrote about them as one would write about +mountains. Nature puts on a disguise when she speaks to every man; to +this man she put on the disguise of Notting Hill. Nature would mean to a +poet born in the Cumberland hills, a stormy skyline and sudden rocks. +Nature would mean to a poet born in the Essex flats, a waste of splendid +waters and splendid sunsets. So nature meant to this man Wayne a line of +violet roofs and lemon lamps, the chiaroscuro of the town. He did not +think it clever or funny to praise the shadows and colours of the town; +he had seen no other shadows or colours, and so he praised +them---because they were shadows and colours. He saw all this because he +was a poet, though in practice a bad poet. It is too often forgotten +that just as a bad man is nevertheless a man, so a bad poet is +nevertheless a poet. + +Mr. Wayne's little volume of verse was a complete failure; and he +submitted to the decision of fate with a quite rational humility, went +back to his work, which was that of a draper's assistant, and wrote no +more. He still retained his feeling about the town of Notting Hill, +because he could not possibly have any other feeling, because it was the +back and base of his brain. But he does not seem to have made any particular attempt to express it or insist upon it. -He was a genuine natural mystic, one of those who live on -the border of fairyland. But he was perhaps the first to -realise how often the boundary of fairyland runs through a -crowded city. Twenty feet from him (for he was very -short-sighted) the red and white and yellow suns of the -gas-lights thronged and melted into each other like an -orchard of fiery trees, the beginning of the woods of -elf-land. - -But, oddly enough, it was because he was a small poet that -he came to his strange and isolated triumph. It was because -he was a failure in literature that he became a portent in -English history. He was one of those to whom nature has -given the desire without the power of artistic expression. -He had been a dumb poet from his cradle. He might have been -so to his grave, and carried unuttered into the darkness a -treasure of new and sensational song. But he was born under -the lucky star of a single coincidence. He happened to be at -the head of his dingy municipality at the time of the King's -jest, at the time when all municipalities were suddenly -commanded to break out into banners and flowers. Out of the -long procession of the silent poets who have been passing -since the beginning of the world, this one man found himself -in the midst of an heraldic vision, in which he could act -and speak and live lyrically. While the author and the -victims alike treated the whole matter as a silly public -charade, this one man, by taking it seriously, sprang -suddenly into a throne of artistic omnipotence. Armour, -music, standards, watch-fires, the noise of drums, all the -theatrical properties were thrown before him. This one poor -rhymester, having burnt his own rhymes, began to live that -life of open air and acted poetry of which all the poets of -the earth have dreamed in vain; the life for which the Iliad -is only a cheap substitute. - -Upwards from his abstracted childhood, Adam Wayne had grown -strongly and silently in a certain quality or capacity which -is in modern cities almost entirely artificial, but which -can be natural, and was primarily almost brutally natural in -him, the quality or capacity of patriotism. It exists, like -other virtues and vices, in a certain undiluted reality. It -is not confused with all kinds of other things. A child -speaking of his country or his village may make every -mistake in Mandeville or tell every lie in Munchhausen, but -in his statement there will be no psychological lies any -more than there can be in a good song. Adam Wayne, as a boy, -had for his dull streets in Notting Hill the ultimate and -ancient sentiment that went out to Athens or Jerusalem. He -knew the secret of the passion, those secrets which make -real old national songs sound so strange to our -civilisation. He knew that real patriotism tends to sing -about sorrows and forlorn hopes much more than about -victory. He knew that in proper names themselves is half the -poetry of all national poems. Above all, he knew the supreme -psychological fact about patriotism, as certain in -connection with it as that a fine shame comes to all lovers, -the fact that the patriot never under any circumstances -boasts of the largeness of his country, but always, and of -necessity, boasts of the smallness of it. - -All this he knew, not because he was a philosopher or a -genius, but because he was a child. Any one who cares to -walk up a side slum like Pump Street, can see a little Adam -claiming to be king of a paving-stone. And he will always be -proudest if the stone is almost too narrow for him to keep -his feet inside it. - -It was while he was in such a dream of defensive battle, -marking out some strip of street or fortress of steps as the -limit of his haughty claim, that the King had met him, and, -with a few words flung in mockery, ratified for ever the -strange boundaries of his soul. Thenceforward the fanciful -idea of the defence of Notting Hill in war became to him a -thing as solid as eating or drinking or lighting a pipe. He -disposed his meals for it, altered his plans for it, lay -awake in the night and went over it again. Two or three -shops were to him an arsenal; an area was to him a moat; -corners of balconies and turns of stone steps were points -for the location of a culverin or an archer. It is almost -impossible to convey to any ordinary imagination the degree -to which he had transmitted the leaden London landscape to a -romantic gold. The process began almost in babyhood, and -became habitual like a literal madness. It was felt most -keenly at night, when London is really herself, when her -lights shine in the dark like the eyes of innumerable cats, -and the outline of the dark houses has the bold simplicity -of blue hills. But for him the night revealed instead of -concealing, and he read all the blank hours of morning and -afternoon, by a contradictory phrase, in the light of that -darkness. To this man, at any rate, the inconceivable had -happened. The artificial city had become to him nature, and -he felt the curbstones and gas-lamps as things as ancient as +He was a genuine natural mystic, one of those who live on the border of +fairyland. But he was perhaps the first to realise how often the +boundary of fairyland runs through a crowded city. Twenty feet from him +(for he was very short-sighted) the red and white and yellow suns of the +gas-lights thronged and melted into each other like an orchard of fiery +trees, the beginning of the woods of elf-land. + +But, oddly enough, it was because he was a small poet that he came to +his strange and isolated triumph. It was because he was a failure in +literature that he became a portent in English history. He was one of +those to whom nature has given the desire without the power of artistic +expression. He had been a dumb poet from his cradle. He might have been +so to his grave, and carried unuttered into the darkness a treasure of +new and sensational song. But he was born under the lucky star of a +single coincidence. He happened to be at the head of his dingy +municipality at the time of the King's jest, at the time when all +municipalities were suddenly commanded to break out into banners and +flowers. Out of the long procession of the silent poets who have been +passing since the beginning of the world, this one man found himself in +the midst of an heraldic vision, in which he could act and speak and +live lyrically. While the author and the victims alike treated the whole +matter as a silly public charade, this one man, by taking it seriously, +sprang suddenly into a throne of artistic omnipotence. Armour, music, +standards, watch-fires, the noise of drums, all the theatrical +properties were thrown before him. This one poor rhymester, having burnt +his own rhymes, began to live that life of open air and acted poetry of +which all the poets of the earth have dreamed in vain; the life for +which the Iliad is only a cheap substitute. + +Upwards from his abstracted childhood, Adam Wayne had grown strongly and +silently in a certain quality or capacity which is in modern cities +almost entirely artificial, but which can be natural, and was primarily +almost brutally natural in him, the quality or capacity of patriotism. +It exists, like other virtues and vices, in a certain undiluted reality. +It is not confused with all kinds of other things. A child speaking of +his country or his village may make every mistake in Mandeville or tell +every lie in Munchhausen, but in his statement there will be no +psychological lies any more than there can be in a good song. Adam +Wayne, as a boy, had for his dull streets in Notting Hill the ultimate +and ancient sentiment that went out to Athens or Jerusalem. He knew the +secret of the passion, those secrets which make real old national songs +sound so strange to our civilisation. He knew that real patriotism tends +to sing about sorrows and forlorn hopes much more than about victory. He +knew that in proper names themselves is half the poetry of all national +poems. Above all, he knew the supreme psychological fact about +patriotism, as certain in connection with it as that a fine shame comes +to all lovers, the fact that the patriot never under any circumstances +boasts of the largeness of his country, but always, and of necessity, +boasts of the smallness of it. + +All this he knew, not because he was a philosopher or a genius, but +because he was a child. Any one who cares to walk up a side slum like +Pump Street, can see a little Adam claiming to be king of a +paving-stone. And he will always be proudest if the stone is almost too +narrow for him to keep his feet inside it. + +It was while he was in such a dream of defensive battle, marking out +some strip of street or fortress of steps as the limit of his haughty +claim, that the King had met him, and, with a few words flung in +mockery, ratified for ever the strange boundaries of his soul. +Thenceforward the fanciful idea of the defence of Notting Hill in war +became to him a thing as solid as eating or drinking or lighting a pipe. +He disposed his meals for it, altered his plans for it, lay awake in the +night and went over it again. Two or three shops were to him an arsenal; +an area was to him a moat; corners of balconies and turns of stone steps +were points for the location of a culverin or an archer. It is almost +impossible to convey to any ordinary imagination the degree to which he +had transmitted the leaden London landscape to a romantic gold. The +process began almost in babyhood, and became habitual like a literal +madness. It was felt most keenly at night, when London is really +herself, when her lights shine in the dark like the eyes of innumerable +cats, and the outline of the dark houses has the bold simplicity of blue +hills. But for him the night revealed instead of concealing, and he read +all the blank hours of morning and afternoon, by a contradictory phrase, +in the light of that darkness. To this man, at any rate, the +inconceivable had happened. The artificial city had become to him +nature, and he felt the curbstones and gas-lamps as things as ancient as the sky. -One instance may suffice. Walking along Pump Street with a -friend, he said, as he gazed dreamily at the iron fence of a -little front garden, "How those railings stir one's blood." - -His friend, who was also a great intellectual admirer, -looked at them painfully, but without any particular -emotion. He was so troubled about it that he went back quite -a large number of times on quiet evenings and stared at the -railings, waiting for something to happen to his blood, but -without success. At last he took refuge in asking Wayne -himself. He discovered that the ecstasy lay in the one point -he had never noticed about the railings even after his six -visits, the fact that they were like the great majority of -others in London, shaped at the top after the manner of a -spear. As a child, Wayne had half unconsciously compared -them with the spears in pictures of Lancelot and St. George, -and had grown up under the shadow of the graphic -association. Now, whenever he looked at them, they were -simply the serried weapons that made a hedge of steel round -the sacred homes of Notting Hill. He could not have cleansed -his mind of that meaning even if he tried. It was not a -fanciful comparison, or anything like it. It would not have -been true to say that the familiar railings reminded him of -spears; it would have been far truer to say that the -familiar spears occasionally reminded him of railings. - -A couple of days after his interview with the King, Adam -Wayne was pacing like a caged lion in front of five shops -that occupied the upper end of the disputed street. They -were a grocer's, a chemist's, a barber's, an old curiosity -shop, and a toy-shop that sold also newspapers. It was these -five shops which his childish fastidiousness had first -selected as the essentials of the Notting Hill campaign, the -citadel of the city. If Notting Hill was the heart of the -universe, and Pump Street was the heart of Notting Hill, -this was the heart of Pump Street. The fact that they were -all small and side by side realised that feeling for a -formidable comfort and compactness which, as we have said, -was the heart of his patriotism and of all patriotism. The -grocer (who had a wine and spirit license) was included -because he could provision the garrison; the old curiosity -shop because it contained enough swords, pistols, partisans, -cross-bows, and blunderbusses to arm a whole irregular -regiment; the toy and paper shop because Wayne thought a -free press an essential centre for the soul of Pump Street; -the chemist's to cope with outbreaks of disease among the -besieged; and the barber's because it was in the middle of -all the rest, and the barber's son was an intimate friend -and spiritual affinity. - -It was a cloudless October evening settling down through -purple into pure silver around the roofs and chimneys of the -steep little street, which looked black and sharp and -dramatic. In the deep shadows the gas-lit shop fronts -gleamed like five fires in a row, and before them, darkly -outlined like a ghost against some purgatorial furnaces, -passed to and fro the tall bird-like figure and eagle nose -of Adam Wayne. - -He swung his stick restlessly, and seemed fitfully talking -to himself. - -"There are, after all, enigmas," he said, "even to the man -who has faith. There are doubts that remain even after the -true philosophy is completed in every rung and rivet. And -here is one of them. Is the normal human need, the normal -human condition, higher or lower than those special states -of the soul which call out a doubtful and dangerous glory? -those special powers of knowledge or sacrifice which are -made possible only by the existence of evil? Which should -come first to our affections, the enduring sanities of peace -or the half-maniacal virtues of battle? Which should come -first, the man great in the daily round or the man great in -emergency? Which should come first, to return to the enigma -before me, the grocer or the chemist? Which is more -certainly the stay of the city, the swift chivalrous chemist -or the benignant all-providing grocer? In such ultimate -spiritual doubts it is only possible to choose a side by the -higher instincts and to abide the issue. In any case, I have -made my choice. May I be pardoned if I choose wrongly, but I -choose the grocer." - -"Good morning, sir," said the grocer, who was a middle-aged -man, partially bald, with harsh red whiskers and beard, and -forehead lined with all the cares of the small tradesman. -"What can I do for you, sir?" - -Wayne removed his hat on entering the shop, with a -ceremonious gesture, which, slight as it was, made the -tradesman eye him with the beginnings of wonder. - -"I come, sir," he said soberly, "to appeal to your -patriotism." - -"Why, sir," said the grocer, "that sounds like the times -when I was a boy and we used to have elections." - -"You will have them again," said Wayne, firmly, "and far -greater things. Listen, Mr. Mead. I know the temptations -which a grocer has to a too cosmopolitan philosophy. I can -imagine what it must be to sit all day as you do surrounded -with wares from all the ends of the earth, from strange seas -that we have never sailed and strange forests that we could -not even picture. No Eastern king ever had such argosies or -such cargoes coming from the sunrise and the sunset, and -Solomon in all his glory was not enriched like one of you. -India is at your elbow," he cried, lifting his voice and -pointing his stick at a drawer of rice, the grocer making a -movement of some alarm, "China is before you, Demerara is -behind you, America is above your head, and at this very -moment, like some old Spanish admiral, you hold Tunis in -your hands." - -Mr. Mead dropped the box of dates which he was just lifting, -and then picked it up again vaguely. - -Wayne went on with a heightened colour, but in a lowered -voice, - -"I know, I say, the temptations of so international, so -universal a vision of wealth. I know that it must be your -danger not to fall like many tradesmen into too dusty and -mechanical a narrowness, but rather to be too broad, to be -too general, too liberal. If a narrow nationalism be the -danger of the pastry-cook, who makes his own wares under his -own heavens, no less is cosmopolitanism the danger of the -grocer. But I come to you in the name of that patriotism -which no wanderings or enlightenments should ever wholly -extinguish, and I ask you to remember Notting Hill. For, -after all, in this cosmopolitan magnificence, she has played -no small part. Your dates may come from the tall palms of -Barbary, your sugar from the strange islands of the tropics, -your tea from the secret villages of the Empire of the -Dragon. That this room might be furnished, forests may have -been spoiled under the Southern Cross, and leviathans -speared under the Polar Star. But you yourself surely no -inconsiderable treasure you yourself, the brain that wields -these vast interests you yourself, at least, have grown to -strength and wisdom between these grey houses and under this -rainy sky. This city which made you, and thus made your -fortunes, is threatened with war. Come forth and tell to the -ends of the earth this lesson. Oil is from the North and -fruits from the South; rices are from India and spices from -Ceylon; sheep are from New Zealand and men from Netting -Hill." - -The grocer sat for some little while, with dim eyes and his -mouth open, looking rather like a fish. Then he scratched -the back of his head, and said nothing. Then he said-- +One instance may suffice. Walking along Pump Street with a friend, he +said, as he gazed dreamily at the iron fence of a little front garden, +"How those railings stir one's blood." + +His friend, who was also a great intellectual admirer, looked at them +painfully, but without any particular emotion. He was so troubled about +it that he went back quite a large number of times on quiet evenings and +stared at the railings, waiting for something to happen to his blood, +but without success. At last he took refuge in asking Wayne himself. He +discovered that the ecstasy lay in the one point he had never noticed +about the railings even after his six visits, the fact that they were +like the great majority of others in London, shaped at the top after the +manner of a spear. As a child, Wayne had half unconsciously compared +them with the spears in pictures of Lancelot and St. George, and had +grown up under the shadow of the graphic association. Now, whenever he +looked at them, they were simply the serried weapons that made a hedge +of steel round the sacred homes of Notting Hill. He could not have +cleansed his mind of that meaning even if he tried. It was not a +fanciful comparison, or anything like it. It would not have been true to +say that the familiar railings reminded him of spears; it would have +been far truer to say that the familiar spears occasionally reminded him +of railings. + +A couple of days after his interview with the King, Adam Wayne was +pacing like a caged lion in front of five shops that occupied the upper +end of the disputed street. They were a grocer's, a chemist's, a +barber's, an old curiosity shop, and a toy-shop that sold also +newspapers. It was these five shops which his childish fastidiousness +had first selected as the essentials of the Notting Hill campaign, the +citadel of the city. If Notting Hill was the heart of the universe, and +Pump Street was the heart of Notting Hill, this was the heart of Pump +Street. The fact that they were all small and side by side realised that +feeling for a formidable comfort and compactness which, as we have said, +was the heart of his patriotism and of all patriotism. The grocer (who +had a wine and spirit license) was included because he could provision +the garrison; the old curiosity shop because it contained enough swords, +pistols, partisans, cross-bows, and blunderbusses to arm a whole +irregular regiment; the toy and paper shop because Wayne thought a free +press an essential centre for the soul of Pump Street; the chemist's to +cope with outbreaks of disease among the besieged; and the barber's +because it was in the middle of all the rest, and the barber's son was +an intimate friend and spiritual affinity. + +It was a cloudless October evening settling down through purple into +pure silver around the roofs and chimneys of the steep little street, +which looked black and sharp and dramatic. In the deep shadows the +gas-lit shop fronts gleamed like five fires in a row, and before them, +darkly outlined like a ghost against some purgatorial furnaces, passed +to and fro the tall bird-like figure and eagle nose of Adam Wayne. + +He swung his stick restlessly, and seemed fitfully talking to himself. + +"There are, after all, enigmas," he said, "even to the man who has +faith. There are doubts that remain even after the true philosophy is +completed in every rung and rivet. And here is one of them. Is the +normal human need, the normal human condition, higher or lower than +those special states of the soul which call out a doubtful and dangerous +glory? those special powers of knowledge or sacrifice which are made +possible only by the existence of evil? Which should come first to our +affections, the enduring sanities of peace or the half-maniacal virtues +of battle? Which should come first, the man great in the daily round or +the man great in emergency? Which should come first, to return to the +enigma before me, the grocer or the chemist? Which is more certainly the +stay of the city, the swift chivalrous chemist or the benignant +all-providing grocer? In such ultimate spiritual doubts it is only +possible to choose a side by the higher instincts and to abide the +issue. In any case, I have made my choice. May I be pardoned if I choose +wrongly, but I choose the grocer." + +"Good morning, sir," said the grocer, who was a middle-aged man, +partially bald, with harsh red whiskers and beard, and forehead lined +with all the cares of the small tradesman. "What can I do for you, sir?" + +Wayne removed his hat on entering the shop, with a ceremonious gesture, +which, slight as it was, made the tradesman eye him with the beginnings +of wonder. + +"I come, sir," he said soberly, "to appeal to your patriotism." + +"Why, sir," said the grocer, "that sounds like the times when I was a +boy and we used to have elections." + +"You will have them again," said Wayne, firmly, "and far greater things. +Listen, Mr. Mead. I know the temptations which a grocer has to a too +cosmopolitan philosophy. I can imagine what it must be to sit all day as +you do surrounded with wares from all the ends of the earth, from +strange seas that we have never sailed and strange forests that we could +not even picture. No Eastern king ever had such argosies or such cargoes +coming from the sunrise and the sunset, and Solomon in all his glory was +not enriched like one of you. India is at your elbow," he cried, lifting +his voice and pointing his stick at a drawer of rice, the grocer making +a movement of some alarm, "China is before you, Demerara is behind you, +America is above your head, and at this very moment, like some old +Spanish admiral, you hold Tunis in your hands." + +Mr. Mead dropped the box of dates which he was just lifting, and then +picked it up again vaguely. + +Wayne went on with a heightened colour, but in a lowered voice, + +"I know, I say, the temptations of so international, so universal a +vision of wealth. I know that it must be your danger not to fall like +many tradesmen into too dusty and mechanical a narrowness, but rather to +be too broad, to be too general, too liberal. If a narrow nationalism be +the danger of the pastry-cook, who makes his own wares under his own +heavens, no less is cosmopolitanism the danger of the grocer. But I come +to you in the name of that patriotism which no wanderings or +enlightenments should ever wholly extinguish, and I ask you to remember +Notting Hill. For, after all, in this cosmopolitan magnificence, she has +played no small part. Your dates may come from the tall palms of +Barbary, your sugar from the strange islands of the tropics, your tea +from the secret villages of the Empire of the Dragon. That this room +might be furnished, forests may have been spoiled under the Southern +Cross, and leviathans speared under the Polar Star. But you yourself +surely no inconsiderable treasure you yourself, the brain that wields +these vast interests you yourself, at least, have grown to strength and +wisdom between these grey houses and under this rainy sky. This city +which made you, and thus made your fortunes, is threatened with war. +Come forth and tell to the ends of the earth this lesson. Oil is from +the North and fruits from the South; rices are from India and spices +from Ceylon; sheep are from New Zealand and men from Netting Hill." + +The grocer sat for some little while, with dim eyes and his mouth open, +looking rather like a fish. Then he scratched the back of his head, and +said nothing. Then he said-- "Anything out of the shop, sir?" -Wayne looked round in a dazed way. Seeing a pile of tins of -pine-apple chunks, he waved his stick generally towards -them. +Wayne looked round in a dazed way. Seeing a pile of tins of pine-apple +chunks, he waved his stick generally towards them. "Yes," he said, "I'll take those." -"All those, sir?" said the grocer, with greatly increased -interest. +"All those, sir?" said the grocer, with greatly increased interest. -"Yes, yes; all those," replied Wayne, still a little -bewildered, like a man splashed with cold water. +"Yes, yes; all those," replied Wayne, still a little bewildered, like a +man splashed with cold water. -"Very good, sir; thank you, sir," said the grocer with -animation. "You may count upon my patriotism, sir." +"Very good, sir; thank you, sir," said the grocer with animation. "You +may count upon my patriotism, sir." -"I count upon it already," said Wayne, and passed out into -the gathering night. +"I count upon it already," said Wayne, and passed out into the gathering +night. The grocer put the box of dates back in its place. -"What a nice fellow he is," he said. "It's odd how often -they are nice. Much nicer than those as are all right." +"What a nice fellow he is," he said. "It's odd how often they are nice. +Much nicer than those as are all right." -Meanwhile Adam Wayne stood outside the glowing chemist's -shop, unmistakably wavering. +Meanwhile Adam Wayne stood outside the glowing chemist's shop, +unmistakably wavering. -"What a weakness it is," he muttered. "I have never got rid -of it from childhood. The fear of this magic shop. The -grocer is rich, he is romantic, he is poetical in the truest -sense, but he is not no, he is not supernatural. But the -chemist! All the other shops stand in Notting Hill, but this -stands in Elf-land. Look at those great burning bowls of +"What a weakness it is," he muttered. "I have never got rid of it from +childhood. The fear of this magic shop. The grocer is rich, he is +romantic, he is poetical in the truest sense, but he is not no, he is +not supernatural. But the chemist! All the other shops stand in Notting +Hill, but this stands in Elf-land. Look at those great burning bowls of colour. It must be from them that God paints the sunsets. -It is superhuman, and the superhuman is all the more uncanny -when it is beneficent. That is the root of the fear of God. -I am afraid. But I must be a man and enter. " +It is superhuman, and the superhuman is all the more uncanny when it is +beneficent. That is the root of the fear of God. I am afraid. But I must +be a man and enter. " -He was a man, and entered. A short, dark young man was -behind the counter with spectacles, and greeted him with a -bright but entirely business-like smile. +He was a man, and entered. A short, dark young man was behind the +counter with spectacles, and greeted him with a bright but entirely +business-like smile. "A fine evening, sir," he said. -"Fine, indeed, strange Father," said Adam, stretching his -hands somewhat forward. "It is on such clear and mellow -nights that your shop is most itself. Then they appear most -perfect, those moons of green and gold and crimson, which -from afar, oft guide the pilgrim of pain and sickness to +"Fine, indeed, strange Father," said Adam, stretching his hands somewhat +forward. "It is on such clear and mellow nights that your shop is most +itself. Then they appear most perfect, those moons of green and gold and +crimson, which from afar, oft guide the pilgrim of pain and sickness to this house of merciful witchcraft." "Can I get you anything?" asked the chemist. -"Let me see," said Wayne, in a friendly but vague manner. -"Let me have some Sal Volatile." +"Let me see," said Wayne, in a friendly but vague manner. "Let me have +some Sal Volatile." -"Eightpence, tenpence, or one and sixpence a bottle?" said -the young man genially. +"Eightpence, tenpence, or one and sixpence a bottle?" said the young man +genially. -"One and six---one and six," replied Wayne, with a wild -submissiveness. "I come to ask you, Mr. Bowles, a terrible -question." +"One and six---one and six," replied Wayne, with a wild submissiveness. +"I come to ask you, Mr. Bowles, a terrible question." He paused and collected himself. -It is necessary," he muttered--"it is necessary to be -tactful, and to suit the appeal to each profession in turn. +It is necessary," he muttered--"it is necessary to be tactful, and to +suit the appeal to each profession in turn. -"I come," he resumed aloud, "to ask you a question which -goes to the roots of your miraculous toils. Mr. Bowles, -shall all this witchery cease?" And he waved his stick -around the shop. +"I come," he resumed aloud, "to ask you a question which goes to the +roots of your miraculous toils. Mr. Bowles, shall all this witchery +cease?" And he waved his stick around the shop. Meeting with no answer, he continued with animation-- -"In Notting Hill we have felt to its core the elfish mystery -of your profession. And now Notting Hill itself is -threatened." +"In Notting Hill we have felt to its core the elfish mystery of your +profession. And now Notting Hill itself is threatened." "Anything more, sir?" asked the chemist. -"Oh," said Wayne, somewhat disturbed--"oh, what is it -chemists sell? Quinine, I think. Thank you. Shall it be -destroyed? I have met these men of Bayswater and North -Kensington---Mr. Bowles, they are materialists. They see no -witchery in your work, even when it is brought within their -own borders. They think the chemist is commonplace. They -think him human." +"Oh," said Wayne, somewhat disturbed--"oh, what is it chemists sell? +Quinine, I think. Thank you. Shall it be destroyed? I have met these men +of Bayswater and North Kensington---Mr. Bowles, they are materialists. +They see no witchery in your work, even when it is brought within their +own borders. They think the chemist is commonplace. They think him +human." -The chemist appeared to pause, only a moment, to take in the -insult, and immediately said-- +The chemist appeared to pause, only a moment, to take in the insult, and +immediately said-- "And the next article, please?" -"Alum," said the Provost, wildly. "I resume. It is in this -sacred town alone that your priesthood is reverenced. -Therefore, when you fight for us you fight not only for -yourself, but for everything you typify. You fight not only -for Notting Hill, but for Fairyland, for as surely as Buck -and Barker and such men hold sway, the sense of Fairyland in -some strange manner diminishes." - -"Anything more, sir?" asked Mr. Bowles, with unbroken -cheerfulness. - -"Oh yes, jujubes---Gregory powder---magnesia. The danger is -imminent. In all this matter I have felt that I fought not -merely for my own city (though to that I owe all my blood), -but for all places in which these great ideas could prevail. -I am fighting not merely for Notting Hill, but for Bayswater -itself; for North Kensington itself. For if the gold-hunters -prevail, these also will lose all their ancient sentiments -and all the mystery of their national soul. I know I can -count upon you." - -"Oh, yes, sir," said the chemist, with great animation, "we -are always glad to oblige a good customer." - -Adam Wayne went out of the shop with a deep sense of -fulfilment of soul. - -"It is so fortunate," he said, "to have tact, to be able to -play upon the peculiar talents and specialities, the -cosmopolitanism of the grocer and the world-old necromancy -of the chemist. Where should I be without tact?" +"Alum," said the Provost, wildly. "I resume. It is in this sacred town +alone that your priesthood is reverenced. Therefore, when you fight for +us you fight not only for yourself, but for everything you typify. You +fight not only for Notting Hill, but for Fairyland, for as surely as +Buck and Barker and such men hold sway, the sense of Fairyland in some +strange manner diminishes." + +"Anything more, sir?" asked Mr. Bowles, with unbroken cheerfulness. + +"Oh yes, jujubes---Gregory powder---magnesia. The danger is imminent. In +all this matter I have felt that I fought not merely for my own city +(though to that I owe all my blood), but for all places in which these +great ideas could prevail. I am fighting not merely for Notting Hill, +but for Bayswater itself; for North Kensington itself. For if the +gold-hunters prevail, these also will lose all their ancient sentiments +and all the mystery of their national soul. I know I can count upon +you." + +"Oh, yes, sir," said the chemist, with great animation, "we are always +glad to oblige a good customer." + +Adam Wayne went out of the shop with a deep sense of fulfilment of soul. + +"It is so fortunate," he said, "to have tact, to be able to play upon +the peculiar talents and specialities, the cosmopolitanism of the grocer +and the world-old necromancy of the chemist. Where should I be without +tact?" ## The Remarkable Mr. Turnbull -After two more interviews with shopmen, however, the -patriot's confidence in his own psychological diplomacy -began vaguely to wane. Despite the care with which he -considered the peculiar rationale and the peculiar glory of -each separate shop, there seemed to be something -unresponsive about the shopmen. Whether it was a dark -resentment against the uninitiated for peeping into their -masonic magnificence, he could not quite conjecture. - -His conversation with the man who kept the shop of -curiosities had begun encouragingly. The man who kept the -shop of curiosities had indeed enchanted him with a phrase. -He was standing drearily at the door of his shop, a wrinkled -man with a grey pointed beard, evidently a gentleman who had -come down in the world. - -"And how does your commerce go, you strange guardian of the -past?" said Wayne, affably. - -"Well, sir, not very well," replied the man, with that -patient voice of his class which is one of the most -heart-breaking things in the world. "Things are terribly -quiet." +After two more interviews with shopmen, however, the patriot's +confidence in his own psychological diplomacy began vaguely to wane. +Despite the care with which he considered the peculiar rationale and the +peculiar glory of each separate shop, there seemed to be something +unresponsive about the shopmen. Whether it was a dark resentment against +the uninitiated for peeping into their masonic magnificence, he could +not quite conjecture. + +His conversation with the man who kept the shop of curiosities had begun +encouragingly. The man who kept the shop of curiosities had indeed +enchanted him with a phrase. He was standing drearily at the door of his +shop, a wrinkled man with a grey pointed beard, evidently a gentleman +who had come down in the world. + +"And how does your commerce go, you strange guardian of the past?" said +Wayne, affably. + +"Well, sir, not very well," replied the man, with that patient voice of +his class which is one of the most heart-breaking things in the world. +"Things are terribly quiet." Wayne's eyes shone suddenly. -"A great saying," he said, "worthy of a man whose -merchandise is human history. Terribly quiet; that is in two -words the spirit of this age, as I have felt it from my -cradle. I sometimes wondered how many other people felt the -oppression of this union between quietude and terror. I see -blank well-ordered streets and men in black moving about -inoffensively, sullenly. It goes on day after day, day after -day, and nothing happens; but to me it is like a dream from -which I might wake screaming. To me the straightness of our -life is the straightness of a thin cord stretched tight. Its -stillness is terrible. It might snap with a noise like -thunder. And you who sit, amid the debris of the great wars, -you who sit, as it were, upon a battlefield, you know that -war was less terrible than this evil peace; you know that -the idle lads who carried those swords under Francis or -Elizabeth, the rude Squire or Baron who swung that mace -about in Picardy or Northumberland battles, may have been -terribly noisy, but were not like us, terribly quiet." - -Whether it was a faint embarrassment of conscience as to the -original source and date of the weapons referred to, or -merely an engrained depression, the guardian of the past -looked, if anything, a little more worried. - -"But I do not think," continued Wayne, "that this horrible -silence of modernity will last, though I think for the -present it will increase. What a farce is this modern -liberality. Freedom of speech means practically in our -modern civilisation that we must only talk about unimportant -things. We must not talk about religion, for that is -illiberal; we must not talk about bread and cheese, for that -is talking shop; we must not talk about death, for that is -depressing; we must not talk about birth, for that is -indelicate. It cannot last. Something must break this -strange indifference, this strange dreamy egoism, this -strange loneliness of millions in a crowd. Something must -break it. Why should it not be you and I? Can you do nothing -else but guard relics?" - -The shopman wore a gradually clearing expression, which -would have led those unsympathetic with the cause of the Red -Lion to think that the last sentence was the only one to -which he had attached any meaning. - -"I am rather old to go into a new business," he said, "and I -don't quite know what to be either." - -"Why not," said. Wayne, gently having reached the crisis of -his delicate persuasion--"why not be a Colonel?" - -It was at this point, in all probability, that the interview -began to yield more disappointing results. The man appeared -inclined at first to regard the suggestion of becoming a -Colonel as outside the sphere of immediate and relevant -discussion. A long exposition of the inevitable war of -independence, coupled with the purchase of a doubtful -sixteenth-century sword for an exaggerated price, seemed to -resettle matters. Wayne left the shop, however, somewhat -infected with the melancholy of its owner. +"A great saying," he said, "worthy of a man whose merchandise is human +history. Terribly quiet; that is in two words the spirit of this age, as +I have felt it from my cradle. I sometimes wondered how many other +people felt the oppression of this union between quietude and terror. I +see blank well-ordered streets and men in black moving about +inoffensively, sullenly. It goes on day after day, day after day, and +nothing happens; but to me it is like a dream from which I might wake +screaming. To me the straightness of our life is the straightness of a +thin cord stretched tight. Its stillness is terrible. It might snap with +a noise like thunder. And you who sit, amid the debris of the great +wars, you who sit, as it were, upon a battlefield, you know that war was +less terrible than this evil peace; you know that the idle lads who +carried those swords under Francis or Elizabeth, the rude Squire or +Baron who swung that mace about in Picardy or Northumberland battles, +may have been terribly noisy, but were not like us, terribly quiet." + +Whether it was a faint embarrassment of conscience as to the original +source and date of the weapons referred to, or merely an engrained +depression, the guardian of the past looked, if anything, a little more +worried. + +"But I do not think," continued Wayne, "that this horrible silence of +modernity will last, though I think for the present it will increase. +What a farce is this modern liberality. Freedom of speech means +practically in our modern civilisation that we must only talk about +unimportant things. We must not talk about religion, for that is +illiberal; we must not talk about bread and cheese, for that is talking +shop; we must not talk about death, for that is depressing; we must not +talk about birth, for that is indelicate. It cannot last. Something must +break this strange indifference, this strange dreamy egoism, this +strange loneliness of millions in a crowd. Something must break it. Why +should it not be you and I? Can you do nothing else but guard relics?" + +The shopman wore a gradually clearing expression, which would have led +those unsympathetic with the cause of the Red Lion to think that the +last sentence was the only one to which he had attached any meaning. + +"I am rather old to go into a new business," he said, "and I don't quite +know what to be either." + +"Why not," said. Wayne, gently having reached the crisis of his delicate +persuasion--"why not be a Colonel?" + +It was at this point, in all probability, that the interview began to +yield more disappointing results. The man appeared inclined at first to +regard the suggestion of becoming a Colonel as outside the sphere of +immediate and relevant discussion. A long exposition of the inevitable +war of independence, coupled with the purchase of a doubtful +sixteenth-century sword for an exaggerated price, seemed to resettle +matters. Wayne left the shop, however, somewhat infected with the +melancholy of its owner. That melancholy was completed at the barber's. @@ -3242,113 +2830,99 @@ That melancholy was completed at the barber's. "I beg your pardon," said the other, sharply. -"War!" said Wayne, warmly. "But not for anything -inconsistent with the beautiful and the civilised arts. War -for beauty. War for society. War for peace. A great chance -is offered you of repelling that slander which, in defiance -of the lives of so many artists, attributes poltroonery to -those who beautify and polish the surface of our lives. Why -should not hairdressers be heroes? Why should not--" - -"Now, you get out," said the barber, irascibly. "We don't -want any of your sort here. You get out." - -And he came forward with the desperate annoyance of a mild -person when enraged. - -Adam Wayne laid his hand for a moment on the sword, then -dropped it. - -"Notting Hill," he said, "will need her bolder sons;" and he -turned gloomily to the toy-shop. - -It was one of those queer little shops so constantly seen in -the side streets of London, which must be called toy-shops -only because toys upon the whole predominate; for the -remainder of goods seem to consist of almost everything else -in the world---tobacco, exercise-books, sweet-stuff, -novelettes, halfpenny paper clips, halfpenny pencil -sharpeners, bootlaces, and cheap fireworks. It also sold -newspapers, and a row of dirty-looking posters hung along -the front of it. - -"I am afraid," said Wayne, as he entered, "that I am not -getting on with these tradesmen as I should. Is it that I -have neglected to rise to the full meaning of their work? Is -there some secret buried in each of these shops which no -mere poet can discover?" - -He stepped to the counter with a depression which he rapidly -conquered as he addressed the man on the other side of -it,---a man of short stature, and hair prematurely white, -and the look of a large baby. - -"Sir," said Wayne, "I am going from house to house in this -street of ours, seeking to stir up some sense of the danger -which now threatens our city. Nowhere have I felt my duty so -difficult as here. For the toy-shop keeper has to do with -all that remains to us of Eden before the first wars began. -You sit here meditating continually upon the wants of that -wonderful time when every staircase leads to the stars, and -every garden-path to the other end of nowhere. Is it -thoughtlessly, do you think, that I strike the dark old drum -of peril in the paradise of children? But consider a moment; -do not condemn me hastily. Even that paradise itself -contains the rumour or beginning of that danger, just as the -Eden that was made for perfection contained the terrible -tree. For judge childhood, even by your own arsenal of its -pleasures. You keep bricks; you make yourself thus, -doubtless, the witness of the constructive instinct older -than the destructive. You keep dolls; you make yourself the -priest of that divine idolatry. You keep Noah's Arks; you -perpetuate the memory of the salvation of all life as a -precious, an irreplaceable thing. But do you keep only, sir, -the symbols of this prehistoric sanity, this childish -rationality of the earth? Do you not keep more terrible -things? What are those boxes, seemingly of lead soldiers, -that I see in that glass case? Are they not witnesses to -that terror and beauty, that desire for a lovely death, -which could not be excluded even from the immortality of -Eden? Do not despise the lead soldiers, Mr. Turnbull." - -"I don't," said Mr. Turnbull, of the toy-shop, shortly, but -with great emphasis. - -"I am glad to hear it," replied Wayne. "I confess that I -feared for my military schemes the awful innocence of your -profession. How I thought to myself, will this man, used -only to the wooden swords that give pleasure, think of the -steel swords that give pain? But I am at least partly -reassured. Your tone suggests to me that I have at least the -entry of a gate of your fairyland---the gate through which -the soldiers enter, for it cannot be denied---I ought, sir, -no longer to deny, that it is of soldiers that I come to -speak. Let your gentle employment make you merciful towards -the troubles of the world. Let your own silvery experience -tone down our sanguine sorrows. For there is war in Notting +"War!" said Wayne, warmly. "But not for anything inconsistent with the +beautiful and the civilised arts. War for beauty. War for society. War +for peace. A great chance is offered you of repelling that slander +which, in defiance of the lives of so many artists, attributes +poltroonery to those who beautify and polish the surface of our lives. +Why should not hairdressers be heroes? Why should not--" + +"Now, you get out," said the barber, irascibly. "We don't want any of +your sort here. You get out." + +And he came forward with the desperate annoyance of a mild person when +enraged. + +Adam Wayne laid his hand for a moment on the sword, then dropped it. + +"Notting Hill," he said, "will need her bolder sons;" and he turned +gloomily to the toy-shop. + +It was one of those queer little shops so constantly seen in the side +streets of London, which must be called toy-shops only because toys upon +the whole predominate; for the remainder of goods seem to consist of +almost everything else in the world---tobacco, exercise-books, +sweet-stuff, novelettes, halfpenny paper clips, halfpenny pencil +sharpeners, bootlaces, and cheap fireworks. It also sold newspapers, and +a row of dirty-looking posters hung along the front of it. + +"I am afraid," said Wayne, as he entered, "that I am not getting on with +these tradesmen as I should. Is it that I have neglected to rise to the +full meaning of their work? Is there some secret buried in each of these +shops which no mere poet can discover?" + +He stepped to the counter with a depression which he rapidly conquered +as he addressed the man on the other side of it,---a man of short +stature, and hair prematurely white, and the look of a large baby. + +"Sir," said Wayne, "I am going from house to house in this street of +ours, seeking to stir up some sense of the danger which now threatens +our city. Nowhere have I felt my duty so difficult as here. For the +toy-shop keeper has to do with all that remains to us of Eden before the +first wars began. You sit here meditating continually upon the wants of +that wonderful time when every staircase leads to the stars, and every +garden-path to the other end of nowhere. Is it thoughtlessly, do you +think, that I strike the dark old drum of peril in the paradise of +children? But consider a moment; do not condemn me hastily. Even that +paradise itself contains the rumour or beginning of that danger, just as +the Eden that was made for perfection contained the terrible tree. For +judge childhood, even by your own arsenal of its pleasures. You keep +bricks; you make yourself thus, doubtless, the witness of the +constructive instinct older than the destructive. You keep dolls; you +make yourself the priest of that divine idolatry. You keep Noah's Arks; +you perpetuate the memory of the salvation of all life as a precious, an +irreplaceable thing. But do you keep only, sir, the symbols of this +prehistoric sanity, this childish rationality of the earth? Do you not +keep more terrible things? What are those boxes, seemingly of lead +soldiers, that I see in that glass case? Are they not witnesses to that +terror and beauty, that desire for a lovely death, which could not be +excluded even from the immortality of Eden? Do not despise the lead +soldiers, Mr. Turnbull." + +"I don't," said Mr. Turnbull, of the toy-shop, shortly, but with great +emphasis. + +"I am glad to hear it," replied Wayne. "I confess that I feared for my +military schemes the awful innocence of your profession. How I thought +to myself, will this man, used only to the wooden swords that give +pleasure, think of the steel swords that give pain? But I am at least +partly reassured. Your tone suggests to me that I have at least the +entry of a gate of your fairyland---the gate through which the soldiers +enter, for it cannot be denied---I ought, sir, no longer to deny, that +it is of soldiers that I come to speak. Let your gentle employment make +you merciful towards the troubles of the world. Let your own silvery +experience tone down our sanguine sorrows. For there is war in Notting Hill." -The little toy-shop keeper sprang up suddenly, slapping his -fat hands like two fans on the counter. +The little toy-shop keeper sprang up suddenly, slapping his fat hands +like two fans on the counter. -"War?" he cried. "Not really, sir? Is it true? Oh, what a -joke! Oh, what a sight for sore eyes!" +"War?" he cried. "Not really, sir? Is it true? Oh, what a joke! Oh, what +a sight for sore eyes!" Wayne was almost taken aback by this ou burst. "I am delighted," he stammered. "I had no notion--" -He sprang out of the way just in time to avoid Mr. Turnbull, -who took a flying leap over the counter and dashed to the -front of the shop. +He sprang out of the way just in time to avoid Mr. Turnbull, who took a +flying leap over the counter and dashed to the front of the shop. "You look here, sir," he said; "you just look here." -He came back with two of the torn posters in his hand which -were flapping outside his shop. +He came back with two of the torn posters in his hand which were +flapping outside his shop. -"Look at those, sir," he said, and flung them down on the -counter. +"Look at those, sir," he said, and flung them down on the counter. Wayne bent over them, and read on one @@ -3368,275 +2942,234 @@ On the other he read > > GREAT SLAUGHTER. -Wayne bent over them again, evidently puzzled; then he -looked at the dates. They were both dated in August fifteen -years before. +Wayne bent over them again, evidently puzzled; then he looked at the +dates. They were both dated in August fifteen years before. -"Why do you keep these old things?" he said, startled -entirely out of his absurd tact of mysticism. "Why do you -hang them outside your shop?" +"Why do you keep these old things?" he said, startled entirely out of +his absurd tact of mysticism. "Why do you hang them outside your shop?" -"Because," said the other, simply, "they are the records of -the last war. You mentioned war just now. It happens to be -my hobby." +"Because," said the other, simply, "they are the records of the last +war. You mentioned war just now. It happens to be my hobby." Wayne lifted his large blue eyes with an infantile wonder. -"Come with me," said Turnbull, shortly, and led him into a -parlour at the back of the shop. +"Come with me," said Turnbull, shortly, and led him into a parlour at +the back of the shop. -In the centre of the parlour stood a large deal table. On it -were set rows and rows of the tin and lead soldiers which -were part of the shopkeeper's stock. The visitor would have -thought nothing of it if it had not been for a certain odd -grouping of them, which did not seem either entirely -commercial or entirely haphazard. +In the centre of the parlour stood a large deal table. On it were set +rows and rows of the tin and lead soldiers which were part of the +shopkeeper's stock. The visitor would have thought nothing of it if it +had not been for a certain odd grouping of them, which did not seem +either entirely commercial or entirely haphazard. -"You are acquainted, no doubt," said Turnbull, turning his -big eyes upon Wayne--"you are acquainted, no doubt, with the -arrangement of the American and Nicaraguan troops in the -last battle." And he waved his hand towards the table. +"You are acquainted, no doubt," said Turnbull, turning his big eyes upon +Wayne--"you are acquainted, no doubt, with the arrangement of the +American and Nicaraguan troops in the last battle." And he waved his +hand towards the table. "I am afraid not," said Wayne. "I--" -"Ah, you were at that time occupied too much, perhaps, with -the Dervish affair. You will find it in this corner." And he -pointed to a part of the floor where there was another -arrangement of children's soldiers grouped here and there. - -"You seem," said Wayne, "to be interested in military -matters." - -"I am interested in nothing else," answered the toy-shop -keeper, simply. - -Wayne appeared convulsed with a singular, suppressed -excitement. - -"In that case," he said, "I may approach you with an unusual -degree of confidence. Touching the matter of the defence of -Notting Hill, I--" - -"Defence of Notting Hill? Yes, sir. This way, sir," said -Turnbull, with great perturbation. "Just step into this side -room;" and he led Wayne into another apartment, in which the -table was entirely covered with an arrangement of children's -bricks. A second glance at it told Wayne that the bricks -were arranged in the form of a precise and perfect plan of -Notting Hill. "Sir," said Turnbull, impressively, "you have, -by a kind of accident, hit upon the whole secret of my life. -As a boy, I grew up among the last wars of the world, when -Nicaragua was taken and the dervishes wiped out. And I -adopted it as a hobby, sir, as you might adopt astronomy or -bird-stuffing. I had no ill-will to any one, but I was -interested in war as a science, as a game. And suddenly I -was bowled out. The big Powers of the world, having -swallowed up all the small ones, came to that confounded -agreement, and there was no more war. There was nothing more -for me to do but to do what I do now---to read the old -campaigns in dirty old newspapers, and to work them out with -tin soldiers. One other thing had occurred to me. I thought -it an amusing fancy to make a plan of how this district of -ours ought to be defended if it were ever attacked. It seems -to interest you too." - -"If it were ever attacked," repeated Wayne, awed into an -almost mechanical enunciation. "Mr. Turnbull, it is -attacked. Thank Heaven, I am bringing to at least one human -being the news that is at bottom the only good news to any -son of Adam. Your life has not been useless. Your work has -not been play. Now, when the hair is already grey on your -head, Turnbull, you shall have your youth. God has not -destroyed it, He has only deferred it. Let us sit down here, -and you shall explain to me this military map of Notting -Hill. For you and I have to defend Notting Hill together." - -Mr. Turnbull looked at the other for a moment, then -hesitated, and then sat down beside the bricks and the -stranger. He did not rise again for seven hours, when the -dawn broke. - -The headquarters of Provost Adam Wayne and his -Commander-in-Chief consisted of a small and somewhat -unsuccessful milk-shop at the corner of Pump Street. The -blank white morning had only just begun to break over the -blank London buildings when Wayne and Turnbull were to be -found seated in the cheerless and unswept shop. Wayne had -something feminine in his character; he belonged to that -class of persons who forget their meals when anything -interesting is in hand. He had had nothing for sixteen hours -but hurried glasses of milk, and, with a glass standing -empty beside him, he was writing and sketching and dotting -and crossing out with inconceivable rapidity with a pencil -and a piece of paper. Turnbull was of that more masculine -type in which a sense of responsibility increases the -appetite, and with his sketch-map beside him he was dealing -strenuously with a pile of sandwiches in a paper packet, and -a tankard of ale from the tavern opposite, whose shutters -had just been taken down. Neither of them spoke, and there -was no sound in the living stillness except the scratching -of Wayne's pencil and the squealing of an aimless-looking -cat. At length Wayne broke the silence by saying-- +"Ah, you were at that time occupied too much, perhaps, with the Dervish +affair. You will find it in this corner." And he pointed to a part of +the floor where there was another arrangement of children's soldiers +grouped here and there. + +"You seem," said Wayne, "to be interested in military matters." + +"I am interested in nothing else," answered the toy-shop keeper, simply. + +Wayne appeared convulsed with a singular, suppressed excitement. + +"In that case," he said, "I may approach you with an unusual degree of +confidence. Touching the matter of the defence of Notting Hill, I--" + +"Defence of Notting Hill? Yes, sir. This way, sir," said Turnbull, with +great perturbation. "Just step into this side room;" and he led Wayne +into another apartment, in which the table was entirely covered with an +arrangement of children's bricks. A second glance at it told Wayne that +the bricks were arranged in the form of a precise and perfect plan of +Notting Hill. "Sir," said Turnbull, impressively, "you have, by a kind +of accident, hit upon the whole secret of my life. As a boy, I grew up +among the last wars of the world, when Nicaragua was taken and the +dervishes wiped out. And I adopted it as a hobby, sir, as you might +adopt astronomy or bird-stuffing. I had no ill-will to any one, but I +was interested in war as a science, as a game. And suddenly I was bowled +out. The big Powers of the world, having swallowed up all the small +ones, came to that confounded agreement, and there was no more war. +There was nothing more for me to do but to do what I do now---to read +the old campaigns in dirty old newspapers, and to work them out with tin +soldiers. One other thing had occurred to me. I thought it an amusing +fancy to make a plan of how this district of ours ought to be defended +if it were ever attacked. It seems to interest you too." + +"If it were ever attacked," repeated Wayne, awed into an almost +mechanical enunciation. "Mr. Turnbull, it is attacked. Thank Heaven, I +am bringing to at least one human being the news that is at bottom the +only good news to any son of Adam. Your life has not been useless. Your +work has not been play. Now, when the hair is already grey on your head, +Turnbull, you shall have your youth. God has not destroyed it, He has +only deferred it. Let us sit down here, and you shall explain to me this +military map of Notting Hill. For you and I have to defend Notting Hill +together." + +Mr. Turnbull looked at the other for a moment, then hesitated, and then +sat down beside the bricks and the stranger. He did not rise again for +seven hours, when the dawn broke. + +The headquarters of Provost Adam Wayne and his Commander-in-Chief +consisted of a small and somewhat unsuccessful milk-shop at the corner +of Pump Street. The blank white morning had only just begun to break +over the blank London buildings when Wayne and Turnbull were to be found +seated in the cheerless and unswept shop. Wayne had something feminine +in his character; he belonged to that class of persons who forget their +meals when anything interesting is in hand. He had had nothing for +sixteen hours but hurried glasses of milk, and, with a glass standing +empty beside him, he was writing and sketching and dotting and crossing +out with inconceivable rapidity with a pencil and a piece of paper. +Turnbull was of that more masculine type in which a sense of +responsibility increases the appetite, and with his sketch-map beside +him he was dealing strenuously with a pile of sandwiches in a paper +packet, and a tankard of ale from the tavern opposite, whose shutters +had just been taken down. Neither of them spoke, and there was no sound +in the living stillness except the scratching of Wayne's pencil and the +squealing of an aimless-looking cat. At length Wayne broke the silence +by saying-- "Seventeen pounds, eight shillings and nine-pence." Turnbull nodded and put his head in the tankard. -"That," said Wayne, "is not counting the five pounds you -took yesterday. What did you do with it?" +"That," said Wayne, "is not counting the five pounds you took yesterday. +What did you do with it?" -"Ah, that is rather interesting!" replied Turnbull, with his -mouth full. "I used that five pounds in a kindly and -philanthropic act." +"Ah, that is rather interesting!" replied Turnbull, with his mouth full. +"I used that five pounds in a kindly and philanthropic act." -Wayne was gazing with mystification in his queer and -innocent eyes. +Wayne was gazing with mystification in his queer and innocent eyes. -"I used that five pounds," continued the other, "in giving -no less than forty little London boys rides in hansom cabs." +"I used that five pounds," continued the other, "in giving no less than +forty little London boys rides in hansom cabs." "Are you insane?" asked the Provost. -"It is only my light touch," returned Turnbull. "These -hansom-cab rides will raise the tone---raise the tone, my -dear fellow---of our London youths, widen their horizon, -brace their nervous system, make them acquainted with the -various public monuments of our great city. Education, -Wayne, education. How many excellent thinkers have pointed -out that political reform is useless until we produce a -cultured populace. So that twenty years hence, when these -boys are grown up--" - -"Mad!" said Wayne, laying down his pencil; "and five pounds -gone!" - -"You are in error," explained Turnbull. "You grave creatures -can never be brought to understand how much quicker work -really goes with the assistance of nonsense and good meals. -Stripped of its decorative beauties, my statement was -strictly accurate. Last night I gave forty half-crowns to -forty little boys, and sent them all over London to take -hansom cabs. I told them in every case to tell the cabman to -bring them to this spot. In half an hour from now the -declaration of war will be posted up. At the same time the -cabs will have begun to come in, you will have ordered out -the guard, the little boys will drive up in state, we shall -commandeer the horses for cavalry, use the cabs for -barricade, and give the men the choice between serving in -our ranks and detention in our basements and cellars. The -little boys we can use as scouts. The main thing is that we -start the war with an advantage unknown in all the other -armies---horses. And now," he said, finishing his beer, "I -will go and drill the troops." - -And he walked out of the milk-shop, leaving the Provost -staring. - -A minute or two afterwards, the Provost laughed. He only -laughed once or twice in his life, and then he did it in a -queer way as if it were an art he had not mastered. Even he -saw something funny in the preposterous coup of the -half-crowns and the little boys. He did not see the -monstrous absurdity of the whole policy and the whole war. -He enjoyed it seriously as a crusade, that is, he enjoyed it -far more than any joke can be enjoyed. Turnbull enjoyed it -partly as a joke, even more perhaps as a reversion from the -things he hated---modernity and monotony and civilisation. -To break up the vast machinery of modern life and use the -fragments as engines of war, to make the barricade of -omnibuses and points of vantage of chimney-pots, was to him -a game worth infinite risk and trouble. He had that rational -and deliberate preference which will always to the end -trouble the peace of the world, the rational and deliberate -preference for a short life and a merry one. +"It is only my light touch," returned Turnbull. "These hansom-cab rides +will raise the tone---raise the tone, my dear fellow---of our London +youths, widen their horizon, brace their nervous system, make them +acquainted with the various public monuments of our great city. +Education, Wayne, education. How many excellent thinkers have pointed +out that political reform is useless until we produce a cultured +populace. So that twenty years hence, when these boys are grown up--" + +"Mad!" said Wayne, laying down his pencil; "and five pounds gone!" + +"You are in error," explained Turnbull. "You grave creatures can never +be brought to understand how much quicker work really goes with the +assistance of nonsense and good meals. Stripped of its decorative +beauties, my statement was strictly accurate. Last night I gave forty +half-crowns to forty little boys, and sent them all over London to take +hansom cabs. I told them in every case to tell the cabman to bring them +to this spot. In half an hour from now the declaration of war will be +posted up. At the same time the cabs will have begun to come in, you +will have ordered out the guard, the little boys will drive up in state, +we shall commandeer the horses for cavalry, use the cabs for barricade, +and give the men the choice between serving in our ranks and detention +in our basements and cellars. The little boys we can use as scouts. The +main thing is that we start the war with an advantage unknown in all the +other armies---horses. And now," he said, finishing his beer, "I will go +and drill the troops." + +And he walked out of the milk-shop, leaving the Provost staring. + +A minute or two afterwards, the Provost laughed. He only laughed once or +twice in his life, and then he did it in a queer way as if it were an +art he had not mastered. Even he saw something funny in the preposterous +coup of the half-crowns and the little boys. He did not see the +monstrous absurdity of the whole policy and the whole war. He enjoyed it +seriously as a crusade, that is, he enjoyed it far more than any joke +can be enjoyed. Turnbull enjoyed it partly as a joke, even more perhaps +as a reversion from the things he hated---modernity and monotony and +civilisation. To break up the vast machinery of modern life and use the +fragments as engines of war, to make the barricade of omnibuses and +points of vantage of chimney-pots, was to him a game worth infinite risk +and trouble. He had that rational and deliberate preference which will +always to the end trouble the peace of the world, the rational and +deliberate preference for a short life and a merry one. ## The Experiment of Mr. Buck -An earnest and eloquent petition was sent up to the King -signed with the names of Wilson, Barker, Buck, Swindon and -others. It urged that at the forthcoming conference to be -held in his Majesty's presence touching the final -disposition of the property in Pump Street, it might be held -not inconsistent with political decorum and with the -unutterable respect they entertained for his Majesty if they -appeared in ordinary morning dress, without the costume -decreed for them as Provosts. So it happened that the -company appeared at that council in frock coats and that the -King himself limited his love of ceremony to appearing -(after his not unusual manner), in evening dress with one -order---in this case not the Garter, but the button of the -Club of Old Clipper's Best Pals, a decoration obtained (with -difficulty) from a half-penny boy's paper. Thus also it -happened that the only spot of colour in the room was Adam -Wayne, who entered in great dignity with the great red robes -and the great sword. - -"We have met," said Auberon, "to decide the most arduous of -modern problems. May we be successful." And he sat down -gravely. - -Buck turned his chair a little and flung one leg over the -other. - -"Your Majesty," he said, quite good-humouredly, "there is -only one thing I can't understand, and that is why this -affair is not settled in five minutes. Here's a small -property which is worth a thousand to us and is not worth a -hundred to any one else. We offer the thousand. It's not -business-like, I know, for we ought to get it for less, and -it's not reasonable and it's not fair on us, but I'm damned -if I can see why it's difficult." - -"The difficulty may be very simply stated," said Wayne. "You -may offer a million and it will be very difficult for you to -get Pump Street." - -"But, look here, Mr. Wayne," cried Barker, striking in with -a kind of cold excitement. "Just look here. You've no right -to take up a position like that. You've a right to stand out -for a bigger price, but you aren't doing that. You're -refusing what you and every sane man knows to be a splendid -offer simply from malice or spite---it must be malice or -spite. And that kind of thing is really criminal; it's -against the public good. The King's Government would be -justified in forcing you." - -With his lean fingers spread on the table he stared -anxiously at Wayne's face, which did not move. +An earnest and eloquent petition was sent up to the King signed with the +names of Wilson, Barker, Buck, Swindon and others. It urged that at the +forthcoming conference to be held in his Majesty's presence touching the +final disposition of the property in Pump Street, it might be held not +inconsistent with political decorum and with the unutterable respect +they entertained for his Majesty if they appeared in ordinary morning +dress, without the costume decreed for them as Provosts. So it happened +that the company appeared at that council in frock coats and that the +King himself limited his love of ceremony to appearing (after his not +unusual manner), in evening dress with one order---in this case not the +Garter, but the button of the Club of Old Clipper's Best Pals, a +decoration obtained (with difficulty) from a half-penny boy's paper. +Thus also it happened that the only spot of colour in the room was Adam +Wayne, who entered in great dignity with the great red robes and the +great sword. + +"We have met," said Auberon, "to decide the most arduous of modern +problems. May we be successful." And he sat down gravely. + +Buck turned his chair a little and flung one leg over the other. + +"Your Majesty," he said, quite good-humouredly, "there is only one thing +I can't understand, and that is why this affair is not settled in five +minutes. Here's a small property which is worth a thousand to us and is +not worth a hundred to any one else. We offer the thousand. It's not +business-like, I know, for we ought to get it for less, and it's not +reasonable and it's not fair on us, but I'm damned if I can see why it's +difficult." + +"The difficulty may be very simply stated," said Wayne. "You may offer a +million and it will be very difficult for you to get Pump Street." + +"But, look here, Mr. Wayne," cried Barker, striking in with a kind of +cold excitement. "Just look here. You've no right to take up a position +like that. You've a right to stand out for a bigger price, but you +aren't doing that. You're refusing what you and every sane man knows to +be a splendid offer simply from malice or spite---it must be malice or +spite. And that kind of thing is really criminal; it's against the +public good. The King's Government would be justified in forcing you." + +With his lean fingers spread on the table he stared anxiously at Wayne's +face, which did not move. "In forcing you... it would," he repeated. -"It shall," said Buck, shortly, turning to the table with a -jerk. "We have done our best to be decent." +"It shall," said Buck, shortly, turning to the table with a jerk. "We +have done our best to be decent." Wayne lifted his large eyes slowly. -"Was it my Lord Buck," he enquired, "who said that the King -of England 'shall' do something?" +"Was it my Lord Buck," he enquired, "who said that the King of England +'shall' do something?" Buck flushed and said testily-- -"I mean it must it ought to, as I say we've done our best to -be generous. I defy any one to deny it. As it is Mr. Wayne, -I don't want to say a word that's uncivil. I hope it's not -uncivil to say that you can be, and ought to be, in gaol. It -is criminal to stop public works for a whim. A man might as -well burn ten thousand onions in his front garden or bring -up his children to run naked in the street, as do what you -say you have a right to do. People have been compelled to -sell before now. The King could compel you, and I hope he -will." +"I mean it must it ought to, as I say we've done our best to be +generous. I defy any one to deny it. As it is Mr. Wayne, I don't want to +say a word that's uncivil. I hope it's not uncivil to say that you can +be, and ought to be, in gaol. It is criminal to stop public works for a +whim. A man might as well burn ten thousand onions in his front garden +or bring up his children to run naked in the street, as do what you say +you have a right to do. People have been compelled to sell before now. +The King could compel you, and I hope he will." -"Until he does," said Wayne, calmly, "the power and -government of this great nation is on my side and not yours, -and I defy you to defy it." +"Until he does," said Wayne, calmly, "the power and government of this +great nation is on my side and not yours, and I defy you to defy it." -"In what sense," cried Barker, with his feverish eyes and -hands, "is the Government on your side?" +"In what sense," cried Barker, with his feverish eyes and hands, "is the +Government on your side?" -With one ringing movement Wayne unrolled a great parchment -on the table. It was decorated down the sides with wild -water-colour sketches of vestrymen in crowns and wreaths. +With one ringing movement Wayne unrolled a great parchment on the table. +It was decorated down the sides with wild water-colour sketches of +vestrymen in crowns and wreaths. "The Charter of the Cities," he began. @@ -3644,78 +3177,69 @@ Buck exploded in a brutal oath and laughed. "That tomfool's joke. Haven't we had enough--" -"And there you sit," cried Wayne, springing erect and with a -voice like a trumpet, "with no argument but to insult the -King before his face." +"And there you sit," cried Wayne, springing erect and with a voice like +a trumpet, "with no argument but to insult the King before his face." Buck rose also with blazing eyes. -"I am hard to bully," he began---and the slow tones of the -King struck in with incomparable gravity-- +"I am hard to bully," he began---and the slow tones of the King struck +in with incomparable gravity-- -"My Lord Buck, I must ask you to remember that your King is -present. It is not often that he needs to protect himself -among his subjects." +"My Lord Buck, I must ask you to remember that your King is present. It +is not often that he needs to protect himself among his subjects." Barker turned to him with frantic gestures. -"For God's sake don't back up the madman now," he implored. -"Have your joke another time. Oh, for Heaven's sake--" +"For God's sake don't back up the madman now," he implored. "Have your +joke another time. Oh, for Heaven's sake--" -"My Lord Provost of South Kensington," said King Auberon, -steadily. "I do not follow your remarks which are uttered -with a rapidity unusual at Court. Nor do your well-meant -efforts to convey the rest with your fingers materially -assist me. I say that my Lord Provost of North Kensington, -to whom I spoke, ought not in the presence of his Sovereign -to speak disrespectfully of his Sovereign's ordinances. Do -you disagree?" +"My Lord Provost of South Kensington," said King Auberon, steadily. "I +do not follow your remarks which are uttered with a rapidity unusual at +Court. Nor do your well-meant efforts to convey the rest with your +fingers materially assist me. I say that my Lord Provost of North +Kensington, to whom I spoke, ought not in the presence of his Sovereign +to speak disrespectfully of his Sovereign's ordinances. Do you +disagree?" -Barker turned restlessly in his chair, and Buck cursed -without speaking. The King went on in a comfortable voice-- +Barker turned restlessly in his chair, and Buck cursed without speaking. +The King went on in a comfortable voice-- "My Lord Provost of Notting Hill, proceed." -Wayne turned his blue eyes on the King, and to every one's -surprise there was a look in them not of triumph, but of a -certain childish distress. - -"I am sorry, your Majesty," he said; "I fear I was more than -equally to blame with the Lord Provost of North Kensington. -We were debating somewhat eagerly, and we both rose to our -feet. I did so first, I am ashamed to say. The Provost of -North Kensington is, therefore, comparatively innocent. I -beseech your Majesty to address your rebuke chiefly, at -least, to me. Mr. Buck is not innocent, for he did no doubt, -in the heat of the moment, speak disrespectfully. But the -rest of the discussion he seems to me to have conducted with -great good temper." - -Buck looked genuinely pleased, for business men are all -simple-minded, and have therefore that degree of communion -with fanatics. The King, for some reason, looked, for the -first time in his life, ashamed. - -"This very kind speech of the Provost of Notting Hill," -began Buck, pleasantly, "seems to me to show that we have at -last got on to a friendly footing. Now come, Mr. Wayne. Five -hundred pounds have been offered to you for a property you -admit not to be worth a hundred. Well, I am a rich man and I -won't be outdone in generosity. Let us say fifteen hundred -pounds, and have done with it. And let us shake hands." And -he rose, glowing and laughing. - -"Fifteen hundred pounds," whispered Mr. Wilson of Bayswater; -"can we do fifteen hundred pounds?" - -"I'll stand the racket," said Buck heartily. "Mr. Wayne is a -gentleman and has spoken up for me. So I suppose the -negotiations are at an end." +Wayne turned his blue eyes on the King, and to every one's surprise +there was a look in them not of triumph, but of a certain childish +distress. + +"I am sorry, your Majesty," he said; "I fear I was more than equally to +blame with the Lord Provost of North Kensington. We were debating +somewhat eagerly, and we both rose to our feet. I did so first, I am +ashamed to say. The Provost of North Kensington is, therefore, +comparatively innocent. I beseech your Majesty to address your rebuke +chiefly, at least, to me. Mr. Buck is not innocent, for he did no doubt, +in the heat of the moment, speak disrespectfully. But the rest of the +discussion he seems to me to have conducted with great good temper." + +Buck looked genuinely pleased, for business men are all simple-minded, +and have therefore that degree of communion with fanatics. The King, for +some reason, looked, for the first time in his life, ashamed. + +"This very kind speech of the Provost of Notting Hill," began Buck, +pleasantly, "seems to me to show that we have at last got on to a +friendly footing. Now come, Mr. Wayne. Five hundred pounds have been +offered to you for a property you admit not to be worth a hundred. Well, +I am a rich man and I won't be outdone in generosity. Let us say fifteen +hundred pounds, and have done with it. And let us shake hands." And he +rose, glowing and laughing. + +"Fifteen hundred pounds," whispered Mr. Wilson of Bayswater; "can we do +fifteen hundred pounds?" + +"I'll stand the racket," said Buck heartily. "Mr. Wayne is a gentleman +and has spoken up for me. So I suppose the negotiations are at an end." Wayne bowed. -"They are indeed at an end. I am sorry I cannot sell you the -property." +"They are indeed at an end. I am sorry I cannot sell you the property." "What?" cried Mr. Barker, starting to his feet. @@ -3723,997 +3247,871 @@ property." "I have, I have," cried Buck, springing up also; "I said--" -"Mr. Buck has spoken correctly," said the King; "the -negotiations are at an end." +"Mr. Buck has spoken correctly," said the King; "the negotiations are at +an end." -All the men at the table rose to their feet; Wayne alone -rose without excitement. +All the men at the table rose to their feet; Wayne alone rose without +excitement. -"Have I, then," he said, "your Majesty's permission to -depart? I have given my last answer." +"Have I, then," he said, "your Majesty's permission to depart? I have +given my last answer." -"You have it," said Auberon, smiling, but not lifting his -eyes from the table. And amid a dead silence the Provost of -Notting Hill passed out of the room. +"You have it," said Auberon, smiling, but not lifting his eyes from the +table. And amid a dead silence the Provost of Notting Hill passed out of +the room. "Well?" said Wilson, turning round to Barker, "Well?" Barker shook his head desperately. -"The man ought to be in an asylum," he said. "But one thing -is clear, we need not bother further about him. The man can -be treated as mad." - -"Of course," said Buck, turning to him with sombre -decisiveness. "You're perfectly right, Barker. He is a good -enough fellow, but he can be treated as mad. Let's put it in -simple form. Go and tell any twelve men in any town, go and -tell any doctor in any town, that there is a man offered -fifteen hundred pounds for a thing he could sell commonly -for four hundred, and that when asked for a reason for not -accepting it he pleads the inviolate sanctity of Notting -Hill and calls it the Holy Mountain. What would they say? -What more can we have on our side than the common-sense of -everybody? On what else do all laws rest? I'll tell you, -Barker, what's better than any further discussion. Let's -send in workmen on the spot to pull down Pump Street. And if -old Wayne says a word, arrest him as a lunatic. That's all." +"The man ought to be in an asylum," he said. "But one thing is clear, we +need not bother further about him. The man can be treated as mad." + +"Of course," said Buck, turning to him with sombre decisiveness. "You're +perfectly right, Barker. He is a good enough fellow, but he can be +treated as mad. Let's put it in simple form. Go and tell any twelve men +in any town, go and tell any doctor in any town, that there is a man +offered fifteen hundred pounds for a thing he could sell commonly for +four hundred, and that when asked for a reason for not accepting it he +pleads the inviolate sanctity of Notting Hill and calls it the Holy +Mountain. What would they say? What more can we have on our side than +the common-sense of everybody? On what else do all laws rest? I'll tell +you, Barker, what's better than any further discussion. Let's send in +workmen on the spot to pull down Pump Street. And if old Wayne says a +word, arrest him as a lunatic. That's all." Barker's eyes kindled. -"I always regarded you, Buck, if you don't mind my saying -so, as a very strong man. I'll follow you." +"I always regarded you, Buck, if you don't mind my saying so, as a very +strong man. I'll follow you." "So, of course, will I," said Wilson. Buck rose again impulsively. -"Your Majesty," he said, glowing with popularity, "I beseech -your Majesty to consider favourably the proposal to which we -have committed ourselves. Your Majesty's leniency, our own -offers, have fallen in vain on that extraordinary man. He -may be right. He may be God. He may be the devil. But we -think it, for practical purposes, more probable that he is -off his head. Unless that assumption were acted on, all -human affairs would go to pieces. We act on it, and we -propose to start operations in Notting Hill at once." +"Your Majesty," he said, glowing with popularity, "I beseech your +Majesty to consider favourably the proposal to which we have committed +ourselves. Your Majesty's leniency, our own offers, have fallen in vain +on that extraordinary man. He may be right. He may be God. He may be the +devil. But we think it, for practical purposes, more probable that he is +off his head. Unless that assumption were acted on, all human affairs +would go to pieces. We act on it, and we propose to start operations in +Notting Hill at once." The King leaned back in his chair. -"The Charter of the Cities..." he said with a rich -intonation. - -But Buck, being finally serious, was also cautious, and did -not again make the mistake of disrespect. - -"Your Majesty," he said, bowing, "I am not here to say a -word against anything your Majesty has said or done. You are -a far better educated man than I, and no doubt there were -reasons, upon intellectual grounds, for those proceedings. -But may I ask you and appeal to your common good-nature for -a sincere answer? When you drew up the Charter of the Cities -did you contemplate the rise of a man like Adam Wayne? Did -you expect that the Charter---whether it was an experiment, -or a scheme of decoration, or a joke---could ever really -come to this to stopping a vast scheme of ordinary business, -to shutting up a road, to spoiling the chances of cabs, -omnibuses, railway stations, to disorganising half a city, -to risking a kind of civil war? Whatever were your objects, -were they that?" - -Barker and Wilson looked at him admiringly; the King more -admiringly still. - -"Provost Buck," said Auberon, "you speak in public -uncommonly well. I give you your point with the magnanimity -of an artist. My scheme did not include the appearance of -Mr. Wayne. Alas! would that my poetic power had been great -enough." - -"I thank your Majesty," said Buck, courteously but quickly. -"Your Majesty's statements are always clear and studied: -therefore I may draw a deduction. As the scheme, whatever it -was, on which you set your heart did not include the -appearance of Mr. Wayne, it will survive his removal. Why -not let us clear away this particular Pump Street, which -does interfere with our plans, and which does not, by your -Majesty's own statement, interfere with yours." - -"Caught out!" said the King, enthusiastically and quite -impersonally, as if he were watching a cricket match. - -"This man Wayne," continued Buck, "would be shut up by any -doctors in England. But we only ask to have it put before -them. Meanwhile no one's interests, not even in all -probability his own, can be really damaged by going on with -the improvements in Notting Hill. Not our interests, of -course, for it has been the hard and quiet work of ten -years. Not the interests of Notting Hill, for nearly all its -educated inhabitants desire the change. Not the interests of -your Majesty, for you say, with characteristic sense, that -you never contemplated the rise of the lunatic at all. Not, -as I say, his own interests, for the man has a kind heart -and many talents, and a couple of good doctors would -probably put him righter than all the free cities and sacred -mountains in creation. I therefore assume, if I may use so -bold a word, that your Majesty will not offer any obstacle -to our proceeding with the improvements." - -And Mr. Buck sat down amid subdued but excited applause -among the allies. - -"Mr. Buck," said the King, "I beg your pardon, for a number -of beautiful and sacred thoughts, in which you were -generally classified as a fool. But there is another thing -to be considered. Suppose you send in your workmen, and -Mr. Wayne does a thing regrettable indeed, but of which I am -sorry to say, I think him quite capable---knocks their teeth -out." - -"I have thought of that, your Majesty," said Mr. Buck, -easily, "and I think it can simply be guarded against. Let -us send in a strong guard of say a hundred men a hundred of -the North Kensington Halberdiers" (he smiled grimly), "of -whom your Majesty is so fond. Or say a hundred and fifty. -The whole population of Pump Street, I fancy, is only about -a hundred." - -"Still they might stand together and lick you," said the -King, dubiously. +"The Charter of the Cities..." he said with a rich intonation. + +But Buck, being finally serious, was also cautious, and did not again +make the mistake of disrespect. + +"Your Majesty," he said, bowing, "I am not here to say a word against +anything your Majesty has said or done. You are a far better educated +man than I, and no doubt there were reasons, upon intellectual grounds, +for those proceedings. But may I ask you and appeal to your common +good-nature for a sincere answer? When you drew up the Charter of the +Cities did you contemplate the rise of a man like Adam Wayne? Did you +expect that the Charter---whether it was an experiment, or a scheme of +decoration, or a joke---could ever really come to this to stopping a +vast scheme of ordinary business, to shutting up a road, to spoiling the +chances of cabs, omnibuses, railway stations, to disorganising half a +city, to risking a kind of civil war? Whatever were your objects, were +they that?" + +Barker and Wilson looked at him admiringly; the King more admiringly +still. + +"Provost Buck," said Auberon, "you speak in public uncommonly well. I +give you your point with the magnanimity of an artist. My scheme did not +include the appearance of Mr. Wayne. Alas! would that my poetic power +had been great enough." + +"I thank your Majesty," said Buck, courteously but quickly. "Your +Majesty's statements are always clear and studied: therefore I may draw +a deduction. As the scheme, whatever it was, on which you set your heart +did not include the appearance of Mr. Wayne, it will survive his +removal. Why not let us clear away this particular Pump Street, which +does interfere with our plans, and which does not, by your Majesty's own +statement, interfere with yours." + +"Caught out!" said the King, enthusiastically and quite impersonally, as +if he were watching a cricket match. + +"This man Wayne," continued Buck, "would be shut up by any doctors in +England. But we only ask to have it put before them. Meanwhile no one's +interests, not even in all probability his own, can be really damaged by +going on with the improvements in Notting Hill. Not our interests, of +course, for it has been the hard and quiet work of ten years. Not the +interests of Notting Hill, for nearly all its educated inhabitants +desire the change. Not the interests of your Majesty, for you say, with +characteristic sense, that you never contemplated the rise of the +lunatic at all. Not, as I say, his own interests, for the man has a kind +heart and many talents, and a couple of good doctors would probably put +him righter than all the free cities and sacred mountains in creation. I +therefore assume, if I may use so bold a word, that your Majesty will +not offer any obstacle to our proceeding with the improvements." + +And Mr. Buck sat down amid subdued but excited applause among the +allies. + +"Mr. Buck," said the King, "I beg your pardon, for a number of beautiful +and sacred thoughts, in which you were generally classified as a fool. +But there is another thing to be considered. Suppose you send in your +workmen, and Mr. Wayne does a thing regrettable indeed, but of which I +am sorry to say, I think him quite capable---knocks their teeth out." + +"I have thought of that, your Majesty," said Mr. Buck, easily, "and I +think it can simply be guarded against. Let us send in a strong guard of +say a hundred men a hundred of the North Kensington Halberdiers" (he +smiled grimly), "of whom your Majesty is so fond. Or say a hundred and +fifty. The whole population of Pump Street, I fancy, is only about a +hundred." + +"Still they might stand together and lick you," said the King, +dubiously. "Then say two hundred," said Buck, gaily. -"It might happen," said the King, restlessly, "that one -Notting Hiller fought better than two North Kensingtons." +"It might happen," said the King, restlessly, "that one Notting Hiller +fought better than two North Kensingtons." -"It might," said Buck, coolly; "then say two hundred and -fifty." +"It might," said Buck, coolly; "then say two hundred and fifty." The King bit his lip. "And if they are beaten, too," he said viciously. -"Your Majesty," said Buck, and leaned back easily in his -chair. "Suppose they are. If anything be clear, it is clear -that all fighting matters are mere matters of arithmetic. -Here we have a hundred and fifty say of Notting Hill -soldiers. Or say two hundred. If one of them can fight two -of us---we can send in, not four hundred, but six hundred, -and smash him. That is all. It is out of all immediate -probability that one of them could fight four of us. So what -I say is this. Run no risks. Finish it at once. Send in -eight hundred men and smash him---smash him almost without -seeing him. And go on with the improvements." +"Your Majesty," said Buck, and leaned back easily in his chair. "Suppose +they are. If anything be clear, it is clear that all fighting matters +are mere matters of arithmetic. Here we have a hundred and fifty say of +Notting Hill soldiers. Or say two hundred. If one of them can fight two +of us---we can send in, not four hundred, but six hundred, and smash +him. That is all. It is out of all immediate probability that one of +them could fight four of us. So what I say is this. Run no risks. Finish +it at once. Send in eight hundred men and smash him---smash him almost +without seeing him. And go on with the improvements." And Mr. Buck pulled out a bandanna and blew his nose. -"Do you know, Mr. Buck," said the King, staring gloomily at -the table, "the admirable clearness of your reason produces -in my mind a sentiment which I trust I shall not offend you -by describing as an aspiration to punch your head. You -irritate me sublimely. What can it be in me? Is it the relic -of a moral sense?" +"Do you know, Mr. Buck," said the King, staring gloomily at the table, +"the admirable clearness of your reason produces in my mind a sentiment +which I trust I shall not offend you by describing as an aspiration to +punch your head. You irritate me sublimely. What can it be in me? Is it +the relic of a moral sense?" -"But your Majesty," said Barker, eagerly and suavely, "does -not refuse our proposals?" +"But your Majesty," said Barker, eagerly and suavely, "does not refuse +our proposals?" -"My dear Barker, your proposals are as damnable as your -manners. I want to have nothing to do with them. Suppose I -stopped them altogether. What would happen?" +"My dear Barker, your proposals are as damnable as your manners. I want +to have nothing to do with them. Suppose I stopped them altogether. What +would happen?" Barker answered in a very low voice-- "Revolution." -The King glanced quickly at the men around the table. They -were all looking down silently: their brows were red. +The King glanced quickly at the men around the table. They were all +looking down silently: their brows were red. He rose with a startling suddenness, and an unusual pallor. -"Gentlemen," he said, "you have overruled me. Therefore I -can speak plainly. I think Adam Wayne, who is as mad as a -hatter, worth more than a million of you. But you have the -force, and, I admit, the common sense, and he is lost. Take -your eight hundred halberdiers and smash him. It would be -more sportsmanlike to take two hundred." +"Gentlemen," he said, "you have overruled me. Therefore I can speak +plainly. I think Adam Wayne, who is as mad as a hatter, worth more than +a million of you. But you have the force, and, I admit, the common +sense, and he is lost. Take your eight hundred halberdiers and smash +him. It would be more sportsmanlike to take two hundred." -"More sportsmanlike," said Buck, grimly, "but a great deal -less humane. We are not artists, and streets purple with -gore do not catch our eye in the right way." +"More sportsmanlike," said Buck, grimly, "but a great deal less humane. +We are not artists, and streets purple with gore do not catch our eye in +the right way." -"It is pitiful," said Auberon. "With five or six times their -number there will be no fight at all." +"It is pitiful," said Auberon. "With five or six times their number +there will be no fight at all." -"I hope not," said Buck, rising and adjusting his gloves. -"We desire no fight, your Majesty. We are peaceable business -men." +"I hope not," said Buck, rising and adjusting his gloves. "We desire no +fight, your Majesty. We are peaceable business men." -"Well," said the King, wearily, "the conference is at an end -at last." +"Well," said the King, wearily, "the conference is at an end at last." And he went out of the room before any one else could stir. -Forty workmen, a hundred Bayswater Halberdiers, two hundred -from South, and three from North Kensington, assembled at -the foot of Holland Walk and marched up it, under the -general direction of Barker, who looked flushed and happy in -full dress. At the end of the procession a small and sulky -figure lingered like an urchin. It was the King. - -"Barker," he said at length, appealingly, "you are an old -friend of mine---you understand my hobbies as I understand -yours. Why can't you let it alone? I hoped that such fun -might come out of this Wayne business. Why can't you let it -alone? It doesn't really so much matter to you---what's a -road or so? For me it's the one joke that may save me from -pessimism. Take fewer men and give me an hour's fun. Really -and truly, James, if you collected coins or humming-birds, -and I could buy one with the price of your road, I would buy -it. I collect incidents---those rare, those precious things. -Let me have one. Pay a few pounds for it. Give these Notting -Killers a chance. Let them alone." - -"Auberon," said Barker, kindly, forgetting all royal titles -in a rare moment of sincerity, "I do feel what you mean. I -have had moments when these hobbies have hit me. I have had -moments when I have sympathised with your humours. I have -had moments, though you may not easily believe it, when I -have sympathised with the madness of Adam Wayne. But the -world, Auberon, the real world, is not run on these hobbies. -It goes on great brutal wheels of facts---wheels on which -you are the butterfly. And Wayne is the fly on the wheel." +Forty workmen, a hundred Bayswater Halberdiers, two hundred from South, +and three from North Kensington, assembled at the foot of Holland Walk +and marched up it, under the general direction of Barker, who looked +flushed and happy in full dress. At the end of the procession a small +and sulky figure lingered like an urchin. It was the King. + +"Barker," he said at length, appealingly, "you are an old friend of +mine---you understand my hobbies as I understand yours. Why can't you +let it alone? I hoped that such fun might come out of this Wayne +business. Why can't you let it alone? It doesn't really so much matter +to you---what's a road or so? For me it's the one joke that may save me +from pessimism. Take fewer men and give me an hour's fun. Really and +truly, James, if you collected coins or humming-birds, and I could buy +one with the price of your road, I would buy it. I collect +incidents---those rare, those precious things. Let me have one. Pay a +few pounds for it. Give these Notting Killers a chance. Let them alone." + +"Auberon," said Barker, kindly, forgetting all royal titles in a rare +moment of sincerity, "I do feel what you mean. I have had moments when +these hobbies have hit me. I have had moments when I have sympathised +with your humours. I have had moments, though you may not easily believe +it, when I have sympathised with the madness of Adam Wayne. But the +world, Auberon, the real world, is not run on these hobbies. It goes on +great brutal wheels of facts---wheels on which you are the butterfly. +And Wayne is the fly on the wheel." Auberon's eyes looked frankly at the other's. -"Thank you, James; what you say is true. It is only a -parenthetical consolation to me to compare the intelligence -of flies somewhat favourably with the intelligence of -wheels. But it is the nature of flies to die soon, and the -nature of wheels to go on for ever. Go on with the wheel. -Good-bye, old man." - -And James Barker went on, laughing, with a high colour, -slapping his bamboo on his leg. - -The King watched the tail of the retreating regiment with a -look of genuine depression, which made him seem more like a -baby than ever. Then he swung round and struck his hands -together. - -"In a world without humour," he said, "the only thing to do -is to eat. And how perfect an exception! How can these -people strike dignified attitudes, and pretend that things -matter, when the total ludicrousness of life is proved by -the very method by which it is supported? A man strikes the -lyre, and says, 'Life is real, life is earnest/ and then -goes into a room and stuffs alien substances into a hole in -his head. I think Nature was indeed a little broad in her -humour in these matters. But we all fall back on the -pantomime, as I have in this municipal affair. Nature has -her farces, like the act of eating or the shape of the -kangaroo, for the more brutal appetite. She keeps her stars -and mountains for those who can appreciate something more -subtly ridiculous." He turned to his equerry. "But, as I -said 'eating,' let us have a picnic like two nice little -children. Just run and bring me a table and a dozen courses -or so, and plenty of champagne, and under these swinging -boughs, Bowler, we will return to Nature." - -It took about an hour to erect in Holland Lane the monarch's -simple repast, during which time he walked up and down and -whistled, but still with an unaffected air of gloom. He had -really been done out of a pleasure he had promised himself, -and had that empty and sickened feeling which a child has -when disappointed of a pantomime. When he and the equerry -had sat down, however, and consumed a fair amount of dry +"Thank you, James; what you say is true. It is only a parenthetical +consolation to me to compare the intelligence of flies somewhat +favourably with the intelligence of wheels. But it is the nature of +flies to die soon, and the nature of wheels to go on for ever. Go on +with the wheel. Good-bye, old man." + +And James Barker went on, laughing, with a high colour, slapping his +bamboo on his leg. + +The King watched the tail of the retreating regiment with a look of +genuine depression, which made him seem more like a baby than ever. Then +he swung round and struck his hands together. + +"In a world without humour," he said, "the only thing to do is to eat. +And how perfect an exception! How can these people strike dignified +attitudes, and pretend that things matter, when the total ludicrousness +of life is proved by the very method by which it is supported? A man +strikes the lyre, and says, 'Life is real, life is earnest/ and then +goes into a room and stuffs alien substances into a hole in his head. I +think Nature was indeed a little broad in her humour in these matters. +But we all fall back on the pantomime, as I have in this municipal +affair. Nature has her farces, like the act of eating or the shape of +the kangaroo, for the more brutal appetite. She keeps her stars and +mountains for those who can appreciate something more subtly +ridiculous." He turned to his equerry. "But, as I said 'eating,' let us +have a picnic like two nice little children. Just run and bring me a +table and a dozen courses or so, and plenty of champagne, and under +these swinging boughs, Bowler, we will return to Nature." + +It took about an hour to erect in Holland Lane the monarch's simple +repast, during which time he walked up and down and whistled, but still +with an unaffected air of gloom. He had really been done out of a +pleasure he had promised himself, and had that empty and sickened +feeling which a child has when disappointed of a pantomime. When he and +the equerry had sat down, however, and consumed a fair amount of dry champagne, his spirits began mildly to revive. "Things take too long in this world," he said. -"I detest all this Barkerian business about evolution and -the gradual modification of things. I wish the world had -been made in six days, and knocked to pieces again in six -more. And I wish I had done it. The joke's good enough in a -broad way, sun and moon and the image of God, and all that, -but they keep it up so damnably long. Did you ever long for -a miracle, Bowler?" - -"No, sir," said Bowler, who was an evolutionist, and had -been carefully brought up. - -"Then I have," answered the King. "I have walked along a -street with the best cigar in the cosmos in my mouth, and -more Burgundy inside me than you ever saw in your life, and -longed that the lamp-post would turn into an elephant to -save me from the hell of blank existence. Take my word for -it, my evolutionary Bowler, don't you believe people when -they tell you that people sought for a sign, and believed in -miracles because they were ignorant. They did it because -they were wise, filthily, vilely wise---too wise to eat or -sleep or put on their boots with patience. This seems -delightfully like a new theory of the origin of -Christianity, which would itself be a thing of no mean -absurdity. Take some more wine." - -The wind blew round them as they sat at their little table, -with its white cloth and bright wine-cups, and flung the -tree-tops of Holland Park against each other, but the sun -was in that strong temper which turns green into gold. The -King pushed away his plate, lit a cigar slowly, and went -on-- - -"Yesterday I thought that something next door to a really -entertaining miracle might happen to me before I went to -amuse the worms. To see that red-haired maniac waving a -great sword, and making speeches to his incomparable -followers, would have been a glimpse of that Land of Youth -from which the Fates shut us out. I had planned some quite -delightful things. A Congress of Knightsbridge with a -treaty, and myself in the chair, and perhaps a Roman -triumph, with jolly old Barker led in chains. And now these -wretched prigs have gone and stamped out the exquisite Mr. -Wayne altogether, and I suppose they will put him in a -private asylum somewhere in their damned humane way. Think -of the treasures daily poured out to his unappreciative -keeper! I wonder whether they would let me be his keeper. -But life is a vale. Never forget at any moment of your -existence to regard it in the light of a vale. This graceful -habit, if not acquired in youth--" - -The King stopped, with his cigar lifted, for there had slid -into his eyes the startled look of a man listening. He did -not move for a few moments; then he turned his head sharply -towards the high, thin, and lath-like paling which fenced -certain long gardens and similar spaces from the lane. From -behind it there was coming a curious scrambling and scraping -noise, as of a desperate thing imprisoned in this box of -thin wood. The King threw away his cigar, and jumped on to -the table. From this position he saw a pair of hands hanging -with a hungry clutch on the top of the fence. Then the hands -quivered with a convulsive effort, and a head shot up -between them---the head of one of the Bayswater Town -Council, his eyes and whiskers wild with fear. He swung -himself over, and fell on the other side on his face, and -groaned openly and without ceasing. The next moment the -thin, taut wood of the fence was struck as by a bullet, so -that it reverberated like a drum, and over it came tearing -and cursing, with torn clothes and broken nails and bleeding -faces, twenty men at one rush. The King sprang five feet -clear off the table on to the ground. The moment after the -table was flung over, sending bottles and glasses flying, -and the debris was literally swept along the ground by that -stream of men pouring past, and Bowler was borne along with -them, as the King said in his famous newspaper article, -"like a captured bride." The great fence swung and split -under the load of climbers that still scaled and cleared it. -Tremendous gaps were torn in it by this living artillery; -and through them the King could see more and more frantic -faces, as in a dream, and more and more men running. They -were as miscellaneous as if some one had taken the lid off a -human dustbin. Some were untouched, some were slashed and -battered and bloody, some were splendidly dressed, some -tattered and half -naked, some were in the fantastic garb of -the burlesque cities, some in the dullest modern dress. The -King stared at all of them, but none of them looked at the -King. Suddenly he stepped forward. +"I detest all this Barkerian business about evolution and the gradual +modification of things. I wish the world had been made in six days, and +knocked to pieces again in six more. And I wish I had done it. The +joke's good enough in a broad way, sun and moon and the image of God, +and all that, but they keep it up so damnably long. Did you ever long +for a miracle, Bowler?" + +"No, sir," said Bowler, who was an evolutionist, and had been carefully +brought up. + +"Then I have," answered the King. "I have walked along a street with the +best cigar in the cosmos in my mouth, and more Burgundy inside me than +you ever saw in your life, and longed that the lamp-post would turn into +an elephant to save me from the hell of blank existence. Take my word +for it, my evolutionary Bowler, don't you believe people when they tell +you that people sought for a sign, and believed in miracles because they +were ignorant. They did it because they were wise, filthily, vilely +wise---too wise to eat or sleep or put on their boots with patience. +This seems delightfully like a new theory of the origin of Christianity, +which would itself be a thing of no mean absurdity. Take some more +wine." + +The wind blew round them as they sat at their little table, with its +white cloth and bright wine-cups, and flung the tree-tops of Holland +Park against each other, but the sun was in that strong temper which +turns green into gold. The King pushed away his plate, lit a cigar +slowly, and went on-- + +"Yesterday I thought that something next door to a really entertaining +miracle might happen to me before I went to amuse the worms. To see that +red-haired maniac waving a great sword, and making speeches to his +incomparable followers, would have been a glimpse of that Land of Youth +from which the Fates shut us out. I had planned some quite delightful +things. A Congress of Knightsbridge with a treaty, and myself in the +chair, and perhaps a Roman triumph, with jolly old Barker led in chains. +And now these wretched prigs have gone and stamped out the exquisite Mr. +Wayne altogether, and I suppose they will put him in a private asylum +somewhere in their damned humane way. Think of the treasures daily +poured out to his unappreciative keeper! I wonder whether they would let +me be his keeper. But life is a vale. Never forget at any moment of your +existence to regard it in the light of a vale. This graceful habit, if +not acquired in youth--" + +The King stopped, with his cigar lifted, for there had slid into his +eyes the startled look of a man listening. He did not move for a few +moments; then he turned his head sharply towards the high, thin, and +lath-like paling which fenced certain long gardens and similar spaces +from the lane. From behind it there was coming a curious scrambling and +scraping noise, as of a desperate thing imprisoned in this box of thin +wood. The King threw away his cigar, and jumped on to the table. From +this position he saw a pair of hands hanging with a hungry clutch on the +top of the fence. Then the hands quivered with a convulsive effort, and +a head shot up between them---the head of one of the Bayswater Town +Council, his eyes and whiskers wild with fear. He swung himself over, +and fell on the other side on his face, and groaned openly and without +ceasing. The next moment the thin, taut wood of the fence was struck as +by a bullet, so that it reverberated like a drum, and over it came +tearing and cursing, with torn clothes and broken nails and bleeding +faces, twenty men at one rush. The King sprang five feet clear off the +table on to the ground. The moment after the table was flung over, +sending bottles and glasses flying, and the debris was literally swept +along the ground by that stream of men pouring past, and Bowler was +borne along with them, as the King said in his famous newspaper article, +"like a captured bride." The great fence swung and split under the load +of climbers that still scaled and cleared it. Tremendous gaps were torn +in it by this living artillery; and through them the King could see more +and more frantic faces, as in a dream, and more and more men running. +They were as miscellaneous as if some one had taken the lid off a human +dustbin. Some were untouched, some were slashed and battered and bloody, +some were splendidly dressed, some tattered and half -naked, some were +in the fantastic garb of the burlesque cities, some in the dullest +modern dress. The King stared at all of them, but none of them looked at +the King. Suddenly he stepped forward. "Barker," he said, "what is all this?" -"Beaten," said the politician--"beaten all to hell!" And he -plunged past with nostrils shaking like a horse's, and more -and more men plunged after him. - -Almost as he spoke, the last standing strip of fence bowed -and snapped, flinging, as from a catapult, a new figure upon -the road. He wore the flaming red of the halberdiers of -Notting Hill, and on his weapon there was blood, and in his -face victory. In another moment masses of red glowed through -the gaps of the fence, and the pursuers, with their -halberds, came pouring down the lane. Pursued and pursuers -alike swept by the little figure with the owlish eyes, who -had not taken his hands out of his pockets. - -The King had still little beyond the confused sense of a man -caught in a torrent---the feeling of men eddying by. Then -something happened which he was never able afterwards to -describe, and which we cannot describe for him. Suddenly in -the dark entrance, between the broken gates of a garden, -there appeared framed a flaming figure. - -Adam Wayne, the conqueror, with his face flung back, and his -mane like a lion's, stood with his great sword point -upwards, the red raiment of his office flapping round him -like the red wings of an archangel. And the King saw, he -knew not how, something new and overwhelming. The great -green trees and the great red robes swung together in the -wind. The sword seemed made for the sunlight. The -preposterous masquerade, born of his own mockery, towered -over him and embraced the world. This was the normal, this -was sanity, this was nature; and he himself, with his -rationality and his detachment and his black frock coat, he -was the exception and the accident---a blot of black upon a -world of crimson and gold. +"Beaten," said the politician--"beaten all to hell!" And he plunged past +with nostrils shaking like a horse's, and more and more men plunged +after him. + +Almost as he spoke, the last standing strip of fence bowed and snapped, +flinging, as from a catapult, a new figure upon the road. He wore the +flaming red of the halberdiers of Notting Hill, and on his weapon there +was blood, and in his face victory. In another moment masses of red +glowed through the gaps of the fence, and the pursuers, with their +halberds, came pouring down the lane. Pursued and pursuers alike swept +by the little figure with the owlish eyes, who had not taken his hands +out of his pockets. + +The King had still little beyond the confused sense of a man caught in a +torrent---the feeling of men eddying by. Then something happened which +he was never able afterwards to describe, and which we cannot describe +for him. Suddenly in the dark entrance, between the broken gates of a +garden, there appeared framed a flaming figure. + +Adam Wayne, the conqueror, with his face flung back, and his mane like a +lion's, stood with his great sword point upwards, the red raiment of his +office flapping round him like the red wings of an archangel. And the +King saw, he knew not how, something new and overwhelming. The great +green trees and the great red robes swung together in the wind. The +sword seemed made for the sunlight. The preposterous masquerade, born of +his own mockery, towered over him and embraced the world. This was the +normal, this was sanity, this was nature; and he himself, with his +rationality and his detachment and his black frock coat, he was the +exception and the accident---a blot of black upon a world of crimson and +gold. # Book 4 ## The Battle of the Lamps -Mr. Buck, who, though retired, frequently went down to his -big drapery stores in Kensington High Street, was locking up -those premises, being the last to leave. It was a wonderful -evening of green and gold, but that did not trouble him very -much. If you had pointed it out, he would have agreed -seriously, for the rich always desire to be artistic. +Mr. Buck, who, though retired, frequently went down to his big drapery +stores in Kensington High Street, was locking up those premises, being +the last to leave. It was a wonderful evening of green and gold, but +that did not trouble him very much. If you had pointed it out, he would +have agreed seriously, for the rich always desire to be artistic. -He stepped out into the cool air, buttoning up his light -coat, and blowing great clouds, from his cigar, when a -figure dashed up to him in another yellow overcoat, but -unbuttoned and flying behind him. +He stepped out into the cool air, buttoning up his light coat, and +blowing great clouds, from his cigar, when a figure dashed up to him in +another yellow overcoat, but unbuttoned and flying behind him. -"Hullo, Barker!" said the draper. "Any of our summer -articles? You're too late. Factory Acts, Barker. Humanity -and progress, my boy." +"Hullo, Barker!" said the draper. "Any of our summer articles? You're +too late. Factory Acts, Barker. Humanity and progress, my boy." -"Oh, don't chatter," cried Barker, stamping. "We've been -beaten." +"Oh, don't chatter," cried Barker, stamping. "We've been beaten." "Beaten---by what?" asked Buck, mystified. "By Wayne." -Buck looked at Barker's fierce white face for the first -time, as it gleamed in the lamplight. +Buck looked at Barker's fierce white face for the first time, as it +gleamed in the lamplight. "Come and have a drink," he said. -They adjourned to a cushioned and glaring buffet, and Buck -established himself slowly and lazily in a seat, and pulled -out his cigar-case. +They adjourned to a cushioned and glaring buffet, and Buck established +himself slowly and lazily in a seat, and pulled out his cigar-case. "Have a smoke," he said. -Barker was still standing, and on the fret, but after a -moment's hesitation, he sat down, as if he might spring up -again the next minute. They ordered drinks in silence. - -"How did it happen?" asked Buck, turning his big bold eyes -on him. - -"How the devil do I know?" cried Barker. "It happened -like---like a dream. How can two hundred men beat six -hundred? How can they?" - -"Well," said Buck, coolly. "How did they? You ought to -know." - -"I don't know. I can't describe," said the other, drumming -on the table. "It seemed like this. We were six hundred and -marched with those damned pole-axes of Auberon's---the only -weapons we've got. We marched two abreast. We went up to -Holland Walk, between the high palings which seemed to me to -go straight as an arrow for Pump Street. I was near the tail -of the line and it was a long one. When the end of it was -still between the high palings, the head of the line was -already crossing Holland Park Avenue. Then the head plunged -into the network of narrow streets on the other side, and -the tail and myself came out on the great crossing. When we -also had reached the northern side and turned up a small -street that points, crookedly as it were, towards Pump -Street, the whole thing felt different. The streets dodged -and bent so much that the head of our line seemed lost -altogether: it might as well have been in North America. And -all this time we hadn't seen a soul." - -Buck, who was idly dabbing the ash of his cigar on the -ash-tray, began to move it deliberately over the table, -making feathery grey lines, a kind of map. - -"But though the little streets were all deserted (which got -a trifle on my nerves), as we got deeper and deeper into -them, a thing began to happen that I couldn't understand. -Sometimes a long way ahead---three turns or corners ahead, -as it were---there broke suddenly a sort of noise, -clattering, and confused cries, and then stopped. Then, when -it happened, something, I can't describe it---a kind of -shake or stagger went down the line, as if the line were a -live thing, whose head had been struck, or had been an -electric cord. None of us knew why we were moving, but we -moved and jostled. Then we recovered, and went on through -the little dirty streets, round corners, and up twisted -ways. The little crooked streets began to give me a feeling -I can't explain---as if it were a dream. I felt as if things -had lost their reason, and we should never get out of the -maze. Odd to hear me talk like that, isn't it? The streets -were quite well-known streets, all down on the map. But the -fact remains. I wasn't afraid of something happening. I was -afraid of nothing ever happening---nothing ever happening -for all God's eternity." - -He drained his glass and called for more whisky. He drank it -and went on. - -"And then something did happen. Buck, it's the solemn truth, -that nothing has ever happened to you in your life. Nothing -had ever happened to me in my life." - -"Nothing ever happened!" said Buck, staring. "What do you -mean?" - -"Nothing has ever happened," repeated Barker, with a morbid -obstinacy. "You don't know what a thing happening means? You -sit in your office expecting customers, and customers come; -you walk in the street expecting friends, and friends meet -you; you want a drink and get it; you feel inclined for a -bet and make it. You expect either to win or lose, and you -do either one or the other. But things happening!" and he +Barker was still standing, and on the fret, but after a moment's +hesitation, he sat down, as if he might spring up again the next minute. +They ordered drinks in silence. + +"How did it happen?" asked Buck, turning his big bold eyes on him. + +"How the devil do I know?" cried Barker. "It happened like---like a +dream. How can two hundred men beat six hundred? How can they?" + +"Well," said Buck, coolly. "How did they? You ought to know." + +"I don't know. I can't describe," said the other, drumming on the table. +"It seemed like this. We were six hundred and marched with those damned +pole-axes of Auberon's---the only weapons we've got. We marched two +abreast. We went up to Holland Walk, between the high palings which +seemed to me to go straight as an arrow for Pump Street. I was near the +tail of the line and it was a long one. When the end of it was still +between the high palings, the head of the line was already crossing +Holland Park Avenue. Then the head plunged into the network of narrow +streets on the other side, and the tail and myself came out on the great +crossing. When we also had reached the northern side and turned up a +small street that points, crookedly as it were, towards Pump Street, the +whole thing felt different. The streets dodged and bent so much that the +head of our line seemed lost altogether: it might as well have been in +North America. And all this time we hadn't seen a soul." + +Buck, who was idly dabbing the ash of his cigar on the ash-tray, began +to move it deliberately over the table, making feathery grey lines, a +kind of map. + +"But though the little streets were all deserted (which got a trifle on +my nerves), as we got deeper and deeper into them, a thing began to +happen that I couldn't understand. Sometimes a long way ahead---three +turns or corners ahead, as it were---there broke suddenly a sort of +noise, clattering, and confused cries, and then stopped. Then, when it +happened, something, I can't describe it---a kind of shake or stagger +went down the line, as if the line were a live thing, whose head had +been struck, or had been an electric cord. None of us knew why we were +moving, but we moved and jostled. Then we recovered, and went on through +the little dirty streets, round corners, and up twisted ways. The little +crooked streets began to give me a feeling I can't explain---as if it +were a dream. I felt as if things had lost their reason, and we should +never get out of the maze. Odd to hear me talk like that, isn't it? The +streets were quite well-known streets, all down on the map. But the fact +remains. I wasn't afraid of something happening. I was afraid of nothing +ever happening---nothing ever happening for all God's eternity." + +He drained his glass and called for more whisky. He drank it and went +on. + +"And then something did happen. Buck, it's the solemn truth, that +nothing has ever happened to you in your life. Nothing had ever happened +to me in my life." + +"Nothing ever happened!" said Buck, staring. "What do you mean?" + +"Nothing has ever happened," repeated Barker, with a morbid obstinacy. +"You don't know what a thing happening means? You sit in your office +expecting customers, and customers come; you walk in the street +expecting friends, and friends meet you; you want a drink and get it; +you feel inclined for a bet and make it. You expect either to win or +lose, and you do either one or the other. But things happening!" and he shuddered ungovernably. "Go on," said Buck, shortly. "Get on." -"As we walked wearily round the corners, something happened. -When something happens, it happens first, and you see it -afterwards. It happens of itself, and you have nothing to do -with it. It proves a dreadful thing---that there are other -things besides one's self. I can only put it in this way. We -went round one turning, two turnings, three turnings, four -turnings, five. Then I lifted myself slowly up from the -gutter where I had been shot half senseless, and was beaten -down again by living men crashing on top of me, and the -world was full of roaring, and big men rolling about like -nine-pins." +"As we walked wearily round the corners, something happened. When +something happens, it happens first, and you see it afterwards. It +happens of itself, and you have nothing to do with it. It proves a +dreadful thing---that there are other things besides one's self. I can +only put it in this way. We went round one turning, two turnings, three +turnings, four turnings, five. Then I lifted myself slowly up from the +gutter where I had been shot half senseless, and was beaten down again +by living men crashing on top of me, and the world was full of roaring, +and big men rolling about like nine-pins." Buck looked at his map with knitted brows. "Was that Portobello Road?" he asked. -"Yes," said Barker. "Yes; Portobello Road---I saw it -afterwards; but, my God---what a place it was! Buck, have -you ever stood and let a six foot of a man lash and lash at -your head with six feet of pole with six pounds of steel at -the end? Because, when you have had that experience, as Walt -Whitman says, 'you re-examine philosophies and religions.'" - -"I have no doubt," said Buck. "If that was Portobello Road, -don't you see what happened?" - -"I know what happened exceedingly well. I was knocked down -four times; an experience which, as I say, has an effect on -the mental attitude. And another thing happened, too. I -knocked down two men. After the fourth fall (there was not -much bloodshed---more brutal rushing and throwing-for nobody -could use their weapons), after the fourth fall, I say, I -got up like a devil, and I tore a pole-axe out of a man's -hand and struck where I saw the scarlet of Wayne's fellows, -struck again and again. Two of them went over, bleeding on -the stones, thank God---and I laughed and found myself -sprawling in the gutter again, and got up again, and struck -again, and broke my halberd to pieces. I hurt a man's head, -though." - -Buck set down his glass with a bang, and spat out curses -through his thick moustache. - -"What is the matter?" asked Barker, stopping, for the man -had been calm up to now, and now his agitation was far more -violent than his own. - -"The matter?" said Buck, bitterly; "don't you see how these -maniacs have got us? Why should two idiots, one a clown and -the other a screaming lunatic, make sane men so different -from themselves? Look here, Barker; I will give you a -picture. A very well-bred young man of this century is -dancing about in a frock-coat. He has in his hands a -nonsensical seventeenth century halberd, with which he is -trying to kill men in a street in Netting Hill. Damn it! -don't you see how they've got us? Never mind how you -felt---that is how you looked. The King would put his cursed -head on one side and call it exquisite. The Provost of -Netting Hill would put his cursed nose in the air and call -it heroic. But in Heaven's name what would you have called -it---two days before?" +"Yes," said Barker. "Yes; Portobello Road---I saw it afterwards; but, my +God---what a place it was! Buck, have you ever stood and let a six foot +of a man lash and lash at your head with six feet of pole with six +pounds of steel at the end? Because, when you have had that experience, +as Walt Whitman says, 'you re-examine philosophies and religions.'" + +"I have no doubt," said Buck. "If that was Portobello Road, don't you +see what happened?" + +"I know what happened exceedingly well. I was knocked down four times; +an experience which, as I say, has an effect on the mental attitude. And +another thing happened, too. I knocked down two men. After the fourth +fall (there was not much bloodshed---more brutal rushing and +throwing-for nobody could use their weapons), after the fourth fall, I +say, I got up like a devil, and I tore a pole-axe out of a man's hand +and struck where I saw the scarlet of Wayne's fellows, struck again and +again. Two of them went over, bleeding on the stones, thank God---and I +laughed and found myself sprawling in the gutter again, and got up +again, and struck again, and broke my halberd to pieces. I hurt a man's +head, though." + +Buck set down his glass with a bang, and spat out curses through his +thick moustache. + +"What is the matter?" asked Barker, stopping, for the man had been calm +up to now, and now his agitation was far more violent than his own. + +"The matter?" said Buck, bitterly; "don't you see how these maniacs have +got us? Why should two idiots, one a clown and the other a screaming +lunatic, make sane men so different from themselves? Look here, Barker; +I will give you a picture. A very well-bred young man of this century is +dancing about in a frock-coat. He has in his hands a nonsensical +seventeenth century halberd, with which he is trying to kill men in a +street in Netting Hill. Damn it! don't you see how they've got us? Never +mind how you felt---that is how you looked. The King would put his +cursed head on one side and call it exquisite. The Provost of Netting +Hill would put his cursed nose in the air and call it heroic. But in +Heaven's name what would you have called it---two days before?" Barker bit his lip. -"You haven't been through it, Buck," he said. "You don't -understand righting---the atmosphere." - -"I don't deny the atmosphere," said Buck, striking the -table. "I only say it's their atmosphere. It's Adam Wayne's -atmosphere. It's the atmosphere which you and I thought had -vanished from an educated world for ever." - -"Well, it hasn't," said Barker; "and if you have any -lingering doubts, lend me a pole-axe and I'll show you." - -There was a long silence, and then Buck turned to his -neighbour and spoke in that good-tempered tone that comes of -a power of looking facts in the face; the tone in which he -concluded great bargains. - -"Barker," he said, "you are right. This old thing---this -fighting, has come back. It has come back suddenly and taken -us by surprise. So it is first blood to Adam Wayne. But, -unless reason and arithmetic and everything else have gone -crazy, it must be next and last blood to us. But when an -issue has really arisen, there is only one thing to do---to -study that issue as such and win in it. Barker, since it is -fighting, we must understand fighting. I must understand -fighting as coolly and completely as I understand drapery; -you must understand fighting as coolly and completely as you -understand politics. Now, look at the facts. I stick without -hesitation to my original formula. Fighting, when we have -the stronger force, is only a matter of arithmetic. It must -be. You asked me just now how two hundred men could defeat -six hundred. I can tell you. Two hundred men can defeat six -hundred when the six hundred behave like fools. When they -forget the very conditions they are fighting in; when they -fight in a swamp as if it were a mountain; when they fight -in a forest as if it were a plain; when they fight in -streets without remembering the object of streets." +"You haven't been through it, Buck," he said. "You don't understand +righting---the atmosphere." + +"I don't deny the atmosphere," said Buck, striking the table. "I only +say it's their atmosphere. It's Adam Wayne's atmosphere. It's the +atmosphere which you and I thought had vanished from an educated world +for ever." + +"Well, it hasn't," said Barker; "and if you have any lingering doubts, +lend me a pole-axe and I'll show you." + +There was a long silence, and then Buck turned to his neighbour and +spoke in that good-tempered tone that comes of a power of looking facts +in the face; the tone in which he concluded great bargains. + +"Barker," he said, "you are right. This old thing---this fighting, has +come back. It has come back suddenly and taken us by surprise. So it is +first blood to Adam Wayne. But, unless reason and arithmetic and +everything else have gone crazy, it must be next and last blood to us. +But when an issue has really arisen, there is only one thing to do---to +study that issue as such and win in it. Barker, since it is fighting, we +must understand fighting. I must understand fighting as coolly and +completely as I understand drapery; you must understand fighting as +coolly and completely as you understand politics. Now, look at the +facts. I stick without hesitation to my original formula. Fighting, when +we have the stronger force, is only a matter of arithmetic. It must be. +You asked me just now how two hundred men could defeat six hundred. I +can tell you. Two hundred men can defeat six hundred when the six +hundred behave like fools. When they forget the very conditions they are +fighting in; when they fight in a swamp as if it were a mountain; when +they fight in a forest as if it were a plain; when they fight in streets +without remembering the object of streets." "What is the object of streets?" asked Barker. -"What is the object of supper?" cried Buck, furiously. -"Isn't it obvious? This military science is mere common -sense. The object of a street is to lead from one place to -another; therefore all streets join; therefore street -fighting is quite a peculiar thing. You advanced into that -hive of streets as if you were advancing into an open plain -where you could see everything. Instead of that you were -advancing into the bowels of a fortress, with streets -pointing at you, streets turning on you, streets jumping out -at you, and all in the hands of the enemy. Do you know what -Portobello Road is? It is the only point on your journey -where two side streets run up opposite each other. Wayne -massed his men on the two sides, and when he had let enough -of your line go past, cut it in two like a worm. Don't you -see what would have saved you?" +"What is the object of supper?" cried Buck, furiously. "Isn't it +obvious? This military science is mere common sense. The object of a +street is to lead from one place to another; therefore all streets join; +therefore street fighting is quite a peculiar thing. You advanced into +that hive of streets as if you were advancing into an open plain where +you could see everything. Instead of that you were advancing into the +bowels of a fortress, with streets pointing at you, streets turning on +you, streets jumping out at you, and all in the hands of the enemy. Do +you know what Portobello Road is? It is the only point on your journey +where two side streets run up opposite each other. Wayne massed his men +on the two sides, and when he had let enough of your line go past, cut +it in two like a worm. Don't you see what would have saved you?" Barker shook his head. -"Can't your 'atmosphere' help you?" asked Buck, bitterly. -"Must I attempt explanations in the romantic manner? Suppose -that, as you were righting blindly with the red Notting -Killers who imprisoned you on both sides, you had heard a -shout from behind them. Suppose, oh, romantic Barker! that -behind the red tunics you had seen the blue and gold of -South Kensington taking them in the rear, surrounding them -in their turn and hurling them on to your halberds." +"Can't your 'atmosphere' help you?" asked Buck, bitterly. "Must I +attempt explanations in the romantic manner? Suppose that, as you were +righting blindly with the red Notting Killers who imprisoned you on both +sides, you had heard a shout from behind them. Suppose, oh, romantic +Barker! that behind the red tunics you had seen the blue and gold of +South Kensington taking them in the rear, surrounding them in their turn +and hurling them on to your halberds." "If the thing had been possible," began Barker, cursing. -"The thing would have been as possible," said Buck, simply; -"as simple as arithmetic. There are a certain number of -street entries that lead to Pump Street. There are not nine -hundred; there are not nine million. They do not grow in the -night. They do not increase like mushrooms. It must be -possible with such an overwhelming force as we have to -advance by all of them at once. In every one of the -arteries, or approaches, we can put almost as many men as -Wayne can put into the field altogether. Once do that and we -have him to demonstration. It is like a proposition in -Euclid." - -"You think that is certain," said Barker, anxious but -dominated delightfully. - -"I'll tell you what I think," said Buck, getting up -jovially. "I think Adam Wayne made an uncommonly spirited -little fight. And I think I am confoundedly sorry for him." - -"Buck, you are a great man," cried Barker, rising also. -"You've knocked me sensible again. I am ashamed to say it, -but I was getting romantic. Of course, what you say is -adamantine sense. Fighting, being physical, must be -mathematical. We were beaten because we were neither -mathematical nor physical nor anything else---because we -deserved to be beaten. Hold all the approaches, and with our -force we must have him. When shall we open the next -campaign?" +"The thing would have been as possible," said Buck, simply; "as simple +as arithmetic. There are a certain number of street entries that lead to +Pump Street. There are not nine hundred; there are not nine million. +They do not grow in the night. They do not increase like mushrooms. It +must be possible with such an overwhelming force as we have to advance +by all of them at once. In every one of the arteries, or approaches, we +can put almost as many men as Wayne can put into the field altogether. +Once do that and we have him to demonstration. It is like a proposition +in Euclid." + +"You think that is certain," said Barker, anxious but dominated +delightfully. + +"I'll tell you what I think," said Buck, getting up jovially. "I think +Adam Wayne made an uncommonly spirited little fight. And I think I am +confoundedly sorry for him." + +"Buck, you are a great man," cried Barker, rising also. "You've knocked +me sensible again. I am ashamed to say it, but I was getting romantic. +Of course, what you say is adamantine sense. Fighting, being physical, +must be mathematical. We were beaten because we were neither +mathematical nor physical nor anything else---because we deserved to be +beaten. Hold all the approaches, and with our force we must have him. +When shall we open the next campaign?" "Now," said Buck, and walked out of the bar. -"Now!" cried Barker, following him eagerly. "Do you mean -now? It is so late." +"Now!" cried Barker, following him eagerly. "Do you mean now? It is so +late." Buck turned on him, stamping. -"Do you think fighting is under the Factory Acts?" he said. -And he called a cab. "Netting Hill Gate Station," he said, -and the two drove off. - -A genuine reputation can sometimes be made in an hour. Buck, -in the next sixty or eighty minutes showed himself a really -great man of action. His cab carried him like a thunderbolt -from the King to Wilson, from Wilson to Swindon, from -Swindon to Barker again; if his course was jagged, it had -the jaggedness of the lightning. Only two things he carried -with him, his inevitable cigar and the map of North -Kensington and Notting Hill. There were, as he again and -again pointed out, with every variety of persuasion and -violence, only nine possible ways of approaching Pump Street -within a quarter of a mile around it; three out of -Westbourne Grove, two out of Ladbroke Grove, and four out of -Notting Hill High Street. And he had detachments of two -hundred each, stationed at every one of the entrances before -the last green of that strange sunset had sunk out of the -black sky. - -The sky was particularly black, and on this alone was one -false protest raised against the triumphant optimism of the -Provost of North Kensington. He overruled it with his -infectious common sense. - -"There is no such thing," he said, "as night in London. You -have only to follow the line of street lamps. Look, here is -the map. Two hundred purple North Kensington soldiers under -myself march up Ossington Street, two hundred more under -Captain Bruce. of the North Kensington Guard, up Clanricarde -Gardens.Two hundred yellow West Kensingtons under Provost -Swindon attack from Pernbridge Road. Two hundred more of my -men from the eastern streets, leading away from Queen's -Road. Two detachments of yellows enter by two roads from -Westbourne Grove. Lastly, two hundred green Bayswaters come -down from the North through Chepstow Place, and two hundred -more under Provost Wilson himself, through the upper part of -Pembridge Road. Gentlemen, it is mate in two moves. The -enemy must either mass in Pump Street and be cut to -pieces---or they must retreat past the Gaslight & Coke -Co.---and rush on my four hundred---or they must retreat -past St. Luke's Church and rush on the six hundred from the -West. Unless we are all mad, it's plain. Come on. To your -quarters and await Captain Bruce's signal to advance. Then -you have only to walk up a line of gas-lamps and smash this -nonsense by pure mathematics. Tomorrow we shall be all -civilians again." - -His optimism glowed like a great fire in the night, and ran -round the terrible ring in which Wayne was now held -helpless. The fight was already over. One man's energy for -one hour had saved the city from war. - -For the next ten minutes Buck walked up and down silently -beside the motionless clump of his two hundred. He had not -changed his appearance in any way, except to sling across -his yellow overcoat a case with a revolver in it. So that -his light-clad modern figure showed up oddly beside the -pompous purple uniforms of his halberdiers, which darkly but +"Do you think fighting is under the Factory Acts?" he said. And he +called a cab. "Netting Hill Gate Station," he said, and the two drove +off. + +A genuine reputation can sometimes be made in an hour. Buck, in the next +sixty or eighty minutes showed himself a really great man of action. His +cab carried him like a thunderbolt from the King to Wilson, from Wilson +to Swindon, from Swindon to Barker again; if his course was jagged, it +had the jaggedness of the lightning. Only two things he carried with +him, his inevitable cigar and the map of North Kensington and Notting +Hill. There were, as he again and again pointed out, with every variety +of persuasion and violence, only nine possible ways of approaching Pump +Street within a quarter of a mile around it; three out of Westbourne +Grove, two out of Ladbroke Grove, and four out of Notting Hill High +Street. And he had detachments of two hundred each, stationed at every +one of the entrances before the last green of that strange sunset had +sunk out of the black sky. + +The sky was particularly black, and on this alone was one false protest +raised against the triumphant optimism of the Provost of North +Kensington. He overruled it with his infectious common sense. + +"There is no such thing," he said, "as night in London. You have only to +follow the line of street lamps. Look, here is the map. Two hundred +purple North Kensington soldiers under myself march up Ossington Street, +two hundred more under Captain Bruce. of the North Kensington Guard, up +Clanricarde Gardens.Two hundred yellow West Kensingtons under Provost +Swindon attack from Pernbridge Road. Two hundred more of my men from the +eastern streets, leading away from Queen's Road. Two detachments of +yellows enter by two roads from Westbourne Grove. Lastly, two hundred +green Bayswaters come down from the North through Chepstow Place, and +two hundred more under Provost Wilson himself, through the upper part of +Pembridge Road. Gentlemen, it is mate in two moves. The enemy must +either mass in Pump Street and be cut to pieces---or they must retreat +past the Gaslight & Coke Co.---and rush on my four hundred---or they +must retreat past St. Luke's Church and rush on the six hundred from the +West. Unless we are all mad, it's plain. Come on. To your quarters and +await Captain Bruce's signal to advance. Then you have only to walk up a +line of gas-lamps and smash this nonsense by pure mathematics. Tomorrow +we shall be all civilians again." + +His optimism glowed like a great fire in the night, and ran round the +terrible ring in which Wayne was now held helpless. The fight was +already over. One man's energy for one hour had saved the city from war. + +For the next ten minutes Buck walked up and down silently beside the +motionless clump of his two hundred. He had not changed his appearance +in any way, except to sling across his yellow overcoat a case with a +revolver in it. So that his light-clad modern figure showed up oddly +beside the pompous purple uniforms of his halberdiers, which darkly but richly coloured the black night. -At length a shrill trumpet rang from some way up the street; -it was the signal of advance. Buck briefly gave the word, -and the whole purple line, with its dimly shining steel, -moved up the side alley. Before it was a slope of street, -long, straight, and shining in the dark. It was a sword -pointed at Pump Street, the heart at which nine other swords -were pointed that night. - -A quarter of an hour's silent marching brought them almost -within earshot of any tumult in the doomed citadel. But -still there was no sound and no sign of the enemy. This -time, at any rate, they knew that they were closing in on it -mechanically, and they marched on under the lamplight and -the dark without any of that eerie sense of ignorance which -Barker had felt when entering the hostile country by one -avenue alone. - -"Halt point arms!" cried Buck, suddenly, and as he spoke -there came a clatter of feet tumbling along the stones. But -the halberds were levelled in vain. The figure that rushed -up was a messenger from the contingent of the North. - -"Victory, Mr. Buck!" he cried, panting, "they are ousted. -Provost Wilson of Bayswater has taken Pump Street." +At length a shrill trumpet rang from some way up the street; it was the +signal of advance. Buck briefly gave the word, and the whole purple +line, with its dimly shining steel, moved up the side alley. Before it +was a slope of street, long, straight, and shining in the dark. It was a +sword pointed at Pump Street, the heart at which nine other swords were +pointed that night. + +A quarter of an hour's silent marching brought them almost within +earshot of any tumult in the doomed citadel. But still there was no +sound and no sign of the enemy. This time, at any rate, they knew that +they were closing in on it mechanically, and they marched on under the +lamplight and the dark without any of that eerie sense of ignorance +which Barker had felt when entering the hostile country by one avenue +alone. + +"Halt point arms!" cried Buck, suddenly, and as he spoke there came a +clatter of feet tumbling along the stones. But the halberds were +levelled in vain. The figure that rushed up was a messenger from the +contingent of the North. + +"Victory, Mr. Buck!" he cried, panting, "they are ousted. Provost Wilson +of Bayswater has taken Pump Street." Buck ran forward in his excitement. -"Then, which way are they retreating? It must be either by -St. Luke's to meet Swindon, or by the Gas Company to meet -us. Run like mad to Swindon and see that the yellows are -holding the St. Luke's Road. We will hold this, never fear. -We have them in an iron trap. Rim!" - -As the messenger dashed away into the darkness, the great -guard of North Kensington swung on with the certainty of a -machine. Yet scarcely a hundred yards further their halberd -points again fell in line gleaming in the gas-light. For -again a clatter of feet was heard on the stones, and again -it proved to be only the messenger. - -"Mr. Provost," he said, "the yellow West Kensingtons have -been holding the road by St. Luke's for twenty minutes since -the capture of Pump Street. Pump Street is not two hundred -yards away, they cannot be retreating down that road." - -"Then they are retreating down this!" said Provost Buck, -with a final cheerfulness, "and by good fortune down a -well-lighted road, though it twists about. Forward!" - -As they moved along the last three hundred yards of their -journey, Buck fell, for the first time in his life, perhaps, -into a kind of philosophical reverie, for men of his type -are always made kindly, and as it were melancholy, by -success. - -"I am sorry for poor old Wayne, I really am," he thought. -"He spoke up splendidly for me at that Council. And he -blacked old Barker's eye with considerable spirit. But I -don't see what a man can expect when he fights against -arithmetic, to say nothing of civilisation. And what a -wonderful hoax all this military genius is. I suspect I've -just discovered what Cromwell discovered, that a sensible -tradesman is the best general, and that a man who can buy -men and sell men can lead and kill them. The thing's simply -like adding up a column in a ledger. If Wayne has two -hundred men, he can't put two hundred men in nine places at -once. If they're ousted from Pump Street they're flying -somewhere. If they're not flying past the church they're -flying past the Works. And so we have them. We business men -should have no chance at all except that cleverer people -than we get bees in their bonnets that prevent them from -reasoning properly so we reason alone. And so I, who am -comparatively stupid, see things as God sees them, as a vast -machine. My God, what's this?" And he clapped his hands to -his eyes and staggered back. +"Then, which way are they retreating? It must be either by St. Luke's to +meet Swindon, or by the Gas Company to meet us. Run like mad to Swindon +and see that the yellows are holding the St. Luke's Road. We will hold +this, never fear. We have them in an iron trap. Rim!" + +As the messenger dashed away into the darkness, the great guard of North +Kensington swung on with the certainty of a machine. Yet scarcely a +hundred yards further their halberd points again fell in line gleaming +in the gas-light. For again a clatter of feet was heard on the stones, +and again it proved to be only the messenger. + +"Mr. Provost," he said, "the yellow West Kensingtons have been holding +the road by St. Luke's for twenty minutes since the capture of Pump +Street. Pump Street is not two hundred yards away, they cannot be +retreating down that road." + +"Then they are retreating down this!" said Provost Buck, with a final +cheerfulness, "and by good fortune down a well-lighted road, though it +twists about. Forward!" + +As they moved along the last three hundred yards of their journey, Buck +fell, for the first time in his life, perhaps, into a kind of +philosophical reverie, for men of his type are always made kindly, and +as it were melancholy, by success. + +"I am sorry for poor old Wayne, I really am," he thought. "He spoke up +splendidly for me at that Council. And he blacked old Barker's eye with +considerable spirit. But I don't see what a man can expect when he +fights against arithmetic, to say nothing of civilisation. And what a +wonderful hoax all this military genius is. I suspect I've just +discovered what Cromwell discovered, that a sensible tradesman is the +best general, and that a man who can buy men and sell men can lead and +kill them. The thing's simply like adding up a column in a ledger. If +Wayne has two hundred men, he can't put two hundred men in nine places +at once. If they're ousted from Pump Street they're flying somewhere. If +they're not flying past the church they're flying past the Works. And so +we have them. We business men should have no chance at all except that +cleverer people than we get bees in their bonnets that prevent them from +reasoning properly so we reason alone. And so I, who am comparatively +stupid, see things as God sees them, as a vast machine. My God, what's +this?" And he clapped his hands to his eyes and staggered back. Then through the darkness he cried in a dreadful voice-- "Did I blaspheme God?--I am struck blind." -"What?" wailed another voice behind him, the voice of a -certain Wilfred Jarvis of North Kensington. +"What?" wailed another voice behind him, the voice of a certain Wilfred +Jarvis of North Kensington. "Blind!" cried Buck; "blind!" "I'm blind, too!" cried Jarvis, in an agony. -"Fools, all of you," said a gross voice behind them; "we're -all blind. The lamps have gone out." +"Fools, all of you," said a gross voice behind them; "we're all blind. +The lamps have gone out." -"The lamps---but why? where?" cried Buck, turning furiously -in the darkness. "How are we to get on? How are we to chase -the enemy? Where have they gone?" +"The lamps---but why? where?" cried Buck, turning furiously in the +darkness. "How are we to get on? How are we to chase the enemy? Where +have they gone?" -"The enemy went--" said the rough voice behind, and then -stopped, doubtfully. +"The enemy went--" said the rough voice behind, and then stopped, +doubtfully. "Where?" shouted Buck, stamping like a madman. -"They went," said the gruff voice, "past the Gas Works, and -they've used their chance." - -"Great God!" thundered Buck, and snatched at his revolver; -"do you mean they've turned out--" - -But almost before he had spoken the words, he was hurled -like a stone from a catapult into the midst of his own men. - -"Notting Hill! Notting Hill!" cried frightful voices out of -the darkness, and they seemed to come from all sides, for -the men of North Kensington, unacquainted with the road, had -lost all their bearings in the black world of blindness. - -"Notting Hill! Notting Hill!" cried the invisible people, -and the invaders were hewn down horribly with black steel, -with steel that gave no glint against any light. - -Buck, though badly maimed with the blow of a halberd, kept -an angry but splendid sanity. He groped madly for the wall -and found it. Struggling with crawling fingers along it, he -found a side opening and retreated into it with the remnants -of his men. Their adventures during that prodigious night -are not to be described. They did not know whether they were -going towards or away from the enemy. Not knowing where they -themselves were, or where their opponents were, it was mere -irony to ask where was the rest of their army. For a thing -had descended upon them which London does not -know---darkness, which was before the stars were made, and -they were as much lost in it as if they had been made before -the stars. Every now and then, as those frightful hours wore -on, they buffeted in the darkness against living men, who -struck at them and at whom they struck, with an idiot fury. -When at last the grey dawn came, they found they had -wandered back to the edge of the Uxbridge Road. They found -that in those horrible eyeless encounters, the North -Kensingtons and the Bayswaters and the West Kensingtons had -again and again met and butchered each other, and they heard -that Adam Wayne was barricaded in Pump Street. +"They went," said the gruff voice, "past the Gas Works, and they've used +their chance." + +"Great God!" thundered Buck, and snatched at his revolver; "do you mean +they've turned out--" + +But almost before he had spoken the words, he was hurled like a stone +from a catapult into the midst of his own men. + +"Notting Hill! Notting Hill!" cried frightful voices out of the +darkness, and they seemed to come from all sides, for the men of North +Kensington, unacquainted with the road, had lost all their bearings in +the black world of blindness. + +"Notting Hill! Notting Hill!" cried the invisible people, and the +invaders were hewn down horribly with black steel, with steel that gave +no glint against any light. + +Buck, though badly maimed with the blow of a halberd, kept an angry but +splendid sanity. He groped madly for the wall and found it. Struggling +with crawling fingers along it, he found a side opening and retreated +into it with the remnants of his men. Their adventures during that +prodigious night are not to be described. They did not know whether they +were going towards or away from the enemy. Not knowing where they +themselves were, or where their opponents were, it was mere irony to ask +where was the rest of their army. For a thing had descended upon them +which London does not know---darkness, which was before the stars were +made, and they were as much lost in it as if they had been made before +the stars. Every now and then, as those frightful hours wore on, they +buffeted in the darkness against living men, who struck at them and at +whom they struck, with an idiot fury. When at last the grey dawn came, +they found they had wandered back to the edge of the Uxbridge Road. They +found that in those horrible eyeless encounters, the North Kensingtons +and the Bayswaters and the West Kensingtons had again and again met and +butchered each other, and they heard that Adam Wayne was barricaded in +Pump Street. ## The Correspondent of "The Court Journal" -Journalism had become like most other such things in -England, under the cautious government and philosophy -represented by James Barker, somewhat sleepy and much -diminished in importance. This was partly due to the -disappearance of party government and public speaking, -partly to the compromise or dead-lock which had made foreign -wars impossible, but mostly, of course, to the temper of the -whole nation, which was that of a people in a kind of -back-water. Perhaps the most well-known of the remaining -newspapers was the *Court Journal*, which was published in a -dusty but genteel-looking office just out of Kensington High -Street. For when all the papers of a people have been for -years growing more and more dim and decorous and optimistic, -the dimmest and most decorous and most optimistic is very -likely to win. In the journalistic competition which was -still going on at the beginning of the twentieth century, -the final victor was the *Court Journal*. - -For some mysterious reason the King had a great affection -for hanging about in the *Court Journal* office, smoking a -morning cigarette and looking over files. Like all -ingrainedly idle men, he was very fond of lounging and -chatting in places where other people were doing work. But -one would have thought that, even in the prosaic England of -his day, he might have found a more bustling centre. - -On this particular morning, however, he came out of -Kensington Palace with a more alert step and a busier air -than usual. He wore an extravagantly long frock-coat, a -pale-green waistcoat, a very full and *dégagé* black tie, -and curious yellow gloves. This was his uniform as Colonel -of a regiment of his own creation, the 1st Decadents Green. -It was a beautiful sight to see him drilling them. He walked -quickly across the Park and the High Street, lighting his -cigarette as he went, and flung open the door of the Court -Journal office. - -"You've heard the news, Pally---you've heard the news?" he -said. - -The Editor's name was Hoskins, but the King called him -Pally, which was an abbreviation of Palladium of our -Liberties. - -"Well, your Majesty," said Hoskins, slowly (he was a -worried, gentlemanly looking person, with a wandering brown -beard)--"well, your Majesty, I have heard rather curious -things, but I--" - -"You'll hear more of them," said the King, dancing a few -steps of a kind of Negro shuffle. "You'll hear more of them, -my blood-and-thunder tribune. Do you know what I am going to -do for you?" +Journalism had become like most other such things in England, under the +cautious government and philosophy represented by James Barker, somewhat +sleepy and much diminished in importance. This was partly due to the +disappearance of party government and public speaking, partly to the +compromise or dead-lock which had made foreign wars impossible, but +mostly, of course, to the temper of the whole nation, which was that of +a people in a kind of back-water. Perhaps the most well-known of the +remaining newspapers was the *Court Journal*, which was published in a +dusty but genteel-looking office just out of Kensington High Street. For +when all the papers of a people have been for years growing more and +more dim and decorous and optimistic, the dimmest and most decorous and +most optimistic is very likely to win. In the journalistic competition +which was still going on at the beginning of the twentieth century, the +final victor was the *Court Journal*. + +For some mysterious reason the King had a great affection for hanging +about in the *Court Journal* office, smoking a morning cigarette and +looking over files. Like all ingrainedly idle men, he was very fond of +lounging and chatting in places where other people were doing work. But +one would have thought that, even in the prosaic England of his day, he +might have found a more bustling centre. + +On this particular morning, however, he came out of Kensington Palace +with a more alert step and a busier air than usual. He wore an +extravagantly long frock-coat, a pale-green waistcoat, a very full and +*dégagé* black tie, and curious yellow gloves. This was his uniform as +Colonel of a regiment of his own creation, the 1st Decadents Green. It +was a beautiful sight to see him drilling them. He walked quickly across +the Park and the High Street, lighting his cigarette as he went, and +flung open the door of the Court Journal office. + +"You've heard the news, Pally---you've heard the news?" he said. + +The Editor's name was Hoskins, but the King called him Pally, which was +an abbreviation of Palladium of our Liberties. + +"Well, your Majesty," said Hoskins, slowly (he was a worried, +gentlemanly looking person, with a wandering brown beard)--"well, your +Majesty, I have heard rather curious things, but I--" + +"You'll hear more of them," said the King, dancing a few steps of a kind +of Negro shuffle. "You'll hear more of them, my blood-and-thunder +tribune. Do you know what I am going to do for you?" "No, your Majesty," replied the Palladium, vaguely. -"I'm going to put your paper on strong, dashing, -enterprising lines," said the King. "Now, where are your -posters of last night's defeat?" +"I'm going to put your paper on strong, dashing, enterprising lines," +said the King. "Now, where are your posters of last night's defeat?" -"I did not propose, your Majesty," said the Editor, "to have -any posters exactly--" +"I did not propose, your Majesty," said the Editor, "to have any posters +exactly--" -"Paper, paper!" cried the King, wildly; "bring me paper as -big as a house. I'll do you posters. Stop, I must take my -coat off." He began removing that garment with an air of set -intensity, flung it playfully at Mr. Hoskins' head, entirely -enveloping him, and looked at himself in the glass. "The -coat off," he said, "and hat on. That looks like a -sub-editor. It is indeed the very essence of sub-editing. -Well," he continued, turning round abruptly, "come along -with that paper." +"Paper, paper!" cried the King, wildly; "bring me paper as big as a +house. I'll do you posters. Stop, I must take my coat off." He began +removing that garment with an air of set intensity, flung it playfully +at Mr. Hoskins' head, entirely enveloping him, and looked at himself in +the glass. "The coat off," he said, "and hat on. That looks like a +sub-editor. It is indeed the very essence of sub-editing. Well," he +continued, turning round abruptly, "come along with that paper." -The Palladium had only just extricated himself reverently -from the folds of the King's frock-coat, and said -bewildered-- +The Palladium had only just extricated himself reverently from the folds +of the King's frock-coat, and said bewildered-- "I am afraid, your Majesty--" -"Oh, you've got no enterprise," said Auberon. "What's that -roll in the corner? Wall-paper? Decorations for your private -residence? Art in the home, Pally? Fling it over here, and -I'll paint such posters on the back of it that when you put -it up in your drawing-room you'll paste the original pattern -against the wall." And the King unrolled the wall-paper, -spreading it over the whole floor. "Now give me the -scissors," he cried, and took them himself before the other -could stir. - -He slit the paper into about five pieces, each nearly as big -as a door. Then he took a big blue pencil and went down on -his knees on the dusty oil-cloth, and began to write on -them, in huge letters-- +"Oh, you've got no enterprise," said Auberon. "What's that roll in the +corner? Wall-paper? Decorations for your private residence? Art in the +home, Pally? Fling it over here, and I'll paint such posters on the back +of it that when you put it up in your drawing-room you'll paste the +original pattern against the wall." And the King unrolled the +wall-paper, spreading it over the whole floor. "Now give me the +scissors," he cried, and took them himself before the other could stir. + +He slit the paper into about five pieces, each nearly as big as a door. +Then he took a big blue pencil and went down on his knees on the dusty +oil-cloth, and began to write on them, in huge letters-- >   FROM THE FRONT. > @@ -4725,21 +4123,20 @@ them, in huge letters-- > > FEELING IN THE CITY. -He contemplated it for some time, with his head on one side, -and got up, with a sigh. +He contemplated it for some time, with his head on one side, and got up, +with a sigh. -"Not quite intense enough," he said--"not alarming. I want -the *Court Journal* to be feared as well as loved. Let's try -something more hard-hitting." And he went down on his knees -again. After sucking the blue pencil for some time, he began -writing again busily."How will this do?" he said-- +"Not quite intense enough," he said--"not alarming. I want the *Court +Journal* to be feared as well as loved. Let's try something more +hard-hitting." And he went down on his knees again. After sucking the +blue pencil for some time, he began writing again busily."How will this +do?" he said-- >   WAYNE'S WONDERFUL VICTORY. -"I suppose," he said, looking up appealingly, and sucking -the pencil--"I suppose we couldn't say 'wictory'--'Wayne's -wonderful wictory'? No, no. Refinement, Pally, refinement. I -have it." +"I suppose," he said, looking up appealingly, and sucking the pencil--"I +suppose we couldn't say 'wictory'--'Wayne's wonderful wictory'? No, no. +Refinement, Pally, refinement. I have it." >   WAYNE WINS. > @@ -4747,969 +4144,849 @@ have it." > > *The gas-lamps in their courses, fought against Buck*. -"(Nothing like our fine old English translation.) What else -can we say? Well, anything to annoy old Buck;" and he added, -thoughtfully, in smaller letters-- +"(Nothing like our fine old English translation.) What else can we say? +Well, anything to annoy old Buck;" and he added, thoughtfully, in +smaller letters-- >   Rumoured Court-martial on General Buck. -"Those will do for the present," he said, and turned them -both face downwards. "Paste, please." - -The Palladium, with an air of great terror, brought the -paste out of an inner room. - -The King slabbed it on with the enjoyment of a child messing -with treacle. Then taking one of his huge compositions -fluttering in each hand, he ran outside, and began pasting -them up in prominent positions over the front of the office. - -"And now," said Auberon, entering again with undiminished -vivacity--"now for the leading article." - -He picked up another of the large strips of wall-paper, and, -laying it across a desk, pulled out a fountain-pen and began -writing with feverish intensity, reading clauses and -fragments aloud to himself, and rolling them on his tongue -like wine, to see if they had the pure journalistic flavour. - -"The news of the disaster to our forces in Notting Hill, -awful as it is, awful as it is--(no, distressing as it is), -may do some good if it draws attention to the -what's-his-name inefficiency (scandalous inefficiency, of -course) of the Government's preparations. In our present -state of information, it would be premature (what a jolly -word!)--it would be premature to cast any reflections upon -the conduct of General Buck, whose services upon so many -stricken fields (ha, ha!), and whose honourable scars and -laurels, give him a right to have judgment upon him at least -suspended. But there is one matter on which we must speak -plainly. We have been silent on it too long, from feelings, -perhaps of mistaken caution, perhaps of mistaken loyalty. -This situation would never have arisen but for what we can -only call the indefensible conduct of the King. It pains us -to say such things, but, speaking as we do in the public -interests (I plagiarise from Barker's famous epigram), we -shall not shrink because of the distress we may cause to any -individual, even the most exalted. At this crucial moment of -our country, the voice of the People demands with a single -tongue, 'Where is the King?' What is he doing while his -subjects tear each other in pieces in the streets of a great -city? Are his amusements and his dissipations (of which we -cannot pretend to be ignorant) so engrossing that he can -spare no thought for a perishing nation? It is with a deep -sense of our responsibility that we warn that exalted person -that neither his great position nor his incomparable talents -will save him in the hour of delirium from the fate of all -those who, in the madness of luxury or tyranny, have met the -English people in the rare day of its wrath." - -"I am now," said the King, "going to write an account of the -battle by an eye-witness." And he picked up a fourth sheet -of wall-paper. Almost at the same moment Buck strode quickly -into the office. He had a bandage round his head. - -"I was told," he said with his usual gruff civility, "that -your Majesty was here." - -"And of all things on earth," cried the King, with delight, -"here is an eye-witness! An eye-witness who, I regret to -observe, has at present only one eye to witness with. Can -you write us the special article, Buck? Have you a rich -style?" - -Buck, with a self-restraint which almost approached -politeness, took no notice whatever of the King's maddening -geniality. - -"I took the liberty, your Majesty," he said shortly, "of -asking Mr. Barker to come here also." - -As he spoke, indeed, Barker came swinging into the office, -with his usual air of hurry. - -"What is happening now?" asked Buck, turning to him with a -kind of relief. - -"Fighting still going on," said Barker. "The four hundred -from West Kensington were hardly touched last night. They -hardly got near the place. Poor Wilson's Bayswater men got -cut about, though. They fought confoundedly well. They took -Pump Street once. What mad things do happen in the world. To -think that of all of us it should be little Wilson with the -red whiskers who came out best." +"Those will do for the present," he said, and turned them both face +downwards. "Paste, please." + +The Palladium, with an air of great terror, brought the paste out of an +inner room. + +The King slabbed it on with the enjoyment of a child messing with +treacle. Then taking one of his huge compositions fluttering in each +hand, he ran outside, and began pasting them up in prominent positions +over the front of the office. + +"And now," said Auberon, entering again with undiminished vivacity--"now +for the leading article." + +He picked up another of the large strips of wall-paper, and, laying it +across a desk, pulled out a fountain-pen and began writing with feverish +intensity, reading clauses and fragments aloud to himself, and rolling +them on his tongue like wine, to see if they had the pure journalistic +flavour. + +"The news of the disaster to our forces in Notting Hill, awful as it is, +awful as it is--(no, distressing as it is), may do some good if it draws +attention to the what's-his-name inefficiency (scandalous inefficiency, +of course) of the Government's preparations. In our present state of +information, it would be premature (what a jolly word!)--it would be +premature to cast any reflections upon the conduct of General Buck, +whose services upon so many stricken fields (ha, ha!), and whose +honourable scars and laurels, give him a right to have judgment upon him +at least suspended. But there is one matter on which we must speak +plainly. We have been silent on it too long, from feelings, perhaps of +mistaken caution, perhaps of mistaken loyalty. This situation would +never have arisen but for what we can only call the indefensible conduct +of the King. It pains us to say such things, but, speaking as we do in +the public interests (I plagiarise from Barker's famous epigram), we +shall not shrink because of the distress we may cause to any individual, +even the most exalted. At this crucial moment of our country, the voice +of the People demands with a single tongue, 'Where is the King?' What is +he doing while his subjects tear each other in pieces in the streets of +a great city? Are his amusements and his dissipations (of which we +cannot pretend to be ignorant) so engrossing that he can spare no +thought for a perishing nation? It is with a deep sense of our +responsibility that we warn that exalted person that neither his great +position nor his incomparable talents will save him in the hour of +delirium from the fate of all those who, in the madness of luxury or +tyranny, have met the English people in the rare day of its wrath." + +"I am now," said the King, "going to write an account of the battle by +an eye-witness." And he picked up a fourth sheet of wall-paper. Almost +at the same moment Buck strode quickly into the office. He had a bandage +round his head. + +"I was told," he said with his usual gruff civility, "that your Majesty +was here." + +"And of all things on earth," cried the King, with delight, "here is an +eye-witness! An eye-witness who, I regret to observe, has at present +only one eye to witness with. Can you write us the special article, +Buck? Have you a rich style?" + +Buck, with a self-restraint which almost approached politeness, took no +notice whatever of the King's maddening geniality. + +"I took the liberty, your Majesty," he said shortly, "of asking +Mr. Barker to come here also." + +As he spoke, indeed, Barker came swinging into the office, with his +usual air of hurry. + +"What is happening now?" asked Buck, turning to him with a kind of +relief. + +"Fighting still going on," said Barker. "The four hundred from West +Kensington were hardly touched last night. They hardly got near the +place. Poor Wilson's Bayswater men got cut about, though. They fought +confoundedly well. They took Pump Street once. What mad things do happen +in the world. To think that of all of us it should be little Wilson with +the red whiskers who came out best." The King made a note on his paper-- >   *"Romantic Conduct of Mr. Wilson."* -"Yes," said Buck, "it makes one a bit less proud of one's -'h's.'" +"Yes," said Buck, "it makes one a bit less proud of one's 'h's.'" -The King suddenly folded or crumpled up the paper, and put -it in his pocket. +The King suddenly folded or crumpled up the paper, and put it in his +pocket. -"I have an idea," he said. "I will be an eye-witness. I will -write you such letters from the Front as will be more -gorgeous than the real thing. Give me my coat, Palladium. I -entered this room a mere King of England. I leave it, -Special War Correspondent of the *Court Journal*. It is -useless to stop me, Pally; it is vain to cling to my knees, -Buck; it is hopeless, Barker, to weep upon my neck. 'When -duty calls'--the remainder of the sentiment escapes me. You -will receive my first article this evening by the eight -o'clock post." +"I have an idea," he said. "I will be an eye-witness. I will write you +such letters from the Front as will be more gorgeous than the real +thing. Give me my coat, Palladium. I entered this room a mere King of +England. I leave it, Special War Correspondent of the *Court Journal*. +It is useless to stop me, Pally; it is vain to cling to my knees, Buck; +it is hopeless, Barker, to weep upon my neck. 'When duty calls'--the +remainder of the sentiment escapes me. You will receive my first article +this evening by the eight o'clock post." -And, running out of the office, he jumped upon a blue -Bayswater omnibus that went swinging by. +And, running out of the office, he jumped upon a blue Bayswater omnibus +that went swinging by. "Well," said Barker, gloomily, "well." -"Barker," said Buck, "business may be lower than politics, -but war is, as I discovered last night, a long sight more -like business. You politicians are such ingrained demagogues -that even when you have a despotism you think of nothing but -public opinion. So you learn to tack and run, and are afraid -of the first breeze. Now we stick to a thing and get it. And -our mistakes help us. Look here! at this moment we've beaten +"Barker," said Buck, "business may be lower than politics, but war is, +as I discovered last night, a long sight more like business. You +politicians are such ingrained demagogues that even when you have a +despotism you think of nothing but public opinion. So you learn to tack +and run, and are afraid of the first breeze. Now we stick to a thing and +get it. And our mistakes help us. Look here! at this moment we've beaten Wayne." "Beaten Wayne," repeated Barker. -"Why the dickens not?" cried the other, flinging out his -hands. "Look here. I said last night that we had them by -holding the nine entrances. Well, I was wrong. We should -have had them but for a singular event the lamps went out. -But for that it was certain. Has it occurred to you, my -brilliant Barker, that another singular event has happened -since that singular event of the lamps going out?" +"Why the dickens not?" cried the other, flinging out his hands. "Look +here. I said last night that we had them by holding the nine entrances. +Well, I was wrong. We should have had them but for a singular event the +lamps went out. But for that it was certain. Has it occurred to you, my +brilliant Barker, that another singular event has happened since that +singular event of the lamps going out?" "What event?" asked Barker. -"By an astounding coincidence, the sun has risen," cried out -Buck, with a savage air of patience. "Why the hell aren't we -holding all those approaches now, and passing in on them -again? It should have been done at sunrise. The confounded -doctor wouldn't let me go out. You were in command." +"By an astounding coincidence, the sun has risen," cried out Buck, with +a savage air of patience. "Why the hell aren't we holding all those +approaches now, and passing in on them again? It should have been done +at sunrise. The confounded doctor wouldn't let me go out. You were in +command." Barker smiled grimly. -"It is a gratification to me, my dear Buck, to be able to -say that we anticipated your suggestions precisely. We went -as early as possible to reconnoitre the nine entrances. -Unfortunately, while we were fighting each other in the -dark, like a lot of drunken navvies, Mr. Wayne's friends -were working very hard indeed. Three hundred yards from Pump -Street, at every one of those entrances, there is a -barricade nearly as high as the houses. They were finishing -the last, in Pembridge Road, when we arrived. Our mistakes," -he cried bitterly, and flung his cigarette on the ground. -"It is not we who learn from them." - -There was a silence for a few moments, and Barker lay back -wearily in a chair. The office clock ticked exactly in the -stillness. +"It is a gratification to me, my dear Buck, to be able to say that we +anticipated your suggestions precisely. We went as early as possible to +reconnoitre the nine entrances. Unfortunately, while we were fighting +each other in the dark, like a lot of drunken navvies, Mr. Wayne's +friends were working very hard indeed. Three hundred yards from Pump +Street, at every one of those entrances, there is a barricade nearly as +high as the houses. They were finishing the last, in Pembridge Road, +when we arrived. Our mistakes," he cried bitterly, and flung his +cigarette on the ground. "It is not we who learn from them." + +There was a silence for a few moments, and Barker lay back wearily in a +chair. The office clock ticked exactly in the stillness. At length Barker said suddenly-- -"Buck, does it ever cross your mind what this is all about? -The Hammersmith to Maida Vale thoroughfare was an uncommonly -good speculation. You and I hoped a great deal from it. But -is it worth it? It will cost us thousands to crush this -ridiculous riot. Suppose we let it alone?" +"Buck, does it ever cross your mind what this is all about? The +Hammersmith to Maida Vale thoroughfare was an uncommonly good +speculation. You and I hoped a great deal from it. But is it worth it? +It will cost us thousands to crush this ridiculous riot. Suppose we let +it alone?" -"And be thrashed in public by a red-haired madman whom any -two doctors would lock up?" cried out Buck, starting to his -feet. "What do you propose to do, Mr. Barker? To apologise -to the admirable Mr. Wayne? To kneel to the Charter of the -Cities? To clasp to your bosom the flag of the Red Lion? To -kiss in succession every sacred lamp-post that saved Netting -Hill? No, by God! My men fought jolly well they were beaten -by a trick. And they'll fight again." +"And be thrashed in public by a red-haired madman whom any two doctors +would lock up?" cried out Buck, starting to his feet. "What do you +propose to do, Mr. Barker? To apologise to the admirable Mr. Wayne? To +kneel to the Charter of the Cities? To clasp to your bosom the flag of +the Red Lion? To kiss in succession every sacred lamp-post that saved +Netting Hill? No, by God! My men fought jolly well they were beaten by a +trick. And they'll fight again." -"Buck," said Barker, "I always admired you. And you were -quite right in what you said the other day." +"Buck," said Barker, "I always admired you. And you were quite right in +what you said the other day." "In what?" -"In saying," said Barker, rising quietly, "that we had all -got into Adam Wayne's atmosphere and out of our own. My -friend, the whole territorial kingdom of Adam Wayne extends -to about nine streets, with barricades at the end of them. -But the spiritual kingdom of Adam Wayne extends, God knows -where---it extends to this office at any rate. The -red-haired madman whom any two doctors would lock up is -filling this room with his roaring, unreasonable soul. And -it was the red-haired madman who said the last word you -spoke." - -Buck walked to the window without replying. "You understand, -of course," he said at last, "I do not dream of giving in." - -The King, meanwhile, was rattling along on the top of his -blue omnibus. The traffic of London as a whole had not, of -course, been greatly disturbed by these events, for, the -affair was treated as a Netting Hill riot, and that area was -marked off as if it had been in the hands of a gang of -recognised rioters. The blue omnibuses simply went round as -they would have done if a road were being mended, and the -omnibus on which the correspondent of the *Court Journal* -was sitting swept round the corner of Queen's Road, -Bayswater. - -The King was alone on the top of the vehicle, and was -enjoying the speed at which it was going. +"In saying," said Barker, rising quietly, "that we had all got into Adam +Wayne's atmosphere and out of our own. My friend, the whole territorial +kingdom of Adam Wayne extends to about nine streets, with barricades at +the end of them. But the spiritual kingdom of Adam Wayne extends, God +knows where---it extends to this office at any rate. The red-haired +madman whom any two doctors would lock up is filling this room with his +roaring, unreasonable soul. And it was the red-haired madman who said +the last word you spoke." + +Buck walked to the window without replying. "You understand, of course," +he said at last, "I do not dream of giving in." + +The King, meanwhile, was rattling along on the top of his blue omnibus. +The traffic of London as a whole had not, of course, been greatly +disturbed by these events, for, the affair was treated as a Netting Hill +riot, and that area was marked off as if it had been in the hands of a +gang of recognised rioters. The blue omnibuses simply went round as they +would have done if a road were being mended, and the omnibus on which +the correspondent of the *Court Journal* was sitting swept round the +corner of Queen's Road, Bayswater. + +The King was alone on the top of the vehicle, and was enjoying the speed +at which it was going. "Forward, my beauty, my Arab," he said, patting the omnibus -encouragingly, "fleetest of all thy bounding tribe. Are thy -relations with thy driver, I wonder, those of the Bedouin -and his steed? Does he sleep side by side with thee--" - -His meditations were broken by a sudden and jarring -stoppage. Looking over the edge, he saw that the heads of -the horses were being held by men in the uniform of Wayne's -army, and heard the voice of an officer calling out orders. - -King Auberon descended from the omnibus with dignity. The -guard or picket of red halberdiers who had stopped the -vehicle did not number more than twenty, and they were under -the command of a short, dark, clever-looking young man, -conspicuous among the rest as being clad in an ordinary -frock-coat, but girt round the waist with a red sash and a -long seventeenth-century sword. A shiny silk hat and -spectacles completed the outfit in a pleasing manner. - -"To whom have I the honour of speaking?" said the King, -endeavouring to look like Charles I, in spite of personal -difficulties. - -The dark man in spectacles lifted his hat with equal -gravity. - -"My name is Bowles," he said. "I am a chemist. I am also a -captain of O company of the army of Notting Hill. I am -distressed at having to incommode you by stopping the -omnibus, but this area is covered by our proclamation, and -we intercept all traffic. May I ask to whom I have the -honour---Why, good gracious, I beg your Majesty's pardon. I -am quite overwhelmed at finding myself concerned with the -King." +encouragingly, "fleetest of all thy bounding tribe. Are thy relations +with thy driver, I wonder, those of the Bedouin and his steed? Does he +sleep side by side with thee--" + +His meditations were broken by a sudden and jarring stoppage. Looking +over the edge, he saw that the heads of the horses were being held by +men in the uniform of Wayne's army, and heard the voice of an officer +calling out orders. + +King Auberon descended from the omnibus with dignity. The guard or +picket of red halberdiers who had stopped the vehicle did not number +more than twenty, and they were under the command of a short, dark, +clever-looking young man, conspicuous among the rest as being clad in an +ordinary frock-coat, but girt round the waist with a red sash and a long +seventeenth-century sword. A shiny silk hat and spectacles completed the +outfit in a pleasing manner. + +"To whom have I the honour of speaking?" said the King, endeavouring to +look like Charles I, in spite of personal difficulties. + +The dark man in spectacles lifted his hat with equal gravity. + +"My name is Bowles," he said. "I am a chemist. I am also a captain of O +company of the army of Notting Hill. I am distressed at having to +incommode you by stopping the omnibus, but this area is covered by our +proclamation, and we intercept all traffic. May I ask to whom I have the +honour---Why, good gracious, I beg your Majesty's pardon. I am quite +overwhelmed at finding myself concerned with the King." Auberon put up his hands with indescribable grandeur. -"Not with the King," he said; "with the special war -correspondent of the *Court Journal*." +"Not with the King," he said; "with the special war correspondent of the +*Court Journal*." "I beg your Majesty's pardon," began Mr. Bowles, doubtfully. -"Do you call me Majesty? I repeat," said Auberon firmly, "I -am a representative of the press. I have chosen, with a deep -sense of responsibility, the name of Pinker. I should desire -a veil to be drawn over the past." +"Do you call me Majesty? I repeat," said Auberon firmly, "I am a +representative of the press. I have chosen, with a deep sense of +responsibility, the name of Pinker. I should desire a veil to be drawn +over the past." -"Very well, sir," said Mr. Bowles, with an air of -submission, "in our eyes the sanctity of the press is at -least as great as that of the throne. We desire nothing -better than that our wrongs and our glories should be widely -known. May I ask, Mr. Pinker, if you have any objection to -being presented to the Provost and to General Turnbull?" +"Very well, sir," said Mr. Bowles, with an air of submission, "in our +eyes the sanctity of the press is at least as great as that of the +throne. We desire nothing better than that our wrongs and our glories +should be widely known. May I ask, Mr. Pinker, if you have any objection +to being presented to the Provost and to General Turnbull?" -"The Provost I have had the honour of meeting," said -Auberon, easily. "We old journalists, you know, meet -everybody. I should be most delighted to have the same -honour again. General Turnbull, also, it would be a -gratification to know. The younger men are so interesting. -We of the old Fleet Street gang lose touch with them." +"The Provost I have had the honour of meeting," said Auberon, easily. +"We old journalists, you know, meet everybody. I should be most +delighted to have the same honour again. General Turnbull, also, it +would be a gratification to know. The younger men are so interesting. We +of the old Fleet Street gang lose touch with them." -"Will you be so good as to step this way?" said the leader -of O company. +"Will you be so good as to step this way?" said the leader of O company. "I am always good," said Mr. Pinker. "Lead on." ## The Great Army of South Kensington -The article from the special correspondent of the *Court -Journal* arrived in due course, written on very coarse -copy-paper in the King's arabesque of handwriting, in which -three words filled a page, and yet were illegible. Moreover, -the contribution was the more perplexing at first as it -opened with a succession of erased paragraphs. The writer -appeared to have attempted the article once or twice in -several journalistic styles. At the side of one experiment -was written, "Try American style," and the fragment began-- - -"The King must go. We want gritty men. Flapdoodle is all -very...;" and then broke off, followed by the note, "Good -sound journalism safer. Try it." +The article from the special correspondent of the *Court Journal* +arrived in due course, written on very coarse copy-paper in the King's +arabesque of handwriting, in which three words filled a page, and yet +were illegible. Moreover, the contribution was the more perplexing at +first as it opened with a succession of erased paragraphs. The writer +appeared to have attempted the article once or twice in several +journalistic styles. At the side of one experiment was written, "Try +American style," and the fragment began-- + +"The King must go. We want gritty men. Flapdoodle is all very...;" and +then broke off, followed by the note, "Good sound journalism safer. Try +it." The experiment in good sound journalism appeared to begin-- -"The greatest of English poets has said that a rose by -any..." +"The greatest of English poets has said that a rose by any..." -This also stopped abruptly. The next annotation at the side -was almost undecipherable, but seemed to be something like-- +This also stopped abruptly. The next annotation at the side was almost +undecipherable, but seemed to be something like-- "How about old Steevens and the *mot juste*? E.g..." -"Morning winked a little wearily at me over the curt edge -of Campden Hill and its houses with their sharp shadows. -Under the abrupt black cardboard of the outline, it took -some little time to detect colours; but at length I saw a -brownish yellow shifting in the obscurity, and I knew that -it was the guard of Swindon's West Kensington army. They are -being held as a reserve, and lining the whole ridge above -the Bayswater Road. Their camp and their main force is under -the great water works tower on Campden Hill. I forgot to say -that the water works tower looked swart. - -"As I passed them and came over the curve of Silver Street, -I saw the blue cloudy masses of Barker's men blocking the -entrance to the high-road like a sapphire smoke (good). The -disposition of the allied troops, under the general -management of Mr. Wilson, appears to be as follows,---The -Yellow Army (if I may so describe the West Kensingtonians) -lies, as I have said, in a strip along the ridge; its -furthest point westward being the west side of Campden Hill -Road, its furthest point eastward the beginning of -Kensington Gardens. The Green Army of Wilson lines the -Notting Hill High Road itself from Queen's Road to the -corner of Pembridge Road, curving round the latter, and -extending some three hundred yards up towards Westbourne -Grove. Westbourne Grove itself is occupied by Barker of -South Kensington. The fourth side of this rough square, the -Queen's Road side, is held by some of Buck's Purple -warriors. - -"The whole resembles some ancient and dainty Dutch -flower-bed. Along the crest of Campden Hill lie the golden -crocuses of West Kensington. They are, as it were, the first -fiery fringe of the whole. Northward lies our hyacinth -Barker, with all his blue hyacinths. Round to the south-west -run the green rushes of Wilson of Bayswater, and a line of -violet irises (aptly symbolised by Mr. Buck) complete the -whole. The argent exterior... (I am losing the style. I -should have said Curving with a whisk' instead of merely -'Curving.' Also I should have called the hyacinths 'sudden.' -I cannot keep this up. War is too rapid for this style of -writing. Please ask the office-boy to insert *mots -justes*.). - -"The truth is that there is nothing to report. That -commonplace element which is always ready to devour all -beautiful things (as the Black Pig in the Irish Mythology -will finally devour the stars and gods); that commonplace -element, as I say, has in its Black Piggish way devoured -finally the chances of any romance in this affair; that -which once consisted of absurd but thrilling combats in the -streets, has degenerated into something which is the very -prose of warfare---it has degenerated into a siege. A siege -may be defined as a peace plus the inconvenience of war. Of -course Wayne cannot hold out. There is no more chance of -help from anywhere else than of ships from the moon. And if -old Wayne had stocked his street with tinned meats till all -his garrison had to sit on them, he couldn't hold out for -more than a month or two. As a matter of melancholy fact he -has done something rather like this. He has stocked his -street with food until there must be uncommonly little room -to turn round. But what is the good? To hold out for all -that time and then to give in of necessity, what does it -mean? It means waiting until your victories are forgotten -and then taking the trouble to be defeated. I cannot -understand how Wayne can be so inartistic. - -"And how odd it is that one views a thing quite differently -when one knows it is defeated. I always thought Wayne was -rather fine. But now, when I know that he is done for, there -seems to be nothing else but Wayne. All the streets seem to -point at him, all the chimneys seem to lean towards him. I -suppose it is a morbid feeling; but Pump Street seems to be -the only part of London that I feel physically. I suppose, I -say, that it is morbid. I suppose it is exactly how a man -feels about his heart when his heart is weak. 'Pump -Street'--the heart is a pump. And I am drivelling. - -"Our finest leader at the front is beyond all question, -General Wilson. He has adopted alone among the other -Provosts the uniform of his own halberdiers, although that -fine old sixteenth-century garb was not originally intended -to go with red side-whiskers. It was he who, against a most -admirable and desperate defence, broke last night into Pump -Street and held it for at least half an hour. He was -afterwards expelled from it by General Turnbull, of Notting -Hill, but only after desperate fighting and the sudden -descent of that terrible darkness which proved so much more -fatal to the forces of General Buck and General Swindon. - -"Provost Wayne himself, with whom I had, with great good -fortune, a most interesting interview, bore the most -eloquent testimony to the conduct of General Wilson and his -men. His precise words are as follows:--'I have bought -sweets at his funny little shop when I was four years old, -and ever since. I never noticed anything, I am ashamed to -say, except that he talked through his nose, and didn't wash -himself particularly. And he came over our barricade like a -devil from hell.' I repeated this speech to General Wilson -himself, with some delicate improvements, and he seemed -pleased with it. He does not, however, seem pleased with -anything so much just now as he is with the wearing of a -sword. I have it from the front on the best authority that -General Wilson was not completely shaved yesterday. It is -believed in military circles that he is growing a -moustache... - -"As I have said, there is nothing to report. I walk wearily -to the pillar-box at the corner of Pembridge Road to post my -copy. Nothing whatever has happened, except the preparations -for a particularly long and feeble siege, during which I -trust I shall not be required to be at the Front. As I -glance up Pembridge Road in the growing dusk, the aspect of -that road reminds me that there is one note worth adding. -General Buck has suggested, with characteristic acumen, to -General Wilson, that in order to obviate the possibility of -such a catastrophe as overwhelmed the allied forces in the -last advance on Notting Hill (the catastrophe, I mean, of -the extinguished lamps), that each soldier should have a -lighted lantern round his neck. This is one of the things -which I really admire about General Buck. He possesses what -people used to mean by 'the humility of the man of science/ -that is, he learns steadily from his mistakes. Wayne may -score off him in some other way, but not in that way. The -lanterns look like fairy lights as they curve round the end -of Pembridge Road. - -"*Later*.---I write with some difficulty, because the blood -will run down my face and make patterns on the paper. Blood -is a very beautiful thing; that is why it is concealed. If -you ask me why blood runs down my face, I can only reply -that I was kicked by a horse. If you ask me what horse, I -can reply with some pride that it was a war-horse. If you -ask me how a war-horse came on the scene in our simple -pedestrian warfare, I am reduced to the necessity, so -painful to a special correspondent, of recounting my -experiences. - -"I was, as I have said, in the very act of posting my copy -at the pillar-box, and of glancing as I did so up the -glittering curve of Pembridge Road, studded with the lights -of Wilson's men. I don't know what made me pause to examine -the matter, but I had a fancy that the line of lights, where -it melted into the indistinct brown twilight, was more -indistinct than usual. I was almost certain that in a -certain stretch of the road where there had been five lights -there were now only four. I strained my eyes; I counted them -again, and there were only three. A moment after there were -only two; an instant after only one; and an instant after -that the lanterns near to me swung like jangled bells, as if -struck suddenly. They flared and fell; and for the moment -the fall of them was like the fall of the sun and stars out -of heaven. It left everything in a primal blindness. As a -matter of fact, the road was not yet legitimately dark. -There were still red rays of a sunset in the sky, and the -brown gloaming was still warmed, as it were, with a feeling -as of firelight. But for three seconds after the lanterns -swung and sank, I saw in front of me a blackness blocking -the sky. And with the fourth second I knew that this -blackness which blocked the sky was a man on a great horse; -and I was trampled and tossed aside as a swirl of horsemen -swept round the corner. As they turned I saw that they were -not black but scarlet; they were a sortie of the besieged, -Wayne riding ahead. - -"I lifted myself from the gutter, blinded with blood from a -very slight skin-wound, and, queerly enough, not caring -either for the blindness or for the slightness of the wound. -For one mortal minute after that amazing cavalcade had spun -past, there was dead stillness on the empty road. And then -came Barker and all his halberdiers running like devils in -the track of them. It had been their business to guard the -gate by which the sortie had broken out; but they had not -reckoned, and small blame to them, on cavalry. As it was, -Barker and his men made a perfectly splendid run after them, -almost catching Wayne's horses by the tails. - -"Nobody can understand the sortie. It consists only of a -small number of Wayne's garrison. Turnbull himself, with the -vast mass of it, is undoubtedly still barricaded in Pump -Street. Sorties of this kind are natural enough in the -majority of historical sieges, such as the siege of Paris in -1870, because in such cases the besieged are certain of some -support outside. But what can be the object of it in this -case? Wayne knows (or if he is too mad to know anything, at -least Turnbull knows) that there is not, and never has been, -the smallest chance of support for him outside; that the -mass of the sane modern inhabitants of London regard his -farcical patriotism with as much contempt as they do the -original idiocy that gave it birth---the folly of our -miserable King. What Wayne and his horsemen are doing nobody -can even conjecture. The general theory round here is that -he is simply a traitor, and has abandoned the besieged. But -all such larger but yet more soluble riddles are as nothing -compared to the one small but unanswerable riddle: Where did -they get the horses? - -"*Later*.---I have heard a most extraordinary account of -the origin of the appearance of the horses. It appears that -that amazing person, General Turnbull, who is now ruling -Pump Street in the absence of Wayne, sent out, on the -morning of the declaration of war, a vast number of little -boys (or cherubs of the gutter, as we pressmen say), with -half-crowns in their pockets, to take cabs all over London. -No less than a hundred and sixty cabs met at Pump Street; -were commandeered by the garrison. The men were set free, -the cabs used to make barricades, and the horses kept in -Pump Street, where they were fed and exercised for several -days, until they were sufficiently rapid and efficient to be -used for this wild ride out of the town. If this is so, and -I have it on the best possible authority, the method of the -sortie is explained. But we have no explanation of its -object. Just as Barker's Blues were swinging round the -corner after them, they were stopped, but not by an enemy; -only by the voice of one man, and he a friend. Red Wilson of -Bayswater ran alone along the main road like a madman, -waving them back with a halberd snatched from a sentinel. He -was in supreme command, and Barker stopped at the corner, -staring and bewildered. We could hear Wilson's voice loud -and distinct out of the dusk, so that it seemed strange that -the great voice should come out of the little body. 'Halt, -South Kensington! Guard this entry, and prevent them -returning. I will pursue. Forward, the Green Guards!' - -"A wall of dark blue uniforms and a wood of pole-axes was -between me and Wilson, for Barker's men blocked the mouth of -the road in two rigid lines. But through them and through -the dusk I could hear the clear orders and the clank of -arms, and see the green army of Wilson marching by towards -the west. They were our great fighting-men. Wilson had -filled them with his own fire; in a few days they had become -veterans. Each of them wore a silver medal of a pump, to -boast that they alone of all the allied armies had stood -victorious in Pump Street. - -"I managed to slip past the detachment of Barker's Blues, -who are guarding the end of Pembridge Road, and a sharp -spell of running brought me to the tail of Wilson's green -army as it swung down the road in pursuit of the flying -Wayne. The dusk had deepened into almost total darkness; for -some time I only heard the throb of the marching pace. Then -suddenly there was a cry, and the tall fighting men were -flung back on me, almost crushing me, and again the lanterns -swung and jingled, and the cold nozzles of great horses -pushed into the press of us. They had turned and charged us. - -"'You fools!' came the voice of Wilson, cleaving our panic -with a splendid cold anger. 'Don't you see? the horses have -no riders!' - -"It was true. We were being plunged at by a stampede of -horses with empty saddles. What could it mean? Had Wayne met -some of our men and been defeated? Or had he flung these -horses at us as some kind of ruse or mad new mode of -warfare, such as he seemed bent on inventing? Or did he and -his men want to get away in disguise? Or did they want to -hide in houses somewhere? - -"Never did I admire any man's intellect (even my own) so -much as I did Wilson's at that moment. Without a word, he -simply pointed the halberd (which he still grasped) to the -southern side of the road. As you know, the streets running -up to the ridge of Campden Hill from the main road are -peculiarly steep, they are more like sudden flights of -stairs. We were just opposite Aubrey Road, the steepest of -all; up that it would have been far more difficult to urge -half-trained horses than to run up on one's feet. - -"'Left wheel!' hallooed Wilson. They have gone up here,' he -added to me, who happened to be at his elbow. +"Morning winked a little wearily at me over the curt edge of Campden +Hill and its houses with their sharp shadows. Under the abrupt black +cardboard of the outline, it took some little time to detect colours; +but at length I saw a brownish yellow shifting in the obscurity, and I +knew that it was the guard of Swindon's West Kensington army. They are +being held as a reserve, and lining the whole ridge above the Bayswater +Road. Their camp and their main force is under the great water works +tower on Campden Hill. I forgot to say that the water works tower looked +swart. + +"As I passed them and came over the curve of Silver Street, I saw the +blue cloudy masses of Barker's men blocking the entrance to the +high-road like a sapphire smoke (good). The disposition of the allied +troops, under the general management of Mr. Wilson, appears to be as +follows,---The Yellow Army (if I may so describe the West +Kensingtonians) lies, as I have said, in a strip along the ridge; its +furthest point westward being the west side of Campden Hill Road, its +furthest point eastward the beginning of Kensington Gardens. The Green +Army of Wilson lines the Notting Hill High Road itself from Queen's Road +to the corner of Pembridge Road, curving round the latter, and extending +some three hundred yards up towards Westbourne Grove. Westbourne Grove +itself is occupied by Barker of South Kensington. The fourth side of +this rough square, the Queen's Road side, is held by some of Buck's +Purple warriors. + +"The whole resembles some ancient and dainty Dutch flower-bed. Along the +crest of Campden Hill lie the golden crocuses of West Kensington. They +are, as it were, the first fiery fringe of the whole. Northward lies our +hyacinth Barker, with all his blue hyacinths. Round to the south-west +run the green rushes of Wilson of Bayswater, and a line of violet irises +(aptly symbolised by Mr. Buck) complete the whole. The argent +exterior... (I am losing the style. I should have said Curving with a +whisk' instead of merely 'Curving.' Also I should have called the +hyacinths 'sudden.' I cannot keep this up. War is too rapid for this +style of writing. Please ask the office-boy to insert *mots justes*.). + +"The truth is that there is nothing to report. That commonplace element +which is always ready to devour all beautiful things (as the Black Pig +in the Irish Mythology will finally devour the stars and gods); that +commonplace element, as I say, has in its Black Piggish way devoured +finally the chances of any romance in this affair; that which once +consisted of absurd but thrilling combats in the streets, has +degenerated into something which is the very prose of warfare---it has +degenerated into a siege. A siege may be defined as a peace plus the +inconvenience of war. Of course Wayne cannot hold out. There is no more +chance of help from anywhere else than of ships from the moon. And if +old Wayne had stocked his street with tinned meats till all his garrison +had to sit on them, he couldn't hold out for more than a month or two. +As a matter of melancholy fact he has done something rather like this. +He has stocked his street with food until there must be uncommonly +little room to turn round. But what is the good? To hold out for all +that time and then to give in of necessity, what does it mean? It means +waiting until your victories are forgotten and then taking the trouble +to be defeated. I cannot understand how Wayne can be so inartistic. + +"And how odd it is that one views a thing quite differently when one +knows it is defeated. I always thought Wayne was rather fine. But now, +when I know that he is done for, there seems to be nothing else but +Wayne. All the streets seem to point at him, all the chimneys seem to +lean towards him. I suppose it is a morbid feeling; but Pump Street +seems to be the only part of London that I feel physically. I suppose, I +say, that it is morbid. I suppose it is exactly how a man feels about +his heart when his heart is weak. 'Pump Street'--the heart is a pump. +And I am drivelling. + +"Our finest leader at the front is beyond all question, General Wilson. +He has adopted alone among the other Provosts the uniform of his own +halberdiers, although that fine old sixteenth-century garb was not +originally intended to go with red side-whiskers. It was he who, against +a most admirable and desperate defence, broke last night into Pump +Street and held it for at least half an hour. He was afterwards expelled +from it by General Turnbull, of Notting Hill, but only after desperate +fighting and the sudden descent of that terrible darkness which proved +so much more fatal to the forces of General Buck and General Swindon. + +"Provost Wayne himself, with whom I had, with great good fortune, a most +interesting interview, bore the most eloquent testimony to the conduct +of General Wilson and his men. His precise words are as follows:--'I +have bought sweets at his funny little shop when I was four years old, +and ever since. I never noticed anything, I am ashamed to say, except +that he talked through his nose, and didn't wash himself particularly. +And he came over our barricade like a devil from hell.' I repeated this +speech to General Wilson himself, with some delicate improvements, and +he seemed pleased with it. He does not, however, seem pleased with +anything so much just now as he is with the wearing of a sword. I have +it from the front on the best authority that General Wilson was not +completely shaved yesterday. It is believed in military circles that he +is growing a moustache... + +"As I have said, there is nothing to report. I walk wearily to the +pillar-box at the corner of Pembridge Road to post my copy. Nothing +whatever has happened, except the preparations for a particularly long +and feeble siege, during which I trust I shall not be required to be at +the Front. As I glance up Pembridge Road in the growing dusk, the aspect +of that road reminds me that there is one note worth adding. General +Buck has suggested, with characteristic acumen, to General Wilson, that +in order to obviate the possibility of such a catastrophe as overwhelmed +the allied forces in the last advance on Notting Hill (the catastrophe, +I mean, of the extinguished lamps), that each soldier should have a +lighted lantern round his neck. This is one of the things which I really +admire about General Buck. He possesses what people used to mean by 'the +humility of the man of science/ that is, he learns steadily from his +mistakes. Wayne may score off him in some other way, but not in that +way. The lanterns look like fairy lights as they curve round the end of +Pembridge Road. + +"*Later*.---I write with some difficulty, because the blood will run +down my face and make patterns on the paper. Blood is a very beautiful +thing; that is why it is concealed. If you ask me why blood runs down my +face, I can only reply that I was kicked by a horse. If you ask me what +horse, I can reply with some pride that it was a war-horse. If you ask +me how a war-horse came on the scene in our simple pedestrian warfare, I +am reduced to the necessity, so painful to a special correspondent, of +recounting my experiences. + +"I was, as I have said, in the very act of posting my copy at the +pillar-box, and of glancing as I did so up the glittering curve of +Pembridge Road, studded with the lights of Wilson's men. I don't know +what made me pause to examine the matter, but I had a fancy that the +line of lights, where it melted into the indistinct brown twilight, was +more indistinct than usual. I was almost certain that in a certain +stretch of the road where there had been five lights there were now only +four. I strained my eyes; I counted them again, and there were only +three. A moment after there were only two; an instant after only one; +and an instant after that the lanterns near to me swung like jangled +bells, as if struck suddenly. They flared and fell; and for the moment +the fall of them was like the fall of the sun and stars out of heaven. +It left everything in a primal blindness. As a matter of fact, the road +was not yet legitimately dark. There were still red rays of a sunset in +the sky, and the brown gloaming was still warmed, as it were, with a +feeling as of firelight. But for three seconds after the lanterns swung +and sank, I saw in front of me a blackness blocking the sky. And with +the fourth second I knew that this blackness which blocked the sky was a +man on a great horse; and I was trampled and tossed aside as a swirl of +horsemen swept round the corner. As they turned I saw that they were not +black but scarlet; they were a sortie of the besieged, Wayne riding +ahead. + +"I lifted myself from the gutter, blinded with blood from a very slight +skin-wound, and, queerly enough, not caring either for the blindness or +for the slightness of the wound. For one mortal minute after that +amazing cavalcade had spun past, there was dead stillness on the empty +road. And then came Barker and all his halberdiers running like devils +in the track of them. It had been their business to guard the gate by +which the sortie had broken out; but they had not reckoned, and small +blame to them, on cavalry. As it was, Barker and his men made a +perfectly splendid run after them, almost catching Wayne's horses by the +tails. + +"Nobody can understand the sortie. It consists only of a small number of +Wayne's garrison. Turnbull himself, with the vast mass of it, is +undoubtedly still barricaded in Pump Street. Sorties of this kind are +natural enough in the majority of historical sieges, such as the siege +of Paris in 1870, because in such cases the besieged are certain of some +support outside. But what can be the object of it in this case? Wayne +knows (or if he is too mad to know anything, at least Turnbull knows) +that there is not, and never has been, the smallest chance of support +for him outside; that the mass of the sane modern inhabitants of London +regard his farcical patriotism with as much contempt as they do the +original idiocy that gave it birth---the folly of our miserable King. +What Wayne and his horsemen are doing nobody can even conjecture. The +general theory round here is that he is simply a traitor, and has +abandoned the besieged. But all such larger but yet more soluble riddles +are as nothing compared to the one small but unanswerable riddle: Where +did they get the horses? + +"*Later*.---I have heard a most extraordinary account of the origin of +the appearance of the horses. It appears that that amazing person, +General Turnbull, who is now ruling Pump Street in the absence of Wayne, +sent out, on the morning of the declaration of war, a vast number of +little boys (or cherubs of the gutter, as we pressmen say), with +half-crowns in their pockets, to take cabs all over London. No less than +a hundred and sixty cabs met at Pump Street; were commandeered by the +garrison. The men were set free, the cabs used to make barricades, and +the horses kept in Pump Street, where they were fed and exercised for +several days, until they were sufficiently rapid and efficient to be +used for this wild ride out of the town. If this is so, and I have it on +the best possible authority, the method of the sortie is explained. But +we have no explanation of its object. Just as Barker's Blues were +swinging round the corner after them, they were stopped, but not by an +enemy; only by the voice of one man, and he a friend. Red Wilson of +Bayswater ran alone along the main road like a madman, waving them back +with a halberd snatched from a sentinel. He was in supreme command, and +Barker stopped at the corner, staring and bewildered. We could hear +Wilson's voice loud and distinct out of the dusk, so that it seemed +strange that the great voice should come out of the little body. 'Halt, +South Kensington! Guard this entry, and prevent them returning. I will +pursue. Forward, the Green Guards!' + +"A wall of dark blue uniforms and a wood of pole-axes was between me and +Wilson, for Barker's men blocked the mouth of the road in two rigid +lines. But through them and through the dusk I could hear the clear +orders and the clank of arms, and see the green army of Wilson marching +by towards the west. They were our great fighting-men. Wilson had filled +them with his own fire; in a few days they had become veterans. Each of +them wore a silver medal of a pump, to boast that they alone of all the +allied armies had stood victorious in Pump Street. + +"I managed to slip past the detachment of Barker's Blues, who are +guarding the end of Pembridge Road, and a sharp spell of running brought +me to the tail of Wilson's green army as it swung down the road in +pursuit of the flying Wayne. The dusk had deepened into almost total +darkness; for some time I only heard the throb of the marching pace. +Then suddenly there was a cry, and the tall fighting men were flung back +on me, almost crushing me, and again the lanterns swung and jingled, and +the cold nozzles of great horses pushed into the press of us. They had +turned and charged us. + +"'You fools!' came the voice of Wilson, cleaving our panic with a +splendid cold anger. 'Don't you see? the horses have no riders!' + +"It was true. We were being plunged at by a stampede of horses with +empty saddles. What could it mean? Had Wayne met some of our men and +been defeated? Or had he flung these horses at us as some kind of ruse +or mad new mode of warfare, such as he seemed bent on inventing? Or did +he and his men want to get away in disguise? Or did they want to hide in +houses somewhere? + +"Never did I admire any man's intellect (even my own) so much as I did +Wilson's at that moment. Without a word, he simply pointed the halberd +(which he still grasped) to the southern side of the road. As you know, +the streets running up to the ridge of Campden Hill from the main road +are peculiarly steep, they are more like sudden flights of stairs. We +were just opposite Aubrey Road, the steepest of all; up that it would +have been far more difficult to urge half-trained horses than to run up +on one's feet. + +"'Left wheel!' hallooed Wilson. They have gone up here,' he added to me, +who happened to be at his elbow. "'Why?' I ventured to ask. -"'Can't say for certain,' replied the Bayswater General. -They've gone up here in a great hurry anyhow. They've simply -turned their horses loose, because they couldn't take them -up. I fancy I know. I fancy they're trying to get over the -ridge to Kensington or Hammersmith, or somewhere, and are -striking up here because it's just beyond the end of our -line. Damned fools, not to have gone further along the road, -though. They've only just shaved our last outpost. Lambert -is hardly four hundred yards from here. And I've sent him -word.' - -"'Lambert!' I said. 'Not young Wilfrid Lambert---my old -friend.' - -"'Wilfrid Lambert's his name,' said the General;"used to be -a 'man about town;' silly fellow with a big nose. That kind -of man always volunteers for some war or other. And what's -funnier, he generally isn't half bad at it. Lambert is -distinctly good. The yellow West Kensingtons I always -reckoned the weakest part of the army; but he has pulled -them together uncommonly well, though he's subordinate to -Swindon, who's a donkey. In the attack from Pembridge Road -the other night he showed great pluck.' - -"'He has shown greater pluck than that,' I said. 'He has -criticised my sense of humour. That was his first -engagement.' - -"This remark was, I am sorry to say, lost on the admirable -commander of the allied forces. We were in the act of -climbing the last half of Aubrey Road, which is so abrupt a -slope that it looked like an old-fashioned map leaning up -against the wall. There are lines of little trees, one above -the other, as in the old-fashioned map. - -"We reached the top of it, panting somewhat, and were just -about to turn the corner by a place called (in chivalrous -anticipation of our wars of sword and axe) Tower Crecy, when -we were suddenly knocked in the stomach (I can use no other -term) by a horde of men hurled back upon us. They wore the -red uniform of Wayne; their halberds were broken; their -foreheads bleeding; but the mere impetus of their retreat -staggered us as we stood at the last ridge of the slope. - -"'Good old Lambert!' yelled out, suddenly, the stolid -Mr. Wilson of Bayswater, in an uncontrollable excitement. -'Damned jolly old Lambert! He's got there already! He's -driving them back on us! Hurrah! hurrah! Forward the Green -Guards!' - -"We swung round the corner eastwards, Wilson running first, -brandishing the halberd. - -"Will you pardon a little egotism? Every one likes a little -egotism, when it takes the form, as mine does in this case, -of a disgraceful confession. The thing is really a little -interesting, because it shows how the merely artistic habit -has bitten into men like me. It was the most intensely -exciting occurrence that had ever come to me in my life; and -I was really intensely excited about it. And yet, as we -turned that corner, the first impression I had was of -something that had nothing to do with the fight at all. I -was stricken from the sky as by a thunderbolt, by the height -of the Waterworks Tower on Campden Hill. I don't know -whether Londoners generally realise how high it looks when -one comes out, in this way, almost immediately under it. For -the second it seemed to me that at the foot of it even human -war was a triviality. For the second I felt as if I had been -drunk with some trivial orgy, and that I had been sobered by -the shock of that shadow. A moment afterwards, I realised -that under it was going on something more enduring than -stone, and something wilder than the dizziest height the -agony of man. And I knew that compared to that, this -overwhelming tower was itself a triviality; it was a mere -stalk of stone which humanity could snap like a stick. - -"I don't know why I have talked so much about this silly -old Waterworks Tower, which at the very best was only a -tremendous background. It was that, certainly, a sombre and -awful landscape, against which our figures were relieved. -But I think the real reason was, that there was in my own -mind so sharp a transition from the tower of stone to the -man of flesh. For what I saw first when I had shaken off, as -it were, the shadow of the tower, was a man, and a man I -knew. - -"Lambert stood at the further corner of the street that -curved round the tower, his figure outlined in some degree -by the beginning of moonrise. He looked magnificent, a hero; -but he looked something much more interesting than that. He -was, as it happened, in almost precisely the same swaggering -attitude in which he had stood nearly fifteen years ago, -when he swung his walking-stick and struck it into the -ground, and told me that all my subtlety was drivel. And, -upon my soul, I think he required more courage to say that -than to fight as he does now. For then he was fighting -against something that was in the ascendant, fashionable, -and victorious. And now he is fighting (at the risk of his -life, no doubt) merely against something which is already -dead, which is impossible, futile; of which nothing has been -more impossible and futile than this very sortie which has -brought him into contact with it. People nowadays allow -infinitely too little for the psychological sense of victory -as a factor in affairs. Then he was attacking the degraded -but undoubtedly victorious Quin; now he is attacking the -interesting but totally extinguished Wayne. - -"His name recalls me to the details of the scene. The facts -were these. A line of red halberdiers, headed by Wayne, were -marching up the street, close under the northern wall, which -is, in fact, the bottom of a sort of dyke or fortification -of the Waterworks. Lambert and his yellow West Kensingtons -had that instant swept round the corner and had shaken the -Waynites heavily, hurling back a few of the more timid, as I -have just described, into our very arms. When our force -struck the tail of Wayne's, every one knew that all was up -with him. His favourite military barber was struck down. His -grocer was stunned. He himself was hurt in the thigh, and -reeled back against the wall. We had him in a trap with two -jaws. 'Is that you?' shouted Lambert, genially, to Wilson, -across the hemmed-in host of Netting Hill. That's about the -ticket,' replied General Wilson; 'keep them under the wall.' - -"The men of Notting Hill were falling fast. Adam Wayne -threw up his long arms to the wall above him, and with a -spring stood upon it, a gigantic figure against the moon. He -tore the banner out of the hands of the standard-bearer -below him, and shook it out suddenly above our heads, so +"'Can't say for certain,' replied the Bayswater General. They've gone up +here in a great hurry anyhow. They've simply turned their horses loose, +because they couldn't take them up. I fancy I know. I fancy they're +trying to get over the ridge to Kensington or Hammersmith, or somewhere, +and are striking up here because it's just beyond the end of our line. +Damned fools, not to have gone further along the road, though. They've +only just shaved our last outpost. Lambert is hardly four hundred yards +from here. And I've sent him word.' + +"'Lambert!' I said. 'Not young Wilfrid Lambert---my old friend.' + +"'Wilfrid Lambert's his name,' said the General;"used to be a 'man about +town;' silly fellow with a big nose. That kind of man always volunteers +for some war or other. And what's funnier, he generally isn't half bad +at it. Lambert is distinctly good. The yellow West Kensingtons I always +reckoned the weakest part of the army; but he has pulled them together +uncommonly well, though he's subordinate to Swindon, who's a donkey. In +the attack from Pembridge Road the other night he showed great pluck.' + +"'He has shown greater pluck than that,' I said. 'He has criticised my +sense of humour. That was his first engagement.' + +"This remark was, I am sorry to say, lost on the admirable commander of +the allied forces. We were in the act of climbing the last half of +Aubrey Road, which is so abrupt a slope that it looked like an +old-fashioned map leaning up against the wall. There are lines of little +trees, one above the other, as in the old-fashioned map. + +"We reached the top of it, panting somewhat, and were just about to turn +the corner by a place called (in chivalrous anticipation of our wars of +sword and axe) Tower Crecy, when we were suddenly knocked in the stomach +(I can use no other term) by a horde of men hurled back upon us. They +wore the red uniform of Wayne; their halberds were broken; their +foreheads bleeding; but the mere impetus of their retreat staggered us +as we stood at the last ridge of the slope. + +"'Good old Lambert!' yelled out, suddenly, the stolid Mr. Wilson of +Bayswater, in an uncontrollable excitement. 'Damned jolly old Lambert! +He's got there already! He's driving them back on us! Hurrah! hurrah! +Forward the Green Guards!' + +"We swung round the corner eastwards, Wilson running first, brandishing +the halberd. + +"Will you pardon a little egotism? Every one likes a little egotism, +when it takes the form, as mine does in this case, of a disgraceful +confession. The thing is really a little interesting, because it shows +how the merely artistic habit has bitten into men like me. It was the +most intensely exciting occurrence that had ever come to me in my life; +and I was really intensely excited about it. And yet, as we turned that +corner, the first impression I had was of something that had nothing to +do with the fight at all. I was stricken from the sky as by a +thunderbolt, by the height of the Waterworks Tower on Campden Hill. I +don't know whether Londoners generally realise how high it looks when +one comes out, in this way, almost immediately under it. For the second +it seemed to me that at the foot of it even human war was a triviality. +For the second I felt as if I had been drunk with some trivial orgy, and +that I had been sobered by the shock of that shadow. A moment +afterwards, I realised that under it was going on something more +enduring than stone, and something wilder than the dizziest height the +agony of man. And I knew that compared to that, this overwhelming tower +was itself a triviality; it was a mere stalk of stone which humanity +could snap like a stick. + +"I don't know why I have talked so much about this silly old Waterworks +Tower, which at the very best was only a tremendous background. It was +that, certainly, a sombre and awful landscape, against which our figures +were relieved. But I think the real reason was, that there was in my own +mind so sharp a transition from the tower of stone to the man of flesh. +For what I saw first when I had shaken off, as it were, the shadow of +the tower, was a man, and a man I knew. + +"Lambert stood at the further corner of the street that curved round the +tower, his figure outlined in some degree by the beginning of moonrise. +He looked magnificent, a hero; but he looked something much more +interesting than that. He was, as it happened, in almost precisely the +same swaggering attitude in which he had stood nearly fifteen years ago, +when he swung his walking-stick and struck it into the ground, and told +me that all my subtlety was drivel. And, upon my soul, I think he +required more courage to say that than to fight as he does now. For then +he was fighting against something that was in the ascendant, +fashionable, and victorious. And now he is fighting (at the risk of his +life, no doubt) merely against something which is already dead, which is +impossible, futile; of which nothing has been more impossible and futile +than this very sortie which has brought him into contact with it. People +nowadays allow infinitely too little for the psychological sense of +victory as a factor in affairs. Then he was attacking the degraded but +undoubtedly victorious Quin; now he is attacking the interesting but +totally extinguished Wayne. + +"His name recalls me to the details of the scene. The facts were these. +A line of red halberdiers, headed by Wayne, were marching up the street, +close under the northern wall, which is, in fact, the bottom of a sort +of dyke or fortification of the Waterworks. Lambert and his yellow West +Kensingtons had that instant swept round the corner and had shaken the +Waynites heavily, hurling back a few of the more timid, as I have just +described, into our very arms. When our force struck the tail of +Wayne's, every one knew that all was up with him. His favourite military +barber was struck down. His grocer was stunned. He himself was hurt in +the thigh, and reeled back against the wall. We had him in a trap with +two jaws. 'Is that you?' shouted Lambert, genially, to Wilson, across +the hemmed-in host of Netting Hill. That's about the ticket,' replied +General Wilson; 'keep them under the wall.' + +"The men of Notting Hill were falling fast. Adam Wayne threw up his long +arms to the wall above him, and with a spring stood upon it, a gigantic +figure against the moon. He tore the banner out of the hands of the +standard-bearer below him, and shook it out suddenly above our heads, so that it was like thunder in the heavens. -"'Round the Red Lion!' he cried. 'Swords round the Red -Lion! Halberds round the Red Lion! They are the thorns round -the rose.' +"'Round the Red Lion!' he cried. 'Swords round the Red Lion! Halberds +round the Red Lion! They are the thorns round the rose.' -"His voice and the crack of the banner made a momentary -rally, and Lambert, whose idiotic face was almost beautiful -with battle, felt it as by an instinct, and cried-- +"His voice and the crack of the banner made a momentary rally, and +Lambert, whose idiotic face was almost beautiful with battle, felt it as +by an instinct, and cried-- "'Drop your public-house flag, you footler! Drop it!' -"'The banner of the Red Lion seldom stoops,' said Wayne, -proudly, letting it out luxuriantly on the night wind. +"'The banner of the Red Lion seldom stoops,' said Wayne, proudly, +letting it out luxuriantly on the night wind. -"The next moment I knew that poor Adam's sentimental -theatricality had cost him much. Lambert was on the wall at -a bound, his sword in his teeth, and had slashed at Wayne's -head before he had time to draw his sword, his hands being -busy with the enormous flag. He stepped back only just in -time to avoid the first cut, and let the flag-staff fall, so +"The next moment I knew that poor Adam's sentimental theatricality had +cost him much. Lambert was on the wall at a bound, his sword in his +teeth, and had slashed at Wayne's head before he had time to draw his +sword, his hands being busy with the enormous flag. He stepped back only +just in time to avoid the first cut, and let the flag-staff fall, so that the spear-blade at the end of it pointed to Lambert. -"'The banner stoops,' cried Wayne, in a voice that must -have startled streets. 'The banner of Netting Hill stoops to -a hero,' And with the words he drove the spear-point and -half the flag-staff through Lambert's body and dropped him -dead upon the road below, a stone upon the stones of the -street. +"'The banner stoops,' cried Wayne, in a voice that must have startled +streets. 'The banner of Netting Hill stoops to a hero,' And with the +words he drove the spear-point and half the flag-staff through Lambert's +body and dropped him dead upon the road below, a stone upon the stones +of the street. -"'Notting Hill! Notting Hill!' cried Wayne, in a sort of -divine rage. 'Her banner is all the holier for the blood of -a brave enemy! Up on the wall, patriots! Up on the wall! -Notting Hill!' +"'Notting Hill! Notting Hill!' cried Wayne, in a sort of divine rage. +'Her banner is all the holier for the blood of a brave enemy! Up on the +wall, patriots! Up on the wall! Notting Hill!' -"With his long strong arm he actually dragged a man up on -to the wall to be silhouetted against the moon, and more and -more men climbed up there, pulled themselves and were -pulled, till clusters and crowds of the half-massacred men -of Pump Street massed upon the wall above us. +"With his long strong arm he actually dragged a man up on to the wall to +be silhouetted against the moon, and more and more men climbed up there, +pulled themselves and were pulled, till clusters and crowds of the +half-massacred men of Pump Street massed upon the wall above us. "'Notting Hill! Notting Hill!' cried Wayne, unceasingly. -"'Well, what about Bayswater?' said a worthy working-man in -Wilson's army, irritably. 'Bayswater for ever!' - -"'We have won!' cried Wayne, striking his flag-staff in the -ground. 'Bayswater for ever! We have taught our enemies -patriotism!' - -"'Oh, cut these fellows up and have done with it!' cried -one of Lambert's lieutenants, who was reduced to something -bordering on madness by the responsibility of succeeding to -the command. - -"'Let us by all means try,' said Wilson, grimly; and the -two armies closed round the third. - -"I simply cannot describe what followed. I am sorry, but -there is such a thing as physical fatigue, as physical -nausea, and, I may add, as physical terror. Suffice it to -say that the above paragraph was written about n p.m., and -that it is now about 2 a.m., and that the battle is not -finished, and is not likely to be. Suffice it further to say -that down the steep streets which lead from the Waterworks -Tower to the Notting Hill High Road, blood has been running, -and is running, in great red serpents, that curl out into -the main thoroughfare and shine in the moon. - -"*Later*.---The final touch has been given to all this -terrible futility. Hours have passed; morning has broken; -men are still swaying and fighting at the foot of the tower -and round the corner of Aubrey Road; the fight has not -finished. But I know it is a farce. - -"News has just come to show that Wayne's amazing sortie, -followed by the amazing resistance through a whole night on -the wall of the Waterworks, is as if it had not been. What -was the object of that strange exodus we shall probably -never know, for the simple reason that every one who knew -will probably be cut to pieces in the course of the next two -or three hours. - -"I have heard, about three minutes ago, that Buck and -Buck's methods have won after all. He was perfectly right, -of course, when one comes to think of it, in holding that it -was physically impossible for a street to defeat a city. -While we thought he was patrolling the eastern gates with -his Purple army; while we were rushing about the streets and -waving halberds and lanterns; while poor old Wilson was -scheming like Moltke and fighting like Achilles to entrap -the wild Provost of Notting Hill,---Mr. Buck, retired -draper, has simply driven down in a hansom cab and done -something about as plain as butter and about as useful and -nasty. He has gone down to South Kensington, Brompton, and -Fulham, and by spending about four thousand pounds of his -private means, has raised an army of nearly as many men; -that is to say, an army big enough to beat, not only Wayne, -but Wayne and all his present enemies put together. The -army, I understand, is encamped along High Street, -Kensington, and fills it from the Church to Addison Road -Bridge. It is to advance by ten different roads uphill to -the north. - -"I cannot endure to remain here. Everything makes it worse -than it need be. The dawn, for instance, has broken round -Campden Hill; splendid spaces of silver, edged with gold, -are torn out of the sky. Worse still, Wayne and his men feel -the dawn; their faces, though bloody and pale, are strangely -hopeful... insupportably pathetic. Worst of all, for the -moment they are winning. If it were not for Buck and the new -army they might just, and only just, win. - -"I repeat, I cannot stand it. It is like watching that -wonderful play of old Maeterlinck's (you know my partiality -for the healthy, jolly old authors of the nineteenth -century), in which one has to watch the quiet conduct of -people inside a parlour, while knowing that the very men are -outside the door whose word can blast it all with tragedy. -And this is worse, for the men are not talking, but writhing -and bleeding and dropping dead for a thing that is already -settled and settled against them. The great grey masses of -men still toil and tug and sway hither and thither around -the great grey tower; and the tower is still motionless, as -it will always be motionless. These men will be Crushed -before the sun is set; and new men will arise and be -crushed, and new wrongs done, and tyranny will always rise -again like the sun, and injustice will always be as fresh as -the flowers of spring. And the stone tower will always look -down on it. Matter, in its brutal beauty, will always look -down on those who are mad enough to consent to die, and yet -more mad, since they consent to live." - -Thus ended abruptly the first and last contribution of the -Special Correspondent of the Court Journal to that valued -periodical. - -The Correspondent himself, as has been said, was simply sick -and gloomy at the last news of the triumph of Buck. He -slouched sadly down the steep Aubrey Road, up which he had -the night before run in so unusual an excitement, and -strolled out into the empty dawn-lit main road, looking -vaguely for a cab. He saw nothing in the vacant space except -a blue-and-gold glittering thing, running very fast, which -looked at first like a very tall beetle, but turned out, to -his great astonishment, to be Barker. +"'Well, what about Bayswater?' said a worthy working-man in Wilson's +army, irritably. 'Bayswater for ever!' + +"'We have won!' cried Wayne, striking his flag-staff in the ground. +'Bayswater for ever! We have taught our enemies patriotism!' + +"'Oh, cut these fellows up and have done with it!' cried one of +Lambert's lieutenants, who was reduced to something bordering on madness +by the responsibility of succeeding to the command. + +"'Let us by all means try,' said Wilson, grimly; and the two armies +closed round the third. + +"I simply cannot describe what followed. I am sorry, but there is such a +thing as physical fatigue, as physical nausea, and, I may add, as +physical terror. Suffice it to say that the above paragraph was written +about n p.m., and that it is now about 2 a.m., and that the battle is +not finished, and is not likely to be. Suffice it further to say that +down the steep streets which lead from the Waterworks Tower to the +Notting Hill High Road, blood has been running, and is running, in great +red serpents, that curl out into the main thoroughfare and shine in the +moon. + +"*Later*.---The final touch has been given to all this terrible +futility. Hours have passed; morning has broken; men are still swaying +and fighting at the foot of the tower and round the corner of Aubrey +Road; the fight has not finished. But I know it is a farce. + +"News has just come to show that Wayne's amazing sortie, followed by the +amazing resistance through a whole night on the wall of the Waterworks, +is as if it had not been. What was the object of that strange exodus we +shall probably never know, for the simple reason that every one who knew +will probably be cut to pieces in the course of the next two or three +hours. + +"I have heard, about three minutes ago, that Buck and Buck's methods +have won after all. He was perfectly right, of course, when one comes to +think of it, in holding that it was physically impossible for a street +to defeat a city. While we thought he was patrolling the eastern gates +with his Purple army; while we were rushing about the streets and waving +halberds and lanterns; while poor old Wilson was scheming like Moltke +and fighting like Achilles to entrap the wild Provost of Notting +Hill,---Mr. Buck, retired draper, has simply driven down in a hansom cab +and done something about as plain as butter and about as useful and +nasty. He has gone down to South Kensington, Brompton, and Fulham, and +by spending about four thousand pounds of his private means, has raised +an army of nearly as many men; that is to say, an army big enough to +beat, not only Wayne, but Wayne and all his present enemies put +together. The army, I understand, is encamped along High Street, +Kensington, and fills it from the Church to Addison Road Bridge. It is +to advance by ten different roads uphill to the north. + +"I cannot endure to remain here. Everything makes it worse than it need +be. The dawn, for instance, has broken round Campden Hill; splendid +spaces of silver, edged with gold, are torn out of the sky. Worse still, +Wayne and his men feel the dawn; their faces, though bloody and pale, +are strangely hopeful... insupportably pathetic. Worst of all, for the +moment they are winning. If it were not for Buck and the new army they +might just, and only just, win. + +"I repeat, I cannot stand it. It is like watching that wonderful play of +old Maeterlinck's (you know my partiality for the healthy, jolly old +authors of the nineteenth century), in which one has to watch the quiet +conduct of people inside a parlour, while knowing that the very men are +outside the door whose word can blast it all with tragedy. And this is +worse, for the men are not talking, but writhing and bleeding and +dropping dead for a thing that is already settled and settled against +them. The great grey masses of men still toil and tug and sway hither +and thither around the great grey tower; and the tower is still +motionless, as it will always be motionless. These men will be Crushed +before the sun is set; and new men will arise and be crushed, and new +wrongs done, and tyranny will always rise again like the sun, and +injustice will always be as fresh as the flowers of spring. And the +stone tower will always look down on it. Matter, in its brutal beauty, +will always look down on those who are mad enough to consent to die, and +yet more mad, since they consent to live." + +Thus ended abruptly the first and last contribution of the Special +Correspondent of the Court Journal to that valued periodical. + +The Correspondent himself, as has been said, was simply sick and gloomy +at the last news of the triumph of Buck. He slouched sadly down the +steep Aubrey Road, up which he had the night before run in so unusual an +excitement, and strolled out into the empty dawn-lit main road, looking +vaguely for a cab. He saw nothing in the vacant space except a +blue-and-gold glittering thing, running very fast, which looked at first +like a very tall beetle, but turned out, to his great astonishment, to +be Barker. "Have you heard the good news?" asked that gentleman. -"Yes," said Quin, with a measured voice. "I have heard the -glad tidings of great joy. Shall we take a hansom down to -Kensington? I see one over there." - -They took the cab, and, were, in four minutes, fronting the -ranks of the multitudinous and invincible army. Quin had not -spoken a word all the way, and something about him had -prevented the essentially impressionable Barker from -speaking either. - -The great army, as it moved up Kensington High Street, -calling many heads to the numberless windows, for it was -long indeed---longer than the lives of most of the tolerably -young---since such an army had been seen in London. Compared -with the vast organisation which was now swallowing up the -miles, with Buck at its head as leader, and the King hanging -at its tail as journalist, the whole story of our problem -was insignificant. In the presence of that army the red -Notting Hills and the green Bayswaters were alike tiny and -straggling groups. In its presence the whole struggle round -Pump Street was like an ant-hill under the hoof of an ox. -Every man who felt or looked at that infinity of men knew -that it was the triumph of Buck's brutal arithmetic. Whether -Wayne was right or wrong, wise or foolish, was quite a fair -matter for discussion. But it was a matter of history. At -the foot of Church Street, opposite Kensington Church, they -paused in their glowing good humour. - -"Let us send some kind of messenger or herald up to them," -said Buck, turning to Barker and the King. "Let us send and -ask them to cave in without more muddle." +"Yes," said Quin, with a measured voice. "I have heard the glad tidings +of great joy. Shall we take a hansom down to Kensington? I see one over +there." + +They took the cab, and, were, in four minutes, fronting the ranks of the +multitudinous and invincible army. Quin had not spoken a word all the +way, and something about him had prevented the essentially +impressionable Barker from speaking either. + +The great army, as it moved up Kensington High Street, calling many +heads to the numberless windows, for it was long indeed---longer than +the lives of most of the tolerably young---since such an army had been +seen in London. Compared with the vast organisation which was now +swallowing up the miles, with Buck at its head as leader, and the King +hanging at its tail as journalist, the whole story of our problem was +insignificant. In the presence of that army the red Notting Hills and +the green Bayswaters were alike tiny and straggling groups. In its +presence the whole struggle round Pump Street was like an ant-hill under +the hoof of an ox. Every man who felt or looked at that infinity of men +knew that it was the triumph of Buck's brutal arithmetic. Whether Wayne +was right or wrong, wise or foolish, was quite a fair matter for +discussion. But it was a matter of history. At the foot of Church +Street, opposite Kensington Church, they paused in their glowing good +humour. + +"Let us send some kind of messenger or herald up to them," said Buck, +turning to Barker and the King. "Let us send and ask them to cave in +without more muddle." "What shall we say to them?" said Barker, doubtfully. -"The facts of the case are quite sufficient," rejoined Buck. -"It is the facts of the case that make an army surrender. -Let us simply say that our army that is fighting their army, -and their army that is fighting our army, amount altogether -to about a thousand men. Say that we have four thousand. It -is very simple. Of the thousand fighting, they have at the -very most, three hundred, so that, with those three hundred, -they have now to fight four thousand seven hundred men. Let -them do it if it amuses them." +"The facts of the case are quite sufficient," rejoined Buck. "It is the +facts of the case that make an army surrender. Let us simply say that +our army that is fighting their army, and their army that is fighting +our army, amount altogether to about a thousand men. Say that we have +four thousand. It is very simple. Of the thousand fighting, they have at +the very most, three hundred, so that, with those three hundred, they +have now to fight four thousand seven hundred men. Let them do it if it +amuses them." And the Provost of North Kensington laughed. -The herald who was despatched up Church Street in all the -pomp of the South Kensington blue and gold, with the Three -Birds on his tabard, was attended by two trumpeters. +The herald who was despatched up Church Street in all the pomp of the +South Kensington blue and gold, with the Three Birds on his tabard, was +attended by two trumpeters. -"What will they do when they consent?" asked Barker, for the -sake of saying something in the sudden stillness of that -immense army. +"What will they do when they consent?" asked Barker, for the sake of +saying something in the sudden stillness of that immense army. -"I know my Wayne very well," said Buck, laughing. "When he -submits he will send a red herald flaming with the Lion of -Netting Hill. Even defeat will be delightful to him, since -it is formal and romantic." +"I know my Wayne very well," said Buck, laughing. "When he submits he +will send a red herald flaming with the Lion of Netting Hill. Even +defeat will be delightful to him, since it is formal and romantic." -The King, who had strolled up to the head of the line, broke -silence for the first time. +The King, who had strolled up to the head of the line, broke silence for +the first time. -"I shouldn't wonder," he said, "if he defied you, and didn't -send the herald after all. I don't think you do know your -Wayne quite so well as you think." +"I shouldn't wonder," he said, "if he defied you, and didn't send the +herald after all. I don't think you do know your Wayne quite so well as +you think." "All right, your Majesty," said Buck, easily; "if it isn't -disrespectful, I'll put my political calculations in a very -simple form. I'll lay you ten pounds to a shilling the -herald comes with the surrender." +disrespectful, I'll put my political calculations in a very simple form. +I'll lay you ten pounds to a shilling the herald comes with the +surrender." -"All right," said Auberon. "I may be wrong, but it's my -notion of Adam Wayne that he'll die in his city, and that, -till he is dead, it will not be a safe property." +"All right," said Auberon. "I may be wrong, but it's my notion of Adam +Wayne that he'll die in his city, and that, till he is dead, it will not +be a safe property." "The bet's made, your Majesty," said Buck. -Another long silence ensued, in the course of which Barker -alone, amid the motionless army, strolled and stamped in his -restless way. +Another long silence ensued, in the course of which Barker alone, amid +the motionless army, strolled and stamped in his restless way. Then Buck suddenly leant forward. -"It's taking your money, your Majesty," he said. "I knew it -was. There comes the herald from Adam Wayne." +"It's taking your money, your Majesty," he said. "I knew it was. There +comes the herald from Adam Wayne." -"It's not," cried the King, peering forward also. "You -brute, it's a red omnibus." +"It's not," cried the King, peering forward also. "You brute, it's a red +omnibus." -"It's not," said Buck, calmly; and the King did not answer, -for down the centre of the spacious and silent Church Street -was walking, beyond question, the herald of the Red Lion, -with two trumpeters. +"It's not," said Buck, calmly; and the King did not answer, for down the +centre of the spacious and silent Church Street was walking, beyond +question, the herald of the Red Lion, with two trumpeters. -Buck had something in him which taught him how to be -magnanimous. In his hour of success he felt magnanimous -towards Wayne, whom he really admired; magnanimous towards -the King, off whom he had scored so publicly; and, above -all, magnanimous towards Barker, who was the titular leader -of this vast South Kensington army, which his own talent had -evoked. +Buck had something in him which taught him how to be magnanimous. In his +hour of success he felt magnanimous towards Wayne, whom he really +admired; magnanimous towards the King, off whom he had scored so +publicly; and, above all, magnanimous towards Barker, who was the +titular leader of this vast South Kensington army, which his own talent +had evoked. -"General Barker," he said, bowing, "do you propose now to -receive the message from the besieged?" +"General Barker," he said, bowing, "do you propose now to receive the +message from the besieged?" Barker bowed also, and advanced towards the herald. -"Has your master, Mr. Adam Wayne, received our request for -surrender?" he asked. +"Has your master, Mr. Adam Wayne, received our request for surrender?" +he asked. The herald conveyed a solemn and respectful affirmative. @@ -5717,422 +4994,357 @@ Barker resumed, coughing slightly, but encouraged. "What answer does your master send?" -The herald again inclined himself submissively, and answered -in a kind of monotone. - -"My message is this. Adam Wayne, Lord High Provost of -Notting Hill, under the charter of King Auberon and the laws -of God and all mankind, free and of a free city, greets -James Barker, Lord High Provost of South Kensington, by the -same rights free and honourable, leader of the army of the -South. With all friendly reverence, and with all -constitutional consideration, he desires James Barker to lay -down his arms, and the whole army under his command to lay -down their arms also." - -Before the words were ended the King had run forward into -the open space with shining eyes. The rest of the staff and -the forefront of the army were literally struck breathless. -When they recovered they began to laugh beyond restraint; -the revulsion was too sudden. - -"The Lord High Provost of Notting Hill," continued the -herald, "does not propose, in the event of your surrender, -to use his victory for any of those repressive purposes -which others have entertained against him. He will leave you -your free laws and your free cities, your flags and your -governments. He will not destroy the religion of South -Kensington, or crush the old customs of Bays water." - -An irrepressible explosion of laughter went up from the -forefront of the great army. - -"The King must have had something to do with this humour," -said Buck, slapping his thigh. "It's too deliciously -insolent. Barker, have a glass of wine." - -And in his conviviality he actually sent a soldier across to -the restaurant opposite the church and brought out two -glasses for a toast. +The herald again inclined himself submissively, and answered in a kind +of monotone. + +"My message is this. Adam Wayne, Lord High Provost of Notting Hill, +under the charter of King Auberon and the laws of God and all mankind, +free and of a free city, greets James Barker, Lord High Provost of South +Kensington, by the same rights free and honourable, leader of the army +of the South. With all friendly reverence, and with all constitutional +consideration, he desires James Barker to lay down his arms, and the +whole army under his command to lay down their arms also." + +Before the words were ended the King had run forward into the open space +with shining eyes. The rest of the staff and the forefront of the army +were literally struck breathless. When they recovered they began to +laugh beyond restraint; the revulsion was too sudden. + +"The Lord High Provost of Notting Hill," continued the herald, "does not +propose, in the event of your surrender, to use his victory for any of +those repressive purposes which others have entertained against him. He +will leave you your free laws and your free cities, your flags and your +governments. He will not destroy the religion of South Kensington, or +crush the old customs of Bays water." + +An irrepressible explosion of laughter went up from the forefront of the +great army. + +"The King must have had something to do with this humour," said Buck, +slapping his thigh. "It's too deliciously insolent. Barker, have a glass +of wine." + +And in his conviviality he actually sent a soldier across to the +restaurant opposite the church and brought out two glasses for a toast. When the laughter had died down, the herald continued quite monotonously-- -"In the event of your surrendering your arms and dispersing -under the superintendence of our forces, these local rights -of yours shall be carefully observed. In the event of your -not doing so, the Lord High Provost of Notting Hill desires -to announce that he has just captured the Waterworks Tower, -just above you, on Campden Hill, and that within ten minutes -from now, that is, on the reception through me of your -refusal, he will open the great reservoir and flood the -whole valley where you stand in thirty feet of water. God -save King Auberon!" - -Buck had dropped his glass and sent a great splash of wine -over the road. - -"But---but--" he said; and then by a last and splendid -effort of his great sanity, looked the facts in the face. - -"We must surrender," he said. "You could do nothing against -fifty thousand tons of water coming down a steep hill, ten -minutes hence. We must surrender. Our four thousand men -might as well be four. *Vicisti Galilae*! Perkins, you may -as well get me another glass of wine." - -In this way the vast army of South Kensington surrendered -and the Empire of Notting Hill began. One further fact in -this connection is perhaps worth mentioning---the fact that, -after his victory, Adam Wayne caused the great tower on -Campden Hill to be plated with gold and inscribed with a -great epitaph, saying that it was the monument of Wilfrid -Lambert, the heroic defender of the place, and surmounted -with a statue, in which his large nose was done something -less than justice to. +"In the event of your surrendering your arms and dispersing under the +superintendence of our forces, these local rights of yours shall be +carefully observed. In the event of your not doing so, the Lord High +Provost of Notting Hill desires to announce that he has just captured +the Waterworks Tower, just above you, on Campden Hill, and that within +ten minutes from now, that is, on the reception through me of your +refusal, he will open the great reservoir and flood the whole valley +where you stand in thirty feet of water. God save King Auberon!" + +Buck had dropped his glass and sent a great splash of wine over the +road. + +"But---but--" he said; and then by a last and splendid effort of his +great sanity, looked the facts in the face. + +"We must surrender," he said. "You could do nothing against fifty +thousand tons of water coming down a steep hill, ten minutes hence. We +must surrender. Our four thousand men might as well be four. *Vicisti +Galilae*! Perkins, you may as well get me another glass of wine." + +In this way the vast army of South Kensington surrendered and the Empire +of Notting Hill began. One further fact in this connection is perhaps +worth mentioning---the fact that, after his victory, Adam Wayne caused +the great tower on Campden Hill to be plated with gold and inscribed +with a great epitaph, saying that it was the monument of Wilfrid +Lambert, the heroic defender of the place, and surmounted with a statue, +in which his large nose was done something less than justice to. # Book 5 ## The Empire of Notting Hill -On the evening of the third of October, twenty years after -the great victory of Notting Hill, which gave it the -dominion of London, King Auberon, came, as of old, out of -Kensington Palace. - -He had changed little, save for a streak or two of grey in -his hair, for his face had always been old, and his step -slow, and, as it were, decrepit. - -If he looked old, it was not because of anything physical or -mental. It was because he still wore, with a quaint -conservatism, the frock-coat and high hat of the days before -the great war. "I have survived the Deluge," he said. "I am -a pyramid, and must behave as such." - -As he passed up the street the Kensingtonians, in their -picturesque blue smocks, saluted him as a King, and then -looked after him as a curiosity. It seemed odd to them that -men had once worn so elvish an attire. - -The King, cultivating the walk attributed to the oldest -inhabitant ("Gaffer Auberon" his friends were now -confidentially desired to call him), went toddling -northward. He paused, with reminiscence in his eye, at the -Southern Gate of Notting Hill, one of those nine great gates -of bronze and steel, wrought with reliefs of the old -battles, by the hand of Chiffy himself. - -"Ah!" he said, shaking his head and assuming an unnecessary -air of age, and a provincialism of accent, "Ah! I mind when -there warn't none of this here." - -He passed through the Ossington Gate, surmounted by a great -lion, wrought in red copper on yellow brass, with the motto, -"Nothing Ill." The guard in red and gold saluted him with -his halberd. - -It was about sunset, and the lamps were being lit. Auberon -paused to look at them, for they were Chiffy's finest work, -and his artistic eye never failed to feast on them. In -memory of the Great Battle of the Lamps, each great iron -lamp was surmounted by a veiled figure, sword in hand, -holding over the flame an iron hood or extinguisher, as if -ready to let it fall if the armies of the South and West -should again show their flags in the city. Thus no child in -Notting Hill could play about the streets without the very -lamp-posts reminding him of the salvation of his country in -the dreadful year. - -"Old Wayne was right in a way," commented the King. "The -sword does make things beautiful. It has made the whole -world romantic by now. And to think people once thought me a -buffoon for suggesting a romantic Notting Hill. Deary me, -deary me (I think that is the expression). It seems like a -previous existence." - -Turning a corner he found himself in Pump Street, opposite -the four shops which Adam Wayne had studied twenty years -before. He entered idly the shop of Mr. Mead, the grocer. -Mr. Mead was somewhat older, like the rest of the world, and -his red beard, which he now wore with a moustache, and long -and full, was partly blanched and discoloured. He . was -dressed in a long and richly embroidered robe of blue, -brown, and crimson, interwoven with an Eastern complexity of -pattern, and covered with obscure symbols and pictures, -representing his wares passing from hand to hand and from -nation to nation. Round his neck was the chain with the Blue -Argosy cut in turquoise, which he wore as Grand Master of -the Grocers. The whole shop had the sombre and sumptuous -look of its owner. The wares were displayed as prominently -as in the old days, but they were now blended and arranged -with a sense of tint and grouping, too often neglected by -the dim grocers of those forgotten days. The wares were -shown plainly, but shown not so much as an old grocer would -have shown his stock, but rather as an educated virtuoso -would have shown his treasures. The tea was stored in great -blue and green vases, inscribed with the nine indispensable -sayings of the wise men of China. Other vases of a confused -orange and purple, less rigid and dominant, more humble and -dreamy, stored symbolically the tea of India. A row of -caskets of a simple silvery metal contained tinned meats. -Each was wrought with some rude but rhythmic form, as a -shell, a horn, a fish, or an apple, to indicate what -material had been canned in it. - -"Your Majesty," said Mr. Mead, sweeping an Oriental -reverence. "This is an honour to me, but yet more an honour -to the city." +On the evening of the third of October, twenty years after the great +victory of Notting Hill, which gave it the dominion of London, King +Auberon, came, as of old, out of Kensington Palace. + +He had changed little, save for a streak or two of grey in his hair, for +his face had always been old, and his step slow, and, as it were, +decrepit. + +If he looked old, it was not because of anything physical or mental. It +was because he still wore, with a quaint conservatism, the frock-coat +and high hat of the days before the great war. "I have survived the +Deluge," he said. "I am a pyramid, and must behave as such." + +As he passed up the street the Kensingtonians, in their picturesque blue +smocks, saluted him as a King, and then looked after him as a curiosity. +It seemed odd to them that men had once worn so elvish an attire. + +The King, cultivating the walk attributed to the oldest inhabitant +("Gaffer Auberon" his friends were now confidentially desired to call +him), went toddling northward. He paused, with reminiscence in his eye, +at the Southern Gate of Notting Hill, one of those nine great gates of +bronze and steel, wrought with reliefs of the old battles, by the hand +of Chiffy himself. + +"Ah!" he said, shaking his head and assuming an unnecessary air of age, +and a provincialism of accent, "Ah! I mind when there warn't none of +this here." + +He passed through the Ossington Gate, surmounted by a great lion, +wrought in red copper on yellow brass, with the motto, "Nothing Ill." +The guard in red and gold saluted him with his halberd. + +It was about sunset, and the lamps were being lit. Auberon paused to +look at them, for they were Chiffy's finest work, and his artistic eye +never failed to feast on them. In memory of the Great Battle of the +Lamps, each great iron lamp was surmounted by a veiled figure, sword in +hand, holding over the flame an iron hood or extinguisher, as if ready +to let it fall if the armies of the South and West should again show +their flags in the city. Thus no child in Notting Hill could play about +the streets without the very lamp-posts reminding him of the salvation +of his country in the dreadful year. + +"Old Wayne was right in a way," commented the King. "The sword does make +things beautiful. It has made the whole world romantic by now. And to +think people once thought me a buffoon for suggesting a romantic Notting +Hill. Deary me, deary me (I think that is the expression). It seems like +a previous existence." + +Turning a corner he found himself in Pump Street, opposite the four +shops which Adam Wayne had studied twenty years before. He entered idly +the shop of Mr. Mead, the grocer. Mr. Mead was somewhat older, like the +rest of the world, and his red beard, which he now wore with a +moustache, and long and full, was partly blanched and discoloured. He . +was dressed in a long and richly embroidered robe of blue, brown, and +crimson, interwoven with an Eastern complexity of pattern, and covered +with obscure symbols and pictures, representing his wares passing from +hand to hand and from nation to nation. Round his neck was the chain +with the Blue Argosy cut in turquoise, which he wore as Grand Master of +the Grocers. The whole shop had the sombre and sumptuous look of its +owner. The wares were displayed as prominently as in the old days, but +they were now blended and arranged with a sense of tint and grouping, +too often neglected by the dim grocers of those forgotten days. The +wares were shown plainly, but shown not so much as an old grocer would +have shown his stock, but rather as an educated virtuoso would have +shown his treasures. The tea was stored in great blue and green vases, +inscribed with the nine indispensable sayings of the wise men of China. +Other vases of a confused orange and purple, less rigid and dominant, +more humble and dreamy, stored symbolically the tea of India. A row of +caskets of a simple silvery metal contained tinned meats. Each was +wrought with some rude but rhythmic form, as a shell, a horn, a fish, or +an apple, to indicate what material had been canned in it. + +"Your Majesty," said Mr. Mead, sweeping an Oriental reverence. "This is +an honour to me, but yet more an honour to the city." Auberon took off his hat. -"Mr. Mead," he said, "Notting Hill, whether in giving or -taking, can deal in nothing but honour. Do you happen to -sell liquorice?" - -"Liquorice, sire," said Mr. Mead, "is not the least -important of our benefits out of the dark heart of Arabia." - -And going reverently towards a green and silver canister, -made in the form of an Arabian mosque, he proceeded to serve -his customer. - -"I was just thinking, Mr. Mead," said the King reflectively, -"I don't know why I should think about it just now, but I -was just thinking of twenty years ago. Do you remember the -times before the war?" - -The grocer, having wrapped up the liquorice sticks in a -piece of paper (inscribed with some appropriate sentiment), -lifted his large grey eyes dreamily, and looked at the -darkening sky outside. - -"Oh yes, your Majesty," he said. "I remember these streets -before the Lord Provost began to rule us. I can't remember -how we felt very well. All the great songs and the righting -change one so; and I don't think we can really estimate all -we owe to the Provost; but I can remember his coming into -this very shop twenty-two years ago, and I remember the -things he said. The singular thing is that as far as I -remember I thought the things he said odd at that time. Now -it's the things that I said, as far as I can recall them, -that seem to me odd---as odd as a madman's antics." - -"Ah!" said the King; and looked at him with an unfathomable -quietness. - -"I thought nothing of being a grocer then," he said. "Isn't -that odd enough for anybody? I thought nothing of all the -wonderful places that my goods come from, and wonderful ways -that they are made. I did not know that I was for all -practical purposes a king with slaves spearing fishes near -the secret-pool, and gathering fruits in the islands under -the world. My mind was a blank on the thing. I was as mad as -a hatter." - -The King turned also, and stared out into the dark, where -the great lamps that commemorated the battle were already -flaming. - -"And is this the end of poor old Wayne?" he said, half to -himself. "To inflame every one so much that he is lost -himself in the blaze. Is this his victory, that he, my -incomparable Wayne, is now only one in a world of Waynes? -Has he conquered and become by conquest commonplace? Must -Mr. Mead, the grocer, talk as high as he? Lord! what a -strange world in which a man cannot remain unique even by -taking the trouble to go mad." +"Mr. Mead," he said, "Notting Hill, whether in giving or taking, can +deal in nothing but honour. Do you happen to sell liquorice?" + +"Liquorice, sire," said Mr. Mead, "is not the least important of our +benefits out of the dark heart of Arabia." + +And going reverently towards a green and silver canister, made in the +form of an Arabian mosque, he proceeded to serve his customer. + +"I was just thinking, Mr. Mead," said the King reflectively, "I don't +know why I should think about it just now, but I was just thinking of +twenty years ago. Do you remember the times before the war?" + +The grocer, having wrapped up the liquorice sticks in a piece of paper +(inscribed with some appropriate sentiment), lifted his large grey eyes +dreamily, and looked at the darkening sky outside. + +"Oh yes, your Majesty," he said. "I remember these streets before the +Lord Provost began to rule us. I can't remember how we felt very well. +All the great songs and the righting change one so; and I don't think we +can really estimate all we owe to the Provost; but I can remember his +coming into this very shop twenty-two years ago, and I remember the +things he said. The singular thing is that as far as I remember I +thought the things he said odd at that time. Now it's the things that I +said, as far as I can recall them, that seem to me odd---as odd as a +madman's antics." + +"Ah!" said the King; and looked at him with an unfathomable quietness. + +"I thought nothing of being a grocer then," he said. "Isn't that odd +enough for anybody? I thought nothing of all the wonderful places that +my goods come from, and wonderful ways that they are made. I did not +know that I was for all practical purposes a king with slaves spearing +fishes near the secret-pool, and gathering fruits in the islands under +the world. My mind was a blank on the thing. I was as mad as a hatter." + +The King turned also, and stared out into the dark, where the great +lamps that commemorated the battle were already flaming. + +"And is this the end of poor old Wayne?" he said, half to himself. "To +inflame every one so much that he is lost himself in the blaze. Is this +his victory, that he, my incomparable Wayne, is now only one in a world +of Waynes? Has he conquered and become by conquest commonplace? Must +Mr. Mead, the grocer, talk as high as he? Lord! what a strange world in +which a man cannot remain unique even by taking the trouble to go mad." And he went dreamily out of the shop. -He paused outside the next one almost precisely as the -Provost had done two decades before. "How uncommonly creepy -this shop looks," he said. "But yet somehow encouragingly -creepy, invitingly creepy. It looks like something in a -jolly old nursery story in which you are frightened out of -your skin, and yet know that things always end well. The way -those low sharp gables are carved like great black bat's -wings folded down, and the way those queer-coloured bowls -underneath are made to shine like giant's eye-balls. It -looks like a benevolent warlock's hut. It is apparently a -chemist's." - -Almost as he spoke, Mr. Bowles, the chemist, came to his -shop door in a long black velvet gown and hood, monastic as -it were, but yet with a touch of the diabolic. His hair was -still quite black, and his face even paler than of old. The -only spot of colour he carried was a red star cut in some -precious stone of strong tint, hung on his breast. He -belonged to the Society of the Red Star of Charity, founded -on the lamps displayed by doctors and chemists. - -"A fine evening, sir," said the chemist. "Why, I can -scarcely be mistaken in supposing it to be your Majesty. -Pray step inside and share a bottle of sal-volatile, or -anything that may take your fancy. As it happens there is an -old acquaintance of your Majesty's in my shop carousing (if -I may be permitted the term) upon that beverage at this +He paused outside the next one almost precisely as the Provost had done +two decades before. "How uncommonly creepy this shop looks," he said. +"But yet somehow encouragingly creepy, invitingly creepy. It looks like +something in a jolly old nursery story in which you are frightened out +of your skin, and yet know that things always end well. The way those +low sharp gables are carved like great black bat's wings folded down, +and the way those queer-coloured bowls underneath are made to shine like +giant's eye-balls. It looks like a benevolent warlock's hut. It is +apparently a chemist's." + +Almost as he spoke, Mr. Bowles, the chemist, came to his shop door in a +long black velvet gown and hood, monastic as it were, but yet with a +touch of the diabolic. His hair was still quite black, and his face even +paler than of old. The only spot of colour he carried was a red star cut +in some precious stone of strong tint, hung on his breast. He belonged +to the Society of the Red Star of Charity, founded on the lamps +displayed by doctors and chemists. + +"A fine evening, sir," said the chemist. "Why, I can scarcely be +mistaken in supposing it to be your Majesty. Pray step inside and share +a bottle of sal-volatile, or anything that may take your fancy. As it +happens there is an old acquaintance of your Majesty's in my shop +carousing (if I may be permitted the term) upon that beverage at this moment." -The King entered the shop, which was an Aladdin's garden of -shades and hues, for as the chemist's scheme of colour was -more brilliant than the grocer's scheme, so it was arranged -with even more delicacy and fancy. Never, if the phrase may -be employed, had such a nosegay of medicines been presented -to the artistic eye. - -But even the solemn rainbow of that evening interior was -rivalled or even eclipsed by the figure standing in the -centre of the shop. His form, which was a large and stately -one, was clad in a brilliant blue velvet, cut in the richest -Renaissance fashion, and slashed so as to show gleams and -gaps of a wonderful lemon or pale yellow. He had several -chains round his neck and his plumes, which were of several -tints of bronze and gold, hung down to the great gold hilt -of his long sword. He was drinking a dose of sal-volatile, -and admiring its opal tint. The King advanced with a slight -mystification towards the tall figure, whose face was in -shadow, then he said-- +The King entered the shop, which was an Aladdin's garden of shades and +hues, for as the chemist's scheme of colour was more brilliant than the +grocer's scheme, so it was arranged with even more delicacy and fancy. +Never, if the phrase may be employed, had such a nosegay of medicines +been presented to the artistic eye. + +But even the solemn rainbow of that evening interior was rivalled or +even eclipsed by the figure standing in the centre of the shop. His +form, which was a large and stately one, was clad in a brilliant blue +velvet, cut in the richest Renaissance fashion, and slashed so as to +show gleams and gaps of a wonderful lemon or pale yellow. He had several +chains round his neck and his plumes, which were of several tints of +bronze and gold, hung down to the great gold hilt of his long sword. He +was drinking a dose of sal-volatile, and admiring its opal tint. The +King advanced with a slight mystification towards the tall figure, whose +face was in shadow, then he said-- "By the Great Lord of Luck, Barker!" -The figure removed his plumed cap, showing the same dark -head and long, almost equine, face which the King had so -often seen rising out of the high collar of Bond Street. -Except for a grey patch on each temple, it was totally -unchanged. +The figure removed his plumed cap, showing the same dark head and long, +almost equine, face which the King had so often seen rising out of the +high collar of Bond Street. Except for a grey patch on each temple, it +was totally unchanged. -"Your Majesty," said Barker, "this is a meeting nobly -retrospective, a meeting that has about it a certain October -gold. I drink to old days;" and he finished his sal-volatile -with simple feeling. +"Your Majesty," said Barker, "this is a meeting nobly retrospective, a +meeting that has about it a certain October gold. I drink to old days;" +and he finished his sal-volatile with simple feeling. -"I am delighted to see you again, Barker," said the King. -"It is, indeed, long since we met. What with my travels in -Asia Minor, and my book having to be written (you have read -my 'Life of Prince Albert for Children,' of course), we have -scarcely met twice since the Great War. That is twenty years -ago." +"I am delighted to see you again, Barker," said the King. "It is, +indeed, long since we met. What with my travels in Asia Minor, and my +book having to be written (you have read my 'Life of Prince Albert for +Children,' of course), we have scarcely met twice since the Great War. +That is twenty years ago." -"I wonder," said Barker, thoughtfully, "if I might speak -freely to your Majesty." +"I wonder," said Barker, thoughtfully, "if I might speak freely to your +Majesty." -"Well," said Auberon, "it's rather late in the day to start -speaking respectfully. Flap away, my bird of freedom." +"Well," said Auberon, "it's rather late in the day to start speaking +respectfully. Flap away, my bird of freedom." -"Well, your Majesty," replied Barker, lowering his voice, "I -don't think it will be so long to the next war." +"Well, your Majesty," replied Barker, lowering his voice, "I don't think +it will be so long to the next war." "What do you mean?" asked Auberon. -"We will stand this insolence no longer," burst out Barker, -fiercely. "We are not slaves because Adam Wayne twenty years -ago cheated us with a water-pipe. Notting Hill is Notting -Hill; it is not the world. We in South Kensington, we also -have memories aye, and hopes. If they fought for these -trumpery shops and a few lamp-posts, shall we not fight for -the great High Street and the sacred Natural History -Museum?" - -"Great Heavens!" said the astounded Auberon. "Will wonders -never cease? Have the two greatest marvels been achieved? -Have you turned altruistic, and has Wayne turned selfish? -Are you the patriot, and he the tyrant?" - -"It is not from Wayne himself altogether that the evil -comes," answered Barker. "He, indeed, is now mostly wrapped -in dreams, and sits with his old sword beside the fire. But -Notting Hill is the tyrant, your Majesty. Its Council and -its crowds have been so intoxicated by the spreading over -the whole city of Wayne's old ways and visions, that they -try to meddle with every one, and rule every one, and -civilise every one, and tell every one what is good for him. -I do not deny the great impulse which his old war, wild as -it seemed, gave to the civic life of our time. It came when -I was still a young man, and I admit it enlarged my career. -But we are not going to see our own cities flouted and -thwarted from day to day because of something Wayne did for -us all nearly a quarter of a century ago. I am just waiting -here for news upon this very matter. It is rumoured that -Notting Hill has vetoed the statue of General Wilson they -are putting up opposite Chepstow Place. If that is so, it is -a black and white shameless breach of the terms on which we -surrendered to Turnbull after the battle of the Tower. We -were to keep our own customs and self-government. If that is -so--" +"We will stand this insolence no longer," burst out Barker, fiercely. +"We are not slaves because Adam Wayne twenty years ago cheated us with a +water-pipe. Notting Hill is Notting Hill; it is not the world. We in +South Kensington, we also have memories aye, and hopes. If they fought +for these trumpery shops and a few lamp-posts, shall we not fight for +the great High Street and the sacred Natural History Museum?" + +"Great Heavens!" said the astounded Auberon. "Will wonders never cease? +Have the two greatest marvels been achieved? Have you turned altruistic, +and has Wayne turned selfish? Are you the patriot, and he the tyrant?" + +"It is not from Wayne himself altogether that the evil comes," answered +Barker. "He, indeed, is now mostly wrapped in dreams, and sits with his +old sword beside the fire. But Notting Hill is the tyrant, your Majesty. +Its Council and its crowds have been so intoxicated by the spreading +over the whole city of Wayne's old ways and visions, that they try to +meddle with every one, and rule every one, and civilise every one, and +tell every one what is good for him. I do not deny the great impulse +which his old war, wild as it seemed, gave to the civic life of our +time. It came when I was still a young man, and I admit it enlarged my +career. But we are not going to see our own cities flouted and thwarted +from day to day because of something Wayne did for us all nearly a +quarter of a century ago. I am just waiting here for news upon this very +matter. It is rumoured that Notting Hill has vetoed the statue of +General Wilson they are putting up opposite Chepstow Place. If that is +so, it is a black and white shameless breach of the terms on which we +surrendered to Turnbull after the battle of the Tower. We were to keep +our own customs and self-government. If that is so--" "It is so," said a deep voice; and both men turned round. -A burly figure in purple robes, with a silver eagle hung -round his neck and moustaches almost as florid as his -plumes, stood in the doorway. +A burly figure in purple robes, with a silver eagle hung round his neck +and moustaches almost as florid as his plumes, stood in the doorway. -"Yes," he said, acknowledging the King's start, "I am -Provost Buck, and the news is true. These men of the Hill -have forgotten that we fought round the Tower as well as -they did, and that it is sometimes foolish, as well as base, -to despise the conquered." +"Yes," he said, acknowledging the King's start, "I am Provost Buck, and +the news is true. These men of the Hill have forgotten that we fought +round the Tower as well as they did, and that it is sometimes foolish, +as well as base, to despise the conquered." "Let us step outside," said Barker, with a grim composure. -Buck did so, and stood rolling his eyes up and down the -lamp-lit street. +Buck did so, and stood rolling his eyes up and down the lamp-lit street. -"I would like to have a go at smashing all this," he -muttered, "though I am over sixty. I would like--" +"I would like to have a go at smashing all this," he muttered, "though I +am over sixty. I would like--" -His voice ended in a cry, and he reeled back a step, with -his hands to his eyes, as he had done in those streets -twenty years before. +His voice ended in a cry, and he reeled back a step, with his hands to +his eyes, as he had done in those streets twenty years before. "Darkness !" he cried--"darkness again! What does it mean?" -For in truth every lamp in the street had gone out, so that -they could not see even each other's outline, except -faintly. The voice of the chemist came with startling -cheerfulness out of the density. - -"Oh, don't you know?" he said. "Did they never tell you this -is the Feast of the Lamps, the anniversary of the great -battle that almost lost and just saved Notting Hill? Don't -you know, your Majesty, that on this night twenty-one years -ago we saw Wilson's green uniforms charging down this -street, and driving Wayne and Turnbull back upon the -gas-works, fighting with their handful of men like fiends -from hell? And that then, in that great hour, Wayne sprang -through a window of the gas-works, with one blow of his hand -brought darkness on the whole city, and then with a cry like -a lion's, that was heard through four streets, flew at -Wilson's men, sword in hand, and swept them, bewildered as -they were, and ignorant of the map, clear out of the sacred -street again? And don't you know that upon that night every -year all lights are turned out for half an hour while we -sing the Notting Hill anthem in the darkness? Hark! there it -begins." - -Through the night came a crash of drums, and then a strong -swell of human voices-- - ->   When the world was in the balance, there was night on -> Notting Hill, +For in truth every lamp in the street had gone out, so that they could +not see even each other's outline, except faintly. The voice of the +chemist came with startling cheerfulness out of the density. + +"Oh, don't you know?" he said. "Did they never tell you this is the +Feast of the Lamps, the anniversary of the great battle that almost lost +and just saved Notting Hill? Don't you know, your Majesty, that on this +night twenty-one years ago we saw Wilson's green uniforms charging down +this street, and driving Wayne and Turnbull back upon the gas-works, +fighting with their handful of men like fiends from hell? And that then, +in that great hour, Wayne sprang through a window of the gas-works, with +one blow of his hand brought darkness on the whole city, and then with a +cry like a lion's, that was heard through four streets, flew at Wilson's +men, sword in hand, and swept them, bewildered as they were, and +ignorant of the map, clear out of the sacred street again? And don't you +know that upon that night every year all lights are turned out for half +an hour while we sing the Notting Hill anthem in the darkness? Hark! +there it begins." + +Through the night came a crash of drums, and then a strong swell of +human voices-- + +>   When the world was in the balance, there was night on Notting Hill, > -> (There was night on Notting Hill): it was nobler than the -> day; +> (There was night on Notting Hill): it was nobler than the day; > > On the cities where the lights are and the firesides glow, > -> From the seas and from the deserts came the thing we did -> not know, +> From the seas and from the deserts came the thing we did not know, > -> Came the darkness, came the darkness, came the darkness on -> the foe, +> Came the darkness, came the darkness, came the darkness on the foe, > > And the old guard of God turned to bay. > > For the old guard of God turns to bay, turns to bay, > -> And the stars fall down before it ere its banners fall -> to-day. +> And the stars fall down before it ere its banners fall to-day. > > For when armies were around us as a howling and a horde, > @@ -6142,637 +5354,550 @@ swell of human voices-- > > When the old guard of God turned to bay. -The voices were just uplifting themselves in a second verse, -when they were stopped by a scurry and a yell. Barker had -bounded into the street with a cry of "South Kensington!" -and a drawn dagger. In less time than man could blink, the -whole packed street was full of curses and struggling. -Barker was flung back against the shop-front, but used the -second only to draw his sword as well as his dagger, and -calling out, "This is not the first time I've come through -the thick of you," flung himself again into the press. It -was evident that he had drawn blood at last, for a more -violent outcry arose, and many other knives and swords were -discernible in the faint light. Barker, after having wounded -more than one man, seemed on. the point of being flung back -again, when Buck suddenly stepped out into the street. He -had no weapon, for he affected rather the peaceful -magnificence of the great burgher, than the pugnacious -dandyism which had replaced the old sombre dandyism in -Barker. But with a blow of his clenched fist he broke the -pane of the next shop, which was the old curiosity shop, -and, plunging in his hand, snatched a kind of Japanese -scimitar, and calling out, "Kensington! Kensington!" rushed -to Barker's assistance. - -Barker's sword was broken, but he was laying about him with -his dagger. Just as Buck ran up, a man of Notting Hill -struck Barker down, but Buck struck the man down on top of -him, and Barker sprang up again, the blood running down his -face. - -Suddenly all these cries were cloven by a great voice, that -seemed to fall out of heaven. It was terrible to Buck and -Barker and the King from its seeming to come out the empty -skies; but it was more terrible because it was a familiar -voice, and one which at the same time they had not heard for -so long. - -"Turn up the lights," said the voice from above them, and -for a moment there was no reply, but only a tumult. - -"In the name of Notting Hill, and of the great Council of -the City, turn up the lights." - -There was again a tumult and a vagueness for a moment, then -the whole street and every object in it sprang suddenly out -of the darkness, as every lamp sprang into life. And looking -up they saw, standing upon a balcony near the roof of one of -the highest houses, the figure and the face of Adam Wayne, -his red hair blowing behind him, a little streaked with -grey. - -"What is this, my people?" he said. "Is it altogether -impossible to make a thing good without it immediately -insisting on being wicked? The glory of Notting Hill in -having achieved its independence, has been enough for me to -dream of for many years, as I sat beside the fire. Is it -really not enough for you, who have had so many other -affairs to excite and distract you? Notting Hill is a -nation. Why should it condescend to be a mere Empire? You -wish to pull down the statue of General Wilson, which the -men of Bayswater have so rightly erected in Westbourne -Grove. Fools! Who erected that statue? Did Bayswater erect -it? No. Notting Hill erected it. Do you not see that it is -the glory of our achievement that we have infected the other -cities with the idealism of Notting Hill? It is we who have -created not only our own side, but both sides of this -controversy. O too humble fools---why should you wish to -destroy your enemies? You have done something more to them. -You have created your enemies. You wish to pull down that -gigantic silver hammer, which stands, like an obelisk, in -the centre of the Broadway of Hammersmith. Fools! Before -Notting Hill arose, did any person passing through -Hammersmith Broadway expect to see there a gigantic silver -hammer? You wish to abolish the great bronze figure of a -knight standing upon the artificial bridge at Knightsbridge. -Fools! Who would have thought of it before Notting Hill -arose? I have even heard, and with deep pain I have heard -it, that the evil eye of our imperial envy has been cast -towards the remote horizon of the west, and that we have -objected to the great black monument of a crowned raven, -which commemorates the skirmish of Ravenscourt Park. Who -created all these things? Were they there before we came? -Cannot you be content with that destiny which was enough for -Athens, which was enough for Nazareth? the destiny, the -humble purpose of creating a new world. Is Athens angry -because Romans and Florentines have adopted her phraseology -for expressing their own patriotism? Is Nazareth angry -because as a little village it has become the type of all -little villages out of which, as the Snobs say, no good can -come? Has Athens asked every one to wear the chlamys? Are -all followers of the Nazarene compelled to wear turbans? No! -but the soul of Athens went forth and made men drink -hemlock, and the soul of Nazareth went forth and made men -consent to be crucified. So has the soul of Netting Hill -gone forth and made men realise what it is to live in a -city. Just as we inaugurated our symbols and ceremonies, so -they have inaugurated theirs; and are you so mad as to -contend against them? Notting Hill is right; it has always -been right. It has moulded itself on its own necessities, -its own *sine quâ non*, it has accepted its own ultimatum. -Because it is a nation it has created itself. And because it -is a nation it can destroy itself. Notting Hill shall always -be the judge. If it is your will because of this matter of -General Wilson's statue to make war upon Bayswater--" - -A roar of cheers broke in upon his words, and further speech -was impossible. Pale to the lips, the great patriot tried -again and again to speak; but even his authority could not -keep down the dark and roaring masses in the street below -him. He said something further, but it was not audible. He -descended at last sadly from the garret in which he lived, -and mingled with the crowd at the foot of the houses. -Finding General Turnbull, he put his hand on his shoulder -with a queer affection and gravity, and said-- - -"To-morrow, old man, we shall have a new experience, as -fresh as the flowers of spring. We shall be defeated. You -and I have been through three battles together, and have -somehow or other missed this peculiar delight. It is -unfortunate that we shall not probably be able to exchange -our experiences, because, as it most annoyingly happens, we +The voices were just uplifting themselves in a second verse, when they +were stopped by a scurry and a yell. Barker had bounded into the street +with a cry of "South Kensington!" and a drawn dagger. In less time than +man could blink, the whole packed street was full of curses and +struggling. Barker was flung back against the shop-front, but used the +second only to draw his sword as well as his dagger, and calling out, +"This is not the first time I've come through the thick of you," flung +himself again into the press. It was evident that he had drawn blood at +last, for a more violent outcry arose, and many other knives and swords +were discernible in the faint light. Barker, after having wounded more +than one man, seemed on. the point of being flung back again, when Buck +suddenly stepped out into the street. He had no weapon, for he affected +rather the peaceful magnificence of the great burgher, than the +pugnacious dandyism which had replaced the old sombre dandyism in +Barker. But with a blow of his clenched fist he broke the pane of the +next shop, which was the old curiosity shop, and, plunging in his hand, +snatched a kind of Japanese scimitar, and calling out, "Kensington! +Kensington!" rushed to Barker's assistance. + +Barker's sword was broken, but he was laying about him with his dagger. +Just as Buck ran up, a man of Notting Hill struck Barker down, but Buck +struck the man down on top of him, and Barker sprang up again, the blood +running down his face. + +Suddenly all these cries were cloven by a great voice, that seemed to +fall out of heaven. It was terrible to Buck and Barker and the King from +its seeming to come out the empty skies; but it was more terrible +because it was a familiar voice, and one which at the same time they had +not heard for so long. + +"Turn up the lights," said the voice from above them, and for a moment +there was no reply, but only a tumult. + +"In the name of Notting Hill, and of the great Council of the City, turn +up the lights." + +There was again a tumult and a vagueness for a moment, then the whole +street and every object in it sprang suddenly out of the darkness, as +every lamp sprang into life. And looking up they saw, standing upon a +balcony near the roof of one of the highest houses, the figure and the +face of Adam Wayne, his red hair blowing behind him, a little streaked +with grey. + +"What is this, my people?" he said. "Is it altogether impossible to make +a thing good without it immediately insisting on being wicked? The glory +of Notting Hill in having achieved its independence, has been enough for +me to dream of for many years, as I sat beside the fire. Is it really +not enough for you, who have had so many other affairs to excite and +distract you? Notting Hill is a nation. Why should it condescend to be a +mere Empire? You wish to pull down the statue of General Wilson, which +the men of Bayswater have so rightly erected in Westbourne Grove. Fools! +Who erected that statue? Did Bayswater erect it? No. Notting Hill +erected it. Do you not see that it is the glory of our achievement that +we have infected the other cities with the idealism of Notting Hill? It +is we who have created not only our own side, but both sides of this +controversy. O too humble fools---why should you wish to destroy your +enemies? You have done something more to them. You have created your +enemies. You wish to pull down that gigantic silver hammer, which +stands, like an obelisk, in the centre of the Broadway of Hammersmith. +Fools! Before Notting Hill arose, did any person passing through +Hammersmith Broadway expect to see there a gigantic silver hammer? You +wish to abolish the great bronze figure of a knight standing upon the +artificial bridge at Knightsbridge. Fools! Who would have thought of it +before Notting Hill arose? I have even heard, and with deep pain I have +heard it, that the evil eye of our imperial envy has been cast towards +the remote horizon of the west, and that we have objected to the great +black monument of a crowned raven, which commemorates the skirmish of +Ravenscourt Park. Who created all these things? Were they there before +we came? Cannot you be content with that destiny which was enough for +Athens, which was enough for Nazareth? the destiny, the humble purpose +of creating a new world. Is Athens angry because Romans and Florentines +have adopted her phraseology for expressing their own patriotism? Is +Nazareth angry because as a little village it has become the type of all +little villages out of which, as the Snobs say, no good can come? Has +Athens asked every one to wear the chlamys? Are all followers of the +Nazarene compelled to wear turbans? No! but the soul of Athens went +forth and made men drink hemlock, and the soul of Nazareth went forth +and made men consent to be crucified. So has the soul of Netting Hill +gone forth and made men realise what it is to live in a city. Just as we +inaugurated our symbols and ceremonies, so they have inaugurated theirs; +and are you so mad as to contend against them? Notting Hill is right; it +has always been right. It has moulded itself on its own necessities, its +own *sine quâ non*, it has accepted its own ultimatum. Because it is a +nation it has created itself. And because it is a nation it can destroy +itself. Notting Hill shall always be the judge. If it is your will +because of this matter of General Wilson's statue to make war upon +Bayswater--" + +A roar of cheers broke in upon his words, and further speech was +impossible. Pale to the lips, the great patriot tried again and again to +speak; but even his authority could not keep down the dark and roaring +masses in the street below him. He said something further, but it was +not audible. He descended at last sadly from the garret in which he +lived, and mingled with the crowd at the foot of the houses. Finding +General Turnbull, he put his hand on his shoulder with a queer affection +and gravity, and said-- + +"To-morrow, old man, we shall have a new experience, as fresh as the +flowers of spring. We shall be defeated. You and I have been through +three battles together, and have somehow or other missed this peculiar +delight. It is unfortunate that we shall not probably be able to +exchange our experiences, because, as it most annoyingly happens, we shall probably both be dead." Turnbull looked dimly surprised. -"I don't mind so much about being dead," he said, "but why -should you say that we shall be defeated?" +"I don't mind so much about being dead," he said, "but why should you +say that we shall be defeated?" -"The answer is very simple," replied Wayne, calmly. "It is -because we ought to be defeated. We have been in the most -horrible holes before now; but in all those I was perfectly -certain that the stars were on our side, and that we ought -to get out. Now, I know that we ought not to get out; and -that takes away from me everything with which I won." +"The answer is very simple," replied Wayne, calmly. "It is because we +ought to be defeated. We have been in the most horrible holes before +now; but in all those I was perfectly certain that the stars were on our +side, and that we ought to get out. Now, I know that we ought not to get +out; and that takes away from me everything with which I won." -As Wayne spoke he started a little, for both men became -aware that a third figure was listening to them a small -figure with wondering eyes. +As Wayne spoke he started a little, for both men became aware that a +third figure was listening to them a small figure with wondering eyes. -"Is it really true, my dear Wayne," said the King, -interrupting, "that you think you will be beaten to-morrow?" +"Is it really true, my dear Wayne," said the King, interrupting, "that +you think you will be beaten to-morrow?" -"There can be no doubt about it whatever," replied Adam -Wayne; "the real reason is the one of which I have just -spoken. But as a concession to your materialism, I will add -that they have an organised army of a hundred allied cities -against our one. That in itself, however, would be +"There can be no doubt about it whatever," replied Adam Wayne; "the real +reason is the one of which I have just spoken. But as a concession to +your materialism, I will add that they have an organised army of a +hundred allied cities against our one. That in itself, however, would be unimportant." Quin, with his round eyes, seemed strangely insistent. "You are quite sure," he said, "that you must be beaten?" -"I am afraid," said Turnbull, gloomily, "that there can be -no doubt about it." +"I am afraid," said Turnbull, gloomily, "that there can be no doubt +about it." -"Then," cried the King, flinging out his arms, "give me a -halberd! Give me a halberd, somebody! I desire all men to -witness that I, Auberon, King of England, do here and now -abdicate and implore the Provost of Notting Hill to permit -me to enlist in his army. Give me a halberd!" +"Then," cried the King, flinging out his arms, "give me a halberd! Give +me a halberd, somebody! I desire all men to witness that I, Auberon, +King of England, do here and now abdicate and implore the Provost of +Notting Hill to permit me to enlist in his army. Give me a halberd!" -He seized one from some passing guard, and, shouldering it, -stamped solemnly after the shouting columns of halberdiers -which were, by this time, parading the streets. He had, -however, nothing to do with the wrecking of the statue of -General Wilson, which took place before morning. +He seized one from some passing guard, and, shouldering it, stamped +solemnly after the shouting columns of halberdiers which were, by this +time, parading the streets. He had, however, nothing to do with the +wrecking of the statue of General Wilson, which took place before +morning. ## The Last Battle -The day was cloudy when Wayne went down to die with all his -army in Kensington Gardens; it was cloudy again when that -army had been swallowed up by the vast armies of a new -world. There had been an almost uncanny interval of -sunshine, in which the Provost of Notting Hill, with all the -placidity of an onlooker, had gazed across to the hostile -armies on the great spaces of verdure opposite; the long -strips of green and blue and gold lay across the park in -squares and oblongs like a proposition in Euclid wrought in -a rich embroidery. But the sunlight was a weak and, as it -were, a wet sunlight, and was soon swallowed up. Wayne spoke -to the King, with a queer sort of coldness and languor, as -to the military operations. It was as he had said the night -before, that being deprived of his sense of an impracticable -rectitude he was, in effect, being deprived of everything. -He was out of date, and at sea in a mere world of compromise -and competition, of Empire against Empire, of the tolerably -right and the tolerably wrong. When his eye fell on the -King, however, who was marching very gravely with a top hat -and a halberd, it brightened slightly. - -"Well, your Majesty," he said, "you at least ought to be -proud to-day. If your children are righting each other, at -least those who win are your children. Other kings have -distributed justice, you have distributed life. Other kings -have ruled a nation, you have created nations. Others have -made kingdoms, you have begotten them. Look at your -children, father." And he stretched his hand out towards the -enemy. +The day was cloudy when Wayne went down to die with all his army in +Kensington Gardens; it was cloudy again when that army had been +swallowed up by the vast armies of a new world. There had been an almost +uncanny interval of sunshine, in which the Provost of Notting Hill, with +all the placidity of an onlooker, had gazed across to the hostile armies +on the great spaces of verdure opposite; the long strips of green and +blue and gold lay across the park in squares and oblongs like a +proposition in Euclid wrought in a rich embroidery. But the sunlight was +a weak and, as it were, a wet sunlight, and was soon swallowed up. Wayne +spoke to the King, with a queer sort of coldness and languor, as to the +military operations. It was as he had said the night before, that being +deprived of his sense of an impracticable rectitude he was, in effect, +being deprived of everything. He was out of date, and at sea in a mere +world of compromise and competition, of Empire against Empire, of the +tolerably right and the tolerably wrong. When his eye fell on the King, +however, who was marching very gravely with a top hat and a halberd, it +brightened slightly. + +"Well, your Majesty," he said, "you at least ought to be proud to-day. +If your children are righting each other, at least those who win are +your children. Other kings have distributed justice, you have +distributed life. Other kings have ruled a nation, you have created +nations. Others have made kingdoms, you have begotten them. Look at your +children, father." And he stretched his hand out towards the enemy. Auberon did not raise his eyes. -"See how splendidly," cried Wayne, "the new cities come -on---the new cities from across the river. See where -Battersea advances over there---under the flag of the Lost -Dog; and Putney---don't you see the Man on the White Boar -shining on their standard as the sun catches it? It is the -coming of a new age, your Majesty. Notting Hill is not a -common empire; it is a thing like Athens, the mother of a -mode of life, of a manner of living, which shall renew the -youth of the world---a thing like Nazareth. When I was young -I remember, in the old dreary days, wiseacres used to write -books about how trains would get faster, and all the world -would be one empire, and tram-cars go to the moon. And even -as a child I used to say to myself, 'Far more likely that we -shall go on the crusades again, or worship the gods of the -city.' And so it has been. And I am glad, though this is my -last battle." - -Even as he spoke there came a crash of steel from the left, -and he turned his head. - -"Wilson!" he cried, with a kind of joy. "Red Wilson has -charged our left. No one can hold him in; he eats swords. He -is as keen a soldier as Turnbull, but less patient---less -really great. Ha! and Barker is moving. How Barker has -improved; how handsome he looks. It is not all having -plumes; it is also having a soul in one's daily life. Ha!" - -And another crash of steel on the right showed that Barker -had closed with Netting Hill on the other side. - -"Turnbull is there!" cried Wayne. "See him hurl them back! -Barker is checked! Turnbull charges---wins! But our left is -broken. Wilson has smashed Bowles and Mead, and may turn our -flank. Forward, the Provost's Guard!" - -And the whole centre moved forward, Wayne's face and hair -and sword flaming in the van. +"See how splendidly," cried Wayne, "the new cities come on---the new +cities from across the river. See where Battersea advances over +there---under the flag of the Lost Dog; and Putney---don't you see the +Man on the White Boar shining on their standard as the sun catches it? +It is the coming of a new age, your Majesty. Notting Hill is not a +common empire; it is a thing like Athens, the mother of a mode of life, +of a manner of living, which shall renew the youth of the world---a +thing like Nazareth. When I was young I remember, in the old dreary +days, wiseacres used to write books about how trains would get faster, +and all the world would be one empire, and tram-cars go to the moon. And +even as a child I used to say to myself, 'Far more likely that we shall +go on the crusades again, or worship the gods of the city.' And so it +has been. And I am glad, though this is my last battle." + +Even as he spoke there came a crash of steel from the left, and he +turned his head. + +"Wilson!" he cried, with a kind of joy. "Red Wilson has charged our +left. No one can hold him in; he eats swords. He is as keen a soldier as +Turnbull, but less patient---less really great. Ha! and Barker is +moving. How Barker has improved; how handsome he looks. It is not all +having plumes; it is also having a soul in one's daily life. Ha!" + +And another crash of steel on the right showed that Barker had closed +with Netting Hill on the other side. + +"Turnbull is there!" cried Wayne. "See him hurl them back! Barker is +checked! Turnbull charges---wins! But our left is broken. Wilson has +smashed Bowles and Mead, and may turn our flank. Forward, the Provost's +Guard!" + +And the whole centre moved forward, Wayne's face and hair and sword +flaming in the van. The King ran suddenly forward. -The next instant a great jar that went through it told that -it had met the enemy. And right over against them through -the wood of their own weapons Auberon saw the Purple Eagle -of Buck of North Kensington. - -On the left Red Wilson was storming the broken ranks, his -little green figure conspicuous even in the tangle of men -and weapons, with the flaming red moustaches and the crown -of laurel. Bowles slashed at his head and tore away some of -the wreath, leaving the rest bloody, and, with a roar like a -bull's, Wilson sprang at him, and, after a rattle of -fencing, plunged his point into the chemist, who fell, -crying "Notting Hill!" Then the Notting Killers wavered, and -Bayswater swept them back in confusion. Wilson had carried -everything before him. - -On the right, however, Turnbull had carried the Red Lion -banner with a rush against Barker's men, and the banner of -the Golden Birds bore up with difficulty against it. -Barker's men fell fast. In the centre Wayne and Buck were -engaged, stubborn and confused. So far as the fighting went, -it was precisely equal. But the fighting was a farce. For -behind the three small armies with which Wayne's small army -was engaged lay the great sea of the allied armies, which -looked on as yet as scornful spectators, but could have -broken all four armies by moving a finger. - -Suddenly they did move. Some of the front contingents, the -pastoral chiefs from Shepherd's Bush, with their spears and -fleeces, were seen advancing, and the rude clans from -Paddington Green. They were advancing for a very good -reason. Buck, of North Kensington, was signalling wildly; he -was surrounded, and totally cut off. His regiments were a -struggling mass of people, islanded in a red sea of Notting -Hill. - -The allies had been too careless and confident. They had -allowed Barker's force to be broken to pieces by Turnbull, -and the moment that was done, the astute old leader of -Notting Hill swung his men round and attacked Buck behind -and on both sides. At the same moment Wayne cried "Charge!" -and struck him in front like a thunderbolt. - -Two-thirds of Buck's men were cut to pieces before their -allies could reach them. Then the sea of cities came on with -their banners like breakers, and swallowed Notting Hill for -ever. - -The battle was not over, for not one of Wayne's men would -surrender, and it lasted till sundown, and long after. But -it was decided; the story of Notting Hill was ended. - -When Turnbull saw it, he ceased a moment from fighting, and -looked round him. The evening sunlight struck his face; it -looked like a child's. - -"I have had my youth," he said. Then snatching an axe from a -man, he dashed into the thick of the spears of Shepherd's -Bush, and died somewhere far in the depths of their reeling -ranks. Then the battle roared on; every man of Notting Hill -was slain before night. - -Wayne was standing by a tree alone after the battle. Several -men approached him with axes. One struck at him. His foot -seemed partly to slip; but he flung his hand out, and -steadied himself against the tree. - -Barker sprang after him, sword in hand, and shaking with -excitement. - -"How large now, my lord," he cried, "is the Empire of -Notting Hill?" +The next instant a great jar that went through it told that it had met +the enemy. And right over against them through the wood of their own +weapons Auberon saw the Purple Eagle of Buck of North Kensington. + +On the left Red Wilson was storming the broken ranks, his little green +figure conspicuous even in the tangle of men and weapons, with the +flaming red moustaches and the crown of laurel. Bowles slashed at his +head and tore away some of the wreath, leaving the rest bloody, and, +with a roar like a bull's, Wilson sprang at him, and, after a rattle of +fencing, plunged his point into the chemist, who fell, crying "Notting +Hill!" Then the Notting Killers wavered, and Bayswater swept them back +in confusion. Wilson had carried everything before him. + +On the right, however, Turnbull had carried the Red Lion banner with a +rush against Barker's men, and the banner of the Golden Birds bore up +with difficulty against it. Barker's men fell fast. In the centre Wayne +and Buck were engaged, stubborn and confused. So far as the fighting +went, it was precisely equal. But the fighting was a farce. For behind +the three small armies with which Wayne's small army was engaged lay the +great sea of the allied armies, which looked on as yet as scornful +spectators, but could have broken all four armies by moving a finger. + +Suddenly they did move. Some of the front contingents, the pastoral +chiefs from Shepherd's Bush, with their spears and fleeces, were seen +advancing, and the rude clans from Paddington Green. They were advancing +for a very good reason. Buck, of North Kensington, was signalling +wildly; he was surrounded, and totally cut off. His regiments were a +struggling mass of people, islanded in a red sea of Notting Hill. + +The allies had been too careless and confident. They had allowed +Barker's force to be broken to pieces by Turnbull, and the moment that +was done, the astute old leader of Notting Hill swung his men round and +attacked Buck behind and on both sides. At the same moment Wayne cried +"Charge!" and struck him in front like a thunderbolt. + +Two-thirds of Buck's men were cut to pieces before their allies could +reach them. Then the sea of cities came on with their banners like +breakers, and swallowed Notting Hill for ever. + +The battle was not over, for not one of Wayne's men would surrender, and +it lasted till sundown, and long after. But it was decided; the story of +Notting Hill was ended. + +When Turnbull saw it, he ceased a moment from fighting, and looked round +him. The evening sunlight struck his face; it looked like a child's. + +"I have had my youth," he said. Then snatching an axe from a man, he +dashed into the thick of the spears of Shepherd's Bush, and died +somewhere far in the depths of their reeling ranks. Then the battle +roared on; every man of Notting Hill was slain before night. + +Wayne was standing by a tree alone after the battle. Several men +approached him with axes. One struck at him. His foot seemed partly to +slip; but he flung his hand out, and steadied himself against the tree. + +Barker sprang after him, sword in hand, and shaking with excitement. + +"How large now, my lord," he cried, "is the Empire of Notting Hill?" Wayne smiled in the gathering dark. -"Always as large as this," he said, and swept his sword -round in a semi-circle of silver. - -Barker dropped, wounded in the neck; and Wilson sprang over -his body like a tiger-cat, rushing at Wayne. At the same -moment there came behind the Lord of the Red Lion a cry and -a flare of yellow, and a mass of the West Kensington -halberdiers ploughed up the slope, knee-deep in grass, -bearing the yellow banner of the city before them, and -shouting aloud. - -At the same second Wilson went down under Wayne's sword, -seemingly smashed like a fly. The great sword rose again -like a bird, but Wilson seemed to rise with it, and, his -sword being broken, sprang at Wayne's throat like a dog. The -foremost of the yellow halberdiers had reached the tree and -swung his axe above the struggling Wayne. With a curse the -King whirled up his own halberd and dashed the blade in the -man's face. He reeled, and rolled down the slope, just as -the furious Wilson was flung on his back again. And again he -was on his feet, and again at Wayne's throat. Then he was -flung again, but this time laughing triumphantly. Grasped in -his hand was the red and yellow favour that Wayne wore as -Provost of Netting Hill. He had torn it from the place where -it had been carried for twenty-five years. - -With a shout the West Kensington men closed round Wayne, the -great yellow banner flapping over his head. - -"Where is your favour now, Provost?" cried the West -Kensington leader. +"Always as large as this," he said, and swept his sword round in a +semi-circle of silver. + +Barker dropped, wounded in the neck; and Wilson sprang over his body +like a tiger-cat, rushing at Wayne. At the same moment there came behind +the Lord of the Red Lion a cry and a flare of yellow, and a mass of the +West Kensington halberdiers ploughed up the slope, knee-deep in grass, +bearing the yellow banner of the city before them, and shouting aloud. + +At the same second Wilson went down under Wayne's sword, seemingly +smashed like a fly. The great sword rose again like a bird, but Wilson +seemed to rise with it, and, his sword being broken, sprang at Wayne's +throat like a dog. The foremost of the yellow halberdiers had reached +the tree and swung his axe above the struggling Wayne. With a curse the +King whirled up his own halberd and dashed the blade in the man's face. +He reeled, and rolled down the slope, just as the furious Wilson was +flung on his back again. And again he was on his feet, and again at +Wayne's throat. Then he was flung again, but this time laughing +triumphantly. Grasped in his hand was the red and yellow favour that +Wayne wore as Provost of Netting Hill. He had torn it from the place +where it had been carried for twenty-five years. + +With a shout the West Kensington men closed round Wayne, the great +yellow banner flapping over his head. + +"Where is your favour now, Provost?" cried the West Kensington leader. And a laugh went up. -Adam struck at the standard-bearer and brought him reeling -forward. As the banner stooped, he grasped the yellow folds -and tore off a shred. A halberdier struck him on the -shoulder, wounding bloodily. - -"Here is one colour!" he cried, pushing the yellow into his -belt; "and here!" he cried, pointing to his own blood, " -Here is the other." - -At the same instant the shock of a sudden and heavy halberd -laid the King stunned or dead. In the wild visions of -vanishing consciousness, he saw again something that -belonged to an utterly forgotten time, something that he had -seen somewhere long ago in a restaurant. He saw, with his -swimming eyes, red and yellow, the colours of Nicaragua. - -Quin did not see the end. Wilson, wild with joy, sprang -again at Adam Wayne, and the great sword of Netting Hill was -whirled above once more. Then men ducked instinctively at -the rushing noise of the sword coming down out of the sky, -and Wilson of Bayswater was smashed and wiped down upon the -floor like a fly. Nothing was left of him but a wreck; but -the blade that had broken him was broken. In dying he had -snapped the great sword and the spell of it; the sword of -Wayne was broken at the hilt. One rush of the enemy carried -Wayne by force against the tree. They were too close to use -halberd or even sword; they were breast to breast, even +Adam struck at the standard-bearer and brought him reeling forward. As +the banner stooped, he grasped the yellow folds and tore off a shred. A +halberdier struck him on the shoulder, wounding bloodily. + +"Here is one colour!" he cried, pushing the yellow into his belt; "and +here!" he cried, pointing to his own blood, " Here is the other." + +At the same instant the shock of a sudden and heavy halberd laid the +King stunned or dead. In the wild visions of vanishing consciousness, he +saw again something that belonged to an utterly forgotten time, +something that he had seen somewhere long ago in a restaurant. He saw, +with his swimming eyes, red and yellow, the colours of Nicaragua. + +Quin did not see the end. Wilson, wild with joy, sprang again at Adam +Wayne, and the great sword of Netting Hill was whirled above once more. +Then men ducked instinctively at the rushing noise of the sword coming +down out of the sky, and Wilson of Bayswater was smashed and wiped down +upon the floor like a fly. Nothing was left of him but a wreck; but the +blade that had broken him was broken. In dying he had snapped the great +sword and the spell of it; the sword of Wayne was broken at the hilt. +One rush of the enemy carried Wayne by force against the tree. They were +too close to use halberd or even sword; they were breast to breast, even nostrils to nostrils. But Buck got his dagger free. -"Kill him!" he cried, in a strange stifled voice. "Kill him! -Good or bad, he is none of us! Do not be blinded by the -face! ... God! have we not been blinded all along!" and he -drew his arm back for a stab and seemed to close his eyes. - -Wayne did not drop the hand that hung on to the tree-branch. -But a mighty heave went over his breast and his whole huge -figure, like an earthquake over great hills. And with that -convulsion of effort he rent the branch out of the tree, -with tongues of torn wood. And swaying it once only, he let -the splintered club fall on Buck, breaking his neck. The -planner of the Great Road fell face foremost dead, with his -dagger in a grip of steel. - -"For you and me, and for all brave men, my brother," said -Wayne, in his strange chant, "there is good wine poured in -the inn at the end of the world." - -The packed men made another lurch or heave towards him; it -was almost too dark to fight clearly. He caught hold of the -oak again, this time getting his hand into a wide crevice -and grasping, as it were, the bowels of the tree. The whole -crowd, numbering some thirty men, made a rush to tear him -away from it; they hung on with all their weight and -numbers, and nothing stirred. A solitude could not have been -stiller than that group of straining men. Then there was a -faint sound. +"Kill him!" he cried, in a strange stifled voice. "Kill him! Good or +bad, he is none of us! Do not be blinded by the face! ... God! have we +not been blinded all along!" and he drew his arm back for a stab and +seemed to close his eyes. + +Wayne did not drop the hand that hung on to the tree-branch. But a +mighty heave went over his breast and his whole huge figure, like an +earthquake over great hills. And with that convulsion of effort he rent +the branch out of the tree, with tongues of torn wood. And swaying it +once only, he let the splintered club fall on Buck, breaking his neck. +The planner of the Great Road fell face foremost dead, with his dagger +in a grip of steel. + +"For you and me, and for all brave men, my brother," said Wayne, in his +strange chant, "there is good wine poured in the inn at the end of the +world." + +The packed men made another lurch or heave towards him; it was almost +too dark to fight clearly. He caught hold of the oak again, this time +getting his hand into a wide crevice and grasping, as it were, the +bowels of the tree. The whole crowd, numbering some thirty men, made a +rush to tear him away from it; they hung on with all their weight and +numbers, and nothing stirred. A solitude could not have been stiller +than that group of straining men. Then there was a faint sound. "His hand is slipping," cried two men in exultation. -"You don't know much of him," said another, grimly (a man of -the old war). "More likely his bone cracks." +"You don't know much of him," said another, grimly (a man of the old +war). "More likely his bone cracks." -"It is neither---by God, it is neither!" said one of the -first two. +"It is neither---by God, it is neither!" said one of the first two. "What is it, then?" asked the second. "The tree is falling," he replied. -"As the tree falleth, so shall it lie," said Wayne's voice -out of the darkness, and it had the same sweet and yet -horrible air that it had had throughout, of coming from a -great distance, from before or after the event. Even when he -was struggling like an eel or battering like a madman, he -spoke like a spectator. "As the tree falleth, so shall it -lie," he said. "Men have called that a gloomy text. It is -the essence of all exultation. I am doing now what I have -done all my life, what is the only happiness, what is the -only universality. I am clinging to something. Let it fall, -and there let it lie. Fools, you go about and see the -kingdoms of the earth, and are liberal, and wise, and -cosmopolitan, which is all that the devil can give you---all -that he could offer to Christ only to be spurned away. I am -doing what the truly wise do. When a child goes out into the -garden and takes hold of a tree, saying, 'Let this tree be -all I have,' that moment its roots take hold on hell and its -branches on the stars. The joy I have is what the lover -knows when a woman is everything. It is what a savage knows -when his idol is everything. It is what I know when Notting -Hill is everything. I have a city. Let it stand or fall." - -As he spoke, the turf lifted itself like a living thing, and -out of it rose slowly, like crested serpents, the roots of -the oak. Then the great head of the tree, that seemed a -green cloud among grey ones, swept the sky suddenly like a -broom, and the whole tree heeled over like a ship, smashing -every one in its fall. +"As the tree falleth, so shall it lie," said Wayne's voice out of the +darkness, and it had the same sweet and yet horrible air that it had had +throughout, of coming from a great distance, from before or after the +event. Even when he was struggling like an eel or battering like a +madman, he spoke like a spectator. "As the tree falleth, so shall it +lie," he said. "Men have called that a gloomy text. It is the essence of +all exultation. I am doing now what I have done all my life, what is the +only happiness, what is the only universality. I am clinging to +something. Let it fall, and there let it lie. Fools, you go about and +see the kingdoms of the earth, and are liberal, and wise, and +cosmopolitan, which is all that the devil can give you---all that he +could offer to Christ only to be spurned away. I am doing what the truly +wise do. When a child goes out into the garden and takes hold of a tree, +saying, 'Let this tree be all I have,' that moment its roots take hold +on hell and its branches on the stars. The joy I have is what the lover +knows when a woman is everything. It is what a savage knows when his +idol is everything. It is what I know when Notting Hill is everything. I +have a city. Let it stand or fall." + +As he spoke, the turf lifted itself like a living thing, and out of it +rose slowly, like crested serpents, the roots of the oak. Then the great +head of the tree, that seemed a green cloud among grey ones, swept the +sky suddenly like a broom, and the whole tree heeled over like a ship, +smashing every one in its fall. ## Two Voices -In a place in which there was total darkness for hours, -there was also for hours total silence. Then a voice spoke -out of the darkness, no one could have told from where, and -said aloud-- - -"So ends the Empire of Notting Hill As it began in blood, so -it ended in blood, and all things are always the same." - -And there was silence again, and then again there was a -voice, but it had not the same tone; it seemed that it was -not the same voice. - -"If all things are always the same, it is because they are -always heroic. If all things are always the same, it is -because they are always new. To each man one soul only is -given; to each soul only is given a little power---the power -at some moments to outgrow and swallow up the stars. If age -after age that power comes upon men, whatever gives it to -them is great. Whatever makes men feel old is mean---an -empire or a skin-flint shop. Whatever makes men feel young -is great---a great war or a love story. And in the darkest -of the books of God there is written a truth that is also a -riddle. It is of the new things that men tire---of fashions -and proposals and improvements and change. It is the old -things that startle and intoxicate. It is the old things -that are young. There is no sceptic who does not feel that -many have doubted before. There is no rich and fickle man -who does not feel that all his novelties are ancient. There -is no worshipper of change who does not feel upon his neck -the vast weight of the weariness of the universe. But we who -do the old things are fed by nature with a perpetual -infancy. No man who is in love thinks that any one has been -in love before. No woman who has a child thinks that there -have been such things as children. No people that fight for -their own city are haunted with the burden of the broken -empires. Yes, oh dark voice, the world is always the same, -for it is always unexpected." - -A little gust of wind blew through the night, and then the -first voice answered-- - -"But in this world there are some, be they wise or foolish, -whom nothing intoxicates. There are some who see all your -disturbances like a cloud of flies. They know that while men -will laugh at your Notting Hill, and will study and rehearse -and sing of Athens and Jerusalem, Athens and Jerusalem were -silly suburbs like your Notting Hill. They know that the -earth itself is a suburb, and can feel only drearily and -respectably amused as they move upon it." - -"They are philosophers or they are fools," said the other -voice. "They are not men. Men live, as I say, rejoicing from -age to age in something fresher than progress---in the fact -that with every baby a new sun and a new moon are made. If -our ancient humanity were a single man, it might perhaps be -that he would break down under the memory of so many -loyalties, under the burden of so many diverse heroisms, -under the load and terror of all the goodness of men. But it -has pleased God so to isolate the individual soul that it -can only learn of all other souls by hearsay, and to each -one goodness and happiness come with the youth and violence -of lightning, as momentary and as pure. And the doom of -failure that lies on all human systems does not in real fact -affect them any more than the worms of the inevitable grave -affect a children's game in a meadow. Notting Hill has -fallen; Notting Hill has died. But that is not the -tremendous issue. Notting Hill has lived." - -"But if," answered the other voice, "if what is achieved by -all these efforts be only the common contentment of -humanity, why do men so extravagantly toil and die in them? -Has nothing been done by Netting Hill that any chance clump -of farmers or clan of savages would not have done without -it? What might have been done to Notting Hill if the world -had been different may be a deep question; but there is a -deeper. What could have happened to the world if Notting -Hill had never been?" +In a place in which there was total darkness for hours, there was also +for hours total silence. Then a voice spoke out of the darkness, no one +could have told from where, and said aloud-- + +"So ends the Empire of Notting Hill As it began in blood, so it ended in +blood, and all things are always the same." + +And there was silence again, and then again there was a voice, but it +had not the same tone; it seemed that it was not the same voice. + +"If all things are always the same, it is because they are always +heroic. If all things are always the same, it is because they are always +new. To each man one soul only is given; to each soul only is given a +little power---the power at some moments to outgrow and swallow up the +stars. If age after age that power comes upon men, whatever gives it to +them is great. Whatever makes men feel old is mean---an empire or a +skin-flint shop. Whatever makes men feel young is great---a great war or +a love story. And in the darkest of the books of God there is written a +truth that is also a riddle. It is of the new things that men tire---of +fashions and proposals and improvements and change. It is the old things +that startle and intoxicate. It is the old things that are young. There +is no sceptic who does not feel that many have doubted before. There is +no rich and fickle man who does not feel that all his novelties are +ancient. There is no worshipper of change who does not feel upon his +neck the vast weight of the weariness of the universe. But we who do the +old things are fed by nature with a perpetual infancy. No man who is in +love thinks that any one has been in love before. No woman who has a +child thinks that there have been such things as children. No people +that fight for their own city are haunted with the burden of the broken +empires. Yes, oh dark voice, the world is always the same, for it is +always unexpected." + +A little gust of wind blew through the night, and then the first voice +answered-- + +"But in this world there are some, be they wise or foolish, whom nothing +intoxicates. There are some who see all your disturbances like a cloud +of flies. They know that while men will laugh at your Notting Hill, and +will study and rehearse and sing of Athens and Jerusalem, Athens and +Jerusalem were silly suburbs like your Notting Hill. They know that the +earth itself is a suburb, and can feel only drearily and respectably +amused as they move upon it." + +"They are philosophers or they are fools," said the other voice. "They +are not men. Men live, as I say, rejoicing from age to age in something +fresher than progress---in the fact that with every baby a new sun and a +new moon are made. If our ancient humanity were a single man, it might +perhaps be that he would break down under the memory of so many +loyalties, under the burden of so many diverse heroisms, under the load +and terror of all the goodness of men. But it has pleased God so to +isolate the individual soul that it can only learn of all other souls by +hearsay, and to each one goodness and happiness come with the youth and +violence of lightning, as momentary and as pure. And the doom of failure +that lies on all human systems does not in real fact affect them any +more than the worms of the inevitable grave affect a children's game in +a meadow. Notting Hill has fallen; Notting Hill has died. But that is +not the tremendous issue. Notting Hill has lived." + +"But if," answered the other voice, "if what is achieved by all these +efforts be only the common contentment of humanity, why do men so +extravagantly toil and die in them? Has nothing been done by Netting +Hill that any chance clump of farmers or clan of savages would not have +done without it? What might have been done to Notting Hill if the world +had been different may be a deep question; but there is a deeper. What +could have happened to the world if Notting Hill had never been?" The other voice replied-- -"The same that would have happened to the world and all the -starry systems if an apple-tree grew six apples instead of -seven; something would have been eternally lost. There has -never been anything in the world absolutely like Notting -Hill. There will never be anything quite like it to the -crack of doom. I cannot believe anything but that God loved -it as He must surely love anything that is itself and -unreplaceable. But even for that I do not care. If God, with -all His thunders, hated it, I loved it." +"The same that would have happened to the world and all the starry +systems if an apple-tree grew six apples instead of seven; something +would have been eternally lost. There has never been anything in the +world absolutely like Notting Hill. There will never be anything quite +like it to the crack of doom. I cannot believe anything but that God +loved it as He must surely love anything that is itself and +unreplaceable. But even for that I do not care. If God, with all His +thunders, hated it, I loved it." -And with the voice a tall, strange figure lifted itself out -of the debris in the half-darkness. +And with the voice a tall, strange figure lifted itself out of the +debris in the half-darkness. -The other voice came after a long pause, and as it were -hoarsely. +The other voice came after a long pause, and as it were hoarsely. -"But suppose the whole matter were really a hocus-pocus. -Suppose that whatever meaning you may choose in your fancy -to give to it, the real meaning of the whole was mockery. -Suppose it was all folly. Suppose--" +"But suppose the whole matter were really a hocus-pocus. Suppose that +whatever meaning you may choose in your fancy to give to it, the real +meaning of the whole was mockery. Suppose it was all folly. Suppose--" -"I have been in it," answered the voice from the tall and -strange figure, "and I know it was not." +"I have been in it," answered the voice from the tall and strange +figure, "and I know it was not." A smaller figure seemed half to rise in the dark. -"Suppose I am God," said the voice, "and suppose I made the -world in idleness. Suppose the stars, that you think -eternal, are only the idiot fireworks of an everlasting -schoolboy. Suppose the sun and the moon, to which you sing -alternately, are only the two eyes of one vast and sneering -giant, opened alternately in a never-ending wink. Suppose -the trees, in my eyes, are as foolish as enormous -toad-stools. Suppose Socrates and Charlemagne are to me only -beasts, made funnier by walking on their hind legs. Suppose -I am God, and having made things, laugh at them." - -"And suppose I am man," answered the other. "And suppose -that I give the answer that shatters even a laugh. Suppose I -do not laugh back at you, do not blaspheme you, do not curse -you. But suppose, standing up straight under the sky, with -every power of my being, I thank you for the fools' paradise -you have made. Suppose I praise you, with a literal pain of -ecstasy, for the jest that has brought me so terrible a joy. -If we have taken the child's games, and given them the -seriousness of a Crusade, if we have drenched your grotesque -Dutch garden with the blood of martyrs, we have turned a -nursery into a temple. I ask you, in the name of Heaven, who -wins?" - -The sky close about the crest of the hills and trees was -beginning to turn from black to grey, with a random -suggestion of the morning. The slight figure seemed to crawl -towards the larger one, and the voice was more human. - -"But suppose, friend," it said, "suppose that, in a bitterer -and more real sense, it was all a mockery. Suppose that -there had been, from the beginning of these great wars, one -who watched them with a sense that is beyond expression, a -sense of detachment, of responsibility, of irony, of agony. -Suppose that there were one who knew it was all a joke." +"Suppose I am God," said the voice, "and suppose I made the world in +idleness. Suppose the stars, that you think eternal, are only the idiot +fireworks of an everlasting schoolboy. Suppose the sun and the moon, to +which you sing alternately, are only the two eyes of one vast and +sneering giant, opened alternately in a never-ending wink. Suppose the +trees, in my eyes, are as foolish as enormous toad-stools. Suppose +Socrates and Charlemagne are to me only beasts, made funnier by walking +on their hind legs. Suppose I am God, and having made things, laugh at +them." + +"And suppose I am man," answered the other. "And suppose that I give the +answer that shatters even a laugh. Suppose I do not laugh back at you, +do not blaspheme you, do not curse you. But suppose, standing up +straight under the sky, with every power of my being, I thank you for +the fools' paradise you have made. Suppose I praise you, with a literal +pain of ecstasy, for the jest that has brought me so terrible a joy. If +we have taken the child's games, and given them the seriousness of a +Crusade, if we have drenched your grotesque Dutch garden with the blood +of martyrs, we have turned a nursery into a temple. I ask you, in the +name of Heaven, who wins?" + +The sky close about the crest of the hills and trees was beginning to +turn from black to grey, with a random suggestion of the morning. The +slight figure seemed to crawl towards the larger one, and the voice was +more human. + +"But suppose, friend," it said, "suppose that, in a bitterer and more +real sense, it was all a mockery. Suppose that there had been, from the +beginning of these great wars, one who watched them with a sense that is +beyond expression, a sense of detachment, of responsibility, of irony, +of agony. Suppose that there were one who knew it was all a joke." The tall figure answered-- "He could not know it. For it was not all a joke." -And a gust of wind blew away some clouds that sealed the -sky-line, and showed a strip of silver behind his great dark -legs. Then the other voice came, having crept nearer still. - -"Adam Wayne," it said, "there are men who confess only in -*articulo mortis*; there are people who blame themselves -only when they can no longer help others. I am one of them. -Here, upon the field of the bloody end of it all, I come to -tell you plainly what you would never understand before. Do -you know who I am?" - -"I know you, Auberon Quin," answered the tall figure, "and I -shall be glad to unburden your spirit of anything that lies -upon it." - -"Adam Wayne," said the other voice, "of what I have to say -you cannot in common reason be glad to unburden me. Wayne, -it was all a joke. When I made these cities, I cared no more -for them than I care for a centaur, or a merman, or a fish -with legs, or a pig with feathers, or any other absurdity. -When I spoke to you solemnly and encouragingly about the -flag of your freedom and the peace of your city, I was -playing a vulgar practical joke on an honest gentleman, a -vulgar practical joke that has lasted for twenty years. -Though no one could believe ft of me perhaps, it is the -truth that I am a man both timid and tender-hearted. I never -dared in the early days of your hope, or the central days of -your supremacy, to tell you this; I never dared to break the -colossal calm of your face. God knows why I should do it -now, when my farce has ended in tragedy and the ruin of all -your people! But I say it now. Wayne, it was done as a -joke." - -There was silence, and the freshening breeze blew the sky -clearer and clearer, leaving great spaces of the white dawn. +And a gust of wind blew away some clouds that sealed the sky-line, and +showed a strip of silver behind his great dark legs. Then the other +voice came, having crept nearer still. + +"Adam Wayne," it said, "there are men who confess only in *articulo +mortis*; there are people who blame themselves only when they can no +longer help others. I am one of them. Here, upon the field of the bloody +end of it all, I come to tell you plainly what you would never +understand before. Do you know who I am?" + +"I know you, Auberon Quin," answered the tall figure, "and I shall be +glad to unburden your spirit of anything that lies upon it." + +"Adam Wayne," said the other voice, "of what I have to say you cannot in +common reason be glad to unburden me. Wayne, it was all a joke. When I +made these cities, I cared no more for them than I care for a centaur, +or a merman, or a fish with legs, or a pig with feathers, or any other +absurdity. When I spoke to you solemnly and encouragingly about the flag +of your freedom and the peace of your city, I was playing a vulgar +practical joke on an honest gentleman, a vulgar practical joke that has +lasted for twenty years. Though no one could believe ft of me perhaps, +it is the truth that I am a man both timid and tender-hearted. I never +dared in the early days of your hope, or the central days of your +supremacy, to tell you this; I never dared to break the colossal calm of +your face. God knows why I should do it now, when my farce has ended in +tragedy and the ruin of all your people! But I say it now. Wayne, it was +done as a joke." + +There was silence, and the freshening breeze blew the sky clearer and +clearer, leaving great spaces of the white dawn. At last Wayne said, very slowly-- @@ -6780,73 +5905,63 @@ At last Wayne said, very slowly-- "Yes," said Quin. -"When you conceived the idea," went on Wayne, dreamily, "of -an army for Bayswater and a flag for Notting Hill, there was -no gleam, no suggestion in your mind that such things might -be real and passionate?" - -"No," answered Auberon, turning his round, white face to the -morning with a dull and splendid sincerity; "I had none at -all." - -Wayne sprang down from the height above him and held out his -hand. - -"I will not stop to thank you," he said, with a curious joy -in his voice, "for the great good for the world you have -actually wrought. All that I think of that I have said to -you a moment ago, even when I thought that your voice was -the voice of a derisive omnipotence, its laughter older than -the winds of heaven. But let me say what is immediate and -true. You and I, Auberon Quin, have both of us throughout -our lives been again and again called mad. And we are mad. -We are mad, because we are not two men but one man. We are -mad, because we are two lobes of the same brain, and that -brain has been cloven in two. And if you ask for the proof -of it, it is not hard to find. It is not merely that you, -the humorist, have been in these dark days stripped of the -joy of gravity. It is not merely that I, the fanatic, have -had to grope without humour. It is that though we seem to be -opposite in everything, we have been opposite like man and -woman, aiming at the same moment at the same practical -thing. We are the father and the mother of the Charter of -the Cities." - -Quin looked down at the debris of leaves and timber, the -relics of the battle and stampede, now glistening in the -glowing daylight, and finally said-- - -"Yet nothing can alter the antagonism---the fact that I -laughed at these things and you adored them." - -Wayne's wild face flamed with something god-like, as he -turned it to be struck by the sunrise. - -"I know of something that will alter that antagonism, -something that is outside us, something that you and I have -all our lives perhaps taken too little account of. The equal -and eternal human being will alter that antagonism, for the -human being sees no real antagonism between laughter and -respect, the human being, the common man, whom mere geniuses -like you and me can only worship like a god. When dark and -dreary days come, you and I are necessary, the pure fanatic, -the pure satirist. We have between us remedied a great -wrong. We have lifted the modern cities into that poetry -which every one who knows mankind knows to be immeasurably -more common than the commonplace. But in healthy people -there is no war between us. We are but the two lobes of the -brain of a ploughman. Laughter and love are everywhere. The -cathedrals, built in the ages that loved God, are full of -blasphemous grotesques. The mother laughs continually at the -child, the lover laughs continually at the lover, the wife -at the husband, the friend at the friend. Auberon Quin, we -have been too long separated; let us go out together. You -have a halberd and I a sword, let us start our wanderings -over the world. For we are its two essentials. Come, it is -already day." - -In the blank white light Auberon hesitated a moment. Then he -made the formal salute with his halberd, and they went away -together into the unknown world. +"When you conceived the idea," went on Wayne, dreamily, "of an army for +Bayswater and a flag for Notting Hill, there was no gleam, no suggestion +in your mind that such things might be real and passionate?" + +"No," answered Auberon, turning his round, white face to the morning +with a dull and splendid sincerity; "I had none at all." + +Wayne sprang down from the height above him and held out his hand. + +"I will not stop to thank you," he said, with a curious joy in his +voice, "for the great good for the world you have actually wrought. All +that I think of that I have said to you a moment ago, even when I +thought that your voice was the voice of a derisive omnipotence, its +laughter older than the winds of heaven. But let me say what is +immediate and true. You and I, Auberon Quin, have both of us throughout +our lives been again and again called mad. And we are mad. We are mad, +because we are not two men but one man. We are mad, because we are two +lobes of the same brain, and that brain has been cloven in two. And if +you ask for the proof of it, it is not hard to find. It is not merely +that you, the humorist, have been in these dark days stripped of the joy +of gravity. It is not merely that I, the fanatic, have had to grope +without humour. It is that though we seem to be opposite in everything, +we have been opposite like man and woman, aiming at the same moment at +the same practical thing. We are the father and the mother of the +Charter of the Cities." + +Quin looked down at the debris of leaves and timber, the relics of the +battle and stampede, now glistening in the glowing daylight, and finally +said-- + +"Yet nothing can alter the antagonism---the fact that I laughed at these +things and you adored them." + +Wayne's wild face flamed with something god-like, as he turned it to be +struck by the sunrise. + +"I know of something that will alter that antagonism, something that is +outside us, something that you and I have all our lives perhaps taken +too little account of. The equal and eternal human being will alter that +antagonism, for the human being sees no real antagonism between laughter +and respect, the human being, the common man, whom mere geniuses like +you and me can only worship like a god. When dark and dreary days come, +you and I are necessary, the pure fanatic, the pure satirist. We have +between us remedied a great wrong. We have lifted the modern cities into +that poetry which every one who knows mankind knows to be immeasurably +more common than the commonplace. But in healthy people there is no war +between us. We are but the two lobes of the brain of a ploughman. +Laughter and love are everywhere. The cathedrals, built in the ages that +loved God, are full of blasphemous grotesques. The mother laughs +continually at the child, the lover laughs continually at the lover, the +wife at the husband, the friend at the friend. Auberon Quin, we have +been too long separated; let us go out together. You have a halberd and +I a sword, let us start our wanderings over the world. For we are its +two essentials. Come, it is already day." + +In the blank white light Auberon hesitated a moment. Then he made the +formal salute with his halberd, and they went away together into the +unknown world. **The End.** diff --git a/src/on-nonresistance.md b/src/on-nonresistance.md index 53bfe5e..7176352 100644 --- a/src/on-nonresistance.md +++ b/src/on-nonresistance.md @@ -1,443 +1,379 @@ -My dear Crosby:---I am very glad to hear of your activity -and that it is beginning to attract attention. Fifty years -ago Garrison's proclamation of non-resistance only cooled -people toward him, and the whole fifty years' activity of -Ballou in this direction was met with stubborn silence. I -read with great pleasure in *Peace* the beautiful ideas of -the American authors in regard to non-resistance. I make an -exception only in the case of Mr. Bemis's old, unfounded -opinion, which calumniates Christ in assuming that Christ's -expulsion of the cattle from the temple means that he struck -the men with a whip, and commanded his disciples to do -likewise. - -The ideas expressed by these writers, especially by H. -Newton and G. Herron, are beautiful, but it is to be -regretted that they do not answer the question which Christ -put before men, but answer the question which the so-called -orthodox teachers of the churches, the chief and most +My dear Crosby:---I am very glad to hear of your activity and that it is +beginning to attract attention. Fifty years ago Garrison's proclamation +of non-resistance only cooled people toward him, and the whole fifty +years' activity of Ballou in this direction was met with stubborn +silence. I read with great pleasure in *Peace* the beautiful ideas of +the American authors in regard to non-resistance. I make an exception +only in the case of Mr. Bemis's old, unfounded opinion, which +calumniates Christ in assuming that Christ's expulsion of the cattle +from the temple means that he struck the men with a whip, and commanded +his disciples to do likewise. + +The ideas expressed by these writers, especially by H. Newton and G. +Herron, are beautiful, but it is to be regretted that they do not answer +the question which Christ put before men, but answer the question which +the so-called orthodox teachers of the churches, the chief and most dangerous enemies of Christianity, have put in its place. -Mr. Higginson says that the law of non-resistance is not -admissible as a general rule. H. Newton says that the -practical results of the application of Christ's teaching -will depend on the degree of faith which men will have in -this teaching. Mr. C Martyn assumes that the stage at which -we are is not yet suited for the application of the teaching -about non-resistance. G. Herron says that in order to fulfil -the law of non-resistance, it is necessary to learn to apply -it to life. Mrs. Livermore says the same, thinking that the -fulfilment of the law of non-resistance is possible only in -the future. - -All these opinions treat only the question as to what would -happen to people if all were put to the necessity of -fulfilling the law of non-resistance; but, in the first -place, it is quite impossible to compel all men to accept -the law of non-resistance, and, in the second, if this were -possible, it would be a most glaring negation of the very -principle which is being established. To compel all men not -to practise violence against others! Who is going to compel -men? - -In the third place, and above all else, the question, as put -by Christ, does not consist in this, whether non-resistance -may become a universal law for all humanity, but what each -man must do in order to fulfil his destiny, to save his -soul, and do God's work, which reduces itself to the same. - -The Christian teaching does not prescribe any laws for all -men; it does not say, "Follow such and such rules under fear -of punishment, and you will all be happy," but explains to -each separate man his position in the world and shows him -what for him personally results from this position. The -Christian teaching says to each individual man that his -life, if he recognizes his life to be his, and its aim, the -worldly good of his personality or of the personalities of -other men, can have no rational meaning, because this good, -posited as the end of life, can never be attained, because, -in the first place, all beings strive after the goods of the -worldly life, and these goods are always attained by one set -of beings to the detriment of others, so that every separate -man cannot receive the desired good, but, in all -probability, must even endure many unnecessary sufferings in -his struggle for these unattained goods; in the second -place, because if a man even attains the worldly goods, -these, the more of them he attains, satisfy him less and -less, and he wishes for more and more new ones; in the third -place, mainly because the longer a man lives, the more -inevitably do old age, diseases, and finally death, which -destroys the possibility of any worldly good, come to him. - -Thus, if a man considers his life to be his, and its end to -be the worldly good, for himself or for other men, this life -can have for him no rational meaning. Life receives a -rational meaning only when a man understands that the -recognition of his life as his own, and the good of -personality, of his own or of that of others, as its end, is -an error, and that the human life does not belong to him, -who has received this life from some one, but to Him who -produced this life, and so its end must not consist in the -attainment of his own good or of the good of others, but -only in the fulfilment of the will of Him who produced it. -Only with such a comprehension of life does it receive a -rational meaning, and its end, which consists in the -fulfilment of God's will, become attainable, and, above all, -only with such a comprehension does man's activity become -clearly denned, and he no longer is subject to despair and -suffering, which were inevitable with his former +Mr. Higginson says that the law of non-resistance is not admissible as a +general rule. H. Newton says that the practical results of the +application of Christ's teaching will depend on the degree of faith +which men will have in this teaching. Mr. C Martyn assumes that the +stage at which we are is not yet suited for the application of the +teaching about non-resistance. G. Herron says that in order to fulfil +the law of non-resistance, it is necessary to learn to apply it to life. +Mrs. Livermore says the same, thinking that the fulfilment of the law of +non-resistance is possible only in the future. + +All these opinions treat only the question as to what would happen to +people if all were put to the necessity of fulfilling the law of +non-resistance; but, in the first place, it is quite impossible to +compel all men to accept the law of non-resistance, and, in the second, +if this were possible, it would be a most glaring negation of the very +principle which is being established. To compel all men not to practise +violence against others! Who is going to compel men? + +In the third place, and above all else, the question, as put by Christ, +does not consist in this, whether non-resistance may become a universal +law for all humanity, but what each man must do in order to fulfil his +destiny, to save his soul, and do God's work, which reduces itself to +the same. + +The Christian teaching does not prescribe any laws for all men; it does +not say, "Follow such and such rules under fear of punishment, and you +will all be happy," but explains to each separate man his position in +the world and shows him what for him personally results from this +position. The Christian teaching says to each individual man that his +life, if he recognizes his life to be his, and its aim, the worldly good +of his personality or of the personalities of other men, can have no +rational meaning, because this good, posited as the end of life, can +never be attained, because, in the first place, all beings strive after +the goods of the worldly life, and these goods are always attained by +one set of beings to the detriment of others, so that every separate man +cannot receive the desired good, but, in all probability, must even +endure many unnecessary sufferings in his struggle for these unattained +goods; in the second place, because if a man even attains the worldly +goods, these, the more of them he attains, satisfy him less and less, +and he wishes for more and more new ones; in the third place, mainly +because the longer a man lives, the more inevitably do old age, +diseases, and finally death, which destroys the possibility of any +worldly good, come to him. + +Thus, if a man considers his life to be his, and its end to be the +worldly good, for himself or for other men, this life can have for him +no rational meaning. Life receives a rational meaning only when a man +understands that the recognition of his life as his own, and the good of +personality, of his own or of that of others, as its end, is an error, +and that the human life does not belong to him, who has received this +life from some one, but to Him who produced this life, and so its end +must not consist in the attainment of his own good or of the good of +others, but only in the fulfilment of the will of Him who produced it. +Only with such a comprehension of life does it receive a rational +meaning, and its end, which consists in the fulfilment of God's will, +become attainable, and, above all, only with such a comprehension does +man's activity become clearly denned, and he no longer is subject to +despair and suffering, which were inevitable with his former comprehension. -"The world and I in it," such a man says to himself, "exist -by the will of God. I cannot know the whole world and my -relation to it, but I can know what is wanted of me by God, -who sent men into this world, endless in time and space, and -therefore inaccessible to my understanding, because this is -revealed to me in the tradition, that is, in the aggregate -reason of the best people in the world, who lived before me, -and in my reason, and in my heart, that is, in the striving -of my whole being. - -"In the tradition, the aggregate of the wisdom of all the -best men, who lived before me, I am told that I must act -toward others as I wish that others should act toward me; my -reason tells me that the greatest good of men is possible -only when all men will act likewise. - -"My heart is at peace and joyful only when I abandon myself -to the feeling of love for men, which demands the same. And -then I can not only know what I must do, but also the cause -for which my activity is necessary aDd defined. - -"I cannot grasp the whole divine work, for which the world -exists and lives, but the divine work which is being -accomplished in this world and in which I am taking part -with my life is accessible to me. This work is the -destruction of the discord and of the struggle among men and -other beings, and the establishment among men of the -greatest union, concord, and love; this work is the -realization of what the Jewish prophets promised, saying -that the time will come when all men shall be taught the -truth, when the spears shall be forged iuto pruning-hooks, -and the scythes and swords into ploughshares, and when the -Hon shall lie with the lamb." - -Thus the man of the Christian comprehension of life not only -knows how he must act in life, but also what he must do. - -He must do what contributes to the establishment of the -kingdom of God in the world. To do this, a man must fulfil -the inner demands of God's will, that is, he must act -amicably toward others, as he would like others to do to -him. Thus the inner demands of a man's soul coincide with -that external end of life which is placed before him. - -And here though we have an indication which is so clear to a -man of the Christian comprehension, and incontestable from -two sides, as to what the meaning and end of human life -consists in, and how a man must act, and what he must do, -and what not, there appear certain people, who call -themselves Christians, who decide that in such and such -cases a man must depart from God's law and the common cause -of life, which are given to him, and must act contrary to -the law and the common cause of life, because, according to -their ratiocination, the consequences of the acts committed -according to God's law may be profitless and disadvantageous +"The world and I in it," such a man says to himself, "exist by the will +of God. I cannot know the whole world and my relation to it, but I can +know what is wanted of me by God, who sent men into this world, endless +in time and space, and therefore inaccessible to my understanding, +because this is revealed to me in the tradition, that is, in the +aggregate reason of the best people in the world, who lived before me, +and in my reason, and in my heart, that is, in the striving of my whole +being. + +"In the tradition, the aggregate of the wisdom of all the best men, who +lived before me, I am told that I must act toward others as I wish that +others should act toward me; my reason tells me that the greatest good +of men is possible only when all men will act likewise. + +"My heart is at peace and joyful only when I abandon myself to the +feeling of love for men, which demands the same. And then I can not only +know what I must do, but also the cause for which my activity is +necessary aDd defined. + +"I cannot grasp the whole divine work, for which the world exists and +lives, but the divine work which is being accomplished in this world and +in which I am taking part with my life is accessible to me. This work is +the destruction of the discord and of the struggle among men and other +beings, and the establishment among men of the greatest union, concord, +and love; this work is the realization of what the Jewish prophets +promised, saying that the time will come when all men shall be taught +the truth, when the spears shall be forged iuto pruning-hooks, and the +scythes and swords into ploughshares, and when the Hon shall lie with +the lamb." + +Thus the man of the Christian comprehension of life not only knows how +he must act in life, but also what he must do. + +He must do what contributes to the establishment of the kingdom of God +in the world. To do this, a man must fulfil the inner demands of God's +will, that is, he must act amicably toward others, as he would like +others to do to him. Thus the inner demands of a man's soul coincide +with that external end of life which is placed before him. + +And here though we have an indication which is so clear to a man of the +Christian comprehension, and incontestable from two sides, as to what +the meaning and end of human life consists in, and how a man must act, +and what he must do, and what not, there appear certain people, who call +themselves Christians, who decide that in such and such cases a man must +depart from God's law and the common cause of life, which are given to +him, and must act contrary to the law and the common cause of life, +because, according to their ratiocination, the consequences of the acts +committed according to God's law may be profitless and disadvantageous for men. -Man, according to the Christian teaching, is God's workman. -The workman does not know his master's whole business, but -the nearest aim to be attained by his work is revealed to -him, and he is given definite indications as to what he -should do; especially definite are the indications as to -what he must not do, in order that he may not work against -the aim for the attainment of which he was sent to work. In -everything else he is given complete liberty. And so for a -man who has grasped the Christian conception of life the -meaning of his life is clear and rational, and he cannot -have a moment of wavering as to how he should act in life -and what he ought to do, in order to fulfil the destiny of -his life. - -According to the law given him in the tradition, in his -reason, and in his heart, a man must always act toward -another as he wishes to have done to him: he must contribute -to the establishment of love and union among men; but -according to the decision of these far-sighted people, a man -must, while the fulfilment of the law, according to their -opinion, is still premature, do violence, deprive of -liberty, kill people, and with this contribute, not to union -of love, but to the irritation and enrage ment of people. It -is as though a mason, who is put to do certain definite -work, who knows that he is taking part with others in the -building of a house, and who has received a clear and -indubitable command from the master himself that he is to -lay a wall, should receive the command from other masons -like him, who, like him, do not know the general plan of the -structure and what is useful for the common work, to stop -laying the wall, and to undo the work of the others. - -Wonderful delusion! The being that breathes to-day and -disappears to-morrow, that has one definite, incontestable -law given to him, as to how he is to pass his short term of -life, imagines that he knows what is necessary and useful -and appropriate for all men, for the whole world, for that -world which moves without cessation, and goes on developing, -and in the name of this usefulness, which is differently -understood by each of them, he prescribes to himself and to -others for a time to depart from the unquestionable law, -which is given to him and to all men, and not to act toward -all men as he wants others to act toward him, not to bring -love into the world, but to practise violence, to deprive of -freedom, to punish, to kill, to introduce malice into Che -world, when it is found that this is necessary. And he -enjoins us to do so knowing that the most terrible -cruelties, tortures, murders of men, from the Inquisitions -and punishments and terrors of all the revolutions to the -present bestialities of the anarchists and the massacres of -them, have all proceeded from this, that men suppose that -they know what people and the world need; knowing that at -any given moment there are always two opposite parties, each -of which asserts that it is necessary to use violence -against the opposite party,---the men of state against the -anarchists, the anarchists against the men of state; the -English against the Americans, the Americans against the -English; the English against the Germans; and so forth, in -all possible combinations and permutations. - -Not only does a man of the Christian concept of life see -clearly by reflection that there is no ground whatever for -his departure from the law of his life, as clearly indicated -to him by God, in order to follow the accidental, frail, -frequently contradictory demands of men; but if he has been -living the Christian life for some time, and has developed -in himself the Christian moral sensitiveness, he can -positively not act as people demand that he shall, not only -as the result of reflection, but also of feeling. - -As it is for many men of our world impossible to subject a -child to torture and to kill it, though such a torture may -save a hundred other people, so a whole series of acts -becomes impossible for a man who has developed the Christian -sensitiveness of his heart in himself. A Chris- tian, for -example, who is compelled to take part in court proceedings, -where a man may be sentenced to capital punishment, to take -part in matters of forcible seizure of other people's -property, in discussions about the declaration of war, or in -preparations for the same, to say nothing of war itself, -finds himself in the same position in which a good man would -be, if he were compelled to torture or kill a child. It is -not that he decides by reflection what he ought not to do, -but that he cannot do what is demanded of him, because for a -man there exists the moral impossibility, just as there is a -physical impossibility, of committing certain acts. Just as -it is impossible for a man to lift up a mountain, as it is -impossible for a good man to kill a child, so it is -impossible for a man who lives a Christian life to take part -in violence. Of what significance for such a man can be the -reflections that for some imaginary good he must do what has -become morally impossible for him? - -How, then, is a man to act when he sees the obvious harm of -following the law of love and the law of non-resistance, -which results from it? How is a man to act---this example is -always adduced---when a robber in his sight kills or injures -a child, and when the child cannot be saved otherwise than -by killing the robber? - -It is generally assumed that, when they adduce such an -example, there can be no other answer to the question than -that the robber ought to be killed, in order that the child -be saved. But this answer is given so emphatically and so -quickly only because we are not only in the habit of acting -in this manner in the case of the defence of a child, but -also in the case of the expansion of the borders of a -neighbouring state to the detriment of our own, or in the -case of the transportation of lace across the border, or -even in the case of the defence of the fruits of our garden -against depredations by passers-by. - -It is assumed that it is necessary to kill the robber in -order to save the child, but we need only stop and think on -what ground a man should act thus, be he a Christian or a -non-Christian, to convince ourselves that such an act can -have no rational foundations, and is considered necessary -only because two thousand years ago such a mode of action -was considered just and people were in the habit of acting -thus. Why should a non-Christian, who does not recognize God -and the meaning of life in the fulfilment of His will, kill -the robber, in defending the child? To say nothing of this, -that in killing the robber he is certainly killing, but does -not know for certain until the very last moment whether the -robber will kill the child or not, to say nothing of this -irregularity: who has decided that the life of the child is -more necessary and better than the life of the robber? - -If a non-Christian does not recognize God, and does not -consider the meaning of life to consist in the fulfilment of -God's will, it is only calculation, that is, the -consideration as to what is more profitable for him and for -all men, the continuation of the robber's life or that of -the child, which guides the choice of his acts. But to -decide this, he must know what will become of the child -which he saves, and what would become of the robber if he -did not kill him. But that he cannot know. And so, if he is -a non-Christian, he has no rational foundation for saving -the child through the death of the robber. - -But if a man is a Christian, and so recognizes God and sees -the meaning of life in the fulfilment of His will, no matter -what terrible robber may attack any innocent and beautiful -child, he has still less cause to depart from the law given -him by God and to do to the robber what the robber wants to -do to the child; he may implore the robber, may place his -body between the robber and his victim, but there is one -thing he cannot do,---he cannot consciously depart from the -law of God, the fulfilment of which forms the meaning of his -life. It is very likely that, as the result of his bad -bringing up and of his animality, a man, being a pagan or a -Christian, will kill the robber, not only in the defence of -the child, but also in his own defence or in the defence of -his purse, but that will by no means signify that it is -right to do so, that it is right to accustom ourselves and -others to think that that ought to be done. - -This will only mean that, in spite of the external education -and Christianity, the habits of the stone age are still -strong in man, that he is capable of committing acts which -have long ago been disavowed by his consciousness. A robber -in my sight is about to kill a child and I can save it by -killing the robber; consequently it is necessary under +Man, according to the Christian teaching, is God's workman. The workman +does not know his master's whole business, but the nearest aim to be +attained by his work is revealed to him, and he is given definite +indications as to what he should do; especially definite are the +indications as to what he must not do, in order that he may not work +against the aim for the attainment of which he was sent to work. In +everything else he is given complete liberty. And so for a man who has +grasped the Christian conception of life the meaning of his life is +clear and rational, and he cannot have a moment of wavering as to how he +should act in life and what he ought to do, in order to fulfil the +destiny of his life. + +According to the law given him in the tradition, in his reason, and in +his heart, a man must always act toward another as he wishes to have +done to him: he must contribute to the establishment of love and union +among men; but according to the decision of these far-sighted people, a +man must, while the fulfilment of the law, according to their opinion, +is still premature, do violence, deprive of liberty, kill people, and +with this contribute, not to union of love, but to the irritation and +enrage ment of people. It is as though a mason, who is put to do certain +definite work, who knows that he is taking part with others in the +building of a house, and who has received a clear and indubitable +command from the master himself that he is to lay a wall, should receive +the command from other masons like him, who, like him, do not know the +general plan of the structure and what is useful for the common work, to +stop laying the wall, and to undo the work of the others. + +Wonderful delusion! The being that breathes to-day and disappears +to-morrow, that has one definite, incontestable law given to him, as to +how he is to pass his short term of life, imagines that he knows what is +necessary and useful and appropriate for all men, for the whole world, +for that world which moves without cessation, and goes on developing, +and in the name of this usefulness, which is differently understood by +each of them, he prescribes to himself and to others for a time to +depart from the unquestionable law, which is given to him and to all +men, and not to act toward all men as he wants others to act toward him, +not to bring love into the world, but to practise violence, to deprive +of freedom, to punish, to kill, to introduce malice into Che world, when +it is found that this is necessary. And he enjoins us to do so knowing +that the most terrible cruelties, tortures, murders of men, from the +Inquisitions and punishments and terrors of all the revolutions to the +present bestialities of the anarchists and the massacres of them, have +all proceeded from this, that men suppose that they know what people and +the world need; knowing that at any given moment there are always two +opposite parties, each of which asserts that it is necessary to use +violence against the opposite party,---the men of state against the +anarchists, the anarchists against the men of state; the English against +the Americans, the Americans against the English; the English against +the Germans; and so forth, in all possible combinations and +permutations. + +Not only does a man of the Christian concept of life see clearly by +reflection that there is no ground whatever for his departure from the +law of his life, as clearly indicated to him by God, in order to follow +the accidental, frail, frequently contradictory demands of men; but if +he has been living the Christian life for some time, and has developed +in himself the Christian moral sensitiveness, he can positively not act +as people demand that he shall, not only as the result of reflection, +but also of feeling. + +As it is for many men of our world impossible to subject a child to +torture and to kill it, though such a torture may save a hundred other +people, so a whole series of acts becomes impossible for a man who has +developed the Christian sensitiveness of his heart in himself. A Chris- +tian, for example, who is compelled to take part in court proceedings, +where a man may be sentenced to capital punishment, to take part in +matters of forcible seizure of other people's property, in discussions +about the declaration of war, or in preparations for the same, to say +nothing of war itself, finds himself in the same position in which a +good man would be, if he were compelled to torture or kill a child. It +is not that he decides by reflection what he ought not to do, but that +he cannot do what is demanded of him, because for a man there exists the +moral impossibility, just as there is a physical impossibility, of +committing certain acts. Just as it is impossible for a man to lift up a +mountain, as it is impossible for a good man to kill a child, so it is +impossible for a man who lives a Christian life to take part in +violence. Of what significance for such a man can be the reflections +that for some imaginary good he must do what has become morally +impossible for him? + +How, then, is a man to act when he sees the obvious harm of following +the law of love and the law of non-resistance, which results from it? +How is a man to act---this example is always adduced---when a robber in +his sight kills or injures a child, and when the child cannot be saved +otherwise than by killing the robber? + +It is generally assumed that, when they adduce such an example, there +can be no other answer to the question than that the robber ought to be +killed, in order that the child be saved. But this answer is given so +emphatically and so quickly only because we are not only in the habit of +acting in this manner in the case of the defence of a child, but also in +the case of the expansion of the borders of a neighbouring state to the +detriment of our own, or in the case of the transportation of lace +across the border, or even in the case of the defence of the fruits of +our garden against depredations by passers-by. + +It is assumed that it is necessary to kill the robber in order to save +the child, but we need only stop and think on what ground a man should +act thus, be he a Christian or a non-Christian, to convince ourselves +that such an act can have no rational foundations, and is considered +necessary only because two thousand years ago such a mode of action was +considered just and people were in the habit of acting thus. Why should +a non-Christian, who does not recognize God and the meaning of life in +the fulfilment of His will, kill the robber, in defending the child? To +say nothing of this, that in killing the robber he is certainly killing, +but does not know for certain until the very last moment whether the +robber will kill the child or not, to say nothing of this irregularity: +who has decided that the life of the child is more necessary and better +than the life of the robber? + +If a non-Christian does not recognize God, and does not consider the +meaning of life to consist in the fulfilment of God's will, it is only +calculation, that is, the consideration as to what is more profitable +for him and for all men, the continuation of the robber's life or that +of the child, which guides the choice of his acts. But to decide this, +he must know what will become of the child which he saves, and what +would become of the robber if he did not kill him. But that he cannot +know. And so, if he is a non-Christian, he has no rational foundation +for saving the child through the death of the robber. + +But if a man is a Christian, and so recognizes God and sees the meaning +of life in the fulfilment of His will, no matter what terrible robber +may attack any innocent and beautiful child, he has still less cause to +depart from the law given him by God and to do to the robber what the +robber wants to do to the child; he may implore the robber, may place +his body between the robber and his victim, but there is one thing he +cannot do,---he cannot consciously depart from the law of God, the +fulfilment of which forms the meaning of his life. It is very likely +that, as the result of his bad bringing up and of his animality, a man, +being a pagan or a Christian, will kill the robber, not only in the +defence of the child, but also in his own defence or in the defence of +his purse, but that will by no means signify that it is right to do so, +that it is right to accustom ourselves and others to think that that +ought to be done. + +This will only mean that, in spite of the external education and +Christianity, the habits of the stone age are still strong in man, that +he is capable of committing acts which have long ago been disavowed by +his consciousness. A robber in my sight is about to kill a child and I +can save it by killing the robber; consequently it is necessary under certain conditions to resist evil with violence. -A man is in danger of his life and can be saved only through -my lie; consequently it is necessary in certain cases to -lie. A man is starving, and I cannot save him otherwise than -by stealing; consequently it is necessary in certain cases -to steal. - -I lately read a story by Coppée, in which an orderly kills -his officer, who has his life insured, and thus saves his -honour and the life of his family. Consequently in certain -cases it is right to kill. - -Such imaginary cases and the conclusions drawn from them -prove only this, that there are men who know that it is not -right to steal, to lie, to kill, but who are so loath to -stop doing this that they use all the efforts of their mind -in order to justify their acts. There does not exist a moral -rule for which it would be impossible to invent a situation -when it would be hard to decide which is more moral, the -departure from the rule or its fulfilment. The same is true -of the question of non-resistance to evil: men know that it -is bad, but they are so anxious to live by violence, that -they use all the efforts of their mind, not for the -elucidation of all the evil which is produced by man's -recognition of the right to do violence to others, but for -the defence of this right. But such invented cases in no way -prove that the rules about not lying, stealing, killing are -incorrect. - -"*Fais ce que doit, advienne que pourra*,---do what is -right, and let come what may,"---is an expression of -profound wisdom. Each of us knows unquestionably what he -ought to do, but none of us knows or can know what will -happen. Thus we are brought to the same, not only by this, -that we must do what is right, but also by this, that we -know what is right, and do not know at all what will come -and result from our acts. - -The Christian teaching is a teaching as to what a man must -do for the fulfilment of the will of Him who sent him into -the world. But the reflections as to what consequences we -assume to result from such or such acts of men not only have -nothing in common with Christianity, but are that very -delusion which destroys Christianity. - -No one has yet seen the imaginary robber with the imaginary -child, and all the horrors, which fill history and -contemporary events, have been produced only because men -imagine that they can know the consequences of the possible -acts. - -How is this? Men used to live a beastly life, violating and -killing all those whom it was advantageous for them to -violate and kill, and even eating one another, thinking that -that was right. Then there came a time, when, thousands of -years ago, even in the time of Moses, there appeared the -consciousness in men that it was bad to violate and kill one -another. But there were some men for whom violence was -advantageous, and they did not recognize the fact, and -assured themselves and others that it was not always bad to -violate and kill men, but that there were cases when this -was necessary, useful, and even good. And acts of violence -and murder, though not as frequent and cruel, were -continued, but with this difference, that those who -committed them justified them on the ground of usefulness to -men. It was this false justification of violence that Christ -arraigned. He showed that, since every act of violence could -be justified, as actually happens, when two enemies do -violence to one another and both consider their violence -justifiable, and there is no chance of verifying the justice -of the determination of either, it is necessary not to -believe in any justifications of violence, and under no -condition, as at first was thought right by humanity, is it -necessary to make use of them. - -It would seem that men who profess Christianity would have -carefully to unveil this deception, because in the unveiling -of this deception does one of the chief manifestations of -Christianity consist. But the very opposite has happened: -men to whom violence was advantageous, and who did not want -to give up these advantages, took upon themselves the -exclusive propaganda of Christianity, and, preaching it, -asserted that, since there are cases in which the -non-application of violence produces more evil than its -application (the imaginary robber who kills the child), we -must not fully accept Christ's teaching about non-resist- -ance to evil, and that we may depart from this teaching in -the defence of our lives and of those of other men, in the -defence of our country, the protection of society from -madmen and malefactors, and in many other cases. But the -decision of the question as to when Christ's teaching ought -to be set aside was left to those very men who made use of -violence. Thus Christ's teaching about non-resistance to -evil turned out to be absolutely set aside, and, what is -worse than all that, those very men whom Christ arraigned -began to consider themselves the exclusive preachers and -expounders of His teaching. But the light shineth in the -dark, and the false preachers of Christianity are again -arraigned by His teaching. - -We can think of the structure of the world as we please, we -may do what is advantageous and agreeable for us to do, and -use violence against people under the pretext of doing good -to men, but it is absolutely imposible to assert that, in -doing so, we are professing Christ's teaching, because -Christ arraigned that very deception. The truth will sooner -or later be made manifest, and will arraign the deceivers, -even as it does now. - -Let only the question of the human life be put correctly, as -it was put by Christ, and not as it was corrupted by the -churches, and all the deceptions which by the churches have -been heaped on Christ's teaching will fall of their own -accord. - -The question is not whether it will be good or bad for human -society to follow the law of love and the resulting law of -non-resistance, but whether you---a being that lives to-day -and is dying by degrees to-morrow and every moment---will -now, this very minute, fully do the will of Him who sent you -and clearly expressed it in tradition and in your reason and -heart, or whether you want to act contrary to this will. As -soon as the question is put in this form, there will be but -one answer: I want at once, this very minute, without any -delay, without waiting for any one, and without considering -the seeming consequences, with all my strength to fulfil -what alone I am indubitably commanded to do by Him who sent -me into the world, and in no case, under no condition, will -I, can I, do what is contrary to it, because in this lies -the only possibility of my rational, unwretched life. +A man is in danger of his life and can be saved only through my lie; +consequently it is necessary in certain cases to lie. A man is starving, +and I cannot save him otherwise than by stealing; consequently it is +necessary in certain cases to steal. + +I lately read a story by Coppée, in which an orderly kills his officer, +who has his life insured, and thus saves his honour and the life of his +family. Consequently in certain cases it is right to kill. + +Such imaginary cases and the conclusions drawn from them prove only +this, that there are men who know that it is not right to steal, to lie, +to kill, but who are so loath to stop doing this that they use all the +efforts of their mind in order to justify their acts. There does not +exist a moral rule for which it would be impossible to invent a +situation when it would be hard to decide which is more moral, the +departure from the rule or its fulfilment. The same is true of the +question of non-resistance to evil: men know that it is bad, but they +are so anxious to live by violence, that they use all the efforts of +their mind, not for the elucidation of all the evil which is produced by +man's recognition of the right to do violence to others, but for the +defence of this right. But such invented cases in no way prove that the +rules about not lying, stealing, killing are incorrect. + +"*Fais ce que doit, advienne que pourra*,---do what is right, and let +come what may,"---is an expression of profound wisdom. Each of us knows +unquestionably what he ought to do, but none of us knows or can know +what will happen. Thus we are brought to the same, not only by this, +that we must do what is right, but also by this, that we know what is +right, and do not know at all what will come and result from our acts. + +The Christian teaching is a teaching as to what a man must do for the +fulfilment of the will of Him who sent him into the world. But the +reflections as to what consequences we assume to result from such or +such acts of men not only have nothing in common with Christianity, but +are that very delusion which destroys Christianity. + +No one has yet seen the imaginary robber with the imaginary child, and +all the horrors, which fill history and contemporary events, have been +produced only because men imagine that they can know the consequences of +the possible acts. + +How is this? Men used to live a beastly life, violating and killing all +those whom it was advantageous for them to violate and kill, and even +eating one another, thinking that that was right. Then there came a +time, when, thousands of years ago, even in the time of Moses, there +appeared the consciousness in men that it was bad to violate and kill +one another. But there were some men for whom violence was advantageous, +and they did not recognize the fact, and assured themselves and others +that it was not always bad to violate and kill men, but that there were +cases when this was necessary, useful, and even good. And acts of +violence and murder, though not as frequent and cruel, were continued, +but with this difference, that those who committed them justified them +on the ground of usefulness to men. It was this false justification of +violence that Christ arraigned. He showed that, since every act of +violence could be justified, as actually happens, when two enemies do +violence to one another and both consider their violence justifiable, +and there is no chance of verifying the justice of the determination of +either, it is necessary not to believe in any justifications of +violence, and under no condition, as at first was thought right by +humanity, is it necessary to make use of them. + +It would seem that men who profess Christianity would have carefully to +unveil this deception, because in the unveiling of this deception does +one of the chief manifestations of Christianity consist. But the very +opposite has happened: men to whom violence was advantageous, and who +did not want to give up these advantages, took upon themselves the +exclusive propaganda of Christianity, and, preaching it, asserted that, +since there are cases in which the non-application of violence produces +more evil than its application (the imaginary robber who kills the +child), we must not fully accept Christ's teaching about non-resist- +ance to evil, and that we may depart from this teaching in the defence +of our lives and of those of other men, in the defence of our country, +the protection of society from madmen and malefactors, and in many other +cases. But the decision of the question as to when Christ's teaching +ought to be set aside was left to those very men who made use of +violence. Thus Christ's teaching about non-resistance to evil turned out +to be absolutely set aside, and, what is worse than all that, those very +men whom Christ arraigned began to consider themselves the exclusive +preachers and expounders of His teaching. But the light shineth in the +dark, and the false preachers of Christianity are again arraigned by His +teaching. + +We can think of the structure of the world as we please, we may do what +is advantageous and agreeable for us to do, and use violence against +people under the pretext of doing good to men, but it is absolutely +imposible to assert that, in doing so, we are professing Christ's +teaching, because Christ arraigned that very deception. The truth will +sooner or later be made manifest, and will arraign the deceivers, even +as it does now. + +Let only the question of the human life be put correctly, as it was put +by Christ, and not as it was corrupted by the churches, and all the +deceptions which by the churches have been heaped on Christ's teaching +will fall of their own accord. + +The question is not whether it will be good or bad for human society to +follow the law of love and the resulting law of non-resistance, but +whether you---a being that lives to-day and is dying by degrees +to-morrow and every moment---will now, this very minute, fully do the +will of Him who sent you and clearly expressed it in tradition and in +your reason and heart, or whether you want to act contrary to this will. +As soon as the question is put in this form, there will be but one +answer: I want at once, this very minute, without any delay, without +waiting for any one, and without considering the seeming consequences, +with all my strength to fulfil what alone I am indubitably commanded to +do by Him who sent me into the world, and in no case, under no +condition, will I, can I, do what is contrary to it, because in this +lies the only possibility of my rational, unwretched life. *January 12, 1896.* diff --git a/src/orthodoxy.md b/src/orthodoxy.md index be105ac..062bfba 100644 --- a/src/orthodoxy.md +++ b/src/orthodoxy.md @@ -1,2620 +1,2201 @@ # Introduction in Defense of Everything Else -The only possible excuse for this book is that it is an -answer to a challenge. Even a bad shot is dignified when he -accepts a duel. When some time ago I published a series of -hasty but sincere papers, under the name of "Heretics," -several critics for whose intellect I have a warm respect (I -may mention specially Mr. G. S. Street) said that it was all -very well for me to tell everybody to affirm his cosmic -theory, but that I had carefully avoided supporting my -precepts with example. "I will begin to worry about my -philosophy," said Mr. Street, "when Mr. Chesterton has given -us his." It was perhaps an incautious suggestion to make to -a person only too ready to write books upon the feeblest -provocation. But after all, though Mr. Street has inspired -and created this book, he need not read it. If he does read -it, he will find that in its pages I have attempted in a -vague and personal way, in a set of mental pictures rather -than in a series of deductions, to state the philosophy in -which I have come to believe. I will not call it my -philosophy; for I did not make it. God and humanity made it; -and it made me. - -I have often had a fancy for writing a romance about an -English yachtsman who slightly miscalculated his course and -discovered England under the impression that it was a new -island in the South Seas. I always find, however, that I am -either too busy or too lazy to write this fine work, so I -may as well give it away for the purposes of philosophical -illustration. There will probably be a general impression -that the man who landed (armed to the teeth and talking by -signs) to plant the British flag on that barbaric temple -which turned out to be the Pavilion at Brighton, felt rather -a fool. I am not here concerned to deny that he looked a -fool. But if you imagine that he felt a fool, or at any rate -that the sense of folly was his sole or his dominant -emotion, then you have not studied with sufficient delicacy -the rich romantic nature of the hero' of this tale. His -mistake was really a most enviable mistake; and he knew it, -if he was the man I take him for. What could be more -delightful than to have in the same few minutes all the -fascinating terrors of going abroad combined with all the -humane security of coming home again? What could be better -than to have all the fun of discovering South Africa without -the disgusting necessity of landing there? What could be -more glorious than to brace one's self up to discover New -South Wales and then realize, with a gush of happy tears, -that it was really old South Wales. This at least seems to -me the main problem for philosophers, and is in a manner the -main problem of this book. How can we contrive to be at once -astonished at the world and yet at home in it? How can this -queer cosmic town, with its many-legged citizens, with its -monstrous and ancient lamps, how can this world give us at -once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and -honour of being our own town? - -To show that a faith or a philosophy is true from every -standpoint would be too big an undertaking even for a much -bigger book than this it is necessary to follow one path of -argument; and this is the path that I here propose to -follow. I wish to set forth my faith as particularly -answering this double spiritual need, the need for that -mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar which Christendom -has rightly named romance. For the very word "romance" has -in it the mystery and ancient meaning of Rome. Any one -setting out to dispute anything ought always to begin by -saying what he does not dispute. Beyond stating what he -proposes to prove he should always state what he does not -propose to prove. The thing I do not propose to prove, the -thing I propose to take as common ground between myself and -any average reader, is this desirability of an active and -imaginative life, picturesque and full of a poetical -curiosity, a life such as western man at any rate always -seems to have desired. If a man says that extinction is -better than existence or blank existence better than variety -and adventure, then he is not one of the ordinary people to -whom I am talking. If a man prefers nothing I can give him -nothing. But nearly all people I have ever met in this -western society in which I live would agree to the general -proposition that we need this life of practical romance; the -combination of something that is strange with something that -is secure. We need so to view the world as to combine an -idea of wonder and an idea of welcome. We need to be happy -in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable. It -is *this* achievement of my creed that I shall chiefly -pursue in these pages. - -But I have a peculiar reason for mentioning the man in a -yacht, who discovered England. For I am that man in a yacht. -I discovered England. I do not see how this book can avoid -being egotistical; and I do not quite see (to tell the -truth) how it can avoid being dull. Dullness will, however, -free me from the charge which I most lament; the charge of -being flippant. Mere light sophistry is the thing that I -happen to despise most of all things, and it is perhaps a -wholesome fact that this is the thing of which I am -generally accused. I know nothing so contemptible as a mere -paradox; a mere ingenious defence of the indefensible. If it -were true (as has been said) that Mr. Bernard Shaw lived -upon paradox, then he ought to be a mere common millionaire; -for a man of his mental activity could invent a sophistry -every six minutes. It is as easy as lying; because it is -lying. The truth is, of course, that Mr. Shaw is cruelly -hampered by the fact that he cannot tell any lie unless he -thinks it is the truth. I find myself under the same -intolerable bondage. I never in my life said anything merely -because I thought it funny; though, of course, I have had -ordinary human vain-glory, and may have thought it funny -because I had said it. It is one thing to describe an -interview with a gorgon or a griffin, a creature who does -not exist. It is another thing to discover that the -rhinoceros does exist and then take pleasure in the fact -that he looks as if he didn't. One searches for truth, but -it may be that one pursues instinctively the more -extraordinary truths. And I offer this book with the -heartiest sentiments to all the jolly people who hate what I -write, and regard it (very justly, for all I know), as a -piece of poor clowning or a single tiresome joke. - -For if this book is a joke it is a joke against me. I am the -man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been -discovered before. If there is an element of farce in what -follows, the farce is at my own expense; for this book -explains how I fancied I was the first to set foot in -Brighton and then found I was the last. It recounts my -elephantine adventures in pursuit of the obvious. No one can -think my case more ludicrous than I think it myself; no -reader can accuse me here of trying to make a fool of him: I -am the fool of this story, and no rebel shall hurl me from -my throne. I freely confess all the idiotic ambitions of the -end of the nineteenth century. I did, like all other solemn -little boys, try to be in advance of the age. Like them I -tried to be some ten minutes in advance of the truth. And I -found that I was eighteen hundred years behind it. I did -strain my voice with a painfully juvenile exaggeration in -uttering my truths. And I was punished in the fittest and -funniest way, for I have kept my truths: but I have -discovered, not that they were not truths, but simply that -they were not mine. When I fancied that I stood alone I was -really in the ridiculous position of being backed up by all -Christendom. It may be, Heaven forgive me, that I did try to -be original; but I only succeeded in inventing all by myself -an inferior copy of the existing traditions of civilized -religion. The man from the yacht thought he was the first to -find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I -did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the -last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy. - -It may be that somebody will be entertained by the account -of this happy fiasco. It might amuse a friend or an enemy to -read how I gradually learnt from the truth of some stray -legend or from the falsehood of some dominant philosophy, -things that I might have learnt from my catechism---if I had -ever learnt it. There may or may not be some entertainment -in reading how I found at last in an anarchist club or a -Babylonian temple what I might have found in the nearest -parish church. If anyone is entertained by learning how the -flowers of the field or the phrases in an omnibus, the -accidents of politics or the pains of youth came together in -a certain order to produce a certain conviction of Christian -orthodoxy, he may possibly read this book. But there is in -everything a reasonable division of labour. I have written -the book, and nothing on earth would induce me to read it. - -I add one purely pedantic note which comes, as a note -naturally should, at the beginning of the book. These essays -are concerned only to discuss the actual fact that the -central Christian theology (sufficiently summarized in the -Apostles' Creed) is the best root of energy and sound -ethics. They are not intended to discuss the very -fascinating but quite different question of what is the -present seat of authority for the proclamation of that -creed. When the word "orthodoxy" is used here it means the -Apostles' Creed, as understood by everybody calling himself -Christian until a very short time ago and the general -historic conduct of those who held such a creed. I have been -forced by mere space to confine myself to what I have got -from this creed; I do not touch the matter much disputed -among modern Christians, of where we ourselves got it. This -is not an ecclesiastical treatise but a sort of slovenly -autobiography. But if any one wants my opinions about the -actual nature of the authority, Mr. G. S. Street has only to -throw me another challenge, and I will write him another -book. +The only possible excuse for this book is that it is an answer to a +challenge. Even a bad shot is dignified when he accepts a duel. When +some time ago I published a series of hasty but sincere papers, under +the name of "Heretics," several critics for whose intellect I have a +warm respect (I may mention specially Mr. G. S. Street) said that it was +all very well for me to tell everybody to affirm his cosmic theory, but +that I had carefully avoided supporting my precepts with example. "I +will begin to worry about my philosophy," said Mr. Street, "when +Mr. Chesterton has given us his." It was perhaps an incautious +suggestion to make to a person only too ready to write books upon the +feeblest provocation. But after all, though Mr. Street has inspired and +created this book, he need not read it. If he does read it, he will find +that in its pages I have attempted in a vague and personal way, in a set +of mental pictures rather than in a series of deductions, to state the +philosophy in which I have come to believe. I will not call it my +philosophy; for I did not make it. God and humanity made it; and it made +me. + +I have often had a fancy for writing a romance about an English +yachtsman who slightly miscalculated his course and discovered England +under the impression that it was a new island in the South Seas. I +always find, however, that I am either too busy or too lazy to write +this fine work, so I may as well give it away for the purposes of +philosophical illustration. There will probably be a general impression +that the man who landed (armed to the teeth and talking by signs) to +plant the British flag on that barbaric temple which turned out to be +the Pavilion at Brighton, felt rather a fool. I am not here concerned to +deny that he looked a fool. But if you imagine that he felt a fool, or +at any rate that the sense of folly was his sole or his dominant +emotion, then you have not studied with sufficient delicacy the rich +romantic nature of the hero' of this tale. His mistake was really a most +enviable mistake; and he knew it, if he was the man I take him for. What +could be more delightful than to have in the same few minutes all the +fascinating terrors of going abroad combined with all the humane +security of coming home again? What could be better than to have all the +fun of discovering South Africa without the disgusting necessity of +landing there? What could be more glorious than to brace one's self up +to discover New South Wales and then realize, with a gush of happy +tears, that it was really old South Wales. This at least seems to me the +main problem for philosophers, and is in a manner the main problem of +this book. How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and +yet at home in it? How can this queer cosmic town, with its many-legged +citizens, with its monstrous and ancient lamps, how can this world give +us at once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honour +of being our own town? + +To show that a faith or a philosophy is true from every standpoint would +be too big an undertaking even for a much bigger book than this it is +necessary to follow one path of argument; and this is the path that I +here propose to follow. I wish to set forth my faith as particularly +answering this double spiritual need, the need for that mixture of the +familiar and the unfamiliar which Christendom has rightly named romance. +For the very word "romance" has in it the mystery and ancient meaning of +Rome. Any one setting out to dispute anything ought always to begin by +saying what he does not dispute. Beyond stating what he proposes to +prove he should always state what he does not propose to prove. The +thing I do not propose to prove, the thing I propose to take as common +ground between myself and any average reader, is this desirability of an +active and imaginative life, picturesque and full of a poetical +curiosity, a life such as western man at any rate always seems to have +desired. If a man says that extinction is better than existence or blank +existence better than variety and adventure, then he is not one of the +ordinary people to whom I am talking. If a man prefers nothing I can +give him nothing. But nearly all people I have ever met in this western +society in which I live would agree to the general proposition that we +need this life of practical romance; the combination of something that +is strange with something that is secure. We need so to view the world +as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome. We need to be +happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable. It is +*this* achievement of my creed that I shall chiefly pursue in these +pages. + +But I have a peculiar reason for mentioning the man in a yacht, who +discovered England. For I am that man in a yacht. I discovered England. +I do not see how this book can avoid being egotistical; and I do not +quite see (to tell the truth) how it can avoid being dull. Dullness +will, however, free me from the charge which I most lament; the charge +of being flippant. Mere light sophistry is the thing that I happen to +despise most of all things, and it is perhaps a wholesome fact that this +is the thing of which I am generally accused. I know nothing so +contemptible as a mere paradox; a mere ingenious defence of the +indefensible. If it were true (as has been said) that Mr. Bernard Shaw +lived upon paradox, then he ought to be a mere common millionaire; for a +man of his mental activity could invent a sophistry every six minutes. +It is as easy as lying; because it is lying. The truth is, of course, +that Mr. Shaw is cruelly hampered by the fact that he cannot tell any +lie unless he thinks it is the truth. I find myself under the same +intolerable bondage. I never in my life said anything merely because I +thought it funny; though, of course, I have had ordinary human +vain-glory, and may have thought it funny because I had said it. It is +one thing to describe an interview with a gorgon or a griffin, a +creature who does not exist. It is another thing to discover that the +rhinoceros does exist and then take pleasure in the fact that he looks +as if he didn't. One searches for truth, but it may be that one pursues +instinctively the more extraordinary truths. And I offer this book with +the heartiest sentiments to all the jolly people who hate what I write, +and regard it (very justly, for all I know), as a piece of poor clowning +or a single tiresome joke. + +For if this book is a joke it is a joke against me. I am the man who +with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before. If +there is an element of farce in what follows, the farce is at my own +expense; for this book explains how I fancied I was the first to set +foot in Brighton and then found I was the last. It recounts my +elephantine adventures in pursuit of the obvious. No one can think my +case more ludicrous than I think it myself; no reader can accuse me here +of trying to make a fool of him: I am the fool of this story, and no +rebel shall hurl me from my throne. I freely confess all the idiotic +ambitions of the end of the nineteenth century. I did, like all other +solemn little boys, try to be in advance of the age. Like them I tried +to be some ten minutes in advance of the truth. And I found that I was +eighteen hundred years behind it. I did strain my voice with a painfully +juvenile exaggeration in uttering my truths. And I was punished in the +fittest and funniest way, for I have kept my truths: but I have +discovered, not that they were not truths, but simply that they were not +mine. When I fancied that I stood alone I was really in the ridiculous +position of being backed up by all Christendom. It may be, Heaven +forgive me, that I did try to be original; but I only succeeded in +inventing all by myself an inferior copy of the existing traditions of +civilized religion. The man from the yacht thought he was the first to +find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to +found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I +discovered that it was orthodoxy. + +It may be that somebody will be entertained by the account of this happy +fiasco. It might amuse a friend or an enemy to read how I gradually +learnt from the truth of some stray legend or from the falsehood of some +dominant philosophy, things that I might have learnt from my +catechism---if I had ever learnt it. There may or may not be some +entertainment in reading how I found at last in an anarchist club or a +Babylonian temple what I might have found in the nearest parish church. +If anyone is entertained by learning how the flowers of the field or the +phrases in an omnibus, the accidents of politics or the pains of youth +came together in a certain order to produce a certain conviction of +Christian orthodoxy, he may possibly read this book. But there is in +everything a reasonable division of labour. I have written the book, and +nothing on earth would induce me to read it. + +I add one purely pedantic note which comes, as a note naturally should, +at the beginning of the book. These essays are concerned only to discuss +the actual fact that the central Christian theology (sufficiently +summarized in the Apostles' Creed) is the best root of energy and sound +ethics. They are not intended to discuss the very fascinating but quite +different question of what is the present seat of authority for the +proclamation of that creed. When the word "orthodoxy" is used here it +means the Apostles' Creed, as understood by everybody calling himself +Christian until a very short time ago and the general historic conduct +of those who held such a creed. I have been forced by mere space to +confine myself to what I have got from this creed; I do not touch the +matter much disputed among modern Christians, of where we ourselves got +it. This is not an ecclesiastical treatise but a sort of slovenly +autobiography. But if any one wants my opinions about the actual nature +of the authority, Mr. G. S. Street has only to throw me another +challenge, and I will write him another book. # The Maniac -Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; -they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not -true. Once I remember walking with a prosperous publisher, -who made a remark which I had often heard before; it is, -indeed, almost a motto of the modern world. Yet I had heard -it once too often, and I saw suddenly that there was nothing -in it. The publisher said of somebody, "That man will get -on; he believes in himself." And I remember that as I lifted -my head to listen, my eye caught an omnibus on which was -written "Hanwell." I said to him, "Shall I tell you where -the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell -you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally -than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star -of certain ty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of -the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are -all in lunatic asylums." He said mildly that there were a -good many men after all who believed in themselves and who -were not in lunatic asylums. "Yes, there are," I retorted, -"and you of all men ought to know them. That drunken poet -from whom you would not take a dreary tragedy, he believed -in himself: That elderly minister with an epic from whom you -were hiding in a back room, he believed in himself: If you -consulted your business experience instead of your ugly -individualistic philosophy, you would know that believing in -himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter. Actors -who can't act believe in themselves; and debtors who won't -pay. It would be much truer to say that a man will certainly -fail, because he believes in himself: Complete -self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete -self-confidence is a weakness. Believing utterly in one's -self is a hysterical and superstitious belief like believing -in Joanna South cote: the man who has it has 'Hanwell' -written on his face as plain as it is written on that -omnibus." And to all this my friend the publisher made this -very deep and effective reply, "Well, if a man is not to -believe in himself in what is he to believe?" After a long -pause I replied, "I will go home and write a book in answer -to that question." This is the book that I have written in -answer to it. - -But I think this book may well start where our argument -started---in the neighbourhood of the mad-house. Modern -masters of science are much impressed with the need of -beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of -religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity. -They began with the fact of sin---a fact as practical as -potatoes. Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous -waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted -washing. But certain religious leaders in London, not mere -materialists, have begun in our day not to deny the highly -disputable water, but to deny the indisputable dirt. Certain -new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part -of Christian theology which can really be proved. Some -followers of the Reverend R. J. Campbell, in their almost -too fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which -they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially -deny human sin, which they can see in the street. The -strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took -positive evil as the starting-point of their argument. If it -be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite -happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher -can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the -existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the -present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The -new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic -solution to deny the cat. - -In this remarkable situation it is plainly not now possible -(with any hope of a universal appeal) to start, as our -fathers did, with the fact of sin. This very fact which was -to them (and is to me) as plain as a pikestaff is the very -fact that has been specially diluted or denied. But though -moderns deny the existence of sin, I do not think that they -have yet denied the existence of a lunatic asylum. We all -agree still that there is a collapse of the intellect as -unmistakable as a falling house. Men deny hell, but not, as -yet, Hanwell. For the purpose of our primary argument the -one may very well stand where the other stood. I mean that -as all thoughts and theories were once judged by whether -they tended to make a man lose his soul, so for our present -purpose all modern thoughts and theories may be judged by -whether they tend to make a man lose his wits. - -It is true that some speak lightly and loosely of insanity -as in itself attractive. But a moment's thought will show -that if disease is beautiful, it is generally some one -else's disease. A blind man may be picturesque; but it -requires two eyes to see the picture. And similarly even the -wildest poetry of insanity can only be enjoyed by the sane. -To the insane man his insanity is quite prosaic, because it -is quite true. A man who thinks himself a chicken is to -himself as ordinary as a chicken. A man who thinks he is a -bit of glass is to himself as dull as a bit of glass. It is -the homogeneity of his mind which makes him dull, and which -makes him mad. It is only because we see the irony of his -idea that we think him even amusing; it is only because he -does not see the irony of his idea that he is put in Hanwell -at all. In short, oddities only strike ordinary people. -Oddities do not strike odd people. This is why ordinary -people have a much more exciting time; while odd people are -always complaining of the dullness of life. This is also why -the new novels die so quickly, and why the old fairy tales -endure for ever. The old fairy tale makes the hero a normal -human boy; it is his adventures that are startling; they -startle him because he is normal. But in the modern -psychological novel the hero is abnormal; the centre is not -central. Hence the fiercest adventures fail to affect him -adequately, and the book is monotonous. You can make a story -out of a hero among dragons; but not out of a dragon among -dragons. The fairy tale discusses what a sane man will do in -a mad world. The sober realistic novel of to-day discusses -what an essential lunatic will do in a dull world. - -Let us begin, then, with the mad-house; from this evil and -fantastic inn let us set forth on our intellectual journey. -Now, if we are to glance at the philosophy of sanity, the -first thing to do in the matter is to blot out one big and -common mistake. There is a notion adrift everywhere that -imagination, especially mystical imagination, is dangerous -to man's mental balance. Poets are commonly spoken of as -psychologically unreliable; and generally there is a vague -association between wreathing laurels in your hair and -sticking straws in it. Facts and history utterly contradict -this view. Most of the very great poets have been not only -sane, but extremely business-like; and if Shakespeare ever -really held horses, it was because he was much the safest -man to hold them. Imagination does not breed insanity. -Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go -mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and -cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as -will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that -this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination. Artistic -paternity is as wholesome as physical paternity. Moreover, -it is worthy of remark that when a poet really was morbid it -was commonly because he had some weak spot of rationality on -his brain. Poe, for instance, really was morbid; not because -he was poetical, but because he was specially analytical. -Even chess was too poetical for him; he disliked chess -because it was full of knights and castles, like a poem. He -avowedly preferred the black discs of draughts, because they -were more like the mere black dots on a diagram. Perhaps the -strongest case of all is this: that only one great English -poet went mad, Cowper. And he was definitely driven mad by -logic, by the ugly and alien logic of predestination. Poetry -was not the disease, but the medicine; poetry partly kept -him in health. He could sometimes forget the red and thirsty -hell to which his hideous necessitarianism dragged him among -the wide waters and the white flat lilies of the Ouse. He -was damned by John Calvin; he was almost saved by John -Gilpin. Everywhere we see that men do not go mad by -dreaming. Critics are much madder than poets. Homer is -complete and calm enough; it is his critics who tear him -into extravagant tatters. Shakespeare is quite himself; it -is only some of his critics who have discovered that he was -somebody else. And though St. John the Evangelist saw many -strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild -as one of his own commentators. The general.fact is simple. -Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; -reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it -finite. The result is mental exhaustion, like the physical -exhaustion of Mr. Holbein. To accept everything is an -exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only -desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself -in. The poet only asks to get his head in to the heavens. It -is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. -And it is his head that splits. - -It is a small matter, but not irrelevant, that this striking -mistake is commonly supported by a striking misquotation. We -have all heard people cite the celebrated line of Dryden as -"Great genius is to madness near allied." But Dryden did not -say that great genius was to madness near allied. Dryden was -a great genius himself, and knew better. It would have been -hard to find a man more romantic than he, or more sensible. -What Dryden said as this, "Great wits are oft to madness -near allied"; and that is true. It is the pure promptitude -of the intellect that is in peril of a breakdown. Also -people might remember of what sort of man Dryden was -talking. He was not talking of any unworldly visionary like -Vaughan or George Herbert. He was talking of a cynical man -of the world, a sceptic, a diplomatist, a great practical -politician. Such men are indeed to madness near allied. -Their incessant calculation of their own brains and other -people's brains is a dangerous trade. It is always perilous -to the mind to reckon up the mind. A flippant person has -asked why we say, "As mad as a hatter." A more flippant -person might answer that a hatter is mad because he has to -measure the human head. - -And if great reasoners are often maniacal, it is equally -true that maniacs are commonly great reasoners. When I was -engaged in a controversy with the *Clarion* on the matter of -free will, that able writer Mr. R. B. Suthers said that free -will was lunacy, because it meant causeless actions, and the -actions of a lunatic would be causeless. I do not dwell here -upon the disastrous lapse in determinist logic. Obviously if -any actions, even a lunatic's, can be causeless, determinism -is done for. If the chain of causation can be broken for a -madman it can be broken for a man. But my purpose is to -point out something more practical. It was natural, perhaps, -that a modern Marxian Socialist should not know anything -about free will. But it was certainly remarkable that a -modern Marxian Socialist should not know anything about -lunatics. Mr. Suthers evidently did not know anything about -lunatics. The last thing that can be said of a lunatic is -that his actions are causeless. If any human acts may -loosely be called causeless, they are the minor acts of a -healthy man; whistling as he walks; slashing the grass with -a stick; kicking his heels or rubbing his hands. It is the -happy man who does the useless things; the sick man is not -strong enough to be idle. I t is exactly such careless and -causeless actions that the madman could never understand; -for the madman (like the determinist) generally sees too -much cause in everything. The madman would read a -conspiratorial significance into those empty activities. He -would think that the lopping of the grass was an attack on -private property. He would think that the kicking of the -heels was a signal to an accomplice. If the madman could for -an instant become careless, he would become sane. Everyone -who has had the misfortune to talk with people in the heart -or on the edge of mental disorder, knows that their most -sinister quality is a horrible clarity of detail; a -connecting of one thing with another in a map more elaborate -than a maze. If you argue with a madman, it is extremely -probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways -his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the -things that go with good judgment. He is not hampered by a -sense of humour or by charity, or by the dumb certainties of -experience. He is the more logical for losing certain sane -affections. Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in -this respect a misleading one. The madman is not the man who -has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost -everything except his reason. - -The madman's explanation of a thing is always complete, and -often in a purely rational sense satisfactory. Or, to speak -more strictly, the insane explanation, if not conclusive, is -at least unanswerable; this may be observed specially in the -two or three commonest kinds of madness. If a man says (for -instance) that men have a conspiracy against him, you cannot -dispute it except by saying that all the men deny that they -are conspirators; which is exactly what conspirators would -do. His explanation covers the facts as much as yours. Or if -a man says that he is the rightful King of England, it is no -complete answer to say that the existing authorities call -him mad; for if he were King of England that might be the -wisest thing for the existing authorities to do. Or if a man -says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no answer to tell him -that the world denies his divinity; for the world denied -Christ's. - -Nevertheless he is wrong. But if we attempt to trace his -error in exact terms, we shall not find it quite so easy as -we had supposed. Perhaps the nearest we can get to -expressing it is to say this: that his mind moves in a -perfect but narrow circle. A small circle is quite as -infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as -infinite, it is not so large. In the same way the insane -explanation is quite as complete as the sane one, but it is -not so large. A bullet is quite as round as the world, but -it is not the world. There is such a thing as a narrow -universality; there is such a thing as a small and cramped -eternity; you may see it in many modern religions. Now, -speaking quite externally and empirically, we may say that -the strongest and most unmistakable mark of madness is this -combination between a logical completeness and a spiritual -contraction. The lunatic's theory explains a large number of -things, but it does not explain them in a large way. I mean -that if you or I were dealing with a mind that was growing -morbid, we should be chiefly concerned not so much to give -it arguments as to give it air, to convince it that there -was something cleaner and cooler outside the suffocation of -a single argument. Suppose, for instance, it were the first -case that I took as typical; suppose it were the case of a -man who accused everybody of conspiring against him. If we -could express our deepest feelings of protest and appeal -against this obsession, I suppose we should say something -like this: "Oh, I admit that you have your case and have it -by heart, and that many things do fit into other things as -you say. I admit that your explanation explains a great -deal; but what a great deal it leaves out! Are there no -other stories in the world except yours; and are all men -busy with your business? Suppose we grant the details; -perhaps when the man in the street did not seem to see you -it was only his cunning; perhaps when the policeman asked -you your name it was only because he knew it already. But -how much happier you would be if you only knew that these -people cared nothing about you! How much larger your life -would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you -could really look at other men with common curiosity and -pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are in their -sunny selfishness and their virile indifference ! You would -begin to be interested in them, because they were not -interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and -tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always being -played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a -street full of splendid strangers." Or suppose it were the -second case of madness, that of a man who claims the crown, -your impulse would be to answer, "All right! Perhaps you -know that you are the King of England; but why do you care? -Make one magnificent effort and you will be a human being -and look down on all the kings of the earth. n Or it might -be the third case, of the madman who called himself Christ. -If we said what we felt, we should say,"So you are the -Creator and Redeemer of the world: but what a small world it -must be! What a little heaven you must inhabit, with angels -no bigger than butterflies! How sad it must be to be God; -and an inadequate God! Is there really no life fuller and no -love more marvellous than yours; and is it really in your -small and painful pity that all flesh must put its faith? -How much happier you would be, how much more of you there -would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your -small cosmos, scattering the stars like spangles, and leave -you in the open, free like other men to look up as well as -down!" - -And it must be remembered that the most purely practical -science does take this view of mental evil; it does not seek -to argue with it like a heresy, but simply to snap it like a -spell. Neither modern science nor ancient religion believes -in complete free thought. Theology rebukes certain thoughts -by calling them blasphemous. Science rebukes certain -thoughts by calling them morbid. For example, some religious -societies discouraged men more or less from thinking about -sex. The new scientific society definitely discourages men -from thinking about death; it is a fact, but it is -considered a morbid fact. And in dealing with those whose -morbidity has a touch of mania, modern science cares far -less for pure logic than a dancing Dervish. In these cases -it is not enough that. the unhappy man should desire truth; -he must desire health. Nothing can save him but a blind -hunger for normality, like that of a beast. A man cannot -think himself out of mental evil; for it is actually the -organ of thought that has become diseased, ungovernable, -and, as it were, independent. He can only be saved by will -or faith. The moment his mere reason moves, it moves in the -old circular rut; he will go round and round his logical -circle, just as a man in a third-class carriage on the Inner -Circle will go round and round the Inner Circle unless he -performs the voluntary, vigorous, and mystical act of -getting out at Gower Street. Decision is the whole business -here; a door must be shut for ever. Every remedy is a -desperate remedy. Every cure is a miraculous cure. Curing a -madman is not arguing with a philosopher; it is casting out -a devil. And however quietly doctors and psychologists may -go to work in the matter, their attitude is profoundly -intolerant-as intolerant as Bloody Mary. Their attitude is -really this: that the man must stop thinking, if he is to go -on living. Their counsel is one of intellectual amputation. -If thy head offend thee, cut it off; for it is better, not -merely to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a child, but to -enter it as an imbecile, rather than with your whole -intellect to be cast into hell---or into Hanwell. - -Such is the madman of experience; he is commonly a reasoner, -frequently a successful reasoner. Doubtless he could be -vanquished in mere reason, and the case against him put -logically. But it can be put much more precisely in more -general and even aesthetic terms. He is in the clean and -well-lit prison of one idea: he is sharpened to one painful -point. He is without healthy hesitation and healthy -complexity. Now, as I explain in the introduction, I have -determined in these early chapters to give not so much a -diagram of a doctrine as some pictures of a point of view. -And I have described at length my vision of the maniac for -this reason: that just as I am affected by the maniac, so I -am affected by most modern thinkers. That unmistakable mood -or note that I hear from Hanwell J I hear also from half the -chairs of science and seats of learning to-day; and most of -the mad doctors are mad doctors in more senses than one. -They all have exactly that combination we have noted: the -combination of an expansive and exhaustive reason with a -contracted common sense. They are universal only in the -sense that they take one thin explanation and carry it very -far. But a pattern can stretch for ever and still be a small -pattern. They see a chess-board white on black, and if the -universe is paved with it, it is still white on black. Like -the lunatic, they cannot alter their standpoint; they cannot -make a mental effort and suddenly see it black on white. - -Take first the more obvious case of materialism. As an -explanation of the world, materialism has a sort of insane -simplicity. It has just the quality of the madman's -argument; we have at once the sense of it covering -everything and the sense of it leaving everything out. -Contemplate some able and sincere materialist, as, for -instance, Mr. McCabe, and you will have exactly this unique -sensation. He understands everything, and everything does -not seem worth understanding. His cosmos may be complete in -every rivet and cog-wheel, but still his cosmos is smaller -than our world. Somehow his scheme, like the lucid scheme of -the madman, seems unconscious of the alien energies and the -large indifference of the earth; it is not thinking of the -real things of the earth, of fighting peoples or proud -mothers, or first love or fear upon the sea. The earth is so -very large, and the cosmos is so very small. The cosmos is -about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in. - -It must be understood that I am not now discussing the -relation of these creeds to truth; but, for the present, -solely their relation to health. Later in the argument I -hope to attack the question of objective verity; here I -speak only of a phenomenon of psychology. I do not for the -present attempt to prove to Haeckel that materialism is -untrue, any more than I attempted to prove to the man who -thought he was Christ that he was labouring under an error. -I merely remark here on the fact that both cases have the -same kind of completeness and the same kind of -incompleteness. You can explain a man's detention at Hanwell -by an indifferent public by saying that it is the -crucifixion of a god of whom the world is not worthy. The -explanation does explain. Similarly you may explain the -order in the universe by saying that all things, even the -souls of men, are leaves inevitably unfolding on an utterly -unconscious tree-the blind destiny of matter. The -explanation does explain, though not, of course, so -completely as the madman's. But the point here is that the -normal human mind not only objects to both, but feels to -both the same objection. Its approximate statement is that -if the man in Hanwell is the real God, he is not much of a -god. And, similarly, if the cosmos of the materialist is the -real cosmos, it is not much of a cosmos. The thing has -shrunk. The deity is less divine than many men; and -(according to Haeckel) the whole of life is something much -more grey, narrow, and trivial than many separate aspects of -it. The parts seem greater than the whole. - -For we must remember that the materialist philosophy -(whether true or not) is certainly much more limiting than -any religion. In one sense, of course, all intelligent ideas -are narrow. They cannot be broader than themselves. A -Christian is only restricted in the same sense that an -atheist is restricted. He cannot think Christianity false -and continue to be a Christian; and the atheist cannot think -atheism false and continue to be an atheist. But as it -happens, there is a very special sense in which materialism -has more restrictions than spiritualism. Mr. McCabe thinks -me a slave because I am not allowed to believe in -determinism. I think Mr. McCabe a slave because he is not -allowed to believe in fairies. But if we examine the two -vetoes we shall see that his is really much more of a pure -veto than mine. The Christian is quite free to believe that -there is a considerable amount of settled order and -inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist -is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the -slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle. Poor Mr. McCabe -is not allowed to retain even the tiniest imp, though it -might be hiding in a pimpernel. The Christian admits that -the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a -sane man knows that he is complex. The sane man knows that -he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch -of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane -man knows that he has a touch of the madman. But the -materialist's world is quite simple and solid, just as the -madman is quite sure he is sane. The materialist is sure -that history has been simply and solely a chain of -causation, just as the interesting person before mentioned -is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. -Materialists and madmen never have doubts. - -Spiritual doctrines do not actually limit the mind as do -materialistic denials. Even if I believe in immortality I -need not think about it. But if I disbelieve in immortality -I must not think about it. In the first case the road is -open and I can go as far as I like; in the second the road -is shut. But the case is even stronger, and the parallel -with madness is yet more strange. For it was our case -against the exhaustive and logical theory of the lunatic -that, right or wrong, it gradually destroyed his humanity. -Now it is the charge against the main deductions of the -materialist that, right or wrong, they gradually destroy his -humanity; I do not mean only kindness, I mean hope, courage, -poetry, initiative, all that is human. For instance, when -materialism leads men to complete fatalism (as it generally -does), it is quite idle to pretend that it is in an y sense -a liberating force. It is absurd to say that you are -especially advancing freedom when you only use free thought -to destroy free will. The determinists come to bind, not to -loose. They may well call their law the "chain" of -causation. It is the worst chain that ever fettered a human -being. You may use the language of liberty, if you like, -about materialistic teaching, but it is obvious that this is -just as inapplicable to it as a whole as the same language -when applied to a man locked up in a mad-house. You may say, -if you like, that the man is free to think himself a poached -egg. But it is surely a more massive and important fact that -if he is a poached egg he is not free to eat, drink, sleep, -walk, or smoke a cigarette. Similarly you may say, if you -like, that the bold determinist speculator is free to -disbelieve in the reality of the will. But it is a much more -massive and important fact that he is not free to praise, to -curse, to thank, to justify, to urge, to punish, to resist -temptations, to incite mobs, to make New Year resolutions, -to pardon sinners, to rebuke tyrants, or even to say" thank +Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely +altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true. Once I remember +walking with a prosperous publisher, who made a remark which I had often +heard before; it is, indeed, almost a motto of the modern world. Yet I +had heard it once too often, and I saw suddenly that there was nothing +in it. The publisher said of somebody, "That man will get on; he +believes in himself." And I remember that as I lifted my head to listen, +my eye caught an omnibus on which was written "Hanwell." I said to him, +"Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For +I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally +than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certain +ty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men +who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums." He said +mildly that there were a good many men after all who believed in +themselves and who were not in lunatic asylums. "Yes, there are," I +retorted, "and you of all men ought to know them. That drunken poet from +whom you would not take a dreary tragedy, he believed in himself: That +elderly minister with an epic from whom you were hiding in a back room, +he believed in himself: If you consulted your business experience +instead of your ugly individualistic philosophy, you would know that +believing in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter. Actors +who can't act believe in themselves; and debtors who won't pay. It would +be much truer to say that a man will certainly fail, because he believes +in himself: Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete +self-confidence is a weakness. Believing utterly in one's self is a +hysterical and superstitious belief like believing in Joanna South cote: +the man who has it has 'Hanwell' written on his face as plain as it is +written on that omnibus." And to all this my friend the publisher made +this very deep and effective reply, "Well, if a man is not to believe in +himself in what is he to believe?" After a long pause I replied, "I will +go home and write a book in answer to that question." This is the book +that I have written in answer to it. + +But I think this book may well start where our argument started---in the +neighbourhood of the mad-house. Modern masters of science are much +impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The +ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that +necessity. They began with the fact of sin---a fact as practical as +potatoes. Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters, there +was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing. But certain religious +leaders in London, not mere materialists, have begun in our day not to +deny the highly disputable water, but to deny the indisputable dirt. +Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of +Christian theology which can really be proved. Some followers of the +Reverend R. J. Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality, +admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams. +But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street. +The strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evil +as the starting-point of their argument. If it be true (as it certainly +is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the +religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must +either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny +the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new +theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the +cat. + +In this remarkable situation it is plainly not now possible (with any +hope of a universal appeal) to start, as our fathers did, with the fact +of sin. This very fact which was to them (and is to me) as plain as a +pikestaff is the very fact that has been specially diluted or denied. +But though moderns deny the existence of sin, I do not think that they +have yet denied the existence of a lunatic asylum. We all agree still +that there is a collapse of the intellect as unmistakable as a falling +house. Men deny hell, but not, as yet, Hanwell. For the purpose of our +primary argument the one may very well stand where the other stood. I +mean that as all thoughts and theories were once judged by whether they +tended to make a man lose his soul, so for our present purpose all +modern thoughts and theories may be judged by whether they tend to make +a man lose his wits. + +It is true that some speak lightly and loosely of insanity as in itself +attractive. But a moment's thought will show that if disease is +beautiful, it is generally some one else's disease. A blind man may be +picturesque; but it requires two eyes to see the picture. And similarly +even the wildest poetry of insanity can only be enjoyed by the sane. To +the insane man his insanity is quite prosaic, because it is quite true. +A man who thinks himself a chicken is to himself as ordinary as a +chicken. A man who thinks he is a bit of glass is to himself as dull as +a bit of glass. It is the homogeneity of his mind which makes him dull, +and which makes him mad. It is only because we see the irony of his idea +that we think him even amusing; it is only because he does not see the +irony of his idea that he is put in Hanwell at all. In short, oddities +only strike ordinary people. Oddities do not strike odd people. This is +why ordinary people have a much more exciting time; while odd people are +always complaining of the dullness of life. This is also why the new +novels die so quickly, and why the old fairy tales endure for ever. The +old fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy; it is his adventures +that are startling; they startle him because he is normal. But in the +modern psychological novel the hero is abnormal; the centre is not +central. Hence the fiercest adventures fail to affect him adequately, +and the book is monotonous. You can make a story out of a hero among +dragons; but not out of a dragon among dragons. The fairy tale discusses +what a sane man will do in a mad world. The sober realistic novel of +to-day discusses what an essential lunatic will do in a dull world. + +Let us begin, then, with the mad-house; from this evil and fantastic inn +let us set forth on our intellectual journey. Now, if we are to glance +at the philosophy of sanity, the first thing to do in the matter is to +blot out one big and common mistake. There is a notion adrift everywhere +that imagination, especially mystical imagination, is dangerous to man's +mental balance. Poets are commonly spoken of as psychologically +unreliable; and generally there is a vague association between wreathing +laurels in your hair and sticking straws in it. Facts and history +utterly contradict this view. Most of the very great poets have been not +only sane, but extremely business-like; and if Shakespeare ever really +held horses, it was because he was much the safest man to hold them. +Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is +reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go +mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will +be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does +lie in logic, not in imagination. Artistic paternity is as wholesome as +physical paternity. Moreover, it is worthy of remark that when a poet +really was morbid it was commonly because he had some weak spot of +rationality on his brain. Poe, for instance, really was morbid; not +because he was poetical, but because he was specially analytical. Even +chess was too poetical for him; he disliked chess because it was full of +knights and castles, like a poem. He avowedly preferred the black discs +of draughts, because they were more like the mere black dots on a +diagram. Perhaps the strongest case of all is this: that only one great +English poet went mad, Cowper. And he was definitely driven mad by +logic, by the ugly and alien logic of predestination. Poetry was not the +disease, but the medicine; poetry partly kept him in health. He could +sometimes forget the red and thirsty hell to which his hideous +necessitarianism dragged him among the wide waters and the white flat +lilies of the Ouse. He was damned by John Calvin; he was almost saved by +John Gilpin. Everywhere we see that men do not go mad by dreaming. +Critics are much madder than poets. Homer is complete and calm enough; +it is his critics who tear him into extravagant tatters. Shakespeare is +quite himself; it is only some of his critics who have discovered that +he was somebody else. And though St. John the Evangelist saw many +strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his +own commentators. The general.fact is simple. Poetry is sane because it +floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite +sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion, like the +physical exhaustion of Mr. Holbein. To accept everything is an exercise, +to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and +expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his +head in to the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens +into his head. And it is his head that splits. + +It is a small matter, but not irrelevant, that this striking mistake is +commonly supported by a striking misquotation. We have all heard people +cite the celebrated line of Dryden as "Great genius is to madness near +allied." But Dryden did not say that great genius was to madness near +allied. Dryden was a great genius himself, and knew better. It would +have been hard to find a man more romantic than he, or more sensible. +What Dryden said as this, "Great wits are oft to madness near allied"; +and that is true. It is the pure promptitude of the intellect that is in +peril of a breakdown. Also people might remember of what sort of man +Dryden was talking. He was not talking of any unworldly visionary like +Vaughan or George Herbert. He was talking of a cynical man of the world, +a sceptic, a diplomatist, a great practical politician. Such men are +indeed to madness near allied. Their incessant calculation of their own +brains and other people's brains is a dangerous trade. It is always +perilous to the mind to reckon up the mind. A flippant person has asked +why we say, "As mad as a hatter." A more flippant person might answer +that a hatter is mad because he has to measure the human head. + +And if great reasoners are often maniacal, it is equally true that +maniacs are commonly great reasoners. When I was engaged in a +controversy with the *Clarion* on the matter of free will, that able +writer Mr. R. B. Suthers said that free will was lunacy, because it +meant causeless actions, and the actions of a lunatic would be +causeless. I do not dwell here upon the disastrous lapse in determinist +logic. Obviously if any actions, even a lunatic's, can be causeless, +determinism is done for. If the chain of causation can be broken for a +madman it can be broken for a man. But my purpose is to point out +something more practical. It was natural, perhaps, that a modern Marxian +Socialist should not know anything about free will. But it was certainly +remarkable that a modern Marxian Socialist should not know anything +about lunatics. Mr. Suthers evidently did not know anything about +lunatics. The last thing that can be said of a lunatic is that his +actions are causeless. If any human acts may loosely be called +causeless, they are the minor acts of a healthy man; whistling as he +walks; slashing the grass with a stick; kicking his heels or rubbing his +hands. It is the happy man who does the useless things; the sick man is +not strong enough to be idle. I t is exactly such careless and causeless +actions that the madman could never understand; for the madman (like the +determinist) generally sees too much cause in everything. The madman +would read a conspiratorial significance into those empty activities. He +would think that the lopping of the grass was an attack on private +property. He would think that the kicking of the heels was a signal to +an accomplice. If the madman could for an instant become careless, he +would become sane. Everyone who has had the misfortune to talk with +people in the heart or on the edge of mental disorder, knows that their +most sinister quality is a horrible clarity of detail; a connecting of +one thing with another in a map more elaborate than a maze. If you argue +with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of +it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being +delayed by the things that go with good judgment. He is not hampered by +a sense of humour or by charity, or by the dumb certainties of +experience. He is the more logical for losing certain sane affections. +Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleading +one. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is +the man who has lost everything except his reason. + +The madman's explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a +purely rational sense satisfactory. Or, to speak more strictly, the +insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable; this +may be observed specially in the two or three commonest kinds of +madness. If a man says (for instance) that men have a conspiracy against +him, you cannot dispute it except by saying that all the men deny that +they are conspirators; which is exactly what conspirators would do. His +explanation covers the facts as much as yours. Or if a man says that he +is the rightful King of England, it is no complete answer to say that +the existing authorities call him mad; for if he were King of England +that might be the wisest thing for the existing authorities to do. Or if +a man says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no answer to tell him that the +world denies his divinity; for the world denied Christ's. + +Nevertheless he is wrong. But if we attempt to trace his error in exact +terms, we shall not find it quite so easy as we had supposed. Perhaps +the nearest we can get to expressing it is to say this: that his mind +moves in a perfect but narrow circle. A small circle is quite as +infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as infinite, it is +not so large. In the same way the insane explanation is quite as +complete as the sane one, but it is not so large. A bullet is quite as +round as the world, but it is not the world. There is such a thing as a +narrow universality; there is such a thing as a small and cramped +eternity; you may see it in many modern religions. Now, speaking quite +externally and empirically, we may say that the strongest and most +unmistakable mark of madness is this combination between a logical +completeness and a spiritual contraction. The lunatic's theory explains +a large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way. I +mean that if you or I were dealing with a mind that was growing morbid, +we should be chiefly concerned not so much to give it arguments as to +give it air, to convince it that there was something cleaner and cooler +outside the suffocation of a single argument. Suppose, for instance, it +were the first case that I took as typical; suppose it were the case of +a man who accused everybody of conspiring against him. If we could +express our deepest feelings of protest and appeal against this +obsession, I suppose we should say something like this: "Oh, I admit +that you have your case and have it by heart, and that many things do +fit into other things as you say. I admit that your explanation explains +a great deal; but what a great deal it leaves out! Are there no other +stories in the world except yours; and are all men busy with your +business? Suppose we grant the details; perhaps when the man in the +street did not seem to see you it was only his cunning; perhaps when the +policeman asked you your name it was only because he knew it already. +But how much happier you would be if you only knew that these people +cared nothing about you! How much larger your life would be if your self +could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with +common curiosity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are +in their sunny selfishness and their virile indifference ! You would +begin to be interested in them, because they were not interested in you. +You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own +little plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a +freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers." Or suppose it were +the second case of madness, that of a man who claims the crown, your +impulse would be to answer, "All right! Perhaps you know that you are +the King of England; but why do you care? Make one magnificent effort +and you will be a human being and look down on all the kings of the +earth. n Or it might be the third case, of the madman who called himself +Christ. If we said what we felt, we should say,"So you are the Creator +and Redeemer of the world: but what a small world it must be! What a +little heaven you must inhabit, with angels no bigger than butterflies! +How sad it must be to be God; and an inadequate God! Is there really no +life fuller and no love more marvellous than yours; and is it really in +your small and painful pity that all flesh must put its faith? How much +happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer +of a higher God could smash your small cosmos, scattering the stars like +spangles, and leave you in the open, free like other men to look up as +well as down!" + +And it must be remembered that the most purely practical science does +take this view of mental evil; it does not seek to argue with it like a +heresy, but simply to snap it like a spell. Neither modern science nor +ancient religion believes in complete free thought. Theology rebukes +certain thoughts by calling them blasphemous. Science rebukes certain +thoughts by calling them morbid. For example, some religious societies +discouraged men more or less from thinking about sex. The new scientific +society definitely discourages men from thinking about death; it is a +fact, but it is considered a morbid fact. And in dealing with those +whose morbidity has a touch of mania, modern science cares far less for +pure logic than a dancing Dervish. In these cases it is not enough that. +the unhappy man should desire truth; he must desire health. Nothing can +save him but a blind hunger for normality, like that of a beast. A man +cannot think himself out of mental evil; for it is actually the organ of +thought that has become diseased, ungovernable, and, as it were, +independent. He can only be saved by will or faith. The moment his mere +reason moves, it moves in the old circular rut; he will go round and +round his logical circle, just as a man in a third-class carriage on the +Inner Circle will go round and round the Inner Circle unless he performs +the voluntary, vigorous, and mystical act of getting out at Gower +Street. Decision is the whole business here; a door must be shut for +ever. Every remedy is a desperate remedy. Every cure is a miraculous +cure. Curing a madman is not arguing with a philosopher; it is casting +out a devil. And however quietly doctors and psychologists may go to +work in the matter, their attitude is profoundly intolerant-as +intolerant as Bloody Mary. Their attitude is really this: that the man +must stop thinking, if he is to go on living. Their counsel is one of +intellectual amputation. If thy head offend thee, cut it off; for it is +better, not merely to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a child, but to +enter it as an imbecile, rather than with your whole intellect to be +cast into hell---or into Hanwell. + +Such is the madman of experience; he is commonly a reasoner, frequently +a successful reasoner. Doubtless he could be vanquished in mere reason, +and the case against him put logically. But it can be put much more +precisely in more general and even aesthetic terms. He is in the clean +and well-lit prison of one idea: he is sharpened to one painful point. +He is without healthy hesitation and healthy complexity. Now, as I +explain in the introduction, I have determined in these early chapters +to give not so much a diagram of a doctrine as some pictures of a point +of view. And I have described at length my vision of the maniac for this +reason: that just as I am affected by the maniac, so I am affected by +most modern thinkers. That unmistakable mood or note that I hear from +Hanwell J I hear also from half the chairs of science and seats of +learning to-day; and most of the mad doctors are mad doctors in more +senses than one. They all have exactly that combination we have noted: +the combination of an expansive and exhaustive reason with a contracted +common sense. They are universal only in the sense that they take one +thin explanation and carry it very far. But a pattern can stretch for +ever and still be a small pattern. They see a chess-board white on +black, and if the universe is paved with it, it is still white on black. +Like the lunatic, they cannot alter their standpoint; they cannot make a +mental effort and suddenly see it black on white. + +Take first the more obvious case of materialism. As an explanation of +the world, materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has just the +quality of the madman's argument; we have at once the sense of it +covering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out. +Contemplate some able and sincere materialist, as, for instance, +Mr. McCabe, and you will have exactly this unique sensation. He +understands everything, and everything does not seem worth +understanding. His cosmos may be complete in every rivet and cog-wheel, +but still his cosmos is smaller than our world. Somehow his scheme, like +the lucid scheme of the madman, seems unconscious of the alien energies +and the large indifference of the earth; it is not thinking of the real +things of the earth, of fighting peoples or proud mothers, or first love +or fear upon the sea. The earth is so very large, and the cosmos is so +very small. The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide +his head in. + +It must be understood that I am not now discussing the relation of these +creeds to truth; but, for the present, solely their relation to health. +Later in the argument I hope to attack the question of objective verity; +here I speak only of a phenomenon of psychology. I do not for the +present attempt to prove to Haeckel that materialism is untrue, any more +than I attempted to prove to the man who thought he was Christ that he +was labouring under an error. I merely remark here on the fact that both +cases have the same kind of completeness and the same kind of +incompleteness. You can explain a man's detention at Hanwell by an +indifferent public by saying that it is the crucifixion of a god of whom +the world is not worthy. The explanation does explain. Similarly you may +explain the order in the universe by saying that all things, even the +souls of men, are leaves inevitably unfolding on an utterly unconscious +tree-the blind destiny of matter. The explanation does explain, though +not, of course, so completely as the madman's. But the point here is +that the normal human mind not only objects to both, but feels to both +the same objection. Its approximate statement is that if the man in +Hanwell is the real God, he is not much of a god. And, similarly, if the +cosmos of the materialist is the real cosmos, it is not much of a +cosmos. The thing has shrunk. The deity is less divine than many men; +and (according to Haeckel) the whole of life is something much more +grey, narrow, and trivial than many separate aspects of it. The parts +seem greater than the whole. + +For we must remember that the materialist philosophy (whether true or +not) is certainly much more limiting than any religion. In one sense, of +course, all intelligent ideas are narrow. They cannot be broader than +themselves. A Christian is only restricted in the same sense that an +atheist is restricted. He cannot think Christianity false and continue +to be a Christian; and the atheist cannot think atheism false and +continue to be an atheist. But as it happens, there is a very special +sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism. +Mr. McCabe thinks me a slave because I am not allowed to believe in +determinism. I think Mr. McCabe a slave because he is not allowed to +believe in fairies. But if we examine the two vetoes we shall see that +his is really much more of a pure veto than mine. The Christian is quite +free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and +inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not +allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of +spiritualism or miracle. Poor Mr. McCabe is not allowed to retain even +the tiniest imp, though it might be hiding in a pimpernel. The Christian +admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a +sane man knows that he is complex. The sane man knows that he has a +touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch +of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of +the madman. But the materialist's world is quite simple and solid, just +as the madman is quite sure he is sane. The materialist is sure that +history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the +interesting person before mentioned is quite sure that he is simply and +solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts. + +Spiritual doctrines do not actually limit the mind as do materialistic +denials. Even if I believe in immortality I need not think about it. But +if I disbelieve in immortality I must not think about it. In the first +case the road is open and I can go as far as I like; in the second the +road is shut. But the case is even stronger, and the parallel with +madness is yet more strange. For it was our case against the exhaustive +and logical theory of the lunatic that, right or wrong, it gradually +destroyed his humanity. Now it is the charge against the main deductions +of the materialist that, right or wrong, they gradually destroy his +humanity; I do not mean only kindness, I mean hope, courage, poetry, +initiative, all that is human. For instance, when materialism leads men +to complete fatalism (as it generally does), it is quite idle to pretend +that it is in an y sense a liberating force. It is absurd to say that +you are especially advancing freedom when you only use free thought to +destroy free will. The determinists come to bind, not to loose. They may +well call their law the "chain" of causation. It is the worst chain that +ever fettered a human being. You may use the language of liberty, if you +like, about materialistic teaching, but it is obvious that this is just +as inapplicable to it as a whole as the same language when applied to a +man locked up in a mad-house. You may say, if you like, that the man is +free to think himself a poached egg. But it is surely a more massive and +important fact that if he is a poached egg he is not free to eat, drink, +sleep, walk, or smoke a cigarette. Similarly you may say, if you like, +that the bold determinist speculator is free to disbelieve in the +reality of the will. But it is a much more massive and important fact +that he is not free to praise, to curse, to thank, to justify, to urge, +to punish, to resist temptations, to incite mobs, to make New Year +resolutions, to pardon sinners, to rebuke tyrants, or even to say" thank you" for the mustard. -In passing from this subject I may note that there is a -queer fallacy to the effect that materialistic fatalism is -in some way favourable to mercy, to the abolition of cruel -punishments or punishments of any kind. This is startlingly -the reverse of the truth. It is quite tenable that the -doctrine of necessity makes no difference at all; that it -leaves the flogger flogging and the kind friend exhorting as -before. But obviously if it stops either of them it stops -the kind exhortation. That the sins are inevitable does not -prevent punishment; if it prevents anything it prevents -persuasion. Determinism is quite as likely to lead to -cruelty as it is certain to lead to cowardice. Determinism -is not inconsistent with the cruel treatment of criminals. -What it is (perhaps) inconsistent with is the generous -treatment of criminals; with any appeal to their better -feelings or encouragement in their moral struggle. The -determinist does not believe in appealing to the will, but -he does believe in changing the environment. He must not say -to the sinner, "Go and sin no more," because the sinner -cannot help it. But he can put him in boiling oil; for -boiling oil is an environment. Considered as a figure, -therefore, the materialist has the fantastic outline of the -figure of the madman. Both take up a position at once -unanswerable and intolerable. - -Of course it is not only of the materialist that all this is -true. The same would apply to the other extreme of -speculative logic. There is a sceptic far more terrible than -he who believes that everything began in matter. It is -possible to meet the sceptic who believes that everything -began in himself. He doubts not the existence of angels or -devils, but the existence of men and cows. For him his own -friends are a mythology made up by himself. He created his -own father and his own mother. This horrible fancy has in it -something decidedly attractive to the somewhat mystical -egoism of our day. That publisher who thought that men would -get on if they believed in themselves, those seekers after -the Superman who are always looking for him in the -looking-glass, those writers who talk about impressing their -personalities instead of creating life for the world, all -these people have really only an inch between them and this -awful emptiness. Then when this kindly world all round the -man has been blackened out like a lie; when friends fade -into ghosts, and the foundations of the world fail; then -when the man, believing in nothing and in no man, is alone -in his own nightmare, then the great individualistic motto -shall be written over him in avenging irony. The stars will -be only dots in the blackness of his own brain; his mother's -face will be only a sketch from his own insane pencil on the -walls of his cell. But over his cell shall be written, with -dreadful truth, "He believes in himself." - -All that concerns us here, however, is to note that this -panegoistic extreme of thought exhibits the same paradox as -the other extreme of materialism. It is equally complete in -theory and equally crippling in practice. For the sake of -simplicity, it is easier to state the notion by saying that -a man can believe that he is always in a dream. N ow, -obviously there can be no positive proof given to him that -he is not in a dream, for the simple reason that no proof -can be offered that might not be offered in a dream. But if -the man began to burn down London and say that his -housekeeper would soon call him to breakfast, we should take -him and put him with other logicians in a place which has -often been alluded to in the course of this chapter. The man -who cannot believe his senses, and the man who cannot -believe anything else, are both insane, but their insanity -is proved not by any error in their argument, but by the -manifest mistake of their whole lives. They have both locked -themselves up in two boxes, painted inside with the sun and -stars; they are both unable to get out, the one into the -health and happiness of heaven, the other even in to the -health and happiness of the earth. Their position is quite -reasonable; nay, in a sense it is infinitely reasonable, -just as a threepenny bit is infinitely circular. But there -is such a thing as a mean infinity, a base and slavish -eternity. It is amusing to notice that many of the moderns, -whether sceptics or mystics, have taken as their sign a -certain eastern symbol, which is the very symbol of this -ultimate nullity. When they wish to represent eternity, they -represent it by a serpent with his tail in his mouth. There -is a startling sarcasm in the image of that very -unsatisfactory meal. The eternity of the material fatalists, -the eternity of the eastern pessimists, the eternity of the -supercilious theosophists and higher scientists of to-day -is, indeed, very well presented by a serpent eating his -tail, a degraded animal who destroys even himself. - -This chapter is purely practical and is concerned with what -actually is the chief mark and element of insanity; we may -say in summary that it is reason used without root, reason -in the void. The man who begins to think without the proper -first principles goes mad, the man who begins to think at -the wrong end. And for the rest of these pages we have to -try and discover what is the right end. But we may ask in -conclusion, if this be what drives men mad, what is it that -keeps them sane? By the end of this book I hope to give a -definite, some will think a far too definite, answer. But -for the moment it is possible in the same solely practical -manner to give a general answer touching what in actual -human history keeps men sane. Mysticism keeps men sane. As -long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy -mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always -been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. -He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in -earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself -free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) -free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for -truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed -to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and -the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is -stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different -pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus -he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, -but such a thing as free will also. Thus he believed that -children were indeed the kingdom of heaven, but nevertheless -ought to be obedient to the kingdom of earth. He admired -youth because it was young and age because it was not. It is -exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has -been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret -of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by -the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician -seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making -everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be -mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid. The -determinist makes the theory of causation quite clear, and -then finds that he cannot say" if you please" to the -housemaid. The Christian permits free will to remain a -sacred mystery; but because of this his relations with the -housemaid become of a sparkling and crystal clearness. He -puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness; but it -branches forth in all directions with abounding natural -health. As we have taken the circle as the symbol of reason -and madness, we may very well take the cross as the symbol -at once of mystery and of health. Buddhism is centripetal, -but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the -circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is -fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or -smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a -collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for -ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in -its centre it can grow without changing. The circle returns -upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the -four winds; it is a signpost for free travellers. - -Symbols alone are of even a cloudy value in speaking of this -deep matter; and another symbol from physical nature will -express sufficiently well the real place of mysticism before -mankind. The one created thing which we cannot look at is -the one thing in the light of which we look at everything. -Like the sun at noonday, mysticism explains everything else -by the blaze of its own victorious invisibility. Detached -intellectualism is (in the exact sense of a popular phrase) -all moonshine; for it is light without heat, and it is -secondary light, reflected from a dead world. But the Greeks -were right when they made Apollo the god both of imagination -and of sanity; for he was both the patron of poetry and the -patron of healing. Of necessary dogmas and a special creed I -shall speak later. But that transcendentalism by which all -men live has primarily much the position of the sun in the -sky. We are conscious of it as of a kind of splendid -confusion; it is something both shining and shapeless, at -once a blaze and a blur. But the circle of the moon is as -clear and unmistakable, as recurrent and inevitable, as the -circle of Euclid on a blackboard. For the moon is utterly -reasonable; and the moon is the mother of lunatics and has -given to them all her name. +In passing from this subject I may note that there is a queer fallacy to +the effect that materialistic fatalism is in some way favourable to +mercy, to the abolition of cruel punishments or punishments of any kind. +This is startlingly the reverse of the truth. It is quite tenable that +the doctrine of necessity makes no difference at all; that it leaves the +flogger flogging and the kind friend exhorting as before. But obviously +if it stops either of them it stops the kind exhortation. That the sins +are inevitable does not prevent punishment; if it prevents anything it +prevents persuasion. Determinism is quite as likely to lead to cruelty +as it is certain to lead to cowardice. Determinism is not inconsistent +with the cruel treatment of criminals. What it is (perhaps) inconsistent +with is the generous treatment of criminals; with any appeal to their +better feelings or encouragement in their moral struggle. The +determinist does not believe in appealing to the will, but he does +believe in changing the environment. He must not say to the sinner, "Go +and sin no more," because the sinner cannot help it. But he can put him +in boiling oil; for boiling oil is an environment. Considered as a +figure, therefore, the materialist has the fantastic outline of the +figure of the madman. Both take up a position at once unanswerable and +intolerable. + +Of course it is not only of the materialist that all this is true. The +same would apply to the other extreme of speculative logic. There is a +sceptic far more terrible than he who believes that everything began in +matter. It is possible to meet the sceptic who believes that everything +began in himself. He doubts not the existence of angels or devils, but +the existence of men and cows. For him his own friends are a mythology +made up by himself. He created his own father and his own mother. This +horrible fancy has in it something decidedly attractive to the somewhat +mystical egoism of our day. That publisher who thought that men would +get on if they believed in themselves, those seekers after the Superman +who are always looking for him in the looking-glass, those writers who +talk about impressing their personalities instead of creating life for +the world, all these people have really only an inch between them and +this awful emptiness. Then when this kindly world all round the man has +been blackened out like a lie; when friends fade into ghosts, and the +foundations of the world fail; then when the man, believing in nothing +and in no man, is alone in his own nightmare, then the great +individualistic motto shall be written over him in avenging irony. The +stars will be only dots in the blackness of his own brain; his mother's +face will be only a sketch from his own insane pencil on the walls of +his cell. But over his cell shall be written, with dreadful truth, "He +believes in himself." + +All that concerns us here, however, is to note that this panegoistic +extreme of thought exhibits the same paradox as the other extreme of +materialism. It is equally complete in theory and equally crippling in +practice. For the sake of simplicity, it is easier to state the notion +by saying that a man can believe that he is always in a dream. N ow, +obviously there can be no positive proof given to him that he is not in +a dream, for the simple reason that no proof can be offered that might +not be offered in a dream. But if the man began to burn down London and +say that his housekeeper would soon call him to breakfast, we should +take him and put him with other logicians in a place which has often +been alluded to in the course of this chapter. The man who cannot +believe his senses, and the man who cannot believe anything else, are +both insane, but their insanity is proved not by any error in their +argument, but by the manifest mistake of their whole lives. They have +both locked themselves up in two boxes, painted inside with the sun and +stars; they are both unable to get out, the one into the health and +happiness of heaven, the other even in to the health and happiness of +the earth. Their position is quite reasonable; nay, in a sense it is +infinitely reasonable, just as a threepenny bit is infinitely circular. +But there is such a thing as a mean infinity, a base and slavish +eternity. It is amusing to notice that many of the moderns, whether +sceptics or mystics, have taken as their sign a certain eastern symbol, +which is the very symbol of this ultimate nullity. When they wish to +represent eternity, they represent it by a serpent with his tail in his +mouth. There is a startling sarcasm in the image of that very +unsatisfactory meal. The eternity of the material fatalists, the +eternity of the eastern pessimists, the eternity of the supercilious +theosophists and higher scientists of to-day is, indeed, very well +presented by a serpent eating his tail, a degraded animal who destroys +even himself. + +This chapter is purely practical and is concerned with what actually is +the chief mark and element of insanity; we may say in summary that it is +reason used without root, reason in the void. The man who begins to +think without the proper first principles goes mad, the man who begins +to think at the wrong end. And for the rest of these pages we have to +try and discover what is the right end. But we may ask in conclusion, if +this be what drives men mad, what is it that keeps them sane? By the end +of this book I hope to give a definite, some will think a far too +definite, answer. But for the moment it is possible in the same solely +practical manner to give a general answer touching what in actual human +history keeps men sane. Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have +mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. +The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has +always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had +one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself +free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to +believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for +consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, +he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His +spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two +different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus he +has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a +thing as free will also. Thus he believed that children were indeed the +kingdom of heaven, but nevertheless ought to be obedient to the kingdom +of earth. He admired youth because it was young and age because it was +not. It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been +the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is +this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not +understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and +succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to +be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid. The determinist makes +the theory of causation quite clear, and then finds that he cannot say" +if you please" to the housemaid. The Christian permits free will to +remain a sacred mystery; but because of this his relations with the +housemaid become of a sparkling and crystal clearness. He puts the seed +of dogma in a central darkness; but it branches forth in all directions +with abounding natural health. As we have taken the circle as the symbol +of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as the symbol at +once of mystery and of health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity +is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in +its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger +or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a +contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its +shape. Because it has a paradox in its centre it can grow without +changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens +its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travellers. + +Symbols alone are of even a cloudy value in speaking of this deep +matter; and another symbol from physical nature will express +sufficiently well the real place of mysticism before mankind. The one +created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of +which we look at everything. Like the sun at noonday, mysticism explains +everything else by the blaze of its own victorious invisibility. +Detached intellectualism is (in the exact sense of a popular phrase) all +moonshine; for it is light without heat, and it is secondary light, +reflected from a dead world. But the Greeks were right when they made +Apollo the god both of imagination and of sanity; for he was both the +patron of poetry and the patron of healing. Of necessary dogmas and a +special creed I shall speak later. But that transcendentalism by which +all men live has primarily much the position of the sun in the sky. We +are conscious of it as of a kind of splendid confusion; it is something +both shining and shapeless, at once a blaze and a blur. But the circle +of the moon is as clear and unmistakable, as recurrent and inevitable, +as the circle of Euclid on a blackboard. For the moon is utterly +reasonable; and the moon is the mother of lunatics and has given to them +all her name. # The Suicide of Thought -The phrases of the street are not only forcible but subtle: -for a figure of speech can often get into a crack too small -for a definition. Phrases like "put out" or "off colour" -might have been coined by Mr. Henry James in an agony of -verbal precision. And there is no more subtle truth than -that of the everyday phrase about a man having "his heart in -the right place." It involves the idea of normal proportion; -not only does a certain function exist, but it is rightly -related to other functions. Indeed, the negation of this -phrase would describe with peculiar accuracy the somewhat -morbid mercy and perverse tenderness of the most -representative moderns. If, for instance, I had to describe -with fairness the character of Mr. Bernard Shaw, I could not -express myself more exactly than by saying that he has a -heroically large and generous heart; but not a heart in the -right place. And this is so of the typical society of our -time. - -The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world -is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When -a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was -shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices -that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and -they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose -also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do -more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old -Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad -because they have been isolated from each other and are -wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and -their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care -for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often -untruthful. For example, Mr. Blatchford attacks Christianity -because he is mad on one Christian virtue: the merely -mystical and almost irrational virtue of charity. He has a -strange idea that he will make it easier to forgive sins by -saying that there are no sins to forgive. Mr. Blatchford is -not only an early Christian, he is the only early Christian -who ought really to have been eaten by lions. For in his -case the pagan accusation is really true: his mercy would -mean mere anarchy. He really is the enemy of the human -race---because he is so human. As the other extreme, we may -take the acrid realist, who has deliberately killed in -himself all human pleasure in happy tales or in the healing -of the heart. Torquemada tortured people physically for the -sake of moral truth. Zola tortured people morally for the -sake of physical truth. But in Torquemada's time there was -at least a system that could to some extent make -righteousness and peace kiss each other. Now they do not -even bow. But a much stronger case than these two of truth -and pity can be found in the remarkable case of the -dislocation of humility. - -It is only with one aspect of humility that we are here -concerned. Humility was largely meant as a restraint upon -the arrogance and infinity of the appetite of man. He was -always outstripping his mercies with his own newly invented -needs. His very power of enjoyment destroyed half his joys. -By asking for pleasure, he lost the chief pleasure; for the -chief pleasure is surprise. Hence it became evident that if -a man would make his world large, he must be always making -himself small. Even the haughty visions, the tall cities, -and the toppling pinnacles are the creations of humility. -Giants that tread down forests like grass are the creations -of humility. Towers that vanish upwards above the loneliest -star are the creations of humility. For towers are not tall -unless we look up at them; and giants are not giants unless -they are larger than we. All this gigantic imagination, -which is, perhaps, the mightiest of the pleasures of man, is -at bottom entirely humble. It is impossible without humility -to enjoy anything---even pride. - -But what we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong -place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty -has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never -meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, -but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly -reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert -is exactly the part he ought not to assert---himself. The -part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to -doubt---the Divine Reason. Huxley preached a humility -content to learn from Nature. But the new sceptic is so -humble that he doubts if he can even learn. Thus we should -be wrong if we had said hastily that there is no humility -typical of our time. The truth is that there is a real -humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it is -practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest -prostrations of the ascetic. The old humility was a spur -that prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot -that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made -a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work -harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his -aims, which will make him stop working altogether. - -At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the -frantic and blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. -Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course -his view may not be the right one. Of course his view must -be the right one, or it is not his view. We are on the road -to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in -the multiplication table. Weare in danger of seeing -philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere -fancy of their own. Scoffers of old time were too proud to -be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced. The -meek do inherit the earth; but the modern sceptics are too -meek even to claim their inheritance. It is exactly this +The phrases of the street are not only forcible but subtle: for a figure +of speech can often get into a crack too small for a definition. Phrases +like "put out" or "off colour" might have been coined by Mr. Henry James +in an agony of verbal precision. And there is no more subtle truth than +that of the everyday phrase about a man having "his heart in the right +place." It involves the idea of normal proportion; not only does a +certain function exist, but it is rightly related to other functions. +Indeed, the negation of this phrase would describe with peculiar +accuracy the somewhat morbid mercy and perverse tenderness of the most +representative moderns. If, for instance, I had to describe with +fairness the character of Mr. Bernard Shaw, I could not express myself +more exactly than by saying that he has a heroically large and generous +heart; but not a heart in the right place. And this is so of the typical +society of our time. + +The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too +good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is +shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not +merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, +and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and +the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. +The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The +virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other +and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their +truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their +pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful. For example, +Mr. Blatchford attacks Christianity because he is mad on one Christian +virtue: the merely mystical and almost irrational virtue of charity. He +has a strange idea that he will make it easier to forgive sins by saying +that there are no sins to forgive. Mr. Blatchford is not only an early +Christian, he is the only early Christian who ought really to have been +eaten by lions. For in his case the pagan accusation is really true: his +mercy would mean mere anarchy. He really is the enemy of the human +race---because he is so human. As the other extreme, we may take the +acrid realist, who has deliberately killed in himself all human pleasure +in happy tales or in the healing of the heart. Torquemada tortured +people physically for the sake of moral truth. Zola tortured people +morally for the sake of physical truth. But in Torquemada's time there +was at least a system that could to some extent make righteousness and +peace kiss each other. Now they do not even bow. But a much stronger +case than these two of truth and pity can be found in the remarkable +case of the dislocation of humility. + +It is only with one aspect of humility that we are here concerned. +Humility was largely meant as a restraint upon the arrogance and +infinity of the appetite of man. He was always outstripping his mercies +with his own newly invented needs. His very power of enjoyment destroyed +half his joys. By asking for pleasure, he lost the chief pleasure; for +the chief pleasure is surprise. Hence it became evident that if a man +would make his world large, he must be always making himself small. Even +the haughty visions, the tall cities, and the toppling pinnacles are the +creations of humility. Giants that tread down forests like grass are the +creations of humility. Towers that vanish upwards above the loneliest +star are the creations of humility. For towers are not tall unless we +look up at them; and giants are not giants unless they are larger than +we. All this gigantic imagination, which is, perhaps, the mightiest of +the pleasures of man, is at bottom entirely humble. It is impossible +without humility to enjoy anything---even pride. + +But what we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modesty +has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ +of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be +doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been +exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is +exactly the part he ought not to assert---himself. The part he doubts is +exactly the part he ought not to doubt---the Divine Reason. Huxley +preached a humility content to learn from Nature. But the new sceptic is +so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. Thus we should be wrong +if we had said hastily that there is no humility typical of our time. +The truth is that there is a real humility typical of our time; but it +so happens that it is practically a more poisonous humility than the +wildest prostrations of the ascetic. The old humility was a spur that +prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that prevented him +from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his +efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a +man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working +altogether. + +At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and +blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across +somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Of +course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view. We are on +the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in +the multiplication table. Weare in danger of seeing philosophers who +doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own. Scoffers of +old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be +convinced. The meek do inherit the earth; but the modern sceptics are +too meek even to claim their inheritance. It is exactly this intellectual helplessness which is our second problem. -The last chapter has been concerned only with a fact of -observation: that what peril of morbidity there is for man -comes rather from his reason than his imagination. It was -not meant to attack the authority of reason; rather it is -the ultimate purpose to defend it. For it needs defence. The -whole modern world is at war with reason; and the tower +The last chapter has been concerned only with a fact of observation: +that what peril of morbidity there is for man comes rather from his +reason than his imagination. It was not meant to attack the authority of +reason; rather it is the ultimate purpose to defend it. For it needs +defence. The whole modern world is at war with reason; and the tower already reels. -The sages, it is often said, can see no answer to the riddle -of religion. But the trouble with our sages is not that they -cannot see the answer; it is that they cannot even see the -riddle. They are like children so stupid as to notice -nothing paradoxical in the playful assertion that a door is -not a door. The modern latitudinarians speak, for instance, -about authority in religion not only as if there were no -reason in it, but as if there had never been any reason for -it. Apart from seeing its philosophical basis, they cannot -even see its historical cause. Religious authority has -often, doubtless, been oppressive or unreasonable; just as -every legal system (and especially our present one) has been -callous and full of a cruel apathy. It is rational to attack -the police; nay, it is glorious. But the modern critics of -religious authority are like men who should attack the -police without ever having heard of burglars. For there is a -great and possible peril to the human mind: a peril as -practical as burglary. Against it religious authority was -reared, rightly or wrongly, as a barrier. And against it -something certainly must be reared as a barrier, if our race +The sages, it is often said, can see no answer to the riddle of +religion. But the trouble with our sages is not that they cannot see the +answer; it is that they cannot even see the riddle. They are like +children so stupid as to notice nothing paradoxical in the playful +assertion that a door is not a door. The modern latitudinarians speak, +for instance, about authority in religion not only as if there were no +reason in it, but as if there had never been any reason for it. Apart +from seeing its philosophical basis, they cannot even see its historical +cause. Religious authority has often, doubtless, been oppressive or +unreasonable; just as every legal system (and especially our present +one) has been callous and full of a cruel apathy. It is rational to +attack the police; nay, it is glorious. But the modern critics of +religious authority are like men who should attack the police without +ever having heard of burglars. For there is a great and possible peril +to the human mind: a peril as practical as burglary. Against it +religious authority was reared, rightly or wrongly, as a barrier. And +against it something certainly must be reared as a barrier, if our race is to avoid ruin. -That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy -itself. Just as one generation could prevent the very -existence of the next generation, by all entering a -monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers -can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the -next generation that there is no validity in any human -thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative of -reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is -an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any -relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you -must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should -anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why -should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They -are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?" The -young sceptic says, "I have a right to think for myself." -But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I have no -right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all." - -There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only -thought that ought to be stopped. That is the ultimate evil -against which all religious authority was aimed. It only -appears at the end of decadent ages like our own: and -already Mr. H. G. Wells has raised its ruinous banner; he -has written a delicate piece of scepticism called "Doubts of -the Instrument." In this he questions the brain itself, and -endeavours to remove all reality from all his own -assertions, past, present, and to come. But it was against -this remote ruin that all the military systems in religion -were originally ranked and ruled. The creeds and the -crusades, the hierarchies and the horrible persecutions were -not organized, as is ignorantly said, for the suppression of -reason. They were organized for the difficult defence of -reason. Man, by a blind instinct, knew that if once things -were wildly questioned, reason could be questioned first. -The authority of priests to absolve, the authority of popes -to define the authority, even of inquisitors to terrify: -these were all only dark defences erected round one central -authority, more indemonstrable, more supernatural than -all---the authority of a man to think. We know now that this -is so; we have no excuse for not knowing it. For we can hear -scepticism crashing through the old ring of authorities, and -at the same moment we can see reason swaying upon her -throne. In so far as religion is gone, reason is going. For -they are both of the same primary and authoritative kind. -They arc both methods of proof which cannot themselves be -proved. And in the act of destroying the idea of Divine -authority we have largely destroyed the idea of that human -authority by which we do a long-division sum. With a long -and sustained tug we have attempted to pull the mitre off -pontifical man; and his head has come off with it. - -Lest this should be called loose assertion, it is perhaps -desirable, though dun, to run rapidly through the chief -modern fashions of thought which have this effect of -stopping thought itself. Materialism and the view of -everything as a personal illusion have some such effect; for -if the mind is mechanical, thought cannot be very exciting, -and if the cosmos is unreal, there is nothing to think -about. But in these cases the effect is indirect and -doubtful. In some cases it is direct and clear; notably in -the case of what is generally called evolution. - -Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence -which, if it destroys anything, destroys itself. Evolution -is either an innocent scientific description of how certain -earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than -this, it is an attack upon thought itself. If evolution -destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but -rationalism. If evolution simply means that a positive thing -called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing -cal1ed a man, then it is stingless for the most orthodox; -for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as -quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were -outside time. But if it means anything more, it means that -there is no such thing as an ape to change, and no such -thing as a man for him to change into. It means that there -is no such thing as a thing. At best, there is only one -thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. This -is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you -cannot think if there are no things to think about. You -cannot think if you are not separate from the subject of -thought. Descartes said, "I think; therefore I am." The -philosophic evolutionist reverses and negatives the epigram. -He says, cc I am not; therefore I cannot think." - -Then there is the opposite attack on thought: that urged by -Mr. H. G. Wells when he insists that every separate thing is -"unique," and there are no categories at all. This also is -merely destructive. Thinking means connecting things, and -stops if they cannot be connected. It need hardly be said -that this scepticism forbidding thought necessarily forbids -speech; a man cannot open his mouth without contradicting -it. Thus when Mr. Wells says (as he did somewhere), "All -chairs are quite different," he utters not merely a -misstatement, but a contradiction in terms. If all chairs -were quite different, you could not call them "all chairs." - -Akin to these is the false theory of progress, which -maintains that we alter the test instead of trying to pass -the test. We often hear it said, for instance, "What is -right in one age is wrong in another." This is quite -reasonable, if it means that there is a fixed aim, and that -certain methods attain at certain times and not at other -times. If women, say, desire to be elegant, it may be that -they are improved at one time by growing fatter and at -another time by growing thinner. But you cannot say that -they are improved by ceasing to wish to be elegant and -beginning to wish to be oblong. If the standard changes, how -can there be improvement, which implies a standard? -Nietzsche started a nonsensical idea that men had once -sought as good what we now call evil; if it were so, we -could not talk of surpassing or even falling short of them. -How can you overtake Jones if you walk in the other -direction? You cannot discuss whether one people has -succeeded more in being miserable than another succeeded in -being happy. It would be like discussing whether Milton was -more puritanical than a pig is fat. - -It is true that a man (a silly man) might make change itself -his object or ideal. But as an ideal, change itself becomes -unchangeable. If the change-worshipper wishes to estimate -his own progress, he must be sternly loyal to the ideal of -change; he must not begin to flirt gaily with the ideal of -monotony. Progress itself cannot progress. It is worth -remark, in passing, that when Tennyson, in a wild and rather -weak manner, welcomed the idea of infinite alteration in -society, he instinctively took a metaphor which suggests an -imprisoned tedium. He wrote-- - ->  Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing -> grooves of change. - -He thought of change itself as an unchangeable groove; and -so it is. Change is about the narrowest and hardest groove -that a man can get into. - -The main point here, however, is that this idea of a -fundamental alteration in the standard is one of the things -that make thought about the past or future simply -impossible. The theory of a complete change of standards in -human history does not merely deprive us of the pleasure of -honouring our fathers; it deprives us even of the more -modern and aristocratic pleasure of despising them. - -This bald summary of the thought-destroying forces of our -time would not be complete without some reference to -pragmatism; for though T have here used and should -everywhere defend the pragmatist method as a preliminary -guide to truth, there is an extreme application of it which -involves the absence of all truth whatever. My meaning can -be put shortly thus. I agree with the pragmatists that -apparent objective truth is not the whole matter; that there -is an authoritative need to believe the things that are -necessary to the human mind. But I say that one of those -necessities precisely is a belief in objective truth. The -pragmatist tells a man to think what he must think and never -mind the Absolute. But precisely one of the things that he -must think is the Absolute. This philosophy, indeed, is a -kind of verbal paradox. Pragmatism is a matter of human -needs; and one of the first of human needs is to be -something more than a pragmatist. Extreme pragmatism is just -as inhuman as the determinism it so powerfully attacks. The -determinist (who, to do him justice, does not pretend to be -a human being) makes nonsense of the human sense of actual -choice. The pragmatist, who professes to be specially human, -makes nonsense of the human sense of actual fact. - -To sum up our contention so far, we may say that the most -characteristic current philosophies have not only a touch of -mania, but a touch of suicidal mania. The mere questioner -has knocked his head against the limits of human thought; -and cracked it. This is what makes so futile the warnings of -the orthodox and the boasts of the advanced about the -dangerous boyhood of free thought. What we are looking at is -not the boyhood of free thought; it is the old age and -ultimate dissolution of free thought. It is vain for bishops -and pious bigwigs to discuss what dreadful things will -happen if wild scepticism runs its course. It has run its -course. It is vain for eloquent atheists to talk of the -great truths that will be revealed if once we see free -thought begin. We have seen it end. It has no more questions -to ask; it has questioned itself. You cannot call up any -wilder vision than a city in which men ask themselves if -they have any selves. You cannot fancy a more sceptical -world than that in which men doubt if there is a world. It -might certainly have reached its bankruptcy more quickly and -cleanly if it had not been feebly hampered by the -application of indefensible laws of blasphemy or by the -absurd pretence that modern England is Christian. But it -would have reached the bankruptcy anyhow. Militant atheists -are still unjustly persecuted; but rather because they are -an old minority than because they are a new one. Free -thought has exhausted its own freedom. It is weary of its -own success. If any eager freethinker now hails philosophic -freedom as the dawn, he is only like the man in Mark Twain -who came out wrapped in blankets to see the sun rise and was -just in time to see it set. If any frightened curate still -says that it will be awful if the darkness of free thought -should spread, we can only answer him in the high and -powerful words of Mr. Belloc, "Do not, I beseech you, be -troubled about the increase of forces already in -dissolution. You have mistaken the hour of the night: it is -already morning." We have no more questions left to ask. We -have looked for questions in the darkest corners and on the -wildest peaks. We have found all the questions that can be -found. It is time we gave up looking for questions and began -looking for answers. - -But one more word must be added. At the beginning of this -preliminary negative sketch I said that our mental ruin has -been wrought by wild reason, not by wild imagination. A man -does not go mad because he makes a statue a mile high, but -he may go mad by thinking it out in square inches. N ow, one -school of thinkers has seen this and jumped at it as a way -of renewing the pagan health of the world. They see that -reason destroys; but Will, they say, creates. The ultimate -authority, they say, is in will, not in reason. The supreme -point is not why a man demands a thing, but the fact that he -does demand it. I have no space to trace or expound this -philosophy of Will. It came, I suppose, through Nietzsche, -who preached something that is called egoism. That, indeed, -was simple-minded enough; for Nietzsche denied egoism simply -by preaching it. To preach anything is to give it away. -First, the egoist calls life a war without mercy, and then -he takes the greatest possible trouble to drill his enemies -in war. To preach egoism is to practise altruism. But -however it began, the view is common enough in current -literature. The main defence of these thinkers is that they -are not thinkers; they are makers. They say that choice is -itself the divine thing. Thus Mr. Bernard Shaw has attacked -the old idea that men's acts are to be judged by the -standard of the desire of happiness. He says that a man does -not act for his happiness, but from his will. He does not -say, "Jam will make me happy," but "I want jam." And in all -this others follow him with yet greater enthusiasm. Mr. John -Davidson, a remarkable poet, is so passionately excited -about it that he is obliged to write prose. He publishes a -short play with several long prefaces. This is natural -enough in Mr. Shaw, for all his plays are prefaces: Mr. Shaw -is (I suspect) the only man on earth who has never written -any poetry. But that Mr. Davidson (who can write excellent -poetry) should write instead laborious metaphysics in -defence of this doctrine of will, does show that the -doctrine of will has taken hold of men. Even Mr. H. G. Wells -has half spoken in its language; saying that one should test -acts not like a thinker, but like an artist, saying, "I -*feel* this curve is right," or"that line *shall* go thus." -They are all excited; and well they may be. F or by this -doctrine of the divine authority of will, they think they -can break out of the doomed fortress of rationalism. They +That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself. Just +as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next +generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one +set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching +the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. It +is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is +itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our +thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a +sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should +anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good +logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the +brain of a bewildered ape?" The young sceptic says, "I have a right to +think for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I +have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all." + +There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that +ought to be stopped. That is the ultimate evil against which all +religious authority was aimed. It only appears at the end of decadent +ages like our own: and already Mr. H. G. Wells has raised its ruinous +banner; he has written a delicate piece of scepticism called "Doubts of +the Instrument." In this he questions the brain itself, and endeavours +to remove all reality from all his own assertions, past, present, and to +come. But it was against this remote ruin that all the military systems +in religion were originally ranked and ruled. The creeds and the +crusades, the hierarchies and the horrible persecutions were not +organized, as is ignorantly said, for the suppression of reason. They +were organized for the difficult defence of reason. Man, by a blind +instinct, knew that if once things were wildly questioned, reason could +be questioned first. The authority of priests to absolve, the authority +of popes to define the authority, even of inquisitors to terrify: these +were all only dark defences erected round one central authority, more +indemonstrable, more supernatural than all---the authority of a man to +think. We know now that this is so; we have no excuse for not knowing +it. For we can hear scepticism crashing through the old ring of +authorities, and at the same moment we can see reason swaying upon her +throne. In so far as religion is gone, reason is going. For they are +both of the same primary and authoritative kind. They arc both methods +of proof which cannot themselves be proved. And in the act of destroying +the idea of Divine authority we have largely destroyed the idea of that +human authority by which we do a long-division sum. With a long and +sustained tug we have attempted to pull the mitre off pontifical man; +and his head has come off with it. + +Lest this should be called loose assertion, it is perhaps desirable, +though dun, to run rapidly through the chief modern fashions of thought +which have this effect of stopping thought itself. Materialism and the +view of everything as a personal illusion have some such effect; for if +the mind is mechanical, thought cannot be very exciting, and if the +cosmos is unreal, there is nothing to think about. But in these cases +the effect is indirect and doubtful. In some cases it is direct and +clear; notably in the case of what is generally called evolution. + +Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it +destroys anything, destroys itself. Evolution is either an innocent +scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if +it is anything more than this, it is an attack upon thought itself. If +evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but +rationalism. If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an +ape turned very slowly into a positive thing cal1ed a man, then it is +stingless for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well +do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he +were outside time. But if it means anything more, it means that there is +no such thing as an ape to change, and no such thing as a man for him to +change into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing. At best, +there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. +This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannot +think if there are no things to think about. You cannot think if you are +not separate from the subject of thought. Descartes said, "I think; +therefore I am." The philosophic evolutionist reverses and negatives the +epigram. He says, cc I am not; therefore I cannot think." + +Then there is the opposite attack on thought: that urged by Mr. H. G. +Wells when he insists that every separate thing is "unique," and there +are no categories at all. This also is merely destructive. Thinking +means connecting things, and stops if they cannot be connected. It need +hardly be said that this scepticism forbidding thought necessarily +forbids speech; a man cannot open his mouth without contradicting it. +Thus when Mr. Wells says (as he did somewhere), "All chairs are quite +different," he utters not merely a misstatement, but a contradiction in +terms. If all chairs were quite different, you could not call them "all +chairs." + +Akin to these is the false theory of progress, which maintains that we +alter the test instead of trying to pass the test. We often hear it +said, for instance, "What is right in one age is wrong in another." This +is quite reasonable, if it means that there is a fixed aim, and that +certain methods attain at certain times and not at other times. If +women, say, desire to be elegant, it may be that they are improved at +one time by growing fatter and at another time by growing thinner. But +you cannot say that they are improved by ceasing to wish to be elegant +and beginning to wish to be oblong. If the standard changes, how can +there be improvement, which implies a standard? Nietzsche started a +nonsensical idea that men had once sought as good what we now call evil; +if it were so, we could not talk of surpassing or even falling short of +them. How can you overtake Jones if you walk in the other direction? You +cannot discuss whether one people has succeeded more in being miserable +than another succeeded in being happy. It would be like discussing +whether Milton was more puritanical than a pig is fat. + +It is true that a man (a silly man) might make change itself his object +or ideal. But as an ideal, change itself becomes unchangeable. If the +change-worshipper wishes to estimate his own progress, he must be +sternly loyal to the ideal of change; he must not begin to flirt gaily +with the ideal of monotony. Progress itself cannot progress. It is worth +remark, in passing, that when Tennyson, in a wild and rather weak +manner, welcomed the idea of infinite alteration in society, he +instinctively took a metaphor which suggests an imprisoned tedium. He +wrote-- + +>  Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change. + +He thought of change itself as an unchangeable groove; and so it is. +Change is about the narrowest and hardest groove that a man can get +into. + +The main point here, however, is that this idea of a fundamental +alteration in the standard is one of the things that make thought about +the past or future simply impossible. The theory of a complete change of +standards in human history does not merely deprive us of the pleasure of +honouring our fathers; it deprives us even of the more modern and +aristocratic pleasure of despising them. + +This bald summary of the thought-destroying forces of our time would not +be complete without some reference to pragmatism; for though T have here +used and should everywhere defend the pragmatist method as a preliminary +guide to truth, there is an extreme application of it which involves the +absence of all truth whatever. My meaning can be put shortly thus. I +agree with the pragmatists that apparent objective truth is not the +whole matter; that there is an authoritative need to believe the things +that are necessary to the human mind. But I say that one of those +necessities precisely is a belief in objective truth. The pragmatist +tells a man to think what he must think and never mind the Absolute. But +precisely one of the things that he must think is the Absolute. This +philosophy, indeed, is a kind of verbal paradox. Pragmatism is a matter +of human needs; and one of the first of human needs is to be something +more than a pragmatist. Extreme pragmatism is just as inhuman as the +determinism it so powerfully attacks. The determinist (who, to do him +justice, does not pretend to be a human being) makes nonsense of the +human sense of actual choice. The pragmatist, who professes to be +specially human, makes nonsense of the human sense of actual fact. + +To sum up our contention so far, we may say that the most characteristic +current philosophies have not only a touch of mania, but a touch of +suicidal mania. The mere questioner has knocked his head against the +limits of human thought; and cracked it. This is what makes so futile +the warnings of the orthodox and the boasts of the advanced about the +dangerous boyhood of free thought. What we are looking at is not the +boyhood of free thought; it is the old age and ultimate dissolution of +free thought. It is vain for bishops and pious bigwigs to discuss what +dreadful things will happen if wild scepticism runs its course. It has +run its course. It is vain for eloquent atheists to talk of the great +truths that will be revealed if once we see free thought begin. We have +seen it end. It has no more questions to ask; it has questioned itself. +You cannot call up any wilder vision than a city in which men ask +themselves if they have any selves. You cannot fancy a more sceptical +world than that in which men doubt if there is a world. It might +certainly have reached its bankruptcy more quickly and cleanly if it had +not been feebly hampered by the application of indefensible laws of +blasphemy or by the absurd pretence that modern England is Christian. +But it would have reached the bankruptcy anyhow. Militant atheists are +still unjustly persecuted; but rather because they are an old minority +than because they are a new one. Free thought has exhausted its own +freedom. It is weary of its own success. If any eager freethinker now +hails philosophic freedom as the dawn, he is only like the man in Mark +Twain who came out wrapped in blankets to see the sun rise and was just +in time to see it set. If any frightened curate still says that it will +be awful if the darkness of free thought should spread, we can only +answer him in the high and powerful words of Mr. Belloc, "Do not, I +beseech you, be troubled about the increase of forces already in +dissolution. You have mistaken the hour of the night: it is already +morning." We have no more questions left to ask. We have looked for +questions in the darkest corners and on the wildest peaks. We have found +all the questions that can be found. It is time we gave up looking for +questions and began looking for answers. + +But one more word must be added. At the beginning of this preliminary +negative sketch I said that our mental ruin has been wrought by wild +reason, not by wild imagination. A man does not go mad because he makes +a statue a mile high, but he may go mad by thinking it out in square +inches. N ow, one school of thinkers has seen this and jumped at it as a +way of renewing the pagan health of the world. They see that reason +destroys; but Will, they say, creates. The ultimate authority, they say, +is in will, not in reason. The supreme point is not why a man demands a +thing, but the fact that he does demand it. I have no space to trace or +expound this philosophy of Will. It came, I suppose, through Nietzsche, +who preached something that is called egoism. That, indeed, was +simple-minded enough; for Nietzsche denied egoism simply by preaching +it. To preach anything is to give it away. First, the egoist calls life +a war without mercy, and then he takes the greatest possible trouble to +drill his enemies in war. To preach egoism is to practise altruism. But +however it began, the view is common enough in current literature. The +main defence of these thinkers is that they are not thinkers; they are +makers. They say that choice is itself the divine thing. Thus +Mr. Bernard Shaw has attacked the old idea that men's acts are to be +judged by the standard of the desire of happiness. He says that a man +does not act for his happiness, but from his will. He does not say, "Jam +will make me happy," but "I want jam." And in all this others follow him +with yet greater enthusiasm. Mr. John Davidson, a remarkable poet, is so +passionately excited about it that he is obliged to write prose. He +publishes a short play with several long prefaces. This is natural +enough in Mr. Shaw, for all his plays are prefaces: Mr. Shaw is (I +suspect) the only man on earth who has never written any poetry. But +that Mr. Davidson (who can write excellent poetry) should write instead +laborious metaphysics in defence of this doctrine of will, does show +that the doctrine of will has taken hold of men. Even Mr. H. G. Wells +has half spoken in its language; saying that one should test acts not +like a thinker, but like an artist, saying, "I *feel* this curve is +right," or"that line *shall* go thus." They are all excited; and well +they may be. F or by this doctrine of the divine authority of will, they +think they can break out of the doomed fortress of rationalism. They think they can escape. -But they cannot escape. This pure praise of volition ends in -the same break up and blank as the mere pursuit of logic. -Exactly as complete free thought involves the doubting of -thought itself so the acceptation of mere "willing" really -paralyzes the will. Mr. Bernard Shaw has not perceived the -real difference between the old utilitarian test of pleasure -(clumsy, of course, and easily misstated) and that which he -propounds. The real difference between the test of happiness -and the test of will is simply that the test of happiness is -a test and the other isn't. You can discuss whether a man's -act in jumping over a cliff was directed towards happiness; -you cannot discuss whether it was derived from will. Of -course it was. You can praise an action by saying that it is -calculated to bring pleasure or pain to discover truth or to -save the soul. But you cannot praise an action because it -shows will; for to say that is merely to say that it is an -action. By this praise of will you cannot really choose one -course as better than another. And yet choosing one course -as better than another is the very definition of the will -you are praising. - -The worship of will is the negation of will. To admire mere -choice is to refuse to choose. If Mr. Bernard Shaw comes up -to me and says, "Will something," that is tantamount to -saying, "I do not mind what you will," and that is -tantamount to saying, "I have no will in the matter." You -cannot admire will in general, because the essence of will -is that it is particular. A brilliant anarchist like -Mr. John Davidson feels an irritation against ordinary -morality, and therefore he invokes will---will to anything. -He only wants humanity to want something. But humanity does -want something. It wants ordinary morality. He rebels -against the law and tells us to will something or anything. -But we have willed something. We have willed the law against -which he rebels. - -All the will-worshippers, from Nietzsche to Mr. Davidson, -are really quite empty of volition. They cannot will, they -can hardly wish. And if anyone wants a proof of this, it can -be found quite easily. It can be found in this fact: that -they always talk of will as something that expands and -breaks out. But it is quite the opposite. Every act of will -is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire -limitation. In that sense every act is an act of -self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject -everything else. That objection, which men of this school -used to make to the act of marriage, is really an objection -to every act. Every act is an irrevocable selection and -exclusion. Just as when you marry one woman you give up all -the others, so when you take one course of action you give -up all the other courses. If you become King of England, you -give up the post of Beadle in Brompton. If you go to Rome, -you sacrifice a rich suggestive life in Wimbledon. It is the -existence of this negative or limiting side of will that -makes most of the talk of the anarchic will-worshippers -little better than nonsense. For instance, Mr. John Davidson -tells us to have nothing to do with "Thou shalt not"; but it -is surely obvious that "Thou shalt not" is only one of the -necessary corollaries of "I will." "I will go to the Lord -Mayor's Show, and thou shalt not stop me." Anarchism adjures -us to be bold creative artists, and care for no laws or -limits. But it is impossible to be an artist and not care -for laws and limits. Art is limitation; the essence of every -picture is the frame. If you draw a giraffe, you must draw -him with a long neck. If, in your bold creative way, you -hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck, you -will really find that you are not free to draw a giraffe. -The moment you step into the world of facts, you step into a -world of limits. You can free things from alien or -accidental laws, but not from the laws of their own nature. -You may, if you like, free a tiger from his bars; but do not -free him from his stripes. Do not free a camel of the burden -of his hump: you may be freeing him from being a camel. Do -not go about as a demagogue, encouraging triangles to break -out of the prison of their three sides. If a triangle breaks -out of its three sides, its life comes to a lamentable end. -Somebody wrote a work called U The Loves of the Triangles"; -I never read it, but I am sure that if triangles ever were -loved, they were loved for being triangular. This is -certainly the case with all artistic creation) which is in -some ways the most decisive example of pure will. The artist -loves his limitations: they constitute the thing he is -doing. The painter is glad that the canvas is flat. The +But they cannot escape. This pure praise of volition ends in the same +break up and blank as the mere pursuit of logic. Exactly as complete +free thought involves the doubting of thought itself so the acceptation +of mere "willing" really paralyzes the will. Mr. Bernard Shaw has not +perceived the real difference between the old utilitarian test of +pleasure (clumsy, of course, and easily misstated) and that which he +propounds. The real difference between the test of happiness and the +test of will is simply that the test of happiness is a test and the +other isn't. You can discuss whether a man's act in jumping over a cliff +was directed towards happiness; you cannot discuss whether it was +derived from will. Of course it was. You can praise an action by saying +that it is calculated to bring pleasure or pain to discover truth or to +save the soul. But you cannot praise an action because it shows will; +for to say that is merely to say that it is an action. By this praise of +will you cannot really choose one course as better than another. And yet +choosing one course as better than another is the very definition of the +will you are praising. + +The worship of will is the negation of will. To admire mere choice is to +refuse to choose. If Mr. Bernard Shaw comes up to me and says, "Will +something," that is tantamount to saying, "I do not mind what you will," +and that is tantamount to saying, "I have no will in the matter." You +cannot admire will in general, because the essence of will is that it is +particular. A brilliant anarchist like Mr. John Davidson feels an +irritation against ordinary morality, and therefore he invokes +will---will to anything. He only wants humanity to want something. But +humanity does want something. It wants ordinary morality. He rebels +against the law and tells us to will something or anything. But we have +willed something. We have willed the law against which he rebels. + +All the will-worshippers, from Nietzsche to Mr. Davidson, are really +quite empty of volition. They cannot will, they can hardly wish. And if +anyone wants a proof of this, it can be found quite easily. It can be +found in this fact: that they always talk of will as something that +expands and breaks out. But it is quite the opposite. Every act of will +is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation. +In that sense every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose +anything, you reject everything else. That objection, which men of this +school used to make to the act of marriage, is really an objection to +every act. Every act is an irrevocable selection and exclusion. Just as +when you marry one woman you give up all the others, so when you take +one course of action you give up all the other courses. If you become +King of England, you give up the post of Beadle in Brompton. If you go +to Rome, you sacrifice a rich suggestive life in Wimbledon. It is the +existence of this negative or limiting side of will that makes most of +the talk of the anarchic will-worshippers little better than nonsense. +For instance, Mr. John Davidson tells us to have nothing to do with +"Thou shalt not"; but it is surely obvious that "Thou shalt not" is only +one of the necessary corollaries of "I will." "I will go to the Lord +Mayor's Show, and thou shalt not stop me." Anarchism adjures us to be +bold creative artists, and care for no laws or limits. But it is +impossible to be an artist and not care for laws and limits. Art is +limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame. If you draw a +giraffe, you must draw him with a long neck. If, in your bold creative +way, you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck, you +will really find that you are not free to draw a giraffe. The moment you +step into the world of facts, you step into a world of limits. You can +free things from alien or accidental laws, but not from the laws of +their own nature. You may, if you like, free a tiger from his bars; but +do not free him from his stripes. Do not free a camel of the burden of +his hump: you may be freeing him from being a camel. Do not go about as +a demagogue, encouraging triangles to break out of the prison of their +three sides. If a triangle breaks out of its three sides, its life comes +to a lamentable end. Somebody wrote a work called U The Loves of the +Triangles"; I never read it, but I am sure that if triangles ever were +loved, they were loved for being triangular. This is certainly the case +with all artistic creation) which is in some ways the most decisive +example of pure will. The artist loves his limitations: they constitute +the thing he is doing. The painter is glad that the canvas is flat. The sculptor is glad that the clay is colourless. -In case the point is not clear, an historic example may -illustrate it. The French Revolution was really an heroic -and decisive thing, because the Jacobins willed something -definite and limited. They desired the freedoms of -democracy, but also all the vetoes of democracy. They wished -to have votes and *not* to have titles. Republicanism had an -ascetic side in Franklin or Robespierre as well as an -expansive side in Danton or Wilkes. Therefore they have -created something with a solid substance and shape, the -square social equality and peasant wealth of France. But -since then the revolutionary or speculative mind of Europe -has been weakened by shrinking from any proposal because of -the limits of that proposal. Liberalism has been degraded -into liberality. Men have tried to turn "revolutionise" from -a transitive to an intransitive verb. The Jacobin could tell -you not only the system he would rebel against, but (what -was more important) the system he would *not* rebel against, -the system he would trust. But the new rebel is a sceptic, -and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; -therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the -fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when -he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies -a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist -doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the -doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus he writes one book -complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of -women, and then he writes another book (about the sex -problem) in which he insults it himself. He curses the -Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, and -then curses Mrs. Grundy because they keep it. As a -politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and -then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A -Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a -peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical -principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. A -man denounces marriage as a lie, and then denounces -aristocratic profligates for treating it as a lie. He calls -a flag a bauble, and then blames the oppressors of Poland or -Ireland because they take away that bauble. The man of this -school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains -that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he -takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific -meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. -In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite -sceptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In -his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on -morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for -trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has -become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By -rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel -against anything. - -It may be added that the same blank and bankruptcy can be -observed in all fierce and terrible types of literature, -especially in satire. Satire may be mad and anarchic, but it -presupposes an admitted superiority in certain things over -others; it presupposes a standard. When little boys in the -street laugh at the fatness of some distinguished -journalist, they are unconsciously assuming a standard of -Greek sculpture. They are appealing to the marble Apollo. -And the curious disappearance of satire from our literature -is an instance of the fierce things fading for want of any -principle to be fierce about. Nietzsche had some natural -talent for sarcasm: he could sneer, though he could not -laugh; but there is always something bodiless and without -weight in his satire, simply because it has not any mass of -common morality behind it. He is himself more preposterous -than anything he denounces. But, indeed, Nietzsche will -stand very well as the type of the whole of this failure of -abstract violence. The softening of the brain which -ultimately overtook him was not a physical accident. If -Nietzsche had not ended in imbecility, Nietzscheism would -end in imbecility. Thinking in isolation and with pride ends -in being an idiot. Every man who will not have softening of -the heart must at last have softening of the brain. - -This last attempt to evade intellectualism ends in -intellectualism, and therefore in death. The sortie has -failed. The wild worship of lawlessness and the materialist -worship of law end ill the same void. Nietzsche scales -staggering mountains, but he turns up ultimately in Tibet. -He sits down beside Tolstoy in the land of nothing and -Nirvana. They are both helpless---one because he must not -grasp anything, and the other because he must not let go of -anything. The Tolstoyan's will is frozen by a Buddhist -instinct that all special actions are evil. But the -Nietzscheite's will is quite equally frozen by his view that -all special actions are good; for if an special actions are -good, none of them are special. They stand at the -cross-roads, and one hates all the roads and the other likes -all the roads. The result is---well, some things are not +In case the point is not clear, an historic example may illustrate it. +The French Revolution was really an heroic and decisive thing, because +the Jacobins willed something definite and limited. They desired the +freedoms of democracy, but also all the vetoes of democracy. They wished +to have votes and *not* to have titles. Republicanism had an ascetic +side in Franklin or Robespierre as well as an expansive side in Danton +or Wilkes. Therefore they have created something with a solid substance +and shape, the square social equality and peasant wealth of France. But +since then the revolutionary or speculative mind of Europe has been +weakened by shrinking from any proposal because of the limits of that +proposal. Liberalism has been degraded into liberality. Men have tried +to turn "revolutionise" from a transitive to an intransitive verb. The +Jacobin could tell you not only the system he would rebel against, but +(what was more important) the system he would *not* rebel against, the +system he would trust. But the new rebel is a sceptic, and will not +entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be +really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really +gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation +implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist +doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which +he denounces it. Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial +oppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book +(about the sex problem) in which he insults it himself. He curses the +Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, and then curses +Mrs. Grundy because they keep it. As a politician, he will cry out that +war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is +waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing +a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that +the peasant ought to have killed himself. A man denounces marriage as a +lie, and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a +lie. He calls a flag a bauble, and then blames the oppressors of Poland +or Ireland because they take away that bauble. The man of this school +goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are +treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and +goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically +are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite +sceptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on +politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics +he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in +revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By +rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against +anything. + +It may be added that the same blank and bankruptcy can be observed in +all fierce and terrible types of literature, especially in satire. +Satire may be mad and anarchic, but it presupposes an admitted +superiority in certain things over others; it presupposes a standard. +When little boys in the street laugh at the fatness of some +distinguished journalist, they are unconsciously assuming a standard of +Greek sculpture. They are appealing to the marble Apollo. And the +curious disappearance of satire from our literature is an instance of +the fierce things fading for want of any principle to be fierce about. +Nietzsche had some natural talent for sarcasm: he could sneer, though he +could not laugh; but there is always something bodiless and without +weight in his satire, simply because it has not any mass of common +morality behind it. He is himself more preposterous than anything he +denounces. But, indeed, Nietzsche will stand very well as the type of +the whole of this failure of abstract violence. The softening of the +brain which ultimately overtook him was not a physical accident. If +Nietzsche had not ended in imbecility, Nietzscheism would end in +imbecility. Thinking in isolation and with pride ends in being an idiot. +Every man who will not have softening of the heart must at last have +softening of the brain. + +This last attempt to evade intellectualism ends in intellectualism, and +therefore in death. The sortie has failed. The wild worship of +lawlessness and the materialist worship of law end ill the same void. +Nietzsche scales staggering mountains, but he turns up ultimately in +Tibet. He sits down beside Tolstoy in the land of nothing and Nirvana. +They are both helpless---one because he must not grasp anything, and the +other because he must not let go of anything. The Tolstoyan's will is +frozen by a Buddhist instinct that all special actions are evil. But the +Nietzscheite's will is quite equally frozen by his view that all special +actions are good; for if an special actions are good, none of them are +special. They stand at the cross-roads, and one hates all the roads and +the other likes all the roads. The result is---well, some things are not hard to calculate. They stand at the cross-roads. -Here I end (thank God) the first and dullest business of -this book---the rough review of recent thought. After this I -begin to sketch a view of life which may not interest my -reader, but which, at any rate, interests me. In front of -me, as I close this page, is a pile of modern books that I -have been turning over for the purpose---a pile of -ingenuity, a pile of futility. By the accident of my present -detachment, I can see the inevitable smash of the -philosophies of Schopenhauer and Tolstoy, Nietzsche and -Shaw, as clearly as an inevitable railway smash could be -seen from a balloon. They are all on the road to the -emptiness of the asylum. For madness may be defined as using -mental activity so as to reach mental helplessness; and they -have nearly reached it. He who thinks he is made of glass, -thinks to the destruction of thought; for glass cannot -think. So he who wills to reject nothing) wills the -destruction of will; for will is not only the choice of -something, but the rejection of almost everything. And as I -turn and tumble over the clever, wonderful, tiresome, and -useless modern books, the title of one of them rivets my -eye. It is called "Jeanne d'Arc," by Anatole France. I have -only glanced at it, but a glance was enough to remind me of -Renan's "Vie de Jésus." It has the same strange method of -the reverent sceptic. It discredits supernatural stories -that have some foundation, simply by telling natural stories -that have no foundation. Because we cannot believe in what a -saint did, we are to pretend that we know exactly what he -felt. But I do not mention either hook in order to criticise -it, but because the accidental combination of the names -called up two startling images of sanity which blasted all -the books before me. Joan of Arc was not stuck at the -cross-roads, either by rejecting all the paths like Tolstoy, -or by accepting them all like Nietzsche. She chose a path, -and went down it like a thunderbolt. Yet Joan, when I came -to think of her, had in her all that was true either in -Tolstoy or Nietzsche, all that was even tolerable in either -of them. I thought of all that is noble in Tolstoy, the -pleasure in plain things, especially in plain pity, the -actualities of the earth, the reverence for the poor, the -dignity of the bowed back. Joan of Arc had all that and with -this great addition, that she endured poverty as well as -admiring it; whereas Tolstoy is only a typical aristocrat -trying to find out its secret. And then I thought of all -that was brave and proud and pathetic in poor Nietzsche, and -his mutiny against the emptiness and timidity of our time. I -thought of his cry for the ecstatic equilibrium of danger, -his hunger for the rush of great horses, his cry to arms. -Well, Joan of Arc had all that, and again with this -difference, that she did not praise fighting, but fought. We -*know* that she was not afraid of an army, while Nietzsche, -for all we know, was afraid of a cow. Tolstoy only praised -the peasant; she was the peasant. Nietzsche only praised the -warrior; she was the warrior. She beat them both at their -own antagonistic ideals; she was more gentle than the one, -more violent than the other. Yet she was a perfectly -practical person who did something, while they are wild -speculators who do nothing. It was impossible that the -thought should not cross my mind that she and her faith had -perhaps some secret of moral unity and utility that has been -lost. And with that thought came a larger one, and the -colossal figure of her Master had also crossed the theatre -of my thoughts. The same modern difficulty which darkened -the subject matter of Anatole France also darkened that of -Ernest Renan. Renan also divided his hero's pity from his -hero's pugnacity. Renan even represented the righteous anger -at Jerusalem as a mere nervous breakdown after the idyllic -expectations of Galilee. As if there were any inconsistency -between having a love for humanity and having a hatred for -inhumanity! Altruists, with thin, weak voices, denounce -Christ as an egoist. Egoists (with even thinner and weaker -voices) denounce Him as an altruist. In our present -atmosphere such cavils are comprehensible enough. The love -of a hero is more terrible than the hatred of a tyrant. The -hatred of a hero is more generous than the love of a -philanthropist. There is a huge and heroic sanity of which -moderns can only collect the fragments. There is a giant of -whom we see only the lopped arms and legs walking about. -They have torn the soul of Christ into silly strips, -labelled egoism and altruism, and they are equally puzzled -by His insane magnificence and His insane meekness. They -have parted His garments among them, and for His vesture -they have cast lots; though the coat was without seam woven +Here I end (thank God) the first and dullest business of this book---the +rough review of recent thought. After this I begin to sketch a view of +life which may not interest my reader, but which, at any rate, interests +me. In front of me, as I close this page, is a pile of modern books that +I have been turning over for the purpose---a pile of ingenuity, a pile +of futility. By the accident of my present detachment, I can see the +inevitable smash of the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Tolstoy, +Nietzsche and Shaw, as clearly as an inevitable railway smash could be +seen from a balloon. They are all on the road to the emptiness of the +asylum. For madness may be defined as using mental activity so as to +reach mental helplessness; and they have nearly reached it. He who +thinks he is made of glass, thinks to the destruction of thought; for +glass cannot think. So he who wills to reject nothing) wills the +destruction of will; for will is not only the choice of something, but +the rejection of almost everything. And as I turn and tumble over the +clever, wonderful, tiresome, and useless modern books, the title of one +of them rivets my eye. It is called "Jeanne d'Arc," by Anatole France. I +have only glanced at it, but a glance was enough to remind me of Renan's +"Vie de Jésus." It has the same strange method of the reverent sceptic. +It discredits supernatural stories that have some foundation, simply by +telling natural stories that have no foundation. Because we cannot +believe in what a saint did, we are to pretend that we know exactly what +he felt. But I do not mention either hook in order to criticise it, but +because the accidental combination of the names called up two startling +images of sanity which blasted all the books before me. Joan of Arc was +not stuck at the cross-roads, either by rejecting all the paths like +Tolstoy, or by accepting them all like Nietzsche. She chose a path, and +went down it like a thunderbolt. Yet Joan, when I came to think of her, +had in her all that was true either in Tolstoy or Nietzsche, all that +was even tolerable in either of them. I thought of all that is noble in +Tolstoy, the pleasure in plain things, especially in plain pity, the +actualities of the earth, the reverence for the poor, the dignity of the +bowed back. Joan of Arc had all that and with this great addition, that +she endured poverty as well as admiring it; whereas Tolstoy is only a +typical aristocrat trying to find out its secret. And then I thought of +all that was brave and proud and pathetic in poor Nietzsche, and his +mutiny against the emptiness and timidity of our time. I thought of his +cry for the ecstatic equilibrium of danger, his hunger for the rush of +great horses, his cry to arms. Well, Joan of Arc had all that, and again +with this difference, that she did not praise fighting, but fought. We +*know* that she was not afraid of an army, while Nietzsche, for all we +know, was afraid of a cow. Tolstoy only praised the peasant; she was the +peasant. Nietzsche only praised the warrior; she was the warrior. She +beat them both at their own antagonistic ideals; she was more gentle +than the one, more violent than the other. Yet she was a perfectly +practical person who did something, while they are wild speculators who +do nothing. It was impossible that the thought should not cross my mind +that she and her faith had perhaps some secret of moral unity and +utility that has been lost. And with that thought came a larger one, and +the colossal figure of her Master had also crossed the theatre of my +thoughts. The same modern difficulty which darkened the subject matter +of Anatole France also darkened that of Ernest Renan. Renan also divided +his hero's pity from his hero's pugnacity. Renan even represented the +righteous anger at Jerusalem as a mere nervous breakdown after the +idyllic expectations of Galilee. As if there were any inconsistency +between having a love for humanity and having a hatred for inhumanity! +Altruists, with thin, weak voices, denounce Christ as an egoist. Egoists +(with even thinner and weaker voices) denounce Him as an altruist. In +our present atmosphere such cavils are comprehensible enough. The love +of a hero is more terrible than the hatred of a tyrant. The hatred of a +hero is more generous than the love of a philanthropist. There is a huge +and heroic sanity of which moderns can only collect the fragments. There +is a giant of whom we see only the lopped arms and legs walking about. +They have torn the soul of Christ into silly strips, labelled egoism and +altruism, and they are equally puzzled by His insane magnificence and +His insane meekness. They have parted His garments among them, and for +His vesture they have cast lots; though the coat was without seam woven from the top throughout. # The Ethics of Elfland -When the business man rebukes the idealism of his -office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, -yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract -and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all -break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in -practical politics, to using the machinery one has and -getting on with the world as it is." Thus, at least, -venerable and philanthropic old men now in their honoured -graves used to talk to me when I was a boy. But since then I -have grown up and have discovered that these philanthropic -old men were telling lies. What has really happened is -exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They -said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in -the methods of practical politicians. N ow, I have not lost -my ideals in the least; my L-Üth in fundamentals is exactly -what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike -faith in practical politics. I am still as much concerned as -ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much -concerned about the General Election. As a babe I leapt up -on my mother's knee at the mere mention of it. No; the -vision is always solid and reliable. The vision is always a -fact. I t is the reality that is often a fraud. As much as I -ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But -there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in -Liberals. - -I take this instance of one of the enduring faiths because, -having now to trace the roots of my personal speculation, -this may be counted, I think, as the only positive bias. I -was brought up a Liberal, and have always believed in -democracy, in the elementary liberal doctrine of a -self-governing humanity. If anyone finds the phrase vague or -threadbare, I can only pause for a moment to explain that -the principle of democracy, as I mean it, can be stated in -two propositions. The first is this: that the things common -to all men are more important than the things peculiar to -any men. Ordinary things are more valuable than -extraordinary things; nay, they are more extraordinary. Man -is something more awful than men; something more strange. -The sense of the miracle of humanity itself should be always -more vivid to us than any marvels of power, intellect, art, -or civilization. The mere man on two legs, as such, should -be felt as something more heart-breaking than any music and -more startling than any caricature. Death is more tragic -even than death by starvation. Having a nose is more comic -even than having a Norman nose. - -This is the first principle of democracy: that the essential -things in men are the things they hold in common, not the -things they hold separately. And the second principle is -merely this: that the political instinct or desire is one of -these things which they hold in common. Falling in love is -more poetical than dropping into poetry. The democratic -contention is that government (helping to rule the tribe) is -a thing like falling in love, and not a thing like dropping -into poetry. It is not something analogous to playing the -church organ, painting on vellum, discovering the North Pole -(that insidious habit), looping the loop, being Astronomer -Royal, and so on. F or these things we do not wish a man to -do at all unless he does them well. It is, on the contrary, -a thing analogous to writing one's own love-letters or -blowing one's own nose. These things we want a man to do for -himself even if he does them badly. I am not here arguing -the truth of any of these conceptions; I know that some -moderns are asking to have their wives chosen by scientists, -and they may soon be asking, for all I know, to have their -noses blown by nurses. I merely say that mankind does -recognize these universal human functions, and that -democracy classes government among them. In short, the -democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important -things must be left to ordinary men themselves-the mating of -the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state. -This is democracy; and in this I have always believed. - -But there is one thing that I have never from my youth up -been able to understand. I have never been able to -understand where people got the idea that democracy was in -some way opposed to tradition. It is obvious that tradition -is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a -consensus of common human voices rather than to some -isolated or arbitrary record. The man who quotes some German -historian against the tradition of the Catholic Church, for -instance, is strictly appealing to aristocracy. He is -appealing to the superiority of one expert against the awful -authority of a mob. It is quite easy to see why a legend is -treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a -book of history. The legend is generally made by the -majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is -generally written by the one man in the village who is mad. -Those who urge against tradition that men in the past were -ignorant may go and urge it at the Carlton Club, along with -the statement that voters in the slums are ignorant. It will -not do for us. If we attach great importance to the opinion -of ordinary men in great unanimity when we arc dealing with -daily matters, there is no reason why we should disregard it -when we are dealing with history or fable. Tradition may be -defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means -giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our -ancestors. I t is the democracy of the dead. Tradition -refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of -those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats -object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; -tradition objects to their being disqualified by the -accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good -man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us -not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our -father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of -democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they -are the same idea. We will have the dead at our councils. -The ancient Greeks voted by stones; these shall vote by -tombstones. It is all quite regular and official, for most -tombstones, like most ballot papers, are marked with a -cross. - -I have first to say, therefore, that if I have had a bias, -it was always a bias in favour of democracy, and therefore -of tradition. Before we come to any theoretic or logical -beginnings I am content to allow for that personal equation; -I have always been more inclined to believe the ruck of -hard-working people than to believe that special and -troublesome literary class to which I belong. I prefer even -the fancies and prejudices of the people who see life from -the inside to the clearest demonstrations of the people who -see life from the outside. I would always trust the old -wives. fables against the old maids. facts. As long as wit -is mother wit it can be as wild as it pleases. - -Now, I have to put together a general position, and I -pretend to no training in such things. I propose to do it, -therefore, by writing down one after another the three or -four fundamental ideas which I have found for myself, pretty -much in the way that I found them. Then I shall roughly -synthesise them, summing up my personal philosophy or -natural religion; then I shall describe my startling -discovery that the whole thing had been discovered before. I -t had been discovered by Christianity. But of these profound -persuasions which I have to recount in order, the earliest -was concerned with this element of popular tradition. And -without the foregoing explanation touching tradition and -democracy I could hardly make my mental experience clear. As -it is, I do not know whether I can make it clear, but I now -propose to try. - -My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with -unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery. I generally -learnt it from a nurse; that is, from the solemn and -star-appointed priestess at once of democracy and tradition. -The things I believed most then, the things I believe most -now, are the things called fairy tales. They seem to me to -be the entirely reasonable things. They are not fantasies: -compared with them other things are fantastic. Compared with -them religion and rationalism are both abnormal, though -religion is abnormally right and rationalism abnormally -wrong. Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common -sense. I t is not earth that judges heaven, but heaven that -judges earth; so for me at least it was not earth that -criticised elfland, but elfland that criticised the earth. I -knew the magic beanstalk before I had tasted beans; I was -sure of the Man in the Moon before I was certain of the -moon. This was at one with all popular tradition. Modern -minor poets are naturalists, and talk about the bush or the -brook; but the singers of the old epics and troubles were -supernaturalists, and talked about the gods of brook and -bush. That is what the moderns mean when they say that the -ancients did not "appreciate Nature," because they said that -Nature was divine. Old nurses do not tell children about the -grass, but about the fairies that dance on the grass; and -the old Greeks could not see the trees for the dryads. - -But I deal here with what ethic and philosophy come from -being fed on fairy tales. If I were describing them in -detail I could note many noble and healthy principles that -arise from them. There is the chivalrous lesson of "Jack the -Giant Killer"; that giants should be killed because they are -gigantic. It is a manly mutiny against pride as such. For -the rebel is older than all the kingdoms, and the Jacobin -has more tradition than the Jacobite. There is the lesson of -"Cinderella," which is the same as that of the -Magnificat--*exaltavit humiles.* There is the great lesson -of "Beauty and the Beast"; that a thing must be loved -*before* it is loveable. There is the terrible allegory of -the "Sleeping Beauty," which tells how the human creature -was blessed with all birthday gifts, yet cursed with death; -and how death also may perhaps be softened to a sleep. But I -am not concerned with any of the separate statutes of -elfland, but with the whole spirit of its law, which I -learnt before I could speak, and shall retain when I cannot -write. I am concerned with a certain way of looking at life, -which was created in me by the fairy tales, but has since -been meekly ratified by the mere facts. - -It might be stated this way. There are certain sequences or -developments (cases of one thing following another), which -are, in the true sense of the word, reasonable. They are, in -the true sense of the word, necessary. Such are mathematical -and merely logical sequences. We in fairyland (who are the -most reasonable of all creatures) admit that reason and that -necessity. For instance, if the Ugly Sisters are older than -Cinderella, it is (in an iron and awful sense) *necessary* -that Cinderella is younger than the Ugly Sisters. There is -no getting out of it. Haeckel may talk as much fatalism -about that fact as he pleases: it really must be. If Jack is -the son of a miller, a miller is the father of Jack. Cold -reason decrees it from her awful throne: and we in fairyland -submit. If the three brothers all ride horses, there are six -animals and eighteen legs involved: that is true -rationalism, and fairyland is full of it. But as I put my -head over the hedge of the elves and began to take notice of -the natural world, I observed an extraordinary thing. I -observed that learned men in spectacles were talking of the -actual things that happened---dawn and death and so on---as -if *they* were rational and inevitable. They talked as if -the fact that trees bear fruit were just as *necessary* as -the fact that two and one trees make three. But it is not. -There is an enormous difference by the test of fairyland; -which is the test of the imagination. You cannot imagine two -and one not making three. But you can easily imagine trees -not growing fruit; you can imagine them growing golden -candlesticks or tigers hanging on by the tail. These men in -spectacles spoke much of a man named Newton, who was hit by -an apple, and who discovered a law. But they could not be -got to see the distinction between a true law, a law of -reason, and the mere fact of apples falling. If the apple -hit Newton's nose, Newton's nose hit the apple. That is a -true necessity: because we cannot conceive the one occurring -without the other. But we can quite well conceive the apple -not falling on his nose; we can fancy it flying ardently -through the air to hit some other nose, of which it had a -more definite dislike. We have always in our fairy tales -kept this sharp distinction between the science of mental -relations, in which there really are laws, and the science -of physical facts, in which there are no laws, but only -weird repetitions. We believe in bodily miracles, but not in -mental impossibilities. We believe that a Bean-stalk climbed -up to Heaven; but that does not at all confuse our -convictions on the philosophical question of how many beans +When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is +commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, one +has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in +middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief +in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on +with the world as it is." Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropic +old men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when I was a +boy. But since then I have grown up and have discovered that these +philanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened is +exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that I +should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical +politicians. N ow, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my L-Üth in +fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old +childlike faith in practical politics. I am still as much concerned as +ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concerned +about the General Election. As a babe I leapt up on my mother's knee at +the mere mention of it. No; the vision is always solid and reliable. The +vision is always a fact. I t is the reality that is often a fraud. As +much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But +there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals. + +I take this instance of one of the enduring faiths because, having now +to trace the roots of my personal speculation, this may be counted, I +think, as the only positive bias. I was brought up a Liberal, and have +always believed in democracy, in the elementary liberal doctrine of a +self-governing humanity. If anyone finds the phrase vague or threadbare, +I can only pause for a moment to explain that the principle of +democracy, as I mean it, can be stated in two propositions. The first is +this: that the things common to all men are more important than the +things peculiar to any men. Ordinary things are more valuable than +extraordinary things; nay, they are more extraordinary. Man is something +more awful than men; something more strange. The sense of the miracle of +humanity itself should be always more vivid to us than any marvels of +power, intellect, art, or civilization. The mere man on two legs, as +such, should be felt as something more heart-breaking than any music and +more startling than any caricature. Death is more tragic even than death +by starvation. Having a nose is more comic even than having a Norman +nose. + +This is the first principle of democracy: that the essential things in +men are the things they hold in common, not the things they hold +separately. And the second principle is merely this: that the political +instinct or desire is one of these things which they hold in common. +Falling in love is more poetical than dropping into poetry. The +democratic contention is that government (helping to rule the tribe) is +a thing like falling in love, and not a thing like dropping into poetry. +It is not something analogous to playing the church organ, painting on +vellum, discovering the North Pole (that insidious habit), looping the +loop, being Astronomer Royal, and so on. F or these things we do not +wish a man to do at all unless he does them well. It is, on the +contrary, a thing analogous to writing one's own love-letters or blowing +one's own nose. These things we want a man to do for himself even if he +does them badly. I am not here arguing the truth of any of these +conceptions; I know that some moderns are asking to have their wives +chosen by scientists, and they may soon be asking, for all I know, to +have their noses blown by nurses. I merely say that mankind does +recognize these universal human functions, and that democracy classes +government among them. In short, the democratic faith is this: that the +most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men +themselves-the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws +of the state. This is democracy; and in this I have always believed. + +But there is one thing that I have never from my youth up been able to +understand. I have never been able to understand where people got the +idea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition. It is obvious +that tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting +to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or +arbitrary record. The man who quotes some German historian against the +tradition of the Catholic Church, for instance, is strictly appealing to +aristocracy. He is appealing to the superiority of one expert against +the awful authority of a mob. It is quite easy to see why a legend is +treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of +history. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the +village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in +the village who is mad. Those who urge against tradition that men in the +past were ignorant may go and urge it at the Carlton Club, along with +the statement that voters in the slums are ignorant. It will not do for +us. If we attach great importance to the opinion of ordinary men in +great unanimity when we arc dealing with daily matters, there is no +reason why we should disregard it when we are dealing with history or +fable. Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. +Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our +ancestors. I t is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit +to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be +walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the +accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the +accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's +opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a +good man's opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot +separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to +me that they are the same idea. We will have the dead at our councils. +The ancient Greeks voted by stones; these shall vote by tombstones. It +is all quite regular and official, for most tombstones, like most ballot +papers, are marked with a cross. + +I have first to say, therefore, that if I have had a bias, it was always +a bias in favour of democracy, and therefore of tradition. Before we +come to any theoretic or logical beginnings I am content to allow for +that personal equation; I have always been more inclined to believe the +ruck of hard-working people than to believe that special and troublesome +literary class to which I belong. I prefer even the fancies and +prejudices of the people who see life from the inside to the clearest +demonstrations of the people who see life from the outside. I would +always trust the old wives. fables against the old maids. facts. As long +as wit is mother wit it can be as wild as it pleases. + +Now, I have to put together a general position, and I pretend to no +training in such things. I propose to do it, therefore, by writing down +one after another the three or four fundamental ideas which I have found +for myself, pretty much in the way that I found them. Then I shall +roughly synthesise them, summing up my personal philosophy or natural +religion; then I shall describe my startling discovery that the whole +thing had been discovered before. I t had been discovered by +Christianity. But of these profound persuasions which I have to recount +in order, the earliest was concerned with this element of popular +tradition. And without the foregoing explanation touching tradition and +democracy I could hardly make my mental experience clear. As it is, I do +not know whether I can make it clear, but I now propose to try. + +My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken +certainty, I learnt in the nursery. I generally learnt it from a nurse; +that is, from the solemn and star-appointed priestess at once of +democracy and tradition. The things I believed most then, the things I +believe most now, are the things called fairy tales. They seem to me to +be the entirely reasonable things. They are not fantasies: compared with +them other things are fantastic. Compared with them religion and +rationalism are both abnormal, though religion is abnormally right and +rationalism abnormally wrong. Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country +of common sense. I t is not earth that judges heaven, but heaven that +judges earth; so for me at least it was not earth that criticised +elfland, but elfland that criticised the earth. I knew the magic +beanstalk before I had tasted beans; I was sure of the Man in the Moon +before I was certain of the moon. This was at one with all popular +tradition. Modern minor poets are naturalists, and talk about the bush +or the brook; but the singers of the old epics and troubles were +supernaturalists, and talked about the gods of brook and bush. That is +what the moderns mean when they say that the ancients did not +"appreciate Nature," because they said that Nature was divine. Old +nurses do not tell children about the grass, but about the fairies that +dance on the grass; and the old Greeks could not see the trees for the +dryads. + +But I deal here with what ethic and philosophy come from being fed on +fairy tales. If I were describing them in detail I could note many noble +and healthy principles that arise from them. There is the chivalrous +lesson of "Jack the Giant Killer"; that giants should be killed because +they are gigantic. It is a manly mutiny against pride as such. For the +rebel is older than all the kingdoms, and the Jacobin has more tradition +than the Jacobite. There is the lesson of "Cinderella," which is the +same as that of the Magnificat--*exaltavit humiles.* There is the great +lesson of "Beauty and the Beast"; that a thing must be loved *before* it +is loveable. There is the terrible allegory of the "Sleeping Beauty," +which tells how the human creature was blessed with all birthday gifts, +yet cursed with death; and how death also may perhaps be softened to a +sleep. But I am not concerned with any of the separate statutes of +elfland, but with the whole spirit of its law, which I learnt before I +could speak, and shall retain when I cannot write. I am concerned with a +certain way of looking at life, which was created in me by the fairy +tales, but has since been meekly ratified by the mere facts. + +It might be stated this way. There are certain sequences or developments +(cases of one thing following another), which are, in the true sense of +the word, reasonable. They are, in the true sense of the word, +necessary. Such are mathematical and merely logical sequences. We in +fairyland (who are the most reasonable of all creatures) admit that +reason and that necessity. For instance, if the Ugly Sisters are older +than Cinderella, it is (in an iron and awful sense) *necessary* that +Cinderella is younger than the Ugly Sisters. There is no getting out of +it. Haeckel may talk as much fatalism about that fact as he pleases: it +really must be. If Jack is the son of a miller, a miller is the father +of Jack. Cold reason decrees it from her awful throne: and we in +fairyland submit. If the three brothers all ride horses, there are six +animals and eighteen legs involved: that is true rationalism, and +fairyland is full of it. But as I put my head over the hedge of the +elves and began to take notice of the natural world, I observed an +extraordinary thing. I observed that learned men in spectacles were +talking of the actual things that happened---dawn and death and so +on---as if *they* were rational and inevitable. They talked as if the +fact that trees bear fruit were just as *necessary* as the fact that two +and one trees make three. But it is not. There is an enormous difference +by the test of fairyland; which is the test of the imagination. You +cannot imagine two and one not making three. But you can easily imagine +trees not growing fruit; you can imagine them growing golden +candlesticks or tigers hanging on by the tail. These men in spectacles +spoke much of a man named Newton, who was hit by an apple, and who +discovered a law. But they could not be got to see the distinction +between a true law, a law of reason, and the mere fact of apples +falling. If the apple hit Newton's nose, Newton's nose hit the apple. +That is a true necessity: because we cannot conceive the one occurring +without the other. But we can quite well conceive the apple not falling +on his nose; we can fancy it flying ardently through the air to hit some +other nose, of which it had a more definite dislike. We have always in +our fairy tales kept this sharp distinction between the science of +mental relations, in which there really are laws, and the science of +physical facts, in which there are no laws, but only weird repetitions. +We believe in bodily miracles, but not in mental impossibilities. We +believe that a Bean-stalk climbed up to Heaven; but that does not at all +confuse our convictions on the philosophical question of how many beans make five. -Here is the peculiar perfection of tone and truth in the -nursery tales. The man of science says, "Cut the stalk, and -the apple will fall"; but he says it calmly, as if the one -idea really led up to the other. The witch in the fairy tale -says, "Blow the horn, and the ogre's castle will fall in; -but she does not say it as if it were something in which the -effect obviously arose out of the cause. Doubtless she has -given the advice to many champions, and has seen many -castles fall, but she does not lose either her wonder or her -reason. She does not muddle her head until it imagines a -necessary mental connection between a horn and a falling -tower. But the scientific men do muddle their heads, until -they imagine a necessary mental connection between an apple -leaving the tree and an apple reaching the ground. They do -really talk as if they had found not only a set of -marvellous facts, but a truth connecting those facts. They -do talk as if the connection of two strange things -physically connected them philosophically. They feel that -because one incomprehensible thing constantly follows -another incomprehensible thing the two together somehow make -up a comprehensible thing. Two black riddles make a white -answer. - -In fairyland we avoid the word "law"; but in the land of -science they are singularly fond of it. Thus they will call -some interesting conjecture about how forgotten folks -pronounced the alphabet, Grimm's Law. But Grimm's Law is far -less intellectual than Grimm's Fairy Tales. The tales are, -at any rate, certainly tales; while the law is not a law. A -law implies that we know the nature of the generalisation -and enactment; not merely that we have noticed some of the -effects. If there is a law that pick-pockets shall go to -prison, it implies that there is an imaginable mental -connection between the idea of prison and the idea of -picking pockets. And we know what the idea is. We can say -why we take liberty from a man who takes liberties. But we -cannot say why an egg can turn into a chicken any more than -we can say why a bear could turn into a fairy prince. As -*ideas*, the egg and the chicken are further off each other -than the bear and the prince; for no egg in itself suggests -a chicken, whereas some princes do suggest bears. Granted, -then, that certain transformations do happen, it is -essential that we should regard them in the philosophic -manner of fairy tales, not in the unphilosophic manner of -science and the "Laws of Nature." When we are asked why eggs -turn to birds or fruits fall in autumn, we must answer -exactly as the fairy godmother would answer if Cinderella -asked her why mice turned to horses or her clothes fell from -her at twelve o'clock. We must answer that it is *magic*. It -is not a "law," for we do not understand its general -formula. It is not a necessity, for though we can count on -it happening practically, we have no right to say that it -must always happen. It is no argument for unalterable law -(as Huxley fancied) that we count on the ordinary course of -things. We do not count on it; we bet on it. We risk the -remote possibility of a miracle as we do that of a poisoned -pancake or a world-destroying comet. We leave it out of -account, not because it is a miracle, and therefore an -impossibility, but because it is a miracle, and therefore an -exception. All the terms used in the science books, "law," -"necessity," "order," "tendency," and so on, are really -unintellectual, because they assume an inner synthesis which -we do not possess. The only words that ever satisfied me as -describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, -"charm," "spell," "enchantment." They express the -arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows -fruit because it is a *magic* tree. Water runs downhill -because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is +Here is the peculiar perfection of tone and truth in the nursery tales. +The man of science says, "Cut the stalk, and the apple will fall"; but +he says it calmly, as if the one idea really led up to the other. The +witch in the fairy tale says, "Blow the horn, and the ogre's castle will +fall in; but she does not say it as if it were something in which the +effect obviously arose out of the cause. Doubtless she has given the +advice to many champions, and has seen many castles fall, but she does +not lose either her wonder or her reason. She does not muddle her head +until it imagines a necessary mental connection between a horn and a +falling tower. But the scientific men do muddle their heads, until they +imagine a necessary mental connection between an apple leaving the tree +and an apple reaching the ground. They do really talk as if they had +found not only a set of marvellous facts, but a truth connecting those +facts. They do talk as if the connection of two strange things +physically connected them philosophically. They feel that because one +incomprehensible thing constantly follows another incomprehensible thing +the two together somehow make up a comprehensible thing. Two black +riddles make a white answer. + +In fairyland we avoid the word "law"; but in the land of science they +are singularly fond of it. Thus they will call some interesting +conjecture about how forgotten folks pronounced the alphabet, Grimm's +Law. But Grimm's Law is far less intellectual than Grimm's Fairy Tales. +The tales are, at any rate, certainly tales; while the law is not a law. +A law implies that we know the nature of the generalisation and +enactment; not merely that we have noticed some of the effects. If there +is a law that pick-pockets shall go to prison, it implies that there is +an imaginable mental connection between the idea of prison and the idea +of picking pockets. And we know what the idea is. We can say why we take +liberty from a man who takes liberties. But we cannot say why an egg can +turn into a chicken any more than we can say why a bear could turn into +a fairy prince. As *ideas*, the egg and the chicken are further off each +other than the bear and the prince; for no egg in itself suggests a +chicken, whereas some princes do suggest bears. Granted, then, that +certain transformations do happen, it is essential that we should regard +them in the philosophic manner of fairy tales, not in the unphilosophic +manner of science and the "Laws of Nature." When we are asked why eggs +turn to birds or fruits fall in autumn, we must answer exactly as the +fairy godmother would answer if Cinderella asked her why mice turned to +horses or her clothes fell from her at twelve o'clock. We must answer +that it is *magic*. It is not a "law," for we do not understand its +general formula. It is not a necessity, for though we can count on it +happening practically, we have no right to say that it must always +happen. It is no argument for unalterable law (as Huxley fancied) that +we count on the ordinary course of things. We do not count on it; we bet +on it. We risk the remote possibility of a miracle as we do that of a +poisoned pancake or a world-destroying comet. We leave it out of +account, not because it is a miracle, and therefore an impossibility, +but because it is a miracle, and therefore an exception. All the terms +used in the science books, "law," "necessity," "order," "tendency," and +so on, are really unintellectual, because they assume an inner synthesis +which we do not possess. The only words that ever satisfied me as +describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, "charm," +"spell," "enchantment." They express the arbitrariness of the fact and +its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a *magic* tree. Water runs +downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched. -I deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical. -We may have some mysticism later on; but this fairy-tale -language about things is simply rational and agnostic. It is -the only way I can express in words my clear and definite -perception that one thing is quite distinct from another; -that there is no logical connection between flying and -laying eggs. It is the man who talks about "a law" that he -has never seen who is the mystic. Nay, the ordinary -scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a -sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked -and swept away by mere associations. He has so often seen -birds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be -some dreamy, tender connection between the two ideas, -whereas there is none. A forlorn lover might be unable to -dissociate the moon from lost love; so the materialist is -unable to dissociate the moon from the tide. In both cases -there is no connection, except that one has seen them -together. A sentimentalist might shed tears at the smell of -apple-blossom, because, by a dark association of his own, it -reminded him of his boyhood. So the materialist professor -(though he conceals his tears) is yet a sentimentalist, -because, by a dark association of his own, apple-blossoms -remind him of apples. But the cool rationalist from -fairyland does not see why, in the abstract, the apple tree -should not grow crimson tulips; it sometimes does in his -country. - -This elementary wonder, however, is not a mere fancy derived -from the fairy tales; on the contrary, all the fire of the -fairy tales is derived from this. Just as we all like love -tales because there is an instinct of sex, we all like -astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the -ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact -that when we are very young children we do not need fairy -tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. -A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened -a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by -being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic -tales; but babies like realistic tales---because they find -them romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I -should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could be read -without boring him. This proves that even nursery tales only -echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement. -These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the -forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They -make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one -wild moment, that they run with water. I have said that this -is wholly reasonable and even agnostic. And, indeed, on this -point I am all for the higher agnosticism; its better name -is Ignorance. We have all read in scientific books, and, -indeed, in all romances, the story of the man who has -forgotten his name. This man walks about the streets and can -see and appreciate everything; only he cannot remember who -he is. Well, every man is that man in the story. Every man -has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but -never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. Thou -shalt love the Lord thy God; but thou shalt not know -thyself. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have -all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we -really are. All that we call common sense and rationality -and practicality and positivism only means that for certain -dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. -All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that -for one awful instant we remember that we forget. - -But though (like the man without memory in the novel) we -walk the streets with a sort of half-witted admiration, -still it is admiration. It is admiration in English and not -only admiration in Latin. The wonder has a positive element -of praise. This is the next milestone to be definitely -marked on our road through fairyland. I shall speak in the -next chapter about optimists and pessimists in their -intellectual aspect, so far as they have one. Here I am only -trying to describe the enormous emotions which cannot be -described. And the strongest emotion was that life was as -precious as it was puzzling. It was an ecstasy because it -was an adventure; it was an adventure because it was an -opportunity. The goodness of the fairy tale was not affected -by the fact that there might be more dragons than -princesses; it was good to be in a fairy tale. The test of -all happiness is gratitude; and I felt grateful, though I -hardly knew to whom. Children are grateful when Santa Claus -puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not -be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the -gift of two miraculous legs? We thank people for birthday -presents of cigars and slippers. Can I thank no one for the -birthday present of birth? +I deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical. We may have +some mysticism later on; but this fairy-tale language about things is +simply rational and agnostic. It is the only way I can express in words +my clear and definite perception that one thing is quite distinct from +another; that there is no logical connection between flying and laying +eggs. It is the man who talks about "a law" that he has never seen who +is the mystic. Nay, the ordinary scientific man is strictly a +sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he +is soaked and swept away by mere associations. He has so often seen +birds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be some dreamy, +tender connection between the two ideas, whereas there is none. A +forlorn lover might be unable to dissociate the moon from lost love; so +the materialist is unable to dissociate the moon from the tide. In both +cases there is no connection, except that one has seen them together. A +sentimentalist might shed tears at the smell of apple-blossom, because, +by a dark association of his own, it reminded him of his boyhood. So the +materialist professor (though he conceals his tears) is yet a +sentimentalist, because, by a dark association of his own, +apple-blossoms remind him of apples. But the cool rationalist from +fairyland does not see why, in the abstract, the apple tree should not +grow crimson tulips; it sometimes does in his country. + +This elementary wonder, however, is not a mere fancy derived from the +fairy tales; on the contrary, all the fire of the fairy tales is derived +from this. Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct +of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of +the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that +when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need +tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by +being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of +three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like +romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales---because they find them +romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to +whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him. This +proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of +interest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to +refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They +make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, +that they run with water. I have said that this is wholly reasonable and +even agnostic. And, indeed, on this point I am all for the higher +agnosticism; its better name is Ignorance. We have all read in +scientific books, and, indeed, in all romances, the story of the man who +has forgotten his name. This man walks about the streets and can see and +appreciate everything; only he cannot remember who he is. Well, every +man is that man in the story. Every man has forgotten who he is. One may +understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than +any star. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; but thou shalt not know +thyself. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all +forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that +we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism +only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we +have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means +that for one awful instant we remember that we forget. + +But though (like the man without memory in the novel) we walk the +streets with a sort of half-witted admiration, still it is admiration. +It is admiration in English and not only admiration in Latin. The wonder +has a positive element of praise. This is the next milestone to be +definitely marked on our road through fairyland. I shall speak in the +next chapter about optimists and pessimists in their intellectual +aspect, so far as they have one. Here I am only trying to describe the +enormous emotions which cannot be described. And the strongest emotion +was that life was as precious as it was puzzling. It was an ecstasy +because it was an adventure; it was an adventure because it was an +opportunity. The goodness of the fairy tale was not affected by the fact +that there might be more dragons than princesses; it was good to be in a +fairy tale. The test of all happiness is gratitude; and I felt grateful, +though I hardly knew to whom. Children are grateful when Santa Claus +puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful +to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous +legs? We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can +I thank no one for the birthday present of birth? There were, then, these two first feelings, indefensible and -indisputable. The world was a shock, but it was not merely -shocking; existence was a surprise, but it was a pleasant -surprise. In fact, all my first views were exactly uttered -in a riddle that stuck in my brain from boyhood. The -question was, "What did the first frog say?" And the answer -was, "Lord, how you made me jump!" That says succinctly all -that I am saying. God made the frog jump; but the frog -prefers jumping. But when these things are settled there -enters the second great principle of the fairy philosophy. - -Any one can see it who will simply read "Grimm's Fairy -Tales" or the fine collections of Mr. Andrew Lang. For the -pleasure of pedantry I will call it the Doctrine of -Conditional Joy. Touchstone talked of much virtue in an -"if"; according to elfin ethics all virtue is in an "if." -The note of the fairy utterance always is, "You may live in -a palace of gold and sapphire, *if* you do not say the word -'cow'"; or"You may live happily with the King's daughter, -*if* you do not show her an onion." The vision always hangs -upon a veto. All the dizzy and colossal things conceded -depend upon one small thing withheld. All the wild and -whirling things that are let loose depend upon one thing -that is forbidden. Mr. W. B. Yeats, in his exquisite and -piercing elfin poetry, describes the elves as lawless; they -plunge in innocent anarchy on the unbridled horses of the -air-- +indisputable. The world was a shock, but it was not merely shocking; +existence was a surprise, but it was a pleasant surprise. In fact, all +my first views were exactly uttered in a riddle that stuck in my brain +from boyhood. The question was, "What did the first frog say?" And the +answer was, "Lord, how you made me jump!" That says succinctly all that +I am saying. God made the frog jump; but the frog prefers jumping. But +when these things are settled there enters the second great principle of +the fairy philosophy. + +Any one can see it who will simply read "Grimm's Fairy Tales" or the +fine collections of Mr. Andrew Lang. For the pleasure of pedantry I will +call it the Doctrine of Conditional Joy. Touchstone talked of much +virtue in an "if"; according to elfin ethics all virtue is in an "if." +The note of the fairy utterance always is, "You may live in a palace of +gold and sapphire, *if* you do not say the word 'cow'"; or"You may live +happily with the King's daughter, *if* you do not show her an onion." +The vision always hangs upon a veto. All the dizzy and colossal things +conceded depend upon one small thing withheld. All the wild and whirling +things that are let loose depend upon one thing that is forbidden. +Mr. W. B. Yeats, in his exquisite and piercing elfin poetry, describes +the elves as lawless; they plunge in innocent anarchy on the unbridled +horses of the air-- >  Ride on the crest of the dishevelled tide, > > And dance upon the mountains like aflame. -It is a dreadful thing to say that Mr. W. B. Yeats does not -understand fairyland. But I do say it. He is an ironical -Irishman, full of intellectual reactions. He is not stupid -enough to understand fairyland. Fairies prefer people of the -yokel type like myself; people who gape and grin and do as -they are told. Mr. Yeats reads into elfland all the -righteous insurrection of his own race. But the lawlessness -of Ireland is a Christian lawlessness, founded on reason and -justice. The Fenian is rebelling against something he -understands only too well; but the true citizen of fairyland -is obeying something that he does not understand at all. In -the fairy tale an incomprehensible happiness rests upon an -incomprehensible condition. A box is opened, and all evils -fly out. A word is forgotten, and cities perish. A lamp is -lit, and love flies away. A flower is plucked, and human -lives are forfeited. An apple is eaten, and the hope of God -is gone. - -This is the tone of fairy tales, and it is certainly not -lawlessness or even liberty, though men under a mean modern -tyranny may think it liberty by comparison. People out of -Portland Gaol might think Fleet Street free; but closer -study will prove that both fairies and journalists are the -slaves of duty. Fairy godmothers seem at least as strict as -other godmothers. Cinderella received a coach out of +It is a dreadful thing to say that Mr. W. B. Yeats does not understand +fairyland. But I do say it. He is an ironical Irishman, full of +intellectual reactions. He is not stupid enough to understand fairyland. +Fairies prefer people of the yokel type like myself; people who gape and +grin and do as they are told. Mr. Yeats reads into elfland all the +righteous insurrection of his own race. But the lawlessness of Ireland +is a Christian lawlessness, founded on reason and justice. The Fenian is +rebelling against something he understands only too well; but the true +citizen of fairyland is obeying something that he does not understand at +all. In the fairy tale an incomprehensible happiness rests upon an +incomprehensible condition. A box is opened, and all evils fly out. A +word is forgotten, and cities perish. A lamp is lit, and love flies +away. A flower is plucked, and human lives are forfeited. An apple is +eaten, and the hope of God is gone. + +This is the tone of fairy tales, and it is certainly not lawlessness or +even liberty, though men under a mean modern tyranny may think it +liberty by comparison. People out of Portland Gaol might think Fleet +Street free; but closer study will prove that both fairies and +journalists are the slaves of duty. Fairy godmothers seem at least as +strict as other godmothers. Cinderella received a coach out of Wonderland and a coachman out of nowhere, but she received a -command---which might have come out of Brixton---that she -should be back by twelve. Also, she had a glass slipper; and -it cannot be a coincidence that glass is so common a -substance in folk-lore. This princess lives in a glass -castle, that princess on a glass hill; this one sees all -things in a mirror; they may all live in glass houses if -they will not throw stones. For this thin glitter of glass -everywhere is the expression of the fact that the happiness -is bright but brittle, like the substance most easily -smashed by a housemaid or a cat. And this fairy-tale -sentiment also sank into me and became my sentiment towards -the whole world. I felt and feel that life itself is as -bright as the diamond, but as brittle as the window-pane; -and when the heavens were compared to the terrible crystal I -can remember a shudder. I was afraid that God would drop the -cosmos with a crash. - -Remember, however, that to be breakable is not the same as -to be perishable. Strike a glass, and it will not endure an -instant; simply do not strike it, and it will endure a -thousand years. Such, it seemed, was the joy of man, either -in elfland or on earth; the happiness depended on *not doing -something* which you could at any moment do and which, very -often, it was not obvious why you should not do. Now, the -point here is that to *me* this did not seem unjust. If the -miller's third son said to the fairy, "Explain why I must -not stand on my head in the fairy palace," the other might -fairly reply, "Well, if it comes to that, explain the fairy -palace." If Cinderella says, "How is it that I must leave -the ball at twelve?" her godmother might answer, "How is it -that you are going there till twelve?" If I leave a man in -my will ten talking elephants and a hundred winged horses, -he cannot complain if the conditions partake of the slight -eccentricity of the gift. He must not look a winged horse in -the mouth. And it seemed to me that existence was itself so -very eccentric a legacy that I could not complain of not -understanding the limitations of the vision when I did not -understand the vision they limited. The frame was no -stranger than the picture. The veto might well be as wild as -the vision; it might be as startling as the sun, as elusive -as the waters, as fantastic and terrible as the towering -trees. - -For this reason (we may call it the fairy godmother -philosophy) I never could join the young men of my time in -feeling what they called the general sentiment of *revolt.* -I should have resisted, let us hope, any rules that were -evil, and with these and their definition I shall deal in -another chapter. But I did not feel disposed to resist any -rule merely because it was mysterious. Estates are sometimes -held by foolish forms, the breaking of a stick or the -payment of a peppercorn: I was willing to hold the huge -estate of earth and heaven by any such feudal fantasy. It -could not well be wilder than the fact that I was allowed to -hold it at all. At this stage I give only one ethical -instance to show my meaning. I could never mix in the common -murmur of that rising generation against monogamy, because -no restriction on sex seemed so odd and unexpected as sex -itself. To be allowed, like Endymion, to make love to the -moon and then to complain that Jupiter kept his own moons in -a harem seemed to me (bred on fairy tales like Endymion's) a -vulgar anti-climax. Keeping to one woman is a small price -for so much as seeing one woman. To complain that I could -only be married once was like complaining that I had only -been born once. It was incommensurate with the terrible -excitement of which one was talking. It showed, not an -exaggerated sensibility to sex, but a curious insensibility -to it. A man is a fool who complains that he cannot enter -Eden by five gates at once. Polygamy is a lack of the -realization of sex; it is like a man plucking five pears in -mere absence of mind. The aesthetes touched the last insane -limits of language in their eulogy on lovely things. The -thistledown made them weep; a burnished beetle brought them -to their knees. Yet their emotion never impressed me for an -instant, for this reason, that it never occurred to them to -pay for their pleasure in any sort of symbolic sacrifice. -Men (I felt) might fast forty days for the sake of hearing a -blackbird sing. Men might go through fire to find a cowslip. -Yet these lovers of beauty could not even keep sober for the -blackbird. They would not go through common Christian -marriage by way of recompense to the cowslip. Surely one -might pay for extraordinary joy in ordinary morals. Oscar -Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not -pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for +command---which might have come out of Brixton---that she should be back +by twelve. Also, she had a glass slipper; and it cannot be a coincidence +that glass is so common a substance in folk-lore. This princess lives in +a glass castle, that princess on a glass hill; this one sees all things +in a mirror; they may all live in glass houses if they will not throw +stones. For this thin glitter of glass everywhere is the expression of +the fact that the happiness is bright but brittle, like the substance +most easily smashed by a housemaid or a cat. And this fairy-tale +sentiment also sank into me and became my sentiment towards the whole +world. I felt and feel that life itself is as bright as the diamond, but +as brittle as the window-pane; and when the heavens were compared to the +terrible crystal I can remember a shudder. I was afraid that God would +drop the cosmos with a crash. + +Remember, however, that to be breakable is not the same as to be +perishable. Strike a glass, and it will not endure an instant; simply do +not strike it, and it will endure a thousand years. Such, it seemed, was +the joy of man, either in elfland or on earth; the happiness depended on +*not doing something* which you could at any moment do and which, very +often, it was not obvious why you should not do. Now, the point here is +that to *me* this did not seem unjust. If the miller's third son said to +the fairy, "Explain why I must not stand on my head in the fairy +palace," the other might fairly reply, "Well, if it comes to that, +explain the fairy palace." If Cinderella says, "How is it that I must +leave the ball at twelve?" her godmother might answer, "How is it that +you are going there till twelve?" If I leave a man in my will ten +talking elephants and a hundred winged horses, he cannot complain if the +conditions partake of the slight eccentricity of the gift. He must not +look a winged horse in the mouth. And it seemed to me that existence was +itself so very eccentric a legacy that I could not complain of not +understanding the limitations of the vision when I did not understand +the vision they limited. The frame was no stranger than the picture. The +veto might well be as wild as the vision; it might be as startling as +the sun, as elusive as the waters, as fantastic and terrible as the +towering trees. + +For this reason (we may call it the fairy godmother philosophy) I never +could join the young men of my time in feeling what they called the +general sentiment of *revolt.* I should have resisted, let us hope, any +rules that were evil, and with these and their definition I shall deal +in another chapter. But I did not feel disposed to resist any rule +merely because it was mysterious. Estates are sometimes held by foolish +forms, the breaking of a stick or the payment of a peppercorn: I was +willing to hold the huge estate of earth and heaven by any such feudal +fantasy. It could not well be wilder than the fact that I was allowed to +hold it at all. At this stage I give only one ethical instance to show +my meaning. I could never mix in the common murmur of that rising +generation against monogamy, because no restriction on sex seemed so odd +and unexpected as sex itself. To be allowed, like Endymion, to make love +to the moon and then to complain that Jupiter kept his own moons in a +harem seemed to me (bred on fairy tales like Endymion's) a vulgar +anti-climax. Keeping to one woman is a small price for so much as seeing +one woman. To complain that I could only be married once was like +complaining that I had only been born once. It was incommensurate with +the terrible excitement of which one was talking. It showed, not an +exaggerated sensibility to sex, but a curious insensibility to it. A man +is a fool who complains that he cannot enter Eden by five gates at once. +Polygamy is a lack of the realization of sex; it is like a man plucking +five pears in mere absence of mind. The aesthetes touched the last +insane limits of language in their eulogy on lovely things. The +thistledown made them weep; a burnished beetle brought them to their +knees. Yet their emotion never impressed me for an instant, for this +reason, that it never occurred to them to pay for their pleasure in any +sort of symbolic sacrifice. Men (I felt) might fast forty days for the +sake of hearing a blackbird sing. Men might go through fire to find a +cowslip. Yet these lovers of beauty could not even keep sober for the +blackbird. They would not go through common Christian marriage by way of +recompense to the cowslip. Surely one might pay for extraordinary joy in +ordinary morals. Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because +we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde. -Well, I left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the -nursery, and I have not found any books so sensible since. I -left the nurse guardian of tradition and democracy, and I -have not found any modern type so sanely radical or so -sanely conservative. But the matter for important comment -was here: that when I first went out into the mental -atmosphere of the modern world, I found that the modern -world was positively opposed on two points to my nurse and -to the nursery tales. It has taken me a long time to find -out that the modern world is wrong and my nurse was right. -The really curious thing was this: that modern thought -contradicted this basic creed of my boyhood on its two most -essential doctrines. I have explained that the fairy tales -founded in me two convictions; first, that this world is a -wild and startling place, which might have been quite -different, but which is quite delightful; second, that -before this wildness and delight one may well be modest and -submit to the queerest limitations of so queer a kindness. -But I found the whole modern world running like a high tide -against both my tendernesses; and the shock of that -collision created two sudden and spontaneous sentiments, -which I have had ever since and which, crude as they were, -have since hardened into convictions. - -First, I found the whole modern world talking scientific -fatalism; saying that everything is as it must always have -been, being unfolded without fault from the beginning. The -leaf on the tree is green because it could never have been -anything else. Now, the fairy-tale philosopher is glad that -the leaf is green precisely because it might have been -scarlet. He feels as if it had turned green an instant -before he looked at it. He is pleased that snow is white on -the strictly reasonable ground that it might have been -black. Every colour has in it a bold quality as of choice; -the red of garden roses is not only decisive but dramatic, -like suddenly spilt blood. He feels that something has been -*done.* But the great determinists of the nineteenth century -were strongly against this native feeling that something had -happened an instant before. In fact, according to them, -nothing ever really had happened since the beginning of the -world. Nothing ever had happened since existence had -happened; and even about the date of that they were not very -sure. - -The modern world as I found it was solid for modern -Calvinism, for the necessity of things being as they are. -But when I came to ask them I found they had really no proof -of this unavoidable repetition in things except the fact -that the things were repeated. Now, the mere repetition made -the things to me rather more weird than more rational. It -was as if, having seen a curiously shaped nose in the street -and dismissed it as an accident, I had then seen six other -noses of the same astonishing shape. I should have fancied -for a moment that it must be some local secret society. So -one elephant having a trunk was odd; but all elephants -having trunks looked like a plot. I speak here only of an -emotion, and of an emotion at once stubborn and subtle. But -the repetition in Nature seemed sometimes to be an excited -repetition, like that of an angry schoolmaster saying the -same thing over and over again. The grass seemed signalling -to me with all its fingers at once; the crowded stars seemed -bent upon being understood. The sun would make me see him if -he rose a thousand times. The recurrences of the universe -rose to the maddening rhythm of an incantation, and I began -to see an idea. - -All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind -rests ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption. It -is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is -probably dead; a piece of clockwork. People feel that if the -universe was personal it would vary; if the sun were alive -it would dance. This is a fallacy even in relation to known -fact. For the variation in human affairs is generally -brought into them, not by life, but by death; by the dying -down or breaking off of their strength or desire. A man -varies his movements because of some slight element of -failure or fatigue. He gets into an omnibus because he is -tired of walking; or he walks because he is tired of sitting -still. But if his life and joy were so gigantic that he -never tired of going to Islington, he might go to Islington -as regularly as the Thames goes to Sheerness. The very speed -and ecstasy of his life would have the stillness of death. -The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; -but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my -inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it -might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never -gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a -lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be -seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or -joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs -rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because -children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit -fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and -unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up -person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up -people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But -perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is -possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the -sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may -not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it -may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never -got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal -appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and -our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may -not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical *encore*. -Heaven may *encore* the bird who laid an egg. If the human -being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of -bringing forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, the reason -may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life -or purpose. It may be that our little tragedy has touched -the gods, that they admire it from their starry galleries, -and that at the end of every human drama man is called again -and again before the curtain. Repetition may go on for -minions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it may -stop. Man may stand on the earth generation after -generation, and yet each birth be his positively last -appearance. - -This was my first conviction; made by the shock of my -childish emotions meeting the modern creed in mid-career. I -had always vaguely felt facts to be miracles in the sense -that they are wonderful: now I began to think them miracles -in the stricter sense that they were *wilful.* I mean that -they were, or might be, repeated exercises of some will. In -short, I had always believed that the world involved magic: -now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician. And this -pointed a profound emotion always present and sub-conscious; -that this world of ours has some purpose; and if there is a -purpose, there is a person. I had always felt life first as -a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller. - -But modern thought also hit my second human tradition. It -went against the fairy feeling about strict limits and -conditions. The one thing it loved to talk about was -expansion and largeness. Herbert Spencer would have been -greatly annoyed if anyone had called him an imperialist, and -therefore it is highly regrettable that nobody did. But he -was an imperialist of the lowest type. He popularized this -contemptible notion that the size of the solar system ought -to over-awe the spiritual dogma of man. Why should a man -surrender his dignity to the solar system any more than to a -whale? If mere size proves that man is not the image of God, -then a whale may be the image of God; a somewhat formless -image; what one might call an impressionist portrait. It is -quite futile to argue that man is small compared to the -cosmos; for man was always small compared to the nearest -tree. But Herbert Spencer, in his headlong imperialism, -would insist that we had in some way been conquered and -annexed by the astronomical universe. He spoke about men and -their ideals exactly as the most insolent Unionist talks -about the Irish and their ideals. He turned mankind into a -small nationality. And his evil influence can be seen even -in the most spirited and honourable of later scientific -authors; notably in the early romances of Mr. H. G. Wells. -Many moralists have in an exaggerated way represented the -earth as wicked. But Mr. Wells and his school made the -heavens wicked. We should lift up our eyes to the stars from -whence would come our ruin. - -But the expansion of which I speak was much more evil than -all this. I have remarked that the materialist, like the -madman, is in prison; in the prison of one thought. These -people seemed to think it singularly inspiring to keep on -saying that the prison was very large. The size of this -scientific universe gave one no novelty, no relief. The -cosmos went on for ever, but not in its wildest -constellation could there be anything really interesting; -anything, for instance, such as forgiveness or free will. -The grandeur or infinity of the secret of its cosmos added -nothing to it. It was like telling a prisoner in Reading -gaol that he would be glad to hear that the gaol now covered -half the county. The warder would have nothing to show the -man except more and more long corridors of stone lit by -ghastly lights and empty of all that is human. So these -expanders of the universe had nothing to show us except more -and more infinite corridors of space lit by ghastly suns and -empty of all that is divine. - -In fairyland there had been a real law; a law that could be -broken, for the definition of a law is something that can be -broken. But the machinery of this cosmic prison was -something that could not be broken; for we ourselves were -only a part of its machinery. We were either unable to do -things or we were destined to do them. The idea of the -mystical condition quite disappeared; one can neither have -the firmness of keeping laws nor the fun of breaking them. -The largeness of this universe had nothing of that freshness -and airy outbreak which we have praised in the universe of -the poet. This modern universe is literally an empire; that -is, it is vast, but it is not free. One went into larger and -larger windowless rooms, rooms big with Babylonian -perspective; but one never found the smallest window or a -whisper of outer air. - -Their infernal parallels seemed to expand with distance; but -for me all good things come to a point, swords for instance. -So finding the boast of the big cosmos so unsatisfactory to -my emotions I began to argue about it a little; and I soon -found that the whole attitude was even shallower than could -have been expected. According to these people the cosmos was -one thing since it had one unbroken rule. Only (they would -say) while it is one thing it is also the only thing there -is. Why, then, should one worry particularly to call it -large? There is nothing to compare it with. It would be just -as sensible to call it small. A man may say, "I like this -vast cosmos, with its throng of stars and its crowd of -varied creatures." But if it comes to that why should not a -man say, "I like this cosy little cosmos, with its decent -number of stars and as neat a provision of live stock as I -wish to see"? One is as good as the other; they are both -mere sentiments. It is mere sentiment to rejoice that the -sun is larger than the earth; it is quite as sane a -sentiment to rejoice that the sun is no larger than it is. A -man chooses to have an emotion about the largeness of the -world; why should he not choose to have an emotion about its -smallness? - -It happened that I had that emotion. When one is fond of -anything one addresses it by diminutives, even if it is an -elephant or a life-guardsman. The reason is, that anything, -however huge, that can be conceived of as complete, can be -conceived of as small. If military moustaches did not -suggest a sword or tusks a tail, then the object would be -vast because it would be immeasurable. But the moment you -can imagine a guardsman you can imagine a small guardsman. -The moment you really see an elephant you can call it -"Tiny." If you can make a statue of a thing you can make a -statuette of it. These people professed that the universe -was one coherent thing; but they were not fond of the -universe. But I was frightfully fond of the universe and -wanted to address it by a diminutive. I often did so; and it -never seemed to mind. Actually and in truth I did feel that -these dim dogmas of vitality were better expressed by -calling the world small than by calling it large. For about -infinity there was a sort of carelessness which was the -reverse of the fierce and pious care which I felt touching -the pricelessness and the peril of life. They showed only a -dreary waste; but I felt a sort of sacred thrift. For -economy is far more romantic than extravagance. To them -stars were an unending income of halfpence; but I felt about -the golden sun and the silver moon as a schoolboy feels if -he has one sovereign and one shilling. - -These subconscious convictions are best hit off by the -colour and tone of certain tales. - -Thus I have said that stories of magic alone can express my -sense that life is not only a pleasure but a kind of -eccentric privilege. I may express this other feeling of -cosmic cosiness by allusion to another book always read in -boyhood, "Robinson Crusoe," which I read about this time, -and which owes its eternal vivacity to the fact that it -celebrates the poetry of limits, nay, even the wild romance -of prudence. Crusoe is a man on a small rock with a few -comforts just snatched from the sea: the best thing in the -book is simply the list of things saved from the wreck. The -greatest of poems is an inventory. Every kitchen tool -becomes ideal because Crusoe might have dropped it in the -sea. It is a good exercise, in empty or ugly hours of the -day, to look at anything, the coal-scuttle or the book-case, -and think how happy one could be to have brought it out of -the sinking ship on to the solitary island. But it is a -better exercise still to remember how all things have had -this hair-breadth escape: everything has been saved from a -wreck. Every man has had one horrible adventure: as a hidden -untimely birth he had not been, as infants that never see -the light. Men spoke much in my boyhood of restricted or -ruined men of genius: and it was common to say that many a -man was a Great Might-Have-Been. To me it is a more solid -and startling fact that any man in the street is a Great +Well, I left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the nursery, and I +have not found any books so sensible since. I left the nurse guardian of +tradition and democracy, and I have not found any modern type so sanely +radical or so sanely conservative. But the matter for important comment +was here: that when I first went out into the mental atmosphere of the +modern world, I found that the modern world was positively opposed on +two points to my nurse and to the nursery tales. It has taken me a long +time to find out that the modern world is wrong and my nurse was right. +The really curious thing was this: that modern thought contradicted this +basic creed of my boyhood on its two most essential doctrines. I have +explained that the fairy tales founded in me two convictions; first, +that this world is a wild and startling place, which might have been +quite different, but which is quite delightful; second, that before this +wildness and delight one may well be modest and submit to the queerest +limitations of so queer a kindness. But I found the whole modern world +running like a high tide against both my tendernesses; and the shock of +that collision created two sudden and spontaneous sentiments, which I +have had ever since and which, crude as they were, have since hardened +into convictions. + +First, I found the whole modern world talking scientific fatalism; +saying that everything is as it must always have been, being unfolded +without fault from the beginning. The leaf on the tree is green because +it could never have been anything else. Now, the fairy-tale philosopher +is glad that the leaf is green precisely because it might have been +scarlet. He feels as if it had turned green an instant before he looked +at it. He is pleased that snow is white on the strictly reasonable +ground that it might have been black. Every colour has in it a bold +quality as of choice; the red of garden roses is not only decisive but +dramatic, like suddenly spilt blood. He feels that something has been +*done.* But the great determinists of the nineteenth century were +strongly against this native feeling that something had happened an +instant before. In fact, according to them, nothing ever really had +happened since the beginning of the world. Nothing ever had happened +since existence had happened; and even about the date of that they were +not very sure. + +The modern world as I found it was solid for modern Calvinism, for the +necessity of things being as they are. But when I came to ask them I +found they had really no proof of this unavoidable repetition in things +except the fact that the things were repeated. Now, the mere repetition +made the things to me rather more weird than more rational. It was as +if, having seen a curiously shaped nose in the street and dismissed it +as an accident, I had then seen six other noses of the same astonishing +shape. I should have fancied for a moment that it must be some local +secret society. So one elephant having a trunk was odd; but all +elephants having trunks looked like a plot. I speak here only of an +emotion, and of an emotion at once stubborn and subtle. But the +repetition in Nature seemed sometimes to be an excited repetition, like +that of an angry schoolmaster saying the same thing over and over again. +The grass seemed signalling to me with all its fingers at once; the +crowded stars seemed bent upon being understood. The sun would make me +see him if he rose a thousand times. The recurrences of the universe +rose to the maddening rhythm of an incantation, and I began to see an +idea. + +All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests +ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption. It is supposed that +if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece of +clockwork. People feel that if the universe was personal it would vary; +if the sun were alive it would dance. This is a fallacy even in relation +to known fact. For the variation in human affairs is generally brought +into them, not by life, but by death; by the dying down or breaking off +of their strength or desire. A man varies his movements because of some +slight element of failure or fatigue. He gets into an omnibus because he +is tired of walking; or he walks because he is tired of sitting still. +But if his life and joy were so gigantic that he never tired of going to +Islington, he might go to Islington as regularly as the Thames goes to +Sheerness. The very speed and ecstasy of his life would have the +stillness of death. The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every +morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my +inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true +that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His +routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The +thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some +game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs +rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have +abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, +therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do +it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly +dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. +But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible +that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every +evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity +that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy +separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He +has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, +and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a +mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical *encore*. Heaven may *encore* +the bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings forth +a human child instead of bringing forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, +the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life +or purpose. It may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods, that +they admire it from their starry galleries, and that at the end of every +human drama man is called again and again before the curtain. Repetition +may go on for minions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it +may stop. Man may stand on the earth generation after generation, and +yet each birth be his positively last appearance. + +This was my first conviction; made by the shock of my childish emotions +meeting the modern creed in mid-career. I had always vaguely felt facts +to be miracles in the sense that they are wonderful: now I began to +think them miracles in the stricter sense that they were *wilful.* I +mean that they were, or might be, repeated exercises of some will. In +short, I had always believed that the world involved magic: now I +thought that perhaps it involved a magician. And this pointed a profound +emotion always present and sub-conscious; that this world of ours has +some purpose; and if there is a purpose, there is a person. I had always +felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a +story-teller. + +But modern thought also hit my second human tradition. It went against +the fairy feeling about strict limits and conditions. The one thing it +loved to talk about was expansion and largeness. Herbert Spencer would +have been greatly annoyed if anyone had called him an imperialist, and +therefore it is highly regrettable that nobody did. But he was an +imperialist of the lowest type. He popularized this contemptible notion +that the size of the solar system ought to over-awe the spiritual dogma +of man. Why should a man surrender his dignity to the solar system any +more than to a whale? If mere size proves that man is not the image of +God, then a whale may be the image of God; a somewhat formless image; +what one might call an impressionist portrait. It is quite futile to +argue that man is small compared to the cosmos; for man was always small +compared to the nearest tree. But Herbert Spencer, in his headlong +imperialism, would insist that we had in some way been conquered and +annexed by the astronomical universe. He spoke about men and their +ideals exactly as the most insolent Unionist talks about the Irish and +their ideals. He turned mankind into a small nationality. And his evil +influence can be seen even in the most spirited and honourable of later +scientific authors; notably in the early romances of Mr. H. G. Wells. +Many moralists have in an exaggerated way represented the earth as +wicked. But Mr. Wells and his school made the heavens wicked. We should +lift up our eyes to the stars from whence would come our ruin. + +But the expansion of which I speak was much more evil than all this. I +have remarked that the materialist, like the madman, is in prison; in +the prison of one thought. These people seemed to think it singularly +inspiring to keep on saying that the prison was very large. The size of +this scientific universe gave one no novelty, no relief. The cosmos went +on for ever, but not in its wildest constellation could there be +anything really interesting; anything, for instance, such as forgiveness +or free will. The grandeur or infinity of the secret of its cosmos added +nothing to it. It was like telling a prisoner in Reading gaol that he +would be glad to hear that the gaol now covered half the county. The +warder would have nothing to show the man except more and more long +corridors of stone lit by ghastly lights and empty of all that is human. +So these expanders of the universe had nothing to show us except more +and more infinite corridors of space lit by ghastly suns and empty of +all that is divine. + +In fairyland there had been a real law; a law that could be broken, for +the definition of a law is something that can be broken. But the +machinery of this cosmic prison was something that could not be broken; +for we ourselves were only a part of its machinery. We were either +unable to do things or we were destined to do them. The idea of the +mystical condition quite disappeared; one can neither have the firmness +of keeping laws nor the fun of breaking them. The largeness of this +universe had nothing of that freshness and airy outbreak which we have +praised in the universe of the poet. This modern universe is literally +an empire; that is, it is vast, but it is not free. One went into larger +and larger windowless rooms, rooms big with Babylonian perspective; but +one never found the smallest window or a whisper of outer air. + +Their infernal parallels seemed to expand with distance; but for me all +good things come to a point, swords for instance. So finding the boast +of the big cosmos so unsatisfactory to my emotions I began to argue +about it a little; and I soon found that the whole attitude was even +shallower than could have been expected. According to these people the +cosmos was one thing since it had one unbroken rule. Only (they would +say) while it is one thing it is also the only thing there is. Why, +then, should one worry particularly to call it large? There is nothing +to compare it with. It would be just as sensible to call it small. A man +may say, "I like this vast cosmos, with its throng of stars and its +crowd of varied creatures." But if it comes to that why should not a man +say, "I like this cosy little cosmos, with its decent number of stars +and as neat a provision of live stock as I wish to see"? One is as good +as the other; they are both mere sentiments. It is mere sentiment to +rejoice that the sun is larger than the earth; it is quite as sane a +sentiment to rejoice that the sun is no larger than it is. A man chooses +to have an emotion about the largeness of the world; why should he not +choose to have an emotion about its smallness? + +It happened that I had that emotion. When one is fond of anything one +addresses it by diminutives, even if it is an elephant or a +life-guardsman. The reason is, that anything, however huge, that can be +conceived of as complete, can be conceived of as small. If military +moustaches did not suggest a sword or tusks a tail, then the object +would be vast because it would be immeasurable. But the moment you can +imagine a guardsman you can imagine a small guardsman. The moment you +really see an elephant you can call it "Tiny." If you can make a statue +of a thing you can make a statuette of it. These people professed that +the universe was one coherent thing; but they were not fond of the +universe. But I was frightfully fond of the universe and wanted to +address it by a diminutive. I often did so; and it never seemed to mind. +Actually and in truth I did feel that these dim dogmas of vitality were +better expressed by calling the world small than by calling it large. +For about infinity there was a sort of carelessness which was the +reverse of the fierce and pious care which I felt touching the +pricelessness and the peril of life. They showed only a dreary waste; +but I felt a sort of sacred thrift. For economy is far more romantic +than extravagance. To them stars were an unending income of halfpence; +but I felt about the golden sun and the silver moon as a schoolboy feels +if he has one sovereign and one shilling. + +These subconscious convictions are best hit off by the colour and tone +of certain tales. + +Thus I have said that stories of magic alone can express my sense that +life is not only a pleasure but a kind of eccentric privilege. I may +express this other feeling of cosmic cosiness by allusion to another +book always read in boyhood, "Robinson Crusoe," which I read about this +time, and which owes its eternal vivacity to the fact that it celebrates +the poetry of limits, nay, even the wild romance of prudence. Crusoe is +a man on a small rock with a few comforts just snatched from the sea: +the best thing in the book is simply the list of things saved from the +wreck. The greatest of poems is an inventory. Every kitchen tool becomes +ideal because Crusoe might have dropped it in the sea. It is a good +exercise, in empty or ugly hours of the day, to look at anything, the +coal-scuttle or the book-case, and think how happy one could be to have +brought it out of the sinking ship on to the solitary island. But it is +a better exercise still to remember how all things have had this +hair-breadth escape: everything has been saved from a wreck. Every man +has had one horrible adventure: as a hidden untimely birth he had not +been, as infants that never see the light. Men spoke much in my boyhood +of restricted or ruined men of genius: and it was common to say that +many a man was a Great Might-Have-Been. To me it is a more solid and +startling fact that any man in the street is a Great Might-Not-Have-Been. -But I really felt (the fancy may seem foolish) as if all the -order and number of things were the romantic remnant of -Crusoe's ship. That there are two sexes and one sun, was -like the fact that there were two guns and one axe. It was -poignantly urgent that none should be lost; but somehow, it -was rather fun that none could be added. The trees and the -planets seemed like things saved from the wreck: and when I -saw the Matterhorn I was glad that it had not been -overlooked in the confusion. I felt economical about the -stars as if they were sapphires (they are called so in -Milton's Eden): I hoarded the hills. For the universe is a -single jewel, and while it is a natural cant to talk of a -jewel as peerless and priceless, of this jewel it is -literally true. This cosmos is indeed without peer and -without price: for there cannot be another one. - -Thus ends, in unavoidable inadequacy, the attempt to utter -the unutterable things. These are my ultimate attitudes -towards life; the soils for the seeds of doctrine. These in -some dark way I thought before I could write, and felt -before I could think: that we may proceed more easily -afterwards, I will roughly recapitulate them now. I felt in -my bones; first, that this world does not explain itself. It -may be a miracle with a supernatural explanation; it may be -a conjuring trick, with a natural explanation. But the -explanation of the conjuring trick, if it is to satisfy me, -will have to be better than the natural explanations I have -heard. The thing is magic, true or false. Second, I came to -feel as if magic must have a meaning, and meaning must have -some one to mean it. There was something personal in the -world, as in a work of art; whatever it meant it meant -violently. Third, I thought this purpose beautiful in its -old design, in spite of its defects, such as dragons. -Fourth, that the proper form of thanks to it is some form of -humility and restraint: we should thank God for beer and -Burgundy by not drinking too much of them. We owed, also, an -obedience to whatever made us. And last, and strangest, -there had come into my mind a vague and vast impression that -in some way all good was a remnant to be stored and held -sacred out of some primordial ruin. Man had saved his good -as Crusoe saved his goods: he had saved them from a wreck. -All this I felt and the age gave me no encouragement to feel -it. And all this time I had not even thought of Christian -theology. +But I really felt (the fancy may seem foolish) as if all the order and +number of things were the romantic remnant of Crusoe's ship. That there +are two sexes and one sun, was like the fact that there were two guns +and one axe. It was poignantly urgent that none should be lost; but +somehow, it was rather fun that none could be added. The trees and the +planets seemed like things saved from the wreck: and when I saw the +Matterhorn I was glad that it had not been overlooked in the confusion. +I felt economical about the stars as if they were sapphires (they are +called so in Milton's Eden): I hoarded the hills. For the universe is a +single jewel, and while it is a natural cant to talk of a jewel as +peerless and priceless, of this jewel it is literally true. This cosmos +is indeed without peer and without price: for there cannot be another +one. + +Thus ends, in unavoidable inadequacy, the attempt to utter the +unutterable things. These are my ultimate attitudes towards life; the +soils for the seeds of doctrine. These in some dark way I thought before +I could write, and felt before I could think: that we may proceed more +easily afterwards, I will roughly recapitulate them now. I felt in my +bones; first, that this world does not explain itself. It may be a +miracle with a supernatural explanation; it may be a conjuring trick, +with a natural explanation. But the explanation of the conjuring trick, +if it is to satisfy me, will have to be better than the natural +explanations I have heard. The thing is magic, true or false. Second, I +came to feel as if magic must have a meaning, and meaning must have some +one to mean it. There was something personal in the world, as in a work +of art; whatever it meant it meant violently. Third, I thought this +purpose beautiful in its old design, in spite of its defects, such as +dragons. Fourth, that the proper form of thanks to it is some form of +humility and restraint: we should thank God for beer and Burgundy by not +drinking too much of them. We owed, also, an obedience to whatever made +us. And last, and strangest, there had come into my mind a vague and +vast impression that in some way all good was a remnant to be stored and +held sacred out of some primordial ruin. Man had saved his good as +Crusoe saved his goods: he had saved them from a wreck. All this I felt +and the age gave me no encouragement to feel it. And all this time I had +not even thought of Christian theology. # The Flag of the World -When I was a boy there were two curious men running about -who were called the optimist and the pessimist. I constantly -used the words myself, but I cheerfully confess that I never -had any very special idea of what they meant. The only thing -which might be considered evident was that they could not -mean what they said; for the ordinary verbal explanation was -that the optimist thought this world as good as it could be, -while the pessimist thought it as bad as it could be. Both -these statements being obviously raving nonsense, one had to -cast about for other explanations. An optimist could not -mean a man who thought everything right and nothing wrong. -For that is meaningless; it is like calling everything right -and nothing left. Upon the whole, I came to the conclusion -that the optimist thought everything good except the -pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, -except himself. It would be unfair to omit altogether from -the list the mysterious but suggestive definition said to -have been given by a little girl, cc An optimist is a man -who looks after your eyes, and a pessimist is a man who -looks after your feet." I am not sure that this is not the -best definition of all. There is even a sort of allegorical -truth in it. For there might, perhaps, be a profitable -distinction drawn between that more dreary thinker who -thinks merely of our contact with the earth from moment to -moment, and that happier thinker who considers rather our +When I was a boy there were two curious men running about who were +called the optimist and the pessimist. I constantly used the words +myself, but I cheerfully confess that I never had any very special idea +of what they meant. The only thing which might be considered evident was +that they could not mean what they said; for the ordinary verbal +explanation was that the optimist thought this world as good as it could +be, while the pessimist thought it as bad as it could be. Both these +statements being obviously raving nonsense, one had to cast about for +other explanations. An optimist could not mean a man who thought +everything right and nothing wrong. For that is meaningless; it is like +calling everything right and nothing left. Upon the whole, I came to the +conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the +pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, except +himself. It would be unfair to omit altogether from the list the +mysterious but suggestive definition said to have been given by a little +girl, cc An optimist is a man who looks after your eyes, and a pessimist +is a man who looks after your feet." I am not sure that this is not the +best definition of all. There is even a sort of allegorical truth in it. +For there might, perhaps, be a profitable distinction drawn between that +more dreary thinker who thinks merely of our contact with the earth from +moment to moment, and that happier thinker who considers rather our primary power of vision and of choice of road. -But this is a deep mistake in this alternative of the -optimist and the pessimist. The assumption of it is that a -man criticises this world as if he were house-hunting, as if -he were being shown over a new suite of apartments. If a man -came to this world from some other world in full possession -of his powers he might discuss whether the advantage of -midsummer woods made up for the disadvantage of mad dogs, -just as a man looking for lodgings might balance the -presence of a telephone against the absence of a sea view. -But no man is in that position. A man belongs to this world -before he begins to ask if it is nice to belong to it. He -has fought for the flag, and often won heroic victories for -the flag long before he has ever enlisted. To put shortly -what seems the essential matter, he has a loyalty long -before he has any admiration. - -In the last chapter it has been said that the primary -feeling that this world is strange and yet attractive is -best expressed in fairy tales. The reader may, if he likes, -put down the next stage to that bellicose and even jingo -literature which commonly comes next in the history of a -boy. We all owe much sound morality to the penny dreadfuls. -Whatever the reason, it seemed and still seems to me that -our attitude towards life can be better expressed in terms -of a kind of military loyalty than in terms of criticism and -approval. My acceptance of the universe is not optimism, it -is more like patriotism. It is a matter of primary loyalty. -The world is not a lodging-house at Brighton, which we are -to leave because it is miserable. It is the fortress of our -family, with the flag flying on the turret, and the more -miserable it is the less we should leave it. The point is -not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to -love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its -gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason -for loving it more. All optimistic thoughts about England -and all pessimistic thoughts about her are alike reasons for -the English patriot. Similarly, optimism and pessimism are -alike arguments for the cosmic patriot. - -Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate -thing---say Pimlico. If we think what is really best for -Pimlico we shall find the thread of thought leads to the -throne or the mystic and the arbitrary. It is not enough for -a man to disapprove of Pimlico: in that case he will merely -cut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor, certainly, is it -enough for a man to approve of Pimlico: for then it will -remain Pimlico, which would be awful. The only way out of it -seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico: to love it with a -transcendental tie and without any earthly reason. If there -arose a man who loved Pimlico, then Pimlico would rise into -ivory towers and golden pinnacles; Pimlico would attire -herself as a woman does when she is loved. For decoration is -not given to hide horrible things; but to decorate things -already adorable. A mother does not give her child a blue -bow because he is so ugly without it. A lover does not give -a girl a necklace to hide her neck. If men loved Pimlico as -mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is *theirs*, -Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence. Some -readers will say that this is a mere fantasy. I answer that -this is the actual history of mankind. This, as a fact, is -how cities did grow great. Go back to the darkest roots of -civilisation and you will find them knotted round some -sacred stone or encircling some sacred well. People first -paid honour to a spot and afterwards gained glory for it. -Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great -because they had loved her. - -The eighteenth-century theories of the social contract have -been exposed to much clumsy criticism in our time; in so far -as they meant that there is at the back of all historic -government an idea of content and co-operation, they were -demonstrably right. But they really were wrong in so far as -they suggested that men had ever aimed at order or ethics -directly by a conscious exchange of interests. Morality did -not begin by one man saying to another, "I will not hit you -if you do not hit me"; there is no trace of such a -transaction. There is a trace of both men having said, "We -must not hit each other in the holy place." They gained -their morality by guarding their religion. They did not -cultivate courage. They fought for the shrine, and found -they had become courageous. They did not cultivate -cleanliness. They purified themselves for the altar, and -found that they were clean. The history of the Jews is the -only early document known to most Englishmen, and the facts -can be judged sufficiently from that. The Ten Commandments -which have been found substantially common to mankind were -merely military commands; a code of regimental orders, -issued to protect a certain ark across a certain desert. -Anarchy was evil because it endangered the sanctity. And -only when they made a holy day for God did they find they -had made a holiday for men. - -If it be granted that this primary devotion to a place or -thing is a source of creative energy, we can pass on to a -very peculiar fact. Let us reiterate for an instant that the -only right optimism is a sort of universal patriotism. What -is the matter with the pessimist? I think it can be stated -by saying that he is the cosmic anti-patriot. And what is -the matter with the anti-patriot? I think it can be stated, -without undue bitterness, by saying that he is the candid -friend. And what is the matter with the candid friend? There -we strike the rock of real life and immutable human nature. - -I venture to say that what is bad in the candid friend is -simply that he is not candid. He is keeping something -back-his own gloomy pleasure in saying unpleasant things. He -has a secret desire to hurt, not merely to help. This is -certainly, I think, what makes a certain sort of -anti-patriot irritating to healthy citizens. I do not speak -(of course) of the anti-patriotism which only irritates -feverish stockbrokers and gushing actresses; that is only -patriotism speaking plainly. A man who says that no patriot -should attack the Boer War until it is over is not worth -answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son -should warn his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over -it. But there is an anti-patriot who honestly angers honest -men, and the explanation of him is, I think, what I have -suggested: he is the uncandid candid friend; the man who -says, "I am sorry to say we are ruined," and is not sorry at -all. And he may be said, without rhetoric, to be a traitor; -for he is using that ugly knowledge which was allowed him to -strengthen the army, to discourage people from joining it. -Because he is allowed to be pessimistic as a military -adviser he is being pessimistic as a recruiting sergeant. -Just in the same way the pessimist (who is the cosmic -anti-patriot) uses the freedom that life allows to her -counsellors to lure away the people from her flag. Granted -that he states only facts, it is still essential to know -what are his emotions, what is his motive. It may be that -twelve hundred men in Tottenham are down with smallpox; but -we want to know whether this is stated by some great -philosopher who wants to curse the gods, or only by some -common clergyman who wants to help the men. - -The evil of the pessimist is, then, not that he chastises -gods and men, but that he does not love what he -chastises---he has not this primary and supernatural loyalty -to things. What is the evil of the man commonly called an -optimist? Obviously, it is felt that the optimist, wishing -to defend the honour of this world, win defend the -indefensible. He is the jingo of the universe; he win say, -"My cosmos, right or wrong." He will be less inclined to the -reform of things; more inclined to a sort of front-bench -official answer to all attacks, soothing everyone with -assurances. He will not wash the world, but whitewash the -world. All this (which is true of a type of optimist) leads -us to the one really interesting point of psychology, which -could not be explained without it. - -We say there must be a primal loyalty to life: the only -question is, shall it be a natural or a supernatural -loyalty? If you like to put it so, shall it be a reasonable -or an unreasonable loyalty? Now, the extraordinary thing is -that the bad optimism (the whitewashing, the weak defence of -everything) comes in with the reasonable optimism. Rational -optimism leads to stagnation: it is irrational optimism that -leads to reform. Let me explain by using once more the -parallel of patriotism. The man who is most likely to ruin -the place he loves is exactly the man who loves it with a -reason. The man who will improve the place is the man who -loves it without a reason. If a man loves some feature of -Pimlico (which seems unlikely), he may find himself -defending that feature against Pimlico itself. But if he -simply loves Pimlico itself he may lay it waste and turn it -into the New Jerusalem. I do not deny that reform may be -excessive; I only say that it is the mystic patriot who -reforms. Mere jingo self-contentment is commonest among -those who have some pedantic reason for their patriotism. -The worst Jingoes do not love England, but a theory of -England. If we love England for being an empire, we may -overrate the success with which we rule the Hindus. But if -we love it only for being a nation, we can face all events: -for it would be a nation even if the Hindus ruled us. Thus -also only those will permit their patriotism to falsify -history whose patriotism depends on history. A man who loves -England for being English will not mind how she arose. But a -man who loves England for being Anglo-Saxon may go against -all facts for his fancy. He may end (like Carlyle and -Freeman) by maintaining that the Norman Conquest was a Saxon -Conquest. He may end in utter unreason---because he has a -reason. A man who loves France for being military will -palliate the army of 1870. But a man who loves France for -being France will improve the army of 1870. This is exactly -what the French have done, and France is a good instance of -the working paradox. Nowhere else is patriotism more purely -abstract and arbitrary; and nowhere else is reform more -drastic and sweeping. The more transcendental is your -patriotism, the more practical are your politics. - -Perhaps the most everyday instance of this point is in the -case of women; and their strange and strong loyalty. Some -stupid people started the idea that because women obviously -back up their own people through everything, therefore women -are blind and do not see anything. They can hardly have -known any women. The same women who are ready to defend -their men through thick and thin are (in their personal -intercourse with the man) almost morbidly lucid about the -thinness of his excuses or the thickness of his head. A -man's friend likes him but leaves him as he is: his wife -loves him and is always trying to turn him into somebody -else. Women who are utter mystics in their creed are utter -cynics in their criticism. Thackeray expressed this well -when he made Pendennis' mother, who worshipped her son as a -god, yet assume that he would go wrong as a man. She -underrated his virtue, though she overrated his value. The -devotee is entirely free to criticise; the fanatic can -safely be a sceptic. Love is not blind; that is the last -thing that it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound -the less it is blind. - -This at least had come to be my position about all that was -called optimism, pessimism, and improvement. Before any -cosmic act of reform we must have a cosmic oath of -allegiance. A man must be interested in life, then he could -be disinterested in his views of it. "My son give me thy -heart"; the heart must be fixed on the right thing: the -moment we have a fixed heart we have a free hand. I must -pause to anticipate an obvious criticism. It will be said -that a rational person accepts the world as mixed of good -and evil with a decent satisfaction and a decent endurance. -But this is exactly the attitude which I maintain to be -defective. It is, I know, very common in this age; it was -perfectly put in those quiet lines of Matthew Arnold which -are more piercingly blasphemous than the shrieks of -Schopenhauer-- +But this is a deep mistake in this alternative of the optimist and the +pessimist. The assumption of it is that a man criticises this world as +if he were house-hunting, as if he were being shown over a new suite of +apartments. If a man came to this world from some other world in full +possession of his powers he might discuss whether the advantage of +midsummer woods made up for the disadvantage of mad dogs, just as a man +looking for lodgings might balance the presence of a telephone against +the absence of a sea view. But no man is in that position. A man belongs +to this world before he begins to ask if it is nice to belong to it. He +has fought for the flag, and often won heroic victories for the flag +long before he has ever enlisted. To put shortly what seems the +essential matter, he has a loyalty long before he has any admiration. + +In the last chapter it has been said that the primary feeling that this +world is strange and yet attractive is best expressed in fairy tales. +The reader may, if he likes, put down the next stage to that bellicose +and even jingo literature which commonly comes next in the history of a +boy. We all owe much sound morality to the penny dreadfuls. Whatever the +reason, it seemed and still seems to me that our attitude towards life +can be better expressed in terms of a kind of military loyalty than in +terms of criticism and approval. My acceptance of the universe is not +optimism, it is more like patriotism. It is a matter of primary loyalty. +The world is not a lodging-house at Brighton, which we are to leave +because it is miserable. It is the fortress of our family, with the flag +flying on the turret, and the more miserable it is the less we should +leave it. The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too +glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its +gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving +it more. All optimistic thoughts about England and all pessimistic +thoughts about her are alike reasons for the English patriot. Similarly, +optimism and pessimism are alike arguments for the cosmic patriot. + +Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing---say Pimlico. +If we think what is really best for Pimlico we shall find the thread of +thought leads to the throne or the mystic and the arbitrary. It is not +enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico: in that case he will merely +cut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor, certainly, is it enough for a +man to approve of Pimlico: for then it will remain Pimlico, which would +be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love +Pimlico: to love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly +reason. If there arose a man who loved Pimlico, then Pimlico would rise +into ivory towers and golden pinnacles; Pimlico would attire herself as +a woman does when she is loved. For decoration is not given to hide +horrible things; but to decorate things already adorable. A mother does +not give her child a blue bow because he is so ugly without it. A lover +does not give a girl a necklace to hide her neck. If men loved Pimlico +as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is *theirs*, Pimlico +in a year or two might be fairer than Florence. Some readers will say +that this is a mere fantasy. I answer that this is the actual history of +mankind. This, as a fact, is how cities did grow great. Go back to the +darkest roots of civilisation and you will find them knotted round some +sacred stone or encircling some sacred well. People first paid honour to +a spot and afterwards gained glory for it. Men did not love Rome because +she was great. She was great because they had loved her. + +The eighteenth-century theories of the social contract have been exposed +to much clumsy criticism in our time; in so far as they meant that there +is at the back of all historic government an idea of content and +co-operation, they were demonstrably right. But they really were wrong +in so far as they suggested that men had ever aimed at order or ethics +directly by a conscious exchange of interests. Morality did not begin by +one man saying to another, "I will not hit you if you do not hit me"; +there is no trace of such a transaction. There is a trace of both men +having said, "We must not hit each other in the holy place." They gained +their morality by guarding their religion. They did not cultivate +courage. They fought for the shrine, and found they had become +courageous. They did not cultivate cleanliness. They purified themselves +for the altar, and found that they were clean. The history of the Jews +is the only early document known to most Englishmen, and the facts can +be judged sufficiently from that. The Ten Commandments which have been +found substantially common to mankind were merely military commands; a +code of regimental orders, issued to protect a certain ark across a +certain desert. Anarchy was evil because it endangered the sanctity. And +only when they made a holy day for God did they find they had made a +holiday for men. + +If it be granted that this primary devotion to a place or thing is a +source of creative energy, we can pass on to a very peculiar fact. Let +us reiterate for an instant that the only right optimism is a sort of +universal patriotism. What is the matter with the pessimist? I think it +can be stated by saying that he is the cosmic anti-patriot. And what is +the matter with the anti-patriot? I think it can be stated, without +undue bitterness, by saying that he is the candid friend. And what is +the matter with the candid friend? There we strike the rock of real life +and immutable human nature. + +I venture to say that what is bad in the candid friend is simply that he +is not candid. He is keeping something back-his own gloomy pleasure in +saying unpleasant things. He has a secret desire to hurt, not merely to +help. This is certainly, I think, what makes a certain sort of +anti-patriot irritating to healthy citizens. I do not speak (of course) +of the anti-patriotism which only irritates feverish stockbrokers and +gushing actresses; that is only patriotism speaking plainly. A man who +says that no patriot should attack the Boer War until it is over is not +worth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son should warn +his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it. But there is an +anti-patriot who honestly angers honest men, and the explanation of him +is, I think, what I have suggested: he is the uncandid candid friend; +the man who says, "I am sorry to say we are ruined," and is not sorry at +all. And he may be said, without rhetoric, to be a traitor; for he is +using that ugly knowledge which was allowed him to strengthen the army, +to discourage people from joining it. Because he is allowed to be +pessimistic as a military adviser he is being pessimistic as a +recruiting sergeant. Just in the same way the pessimist (who is the +cosmic anti-patriot) uses the freedom that life allows to her +counsellors to lure away the people from her flag. Granted that he +states only facts, it is still essential to know what are his emotions, +what is his motive. It may be that twelve hundred men in Tottenham are +down with smallpox; but we want to know whether this is stated by some +great philosopher who wants to curse the gods, or only by some common +clergyman who wants to help the men. + +The evil of the pessimist is, then, not that he chastises gods and men, +but that he does not love what he chastises---he has not this primary +and supernatural loyalty to things. What is the evil of the man commonly +called an optimist? Obviously, it is felt that the optimist, wishing to +defend the honour of this world, win defend the indefensible. He is the +jingo of the universe; he win say, "My cosmos, right or wrong." He will +be less inclined to the reform of things; more inclined to a sort of +front-bench official answer to all attacks, soothing everyone with +assurances. He will not wash the world, but whitewash the world. All +this (which is true of a type of optimist) leads us to the one really +interesting point of psychology, which could not be explained without +it. + +We say there must be a primal loyalty to life: the only question is, +shall it be a natural or a supernatural loyalty? If you like to put it +so, shall it be a reasonable or an unreasonable loyalty? Now, the +extraordinary thing is that the bad optimism (the whitewashing, the weak +defence of everything) comes in with the reasonable optimism. Rational +optimism leads to stagnation: it is irrational optimism that leads to +reform. Let me explain by using once more the parallel of patriotism. +The man who is most likely to ruin the place he loves is exactly the man +who loves it with a reason. The man who will improve the place is the +man who loves it without a reason. If a man loves some feature of +Pimlico (which seems unlikely), he may find himself defending that +feature against Pimlico itself. But if he simply loves Pimlico itself he +may lay it waste and turn it into the New Jerusalem. I do not deny that +reform may be excessive; I only say that it is the mystic patriot who +reforms. Mere jingo self-contentment is commonest among those who have +some pedantic reason for their patriotism. The worst Jingoes do not love +England, but a theory of England. If we love England for being an +empire, we may overrate the success with which we rule the Hindus. But +if we love it only for being a nation, we can face all events: for it +would be a nation even if the Hindus ruled us. Thus also only those will +permit their patriotism to falsify history whose patriotism depends on +history. A man who loves England for being English will not mind how she +arose. But a man who loves England for being Anglo-Saxon may go against +all facts for his fancy. He may end (like Carlyle and Freeman) by +maintaining that the Norman Conquest was a Saxon Conquest. He may end in +utter unreason---because he has a reason. A man who loves France for +being military will palliate the army of 1870. But a man who loves +France for being France will improve the army of 1870. This is exactly +what the French have done, and France is a good instance of the working +paradox. Nowhere else is patriotism more purely abstract and arbitrary; +and nowhere else is reform more drastic and sweeping. The more +transcendental is your patriotism, the more practical are your politics. + +Perhaps the most everyday instance of this point is in the case of +women; and their strange and strong loyalty. Some stupid people started +the idea that because women obviously back up their own people through +everything, therefore women are blind and do not see anything. They can +hardly have known any women. The same women who are ready to defend +their men through thick and thin are (in their personal intercourse with +the man) almost morbidly lucid about the thinness of his excuses or the +thickness of his head. A man's friend likes him but leaves him as he is: +his wife loves him and is always trying to turn him into somebody else. +Women who are utter mystics in their creed are utter cynics in their +criticism. Thackeray expressed this well when he made Pendennis' mother, +who worshipped her son as a god, yet assume that he would go wrong as a +man. She underrated his virtue, though she overrated his value. The +devotee is entirely free to criticise; the fanatic can safely be a +sceptic. Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love is +bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind. + +This at least had come to be my position about all that was called +optimism, pessimism, and improvement. Before any cosmic act of reform we +must have a cosmic oath of allegiance. A man must be interested in life, +then he could be disinterested in his views of it. "My son give me thy +heart"; the heart must be fixed on the right thing: the moment we have a +fixed heart we have a free hand. I must pause to anticipate an obvious +criticism. It will be said that a rational person accepts the world as +mixed of good and evil with a decent satisfaction and a decent +endurance. But this is exactly the attitude which I maintain to be +defective. It is, I know, very common in this age; it was perfectly put +in those quiet lines of Matthew Arnold which are more piercingly +blasphemous than the shrieks of Schopenhauer-- >  Enough we live:--and if a life, > @@ -2624,2644 +2205,2220 @@ Schopenhauer-- > > This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth. -I know this feeling fills our epoch, and I think it freezes -our epoch. For our Titanic purposes of faith and revolution, -what we need is not the cold acceptance of the world as a -compromise, but some way in which we can heartily hate and -heartily love it. We do not want joy and anger to neutralise -each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a -fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent. We have to feel -the universe at once as an ogre's castle, to be stormed, and -yet as our own cottage, to which we can return at evening. - -No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this -world: but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, -but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to -change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth -changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once -feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil -without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once -not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical -pessimist and a fanatical optimist? Is he enough of a pagan -to die for the world, and enough of a Christian to die to -it? In this combination, I maintain, it is the rational -optimist who fails, the irrational optimist who succeeds. He -is ready to smash the whole universe for the sake of itself. - -I put these things not in their mature logical sequence, but -as they came: and this view was cleared and sharpened by an -accident of the time. Under the lengthening shadow of Ibsen, -an argument arose whether it was not a very nice thing to -murder one's self. Grave moderns told us that we must not -even say "poor fellow," of a man who had blown his brains -out, since he was an enviable person, and had only blown -them out because of their exceptional excellence. -Mr. William Archer even suggested that in the golden age -there would be penny-in-the-slot machines, by which a man -could kill himself for a penny. In all this I found myself -utterly hostile to many who called themselves liberal and -humane. Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. I t is the -ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest -in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to -life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who -kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he -wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically -considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it -destroys all buildings: it insults all women. The thief is -satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not: that is his -crime. He cannot be bribed, even by the blazing stones of -the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he -steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults -everything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every -flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny -creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. -When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall -off in anger and the birds flyaway in fury: for each has -received a personal affront. Of course there may be pathetic -emotional excuses for the act. There often are for rape, and -there almost always are for dynamite. But if it comes to -clear ideas and the intelligent meaning of things, then -there is much more rational and philosophic truth in the -burial at the cross-roads and the stake driven through the -body, than in Mr. Archer's suicidal automatic machines. -There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man's -crime is different from other crimes---for it makes even -crimes impossible. - -About the same time I read a solemn flippancy by some free -thinker: he said that a suicide was only the same as a -martyr. The open fallacy of this helped to clear the -question. Obviously a suicide is the opposite of a martyr. A -martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside him, -that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man -who cares so little for anything outside him, that he wants -to see the last of everything. One wants something to begin: -the other wants everything to end. In other words, the -martyr is noble, exactly because (however he renounces the -world or execrates all humanity) he confesses this ultimate -link with life; he sets his heart outside himself: he dies -that something may live. The suicide is ignoble because he -has not this link with being: he is a mere destroyer; -spiritually, he destroys the universe. And then I remembered -the stake and the cross-roads, and the queer fact that -Christianity had shown this weird harshness to the suicide. -For Christianity had shown a wild encouragement of the -martyr. Historic Christianity was accused, not entirely -without reason, of carrying martyrdom and asceticism to a -point, desolate and pessimistic. The early Christian martyrs -talked of death with a horrible happiness. They blasphemed -the beautiful duties of the body: they smelt the grave afar -off like a field of flowers. All this has seemed to many the -very poetry of pessimism. Yet there is the stake at the -cross-roads to show what Christianity thought of the -pessimist. - -This was the first of the long train of enigmas with which -Christianity entered the discussion. And there went with it -a peculiarity of which I shall have to speak more markedly, -as a note of all Christian notions, but which distinctly -began in this one. The Christian attitude to the martyr and -the suicide was not what is so often affirmed in modern -morals. It was not a matter of degree. It was not that a -line must be drawn somewhere, and that the self-slayer in -exaltation fell within the line, the self-slayer in sadness -just beyond it. The Christian feeling evidently was not -merely that the suicide was carrying martyrdom too far. The -Christian feeling was furiously for one and furiously -against the other: these two things that looked so much -alike were at opposite ends of heaven and hell. One man -flung away his life; he was so good that his dry bones could -heal cities in pestilence. Another man flung away life; he -was so bad that his bones would pollute his brethren's. I am -not saying this fierceness was right; but why was it so -fierce? - -Here it was that I first found that my wandering feet were -in some beaten track. Christianity had also felt this -opposition of the martyr to the suicide: had it perhaps felt -it for the same reason? Had Christianity felt what I felt, -but could not (and cannot) express---this need for a first -loyalty to things, and then for a ruinous reform of things? -Then I remembered that it was actually the charge against -Christianity that it combined these two things which I was -wildly trying to combine. Christianity was accused, at one -and the same time, of being too optimistic about the -universe and of being too pessimistic about the world. The -coincidence made me suddenly stand still. - -An imbecile habit has arisen in modern controversy of saying -that such and such a creed can be held in one age but cannot -be held in another. Some dogma, we are told, was credible in -the twelfth century, but is not credible in the twentieth. -You might as well say that a certain philosophy can be -believed on Mondays, but cannot be believed on Tuesdays. You -might as well say of a view of the cosmos that it was -suitable to half-past three, but not suitable to half-past -four. What a man can believe depends upon his philosophy, -not upon the clock or the century. If a man believes in -unalterable natural law, he cannot believe in any miracle in -any age. If a man believes in a will behind law, he can -believe in any miracle in any age. Suppose, for the sake of -argument, we are concerned with a case of thaumaturgic -healing. A materialist of the twelfth century could not -believe it any more than a materialist of the twentieth -century. But a Christian Scientist of the twentieth century -can believe it as much as a Christian of the twelfth -century. It is simply a matter of a man's theory of things. -Therefore in dealing with any historical answer, the point -is not whether it was given in our time, but whether it was -given in answer to our question. And the more I thought -about when and how Christianity had come into the world, the -more I felt that it had actually come to answer this +I know this feeling fills our epoch, and I think it freezes our epoch. +For our Titanic purposes of faith and revolution, what we need is not +the cold acceptance of the world as a compromise, but some way in which +we can heartily hate and heartily love it. We do not want joy and anger +to neutralise each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a +fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universe +at once as an ogre's castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, +to which we can return at evening. + +No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but we +demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get +it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to +think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without +once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without +once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist +and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? Is +he enough of a pagan to die for the world, and enough of a Christian to +die to it? In this combination, I maintain, it is the rational optimist +who fails, the irrational optimist who succeeds. He is ready to smash +the whole universe for the sake of itself. + +I put these things not in their mature logical sequence, but as they +came: and this view was cleared and sharpened by an accident of the +time. Under the lengthening shadow of Ibsen, an argument arose whether +it was not a very nice thing to murder one's self. Grave moderns told us +that we must not even say "poor fellow," of a man who had blown his +brains out, since he was an enviable person, and had only blown them out +because of their exceptional excellence. Mr. William Archer even +suggested that in the golden age there would be penny-in-the-slot +machines, by which a man could kill himself for a penny. In all this I +found myself utterly hostile to many who called themselves liberal and +humane. Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. I t is the ultimate +and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the +refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, +kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is +concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically +considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all +buildings: it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; +but the suicide is not: that is his crime. He cannot be bribed, even by +the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the +things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults +everything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every flower by +refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the +cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a +tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds flyaway in fury: +for each has received a personal affront. Of course there may be +pathetic emotional excuses for the act. There often are for rape, and +there almost always are for dynamite. But if it comes to clear ideas and +the intelligent meaning of things, then there is much more rational and +philosophic truth in the burial at the cross-roads and the stake driven +through the body, than in Mr. Archer's suicidal automatic machines. +There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man's crime is +different from other crimes---for it makes even crimes impossible. + +About the same time I read a solemn flippancy by some free thinker: he +said that a suicide was only the same as a martyr. The open fallacy of +this helped to clear the question. Obviously a suicide is the opposite +of a martyr. A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside +him, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who cares +so little for anything outside him, that he wants to see the last of +everything. One wants something to begin: the other wants everything to +end. In other words, the martyr is noble, exactly because (however he +renounces the world or execrates all humanity) he confesses this +ultimate link with life; he sets his heart outside himself: he dies that +something may live. The suicide is ignoble because he has not this link +with being: he is a mere destroyer; spiritually, he destroys the +universe. And then I remembered the stake and the cross-roads, and the +queer fact that Christianity had shown this weird harshness to the +suicide. For Christianity had shown a wild encouragement of the martyr. +Historic Christianity was accused, not entirely without reason, of +carrying martyrdom and asceticism to a point, desolate and pessimistic. +The early Christian martyrs talked of death with a horrible happiness. +They blasphemed the beautiful duties of the body: they smelt the grave +afar off like a field of flowers. All this has seemed to many the very +poetry of pessimism. Yet there is the stake at the cross-roads to show +what Christianity thought of the pessimist. + +This was the first of the long train of enigmas with which Christianity +entered the discussion. And there went with it a peculiarity of which I +shall have to speak more markedly, as a note of all Christian notions, +but which distinctly began in this one. The Christian attitude to the +martyr and the suicide was not what is so often affirmed in modern +morals. It was not a matter of degree. It was not that a line must be +drawn somewhere, and that the self-slayer in exaltation fell within the +line, the self-slayer in sadness just beyond it. The Christian feeling +evidently was not merely that the suicide was carrying martyrdom too +far. The Christian feeling was furiously for one and furiously against +the other: these two things that looked so much alike were at opposite +ends of heaven and hell. One man flung away his life; he was so good +that his dry bones could heal cities in pestilence. Another man flung +away life; he was so bad that his bones would pollute his brethren's. I +am not saying this fierceness was right; but why was it so fierce? + +Here it was that I first found that my wandering feet were in some +beaten track. Christianity had also felt this opposition of the martyr +to the suicide: had it perhaps felt it for the same reason? Had +Christianity felt what I felt, but could not (and cannot) express---this +need for a first loyalty to things, and then for a ruinous reform of +things? Then I remembered that it was actually the charge against +Christianity that it combined these two things which I was wildly trying +to combine. Christianity was accused, at one and the same time, of being +too optimistic about the universe and of being too pessimistic about the +world. The coincidence made me suddenly stand still. + +An imbecile habit has arisen in modern controversy of saying that such +and such a creed can be held in one age but cannot be held in another. +Some dogma, we are told, was credible in the twelfth century, but is not +credible in the twentieth. You might as well say that a certain +philosophy can be believed on Mondays, but cannot be believed on +Tuesdays. You might as well say of a view of the cosmos that it was +suitable to half-past three, but not suitable to half-past four. What a +man can believe depends upon his philosophy, not upon the clock or the +century. If a man believes in unalterable natural law, he cannot believe +in any miracle in any age. If a man believes in a will behind law, he +can believe in any miracle in any age. Suppose, for the sake of +argument, we are concerned with a case of thaumaturgic healing. A +materialist of the twelfth century could not believe it any more than a +materialist of the twentieth century. But a Christian Scientist of the +twentieth century can believe it as much as a Christian of the twelfth +century. It is simply a matter of a man's theory of things. Therefore in +dealing with any historical answer, the point is not whether it was +given in our time, but whether it was given in answer to our question. +And the more I thought about when and how Christianity had come into the +world, the more I felt that it had actually come to answer this question. -It is commonly the loose and latitudinarian Christians who -pay quite indefensible compliments to Christianity. They -talk as if there had never been any piety or pity until -Christianity came, a point on which any mediaeval would have -been eager to correct them. They represent that the -remarkable thing about Christianity was that it was the -first to preach simplicity or self-restraint, or inwardness -and sincerity. They will think me very narrow (whatever that -means) if I say that the remarkable thing about Christianity -was that it was the first to preach Christianity. Its -peculiarity was that it was peculiar, and simplicity and -sincerity are not peculiar, but obvious ideals for all -mankind. Christianity was the answer to a riddle, not the -last truism uttered after a long talk. Only the other day I -saw in an excellent weekly paper of Puritan tone this -remark, that Christianity when stripped of its armour of -dogma (as who should speak of a man stripped of his armour -of bones), turned out to be nothing but the Quaker doctrine -of the Inner Light. Now, if I were to say that Christianity -came into the world specially to destroy the doctrine of the -Inner Light, that would be an exaggeration. But it would be -very much nearer to the truth. The last Stoics, like Marcus -Aurelius, were exactly the people who did believe in the -Inner Light. Their dignity, their weariness, their sad -external care for others, their incurable internal care for -themselves, were all due to the Inner Light, and existed -only by that dismal illumination. Notice that Marcus -Aurelius insists, as such introspective moralists always do, -upon small things done or undone; it is because he has not -hate or love enough to make a moral revolution. He gets up -early in the morning, just as our own aristocrats living the -Simple Life get up early in the morning; because such -altruism is much easier than stopping the games of the -amphitheatre or giving the English people back their land. -Marcus Aurelius is the most intolerable of human types. He -is an unselfish egoist. An unselfish egoist is a man who has -pride without the excuse of passion. Of all conceivable -forms of enlightenment the worst is what these people call -the Inner Light. Of all horrible religions the most horrible -is the worship of the god within. Anyone who knows any body -knows how it would work; anyone who knows anyone from the -Higher Thought Centre knows how it does work. That Jones -shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to -mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the -sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones -worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his -street, but not the god within. Christianity came into the -world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man -had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to -behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and -a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that -a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but -definitely recognised an outer light) fair as the sun, clear -as the moon, terrible as an army with banners. - -All the same, it will be as well if Jones does not worship -the sun and moon. If he does, there i,s a tendency for him -to imitate them; to say, that because the sun burns insects -alive, he may burn insects alive. He thinks that because the -sun gives people sun-stroke, he may give his neighbour -measles. He thinks that because the moon is said to drive -men mad, he may drive his wife mad. This ugly side of mere -external optimism had also shown itself in the ancient -world. About the time when the Stoic idealism had begun to -show the weaknesses of pessimism, the old nature worship of -the ancients had begun to show the enormous weaknesses of -optimism. Nature worship is natural enough while the society -is young, or, in other words, Pantheism is all right as long -as it is the worship of Pan. But Nature has another side -which experience and sin are not slow in finding out, and it -is no flippancy to say of the god Pan that he soon showed -the cloven hoof. The only objection to Natural Religion is -that somehow it always becomes unnatural. A man loves Nature -in the morning for her innocence and amiability, and at -nightfall, if he is loving her still, it is for her darkness -and her cruelty. He washes at dawn in clear water as did the -Wise Man of the Stoics, yet, somehow at the dark end of the -day, he is bathing in hot bull's blood, as did Julian the -Apostate. The mere pursuit of health always leads to -something unhealthy. Physical nature must not be made the -direct object of obedience; it must be enjoyed, not -worshipped. Stars and mountains must not be taken seriously. -If they are, we end where the pagan nature worship ended. -Because the earth is kind, we can imitate all her cruelties. -Because sexuality is sane, we can all go mad about -sexuality. Mere optimism had reached its insane and -appropriate termination. The theory that everything was good -had become an orgy of everything that was bad. - -On the other side our idealist pessimists were represented -by the old remnant of the Stoics. Marcus Aurelius and his -friends had really given up the idea of any god in the -universe and looked only to the god within. They had no hope -of any virtue in nature, and hardly any hope of any virtue -in society. They had not enough interest in the outer world -really to wreck or revolutionise it. They did not love the -city enough to set fire to it. Thus the ancient world was -exactly in our own desolate dilemma. The only people who -really enjoyed this world were busy breaking it up; and the -virtuous people did not care enough about them to knock them -down. In this dilemma (the same as ours) Christianity -suddenly stepped in and offered a singular answer, which the -world eventually accepted as *the* answer. It was the answer -then, and I think it is the answer now. - -This answer was like the slash of a sword; it sundered; it -did not in any sense sentimentally unite. Briefly, it -divided God from the cosmos. That transcendence and -distinctness of the deity which some Christians now want to -remove from Christianity, was really the only reason why -anyone wanted to be a Christian. I It was the whole point of -the Christian answer to the unhappy pessimist and the still -more unhappy optimist. As I am here only concerned with -their particular problem, I shall indicate only briefly this -great metaphysical suggestion. All descriptions of the -creating or sustaining principle in things must be -metaphorical, because they must be verbal. Thus the -pantheist is forced to speak of God *in* all things as if he -were in a box. Thus the evolutionist has, in his very name, -the idea of being unrolled like a carpet. All terms, -religious and irreligious, are open to this charge. The only -question is whether all terms are useless, or whether one -can, with such a phrase, cover a distinct *idea* about the -origin of things. I think one can, and so evidently does the -evolutionist, or he would not talk about evolution. And the -root phrase for all Christian theism was this, that God was -a creator, as an artist is a creator. A poet is so separate -from his poem that he himself speaks of it as a little thing -he has "thrown off." Even in giving it forth he has flung it -away. This principle that all creation and procreation is a -breaking off is at least as consistent through the cosmos as -the evolutionary principle that all growth is a branching -out. A woman loses a child even in having a child. All -creation is separation. Birth is as solemn a parting as +It is commonly the loose and latitudinarian Christians who pay quite +indefensible compliments to Christianity. They talk as if there had +never been any piety or pity until Christianity came, a point on which +any mediaeval would have been eager to correct them. They represent that +the remarkable thing about Christianity was that it was the first to +preach simplicity or self-restraint, or inwardness and sincerity. They +will think me very narrow (whatever that means) if I say that the +remarkable thing about Christianity was that it was the first to preach +Christianity. Its peculiarity was that it was peculiar, and simplicity +and sincerity are not peculiar, but obvious ideals for all mankind. +Christianity was the answer to a riddle, not the last truism uttered +after a long talk. Only the other day I saw in an excellent weekly paper +of Puritan tone this remark, that Christianity when stripped of its +armour of dogma (as who should speak of a man stripped of his armour of +bones), turned out to be nothing but the Quaker doctrine of the Inner +Light. Now, if I were to say that Christianity came into the world +specially to destroy the doctrine of the Inner Light, that would be an +exaggeration. But it would be very much nearer to the truth. The last +Stoics, like Marcus Aurelius, were exactly the people who did believe in +the Inner Light. Their dignity, their weariness, their sad external care +for others, their incurable internal care for themselves, were all due +to the Inner Light, and existed only by that dismal illumination. Notice +that Marcus Aurelius insists, as such introspective moralists always do, +upon small things done or undone; it is because he has not hate or love +enough to make a moral revolution. He gets up early in the morning, just +as our own aristocrats living the Simple Life get up early in the +morning; because such altruism is much easier than stopping the games of +the amphitheatre or giving the English people back their land. Marcus +Aurelius is the most intolerable of human types. He is an unselfish +egoist. An unselfish egoist is a man who has pride without the excuse of +passion. Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is what +these people call the Inner Light. Of all horrible religions the most +horrible is the worship of the god within. Anyone who knows any body +knows how it would work; anyone who knows anyone from the Higher Thought +Centre knows how it does work. That Jones shall worship the god within +him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let +Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let +Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but +not the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly in order to +assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to +look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine +company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that +a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognised +an outer light) fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army +with banners. + +All the same, it will be as well if Jones does not worship the sun and +moon. If he does, there i,s a tendency for him to imitate them; to say, +that because the sun burns insects alive, he may burn insects alive. He +thinks that because the sun gives people sun-stroke, he may give his +neighbour measles. He thinks that because the moon is said to drive men +mad, he may drive his wife mad. This ugly side of mere external optimism +had also shown itself in the ancient world. About the time when the +Stoic idealism had begun to show the weaknesses of pessimism, the old +nature worship of the ancients had begun to show the enormous weaknesses +of optimism. Nature worship is natural enough while the society is +young, or, in other words, Pantheism is all right as long as it is the +worship of Pan. But Nature has another side which experience and sin are +not slow in finding out, and it is no flippancy to say of the god Pan +that he soon showed the cloven hoof. The only objection to Natural +Religion is that somehow it always becomes unnatural. A man loves Nature +in the morning for her innocence and amiability, and at nightfall, if he +is loving her still, it is for her darkness and her cruelty. He washes +at dawn in clear water as did the Wise Man of the Stoics, yet, somehow +at the dark end of the day, he is bathing in hot bull's blood, as did +Julian the Apostate. The mere pursuit of health always leads to +something unhealthy. Physical nature must not be made the direct object +of obedience; it must be enjoyed, not worshipped. Stars and mountains +must not be taken seriously. If they are, we end where the pagan nature +worship ended. Because the earth is kind, we can imitate all her +cruelties. Because sexuality is sane, we can all go mad about sexuality. +Mere optimism had reached its insane and appropriate termination. The +theory that everything was good had become an orgy of everything that +was bad. + +On the other side our idealist pessimists were represented by the old +remnant of the Stoics. Marcus Aurelius and his friends had really given +up the idea of any god in the universe and looked only to the god +within. They had no hope of any virtue in nature, and hardly any hope of +any virtue in society. They had not enough interest in the outer world +really to wreck or revolutionise it. They did not love the city enough +to set fire to it. Thus the ancient world was exactly in our own +desolate dilemma. The only people who really enjoyed this world were +busy breaking it up; and the virtuous people did not care enough about +them to knock them down. In this dilemma (the same as ours) Christianity +suddenly stepped in and offered a singular answer, which the world +eventually accepted as *the* answer. It was the answer then, and I think +it is the answer now. + +This answer was like the slash of a sword; it sundered; it did not in +any sense sentimentally unite. Briefly, it divided God from the cosmos. +That transcendence and distinctness of the deity which some Christians +now want to remove from Christianity, was really the only reason why +anyone wanted to be a Christian. I It was the whole point of the +Christian answer to the unhappy pessimist and the still more unhappy +optimist. As I am here only concerned with their particular problem, I +shall indicate only briefly this great metaphysical suggestion. All +descriptions of the creating or sustaining principle in things must be +metaphorical, because they must be verbal. Thus the pantheist is forced +to speak of God *in* all things as if he were in a box. Thus the +evolutionist has, in his very name, the idea of being unrolled like a +carpet. All terms, religious and irreligious, are open to this charge. +The only question is whether all terms are useless, or whether one can, +with such a phrase, cover a distinct *idea* about the origin of things. +I think one can, and so evidently does the evolutionist, or he would not +talk about evolution. And the root phrase for all Christian theism was +this, that God was a creator, as an artist is a creator. A poet is so +separate from his poem that he himself speaks of it as a little thing he +has "thrown off." Even in giving it forth he has flung it away. This +principle that all creation and procreation is a breaking off is at +least as consistent through the cosmos as the evolutionary principle +that all growth is a branching out. A woman loses a child even in having +a child. All creation is separation. Birth is as solemn a parting as death. -I t was the prime philosophic principle of Christianity that -this divorce in the divine act of making (such as severs the -poet from the poem or the mother from the new-born child) -was the true description of the act whereby the absolute -energy made the world. According to most philosophers, God -in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, -in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a -poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, -but which had necessarily been left to human actors and -stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it. I -will discuss the truth of this theorem later. Here I have -only to point out with what a startling smoothness it passed -the dilemma we have discussed in this chapter. In this way -at least one could be both happy and indignant without -degrading one's self to be either a pessimist or an -optimist. On this system one could fight all the forces of -existence without deserting the flag of existence. One could -be at peace with the universe and yet be at war with the -world. St. George could still fight the dragon, however big -the monster bulked in the cosmos, though he were bigger than -the mighty cities or bigger than the everlasting hills. If -he were as big as the world he could yet be killed in the -name of the world. St. George had not to consider any -obvious odds or proportions in the scale of things, but only -the original secret of their design. He can shake his sword -at the dragon, even if it is everything; even if the empty -heavens over his head are only the huge arch of its open -jaws. - -And then followed an experience impossible to describe. It -was as if I had been blundering about since my birth with -two huge and unmanageable machines, of different shapes and -without apparent connection---the world and the Christian -tradition. I had found this hole in the world: the fact that -one must somehow find a way of loving the world without -trusting it; somehow one must love the world without being -worldly. I found this projecting feature of Christian -theology, like a sort of hard spike, the dogmatic insistence -that God was personal, and had made a world separate from -Himself. The spike of dogma fitted exactly into the hole in -the world---it had evidently been meant to go there---and -then the strange thing began to happen. When once these two -parts of the two machines had come together, one after -another, all the other parts fitted and fell in with an -eerie exactitude. I could hear bolt after bolt over all the -machinery falling into its place with a kind of click of -relief. Having got one part right, all the other parts were -repeating that rectitude, as clock after clock strikes noon. -Instinct after instinct was answered by doctrine after -doctrine. Or, to vary the metaphor, I was like one who had -advanced into a hostile country to take one high fortress. -And when that fort had fallen the whole country surrendered -and turned solid behind me. The whole land was lit up, as it -were, back to the first fields of my childhood. All those -blind fancies of boyhood which in the fourth chapter I have -tried in vain to trace on the darkness, became suddenly -transparent and sane. I was right when I felt that roses -were red by some sort of choice: it was the divine choice. I -was right when I felt that I would almost rather say that -grass was the wrong colour than say that it must by -necessity have been that colour: it might verily have been -any other. My sense that happiness hung on the crazy thread -of a condition did mean something when all was said: it -meant the whole doctrine of the Fall. Even those dim and -shapeless monsters of notions which I have not been able to -describe, much Jess defend, stepped quietly into their -places like colossal caryatides of the creed. The fancy that -the cosmos was not vast and void, but small and cosy, had a -fulfilled significance now, for anything that is a work of -art must be small in the sight of the artist; to God the -stars might be only small and dear, like diamonds. And my -haunting instinct that somehow good was not merely a tool to -be used, but a relic to be guarded, like the goods from -Crusoe's ship---even that had been the wild whisper of -something originally wise, for, according to Christianity, -we were indeed the survivors of a wreck, the crew of a -golden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the -world. - -But the important matter was this, that it entirely reversed -the reason for optimism. And the instant the reversal was -made it felt like the abrupt ease when a bone is put back in -the socket. I had often called myself an optimist, to avoid -the too evident blasphemy of pessimism. But all the optimism -of the age had been false and disheartening for this reason, -that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to -the world. The Christian optimism is based on the fact that -we do not fit in to the world. I had tried to be happy by -telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which -sought its meat from God. But now I really was happy, for I -had learnt that man is a monstrosity. I had been right in -feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse -and better than all things. The optimist's pleasure was -prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the -Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the -unnaturalness of everything in the light of the -supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and -again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt -depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was -in the *wrong* place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird -in spring. The knowledge found out and illuminated forgotten -chambers in the dark house of infancy. I knew now why grass -had always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of a +I t was the prime philosophic principle of Christianity that this +divorce in the divine act of making (such as severs the poet from the +poem or the mother from the new-born child) was the true description of +the act whereby the absolute energy made the world. According to most +philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to +Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much +a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which +had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had +since made a great mess of it. I will discuss the truth of this theorem +later. Here I have only to point out with what a startling smoothness it +passed the dilemma we have discussed in this chapter. In this way at +least one could be both happy and indignant without degrading one's self +to be either a pessimist or an optimist. On this system one could fight +all the forces of existence without deserting the flag of existence. One +could be at peace with the universe and yet be at war with the world. +St. George could still fight the dragon, however big the monster bulked +in the cosmos, though he were bigger than the mighty cities or bigger +than the everlasting hills. If he were as big as the world he could yet +be killed in the name of the world. St. George had not to consider any +obvious odds or proportions in the scale of things, but only the +original secret of their design. He can shake his sword at the dragon, +even if it is everything; even if the empty heavens over his head are +only the huge arch of its open jaws. + +And then followed an experience impossible to describe. It was as if I +had been blundering about since my birth with two huge and unmanageable +machines, of different shapes and without apparent connection---the +world and the Christian tradition. I had found this hole in the world: +the fact that one must somehow find a way of loving the world without +trusting it; somehow one must love the world without being worldly. I +found this projecting feature of Christian theology, like a sort of hard +spike, the dogmatic insistence that God was personal, and had made a +world separate from Himself. The spike of dogma fitted exactly into the +hole in the world---it had evidently been meant to go there---and then +the strange thing began to happen. When once these two parts of the two +machines had come together, one after another, all the other parts +fitted and fell in with an eerie exactitude. I could hear bolt after +bolt over all the machinery falling into its place with a kind of click +of relief. Having got one part right, all the other parts were repeating +that rectitude, as clock after clock strikes noon. Instinct after +instinct was answered by doctrine after doctrine. Or, to vary the +metaphor, I was like one who had advanced into a hostile country to take +one high fortress. And when that fort had fallen the whole country +surrendered and turned solid behind me. The whole land was lit up, as it +were, back to the first fields of my childhood. All those blind fancies +of boyhood which in the fourth chapter I have tried in vain to trace on +the darkness, became suddenly transparent and sane. I was right when I +felt that roses were red by some sort of choice: it was the divine +choice. I was right when I felt that I would almost rather say that +grass was the wrong colour than say that it must by necessity have been +that colour: it might verily have been any other. My sense that +happiness hung on the crazy thread of a condition did mean something +when all was said: it meant the whole doctrine of the Fall. Even those +dim and shapeless monsters of notions which I have not been able to +describe, much Jess defend, stepped quietly into their places like +colossal caryatides of the creed. The fancy that the cosmos was not vast +and void, but small and cosy, had a fulfilled significance now, for +anything that is a work of art must be small in the sight of the artist; +to God the stars might be only small and dear, like diamonds. And my +haunting instinct that somehow good was not merely a tool to be used, +but a relic to be guarded, like the goods from Crusoe's ship---even that +had been the wild whisper of something originally wise, for, according +to Christianity, we were indeed the survivors of a wreck, the crew of a +golden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the world. + +But the important matter was this, that it entirely reversed the reason +for optimism. And the instant the reversal was made it felt like the +abrupt ease when a bone is put back in the socket. I had often called +myself an optimist, to avoid the too evident blasphemy of pessimism. But +all the optimism of the age had been false and disheartening for this +reason, that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to the +world. The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in +to the world. I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an +animal, like any other which sought its meat from God. But now I really +was happy, for I had learnt that man is a monstrosity. I had been right +in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse and better +than all things. The optimist's pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on +the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it +dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the +supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I +was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in +acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the *wrong* place, and my +soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. The knowledge found out and +illuminated forgotten chambers in the dark house of infancy. I knew now +why grass had always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of a giant, and why I could feel homesick at home. # The Paradoxes of Christianity -The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is -an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. -The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly -reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet -it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more -mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is -obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies -in wait. I give one coarse instance of what I mean. Suppose -some mathematical creature from the moon were to reckon up -the human body; he would at once see that the essential -thing about it was that it was duplicate. A man is two men, -he on the right exactly resembling him on the left. Having -noted that there was an arm 011 the right and one on the -left, a leg on the right and one on the left, he might go -further and still find on each side the same number of -fingers, the same number of toes, twin eyes, twin ears, twin -nostrils, and even twin lobes of the brain. At last he would -take it as a law; and then, where he found a heart on one -side, would deduce that there was another heart on the -other. And just then, where he most felt he was right, he -would be wrong. - -It is this silent swerving from accuracy by an inch that is -the uncanny element in everything. It seems a sort of secret -treason in the universe. An apple or an orange is round -enough to get itself called round, and yet is not round -after all. The earth itself is shaped like an orange in -order to lure some simple astronomer into calling it a -globe. A blade of grass is called after the blade of a -sword, because it comes to a point; but it doesn't. -Everywhere in things there is this element of the quiet and -incalculable. It escapes the rationalists, but it never -escapes till the last moment. From the grand curve of our -earth it could easily be inferred that every inch of it was -thus curved. It would seem rational that as a man has a -brain on both sides, he should have a heart on both sides. -Yet scientific men are still organizing expeditions to find -the North Pole, because they are so fond of flat country. -Scientific men are also still organising expeditions to find -a man's heart; and when they try to find it, they generally -get on the wrong side of him. - -Now, actual insight or inspiration is best tested by whether -it guesses these hidden malformations or surprises. If our -mathematician from the moon saw the two arms and the two -ears, he might deduce the two shoulder-blades and the two -halves of the brain. But if he guessed that the man's heart -was in the right place, then I should call him something -more than a mathematician. Now, this is exactly the claim -which I have since come to propound for Christianity. Not -merely that it deduces logical truths, but that when it -suddenly becomes illogical, it has found, so to speak, an -illogical truth. It not only goes right about things, but it -goes wrong (if one may say so) exactly where the things go -wrong. Its plan suits the secret irregularities, and expects -the unexpected. It is simple about the simple truth; but it -is stubborn about the subtle truth. It will admit that a man -has two hands, it will not admit (though all the Modernists -wail to it) the obvious deduction that he has two hearts. It -is my only purpose in this chapter to point this out; to -show that whenever we feel there is something odd in -Christian theology, we shall generally find that there is -something odd in the truth. - -I have alluded to an unmeaning phrase to the effect that -such and such a creed cannot be believed in our age. Of -course, anything can be believed in any age. But, oddly -enough, there really is a sense in which a creed, if it is -believed at all, can be believed more fixedly in a complex -society than in a simple one. If a man finds Christianity -true in Birmingham, he has actually clearer reasons for -faith than if he had found it true in Mercia. For the more -complicated seems the coincidence, the less it can be a -coincidence. If snowflakes fell in the shape, say, of the -heart of Midlothian, it might be an accident. But if -snowflakes fell in the exact shape of the maze at Hampton -Court, I think one might call it a miracle. It is exactly as -of such a miracle that I have since come to feel of the -philosophy of Christianity. The complication of our modern -world proves the truth of the creed more perfectly than any -of the plain problems of the ages of faith. It was in -Notting Hill and Battersea that I began to see that -Christianity was true. This is why the faith has that -elaboration of doctrines and details which so much -distresses those who admire Christianity without believing -in it. When once one believes in a creed, one is proud of -its complexity, as scientists are proud of the complexity of -science. It shows how rich it is in discoveries. If it is -right at all, it is a compliment to say that it's -elaborately right. A stick might fit a hole or a stone a -hollow by accident. But a key and a lock are both complex. -And if a key fits a lock, you know it is the right key. - -But this involved accuracy of the thing makes it very -difficult to do what I now have to do, to describe this -accumulation of truth. It is very hard for a man to defend -anything of which he is entirely convinced. It is -comparatively easy when he is only partially convinced. He -is partially convinced because he has found this or that -proof of the thing, and he can expound it. But a man is not -really convinced of a philosophic theory when he finds that -something proves it. He is only really convinced when he -finds that everything proves it. And the more converging -reasons he finds pointing to this conviction, the more -bewildered he is if asked suddenly to sum them up. Thus, if -one asked an ordinary intelligent man, on the spur of the -moment, "Why do you prefer civilisation to savagery?" he -would look wildly round at object after object, and would -only be able to answer vaguely, " Why, there is that -bookcase.... and the coals in the coal-scuttle... and -pianos... and policemen." The whole case for civilisation -is that the case for it is complex. It has done so many -things. But that very multiplicity of proof which ought to -make reply overwhelming makes reply impossible. - -There is, therefore, about all complete conviction a kind of -huge helplessness. The belief is so big that it takes a long -time to get it into action. And this hesitation chiefly -arises, oddly enough, from an indifference about where one -should begin. All roads lead to Rome; which is one reason -why many people never get there. In the case of this defence -of the Christian conviction I confess that I would as soon -begin the argument with one thing as another; I would begin -it with a turnip or a taximeter cab. But if I am to be at -all careful about making my meaning clear, it will, I think, -be wiser to continue the current arguments of the last -chapter, which was concerned to urge the first of these -mystical coincidences, or rather ratifications. All I had -hitherto heard of Christian theology had alienated me from -it. I was a pagan at the age of twelve, and a complete -agnostic by the age of sixteen; and I cannot understand any -one passing the age of seventeen without having asked -himself so simple a question. I did, indeed, retain a cloudy -reverence for a cosmic deity and a great historical interest -in the Founder of Christianity. But I certainly regarded Him -as a man; though perhaps I thought that, even in that point, -He had an advantage over some of His modern critics. I read -the scientific and sceptical literature of my time---all of -it, at least, that I could find written in English and lying -about; and I read nothing else; I mean I read nothing else -on any other note of philosophy. The penny dreadfuls which I -also read were indeed in a healthy and heroic tradition of -Christianity; but I did not know this at the time. I never -read a line of Christian apologetics. I read as little as I -can of them now. It was Huxley and Herbert Spencer and -Bradlaugh who brought me back to orthodox theology. They -sowed in my mind my first wild doubts of doubt. Our -grandmothers were quite right when they said that Tom Paine -and the free-thinkers unsettled the mind. They do. They -unsettled mine horribly. The rationalist made me question -whether reason was of any use whatever; and when I had -finished Herbert Spencer I had got as far as doubting (for -the first time) whether evolution had occurred at all. As I -laid down the last of Colonel Ingersoll's atheistic lectures -the dreadful thought broke across my mind, "Almost thou -persuadest me to be a Christian." I was in a desperate way. - -This odd effect of the great agnostics in arousing doubts -deeper than their own might be illustrated in many ways. I -take only one. As I read and re-read all the non -Christian -or anti-Christian accounts of the faith, from Huxley to -Bradlaugh, a slow and awful impression grew gradually but -graphically upon my mind---the impression that Christianity -must be a most extraordinary thing. For not only (as I -understood) had Christianity the most flaming vices, but it -had apparently a mystical talent for combining vices which -seemed inconsistent with each other. It was attacked on all -sides and for all contradictory reasons. No sooner had one -rationalist demonstrated that it was too far to the east -than another demonstrated with equal clearness that it was -much too far to the west. No sooner had my indignation died -down at its angular and aggressive squareness than I was -called up again to notice and condemn its enervating and -sensual roundness. In case any reader has not come across -the thing I mean, I will give such instances as I remember -at random of this self-contradiction in the sceptical -attack. I give four or five of them; there are fifty more. - -Thus, for instance, I was much moved by the eloquent attack -on Christianity as a thing of inhuman gloom; for I thought -(and still think) sincere pessimism the unpardonable sin. -Insincere pessimism is a social accomplishment, rather -agreeable than otherwise; and fortunately nearly all -pessimism is insincere. But if Christianity was, as these -people said, a thing purely pessimistic and opposed to life, -then I was quite prepared to blow up St. Paul's Cathedral. -But the extraordinary thing is this. They did prove to me in -Chapter I. (to my complete satisfaction) that Christianity -was too pessimistic; and then, in Chapter II., they began to -prove to me that it was a great deal too optimistic. One -accusation against Christianity was that it prevented men, -by morbid tears and terrors, from seeking joy and liberty in -the bosom of Nature. But another accusation was that it -comforted men with a fictitious providence, and put them in -a pink-and-white nursery. 'One great agnostic asked why -Nature was not beautiful enough, and why it was hard to be -free. Another great agnostic objected that Christian -optimism, "the garment of make-believe woven by pious -hands," hid from us the fact that Nature was ugly, and that -it was impossible to be free. One rationalist had hardly -done calling Christianity a nightmare before another began -to call it a fool's paradise. This puzzled me; the charges -seemed inconsistent. Christianity could not at once be the -black mask on a white world, and also the white mask on a -black world. The state of the Christian could not be at once -so comfortable that he was a coward to cling to it, and so -uncomfortable that he was a fool to stand it. If it -falsified human vision it must falsify it one way or -another; it could not wear both green and rose-coloured -spectacles. I rolled on my tongue with a terrible joy, as -did all young men of that time, the taunts which Swinburne -hurled at the dreariness of the creed-- +The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an +unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest +kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is +not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a +little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is +obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait. I +give one coarse instance of what I mean. Suppose some mathematical +creature from the moon were to reckon up the human body; he would at +once see that the essential thing about it was that it was duplicate. A +man is two men, he on the right exactly resembling him on the left. +Having noted that there was an arm 011 the right and one on the left, a +leg on the right and one on the left, he might go further and still find +on each side the same number of fingers, the same number of toes, twin +eyes, twin ears, twin nostrils, and even twin lobes of the brain. At +last he would take it as a law; and then, where he found a heart on one +side, would deduce that there was another heart on the other. And just +then, where he most felt he was right, he would be wrong. + +It is this silent swerving from accuracy by an inch that is the uncanny +element in everything. It seems a sort of secret treason in the +universe. An apple or an orange is round enough to get itself called +round, and yet is not round after all. The earth itself is shaped like +an orange in order to lure some simple astronomer into calling it a +globe. A blade of grass is called after the blade of a sword, because it +comes to a point; but it doesn't. Everywhere in things there is this +element of the quiet and incalculable. It escapes the rationalists, but +it never escapes till the last moment. From the grand curve of our earth +it could easily be inferred that every inch of it was thus curved. It +would seem rational that as a man has a brain on both sides, he should +have a heart on both sides. Yet scientific men are still organizing +expeditions to find the North Pole, because they are so fond of flat +country. Scientific men are also still organising expeditions to find a +man's heart; and when they try to find it, they generally get on the +wrong side of him. + +Now, actual insight or inspiration is best tested by whether it guesses +these hidden malformations or surprises. If our mathematician from the +moon saw the two arms and the two ears, he might deduce the two +shoulder-blades and the two halves of the brain. But if he guessed that +the man's heart was in the right place, then I should call him something +more than a mathematician. Now, this is exactly the claim which I have +since come to propound for Christianity. Not merely that it deduces +logical truths, but that when it suddenly becomes illogical, it has +found, so to speak, an illogical truth. It not only goes right about +things, but it goes wrong (if one may say so) exactly where the things +go wrong. Its plan suits the secret irregularities, and expects the +unexpected. It is simple about the simple truth; but it is stubborn +about the subtle truth. It will admit that a man has two hands, it will +not admit (though all the Modernists wail to it) the obvious deduction +that he has two hearts. It is my only purpose in this chapter to point +this out; to show that whenever we feel there is something odd in +Christian theology, we shall generally find that there is something odd +in the truth. + +I have alluded to an unmeaning phrase to the effect that such and such a +creed cannot be believed in our age. Of course, anything can be believed +in any age. But, oddly enough, there really is a sense in which a creed, +if it is believed at all, can be believed more fixedly in a complex +society than in a simple one. If a man finds Christianity true in +Birmingham, he has actually clearer reasons for faith than if he had +found it true in Mercia. For the more complicated seems the coincidence, +the less it can be a coincidence. If snowflakes fell in the shape, say, +of the heart of Midlothian, it might be an accident. But if snowflakes +fell in the exact shape of the maze at Hampton Court, I think one might +call it a miracle. It is exactly as of such a miracle that I have since +come to feel of the philosophy of Christianity. The complication of our +modern world proves the truth of the creed more perfectly than any of +the plain problems of the ages of faith. It was in Notting Hill and +Battersea that I began to see that Christianity was true. This is why +the faith has that elaboration of doctrines and details which so much +distresses those who admire Christianity without believing in it. When +once one believes in a creed, one is proud of its complexity, as +scientists are proud of the complexity of science. It shows how rich it +is in discoveries. If it is right at all, it is a compliment to say that +it's elaborately right. A stick might fit a hole or a stone a hollow by +accident. But a key and a lock are both complex. And if a key fits a +lock, you know it is the right key. + +But this involved accuracy of the thing makes it very difficult to do +what I now have to do, to describe this accumulation of truth. It is +very hard for a man to defend anything of which he is entirely +convinced. It is comparatively easy when he is only partially convinced. +He is partially convinced because he has found this or that proof of the +thing, and he can expound it. But a man is not really convinced of a +philosophic theory when he finds that something proves it. He is only +really convinced when he finds that everything proves it. And the more +converging reasons he finds pointing to this conviction, the more +bewildered he is if asked suddenly to sum them up. Thus, if one asked an +ordinary intelligent man, on the spur of the moment, "Why do you prefer +civilisation to savagery?" he would look wildly round at object after +object, and would only be able to answer vaguely, " Why, there is that +bookcase.... and the coals in the coal-scuttle... and pianos... and +policemen." The whole case for civilisation is that the case for it is +complex. It has done so many things. But that very multiplicity of proof +which ought to make reply overwhelming makes reply impossible. + +There is, therefore, about all complete conviction a kind of huge +helplessness. The belief is so big that it takes a long time to get it +into action. And this hesitation chiefly arises, oddly enough, from an +indifference about where one should begin. All roads lead to Rome; which +is one reason why many people never get there. In the case of this +defence of the Christian conviction I confess that I would as soon begin +the argument with one thing as another; I would begin it with a turnip +or a taximeter cab. But if I am to be at all careful about making my +meaning clear, it will, I think, be wiser to continue the current +arguments of the last chapter, which was concerned to urge the first of +these mystical coincidences, or rather ratifications. All I had hitherto +heard of Christian theology had alienated me from it. I was a pagan at +the age of twelve, and a complete agnostic by the age of sixteen; and I +cannot understand any one passing the age of seventeen without having +asked himself so simple a question. I did, indeed, retain a cloudy +reverence for a cosmic deity and a great historical interest in the +Founder of Christianity. But I certainly regarded Him as a man; though +perhaps I thought that, even in that point, He had an advantage over +some of His modern critics. I read the scientific and sceptical +literature of my time---all of it, at least, that I could find written +in English and lying about; and I read nothing else; I mean I read +nothing else on any other note of philosophy. The penny dreadfuls which +I also read were indeed in a healthy and heroic tradition of +Christianity; but I did not know this at the time. I never read a line +of Christian apologetics. I read as little as I can of them now. It was +Huxley and Herbert Spencer and Bradlaugh who brought me back to orthodox +theology. They sowed in my mind my first wild doubts of doubt. Our +grandmothers were quite right when they said that Tom Paine and the +free-thinkers unsettled the mind. They do. They unsettled mine horribly. +The rationalist made me question whether reason was of any use whatever; +and when I had finished Herbert Spencer I had got as far as doubting +(for the first time) whether evolution had occurred at all. As I laid +down the last of Colonel Ingersoll's atheistic lectures the dreadful +thought broke across my mind, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a +Christian." I was in a desperate way. + +This odd effect of the great agnostics in arousing doubts deeper than +their own might be illustrated in many ways. I take only one. As I read +and re-read all the non -Christian or anti-Christian accounts of the +faith, from Huxley to Bradlaugh, a slow and awful impression grew +gradually but graphically upon my mind---the impression that +Christianity must be a most extraordinary thing. For not only (as I +understood) had Christianity the most flaming vices, but it had +apparently a mystical talent for combining vices which seemed +inconsistent with each other. It was attacked on all sides and for all +contradictory reasons. No sooner had one rationalist demonstrated that +it was too far to the east than another demonstrated with equal +clearness that it was much too far to the west. No sooner had my +indignation died down at its angular and aggressive squareness than I +was called up again to notice and condemn its enervating and sensual +roundness. In case any reader has not come across the thing I mean, I +will give such instances as I remember at random of this +self-contradiction in the sceptical attack. I give four or five of them; +there are fifty more. + +Thus, for instance, I was much moved by the eloquent attack on +Christianity as a thing of inhuman gloom; for I thought (and still +think) sincere pessimism the unpardonable sin. Insincere pessimism is a +social accomplishment, rather agreeable than otherwise; and fortunately +nearly all pessimism is insincere. But if Christianity was, as these +people said, a thing purely pessimistic and opposed to life, then I was +quite prepared to blow up St. Paul's Cathedral. But the extraordinary +thing is this. They did prove to me in Chapter I. (to my complete +satisfaction) that Christianity was too pessimistic; and then, in +Chapter II., they began to prove to me that it was a great deal too +optimistic. One accusation against Christianity was that it prevented +men, by morbid tears and terrors, from seeking joy and liberty in the +bosom of Nature. But another accusation was that it comforted men with a +fictitious providence, and put them in a pink-and-white nursery. 'One +great agnostic asked why Nature was not beautiful enough, and why it was +hard to be free. Another great agnostic objected that Christian +optimism, "the garment of make-believe woven by pious hands," hid from +us the fact that Nature was ugly, and that it was impossible to be free. +One rationalist had hardly done calling Christianity a nightmare before +another began to call it a fool's paradise. This puzzled me; the charges +seemed inconsistent. Christianity could not at once be the black mask on +a white world, and also the white mask on a black world. The state of +the Christian could not be at once so comfortable that he was a coward +to cling to it, and so uncomfortable that he was a fool to stand it. If +it falsified human vision it must falsify it one way or another; it +could not wear both green and rose-coloured spectacles. I rolled on my +tongue with a terrible joy, as did all young men of that time, the +taunts which Swinburne hurled at the dreariness of the creed-- >  Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilaean, > > the world has grown gray with Thy breath. -But when I read the same poet's accounts of paganism (as in -"Atalanta"), I gathered that the world was, if possible, -more gray before the Galilaean breathed on it than -afterwards. The poet maintained, indeed, in the abstract, -that life itself was pitch dark. And yet, somehow, -Christianity had darkened it. The very man who denounced -Christianity for pessimism was himself a pessimist. I -thought there must be something wrong. And it did for one -wild moment cross my mind that, perhaps, those might not be -the very best judges of the relation of religion to -happiness who, by their own account, had neither one nor the -other. - -It must be understood that I did not conclude hastily that -the accusations were false or the accusers fools. I simply -deduced that Christianity must be something even weirder and -wickeder than they made out. A thing might have these two -opposite vices; but it must be a rather queer thing if it -did. A man might be too fat in one place and too thin in -another; but he would be an odd shape. At this point my -thoughts were only of the odd shape of the Christian -religion; I did not allege any odd shape in the -rationalistic mind. - -Here is another case of the same kind. I felt that a strong -case against Christianity lay in the charge that there is -something timid, monkish, and unmanly about all that is -called "Christian," especially in its attitude towards -resistance and fighting. The great sceptics of the -nineteenth century were largely virile. Bradlaugh in an -expansive way, Huxley in a reticent way, were decidedly men. -In comparison, it did seem tenable that there was something -weak and over patient about Christian counsels. The Gospel -paradox about the other cheek, the fact that priests never -fought, a hundred things made plausible the accusation that -Christianity was an attempt to make a man too like a sheep. -I read it and believed it, and if I had read nothing -different, I should have gone on believing it. But I read -something very different. I turned the next page in my -agnostic manual, and my brain turned up-side down. Now I -found that I was to hate Christianity not for fighting too -little, but for fighting too much. Christianity, it seemed, -was the mother of wars. Christianity had deluged the world -with blood. I had got thoroughly angry with the Christian, -because he never was angry. And now I was told to be angry -with him because his anger had been the most huge and -horrible thing in human history; because his anger had -soaked the earth and smoked to the sun. The very people who -reproached Christianity with the meekness and non-resistance -of the monasteries were the very people who reproached it -also with the violence and valour of the Crusades. It was -the fault of poor old Christianity (somehow or other) both -that Edward the Confessor did not fight and that Richard -Coeur de Lion did. The Quakers (we were told) were the only -characteristic Christians; and yet the massacres of Cromwell -and Alva were characteristic Christian crimes. What could it -all mean? What was this Christianity which always forbade -war and always produced wars? What could be the nature of -the thing which one could abuse first because it would not -fight, and second because it was always fighting? In what -world of riddles was born this monstrous murder and this -monstrous meekness? The shape of Christianity grew a queerer -shape every instant. - -I take a third case; the strangest of all, because it -involves the one real objection to the faith. The one real -objection to the Christian religion is simply that it is one -religion. The world is a big place, full of very different -kinds of people. Christianity (it may reasonably be said) is -one thing confined to one kind of people; it began in -Palestine, it has practically stopped with Europe. I was -duly impressed with this argument in my youth, and I was -much drawn towards the doctrine often preached in Ethical -Societies---I mean the doctrine that there is one great -unconscious church of all humanity founded on the -omnipresence of the human conscience. Creeds, it was said, -divided men; but at least morals united them. The soul might -seek the strangest and most remote lands and ages and still -find essential ethical common sense. It might find Confucius -under Eastern trees, and he would be writing "Thou shalt not -steal." It might decipher the darkest hieroglyphic on the -most primeval desert, and the meaning when deciphered would -be "Little boys should tell the truth." I believed this -doctrine of the brotherhood of all men in the possession of -a moral sense, and I believe it still---with other things. -And I was thoroughly annoyed with Christianity for -suggesting (as I supposed) that whole ages and empires of -men had utterly escaped this light of justice and reason. -But then I found an astonishing thing. I found that the very -people who said that mankind was one church from Plato to -Emerson were the very people who said that morality had -changed altogether, and that what was right in one age was -wrong in another. If I asked, say, for an altar, I was told -that we needed none, for men our brothers gave us clear -oracles and one creed in their universal customs and ideals. -But if I mildly pointed out that one of men's universal -customs was to have an altar, then my agnostic teachers -turned clean round and told me that men had always been in -darkness and the superstitions of savages. I found it was -their daily taunt against Christianity that it was the light -of one people and had left all others to die in the dark. -But I also found that it was their special boast for -themselves that science and progress were the discovery of -one people, and that all other peoples had died in the dark. -Their chief insult to Christianity was actually their chief -compliment to themselves, and there seemed to be a strange -unfairness about all their relative insistence on the two -things. When considering some pagan or agnostic, we were to -remember that all men had one religion; when considering -some mystic or spiritualist, we were only to consider what -absurd religions some men had. We could trust the ethics of -Epictetus, because ethics had never changed. We must not -trust the ethics of Bossuet, because ethics had changed. -They changed in two hundred years, but not in two thousand. - -This began to be alarming. It looked not so much as if -Christianity was bad enough to include any vices, but rather -as if any stick was good enough to beat Christianity with. -What again could this astonishing thing be like which people -were so anxious to contradict, that in doing so they did not -mind contradicting themselves? I saw the same thing on every -side. I can give no further space to this discuss it in -detail; but lest anyone supposes that I have unfairly -selected three accidental cases I will run briefly through a -few others. Thus, certain sceptics wrote that the great -crime of Christianity had been its attack on the family; it -had dragged women to the loneliness and contemplation of the -cloister, away from their homes and their children. But, -then, other sceptics (slightly more advanced) said that the -great crime of Christianity was forcing the family and -marriage upon us; that it doomed women to the drudgery of -their homes and children, and forbade them loneliness and -contemplation. The charge was actually reversed. Or, again, -certain phrases in the Epistles or the Marriage Service, -were said by the anti-Christians to show contempt for -woman's intellect. But I found that the anti-Christians -themselves had a contempt for woman's intellect; for it was -their great sneer at the Church on the Continent that" only -women" went to it. Or again, Christianity was reproached -with its naked and hungry habits; with its sackcloth and -dried peas. But the next minute Christianity was being -reproached with its pomp and its ritualism; its shrines of -porphyry and its robes of gold. It was abused for being too -plain and for being too coloured. Again Christianity had -always been accused of restraining sexuality too much, when -Bradlaugh the Malthusian discovered that it restrained it -too little. It is often accused in the same breath of prim -respectability and of religious extravagance. Between the -covers of the same atheistic pamphlet I have found the faith -rebuked for its disunion, "One thinks one thing, and one -another," and rebuked also for its union, "It is difference -of opinion that prevents the world from going to the dogs." -In the same conversation a free-thinker, a friend of mine, -blamed Christianity for despising Jews, and then despised it -himself for being Jewish. - -I wished to be quite fair then, and I wish to be quite fair -now; and I did not conclude that the attack on Christianity -was all wrong. I only concluded that if Christianity was -wrong, it was very wrong indeed. Such hostile horrors might -be combined in one thing, but that thing must be very -strange and solitary. There are men who are misers, and also -spendthrifts; but they are rare. There are men sensual and -also ascetic; but they are rare. But if this mass of mad -contradictions really existed, quakerish and bloodthirsty, -too gorgeous and too thread-bare, austere, yet pandering -preposterously to the lust of the eye, the enemy of women -and their foolish refuge, a solemn pessimist and a silly -optimist, if this evil existed, then there was in this evil -something quite supreme and unique. For I found in my -rationalist teachers no explanation of such exceptional -corruption. Christianity (theoretically speaking) was in -their eyes only one of the ordinary myths and errors of -mortals. *They* gave me no key to this twisted and unnatural -badness. Such a paradox of evil rose to the stature of the -supernatural. It was, indeed, almost as supernatural as the -infallibility of the Pope. An historic institution, which -never went right, is really quite as much of a miracle as an -institution that cannot go wrong. The only explanation which -immediately occurred to my mind was that Christianity did -not come from heaven, but from hell. Really, if Jesus of -Nazareth was not Christ, He must have been Antichrist. - -And then in a quiet hour a strange thought struck me like a -still thunderbolt. There had suddenly come into my mind -another explanation. Suppose we heard an unknown man spoken -of by many men. Suppose we were puzzled to hear that some -men said he was too tall and some too short; some objected -to his fatness, some lamented his leanness; some thought him -too dark, and some too fair. One explanation (as has been -already admitted) would be that he might be an odd shape. -But there is another explanation. He might be the right -shape. Outrageously tall men might feel him to be short. -Very short men might feel him to be tall. Old bucks who are -growing stout might consider him insufficiently filled out; -old beaux who were growing thin might feel that he expanded -beyond the narrow lines of elegance. Perhaps Swedes (who -have pale hair like tow) called him a dark man, while -negroes considered him distinctly blonde. Perhaps (in short) -this extraordinary thing is really the ordinary thing; at -least the normal thing, the centre. Perhaps, after all, it -is Christianity that is sane and all its critics that are -mad---in various ways. I tested this idea by asking myself -whether there was about any of the accusers anything morbid -that might explain the accusation. I was startled to find -that this key fitted a lock. For instance, it was certainly -odd that the modern world charged Christianity at once with -bodily austerity and with artistic pomp. But then it was -also odd, very odd, that the modern world itself combined -extreme bodily luxury with an extreme absence of artistic -pomp. The modern man thought Becket's robes too rich and his -meals too poor. But then the modern man was really -exceptional in history; no man before ever ate such -elaborate dinners in such ugly clothes. The modern man found -the church too simple exactly where modern life is too -complex; he found the church too gorgeous exactly where -modern life is too dingy. The man who disliked the plain -fasts and feasts was mad on *entrées.* The man who disliked -vestments wore a pair of preposterous trousers. And surely -if there was any insanity involved in the matter at all it -was in the trousers, not in the simply falling robe. If -there was any insanity at all, it was in the extravagant -*entrées*, not in the bread and wine. - -I went over all the cases, and I found the key fitted so -far. The fact that Swinburne was irritated at the -unhappiness of Christians and yet more irritated at their -happiness was easily explained. It was no longer a -complication of diseases in Christianity, but a complication -of diseases in Swinburne. The restraints of Christians -saddened him simply because he was more hedonist than a -healthy man should be. The faith of Christians angered him -because he was more pessimist than a healthy man should be. -In the same way the Malthusians by instinct attacked -Christianity; not because there is anything especially -anti-Malthusian about Christianity, but because there is -something a little anti-human about Malthusianism. - -Nevertheless it could not, I felt, be quite true that -Christianity was merely sensible and stood in the middle. -There was really an element in it of emphasis and even -frenzy which had justified the secularists in their -superficial criticism. It might be wise, I began more and -more to think that it was wise, but it was not merely -worldly wise; it was not merely temperate and respectable. -Its fierce crusaders and meek saints might balance each -other; still, the crusaders were very fierce and the saints -were very meek, meek beyond all decency. Now, it was just at -this point of the speculation that I remembered my thoughts -about the martyr and the suicide. In that matter there had -been this combination between two almost insane positions -which yet somehow amounted to sanity. This was just such -another contradiction; and this I had already found to bc -true. This was exactly one of the paradoxes in which -sceptics found the creed wrong; and in this I had found it -right. Madly as Christians might love the martyr or hate the -suicide, they never felt these passions more madly than I -had felt them long before I dreamed of Christianity. Then -the most difficult and interesting part of the mental -process opened, and I began to trace this idea darkly -through all the enormous thoughts of our theology. The idea -was that which I had outlined touching the optimist and the -pessimist; that we want not an amalgam or compromise, but -both things at the top of their energy; love and wrath both -burning. Here I shall only trace it in relation to ethics. -But I need not remind the reader that the idea of this -combination is indeed central in orthodox theology. For -orthodox theology has specially insisted that Christ was not -a being apart from God and man, like an elf nor yet a being -half human and half not, like a centaur, but both things at -once and both things thoroughly, very man and very God. Now -let me trace this notion as I found it. - -All sane men can see that sanity is some kind of -equilibrium; that one may be mad and eat too much, or mad -and eat too little. Some moderns have indeed appeared with -vague versions of progress and evolution which seeks to -destroy the *μέσον* or balance of Aristotle. They seem to -suggest that we are meant to starve progressively, or to go -on eating larger and larger breakfasts every morning for -ever. But the great truism of the *μέσον* remains for all -thinking men, and these people have not upset any balance -except their own. But granted that we have all to keep a -balance, the real interest comes in with the question of how -that balance can be kept. That was the problem which -Paganism tried to solve: that was the problem which I think -Christianity solved and solved in a very strange way. - -Paganism declared that virtue was in a balance; Christianity -declared it was in a conflict: the collision of two passions -apparently opposite. Of course they were not really -inconsistent; but they were such that it was hard to hold -simultaneously. Let us follow for a moment the clue of the -martyr and the suicide; and take the case of courage. No -quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the -definitions of merely rational sages. Courage is almost a -contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live -taking the form of a readiness to die. "He that will lose -his life, the same shall save it," is not a piece of -mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday -advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in -an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole -principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal -courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he -will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from -death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A -soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, -needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange -carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, -for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must -not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, -and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of -furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water -and yet drink death like wine. No philosopher, I fancy, has -ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity, -and I certainly have not done so. But Christianity has done -more: it has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of -the suicide and the hero, showing the distance between him -who dies for the sake of living and him who dies for the -sake of dying. And it has held up ever since above the -European lances the banner of the mystery of chivalry: the -Christian courage, which is a disdain of death; not the +But when I read the same poet's accounts of paganism (as in "Atalanta"), +I gathered that the world was, if possible, more gray before the +Galilaean breathed on it than afterwards. The poet maintained, indeed, +in the abstract, that life itself was pitch dark. And yet, somehow, +Christianity had darkened it. The very man who denounced Christianity +for pessimism was himself a pessimist. I thought there must be something +wrong. And it did for one wild moment cross my mind that, perhaps, those +might not be the very best judges of the relation of religion to +happiness who, by their own account, had neither one nor the other. + +It must be understood that I did not conclude hastily that the +accusations were false or the accusers fools. I simply deduced that +Christianity must be something even weirder and wickeder than they made +out. A thing might have these two opposite vices; but it must be a +rather queer thing if it did. A man might be too fat in one place and +too thin in another; but he would be an odd shape. At this point my +thoughts were only of the odd shape of the Christian religion; I did not +allege any odd shape in the rationalistic mind. + +Here is another case of the same kind. I felt that a strong case against +Christianity lay in the charge that there is something timid, monkish, +and unmanly about all that is called "Christian," especially in its +attitude towards resistance and fighting. The great sceptics of the +nineteenth century were largely virile. Bradlaugh in an expansive way, +Huxley in a reticent way, were decidedly men. In comparison, it did seem +tenable that there was something weak and over patient about Christian +counsels. The Gospel paradox about the other cheek, the fact that +priests never fought, a hundred things made plausible the accusation +that Christianity was an attempt to make a man too like a sheep. I read +it and believed it, and if I had read nothing different, I should have +gone on believing it. But I read something very different. I turned the +next page in my agnostic manual, and my brain turned up-side down. Now I +found that I was to hate Christianity not for fighting too little, but +for fighting too much. Christianity, it seemed, was the mother of wars. +Christianity had deluged the world with blood. I had got thoroughly +angry with the Christian, because he never was angry. And now I was told +to be angry with him because his anger had been the most huge and +horrible thing in human history; because his anger had soaked the earth +and smoked to the sun. The very people who reproached Christianity with +the meekness and non-resistance of the monasteries were the very people +who reproached it also with the violence and valour of the Crusades. It +was the fault of poor old Christianity (somehow or other) both that +Edward the Confessor did not fight and that Richard Coeur de Lion did. +The Quakers (we were told) were the only characteristic Christians; and +yet the massacres of Cromwell and Alva were characteristic Christian +crimes. What could it all mean? What was this Christianity which always +forbade war and always produced wars? What could be the nature of the +thing which one could abuse first because it would not fight, and second +because it was always fighting? In what world of riddles was born this +monstrous murder and this monstrous meekness? The shape of Christianity +grew a queerer shape every instant. + +I take a third case; the strangest of all, because it involves the one +real objection to the faith. The one real objection to the Christian +religion is simply that it is one religion. The world is a big place, +full of very different kinds of people. Christianity (it may reasonably +be said) is one thing confined to one kind of people; it began in +Palestine, it has practically stopped with Europe. I was duly impressed +with this argument in my youth, and I was much drawn towards the +doctrine often preached in Ethical Societies---I mean the doctrine that +there is one great unconscious church of all humanity founded on the +omnipresence of the human conscience. Creeds, it was said, divided men; +but at least morals united them. The soul might seek the strangest and +most remote lands and ages and still find essential ethical common +sense. It might find Confucius under Eastern trees, and he would be +writing "Thou shalt not steal." It might decipher the darkest +hieroglyphic on the most primeval desert, and the meaning when +deciphered would be "Little boys should tell the truth." I believed this +doctrine of the brotherhood of all men in the possession of a moral +sense, and I believe it still---with other things. And I was thoroughly +annoyed with Christianity for suggesting (as I supposed) that whole ages +and empires of men had utterly escaped this light of justice and reason. +But then I found an astonishing thing. I found that the very people who +said that mankind was one church from Plato to Emerson were the very +people who said that morality had changed altogether, and that what was +right in one age was wrong in another. If I asked, say, for an altar, I +was told that we needed none, for men our brothers gave us clear oracles +and one creed in their universal customs and ideals. But if I mildly +pointed out that one of men's universal customs was to have an altar, +then my agnostic teachers turned clean round and told me that men had +always been in darkness and the superstitions of savages. I found it was +their daily taunt against Christianity that it was the light of one +people and had left all others to die in the dark. But I also found that +it was their special boast for themselves that science and progress were +the discovery of one people, and that all other peoples had died in the +dark. Their chief insult to Christianity was actually their chief +compliment to themselves, and there seemed to be a strange unfairness +about all their relative insistence on the two things. When considering +some pagan or agnostic, we were to remember that all men had one +religion; when considering some mystic or spiritualist, we were only to +consider what absurd religions some men had. We could trust the ethics +of Epictetus, because ethics had never changed. We must not trust the +ethics of Bossuet, because ethics had changed. They changed in two +hundred years, but not in two thousand. + +This began to be alarming. It looked not so much as if Christianity was +bad enough to include any vices, but rather as if any stick was good +enough to beat Christianity with. What again could this astonishing +thing be like which people were so anxious to contradict, that in doing +so they did not mind contradicting themselves? I saw the same thing on +every side. I can give no further space to this discuss it in detail; +but lest anyone supposes that I have unfairly selected three accidental +cases I will run briefly through a few others. Thus, certain sceptics +wrote that the great crime of Christianity had been its attack on the +family; it had dragged women to the loneliness and contemplation of the +cloister, away from their homes and their children. But, then, other +sceptics (slightly more advanced) said that the great crime of +Christianity was forcing the family and marriage upon us; that it doomed +women to the drudgery of their homes and children, and forbade them +loneliness and contemplation. The charge was actually reversed. Or, +again, certain phrases in the Epistles or the Marriage Service, were +said by the anti-Christians to show contempt for woman's intellect. But +I found that the anti-Christians themselves had a contempt for woman's +intellect; for it was their great sneer at the Church on the Continent +that" only women" went to it. Or again, Christianity was reproached with +its naked and hungry habits; with its sackcloth and dried peas. But the +next minute Christianity was being reproached with its pomp and its +ritualism; its shrines of porphyry and its robes of gold. It was abused +for being too plain and for being too coloured. Again Christianity had +always been accused of restraining sexuality too much, when Bradlaugh +the Malthusian discovered that it restrained it too little. It is often +accused in the same breath of prim respectability and of religious +extravagance. Between the covers of the same atheistic pamphlet I have +found the faith rebuked for its disunion, "One thinks one thing, and one +another," and rebuked also for its union, "It is difference of opinion +that prevents the world from going to the dogs." In the same +conversation a free-thinker, a friend of mine, blamed Christianity for +despising Jews, and then despised it himself for being Jewish. + +I wished to be quite fair then, and I wish to be quite fair now; and I +did not conclude that the attack on Christianity was all wrong. I only +concluded that if Christianity was wrong, it was very wrong indeed. Such +hostile horrors might be combined in one thing, but that thing must be +very strange and solitary. There are men who are misers, and also +spendthrifts; but they are rare. There are men sensual and also ascetic; +but they are rare. But if this mass of mad contradictions really +existed, quakerish and bloodthirsty, too gorgeous and too thread-bare, +austere, yet pandering preposterously to the lust of the eye, the enemy +of women and their foolish refuge, a solemn pessimist and a silly +optimist, if this evil existed, then there was in this evil something +quite supreme and unique. For I found in my rationalist teachers no +explanation of such exceptional corruption. Christianity (theoretically +speaking) was in their eyes only one of the ordinary myths and errors of +mortals. *They* gave me no key to this twisted and unnatural badness. +Such a paradox of evil rose to the stature of the supernatural. It was, +indeed, almost as supernatural as the infallibility of the Pope. An +historic institution, which never went right, is really quite as much of +a miracle as an institution that cannot go wrong. The only explanation +which immediately occurred to my mind was that Christianity did not come +from heaven, but from hell. Really, if Jesus of Nazareth was not Christ, +He must have been Antichrist. + +And then in a quiet hour a strange thought struck me like a still +thunderbolt. There had suddenly come into my mind another explanation. +Suppose we heard an unknown man spoken of by many men. Suppose we were +puzzled to hear that some men said he was too tall and some too short; +some objected to his fatness, some lamented his leanness; some thought +him too dark, and some too fair. One explanation (as has been already +admitted) would be that he might be an odd shape. But there is another +explanation. He might be the right shape. Outrageously tall men might +feel him to be short. Very short men might feel him to be tall. Old +bucks who are growing stout might consider him insufficiently filled +out; old beaux who were growing thin might feel that he expanded beyond +the narrow lines of elegance. Perhaps Swedes (who have pale hair like +tow) called him a dark man, while negroes considered him distinctly +blonde. Perhaps (in short) this extraordinary thing is really the +ordinary thing; at least the normal thing, the centre. Perhaps, after +all, it is Christianity that is sane and all its critics that are +mad---in various ways. I tested this idea by asking myself whether there +was about any of the accusers anything morbid that might explain the +accusation. I was startled to find that this key fitted a lock. For +instance, it was certainly odd that the modern world charged +Christianity at once with bodily austerity and with artistic pomp. But +then it was also odd, very odd, that the modern world itself combined +extreme bodily luxury with an extreme absence of artistic pomp. The +modern man thought Becket's robes too rich and his meals too poor. But +then the modern man was really exceptional in history; no man before +ever ate such elaborate dinners in such ugly clothes. The modern man +found the church too simple exactly where modern life is too complex; he +found the church too gorgeous exactly where modern life is too dingy. +The man who disliked the plain fasts and feasts was mad on *entrées.* +The man who disliked vestments wore a pair of preposterous trousers. And +surely if there was any insanity involved in the matter at all it was in +the trousers, not in the simply falling robe. If there was any insanity +at all, it was in the extravagant *entrées*, not in the bread and wine. + +I went over all the cases, and I found the key fitted so far. The fact +that Swinburne was irritated at the unhappiness of Christians and yet +more irritated at their happiness was easily explained. It was no longer +a complication of diseases in Christianity, but a complication of +diseases in Swinburne. The restraints of Christians saddened him simply +because he was more hedonist than a healthy man should be. The faith of +Christians angered him because he was more pessimist than a healthy man +should be. In the same way the Malthusians by instinct attacked +Christianity; not because there is anything especially anti-Malthusian +about Christianity, but because there is something a little anti-human +about Malthusianism. + +Nevertheless it could not, I felt, be quite true that Christianity was +merely sensible and stood in the middle. There was really an element in +it of emphasis and even frenzy which had justified the secularists in +their superficial criticism. It might be wise, I began more and more to +think that it was wise, but it was not merely worldly wise; it was not +merely temperate and respectable. Its fierce crusaders and meek saints +might balance each other; still, the crusaders were very fierce and the +saints were very meek, meek beyond all decency. Now, it was just at this +point of the speculation that I remembered my thoughts about the martyr +and the suicide. In that matter there had been this combination between +two almost insane positions which yet somehow amounted to sanity. This +was just such another contradiction; and this I had already found to bc +true. This was exactly one of the paradoxes in which sceptics found the +creed wrong; and in this I had found it right. Madly as Christians might +love the martyr or hate the suicide, they never felt these passions more +madly than I had felt them long before I dreamed of Christianity. Then +the most difficult and interesting part of the mental process opened, +and I began to trace this idea darkly through all the enormous thoughts +of our theology. The idea was that which I had outlined touching the +optimist and the pessimist; that we want not an amalgam or compromise, +but both things at the top of their energy; love and wrath both burning. +Here I shall only trace it in relation to ethics. But I need not remind +the reader that the idea of this combination is indeed central in +orthodox theology. For orthodox theology has specially insisted that +Christ was not a being apart from God and man, like an elf nor yet a +being half human and half not, like a centaur, but both things at once +and both things thoroughly, very man and very God. Now let me trace this +notion as I found it. + +All sane men can see that sanity is some kind of equilibrium; that one +may be mad and eat too much, or mad and eat too little. Some moderns +have indeed appeared with vague versions of progress and evolution which +seeks to destroy the *μέσον* or balance of Aristotle. They seem to +suggest that we are meant to starve progressively, or to go on eating +larger and larger breakfasts every morning for ever. But the great +truism of the *μέσον* remains for all thinking men, and these people +have not upset any balance except their own. But granted that we have +all to keep a balance, the real interest comes in with the question of +how that balance can be kept. That was the problem which Paganism tried +to solve: that was the problem which I think Christianity solved and +solved in a very strange way. + +Paganism declared that virtue was in a balance; Christianity declared it +was in a conflict: the collision of two passions apparently opposite. Of +course they were not really inconsistent; but they were such that it was +hard to hold simultaneously. Let us follow for a moment the clue of the +martyr and the suicide; and take the case of courage. No quality has +ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely +rational sages. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a +strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. "He that +will lose his life, the same shall save it," is not a piece of mysticism +for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or +mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. +This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or +quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he +will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by +continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by +enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire +for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely +cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He +must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will +not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to +it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine. No +philosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with +adequate lucidity, and I certainly have not done so. But Christianity +has done more: it has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the +suicide and the hero, showing the distance between him who dies for the +sake of living and him who dies for the sake of dying. And it has held +up ever since above the European lances the banner of the mystery of +chivalry: the Christian courage, which is a disdain of death; not the Chinese courage, which is a disdain of life. -And now I began to find that this duplex passion was the -Christian key to ethics everywhere. Everywhere the creed -made a moderation out of the still crash of two impetuous -emotions. Take, for instance, the matter of modesty, of the -balance between mere pride and mere prostration. The average -pagan, like the average agnostic, would merely say that he -was content with himself, but not insolently self-satisfied, -that there were many better and many worse, that his deserts -were limited, but he would see that he got them. In short, -he would walk with his head in the air; but not necessarily -with his nose in the air. This is a manly and rational -position, but it is open to the objection we noted against -the compromise between optimism and pessimism-the -"resignation" of Matthew Arnold. Being a mixture of two -things, it is a dilution of two things; neither is present -in its full strength or contributes its full colour. This -proper pride does not lift the heart like the tongue of -trumpets; you cannot go clad in crimson and gold for this. -On the other hand, this mild rationalist modesty does not -cleanse the soul with fire and make it clear like crystal; -it does not (like a strict and searching humility) make a -man as a little child, who can sit at the feet of the grass. -It does not make him look up and see marvels; for Alice must -grow small if she is to he Alice in Wonderland. Thus it -loses both the poetry of being proud and the poetry of being -humble. Christianity sought by this same strange expedient -to save both of them. - -It separated the two ideas and then exaggerated them both. -In one way Man was to be haughtier than he had ever been -before; in another way he was to be humbler than he had ever -been before. In so far as I am Man I am the chief of -creatures. In so far as I am a man I am the chief of -sinners. All humility that had meant pessimism, that had -meant man taking a vague or mean view of his whole -destiny-all that was to go. We were to hear no more the wail -of Ecclesiastes that humanity had no pre-eminence over the -brute, or the awful cry of Homer that man was only the -saddest of all the beasts of the field. Man was a statue of -God walking about the garden. Man had pre-eminence over all -the brutes; man was only sad because he was not a beast, but -a broken god. The Greek had spoken of men creeping on the -earth, as if clinging to it. Now Man was to tread on the -earth as if to subdue it. Christianity thus held a thought -of the dignity of man that could only be expressed in crowns -rayed like the sun and fans of peacock plumage. Yet at the -same time it could hold a thought about the abject smallness -of man that could only be expressed in fasting and fantastic -submission, in the grey ashes of St. Dominic and the white -snows of St. Bernard. When one came to think of *one's -self*, there was vista and void enough for any amount of -bleak abnegation and bitter truth. There the realistic -gentleman could let himself go---as long as he let himself -go at himself. There was an open playground for the happy -pessimist. Let him say anything against himself short of -blaspheming the original aim of his being; let him call -himself a fool and even a damned fool (though that is -Calvinistic); but he must not say that fools are not worth -saving. He must not say that a man, *quâ* man, can be -valueless. Here again, in short, Christianity got over the -difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them -both, and keeping them both furious. The Church was positive -on both points. One can hardly think too little of one's -self. One can hardly think too much of one's soul. - -Take another case: the complicated question of charity, -which some highly uncharitable idealists seem to think quite -easy. Charity is a paradox, like modesty and courage. Stated -baldly, charity certainly means one of two -things---pardoning unpardonable acts, or loving unlovable -people. But if we ask ourselves (as we did in the case of -pride) what a sensible pagan would feel about such a -subject, we shall probably be beginning at the bottom of it. -A sensible pagan would say that there were some people one -could forgive, and some one couldn't: a slave who stole wine -could be laughed at; a slave who betrayed his benefactor -could be killed, and cursed even after he was killed. In so -far as the act was pardonable, the man was pardonable. That -again is rational, and even refreshing; but it is a -dilution. It leaves no place for a pure horror of injustice, -such as that which is a great beauty in the innocent. And it -leaves no place for a mere tenderness for men as men, such -as is the whole fascination of the charitable. Christianity -came in here as before. It came in startlingly with a sword, -and clove one thing from another. It divided the crime from -the criminal. The criminal we must forgive unto seventy -times seven. The crime we must not forgive at all. It was -not enough that slaves who stole wine inspired partly anger -and partly kindness. We must be much more angry with theft -than before, and yet much kinder to thieves than before. -There was room for wrath and love to run wild. And the more -I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it -had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that -order was to give room for good things to run wild. - -Mental and emotional liberty are not so simple as they look. -Really they require almost as careful a balance of laws and -conditions as do social and political liberty. The ordinary -aesthetic anarchist who sets out to feel everything freely -gets knotted at last in a paradox that prevents him feeling -at all. He breaks away from home limits to follow poetry. -But in ceasing to feel home limits he has ceased to feel the -"Odyssey." He is free from national prejudices and outside -patriotism. But being outside patriotism he is outside -"Henry V." Such a literary man is simply outside all -literature: he is more of a prisoner than any bigot. For if -there is a wall between you and the world, it makes little -difference whether you describe yourself as locked in or as -locked out. What we want is not the universality that is -outside all normal sentiments; we want the universality that -is inside all normal sentiments. It is all the difference -between being free from them, as a man is free from a -prison, and being free of them as a man is free of a city. I -am free from Windsor Castle (that is) I am not forcibly -detained there), but I am by no means free of that building. -How can man be approximately free of fine emotions, able to -swing them in a clear space without breakage or wrong? -*This* was the achievement of this Christian paradox of the -parallel passions. Granted the primary dogma of the war -between divine and diabolic, the revolt and ruin of the -world, their optimism and pessimism, as pure poetry, could -be loosened like cataracts. - -St. Francis, in praising all good, could be a more shouting -optimist than Walt Whitman. St. Jerome, in denouncing all -evil, could paint the world blacker than Schopenhauer. Both -passions were free because both were kept in their place. -The optimist could pour out an the praise he liked on the -gay music of the march, the golden trumpets, and the purple -banners going into battle. But he must not call the fight -needless. The pessimist might draw as darkly as he chose the -sickening marches or the sanguine wounds. But he must not -call the fight hopeless. So it was with all the other moral -problems, with pride, with protest, and with compassion. By -defining its main doctrine, the Church not only kept -seemingly inconsistent things side by side, but, what was -more, allowed them to break out in a sort of artistic -violence otherwise possible only to anarchists. Meekness -grew more dramatic than madness Historic Christianity rose -into a high and strange *coup de théatre* of -morality---things that are to virtue what the crimes of Nero -are to vice. The spirits of indignation and of charity took -terrible and attractive forms, ranging from that monkish -fierceness that scourged like a dog the first and greatest -of the Plantagenets, to the sublime pity of St. Catherine, -who, in the official shambles, kissed the bloody head of the -criminal. Poetry could be acted as well as composed. This -heroic and monumental manner in ethics has entirely vanished -with supernatural religion. They, being humble, could parade -themselves; but we are too proud to be prominent. Our -ethical teachers write reasonably for prison reform; but we -are not likely to see Mr. Cadbury, or any eminent -philanthropist, go into Reading Gaol and embrace the -strangled corpse before it is cast into the quicklime. Our -ethical teachers write mildly against the power of -millionaires; but we are not likely to see Mr. Rockefeller, -or any modern tyrant, publicly whipped in Westminster Abbey. - -Thus, the double charges of the secularists, though throwing -nothing but darkness and confusion on themselves, throw a -real light on the faith. It *is* true that the historic -Church has at once emphasised celibacy and emphasised the -family; has at once (if one may put it so) been fiercely for -having children and fiercely for not having children. It has -kept them side by side like two strong colours, red and -white, like the red and white upon the shield of St. George. -It has always had a healthy hatred of pink. It hates that -combination of two colours which is the feeble expedient of -the philosophers. It hates that evolution of black into -white which is tantamount to a dirty grey. In fact, the -whole theory of the Church on virginity might be symbolized -in the statement that white is a colour: not merely the -absence of a colour. All that I am urging here can be -expressed by saying that Christianity sought in most of -these cases to keep two colours co-existent but pure. It is -not a mixture like russet or purple; it is rather like a -shot silk, for a shot silk is always at right angles, and is -in the pattern of the cross. - -So it is also, of course, with the contradictory charges of -the anti-Christians about submission and slaughter. It *is* -true that the Church told some men to fight and others not -to fight; and it *is* true that those who fought were like -thunderbolts and those who did not fight were like statues. -All this simply means that the Church preferred to use its -Supermen and to use its Tolstoyans. There must be *some* -good in the life of battle, for so many good men have -enjoyed being soldiers. There must be *some* good in the -idea of non-resistance, for so many good men seem to enjoy -being Quakers. All that the Church did (so far as that goes) -was to prevent either of these good things from ousting the -other. They existed side by side. The Tolstoyans, having all -the scruples of monks, simply became monks. The Quakers -became a club instead of becoming a sect. Monks said all -that Tolstoy says; they poured out lucid lamentations about -the cruelty of battles and the vanity of revenge. But the -Tolstoyans are not quite right enough to run the whole -world; and in the ages of faith they were not allowed to run -it. The world did not lose the last charge of Sir James -Douglas or the banner of Joan the Maid. And sometimes this -pure gentleness and this pure fierceness met and justified -their juncture; the paradox of all the prophets was -fulfilled, and, in the soul of St. Louis, the lion lay down -with the lamb. But remember that this text is too lightly -interpreted. It is constantly assured, especially in our -Tolstoyan tendencies, that when the lion lies down with the -lamb the lion becomes lamb-like. But that is brutal -annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. That is -simply the lamb absorbing the lion instead of the lion -eating the lamb. The real problem is---Can the lion lie down -with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity? *That* is -the problem the Church attempted; *that* is the miracle she -achieved. - -This is what I have called guessing the hidden -eccentricities of life. This is knowing that a man's heart -is to the left and not in the middle. This is knowing not -only that the earth is round, but knowing exactly where it -is flat. Christian doctrine detected the oddities of life. -It not only discovered the law, but it foresaw the -exceptions. Those underrate Christianity who say that it -discovered mercy; any one might discover mercy. In fact -everyone did. But to discover a plan for being merciful and -also severe--*that* was to anticipate a strange need of -human nature. For no one wants to be forgiven for a big sin -as if it were a little one. Anyone might say that we should -be neither quite miserable nor quite happy. But to find out -how far one *may* be quite miserable without making it -impossible to be quite happy---that was a discovery in -psychology. Anyone might say, "Neither swagger nor grovel"; -and it would have been a limit. But to say, "Here you can -swagger and there you can grovel"--that was an emancipation. - -This was the big fact about Christian ethics; the discovery -of the new balance. Paganism had been like a pillar of -marble, upright because proportioned with symmetry. -Christianity was like a huge and ragged and romantic rock, -which, though it sways on its pedestal at a touch, yet, -because its exaggerated excrescences exactly balance each -other, is enthroned there for a thousand years. In a Gothic -cathedral the columns were all different, but they were all -necessary. Every support seemed an accidental and fantastic -support; every buttress was a flying buttress. So in -Christendom apparent accidents balanced. Becket wore a hair -shirt under his gold and crimson, and there is much to be -said for the combination; for Becket got the benefit of the -hair shirt while the people in the street got the benefit of -the crimson and gold. It is at least better than the manner -of the modern millionaire, who has the black and the drab -outwardly for others, and the gold next his heart. But the -balance was not always in one man's body as in Becket's; the -balance was often distributed over the whole body of -Christendom. Because a man prayed and fasted on the Northern -snows, flowers could be flung at his festival in the -Southern cities; and because fanatics drank water on the -sands of Syria, men could still drink cider in the orchards -of England. This is what makes Christendom at once so much -more perplexing and so much more interesting than the Pagan -empire; just as Amiens Cathedral is not better but more -interesting than the Parthenon. If anyone wants a modern -proof of all this, let him consider the curious fact that, -under Christianity, Europe (while remaining a unity) has -broken up into individual nations. Patriotism is a perfect -example of this deliberate balancing of one emphasis against -another emphasis. The instinct of the Pagan empire would -have said, "You shall all be Roman citizens, and grow alike; -let the German grow less slow and reverent; the Frenchmen -less experimental and swift." But the instinct of Christian -Europe says, "Let the German remain slow and reverent, that -the Frenchman may the more safely be swift and experimental. -We will make an equipoise out of these excesses. The -absurdity called Germany shall correct the insanity called -France." - -Last and most important, it is exactly this which explains -what is so inexplicable to all the modern critics of the -history of Christianity. I mean the monstrous wars about -small points of theology, the earthquakes of emotion about a -gesture or a word. It was only a matter of an inch; but an -inch is everything when you are balancing. The Church could -not afford to swerve a hair's breadth on some things if she -was to continue her great and daring experiment of the -irregular equilibrium. Once let one idea become less -powerful and some other idea would become too powerful. It -was no flock of sheep the Christian shepherd was leading, -but a herd of bulls and tigers, of terrible ideals and -devouring doctrines, each one of them strong enough to turn -to a false religion and lay waste the world. Remember that -the Church went in specifically for dangerous ideas; she was -a lion tamer. The idea of birth through a Holy Spirit, of -the death of a divine being, of the forgiveness of sins, or -the fulfilment of prophecies, are ideas which, anyone can -see, need but a touch to turn them into something -blasphemous or ferocious. The smallest link was let drop by -the artificers of the Mediterranean, and the lion of -ancestral pessimism burst his chain in the forgotten forests -of the north. Of these theological equalisations I have to -speak afterwards. Here it is enough to notice that if some -small mistake were made in doctrine, huge blunders might be -made in human happiness. A sentence phrased wrong about the -nature of symbolism would have broken all the best statues -in Europe. A slip in the definitions might stop all the -dances; might wither all the Christmas trees or break all -the Easter eggs. Doctrines had to be defined within strict -limits, even in order that man might enjoy general human -liberties. The Church had to be careful, if only that the -world might be careless. - -This is the thrilling romance of Orthodoxy. People have -fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as -something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything -so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and -to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. It was the -equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to -stoop this way and to sway that, yet in every attitude -having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic. -The Church in its early days went fierce and fast with any -warhorse; yet it is utterly nonhistoric to say that she -merely went mad along one idea, like a vulgar fanaticism. -She swerved to left and right, so as exactly to avoid -enormous obstacles. She left on one hand the huge bulk of -Arianism, buttressed by all the worldly powers to make -Christianity too worldly. The next instant she was swerving -to avoid an orientalism, which would have made it too -unworldly. The orthodox Church never took the tame course or -accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never -respectable. It would have been easier to have accepted the -earthly power of the Arians. It would have been easy, in the -Calvinistic seventeenth century, to fall into the bottomless -pit of predestination. It is easy to be a madman: it is easy -to be a heretic. It is always easy to let the age have its -head; the difficult thing is to keep one's own. It is always -easy to be a modernist; as it is easy to be a snob.To have -fallen into any of those open traps of error and -exaggeration which fashion after fashion and sect after sect -set along the historic path of Christendom---that would -indeed have been simple. It is always simple to fall; there -are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at -which one stands. To have fallen into anyone of the fads -from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been -obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one -whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot -flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies -sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect. +And now I began to find that this duplex passion was the Christian key +to ethics everywhere. Everywhere the creed made a moderation out of the +still crash of two impetuous emotions. Take, for instance, the matter of +modesty, of the balance between mere pride and mere prostration. The +average pagan, like the average agnostic, would merely say that he was +content with himself, but not insolently self-satisfied, that there were +many better and many worse, that his deserts were limited, but he would +see that he got them. In short, he would walk with his head in the air; +but not necessarily with his nose in the air. This is a manly and +rational position, but it is open to the objection we noted against the +compromise between optimism and pessimism-the "resignation" of Matthew +Arnold. Being a mixture of two things, it is a dilution of two things; +neither is present in its full strength or contributes its full colour. +This proper pride does not lift the heart like the tongue of trumpets; +you cannot go clad in crimson and gold for this. On the other hand, this +mild rationalist modesty does not cleanse the soul with fire and make it +clear like crystal; it does not (like a strict and searching humility) +make a man as a little child, who can sit at the feet of the grass. It +does not make him look up and see marvels; for Alice must grow small if +she is to he Alice in Wonderland. Thus it loses both the poetry of being +proud and the poetry of being humble. Christianity sought by this same +strange expedient to save both of them. + +It separated the two ideas and then exaggerated them both. In one way +Man was to be haughtier than he had ever been before; in another way he +was to be humbler than he had ever been before. In so far as I am Man I +am the chief of creatures. In so far as I am a man I am the chief of +sinners. All humility that had meant pessimism, that had meant man +taking a vague or mean view of his whole destiny-all that was to go. We +were to hear no more the wail of Ecclesiastes that humanity had no +pre-eminence over the brute, or the awful cry of Homer that man was only +the saddest of all the beasts of the field. Man was a statue of God +walking about the garden. Man had pre-eminence over all the brutes; man +was only sad because he was not a beast, but a broken god. The Greek had +spoken of men creeping on the earth, as if clinging to it. Now Man was +to tread on the earth as if to subdue it. Christianity thus held a +thought of the dignity of man that could only be expressed in crowns +rayed like the sun and fans of peacock plumage. Yet at the same time it +could hold a thought about the abject smallness of man that could only +be expressed in fasting and fantastic submission, in the grey ashes of +St. Dominic and the white snows of St. Bernard. When one came to think +of *one's self*, there was vista and void enough for any amount of bleak +abnegation and bitter truth. There the realistic gentleman could let +himself go---as long as he let himself go at himself. There was an open +playground for the happy pessimist. Let him say anything against himself +short of blaspheming the original aim of his being; let him call himself +a fool and even a damned fool (though that is Calvinistic); but he must +not say that fools are not worth saving. He must not say that a man, +*quâ* man, can be valueless. Here again, in short, Christianity got over +the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and +keeping them both furious. The Church was positive on both points. One +can hardly think too little of one's self. One can hardly think too much +of one's soul. + +Take another case: the complicated question of charity, which some +highly uncharitable idealists seem to think quite easy. Charity is a +paradox, like modesty and courage. Stated baldly, charity certainly +means one of two things---pardoning unpardonable acts, or loving +unlovable people. But if we ask ourselves (as we did in the case of +pride) what a sensible pagan would feel about such a subject, we shall +probably be beginning at the bottom of it. A sensible pagan would say +that there were some people one could forgive, and some one couldn't: a +slave who stole wine could be laughed at; a slave who betrayed his +benefactor could be killed, and cursed even after he was killed. In so +far as the act was pardonable, the man was pardonable. That again is +rational, and even refreshing; but it is a dilution. It leaves no place +for a pure horror of injustice, such as that which is a great beauty in +the innocent. And it leaves no place for a mere tenderness for men as +men, such as is the whole fascination of the charitable. Christianity +came in here as before. It came in startlingly with a sword, and clove +one thing from another. It divided the crime from the criminal. The +criminal we must forgive unto seventy times seven. The crime we must not +forgive at all. It was not enough that slaves who stole wine inspired +partly anger and partly kindness. We must be much more angry with theft +than before, and yet much kinder to thieves than before. There was room +for wrath and love to run wild. And the more I considered Christianity, +the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the +chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild. + +Mental and emotional liberty are not so simple as they look. Really they +require almost as careful a balance of laws and conditions as do social +and political liberty. The ordinary aesthetic anarchist who sets out to +feel everything freely gets knotted at last in a paradox that prevents +him feeling at all. He breaks away from home limits to follow poetry. +But in ceasing to feel home limits he has ceased to feel the "Odyssey." +He is free from national prejudices and outside patriotism. But being +outside patriotism he is outside "Henry V." Such a literary man is +simply outside all literature: he is more of a prisoner than any bigot. +For if there is a wall between you and the world, it makes little +difference whether you describe yourself as locked in or as locked out. +What we want is not the universality that is outside all normal +sentiments; we want the universality that is inside all normal +sentiments. It is all the difference between being free from them, as a +man is free from a prison, and being free of them as a man is free of a +city. I am free from Windsor Castle (that is) I am not forcibly detained +there), but I am by no means free of that building. How can man be +approximately free of fine emotions, able to swing them in a clear space +without breakage or wrong? *This* was the achievement of this Christian +paradox of the parallel passions. Granted the primary dogma of the war +between divine and diabolic, the revolt and ruin of the world, their +optimism and pessimism, as pure poetry, could be loosened like +cataracts. + +St. Francis, in praising all good, could be a more shouting optimist +than Walt Whitman. St. Jerome, in denouncing all evil, could paint the +world blacker than Schopenhauer. Both passions were free because both +were kept in their place. The optimist could pour out an the praise he +liked on the gay music of the march, the golden trumpets, and the purple +banners going into battle. But he must not call the fight needless. The +pessimist might draw as darkly as he chose the sickening marches or the +sanguine wounds. But he must not call the fight hopeless. So it was with +all the other moral problems, with pride, with protest, and with +compassion. By defining its main doctrine, the Church not only kept +seemingly inconsistent things side by side, but, what was more, allowed +them to break out in a sort of artistic violence otherwise possible only +to anarchists. Meekness grew more dramatic than madness Historic +Christianity rose into a high and strange *coup de théatre* of +morality---things that are to virtue what the crimes of Nero are to +vice. The spirits of indignation and of charity took terrible and +attractive forms, ranging from that monkish fierceness that scourged +like a dog the first and greatest of the Plantagenets, to the sublime +pity of St. Catherine, who, in the official shambles, kissed the bloody +head of the criminal. Poetry could be acted as well as composed. This +heroic and monumental manner in ethics has entirely vanished with +supernatural religion. They, being humble, could parade themselves; but +we are too proud to be prominent. Our ethical teachers write reasonably +for prison reform; but we are not likely to see Mr. Cadbury, or any +eminent philanthropist, go into Reading Gaol and embrace the strangled +corpse before it is cast into the quicklime. Our ethical teachers write +mildly against the power of millionaires; but we are not likely to see +Mr. Rockefeller, or any modern tyrant, publicly whipped in Westminster +Abbey. + +Thus, the double charges of the secularists, though throwing nothing but +darkness and confusion on themselves, throw a real light on the faith. +It *is* true that the historic Church has at once emphasised celibacy +and emphasised the family; has at once (if one may put it so) been +fiercely for having children and fiercely for not having children. It +has kept them side by side like two strong colours, red and white, like +the red and white upon the shield of St. George. It has always had a +healthy hatred of pink. It hates that combination of two colours which +is the feeble expedient of the philosophers. It hates that evolution of +black into white which is tantamount to a dirty grey. In fact, the whole +theory of the Church on virginity might be symbolized in the statement +that white is a colour: not merely the absence of a colour. All that I +am urging here can be expressed by saying that Christianity sought in +most of these cases to keep two colours co-existent but pure. It is not +a mixture like russet or purple; it is rather like a shot silk, for a +shot silk is always at right angles, and is in the pattern of the cross. + +So it is also, of course, with the contradictory charges of the +anti-Christians about submission and slaughter. It *is* true that the +Church told some men to fight and others not to fight; and it *is* true +that those who fought were like thunderbolts and those who did not fight +were like statues. All this simply means that the Church preferred to +use its Supermen and to use its Tolstoyans. There must be *some* good in +the life of battle, for so many good men have enjoyed being soldiers. +There must be *some* good in the idea of non-resistance, for so many +good men seem to enjoy being Quakers. All that the Church did (so far as +that goes) was to prevent either of these good things from ousting the +other. They existed side by side. The Tolstoyans, having all the +scruples of monks, simply became monks. The Quakers became a club +instead of becoming a sect. Monks said all that Tolstoy says; they +poured out lucid lamentations about the cruelty of battles and the +vanity of revenge. But the Tolstoyans are not quite right enough to run +the whole world; and in the ages of faith they were not allowed to run +it. The world did not lose the last charge of Sir James Douglas or the +banner of Joan the Maid. And sometimes this pure gentleness and this +pure fierceness met and justified their juncture; the paradox of all the +prophets was fulfilled, and, in the soul of St. Louis, the lion lay down +with the lamb. But remember that this text is too lightly interpreted. +It is constantly assured, especially in our Tolstoyan tendencies, that +when the lion lies down with the lamb the lion becomes lamb-like. But +that is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. That +is simply the lamb absorbing the lion instead of the lion eating the +lamb. The real problem is---Can the lion lie down with the lamb and +still retain his royal ferocity? *That* is the problem the Church +attempted; *that* is the miracle she achieved. + +This is what I have called guessing the hidden eccentricities of life. +This is knowing that a man's heart is to the left and not in the middle. +This is knowing not only that the earth is round, but knowing exactly +where it is flat. Christian doctrine detected the oddities of life. It +not only discovered the law, but it foresaw the exceptions. Those +underrate Christianity who say that it discovered mercy; any one might +discover mercy. In fact everyone did. But to discover a plan for being +merciful and also severe--*that* was to anticipate a strange need of +human nature. For no one wants to be forgiven for a big sin as if it +were a little one. Anyone might say that we should be neither quite +miserable nor quite happy. But to find out how far one *may* be quite +miserable without making it impossible to be quite happy---that was a +discovery in psychology. Anyone might say, "Neither swagger nor grovel"; +and it would have been a limit. But to say, "Here you can swagger and +there you can grovel"--that was an emancipation. + +This was the big fact about Christian ethics; the discovery of the new +balance. Paganism had been like a pillar of marble, upright because +proportioned with symmetry. Christianity was like a huge and ragged and +romantic rock, which, though it sways on its pedestal at a touch, yet, +because its exaggerated excrescences exactly balance each other, is +enthroned there for a thousand years. In a Gothic cathedral the columns +were all different, but they were all necessary. Every support seemed an +accidental and fantastic support; every buttress was a flying buttress. +So in Christendom apparent accidents balanced. Becket wore a hair shirt +under his gold and crimson, and there is much to be said for the +combination; for Becket got the benefit of the hair shirt while the +people in the street got the benefit of the crimson and gold. It is at +least better than the manner of the modern millionaire, who has the +black and the drab outwardly for others, and the gold next his heart. +But the balance was not always in one man's body as in Becket's; the +balance was often distributed over the whole body of Christendom. +Because a man prayed and fasted on the Northern snows, flowers could be +flung at his festival in the Southern cities; and because fanatics drank +water on the sands of Syria, men could still drink cider in the orchards +of England. This is what makes Christendom at once so much more +perplexing and so much more interesting than the Pagan empire; just as +Amiens Cathedral is not better but more interesting than the Parthenon. +If anyone wants a modern proof of all this, let him consider the curious +fact that, under Christianity, Europe (while remaining a unity) has +broken up into individual nations. Patriotism is a perfect example of +this deliberate balancing of one emphasis against another emphasis. The +instinct of the Pagan empire would have said, "You shall all be Roman +citizens, and grow alike; let the German grow less slow and reverent; +the Frenchmen less experimental and swift." But the instinct of +Christian Europe says, "Let the German remain slow and reverent, that +the Frenchman may the more safely be swift and experimental. We will +make an equipoise out of these excesses. The absurdity called Germany +shall correct the insanity called France." + +Last and most important, it is exactly this which explains what is so +inexplicable to all the modern critics of the history of Christianity. I +mean the monstrous wars about small points of theology, the earthquakes +of emotion about a gesture or a word. It was only a matter of an inch; +but an inch is everything when you are balancing. The Church could not +afford to swerve a hair's breadth on some things if she was to continue +her great and daring experiment of the irregular equilibrium. Once let +one idea become less powerful and some other idea would become too +powerful. It was no flock of sheep the Christian shepherd was leading, +but a herd of bulls and tigers, of terrible ideals and devouring +doctrines, each one of them strong enough to turn to a false religion +and lay waste the world. Remember that the Church went in specifically +for dangerous ideas; she was a lion tamer. The idea of birth through a +Holy Spirit, of the death of a divine being, of the forgiveness of sins, +or the fulfilment of prophecies, are ideas which, anyone can see, need +but a touch to turn them into something blasphemous or ferocious. The +smallest link was let drop by the artificers of the Mediterranean, and +the lion of ancestral pessimism burst his chain in the forgotten forests +of the north. Of these theological equalisations I have to speak +afterwards. Here it is enough to notice that if some small mistake were +made in doctrine, huge blunders might be made in human happiness. A +sentence phrased wrong about the nature of symbolism would have broken +all the best statues in Europe. A slip in the definitions might stop all +the dances; might wither all the Christmas trees or break all the Easter +eggs. Doctrines had to be defined within strict limits, even in order +that man might enjoy general human liberties. The Church had to be +careful, if only that the world might be careless. + +This is the thrilling romance of Orthodoxy. People have fallen into a +foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and +safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. +It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. It was +the equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop +this way and to sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace of +statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic. The Church in its early days +went fierce and fast with any warhorse; yet it is utterly nonhistoric to +say that she merely went mad along one idea, like a vulgar fanaticism. +She swerved to left and right, so as exactly to avoid enormous +obstacles. She left on one hand the huge bulk of Arianism, buttressed by +all the worldly powers to make Christianity too worldly. The next +instant she was swerving to avoid an orientalism, which would have made +it too unworldly. The orthodox Church never took the tame course or +accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable. It +would have been easier to have accepted the earthly power of the Arians. +It would have been easy, in the Calvinistic seventeenth century, to fall +into the bottomless pit of predestination. It is easy to be a madman: it +is easy to be a heretic. It is always easy to let the age have its head; +the difficult thing is to keep one's own. It is always easy to be a +modernist; as it is easy to be a snob.To have fallen into any of those +open traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion and +sect after sect set along the historic path of Christendom---that would +indeed have been simple. It is always simple to fall; there are an +infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To +have fallen into anyone of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science +would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all +has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot +flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and +prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect. # The Eternal Revolution -The following propositions have been urged: First, that some -faith in our life is required even to improve it; second, -that some dissatisfaction with things as they are is -necessary even in order to be satisfied; third, that to have -this necessary content and necessary discontent it is not -sufficient to have the obvious equilibrium of the Stoic. For -mere resignation has neither the gigantic levity of pleasure -nor the superb intolerance of pain. There is a vital -objection to the advice merely to grin and bear it. The -objection is that if you merely bear it, you do not grin. -Greek heroes do not grin; but gargoyles do---because they -are Christian. And when a Christian is pleased, he is (in -the most exact sense) frightfully pleased; his pleasure is -frightful. Christ prophesied the whole of Gothic -architecture in that hour when nervous and respectable -people (such people as now object to barrel organs) objected -to the shouting of the gutter-snipes of Jerusalem. He said, -"If these were silent, the very stones would cry out." Under -the impulse of His spirit arose like a clamorous chorus the -façades of the mediaeval cathedrals, thronged with shouting -faces and open mouths. The prophecy has fulfilled itself: -the very stones cry out. - -If these things be conceded, though only for argument, we -may take up where we left it the thread of the thought of -the natural man, called by the Scotch (with regrettable -familiarity), "The Old Man." We can ask the next question so -obviously in front of us. Some satisfaction is needed even -to make things better. But what do we mean by making things -better? Most modern talk on this matter is a mere argument -in a circle-that circle which we have already made the -symbol of madness and of mere rationalism. Evolution is only -good if it produces good; good is only good if it helps -evolution. The elephant stands on the tortoise, and the +The following propositions have been urged: First, that some faith in +our life is required even to improve it; second, that some +dissatisfaction with things as they are is necessary even in order to be +satisfied; third, that to have this necessary content and necessary +discontent it is not sufficient to have the obvious equilibrium of the +Stoic. For mere resignation has neither the gigantic levity of pleasure +nor the superb intolerance of pain. There is a vital objection to the +advice merely to grin and bear it. The objection is that if you merely +bear it, you do not grin. Greek heroes do not grin; but gargoyles +do---because they are Christian. And when a Christian is pleased, he is +(in the most exact sense) frightfully pleased; his pleasure is +frightful. Christ prophesied the whole of Gothic architecture in that +hour when nervous and respectable people (such people as now object to +barrel organs) objected to the shouting of the gutter-snipes of +Jerusalem. He said, "If these were silent, the very stones would cry +out." Under the impulse of His spirit arose like a clamorous chorus the +façades of the mediaeval cathedrals, thronged with shouting faces and +open mouths. The prophecy has fulfilled itself: the very stones cry out. + +If these things be conceded, though only for argument, we may take up +where we left it the thread of the thought of the natural man, called by +the Scotch (with regrettable familiarity), "The Old Man." We can ask the +next question so obviously in front of us. Some satisfaction is needed +even to make things better. But what do we mean by making things better? +Most modern talk on this matter is a mere argument in a circle-that +circle which we have already made the symbol of madness and of mere +rationalism. Evolution is only good if it produces good; good is only +good if it helps evolution. The elephant stands on the tortoise, and the tortoise on the elephant. -Obviously, it will not do to take our ideal from the -principle in nature; for the simple reason that (except for -some human or divine theory), there is no principle in -nature. For instance, the cheap anti-democrat of to-day will -ten you solemnly that there is no equality in nature. He is -right, but he does not see the logical addendum. There is no -equality in nature; also there is no inequality in nature. -Inequality, as much as equality, implies a standard of -value. To read aristocracy into the anarchy of animals is -just as sentimental as to read democracy into it. Both -aristocracy and democracy are human ideals: the one saying -that all men are valuable, the other that some men are more -valuable. But nature does not say that cats are more -valuable than mice; nature makes no remark on the subject. -She does not even say that the cat is enviable or the mouse -pitiable. We think the cat superior because we have (or most -of us have) a particular philosophy to the effect that life -is better than death. But if the mouse were a German -pessimist mouse, he might not think that the cat had beaten -him at all. He might think he had beaten the cat by getting -to the grave first. Or he might feel that he had actually -inflicted frightful punishment on the cat by keeping him -alive. Just as a microbe might feel proud of spreading a -pestilence, so the pessimistic mouse might exult to think -that he was renewing in the cat the torture of conscious -existence. It all depends on the philosophy of the mouse. -You cannot even say that there is victory or superiority in -nature unless you have some doctrine about what things are -superior. You cannot even say that the cat scores unless -there is a system of scoring. You cannot even say that the -cat gets the best of it unless there is some best to be got. - -We cannot, then, get the ideal itself from nature, and as we -follow here the first and natural speculation, we will leave -out (for the present) the idea of getting it from God. We -must have our own vision. But the attempts of most moderns -to express it are highly vague. - -Some fall back simply on the clock: they talk as if mere -passage through time brought some superiority; so that even -a man of the first mental calibre carelessly uses the phrase -that human morality is never up to date. How can anything be -up to date? a date has no character. How can one say that -Christmas celebrations are not suitable to the twenty-fifth -of a month? What the writer meant, of course, was that the -majority is behind his favourite minority---or in front of -it. Other vague modern people take refuge in material -metaphors; in fact, this is the chief mark of vague modern -people. Not daring to define their doctrine of what is good, -they use physical figures of speech without stint or shame, -and, what is worst of all, seem to think these cheap -analogies are exquisitely spiritual and superior to the old -morality. Thus they think it intellectual to talk about -things being "high." It is at least the reverse of -intellectual; it is a mere phrase from a steeple or a -weathercock. "Tommy was a good boy" is a pure philosophical -statement, worthy of Plato or Aquinas. "Tommy lived the -higher life" is a gross metaphor from a ten-foot rule. - -This, incidentally, is almost the whole weakness of -Nietzsche, whom some are representing as a bold and strong -thinker. No one will deny that he was a poetical and -suggestive thinker; but he was quite the reverse of strong. -He was not at all bold. He never put his own meaning before -himself in bald abstract words: as did Aristotle and Calvin, -and even Karl Marx, the hard, fearless men of thought. -Nietzsche always escaped a question by a physical metaphor, -like a cheery minor poet. He said, "beyond good and evil," -because he had not the courage to say, "more good than good -and evil," or, "more evil than good and evil." Had he faced -his thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it -was nonsense. So, when he describes his hero, he does not -dare to say, "the purer man," or "the happier man," or "the -sadder man," for all these are ideas; and ideas are -alarming. He says "the upper man," or "over man," a physical -metaphor from acrobats or alpine climbers. Nietzsche is -truly a very timid thinker. He does not really know in the -least what sort of man he wants evolution to produce. And if -he does not know, certainly the ordinary evolutionists, who -talk about things being "higher," do not know either. - -Then again, some people fall back on sheer submission and -sitting still. Nature is going to do something some day; -nobody knows what, and nobody knows when. We have no reason -for acting, and no reason for not acting. If anything -happens it is right: if anything is prevented it was wrong. -Again, some people try to anticipate nature by doing -something, by doing anything. Because we may possibly grow -wings they cut off their legs. Yet nature may be trying to -make them centipedes for all they know. - -Lastly, there is a fourth class of people who take whatever -it is that they happen to want, and say that that is the -ultimate aim of evolution. And these are the only sensible -people. This is the only really healthy way with the word -evolution, to work for what you want, and to call *that* -evolution. The only intelligible sense that progress or -advance can have among men, is that we have a definite -vision, and that we wish to make the whole world like that -vision. If you like to put it so, the essence of the -doctrine is that what we have around us is the mere method -and preparation for something that we have to create. This -is not a world, but rather the materials for a world. God -has given us not so much the colours of a picture as the -colours of a palette. But He has also given us a subject, a -model, a fixed vision. We must be clear about what we want -to paint. This adds a further principle to our previous list -of principles. We have said we must be fond of this world, -even in order to change it. We now add that we must be fond -of another world (real or imaginary) in order to have -something to change it to. - -We need not debate about the mere words evolution or -progress: personally I prefer to call it reform. For reform -implies form. It implies that we are trying to shape the -world in a particular image; to make it something that we -see already in our minds. Evolution is a metaphor from mere -automatic unrolling. Progress is a metaphor from merely -walking along a road---very likely the wrong road. But -reform is a metaphor for reasonable and determined men: it -means that we see a certain thing out of shape and we mean -to put it into shape. And we know what shape. - -Now here comes in the whole collapse and huge blunder of our -age. We have mixed up two different things, two opposite -things. Progress should mean that we are always changing the -world to suit the vision. Progress does mean (just now) that -we are always changing the vision. It should mean that we -are slow but sure in bringing justice and mercy among men: -it does mean that we are very swift in doubting the -desirability of justice and mercy: a wild page from any -Prussian sophist makes men doubt it. Progress should mean -that we are always walking towards the New Jerusalem. It -does mean that the New Jerusalem is always walking away from -us. We are not altering the real to suit the ideal. We are -altering the ideal: it is easier. - -Silly examples are always simpler; let us suppose a man -wanted a particular kind of world; say, a blue world. He -would have no cause to complain of the slightness or -swiftness of his task; he might toil for a long time at the -transformation; he could work away (in every sense) until -all was blue. He could have heroic adventures; the putting -of the last touches to a blue tiger. He could have fairy -dreams; the dawn of a blue moon. But if he worked hard, that -high-minded reformer would certainly (from his own point of -view) leave the world better and bluer than he found it. If -he altered a blade of grass to his favourite colour every -day, he would get on slowly. But if he altered his favourite -colour every day, he would not get on at all. If, after -reading a fresh philosopher, he started to paint everything -red or yellow, his work would be thrown away: there would be -nothing to show except a few blue tigers walking about, -specimens of his early bad manner. This is exactly the -position of the average modern thinker. It will be said that -this is avowedly a preposterous example. But it is literally -the fact of recent history. The great and grave changes in -our political civilization all belonged to the early -nineteenth century, not to the later. They belonged to the -black and white epoch when men believed fixedly in Toryism, -in Protestantism, in Calvinism, in Reform, and not -infrequently in Revolution. And whatever each man believed -in he hammered at steadily, without scepticism: and there -was a time when the Established Church might have fallen, -and the House of Lords nearly fell. It was because Radicals -were wise enough to be constant and consistent; it was -because Radicals were wise enough to be Conservative. But in -the existing atmosphere there is not enough time and -tradition in Radicalism to pull anything down. There is a -great deal of truth in Lord Hugh Cecil's suggestion (made in -a fine speech) that the era of change is over, and that ours -is an era of conservation and repose. But probably it would -pain Lord Hugh Cecil if he realised (what is certainly the -case) that ours is only an age of conservation because it is -an age of complete unbelief. Let beliefs fade fast and -frequently, if you wish institutions to remain the same. The -more the life of the mind is unhinged, the more the -machinery of matter will be left to itself. The net result -of all our political suggestions, Collectivism, -Tolstoyanism, Neo-Feudalism, Communism, Anarchy, Scientific -Bureaucracy---the plain fruit of all of them is that the -Monarchy and the House of Lords will remain. The net result -of all the new religions will be that the Church of England -will not (for heaven knows how long) be disestablished. It -was Karl Marx, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Cunninghame Grahame, -Bernard Shaw and Auberon Herbert, who between them, with -bowed gigantic backs, bore up the throne of the Archbishop -of Canterbury. - -We may say broadly that free thought is the best of all the -safeguards against freedom. Managed in a modern style the -emancipation of the slave's mind is the best way of -preventing the emancipation of the slave. Teach him to worry -about whether he wants to be free, and he will not free -himself. Again, it may be said that this instance is remote -or extreme. But, again, it is exactly true of the men in the -streets around us. It is true that the Negro slave, being a -debased barbarian, will probably have either a human -affection of loyalty, or a human affection for liberty. But -the man we see every day---the worker in Mr. Gradgrind's -factory, the little clerk in Mr. Gradgrind's office---he is -too mentally worried to believe in freedom. He is kept quiet -with revolutionary literature. He is calmed and kept in his -place by a constant succession of wild philosophies. He is a -Marxian one day, a Nietzscheite the next day, a Superman -(probably) the next day; and a slave every day. The only -thing that remains after all the philosophies is the -factory. The only man who gains by all the philosophies is -Gradgrind. It would be worth his while to keep his -commercial helotry supplied with sceptical literature. And -now I come to think of it, of course, Gradgrind is famous -for giving libraries. He shows his sense. All modern books -are on his side. As long as the vision of heaven is always -changing, the vision of earth will be exactly the same. No -ideal will remain long enough to be realised, or even partly -realised. The modern young man will never change his -environment; for he will always change his mind. - -This, therefore, is our first requirement about the ideal -towards which progress is directed; it must be fixed. -Whistler used to make many rapid studies of a sitter; it did -not matter if he tore up twenty portraits. But it would -matter if he looked up twenty times, and each time saw a new -person sitting placidly for his portrait. So it does not -matter (comparatively speaking) how often humanity fails to -imitate its ideal; for then all its old failures are -fruitful. But it does frightfully matter how often humanity -changes its ideal; for then all its old failures are -fruitless. The question therefore becomes this: How can we -keep the artist discontented with his pictures while -preventing him from being vitally discontented with his art? -How can we make a man always dissatisfied with his work, yet -always satisfied with working? How can we make sure that the -portrait painter will throw the portrait out of window -instead of taking the natural and more human course of -throwing the sitter out of window? - -A strict rule is not only necessary for ruling; it is also -necessary for rebelling. This fixed and familiar ideal is -necessary to any sort of revolution. Man will sometimes act -slowly upon new ideas; but he will only act swiftly upon old -ideas. If I am merely to float or fade or evolve, it may be -towards something anarchic; but if I am to riot, it must be -for something respectable. This is the whole weakness of -certain schools of progress and moral evolution. They -suggest that there has been a slow movement towards -morality, with an imperceptible ethical change in every year -or at every instant. There is only one great disadvantage in -this theory. It talks of a slow movement towards justice; -but it does not permit a swift movement. A man is not -allowed to leap up and declare a certain state of things to -be intrinsically intolerable. To make the matter clear, it -is better to take a specific example. Certain of the -idealistic vegetarians, such as Mr. Salt, say that the time -has now come for eating no meat; by implication they assume -that at one time it was right to eat meat, and they suggest -(in words that could be quoted) that some day it may be -wrong to eat milk and eggs. I do not discuss here the -question of what is justice to animals. I only say that -whatever is justice ought, under given conditions, to be -prompt justice. If an animal is wronged, we ought to be able -to rush to his rescue. But how can we rush if we are, -perhaps, in advance of our time? How can we rush to catch a -train which may not arrive for a few centuries? How can I -denounce a man for skinning cats, if he is only now what I -may possibly become in drinking a glass of milk? A splendid -and insane Russian sect ran about taking all the cattle out -of all the carts. How can I pluck up courage to take the -horse out of my hansom-cab, when I do not know whether my -evolutionary watch is only a little fast or the cabman's a -little slow? Suppose I say to a sweater, "Slavery suited one -stage of evolution." And suppose he answers, "And sweating -suits this stage of evolution." How can I answer if there is -no eternal test? If sweaters can be behind the current -morality, why should not philanthropists be in front of it? -What on earth is the current morality, except in its literal -sense---the morality that is always running away? - -Thus we may say that a permanent ideal is as necessary to -the innovator as to the conservative; it is necessary -whether we wish the king's orders to be promptly executed or -whether we only wish the king to be promptly executed. The -guillotine has many sins, but to do it justice there is -nothing evolutionary about it. The favourite evolutionary -argument finds its best answer in the axe. The Evolutionist -says, "Where do you draw the line?" the Revolutionist -answers, "I draw it *here:* exactly between your head and -body." There must at any given moment be an abstract right -and wrong if any blow is to be struck; there must be -something eternal if there is to be anything sudden. -Therefore for all intelligible human purposes, for altering -things or for keeping things as they are, for founding a -system for ever, as in China, or for altering it every month -as in the early French Revolution, it is equally necessary -that the vision should be a fixed vision. This is our first +Obviously, it will not do to take our ideal from the principle in +nature; for the simple reason that (except for some human or divine +theory), there is no principle in nature. For instance, the cheap +anti-democrat of to-day will ten you solemnly that there is no equality +in nature. He is right, but he does not see the logical addendum. There +is no equality in nature; also there is no inequality in nature. +Inequality, as much as equality, implies a standard of value. To read +aristocracy into the anarchy of animals is just as sentimental as to +read democracy into it. Both aristocracy and democracy are human ideals: +the one saying that all men are valuable, the other that some men are +more valuable. But nature does not say that cats are more valuable than +mice; nature makes no remark on the subject. She does not even say that +the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think the cat superior +because we have (or most of us have) a particular philosophy to the +effect that life is better than death. But if the mouse were a German +pessimist mouse, he might not think that the cat had beaten him at all. +He might think he had beaten the cat by getting to the grave first. Or +he might feel that he had actually inflicted frightful punishment on the +cat by keeping him alive. Just as a microbe might feel proud of +spreading a pestilence, so the pessimistic mouse might exult to think +that he was renewing in the cat the torture of conscious existence. It +all depends on the philosophy of the mouse. You cannot even say that +there is victory or superiority in nature unless you have some doctrine +about what things are superior. You cannot even say that the cat scores +unless there is a system of scoring. You cannot even say that the cat +gets the best of it unless there is some best to be got. + +We cannot, then, get the ideal itself from nature, and as we follow here +the first and natural speculation, we will leave out (for the present) +the idea of getting it from God. We must have our own vision. But the +attempts of most moderns to express it are highly vague. + +Some fall back simply on the clock: they talk as if mere passage through +time brought some superiority; so that even a man of the first mental +calibre carelessly uses the phrase that human morality is never up to +date. How can anything be up to date? a date has no character. How can +one say that Christmas celebrations are not suitable to the twenty-fifth +of a month? What the writer meant, of course, was that the majority is +behind his favourite minority---or in front of it. Other vague modern +people take refuge in material metaphors; in fact, this is the chief +mark of vague modern people. Not daring to define their doctrine of what +is good, they use physical figures of speech without stint or shame, +and, what is worst of all, seem to think these cheap analogies are +exquisitely spiritual and superior to the old morality. Thus they think +it intellectual to talk about things being "high." It is at least the +reverse of intellectual; it is a mere phrase from a steeple or a +weathercock. "Tommy was a good boy" is a pure philosophical statement, +worthy of Plato or Aquinas. "Tommy lived the higher life" is a gross +metaphor from a ten-foot rule. + +This, incidentally, is almost the whole weakness of Nietzsche, whom some +are representing as a bold and strong thinker. No one will deny that he +was a poetical and suggestive thinker; but he was quite the reverse of +strong. He was not at all bold. He never put his own meaning before +himself in bald abstract words: as did Aristotle and Calvin, and even +Karl Marx, the hard, fearless men of thought. Nietzsche always escaped a +question by a physical metaphor, like a cheery minor poet. He said, +"beyond good and evil," because he had not the courage to say, "more +good than good and evil," or, "more evil than good and evil." Had he +faced his thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it was +nonsense. So, when he describes his hero, he does not dare to say, "the +purer man," or "the happier man," or "the sadder man," for all these are +ideas; and ideas are alarming. He says "the upper man," or "over man," a +physical metaphor from acrobats or alpine climbers. Nietzsche is truly a +very timid thinker. He does not really know in the least what sort of +man he wants evolution to produce. And if he does not know, certainly +the ordinary evolutionists, who talk about things being "higher," do not +know either. + +Then again, some people fall back on sheer submission and sitting still. +Nature is going to do something some day; nobody knows what, and nobody +knows when. We have no reason for acting, and no reason for not acting. +If anything happens it is right: if anything is prevented it was wrong. +Again, some people try to anticipate nature by doing something, by doing +anything. Because we may possibly grow wings they cut off their legs. +Yet nature may be trying to make them centipedes for all they know. + +Lastly, there is a fourth class of people who take whatever it is that +they happen to want, and say that that is the ultimate aim of evolution. +And these are the only sensible people. This is the only really healthy +way with the word evolution, to work for what you want, and to call +*that* evolution. The only intelligible sense that progress or advance +can have among men, is that we have a definite vision, and that we wish +to make the whole world like that vision. If you like to put it so, the +essence of the doctrine is that what we have around us is the mere +method and preparation for something that we have to create. This is not +a world, but rather the materials for a world. God has given us not so +much the colours of a picture as the colours of a palette. But He has +also given us a subject, a model, a fixed vision. We must be clear about +what we want to paint. This adds a further principle to our previous +list of principles. We have said we must be fond of this world, even in +order to change it. We now add that we must be fond of another world +(real or imaginary) in order to have something to change it to. + +We need not debate about the mere words evolution or progress: +personally I prefer to call it reform. For reform implies form. It +implies that we are trying to shape the world in a particular image; to +make it something that we see already in our minds. Evolution is a +metaphor from mere automatic unrolling. Progress is a metaphor from +merely walking along a road---very likely the wrong road. But reform is +a metaphor for reasonable and determined men: it means that we see a +certain thing out of shape and we mean to put it into shape. And we know +what shape. + +Now here comes in the whole collapse and huge blunder of our age. We +have mixed up two different things, two opposite things. Progress should +mean that we are always changing the world to suit the vision. Progress +does mean (just now) that we are always changing the vision. It should +mean that we are slow but sure in bringing justice and mercy among men: +it does mean that we are very swift in doubting the desirability of +justice and mercy: a wild page from any Prussian sophist makes men doubt +it. Progress should mean that we are always walking towards the New +Jerusalem. It does mean that the New Jerusalem is always walking away +from us. We are not altering the real to suit the ideal. We are altering +the ideal: it is easier. + +Silly examples are always simpler; let us suppose a man wanted a +particular kind of world; say, a blue world. He would have no cause to +complain of the slightness or swiftness of his task; he might toil for a +long time at the transformation; he could work away (in every sense) +until all was blue. He could have heroic adventures; the putting of the +last touches to a blue tiger. He could have fairy dreams; the dawn of a +blue moon. But if he worked hard, that high-minded reformer would +certainly (from his own point of view) leave the world better and bluer +than he found it. If he altered a blade of grass to his favourite colour +every day, he would get on slowly. But if he altered his favourite +colour every day, he would not get on at all. If, after reading a fresh +philosopher, he started to paint everything red or yellow, his work +would be thrown away: there would be nothing to show except a few blue +tigers walking about, specimens of his early bad manner. This is exactly +the position of the average modern thinker. It will be said that this is +avowedly a preposterous example. But it is literally the fact of recent +history. The great and grave changes in our political civilization all +belonged to the early nineteenth century, not to the later. They +belonged to the black and white epoch when men believed fixedly in +Toryism, in Protestantism, in Calvinism, in Reform, and not infrequently +in Revolution. And whatever each man believed in he hammered at +steadily, without scepticism: and there was a time when the Established +Church might have fallen, and the House of Lords nearly fell. It was +because Radicals were wise enough to be constant and consistent; it was +because Radicals were wise enough to be Conservative. But in the +existing atmosphere there is not enough time and tradition in Radicalism +to pull anything down. There is a great deal of truth in Lord Hugh +Cecil's suggestion (made in a fine speech) that the era of change is +over, and that ours is an era of conservation and repose. But probably +it would pain Lord Hugh Cecil if he realised (what is certainly the +case) that ours is only an age of conservation because it is an age of +complete unbelief. Let beliefs fade fast and frequently, if you wish +institutions to remain the same. The more the life of the mind is +unhinged, the more the machinery of matter will be left to itself. The +net result of all our political suggestions, Collectivism, Tolstoyanism, +Neo-Feudalism, Communism, Anarchy, Scientific Bureaucracy---the plain +fruit of all of them is that the Monarchy and the House of Lords will +remain. The net result of all the new religions will be that the Church +of England will not (for heaven knows how long) be disestablished. It +was Karl Marx, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Cunninghame Grahame, Bernard Shaw and +Auberon Herbert, who between them, with bowed gigantic backs, bore up +the throne of the Archbishop of Canterbury. + +We may say broadly that free thought is the best of all the safeguards +against freedom. Managed in a modern style the emancipation of the +slave's mind is the best way of preventing the emancipation of the +slave. Teach him to worry about whether he wants to be free, and he will +not free himself. Again, it may be said that this instance is remote or +extreme. But, again, it is exactly true of the men in the streets around +us. It is true that the Negro slave, being a debased barbarian, will +probably have either a human affection of loyalty, or a human affection +for liberty. But the man we see every day---the worker in +Mr. Gradgrind's factory, the little clerk in Mr. Gradgrind's office---he +is too mentally worried to believe in freedom. He is kept quiet with +revolutionary literature. He is calmed and kept in his place by a +constant succession of wild philosophies. He is a Marxian one day, a +Nietzscheite the next day, a Superman (probably) the next day; and a +slave every day. The only thing that remains after all the philosophies +is the factory. The only man who gains by all the philosophies is +Gradgrind. It would be worth his while to keep his commercial helotry +supplied with sceptical literature. And now I come to think of it, of +course, Gradgrind is famous for giving libraries. He shows his sense. +All modern books are on his side. As long as the vision of heaven is +always changing, the vision of earth will be exactly the same. No ideal +will remain long enough to be realised, or even partly realised. The +modern young man will never change his environment; for he will always +change his mind. + +This, therefore, is our first requirement about the ideal towards which +progress is directed; it must be fixed. Whistler used to make many rapid +studies of a sitter; it did not matter if he tore up twenty portraits. +But it would matter if he looked up twenty times, and each time saw a +new person sitting placidly for his portrait. So it does not matter +(comparatively speaking) how often humanity fails to imitate its ideal; +for then all its old failures are fruitful. But it does frightfully +matter how often humanity changes its ideal; for then all its old +failures are fruitless. The question therefore becomes this: How can we +keep the artist discontented with his pictures while preventing him from +being vitally discontented with his art? How can we make a man always +dissatisfied with his work, yet always satisfied with working? How can +we make sure that the portrait painter will throw the portrait out of +window instead of taking the natural and more human course of throwing +the sitter out of window? + +A strict rule is not only necessary for ruling; it is also necessary for +rebelling. This fixed and familiar ideal is necessary to any sort of +revolution. Man will sometimes act slowly upon new ideas; but he will +only act swiftly upon old ideas. If I am merely to float or fade or +evolve, it may be towards something anarchic; but if I am to riot, it +must be for something respectable. This is the whole weakness of certain +schools of progress and moral evolution. They suggest that there has +been a slow movement towards morality, with an imperceptible ethical +change in every year or at every instant. There is only one great +disadvantage in this theory. It talks of a slow movement towards +justice; but it does not permit a swift movement. A man is not allowed +to leap up and declare a certain state of things to be intrinsically +intolerable. To make the matter clear, it is better to take a specific +example. Certain of the idealistic vegetarians, such as Mr. Salt, say +that the time has now come for eating no meat; by implication they +assume that at one time it was right to eat meat, and they suggest (in +words that could be quoted) that some day it may be wrong to eat milk +and eggs. I do not discuss here the question of what is justice to +animals. I only say that whatever is justice ought, under given +conditions, to be prompt justice. If an animal is wronged, we ought to +be able to rush to his rescue. But how can we rush if we are, perhaps, +in advance of our time? How can we rush to catch a train which may not +arrive for a few centuries? How can I denounce a man for skinning cats, +if he is only now what I may possibly become in drinking a glass of +milk? A splendid and insane Russian sect ran about taking all the cattle +out of all the carts. How can I pluck up courage to take the horse out +of my hansom-cab, when I do not know whether my evolutionary watch is +only a little fast or the cabman's a little slow? Suppose I say to a +sweater, "Slavery suited one stage of evolution." And suppose he +answers, "And sweating suits this stage of evolution." How can I answer +if there is no eternal test? If sweaters can be behind the current +morality, why should not philanthropists be in front of it? What on +earth is the current morality, except in its literal sense---the +morality that is always running away? + +Thus we may say that a permanent ideal is as necessary to the innovator +as to the conservative; it is necessary whether we wish the king's +orders to be promptly executed or whether we only wish the king to be +promptly executed. The guillotine has many sins, but to do it justice +there is nothing evolutionary about it. The favourite evolutionary +argument finds its best answer in the axe. The Evolutionist says, "Where +do you draw the line?" the Revolutionist answers, "I draw it *here:* +exactly between your head and body." There must at any given moment be +an abstract right and wrong if any blow is to be struck; there must be +something eternal if there is to be anything sudden. Therefore for all +intelligible human purposes, for altering things or for keeping things +as they are, for founding a system for ever, as in China, or for +altering it every month as in the early French Revolution, it is equally +necessary that the vision should be a fixed vision. This is our first requirement. -When I had written this down, I felt once again the presence -of something else in the discussion: as a man hears a church -bell above the sound of the street. Something seemed to be -saying, "My ideal at least is fixed; for it was fixed before -the foundations of the world. My vision of perfection -assuredly cannot be altered; for it is called Eden. You may -alter the place to which you are going; but you cannot alter -the place from which you have come. To the orthodox there -must always be a case for revolution; for in the hearts of -men God has been put under the feet of Satan. In the upper -world hell once rebelled against heaven. But in this world -heaven is rebelling against hell. For the orthodox there can -always be a revolution; for a revolution is a restoration. -At any instant you may strike a blow for the perfection -which no man has seen since Adam. No unchanging custom, no -changing evolution can make the original good anything but -good. Man may have had concubines as long as cows have had -horns: still they are not a part of him if they are sinful. -Men may have been under oppression ever since fish were -under water; still they ought not to be, if oppression is -sinful. The chain may seem as natural to the slave, or the -paint to the harlot, as does the plume to the bird or the -burrow to the fox; still they are not, if they are sinful. I -lift my prehistoric legend to defy all your history. Your -vision is not merely a fixture: it is a fact." I paused to -note the new coincidence of Christianity: but I passed on. - -I passed on to the next necessity of any ideal of progress. -Some people (as we have said) seem to believe in an -automatic and impersonal progress in the nature of things. -But it is clear that no political activity can be encouraged -by saying that progress is natural and inevitable; that is -not a reason for being active, but rather a reason for being -lazy. If we are bound to improve, we need not trouble to -improve. The pure doctrine of progress is the best of all -reasons for not being a progressive. But it is to none of -these obvious comments that I wish primarily to call -attention. - -he only arresting point is this: that if we suppose -improvement to be natural, it must be fairly simple. The -world might conceivably be working towards one consummation, -but hardly towards any particular arrangement of many -qualities. To take our original simile: Nature by herself -may be growing more blue; that is, a process so simple that -it might be impersonal. But Nature cannot be making a -careful picture made of many picked colours, unless Nature -is personal. If the end of the world were mere darkness or -mere light it might come as slowly and inevitably as dusk or -dawn. But if the end of the world is to be a piece of -elaborate and artistic chiaroscuro, then there must be -design in it, either human or divine. The world, through -mere time, might grow black like an old picture, or white -like an old coat; but if it is turned into a particular -piece of black and white art-then there is an artist. - -If the distinction be not evident, I give an ordinary -instance. We constantly hear a particularly cosmic creed -from the modern humanitarians; I use the word humanitarian -in the ordinary sense, as meaning one who upholds the claims -of all creatures against those of humanity. They suggest -that through the ages we have been growing more and more -humane, that is to say, that one after another, groups or -sections of beings, slaves, children, women, cows, or what -not, have been gradually admitted to mercy or to justice. -They say that we once thought it right to eat men (we -didn't); but I am not here concerned with their history, -which is highly unhistorical. As a fact, anthropophagy is -certainly a decadent thing, not a primitive one. It is much -more likely that modern men will eat human flesh out of -affectation than that primitive man ever ate it out of -ignorance. I am here only following the outlines of their -argument, which consists in maintaining that man has been -progressively more lenient, first to citizens, then to -slaves, then to animals, and then (presumably) to plants. I -think it wrong to sit on a man. Soon, I shall think it wrong -to sit on a horse. Eventually (I suppose) I shall think it -wrong to sit on a chair. That is the drive of the argument. -And for this argument it can be said that it is possible to -talk of it in terms ot evolution or inevitable progress. A -perpetual tendency to touch fewer and fewer things might, -one feels, be a mere brute unconscious tendency, like that -of a species to produce fewer and fewer children. This drift -may be really evolutionary, because it is stupid. - -Darwinism can be used to back up two mad moralities, but it -cannot be used to back up a single sane one. The kinship and -competition of all living creatures can be used as a reason -for being insanely cruel or insanely sentimental; but not -for a healthy love of animals. On the evolutionary basis you -may be inhumane, or you may be absurdly humane; but you -cannot be human. That you and a tiger are one may be a -reason for being tender to a tiger. Or it may be a reason -for being as cruel as the tiger. It is one way to train the -tiger to imitate you, it is a shorter way to imitate the -tiger. But in neither case does evolution tell you how to -treat a tiger reasonably, that is, to admire his stripes +When I had written this down, I felt once again the presence of +something else in the discussion: as a man hears a church bell above the +sound of the street. Something seemed to be saying, "My ideal at least +is fixed; for it was fixed before the foundations of the world. My +vision of perfection assuredly cannot be altered; for it is called Eden. +You may alter the place to which you are going; but you cannot alter the +place from which you have come. To the orthodox there must always be a +case for revolution; for in the hearts of men God has been put under the +feet of Satan. In the upper world hell once rebelled against heaven. But +in this world heaven is rebelling against hell. For the orthodox there +can always be a revolution; for a revolution is a restoration. At any +instant you may strike a blow for the perfection which no man has seen +since Adam. No unchanging custom, no changing evolution can make the +original good anything but good. Man may have had concubines as long as +cows have had horns: still they are not a part of him if they are +sinful. Men may have been under oppression ever since fish were under +water; still they ought not to be, if oppression is sinful. The chain +may seem as natural to the slave, or the paint to the harlot, as does +the plume to the bird or the burrow to the fox; still they are not, if +they are sinful. I lift my prehistoric legend to defy all your history. +Your vision is not merely a fixture: it is a fact." I paused to note the +new coincidence of Christianity: but I passed on. + +I passed on to the next necessity of any ideal of progress. Some people +(as we have said) seem to believe in an automatic and impersonal +progress in the nature of things. But it is clear that no political +activity can be encouraged by saying that progress is natural and +inevitable; that is not a reason for being active, but rather a reason +for being lazy. If we are bound to improve, we need not trouble to +improve. The pure doctrine of progress is the best of all reasons for +not being a progressive. But it is to none of these obvious comments +that I wish primarily to call attention. + +he only arresting point is this: that if we suppose improvement to be +natural, it must be fairly simple. The world might conceivably be +working towards one consummation, but hardly towards any particular +arrangement of many qualities. To take our original simile: Nature by +herself may be growing more blue; that is, a process so simple that it +might be impersonal. But Nature cannot be making a careful picture made +of many picked colours, unless Nature is personal. If the end of the +world were mere darkness or mere light it might come as slowly and +inevitably as dusk or dawn. But if the end of the world is to be a piece +of elaborate and artistic chiaroscuro, then there must be design in it, +either human or divine. The world, through mere time, might grow black +like an old picture, or white like an old coat; but if it is turned into +a particular piece of black and white art-then there is an artist. + +If the distinction be not evident, I give an ordinary instance. We +constantly hear a particularly cosmic creed from the modern +humanitarians; I use the word humanitarian in the ordinary sense, as +meaning one who upholds the claims of all creatures against those of +humanity. They suggest that through the ages we have been growing more +and more humane, that is to say, that one after another, groups or +sections of beings, slaves, children, women, cows, or what not, have +been gradually admitted to mercy or to justice. They say that we once +thought it right to eat men (we didn't); but I am not here concerned +with their history, which is highly unhistorical. As a fact, +anthropophagy is certainly a decadent thing, not a primitive one. It is +much more likely that modern men will eat human flesh out of affectation +than that primitive man ever ate it out of ignorance. I am here only +following the outlines of their argument, which consists in maintaining +that man has been progressively more lenient, first to citizens, then to +slaves, then to animals, and then (presumably) to plants. I think it +wrong to sit on a man. Soon, I shall think it wrong to sit on a horse. +Eventually (I suppose) I shall think it wrong to sit on a chair. That is +the drive of the argument. And for this argument it can be said that it +is possible to talk of it in terms ot evolution or inevitable progress. +A perpetual tendency to touch fewer and fewer things might, one feels, +be a mere brute unconscious tendency, like that of a species to produce +fewer and fewer children. This drift may be really evolutionary, because +it is stupid. + +Darwinism can be used to back up two mad moralities, but it cannot be +used to back up a single sane one. The kinship and competition of all +living creatures can be used as a reason for being insanely cruel or +insanely sentimental; but not for a healthy love of animals. On the +evolutionary basis you may be inhumane, or you may be absurdly humane; +but you cannot be human. That you and a tiger are one may be a reason +for being tender to a tiger. Or it may be a reason for being as cruel as +the tiger. It is one way to train the tiger to imitate you, it is a +shorter way to imitate the tiger. But in neither case does evolution +tell you how to treat a tiger reasonably, that is, to admire his stripes while avoiding his claws. -If you want to treat a tiger reasonably, you must go back to -the garden of Eden. For the obstinate reminder continued to -recur: only the supernatural has taken a sane view of -Nature. The essence of all pantheism, evolutionism, and -modern cosmic religion is really in this proposition: that -Nature is our mother. Unfortunately, if you regard Nature as -a mother, you discover that she is a stepmother. The main -point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our -mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, -since we have the same father; but she has no authority over -us; we have to admire, but not to imitate. This gives to the -typically Christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch -of lightness that is almost frivolity. Nature was a solemn -mother to the worshippers of Isis and Cybele. Nature was a -solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson. But Nature is not -solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert. To -St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: -a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as well as loved. - -This, however, is hardly our main point at present; I have -admitted it only in order to show how constantly, and as it -were accidentally, the key would fit the smallest doors. Our -main point is here, that if there be a mere trend of -impersonal improvement in Nature, it must presumably be a -simple trend towards some simple triumph. One can imagine -that some automatic tendency in biology might work for -giving us longer and longer noses. But the question is, do -we want to have longer and longer noses? I fancy not; I -believe that we most of us want to say to our noses, "Thus -far, and no farther; and here shall thy proud point be -stayed": we require a nose of such length as may ensure an -interesting face. But we cannot imagine a mere biological -trend towards producing interesting faces; because an -interesting face is one particular arrangement of eyes, -nose, and mouth, in a most complex relation to each other. -Proportion cannot be a drift: it is either an accident or a -design. So with the ideal of human morality and its relation -to the humanitarians and the anti-humanitarians. It is -conceivable that we are going more and more to keep our -hands off things: not to drive horses; not to pick flowers. -We may eventually be bound not to disturb a man's mind even -by argument; not to disturb the sleep of birds even by -coughing. The ultimate apotheosis would appear to be that of -a man sitting quite still, not daring to stir for fear of -disturbing a fly, nor to eat for fear of incommoding a -microbe. To so crude a consummation as that we might perhaps -unconsciously drift. But do we want so crude a consummation? -Similarly, we might unconsciously evolve along the opposite -or Nietzschean line of development---superman crushing -superman in one tower of tyrants until the universe is -smashed up for full. But do we want the universe smashed up -for fun? Is it not quite clear that what we really hope for -is one particular management and proposition of these two -things; a certain amount of restraint and respect, a certain -amount of energy and mastery. If our life is ever really as -beautiful as a fairy-tale, we shall have to remember that -all the beauty of a fairy-tale lies in this: that the prince -has a wonder which just stops short of being fear. If he is -afraid of the giant, there is an end of him; but also if he -is not astonished at the giant, there is an end of the -fairy-tale. The whole point depends upon his being at once -humble enough to wonder, and haughty enough to defy. So our -attitude to the giant of the world must not merely be -increasing delicacy or increasing contempt: it must be one -particular proportion of the two-which is exactly right. We -must have in us enough reverence for all things outside us -to make us tread fearfully on the grass. We must also have -enough disdain for all things outside us, to make us, on due -occasion, spit at the stars. Yet these two things (if we are -to be good or happy) must be combined, not in any -combination, but in one particular combination. The perfect -happiness of men on the earth (if it ever comes) will not be -a flat and solid thing, like the satisfaction of animals. It -will be an exact a nd perilous balance; like that of a -desperate romance. Man must have just enough faith in -himself to have adventures, and just enough doubt of himself -to enjoy them. - -This, then, is our second requirement for the ideal of -progress. First, it must be fixed; second, it must be -composite. It must not (if it is to satisfy our souls) be -the mere victory of some one thing swallowing up everything -else, love or pride or peace or adventure; it must be a -definite picture composed of these elements in their best -proportion and relation. I am not concerned at this moment -to deny that some such good culmination may be, by the -constitution of things, reserved for the human race. I only -point out that if this composite happiness is fixed for us -it must be fixed by some mind; for only a mind can place the -exact proportions of a composite happiness. If the -beatification of the world is a mere work of nature, then it -must be as simple as the freezing of the world, or the -burning up of the world. But if the beatification of the -world is not a work of nature but a work of art, then it -involves an artist. And here again my contemplation was -cloven by the ancient voice which said, cc I could have told -you all this a long time ago. If there is any certain -progress it can only be my kind of progress, the progress -towards a complete city of virtues and dominations where -righteousness and peace contrive to kiss each other. An -impersonal force might be leading you to a wilderness of -perfect flatness or a peak of perfect height. But only a -personal God can possibly be leading you (i indeed, you are -being led) to a city with just streets and architectural -proportions, a city in which each of you can contribute -exactly the right amount of your own colour to the +If you want to treat a tiger reasonably, you must go back to the garden +of Eden. For the obstinate reminder continued to recur: only the +supernatural has taken a sane view of Nature. The essence of all +pantheism, evolutionism, and modern cosmic religion is really in this +proposition: that Nature is our mother. Unfortunately, if you regard +Nature as a mother, you discover that she is a stepmother. The main +point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is +our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same +father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to +imitate. This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in this earth a +strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity. Nature was a solemn +mother to the worshippers of Isis and Cybele. Nature was a solemn mother +to Wordsworth or to Emerson. But Nature is not solemn to Francis of +Assisi or to George Herbert. To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and +even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as +well as loved. + +This, however, is hardly our main point at present; I have admitted it +only in order to show how constantly, and as it were accidentally, the +key would fit the smallest doors. Our main point is here, that if there +be a mere trend of impersonal improvement in Nature, it must presumably +be a simple trend towards some simple triumph. One can imagine that some +automatic tendency in biology might work for giving us longer and longer +noses. But the question is, do we want to have longer and longer noses? +I fancy not; I believe that we most of us want to say to our noses, +"Thus far, and no farther; and here shall thy proud point be stayed": we +require a nose of such length as may ensure an interesting face. But we +cannot imagine a mere biological trend towards producing interesting +faces; because an interesting face is one particular arrangement of +eyes, nose, and mouth, in a most complex relation to each other. +Proportion cannot be a drift: it is either an accident or a design. So +with the ideal of human morality and its relation to the humanitarians +and the anti-humanitarians. It is conceivable that we are going more and +more to keep our hands off things: not to drive horses; not to pick +flowers. We may eventually be bound not to disturb a man's mind even by +argument; not to disturb the sleep of birds even by coughing. The +ultimate apotheosis would appear to be that of a man sitting quite +still, not daring to stir for fear of disturbing a fly, nor to eat for +fear of incommoding a microbe. To so crude a consummation as that we +might perhaps unconsciously drift. But do we want so crude a +consummation? Similarly, we might unconsciously evolve along the +opposite or Nietzschean line of development---superman crushing superman +in one tower of tyrants until the universe is smashed up for full. But +do we want the universe smashed up for fun? Is it not quite clear that +what we really hope for is one particular management and proposition of +these two things; a certain amount of restraint and respect, a certain +amount of energy and mastery. If our life is ever really as beautiful as +a fairy-tale, we shall have to remember that all the beauty of a +fairy-tale lies in this: that the prince has a wonder which just stops +short of being fear. If he is afraid of the giant, there is an end of +him; but also if he is not astonished at the giant, there is an end of +the fairy-tale. The whole point depends upon his being at once humble +enough to wonder, and haughty enough to defy. So our attitude to the +giant of the world must not merely be increasing delicacy or increasing +contempt: it must be one particular proportion of the two-which is +exactly right. We must have in us enough reverence for all things +outside us to make us tread fearfully on the grass. We must also have +enough disdain for all things outside us, to make us, on due occasion, +spit at the stars. Yet these two things (if we are to be good or happy) +must be combined, not in any combination, but in one particular +combination. The perfect happiness of men on the earth (if it ever +comes) will not be a flat and solid thing, like the satisfaction of +animals. It will be an exact a nd perilous balance; like that of a +desperate romance. Man must have just enough faith in himself to have +adventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them. + +This, then, is our second requirement for the ideal of progress. First, +it must be fixed; second, it must be composite. It must not (if it is to +satisfy our souls) be the mere victory of some one thing swallowing up +everything else, love or pride or peace or adventure; it must be a +definite picture composed of these elements in their best proportion and +relation. I am not concerned at this moment to deny that some such good +culmination may be, by the constitution of things, reserved for the +human race. I only point out that if this composite happiness is fixed +for us it must be fixed by some mind; for only a mind can place the +exact proportions of a composite happiness. If the beatification of the +world is a mere work of nature, then it must be as simple as the +freezing of the world, or the burning up of the world. But if the +beatification of the world is not a work of nature but a work of art, +then it involves an artist. And here again my contemplation was cloven +by the ancient voice which said, cc I could have told you all this a +long time ago. If there is any certain progress it can only be my kind +of progress, the progress towards a complete city of virtues and +dominations where righteousness and peace contrive to kiss each other. +An impersonal force might be leading you to a wilderness of perfect +flatness or a peak of perfect height. But only a personal God can +possibly be leading you (i indeed, you are being led) to a city with +just streets and architectural proportions, a city in which each of you +can contribute exactly the right amount of your own colour to the many-coloured coat of Joseph." -Twice again, therefore, Christianity had come in with the -exact answer that I required. I had said, "The ideal must be -fixed," and the Church had answered, "Mine is literally -fixed, for it existed before anything else." I said -secondly, "It must be artistically combined, like a -picture"; and the Church answered, "Mine is quite literally -a picture, for I know who painted it." Then I went on to the -third thing, which, as it seemed to me, was needed for an -Utopia or goal of progress. And of all the three it is -infinitely the hardest to express. Perhaps it might be put -thus: that we need watchfulness even in Utopia, lest we fall -from Utopia as we fell from Eden. - -We have remarked that one reason offered for being a -progressive is that things naturally tend to grow better. -But the only real reason for being a progressive is that -things naturally tend to grow worse. The corruption in -things is not only the best argument for being progressive; -it is also the only argument against being conservative. The -conservative theory would really be quite sweeping and -unanswerable if it were not for this one fact. But all -conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things -alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you -leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If -you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. -If you particularly want it to be white you must be always -painting it again; that is, you must be always having a -revolution. Briefly, if you want the old white post you must -have a new white post. But this which is true even of -inanimate things is in a quite special and terrible sense -true of all human things. An almost unnatural vigilance is -really required of the citizen because of the horrible -rapidity with which human institutions grow old. It is the -custom in passing romance and journalism to talk of men -suffering under old tyrannies. But, as a fact, men have -almost always suffered under new tyrannies; under tyrannies -that had been public liberties hardly twenty years before. -Thus England went mad with joy over the patriotic monarchy -of Elizabeth; and then (almost immediately afterwards) went -mad with rage in the trap of the tyranny of Charles the -First. So, again, in France the monarchy became intolerable, -not just after it had been tolerated, but just after it had +Twice again, therefore, Christianity had come in with the exact answer +that I required. I had said, "The ideal must be fixed," and the Church +had answered, "Mine is literally fixed, for it existed before anything +else." I said secondly, "It must be artistically combined, like a +picture"; and the Church answered, "Mine is quite literally a picture, +for I know who painted it." Then I went on to the third thing, which, as +it seemed to me, was needed for an Utopia or goal of progress. And of +all the three it is infinitely the hardest to express. Perhaps it might +be put thus: that we need watchfulness even in Utopia, lest we fall from +Utopia as we fell from Eden. + +We have remarked that one reason offered for being a progressive is that +things naturally tend to grow better. But the only real reason for being +a progressive is that things naturally tend to grow worse. The +corruption in things is not only the best argument for being +progressive; it is also the only argument against being conservative. +The conservative theory would really be quite sweeping and unanswerable +if it were not for this one fact. But all conservatism is based upon the +idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you +do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. +If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you +particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; +that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want +the old white post you must have a new white post. But this which is +true even of inanimate things is in a quite special and terrible sense +true of all human things. An almost unnatural vigilance is really +required of the citizen because of the horrible rapidity with which +human institutions grow old. It is the custom in passing romance and +journalism to talk of men suffering under old tyrannies. But, as a fact, +men have almost always suffered under new tyrannies; under tyrannies +that had been public liberties hardly twenty years before. Thus England +went mad with joy over the patriotic monarchy of Elizabeth; and then +(almost immediately afterwards) went mad with rage in the trap of the +tyranny of Charles the First. So, again, in France the monarchy became +intolerable, not just after it had been tolerated, but just after it had been adored. The son of Louis the well-beloved was Louis the -guillotined. So in the same way in England in the nineteenth -century the Radical manufacturer was entirely trusted as a -mere tribune of the people, until suddenly we heard the cry -of the Socialist that he was a tyrant eating the people like -bread. So again, we have almost up to the last instant -trusted the newspapers as organs of public opinion. Just -recently some of us have seen (not slowly, but with a start) -that they are obviously nothing of the kind. They are, by -the nature of the case, the hobbies of a few rich men. We -have not any need to rebel against antiquity; we have to -rebel against novelty. It is the new rulers, the capitalist -or the editor, who really hold up the modern world. There is -no fear that a modern king will attempt to override the -constitution; it is more likely that he will ignore the -constitution and work behind its back; he will take no -advantage of his kingly power; it is more likely that he -will take advantage of his kingly powerlessness, of the fact -that he is free from criticism and publicity. For the king -is the most private person of our time. It will not be -necessary for anyone to fight again against the proposal of -a censorship of the press. We do not need a censorship of -the press. We have a censorship by the press. - -This startling swiftness with which popular systems turn -oppressive is the third fact for which we shall ask our -perfect theory of progress to allow. It must always be on -the look out for every privilege being abused, for every -working right becoming a wrong. In this matter I am entirely -on the side of the revolutionists. They are really right to -be always suspecting human institutions; they are right not -to put their trust in princes nor in any child of man. The -chieftain chosen to be the friend of the people becomes the -enemy of the people; the newspaper started to tell the truth -now exists to prevent the truth being told. Here, I say, I -felt that I was really at last on the side of the -revolutionary. And then I caught my breath again: for I -remembered that I was once again on the side of the -orthodox. - -Christianity spoke again and said, "I have always maintained -that men were naturally backsliders; that human virtue -tended of its own nature to rust or to rot; I have always -said that human beings as such go wrong, especially happy -human beings, especially proud and prosperous human beings. -This eternal revolution, this suspicion sustained through -centuries, you (being a vague modern) call the doctrine of -progress. If you were a philosopher you would call it, as I -do, the doctrine of original sin. You may call it the cosmic -advance as much as you like; I call it what it is---the -Fall." - -I have spoken of orthodoxy coming in like a sword; here I -confess it came in like a battleaxe. For really (when I came -to think of it) Christianity is the only thing left that has -any real right to question the power of the well-nurtured or -the well-bred. I have listened often enough to Socialists, -or even to democrats, saying that the physical conditions of -the poor must of necessity make them mentally and morally -degraded. I have listened to scientific men (and there are -still scientific men not opposed to democracy) saying that -if we give the poor healthier conditions vice and wrong will -disappear. I have listened to them with a horrible -attention, with a hideous fascination. For it was like -watching a man energetically sawing from the tree the branch -he is sitting on. If these happy democrats could prove their -case, they would strike democracy dead. If the poor are thus -utterly demoralized, it mayor may not be practical to raise -them. But it is certainly quite practical to disfranchise -them. If the man with a bad bedroom cannot give a good vote, -then the first and swiftest deduction is that he shall give -no vote. The governing class may not unreasonably say, "It -may take us some time to reform his bedroom. But if he is -the brute you say, it will take him very little time to ruin -our country. Therefore we will take your hint and not give -him the chance." It fills me with horrible amusement to -observe the way in which the earnest Socialist industriously -lays the foundation of all aristocracy, expatiating blandly -upon the evident unfitness of the poor to rule. It is like -listening to somebody at an evening party apologising for -entering without evening dress, and explaining that he had -recently been intoxicated, had a personal habit of taking -off his clothes in the street, and had, moreover, only just -changed from prison uniform. At any moment, one feels, the -host might say that really, if it was as bad as that, he -need not come in at all. So it is when the ordinary -Socialist, with a beaming face, proves that the poor, after -their smashing experiences, cannot be really trustworthy. At -any moment the rich may say, " Very well, then, we won't -trust them," and bang the door in his face. On the basis of -Mr. Blatchford's view of heredity and environment, the case -for the aristocracy is quite overwhelming. If clean homes -and clean air make clean souls, why not give the power (for -the present at any rate) to those who undoubtedly have the -clean air? If better conditions will make the poor more fit -to govern themselves, why should not better conditions -already make the rich more fit to govern them? On the -ordinary environment argument the matter is fairly manifest. -The comfortable class must be merely our vanguard in Utopia. - -Is there any answer to the proposition that those who have -had the best opportunities will probably be our best guides? -Is there any answer to the argument that those who have -breathed clean air had better decide for those who have -breathed foul? As far as I know, there is only one answer, -and that answer is Christianity. Only the Christian Church -can offer any rational objection to a complete confidence in -the rich. For she has maintained from the beginning that the -danger was not in man's environment, but in man. Further, -she has maintained that if we come to talk of a dangerous -environment, the most dangerous environment of all is the -commodious environment. I know that the most modern -manufacture has been really occupied in trying to produce an -abnormally large needle. I know that the most recent -biologists have been chiefly anxious to discover a very -small camel. But if we diminish the camel to his smallest, -or open the eye of the needle to its largest-i4 in short, we -assume the words of Christ to have meant the very least that -they could mean, His words must at the very least mean -this-that rich men are not very likely to be morally -trustworthy. Christianity even when watered down is hot -enough to boil all modern society to rags. The mere minimum -of the Church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world. For -the whole modern world is absolutely based on the -assumption, not that the rich are necessary (which is -tenable), but that the rich are trustworthy, which (for a -Christian) is not tenable. You will hear everlastingly, in -all discussions about newspapers, companies, aristocracies, -or party politics, this argument that the rich man cannot be -bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; -he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man. -The whole case for Christianity is that a man who is -dependent upon the luxuries of this life is a corrupt man, -spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially -corrupt. There is one thing that Christ and all the -Christian saints have said with a sort of savage monotony. -They have said simply that to be rich is to be in peculiar -danger of moral wreck. It is not demonstrably un-Christian -to kill the rich as violators of definable justice. It is -not demonstrably un-Christian to crown the rich as -convenient rulers of society. It is not certainly -un-Christian to rebel against the rich or to submit to the -rich. But it is quite certainly un-Christian to trust the -rich, to regard the rich as more morally safe than the poor. -A Christian may consistently say, " I respect that man's -rank, although he takes bribes." But a Christian cannot -say, as all modern men are saying at lunch and breakfast, "a -man of that rank would not take bribes." For it is a part of -Christian dogma that any man in any rank may take bribes. It -is a part of Christian dogma; it also happens by a curious -coincidence that it is a part of obvious human history. When -people say that a man" in that position" would be -incorruptible, there is no need to bring Christianity into -the discussion. Was Lord Bacon a bootblack? Was the Duke of -Marlborough a crossing sweeper? In the best Utopia, I must -be prepared for the moral fall of any man in any position at -any moment; especially for my fall from my position at this -moment. - -Much vague and sentimental journalism has been poured out to -the effect that Christianity is akin to democracy, and most -of it is scarcely strong or clear enough to refute the fact -that the two things have often quarrelled. The real round -upon which Christianity and democracy are one is very much -deeper. The one specially and peculiarly un-Christian idea -is the idea of Carlyle---the idea that the man should rule -who feels that he can rule. Whatever else is Christian, this -is heathen. If our faith comments on government at all, its -comment must be this---that the man should rule who does -*not* think that he can rule. Carlyle's hero may say, "I -will be king"; but the Christian saint must say, "Nolo -episcopari." If the great paradox of Christianity means -anything, it means this---that we must take the crown in our -hands, and go hunting in dry places and dark corners of the -earth until we find the one man who feels himself unfit to -wear it. Carlyle was quite wrong; we have not got to crown -the exceptional man who knows he can rule. Rather we must -crown the much more exceptional man who knows he can't. - -Now, this is one of the two or three vital defences of -working democracy. The mere machinery of voting is not -democracy, though at present it is not easy to effect any -simpler democratic method. But even the machinery of voting -is profoundly Christian in this practical sense-that it is -an attempt to get at the opinion of those who would be too -modest to offer it. It is a mystical adventure; It is -specially trusting those who do not trust themselves. That -enigma is strictly peculiar to Christendom. There is nothing -really humble about the abnegation of the Buddhist; the mild -Hindu is mild, but he is not meek. But there is something -psychologically Christian about the idea of seeking for the -opinion of the obscure rather than taking the obvious course -of accepting the opinion of the prominent. To say that -voting is particularly Christian may seem somewhat curious. -To say that canvassing is Christian may seem quite crazy. -But canvassing is very Christian in its primary idea. It is -encouraging the humble; it is saying to the modest man, cc -Friend, go up higher." Or if there is some slight defect in -canvassing, that is in its perfect and rounded piety, it is -only because it may possibly neglect to encourage the -modesty of the canvasser. - -Aristocracy is not an institution: aristocracy is a sin; -generally a very venial one. It is merely the drift or slide -of men into a sort of natural pomposity and praise of the -powerful, which is the most easy and obvious affair in the -world. - -It is one of the hundred answers to the fugitive perversion -of modern "force" that the promptest and boldest agencies -are also the most fragile or full of sensibility. The -swiftest things are the softest things. A bird is active, -because a bird is soft. A stone is helpless, because a stone -is hard. The stone must by its own nature go downwards, -because hardness is weakness. The bird can of its nature go -upwards, because fragility is force. In perfect force there -is a kind of frivolity, an airiness that can maintain itself -in the air. Modern investigators of miraculous history have -solemnly admitted that a characteristic of the great saints -is their power of "levitation." They might go further; a -characteristic of the great saints is their power of levity. -Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. -This has been always the instinct of Christendom, and -especially the instinct of Christian art. Remember how Fra -Angelico represented all his angels, not only as birds, but -almost as butterflies. Remember how the most earnest -mediaeval art was full of light and fluttering draperies, of -quick and capering feet. It was the one thing that the -modern Pre-Raphaelites could not imitate in the real -Pre-Raphaelites. BurneJones could never recover the deep -levity of the Middle Ages. In the old Christian pictures the -sky over every figure is like a blue or gold parachute. -Every figure seems ready to fly up and float about in the -heavens. The tattered cloak of the beggar will bear him up -like the rayed plumes of the angels. But the kings in their -heavy gold and the proud in their robes of purple will all -of their nature sink downwards, for pride cannot rise to -levity or levitation. Pride is the downward drag of all -things into an easy solemnity. One" settles down" into a +guillotined. So in the same way in England in the nineteenth century the +Radical manufacturer was entirely trusted as a mere tribune of the +people, until suddenly we heard the cry of the Socialist that he was a +tyrant eating the people like bread. So again, we have almost up to the +last instant trusted the newspapers as organs of public opinion. Just +recently some of us have seen (not slowly, but with a start) that they +are obviously nothing of the kind. They are, by the nature of the case, +the hobbies of a few rich men. We have not any need to rebel against +antiquity; we have to rebel against novelty. It is the new rulers, the +capitalist or the editor, who really hold up the modern world. There is +no fear that a modern king will attempt to override the constitution; it +is more likely that he will ignore the constitution and work behind its +back; he will take no advantage of his kingly power; it is more likely +that he will take advantage of his kingly powerlessness, of the fact +that he is free from criticism and publicity. For the king is the most +private person of our time. It will not be necessary for anyone to fight +again against the proposal of a censorship of the press. We do not need +a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press. + +This startling swiftness with which popular systems turn oppressive is +the third fact for which we shall ask our perfect theory of progress to +allow. It must always be on the look out for every privilege being +abused, for every working right becoming a wrong. In this matter I am +entirely on the side of the revolutionists. They are really right to be +always suspecting human institutions; they are right not to put their +trust in princes nor in any child of man. The chieftain chosen to be the +friend of the people becomes the enemy of the people; the newspaper +started to tell the truth now exists to prevent the truth being told. +Here, I say, I felt that I was really at last on the side of the +revolutionary. And then I caught my breath again: for I remembered that +I was once again on the side of the orthodox. + +Christianity spoke again and said, "I have always maintained that men +were naturally backsliders; that human virtue tended of its own nature +to rust or to rot; I have always said that human beings as such go +wrong, especially happy human beings, especially proud and prosperous +human beings. This eternal revolution, this suspicion sustained through +centuries, you (being a vague modern) call the doctrine of progress. If +you were a philosopher you would call it, as I do, the doctrine of +original sin. You may call it the cosmic advance as much as you like; I +call it what it is---the Fall." + +I have spoken of orthodoxy coming in like a sword; here I confess it +came in like a battleaxe. For really (when I came to think of it) +Christianity is the only thing left that has any real right to question +the power of the well-nurtured or the well-bred. I have listened often +enough to Socialists, or even to democrats, saying that the physical +conditions of the poor must of necessity make them mentally and morally +degraded. I have listened to scientific men (and there are still +scientific men not opposed to democracy) saying that if we give the poor +healthier conditions vice and wrong will disappear. I have listened to +them with a horrible attention, with a hideous fascination. For it was +like watching a man energetically sawing from the tree the branch he is +sitting on. If these happy democrats could prove their case, they would +strike democracy dead. If the poor are thus utterly demoralized, it +mayor may not be practical to raise them. But it is certainly quite +practical to disfranchise them. If the man with a bad bedroom cannot +give a good vote, then the first and swiftest deduction is that he shall +give no vote. The governing class may not unreasonably say, "It may take +us some time to reform his bedroom. But if he is the brute you say, it +will take him very little time to ruin our country. Therefore we will +take your hint and not give him the chance." It fills me with horrible +amusement to observe the way in which the earnest Socialist +industriously lays the foundation of all aristocracy, expatiating +blandly upon the evident unfitness of the poor to rule. It is like +listening to somebody at an evening party apologising for entering +without evening dress, and explaining that he had recently been +intoxicated, had a personal habit of taking off his clothes in the +street, and had, moreover, only just changed from prison uniform. At any +moment, one feels, the host might say that really, if it was as bad as +that, he need not come in at all. So it is when the ordinary Socialist, +with a beaming face, proves that the poor, after their smashing +experiences, cannot be really trustworthy. At any moment the rich may +say, " Very well, then, we won't trust them," and bang the door in his +face. On the basis of Mr. Blatchford's view of heredity and environment, +the case for the aristocracy is quite overwhelming. If clean homes and +clean air make clean souls, why not give the power (for the present at +any rate) to those who undoubtedly have the clean air? If better +conditions will make the poor more fit to govern themselves, why should +not better conditions already make the rich more fit to govern them? On +the ordinary environment argument the matter is fairly manifest. The +comfortable class must be merely our vanguard in Utopia. + +Is there any answer to the proposition that those who have had the best +opportunities will probably be our best guides? Is there any answer to +the argument that those who have breathed clean air had better decide +for those who have breathed foul? As far as I know, there is only one +answer, and that answer is Christianity. Only the Christian Church can +offer any rational objection to a complete confidence in the rich. For +she has maintained from the beginning that the danger was not in man's +environment, but in man. Further, she has maintained that if we come to +talk of a dangerous environment, the most dangerous environment of all +is the commodious environment. I know that the most modern manufacture +has been really occupied in trying to produce an abnormally large +needle. I know that the most recent biologists have been chiefly anxious +to discover a very small camel. But if we diminish the camel to his +smallest, or open the eye of the needle to its largest-i4 in short, we +assume the words of Christ to have meant the very least that they could +mean, His words must at the very least mean this-that rich men are not +very likely to be morally trustworthy. Christianity even when watered +down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags. The mere minimum +of the Church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world. For the whole +modern world is absolutely based on the assumption, not that the rich +are necessary (which is tenable), but that the rich are trustworthy, +which (for a Christian) is not tenable. You will hear everlastingly, in +all discussions about newspapers, companies, aristocracies, or party +politics, this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, +of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That +is why he is a rich man. The whole case for Christianity is that a man +who is dependent upon the luxuries of this life is a corrupt man, +spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially corrupt. There is +one thing that Christ and all the Christian saints have said with a sort +of savage monotony. They have said simply that to be rich is to be in +peculiar danger of moral wreck. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to +kill the rich as violators of definable justice. It is not demonstrably +un-Christian to crown the rich as convenient rulers of society. It is +not certainly un-Christian to rebel against the rich or to submit to the +rich. But it is quite certainly un-Christian to trust the rich, to +regard the rich as more morally safe than the poor. A Christian may +consistently say, " I respect that man's rank, although he takes +bribes." But a Christian cannot say, as all modern men are saying at +lunch and breakfast, "a man of that rank would not take bribes." For it +is a part of Christian dogma that any man in any rank may take bribes. +It is a part of Christian dogma; it also happens by a curious +coincidence that it is a part of obvious human history. When people say +that a man" in that position" would be incorruptible, there is no need +to bring Christianity into the discussion. Was Lord Bacon a bootblack? +Was the Duke of Marlborough a crossing sweeper? In the best Utopia, I +must be prepared for the moral fall of any man in any position at any +moment; especially for my fall from my position at this moment. + +Much vague and sentimental journalism has been poured out to the effect +that Christianity is akin to democracy, and most of it is scarcely +strong or clear enough to refute the fact that the two things have often +quarrelled. The real round upon which Christianity and democracy are one +is very much deeper. The one specially and peculiarly un-Christian idea +is the idea of Carlyle---the idea that the man should rule who feels +that he can rule. Whatever else is Christian, this is heathen. If our +faith comments on government at all, its comment must be this---that the +man should rule who does *not* think that he can rule. Carlyle's hero +may say, "I will be king"; but the Christian saint must say, "Nolo +episcopari." If the great paradox of Christianity means anything, it +means this---that we must take the crown in our hands, and go hunting in +dry places and dark corners of the earth until we find the one man who +feels himself unfit to wear it. Carlyle was quite wrong; we have not got +to crown the exceptional man who knows he can rule. Rather we must crown +the much more exceptional man who knows he can't. + +Now, this is one of the two or three vital defences of working +democracy. The mere machinery of voting is not democracy, though at +present it is not easy to effect any simpler democratic method. But even +the machinery of voting is profoundly Christian in this practical +sense-that it is an attempt to get at the opinion of those who would be +too modest to offer it. It is a mystical adventure; It is specially +trusting those who do not trust themselves. That enigma is strictly +peculiar to Christendom. There is nothing really humble about the +abnegation of the Buddhist; the mild Hindu is mild, but he is not meek. +But there is something psychologically Christian about the idea of +seeking for the opinion of the obscure rather than taking the obvious +course of accepting the opinion of the prominent. To say that voting is +particularly Christian may seem somewhat curious. To say that canvassing +is Christian may seem quite crazy. But canvassing is very Christian in +its primary idea. It is encouraging the humble; it is saying to the +modest man, cc Friend, go up higher." Or if there is some slight defect +in canvassing, that is in its perfect and rounded piety, it is only +because it may possibly neglect to encourage the modesty of the +canvasser. + +Aristocracy is not an institution: aristocracy is a sin; generally a +very venial one. It is merely the drift or slide of men into a sort of +natural pomposity and praise of the powerful, which is the most easy and +obvious affair in the world. + +It is one of the hundred answers to the fugitive perversion of modern +"force" that the promptest and boldest agencies are also the most +fragile or full of sensibility. The swiftest things are the softest +things. A bird is active, because a bird is soft. A stone is helpless, +because a stone is hard. The stone must by its own nature go downwards, +because hardness is weakness. The bird can of its nature go upwards, +because fragility is force. In perfect force there is a kind of +frivolity, an airiness that can maintain itself in the air. Modern +investigators of miraculous history have solemnly admitted that a +characteristic of the great saints is their power of "levitation." They +might go further; a characteristic of the great saints is their power of +levity. Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. This +has been always the instinct of Christendom, and especially the instinct +of Christian art. Remember how Fra Angelico represented all his angels, +not only as birds, but almost as butterflies. Remember how the most +earnest mediaeval art was full of light and fluttering draperies, of +quick and capering feet. It was the one thing that the modern +Pre-Raphaelites could not imitate in the real Pre-Raphaelites. +BurneJones could never recover the deep levity of the Middle Ages. In +the old Christian pictures the sky over every figure is like a blue or +gold parachute. Every figure seems ready to fly up and float about in +the heavens. The tattered cloak of the beggar will bear him up like the +rayed plumes of the angels. But the kings in their heavy gold and the +proud in their robes of purple will all of their nature sink downwards, +for pride cannot rise to levity or levitation. Pride is the downward +drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One" settles down" into a sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay -self-forgetfulness. A man "falls" into a brown study; he -reaches up at a blue sky. Seriousness is not a virtue. It -would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say -that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or -lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the -easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good -*Times* leading article than a good joke in *Punch*. For -solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a -leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell -by the force of gravity. - -Now, it is the peculiar honour of Europe since it has been -Christian that while it has had aristocracy it has always at -the back of its heart treated aristocracy as a -weakness---generally as a weakness that must be allowed for. -If anyone wishes to appreciate this point, let him go -outside Christianity into some other philosophical -atmosphere. Let him, for instance, compare the classes of -Europe with the castes of India. There aristocracy is far -more awful, because it is far more intellectual. It is -seriously felt that the scale of classes is a scale of -spiritual values; that the baker is better than the butcher -in an invisible and sacred sense. But no Christianity, not -even the most ignorant or perverse, ever suggested that a -baronet was better than a butcher in that sacred sense. No -Christianity, however ignorant or extravagant, ever -suggested that a duke would not be damned. In pagan society -there may have been (I do not know) some such serious -division between the free man and the slave. But in -Christian society we have always thought the gentleman a -sort of joke, though I admit that in some great crusades and -councils he earned the right to be caned a practical joke. -But we in Europe never really and at the root of our souls -took aristocracy seriously. It is only an occasional -non-European alien (such as Dr. Oscar Levy, the only -intelligent Nietzscheite) who can even manage for a moment -to take aristocracy seriously. It may be a mere patriotic -bias, though I do not think so, but it seems to me that the -English aristocracy is not only the type, but is the crown -and flower of all actual aristocracies; it has all the -oligarchical virtues as well as all the defects. It is -casual, it is kind, it is courageous in obvious matters; but -it has one great merit that overlaps even these. The great -and very obvious merit of the English aristocracy is that -nobody could possibly take it seriously. - -In short, I had spelled out slowly, as usual, the need for -an equal law in Utopia; and, as usual, I found that -Christianity had been there before me. The whole history of -my Utopia has the same amusing sadness. I was always rushing -out of my architectural study with plans for a new turret -only to find it sitting up there in the sunlight, shining, -and a thousand years old. For me, in the ancient and partly -in the modern sense, God answered the prayer, "Prevent us, O -Lord, in all our doings." Without vanity, I really think -there was a moment when I could have invented the marriage -vow (as an institution) out of my own head; but I -discovered, with a sigh, that it had been invented already. -But, since it would be too long a business to show how, fact -by fact and inch by inch, my own conception of Utopia was -only answered in the New Jerusalem, I will take this one -case of the matter of marriage as indicating the converging -drift, I may say the converging crash of all the rest. - -When the ordinary opponents of Socialism talk about -impossibilities and alterations in human nature they always -miss an important distinction. In modern ideal conceptions -of society there are some desires that are possibly not -attainable: but there are some desires that are not -desirable. That all men should live in equally beautiful -houses is a dream that mayor may not be attained. But that -all men should live in the same beautiful house is not a -dream at all; it is a nightmare. That a man should love all -old women is an ideal that may not be attainable. But that a -man should regard all old women exactly as he regards his -mother is not only an unattainable ideal, but an ideal which -ought not to be attained. I do not know if the reader agrees -with me in these examples; but I will add the example which -has always affected me most. I could never conceive or -tolerate any Utopia which did not leave to me the liberty -for which I chiefly care, the liberty to bind myself. -Complete anarchy would not merely make it impossible to have -any discipline or fidelity; it would also make it impossible -to have any fun. To take an obvious instance, it would not -be worth while to bet if a bet were not binding. The -dissolution of all contracts would not only ruin morality -but spoil sport. Now betting and such sports are only the -stunted and twisted shapes of the original instinct of man -for adventure and romance, of which much has been said in -these pages. And the perils, rewards, punishments, and -fulfilments of an adventure must be *real*, or the adventure -is only a shifting and heartless nightmare. If I bet I must -be made to pay, or there is no poetry in betting. If I -challenge I must be made to fight, or there is no poetry in -challenging. If I vow to be faithful I must be cursed when I -am unfaithful, or there is no fun in vowing. You could not -even make a fairy tale from the experiences of a man who, -when he was swallowed by a whale, might find himself at the -top of the Eiffel Tower, or when he was turned into a frog -might begin to behave like a flamingo. For the purpose even -of the wildest romance, results must be real; results must -be irrevocable. Christian marriage is the great example of a -real and irrevocable result; and that is why it is the chief -subject and centre of all our romantic writing. And this is -my last instance of the things that I should ask, and ask -imperatively, of any social paradise; I should ask to be -kept to my bargain, to have my oaths and engagements taken -seriously; I should ask Utopia to avenge my honour on -myself. - -All my modern Utopian friends look at each other rather -doubtfully, for their ultimate hope is the dissolution of -all special ties. But again I seem to hear, like a kind of -echo, an answer from beyond the world. "You will have real -obligations, and therefore real adventures when you get to -my Utopia. But the hardest obligation and the steepest -adventure is to get there." +self-forgetfulness. A man "falls" into a brown study; he reaches up at a +blue sky. Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much +more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a +natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the +easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good *Times* leading +article than a good joke in *Punch*. For solemnity flows out of men +naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be +light. Satan fell by the force of gravity. + +Now, it is the peculiar honour of Europe since it has been Christian +that while it has had aristocracy it has always at the back of its heart +treated aristocracy as a weakness---generally as a weakness that must be +allowed for. If anyone wishes to appreciate this point, let him go +outside Christianity into some other philosophical atmosphere. Let him, +for instance, compare the classes of Europe with the castes of India. +There aristocracy is far more awful, because it is far more +intellectual. It is seriously felt that the scale of classes is a scale +of spiritual values; that the baker is better than the butcher in an +invisible and sacred sense. But no Christianity, not even the most +ignorant or perverse, ever suggested that a baronet was better than a +butcher in that sacred sense. No Christianity, however ignorant or +extravagant, ever suggested that a duke would not be damned. In pagan +society there may have been (I do not know) some such serious division +between the free man and the slave. But in Christian society we have +always thought the gentleman a sort of joke, though I admit that in some +great crusades and councils he earned the right to be caned a practical +joke. But we in Europe never really and at the root of our souls took +aristocracy seriously. It is only an occasional non-European alien (such +as Dr. Oscar Levy, the only intelligent Nietzscheite) who can even +manage for a moment to take aristocracy seriously. It may be a mere +patriotic bias, though I do not think so, but it seems to me that the +English aristocracy is not only the type, but is the crown and flower of +all actual aristocracies; it has all the oligarchical virtues as well as +all the defects. It is casual, it is kind, it is courageous in obvious +matters; but it has one great merit that overlaps even these. The great +and very obvious merit of the English aristocracy is that nobody could +possibly take it seriously. + +In short, I had spelled out slowly, as usual, the need for an equal law +in Utopia; and, as usual, I found that Christianity had been there +before me. The whole history of my Utopia has the same amusing sadness. +I was always rushing out of my architectural study with plans for a new +turret only to find it sitting up there in the sunlight, shining, and a +thousand years old. For me, in the ancient and partly in the modern +sense, God answered the prayer, "Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings." +Without vanity, I really think there was a moment when I could have +invented the marriage vow (as an institution) out of my own head; but I +discovered, with a sigh, that it had been invented already. But, since +it would be too long a business to show how, fact by fact and inch by +inch, my own conception of Utopia was only answered in the New +Jerusalem, I will take this one case of the matter of marriage as +indicating the converging drift, I may say the converging crash of all +the rest. + +When the ordinary opponents of Socialism talk about impossibilities and +alterations in human nature they always miss an important distinction. +In modern ideal conceptions of society there are some desires that are +possibly not attainable: but there are some desires that are not +desirable. That all men should live in equally beautiful houses is a +dream that mayor may not be attained. But that all men should live in +the same beautiful house is not a dream at all; it is a nightmare. That +a man should love all old women is an ideal that may not be attainable. +But that a man should regard all old women exactly as he regards his +mother is not only an unattainable ideal, but an ideal which ought not +to be attained. I do not know if the reader agrees with me in these +examples; but I will add the example which has always affected me most. +I could never conceive or tolerate any Utopia which did not leave to me +the liberty for which I chiefly care, the liberty to bind myself. +Complete anarchy would not merely make it impossible to have any +discipline or fidelity; it would also make it impossible to have any +fun. To take an obvious instance, it would not be worth while to bet if +a bet were not binding. The dissolution of all contracts would not only +ruin morality but spoil sport. Now betting and such sports are only the +stunted and twisted shapes of the original instinct of man for adventure +and romance, of which much has been said in these pages. And the perils, +rewards, punishments, and fulfilments of an adventure must be *real*, or +the adventure is only a shifting and heartless nightmare. If I bet I +must be made to pay, or there is no poetry in betting. If I challenge I +must be made to fight, or there is no poetry in challenging. If I vow to +be faithful I must be cursed when I am unfaithful, or there is no fun in +vowing. You could not even make a fairy tale from the experiences of a +man who, when he was swallowed by a whale, might find himself at the top +of the Eiffel Tower, or when he was turned into a frog might begin to +behave like a flamingo. For the purpose even of the wildest romance, +results must be real; results must be irrevocable. Christian marriage is +the great example of a real and irrevocable result; and that is why it +is the chief subject and centre of all our romantic writing. And this is +my last instance of the things that I should ask, and ask imperatively, +of any social paradise; I should ask to be kept to my bargain, to have +my oaths and engagements taken seriously; I should ask Utopia to avenge +my honour on myself. + +All my modern Utopian friends look at each other rather doubtfully, for +their ultimate hope is the dissolution of all special ties. But again I +seem to hear, like a kind of echo, an answer from beyond the world. "You +will have real obligations, and therefore real adventures when you get +to my Utopia. But the hardest obligation and the steepest adventure is +to get there." # The Romance of Orthodoxy -It is customary to complain of the bustle and strenuousness -of our epoch. But in truth the chief mark of our epoch is a -profound laziness and fatigue; and the fact is that the real -laziness is the cause of the apparent bustle. Take one quite -external case; the streets are noisy with taxicabs and -motorcars; but this is not due to human activity but to -human repose. There would be less bustle if there were more -activity, if people were simply walking about. Our world -would be more silent if it were more strenuous. And this -which is true of the apparent physical bustle is true also -of the apparent bustle of the intellect. Most of the -machinery of modern language is labour-saving machinery; and -it saves mental labour very much more than it ought. -Scientific phrases are used like scientific wheels and -piston-rods to make swifter and smoother yet the path of the -comfortable. Long words go rattling by us like long railway -trains. We know they are carrying thousands who are too -tired or too indolent to walk and think for themselves. It -is a good exercise to try for once in a way to express any -opinion one holds in words of one syllable. If you say "The -social utility of the indeterminate sentence is recognised -by all criminologists as a part of our sociological -evolution towards a more humane and scientific view of -punishment," you can go on talking like that for hours with -hardly a movement of the grey matter inside your skull. But -if you begin "I wish Jones to go to gaol and Brown to say -when Jones shall come out," you will discover, with a thrill -of horror, that you are obliged to think. The long words are -not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. -There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word "damn" -than in the word "degeneration." - -But these long comfortable words that save modern people the -toil of reasoning have one particular aspect in which they -are especially ruinous and confusing. This difficulty occurs -when the same long word is used in different connections to -mean quite different things. Thus, to take a well-known -instance, the word "idealist" has one meaning as a piece of -philosophy and quite another as a piece of moral rhetoric. -In the same way the scientific materialists have had just -reason to complain of people mixing up "materialist" as a -term of cosmology with "materialist" as a moral taunt. So, -to take a cheaper instance, the man who hates "progressives" -in London always calls himself a "progressive" in South -Africa. - -A confusion quite as unmeaning as this has arisen in -connection with the word "liberal" as applied to religion -and as applied to politics and society. It is often -suggested that all Liberals ought to be freethinkers, -because they ought to love everything that is free. You -might just as well say that all idealists ought to be High -Churchmen, because they ought to love everything that is -high. You might as well say that Low Churchmen ought to like -Low Mass, or that Broad Churchmen ought to like broad jokes. -The thing is a mere accident of words. In actual modern -Europe a free-thinker does not mean a man who thinks for -himself. It means a man who, having thought for himself has -come to one particular class of conclusions, the material -origin of phenomena, the impossibility of miracles, the -improbability of personal immortality and so on. And none of -these ideas are particularly liberal. Nay, indeed almost an -these ideas are definitely illiberal, as it is the purpose -of this chapter to show. - -In the few following pages I propose to point out as rapidly -as possible that on every single one of the matters most -strongly insisted on by liberalisers of theology their -effect upon social practice would be definitely illiberal. -Almost every contemporary proposal to bring freedom into the -church is simply a proposal to bring tyranny into the world. -For freeing the church now does not even mean freeing it in -all directions. It means freeing that peculiar set of dogmas -loosely called scientific, dogmas of monism, of pantheism, -or of Arianism, or of necessity. And everyone of these (and -we will take them one by one) can be shown to be the natural -ally of oppression. In fact, it is a remarkable circumstance -(indeed not so very remarkable when one comes to think of -it) that most things are the allies of oppression. There is -only one thing that can never go past a certain point in its -alliance with oppression---and that is orthodoxy. I may, it -is true, twist orthodoxy so as partly to justify a tyrant. -But I can easily make up a German philosophy to justify him -entirely. - -N ow let us take in order the innovations that are the notes -of the new theology or the modernist church. We concluded -the last chapter with the discovery of one of them. The very -doctrine which is called the most old-fashioned was found to -be the only safeguard of the new democracies of the earth. -The doctrine seemingly most unpopular was found to be the -only strength of the people. In short, we found that the -only logical negation of oligarchy was in the affirmation of -original sin. So it is, I maintain, in all the other cases. - -I take the most obvious instance first, the case of -miracles. For some extraordinary reason, there is a fixed -notion that it is more liberal to disbelieve in miracles -than to believe in them. Why, I cannot imagine, nor can -anybody tell me. For some inconceivable cause a "broad" or -"liberal" clergyman always means a man who wishes at least -to diminish the number of miracles; it never means a man who -wishes to increase that number. It always means a man who is -free to disbelieve that Christ came out of His grave; it -never means a man who is free to believe that his own aunt -came out of her grave. It is common to find trouble in a -parish because the parish priest cannot admit that St. Peter -walked on water; yet how rarely do we find trouble in a -parish because the clergyman says that his father walked on -the Serpentine? And this is not because (as the swift -secularist debater would immediately retort) miracles cannot -be believed in our experience. It is not because "miracles -do not happen," as in the dogma which Matthew Arnold recited -with simple faith. More supernatural things are *alleged* to -have happened in our time than would have been possible -eighty years ago. Men of science believe in such marvels -much more than they did: the most perplexing, and even -horrible, prodigies of mind and spirit are always being -unveiled in modern psychology. Things that the old science -at least would frankly have rejected as miracles are hourly -being asserted by the new science. The only thing which is -still old-fashioned enough to reject miracles is the New -Theology. But in truth this notion that it is "free" to deny -miracles has nothing to do with the evidence for or against -them. It is a lifeless verbal prejudice of which the -original life and beginning was not in the freedom of -thought, but simply in the dogma of materialism. The man of -the nineteenth century did not disbelieve in the -Resurrection because his liberal Christianity allowed him to -doubt it. He disbelieved in it because his very strict -materialism did not allow him to believe it. Tennyson, a -very typical nineteenth-century man, uttered one of the -instinctive truisms of his contemporaries when he said that -there was faith in their honest doubt. There was indeed. -Those words have a profound and even a horrible truth. In -their doubt of miracles there was a faith in a fixed and -godless fate; a deep and sincere faith in the incurable -routine of the cosmos. The doubts of the agnostic were only +It is customary to complain of the bustle and strenuousness of our +epoch. But in truth the chief mark of our epoch is a profound laziness +and fatigue; and the fact is that the real laziness is the cause of the +apparent bustle. Take one quite external case; the streets are noisy +with taxicabs and motorcars; but this is not due to human activity but +to human repose. There would be less bustle if there were more activity, +if people were simply walking about. Our world would be more silent if +it were more strenuous. And this which is true of the apparent physical +bustle is true also of the apparent bustle of the intellect. Most of the +machinery of modern language is labour-saving machinery; and it saves +mental labour very much more than it ought. Scientific phrases are used +like scientific wheels and piston-rods to make swifter and smoother yet +the path of the comfortable. Long words go rattling by us like long +railway trains. We know they are carrying thousands who are too tired or +too indolent to walk and think for themselves. It is a good exercise to +try for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of one +syllable. If you say "The social utility of the indeterminate sentence +is recognised by all criminologists as a part of our sociological +evolution towards a more humane and scientific view of punishment," you +can go on talking like that for hours with hardly a movement of the grey +matter inside your skull. But if you begin "I wish Jones to go to gaol +and Brown to say when Jones shall come out," you will discover, with a +thrill of horror, that you are obliged to think. The long words are not +the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more +metaphysical subtlety in the word "damn" than in the word +"degeneration." + +But these long comfortable words that save modern people the toil of +reasoning have one particular aspect in which they are especially +ruinous and confusing. This difficulty occurs when the same long word is +used in different connections to mean quite different things. Thus, to +take a well-known instance, the word "idealist" has one meaning as a +piece of philosophy and quite another as a piece of moral rhetoric. In +the same way the scientific materialists have had just reason to +complain of people mixing up "materialist" as a term of cosmology with +"materialist" as a moral taunt. So, to take a cheaper instance, the man +who hates "progressives" in London always calls himself a "progressive" +in South Africa. + +A confusion quite as unmeaning as this has arisen in connection with the +word "liberal" as applied to religion and as applied to politics and +society. It is often suggested that all Liberals ought to be +freethinkers, because they ought to love everything that is free. You +might just as well say that all idealists ought to be High Churchmen, +because they ought to love everything that is high. You might as well +say that Low Churchmen ought to like Low Mass, or that Broad Churchmen +ought to like broad jokes. The thing is a mere accident of words. In +actual modern Europe a free-thinker does not mean a man who thinks for +himself. It means a man who, having thought for himself has come to one +particular class of conclusions, the material origin of phenomena, the +impossibility of miracles, the improbability of personal immortality and +so on. And none of these ideas are particularly liberal. Nay, indeed +almost an these ideas are definitely illiberal, as it is the purpose of +this chapter to show. + +In the few following pages I propose to point out as rapidly as possible +that on every single one of the matters most strongly insisted on by +liberalisers of theology their effect upon social practice would be +definitely illiberal. Almost every contemporary proposal to bring +freedom into the church is simply a proposal to bring tyranny into the +world. For freeing the church now does not even mean freeing it in all +directions. It means freeing that peculiar set of dogmas loosely called +scientific, dogmas of monism, of pantheism, or of Arianism, or of +necessity. And everyone of these (and we will take them one by one) can +be shown to be the natural ally of oppression. In fact, it is a +remarkable circumstance (indeed not so very remarkable when one comes to +think of it) that most things are the allies of oppression. There is +only one thing that can never go past a certain point in its alliance +with oppression---and that is orthodoxy. I may, it is true, twist +orthodoxy so as partly to justify a tyrant. But I can easily make up a +German philosophy to justify him entirely. + +N ow let us take in order the innovations that are the notes of the new +theology or the modernist church. We concluded the last chapter with the +discovery of one of them. The very doctrine which is called the most +old-fashioned was found to be the only safeguard of the new democracies +of the earth. The doctrine seemingly most unpopular was found to be the +only strength of the people. In short, we found that the only logical +negation of oligarchy was in the affirmation of original sin. So it is, +I maintain, in all the other cases. + +I take the most obvious instance first, the case of miracles. For some +extraordinary reason, there is a fixed notion that it is more liberal to +disbelieve in miracles than to believe in them. Why, I cannot imagine, +nor can anybody tell me. For some inconceivable cause a "broad" or +"liberal" clergyman always means a man who wishes at least to diminish +the number of miracles; it never means a man who wishes to increase that +number. It always means a man who is free to disbelieve that Christ came +out of His grave; it never means a man who is free to believe that his +own aunt came out of her grave. It is common to find trouble in a parish +because the parish priest cannot admit that St. Peter walked on water; +yet how rarely do we find trouble in a parish because the clergyman says +that his father walked on the Serpentine? And this is not because (as +the swift secularist debater would immediately retort) miracles cannot +be believed in our experience. It is not because "miracles do not +happen," as in the dogma which Matthew Arnold recited with simple faith. +More supernatural things are *alleged* to have happened in our time than +would have been possible eighty years ago. Men of science believe in +such marvels much more than they did: the most perplexing, and even +horrible, prodigies of mind and spirit are always being unveiled in +modern psychology. Things that the old science at least would frankly +have rejected as miracles are hourly being asserted by the new science. +The only thing which is still old-fashioned enough to reject miracles is +the New Theology. But in truth this notion that it is "free" to deny +miracles has nothing to do with the evidence for or against them. It is +a lifeless verbal prejudice of which the original life and beginning was +not in the freedom of thought, but simply in the dogma of materialism. +The man of the nineteenth century did not disbelieve in the Resurrection +because his liberal Christianity allowed him to doubt it. He disbelieved +in it because his very strict materialism did not allow him to believe +it. Tennyson, a very typical nineteenth-century man, uttered one of the +instinctive truisms of his contemporaries when he said that there was +faith in their honest doubt. There was indeed. Those words have a +profound and even a horrible truth. In their doubt of miracles there was +a faith in a fixed and godless fate; a deep and sincere faith in the +incurable routine of the cosmos. The doubts of the agnostic were only the dogmas of the monist. -Of the fact and evidence of the supernatural I will speak -afterwards. Here we are only concerned with this clear -point; that in so far as the liberal idea of freedom can be -said to be on either side in the discussion about miracles, -it is obviously on the side of miracles. Reform or (in the -only tolerable sense) progress means simply the gradual -control of matter by mind. A miracle simply means the swift -control of matter by mind. If you wish to feed the people, -you may think that feeding them miraculously in the -wilderness is impossible---but you cannot think it -illiberal. If you really want poor children to go to the -seaside, you cannot think it illiberal that they should go -there on flying dragons; you can only think it unlikely. A -holiday, like Liberalism, only means the liberty of man. A -miracle only means the liberty of God. You may -conscientiously deny either of them, but you cannot call -your denial a triumph of the liberal idea. The Catholic -Church believed that man and God both had a sort of -spiritual freedom. Calvinism took away the freedom from man, -but left it to God. Scientific materialism binds the Creator -Himself; it chains up God as the Apocalypse chained the -devil. It leaves nothing free in the universe. And those who -assist this process are caned the cc liberal theologians. " - -This, as I say, is the lightest and most evident case. The -assumption that there is something in the doubt of miracles -akin to liberality or reform is literally the opposite of -the truth. If a man cannot believe in miracles there is an -end of the matter; he is not particularly liberal, but he is -perfectly honourable and logical, which are much better -things. But if he can believe in miracles, he is certainly -the more liberal for doing so; because they mean first, the -freedom of the soul, and secondly, its control over the -tyranny of circumstance. Sometimes this truth is ignored in -a singularly naïve way, even by the ablest men. For -instance, Mr. Bernard Shaw speaks with a hearty -old-fashioned contempt for the idea of miracles, as if they -were a sort of breach of faith on the part of nature: he -seems strangely unconscious that miracles are only the final -flowers of his own favourite tree, the doctrine of the -omnipotence of will. Just in the same way he calls the -desire for immortality a paltry selfishness, forgetting that -he has just called the desire for life a healthy and heroic -selfishness. How can it be noble to wish to make one's life -infinite and yet mean to wish to make it immortal? No, if it -is desirable that man should triumph over the cruelty of -nature or custom, then miracles are certainly desirable; we -will discuss afterwards whether they are possible. - -But I must pass on to the larger cases of this curious -error; the notion that the "liberalising" of religion in -some way helps the liberation ot the world. The second -example of it can be found in the question of pantheism-or -rather of a certain modern attitude which is often called -immanentism, and which often is Buddhism. But this is so -much more difficult a matter that I must approach wit ith -rather more preparation. - -The things said most confidently by advanced persons to -crowded audiences are generally those quite opposite to the -fact; it is actually our truisms that are untrue. Here is a -case. There is a phrase of facile liberality uttered again -and again at ethical societies and parliaments of religion: -"the religions of the earth differ in rites and forms, but -they are the same in what they teach." It is false; it is -the opposite of the fact. The religions of the earth do not -greatly differ in rites and forms; they do greatly differ in -what they teach. It is as if a man were to say, "Do not be -misled by the fact that the *Church Times* and the -*Freethinker* look utterly different, that one is painted on -vellum and the other carved on marble, that one is -triangular and the other hectagonal; read them and you will -see that they say the same thing." The truth is, of course, -that they are alike in everything except in the fact that -they don't say the same thing. An atheist stockbroker in -Surbiton looks exactly like a Swedenborgian stockbroker in -Wimbledon. You may walk round and round them and subject -them to the most personal and offensive study without seeing -anything Swedenborgian in the hat or anything particularly -godless in the umbrella. It is exactly in their souls that -they are divided. So the truth is that the difficulty of all -the creeds of the earth is not as alleged in this cheap -maxim: that they agree in meaning, but differ in machinery. -It is exactly the opposite. They agree in machinery; almost -every great religion on earth works with the same external -methods, with priests, scriptures, altars, sworn -brotherhoods, special feasts. They agree in the mode of -teaching; what they differ about is the thing to be taught. -Pagan optimists and Eastern pessimists would both have -temples, just as Liberals and Tories would both have -newspapers. Creeds that exist to destroy each other both -have scriptures, just as armies that exist to destroy each -other both have guns. - -The great example of this alleged identity of all human -religions is the alleged spiritual identity of Buddhism and -Christianity. Those who adopt this theory generally avoid -the ethics of most other creeds, except, indeed, -Confucianism, which they like because it is not a creed. But -they are cautious in their praises of Islam, generally -confining themselves to imposing its morality only upon the -refreshment of the lower classes. They seldom suggest the -Islamic view of marriage (for which there is a great deal to -be said), and towards Thugs and fetish worshippers their -attitude may even be called cold. But in the case of the -great religion of Gautama they feel sincerely a similarity. - -Students of popular science, like Mr. Blatchford, are always -insisting that Christianity and Buddhism are very much -alike, especially Buddhism. This is generally believed, and -I believed it myself until I read a book giving the reasons -for it. The reasons were of two kinds: resemblances that -meant nothing because they were common to all humanity, and -resemblances which were not resemblances at all. The author -solemnly explained that the two creeds were alike in things -in which an creeds are alike, or else he described them as -alike in some point in which they are quite obviously -different. Thus, as a case of the first class, he said that -both Christ and Buddha were called by the divine voice -coming out of the sky, as if you would expect the divine -voice to come out of the coal-cellar. Or, again, it was -gravely urged that these two Eastern teachers, by a singular -coincidence, both had to do with the washing of feet. You -might as well say that it was a remarkable coincidence that -they both had feet to wash. And the other class of -similarities were those which simply were not similar. Thus -this reconciler of the two religions draws earnest attention -to the fact that at certain religious feasts the robe of the -Lama is rent in pieces out of respect, and the remnants -highly valued. But this is the reverse of a resemblance, for -the garments of Christ were not rent in pieces out of -respect, but out of derision; and the remnants were not -highly valued except for what they would fetch in the rag -shops. It is rather like alluding to the obvious connection -between the two ceremonies of the sword: when it taps a -man's shoulder, and when it cuts off his head. It is not at -all similar for the man. These scraps of puerile pedantry -would indeed matter little if it were not also true that the -alleged philosophical resemblances are also of these two -kinds, either proving too much or not proving anything. That -Buddhism approves of mercy or of self-restraint is not to -say that it is specially like Christianity; it is only to -say that it is not utterly unlike all human existence. -Buddhists disapprove in theory of cruelty or excess because -all sane human beings disapprove in theory of cruelty or -excess. But to say that Buddhism and Christianity give the -same philosophy of these things is simply false. All -humanity does agree that we are in a net of sin. Most of -humanity agrees that there is some way out. But as to what -is the way out, I do not think that there are two -institutions in the universe which contradict each other so -flatly as Buddhism and Christianity. - -Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, though -unscholarly, people, that Buddhism and Christianity were -alike, there was one thing about them that always perplexed -me; I mean the startling difference in their type of -religious art. I do not mean in its technical style of -representation, but in the things that it was manifestly -meant to represent. No two ideals could be more opposite -than a Christian saint in a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist -saint in a Chinese temple. The opposition exists at every -point; but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the -Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut, while the Christian -saint always has them very wide open. The Buddhist saint has -a sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are heavy and -sealed with sleep. The mediaeval saint's body is wasted to -its crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive. There -cannot be any real community of spirit between forces that -produced symbols so different as that. Granted that both -images are extravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, -it must be a real divergence which could produce such -opposite extravagances. The Buddhist is looking with a -peculiar intentness inwards. The Christian is staring with a -frantic intentness outwards. If we follow that clue steadily -we shall find some interesting things. - -A short time ago Mrs. Besant, in an interesting essay, -announced that there was only one religion in the world, -that all faiths were only versions or perversions of it, and -that she was quite prepared to say what it was. According to -Mrs. Besant this universal Church is simply the universal -self. It is the doctrine that we are really all one person; -that there are no real walls of individuality between man -and man. If I may put it so, she does not tell us to love -our neighbours; she tells us to be our neighbours. That is -Mrs. Besant's thoughtful and suggestive description of the -religion in which all men must find themselves in agreement. -And I never heard of any suggestion in my life with which I -more violently disagree. I want to love my neighbour not -because he is I, but precisely because he is not I. I want -to adore the world, not as one likes a looking-glass, -because it is one's self but as one loves a woman, because -she is entirely different. If souls are separate love is -possible. If souls are united love is obviously impossible. -A man may be said loosely to love himself but he can hardly -fall in love with himself, or, if he does, it must be a -monotonous courtship. If the world is full of real selves, -they can be really unselfish selves. But upon Mrs. Besant's -principle the whole cosmos is only one enormously selfish -person. - -It is just here that Buddhism is on the side of modern -pantheism and immanence. And it is just here that -Christianity is on the side of humanity and liberty and -love. Love desires personality; therefore love desires -division. It is the instinct of Christianity to be glad that -God has broken the universe into little pieces, because they -are living pieces. I t is her instinct to say" little -children love one another" rather than to tell one large -person to love himself. This is the intellectual abyss -between Buddhism and Christianity; that for the Buddhist or -Theosophist personality is the fall of man, for the -Christian it is the purpose of God, the whole point of his -cosmic idea. The world-soul of the Theosophists asks man to -love it only in order that man may throw himself into it. -But the divine centre of Christianity actually threw man out -of it in order that he might love it. The oriental deity is -like a giant who should have lost his leg or hand and be -always seeking to find it; but the Christian power is like -some giant who in a strange generosity should cut off his -right hand, so that it might of its own accord shake hands -with him. We come back to the same tireless note touching -the nature of Christianity; all modern philosophies are -chains which connect and fetter; Christianity is a sword -which separates and sets free. No other philosophy makes God -actually rejoice in the separation of the universe into -living souls. But according to orthodox Christianity this -separation between God and man is sacred, because this is -eternal. That a man may love God it is necessary that there -should be not only a God to be loved, but a man to love him. -All those vague theosophical minds for whom the universe is -an immense melting-pot are exactly the minds which shrink -instinctively from that earthquake saying of our Gospels, -which declare that the Son of God came not with peace but -with a sundering sword. The saying rings entirely true even -considered as what it obviously is; the statement that any -man who preaches real love is bound to beget hate. I t is as -true of democratic fraternity as of divine love; sham love -ends in compromise and common philosophy; but real love has -always ended in bloodshed. Yet there is another and yet more -awful truth behind the obvious meaning of this utterance of -our Lord. According to Himself the Son was a sword -separating brother and brother that they should for an æon -hate each other. But the Father also was a sword, which in -the black beginning separated brother and brother, so that -they should love each other at last. - -This is the meaning of that almost insane happiness in the -eyes of the mediaeval saint in the picture. This is the -meaning of the sealed eyes of the superb Buddhist image. The -Christian saint is happy because he has verily been cut off -from the world; he is separate from things and is staring at -them in astonishment. But why should the Buddhist saint be -astonished at things? since there is really only one thing, -and that being impersonal can hardly be astonished at -itself. There have been many pantheist poems suggesting -wonder, but no really successful ones. The pantheist cannot -wonder, for he cannot praise God or praise anything as -really distinct from himself. Our immediate business here -however is with the effect of this Christian admiration -(which strikes outwards, towards a deity distinct from the -worshipper) upon the general need for ethical activity and -social reform. And surely its effect is sufficiently -obvious. There is no real possibility of getting out of -pantheism any special impulse to moral action. For pantheism -implies in its nature that one thing is as good as another; -whereas action implies in its nature that one thing is -greatly preferable to another. Swinburne in the high summer -of his scepticism tried in vain to wrestle with this. -difficulty. In "Songs before Sunrise," written under the -inspiration of Garibaldi and the revolt of Italy, he -proclaimed the newer religion and the purer God which should -wither up all the priests of the world. +Of the fact and evidence of the supernatural I will speak afterwards. +Here we are only concerned with this clear point; that in so far as the +liberal idea of freedom can be said to be on either side in the +discussion about miracles, it is obviously on the side of miracles. +Reform or (in the only tolerable sense) progress means simply the +gradual control of matter by mind. A miracle simply means the swift +control of matter by mind. If you wish to feed the people, you may think +that feeding them miraculously in the wilderness is impossible---but you +cannot think it illiberal. If you really want poor children to go to the +seaside, you cannot think it illiberal that they should go there on +flying dragons; you can only think it unlikely. A holiday, like +Liberalism, only means the liberty of man. A miracle only means the +liberty of God. You may conscientiously deny either of them, but you +cannot call your denial a triumph of the liberal idea. The Catholic +Church believed that man and God both had a sort of spiritual freedom. +Calvinism took away the freedom from man, but left it to God. Scientific +materialism binds the Creator Himself; it chains up God as the +Apocalypse chained the devil. It leaves nothing free in the universe. +And those who assist this process are caned the cc liberal theologians. +" + +This, as I say, is the lightest and most evident case. The assumption +that there is something in the doubt of miracles akin to liberality or +reform is literally the opposite of the truth. If a man cannot believe +in miracles there is an end of the matter; he is not particularly +liberal, but he is perfectly honourable and logical, which are much +better things. But if he can believe in miracles, he is certainly the +more liberal for doing so; because they mean first, the freedom of the +soul, and secondly, its control over the tyranny of circumstance. +Sometimes this truth is ignored in a singularly naïve way, even by the +ablest men. For instance, Mr. Bernard Shaw speaks with a hearty +old-fashioned contempt for the idea of miracles, as if they were a sort +of breach of faith on the part of nature: he seems strangely unconscious +that miracles are only the final flowers of his own favourite tree, the +doctrine of the omnipotence of will. Just in the same way he calls the +desire for immortality a paltry selfishness, forgetting that he has just +called the desire for life a healthy and heroic selfishness. How can it +be noble to wish to make one's life infinite and yet mean to wish to +make it immortal? No, if it is desirable that man should triumph over +the cruelty of nature or custom, then miracles are certainly desirable; +we will discuss afterwards whether they are possible. + +But I must pass on to the larger cases of this curious error; the notion +that the "liberalising" of religion in some way helps the liberation ot +the world. The second example of it can be found in the question of +pantheism-or rather of a certain modern attitude which is often called +immanentism, and which often is Buddhism. But this is so much more +difficult a matter that I must approach wit ith rather more preparation. + +The things said most confidently by advanced persons to crowded +audiences are generally those quite opposite to the fact; it is actually +our truisms that are untrue. Here is a case. There is a phrase of facile +liberality uttered again and again at ethical societies and parliaments +of religion: "the religions of the earth differ in rites and forms, but +they are the same in what they teach." It is false; it is the opposite +of the fact. The religions of the earth do not greatly differ in rites +and forms; they do greatly differ in what they teach. It is as if a man +were to say, "Do not be misled by the fact that the *Church Times* and +the *Freethinker* look utterly different, that one is painted on vellum +and the other carved on marble, that one is triangular and the other +hectagonal; read them and you will see that they say the same thing." +The truth is, of course, that they are alike in everything except in the +fact that they don't say the same thing. An atheist stockbroker in +Surbiton looks exactly like a Swedenborgian stockbroker in Wimbledon. +You may walk round and round them and subject them to the most personal +and offensive study without seeing anything Swedenborgian in the hat or +anything particularly godless in the umbrella. It is exactly in their +souls that they are divided. So the truth is that the difficulty of all +the creeds of the earth is not as alleged in this cheap maxim: that they +agree in meaning, but differ in machinery. It is exactly the opposite. +They agree in machinery; almost every great religion on earth works with +the same external methods, with priests, scriptures, altars, sworn +brotherhoods, special feasts. They agree in the mode of teaching; what +they differ about is the thing to be taught. Pagan optimists and Eastern +pessimists would both have temples, just as Liberals and Tories would +both have newspapers. Creeds that exist to destroy each other both have +scriptures, just as armies that exist to destroy each other both have +guns. + +The great example of this alleged identity of all human religions is the +alleged spiritual identity of Buddhism and Christianity. Those who adopt +this theory generally avoid the ethics of most other creeds, except, +indeed, Confucianism, which they like because it is not a creed. But +they are cautious in their praises of Islam, generally confining +themselves to imposing its morality only upon the refreshment of the +lower classes. They seldom suggest the Islamic view of marriage (for +which there is a great deal to be said), and towards Thugs and fetish +worshippers their attitude may even be called cold. But in the case of +the great religion of Gautama they feel sincerely a similarity. + +Students of popular science, like Mr. Blatchford, are always insisting +that Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especially Buddhism. +This is generally believed, and I believed it myself until I read a book +giving the reasons for it. The reasons were of two kinds: resemblances +that meant nothing because they were common to all humanity, and +resemblances which were not resemblances at all. The author solemnly +explained that the two creeds were alike in things in which an creeds +are alike, or else he described them as alike in some point in which +they are quite obviously different. Thus, as a case of the first class, +he said that both Christ and Buddha were called by the divine voice +coming out of the sky, as if you would expect the divine voice to come +out of the coal-cellar. Or, again, it was gravely urged that these two +Eastern teachers, by a singular coincidence, both had to do with the +washing of feet. You might as well say that it was a remarkable +coincidence that they both had feet to wash. And the other class of +similarities were those which simply were not similar. Thus this +reconciler of the two religions draws earnest attention to the fact that +at certain religious feasts the robe of the Lama is rent in pieces out +of respect, and the remnants highly valued. But this is the reverse of a +resemblance, for the garments of Christ were not rent in pieces out of +respect, but out of derision; and the remnants were not highly valued +except for what they would fetch in the rag shops. It is rather like +alluding to the obvious connection between the two ceremonies of the +sword: when it taps a man's shoulder, and when it cuts off his head. It +is not at all similar for the man. These scraps of puerile pedantry +would indeed matter little if it were not also true that the alleged +philosophical resemblances are also of these two kinds, either proving +too much or not proving anything. That Buddhism approves of mercy or of +self-restraint is not to say that it is specially like Christianity; it +is only to say that it is not utterly unlike all human existence. +Buddhists disapprove in theory of cruelty or excess because all sane +human beings disapprove in theory of cruelty or excess. But to say that +Buddhism and Christianity give the same philosophy of these things is +simply false. All humanity does agree that we are in a net of sin. Most +of humanity agrees that there is some way out. But as to what is the way +out, I do not think that there are two institutions in the universe +which contradict each other so flatly as Buddhism and Christianity. + +Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, though unscholarly, +people, that Buddhism and Christianity were alike, there was one thing +about them that always perplexed me; I mean the startling difference in +their type of religious art. I do not mean in its technical style of +representation, but in the things that it was manifestly meant to +represent. No two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian saint +in a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. The +opposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest statement of +it is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut, while the +Christian saint always has them very wide open. The Buddhist saint has a +sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep. +The mediaeval saint's body is wasted to its crazy bones, but his eyes +are frightfully alive. There cannot be any real community of spirit +between forces that produced symbols so different as that. Granted that +both images are extravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, it +must be a real divergence which could produce such opposite +extravagances. The Buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness +inwards. The Christian is staring with a frantic intentness outwards. If +we follow that clue steadily we shall find some interesting things. + +A short time ago Mrs. Besant, in an interesting essay, announced that +there was only one religion in the world, that all faiths were only +versions or perversions of it, and that she was quite prepared to say +what it was. According to Mrs. Besant this universal Church is simply +the universal self. It is the doctrine that we are really all one +person; that there are no real walls of individuality between man and +man. If I may put it so, she does not tell us to love our neighbours; +she tells us to be our neighbours. That is Mrs. Besant's thoughtful and +suggestive description of the religion in which all men must find +themselves in agreement. And I never heard of any suggestion in my life +with which I more violently disagree. I want to love my neighbour not +because he is I, but precisely because he is not I. I want to adore the +world, not as one likes a looking-glass, because it is one's self but as +one loves a woman, because she is entirely different. If souls are +separate love is possible. If souls are united love is obviously +impossible. A man may be said loosely to love himself but he can hardly +fall in love with himself, or, if he does, it must be a monotonous +courtship. If the world is full of real selves, they can be really +unselfish selves. But upon Mrs. Besant's principle the whole cosmos is +only one enormously selfish person. + +It is just here that Buddhism is on the side of modern pantheism and +immanence. And it is just here that Christianity is on the side of +humanity and liberty and love. Love desires personality; therefore love +desires division. It is the instinct of Christianity to be glad that God +has broken the universe into little pieces, because they are living +pieces. I t is her instinct to say" little children love one another" +rather than to tell one large person to love himself. This is the +intellectual abyss between Buddhism and Christianity; that for the +Buddhist or Theosophist personality is the fall of man, for the +Christian it is the purpose of God, the whole point of his cosmic idea. +The world-soul of the Theosophists asks man to love it only in order +that man may throw himself into it. But the divine centre of +Christianity actually threw man out of it in order that he might love +it. The oriental deity is like a giant who should have lost his leg or +hand and be always seeking to find it; but the Christian power is like +some giant who in a strange generosity should cut off his right hand, so +that it might of its own accord shake hands with him. We come back to +the same tireless note touching the nature of Christianity; all modern +philosophies are chains which connect and fetter; Christianity is a +sword which separates and sets free. No other philosophy makes God +actually rejoice in the separation of the universe into living souls. +But according to orthodox Christianity this separation between God and +man is sacred, because this is eternal. That a man may love God it is +necessary that there should be not only a God to be loved, but a man to +love him. All those vague theosophical minds for whom the universe is an +immense melting-pot are exactly the minds which shrink instinctively +from that earthquake saying of our Gospels, which declare that the Son +of God came not with peace but with a sundering sword. The saying rings +entirely true even considered as what it obviously is; the statement +that any man who preaches real love is bound to beget hate. I t is as +true of democratic fraternity as of divine love; sham love ends in +compromise and common philosophy; but real love has always ended in +bloodshed. Yet there is another and yet more awful truth behind the +obvious meaning of this utterance of our Lord. According to Himself the +Son was a sword separating brother and brother that they should for an +æon hate each other. But the Father also was a sword, which in the black +beginning separated brother and brother, so that they should love each +other at last. + +This is the meaning of that almost insane happiness in the eyes of the +mediaeval saint in the picture. This is the meaning of the sealed eyes +of the superb Buddhist image. The Christian saint is happy because he +has verily been cut off from the world; he is separate from things and +is staring at them in astonishment. But why should the Buddhist saint be +astonished at things? since there is really only one thing, and that +being impersonal can hardly be astonished at itself. There have been +many pantheist poems suggesting wonder, but no really successful ones. +The pantheist cannot wonder, for he cannot praise God or praise anything +as really distinct from himself. Our immediate business here however is +with the effect of this Christian admiration (which strikes outwards, +towards a deity distinct from the worshipper) upon the general need for +ethical activity and social reform. And surely its effect is +sufficiently obvious. There is no real possibility of getting out of +pantheism any special impulse to moral action. For pantheism implies in +its nature that one thing is as good as another; whereas action implies +in its nature that one thing is greatly preferable to another. Swinburne +in the high summer of his scepticism tried in vain to wrestle with this. +difficulty. In "Songs before Sunrise," written under the inspiration of +Garibaldi and the revolt of Italy, he proclaimed the newer religion and +the purer God which should wither up all the priests of the world. >  What doest thou now > @@ -5271,1153 +4428,962 @@ wither up all the priests of the world. > > I am low, thou art high, > -> I am thou that thou seekest to find him, find thou but -> thyself, thou art I. - -Of which the immediate and evident deduction is that tyrants -are as much the sons of God as Garibaldis; and that King -Bomba of Naples having, with the utmost success, "found -himself" is identical with the ultimate good in all things. -The truth is that the western energy that dethrones tyrants -has been directly due to the western theology that says "I -am I, thou art thou." The same spiritual separation which -looked up and saw a good king in the universe looked up and -saw a bad king in Naples. The worshippers of Bomba's god -dethroned Bomba. The worshippers of Swinburne's god have -covered Asia for centuries and have never dethroned a -tyrant. The Indian saint may reasonably shut his eyes -because he is looking at that which is I and Thou and We and -They and It. It is a rational occupation: but it is not true -in theory and not true in fact that it helps the Indian to -keep an eye on Lord Curzon. That external vigilance which -has always been the mark of Christianity (the command that -we should *watch* and pray) has expressed itself both in -typical western orthodoxy and in typical western politics: -but both depend on the idea of a divinity transcendent, -different from ourselves, a deity that disappears. Certainly -the most sagacious creeds may suggest that we should pursue -God into deeper and deeper rings of the labyrinth of our own -ego. But only we of Christendom have said that we should -hunt God like an eagle upon the mountains: and we have -killed all monsters in the chase. - -Here again, therefore, we find that in so far as we value -democracy and the self-renewing energies of the west, we are -much more likely to find them in the old theology than the -new. If we want reform, we must adhere to orthodoxy: -especially in this matter (so much disputed in the counsels -of Mr. R. J. Campbell), the matter of insisting on the -immanent or the transcendent deity. By insisting specially -on the immanence of God we get introspection, -self-isolation, quietism, social indifference---Tibet. By -insisting specially on the transcendence of God we get -wonder, curiosity, moral and political adventure, righteous -indignation---Christendom. Insisting that God is inside man, -man is always inside himself. By insisting that God -transcends man, man has transcended himself. - -If we take any other doctrine that has been called -old-fashioned we shall find the case the same. It is the -same, for instance, in the deep matter of the Trinity. -Unitarians (a sect never to be mentioned without a special -respect for their distinguished intellectual dignity and -high intellectual honour) are often reformers by the -accident that throws so many small sects into such an -attitude. But there is nothing in the least liberal or akin -to reform in the substitution of pure monotheism for the -Trinity. The complex God of the Athanasian Creed may be an -enigma for the intellect; but He is far less likely to -gather the mystery and cruelty of a Sultan than the lonely -god of Omar or Mahomet. The god who is a mere awful unity is -not only a king but an Eastern king. The *heart* of -humanity, especially of European humanity, is certainly much -more satisfied by the strange hints and symbols that gather -round the Trinitarian idea, the image of a council at which -mercy pleads as well as justice, the conception of a sort of -liberty and variety existing even in the inmost chamber of -the world. For Western religion has always felt keenly the -idea "it is not well for man to be alone." The social -instinct asserted itself everywhere as when the Eastern idea -of hermits was practically expelled by the Western idea of -monks. So even asceticism became brotherly; and the -Trappists were sociable even when they were silent. If this -love of a living complexity be our test, it is certainly -healthier to have the Trinitarian religion than the -Unitarian. For to us Trinitarians (if I may say it with -reverence)--to us God Himself is a society. It is indeed a -fathomless mystery of theology, and even if I were -theologian enough to deal with it directly, it would not be -relevant to do so here. Suffice it to say here that this -triple enigma is as comforting as wine and open as an -English fireside; that this thing that bewilders the -intellect utterly quiets the heart: but out of the desert, -from the dry places and the dreadful suns, come the cruel -children of the lonely God; the real Unitarians who with -scimitar in hand have laid waste the world. For it is not -well for God to be alone. - -Again, the same is true of that difficult matter of the -danger of the soul, which has unsettled so many just minds. -To hope for all souls is imperative; and it is quite tenable -that their salvation is inevitable. It is tenable, but it is -not specially favourable to activity or progress. Our -fighting and creative society ought rather to insist on the -danger of everybody, on the fact that every man is hanging -by a thread or clinging to a precipice. To say that all will -be well anyhow is a comprehensible remark: but it cannot be -called the blast of a trumpet. Europe ought rather to -emphasise possible perdition; and Europe always has -emphasised it. Here its highest religion is at one with all -its cheapest romances. To the Buddhist or the eastern -fatalist existence is a science or a plan, which must end up -in a certain way. But to a Christian existence is a *story*, -which may end up in any way. In a thrilling novel (that -purely Christian product) the hero is not eaten by -cannibals; but it is essential to the existence of the -thrill that he *might* be eaten by cannibals. The hero must -(so to speak) be an eatable hero. So Christian morals have -always said to the man, not that he would lose his soul, but -that he must take care that he didn't. In Christian morals, -in short, it is wicked to call a man "damned": but it is +> I am thou that thou seekest to find him, find thou but thyself, thou +> art I. + +Of which the immediate and evident deduction is that tyrants are as much +the sons of God as Garibaldis; and that King Bomba of Naples having, +with the utmost success, "found himself" is identical with the ultimate +good in all things. The truth is that the western energy that dethrones +tyrants has been directly due to the western theology that says "I am I, +thou art thou." The same spiritual separation which looked up and saw a +good king in the universe looked up and saw a bad king in Naples. The +worshippers of Bomba's god dethroned Bomba. The worshippers of +Swinburne's god have covered Asia for centuries and have never dethroned +a tyrant. The Indian saint may reasonably shut his eyes because he is +looking at that which is I and Thou and We and They and It. It is a +rational occupation: but it is not true in theory and not true in fact +that it helps the Indian to keep an eye on Lord Curzon. That external +vigilance which has always been the mark of Christianity (the command +that we should *watch* and pray) has expressed itself both in typical +western orthodoxy and in typical western politics: but both depend on +the idea of a divinity transcendent, different from ourselves, a deity +that disappears. Certainly the most sagacious creeds may suggest that we +should pursue God into deeper and deeper rings of the labyrinth of our +own ego. But only we of Christendom have said that we should hunt God +like an eagle upon the mountains: and we have killed all monsters in the +chase. + +Here again, therefore, we find that in so far as we value democracy and +the self-renewing energies of the west, we are much more likely to find +them in the old theology than the new. If we want reform, we must adhere +to orthodoxy: especially in this matter (so much disputed in the +counsels of Mr. R. J. Campbell), the matter of insisting on the immanent +or the transcendent deity. By insisting specially on the immanence of +God we get introspection, self-isolation, quietism, social +indifference---Tibet. By insisting specially on the transcendence of God +we get wonder, curiosity, moral and political adventure, righteous +indignation---Christendom. Insisting that God is inside man, man is +always inside himself. By insisting that God transcends man, man has +transcended himself. + +If we take any other doctrine that has been called old-fashioned we +shall find the case the same. It is the same, for instance, in the deep +matter of the Trinity. Unitarians (a sect never to be mentioned without +a special respect for their distinguished intellectual dignity and high +intellectual honour) are often reformers by the accident that throws so +many small sects into such an attitude. But there is nothing in the +least liberal or akin to reform in the substitution of pure monotheism +for the Trinity. The complex God of the Athanasian Creed may be an +enigma for the intellect; but He is far less likely to gather the +mystery and cruelty of a Sultan than the lonely god of Omar or Mahomet. +The god who is a mere awful unity is not only a king but an Eastern +king. The *heart* of humanity, especially of European humanity, is +certainly much more satisfied by the strange hints and symbols that +gather round the Trinitarian idea, the image of a council at which mercy +pleads as well as justice, the conception of a sort of liberty and +variety existing even in the inmost chamber of the world. For Western +religion has always felt keenly the idea "it is not well for man to be +alone." The social instinct asserted itself everywhere as when the +Eastern idea of hermits was practically expelled by the Western idea of +monks. So even asceticism became brotherly; and the Trappists were +sociable even when they were silent. If this love of a living complexity +be our test, it is certainly healthier to have the Trinitarian religion +than the Unitarian. For to us Trinitarians (if I may say it with +reverence)--to us God Himself is a society. It is indeed a fathomless +mystery of theology, and even if I were theologian enough to deal with +it directly, it would not be relevant to do so here. Suffice it to say +here that this triple enigma is as comforting as wine and open as an +English fireside; that this thing that bewilders the intellect utterly +quiets the heart: but out of the desert, from the dry places and the +dreadful suns, come the cruel children of the lonely God; the real +Unitarians who with scimitar in hand have laid waste the world. For it +is not well for God to be alone. + +Again, the same is true of that difficult matter of the danger of the +soul, which has unsettled so many just minds. To hope for all souls is +imperative; and it is quite tenable that their salvation is inevitable. +It is tenable, but it is not specially favourable to activity or +progress. Our fighting and creative society ought rather to insist on +the danger of everybody, on the fact that every man is hanging by a +thread or clinging to a precipice. To say that all will be well anyhow +is a comprehensible remark: but it cannot be called the blast of a +trumpet. Europe ought rather to emphasise possible perdition; and Europe +always has emphasised it. Here its highest religion is at one with all +its cheapest romances. To the Buddhist or the eastern fatalist existence +is a science or a plan, which must end up in a certain way. But to a +Christian existence is a *story*, which may end up in any way. In a +thrilling novel (that purely Christian product) the hero is not eaten by +cannibals; but it is essential to the existence of the thrill that he +*might* be eaten by cannibals. The hero must (so to speak) be an eatable +hero. So Christian morals have always said to the man, not that he would +lose his soul, but that he must take care that he didn't. In Christian +morals, in short, it is wicked to call a man "damned": but it is strictly religious and philosophic to can him damnable. -All Christianity concentrates on the man at the cross-roads. -The vast and shallow philosophies, the huge syntheses of -humbug, all talk about ages and evolution and ultimate -developments. The true philosophy is concerned with the -instant. Will a man take this road or that? that is the only -thing to think about, if you enjoy thinking. The aeons are -easy enough to think about, anyone can think about them. The -instant is really awful: and it is because our religion has -intensely felt the instant, that it has in literature dealt -much with battle and in theology dealt much with hell. It is -full of *danger*, like a boy's book: it is at an immortal -crisis. There is a great deal of real similarity between -popular fiction and the religion of the western people. If -you say that popular fiction is vulgar and tawdry, you only -say what the dreary and well-informed say also about the -images in the Catholic churches. Life (according to the -faith) is very like a serial story in a magazine: life ends -with the promise (or menace) "to be continued in our next." -Also, with a noble vulgarity, life imitates the serial and -leaves off at the exciting moment. For death is distinctly -an exciting moment. - -But the point is that a story is exciting because it has in -it so strong an element of will, of what theology calls -free-will. You cannot finish a sum how you like. But you can -finish a story how you like. When somebody discovered the -Differential Calculus there was only one Differential -Calculus he could discover. But when Shakespeare killed -Romeo he might have married him to Juliet's old nurse if he -had felt inclined. And Christendom has excelled in the -narrative romance exactly because it has insisted on the -theological freewill. It is a large matter and too much to -one side of the road to be discussed adequately here; but -this is the real objection to that torrent of modern talk -about treating crime as disease, about making a prison -merely a hygienic environment like a hospital, of healing -sin by slow scientific methods. The fallacy of the whole -thing is that evil is a matter of active choice, whereas -disease is not. If you say that you are going to cure a -profligate as you cure an asthmatic, my cheap and obvious -answer is, "Produce the people who want to be asthmatics as -many people want to be profligates." A man may lie still and -be cured of a malady. But he must not lie still if he wants -to be cured of a sin; on the contrary, he must get up and -jump about violently. The whole point indeed is perfectly -expressed in the very word which we use for a man in -hospital; "patient" is in the passive mood; "sinner" is in -the active. If a man is to be saved from influenza, he may -be a patient. But if he is to be saved from forging, he must -be not a patient but an *impatient.* He must be personally -impatient with forgery. All moral reform must start in the +All Christianity concentrates on the man at the cross-roads. The vast +and shallow philosophies, the huge syntheses of humbug, all talk about +ages and evolution and ultimate developments. The true philosophy is +concerned with the instant. Will a man take this road or that? that is +the only thing to think about, if you enjoy thinking. The aeons are easy +enough to think about, anyone can think about them. The instant is +really awful: and it is because our religion has intensely felt the +instant, that it has in literature dealt much with battle and in +theology dealt much with hell. It is full of *danger*, like a boy's +book: it is at an immortal crisis. There is a great deal of real +similarity between popular fiction and the religion of the western +people. If you say that popular fiction is vulgar and tawdry, you only +say what the dreary and well-informed say also about the images in the +Catholic churches. Life (according to the faith) is very like a serial +story in a magazine: life ends with the promise (or menace) "to be +continued in our next." Also, with a noble vulgarity, life imitates the +serial and leaves off at the exciting moment. For death is distinctly an +exciting moment. + +But the point is that a story is exciting because it has in it so strong +an element of will, of what theology calls free-will. You cannot finish +a sum how you like. But you can finish a story how you like. When +somebody discovered the Differential Calculus there was only one +Differential Calculus he could discover. But when Shakespeare killed +Romeo he might have married him to Juliet's old nurse if he had felt +inclined. And Christendom has excelled in the narrative romance exactly +because it has insisted on the theological freewill. It is a large +matter and too much to one side of the road to be discussed adequately +here; but this is the real objection to that torrent of modern talk +about treating crime as disease, about making a prison merely a hygienic +environment like a hospital, of healing sin by slow scientific methods. +The fallacy of the whole thing is that evil is a matter of active +choice, whereas disease is not. If you say that you are going to cure a +profligate as you cure an asthmatic, my cheap and obvious answer is, +"Produce the people who want to be asthmatics as many people want to be +profligates." A man may lie still and be cured of a malady. But he must +not lie still if he wants to be cured of a sin; on the contrary, he must +get up and jump about violently. The whole point indeed is perfectly +expressed in the very word which we use for a man in hospital; "patient" +is in the passive mood; "sinner" is in the active. If a man is to be +saved from influenza, he may be a patient. But if he is to be saved from +forging, he must be not a patient but an *impatient.* He must be +personally impatient with forgery. All moral reform must start in the active not the passive will. -Here again we reach the same substantial conclusion. In so -far as we desire the definite reconstructions and the -dangerous revolutions which have distinguished European -civilisation, we shall not discourage the thought of -possible ruin; we shall rather encourage it. If we want, -like the Eastern saints, merely to contemplate how right -things are, of course we shall only say that they must go -right. But if we particularly want to make them go right, we -must insist that they may go wrong. - -Lastly, this truth is yet again true in the case of the -common modern attempts to diminish or to explain away the -divinity of Christ. The thing may be true or not; that I -shall deal with before I end. But if the divinity is true it -is certainly terribly revolutionary. That a good man may -have his back to the wall is no more than we knew already; -but that God could have his back to the wall is a boast for -all insurgents for ever. Christianity is the only religion -on earth that has felt that omnipotence made God incomplete. -Christianity alone has felt that God, to be wholly God, must -have been a rebel as well as a king. Alone of all creeds, -Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the -Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must -necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point---and -does not break. In this indeed I approach a matter more dark -and awful than it is easy to discuss; and I apologise in -advance if any of my phrases f111 wrong or seem irreverent -touching a matter which the greatest saints and thinkers -have justly feared to approach. But in that terrific tale of -the Passion there is a distinct emotional suggestion that -the author of all things (in some unthinkable way) went not -only through agony, but through doubt. It is written, "Thou -shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." No; but the Lord thy God -may tempt Himself; and it seems as if this was what happened -in Gethsemane. In a garden Satan tempted man: and in a -garden God tempted God. He passed in some superhuman manner -through our human horror of pessimism. When the world shook -and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the -crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which -confessed that God was forsaken of God. And now let the I -revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a god -from all the gods of the world, carefully weighing all the -gods of inevitable recurrence and of unalterable power. They -will not find another god who has himself been in revolt. -Nay, (the matter grows too difficult for human speech) but -let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find -only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one -religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an -atheist. - -These can be called the essentials of the old orthodoxy, of -which the chief merit is that it is the natural fountain of -revolution and reform; and of which the chief defect is that -it is obviously only an abstract assertion. Its main -advantage is that it is the most adventurous and manly of -all theologies. Its chief disadvantage is simply that it is -a theology. It can always be urged against it that it is in -its nature arbitrary and in the air. But it is not so high -in the air but that great archers spend their whole lives in -shooting arrows at it-yes, and their last arrows; there are -men who will ruin themselves and ruin their civilisation if -they may ruin also this o1d fantastic tale. This is the last -and most astounding fact about this faith; that its enemies -will use any weapon against it, the swords that cut their -own fingers, and the firebrands that burn their own homes. -Men who begin to fight the Church for the sake of freedom -and humanity end by flinging away freedom and humanity if -only they may fight the Church. This is no exaggeration; I -could fill a book with the instances of it. Mr. Blatchford -set out, as an ordinary Bible-smasher, to prove that Adam -was guiltless of sin against God; in manoeuvring so as to -maintain this he admitted, as a mere side issue, that all -the tyrants, from Nero to King Leopold, were guiltless of -any sin against humanity. I know a man who has such a -passion for proving that he will have no personal existence -after death that he falls back on the position that he has -no personal existence now. He invokes Buddhism and says that -all souls fade into each other; in order to prove that he -cannot go to heaven he proves that he cannot go to -Hartlepool. I have known people who protested against -religious education with arguments against any education, -saying that the child's mind must grow freely or that the -old must not teach the young. I have known people who showed -that there could be no divine judgment by showing that there -can be no human judgment, even for practical purposes. They -burned their own corn to set fire to the church; they -smashed their own tools to smash it; any stick was good -enough to beat it with, though it were the last stick of -their own dismembered furniture. We do not admire, we hardly -excuse, the fanatic who wrecks this world for love of the -other. But what are we to say of the fanatic who wrecks this -world out of hatred of the other? He sacrifices the very -existence of humanity to the non-existence of God. He offers -his victims not to the altar, but merely to assert the -idleness of the altar and the emptiness of the throne. He is -ready to ruin even that primary ethic by which all things -live, for his strange and eternal vengeance upon some one -who never lived at all. - -And yet the thing hangs in the heavens unhurt. Its opponents -only succeed in destroying all that they themselves justly -hold dear. They do not destroy orthodoxy; they only destroy -political courage and common sense. They do not prove that -Adam was not responsible to God; how could they prove it? -They only prove (from their premises) that the Czar is not -responsible to Russia. They do not prove that Adam should -not have been punished by God; they only prove that the -nearest sweater should not be punished by men. With their -oriental doubts about personality they do not make certain -that we shall have no personal life hereafter; they only -make certain that we shall not have a very jolly or complete -one here. With their paralysing hints of all conclusions -coming out wrong they do not tear the book of the Recording -Angel; they only make it a little harder to keep the books -of Marshall and Snelgrove.W!Not only is the faith the mother -of all worldly energies, but its foes are the fathers of all -worldly confusion. The secularists have not wrecked divine -things; but the secularists have wrecked secular things, if -that is any comfort to them. The Titans did not scale -heaven; but they laid waste the world. +Here again we reach the same substantial conclusion. In so far as we +desire the definite reconstructions and the dangerous revolutions which +have distinguished European civilisation, we shall not discourage the +thought of possible ruin; we shall rather encourage it. If we want, like +the Eastern saints, merely to contemplate how right things are, of +course we shall only say that they must go right. But if we particularly +want to make them go right, we must insist that they may go wrong. + +Lastly, this truth is yet again true in the case of the common modern +attempts to diminish or to explain away the divinity of Christ. The +thing may be true or not; that I shall deal with before I end. But if +the divinity is true it is certainly terribly revolutionary. That a good +man may have his back to the wall is no more than we knew already; but +that God could have his back to the wall is a boast for all insurgents +for ever. Christianity is the only religion on earth that has felt that +omnipotence made God incomplete. Christianity alone has felt that God, +to be wholly God, must have been a rebel as well as a king. Alone of all +creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. +For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that +the soul passes a breaking point---and does not break. In this indeed I +approach a matter more dark and awful than it is easy to discuss; and I +apologise in advance if any of my phrases f111 wrong or seem irreverent +touching a matter which the greatest saints and thinkers have justly +feared to approach. But in that terrific tale of the Passion there is a +distinct emotional suggestion that the author of all things (in some +unthinkable way) went not only through agony, but through doubt. It is +written, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." No; but the Lord thy +God may tempt Himself; and it seems as if this was what happened in +Gethsemane. In a garden Satan tempted man: and in a garden God tempted +God. He passed in some superhuman manner through our human horror of +pessimism. When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it +was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which +confessed that God was forsaken of God. And now let the I revolutionists +choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of the +world, carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and of +unalterable power. They will not find another god who has himself been +in revolt. Nay, (the matter grows too difficult for human speech) but +let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one +divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which +God seemed for an instant to be an atheist. + +These can be called the essentials of the old orthodoxy, of which the +chief merit is that it is the natural fountain of revolution and reform; +and of which the chief defect is that it is obviously only an abstract +assertion. Its main advantage is that it is the most adventurous and +manly of all theologies. Its chief disadvantage is simply that it is a +theology. It can always be urged against it that it is in its nature +arbitrary and in the air. But it is not so high in the air but that +great archers spend their whole lives in shooting arrows at it-yes, and +their last arrows; there are men who will ruin themselves and ruin their +civilisation if they may ruin also this o1d fantastic tale. This is the +last and most astounding fact about this faith; that its enemies will +use any weapon against it, the swords that cut their own fingers, and +the firebrands that burn their own homes. Men who begin to fight the +Church for the sake of freedom and humanity end by flinging away freedom +and humanity if only they may fight the Church. This is no exaggeration; +I could fill a book with the instances of it. Mr. Blatchford set out, as +an ordinary Bible-smasher, to prove that Adam was guiltless of sin +against God; in manoeuvring so as to maintain this he admitted, as a +mere side issue, that all the tyrants, from Nero to King Leopold, were +guiltless of any sin against humanity. I know a man who has such a +passion for proving that he will have no personal existence after death +that he falls back on the position that he has no personal existence +now. He invokes Buddhism and says that all souls fade into each other; +in order to prove that he cannot go to heaven he proves that he cannot +go to Hartlepool. I have known people who protested against religious +education with arguments against any education, saying that the child's +mind must grow freely or that the old must not teach the young. I have +known people who showed that there could be no divine judgment by +showing that there can be no human judgment, even for practical +purposes. They burned their own corn to set fire to the church; they +smashed their own tools to smash it; any stick was good enough to beat +it with, though it were the last stick of their own dismembered +furniture. We do not admire, we hardly excuse, the fanatic who wrecks +this world for love of the other. But what are we to say of the fanatic +who wrecks this world out of hatred of the other? He sacrifices the very +existence of humanity to the non-existence of God. He offers his victims +not to the altar, but merely to assert the idleness of the altar and the +emptiness of the throne. He is ready to ruin even that primary ethic by +which all things live, for his strange and eternal vengeance upon some +one who never lived at all. + +And yet the thing hangs in the heavens unhurt. Its opponents only +succeed in destroying all that they themselves justly hold dear. They do +not destroy orthodoxy; they only destroy political courage and common +sense. They do not prove that Adam was not responsible to God; how could +they prove it? They only prove (from their premises) that the Czar is +not responsible to Russia. They do not prove that Adam should not have +been punished by God; they only prove that the nearest sweater should +not be punished by men. With their oriental doubts about personality +they do not make certain that we shall have no personal life hereafter; +they only make certain that we shall not have a very jolly or complete +one here. With their paralysing hints of all conclusions coming out +wrong they do not tear the book of the Recording Angel; they only make +it a little harder to keep the books of Marshall and Snelgrove.W!Not +only is the faith the mother of all worldly energies, but its foes are +the fathers of all worldly confusion. The secularists have not wrecked +divine things; but the secularists have wrecked secular things, if that +is any comfort to them. The Titans did not scale heaven; but they laid +waste the world. # Authority and the Adventurer -The last chapter has been concerned with the contention that -orthodoxy is not only (as is often urged) the only safe -guardian of morality or order, but is also the only logical -guardian of liberty, innovation and advance. If we wish to -pull down the prosperous oppressor we cannot do it with the -new doctrine of human perfectibility; we can do it with the -old doctrine of Original Sin. If we want to uproot inherent -cruelties or lift up lost populations we cannot do it with -the scientific theory that matter precedes mind; we can do -it with the supernatural theory that mind precedes matter. -If we wish specially to awaken people to social vigilance -and tireless pursuit of practice, we cannot help it much by -insisting on the Immanent: God and the Inner Light: for -these are at best reasons for contentment; we can help it -much by insisting on the transcendent God and the flying and -escaping gleam; for that means divine discontent. If we wish -particularly to assert the idea of a generous balance -against that of a dreadful autocracy we shall instinctively -be Trinitarian rather than Unitarian. If we desire European -civilisation to be a raid and a rescue, we shall insist -rather that souls are in real peril than that their peril is -ultimately unreal. And if we wish to exalt the outcast and -the crucified, we shall rather wish to think that a -veritable God was crucified, rather than a mere sage or -hero. Above all, if we wish to protect the poor we shall be -in favour of fixed rules and clear dogmas. The *rules* of a -club are occasionally in favour of the poor member. The -drift of a club is always in favour of the rich one. - -And now we come to the crucial question which truly -concludes the whole matter. A reasonable agnostic, if he has -happened to agree with me so far, may justly turn round and -say, "You have found a practical philosophy in the doctrine -of the Fall; very well. You have found a side of democracy -now dangerously neglected wisely asserted in Original Sin; +The last chapter has been concerned with the contention that orthodoxy +is not only (as is often urged) the only safe guardian of morality or +order, but is also the only logical guardian of liberty, innovation and +advance. If we wish to pull down the prosperous oppressor we cannot do +it with the new doctrine of human perfectibility; we can do it with the +old doctrine of Original Sin. If we want to uproot inherent cruelties or +lift up lost populations we cannot do it with the scientific theory that +matter precedes mind; we can do it with the supernatural theory that +mind precedes matter. If we wish specially to awaken people to social +vigilance and tireless pursuit of practice, we cannot help it much by +insisting on the Immanent: God and the Inner Light: for these are at +best reasons for contentment; we can help it much by insisting on the +transcendent God and the flying and escaping gleam; for that means +divine discontent. If we wish particularly to assert the idea of a +generous balance against that of a dreadful autocracy we shall +instinctively be Trinitarian rather than Unitarian. If we desire +European civilisation to be a raid and a rescue, we shall insist rather +that souls are in real peril than that their peril is ultimately unreal. +And if we wish to exalt the outcast and the crucified, we shall rather +wish to think that a veritable God was crucified, rather than a mere +sage or hero. Above all, if we wish to protect the poor we shall be in +favour of fixed rules and clear dogmas. The *rules* of a club are +occasionally in favour of the poor member. The drift of a club is always +in favour of the rich one. + +And now we come to the crucial question which truly concludes the whole +matter. A reasonable agnostic, if he has happened to agree with me so +far, may justly turn round and say, "You have found a practical +philosophy in the doctrine of the Fall; very well. You have found a side +of democracy now dangerously neglected wisely asserted in Original Sin; all right. You have found a truth in the doctrine of hell; I -congratulate you. You are convinced that worshippers of a -personal God look outwards and are progressive; I -congratulate them. But even supposing that those doctrines -do include those truths, why cannot you take the truths and -leave the doctrines? Granted that all modern society is -trusting the rich too much because it does not allow for -human weakness; granted that orthodox ages have had a great -advantage because (believing in the Fall) they did allow for -human weakness, why cannot you simply allow for human -weakness without believing in the Fall? If you have -discovered that the idea of damnation represents a healthy -idea of danger, why can you not simply take the idea of -danger and leave the idea ot damnation? If you see clearly -the kernel of common-sense in the nut of Christian -orthodoxy, why cannot you simply take the kernel and leave -the nut? Why cannot you (to use that cant phrase of the -newspapers which I, as a highly scholarly agnostic, am a -little ashamed of using, why cannot you simply take what is -good in Christianity, what you can define as valuable, what -you can comprehend, and leave all the rest, all the absolute -dogmas that are in their nature incomprehensible?" This is -the real question; this is the last question; and it is a -pleasure to try to answer it. - -The first answer is simply to say that I am a rationalist. I -like to have some intellectual justification for my -intuitions. If I am treating man as a fallen being it is an -intellectual convenience to me to believe that he fell; and -I find, for some odd psychological reason, that I can deal -better with a man's exercise of freewill if I believe that -he has got it. But I am in this matter yet more definitely a -rationalist. I do not propose to turn this book into one of -ordinary Christian apologetics; I should be glad to meet at -any other time the enemies of Christianity in that more -obvious arena. Here I am only giving an account of my own -growth in spiritual certainty. But I may pause to remark -that the more I saw of the merely abstract arguments against -the Christian cosmology the less I thought of them. I mean -that having found the moral atmosphere of the Incarnation to -be common sense, I then looked at the established -intellectual arguments against the Incarnation and found -them to be common nonsense. In case the argument should be -thought to suffer from the absence of the ordinary -apologetic I will here very briefly summarise my own -arguments and conclusions on the purely objective or -scientific truth of the matter. - -If I am asked, as a purely intellectual question, why I -believe in Christianity, I can only answer, "For the same -reason that an intelligent agnostic disbelieves in -Christianity." I believe in it quite rationally upon the -evidence. But the evidence in my case, as in that of the -intelligent agnostic, is not really in this or that alleged -demonstration; it is in an enormous accumulation of small -but unanimous facts. The secularist is not to be blamed -because his objections to Christianity are miscellaneous and -even scrappy; it is precisely such scrappy evidence that -does convince the mind. I mean that a man may well be less -convinced of a philosophy from four books, than from one -book, one battle, one landscape, and one old friend. The -very fact that the things are of different kinds increases -the importance of the fact that they all point to one -conclusion. Now, the non-Christianity of the average -educated man to-day is almost always, to do him justice, -made up of these loose but living experiences. I can only -say that my evidences for Christianity are of the same vivid -but varied kind as his evidences against it. For when I look -at these various anti-Christian truths, I simply discover -that none of them are true. I discover that the true tide -and force of all the facts flows the other way. Let us take -cases. Many a sensible modern man must have abandoned -Christianity under the pressure of three such converging -convictions as these: first, that men, with their shape, -structure, and sexuality, are, after all, very much like -beasts, a mere variety of the animal kingdom; second, that -primeval religion arose in ignorance and fear; third, that -priests have blighted societies with bitterness and gloom. -Those three anti-Christian arguments are very different; but -they are all quite logical and legitimate; and they all -converge. The only objection to them (I discover) is that -they are all untrue. If you leave off looking at books about -beasts and men, if you begin to look at beasts and men then -(if you have any humour or imagination, any sense of the -frantic or the farcical) you will observe that the startling -thing is not how like man is to the brutes, but how unlike -he is. It is the monstrous scale of his divergence that -requires an explanation. That man and brute are like is, in -a sense, a truism; but that being so like they should then -be so insanely unlike, that is the shock and the enigma. -That an ape has hands is far less interesting to the -philosopher than the fact that having hands he does next to -nothing with them; does not play knuckle-bones or the -violin; does not carve marble or carve mutton. People talk -of barbaric architecture and debased art. But elephants do -not build colossal temples of ivory even in a rococo style; -camels do not paint even bad pictures, though equipped with -the material of many camel's-hair brushes. Certain modern -dreamers say that ants and bees have a society superior to -ours. They have, indeed, a civilisation; but that very truth -only reminds us that it is an inferior civilisation. vVho -ever found an ant-hill decorated with the statues of -celebrated ants? Who has seen a bee-hive carved with the -images of gorgeous queens of old? No; the chasm between man -and other creatures may have a natural explanation, but it -is a chasm. We talk of wild animals; but man is the only -wild animal. It is man that has broken out. All other -animals are tame animals; following the rugged -respectability of the tribe or type. All other animals are -domestic animals; man alone is ever nondomestic, either as a -profligate or a monk. So that this first superficial reason -for materialism is, if anything, a reason for its opposite; -it is exactly where biology leaves off that all religion -begins. - -It would be the same if I examined the second of the three -chance rationalist arguments; the argument that all that we -call divine began in some darkness and terror. When I did -attempt to examine the foundations of this modern idea I -simply found that there were none. Science knows nothing -whatever about pre-historic man; for the excellent reason -that he is pre-historic. A few professors choose to -conjecture that such things as human sacrifice were once -innocent and general and that they gradually dwindled; but -there is no direct evidence of it, and the small amount of -indirect evidence is very much the other way. In the -earliest legends we have, such as the tales of Isaac and of -Iphigenia, human sacrifice is not introduced as something -old, but rather as something new; as a strange and frightful -exception darkly demanded by the gods. History says nothing; -and legends all say that the earth was kinder in its -earliest time. There is no tradition of progress; but the -whole human race has a tradition of the Fall. Amusingly -enough, indeed, the very dissemination of this idea is used -against its authenticity. Learned men literally say that -this pre-historic calamity cannot be true because every race -of mankind remembers it. I cannot keep pace with these -paradoxes. - -And if we took the third chance instance, it would be the -same; the view that priests darken and embitter the world. I -look at the world and simply discover that they don't. Those -countries in Europe which are still influenced by priests, -are exactly the countries where there is still singing and -dancing and coloured dresses and art in the open-air. -Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are -the walls of a playground. Christianity is the only frame -which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy -some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall -island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the -cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every frantic -game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the -walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the -precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends -returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the -centre of the island; and their song had ceased. - -Thus these three facts of experience, such facts as go to -make an agnostic, are, in this view, turned totally round. I -am left saying, "Give me an explanation, first, of the -towering eccentricity of man among the brutes; second, of -the vast human tradition of some ancient happiness; third, -of the partial perpetuation of such pagan joy in the -countries of the Catholic Church." One explanation, at any -rate, covers all three: the theory that twice was the -natural order interrupted by some explosion or revelation -such as people now call "psychic." Once Heaven came upon the -earth with a power or seal called the image of God, whereby -man took command of Nature; and once again (when in empire -after empire men had been found wanting) Heaven came to save -mankind in the awful shape of a man. This would explain why -the mass of men always look backwards; and why the only -corner where they in any sense look forwards is the little -continent where Christ has His Church. I know it will be -said that Japan has become progressive. But how can this be -an answer when even in saying "Japan has become -progressive," we really only mean, "Japan has become -European"? But I wish here not so much to insist on my own -explanation as to insist on my original remark. I agree with -the ordinary unbelieving man in the street in being guided -by three or four odd facts all pointing to something; only -when I came to look at the facts I always found they pointed -to something else. - -I have given an imaginary triad of such ordinary -anti-Christian arguments; if that be too narrow a basis I -will give on the spur of the moment another. These are the -kind of thoughts which in combination create the impression -that Christianity is something weak and diseased. First, for -instance, that Jesus was a gentle creature, sheepish and -unworldly, a mere ineffectual appeal to the world; second, -that Christianity arose and flourished in the dark ages of -ignorance, and that to these the Church would drag us back; -third, that the people still strongly religious or (if you -will) superstitious---such people as the Irish---are weak, -unpractical, and behind the times. I only mention these -ideas to affirm the same thing: that when I looked into them -independently I found, not that the conclusions were -unphilosophical, but simply that the facts were not facts. -Instead of looking at books and pictures about the New -Testament I looked at the New Testament. There I found an -account, not in the least of a person with his hair parted -in the middle or his hands clasped in appeal, but of an -extraordinary being with lips of thunder and acts of lurid -decision, flinging down tables, casting out devils, passing -with the wild secrecy of the wind from mountain isolation to -a sort of dreadful demagogy; a being who often acted like an -angry god---and always like a god. Christ had even a -literary style of his own, not to be found, I think, -elsewhere; it consists of an almost furious use of the *a -fortiori.* His "how much more" is piled one upon another -like castle upon castle in the clouds. The diction used -*about* Christ has been, and perhaps wisely, sweet and -submissive. But the diction used by Christ is quite -curiously gigantic; it is full of camels leaping through -needles and mountains hurled into the sea. Morally it is -equally terrific; he called himself a sword of slaughter, -and told men to buy swords if they sold their coats for -them. That he used other even wilder words on the side of -non-resistance greatly increases the mystery; but it also, -if anything, rather increases the violence. We cannot even -explain it by calling such a being insane; for insanity is -usually along one consistent channel. The maniac is -generally a monomaniac. Here we must remember the difficult -definition of Christianity already given; Christianity is a -superhuman paradox whereby two opposite passions may blaze -beside each other. The one explanation of the Gospel -language that does explain it, is that it is the survey of -one who from some supernatural height beholds some more -startling synthesis. - -I take in order the next instance offered: the idea that -Christianity belongs to the dark ages. Here I did not -satisfy myself with reading modern generalisations; I read a -little history. And in history I found that Christianity, so -far from belonging to the dark ages, was the one path across -the dark ages that was not dark. It was a shining bridge -connecting two shining civilisations. If anyone says that -the faith arose in ignorance and savagery the answer is -simple: it didn't. It arose in the Mediterranean -civilisation in the full summer of the Roman Empire. The -world was swarming with sceptics, and pantheism was as plain -as the sun, when Constantine nailed the cross to the mast. -It is perfectly true that afterwards the ship sank; but it -is far more extraordinary that the ship came up again: -repainted and glittering, with the cross still at the top. -This is the amazing thing the religion did: it turned a -sunken ship into a submarine. The ark lived under the load -of waters; after being buried under the debris of dynasties -and clans, we arose and remembered Rome. If our faith had -been a mere fad of the fading empire, fad would have -followed fad in the twilight, and if the civilisation ever -re-emerged (and many such have never re-emerged) it would -have been under some new barbaric flag. But the Christian -Church was the last life of the old society and was also the -first life of the new. She took the people who were -forgetting how to make an arch and she taught them to invent -the Gothic arch. In a word, the most absurd thing that could -be said of the Church is the thing we have all heard said of -it. How can we say that the Church wishes to bring us back -into the Dark Ages? The Church was the only thing that ever -brought us out of them. - -I added in this second trinity of objections an idle -instance taken from those who feel such people as the Irish -to be weakened or made stagnant by superstition. I only -added it because this is a peculiar case of a statement of -fact that turns out to be a statement of falsehood. It is -constantly said of the Irish that they are impractical. But -if we refrain for a moment from looking at what is said -about them and look at what is *done* about them, we shall -see that the Irish are not only practical, but quite -painfully successful. The poverty of their country, the -minority of their members are simply the conditions under -which they were asked to work; but no other group in the -British Empire has done so much with such conditions. The -Nationalists were the only minority that ever succeeded in -twisting the whole British Parliament sharply out of its -path. The Irish peasants are the only poor men in these -islands who have forced their masters to disgorge. These -people, whom we call priest-ridden, are the only Britons who -will not be squire-ridden. And when I came to look at the -actual Irish character, the case was the same. Irishmen are -best at the specially *hard* professions---the trades of -iron, the lawyer, and the soldier. In all these cases, -therefore, I came back to the same conclusion: the sceptic -was quite right to go by the facts, only he had not looked -at the facts. The sceptic is too credulous; he believes in -newspapers or even in encyclopaedias. Again the three -questions left me with three very antagonistic questions. -The average sceptic wanted to know how I explained the -namby-pamby note in the Gospel, the connection of the creed -with mediaeval darkness and the political impracticability -of the Celtic Christians. But I wanted to ask, and to ask -with an earnestness amounting to urgency, "What is this -incomparable energy which appears first in one walking the -earth like a living judgment and this energy which can die -with a dying civilisation and yet force it to a resurrection -from the dead; this energy which last of all can inflame a -bankrupt peasantry with so fixed a faith in justice that -they get what they ask, while others go empty away; so that -the most helpless island of the Empire can actually help -itself?" - -There is an answer: it is an answer to say that the energy -is truly from outside the world; that it is psychic, or at -least one of the results of a real psychical disturbance. -The highest gratitude and respect are due to the great human -civilisations such as the old Egyptian or the existing -Chinese. Nevertheless it is no injustice for them to say -that only modern Europe has exhibited incessantly a power of -self-renewal recurring often at the shortest intervals and -descending to the smallest facts of building or costume. All -other societies die finally and with dignity. We die daily. -We are always being born again with almost indecent -obstetrics. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that there -is in historic Christendom a sort of unnatural life: it -could be explained as a supernatural life. It could be -eXplained as an awful galvanic life working in what would -have been a corpse. For our civilisation *ought* to have -died, by all parallels, by all sociological probability, in -the Ragnorak of the end of Rome. That is the weird -inspiration of our estate: you and I have no business to be -here at all. We are all *revenants;* all living Christians -are dead pagans walking about. Just as Europe was about to -be gathered in silence to Assyria and Babylon, something -entered into its body. And Europe has had a strange -life---it is not too much to say that it has had the -*jumps*--ever since. - -I have dealt at length with such typical triads of doubt in -order to convey the main contention---that my own case for -Christianity is rational; but it is not simple. It is an -accumulation of varied facts, like the attitude of the -ordinary agnostic. But the ordinary agnostic has got his -facts all wrong. He is a non-believer for a multitude of -reasons; but they are untrue reasons. He doubts because the -Middle Ages were barbaric, but they weren't; because -Darwinism is demonstrated, but it isn't; because miracles do -not happen, but they do; because monks were lazy, but they -were very industrious; because nuns are unhappy, but they -are particularly cheerful; because Christian art was sad and -pale, but it was picked out in peculiarly bright colours and -gay with gold; because modern science is moving away from -the supernatural, but it isn't, it is moving towards the -supernatural with the rapidity of a railway train. - -But among these million facts all flowing one way there is, -of course, one question sufficiently solid and separate to -be treated briefly, but by itself; I mean the objective -occurrence of the supernatural. In another chapter I have -indicated the fallacy of the ordinary supposition that the -world must be impersonal because it is orderly. A person is -just as likely to desire an orderly thing as a disorderly -thing. But my own positive conviction that personal creation -is more conceivable than material fate, is, I admit, in a -sense, undiscussable. I will not call it a faith or an -intuition, for those words are mixed up with mere emotion, -it is strictly an intellectual conviction; but it is a -*primary* intellectual conviction like the certainty of self -or the good of living. Anyone who likes, therefore, may call -my belief in God merely mystical; the phrase is not worth -fighting about. But my belief that miracles have happened in -human history is not a mystical belief at all; I believe in -them upon human evidence as I do in the discovery of -America. Upon this point there is a simple logical fact that -only requires to be stated and cleared up. Somehow or other -an extraordinary idea has arisen that the disbelievers ill -miracles consider them coldly and fairly, while believers in -miracles accept them only in connection with some dogma. The -fact is quite the other way. The believers in miracles -accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence -for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or -wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them. The -open, obvious, democratic thing is to believe an old -apple-woman when she bears testimony to a miracle, just as -you believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a -murder. The plain, popular course is to trust the peasant's -word about the ghost exactly as far as you trust the -peasant's word about the landlord. Being a peasant he will -probably have a great deal of healthy agnosticism about -both. Still you could fill the British Museum with evidence -uttered by the peasant, and given in favour of the ghost. If -it comes to human testimony there is a choking cataract of -human testimony in favour of the supernatural. If you reject -it, you can only mean one of two things. You reject the -peasant's story about the ghost either because the man is a -peasant or because the story is a ghost story. That is, you -either deny the main principle of democracy, or you affirm -the main principle of materialism---the abstract -impossibility of miracle. You have a perfect right to do so; -but in that case you are the dogmatist. It is we Christians -who accept all actual evidence---it is you rationalists who -refuse actual evidence, being constrained to do so by your -creed. But I am not constrained by any creed in the matter, -and looking impartially into certain miracles of mediaeval -and modern times, I have come to the conclusion that they -occurred. All argument against these plain facts is always -argument in a circle. If I say, "Mediaeval documents attest -certain miracles as much as they attest certain battles," -they answer, "But mediaevals were superstitious"; if I want -to know in what they were superstitious, the only ultimate -answer is that they believed in the miracles. If I say "a -peasant saw a ghost," I am told, "But peasants are so -credulous." If I ask, "Why credulous?" the only answer -is---that they see ghosts. Iceland is impossible because -only stupid sailors have seen it; and the sailors are only -stupid because they say they have seen Iceland. It is only -fair to add that there is another argument that the -unbeliever may rationally use against miracles, though he -himself generally forgets to use it. - -He may say that there has been in many miraculous stories a -notion of spiritual preparation and acceptance: in short, -that the miracle could only come to him who believed in it. -It may be so, and if it is so how are we to test it? If we -are inquiring whether certain results follow faith, it is -useless to repeat wearily that (if they happen) they do -follow faith. If faith is one of the conditions, those -without faith have a most healthy right to laugh. But they -have no right to judge. Being a believer may be, if you -like, as bad as being drunk; still if we were extracting -psychological facts from drunkards, it would be absurd to be -always taunting them with having been drunk. Suppose we were -investigating whether angry men really saw a red mist before -their eyes. Suppose sixty excellent householders swore that -when angry they had seen this crimson cloud: surely it would -be absurd to answer cc Oh, but you admit you were angry at -the time." They might reasonably rejoin (in a stentorian -chorus), "How the blazes could we discover, without being -angry, whether angry people see red?" So the saints and -ascetics might rationally reply, "Suppose that the question -is whether believers can see visions---even then, if you are -interested in visions it is no point to object to -believers." You are still arguing in a circle---in that old +congratulate you. You are convinced that worshippers of a personal God +look outwards and are progressive; I congratulate them. But even +supposing that those doctrines do include those truths, why cannot you +take the truths and leave the doctrines? Granted that all modern society +is trusting the rich too much because it does not allow for human +weakness; granted that orthodox ages have had a great advantage because +(believing in the Fall) they did allow for human weakness, why cannot +you simply allow for human weakness without believing in the Fall? If +you have discovered that the idea of damnation represents a healthy idea +of danger, why can you not simply take the idea of danger and leave the +idea ot damnation? If you see clearly the kernel of common-sense in the +nut of Christian orthodoxy, why cannot you simply take the kernel and +leave the nut? Why cannot you (to use that cant phrase of the newspapers +which I, as a highly scholarly agnostic, am a little ashamed of using, +why cannot you simply take what is good in Christianity, what you can +define as valuable, what you can comprehend, and leave all the rest, all +the absolute dogmas that are in their nature incomprehensible?" This is +the real question; this is the last question; and it is a pleasure to +try to answer it. + +The first answer is simply to say that I am a rationalist. I like to +have some intellectual justification for my intuitions. If I am treating +man as a fallen being it is an intellectual convenience to me to believe +that he fell; and I find, for some odd psychological reason, that I can +deal better with a man's exercise of freewill if I believe that he has +got it. But I am in this matter yet more definitely a rationalist. I do +not propose to turn this book into one of ordinary Christian +apologetics; I should be glad to meet at any other time the enemies of +Christianity in that more obvious arena. Here I am only giving an +account of my own growth in spiritual certainty. But I may pause to +remark that the more I saw of the merely abstract arguments against the +Christian cosmology the less I thought of them. I mean that having found +the moral atmosphere of the Incarnation to be common sense, I then +looked at the established intellectual arguments against the Incarnation +and found them to be common nonsense. In case the argument should be +thought to suffer from the absence of the ordinary apologetic I will +here very briefly summarise my own arguments and conclusions on the +purely objective or scientific truth of the matter. + +If I am asked, as a purely intellectual question, why I believe in +Christianity, I can only answer, "For the same reason that an +intelligent agnostic disbelieves in Christianity." I believe in it quite +rationally upon the evidence. But the evidence in my case, as in that of +the intelligent agnostic, is not really in this or that alleged +demonstration; it is in an enormous accumulation of small but unanimous +facts. The secularist is not to be blamed because his objections to +Christianity are miscellaneous and even scrappy; it is precisely such +scrappy evidence that does convince the mind. I mean that a man may well +be less convinced of a philosophy from four books, than from one book, +one battle, one landscape, and one old friend. The very fact that the +things are of different kinds increases the importance of the fact that +they all point to one conclusion. Now, the non-Christianity of the +average educated man to-day is almost always, to do him justice, made up +of these loose but living experiences. I can only say that my evidences +for Christianity are of the same vivid but varied kind as his evidences +against it. For when I look at these various anti-Christian truths, I +simply discover that none of them are true. I discover that the true +tide and force of all the facts flows the other way. Let us take cases. +Many a sensible modern man must have abandoned Christianity under the +pressure of three such converging convictions as these: first, that men, +with their shape, structure, and sexuality, are, after all, very much +like beasts, a mere variety of the animal kingdom; second, that primeval +religion arose in ignorance and fear; third, that priests have blighted +societies with bitterness and gloom. Those three anti-Christian +arguments are very different; but they are all quite logical and +legitimate; and they all converge. The only objection to them (I +discover) is that they are all untrue. If you leave off looking at books +about beasts and men, if you begin to look at beasts and men then (if +you have any humour or imagination, any sense of the frantic or the +farcical) you will observe that the startling thing is not how like man +is to the brutes, but how unlike he is. It is the monstrous scale of his +divergence that requires an explanation. That man and brute are like is, +in a sense, a truism; but that being so like they should then be so +insanely unlike, that is the shock and the enigma. That an ape has hands +is far less interesting to the philosopher than the fact that having +hands he does next to nothing with them; does not play knuckle-bones or +the violin; does not carve marble or carve mutton. People talk of +barbaric architecture and debased art. But elephants do not build +colossal temples of ivory even in a rococo style; camels do not paint +even bad pictures, though equipped with the material of many +camel's-hair brushes. Certain modern dreamers say that ants and bees +have a society superior to ours. They have, indeed, a civilisation; but +that very truth only reminds us that it is an inferior civilisation. +vVho ever found an ant-hill decorated with the statues of celebrated +ants? Who has seen a bee-hive carved with the images of gorgeous queens +of old? No; the chasm between man and other creatures may have a natural +explanation, but it is a chasm. We talk of wild animals; but man is the +only wild animal. It is man that has broken out. All other animals are +tame animals; following the rugged respectability of the tribe or type. +All other animals are domestic animals; man alone is ever nondomestic, +either as a profligate or a monk. So that this first superficial reason +for materialism is, if anything, a reason for its opposite; it is +exactly where biology leaves off that all religion begins. + +It would be the same if I examined the second of the three chance +rationalist arguments; the argument that all that we call divine began +in some darkness and terror. When I did attempt to examine the +foundations of this modern idea I simply found that there were none. +Science knows nothing whatever about pre-historic man; for the excellent +reason that he is pre-historic. A few professors choose to conjecture +that such things as human sacrifice were once innocent and general and +that they gradually dwindled; but there is no direct evidence of it, and +the small amount of indirect evidence is very much the other way. In the +earliest legends we have, such as the tales of Isaac and of Iphigenia, +human sacrifice is not introduced as something old, but rather as +something new; as a strange and frightful exception darkly demanded by +the gods. History says nothing; and legends all say that the earth was +kinder in its earliest time. There is no tradition of progress; but the +whole human race has a tradition of the Fall. Amusingly enough, indeed, +the very dissemination of this idea is used against its authenticity. +Learned men literally say that this pre-historic calamity cannot be true +because every race of mankind remembers it. I cannot keep pace with +these paradoxes. + +And if we took the third chance instance, it would be the same; the view +that priests darken and embitter the world. I look at the world and +simply discover that they don't. Those countries in Europe which are +still influenced by priests, are exactly the countries where there is +still singing and dancing and coloured dresses and art in the open-air. +Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of +a playground. Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the +pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat +grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall +round the cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every frantic +game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were +knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not +fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled +in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased. + +Thus these three facts of experience, such facts as go to make an +agnostic, are, in this view, turned totally round. I am left saying, +"Give me an explanation, first, of the towering eccentricity of man +among the brutes; second, of the vast human tradition of some ancient +happiness; third, of the partial perpetuation of such pagan joy in the +countries of the Catholic Church." One explanation, at any rate, covers +all three: the theory that twice was the natural order interrupted by +some explosion or revelation such as people now call "psychic." Once +Heaven came upon the earth with a power or seal called the image of God, +whereby man took command of Nature; and once again (when in empire after +empire men had been found wanting) Heaven came to save mankind in the +awful shape of a man. This would explain why the mass of men always look +backwards; and why the only corner where they in any sense look forwards +is the little continent where Christ has His Church. I know it will be +said that Japan has become progressive. But how can this be an answer +when even in saying "Japan has become progressive," we really only mean, +"Japan has become European"? But I wish here not so much to insist on my +own explanation as to insist on my original remark. I agree with the +ordinary unbelieving man in the street in being guided by three or four +odd facts all pointing to something; only when I came to look at the +facts I always found they pointed to something else. + +I have given an imaginary triad of such ordinary anti-Christian +arguments; if that be too narrow a basis I will give on the spur of the +moment another. These are the kind of thoughts which in combination +create the impression that Christianity is something weak and diseased. +First, for instance, that Jesus was a gentle creature, sheepish and +unworldly, a mere ineffectual appeal to the world; second, that +Christianity arose and flourished in the dark ages of ignorance, and +that to these the Church would drag us back; third, that the people +still strongly religious or (if you will) superstitious---such people as +the Irish---are weak, unpractical, and behind the times. I only mention +these ideas to affirm the same thing: that when I looked into them +independently I found, not that the conclusions were unphilosophical, +but simply that the facts were not facts. Instead of looking at books +and pictures about the New Testament I looked at the New Testament. +There I found an account, not in the least of a person with his hair +parted in the middle or his hands clasped in appeal, but of an +extraordinary being with lips of thunder and acts of lurid decision, +flinging down tables, casting out devils, passing with the wild secrecy +of the wind from mountain isolation to a sort of dreadful demagogy; a +being who often acted like an angry god---and always like a god. Christ +had even a literary style of his own, not to be found, I think, +elsewhere; it consists of an almost furious use of the *a fortiori.* His +"how much more" is piled one upon another like castle upon castle in the +clouds. The diction used *about* Christ has been, and perhaps wisely, +sweet and submissive. But the diction used by Christ is quite curiously +gigantic; it is full of camels leaping through needles and mountains +hurled into the sea. Morally it is equally terrific; he called himself a +sword of slaughter, and told men to buy swords if they sold their coats +for them. That he used other even wilder words on the side of +non-resistance greatly increases the mystery; but it also, if anything, +rather increases the violence. We cannot even explain it by calling such +a being insane; for insanity is usually along one consistent channel. +The maniac is generally a monomaniac. Here we must remember the +difficult definition of Christianity already given; Christianity is a +superhuman paradox whereby two opposite passions may blaze beside each +other. The one explanation of the Gospel language that does explain it, +is that it is the survey of one who from some supernatural height +beholds some more startling synthesis. + +I take in order the next instance offered: the idea that Christianity +belongs to the dark ages. Here I did not satisfy myself with reading +modern generalisations; I read a little history. And in history I found +that Christianity, so far from belonging to the dark ages, was the one +path across the dark ages that was not dark. It was a shining bridge +connecting two shining civilisations. If anyone says that the faith +arose in ignorance and savagery the answer is simple: it didn't. It +arose in the Mediterranean civilisation in the full summer of the Roman +Empire. The world was swarming with sceptics, and pantheism was as plain +as the sun, when Constantine nailed the cross to the mast. It is +perfectly true that afterwards the ship sank; but it is far more +extraordinary that the ship came up again: repainted and glittering, +with the cross still at the top. This is the amazing thing the religion +did: it turned a sunken ship into a submarine. The ark lived under the +load of waters; after being buried under the debris of dynasties and +clans, we arose and remembered Rome. If our faith had been a mere fad of +the fading empire, fad would have followed fad in the twilight, and if +the civilisation ever re-emerged (and many such have never re-emerged) +it would have been under some new barbaric flag. But the Christian +Church was the last life of the old society and was also the first life +of the new. She took the people who were forgetting how to make an arch +and she taught them to invent the Gothic arch. In a word, the most +absurd thing that could be said of the Church is the thing we have all +heard said of it. How can we say that the Church wishes to bring us back +into the Dark Ages? The Church was the only thing that ever brought us +out of them. + +I added in this second trinity of objections an idle instance taken from +those who feel such people as the Irish to be weakened or made stagnant +by superstition. I only added it because this is a peculiar case of a +statement of fact that turns out to be a statement of falsehood. It is +constantly said of the Irish that they are impractical. But if we +refrain for a moment from looking at what is said about them and look at +what is *done* about them, we shall see that the Irish are not only +practical, but quite painfully successful. The poverty of their country, +the minority of their members are simply the conditions under which they +were asked to work; but no other group in the British Empire has done so +much with such conditions. The Nationalists were the only minority that +ever succeeded in twisting the whole British Parliament sharply out of +its path. The Irish peasants are the only poor men in these islands who +have forced their masters to disgorge. These people, whom we call +priest-ridden, are the only Britons who will not be squire-ridden. And +when I came to look at the actual Irish character, the case was the +same. Irishmen are best at the specially *hard* professions---the trades +of iron, the lawyer, and the soldier. In all these cases, therefore, I +came back to the same conclusion: the sceptic was quite right to go by +the facts, only he had not looked at the facts. The sceptic is too +credulous; he believes in newspapers or even in encyclopaedias. Again +the three questions left me with three very antagonistic questions. The +average sceptic wanted to know how I explained the namby-pamby note in +the Gospel, the connection of the creed with mediaeval darkness and the +political impracticability of the Celtic Christians. But I wanted to +ask, and to ask with an earnestness amounting to urgency, "What is this +incomparable energy which appears first in one walking the earth like a +living judgment and this energy which can die with a dying civilisation +and yet force it to a resurrection from the dead; this energy which last +of all can inflame a bankrupt peasantry with so fixed a faith in justice +that they get what they ask, while others go empty away; so that the +most helpless island of the Empire can actually help itself?" + +There is an answer: it is an answer to say that the energy is truly from +outside the world; that it is psychic, or at least one of the results of +a real psychical disturbance. The highest gratitude and respect are due +to the great human civilisations such as the old Egyptian or the +existing Chinese. Nevertheless it is no injustice for them to say that +only modern Europe has exhibited incessantly a power of self-renewal +recurring often at the shortest intervals and descending to the smallest +facts of building or costume. All other societies die finally and with +dignity. We die daily. We are always being born again with almost +indecent obstetrics. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that there is +in historic Christendom a sort of unnatural life: it could be explained +as a supernatural life. It could be eXplained as an awful galvanic life +working in what would have been a corpse. For our civilisation *ought* +to have died, by all parallels, by all sociological probability, in the +Ragnorak of the end of Rome. That is the weird inspiration of our +estate: you and I have no business to be here at all. We are all +*revenants;* all living Christians are dead pagans walking about. Just +as Europe was about to be gathered in silence to Assyria and Babylon, +something entered into its body. And Europe has had a strange life---it +is not too much to say that it has had the *jumps*--ever since. + +I have dealt at length with such typical triads of doubt in order to +convey the main contention---that my own case for Christianity is +rational; but it is not simple. It is an accumulation of varied facts, +like the attitude of the ordinary agnostic. But the ordinary agnostic +has got his facts all wrong. He is a non-believer for a multitude of +reasons; but they are untrue reasons. He doubts because the Middle Ages +were barbaric, but they weren't; because Darwinism is demonstrated, but +it isn't; because miracles do not happen, but they do; because monks +were lazy, but they were very industrious; because nuns are unhappy, but +they are particularly cheerful; because Christian art was sad and pale, +but it was picked out in peculiarly bright colours and gay with gold; +because modern science is moving away from the supernatural, but it +isn't, it is moving towards the supernatural with the rapidity of a +railway train. + +But among these million facts all flowing one way there is, of course, +one question sufficiently solid and separate to be treated briefly, but +by itself; I mean the objective occurrence of the supernatural. In +another chapter I have indicated the fallacy of the ordinary supposition +that the world must be impersonal because it is orderly. A person is +just as likely to desire an orderly thing as a disorderly thing. But my +own positive conviction that personal creation is more conceivable than +material fate, is, I admit, in a sense, undiscussable. I will not call +it a faith or an intuition, for those words are mixed up with mere +emotion, it is strictly an intellectual conviction; but it is a +*primary* intellectual conviction like the certainty of self or the good +of living. Anyone who likes, therefore, may call my belief in God merely +mystical; the phrase is not worth fighting about. But my belief that +miracles have happened in human history is not a mystical belief at all; +I believe in them upon human evidence as I do in the discovery of +America. Upon this point there is a simple logical fact that only +requires to be stated and cleared up. Somehow or other an extraordinary +idea has arisen that the disbelievers ill miracles consider them coldly +and fairly, while believers in miracles accept them only in connection +with some dogma. The fact is quite the other way. The believers in +miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for +them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) +because they have a doctrine against them. The open, obvious, democratic +thing is to believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a +miracle, just as you believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony +to a murder. The plain, popular course is to trust the peasant's word +about the ghost exactly as far as you trust the peasant's word about the +landlord. Being a peasant he will probably have a great deal of healthy +agnosticism about both. Still you could fill the British Museum with +evidence uttered by the peasant, and given in favour of the ghost. If it +comes to human testimony there is a choking cataract of human testimony +in favour of the supernatural. If you reject it, you can only mean one +of two things. You reject the peasant's story about the ghost either +because the man is a peasant or because the story is a ghost story. That +is, you either deny the main principle of democracy, or you affirm the +main principle of materialism---the abstract impossibility of miracle. +You have a perfect right to do so; but in that case you are the +dogmatist. It is we Christians who accept all actual evidence---it is +you rationalists who refuse actual evidence, being constrained to do so +by your creed. But I am not constrained by any creed in the matter, and +looking impartially into certain miracles of mediaeval and modern times, +I have come to the conclusion that they occurred. All argument against +these plain facts is always argument in a circle. If I say, "Mediaeval +documents attest certain miracles as much as they attest certain +battles," they answer, "But mediaevals were superstitious"; if I want to +know in what they were superstitious, the only ultimate answer is that +they believed in the miracles. If I say "a peasant saw a ghost," I am +told, "But peasants are so credulous." If I ask, "Why credulous?" the +only answer is---that they see ghosts. Iceland is impossible because +only stupid sailors have seen it; and the sailors are only stupid +because they say they have seen Iceland. It is only fair to add that +there is another argument that the unbeliever may rationally use against +miracles, though he himself generally forgets to use it. + +He may say that there has been in many miraculous stories a notion of +spiritual preparation and acceptance: in short, that the miracle could +only come to him who believed in it. It may be so, and if it is so how +are we to test it? If we are inquiring whether certain results follow +faith, it is useless to repeat wearily that (if they happen) they do +follow faith. If faith is one of the conditions, those without faith +have a most healthy right to laugh. But they have no right to judge. +Being a believer may be, if you like, as bad as being drunk; still if we +were extracting psychological facts from drunkards, it would be absurd +to be always taunting them with having been drunk. Suppose we were +investigating whether angry men really saw a red mist before their eyes. +Suppose sixty excellent householders swore that when angry they had seen +this crimson cloud: surely it would be absurd to answer cc Oh, but you +admit you were angry at the time." They might reasonably rejoin (in a +stentorian chorus), "How the blazes could we discover, without being +angry, whether angry people see red?" So the saints and ascetics might +rationally reply, "Suppose that the question is whether believers can +see visions---even then, if you are interested in visions it is no point +to object to believers." You are still arguing in a circle---in that old mad circle with which this book began. -The question of whether miracles ever occur is a question of -common sense and of ordinary historical imagination: not of -any final physical experiment. One may here surely dismiss -that quite brainless piece of pedantry which talks about the -need for "scientific conditions" in connection with alleged -spiritual phenomena. If we are asking whether a dead soul -can communicate with a living it is ludicrous to insist that -it shall be under conditions in which no two living souls in -their senses would seriously communicate with each other. -The fact that ghosts prefer darkness no more disproves the -existence of ghosts than the fact that lovers prefer -darkness disproves the existence of love. If you choose to -say, "I will believe that Miss Brown called her *fiancé* a -periwinkle or any other endearing term, if she will repeat -the word before seventeen psychologists," then I shall -reply,"Very well, if those are your conditions, you will -never get the truth, for she certainly will not say it." It -is just as unscientific as it is unphilosophical to be -surprised that in an unsympathetic atmosphere certain -extraordinary sympathies do not arise. It is as if I said -that I could not tell if there was a fog because the air was -not clear enough; or as if I insisted on perfect sunlight in -order to see a solar eclipse. - -As a common-sense conclusion, such as those to which we come -about sex or about midnight (well knowing that many details -must in their own nature be concealed) I conclude that -miracles do happen. I am forced to it by a conspiracy of -facts: the fact that the men who encounter elves or angels -are not the mystics and the morbid dreamers, but fishermen, -farmers, and all men at once coarse and cautious; the fact -that we all know men who testify to spiritualist incidents -but are not spiritualists; the fact that science itself -admits such things more and more every day. Science will -even admit the Ascension if you call it Levitation, and will -very likely admit the Resurrection when it has thought of -another word for it. I suggest the Regalvanisation. But the -strongest of all is the dilemma above mentioned, that these -supernatural things are never denied except on the basis -either of anti-democracy or of materialist dogmatism---I may -say materialist mysticism. The sceptic a1ways takes one of -the two positions; either an ordinary man need not be -believed, or an extraordinary event must not be believed. -For I hope we may dismiss the argument against wonders -attempted in the mere recapitulation of frauds, of swindling -mediums or trick miracles. That is not an argument at all, -good or bad. A false ghost disproves the reality of ghosts -exactly as much as a forged banknote disproves the existence -of the Bank of England---if anything, it proves its -existence. - -Given this conviction that the spiritual phenomena do occur -(my evidence for which is complex but rational), we then -collide with one of the worst mental evils of the age. The -greatest disaster of the nineteenth century was this: that -men began to use the word "spiritual" as the same as the -word "good." They thought that to grow in refinement and -incorporeality was to grow in virtue. When scientific -evolution was announced, some feared that it would encourage -mere animality. It did worse: it encouraged mere -spirituality. It taught men to think that so long as they -were passing from the ape they were going to the angel. But -you can pass from the ape and go to the devil. A man of -genius, very typical of that time of bewilderment, expressed -it perfectly. Benjamin Disraeli was fight when he said he -was on the side of the angels. He was indeed; he was on the -side of the fallen angels. He was not on the side of any -mere appetite or animal brutality; but he was on the side of -all the imperialism of the princes of the abyss; he was on -the side of arrogance and mystery, and contempt of all -obvious good. Between this sunken pride and the towering -humilities of heaven there are, one must suppose, spirits of -shapes and sizes. Man, in encountering them, must make much -the same mistakes that he makes in encountering any other -varied types in any other distant continent. It must be I -hard at first to know who is supreme and who is subordinate. -If a shade arose from the under world, and stared at -Piccadilly, that shade would not quite understand the idea -of an ordinary closed carriage. He would suppose that the -coachman on the box was a triumphant conqueror, dragging -behind him a kicking and imprisoned captive. So, if we see -spiritual facts for the first time, we may mistake who is -uppermost. It is not enough to find the gods; they are -obvious; we must find God, the real chief of the gods. We -must have a long historic experience in supernatural -phenomena---in order to discover which are really natural. -In this light I find the history of Christianity, and even -of its Hebrew origins, quite practical and clear. It does -not trouble me to be told that the Hebrew god was one among -many. I know he was, without any research to tell me so. -Jehovah and Baal looked equally important, just as the sun -and the moon looked the same size. It is only slowly that we -learn that the sun is immeasurably our master, and the small -moon only our satellite. Believing that there is a world of -spirits, I shall walk in it as I do in the world of men, -looking for the thing that I like and think good. Just as I -should seek in a desert for clean water, or toil at the -North Pole to make a comfortable fire, so I shall search the -land of void and vision until I find something fresh like -water, and comforting like fire; until I find some place in -eternity, where I am literally at home. And there is only -one such place to be found. - -I have now said enough to show (to anyone to whom such an -explanation is essential) that I have in the ordinary arena -of apologetics, a ground of belief. In pure records of -experiment (if these be taken democratically without -contempt or favour) there is evidence first, that miracles -happen, and second that the nobler miracles belong to our -tradition. But I will not pretend that this curt discussion -is my real reason for accepting Christianity instead of -taking the moral good of Christianity as I should take it -out of Confucianism. - -I have another far more solid and central ground for -submitting to it as a faith, instead of merely picking up -hints from it as a scheme. And that is this: that the -Christian Church in its practical relation to my soul is a -living teacher, not a dead one. It not only certainly taught -me yesterday, but will almost certainly teach me to-morrow. -Once I saw suddenly the meaning of the shape of the cross; -some day I may see suddenly the meaning of the shape of the -mitre. One fine morning I saw why windows were pointed; some -fine morning I may see why priests were shaven. Plato has -told you a truth; but Plato is dead. Shakespeare has -startled you with an image; but Shakespeare will not startle -you with any more. But imagine what it would be to live with -such men still living, to know that Plato might break out -with an original lecture tomorrow, or that at any moment -Shakespeare might shatter everything with a single song. The -man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a -living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and -Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to -see some truth that he has never seen before. There is one -only other parallel to this position; and that is the -parallel of the life in which we all began. When your father -told you, walking about the garden, that bees stung or that -roses smelt sweet, you did not talk of taking the best out -of his philosophy. When the bees stung you, you did not call -it an entertaining coincidence. When the rose smelt sweet -you did not say "My father is a rude, barbaric symbol, -enshrining (perhaps unconsciously) the deep delicate truths -that flowers smell." No: you believed your father, because -you had found him to be a living fountain of facts, a thing -that really knew more than you; a thing that would tell you -truth to-morrow, as well as to-day. And if this was true of -your father, it was even truer of your mother; at least it -was true of mine, to whom this book is dedicated. Now, when -society is in a rather futile fuss about the subjection of -women, will no one say how much every man owes to the -tyranny and privilege of women, to the fact that they alone -rule education until education becomes futile: for a boy is -only sent to be taught at school when it is too late to -teach him anything. The real thing has been done already, -and thank God it is nearly always done by women. Every man -is womanised, merely by being born. They talk of the -masculine woman; but every man is a feminised man. And if -ever men walk to Westminster to protest against this female -privilege, I shall not join their procession. - -For I remember with certainty this fixed psychological fact; -that the very time when I was most under a woman's -authority, I was most full of flame and adventure. Exactly -because when my mother said that ants bit they did bite, and -because snow did come in winter (as she said); therefore the -whole world was to me a fairyland of wonderful fulfilments, -and it was like living in some Hebraic age, when prophecy -after prophecy came true. I went out as a child into the -garden, and it was a terrible place to me, precisely because -I had a due to it: if I had held no due it would not have -been terrible, but tame. A mere unmeaning wilderness is not -even impressive. But the garden of childhood was -fascinating, exactly because everything had a fixed meaning -which could be found out in its turn. Inch by inch I might -discover what was the object of the ugly shape called a -rake; or form some shadowy conjecture as to why my parents -kept a cat. - -So, since I have accepted Christendom as a mother and not -merely as a chance example, I have found Europe and the -world once more like the little garden where I stared at the -symbolic shapes of cat and rake; I look at everything with -the old elvish ignorance and expectancy. This or that rite -or doctrine may look as ugly and extraordinary as a rake; -but I have found by experience that such things end somehow -in grass and flowers. A clergyman may be apparently as -useless as a cat, but he is also as fascinating, for there -must be some strange reason for his existence. I give one -instance out of a hundred; I have not myself any instinctive -kinship with that enthusiasm for physical virginity, which -has certainly been a note of historic Christianity. But when -I look not at myself but at the world, I perceive that this -enthusiasm is not only a note of Christianity, but a note of -Paganism, a note of high human nature in many spheres. The -Greeks felt virginity when they carved Artemis, the Romans -when they robed the vestals, the worst and wildest of the -great Elizabethan playwrights clung to the literal purity of -a woman as to the central pillar of the world. Above all, -the modern world (even while mocking sexual innocence) has -flung itself into a generous idolatry of sexual -innocence---the great modern worship of children. For any -man who loves children will agree that their peculiar beauty -is hurt by a hint of physical sex. With all this human -experience, allied with the Christian authority, I simply -conclude that I am wrong, and the church right; or rather -that I am defective, while the church is universal. I t -takes all sorts to make a church; she does not ask me to be -celibate. But the fact that I have no appreciation of the -celibates, I accept like the fact that I have no ear for -music. The best human experience is against me, as it is on -the subject of Bach. Celibacy is one flower in my father's -garden, of which I have not been told the sweet or terrible -name. But I may be told it any day. - -This, therefore, is, in conclusion, my reason for accepting -the religion and not merely the scattered and secular truths -out of the religion. I do it because the thing has not -merely told this truth or that truth, but has revealed -itself as a truth-telling thing. All other philosophies say -the things that plainly seem to be true; only this -philosophy has again and again said the thing that does not -seem to be true, but is true. Alone of all creeds it is -convincing where it is not attractive; it turns out to be -right, like my father in the garden. Theosophists, for -instance, will preach an obviously attractive idea like -re-incarnation; but if we wait for its logical results, they -are spiritual superciliousness and the cruelty of caste. For -if a man is a beggar by his own pre-natal sins, people will -tend to despise the beggar. But Christianity preaches an -obviously unattractive idea, such as original sin; but when -we wait for its results, they are pathos and brotherhood, -and a thunder of laughter and pity; for only with original -sin we can at once pity the beggar and distrust the king. -Men of science offer us health, an obvious benefit; it is -only afterwards that we discover that by health, they mean -bodily slavery and spiritual tedium. Orthodoxy makes us jump -by the sudden brink of hell; it is only afterwards that we -realise that jumping was an athletic exercise highly -beneficial to our health. It is only afterwards that we -realise that this danger is the root of all drama and -romance. The strongest argument for the divine grace is -simply its ungraciousness. The unpopular parts of -Christianity turn out when examined to be the very props of -the people. The outer ring of Christianity is a rigid guard -of ethical abnegations and professional priests; but inside -that inhuman guard you will find the old human life dancing -like children, and drinking wine like men; for Christianity -is the only frame for pagan freedom. But in the modern -philosophy the case is opposite; it is its outer ring that -is obviously artistic and emancipated; its despair is -within. - -And its despair is this, that it does not really believe -that there is any meaning in the universe; therefore it -cannot hope to find any romance; its romances will have no -plots. A man cannot expect any adventures in the land of -anarchy. But a man can expect any number of adventures if he -goes travelling in the land of authority. One can find no -meanings in a jungle of scepticism; but the man will find -more and more meanings who walks through a forest of -doctrine and design. Here everything has a story tied to its -tail, like the tools or pictures in my father's house; for -it is my father's house. I end where I began---at the right -end. I have entered at least the gate of all good -philosophy. I have come into my second childhood. - -But this larger and more adventurous Christian universe has -one final mark difficult to express; yet as a conclusion of -the whole matter I will attempt to express it. All the real -argument about religion turns on the question of whether a -man who was born upside down can tell when he comes right -way up. The primary paradox of Christianity is that the -ordinary condition of man is not his sane or sensible -condition; that the normal itself is an abnormality. That is -the inmost philosophy of the Fall. In Sir Oliver Lodge's -interesting new Catechism, the first two questions were: -"What are you?" and "What, then, is the meaning of the Fall -of Man?" I remember amusing myself by writing my own answers -to the questions; but I soon found that they were very -broken and agnostic answers. To the question, "What are -you?" I could only answer, "God knows." And to the question, -"What is meant by the Fall?" I could answer with complete -sincerity, "That whatever I am, I am not myself." This is -the prime paradox of our religion; something that we have -never in any full sense known, is not only better than -ourselves, but even more natural to us than ourselves. And -there is really no test of this except the merely -experimental one with which these pages began, the test of -the padded cell and the open door. I t is only since I have -known orthodoxy that I have known mental emancipation. But, -in conclusion, it has one special application to the -ultimate idea of joy. - -It is said that Paganism is a religion of joy and -Christianity of sorrow; it would be just as easy to prove -that Paganism is pure sorrow and Christianity pure joy. Such -conflicts mean nothing and lead nowhere. Everything human -must have in it both joy and sorrow; the only matter of -interest is the manner in which the two things are balanced -or divided. And the really interesting thing is this, that -the pagan was (in the main) happier and happier as he -approached the earth, but sadder and sadder as he approached -the heavens. The gaiety of the best Paganism, as in the -playfulness of Catullus or Theocritus, is, indeed, an -eternal gaiety never to be forgotten by a grateful humanity. -But it is all a gaiety about the facts of life, not about -its origin. To the pagan the small things are as sweet as -the small brooks breaking out of the mountain; but the broad -things are as bitter as the sea. When the pagan looks at the -very core of the cosmos he is struck cold. Behind the gods, -who are merely despotic, sit the fates, who are deadly. Nay, -the fates are worse than deadly; they are dead. And when -rationalists say that the ancient world was more enlightened -than the Christian, from their point of view they are right. -For when they say "enlightened" they mean darkened with -incurable despair. It is profoundly true that the ancient -world was more modern than the Christian. The common bond IS -In the fact that ancients and moderns have both been -miserable about existence, about everything, while -mediaevals were happy about that at least. I freely grant -that the pagans, like the moderns, were only miserable about -everything---they were quite jolly about everything else. I -concede that the Christians of the Middle Ages were only at -peace about everything---they were at war about everything -else. But if the question turn on the primary pivot of the -cosmos, then there was more cosmic contentment in the narrow -and bloody streets of Florence than in the theatre of Athens -or the open garden of Epicurus. Giotto lived in a gloomier -town than Euripides, but he lived in a gayer universe. - -The mass of men have been forced to be gay about the little -things, but sad about the big ones. Nevertheless (I offer my -last dogma defiantly) it is not native to man to be so. Man -is more himself man is more manlike, when joy is the -fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. -Melancholy should be an innocent Interlude, a tender and -fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent -pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional -half-holiday; joy is the uproarious labour by which all -things live. Yet, according to the apparent estate of man as -seen by the pagan or the agnostic, this primary need of -human nature can never be fulfilled. Joy ought to be -expansive; but for the agnostic it must be contracted, it -must cling to one corner of the world. Grief ought to be a -concentration; but for the agnostic its desolation is spread -through an unthinkable eternity. This is what I call being -born upside down. The sceptic may truly be said to be -topsy-turvy; for his feet are dancing upwards in idle -ecstasies, while his brain is in the abyss. To the modern -man the heavens are actually below the earth. The -explanation is simple; he is standing on his head; which is -a very weak pedestal to stand on. But when he has found his -feet again he knows it. Christianity satisfies suddenly and -perfectly man's ancestral instinct for being the right way -up; satisfies it supremely in this; that by its creed joy -becomes something gigantic and sadness something special and -small. The vault above us is not deaf because the universe -is an idiot; the silence is not the heartless silence of an -endless and aimless world. Rather the silence around us is a -small and pitiful stillness like the prompt stillness in a -sick room. We are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of -merciful comedy: because the frantic energy of divine things -would knock us down like a drunken farce. We can take our -own tears more lightly than we could take the tremendous -levities of the angels. So we sit perhaps in a starry -chamber of silence, while the laughter of the heavens is too -loud for us to hear. - -Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the -gigantic secret of the Christian. And as I close this -chaotic volume I open again the strange small book from -which all Christianity came; and I am again haunted by a -kind of confirmation. The tremendous figure which fills the -Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all -the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos -was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, -were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His -tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily -sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet He -concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial -diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never -restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front -steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to -escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something. I -say it with reverence; there was in that shattering -personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was -something that He hid from all men when He went up a -mountain to pray. There was something that He covered -constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There -was some one thing that was too great for God to show us -when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied -that it was His mirth. +The question of whether miracles ever occur is a question of common +sense and of ordinary historical imagination: not of any final physical +experiment. One may here surely dismiss that quite brainless piece of +pedantry which talks about the need for "scientific conditions" in +connection with alleged spiritual phenomena. If we are asking whether a +dead soul can communicate with a living it is ludicrous to insist that +it shall be under conditions in which no two living souls in their +senses would seriously communicate with each other. The fact that ghosts +prefer darkness no more disproves the existence of ghosts than the fact +that lovers prefer darkness disproves the existence of love. If you +choose to say, "I will believe that Miss Brown called her *fiancé* a +periwinkle or any other endearing term, if she will repeat the word +before seventeen psychologists," then I shall reply,"Very well, if those +are your conditions, you will never get the truth, for she certainly +will not say it." It is just as unscientific as it is unphilosophical to +be surprised that in an unsympathetic atmosphere certain extraordinary +sympathies do not arise. It is as if I said that I could not tell if +there was a fog because the air was not clear enough; or as if I +insisted on perfect sunlight in order to see a solar eclipse. + +As a common-sense conclusion, such as those to which we come about sex +or about midnight (well knowing that many details must in their own +nature be concealed) I conclude that miracles do happen. I am forced to +it by a conspiracy of facts: the fact that the men who encounter elves +or angels are not the mystics and the morbid dreamers, but fishermen, +farmers, and all men at once coarse and cautious; the fact that we all +know men who testify to spiritualist incidents but are not +spiritualists; the fact that science itself admits such things more and +more every day. Science will even admit the Ascension if you call it +Levitation, and will very likely admit the Resurrection when it has +thought of another word for it. I suggest the Regalvanisation. But the +strongest of all is the dilemma above mentioned, that these supernatural +things are never denied except on the basis either of anti-democracy or +of materialist dogmatism---I may say materialist mysticism. The sceptic +a1ways takes one of the two positions; either an ordinary man need not +be believed, or an extraordinary event must not be believed. For I hope +we may dismiss the argument against wonders attempted in the mere +recapitulation of frauds, of swindling mediums or trick miracles. That +is not an argument at all, good or bad. A false ghost disproves the +reality of ghosts exactly as much as a forged banknote disproves the +existence of the Bank of England---if anything, it proves its existence. + +Given this conviction that the spiritual phenomena do occur (my evidence +for which is complex but rational), we then collide with one of the +worst mental evils of the age. The greatest disaster of the nineteenth +century was this: that men began to use the word "spiritual" as the same +as the word "good." They thought that to grow in refinement and +incorporeality was to grow in virtue. When scientific evolution was +announced, some feared that it would encourage mere animality. It did +worse: it encouraged mere spirituality. It taught men to think that so +long as they were passing from the ape they were going to the angel. But +you can pass from the ape and go to the devil. A man of genius, very +typical of that time of bewilderment, expressed it perfectly. Benjamin +Disraeli was fight when he said he was on the side of the angels. He was +indeed; he was on the side of the fallen angels. He was not on the side +of any mere appetite or animal brutality; but he was on the side of all +the imperialism of the princes of the abyss; he was on the side of +arrogance and mystery, and contempt of all obvious good. Between this +sunken pride and the towering humilities of heaven there are, one must +suppose, spirits of shapes and sizes. Man, in encountering them, must +make much the same mistakes that he makes in encountering any other +varied types in any other distant continent. It must be I hard at first +to know who is supreme and who is subordinate. If a shade arose from the +under world, and stared at Piccadilly, that shade would not quite +understand the idea of an ordinary closed carriage. He would suppose +that the coachman on the box was a triumphant conqueror, dragging behind +him a kicking and imprisoned captive. So, if we see spiritual facts for +the first time, we may mistake who is uppermost. It is not enough to +find the gods; they are obvious; we must find God, the real chief of the +gods. We must have a long historic experience in supernatural +phenomena---in order to discover which are really natural. In this light +I find the history of Christianity, and even of its Hebrew origins, +quite practical and clear. It does not trouble me to be told that the +Hebrew god was one among many. I know he was, without any research to +tell me so. Jehovah and Baal looked equally important, just as the sun +and the moon looked the same size. It is only slowly that we learn that +the sun is immeasurably our master, and the small moon only our +satellite. Believing that there is a world of spirits, I shall walk in +it as I do in the world of men, looking for the thing that I like and +think good. Just as I should seek in a desert for clean water, or toil +at the North Pole to make a comfortable fire, so I shall search the land +of void and vision until I find something fresh like water, and +comforting like fire; until I find some place in eternity, where I am +literally at home. And there is only one such place to be found. + +I have now said enough to show (to anyone to whom such an explanation is +essential) that I have in the ordinary arena of apologetics, a ground of +belief. In pure records of experiment (if these be taken democratically +without contempt or favour) there is evidence first, that miracles +happen, and second that the nobler miracles belong to our tradition. But +I will not pretend that this curt discussion is my real reason for +accepting Christianity instead of taking the moral good of Christianity +as I should take it out of Confucianism. + +I have another far more solid and central ground for submitting to it as +a faith, instead of merely picking up hints from it as a scheme. And +that is this: that the Christian Church in its practical relation to my +soul is a living teacher, not a dead one. It not only certainly taught +me yesterday, but will almost certainly teach me to-morrow. Once I saw +suddenly the meaning of the shape of the cross; some day I may see +suddenly the meaning of the shape of the mitre. One fine morning I saw +why windows were pointed; some fine morning I may see why priests were +shaven. Plato has told you a truth; but Plato is dead. Shakespeare has +startled you with an image; but Shakespeare will not startle you with +any more. But imagine what it would be to live with such men still +living, to know that Plato might break out with an original lecture +tomorrow, or that at any moment Shakespeare might shatter everything +with a single song. The man who lives in contact with what he believes +to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and +Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some +truth that he has never seen before. There is one only other parallel to +this position; and that is the parallel of the life in which we all +began. When your father told you, walking about the garden, that bees +stung or that roses smelt sweet, you did not talk of taking the best out +of his philosophy. When the bees stung you, you did not call it an +entertaining coincidence. When the rose smelt sweet you did not say "My +father is a rude, barbaric symbol, enshrining (perhaps unconsciously) +the deep delicate truths that flowers smell." No: you believed your +father, because you had found him to be a living fountain of facts, a +thing that really knew more than you; a thing that would tell you truth +to-morrow, as well as to-day. And if this was true of your father, it +was even truer of your mother; at least it was true of mine, to whom +this book is dedicated. Now, when society is in a rather futile fuss +about the subjection of women, will no one say how much every man owes +to the tyranny and privilege of women, to the fact that they alone rule +education until education becomes futile: for a boy is only sent to be +taught at school when it is too late to teach him anything. The real +thing has been done already, and thank God it is nearly always done by +women. Every man is womanised, merely by being born. They talk of the +masculine woman; but every man is a feminised man. And if ever men walk +to Westminster to protest against this female privilege, I shall not +join their procession. + +For I remember with certainty this fixed psychological fact; that the +very time when I was most under a woman's authority, I was most full of +flame and adventure. Exactly because when my mother said that ants bit +they did bite, and because snow did come in winter (as she said); +therefore the whole world was to me a fairyland of wonderful +fulfilments, and it was like living in some Hebraic age, when prophecy +after prophecy came true. I went out as a child into the garden, and it +was a terrible place to me, precisely because I had a due to it: if I +had held no due it would not have been terrible, but tame. A mere +unmeaning wilderness is not even impressive. But the garden of childhood +was fascinating, exactly because everything had a fixed meaning which +could be found out in its turn. Inch by inch I might discover what was +the object of the ugly shape called a rake; or form some shadowy +conjecture as to why my parents kept a cat. + +So, since I have accepted Christendom as a mother and not merely as a +chance example, I have found Europe and the world once more like the +little garden where I stared at the symbolic shapes of cat and rake; I +look at everything with the old elvish ignorance and expectancy. This or +that rite or doctrine may look as ugly and extraordinary as a rake; but +I have found by experience that such things end somehow in grass and +flowers. A clergyman may be apparently as useless as a cat, but he is +also as fascinating, for there must be some strange reason for his +existence. I give one instance out of a hundred; I have not myself any +instinctive kinship with that enthusiasm for physical virginity, which +has certainly been a note of historic Christianity. But when I look not +at myself but at the world, I perceive that this enthusiasm is not only +a note of Christianity, but a note of Paganism, a note of high human +nature in many spheres. The Greeks felt virginity when they carved +Artemis, the Romans when they robed the vestals, the worst and wildest +of the great Elizabethan playwrights clung to the literal purity of a +woman as to the central pillar of the world. Above all, the modern world +(even while mocking sexual innocence) has flung itself into a generous +idolatry of sexual innocence---the great modern worship of children. For +any man who loves children will agree that their peculiar beauty is hurt +by a hint of physical sex. With all this human experience, allied with +the Christian authority, I simply conclude that I am wrong, and the +church right; or rather that I am defective, while the church is +universal. I t takes all sorts to make a church; she does not ask me to +be celibate. But the fact that I have no appreciation of the celibates, +I accept like the fact that I have no ear for music. The best human +experience is against me, as it is on the subject of Bach. Celibacy is +one flower in my father's garden, of which I have not been told the +sweet or terrible name. But I may be told it any day. + +This, therefore, is, in conclusion, my reason for accepting the religion +and not merely the scattered and secular truths out of the religion. I +do it because the thing has not merely told this truth or that truth, +but has revealed itself as a truth-telling thing. All other philosophies +say the things that plainly seem to be true; only this philosophy has +again and again said the thing that does not seem to be true, but is +true. Alone of all creeds it is convincing where it is not attractive; +it turns out to be right, like my father in the garden. Theosophists, +for instance, will preach an obviously attractive idea like +re-incarnation; but if we wait for its logical results, they are +spiritual superciliousness and the cruelty of caste. For if a man is a +beggar by his own pre-natal sins, people will tend to despise the +beggar. But Christianity preaches an obviously unattractive idea, such +as original sin; but when we wait for its results, they are pathos and +brotherhood, and a thunder of laughter and pity; for only with original +sin we can at once pity the beggar and distrust the king. Men of science +offer us health, an obvious benefit; it is only afterwards that we +discover that by health, they mean bodily slavery and spiritual tedium. +Orthodoxy makes us jump by the sudden brink of hell; it is only +afterwards that we realise that jumping was an athletic exercise highly +beneficial to our health. It is only afterwards that we realise that +this danger is the root of all drama and romance. The strongest argument +for the divine grace is simply its ungraciousness. The unpopular parts +of Christianity turn out when examined to be the very props of the +people. The outer ring of Christianity is a rigid guard of ethical +abnegations and professional priests; but inside that inhuman guard you +will find the old human life dancing like children, and drinking wine +like men; for Christianity is the only frame for pagan freedom. But in +the modern philosophy the case is opposite; it is its outer ring that is +obviously artistic and emancipated; its despair is within. + +And its despair is this, that it does not really believe that there is +any meaning in the universe; therefore it cannot hope to find any +romance; its romances will have no plots. A man cannot expect any +adventures in the land of anarchy. But a man can expect any number of +adventures if he goes travelling in the land of authority. One can find +no meanings in a jungle of scepticism; but the man will find more and +more meanings who walks through a forest of doctrine and design. Here +everything has a story tied to its tail, like the tools or pictures in +my father's house; for it is my father's house. I end where I began---at +the right end. I have entered at least the gate of all good philosophy. +I have come into my second childhood. + +But this larger and more adventurous Christian universe has one final +mark difficult to express; yet as a conclusion of the whole matter I +will attempt to express it. All the real argument about religion turns +on the question of whether a man who was born upside down can tell when +he comes right way up. The primary paradox of Christianity is that the +ordinary condition of man is not his sane or sensible condition; that +the normal itself is an abnormality. That is the inmost philosophy of +the Fall. In Sir Oliver Lodge's interesting new Catechism, the first two +questions were: "What are you?" and "What, then, is the meaning of the +Fall of Man?" I remember amusing myself by writing my own answers to the +questions; but I soon found that they were very broken and agnostic +answers. To the question, "What are you?" I could only answer, "God +knows." And to the question, "What is meant by the Fall?" I could answer +with complete sincerity, "That whatever I am, I am not myself." This is +the prime paradox of our religion; something that we have never in any +full sense known, is not only better than ourselves, but even more +natural to us than ourselves. And there is really no test of this except +the merely experimental one with which these pages began, the test of +the padded cell and the open door. I t is only since I have known +orthodoxy that I have known mental emancipation. But, in conclusion, it +has one special application to the ultimate idea of joy. + +It is said that Paganism is a religion of joy and Christianity of +sorrow; it would be just as easy to prove that Paganism is pure sorrow +and Christianity pure joy. Such conflicts mean nothing and lead nowhere. +Everything human must have in it both joy and sorrow; the only matter of +interest is the manner in which the two things are balanced or divided. +And the really interesting thing is this, that the pagan was (in the +main) happier and happier as he approached the earth, but sadder and +sadder as he approached the heavens. The gaiety of the best Paganism, as +in the playfulness of Catullus or Theocritus, is, indeed, an eternal +gaiety never to be forgotten by a grateful humanity. But it is all a +gaiety about the facts of life, not about its origin. To the pagan the +small things are as sweet as the small brooks breaking out of the +mountain; but the broad things are as bitter as the sea. When the pagan +looks at the very core of the cosmos he is struck cold. Behind the gods, +who are merely despotic, sit the fates, who are deadly. Nay, the fates +are worse than deadly; they are dead. And when rationalists say that the +ancient world was more enlightened than the Christian, from their point +of view they are right. For when they say "enlightened" they mean +darkened with incurable despair. It is profoundly true that the ancient +world was more modern than the Christian. The common bond IS In the fact +that ancients and moderns have both been miserable about existence, +about everything, while mediaevals were happy about that at least. I +freely grant that the pagans, like the moderns, were only miserable +about everything---they were quite jolly about everything else. I +concede that the Christians of the Middle Ages were only at peace about +everything---they were at war about everything else. But if the question +turn on the primary pivot of the cosmos, then there was more cosmic +contentment in the narrow and bloody streets of Florence than in the +theatre of Athens or the open garden of Epicurus. Giotto lived in a +gloomier town than Euripides, but he lived in a gayer universe. + +The mass of men have been forced to be gay about the little things, but +sad about the big ones. Nevertheless (I offer my last dogma defiantly) +it is not native to man to be so. Man is more himself man is more +manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the +superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent Interlude, a tender and +fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the +soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; joy is the +uproarious labour by which all things live. Yet, according to the +apparent estate of man as seen by the pagan or the agnostic, this +primary need of human nature can never be fulfilled. Joy ought to be +expansive; but for the agnostic it must be contracted, it must cling to +one corner of the world. Grief ought to be a concentration; but for the +agnostic its desolation is spread through an unthinkable eternity. This +is what I call being born upside down. The sceptic may truly be said to +be topsy-turvy; for his feet are dancing upwards in idle ecstasies, +while his brain is in the abyss. To the modern man the heavens are +actually below the earth. The explanation is simple; he is standing on +his head; which is a very weak pedestal to stand on. But when he has +found his feet again he knows it. Christianity satisfies suddenly and +perfectly man's ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfies +it supremely in this; that by its creed joy becomes something gigantic +and sadness something special and small. The vault above us is not deaf +because the universe is an idiot; the silence is not the heartless +silence of an endless and aimless world. Rather the silence around us is +a small and pitiful stillness like the prompt stillness in a sick room. +We are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of merciful comedy: because +the frantic energy of divine things would knock us down like a drunken +farce. We can take our own tears more lightly than we could take the +tremendous levities of the angels. So we sit perhaps in a starry chamber +of silence, while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to +hear. + +Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret +of the Christian. And as I close this chaotic volume I open again the +strange small book from which all Christianity came; and I am again +haunted by a kind of confirmation. The tremendous figure which fills the +Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the +thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural, +almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing +their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His +open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. +Yet He concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists +are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He +flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how +they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained +something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering +personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something +that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was +something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous +isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show +us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it +was His mirth. diff --git a/src/outline-sanity.md b/src/outline-sanity.md index 797539f..78304d5 100644 --- a/src/outline-sanity.md +++ b/src/outline-sanity.md @@ -2,6256 +2,5241 @@ ## The Beginning of the Quarrel -I have been asked to republish these notes---which appeared -in a weekly paper---as a rough sketch of certain aspects of -the institution of Private Property, now so completely -forgotten amid the journalistic jubilations over Private -Enterprise. The very fact that the publicists say so much of -the latter and so little of the former is a measure of the -moral tone of the times. A pickpocket is obviously a -champion of private enterprise. But it would perhaps be an -exaggeration to say that a pickpocket is a champion of -private property. The point about Capitalism and -Commercialism, as conducted of late, is that they have -really preached the extension of business rather than the -preservation of belongings; and have at best tried to -disguise the pickpocket with some of the virtues of the -pirate. The point about Communism is that it only reforms -the pickpocket by forbidding pockets. - -Pockets and possessions generally seem to me to have not -only a more normal but a more dignified defence than the -rather dirty individualism that talks about private -enterprise. In the hope that it may possibly help others to -understand it, I have decided to reproduce these studies as -they stand, hasty and sometimes merely topical as they were. -It is indeed very hard to reproduce them in this form, -because they were editorial notes to a controversy largely -conducted by others; but the general idea is at least -present. In any case, "private enterprise" is no very noble -way of stating the truth of one of the Ten Commandments. But -there was at least a time when it was more or less true. The -Manchester Radicals preached a rather crude and cruel sort -of competition; but at least they practised what they -preached. The newspapers now praising private enterprise are -preaching the very opposite of anything that anybody dreams -of practising. The practical tendency of all trade and -business to-day is towards big commercial combinations, -often more imperial, more impersonal, more international -than many a communist commonwealth---things that are at -least collective if not collectivist. It is all very well to -repeat distractedly, "What are we coming to, with all this -Bolshevism?" It is equally relevant to add, "What are we -coming to, even without Bolshevism?" The obvious answer -is---Monopoly. It is certainly not private enterprise. The -American Trust is not private enterprise. It would be truer -to call the Spanish Inquisition private judgment. Monopoly -is neither private nor enterprising. It exists to prevent -private enterprise. And that system of trust or monopoly, -that complete destruction of property, would still be the -present goal of all our progress, if there were not a -Bolshevist in the world. - -Now I am one of those who believe that the cure for -centralization is decentralization. It has been described as -a paradox. There is apparently something elvish and -fantastic about saying that when capital has come to be too -much in the hand of the few, the right thing is to restore -it into the hands of the many. The Socialist would put it in -the hands of even fewer people; but those people would be -politicians, who (as we know) always administer it in the -interests of the many. But before I put before the reader -things written in the very thick of the current controversy, -I foresee it will be necessary to preface them with these -few paragraphs, explaining a few of the terms and amplifying -a few of the assumptions. I was in the weekly paper arguing -with people who knew the shorthand of this particular -argument; but to be clearly understood, we must begin with a -few definitions or, at least, descriptions. I assure the -reader that I use words in quite a definite sense, but it is -possible that he may use them in a different sense; and a -muddle and misunderstanding of that sort does not even rise -to the dignity of a difference of opinion. - -For instance, Capitalism is really a very unpleasant word. -It is also a very unpleasant thing. Yet the thing I have in -mind, when I say so, is quite definite and definable; only -the name is a very unworkable word for it. But obviously we -must have some word for it. When I say "Capitalism," I -commonly mean something that may be stated thus: "That -economic condition in which there is a class of capitalists, -roughly recognizable and relatively small, in whose -possession so much of the capital is concentrated as to -necessitate a very large majority of the citizens serving -those capitalists for a wage." This particular state of -things can and does exist, and we must have some word for -it, and some way of discussing it. But this is undoubtedly a -very bad word, because it is used by other people to mean -quite other things. Some people seem to mean merely private -property. Others suppose that capitalism must mean anything -involving the use of capital. But if that use is too -literal, it is also too loose and even too large. If the use -of capital is capitalism, then everything is capitalism. -Bolshevism is capitalism and anarchist communism is -capitalism; and every revolutionary scheme, however wild, is -still capitalism. Lenin and Trotsky believe as much as Lloyd -George and Thomas that the economic operations of to-day -must leave something over for the economic operations of -to-morrow. And that is all that capital means in its -economic sense. In that case, the word is useless. My use of -it may be arbitrary, but it is not useless. If capitalism -means private property, I am capitalist. If capitalism means -capital, everybody is capitalist. But if capitalism means -this particular condition of capital, only paid out to the -mass in the form of wages, then it does mean something, even -if it ought to mean something else. +I have been asked to republish these notes---which appeared in a weekly +paper---as a rough sketch of certain aspects of the institution of +Private Property, now so completely forgotten amid the journalistic +jubilations over Private Enterprise. The very fact that the publicists +say so much of the latter and so little of the former is a measure of +the moral tone of the times. A pickpocket is obviously a champion of +private enterprise. But it would perhaps be an exaggeration to say that +a pickpocket is a champion of private property. The point about +Capitalism and Commercialism, as conducted of late, is that they have +really preached the extension of business rather than the preservation +of belongings; and have at best tried to disguise the pickpocket with +some of the virtues of the pirate. The point about Communism is that it +only reforms the pickpocket by forbidding pockets. + +Pockets and possessions generally seem to me to have not only a more +normal but a more dignified defence than the rather dirty individualism +that talks about private enterprise. In the hope that it may possibly +help others to understand it, I have decided to reproduce these studies +as they stand, hasty and sometimes merely topical as they were. It is +indeed very hard to reproduce them in this form, because they were +editorial notes to a controversy largely conducted by others; but the +general idea is at least present. In any case, "private enterprise" is +no very noble way of stating the truth of one of the Ten Commandments. +But there was at least a time when it was more or less true. The +Manchester Radicals preached a rather crude and cruel sort of +competition; but at least they practised what they preached. The +newspapers now praising private enterprise are preaching the very +opposite of anything that anybody dreams of practising. The practical +tendency of all trade and business to-day is towards big commercial +combinations, often more imperial, more impersonal, more international +than many a communist commonwealth---things that are at least collective +if not collectivist. It is all very well to repeat distractedly, "What +are we coming to, with all this Bolshevism?" It is equally relevant to +add, "What are we coming to, even without Bolshevism?" The obvious +answer is---Monopoly. It is certainly not private enterprise. The +American Trust is not private enterprise. It would be truer to call the +Spanish Inquisition private judgment. Monopoly is neither private nor +enterprising. It exists to prevent private enterprise. And that system +of trust or monopoly, that complete destruction of property, would still +be the present goal of all our progress, if there were not a Bolshevist +in the world. + +Now I am one of those who believe that the cure for centralization is +decentralization. It has been described as a paradox. There is +apparently something elvish and fantastic about saying that when capital +has come to be too much in the hand of the few, the right thing is to +restore it into the hands of the many. The Socialist would put it in the +hands of even fewer people; but those people would be politicians, who +(as we know) always administer it in the interests of the many. But +before I put before the reader things written in the very thick of the +current controversy, I foresee it will be necessary to preface them with +these few paragraphs, explaining a few of the terms and amplifying a few +of the assumptions. I was in the weekly paper arguing with people who +knew the shorthand of this particular argument; but to be clearly +understood, we must begin with a few definitions or, at least, +descriptions. I assure the reader that I use words in quite a definite +sense, but it is possible that he may use them in a different sense; and +a muddle and misunderstanding of that sort does not even rise to the +dignity of a difference of opinion. + +For instance, Capitalism is really a very unpleasant word. It is also a +very unpleasant thing. Yet the thing I have in mind, when I say so, is +quite definite and definable; only the name is a very unworkable word +for it. But obviously we must have some word for it. When I say +"Capitalism," I commonly mean something that may be stated thus: "That +economic condition in which there is a class of capitalists, roughly +recognizable and relatively small, in whose possession so much of the +capital is concentrated as to necessitate a very large majority of the +citizens serving those capitalists for a wage." This particular state of +things can and does exist, and we must have some word for it, and some +way of discussing it. But this is undoubtedly a very bad word, because +it is used by other people to mean quite other things. Some people seem +to mean merely private property. Others suppose that capitalism must +mean anything involving the use of capital. But if that use is too +literal, it is also too loose and even too large. If the use of capital +is capitalism, then everything is capitalism. Bolshevism is capitalism +and anarchist communism is capitalism; and every revolutionary scheme, +however wild, is still capitalism. Lenin and Trotsky believe as much as +Lloyd George and Thomas that the economic operations of to-day must +leave something over for the economic operations of to-morrow. And that +is all that capital means in its economic sense. In that case, the word +is useless. My use of it may be arbitrary, but it is not useless. If +capitalism means private property, I am capitalist. If capitalism means +capital, everybody is capitalist. But if capitalism means this +particular condition of capital, only paid out to the mass in the form +of wages, then it does mean something, even if it ought to mean +something else. The truth is that what we call Capitalism ought to be called -Proletarianism. The point of it is not that some people have -capital, but that most people only have wages because they -do not have capital. I have made an heroic effort in my time -to walk about the world always saying Proletarianism instead -of Capitalism. But my path has been a thorny one of troubles -and misunderstandings. I find that when I criticize the Duke -of Northumberland for his Proletarianism, my meaning does -not get home. When I say I should often agree with the -Morning Post if it were not so deplorably Proletarian, there -seems to be some strange momentary impediment to the -complete communion of mind with mind. Yet that would be -strictly accurate; for what I complain of, in the current -defence of existing capitalism, is that it is a defence of -keeping most men in wage dependence; that is, keeping most -men without capital. I am not the sort of precision who -prefers conveying correctly what he doesn't mean, rather -than conveying incorrectly what he does. I am totally -indifferent to the term as compared to the meaning. I do not -care whether I call one thing or the other by this mere -printed word beginning with a "C," so long as it is applied -to one thing and not the other. I do not mind using a term -as arbitrary as a mathematical sign, if it is accepted like -a mathematical sign. I do not mind calling Property x and -Capitalism y, so long as nobody thinks it necessary to say -that x=y. I do not mind saying "cat" for capitalism and -"dog" for distributism, so long as people understand that -the things are different enough to fight like cat and dog. -The proposal of the wider distribution of capital remains -the same, whatever we call it, or whatever we call the -present glaring contradiction of it. It is the same whether -we state it by saying that there is too much capitalism in -the one sense or too little capitalism in the other. And it -is really quite pedantic to say that the use of capital must -be capitalist. We might as fairly say that anything social -must be Socialist; that Socialism can be identified with a -social evening or a social glass. Which, I grieve to say, is -not the case. - -Nevertheless, there is enough verbal vagueness about -Socialism to call for a word of definition. Socialism is a -system which makes the corporate unity of society -responsible for all its economic processes, or all those -affecting life and essential living. If anything important -is sold, the Government has sold it; if anything important -is given, the Government has given it; if anything important -is even tolerated, the Government is responsible for -tolerating it. This is the very reverse of anarchy; it is an -extreme enthusiasm for authority. It is in many ways worthy -of the moral dignity of the mind; it is a collective -acceptance of a very complete responsibility. But it is -silly of Socialists to complain of our saying that it must -be a destruction of liberty. It is almost equally silly of -Anti-Socialists to complain of the unnatural and unbalanced -brutality of the Bolshevist Government in crushing a -political opposition. A Socialist Government is one which in -its nature does not tolerate any true and real opposition. -For there the Government provides everything; and it is -absurd to ask a Government to provide an opposition. - -You cannot go to the Sultan and say reproachfully, "You have -made no arrangements for your brother dethroning you and -seizing the Caliphate." You cannot go to a medieval king and -say, "Kindly lend me two thousand spears and one thousand -bowmen, as I wish to raise a rebellion against you." Still -less can you reproach a Government which professes to set up -everything, because it has not set up anything to pull down -all it has set up. Opposition and rebellion depend on -property and liberty. They can only be tolerated where other -rights have been allowed to strike root, besides the central -right of the ruler. Those rights must be protected by a -morality which even the ruler will hesitate to defy. The -critic of the State can only exist where a religious sense -of right protects his claims to his own bow and spear; or at -least, to his own pen or his own printing-press. It is -absurd to suppose that he could borrow the royal pen to -advocate regicide or use the Government printing-presses to -expose the corruption of the Government. Yet it is the whole -point of Socialism, the whole case for Socialism, that -unless all printing-presses are Government printing-presses, -printers may be oppressed. Everything is staked on the -State's justice; it is putting all the eggs in one basket. -Many of them will be rotten eggs; but even then you will not -be allowed to use them at political elections. - -About fifteen years ago a few of us began to preach, in the -old *New Age* and *New Witness,* a policy of small -distributed property (which has since assumed the awkward -but accurate name of Distributism), as we should have said -then, against the two extremes of Capitalism and Communism. -The first criticism we received was from the most brilliant -Fabians, especially Mr. Bernard Shaw. And the form which -that first criticism took was simply to tell us that our -ideal was impossible. It was only a case of Catholic -credulity about fairy-tales. The Law of Rent, and other -economic laws, made it inevitable that the little rivulets -of property should run down into the pool of plutocracy. In -truth, it was the Fabian wit, and not merely the Tory fool, -who confronted our vision with that venerable verbal -opening, "If it were all divided up to-morrow----" - -Nevertheless, we had an answer even in those days, and -though we have since found many others, it will clarify the -question if I repeat this point of principle. It is true -that I believe in fairy-tales---in the sense that I marvel -so much at what does exist that I am the readier to admit -what might. I understand the man who believes in the Sea -Serpent on the ground that there are more fish in the sea -than ever came out of it. But I do it the more because the -other man, in his ardour for disproving the Sea Serpent, -always argues that there are not only no snakes in Iceland, -but none in the world. Suppose Mr. Bernard Shaw, commenting -on this credulity, were to blame me for believing (on the -word of some lying priest) that stones could be thrown up -into the air and hang there suspended like a rainbow. -Suppose he told me tenderly that I should not believe this -Popish fable of the magic stones, if I had ever had the Law -of Gravity scientifically explained to me. And suppose, -after all this, I found he was only talking about the -impossibility of building an arch. I think most of us would -form two main conclusions about him and his school. First, -we should think them very ill-informed about what is really -meant by recognizing a law of nature. A law of nature can be -recognized by resisting it, or out-manoeuvring it, or even -using it against itself, as in the case of the arch. And -second, and much more strongly, we should think them -astonishingly ill-informed about what has already been done -upon this earth. - -Similarly, the first fact in the discussion of whether small -properties can exist is the fact that they do exist. It is a -fact almost equally unmistakable that they not only exist -but endure. Mr. Shaw affirmed, in a sort of abstract fury, -that "small properties will not stay small." Now it is -interesting to note here that the opponents of anything like -a several proprietary bring two highly inconsistent charges -against it. They are perpetually telling us that the peasant -life in Latin or other countries is monotonous, is -unprogressive, is covered with weedy superstitions, and is a -sort of survival of the Stone Age. Yet even while they taunt -us with its survival, they argue that it can never survive. -They point to the peasant as a perennial stick-in-the-mud; -and then refuse to plant him anywhere, on the specific -ground that he would not stick. Now, the first of the two -types of denunciation is arguable enough; but in order to -denounce peasantries, the critics must admit that there are -peasantries to denounce. And if it were true that they -always tended rapidly to disappear, it would not be true -that they exhibited those primitive customs and conservative -opinions which they not only do, in fact, exhibit, but which -the critics reproach them with exhibiting. They cannot in -common sense accuse a thing at once of being antiquated and -of being ephemeral. It is, of course, the dry fact, to be -seen in broad daylight, that small peasant properties are -not ephemeral. But anyhow, Mr. Shaw and his school must not -say that arches cannot be built, and then that they -disfigure the landscape. The Distributive State is not a -hypothesis for him to demolish; it is a phenomenon for him -to explain. - -The truth is that the conception that small property evolves -into Capitalism is a precise picture of what practically -never takes place. The truth is attested even by facts of -geography, facts which, as it seems to me, have been -strangely overlooked. Nine times out of ten, an industrial -civilization of the modern capitalist type does not arise, -wherever else it may arise, in places where there has -hitherto been a distributive civilization like that of a -peasantry. Capitalism is a monster that grows in deserts. -Industrial servitude has almost everywhere arisen in those -empty spaces where the older civilization was thin or -absent. Thus it grew up easily in the North of England -rather than the South; precisely because the North had been -comparatively empty and barbarous through all the ages when -the South had a civilization of guilds and peasantries. Thus -it grew up easily in the American continent rather than the -European; precisely because it had nothing to supplant in -America but a few savages, while in Europe it had to -supplant the culture of multitudinous farms. Everywhere it -has been but one stride from the mud-hut to the -manufacturing town. Everywhere the mud-hut which really -turned into the free farm has never since moved an inch -towards the manufacturing town. Wherever there was the mere -lord and the mere serf, they could almost instantly be -turned into the mere employer and the mere employee. -Wherever there has been the free man, even when he was -relatively less rich and powerful, his mere memory has made -complete industrial capitalism impossible. It is an enemy -that has sown these tares, but even as an enemy he is a -coward. For he can only sow them in waste places, where no -wheat can spring up and choke them. - -To take up our parable again, we say first that arches -exist; and not only exist but remain. A hundred Roman -aqueducts and amphitheatres are there to show that they can -remain as long or longer than anything else. And if a -progressive person informs us that an arch always turns into -a factory chimney, or even that an arch always falls down -because it is weaker than a factory chimney, or even that -wherever it does fall down people perceive that they must -replace it by a factory chimney---why, we shall be so -audacious as to cast doubts on all these three assertions. -All we could possibly admit is that the principle supporting -the chimney is simpler than the principle of the arch; and -for that very reason the factory chimney, like the feudal -tower, can rise the more easily in a howling wilderness. - -But the image has yet a further application. If at this -moment the Latin countries are largely made our model in the -matter of the small property, it is only in the sense in -which they would have been, through certain periods of -history, the only exemplars of the arch. There was a time -when all arches were Roman arches; and when a man living by -the Liffey or the Thames would know as little about them as -Mr. Shaw knows about peasant proprietors. But that does not -mean that we fight for something merely foreign, or advance -the arch as a sort of Italian ensign; any more than we want -to make the Thames as yellow as the Tiber, or have any -particular taste in macaroni or malaria. The principle of -the arch is human, and applicable to and by all humanity. So -is the principle of well-distributed private property. That -a few Roman arches stood in ruins in Britain is not a proof -that arches cannot be built, but on the contrary, a proof -that they can. - -And now, to complete the coincidence or analogy, what is the -principle of the arch? You can call it, if you like, an -affront to gravitation; you will be more correct if you call -it an appeal to gravitation. The principle asserts that by -combining separate stones of a particular shape in a -particular way, we can ensure that their very tendency to -fall shall prevent them from falling. And though my image is -merely an illustration, it does to a great extent hold even -as to the success of more equalized properties. What upholds -an arch is an equality of pressure of the separate stones -upon each other. The equality is at once mutual aid and -mutual obstruction. It is not difficult to show that in a -healthy society the moral pressure of different private -properties acts in exactly the same way. But if the other -school finds the key or comparison insufficient, it must -find some other. It is clear that no natural forces can -frustrate the fact. To say that any law, such as that of -rent, makes against it is true only in the sense that many -natural laws make against all morality and the very -essentials of manhood. In that sense, scientific arguments -are as irrelevant to our case for property as Mr. Shaw used -to say they were to his case against vivisection. - -Lastly, it is not only true that the arch of property -remains, it is true that the building of such arches -increases, both in quantity and quality. For instance, the -French peasant before the French Revolution was already -indefinitely a proprietor; it has made his property more -private and more absolute, not less. The French are now less -than ever likely to abandon the system, when it has proved -for the second, if not the hundredth time, the most stable -type of prosperity in the stress of war. A revolution as -heroic, and even more unconquerable, has already in Ireland -disregarded alike the Socialist dream and the Capitalist -reality, with a driving energy of which no one has yet dared -to foresee the limits. So, when the round arch of the Romans -and the Normans had remained for ages as a sort of relic, -the rebirth of Christendom found for it a further -application and issue. It sprang in an instant to the -titanic stature of the Gothic; where man seemed to be a god -who had hanged his worlds upon nothing. Then was unsealed -again something of that ancient secret which had so -strangely described the priest as the builder of bridges. -And when I look to-day at some of the bridges which he built -above the air, I can understand a man still calling them +Proletarianism. The point of it is not that some people have capital, +but that most people only have wages because they do not have capital. I +have made an heroic effort in my time to walk about the world always +saying Proletarianism instead of Capitalism. But my path has been a +thorny one of troubles and misunderstandings. I find that when I +criticize the Duke of Northumberland for his Proletarianism, my meaning +does not get home. When I say I should often agree with the Morning Post +if it were not so deplorably Proletarian, there seems to be some strange +momentary impediment to the complete communion of mind with mind. Yet +that would be strictly accurate; for what I complain of, in the current +defence of existing capitalism, is that it is a defence of keeping most +men in wage dependence; that is, keeping most men without capital. I am +not the sort of precision who prefers conveying correctly what he +doesn't mean, rather than conveying incorrectly what he does. I am +totally indifferent to the term as compared to the meaning. I do not +care whether I call one thing or the other by this mere printed word +beginning with a "C," so long as it is applied to one thing and not the +other. I do not mind using a term as arbitrary as a mathematical sign, +if it is accepted like a mathematical sign. I do not mind calling +Property x and Capitalism y, so long as nobody thinks it necessary to +say that x=y. I do not mind saying "cat" for capitalism and "dog" for +distributism, so long as people understand that the things are different +enough to fight like cat and dog. The proposal of the wider distribution +of capital remains the same, whatever we call it, or whatever we call +the present glaring contradiction of it. It is the same whether we state +it by saying that there is too much capitalism in the one sense or too +little capitalism in the other. And it is really quite pedantic to say +that the use of capital must be capitalist. We might as fairly say that +anything social must be Socialist; that Socialism can be identified with +a social evening or a social glass. Which, I grieve to say, is not the +case. + +Nevertheless, there is enough verbal vagueness about Socialism to call +for a word of definition. Socialism is a system which makes the +corporate unity of society responsible for all its economic processes, +or all those affecting life and essential living. If anything important +is sold, the Government has sold it; if anything important is given, the +Government has given it; if anything important is even tolerated, the +Government is responsible for tolerating it. This is the very reverse of +anarchy; it is an extreme enthusiasm for authority. It is in many ways +worthy of the moral dignity of the mind; it is a collective acceptance +of a very complete responsibility. But it is silly of Socialists to +complain of our saying that it must be a destruction of liberty. It is +almost equally silly of Anti-Socialists to complain of the unnatural and +unbalanced brutality of the Bolshevist Government in crushing a +political opposition. A Socialist Government is one which in its nature +does not tolerate any true and real opposition. For there the Government +provides everything; and it is absurd to ask a Government to provide an +opposition. + +You cannot go to the Sultan and say reproachfully, "You have made no +arrangements for your brother dethroning you and seizing the Caliphate." +You cannot go to a medieval king and say, "Kindly lend me two thousand +spears and one thousand bowmen, as I wish to raise a rebellion against +you." Still less can you reproach a Government which professes to set up +everything, because it has not set up anything to pull down all it has +set up. Opposition and rebellion depend on property and liberty. They +can only be tolerated where other rights have been allowed to strike +root, besides the central right of the ruler. Those rights must be +protected by a morality which even the ruler will hesitate to defy. The +critic of the State can only exist where a religious sense of right +protects his claims to his own bow and spear; or at least, to his own +pen or his own printing-press. It is absurd to suppose that he could +borrow the royal pen to advocate regicide or use the Government +printing-presses to expose the corruption of the Government. Yet it is +the whole point of Socialism, the whole case for Socialism, that unless +all printing-presses are Government printing-presses, printers may be +oppressed. Everything is staked on the State's justice; it is putting +all the eggs in one basket. Many of them will be rotten eggs; but even +then you will not be allowed to use them at political elections. + +About fifteen years ago a few of us began to preach, in the old *New +Age* and *New Witness,* a policy of small distributed property (which +has since assumed the awkward but accurate name of Distributism), as we +should have said then, against the two extremes of Capitalism and +Communism. The first criticism we received was from the most brilliant +Fabians, especially Mr. Bernard Shaw. And the form which that first +criticism took was simply to tell us that our ideal was impossible. It +was only a case of Catholic credulity about fairy-tales. The Law of +Rent, and other economic laws, made it inevitable that the little +rivulets of property should run down into the pool of plutocracy. In +truth, it was the Fabian wit, and not merely the Tory fool, who +confronted our vision with that venerable verbal opening, "If it were +all divided up to-morrow----" + +Nevertheless, we had an answer even in those days, and though we have +since found many others, it will clarify the question if I repeat this +point of principle. It is true that I believe in fairy-tales---in the +sense that I marvel so much at what does exist that I am the readier to +admit what might. I understand the man who believes in the Sea Serpent +on the ground that there are more fish in the sea than ever came out of +it. But I do it the more because the other man, in his ardour for +disproving the Sea Serpent, always argues that there are not only no +snakes in Iceland, but none in the world. Suppose Mr. Bernard Shaw, +commenting on this credulity, were to blame me for believing (on the +word of some lying priest) that stones could be thrown up into the air +and hang there suspended like a rainbow. Suppose he told me tenderly +that I should not believe this Popish fable of the magic stones, if I +had ever had the Law of Gravity scientifically explained to me. And +suppose, after all this, I found he was only talking about the +impossibility of building an arch. I think most of us would form two +main conclusions about him and his school. First, we should think them +very ill-informed about what is really meant by recognizing a law of +nature. A law of nature can be recognized by resisting it, or +out-manoeuvring it, or even using it against itself, as in the case of +the arch. And second, and much more strongly, we should think them +astonishingly ill-informed about what has already been done upon this +earth. + +Similarly, the first fact in the discussion of whether small properties +can exist is the fact that they do exist. It is a fact almost equally +unmistakable that they not only exist but endure. Mr. Shaw affirmed, in +a sort of abstract fury, that "small properties will not stay small." +Now it is interesting to note here that the opponents of anything like a +several proprietary bring two highly inconsistent charges against it. +They are perpetually telling us that the peasant life in Latin or other +countries is monotonous, is unprogressive, is covered with weedy +superstitions, and is a sort of survival of the Stone Age. Yet even +while they taunt us with its survival, they argue that it can never +survive. They point to the peasant as a perennial stick-in-the-mud; and +then refuse to plant him anywhere, on the specific ground that he would +not stick. Now, the first of the two types of denunciation is arguable +enough; but in order to denounce peasantries, the critics must admit +that there are peasantries to denounce. And if it were true that they +always tended rapidly to disappear, it would not be true that they +exhibited those primitive customs and conservative opinions which they +not only do, in fact, exhibit, but which the critics reproach them with +exhibiting. They cannot in common sense accuse a thing at once of being +antiquated and of being ephemeral. It is, of course, the dry fact, to be +seen in broad daylight, that small peasant properties are not ephemeral. +But anyhow, Mr. Shaw and his school must not say that arches cannot be +built, and then that they disfigure the landscape. The Distributive +State is not a hypothesis for him to demolish; it is a phenomenon for +him to explain. + +The truth is that the conception that small property evolves into +Capitalism is a precise picture of what practically never takes place. +The truth is attested even by facts of geography, facts which, as it +seems to me, have been strangely overlooked. Nine times out of ten, an +industrial civilization of the modern capitalist type does not arise, +wherever else it may arise, in places where there has hitherto been a +distributive civilization like that of a peasantry. Capitalism is a +monster that grows in deserts. Industrial servitude has almost +everywhere arisen in those empty spaces where the older civilization was +thin or absent. Thus it grew up easily in the North of England rather +than the South; precisely because the North had been comparatively empty +and barbarous through all the ages when the South had a civilization of +guilds and peasantries. Thus it grew up easily in the American continent +rather than the European; precisely because it had nothing to supplant +in America but a few savages, while in Europe it had to supplant the +culture of multitudinous farms. Everywhere it has been but one stride +from the mud-hut to the manufacturing town. Everywhere the mud-hut which +really turned into the free farm has never since moved an inch towards +the manufacturing town. Wherever there was the mere lord and the mere +serf, they could almost instantly be turned into the mere employer and +the mere employee. Wherever there has been the free man, even when he +was relatively less rich and powerful, his mere memory has made complete +industrial capitalism impossible. It is an enemy that has sown these +tares, but even as an enemy he is a coward. For he can only sow them in +waste places, where no wheat can spring up and choke them. + +To take up our parable again, we say first that arches exist; and not +only exist but remain. A hundred Roman aqueducts and amphitheatres are +there to show that they can remain as long or longer than anything else. +And if a progressive person informs us that an arch always turns into a +factory chimney, or even that an arch always falls down because it is +weaker than a factory chimney, or even that wherever it does fall down +people perceive that they must replace it by a factory chimney---why, we +shall be so audacious as to cast doubts on all these three assertions. +All we could possibly admit is that the principle supporting the chimney +is simpler than the principle of the arch; and for that very reason the +factory chimney, like the feudal tower, can rise the more easily in a +howling wilderness. + +But the image has yet a further application. If at this moment the Latin +countries are largely made our model in the matter of the small +property, it is only in the sense in which they would have been, through +certain periods of history, the only exemplars of the arch. There was a +time when all arches were Roman arches; and when a man living by the +Liffey or the Thames would know as little about them as Mr. Shaw knows +about peasant proprietors. But that does not mean that we fight for +something merely foreign, or advance the arch as a sort of Italian +ensign; any more than we want to make the Thames as yellow as the Tiber, +or have any particular taste in macaroni or malaria. The principle of +the arch is human, and applicable to and by all humanity. So is the +principle of well-distributed private property. That a few Roman arches +stood in ruins in Britain is not a proof that arches cannot be built, +but on the contrary, a proof that they can. + +And now, to complete the coincidence or analogy, what is the principle +of the arch? You can call it, if you like, an affront to gravitation; +you will be more correct if you call it an appeal to gravitation. The +principle asserts that by combining separate stones of a particular +shape in a particular way, we can ensure that their very tendency to +fall shall prevent them from falling. And though my image is merely an +illustration, it does to a great extent hold even as to the success of +more equalized properties. What upholds an arch is an equality of +pressure of the separate stones upon each other. The equality is at once +mutual aid and mutual obstruction. It is not difficult to show that in a +healthy society the moral pressure of different private properties acts +in exactly the same way. But if the other school finds the key or +comparison insufficient, it must find some other. It is clear that no +natural forces can frustrate the fact. To say that any law, such as that +of rent, makes against it is true only in the sense that many natural +laws make against all morality and the very essentials of manhood. In +that sense, scientific arguments are as irrelevant to our case for +property as Mr. Shaw used to say they were to his case against +vivisection. + +Lastly, it is not only true that the arch of property remains, it is +true that the building of such arches increases, both in quantity and +quality. For instance, the French peasant before the French Revolution +was already indefinitely a proprietor; it has made his property more +private and more absolute, not less. The French are now less than ever +likely to abandon the system, when it has proved for the second, if not +the hundredth time, the most stable type of prosperity in the stress of +war. A revolution as heroic, and even more unconquerable, has already in +Ireland disregarded alike the Socialist dream and the Capitalist +reality, with a driving energy of which no one has yet dared to foresee +the limits. So, when the round arch of the Romans and the Normans had +remained for ages as a sort of relic, the rebirth of Christendom found +for it a further application and issue. It sprang in an instant to the +titanic stature of the Gothic; where man seemed to be a god who had +hanged his worlds upon nothing. Then was unsealed again something of +that ancient secret which had so strangely described the priest as the +builder of bridges. And when I look to-day at some of the bridges which +he built above the air, I can understand a man still calling them impossible, as their only possible praise. -What do we mean by that "equality of pressure" as of the -stones in an arch? More will be said of this in detail; but -in general we mean that the modern passion for incessant and -restless buying and selling goes along with the extreme -inequality of men too rich or too poor. The explanation of -the continuity of peasantries (which their opponents are -simply forced to leave unexplained) is that, where that -independence exists, it is valued exactly as any other -dignity is valued when it is regarded as normal to a man; as -no man goes naked or is beaten with a stick for hire. - -The theory that those who start reasonably equal cannot -remain reasonably equal is a fallacy founded entirely on a -society in which they start extremely unequal. It is quite -true that when capitalism has passed a certain point, the -broken fragments of property are very easily devoured. In -other words, it is true when there is a small amount of -small property; but it is quite untrue when there is a large -amount of small property. To argue from what happened in the -rush of big business and the rout of scattered small -businesses to what must always happen when the parties are -more on a level, is quite illogical. It is proving from -Niagara that there is no such thing as a lake. Once tip up -the lake and the whole of the water will rush one way; as -the whole economic tendency of capitalist inequality rushes -one way. Leave the lake as a lake, or the level as a level, -and there is nothing to prevent the lake remaining until the -crack of doom---as many levels of peasantry seem likely to -remain until the crack of doom. This fact is proved by -experience, even if it is not explained by experience; but, -as a matter of fact, it is possible to suggest not only the -experience but the explanation. The truth is that there is -no economic tendency whatever towards the disappearance of -small property, until that property becomes so very small as -to cease to act as property at all. If one man has a hundred -acres and another man has half an acre, it is likely enough -that he will be unable to live on half an acre. Then there -will be an economic tendency for him to sell his land and -make the other man the proud possessor of a hundred and a -half. But if one man has thirty acres and the other man has -forty acres, there is no economic tendency of any kind -whatever to make the first man sell to the second. It is -simply false to say that the first man cannot be secure of -thirty or the second man content with forty. It is sheer -nonsense; like saying that any man who owns a bull terrier -will be bound to sell it to somebody who owns a mastiff. It -is like saying that I cannot own a horse because I have an +What do we mean by that "equality of pressure" as of the stones in an +arch? More will be said of this in detail; but in general we mean that +the modern passion for incessant and restless buying and selling goes +along with the extreme inequality of men too rich or too poor. The +explanation of the continuity of peasantries (which their opponents are +simply forced to leave unexplained) is that, where that independence +exists, it is valued exactly as any other dignity is valued when it is +regarded as normal to a man; as no man goes naked or is beaten with a +stick for hire. + +The theory that those who start reasonably equal cannot remain +reasonably equal is a fallacy founded entirely on a society in which +they start extremely unequal. It is quite true that when capitalism has +passed a certain point, the broken fragments of property are very easily +devoured. In other words, it is true when there is a small amount of +small property; but it is quite untrue when there is a large amount of +small property. To argue from what happened in the rush of big business +and the rout of scattered small businesses to what must always happen +when the parties are more on a level, is quite illogical. It is proving +from Niagara that there is no such thing as a lake. Once tip up the lake +and the whole of the water will rush one way; as the whole economic +tendency of capitalist inequality rushes one way. Leave the lake as a +lake, or the level as a level, and there is nothing to prevent the lake +remaining until the crack of doom---as many levels of peasantry seem +likely to remain until the crack of doom. This fact is proved by +experience, even if it is not explained by experience; but, as a matter +of fact, it is possible to suggest not only the experience but the +explanation. The truth is that there is no economic tendency whatever +towards the disappearance of small property, until that property becomes +so very small as to cease to act as property at all. If one man has a +hundred acres and another man has half an acre, it is likely enough that +he will be unable to live on half an acre. Then there will be an +economic tendency for him to sell his land and make the other man the +proud possessor of a hundred and a half. But if one man has thirty acres +and the other man has forty acres, there is no economic tendency of any +kind whatever to make the first man sell to the second. It is simply +false to say that the first man cannot be secure of thirty or the second +man content with forty. It is sheer nonsense; like saying that any man +who owns a bull terrier will be bound to sell it to somebody who owns a +mastiff. It is like saying that I cannot own a horse because I have an eccentric neighbour who owns an elephant. -Needless to say, those who insist that roughly equalized -ownership cannot exist, base their whole argument on the -notion that it has existed. They have to suppose, in order -to prove their point, that people in England, for instance, -did begin as equals and rapidly reached inequality. And it -only rounds off the humour of their whole position that they -assume the existence of what they call an impossibility in -the one case where it has really not occurred. They talk as -if ten miners had run a race, and one of them became the -Duke of Northumberland. They talk as if the first Rothschild -was a peasant who patiently planted better cabbages than the -other peasants. The truth is that England became a -capitalist country because it had long been an oligarchical -country. It would be much harder to point out in what way a -country like Denmark need become oligarchical. But the case -is even stronger when we add the ethical to the economic -common sense. When there is once established a widely -scattered ownership, there is a public opinion that is -stronger than any law; and very often (what in modern times -is even more remarkable) a law that is really an expression -of public opinion. It may be very difficult for modern -people to imagine a world in which men are not generally -admired for covetousness and crushing their neighbours but I -assure them that such strange patches of an earthly paradise -do really remain on earth. - -The truth is that this first objection of impossibility in -the abstract flies flat in the face of all the facts of -experience and human nature. It is not true that a moral -custom cannot hold most men content with a reasonable -status, and careful to preserve it. It is as if we were to -say that because some men are more attractive to women than -others, therefore the inhabitants of Balham under Queen -Victoria could not possibly have been arranged on a -monogamous model, with one man one wife. Sooner or later, it -might be said, all females would be found clustering round -the fascinating few, and nothing but bachelorhood be left -for the unattractive many. Sooner or later the suburb must -consist of a hundred hermitages and three harems. But this -is not the case. It is not the case at present, whatever may -happen if the moral tradition of marriage is really lost in -Balham. So long as that moral tradition is alive, so long as -stealing other people's wives is reprobated or being -faithful to a spouse is admired, there are limits to the -extent to which the wildest profligate in Balham can disturb -the balance of the sexes. So any land-grabber would very -rapidly find that there were limits to the extent to which -he could buy up land in an Irish or Spanish or Serbian -village. When it is really thought hateful to take Naboth's -vineyard, as it is to take Uriah's wife, there is little -difficulty in finding a local prophet to pronounce the -judgment of the Lord. In an atmosphere of capitalism the man -who lays field to field is flattered; but in an atmosphere -of property he is promptly jeered at or possibly stoned. The -result is that the village has not sunk into plutocracy or +Needless to say, those who insist that roughly equalized ownership +cannot exist, base their whole argument on the notion that it has +existed. They have to suppose, in order to prove their point, that +people in England, for instance, did begin as equals and rapidly reached +inequality. And it only rounds off the humour of their whole position +that they assume the existence of what they call an impossibility in the +one case where it has really not occurred. They talk as if ten miners +had run a race, and one of them became the Duke of Northumberland. They +talk as if the first Rothschild was a peasant who patiently planted +better cabbages than the other peasants. The truth is that England +became a capitalist country because it had long been an oligarchical +country. It would be much harder to point out in what way a country like +Denmark need become oligarchical. But the case is even stronger when we +add the ethical to the economic common sense. When there is once +established a widely scattered ownership, there is a public opinion that +is stronger than any law; and very often (what in modern times is even +more remarkable) a law that is really an expression of public opinion. +It may be very difficult for modern people to imagine a world in which +men are not generally admired for covetousness and crushing their +neighbours but I assure them that such strange patches of an earthly +paradise do really remain on earth. + +The truth is that this first objection of impossibility in the abstract +flies flat in the face of all the facts of experience and human nature. +It is not true that a moral custom cannot hold most men content with a +reasonable status, and careful to preserve it. It is as if we were to +say that because some men are more attractive to women than others, +therefore the inhabitants of Balham under Queen Victoria could not +possibly have been arranged on a monogamous model, with one man one +wife. Sooner or later, it might be said, all females would be found +clustering round the fascinating few, and nothing but bachelorhood be +left for the unattractive many. Sooner or later the suburb must consist +of a hundred hermitages and three harems. But this is not the case. It +is not the case at present, whatever may happen if the moral tradition +of marriage is really lost in Balham. So long as that moral tradition is +alive, so long as stealing other people's wives is reprobated or being +faithful to a spouse is admired, there are limits to the extent to which +the wildest profligate in Balham can disturb the balance of the sexes. +So any land-grabber would very rapidly find that there were limits to +the extent to which he could buy up land in an Irish or Spanish or +Serbian village. When it is really thought hateful to take Naboth's +vineyard, as it is to take Uriah's wife, there is little difficulty in +finding a local prophet to pronounce the judgment of the Lord. In an +atmosphere of capitalism the man who lays field to field is flattered; +but in an atmosphere of property he is promptly jeered at or possibly +stoned. The result is that the village has not sunk into plutocracy or the suburb into polygamy. -Property is a point of honour. The true contrary of the word -"property" is the word "prostitution." And it is not true -that a human being will always sell what is sacred to that -sense of self-ownership, whether it be the body or the -boundary. A few do it in both cases; and by doing it they -always become outcasts. But it is not true that a majority -must do it; and anybody who says it is, is ignorant, not of -our plans and proposals, not of anybody's visions and -ideals, not of distributism or division of capital by this -or that process, but of the facts of history and the -substance of humanity. He is a barbarian who has never seen -an arch. - -In the notes I have here jotted down it will be obvious, of -course, that the restoration of this pattern, simple as it -is, is much more complicated in a complicated society. Here -I have only traced it in the simplest form as it stood, and -still stands, at the beginning of our discussion. I -disregard the view that such "reaction" cannot be. I hold -the old mystical dogma that what Man has done, Man can do. -My critics seem to hold a still more mystical dogma: that -Man cannot possibly do a thing because he has done it. That -is what seems to be meant by saying that small property is -"antiquated." It really means that all property is dead. -There is nothing to be reached upon the present lines except -the increasing loss of property by everybody, as something -swallowed up into a system equally impersonal and inhuman, -whether we call it Communism or Capitalism. If we cannot go -back, it hardly seems worth while to go forward. - -There is nothing in front but a flat wilderness of -standardization either by Bolshevism or Big Business. But it -is strange that some of us should have seen sanity, if only -in a vision, while the rest go forward chained eternally to -enlargement without liberty and progress without hope. +Property is a point of honour. The true contrary of the word "property" +is the word "prostitution." And it is not true that a human being will +always sell what is sacred to that sense of self-ownership, whether it +be the body or the boundary. A few do it in both cases; and by doing it +they always become outcasts. But it is not true that a majority must do +it; and anybody who says it is, is ignorant, not of our plans and +proposals, not of anybody's visions and ideals, not of distributism or +division of capital by this or that process, but of the facts of history +and the substance of humanity. He is a barbarian who has never seen an +arch. + +In the notes I have here jotted down it will be obvious, of course, that +the restoration of this pattern, simple as it is, is much more +complicated in a complicated society. Here I have only traced it in the +simplest form as it stood, and still stands, at the beginning of our +discussion. I disregard the view that such "reaction" cannot be. I hold +the old mystical dogma that what Man has done, Man can do. My critics +seem to hold a still more mystical dogma: that Man cannot possibly do a +thing because he has done it. That is what seems to be meant by saying +that small property is "antiquated." It really means that all property +is dead. There is nothing to be reached upon the present lines except +the increasing loss of property by everybody, as something swallowed up +into a system equally impersonal and inhuman, whether we call it +Communism or Capitalism. If we cannot go back, it hardly seems worth +while to go forward. + +There is nothing in front but a flat wilderness of standardization +either by Bolshevism or Big Business. But it is strange that some of us +should have seen sanity, if only in a vision, while the rest go forward +chained eternally to enlargement without liberty and progress without +hope. ## The Peril of the Hour -When we are for a moment satisfied, or sated, with reading -the latest news of the loftiest social circles, or the most -exact records of the most responsible courts of justice, we -naturally turn to the serial story in the newspaper, called -"Poisoned by Her Mother" or "The Mystery of the Crimson -Wedding Ring," in search of something calmer and more -quietly convincing, more restful, more domestic, and more -like real life. But as we turn over the pages, in passing -from the incredible fact to the comparatively credible -fiction, we are very likely to encounter a particular phrase -on the general subject of social degeneracy. It is one of a -number of phrases that seem to be kept in solid blocks in -the printing-offices of newspapers. Like most of these solid -statements, it is of a soothing character. It is like the -headline of "Hopes of a Settlement," by which we learn that -things are unsettled; or that topic of the "Revival of -Trade," which it is part of the journalistic trade -periodically to revive. The sentence to which I refer is to -this effect: that the fears about social degeneracy need not -disturb us, because such fears have been expressed in every -age; and there are always romantic and retrospective -persons, poets, and such riff-raff, who look back to +When we are for a moment satisfied, or sated, with reading the latest +news of the loftiest social circles, or the most exact records of the +most responsible courts of justice, we naturally turn to the serial +story in the newspaper, called "Poisoned by Her Mother" or "The Mystery +of the Crimson Wedding Ring," in search of something calmer and more +quietly convincing, more restful, more domestic, and more like real +life. But as we turn over the pages, in passing from the incredible fact +to the comparatively credible fiction, we are very likely to encounter a +particular phrase on the general subject of social degeneracy. It is one +of a number of phrases that seem to be kept in solid blocks in the +printing-offices of newspapers. Like most of these solid statements, it +is of a soothing character. It is like the headline of "Hopes of a +Settlement," by which we learn that things are unsettled; or that topic +of the "Revival of Trade," which it is part of the journalistic trade +periodically to revive. The sentence to which I refer is to this effect: +that the fears about social degeneracy need not disturb us, because such +fears have been expressed in every age; and there are always romantic +and retrospective persons, poets, and such riff-raff, who look back to imaginary "good old times." -It is the mark of such statements that they seem to satisfy -the mind; in other words, it is the mark of such thoughts -that they stop us from thinking. The man who has thus -praised progress does not think it necessary to progress any -further. The man who has dismissed a complaint, as being -old, does not himself think it necessary to say anything -new. He is content to repeat this apology for existing -things; and seems unable to offer any more thoughts on the -subject. Now, as a matter of fact, there are a number of -further thoughts that might be suggested by the subject. Of -course, it is quite true that this notion of the decline of -a state has been suggested in many periods, by many persons, -some of them, unfortunately, poets. Thus, for instance, -Byron, notoriously so moody and melodramatic, had somehow or -other got it into his head that the Isles of Greece were -less glorious in arts and arms in the last days of Turkish -rule than in the days of the battle of Salamis or the -Republic of Plato. So again Wordsworth, in an equally -sentimental fashion, seems to insinuate that the Republic of -Venice was not quite so powerful when Napoleon trod it out -like a dying ember as when its commerce and art filled the -seas of the world with a conflagration of colour. So many -writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have even -gone so far as to suggest that modern Spain played a less -predominant part than Spain in the days of the discovery of -America or the victory of Lepanto. Some, even more lacking -in that Optimism which is the soul of commerce, have made an -equally perverse comparison between the earlier and the -later conditions of the commercial aristocracy of Holland. -Some have even maintained that Tyre and Sidon are not quite -so fashionable as they used to be; and somebody once said +It is the mark of such statements that they seem to satisfy the mind; in +other words, it is the mark of such thoughts that they stop us from +thinking. The man who has thus praised progress does not think it +necessary to progress any further. The man who has dismissed a +complaint, as being old, does not himself think it necessary to say +anything new. He is content to repeat this apology for existing things; +and seems unable to offer any more thoughts on the subject. Now, as a +matter of fact, there are a number of further thoughts that might be +suggested by the subject. Of course, it is quite true that this notion +of the decline of a state has been suggested in many periods, by many +persons, some of them, unfortunately, poets. Thus, for instance, Byron, +notoriously so moody and melodramatic, had somehow or other got it into +his head that the Isles of Greece were less glorious in arts and arms in +the last days of Turkish rule than in the days of the battle of Salamis +or the Republic of Plato. So again Wordsworth, in an equally sentimental +fashion, seems to insinuate that the Republic of Venice was not quite so +powerful when Napoleon trod it out like a dying ember as when its +commerce and art filled the seas of the world with a conflagration of +colour. So many writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have +even gone so far as to suggest that modern Spain played a less +predominant part than Spain in the days of the discovery of America or +the victory of Lepanto. Some, even more lacking in that Optimism which +is the soul of commerce, have made an equally perverse comparison +between the earlier and the later conditions of the commercial +aristocracy of Holland. Some have even maintained that Tyre and Sidon +are not quite so fashionable as they used to be; and somebody once said something about "the ruins of Carthage." -In somewhat simpler language, we may say that all this -argument has a very big and obvious hole in it. When a man -says, "People were as pessimistic as you are in societies -which were not declining, but were even advancing," it is -permissible to reply, "Yes, and people were probably as -optimistic as you are in societies which really declined." -For, after all, there were societies which really declined. -It is true that Horace said that every generation seemed to -be worse than the last, and implied that Rome was going to -the dogs, at the very moment when all the external world was -being brought under the eagles. But it is quite likely that -the last forgotten court poet, praising the last forgotten -Augustulus at the stiff court of Byzantium, contradicted all -the seditious rumours of social decline, exactly as our -newspapers do, by saying that, after all, Horace had said -the same thing. And it is also possible that Horace was -right; that it was in his time that the turn was taken which -led from Horatius on the bridge to Heracleius in the palace; -that if Rome was not immediately going to the dogs, the dogs -were coming to Rome, and their distant howling could first -be heard in that hour of the uplifted eagles; that there had -begun a long advance that was also a long decline, but ended -in the Dark Ages. Rome had gone back to the Wolf. - -I say this view is at least tenable, though it does not -really represent my own; but it is quite sufficiently -reasonable to refuse to be dismissed with the cheap -cheerfulness of the current maxim. There has been, there can -be, such a thing as social decline; and the only question -is, at any given moment, whether Byzantium had declined or -whether Britain is declining. In other words, we must judge -any such case of alleged degeneracy on its own merits. It is -no answer to say, what is, of course, perfectly true, that -some people are naturally prone to such pessimism. We are -not judging them, but the situation which they judged or -misjudged. We may say that schoolboys have always disliked -having to go to school. But there is such a thing as a bad -school. We may say the farmers always grumble at the -weather. But there is such a thing as a bad harvest. And we -have to consider as a question of the facts of the case, and -not of the feelings of the farmer, whether the moral world -of modern England is likely to have a bad harvest. - -Now the reasons for regarding the present problem of Europe, -and especially of England, as most menacing and tragic, are -entirely objective reasons; and have nothing to do with this -alleged mood of melancholy reaction. The present system, -whether we call it capitalism or anything else, especially -as it exists in industrial countries, has already become a -danger; and is rapidly becoming a death-trap. The evil is -evident in the plainest private experience and in the -coldest economic science. To take the practical test first, -it is not merely alleged by the enemies of the system, but -avowed by the defenders of it. In the Labour disputes of our -time, it is not the employees but the employers who declare -that business is bad. The successful business man is not -pleading success; he is pleading bankruptcy. The case for -Capitalists is the case against Capitalism. What is even -more extraordinary is that its exponent has to fall back on -the rhetoric of Socialism. He merely says that miners or -railwaymen must go on working "in the interests of the -public." It will be noted that the capitalists now never use -the argument of private property. They confine themselves -entirely to this sort of sentimental version of general -social responsibility. It is amusing to read the capitalist -press on Socialists who sentimentally plead for people who -are "failures." It is now the chief argument of almost every -capitalist in every strike that he is himself on the brink -of failure. - -I have one simple objection to this simple argument in the -papers about Strikes and the Socialist peril. My objection -is that their argument leads straight to Socialism. In -itself it cannot possibly lead to anything else. If workmen -are to go on working because they are the servants of the -public, there cannot be any deduction except that they ought -to be the servants of the public authority. If the -Government ought to act in the interests of the public, and -there is no more to be said, then obviously the Government -ought to take over the whole business, and there is nothing -else to be done. I do not think the matter is so simple as -this; but they do. I do not think this argument for -Socialism is conclusive. But according to the -Anti-Socialists the argument for Socialism is quite -conclusive. The public alone is to be considered, and the -Government can do anything it likes so long as it considers -the public. Presumably it can disregard the liberty of the -employees and force them to work, possibly in chains. -Presumably also it can disregard the property of the -employers, and pay the proletariat for them, if necessary -out of their trouser-pockets. All these consequences follow -from the highly Bolshevist doctrine bawled at us every -morning in the capitalist press. That is all they have to -say; and if it is the only thing to be said, then the other -is the only thing to be done. - -In the last paragraph it is noted that if we were left to -the logic of the leader-writers on the Socialist peril, they -could only lead us straight to Socialism. And as some of us -most heartily and vigorously refuse to be led to Socialism, -we have long adopted the harder alternative called trying to -think things out. And we shall certainly land in Socialism -or in something worse called Socialism, or else in mere -chaos and ruin, if we make no effort to see the situation as -a whole apart from our immediate irritations. Now the -capitalist system, good or bad, right or wrong, rests upon -two ideas: that the rich will always be rich enough to hire -the poor; and the poor will always be poor enough to want to -be hired. But it also presumes that each side is bargaining -with the other, and that neither is thinking primarily of -the public. The owner of an omnibus does not run it for the -good of all mankind, despite the universal fraternity -blazoned in the Latin name of the vehicle. He runs it to -make a profit for himself, and the poorer man consents to -drive it in order to get wages for himself. Similarly, the -omnibus-conductor is not filled with an abstract altruistic -desire for the nice conduct of a crowded omnibus instead of -a clouded cane. He does not want to conduct omnibuses -because conduct is three-fourths of life. He is bargaining -for the biggest wage he can get. Now the case for capitalism -was that through this private bargain the public did really -get served. And so for some time it did. But the only -original case for capitalism collapses entirely, if we have -to ask either party to go on for the good of the public. If -capitalism cannot pay what will tempt men to work, -capitalism is on capitalist principles simply bankrupt. If a -tea-merchant cannot pay clerks, and cannot import tea -without clerks, then his business is bust and there is an -end of it. Nobody in the old capitalist conditions said the -clerks were bound to work for less, so that a poor old lady -might get a cup of tea. - -So it is really the capitalist press that proves on -capitalist principles that capitalism has come to an end. If -it had not, it would not be necessary for them to make the -social and sentimental appeals they do make. It would not be -necessary for them to appeal for the intervention of the -Government like Socialists. It would not have been necessary -for them to plead the discomfort of passengers like -sentimentalists or altruists. The truth is that everybody -has now abandoned the argument on which the whole of the old -capitalism was based: the argument that if men were left to -bargain individually the public would benefit automatically. -We have to find a new basis of some kind; and the ordinary -Conservatives are falling back on the Communist basis -without knowing it. Now I respectfully decline to fall back -on the Communist basis. But I am sure it is perfectly -impossible to continue to fall back on the old Capitalist -basis. Those who try to do so tie themselves in quite -impossible knots. The most practical and pressing affairs of -the hour exhibit the contradiction day after day. For -instance, when some great strike or lock-out takes place in -a big business like that of the mines, we are always assured -that no great saving could be achieved by cutting out -private profits, because those private profits are now -negligible and the trade in question is not now greatly -enriching the few. Whatever be the value of this particular -argument, it obviously entirely destroys the general -argument. The general argument for capitalism or -individualism is that men will not adventure unless there -are considerable prizes in the lottery. It is what is -familiar in all Socialistic debates as the argument of "the -incentive of gain." But if there is no gain, there is -certainly no incentive. If royalty-owners and shareholders -only get a little insecure or doubtful profit out of -profiteering, it seems as if they might as well fall to the -lowly estate of soldiers and servants of society. I have -never understood, by the way, why Tory debaters are so very -anxious to prove against Socialism that "State servants" -must be incompetent and inert. Surely it might be left to -others to point out the lethargy of Nelson or the dull -routine of Gordon. - -But this collapse of industrial individualism, which is not -only a collapse but a contradiction (since it has to -contradict all its own commonest maxims), is not only an -accident of our condition, though it is most marked in our -country. Anybody who can think in theories, those highly -practical things, will see that sooner or later this -paralysis in the system is inevitable. Capitalism is a -contradiction; it is even a contradiction in terms. It takes -a long time to box the compass, and a still longer time to -see that it has done so; but the wheel has come full circle -now. Capitalism is contradictory as soon as it is complete; -because it is dealing with the mass of men in two opposite -ways at once. When most men are wage-earners, it is more and -more difficult for most men to be customers. For, the -capitalist is always trying to cut down what his servant -demands, and in doing so is cutting down what his customer -can spend. As soon as his business is in any difficulties, -as at present in the coal business, he tries to reduce what -he has to spend on wages, and in doing so reduces what -others have to spend on coal. He is wanting the same man to -be rich and poor at the same time. This contradiction in -capitalism does not appear in the earlier stages, because -there are still populations not reduced to the common -proletarian condition. But as soon as the wealthy as a whole -are employing the wage-earners as a whole, this -contradiction stares them in the face like an ironic doom -and judgment. Employer and employee are simplified and -solidified to the relation of Robinson Crusoe and Man -Friday. Robinson Crusoe may say he has two problems: the -supply of cheap labour and the prospect of trade with the -natives. But as he is dealing in these two different ways -with the same man, he will get into a muddle. Robinson -Crusoe may possibly force Friday to work for nothing but his -bare keep, the white man possessing all the weapons. As in -the Geddes parallel, he may economize with an Axe. But he -cannot cut down Friday's salary to nothing and then expect -Friday to give him gold and silver and orient pearls in -return for rum and rifles. Now in proportion as capitalism -covers the whole earth, links up large populations, and is -ruled by centralized systems, the nearer and nearer -approaches this resemblance to the lonely figures on the -remote island. If the trade with the natives is really going -down, so as to necessitate the wages of the natives also -going down, we can only say that the case is rather more -tragic if the excuse is true than if it is false. We can -only say that Crusoe is now indeed alone, and that Friday is -unquestionably unlucky. - -I think it very important that people should understand that -there is a principle at work behind the industrial troubles -of England in our time; and that, whoever be right or wrong -in any particular quarrel, it is no particular person or -party who is responsible for our commercial experiment being -faced with failure. It is a vicious circle into which -wage-earning society will finally sink when it begins to -lose profits and lower wages; and though some industrial -countries are still rich enough to remain ignorant of the -strain, it is only because their progress is incomplete; -when they reach the goal they will find the riddle. In our -own country, which concerns most of us most, we are already -falling into that vicious circle of sinking wages and -decreasing demand. And as I am going to suggest here, in -however sketchy a manner, the line of escape from this -slowly closing snare, and because I know some of the things -that are commonly said about any such suggestion, I have a -reason for reminding the reader of all these things at this +In somewhat simpler language, we may say that all this argument has a +very big and obvious hole in it. When a man says, "People were as +pessimistic as you are in societies which were not declining, but were +even advancing," it is permissible to reply, "Yes, and people were +probably as optimistic as you are in societies which really declined." +For, after all, there were societies which really declined. It is true +that Horace said that every generation seemed to be worse than the last, +and implied that Rome was going to the dogs, at the very moment when all +the external world was being brought under the eagles. But it is quite +likely that the last forgotten court poet, praising the last forgotten +Augustulus at the stiff court of Byzantium, contradicted all the +seditious rumours of social decline, exactly as our newspapers do, by +saying that, after all, Horace had said the same thing. And it is also +possible that Horace was right; that it was in his time that the turn +was taken which led from Horatius on the bridge to Heracleius in the +palace; that if Rome was not immediately going to the dogs, the dogs +were coming to Rome, and their distant howling could first be heard in +that hour of the uplifted eagles; that there had begun a long advance +that was also a long decline, but ended in the Dark Ages. Rome had gone +back to the Wolf. + +I say this view is at least tenable, though it does not really represent +my own; but it is quite sufficiently reasonable to refuse to be +dismissed with the cheap cheerfulness of the current maxim. There has +been, there can be, such a thing as social decline; and the only +question is, at any given moment, whether Byzantium had declined or +whether Britain is declining. In other words, we must judge any such +case of alleged degeneracy on its own merits. It is no answer to say, +what is, of course, perfectly true, that some people are naturally prone +to such pessimism. We are not judging them, but the situation which they +judged or misjudged. We may say that schoolboys have always disliked +having to go to school. But there is such a thing as a bad school. We +may say the farmers always grumble at the weather. But there is such a +thing as a bad harvest. And we have to consider as a question of the +facts of the case, and not of the feelings of the farmer, whether the +moral world of modern England is likely to have a bad harvest. + +Now the reasons for regarding the present problem of Europe, and +especially of England, as most menacing and tragic, are entirely +objective reasons; and have nothing to do with this alleged mood of +melancholy reaction. The present system, whether we call it capitalism +or anything else, especially as it exists in industrial countries, has +already become a danger; and is rapidly becoming a death-trap. The evil +is evident in the plainest private experience and in the coldest +economic science. To take the practical test first, it is not merely +alleged by the enemies of the system, but avowed by the defenders of it. +In the Labour disputes of our time, it is not the employees but the +employers who declare that business is bad. The successful business man +is not pleading success; he is pleading bankruptcy. The case for +Capitalists is the case against Capitalism. What is even more +extraordinary is that its exponent has to fall back on the rhetoric of +Socialism. He merely says that miners or railwaymen must go on working +"in the interests of the public." It will be noted that the capitalists +now never use the argument of private property. They confine themselves +entirely to this sort of sentimental version of general social +responsibility. It is amusing to read the capitalist press on Socialists +who sentimentally plead for people who are "failures." It is now the +chief argument of almost every capitalist in every strike that he is +himself on the brink of failure. + +I have one simple objection to this simple argument in the papers about +Strikes and the Socialist peril. My objection is that their argument +leads straight to Socialism. In itself it cannot possibly lead to +anything else. If workmen are to go on working because they are the +servants of the public, there cannot be any deduction except that they +ought to be the servants of the public authority. If the Government +ought to act in the interests of the public, and there is no more to be +said, then obviously the Government ought to take over the whole +business, and there is nothing else to be done. I do not think the +matter is so simple as this; but they do. I do not think this argument +for Socialism is conclusive. But according to the Anti-Socialists the +argument for Socialism is quite conclusive. The public alone is to be +considered, and the Government can do anything it likes so long as it +considers the public. Presumably it can disregard the liberty of the +employees and force them to work, possibly in chains. Presumably also it +can disregard the property of the employers, and pay the proletariat for +them, if necessary out of their trouser-pockets. All these consequences +follow from the highly Bolshevist doctrine bawled at us every morning in +the capitalist press. That is all they have to say; and if it is the +only thing to be said, then the other is the only thing to be done. + +In the last paragraph it is noted that if we were left to the logic of +the leader-writers on the Socialist peril, they could only lead us +straight to Socialism. And as some of us most heartily and vigorously +refuse to be led to Socialism, we have long adopted the harder +alternative called trying to think things out. And we shall certainly +land in Socialism or in something worse called Socialism, or else in +mere chaos and ruin, if we make no effort to see the situation as a +whole apart from our immediate irritations. Now the capitalist system, +good or bad, right or wrong, rests upon two ideas: that the rich will +always be rich enough to hire the poor; and the poor will always be poor +enough to want to be hired. But it also presumes that each side is +bargaining with the other, and that neither is thinking primarily of the +public. The owner of an omnibus does not run it for the good of all +mankind, despite the universal fraternity blazoned in the Latin name of +the vehicle. He runs it to make a profit for himself, and the poorer man +consents to drive it in order to get wages for himself. Similarly, the +omnibus-conductor is not filled with an abstract altruistic desire for +the nice conduct of a crowded omnibus instead of a clouded cane. He does +not want to conduct omnibuses because conduct is three-fourths of life. +He is bargaining for the biggest wage he can get. Now the case for +capitalism was that through this private bargain the public did really +get served. And so for some time it did. But the only original case for +capitalism collapses entirely, if we have to ask either party to go on +for the good of the public. If capitalism cannot pay what will tempt men +to work, capitalism is on capitalist principles simply bankrupt. If a +tea-merchant cannot pay clerks, and cannot import tea without clerks, +then his business is bust and there is an end of it. Nobody in the old +capitalist conditions said the clerks were bound to work for less, so +that a poor old lady might get a cup of tea. + +So it is really the capitalist press that proves on capitalist +principles that capitalism has come to an end. If it had not, it would +not be necessary for them to make the social and sentimental appeals +they do make. It would not be necessary for them to appeal for the +intervention of the Government like Socialists. It would not have been +necessary for them to plead the discomfort of passengers like +sentimentalists or altruists. The truth is that everybody has now +abandoned the argument on which the whole of the old capitalism was +based: the argument that if men were left to bargain individually the +public would benefit automatically. We have to find a new basis of some +kind; and the ordinary Conservatives are falling back on the Communist +basis without knowing it. Now I respectfully decline to fall back on the +Communist basis. But I am sure it is perfectly impossible to continue to +fall back on the old Capitalist basis. Those who try to do so tie +themselves in quite impossible knots. The most practical and pressing +affairs of the hour exhibit the contradiction day after day. For +instance, when some great strike or lock-out takes place in a big +business like that of the mines, we are always assured that no great +saving could be achieved by cutting out private profits, because those +private profits are now negligible and the trade in question is not now +greatly enriching the few. Whatever be the value of this particular +argument, it obviously entirely destroys the general argument. The +general argument for capitalism or individualism is that men will not +adventure unless there are considerable prizes in the lottery. It is +what is familiar in all Socialistic debates as the argument of "the +incentive of gain." But if there is no gain, there is certainly no +incentive. If royalty-owners and shareholders only get a little insecure +or doubtful profit out of profiteering, it seems as if they might as +well fall to the lowly estate of soldiers and servants of society. I +have never understood, by the way, why Tory debaters are so very anxious +to prove against Socialism that "State servants" must be incompetent and +inert. Surely it might be left to others to point out the lethargy of +Nelson or the dull routine of Gordon. + +But this collapse of industrial individualism, which is not only a +collapse but a contradiction (since it has to contradict all its own +commonest maxims), is not only an accident of our condition, though it +is most marked in our country. Anybody who can think in theories, those +highly practical things, will see that sooner or later this paralysis in +the system is inevitable. Capitalism is a contradiction; it is even a +contradiction in terms. It takes a long time to box the compass, and a +still longer time to see that it has done so; but the wheel has come +full circle now. Capitalism is contradictory as soon as it is complete; +because it is dealing with the mass of men in two opposite ways at once. +When most men are wage-earners, it is more and more difficult for most +men to be customers. For, the capitalist is always trying to cut down +what his servant demands, and in doing so is cutting down what his +customer can spend. As soon as his business is in any difficulties, as +at present in the coal business, he tries to reduce what he has to spend +on wages, and in doing so reduces what others have to spend on coal. He +is wanting the same man to be rich and poor at the same time. This +contradiction in capitalism does not appear in the earlier stages, +because there are still populations not reduced to the common +proletarian condition. But as soon as the wealthy as a whole are +employing the wage-earners as a whole, this contradiction stares them in +the face like an ironic doom and judgment. Employer and employee are +simplified and solidified to the relation of Robinson Crusoe and Man +Friday. Robinson Crusoe may say he has two problems: the supply of cheap +labour and the prospect of trade with the natives. But as he is dealing +in these two different ways with the same man, he will get into a +muddle. Robinson Crusoe may possibly force Friday to work for nothing +but his bare keep, the white man possessing all the weapons. As in the +Geddes parallel, he may economize with an Axe. But he cannot cut down +Friday's salary to nothing and then expect Friday to give him gold and +silver and orient pearls in return for rum and rifles. Now in proportion +as capitalism covers the whole earth, links up large populations, and is +ruled by centralized systems, the nearer and nearer approaches this +resemblance to the lonely figures on the remote island. If the trade +with the natives is really going down, so as to necessitate the wages of +the natives also going down, we can only say that the case is rather +more tragic if the excuse is true than if it is false. We can only say +that Crusoe is now indeed alone, and that Friday is unquestionably +unlucky. + +I think it very important that people should understand that there is a +principle at work behind the industrial troubles of England in our time; +and that, whoever be right or wrong in any particular quarrel, it is no +particular person or party who is responsible for our commercial +experiment being faced with failure. It is a vicious circle into which +wage-earning society will finally sink when it begins to lose profits +and lower wages; and though some industrial countries are still rich +enough to remain ignorant of the strain, it is only because their +progress is incomplete; when they reach the goal they will find the +riddle. In our own country, which concerns most of us most, we are +already falling into that vicious circle of sinking wages and decreasing +demand. And as I am going to suggest here, in however sketchy a manner, +the line of escape from this slowly closing snare, and because I know +some of the things that are commonly said about any such suggestion, I +have a reason for reminding the reader of all these things at this stage. -"Safe! Of course it's not safe! It's a beggarly chance to -cheat the gallows." Such was the intemperate exclamation of -Captain Wicks in the romance of Stevenson; and the same -romancer has put a somewhat similar piece of candour into -the mouth of Alan Breck Stewart. "But mind you, it's no -small thing! ye maun lie bare and hard... and ye shall sleep -with your hand upon your weapons. Aye, man, ye shall taigle -many a weary foot or we get clear. I tell ye this at the -start, for it's a life that I ken well. But if ye ask what -other chance you have, I answer; Nane." - -And I myself am sometimes tempted to talk in this abrupt -manner, after listening to long and thoughtful disquisitions -throwing doubt on the detailed perfection of a Distributist -State, as compared with the rich happiness and final repose -that crowns the present Capitalist and Industrial State. -People ask us how we should deal with the unskilled labour -at the docks, and what we have to offer to replace the -radiant popularity of Lord Devonport and the permanent -industrial peace of the Port of London. Those who ask us -what we shall do with the docks seldom seem to ask -themselves what the docks will do with themselves, if our -commerce steadily declines like that of so many commercial -cities in the past. Other people ask us how we should deal -with workmen holding shares in a business that might -possibly go bankrupt. It never occurs to them to answer -their own question, in a capitalist state in which business -after business is going bankrupt. We have got to deal with -the smallest and most remote possibilities of our more -simple and static society, while they do not deal with the -biggest and most blatant facts about their own complex and -collapsing one. They are inquisitive about the details of -our scheme, and wish to arrange beforehand a science of -casuistry for all the exceptions. But they dare not look -their own systems in the face, where ruin has become the -rule. Other people wish to know whether a machine would be -permitted to exist in this or that position in our Utopia; -as an exhibit in a museum, or a toy in the nursery, or a -"torture implement of the twentieth century" shown in the -Chamber of Horrors. But those who ask us so anxiously how -men are to work without machines do not tell us how machines -are to work if men do not work them, or how either machines -or men are to work if there is no work to do. They are so -eager to discover the weak points in our proposal that they -have not yet discovered any strong points in their own -practice. Strange that our vain and sentimental vision -should be so vivid to these realists that they can see its -every detail; and that their own reality should be so vague -to them that they cannot see it at all; that they cannot see -the most obvious and overwhelming fact about it: that it is -no longer there. - -For it is one of the grim and even grisly jokes of the -situation that the very complaint they always make of us is -specially and peculiarly true of them. They are always -telling us that we think we can bring back the past, or the -barbarous simplicity and superstition of the past; -apparently under the impression that we want to bring back -the ninth century. But they do really think they can bring -back the nineteenth century. They are always telling us that -this or that tradition has gone for ever, that this or that -craft or creed has gone for ever; but they dare not face the -fact that their own vulgar and huckstering commerce has gone -for ever. They call us reactionaries if we talk of a Revival -of Faith or a Revival of Catholicism. But they go on calmly -plastering their papers with the headline of a Revival of -Trade. What a cry out of the distant past! What a voice from -the tomb! They have no reason whatever for believing that -there will be a revival of trade, except that their -great-grandfathers would have found it impossible to believe -in a decline of trade. They have no conceivable ground for -supposing that we shall grow richer, except that our -ancestors never prepared us for the prospect of growing -poorer. Yet it is they who are always blaming us for -depending on a sentimental tradition of the wisdom of our -ancestors. It is they who are always rejecting social ideals -merely because they were the social ideals of some former -age. They are always telling us that the mill will never -grind again the water that is past; without noticing that -their own mills are already idle and grinding nothing at -all---like ruined mills in some watery Early Victorian -landscape suitable to their watery Early Victorian -quotation. They are always telling us that we are fighting -against the tide of time, as Mrs. Partington with a mop -fought against the tide of the sea. And they cannot even see -that time itself has made Mrs. Partington as antiquated a -figure as Mother Shipton. They are always telling us that in -resisting capitalism and commercialism we are like Canute -rebuking the waves; and they do not even know that the -England of Cobden is already as dead as the England of -Canute. They are always seeking to overwhelm us in the -water-floods, to sweep us away upon these weary and washy -metaphors of tide and time; for all the world as if they -could call back the rivers that have left our cities so far -behind, or summon back the seven seas to their allegiance to -the trident; or bridle again, with gold for the few and iron -for the many, the roaring river of the Clyde. - -We may well be tempted to the exclamation of Captain Wicks. -We are not choosing between a possible peasantry and a -successful commerce. We are choosing between a peasantry -that might succeed and a commerce that has already failed. -We are not seeking to lure men away from a thriving business -to a sort of holiday in Arcadia or the peasant type of -Utopia. We are trying to make suggestions about starting -anew after a bankrupt business has really gone bankrupt. We -can see no possible reason for supposing that English trade -will regain its nineteenth-century predominance, except mere -Victorian sentimentalism and that particular sort of lying -which the newspapers call "optimism." They taunt us for -trying to bring back the conditions of the Middle Ages; as -if we were trying to bring back the bows or the body-armour -of the Middle Ages. Well, helmets have come back; and -body-armour may come back; and bows and arrows will have to -come back, a long time before there is any return of that -fortunate moment on whose luck they live. It is quite as -likely that the long bow will be found through some accident -superior to the rifle as that the battleship will be able -any longer to rule the waves without reference to the -aeroplane. The commercial system implied the security of our -commercial routes; and that implied the superiority of our -national navy. Everybody who faces facts knows that aviation -has altered the whole theory of that naval security. The -whole huge horrible problem of a big population on a small -island dependent on insecure imports is a problem quite as -much for Capitalists and Collectivists as for Distributists. -We are not choosing between model villages as part of a -serene system of town-planning. We are making a sortie from -a besieged city, sword in hand; a sortie from the ruin of -Carthage. "Safe! Of course it's not safe!" said Captain -Wicks. - -I think it is not unlikely that in any case a simpler social -life will return; even if it return by the road of ruin. I -think the soul will find simplicity again, if it be in the -Dark Ages. But we are Christians and concerned with the body -as well as the soul; we are Englishmen and we do not desire, -if we can help it, that the English people should be merely -the People of the Ruins. And we do most earnestly desire a -serious consideration of whether the transition cannot be -made in the light of reason and tradition; whether we cannot -yet do deliberately and well what nemesis will do wastefully -and without pity; whether we cannot build a bridge from -these slippery downward slopes to freer and firmer land -beyond, without consenting yet that our most noble nation -must descend into that valley of humiliation in which -nations disappear from history. For this purpose, with great -conviction of our principles and with no shame of being open -to argument about their application, we have called our -companions to council. +"Safe! Of course it's not safe! It's a beggarly chance to cheat the +gallows." Such was the intemperate exclamation of Captain Wicks in the +romance of Stevenson; and the same romancer has put a somewhat similar +piece of candour into the mouth of Alan Breck Stewart. "But mind you, +it's no small thing! ye maun lie bare and hard... and ye shall sleep +with your hand upon your weapons. Aye, man, ye shall taigle many a weary +foot or we get clear. I tell ye this at the start, for it's a life that +I ken well. But if ye ask what other chance you have, I answer; Nane." + +And I myself am sometimes tempted to talk in this abrupt manner, after +listening to long and thoughtful disquisitions throwing doubt on the +detailed perfection of a Distributist State, as compared with the rich +happiness and final repose that crowns the present Capitalist and +Industrial State. People ask us how we should deal with the unskilled +labour at the docks, and what we have to offer to replace the radiant +popularity of Lord Devonport and the permanent industrial peace of the +Port of London. Those who ask us what we shall do with the docks seldom +seem to ask themselves what the docks will do with themselves, if our +commerce steadily declines like that of so many commercial cities in the +past. Other people ask us how we should deal with workmen holding shares +in a business that might possibly go bankrupt. It never occurs to them +to answer their own question, in a capitalist state in which business +after business is going bankrupt. We have got to deal with the smallest +and most remote possibilities of our more simple and static society, +while they do not deal with the biggest and most blatant facts about +their own complex and collapsing one. They are inquisitive about the +details of our scheme, and wish to arrange beforehand a science of +casuistry for all the exceptions. But they dare not look their own +systems in the face, where ruin has become the rule. Other people wish +to know whether a machine would be permitted to exist in this or that +position in our Utopia; as an exhibit in a museum, or a toy in the +nursery, or a "torture implement of the twentieth century" shown in the +Chamber of Horrors. But those who ask us so anxiously how men are to +work without machines do not tell us how machines are to work if men do +not work them, or how either machines or men are to work if there is no +work to do. They are so eager to discover the weak points in our +proposal that they have not yet discovered any strong points in their +own practice. Strange that our vain and sentimental vision should be so +vivid to these realists that they can see its every detail; and that +their own reality should be so vague to them that they cannot see it at +all; that they cannot see the most obvious and overwhelming fact about +it: that it is no longer there. + +For it is one of the grim and even grisly jokes of the situation that +the very complaint they always make of us is specially and peculiarly +true of them. They are always telling us that we think we can bring back +the past, or the barbarous simplicity and superstition of the past; +apparently under the impression that we want to bring back the ninth +century. But they do really think they can bring back the nineteenth +century. They are always telling us that this or that tradition has gone +for ever, that this or that craft or creed has gone for ever; but they +dare not face the fact that their own vulgar and huckstering commerce +has gone for ever. They call us reactionaries if we talk of a Revival of +Faith or a Revival of Catholicism. But they go on calmly plastering +their papers with the headline of a Revival of Trade. What a cry out of +the distant past! What a voice from the tomb! They have no reason +whatever for believing that there will be a revival of trade, except +that their great-grandfathers would have found it impossible to believe +in a decline of trade. They have no conceivable ground for supposing +that we shall grow richer, except that our ancestors never prepared us +for the prospect of growing poorer. Yet it is they who are always +blaming us for depending on a sentimental tradition of the wisdom of our +ancestors. It is they who are always rejecting social ideals merely +because they were the social ideals of some former age. They are always +telling us that the mill will never grind again the water that is past; +without noticing that their own mills are already idle and grinding +nothing at all---like ruined mills in some watery Early Victorian +landscape suitable to their watery Early Victorian quotation. They are +always telling us that we are fighting against the tide of time, as +Mrs. Partington with a mop fought against the tide of the sea. And they +cannot even see that time itself has made Mrs. Partington as antiquated +a figure as Mother Shipton. They are always telling us that in resisting +capitalism and commercialism we are like Canute rebuking the waves; and +they do not even know that the England of Cobden is already as dead as +the England of Canute. They are always seeking to overwhelm us in the +water-floods, to sweep us away upon these weary and washy metaphors of +tide and time; for all the world as if they could call back the rivers +that have left our cities so far behind, or summon back the seven seas +to their allegiance to the trident; or bridle again, with gold for the +few and iron for the many, the roaring river of the Clyde. + +We may well be tempted to the exclamation of Captain Wicks. We are not +choosing between a possible peasantry and a successful commerce. We are +choosing between a peasantry that might succeed and a commerce that has +already failed. We are not seeking to lure men away from a thriving +business to a sort of holiday in Arcadia or the peasant type of Utopia. +We are trying to make suggestions about starting anew after a bankrupt +business has really gone bankrupt. We can see no possible reason for +supposing that English trade will regain its nineteenth-century +predominance, except mere Victorian sentimentalism and that particular +sort of lying which the newspapers call "optimism." They taunt us for +trying to bring back the conditions of the Middle Ages; as if we were +trying to bring back the bows or the body-armour of the Middle Ages. +Well, helmets have come back; and body-armour may come back; and bows +and arrows will have to come back, a long time before there is any +return of that fortunate moment on whose luck they live. It is quite as +likely that the long bow will be found through some accident superior to +the rifle as that the battleship will be able any longer to rule the +waves without reference to the aeroplane. The commercial system implied +the security of our commercial routes; and that implied the superiority +of our national navy. Everybody who faces facts knows that aviation has +altered the whole theory of that naval security. The whole huge horrible +problem of a big population on a small island dependent on insecure +imports is a problem quite as much for Capitalists and Collectivists as +for Distributists. We are not choosing between model villages as part of +a serene system of town-planning. We are making a sortie from a besieged +city, sword in hand; a sortie from the ruin of Carthage. "Safe! Of +course it's not safe!" said Captain Wicks. + +I think it is not unlikely that in any case a simpler social life will +return; even if it return by the road of ruin. I think the soul will +find simplicity again, if it be in the Dark Ages. But we are Christians +and concerned with the body as well as the soul; we are Englishmen and +we do not desire, if we can help it, that the English people should be +merely the People of the Ruins. And we do most earnestly desire a +serious consideration of whether the transition cannot be made in the +light of reason and tradition; whether we cannot yet do deliberately and +well what nemesis will do wastefully and without pity; whether we cannot +build a bridge from these slippery downward slopes to freer and firmer +land beyond, without consenting yet that our most noble nation must +descend into that valley of humiliation in which nations disappear from +history. For this purpose, with great conviction of our principles and +with no shame of being open to argument about their application, we have +called our companions to council. ## The Chance of Recovery -Once upon a time, or conceivably even more than once, there -was a man who went into a public-house and asked for a glass -of beer. I will not mention his name, for various and -obvious reasons; it may be libel nowadays to say this about -a man; or it may lay him open to police prosecution under -the more humane laws of our day. So far as this first -recorded action is concerned, his name may have been -anything: William Shakespeare or Geoffrey Chaucer or Charles -Dickens or Henry Fielding, or any of those common names that -crop up everywhere in the populace. The important thing -about him is that he asked for a glass of beer. The still -more important thing about him is that he drank it; and the -most important thing of all is that he spat it out again (I -regret to say) and threw the pewter mug at the publican. For -the beer was abominably bad. - -True, he had not yet submitted it to any chemical analysis; -but, after he had drank a little of it, he felt an inward, a -very inward, persuasion that there was something wrong about -it. When he had been ill for a week, steadily getting worse -all the time, he took some of the beer to the Public -Analyst; and that learned man, after boiling it, freezing -it, turning it green, blue, and yellow, and so on, told him -that it did indeed contain a vast quantity of deadly poison. -"To continue drinking it," said the man of science -thoughtfully, "will undoubtedly be a course attended with -risks, but life is inseparable from risk. And before you -decide to abandon it, you must make up your mind what -Substitute you propose to put into your inside, in place of -the beverage which at present (more or less) reposes there. -If you will bring me a list of your selections in this -difficult matter, I will willingly point out the various -scientific objections that can be raised to all of them." - -The man went away, and became more and more ill; and indeed -he noticed that nobody else seemed to be really well. As he -passed the tavern, his eye chanced to fall upon various -friends of his writhing in agony on the ground, and indeed -not a few of them lying dead and stiff in heaps about the -road. To his simple mind this seemed a matter of some -concern to the community; so he hurried to a police court -and laid before a magistrate a complaint against the inn. -"It would indeed appear," said the Justice of the Peace, -"that the house you mention is one in which people are -systematically murdered by means of poison. But before you -demand so drastic a course as that of pulling it down or -even shutting it up, you have to consider a problem of no -little difficulty. Have you considered precisely what -building you would Put In Its Place, whether a----." At this -point I regret to say that the man gave a loud scream and -was forcibly removed from the court announcing that he was -going mad. Indeed, this conviction of his mental malady -increased with his bodily malady; to such an extent that he -consulted a distinguished Doctor of Psychology and -Psycho-Analysis, who said to him confidentially, "As a -matter of diagnosis, there can be no doubt that you are -suffering from Bink's Aberration; but when we come to -treatment I may say frankly that it is very difficult to -find anything to take the place of that affliction. Have you -considered what is the alternative to madness----?" -Whereupon the man sprang up waving his arms and cried, -"There is none. There is no alternative to madness. It is -inevitable. It is universal. We must make the best of it." - -So making the best of it, he killed the doctor and then went -back and killed the magistrate and the public analyst, and -is now in an asylum, as happy as the day is long. - -In the fable appearing above the case is propounded which is -primarily necessary to see at the start of a sketch of -social renewal. It concerned a gentleman who was asked what -he would substitute for the poison that had been put into -his inside, or what constructive scheme he had to put in -place of the den of assassins that had poisoned him. A -similar demand is made of those of us who regard plutocracy -as a poison or the present plutocratic state as something -like a den of thieves. In the parable of the poison it is -possible that the reader may share some of the impatience of -the hero. He will say that nobody would be such a fool as -not to get rid of prussic acid or professional criminals, -merely because there were differences of opinion about the -course of action that would follow getting rid of them. But -I would ask the reader to be a little more patient, not only -with me but with himself; and ask himself why it is that we -act with this promptitude in the case of poison and crime. -It is not, even here, really because we are indifferent to -the substitute. We should not regard one poison as an -antidote to the other poison, if it made the malady worse. -We should not set a thief to catch a thief, if it really -increased the amount of thieving. The principle upon which -we are acting, even if we are acting too quickly to think, -or thinking too quickly to define, is nevertheless a -principle that we could define. If we merely give a man an -emetic after he has taken a poison, it is not because we -think he can live on emetics any more than he can live on -poisons. It is because we think that after he has first -recovered from the poison, and then recovered from the -emetic, there will come a time when he himself will think he -would like a little ordinary food. That is the -starting-point of the whole speculation, so far as we are -concerned. If certain impediments are removed, it is not so -much a question of what we would do as of what he would do. -So if we save the lives of a number of people from the den -of poisoners, we do not at that moment ask what they will do -with their lives. We assume that they will do something a -little more sensible than taking poison. In other words, the -very simple first principle upon which all such reforms -rest, is that there is some tendency to recovery in every -living thing if we remove the pressure of an immediate peril -or pain. Now at the beginning of all this rough outline of a -social reform, which I propose to trace here, I wish to make -clear this general principle of recovery, without which it -will be unintelligible. We believe that if things were -released they would recover; but we also believe (and this -is very important in the practical question) that if things -even begin to be released, they will begin to recover. If -the man merely leaves off drinking the bad beer, his body -will make some effort to recover its ordinary condition. If -the man merely escapes from those who are slowly poisoning -him, to some extent the very air he breathes will be an -antidote to his poison. - -As I hope to explain in the essays that follow, I think the -question of the real social reform divides itself into two -distinct stages and even ideas. One is arresting a race -towards mad monopoly that is already going on, reversing -that revolution and returning to something that is more or -less normal, but by no means ideal; the other is trying to -inspire that more normal society with something that is in a -real sense ideal, though not necessarily merely Utopian. But -the first thing to be understood is that any relief from the -present pressure will probably have more moral effect than -most of our critics imagine. Hitherto all the triumphs have -been triumphs of plutocratic monopoly; all the defeats have -been defeats of private property. I venture to guess that -one real defeat of a monopoly would have an instant and -incalculable effect, far beyond itself, like the first -defeats in the field of a military empire like Prussia -parading itself as invincible. As each group or family finds -again the real experience of private property, it will -become a centre of influence, a mission. What we are dealing -with is not a question of a General Election to be counted -by a calculating machine. It is a question of a popular -movement, that never depends on mere numbers. - -That is why we have so often taken, merely as a working -model, the matter of a peasantry. The point about a -peasantry is that it is not a machine, as practically every -ideal social state is a machine; that is, a thing that will -work only as it is set down to work in the pattern. You make -laws for a Utopia; it is only by keeping those laws that it -can be kept a Utopia. You do not make laws for a peasantry. -You make a peasantry; and the peasants make the laws. I do -not mean, as will be clear enough when I come to more -detailed matters, that laws must not be used for the -establishment of a peasantry or even for the protection of -it. But I mean that the character of a peasantry does not -depend on laws. The character of a peasantry depends on -peasants. Men have remained side by side for centuries in -their separate and fairly equal farms, without many of them -losing their land, without any of them buying up the bulk of -the land. Yet very often there was no law against their -buying up the bulk of the land. Peasants could not buy -because peasants would not sell. That is, this form of -moderate equality, when once it exists, is not merely a -legal formula; it is also a moral and psychological fact. -People behave when they find themselves in that position as -they do when they find themselves at home. That is, they -stay there; or at least they behave normally there. There is -nothing in abstract logic to prove that people cannot thus -feel at home in a Socialist Utopia. But the Socialists who -describe Utopias generally feel themselves in some dim way -that people will not; and that is why they have to make -their mere laws of economic control so elaborate and so -clear. They use their army of officials to move men about -like crowds of captives, from old quarters to new quarters, -and doubtless to better quarters. But we believe that the -slaves that we free will fight for us like soldiers. - -In other words, all that I ask in this preliminary note is -that the reader should understand that we are trying to make -something that will run of itself. A machine will not run of -itself. A man will run of himself; even if he runs into a -good many things that he would have been wiser to avoid. -When freed from certain disadvantages, he can to some extent -take over the responsibility. All schemes of collective -concentration have in them the character of controlling the -man even when he is free; if you will, of controlling him to -keep him free. They have the idea that the man will not be -poisoned if he has a doctor standing behind his chair at -dinner-time, to check the mouthfuls and measure the wine. We -have the idea that the man may need a doctor when he is -poisoned, but no longer needs him when he is unpoisoned. We -do not say, as they possibly do say, that he will always be -perfectly happy or perfectly good; because there are other -elements in life besides the economic; and even the economic -is affected by original sin. We do not say that because he -does not need a doctor he does not need a priest or a wife -or a friend or a God; or that his relations to these things -can be ensured by any social scheme. But we do say that -there is something which is much more real and much more -reliable than any social scheme; and that is a society. -There is such a thing as people finding a social life that -suits them and enables them to get on reasonably well with -each other. You do not have to wait till you have -established that sort of society everywhere. It makes all -the difference so soon as you have established it anywhere. -So if I am told at the start: "You do not think Socialism or -reformed Capitalism will save England; do you really think -Distributism will save England?" I answer, "No; I think -Englishmen will save England, if they begin to have half a -chance." - -I am therefore in this sense hopeful; I believe that the -breakdown has been a breakdown of machinery and not of men. -And I fully agree, as I have just explained, that leaving -work for a man is very different from leaving a plan for a -machine. I ask the reader to realize this distinction, at -this stage of the description, before I go on to describe -more definitely some of the possible directions of reform. I -am not at all ashamed of being ready to listen to reason; I -am not at all afraid of leaving matters open to adjustment; -I am not at all annoyed at the prospect of those who carry -out these principles varying in many ways in their -programmes. I am much too much in earnest to treat my own -programme as a party programme; or to pretend that my -private bill must become an Act of Parliament without any -amendments. But I have a particular cause, in this -particular case, for insisting in this chapter that there is -a reasonable chance of escape; and for asking that the -reasonable chance should be considered with reasonable -cheerfulness. I do not care very much for that sort of -American virtue which is now sometimes called optimism. It -has too much of the flavour of Christian Science to be a -comfortable thing for Christians. But I do feel, in the -facts of this particular case, that there is a reason for -warning people against a too hasty exhibition of pessimism -and the pride of impotence. I do ask everybody to consider, -in a free and open fashion, whether something of the sort -here indicated cannot be carried out, even if it be carried -out differently in detail; for it is a matter of the -understanding of men. The position is much too serious for -men to be anything but cheerful. And in this connection I -would venture to utter a warning. +Once upon a time, or conceivably even more than once, there was a man +who went into a public-house and asked for a glass of beer. I will not +mention his name, for various and obvious reasons; it may be libel +nowadays to say this about a man; or it may lay him open to police +prosecution under the more humane laws of our day. So far as this first +recorded action is concerned, his name may have been anything: William +Shakespeare or Geoffrey Chaucer or Charles Dickens or Henry Fielding, or +any of those common names that crop up everywhere in the populace. The +important thing about him is that he asked for a glass of beer. The +still more important thing about him is that he drank it; and the most +important thing of all is that he spat it out again (I regret to say) +and threw the pewter mug at the publican. For the beer was abominably +bad. + +True, he had not yet submitted it to any chemical analysis; but, after +he had drank a little of it, he felt an inward, a very inward, +persuasion that there was something wrong about it. When he had been ill +for a week, steadily getting worse all the time, he took some of the +beer to the Public Analyst; and that learned man, after boiling it, +freezing it, turning it green, blue, and yellow, and so on, told him +that it did indeed contain a vast quantity of deadly poison. "To +continue drinking it," said the man of science thoughtfully, "will +undoubtedly be a course attended with risks, but life is inseparable +from risk. And before you decide to abandon it, you must make up your +mind what Substitute you propose to put into your inside, in place of +the beverage which at present (more or less) reposes there. If you will +bring me a list of your selections in this difficult matter, I will +willingly point out the various scientific objections that can be raised +to all of them." + +The man went away, and became more and more ill; and indeed he noticed +that nobody else seemed to be really well. As he passed the tavern, his +eye chanced to fall upon various friends of his writhing in agony on the +ground, and indeed not a few of them lying dead and stiff in heaps about +the road. To his simple mind this seemed a matter of some concern to the +community; so he hurried to a police court and laid before a magistrate +a complaint against the inn. "It would indeed appear," said the Justice +of the Peace, "that the house you mention is one in which people are +systematically murdered by means of poison. But before you demand so +drastic a course as that of pulling it down or even shutting it up, you +have to consider a problem of no little difficulty. Have you considered +precisely what building you would Put In Its Place, whether a----." At +this point I regret to say that the man gave a loud scream and was +forcibly removed from the court announcing that he was going mad. +Indeed, this conviction of his mental malady increased with his bodily +malady; to such an extent that he consulted a distinguished Doctor of +Psychology and Psycho-Analysis, who said to him confidentially, "As a +matter of diagnosis, there can be no doubt that you are suffering from +Bink's Aberration; but when we come to treatment I may say frankly that +it is very difficult to find anything to take the place of that +affliction. Have you considered what is the alternative to madness----?" +Whereupon the man sprang up waving his arms and cried, "There is none. +There is no alternative to madness. It is inevitable. It is universal. +We must make the best of it." + +So making the best of it, he killed the doctor and then went back and +killed the magistrate and the public analyst, and is now in an asylum, +as happy as the day is long. + +In the fable appearing above the case is propounded which is primarily +necessary to see at the start of a sketch of social renewal. It +concerned a gentleman who was asked what he would substitute for the +poison that had been put into his inside, or what constructive scheme he +had to put in place of the den of assassins that had poisoned him. A +similar demand is made of those of us who regard plutocracy as a poison +or the present plutocratic state as something like a den of thieves. In +the parable of the poison it is possible that the reader may share some +of the impatience of the hero. He will say that nobody would be such a +fool as not to get rid of prussic acid or professional criminals, merely +because there were differences of opinion about the course of action +that would follow getting rid of them. But I would ask the reader to be +a little more patient, not only with me but with himself; and ask +himself why it is that we act with this promptitude in the case of +poison and crime. It is not, even here, really because we are +indifferent to the substitute. We should not regard one poison as an +antidote to the other poison, if it made the malady worse. We should not +set a thief to catch a thief, if it really increased the amount of +thieving. The principle upon which we are acting, even if we are acting +too quickly to think, or thinking too quickly to define, is nevertheless +a principle that we could define. If we merely give a man an emetic +after he has taken a poison, it is not because we think he can live on +emetics any more than he can live on poisons. It is because we think +that after he has first recovered from the poison, and then recovered +from the emetic, there will come a time when he himself will think he +would like a little ordinary food. That is the starting-point of the +whole speculation, so far as we are concerned. If certain impediments +are removed, it is not so much a question of what we would do as of what +he would do. So if we save the lives of a number of people from the den +of poisoners, we do not at that moment ask what they will do with their +lives. We assume that they will do something a little more sensible than +taking poison. In other words, the very simple first principle upon +which all such reforms rest, is that there is some tendency to recovery +in every living thing if we remove the pressure of an immediate peril or +pain. Now at the beginning of all this rough outline of a social reform, +which I propose to trace here, I wish to make clear this general +principle of recovery, without which it will be unintelligible. We +believe that if things were released they would recover; but we also +believe (and this is very important in the practical question) that if +things even begin to be released, they will begin to recover. If the man +merely leaves off drinking the bad beer, his body will make some effort +to recover its ordinary condition. If the man merely escapes from those +who are slowly poisoning him, to some extent the very air he breathes +will be an antidote to his poison. + +As I hope to explain in the essays that follow, I think the question of +the real social reform divides itself into two distinct stages and even +ideas. One is arresting a race towards mad monopoly that is already +going on, reversing that revolution and returning to something that is +more or less normal, but by no means ideal; the other is trying to +inspire that more normal society with something that is in a real sense +ideal, though not necessarily merely Utopian. But the first thing to be +understood is that any relief from the present pressure will probably +have more moral effect than most of our critics imagine. Hitherto all +the triumphs have been triumphs of plutocratic monopoly; all the defeats +have been defeats of private property. I venture to guess that one real +defeat of a monopoly would have an instant and incalculable effect, far +beyond itself, like the first defeats in the field of a military empire +like Prussia parading itself as invincible. As each group or family +finds again the real experience of private property, it will become a +centre of influence, a mission. What we are dealing with is not a +question of a General Election to be counted by a calculating machine. +It is a question of a popular movement, that never depends on mere +numbers. + +That is why we have so often taken, merely as a working model, the +matter of a peasantry. The point about a peasantry is that it is not a +machine, as practically every ideal social state is a machine; that is, +a thing that will work only as it is set down to work in the pattern. +You make laws for a Utopia; it is only by keeping those laws that it can +be kept a Utopia. You do not make laws for a peasantry. You make a +peasantry; and the peasants make the laws. I do not mean, as will be +clear enough when I come to more detailed matters, that laws must not be +used for the establishment of a peasantry or even for the protection of +it. But I mean that the character of a peasantry does not depend on +laws. The character of a peasantry depends on peasants. Men have +remained side by side for centuries in their separate and fairly equal +farms, without many of them losing their land, without any of them +buying up the bulk of the land. Yet very often there was no law against +their buying up the bulk of the land. Peasants could not buy because +peasants would not sell. That is, this form of moderate equality, when +once it exists, is not merely a legal formula; it is also a moral and +psychological fact. People behave when they find themselves in that +position as they do when they find themselves at home. That is, they +stay there; or at least they behave normally there. There is nothing in +abstract logic to prove that people cannot thus feel at home in a +Socialist Utopia. But the Socialists who describe Utopias generally feel +themselves in some dim way that people will not; and that is why they +have to make their mere laws of economic control so elaborate and so +clear. They use their army of officials to move men about like crowds of +captives, from old quarters to new quarters, and doubtless to better +quarters. But we believe that the slaves that we free will fight for us +like soldiers. + +In other words, all that I ask in this preliminary note is that the +reader should understand that we are trying to make something that will +run of itself. A machine will not run of itself. A man will run of +himself; even if he runs into a good many things that he would have been +wiser to avoid. When freed from certain disadvantages, he can to some +extent take over the responsibility. All schemes of collective +concentration have in them the character of controlling the man even +when he is free; if you will, of controlling him to keep him free. They +have the idea that the man will not be poisoned if he has a doctor +standing behind his chair at dinner-time, to check the mouthfuls and +measure the wine. We have the idea that the man may need a doctor when +he is poisoned, but no longer needs him when he is unpoisoned. We do not +say, as they possibly do say, that he will always be perfectly happy or +perfectly good; because there are other elements in life besides the +economic; and even the economic is affected by original sin. We do not +say that because he does not need a doctor he does not need a priest or +a wife or a friend or a God; or that his relations to these things can +be ensured by any social scheme. But we do say that there is something +which is much more real and much more reliable than any social scheme; +and that is a society. There is such a thing as people finding a social +life that suits them and enables them to get on reasonably well with +each other. You do not have to wait till you have established that sort +of society everywhere. It makes all the difference so soon as you have +established it anywhere. So if I am told at the start: "You do not think +Socialism or reformed Capitalism will save England; do you really think +Distributism will save England?" I answer, "No; I think Englishmen will +save England, if they begin to have half a chance." + +I am therefore in this sense hopeful; I believe that the breakdown has +been a breakdown of machinery and not of men. And I fully agree, as I +have just explained, that leaving work for a man is very different from +leaving a plan for a machine. I ask the reader to realize this +distinction, at this stage of the description, before I go on to +describe more definitely some of the possible directions of reform. I am +not at all ashamed of being ready to listen to reason; I am not at all +afraid of leaving matters open to adjustment; I am not at all annoyed at +the prospect of those who carry out these principles varying in many +ways in their programmes. I am much too much in earnest to treat my own +programme as a party programme; or to pretend that my private bill must +become an Act of Parliament without any amendments. But I have a +particular cause, in this particular case, for insisting in this chapter +that there is a reasonable chance of escape; and for asking that the +reasonable chance should be considered with reasonable cheerfulness. I +do not care very much for that sort of American virtue which is now +sometimes called optimism. It has too much of the flavour of Christian +Science to be a comfortable thing for Christians. But I do feel, in the +facts of this particular case, that there is a reason for warning people +against a too hasty exhibition of pessimism and the pride of impotence. +I do ask everybody to consider, in a free and open fashion, whether +something of the sort here indicated cannot be carried out, even if it +be carried out differently in detail; for it is a matter of the +understanding of men. The position is much too serious for men to be +anything but cheerful. And in this connection I would venture to utter a +warning. A man has been led by a foolish guide or a self-confident -fellow-traveller to the brink of a precipice, which he might -well have fallen over in the dark. It may well be said that -there is nothing to be done but to sit down and wait for the -light. Still, it might be well to pass the hours of darkness -in some discussion about how it will be best for them to -make their way backwards to more secure ground; and the -recollection of any facts and the formulation of any -coherent plan of travel will not be waste of time, -especially if there is nothing else to do. But there is one -piece of advice which we should be inclined to give to the -guide who has misguided the simple stranger---especially if -he is a really simple stranger, a man perhaps of rude -education and elementary emotions. We should strongly advise -him not to beguile the time by proving conclusively that it -is impossible to go back, that there is no really secure -ground behind, that there is no chance of finding the -homeward path again, that the steps recently taken are -irrevocable, and that progress must go forward and can never -return. If he is a tactful man, in spite of his previous -error, he will avoid this tone in conversation. If he is not -a tactful man, it is not altogether impossible that before -the end of the conversation, somebody will go over the -precipice after all; and it will not be the simple stranger. - -An army has marched across a wilderness, its column, in the -military phrase, in the air; under a confident commander who -is certain he will pick up new communications which will be -far better than the old ones. When the soldiers are almost -worn out with marching, and the rank and file of them have -suffered horrible privations from hunger and exposure, they -find they have only advanced unsupported into a hostile -country; and that the signs of military occupation to be -seen on every side are only those of an enemy closing round. -The march is suddenly halted and the commander addresses his -men. There are a great many things that he may say. Some may -hold that he had much better say nothing at all. Many may -hold that the less he says the better. Others may urge, very -truly, that courage is even more needed for a retreat than -for an advance. He may be advised to rouse his disappointed -men by threatening the enemy with a more dramatic -disappointment; by declaring that they will best him yet; -that they will dash out of the net even as it is thrown, and -that their escape will be far more victorious than his -victory. But anyhow there is one kind of speech which the -commander will not make to his men, unless he is much more -of a fool than his original blunder proves him. He will not -say: "We have now taken up a position which may appear to -you very depressing; but I assure you it is nothing to the -depression which you will certainly suffer as you make a -series of inevitably futile attempts to improve it, or to -fall back on what you may foolishly regard as a stronger -position. I am very much amused at your absurd suggestions -for getting back to our old communications; for I never -thought much of your mangy old communications anyhow." There -have been mutinies in the desert before now; and it is -possible that the general will not be killed in battle with -the enemy. - -A great nation and civilization has followed for a hundred -years or more a form of progress which held itself -independent of certain old communications, in the form of -ancient traditions about the land, the hearth, or the altar. -It has advanced under leaders who were confident, not to say -cocksure. They were quite sure that their economic rules -were rigid, that their political theory was right, that -their commerce was beneficent, that their parliaments were -popular, that their press was enlightened, that their -science was humane. In this confidence they committed their -people to certain new and enormous experiments; to making -their own independent nation an eternal debtor to a few rich -men; to piling up private property in heaps on the faith of -financiers; to covering their land with iron and stone and -stripping it of grass and grain; to driving food out of -their own country in the hope of buying it back again from -the ends of the earth; to loading up their little island -with iron and gold till it was weighted like a sinking ship; -to letting the rich grow richer and fewer and the poor -poorer and more numerous; to letting the whole world be -cloven in two with a war of mere masters and mere servants; -to losing every type of moderate prosperity and candid -patriotism, till there was no independence without luxury -and no labour without ugliness; to leaving the millions of -mankind dependent on indirect and distant discipline and -indirect and distant sustenance, working themselves to death -for they knew not whom and taking the means of life from -they knew not where; and all hanging on a thread of alien -trade which grew thinner and thinner. To the people who have -been brought into this position many things may still be -said. It will be right to remind them that mere wild revolt -will make things worse and not better. It may be true to say -that certain complexities must be tolerated for a time -because they correspond to other complexities, and the two -must be carefully simplified together. But if I may say one -word to the princes and rulers of such a people, who have -led them into such a pass, I would say to them as seriously -as anything was ever said by man to men: "For God's sake, -for our sake, but, above all, for your own sake, do not be -in this blind haste to tell them there is no way out of the -trap into which your folly has led them; that there is no -road except the road by which you have brought them to ruin; -that there is no progress except the progress that has ended -here. Do not be so eager to prove to your hapless victims -that what is hapless is also hopeless. Do not be so anxious -to convince them, now that you are at the end of your -experiment, that you are also at the end of your resources. -Do not be so very eloquent, so very elaborate, so very -rational and radiantly convincing in proving that your own -error is even more irrevocable and irremediable than it is. -Do not try to minimize the industrial disease by showing it -is an incurable disease. Do not brighten the dark problem of -the coal-pit by proving it is a bottomless pit. Do not tell -the people there is no way but this; for many even now will -not endure this. Do not say to men that this alone is -possible; for many already think it impossible to bear. And -at some later time, at some eleventh hour, when the fates -have grown darker and the ends have grown clearer, the mass -of men may suddenly understand into what a blind alley your -progress has led them. Then they may turn on you in the -trap. And if they bore all else, they might not bear the -final taunt that you can do nothing; that you will not even -try to do anything. 'What art thou, man, and why art thou -despairing?' wrote the poet. 'God shall forgive thee all but -thy despair.' Man also may forgive you for blundering and -may not forgive you for despairing." +fellow-traveller to the brink of a precipice, which he might well have +fallen over in the dark. It may well be said that there is nothing to be +done but to sit down and wait for the light. Still, it might be well to +pass the hours of darkness in some discussion about how it will be best +for them to make their way backwards to more secure ground; and the +recollection of any facts and the formulation of any coherent plan of +travel will not be waste of time, especially if there is nothing else to +do. But there is one piece of advice which we should be inclined to give +to the guide who has misguided the simple stranger---especially if he is +a really simple stranger, a man perhaps of rude education and elementary +emotions. We should strongly advise him not to beguile the time by +proving conclusively that it is impossible to go back, that there is no +really secure ground behind, that there is no chance of finding the +homeward path again, that the steps recently taken are irrevocable, and +that progress must go forward and can never return. If he is a tactful +man, in spite of his previous error, he will avoid this tone in +conversation. If he is not a tactful man, it is not altogether +impossible that before the end of the conversation, somebody will go +over the precipice after all; and it will not be the simple stranger. + +An army has marched across a wilderness, its column, in the military +phrase, in the air; under a confident commander who is certain he will +pick up new communications which will be far better than the old ones. +When the soldiers are almost worn out with marching, and the rank and +file of them have suffered horrible privations from hunger and exposure, +they find they have only advanced unsupported into a hostile country; +and that the signs of military occupation to be seen on every side are +only those of an enemy closing round. The march is suddenly halted and +the commander addresses his men. There are a great many things that he +may say. Some may hold that he had much better say nothing at all. Many +may hold that the less he says the better. Others may urge, very truly, +that courage is even more needed for a retreat than for an advance. He +may be advised to rouse his disappointed men by threatening the enemy +with a more dramatic disappointment; by declaring that they will best +him yet; that they will dash out of the net even as it is thrown, and +that their escape will be far more victorious than his victory. But +anyhow there is one kind of speech which the commander will not make to +his men, unless he is much more of a fool than his original blunder +proves him. He will not say: "We have now taken up a position which may +appear to you very depressing; but I assure you it is nothing to the +depression which you will certainly suffer as you make a series of +inevitably futile attempts to improve it, or to fall back on what you +may foolishly regard as a stronger position. I am very much amused at +your absurd suggestions for getting back to our old communications; for +I never thought much of your mangy old communications anyhow." There +have been mutinies in the desert before now; and it is possible that the +general will not be killed in battle with the enemy. + +A great nation and civilization has followed for a hundred years or more +a form of progress which held itself independent of certain old +communications, in the form of ancient traditions about the land, the +hearth, or the altar. It has advanced under leaders who were confident, +not to say cocksure. They were quite sure that their economic rules were +rigid, that their political theory was right, that their commerce was +beneficent, that their parliaments were popular, that their press was +enlightened, that their science was humane. In this confidence they +committed their people to certain new and enormous experiments; to +making their own independent nation an eternal debtor to a few rich men; +to piling up private property in heaps on the faith of financiers; to +covering their land with iron and stone and stripping it of grass and +grain; to driving food out of their own country in the hope of buying it +back again from the ends of the earth; to loading up their little island +with iron and gold till it was weighted like a sinking ship; to letting +the rich grow richer and fewer and the poor poorer and more numerous; to +letting the whole world be cloven in two with a war of mere masters and +mere servants; to losing every type of moderate prosperity and candid +patriotism, till there was no independence without luxury and no labour +without ugliness; to leaving the millions of mankind dependent on +indirect and distant discipline and indirect and distant sustenance, +working themselves to death for they knew not whom and taking the means +of life from they knew not where; and all hanging on a thread of alien +trade which grew thinner and thinner. To the people who have been +brought into this position many things may still be said. It will be +right to remind them that mere wild revolt will make things worse and +not better. It may be true to say that certain complexities must be +tolerated for a time because they correspond to other complexities, and +the two must be carefully simplified together. But if I may say one word +to the princes and rulers of such a people, who have led them into such +a pass, I would say to them as seriously as anything was ever said by +man to men: "For God's sake, for our sake, but, above all, for your own +sake, do not be in this blind haste to tell them there is no way out of +the trap into which your folly has led them; that there is no road +except the road by which you have brought them to ruin; that there is no +progress except the progress that has ended here. Do not be so eager to +prove to your hapless victims that what is hapless is also hopeless. Do +not be so anxious to convince them, now that you are at the end of your +experiment, that you are also at the end of your resources. Do not be so +very eloquent, so very elaborate, so very rational and radiantly +convincing in proving that your own error is even more irrevocable and +irremediable than it is. Do not try to minimize the industrial disease +by showing it is an incurable disease. Do not brighten the dark problem +of the coal-pit by proving it is a bottomless pit. Do not tell the +people there is no way but this; for many even now will not endure this. +Do not say to men that this alone is possible; for many already think it +impossible to bear. And at some later time, at some eleventh hour, when +the fates have grown darker and the ends have grown clearer, the mass of +men may suddenly understand into what a blind alley your progress has +led them. Then they may turn on you in the trap. And if they bore all +else, they might not bear the final taunt that you can do nothing; that +you will not even try to do anything. 'What art thou, man, and why art +thou despairing?' wrote the poet. 'God shall forgive thee all but thy +despair.' Man also may forgive you for blundering and may not forgive +you for despairing." ## On a Sense of Proportion -Those of us who study the papers and the parliamentary -speeches with proper attention must have by this time a -fairly precise idea of the nature of the evil of Socialism. -It is a remote Utopian dream impossible of fulfilment and -also an overwhelming practical danger that threatens us at -every moment. It is only a thing that is as distant as the -end of the world and as near as the end of the street. All -that is clear enough; but the aspect of it that arrests me -at this moment is more especially the Utopian aspect. A -person who used to write in the *Daily Mail* paid some -attention to this aspect; and represented this social ideal, -or indeed almost any other social ideal, as a sort of -paradise of poltroons. He suggested that "weaklings" wished -to be protected from the strain and stress of our vigorous -individualism, and so cried out for this paternal government -or grandmotherly legislation. And it was while I was reading -his remarks, with a deep and never-failing enjoyment, that -the image of the Individualist rose before me; of the sort -of man who probably writes such remarks and certainly reads -them. - -The reader refolds the *Daily Mail* and rises from his -intensely individualistic breakfast-table, where he has just -dispatched his bold and adventurous breakfast; the bacon cut -in rashers from the wild boar which but lately turned to bay -in his back garden; the eggs perilously snatched from -swaying nest and flapping bird at the top of those toppling -trees which gave the house its appropriate name of Pine -Crest. He puts on his curious and creative hat, built on -some bold plan entirely made up out of his own curious and -creative head. He walks outside his unique and unparalleled -house, also built with his own well-won wealth according to -his own well-conceived architectural design, and seeming by -its very outline against the sky to express his own -passionate personality. He strides down the street, making -his own way over hill and dale towards the place of his own -chosen and favourite labour, the workshop of his imaginative -craft. He lingers on the way, now to pluck a flower, now to -compose a poem, for his time is his own; he is an individual -and a free man and not as these Communists. He can work at -his own craft when he will, and labour far into the night to -make up for an idle morning. Such is the life of the clerk -in a world of private enterprise and practical -individualism; such the manner of his free passage from his -home. He continues to stride lightly along, until he sees -afar off the picturesque and striking tower of that workshop -in which he will, as with the creative strokes of a god... - -He sees it, I say, afar off. The expression is not wholly -accidental. For that is exactly the defect in all that sort -of journalistic philosophy of individualism and enterprise; -that those things are at present even more remote and -improbable than communal visions. It is not the dreadful -Bolshevist republic that is afar off. It is not the -Socialistic State that is Utopian. In that sense, it is not -even Utopia that is Utopian. The Socialist State may in one -sense be very truly described as terribly and menacingly -near. The Socialist State is exceedingly like the Capitalist -State, in which the clerk reads and the journalist writes. -Utopia is exactly like the present state of affairs, only -worse. - -It would make no difference to the clerk if his job became a -part of a Government department to-morrow. He would be -equally civilized and equally uncivic if the distant and -shadowy person at the head of the department were a -Government official. Indeed, it does make very little -difference to him now, whether he or his sons and daughters -are employed at the Post Office on bold and revolutionary -Socialistic principles or employed at the Stores on wild and -adventurous Individualist principles. I never heard of -anything resembling civil war between the daughter at the -Stores and the daughter in the Post Office. I doubt whether -the young lady at the Post Office is so imbued with -Bolshevist principles that she would think it a part of the -Higher Morality to expropriate something without payment off -the counter of the Stores. I doubt whether the young lady at -the Stores shudders when she passes a red pillar box, seeing -in it an outpost of the Red Peril. - -What is really a long way off is this individuality and -liberty the *Daily Mail* praised. It is the tower that a man -has built for himself that is seen in the distance. It is -Private Enterprise that is Utopian, in the sense of -something as distant as Utopia. It is Private Property that -is for us an ideal and for our critics an impossibility. It -is that which can really be discussed almost exactly as the -writer in the *Daily Mail* discusses Collectivism. It is -that which some people consider a goal and some people a -mirage. It is that which its friends maintain to be the -final satisfaction of modern hopes and hungers, and its -enemies maintain to be a contradiction to common sense and -common human possibilities. All the controversialists who -have become conscious of the real issue are already saying -of our ideal exactly what used to be said of the Socialists' -ideal. They are saying that private property is too ideal -not to be impossible. They are saying that private -enterprise is too good to be true. They are saying that the -idea of ordinary men owning ordinary possessions is against -the laws of political economy and requires an alteration in -human nature. They are saying that all practical business -men know that the thing would never work, exactly as the -same obliging people are always prepared to know that State -management would never work. For they hold the simple and -touching faith that no management except their own could -ever work. They call this the law of nature; and they call -anybody who ventures to doubt it a weakling. But the point -to see is that, although the normal solution of private -property for all is even now not very widely realized, in so -far as it is realized by the rulers of the modern market -(and therefore of the modern world) it is to this normal -notion of property that they apply the same criticism as -they applied to the abnormal notion of Communism. They say -it is Utopian; and they are right. They say it is -idealistic; and they are right. They say it is quixotic; and -they are right. It deserves every name that will indicate -how completely they have driven justice out of the world; -every name that will measure how remote from them and their -sort is the standard of honourable living; every name that -will emphasize and repeat the fact that property and liberty -are sundered from them and theirs, by an abyss between -heaven and hell. - -That is the real issue to be fought out with our serious -critics; and I have written here a series of articles -dealing more directly with it. It is the question of whether -this ideal can be anything but an ideal; not the question of -whether it is to be confounded with the present contemptible -reality. It is simply the question of whether this good -thing is really too good to be true. For the present I will -merely say that if the pessimists are convinced of their -pessimism, if the sceptics really hold that our social ideal -is now banished for ever by mechanical difficulties or -materialistic fate, they have at least reached a remarkable -and curious conclusion. It is hardly stranger to say that -man will have henceforth to be separated from his arms and -legs, owing to the improved pattern of wheels, than to say -that he must for ever say farewell to two supports so -natural as the sense of choosing for himself and of owning -something of his own. These critics, whether they figure as -critics of Socialism or Distributism, are very fond of -talking about extravagant stretches of the imagination or -impossible strains upon human nature. I confess I have to -stretch and strain my own human imagination and human nature -very far, to conceive anything so crooked and uncanny as the -human race ending with a complete forgetfulness of the -possessive pronoun. - -Nevertheless, as we say, it is with these critics we are in -controversy. Distribution may be a dream; three acres and a -cow may be a joke; cows may be fabulous animals; liberty may -be a name; private enterprise may be a wild goose chase on -which the world can go no further. But as for the people who -talk as if property and private enterprise were the -principles now in operation---those people are so blind and -deaf and dead to all the realities of their own daily -existence, that they can be dismissed from the debate. - -In this sense, therefore, we are indeed Utopian; in the -sense that our task is possibly more distant and certainly -more difficult. We are more revolutionary in the sense that -a revolution means a reversal: a reversal of direction, even -if it were accompanied with a restraint upon pace. The world -we want is much more different from the existing world than -the existing world is different from the world of Socialism. -Indeed, as has been already noted, there is not much -difference between the present world and Socialism; except -that we have left out the less important and more ornamental -notions of Socialism, such additional fancies as justice, -citizenship, the abolition of hunger, and so on. We have -already accepted anything that anybody of intelligence ever -disliked in Socialism. We have everything that critics used -to complain of in the desolate utility and unity of Looking -Backward. In so far as the world of Wells or Webb was -criticized as a centralized, impersonal, and monotonous -civilization, that is an exact description of existing -civilization. Nothing has been left out but some idle -fancies about feeding the poor or giving rights to the -populace. In every other way the unification and -regimentation is already complete. Utopia has done its -worst. Capitalism has done all that Socialism threatened to -do. The clerk has exactly the sort of passive functions and -permissive pleasures that he would have in the most -monstrous model village. I do not sneer at him; he has many -intelligent tastes and domestic virtues in spite of the -civilization he enjoys. They are exactly the tastes and -virtues he could have as a tenant and servant of the State. -But from the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to -sleep again, his life is run in grooves made for him by -other people, and often other people he will never even -know. He lives in a house that he does not own, that he did -not make, that he does not want. He moves everywhere in -ruts; he always goes up to his work on rails. He has -forgotten what his fathers, the hunters and the pilgrims and -the wandering minstrels, meant by finding their way to a -place. He thinks in terms of wages; that is, he has -forgotten the real meaning of wealth. His highest ambition -is concerned with getting this or that subordinate post in a -business that is already a bureaucracy. There is a certain -amount of competition for that post inside that business; -but so there would be inside any bureaucracy. This is a -point that the apologists of monopoly often miss. They -sometimes plead that even in such a system there may still -be a competition among servants; presumably a competition in -servility. But so there might be after Nationalization, when -they were all Government servants. The whole objection to -State Socialism vanishes, if that is an answer to the -objection. If every shop were as thoroughly nationalized as -a police station, it would not prevent the pleasing virtues -of jealousy, intrigue, and selfish ambition from blooming -and blossoming among them, as they sometimes do even among -policemen. - -Anyhow, that world exists; and to challenge that world may -be called Utopian; to change that world may be called -insanely Utopian. In that sense the name may be applied to -me and those who agree with me, and we shall not quarrel -with it. But in another sense the name is highly misleading -and particularly inappropriate. The word "Utopia" implies -not only difficulty of attainment but also other qualities -attached to it in such examples as the Utopia of Mr. Wells. -And it is essential to explain at once why they do not -attach to our Utopia---if it is a Utopia. - -There is such a thing as what we should call ideal -Distributism; though we should not, in this vale of tears, -expect Distributism to be ideal. In the same sense there -certainly is such a thing as ideal Communism. But there is -no such thing as ideal Capitalism; and there is no such -thing as a Capitalist ideal. As we have already noticed -(though it has not been noticed often enough), whenever the -capitalist does become an idealist, and specially when he -does become a sentimentalist, he always talks like a -Socialist. He always talks about "social service" and our -common interests in the whole community. From this it -follows that in so far as such a man is likely to have such -a thing as a Utopia, it will be more or less in the style of -a Socialist Utopia. The successful financier can put up with -an imperfect world, whether or no he has the Christian -humility to recognize himself as one of its imperfections. -But if he is called upon to conceive a perfect world, it -will be something in the way of the pattern state of the -Fabians or the I.L.P. He will look for something -systematized, something simplified, something all on the -same plan. And he will not get it; at least he will not get -it from me. It is exactly from that simplification and -sameness that I pray to be saved, and should be proud if I -could save anybody. It is exactly from that order and unity -that I call on the name of Liberty to deliver us. - -We do not offer perfection; what we offer is proportion. We -wish to correct the proportions of the modern state; but -proportion is between varied things; and a proportion is -hardly ever a pattern. It is as if we were drawing the -picture of a living man and they thought we were drawing a -diagram of wheels and rods for the construction of a Robot. -We do not propose that in a healthy society all land should -be held in the same way; or that all property should be -owned on the same conditions; or that all citizens should -have the same relation to the city. It is our whole point -that the central power needs lesser powers to balance and -check it, and that these must be of many kinds: some -individual, some communal, some official, and so on. Some of -them will probably abuse their privilege; but we prefer the -risk to that of the State or of the Trust, which abuses its -omnipotence. - -For instance, I am sometimes blamed for not believing in my -own age, or blamed still more for believing in my own -religion. I am called medieval; and some have even traced in -me a bias in favour of the Catholic Church to which I -belong. But suppose we were to take a parallel from these -things. If anyone said that medieval kings or modern peasant -countries were to blame for tolerating patches of avowed -Bolshevism, we should be rather surprised if we found that -the remark really referred to their tolerating monasteries. -Yet it is quite true in one sense that monasteries are -devoted to Communism and that monks are all Communists. -Their economic and ethical life is an exception to a general -civilization of feudalism or family life. Yet their -privileged position was regarded as rather a prop of social -order. They give to certain communal ideas their proper and -proportionate place in the State; and something of the same -thing was true of the Common Land. We should welcome the -chance of allowing any guilds or groups of a communal colour -their proper and proportionate place in the State; we should -be perfectly willing to mark off some part of the land as -Common Land. What we say is that merely nationalizing all -the land is like merely making monks of all the people; it -is giving those ideals more than their proper and -proportionate place in the State. The ordinary meaning of -Communism is not that some people are Communists, but that -all people are Communists. But we should not say, in the -same hard and literal sense, that the meaning of -Distributism is that all people are Distributists. We -certainly should not say that the meaning of a peasant state -is that all people are peasants. We should mean that it had -the general character of a peasant state; that the land was -largely held in that fashion and the law generally directed -in that spirit; that any other institutions stood up as -recognizable exceptions, as landmarks on that high tableland -of equality. - -If this is inconsistent, nothing is consistent; if this is -unpractical, all human life in unpractical. If a man wants -what he calls a flower-garden he plants flowers where he -can, and especially where they will determine the general -character of the landscape gardening. But they do not -completely cover the garden; they only positively colour it. -He does not expect roses to grow in the chimney-pots, or -daisies to climb up the railings; still less does he expect -tulips to grow on the pine, or the monkey tree to blossom -like a rhododendron. But he knows perfectly well what he -means by a flower-garden; and so does everybody else. If he -does not want a flower-garden but a kitchen-garden, he -proceeds differently. But he does not expect a -kitchen-garden to be exactly like a kitchen. He does not dig -out all the potatoes, because it is not a flower-garden and -the potato has a flower. He knows the main thing he is -trying to achieve; but, not being a born fool, he does not -think he can achieve it everywhere in exactly the same -degree, or in a manner equally unmixed with things of -another sort. The flower-gardener will not banish -nasturtiums to the kitchen-garden because some strange -people have been known to eat them. Nor will the other class -a vegetable as a flower because it is called a cauliflower. -So, from our social garden, we should not necessarily -exclude every modern machine any more than we should exclude -every medieval monastery. And indeed the apologue is -appropriate enough; for this is the sort of elementary human -reason that men never lost until they lost their gardens: -just as that higher reason that is more than human was lost -with a garden long ago. +Those of us who study the papers and the parliamentary speeches with +proper attention must have by this time a fairly precise idea of the +nature of the evil of Socialism. It is a remote Utopian dream impossible +of fulfilment and also an overwhelming practical danger that threatens +us at every moment. It is only a thing that is as distant as the end of +the world and as near as the end of the street. All that is clear +enough; but the aspect of it that arrests me at this moment is more +especially the Utopian aspect. A person who used to write in the *Daily +Mail* paid some attention to this aspect; and represented this social +ideal, or indeed almost any other social ideal, as a sort of paradise of +poltroons. He suggested that "weaklings" wished to be protected from the +strain and stress of our vigorous individualism, and so cried out for +this paternal government or grandmotherly legislation. And it was while +I was reading his remarks, with a deep and never-failing enjoyment, that +the image of the Individualist rose before me; of the sort of man who +probably writes such remarks and certainly reads them. + +The reader refolds the *Daily Mail* and rises from his intensely +individualistic breakfast-table, where he has just dispatched his bold +and adventurous breakfast; the bacon cut in rashers from the wild boar +which but lately turned to bay in his back garden; the eggs perilously +snatched from swaying nest and flapping bird at the top of those +toppling trees which gave the house its appropriate name of Pine Crest. +He puts on his curious and creative hat, built on some bold plan +entirely made up out of his own curious and creative head. He walks +outside his unique and unparalleled house, also built with his own +well-won wealth according to his own well-conceived architectural +design, and seeming by its very outline against the sky to express his +own passionate personality. He strides down the street, making his own +way over hill and dale towards the place of his own chosen and favourite +labour, the workshop of his imaginative craft. He lingers on the way, +now to pluck a flower, now to compose a poem, for his time is his own; +he is an individual and a free man and not as these Communists. He can +work at his own craft when he will, and labour far into the night to +make up for an idle morning. Such is the life of the clerk in a world of +private enterprise and practical individualism; such the manner of his +free passage from his home. He continues to stride lightly along, until +he sees afar off the picturesque and striking tower of that workshop in +which he will, as with the creative strokes of a god... + +He sees it, I say, afar off. The expression is not wholly accidental. +For that is exactly the defect in all that sort of journalistic +philosophy of individualism and enterprise; that those things are at +present even more remote and improbable than communal visions. It is not +the dreadful Bolshevist republic that is afar off. It is not the +Socialistic State that is Utopian. In that sense, it is not even Utopia +that is Utopian. The Socialist State may in one sense be very truly +described as terribly and menacingly near. The Socialist State is +exceedingly like the Capitalist State, in which the clerk reads and the +journalist writes. Utopia is exactly like the present state of affairs, +only worse. + +It would make no difference to the clerk if his job became a part of a +Government department to-morrow. He would be equally civilized and +equally uncivic if the distant and shadowy person at the head of the +department were a Government official. Indeed, it does make very little +difference to him now, whether he or his sons and daughters are employed +at the Post Office on bold and revolutionary Socialistic principles or +employed at the Stores on wild and adventurous Individualist principles. +I never heard of anything resembling civil war between the daughter at +the Stores and the daughter in the Post Office. I doubt whether the +young lady at the Post Office is so imbued with Bolshevist principles +that she would think it a part of the Higher Morality to expropriate +something without payment off the counter of the Stores. I doubt whether +the young lady at the Stores shudders when she passes a red pillar box, +seeing in it an outpost of the Red Peril. + +What is really a long way off is this individuality and liberty the +*Daily Mail* praised. It is the tower that a man has built for himself +that is seen in the distance. It is Private Enterprise that is Utopian, +in the sense of something as distant as Utopia. It is Private Property +that is for us an ideal and for our critics an impossibility. It is that +which can really be discussed almost exactly as the writer in the *Daily +Mail* discusses Collectivism. It is that which some people consider a +goal and some people a mirage. It is that which its friends maintain to +be the final satisfaction of modern hopes and hungers, and its enemies +maintain to be a contradiction to common sense and common human +possibilities. All the controversialists who have become conscious of +the real issue are already saying of our ideal exactly what used to be +said of the Socialists' ideal. They are saying that private property is +too ideal not to be impossible. They are saying that private enterprise +is too good to be true. They are saying that the idea of ordinary men +owning ordinary possessions is against the laws of political economy and +requires an alteration in human nature. They are saying that all +practical business men know that the thing would never work, exactly as +the same obliging people are always prepared to know that State +management would never work. For they hold the simple and touching faith +that no management except their own could ever work. They call this the +law of nature; and they call anybody who ventures to doubt it a +weakling. But the point to see is that, although the normal solution of +private property for all is even now not very widely realized, in so far +as it is realized by the rulers of the modern market (and therefore of +the modern world) it is to this normal notion of property that they +apply the same criticism as they applied to the abnormal notion of +Communism. They say it is Utopian; and they are right. They say it is +idealistic; and they are right. They say it is quixotic; and they are +right. It deserves every name that will indicate how completely they +have driven justice out of the world; every name that will measure how +remote from them and their sort is the standard of honourable living; +every name that will emphasize and repeat the fact that property and +liberty are sundered from them and theirs, by an abyss between heaven +and hell. + +That is the real issue to be fought out with our serious critics; and I +have written here a series of articles dealing more directly with it. It +is the question of whether this ideal can be anything but an ideal; not +the question of whether it is to be confounded with the present +contemptible reality. It is simply the question of whether this good +thing is really too good to be true. For the present I will merely say +that if the pessimists are convinced of their pessimism, if the sceptics +really hold that our social ideal is now banished for ever by mechanical +difficulties or materialistic fate, they have at least reached a +remarkable and curious conclusion. It is hardly stranger to say that man +will have henceforth to be separated from his arms and legs, owing to +the improved pattern of wheels, than to say that he must for ever say +farewell to two supports so natural as the sense of choosing for himself +and of owning something of his own. These critics, whether they figure +as critics of Socialism or Distributism, are very fond of talking about +extravagant stretches of the imagination or impossible strains upon +human nature. I confess I have to stretch and strain my own human +imagination and human nature very far, to conceive anything so crooked +and uncanny as the human race ending with a complete forgetfulness of +the possessive pronoun. + +Nevertheless, as we say, it is with these critics we are in controversy. +Distribution may be a dream; three acres and a cow may be a joke; cows +may be fabulous animals; liberty may be a name; private enterprise may +be a wild goose chase on which the world can go no further. But as for +the people who talk as if property and private enterprise were the +principles now in operation---those people are so blind and deaf and +dead to all the realities of their own daily existence, that they can be +dismissed from the debate. + +In this sense, therefore, we are indeed Utopian; in the sense that our +task is possibly more distant and certainly more difficult. We are more +revolutionary in the sense that a revolution means a reversal: a +reversal of direction, even if it were accompanied with a restraint upon +pace. The world we want is much more different from the existing world +than the existing world is different from the world of Socialism. +Indeed, as has been already noted, there is not much difference between +the present world and Socialism; except that we have left out the less +important and more ornamental notions of Socialism, such additional +fancies as justice, citizenship, the abolition of hunger, and so on. We +have already accepted anything that anybody of intelligence ever +disliked in Socialism. We have everything that critics used to complain +of in the desolate utility and unity of Looking Backward. In so far as +the world of Wells or Webb was criticized as a centralized, impersonal, +and monotonous civilization, that is an exact description of existing +civilization. Nothing has been left out but some idle fancies about +feeding the poor or giving rights to the populace. In every other way +the unification and regimentation is already complete. Utopia has done +its worst. Capitalism has done all that Socialism threatened to do. The +clerk has exactly the sort of passive functions and permissive pleasures +that he would have in the most monstrous model village. I do not sneer +at him; he has many intelligent tastes and domestic virtues in spite of +the civilization he enjoys. They are exactly the tastes and virtues he +could have as a tenant and servant of the State. But from the moment he +wakes up to the moment he goes to sleep again, his life is run in +grooves made for him by other people, and often other people he will +never even know. He lives in a house that he does not own, that he did +not make, that he does not want. He moves everywhere in ruts; he always +goes up to his work on rails. He has forgotten what his fathers, the +hunters and the pilgrims and the wandering minstrels, meant by finding +their way to a place. He thinks in terms of wages; that is, he has +forgotten the real meaning of wealth. His highest ambition is concerned +with getting this or that subordinate post in a business that is already +a bureaucracy. There is a certain amount of competition for that post +inside that business; but so there would be inside any bureaucracy. This +is a point that the apologists of monopoly often miss. They sometimes +plead that even in such a system there may still be a competition among +servants; presumably a competition in servility. But so there might be +after Nationalization, when they were all Government servants. The whole +objection to State Socialism vanishes, if that is an answer to the +objection. If every shop were as thoroughly nationalized as a police +station, it would not prevent the pleasing virtues of jealousy, +intrigue, and selfish ambition from blooming and blossoming among them, +as they sometimes do even among policemen. + +Anyhow, that world exists; and to challenge that world may be called +Utopian; to change that world may be called insanely Utopian. In that +sense the name may be applied to me and those who agree with me, and we +shall not quarrel with it. But in another sense the name is highly +misleading and particularly inappropriate. The word "Utopia" implies not +only difficulty of attainment but also other qualities attached to it in +such examples as the Utopia of Mr. Wells. And it is essential to explain +at once why they do not attach to our Utopia---if it is a Utopia. + +There is such a thing as what we should call ideal Distributism; though +we should not, in this vale of tears, expect Distributism to be ideal. +In the same sense there certainly is such a thing as ideal Communism. +But there is no such thing as ideal Capitalism; and there is no such +thing as a Capitalist ideal. As we have already noticed (though it has +not been noticed often enough), whenever the capitalist does become an +idealist, and specially when he does become a sentimentalist, he always +talks like a Socialist. He always talks about "social service" and our +common interests in the whole community. From this it follows that in so +far as such a man is likely to have such a thing as a Utopia, it will be +more or less in the style of a Socialist Utopia. The successful +financier can put up with an imperfect world, whether or no he has the +Christian humility to recognize himself as one of its imperfections. But +if he is called upon to conceive a perfect world, it will be something +in the way of the pattern state of the Fabians or the I.L.P. He will +look for something systematized, something simplified, something all on +the same plan. And he will not get it; at least he will not get it from +me. It is exactly from that simplification and sameness that I pray to +be saved, and should be proud if I could save anybody. It is exactly +from that order and unity that I call on the name of Liberty to deliver +us. + +We do not offer perfection; what we offer is proportion. We wish to +correct the proportions of the modern state; but proportion is between +varied things; and a proportion is hardly ever a pattern. It is as if we +were drawing the picture of a living man and they thought we were +drawing a diagram of wheels and rods for the construction of a Robot. We +do not propose that in a healthy society all land should be held in the +same way; or that all property should be owned on the same conditions; +or that all citizens should have the same relation to the city. It is +our whole point that the central power needs lesser powers to balance +and check it, and that these must be of many kinds: some individual, +some communal, some official, and so on. Some of them will probably +abuse their privilege; but we prefer the risk to that of the State or of +the Trust, which abuses its omnipotence. + +For instance, I am sometimes blamed for not believing in my own age, or +blamed still more for believing in my own religion. I am called +medieval; and some have even traced in me a bias in favour of the +Catholic Church to which I belong. But suppose we were to take a +parallel from these things. If anyone said that medieval kings or modern +peasant countries were to blame for tolerating patches of avowed +Bolshevism, we should be rather surprised if we found that the remark +really referred to their tolerating monasteries. Yet it is quite true in +one sense that monasteries are devoted to Communism and that monks are +all Communists. Their economic and ethical life is an exception to a +general civilization of feudalism or family life. Yet their privileged +position was regarded as rather a prop of social order. They give to +certain communal ideas their proper and proportionate place in the +State; and something of the same thing was true of the Common Land. We +should welcome the chance of allowing any guilds or groups of a communal +colour their proper and proportionate place in the State; we should be +perfectly willing to mark off some part of the land as Common Land. What +we say is that merely nationalizing all the land is like merely making +monks of all the people; it is giving those ideals more than their +proper and proportionate place in the State. The ordinary meaning of +Communism is not that some people are Communists, but that all people +are Communists. But we should not say, in the same hard and literal +sense, that the meaning of Distributism is that all people are +Distributists. We certainly should not say that the meaning of a peasant +state is that all people are peasants. We should mean that it had the +general character of a peasant state; that the land was largely held in +that fashion and the law generally directed in that spirit; that any +other institutions stood up as recognizable exceptions, as landmarks on +that high tableland of equality. + +If this is inconsistent, nothing is consistent; if this is unpractical, +all human life in unpractical. If a man wants what he calls a +flower-garden he plants flowers where he can, and especially where they +will determine the general character of the landscape gardening. But +they do not completely cover the garden; they only positively colour it. +He does not expect roses to grow in the chimney-pots, or daisies to +climb up the railings; still less does he expect tulips to grow on the +pine, or the monkey tree to blossom like a rhododendron. But he knows +perfectly well what he means by a flower-garden; and so does everybody +else. If he does not want a flower-garden but a kitchen-garden, he +proceeds differently. But he does not expect a kitchen-garden to be +exactly like a kitchen. He does not dig out all the potatoes, because it +is not a flower-garden and the potato has a flower. He knows the main +thing he is trying to achieve; but, not being a born fool, he does not +think he can achieve it everywhere in exactly the same degree, or in a +manner equally unmixed with things of another sort. The flower-gardener +will not banish nasturtiums to the kitchen-garden because some strange +people have been known to eat them. Nor will the other class a vegetable +as a flower because it is called a cauliflower. So, from our social +garden, we should not necessarily exclude every modern machine any more +than we should exclude every medieval monastery. And indeed the apologue +is appropriate enough; for this is the sort of elementary human reason +that men never lost until they lost their gardens: just as that higher +reason that is more than human was lost with a garden long ago. # Some Aspects of Big Business ## The Bluff of the Big Shops -Twice in my life has an editor told me in so many words that -he dared not print what I had written, because it would -offend the advertisers in his paper. The presence of such -pressure exists everywhere in a more silent and subtle form. -But I have a great respect for the honesty of this -particular editor; for it was, evidently as near to complete -honesty as the editor of an important weekly magazine can -possibly go. He told the truth about the falsehood he had to -tell. - -On both those occasions he denied me liberty of expression -because I said that the widely advertised stores and large -shops were really worse than little shops. That, it may be -interesting to note, is one of the things that a man is now -forbidden to say; perhaps the only thing he is really -forbidden to say. If it had been an attack on Government, it -would have been tolerated. If it had been an attack on God, -it would have been respectfully and tactfully applauded. If -I had been abusing marriage or patriotism or public decency, -I should have been heralded in headlines and allowed to -sprawl across Sunday newspapers. But the big newspaper is -not likely to attack the big shop; being itself a big shop -in its way and more and more a monument of monopoly. But it -will be well if I repeat here in a book what I found it -impossible to repeat in an article. I think the big shop is -a bad shop. I think it bad not only in a moral but a -mercantile sense; that is, I think shopping there is not -only a bad action but a bad bargain. I think the monster -emporium is not only vulgar and insolent, but incompetent -and uncomfortable; and I deny that its large organization is -efficient. Large organization is loose organization. Nay, it -would be almost as true to say that organization is always -disorganization. The only thing perfectly organic is an -organism; like that grotesque and obscure organism called a -man. He alone can be quite certain of doing what he wants; -beyond him, every extra man may be an extra mistake. As -applied to things like shops, the whole thing is an utter -fallacy. Some things like armies have to be organized; and -therefore do their very best to be well organized. You must -have a long rigid line stretched out to guard a frontier; -and therefore you stretch it tight. But it is not true that -you must have a long rigid line of people trimming hats or -tying bouquets, in order that they may be trimmed or tied -neatly. The work is much more likely to be neat if it is -done by a particular craftsman for a particular customer -with particular ribbons and flowers. The person told to trim -the hat will never do it quite suitably to the person who -wants it trimmed; and the hundredth person told to do it -will do it badly; as he does. If we collected all the -stories from all the housewives and householders about the -big shops sending the wrong goods, smashing the right goods, -forgetting to send any sort of goods, we should behold a -welter of inefficiency. There are far more blunders in a big -shop than ever happen in a small shop, where the individual -customer can curse the individual shopkeeper. Confronted -with modern efficiency the customer is silent; well aware of -that organization's talent for sacking the wrong man. In -short, organization is a necessary evil---which in this case -is not necessary. - -I have begun these notes with a note on the big shops -because they are things near to us and familiar to us all. I -need not dwell on other and still more entertaining claims -made for the colossal combination of departments. One of the -funniest is the statement that it is convenient to get -everything in the same shop. That is to stay, it is -convenient to walk the length of the street, so long as you -walk indoors, or more frequently underground, instead of -walking the same distance in the open air from one little -shop to another. The truth is that the monopolists' shops -are really very convenient---to the monopolist. They have -all the advantage of concentrating business as they -concentrate wealth, in fewer and fewer of the citizens. -Their wealth sometimes permits them to pay tolerable wages; -their wealth also permits them to buy up better businesses -and advertise worse goods. But that their own goods are -better nobody has ever even begun to show; and most of us -know any number of concrete cases where they are definitely -worse. Now I expressed this opinion of my own (so shocking -to the magazine editor and his advertisers) not only because -it is an example of my general thesis that small properties -should be revived, but because it is essential to the -realization of another and much more curious truth. It -concerns the psychology of all these things: of mere size, -of mere wealth, of mere advertisement and arrogance. And it -gives us the first working model of the way in which things -are done to-day and the way in which (please God) they may -be undone to-morrow. - -There is one obvious and enormous and entirely neglected -general fact to be noted before we consider the laws chiefly -needed to renew the State. And that is the fact that one -considerable revolution could be made without any laws at -all. It does not concern any existing law, but rather an -existing superstition. And the curious thing is that its -upholders boast that it is a superstition. The other day I -saw and very thoroughly enjoyed a popular play called *It -Pays to Advertise;* which is all about a young business man -who tries to break up the soap monopoly of his father, a -more old-fashioned business man, by the wildest application -of American theories of the psychology of advertising. One -thing that struck me as rather interesting about it was -this. It was quite good comedy to give the old man and the -young man our sympathy in turn. It was quite good farce to -make the old man and the young man each alternately look a -fool. But nobody seemed to feel what I felt to be the most -outstanding and obvious points of folly. They scoffed at the -old man because he was old; because he was old-fashioned; -because he himself was healthy enough to scoff at the monkey -tricks of their mad advertisements. But nobody really -criticized him for having made a corner, for which he might -once have stood in a pillory. Nobody seemed to have enough -instinct for independence and human dignity to be irritated -at the idea that one purse-proud old man could prevent us -all from having an ordinary human commodity if he chose. And -as with the old man, so it was with the young man. He had -been taught by his American friend that advertisement can -hypnotize the human brain; that people are dragged by a -deadly fascination into the doors of a shop as into the -mouth of a snake; that the subconscious is captured and the -will paralysed by repetition; that we are all made to move -like mechanical dolls when a Yankee advertiser says, "Do It -Now." But it never seemed to occur to anybody to resent -this. Nobody seemed sufficiently alive to be annoyed. The -young man was made game of because he was poor; because he -was bankrupt; because he was driven to the shifts of -bankruptcy; and so on. But he did not seem to know he was -something much worse than a swindler, a sorcerer. He did not -know he was by his own boast a mesmerist and a mystagogue; a -destroyer of reason and will; an enemy of truth and liberty. - -I think such people exaggerate the extent to which it pays -to advertise; even if there is only the devil to pay. But in -one sense this psychological case for advertising is of -great practical importance to any programme of reform. The -American advertisers have got hold of the wrong end of the -stick; but it is a stick that can be used to beat something -else besides their own absurd big drum. It is a stick that -can be used also to beat their own absurd business -philosophy. They are always telling us that the success of -modern commerce depends on creating an atmosphere, on -manufacturing a mentality, on assuming a point of view. In -short, they insist that their commerce is not merely -commercial, or even economic or political, but purely -psychological. I hope they will go on saying it; for then -some day everybody may suddenly see that it is true. - -For the success of big shops and such things really is -psychology; not to say psycho-analysis; or, in other words, -nightmare. It is not real and, therefore, not reliable. This -point concerns merely our immediate attitude, at the moment -and on the spot, towards the whole plutocratic occupation of -which such publicity is the gaudy banner. The very first -thing to do, before we come to any of our proposals that are -political and legal, is something that really is (to use -their beloved word) entirely psychological. The very first -thing to do is to tell these American poker-players that -they do not know how to play poker. For they not only bluff, -but they boast that they are bluffing. In so far as it -really is a question of an instant psychological method, -there must be, and there is, an immediate psychological -answer. In other words, because they are admittedly -bluffing, we can call their bluff. - -I said recently that any practical programme for restoring -normal property consists of two parts, which current cant -would call destructive and constructive; but which might -more truly be called defensive and offensive. The first is -stopping the mere mad stampede towards monopoly, before the -last traditions of property and liberty are lost. It is with -that preliminary problem of resisting the world's trend -towards being more monopolist, that I am first of all -dealing here. Now, when we ask what we can do, here and now, -against the actual growth of monopoly, we are always given a -very simple answer. We are told that we can do nothing. By a -natural and inevitable operation the large things are -swallowing the small, as large fish might swallow little -fish. The trust can absorb what it likes, like a dragon -devouring what it likes, because it is already the largest -creature left alive in the land. Some people are so finally -resolved to accept this result that they actually condescend -to regret it. They are so convinced that it is fate that -they will even admit that it is fatality. The fatalists -almost become sentimentalists when looking at the little -shop that is being bought up by the big company. They are -ready to weep, so long as it is admitted that they weep -because they weep in vain. They are willing to admit that -the loss of a little toy-shop of their childhood, or a -little tea-shop of their youth, is even in the true sense a -tragedy. For a tragedy means always a man's struggle with -that which is stronger than man. And it is the feet of the -gods themselves that are here trampling on our traditions; -it is death and doom themselves that have broken our little -toys like sticks; for against the stars of destiny none -shall prevail. It is amazing what a little bluff will do in -this world. - -For they go on saying that the big fish eats the little -fish, without asking whether little fish swim up to big fish -and ask to be eaten. They accept the devouring dragon -without wondering whether a fashionable crowd of princesses -ran after the dragon to be devoured. They have never heard -of a fashion; and do not know the difference between fashion -and fate. The necessitarians have here carefully chosen the -one example of something that is certainly not necessary, -whatever else is necessary. They have chosen the one thing -that does happen still to be free, as a proof of the -unbreakable chains in which all things are bound. Very -little is left free in the modern world; but private buying -and selling are still supposed to be free; and indeed still -are free; if anyone has a will free enough to use his -freedom. Children may be driven by force to a particular -school. Men may be driven by force away from a public-house. -All sorts of people, for all sorts of new and nonsensical -reasons, may be driven by force to a prison. But nobody is -yet driven by force to a particular shop. - -I shall deal later with some practical remedies and -reactions against the rush towards rings and corners. But -even before we consider these, it is well to have paused a -moment on the moral fact which is so elementary and so -entirely ignored. Of all things in the world, the rush to -the big shops is the thing that could be most easily -stopped---by the people who rush there. We do not know what -may come later; but they cannot be driven there by bayonets -just yet. American business enterprise, which has already -used British soldiers for purposes of advertisement, may -doubtless in time use British soldiers for purposes of -coercion. But we cannot yet be dragooned by guns and sabres -into Yankee shops or international stores. The alleged -economic attraction, with which I will deal in due course, -is quite a different thing: I am merely pointing out that if -we came to the conclusion that big shops ought to be -boycotted, we could boycott them as easily as we should (I -hope) boycott shops selling instruments of torture or -poisons for private use in the home. In other words, this -first and fundamental question is not a question of -necessity but of will. If we chose to make a vow, if we -chose to make a league, for dealing only with little local -shops and never with large centralized shops, the campaign -could be every bit as practical as the Land Campaign in -Ireland. It would probably be nearly as successful. It will -be said, of course, that people will go to the best shop. I -deny it; for Irish boycotters did not take the best offer. I -deny that the big shop is the best shop; and I especially -deny that people go there because it is the best shop. And -if I be asked why, I answer at the end with the unanswerable -fact with which I began at the beginning. I know it is not -merely a matter of business, for the simple reason that the -business men themselves tell me it is merely a matter of -bluff. It is they who say that nothing succeeds like a mere -appearance of success. It is they who say that publicity -influences us without our will or knowledge. It is they who -say that "It Pays to Advertise"; that is, to tell people in -a bullying way that they must "Do It Now," when they need -not do it at all. +Twice in my life has an editor told me in so many words that he dared +not print what I had written, because it would offend the advertisers in +his paper. The presence of such pressure exists everywhere in a more +silent and subtle form. But I have a great respect for the honesty of +this particular editor; for it was, evidently as near to complete +honesty as the editor of an important weekly magazine can possibly go. +He told the truth about the falsehood he had to tell. + +On both those occasions he denied me liberty of expression because I +said that the widely advertised stores and large shops were really worse +than little shops. That, it may be interesting to note, is one of the +things that a man is now forbidden to say; perhaps the only thing he is +really forbidden to say. If it had been an attack on Government, it +would have been tolerated. If it had been an attack on God, it would +have been respectfully and tactfully applauded. If I had been abusing +marriage or patriotism or public decency, I should have been heralded in +headlines and allowed to sprawl across Sunday newspapers. But the big +newspaper is not likely to attack the big shop; being itself a big shop +in its way and more and more a monument of monopoly. But it will be well +if I repeat here in a book what I found it impossible to repeat in an +article. I think the big shop is a bad shop. I think it bad not only in +a moral but a mercantile sense; that is, I think shopping there is not +only a bad action but a bad bargain. I think the monster emporium is not +only vulgar and insolent, but incompetent and uncomfortable; and I deny +that its large organization is efficient. Large organization is loose +organization. Nay, it would be almost as true to say that organization +is always disorganization. The only thing perfectly organic is an +organism; like that grotesque and obscure organism called a man. He +alone can be quite certain of doing what he wants; beyond him, every +extra man may be an extra mistake. As applied to things like shops, the +whole thing is an utter fallacy. Some things like armies have to be +organized; and therefore do their very best to be well organized. You +must have a long rigid line stretched out to guard a frontier; and +therefore you stretch it tight. But it is not true that you must have a +long rigid line of people trimming hats or tying bouquets, in order that +they may be trimmed or tied neatly. The work is much more likely to be +neat if it is done by a particular craftsman for a particular customer +with particular ribbons and flowers. The person told to trim the hat +will never do it quite suitably to the person who wants it trimmed; and +the hundredth person told to do it will do it badly; as he does. If we +collected all the stories from all the housewives and householders about +the big shops sending the wrong goods, smashing the right goods, +forgetting to send any sort of goods, we should behold a welter of +inefficiency. There are far more blunders in a big shop than ever happen +in a small shop, where the individual customer can curse the individual +shopkeeper. Confronted with modern efficiency the customer is silent; +well aware of that organization's talent for sacking the wrong man. In +short, organization is a necessary evil---which in this case is not +necessary. + +I have begun these notes with a note on the big shops because they are +things near to us and familiar to us all. I need not dwell on other and +still more entertaining claims made for the colossal combination of +departments. One of the funniest is the statement that it is convenient +to get everything in the same shop. That is to stay, it is convenient to +walk the length of the street, so long as you walk indoors, or more +frequently underground, instead of walking the same distance in the open +air from one little shop to another. The truth is that the monopolists' +shops are really very convenient---to the monopolist. They have all the +advantage of concentrating business as they concentrate wealth, in fewer +and fewer of the citizens. Their wealth sometimes permits them to pay +tolerable wages; their wealth also permits them to buy up better +businesses and advertise worse goods. But that their own goods are +better nobody has ever even begun to show; and most of us know any +number of concrete cases where they are definitely worse. Now I +expressed this opinion of my own (so shocking to the magazine editor and +his advertisers) not only because it is an example of my general thesis +that small properties should be revived, but because it is essential to +the realization of another and much more curious truth. It concerns the +psychology of all these things: of mere size, of mere wealth, of mere +advertisement and arrogance. And it gives us the first working model of +the way in which things are done to-day and the way in which (please +God) they may be undone to-morrow. + +There is one obvious and enormous and entirely neglected general fact to +be noted before we consider the laws chiefly needed to renew the State. +And that is the fact that one considerable revolution could be made +without any laws at all. It does not concern any existing law, but +rather an existing superstition. And the curious thing is that its +upholders boast that it is a superstition. The other day I saw and very +thoroughly enjoyed a popular play called *It Pays to Advertise;* which +is all about a young business man who tries to break up the soap +monopoly of his father, a more old-fashioned business man, by the +wildest application of American theories of the psychology of +advertising. One thing that struck me as rather interesting about it was +this. It was quite good comedy to give the old man and the young man our +sympathy in turn. It was quite good farce to make the old man and the +young man each alternately look a fool. But nobody seemed to feel what I +felt to be the most outstanding and obvious points of folly. They +scoffed at the old man because he was old; because he was old-fashioned; +because he himself was healthy enough to scoff at the monkey tricks of +their mad advertisements. But nobody really criticized him for having +made a corner, for which he might once have stood in a pillory. Nobody +seemed to have enough instinct for independence and human dignity to be +irritated at the idea that one purse-proud old man could prevent us all +from having an ordinary human commodity if he chose. And as with the old +man, so it was with the young man. He had been taught by his American +friend that advertisement can hypnotize the human brain; that people are +dragged by a deadly fascination into the doors of a shop as into the +mouth of a snake; that the subconscious is captured and the will +paralysed by repetition; that we are all made to move like mechanical +dolls when a Yankee advertiser says, "Do It Now." But it never seemed to +occur to anybody to resent this. Nobody seemed sufficiently alive to be +annoyed. The young man was made game of because he was poor; because he +was bankrupt; because he was driven to the shifts of bankruptcy; and so +on. But he did not seem to know he was something much worse than a +swindler, a sorcerer. He did not know he was by his own boast a +mesmerist and a mystagogue; a destroyer of reason and will; an enemy of +truth and liberty. + +I think such people exaggerate the extent to which it pays to advertise; +even if there is only the devil to pay. But in one sense this +psychological case for advertising is of great practical importance to +any programme of reform. The American advertisers have got hold of the +wrong end of the stick; but it is a stick that can be used to beat +something else besides their own absurd big drum. It is a stick that can +be used also to beat their own absurd business philosophy. They are +always telling us that the success of modern commerce depends on +creating an atmosphere, on manufacturing a mentality, on assuming a +point of view. In short, they insist that their commerce is not merely +commercial, or even economic or political, but purely psychological. I +hope they will go on saying it; for then some day everybody may suddenly +see that it is true. + +For the success of big shops and such things really is psychology; not +to say psycho-analysis; or, in other words, nightmare. It is not real +and, therefore, not reliable. This point concerns merely our immediate +attitude, at the moment and on the spot, towards the whole plutocratic +occupation of which such publicity is the gaudy banner. The very first +thing to do, before we come to any of our proposals that are political +and legal, is something that really is (to use their beloved word) +entirely psychological. The very first thing to do is to tell these +American poker-players that they do not know how to play poker. For they +not only bluff, but they boast that they are bluffing. In so far as it +really is a question of an instant psychological method, there must be, +and there is, an immediate psychological answer. In other words, because +they are admittedly bluffing, we can call their bluff. + +I said recently that any practical programme for restoring normal +property consists of two parts, which current cant would call +destructive and constructive; but which might more truly be called +defensive and offensive. The first is stopping the mere mad stampede +towards monopoly, before the last traditions of property and liberty are +lost. It is with that preliminary problem of resisting the world's trend +towards being more monopolist, that I am first of all dealing here. Now, +when we ask what we can do, here and now, against the actual growth of +monopoly, we are always given a very simple answer. We are told that we +can do nothing. By a natural and inevitable operation the large things +are swallowing the small, as large fish might swallow little fish. The +trust can absorb what it likes, like a dragon devouring what it likes, +because it is already the largest creature left alive in the land. Some +people are so finally resolved to accept this result that they actually +condescend to regret it. They are so convinced that it is fate that they +will even admit that it is fatality. The fatalists almost become +sentimentalists when looking at the little shop that is being bought up +by the big company. They are ready to weep, so long as it is admitted +that they weep because they weep in vain. They are willing to admit that +the loss of a little toy-shop of their childhood, or a little tea-shop +of their youth, is even in the true sense a tragedy. For a tragedy means +always a man's struggle with that which is stronger than man. And it is +the feet of the gods themselves that are here trampling on our +traditions; it is death and doom themselves that have broken our little +toys like sticks; for against the stars of destiny none shall prevail. +It is amazing what a little bluff will do in this world. + +For they go on saying that the big fish eats the little fish, without +asking whether little fish swim up to big fish and ask to be eaten. They +accept the devouring dragon without wondering whether a fashionable +crowd of princesses ran after the dragon to be devoured. They have never +heard of a fashion; and do not know the difference between fashion and +fate. The necessitarians have here carefully chosen the one example of +something that is certainly not necessary, whatever else is necessary. +They have chosen the one thing that does happen still to be free, as a +proof of the unbreakable chains in which all things are bound. Very +little is left free in the modern world; but private buying and selling +are still supposed to be free; and indeed still are free; if anyone has +a will free enough to use his freedom. Children may be driven by force +to a particular school. Men may be driven by force away from a +public-house. All sorts of people, for all sorts of new and nonsensical +reasons, may be driven by force to a prison. But nobody is yet driven by +force to a particular shop. + +I shall deal later with some practical remedies and reactions against +the rush towards rings and corners. But even before we consider these, +it is well to have paused a moment on the moral fact which is so +elementary and so entirely ignored. Of all things in the world, the rush +to the big shops is the thing that could be most easily stopped---by the +people who rush there. We do not know what may come later; but they +cannot be driven there by bayonets just yet. American business +enterprise, which has already used British soldiers for purposes of +advertisement, may doubtless in time use British soldiers for purposes +of coercion. But we cannot yet be dragooned by guns and sabres into +Yankee shops or international stores. The alleged economic attraction, +with which I will deal in due course, is quite a different thing: I am +merely pointing out that if we came to the conclusion that big shops +ought to be boycotted, we could boycott them as easily as we should (I +hope) boycott shops selling instruments of torture or poisons for +private use in the home. In other words, this first and fundamental +question is not a question of necessity but of will. If we chose to make +a vow, if we chose to make a league, for dealing only with little local +shops and never with large centralized shops, the campaign could be +every bit as practical as the Land Campaign in Ireland. It would +probably be nearly as successful. It will be said, of course, that +people will go to the best shop. I deny it; for Irish boycotters did not +take the best offer. I deny that the big shop is the best shop; and I +especially deny that people go there because it is the best shop. And if +I be asked why, I answer at the end with the unanswerable fact with +which I began at the beginning. I know it is not merely a matter of +business, for the simple reason that the business men themselves tell me +it is merely a matter of bluff. It is they who say that nothing succeeds +like a mere appearance of success. It is they who say that publicity +influences us without our will or knowledge. It is they who say that "It +Pays to Advertise"; that is, to tell people in a bullying way that they +must "Do It Now," when they need not do it at all. ## A Misunderstanding About Method -Before I go any further with this sketch, I find I must -pause upon a parenthesis touching the nature of my task, -without which the rest of it may be misunderstood. As a -matter of fact, without pretending to any official or -commercial experience, I am here doing a great deal more -than has ever been asked of most of the mere men of letters -(if I may call myself for the moment a man of letters) when -they confidently conducted social movements or setup social -ideals. I will promise that, by the end of these notes, the -reader shall know a great deal more about how men might set -about making a Distributive State than the readers of -Carlyle ever knew about how they should set about finding a -Hero King or a Real Superior. I think we can explain how to -make a small shop or a small farm a common feature of our -society better than Matthew Arnold explained how to make the -State the organ of Our Best Self. I think the farm will be -marked on some sort of rude map more clearly than the -Earthly Paradise on the navigation chart of William Morris; -and I think that in comparison with his *News from Nowhere* -this might fairly be called *News from Somewhere*. Rousseau -and Ruskin were often much more vague and visionary than I -am; though Rousseau was even more rigid in abstractions, and -Ruskin was sometimes very much excited about particular -details. I need not say that I am not comparing myself to -these great men; I am only pointing out that even from -these, whose minds dominated so much wider a field, and -whose position as publicists was much more respected and -responsible, nothing was as a matter of fact asked beyond -the general principles we are accused of giving. I am merely -pointing out that the task has fallen to a very minor poet -when these very major prophets were not required to carry -out and complete the fulfilment of their own prophecies. It -would seem that our fathers did not think it quite so futile -to have a clear vision of the goal with or without a -detailed map of the road; or to be able to describe a -scandal without going on to describe a substitute. Anyhow, -for whatever reason, it is quite certain that if I really -were great enough to deserve the reproaches of the -utilitarians, if I really were as merely idealistic or -imaginative as they make me out, if I really did confine -myself to describing a direction without exactly measuring a -road, to pointing towards home or heaven and telling men to -use their own good sense in getting there---if this were -really all that I could do, it would be all that men -immeasurably greater than I am were ever expected to do; -from Plato and Isaiah to Emerson and Tolstoy. - -But it is not all that I can do; even though those who did -not do it did so much more. I can do something else as well; -but I can only do it if it be understood what I am doing. At -the same time I am well aware that, in explaining the -improvement of so elaborate a society, a man may often find -it very difficult to explain exactly what he is doing, until -it is done. I have considered and rejected half a dozen ways -of approaching the problem, by different roads that all lead -to the same truth. I had thought of beginning with the -simple example of the peasant; and then I knew that a -hundred correspondents would leap upon me, accusing me of -trying to turn all of them into peasants. I thought of -beginning with describing a decent Distributive State in -being, with all its balance of different things; just as the -Socialists describe their Utopia in being, with its -concentration in one thing. Then I knew a hundred -correspondents would call me Utopian; and say it was obvious -my scheme could not work, because I could only describe it -when it was working. But what they would really mean by my -being Utopian, would be this: that until that scheme was -working, there was no work to be done. I have finally -decided to approach the social solution in this fashion: to -point out first that the monopolist momentum is not -irresistible; that even here and now much could be done to -modify it, much by anybody, almost everything by everybody. -Then I would maintain that on the removal of that particular -plutocratic pressure, the appetite and appreciation of -natural property would revive, like any other natural thing. -Then, I say, it will be worth while to propound to people -thus returning to sanity, however sporadically, a sane -society that could balance property and control machinery. -With the description of that ultimate society, with its laws -and limitations, I would conclude. - -Now that may or may not be a good arrangement or order of -ideas; but it is an intelligible one; and I submit with all -humility that I have a right to arrange my explanations in -that order, and no critic has a right to complain that I do -not disarrange them in order to answer questions out of -their order. I am willing to write him a whole Encyclopaedia -of Distributism if he has the patience to read it; but he -must have the patience to read it. It is unreasonable for -him to complain that I have not dealt adequately with -Zoology, State Provision For, under the letter B; or -described the honourable social status of the Guild of the -Xylographers while I am still dealing alphabetically with -the Guild of Architects. I am willing to be as much of a -bore as Euclid; but the critic must not complain that the -forty-eighth proposition of the second book is not a part of -the *Pons Asinorum.* The ancient Guild of Bridge-Builders -will have to build many such bridges. - -Now from comments that have come my way, I gather that the -suggestions I have already made may not altogether explain -their own place and purpose in this scheme. I am merely -pointing out that monopoly is not omnipotent even now and -here; and that anybody could think, on the spur of the -moment, of many ways in which its final triumph can be -delayed and perhaps defeated. Suppose a monopolist who is my -mortal enemy endeavours to ruin me by preventing me from -selling eggs to my neighbours, I can tell him I shall live -on my own turnips in my own kitchen-garden. I do not mean to -tie myself to turnips; or swear never to touch my own -potatoes or beans. I mean the turnips as an example; -something to throw at him. Suppose the wicked millionaire in -question comes and grins over my garden wall and says, "I -perceive by your starved and emaciated appearance that you -are in immediate need of a few shillings; but you can't -possibly get them," I may possibly be stung into retorting, -"Yes, I can. I could sell my first edition of *Martin -Chuzzlewit.*" I do not necessarily mean that I see myself -already in a pauper's grave unless I can sell *Martin -Chuzzlewit;* I do not mean that I have nothing else to -suggest except selling *Martin Chuzzlewit;* I do not mean to -brag like any common politician that I have nailed my -colours to the *Martin Chuzzlewit* policy. I mean to tell -the offensive pessimist that I am not at the end of my -resources; that I can sell a book or even, if the case grows -desperate, write a book. I could do a great many things -before I came to definitely anti-social action like robbing -a bank or (worse still) working in a bank. I could do a -great many things of a great many kinds, and I give an -example at the start to suggest that there are many more of -them, not that there are no more of them. There are a great -many things of a great many kinds in my house, besides the -copy of a *Martin Chuzzlewit.* Not many of them are of great -value except to me; but some of them are of some value to -anybody. For the whole point of a home is that it is a -hodge-podge. And mine, at any rate, rises to that austere -domestic ideal. The whole point of one's own house is that -it is not only a number of totally different things, which -are nevertheless one thing, but it is one in which we still -value even the things that we forget. If a man has burnt my -house to a heap of ashes, I am none the less justly -indignant with him for having burnt everything, because I -cannot at first even remember everything he has burnt. And -as it is with the household gods, so it is with the whole of -that household religion, or what remains of it, to offer -resistance to the destructive discipline of industrial -capitalism. In a simpler society, I should rush out of the -ruins, calling for help on the Commune or the King, and -crying out,"Haro! a robber has burnt my house." I might, of -course, rush down the street crying in one passionate -breath, "Haro! a robber has burnt my front door of seasoned -oak with the usual fittings, fourteen window frames, nine -curtains, five and a half carpets, 753 books, of which four -were *editions de luxe,* one portrait of my -great-grandmother," and so on through all the items; but -something would be lost of the fierce and simple feudal cry. -And in the same way I could have begun this outline with an -inventory of all the alterations I should like to see in the -laws, with the object of establishing some economic justice -in England. But I doubt whether the reader would have had -any better idea of what I was ultimately driving at; and it -would not have been the approach by which I propose at -present to drive. I shall have occasion later to go into -some slight detail about these things; but the cases I give -are merely illustrations of my first general thesis: that we -are not even at the moment doing everything that could be -done to resist the rush of monopoly; and that when people -talk as if nothing could now be done, that statement is -false at the start; and that all sorts of answers to it will -immediately occur to the mind. - -Capitalism is breaking up; and in one sense we do not -pretend to be sorry it is breaking up. Indeed, we might put -our own point pretty correctly by saying that we would help -it to break up; but we do not want it merely to break down. -But the first fact to realize is precisely that; that it is -a choice between its breaking up and its breaking down. It -is a choice between its being voluntarily resolved into its -real component parts, each taking back its own, and its -merely collapsing on our heads in a crash or confusion of -all its component parts, which some call communism and some -call chaos. The former is the one thing all sensible people -should try to procure. The latter is the one thing that all -sensible people should try to prevent. That is why they are -often classed together. - -I have mainly confined myself to answering what I have -always found to be the first question, "What are we to do -now?" To that I answer, "What we must do now is to stop the -other people from doing what they are doing now." The -initiative is with the enemy. It is he who is already doing -things, and will have done them long before we can begin to -do anything, since he has the money, the machinery, the -rather mechanical majority, and other things which we have -first to gain and then to use. He has nearly completed a -monopolist conquest, but not quite; and he can still be -hampered and halted. The world has woken up very late; but -that is not our fault. That is the fault of all the fools -who told us for twenty years that there could never be any -Trusts; and are now telling us, equally wisely, that there -can never be anything else. - -There are other things I ask the reader to bear in mind. The -first is that this outline is only an outline, though one -that can hardly avoid some curves and loops. I do not -profess to dispose of all the obstacles that might arise in -this question, because so many of them would seem to many to -be quite a different question. I will give one example of -what I mean. What would the critical reader have thought, if -at the very beginning of this sketch I had gone off into a -long disputation about the Law of Libel? Yet, if I were -strictly practical, I should find that one of the most -practical obstacles. It is the present ridiculous position -that monopoly is not resisted as a social force but can -still be resented as a legal imputation. If you try to stop -a man cornering milk, the first thing that happens will be a -smashing libel action for calling it a corner. It is -manifestly mere common sense that if the thing is not a sin -it is not a slander. As things stand, there is no punishment -for the man who does it; but there is a punishment for the -man who discovers it. I do not deal here (though I am quite -prepared to deal elsewhere) with all these detailed -difficulties which a society as now constituted would raise -against such a society as we want to constitute. If it were -constituted on the principles I suggest, those details would -be dealt with on those principles as they arose. For -instance, it would put an end to the nonsense whereby men, -who are more powerful than emperors, pretend to be private -tradesmen suffering from private malice; it will assert that -those who are in practice public men must be criticized as -potential public evils. It would destroy the absurdity by -which an "important case" is tried by a "special jury"; or, -in other words, that any serious issue between rich and poor -is tried by the rich. But the reader will see that I cannot -here rule out all the ten thousand things that might trip us -up; I must assume that a people ready to take the larger -risks would also take the smaller ones. - -Now this outline is an outline; in other words, it is a -design, and anybody who thinks we can have practical things -without theoretical designs can go and quarrel with the -nearest engineer or architect for drawing thin lines on thin -paper. But there is another and more special sense in which -my suggestion is an outline; in the sense that it is -deliberately drawn as a large limitation within which there -are many varieties. I have long been acquainted, and not a -little amused, with the sort of practical man who will -certainly say that I generalize because there is no -practical plan. The truth is that I generalize because there -are so many practical plans. I myself know four or five -schemes that have been drawn up, more or less drastically, -for the diffusion of capital. The most cautious, from a -capitalist standpoint, is the gradual extension of -profit-sharing. A more stringently democratic form of the -same thing is the management of every business (if it cannot -be a small business) by a guild or group clubbing their -contributions and dividing their results. Some Distributists -dislike the idea of the workman having shares only where he -has work; they think he would be more independent if his -little capital were invested elsewhere; but they all agree -that he ought to have the capital to invest. Others continue -to call themselves Distributists because they would give -every citizen a dividend out of much larger national systems -of production. I deliberately draw out my general principles -so as to cover as many as possible of these alternative -business schemes. But I object to being told that I am -covering so many because I know there are none. If I tell a -man he is too luxurious and extravagant, and that he ought -to economize in something, I am not bound to give him a list -of his luxuries. The point is that he will be all the better -for cutting down any of his luxuries. And my point is that -modern society would be all the better for cutting up -property by any of these processes. This does not mean that -I have not my own favourite form; personally I prefer the -second type of division given in the above list of examples. -But my main business is to point out that any reversal of -the rush to concentrate property will be an improvement on -the present state of things. If I tell a man his house is -burning down in Putney, he may thank me even if I do not -give him a list of all the vehicles which go to Putney, with -the numbers of all the taxicabs and the time-table of all -the trams. It is enough that I know there are a great many -vehicles for him to choose from, before he is reduced to the -proverbial adventure of going to Putney on a pig. It is -enough that any one of those vehicles is on the whole less -uncomfortable than a house on fire or even a heap of ashes. -I admit I might be called unpractical if impenetrable -forests and destructive floods lay between here and Putney; -it might then be as merely idealistic to praise Putney as to -praise Paradise. But I do not admit that I am unpractical -because I know there are half a dozen practical ways which -are more practical than the present state of things. But it -does not follow, in fact, that I do not know how to get to -Putney. Here, for instance, are half a dozen things which -would help the process of Distributism, apart from those on -which I shall have occasion to touch as points of principle. -Not all Distributists would agree with all of them; but all -would agree that they are in the direction of Distributism. -(1) The taxation of contracts so as to discourage the sale -of small property to big proprietors and encourage the -break-up of big property among small proprietors. (2) -Something like the Napoleonic testamentary law and the -destruction of primogeniture. (3) The establishment of free -law for the poor, so that small property could always be -defended against great. (4) The deliberate protection of -certain experiments in small property, if necessary by -tariffs and even local tariffs. (5) Subsidies to foster the -starting of such experiments. (6) A league of voluntary -dedication, and any number of other things of the same kind. -But I have inserted this chapter here in order to explain -that this is a sketch of the first principles of -Distributism and not of the last details, about which even -Distributists might dispute. In such a statement, examples -are given as examples, and not as exact and exhaustive lists -of all the cases covered by the rule. If this elementary -principle of exposition be not understood I must be content -to be called an unpractical person by that sort of practical -man. And indeed in his sense there is something in his -accusation. Whether or no I am a practical man, I am not -what is called a practical politician, which means a -professional politician. I can claim no part in the glory of -having brought our country to its present promising and -hopeful condition. Harder heads than mine have established -the present prosperity of coal. Men of action, of a more -rugged energy, have brought us to the comfortable condition -of living on our capital. I have had no part in the great -industrial revolution which has increased the beauties of -nature and reconciled the classes of society; nor must the -too enthusiastic reader think of thanking me for this more -enlightened England, in which the employee is living on a -dole from the State and the employer on an overdraft at the -Bank. +Before I go any further with this sketch, I find I must pause upon a +parenthesis touching the nature of my task, without which the rest of it +may be misunderstood. As a matter of fact, without pretending to any +official or commercial experience, I am here doing a great deal more +than has ever been asked of most of the mere men of letters (if I may +call myself for the moment a man of letters) when they confidently +conducted social movements or setup social ideals. I will promise that, +by the end of these notes, the reader shall know a great deal more about +how men might set about making a Distributive State than the readers of +Carlyle ever knew about how they should set about finding a Hero King or +a Real Superior. I think we can explain how to make a small shop or a +small farm a common feature of our society better than Matthew Arnold +explained how to make the State the organ of Our Best Self. I think the +farm will be marked on some sort of rude map more clearly than the +Earthly Paradise on the navigation chart of William Morris; and I think +that in comparison with his *News from Nowhere* this might fairly be +called *News from Somewhere*. Rousseau and Ruskin were often much more +vague and visionary than I am; though Rousseau was even more rigid in +abstractions, and Ruskin was sometimes very much excited about +particular details. I need not say that I am not comparing myself to +these great men; I am only pointing out that even from these, whose +minds dominated so much wider a field, and whose position as publicists +was much more respected and responsible, nothing was as a matter of fact +asked beyond the general principles we are accused of giving. I am +merely pointing out that the task has fallen to a very minor poet when +these very major prophets were not required to carry out and complete +the fulfilment of their own prophecies. It would seem that our fathers +did not think it quite so futile to have a clear vision of the goal with +or without a detailed map of the road; or to be able to describe a +scandal without going on to describe a substitute. Anyhow, for whatever +reason, it is quite certain that if I really were great enough to +deserve the reproaches of the utilitarians, if I really were as merely +idealistic or imaginative as they make me out, if I really did confine +myself to describing a direction without exactly measuring a road, to +pointing towards home or heaven and telling men to use their own good +sense in getting there---if this were really all that I could do, it +would be all that men immeasurably greater than I am were ever expected +to do; from Plato and Isaiah to Emerson and Tolstoy. + +But it is not all that I can do; even though those who did not do it did +so much more. I can do something else as well; but I can only do it if +it be understood what I am doing. At the same time I am well aware that, +in explaining the improvement of so elaborate a society, a man may often +find it very difficult to explain exactly what he is doing, until it is +done. I have considered and rejected half a dozen ways of approaching +the problem, by different roads that all lead to the same truth. I had +thought of beginning with the simple example of the peasant; and then I +knew that a hundred correspondents would leap upon me, accusing me of +trying to turn all of them into peasants. I thought of beginning with +describing a decent Distributive State in being, with all its balance of +different things; just as the Socialists describe their Utopia in being, +with its concentration in one thing. Then I knew a hundred +correspondents would call me Utopian; and say it was obvious my scheme +could not work, because I could only describe it when it was working. +But what they would really mean by my being Utopian, would be this: that +until that scheme was working, there was no work to be done. I have +finally decided to approach the social solution in this fashion: to +point out first that the monopolist momentum is not irresistible; that +even here and now much could be done to modify it, much by anybody, +almost everything by everybody. Then I would maintain that on the +removal of that particular plutocratic pressure, the appetite and +appreciation of natural property would revive, like any other natural +thing. Then, I say, it will be worth while to propound to people thus +returning to sanity, however sporadically, a sane society that could +balance property and control machinery. With the description of that +ultimate society, with its laws and limitations, I would conclude. + +Now that may or may not be a good arrangement or order of ideas; but it +is an intelligible one; and I submit with all humility that I have a +right to arrange my explanations in that order, and no critic has a +right to complain that I do not disarrange them in order to answer +questions out of their order. I am willing to write him a whole +Encyclopaedia of Distributism if he has the patience to read it; but he +must have the patience to read it. It is unreasonable for him to +complain that I have not dealt adequately with Zoology, State Provision +For, under the letter B; or described the honourable social status of +the Guild of the Xylographers while I am still dealing alphabetically +with the Guild of Architects. I am willing to be as much of a bore as +Euclid; but the critic must not complain that the forty-eighth +proposition of the second book is not a part of the *Pons Asinorum.* The +ancient Guild of Bridge-Builders will have to build many such bridges. + +Now from comments that have come my way, I gather that the suggestions I +have already made may not altogether explain their own place and purpose +in this scheme. I am merely pointing out that monopoly is not omnipotent +even now and here; and that anybody could think, on the spur of the +moment, of many ways in which its final triumph can be delayed and +perhaps defeated. Suppose a monopolist who is my mortal enemy endeavours +to ruin me by preventing me from selling eggs to my neighbours, I can +tell him I shall live on my own turnips in my own kitchen-garden. I do +not mean to tie myself to turnips; or swear never to touch my own +potatoes or beans. I mean the turnips as an example; something to throw +at him. Suppose the wicked millionaire in question comes and grins over +my garden wall and says, "I perceive by your starved and emaciated +appearance that you are in immediate need of a few shillings; but you +can't possibly get them," I may possibly be stung into retorting, "Yes, +I can. I could sell my first edition of *Martin Chuzzlewit.*" I do not +necessarily mean that I see myself already in a pauper's grave unless I +can sell *Martin Chuzzlewit;* I do not mean that I have nothing else to +suggest except selling *Martin Chuzzlewit;* I do not mean to brag like +any common politician that I have nailed my colours to the *Martin +Chuzzlewit* policy. I mean to tell the offensive pessimist that I am not +at the end of my resources; that I can sell a book or even, if the case +grows desperate, write a book. I could do a great many things before I +came to definitely anti-social action like robbing a bank or (worse +still) working in a bank. I could do a great many things of a great many +kinds, and I give an example at the start to suggest that there are many +more of them, not that there are no more of them. There are a great many +things of a great many kinds in my house, besides the copy of a *Martin +Chuzzlewit.* Not many of them are of great value except to me; but some +of them are of some value to anybody. For the whole point of a home is +that it is a hodge-podge. And mine, at any rate, rises to that austere +domestic ideal. The whole point of one's own house is that it is not +only a number of totally different things, which are nevertheless one +thing, but it is one in which we still value even the things that we +forget. If a man has burnt my house to a heap of ashes, I am none the +less justly indignant with him for having burnt everything, because I +cannot at first even remember everything he has burnt. And as it is with +the household gods, so it is with the whole of that household religion, +or what remains of it, to offer resistance to the destructive discipline +of industrial capitalism. In a simpler society, I should rush out of the +ruins, calling for help on the Commune or the King, and crying +out,"Haro! a robber has burnt my house." I might, of course, rush down +the street crying in one passionate breath, "Haro! a robber has burnt my +front door of seasoned oak with the usual fittings, fourteen window +frames, nine curtains, five and a half carpets, 753 books, of which four +were *editions de luxe,* one portrait of my great-grandmother," and so +on through all the items; but something would be lost of the fierce and +simple feudal cry. And in the same way I could have begun this outline +with an inventory of all the alterations I should like to see in the +laws, with the object of establishing some economic justice in England. +But I doubt whether the reader would have had any better idea of what I +was ultimately driving at; and it would not have been the approach by +which I propose at present to drive. I shall have occasion later to go +into some slight detail about these things; but the cases I give are +merely illustrations of my first general thesis: that we are not even at +the moment doing everything that could be done to resist the rush of +monopoly; and that when people talk as if nothing could now be done, +that statement is false at the start; and that all sorts of answers to +it will immediately occur to the mind. + +Capitalism is breaking up; and in one sense we do not pretend to be +sorry it is breaking up. Indeed, we might put our own point pretty +correctly by saying that we would help it to break up; but we do not +want it merely to break down. But the first fact to realize is precisely +that; that it is a choice between its breaking up and its breaking down. +It is a choice between its being voluntarily resolved into its real +component parts, each taking back its own, and its merely collapsing on +our heads in a crash or confusion of all its component parts, which some +call communism and some call chaos. The former is the one thing all +sensible people should try to procure. The latter is the one thing that +all sensible people should try to prevent. That is why they are often +classed together. + +I have mainly confined myself to answering what I have always found to +be the first question, "What are we to do now?" To that I answer, "What +we must do now is to stop the other people from doing what they are +doing now." The initiative is with the enemy. It is he who is already +doing things, and will have done them long before we can begin to do +anything, since he has the money, the machinery, the rather mechanical +majority, and other things which we have first to gain and then to use. +He has nearly completed a monopolist conquest, but not quite; and he can +still be hampered and halted. The world has woken up very late; but that +is not our fault. That is the fault of all the fools who told us for +twenty years that there could never be any Trusts; and are now telling +us, equally wisely, that there can never be anything else. + +There are other things I ask the reader to bear in mind. The first is +that this outline is only an outline, though one that can hardly avoid +some curves and loops. I do not profess to dispose of all the obstacles +that might arise in this question, because so many of them would seem to +many to be quite a different question. I will give one example of what I +mean. What would the critical reader have thought, if at the very +beginning of this sketch I had gone off into a long disputation about +the Law of Libel? Yet, if I were strictly practical, I should find that +one of the most practical obstacles. It is the present ridiculous +position that monopoly is not resisted as a social force but can still +be resented as a legal imputation. If you try to stop a man cornering +milk, the first thing that happens will be a smashing libel action for +calling it a corner. It is manifestly mere common sense that if the +thing is not a sin it is not a slander. As things stand, there is no +punishment for the man who does it; but there is a punishment for the +man who discovers it. I do not deal here (though I am quite prepared to +deal elsewhere) with all these detailed difficulties which a society as +now constituted would raise against such a society as we want to +constitute. If it were constituted on the principles I suggest, those +details would be dealt with on those principles as they arose. For +instance, it would put an end to the nonsense whereby men, who are more +powerful than emperors, pretend to be private tradesmen suffering from +private malice; it will assert that those who are in practice public men +must be criticized as potential public evils. It would destroy the +absurdity by which an "important case" is tried by a "special jury"; or, +in other words, that any serious issue between rich and poor is tried by +the rich. But the reader will see that I cannot here rule out all the +ten thousand things that might trip us up; I must assume that a people +ready to take the larger risks would also take the smaller ones. + +Now this outline is an outline; in other words, it is a design, and +anybody who thinks we can have practical things without theoretical +designs can go and quarrel with the nearest engineer or architect for +drawing thin lines on thin paper. But there is another and more special +sense in which my suggestion is an outline; in the sense that it is +deliberately drawn as a large limitation within which there are many +varieties. I have long been acquainted, and not a little amused, with +the sort of practical man who will certainly say that I generalize +because there is no practical plan. The truth is that I generalize +because there are so many practical plans. I myself know four or five +schemes that have been drawn up, more or less drastically, for the +diffusion of capital. The most cautious, from a capitalist standpoint, +is the gradual extension of profit-sharing. A more stringently +democratic form of the same thing is the management of every business +(if it cannot be a small business) by a guild or group clubbing their +contributions and dividing their results. Some Distributists dislike the +idea of the workman having shares only where he has work; they think he +would be more independent if his little capital were invested elsewhere; +but they all agree that he ought to have the capital to invest. Others +continue to call themselves Distributists because they would give every +citizen a dividend out of much larger national systems of production. I +deliberately draw out my general principles so as to cover as many as +possible of these alternative business schemes. But I object to being +told that I am covering so many because I know there are none. If I tell +a man he is too luxurious and extravagant, and that he ought to +economize in something, I am not bound to give him a list of his +luxuries. The point is that he will be all the better for cutting down +any of his luxuries. And my point is that modern society would be all +the better for cutting up property by any of these processes. This does +not mean that I have not my own favourite form; personally I prefer the +second type of division given in the above list of examples. But my main +business is to point out that any reversal of the rush to concentrate +property will be an improvement on the present state of things. If I +tell a man his house is burning down in Putney, he may thank me even if +I do not give him a list of all the vehicles which go to Putney, with +the numbers of all the taxicabs and the time-table of all the trams. It +is enough that I know there are a great many vehicles for him to choose +from, before he is reduced to the proverbial adventure of going to +Putney on a pig. It is enough that any one of those vehicles is on the +whole less uncomfortable than a house on fire or even a heap of ashes. I +admit I might be called unpractical if impenetrable forests and +destructive floods lay between here and Putney; it might then be as +merely idealistic to praise Putney as to praise Paradise. But I do not +admit that I am unpractical because I know there are half a dozen +practical ways which are more practical than the present state of +things. But it does not follow, in fact, that I do not know how to get +to Putney. Here, for instance, are half a dozen things which would help +the process of Distributism, apart from those on which I shall have +occasion to touch as points of principle. Not all Distributists would +agree with all of them; but all would agree that they are in the +direction of Distributism. (1) The taxation of contracts so as to +discourage the sale of small property to big proprietors and encourage +the break-up of big property among small proprietors. (2) Something like +the Napoleonic testamentary law and the destruction of primogeniture. +(3) The establishment of free law for the poor, so that small property +could always be defended against great. (4) The deliberate protection of +certain experiments in small property, if necessary by tariffs and even +local tariffs. (5) Subsidies to foster the starting of such experiments. +(6) A league of voluntary dedication, and any number of other things of +the same kind. But I have inserted this chapter here in order to explain +that this is a sketch of the first principles of Distributism and not of +the last details, about which even Distributists might dispute. In such +a statement, examples are given as examples, and not as exact and +exhaustive lists of all the cases covered by the rule. If this +elementary principle of exposition be not understood I must be content +to be called an unpractical person by that sort of practical man. And +indeed in his sense there is something in his accusation. Whether or no +I am a practical man, I am not what is called a practical politician, +which means a professional politician. I can claim no part in the glory +of having brought our country to its present promising and hopeful +condition. Harder heads than mine have established the present +prosperity of coal. Men of action, of a more rugged energy, have brought +us to the comfortable condition of living on our capital. I have had no +part in the great industrial revolution which has increased the beauties +of nature and reconciled the classes of society; nor must the too +enthusiastic reader think of thanking me for this more enlightened +England, in which the employee is living on a dole from the State and +the employer on an overdraft at the Bank. ## A Case in Point -It is as natural to our commercial critics to argue in a -circle as to travel on the Inner Circle. It is not mere -stupidity, but it is mere habit; and it is not easy either -to break into or to escape from that iron ring. When we say -things can be done, we commonly mean either that they could -be done by the mass of men, or else by the ruler of the -State. I gave an example of something that could be done -quite easily by the mass; and here I will give an example of -something that could be done quite easily by the ruler. But -we must be prepared for our critics beginning to argue in a -circle and saying that the present populace will never agree -or the present ruler act in that way. But this complaint is -a confusion. We are answering people who call our ideal -impossible in itself. If you do not want it, of course, you -will not try to get it; but do not say that because you do -not want it, it follows that you could not get it if you did -want it. A thing does not become intrinsically impossible -merely by a mob not trying to obtain it; nor does a thing -cease to be practical politics because no politician is +It is as natural to our commercial critics to argue in a circle as to +travel on the Inner Circle. It is not mere stupidity, but it is mere +habit; and it is not easy either to break into or to escape from that +iron ring. When we say things can be done, we commonly mean either that +they could be done by the mass of men, or else by the ruler of the +State. I gave an example of something that could be done quite easily by +the mass; and here I will give an example of something that could be +done quite easily by the ruler. But we must be prepared for our critics +beginning to argue in a circle and saying that the present populace will +never agree or the present ruler act in that way. But this complaint is +a confusion. We are answering people who call our ideal impossible in +itself. If you do not want it, of course, you will not try to get it; +but do not say that because you do not want it, it follows that you +could not get it if you did want it. A thing does not become +intrinsically impossible merely by a mob not trying to obtain it; nor +does a thing cease to be practical politics because no politician is practical enough to do it. -I will start with a small and familiar example. In order to -ensure that our huge proletariat should have a holiday, we -have a law obliging all employers to shut their shops for -half a day once a week. Given the proletarian principle, it -is a healthy and necessary thing for a proletarian state; -just as the saturnalia is a healthy and necessary thing for -a slave state. Given this provision for the proletariat, a -practical person will naturally say: "It has other -advantages, too; it will be a chance for anybody who chooses -to do his own dirty work; for the man who can manage without -servants." That degraded being who actually knows how to do -things himself, will have a look in at last. That isolated -crank, who can really work for his own living, may possibly -have a chance to live. A man does not need to be a -Distributist to say this; it is the ordinary and obvious -thing that anybody would say. The man who has servants must -cease to work his servants. Of course, the man who has no -servants to work cannot cease to work them. But the law is -actually so constructed that it forces this man also to give -a holiday to the servants he has not got. He proclaims a -saturnalia that never happens to a crowd of phantom slaves -that have never been there. Now there is not a rudiment of -reason about this arrangement. In every possible sense, from -the immediate material to the abstract and mathematical -sense, it is quite mad. We live in days of dangerous -division of interests between the employer and the employed. -Therefore, even when the two are not divided, but actually -united in one person, we must divide them again into two -parties. We coerce a man into giving himself something he -does not want, because somebody else who does not exist -might want it. We warn him that he had better receive a -deputation from himself, or he might go on strike against -himself. Perhaps he might even become a Bolshevist, and -throw a bomb at himself; in which case he would have no -other course left to his stern sense of law and order but to -read the Riot Act and shoot himself. They call us -unpractical; but we have not yet produced such an academic -fantasy as this. They sometimes suggest that our regret for -the disappearance of the yeoman or the apprentice is a mere -matter of sentiment. Sentimental! We have not quite sunk to -such sentimentalism as to be sorry for apprentices who never -existed at all. We have not quite reached that richness of -romantic emotion that we are capable of weeping more -copiously for an imaginary grocer's assistant than for a -real grocer. We are not quite so maudlin yet as to see -double when we look into our favourite little shop; or to -set the little shopkeeper fighting with his own shadow. Let -us leave these hard-headed and practical men of business -shedding tears over the sorrows of a non-existent office -boy, and proceed upon our own wild and erratic path, that at -least happens to pass across the land of the living. - -Now if so small a change as that were made to-morrow, it -would make a difference: a considerable and increasing -difference. And if any rash apologist of Big Business tells -me that a little thing like that could make very little -difference, let him beware. For he is doing the one thing -which such apologists commonly avoid above all things: he is -contradicting his masters. Among the thousand things of -interest, which are lost in the million things of no -interest, in the newspaper reports of Parliament and public -affairs, there really was one delightful little comedy -dealing with this point. Some man of normal sense and -popular instincts, who had strayed into Parliament by some -mistake or other, actually pointed out this plain fact: that -there was no need to protect the proletariat where there was -no proletariat to protect; and that the lonely shopkeeper -might, therefore, remain in his lonely shop. And the -Minister in charge of the matter actually replied, with a -ghastly innocence, that it was impossible; for it would be -unfair to the big shops. Tears evidently flow freely in such -circles, as they did from the rising politician, Lord Lundy; -and in this case it was the mere thought of the possible -sufferings of the millionaires that moved him. There rose -before his imagination Mr. Selfridge in his agony, and the -groans of Mr. Woolworth, of the Woolworth Tower, thrilled -through the kind hearts to which the cry of the sorrowing -rich will never come in vain. But whatever we may think of -the sensibility needed to regard the big store-owners as -objects of sympathy, at any rate it disposes at a stroke of -all the fashionable fatalism that sees something inevitable -in their success. It is absurd to tell us that our attack is -bound to fail; and then that there would be something quite -unscrupulous in its so immediately succeeding. Apparently -Big Business must be accepted because it is invulnerable, -and spared because it is vulnerable. This big absurd bubble -can never conceivably be burst; and it is simply cruel that -a little pin-prick of competition can burst it. - -I do not know whether the big shops are quite so weak and -wobbly as their champion said. But whatever the immediate -effect on the big shops, I am sure there would be an -immediate effect on the little shops. I am sure that if they -could trade on the general holiday, it would not only mean -that there would be more trade for them, but that there -would be more of them trading. It might mean at last a large -class of little shopkeepers; and that is exactly the sort of -thing that makes all the political difference, as it does in -the case of a large class of little farmers. It is not in -the merely mechanical sense a matter of numbers. It is a -matter of the presence and pressure of a particular social -type. It is not a question merely of how many noses are -counted; but in the more real sense whether the noses count. -If there were anything that could be called a class of -peasants, or a class of small shopkeepers, they would make -their presence felt in legislation, even if it were what is -called class legislation. And the very existence of that -third class would be the end of what is called the class -war; in so far as its theory divides all men into employers -and employed. I do not mean, of course, that this little -legal alteration is the only one I have to propose; I -mention it first because it is the most obvious. But I -mention it also because it illustrates very clearly what I -mean by the two stages: the nature of the negative and -positive reform. If little shops began to gain custom and -big shops began to lose it, it would mean two things, both -indeed preliminary but both practical. It would mean that -the mere centripetal rush was slowed down, if not stopped, -and might at last change to a centrifugal movement. And it -would mean that there were a number of new citizens in the -State to whom all the ordinary Socialist or servile -arguments were inapplicable. Now when you have got your -considerable sprinkling of small proprietors, of men with -the psychology and philosophy of small property, then you -can begin to talk to them about something more like a just -general settlement upon their own lines; something more like -a land fit for Christians to live in. You can make them -understand, as you cannot make plutocrats or proletarians -understand, why the machine must not exist save as the -servant of the man, why the things we produce ourselves are -precious like our own children, and why we can pay too -dearly for the possession of luxury by the loss of liberty. -If bodies of men only begin to be detached from the servile -settlements, they will begin to form the body of our public -opinion. Now there are a large number of other advantages -that could be given to the small man, which can be -considered in their place. In all of them I presuppose a -deliberate policy of favouring the small man. But in the -primary example here given we can hardly even say that there -is any question of favour. You make a law that slave-owners -shall free their slaves for a day: the man who has no slaves -is outside the thing entirely; he does not come under it in -law, because he does not come into it in logic. He has been -deliberately dragged into it; not in order that all slaves -shall be free for a day, but in order that all free men -shall be slaves for a lifetime. But while some of the -expedients are only common justice to small property, and -others are deliberate protection of small property, the -point at the moment is that it will be worth while at the -beginning to create small property though it were only on a -small scale. English citizens and yeomen would once more -exist; and wherever they exist they count. There are many -other ways, which can be briefly described, by which the -break-up of property can be encouraged on the legal and -legislative side. I shall deal with some of them later, and -especially with the real responsibility which Government -might reasonably assume in a financial and economic -condition which is becoming quite ludicrous. From the -standpoint of any sane person, in any other society, the -present problem of capitalist concentration is not only a -question of law but of criminal law, not to mention criminal -lunacy. - -Of that monstrous megalomania of the big shops, with their -blatant advertisements and stupid standardization, something -is said elsewhere. But it may be well to add, in the matter -of the small shops, that when once they exist they generally -have an organization of their own which is much more -self-respecting and much less vulgar. This voluntary -organization, as every one knows, is called a Guild; and it -is perfectly capable of doing everything that really needs -to be done in the way of holidays and popular festivals. -Twenty barbers would be quite capable of arranging with each -other not to compete with each other on a particular -festival or in a particular fashion, It is amusing to note -that the same people who say that a Guild is a dead medieval -thing that would never work are generally grumbling against -the power of a Guild as a living modern thing where it is -actually working. In the case of the Guild of the Doctors, -for instance, it is made a matter of reproach in the -newspapers, that the confederation in question refuses to -"make medical discoveries accessible to the general public." -When we consider the wild and unbalanced nonsense that is -made accessible to the general public by the public press, -perhaps we have some reason to doubt whether our souls and -bodies are not at least as safe in the hands of a Guild as -they are likely to be in the hands of a Trust. For the -moment the main point is that small shops can be governed -even if they are not bossed by the Government. Horrible as -this may seem to the democratic idealists of the day, they -can be governed by themselves. +I will start with a small and familiar example. In order to ensure that +our huge proletariat should have a holiday, we have a law obliging all +employers to shut their shops for half a day once a week. Given the +proletarian principle, it is a healthy and necessary thing for a +proletarian state; just as the saturnalia is a healthy and necessary +thing for a slave state. Given this provision for the proletariat, a +practical person will naturally say: "It has other advantages, too; it +will be a chance for anybody who chooses to do his own dirty work; for +the man who can manage without servants." That degraded being who +actually knows how to do things himself, will have a look in at last. +That isolated crank, who can really work for his own living, may +possibly have a chance to live. A man does not need to be a Distributist +to say this; it is the ordinary and obvious thing that anybody would +say. The man who has servants must cease to work his servants. Of +course, the man who has no servants to work cannot cease to work them. +But the law is actually so constructed that it forces this man also to +give a holiday to the servants he has not got. He proclaims a saturnalia +that never happens to a crowd of phantom slaves that have never been +there. Now there is not a rudiment of reason about this arrangement. In +every possible sense, from the immediate material to the abstract and +mathematical sense, it is quite mad. We live in days of dangerous +division of interests between the employer and the employed. Therefore, +even when the two are not divided, but actually united in one person, we +must divide them again into two parties. We coerce a man into giving +himself something he does not want, because somebody else who does not +exist might want it. We warn him that he had better receive a deputation +from himself, or he might go on strike against himself. Perhaps he might +even become a Bolshevist, and throw a bomb at himself; in which case he +would have no other course left to his stern sense of law and order but +to read the Riot Act and shoot himself. They call us unpractical; but we +have not yet produced such an academic fantasy as this. They sometimes +suggest that our regret for the disappearance of the yeoman or the +apprentice is a mere matter of sentiment. Sentimental! We have not quite +sunk to such sentimentalism as to be sorry for apprentices who never +existed at all. We have not quite reached that richness of romantic +emotion that we are capable of weeping more copiously for an imaginary +grocer's assistant than for a real grocer. We are not quite so maudlin +yet as to see double when we look into our favourite little shop; or to +set the little shopkeeper fighting with his own shadow. Let us leave +these hard-headed and practical men of business shedding tears over the +sorrows of a non-existent office boy, and proceed upon our own wild and +erratic path, that at least happens to pass across the land of the +living. + +Now if so small a change as that were made to-morrow, it would make a +difference: a considerable and increasing difference. And if any rash +apologist of Big Business tells me that a little thing like that could +make very little difference, let him beware. For he is doing the one +thing which such apologists commonly avoid above all things: he is +contradicting his masters. Among the thousand things of interest, which +are lost in the million things of no interest, in the newspaper reports +of Parliament and public affairs, there really was one delightful little +comedy dealing with this point. Some man of normal sense and popular +instincts, who had strayed into Parliament by some mistake or other, +actually pointed out this plain fact: that there was no need to protect +the proletariat where there was no proletariat to protect; and that the +lonely shopkeeper might, therefore, remain in his lonely shop. And the +Minister in charge of the matter actually replied, with a ghastly +innocence, that it was impossible; for it would be unfair to the big +shops. Tears evidently flow freely in such circles, as they did from the +rising politician, Lord Lundy; and in this case it was the mere thought +of the possible sufferings of the millionaires that moved him. There +rose before his imagination Mr. Selfridge in his agony, and the groans +of Mr. Woolworth, of the Woolworth Tower, thrilled through the kind +hearts to which the cry of the sorrowing rich will never come in vain. +But whatever we may think of the sensibility needed to regard the big +store-owners as objects of sympathy, at any rate it disposes at a stroke +of all the fashionable fatalism that sees something inevitable in their +success. It is absurd to tell us that our attack is bound to fail; and +then that there would be something quite unscrupulous in its so +immediately succeeding. Apparently Big Business must be accepted because +it is invulnerable, and spared because it is vulnerable. This big absurd +bubble can never conceivably be burst; and it is simply cruel that a +little pin-prick of competition can burst it. + +I do not know whether the big shops are quite so weak and wobbly as +their champion said. But whatever the immediate effect on the big shops, +I am sure there would be an immediate effect on the little shops. I am +sure that if they could trade on the general holiday, it would not only +mean that there would be more trade for them, but that there would be +more of them trading. It might mean at last a large class of little +shopkeepers; and that is exactly the sort of thing that makes all the +political difference, as it does in the case of a large class of little +farmers. It is not in the merely mechanical sense a matter of numbers. +It is a matter of the presence and pressure of a particular social type. +It is not a question merely of how many noses are counted; but in the +more real sense whether the noses count. If there were anything that +could be called a class of peasants, or a class of small shopkeepers, +they would make their presence felt in legislation, even if it were what +is called class legislation. And the very existence of that third class +would be the end of what is called the class war; in so far as its +theory divides all men into employers and employed. I do not mean, of +course, that this little legal alteration is the only one I have to +propose; I mention it first because it is the most obvious. But I +mention it also because it illustrates very clearly what I mean by the +two stages: the nature of the negative and positive reform. If little +shops began to gain custom and big shops began to lose it, it would mean +two things, both indeed preliminary but both practical. It would mean +that the mere centripetal rush was slowed down, if not stopped, and +might at last change to a centrifugal movement. And it would mean that +there were a number of new citizens in the State to whom all the +ordinary Socialist or servile arguments were inapplicable. Now when you +have got your considerable sprinkling of small proprietors, of men with +the psychology and philosophy of small property, then you can begin to +talk to them about something more like a just general settlement upon +their own lines; something more like a land fit for Christians to live +in. You can make them understand, as you cannot make plutocrats or +proletarians understand, why the machine must not exist save as the +servant of the man, why the things we produce ourselves are precious +like our own children, and why we can pay too dearly for the possession +of luxury by the loss of liberty. If bodies of men only begin to be +detached from the servile settlements, they will begin to form the body +of our public opinion. Now there are a large number of other advantages +that could be given to the small man, which can be considered in their +place. In all of them I presuppose a deliberate policy of favouring the +small man. But in the primary example here given we can hardly even say +that there is any question of favour. You make a law that slave-owners +shall free their slaves for a day: the man who has no slaves is outside +the thing entirely; he does not come under it in law, because he does +not come into it in logic. He has been deliberately dragged into it; not +in order that all slaves shall be free for a day, but in order that all +free men shall be slaves for a lifetime. But while some of the +expedients are only common justice to small property, and others are +deliberate protection of small property, the point at the moment is that +it will be worth while at the beginning to create small property though +it were only on a small scale. English citizens and yeomen would once +more exist; and wherever they exist they count. There are many other +ways, which can be briefly described, by which the break-up of property +can be encouraged on the legal and legislative side. I shall deal with +some of them later, and especially with the real responsibility which +Government might reasonably assume in a financial and economic condition +which is becoming quite ludicrous. From the standpoint of any sane +person, in any other society, the present problem of capitalist +concentration is not only a question of law but of criminal law, not to +mention criminal lunacy. + +Of that monstrous megalomania of the big shops, with their blatant +advertisements and stupid standardization, something is said elsewhere. +But it may be well to add, in the matter of the small shops, that when +once they exist they generally have an organization of their own which +is much more self-respecting and much less vulgar. This voluntary +organization, as every one knows, is called a Guild; and it is perfectly +capable of doing everything that really needs to be done in the way of +holidays and popular festivals. Twenty barbers would be quite capable of +arranging with each other not to compete with each other on a particular +festival or in a particular fashion, It is amusing to note that the same +people who say that a Guild is a dead medieval thing that would never +work are generally grumbling against the power of a Guild as a living +modern thing where it is actually working. In the case of the Guild of +the Doctors, for instance, it is made a matter of reproach in the +newspapers, that the confederation in question refuses to "make medical +discoveries accessible to the general public." When we consider the wild +and unbalanced nonsense that is made accessible to the general public by +the public press, perhaps we have some reason to doubt whether our souls +and bodies are not at least as safe in the hands of a Guild as they are +likely to be in the hands of a Trust. For the moment the main point is +that small shops can be governed even if they are not bossed by the +Government. Horrible as this may seem to the democratic idealists of the +day, they can be governed by themselves. ## The Tyranny of Trusts -We have most of us met in literature, and even in life, a -certain sort of old gentleman; he is very often represented -by an old clergyman. He is the sort of man who has a horror -of Socialists without any very definite idea of what they -are. He is the man of whom men say that he means well; by -which they mean that he means nothing. But this view is a -little unjust to this social type. He is really something -more than well-meaning; we might even go so far as to say -that he would probably be right-thinking, if he ever -thought. His principles would probably be sound enough if -they were really applied; it is his practical ignorance that -prevents him from knowing the world to which they are -applicable. He might really be right, only he has no notion -of what is wrong. Those who have sat under this old -gentleman know that he is in the habit of softening his -stern repudiation of the mysterious Socialists by saying -that, of course, it is a Christian duty to use our wealth -well, to remember that property is a trust committed to us -by Providence for the good of others as well as ourselves, -and even (unless the old gentleman is old enough to be a -Modernist) that it is just possible that we may some day be -asked a question or two about the abuse of such a trust. Now -all this is perfectly true, so far as it goes, but it -happens to illustrate in a rather curious way the queer and -even uncanny innocence of the old gentleman. The very phrase -that he uses, when he says that property is a trust -committed to us by Providence, is a phrase which takes on, -when it is uttered to the world around him, the character of -an awful and appalling pun. His pathetic little sentence -returns in a hundred howling echoes, repeating it again and -again like the laughter of a hundred fiends in hell: -"Property is a Trust." - -Now I could not more conveniently sum up what I meant by -this first section than by taking this type of the dear old -conservative clergyman, and considering the curious way in -which he has been first caught napping, and then as it were -knocked on the head. The first thing we have had to explain -to him is expressed in that horrible pun about the Trust. -While he has been crying out against imaginary robbers, whom -he calls Socialists, he has been caught and carried away -bodily by real robbers, whom he still could not even -imagine. For the gangs of gamblers who make the great -combines are really gangs of robbers, in the sense that they -have far less feeling than anybody else for that individual -responsibility for individual gifts of God which the old -gentleman very rightly calls a Christian duty. While he has -been weaving words in the air about irrelevant ideals, he -has been caught in a net woven out of the very opposite -words and notions: impersonal, irresponsible, irreligious. -The financial forces that surround him are further away than -anything else from the domestic idea of ownership with -which, to do him justice, he himself began. So that when he -still bleats faintly, "Property is a trust," we shall reply -firmly, "A trust is not property." - -And now I come to the really extraordinary thing about the -old gentleman. I mean that I come to the queerest fact about -the conventional or conservative type in modern English -society. And that is the fact that the same society, which -began by saying there was no such danger to avoid, now says -that the danger cannot possibly be avoided. Our whole -capitalist community has taken one huge stride from the -extreme of optimism to the extreme of pessimism. They began -by saying that there could not be Trusts in this country. -They have ended by saying that there cannot be anything else -except Trusts in this age. And in the course of calling the -same thing impossible on Monday and inevitable on Tuesday, -they have saved the life of the great gambler or robber -twice over; first by calling him a fabulous monster, and -second by calling him an almighty fate. Twelve years ago, -when I talked of Trusts, people said: "There are no Trusts -in England." Now, when I say it, the same people say: "But -how do you propose that England should escape from the -Trusts?" They talk as if the Trusts had always been a part -of the British Constitution, not to mention the Solar -System. In short, the pun and parable with which I began -this article have exactly and ironically come true. The poor -old clergyman is now really driven to talk as if a Trust -with a big T were something that had been bestowed on him by -Providence. He is driven to abandon all that he originally -meant by his own curious sort of Christian individualism, -and hastily reconcile himself to something that is more like -a sort of plutocratic collectivism. He is beginning, in a -rather bewildered way, to understand that he must now say -that monopoly and not merely private property is a part of -the nature of things. The net had been thrown over him while -he slept, because he never thought of such a thing as a net; -because he would have denied the very possibility of anybody -weaving such a net. But now the poor old gentleman has to -begin to talk as if he had been born in the net. Perhaps, as -I say, he has had a knock on the head; perhaps, as his -enemies say, he was always just a little weak in the head. -But, anyhow, now that his head is in the noose, or the net, -he will often start preaching to us about the impossibility -of escaping from nets and nooses that are woven or spun upon -the wheel of the fates. In a word, I wish to point out that -the old gentleman was much too heedless about getting into -the net and is much too hopeless about getting out of it. - -In short, I would sum up my general suggestions so far by -saying that the chief danger to be avoided now, and the -first danger to be considered now, is the danger of -supposing the capitalist conquest more complete than it is. -If I may use the terms of the Penny Catechism about the two -sins against hope, the peril now is no longer the peril of -presumption but rather of despair. It is not mere impudence -like that of those who told us, without winking an eyelid, -that there were no Trusts in England. It is rather mere -impotence like that of those who tell us that England must -soon be swallowed up in an earthquake called America. Now -this sort of surrender to modern monopoly is not only -ignoble, it is also panic-stricken and premature. It is not -true that we can do nothing. What I have written so far has -been directed to showing the doubtful and the terrified that -it is not true that we can do nothing. Even now there is -something that can be done, and done at once; though the -things so to be done may appear to be of different kinds and -even of degrees of effectiveness. Even if we only save a -shop in our own street or stop a conspiracy in our own -trade, or get a Bill to punish such conspiracies pressed by -our own member, we may come in the nick of time and make all -the difference. - -To vary the metaphor to a military one, what has happened is -that the monopolists have attempted an encircling movement. -But the encircling movement is not yet complete. Unless we -do something it will be complete; but it is not true to say -that we can do nothing to prevent it being completed. We are -in favour of striking out, of making sorties or sallies, of -trying to pierce certain points in the line (far enough -apart and chosen for their weakness), of breaking through -the gap in the uncompleted circle. Most people around us are -for surrender to the surprise; precisely because it was to -them so complete a surprise. Yesterday they denied that the -enemy could encircle. The day before yesterday they denied -that the enemy could exist. They are paralysed as by a -prodigy. But just as we never agreed that the thing was -impossible, so we do not now agree that it is irresistible. -Action ought to have been taken long ago; but action can -still be taken now. That is why it is worth while to dwell -on the diverse expedients already given as examples. A chain -is as strong as its weakest link; a battle-line is as strong -as its weakest man; an encircling movement is as strong as -its weakest point, the point at which the circle may still -be broken. Thus, to begin with, if anybody asks me in this -matter, "What am I to do now?" I answer, "Do anything, -however small, that will prevent the completion of the work -of capitalist combination. Do anything that will even delay -that completion. Save one shop out of a hundred shops. Save -one croft out of a hundred crofts. Keep open one door out of -a hundred doors; for so long as one door is open, we are not -in prison. Throw up one barricade in their way, and you will -soon see whether it is the way the world is going. Put one -spoke in their wheel, and you will soon see whether it is -the wheel of fate." For it is of the essence of their -enormous and unnatural effort that a small failure is as big -as a big failure. The modern commercial combine has a great -many points in common with a big balloon. It is swollen and -yet it is swollen with levity; it climbs and yet it drifts; -above all, it is full of gas, and generally of poison gas. -But the resemblance most relevant here is that the smallest -prick will shrivel the biggest balloon. If this tendency of -our time received anything like a reasonably definite check, -I believe the whole tendency would soon begin to weaken in -its preposterous prestige. Until monopoly is monopolist it -is nothing. Until the combine can combine everything, it is -nothing. Ahab has not his kingdom so long as Naboth has his -vineyard. Haman will not be happy in the palace while -Mordecai is sitting in the gate. A hundred tales of human -history are there to show that tendencies can be turned -back, and that one stumbling-block can be the turning-point. -The sands of time are simply dotted with single stakes that -have thus marked the turn of the tide. The first step -towards ultimately winning is to make sure that the enemy -does not win, if it be only that he does not win everywhere. -Then, when we have halted his rush, and perhaps fought it to -a standstill, we may begin a general counter-attack. The -nature of that counter-attack I shall next proceed to -consider. In other words, I will try to explain to the old -clergyman caught in the net (whose sufferings are ever -before my eyes) what it will no doubt comfort him to know: -that he was wrong from the first in thinking there could be -no net; that he is wrong now in thinking there is no escape -from the net; and that he will never know how wrong he was -till he finds he has a net of his own, and is once more a -fisher of men. - -I began by enunciating the paradox that one way of -supporting small shops would be to support them. Everybody -could do it, but nobody can imagine it being done. In one -sense nothing is so simple, and in another nothing is so -hard. I went on to point out that without any sweeping -change at all, the mere modification of existing laws would -probably call thousands of little shops into life and -activity. I may have occasion to return to the little shops -at greater length; but for the moment I am only running -rapidly through certain separate examples, to show that the -citadel of plutocracy could even now be attacked from many -different sides. It could be met by a concerted effort in -the open field of competition. It could be checked by the -creation or even correction of a large number of little -laws. Thirdly, it could be attacked by the more sweeping -operation of larger laws. But when we come to these, even at -this stage, we also come into collision with larger -questions. - -The common sense of Christendom, for ages on end, has -assumed that it was as possible to punish cornering as to -punish coining. Yet to most readers to-day there seems a -sort of vital contradiction, echoed in the verbal -contradiction of saying, "Put not your trust in Trusts." Yet -to our fathers this would not seem even so much of a paradox -as saying, "Put not your trust in princes," but rather like -saying, "Put not your trust in pirates." But in applying -this to modern conditions, we are checked first by a very -modern sophistry. - -When we say that a corner should be treated as a conspiracy, -we are always told that the conspiracy is too elaborate to -be unravelled. In other words, we are told that the -conspirators are too conspiratorial to be caught. Now it is -exactly at this point that my simple and childlike -confidence in the business expert entirely breaks down. My -attitude, a moment ago trustful and confiding, becomes -disrespectful and frivolous. I am willing to agree that I do -not know much about the details of business, but not that -nobody could possibly ever come to know anything about them. -I am willing to believe that there are people in the world -who like to feel that they depend for the bread of life on -one particular bounder, who probably began by making large -profits on short weight. I am willing to believe that there -are people so strangely constituted that they like to see a -great nation held up by a small gang, more lawless than -brigands but not so brave. In short, I am willing to admit -that there may be people who trust in Trusts. I admit it -with tears, like those of the benevolent captain in the Bab -Ballads who said: +We have most of us met in literature, and even in life, a certain sort +of old gentleman; he is very often represented by an old clergyman. He +is the sort of man who has a horror of Socialists without any very +definite idea of what they are. He is the man of whom men say that he +means well; by which they mean that he means nothing. But this view is a +little unjust to this social type. He is really something more than +well-meaning; we might even go so far as to say that he would probably +be right-thinking, if he ever thought. His principles would probably be +sound enough if they were really applied; it is his practical ignorance +that prevents him from knowing the world to which they are applicable. +He might really be right, only he has no notion of what is wrong. Those +who have sat under this old gentleman know that he is in the habit of +softening his stern repudiation of the mysterious Socialists by saying +that, of course, it is a Christian duty to use our wealth well, to +remember that property is a trust committed to us by Providence for the +good of others as well as ourselves, and even (unless the old gentleman +is old enough to be a Modernist) that it is just possible that we may +some day be asked a question or two about the abuse of such a trust. Now +all this is perfectly true, so far as it goes, but it happens to +illustrate in a rather curious way the queer and even uncanny innocence +of the old gentleman. The very phrase that he uses, when he says that +property is a trust committed to us by Providence, is a phrase which +takes on, when it is uttered to the world around him, the character of +an awful and appalling pun. His pathetic little sentence returns in a +hundred howling echoes, repeating it again and again like the laughter +of a hundred fiends in hell: "Property is a Trust." + +Now I could not more conveniently sum up what I meant by this first +section than by taking this type of the dear old conservative clergyman, +and considering the curious way in which he has been first caught +napping, and then as it were knocked on the head. The first thing we +have had to explain to him is expressed in that horrible pun about the +Trust. While he has been crying out against imaginary robbers, whom he +calls Socialists, he has been caught and carried away bodily by real +robbers, whom he still could not even imagine. For the gangs of gamblers +who make the great combines are really gangs of robbers, in the sense +that they have far less feeling than anybody else for that individual +responsibility for individual gifts of God which the old gentleman very +rightly calls a Christian duty. While he has been weaving words in the +air about irrelevant ideals, he has been caught in a net woven out of +the very opposite words and notions: impersonal, irresponsible, +irreligious. The financial forces that surround him are further away +than anything else from the domestic idea of ownership with which, to do +him justice, he himself began. So that when he still bleats faintly, +"Property is a trust," we shall reply firmly, "A trust is not property." + +And now I come to the really extraordinary thing about the old +gentleman. I mean that I come to the queerest fact about the +conventional or conservative type in modern English society. And that is +the fact that the same society, which began by saying there was no such +danger to avoid, now says that the danger cannot possibly be avoided. +Our whole capitalist community has taken one huge stride from the +extreme of optimism to the extreme of pessimism. They began by saying +that there could not be Trusts in this country. They have ended by +saying that there cannot be anything else except Trusts in this age. And +in the course of calling the same thing impossible on Monday and +inevitable on Tuesday, they have saved the life of the great gambler or +robber twice over; first by calling him a fabulous monster, and second +by calling him an almighty fate. Twelve years ago, when I talked of +Trusts, people said: "There are no Trusts in England." Now, when I say +it, the same people say: "But how do you propose that England should +escape from the Trusts?" They talk as if the Trusts had always been a +part of the British Constitution, not to mention the Solar System. In +short, the pun and parable with which I began this article have exactly +and ironically come true. The poor old clergyman is now really driven to +talk as if a Trust with a big T were something that had been bestowed on +him by Providence. He is driven to abandon all that he originally meant +by his own curious sort of Christian individualism, and hastily +reconcile himself to something that is more like a sort of plutocratic +collectivism. He is beginning, in a rather bewildered way, to understand +that he must now say that monopoly and not merely private property is a +part of the nature of things. The net had been thrown over him while he +slept, because he never thought of such a thing as a net; because he +would have denied the very possibility of anybody weaving such a net. +But now the poor old gentleman has to begin to talk as if he had been +born in the net. Perhaps, as I say, he has had a knock on the head; +perhaps, as his enemies say, he was always just a little weak in the +head. But, anyhow, now that his head is in the noose, or the net, he +will often start preaching to us about the impossibility of escaping +from nets and nooses that are woven or spun upon the wheel of the fates. +In a word, I wish to point out that the old gentleman was much too +heedless about getting into the net and is much too hopeless about +getting out of it. + +In short, I would sum up my general suggestions so far by saying that +the chief danger to be avoided now, and the first danger to be +considered now, is the danger of supposing the capitalist conquest more +complete than it is. If I may use the terms of the Penny Catechism about +the two sins against hope, the peril now is no longer the peril of +presumption but rather of despair. It is not mere impudence like that of +those who told us, without winking an eyelid, that there were no Trusts +in England. It is rather mere impotence like that of those who tell us +that England must soon be swallowed up in an earthquake called America. +Now this sort of surrender to modern monopoly is not only ignoble, it is +also panic-stricken and premature. It is not true that we can do +nothing. What I have written so far has been directed to showing the +doubtful and the terrified that it is not true that we can do nothing. +Even now there is something that can be done, and done at once; though +the things so to be done may appear to be of different kinds and even of +degrees of effectiveness. Even if we only save a shop in our own street +or stop a conspiracy in our own trade, or get a Bill to punish such +conspiracies pressed by our own member, we may come in the nick of time +and make all the difference. + +To vary the metaphor to a military one, what has happened is that the +monopolists have attempted an encircling movement. But the encircling +movement is not yet complete. Unless we do something it will be +complete; but it is not true to say that we can do nothing to prevent it +being completed. We are in favour of striking out, of making sorties or +sallies, of trying to pierce certain points in the line (far enough +apart and chosen for their weakness), of breaking through the gap in the +uncompleted circle. Most people around us are for surrender to the +surprise; precisely because it was to them so complete a surprise. +Yesterday they denied that the enemy could encircle. The day before +yesterday they denied that the enemy could exist. They are paralysed as +by a prodigy. But just as we never agreed that the thing was impossible, +so we do not now agree that it is irresistible. Action ought to have +been taken long ago; but action can still be taken now. That is why it +is worth while to dwell on the diverse expedients already given as +examples. A chain is as strong as its weakest link; a battle-line is as +strong as its weakest man; an encircling movement is as strong as its +weakest point, the point at which the circle may still be broken. Thus, +to begin with, if anybody asks me in this matter, "What am I to do now?" +I answer, "Do anything, however small, that will prevent the completion +of the work of capitalist combination. Do anything that will even delay +that completion. Save one shop out of a hundred shops. Save one croft +out of a hundred crofts. Keep open one door out of a hundred doors; for +so long as one door is open, we are not in prison. Throw up one +barricade in their way, and you will soon see whether it is the way the +world is going. Put one spoke in their wheel, and you will soon see +whether it is the wheel of fate." For it is of the essence of their +enormous and unnatural effort that a small failure is as big as a big +failure. The modern commercial combine has a great many points in common +with a big balloon. It is swollen and yet it is swollen with levity; it +climbs and yet it drifts; above all, it is full of gas, and generally of +poison gas. But the resemblance most relevant here is that the smallest +prick will shrivel the biggest balloon. If this tendency of our time +received anything like a reasonably definite check, I believe the whole +tendency would soon begin to weaken in its preposterous prestige. Until +monopoly is monopolist it is nothing. Until the combine can combine +everything, it is nothing. Ahab has not his kingdom so long as Naboth +has his vineyard. Haman will not be happy in the palace while Mordecai +is sitting in the gate. A hundred tales of human history are there to +show that tendencies can be turned back, and that one stumbling-block +can be the turning-point. The sands of time are simply dotted with +single stakes that have thus marked the turn of the tide. The first step +towards ultimately winning is to make sure that the enemy does not win, +if it be only that he does not win everywhere. Then, when we have halted +his rush, and perhaps fought it to a standstill, we may begin a general +counter-attack. The nature of that counter-attack I shall next proceed +to consider. In other words, I will try to explain to the old clergyman +caught in the net (whose sufferings are ever before my eyes) what it +will no doubt comfort him to know: that he was wrong from the first in +thinking there could be no net; that he is wrong now in thinking there +is no escape from the net; and that he will never know how wrong he was +till he finds he has a net of his own, and is once more a fisher of men. + +I began by enunciating the paradox that one way of supporting small +shops would be to support them. Everybody could do it, but nobody can +imagine it being done. In one sense nothing is so simple, and in another +nothing is so hard. I went on to point out that without any sweeping +change at all, the mere modification of existing laws would probably +call thousands of little shops into life and activity. I may have +occasion to return to the little shops at greater length; but for the +moment I am only running rapidly through certain separate examples, to +show that the citadel of plutocracy could even now be attacked from many +different sides. It could be met by a concerted effort in the open field +of competition. It could be checked by the creation or even correction +of a large number of little laws. Thirdly, it could be attacked by the +more sweeping operation of larger laws. But when we come to these, even +at this stage, we also come into collision with larger questions. + +The common sense of Christendom, for ages on end, has assumed that it +was as possible to punish cornering as to punish coining. Yet to most +readers to-day there seems a sort of vital contradiction, echoed in the +verbal contradiction of saying, "Put not your trust in Trusts." Yet to +our fathers this would not seem even so much of a paradox as saying, +"Put not your trust in princes," but rather like saying, "Put not your +trust in pirates." But in applying this to modern conditions, we are +checked first by a very modern sophistry. + +When we say that a corner should be treated as a conspiracy, we are +always told that the conspiracy is too elaborate to be unravelled. In +other words, we are told that the conspirators are too conspiratorial to +be caught. Now it is exactly at this point that my simple and childlike +confidence in the business expert entirely breaks down. My attitude, a +moment ago trustful and confiding, becomes disrespectful and frivolous. +I am willing to agree that I do not know much about the details of +business, but not that nobody could possibly ever come to know anything +about them. I am willing to believe that there are people in the world +who like to feel that they depend for the bread of life on one +particular bounder, who probably began by making large profits on short +weight. I am willing to believe that there are people so strangely +constituted that they like to see a great nation held up by a small +gang, more lawless than brigands but not so brave. In short, I am +willing to admit that there may be people who trust in Trusts. I admit +it with tears, like those of the benevolent captain in the Bab Ballads +who said: >  "It's human nature p'raps; if so, > > Oh, isn't human nature low?" -I myself doubt whether it is quite so low as that; but I -admit the possibility of this utter lowness; I admit it with -weeping and lamentation. But when they tell me it would be -impossible to find out whether a man is making a Trust or -not---that is quite another thing. My demeanour alters. My -spirits revive. When I am told that if cornering were a -crime nobody could be convicted of that crime---then I -laugh; nay, I jeer. - -A murder is usually committed, we may infer, when one -gentleman takes a dislike to the appearance of another -gentleman in Piccadilly Circus at eleven o'clock in the -morning; and steps up to the object of his distaste and -dexterously cuts his throat. He then walks across to the -kind policeman who is regulating the traffic, and draws his -attention to the presence of the corpse on the pavement, -consulting him about how to dispose of the encumbrance. That -is apparently how these people expect financial crimes to be -done, in order to be discovered. Sometimes indeed they are -done almost as brazenly, in communities where they can -safely be discovered. But the theory of legal impotence -looks very extraordinary when we consider the sort of things -that the police do discover. Look at the sort of murders -they discover. An utterly ordinary and obscure man in some -hole-and-corner house or tenement among ten thousand like -it, washes his hands in a sink in a back scullery; the -operation taking two minutes. The police can discover that, -but they could not possibly discover the meeting of men or -the sending of messages that turn the whole commercial world -upside down. They can track a man that nobody has ever heard -of to a place where nobody knew he was going, to do -something that he took every possible precaution that nobody -should see. But they cannot keep a watch on a man that -everybody has heard of, to see whether he communicates with -another man that everybody has heard of, in order to do -something that nearly everybody knows he is trying all his -life to do. They can tell us all about the movements of a -man whose own wife or partner or landlady does not profess -to know his movements; but they cannot tell when a great -combination covering half the earth is on the move. Are the -police really so foolish as this; or are they at once so -foolish and so wise? Or if the police were as helpless as -Sherlock Holmes thought them, what about Sherlock Holmes? -What about the ardent amateur detective about whom all of us -have read and some of us (alas!) have written. Is there no -inspired sleuth to succeed where all the police have failed; -and prove conclusively from a greasy spot on the tablecloth -that Mr. Rockefeller is interested in oil? Is there no -keen-faced man to infer from the late Lord Leverhulme buying -up a crowd of soap-businesses that he was interested in -soap? I feel inclined to write a new series of detective -stories myself, about the discovery of these obscure and -cryptic things. They would describe Sherlock Holmes with his -monstrous magnifying-glass poring over a paper and making -out one of the headlines letter by letter. They would show -us Watson standing in amazement at the discovery of the Bank -of England. My stories would bear the traditional sort of -titles, such as "The Secret of the Skysign" and "The Mystery -of the Megaphone" and "The Adventure of the Unnoticed -Hoarding." - -What these people really mean is that they cannot imagine -cornering being treated like coining. They cannot imagine -attempted forestalling, or, indeed, any activity of the -rich, coming into the realm of the criminal law at all. It -would give them a shock to think of such men subjected to -such tests. I will give one obvious example. The science of -finger-prints is perpetually paraded before us by the -criminologists when they merely want to glorify their not -very glorious science. Finger-prints would prove as easily -whether a millionaire had used a pen as whether a -housebreaker had used a jemmy. They might show as clearly -that a financier had used a telephone as that a burglar had -used a ladder. But if we began to talk about taking the -finger-prints of financiers, everybody would think it was a -joke. And so it is: a very grim joke. The laughter that -leaps up spontaneously at the suggestion is itself a proof -that nobody takes seriously, or thinks of taking seriously, -the idea of rich men and poor being equal before the law. - -That is the reason why we do not treat Trust magnates and -monopolists as they would be treated under the old laws of -popular justice. And that is the reason why I take their -case at this stage, and in this section of my remarks, along -with such apparently light and superficial things as -transferring custom from one shop to another. It is because -in both cases it is a question wholly and solely of moral -will; and not in the least, in any sense, a question of -economic law. In other words, it is a lie to say that we -cannot make a law to imprison monopolists, or pillory -monopolists, or hang monopolists if we choose, as our -fathers did before us. And in the same sense it is a lie to -say that we cannot help buying the best advertised goods or -going to the biggest shop or falling in, in our general -social habits, with the general social trend. We could help -it in a hundred ways; from the very simple one of walking -out of a shop to the more ceremonial one of hanging a man on -a gallows. If we mean that we do not want to help it, that -may be very true, and even in some cases very right. But -arresting a forestaller is as easy as falling off a log or -walking out of a shop. Putting the log-roller in prison is -no more impossible than walking out of the shop is -impossible; and it is highly desirable for the health of -this discussion that we should realize the fact from the -first. Practically about half of the recognized expedients -by which a big business is now made have been marked down as -a crime in some community of the past; and could be so -marked in a community of the future. I can only refer to -them here in the most cursory fashion. One of them is the -process against which the statesmen of the most respectable -party rave day and night so long as they can pretend that it -is only done by foreigners. It is called Dumping. There is a -policy of deliberately selling at a loss to destroy another -man's market. Another is: a process against which the same -statesmen of the same party actually have attempted to -legislate, so long as it was confined to moneylenders. -Unfortunately, however, it is not by any means confined to -moneylenders. It is the trick of tying a poorer man up in a -tangle of all sorts of obligations that he cannot ultimately -discharge, except by selling his shop or business. It is -done in one form by giving to the desperate things on the -instalment plan or on long credit. All these conspiracies I -would have tried as we try a conspiracy to overthrow the -State or to shoot the King. We do not expect the man to -write the King a post-card, telling him he is to be shot, or -to give warning in the newspapers of the Day of Revolution. -Such plots have always been judged in the only way in which -they can be judged: by the use of common sense as to the -existence of a purpose and the apparent existence of a plan. -But we shall never have a real civic sense until it is once -more felt that the plot of three citizens against one -citizen is a crime, as well as the plot of one citizen -against three. In other words, private property ought to be -protected against private crime, just as public order is -protected against private judgment. But private property -ought to be protected against much bigger things than -burglars and pickpockets. It needs protection against the -plots of a whole plutocracy. It needs defence against the -rich, who are now generally the rulers who ought to defend -it. It may not be difficult to explain why they do not -defend it. But anyhow, in all these cases, the difficulty is -in imagining people wanting to do it; not in imagining -people doing it. By all means let people say that they do -not think the ideal of the Distributive State is worth the -risk or even worth the trouble. But do not let them say that -no human being in the past has ever taken any risk; or that -no children of Adam are capable of taking any trouble. If -they chose to take half as much risk to achieve justice as -they have already taken to achieve degradation, if they -toiled half as laboriously to make anything beautiful as -they toiled to make everything ugly, if they had served -their God as they have served their Pork King and their -Petrol King, the success of our whole Distributive democracy -would stare at the world like one of their flaming sky-signs +I myself doubt whether it is quite so low as that; but I admit the +possibility of this utter lowness; I admit it with weeping and +lamentation. But when they tell me it would be impossible to find out +whether a man is making a Trust or not---that is quite another thing. My +demeanour alters. My spirits revive. When I am told that if cornering +were a crime nobody could be convicted of that crime---then I laugh; +nay, I jeer. + +A murder is usually committed, we may infer, when one gentleman takes a +dislike to the appearance of another gentleman in Piccadilly Circus at +eleven o'clock in the morning; and steps up to the object of his +distaste and dexterously cuts his throat. He then walks across to the +kind policeman who is regulating the traffic, and draws his attention to +the presence of the corpse on the pavement, consulting him about how to +dispose of the encumbrance. That is apparently how these people expect +financial crimes to be done, in order to be discovered. Sometimes indeed +they are done almost as brazenly, in communities where they can safely +be discovered. But the theory of legal impotence looks very +extraordinary when we consider the sort of things that the police do +discover. Look at the sort of murders they discover. An utterly ordinary +and obscure man in some hole-and-corner house or tenement among ten +thousand like it, washes his hands in a sink in a back scullery; the +operation taking two minutes. The police can discover that, but they +could not possibly discover the meeting of men or the sending of +messages that turn the whole commercial world upside down. They can +track a man that nobody has ever heard of to a place where nobody knew +he was going, to do something that he took every possible precaution +that nobody should see. But they cannot keep a watch on a man that +everybody has heard of, to see whether he communicates with another man +that everybody has heard of, in order to do something that nearly +everybody knows he is trying all his life to do. They can tell us all +about the movements of a man whose own wife or partner or landlady does +not profess to know his movements; but they cannot tell when a great +combination covering half the earth is on the move. Are the police +really so foolish as this; or are they at once so foolish and so wise? +Or if the police were as helpless as Sherlock Holmes thought them, what +about Sherlock Holmes? What about the ardent amateur detective about +whom all of us have read and some of us (alas!) have written. Is there +no inspired sleuth to succeed where all the police have failed; and +prove conclusively from a greasy spot on the tablecloth that +Mr. Rockefeller is interested in oil? Is there no keen-faced man to +infer from the late Lord Leverhulme buying up a crowd of soap-businesses +that he was interested in soap? I feel inclined to write a new series of +detective stories myself, about the discovery of these obscure and +cryptic things. They would describe Sherlock Holmes with his monstrous +magnifying-glass poring over a paper and making out one of the headlines +letter by letter. They would show us Watson standing in amazement at the +discovery of the Bank of England. My stories would bear the traditional +sort of titles, such as "The Secret of the Skysign" and "The Mystery of +the Megaphone" and "The Adventure of the Unnoticed Hoarding." + +What these people really mean is that they cannot imagine cornering +being treated like coining. They cannot imagine attempted forestalling, +or, indeed, any activity of the rich, coming into the realm of the +criminal law at all. It would give them a shock to think of such men +subjected to such tests. I will give one obvious example. The science of +finger-prints is perpetually paraded before us by the criminologists +when they merely want to glorify their not very glorious science. +Finger-prints would prove as easily whether a millionaire had used a pen +as whether a housebreaker had used a jemmy. They might show as clearly +that a financier had used a telephone as that a burglar had used a +ladder. But if we began to talk about taking the finger-prints of +financiers, everybody would think it was a joke. And so it is: a very +grim joke. The laughter that leaps up spontaneously at the suggestion is +itself a proof that nobody takes seriously, or thinks of taking +seriously, the idea of rich men and poor being equal before the law. + +That is the reason why we do not treat Trust magnates and monopolists as +they would be treated under the old laws of popular justice. And that is +the reason why I take their case at this stage, and in this section of +my remarks, along with such apparently light and superficial things as +transferring custom from one shop to another. It is because in both +cases it is a question wholly and solely of moral will; and not in the +least, in any sense, a question of economic law. In other words, it is a +lie to say that we cannot make a law to imprison monopolists, or pillory +monopolists, or hang monopolists if we choose, as our fathers did before +us. And in the same sense it is a lie to say that we cannot help buying +the best advertised goods or going to the biggest shop or falling in, in +our general social habits, with the general social trend. We could help +it in a hundred ways; from the very simple one of walking out of a shop +to the more ceremonial one of hanging a man on a gallows. If we mean +that we do not want to help it, that may be very true, and even in some +cases very right. But arresting a forestaller is as easy as falling off +a log or walking out of a shop. Putting the log-roller in prison is no +more impossible than walking out of the shop is impossible; and it is +highly desirable for the health of this discussion that we should +realize the fact from the first. Practically about half of the +recognized expedients by which a big business is now made have been +marked down as a crime in some community of the past; and could be so +marked in a community of the future. I can only refer to them here in +the most cursory fashion. One of them is the process against which the +statesmen of the most respectable party rave day and night so long as +they can pretend that it is only done by foreigners. It is called +Dumping. There is a policy of deliberately selling at a loss to destroy +another man's market. Another is: a process against which the same +statesmen of the same party actually have attempted to legislate, so +long as it was confined to moneylenders. Unfortunately, however, it is +not by any means confined to moneylenders. It is the trick of tying a +poorer man up in a tangle of all sorts of obligations that he cannot +ultimately discharge, except by selling his shop or business. It is done +in one form by giving to the desperate things on the instalment plan or +on long credit. All these conspiracies I would have tried as we try a +conspiracy to overthrow the State or to shoot the King. We do not expect +the man to write the King a post-card, telling him he is to be shot, or +to give warning in the newspapers of the Day of Revolution. Such plots +have always been judged in the only way in which they can be judged: by +the use of common sense as to the existence of a purpose and the +apparent existence of a plan. But we shall never have a real civic sense +until it is once more felt that the plot of three citizens against one +citizen is a crime, as well as the plot of one citizen against three. In +other words, private property ought to be protected against private +crime, just as public order is protected against private judgment. But +private property ought to be protected against much bigger things than +burglars and pickpockets. It needs protection against the plots of a +whole plutocracy. It needs defence against the rich, who are now +generally the rulers who ought to defend it. It may not be difficult to +explain why they do not defend it. But anyhow, in all these cases, the +difficulty is in imagining people wanting to do it; not in imagining +people doing it. By all means let people say that they do not think the +ideal of the Distributive State is worth the risk or even worth the +trouble. But do not let them say that no human being in the past has +ever taken any risk; or that no children of Adam are capable of taking +any trouble. If they chose to take half as much risk to achieve justice +as they have already taken to achieve degradation, if they toiled half +as laboriously to make anything beautiful as they toiled to make +everything ugly, if they had served their God as they have served their +Pork King and their Petrol King, the success of our whole Distributive +democracy would stare at the world like one of their flaming sky-signs and scrape the sky like one of their crazy towers. # Some Aspects of the Land ## The Simple Truth -All of us, or at least all those of my generation, heard in -our youth an anecdote about George Stephenson, the -discoverer of the Locomotive Steam-Engine. It was said that -some miserable rustic raised the objection that it would be -very awkward if a cow strayed on the railway line, whereupon -the inventor replied, "It would be very awkward for the -cow." It is supremely characteristic of his age and school -that it never seemed to occur to anybody that it might be -rather awkward for the rustic who owned the cow. - -Long before we heard that anecdote, however, we had probably -heard another and more exciting anecdote called "Jack and -the Beanstalk." That story begins with the strange and -startling words, "There once was a poor woman who had a -cow." It would be a wild paradox in modern England to -imagine that a poor woman could have a cow; but things seem -to have been different in ruder and more superstitious ages. -Anyhow, she evidently would not have had a cow long in the -sympathetic atmosphere of Stephenson and his steam-engine. -The train went forward, the cow was killed in due course; -and the state of mind of the old woman was described as the -Depression of Agriculture. But everybody was so happy in -travelling in trains and making it awkward for cows that -nobody noticed that other difficulties remained. When wars -or revolutions cut us off from cows, the industrialists -discovered that milk does not come originally from cans. On -this fact some of us have founded the idea that the cow (and -even the miserable rustic) have a use in society, and have -been prepared to concede her as much as three acres. But it -will be well at this stage to repeat that we do not propose -that every acre should be covered with cows; and do not -propose to eliminate townspeople as they would eliminate -rustics. On many minor points we might have to compromise -with conditions, especially at first. But even my ideal, if -ever I found it at last, would be what some call a -compromise. Only I think it more accurate to call it a -balance. For I do not think that the sun compromises with -the rain when together they make a garden; or that the rose -that grows there is a compromise between green and red. But -I mean that even my Utopia would contain different things of -different types holding on different tenures: that as in a -medieval state there were some peasants, some monasteries, -some common land, some private land, some town guilds, and -so on, so in my modern state there would be some things -nationalized, some machines owned corporately, some guilds -sharing common profits, and so on, as well as many absolute -individual owners, where such individual owners are most -possible. But with these latter it is well to begin, because -they are meant to give, and nearly always do give, the -standard and tone of the society. - -Among the things we have heard a thousand times is the -statement that the English are a slow people, a cautious -people, a conservative people, and so on. When we have heard -a thing as many times as that, we generally either accept it -as a truism, or suddenly see that it is quite untrue. And in -this case it is quite untrue. The real peculiarity of -England is that it is the only country on earth that has not -got a conservative class. There are a large number, possibly -a majority, of people who call themselves conservative. But -the more they are examined, the less conservative they will -appear. The commercial class that is in a special sense -capitalist is in its nature the very opposite of -conservative. By its own profession, it proclaims that it is -perpetually using new methods and seeking for new markets. -To some of us there seems to be something exceedingly stale -about all that novelty. But that is because of the type of -mind that is inventing, not because it does not mean to -invent. From the biggest financier floating a company to the -smallest tout peddling a sewing-machine, the same ideal -prevails. It must always be a new company, especially after -what has generally happened to the old company. And the -sewing-machine must always be a new sort of sewing-machine, -even if it is the sort that does not sew. But while this is -obvious of the mere capitalist, it is equally true of the -pure oligarch. Whatever else an aristocracy is, an -aristocracy is never conservative. By its very nature it -goes by fashion rather than by tradition. Men living a life -of leisure and luxury are always eager for new things; we -might fairly say they would be fools if they weren't. And -the English aristocrats are by no means fools. They can -proudly claim to have played a great part in every stage of -the intellectual progress that has brought us to our present -ruin. - -The first fact about establishing an English peasantry is -that it is establishing, for the first time for many -centuries, a traditional class. The absence of such a class -will be found to be a very terrible fact, if the tug really -becomes between Bolshevism and the historic ideal of -property. But the converse is equally true and much more -comforting. This difference in the quality means that the -change will begin to be effective merely by quantity. I mean -that we have not been concerned so much with the strength or -weakness of a peasantry, as with presence or absence of a -peasantry. As the society has suffered from its mere -absence, so the society will begin to change by its mere -presence. It will be a somewhat different England in which -the peasant has to be considered at all. It will begin to -alter the look of things, even when politicians think about -peasants as often as they do about doctors. They have been -known even to think about soldiers. - -The primary case for the peasant is of a stark and almost -savage simplicity. A man in England might live on the land, -if he did not have rent to pay to the landlord and wages to -pay to the labourer. He would therefore be better off, even -on a small scale, if he were his own landlord and his own -labourer. But there are obviously certain further -considerations, and to my mind certain common -misconceptions, to which the following notes refer roughly -in their order. In the first place, of course, it is one -thing to say that this is desirable, and another that it is -desired. And in the first place, as will be seen, I do not -deny that if it is to be desired, it can hardly be as a mere -indulgence is desired; there will undoubtedly be required a -certain spirit of effort and sacrifice for the sake of an -acute national necessity, if we are to ask any landlord to -do without rent or any farmer to do without assistance. But -at least there really is a crisis and a necessity; to such -an extent that the squire would often be only remitting a -debt which he has already written off as a bad debt, and the -employer only sacrificing the service of men who are already -on strike. Still, we shall need the virtues that belong to a -crisis; and it will be well to make the fact clear. Next, -while there is all the difference between the desirable and -the desired, I would point out that even now this normal -life is more desired than many suppose. It is perhaps -subconsciously desired; but I think it worth while to throw -out a few suggestions that may bring it to the surface. -Lastly, there is a misconception about what is meant by -"living on the land"--and I have added some suggestions +All of us, or at least all those of my generation, heard in our youth an +anecdote about George Stephenson, the discoverer of the Locomotive +Steam-Engine. It was said that some miserable rustic raised the +objection that it would be very awkward if a cow strayed on the railway +line, whereupon the inventor replied, "It would be very awkward for the +cow." It is supremely characteristic of his age and school that it never +seemed to occur to anybody that it might be rather awkward for the +rustic who owned the cow. + +Long before we heard that anecdote, however, we had probably heard +another and more exciting anecdote called "Jack and the Beanstalk." That +story begins with the strange and startling words, "There once was a +poor woman who had a cow." It would be a wild paradox in modern England +to imagine that a poor woman could have a cow; but things seem to have +been different in ruder and more superstitious ages. Anyhow, she +evidently would not have had a cow long in the sympathetic atmosphere of +Stephenson and his steam-engine. The train went forward, the cow was +killed in due course; and the state of mind of the old woman was +described as the Depression of Agriculture. But everybody was so happy +in travelling in trains and making it awkward for cows that nobody +noticed that other difficulties remained. When wars or revolutions cut +us off from cows, the industrialists discovered that milk does not come +originally from cans. On this fact some of us have founded the idea that +the cow (and even the miserable rustic) have a use in society, and have +been prepared to concede her as much as three acres. But it will be well +at this stage to repeat that we do not propose that every acre should be +covered with cows; and do not propose to eliminate townspeople as they +would eliminate rustics. On many minor points we might have to +compromise with conditions, especially at first. But even my ideal, if +ever I found it at last, would be what some call a compromise. Only I +think it more accurate to call it a balance. For I do not think that the +sun compromises with the rain when together they make a garden; or that +the rose that grows there is a compromise between green and red. But I +mean that even my Utopia would contain different things of different +types holding on different tenures: that as in a medieval state there +were some peasants, some monasteries, some common land, some private +land, some town guilds, and so on, so in my modern state there would be +some things nationalized, some machines owned corporately, some guilds +sharing common profits, and so on, as well as many absolute individual +owners, where such individual owners are most possible. But with these +latter it is well to begin, because they are meant to give, and nearly +always do give, the standard and tone of the society. + +Among the things we have heard a thousand times is the statement that +the English are a slow people, a cautious people, a conservative people, +and so on. When we have heard a thing as many times as that, we +generally either accept it as a truism, or suddenly see that it is quite +untrue. And in this case it is quite untrue. The real peculiarity of +England is that it is the only country on earth that has not got a +conservative class. There are a large number, possibly a majority, of +people who call themselves conservative. But the more they are examined, +the less conservative they will appear. The commercial class that is in +a special sense capitalist is in its nature the very opposite of +conservative. By its own profession, it proclaims that it is perpetually +using new methods and seeking for new markets. To some of us there seems +to be something exceedingly stale about all that novelty. But that is +because of the type of mind that is inventing, not because it does not +mean to invent. From the biggest financier floating a company to the +smallest tout peddling a sewing-machine, the same ideal prevails. It +must always be a new company, especially after what has generally +happened to the old company. And the sewing-machine must always be a new +sort of sewing-machine, even if it is the sort that does not sew. But +while this is obvious of the mere capitalist, it is equally true of the +pure oligarch. Whatever else an aristocracy is, an aristocracy is never +conservative. By its very nature it goes by fashion rather than by +tradition. Men living a life of leisure and luxury are always eager for +new things; we might fairly say they would be fools if they weren't. And +the English aristocrats are by no means fools. They can proudly claim to +have played a great part in every stage of the intellectual progress +that has brought us to our present ruin. + +The first fact about establishing an English peasantry is that it is +establishing, for the first time for many centuries, a traditional +class. The absence of such a class will be found to be a very terrible +fact, if the tug really becomes between Bolshevism and the historic +ideal of property. But the converse is equally true and much more +comforting. This difference in the quality means that the change will +begin to be effective merely by quantity. I mean that we have not been +concerned so much with the strength or weakness of a peasantry, as with +presence or absence of a peasantry. As the society has suffered from its +mere absence, so the society will begin to change by its mere presence. +It will be a somewhat different England in which the peasant has to be +considered at all. It will begin to alter the look of things, even when +politicians think about peasants as often as they do about doctors. They +have been known even to think about soldiers. + +The primary case for the peasant is of a stark and almost savage +simplicity. A man in England might live on the land, if he did not have +rent to pay to the landlord and wages to pay to the labourer. He would +therefore be better off, even on a small scale, if he were his own +landlord and his own labourer. But there are obviously certain further +considerations, and to my mind certain common misconceptions, to which +the following notes refer roughly in their order. In the first place, of +course, it is one thing to say that this is desirable, and another that +it is desired. And in the first place, as will be seen, I do not deny +that if it is to be desired, it can hardly be as a mere indulgence is +desired; there will undoubtedly be required a certain spirit of effort +and sacrifice for the sake of an acute national necessity, if we are to +ask any landlord to do without rent or any farmer to do without +assistance. But at least there really is a crisis and a necessity; to +such an extent that the squire would often be only remitting a debt +which he has already written off as a bad debt, and the employer only +sacrificing the service of men who are already on strike. Still, we +shall need the virtues that belong to a crisis; and it will be well to +make the fact clear. Next, while there is all the difference between the +desirable and the desired, I would point out that even now this normal +life is more desired than many suppose. It is perhaps subconsciously +desired; but I think it worth while to throw out a few suggestions that +may bring it to the surface. Lastly, there is a misconception about what +is meant by "living on the land"--and I have added some suggestions about how much more desirable it is than many suppose. -I shall consider these separate aspects of agricultural -distributism more or less in the order in which I have just -noted them; but here in the preliminary note I am concerned -only with the primary fact. If we could create a peasantry -we could create a conservative populace; and he would be a -bold man who should undertake to tell us how the present -industrial deadlock in the great cities is to produce a -conservative populace. I am well aware that many would call -the conservatism by coarser names; and say that peasants are -stupid and stick-in-the-mud and tied to dull and dreary -existence. I know it is said that a man must find it -monotonous to do the twenty things that are done on a farm, -whereas, of course, he always finds it uproariously funny -and festive to do one thing hour after hour and day after -day in a factory. I know that the same people also make -exactly the contrary comment; and say it is selfish and -avaricious for the peasant to be so intensely interested in -his own farm, instead of showing, like the proletarians of -modern industrialism, a selfless and romantic loyalty to -somebody else's factory, and an ascetic self-sacrifice in -making profits for somebody else. Giving each of these -claims of modern capitalism their due weight, it is still -permissible to say that in so far as the peasant proprietor -is certainly tenacious of the peasant property, is -concentrated on the interest or content with the dullness, -as the case may be, he does, in fact, constitute a solid -block of private property which can be counted on to resist -Communism; which is not only more than can be said of the -proletariat, but is very much more than any capitalists say -of them. I do not believe that the proletariat is -honeycombed with Bolshevism (if honey be an apt metaphor for -that doctrine), but if there is any truth in the newspaper -fears on that subject it would certainly seem that large -properties cannot prevent the thing happening, whereas small -properties can. But, as a matter of fact, all experience is -against the assertion that peasants are dreary and degraded -savages, crawling about on all fours and eating grass like -the beasts of the field. All over the world, for instance, -there are peasant dances; and the dances of peasants are -like dances of kings and queens. The popular dance is much -more stately and ceremonial and full of human dignity than -is the aristocratic dance. In many a modern countryside the -countryfolk may still be found on high festivals wearing -caps like crowns and using gestures like a religious ritual, -while the castle or chateau of the lords and ladies is -already full of people waddling about like monkeys to the -noises made by negroes. All over Europe peasants have -produced the embroideries and the handicrafts which were -discovered with delight by artists when they had long been -neglected by aristocrats. These people are not conservative -merely in a negative sense; though there is great value in -that which is negative when it is also defensive. They are -also conservative in a positive sense; they conserve customs -that do not perish like fashions, and crafts less ephemeral -than those artistic movements which so very soon cease to -move. The Bolshevists, I believe, have invented something -which they call Proletarian Art, upon what principle I -cannot imagine; save that they seem to have a mysterious -pride in calling themselves a proletariat when they claim to -be no longer proletarian. I rather think it is merely the -reluctance of the half-educated to relinquish the use of a -long word. Anyhow, there never has been in this world any -such thing as Proletarian Art. But there has most -emphatically been such a thing as Peasant Art. - -I suppose that what is really meant is Communist Art; and -that phrase alone will reveal much. I suppose a truly -communal art would consist in a hundred men hanging on to -one huge paint-brush like a battering-ram, and steering it -across some vast canvas with the curves and lurches and -majestic hesitations that would express, in darkly outlined -forms, the composite mind of the community. Peasants have -produced art because they were communal but not communist. -Custom and a corporate tradition gave unity to their art; -but each man was a separate artist. It is that satisfaction -of the creative instinct in the individual that makes the -peasantry as a whole content and therefore conservative. A -multitude of men are standing on their own feet, because -they are standing on their own land. But in our country, -alas, the landowners have been standing upon nothing, except -what they have trampled underfoot. +I shall consider these separate aspects of agricultural distributism +more or less in the order in which I have just noted them; but here in +the preliminary note I am concerned only with the primary fact. If we +could create a peasantry we could create a conservative populace; and he +would be a bold man who should undertake to tell us how the present +industrial deadlock in the great cities is to produce a conservative +populace. I am well aware that many would call the conservatism by +coarser names; and say that peasants are stupid and stick-in-the-mud and +tied to dull and dreary existence. I know it is said that a man must +find it monotonous to do the twenty things that are done on a farm, +whereas, of course, he always finds it uproariously funny and festive to +do one thing hour after hour and day after day in a factory. I know that +the same people also make exactly the contrary comment; and say it is +selfish and avaricious for the peasant to be so intensely interested in +his own farm, instead of showing, like the proletarians of modern +industrialism, a selfless and romantic loyalty to somebody else's +factory, and an ascetic self-sacrifice in making profits for somebody +else. Giving each of these claims of modern capitalism their due weight, +it is still permissible to say that in so far as the peasant proprietor +is certainly tenacious of the peasant property, is concentrated on the +interest or content with the dullness, as the case may be, he does, in +fact, constitute a solid block of private property which can be counted +on to resist Communism; which is not only more than can be said of the +proletariat, but is very much more than any capitalists say of them. I +do not believe that the proletariat is honeycombed with Bolshevism (if +honey be an apt metaphor for that doctrine), but if there is any truth +in the newspaper fears on that subject it would certainly seem that +large properties cannot prevent the thing happening, whereas small +properties can. But, as a matter of fact, all experience is against the +assertion that peasants are dreary and degraded savages, crawling about +on all fours and eating grass like the beasts of the field. All over the +world, for instance, there are peasant dances; and the dances of +peasants are like dances of kings and queens. The popular dance is much +more stately and ceremonial and full of human dignity than is the +aristocratic dance. In many a modern countryside the countryfolk may +still be found on high festivals wearing caps like crowns and using +gestures like a religious ritual, while the castle or chateau of the +lords and ladies is already full of people waddling about like monkeys +to the noises made by negroes. All over Europe peasants have produced +the embroideries and the handicrafts which were discovered with delight +by artists when they had long been neglected by aristocrats. These +people are not conservative merely in a negative sense; though there is +great value in that which is negative when it is also defensive. They +are also conservative in a positive sense; they conserve customs that do +not perish like fashions, and crafts less ephemeral than those artistic +movements which so very soon cease to move. The Bolshevists, I believe, +have invented something which they call Proletarian Art, upon what +principle I cannot imagine; save that they seem to have a mysterious +pride in calling themselves a proletariat when they claim to be no +longer proletarian. I rather think it is merely the reluctance of the +half-educated to relinquish the use of a long word. Anyhow, there never +has been in this world any such thing as Proletarian Art. But there has +most emphatically been such a thing as Peasant Art. + +I suppose that what is really meant is Communist Art; and that phrase +alone will reveal much. I suppose a truly communal art would consist in +a hundred men hanging on to one huge paint-brush like a battering-ram, +and steering it across some vast canvas with the curves and lurches and +majestic hesitations that would express, in darkly outlined forms, the +composite mind of the community. Peasants have produced art because they +were communal but not communist. Custom and a corporate tradition gave +unity to their art; but each man was a separate artist. It is that +satisfaction of the creative instinct in the individual that makes the +peasantry as a whole content and therefore conservative. A multitude of +men are standing on their own feet, because they are standing on their +own land. But in our country, alas, the landowners have been standing +upon nothing, except what they have trampled underfoot. ## Vows and Volunteers -We have sometimes been asked why we do not admire -advertisers quite so much as they admire themselves. One -answer is that it is of their very nature to admire -themselves. And it is of the very nature of our task that -people must be taught to criticize themselves; or rather -(preferably) to kick themselves. They talk about Truth in -Advertising; but there cannot be any such thing in the sharp -sense in which we need truth in politics. It is impossible -to put in the cheery terms of "publicity" either the truth -about how bad things are, or the truth about how hard it -will be to cure them. No advertiser is so truthful as to -say, "Do your best with our rotten old typewriter; we can't -get anything better just now." But we have really got to -say, "Do your best with your rotten old machine of -production; don't let it fall to pieces too suddenly." We -seldom see a gay and conspicuous hoarding inscribed, "You -are in for a rough time if you use our new kitchen-range." -But we have really got to say to our friends, "You are in -for a rough time if you start new farms on your own; but it -is the right thing." We cannot pretend to be offering merely -comforts and conveniences. Whatever our ultimate view of -labour-saving machinery, we cannot offer our ideal as a -labour-saving machine. There is no more question of comfort -than there is for a man in a fire, a battle, or a shipwreck. -There is no way out of the danger except the dangerous way. - -The sort of call that must be made on the modern English is -the sort of call that is made before a great war or a great -revolution. If the trumpet give an uncertain sound---but it -must be unmistakably the sound of a trumpet. The megaphone -of mere mercantile self-satisfaction is merely loud and not -in the least clear. In its nature it is saying smooth -things, even if it is roaring them; it is like one -whispering soft nothings, even if its whisper is a horrible -yell. How can advertisement bid men prepare themselves for a -battle? How can publicity talk in the language of public -spirit? It cannot say, "Buy land at Blinkington-on-Sea and -prepare yourself for the battle with stones and thistles." -It cannot give a certain sound, like the old tocsin that -rang for fire and flood, and tell the people of Puddleton -that they are in danger of famine. To do men justice, no man -did announce the needs of Kitchener's Army like the comforts -of the kitchen-range. We did not say to the recruits, "Spend -your holiday at Mons." We did not say, "Try our trenches; -they are a treat." We made some sort of attempt to appeal to -better things. We have to make that appeal again; and in the -face of worse things. It is this that is made so difficult -by the whole tone of advertisement. For the next thing we -have to consider is the need of independent individual -action on a large scale. We want to make the need known, as -the need for recruits was made known. Education was too -commercial in origin, and has allowed itself to be largely -swamped by commercial advertisement. It came too much from -the town; and now it is nearly driven from the town. -Education really meant the teaching of town things to -country people who did not want to learn them. I suggest -that education should now mean the teaching of country -things to town people who do want to learn them. I quite -admit it would be much better to begin at least with those -who really want it. But I also maintain that there are -really a great many people in town and country who do really +We have sometimes been asked why we do not admire advertisers quite so +much as they admire themselves. One answer is that it is of their very +nature to admire themselves. And it is of the very nature of our task +that people must be taught to criticize themselves; or rather +(preferably) to kick themselves. They talk about Truth in Advertising; +but there cannot be any such thing in the sharp sense in which we need +truth in politics. It is impossible to put in the cheery terms of +"publicity" either the truth about how bad things are, or the truth +about how hard it will be to cure them. No advertiser is so truthful as +to say, "Do your best with our rotten old typewriter; we can't get +anything better just now." But we have really got to say, "Do your best +with your rotten old machine of production; don't let it fall to pieces +too suddenly." We seldom see a gay and conspicuous hoarding inscribed, +"You are in for a rough time if you use our new kitchen-range." But we +have really got to say to our friends, "You are in for a rough time if +you start new farms on your own; but it is the right thing." We cannot +pretend to be offering merely comforts and conveniences. Whatever our +ultimate view of labour-saving machinery, we cannot offer our ideal as a +labour-saving machine. There is no more question of comfort than there +is for a man in a fire, a battle, or a shipwreck. There is no way out of +the danger except the dangerous way. + +The sort of call that must be made on the modern English is the sort of +call that is made before a great war or a great revolution. If the +trumpet give an uncertain sound---but it must be unmistakably the sound +of a trumpet. The megaphone of mere mercantile self-satisfaction is +merely loud and not in the least clear. In its nature it is saying +smooth things, even if it is roaring them; it is like one whispering +soft nothings, even if its whisper is a horrible yell. How can +advertisement bid men prepare themselves for a battle? How can publicity +talk in the language of public spirit? It cannot say, "Buy land at +Blinkington-on-Sea and prepare yourself for the battle with stones and +thistles." It cannot give a certain sound, like the old tocsin that rang +for fire and flood, and tell the people of Puddleton that they are in +danger of famine. To do men justice, no man did announce the needs of +Kitchener's Army like the comforts of the kitchen-range. We did not say +to the recruits, "Spend your holiday at Mons." We did not say, "Try our +trenches; they are a treat." We made some sort of attempt to appeal to +better things. We have to make that appeal again; and in the face of +worse things. It is this that is made so difficult by the whole tone of +advertisement. For the next thing we have to consider is the need of +independent individual action on a large scale. We want to make the need +known, as the need for recruits was made known. Education was too +commercial in origin, and has allowed itself to be largely swamped by +commercial advertisement. It came too much from the town; and now it is +nearly driven from the town. Education really meant the teaching of town +things to country people who did not want to learn them. I suggest that +education should now mean the teaching of country things to town people +who do want to learn them. I quite admit it would be much better to +begin at least with those who really want it. But I also maintain that +there are really a great many people in town and country who do really want it. -Whether we look forward to an Agrarian Law or no, whether -our notion of distribution is rigid or rough and ready, -whether we believe in compensation or confiscation, whether -we look for this law or that law, we ought not to sit down -and wait for any law at all. While the grass grows the steed -has got to show that he wants grass: the steed has got to -explain that he is really a graminivorous quadruped. The -fulfilment of parliamentary promises grows rather slower -than grass; and if nothing is done before the completion of -what is called a constitutional process, we shall be about -as near to Distributism as a Labour politician is to -Socialism. It seems to me first necessary to revive the +Whether we look forward to an Agrarian Law or no, whether our notion of +distribution is rigid or rough and ready, whether we believe in +compensation or confiscation, whether we look for this law or that law, +we ought not to sit down and wait for any law at all. While the grass +grows the steed has got to show that he wants grass: the steed has got +to explain that he is really a graminivorous quadruped. The fulfilment +of parliamentary promises grows rather slower than grass; and if nothing +is done before the completion of what is called a constitutional +process, we shall be about as near to Distributism as a Labour +politician is to Socialism. It seems to me first necessary to revive the medieval or moral method, and call for volunteers. -The English could do what the Irish did. They could make -laws by obeying them. If we are, like the original Sinn -Feiners, to anticipate legal change by social agreement, we -want two sorts of volunteers, in order to make the -experiment on the spot. We want to find out how many -peasants there are, actual or potential, who would take over -the responsibility of small farms, for the sake of -self-sufficiency, of real property, and of saving England in -a desperate hour. We want to know how many landlords there -are who would now give or sell cheaply their land to be cut -up into a number of such farms. Honestly, I think the -landlord would have the best of the bargain. Or rather I -think that the peasant would have the hardest and most -heroic part of the bargain. Sometimes it would practically -pay the landlord to chuck the land altogether, since he is -paying out to something that does not pay him back. But in -any case, everybody has got to realize that the situation -is, in no cant phrases, one for heroic remedies. It is -impossible to disguise that the man who gets the land, even -more than the man who gives up the land, will have to be -something of a hero. We shall be told that heroes do not -grow on every hedgerow, that we cannot find enough to defend -all our hedges. We raised three million heroes with the -blast of a bugle but a few years ago; and the trumpet we -hear to-day is in a more terrible sense the trump of doom. - -We want a popular appeal for volunteers to save the land; -exactly as volunteers in 1914 were wanted to save the -country. But we do not want the appeal weakened by that -weak-minded, that wearisome, that dismal and deplorable -thing that the newspapers call Optimism. We are not asking -babies to look pleasant while their photographs are taken; -we are asking grown men to meet a crisis as grave as a great -war. We are not asking people to cut a coupon out of a -newspaper, but to carve a farm out of a trackless waste; and -if it is to be successful, it must be faced in something of -the stubborn spirit of the old fulfilment of a vow. St. -Francis showed his followers the way to a greater happiness; -but he did not tell them that a wandering and homeless life -would mean Everything as Nice as Mother Makes It; nor did he -advertise it on hoardings as a Home From Home. But we live -in a time when it is harder for a free man to make a home -than it was for a medieval ascetic to do without one. - -The quarrel about the Limehouse slums was a working model of -the problem---if we can talk of a working model of something -that does not work, and something on which only a madman -would model anything. The slum-dwellers actually and -definitely say that they prefer their slums to the blocks of -flats provided as a refuge from the slums. And they prefer -them, it is stated, because the old homes had backyards in -which they could pursue "their hobbies of bird-fancying and -poultry-rearing." When offered other opportunities on some -scheme of allotment, they had the hideous depravity to say -that they liked fences round their private yards. So awful -and overwhelming is the Red torrent of Communism as it boils -through the brains of the working classes. - -Now, of course, it might conceivably be necessary, in some -wild congestion and convulsion, for people's houses to be -piled on top of each other for ever, in the form of a tower -of flats. And so it might be necessary for men to climb on -other men's shoulders in a flood or to get out of a chasm -cloven by an earthquake. And it is logically conceivable, -and even mathematically correct, that we might thin the -crowds in the London streets, if we could thus arrange men -vertically instead of horizontally. If there were only some -expedient by which a man might walk about with another man -standing above him, and another above that, and so on, it -would save a great deal of jostling. Men are arranged like -that in acrobatic performances; and a course of such -acrobatics might be made compulsory in all the schools. It -is a picture that pleases me very much, as a picture. I look -forward (in spirit of art for art's sake) to seeing such a -living tower moving majestically down the Strand. I like to -think of the time of true social organization, when all the -clerks of Messrs. Boodle & Bunkham shall no longer come up -in their present random and straggling fashion, each from -his little suburban villa. They shall not even, as in the -immediate and intermediary stage of the Servile State, march -in a well-drilled column from the dormitory in one part of -London, to the emporium in the other. No, a nobler vision -has arisen before me into the very heights of heaven. A -toppling pagoda of clerks, one balanced on the top of -another, moves down the street, perhaps making acrobatic -patterns in the air as it moves, to illustrate the perfect -discipline of its social machinery. All that would be very -impressive; and it really would, among other things, -economize space. But if one of the men near the top of that -swaying tower were to say that he hoped some day to be able -to revisit the earth, I should sympathize with his sense of -exile. If he were to say that it is natural to man to walk -on the earth, I should find myself in agreement with his -school of philosophy. If he were to say that it was very -difficult to look after chickens in that acrobatic attitude -and altitude, I should think his difficulty a real one. At -first it might be retorted that bird-fancying would be even -more appropriate to such an airy perch, but in practice -those birds would be very fancy birds. Finally, if he said -that keeping chickens that laid eggs was a worthy and -valuable social work, much more worthy and valuable than -serving Messrs. Boodle & Bunkham with the most perfect -discipline and organization, I should agree with that -sentiment most of all. - -Now the whole of our modern problem is very difficult, and -though in one way the agricultural part of it is much the -simplest, in another way it is by no means the least -difficult. But this Limehouse affair is a vivid example of -how we make the difficulty more difficult. We are told again -and again that the slum-dwellers of the big towns cannot -merely be turned loose on the land, that they do not want to -go on the land, that they have no tastes or turn of thought -that could make them by any process into a people interested -in the land, that they cannot be conceived as having any -pleasures except town pleasures, or even any discontents -except the Bolshevism of the towns. And then when a whole -crowd of them want to keep chickens, we force them to live -in flats. When a whole crowd of them want to have fences, we -laugh and order them off into communal barracks. When a -whole population wishes to insist on palings and enclosures -and the traditions of private property, the authorities act -as if they were suppressing a Red riot. When these very -hopeless slum-dwellers do actually set all their hopes on a -rural occupation, which they can still practise even in the -slums, we tear them away from that occupation and call it -improving their condition. You pick a man up who has his -head in a hen-coop, forcibly set him on giant stilts a -hundred feet high where he cannot reach the ground, and then -say you have saved him from misery. And you add that a man -like that can only live on stilts and would never be -interested in hens. - -Now the very first question that is always asked of those -advocating our sort of agricultural reconstruction is this -question, which is fundamental because it is psychological. -Whatever else we may or may not need for a peasantry, we do -certainly need peasants. In the present mixture and muddle -of more or less urbanized civilization, have we even the -first elements or the first possibilities? Have we peasants, -or even potential peasants? Like all questions of this sort, -it cannot be answered by statistics. Statistics are -artificial even when they are not fictitious, for they -always assume the very fact which a moral estimate must -always deny; they assume that every man is one man. They are -based on a sort of atomic theory that the individual is -really individual, in the sense of indivisible. But when we -are dealing professedly with the proportion of different -loves or hates or hopes or hungers, this is so far from -being a fact that can be assumed, it is the very first that -must be denied. It is denied by all that deeper -consideration which wise men used to call spiritual, but -which fools were frightened out of calling spiritual, till -they ventured to say it in Greek and call it psychical or -psychological. In one sense the highest spirituality -insists, of course, that one man is one. But in the sense -here involved, the spiritual view has always been that one -man was at least two, and the psychological view has shown -some taste for turning him into half a dozen. It is no good, -therefore, to discuss the number of peasants who are nothing -else but peasants. Very probably there are none at all. It -is no good asking how many complete and compact yeomen or -yokels are waiting all ready in smock-frocks or blouses, -their spades and hay-forks clutched in their hand, in the -neighbourhood of Brompton or Brixton; waiting for us to give -the signal to rush back to the land. If anybody is such a -fool as to expect that sort of thing, the fool is not to be -found in our small political party. When we are dealing with -a matter of this kind, we are dealing with different -elements in the same class, or even in the same man. We are -dealing with elements which should be encouraged or educated -or (if we must bring the word in somewhere) evolved. We have -to consider whether there are any materials out of which to -make peasants to make a peasantry, if we really choose to -try. Nowhere in these notes have I suggested that there is -the faintest possibility of it being done, if we do not -choose to try. - -Now, using words in this sensible sense, I should maintain -that there is a very large element still in England that -would like to return to this simpler sort of England. Some -of them understand it better than others, some of them -understand themselves better than others; some would be -prepared for it as a revolution; some only cling to it very -blindly as a tradition; some have never thought of it as -anything but a hobby; some have never heard of it and feel -it only as a want. But the number of people who would like -to get out of the tangle of mere ramifications and -communications in the town, and get back nearer to the roots -of things, where things are made directly out of nature, I -believe to be very large. It is probably not a majority, but -I suspect that even now it is a very large minority. A man -does not necessarily want this more than everything else at -every moment of his life. No sane person expects any -movement to consist entirely of such monomaniacs. But a good -many people want it a good deal. I have formed that -impression from experience, which is of all things the most -difficult to reproduce in controversy. I guess it from the -way in which numberless suburbans talk about their gardens. -I guess it from the sort of things that they really envy in -the rich; one of the most notable of which is merely empty -space. I notice it in all the element that desires the -country, even if it defaces the country. I notice it in the -profound popular interest everywhere, especially in England, -in the breeding or training of any kind of animal. And if I -wanted a supreme, a symbolic, a triumphant example of all -that I mean, I could find it in the case I have quoted of -these men living in the most miserable slums of Limehouse, -and reluctant to leave them because it would mean leaving -behind a rabbit in a rabbit-hutch or a chicken in a -hen-coop. - -Now if we were really doing what I suggest, or if we really -knew what we were doing, we should seize on these slum -dwellers as if they were infant prodigies or (even more -lucrative) monsters to be exhibited in a fair. We should see -that such people have a natural genius for such things. We -should encourage them in such things. We should educate them -in such things. We should see in them the seed and living -principle of a real spontaneous revival of the countryside. -I repeat that it would be a matter of proportion and -therefore of tact. But we should be on their side, being -confident that they are on our side and on the side of the -countryside. We should reconstruct our popular education so -as to help these hobbies. We should think it worth while to -teach people the things they are so eager to teach -themselves. We should teach them; we might even, in a burst -of Christian humility, occasionally allow them to teach us. -What we do is to bundle them out of their houses, where they -do these things with difficulty, and drag them shrieking to -new and unfamiliar places where they cannot do them at all. -This example alone would show how much we are really doing -for the rural reconstruction of England. - -Though much could be done by volunteers, and by a voluntary -bargain between the man who really could do the work and the -man who frequently cannot get the rent, there is nothing in -our social philosophy that forbids the use of the State -power where it can be used. And either by the State subsidy -or some large voluntary fund, it seems to me that it would -still be possible at least to give the other man something -as good as the rent that he does not get. In other words, -long before our Communists come to the controversial ethics -of confiscation, it seems to me within the resources of -civilization to enable Brown to buy from Smith what is now -of very little value to Smith and might be of very great -value to Brown. I know the current complaint against -subsidy, and the general argument that applies equally to -subscription; but I do think that a subsidy to restore -agriculture would find more repayment in the future than a -subsidy to patch up the position of coal; just as I think -that in its turn more defensible than half a hundred -salaries that we pay to a mob of nobodies for plaguing the -poor with sham science and petty tyranny. But there are, as -I have already hinted, other ways by which even the State -could help in the matter. So long as we have State -education, it seems a pity that it can never at any moment -be determined by the needs of the State. If the immediate -need of the State is to pay some attention to the existence -of the earth, there really seems no reason why the eyes of -the schoolmasters and schoolboys, staring at the stars, -should not be turned in the direction of that planet. At -present we have education, not indeed for angels, but rather -for aviators. They do not even understand a man's wish to -remain tied to the ground. There is in their ideal an -insanity that may be truly called unearthly. - -Now I suggest such a peasantry of volunteers primarily as a -nucleus, but I think it will be a nucleus of attraction. I -think it will stand up not only as a rock but as a magnet. -In other words, as soon as it is admitted that it can be -done, it will become important when a number of other things -can no longer be done. When trade is increasingly bad, this -will be counted better even by those who count it a second -best. When we speak of people leaving the countryside and -flocking to the towns, we are not judging the case fairly. -Something may be allowed for a social type that would always -prefer cinemas and picture post cards even to property and -liberty. But there is nothing conclusive in the fact that -people prefer to go without property and liberty, with a -cinema, to going without property and liberty without a -cinema. Some people may like the town so much that they -would rather be sweated in the town than free in the -country. But nothing is proved by the mere fact that they -would rather be sweated in the town than sweated in the -country. I believe, therefore, that if we created even a -considerable patch of peasantry, the patch would grow. -People would fall back on it as they retired from the -declining trades. At present the patch is not growing, -because there is no patch to grow; people do not even -believe in its existence, and can hardly believe in its -extension. - -So far, I merely propose to suggest that many peasants would -now be ready to work alone on the land, though it would be a -sacrifice; that many squires would be ready to let them have -the land, though it would be a sacrifice; that the State -(and for that matter any other patriotic corporation) could -be called upon to help either or both in these actions, that -it might not be an intolerable or impossible sacrifice. In -all this I would remind the reader that I am only dealing -with immediately practicable action and not with an ultimate -or complete condition; but it seems to me that something of -this sort might be set about almost at once. I shall next -proceed to consider a misunderstanding about how a group of -peasants could live on the land. +The English could do what the Irish did. They could make laws by obeying +them. If we are, like the original Sinn Feiners, to anticipate legal +change by social agreement, we want two sorts of volunteers, in order to +make the experiment on the spot. We want to find out how many peasants +there are, actual or potential, who would take over the responsibility +of small farms, for the sake of self-sufficiency, of real property, and +of saving England in a desperate hour. We want to know how many +landlords there are who would now give or sell cheaply their land to be +cut up into a number of such farms. Honestly, I think the landlord would +have the best of the bargain. Or rather I think that the peasant would +have the hardest and most heroic part of the bargain. Sometimes it would +practically pay the landlord to chuck the land altogether, since he is +paying out to something that does not pay him back. But in any case, +everybody has got to realize that the situation is, in no cant phrases, +one for heroic remedies. It is impossible to disguise that the man who +gets the land, even more than the man who gives up the land, will have +to be something of a hero. We shall be told that heroes do not grow on +every hedgerow, that we cannot find enough to defend all our hedges. We +raised three million heroes with the blast of a bugle but a few years +ago; and the trumpet we hear to-day is in a more terrible sense the +trump of doom. + +We want a popular appeal for volunteers to save the land; exactly as +volunteers in 1914 were wanted to save the country. But we do not want +the appeal weakened by that weak-minded, that wearisome, that dismal and +deplorable thing that the newspapers call Optimism. We are not asking +babies to look pleasant while their photographs are taken; we are asking +grown men to meet a crisis as grave as a great war. We are not asking +people to cut a coupon out of a newspaper, but to carve a farm out of a +trackless waste; and if it is to be successful, it must be faced in +something of the stubborn spirit of the old fulfilment of a vow. St. +Francis showed his followers the way to a greater happiness; but he did +not tell them that a wandering and homeless life would mean Everything +as Nice as Mother Makes It; nor did he advertise it on hoardings as a +Home From Home. But we live in a time when it is harder for a free man +to make a home than it was for a medieval ascetic to do without one. + +The quarrel about the Limehouse slums was a working model of the +problem---if we can talk of a working model of something that does not +work, and something on which only a madman would model anything. The +slum-dwellers actually and definitely say that they prefer their slums +to the blocks of flats provided as a refuge from the slums. And they +prefer them, it is stated, because the old homes had backyards in which +they could pursue "their hobbies of bird-fancying and poultry-rearing." +When offered other opportunities on some scheme of allotment, they had +the hideous depravity to say that they liked fences round their private +yards. So awful and overwhelming is the Red torrent of Communism as it +boils through the brains of the working classes. + +Now, of course, it might conceivably be necessary, in some wild +congestion and convulsion, for people's houses to be piled on top of +each other for ever, in the form of a tower of flats. And so it might be +necessary for men to climb on other men's shoulders in a flood or to get +out of a chasm cloven by an earthquake. And it is logically conceivable, +and even mathematically correct, that we might thin the crowds in the +London streets, if we could thus arrange men vertically instead of +horizontally. If there were only some expedient by which a man might +walk about with another man standing above him, and another above that, +and so on, it would save a great deal of jostling. Men are arranged like +that in acrobatic performances; and a course of such acrobatics might be +made compulsory in all the schools. It is a picture that pleases me very +much, as a picture. I look forward (in spirit of art for art's sake) to +seeing such a living tower moving majestically down the Strand. I like +to think of the time of true social organization, when all the clerks of +Messrs. Boodle & Bunkham shall no longer come up in their present random +and straggling fashion, each from his little suburban villa. They shall +not even, as in the immediate and intermediary stage of the Servile +State, march in a well-drilled column from the dormitory in one part of +London, to the emporium in the other. No, a nobler vision has arisen +before me into the very heights of heaven. A toppling pagoda of clerks, +one balanced on the top of another, moves down the street, perhaps +making acrobatic patterns in the air as it moves, to illustrate the +perfect discipline of its social machinery. All that would be very +impressive; and it really would, among other things, economize space. +But if one of the men near the top of that swaying tower were to say +that he hoped some day to be able to revisit the earth, I should +sympathize with his sense of exile. If he were to say that it is natural +to man to walk on the earth, I should find myself in agreement with his +school of philosophy. If he were to say that it was very difficult to +look after chickens in that acrobatic attitude and altitude, I should +think his difficulty a real one. At first it might be retorted that +bird-fancying would be even more appropriate to such an airy perch, but +in practice those birds would be very fancy birds. Finally, if he said +that keeping chickens that laid eggs was a worthy and valuable social +work, much more worthy and valuable than serving Messrs. Boodle & +Bunkham with the most perfect discipline and organization, I should +agree with that sentiment most of all. + +Now the whole of our modern problem is very difficult, and though in one +way the agricultural part of it is much the simplest, in another way it +is by no means the least difficult. But this Limehouse affair is a vivid +example of how we make the difficulty more difficult. We are told again +and again that the slum-dwellers of the big towns cannot merely be +turned loose on the land, that they do not want to go on the land, that +they have no tastes or turn of thought that could make them by any +process into a people interested in the land, that they cannot be +conceived as having any pleasures except town pleasures, or even any +discontents except the Bolshevism of the towns. And then when a whole +crowd of them want to keep chickens, we force them to live in flats. +When a whole crowd of them want to have fences, we laugh and order them +off into communal barracks. When a whole population wishes to insist on +palings and enclosures and the traditions of private property, the +authorities act as if they were suppressing a Red riot. When these very +hopeless slum-dwellers do actually set all their hopes on a rural +occupation, which they can still practise even in the slums, we tear +them away from that occupation and call it improving their condition. +You pick a man up who has his head in a hen-coop, forcibly set him on +giant stilts a hundred feet high where he cannot reach the ground, and +then say you have saved him from misery. And you add that a man like +that can only live on stilts and would never be interested in hens. + +Now the very first question that is always asked of those advocating our +sort of agricultural reconstruction is this question, which is +fundamental because it is psychological. Whatever else we may or may not +need for a peasantry, we do certainly need peasants. In the present +mixture and muddle of more or less urbanized civilization, have we even +the first elements or the first possibilities? Have we peasants, or even +potential peasants? Like all questions of this sort, it cannot be +answered by statistics. Statistics are artificial even when they are not +fictitious, for they always assume the very fact which a moral estimate +must always deny; they assume that every man is one man. They are based +on a sort of atomic theory that the individual is really individual, in +the sense of indivisible. But when we are dealing professedly with the +proportion of different loves or hates or hopes or hungers, this is so +far from being a fact that can be assumed, it is the very first that +must be denied. It is denied by all that deeper consideration which wise +men used to call spiritual, but which fools were frightened out of +calling spiritual, till they ventured to say it in Greek and call it +psychical or psychological. In one sense the highest spirituality +insists, of course, that one man is one. But in the sense here involved, +the spiritual view has always been that one man was at least two, and +the psychological view has shown some taste for turning him into half a +dozen. It is no good, therefore, to discuss the number of peasants who +are nothing else but peasants. Very probably there are none at all. It +is no good asking how many complete and compact yeomen or yokels are +waiting all ready in smock-frocks or blouses, their spades and hay-forks +clutched in their hand, in the neighbourhood of Brompton or Brixton; +waiting for us to give the signal to rush back to the land. If anybody +is such a fool as to expect that sort of thing, the fool is not to be +found in our small political party. When we are dealing with a matter of +this kind, we are dealing with different elements in the same class, or +even in the same man. We are dealing with elements which should be +encouraged or educated or (if we must bring the word in somewhere) +evolved. We have to consider whether there are any materials out of +which to make peasants to make a peasantry, if we really choose to try. +Nowhere in these notes have I suggested that there is the faintest +possibility of it being done, if we do not choose to try. + +Now, using words in this sensible sense, I should maintain that there is +a very large element still in England that would like to return to this +simpler sort of England. Some of them understand it better than others, +some of them understand themselves better than others; some would be +prepared for it as a revolution; some only cling to it very blindly as a +tradition; some have never thought of it as anything but a hobby; some +have never heard of it and feel it only as a want. But the number of +people who would like to get out of the tangle of mere ramifications and +communications in the town, and get back nearer to the roots of things, +where things are made directly out of nature, I believe to be very +large. It is probably not a majority, but I suspect that even now it is +a very large minority. A man does not necessarily want this more than +everything else at every moment of his life. No sane person expects any +movement to consist entirely of such monomaniacs. But a good many people +want it a good deal. I have formed that impression from experience, +which is of all things the most difficult to reproduce in controversy. I +guess it from the way in which numberless suburbans talk about their +gardens. I guess it from the sort of things that they really envy in the +rich; one of the most notable of which is merely empty space. I notice +it in all the element that desires the country, even if it defaces the +country. I notice it in the profound popular interest everywhere, +especially in England, in the breeding or training of any kind of +animal. And if I wanted a supreme, a symbolic, a triumphant example of +all that I mean, I could find it in the case I have quoted of these men +living in the most miserable slums of Limehouse, and reluctant to leave +them because it would mean leaving behind a rabbit in a rabbit-hutch or +a chicken in a hen-coop. + +Now if we were really doing what I suggest, or if we really knew what we +were doing, we should seize on these slum dwellers as if they were +infant prodigies or (even more lucrative) monsters to be exhibited in a +fair. We should see that such people have a natural genius for such +things. We should encourage them in such things. We should educate them +in such things. We should see in them the seed and living principle of a +real spontaneous revival of the countryside. I repeat that it would be a +matter of proportion and therefore of tact. But we should be on their +side, being confident that they are on our side and on the side of the +countryside. We should reconstruct our popular education so as to help +these hobbies. We should think it worth while to teach people the things +they are so eager to teach themselves. We should teach them; we might +even, in a burst of Christian humility, occasionally allow them to teach +us. What we do is to bundle them out of their houses, where they do +these things with difficulty, and drag them shrieking to new and +unfamiliar places where they cannot do them at all. This example alone +would show how much we are really doing for the rural reconstruction of +England. + +Though much could be done by volunteers, and by a voluntary bargain +between the man who really could do the work and the man who frequently +cannot get the rent, there is nothing in our social philosophy that +forbids the use of the State power where it can be used. And either by +the State subsidy or some large voluntary fund, it seems to me that it +would still be possible at least to give the other man something as good +as the rent that he does not get. In other words, long before our +Communists come to the controversial ethics of confiscation, it seems to +me within the resources of civilization to enable Brown to buy from +Smith what is now of very little value to Smith and might be of very +great value to Brown. I know the current complaint against subsidy, and +the general argument that applies equally to subscription; but I do +think that a subsidy to restore agriculture would find more repayment in +the future than a subsidy to patch up the position of coal; just as I +think that in its turn more defensible than half a hundred salaries that +we pay to a mob of nobodies for plaguing the poor with sham science and +petty tyranny. But there are, as I have already hinted, other ways by +which even the State could help in the matter. So long as we have State +education, it seems a pity that it can never at any moment be determined +by the needs of the State. If the immediate need of the State is to pay +some attention to the existence of the earth, there really seems no +reason why the eyes of the schoolmasters and schoolboys, staring at the +stars, should not be turned in the direction of that planet. At present +we have education, not indeed for angels, but rather for aviators. They +do not even understand a man's wish to remain tied to the ground. There +is in their ideal an insanity that may be truly called unearthly. + +Now I suggest such a peasantry of volunteers primarily as a nucleus, but +I think it will be a nucleus of attraction. I think it will stand up not +only as a rock but as a magnet. In other words, as soon as it is +admitted that it can be done, it will become important when a number of +other things can no longer be done. When trade is increasingly bad, this +will be counted better even by those who count it a second best. When we +speak of people leaving the countryside and flocking to the towns, we +are not judging the case fairly. Something may be allowed for a social +type that would always prefer cinemas and picture post cards even to +property and liberty. But there is nothing conclusive in the fact that +people prefer to go without property and liberty, with a cinema, to +going without property and liberty without a cinema. Some people may +like the town so much that they would rather be sweated in the town than +free in the country. But nothing is proved by the mere fact that they +would rather be sweated in the town than sweated in the country. I +believe, therefore, that if we created even a considerable patch of +peasantry, the patch would grow. People would fall back on it as they +retired from the declining trades. At present the patch is not growing, +because there is no patch to grow; people do not even believe in its +existence, and can hardly believe in its extension. + +So far, I merely propose to suggest that many peasants would now be +ready to work alone on the land, though it would be a sacrifice; that +many squires would be ready to let them have the land, though it would +be a sacrifice; that the State (and for that matter any other patriotic +corporation) could be called upon to help either or both in these +actions, that it might not be an intolerable or impossible sacrifice. In +all this I would remind the reader that I am only dealing with +immediately practicable action and not with an ultimate or complete +condition; but it seems to me that something of this sort might be set +about almost at once. I shall next proceed to consider a +misunderstanding about how a group of peasants could live on the land. ## The Real Life on the Land -We offer one among many proposals for undoing the evil of -capitalism, on the ground that ours is the only one that -really is a proposal for undoing it. The others are all -proposals for overdoing it. The natural thing to do with a -wrong operation is to reverse it. The natural action, when -property has fallen into fewer hands, is to restore it to -more numerous hands. If twenty men are fishing in a river in -such a crowd that their fishing-lines all get entangled into -one, the normal operation is to disentangle them, and sort -them out so that each fisherman has his own fishing-line. No -doubt a collectivist philosopher standing on the bank might -point out that the interwoven lines were now practically a -net; and might be trailed along by a common effort so as to -drag the river-bed. But apart from his scheme being doubtful -in practice, it insults the intellectual instincts even in -principle. It is not putting things right to take a doubtful -advantage of their being wrong; and it does not even sound -like a sane design to exaggerate an accident. Socialism is -but the completion of the capitalist concentration; yet that -concentration was itself effected blindly like a blunder. -Now this naturalness, in the idea of undoing what was ill -done would appeal, I think, to many natural people who feel -the long-winded sociological schemes to be quite unnatural. -For that reason I suggest in this section that many ordinary -men, landlords and labourers, Tories and Radicals, would -probably help us in this task, if it were separated from -party politics and from the pride and pedantry of the -intellectuals. - -But there is another aspect in which the task is both more -easy and more difficult. It is more easy because it need not -be crushed by complexities of cosmopolitan trade. It is -harder because it is a hard life to live apart from them. A -Distributist for whose work (on a little paper defaced, -alas, with my own initials) I have a very lively gratitude, -once noted a truth often neglected. He said that living on -the land was quite a different thing from living by carting -things off it. He proved, far more lucidly than I could, how -practical is the difference in economics. But I should like -to add here a word about a corresponding distinction in -ethics. For the former, it is obvious that most arguments -about the inevitable failure of a man growing turnips in -Sussex are arguments about his failing to sell them, not -about his failing to eat them. Now as I have already -explained, I do not propose to reduce all citizens to one -type, and certainly not to one turnip-eater. In a greater or -less degree, as circumstances dictated, there would -doubtless be people selling turnips to other people; perhaps -even the most ardent turnip-eater would probably sell some -turnips to some people. But my meaning will not be clear if -it be supposed that no more social simplification is needed -than is implied in selling turnips out of a field instead of -top-hats out of a shop. It seems to me that a great many -people would be only too glad to live on the land, when they -find the only alternative is to starve in the street. And it -would surely modify the modern enormity of unemployment, if -any large number of people were really living on the land, -not merely in the sense of sleeping on the land but of -feeding on the land. There will be many who maintain that -this would mean a very dull life compared with the -excitements of dying in a workhouse in Liverpool; just as -there are many who insist that the average woman is made to -drudge in the home, without asking whether the average man -exults in having to drudge in the office. But passing over -the fact that we may soon be faced with a problem at least -as prosaic as a famine, I do not admit that such a life is +We offer one among many proposals for undoing the evil of capitalism, on +the ground that ours is the only one that really is a proposal for +undoing it. The others are all proposals for overdoing it. The natural +thing to do with a wrong operation is to reverse it. The natural action, +when property has fallen into fewer hands, is to restore it to more +numerous hands. If twenty men are fishing in a river in such a crowd +that their fishing-lines all get entangled into one, the normal +operation is to disentangle them, and sort them out so that each +fisherman has his own fishing-line. No doubt a collectivist philosopher +standing on the bank might point out that the interwoven lines were now +practically a net; and might be trailed along by a common effort so as +to drag the river-bed. But apart from his scheme being doubtful in +practice, it insults the intellectual instincts even in principle. It is +not putting things right to take a doubtful advantage of their being +wrong; and it does not even sound like a sane design to exaggerate an +accident. Socialism is but the completion of the capitalist +concentration; yet that concentration was itself effected blindly like a +blunder. Now this naturalness, in the idea of undoing what was ill done +would appeal, I think, to many natural people who feel the long-winded +sociological schemes to be quite unnatural. For that reason I suggest in +this section that many ordinary men, landlords and labourers, Tories and +Radicals, would probably help us in this task, if it were separated from +party politics and from the pride and pedantry of the intellectuals. + +But there is another aspect in which the task is both more easy and more +difficult. It is more easy because it need not be crushed by +complexities of cosmopolitan trade. It is harder because it is a hard +life to live apart from them. A Distributist for whose work (on a little +paper defaced, alas, with my own initials) I have a very lively +gratitude, once noted a truth often neglected. He said that living on +the land was quite a different thing from living by carting things off +it. He proved, far more lucidly than I could, how practical is the +difference in economics. But I should like to add here a word about a +corresponding distinction in ethics. For the former, it is obvious that +most arguments about the inevitable failure of a man growing turnips in +Sussex are arguments about his failing to sell them, not about his +failing to eat them. Now as I have already explained, I do not propose +to reduce all citizens to one type, and certainly not to one +turnip-eater. In a greater or less degree, as circumstances dictated, +there would doubtless be people selling turnips to other people; perhaps +even the most ardent turnip-eater would probably sell some turnips to +some people. But my meaning will not be clear if it be supposed that no +more social simplification is needed than is implied in selling turnips +out of a field instead of top-hats out of a shop. It seems to me that a +great many people would be only too glad to live on the land, when they +find the only alternative is to starve in the street. And it would +surely modify the modern enormity of unemployment, if any large number +of people were really living on the land, not merely in the sense of +sleeping on the land but of feeding on the land. There will be many who +maintain that this would mean a very dull life compared with the +excitements of dying in a workhouse in Liverpool; just as there are many +who insist that the average woman is made to drudge in the home, without +asking whether the average man exults in having to drudge in the office. +But passing over the fact that we may soon be faced with a problem at +least as prosaic as a famine, I do not admit that such a life is necessarily or entirely prosaic. Rustic populations, largely -self-supporting, seem to have amused themselves with a great -many mythologies and dances and decorative arts; and I am -not convinced that the turnip-eater always has a head like a -turnip or that the top-hat always covers the brain of a -philosopher. But if we look at the problem from the point of -view of the community as a whole, we shall note other and -not uninteresting things. A system based entirely on the -division of labour is in one sense literally half-witted. -That is, each performer of half of an operation does really -use only half of his wits. It is not a question in the -ordinary sense of intellect, and certainly not in the sense -of intellectualism. But it is a question of integrity, in -the strict sense of the word. The peasant does live, not -merely a simple life, but a complete life. It may be very -simple in its completeness, but the community is not -complete without that completeness. The community is at -present very defective because there is not in the core of -it any such simple consciousness; any one man who represents -the two parties to a contract. Unless there is, there is -nowhere a full understanding of those terms: self-support, -self-control, self-government. He is the only unanimous mob -and the only universal man. He is the one half of the world -which does know how the other half lives. - -Many must have quoted the stately tag from Virgil which -says, "Happy were he who could know the causes of things," -without remembering in what context it comes. Many have -probably quoted it because the others have quoted it. Many, -if left in ignorance to guess whence it comes, would -probably guess wrong. Everybody knows that Virgil, like -Homer, ventured to describe boldly enough the most secret -councils of the gods. Everybody knows that Virgil, like -Dante took his hero into Tartarus and the labyrinth of the -last and lowest foundations of the universe. Every one knows -that he dealt with the fall of Troy and the rise of Rome, -with the laws of an empire fitted to rule all the children -of men, with the ideals that should stand like stars before -men committed to that awful stewardship. Yet it is in none -of these connections, in none of these passages, that he -makes the curious remark about human happiness consisting in -a knowledge of causes. He says it, I fancy, in a pleasantly -didactic poem about the rules for keeping bees. Anyhow, it -is part of a series of elegant essays on country pursuits, -in one sense, indeed, trivial, but in another sense almost -technical. It is in the midst of these quiet and yet busy -things that the great poet suddenly breaks out into the -great passage, about the happy man whom neither kings nor -mobs can cow; who, having beheld the root and reason of all -things, can even hear under his feet, unshaken, the roar of -the river of hell. - -And in saying this, the poet certainly proves once more the -two great truths: that a poet is a prophet, and that a -prophet is a practical man. Just as his longing for a -deliverer of the nations was an unconscious prophecy of -Christ, so his criticism of town and country is an -unconscious prophecy of the decay that has come on the world -through falling away from Christianity. Much may be said -about the monstrosity of modern cities; it is easy to see -and perhaps a little too easy to say. I have every sympathy -with some wild-haired prophet who should lift up his voice -in the streets to proclaim the Burden of Brompton in the -manner of the Burden of Babylon. I will support (to the -extent of sixpence, as Carlyle said) any old man with a -beard who will wave his arms and call down fire from heaven -upon Bayswater. I quite agree that lions will howl in the -high places of Paddington; and I am entirely in favour of -jackals and vultures rearing their young in the ruins of the -Albert Hall. But in these cases, perhaps, the prophet is -less explicit than the poet. He does not tell us exactly -what is wrong with the town; but merely leaves it to our own -delicate intuitions, to infer from the sudden appearance of -wild unicorns trampling down our gardens, or a shower of -flaming serpents shooting over our heads through the sky -like a flight of arrows, or some such significant detail, -that there probably is something wrong. But if we wish in -another mood to know intellectually what it is that is wrong -with the city, and why it seems to be driving on to dooms -quite as unnatural and much more ugly, we shall certainly -find it in that profound and piercing irrelevancy of the +self-supporting, seem to have amused themselves with a great many +mythologies and dances and decorative arts; and I am not convinced that +the turnip-eater always has a head like a turnip or that the top-hat +always covers the brain of a philosopher. But if we look at the problem +from the point of view of the community as a whole, we shall note other +and not uninteresting things. A system based entirely on the division of +labour is in one sense literally half-witted. That is, each performer of +half of an operation does really use only half of his wits. It is not a +question in the ordinary sense of intellect, and certainly not in the +sense of intellectualism. But it is a question of integrity, in the +strict sense of the word. The peasant does live, not merely a simple +life, but a complete life. It may be very simple in its completeness, +but the community is not complete without that completeness. The +community is at present very defective because there is not in the core +of it any such simple consciousness; any one man who represents the two +parties to a contract. Unless there is, there is nowhere a full +understanding of those terms: self-support, self-control, +self-government. He is the only unanimous mob and the only universal +man. He is the one half of the world which does know how the other half +lives. + +Many must have quoted the stately tag from Virgil which says, "Happy +were he who could know the causes of things," without remembering in +what context it comes. Many have probably quoted it because the others +have quoted it. Many, if left in ignorance to guess whence it comes, +would probably guess wrong. Everybody knows that Virgil, like Homer, +ventured to describe boldly enough the most secret councils of the gods. +Everybody knows that Virgil, like Dante took his hero into Tartarus and +the labyrinth of the last and lowest foundations of the universe. Every +one knows that he dealt with the fall of Troy and the rise of Rome, with +the laws of an empire fitted to rule all the children of men, with the +ideals that should stand like stars before men committed to that awful +stewardship. Yet it is in none of these connections, in none of these +passages, that he makes the curious remark about human happiness +consisting in a knowledge of causes. He says it, I fancy, in a +pleasantly didactic poem about the rules for keeping bees. Anyhow, it is +part of a series of elegant essays on country pursuits, in one sense, +indeed, trivial, but in another sense almost technical. It is in the +midst of these quiet and yet busy things that the great poet suddenly +breaks out into the great passage, about the happy man whom neither +kings nor mobs can cow; who, having beheld the root and reason of all +things, can even hear under his feet, unshaken, the roar of the river of +hell. + +And in saying this, the poet certainly proves once more the two great +truths: that a poet is a prophet, and that a prophet is a practical man. +Just as his longing for a deliverer of the nations was an unconscious +prophecy of Christ, so his criticism of town and country is an +unconscious prophecy of the decay that has come on the world through +falling away from Christianity. Much may be said about the monstrosity +of modern cities; it is easy to see and perhaps a little too easy to +say. I have every sympathy with some wild-haired prophet who should lift +up his voice in the streets to proclaim the Burden of Brompton in the +manner of the Burden of Babylon. I will support (to the extent of +sixpence, as Carlyle said) any old man with a beard who will wave his +arms and call down fire from heaven upon Bayswater. I quite agree that +lions will howl in the high places of Paddington; and I am entirely in +favour of jackals and vultures rearing their young in the ruins of the +Albert Hall. But in these cases, perhaps, the prophet is less explicit +than the poet. He does not tell us exactly what is wrong with the town; +but merely leaves it to our own delicate intuitions, to infer from the +sudden appearance of wild unicorns trampling down our gardens, or a +shower of flaming serpents shooting over our heads through the sky like +a flight of arrows, or some such significant detail, that there probably +is something wrong. But if we wish in another mood to know +intellectually what it is that is wrong with the city, and why it seems +to be driving on to dooms quite as unnatural and much more ugly, we +shall certainly find it in that profound and piercing irrelevancy of the Latin line. -What is wrong with the man in the modern town is that he -does not know the causes of things; and that is why, as the -poet says, he can be too much dominated by despots and -demagogues. He does not know where things come from; he is -the type of the cultivated Cockney who said he liked milk -out of a clean shop and not a dirty cow. The more elaborate -is the town organization, the more elaborate even is the -town education, the less is he the happy man of Virgil who -knows the causes of things. The town civilization simply -means the number of shops through which the milk does pass -from the cow to the man; in other words, it means the number -of opportunities of wasting the milk, of watering the milk, -of poisoning the milk, and of swindling the man. If ever he -protests against being poisoned or swindled, he will -certainly be told that it is no good crying over spilt milk; -or, in other words, that it is reactionary sentimentalism to -attempt to undo what is done or to restore what is perished. -But he does not protest very much, because he cannot; and he -cannot because he does not know enough about the causes of -things---about the primary forms of property and production, -or the points where man is nearest to his natural origins. - -So far the fundamental fact is clear enough; and by this -time this side of the truth is even fairly familiar. A few -people are still ignorant enough to talk about the ignorant -peasant. But obviously in the essential sense it would be -far truer to talk about the ignorant townsman. Even where -the townsman is equally well employed, he is not in this -sense equally well informed. Indeed, we should see this -simple fact clearly enough, if it concerned almost anything -except the essentials of our life. If a geologist were -tapping with a geological hammer on the bricks of a -half-built house, and telling the bricklayers what the clay -was and where it came from, we might think him a nuisance; -but we should probably think him a learned nuisance. We -might prefer the workman's hammer to the geologist's hammer; -but we should admit that there were some things in the -geologist's head that did not happen to be in the workman's -head. Yet the yokel, or young man from the country, really -would know something about the origin of our breakfasts, as -does the professor about the origin of our bricks. Should we -see a grotesque medieval monster called a pig hung -topsy-turvy from a butcher's hook, like a huge bat from a -branch, it will be the young man from the country who will -soothe our fears and still our refined shrieks with some -account of the harmless habits of this fabulous animal, and -by tracing the strange and secret connection between it and -the rashers on the breakfast table. If a thunderbolt or -meteoric stone fell in front of us in the street, we might -have more sympathy with the policeman who wanted to remove -it from the thoroughfare than with the professor who wished -to stand in the middle of the thoroughfare, lecturing on the -constituent elements of the comet or nebula of which it was -a flying fragment. But though the policeman might be -justified in exclaiming (in the original Greek) "What are -the Pleiades to me?" even he would admit that more -information about the soil and strata of the Pleiades can be -obtained from a professor than from a policeman. So if some -strange and swollen monstrosity called a vegetable marrow -surprises us like a thunderbolt, let us not imagine that it -is so strange to the man who grows marrows as it is to us, -merely because his field and work seem to be as far away as -the Pleiades. Let us recognize that he is, after all, a -specialist on these mysterious marrows and prehistoric pigs; -and treat him like a learned man come from a foreign -university. England is now such a long way off from London -that its emissaries might at least be received with the -respect due to distinguished visitors from China or the -Cannibal Islands. But, anyhow, we need no longer talk of -them as merely ignorant, in talking of the very thing of -which we are ignorant ourselves. One man may think the -peasant's knowledge irrelevant, as another may think the -professor's irrelevant; but in both cases it is knowledge; -for it is knowledge of the causes of things. - -Most of us realize in some sense that this is true; but many -of us have not yet realized that the converse is also true. -And it is that other truth, when we have understood it, that -leads to the next necessary point about the full status of -the peasant. And the point is this: that the peasant also -will have but a partial experience if he grows things in the -country solely in order to sell them to the town. Of course, -it is only a joke to represent either the ignorance of town -or country as being so grotesque as I have suggested for the -sake of example. The townsman does not really think that -milk is rained from the clouds or that rashers grow on -trees, even when he is a little vague about vegetable -marrows. He knows something about it; but not enough to make -his advice of much value. The rustic does not really think -that milk is used as whitewash or marrows as bolsters, even -if he never actually sees them used. But if he is a mere -producer and not a consumer of them, his position does -become as partial as that of any Cockney clerk; nearly as -narrow and even more servile. Given the wonderful romance of -the vegetable marrow, it is a bad thing that the peasant -should only know the beginning of the story, as it is a bad -thing that the clerk should only know the end of it. - -I insert here this general suggestion for a particular -reason. Before we come to the practical expediency of the -peasant who consumes what he produces (and the reason for -thinking it, as Mr. Heseltine has urged, much more -practicable than the method by which he only sells what he -produces), I think it well to point out that this course, -while it is more expedient, is not a mere surrender to -expediency. It seems to me a very good thing, in theory as -well as practice, that there should be a body of citizens -primarily concerned in producing and consuming and not in -exchanging. It seems to me a part of our ideal, and not -merely a part of our compromise, that there should be in the -community a sort of core not only of simplicity but of -completeness. Exchange and variation can then be given their -reasonable place; as they were in the old world of fairs and -markets. But there would be somewhere in the centre of -civilization a type that was truly independent; in the sense -of producing and consuming within its own social circle. I -do not say that such a complete human life stands for a -complete humanity. I do not say that the State needs only -the man who needs nothing from the State. But I do say that -this man who supplies his own needs is very much needed. I -say it largely because of his absence from modern -civilization, that modern civilization has lost unity. It is -nobody's business to note the whole of a process, to see -where things come from and where they go to. Nobody follows -the whole winding course of the river of milk as it flows -from the cow to the baby. Nobody who is in at the death of -the pig is responsible for realizing that the proof of the -pig is in the eating. Men throw marrows at other men like -cannon balls; but they do not return to them like -boomerangs. We need a social circle in which things -constantly return to those that threw them; and men who know -the end and the beginning and the rounding of our little -life. +What is wrong with the man in the modern town is that he does not know +the causes of things; and that is why, as the poet says, he can be too +much dominated by despots and demagogues. He does not know where things +come from; he is the type of the cultivated Cockney who said he liked +milk out of a clean shop and not a dirty cow. The more elaborate is the +town organization, the more elaborate even is the town education, the +less is he the happy man of Virgil who knows the causes of things. The +town civilization simply means the number of shops through which the +milk does pass from the cow to the man; in other words, it means the +number of opportunities of wasting the milk, of watering the milk, of +poisoning the milk, and of swindling the man. If ever he protests +against being poisoned or swindled, he will certainly be told that it is +no good crying over spilt milk; or, in other words, that it is +reactionary sentimentalism to attempt to undo what is done or to restore +what is perished. But he does not protest very much, because he cannot; +and he cannot because he does not know enough about the causes of +things---about the primary forms of property and production, or the +points where man is nearest to his natural origins. + +So far the fundamental fact is clear enough; and by this time this side +of the truth is even fairly familiar. A few people are still ignorant +enough to talk about the ignorant peasant. But obviously in the +essential sense it would be far truer to talk about the ignorant +townsman. Even where the townsman is equally well employed, he is not in +this sense equally well informed. Indeed, we should see this simple fact +clearly enough, if it concerned almost anything except the essentials of +our life. If a geologist were tapping with a geological hammer on the +bricks of a half-built house, and telling the bricklayers what the clay +was and where it came from, we might think him a nuisance; but we should +probably think him a learned nuisance. We might prefer the workman's +hammer to the geologist's hammer; but we should admit that there were +some things in the geologist's head that did not happen to be in the +workman's head. Yet the yokel, or young man from the country, really +would know something about the origin of our breakfasts, as does the +professor about the origin of our bricks. Should we see a grotesque +medieval monster called a pig hung topsy-turvy from a butcher's hook, +like a huge bat from a branch, it will be the young man from the country +who will soothe our fears and still our refined shrieks with some +account of the harmless habits of this fabulous animal, and by tracing +the strange and secret connection between it and the rashers on the +breakfast table. If a thunderbolt or meteoric stone fell in front of us +in the street, we might have more sympathy with the policeman who wanted +to remove it from the thoroughfare than with the professor who wished to +stand in the middle of the thoroughfare, lecturing on the constituent +elements of the comet or nebula of which it was a flying fragment. But +though the policeman might be justified in exclaiming (in the original +Greek) "What are the Pleiades to me?" even he would admit that more +information about the soil and strata of the Pleiades can be obtained +from a professor than from a policeman. So if some strange and swollen +monstrosity called a vegetable marrow surprises us like a thunderbolt, +let us not imagine that it is so strange to the man who grows marrows as +it is to us, merely because his field and work seem to be as far away as +the Pleiades. Let us recognize that he is, after all, a specialist on +these mysterious marrows and prehistoric pigs; and treat him like a +learned man come from a foreign university. England is now such a long +way off from London that its emissaries might at least be received with +the respect due to distinguished visitors from China or the Cannibal +Islands. But, anyhow, we need no longer talk of them as merely ignorant, +in talking of the very thing of which we are ignorant ourselves. One man +may think the peasant's knowledge irrelevant, as another may think the +professor's irrelevant; but in both cases it is knowledge; for it is +knowledge of the causes of things. + +Most of us realize in some sense that this is true; but many of us have +not yet realized that the converse is also true. And it is that other +truth, when we have understood it, that leads to the next necessary +point about the full status of the peasant. And the point is this: that +the peasant also will have but a partial experience if he grows things +in the country solely in order to sell them to the town. Of course, it +is only a joke to represent either the ignorance of town or country as +being so grotesque as I have suggested for the sake of example. The +townsman does not really think that milk is rained from the clouds or +that rashers grow on trees, even when he is a little vague about +vegetable marrows. He knows something about it; but not enough to make +his advice of much value. The rustic does not really think that milk is +used as whitewash or marrows as bolsters, even if he never actually sees +them used. But if he is a mere producer and not a consumer of them, his +position does become as partial as that of any Cockney clerk; nearly as +narrow and even more servile. Given the wonderful romance of the +vegetable marrow, it is a bad thing that the peasant should only know +the beginning of the story, as it is a bad thing that the clerk should +only know the end of it. + +I insert here this general suggestion for a particular reason. Before we +come to the practical expediency of the peasant who consumes what he +produces (and the reason for thinking it, as Mr. Heseltine has urged, +much more practicable than the method by which he only sells what he +produces), I think it well to point out that this course, while it is +more expedient, is not a mere surrender to expediency. It seems to me a +very good thing, in theory as well as practice, that there should be a +body of citizens primarily concerned in producing and consuming and not +in exchanging. It seems to me a part of our ideal, and not merely a part +of our compromise, that there should be in the community a sort of core +not only of simplicity but of completeness. Exchange and variation can +then be given their reasonable place; as they were in the old world of +fairs and markets. But there would be somewhere in the centre of +civilization a type that was truly independent; in the sense of +producing and consuming within its own social circle. I do not say that +such a complete human life stands for a complete humanity. I do not say +that the State needs only the man who needs nothing from the State. But +I do say that this man who supplies his own needs is very much needed. I +say it largely because of his absence from modern civilization, that +modern civilization has lost unity. It is nobody's business to note the +whole of a process, to see where things come from and where they go to. +Nobody follows the whole winding course of the river of milk as it flows +from the cow to the baby. Nobody who is in at the death of the pig is +responsible for realizing that the proof of the pig is in the eating. +Men throw marrows at other men like cannon balls; but they do not return +to them like boomerangs. We need a social circle in which things +constantly return to those that threw them; and men who know the end and +the beginning and the rounding of our little life. # Some Aspects of Machinery ## The Wheel of Fate -The evil we are seeking to destroy clings about in corners -especially in the form of catch-phrases by which even the -intelligent can easily be caught. One phrase, which we may -hear from anybody at any moment, is the phrase that such and -such a modern institution has "come to stay." It is these -half-metaphors that tend to make us all half-witted. What is -precisely meant by the statement that the steam-engine or -the wireless apparatus has come to stay? What is meant, for -that matter, even by saying that the Eiffel Tower has come -to stay? To begin with, we obviously do not mean what we -mean when we use the words naturally; as in the expression, -"Uncle Humphrey has come to stay." That last sentence may be -uttered in tones of joy, or of resignation, or even of -despair; but not of despair in the sense that Uncle Humphrey -is really a monument that can never be moved. Uncle Humphrey -did come; and Uncle Humphrey will presumably at some time -go; it is even possible (however painful it may be to -imagine such domestic relations) that in the last resort he -should be made to go. The fact that the figure breaks down, -even apart from the reality it is supposed to represent, -illustrates how loosely these catch-words are used. But when -we say, "The Eiffel Tower has come to stay," we are still -more inaccurate. For, to begin with, the Eiffel Tower has -not come at all. There was never a moment when the Eiffel -Tower was seen striding towards Paris on its long iron legs -across the plains of France, as the giant in the glorious -nightmare of Rabelais came to tower over Paris and carry -away the bells of Notre-Dame. The figure of Uncle Humphrey -seen coming up the road may possibly strike as much terror -as any walking tower or towering giant; and the question -that may leap into every mind may be the question of whether -he has come to stay. But whether or no he has come to stay -he has certainly come. He has willed; he has propelled or -precipitated his body in a certain direction; he has -agitated his own legs; it is even possible (for we all know -what Uncle Humphrey is like) that he has insisted on -carrying his own portmanteau, to show the lazy young dogs -what he can still do at seventy-three. - -Now suppose that what had really happened was something like -this; something like a weird story of Hawthorne or Poe. -Suppose we ourselves had actually manufactured Uncle -Humphrey; had put him together, piece by piece, like a -mechanical doll. Suppose we had so ardently felt at the -moment the need of an uncle in our home life that we had -constructed him out of domestic materials, like a Guy for -the fifth of November. Taking, it may be, a turnip from the -kitchen-garden to represent his bald and venerable head; -permitting the water-butt, as it were, to suggest the lines -of his figure; stuffing a pair of trousers and attaching a -pair of boots, we could produce a complete and convincing -uncle of whom any family might be proud. Under those -conditions, it might be graceful enough to say, in the -merely social sense and as a sort of polite fiction, "Uncle -Humphrey has come to stay." But surely it would be very -extraordinary if we afterwards found the dummy relative was -nothing but a nuisance, or that his materials were needed -for other purposes---surely it would be very extraordinary -if we were then forbidden to take him to pieces again; if -every effort in that direction were met with the resolute -answer, "No, no; Uncle Humphrey has come to stay." Surely we -should be tempted to retort that Uncle Humphrey never came -at all. Suppose all the turnips were wanted for the -self-support of the peasant home. Suppose the water-butts -were wanted; let us hope for the purpose of holding beer. -Suppose the male members of the family refused any longer to -lend their trousers to an entirely imaginary relative. -Surely we should then see through the polite fiction that -led us to talk as if the uncle had "come," had come with an -intention, had remained with a purpose, and all the rest. -The thing we made did not come, and certainly did not come -to do anything, either to stay or to depart. - -Now no doubt most people even in the logical city of Paris -would say that the Eiffel Tower has come to stay. And no -doubt most people in the same city rather more than a -hundred years before would have said that the Bastille had -come to stay. But it did not stay; it left the neighbourhood -quite abruptly. In plain words, the Bastille was something -that man had made and, therefore, man could unmake. The -Eiffel Tower is something that man has made and man could -unmake; though perhaps we may think it practically probable -that some time will elapse before man will have the good -taste or good sense or even the common sanity to unmake it. -But this one little phrase about the thing "coming" is alone -enough to indicate something profoundly wrong about the very -working of men's minds on the subject. Obviously a man ought -to be saying, "I have made an electric battery. Shall I -smash it, or shall I make another?" Instead of that, he -seems to be bewitched by a sort of magic and stand staring -at the thing as if it were a seven-headed dragon; and he can -only say, "The electric battery has come. Has it come to -stay?" - -Before we begin any talk of the practical problem of -machinery, it is necessary to leave off thinking like -machines. It is necessary to begin at the beginning and -consider the end. Now we do not necessarily wish to destroy -every sort of machinery. But we do desire to destroy a -certain sort of mentality. And that is precisely the sort of -mentality that begins by telling us that nobody can destroy -machinery. Those who begin by saying that we cannot abolish -the machine, that we must use the machine, are themselves -refusing to use the mind. - -The aim of human polity is human happiness. For those -holding certain beliefs it is conditioned by the hope of a -larger happiness, which it must not imperil. But happiness, -the making glad of the heart of man, is the secular test and -the only realistic test. So far from this test, by the -talisman of the heart, being merely sentimental, it is the -only test that is in the least practical. There is no law of -logic or nature or anything else forcing us to prefer -anything else. There is no obligation on us to be richer, or -busier, or more efficient, or more productive, or more -progressive, or in any way worldlier or wealthier, if it -does not make us happier. Mankind has as much right to scrap -its machinery and live on the land, if it really likes it -better, as any man has to sell his old bicycle and go for a -walk, if he likes that better. It is obvious that the walk -will be slower; but he has no duty to be fast. And if it can -be shown that machinery has come into the world as a curse, -there is no reason whatever for our respecting it because it -is a marvellous and practical and productive curse. There is -no reason why we should not leave all its powers unused, if -we have really come to the conclusion that the powers do us -harm. The mere fact that we shall be missing a number of -interesting things would apply equally to any number of -impossible things. Machinery may be a magnificent sight, but -not so magnificent as a Great Fire of London; yet we resist -that vision and avert our eyes from all that potential -splendour. Machinery may not yet be at its best; and perhaps -lions and tigers will never be at their best, will never -make their most graceful leaps or show all their natural -splendours, until we erect an amphitheatre and give them a -few live people to eat. Yet that sight also is one which we -forbid ourselves, with whatever austere self-denial. We give -up so many glorious possibilities, in our stern and -strenuous and self-sacrificing preference for having a -tolerable time. Happiness, in a sense, is a hard taskmaster. -It tells us not to get entangled with many things that are -much more superficially attractive than machinery. But, -anyhow, it is necessary to clear our minds at the start of -any mere vague association or assumption to the effect that -we must go by the quickest train or cannot help using the -most productive instrument. Granted Mr. Penty's thesis of -the evil of machinery, as something like the evil of black -magic, and there is nothing in the least unpractical about -Mr. Penty's proposal that it should simply stop. A process -of invention would cease that might have gone further. But -its relative imperfection would be nothing compared with the -rudimentary state in which we have left such scientific -instruments as the rack and the thumbscrew. Those rude -implements of torture are clumsy compared with the finished -products that modern knowledge of physiology and mechanics -might have given us. Many a talented torturer is left in -obscurity by the moral prejudices of modern society. Nay, -his budding promise is now nipped even in childhood, when he -attempts to develop his natural genius on the flies or the -tail of the dog. Our own strong sentimental bias against -torture represses his noble rage and freezes the genial -current of his soul. But we reconcile ourselves to this; -though it be undoubtedly the loss of a whole science for -which many ingenious persons might have sought out many -inventions. If we really conclude that machinery is hostile -to happiness, then it is no more inevitable that all -ploughing should be done by machinery than it is inevitable -that a shop should do a roaring trade on Ludgate Hill by -selling the instruments of Chinese tortures. - -Let it be clearly understood that I note this only to make -the primary problem clear; I am not now saying, nor perhaps -should I ever say, that machinery has been proved to be -practically poisonous in this degree. I am only stating, in -answer to a hundred confused assumptions, the only ultimate -aim and test. If we can make men happier, it does not matter -if we make them poorer, it does not matter if we make them -less productive, it does not matter if we make them less -progressive, in the sense of merely changing their life -without increasing their liking for it. We of this school of -thought may or may not get what we want; but it is at least -necessary that we should know what we are trying to get. And -those who are called practical men never know what they are -trying to get. If machinery does prevent happiness, then it -is as futile to tell a man trying to make men happy that he -is neglecting the talents of Arkwright, as to tell a man -trying to make men humane that he is neglecting the tastes -of Nero. - -Now it is exactly those who have the clarity to imagine the -instant annihilation of machines who will probably have too -much common sense to annihilate them instantly. To go mad -and smash machinery is a more or less healthy and human -malady, as it was in the Luddites. But it was really owing -to the ignorance of the Luddites, in a very different sense -from that spoken of scornfully by the stupendous ignorance -of the Industrial Economists. It was blind revolt as against -some ancient and awful dragon, by men too ignorant to know -how artificial and even temporary was that particular -instrument, or where was the seat of the real tyrants who -wielded it. The real answer to the mechanical problem for -the present is of a different sort; and I will proceed to -suggest it, having once made clear the only methods of -judgment by which it can be judged. And having begun at the -right end, which is the ultimate spiritual standard by which -a man or a machine is to be valued, I will now begin at the -other end; I might say at the wrong end; but it will be more -respectful to our practical friends to call it the business -end. - -If I am asked what I should immediately do with a machine, I -have no doubt about the sort of practical programme that -could be a preliminary to a possible spiritual revolution of -a much wider sort. In so far as the machine cannot be -shared, I would have the ownership of it shared; that is, -the direction of it shared and the profits of it shared. But -when I say "shared" I mean it in the modern mercantile sense -of the word "shares." That is, I mean something divided and -not merely something pooled. Our business friends bustle -forward to tell us that all this is impossible; completely -unconscious, apparently, that all this part of the business -exists already. You cannot distribute a steam-engine, in the -sense of giving one wheel to each shareholder to take home -with him, clasped in his arms. But you not only can, but you -already do distribute the ownership and profit of the -steam-engine; and you distribute it in the form of private -property. Only you do not distribute it enough, or to the -right people, or to the people who really require it or -could really do work for it. Now there are many schemes -having this normal and general character; almost any one of -which I should prefer to the concentration presented by -capitalism or promised by communism. My own preference, on -the whole, would be that any such necessary machine should -be owned by a small local guild, on principles of -profit-sharing, or rather profit-dividing: but of real -profit-sharing and real profit-dividing, not to be -confounded with capitalist patronage. - -Touching the last point, it may be well to say in passing -that what I say about the problem of profit-sharing is in -that respect parallel to what I say also about the problem -of emigration. The real difficulty of starting it in the -right way is that it has so often been started in the wrong -way; and especially in the wrong spirit. There is a certain -amount of prejudice against profit-sharing, just as there is -a certain amount of prejudice against emigration, in the -industrial democracy of to-day. It is due in both cases to -the type and especially the tone of the proposals. I -entirely sympathize with the Trade Unionist who dislikes a -certain sort of condescending capitalist concession; and the -spirit which gives every man a place in the sun which turns -out to be a place in Port Sunlight. Similarly, I quite -sympathize with Mr. Kirkwood when he resented being lectured -about emigration by Sir Alfred Mond, to the extent of -saying, "The Scots will leave Scotland when the German Jews -leave England." But I think it would be possible to have a -more genuinely egalitarian emigration, with a positive -policy of self-government for the poor, to which -Mr. Kirkwood might be kind; and I think that profit-sharing -that began at the popular end, establishing first the -property of a guild and not merely the caprice of an -employer, would not contradict any true principle of Trades -Unions. For the moment, however, I am only saying that -something could be done with what lies nearest to us; quite -apart from our general ideal about the position of machinery -in an ideal social state. I understand what is meant by -saying that the ideal in both cases depends upon the wrong -ideals. But I do not understand what our critics mean by -saying that it is impossible to divide the shares and -profits in a machine among definite individuals. Any healthy -man in any historical period would have thought it a project -far more practicable than a Milk Trust. +The evil we are seeking to destroy clings about in corners especially in +the form of catch-phrases by which even the intelligent can easily be +caught. One phrase, which we may hear from anybody at any moment, is the +phrase that such and such a modern institution has "come to stay." It is +these half-metaphors that tend to make us all half-witted. What is +precisely meant by the statement that the steam-engine or the wireless +apparatus has come to stay? What is meant, for that matter, even by +saying that the Eiffel Tower has come to stay? To begin with, we +obviously do not mean what we mean when we use the words naturally; as +in the expression, "Uncle Humphrey has come to stay." That last sentence +may be uttered in tones of joy, or of resignation, or even of despair; +but not of despair in the sense that Uncle Humphrey is really a monument +that can never be moved. Uncle Humphrey did come; and Uncle Humphrey +will presumably at some time go; it is even possible (however painful it +may be to imagine such domestic relations) that in the last resort he +should be made to go. The fact that the figure breaks down, even apart +from the reality it is supposed to represent, illustrates how loosely +these catch-words are used. But when we say, "The Eiffel Tower has come +to stay," we are still more inaccurate. For, to begin with, the Eiffel +Tower has not come at all. There was never a moment when the Eiffel +Tower was seen striding towards Paris on its long iron legs across the +plains of France, as the giant in the glorious nightmare of Rabelais +came to tower over Paris and carry away the bells of Notre-Dame. The +figure of Uncle Humphrey seen coming up the road may possibly strike as +much terror as any walking tower or towering giant; and the question +that may leap into every mind may be the question of whether he has come +to stay. But whether or no he has come to stay he has certainly come. He +has willed; he has propelled or precipitated his body in a certain +direction; he has agitated his own legs; it is even possible (for we all +know what Uncle Humphrey is like) that he has insisted on carrying his +own portmanteau, to show the lazy young dogs what he can still do at +seventy-three. + +Now suppose that what had really happened was something like this; +something like a weird story of Hawthorne or Poe. Suppose we ourselves +had actually manufactured Uncle Humphrey; had put him together, piece by +piece, like a mechanical doll. Suppose we had so ardently felt at the +moment the need of an uncle in our home life that we had constructed him +out of domestic materials, like a Guy for the fifth of November. Taking, +it may be, a turnip from the kitchen-garden to represent his bald and +venerable head; permitting the water-butt, as it were, to suggest the +lines of his figure; stuffing a pair of trousers and attaching a pair of +boots, we could produce a complete and convincing uncle of whom any +family might be proud. Under those conditions, it might be graceful +enough to say, in the merely social sense and as a sort of polite +fiction, "Uncle Humphrey has come to stay." But surely it would be very +extraordinary if we afterwards found the dummy relative was nothing but +a nuisance, or that his materials were needed for other +purposes---surely it would be very extraordinary if we were then +forbidden to take him to pieces again; if every effort in that direction +were met with the resolute answer, "No, no; Uncle Humphrey has come to +stay." Surely we should be tempted to retort that Uncle Humphrey never +came at all. Suppose all the turnips were wanted for the self-support of +the peasant home. Suppose the water-butts were wanted; let us hope for +the purpose of holding beer. Suppose the male members of the family +refused any longer to lend their trousers to an entirely imaginary +relative. Surely we should then see through the polite fiction that led +us to talk as if the uncle had "come," had come with an intention, had +remained with a purpose, and all the rest. The thing we made did not +come, and certainly did not come to do anything, either to stay or to +depart. + +Now no doubt most people even in the logical city of Paris would say +that the Eiffel Tower has come to stay. And no doubt most people in the +same city rather more than a hundred years before would have said that +the Bastille had come to stay. But it did not stay; it left the +neighbourhood quite abruptly. In plain words, the Bastille was something +that man had made and, therefore, man could unmake. The Eiffel Tower is +something that man has made and man could unmake; though perhaps we may +think it practically probable that some time will elapse before man will +have the good taste or good sense or even the common sanity to unmake +it. But this one little phrase about the thing "coming" is alone enough +to indicate something profoundly wrong about the very working of men's +minds on the subject. Obviously a man ought to be saying, "I have made +an electric battery. Shall I smash it, or shall I make another?" Instead +of that, he seems to be bewitched by a sort of magic and stand staring +at the thing as if it were a seven-headed dragon; and he can only say, +"The electric battery has come. Has it come to stay?" + +Before we begin any talk of the practical problem of machinery, it is +necessary to leave off thinking like machines. It is necessary to begin +at the beginning and consider the end. Now we do not necessarily wish to +destroy every sort of machinery. But we do desire to destroy a certain +sort of mentality. And that is precisely the sort of mentality that +begins by telling us that nobody can destroy machinery. Those who begin +by saying that we cannot abolish the machine, that we must use the +machine, are themselves refusing to use the mind. + +The aim of human polity is human happiness. For those holding certain +beliefs it is conditioned by the hope of a larger happiness, which it +must not imperil. But happiness, the making glad of the heart of man, is +the secular test and the only realistic test. So far from this test, by +the talisman of the heart, being merely sentimental, it is the only test +that is in the least practical. There is no law of logic or nature or +anything else forcing us to prefer anything else. There is no obligation +on us to be richer, or busier, or more efficient, or more productive, or +more progressive, or in any way worldlier or wealthier, if it does not +make us happier. Mankind has as much right to scrap its machinery and +live on the land, if it really likes it better, as any man has to sell +his old bicycle and go for a walk, if he likes that better. It is +obvious that the walk will be slower; but he has no duty to be fast. And +if it can be shown that machinery has come into the world as a curse, +there is no reason whatever for our respecting it because it is a +marvellous and practical and productive curse. There is no reason why we +should not leave all its powers unused, if we have really come to the +conclusion that the powers do us harm. The mere fact that we shall be +missing a number of interesting things would apply equally to any number +of impossible things. Machinery may be a magnificent sight, but not so +magnificent as a Great Fire of London; yet we resist that vision and +avert our eyes from all that potential splendour. Machinery may not yet +be at its best; and perhaps lions and tigers will never be at their +best, will never make their most graceful leaps or show all their +natural splendours, until we erect an amphitheatre and give them a few +live people to eat. Yet that sight also is one which we forbid +ourselves, with whatever austere self-denial. We give up so many +glorious possibilities, in our stern and strenuous and self-sacrificing +preference for having a tolerable time. Happiness, in a sense, is a hard +taskmaster. It tells us not to get entangled with many things that are +much more superficially attractive than machinery. But, anyhow, it is +necessary to clear our minds at the start of any mere vague association +or assumption to the effect that we must go by the quickest train or +cannot help using the most productive instrument. Granted Mr. Penty's +thesis of the evil of machinery, as something like the evil of black +magic, and there is nothing in the least unpractical about Mr. Penty's +proposal that it should simply stop. A process of invention would cease +that might have gone further. But its relative imperfection would be +nothing compared with the rudimentary state in which we have left such +scientific instruments as the rack and the thumbscrew. Those rude +implements of torture are clumsy compared with the finished products +that modern knowledge of physiology and mechanics might have given us. +Many a talented torturer is left in obscurity by the moral prejudices of +modern society. Nay, his budding promise is now nipped even in +childhood, when he attempts to develop his natural genius on the flies +or the tail of the dog. Our own strong sentimental bias against torture +represses his noble rage and freezes the genial current of his soul. But +we reconcile ourselves to this; though it be undoubtedly the loss of a +whole science for which many ingenious persons might have sought out +many inventions. If we really conclude that machinery is hostile to +happiness, then it is no more inevitable that all ploughing should be +done by machinery than it is inevitable that a shop should do a roaring +trade on Ludgate Hill by selling the instruments of Chinese tortures. + +Let it be clearly understood that I note this only to make the primary +problem clear; I am not now saying, nor perhaps should I ever say, that +machinery has been proved to be practically poisonous in this degree. I +am only stating, in answer to a hundred confused assumptions, the only +ultimate aim and test. If we can make men happier, it does not matter if +we make them poorer, it does not matter if we make them less productive, +it does not matter if we make them less progressive, in the sense of +merely changing their life without increasing their liking for it. We of +this school of thought may or may not get what we want; but it is at +least necessary that we should know what we are trying to get. And those +who are called practical men never know what they are trying to get. If +machinery does prevent happiness, then it is as futile to tell a man +trying to make men happy that he is neglecting the talents of Arkwright, +as to tell a man trying to make men humane that he is neglecting the +tastes of Nero. + +Now it is exactly those who have the clarity to imagine the instant +annihilation of machines who will probably have too much common sense to +annihilate them instantly. To go mad and smash machinery is a more or +less healthy and human malady, as it was in the Luddites. But it was +really owing to the ignorance of the Luddites, in a very different sense +from that spoken of scornfully by the stupendous ignorance of the +Industrial Economists. It was blind revolt as against some ancient and +awful dragon, by men too ignorant to know how artificial and even +temporary was that particular instrument, or where was the seat of the +real tyrants who wielded it. The real answer to the mechanical problem +for the present is of a different sort; and I will proceed to suggest +it, having once made clear the only methods of judgment by which it can +be judged. And having begun at the right end, which is the ultimate +spiritual standard by which a man or a machine is to be valued, I will +now begin at the other end; I might say at the wrong end; but it will be +more respectful to our practical friends to call it the business end. + +If I am asked what I should immediately do with a machine, I have no +doubt about the sort of practical programme that could be a preliminary +to a possible spiritual revolution of a much wider sort. In so far as +the machine cannot be shared, I would have the ownership of it shared; +that is, the direction of it shared and the profits of it shared. But +when I say "shared" I mean it in the modern mercantile sense of the word +"shares." That is, I mean something divided and not merely something +pooled. Our business friends bustle forward to tell us that all this is +impossible; completely unconscious, apparently, that all this part of +the business exists already. You cannot distribute a steam-engine, in +the sense of giving one wheel to each shareholder to take home with him, +clasped in his arms. But you not only can, but you already do distribute +the ownership and profit of the steam-engine; and you distribute it in +the form of private property. Only you do not distribute it enough, or +to the right people, or to the people who really require it or could +really do work for it. Now there are many schemes having this normal and +general character; almost any one of which I should prefer to the +concentration presented by capitalism or promised by communism. My own +preference, on the whole, would be that any such necessary machine +should be owned by a small local guild, on principles of profit-sharing, +or rather profit-dividing: but of real profit-sharing and real +profit-dividing, not to be confounded with capitalist patronage. + +Touching the last point, it may be well to say in passing that what I +say about the problem of profit-sharing is in that respect parallel to +what I say also about the problem of emigration. The real difficulty of +starting it in the right way is that it has so often been started in the +wrong way; and especially in the wrong spirit. There is a certain amount +of prejudice against profit-sharing, just as there is a certain amount +of prejudice against emigration, in the industrial democracy of to-day. +It is due in both cases to the type and especially the tone of the +proposals. I entirely sympathize with the Trade Unionist who dislikes a +certain sort of condescending capitalist concession; and the spirit +which gives every man a place in the sun which turns out to be a place +in Port Sunlight. Similarly, I quite sympathize with Mr. Kirkwood when +he resented being lectured about emigration by Sir Alfred Mond, to the +extent of saying, "The Scots will leave Scotland when the German Jews +leave England." But I think it would be possible to have a more +genuinely egalitarian emigration, with a positive policy of +self-government for the poor, to which Mr. Kirkwood might be kind; and I +think that profit-sharing that began at the popular end, establishing +first the property of a guild and not merely the caprice of an employer, +would not contradict any true principle of Trades Unions. For the +moment, however, I am only saying that something could be done with what +lies nearest to us; quite apart from our general ideal about the +position of machinery in an ideal social state. I understand what is +meant by saying that the ideal in both cases depends upon the wrong +ideals. But I do not understand what our critics mean by saying that it +is impossible to divide the shares and profits in a machine among +definite individuals. Any healthy man in any historical period would +have thought it a project far more practicable than a Milk Trust. ## The Romance of Machinery -I have repeatedly asked the reader to remember that my -general view of our potential future divides itself into two -parts. First, there is the policy of reversing, or even -merely of resisting, the modern tendency to monopoly or the -concentration of capital. Let it be noted that this is a -policy because it is a direction, if pursued in any degree. -In one sense, indeed, he who is not with us is against us; -because if that tendency is not resisted, it will prevail. -But in another sense anyone who resists it at all is with -us; even if he would not go so far in the reversal as we -should. In trying to reverse the concentration at all, he is -helping us to do what nobody has done yet. He will be -setting himself against the trend of his age, or at least of -recent ages. And a man can work in our direction, instead of -the existing and contrary direction, even with the existing -and perhaps contrary machinery. Even while we remain -industrial, we can work towards industrial distribution and -away from industrial monopoly. Even while we live in town -houses, we can own town houses. Even while we are a nation -of shopkeepers, we can try to own our shops. Even while we -are the workshop of the world, we can try to own our tools. -Even if our town is covered with advertisements, it can be -covered with different advertisements. If the mark of our -whole society is the trade-mark, it need not be the same -trade-mark. In short, there is a perfectly tenable and -practicable policy of resisting mercantile monopoly even in -a mercantile state. And we say that a great many people -ought to support us in that, who might not agree with our -ultimate ideal of a state that should not be mercantile---or -rather a state that should not be entirely mercantile. We -cannot call on England as a nation of peasants, as France or -Serbia is a nation of peasants. But we can call on England -that has been a nation of shopkeepers to resist being turned -into one big Yankee store. - -That is why in beginning here the discussion of machinery I -pointed out, first, that in the ultimate sense we are free -to destroy machinery; and second, that in the immediate -sense it is possible to divide the ownership of machinery. -And I should say myself that even in a healthy state there -would be some ownership of machinery to divide. But when we -come to consider that larger test, we must say something -about the definition of machinery, and even the ideal of -machinery. Now I have a great deal of sympathy with what I -may call the sentimental argument for machinery. Of all the -critics who have rebuked us, the man I like best is the -engineer who says: "But I do like machinery---just as you -like mythology. Why should I have my toys taken away any -more than you?" And of the various positions that I have to -meet, I will begin with his. Now on a previous page I said I -agreed with Mr. Penty that it would be a human right to -abandon machinery altogether. I will add here that I do not -agree with Mr. Penty in thinking machinery like magic---a -mere malignant power or origin of evils. It seems to me -quite as materialistic to be damned by a machine as saved by -a machine. It seems to me quite as idolatrous to blaspheme -it as to worship it. But even supposing that somebody, -without worshipping it, is yet enjoying it imaginatively and -in some sense mystically, the case as we state it still -stands. - -Nobody would be more really unsuitable to the machine age -than a man who really admired machines. The modern system -presupposes people who will take mechanism mechanically; not -people who will take it mystically. An amusing story might -be written about a poet who was really appreciative of the -fairy-tales of science, and who found himself more of an -obstacle in the scientific civilization than if he had -delayed it by telling the fairy-tales of infancy. Suppose -whenever he went to the telephone (bowing three times as he -approached the shrine of the disembodied oracle and -murmuring some appropriate form of words such as *vox et +I have repeatedly asked the reader to remember that my general view of +our potential future divides itself into two parts. First, there is the +policy of reversing, or even merely of resisting, the modern tendency to +monopoly or the concentration of capital. Let it be noted that this is a +policy because it is a direction, if pursued in any degree. In one +sense, indeed, he who is not with us is against us; because if that +tendency is not resisted, it will prevail. But in another sense anyone +who resists it at all is with us; even if he would not go so far in the +reversal as we should. In trying to reverse the concentration at all, he +is helping us to do what nobody has done yet. He will be setting himself +against the trend of his age, or at least of recent ages. And a man can +work in our direction, instead of the existing and contrary direction, +even with the existing and perhaps contrary machinery. Even while we +remain industrial, we can work towards industrial distribution and away +from industrial monopoly. Even while we live in town houses, we can own +town houses. Even while we are a nation of shopkeepers, we can try to +own our shops. Even while we are the workshop of the world, we can try +to own our tools. Even if our town is covered with advertisements, it +can be covered with different advertisements. If the mark of our whole +society is the trade-mark, it need not be the same trade-mark. In short, +there is a perfectly tenable and practicable policy of resisting +mercantile monopoly even in a mercantile state. And we say that a great +many people ought to support us in that, who might not agree with our +ultimate ideal of a state that should not be mercantile---or rather a +state that should not be entirely mercantile. We cannot call on England +as a nation of peasants, as France or Serbia is a nation of peasants. +But we can call on England that has been a nation of shopkeepers to +resist being turned into one big Yankee store. + +That is why in beginning here the discussion of machinery I pointed out, +first, that in the ultimate sense we are free to destroy machinery; and +second, that in the immediate sense it is possible to divide the +ownership of machinery. And I should say myself that even in a healthy +state there would be some ownership of machinery to divide. But when we +come to consider that larger test, we must say something about the +definition of machinery, and even the ideal of machinery. Now I have a +great deal of sympathy with what I may call the sentimental argument for +machinery. Of all the critics who have rebuked us, the man I like best +is the engineer who says: "But I do like machinery---just as you like +mythology. Why should I have my toys taken away any more than you?" And +of the various positions that I have to meet, I will begin with his. Now +on a previous page I said I agreed with Mr. Penty that it would be a +human right to abandon machinery altogether. I will add here that I do +not agree with Mr. Penty in thinking machinery like magic---a mere +malignant power or origin of evils. It seems to me quite as +materialistic to be damned by a machine as saved by a machine. It seems +to me quite as idolatrous to blaspheme it as to worship it. But even +supposing that somebody, without worshipping it, is yet enjoying it +imaginatively and in some sense mystically, the case as we state it +still stands. + +Nobody would be more really unsuitable to the machine age than a man who +really admired machines. The modern system presupposes people who will +take mechanism mechanically; not people who will take it mystically. An +amusing story might be written about a poet who was really appreciative +of the fairy-tales of science, and who found himself more of an obstacle +in the scientific civilization than if he had delayed it by telling the +fairy-tales of infancy. Suppose whenever he went to the telephone +(bowing three times as he approached the shrine of the disembodied +oracle and murmuring some appropriate form of words such as *vox et praeterea nihil*), he were to act as if he really valued the -significance of the instrument. Suppose he were to fall into -a trembling ecstasy on hearing from a distant exchange the -voice of an unknown young woman in a remote town, were to -linger upon the very real wonder of that momentary meeting -in mid-air with a human spirit whom he would never see on -earth, were to speculate on her life and personality, so -real and yet so remote from his own, were to pause to ask a -few personal questions about her, just sufficient to -accentuate her human strangeness, were to ask whether she -also had not some sense of this weird psychical -*tête-à-tête,* created and dissolved in an instant, whether -she also thought of those unthinkable leagues of valley and -forest that lay between the moving mouth and the listening -ear---suppose, in short, he were to say all this to the lady -at the Exchange who was just about to put him on to 666 -Upper Tooting. He would be really and truly expressing the -sentiment, "Wonderful thing, the telephone!"; and, unlike -the thousands who say it, he would actually mean it. He -would be really and truly justifying the great scientific -discoveries and doing honour to the great scientific -inventors. He would indeed be the worthy son of a scientific -age. And yet I fear that in a scientific age he would -possibly be misunderstood, and even suffer from lack of -sympathy. I fear that he would, in fact, be in practice an -opponent of all that he desired to uphold. He would be a -worse enemy of machinery than any Luddite smashing machines. -He would obstruct the activities of the telephone exchange, -by praising the beauties of the telephone, more than if he -had sat down, like a more normal and traditional poet, to -tell all those bustling business people about the beauties -of a wayside flower. - -It would of course be the same with any adventure of the -same luckless admiration. If a philosopher, when taken for -the first time for a ride in a motor-car, were to fall into -such an enthusiasm for the marvel that he insisted on -understanding the whole of the mechanism on the spot, it is -probable that he would have got to his destination rather -quicker if he had walked. If he were, in his simple zeal, to -insist on the machine being taken to pieces in the road, -that he might rejoice in the inmost secrets of its -structure, he might even lose his popularity with the garage -taxi-driver or chauffeur. Now we have all known children, -for instance, who did really in this fashion want to see -wheels go round. But though their attitude may bring them -nearest to the kingdom of heaven, it does not necessarily -bring them nearer to the end of the journey. They are -admiring motors; but they are not motoring---that is, they -are not necessarily moving. They are not serving that -purpose which motoring was meant to serve. Now as a matter -of fact this contradiction has ended in a congestion; and a -sort of stagnant state of the spirit in which there is -rather less real appreciation of the marvels of man's -invention than if the poet confined himself to making a -penny whistle (on which to pipe in the woods of Arcady) or -the child confined himself to making a toy bow or a -catapult. The child really is happy with a beautiful -happiness every time he lets fly an arrow. It is by no means -certain that the business man is happy with a beautiful -happiness every time he sends off a telegram. The very name -of a telegram is a poem, even more magical than the arrow; -for it means a dart, and a dart that writes. Think what the -child would feel if he could shoot a pencil-arrow that drew -a picture at the other end of the valley or the long street. -Yet the business man but seldom dances and claps his hands -for joy, at the thought of this, whenever he sends a -telegram. - -Now this has a considerable relevancy to the real criticism -of the modern mechanical civilization. Its supporters are -always telling us of its marvellous inventions and proving -that they are marvellous improvements. But it is highly -doubtful whether they really feel them as improvements. For -instance, I have heard it said a hundred times that glass is -an excellent illustration of the way in which something -becomes a convenience for everybody. "Look at glass in -windows," they say; "that has been turned into a mere -necessity; yet that also was once a luxury." And I always -feel disposed to answer, "Yes, and it would be better for -people like you if it were still a luxury; if that would -induce you to look at it, and not only to look through it. -Do you ever consider how magical a thing is that invisible -film standing between you and the birds and the wind? Do you -ever think of it as water hung in the air or a flattened -diamond too clear to be even valued? Do you ever feel a -window as a sudden opening in a wall? And if you do not, -what is the good of glass to you?" This may be a little -exaggerated, in the heat of the moment, but it is really -true that in these things invention outstrips imagination. -Humanity has not got the good out of its own inventions; and -by making more and more inventions, it is only leaving its -own power of happiness further and further behind. - -I remarked in an earlier part of this particular meditation -that machinery was not necessarily evil, and that there were -some who valued it in the right spirit, but that most of -those who had to do with it never had a chance of valuing it -at all. A poet might enjoy a clock as a child enjoys a -musical-box. But the actual clerk who looks at the actual -clock, to see that he is just in time to catch the train for -the city, is no more enjoying machinery than he is enjoying -music. There may be something to be said for mechanical -toys; but modern society is a mechanism and not a toy. The -child indeed is a good test in these matters; and -illustrates both the fact that there is an interest in -machinery and the fact that machinery itself generally -prevents us from being interested. It is almost a proverb -that every little boy wants to be an engine-driver. But -machinery has not multiplied the number of engine-drivers, -so as to allow all little boys to drive engines. It has not -given each little boy a real engine, as his family might -give him a toy engine. The effect of railways on a -population cannot be to produce a population of -engine-drivers. It can only produce a population of -passengers; and of passengers a little too like packages. In -other words, its only effect on the visionary or potential -engine-driver is to put him inside the train, where he -cannot see the engine, instead of outside the train where he -can. And though he grows up to the greatest and most -glorious success in life, and swindles the widow and orphan -till he can travel in a first-class carriage specially -reserved, with a permanent pass to the International -Congress of Cosmopolitan World Peace for Wire-Pullers, he -will never perhaps enjoy a railway train again, he will -never even see a railway train again, as he saw it when he -stood as a ragged urchin and waved wildly from a grassy bank -at the passage of the Scotch Express. - -We may transfer the parable from engine-drivers to -engineers. It may be that the driver of the Scotch Express -hurls himself forward in a fury of speed because his heart -is in the Highlands, his heart is not here; that he spurns -the Border behind him with a gesture and hails the Grampians -before him with a cheer. And whether or no it is true that -the engine-driver's heart is in the Highlands, it is -sometimes true that the little boy's heart is in the engine. -But it is by no means true that passengers as a whole, -travelling behind engines as a whole, enjoy the speed in a -positive sense, though they may approve of it in a negative -sense. I mean that they wish to travel swiftly, not because -swift travelling is enjoyable, but because it is not -enjoyable. They want it rushed through; not because being -behind the railway-engine is a rapture, but because being in -the railway-carriage is a bore. In the same way, if we -consider the joy of engineers, we must remember that there -is only one joyful engineer to a thousand bored victims of -engineering. The discussion that raged between Mr. Penty and -others at one time threatened to resolve itself into a feud -between engineers and architects. But when the engineer asks -us to forget all the monotony and materialism of a -mechanical age because his own science has some of the -inspiration of an art, the architect may well be ready with -a reply. For this is very much as if architects were never -engaged in anything but the building of prisons and lunatic -asylums. It is as if they told us proudly with what -passionate and poetical enthusiasm they had themselves -reared towers high enough for the hanging of Haman or dug -dungeons impenetrable enough for the starving of Ugolino. - -Now I have already explained that I do not propose anything -in what some call the practical way, but should rather be -called the immediate way, beyond the better distribution of -the ownership of such machines as are really found to be -necessary. But when we come to the larger question of -machinery in a fundamentally different sort of society, -governed by our philosophy and religion, there is a great -deal more to be said. The best and shortest way of saying it -is that instead of the machine being a giant to which the -man is a pygmy, we must at least reverse the proportions -until man is a giant to whom the machine is a toy. Granted -that idea, and we have no reason to deny that it might be a -legitimate and enlivening toy. In that sense it would not -matter if every child were an engine-driver or (better -still) every engine-driver a child. But those who were -always taunting us with unpracticality will at least admit -that this is not practical. - -I have thus tried to put myself fairly in the position of -the enthusiast, as we should always do in judging of -enthusiasms. And I think it will be agreed that even after -the experiment a real difference between the engineering -enthusiasm and older enthusiasms remains as a fact of common -sense. Admitting that the man who designs a steam-engine is -as original as the man who designs a statue, there is an -immediate and immense difference in the effects of what they -design. The original statue is a joy to the sculptor; but it -is also in some degree (when it is not too original) a joy -to the people who see the statue. Or at any rate it is meant -to be a joy to other people seeing it, or there would be no -point in letting it be seen. But though the engine may be a -great joy to the engineer and of great use to the other -people, it is not, and it is not meant to be, in the same -sense a great joy to the other people. Nor is this because -of a deficiency in education, as some of the artists might -allege in the case of art. It is involved in the very nature -of machinery; which, when once it is established, consists -of repetitions and not of variations and surprises. A man -can see something in the limbs of a statue which he never -saw before; they may seem to toss or sweep as they never did -before; but he would not only be astonished but alarmed if -the wheels of the steam-engine began to behave as they never -did before. We may take it, therefore, as an essential and -not an accidental character of machinery that it is an -inspiration for the inventor but merely a monotony for the -consumer. - -This being so, it seems to me that in an ideal state -engineering would be the exception, just as the delight in -engines is the exception. As it is, engineering and engines -are the rule; and are even a grinding and oppressive rule. -The lifelessness which the machine imposes on the masses is -an infinitely bigger and more obvious fact than the -individual interest of the man who makes machines. Having -reached this point in the argument, we may well compare it -with what may be called the practical aspect of the problem -of machinery. Now it seems to me obvious that machinery, as -it exists to-day, has gone almost as much beyond its -practical sphere as it has beyond its imaginative sphere. -The whole of industrial society is founded on the notion -that the quickest and cheapest thing is to carry coals to -Newcastle; even if it be only with the object of afterwards -carrying them from Newcastle. It is founded on the idea that -rapid and regular transit and transport, perpetual -interchange of goods, and incessant communication between -remote places, is of all things the most economical and -direct. But it is not true that the quickest and cheapest -thing, for a man who has just pulled an apple from an apple -tree, is to send it in a consignment of apples on a train -that goes like a thunderbolt to a market at the other end of -England. The quickest and cheapest thing for a man who has -pulled a fruit from a tree is to put it in his mouth. He is -the supreme economist who wastes no money on railway -journeys. He is the absolute type of efficiency who is far -too efficient to go in for organization. And though he is, -of course, an extreme and ideal case of simplification, the -case for simplification does stand as solid as an apple -tree. In so far as men can produce their own goods on the -spot, they are saving the community a vast expenditure which -is often quite out of proportion to the return. In so far as -we can establish a considerable proportion of simple and -self-supporting people, we are relieving the pressure of -what is often a wasteful as well as a harassing process. And -taking this as a general outline of the reform, it does -appear true that a simpler life in large areas of the -community might leave machinery more or less as an -exceptional thing; as it may well be to the exceptional man -who really puts his soul into it. - -There are difficulties in this view; but for the moment I -may well take as an illustration the parallel of the -particular sort of modern engineering which moderns are very -fond of denouncing. They often forget that most of their -praise of scientific instruments applies most vividly to -scientific weapons. If we are to have so much pity for the -unhappy genius who has just invented a new galvanometer, -what about the poor genius who has just invented a new gun? -If there is a real imaginative inspiration in the making of -a steam-engine, is there not imaginative interest in the -making of a submarine? Yet many modern admirers of science -would be very anxious to abolish these machines altogether; -even in the very act of telling us that we cannot abolish -machines at all. As I believe in the right of national -self-defence, I would not abolish them altogether. But I -think they may give us a hint of how exceptional things may -be treated exceptionally. For the moment I will leave the -progressive to laugh at my absurd notion of a limitation of -machines, and go off to a meeting to demand the limitation -of armaments. +significance of the instrument. Suppose he were to fall into a trembling +ecstasy on hearing from a distant exchange the voice of an unknown young +woman in a remote town, were to linger upon the very real wonder of that +momentary meeting in mid-air with a human spirit whom he would never see +on earth, were to speculate on her life and personality, so real and yet +so remote from his own, were to pause to ask a few personal questions +about her, just sufficient to accentuate her human strangeness, were to +ask whether she also had not some sense of this weird psychical +*tête-à-tête,* created and dissolved in an instant, whether she also +thought of those unthinkable leagues of valley and forest that lay +between the moving mouth and the listening ear---suppose, in short, he +were to say all this to the lady at the Exchange who was just about to +put him on to 666 Upper Tooting. He would be really and truly expressing +the sentiment, "Wonderful thing, the telephone!"; and, unlike the +thousands who say it, he would actually mean it. He would be really and +truly justifying the great scientific discoveries and doing honour to +the great scientific inventors. He would indeed be the worthy son of a +scientific age. And yet I fear that in a scientific age he would +possibly be misunderstood, and even suffer from lack of sympathy. I fear +that he would, in fact, be in practice an opponent of all that he +desired to uphold. He would be a worse enemy of machinery than any +Luddite smashing machines. He would obstruct the activities of the +telephone exchange, by praising the beauties of the telephone, more than +if he had sat down, like a more normal and traditional poet, to tell all +those bustling business people about the beauties of a wayside flower. + +It would of course be the same with any adventure of the same luckless +admiration. If a philosopher, when taken for the first time for a ride +in a motor-car, were to fall into such an enthusiasm for the marvel that +he insisted on understanding the whole of the mechanism on the spot, it +is probable that he would have got to his destination rather quicker if +he had walked. If he were, in his simple zeal, to insist on the machine +being taken to pieces in the road, that he might rejoice in the inmost +secrets of its structure, he might even lose his popularity with the +garage taxi-driver or chauffeur. Now we have all known children, for +instance, who did really in this fashion want to see wheels go round. +But though their attitude may bring them nearest to the kingdom of +heaven, it does not necessarily bring them nearer to the end of the +journey. They are admiring motors; but they are not motoring---that is, +they are not necessarily moving. They are not serving that purpose which +motoring was meant to serve. Now as a matter of fact this contradiction +has ended in a congestion; and a sort of stagnant state of the spirit in +which there is rather less real appreciation of the marvels of man's +invention than if the poet confined himself to making a penny whistle +(on which to pipe in the woods of Arcady) or the child confined himself +to making a toy bow or a catapult. The child really is happy with a +beautiful happiness every time he lets fly an arrow. It is by no means +certain that the business man is happy with a beautiful happiness every +time he sends off a telegram. The very name of a telegram is a poem, +even more magical than the arrow; for it means a dart, and a dart that +writes. Think what the child would feel if he could shoot a pencil-arrow +that drew a picture at the other end of the valley or the long street. +Yet the business man but seldom dances and claps his hands for joy, at +the thought of this, whenever he sends a telegram. + +Now this has a considerable relevancy to the real criticism of the +modern mechanical civilization. Its supporters are always telling us of +its marvellous inventions and proving that they are marvellous +improvements. But it is highly doubtful whether they really feel them as +improvements. For instance, I have heard it said a hundred times that +glass is an excellent illustration of the way in which something becomes +a convenience for everybody. "Look at glass in windows," they say; "that +has been turned into a mere necessity; yet that also was once a luxury." +And I always feel disposed to answer, "Yes, and it would be better for +people like you if it were still a luxury; if that would induce you to +look at it, and not only to look through it. Do you ever consider how +magical a thing is that invisible film standing between you and the +birds and the wind? Do you ever think of it as water hung in the air or +a flattened diamond too clear to be even valued? Do you ever feel a +window as a sudden opening in a wall? And if you do not, what is the +good of glass to you?" This may be a little exaggerated, in the heat of +the moment, but it is really true that in these things invention +outstrips imagination. Humanity has not got the good out of its own +inventions; and by making more and more inventions, it is only leaving +its own power of happiness further and further behind. + +I remarked in an earlier part of this particular meditation that +machinery was not necessarily evil, and that there were some who valued +it in the right spirit, but that most of those who had to do with it +never had a chance of valuing it at all. A poet might enjoy a clock as a +child enjoys a musical-box. But the actual clerk who looks at the actual +clock, to see that he is just in time to catch the train for the city, +is no more enjoying machinery than he is enjoying music. There may be +something to be said for mechanical toys; but modern society is a +mechanism and not a toy. The child indeed is a good test in these +matters; and illustrates both the fact that there is an interest in +machinery and the fact that machinery itself generally prevents us from +being interested. It is almost a proverb that every little boy wants to +be an engine-driver. But machinery has not multiplied the number of +engine-drivers, so as to allow all little boys to drive engines. It has +not given each little boy a real engine, as his family might give him a +toy engine. The effect of railways on a population cannot be to produce +a population of engine-drivers. It can only produce a population of +passengers; and of passengers a little too like packages. In other +words, its only effect on the visionary or potential engine-driver is to +put him inside the train, where he cannot see the engine, instead of +outside the train where he can. And though he grows up to the greatest +and most glorious success in life, and swindles the widow and orphan +till he can travel in a first-class carriage specially reserved, with a +permanent pass to the International Congress of Cosmopolitan World Peace +for Wire-Pullers, he will never perhaps enjoy a railway train again, he +will never even see a railway train again, as he saw it when he stood as +a ragged urchin and waved wildly from a grassy bank at the passage of +the Scotch Express. + +We may transfer the parable from engine-drivers to engineers. It may be +that the driver of the Scotch Express hurls himself forward in a fury of +speed because his heart is in the Highlands, his heart is not here; that +he spurns the Border behind him with a gesture and hails the Grampians +before him with a cheer. And whether or no it is true that the +engine-driver's heart is in the Highlands, it is sometimes true that the +little boy's heart is in the engine. But it is by no means true that +passengers as a whole, travelling behind engines as a whole, enjoy the +speed in a positive sense, though they may approve of it in a negative +sense. I mean that they wish to travel swiftly, not because swift +travelling is enjoyable, but because it is not enjoyable. They want it +rushed through; not because being behind the railway-engine is a +rapture, but because being in the railway-carriage is a bore. In the +same way, if we consider the joy of engineers, we must remember that +there is only one joyful engineer to a thousand bored victims of +engineering. The discussion that raged between Mr. Penty and others at +one time threatened to resolve itself into a feud between engineers and +architects. But when the engineer asks us to forget all the monotony and +materialism of a mechanical age because his own science has some of the +inspiration of an art, the architect may well be ready with a reply. For +this is very much as if architects were never engaged in anything but +the building of prisons and lunatic asylums. It is as if they told us +proudly with what passionate and poetical enthusiasm they had themselves +reared towers high enough for the hanging of Haman or dug dungeons +impenetrable enough for the starving of Ugolino. + +Now I have already explained that I do not propose anything in what some +call the practical way, but should rather be called the immediate way, +beyond the better distribution of the ownership of such machines as are +really found to be necessary. But when we come to the larger question of +machinery in a fundamentally different sort of society, governed by our +philosophy and religion, there is a great deal more to be said. The best +and shortest way of saying it is that instead of the machine being a +giant to which the man is a pygmy, we must at least reverse the +proportions until man is a giant to whom the machine is a toy. Granted +that idea, and we have no reason to deny that it might be a legitimate +and enlivening toy. In that sense it would not matter if every child +were an engine-driver or (better still) every engine-driver a child. But +those who were always taunting us with unpracticality will at least +admit that this is not practical. + +I have thus tried to put myself fairly in the position of the +enthusiast, as we should always do in judging of enthusiasms. And I +think it will be agreed that even after the experiment a real difference +between the engineering enthusiasm and older enthusiasms remains as a +fact of common sense. Admitting that the man who designs a steam-engine +is as original as the man who designs a statue, there is an immediate +and immense difference in the effects of what they design. The original +statue is a joy to the sculptor; but it is also in some degree (when it +is not too original) a joy to the people who see the statue. Or at any +rate it is meant to be a joy to other people seeing it, or there would +be no point in letting it be seen. But though the engine may be a great +joy to the engineer and of great use to the other people, it is not, and +it is not meant to be, in the same sense a great joy to the other +people. Nor is this because of a deficiency in education, as some of the +artists might allege in the case of art. It is involved in the very +nature of machinery; which, when once it is established, consists of +repetitions and not of variations and surprises. A man can see something +in the limbs of a statue which he never saw before; they may seem to +toss or sweep as they never did before; but he would not only be +astonished but alarmed if the wheels of the steam-engine began to behave +as they never did before. We may take it, therefore, as an essential and +not an accidental character of machinery that it is an inspiration for +the inventor but merely a monotony for the consumer. + +This being so, it seems to me that in an ideal state engineering would +be the exception, just as the delight in engines is the exception. As it +is, engineering and engines are the rule; and are even a grinding and +oppressive rule. The lifelessness which the machine imposes on the +masses is an infinitely bigger and more obvious fact than the individual +interest of the man who makes machines. Having reached this point in the +argument, we may well compare it with what may be called the practical +aspect of the problem of machinery. Now it seems to me obvious that +machinery, as it exists to-day, has gone almost as much beyond its +practical sphere as it has beyond its imaginative sphere. The whole of +industrial society is founded on the notion that the quickest and +cheapest thing is to carry coals to Newcastle; even if it be only with +the object of afterwards carrying them from Newcastle. It is founded on +the idea that rapid and regular transit and transport, perpetual +interchange of goods, and incessant communication between remote places, +is of all things the most economical and direct. But it is not true that +the quickest and cheapest thing, for a man who has just pulled an apple +from an apple tree, is to send it in a consignment of apples on a train +that goes like a thunderbolt to a market at the other end of England. +The quickest and cheapest thing for a man who has pulled a fruit from a +tree is to put it in his mouth. He is the supreme economist who wastes +no money on railway journeys. He is the absolute type of efficiency who +is far too efficient to go in for organization. And though he is, of +course, an extreme and ideal case of simplification, the case for +simplification does stand as solid as an apple tree. In so far as men +can produce their own goods on the spot, they are saving the community a +vast expenditure which is often quite out of proportion to the return. +In so far as we can establish a considerable proportion of simple and +self-supporting people, we are relieving the pressure of what is often a +wasteful as well as a harassing process. And taking this as a general +outline of the reform, it does appear true that a simpler life in large +areas of the community might leave machinery more or less as an +exceptional thing; as it may well be to the exceptional man who really +puts his soul into it. + +There are difficulties in this view; but for the moment I may well take +as an illustration the parallel of the particular sort of modern +engineering which moderns are very fond of denouncing. They often forget +that most of their praise of scientific instruments applies most vividly +to scientific weapons. If we are to have so much pity for the unhappy +genius who has just invented a new galvanometer, what about the poor +genius who has just invented a new gun? If there is a real imaginative +inspiration in the making of a steam-engine, is there not imaginative +interest in the making of a submarine? Yet many modern admirers of +science would be very anxious to abolish these machines altogether; even +in the very act of telling us that we cannot abolish machines at all. As +I believe in the right of national self-defence, I would not abolish +them altogether. But I think they may give us a hint of how exceptional +things may be treated exceptionally. For the moment I will leave the +progressive to laugh at my absurd notion of a limitation of machines, +and go off to a meeting to demand the limitation of armaments. ## The Holiday of the Slave -I have sometimes suggested that industrialism of the -American type, with its machinery and mechanical hustle, -will some day be preserved on a truly American model; I mean -in the manner of the Red Indian Reservation. As we leave a -patch of forest for savages to hunt and fish in, so a higher -civilization might leave a patch of factories for those who -are still at such a stage of intellectual infancy as really -to want to see the wheels go round. And as the Red Indians -could still, I suppose, tell their quaint old legends of a -red god who smoked a pipe or a red hero who stole the sun -and moon, so the simple folk in the industrial enclosure -could go on talking of their own Outline of History and -discussing the evolution of ethics, while all around them a -more mature civilization was dealing with real history and -serious philosophy. I hesitate to repeat this fancy here; -for, after all, machinery is their religion, or at any rate -superstition, and they do not like it to be treated with -levity. But I do think there is something to be said for the -notion of which this fancy might stand as a sort of symbol; -for the idea that a wiser society would eventually treat -machines as it treats weapons, as something special and -dangerous and perhaps more directly under a central control. -But however this may be, I do think the wildest fancy of a -manufacturer kept at bay like a painted barbarian is much -more sane than a serious scientific alternative now often -put before us. I mean what its friends call the Leisure -State, in which everything is to be done by machinery. It is -only right to say a word about this suggestion in comparison -with our own. - -In practice we already know what is meant by a holiday in a -world of machinery and mass production. It means that a man, -when he has done turning a handle, has a choice of certain -pleasures offered to him. He can, if he likes, read a -newspaper and discover with interest how the Crown Prince of -Fontarabia landed from the magnificent yacht *Atlantis* amid -a cheering crowd; how certain great American millionaires -are making great financial consolidations; how the Modern -Girl is a delightful creature, in spite of (or because of) -having shingled hair or short skirts; and how the true -religion, for which we all look to the Churches, consists of -sympathy and social progress and marrying, divorcing, or -burying everybody without reference to the precise meaning -of the ceremony. On the other hand, if he prefers some other -amusement, he may go to the Cinema, where he will see a very -vivid and animated scene of the crowds cheering the Crown -Prince of Fontarabia after the arrival of the yacht -*Atlantis;* where he will see an American film featuring the -features of American millionaires, with all those resolute -contortions of visage which accompany their making of great -financial consolidations; where there will not be lacking a -charming and vivacious heroine, recognizable as a Modern -Girl by her short hair and short skirts; and possibly a kind -and good clergyman (if any) who explains in dumb show, with -the aid of a few printed sentences, that true religion is -social sympathy and progress and marrying and burying people -at random. But supposing the man's tastes to be detached -from the drama and from the kindred arts, he may prefer the -reading of fiction; and he will have no difficulty in -finding a popular novel about the doubts and difficulties of -a good and kind clergyman slowly discovering that true -religion consists of progress and social sympathy, with the -assistance of a Modern Girl whose shingled hair and short -skirts proclaim her indifference to all fine distinctions -about who should be buried and who divorced; nor, probably, -will the story fail to contain an American millionaire -making vast financial consolidations, and certainly a yacht -and possibly a Crown Prince. But there are yet other tastes -that are catered for under the conditions of modern -publicity and pleasure-seeking. There is the great -institution of wireless or broadcasting; and the -holiday-maker, turning away from fiction, journalism, and -film drama, may prefer to "listenin" to a programme that -will contain the very latest news of great financial -consolidations made by American millionaires; which will -most probably contain little lectures on how the Modern Girl -can crop her hair or abbreviate her skirts; in which he can -hear the very accents of some great popular preacher -proclaiming to the world that revelation of true religion -which consists of sympathy and social progress rather than -of dogma and creed; and in which he will certainly hear the -very thunder of cheering which welcomes His Royal Highness -the Crown Prince of Fontarabia when he lands from the -magnificent yacht *Atlantis.* There is thus indeed a very -elaborate and well-ordered choice placed before him, in the -matter of the means of entertainment. - -But even the rich variety of method and approach unfolded -before us in this alternative seems to some to cover a -certain secret and subtle element of monotony. Even here the -pleasure-seeker may have that weird psychological sensation -of having known the same thing before. There seems to be -something recurrent about the type of topic; suggestive of -something rigid about the type of mind. Now I think it very -doubtful whether it is really a superior mind. If the -pleasure-seeker himself were really a pleasure-maker for -himself, if he were forced to amuse himself instead of being -amused, if he were, in short, obliged to sit down in an old -tavern and talk---I am really very doubtful about whether he -would confine his conversation entirely to the Crown Prince -of Fontarabia, the shingling of hair, the greatness of -certain rich Yankees, and so on; and then begin the same -round of subjects all over again. His interests might be -more local, but they would be more lively; his experience of -men more personal but more mixed; his likes and dislikes -more capricious but not quite so easily satisfied. To take a -parallel, modern children are made to play public-school -games, and will doubtless soon be made to listen to the -praise of the millionaires on the wireless and in the -newspaper. But children left to themselves almost invariably -invent games of their own, dramas of their own, often whole -imaginary kingdoms and commonwealths of their own. In other -words, they produce; until the competition of monopoly kills -their production. The boy playing at robbers is not -liberated but stunted by learning about American crooks, all -of one pattern less picturesque than his own. He is -psychologically undercut, undersold, dumped upon, frozen -out, flooded, swamped, and ruined; but not emancipated. - -Inventions have destroyed invention. The big modern machines -are like big guns dominating and terrorizing a whole stretch -of country, within the range of which nothing can raise its -head. There is far more inventiveness to the square yard of -mankind than can ever appear under that monopolist terror. -The minds of men are not so much alike as the motor-cars of -men, or the morning papers of men, or the mechanical -manufacture of the coats and hats of men. In other words, we -are not getting the best out of men. We are certainly not -getting the most individual or the most interesting -qualities out of men. And it is doubtful whether we ever -shall, until we shut off this deafening din of megaphones -that drowns their voices, this deathly glare of limelight -which kills the colours of their complexions, this plangent -yell of platitudes which stuns and stops their minds. All -this sort of thing is killing thoughts as they grow, as a -great white death-ray might kill plants as they grow. When, -therefore, people tell me that making a great part of -England rustic and self-supporting would mean making it rude -and senseless, I do not agree with them; and I do not think -they understand the alternative or the problem. Nobody wants -all men to be rustics even in normal times; it is very -tenable that some of the most intelligent would turn to the -towns even in normal times. But I say the towns themselves -are the foes of intelligence, in these times; I say the -rustics themselves would have more variety and vivacity than -is really encouraged by these towns. I say it is only by -shutting off this unnatural noise and light that men's minds -can begin again to move and to grow. Just as we spread -paving-stones over different soils without reference to the -different crops that might grow there, so we spread -programmes of platitudinous plutocracy over souls that God -made various, and simpler societies have made free. - -If by machinery saving labour, and therefore producing -leisure, be meant the machinery that now achieves what is -called mass production, I cannot see any vital value in the -leisure; because there is in that leisure nothing of -liberty. The man may only work for an hour with his -machine-made tools, but he can only run away and play for -twenty-three hours with machine-made toys. Everything he -handles has to come from a huge machine that he cannot -handle. Everything must come from something to which, in the -current capitalist phrase, he can only lend "a hand." Now as -this would apply to intellectual and artistic toys as well -as to merely material toys, it seems to me that the machine -would dominate him for a much longer time than his hand had -to turn the handle. It is practically admitted that much -fewer men are needed to work the machine. The answer of the -mechanical collectivists is that though the machine might -give work to the few, it could give food to the many. But it -could only give food to the many by an operation that had to -be presided over by the few. Or even if we suppose that some -work, subdivided into small sections, were given to the -many, that system of rotation would have to be ruled by a -responsible few; and some fixed authority would be needed to -distribute the work as much as to distribute the food. In -other words, the officials would very decidedly be permanent -officials. In a sense all the rest of us might be -intermittent or occasional officials. But the general -character of the system would remain; and whatever else it -is like, nothing can make it like a population pottering -about in its own several fields or practising small creative -crafts in its own little workshops. The man who has helped -to produce a machine-made article may indeed leave off -working, in the sense of leaving off turning one particular -wheel. He may have an opportunity to do as he likes, in so -far as he likes using what the system likes producing. He -may have a power of choice---in the sense that he may choose -between one thing it produces and another thing it produces. -He may choose to pass his leisure hours in sitting in a -machine-made chair or lying on a machine-made bed or resting -in a machine-made hammock or swinging on a machine-made -trapeze. But he will not be in the same position as a man -who carves his own hobby-horse out of his own wood or his -own hobby out of his own will. For that introduces another -principle or purpose; which there is no warrant for -supposing will coexist with the principle or purpose of -using all the wood so as to save labour or simplifying all -the wills so as to save leisure. If our ideal is to produce -things as rapidly and easily as possible, we must have a -definite number of things that we desire to produce. If we -desire to produce them as freely and variously as possible, -we must not at the same time try to produce them as quickly -as possible. I think it most probable that the result of -saving labour by machinery would be then what it is now, -only more so: the limitation of the type of thing produced; -standardization. - -Now it may be that some of the supporters of the Leisure -State have in mind some system of distributed machinery, -which shall really make each man the master of his machine; -and in that case I agree that the problem becomes different -and that a great part of the problem is resolved. There -would still remain the question of whether a man with a free -soul would want to use a machine upon about three-quarters -of the things for which machines are now used. In other -words, there would remain the whole problem of the craftsman -in the sense of the creator. But I should agree that if the -small man found his small mechanical plant helpful to the -preservation of his small property, its claim would be very -considerable. But it is necessary to make it clear, that if -the holidays provided for the mechanic are provided as -mechanically as at present, and with the merely mechanical -alternative offered at present, I think that even the -slavery of his labour would be light compared to the +I have sometimes suggested that industrialism of the American type, with +its machinery and mechanical hustle, will some day be preserved on a +truly American model; I mean in the manner of the Red Indian +Reservation. As we leave a patch of forest for savages to hunt and fish +in, so a higher civilization might leave a patch of factories for those +who are still at such a stage of intellectual infancy as really to want +to see the wheels go round. And as the Red Indians could still, I +suppose, tell their quaint old legends of a red god who smoked a pipe or +a red hero who stole the sun and moon, so the simple folk in the +industrial enclosure could go on talking of their own Outline of History +and discussing the evolution of ethics, while all around them a more +mature civilization was dealing with real history and serious +philosophy. I hesitate to repeat this fancy here; for, after all, +machinery is their religion, or at any rate superstition, and they do +not like it to be treated with levity. But I do think there is something +to be said for the notion of which this fancy might stand as a sort of +symbol; for the idea that a wiser society would eventually treat +machines as it treats weapons, as something special and dangerous and +perhaps more directly under a central control. But however this may be, +I do think the wildest fancy of a manufacturer kept at bay like a +painted barbarian is much more sane than a serious scientific +alternative now often put before us. I mean what its friends call the +Leisure State, in which everything is to be done by machinery. It is +only right to say a word about this suggestion in comparison with our +own. + +In practice we already know what is meant by a holiday in a world of +machinery and mass production. It means that a man, when he has done +turning a handle, has a choice of certain pleasures offered to him. He +can, if he likes, read a newspaper and discover with interest how the +Crown Prince of Fontarabia landed from the magnificent yacht *Atlantis* +amid a cheering crowd; how certain great American millionaires are +making great financial consolidations; how the Modern Girl is a +delightful creature, in spite of (or because of) having shingled hair or +short skirts; and how the true religion, for which we all look to the +Churches, consists of sympathy and social progress and marrying, +divorcing, or burying everybody without reference to the precise meaning +of the ceremony. On the other hand, if he prefers some other amusement, +he may go to the Cinema, where he will see a very vivid and animated +scene of the crowds cheering the Crown Prince of Fontarabia after the +arrival of the yacht *Atlantis;* where he will see an American film +featuring the features of American millionaires, with all those resolute +contortions of visage which accompany their making of great financial +consolidations; where there will not be lacking a charming and vivacious +heroine, recognizable as a Modern Girl by her short hair and short +skirts; and possibly a kind and good clergyman (if any) who explains in +dumb show, with the aid of a few printed sentences, that true religion +is social sympathy and progress and marrying and burying people at +random. But supposing the man's tastes to be detached from the drama and +from the kindred arts, he may prefer the reading of fiction; and he will +have no difficulty in finding a popular novel about the doubts and +difficulties of a good and kind clergyman slowly discovering that true +religion consists of progress and social sympathy, with the assistance +of a Modern Girl whose shingled hair and short skirts proclaim her +indifference to all fine distinctions about who should be buried and who +divorced; nor, probably, will the story fail to contain an American +millionaire making vast financial consolidations, and certainly a yacht +and possibly a Crown Prince. But there are yet other tastes that are +catered for under the conditions of modern publicity and +pleasure-seeking. There is the great institution of wireless or +broadcasting; and the holiday-maker, turning away from fiction, +journalism, and film drama, may prefer to "listenin" to a programme that +will contain the very latest news of great financial consolidations made +by American millionaires; which will most probably contain little +lectures on how the Modern Girl can crop her hair or abbreviate her +skirts; in which he can hear the very accents of some great popular +preacher proclaiming to the world that revelation of true religion which +consists of sympathy and social progress rather than of dogma and creed; +and in which he will certainly hear the very thunder of cheering which +welcomes His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of Fontarabia when he lands +from the magnificent yacht *Atlantis.* There is thus indeed a very +elaborate and well-ordered choice placed before him, in the matter of +the means of entertainment. + +But even the rich variety of method and approach unfolded before us in +this alternative seems to some to cover a certain secret and subtle +element of monotony. Even here the pleasure-seeker may have that weird +psychological sensation of having known the same thing before. There +seems to be something recurrent about the type of topic; suggestive of +something rigid about the type of mind. Now I think it very doubtful +whether it is really a superior mind. If the pleasure-seeker himself +were really a pleasure-maker for himself, if he were forced to amuse +himself instead of being amused, if he were, in short, obliged to sit +down in an old tavern and talk---I am really very doubtful about whether +he would confine his conversation entirely to the Crown Prince of +Fontarabia, the shingling of hair, the greatness of certain rich +Yankees, and so on; and then begin the same round of subjects all over +again. His interests might be more local, but they would be more lively; +his experience of men more personal but more mixed; his likes and +dislikes more capricious but not quite so easily satisfied. To take a +parallel, modern children are made to play public-school games, and will +doubtless soon be made to listen to the praise of the millionaires on +the wireless and in the newspaper. But children left to themselves +almost invariably invent games of their own, dramas of their own, often +whole imaginary kingdoms and commonwealths of their own. In other words, +they produce; until the competition of monopoly kills their production. +The boy playing at robbers is not liberated but stunted by learning +about American crooks, all of one pattern less picturesque than his own. +He is psychologically undercut, undersold, dumped upon, frozen out, +flooded, swamped, and ruined; but not emancipated. + +Inventions have destroyed invention. The big modern machines are like +big guns dominating and terrorizing a whole stretch of country, within +the range of which nothing can raise its head. There is far more +inventiveness to the square yard of mankind than can ever appear under +that monopolist terror. The minds of men are not so much alike as the +motor-cars of men, or the morning papers of men, or the mechanical +manufacture of the coats and hats of men. In other words, we are not +getting the best out of men. We are certainly not getting the most +individual or the most interesting qualities out of men. And it is +doubtful whether we ever shall, until we shut off this deafening din of +megaphones that drowns their voices, this deathly glare of limelight +which kills the colours of their complexions, this plangent yell of +platitudes which stuns and stops their minds. All this sort of thing is +killing thoughts as they grow, as a great white death-ray might kill +plants as they grow. When, therefore, people tell me that making a great +part of England rustic and self-supporting would mean making it rude and +senseless, I do not agree with them; and I do not think they understand +the alternative or the problem. Nobody wants all men to be rustics even +in normal times; it is very tenable that some of the most intelligent +would turn to the towns even in normal times. But I say the towns +themselves are the foes of intelligence, in these times; I say the +rustics themselves would have more variety and vivacity than is really +encouraged by these towns. I say it is only by shutting off this +unnatural noise and light that men's minds can begin again to move and +to grow. Just as we spread paving-stones over different soils without +reference to the different crops that might grow there, so we spread +programmes of platitudinous plutocracy over souls that God made various, +and simpler societies have made free. + +If by machinery saving labour, and therefore producing leisure, be meant +the machinery that now achieves what is called mass production, I cannot +see any vital value in the leisure; because there is in that leisure +nothing of liberty. The man may only work for an hour with his +machine-made tools, but he can only run away and play for twenty-three +hours with machine-made toys. Everything he handles has to come from a +huge machine that he cannot handle. Everything must come from something +to which, in the current capitalist phrase, he can only lend "a hand." +Now as this would apply to intellectual and artistic toys as well as to +merely material toys, it seems to me that the machine would dominate him +for a much longer time than his hand had to turn the handle. It is +practically admitted that much fewer men are needed to work the machine. +The answer of the mechanical collectivists is that though the machine +might give work to the few, it could give food to the many. But it could +only give food to the many by an operation that had to be presided over +by the few. Or even if we suppose that some work, subdivided into small +sections, were given to the many, that system of rotation would have to +be ruled by a responsible few; and some fixed authority would be needed +to distribute the work as much as to distribute the food. In other +words, the officials would very decidedly be permanent officials. In a +sense all the rest of us might be intermittent or occasional officials. +But the general character of the system would remain; and whatever else +it is like, nothing can make it like a population pottering about in its +own several fields or practising small creative crafts in its own little +workshops. The man who has helped to produce a machine-made article may +indeed leave off working, in the sense of leaving off turning one +particular wheel. He may have an opportunity to do as he likes, in so +far as he likes using what the system likes producing. He may have a +power of choice---in the sense that he may choose between one thing it +produces and another thing it produces. He may choose to pass his +leisure hours in sitting in a machine-made chair or lying on a +machine-made bed or resting in a machine-made hammock or swinging on a +machine-made trapeze. But he will not be in the same position as a man +who carves his own hobby-horse out of his own wood or his own hobby out +of his own will. For that introduces another principle or purpose; which +there is no warrant for supposing will coexist with the principle or +purpose of using all the wood so as to save labour or simplifying all +the wills so as to save leisure. If our ideal is to produce things as +rapidly and easily as possible, we must have a definite number of things +that we desire to produce. If we desire to produce them as freely and +variously as possible, we must not at the same time try to produce them +as quickly as possible. I think it most probable that the result of +saving labour by machinery would be then what it is now, only more so: +the limitation of the type of thing produced; standardization. + +Now it may be that some of the supporters of the Leisure State have in +mind some system of distributed machinery, which shall really make each +man the master of his machine; and in that case I agree that the problem +becomes different and that a great part of the problem is resolved. +There would still remain the question of whether a man with a free soul +would want to use a machine upon about three-quarters of the things for +which machines are now used. In other words, there would remain the +whole problem of the craftsman in the sense of the creator. But I should +agree that if the small man found his small mechanical plant helpful to +the preservation of his small property, its claim would be very +considerable. But it is necessary to make it clear, that if the holidays +provided for the mechanic are provided as mechanically as at present, +and with the merely mechanical alternative offered at present, I think +that even the slavery of his labour would be light compared to the grinding slavery of his leisure. ## The Free Man and the Ford Car -I am not a fanatic; and I think that machines may be of -considerable use in destroying machinery. I should -generously accord them a considerable value in the work of -exterminating all that they represent. But to put the truth -in those terms is to talk in terms of the remote conclusion -of our slow and reasonable revolution. In the immediate -situation the same truth may be stated in a more moderate -way. Towards all typical things of our time we should have a -rational charity. Machinery is not wrong; it is only absurd. -Perhaps we should say it is merely childish, and can even be -taken in the right spirit by a child. If, therefore, we find -that some machine enables us to escape from an inferno of -machinery, we cannot be committing a sin though we may be -cutting a silly figure, like a dragoon rejoining his -regiment on an old bicycle. What is essential is to realize -that there is something ridiculous about the present -position, something wilder than any Utopia. For instance, I -shall have occasion here to note the proposal of centralized -electricity, and we could justify the use of it so long as -we see the joke of it. But, in fact, we do not even see the -joke of the waterworks and the water company. It is almost -too broadly comic that an essential of life like water -should be pumped to us from nobody knows where, by nobody -knows whom, sometimes nearly a hundred miles away. It is -every bit as funny as if air were pumped to us from miles -away, and we all walked about like divers at the bottom of -the sea. The only reasonable person is the peasant who owns -his own well. But we have a long way to go before we begin -to think about being reasonable. - -There are at present some examples of centralization of -which the effects may work for decentralization. An obvious -case is that recently discussed in connection with a common -plant of electricity. I think it is broadly true that if -electricity could be cheapened, the chances of a very large -number of small independent shops, especially workshops, -would be greatly improved. At the same time, there is no -doubt at all that such dependence for essential power on a -central plant is a real dependence, and is therefore a -defect in any complete scheme of independence. On this point -I imagine that many Distributists might differ considerably; -but, speaking for myself, I am inclined to follow the more -moderate and provisional policy that I have suggested more -than once in this place. I think the first necessity is to -make sure of any small properties obtaining any success in -any decisive or determining degree. Above all, I think it is -vital to create the experience of small property, the -psychology of small property, the sort of man who is a small -proprietor. When once men of that sort exist, they will -decide, in a manner very different from any modern mob, how -far the central power-house is to dominate their own private -house, or whether it need dominate at all. They will perhaps -discover the way of breaking up and individualizing that -power. They will sacrifice, if there is any need to -sacrifice, even the help of science to the hunger for -possession. So that I am disposed at the moment to accept -any help that science and machinery can give in creating -small property, without in the least bowing down to such -superstitions where they only destroy it. But we must keep -in mind the peasant ideal as the motive and the goal; and -most of those who offer us mechanical help seem to be -blankly ignorant of what we regard it as helping. A -well-known name will illustrate both the thing being done -and the man being ignorant of what he is doing. - -The other day I found myself in a Ford car, like that in -which I remember riding over Palestine, and in which, (I -suppose) Mr. Ford would enjoy riding over Palestinians. -Anyhow, it reminded me of Mr. Ford, and that reminded me of -Mr. Penty and his views upon equality and mechanical -civilization. The Ford car (if I may venture on one of those -new ideas urged upon us in newspapers) is a typical product -of the age. The best thing about it is the thing for which -it is despised; that it is small. The worst thing about it -is the thing for which it is praised; that it is -standardized. Its smallness is, of course, the subject of -endless American jokes, about a man catching a Ford like a -fly or possibly a flea. But nobody seems to notice how this -popularization of motoring (however wrong in motive or in -method) really is a complete contradiction to the fatalistic -talk about inevitable combination and concentration. The -railway is fading before our eyes---birds nesting, as it -were, in the railway signals, and wolves howling, so to -speak, in the waiting-room. And the railway really was a -communal and concentrated mode of travel like that in a -Utopia of the Socialists. The free and solitary traveller is -returning before our very eyes; not always (it is true) -equipped with scrip or scallop, but having recovered to some -extent the freedom of the King's highway in the manner of -Merry England. Nor is this the only ancient thing such -travel has revived. While Mugby Junction neglected its -refreshment-rooms, Hugby-in-the-Hole has revived its inns. -To that limited extent the Ford motor is already a reversion -to the free man. If he has not three acres and a cow, he has -the very inadequate substitute of three hundred miles and a -car. I do not mean that this development satisfies my -theories. But I do say that it destroys other people's -theories; all the theories about the collective thing as a -thing of the future and the individual thing as a thing of -the past. Even in their own special and stinking way of -science and machinery, the facts are very largely going -against their theories. +I am not a fanatic; and I think that machines may be of considerable use +in destroying machinery. I should generously accord them a considerable +value in the work of exterminating all that they represent. But to put +the truth in those terms is to talk in terms of the remote conclusion of +our slow and reasonable revolution. In the immediate situation the same +truth may be stated in a more moderate way. Towards all typical things +of our time we should have a rational charity. Machinery is not wrong; +it is only absurd. Perhaps we should say it is merely childish, and can +even be taken in the right spirit by a child. If, therefore, we find +that some machine enables us to escape from an inferno of machinery, we +cannot be committing a sin though we may be cutting a silly figure, like +a dragoon rejoining his regiment on an old bicycle. What is essential is +to realize that there is something ridiculous about the present +position, something wilder than any Utopia. For instance, I shall have +occasion here to note the proposal of centralized electricity, and we +could justify the use of it so long as we see the joke of it. But, in +fact, we do not even see the joke of the waterworks and the water +company. It is almost too broadly comic that an essential of life like +water should be pumped to us from nobody knows where, by nobody knows +whom, sometimes nearly a hundred miles away. It is every bit as funny as +if air were pumped to us from miles away, and we all walked about like +divers at the bottom of the sea. The only reasonable person is the +peasant who owns his own well. But we have a long way to go before we +begin to think about being reasonable. + +There are at present some examples of centralization of which the +effects may work for decentralization. An obvious case is that recently +discussed in connection with a common plant of electricity. I think it +is broadly true that if electricity could be cheapened, the chances of a +very large number of small independent shops, especially workshops, +would be greatly improved. At the same time, there is no doubt at all +that such dependence for essential power on a central plant is a real +dependence, and is therefore a defect in any complete scheme of +independence. On this point I imagine that many Distributists might +differ considerably; but, speaking for myself, I am inclined to follow +the more moderate and provisional policy that I have suggested more than +once in this place. I think the first necessity is to make sure of any +small properties obtaining any success in any decisive or determining +degree. Above all, I think it is vital to create the experience of small +property, the psychology of small property, the sort of man who is a +small proprietor. When once men of that sort exist, they will decide, in +a manner very different from any modern mob, how far the central +power-house is to dominate their own private house, or whether it need +dominate at all. They will perhaps discover the way of breaking up and +individualizing that power. They will sacrifice, if there is any need to +sacrifice, even the help of science to the hunger for possession. So +that I am disposed at the moment to accept any help that science and +machinery can give in creating small property, without in the least +bowing down to such superstitions where they only destroy it. But we +must keep in mind the peasant ideal as the motive and the goal; and most +of those who offer us mechanical help seem to be blankly ignorant of +what we regard it as helping. A well-known name will illustrate both the +thing being done and the man being ignorant of what he is doing. + +The other day I found myself in a Ford car, like that in which I +remember riding over Palestine, and in which, (I suppose) Mr. Ford would +enjoy riding over Palestinians. Anyhow, it reminded me of Mr. Ford, and +that reminded me of Mr. Penty and his views upon equality and mechanical +civilization. The Ford car (if I may venture on one of those new ideas +urged upon us in newspapers) is a typical product of the age. The best +thing about it is the thing for which it is despised; that it is small. +The worst thing about it is the thing for which it is praised; that it +is standardized. Its smallness is, of course, the subject of endless +American jokes, about a man catching a Ford like a fly or possibly a +flea. But nobody seems to notice how this popularization of motoring +(however wrong in motive or in method) really is a complete +contradiction to the fatalistic talk about inevitable combination and +concentration. The railway is fading before our eyes---birds nesting, as +it were, in the railway signals, and wolves howling, so to speak, in the +waiting-room. And the railway really was a communal and concentrated +mode of travel like that in a Utopia of the Socialists. The free and +solitary traveller is returning before our very eyes; not always (it is +true) equipped with scrip or scallop, but having recovered to some +extent the freedom of the King's highway in the manner of Merry England. +Nor is this the only ancient thing such travel has revived. While Mugby +Junction neglected its refreshment-rooms, Hugby-in-the-Hole has revived +its inns. To that limited extent the Ford motor is already a reversion +to the free man. If he has not three acres and a cow, he has the very +inadequate substitute of three hundred miles and a car. I do not mean +that this development satisfies my theories. But I do say that it +destroys other people's theories; all the theories about the collective +thing as a thing of the future and the individual thing as a thing of +the past. Even in their own special and stinking way of science and +machinery, the facts are very largely going against their theories. Yet I have never seen Mr. Ford and his little car really and -intelligently praised for this. I have often, of course, -seen him praised for all the conveniences of what is called -standardization. The argument seems to be more or less to -this effect. When your car breaks down with a loud crash in -the middle of Salisbury Plain, though it is not very likely -that any fragments of other ruined motor cars will be lying -about amid the ruins of Stonehenge, yet if they are, it is a -great advantage to think that they will probably be of the -same pattern, and you can take them to mend your own car. -The same principle applies to persons motoring in Tibet, and -exulting in the reflection that if another motorist from the -United States did happen to come along, it would be possible -to exchange wheels or footbrakes in token of amity. I may -not have got the details of the argument quite correct; but -the general point of it is that if anything goes wrong with -parts of a machine, they can be replaced with identical -machinery. And anyhow the argument could be carried much -further; and used to explain a great many other things. I am -not sure that it is not the clue to many mysteries of the -age. I begin to understand, for instance, why magazine -stories are all exactly alike; it is ordered so that when -you have left one magazine in a railway carriage in the -middle of a story called "Pansy Eyes," you may go on with -exactly the same story in another magazine under the title -of "Dandelion Locks." It explains why all leading articles -on The Future of the Churches are exactly the same; so that -we may begin reading the article in the *Daily Chronicle* -and finish it in the *Daily Express.* It explains why all -the public utterances urging us to prefer new things to old -never by any chance say anything new; they mean that we -should go to a new paper-stall and read it in a new -newspaper. This is why all American caricatures repeat -themselves like a mathematical pattern; it means that when -we have torn off a part of the picture to wrap up -sandwiches, we can tear off a bit of another picture and it -will always fit in. And this is also why American -millionaires all look exactly alike; so that when the -bright, resolute expression of one of them has led us to do -serious damage to his face with a heavy blow of the fist, it -is always possible to mend it with noses and jaw-bones taken -from other millionaires, who are exactly similarly -constituted. - -Such are the advantages of standardization; but, as may be -suspected, I think the advantages are exaggerated; and I -agree with Mr. Penty in doubting whether all this repetition -really corresponds to human nature. But a very interesting -question was raised by Mr. Ford's remarks on the difference -between men and men; and his suggestion that most men -preferred mechanical action or were only fitted for it. -About all those arguments affecting human equality, I myself -always have one feeling, which finds expression in a little -test of my own. I shall begin to take seriously those -classifications of superiority and inferiority, when I find -a man classifying himself as inferior. It will be noted that -Mr. Ford does not say that he is only fitted to mind -machines; he confesses frankly that he is too fine and free -and fastidious a being for such tasks. I shall believe the -doctrine when I hear somebody say: "I have only got the wits -to turn a wheel." That would be real, that would be -realistic, that would be scientific. That would be -independent testimony that could not easily be disputed. It -is exactly the same, of course, with all the other -superiorities and denials of human equality that are so -specially characteristic of a scientific age. It is so with -the men who talk about superior and inferior races; I never -heard a man say: "Anthropology shows that I belong to an -inferior race." If he did, he might be talking like an -anthropologist; as it is, he is talking like a man, and not -infrequently like a fool. I have long hoped that I might -some day hear a man explaining on scientific principles his -own unfitness for any important post or privilege, say: "The -world should belong to the free and fighting races, and not -to persons of that servile disposition that you will notice -in myself; the intelligent will know how to form opinions, -but the weakness of intellect from which I so obviously -suffer renders my opinions manifestly absurd on the face of -them: there are indeed stately and godlike races---but look -at me! Observe my shapeless and fourth-rate features! Gaze, -if you can bear it, on my commonplace and repulsive face!" -If I heard a man making a scientific demonstration in that -style, I might admit that he was really scientific. But as -it invariably happens, by a curious coincidence, that the -superior race is his own race, the superior type is his own -type, and the superior preference for work the sort of work -he happens to prefer---I have come to the conclusion that -there is a simpler explanation. - -Now Mr. Ford is a good man, so far as it is consistent with -being a good millionaire. But he himself will very well -illustrate where the fallacy of his argument lies. It is -probably quite true that, in the making of motors, there are -a hundred men who can work a motor and only one man who can -design a motor. But of the hundred men who could work a -motor, it is very probable that one could design a garden, -another design a charade, another design a practical joke or -a derisive picture of Mr. Ford. I do not mean, of course, in -anything I say here, to deny differences of intelligence, or -to suggest that equality (a thing wholly religious) depends -on any such impossible denial. But I do mean that men are -nearer to a level than anybody will discover by setting them -all to make one particular kind of run-about clock. Now -Mr. Ford himself is a man of defiant limitations. He is so -indifferent to history, for example, that he calmly admitted -in the witness-box that he had never heard of Benedict -Arnold. An American who has never heard of Benedict Arnold -is like a Christian who has never heard of Judas Iscariot. -He is rare. I believe that Mr. Ford indicated in a general -way that he thought Benedict Arnold was the same as Arnold -Bennett. Not only is this not the case, but it is an error -to suppose that there is no importance in such an error. If -he were to find himself, in the heat of some controversy, -accusing Mr. Arnold Bennett of having betrayed the American -President and ravaged the South with an Anti-American army, -Mr. Bennett might bring an action. If Mr. Ford were to -suppose that the lady who recently wrote revelations in the -*Daily Express* was old enough to be the widow of Benedict -Arnold, the lady might bring an action. Now it is not -impossible that among the workmen whom Mr. Ford perceives -(probably quite truly) to be only suited to the mechanical -part of the construction of mechanical things, there might -be a man who was fond of reading all the history he could -lay his hands on; and who had advanced step by step, by -painful efforts of self-education, until the difference -between Benedict Arnold and Arnold Bennett was quite clear -in his mind. If his employer did not care about the -difference, of course, he would not consult him about the -difference, and the man would remain to all appearance a -mere cog in the machine; there would be no reason for -finding out that he was a rather cogitating cog. Anybody who -knows anything of modern business knows that there are any -number of such men who remain in subordinate and obscure -positions because their private tastes and talents have no -relation to the very stupid business in which they are -engaged. If Mr. Ford extends his business over the Solar -System, and gives cars to the Martians and the Man in the -Moon, he will not be an inch nearer to the mind of the man -who is working his machine for him, and thinking about -something more sensible. Now all human things are imperfect; -but the condition in which such hobbies and secondary -talents do to some extent come out is the condition of small -independence. The peasant almost always runs two or three -sideshows and lives on a variety of crafts and expedients. -The village shopkeeper will shave travellers and stuff -weasels and grow cabbages and do half a dozen such things, -keeping a sort of balance in his life like the balance of -sanity in the soul. The method is not perfect; but it is -more intelligent than turning him into a machine in order to -find out whether he has a soul above machinery. - -Upon this point of immediate compromise with machinery, -therefore, I am inclined to conclude that it is quite right -to use the existing machines in so far as they do create a -psychology that can despise machines; but not if they create -a psychology that respects them. The Ford car is an -excellent illustration of the question; even better than the -other illustration I have given of an electrical supply for -small workshops. If possessing a Ford car means rejoicing in -a Ford car, it is melancholy enough; it does not bring us -much farther than Tooting or rejoicing in a Tooting tramcar. -But if possessing a Ford car means rejoicing in a field of -corn or clover, in a fresh landscape and a free atmosphere, -it may be the beginning of many things---and even the end of -many things. It may be, for instance, the end of the car and -the beginning of the cottage. Thus we might almost say that -the final triumph of Mr. Ford is not when the man gets into -the car, but when he enthusiastically falls out of the car. -It is when he finds somewhere, in remote and rural corners -that he could not normally have reached, that perfect poise -and combination of hedge and tree and meadow in the presence -of which any modern machine seems suddenly to look an -absurdity; yes, even an antiquated absurdity. Probably that -happy man, having found the place of his true home, will -proceed joyfully to break up the car with a large hammer, -putting its iron fragments for the first time to some real -use, as kitchen utensils or garden tools. That is using a -scientific instrument in the proper way; for it is using it -as an instrument. The man has used modern machinery to -escape from modern society; and the reason and rectitude of -such a course commends itself instantly to the mind. It is -not so with the weaker brethren who are not content to trust -Mr. Ford's car, but also trust Mr. Ford's creed. If -accepting the car means accepting the philosophy I have just -criticized, the notion that some men are born to make cars, -or rather small bits of cars, then it will be far more -worthy of a philosopher to say frankly that men never needed -to have cars at all. It is only because the man had been -sent into exile in a railway-train that he has to be brought -back home in a motor-car. It is only because all machinery -has been used to put things wrong that some machinery may -now rightly be used to put things right. But I conclude upon -the whole that it may so be used; and my reason is that -which I considered on a previous page under the heading of -"The Chance of Recovery." I pointed out that our ideal is so -sane and simple, so much in accord with the ancient and -general instincts of men, that when once it is given a -chance anywhere it will improve that chance by its own inner -vitality because there is some reaction towards health -whenever disease is removed. The man who has used his car to -find his farm will be more interested in the farm than in -the car; certainly more interested than in the shop where he -once bought the car. Nor will Mr. Ford always woo him back -to that shop, even by telling him tenderly that he is not -fitted to be a lord of land, a rider of horses, or a ruler -of cattle; since his deficient intellect and degraded -anthropological type fit him only for mean and mechanical -operations. If anyone will try saying this (tenderly, of -course) to any considerable number of large farmers, who -have lived for some time on their own farms with their own -families, he will discover the defects of the approach. +intelligently praised for this. I have often, of course, seen him +praised for all the conveniences of what is called standardization. The +argument seems to be more or less to this effect. When your car breaks +down with a loud crash in the middle of Salisbury Plain, though it is +not very likely that any fragments of other ruined motor cars will be +lying about amid the ruins of Stonehenge, yet if they are, it is a great +advantage to think that they will probably be of the same pattern, and +you can take them to mend your own car. The same principle applies to +persons motoring in Tibet, and exulting in the reflection that if +another motorist from the United States did happen to come along, it +would be possible to exchange wheels or footbrakes in token of amity. I +may not have got the details of the argument quite correct; but the +general point of it is that if anything goes wrong with parts of a +machine, they can be replaced with identical machinery. And anyhow the +argument could be carried much further; and used to explain a great many +other things. I am not sure that it is not the clue to many mysteries of +the age. I begin to understand, for instance, why magazine stories are +all exactly alike; it is ordered so that when you have left one magazine +in a railway carriage in the middle of a story called "Pansy Eyes," you +may go on with exactly the same story in another magazine under the +title of "Dandelion Locks." It explains why all leading articles on The +Future of the Churches are exactly the same; so that we may begin +reading the article in the *Daily Chronicle* and finish it in the *Daily +Express.* It explains why all the public utterances urging us to prefer +new things to old never by any chance say anything new; they mean that +we should go to a new paper-stall and read it in a new newspaper. This +is why all American caricatures repeat themselves like a mathematical +pattern; it means that when we have torn off a part of the picture to +wrap up sandwiches, we can tear off a bit of another picture and it will +always fit in. And this is also why American millionaires all look +exactly alike; so that when the bright, resolute expression of one of +them has led us to do serious damage to his face with a heavy blow of +the fist, it is always possible to mend it with noses and jaw-bones +taken from other millionaires, who are exactly similarly constituted. + +Such are the advantages of standardization; but, as may be suspected, I +think the advantages are exaggerated; and I agree with Mr. Penty in +doubting whether all this repetition really corresponds to human nature. +But a very interesting question was raised by Mr. Ford's remarks on the +difference between men and men; and his suggestion that most men +preferred mechanical action or were only fitted for it. About all those +arguments affecting human equality, I myself always have one feeling, +which finds expression in a little test of my own. I shall begin to take +seriously those classifications of superiority and inferiority, when I +find a man classifying himself as inferior. It will be noted that +Mr. Ford does not say that he is only fitted to mind machines; he +confesses frankly that he is too fine and free and fastidious a being +for such tasks. I shall believe the doctrine when I hear somebody say: +"I have only got the wits to turn a wheel." That would be real, that +would be realistic, that would be scientific. That would be independent +testimony that could not easily be disputed. It is exactly the same, of +course, with all the other superiorities and denials of human equality +that are so specially characteristic of a scientific age. It is so with +the men who talk about superior and inferior races; I never heard a man +say: "Anthropology shows that I belong to an inferior race." If he did, +he might be talking like an anthropologist; as it is, he is talking like +a man, and not infrequently like a fool. I have long hoped that I might +some day hear a man explaining on scientific principles his own +unfitness for any important post or privilege, say: "The world should +belong to the free and fighting races, and not to persons of that +servile disposition that you will notice in myself; the intelligent will +know how to form opinions, but the weakness of intellect from which I so +obviously suffer renders my opinions manifestly absurd on the face of +them: there are indeed stately and godlike races---but look at me! +Observe my shapeless and fourth-rate features! Gaze, if you can bear it, +on my commonplace and repulsive face!" If I heard a man making a +scientific demonstration in that style, I might admit that he was really +scientific. But as it invariably happens, by a curious coincidence, that +the superior race is his own race, the superior type is his own type, +and the superior preference for work the sort of work he happens to +prefer---I have come to the conclusion that there is a simpler +explanation. + +Now Mr. Ford is a good man, so far as it is consistent with being a good +millionaire. But he himself will very well illustrate where the fallacy +of his argument lies. It is probably quite true that, in the making of +motors, there are a hundred men who can work a motor and only one man +who can design a motor. But of the hundred men who could work a motor, +it is very probable that one could design a garden, another design a +charade, another design a practical joke or a derisive picture of +Mr. Ford. I do not mean, of course, in anything I say here, to deny +differences of intelligence, or to suggest that equality (a thing wholly +religious) depends on any such impossible denial. But I do mean that men +are nearer to a level than anybody will discover by setting them all to +make one particular kind of run-about clock. Now Mr. Ford himself is a +man of defiant limitations. He is so indifferent to history, for +example, that he calmly admitted in the witness-box that he had never +heard of Benedict Arnold. An American who has never heard of Benedict +Arnold is like a Christian who has never heard of Judas Iscariot. He is +rare. I believe that Mr. Ford indicated in a general way that he thought +Benedict Arnold was the same as Arnold Bennett. Not only is this not the +case, but it is an error to suppose that there is no importance in such +an error. If he were to find himself, in the heat of some controversy, +accusing Mr. Arnold Bennett of having betrayed the American President +and ravaged the South with an Anti-American army, Mr. Bennett might +bring an action. If Mr. Ford were to suppose that the lady who recently +wrote revelations in the *Daily Express* was old enough to be the widow +of Benedict Arnold, the lady might bring an action. Now it is not +impossible that among the workmen whom Mr. Ford perceives (probably +quite truly) to be only suited to the mechanical part of the +construction of mechanical things, there might be a man who was fond of +reading all the history he could lay his hands on; and who had advanced +step by step, by painful efforts of self-education, until the difference +between Benedict Arnold and Arnold Bennett was quite clear in his mind. +If his employer did not care about the difference, of course, he would +not consult him about the difference, and the man would remain to all +appearance a mere cog in the machine; there would be no reason for +finding out that he was a rather cogitating cog. Anybody who knows +anything of modern business knows that there are any number of such men +who remain in subordinate and obscure positions because their private +tastes and talents have no relation to the very stupid business in which +they are engaged. If Mr. Ford extends his business over the Solar +System, and gives cars to the Martians and the Man in the Moon, he will +not be an inch nearer to the mind of the man who is working his machine +for him, and thinking about something more sensible. Now all human +things are imperfect; but the condition in which such hobbies and +secondary talents do to some extent come out is the condition of small +independence. The peasant almost always runs two or three sideshows and +lives on a variety of crafts and expedients. The village shopkeeper will +shave travellers and stuff weasels and grow cabbages and do half a dozen +such things, keeping a sort of balance in his life like the balance of +sanity in the soul. The method is not perfect; but it is more +intelligent than turning him into a machine in order to find out whether +he has a soul above machinery. + +Upon this point of immediate compromise with machinery, therefore, I am +inclined to conclude that it is quite right to use the existing machines +in so far as they do create a psychology that can despise machines; but +not if they create a psychology that respects them. The Ford car is an +excellent illustration of the question; even better than the other +illustration I have given of an electrical supply for small workshops. +If possessing a Ford car means rejoicing in a Ford car, it is melancholy +enough; it does not bring us much farther than Tooting or rejoicing in a +Tooting tramcar. But if possessing a Ford car means rejoicing in a field +of corn or clover, in a fresh landscape and a free atmosphere, it may be +the beginning of many things---and even the end of many things. It may +be, for instance, the end of the car and the beginning of the cottage. +Thus we might almost say that the final triumph of Mr. Ford is not when +the man gets into the car, but when he enthusiastically falls out of the +car. It is when he finds somewhere, in remote and rural corners that he +could not normally have reached, that perfect poise and combination of +hedge and tree and meadow in the presence of which any modern machine +seems suddenly to look an absurdity; yes, even an antiquated absurdity. +Probably that happy man, having found the place of his true home, will +proceed joyfully to break up the car with a large hammer, putting its +iron fragments for the first time to some real use, as kitchen utensils +or garden tools. That is using a scientific instrument in the proper +way; for it is using it as an instrument. The man has used modern +machinery to escape from modern society; and the reason and rectitude of +such a course commends itself instantly to the mind. It is not so with +the weaker brethren who are not content to trust Mr. Ford's car, but +also trust Mr. Ford's creed. If accepting the car means accepting the +philosophy I have just criticized, the notion that some men are born to +make cars, or rather small bits of cars, then it will be far more worthy +of a philosopher to say frankly that men never needed to have cars at +all. It is only because the man had been sent into exile in a +railway-train that he has to be brought back home in a motor-car. It is +only because all machinery has been used to put things wrong that some +machinery may now rightly be used to put things right. But I conclude +upon the whole that it may so be used; and my reason is that which I +considered on a previous page under the heading of "The Chance of +Recovery." I pointed out that our ideal is so sane and simple, so much +in accord with the ancient and general instincts of men, that when once +it is given a chance anywhere it will improve that chance by its own +inner vitality because there is some reaction towards health whenever +disease is removed. The man who has used his car to find his farm will +be more interested in the farm than in the car; certainly more +interested than in the shop where he once bought the car. Nor will +Mr. Ford always woo him back to that shop, even by telling him tenderly +that he is not fitted to be a lord of land, a rider of horses, or a +ruler of cattle; since his deficient intellect and degraded +anthropological type fit him only for mean and mechanical operations. If +anyone will try saying this (tenderly, of course) to any considerable +number of large farmers, who have lived for some time on their own farms +with their own families, he will discover the defects of the approach. # A Note on Emigration ## The Need of a New Spirit -Before closing these notes, with some words on the colonial -aspect of democratic distribution, it will be well to make -some acknowledgment of the recent suggestion of so -distinguished a man as Mr. John Galsworthy. Mr. Galsworthy -is a man for whom I have the very warmest regard; for a -human being who really tries to be fair is something very -like a monster and miracle in the long history of this merry -race of ours. Sometimes, indeed, I get a little exasperated -at being so persistently excused. I can imagine few things -more annoying, to a free-born and properly constituted -Christian, than the thought that if he did choose to wait -for Mr. Galsworthy behind a wall, knock him down with a -brick, jump on him with heavy boots, and so on, -Mr. Galsworthy would still faintly gasp that it was only the -fault of the System; that the System made bricks and the -System heaved bricks and the System went about wearing heavy -boots, and so on. As a human being, I should feel a longing -for a little human justice, after all that inhuman mercy. -But these feelings do not interfere with the other feelings -I have, of something like enthusiasm, for something that can -only be called beautiful in the fair-mindedness of a study -like "The White Monkey." It is when this attitude of -detachment is applied not to the judgment of individuals but -of men in bulk, that the detachment begins to savour of -something unnatural. And in Mr. Galsworthy's last political -pronouncement the detachment amounts to despair. At any -rate, it amounts to despair about this earth, this England, -about which I am certainly not going to despair yet. But I -think it might be well if I took this opportunity of stating -what I, for one, at least feel about the different claims -here involved. - -It may be debated whether it is a good or a bad thing for -England that England has an Empire. It may be debated, at -least as a matter of true definition, whether England has an -Empire at all. But upon one point all Englishmen ought to -stand firm, as a matter of history, of philosophy, and of -logic. And that is that it has been, and is, a question of -our owning an Empire and not of an Empire owning us. - -There is sense in being separated from Americans on the -principles of George Washington, and sense in being attached -to Americans on the principles of George the Third. But -there is no sense in being out-voted and swamped by -Americans in the name of the Anglo-Saxon race. The Colonies -were by origin English. They owe us that much; if it be only -the trivial circumstance, so little valued by modern -thought, that without their maker they could never have -existed at all. If they choose to remain English, we thank -them very sincerely for the compliment. If they choose not -to remain English, but to turn into something else, we think -they are within their rights. But anyhow England shall -remain English. They shall not first turn themselves into -something else, and then turn us into themselves. It may -have been wrong to be an Empire, but it does not rob us of -our right to be a nation. - -But there is another sense in which those of our school -would use the motto of "England First." It is in the sense -that our first step should be to discover how far the best -ethical and economic system can be fitted into England, -before we treat it as an export and cart it away to the ends -of the earth. The scientific or commercial character, who is -sure he has found an explosive that will blow up the solar -system or a bullet that will kill the man in the moon, -always makes a great parade of saying that he offers it -first to his own country, and only afterwards to a foreign -country. Personally, I cannot conceive how a man can bring -himself in any case to offer such a thing to a foreign -country. But then I am not a great scientific and commercial -genius. Anyhow, such as our little notion of normal -ownership is, we certainly do not propose to offer it to any -foreign country, or even to any colony, before we offer it -to our own country. And we do think it highly urgent and -practical to find out first how much of it can really be -carried out in our own country. Nobody supposes that the -whole English population could live on the English land. But -everybody ought to realize that immeasurably more people -could live on it than do live on it; and that if such a -policy did establish such a peasantry, there would be a -recognizable narrowing of the margin of men left over for -the town and the colonies. But we would suggest that these -ought really to be left over, and dealt with as seems most -desirable, after the main experiment has been made where it -matters most. And what most of us would complain of in the -emigrationists of the ordinary sort is that they seem to -think first of the colony and then of what must be left -behind in the country; instead of thinking first of the -country and then of what must overflow into the colony. - -People talk about an optimist being in a hurry; but it seems -to me that a pessimist like Mr. Galsworthy is very much in a -hurry. He has not tried the obvious reform on England, and, -finding it fail, gone into exile to try it elsewhere. He is -trying the obvious reform everywhere except where it is most -obvious. And in this I think he has a subconscious affinity -to people much less reasonable and respectable than himself. -The pessimists have a curious way of urging us to counsels -of despair as the only solution of a problem they have not -troubled to solve. They declare solemnly that some unnatural -thing would become necessary if certain conditions existed; -and then somehow assume from that that they exist. They -never think of attempting to prove that they exist, before -they prove what follows from their existence. This is -exactly the sort of plunging and premature pessimism, for -instance, that people exhibit about Birth Control. Their -desire is towards destruction; their hope is for despair; -they eagerly anticipate the darkest and most doubtful -predictions. They run with eager feet before and beyond the -lingering and inconveniently slow statistics; like as the -hart pants for the water-brooks they thirst to drink of Styx -and Lethe before their hour; even the facts they show fall -far short of the faith that they see shining beyond them; -for faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence -of things not seen. - -If I do not compare the critic in question with the doctors -of this dismal perversion, still less do I compare him with -those whose motives are merely self-protective and -plutocratic. But it must also be said that many rush to the -expedient of emigration, just as many rush to the expedient -of Birth Control, for the perfectly simple reason that it is -the easiest way in which the capitalists can escape from -their own blunder of capitalism. They lured men into the -town with the promise of greater pleasures; they ruined them -there and left them with only one pleasure; they found the -increase it produced at first convenient for labour and then -inconvenient for supply; and now they are ready to round off -their experiment in a highly appropriate manner, by telling -them that they must have no families, or that their families -must go to the modern equivalent of Botany Bay. It is not in -that spirit that we envisage an element of colonization; and -so long as it is treated in that spirit we refuse to -consider it. I put first the statement that real colonial -settlement must be not only stable but sacred. I say the new -home must be not only a home but a shrine. And that is why I -say it must be first established in England, in the home of -our fathers and the shrine of our saints, to be a light and -an ensign to our children. - -I have explained that I cannot content myself with leaving -my own nationality out of my own normal ideal; or leaving -England as the mere tool-house or coal-cellar of other -countries like Canada or Australia---or, for that matter, -Argentina. I should like England also to have a much more -rural type of redistribution; nor do I think it impossible. -But when this is allowed for, nobody in his five wits would -dream of denying that there is a real scope and even -necessity for emigration and colonial settlement. Only, when -we come to that, I have to draw a line rather sharply and -explain something else, which is by no means inconsistent -with my love of England, but I fear is not so likely to make -me loved by Englishmen. I do not believe, as the newspapers -and national histories always tell me to believe, that we -have "the secret" of this sort of successful colonization -and need nothing else to achieve this sort of democratic -social construction. I ask for nothing better than that a -man should be English in England. But I think he will have -to be something more than English (or at any rate something -more than "British") if he is to create a solid social -equality outside England. For something is needed for that -solid social creation which our colonial tradition has not -given. My reasons for holding this highly unpopular opinion -I will attempt to suggest; but the fact that they are rather -difficult to suggest is itself an evidence of their -unfamiliarity and of that narrowness which is neither -national nor international, but only imperial. - -I should very much like to be present at a conversation -between Mr. Saklatvala and Dean Inge. I have a great deal of -respect for the real sincerity of the Dean of St. Paul's, -but his subconscious prejudices are of a strange sort. I -cannot help having a feeling that he might have a certain -sympathy with a Socialist so long as he was not a Christian -Socialist. I do not indeed pretend to any respect for the -ordinary sort of broad-mindedness which is ready to embrace -a Buddhist but draws the line at a Bolshevist. I think its -significance is very simple. It means welcoming alien -religions when they make us feel comfortable, and -persecuting them when they make us feel uncomfortable. But -the particular reason I have at the moment for entertaining -this association of ideas is one that concerns a larger -matter. It concerns, indeed, what is commonly called the -British Empire, which we were once taught to reverence -largely because it was large. And one of my complaints -against that common and rather vulgar sort of imperialism is -that it did not really secure even the advantages of -largeness. As I have said, I am a nationalist; England is -good enough for me. I would defend England against the whole -European continent. With even greater joy would I defend -England against the whole British Empire. With a romantic -rapture would I defend England against Mr. Ramsay MacDonald -when he had become King of Scotland; lighting again the -watch fires of Newark and Carlisle and sounding the old -tocsins of the Border. With equal energy would I defend -England against Mr. Tim Healy as King of Ireland, if ever -the gross and growing prosperity of that helpless and -decaying Celtic stock became positively offensive. With the -greatest ecstasy of all would I defend England against -Mr. Lloyd George as King of Wales. It will be seen, -therefore, that there is nothing broad-minded about my -patriotism; most modern nationality is not narrow enough for +Before closing these notes, with some words on the colonial aspect of +democratic distribution, it will be well to make some acknowledgment of +the recent suggestion of so distinguished a man as Mr. John Galsworthy. +Mr. Galsworthy is a man for whom I have the very warmest regard; for a +human being who really tries to be fair is something very like a monster +and miracle in the long history of this merry race of ours. Sometimes, +indeed, I get a little exasperated at being so persistently excused. I +can imagine few things more annoying, to a free-born and properly +constituted Christian, than the thought that if he did choose to wait +for Mr. Galsworthy behind a wall, knock him down with a brick, jump on +him with heavy boots, and so on, Mr. Galsworthy would still faintly gasp +that it was only the fault of the System; that the System made bricks +and the System heaved bricks and the System went about wearing heavy +boots, and so on. As a human being, I should feel a longing for a little +human justice, after all that inhuman mercy. But these feelings do not +interfere with the other feelings I have, of something like enthusiasm, +for something that can only be called beautiful in the fair-mindedness +of a study like "The White Monkey." It is when this attitude of +detachment is applied not to the judgment of individuals but of men in +bulk, that the detachment begins to savour of something unnatural. And +in Mr. Galsworthy's last political pronouncement the detachment amounts +to despair. At any rate, it amounts to despair about this earth, this +England, about which I am certainly not going to despair yet. But I +think it might be well if I took this opportunity of stating what I, for +one, at least feel about the different claims here involved. + +It may be debated whether it is a good or a bad thing for England that +England has an Empire. It may be debated, at least as a matter of true +definition, whether England has an Empire at all. But upon one point all +Englishmen ought to stand firm, as a matter of history, of philosophy, +and of logic. And that is that it has been, and is, a question of our +owning an Empire and not of an Empire owning us. + +There is sense in being separated from Americans on the principles of +George Washington, and sense in being attached to Americans on the +principles of George the Third. But there is no sense in being out-voted +and swamped by Americans in the name of the Anglo-Saxon race. The +Colonies were by origin English. They owe us that much; if it be only +the trivial circumstance, so little valued by modern thought, that +without their maker they could never have existed at all. If they choose +to remain English, we thank them very sincerely for the compliment. If +they choose not to remain English, but to turn into something else, we +think they are within their rights. But anyhow England shall remain +English. They shall not first turn themselves into something else, and +then turn us into themselves. It may have been wrong to be an Empire, +but it does not rob us of our right to be a nation. + +But there is another sense in which those of our school would use the +motto of "England First." It is in the sense that our first step should +be to discover how far the best ethical and economic system can be +fitted into England, before we treat it as an export and cart it away to +the ends of the earth. The scientific or commercial character, who is +sure he has found an explosive that will blow up the solar system or a +bullet that will kill the man in the moon, always makes a great parade +of saying that he offers it first to his own country, and only +afterwards to a foreign country. Personally, I cannot conceive how a man +can bring himself in any case to offer such a thing to a foreign +country. But then I am not a great scientific and commercial genius. +Anyhow, such as our little notion of normal ownership is, we certainly +do not propose to offer it to any foreign country, or even to any +colony, before we offer it to our own country. And we do think it highly +urgent and practical to find out first how much of it can really be +carried out in our own country. Nobody supposes that the whole English +population could live on the English land. But everybody ought to +realize that immeasurably more people could live on it than do live on +it; and that if such a policy did establish such a peasantry, there +would be a recognizable narrowing of the margin of men left over for the +town and the colonies. But we would suggest that these ought really to +be left over, and dealt with as seems most desirable, after the main +experiment has been made where it matters most. And what most of us +would complain of in the emigrationists of the ordinary sort is that +they seem to think first of the colony and then of what must be left +behind in the country; instead of thinking first of the country and then +of what must overflow into the colony. + +People talk about an optimist being in a hurry; but it seems to me that +a pessimist like Mr. Galsworthy is very much in a hurry. He has not +tried the obvious reform on England, and, finding it fail, gone into +exile to try it elsewhere. He is trying the obvious reform everywhere +except where it is most obvious. And in this I think he has a +subconscious affinity to people much less reasonable and respectable +than himself. The pessimists have a curious way of urging us to counsels +of despair as the only solution of a problem they have not troubled to +solve. They declare solemnly that some unnatural thing would become +necessary if certain conditions existed; and then somehow assume from +that that they exist. They never think of attempting to prove that they +exist, before they prove what follows from their existence. This is +exactly the sort of plunging and premature pessimism, for instance, that +people exhibit about Birth Control. Their desire is towards destruction; +their hope is for despair; they eagerly anticipate the darkest and most +doubtful predictions. They run with eager feet before and beyond the +lingering and inconveniently slow statistics; like as the hart pants for +the water-brooks they thirst to drink of Styx and Lethe before their +hour; even the facts they show fall far short of the faith that they see +shining beyond them; for faith is the substance of things hoped for, the +evidence of things not seen. + +If I do not compare the critic in question with the doctors of this +dismal perversion, still less do I compare him with those whose motives +are merely self-protective and plutocratic. But it must also be said +that many rush to the expedient of emigration, just as many rush to the +expedient of Birth Control, for the perfectly simple reason that it is +the easiest way in which the capitalists can escape from their own +blunder of capitalism. They lured men into the town with the promise of +greater pleasures; they ruined them there and left them with only one +pleasure; they found the increase it produced at first convenient for +labour and then inconvenient for supply; and now they are ready to round +off their experiment in a highly appropriate manner, by telling them +that they must have no families, or that their families must go to the +modern equivalent of Botany Bay. It is not in that spirit that we +envisage an element of colonization; and so long as it is treated in +that spirit we refuse to consider it. I put first the statement that +real colonial settlement must be not only stable but sacred. I say the +new home must be not only a home but a shrine. And that is why I say it +must be first established in England, in the home of our fathers and the +shrine of our saints, to be a light and an ensign to our children. + +I have explained that I cannot content myself with leaving my own +nationality out of my own normal ideal; or leaving England as the mere +tool-house or coal-cellar of other countries like Canada or +Australia---or, for that matter, Argentina. I should like England also +to have a much more rural type of redistribution; nor do I think it +impossible. But when this is allowed for, nobody in his five wits would +dream of denying that there is a real scope and even necessity for +emigration and colonial settlement. Only, when we come to that, I have +to draw a line rather sharply and explain something else, which is by no +means inconsistent with my love of England, but I fear is not so likely +to make me loved by Englishmen. I do not believe, as the newspapers and +national histories always tell me to believe, that we have "the secret" +of this sort of successful colonization and need nothing else to achieve +this sort of democratic social construction. I ask for nothing better +than that a man should be English in England. But I think he will have +to be something more than English (or at any rate something more than +"British") if he is to create a solid social equality outside England. +For something is needed for that solid social creation which our +colonial tradition has not given. My reasons for holding this highly +unpopular opinion I will attempt to suggest; but the fact that they are +rather difficult to suggest is itself an evidence of their unfamiliarity +and of that narrowness which is neither national nor international, but +only imperial. + +I should very much like to be present at a conversation between +Mr. Saklatvala and Dean Inge. I have a great deal of respect for the +real sincerity of the Dean of St. Paul's, but his subconscious +prejudices are of a strange sort. I cannot help having a feeling that he +might have a certain sympathy with a Socialist so long as he was not a +Christian Socialist. I do not indeed pretend to any respect for the +ordinary sort of broad-mindedness which is ready to embrace a Buddhist +but draws the line at a Bolshevist. I think its significance is very +simple. It means welcoming alien religions when they make us feel +comfortable, and persecuting them when they make us feel uncomfortable. +But the particular reason I have at the moment for entertaining this +association of ideas is one that concerns a larger matter. It concerns, +indeed, what is commonly called the British Empire, which we were once +taught to reverence largely because it was large. And one of my +complaints against that common and rather vulgar sort of imperialism is +that it did not really secure even the advantages of largeness. As I +have said, I am a nationalist; England is good enough for me. I would +defend England against the whole European continent. With even greater +joy would I defend England against the whole British Empire. With a +romantic rapture would I defend England against Mr. Ramsay MacDonald +when he had become King of Scotland; lighting again the watch fires of +Newark and Carlisle and sounding the old tocsins of the Border. With +equal energy would I defend England against Mr. Tim Healy as King of +Ireland, if ever the gross and growing prosperity of that helpless and +decaying Celtic stock became positively offensive. With the greatest +ecstasy of all would I defend England against Mr. Lloyd George as King +of Wales. It will be seen, therefore, that there is nothing broad-minded +about my patriotism; most modern nationality is not narrow enough for me. -But putting aside my own local affections, and looking at -the matter in what is called a larger way, I note once more -that our Imperialism does not get any of the good that could -be got out of being large. And I was reminded of Dean Inge, -because he suggested some time ago that the Irish and the -French Canadians were increasing in numbers, not because -they held the Catholic view of the family, but because they -were a backward and apparently almost barbaric stock which -naturally (I suppose he meant) increased with the blind -luxuriance of a jungle. I have already remarked on the -amusing trick of having it both ways which is illustrated in -this remark. So long as savages are dying out, we say they -are dying out because they are savages. When they are -inconveniently increasing, we say they are increasing -because they are savages. And from this it is but a simple -logical step to say that the countrymen of Sir Wilfred -Laurier or Senator Yeats are savages because they are -increasing. But what strikes me most about the situation is -this: that this spirit will always miss what is really to be -learnt by covering any large and varied area. If French -Canada is really a part of the British Empire, it would seem -that the Empire might at least have served as a sort of -interpreter between the British and the French. The Imperial -statesman, if he had really been a statesman, ought to have -been able to say, "It is always difficult to understand -another nation or another religion; but I am more -fortunately placed than most people. I know a little more -than can be known by self-contained and isolated states like -Sweden or Spain. I have more sympathy with the Catholic -faith or the French blood because I have French Catholics in -my own Empire." Now it seems to me that the Imperial -statesman never has said this; never has even been able to -say it; never has even tried or pretended to be able to say -it. He has been far narrower than a nationalist like myself, -engaged in desperately defending Offa's Dyke against a horde -of Welsh politicians. I doubt if there was ever a politician -who knew a word more of the French language, let alone a -word more of the Latin Mass, because he had to govern a -whole population that drew its traditions from Rome and -Gaul. I will suggest in a moment how this enormous -international narrowness affects the question of a peasantry -and the extension of the natural ownership of land. But for -the moment it is important to make the point clear about the -nature of that narrowness. And that is why some light might -be thrown on it in that tender, that intimate, that -heart-to-heart talk between Mr. Saklatvala and the Dean of -St. Paul's. Mr. Saklatvala is a sort of parody or extreme -and extravagant exhibition of the point; that we really know -nothing at all about the moral and philosophical elements -that make up the Empire. It is quite obvious, of course, -that he does not represent Battersea. But have we any way of -knowing to what extent he represents India? It seems to me -not impossible that the more impersonal and indefinite -doctrines of Asia do form a soil for Bolshevism. Most of the -eastern philosophy differs from the western theology in -refusing to draw the line anywhere; and it would be a highly -probable perversion of that instinct to refuse to draw the -line between *meum* and *tuum.* I do not think the Indian -gentleman is any judge of whether we in the West want to -have a hedge round our fields or a wall round our gardens. -And as I happen to hold that the very highest human thought -and art consists almost entirely in drawing the line -somewhere, though not in drawing it anywhere, I am -completely confident that in this the western tendency is -right and the eastern tendency is wrong. But, in any case, -it seems to me that a rather sharp lesson to us is indicated -in these two parallel cases of the Indian who grows into a -Bolshevist in our dominions without our being able to -influence his growth, and the French Canadian who remains a -peasant in our dominions without our getting any sort of -advantage out of his stability. - -I do not profess to know very much about the French -Canadians; but I know enough to know that most of the people -who talk at large about the Empire know even less than I do. -And the point about them is that they generally do not even -try to know any more. The very vague picture that they -always call up, of colonists doing wonders in all the -corners of the world, never does, in fact, include the sort -of thing that French Canadians can do, or might possibly -show other people how to do. There is about all this -fashionable fancy of colonization a very dangerous sort of -hypocrisy. People tried to use the Over-seas Dominion as -Eldorado while still using it as Botany Bay. They sent away -people that they wanted to get rid of, and then added insult -to injury by representing that the ends of the earth would -be delighted to have them. And they called up a sort of -fancy portrait of a person whose virtues and even vices were -entirely suitable for founding an Empire, though apparently -quite unsuitable for founding a family. The very language -they used was misleading. They talked of such people as -settlers; but the very last thing they ever expected them to -do was to settle. They expected of them a sort of indistinct -individualistic breaking of new ground, for which the world -is less and less really concerned to-day. They sent an -inconvenient nephew to hunt wild bisons in the streets of -Toronto; just as they had sent any number of irrepressible -Irish exiles to war with wild Redskins in the streets of New -York. They incessantly repeated that what the world wants is -pioneers, and had never even heard that what the world wants -is peasants. There was a certain amount of sincere and -natural sentiment about the wandering exile inheriting our -traditions. There was really no pretence that he was engaged -in founding his own traditions. All the ideas that go with a -secure social standing were absent from the very discussion; -no one thought of the continuity, the customs, the religion, -or the folklore of the future colonist. Above all, nobody -ever conceived him as having any strong sense of private -property. There was in the vague idea of his gaining -something for the Empire always, if anything, the idea of -his gaining what belonged to somebody else. I am not now -discussing how wrong it was or whether it could in some -cases be right; I am pointing out that nobody ever -entertained the notion of the other sort of right; the -special right of every man to his own. I doubt whether a -word could be quoted emphasizing it even from the healthiest -adventure story or the jolliest Jingo song. I quite -appreciate all there is in such songs or stories that is -really healthy or jolly. I am only pointing out that we have -badly neglected something; and are now suffering from the -neglect. And the worst aspect of the neglect was that we -learnt nothing whatever from the peoples that were actually -inside the Empire which we wished to glorify: nothing -whatever from the Irish; nothing whatever from the French -Canadian; nothing whatever even from the poor Hindoos. We -have now reached a crisis in which we particularly require -these neglected talents; and we do not even know how to set -about learning them. And the explanation of this blunder, as -of most blunders, is in the weakness which is called pride: -in other words, it is in the tone taken by people like the -Dean of St. Paul's. - -Now there will be needed a large element of emigration in -the solution of re-creating a peasantry in the modern world. -I shall have more to say about the elements of the idea in -the next section. But I believe that any scheme of the sort -will have to be based on a totally different and indeed -diametrically opposite spirit and principle to that which is -commonly applied to emigration in England to-day. I think we -need a new sort of inspiration, a new sort of appeal, a new -sort of ordinary language even, before that solution will -even help to solve anything. What we need is the ideal of -Property, not merely of Progress---especially progress over -other people's property. Utopia needs more frontiers, not -less. And it is because we were weak in the ethics of -property on the edges of Empire that our own society will -not defend property as men defend a right. The Bolshevist is -the sequel and punishment of the Buccaneer. +But putting aside my own local affections, and looking at the matter in +what is called a larger way, I note once more that our Imperialism does +not get any of the good that could be got out of being large. And I was +reminded of Dean Inge, because he suggested some time ago that the Irish +and the French Canadians were increasing in numbers, not because they +held the Catholic view of the family, but because they were a backward +and apparently almost barbaric stock which naturally (I suppose he +meant) increased with the blind luxuriance of a jungle. I have already +remarked on the amusing trick of having it both ways which is +illustrated in this remark. So long as savages are dying out, we say +they are dying out because they are savages. When they are +inconveniently increasing, we say they are increasing because they are +savages. And from this it is but a simple logical step to say that the +countrymen of Sir Wilfred Laurier or Senator Yeats are savages because +they are increasing. But what strikes me most about the situation is +this: that this spirit will always miss what is really to be learnt by +covering any large and varied area. If French Canada is really a part of +the British Empire, it would seem that the Empire might at least have +served as a sort of interpreter between the British and the French. The +Imperial statesman, if he had really been a statesman, ought to have +been able to say, "It is always difficult to understand another nation +or another religion; but I am more fortunately placed than most people. +I know a little more than can be known by self-contained and isolated +states like Sweden or Spain. I have more sympathy with the Catholic +faith or the French blood because I have French Catholics in my own +Empire." Now it seems to me that the Imperial statesman never has said +this; never has even been able to say it; never has even tried or +pretended to be able to say it. He has been far narrower than a +nationalist like myself, engaged in desperately defending Offa's Dyke +against a horde of Welsh politicians. I doubt if there was ever a +politician who knew a word more of the French language, let alone a word +more of the Latin Mass, because he had to govern a whole population that +drew its traditions from Rome and Gaul. I will suggest in a moment how +this enormous international narrowness affects the question of a +peasantry and the extension of the natural ownership of land. But for +the moment it is important to make the point clear about the nature of +that narrowness. And that is why some light might be thrown on it in +that tender, that intimate, that heart-to-heart talk between +Mr. Saklatvala and the Dean of St. Paul's. Mr. Saklatvala is a sort of +parody or extreme and extravagant exhibition of the point; that we +really know nothing at all about the moral and philosophical elements +that make up the Empire. It is quite obvious, of course, that he does +not represent Battersea. But have we any way of knowing to what extent +he represents India? It seems to me not impossible that the more +impersonal and indefinite doctrines of Asia do form a soil for +Bolshevism. Most of the eastern philosophy differs from the western +theology in refusing to draw the line anywhere; and it would be a highly +probable perversion of that instinct to refuse to draw the line between +*meum* and *tuum.* I do not think the Indian gentleman is any judge of +whether we in the West want to have a hedge round our fields or a wall +round our gardens. And as I happen to hold that the very highest human +thought and art consists almost entirely in drawing the line somewhere, +though not in drawing it anywhere, I am completely confident that in +this the western tendency is right and the eastern tendency is wrong. +But, in any case, it seems to me that a rather sharp lesson to us is +indicated in these two parallel cases of the Indian who grows into a +Bolshevist in our dominions without our being able to influence his +growth, and the French Canadian who remains a peasant in our dominions +without our getting any sort of advantage out of his stability. + +I do not profess to know very much about the French Canadians; but I +know enough to know that most of the people who talk at large about the +Empire know even less than I do. And the point about them is that they +generally do not even try to know any more. The very vague picture that +they always call up, of colonists doing wonders in all the corners of +the world, never does, in fact, include the sort of thing that French +Canadians can do, or might possibly show other people how to do. There +is about all this fashionable fancy of colonization a very dangerous +sort of hypocrisy. People tried to use the Over-seas Dominion as +Eldorado while still using it as Botany Bay. They sent away people that +they wanted to get rid of, and then added insult to injury by +representing that the ends of the earth would be delighted to have them. +And they called up a sort of fancy portrait of a person whose virtues +and even vices were entirely suitable for founding an Empire, though +apparently quite unsuitable for founding a family. The very language +they used was misleading. They talked of such people as settlers; but +the very last thing they ever expected them to do was to settle. They +expected of them a sort of indistinct individualistic breaking of new +ground, for which the world is less and less really concerned to-day. +They sent an inconvenient nephew to hunt wild bisons in the streets of +Toronto; just as they had sent any number of irrepressible Irish exiles +to war with wild Redskins in the streets of New York. They incessantly +repeated that what the world wants is pioneers, and had never even heard +that what the world wants is peasants. There was a certain amount of +sincere and natural sentiment about the wandering exile inheriting our +traditions. There was really no pretence that he was engaged in founding +his own traditions. All the ideas that go with a secure social standing +were absent from the very discussion; no one thought of the continuity, +the customs, the religion, or the folklore of the future colonist. Above +all, nobody ever conceived him as having any strong sense of private +property. There was in the vague idea of his gaining something for the +Empire always, if anything, the idea of his gaining what belonged to +somebody else. I am not now discussing how wrong it was or whether it +could in some cases be right; I am pointing out that nobody ever +entertained the notion of the other sort of right; the special right of +every man to his own. I doubt whether a word could be quoted emphasizing +it even from the healthiest adventure story or the jolliest Jingo song. +I quite appreciate all there is in such songs or stories that is really +healthy or jolly. I am only pointing out that we have badly neglected +something; and are now suffering from the neglect. And the worst aspect +of the neglect was that we learnt nothing whatever from the peoples that +were actually inside the Empire which we wished to glorify: nothing +whatever from the Irish; nothing whatever from the French Canadian; +nothing whatever even from the poor Hindoos. We have now reached a +crisis in which we particularly require these neglected talents; and we +do not even know how to set about learning them. And the explanation of +this blunder, as of most blunders, is in the weakness which is called +pride: in other words, it is in the tone taken by people like the Dean +of St. Paul's. + +Now there will be needed a large element of emigration in the solution +of re-creating a peasantry in the modern world. I shall have more to say +about the elements of the idea in the next section. But I believe that +any scheme of the sort will have to be based on a totally different and +indeed diametrically opposite spirit and principle to that which is +commonly applied to emigration in England to-day. I think we need a new +sort of inspiration, a new sort of appeal, a new sort of ordinary +language even, before that solution will even help to solve anything. +What we need is the ideal of Property, not merely of +Progress---especially progress over other people's property. Utopia +needs more frontiers, not less. And it is because we were weak in the +ethics of property on the edges of Empire that our own society will not +defend property as men defend a right. The Bolshevist is the sequel and +punishment of the Buccaneer. ## The Religion of Small Property -We hear a great deal nowadays about the disadvantages of -decorum, especially from those who are always telling us -that women in the last generation were helpless and -impotent, and then proceed to prove it by describing the -tremendous and towering tyranny of Mrs. Grundy. Rather in -the same way, they insist that Victorian women were -especially soft and submissive. And it is rather unfortunate -for them that, even in order to say so, they have to -introduce the name of Queen Victoria. But it is more -especially in connection with the indecorous in art and -literature that the question arises, and it is now the -fashion to argue as if there were no psychological basis for -reticence at all. That is where the argument should end; but -fortunately these thinkers do not know how to get to the end -of an argument. I have heard it argued that there is no more -harm in describing the violation of one Commandment than of -another; but this is obviously a fallacy. There is at least -a case in psychology for saying that certain images move the -imagination to the weakening of the character. There is no -case for saying that the mere contemplation of a kit of -burglar's tools would inflame us all with a desire to break -into houses. There is no possibility of pretending that the -mere sight of means to murder our maiden aunt with a poker -does really make the ill deed done. But what strikes me as -most curious about the controversy is this: that while our -fiction and journalism is largely breaking down the -prohibitions for which there really was a logical case, in -the consideration of human nature, they still very largely -feel the pressure of prohibitions for which there was never -any case at all. And the most curious thing about the -criticism we hear directed against the Victorian Age is that -it is never directed against the most arbitrary conventions -of that age. One of these, which I remember very vividly in -my youth, was the convention that there is something -embarrassing or unfair about a man mentioning his religion. -There was something of the same feeling about his mentioning -his money. Now these things cannot possibly be defended by -the same psychological argument as the other. Nobody is -moved to madness by the mere sight of a church spire, or -finds uncontrollable emotions possess him at the thought of -an archdeacon's hat. Yet there is still enough of that -really irrational Victorian convention lingering in our life -and literature to make it necessary to offer a defence, if -not an apology, whenever an argument depends upon this -fundamental fact in life. - -Now when I remark that we want a type of colonization rather -represented by the French Canadians, there are probably -still a number of sly critics who would point the finger of -detection at me and cry, as if they had caught me in -something very naughty, "You believe in the French Canadians -because they are Catholics"; which is in one sense not only -true, but very nearly the whole truth. But in another sense -it is not true at all; if it means that I exercise no -independent judgment in perceiving that this is really what -we do want. Now when this difficulty and misunderstanding -arises, there is only one practical way of meeting it in the -present state of public information, or lack of information. -It is to call what is generally described as an impartial -witness; though it is quite probable that he is far less -impartial than I am. What is really important about him is -that, if he were partial, he would be partial on the other -side. - -The dear old *Daily News,* of the days of my youth, on which -I wrote happily for many years and had so many good and -admirable friends, cannot be accused as yet as being an -organ of the Jesuits. It was, and is, as every one knows, -the organ of the Nonconformists. Dr. Clifford brandished his -teapot there when he was selling it in order to demonstrate, -by one symbolical act, that he had long been a teetotaller -and was now a Passive Resister. We may be pardoned for -smiling at this aspect of the matter; but there are many -other aspects which are real and worthy of all possible -respect. The tradition of the old Puritan ideal does really -descend to this paper; and multitudes of honest and -hard-thinking Radicals read it in my youth and read it -still. - -I therefore think that the following remarks which appeared -recently in the *Daily News,* in an article by Mr. Hugh -Martin, writing from Toronto, are rather remarkable. He -begins by saying that the Anglo-Saxon has got too proud to -bend his back; but the curious thing is that he goes on to -suggest, almost in so many words, that the backs of the -French Canadians are actually strengthened, not only by -being bent over rustic spades, but even by being bent before -superstitious altars. I am very anxious not to do my -impartial witness an unfair damage in the matter; so I may -be excused if I quote his own words at some little length. -After saying that the Anglo-Saxons are drawn away to the -United States, or at any rate to the industrial cities, he -remarks that the French are of course very numerous in -Quebec and elsewhere, but that it is not here that the -notable development is taking place, and that Montreal, -being a large city, is showing signs of the slackening to be +We hear a great deal nowadays about the disadvantages of decorum, +especially from those who are always telling us that women in the last +generation were helpless and impotent, and then proceed to prove it by +describing the tremendous and towering tyranny of Mrs. Grundy. Rather in +the same way, they insist that Victorian women were especially soft and +submissive. And it is rather unfortunate for them that, even in order to +say so, they have to introduce the name of Queen Victoria. But it is +more especially in connection with the indecorous in art and literature +that the question arises, and it is now the fashion to argue as if there +were no psychological basis for reticence at all. That is where the +argument should end; but fortunately these thinkers do not know how to +get to the end of an argument. I have heard it argued that there is no +more harm in describing the violation of one Commandment than of +another; but this is obviously a fallacy. There is at least a case in +psychology for saying that certain images move the imagination to the +weakening of the character. There is no case for saying that the mere +contemplation of a kit of burglar's tools would inflame us all with a +desire to break into houses. There is no possibility of pretending that +the mere sight of means to murder our maiden aunt with a poker does +really make the ill deed done. But what strikes me as most curious about +the controversy is this: that while our fiction and journalism is +largely breaking down the prohibitions for which there really was a +logical case, in the consideration of human nature, they still very +largely feel the pressure of prohibitions for which there was never any +case at all. And the most curious thing about the criticism we hear +directed against the Victorian Age is that it is never directed against +the most arbitrary conventions of that age. One of these, which I +remember very vividly in my youth, was the convention that there is +something embarrassing or unfair about a man mentioning his religion. +There was something of the same feeling about his mentioning his money. +Now these things cannot possibly be defended by the same psychological +argument as the other. Nobody is moved to madness by the mere sight of a +church spire, or finds uncontrollable emotions possess him at the +thought of an archdeacon's hat. Yet there is still enough of that really +irrational Victorian convention lingering in our life and literature to +make it necessary to offer a defence, if not an apology, whenever an +argument depends upon this fundamental fact in life. + +Now when I remark that we want a type of colonization rather represented +by the French Canadians, there are probably still a number of sly +critics who would point the finger of detection at me and cry, as if +they had caught me in something very naughty, "You believe in the French +Canadians because they are Catholics"; which is in one sense not only +true, but very nearly the whole truth. But in another sense it is not +true at all; if it means that I exercise no independent judgment in +perceiving that this is really what we do want. Now when this difficulty +and misunderstanding arises, there is only one practical way of meeting +it in the present state of public information, or lack of information. +It is to call what is generally described as an impartial witness; +though it is quite probable that he is far less impartial than I am. +What is really important about him is that, if he were partial, he would +be partial on the other side. + +The dear old *Daily News,* of the days of my youth, on which I wrote +happily for many years and had so many good and admirable friends, +cannot be accused as yet as being an organ of the Jesuits. It was, and +is, as every one knows, the organ of the Nonconformists. Dr. Clifford +brandished his teapot there when he was selling it in order to +demonstrate, by one symbolical act, that he had long been a teetotaller +and was now a Passive Resister. We may be pardoned for smiling at this +aspect of the matter; but there are many other aspects which are real +and worthy of all possible respect. The tradition of the old Puritan +ideal does really descend to this paper; and multitudes of honest and +hard-thinking Radicals read it in my youth and read it still. + +I therefore think that the following remarks which appeared recently in +the *Daily News,* in an article by Mr. Hugh Martin, writing from +Toronto, are rather remarkable. He begins by saying that the Anglo-Saxon +has got too proud to bend his back; but the curious thing is that he +goes on to suggest, almost in so many words, that the backs of the +French Canadians are actually strengthened, not only by being bent over +rustic spades, but even by being bent before superstitious altars. I am +very anxious not to do my impartial witness an unfair damage in the +matter; so I may be excused if I quote his own words at some little +length. After saying that the Anglo-Saxons are drawn away to the United +States, or at any rate to the industrial cities, he remarks that the +French are of course very numerous in Quebec and elsewhere, but that it +is not here that the notable development is taking place, and that +Montreal, being a large city, is showing signs of the slackening to be seen in other large cities. -"Now look at the other picture. The race that is going -ahead is the French race. . . . In Quebec, where there are -nearly 2,000,000 Canadians of French origin in a population -of 2,350,000, that might have been expected. But as a matter -of fact it is not in Quebec that the French are making good -most conspicuously . . . nor in Nova Scotia and New -Brunswick is the comparative success of the French stock -most marked. They are doing splendidly on the land and -raising prodigious families. A family of twelve is quite -common, and I could name several cases where there have been -twenty, who all lived. The day may come when they will equal -or outnumber the Scotch, but that is some way ahead. If you -want to see what French stock can still achieve, you should -go to the northern part of this province of Ontario. It is -doing pioneer work. It is bending its back as men did in the -old days. It is multiplying and staying on the soil. It is -content to be happy without being rich. - -"Though I am not a religious man myself, I must confess I -think religion has a good deal to do with it. These French -Canadians are more Catholic than the Pope. You might call a -good many of them desperately ignorant and desperately -superstitious. They seem to me to be a century behind the -times and a century nearer happiness." - -These seem to me, I repeat, to be rather remarkable words; -remarkable if they appeared anywhere, arresting and -astonishing when they appear in the traditional paper of the -Manchester Radicals and the nineteenth-century -Nonconformists. The words are splendidly straightforward and -unaffected in their literary form; they have a clear ring of -sincerity and experience, and they are all the more -convincing because they are written by somebody who does not -share my own desperate ignorance and desperate superstition. -But he proceeds to suggest a reason, and incidentally to -make his own independence in the matter quite clear. - -"Apart from the fact that their women bear an incredible -number of children, you have this other consequence of their -submission to the priest, that a social organism is created, -which is of incalculable value in the backwoods. The church, -the school, the curé, hold each little group together as a -unit. Do not think for a moment that I believe a general -spread of Catholicism would turn us back into a pioneer -people. One might just as reasonably recommend a return to -early Scottish Protestantism. I merely record the fact that -the simplicity of these people is proving their salvation -and is one of the most hopeful things in Canada to-day." - -Of course, there are a good many things of an incidental -kind that a person with my views might comment on in that -passage. I might go off at a gallop on the highly -interesting comparison with early Scottish Protestantism. -Very early Scottish Protestantism, like very early English -Protestantism, consisted chiefly of loot. But if we take it -as referring to the perfectly pure and sincere enthusiasm of -many Covenanters or early Calvinists, we come upon the -contrast that is the point of the whole matter. Early -Puritanism was pure Puritanism; but the purer it is the more -early it seems. We cannot imagine it as a good thing and -also a modern thing. It might have been one of the most -honest things in Scotland then. But nobody would be found -calling it one of the most hopeful things in Canada to-day. -If John Knox appeared to-morrow in the pulpit of St. Giles, -he would be a stickit minister. He would be regarded as a -raving savage because of his ignorance of German -metaphysics. That comparison does not meet the extraordinary -case of the thing that is older than Knox and yet also newer -than Knox. Or again, I might point out that the common -connotation of "submission to the priest" is misleading, -even if it is true. It is like talking of the Charge of the -Light Brigade as the submission to Lord Raglan. It is still -more like talking about the storming of Jerusalem as the -submission to the Count of Bouillon. In one sense it is -quite true; in another it is very untrue. But I have not the -smallest desire here to disturb the impartiality of my -witness. I have not the smallest intention of using any of -the tortures of the Inquisition to make him admit anything -that he did not wish to admit. The admission as it stands -seems to me very remarkable; not so much because it is a -tribute to Frenchmen as colonists as because it is a tribute -to colonists as pious and devout people. But what concerns -me most of all in the general discussion of my own theme is -the insistence on stability. They are staying on the soil; -they are a social organism; they are held together as a -unit. That is the new note which I think is needed in all -talk of colonization, before it can again be any part of the -hope of the world. - -A recent description of the Happy Factory, as it exists in -America or will exist in Utopia, rose from height to height -of ideality until it ended with a sort of hush, as of the -ultimate opening of the heavens, and these words about the -workman, "He turns out for his homeward journey like a -member of the Stock Exchange." Any attempt to imagine -humanity in its final perfection always has about it -something faintly unreal, as being too good for this world; -but the visionary light that breaks from the cloud, in that -last phrase, accentuates clearly the contrast which is to be -drawn between such a condition and that of the labour of -common men. Adam left Eden as a gardener; but he will set -out for his homeward journey like a member of the Stock -Exchange. St. Joseph was a carpenter; but he will be raised -again as a stockbroker. Giotto was a shepherd; for he was -not yet worthy to be a stockbroker. Shakespeare was an -actor; but he dreamed day and night of being a stockbroker. -Burns was a ploughman; but if he sang at the plough, how -much more appropriately he would have sung in the Stock -Exchange. It is assumed in this kind of argument that all -humanity has consciously or unconsciously hoped for this -consummation; and that if men were not brokers, it was -because they were not able to broke. But this remarkable -passage in Sir Ernest Benn's exposition has another -application besides the obvious one. A stockbroker in one -sense really is a very poetical figure. In one sense he is -as poetical as Shakespeare, and his ideal poet, since he -does give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name. He -does deal to a great extent in what economists (in their -poetical way) describe as imaginaries. When he exchanges two -thousand Patagonian Pumpkins for one thousand shares in -Alaskan Whale Blubber, he does not demand the sensual -satisfaction of eating the pumpkin or need to behold the -whale with the gross eye of flesh. It is quite possible that -there are no pumpkins; and if there is somewhere such a -thing as a whale, it is very unlikely to obtrude itself upon -the conversation in the Stock Exchange. Now what is the -matter with the financial world is that it is a great deal -too full of imagination, in the sense of fiction. And when -we react against it, we naturally in the first place react -into realism. When the stockbroker homeward plods his weary -way and leaves the world to darkness and Sir Ernest Benn, we -are disposed to insist that it is indeed he who has the -darkness and we who have the daylight. He has not only the -darkness but the dreams, and all the unreal leviathans and -unearthly pumpkins pass before him like a mere scroll of -symbols in the dreams of the Old Testament. But when the -small proprietor grows pumpkins, they really are pumpkins, -and sometimes quite a large pumpkin for quite a small -proprietor. If he should ever have occasion to grow whales -(which seems improbable) they would either be real whales or -they would be of no use to him. We naturally grow a little -impatient, under these conditions, when people who call -themselves practical scoff at the small proprietor as if he -were a minor poet. Nevertheless, there is another side to -the case, and there is a sense in which the small proprietor -had better be a minor poet, or at least a mystic. Nay, there -is even a sort of queer paradoxical sense in which the -stockbroker is a man of business. - -It is to that other side of small property, as exemplified -in the French Canadians, and an article on them in the -*Daily News,* that I devoted my last remarks. The really -practical point in that highly interesting statement is, -that in this case, being progressive is actually identified -with being what is called static. In this case, by a strange -paradox, a pioneer is really d settler. In this case, by a -still stranger paradox, a settler is a person who really -settles. It will be noted that the success of the experiment -is actually founded on a certain power of striking root; -which we might almost call rapid tradition, as others talk -of rapid transit. And indeed the ground under the pioneer's -feet can only be made solid by being made sacred. It is only -religion that can thus rapidly give a sort of accumulated -power of culture and legend to something that is crude or -incomplete. It sounds like a joke to say that baptizing a -baby makes the baby venerable; it suggests the old joke of -the baby with spectacles who died an enfeebled old dotard at -five. Yet it is profoundly true that something is added that -is not only something to be venerated, but something partly -to be venerated for its antiquity---that is, for the -unfathomable depth of its humanity. In a sense a new world -can be baptized as a new baby is baptized, and become a part -of an ancient order not merely on the map but in the mind. -Instead of crude people merely extending their crudity, and -calling that colonization, it would be possible for people -to cultivate the soil as they cultivate the soul. But for -this it is necessary to have a respect for the soil as well -as for the soul; and even a reverence for it, as having some -associations with holy things. But for that purpose we need -some sense of carrying holy things with us and taking them -home with us; not merely the feeling that holiness may exist -as a hope. In the most exalted phrase, we need a real -presence. In the most popular phrase, we need something that -is always on the spot. - -That is, we want something that is always on the spot, and -not only beyond the horizon. The pioneer instinct is -beginning to fail, as a well-known traveller recently -complained, but I doubt whether he could tell us the reason. -It is even possible that he will not understand it, in one -radiant burst of joyful comprehension, if I tell him that I -am all in favour of a wild-goose chase, so long as he really -believes that the wild goose is the bird of paradise; but -that it is necessary to hunt it with the hounds of heaven. -If it be barely possible that this does not seem quite clear -to him, I will explain that the traveller must possess -something as well as pursue something, or he will not even -know what to pursue. It is not enough always to follow the -gleam: it is necessary sometimes to rest in the glow; to -feel something sacred in the glow of the camp fire as well -as the gleam of the polar star. And that same mysterious and -to some divided voice, which alone tells that we have here -no abiding city, is the only voice which within the limits -of this world can build up cities that abide. - -As I said at the beginning of this section, it is futile to -pretend that such a faith is not a fundamental of the true -change. But its practical relation to the reconstruction of -property is that, unless we understand this spirit, we -cannot now relieve congestion with colonization. People will -prefer the mere nomadism of the town to the mere nomadism of -the wilderness. They will not tolerate emigration if it -merely means being moved on by the politicians as they have -been moved on by the policemen. They will prefer bread and -circuses to locusts and wild honey, so long as the -forerunner does not know for what God he prepares the way. - -But even if we put aside for the moment the strictly -spiritual ideals involved in the change, we must admit that -there are secular ideals involved which must be positive and -not merely comparative, like the ideal of progress. We are -sometimes taunted with setting against all other Utopias -what is in truth the most impossible Utopia; with describing -a Merry Peasant who cannot exist except on the stage, with -depending on a China Shepherdess who never was seen except -on the mantelpiece. If we are indeed presenting impossible -portraits of an ideal humanity, we are not alone in that. -Not only the Socialists but also the Capitalists parade -before us their imaginary and ideal figures, and the -Capitalists if possible more than the Socialists. For once -that we read of the last Earthly Paradise of Mr. Wells, -where men and women move gracefully in simple garments and -keep their tempers in a way in which we in this world -sometimes find difficult (even when we are the authors of -Utopian novels), for once that we see the ideal figure of -that vision, we see ten times a day the ideal figure of the -commercial advertisers. We are told to "Be Like This Man," -or to imitate an aggressive person pointing his finger at us -in a very rude manner for one who regards himself as a -pattern to the young. Yet it is entirely an ideal portrait; -it is very unlikely (we are glad to say) that any of us will -develop a chin or a finger of that obtrusive type. But we do -not blame either the Capitalists or the Socialists for -setting up a type or talismanic figure to fix the -imagination. We do not wonder at their presenting the -perfect person for our admiration; we only wonder at the -person they admire. And it is quite true that, in our -movement as much as any other, there must be a certain -amount of this romantic picture-making. Men have never done -anything in the world without it; but ours is much more of a -reality as well as a romance than the dreams of the other -romantics. There cannot be a nation of millionaires, and -there has never yet been a nation of Utopian comrades; but -there have been any number of nations of tolerably contented -peasants. In this connection, however, the point is that if -we do not directly demand the religion of small property, we -must at least demand the poetry of small property. It is a -thing about which it is definitely and even urgently -practical to be poetical. And it is those who blame us for -being poetical who do not really see the practical problem. - -For the practical problem is the goal. The pioneer notion -has weakened like the progressive notion, and for the same -reason. People could go on talking about progress so long as -they were not merely thinking about progress. Progressives -really had in their minds some notion of a purpose in -progress; and even the most practical pioneer had some vague -and shadowy idea of what he wanted. The Progressives trusted -the tendency of their time, because they did believe, or at -least had believed, in a body of democratic doctrines which -they supposed to be in process of establishment. And the -pioneers and empire-builders were filled with hope and -courage because, to do them justice, most of them did at -least in some dim way believe that the flag they carried -stood for law and liberty, and a higher civilization. They -were therefore in search of something and not merely in -search of searching. They subconsciously conceived an end of -travel and not endless travelling; they were not only -breaking through a jungle but building a city. They knew -more or less the style of architecture in which it would be -built, and they honestly believed it was the best style of -architecture in the world. The spirit of adventure has -failed because it has been left to adventurers. Adventure -for adventure's sake became like art for art's sake. Those -who had lost all sense of aim lost all sense of art and even -of accident. The time has come in every department, but -especially in our department, to make once again vivid and -solid the aim of political progress or colonial adventure. -Even if we picture the goal of the pilgrimage as a sort of -peasant paradise, it will be far more practical than setting -out on a pilgrimage which has no goal. But it is yet more -practical to insist that we do not want to insist only on -what are called the qualities of a pioneer; that we do not -want to describe merely the virtues that achieve adventures. -We want men to think, not merely of a place which they would -be interested to find, but of a place where they would be -contented to stay. Those who wish merely to arouse again the -social hopes of the nineteenth century must offer not an -endless hope, but the hope of an end. Those who wish to -continue the building of the old colonial idea must leave -off telling us that the Church of Empire is founded entirely -on the rolling stone. For it is a sin against the reason to -tell men that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive; -and when once they believe it, they travel hopefully no +"Now look at the other picture. The race that is going ahead is the +French race. . . . In Quebec, where there are nearly 2,000,000 Canadians +of French origin in a population of 2,350,000, that might have been +expected. But as a matter of fact it is not in Quebec that the French +are making good most conspicuously . . . nor in Nova Scotia and New +Brunswick is the comparative success of the French stock most marked. +They are doing splendidly on the land and raising prodigious families. A +family of twelve is quite common, and I could name several cases where +there have been twenty, who all lived. The day may come when they will +equal or outnumber the Scotch, but that is some way ahead. If you want +to see what French stock can still achieve, you should go to the +northern part of this province of Ontario. It is doing pioneer work. It +is bending its back as men did in the old days. It is multiplying and +staying on the soil. It is content to be happy without being rich. + +"Though I am not a religious man myself, I must confess I think religion +has a good deal to do with it. These French Canadians are more Catholic +than the Pope. You might call a good many of them desperately ignorant +and desperately superstitious. They seem to me to be a century behind +the times and a century nearer happiness." + +These seem to me, I repeat, to be rather remarkable words; remarkable if +they appeared anywhere, arresting and astonishing when they appear in +the traditional paper of the Manchester Radicals and the +nineteenth-century Nonconformists. The words are splendidly +straightforward and unaffected in their literary form; they have a clear +ring of sincerity and experience, and they are all the more convincing +because they are written by somebody who does not share my own desperate +ignorance and desperate superstition. But he proceeds to suggest a +reason, and incidentally to make his own independence in the matter +quite clear. + +"Apart from the fact that their women bear an incredible number of +children, you have this other consequence of their submission to the +priest, that a social organism is created, which is of incalculable +value in the backwoods. The church, the school, the curé, hold each +little group together as a unit. Do not think for a moment that I +believe a general spread of Catholicism would turn us back into a +pioneer people. One might just as reasonably recommend a return to early +Scottish Protestantism. I merely record the fact that the simplicity of +these people is proving their salvation and is one of the most hopeful +things in Canada to-day." + +Of course, there are a good many things of an incidental kind that a +person with my views might comment on in that passage. I might go off at +a gallop on the highly interesting comparison with early Scottish +Protestantism. Very early Scottish Protestantism, like very early +English Protestantism, consisted chiefly of loot. But if we take it as +referring to the perfectly pure and sincere enthusiasm of many +Covenanters or early Calvinists, we come upon the contrast that is the +point of the whole matter. Early Puritanism was pure Puritanism; but the +purer it is the more early it seems. We cannot imagine it as a good +thing and also a modern thing. It might have been one of the most honest +things in Scotland then. But nobody would be found calling it one of the +most hopeful things in Canada to-day. If John Knox appeared to-morrow in +the pulpit of St. Giles, he would be a stickit minister. He would be +regarded as a raving savage because of his ignorance of German +metaphysics. That comparison does not meet the extraordinary case of the +thing that is older than Knox and yet also newer than Knox. Or again, I +might point out that the common connotation of "submission to the +priest" is misleading, even if it is true. It is like talking of the +Charge of the Light Brigade as the submission to Lord Raglan. It is +still more like talking about the storming of Jerusalem as the +submission to the Count of Bouillon. In one sense it is quite true; in +another it is very untrue. But I have not the smallest desire here to +disturb the impartiality of my witness. I have not the smallest +intention of using any of the tortures of the Inquisition to make him +admit anything that he did not wish to admit. The admission as it stands +seems to me very remarkable; not so much because it is a tribute to +Frenchmen as colonists as because it is a tribute to colonists as pious +and devout people. But what concerns me most of all in the general +discussion of my own theme is the insistence on stability. They are +staying on the soil; they are a social organism; they are held together +as a unit. That is the new note which I think is needed in all talk of +colonization, before it can again be any part of the hope of the world. + +A recent description of the Happy Factory, as it exists in America or +will exist in Utopia, rose from height to height of ideality until it +ended with a sort of hush, as of the ultimate opening of the heavens, +and these words about the workman, "He turns out for his homeward +journey like a member of the Stock Exchange." Any attempt to imagine +humanity in its final perfection always has about it something faintly +unreal, as being too good for this world; but the visionary light that +breaks from the cloud, in that last phrase, accentuates clearly the +contrast which is to be drawn between such a condition and that of the +labour of common men. Adam left Eden as a gardener; but he will set out +for his homeward journey like a member of the Stock Exchange. St. Joseph +was a carpenter; but he will be raised again as a stockbroker. Giotto +was a shepherd; for he was not yet worthy to be a stockbroker. +Shakespeare was an actor; but he dreamed day and night of being a +stockbroker. Burns was a ploughman; but if he sang at the plough, how +much more appropriately he would have sung in the Stock Exchange. It is +assumed in this kind of argument that all humanity has consciously or +unconsciously hoped for this consummation; and that if men were not +brokers, it was because they were not able to broke. But this remarkable +passage in Sir Ernest Benn's exposition has another application besides +the obvious one. A stockbroker in one sense really is a very poetical +figure. In one sense he is as poetical as Shakespeare, and his ideal +poet, since he does give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name. +He does deal to a great extent in what economists (in their poetical +way) describe as imaginaries. When he exchanges two thousand Patagonian +Pumpkins for one thousand shares in Alaskan Whale Blubber, he does not +demand the sensual satisfaction of eating the pumpkin or need to behold +the whale with the gross eye of flesh. It is quite possible that there +are no pumpkins; and if there is somewhere such a thing as a whale, it +is very unlikely to obtrude itself upon the conversation in the Stock +Exchange. Now what is the matter with the financial world is that it is +a great deal too full of imagination, in the sense of fiction. And when +we react against it, we naturally in the first place react into realism. +When the stockbroker homeward plods his weary way and leaves the world +to darkness and Sir Ernest Benn, we are disposed to insist that it is +indeed he who has the darkness and we who have the daylight. He has not +only the darkness but the dreams, and all the unreal leviathans and +unearthly pumpkins pass before him like a mere scroll of symbols in the +dreams of the Old Testament. But when the small proprietor grows +pumpkins, they really are pumpkins, and sometimes quite a large pumpkin +for quite a small proprietor. If he should ever have occasion to grow +whales (which seems improbable) they would either be real whales or they +would be of no use to him. We naturally grow a little impatient, under +these conditions, when people who call themselves practical scoff at the +small proprietor as if he were a minor poet. Nevertheless, there is +another side to the case, and there is a sense in which the small +proprietor had better be a minor poet, or at least a mystic. Nay, there +is even a sort of queer paradoxical sense in which the stockbroker is a +man of business. + +It is to that other side of small property, as exemplified in the French +Canadians, and an article on them in the *Daily News,* that I devoted my +last remarks. The really practical point in that highly interesting +statement is, that in this case, being progressive is actually +identified with being what is called static. In this case, by a strange +paradox, a pioneer is really d settler. In this case, by a still +stranger paradox, a settler is a person who really settles. It will be +noted that the success of the experiment is actually founded on a +certain power of striking root; which we might almost call rapid +tradition, as others talk of rapid transit. And indeed the ground under +the pioneer's feet can only be made solid by being made sacred. It is +only religion that can thus rapidly give a sort of accumulated power of +culture and legend to something that is crude or incomplete. It sounds +like a joke to say that baptizing a baby makes the baby venerable; it +suggests the old joke of the baby with spectacles who died an enfeebled +old dotard at five. Yet it is profoundly true that something is added +that is not only something to be venerated, but something partly to be +venerated for its antiquity---that is, for the unfathomable depth of its +humanity. In a sense a new world can be baptized as a new baby is +baptized, and become a part of an ancient order not merely on the map +but in the mind. Instead of crude people merely extending their crudity, +and calling that colonization, it would be possible for people to +cultivate the soil as they cultivate the soul. But for this it is +necessary to have a respect for the soil as well as for the soul; and +even a reverence for it, as having some associations with holy things. +But for that purpose we need some sense of carrying holy things with us +and taking them home with us; not merely the feeling that holiness may +exist as a hope. In the most exalted phrase, we need a real presence. In +the most popular phrase, we need something that is always on the spot. + +That is, we want something that is always on the spot, and not only +beyond the horizon. The pioneer instinct is beginning to fail, as a +well-known traveller recently complained, but I doubt whether he could +tell us the reason. It is even possible that he will not understand it, +in one radiant burst of joyful comprehension, if I tell him that I am +all in favour of a wild-goose chase, so long as he really believes that +the wild goose is the bird of paradise; but that it is necessary to hunt +it with the hounds of heaven. If it be barely possible that this does +not seem quite clear to him, I will explain that the traveller must +possess something as well as pursue something, or he will not even know +what to pursue. It is not enough always to follow the gleam: it is +necessary sometimes to rest in the glow; to feel something sacred in the +glow of the camp fire as well as the gleam of the polar star. And that +same mysterious and to some divided voice, which alone tells that we +have here no abiding city, is the only voice which within the limits of +this world can build up cities that abide. + +As I said at the beginning of this section, it is futile to pretend that +such a faith is not a fundamental of the true change. But its practical +relation to the reconstruction of property is that, unless we understand +this spirit, we cannot now relieve congestion with colonization. People +will prefer the mere nomadism of the town to the mere nomadism of the +wilderness. They will not tolerate emigration if it merely means being +moved on by the politicians as they have been moved on by the policemen. +They will prefer bread and circuses to locusts and wild honey, so long +as the forerunner does not know for what God he prepares the way. + +But even if we put aside for the moment the strictly spiritual ideals +involved in the change, we must admit that there are secular ideals +involved which must be positive and not merely comparative, like the +ideal of progress. We are sometimes taunted with setting against all +other Utopias what is in truth the most impossible Utopia; with +describing a Merry Peasant who cannot exist except on the stage, with +depending on a China Shepherdess who never was seen except on the +mantelpiece. If we are indeed presenting impossible portraits of an +ideal humanity, we are not alone in that. Not only the Socialists but +also the Capitalists parade before us their imaginary and ideal figures, +and the Capitalists if possible more than the Socialists. For once that +we read of the last Earthly Paradise of Mr. Wells, where men and women +move gracefully in simple garments and keep their tempers in a way in +which we in this world sometimes find difficult (even when we are the +authors of Utopian novels), for once that we see the ideal figure of +that vision, we see ten times a day the ideal figure of the commercial +advertisers. We are told to "Be Like This Man," or to imitate an +aggressive person pointing his finger at us in a very rude manner for +one who regards himself as a pattern to the young. Yet it is entirely an +ideal portrait; it is very unlikely (we are glad to say) that any of us +will develop a chin or a finger of that obtrusive type. But we do not +blame either the Capitalists or the Socialists for setting up a type or +talismanic figure to fix the imagination. We do not wonder at their +presenting the perfect person for our admiration; we only wonder at the +person they admire. And it is quite true that, in our movement as much +as any other, there must be a certain amount of this romantic +picture-making. Men have never done anything in the world without it; +but ours is much more of a reality as well as a romance than the dreams +of the other romantics. There cannot be a nation of millionaires, and +there has never yet been a nation of Utopian comrades; but there have +been any number of nations of tolerably contented peasants. In this +connection, however, the point is that if we do not directly demand the +religion of small property, we must at least demand the poetry of small +property. It is a thing about which it is definitely and even urgently +practical to be poetical. And it is those who blame us for being +poetical who do not really see the practical problem. + +For the practical problem is the goal. The pioneer notion has weakened +like the progressive notion, and for the same reason. People could go on +talking about progress so long as they were not merely thinking about +progress. Progressives really had in their minds some notion of a +purpose in progress; and even the most practical pioneer had some vague +and shadowy idea of what he wanted. The Progressives trusted the +tendency of their time, because they did believe, or at least had +believed, in a body of democratic doctrines which they supposed to be in +process of establishment. And the pioneers and empire-builders were +filled with hope and courage because, to do them justice, most of them +did at least in some dim way believe that the flag they carried stood +for law and liberty, and a higher civilization. They were therefore in +search of something and not merely in search of searching. They +subconsciously conceived an end of travel and not endless travelling; +they were not only breaking through a jungle but building a city. They +knew more or less the style of architecture in which it would be built, +and they honestly believed it was the best style of architecture in the +world. The spirit of adventure has failed because it has been left to +adventurers. Adventure for adventure's sake became like art for art's +sake. Those who had lost all sense of aim lost all sense of art and even +of accident. The time has come in every department, but especially in +our department, to make once again vivid and solid the aim of political +progress or colonial adventure. Even if we picture the goal of the +pilgrimage as a sort of peasant paradise, it will be far more practical +than setting out on a pilgrimage which has no goal. But it is yet more +practical to insist that we do not want to insist only on what are +called the qualities of a pioneer; that we do not want to describe +merely the virtues that achieve adventures. We want men to think, not +merely of a place which they would be interested to find, but of a place +where they would be contented to stay. Those who wish merely to arouse +again the social hopes of the nineteenth century must offer not an +endless hope, but the hope of an end. Those who wish to continue the +building of the old colonial idea must leave off telling us that the +Church of Empire is founded entirely on the rolling stone. For it is a +sin against the reason to tell men that to travel hopefully is better +than to arrive; and when once they believe it, they travel hopefully no longer. # A Summary -I once debated with a learned man who had a curious fancy -for arranging the correspondence in mathematical patterns; -first a thousand words each and then a hundred words -each---and then altering them all to another pattern. I -accepted as I would always accept a challenge, especially an -apparent appeal for fairness, but I was tempted to tell him -how utterly unworkable this mechanical method is for a -living thing like argument. Obviously a man might need a -thousand words to reply to ten words. Suppose I began the -philosophic dialogue by saying, "You strangle babies." He -would naturally reply, "Nonsense---I never strangled any -babies." And even in that obvious ejaculation he has already -used twice as many words as I have. It is impossible to have -real debate without digression. Every definition will look -like a digression. Suppose somebody puts to me some -journalistic statement, say, "Spanish Jesuits denounced in -Parliament." I cannot deal with it without explaining to the -journalist where I differ from him about the atmosphere and -implication of each term in turn. I cannot answer quickly if -I am just discovering slowly that the man suffers from a -series of extraordinary delusions: as (1) that Parliament is -a popular representative assembly; (2) that Spain is an -effete and decadent country; or (3) that a Spanish Jesuit is -a sort of soft-footed court chaplain; whereas it was a -Spanish Jesuit who anticipated the whole democratic theory -of our day, and actually hurled it as a defiance against the -divine right of kings. Each of these explanations would have -to be a digression, and each would be necessary. Now in this -book I am well aware that there are many digressions that -may not at first sight seem to be necessary. For I have had -to construct it out of what was originally a sort of -controversial causerie; and it has proved impossible to cut -down the causerie and only leave the controversy. Moreover, -no man can controvert with many foes without going into many -subjects, as every one knows who has been heckled. And on -this occasion I was, I am happy to say, being heckled by -many foes who were also friends. I was discharging the -double function of writing essays and of talking over the -tea-table, or preferably over the tavern table. To turn this -sort of mixture of a gossip and a gospel into anything like -a grammar of Distributism has been quite impossible. But I -fancy that, even considered as a string of essays, it -appears more inconsequent than it really is; and many may -read the essays without quite seeing the string. I have -decided, therefore, to add this last essay merely in order -to sum up the intention of the whole; even if the summary be -only a recapitulation. I have had a reason for many of my -digressions, which may not appear until the whole is seen in -some sort of perspective; and where the digression has no -such justification, but was due to a desire to answer a -friend or (what is even worse) a disposition towards idle -and unseemly mirth, I can only apologize sincerely to the -scientific reader and promise to do my best to make this -final summary as dull as possible. - -If we proceed as at present in a proper orderly fashion, the -very idea of property will vanish. It is not revolutionary -violence that will destroy it. It is rather the desperate -and reckless habit of not having a revolution. The world -will be occupied, or rather is already occupied, by two -powers which are now one power. I speak, of course, of that -part of the world that is covered by our system, and that -part of the history of the world which will last very much -longer than our time. Sooner or later, no doubt, men would -rediscover so natural a pleasure as property. But it might -be discovered after ages, like those ages filled with pagan -slavery. It might be discovered after a long decline of our -whole civilization. Barbarians might rediscover it and -imagine it was a new thing. - -Anyhow, the prospect is a progress towards the complete -combination of two combinations. They are both powers that -believe only in combination; and have never understood or -even heard that there is any dignity in division. They have -never had the imagination to understand the idea of Genesis -and the great myths: that Creation itself was division. The -beginning of the world was the division of heaven and earth; -the beginning of humanity was the division of man and woman. -But these flat and platitudinous minds can never see the -difference between the creative cleavage of Adam and Eve and -the destructive cleavage of Cain and Abel. Anyhow, these -powers or minds are now both in the same mood; and it is a -mood of disliking all division, and therefore all -distribution. They believe in unity, in unanimity, in -harmony. One of these powers is State Socialism and the -other is Big Business. They are already one spirit; they -will soon be one body. For, disbelieving in division, they -cannot remain divided; believing only in combination, they -will themselves combine. At present one of them calls it -Solidarity and the other calls it Consolidation. It would -seem that we have only to wait while both monsters are -taught to say Consolidarity. But, whatever it is called, -there will be no doubt about the character of the world -which they will have made between them. It is becoming more -and more fixed and familiar. It will be a world of -organization, or syndication, of standardization. People -will be able to get hats, houses, holidays, and patent -medicines of a recognized and universal pattern; they will -be fed, clothed, educated, and examined by a wide and -elaborate system; but if you were to ask them at any given -moment whether the agency which housed or hatted them was -still merely mercantile or had become municipal, they -probably would not know, and they possibly would not care. - -Many believe that humanity will be happy in this new peace; -that classes can be reconciled and souls set at rest. I do -not think things will be quite so bad as that. But I admit -that there are many things which may make possible such a -catastrophe of contentment. Men in large numbers have -submitted to slavery; men submit naturally to government, -and perhaps even especially to despotic government. But I -take it as obvious to any intelligent person that this -government will be something more than despotic. It is the -very essence of the Trust that it has the power, not only to -extinguish military rivalry or mob rebellion as has the -State, but also the power to crush any new custom or costume -or craft or private enterprise that it does not choose to -like. Militarism can only prevent people from fighting; but -monopoly can prevent them from buying or selling anything -except the article (generally the inferior article) having -the trade mark of the monopoly. If anything can be inferred -from history and human nature, it is absolutely certain that -the despotism will grow more and more despotic, and that the -article will grow more and more inferior. There is no -conceivable argument from psychology, by which it can be -pretended that people preserving such a power, generation -after generation, would not abuse it more and more, or -neglect everything else more and more. We know what far less -rigid rule has become, even when founded by spirited and -intelligent rulers. We can darkly guess the effect of larger -powers in the hands of lesser men. And if the name of Caesar -came at last to stand for all that we call Byzantine, -exactly what degree of dullness are we to anticipate when -the name of Harrod shall sound even duller than it does? If -China passed into a proverb at last for stiffness and -monotony after being nourished for centuries by Confucius, -what will be the condition of the brains that have been -nourished for centuries by Callisthenes? - -I leave out there the particular case of my own country, -where we are threatened not with a long decline, but rather -with an unpleasantly rapid collapse. But taking monopolist -capitalism in a country where it is still in the vulgar -sense successful, as in the United States, we only see more -clearly, and on a more colossal scale, the long and -descending perspectives that point down to Byzantium or -Pekin. It is perfectly obvious that the whole business is a -machine for manufacturing tenth-rate things, and keeping -people ignorant of first-rate things. Most civilized systems -have declined from a height; but this starts on a low level -and in a flat place; and what it would be like when it had -really crushed all its critics and rivals and made its -monopoly watertight for two hundred years, the most morbid -imagination will find it hard to imagine. But whatever the -last stage of the story, no sane man any longer doubts that -we are seeing the first stages of it. There is no longer any -difference in tone and type between collectivist and -ordinary commercial order; commerce has its officialism and -communism has its organization. Private things are already -public in the worst sense of the word; that is, they are -impersonal and dehumanized. Public things are already -private in the worst sense of the word; that is, they are -mysterious and secretive and largely corrupt. The new sort -of Business Government will combine everything that is bad -in all the plans for a better world. There will be no -eccentricity; no humour; no noble disdain of the world. -There will be nothing but a loathsome thing called Social -Service; which means slavery without loyalty. This Service -will be one of the ideals. I forgot to mention that there -will be ideals. All the wealthiest men in the movement have -made it quite clear that they are in possession of a number -of these little comforts. People always have ideals when -they can no longer have ideas. - -The philanthropists in question will probably be surprised -to learn that some of us regard this prospect very much as -we should regard the theory that we are to be evolved back -into apes. We therefore consider whether it is even yet -conceivable to restore that long-forgotten thing called -Self-Government: that is, the power of the citizen in some -degree to direct his own life and construct his own -environment; to eat what he likes, to wear what he chooses, -and to have (what the Trust must of necessity deny him) a -range of choice. In these notes upon the notion, I have been -concerned to ask whether it is possible to escape from this -enormous evil of simplification or centralization, and what -I have said is best summed up under two heads or in two -parallel statements. They may seem to some to contradict -each other, but they really confirm each other. - -First, I say that this is a thing that could be done by -people. It is not a thing that can be done to people. That -is where it differs from nearly all Socialist schemes as it -does from plutocratic philanthropy. I do not say that I, -regarding this prospect with hatred and contempt, can save -them from it. I say that they can save me from it, and -themselves from it, if they also regard it with hatred and -contempt. But it must be done in the spirit of a religion, -of a revolution, and (I will add) of a renunciation. They -must want to do it as they want to drive invaders out of a -country or to stop the spread of a plague. And in this -respect our critics have a curious way of arguing in a -circle. They ask why we trouble to denounce what we cannot -destroy; and offer an ideal we cannot attain. They say we -are merely throwing away dirty water before we can get -clean; or rather that we are merely analysing the -animalculae in the dirty water, while we do not even venture -to throw it away. Why do we make men discontented with -conditions with which they must be content? Why revile an -intolerable slavery that must be tolerated? But when we in -turn ask why our ideal is impossible or why the evil is -indestructible, they answer in effect, "Because you cannot -persuade people to want it destroyed." Possibly; but, on -their own showing, they cannot blame us because we try. They -cannot say that people do not hate plutocracy enough to kill -it; and then blame us for asking them to look at it enough -to hate it. If they will not attack it until they hate it, -then we are doing the most practical thing we can do, in -showing it to be hateful. A moral movement must begin -somewhere; but I do most positively postulate that there -must be a moral movement. This is not a financial flutter or -a police regulation or a private bill or a detail of -book-keeping. It is a mighty effort of the will of man, like -the throwing off of any other great evil, or it is nothing. -I say that if men will fight for this they may win; I have -nowhere suggested that there is any way of winning without -fighting. - -Under this heading I have considered in their place, for -instance, the possibility of an organized boycott of big -shops. Undoubtedly it would be some sacrifice to boycott big -shops; it would be some trouble to seek out small shops. But -it would be about a hundredth part of the sacrifice and -trouble that has often been shown by masses of men making -some patriotic or religious protest---when they really -wanted to protest. Under the same general rule, I have -remarked that a real life on the land, men not only dwelling -on the land but living off it, would be an adventure -involving both stubbornness and abnegation. But it would not -be half so ascetic as the sort of adventure which it is a -commonplace to attribute to colonists and empire-builders; -it is nothing to what has been normally shown by millions of -soldiers and monks. Only it is true that monks have a faith, -that soldiers have a flag, and that even empire-builders -were presumably under the impression that they could assist -the Empire. But it does not seem to me quite inconceivable, -in the varieties of religious experience, that men might -take as much notice of earth as monks do of heaven; that -people might really believe in the spades that create as -well as in the swords that destroy; and that the English who -have colonized everywhere else might begin to colonize -England. - -Having thus admitted, or rather insisted, that this thing -cannot be done unless people do really think it worth doing, -I then proceeded to suggest that, even in these different -departments, there are more people who think it worth doing -than is noticed by the people who do not think it worth -noticing. Thus, even in the crowds that throng the big -shops, you do in fact hear a vast amount of grumbling at the -big shops---not so much because they are big as because they -are bad. But these real criticisms are disconnected, while -the unreal puffs and praises are connected, like any other -conspiracy. When the millionaire owning the stores is -criticized, it is by his customers. When he is handsomely -complimented, it is by himself. But when he is cursed, it is -in the inner chamber; when he is praised (by himself) it is -proclaimed from the house-tops. That is what is meant by -publicity---a voice loud enough to drown any remarks made by -the public. - -In the case of the land, as in the case of the shops, I went -on to point out that there is, if not a moral agitation, at -least the materials of a moral agitation. Just as a -discontent with the shops lingers even among those who are -shopping, so a desire for the land lingers even in those who -are hardly allowed to walk on the ground. I gave the -instance of the slum population of Limehouse, who were -forcibly lifted into high flats, bitterly lamenting the loss -of the funny little farmyards they had constructed for -themselves in the corners of their slum. It seems absurd to -say of a country that none of its people could be -countrymen, when even its cockneys try to be countrymen. I -also noted that, in the case of the country, there is now a -general discontent, in landlords as well as tenants. -Everything seems to point to a simpler life of one man one -field, free as far as possible of the complications of rent -and labour, especially when the rent is so often unpaid or -unprofitable, and the labourers are so often on strike or on -the dole. Here again there may often be a million -individuals feeling like this; but the million has not -become a mob; for a mob is a moral thing. But I will never -be so unpatriotic as to suggest that the English could never -conduct an agrarian war in England as the Irish did in -Ireland. Generally, therefore, under this first principle, -the thing would most certainly have to be preached rather -like a Crusade; but it is quite untrue and unhistorical to -say, as a rule, that when once the Crusade is preached, +I once debated with a learned man who had a curious fancy for arranging +the correspondence in mathematical patterns; first a thousand words each +and then a hundred words each---and then altering them all to another +pattern. I accepted as I would always accept a challenge, especially an +apparent appeal for fairness, but I was tempted to tell him how utterly +unworkable this mechanical method is for a living thing like argument. +Obviously a man might need a thousand words to reply to ten words. +Suppose I began the philosophic dialogue by saying, "You strangle +babies." He would naturally reply, "Nonsense---I never strangled any +babies." And even in that obvious ejaculation he has already used twice +as many words as I have. It is impossible to have real debate without +digression. Every definition will look like a digression. Suppose +somebody puts to me some journalistic statement, say, "Spanish Jesuits +denounced in Parliament." I cannot deal with it without explaining to +the journalist where I differ from him about the atmosphere and +implication of each term in turn. I cannot answer quickly if I am just +discovering slowly that the man suffers from a series of extraordinary +delusions: as (1) that Parliament is a popular representative assembly; +(2) that Spain is an effete and decadent country; or (3) that a Spanish +Jesuit is a sort of soft-footed court chaplain; whereas it was a Spanish +Jesuit who anticipated the whole democratic theory of our day, and +actually hurled it as a defiance against the divine right of kings. Each +of these explanations would have to be a digression, and each would be +necessary. Now in this book I am well aware that there are many +digressions that may not at first sight seem to be necessary. For I have +had to construct it out of what was originally a sort of controversial +causerie; and it has proved impossible to cut down the causerie and only +leave the controversy. Moreover, no man can controvert with many foes +without going into many subjects, as every one knows who has been +heckled. And on this occasion I was, I am happy to say, being heckled by +many foes who were also friends. I was discharging the double function +of writing essays and of talking over the tea-table, or preferably over +the tavern table. To turn this sort of mixture of a gossip and a gospel +into anything like a grammar of Distributism has been quite impossible. +But I fancy that, even considered as a string of essays, it appears more +inconsequent than it really is; and many may read the essays without +quite seeing the string. I have decided, therefore, to add this last +essay merely in order to sum up the intention of the whole; even if the +summary be only a recapitulation. I have had a reason for many of my +digressions, which may not appear until the whole is seen in some sort +of perspective; and where the digression has no such justification, but +was due to a desire to answer a friend or (what is even worse) a +disposition towards idle and unseemly mirth, I can only apologize +sincerely to the scientific reader and promise to do my best to make +this final summary as dull as possible. + +If we proceed as at present in a proper orderly fashion, the very idea +of property will vanish. It is not revolutionary violence that will +destroy it. It is rather the desperate and reckless habit of not having +a revolution. The world will be occupied, or rather is already occupied, +by two powers which are now one power. I speak, of course, of that part +of the world that is covered by our system, and that part of the history +of the world which will last very much longer than our time. Sooner or +later, no doubt, men would rediscover so natural a pleasure as property. +But it might be discovered after ages, like those ages filled with pagan +slavery. It might be discovered after a long decline of our whole +civilization. Barbarians might rediscover it and imagine it was a new +thing. + +Anyhow, the prospect is a progress towards the complete combination of +two combinations. They are both powers that believe only in combination; +and have never understood or even heard that there is any dignity in +division. They have never had the imagination to understand the idea of +Genesis and the great myths: that Creation itself was division. The +beginning of the world was the division of heaven and earth; the +beginning of humanity was the division of man and woman. But these flat +and platitudinous minds can never see the difference between the +creative cleavage of Adam and Eve and the destructive cleavage of Cain +and Abel. Anyhow, these powers or minds are now both in the same mood; +and it is a mood of disliking all division, and therefore all +distribution. They believe in unity, in unanimity, in harmony. One of +these powers is State Socialism and the other is Big Business. They are +already one spirit; they will soon be one body. For, disbelieving in +division, they cannot remain divided; believing only in combination, +they will themselves combine. At present one of them calls it Solidarity +and the other calls it Consolidation. It would seem that we have only to +wait while both monsters are taught to say Consolidarity. But, whatever +it is called, there will be no doubt about the character of the world +which they will have made between them. It is becoming more and more +fixed and familiar. It will be a world of organization, or syndication, +of standardization. People will be able to get hats, houses, holidays, +and patent medicines of a recognized and universal pattern; they will be +fed, clothed, educated, and examined by a wide and elaborate system; but +if you were to ask them at any given moment whether the agency which +housed or hatted them was still merely mercantile or had become +municipal, they probably would not know, and they possibly would not +care. + +Many believe that humanity will be happy in this new peace; that classes +can be reconciled and souls set at rest. I do not think things will be +quite so bad as that. But I admit that there are many things which may +make possible such a catastrophe of contentment. Men in large numbers +have submitted to slavery; men submit naturally to government, and +perhaps even especially to despotic government. But I take it as obvious +to any intelligent person that this government will be something more +than despotic. It is the very essence of the Trust that it has the +power, not only to extinguish military rivalry or mob rebellion as has +the State, but also the power to crush any new custom or costume or +craft or private enterprise that it does not choose to like. Militarism +can only prevent people from fighting; but monopoly can prevent them +from buying or selling anything except the article (generally the +inferior article) having the trade mark of the monopoly. If anything can +be inferred from history and human nature, it is absolutely certain that +the despotism will grow more and more despotic, and that the article +will grow more and more inferior. There is no conceivable argument from +psychology, by which it can be pretended that people preserving such a +power, generation after generation, would not abuse it more and more, or +neglect everything else more and more. We know what far less rigid rule +has become, even when founded by spirited and intelligent rulers. We can +darkly guess the effect of larger powers in the hands of lesser men. And +if the name of Caesar came at last to stand for all that we call +Byzantine, exactly what degree of dullness are we to anticipate when the +name of Harrod shall sound even duller than it does? If China passed +into a proverb at last for stiffness and monotony after being nourished +for centuries by Confucius, what will be the condition of the brains +that have been nourished for centuries by Callisthenes? + +I leave out there the particular case of my own country, where we are +threatened not with a long decline, but rather with an unpleasantly +rapid collapse. But taking monopolist capitalism in a country where it +is still in the vulgar sense successful, as in the United States, we +only see more clearly, and on a more colossal scale, the long and +descending perspectives that point down to Byzantium or Pekin. It is +perfectly obvious that the whole business is a machine for manufacturing +tenth-rate things, and keeping people ignorant of first-rate things. +Most civilized systems have declined from a height; but this starts on a +low level and in a flat place; and what it would be like when it had +really crushed all its critics and rivals and made its monopoly +watertight for two hundred years, the most morbid imagination will find +it hard to imagine. But whatever the last stage of the story, no sane +man any longer doubts that we are seeing the first stages of it. There +is no longer any difference in tone and type between collectivist and +ordinary commercial order; commerce has its officialism and communism +has its organization. Private things are already public in the worst +sense of the word; that is, they are impersonal and dehumanized. Public +things are already private in the worst sense of the word; that is, they +are mysterious and secretive and largely corrupt. The new sort of +Business Government will combine everything that is bad in all the plans +for a better world. There will be no eccentricity; no humour; no noble +disdain of the world. There will be nothing but a loathsome thing called +Social Service; which means slavery without loyalty. This Service will +be one of the ideals. I forgot to mention that there will be ideals. All +the wealthiest men in the movement have made it quite clear that they +are in possession of a number of these little comforts. People always +have ideals when they can no longer have ideas. + +The philanthropists in question will probably be surprised to learn that +some of us regard this prospect very much as we should regard the theory +that we are to be evolved back into apes. We therefore consider whether +it is even yet conceivable to restore that long-forgotten thing called +Self-Government: that is, the power of the citizen in some degree to +direct his own life and construct his own environment; to eat what he +likes, to wear what he chooses, and to have (what the Trust must of +necessity deny him) a range of choice. In these notes upon the notion, I +have been concerned to ask whether it is possible to escape from this +enormous evil of simplification or centralization, and what I have said +is best summed up under two heads or in two parallel statements. They +may seem to some to contradict each other, but they really confirm each +other. + +First, I say that this is a thing that could be done by people. It is +not a thing that can be done to people. That is where it differs from +nearly all Socialist schemes as it does from plutocratic philanthropy. I +do not say that I, regarding this prospect with hatred and contempt, can +save them from it. I say that they can save me from it, and themselves +from it, if they also regard it with hatred and contempt. But it must be +done in the spirit of a religion, of a revolution, and (I will add) of a +renunciation. They must want to do it as they want to drive invaders out +of a country or to stop the spread of a plague. And in this respect our +critics have a curious way of arguing in a circle. They ask why we +trouble to denounce what we cannot destroy; and offer an ideal we cannot +attain. They say we are merely throwing away dirty water before we can +get clean; or rather that we are merely analysing the animalculae in the +dirty water, while we do not even venture to throw it away. Why do we +make men discontented with conditions with which they must be content? +Why revile an intolerable slavery that must be tolerated? But when we in +turn ask why our ideal is impossible or why the evil is indestructible, +they answer in effect, "Because you cannot persuade people to want it +destroyed." Possibly; but, on their own showing, they cannot blame us +because we try. They cannot say that people do not hate plutocracy +enough to kill it; and then blame us for asking them to look at it +enough to hate it. If they will not attack it until they hate it, then +we are doing the most practical thing we can do, in showing it to be +hateful. A moral movement must begin somewhere; but I do most positively +postulate that there must be a moral movement. This is not a financial +flutter or a police regulation or a private bill or a detail of +book-keeping. It is a mighty effort of the will of man, like the +throwing off of any other great evil, or it is nothing. I say that if +men will fight for this they may win; I have nowhere suggested that +there is any way of winning without fighting. + +Under this heading I have considered in their place, for instance, the +possibility of an organized boycott of big shops. Undoubtedly it would +be some sacrifice to boycott big shops; it would be some trouble to seek +out small shops. But it would be about a hundredth part of the sacrifice +and trouble that has often been shown by masses of men making some +patriotic or religious protest---when they really wanted to protest. +Under the same general rule, I have remarked that a real life on the +land, men not only dwelling on the land but living off it, would be an +adventure involving both stubbornness and abnegation. But it would not +be half so ascetic as the sort of adventure which it is a commonplace to +attribute to colonists and empire-builders; it is nothing to what has +been normally shown by millions of soldiers and monks. Only it is true +that monks have a faith, that soldiers have a flag, and that even +empire-builders were presumably under the impression that they could +assist the Empire. But it does not seem to me quite inconceivable, in +the varieties of religious experience, that men might take as much +notice of earth as monks do of heaven; that people might really believe +in the spades that create as well as in the swords that destroy; and +that the English who have colonized everywhere else might begin to +colonize England. + +Having thus admitted, or rather insisted, that this thing cannot be done +unless people do really think it worth doing, I then proceeded to +suggest that, even in these different departments, there are more people +who think it worth doing than is noticed by the people who do not think +it worth noticing. Thus, even in the crowds that throng the big shops, +you do in fact hear a vast amount of grumbling at the big shops---not so +much because they are big as because they are bad. But these real +criticisms are disconnected, while the unreal puffs and praises are +connected, like any other conspiracy. When the millionaire owning the +stores is criticized, it is by his customers. When he is handsomely +complimented, it is by himself. But when he is cursed, it is in the +inner chamber; when he is praised (by himself) it is proclaimed from the +house-tops. That is what is meant by publicity---a voice loud enough to +drown any remarks made by the public. + +In the case of the land, as in the case of the shops, I went on to point +out that there is, if not a moral agitation, at least the materials of a +moral agitation. Just as a discontent with the shops lingers even among +those who are shopping, so a desire for the land lingers even in those +who are hardly allowed to walk on the ground. I gave the instance of the +slum population of Limehouse, who were forcibly lifted into high flats, +bitterly lamenting the loss of the funny little farmyards they had +constructed for themselves in the corners of their slum. It seems absurd +to say of a country that none of its people could be countrymen, when +even its cockneys try to be countrymen. I also noted that, in the case +of the country, there is now a general discontent, in landlords as well +as tenants. Everything seems to point to a simpler life of one man one +field, free as far as possible of the complications of rent and labour, +especially when the rent is so often unpaid or unprofitable, and the +labourers are so often on strike or on the dole. Here again there may +often be a million individuals feeling like this; but the million has +not become a mob; for a mob is a moral thing. But I will never be so +unpatriotic as to suggest that the English could never conduct an +agrarian war in England as the Irish did in Ireland. Generally, +therefore, under this first principle, the thing would most certainly +have to be preached rather like a Crusade; but it is quite untrue and +unhistorical to say, as a rule, that when once the Crusade is preached, there are no Crusaders. -And my second general principle, which may seem -contradictory but is confirmatory, is this. I think the -thing would have to be done step by step and with patience -and partial concessions. I think this, not because I have -any faith whatever in the silly cult of slowness that is -sometimes called evolution, but because of the peculiar -circumstances of the case. First, mobs may loot and burn and -rob the rich man, very much to his spiritual edification and -benefit. They may not unnaturally do it, almost -absentmindedly, when they are thinking of something else, -such as a dislike of Jews or Huguenots. But it would never -do for us to give very violent shocks to the sentiment of -property, even where it is very ill-placed or -ill-proportioned; for that happens to be the very sentiment -we are trying to revive. As a matter of psychology, it would -be foolish to insult even an unfeminine feminist in order to -awaken a delicate chivalry towards females. It would be -unwise to use a sacred image as a club with which to thump -an Iconoclast and teach him not to touch the holy images. -Where the old-fashioned feeling of property is still honest, -I think it should be dealt with by degrees and with some -consideration. Where the sense of property does not exist at -all, as in millionaires, it might well be regarded rather -differently; there it would become a question of whether -property procured in certain ways is property at all. As for -the case of cornering and making monopolies in restraint of -trade, that falls under the first of my two principles. It -is simply a question of whether we have the moral courage to -punish what is certainly immoral. There is no more doubt -about these operations of high finance than there is about -piracy on the high seas. It is merely a case of a country -being so disorderly and ill-governed that it becomes -infested with pirates. I have, therefore, in this book -treated of Trusts and Anti-Trust Law as a matter, not merely -for the popular protest of a boycott or a strike, but for -the direct action of the State against criminals. But when -the criminals are stronger than the State, any attempt to -punish them will be certainly called a rebellion and may +And my second general principle, which may seem contradictory but is +confirmatory, is this. I think the thing would have to be done step by +step and with patience and partial concessions. I think this, not +because I have any faith whatever in the silly cult of slowness that is +sometimes called evolution, but because of the peculiar circumstances of +the case. First, mobs may loot and burn and rob the rich man, very much +to his spiritual edification and benefit. They may not unnaturally do +it, almost absentmindedly, when they are thinking of something else, +such as a dislike of Jews or Huguenots. But it would never do for us to +give very violent shocks to the sentiment of property, even where it is +very ill-placed or ill-proportioned; for that happens to be the very +sentiment we are trying to revive. As a matter of psychology, it would +be foolish to insult even an unfeminine feminist in order to awaken a +delicate chivalry towards females. It would be unwise to use a sacred +image as a club with which to thump an Iconoclast and teach him not to +touch the holy images. Where the old-fashioned feeling of property is +still honest, I think it should be dealt with by degrees and with some +consideration. Where the sense of property does not exist at all, as in +millionaires, it might well be regarded rather differently; there it +would become a question of whether property procured in certain ways is +property at all. As for the case of cornering and making monopolies in +restraint of trade, that falls under the first of my two principles. It +is simply a question of whether we have the moral courage to punish what +is certainly immoral. There is no more doubt about these operations of +high finance than there is about piracy on the high seas. It is merely a +case of a country being so disorderly and ill-governed that it becomes +infested with pirates. I have, therefore, in this book treated of Trusts +and Anti-Trust Law as a matter, not merely for the popular protest of a +boycott or a strike, but for the direct action of the State against +criminals. But when the criminals are stronger than the State, any +attempt to punish them will be certainly called a rebellion and may rightly be called a Crusade. -Recurring to the second principle, however, there is another -and less abstract reason for recognizing that the goal must -be reached by stages. I have here had to consider several -things that may bring us a stage nearer to Distributism, -even if they are in themselves not very satisfactory to -ardent or austere Distributists. I took the examples of a -Ford car, which may be made by mass production but is used -for individual adventure; for, after all, a private car is -more private than a train or a tram. I also took the example -of a general supply of electricity, which might lead to many -little workshops having a chance for the first time. I do -not claim that all Distributists would agree with me in my -decision here; but on the whole I am inclined to decide that -we should use these things to break up the hopeless block of -concentrated capital and management, even if we urge their -abandonment when they have done their work. We are concerned -to produce a particular sort of men, the sort of men who -will not worship machines even if they use machines. But it -is essential to insist at every stage that we hold ourselves -free not only to cease worshipping machines, but to cease -using them. It was in this connection that I criticized -certain remarks of Mr. Ford and the whole of that idea of -standardization which he may be said to represent. But -everywhere I recognize a difference between the methods we -may use to produce a saner society and the things which that -saner society might itself be sane enough to do. For -instance, a people who had really found out what fun it is -to make things would never want to make most of them with a -machine. Sculptors do not want to turn a statue out with a -lathe or painters to print off a picture as a pattern, and a -craftsman who was really capable of making pots or pans -would be no readier to condescend to what is called -manufacturing them. It is odd, by the way, that the very -word "manufacture" means the opposite of what it is supposed -to mean. It is itself a testimony to a better time when it -did not mean the work of a modern factory. In the strict -meaning of words, a sculptor does manufacture a statue, and -a factory worker does not manufacture a screw. - -But, anyhow, a world in which there were many independent -men would probably be a world in which there were more -individual craftsmen. When we have created anything like -such a world, we may trust it to feel more than the modern -world does the danger of machinery deadening creation, and -the value of what it deadens. And I suggested that such a -world might very well make special provision about machines, -as we all do about weapons; admitting them for particular -purposes, but keeping watch on them in particular ways. - -But all that belongs to the later stage of improvement, when -the commonwealth of free men already exists; I do not think -it inconsistent with using any instruments that are innocent -in themselves in order to help such citizens to find a -footing. I have also noted that just as I do not think -machinery an immoral instrument in itself, so I do not think -State action an immoral instrument in itself. The State -might do a great deal in the first stages, especially by -education in the new and necessary crafts and labours, by -subsidy or tariff to protect distributive experiments and by -special laws, such as the taxation of contracts. All these -are covered by what I call the second principle, that we may -use intermediate or imperfect instruments; but it goes along -with the first principle, that we must be perfect not only -in our patience, but in our passion and our enduring -indignation. - -Lastly, there are the ordinary and obvious problems like -that of population, and in that connection I fully concede -that the process may sooner or later involve an element of -emigration. But I think the emigration must be undertaken by -those who understand the new England, and not by those who -want to escape from it or from the necessity of it. Men must -realize the new meaning of the old phrase, "the sacredness -of private property." There must be a spirit that will make -the colonist feel at home and not abroad. And there, I -admit, there is a difficulty; for I confess I know only one -thing that will thus give to a new soil the sanctity of -something already old and full of mystical affections. And -that thing is a shrine---the real presence of a sacramental +Recurring to the second principle, however, there is another and less +abstract reason for recognizing that the goal must be reached by stages. +I have here had to consider several things that may bring us a stage +nearer to Distributism, even if they are in themselves not very +satisfactory to ardent or austere Distributists. I took the examples of +a Ford car, which may be made by mass production but is used for +individual adventure; for, after all, a private car is more private than +a train or a tram. I also took the example of a general supply of +electricity, which might lead to many little workshops having a chance +for the first time. I do not claim that all Distributists would agree +with me in my decision here; but on the whole I am inclined to decide +that we should use these things to break up the hopeless block of +concentrated capital and management, even if we urge their abandonment +when they have done their work. We are concerned to produce a particular +sort of men, the sort of men who will not worship machines even if they +use machines. But it is essential to insist at every stage that we hold +ourselves free not only to cease worshipping machines, but to cease +using them. It was in this connection that I criticized certain remarks +of Mr. Ford and the whole of that idea of standardization which he may +be said to represent. But everywhere I recognize a difference between +the methods we may use to produce a saner society and the things which +that saner society might itself be sane enough to do. For instance, a +people who had really found out what fun it is to make things would +never want to make most of them with a machine. Sculptors do not want to +turn a statue out with a lathe or painters to print off a picture as a +pattern, and a craftsman who was really capable of making pots or pans +would be no readier to condescend to what is called manufacturing them. +It is odd, by the way, that the very word "manufacture" means the +opposite of what it is supposed to mean. It is itself a testimony to a +better time when it did not mean the work of a modern factory. In the +strict meaning of words, a sculptor does manufacture a statue, and a +factory worker does not manufacture a screw. + +But, anyhow, a world in which there were many independent men would +probably be a world in which there were more individual craftsmen. When +we have created anything like such a world, we may trust it to feel more +than the modern world does the danger of machinery deadening creation, +and the value of what it deadens. And I suggested that such a world +might very well make special provision about machines, as we all do +about weapons; admitting them for particular purposes, but keeping watch +on them in particular ways. + +But all that belongs to the later stage of improvement, when the +commonwealth of free men already exists; I do not think it inconsistent +with using any instruments that are innocent in themselves in order to +help such citizens to find a footing. I have also noted that just as I +do not think machinery an immoral instrument in itself, so I do not +think State action an immoral instrument in itself. The State might do a +great deal in the first stages, especially by education in the new and +necessary crafts and labours, by subsidy or tariff to protect +distributive experiments and by special laws, such as the taxation of +contracts. All these are covered by what I call the second principle, +that we may use intermediate or imperfect instruments; but it goes along +with the first principle, that we must be perfect not only in our +patience, but in our passion and our enduring indignation. + +Lastly, there are the ordinary and obvious problems like that of +population, and in that connection I fully concede that the process may +sooner or later involve an element of emigration. But I think the +emigration must be undertaken by those who understand the new England, +and not by those who want to escape from it or from the necessity of it. +Men must realize the new meaning of the old phrase, "the sacredness of +private property." There must be a spirit that will make the colonist +feel at home and not abroad. And there, I admit, there is a difficulty; +for I confess I know only one thing that will thus give to a new soil +the sanctity of something already old and full of mystical affections. +And that thing is a shrine---the real presence of a sacramental religion. -Thus, unavoidably, I end on the note of another -controversy---a controversy that I have no idea of pursuing -here. But I should not be honest if I did not mention it, -and whatever be the case in that connection it is impossible -to deny that there is a doctrine behind the whole of our -political position. It is not necessarily the doctrine of -the religious authority which I myself receive; but it -cannot be denied that it must in a sense be religious. That -is to say, it must at least have some reference to an -ultimate view of the universe and especially of the nature -of man. Those who are thus ready to see property atrophied -would ultimately be ready to see arms and legs amputated. -They really believe that these could become extinct organs -like the appendix. In other words, there is indeed a -fundamental difference between my own view and that vision -of man as a merely intermediate and changing thing---a Link, -if not a Missing Link. The creature, it is claimed, once -went on four legs and now goes on two legs. The obvious -inference would be that the next stage of evolution will be -for a man to stand on one leg. And this will be of very -great value to the capitalist or bureaucratic powers that -are now to take charge of him. It will mean, for one thing, -that only half the number of boots need be supplied to the -working classes. It will mean that all wages will be of a -one-legged sort. But I would testify at the end, as at the -beginning, that I believe in Man standing on two legs and -requiring two boots, and that I desire them to be his own -boots. You may call it conservative to want this. You may -call it revolutionary to attempt to get it. But if that is -conservative, I am conservative; if that is revolutionary, I -am revolutionary---but too democratic to be evolutionary, -anyhow. - -The thing behind Bolshevism and many other modern things is -a new doubt. It is not merely a doubt about God; it is -rather specially a doubt about Man. The old morality, the -Christian religion, the Catholic Church, differed from all -this new mentality because it really believed in the rights -of men. That is, it believed that ordinary men were clothed -with powers and privileges and a kind of authority. Thus the -ordinary man had a right to deal with dead matter, up to a -given point; that is the right of property. Thus the -ordinary man had a right to rule the other animals within -reason; that is the objection to vegetarianism and many -other things. The ordinary man had a right to judge about -his own health, and what risks he would take with the -ordinary things of his environment; that is the objection to -Prohibition and many other things. The ordinary man had a -right to judge of his children's health, and generally to -bring up children to the best of his ability; that is the -objection to many interpretations of modern State education. -Now in these primary things in which the old religion -trusted a man, the new philosophy utterly distrusts a man. -It insists that he must be a very rare sort of man to have -any rights in these matters; and when he is the rare sort, -he has the right to rule others even more than himself. It -is this profound scepticism about the common man that is the -common point in the most contradictory elements of modern -thought. That is why Mr. Bernard Shaw wants to evolve a new -animal that shall live longer and grow wiser than man. That -is why Mr. Sidney Webb wants to herd the men that exist like -sheep, or animals much more foolish than man. They are not -rebelling against an abnormal tyranny; they are rebelling -against what they think is a normal tyranny---the tyranny of -the normal. They are not in revolt against the King. They -are in revolt against the Citizen. The old revolutionist, -when he stood on the roof (like the revolutionist in The -Dynamiter) and looked over the city, used to say to himself, -"Think how the princes and nobles revel in their palaces; -think how the captains and cohorts ride the streets and -trample on the people." But the new revolutionist is not -brooding on that. He is saying, "Think of all those stupid -men in vulgar villas or ignorant slums. Think how badly they -teach their children; think how they do the wrong thing to -the dog and offend the feelings of the parrot." In short, -these sages, rightly or wrongly, cannot trust the normal man -to rule in the home, and most certainly do not want him to -rule in the State. They do not really want to give him any -political power. They are willing to give him a vote, -because they have long discovered that it need not give him -any power. They are not willing to give him a house, or a -wife, or a child, or a dog, or a cow, or a piece of land, -because these things really do give him power. - -Now we wish it to be understood that our policy is to give -him power by giving him these things. We wish to insist that -this is the real moral division underlying all our disputes, -and perhaps the only one really worth disputing. We are far -from denying, especially at this time, that there is much to -be said on the other side. We alone, perhaps, are likely to -insist in the full sense that the average respectable -citizen ought to have something to rule. We alone, to the -same extent and for the same reason, have the right to call -ourselves democratic. A republic used to be called a nation -of kings, and in our republic the kings really have -kingdoms. All modern governments, Prussian or Russian, all -modern movements, Capitalist or Socialist, are taking away -that kingdom from the king. Because they dislike the -independence of that kingdom, they are against property. -Because they dislike the loyalty of that kingdom, they are -against marriage. - -It is therefore with a somewhat sad amusement that I note -the soaring visions that accompany the sinking wages. I -observe that the social prophets are still offering the -homeless something much higher and purer than a home, and -promising a supernormal superiority to people who are not -allowed to be normal. I am quite content to dream of the old -drudgery of democracy, by which as much as possible of a -human life should be given to every human being; while the -brilliant author of The First Men in the Moon will doubtless -be soon deriding us in a romance called The Last Men on the -Earth. And indeed I do believe that when they lose the pride -of personal ownership they will lose something that belongs -to their erect posture and to their footing and poise upon -the planet. Meanwhile I sit amid droves of overdriven clerks -and underpaid workmen in a tube or a tram; I read of the -great conception of Men Like Gods and I wonder when men will -be like men. +Thus, unavoidably, I end on the note of another controversy---a +controversy that I have no idea of pursuing here. But I should not be +honest if I did not mention it, and whatever be the case in that +connection it is impossible to deny that there is a doctrine behind the +whole of our political position. It is not necessarily the doctrine of +the religious authority which I myself receive; but it cannot be denied +that it must in a sense be religious. That is to say, it must at least +have some reference to an ultimate view of the universe and especially +of the nature of man. Those who are thus ready to see property atrophied +would ultimately be ready to see arms and legs amputated. They really +believe that these could become extinct organs like the appendix. In +other words, there is indeed a fundamental difference between my own +view and that vision of man as a merely intermediate and changing +thing---a Link, if not a Missing Link. The creature, it is claimed, once +went on four legs and now goes on two legs. The obvious inference would +be that the next stage of evolution will be for a man to stand on one +leg. And this will be of very great value to the capitalist or +bureaucratic powers that are now to take charge of him. It will mean, +for one thing, that only half the number of boots need be supplied to +the working classes. It will mean that all wages will be of a one-legged +sort. But I would testify at the end, as at the beginning, that I +believe in Man standing on two legs and requiring two boots, and that I +desire them to be his own boots. You may call it conservative to want +this. You may call it revolutionary to attempt to get it. But if that is +conservative, I am conservative; if that is revolutionary, I am +revolutionary---but too democratic to be evolutionary, anyhow. + +The thing behind Bolshevism and many other modern things is a new doubt. +It is not merely a doubt about God; it is rather specially a doubt about +Man. The old morality, the Christian religion, the Catholic Church, +differed from all this new mentality because it really believed in the +rights of men. That is, it believed that ordinary men were clothed with +powers and privileges and a kind of authority. Thus the ordinary man had +a right to deal with dead matter, up to a given point; that is the right +of property. Thus the ordinary man had a right to rule the other animals +within reason; that is the objection to vegetarianism and many other +things. The ordinary man had a right to judge about his own health, and +what risks he would take with the ordinary things of his environment; +that is the objection to Prohibition and many other things. The ordinary +man had a right to judge of his children's health, and generally to +bring up children to the best of his ability; that is the objection to +many interpretations of modern State education. Now in these primary +things in which the old religion trusted a man, the new philosophy +utterly distrusts a man. It insists that he must be a very rare sort of +man to have any rights in these matters; and when he is the rare sort, +he has the right to rule others even more than himself. It is this +profound scepticism about the common man that is the common point in the +most contradictory elements of modern thought. That is why Mr. Bernard +Shaw wants to evolve a new animal that shall live longer and grow wiser +than man. That is why Mr. Sidney Webb wants to herd the men that exist +like sheep, or animals much more foolish than man. They are not +rebelling against an abnormal tyranny; they are rebelling against what +they think is a normal tyranny---the tyranny of the normal. They are not +in revolt against the King. They are in revolt against the Citizen. The +old revolutionist, when he stood on the roof (like the revolutionist in +The Dynamiter) and looked over the city, used to say to himself, "Think +how the princes and nobles revel in their palaces; think how the +captains and cohorts ride the streets and trample on the people." But +the new revolutionist is not brooding on that. He is saying, "Think of +all those stupid men in vulgar villas or ignorant slums. Think how badly +they teach their children; think how they do the wrong thing to the dog +and offend the feelings of the parrot." In short, these sages, rightly +or wrongly, cannot trust the normal man to rule in the home, and most +certainly do not want him to rule in the State. They do not really want +to give him any political power. They are willing to give him a vote, +because they have long discovered that it need not give him any power. +They are not willing to give him a house, or a wife, or a child, or a +dog, or a cow, or a piece of land, because these things really do give +him power. + +Now we wish it to be understood that our policy is to give him power by +giving him these things. We wish to insist that this is the real moral +division underlying all our disputes, and perhaps the only one really +worth disputing. We are far from denying, especially at this time, that +there is much to be said on the other side. We alone, perhaps, are +likely to insist in the full sense that the average respectable citizen +ought to have something to rule. We alone, to the same extent and for +the same reason, have the right to call ourselves democratic. A republic +used to be called a nation of kings, and in our republic the kings +really have kingdoms. All modern governments, Prussian or Russian, all +modern movements, Capitalist or Socialist, are taking away that kingdom +from the king. Because they dislike the independence of that kingdom, +they are against property. Because they dislike the loyalty of that +kingdom, they are against marriage. + +It is therefore with a somewhat sad amusement that I note the soaring +visions that accompany the sinking wages. I observe that the social +prophets are still offering the homeless something much higher and purer +than a home, and promising a supernormal superiority to people who are +not allowed to be normal. I am quite content to dream of the old +drudgery of democracy, by which as much as possible of a human life +should be given to every human being; while the brilliant author of The +First Men in the Moon will doubtless be soon deriding us in a romance +called The Last Men on the Earth. And indeed I do believe that when they +lose the pride of personal ownership they will lose something that +belongs to their erect posture and to their footing and poise upon the +planet. Meanwhile I sit amid droves of overdriven clerks and underpaid +workmen in a tube or a tram; I read of the great conception of Men Like +Gods and I wonder when men will be like men. diff --git a/src/patriotism-peace.md b/src/patriotism-peace.md index 04ffdd8..28b9970 100644 --- a/src/patriotism-peace.md +++ b/src/patriotism-peace.md @@ -1,370 +1,314 @@ -Dear Sir:---You write to me asking me to express myself in -respect to the United States of North America "in the -interests of Christian consistency and true peace," and -express the hope that "the nations will soon awaken to the -one means of securing national peace." +Dear Sir:---You write to me asking me to express myself in respect to +the United States of North America "in the interests of Christian +consistency and true peace," and express the hope that "the nations will +soon awaken to the one means of securing national peace." -I harbour the same hope. I harbour the same hope, because -the blindness in our time of the nations that extol -patriotism, bring up their young generations in the -superstition of patriotism, and, at the same time, do not -wish for the inevitable consequences of -patriotism,---war,---has, it seems to me, reached such a -last stage that the simplest reflection, which begs for -utterance in the mouth of every unprejudiced man, is -sufficient, in order that men may see the crying -contradiction in which they are. +I harbour the same hope. I harbour the same hope, because the blindness +in our time of the nations that extol patriotism, bring up their young +generations in the superstition of patriotism, and, at the same time, do +not wish for the inevitable consequences of patriotism,---war,---has, it +seems to me, reached such a last stage that the simplest reflection, +which begs for utterance in the mouth of every unprejudiced man, is +sufficient, in order that men may see the crying contradiction in which +they are. -Frequently, when you ask children which they will choose of -two things which are incompatible, but which they want -alike, they answer, "Both." +Frequently, when you ask children which they will choose of two things +which are incompatible, but which they want alike, they answer, "Both." "Which do you want,---to go out driving or to stay at home?"---"Both,---go out driving and stay at home." -Just so the Christian nations answer the question which life -puts to them, as to which they will choose, patriotism or -peace, they answer "Both patriotism and peace," though it is -as impossible to unite patriotism with peace, as at the same -time to go out driving and stay at home. +Just so the Christian nations answer the question which life puts to +them, as to which they will choose, patriotism or peace, they answer +"Both patriotism and peace," though it is as impossible to unite +patriotism with peace, as at the same time to go out driving and stay at +home. -The other day there arose a difference between the United -States and England concerning the borders of Venezuela. -Salisbury for some reason did not agree to something; -Cleveland wrote a message to the Senate; from either side -were raised patriotic warlike cries; a panic ensued upon -'Change; people lost millions of pounds and of dollars; -Edison announced that he would invent engines with which it -would be possible to kill more men in an hour than Attila -had killed in all his wars, and both nations began -energetically to arm themselves for war. But because, -simultaneously with these preparations for war, both in -England and in America, all kinds of literary men, princes, -and statesmen began to admonish their respective governments -to abstain from war, saying that the subject under -discussion was not sufficiently important to begin a war -for, especially between two related Anglo-Saxon nations, -speaking the same language, who ought not to war among -themselves, but ought calmly to govern others; or because -all kinds of bishops, archdeacons, canons prayed and -preached concerning the matter in all the churches; or -because neither side considered itself sufficiently -prepared,---it happened that there was no war just then. And -people calmed down. +The other day there arose a difference between the United States and +England concerning the borders of Venezuela. Salisbury for some reason +did not agree to something; Cleveland wrote a message to the Senate; +from either side were raised patriotic warlike cries; a panic ensued +upon 'Change; people lost millions of pounds and of dollars; Edison +announced that he would invent engines with which it would be possible +to kill more men in an hour than Attila had killed in all his wars, and +both nations began energetically to arm themselves for war. But because, +simultaneously with these preparations for war, both in England and in +America, all kinds of literary men, princes, and statesmen began to +admonish their respective governments to abstain from war, saying that +the subject under discussion was not sufficiently important to begin a +war for, especially between two related Anglo-Saxon nations, speaking +the same language, who ought not to war among themselves, but ought +calmly to govern others; or because all kinds of bishops, archdeacons, +canons prayed and preached concerning the matter in all the churches; or +because neither side considered itself sufficiently prepared,---it +happened that there was no war just then. And people calmed down. -But a person has to have too little perspicacity not to see -that the causes which now are leading to a conflict between -England and America have remained the same, and that, if -even the present conflict shall be settled without a war, -there will inevitably to-morrow or the day after appear -other conflicts, between England and Russia, between England -and Turkey, in all possible permutations, as they arise -every day, and one of these will lead to war. +But a person has to have too little perspicacity not to see that the +causes which now are leading to a conflict between England and America +have remained the same, and that, if even the present conflict shall be +settled without a war, there will inevitably to-morrow or the day after +appear other conflicts, between England and Russia, between England and +Turkey, in all possible permutations, as they arise every day, and one +of these will lead to war. -If two armed men live side by side, having been impressed -from childhood with the idea that power, wealth, and glory -are the highest virtues, and that, therefore, to acquire -power, wealth, and glory by means of arms, to the detriment -of other neighbouring possessors, is a very praiseworthy -matter, and if at the same time there is no moral, -religious, or political restraint for these men, is it not -evident that such people will always fight, that the normal -relation between them will be war? and that, if such people, -having clutched one another, have separated for awhile, they -have done so only, as the French proverb says, "*pour mieux -sauter*" that is, they have separated to take a better run, -to throw themselves with greater fury upon one another? +If two armed men live side by side, having been impressed from childhood +with the idea that power, wealth, and glory are the highest virtues, and +that, therefore, to acquire power, wealth, and glory by means of arms, +to the detriment of other neighbouring possessors, is a very +praiseworthy matter, and if at the same time there is no moral, +religious, or political restraint for these men, is it not evident that +such people will always fight, that the normal relation between them +will be war? and that, if such people, having clutched one another, have +separated for awhile, they have done so only, as the French proverb +says, "*pour mieux sauter*" that is, they have separated to take a +better run, to throw themselves with greater fury upon one another? -Strange is the egotism of private individuals, but the -egotists of private life are not armed, do not consider it -right either to prepare or use arms against their -adversaries; the egotism of private individuals is under the -control of the political power and of public opinion. A -private person who with gun in his hand takes away his -neighbour's cow, or a desyatma of his crop, will immediately -be seized by a policeman and put into prison. Besides, such -a man will be condemned by public opinion,--- he will be -called a thief and robber. It is quite different with the -states: they are all armed,---there is no power over them, -except the comical attempts at catching a bird by pouring -some salt on its tail,---attempts at establishing -international congresses, which, apparently, will never be -accepted by the powerful states (who are armed for the very -purpose that they may not pay any attention to any one), -and, above all, public opinion, which rebukes every act of -violence in a private individual, extols, raises to the -virtue of patriotism every appropriation of what belong to -others, for the increase of the power of the country. +Strange is the egotism of private individuals, but the egotists of +private life are not armed, do not consider it right either to prepare +or use arms against their adversaries; the egotism of private +individuals is under the control of the political power and of public +opinion. A private person who with gun in his hand takes away his +neighbour's cow, or a desyatma of his crop, will immediately be seized +by a policeman and put into prison. Besides, such a man will be +condemned by public opinion,--- he will be called a thief and robber. It +is quite different with the states: they are all armed,---there is no +power over them, except the comical attempts at catching a bird by +pouring some salt on its tail,---attempts at establishing international +congresses, which, apparently, will never be accepted by the powerful +states (who are armed for the very purpose that they may not pay any +attention to any one), and, above all, public opinion, which rebukes +every act of violence in a private individual, extols, raises to the +virtue of patriotism every appropriation of what belong to others, for +the increase of the power of the country. -Open the newspapers for any period you may wish, and at any -moment you will see the black spot,---the cause of every -possible war: now it is Korea, now the Pamir, now the lands -in Africa, now Abyssinia, now Turkey, now Venezuela, now the -Transvaal. The work of the robbers does not stop for a -moment, and here and there a small war, like an exchange of -shots in the cordon, is going on all the time, and the real -war can and will begin at any moment. +Open the newspapers for any period you may wish, and at any moment you +will see the black spot,---the cause of every possible war: now it is +Korea, now the Pamir, now the lands in Africa, now Abyssinia, now +Turkey, now Venezuela, now the Transvaal. The work of the robbers does +not stop for a moment, and here and there a small war, like an exchange +of shots in the cordon, is going on all the time, and the real war can +and will begin at any moment. -If an American wishes the preferential grandeur and -well-being of America above all other nations, and the same -is desired for his state by an Englishman, and a Russian, -and a Turk, and a Dutchman, and an Abyssinian, and a citizen -of Venezuela and of the Transvaal, and an Armenian, and a -Pole, and a Bohemian, and all of them are convinced that -these desires need not only not be concealed or repressed, -but should be a matter of pride and be developed in -themselves and in others; and if the greatness and -well-being of one country or nation cannot be obtained -except to the detriment of another nation, frequently of -many countries and nations,---how can war be avoided? +If an American wishes the preferential grandeur and well-being of +America above all other nations, and the same is desired for his state +by an Englishman, and a Russian, and a Turk, and a Dutchman, and an +Abyssinian, and a citizen of Venezuela and of the Transvaal, and an +Armenian, and a Pole, and a Bohemian, and all of them are convinced that +these desires need not only not be concealed or repressed, but should be +a matter of pride and be developed in themselves and in others; and if +the greatness and well-being of one country or nation cannot be obtained +except to the detriment of another nation, frequently of many countries +and nations,---how can war be avoided? -And so, not to have any war, it is not necessary to preach -and pray to God about peace, to persuade the -English-speaking nations that they ought to be friendly -toward one another, in order to be able to rule over other -nations; to form double and triple alliances against one -another; to marry princes to princesses of other -nations,---but to destroy what produces war. But what -produces war is the desire for an exclusive good for one's -own nation,---what is called patriotism. And so to abolish -war, it is necessary to abolish patriotism, and to abolish -patriotism, it is necessary first to become convinced that -it is an evil, and that it is hard to do. Tell people that -war is bad, and they will laugh at you: who does not know -that? Tell them that patriotism is bad, and the majority of -people will agree with you, but with a small proviso. "Yes, -bad patriotism is bad, but there is also another patriotism, -the one we adhere to." But wherein this good patriotism -consists no one can explain. If good patriotism consists in -not being acquisitive, as many say, it is none the less -retentive; that is, men want to retain what was formerly -acquired, since there is no country which was not based on -conquest, and it is impossible to retain what is conquered -by any other means than those by which it was acquired, that -is, by violence and murder. But even if patriotism is not -retentive, it is restorative,---the patriotism of the -vanquished and oppressed nations, the Armenians, Poles, -Bohemians, Irish, and so forth. This patriotism is almost -the very worst, because it is the most enraged and demands -the greatest degree of violence. +And so, not to have any war, it is not necessary to preach and pray to +God about peace, to persuade the English-speaking nations that they +ought to be friendly toward one another, in order to be able to rule +over other nations; to form double and triple alliances against one +another; to marry princes to princesses of other nations,---but to +destroy what produces war. But what produces war is the desire for an +exclusive good for one's own nation,---what is called patriotism. And so +to abolish war, it is necessary to abolish patriotism, and to abolish +patriotism, it is necessary first to become convinced that it is an +evil, and that it is hard to do. Tell people that war is bad, and they +will laugh at you: who does not know that? Tell them that patriotism is +bad, and the majority of people will agree with you, but with a small +proviso. "Yes, bad patriotism is bad, but there is also another +patriotism, the one we adhere to." But wherein this good patriotism +consists no one can explain. If good patriotism consists in not being +acquisitive, as many say, it is none the less retentive; that is, men +want to retain what was formerly acquired, since there is no country +which was not based on conquest, and it is impossible to retain what is +conquered by any other means than those by which it was acquired, that +is, by violence and murder. But even if patriotism is not retentive, it +is restorative,---the patriotism of the vanquished and oppressed +nations, the Armenians, Poles, Bohemians, Irish, and so forth. This +patriotism is almost the very worst, because it is the most enraged and +demands the greatest degree of violence. -Patriotism cannot be good. Why do not people say that -egotism can be good, though this may be asserted more -easily, because egotism is a natural sentiment, with which a -man is born, while patriotism is an unnatural sentiment, -which is artificially inoculated in him? +Patriotism cannot be good. Why do not people say that egotism can be +good, though this may be asserted more easily, because egotism is a +natural sentiment, with which a man is born, while patriotism is an +unnatural sentiment, which is artificially inoculated in him? -It will be said: "Patriotism has united men in states and -keeps up the unity of the states." But the men are already -united in states,---the work is all done: why should men now -maintain an exclusive loyalty for their state, when this -loyalty produces calamities for all states and nations? The -same patriotism which produced the unification of men into +It will be said: "Patriotism has united men in states and keeps up the +unity of the states." But the men are already united in states,---the +work is all done: why should men now maintain an exclusive loyalty for +their state, when this loyalty produces calamities for all states and +nations? The same patriotism which produced the unification of men into states is now destroying those states. If there were but one -patriotism,---the patriotism of none but the English,---it -might be regarded as unificatory or beneficent, but when, as -now, there are American, English, German, French, Russian -patriotisms, all of them opposed to one another, patriotism -no longer unites, but disunites. To say that, if patriotism -was beneficent, by uniting men into states, as was the case -during its highest development in Greece and Rome, -patriotism even now, after eighteen hundred years of -Christian life, is just as beneficent, is the same as saying -that, since the ploughing was useful and beneficent for the -field before the sowing, it will be as useful now, after the -crop has grown up. +patriotism,---the patriotism of none but the English,---it might be +regarded as unificatory or beneficent, but when, as now, there are +American, English, German, French, Russian patriotisms, all of them +opposed to one another, patriotism no longer unites, but disunites. To +say that, if patriotism was beneficent, by uniting men into states, as +was the case during its highest development in Greece and Rome, +patriotism even now, after eighteen hundred years of Christian life, is +just as beneficent, is the same as saying that, since the ploughing was +useful and beneficent for the field before the sowing, it will be as +useful now, after the crop has grown up. -It would be very well to retain patriotism in memory of the -use which it once had, as people preserve and retain the -ancient monuments of temples, mausoleums, and so forth. But -the temples and mausoleums stand, without causing any harm -to men, while patriotism produces without cessation -innumerable calamities. +It would be very well to retain patriotism in memory of the use which it +once had, as people preserve and retain the ancient monuments of +temples, mausoleums, and so forth. But the temples and mausoleums stand, +without causing any harm to men, while patriotism produces without +cessation innumerable calamities. -What now causes the Armenians and the Turks to suffer and -cut each other's throats and act like wild beasts? "Why do -England and Russia, each of them concerned about her share -of the inheritance from Turkey, lie in wait and do not put a -stop to the Armenian atrocities? Why do the Abyssinians and -Italians fight one another? Why did a terrible war come very -near breaking out on account of Venezuela, and now on -account of the Transvaal? And the Chino-Japanese War, and -the Turkish, and the German, and the French wars? And the -rage of the subdued nations, the Armenians, the Poles, the -Irish? And the preparation for war by all the nations? All -that is the fruits of patriotism. Seas of blood have been -shed for the sake of this sentiment, and more blood will be -shed for its sake, if men do not free themselves from this -outlived bit of antiquity. +What now causes the Armenians and the Turks to suffer and cut each +other's throats and act like wild beasts? "Why do England and Russia, +each of them concerned about her share of the inheritance from Turkey, +lie in wait and do not put a stop to the Armenian atrocities? Why do the +Abyssinians and Italians fight one another? Why did a terrible war come +very near breaking out on account of Venezuela, and now on account of +the Transvaal? And the Chino-Japanese War, and the Turkish, and the +German, and the French wars? And the rage of the subdued nations, the +Armenians, the Poles, the Irish? And the preparation for war by all the +nations? All that is the fruits of patriotism. Seas of blood have been +shed for the sake of this sentiment, and more blood will be shed for its +sake, if men do not free themselves from this outlived bit of antiquity. -I have several times had occasion to write about patriotism, -about its absolute incompatibility, not only with the -teaching of Christ in its ideal sense, but even with the -lowest demands of the morality of Christian society, and -every time my arguments have been met with silence or with -the supercilious hint that the ideas expressed by me were -Utopian expressions of mysticism, anarchism, and -cosmopolitanism. My ideas have frequently been repeated in a -compressed form, and, instead of retorting to them, it was -added that it was nothing but cosmopolitanism, as though -this word "cosmopolitanism" unanswerably overthrew all my -arguments. Serious, old, clever, good men, who, above all -else, stand like the city on a hill, and who involuntarily -guide the masses by their example, make it appear that the -legality and beneficence of patriotism are so obvious and -incontestable that it is not worth while to answer the -frivolous and senseless attacks upon this sentiment, and the -majority of men, who have since childhood been deceived and -infected by patriotism, take this supercilious silence to be -a most convincing proof, and continue to stick fast in their +I have several times had occasion to write about patriotism, about its +absolute incompatibility, not only with the teaching of Christ in its +ideal sense, but even with the lowest demands of the morality of +Christian society, and every time my arguments have been met with +silence or with the supercilious hint that the ideas expressed by me +were Utopian expressions of mysticism, anarchism, and cosmopolitanism. +My ideas have frequently been repeated in a compressed form, and, +instead of retorting to them, it was added that it was nothing but +cosmopolitanism, as though this word "cosmopolitanism" unanswerably +overthrew all my arguments. Serious, old, clever, good men, who, above +all else, stand like the city on a hill, and who involuntarily guide the +masses by their example, make it appear that the legality and +beneficence of patriotism are so obvious and incontestable that it is +not worth while to answer the frivolous and senseless attacks upon this +sentiment, and the majority of men, who have since childhood been +deceived and infected by patriotism, take this supercilious silence to +be a most convincing proof, and continue to stick fast in their ignorance. -And so those people who from their position can free the -masses from their calamities, and do not do so, commit a -great sin. +And so those people who from their position can free the masses from +their calamities, and do not do so, commit a great sin. -The most terrible thing in the world is hypocrisy. There was -good reason why Christ once got angry,---that was against -the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. +The most terrible thing in the world is hypocrisy. There was good reason +why Christ once got angry,---that was against the hypocrisy of the +Pharisees. -But what was the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in comparison -with the hypocrisy of our time? In comparison with our men, -the Pharisees were the most truthful of men, and their art -of hypocrisy was as child's play in comparison with the -hypocrisy of our time; nor can it be otherwise. Our whole -life, with the profession of Christianity, the teaching of -humility and love, in connection with the life of an armed -den of robbers, can be nothing but one solid, terrible -hypocrisy. It is very convenient to profess a teaching at -one end of which is Christian sanctity and infallibility, -and at the other---the pagan sword and gallows, so that, -when it is possible to impose or deceive by means of -sanctity, sanctity is put into effect, and when the -deception does not work, the sword and the gallows are put -into effect. Such a teaching is very convenient, but the -time comes when this spider-web of lie is dispersed, and it -is no longer possible to continue to keep both, and it is -necessary to ally oneself with either one or the other. It -is this which is now getting to be the case in relation to -the teaching about patriotism. +But what was the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in comparison with the +hypocrisy of our time? In comparison with our men, the Pharisees were +the most truthful of men, and their art of hypocrisy was as child's play +in comparison with the hypocrisy of our time; nor can it be otherwise. +Our whole life, with the profession of Christianity, the teaching of +humility and love, in connection with the life of an armed den of +robbers, can be nothing but one solid, terrible hypocrisy. It is very +convenient to profess a teaching at one end of which is Christian +sanctity and infallibility, and at the other---the pagan sword and +gallows, so that, when it is possible to impose or deceive by means of +sanctity, sanctity is put into effect, and when the deception does not +work, the sword and the gallows are put into effect. Such a teaching is +very convenient, but the time comes when this spider-web of lie is +dispersed, and it is no longer possible to continue to keep both, and it +is necessary to ally oneself with either one or the other. It is this +which is now getting to be the case in relation to the teaching about +patriotism. -Whether people want it or not, the question stands clearly -before humanity: how can that patriotism, from which result -innumerable physical and moral calamities of men, be -necessary and a virtue? It is indispensable to give an -answer to this question. +Whether people want it or not, the question stands clearly before +humanity: how can that patriotism, from which result innumerable +physical and moral calamities of men, be necessary and a virtue? It is +indispensable to give an answer to this question. -It is necessary either to show that patriotism is such a -great good that it redeems all those terrible calamities -which it produces in humanity; or to recognize that -patriotism is an evil, which must not only not be inoculated -in men and impressed upon them, but from which also we must +It is necessary either to show that patriotism is such a great good that +it redeems all those terrible calamities which it produces in humanity; +or to recognize that patriotism is an evil, which must not only not be +inoculated in men and impressed upon them, but from which also we must try to free ourselves at all cost. -*C'est à prendre ou à laisser*, as the French say. If -patriotism is good, then Christianity, which gives peace, is -an idle dream, and the sooner this teaching is eradicated, -the better. But if Christianity really gives peace, and we -really want peace, patriotism is a survival from barbarous -times, which must not only not be evoked and educated, as we -now do, but which must be eradicated by all means, by means -of preaching, persuasion, contempt, and ridicule. If -Christianity is the truth, and we wish to live in peace, we -must not only have no sympathy for the power of our country, -but must even rejoice in its weakening, and contribute to -it. A Russian must rejoice when Poland, the Baltic -provinces, Finland, Armenia, are separated from Russia and -made free; and an Englishman must similarly rejoice in -relation to Ireland, Australia, India, and the other -colonies, and cooperate in it, because, the greater the -country, the more evil and cruel is its patriotism, and the -greater is the amount of the suffering on which its power is -based. And so, if we actually want to be what we profess, we -must not, as we do now, wish for the increase of our -country, but wish for its diminution and weakening, and -contribute to it with all our means. And thus must we -educate the younger generations: we must bring up the -younger generations in such a way that, as it is now -disgraceful for a young man to manifest his coarse egotism, -for example, by eating every thing up, without leaving -anything for others, to push a weaker person down from the -road, in order to pass by himself, to take away by force -what another needs, it should be just as disgraceful to wish -for the increase of his country's power; and, as it now is -considered stupid and ridiculous for a person to praise -himself, it should be considered stupid to extol one's -nation, as is now done in various lying patriotic histories, -pictures, monuments, textbooks, articles, sermons, and -stupid national hymns. But it must be understood that so -long as we are going to extol patriotism and educate the -younger generations in it, we shall have armaments, which -ruin the physical and spiritual life of the nations, and -wars, terrible, horrible wars, like those for which we are -preparing ourselves, and into the circle of which we are -introducing, corrupting them with our patriotism, the new, -terrible fighters of the distant East. +*C'est à prendre ou à laisser*, as the French say. If patriotism is +good, then Christianity, which gives peace, is an idle dream, and the +sooner this teaching is eradicated, the better. But if Christianity +really gives peace, and we really want peace, patriotism is a survival +from barbarous times, which must not only not be evoked and educated, as +we now do, but which must be eradicated by all means, by means of +preaching, persuasion, contempt, and ridicule. If Christianity is the +truth, and we wish to live in peace, we must not only have no sympathy +for the power of our country, but must even rejoice in its weakening, +and contribute to it. A Russian must rejoice when Poland, the Baltic +provinces, Finland, Armenia, are separated from Russia and made free; +and an Englishman must similarly rejoice in relation to Ireland, +Australia, India, and the other colonies, and cooperate in it, because, +the greater the country, the more evil and cruel is its patriotism, and +the greater is the amount of the suffering on which its power is based. +And so, if we actually want to be what we profess, we must not, as we do +now, wish for the increase of our country, but wish for its diminution +and weakening, and contribute to it with all our means. And thus must we +educate the younger generations: we must bring up the younger +generations in such a way that, as it is now disgraceful for a young man +to manifest his coarse egotism, for example, by eating every thing up, +without leaving anything for others, to push a weaker person down from +the road, in order to pass by himself, to take away by force what +another needs, it should be just as disgraceful to wish for the increase +of his country's power; and, as it now is considered stupid and +ridiculous for a person to praise himself, it should be considered +stupid to extol one's nation, as is now done in various lying patriotic +histories, pictures, monuments, textbooks, articles, sermons, and stupid +national hymns. But it must be understood that so long as we are going +to extol patriotism and educate the younger generations in it, we shall +have armaments, which ruin the physical and spiritual life of the +nations, and wars, terrible, horrible wars, like those for which we are +preparing ourselves, and into the circle of which we are introducing, +corrupting them with our patriotism, the new, terrible fighters of the +distant East. -Emperor William, one of the most comical persons of our -time, orator, poet, musician, dramatic writer, and artist, -and, above all, patriot, has lately painted a picture -representing all the nations of Europe with swords, standing -at the seashore and, at the indication of Archangel Michael, -looking at the sitting figures of Buddha and Confucius in -the distance. According to William's intention, this should -mean that the nations of Europe ought to unite in order to -defend themselves against the peril which is proceeding from -there. He is quite right from his coarse, pagan, patriotic -point of view, which is eighteen hundred years behind the -times. The European nations, forgetting Christ, have in the -name of their patriotism more and more irritated these -peaceful nations, and have taught them patriotism and war, -and have now irritated them so much that, indeed, if Japan -and China will as fully forget the teachings of Buddha and -of Confucius as we have forgotten the teaching of Christ, -they will soon learn the art of killing people (they learn -these things quickly, as Japan has proved), and, being -fearless, agile, strong, and populous, they will inevitably -very soon make of the countries of Europe, if Europe does -not invent something stronger than guns and Edison's -inventions, what the countries of Europe are making of -Africa. "The disciple is not above his master: but every one -that is perfect shall be as his master" (Luke 6:40). +Emperor William, one of the most comical persons of our time, orator, +poet, musician, dramatic writer, and artist, and, above all, patriot, +has lately painted a picture representing all the nations of Europe with +swords, standing at the seashore and, at the indication of Archangel +Michael, looking at the sitting figures of Buddha and Confucius in the +distance. According to William's intention, this should mean that the +nations of Europe ought to unite in order to defend themselves against +the peril which is proceeding from there. He is quite right from his +coarse, pagan, patriotic point of view, which is eighteen hundred years +behind the times. The European nations, forgetting Christ, have in the +name of their patriotism more and more irritated these peaceful nations, +and have taught them patriotism and war, and have now irritated them so +much that, indeed, if Japan and China will as fully forget the teachings +of Buddha and of Confucius as we have forgotten the teaching of Christ, +they will soon learn the art of killing people (they learn these things +quickly, as Japan has proved), and, being fearless, agile, strong, and +populous, they will inevitably very soon make of the countries of +Europe, if Europe does not invent something stronger than guns and +Edison's inventions, what the countries of Europe are making of Africa. +"The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect +shall be as his master" (Luke 6:40). -In reply to a prince's question how to increase his army, in -order to conquer a southern tribe which did not submit to -him, Confucius replied: "Destroy all thy army, and use the -money, which thou art wasting now on the army, on the -enlightenment of thy people and on the improvement of -agriculture, and the southern tribe will drive away its -prince and will submit to thy rule without war." +In reply to a prince's question how to increase his army, in order to +conquer a southern tribe which did not submit to him, Confucius replied: +"Destroy all thy army, and use the money, which thou art wasting now on +the army, on the enlightenment of thy people and on the improvement of +agriculture, and the southern tribe will drive away its prince and will +submit to thy rule without war." -Thus taught Confucius, whom we are advised to fear. But we, -having forgotten Christ's teaching, having renounced it, -wish to vanquish the nations by force, and thus are only -preparing for ourselves new and stronger enemies than our -neighbours. A friend of mine, who saw William's picture, -said: "The picture is beautiful, only it does not at all -represent what the legend says. It means that Archangel -Michael shows to all the governments of Europe, which are -represented as robbers bedecked with arms, what it is that -will cause their ruin and annihilation, namely, the meekness -of Buddha and the wisdom of Confucius." He might have added, -"And the humility of Lao-tse." +Thus taught Confucius, whom we are advised to fear. But we, having +forgotten Christ's teaching, having renounced it, wish to vanquish the +nations by force, and thus are only preparing for ourselves new and +stronger enemies than our neighbours. A friend of mine, who saw +William's picture, said: "The picture is beautiful, only it does not at +all represent what the legend says. It means that Archangel Michael +shows to all the governments of Europe, which are represented as robbers +bedecked with arms, what it is that will cause their ruin and +annihilation, namely, the meekness of Buddha and the wisdom of +Confucius." He might have added, "And the humility of Lao-tse." -Indeed, we, thanks to our hypocrisy, have forgotten Christ -to such an extent, have so squeezed out of our life -everything Christian, that the teachings of Buddha and -Confucius stand incomparably higher than that beastly -patriotism, by which our so-called Christian nations are -guided. And so the salvation of Europe and of the Christian -world at large does not consist in this, that, bedecking -themselves with swords, as William has represented them, -they should, like robbers, cast themselves upon their -brothers beyond the sea, in order to kill them, but, on the +Indeed, we, thanks to our hypocrisy, have forgotten Christ to such an +extent, have so squeezed out of our life everything Christian, that the +teachings of Buddha and Confucius stand incomparably higher than that +beastly patriotism, by which our so-called Christian nations are guided. +And so the salvation of Europe and of the Christian world at large does +not consist in this, that, bedecking themselves with swords, as William +has represented them, they should, like robbers, cast themselves upon +their brothers beyond the sea, in order to kill them, but, on the contrary, they should renounce the survival of barbarous -times,---patriotism,---and, having renounced it, should take -off their arms and show the Eastern nations, not an example -of savage patriotism and beastliness, but an example of -brotherly love, which Christ has taught us. +times,---patriotism,---and, having renounced it, should take off their +arms and show the Eastern nations, not an example of savage patriotism +and beastliness, but an example of brotherly love, which Christ has +taught us. *Moscow, January 2, 1896.* diff --git a/src/remarks-ballou.md b/src/remarks-ballou.md index c47ad06..2817a15 100644 --- a/src/remarks-ballou.md +++ b/src/remarks-ballou.md @@ -1,31 +1,601 @@ -*Friend President*---'Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.' I feel that the Spirit of the Lord is in this meeting, and that all who participate in its discussions are at *liberty* to express their convictions and peculiar views in their own *way*, without fear of offending each other. We are of various religious connexions, but different modes of thought and expression. Be it *so;* since we come together in *love*, for the consideration and promotion of that *grand virtue* of Christianity without which all others become *practically* unfruitful. +*Friend President*---'Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is +liberty.' I feel that the Spirit of the Lord is in this meeting, and +that all who participate in its discussions are at *liberty* to express +their convictions and peculiar views in their own *way*, without fear of +offending each other. We are of various religious connexions, but +different modes of thought and expression. Be it *so;* since we come +together in *love*, for the consideration and promotion of that *grand +virtue* of Christianity without which all others become *practically* +unfruitful. -For my own part, I am not only not offended at hearing opinions and ideas expressed here contrary in some respects to my own, but I am *happy* to hear them delivered with that freedom and independence which evinces the absence of even a suspicion that any one *can* take offence. This is a sure presage of the triumph of truth over all our errors, whatever they may be, or whoever may hold them. +For my own part, I am not only not offended at hearing opinions and +ideas expressed here contrary in some respects to my own, but I am +*happy* to hear them delivered with that freedom and independence which +evinces the absence of even a suspicion that any one *can* take offence. +This is a sure presage of the triumph of truth over all our errors, +whatever they may be, or whoever may hold them. -My views of the subject presented in the resolution just submitted may not entirely coincide with those of my friends; but I offer them *frankly*, expecting that they will be accepted or rejected, as each individual may judge that they deserve. +My views of the subject presented in the resolution just submitted may +not entirely coincide with those of my friends; but I offer them +*frankly*, expecting that they will be accepted or rejected, as each +individual may judge that they deserve. -I perceive with joy that a *divine instinct,* if so I may term it, actuates my brethren and sisters of this convention in favor of *non-resistance.* This instinct is *strong,* and *true* as the needle to the pole; while at the same time few of us clearly understand *how* a non-resistant should carry out his principles, especially with respect to human government. The *heart* is *right,* though the *head* may *err.* We love the blessed principle of non-resistance, though perhaps not sufficiently acute and discriminating, either to *state* or *defend* it *always* correctly. Hence we are not to be *argued* down by polemic ingenuity and eloquence; which however *confounding* is yet *unconvincing,* that on the whole we are not *right.* If I can contribute any thing towards a better understanding of this important subject, so as to obviate any of its seeming difficulties, I shall deem myself happy in the privilege of being for a few moments as a speaker. +I perceive with joy that a *divine instinct,* if so I may term it, +actuates my brethren and sisters of this convention in favor of +*non-resistance.* This instinct is *strong,* and *true* as the needle to +the pole; while at the same time few of us clearly understand *how* a +non-resistant should carry out his principles, especially with respect +to human government. The *heart* is *right,* though the *head* may +*err.* We love the blessed principle of non-resistance, though perhaps +not sufficiently acute and discriminating, either to *state* or *defend* +it *always* correctly. Hence we are not to be *argued* down by polemic +ingenuity and eloquence; which however *confounding* is yet +*unconvincing,* that on the whole we are not *right.* If I can +contribute any thing towards a better understanding of this important +subject, so as to obviate any of its seeming difficulties, I shall deem +myself happy in the privilege of being for a few moments as a speaker. -The resolution before us in these words:---'Resolved, That it is the object of this Society neither to purify nor to subvert human governments, but to advance in the earth that kingdom of peace and righteousness, which supersedes all such governments.' In speaking to this resolution, I do so, not formally and technically in the name of this Society (of which I am not a member) but simply as a *non-resistant,* in defence of the common cause in which we are all engaged. I therefore take the resolution as if it read---'Resolved, That it is the object of all true non-resistants...' What then are the capital points which it embraces? It seems to suggest three general inquiries: "What is *human government?*", "What is *divine government?*", and "What is the *object* of *non-resistants* with respect to *human* government?". +The resolution before us in these words:---'Resolved, That it is the +object of this Society neither to purify nor to subvert human +governments, but to advance in the earth that kingdom of peace and +righteousness, which supersedes all such governments.' In speaking to +this resolution, I do so, not formally and technically in the name of +this Society (of which I am not a member) but simply as a +*non-resistant,* in defence of the common cause in which we are all +engaged. I therefore take the resolution as if it read---'Resolved, That +it is the object of all true non-resistants...' What then are the +capital points which it embraces? It seems to suggest three general +inquiries: "What is *human government?*", "What is *divine +government?*", and "What is the *object* of *non-resistants* with +respect to *human* government?". -*What is human government?* It is the will of man---whether of one, few, many or all, in a state or nation---exercising absolute authority over man, by means of cunning and physical force. This *will* may be ascertained, declared, and executed, with or without written constitutions and laws, regularly or irregularly, in moderation or in violence; still it is alike human government under all forms and administrations, ☞ the *will of man* exercising absolute authority over man, by means of cunning and physical force. It may be patriarchal, hierarchical, monarchical, aristocratical, democratical, or mobocratical---still it answers to this definition. It originates in man, depends on man, and makes man the lord---the slave of man. +*What is human government?* It is the will of man---whether of one, few, +many or all, in a state or nation---exercising absolute authority over +man, by means of cunning and physical force. This *will* may be +ascertained, declared, and executed, with or without written +constitutions and laws, regularly or irregularly, in moderation or in +violence; still it is alike human government under all forms and +administrations, ☞ the *will of man* exercising absolute authority over +man, by means of cunning and physical force. It may be patriarchal, +hierarchical, monarchical, aristocratical, democratical, or +mobocratical---still it answers to this definition. It originates in +man, depends on man, and makes man the lord---the slave of man. -*What is the divine government?* It is the infallible will of God prescribing the duty of moral agents, and claiming their primary undivided allegiance, as indispensable to the enjoyment of pure and endless happiness. In the revolution it is denominated 'the kingdom and reign of Christ.' The kingdom of Christ is the kingdom of God; for what is Christ's is God's. The Father dwelleth in the Son, and without **Him** the Son can do nothing. In this kingdom the all perfect God is sole King, Lawgiver, and Judge. He divides his authority with no *creature;* he is absolute Sovereign; he claims the whole heart, mind, and strength. His throne is in the spirit, and he writes his law on the understanding. Whosoever will not obey him *implicitly* is not yet delivered from the kingdom of darkness, and abides in moral death. +*What is the divine government?* It is the infallible will of God +prescribing the duty of moral agents, and claiming their primary +undivided allegiance, as indispensable to the enjoyment of pure and +endless happiness. In the revolution it is denominated 'the kingdom and +reign of Christ.' The kingdom of Christ is the kingdom of God; for what +is Christ's is God's. The Father dwelleth in the Son, and without +**Him** the Son can do nothing. In this kingdom the all perfect God is +sole King, Lawgiver, and Judge. He divides his authority with no +*creature;* he is absolute Sovereign; he claims the whole heart, mind, +and strength. His throne is in the spirit, and he writes his law on the +understanding. Whosoever will not obey him *implicitly* is not yet +delivered from the kingdom of darkness, and abides in moral death. -From this it appears that human government, properly so called, can in no case be either superior to, or coequal with, the divine. Can this conclusion be avoided? There are three, and but three cases, in which *human* government may dispute supremacy with the *divine.* 1. When God requires *one* thing and man requires the *contrary.* In this case, whom ought we to obey? All christians must answer, with the faithful apostles of old, ☞ 'We ought to obey God rather than men.' But must we disobey parents, patriarchs, priests, kings, nobles, presidents, governors, generals, legislatures, constitutions, armies, mobs, *all* rather than disobey God? *We* **must**; and then patiently endure the penal consequences.Then surely human government is nothing against the government of God. 2. Human government and divine government sometimes agree in prescribing the *same* duty; that is, God and man both require the same thing. In *this* case ought not the reverence of *human* authority to constitute at least a *part* of the motive for doing right. We will see. Did man originate this duty? No. Did he first declare it? No. Has he added one *iota* of *obligation* to it? No. *God* originated it, first declared it, and made it in the highest possible degree obligatory. Human government has merely borrowed it, re-echoed, and interwoven it with the tissue of *its* own enactments. How then can the christian turn his back on Jehovah, and make his low obeisance to man? Or how can he divide his reverence between the *divine* and mere *human* authority? How can he perform this duty any more willingly or faithfully, because *human* government has re-enacted it? Evidently he cannot. He will feel that it is the *Creator's* law, not the *creature's;* that he is under the highest possible obligation to perform it from reverence to *God alone.* Man has *adopted* it, and incorporated it with his own devices, but he has added nothing to its rightfulness or force. Here again *human* government is virtually *nothing.* It has not even a claim of *joint reverence* with that of the *divine.* 3. Human legislators enact many law for the relief, convenience, and general welfare of mankind, which are demonstrably *right* and *salutary*, but which God has never *expressly* authorized in detail. In this case has not human authority a *primary* claim to our reverence? Let us see. What is the motive from which a true christian will perform these requirements of *man?* Must he not first be convinced that they are in perfect harmony with the great law of love to God and man---that they agree with what the divine Lawgiver has *expressly* required? Doubtless. Well, when fully convinced of *this,* what are they to him but mere amplifications of the heavenly law---new applications of its plain principles---more minute details of acknowledged general duty? What, therefore, is demonstrably *right,* he will feel bound to approve and scrupulously practice, not for *human* government's sake, but for *righteousness' sake*---or, in other words, for the divine government's sake. This must be his great motive; for no other would be a *holy* motive. It is one thing to *discover* new items of duty---new applications of moral obligation---and another to *create* them. Many may *discover* and point out new details---circumstantial peculiarities of duty---but he cannot *create principles,* nor originate moral obligation. The infinite Father has preoccupied this whole field. When then if the Legislature discover a new item of duty, arising out of a new combination of circumstances, and enact a good law for the observance of that duty, with pains and penalties annexed; or what if a Convention like this discover the existence of such an item of duty, and affirm it in the form of a solemn resolution; the duty once made plain, no matter how, would not the truly good man be under precisely the same obligation to perform it? And if the Legislature should afterwards without cause repeal such *law,* and enact a bad one in its stead; or if this Convention should *non* affirm the existence of the duty before declared, would not the enlightened christian be under precisely the same obligation *still?* None of these supposed circumstances ought to weigh a feather upon the conscience. The sense of obligation must look directly to the Great Source of moral perfection, and the grand controlling motive of a holy heart in the performance of every duty must be, ☞ *God requires it---it is right---it is best.* We must perform all our duties as unto God, and not unto man. +From this it appears that human government, properly so called, can in +no case be either superior to, or coequal with, the divine. Can this +conclusion be avoided? There are three, and but three cases, in which +*human* government may dispute supremacy with the *divine.* 1. When God +requires *one* thing and man requires the *contrary.* In this case, whom +ought we to obey? All christians must answer, with the faithful apostles +of old, ☞ 'We ought to obey God rather than men.' But must we disobey +parents, patriarchs, priests, kings, nobles, presidents, governors, +generals, legislatures, constitutions, armies, mobs, *all* rather than +disobey God? *We* **must**; and then patiently endure the penal +consequences.Then surely human government is nothing against the +government of God. 2. Human government and divine government sometimes +agree in prescribing the *same* duty; that is, God and man both require +the same thing. In *this* case ought not the reverence of *human* +authority to constitute at least a *part* of the motive for doing right. +We will see. Did man originate this duty? No. Did he first declare it? +No. Has he added one *iota* of *obligation* to it? No. *God* originated +it, first declared it, and made it in the highest possible degree +obligatory. Human government has merely borrowed it, re-echoed, and +interwoven it with the tissue of *its* own enactments. How then can the +christian turn his back on Jehovah, and make his low obeisance to man? +Or how can he divide his reverence between the *divine* and mere *human* +authority? How can he perform this duty any more willingly or +faithfully, because *human* government has re-enacted it? Evidently he +cannot. He will feel that it is the *Creator's* law, not the +*creature's;* that he is under the highest possible obligation to +perform it from reverence to *God alone.* Man has *adopted* it, and +incorporated it with his own devices, but he has added nothing to its +rightfulness or force. Here again *human* government is virtually +*nothing.* It has not even a claim of *joint reverence* with that of the +*divine.* 3. Human legislators enact many law for the relief, +convenience, and general welfare of mankind, which are demonstrably +*right* and *salutary*, but which God has never *expressly* authorized +in detail. In this case has not human authority a *primary* claim to our +reverence? Let us see. What is the motive from which a true christian +will perform these requirements of *man?* Must he not first be convinced +that they are in perfect harmony with the great law of love to God and +man---that they agree with what the divine Lawgiver has *expressly* +required? Doubtless. Well, when fully convinced of *this,* what are they +to him but mere amplifications of the heavenly law---new applications of +its plain principles---more minute details of acknowledged general duty? +What, therefore, is demonstrably *right,* he will feel bound to approve +and scrupulously practice, not for *human* government's sake, but for +*righteousness' sake*---or, in other words, for the divine government's +sake. This must be his great motive; for no other would be a *holy* +motive. It is one thing to *discover* new items of duty---new +applications of moral obligation---and another to *create* them. Many +may *discover* and point out new details---circumstantial peculiarities +of duty---but he cannot *create principles,* nor originate moral +obligation. The infinite Father has preoccupied this whole field. When +then if the Legislature discover a new item of duty, arising out of a +new combination of circumstances, and enact a good law for the +observance of that duty, with pains and penalties annexed; or what if a +Convention like this discover the existence of such an item of duty, and +affirm it in the form of a solemn resolution; the duty once made plain, +no matter how, would not the truly good man be under precisely the same +obligation to perform it? And if the Legislature should afterwards +without cause repeal such *law,* and enact a bad one in its stead; or if +this Convention should *non* affirm the existence of the duty before +declared, would not the enlightened christian be under precisely the +same obligation *still?* None of these supposed circumstances ought to +weigh a feather upon the conscience. The sense of obligation must look +directly to the Great Source of moral perfection, and the grand +controlling motive of a holy heart in the performance of every duty must +be, ☞ *God requires it---it is right---it is best.* We must perform all +our duties as unto God, and not unto man. -The conclusion is therefore unavoidable, that the *will* of *man* \[human government\] whether in one, a thousand, or many millions, has no intrinsic authority---no moral supremacy---and no rightful claim to the allegiance of man. It has no original, inherent authority whatsoever over the conscience. What then becomes of *human* government, as contradistinguished from the divine government? Is it not a mere cypher? When it *opposes* God's government it is *nothing;* when it *agrees* with his government it is *nothing;* and when it *discovers* a new item of duty---a new application of the general law of God---it is *nothing.* +The conclusion is therefore unavoidable, that the *will* of *man* +\[human government\] whether in one, a thousand, or many millions, has +no intrinsic authority---no moral supremacy---and no rightful claim to +the allegiance of man. It has no original, inherent authority whatsoever +over the conscience. What then becomes of *human* government, as +contradistinguished from the divine government? Is it not a mere cypher? +When it *opposes* God's government it is *nothing;* when it *agrees* +with his government it is *nothing;* and when it *discovers* a new item +of duty---a new application of the general law of God---it is *nothing.* -We now arrive at the third inquiry suggested in the resolution before us, namely "What is the object of non-resistants with respect to human government?" Is it their object to *purify* it, to *reform* it? No; for our principles forbid us to take any part in the management of its machinery. We can neither fight for it, legislate in it, hold its offices, vote at its elections, nor act any political part within its pale. To *purify,* to *reform* it---if such were our object---we must actively participate in its management. Moreover, if human government, properly so called, is what I have shown it to be, there can be no such thing as *purifying* it. Where there is nothing but *dross,* there is nothing to refine. Separate from what is commonly considered *human* government all that it has *borrowed,* or *stolen* from the *divine,* and what remains? What is there in the mere *human* worth purifying---capable of purification? Nothing. Again, is it our object to *subvert* human government---to overthrow it---to turn it upside down? By no means. We utterly disclaim any such object. We are no Jacobins, Revolutionists, Anarchists; though often *slanderously so denominated.* And here I must be permitted to make some explanations, demanded by the public misapprehension of our real position and general movement. It seems to be taken for granted, that we have started a crusade to force the practice of non-resistance upon nations, states, bodies politic and all existing organizations of human society; which is considered tantamount to an attempt for the violent *subversion* of human government. This is a very great mistake. We are not so insane as to imagine any such result practicable in the nature of things. We put our enterprise on purely christian grounds, and depend for success wholly on the use of christian means. We have nothing to do with nations, states, and bodies politic, merely *as such;* for they have neither souls nor consciences. We address ourselves to *individuals,* who have both soul and conscience, and expect to affect organized masses of men only through their individual members. And as to any kind of *force,* other than that of truth and love sustained by a consistent example, as non-resistants, we utterly *eschew* it, with respect to all moral agents, collectively and individually. We very well know that neither bodies politic, nor individuals, can practice christian non-resistance while actuated by the *spirit of this world,* and void of christian principle,---that is to say, while they are radically anti-christian in feeling, motive, conduct, and moral character. We are not so wild and visionary as to expect such impossibilities. Nor do we go against all human government in favor of *no* government. We make no such issue. On the contrary, we believe it to be among the irrevocable ordinations of God, that all who will not be governed by *Him* shall be governed by one another---shall be tyrannized over by one another; that so long as men will indulge the lust of dominion, they shall be filled with the fruits of slavery; that they who will not be obedient to the law of love, shall bow down under the yoke of physical force; that 'they who take the sword shall perish with the sword;' and that while so many as twenty ambitious, proud, selfish, revengeful, sinful men remain in any corner of the world, they shall be subject to a human government of physical violence among themselves. If men will make themselves sick, *physic* is a *necessary evil.* If they will not observe the laws of health, they must bow to the dictation of doctors. If they *will* be gluttons, drunkards, debauchees, and pugilists, they must make the best of emetics, cathartics, cautery, amputation, and whatever else ensues. So if men will not be governed bby God, it is their doom to be enslaved one by another. And in this view, human government---defective as it is, bad as it is---is a *necessary evil* to those who will not be in willing subjection to the *divine.* Its *restraints* are better than *no* restraints at all---and its *evils* are preventives of greater. For thus it is that selfishness is made to thwart selfishness, pride to humble pride, revenge to check revenge, cruelty to deter cruelty, and wrath to punish wrath; that the vile lusts of men, overruled by infinite wisdom, may counterwork and destroy each other. In this way *human* government grows out of the disorder of rebellious moral natures, and will *continue,* by inevitable consequence, in some form or other among men, till **he** whose right it is to reign 'shall be all in all.' Meantime, non-resistants are required by their principles not to resist any of the ordinances of these governments by physical force, however unjust and wicked; but to be subject to the *powers that be,* either *actively* or *passively. Actively,* in doing whatever they require that is agreeable to the law of God, or which may be innocently consented to. *Passively,* in the patient sufferance of their *penalties,* whenever duty to the divine government requires that *man* should be *disobeyed.* No unnecessary offence is to be given to Caesar; but his tribute money is to be rendered to him, and his taxes quietly paid; while at the same time the things which belong unto God are to be most scrupulously rendered to **him,** regardless alike of the favor or the frowns of all the governments on earth. +We now arrive at the third inquiry suggested in the resolution before +us, namely "What is the object of non-resistants with respect to human +government?" Is it their object to *purify* it, to *reform* it? No; for +our principles forbid us to take any part in the management of its +machinery. We can neither fight for it, legislate in it, hold its +offices, vote at its elections, nor act any political part within its +pale. To *purify,* to *reform* it---if such were our object---we must +actively participate in its management. Moreover, if human government, +properly so called, is what I have shown it to be, there can be no such +thing as *purifying* it. Where there is nothing but *dross,* there is +nothing to refine. Separate from what is commonly considered *human* +government all that it has *borrowed,* or *stolen* from the *divine,* +and what remains? What is there in the mere *human* worth +purifying---capable of purification? Nothing. Again, is it our object to +*subvert* human government---to overthrow it---to turn it upside down? +By no means. We utterly disclaim any such object. We are no Jacobins, +Revolutionists, Anarchists; though often *slanderously so denominated.* +And here I must be permitted to make some explanations, demanded by the +public misapprehension of our real position and general movement. It +seems to be taken for granted, that we have started a crusade to force +the practice of non-resistance upon nations, states, bodies politic and +all existing organizations of human society; which is considered +tantamount to an attempt for the violent *subversion* of human +government. This is a very great mistake. We are not so insane as to +imagine any such result practicable in the nature of things. We put our +enterprise on purely christian grounds, and depend for success wholly on +the use of christian means. We have nothing to do with nations, states, +and bodies politic, merely *as such;* for they have neither souls nor +consciences. We address ourselves to *individuals,* who have both soul +and conscience, and expect to affect organized masses of men only +through their individual members. And as to any kind of *force,* other +than that of truth and love sustained by a consistent example, as +non-resistants, we utterly *eschew* it, with respect to all moral +agents, collectively and individually. We very well know that neither +bodies politic, nor individuals, can practice christian non-resistance +while actuated by the *spirit of this world,* and void of christian +principle,---that is to say, while they are radically anti-christian in +feeling, motive, conduct, and moral character. We are not so wild and +visionary as to expect such impossibilities. Nor do we go against all +human government in favor of *no* government. We make no such issue. On +the contrary, we believe it to be among the irrevocable ordinations of +God, that all who will not be governed by *Him* shall be governed by one +another---shall be tyrannized over by one another; that so long as men +will indulge the lust of dominion, they shall be filled with the fruits +of slavery; that they who will not be obedient to the law of love, shall +bow down under the yoke of physical force; that 'they who take the sword +shall perish with the sword;' and that while so many as twenty +ambitious, proud, selfish, revengeful, sinful men remain in any corner +of the world, they shall be subject to a human government of physical +violence among themselves. If men will make themselves sick, *physic* is +a *necessary evil.* If they will not observe the laws of health, they +must bow to the dictation of doctors. If they *will* be gluttons, +drunkards, debauchees, and pugilists, they must make the best of +emetics, cathartics, cautery, amputation, and whatever else ensues. So +if men will not be governed bby God, it is their doom to be enslaved one +by another. And in this view, human government---defective as it is, bad +as it is---is a *necessary evil* to those who will not be in willing +subjection to the *divine.* Its *restraints* are better than *no* +restraints at all---and its *evils* are preventives of greater. For thus +it is that selfishness is made to thwart selfishness, pride to humble +pride, revenge to check revenge, cruelty to deter cruelty, and wrath to +punish wrath; that the vile lusts of men, overruled by infinite wisdom, +may counterwork and destroy each other. In this way *human* government +grows out of the disorder of rebellious moral natures, and will +*continue,* by inevitable consequence, in some form or other among men, +till **he** whose right it is to reign 'shall be all in all.' Meantime, +non-resistants are required by their principles not to resist any of the +ordinances of these governments by physical force, however unjust and +wicked; but to be subject to the *powers that be,* either *actively* or +*passively. Actively,* in doing whatever they require that is agreeable +to the law of God, or which may be innocently consented to. *Passively,* +in the patient sufferance of their *penalties,* whenever duty to the +divine government requires that *man* should be *disobeyed.* No +unnecessary offence is to be given to Caesar; but his tribute money is +to be rendered to him, and his taxes quietly paid; while at the same +time the things which belong unto God are to be most scrupulously +rendered to **him,** regardless alike of the favor or the frowns of all +the governments on earth. -What then *is* the object of non-resistants with respect to human governments---if it is neither to *purify* nor *subvert* them? The resolution declares that it is to *supersede* them. To supersede them with *what?* With the kingdom of Christ. *How?* By the spiritual regeneration of their individual subjects---by implanting in their minds higher principles of feeling and action---by giving them *heavenly* instead of *earthly motives.* And now, to understand this process of superseding, let us consider the nature of Christ's kingdom. It is not an outward, temporal, temporal kingdom, like those of this world. It is spiritual, moral, eternal. When the Jews demanded information about the coming of this kingdom, ignorantly expecting it to appear with unparalleled external majesty, pomp, and circumstance, Jesus replied: 'The kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall men say, lo here, or lo there; for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.' When before Pilate, charged by his enemies with having set himself up against Caesar as a king, he said---'My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now is my kingdom not from hence.' When his yet worldly minded disciples strove among themselves which should be greatest in his kingdom, he washed their feet with his own hands, for an *example,* and declared unto them that *he* among them who would be *greatest* should be *least* of all, and *servant* of all. He forbade them to exercise lordship, after the manner of carnal men among the nations of the earth, but to esteem each other better than themselves, and to regard *humility* as the only true *greatness;* to vie with each other---not for the *highest,* but for the *lowest* place---not for a chance to *rule,* but for aa chance to *serve*---not for the blessedness of *receiving,* but for that of *giving*---not for the praise of man, but for the approval of God---not for the *prerogative* of *inflicting* physical suffering for righteousness' sake, but for the *privilege* of *enduring* it. Hence he made himself the great Exemplar of non-resistants; and 'when he was reviled, reviled not again; what he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to **him** that judgeth righteously; enduring every insult, reproach, cruelty, and torture of his enemies, with unprovokable patience, and unconquerable love; forgiving his most deadly persecutors, and expiring with a prayer upon his lips for their salvation. Thus he *overcame evil, with good;* and leaving behind him the Alexanders and Caesars of this world in their base murderous glory, earned for himself a name which is above every name, whether in this world or that to come; being highly exalted at the **divine right hand,** 'that unto him every knee should bow, of things in heaven, in earth, and under the earth---and every tongue confess him Lord to the glory of God the Father.' Such is the Lord and Master of christians; whom they are to *obey* and *imitate,* rather than Moses, or Samuel, or David, or Solomon, or Elijah, or Daniel, or even *John.* His kingdom is the kingdom of heaven; wherein all legislative, judicial, and avenging power is vested exclusively in that High and Holy One, who *cannot* **err,** either in sentiment, judgement, or action. Of this kingdom the apostle truly says---it 'is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.' The fruit of its spirit, he further says---'is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.' 'Now they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts.' Having learned to renounce carnal weapons of defence, worldly honors, political preferments, and a vain dependence on the operations of human government for the cure of moral disorders, they cease to avenge themselves on evil doers, either on their own responsibility as individuals, or on that of the State through its penal laws. They deem it their duty to forgive, not punish---to yield unto wrath and suffer wrong, without recompensing evil for evil---referring their cause always unto Him who hath said, 'Vengeance is mine; I will repay,'---and thus obeying Christ in his injunction, to love enemies; bless them that curse, do good to them that hate, and pray for the despiteful and persecuting. +What then *is* the object of non-resistants with respect to human +governments---if it is neither to *purify* nor *subvert* them? The +resolution declares that it is to *supersede* them. To supersede them +with *what?* With the kingdom of Christ. *How?* By the spiritual +regeneration of their individual subjects---by implanting in their minds +higher principles of feeling and action---by giving them *heavenly* +instead of *earthly motives.* And now, to understand this process of +superseding, let us consider the nature of Christ's kingdom. It is not +an outward, temporal, temporal kingdom, like those of this world. It is +spiritual, moral, eternal. When the Jews demanded information about the +coming of this kingdom, ignorantly expecting it to appear with +unparalleled external majesty, pomp, and circumstance, Jesus replied: +'The kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall men say, +lo here, or lo there; for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.' +When before Pilate, charged by his enemies with having set himself up +against Caesar as a king, he said---'My kingdom is not of this world. If +my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I +should not be delivered to the Jews. But now is my kingdom not from +hence.' When his yet worldly minded disciples strove among themselves +which should be greatest in his kingdom, he washed their feet with his +own hands, for an *example,* and declared unto them that *he* among them +who would be *greatest* should be *least* of all, and *servant* of all. +He forbade them to exercise lordship, after the manner of carnal men +among the nations of the earth, but to esteem each other better than +themselves, and to regard *humility* as the only true *greatness;* to +vie with each other---not for the *highest,* but for the *lowest* +place---not for a chance to *rule,* but for aa chance to *serve*---not +for the blessedness of *receiving,* but for that of *giving*---not for +the praise of man, but for the approval of God---not for the +*prerogative* of *inflicting* physical suffering for righteousness' +sake, but for the *privilege* of *enduring* it. Hence he made himself +the great Exemplar of non-resistants; and 'when he was reviled, reviled +not again; what he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to +**him** that judgeth righteously; enduring every insult, reproach, +cruelty, and torture of his enemies, with unprovokable patience, and +unconquerable love; forgiving his most deadly persecutors, and expiring +with a prayer upon his lips for their salvation. Thus he *overcame evil, +with good;* and leaving behind him the Alexanders and Caesars of this +world in their base murderous glory, earned for himself a name which is +above every name, whether in this world or that to come; being highly +exalted at the **divine right hand,** 'that unto him every knee should +bow, of things in heaven, in earth, and under the earth---and every +tongue confess him Lord to the glory of God the Father.' Such is the +Lord and Master of christians; whom they are to *obey* and *imitate,* +rather than Moses, or Samuel, or David, or Solomon, or Elijah, or +Daniel, or even *John.* His kingdom is the kingdom of heaven; wherein +all legislative, judicial, and avenging power is vested exclusively in +that High and Holy One, who *cannot* **err,** either in sentiment, +judgement, or action. Of this kingdom the apostle truly says---it 'is +not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy +Ghost.' The fruit of its spirit, he further says---'is love, joy, peace, +long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.' 'Now +they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and +lusts.' Having learned to renounce carnal weapons of defence, worldly +honors, political preferments, and a vain dependence on the operations +of human government for the cure of moral disorders, they cease to +avenge themselves on evil doers, either on their own responsibility as +individuals, or on that of the State through its penal laws. They deem +it their duty to forgive, not punish---to yield unto wrath and suffer +wrong, without recompensing evil for evil---referring their cause always +unto Him who hath said, 'Vengeance is mine; I will repay,'---and thus +obeying Christ in his injunction, to love enemies; bless them that +curse, do good to them that hate, and pray for the despiteful and +persecuting. -This is the doctrine and practice which non-resistants profess to have embraced, and according to the tenor of which they propose to *supersede* all human governments with the *divine.* This is the real object of their present movement. They cease to take any active part in the affairs of human government. They cease to put their trust in the wisdom of man for guidance, or in the arm of flesh for protection. Yet they stand not in the attitude of *antagonists* to human government; nor can they allow themselves to be mistaken for anarchists, nor be considered as willing to give any just cause of offence to the 'powers that be.' Neither can they enter into any quarrel with professedly good men, who feel called to higher mission tha that of *reigning* or *serving* in the kingdoms of this world. But we hear a voice from *above,* saying---'What is that to thee? follow thou me.' And we deem it our privilege, through whatever of reproach or suffering we may be called, to show unto all good men whose reliance is even *secondarily* upon human government for the conversion of the world, *'a more excellent way.'* And now, what is there so horrible, so dangerous, so alarming in all this? Why are we so misunderstood, misrepresented and denounced? These principles and this cause must prevail---if christianity itself shall prevail; and blessed are they among our opposers, whose mistaken zeal shall not betray them into a warfare against God. +This is the doctrine and practice which non-resistants profess to have +embraced, and according to the tenor of which they propose to +*supersede* all human governments with the *divine.* This is the real +object of their present movement. They cease to take any active part in +the affairs of human government. They cease to put their trust in the +wisdom of man for guidance, or in the arm of flesh for protection. Yet +they stand not in the attitude of *antagonists* to human government; nor +can they allow themselves to be mistaken for anarchists, nor be +considered as willing to give any just cause of offence to the 'powers +that be.' Neither can they enter into any quarrel with professedly good +men, who feel called to higher mission tha that of *reigning* or +*serving* in the kingdoms of this world. But we hear a voice from +*above,* saying---'What is that to thee? follow thou me.' And we deem it +our privilege, through whatever of reproach or suffering we may be +called, to show unto all good men whose reliance is even *secondarily* +upon human government for the conversion of the world, *'a more +excellent way.'* And now, what is there so horrible, so dangerous, so +alarming in all this? Why are we so misunderstood, misrepresented and +denounced? These principles and this cause must prevail---if +christianity itself shall prevail; and blessed are they among our +opposers, whose mistaken zeal shall not betray them into a warfare +against God. -But the cry salutes our ears from the open mouths even of professing charlatans.---'Non-resistance is *impracticable* in the present state of the world; you must wait till the millennium.' I answer; 'to him that believeth all things are possible.' Let the power of love and forbearance be faithfully exemplified, and it will remove mountains. And as to the millennium what is it? Is it a state of things to come about like the seasons, by the revolution of the planets? Is it to be the result of some arbitrary mechanical process? or of a mere chemical agency? Is it to be the effect of *physical* or of *moral* causes? Alas! how many are expecting the millennium to come 'with observation;' just as the Jews of old were expecting the kingdom of God; not knowing that this millennium and kingdom, must be *within* men, before it can ever be *around* them. Let us have the spirit of the millennium, and do the works of the millennium. Then will the millennium have already come; and then will it speedily embosom the whole earth. What is this cry of *impracticability,* but a cry of rebellion against the living God? What through under preliminary dispensations he winked at the ignorance of mankind, and even commanded his chosen servants to act a conspicuous part in the great system of governmental violence: this was only until *'the times of reformation.'* In Christ *He* annuls the temporary ordinances of *revenge,* and commands forbearance---non-resistance to the physical violence of man, even of the most injurious. Hear his 'Revised Statutes,'---☞ 'Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.' Now is it impracticable to obey this holy commandment? Is not God the best judge of what is practicable? Who has a right to question the expediency or practicability of what the Infinite Father through his Son has enjoined. And let us be careful not to narrow down the meaning of this commandment. It is much more comprehensive than most expositors have been willing to allow. It forbids not merely all personal, individual, self-assumed right of retaliation, but all revenge *at law*---all procuring of punishment to our injurers in the way of *legal prosecution* and *judicial sentence.* It goes this whole length. When our Lord says---'Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'---he refers to the Mosaic Statute Law. By consulting Exodus 21:22-25; Leviticus 24:19, 20, and Deuteronomy 19:18-21, we find the Statutes referred to; according to which life must be given 'for life, breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, and stripe for stripe.' The injured party, or his friends in his stead, had their redress and revenge *at law.* They might not take the business into their own hands, but might enter their complaint in due form to the elders of their town or city, and have a fair trial of the accused before the proper tribunals. When the sentence of the judges had been pronounced, it was executed in legal form; the criminal being doomed to suffer the same injury to life or limb, which he had caused to his neighbor. Thus when a man had received a wound from his fellow man, or lost an eye, or a tooth, a hand or a foot, he had his revenge *at law;* by due process of which he could thrust out an eye, or a tooth, or cut off a hand or a foot, or inflict any other injury which had been inflicted on him. But however salutary this statute, and however necessary to the good order of society in the opinion of political moralists, the great Master of christians has *abrogated* it, and commanded his followers not to resist evil; not to resist it even according to *law*---not to procure punishment to their injurers through the regular judicial medium; but to bear all indignities, insults, assaults and wrongs, with forgiving meekness and patience. Here then is an end to controversy, with all who mean to be wholly Christ's; they *must* be *non-resistants.* Who dares to question the rectitude, propriety, practicability, or expediency, of doing what the All-wise God has thus plainly required? Is it one who calls Christ Lord and Master? Alas! for the faithless, distrustful man. Do not such hear the words of Christ, in just reproof---saying 'Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I command?' +But the cry salutes our ears from the open mouths even of professing +charlatans.---'Non-resistance is *impracticable* in the present state of +the world; you must wait till the millennium.' I answer; 'to him that +believeth all things are possible.' Let the power of love and +forbearance be faithfully exemplified, and it will remove mountains. And +as to the millennium what is it? Is it a state of things to come about +like the seasons, by the revolution of the planets? Is it to be the +result of some arbitrary mechanical process? or of a mere chemical +agency? Is it to be the effect of *physical* or of *moral* causes? Alas! +how many are expecting the millennium to come 'with observation;' just +as the Jews of old were expecting the kingdom of God; not knowing that +this millennium and kingdom, must be *within* men, before it can ever be +*around* them. Let us have the spirit of the millennium, and do the +works of the millennium. Then will the millennium have already come; and +then will it speedily embosom the whole earth. What is this cry of +*impracticability,* but a cry of rebellion against the living God? What +through under preliminary dispensations he winked at the ignorance of +mankind, and even commanded his chosen servants to act a conspicuous +part in the great system of governmental violence: this was only until +*'the times of reformation.'* In Christ *He* annuls the temporary +ordinances of *revenge,* and commands forbearance---non-resistance to +the physical violence of man, even of the most injurious. Hear his +'Revised Statutes,'---☞ 'Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye +for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, that ye resist +not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy cheek, turn to him the +other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy +coat, let him have thy cloak also.' Now is it impracticable to obey this +holy commandment? Is not God the best judge of what is practicable? Who +has a right to question the expediency or practicability of what the +Infinite Father through his Son has enjoined. And let us be careful not +to narrow down the meaning of this commandment. It is much more +comprehensive than most expositors have been willing to allow. It +forbids not merely all personal, individual, self-assumed right of +retaliation, but all revenge *at law*---all procuring of punishment to +our injurers in the way of *legal prosecution* and *judicial sentence.* +It goes this whole length. When our Lord says---'Ye have heard that it +hath been said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'---he refers +to the Mosaic Statute Law. By consulting Exodus 21:22-25; Leviticus +24:19, 20, and Deuteronomy 19:18-21, we find the Statutes referred to; +according to which life must be given 'for life, breach for breach, eye +for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for +burning, wound for wound, and stripe for stripe.' The injured party, or +his friends in his stead, had their redress and revenge *at law.* They +might not take the business into their own hands, but might enter their +complaint in due form to the elders of their town or city, and have a +fair trial of the accused before the proper tribunals. When the sentence +of the judges had been pronounced, it was executed in legal form; the +criminal being doomed to suffer the same injury to life or limb, which +he had caused to his neighbor. Thus when a man had received a wound from +his fellow man, or lost an eye, or a tooth, a hand or a foot, he had his +revenge *at law;* by due process of which he could thrust out an eye, or +a tooth, or cut off a hand or a foot, or inflict any other injury which +had been inflicted on him. But however salutary this statute, and +however necessary to the good order of society in the opinion of +political moralists, the great Master of christians has *abrogated* it, +and commanded his followers not to resist evil; not to resist it even +according to *law*---not to procure punishment to their injurers through +the regular judicial medium; but to bear all indignities, insults, +assaults and wrongs, with forgiving meekness and patience. Here then is +an end to controversy, with all who mean to be wholly Christ's; they +*must* be *non-resistants.* Who dares to question the rectitude, +propriety, practicability, or expediency, of doing what the All-wise God +has thus plainly required? Is it one who calls Christ Lord and Master? +Alas! for the faithless, distrustful man. Do not such hear the words of +Christ, in just reproof---saying 'Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not +the things which I command?' -But all this passes for nothing which many, who exclaim---'What are you going to do with the wolves and tigers of human kind? Are you going to give them full range for their prey? Will you invite the thief, the robber, the burglar, the murderer---to come and carry off your property, ravish away your treasures, spoil your house, butcher your wife and children, and shed your own heart's blood? Will you be such a *fool,* such an enemy to yourself, your family and society? Will you encourage all manner of rapine and bloodshed, by assurances that you will never resist, nor even prosecute the basest ruffians?' What a terrible appeal is this? how full of frightful images, and horrid anticipations of evil, from the practice of non-resistance. But if I am a christian, will such appeals move me? Am I a christian, and do I doubt that God will protect me and mine against all the thieves, robbers and murderers in the world, while conscientiously do my duty? Am I more willing to rely upon forbidden means of defence, than upon the power of **him** who doeth his will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth---and who hath said, 'I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee?' 'But are you sure that God will always render your property, person and life secure from these attacks?' No; for it *may* be best that I should suffer---that I should even lose all things earthly. What then; is treasure on earth my only treasure? is worldly substance my chief good; is this life my only life? What if I should actually lose my money; have I not treasure laid up in heaven, where neither moth, nor rust, nor thieves can touch it? What if I should suffer great cruelties in my person *'for righteousness sake;'* should I therefore be miserable? What if I should lose my own life and that of my family; should I not *find life eternal* for them and myself? I may be robbed, but I shall still be rich; I may be murdered, but I shall live forevermore; I may suffer the loss of all things earthly, but I shall gain all things heavenly. If I cannot confidently say this, am I a *christian?* 'Who then shall harm us, if we be followers of that which is good?' I have a right to expect, and I do confidently expect, that in practising the sublime virtue of non-resistance for the kingdom of heaven's sake, God will keep all that I commit to him in perfect safety, even here on earth, as long as it is for my good to be exempted from loss and suffering. I do firmly believe that in acting out these principles steadily and consistently, I shall continue longer uninjured, longer in the enjoyment of life, longer safe from the depredations, assaults and murderous violence of wicked men, than with all the swords, guns, pistols, dirks, peace officers, sheriffs, judges, prisons and gallows of the world. If this is the faith of a fool, then am I willing to be accounted a fool, till time shall test the merits of my position. It may not prove to be such great folly after all. 'Well, says the objector, I should like to know how you would manage matters, if the ruffian should actually break into your house with settled intent to rob and murder; would you shrink back coward like, and see your wife and children slaughtered before your eyes?' I cannot tell how I might act in such a dreadful emergency---how weak and frail I should prove. But I can tell you how I *ought* to act---how I wish to act. If a firm, consistent non-resistant, I should prove myself no *coward;* for it requires the noblest courage, the highest fortitude, to be a non-resistant. If what I ought to be, I should be calm, and unruffled by the alarm at my door. I should meet my wretched fellow-man with a spirit, an air, a salutation, a deportment, so Christ-like, so little expected, so confounding, so morally irresistible, that in all probability his weapons of violence and death would fall harmless to his side. I would say---'friend, why comest thou hither? surely not to injure those who wish thee nothing but good? This house is one of peace and friendship to all mankind. If thou art cold, warm thyself at our fire; if hungry, refresh thyself at our table; if thou art weary, sleep in our bed; if thou art destitute, poor, and needy, freely take of our goods. Come, let us be friends, that God may keep us all from evil and bless us with his protection.' What would be the effect of such treatment as this? Would it not completely overcome the feelings of the invader, so as either to make him retreat inoffensively out of the house, or at least forbear all meditated violence? Would it not be incomparably safer than to rush to the shattered door, half distracted with alarm, grasping some deadly weapon and bearing it aloft, looking fiery wrath, and mad defiance at the enemy? How soon would follow the mortal encounter, and how extremely uncertain the issue? The moment I appeared in such an attitude, (just the thing expected) would not ruffian coolness and well trained muscular force be almost sure to seal the fate of myself and family? But in acting the non-resistant part, should I not be likely, in nine cases out of ten, to escape with perfect safety? \['Yes,' said a brother, 'in *ninety-nine* cases out of a hundred.\] Yea, and perhaps nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand. Not however, to expect too much; suppose the robber should not be wholly deterred; would he, at worst, seek any thing beyond mere booty? Would not our lives and persons escape untouched? It would hardly be worth his while to murder or mangle those who opposed no *force* to his depredations. But we will make the case utterly desperate. Contrary to all probability, we will suppose that no moral majesty, no calm and dignified remonstrance, no divine interposition, availed any thing towards the prevention of the slaughter of an innocent family; what then would I do in the last resort? I would gather my loved ones in a group behind my person; I would cover their retreat to the farthest corner of our room; and there in their front would I receive the blows of the murderer. I would say to him---'Since nothing but our blood will satisfy thy thirst, I commend my *all* to that God in whom I trust. He will receive us to his bosom; and may he have mercy on *thee.* Strike if thou wilt; but thou must come through my poor body to the bodies of these helpless victims!' Well, suppose the horrible tragedy complete, and our butchered remains all lying silent in their gore; what then? We are all dead; we fell clinging to each other; in a *moment* the pains of death were over; the 'debt of nature' is paid; where are we now? *Where? Annihilated? Miserable?* No! Our happy spirits, conveyed by holy angels, wing their lightning flight to the bowers of Paradise---to the home of the blest---to the blissful arms of an approving Redeemer---to the welcome embrace 'of the just made perfect.' Who would not rather pass away thus unstained with blood, into the joys of that Lord, who himself quenched the fiery darts of his malicious murderers with his own vital blood, than to purchase a few days of mortal life by precipitating into eternity a fellow creature, with his millstone of unrepentant crime about his neck? Is it so dreadful a thing for the christian to be hurried to heaven---and to be sent into eternal life a little before his natural time---to have all his pains of dissolution crowded into a moment? Is life on earth, (brief at longest, and often embittered by distressing ills,) of so much value, that we would *murder,* rather than be murdered? O, let me die the death of the christian *non-resistant,* and let my last end be like his! Let me suffer and die with Christ, that I also may live and reign with him. The conclusion then is, that in a vast majority of cases the non-resistant would remain unharmed by the sons of violence, and that in the *worst* supposable case, he would only be hurried out of this life, with his dear family, into a *better.* But rejoins the operator---'I consider it the duty of a christian to look to the good of society at large, and to contribute what he can, in a lawful way, to the security of life, person and property around him. Therefore let him assist in bringing malefactors to justice, and not shrink from aiding the magistrate in preserving the bulwarks of order.' And so we are to throw away God's judgment of what is best, and trample under foot the solemn injunction of Christ! Well, what shall we gain by this infidelity and rebellion? 'Nay,---but we are in duty bound to love our neighbor---to seek the peace and welfare of society---to do our part towards protecting the innocent and helpless against the ravages of merciless wolves---to maintain wholesome penal restraints.' Answer. We think we are seeking this great end more effectually, as non-resistants, than we could do by becoming informers, prosecutors, jailers or hangmen. 'An *ounce* of *preventive* is worth more than a *pound* of *curative.*' But at all events, since we cannot fight, nor go to law for ourselves or our dearest relatives, we must decline doing so for any other description of persons. It is a favorite argument of our opposers, that we are not required to love our *neighbors* **better** than *ourselves.* Whether this argument be sound or not, perhaps it is not *now* necessary to affirm; but it is certainly a very conclusive one, or *ought* to be, with the objector in this case, to show the unreasonableness of requiring us to do more for our neighbors in society at large, than for ourselves, our wives and children. We must act on the same principles, and pursue the same general course with respect to all; and in so doing 'we stand or fall to our own master.' +But all this passes for nothing which many, who exclaim---'What are you +going to do with the wolves and tigers of human kind? Are you going to +give them full range for their prey? Will you invite the thief, the +robber, the burglar, the murderer---to come and carry off your property, +ravish away your treasures, spoil your house, butcher your wife and +children, and shed your own heart's blood? Will you be such a *fool,* +such an enemy to yourself, your family and society? Will you encourage +all manner of rapine and bloodshed, by assurances that you will never +resist, nor even prosecute the basest ruffians?' What a terrible appeal +is this? how full of frightful images, and horrid anticipations of evil, +from the practice of non-resistance. But if I am a christian, will such +appeals move me? Am I a christian, and do I doubt that God will protect +me and mine against all the thieves, robbers and murderers in the world, +while conscientiously do my duty? Am I more willing to rely upon +forbidden means of defence, than upon the power of **him** who doeth his +will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the +earth---and who hath said, 'I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee?' +'But are you sure that God will always render your property, person and +life secure from these attacks?' No; for it *may* be best that I should +suffer---that I should even lose all things earthly. What then; is +treasure on earth my only treasure? is worldly substance my chief good; +is this life my only life? What if I should actually lose my money; have +I not treasure laid up in heaven, where neither moth, nor rust, nor +thieves can touch it? What if I should suffer great cruelties in my +person *'for righteousness sake;'* should I therefore be miserable? What +if I should lose my own life and that of my family; should I not *find +life eternal* for them and myself? I may be robbed, but I shall still be +rich; I may be murdered, but I shall live forevermore; I may suffer the +loss of all things earthly, but I shall gain all things heavenly. If I +cannot confidently say this, am I a *christian?* 'Who then shall harm +us, if we be followers of that which is good?' I have a right to expect, +and I do confidently expect, that in practising the sublime virtue of +non-resistance for the kingdom of heaven's sake, God will keep all that +I commit to him in perfect safety, even here on earth, as long as it is +for my good to be exempted from loss and suffering. I do firmly believe +that in acting out these principles steadily and consistently, I shall +continue longer uninjured, longer in the enjoyment of life, longer safe +from the depredations, assaults and murderous violence of wicked men, +than with all the swords, guns, pistols, dirks, peace officers, +sheriffs, judges, prisons and gallows of the world. If this is the faith +of a fool, then am I willing to be accounted a fool, till time shall +test the merits of my position. It may not prove to be such great folly +after all. 'Well, says the objector, I should like to know how you would +manage matters, if the ruffian should actually break into your house +with settled intent to rob and murder; would you shrink back coward +like, and see your wife and children slaughtered before your eyes?' I +cannot tell how I might act in such a dreadful emergency---how weak and +frail I should prove. But I can tell you how I *ought* to act---how I +wish to act. If a firm, consistent non-resistant, I should prove myself +no *coward;* for it requires the noblest courage, the highest fortitude, +to be a non-resistant. If what I ought to be, I should be calm, and +unruffled by the alarm at my door. I should meet my wretched fellow-man +with a spirit, an air, a salutation, a deportment, so Christ-like, so +little expected, so confounding, so morally irresistible, that in all +probability his weapons of violence and death would fall harmless to his +side. I would say---'friend, why comest thou hither? surely not to +injure those who wish thee nothing but good? This house is one of peace +and friendship to all mankind. If thou art cold, warm thyself at our +fire; if hungry, refresh thyself at our table; if thou art weary, sleep +in our bed; if thou art destitute, poor, and needy, freely take of our +goods. Come, let us be friends, that God may keep us all from evil and +bless us with his protection.' What would be the effect of such +treatment as this? Would it not completely overcome the feelings of the +invader, so as either to make him retreat inoffensively out of the +house, or at least forbear all meditated violence? Would it not be +incomparably safer than to rush to the shattered door, half distracted +with alarm, grasping some deadly weapon and bearing it aloft, looking +fiery wrath, and mad defiance at the enemy? How soon would follow the +mortal encounter, and how extremely uncertain the issue? The moment I +appeared in such an attitude, (just the thing expected) would not +ruffian coolness and well trained muscular force be almost sure to seal +the fate of myself and family? But in acting the non-resistant part, +should I not be likely, in nine cases out of ten, to escape with perfect +safety? \['Yes,' said a brother, 'in *ninety-nine* cases out of a +hundred.\] Yea, and perhaps nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a +thousand. Not however, to expect too much; suppose the robber should not +be wholly deterred; would he, at worst, seek any thing beyond mere +booty? Would not our lives and persons escape untouched? It would hardly +be worth his while to murder or mangle those who opposed no *force* to +his depredations. But we will make the case utterly desperate. Contrary +to all probability, we will suppose that no moral majesty, no calm and +dignified remonstrance, no divine interposition, availed any thing +towards the prevention of the slaughter of an innocent family; what then +would I do in the last resort? I would gather my loved ones in a group +behind my person; I would cover their retreat to the farthest corner of +our room; and there in their front would I receive the blows of the +murderer. I would say to him---'Since nothing but our blood will satisfy +thy thirst, I commend my *all* to that God in whom I trust. He will +receive us to his bosom; and may he have mercy on *thee.* Strike if thou +wilt; but thou must come through my poor body to the bodies of these +helpless victims!' Well, suppose the horrible tragedy complete, and our +butchered remains all lying silent in their gore; what then? We are all +dead; we fell clinging to each other; in a *moment* the pains of death +were over; the 'debt of nature' is paid; where are we now? *Where? +Annihilated? Miserable?* No! Our happy spirits, conveyed by holy angels, +wing their lightning flight to the bowers of Paradise---to the home of +the blest---to the blissful arms of an approving Redeemer---to the +welcome embrace 'of the just made perfect.' Who would not rather pass +away thus unstained with blood, into the joys of that Lord, who himself +quenched the fiery darts of his malicious murderers with his own vital +blood, than to purchase a few days of mortal life by precipitating into +eternity a fellow creature, with his millstone of unrepentant crime +about his neck? Is it so dreadful a thing for the christian to be +hurried to heaven---and to be sent into eternal life a little before his +natural time---to have all his pains of dissolution crowded into a +moment? Is life on earth, (brief at longest, and often embittered by +distressing ills,) of so much value, that we would *murder,* rather than +be murdered? O, let me die the death of the christian *non-resistant,* +and let my last end be like his! Let me suffer and die with Christ, that +I also may live and reign with him. The conclusion then is, that in a +vast majority of cases the non-resistant would remain unharmed by the +sons of violence, and that in the *worst* supposable case, he would only +be hurried out of this life, with his dear family, into a *better.* But +rejoins the operator---'I consider it the duty of a christian to look to +the good of society at large, and to contribute what he can, in a lawful +way, to the security of life, person and property around him. Therefore +let him assist in bringing malefactors to justice, and not shrink from +aiding the magistrate in preserving the bulwarks of order.' And so we +are to throw away God's judgment of what is best, and trample under foot +the solemn injunction of Christ! Well, what shall we gain by this +infidelity and rebellion? 'Nay,---but we are in duty bound to love our +neighbor---to seek the peace and welfare of society---to do our part +towards protecting the innocent and helpless against the ravages of +merciless wolves---to maintain wholesome penal restraints.' Answer. We +think we are seeking this great end more effectually, as non-resistants, +than we could do by becoming informers, prosecutors, jailers or hangmen. +'An *ounce* of *preventive* is worth more than a *pound* of *curative.*' +But at all events, since we cannot fight, nor go to law for ourselves or +our dearest relatives, we must decline doing so for any other +description of persons. It is a favorite argument of our opposers, that +we are not required to love our *neighbors* **better** than *ourselves.* +Whether this argument be sound or not, perhaps it is not *now* necessary +to affirm; but it is certainly a very conclusive one, or *ought* to be, +with the objector in this case, to show the unreasonableness of +requiring us to do more for our neighbors in society at large, than for +ourselves, our wives and children. We must act on the same principles, +and pursue the same general course with respect to all; and in so doing +'we stand or fall to our own master.' -'But we want the best men in office, the best laws and the best administration of government. Will you be recreant to your trust as citizens? Will you withhold your votes from the side and cause of right? Will you leave knaves and villains to govern the world?' Answer. We expect to do as much towards keeping the world in order by a straightforward, consistent, exemplary practice of our principles, nay *more,* than by *voting, office-holding, legislating,* or punishing criminals. A truly good man wields an influence on our ground great and salutary wherever he is known. It is not by the poor test of *numbers* that righteousness can gain its deserved respect in the world. It is not by getting into places of worldly power and emolument, that christians are to promote human welfare. It is not by fighting with carnal weapons, and wielding the instruments of legal vengeance, that they can hope to strengthen the bonds of moral restraint. Majorities often decree folly and iniquity. *Power* oftener corrupts its possessor, than benefits the powerless. The real power which restrains the world is *moral power,* acting silently and unostentatiously within and upon the soul. He, therefore, who has the fewest outward ensigns of authority, will, if wise and holy, contribute most to the good order of mankind. Besides, even unprincipled men in office are compelled to bow to a strong public sentiment, superinduced by the efforts of good men in private life. They are not wanting in vanity to be *esteemed* the friends of virtue, and from this motive generally conform their laws and proceedings more or less to a *right* general opinion. If we can do any thing towards promoting a sound morality, as we hope to do, we shall make our influence felt without envy, not only in the lowest depths of society, but in the high places of political power. I expect, if true to my sense of duty, to do as much in my town and community towards preserving wholesome moral order, as if clothed with the official dignity of a *first* select-man, a representative to General Court, a justice of the peace, or even a member of Congress. Whatever my natural ambition might have coveted in the blindness of unchastened nature, I now envy not Governors, Presidents, or Monarchs, their stations of usefulness and glory; bnt feel that in humble obscurity I have a higher mission assigned me, in the faithful fulfilment of which it may be my privilege to do more for my race, than if elevated to either of their *world-envied* seats. Every true non-resistant will be a great conservator of *public* as well as *private* morals. Away then with the intrigues and tricks of political ambition, the petty squabbles of partizans and office-holders, the hollow bluster of demagogues, and the capricious admiration of a tickled multitude. Let us obey God, declare the truth, walk in love, and *deserve* the gratitude of the world, though we never *receive* it. +'But we want the best men in office, the best laws and the best +administration of government. Will you be recreant to your trust as +citizens? Will you withhold your votes from the side and cause of right? +Will you leave knaves and villains to govern the world?' Answer. We +expect to do as much towards keeping the world in order by a +straightforward, consistent, exemplary practice of our principles, nay +*more,* than by *voting, office-holding, legislating,* or punishing +criminals. A truly good man wields an influence on our ground great and +salutary wherever he is known. It is not by the poor test of *numbers* +that righteousness can gain its deserved respect in the world. It is not +by getting into places of worldly power and emolument, that christians +are to promote human welfare. It is not by fighting with carnal weapons, +and wielding the instruments of legal vengeance, that they can hope to +strengthen the bonds of moral restraint. Majorities often decree folly +and iniquity. *Power* oftener corrupts its possessor, than benefits the +powerless. The real power which restrains the world is *moral power,* +acting silently and unostentatiously within and upon the soul. He, +therefore, who has the fewest outward ensigns of authority, will, if +wise and holy, contribute most to the good order of mankind. Besides, +even unprincipled men in office are compelled to bow to a strong public +sentiment, superinduced by the efforts of good men in private life. They +are not wanting in vanity to be *esteemed* the friends of virtue, and +from this motive generally conform their laws and proceedings more or +less to a *right* general opinion. If we can do any thing towards +promoting a sound morality, as we hope to do, we shall make our +influence felt without envy, not only in the lowest depths of society, +but in the high places of political power. I expect, if true to my sense +of duty, to do as much in my town and community towards preserving +wholesome moral order, as if clothed with the official dignity of a +*first* select-man, a representative to General Court, a justice of the +peace, or even a member of Congress. Whatever my natural ambition might +have coveted in the blindness of unchastened nature, I now envy not +Governors, Presidents, or Monarchs, their stations of usefulness and +glory; bnt feel that in humble obscurity I have a higher mission +assigned me, in the faithful fulfilment of which it may be my privilege +to do more for my race, than if elevated to either of their +*world-envied* seats. Every true non-resistant will be a great +conservator of *public* as well as *private* morals. Away then with the +intrigues and tricks of political ambition, the petty squabbles of +partizans and office-holders, the hollow bluster of demagogues, and the +capricious admiration of a tickled multitude. Let us obey God, declare +the truth, walk in love, and *deserve* the gratitude of the world, +though we never *receive* it. -'But should non-resistants ever become the great majority in any community, pray how would they get on with public affairs. There must be highways, and bridges, and school houses, and education, and alms. houses, and hospitals.' Very well; nothing easier than for communities of *christian non-resistants* to get along with all these matters. Suppose them to meet, in those days, from time to time within each town, or more general community, *voluntarily*, just as we are here assembled. Suppose them all anxious to *know* their duty, and ready to *do* it, as soon as clearly pointed out. Then of course the wisest will speak to attentive ears and upright minds. They will propose measures, discuss them in friendship, and come to a conclusion in favor of the *best*---without wounding personal vanity, or breeding a quarrel with each other's selfishness. The law of love and the counsels of wisdom will prevail without strife, and all be eager to contribute their full share of expense and effort to the object. Instead of the leading *few* striving, as *now*, who shall be *first* and greatest, the strife will then be, who shall have the least *authority*. And among the mass, instead of the strife, as now, who shall bear the lightest burden, the only strife will be---who shall do most for the promotion of every good work. Happy days, whenever they arrive! If there shall be any *poor* in those days, or any *insane*, or any *unlettered*, or unaccommodated travellers, they will soon be abundantly provided for, without the aid of physical force, pains or penalties. God hasten that blessed era of love and peace, and grant success to all our well directed efforts in this holy cause. Thus finally may all human governments be superseded by the divine government, and the kingdoms of this world be swallowed up in the one all-glorious kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, having freely expressed my views and feelings on the subject of the resolution presented, I submit them to the consideration of the friends; hoping that they will receive into good and honest hearts whatever is worth retaining, and the worthless cast away. +'But should non-resistants ever become the great majority in any +community, pray how would they get on with public affairs. There must be +highways, and bridges, and school houses, and education, and alms. +houses, and hospitals.' Very well; nothing easier than for communities +of *christian non-resistants* to get along with all these matters. +Suppose them to meet, in those days, from time to time within each town, +or more general community, *voluntarily*, just as we are here assembled. +Suppose them all anxious to *know* their duty, and ready to *do* it, as +soon as clearly pointed out. Then of course the wisest will speak to +attentive ears and upright minds. They will propose measures, discuss +them in friendship, and come to a conclusion in favor of the +*best*---without wounding personal vanity, or breeding a quarrel with +each other's selfishness. The law of love and the counsels of wisdom +will prevail without strife, and all be eager to contribute their full +share of expense and effort to the object. Instead of the leading *few* +striving, as *now*, who shall be *first* and greatest, the strife will +then be, who shall have the least *authority*. And among the mass, +instead of the strife, as now, who shall bear the lightest burden, the +only strife will be---who shall do most for the promotion of every good +work. Happy days, whenever they arrive! If there shall be any *poor* in +those days, or any *insane*, or any *unlettered*, or unaccommodated +travellers, they will soon be abundantly provided for, without the aid +of physical force, pains or penalties. God hasten that blessed era of +love and peace, and grant success to all our well directed efforts in +this holy cause. Thus finally may all human governments be superseded by +the divine government, and the kingdoms of this world be swallowed up in +the one all-glorious kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, having +freely expressed my views and feelings on the subject of the resolution +presented, I submit them to the consideration of the friends; hoping +that they will receive into good and honest hearts whatever is worth +retaining, and the worthless cast away. diff --git a/src/restoration-guild.md b/src/restoration-guild.md index 50cbfd0..60748c0 100644 --- a/src/restoration-guild.md +++ b/src/restoration-guild.md @@ -1,1909 +1,1616 @@ # Preface -Readers of the following pages will probably be aware that -the idea of restoring the Guild system as a solution of the -problems presented by modern industrialism is to be found in -the writings of John Ruskin, who put forward the proposition -many years ago. - -Unfortunately, however, as Ruskin failed to formulate any -practical scheme showing how the Guilds could be -re-established in society, the proposal has never been -seriously considered by social reformers. Collectivism may -be said to have stepped into the breach by offering a -plausible theory for the reconstruction of society on a -cooperative basis, and Ruskin's suggestion was incontinently -relegated to the region of impractical dreams. - -My reason for reviving the idea is that while I am persuaded -that Collectivism is incapable of solving the social -problem, the conviction is forced upon me that our only hope -lies in some such direction as that foreshadowed by Ruskin, -and in the following chapters I hope to show that it is not -impossible to discover practical ways and means of +Readers of the following pages will probably be aware that the idea of +restoring the Guild system as a solution of the problems presented by +modern industrialism is to be found in the writings of John Ruskin, who +put forward the proposition many years ago. + +Unfortunately, however, as Ruskin failed to formulate any practical +scheme showing how the Guilds could be re-established in society, the +proposal has never been seriously considered by social reformers. +Collectivism may be said to have stepped into the breach by offering a +plausible theory for the reconstruction of society on a cooperative +basis, and Ruskin's suggestion was incontinently relegated to the region +of impractical dreams. + +My reason for reviving the idea is that while I am persuaded that +Collectivism is incapable of solving the social problem, the conviction +is forced upon me that our only hope lies in some such direction as that +foreshadowed by Ruskin, and in the following chapters I hope to show +that it is not impossible to discover practical ways and means of re-establishing the Guilds in our midst. -In order to understand the full significance of the present -proposals they should be considered in conjunction with the -theory put forward by Mr. Edward Carpenter in "Civilization, -Its Cause and Cure." Indeed the present volume aims at -forging the links required to connect the theory there -enunciated with practical politics. +In order to understand the full significance of the present proposals +they should be considered in conjunction with the theory put forward by +Mr. Edward Carpenter in "Civilization, Its Cause and Cure." Indeed the +present volume aims at forging the links required to connect the theory +there enunciated with practical politics. -Two other books which have an important bearing on the -subject, and might be read with advantage, are Carlyle's -"Past and Present" and Matthew Arnold's "Culture and -Anarchy." +Two other books which have an important bearing on the subject, and +might be read with advantage, are Carlyle's "Past and Present" and +Matthew Arnold's "Culture and Anarchy." *Hammersmith*, *August*, 1905. # The Collectivist Formula -Among the schemes which have been put forward as solutions -of the social problem, Collectivism,, by reason of its close -relationship to current problems, has alone secured any -measure of popularity. Having discovered that "unfettered -individual competition is not a principle to which the -regulation of industry may be entrusted," political -philosophers rush to the opposite extreme, and propose to -remedy the defect, first by the regulation, and finally by -the nationalization of land, capital, and the means of -production and exchange; which measures, we are told, by -changing the basis of society from a competitive to a -cooperative one, will, by providing the necessary -conditions, eradicate every disease from the body politic. - -Such a remedy would be perfectly reasonable if the evil to -be combated were that of competition. But it is not. It is -true that competition, as it manifests itself in modern -society, is a force of social disintegration. But this is -not because it is necessarily an evil thing; but because the -conditions under which it is to-day pursued are -intrinsically bad. That the competition of to-day differs -from that of the past, we unconsciously recognize when we -speak of commercial competition. Competition as it existed -under the Guild System, when hours and conditions of labour, -prices, etc., were fixed, was necessarily a matter of -quality; for when no producer was allowed to compete on the -lower plane of cheapness, competition took the form of a -rivalry in respect to the greater usefulness or beauty of -the thing produced. With the passing of the control of -industry from the hands of the craft-masters into those of -the financier and the abolition of the regulations of the -Guilds, the era of commercial competition was inaugurated, -and what was formerly a healthy and stimulating factor -became a dangerous and disintegrating reactionary force; for -competition between financiers means a competition for -cheapness, to which all other considerations must be -sacrificed. - -For the sake of clearness, therefore, we will define the -terms competition and commercialism, as follows: -Commercialism means the control of industry by the financier -(as opposed to the master craftsman) while competition means -the rivalry of producers. - -Viewing Collectivism in this light, we find that it seeks to -eliminate, not commercialism, but competition. In so doing -it establishes more securely than ever the worst features of -the present system. The mere transference of the control of -industry from the hands of the capitalist into those of the -state, can make no essential difference to the nature of the -industry affected. In Belgium, for example, where the -bread-making and shirt-making industries have been -nationalized, it has been found impossible to abolish -sweating, or to introduce a shorter working day.This -abandonment of the principle of social justice at the outset -doubtless foreshadows its abandonment for ever; since, as -Collectivists become more and more concerned with practical -politics, the difficulties of asserting their ideals, -together with the establishment of their system of -organization, will likewise be more and more increased. -Moreover, after its establishment, the difficulties of -reforming any State Department are well known; and how shall -society be prevented from acquiescing in the present -commercial abuses, under a collectivist *régime*, and -treating them as inevitable evils? - -This question is a very pertinent one, since, according to -the economics of Collectivism, every industry nationalized -must be made to pay, and a Government charged with the -administration of any industry would become interested in -its continuance as a business, quite apart from its -usefulness or otherwise, or whether or no it had been called -into existence by some temporary and artificial need of -modern civilization. Thus the Government at the present -time, having nationalized the telegraphs, becomes interested -in the continuance of gambling, the use of the system in -connexion with the turf and the markets being its real basis -of support, and not the comparatively insignificant -percentage of work undertaken in respect to the more human -agencies which require it. Again, were existing railways -nationalized, Government would become interested in the -continuance of wasteful cross distribution, called into -existence by the competition of traders. Similarly, the -gradual development of municipal trading and manufacture -would tend to militate against the depopulation of towns. -And this conservative tendency is inevitable, since -Collectivism can only maintain its ground as a national -system so long as it justifies the claims of its advocates -to financial soundness. - -Co-operation in its inception aimed at the establishment of -an ideal commonwealth, but the cooperative ideal has long -since departed from the movement, and little but a scramble -for dividends remains. In like manner it is not unreasonable -to suppose that Collectivism, having made its appeal for -popular support on the grounds of its capacity to earn -profits for the public, would suffer a similar degeneration. -The electorate, in their profit-making zeal, would certainly -not remedy abuses if their dividends were to be lowered, for -they would still retain the superstition that only by -producing dividends could their finances be kept in a -healthy condition. Inasmuch as the ultimate control of -industry would rest in the hands of the financier, -production for profit and not for use would continue. For -what other test can there be of a financier's skill except -his ability to produce profits? +Among the schemes which have been put forward as solutions of the social +problem, Collectivism,, by reason of its close relationship to current +problems, has alone secured any measure of popularity. Having discovered +that "unfettered individual competition is not a principle to which the +regulation of industry may be entrusted," political philosophers rush to +the opposite extreme, and propose to remedy the defect, first by the +regulation, and finally by the nationalization of land, capital, and the +means of production and exchange; which measures, we are told, by +changing the basis of society from a competitive to a cooperative one, +will, by providing the necessary conditions, eradicate every disease +from the body politic. + +Such a remedy would be perfectly reasonable if the evil to be combated +were that of competition. But it is not. It is true that competition, as +it manifests itself in modern society, is a force of social +disintegration. But this is not because it is necessarily an evil thing; +but because the conditions under which it is to-day pursued are +intrinsically bad. That the competition of to-day differs from that of +the past, we unconsciously recognize when we speak of commercial +competition. Competition as it existed under the Guild System, when +hours and conditions of labour, prices, etc., were fixed, was +necessarily a matter of quality; for when no producer was allowed to +compete on the lower plane of cheapness, competition took the form of a +rivalry in respect to the greater usefulness or beauty of the thing +produced. With the passing of the control of industry from the hands of +the craft-masters into those of the financier and the abolition of the +regulations of the Guilds, the era of commercial competition was +inaugurated, and what was formerly a healthy and stimulating factor +became a dangerous and disintegrating reactionary force; for competition +between financiers means a competition for cheapness, to which all other +considerations must be sacrificed. + +For the sake of clearness, therefore, we will define the terms +competition and commercialism, as follows: Commercialism means the +control of industry by the financier (as opposed to the master +craftsman) while competition means the rivalry of producers. + +Viewing Collectivism in this light, we find that it seeks to eliminate, +not commercialism, but competition. In so doing it establishes more +securely than ever the worst features of the present system. The mere +transference of the control of industry from the hands of the capitalist +into those of the state, can make no essential difference to the nature +of the industry affected. In Belgium, for example, where the +bread-making and shirt-making industries have been nationalized, it has +been found impossible to abolish sweating, or to introduce a shorter +working day.This abandonment of the principle of social justice at the +outset doubtless foreshadows its abandonment for ever; since, as +Collectivists become more and more concerned with practical politics, +the difficulties of asserting their ideals, together with the +establishment of their system of organization, will likewise be more and +more increased. Moreover, after its establishment, the difficulties of +reforming any State Department are well known; and how shall society be +prevented from acquiescing in the present commercial abuses, under a +collectivist *régime*, and treating them as inevitable evils? + +This question is a very pertinent one, since, according to the economics +of Collectivism, every industry nationalized must be made to pay, and a +Government charged with the administration of any industry would become +interested in its continuance as a business, quite apart from its +usefulness or otherwise, or whether or no it had been called into +existence by some temporary and artificial need of modern civilization. +Thus the Government at the present time, having nationalized the +telegraphs, becomes interested in the continuance of gambling, the use +of the system in connexion with the turf and the markets being its real +basis of support, and not the comparatively insignificant percentage of +work undertaken in respect to the more human agencies which require it. +Again, were existing railways nationalized, Government would become +interested in the continuance of wasteful cross distribution, called +into existence by the competition of traders. Similarly, the gradual +development of municipal trading and manufacture would tend to militate +against the depopulation of towns. And this conservative tendency is +inevitable, since Collectivism can only maintain its ground as a +national system so long as it justifies the claims of its advocates to +financial soundness. + +Co-operation in its inception aimed at the establishment of an ideal +commonwealth, but the cooperative ideal has long since departed from the +movement, and little but a scramble for dividends remains. In like +manner it is not unreasonable to suppose that Collectivism, having made +its appeal for popular support on the grounds of its capacity to earn +profits for the public, would suffer a similar degeneration. The +electorate, in their profit-making zeal, would certainly not remedy +abuses if their dividends were to be lowered, for they would still +retain the superstition that only by producing dividends could their +finances be kept in a healthy condition. Inasmuch as the ultimate +control of industry would rest in the hands of the financier, production +for profit and not for use would continue. For what other test can there +be of a financier's skill except his ability to produce profits? In a word Collectivism means State Commercialism. -So long as the people are attached to their present habits -of life and thought, and possess the same ill-regulated -tastes, a State Department, charged with the administration -of industry, would be just as much at the mercy of supply -and demand as at present, while the fluctuations of taste -would be just as disturbing to them as the fluctuations of -public opinion are to the politician. - -This brings us to the great political fallacy of the -Collectivist doctrine---namely, the assumption that -Government should be conducted solely in the interests of -man in his capacity as consumer---a superstition which has -survived the Manchester School; for a little consideration -will convince us that in a true social system the aim of -Government would not be to exalt either producer or consumer -at the expense of the other, but to maintain a balance of -power between the two. - -The policy of exalting the consumer at the expense of the -producer would be perfectly sound, if the evils of the -present day were caused by the tyranny of the producer. But -is it so? It is true that trade is in such a hopeless -condition that the consumer is very much at the mercy of -unscrupulous producers. The cause of this, however, is not -to be found in the preference of producers generally for -crooked ways, but in the tyranny of consumers which forces -the majority of producers to adopt malpractices in -self-defence. Doubtless all trade abuses have in their -origin been the work of individual producers. They grow, in -the first place, because without privileges the more -honourable producers are powerless to suppress them, and -secondly, because consumers generally are so wanting in -loyalty to honest producers, and are so ready to believe -that they can get sixpenny-worth of stuff" for threepence, -that they deliberately place themselves in the hands of the -worst type of producer. In every department of life the -successful man is he who can lead the public to believe they -are getting something for nothing, and generally speaking, -if consumers are defrauded by producers, it is because they -deserve to be. The truth of this statement will be attested -by all who, in any department of industry, have made efforts -to raise its tone. Everywhere it is the tyranny of the -consumer that blocks the way. For example, anybody who has -followed the history of the Arts and Crafts movement, and -noted the efforts which have been made to raise the quality -of English production must be convinced that this is the -root of the difficulty. If the public were capable of a -tenth part of the sacrifice which others have undertaken on -their behalf, we might see our way out of the industrial -quagmire. - -This evil would not be remedied by bringing industry under -State Control. Rather would it be intensified. Art in the -past had its private patrons, and while these continue some -good work may still be done. But the artist is powerless -when face to face with a public body whose taste recognizes -no ultimate standard, but taken collectively is always the -reflection of the vulgarity its members see around them. As -we may assume that private patrons would cease under -Collectivism, so Art's last support would disappear also. -Whatever good work has been done for the public during the -past century has been in the main the result of accident. -Collective control foreshadows, not the abolition of poverty -in our midst, by the direction of industry passing into the -hands of wise administrators, but the final abandonment of -all standards of quality in production, owing to the -complete subjection of all producers to the demoralizing -tyranny of an uninstructed majority. - -This commercial notion of Government solely in the interests -of consumers leads the Collectivist into strange company. It -leads him to acquiesce in such a pernicious system as the -division of labor. Ruskin claimed that the subjective -standard of human happiness, not the objective monetary -standard assumed! by previous political economists, was the -final test of the social utility of production. If we accept -Ruskin's position, surely we must consider man primarily in -his capacity as producer. From this standpoint a man's -health, mental and moral, must depend upon the amount of -pleasure he can take in his work. But we deprive the worker -of this means of happiness and strive to replace it by such -institutions as free libraries and popular lectures, which -all lie outside the sphere of his real life. This policy -would appear to be based on the idea that man should live a -conscious double life. In the first place he must submit to -any indignity he may be called upon to suffer by the -prevailing system of industry, and secondly, he should aim -in his leisure time at self-improvement. He thus destroys in -the morning what he has built over-night. Like a mad sculler -who pulls both ways at once he describes a rapid circle, and -giddily imagines he is making immense progress forward. To -unite these warring forces in man and to make him once more -simple, harmonious and whole, he must again be regarded -first and foremost in his capacity as producer. - -Another reason for the primary consideration of the -producer, which should be interesting to the democrat is -that to legislate on the basis that all are consumers, while -only some are producers, is obviously to put a premium upon -idleness, for only the idle consume without producing. This -fundamental defect of reasoning has thus rendered possible -the paradox that while the Manchester School expended its -moral indignation in protesting against idleness and luxury, -by the very measures it advocated have idleness and luxury -been mainly increased. - -Let us pass on to a consideration of the principles of -Collectivism in their application to particular problems. -With regard to the question of Trusts, Collectivists assert -that industries will become more and more subject to their -domination, and that the State is then to step in and +So long as the people are attached to their present habits of life and +thought, and possess the same ill-regulated tastes, a State Department, +charged with the administration of industry, would be just as much at +the mercy of supply and demand as at present, while the fluctuations of +taste would be just as disturbing to them as the fluctuations of public +opinion are to the politician. + +This brings us to the great political fallacy of the Collectivist +doctrine---namely, the assumption that Government should be conducted +solely in the interests of man in his capacity as consumer---a +superstition which has survived the Manchester School; for a little +consideration will convince us that in a true social system the aim of +Government would not be to exalt either producer or consumer at the +expense of the other, but to maintain a balance of power between the +two. + +The policy of exalting the consumer at the expense of the producer would +be perfectly sound, if the evils of the present day were caused by the +tyranny of the producer. But is it so? It is true that trade is in such +a hopeless condition that the consumer is very much at the mercy of +unscrupulous producers. The cause of this, however, is not to be found +in the preference of producers generally for crooked ways, but in the +tyranny of consumers which forces the majority of producers to adopt +malpractices in self-defence. Doubtless all trade abuses have in their +origin been the work of individual producers. They grow, in the first +place, because without privileges the more honourable producers are +powerless to suppress them, and secondly, because consumers generally +are so wanting in loyalty to honest producers, and are so ready to +believe that they can get sixpenny-worth of stuff" for threepence, that +they deliberately place themselves in the hands of the worst type of +producer. In every department of life the successful man is he who can +lead the public to believe they are getting something for nothing, and +generally speaking, if consumers are defrauded by producers, it is +because they deserve to be. The truth of this statement will be attested +by all who, in any department of industry, have made efforts to raise +its tone. Everywhere it is the tyranny of the consumer that blocks the +way. For example, anybody who has followed the history of the Arts and +Crafts movement, and noted the efforts which have been made to raise the +quality of English production must be convinced that this is the root of +the difficulty. If the public were capable of a tenth part of the +sacrifice which others have undertaken on their behalf, we might see our +way out of the industrial quagmire. + +This evil would not be remedied by bringing industry under State +Control. Rather would it be intensified. Art in the past had its private +patrons, and while these continue some good work may still be done. But +the artist is powerless when face to face with a public body whose taste +recognizes no ultimate standard, but taken collectively is always the +reflection of the vulgarity its members see around them. As we may +assume that private patrons would cease under Collectivism, so Art's +last support would disappear also. Whatever good work has been done for +the public during the past century has been in the main the result of +accident. Collective control foreshadows, not the abolition of poverty +in our midst, by the direction of industry passing into the hands of +wise administrators, but the final abandonment of all standards of +quality in production, owing to the complete subjection of all producers +to the demoralizing tyranny of an uninstructed majority. + +This commercial notion of Government solely in the interests of +consumers leads the Collectivist into strange company. It leads him to +acquiesce in such a pernicious system as the division of labor. Ruskin +claimed that the subjective standard of human happiness, not the +objective monetary standard assumed! by previous political economists, +was the final test of the social utility of production. If we accept +Ruskin's position, surely we must consider man primarily in his capacity +as producer. From this standpoint a man's health, mental and moral, must +depend upon the amount of pleasure he can take in his work. But we +deprive the worker of this means of happiness and strive to replace it +by such institutions as free libraries and popular lectures, which all +lie outside the sphere of his real life. This policy would appear to be +based on the idea that man should live a conscious double life. In the +first place he must submit to any indignity he may be called upon to +suffer by the prevailing system of industry, and secondly, he should aim +in his leisure time at self-improvement. He thus destroys in the morning +what he has built over-night. Like a mad sculler who pulls both ways at +once he describes a rapid circle, and giddily imagines he is making +immense progress forward. To unite these warring forces in man and to +make him once more simple, harmonious and whole, he must again be +regarded first and foremost in his capacity as producer. + +Another reason for the primary consideration of the producer, which +should be interesting to the democrat is that to legislate on the basis +that all are consumers, while only some are producers, is obviously to +put a premium upon idleness, for only the idle consume without +producing. This fundamental defect of reasoning has thus rendered +possible the paradox that while the Manchester School expended its moral +indignation in protesting against idleness and luxury, by the very +measures it advocated have idleness and luxury been mainly increased. + +Let us pass on to a consideration of the principles of Collectivism in +their application to particular problems. With regard to the question of +Trusts, Collectivists assert that industries will become more and more +subject to their domination, and that the State is then to step in and nationalize them. -Now, if we look at the matter carefully, we shall find that -the development of industry into Trusts is by no means -universal. It holds good in those branches of industry which -deal with the supply of raw materials, in distribution, in -railways and other monopolies, in the branches of production -where mechanism plays an all important part and which -command universal markets. On the other hand, there are -branches of industry where no such development can be -traced. It does not apply to those industries which, in the -nature of things, rely upon local markets, such as the -building trades; nor to those in which the element of taste -enters, as the furnishing and clothing trades. It is true -that the large capitalist exists in these trades, but this -does not mean that the small builder, furnisher and clothier -will eventually be thrust out of the market. The big -contractor exists in the building trades, not because he can -produce more cheaply than the smaller one, as a careful -comparison of prices would show; nor is it because the work -is better done, his *raison d'être* is rather to be found in -the circumstance that large building contrails can only be -undertaken by builders possessed of large capital. Again, -the existence of large firms in the furnishing and clothing -trades cannot be taken as an indication of the growth of -efficiency in those trades, such reduction of cost as has -taken place having been obtained in the main at the expense -of true efficiency; while again, the growth of large retail -houses is in no sense due to a reduction of prices, rather -has it been due in some measure to the same causes which -brought the large building firms into existence, and to the -system of advertising which leads an ignorant public to -suppose they are getting a superior article for their money. -Nay, if we go further into the matter, we shall find that so -far from these huge organizations securing a higher degree -of efficiency in production than smaller firms, they owe -their very existence to the general degradation of -industry---to the fact that the craftsman has so declined in -skill, that he has become the cat's-paw of capitalism. It is -only where craftsmanship has declined, and the skilled -craftsman has been replaced by the mechanical drudge, that -capitalist control secures a firm foothold. It cannot be -insisted upon too strongly that capitalist organization, -whether private or public, is built upon and presupposes the -degradation of the craftsman. Being organized for the -production of indifferent work, they are normally working -incapable of anything else; for in the production of good -work, the craftsman must have liberty to follow the line of -a consecutive tradition---a condition which capitalist -organization denies, its function being not to develop a -tradition of design in handicraft but to adjust the efforts -of the craftsman to the whims of a capricious public. - -This view, which was originally formed from personal -observation and experience of the conditions now obtaining -in industry, is amply corroborated by the testimony of -Prince Kropotkin. In "Fields, Factories and Workshops," he -says: "The petty trades at Paris so much prevail over the -factories that the average number of workman employed in the -98,000 factories and workshops of Paris is less than *six*, -while the number of persons employed in workshops which have -less than five operatives is almost twice as large as the -number of persons employed in the large establishments. In -fad:, Paris is a great bee-hive where hundreds and thousands -of men and women fabricate in small workshops all possible -varieties of goods which require taste, skill and invention. -These small workshops, in which artistic finish and rapidity -of work are so much praised, necessarily stimulate the -mental powers of the producer; and we may safely admit that -if the Paris workmen are generally considered, and really -are, more developed intellectually than the workers of any -other European capital, this is due to a great extent to the -work they are engaged in... and the question naturally -arises: Must all this skill, all this intelligence, be swept -away by the factory, instead of becoming a new fertile -source of progress under a better organization of -production? must all this inventiveness of the worker -disappear before the factory levelling? and if it must, -would such a transformation be a progress as so many -economists, who have only studied figures and not human -beings, are ready to maintain?" - -Kropotkin here lays his finger on the weak point of modern -sociological theories. They are based upon estimates of -figures rather than estimates of men. The correct statement -of this issue is perhaps to be found in the dictum that -organization on a large scale secures efficiency up to a -certain point, which varies in each industry, and when that -point is reached, degeneration sets in. On the one hand the -quality of the work declines, while on the other, -administrative expenses show a tendency to increase out of -their proper proportion, owing to the fact that personal -control gradually disappears; and this is probably one of -the causes which oblige many large firms gradually to adopt -sweating practices. Expenses must be cut down somewhere, and -the workers have to suffer. - -And now that we have found Collectivist prognostications -respecting the future of the Factory system to be based upon -insufficient data, let us turn to Collectivist opinions -respecting the future of machinery; in this connexion we -observe that Collectivism teaches that machinery will be -used more in the future than at present. The circumstance -that many who identify themselves with Collectivism hold to -the idea of William Morris, and quote him on sundry -occasions, in no wise affects the Collectivist position, -which is antagonistic to that held by Morris. Morris's -opposition to machinery was based in the first place upon -the perception that there is no temperament in work produced -by machinery, and in the next upon a recognition of the -principle that its use tended to separate the artist and -craftsman more widely than ever, whereas the restoration of -industry to health demands their reunion. - -But how is a reunion possible under a Collectivist régime? -Surely if social evolution has separated the artist and -craftsman, further progress along present lines must tend to -separate them still further, and not to draw them together. -Hence it is we feel justified in identifying Collectivism -with the mechanical ideal of industry. - -It may be said that the solution of our problems is to be -found in a further development towards mechanical -perfection, and this contention would be perfectly -reasonable if the object of man's existence were to make -cotton and buttons as cheaply as possible; but considering -that man has a soul which craves some satisfaction, and that -the progress of mechanical invention degrades and stultifies -it by making man more and more the slave of the machine, we -feel justified in asserting that real progress lies along -other lines. Up to a certain point it is true that -mechanical invention is for the benefit of the community, -but such inventions must be distinguished from the mass of -mechanical contrivances which are the humble slaves of -commercialism, and witnesses to the diseased state of -society. To invent a machine to reduce the amount of -drudgery in the world may reasonably be claimed as an -achievement of Science; but to reduce all labour to the -level of drudgery, to exploit Science for commercial -purposes, is an entirely different matter. Machinery being a -means to an end, we may test its social utility by -considering the desirability or otherwise of the ends it is -to serve. And what are the ends which have determined the -application of machinery to modern industry? Not the -satisfaction of human needs, or the production of beautiful -things, but primarily the satisfaction of the money-making -instinct, which, it goes without saying, is undesirable. -There are very few things which machinery can do as well as -hand labour, and so far as my personal knowledge extends, -there is nothing it can do better. Hand riveted boilers are -preferred to machine riveted ones; while the most delicate -scientific instruments have to be made by hand. In fact, -wherever careful fitting is valued the superiority of -handwork is acknowledged. In the crafts, on the other hand, -machinery is valueless, except for heavy work, such as -sawing timber; though even here, where timber is exposed to -view, it suffers in comparison with hand sawing and hewing, -which has more temperament about it. In production, -therefore, the only ultimate use of machinery to the -community is that in certain heavy work it saves labour, -which, considered from the point of view of the development -of the physique of the race, is of very questionable -advantage; or that it reduces the cost of production. This -again, however, is a doubtful advantage, since the increase -of material possessions beyond a certain point is extremely -undesirable. Without machinery there would be plenty for all -and to spare, if it were not for the greed of individuals; -and machinery, by facilitating the production of goods in -immense quantities, so far from eliminating the spirit of -avarice by satisfying it, appears only to give it a -cumulative force. Machinery has creeled the most effective -class barrier yet devised. Again, considered in relation to -locomotion the benefits of mechanism are very doubtful. If -railways and steamboats have brought Chicago nearer to -London, the world is more commonplace in consequence, and it -is very much open to question whether the romance, the -beauty, and the mystery of the world which mechanism seems -so happy in destroying, may not in the long run prove to be -the things most worth possessing, and the hurry and dispatch -which are everywhere welcomed as the heralds of progress, -admitted to be illusory. - -Then Collectivists are in a quandary over the Fiscal -Question. Finding themselves unable to accept either the -position of the Protectionists or that of the Free Traders, -the Fabian Society has formulated a scheme which is supposed -to harmonize with the principles of Collectivism. In the -tract entitled "Fabianism and the Fiscal Question," the -Society suggests, as a solution for the present crisis, that -the trading fleet between ourselves and the colonies be -impersonalized, when the conveyance of goods might be made -free to all. Surely this would not lead towards -Collectivism; rather would it intensify one of the worst +Now, if we look at the matter carefully, we shall find that the +development of industry into Trusts is by no means universal. It holds +good in those branches of industry which deal with the supply of raw +materials, in distribution, in railways and other monopolies, in the +branches of production where mechanism plays an all important part and +which command universal markets. On the other hand, there are branches +of industry where no such development can be traced. It does not apply +to those industries which, in the nature of things, rely upon local +markets, such as the building trades; nor to those in which the element +of taste enters, as the furnishing and clothing trades. It is true that +the large capitalist exists in these trades, but this does not mean that +the small builder, furnisher and clothier will eventually be thrust out +of the market. The big contractor exists in the building trades, not +because he can produce more cheaply than the smaller one, as a careful +comparison of prices would show; nor is it because the work is better +done, his *raison d'être* is rather to be found in the circumstance that +large building contrails can only be undertaken by builders possessed of +large capital. Again, the existence of large firms in the furnishing and +clothing trades cannot be taken as an indication of the growth of +efficiency in those trades, such reduction of cost as has taken place +having been obtained in the main at the expense of true efficiency; +while again, the growth of large retail houses is in no sense due to a +reduction of prices, rather has it been due in some measure to the same +causes which brought the large building firms into existence, and to the +system of advertising which leads an ignorant public to suppose they are +getting a superior article for their money. Nay, if we go further into +the matter, we shall find that so far from these huge organizations +securing a higher degree of efficiency in production than smaller firms, +they owe their very existence to the general degradation of +industry---to the fact that the craftsman has so declined in skill, that +he has become the cat's-paw of capitalism. It is only where +craftsmanship has declined, and the skilled craftsman has been replaced +by the mechanical drudge, that capitalist control secures a firm +foothold. It cannot be insisted upon too strongly that capitalist +organization, whether private or public, is built upon and presupposes +the degradation of the craftsman. Being organized for the production of +indifferent work, they are normally working incapable of anything else; +for in the production of good work, the craftsman must have liberty to +follow the line of a consecutive tradition---a condition which +capitalist organization denies, its function being not to develop a +tradition of design in handicraft but to adjust the efforts of the +craftsman to the whims of a capricious public. + +This view, which was originally formed from personal observation and +experience of the conditions now obtaining in industry, is amply +corroborated by the testimony of Prince Kropotkin. In "Fields, Factories +and Workshops," he says: "The petty trades at Paris so much prevail over +the factories that the average number of workman employed in the 98,000 +factories and workshops of Paris is less than *six*, while the number of +persons employed in workshops which have less than five operatives is +almost twice as large as the number of persons employed in the large +establishments. In fad:, Paris is a great bee-hive where hundreds and +thousands of men and women fabricate in small workshops all possible +varieties of goods which require taste, skill and invention. These small +workshops, in which artistic finish and rapidity of work are so much +praised, necessarily stimulate the mental powers of the producer; and we +may safely admit that if the Paris workmen are generally considered, and +really are, more developed intellectually than the workers of any other +European capital, this is due to a great extent to the work they are +engaged in... and the question naturally arises: Must all this skill, +all this intelligence, be swept away by the factory, instead of becoming +a new fertile source of progress under a better organization of +production? must all this inventiveness of the worker disappear before +the factory levelling? and if it must, would such a transformation be a +progress as so many economists, who have only studied figures and not +human beings, are ready to maintain?" + +Kropotkin here lays his finger on the weak point of modern sociological +theories. They are based upon estimates of figures rather than estimates +of men. The correct statement of this issue is perhaps to be found in +the dictum that organization on a large scale secures efficiency up to a +certain point, which varies in each industry, and when that point is +reached, degeneration sets in. On the one hand the quality of the work +declines, while on the other, administrative expenses show a tendency to +increase out of their proper proportion, owing to the fact that personal +control gradually disappears; and this is probably one of the causes +which oblige many large firms gradually to adopt sweating practices. +Expenses must be cut down somewhere, and the workers have to suffer. + +And now that we have found Collectivist prognostications respecting the +future of the Factory system to be based upon insufficient data, let us +turn to Collectivist opinions respecting the future of machinery; in +this connexion we observe that Collectivism teaches that machinery will +be used more in the future than at present. The circumstance that many +who identify themselves with Collectivism hold to the idea of William +Morris, and quote him on sundry occasions, in no wise affects the +Collectivist position, which is antagonistic to that held by Morris. +Morris's opposition to machinery was based in the first place upon the +perception that there is no temperament in work produced by machinery, +and in the next upon a recognition of the principle that its use tended +to separate the artist and craftsman more widely than ever, whereas the +restoration of industry to health demands their reunion. + +But how is a reunion possible under a Collectivist régime? Surely if +social evolution has separated the artist and craftsman, further +progress along present lines must tend to separate them still further, +and not to draw them together. Hence it is we feel justified in +identifying Collectivism with the mechanical ideal of industry. + +It may be said that the solution of our problems is to be found in a +further development towards mechanical perfection, and this contention +would be perfectly reasonable if the object of man's existence were to +make cotton and buttons as cheaply as possible; but considering that man +has a soul which craves some satisfaction, and that the progress of +mechanical invention degrades and stultifies it by making man more and +more the slave of the machine, we feel justified in asserting that real +progress lies along other lines. Up to a certain point it is true that +mechanical invention is for the benefit of the community, but such +inventions must be distinguished from the mass of mechanical +contrivances which are the humble slaves of commercialism, and witnesses +to the diseased state of society. To invent a machine to reduce the +amount of drudgery in the world may reasonably be claimed as an +achievement of Science; but to reduce all labour to the level of +drudgery, to exploit Science for commercial purposes, is an entirely +different matter. Machinery being a means to an end, we may test its +social utility by considering the desirability or otherwise of the ends +it is to serve. And what are the ends which have determined the +application of machinery to modern industry? Not the satisfaction of +human needs, or the production of beautiful things, but primarily the +satisfaction of the money-making instinct, which, it goes without +saying, is undesirable. There are very few things which machinery can do +as well as hand labour, and so far as my personal knowledge extends, +there is nothing it can do better. Hand riveted boilers are preferred to +machine riveted ones; while the most delicate scientific instruments +have to be made by hand. In fact, wherever careful fitting is valued the +superiority of handwork is acknowledged. In the crafts, on the other +hand, machinery is valueless, except for heavy work, such as sawing +timber; though even here, where timber is exposed to view, it suffers in +comparison with hand sawing and hewing, which has more temperament about +it. In production, therefore, the only ultimate use of machinery to the +community is that in certain heavy work it saves labour, which, +considered from the point of view of the development of the physique of +the race, is of very questionable advantage; or that it reduces the cost +of production. This again, however, is a doubtful advantage, since the +increase of material possessions beyond a certain point is extremely +undesirable. Without machinery there would be plenty for all and to +spare, if it were not for the greed of individuals; and machinery, by +facilitating the production of goods in immense quantities, so far from +eliminating the spirit of avarice by satisfying it, appears only to give +it a cumulative force. Machinery has creeled the most effective class +barrier yet devised. Again, considered in relation to locomotion the +benefits of mechanism are very doubtful. If railways and steamboats have +brought Chicago nearer to London, the world is more commonplace in +consequence, and it is very much open to question whether the romance, +the beauty, and the mystery of the world which mechanism seems so happy +in destroying, may not in the long run prove to be the things most worth +possessing, and the hurry and dispatch which are everywhere welcomed as +the heralds of progress, admitted to be illusory. + +Then Collectivists are in a quandary over the Fiscal Question. Finding +themselves unable to accept either the position of the Protectionists or +that of the Free Traders, the Fabian Society has formulated a scheme +which is supposed to harmonize with the principles of Collectivism. In +the tract entitled "Fabianism and the Fiscal Question," the Society +suggests, as a solution for the present crisis, that the trading fleet +between ourselves and the colonies be impersonalized, when the +conveyance of goods might be made free to all. Surely this would not +lead towards Collectivism; rather would it intensify one of the worst evils of the present system which Collectivism proposes to cure---namely, the evil of cross distribution. -This brings me to the question of universal markets, which -Collectivists generally assume to be a permanent factor in -industry. - -To some extent, of course, this will be so, and we must at -the outset differentiate between a certain legitimate trade -which in the nature of things must always exist, and its -present abnormal development, which can only be regarded as -symptomatic of disease. - -That India should export tea to us appears quite reasonable, -but why we should export cotton goods to India is not so -clear. The former is a natural trade, because climatic -conditions will not permit us to grow our own tea. The -latter, however, is not ultimately rooted in actuality, but -owes its existence to the creation of artificial conditions, -to the circumstance that machinery for the purpose was first -invented in Lancashire, and to the fact that we exploited -foreign markets for our benefit in consequence. But this may -not last. In the long run India must be able to manufacture -cotton goods for herself, if the test to be applied is -merely that of comparative cost, but when we remember that -there are other factors in production which ought to be -considered, and which will be taken into account when man -re-awakens to the fact that profit is not the Alpha and -Omega of production, the change is certain. The -re-establishments of just standards of quality in production -by the revival of art and the restoration of a sense of -morality in trade demand the substitution of local for -universal markets. - -Of this there can be no question. For it is evident that one -at least of the conditions of the restoration of the moral -sense. in trade is that the cash nexus be supplanted by the -personal nexus in trade relation, and this can only be -possible under social conditions in which producer and -consumer are known to each other. While again it may be -argued that so long as universal markets are regarded as -essential to trade, industry must continue to be of a -speculative character, owing to the circumstance that supply -precedes demand. To reverse this unnatural order of things -is essential to production for use, and this involves, among -other things, the restoration of local markets. - -In like manner the necessities of Art demand the restoration -of local markets. If beauty is ever to be restored, and the -ordinary things of life are to be once more beautiful, it is -certain that local markets will have to be restored. If Art -were healthy the wholesale importation of articles of -foreign manufacture would not obtain. An artistic public -would, for the most part, demand goods of local manufacture, -the beauty of which reflected those experiences common to -their own life. Thus the English would not import Japanese -Art, to any extent, recognizing that, though Japanese Art is -admirable in Japan, it is yet so entirely out of sympathy -with Western Art as to introduce an element of discord when -placed in an English room; while again, for the same reason, -the Japanese would not import English Art. - -A possible objection to this assumption is that in the most -vigorous periods of art a considerable trade was carried on -in exchanging the artistic works of different countries, -that, in fa6l, many of the finest examples of craftsmanship -which were distributed over Europe in the Middle Ages and -earlier often emanated from one centre. For instance, carved -ivories were mostly made in Alexandria, and so far from the -trade which existed in them acting in a way derogatory to -the interests of Art, they, as a matter of fact, exercised a -very stimulating influence upon the art of the age. To this -I answer, that such a trade, which exists for the exchange -of treasure, is a fundamentally different thing from a trade -which exchanges the ordinary commodities of life, since -while the former may operate to widen the outlook in the -artistic sense, the effect of the latter is to precipitate -all traditions of design into hopeless confusion and -anarchy, because, when carried on on a large scale, -production for foreign markets does not take the form of -sending to other countries specimens of the best -craftsmanship which a nation can produce, but of supplying -cheap imitations of the genuine and native craftsmanship to -other lands a most ruinous commerce; for while abroad the -underselling of native craftsmanship tends to destroy the -living traditions of those countries, its operations are no -less harmful at home, by their tendency to confuse rather -than consolidate a national tradition of design. - -In the long run a universal trade in everyday commodities -could only be favourable to Art on the assumption that -internationalism were the condition of healthy artistic -activity. And this is not so. An international art would -involve the gradual elimination of all that is of local and -provincial interest; and when this elimination is complete -there is very little left. It would not be untrue to say -that the Renaissance failed because its ideas were -international, it strove to eliminate all that was of merely -local interest in art, and the result was a final and -complete imbecility such as never before existed. - -Similarly, when we turn to consider the financial side of -Collectivism we discover similar fallacies. The -nationalization of capital does not recommend itself to us -as a solution of present day financial difficulties, since, -according to one point of view the economic difficulty -arises not so much from an unequal distribution of wealth as -from the fact that so much of the labour of the community -produces not wealth but "illth," to use Ruskin's word. The -capital we account for in the columns of the ledger is, -indeed, only of a very theoretical character. For, in spite -of statistical calculations (which to all appearances may be -used to prove anything it is desired to prove), we are not -becoming richer, but poorer every year, and this we believe -is to be accounted for by our system of finance, which, not -studying things, but only the profit and loss account of -them, fails to distinguish between what are assets and what -are liabilities. - -As an illustration of what I mean let us take a concrete -instance Tramways. Now it is evident that from the point of -view of the private capitalist, whose aim is the making of -profit, that the possession of a tramway is to be reckoned -as an asset. From the point of view of the community, -however, it is altogether different. A municipal tramway is -not an asset, but a liability in the national ledger. It is -true that the possession of a tramway by a municipality -enables the community to intercept profits which otherwise -would swell the pockets of the private capitalist, but this -does not constitute such a tramway a public asset; it merely -decreases the liability. A tramway is a liability because it -is not one of the ultimate needs of human society, but an -artificial one, arising through the abnormal growth of big -towns and cross distribution. If a man has to travel from -New Cross to the City every day for employment he helps the -tramway to pay its dividends, but he is the poorer for -having to take the journey. He is perhaps richer by the time -he saves as compared with the time he would lose in having -to walk. But the fact that a man lives in one part of the -town and works in another is itself an evil---reduced to the -terms of national finance it is a liability, and no juggling -of figures can make it into anything else. Hence it is that -while convenience may suggest the expediency of -municipalities owning their own tramways, we are not -justified in reckoning them as national assets, or in -supposing that the change from private to public ownership -is a step in the solution of the social problem. - -The same test may be applied to all the activities of -Society---though the application of the principle will be -very difficult. For exactly what in civilization will -constitute an asset, and what a liability, will often be -most difficult to determine. Perhaps on due consideration it -may appear that civilization itself is entirely of the -nature of a liability which man pays for by the sweat of his -brow; that the secret of the present financial crisis is -that civilization has become so artificial that he cannot -pay the price demanded. At any rate, the more we reduce the -number of our wants the richer intrinsically we become as a -nation. Hence it appears to me that granting, for the sake -of argument, that the nationalization of industry is -possible, the proper course of action to adopt would be not -to commence with the nationalization of the means of -distribution, but with production, beginning at the bottom -of the industrial scale with agriculture, and building up -step by step from this bedrock of actuality, taking care -always to avoid the multiplication of works of a temporary -character, and building for posterity. It is precisely -because ever since the commencement of the era of -commercialism, we have individually and collectively -proceeded upon the principle of letting posterity take care -of itself, that society has become burdened with the -maintenance of an ever increasing number of institutions to -satisfy the temporary needs of society, that we are becoming -poorer. - -Closely allied to the foregoing financial fallacy, and in -some measure the cause of it, is the more or less -unconscious acceptance by Collectivists of the opinion held -by the Utilitarian Philosophers that the expenditure of -surplus wealth upon art does not operate in the interests of -the community. This is an error since from the point of view -of national finance such expenditure provides a safety valve -which prevents internal complications. The cutting down of -expenditure upon Art does not, as Political Economists -appear to argue, benefit the people, owing to the direction -of surplus wealth into new productive enterprises, rather in -the long run has it proved to have the opposite effect of -aggravating the problem. Let us take an illustration. - -A hundred men are engaged in production; let us make an -artificial distinction, and say that seventy-five are -engaged in the production of physical necessities, and -twenty-five in the production of art (using the word art to -indicate those things which do not directly contribute to -the maintenance of the body). A machine is invented which -enables fifty men to do the work which hitherto had given -employment to seventy-five. The balance of production is now -destroyed, for there will be a hundred men competing for -seventy-five places. It is evident, therefore, if the -balance in production is to be restored, one of two things -must be done; either the hours of labour must be reduced all -round, or the surplus profit created (be it in the hands of -Consumer or Producer), must be used in employing the -twenty-five displaced men upon the production of Art. Other -factors may come in and modify the problem, such as the -increased demand for utilities owing to their reduced price, -but they are relatively insignificant owing to the fact that -as it is not customary under such circumstances to raise the -wages of the workers, the limit of the consumption of -utilities is practically fixed. Neglecting this arrangement -to provide employment for the displaced twenty-five men, -disease is spread throughout industry by the destruction of -the balance between demand and supply. They must find -employment somehow, and so it happens under our commercial -society they are used for fighting purposes, becoming -travellers or touts in the competitive warfare for the trade -which is now insufficient to give employment to all would-be -workers. The benefit which the invention of the machine -should bring to society is thus lost. The ultimate effect is -not to cheapen but to increase the cost of commodities, -since it tends to swallow up even the normal profits in -fighting machinery, and prices have to be raised, or the -quality lowered to make up the difference. - -But the evil does not end here. For now, when the markets -are filled to overflowing, there can be no mistaking the -evil resulting from the practice to which an almost -religious sanction has been given by our Political -Economists, of systematically re-investing surplus wealth in -new productive enterprises, since it tends to reduce wages -by the over-capitalization of industry in addition to -raising the cost of commodities. The congested state of our -markets makes it exceedingly difficult for new industrial -enterprises to be successfully floated. Investment is -consequently taking the form of converting private -businesses into limited liability Companies. Thus a private -business with a real capital of say £50,000 is floated as a -Company with a nominal capital of £75,000; the extra £25,000 -going in goodwill and promotion expenses. And now that the -business has more Capital it will be apparent that to -maintain the same dividends as hitherto (necessary to -maintain credit, if for nothing else), expenses must be -reduced in every direction. Hence it generally happens that -when a private firm is converted into a Company, unless a -strong Trade Union exists, wages are cut down; if a Union -prevents this, the old men are discharged to make room for -younger and more energetic ones, while no opportunity is -lost of increasing the price of commodities to the public or -of adulterating the article to reduce its cost. - -This, it is safe to say, is substantially what is taking -place to-day. Yet, on the whole, Collectivists, while -incidentally regretting the reduction of wages, welcome the -change as a step towards the nationalization of capital. To -me, however, this change wears a different aspect, for it is -obvious that so long as we continue to accept the present -principle of finance---that all capital should produce -interest---and to harbour the utilitarian fallacy that +This brings me to the question of universal markets, which Collectivists +generally assume to be a permanent factor in industry. + +To some extent, of course, this will be so, and we must at the outset +differentiate between a certain legitimate trade which in the nature of +things must always exist, and its present abnormal development, which +can only be regarded as symptomatic of disease. + +That India should export tea to us appears quite reasonable, but why we +should export cotton goods to India is not so clear. The former is a +natural trade, because climatic conditions will not permit us to grow +our own tea. The latter, however, is not ultimately rooted in actuality, +but owes its existence to the creation of artificial conditions, to the +circumstance that machinery for the purpose was first invented in +Lancashire, and to the fact that we exploited foreign markets for our +benefit in consequence. But this may not last. In the long run India +must be able to manufacture cotton goods for herself, if the test to be +applied is merely that of comparative cost, but when we remember that +there are other factors in production which ought to be considered, and +which will be taken into account when man re-awakens to the fact that +profit is not the Alpha and Omega of production, the change is certain. +The re-establishments of just standards of quality in production by the +revival of art and the restoration of a sense of morality in trade +demand the substitution of local for universal markets. + +Of this there can be no question. For it is evident that one at least of +the conditions of the restoration of the moral sense. in trade is that +the cash nexus be supplanted by the personal nexus in trade relation, +and this can only be possible under social conditions in which producer +and consumer are known to each other. While again it may be argued that +so long as universal markets are regarded as essential to trade, +industry must continue to be of a speculative character, owing to the +circumstance that supply precedes demand. To reverse this unnatural +order of things is essential to production for use, and this involves, +among other things, the restoration of local markets. + +In like manner the necessities of Art demand the restoration of local +markets. If beauty is ever to be restored, and the ordinary things of +life are to be once more beautiful, it is certain that local markets +will have to be restored. If Art were healthy the wholesale importation +of articles of foreign manufacture would not obtain. An artistic public +would, for the most part, demand goods of local manufacture, the beauty +of which reflected those experiences common to their own life. Thus the +English would not import Japanese Art, to any extent, recognizing that, +though Japanese Art is admirable in Japan, it is yet so entirely out of +sympathy with Western Art as to introduce an element of discord when +placed in an English room; while again, for the same reason, the +Japanese would not import English Art. + +A possible objection to this assumption is that in the most vigorous +periods of art a considerable trade was carried on in exchanging the +artistic works of different countries, that, in fa6l, many of the finest +examples of craftsmanship which were distributed over Europe in the +Middle Ages and earlier often emanated from one centre. For instance, +carved ivories were mostly made in Alexandria, and so far from the trade +which existed in them acting in a way derogatory to the interests of +Art, they, as a matter of fact, exercised a very stimulating influence +upon the art of the age. To this I answer, that such a trade, which +exists for the exchange of treasure, is a fundamentally different thing +from a trade which exchanges the ordinary commodities of life, since +while the former may operate to widen the outlook in the artistic sense, +the effect of the latter is to precipitate all traditions of design into +hopeless confusion and anarchy, because, when carried on on a large +scale, production for foreign markets does not take the form of sending +to other countries specimens of the best craftsmanship which a nation +can produce, but of supplying cheap imitations of the genuine and native +craftsmanship to other lands a most ruinous commerce; for while abroad +the underselling of native craftsmanship tends to destroy the living +traditions of those countries, its operations are no less harmful at +home, by their tendency to confuse rather than consolidate a national +tradition of design. + +In the long run a universal trade in everyday commodities could only be +favourable to Art on the assumption that internationalism were the +condition of healthy artistic activity. And this is not so. An +international art would involve the gradual elimination of all that is +of local and provincial interest; and when this elimination is complete +there is very little left. It would not be untrue to say that the +Renaissance failed because its ideas were international, it strove to +eliminate all that was of merely local interest in art, and the result +was a final and complete imbecility such as never before existed. + +Similarly, when we turn to consider the financial side of Collectivism +we discover similar fallacies. The nationalization of capital does not +recommend itself to us as a solution of present day financial +difficulties, since, according to one point of view the economic +difficulty arises not so much from an unequal distribution of wealth as +from the fact that so much of the labour of the community produces not +wealth but "illth," to use Ruskin's word. The capital we account for in +the columns of the ledger is, indeed, only of a very theoretical +character. For, in spite of statistical calculations (which to all +appearances may be used to prove anything it is desired to prove), we +are not becoming richer, but poorer every year, and this we believe is +to be accounted for by our system of finance, which, not studying +things, but only the profit and loss account of them, fails to +distinguish between what are assets and what are liabilities. + +As an illustration of what I mean let us take a concrete instance +Tramways. Now it is evident that from the point of view of the private +capitalist, whose aim is the making of profit, that the possession of a +tramway is to be reckoned as an asset. From the point of view of the +community, however, it is altogether different. A municipal tramway is +not an asset, but a liability in the national ledger. It is true that +the possession of a tramway by a municipality enables the community to +intercept profits which otherwise would swell the pockets of the private +capitalist, but this does not constitute such a tramway a public asset; +it merely decreases the liability. A tramway is a liability because it +is not one of the ultimate needs of human society, but an artificial +one, arising through the abnormal growth of big towns and cross +distribution. If a man has to travel from New Cross to the City every +day for employment he helps the tramway to pay its dividends, but he is +the poorer for having to take the journey. He is perhaps richer by the +time he saves as compared with the time he would lose in having to walk. +But the fact that a man lives in one part of the town and works in +another is itself an evil---reduced to the terms of national finance it +is a liability, and no juggling of figures can make it into anything +else. Hence it is that while convenience may suggest the expediency of +municipalities owning their own tramways, we are not justified in +reckoning them as national assets, or in supposing that the change from +private to public ownership is a step in the solution of the social +problem. + +The same test may be applied to all the activities of Society---though +the application of the principle will be very difficult. For exactly +what in civilization will constitute an asset, and what a liability, +will often be most difficult to determine. Perhaps on due consideration +it may appear that civilization itself is entirely of the nature of a +liability which man pays for by the sweat of his brow; that the secret +of the present financial crisis is that civilization has become so +artificial that he cannot pay the price demanded. At any rate, the more +we reduce the number of our wants the richer intrinsically we become as +a nation. Hence it appears to me that granting, for the sake of +argument, that the nationalization of industry is possible, the proper +course of action to adopt would be not to commence with the +nationalization of the means of distribution, but with production, +beginning at the bottom of the industrial scale with agriculture, and +building up step by step from this bedrock of actuality, taking care +always to avoid the multiplication of works of a temporary character, +and building for posterity. It is precisely because ever since the +commencement of the era of commercialism, we have individually and +collectively proceeded upon the principle of letting posterity take care +of itself, that society has become burdened with the maintenance of an +ever increasing number of institutions to satisfy the temporary needs of +society, that we are becoming poorer. + +Closely allied to the foregoing financial fallacy, and in some measure +the cause of it, is the more or less unconscious acceptance by +Collectivists of the opinion held by the Utilitarian Philosophers that +the expenditure of surplus wealth upon art does not operate in the +interests of the community. This is an error since from the point of +view of national finance such expenditure provides a safety valve which +prevents internal complications. The cutting down of expenditure upon +Art does not, as Political Economists appear to argue, benefit the +people, owing to the direction of surplus wealth into new productive +enterprises, rather in the long run has it proved to have the opposite +effect of aggravating the problem. Let us take an illustration. + +A hundred men are engaged in production; let us make an artificial +distinction, and say that seventy-five are engaged in the production of +physical necessities, and twenty-five in the production of art (using +the word art to indicate those things which do not directly contribute +to the maintenance of the body). A machine is invented which enables +fifty men to do the work which hitherto had given employment to +seventy-five. The balance of production is now destroyed, for there will +be a hundred men competing for seventy-five places. It is evident, +therefore, if the balance in production is to be restored, one of two +things must be done; either the hours of labour must be reduced all +round, or the surplus profit created (be it in the hands of Consumer or +Producer), must be used in employing the twenty-five displaced men upon +the production of Art. Other factors may come in and modify the problem, +such as the increased demand for utilities owing to their reduced price, +but they are relatively insignificant owing to the fact that as it is +not customary under such circumstances to raise the wages of the +workers, the limit of the consumption of utilities is practically fixed. +Neglecting this arrangement to provide employment for the displaced +twenty-five men, disease is spread throughout industry by the +destruction of the balance between demand and supply. They must find +employment somehow, and so it happens under our commercial society they +are used for fighting purposes, becoming travellers or touts in the +competitive warfare for the trade which is now insufficient to give +employment to all would-be workers. The benefit which the invention of +the machine should bring to society is thus lost. The ultimate effect is +not to cheapen but to increase the cost of commodities, since it tends +to swallow up even the normal profits in fighting machinery, and prices +have to be raised, or the quality lowered to make up the difference. + +But the evil does not end here. For now, when the markets are filled to +overflowing, there can be no mistaking the evil resulting from the +practice to which an almost religious sanction has been given by our +Political Economists, of systematically re-investing surplus wealth in +new productive enterprises, since it tends to reduce wages by the +over-capitalization of industry in addition to raising the cost of +commodities. The congested state of our markets makes it exceedingly +difficult for new industrial enterprises to be successfully floated. +Investment is consequently taking the form of converting private +businesses into limited liability Companies. Thus a private business +with a real capital of say £50,000 is floated as a Company with a +nominal capital of £75,000; the extra £25,000 going in goodwill and +promotion expenses. And now that the business has more Capital it will +be apparent that to maintain the same dividends as hitherto (necessary +to maintain credit, if for nothing else), expenses must be reduced in +every direction. Hence it generally happens that when a private firm is +converted into a Company, unless a strong Trade Union exists, wages are +cut down; if a Union prevents this, the old men are discharged to make +room for younger and more energetic ones, while no opportunity is lost +of increasing the price of commodities to the public or of adulterating +the article to reduce its cost. + +This, it is safe to say, is substantially what is taking place to-day. +Yet, on the whole, Collectivists, while incidentally regretting the +reduction of wages, welcome the change as a step towards the +nationalization of capital. To me, however, this change wears a +different aspect, for it is obvious that so long as we continue to +accept the present principle of finance---that all capital should +produce interest---and to harbour the utilitarian fallacy that expenditure upon Art is a dead loss to the community, the -over-capitalization of industry must tend to increase. The -fundamental fact is that so long as the present principles -of finance remain unchallenged, the mere transference of -capital from private to public ownership can have no -appreciable effect on the problem, since a public body -accepting these theories must, like a private manufacturer, -put the interests of capital before the interests of -life---and between these two there is eternal conflict. - -The current commercial practice of reinvesting dividends is -directly responsible for the development of class separation -by withdrawing money from circulation where it is needed and -causing it to circulate in orbits where it is not required. -Whilst on the human side it is responsible for the great -contrasts of extravagance and poverty in modern society, on -the industrial side it has struck at the roots of all -healthy production. It impoverishes works of real utility to -create surpluses to be spent upon works of luxury---making -Art an exotic and artificial thing, since its true basis is -in utility and not in luxury. For it is one of the paradoxes -of our so-called utilitarian age that it is always -impossible to get sufficient money spent on real utilities -to make them substantial. We first impoverish works of real -utility, and having thus succeeded in rendering all useful -labour utterly unendurable, we expend the surpluses in -providing such diversions as free libraries, art galleries, -and such like. - -Yet why should utilities be expected to pay dividends? Why -should it always be assumed that what is intended for use -should yield a profit, and what is intended for luxury not? -Why, for instance, in municipal expenditure should it be -assumed that houses for the working classes should be -self-supporting, while art galleries and free libraries are -a charge upon the rates? Why should not some of the money -which is spent upon these things be spent in making -municipal houses more beautiful? And if it be right for one -thing not to pay dividends, why not another? Frankly, I can -see no reason, except the superstition of financiers and the -fatal tendency of all things to crystallize into formulas. -In the case cited, a more generous expenditure upon such -things as municipal houses would do more to encourage Art -than expenditure upon art galleries, if at the same time -means could be devised whereby genuine and not commercial -architects could be employed to build them. It is certain -that the substantially-built houses and cottages ot the past -were never built to earn dividends, and we shall never be -able to house the poorest classes so long as we do expect -these returns. The fact is that *in really healthy finance, -as in life, there is no formula*, and it is precisely -because modern reformers have never seriously questioned the -truth of modern principles of finance that they are -powerless to introduce really effective measures of social -reform. - -Another instance of the failure of Collectivism comes out in -the Fabian tract entitled "Twentieth Century Politics, a -policy of National Efficiency," by Mr. Sidney Webb. In this -tract Mr. Webb gives an outline of what he considers should -constitute the political programme of a really progressive -reform party. After dealing separately with particular -reforms, Mr. Webb passes on to consider ways and means of -effecting them. And here he is beaten. For the life of him -he cannot see where the impetus to carry them into effect is -to come from. And so, in desperation, he proposes a measure -to artificially stimulate political activity, which is -worthy of "Punch," but is quite wasted in a Fabian Tract. - -Recognizing that the Local Government Board has always to be -coercing its local authorities to secure the National -minimum, Mr. Webb says: "for anything beyond that minimum, -the wise minister would mingle premiums with his pressure. -He would by his public speeches, by personal interviews with -mayors and town clerks, and by the departmental -publications, set on foot the utmost possible emulation -among the various local governing bodies, as to which could -make the greatest strides in municipal activity. We already -have the different towns compared, quarter by quarter, in -respect to their death rates, but at present only crudely, -unscientifically, and perfunctorily. Why should not the -Local Government Board avowedly put all the local governing -bodies of each class into honorary competition with one -another by an annual investigation of municipal efficiency, -working out their statistical marks for excellence in -drainage, water supply, paving, cleansing, watching and -lighting, housing, hospital accommodation, medical service, -sickness experience and mortality, and publicly classifying -them all according to the result of the examination? Nay, a -ministry keenly inspired with a passion for national -efficiency, would call into play every possible incentive to -local improvement. The King might give a 'Shield of Honour' -to the local authority which had made the greatest progress -in the year, together with a knighthood to the mayor and a -Companionship of the Bath to the clerk, the engineer, and -the medical officer of health. On the other hand, the six or -eight districts which stood at the bottom of the list would -be held up to public opprobrium, while the official report -on their shortcomings might be sent by post to every local -elector, in the hope that public discussion would induce the -inhabitants to choose more competent administrators." -(Presumably Mr. Webb would accept Mr. Mallock's definition -of the modern conception of progress, as an improvement -which can be tested by statistics, just as education is an -improvement that can be tested by examinations.) - -The most interesting of all the contradictions in which -Collectivism has become involved, and which more than any -other exposes the weakness of the position of its advocates -is one which during the late war split the party in two; for -while all Collectivists recognized that the war was a -commercial one, waged in the interests of unscrupulous South -African financiers, only part of them declared against it on -the grounds of its manifest injustice, the remainder arguing -that the best policy for Collectivists was to allow the war -to run its course, for the reason that as internationalism -and not nationalism was the condition of the future, a -united South Africa would, notwithstanding the present +over-capitalization of industry must tend to increase. The fundamental +fact is that so long as the present principles of finance remain +unchallenged, the mere transference of capital from private to public +ownership can have no appreciable effect on the problem, since a public +body accepting these theories must, like a private manufacturer, put the +interests of capital before the interests of life---and between these +two there is eternal conflict. + +The current commercial practice of reinvesting dividends is directly +responsible for the development of class separation by withdrawing money +from circulation where it is needed and causing it to circulate in +orbits where it is not required. Whilst on the human side it is +responsible for the great contrasts of extravagance and poverty in +modern society, on the industrial side it has struck at the roots of all +healthy production. It impoverishes works of real utility to create +surpluses to be spent upon works of luxury---making Art an exotic and +artificial thing, since its true basis is in utility and not in luxury. +For it is one of the paradoxes of our so-called utilitarian age that it +is always impossible to get sufficient money spent on real utilities to +make them substantial. We first impoverish works of real utility, and +having thus succeeded in rendering all useful labour utterly +unendurable, we expend the surpluses in providing such diversions as +free libraries, art galleries, and such like. + +Yet why should utilities be expected to pay dividends? Why should it +always be assumed that what is intended for use should yield a profit, +and what is intended for luxury not? Why, for instance, in municipal +expenditure should it be assumed that houses for the working classes +should be self-supporting, while art galleries and free libraries are a +charge upon the rates? Why should not some of the money which is spent +upon these things be spent in making municipal houses more beautiful? +And if it be right for one thing not to pay dividends, why not another? +Frankly, I can see no reason, except the superstition of financiers and +the fatal tendency of all things to crystallize into formulas. In the +case cited, a more generous expenditure upon such things as municipal +houses would do more to encourage Art than expenditure upon art +galleries, if at the same time means could be devised whereby genuine +and not commercial architects could be employed to build them. It is +certain that the substantially-built houses and cottages ot the past +were never built to earn dividends, and we shall never be able to house +the poorest classes so long as we do expect these returns. The fact is +that *in really healthy finance, as in life, there is no formula*, and +it is precisely because modern reformers have never seriously questioned +the truth of modern principles of finance that they are powerless to +introduce really effective measures of social reform. + +Another instance of the failure of Collectivism comes out in the Fabian +tract entitled "Twentieth Century Politics, a policy of National +Efficiency," by Mr. Sidney Webb. In this tract Mr. Webb gives an outline +of what he considers should constitute the political programme of a +really progressive reform party. After dealing separately with +particular reforms, Mr. Webb passes on to consider ways and means of +effecting them. And here he is beaten. For the life of him he cannot see +where the impetus to carry them into effect is to come from. And so, in +desperation, he proposes a measure to artificially stimulate political +activity, which is worthy of "Punch," but is quite wasted in a Fabian +Tract. + +Recognizing that the Local Government Board has always to be coercing +its local authorities to secure the National minimum, Mr. Webb says: +"for anything beyond that minimum, the wise minister would mingle +premiums with his pressure. He would by his public speeches, by personal +interviews with mayors and town clerks, and by the departmental +publications, set on foot the utmost possible emulation among the +various local governing bodies, as to which could make the greatest +strides in municipal activity. We already have the different towns +compared, quarter by quarter, in respect to their death rates, but at +present only crudely, unscientifically, and perfunctorily. Why should +not the Local Government Board avowedly put all the local governing +bodies of each class into honorary competition with one another by an +annual investigation of municipal efficiency, working out their +statistical marks for excellence in drainage, water supply, paving, +cleansing, watching and lighting, housing, hospital accommodation, +medical service, sickness experience and mortality, and publicly +classifying them all according to the result of the examination? Nay, a +ministry keenly inspired with a passion for national efficiency, would +call into play every possible incentive to local improvement. The King +might give a 'Shield of Honour' to the local authority which had made +the greatest progress in the year, together with a knighthood to the +mayor and a Companionship of the Bath to the clerk, the engineer, and +the medical officer of health. On the other hand, the six or eight +districts which stood at the bottom of the list would be held up to +public opprobrium, while the official report on their shortcomings might +be sent by post to every local elector, in the hope that public +discussion would induce the inhabitants to choose more competent +administrators." (Presumably Mr. Webb would accept Mr. Mallock's +definition of the modern conception of progress, as an improvement which +can be tested by statistics, just as education is an improvement that +can be tested by examinations.) + +The most interesting of all the contradictions in which Collectivism has +become involved, and which more than any other exposes the weakness of +the position of its advocates is one which during the late war split the +party in two; for while all Collectivists recognized that the war was a +commercial one, waged in the interests of unscrupulous South African +financiers, only part of them declared against it on the grounds of its +manifest injustice, the remainder arguing that the best policy for +Collectivists was to allow the war to run its course, for the reason +that as internationalism and not nationalism was the condition of the +future, a united South Africa would, notwithstanding the present injustice, hasten the Collectivist millennium. -Now both these positions are valid according to the theories -of Collectivism. The first is a necessary deduction from the -position Collectivists have assumed respecting the morality -of trade. Recognizing the growth of capitalism to be the -cause of the present evils in society, they were perfectly -justified in opposing its encroachments. Yet, taking their -stand on this ground, they come into collision with their -own theory of social evolution, which teaches them that the -growth of capitalistic control and of internationalism is a -necessary step in the development of society towards the -social millennium. While again, those who took their stand -on the social evolution of Collectivism found themselves in -the unfortunate position of having to compromise with all +Now both these positions are valid according to the theories of +Collectivism. The first is a necessary deduction from the position +Collectivists have assumed respecting the morality of trade. Recognizing +the growth of capitalism to be the cause of the present evils in +society, they were perfectly justified in opposing its encroachments. +Yet, taking their stand on this ground, they come into collision with +their own theory of social evolution, which teaches them that the growth +of capitalistic control and of internationalism is a necessary step in +the development of society towards the social millennium. While again, +those who took their stand on the social evolution of Collectivism found +themselves in the unfortunate position of having to compromise with all the evils which they set out to eradicate. -What, then, is the significance of Collectivism? Is it a -product merely of the disease of Society, or a sign of -health in the body politic? The answer is that it contains -the elements of both. Collectivism came into existence to do -a definite work, with the fulfilment of which it will -assuredly disappear. As Liberalism appeared in opposition to -the corrupt oligarchies of the eighteenth century, so -Collectivism has come into existence to correct the evils -which Liberalism brought with it---to dispel the -*laissez-faire* notions of the Manchester school---to expose -the inhumanities of commercialism---to re-awaken the moral -sense of society, and to restore to it the lost ideal of a -corporate life. To Collectivism we are indebted for these -ideas, and in their affirmation it has amply justified its -existence. It may be, also, that the statistical method -which it has pursued, though impossible from the point of -view of social re-construction, was yet the only way of -impressing certain broad truths on the national mind. It has -indeed set forces in motion which may yet be turned in the -direction of true social re-construction. But just as -Liberalism failed because it had to use the plutocracy as -the force with which to effect its purpose, so Collectivism -must fail because it has had to make its appeal to the +What, then, is the significance of Collectivism? Is it a product merely +of the disease of Society, or a sign of health in the body politic? The +answer is that it contains the elements of both. Collectivism came into +existence to do a definite work, with the fulfilment of which it will +assuredly disappear. As Liberalism appeared in opposition to the corrupt +oligarchies of the eighteenth century, so Collectivism has come into +existence to correct the evils which Liberalism brought with it---to +dispel the *laissez-faire* notions of the Manchester school---to expose +the inhumanities of commercialism---to re-awaken the moral sense of +society, and to restore to it the lost ideal of a corporate life. To +Collectivism we are indebted for these ideas, and in their affirmation +it has amply justified its existence. It may be, also, that the +statistical method which it has pursued, though impossible from the +point of view of social re-construction, was yet the only way of +impressing certain broad truths on the national mind. It has indeed set +forces in motion which may yet be turned in the direction of true social +re-construction. But just as Liberalism failed because it had to use the +plutocracy as the force with which to effect its purpose, so +Collectivism must fail because it has had to make its appeal to the crowd. -Feeling comes nearer to truth than logic, and in the -hesitation of the masses to respond to his appeal, the -Collectivist may, if he will, see the condemnation of his -own measures. The people would be right in neglecting this -appeal; in so acting there is unconscious wisdom. The people -feel instinctively that Government is not their affair; it -leads them out of their depth, and with true inspiration -hitherto they have refused to interfere where they cannot -understand. They are right also in another and profounder -sense. Not only is their indifference a sign that politics -have moved out of contact with actuality, but they -instinctively feel that Utopia does not lie along the road -the Collectivist indicates; for in its appeal Collectivism -made one great and fundamental error. It has sought to -remedy the evils occasioned by the individual avarice of the -few by an appeal to the avarice of the many---as if Satan -could cast out Satan. +Feeling comes nearer to truth than logic, and in the hesitation of the +masses to respond to his appeal, the Collectivist may, if he will, see +the condemnation of his own measures. The people would be right in +neglecting this appeal; in so acting there is unconscious wisdom. The +people feel instinctively that Government is not their affair; it leads +them out of their depth, and with true inspiration hitherto they have +refused to interfere where they cannot understand. They are right also +in another and profounder sense. Not only is their indifference a sign +that politics have moved out of contact with actuality, but they +instinctively feel that Utopia does not lie along the road the +Collectivist indicates; for in its appeal Collectivism made one great +and fundamental error. It has sought to remedy the evils occasioned by +the individual avarice of the few by an appeal to the avarice of the +many---as if Satan could cast out Satan. # Social Evolution -The underlying cause of this failure of Collectivism to -fulfil the conditions required for the establishment of a -sound social system is that in concentrating its attention -too exclusively upon the material evils existing in Society -it loses sight of the spiritual side of the problem; for -indeed, rightly considered, the evils which the Collectivist -seeks to eradicate are ultimately nothing but the more -obtrusive symptoms of an internal spiritual disease. -Religion, art and philosophy have in these latter days -suffered a serious decline, and the social problem, as -popularly understood, is the attendant symptom. - -The truth of this is borne in upon us when we view the -present state of things from the standpoint of social -evolution. We may then see how the growth of this external -material problem coincides at every point with an internal -spiritual decline, which separating religion, art and +The underlying cause of this failure of Collectivism to fulfil the +conditions required for the establishment of a sound social system is +that in concentrating its attention too exclusively upon the material +evils existing in Society it loses sight of the spiritual side of the +problem; for indeed, rightly considered, the evils which the +Collectivist seeks to eradicate are ultimately nothing but the more +obtrusive symptoms of an internal spiritual disease. Religion, art and +philosophy have in these latter days suffered a serious decline, and the +social problem, as popularly understood, is the attendant symptom. + +The truth of this is borne in upon us when we view the present state of +things from the standpoint of social evolution. We may then see how the +growth of this external material problem coincides at every point with +an internal spiritual decline, which separating religion, art and philosophy from life, has plunged Society into the throes of -materialism, with its concomitants of ugliness and -money-making, the reckless pursuit of which throughout the -nineteenth century has left us for our heritage the Rings, -Trusts and Monopolies which exploit Society to-day. For had -the spiritual forces in Society not dwindled into impotence, -social evolution would not thus have tended towards the -ignoble ideal of Collectivism, but towards that finer -individualism upon which the Socialism of the future must be -founded. - -To understand how these things are related we must go back -to the time of the Renaissance in Italy, when the effort was -made to graft the ideas of antiquity upon the Christian -nations of Europe. The civilization of the Middle Ages was -undoubtedly a lapse from that of Paganism, in that the -freedom of thought formerly permitted was everywhere stamped -out by the dogmas of Christianity. Yet, strangely enough, -though from one point of view this lapse is to be regretted, -it achieved a useful work, for in addition to bracing the -moral fibre it became the means of enlarging the experience -of the race. If it put boundaries to the intellect, it -thereby enlarged the boundaries of the imagination. For it -was precisely because in the Middle Ages men had their minds -at rest about the thousand and one doubts and difficulties -which beset the pursuit of the intellectual life, that they -were able to develop that sense of romantic beauty which -enabled them to build the cathedrals and abbeys which cover +materialism, with its concomitants of ugliness and money-making, the +reckless pursuit of which throughout the nineteenth century has left us +for our heritage the Rings, Trusts and Monopolies which exploit Society +to-day. For had the spiritual forces in Society not dwindled into +impotence, social evolution would not thus have tended towards the +ignoble ideal of Collectivism, but towards that finer individualism upon +which the Socialism of the future must be founded. + +To understand how these things are related we must go back to the time +of the Renaissance in Italy, when the effort was made to graft the ideas +of antiquity upon the Christian nations of Europe. The civilization of +the Middle Ages was undoubtedly a lapse from that of Paganism, in that +the freedom of thought formerly permitted was everywhere stamped out by +the dogmas of Christianity. Yet, strangely enough, though from one point +of view this lapse is to be regretted, it achieved a useful work, for in +addition to bracing the moral fibre it became the means of enlarging the +experience of the race. If it put boundaries to the intellect, it +thereby enlarged the boundaries of the imagination. For it was precisely +because in the Middle Ages men had their minds at rest about the +thousand and one doubts and difficulties which beset the pursuit of the +intellectual life, that they were able to develop that sense of romantic +beauty which enabled them to build the cathedrals and abbeys which cover Europe. -And so, without committing ourselves to the unlikely theory -that the Middle Ages were in every respect an ideal age, and -while certain that in many respects that time suffers in -comparison with our own, I think we must admit its -superiority in some directions. It was greater than our own -in that it possessed a "sense of the large proportions of -things," and according to its lights it pursued perfection. -For pursuit of religion and art were then the serious things -of life, while commerce and politics, which have to-day -usurped our best energies, were strictly subordinated to -these attributes of perfection. The result of this condition -of things, in its reaction upon Society, was that men found -it possible to put into practice the dictum "Love thy -neighbour as thyself"; and the principle of mutual aid -became everywhere recognized in the structure of society. -Each section of the community had its own appropriate duties -to perform, while any confusion of function was jealously -guarded against. In the cities the craftsmen and merchants -were organized into guilds; the former for their mutual -protection and education, and for the maintenance of fine -standards of quality in production, and the latter for -facilitating the exchange and distribution of merchandise. -On the other hand, the land held in large fiefs under the -feudal system by the nobility was formed and administered on -a carefully organized system, while the political status of -each individual was defined and guaranteed by feudal law and -the universal code of morality supplied by the teachings, -and enforced by the authority of the Roman Church. - -Similarly, when we consider the external life of that age, -what most impresses us is the marvellous and universal -beauty of everything that has survived to our own time. The -mediaeval period was not only great in its architecture, but -the very humblest forms of craftsmanship, even the utensils, -were beautiful. What a contrast to our day, where ugliness -just as universal. It matters little where we look, in the -city or the suburb, in the garden or in the house; at our -dress or our furnishings; wherever modernity is to be found, -vulgarity is also there. For this ugliness knows no -exception save in the work of an insignificant and -cultivated minority who are in conscious opposition to the -present order of society. The Renaissance brought about this -change by cutting at the roots of traditionwhich hitherto -had been the support of the Middle Ages. - -The sense of a consecutive tradition has so completely -disappeared from modern life, that it is difficult for most -of us to realize what it means. To greater or lesser extent -in the form or custom or habit it is always present with us -in debased forms. Yet this is a different thing from that -living tradition which survived until the Renaissance, the -meaning of which will be best understood by considering its -relation to the arts. - -Tradition then, in relation to the arts, may be defined as a -current language of design, and, indeed, design in the -Middle Ages bears a striking resemblance to the language of -speech, in that the faculty of design was not as it is -to-day, the exclusive possession of a caste---a body of men -who give prescriptions for the craftsman to dispense---but, -like language, was a common possession of the whole people. -Certain traditional ways of working, certain ideas of design -and technique were universally recognized, so that when the -craftsman was called upon to design he was not, like his -modern successor, compelled to create something out of -nothing, but had this tradition ready to hand as the vehicle -of expression understood by all. It was thus that the arts -and crafts of former times were identical---the artist was -always a craftsman, while the craftsman was always an -artist. In the production of architecture no architect was -employed in the modern sense to conceive and supervise every -detail, since as every craftsman was in some degree an -artist, it was the practice of each craft to supply its own -details and ornaments, the craftsman being subject only to -such general control as was necessary to secure a unity of -effect. Architecture was thus a great cooperative art, the -expression of the national life and character. - -We realize, perhaps, more fully what tradition means when we -compare the conditions of craftsmanship in those days with -those which obtain to-day. The modern craftsman, deprived of -the guidance of a healthy tradition, is surrounded on all -sides by forms which have persisted, though debased and -vulgarized, while the thought which created them has been -lost. Consequently, he uses them not merely without any -perception of their meaning, but as he does not realize that -they ever had any meaning, he has as much chance of making -himself intelligible as a man whose speech is a hopeless -jargon of all tongues, and who has lost the capacity of -realizing that any word he uses has ever actually had a +And so, without committing ourselves to the unlikely theory that the +Middle Ages were in every respect an ideal age, and while certain that +in many respects that time suffers in comparison with our own, I think +we must admit its superiority in some directions. It was greater than +our own in that it possessed a "sense of the large proportions of +things," and according to its lights it pursued perfection. For pursuit +of religion and art were then the serious things of life, while commerce +and politics, which have to-day usurped our best energies, were strictly +subordinated to these attributes of perfection. The result of this +condition of things, in its reaction upon Society, was that men found it +possible to put into practice the dictum "Love thy neighbour as +thyself"; and the principle of mutual aid became everywhere recognized +in the structure of society. Each section of the community had its own +appropriate duties to perform, while any confusion of function was +jealously guarded against. In the cities the craftsmen and merchants +were organized into guilds; the former for their mutual protection and +education, and for the maintenance of fine standards of quality in +production, and the latter for facilitating the exchange and +distribution of merchandise. On the other hand, the land held in large +fiefs under the feudal system by the nobility was formed and +administered on a carefully organized system, while the political status +of each individual was defined and guaranteed by feudal law and the +universal code of morality supplied by the teachings, and enforced by +the authority of the Roman Church. + +Similarly, when we consider the external life of that age, what most +impresses us is the marvellous and universal beauty of everything that +has survived to our own time. The mediaeval period was not only great in +its architecture, but the very humblest forms of craftsmanship, even the +utensils, were beautiful. What a contrast to our day, where ugliness +just as universal. It matters little where we look, in the city or the +suburb, in the garden or in the house; at our dress or our furnishings; +wherever modernity is to be found, vulgarity is also there. For this +ugliness knows no exception save in the work of an insignificant and +cultivated minority who are in conscious opposition to the present order +of society. The Renaissance brought about this change by cutting at the +roots of traditionwhich hitherto had been the support of the Middle +Ages. + +The sense of a consecutive tradition has so completely disappeared from +modern life, that it is difficult for most of us to realize what it +means. To greater or lesser extent in the form or custom or habit it is +always present with us in debased forms. Yet this is a different thing +from that living tradition which survived until the Renaissance, the +meaning of which will be best understood by considering its relation to +the arts. + +Tradition then, in relation to the arts, may be defined as a current +language of design, and, indeed, design in the Middle Ages bears a +striking resemblance to the language of speech, in that the faculty of +design was not as it is to-day, the exclusive possession of a caste---a +body of men who give prescriptions for the craftsman to dispense---but, +like language, was a common possession of the whole people. Certain +traditional ways of working, certain ideas of design and technique were +universally recognized, so that when the craftsman was called upon to +design he was not, like his modern successor, compelled to create +something out of nothing, but had this tradition ready to hand as the +vehicle of expression understood by all. It was thus that the arts and +crafts of former times were identical---the artist was always a +craftsman, while the craftsman was always an artist. In the production +of architecture no architect was employed in the modern sense to +conceive and supervise every detail, since as every craftsman was in +some degree an artist, it was the practice of each craft to supply its +own details and ornaments, the craftsman being subject only to such +general control as was necessary to secure a unity of effect. +Architecture was thus a great cooperative art, the expression of the +national life and character. + +We realize, perhaps, more fully what tradition means when we compare the +conditions of craftsmanship in those days with those which obtain +to-day. The modern craftsman, deprived of the guidance of a healthy +tradition, is surrounded on all sides by forms which have persisted, +though debased and vulgarized, while the thought which created them has +been lost. Consequently, he uses them not merely without any perception +of their meaning, but as he does not realize that they ever had any +meaning, he has as much chance of making himself intelligible as a man +whose speech is a hopeless jargon of all tongues, and who has lost the +capacity of realizing that any word he uses has ever actually had a definite meaning. -In these circumstances the designer or craftsman of to-day -has a task of far greater magnitude to perform in order to -produce creditable work than had his predecessors. It is not -merely a question of possessing good taste, since before he -can design he must recover for himself a language of -expression. He must, therefore, be not merely an artist, but -an "etymologist of forms," so to speak, in addition. How, -then, can we wonder if little good work is produced? - -Similarly we find the absence or degradation of tradition -exercises its baneful influence in every department of life, -for just as the craftsman cannot design beautifully because -he has lost hold of a living tradition of design, so men are -unnatural and inhuman because they have lost the art of -right living, spontaneity and instinct having given place to -conventions and fashions which exercise an intangible -tyranny over their victims. Incidentally I would refer to -the corroborative testimony of Mr. Bernard Shaw, who -emphasizes the same truth in "Man and Superman." Mr. Shaw -observes that English critics disapproved of Zola's works -not because they considered them immoral, but because never -having been taught to speak decently about such things, they -were without a language by which to express their ideas. - -To return to our subject: I said that the Renaissance, by -cutting at the roots of tradition, brought about the changed -state of things we see around us to-day. In seeking to -liberate man from the fetters of the Middle Ages the -Renaissance unfortunately destroyed what was really good and -valuable. - -Without minimizing in the least the ultimate benefits which -the growth of the spirit of criticism stimulated by the -Renaissance has in store for the human race, the development -of that spirit has so far been attended with disastrous -consequences. It is admitted that by undermining the -authority of the Church and the Bible, criticism has largely -destroyed the spirit of consecration to ideals, but it is -not generally recognized that this same spirit operating -upon the arts has brought about their decline, by separating -them from life. First we see the gradual formation of canons -of taste; then follows the growth of academies which impose -rigid classical standards upon the people, and finally, -tradition, which has hitherto been the source of vitality in -the arts, is everywhere extinguished and a complete divorce -is effected between Art and Life. - -Art, ceasing to be the vehicle of expression for the whole -people, now becomes a play-thing for the connoisseur and the -*dilettante*, hidden away in galleries and museums, while -Life, having lost the power of refined expression, -crystallizes into conventions and becomes ugly in all its -manifestations. - -Simultaneously with this separation of art from life comes -the separation of the artist from the craftsman. The fine -arts having turned their back upon their humble brethren, -craftsmanship everywhere degenerates into -manufacture---uniformity having supplanted variety as the -ideal of production, machines are invented for multiplying -wares. Factories are built to contain the machinery, and -labour is organized for the purpose of working it, while -universal markets arise through the desire of avaricious -manufacturers to find some temporary escape from the evils -of over-production. And now, when supply has got ahead of -demand, comes a complete divorce between production and -use---owing to the circumstance that under such conditions, -speculation, and not human need, becomes the motive force of -production. Business and money-making become the -all-absorbing interest of life, while democracy takes its -rise in the seething discontent engendered by the growth of -such conditions simultaneously with the degeneration of the -Guilds into close corporations, and the subsequent exclusion -of the journeyman, who is thereby deprived of the position -he formerly held in the social scheme. +In these circumstances the designer or craftsman of to-day has a task of +far greater magnitude to perform in order to produce creditable work +than had his predecessors. It is not merely a question of possessing +good taste, since before he can design he must recover for himself a +language of expression. He must, therefore, be not merely an artist, but +an "etymologist of forms," so to speak, in addition. How, then, can we +wonder if little good work is produced? + +Similarly we find the absence or degradation of tradition exercises its +baneful influence in every department of life, for just as the craftsman +cannot design beautifully because he has lost hold of a living tradition +of design, so men are unnatural and inhuman because they have lost the +art of right living, spontaneity and instinct having given place to +conventions and fashions which exercise an intangible tyranny over their +victims. Incidentally I would refer to the corroborative testimony of +Mr. Bernard Shaw, who emphasizes the same truth in "Man and Superman." +Mr. Shaw observes that English critics disapproved of Zola's works not +because they considered them immoral, but because never having been +taught to speak decently about such things, they were without a language +by which to express their ideas. + +To return to our subject: I said that the Renaissance, by cutting at the +roots of tradition, brought about the changed state of things we see +around us to-day. In seeking to liberate man from the fetters of the +Middle Ages the Renaissance unfortunately destroyed what was really good +and valuable. + +Without minimizing in the least the ultimate benefits which the growth +of the spirit of criticism stimulated by the Renaissance has in store +for the human race, the development of that spirit has so far been +attended with disastrous consequences. It is admitted that by +undermining the authority of the Church and the Bible, criticism has +largely destroyed the spirit of consecration to ideals, but it is not +generally recognized that this same spirit operating upon the arts has +brought about their decline, by separating them from life. First we see +the gradual formation of canons of taste; then follows the growth of +academies which impose rigid classical standards upon the people, and +finally, tradition, which has hitherto been the source of vitality in +the arts, is everywhere extinguished and a complete divorce is effected +between Art and Life. + +Art, ceasing to be the vehicle of expression for the whole people, now +becomes a play-thing for the connoisseur and the *dilettante*, hidden +away in galleries and museums, while Life, having lost the power of +refined expression, crystallizes into conventions and becomes ugly in +all its manifestations. + +Simultaneously with this separation of art from life comes the +separation of the artist from the craftsman. The fine arts having turned +their back upon their humble brethren, craftsmanship everywhere +degenerates into manufacture---uniformity having supplanted variety as +the ideal of production, machines are invented for multiplying wares. +Factories are built to contain the machinery, and labour is organized +for the purpose of working it, while universal markets arise through the +desire of avaricious manufacturers to find some temporary escape from +the evils of over-production. And now, when supply has got ahead of +demand, comes a complete divorce between production and use---owing to +the circumstance that under such conditions, speculation, and not human +need, becomes the motive force of production. Business and money-making +become the all-absorbing interest of life, while democracy takes its +rise in the seething discontent engendered by the growth of such +conditions simultaneously with the degeneration of the Guilds into close +corporations, and the subsequent exclusion of the journeyman, who is +thereby deprived of the position he formerly held in the social scheme. Such would appear to be the true interpretation of social -evolution---Religion, Art and Philosophy having separated -themselves from life, business, money-making and politics, -hitherto subordinated to the pursuit of these other -attributes of perfection, become the all absorbing interests -of life. To this reversal of the natural order of things is -to be attributed the growth of the social problem. - -What the future has in store for us it is indeed difficult -to say. It would seem that the present system is doomed to -collapse through its own internal rottenness. Commercialism -will reap as it has sown---a social catastrophe is clearly -its fit and proper harvest. For a century we have been -putting off the evil consequences of unregulated production -by dumping our surpluses in foreign markets; but this cannot -continue indefinitely, for the problem which on a small -scale should have been boldly faced a century ago, when -machinery was first introduced, will have to be dealt with -on a gigantic scale. The foreigner, who was once our -customer, has now become our competitor; and so instead of -expanding markets we have to face the problem of contracting -markets. The appearance therefore of a large and -ever-increasing unemployed class becomes inevitable. The -probability is that this phenomenon will make its appearance -in America, where industrial conditions are fast ripening -for such a catastrophe. Until quite recently America was -occupied not so much in the production of wares as in -manufacture of machinery. It is obvious that when all this -machinery becomes engaged in actual production the output -available for exportation will be enormously increased; and -it is stated on very good authority that the competition we -have already experienced from America is as nothing in -comparison with what we are likely to encounter during the -next few years. Meanwhile, the growth of Trusts, Combines -and Monopolies, by eliminating the waste consequent upon -competition, tends in the same direction. - -Under these circumstances, we shall be well advised to -prepare for eventualities. Though unable to save existing -society, it may yet be possible to build something out of -its ruins. +evolution---Religion, Art and Philosophy having separated themselves +from life, business, money-making and politics, hitherto subordinated to +the pursuit of these other attributes of perfection, become the all +absorbing interests of life. To this reversal of the natural order of +things is to be attributed the growth of the social problem. + +What the future has in store for us it is indeed difficult to say. It +would seem that the present system is doomed to collapse through its own +internal rottenness. Commercialism will reap as it has sown---a social +catastrophe is clearly its fit and proper harvest. For a century we have +been putting off the evil consequences of unregulated production by +dumping our surpluses in foreign markets; but this cannot continue +indefinitely, for the problem which on a small scale should have been +boldly faced a century ago, when machinery was first introduced, will +have to be dealt with on a gigantic scale. The foreigner, who was once +our customer, has now become our competitor; and so instead of expanding +markets we have to face the problem of contracting markets. The +appearance therefore of a large and ever-increasing unemployed class +becomes inevitable. The probability is that this phenomenon will make +its appearance in America, where industrial conditions are fast ripening +for such a catastrophe. Until quite recently America was occupied not so +much in the production of wares as in manufacture of machinery. It is +obvious that when all this machinery becomes engaged in actual +production the output available for exportation will be enormously +increased; and it is stated on very good authority that the competition +we have already experienced from America is as nothing in comparison +with what we are likely to encounter during the next few years. +Meanwhile, the growth of Trusts, Combines and Monopolies, by eliminating +the waste consequent upon competition, tends in the same direction. + +Under these circumstances, we shall be well advised to prepare for +eventualities. Though unable to save existing society, it may yet be +possible to build something out of its ruins. # The Sphere of Political Reform -In passing to the constructive side of our theme, it is -first necessary to realize clearly that as commercialism, -not competition, is the evil from which modern society -suffers; the real battles of reform are to be fought in the -industrial, not in the political arena. To abolish -commercialism it is necessary to transfer the control of -industry from the hands of the financier into those of the -craftsman, and as this change is ultimately dependent upon -such things as the recovery of a more scrupulous honesty in -respect to our trade relationships, the restoration of -living traditions of handicraft, and the emergence of nobler -conceptions of life in general, it is evident that the -nature of the reforms is such as to place the centre of -gravity of the reform movement outside the sphere of -politics. - -At the same time it is well to remember that, though the -solution is not a political one it has, nevertheless, a -political aspect, for in this endeavour to reform industry -the legislature may assist. Recognizing the truth that -nobler conceptions of life are essential to the salvation of -society, and that the desired change should be in the -direction of simpler conditions of life, the legislature can -greatly facilitate such a change by the wise expenditure of -that portion of the surplus wealth of the nation which they -would derive from the taxation of unearned incomes. In the -long run it is the expenditure of surplus wealth which -determines in what direction industrial energy shall be -employed; and just as foolish expenditure is the forerunner -of depression and decay, so wise expenditure imparts health -and vigour to the body politic. "The vital question for -individual and for nation," as Ruskin said, "is not, how -much do they make? but to what purpose do they spend?" - -As to the way in which the expenditure of wealth could be -used to facilitate the spiritual regeneration of society, -the first condition of success is a more generous and -magnanimous spirit than is customary to-day; in a word, we -should not expect too much for our money, since, until the -spirit of society is changed in this respect, there can be -no possibility of returning to simpler conditions of life. -Until then sweating, jerry-work, dishonesty and quackery -will remain with us, and the producers will continue to be -slave-driven. - -The evil, moreover, does not end here. The attendant symptom -of this pernicious system is that with our minds bent always -upon making bargains, it comes about that less regard is -paid to the intrinsic value than to the market value of -things, and we thus create conditions under which the gulf -separating the two is ever widening, until finally the -anti-climax of the ideal of wealth accumulation is reached -in the circumstance that it becomes daily more impossible to -buy things worth possessing. To reverse this unnatural -order, therefore, and to let our choice be determined by the -intrinsic value than to the market value of things, is the -second condition of successful expenditure. - -There are two directions in which an immediate increase of -expenditure is called for in the national interest. In the -first place there can be no doubt that a serious attempt -should be made to revive agriculturein this country, for -apart from its temporary commercial value, agriculture has -an intrinsic value as a factor in the national life, in that -it strengthens the economic position of the country at its -base. Secondly, a substantial increase should be made in our -national expenditure upon art, particularly by a more -generous and sympathetic patronage of the humbler crafts; -for not only would such expenditure tend to relieve the -pressure of competition, but since the true root and basis -of all art lies in the health and vigour of the handicrafts, -a force would be definitely set in motion which would at -once regenerate industry and restore beauty to -life---industry and beauty being two of the most powerful -factors in the spiritual regeneration of the race. - -In answer to some who complained that Athens was -over-adorned, even as a proud and vain woman tricks herself -out with jewels, Pericles replied that "superfluous wealth -should be laid out on such works as, when executed, would be -eternal monuments of the glory of their city, works which, -during their execution, would diffuse a universal plenty; -for as so many kinds of labour and such a variety of -instruments and materials were requisite to these -undertakings, every art would be exerted, every hand -employed, almost the whole city would be in pay, and be at -the same time both adorned and supported by itself." Such -was the old-time solution of the unemployed problem; both -the spiritual and material needs of the people are here -provided for. +In passing to the constructive side of our theme, it is first necessary +to realize clearly that as commercialism, not competition, is the evil +from which modern society suffers; the real battles of reform are to be +fought in the industrial, not in the political arena. To abolish +commercialism it is necessary to transfer the control of industry from +the hands of the financier into those of the craftsman, and as this +change is ultimately dependent upon such things as the recovery of a +more scrupulous honesty in respect to our trade relationships, the +restoration of living traditions of handicraft, and the emergence of +nobler conceptions of life in general, it is evident that the nature of +the reforms is such as to place the centre of gravity of the reform +movement outside the sphere of politics. + +At the same time it is well to remember that, though the solution is not +a political one it has, nevertheless, a political aspect, for in this +endeavour to reform industry the legislature may assist. Recognizing the +truth that nobler conceptions of life are essential to the salvation of +society, and that the desired change should be in the direction of +simpler conditions of life, the legislature can greatly facilitate such +a change by the wise expenditure of that portion of the surplus wealth +of the nation which they would derive from the taxation of unearned +incomes. In the long run it is the expenditure of surplus wealth which +determines in what direction industrial energy shall be employed; and +just as foolish expenditure is the forerunner of depression and decay, +so wise expenditure imparts health and vigour to the body politic. "The +vital question for individual and for nation," as Ruskin said, "is not, +how much do they make? but to what purpose do they spend?" + +As to the way in which the expenditure of wealth could be used to +facilitate the spiritual regeneration of society, the first condition of +success is a more generous and magnanimous spirit than is customary +to-day; in a word, we should not expect too much for our money, since, +until the spirit of society is changed in this respect, there can be no +possibility of returning to simpler conditions of life. Until then +sweating, jerry-work, dishonesty and quackery will remain with us, and +the producers will continue to be slave-driven. + +The evil, moreover, does not end here. The attendant symptom of this +pernicious system is that with our minds bent always upon making +bargains, it comes about that less regard is paid to the intrinsic value +than to the market value of things, and we thus create conditions under +which the gulf separating the two is ever widening, until finally the +anti-climax of the ideal of wealth accumulation is reached in the +circumstance that it becomes daily more impossible to buy things worth +possessing. To reverse this unnatural order, therefore, and to let our +choice be determined by the intrinsic value than to the market value of +things, is the second condition of successful expenditure. + +There are two directions in which an immediate increase of expenditure +is called for in the national interest. In the first place there can be +no doubt that a serious attempt should be made to revive agriculturein +this country, for apart from its temporary commercial value, agriculture +has an intrinsic value as a factor in the national life, in that it +strengthens the economic position of the country at its base. Secondly, +a substantial increase should be made in our national expenditure upon +art, particularly by a more generous and sympathetic patronage of the +humbler crafts; for not only would such expenditure tend to relieve the +pressure of competition, but since the true root and basis of all art +lies in the health and vigour of the handicrafts, a force would be +definitely set in motion which would at once regenerate industry and +restore beauty to life---industry and beauty being two of the most +powerful factors in the spiritual regeneration of the race. + +In answer to some who complained that Athens was over-adorned, even as a +proud and vain woman tricks herself out with jewels, Pericles replied +that "superfluous wealth should be laid out on such works as, when +executed, would be eternal monuments of the glory of their city, works +which, during their execution, would diffuse a universal plenty; for as +so many kinds of labour and such a variety of instruments and materials +were requisite to these undertakings, every art would be exerted, every +hand employed, almost the whole city would be in pay, and be at the same +time both adorned and supported by itself." Such was the old-time +solution of the unemployed problem; both the spiritual and material +needs of the people are here provided for. # The Guild System -The conclusion to be deduced from the the last chapter was -that the wise expenditure of surplus wealth, and, indeed, -all exercise of wisdom, demands that man be spiritually -regenerated. - -It is obvious that by spiritual regeneration something very -different is meant from the morbid and sickly sentimentality -which very often passes for spirituality to-day; rather must -we be understood to mean the recovery by society of that -"sense of the large proportion of things" as Pater calls it, -which in all great ages of spiritual activity was in a -greater or less degree the common possession of the whole -people, and while giving a man a new scale of values may be -said to completely change the individual nature. In this -connexion it is well to remember that though in one sense -the individual nature is unchangeable, the fact remains that -the intellectual atmosphere which we breathe will determine -the particular mode in which it will express itself; and -that whereas a prejudiced and sectarian atmosphere, by -refusing the higher nature its medium of expression, will -encourage the expression of the lower nature, so a wider -outlook on life, an atmosphere in which the nature and -essential unity of things are more clearly discerned, will -by transmuting values keep the selfish motives more -effectually in subjection. It is thus that the recovery of -the sense of the large proportion of things by the -individual members of the community must precede all -substantial reform. It is this sense which is the great -socializer, making always for Collective action. There can -be no Socialism without it. - -No better example could be found of the way in which its -absence militates against social reform than the common -attitude of sociological thinkers towards the present -proposal of re-establishing the Guild system in society. One -and all of them, without further inquiry, dismiss Ruskin's -proposal as a harking back to Mediaevalism merely because -the links which separated his proposals from practical -politics were not in his day capable of being forged. In all -this we see that characteristic failure of the modern mind -to distinguish clearly between what is immediately -practicable, and what must ultimately be brought to pass, -and its incapacity to adjust the demands of the present to -the needs of the future. - -Tested by such principles the restoration of the Guilds will -appear not merely reasonable but inevitable. Being social, -religious, and political as well as industrial institutions, -the Guilds postulated in their organization the essential -unity of life. And so, just as it is certain that the -reattainment of intellectual unity must precede the -reorganization of society on a Co-operative basis, it is -equally certain that the same or similar forms of social -organization will be necessary again in the future. - -For the present we shall regard them merely as political and -industrial organizations, for these are the aspects which -immediately concern us. The question of their restoration as -religious and social organizations is outside the scope of -the present volume, depending as it does upon the settlement -of many theological and scientific questions which we do not -feel qualified to discuss. To give the reader some idea of -what the Guild system really was one cannot perhaps do -better than quote from a lecture by Professor Lethaby on -"Technical Education in the Building Trade" (for though this -has particular reference to the building trades, the same -conditions obtained in every trade), and to supplement this -by adding the rules of the Cloth Weavers of Flanders as -given by William Morris in "Architecture, Industry and -Wealth." - -"In the Middle Ages," says Professor Lethaby, "the masons' -and carpenters' guilds were faculties or colleges of -education in those arts, and every town was, so to say, a -craft university. Corporations of masons, carpenters, and -the like, were established in the town; each craft aspired -to have a college hall. The universities themselves had been -well named by a recent historian 'Scholars' Guilds,' The -guild which recognized all the customs of its trade -guaranteed the relations of the apprentice and master -craftsman with whom he was placed; but he was really -apprenticed to the craft as a whole, and ultimately to the -city, whose freedom he engaged to take up. He was, in fact, -a graduate of his craft college and wore its robes. At a -later stage the apprentice became a companion or a bachelor -of his art, or by producing a masterwork, the thesis of his -craft, he was admitted a master. Only then was he permitted -to become an employer of labour or was admitted as one of -the governing body of his college. As a citizen, City -dignities were open to him. He might become the master in -building some abbey or cathedral, or as king's mason become -a member of the royal household, the acknowledged great -master of his time in mason-craft.) With such a system was -it so very wonderful that the buildings of the Middle Ages, +The conclusion to be deduced from the the last chapter was that the wise +expenditure of surplus wealth, and, indeed, all exercise of wisdom, +demands that man be spiritually regenerated. + +It is obvious that by spiritual regeneration something very different is +meant from the morbid and sickly sentimentality which very often passes +for spirituality to-day; rather must we be understood to mean the +recovery by society of that "sense of the large proportion of things" as +Pater calls it, which in all great ages of spiritual activity was in a +greater or less degree the common possession of the whole people, and +while giving a man a new scale of values may be said to completely +change the individual nature. In this connexion it is well to remember +that though in one sense the individual nature is unchangeable, the fact +remains that the intellectual atmosphere which we breathe will determine +the particular mode in which it will express itself; and that whereas a +prejudiced and sectarian atmosphere, by refusing the higher nature its +medium of expression, will encourage the expression of the lower nature, +so a wider outlook on life, an atmosphere in which the nature and +essential unity of things are more clearly discerned, will by +transmuting values keep the selfish motives more effectually in +subjection. It is thus that the recovery of the sense of the large +proportion of things by the individual members of the community must +precede all substantial reform. It is this sense which is the great +socializer, making always for Collective action. There can be no +Socialism without it. + +No better example could be found of the way in which its absence +militates against social reform than the common attitude of sociological +thinkers towards the present proposal of re-establishing the Guild +system in society. One and all of them, without further inquiry, dismiss +Ruskin's proposal as a harking back to Mediaevalism merely because the +links which separated his proposals from practical politics were not in +his day capable of being forged. In all this we see that characteristic +failure of the modern mind to distinguish clearly between what is +immediately practicable, and what must ultimately be brought to pass, +and its incapacity to adjust the demands of the present to the needs of +the future. + +Tested by such principles the restoration of the Guilds will appear not +merely reasonable but inevitable. Being social, religious, and political +as well as industrial institutions, the Guilds postulated in their +organization the essential unity of life. And so, just as it is certain +that the reattainment of intellectual unity must precede the +reorganization of society on a Co-operative basis, it is equally certain +that the same or similar forms of social organization will be necessary +again in the future. + +For the present we shall regard them merely as political and industrial +organizations, for these are the aspects which immediately concern us. +The question of their restoration as religious and social organizations +is outside the scope of the present volume, depending as it does upon +the settlement of many theological and scientific questions which we do +not feel qualified to discuss. To give the reader some idea of what the +Guild system really was one cannot perhaps do better than quote from a +lecture by Professor Lethaby on "Technical Education in the Building +Trade" (for though this has particular reference to the building trades, +the same conditions obtained in every trade), and to supplement this by +adding the rules of the Cloth Weavers of Flanders as given by William +Morris in "Architecture, Industry and Wealth." + +"In the Middle Ages," says Professor Lethaby, "the masons' and +carpenters' guilds were faculties or colleges of education in those +arts, and every town was, so to say, a craft university. Corporations of +masons, carpenters, and the like, were established in the town; each +craft aspired to have a college hall. The universities themselves had +been well named by a recent historian 'Scholars' Guilds,' The guild +which recognized all the customs of its trade guaranteed the relations +of the apprentice and master craftsman with whom he was placed; but he +was really apprenticed to the craft as a whole, and ultimately to the +city, whose freedom he engaged to take up. He was, in fact, a graduate +of his craft college and wore its robes. At a later stage the apprentice +became a companion or a bachelor of his art, or by producing a +masterwork, the thesis of his craft, he was admitted a master. Only then +was he permitted to become an employer of labour or was admitted as one +of the governing body of his college. As a citizen, City dignities were +open to him. He might become the master in building some abbey or +cathedral, or as king's mason become a member of the royal household, +the acknowledged great master of his time in mason-craft.) With such a +system was it so very wonderful that the buildings of the Middle Ages, which were indeed wonderful, should have been produced?" -Let us now glance at the rules of the Cloth Weavers of -Flanders. "No master to employ more than three journeymen in -his workshop; no one under any pretence to have more than -one workshop; the wages fixed per day, and the number of -hours also; no work should be done on holidays; if -piece-work (which was allowed) the price per yard fixed, but -only so much and no more to be done in a day. No one allowed -to buy wool privately, but at open sales duly announced. No -mixing of wools allowed; the man who uses English wool (the -best) not to have any other on his premises. English and -foreign cloth not allowed to be sold. Workmen not belonging -to the Commune not admitted unless hands fell short. Most of -these rules and many others may be considered to have been -made in the direct interest of the workmen. Now for the -safeguards to the public. The workman must prove that he -knows his craft duly; he serves as apprentice first, and -then as journeyman, after which he is admitted as a master -if he can manage capital enough to set up three looms -besides his own, which of course he could generally do. -Width of web is settled; colour of list according to -quality; no work to be done in a frost or bad light. All -cloth must be 'walked' or 'fulled' a certain time, and to a -certain width, and so on and so on. Finally, every piece of -cloth must stand the test of examination, and if it fall -short, goes back to the maker, who is fined; if it comes up -to the standard it is marked as satisfactory." - -The point to remember in all this is that the individual -craftsman was privileged, and privileged he must be if he is -to remain a conscientious producer. For privilege not only -protected him from unscrupulous rivals but also secured him -leisure at his work---a very necessary condition of good -work. The framers of these regulations grasped one great -sociological fact: which is not clearly understood to-day, -namely, that rogues are very dangerous men and that it is -impossible to keep control over them by granting that -measure of liberty which permits of unfair competition. I -say *unfair* competition, because the Guilds did not aim at -the suppression of competition, but at that particular form -of it which we designate commercial competition. By -preventing the lower competition for cheapness the plane of -the struggle was raised and a competition of quality was the -result. This was of course thoroughly healthy and -stimulating, for it secured in the industrial struggle not -the 'survival of the fittest' but the 'survival of the best' -in the broadest sense of the word, as the general excellence -of mediaeval craftsmanship abundantly proves. - -That the Guild System is the only system of organization -under which production can be healthy I am fully persuaded; -but whether it will again be applied to distribution is -perhaps open to question. The probability is that the -distribution of raw material in the future will be -undertaken by the State under some form of Collectivist +Let us now glance at the rules of the Cloth Weavers of Flanders. "No +master to employ more than three journeymen in his workshop; no one +under any pretence to have more than one workshop; the wages fixed per +day, and the number of hours also; no work should be done on holidays; +if piece-work (which was allowed) the price per yard fixed, but only so +much and no more to be done in a day. No one allowed to buy wool +privately, but at open sales duly announced. No mixing of wools allowed; +the man who uses English wool (the best) not to have any other on his +premises. English and foreign cloth not allowed to be sold. Workmen not +belonging to the Commune not admitted unless hands fell short. Most of +these rules and many others may be considered to have been made in the +direct interest of the workmen. Now for the safeguards to the public. +The workman must prove that he knows his craft duly; he serves as +apprentice first, and then as journeyman, after which he is admitted as +a master if he can manage capital enough to set up three looms besides +his own, which of course he could generally do. Width of web is settled; +colour of list according to quality; no work to be done in a frost or +bad light. All cloth must be 'walked' or 'fulled' a certain time, and to +a certain width, and so on and so on. Finally, every piece of cloth must +stand the test of examination, and if it fall short, goes back to the +maker, who is fined; if it comes up to the standard it is marked as +satisfactory." + +The point to remember in all this is that the individual craftsman was +privileged, and privileged he must be if he is to remain a conscientious +producer. For privilege not only protected him from unscrupulous rivals +but also secured him leisure at his work---a very necessary condition of +good work. The framers of these regulations grasped one great +sociological fact: which is not clearly understood to-day, namely, that +rogues are very dangerous men and that it is impossible to keep control +over them by granting that measure of liberty which permits of unfair +competition. I say *unfair* competition, because the Guilds did not aim +at the suppression of competition, but at that particular form of it +which we designate commercial competition. By preventing the lower +competition for cheapness the plane of the struggle was raised and a +competition of quality was the result. This was of course thoroughly +healthy and stimulating, for it secured in the industrial struggle not +the 'survival of the fittest' but the 'survival of the best' in the +broadest sense of the word, as the general excellence of mediaeval +craftsmanship abundantly proves. + +That the Guild System is the only system of organization under which +production can be healthy I am fully persuaded; but whether it will +again be applied to distribution is perhaps open to question. The +probability is that the distribution of raw material in the future will +be undertaken by the State under some form of Collectivist administration with nationalized railways.With regard to the -nationalization of the land, this will probably be one of -the last reforms we shall achieve. For if it be true, as -Mr. Edward Carpenter has pointed out, that the crust of -conventionality and artificiality in which the modern world -is embedded is a change or growth coincident with the growth -of property and the ideas flowing from it, does it not -follow that so long as this crust of conventionality remains -the nationalization of the land must remain impracticable, -since, so long as the people are addicted to their present -habits and modes of life they will rally to the support of a -system the abolition of which would individually threaten -their social existence. - -As to the form which the Government of the future will take -it is not improbable that the division of function between -the Upper and Lower Chambers will continue, with this -difference, that whereas the lower chamber would be elected -by the people in their private capacity the members of the -Upper Chamber would be nominated by the Guilds. - -Such an arrangement would seem to secure for democracy what -at present it appears to be incapable of securing for -itself---the leadership of the best and wisest. Accurate -thinking does not readily lend itself to platform oratory, -and so it happens that owing to a disability to enforce -their views at public meetings the community is deprived of -the services of a large section of the most thoughtful -members of the community. The creation, however, of an upper -chamber whose members were the nominees of the Guilds would -remedy this defect by removing oratory from the list of -necessary qualifications for political life, and with the -wisest at the helm the present anarchic tendencies of -democracy would be checked; the principle of authority on a -popular basis would be thereby established, while a balance -of power between the various interests on the State would be -automatically maintained. - -Should this prediction prove to be a true one, and should -Society again revert to the Guild system, we shall be in a -position to realize their value more adequately. With our -knowledge of the consequences of unfettered individual -competition, society will be able to guard itself more -securely against the growth of those evils of which we have -had so bitter an experience. And so while the prospect of -social salvation inspires us with hope, it may be well to -remember that society is not to be saved by the -establishment of any social *régime*, since, until each -individual member of society has sufficient moral courage to -resist the temptation to pursue his own private ends at the -expense of the common-weal, and possesses the mental outlook -necessary to enable him at all times to know in what -direction the best interests of the community lie, social -institutions once established will tend inevitably to -degenerate, for inasmuch as all institutions are but the -expression of national life and character, the integrity of -the individual can alone secure the integrity of the State. +nationalization of the land, this will probably be one of the last +reforms we shall achieve. For if it be true, as Mr. Edward Carpenter has +pointed out, that the crust of conventionality and artificiality in +which the modern world is embedded is a change or growth coincident with +the growth of property and the ideas flowing from it, does it not follow +that so long as this crust of conventionality remains the +nationalization of the land must remain impracticable, since, so long as +the people are addicted to their present habits and modes of life they +will rally to the support of a system the abolition of which would +individually threaten their social existence. + +As to the form which the Government of the future will take it is not +improbable that the division of function between the Upper and Lower +Chambers will continue, with this difference, that whereas the lower +chamber would be elected by the people in their private capacity the +members of the Upper Chamber would be nominated by the Guilds. + +Such an arrangement would seem to secure for democracy what at present +it appears to be incapable of securing for itself---the leadership of +the best and wisest. Accurate thinking does not readily lend itself to +platform oratory, and so it happens that owing to a disability to +enforce their views at public meetings the community is deprived of the +services of a large section of the most thoughtful members of the +community. The creation, however, of an upper chamber whose members were +the nominees of the Guilds would remedy this defect by removing oratory +from the list of necessary qualifications for political life, and with +the wisest at the helm the present anarchic tendencies of democracy +would be checked; the principle of authority on a popular basis would be +thereby established, while a balance of power between the various +interests on the State would be automatically maintained. + +Should this prediction prove to be a true one, and should Society again +revert to the Guild system, we shall be in a position to realize their +value more adequately. With our knowledge of the consequences of +unfettered individual competition, society will be able to guard itself +more securely against the growth of those evils of which we have had so +bitter an experience. And so while the prospect of social salvation +inspires us with hope, it may be well to remember that society is not to +be saved by the establishment of any social *régime*, since, until each +individual member of society has sufficient moral courage to resist the +temptation to pursue his own private ends at the expense of the +common-weal, and possesses the mental outlook necessary to enable him at +all times to know in what direction the best interests of the community +lie, social institutions once established will tend inevitably to +degenerate, for inasmuch as all institutions are but the expression of +national life and character, the integrity of the individual can alone +secure the integrity of the State. # How the Guilds may be Restored Passing on now to consider the problem of ways and means of -re-introducing the Guild System, the first fact we must -grasp is that the Guilds cannot be re-established by further -evolution upon the lines along which society is now -travelling, but by the development of those forces which run -counter to what maybe considered the normal line of social -evolution. - -Of these, the first force which will be instrumental in -restoring the Guilds is the Trade Union movement. Already -the unions with their elaborate organizations exercise many -of the functions which were performed by the Guilds; such, -for instance, as the regulation of wages and hours of -labour, in addition to the more social duty of giving timely -help to the sick and unfortunate. Like the Guilds, the -Unions have grown from small beginnings, until they now -control whole trades. Like the Guilds also, they are not -political creations, but voluntary organizations which have -arisen spontaneously to protect the weaker members of -society against the oppression of the more powerful. In -three respects only, as industrial organizations, are they -differentiated from the Guilds. In the first place, they -accept no responsibility for the quality of the wares they -produce. Secondly, masters are not permitted to become -members of these organizations; and thirdly, they do not +re-introducing the Guild System, the first fact we must grasp is that +the Guilds cannot be re-established by further evolution upon the lines +along which society is now travelling, but by the development of those +forces which run counter to what maybe considered the normal line of +social evolution. + +Of these, the first force which will be instrumental in restoring the +Guilds is the Trade Union movement. Already the unions with their +elaborate organizations exercise many of the functions which were +performed by the Guilds; such, for instance, as the regulation of wages +and hours of labour, in addition to the more social duty of giving +timely help to the sick and unfortunate. Like the Guilds, the Unions +have grown from small beginnings, until they now control whole trades. +Like the Guilds also, they are not political creations, but voluntary +organizations which have arisen spontaneously to protect the weaker +members of society against the oppression of the more powerful. In three +respects only, as industrial organizations, are they differentiated from +the Guilds. In the first place, they accept no responsibility for the +quality of the wares they produce. Secondly, masters are not permitted +to become members of these organizations; and thirdly, they do not possess monopolies in their separate trades. -Of course, these are very important -differences---differences in fact which for the time being -are insurmountable. The circumstance that modern industry is -so completely in the grip of the financier and speculator is -alone sufficient to prevent any speedy transformation of the -Unions into Guilds, since so long as it exists it is -difficult to see how masters and men could belong to the -same organization. The question, therefore, which we require -to answer is this: Will industry continue to be controlled -by the financier, or are there grounds for supposing that -the master-craftsman will supplant him in the future? - -My answer to this question is, that we have very good -grounds for supposing that the craftsman will supplant the -financier. Speculation brings its own ruin. It is already -ruining the workman, and in proportion as it succeeds in -this it will undermine effective demand, and so ultimately -destroy the very source of its dividends. This prediction is -based on the assumption that society will quietly acquiesce -in the operation of the speculator, but the probability -being, as has already been shown, that a revolution will -result, the ruin will be considerably hastened. Meanwhile, -there are two agencies at work in modern society which are -destined to supplant the large factory by the small -workshop. The first of these is the increasing use which is -made of electricity for the distribution of power at a cheap -rate, and the second is the gradual raising of the standard -of taste and craftsmanship. - -Respecting these, it is easy to see that just as the -introduction of steam power created the large factory by -concentrating industry, so electricity, by facilitating the -distribution of power, will render possible the small -workshop in the future. It is true that the growth of the -factory system preceded the introduction of steam power and -machinery. This, however, in turn was preceded by a decline -in craftsmanship which, by substituting uniformity for -variety in the practice of industry, made such development -possible. And so it may fairly be assumed that just in -proportion as the standard of taste and craftsmanship is -raised, the factory system will tend to disappear. The -practice of good craftsmanship demands that care be taken -with the quality of the work; it demands that work be done -leisurely; that the worker shall receive a fair price for -his work and that he shall have security of employment. All -these things commercialism and the factory system deny him -and must deny him, for the two are essentially antagonistic. -The victory of the one must mean the death of the other. - -This brings us to the consideration of the second force -which is preparing the way for the restoration of the -Guilds, namely, the Arts and Crafts movement, which exists -to promote the revival of handicraft. Recognizing that the -true root and basis of all art lies in the handicrafts, and -that under modern conditions the artist and craftsman have, -to their mutual detriment, become fatally separated, the -Arts and Crafts movement sought to remedy this defect by -promoting their reunion. - -Writing on the Revival of Handicrafts and Design,Mr. Walter -Crane says: "The movement indeed represents, in some sense, -a revolt against the hard mechanical life and its -insensibility to beauty (quite another thing to ornament). -It is a protest against that so-called industrial progress -which produces shoddy wares, the cheapness of which is paid -for by the lives of their producers and the degradation of -their users. It is a protest against the turning of men into -machines, against artificial distinctions in art, and -against making the immediate market value, or possibly of -profit, the chief test of artistic merit. It also advances -the claim of all and each to the common possession of beauty -in things common and familiar, and would awaken the sense of -this beauty, deadened and depressed as it now too often is, -either on the one hand by luxurious superfluities, or on the -other by the absence of the commonest necessities and the -gnawing anxiety for the means of livelihood; not to speak of -the every-day ugliness to which we have accustomed our eyes, -confused by the flood of false taste or darkened by the -hurried life of modern towns in which huge aggregations of -humanity exist, equally removed from both art and nature, -and their kindly and refining influences. - -"It asserts, moreover, the value of the practice of -handicraft as a good training for the faculties, and as a -most valuable counter-action to that overstraining of purely -mental effort under the fierce competitive conditions of the -day; apart from the very wholesome and real pleasure in the -fashioning of a thing with claims to art and beauty, the -struggle with and triumph over technical necessities which -refuse to be gainsaid. And, finally, thus claiming for man -this primitive and common delight in common things made -beautiful, it makes, through art, the great socializer for a -common and kindred life, for sympathetic and healthy -fellowship, and demands conditions under which your artist -and craftsman shall be free. - -"'See how a great a matter a little fire kindle th.' Some -may think this is an extensive programme---a remote ideal -for a purely artistic movement to touch. Yet if the revival -of art and handicraft is not a mere theatrical and imitative -impulse; if it is not merely to gratify a passing whim of -fashion, or demand of commerce; if it has reality and roots -of its own; if it is not merely a little glow of colour at -the end of a sombre day---it can hardly mean less than what -I have written. It must mean either the sunset or the dawn." - -We do not, of course, need to take this war-cry at its face -value. It is one thing to declare a principle, it is another -to reduce it to practice. And looking at the Arts and Crafts -movement to-day it seems to resemble the sunset rather than -the dawn. It cannot be denied that up to the present, while -the movement has succeeded in popularizing the idea, it has -for the most part failed to reduce it to practice. A -favoured few, possessed of means or social advantages, have -succeeded in establishing themselves before the public, but -the number is comparatively insignificant. The majority, -after struggling for a few years, have lost heart, and a -depression of the movement has followed in consequence. - -Sunset, however, is followed by dawn, and while we frankly -recognize that the movement is suffering from a reaction, we -are not justified in concluding that failure is its -inevitable doom: +Of course, these are very important differences---differences in fact +which for the time being are insurmountable. The circumstance that +modern industry is so completely in the grip of the financier and +speculator is alone sufficient to prevent any speedy transformation of +the Unions into Guilds, since so long as it exists it is difficult to +see how masters and men could belong to the same organization. The +question, therefore, which we require to answer is this: Will industry +continue to be controlled by the financier, or are there grounds for +supposing that the master-craftsman will supplant him in the future? + +My answer to this question is, that we have very good grounds for +supposing that the craftsman will supplant the financier. Speculation +brings its own ruin. It is already ruining the workman, and in +proportion as it succeeds in this it will undermine effective demand, +and so ultimately destroy the very source of its dividends. This +prediction is based on the assumption that society will quietly +acquiesce in the operation of the speculator, but the probability being, +as has already been shown, that a revolution will result, the ruin will +be considerably hastened. Meanwhile, there are two agencies at work in +modern society which are destined to supplant the large factory by the +small workshop. The first of these is the increasing use which is made +of electricity for the distribution of power at a cheap rate, and the +second is the gradual raising of the standard of taste and +craftsmanship. + +Respecting these, it is easy to see that just as the introduction of +steam power created the large factory by concentrating industry, so +electricity, by facilitating the distribution of power, will render +possible the small workshop in the future. It is true that the growth of +the factory system preceded the introduction of steam power and +machinery. This, however, in turn was preceded by a decline in +craftsmanship which, by substituting uniformity for variety in the +practice of industry, made such development possible. And so it may +fairly be assumed that just in proportion as the standard of taste and +craftsmanship is raised, the factory system will tend to disappear. The +practice of good craftsmanship demands that care be taken with the +quality of the work; it demands that work be done leisurely; that the +worker shall receive a fair price for his work and that he shall have +security of employment. All these things commercialism and the factory +system deny him and must deny him, for the two are essentially +antagonistic. The victory of the one must mean the death of the other. + +This brings us to the consideration of the second force which is +preparing the way for the restoration of the Guilds, namely, the Arts +and Crafts movement, which exists to promote the revival of handicraft. +Recognizing that the true root and basis of all art lies in the +handicrafts, and that under modern conditions the artist and craftsman +have, to their mutual detriment, become fatally separated, the Arts and +Crafts movement sought to remedy this defect by promoting their reunion. + +Writing on the Revival of Handicrafts and Design,Mr. Walter Crane says: +"The movement indeed represents, in some sense, a revolt against the +hard mechanical life and its insensibility to beauty (quite another +thing to ornament). It is a protest against that so-called industrial +progress which produces shoddy wares, the cheapness of which is paid for +by the lives of their producers and the degradation of their users. It +is a protest against the turning of men into machines, against +artificial distinctions in art, and against making the immediate market +value, or possibly of profit, the chief test of artistic merit. It also +advances the claim of all and each to the common possession of beauty in +things common and familiar, and would awaken the sense of this beauty, +deadened and depressed as it now too often is, either on the one hand by +luxurious superfluities, or on the other by the absence of the commonest +necessities and the gnawing anxiety for the means of livelihood; not to +speak of the every-day ugliness to which we have accustomed our eyes, +confused by the flood of false taste or darkened by the hurried life of +modern towns in which huge aggregations of humanity exist, equally +removed from both art and nature, and their kindly and refining +influences. + +"It asserts, moreover, the value of the practice of handicraft as a good +training for the faculties, and as a most valuable counter-action to +that overstraining of purely mental effort under the fierce competitive +conditions of the day; apart from the very wholesome and real pleasure +in the fashioning of a thing with claims to art and beauty, the struggle +with and triumph over technical necessities which refuse to be gainsaid. +And, finally, thus claiming for man this primitive and common delight in +common things made beautiful, it makes, through art, the great +socializer for a common and kindred life, for sympathetic and healthy +fellowship, and demands conditions under which your artist and craftsman +shall be free. + +"'See how a great a matter a little fire kindle th.' Some may think this +is an extensive programme---a remote ideal for a purely artistic +movement to touch. Yet if the revival of art and handicraft is not a +mere theatrical and imitative impulse; if it is not merely to gratify a +passing whim of fashion, or demand of commerce; if it has reality and +roots of its own; if it is not merely a little glow of colour at the end +of a sombre day---it can hardly mean less than what I have written. It +must mean either the sunset or the dawn." + +We do not, of course, need to take this war-cry at its face value. It is +one thing to declare a principle, it is another to reduce it to +practice. And looking at the Arts and Crafts movement to-day it seems to +resemble the sunset rather than the dawn. It cannot be denied that up to +the present, while the movement has succeeded in popularizing the idea, +it has for the most part failed to reduce it to practice. A favoured +few, possessed of means or social advantages, have succeeded in +establishing themselves before the public, but the number is +comparatively insignificant. The majority, after struggling for a few +years, have lost heart, and a depression of the movement has followed in +consequence. + +Sunset, however, is followed by dawn, and while we frankly recognize +that the movement is suffering from a reaction, we are not justified in +concluding that failure is its inevitable doom: >   Tasks in hours of insight willed > > Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled, -says Matthew Arnold. The movement is fortifying itself upon -more impregnable strongholds, for viewed from the inside it -may be seen that the centre of gravity of the movement is -being slowly transferred from artistic and *dilettante* -circles to the trade. Hitherto the movement has suffered -from weakness in three directions. The first was its +says Matthew Arnold. The movement is fortifying itself upon more +impregnable strongholds, for viewed from the inside it may be seen that +the centre of gravity of the movement is being slowly transferred from +artistic and *dilettante* circles to the trade. Hitherto the movement +has suffered from weakness in three directions. The first was its isolation from the trade; the second, the general absence of -intellectual patronage---fashion having been the guiding and -controlling influence with the vast majority of its -patrons;--and the third has been lack of knowledge as to the -sociological bearings of the movement, such as would have -enabled it to direct its energies in the most effective way. - -The gulf which has hitherto separated the movement from the -trade shows a tendency to become bridged over. In many -directions there are signs that the trade is being gradually -leavened; the wave of feeling which created the Arts and -Crafts movement has at length reached the workers, and there -is good reason to believe that the first condition of -widespread success---namely, the cooperation and goodwill of -the trade---will ere long be attained. - -The patronage afforded to the crafts by fashionable circles, -if it has not altogether ceased, is rapidly decreasing, and -though, in the general absence of intelligent patronage the -Arts and Crafts movement has every reason to be grateful to -fashion for keeping the flame alive, we are persuaded that -the withdrawal of such patronage will prove to be no evil, -since, so long as the movement accustomed itself to look to -fashion for its support, the work produced must necessarily -be of an exotic nature, while the really valuable work which -the movement stands for, namely, the restoration of beauty -to life, is retarded. - -The greatest weakness of all, however, is that hitherto the -movement has never clearly understood its own sociological -bearings---a defect which the present volume aims at -remedying. In the long run I am persuaded that the movement -will never be able to make much headway until it possesses a -social theory which accords with its artistic -philosophy---since until then it can never have a common -meeting ground with the public; it will be unable to get -support of the right sort, and without such support its -value as a force in social reconstruction will be impaired. - -I feel well advised in ranking the Arts and Crafts movement -as one of the forces of social reconstruction, and that not -merely because art is the eternal enemy of commercialism, -but because of the peculiar relation in which it stands to -modern society. This is the first time in history that art -has progressed in advance of the age in which it is -practised. Hitherto new movements in art have been preceded -by popular movements which have prepared a public capable of -understanding them. Thus, the Humanists in Italy prepared -the way for the revival of Classical Architecture at the -time of the Renaissance, and similarly the Anglo-Catholic -movement provided a public for the Gothic Revivalists and -the pre-Raphaelites. I cannot but believe that there is -great significance in this fact and that art is one of the -great forces of social reconstruction destined to roll back -the wave of commercialism. At any rate, art is no longer -able to follow the trend of the age, and sooner or later it -will have to choose between being thrust out of society by -the ever-increasing pressure of commercial conditions of +intellectual patronage---fashion having been the guiding and controlling +influence with the vast majority of its patrons;--and the third has been +lack of knowledge as to the sociological bearings of the movement, such +as would have enabled it to direct its energies in the most effective +way. + +The gulf which has hitherto separated the movement from the trade shows +a tendency to become bridged over. In many directions there are signs +that the trade is being gradually leavened; the wave of feeling which +created the Arts and Crafts movement has at length reached the workers, +and there is good reason to believe that the first condition of +widespread success---namely, the cooperation and goodwill of the +trade---will ere long be attained. + +The patronage afforded to the crafts by fashionable circles, if it has +not altogether ceased, is rapidly decreasing, and though, in the general +absence of intelligent patronage the Arts and Crafts movement has every +reason to be grateful to fashion for keeping the flame alive, we are +persuaded that the withdrawal of such patronage will prove to be no +evil, since, so long as the movement accustomed itself to look to +fashion for its support, the work produced must necessarily be of an +exotic nature, while the really valuable work which the movement stands +for, namely, the restoration of beauty to life, is retarded. + +The greatest weakness of all, however, is that hitherto the movement has +never clearly understood its own sociological bearings---a defect which +the present volume aims at remedying. In the long run I am persuaded +that the movement will never be able to make much headway until it +possesses a social theory which accords with its artistic +philosophy---since until then it can never have a common meeting ground +with the public; it will be unable to get support of the right sort, and +without such support its value as a force in social reconstruction will +be impaired. + +I feel well advised in ranking the Arts and Crafts movement as one of +the forces of social reconstruction, and that not merely because art is +the eternal enemy of commercialism, but because of the peculiar relation +in which it stands to modern society. This is the first time in history +that art has progressed in advance of the age in which it is practised. +Hitherto new movements in art have been preceded by popular movements +which have prepared a public capable of understanding them. Thus, the +Humanists in Italy prepared the way for the revival of Classical +Architecture at the time of the Renaissance, and similarly the +Anglo-Catholic movement provided a public for the Gothic Revivalists and +the pre-Raphaelites. I cannot but believe that there is great +significance in this fact and that art is one of the great forces of +social reconstruction destined to roll back the wave of commercialism. +At any rate, art is no longer able to follow the trend of the age, and +sooner or later it will have to choose between being thrust out of +society by the ever-increasing pressure of commercial conditions of existence, and definitely taking in hand the work of social reconstruction. -The obvious way in which this is to be accomplished is by -joining hands with other reform movements. Instead of -seeking to understand each other, reformers have attempted -solutions of their own separate problems, regardless of the -efforts of others to solve kindred difficulties, with the -result that one and all have lost their way amid the -expediencies and compromises of practical politics. Hence it -would appear that the immediate work before us is the -promotion of intellectual unity by a return to fundamentals, -the result of which would be not only to unite the different -sections of reform movements with each other, but to unite -them with the public. - -There are many signs that the tendency of modern thought is -in this direction. One result of the failure of all reform -movements to realize their dire6t intentions has been the -growth of a general consensus of opinion that all -substantial reform demands the spiritual regeneration of the -people. On this point it is clear that sociologists, -scientists, artists, philosophical thinkers, politicians and -reformers are coming to some agreement. Moreover, it is -becoming apparent to an ever increasing body of thinkers -that gambling, drink, and many other social ills have their -roots in modern industrial conditions; that so long as the -majority are compelled to follow occupations which give no -scope to the imagination and individuality of the worker, -nobler conceptions of life, in other words, spiritual -regeneration, are strangled at their roots; and that the -cultivation of the aesthetic side of life is the great need +The obvious way in which this is to be accomplished is by joining hands +with other reform movements. Instead of seeking to understand each +other, reformers have attempted solutions of their own separate +problems, regardless of the efforts of others to solve kindred +difficulties, with the result that one and all have lost their way amid +the expediencies and compromises of practical politics. Hence it would +appear that the immediate work before us is the promotion of +intellectual unity by a return to fundamentals, the result of which +would be not only to unite the different sections of reform movements +with each other, but to unite them with the public. + +There are many signs that the tendency of modern thought is in this +direction. One result of the failure of all reform movements to realize +their dire6t intentions has been the growth of a general consensus of +opinion that all substantial reform demands the spiritual regeneration +of the people. On this point it is clear that sociologists, scientists, +artists, philosophical thinkers, politicians and reformers are coming to +some agreement. Moreover, it is becoming apparent to an ever increasing +body of thinkers that gambling, drink, and many other social ills have +their roots in modern industrial conditions; that so long as the +majority are compelled to follow occupations which give no scope to the +imagination and individuality of the worker, nobler conceptions of life, +in other words, spiritual regeneration, are strangled at their roots; +and that the cultivation of the aesthetic side of life is the great need of the day. -Meanwhile, abstract thought is tending in the same -direction. What was ordinarily called philosophic -materialism has of late years receded very much into the -background, and in its place we find a restoration of belief -in the immortality of the soul through the growing -acceptance of the doctrines of re-incarnation and karma, and -the tendency to admit the claims of mysticism. The necessity -of a revival of religion of some kind is becoming very -generally admitted. Consequently we do not hear so much of -militant agnosticism as of a tendency to try and find out -what are the really essential things in religion. - -The discoveries of modern science are confirming this -tendency. One has only to mention Sir William Crooke's -experiments with radiant light, the Rontgen rays, the N. -rays, Dewar's liquid air experiments, the Hertzian currents, -the discovery of radium, and Mr. Butler Burke's -investigations into the origin of life, to show that the -abandonment of the doctrine of the physical origin of life -(so incompatible with spiritualistic conceptions) is not -very far distant. To the lay mind, at any rate, the -postulation by science of the existence of a universal -consciousness interpenetrating all matter as the explanation -of the contradictory results of investigations conducted by -the chemist and the physicist, the astronomer and the -geologist, implies such an abandonment. Hopeful as this -tendency undoubtedly is, the prospects of unity are still -more hopeful now that the establishment of a just standard -of taste in art, in conformity with a philosophic conception -of its nature, is within sight. After a century of -experiment and failure, art is at last emerging from the -cloud of darkness which through the nineteenth century -enveloped it. It is difficult for those who are not -professionally engaged in the arts to realize the enormous -strides which have been made in architecture and the crafts -during the last fifteen years, owing to the circumstance -that so little good work finds its way into the streets of -our great cities. Yet the advance is remarkable. The reason -of this is that as a result of our experiments the -fundamental principles of art are becoming more generally -understood. The architect of to-day realizes that -architecture is not a system of abstract proportions to be -applied indifferently to all buildings and materials, but -that, as already stated, the true root and basis of all art -lies in healthy traditions of handicraft; that, indeed, it -is impossible to detach design from the material to be used, -since in its ultimate relationships design is an inseparable -part of good quality. The discovery of this principle, which -was foreshadowed by Ruskin in that famous chapter in the -"Stones of Venice" entitled "The Nature of Gothic," is -rapidly rejuvenating modern art. Commencing with the -establishment of traditions of handicraft, architecture by -reaction is being regenerated. It is not unreasonable to -expect that this new standard will gradually find its way -into the finer arts of painting and sculpture. Painting and -sculpture can never be healthy except when practised in -subordination to architecture, and as patronage of the arts -is now so grudgingly given, frequent opportunities for -successful collaboration are not likely to be forthcoming. - -We may safely anticipate that the new ideas now germinating -in the arts will gradually find their way into other -branches of activity. It may be true, perhaps, that the -aestheticism of the connoisseur is often a very superficial -thing. Nevertheless it is the stepping stone to higher -attainments; for no man in the long run can study aesthetics -apart from the realities they symbolize. The Gothic revival -and the pre-Raphaelite movement at their inception may be -regarded as in many respects superficial. Yet they have led -to the discovery of truth in a hundred fields of research; -indeed it is difficult to say for what they are not -responsible. To them in the last analysis we owe the -re-creation of the whole fabric of design, while indirectly -they have re-created the past for us in a manner never -understood before. Incidentally it may be pointed out that -the forces they set in motion have not only supplied the key -to the problems discussed in these pages, but have also -supplied the facts necessary for their proper statement. -While again it is to the aesthetic movement in literature -that we owe the revival of interest in folk lore, symbolism -and peasant life. - -It will be thus, as element is added to element, that a soil -will be prepared wherein new spiritual conceptions may take -their rise. Ideas of spirituality have hitherto been -associated with ideas of beauty. And just as spiritual truth -is not to be expressed apart from the medium of beautiful -form, so beauty of form is not ultimately to be detached -from spiritual truth. It will be thus that the pursuit of -beauty will tend to re-awaken and to give reality to the -spiritual life. Not that the worship of beauty can ever be -sufficient to constitute a religion, but that the seeking -after beauty in all relationships of life (for society must -pass through a state of self-conscious aestheticism ere -beauty can resume its proper and subordinate function) is -more likely to lead us into the vicinity of spiritual things -than a breathless pursuit of riches and ugliness. - -Such appear to be the main outlines of an intellectual unity -to which we may reasonably look forward in the future; if, -indeed, it can be called intellectual unity, for the unity -which we anticipate will frankly recognize that the basis of -all thought is emotional rather than intellectual, that -thought is nothing more than the emotions become -self-conscious---a conclusion which a modern writer has -expressed in the striking phrase: "Reason can clear away -error; it can give us no new light." - -Meanwhile the external conditions of modern society are -cooperating to lift the masses out of the grooves in which -they move and have their being. Rapid mechanical development -has not lessened but increased the drudgery of the world; -money-making has not, as our political economists -prophesied, made the many rich, but has precipitated the -masses into the most abject poverty the world has ever seen, -while free trade and universal markets have not inaugurated -an era of peace and goodwill among nations, but have plunged -society into endless wars. Hence the majority of people -to-day, feeling that the tendency of modern civilization is -to add more to the sorrow than to the joy of life, are -beginning to ask themselves what Carlyle and Ruskin were -asking themselves fifty years ago---whither modern -civilization goeth. And so it is not unreasonable to expect -that the force which is to carry us back to the Guild system -is now germinating in our midst. The failure of modern -society to realize itself will result in an effort towards -finding lost roads. The people will come to connect the -Golden Age with the past again rather than with the future. -And such a change is just what is wanted to unite the people -with the intellect of the age. For it is the popular -superstition exalting the present age at the expense of the -past which, more than anything else, perhaps, separates -ignorant from cultured people, who, being better informed, -are, on the one hand, unable either to take part in popular -activities, and on the other, to get a following themselves. - -A reverence for the past, then, is the hope of the future. -This is the testimony of history. Consider what the -consciousness of a glorious past did for the Italians of the -Renaissance. It was the hope of restoring the ancient -splendour of the Senate and the Republic which created the -force that gave birth to the great achievements of that era. -And though this ambition was not realized, the ideal which -it inspired in the national mind remained a force of -reconstruction. In like manner a reverence among the English -people for the achievements of the Middle Ages in -architecture and the crafts, and of the Elizabethan era in -literature, would become an influence coordinating a -multitude of our national activities. The spirit of -emulation which such a reverence would engender in society, -by setting certain forces in motion, would add just those -ingredients which are lacking and lead us out of the -quagmire of materialism toward the realization of a happier -and more beautiful life. - -Evidence is not wanting that the change will be in the -direction here indicated. It is only a century ago that Sir -Walter Scott thought it necessary to apologize to his -readers for his love of Gothic Architecture. Compare England -to-day with the England of 1851, with its insolent belief in -its own self-sufficiency. If external evidence be called -for, take as a common instance the development of the trade -in antique furniture and bric-a-brac, yet many of the men -who set this force in motion are still with us. Indeed, the -change of feeling which is now to be seen coming over the -national mind appears to be nothing more than a change which -was consummated in the world of art three-quarters of a -century ago, for just as the eighteenth century architects -thought they had reached a state of perfection equalled only -by the ancients, so the mid-nineteenth century thought -itself on the high road towards perfection. Subsequent -experience, however, revealed the idea in each case to be -illusory---a false development preparatory to accelerated -decline, since, being essentially artificial, both had moved -out of contact with actuality. And just as it was found -necessary in the arts to seek a new source of inspiration in -a study of Mediaevalism, so society by a reverence for the -past may renew its lease of life. We live the life of the -past to-day in our thoughts, to-morrow we may live it in -reality. Thus hopes may be entertained that what has been -may again be, and under new conditions with new -possibilities, may be again in fuller measure and more -complete perfection. +Meanwhile, abstract thought is tending in the same direction. What was +ordinarily called philosophic materialism has of late years receded very +much into the background, and in its place we find a restoration of +belief in the immortality of the soul through the growing acceptance of +the doctrines of re-incarnation and karma, and the tendency to admit the +claims of mysticism. The necessity of a revival of religion of some kind +is becoming very generally admitted. Consequently we do not hear so much +of militant agnosticism as of a tendency to try and find out what are +the really essential things in religion. + +The discoveries of modern science are confirming this tendency. One has +only to mention Sir William Crooke's experiments with radiant light, the +Rontgen rays, the N. rays, Dewar's liquid air experiments, the Hertzian +currents, the discovery of radium, and Mr. Butler Burke's investigations +into the origin of life, to show that the abandonment of the doctrine of +the physical origin of life (so incompatible with spiritualistic +conceptions) is not very far distant. To the lay mind, at any rate, the +postulation by science of the existence of a universal consciousness +interpenetrating all matter as the explanation of the contradictory +results of investigations conducted by the chemist and the physicist, +the astronomer and the geologist, implies such an abandonment. Hopeful +as this tendency undoubtedly is, the prospects of unity are still more +hopeful now that the establishment of a just standard of taste in art, +in conformity with a philosophic conception of its nature, is within +sight. After a century of experiment and failure, art is at last +emerging from the cloud of darkness which through the nineteenth century +enveloped it. It is difficult for those who are not professionally +engaged in the arts to realize the enormous strides which have been made +in architecture and the crafts during the last fifteen years, owing to +the circumstance that so little good work finds its way into the streets +of our great cities. Yet the advance is remarkable. The reason of this +is that as a result of our experiments the fundamental principles of art +are becoming more generally understood. The architect of to-day realizes +that architecture is not a system of abstract proportions to be applied +indifferently to all buildings and materials, but that, as already +stated, the true root and basis of all art lies in healthy traditions of +handicraft; that, indeed, it is impossible to detach design from the +material to be used, since in its ultimate relationships design is an +inseparable part of good quality. The discovery of this principle, which +was foreshadowed by Ruskin in that famous chapter in the "Stones of +Venice" entitled "The Nature of Gothic," is rapidly rejuvenating modern +art. Commencing with the establishment of traditions of handicraft, +architecture by reaction is being regenerated. It is not unreasonable to +expect that this new standard will gradually find its way into the finer +arts of painting and sculpture. Painting and sculpture can never be +healthy except when practised in subordination to architecture, and as +patronage of the arts is now so grudgingly given, frequent opportunities +for successful collaboration are not likely to be forthcoming. + +We may safely anticipate that the new ideas now germinating in the arts +will gradually find their way into other branches of activity. It may be +true, perhaps, that the aestheticism of the connoisseur is often a very +superficial thing. Nevertheless it is the stepping stone to higher +attainments; for no man in the long run can study aesthetics apart from +the realities they symbolize. The Gothic revival and the pre-Raphaelite +movement at their inception may be regarded as in many respects +superficial. Yet they have led to the discovery of truth in a hundred +fields of research; indeed it is difficult to say for what they are not +responsible. To them in the last analysis we owe the re-creation of the +whole fabric of design, while indirectly they have re-created the past +for us in a manner never understood before. Incidentally it may be +pointed out that the forces they set in motion have not only supplied +the key to the problems discussed in these pages, but have also supplied +the facts necessary for their proper statement. While again it is to the +aesthetic movement in literature that we owe the revival of interest in +folk lore, symbolism and peasant life. + +It will be thus, as element is added to element, that a soil will be +prepared wherein new spiritual conceptions may take their rise. Ideas of +spirituality have hitherto been associated with ideas of beauty. And +just as spiritual truth is not to be expressed apart from the medium of +beautiful form, so beauty of form is not ultimately to be detached from +spiritual truth. It will be thus that the pursuit of beauty will tend to +re-awaken and to give reality to the spiritual life. Not that the +worship of beauty can ever be sufficient to constitute a religion, but +that the seeking after beauty in all relationships of life (for society +must pass through a state of self-conscious aestheticism ere beauty can +resume its proper and subordinate function) is more likely to lead us +into the vicinity of spiritual things than a breathless pursuit of +riches and ugliness. + +Such appear to be the main outlines of an intellectual unity to which we +may reasonably look forward in the future; if, indeed, it can be called +intellectual unity, for the unity which we anticipate will frankly +recognize that the basis of all thought is emotional rather than +intellectual, that thought is nothing more than the emotions become +self-conscious---a conclusion which a modern writer has expressed in the +striking phrase: "Reason can clear away error; it can give us no new +light." + +Meanwhile the external conditions of modern society are cooperating to +lift the masses out of the grooves in which they move and have their +being. Rapid mechanical development has not lessened but increased the +drudgery of the world; money-making has not, as our political economists +prophesied, made the many rich, but has precipitated the masses into the +most abject poverty the world has ever seen, while free trade and +universal markets have not inaugurated an era of peace and goodwill +among nations, but have plunged society into endless wars. Hence the +majority of people to-day, feeling that the tendency of modern +civilization is to add more to the sorrow than to the joy of life, are +beginning to ask themselves what Carlyle and Ruskin were asking +themselves fifty years ago---whither modern civilization goeth. And so +it is not unreasonable to expect that the force which is to carry us +back to the Guild system is now germinating in our midst. The failure of +modern society to realize itself will result in an effort towards +finding lost roads. The people will come to connect the Golden Age with +the past again rather than with the future. And such a change is just +what is wanted to unite the people with the intellect of the age. For it +is the popular superstition exalting the present age at the expense of +the past which, more than anything else, perhaps, separates ignorant +from cultured people, who, being better informed, are, on the one hand, +unable either to take part in popular activities, and on the other, to +get a following themselves. + +A reverence for the past, then, is the hope of the future. This is the +testimony of history. Consider what the consciousness of a glorious past +did for the Italians of the Renaissance. It was the hope of restoring +the ancient splendour of the Senate and the Republic which created the +force that gave birth to the great achievements of that era. And though +this ambition was not realized, the ideal which it inspired in the +national mind remained a force of reconstruction. In like manner a +reverence among the English people for the achievements of the Middle +Ages in architecture and the crafts, and of the Elizabethan era in +literature, would become an influence coordinating a multitude of our +national activities. The spirit of emulation which such a reverence +would engender in society, by setting certain forces in motion, would +add just those ingredients which are lacking and lead us out of the +quagmire of materialism toward the realization of a happier and more +beautiful life. + +Evidence is not wanting that the change will be in the direction here +indicated. It is only a century ago that Sir Walter Scott thought it +necessary to apologize to his readers for his love of Gothic +Architecture. Compare England to-day with the England of 1851, with its +insolent belief in its own self-sufficiency. If external evidence be +called for, take as a common instance the development of the trade in +antique furniture and bric-a-brac, yet many of the men who set this +force in motion are still with us. Indeed, the change of feeling which +is now to be seen coming over the national mind appears to be nothing +more than a change which was consummated in the world of art +three-quarters of a century ago, for just as the eighteenth century +architects thought they had reached a state of perfection equalled only +by the ancients, so the mid-nineteenth century thought itself on the +high road towards perfection. Subsequent experience, however, revealed +the idea in each case to be illusory---a false development preparatory +to accelerated decline, since, being essentially artificial, both had +moved out of contact with actuality. And just as it was found necessary +in the arts to seek a new source of inspiration in a study of +Mediaevalism, so society by a reverence for the past may renew its lease +of life. We live the life of the past to-day in our thoughts, to-morrow +we may live it in reality. Thus hopes may be entertained that what has +been may again be, and under new conditions with new possibilities, may +be again in fuller measure and more complete perfection. # Conclusion -Having stated the direction in which social salvation may be -sought, it remains for us to define more precisely the -immediate work which is to be done; for, though it has been -shown that the solution of our problems depends ultimately -upon the regeneration of the spiritual life of the people, -it is to be feared that such a generalization is -insufficient as a guide to action, action being based rather -upon what is sensuously apprehended in the concrete than -upon what is intellectually comprehended in the abstract. To -enter further into detail, therefore, it appears to us that -the spiritual regeneration of society might be facilitated -if the reform movement could be persuaded to concentrate its +Having stated the direction in which social salvation may be sought, it +remains for us to define more precisely the immediate work which is to +be done; for, though it has been shown that the solution of our problems +depends ultimately upon the regeneration of the spiritual life of the +people, it is to be feared that such a generalization is insufficient as +a guide to action, action being based rather upon what is sensuously +apprehended in the concrete than upon what is intellectually +comprehended in the abstract. To enter further into detail, therefore, +it appears to us that the spiritual regeneration of society might be +facilitated if the reform movement could be persuaded to concentrate its energies upon: 1. The stimulation of right thinking upon social questions. @@ -1912,150 +1619,127 @@ energies upon: 3. The dissemination of the principles of taste. -4. The teaching of the elements of morality, especially in - relation to commerce. - -5. The insistence upon the necessity of of personal - sacrifice as a means to the salvation alike of the - individual and of the State. - -Respecting these, the first has always been part of the -reform programme, and therefore does not require -elaborating. The second is recommended not in advocacy of a -dogmatic or emotional reversion to obsolete models, but -because a reverence for what was really good and valuable in -the life of the past must not only form the basis of all -rational culture, and thereby of clear thinking in sociology -as in other topics, but because it would provide the best -antidote to the iconoclasm of the present age, with its -tendency to over-rate its own importance, thereby enabling -the mind to gauge to what extent progress, and to what -extent retrogression have taken place. In a word, it is the -only way of restoring to the national mind the sense of the -right proportion of things. - -The dissemination of taste is necessary not only to teach -people how to live reasonably, for taste is the best -protection which the individual can possess against the love -of ostentation and vulgar display, but it is a necessary -condition of the abolition of commercialism. Until we can -reform popular taste it is to be feared we shall have to -submit to commercialism, since commercialism has its roots -in the vulgarity of modern life on the one hand, and the -general debasement of taste on the other. The need of the -hour is not more schools of art, producing an unlimited -supply of amateur artists with an exaggerated sense of their -own capacities, but schools of taste which would teach them -how little they know. - -Again, it is necessary to teach the principles of morality -in order to awaken people to the immorality of conventional -morals.This is especially true of the ethics of business, -where precept and practice have drifted so far apart that -there is great danger of the sense of honesty disappearing -from amongst us. - -Lastly, the insistence upon the necessity of personal -sacrifice as a means to the salvation alike of the -individual and of the State is particularly necessary -to-day, because social reformers have ceased to insist upon -it. Nevertheless, sacrifice, as hitherto, remains the law of -life. To attain the higher good the lower must be -sacrificed. Hence it is that just as for the individual -salvation the higher pleasures may only be attained by the -sacrifice of the lower, so the welfare of the State demands -that the individual members forego personal advantages for -the general well-being---that indeed they cultivate the -spirit of those Spartan envoys, who, when asked whether they -came with a public commission or on their own account, -replied, "If successful, for the public; if unsuccessful, -for ourselves." What a contrast to the spirit of to-day---to -the spirit which animates so many men of pious and -progressive opinions, who shuffle off their personal -responsibility wherever possible to the shoulders of the -State. It is not by these, but by those who can realize -their responsibilities and are prepared to make the -necessary sacrifices, that reform will be achieved. To -resist commercialism is in these days to resist the devil in -the nearest and most obvious sense of the word, since until -a man has successfully overcome its temptation he is -incapable of really valuable work, for he will lack -clearness of vision. A man may read and think as much as he -pleases, but if he be without the courage to test his -conclusions by practice he can possess no vital knowledge. -His thoughts will lack precision. It is only by living his -thoughts that they may be focussed to the surrounding -circumstances of life. As was said of old, "If thine eye be -single thine whole body shall be full of light." - -Such is a brief outline of the changes necessary to the -spiritual regeneration of the people. In the meantime the -constructive forces in society will be unable to make much -headway. For as Carlyle says, "If you have much wisdom in -your nation, you will get it faithfully collected; for the -wise love wisdom, and will search for it as for life and -salvation. If you have little wisdom you will get even that -little ill-collected, trampled under foot, reduced as near -as possible to annihilation/' For the same reason until we -can get some wisdom in the English nation, Trades Unionism, -which we have come to regard as the new centre of order, -will be too much on the defensive to work definitely for the -salvation of society, while the revival of art and -handicraft, upon which the abolition of commercialism in one -sense depends, will be unable to break down the barriers -which restrict its operations to a very limited sphere. It -cannot be insisted upon too strongly that this reform cannot -be achieved unless art reformers secure the good will and -cooperation of the public. The experience of the Arts and -Crafts movement has proved conclusively that unless the -public can be persuaded to give organized support to the -movement and are prepared to take a share in the sacrifices -involved, professional effort can avail nothing. - -And yet, do what we can, sooner or later we come into -collision with the spiritual degradation of society. So long -as people persist in their present extravagant habits of -life their expenditure must always tend to get ahead of -their incomes, and they will put up with the jerry and false -in consequence. Modern life is an exact counterpart of -modern art. It is fundamentally insincere, lacks restraint, -worships shams. We have, as Carlyle says, "given up hope in -the Everlasting and True, and placed hope in the Temporary, -half or wholly false." The further we inquire into the -decadence of modern art the more we find that every aspect -of it, yea, every line of it corresponds to some trait in -the national character. It is the art of a people who have -descended to every deception for the purpose of making -money. Never did popular art more faithfully represent the -national life than to-day. - -According to the old conception, art, religion, ideas, -integrity of work, the pursuit of perfection, were looked -upon as the serious things of life, while business and -money-making were subservient things, considered relatively -unimportant, for men had a reverence for the truth and -abhorrence for the false. And this we maintain is the right -conception. Except a Society acknowledge the real things of -life, and be true to them it cannot remain healthy. It is -not economic causes outside our individual control which -have given rise to the social problem, but the degradation -of the spiritual which has followed the usurpation of life -by business and money-making. - -And this is the choice we are called upon to make. Are we -content to continue living as a nation of Philistines, -indifferent alike to poetry, religion, ideas and art, -worshipping vulgar success, wasting our precious gifts in -sordid speculative enterprises and our leisure in senseless -luxury, dissipation and excitement? If so we shall continue -to wallow in the troughs of commercialism, and no solution -of our problems is possible, though every voice in the land -should demand it. Unless individually we are prepared to -live for the truth and to make sacrifices for it, Society -will remain as at present at the mercy of the speculator, -the sweater, the hustler, the mountebank and the adventurer. -For there can be no remedy. More important to a nation than -the acquisition of material riches is the welfare of its -spiritual life. This is the lesson the social problem has to -teach us; not until it is learned shall we emerge from the -cloud of darkness in which we are enveloped. +4. The teaching of the elements of morality, especially in relation to + commerce. + +5. The insistence upon the necessity of of personal sacrifice as a + means to the salvation alike of the individual and of the State. + +Respecting these, the first has always been part of the reform +programme, and therefore does not require elaborating. The second is +recommended not in advocacy of a dogmatic or emotional reversion to +obsolete models, but because a reverence for what was really good and +valuable in the life of the past must not only form the basis of all +rational culture, and thereby of clear thinking in sociology as in other +topics, but because it would provide the best antidote to the iconoclasm +of the present age, with its tendency to over-rate its own importance, +thereby enabling the mind to gauge to what extent progress, and to what +extent retrogression have taken place. In a word, it is the only way of +restoring to the national mind the sense of the right proportion of +things. + +The dissemination of taste is necessary not only to teach people how to +live reasonably, for taste is the best protection which the individual +can possess against the love of ostentation and vulgar display, but it +is a necessary condition of the abolition of commercialism. Until we can +reform popular taste it is to be feared we shall have to submit to +commercialism, since commercialism has its roots in the vulgarity of +modern life on the one hand, and the general debasement of taste on the +other. The need of the hour is not more schools of art, producing an +unlimited supply of amateur artists with an exaggerated sense of their +own capacities, but schools of taste which would teach them how little +they know. + +Again, it is necessary to teach the principles of morality in order to +awaken people to the immorality of conventional morals.This is +especially true of the ethics of business, where precept and practice +have drifted so far apart that there is great danger of the sense of +honesty disappearing from amongst us. + +Lastly, the insistence upon the necessity of personal sacrifice as a +means to the salvation alike of the individual and of the State is +particularly necessary to-day, because social reformers have ceased to +insist upon it. Nevertheless, sacrifice, as hitherto, remains the law of +life. To attain the higher good the lower must be sacrificed. Hence it +is that just as for the individual salvation the higher pleasures may +only be attained by the sacrifice of the lower, so the welfare of the +State demands that the individual members forego personal advantages for +the general well-being---that indeed they cultivate the spirit of those +Spartan envoys, who, when asked whether they came with a public +commission or on their own account, replied, "If successful, for the +public; if unsuccessful, for ourselves." What a contrast to the spirit +of to-day---to the spirit which animates so many men of pious and +progressive opinions, who shuffle off their personal responsibility +wherever possible to the shoulders of the State. It is not by these, but +by those who can realize their responsibilities and are prepared to make +the necessary sacrifices, that reform will be achieved. To resist +commercialism is in these days to resist the devil in the nearest and +most obvious sense of the word, since until a man has successfully +overcome its temptation he is incapable of really valuable work, for he +will lack clearness of vision. A man may read and think as much as he +pleases, but if he be without the courage to test his conclusions by +practice he can possess no vital knowledge. His thoughts will lack +precision. It is only by living his thoughts that they may be focussed +to the surrounding circumstances of life. As was said of old, "If thine +eye be single thine whole body shall be full of light." + +Such is a brief outline of the changes necessary to the spiritual +regeneration of the people. In the meantime the constructive forces in +society will be unable to make much headway. For as Carlyle says, "If +you have much wisdom in your nation, you will get it faithfully +collected; for the wise love wisdom, and will search for it as for life +and salvation. If you have little wisdom you will get even that little +ill-collected, trampled under foot, reduced as near as possible to +annihilation/' For the same reason until we can get some wisdom in the +English nation, Trades Unionism, which we have come to regard as the new +centre of order, will be too much on the defensive to work definitely +for the salvation of society, while the revival of art and handicraft, +upon which the abolition of commercialism in one sense depends, will be +unable to break down the barriers which restrict its operations to a +very limited sphere. It cannot be insisted upon too strongly that this +reform cannot be achieved unless art reformers secure the good will and +cooperation of the public. The experience of the Arts and Crafts +movement has proved conclusively that unless the public can be persuaded +to give organized support to the movement and are prepared to take a +share in the sacrifices involved, professional effort can avail nothing. + +And yet, do what we can, sooner or later we come into collision with the +spiritual degradation of society. So long as people persist in their +present extravagant habits of life their expenditure must always tend to +get ahead of their incomes, and they will put up with the jerry and +false in consequence. Modern life is an exact counterpart of modern art. +It is fundamentally insincere, lacks restraint, worships shams. We have, +as Carlyle says, "given up hope in the Everlasting and True, and placed +hope in the Temporary, half or wholly false." The further we inquire +into the decadence of modern art the more we find that every aspect of +it, yea, every line of it corresponds to some trait in the national +character. It is the art of a people who have descended to every +deception for the purpose of making money. Never did popular art more +faithfully represent the national life than to-day. + +According to the old conception, art, religion, ideas, integrity of +work, the pursuit of perfection, were looked upon as the serious things +of life, while business and money-making were subservient things, +considered relatively unimportant, for men had a reverence for the truth +and abhorrence for the false. And this we maintain is the right +conception. Except a Society acknowledge the real things of life, and be +true to them it cannot remain healthy. It is not economic causes outside +our individual control which have given rise to the social problem, but +the degradation of the spiritual which has followed the usurpation of +life by business and money-making. + +And this is the choice we are called upon to make. Are we content to +continue living as a nation of Philistines, indifferent alike to poetry, +religion, ideas and art, worshipping vulgar success, wasting our +precious gifts in sordid speculative enterprises and our leisure in +senseless luxury, dissipation and excitement? If so we shall continue to +wallow in the troughs of commercialism, and no solution of our problems +is possible, though every voice in the land should demand it. Unless +individually we are prepared to live for the truth and to make +sacrifices for it, Society will remain as at present at the mercy of the +speculator, the sweater, the hustler, the mountebank and the adventurer. +For there can be no remedy. More important to a nation than the +acquisition of material riches is the welfare of its spiritual life. +This is the lesson the social problem has to teach us; not until it is +learned shall we emerge from the cloud of darkness in which we are +enveloped. diff --git a/src/saw-america.md b/src/saw-america.md index 0cbad7d..78ddd9d 100644 --- a/src/saw-america.md +++ b/src/saw-america.md @@ -1,262 +1,222 @@ # What is America? -I have never managed to lose my old conviction that travel -narrows the mind. At least a man must make a double effort -of moral humility and imaginative energy to prevent it from -narrowing his mind. Indeed there is something touching and -even tragic about the thought of the thoughtless tourist, -who might have stayed at home loving Laplanders, embracing -Chinamen, and clasping Patagonians to his heart in Hampstead -or Surbiton, but for his blind and suicidal impulse to go -and see what they looked like. This is not meant for non -sense; still less is it meant for the silliest sort of -nonsense, which is cynicism. The human bond that he feels at -home is not an illusion. On the contrary, it is rather an -inner reality. Man is inside all men. In a real sense any -man may be inside any men. But to travel is to leave the -inside and draw dangerously near the outside. So long as he -thought of men in the abstract, like naked toiling figures -in some classic frieze, merely as those who labour and love -their children and die, he was thinking the fundamental -truth about them. By going to look at their unfamiliar -manners and customs he is inviting them to dis guise -themselves in fantastic masks and costumes. Many modern -internationalists talk as if men of different nationalities -had only to meet and mix and understand each other. In -reality that is the moment of supreme danger---the moment -when they meet. We might shiver, as at the old euphemism by -which a meeting meant a duel. - -Travel ought to combine amusement with instruction; but most -travellers are so much amused that they refuse to be -instructed. I do not blame them for being amused; it is -perfectly natural to be amused at a Dutchman for being Dutch -or a Chinaman for being Chinese. Where they are wrong is -that they take their own amusement seriously. They base on -it their serious ideas of inter national instruction. It was -said that the Englishman takes his pleasures sadly; and the -pleasure of despising foreigners is one which he takes most -sadly of all. He comes to scoff and does not remain to pray, -but rather to excommunicate. Hence in international -relations there is far too little laughing, and far too much -sneering. But I believe that there is a better way which -largely consists of laughter; a form of friendship between -nations which is actually founded on differences. To hint at -some such better way is the only excuse of this book. - -Let me begin my American impressions with two impressions I -had before I went to America. One was an incident and the -other an idea; and when taken together they illustrate the -attitude I mean. The first principle is that nobody should -be ashamed of thinking a thing funny because it is foreign; -the second is that he should be ashamed of thinking it wrong -because it is funny. The reaction of his senses and -superficial habits of mind against something new, and to him -abnormal, is a perfectly healthy reaction. But the mind -which imagines that mere unfamiliarity can possibly prove -anything about inferiority is a very inadequate mind. It is -inadequate even in criticising things that may really be -inferior to the things involved here. It is far better to -laugh at a Negro for having a black face than to sneer at -him for having a sloping skull. It is proportionally even -more prefer able to laugh rather than judge in dealing with -highly civilised peoples. Therefore I put at the beginning -two working examples of what I felt about America before I -saw it; the sort of thing that a man has a right to enjoy as -a joke, and the sort of thing he has a duty to under stand -and respect, because it is the explanation of the joke. - -When I went to the American consulate to regularise my -passports, I was capable of expecting the American consulate -to be American. Embassies and consulates are by tradition -like islands of the soil for which they stand; and I have -often found the tradition corresponding to a truth. I have -seen the unmistakable French official living on omelettes -and a little wine and serving his sacred abstractions under -the last palm-trees fringing a desert. In the heat and noise -of quarrelling Turks and Egyptians, I have come suddenly, as -with the cool shock of his own shower-bath, on the listless -amiability of the English gentleman. The officials I -interviewed were very American, especially in being very -polite; for whatever may have been the mood or meaning of -Martin Chuzzlewit, I have always found Americans by far the -politest people in the world. They put in my hands a form to -be filled up, to all appearances like other forms I had -filled up in other passport offices. But in reality it was -very different from any form I had ever filled up in my -life. At least it was a little like a freer form of the game -called 'Confessions' which my friends and I invented in our -youth; an examination paper containing questions like, 'If -you saw a rhinoceros in the front garden, what would you -do?' One of my friends, I remember, wrote, 'Take the -pledge.' But that is another story, and might bring Mr. +I have never managed to lose my old conviction that travel narrows the +mind. At least a man must make a double effort of moral humility and +imaginative energy to prevent it from narrowing his mind. Indeed there +is something touching and even tragic about the thought of the +thoughtless tourist, who might have stayed at home loving Laplanders, +embracing Chinamen, and clasping Patagonians to his heart in Hampstead +or Surbiton, but for his blind and suicidal impulse to go and see what +they looked like. This is not meant for non sense; still less is it +meant for the silliest sort of nonsense, which is cynicism. The human +bond that he feels at home is not an illusion. On the contrary, it is +rather an inner reality. Man is inside all men. In a real sense any man +may be inside any men. But to travel is to leave the inside and draw +dangerously near the outside. So long as he thought of men in the +abstract, like naked toiling figures in some classic frieze, merely as +those who labour and love their children and die, he was thinking the +fundamental truth about them. By going to look at their unfamiliar +manners and customs he is inviting them to dis guise themselves in +fantastic masks and costumes. Many modern internationalists talk as if +men of different nationalities had only to meet and mix and understand +each other. In reality that is the moment of supreme danger---the moment +when they meet. We might shiver, as at the old euphemism by which a +meeting meant a duel. + +Travel ought to combine amusement with instruction; but most travellers +are so much amused that they refuse to be instructed. I do not blame +them for being amused; it is perfectly natural to be amused at a +Dutchman for being Dutch or a Chinaman for being Chinese. Where they are +wrong is that they take their own amusement seriously. They base on it +their serious ideas of inter national instruction. It was said that the +Englishman takes his pleasures sadly; and the pleasure of despising +foreigners is one which he takes most sadly of all. He comes to scoff +and does not remain to pray, but rather to excommunicate. Hence in +international relations there is far too little laughing, and far too +much sneering. But I believe that there is a better way which largely +consists of laughter; a form of friendship between nations which is +actually founded on differences. To hint at some such better way is the +only excuse of this book. + +Let me begin my American impressions with two impressions I had before I +went to America. One was an incident and the other an idea; and when +taken together they illustrate the attitude I mean. The first principle +is that nobody should be ashamed of thinking a thing funny because it is +foreign; the second is that he should be ashamed of thinking it wrong +because it is funny. The reaction of his senses and superficial habits +of mind against something new, and to him abnormal, is a perfectly +healthy reaction. But the mind which imagines that mere unfamiliarity +can possibly prove anything about inferiority is a very inadequate mind. +It is inadequate even in criticising things that may really be inferior +to the things involved here. It is far better to laugh at a Negro for +having a black face than to sneer at him for having a sloping skull. It +is proportionally even more prefer able to laugh rather than judge in +dealing with highly civilised peoples. Therefore I put at the beginning +two working examples of what I felt about America before I saw it; the +sort of thing that a man has a right to enjoy as a joke, and the sort of +thing he has a duty to under stand and respect, because it is the +explanation of the joke. + +When I went to the American consulate to regularise my passports, I was +capable of expecting the American consulate to be American. Embassies +and consulates are by tradition like islands of the soil for which they +stand; and I have often found the tradition corresponding to a truth. I +have seen the unmistakable French official living on omelettes and a +little wine and serving his sacred abstractions under the last +palm-trees fringing a desert. In the heat and noise of quarrelling Turks +and Egyptians, I have come suddenly, as with the cool shock of his own +shower-bath, on the listless amiability of the English gentleman. The +officials I interviewed were very American, especially in being very +polite; for whatever may have been the mood or meaning of Martin +Chuzzlewit, I have always found Americans by far the politest people in +the world. They put in my hands a form to be filled up, to all +appearances like other forms I had filled up in other passport offices. +But in reality it was very different from any form I had ever filled up +in my life. At least it was a little like a freer form of the game +called 'Confessions' which my friends and I invented in our youth; an +examination paper containing questions like, 'If you saw a rhinoceros in +the front garden, what would you do?' One of my friends, I remember, +wrote, 'Take the pledge.' But that is another story, and might bring Mr. Pussyfoot Johnson on the scene before his time. -One of the questions on the paper was, 'Are you an -anarchist?' To which a detached philosopher would naturally -feel inclined to answer, 'What the devil has that to do with -you? Are you an atheist?' along with some playful efforts to -cross-examine the official about what constitutes an *άρχη*. -Then there was the question, 'Are you in favour of -subverting the government of the United States by force?' -Against this I should write, 'I prefer to answer that -question at the end of my tour and not the beginning .'The -inquisitor, in his more than morbid curiosity, had then -written down, 'Are you a polygamist?' The answer to this is, -'No such luck' or 'Not such a fool,' according to our -experience of the other sex. But perhaps a better answer -would be that given to W. T. Stead when he circulated the -rhetorical question, 'Shall I slay my brother Boer?'--the -answer that ran, 'Never interfere in family matters.' But -among many things that amused me almost to the point of -treating the form thus disrespectfully, the most amusing was -the thought of the ruthless outlaw who should feel compelled -to treat it respectfully. I like to think of the foreign -desperado, seeking to slip into America with official papers -under official protection, and sitting down to write with a -beautiful gravity, 'I am an anarchist. I hate you all and -wish to destroy you.' Or,' I intend to subvert by force the -government of the United States as soon as possible, -sticking the long sheath-knife in my left trouser-pocket -into Mr. Harding at the earliest opportunity.' Or again, -'Yes, I am a polygamist all right, and my forty-seven wives -are accompanying me on the voyage disguised as secretaries.' -There seems to be a certain simplicity of mind about these -answers; and it is reassuring to know that anarchists and -polygamists are so pure and good that the police have only -to ask them questions and they are certain to tell no lies. - -Now that is the model of the sort of foreign practice, -founded on foreign problems, at which a man's first impulse -is naturally to laugh. Nor have I any intention of -apologising for my laughter. A man is perfectly en titled to -laugh at a thing because he happens to find it -incomprehensible. What he has no right to do is to laugh at -it as incomprehensible, and then criticise it as if he -comprehended it. The very fact of its unfamiliarity and -mystery ought to set him thinking about the deeper causes -that make people so different from himself, and that with -out merely assuming that they must be inferior to himself. - -Superficially this is rather a queer business. It would be -easy enough to suggest that in this America has introduced a -quite abnormal spirit of inquisition; an interference with -liberty unknown among all the ancient despot isms and -aristocracies. About that there will be some thing to be -said later; but superficially it is true that this degree of -officialism is comparatively unique. In a journey which I -took only the year before I had occasion to have my papers -passed by governments which many worthy people in the West -would vaguely identify with corsairs and assassins; I have -stood on the other side of Jordan, in the land ruled by a -rude Arab chief, where the police looked so like brigands -that one wondered what the brigands looked like. But they -did not ask me whether I had come to subvert the power of -the Sharif; and they did not exhibit the faintest curiosity -about my personal views on the ethical basis of civil -authority. These ministers of ancient Muslim despotism did -not care about whether I was an anarchist; and naturally -would not have minded if I had been a polygamist. The Arab -chief was probably a polygamist himself. These slaves of -Asiatic autocracy were content, in the old liberal fashion, -to judge me by my actions; they, did not inquire into my -thoughts. They held their power as limited to the limitation -of practice; they did not forbid me to hold a theory. It -would be easy to argue here that Western democracy -persecutes where even Eastern despotism tolerates or -emancipates. It would be easy to develop the fancy that, as -compared with the sultans of Turkey or Egypt, the American -Constitution is a thing like the Spanish Inquisition. - -Only the traveller who stops at that point is totally wrong; -and the traveller only too often does stop at that point. He -has found something to make him laugh, and he will not -suffer it to make him think. And the remedy is not to unsay -what he has said, not even, so to speak, to unlaugh what he -has laughed, not to deny that there is something unique and -curious about this American inquisition into our abstract -opinions, but rather to continue the train of thought, and -follow the admirable advice of Mr. H. G. Wells, who said, -'It is not much good thinking of a thing unless you think it -out.' It is not to deny that American officialism is rather -peculiar on this point, but to inquire what it really is -which makes America peculiar, or which is peculiar to -America. In short, it is to get some ultimate idea of what -America *is*; and the answer to that question will reveal -something much deeper and grander and more worthy of our -intelligent interest. - -It may have seemed something less than a compliment to -compare the American Constitution to the Spanish -Inquisition. But oddly enough, it does involve a truth, and -still more oddly perhaps, it does involve a compliment. The -American Constitution does resemble the Spanish Inquisition -in this: that it is founded on a creed. America is the only -nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed -is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in -the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of -practical politics that is also theoretical politics and -also great literature. It enunciates that all men are equal -in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give -them that justice, and that their authority is for that -reason just. It certainly does condemn anarchism, and it -does also by inference condemn atheism, since it clearly -names the Creator as the ultimate authority from whom these -equal rights are de rived. Nobody expects a modern political -system to proceed logically in the application of such -dogmas, and in the matter of God and Government it is -naturally God whose claim is taken more lightly. The point -is that there is a creed, if not about divine, at least -about human things. - -Now a creed is at once the broadest and the narrowest thing -in the world. In its nature it is as broad as its scheme for -a brotherhood of all men. In its nature it is limited by its -definition of the nature of all men. This was true of the -Christian Church, which was truly said to exclude neither -Jew nor Greek, but which did definitely substitute something -else for Jewish religion or Greek philosophy. It was truly -said to be a net drawing in of all kinds; but a net of a -certain pattern, the pattern of Peter the Fisherman. And -this is true even of the most disastrous distortions or -degradations of that creed; and true among others of the -Spanish Inquisition. It may have been narrow about theology, -it could not confess to being narrow about nationality or -ethnology. The Span ish Inquisition might be admittedly -Inquisitorial; but the Spanish Inquisition could not be -merely Spanish. Such a Spaniard, even when he was narrower -than his own creed, had to be broader than his own empire. -He might burn a philosopher because he was heterodox; but he -must accept a barbarian because he was orthodox. And we see, -even in modern times, that the same Church which is blamed -for making sages heretics is also blamed for making savages -priests. Now in a much vaguer and more evolutionary fashion, -there is something of the same idea at the back of the great -American experiment; the experiment of a democracy of -diverse races which has been compared to a melting-pot. But -even that metaphor implies that the pot itself is of a -certain shape and a certain substance; a pretty solid -substance. The melting-pot must not melt. The original shape -was traced on the lines of Jeffersonian democracy; and it -will remain in that shape until it becomes shapeless. -America invites all men to become citizens; but it implies -the dogma that there is such a thing as citizenship. Only, -so far as its primary ideal is concerned, its exclusiveness -is religious because it is not racial. The missionary can -condemn a cannibal, precisely because he cannot condemn a -Sandwich Islander. And in something of the same spirit the -American may exclude a polygamist, precisely because he can -not exclude a Turk. - -Now for America this is no idle theory. It may have been -theoretical, though it was thoroughly sincere, when that -great Virginian gentleman declared it in surroundings that -still had something of the character of an English -countryside. It is not merely theoretical now. There is -nothing to prevent America being literally invaded by Turks, -as she is invaded by Jews or Bulgarians. In the most -exquisitely inconsequent of the *Bab Ballads*, we are told -concerning Pasha Bailey Ben:-- +One of the questions on the paper was, 'Are you an anarchist?' To which +a detached philosopher would naturally feel inclined to answer, 'What +the devil has that to do with you? Are you an atheist?' along with some +playful efforts to cross-examine the official about what constitutes an +*άρχη*. Then there was the question, 'Are you in favour of subverting +the government of the United States by force?' Against this I should +write, 'I prefer to answer that question at the end of my tour and not +the beginning .'The inquisitor, in his more than morbid curiosity, had +then written down, 'Are you a polygamist?' The answer to this is, 'No +such luck' or 'Not such a fool,' according to our experience of the +other sex. But perhaps a better answer would be that given to W. T. +Stead when he circulated the rhetorical question, 'Shall I slay my +brother Boer?'--the answer that ran, 'Never interfere in family +matters.' But among many things that amused me almost to the point of +treating the form thus disrespectfully, the most amusing was the thought +of the ruthless outlaw who should feel compelled to treat it +respectfully. I like to think of the foreign desperado, seeking to slip +into America with official papers under official protection, and sitting +down to write with a beautiful gravity, 'I am an anarchist. I hate you +all and wish to destroy you.' Or,' I intend to subvert by force the +government of the United States as soon as possible, sticking the long +sheath-knife in my left trouser-pocket into Mr. Harding at the earliest +opportunity.' Or again, 'Yes, I am a polygamist all right, and my +forty-seven wives are accompanying me on the voyage disguised as +secretaries.' There seems to be a certain simplicity of mind about these +answers; and it is reassuring to know that anarchists and polygamists +are so pure and good that the police have only to ask them questions and +they are certain to tell no lies. + +Now that is the model of the sort of foreign practice, founded on +foreign problems, at which a man's first impulse is naturally to laugh. +Nor have I any intention of apologising for my laughter. A man is +perfectly en titled to laugh at a thing because he happens to find it +incomprehensible. What he has no right to do is to laugh at it as +incomprehensible, and then criticise it as if he comprehended it. The +very fact of its unfamiliarity and mystery ought to set him thinking +about the deeper causes that make people so different from himself, and +that with out merely assuming that they must be inferior to himself. + +Superficially this is rather a queer business. It would be easy enough +to suggest that in this America has introduced a quite abnormal spirit +of inquisition; an interference with liberty unknown among all the +ancient despot isms and aristocracies. About that there will be some +thing to be said later; but superficially it is true that this degree of +officialism is comparatively unique. In a journey which I took only the +year before I had occasion to have my papers passed by governments which +many worthy people in the West would vaguely identify with corsairs and +assassins; I have stood on the other side of Jordan, in the land ruled +by a rude Arab chief, where the police looked so like brigands that one +wondered what the brigands looked like. But they did not ask me whether +I had come to subvert the power of the Sharif; and they did not exhibit +the faintest curiosity about my personal views on the ethical basis of +civil authority. These ministers of ancient Muslim despotism did not +care about whether I was an anarchist; and naturally would not have +minded if I had been a polygamist. The Arab chief was probably a +polygamist himself. These slaves of Asiatic autocracy were content, in +the old liberal fashion, to judge me by my actions; they, did not +inquire into my thoughts. They held their power as limited to the +limitation of practice; they did not forbid me to hold a theory. It +would be easy to argue here that Western democracy persecutes where even +Eastern despotism tolerates or emancipates. It would be easy to develop +the fancy that, as compared with the sultans of Turkey or Egypt, the +American Constitution is a thing like the Spanish Inquisition. + +Only the traveller who stops at that point is totally wrong; and the +traveller only too often does stop at that point. He has found something +to make him laugh, and he will not suffer it to make him think. And the +remedy is not to unsay what he has said, not even, so to speak, to +unlaugh what he has laughed, not to deny that there is something unique +and curious about this American inquisition into our abstract opinions, +but rather to continue the train of thought, and follow the admirable +advice of Mr. H. G. Wells, who said, 'It is not much good thinking of a +thing unless you think it out.' It is not to deny that American +officialism is rather peculiar on this point, but to inquire what it +really is which makes America peculiar, or which is peculiar to America. +In short, it is to get some ultimate idea of what America *is*; and the +answer to that question will reveal something much deeper and grander +and more worthy of our intelligent interest. + +It may have seemed something less than a compliment to compare the +American Constitution to the Spanish Inquisition. But oddly enough, it +does involve a truth, and still more oddly perhaps, it does involve a +compliment. The American Constitution does resemble the Spanish +Inquisition in this: that it is founded on a creed. America is the only +nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth +with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of +Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also +theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all +men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give +them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It +certainly does condemn anarchism, and it does also by inference condemn +atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority +from whom these equal rights are de rived. Nobody expects a modern +political system to proceed logically in the application of such dogmas, +and in the matter of God and Government it is naturally God whose claim +is taken more lightly. The point is that there is a creed, if not about +divine, at least about human things. + +Now a creed is at once the broadest and the narrowest thing in the +world. In its nature it is as broad as its scheme for a brotherhood of +all men. In its nature it is limited by its definition of the nature of +all men. This was true of the Christian Church, which was truly said to +exclude neither Jew nor Greek, but which did definitely substitute +something else for Jewish religion or Greek philosophy. It was truly +said to be a net drawing in of all kinds; but a net of a certain +pattern, the pattern of Peter the Fisherman. And this is true even of +the most disastrous distortions or degradations of that creed; and true +among others of the Spanish Inquisition. It may have been narrow about +theology, it could not confess to being narrow about nationality or +ethnology. The Span ish Inquisition might be admittedly Inquisitorial; +but the Spanish Inquisition could not be merely Spanish. Such a +Spaniard, even when he was narrower than his own creed, had to be +broader than his own empire. He might burn a philosopher because he was +heterodox; but he must accept a barbarian because he was orthodox. And +we see, even in modern times, that the same Church which is blamed for +making sages heretics is also blamed for making savages priests. Now in +a much vaguer and more evolutionary fashion, there is something of the +same idea at the back of the great American experiment; the experiment +of a democracy of diverse races which has been compared to a +melting-pot. But even that metaphor implies that the pot itself is of a +certain shape and a certain substance; a pretty solid substance. The +melting-pot must not melt. The original shape was traced on the lines of +Jeffersonian democracy; and it will remain in that shape until it +becomes shapeless. America invites all men to become citizens; but it +implies the dogma that there is such a thing as citizenship. Only, so +far as its primary ideal is concerned, its exclusiveness is religious +because it is not racial. The missionary can condemn a cannibal, +precisely because he cannot condemn a Sandwich Islander. And in +something of the same spirit the American may exclude a polygamist, +precisely because he can not exclude a Turk. + +Now for America this is no idle theory. It may have been theoretical, +though it was thoroughly sincere, when that great Virginian gentleman +declared it in surroundings that still had something of the character of +an English countryside. It is not merely theoretical now. There is +nothing to prevent America being literally invaded by Turks, as she is +invaded by Jews or Bulgarians. In the most exquisitely inconsequent of +the *Bab Ballads*, we are told concerning Pasha Bailey Ben:-- > One morning knocked at half-past eight > @@ -266,3003 +226,2528 @@ concerning Pasha Bailey Ben:-- > > Red Indians are extremely rare. -But the converse need by no means be true. There is nothing -in the nature of things to prevent an emigration of Turks -increasing and multiplying on the plains where the Red -Indians wandered; there is nothing to necessitate the Turks -being extremely rare. The Red Indians, alas, arc likely to -be rarer. And as I much prefer Red Indians to Turks, not to -mention Jews, I speak without prejudice; but the point here -is that America, partly by original theory and partly by -historical accident, does lie open to racial admixtures -which most countries would think incongruous or comic. That -is why it is only fair to read any American definitions or -rules in a certain light, and relatively to a rather unique -position. It is not fair to compare the position of those -who may meet Turks in the back street with that of those who -have never met Turks except in the *Bab Ballads*. It is not -fair simply to compare America with England in its -regulations about the Turk. In short, it is not fair to do -what almost every Englishman probably does; to look at the -American international examination paper, and laugh and be -satisfied with saying, 'We don't have any of that nonsense -in England.' - -We do not have any of that nonsense in England be cause we -have never attempted to have any of that philosophy in -England. And, above all, because we have the enormous -advantage of feeling it natural to be national, because -there is nothing else to be. England in these days is not -well governed; England is not well educated; England suffers -from wealth and poverty that are not well distributed. But -England is English; *esto perpetua*. England is English as -France is French or Ireland is Irish; the great mass of men -taking certain national traditions for granted. Now this -gives us a totally different and a very much easier task. We -have not got an inquisition, because we have not got a -creed; but it is arguable that we do not need a creed, -because we have got a character. In any of the old nations -the national unity is preserved by the national type. -Because we have a type we do not need to have a test. - -Take that innocent question, 'Are you an anarchist?' which -is intrinsically quite as impudent as 'Are you an optimist?' -or 'Are you a philanthropist?' I am not discussing here -whether these things are right, but whether most of us are -in a position to know them rightly. Now it is quite true -that most Englishmen do not find it necessary to go about -all day asking each other whether they are anarchists. It is -quite true that the phrase occurs on no British forms that I -have seen. But this is not only because most of the -Englishmen are not anarchists. It is even more because even -the anarchists are Englishmen. For instance, it would be -easy to make fun of the American formula by noting that the -cap would fit all sorts of bald academic heads. It might -well be maintained that Herbert Spencer was an anarchist. It -is practically certain that Auberon Herbert was an -anarchist. But Herbert Spencer was an extraordinary typical -Englishman of the Nonconformist middle class. And Auberon -Herbert was an extraordinarily typical English aristocrat of -the old and genuine aristocracy. Every one knew in his head -that the squire would not throw a bomb at the Queen, and the -Nonconformist would not throw a bomb at anybody. Every one -knew that there was something subconscious in a man like -Auberon Herbert, which would have come out only in throwing -bombs at the enemies of England; as it did come out in his -son and namesake, the generous and unforgotten, who fell -flinging bombs from the sky far beyond the German line. -Every one knows that normally, in the last resort, the -English gentleman is patriotic. Every one knows that the -English Nonconformist is national even when he denies that -he is patriotic. Nothing is more notable indeed than the -fact that nobody is more stamped with the mark of his own -nation than the man who says that there ought to be no -nations. Somebody called Cobden the International Man; but -no man could be more English than Cobden. Everybody -recognises Tolstoy as the iconoclast of all patriotism; but -nobody could be more Russian than Tolstoy. In the old -countries where there are these national types, the types -may be allowed to hold any theories. Even if they hold -certain theories they are unlikely to do certain things. So -the conscientious objector, in the English sense, may be and -is one of the peculiar by-products of England. But the -conscientious objector will probably have a conscientious -objection to throwing bombs. - -Now I am very far from intending to imply that these -American tests are good tests or that there is no danger of -tyranny becoming the temptation of America. I shall have -something to say later on about that temptation or tendency. -Nor do I say that they apply consistently this conception of -a nation with the soul of a church, protected by religious -and not racial selection. If they did apply that principle -consistently, they would have to exclude pessimists and rich -cynics who deny the democratic ideal; an excellent thing but -a rather improbable one. What I say is that when we realize -that this principle exists at all, we see the whole position -in a totally different perspective. We say that the -Americans arc doing something heroic or doing something in -sane, or doing it in an unworkable or unworthy fashion, -instead of simply wondering what the devil they are doing. +But the converse need by no means be true. There is nothing in the +nature of things to prevent an emigration of Turks increasing and +multiplying on the plains where the Red Indians wandered; there is +nothing to necessitate the Turks being extremely rare. The Red Indians, +alas, arc likely to be rarer. And as I much prefer Red Indians to Turks, +not to mention Jews, I speak without prejudice; but the point here is +that America, partly by original theory and partly by historical +accident, does lie open to racial admixtures which most countries would +think incongruous or comic. That is why it is only fair to read any +American definitions or rules in a certain light, and relatively to a +rather unique position. It is not fair to compare the position of those +who may meet Turks in the back street with that of those who have never +met Turks except in the *Bab Ballads*. It is not fair simply to compare +America with England in its regulations about the Turk. In short, it is +not fair to do what almost every Englishman probably does; to look at +the American international examination paper, and laugh and be satisfied +with saying, 'We don't have any of that nonsense in England.' + +We do not have any of that nonsense in England be cause we have never +attempted to have any of that philosophy in England. And, above all, +because we have the enormous advantage of feeling it natural to be +national, because there is nothing else to be. England in these days is +not well governed; England is not well educated; England suffers from +wealth and poverty that are not well distributed. But England is +English; *esto perpetua*. England is English as France is French or +Ireland is Irish; the great mass of men taking certain national +traditions for granted. Now this gives us a totally different and a very +much easier task. We have not got an inquisition, because we have not +got a creed; but it is arguable that we do not need a creed, because we +have got a character. In any of the old nations the national unity is +preserved by the national type. Because we have a type we do not need to +have a test. + +Take that innocent question, 'Are you an anarchist?' which is +intrinsically quite as impudent as 'Are you an optimist?' or 'Are you a +philanthropist?' I am not discussing here whether these things are +right, but whether most of us are in a position to know them rightly. +Now it is quite true that most Englishmen do not find it necessary to go +about all day asking each other whether they are anarchists. It is quite +true that the phrase occurs on no British forms that I have seen. But +this is not only because most of the Englishmen are not anarchists. It +is even more because even the anarchists are Englishmen. For instance, +it would be easy to make fun of the American formula by noting that the +cap would fit all sorts of bald academic heads. It might well be +maintained that Herbert Spencer was an anarchist. It is practically +certain that Auberon Herbert was an anarchist. But Herbert Spencer was +an extraordinary typical Englishman of the Nonconformist middle class. +And Auberon Herbert was an extraordinarily typical English aristocrat of +the old and genuine aristocracy. Every one knew in his head that the +squire would not throw a bomb at the Queen, and the Nonconformist would +not throw a bomb at anybody. Every one knew that there was something +subconscious in a man like Auberon Herbert, which would have come out +only in throwing bombs at the enemies of England; as it did come out in +his son and namesake, the generous and unforgotten, who fell flinging +bombs from the sky far beyond the German line. Every one knows that +normally, in the last resort, the English gentleman is patriotic. Every +one knows that the English Nonconformist is national even when he denies +that he is patriotic. Nothing is more notable indeed than the fact that +nobody is more stamped with the mark of his own nation than the man who +says that there ought to be no nations. Somebody called Cobden the +International Man; but no man could be more English than Cobden. +Everybody recognises Tolstoy as the iconoclast of all patriotism; but +nobody could be more Russian than Tolstoy. In the old countries where +there are these national types, the types may be allowed to hold any +theories. Even if they hold certain theories they are unlikely to do +certain things. So the conscientious objector, in the English sense, may +be and is one of the peculiar by-products of England. But the +conscientious objector will probably have a conscientious objection to +throwing bombs. + +Now I am very far from intending to imply that these American tests are +good tests or that there is no danger of tyranny becoming the temptation +of America. I shall have something to say later on about that temptation +or tendency. Nor do I say that they apply consistently this conception +of a nation with the soul of a church, protected by religious and not +racial selection. If they did apply that principle consistently, they +would have to exclude pessimists and rich cynics who deny the democratic +ideal; an excellent thing but a rather improbable one. What I say is +that when we realize that this principle exists at all, we see the whole +position in a totally different perspective. We say that the Americans +arc doing something heroic or doing something in sane, or doing it in an +unworkable or unworthy fashion, instead of simply wondering what the +devil they are doing. When we realise the democratic design of such a cosmopolitan -commonwealth, and compare it with our insular reliance or -instincts, we see at once why such a thing has to be not -only democratic but dogmatic. We see why in some points it -tends to be inquisitive or intolerant. Any one can see the -practical point by merely transferring into private life a -problem like that of the two academic anarchists, who might -by a coincidence be called the two Herberts. Suppose a man -said, Buffle, my old Oxford tutor, wants to meet you; 'I -wish you'd ask him down for a day or two. He has the oddest -opinions, but he's very stimulating.' It would not occur to -us that the oddity of the Oxford don's opinions would lead -him to blow up the house; because the Oxford don is an -English type. Suppose some body said, 'Do let me bring old -Colonel Robinson down for the week-end; he's a bit of crank -but quite interesting.' We should not anticipate the colonel -running amuck with a carving-knife and offering up human -sacrifice in the garden; for these are not among the daily -habits of an old English colonel; and because we know his -habits, we do not care about his opinions. But suppose -somebody offered to bring a person from the interior of -Kamchatka to stay with us for a week or two, and added that -his religion was a very extraordinary religion, we should -feel a little more inquisitive about what kind of religion -it was. If somebody wished to add a Hairy Ainu to the family -party at Christmas, explaining that his point of view was so -individual and interesting, we should want to know a little -more about it and him. We should be tempted to draw up as -fantastic an examination paper as that presented to the -emigrant going to America. We should ask what a Hairy Ainu -was, and how hairy he was, and above all what sort of Ainu -he was. Would etiquette require us to ask him to bring his -wife? And if we did ask him to bring his wife, how many -wives would he bring? In short, as in the American formula, -is he a polygamist? Merely as a point of housekeeping and -accommodation the question is not irrelevant. Is the Hairy -Ainu content with hair, or does he wear any clothes? If the -police insist on his wearing clothes, will he recognise the -authority of the police? In short, as in the American -formula, is he an anarchist? - -Of course this generalisation about America, like other -historical things, is subject to all sorts of cross -divisions and exceptions, to be considered in their place. -The negroes are a special problem, because of what white men -in the past did to them. The Japanese are a special problem, -because of what men fear that they in the future may do to -white men. The Jews are a special problem, because of what -they and the Gentiles, in the past, present and future, seem -to have the habit of doing to each other. But the point is -not that nothing exists in America except this idea; it is -that nothing like this idea exists anywhere except in -America. This idea is not internationalism; on the contrary -it is decidedly nationalism. The Americans are very -patriotic, and wish to make their new citizens patriotic -Americans. But it is the idea of making a new nation -literally out of any old nation that comes along. In a word, -what is unique is not America but what is called -Americanisation. We understand nothing till we understand -the amazing ambition to Americanise the Kamchatkan and the -Hairy Ainu. We are not trying to Anglicise thousands of -French cooks or Italian organ grinders. France is not trying -to Gallicize thousands of English trippers or German -prisoners of war. America is the one place in the world -where this process, healthy or unhealthy, possible or -impossible, is going on. And the process, as I have pointed -out, is *not* internationalisation. It would be truer to say -it is the nationalisation of the internationalised. It is -making a home out of vagabonds and a nation out of exiles. -This is what at once illuminates and softens the moral -regulations which we may really think faddist or fanatical. -They are abnormal; but in one sense this experiment of a -home for the homeless is abnormal. In short, it has long -been recognised that America was an asylum. It is only since -Prohibition that it has looked a little like a lunatic -asylum. - -It was before sailing for America, as I have said, that I -stood with the official paper in my hand and these thoughts -in my head. It was while I stood on English soil that I -passed through the two stages of smiling and then -sympathising; of realising that my momentary amusement, at -being asked if I were not an Anarchist, was partly due to -the fact that I was not an American. And in truth I think -there are some things a man ought to know about America -before he sees it. What we know of a country beforehand may -not affect what we see that it is; but it will vitally -affect what we appreciate it for being, because it will -vitally affect what we expected it to be. I can honestly say -that I had never expected America to be what nine-tenths of -the newspaper critics invariably assume it to be. I never -thought it was a sort of Anglo-Saxon colony, knowing that it -was more and more thronged with crowds of very different -colonists. During the war I felt that the very worst -propaganda for the Allies was the propaganda for the -Anglo-Saxons. I tried to point out that in one way America -is nearer to Europe than England is. if she is not nearer to -Bohemia, she is nearer to Bohemians. In my New York hotel -the head waiter in the dining-room was a Bohemian; the head -waiter in the grill room was a Bulgarian. Americans have -nationalities at the end of the street which for us are at -the ends of the earth. I did my best to persuade my -countrymen not to appeal to the American as if he were a -rather dowdy Englishman, who had been rusticating in the -provinces and had not heard the latest news about the town. -I shall record later some of those arresting realities which -the traveller does not expect; and which, in some cases I -fear, he actually does not see because he does not expect. I -shall try to do justice to the psychology of what Mr. Belloc -has called 'Eye-Openers in Travel.' But there are some -things about America that a man ought to see even with his -eyes shut. One is that a state that came into existence -solely through its repudiation and abhorrence of the British -Crown is not likely to be a respectful copy of the British -Constitution. Another is that the chief mark of the -Declaration of Independence is something that is not only -absent from the British Constitution, but something which -all our constitutionalists have in variably thanked God, -with the jolliest boasting and bragging, that they had kept -out of the British Constitution. It is the thing called -abstraction or academic logic. It is the thing which such -jolly people call theory; and which those who can practice -it call thought. And the theory or thought is the very last -to which English people are accustomed, either by their -social structure or their traditional teaching. It is the -theory of equality. It is the pure classic conception that -no man must aspire to be anything more than a citizen, and -that no man should endure to be anything less. It is by no -means especially intelligible to an Englishman, who tends at -his best to the virtues of the gentleman and at his worst to -the vices of the snob. The idealism of England, or if you -will the romance of England, has not been primarily the -romance of the citizen. But the idealism of America, we may -safely say, still revolves entirely round the citizen and -his romance. The realities are quite an other matter, and we -shall consider in its place the question of whether the -ideal will be able to shape the realities or will merely be -beaten shapeless by them. The ideal is besieged by -inequalities of the most towering and insane description in -the industrial and economic field. It may be devoured by -modern capitalism, perhaps the worst inequality that ever -existed among men. Of all that we shall speak later. But -citizenship is still the American ideal; there is an army of -actualities opposed to that ideal; but there is no ideal -opposed to that ideal. American plutocracy has never got -itself respected like English aristocracy. Citizenship is -the American ideal; and it has never been the English ideal. -But it is surely an ideal that may stir some imaginative -generosity and respect in an Englishman, if he will -condescend to be also a man. In this vision of moulding many -peoples into the visible image of the citizen, he may see a -spiritual adventure which he can admire from the outside at -least as much as he admires the valour of the Moslems and -much more than he admires the virtue of the Middle Ages. He -need not set himself to develop equality, but he need not -set himself to misunderstand it. He may at least under stand -what Jefferson and Lincoln meant, and he may possibly find -some assistance in this task by reading what they said. He -may realise that equality is not some crude fairy tale about -all men being equally tall or equally tricky; which we not -only cannot believe but cannot believe in anybody believing. -It is an absolute of morals by which all men have a value -invariable and indestructible and a dignity as intangible as -death. He may at least be a philosopher and see that -equality is an idea; and not merely one of these soft-headed -sceptics who, having risen by low tricks to high places, -drink bad champagne in tawdry hotel lounges, and tell each -other twenty times over, with unwearied iteration, that -equality is an illusion. +commonwealth, and compare it with our insular reliance or instincts, we +see at once why such a thing has to be not only democratic but dogmatic. +We see why in some points it tends to be inquisitive or intolerant. Any +one can see the practical point by merely transferring into private life +a problem like that of the two academic anarchists, who might by a +coincidence be called the two Herberts. Suppose a man said, Buffle, my +old Oxford tutor, wants to meet you; 'I wish you'd ask him down for a +day or two. He has the oddest opinions, but he's very stimulating.' It +would not occur to us that the oddity of the Oxford don's opinions would +lead him to blow up the house; because the Oxford don is an English +type. Suppose some body said, 'Do let me bring old Colonel Robinson down +for the week-end; he's a bit of crank but quite interesting.' We should +not anticipate the colonel running amuck with a carving-knife and +offering up human sacrifice in the garden; for these are not among the +daily habits of an old English colonel; and because we know his habits, +we do not care about his opinions. But suppose somebody offered to bring +a person from the interior of Kamchatka to stay with us for a week or +two, and added that his religion was a very extraordinary religion, we +should feel a little more inquisitive about what kind of religion it +was. If somebody wished to add a Hairy Ainu to the family party at +Christmas, explaining that his point of view was so individual and +interesting, we should want to know a little more about it and him. We +should be tempted to draw up as fantastic an examination paper as that +presented to the emigrant going to America. We should ask what a Hairy +Ainu was, and how hairy he was, and above all what sort of Ainu he was. +Would etiquette require us to ask him to bring his wife? And if we did +ask him to bring his wife, how many wives would he bring? In short, as +in the American formula, is he a polygamist? Merely as a point of +housekeeping and accommodation the question is not irrelevant. Is the +Hairy Ainu content with hair, or does he wear any clothes? If the police +insist on his wearing clothes, will he recognise the authority of the +police? In short, as in the American formula, is he an anarchist? + +Of course this generalisation about America, like other historical +things, is subject to all sorts of cross divisions and exceptions, to be +considered in their place. The negroes are a special problem, because of +what white men in the past did to them. The Japanese are a special +problem, because of what men fear that they in the future may do to +white men. The Jews are a special problem, because of what they and the +Gentiles, in the past, present and future, seem to have the habit of +doing to each other. But the point is not that nothing exists in America +except this idea; it is that nothing like this idea exists anywhere +except in America. This idea is not internationalism; on the contrary it +is decidedly nationalism. The Americans are very patriotic, and wish to +make their new citizens patriotic Americans. But it is the idea of +making a new nation literally out of any old nation that comes along. In +a word, what is unique is not America but what is called +Americanisation. We understand nothing till we understand the amazing +ambition to Americanise the Kamchatkan and the Hairy Ainu. We are not +trying to Anglicise thousands of French cooks or Italian organ grinders. +France is not trying to Gallicize thousands of English trippers or +German prisoners of war. America is the one place in the world where +this process, healthy or unhealthy, possible or impossible, is going on. +And the process, as I have pointed out, is *not* internationalisation. +It would be truer to say it is the nationalisation of the +internationalised. It is making a home out of vagabonds and a nation out +of exiles. This is what at once illuminates and softens the moral +regulations which we may really think faddist or fanatical. They are +abnormal; but in one sense this experiment of a home for the homeless is +abnormal. In short, it has long been recognised that America was an +asylum. It is only since Prohibition that it has looked a little like a +lunatic asylum. + +It was before sailing for America, as I have said, that I stood with the +official paper in my hand and these thoughts in my head. It was while I +stood on English soil that I passed through the two stages of smiling +and then sympathising; of realising that my momentary amusement, at +being asked if I were not an Anarchist, was partly due to the fact that +I was not an American. And in truth I think there are some things a man +ought to know about America before he sees it. What we know of a country +beforehand may not affect what we see that it is; but it will vitally +affect what we appreciate it for being, because it will vitally affect +what we expected it to be. I can honestly say that I had never expected +America to be what nine-tenths of the newspaper critics invariably +assume it to be. I never thought it was a sort of Anglo-Saxon colony, +knowing that it was more and more thronged with crowds of very different +colonists. During the war I felt that the very worst propaganda for the +Allies was the propaganda for the Anglo-Saxons. I tried to point out +that in one way America is nearer to Europe than England is. if she is +not nearer to Bohemia, she is nearer to Bohemians. In my New York hotel +the head waiter in the dining-room was a Bohemian; the head waiter in +the grill room was a Bulgarian. Americans have nationalities at the end +of the street which for us are at the ends of the earth. I did my best +to persuade my countrymen not to appeal to the American as if he were a +rather dowdy Englishman, who had been rusticating in the provinces and +had not heard the latest news about the town. I shall record later some +of those arresting realities which the traveller does not expect; and +which, in some cases I fear, he actually does not see because he does +not expect. I shall try to do justice to the psychology of what +Mr. Belloc has called 'Eye-Openers in Travel.' But there are some things +about America that a man ought to see even with his eyes shut. One is +that a state that came into existence solely through its repudiation and +abhorrence of the British Crown is not likely to be a respectful copy of +the British Constitution. Another is that the chief mark of the +Declaration of Independence is something that is not only absent from +the British Constitution, but something which all our constitutionalists +have in variably thanked God, with the jolliest boasting and bragging, +that they had kept out of the British Constitution. It is the thing +called abstraction or academic logic. It is the thing which such jolly +people call theory; and which those who can practice it call thought. +And the theory or thought is the very last to which English people are +accustomed, either by their social structure or their traditional +teaching. It is the theory of equality. It is the pure classic +conception that no man must aspire to be anything more than a citizen, +and that no man should endure to be anything less. It is by no means +especially intelligible to an Englishman, who tends at his best to the +virtues of the gentleman and at his worst to the vices of the snob. The +idealism of England, or if you will the romance of England, has not been +primarily the romance of the citizen. But the idealism of America, we +may safely say, still revolves entirely round the citizen and his +romance. The realities are quite an other matter, and we shall consider +in its place the question of whether the ideal will be able to shape the +realities or will merely be beaten shapeless by them. The ideal is +besieged by inequalities of the most towering and insane description in +the industrial and economic field. It may be devoured by modern +capitalism, perhaps the worst inequality that ever existed among men. Of +all that we shall speak later. But citizenship is still the American +ideal; there is an army of actualities opposed to that ideal; but there +is no ideal opposed to that ideal. American plutocracy has never got +itself respected like English aristocracy. Citizenship is the American +ideal; and it has never been the English ideal. But it is surely an +ideal that may stir some imaginative generosity and respect in an +Englishman, if he will condescend to be also a man. In this vision of +moulding many peoples into the visible image of the citizen, he may see +a spiritual adventure which he can admire from the outside at least as +much as he admires the valour of the Moslems and much more than he +admires the virtue of the Middle Ages. He need not set himself to +develop equality, but he need not set himself to misunderstand it. He +may at least under stand what Jefferson and Lincoln meant, and he may +possibly find some assistance in this task by reading what they said. He +may realise that equality is not some crude fairy tale about all men +being equally tall or equally tricky; which we not only cannot believe +but cannot believe in anybody believing. It is an absolute of morals by +which all men have a value invariable and indestructible and a dignity +as intangible as death. He may at least be a philosopher and see that +equality is an idea; and not merely one of these soft-headed sceptics +who, having risen by low tricks to high places, drink bad champagne in +tawdry hotel lounges, and tell each other twenty times over, with +unwearied iteration, that equality is an illusion. In truth it is inequality that is the illusion. The extreme -disproportion between men, that we seem to see in life, is a -thing of changing lights and lengthening shadows, a twilight -full of fancies and distortions. We find a man famous and -cannot live long enough to find him forgotten; we see a race -dominant and cannot linger to see it decay. It is the -experience of men that always returns to the equality of -men; it is the average that ultimately justifies the average -man. It is when men have seen and suffered much and come at -the end of more elaborate experiments, that they see men -under an equal light of death and daily laughter; and none -the less mysterious for being many. Nor is it in vain that -these Western democrats have sought the blazonry of their -flag in that great multitude of immortal lights that endure -behind the fires we see, and gathered them into the corner -of Old Glory whose ground is like the glittering night. For -veritably, in the spirit as well as in the symbol, suns and -moons and meteors pass and fill our skies with a fleeting -and almost theatrical conflagration; and wherever the old +disproportion between men, that we seem to see in life, is a thing of +changing lights and lengthening shadows, a twilight full of fancies and +distortions. We find a man famous and cannot live long enough to find +him forgotten; we see a race dominant and cannot linger to see it decay. +It is the experience of men that always returns to the equality of men; +it is the average that ultimately justifies the average man. It is when +men have seen and suffered much and come at the end of more elaborate +experiments, that they see men under an equal light of death and daily +laughter; and none the less mysterious for being many. Nor is it in vain +that these Western democrats have sought the blazonry of their flag in +that great multitude of immortal lights that endure behind the fires we +see, and gathered them into the corner of Old Glory whose ground is like +the glittering night. For veritably, in the spirit as well as in the +symbol, suns and moons and meteors pass and fill our skies with a +fleeting and almost theatrical conflagration; and wherever the old shadow stoops upon the earth, the stars return. # A Meditation in a New York Hotel -All this must begin with an apology and not an apologia. -When I went wandering about the States disguised as a -lecturer, I was well aware that I was not sufficiently well -disguised to be a spy. I was even in the worst possible -position to be a sight-seer. A lecturer to American -audiences can hardly be in the holiday mood of a sight-seer. -It is rather the audience that is sight-seeing; even if it -is seeing a rather melancholy sight. Some say that people -come to see the lecturer and not to hear him; in which case -it seems rather a pity that he should disturb and dis tress -their minds with a lecture. He might merely exhibit himself -on a stand or platform for a stipulated sum; or be exhibited -like a monster in a menagerie. The circus elephant is not -expected to make a speech. But it is equally true that the -circus elephant is not allowed to write a book. His -impressions of travel would be somewhat sketchy and perhaps -a little over-specialised. In merely travelling from circus -to circus he would, so to speak, move in rather narrow -circles. Jumbo the great elephant (with whom I am hardly so -ambitious as to compare myself), before he eventually went -to the Barnum show, passed a consider able and I trust happy -part of his life in the Regent's Park. But if he had written -a book on England, founded on his impressions of the Zoo, it -might have been a little disproportionate and even -misleading in its version of the flora and fauna of that -country. He might imagine that lions and leopards were -commoner than they are in our hedgerows and country lanes, -or that the head and neck of a giraffe was as native to our -landscapes as a village spire. And that is why I apologise -in anticipation for a probable lack of proportion in this -work. Like the elephant, I may have seen too much of a -special enclosure where a special sort of lions are gathered -together. I may exaggerate the territorial, as distinct from -the vertical space occupied by the spiritual giraffe; for -the giraffe may surely be regarded as an example of Uplift, -and is even, in a manner of speaking, a high-brow. Above -all, I shall probably make generalisations that are much too -general; and are insufficient through being exaggerative. To -this sort of doubt all my impressions are subject; and among -them the negative generalisation with which I shall begin -this rambling meditation on American hotels. - -In all my American wanderings I never saw such a thing as an -inn. They may exist; but they do not arrest the traveller -upon every road as they do in England and in Europe. The -saloons no longer existed when I was there, owing to the -recent reform which restricted intoxicants to the wealthier -classes. But we feel that the saloons have been there; if -one may so express it, their absence is still present. They -remain in the structure of the streets and the idiom of the -language. But the saloons were not inns. If they had been -inns, it would have been far harder even for the power of -modern plutocracy to root them out. There will be a very -different chase when the White Hart is hunted to the forests -or when the Red Lion turns to bay. But people could not feel -about the American saloon as they will feel about the -English inns. They could not feel that the Prohibitionist, -that vulgar chucker-out, was chucking Chaucer out of the -Tabard and Shakespeare out of the Mermaid. In justice to the -American Prohibitionists it must be realised that they were -not doing quite such desecration; and that many of them felt -the saloon a specially poisonous sort of place. They did -feel that drinking-places were used only as drug-shops. So -they have effected the great reconstruction, by which it -will be necessary to use only drug-shops as drinking-places. -But I am not dealing here with the problem of Prohibition -except in so far as it is involved in the statement that the -saloons were in no sense inns. Secondly, of course, there -are the hotels. There are indeed. There are hotels toppling -to the stars, hotels covering the acre age of villages, -hotels in multitudinous number like a mob of Babylonian or -Assyrian monuments; but the hotels also are not inns. - -Broadly speaking, there is only one hotel in America. The -pattern of it, which is a very rational pattern, is repeated -in cities as remote from each other as the capitals of -European empires. You may find that hotel rising among the -red blooms of the warm spring woods of Nebraska, or whitened -with Canadian snows near the eternal noise of Niagara. And -before touching on this solid and simple pattern itself, I -may remark that the same system of symmetry runs through all -the details of the interior. As one hotel is like another -hotel, so one hotel floor is like another hotel floor. If -the passage outside your bedroom door, or hallway as it is -called, contains, let us say, a small table with a green -vase and a stuffed flamingo, or some trifle of the sort, you -may be perfectly certain that there is exactly the same -table, vase, and flamingo on every one of the thirty-two -landings of that towering habitation. This is where it -differs most perhaps from the crooking landings and -unexpected levels of the old English inns, even when they -call them selves hotels. To me there was something weird, -like a magic multiplication, in the exquisite sameness of -these suites. It seemed to suggest the still atmosphere of -some eerie psychological story. I once myself entertained -the notion of a story, in which a man was to be prevented -from entering his house (the scene of some crime or -calamity) by people who painted and furnished the next house -to look exactly like it; the assimilation going to the most -fantastic lengths, such as altering the numbering of houses -in the street. I came to America and found an hotel fitted -and upholstered throughout for the enactment of my -phantasmal fraud. I offer the skeleton of my story with all -humility to some of the admirable lady writers of detective -stories in America, to Miss Carolyn Wells, or Miss Mary -Roberts Rinehart, or Mrs. A. K. Green of the unforgotten -Leavenworth Case. Surely it might be possible for the -unsophisticated Nimrod K. Moose, of Yellow Dog Flat, to come -to New York and be entangled somehow in this net of -repetitions or recurrences. Surely something tells me that -his beautiful daughter, the Rose of Red Murder Gulch, might -seek for him in vain amid the apparently unmistakable -surroundings of the thirty-second floor, while he was being -quietly butchered by the floor-clerk on the thirty-third -floor, an agent of the Green Claw (that formidable -organisation); and all because the two floors looked exactly -alike to the virginal Western eye. The original point of my -own story was that the man to be entrapped walked into his -own house after all, in spite of it being differently -painted and numbered, simply because he was absent-minded -and used to taking a certain number of mechanical steps. -This would not work in a hotel; because a lift has no -habits. It is typical of the real tameness of machinery, -that even when we talk of a man turning mechanically we only -talk metaphorically; for it is something that a mechanism -cannot do. But I think there is only one real objection to -my story of Mr. Moose in the New York hotel. And that is -unfortunately a rather fatal one. It is that far away in the -remote desolation of Yellow Dog, among those outlying and -outlandish rocks that almost seem to rise beyond the sunset, -there is undoubtedly an hotel of exactly the same sort, with -all its floors exactly the same. - -Anyhow the general plan of the American hotel is commonly -the same, and, as I have said, it is a very sound one so far -as it goes. When I first went into one of the big New York -hotels, the first impression was certainly its bigness. It -was called the Biltmore; and I wondered how many national -humorists had made the obvious comment of wishing they had -built less. But it was not merely the Babylonian size and -scale of such things, it was the way in which they are used. -They are used almost as public streets, or rather as public -squares. My first impression was that I was in some sort of -high street or market-place during a carnival or a -revolution. True, the people looked rather rich for a -revolution and rather grave for a carnival; but they were -congested in great crowds that moved slowly like people -passing through an overcrowded railway station. Even in the -dizzy heights of such a sky-scraper there could not possibly -be room for all those people to sleep in the hotel, or even -to dine in it. And, as a matter of fact, they did nothing -whatever except drift into it and drift out again. Most of -them had no more to do with the hotel than I have with -Buckingham Palace. I have never been in Buckingham Palace, -and I have very seldom, thank God, been in the big hotels of -this type that exist in London or Paris. But I cannot -believe that mobs are perpetually pouring through the Hotel -Cecil or the Savoy in this fashion, calmly coming in at one -door and going out of the other. But this fact is part of -the fundamental structure of the American hotel; it is built -upon a compromise that makes it possible. The whole of the -lower floor is thrown open to the public streets and treated -as a public square. But above it and all round it runs -another floor in the form of a sort of deep gallery, -furnished more luxuriously and looking down on the moving -mobs beneath. No one is allowed on this floor except the -guests or clients of the hotel. As I have been one of them -myself, I trust it is not unsympathetic to compare them to -active anthropoids who can climb trees, and so look down in -safety on the herds or packs of wilder animals wandering and -prowling below. Of course there are modifications of -architectural plan, but they are generally approximations to -it; it is the plan that seems to suit the social life of the -American cities. There is generally something like a ground -floor that is more public, a half-floor or gallery above -that is more private, and above that the bulk of the block -of bedrooms, the huge hive with its innumerable and -identical cells. - -The ladder of ascent in this tower is of course the lift, -or, as it is called, the elevator. With all that we hear o -American hustle and hurry, it is rather strange that -Americans seem to like more than we do to linger upon long -words. And indeed there is an element of delay in their -diction and spirit, very little understood, which I may -discuss elsewhere. Anyhow they say elevator when we say -lift, just as they say automobile when we say motor and -stenographer when we say typist, or sometimes (by a slight -confusion) typewriter. Which reminds me of another story -that never existed, about a man who was accused of having -murdered and dismembered his secretary when he had only -taken his typing machine to pieces; but we must not dwell on -these digressions. The Americans may have another reason for -giving long and ceremonious titles to the lift. When first I -came among them I had a suspicion that they possessed and -practised a new and secret religion, which was the cult of -the elevator. I fancied they worshipped the lift, or at any -rate worshipped in the lift. The details or data of this -suspicion it were now vain to collect, as I have regretfully -abandoned it, except in so far as they illustrate the social -principles underlying the structural plan of the building. -Now an American gentleman invariably takes off his hat in -the lift. He does not take off his hat in the hotel, even if -it is crowded with ladies. But he always so salutes a lady -in the elevator; and this marks the difference of -atmosphere. The lift is a room, but the hotel is a street. -But during my first delusion, of course, I assumed that he -uncovered in this tiny temple merely because he was in -church. There is something about the very word elevator that -expresses a great deal of his vague but idealistic religion. -Perhaps that flying chapel will eventually be -ritualistically decorated like a chapel; possibly with a -symbolic scheme of wings. Perhaps a brief religious service -will be held in the elevator as it ascends; in a few -well-chosen words touching the Utmost for the Highest. -Possibly he would consent even to call the elevator a lift, -if he could call it an uplift. There would be no difficulty, -except what I cannot but regard as the chief moral problem -of all optimistic modernism. I mean the difficulty of -imagining a lift which is free to go up, if it is not also -free to go down. - -I think I know T my American friends and acquaintances too -well to apologise for any levity in these illustrations. -Americans make fun of their own institutions; and their own -journalism is full of such fanciful conjectures. The tall -building is itself artistically akin to the tall story. The -very word skyscraper is an admirable example of an American -lie. But I can testify quite as eagerly to the solid and -sensible advantages of the symmetrical hotel. It is not only -a pattern of vases and stuffed flamingoes; it is also an -equally accurate pattern of cupboards and baths. It is a -dignified and humane custom to have a bathroom attached to -every bedroom; and my impulse to sing the praises of it -brought me once at least into a rather quaint complication. -I think it was in the city of Dayton; anyhow I remember -there was a Laundry Convention going on in the same hotel, -in a room very patriotically and properly festooned with the -stars and stripes, and doubtless full of promise for the -future of laundering. I was interviewed on the roof, within -earshot of this debate, and may have been the victim of some -association or confusion; anyhow, after answering the usual -questions about Labour, the League of Nations, the length of -ladies dresses, and other great matters, I took refuge in a -rhapsody of warm and well-deserved praise of American -bathrooms. The editor, I understand, running a gloomy eye -down the column of his contributor's story, and seeing -nothing but metaphysical terms such as justice, freedom, the -abstract disapproval of sweating, swindling, and the like, -paused at last upon the ablutionary allusion, and his eye -brightened. That's the only copy in the whole thing/ he -said, 'A Bath-Tub in Every Home.' So these words appeared in -enormous letters above my portrait in the paper. It will be -noted that, like many things that practical men make a great -point of, they miss the point. What I had commended as new -and national was a bathroom in every bedroom. Even feudal -and moss-grown England is not entirely ignorant of an -occasional bath-tub in the home. But what gave me great joy -was what followed. I discovered with delight that many -people, glancing rapidly at my portrait with its prodigious -legend, imagined that it was a commercial advertisement, and -that I was a very self---advertising commercial traveller. -When I walked about the streets, I was supposed to be -travelling in bath-tubs. Consider the caption of the -portrait, and you will see how similar it is to the true -commercial slogan: 'We offer a Bath-Tub in Every Home.' And -this charming error was doubtless clinched by the fact that -I had been found haunting the outer courts of the temple of -the ancient guild of Lavenders. I never knew how many shared -the impression; I regret to say that I only traced it with -certainty in two individuals. But I understand that it -included the idea that I had come to the town to attend the -Laundry Convention, and had made an eloquent speech to that -senate, no doubt exhibiting my tubs. - -Such was the penalty of too passionate and unrestrained an -admiration for American bathrooms; yet the connection of -ideas, however inconsequent, does cover the part of social -practice for which these American institutions can really be -praised. About everything like laundry or hot and cold water -there is not only organisation, but what does not always or -perhaps often go with it, efficiency. Americans are -particular about these things of dress and decorum; and it -is a virtue which I very seriously recognise, though I find -it very hard to emulate. But with them it is a virtue; it is -not a mere convention, still less a mere fashion. It is -really related to human dignity rather than to social -superiority. The really glorious thing about the American is -that he does not dress like a gentleman; he dresses like a -citizen or a civilised man. Puritan particularity on certain -points is really detachable from any definite social -ambitions; these things are not a part of getting into -society but merely of keeping out of savagery. Those -millions and millions of middling people, that huge middle -class especially of the Middle West, are not near enough to -any aristocracy even to be sham aristocrats, or to be real -snobs. But their standards are secure; and though I do not -really travel in a bath-tub, or believe in the bath-tub -philosophy and religion, I will not on this matter recoil -misanthropically from them: I prefer the tub of Dayton to -the tub of Diogenes. On these points there is really -something a million times better than efficiency, and that -is something like equality. - -In short, the American hotel is not America; but it is -American. In some respects it is as American as the English -inn is English. And it is symbolic of that society in this -among other things: that it does tend too much to -uniformity; but that that very uniformity disguises not a -little natural dignity. The old Romans boasted that their -republic was a nation of kings. If we really walked abroad -in such a kingdom, we might very well grow tired of the -sight of a crowd of kings, of every man with a gold crown on -his head or an ivory sceptre in his hand. But it is arguable -that we ought not to grow tired of the repetition of crowns -and sceptres, any more than of the repetition of flowers and -stars. The whole imaginative effort of Walt Whitman was -really an effort to absorb and animate these multitudinous -modern repetitions; and Walt Whitman would be quite capable -of including in his lyric litany of optimism a list of the -nine hundred and ninety-nine identical bath-rooms. I do not -sneer at the generous effort of the giant; though I think, -when all is said, that it is criticism of modern machinery -that the effort should be gigantic as well as generous. - -While there is so much repetition there is little repose. It -is the pattern of a kaleidoscope rather than a wall paper; a -pattern of figures running and even leaping like the figures -in a zoetrope. But even in the groups where there was no -hustle there was often something of homelessness. I do not -mean merely that they were not dining at home; but rather -that they were not at home even when dining, and dining at -their favourite hotel. They would frequently start up and -dart from the room at a summons from the telephone. It may -have been fanciful, but I could not help feeling a breath of -home, as from a flap or flutter of St. George's cross, when -I first sat down in a Canadian hostelry, and read the -announcement that no such telephonic or other summonses were -allowed in the dining-room. It may have been a coincidence, -and there may be American hotels with this merciful proviso -and Canadian hotels without it; but the thing was symbolic -even if it was not evidential. I felt as if I stood indeed -upon English soil, in a place where people liked to have -their meals in peace. - -The process of the summons is called 'paging,' and consists -of sending a little boy with a large voice through all the -halls and corridors of the building, making them resound -with a name. The custom is common, of course, in clubs and -hotels even in England; but in England it is a mere whisper -compared with the wail with which the American page repeats -the formula of 'Calling Mr. So and So.' I remember a -particularly crowded *parterre* in the somewhat smoky and -oppressive atmosphere of Pittsburg, through which wandered a -youth with a voice the like of which I have never heard in -the land of the living, a voice like the cry of a lost -spirit, saying again and again for ever, 'Calling -Mr. Anderson.' One felt that he never would find -Mr. Anderson. Perhaps there never had been any Mr. Anderson -to be found. Perhaps he and every one else wandered in an -abyss of bottomless scepticism; and he was but the victim of -one out of numberless nightmares of eternity, as he wandered -a shadow with shadows and wailed by impassable streams. This -is not exactly my philosophy, but I feel sure it was his. -And it is a mood that may frequently visit the mind in the -centres of highly active and successful industrial -civilisation. - -Such are the first idle impressions of the great American -hotel, gained by sitting for the first time in its gallery -and gazing on its drifting crowds with thoughts equally -drifting. The first impression is of something enormous and -rather unnatural, an impression that is gradually tempered -by experience of the kindliness and even the tameness of so -much of that social order. But I should not be recording the -sensations with sincerity, if I did not touch in passing the -note of something unearthly about that vast system to an -insular traveller who sees it for the first time. It is as -if we were wandering in another world among the fixed stars; -or worse still, in an ideal Utopia of the future. - -Yet I am not certain; and perhaps the best of all news is -that nothing is really new. I sometimes have a fancy that -many of these new things in new countries are but the -resurrections of old things which have been wickedly killed -or stupidly stunted in old countries. I have looked over the -sea of little tables in some light and airy open-air cafe; -and my thoughts have gone back to the plain wooden bench and -wooden table that stands solitary and weather-stained -outside so many neglected English inns. We talk of -experimenting in the French café, as of some fresh and -almost impudent innovation. But our fathers had the French -cafe, in the sense of the free-and-easy table in the sun and -air. The only difference was that French democracy was -allowed to develop its café, or multiply its tables, while -English plutocracy prevented any such popular growth. -Perhaps there are other examples of old types and patterns, -lost in the old oligarchy and saved in the new democracies. -I am haunted with a hint that the new structures are not so -very new: and that they remind me of something very old. As -I look from the balcony floors the crowds seem to float away -and the colours to soften and grow pale, and I know I am in -one of the simplest and most ancestral of human habitations. -I am looking down from the old wooden gallery upon the -courtyard of an inn. This new architectural model, which I -have described, is after all one of the oldest European -models, now neglected in Europe and especially in England. -It was the theatre in which were enchanted innumerable -picaresque comedies and romantic plays, with figures ranging -from Sancho Panza to Sam Weller. It served as the apparatus, -like some gigantic toy set up in bricks and timber, for the -ancient and perhaps eternal game of tennis. The very terms -of the original game were taken from the inn courtyard, and -the players scored accordingly as they hit the buttery-hatch -or the roof. Singular speculations hover in my mind as the -scene darkens and the quadrangle below begins to empty in -the last hours of night. Some day perhaps this huge -structure will be found standing in a solitude like a -skeleton; and it will be the skeleton of the Spotted Dog or -the Blue Boar. It will wither and decay until it is worthy -at last to be a tavern. I do not know whether men will play -tennis on its ground floor, with various scores and prizes -for hitting the electric fan, or the lift, or the head -waiter. Perhaps the very words will only remain as part of -some such rustic game. Perhaps the electric fan will no -longer be electric and the elevator will no longer elevate, -and the waiter will only wait to be hit. But at least it is -only by the decay of modern plutocracy, which seems already -to have begun, that the secret of the structure even of this -plutocratic palace can stand revealed. And after long years, -when its lights are extinguished and only the long shadows -inhabit its halls and vestibules, there may come a new noise +All this must begin with an apology and not an apologia. When I went +wandering about the States disguised as a lecturer, I was well aware +that I was not sufficiently well disguised to be a spy. I was even in +the worst possible position to be a sight-seer. A lecturer to American +audiences can hardly be in the holiday mood of a sight-seer. It is +rather the audience that is sight-seeing; even if it is seeing a rather +melancholy sight. Some say that people come to see the lecturer and not +to hear him; in which case it seems rather a pity that he should disturb +and dis tress their minds with a lecture. He might merely exhibit +himself on a stand or platform for a stipulated sum; or be exhibited +like a monster in a menagerie. The circus elephant is not expected to +make a speech. But it is equally true that the circus elephant is not +allowed to write a book. His impressions of travel would be somewhat +sketchy and perhaps a little over-specialised. In merely travelling from +circus to circus he would, so to speak, move in rather narrow circles. +Jumbo the great elephant (with whom I am hardly so ambitious as to +compare myself), before he eventually went to the Barnum show, passed a +consider able and I trust happy part of his life in the Regent's Park. +But if he had written a book on England, founded on his impressions of +the Zoo, it might have been a little disproportionate and even +misleading in its version of the flora and fauna of that country. He +might imagine that lions and leopards were commoner than they are in our +hedgerows and country lanes, or that the head and neck of a giraffe was +as native to our landscapes as a village spire. And that is why I +apologise in anticipation for a probable lack of proportion in this +work. Like the elephant, I may have seen too much of a special enclosure +where a special sort of lions are gathered together. I may exaggerate +the territorial, as distinct from the vertical space occupied by the +spiritual giraffe; for the giraffe may surely be regarded as an example +of Uplift, and is even, in a manner of speaking, a high-brow. Above all, +I shall probably make generalisations that are much too general; and are +insufficient through being exaggerative. To this sort of doubt all my +impressions are subject; and among them the negative generalisation with +which I shall begin this rambling meditation on American hotels. + +In all my American wanderings I never saw such a thing as an inn. They +may exist; but they do not arrest the traveller upon every road as they +do in England and in Europe. The saloons no longer existed when I was +there, owing to the recent reform which restricted intoxicants to the +wealthier classes. But we feel that the saloons have been there; if one +may so express it, their absence is still present. They remain in the +structure of the streets and the idiom of the language. But the saloons +were not inns. If they had been inns, it would have been far harder even +for the power of modern plutocracy to root them out. There will be a +very different chase when the White Hart is hunted to the forests or +when the Red Lion turns to bay. But people could not feel about the +American saloon as they will feel about the English inns. They could not +feel that the Prohibitionist, that vulgar chucker-out, was chucking +Chaucer out of the Tabard and Shakespeare out of the Mermaid. In justice +to the American Prohibitionists it must be realised that they were not +doing quite such desecration; and that many of them felt the saloon a +specially poisonous sort of place. They did feel that drinking-places +were used only as drug-shops. So they have effected the great +reconstruction, by which it will be necessary to use only drug-shops as +drinking-places. But I am not dealing here with the problem of +Prohibition except in so far as it is involved in the statement that the +saloons were in no sense inns. Secondly, of course, there are the +hotels. There are indeed. There are hotels toppling to the stars, hotels +covering the acre age of villages, hotels in multitudinous number like a +mob of Babylonian or Assyrian monuments; but the hotels also are not +inns. + +Broadly speaking, there is only one hotel in America. The pattern of it, +which is a very rational pattern, is repeated in cities as remote from +each other as the capitals of European empires. You may find that hotel +rising among the red blooms of the warm spring woods of Nebraska, or +whitened with Canadian snows near the eternal noise of Niagara. And +before touching on this solid and simple pattern itself, I may remark +that the same system of symmetry runs through all the details of the +interior. As one hotel is like another hotel, so one hotel floor is like +another hotel floor. If the passage outside your bedroom door, or +hallway as it is called, contains, let us say, a small table with a +green vase and a stuffed flamingo, or some trifle of the sort, you may +be perfectly certain that there is exactly the same table, vase, and +flamingo on every one of the thirty-two landings of that towering +habitation. This is where it differs most perhaps from the crooking +landings and unexpected levels of the old English inns, even when they +call them selves hotels. To me there was something weird, like a magic +multiplication, in the exquisite sameness of these suites. It seemed to +suggest the still atmosphere of some eerie psychological story. I once +myself entertained the notion of a story, in which a man was to be +prevented from entering his house (the scene of some crime or calamity) +by people who painted and furnished the next house to look exactly like +it; the assimilation going to the most fantastic lengths, such as +altering the numbering of houses in the street. I came to America and +found an hotel fitted and upholstered throughout for the enactment of my +phantasmal fraud. I offer the skeleton of my story with all humility to +some of the admirable lady writers of detective stories in America, to +Miss Carolyn Wells, or Miss Mary Roberts Rinehart, or Mrs. A. K. Green +of the unforgotten Leavenworth Case. Surely it might be possible for the +unsophisticated Nimrod K. Moose, of Yellow Dog Flat, to come to New York +and be entangled somehow in this net of repetitions or recurrences. +Surely something tells me that his beautiful daughter, the Rose of Red +Murder Gulch, might seek for him in vain amid the apparently +unmistakable surroundings of the thirty-second floor, while he was being +quietly butchered by the floor-clerk on the thirty-third floor, an agent +of the Green Claw (that formidable organisation); and all because the +two floors looked exactly alike to the virginal Western eye. The +original point of my own story was that the man to be entrapped walked +into his own house after all, in spite of it being differently painted +and numbered, simply because he was absent-minded and used to taking a +certain number of mechanical steps. This would not work in a hotel; +because a lift has no habits. It is typical of the real tameness of +machinery, that even when we talk of a man turning mechanically we only +talk metaphorically; for it is something that a mechanism cannot do. But +I think there is only one real objection to my story of Mr. Moose in the +New York hotel. And that is unfortunately a rather fatal one. It is that +far away in the remote desolation of Yellow Dog, among those outlying +and outlandish rocks that almost seem to rise beyond the sunset, there +is undoubtedly an hotel of exactly the same sort, with all its floors +exactly the same. + +Anyhow the general plan of the American hotel is commonly the same, and, +as I have said, it is a very sound one so far as it goes. When I first +went into one of the big New York hotels, the first impression was +certainly its bigness. It was called the Biltmore; and I wondered how +many national humorists had made the obvious comment of wishing they had +built less. But it was not merely the Babylonian size and scale of such +things, it was the way in which they are used. They are used almost as +public streets, or rather as public squares. My first impression was +that I was in some sort of high street or market-place during a carnival +or a revolution. True, the people looked rather rich for a revolution +and rather grave for a carnival; but they were congested in great crowds +that moved slowly like people passing through an overcrowded railway +station. Even in the dizzy heights of such a sky-scraper there could not +possibly be room for all those people to sleep in the hotel, or even to +dine in it. And, as a matter of fact, they did nothing whatever except +drift into it and drift out again. Most of them had no more to do with +the hotel than I have with Buckingham Palace. I have never been in +Buckingham Palace, and I have very seldom, thank God, been in the big +hotels of this type that exist in London or Paris. But I cannot believe +that mobs are perpetually pouring through the Hotel Cecil or the Savoy +in this fashion, calmly coming in at one door and going out of the +other. But this fact is part of the fundamental structure of the +American hotel; it is built upon a compromise that makes it possible. +The whole of the lower floor is thrown open to the public streets and +treated as a public square. But above it and all round it runs another +floor in the form of a sort of deep gallery, furnished more luxuriously +and looking down on the moving mobs beneath. No one is allowed on this +floor except the guests or clients of the hotel. As I have been one of +them myself, I trust it is not unsympathetic to compare them to active +anthropoids who can climb trees, and so look down in safety on the herds +or packs of wilder animals wandering and prowling below. Of course there +are modifications of architectural plan, but they are generally +approximations to it; it is the plan that seems to suit the social life +of the American cities. There is generally something like a ground floor +that is more public, a half-floor or gallery above that is more private, +and above that the bulk of the block of bedrooms, the huge hive with its +innumerable and identical cells. + +The ladder of ascent in this tower is of course the lift, or, as it is +called, the elevator. With all that we hear o American hustle and hurry, +it is rather strange that Americans seem to like more than we do to +linger upon long words. And indeed there is an element of delay in their +diction and spirit, very little understood, which I may discuss +elsewhere. Anyhow they say elevator when we say lift, just as they say +automobile when we say motor and stenographer when we say typist, or +sometimes (by a slight confusion) typewriter. Which reminds me of +another story that never existed, about a man who was accused of having +murdered and dismembered his secretary when he had only taken his typing +machine to pieces; but we must not dwell on these digressions. The +Americans may have another reason for giving long and ceremonious titles +to the lift. When first I came among them I had a suspicion that they +possessed and practised a new and secret religion, which was the cult of +the elevator. I fancied they worshipped the lift, or at any rate +worshipped in the lift. The details or data of this suspicion it were +now vain to collect, as I have regretfully abandoned it, except in so +far as they illustrate the social principles underlying the structural +plan of the building. Now an American gentleman invariably takes off his +hat in the lift. He does not take off his hat in the hotel, even if it +is crowded with ladies. But he always so salutes a lady in the elevator; +and this marks the difference of atmosphere. The lift is a room, but the +hotel is a street. But during my first delusion, of course, I assumed +that he uncovered in this tiny temple merely because he was in church. +There is something about the very word elevator that expresses a great +deal of his vague but idealistic religion. Perhaps that flying chapel +will eventually be ritualistically decorated like a chapel; possibly +with a symbolic scheme of wings. Perhaps a brief religious service will +be held in the elevator as it ascends; in a few well-chosen words +touching the Utmost for the Highest. Possibly he would consent even to +call the elevator a lift, if he could call it an uplift. There would be +no difficulty, except what I cannot but regard as the chief moral +problem of all optimistic modernism. I mean the difficulty of imagining +a lift which is free to go up, if it is not also free to go down. + +I think I know T my American friends and acquaintances too well to +apologise for any levity in these illustrations. Americans make fun of +their own institutions; and their own journalism is full of such +fanciful conjectures. The tall building is itself artistically akin to +the tall story. The very word skyscraper is an admirable example of an +American lie. But I can testify quite as eagerly to the solid and +sensible advantages of the symmetrical hotel. It is not only a pattern +of vases and stuffed flamingoes; it is also an equally accurate pattern +of cupboards and baths. It is a dignified and humane custom to have a +bathroom attached to every bedroom; and my impulse to sing the praises +of it brought me once at least into a rather quaint complication. I +think it was in the city of Dayton; anyhow I remember there was a +Laundry Convention going on in the same hotel, in a room very +patriotically and properly festooned with the stars and stripes, and +doubtless full of promise for the future of laundering. I was +interviewed on the roof, within earshot of this debate, and may have +been the victim of some association or confusion; anyhow, after +answering the usual questions about Labour, the League of Nations, the +length of ladies dresses, and other great matters, I took refuge in a +rhapsody of warm and well-deserved praise of American bathrooms. The +editor, I understand, running a gloomy eye down the column of his +contributor's story, and seeing nothing but metaphysical terms such as +justice, freedom, the abstract disapproval of sweating, swindling, and +the like, paused at last upon the ablutionary allusion, and his eye +brightened. That's the only copy in the whole thing/ he said, 'A +Bath-Tub in Every Home.' So these words appeared in enormous letters +above my portrait in the paper. It will be noted that, like many things +that practical men make a great point of, they miss the point. What I +had commended as new and national was a bathroom in every bedroom. Even +feudal and moss-grown England is not entirely ignorant of an occasional +bath-tub in the home. But what gave me great joy was what followed. I +discovered with delight that many people, glancing rapidly at my +portrait with its prodigious legend, imagined that it was a commercial +advertisement, and that I was a very self---advertising commercial +traveller. When I walked about the streets, I was supposed to be +travelling in bath-tubs. Consider the caption of the portrait, and you +will see how similar it is to the true commercial slogan: 'We offer a +Bath-Tub in Every Home.' And this charming error was doubtless clinched +by the fact that I had been found haunting the outer courts of the +temple of the ancient guild of Lavenders. I never knew how many shared +the impression; I regret to say that I only traced it with certainty in +two individuals. But I understand that it included the idea that I had +come to the town to attend the Laundry Convention, and had made an +eloquent speech to that senate, no doubt exhibiting my tubs. + +Such was the penalty of too passionate and unrestrained an admiration +for American bathrooms; yet the connection of ideas, however +inconsequent, does cover the part of social practice for which these +American institutions can really be praised. About everything like +laundry or hot and cold water there is not only organisation, but what +does not always or perhaps often go with it, efficiency. Americans are +particular about these things of dress and decorum; and it is a virtue +which I very seriously recognise, though I find it very hard to emulate. +But with them it is a virtue; it is not a mere convention, still less a +mere fashion. It is really related to human dignity rather than to +social superiority. The really glorious thing about the American is that +he does not dress like a gentleman; he dresses like a citizen or a +civilised man. Puritan particularity on certain points is really +detachable from any definite social ambitions; these things are not a +part of getting into society but merely of keeping out of savagery. +Those millions and millions of middling people, that huge middle class +especially of the Middle West, are not near enough to any aristocracy +even to be sham aristocrats, or to be real snobs. But their standards +are secure; and though I do not really travel in a bath-tub, or believe +in the bath-tub philosophy and religion, I will not on this matter +recoil misanthropically from them: I prefer the tub of Dayton to the tub +of Diogenes. On these points there is really something a million times +better than efficiency, and that is something like equality. + +In short, the American hotel is not America; but it is American. In some +respects it is as American as the English inn is English. And it is +symbolic of that society in this among other things: that it does tend +too much to uniformity; but that that very uniformity disguises not a +little natural dignity. The old Romans boasted that their republic was a +nation of kings. If we really walked abroad in such a kingdom, we might +very well grow tired of the sight of a crowd of kings, of every man with +a gold crown on his head or an ivory sceptre in his hand. But it is +arguable that we ought not to grow tired of the repetition of crowns and +sceptres, any more than of the repetition of flowers and stars. The +whole imaginative effort of Walt Whitman was really an effort to absorb +and animate these multitudinous modern repetitions; and Walt Whitman +would be quite capable of including in his lyric litany of optimism a +list of the nine hundred and ninety-nine identical bath-rooms. I do not +sneer at the generous effort of the giant; though I think, when all is +said, that it is criticism of modern machinery that the effort should be +gigantic as well as generous. + +While there is so much repetition there is little repose. It is the +pattern of a kaleidoscope rather than a wall paper; a pattern of figures +running and even leaping like the figures in a zoetrope. But even in the +groups where there was no hustle there was often something of +homelessness. I do not mean merely that they were not dining at home; +but rather that they were not at home even when dining, and dining at +their favourite hotel. They would frequently start up and dart from the +room at a summons from the telephone. It may have been fanciful, but I +could not help feeling a breath of home, as from a flap or flutter of +St. George's cross, when I first sat down in a Canadian hostelry, and +read the announcement that no such telephonic or other summonses were +allowed in the dining-room. It may have been a coincidence, and there +may be American hotels with this merciful proviso and Canadian hotels +without it; but the thing was symbolic even if it was not evidential. I +felt as if I stood indeed upon English soil, in a place where people +liked to have their meals in peace. + +The process of the summons is called 'paging,' and consists of sending a +little boy with a large voice through all the halls and corridors of the +building, making them resound with a name. The custom is common, of +course, in clubs and hotels even in England; but in England it is a mere +whisper compared with the wail with which the American page repeats the +formula of 'Calling Mr. So and So.' I remember a particularly crowded +*parterre* in the somewhat smoky and oppressive atmosphere of Pittsburg, +through which wandered a youth with a voice the like of which I have +never heard in the land of the living, a voice like the cry of a lost +spirit, saying again and again for ever, 'Calling Mr. Anderson.' One +felt that he never would find Mr. Anderson. Perhaps there never had been +any Mr. Anderson to be found. Perhaps he and every one else wandered in +an abyss of bottomless scepticism; and he was but the victim of one out +of numberless nightmares of eternity, as he wandered a shadow with +shadows and wailed by impassable streams. This is not exactly my +philosophy, but I feel sure it was his. And it is a mood that may +frequently visit the mind in the centres of highly active and successful +industrial civilisation. + +Such are the first idle impressions of the great American hotel, gained +by sitting for the first time in its gallery and gazing on its drifting +crowds with thoughts equally drifting. The first impression is of +something enormous and rather unnatural, an impression that is gradually +tempered by experience of the kindliness and even the tameness of so +much of that social order. But I should not be recording the sensations +with sincerity, if I did not touch in passing the note of something +unearthly about that vast system to an insular traveller who sees it for +the first time. It is as if we were wandering in another world among the +fixed stars; or worse still, in an ideal Utopia of the future. + +Yet I am not certain; and perhaps the best of all news is that nothing +is really new. I sometimes have a fancy that many of these new things in +new countries are but the resurrections of old things which have been +wickedly killed or stupidly stunted in old countries. I have looked over +the sea of little tables in some light and airy open-air cafe; and my +thoughts have gone back to the plain wooden bench and wooden table that +stands solitary and weather-stained outside so many neglected English +inns. We talk of experimenting in the French café, as of some fresh and +almost impudent innovation. But our fathers had the French cafe, in the +sense of the free-and-easy table in the sun and air. The only difference +was that French democracy was allowed to develop its café, or multiply +its tables, while English plutocracy prevented any such popular growth. +Perhaps there are other examples of old types and patterns, lost in the +old oligarchy and saved in the new democracies. I am haunted with a hint +that the new structures are not so very new: and that they remind me of +something very old. As I look from the balcony floors the crowds seem to +float away and the colours to soften and grow pale, and I know I am in +one of the simplest and most ancestral of human habitations. I am +looking down from the old wooden gallery upon the courtyard of an inn. +This new architectural model, which I have described, is after all one +of the oldest European models, now neglected in Europe and especially in +England. It was the theatre in which were enchanted innumerable +picaresque comedies and romantic plays, with figures ranging from Sancho +Panza to Sam Weller. It served as the apparatus, like some gigantic toy +set up in bricks and timber, for the ancient and perhaps eternal game of +tennis. The very terms of the original game were taken from the inn +courtyard, and the players scored accordingly as they hit the +buttery-hatch or the roof. Singular speculations hover in my mind as the +scene darkens and the quadrangle below begins to empty in the last hours +of night. Some day perhaps this huge structure will be found standing in +a solitude like a skeleton; and it will be the skeleton of the Spotted +Dog or the Blue Boar. It will wither and decay until it is worthy at +last to be a tavern. I do not know whether men will play tennis on its +ground floor, with various scores and prizes for hitting the electric +fan, or the lift, or the head waiter. Perhaps the very words will only +remain as part of some such rustic game. Perhaps the electric fan will +no longer be electric and the elevator will no longer elevate, and the +waiter will only wait to be hit. But at least it is only by the decay of +modern plutocracy, which seems already to have begun, that the secret of +the structure even of this plutocratic palace can stand revealed. And +after long years, when its lights are extinguished and only the long +shadows inhabit its halls and vestibules, there may come a new noise like thunder; of D'Artagnan knocking at the door. # A Meditation in Broadway -When I had looked at the lights of Broadway by night, I made -to my American friends an innocent remark that seemed for -some reason to amuse them. I had looked, not without joy, at -that long kaleidoscope of coloured lights arranged in large -letters and sprawling trade-marks, advertising everything, -from pork to pianos, through the agency of the two most -vivid and most mystical of the gifts of God; colour and -fire. I said to them, in my simplicity, 'What a glorious -garden of wonders this would be, to any one who was lucky -enough to be unable to read.' - -Here it is but a text for a further suggestion. But let us -suppose that there does walk down this flaming avenue a -peasant, of the sort called scornfully an illiterate -peasant; by those who think that insisting on .people -reading and writing is the best way to keep out the spies -who read in all languages and the forgers who write in all -hands. On this principle indeed, a peasant merely acquainted -with things of little practical use to mankind, such as -ploughing, cutting wood, or growing vegetables, would very -probably be excluded; and it is not for us to criticise from -the outside the philosophy of those who would keep out the -farmer and let in the forger. But let us suppose, if only -for the sake of argument, that the peasant is walking under -the artificial suns and stars of this tremendous -thoroughfare; that he has escaped to the land of liberty -upon some general rumour and romance of the story of its -liberation, but without being yet able to understand the -arbitrary signs of its alphabet. The soul of such a man -would surely soar higher than the sky-scrapers, and embrace -a brotherhood broader than Broadway. Realising that he had -arrived on an evening of exceptional festivity, worthy to be -blazoned with all this burning heraldry, he would please -himself by guessing what great proclamation or principle of -the Republic hung in the sky like a constellation or rippled -across the street like a comet. He would be shrewd enough to -guess that the three festoons fringed with fiery words of -somewhat similar pattern stood for 'Government of the -People, For the People, By the People'; for it must -obviously be that, unless it were 'Liberty, Equality, -Fraternity.' His shrewdness would perhaps be a little shaken -if he knew that the triad stood for 'Tang Tonic To-day; Tang -Tonic To-morrow; Tang Tonic All the Time.' He will soon -identify a restless ribbon of red lettering, red hot and -rebellious, as the saying, 'Give me liberty or give me -death.' He will fail to identify it as the equally famous -saying, 'Skyoline Has Gout Beaten to a Frazzle.' Therefore -it was that I desired the peasant to walk down that grove of -fiery trees, under all that golden foliage and fruits like -monstrous jewels, as innocent as Adam before the Fall. He -would see sights almost as fine as the flaming sword or the -purple and peacock plumage of the seraphim; so long as he -did not go near the Tree of Knowledge. - -In other words, if once he went to school it would be all -up; and indeed I fear in any case he would soon discover his -error. If he stood wildly waving his hat for liberty in the -middle of the road as Chunk Chutney picked itself out in -ruby stars upon the sky, he would impede the excellent but -extremely rigid traffic system, of New York. If he fell on -his knees before a sapphire splendour, and began saying an -Ave Maria under a mistaken association, he would be -conducted kindly but firmly by an Irish policeman to a more -authentic shrine. But though the foreign simplicity might -not long survive in New York, it is quite a mistake to -suppose that such foreign simplicity cannot enter New York. -He may be excluded for being illiterate, but he cannot be -excluded for being ignorant, nor for being innocent. Least -of all can he be excluded for being wiser in his innocence -than the world in its knowledge. There is here indeed more -than one distinction to be made. New York is a cosmopolitan -city; but it is not a city of cosmopolitans. Most of the -masses in New York have a nation, whether or no it be the -nation to which New York belongs. Those who are Americanised -are American, and very patriotically American. Those who are -not thus nationalised are not in the least -internationalised. They simply continue to be themselves; -the Irish are Irish; the Jews are Jewish; and all sorts of -other tribes carry on the traditions of remote European -valleys almost untouched. In short, there is a sort of -slender bridge between their old country and their new, -which they either cross or do not cross, but which they -seldom simply occupy. They are exiles or they are citizens; -there is no moment when they are cosmopolitans. But very -often the exiles bring with them not only rooted traditions, -but rooted truths. - -Indeed it is to a great extent the thought of these strange -souls in crude American garb that gives a meaning to the -masquerade of New York. In the hotel where I stayed the head -waiter in one room was a Bohemian; and I am glad to say that -he called himself a Bohemian. I have already protested -sufficiently, before American audiences, against the -pedantry of perpetually talking about Czecho-Slovakia. I -suggested to my American friends that the abandonment of the -word Bohemian in its historical sense might well extend to -its literary and figurative sense. We might be expected to -say, 'I'm afraid Henry has got into very Czecho-Slovakian -habits lately,' or 'Don't bother to dress; it's quite a -Czecho-Slovakian affair.' Anyhow my Bohemian would have -nothing to do with such non sense; he called himself a son -of Bohemia, and spoke as such in his criticisms of America, -which were both favourable and unfavourable. He was a squat -man, with a sturdy figure and a steady smile; and his eyes -were like dark pools in the depth of a darker forest; but I -do not think he had ever been deceived by the lights of -Broadway. - -But I found something like my real innocent abroad, my real -peasant among the sky-signs, in another part of the same -establishment. He was a much leaner man, equally dark, with -a hook nose, hungry face, and fierce black moustaches. He -also was a waiter, and was in the costume of a waiter, which -is a smarter edition of the costume of a lecturer. As he was -serving me with clam chowder or some such thing, I fell into -speech with him and he told me he was a Bulgar. I said -something like, 'I'm afraid I don't know as much as I ought -to about Bulgaria. I suppose most of your people are -agricultural, aren't they?' He did not stir an inch from his -regular attitude, but he slightly lowered his low voice and -said, 'Yes. From the earth we come and to the earth we -return; when people get away from that they are lost.' - -To hear such a thing said by the waiter was alone an epoch -in the life of an unfortunate writer of fantastic novels. To -see him clear away the clam chowder like an automaton, and -bring me more iced water like an automaton or like nothing -on earth except an American waiter (for piling up ice is the -cold passion of their lives), and all this after having -uttered something so dark and deep, so starkly incongruous -and so startlingly true, was an indescribable thing, but -very like the picture of the peasant admiring Broadway. So -he passed, with his artificial clothes and manners, lit up -with all the ghastly artificial light of the hotel, and all -the ghastly artificial life of the city; and his heart was -like his own remote and rocky valley, where those unchanging -words were carved as on a rock. - -I do not profess to discuss here at all adequately the -question this raises about the Americanisation of the -Bulgar. It has many aspects, of some of which most -Englishmen and even some Americans are rather unconscious. -For one thing, a man with so rugged a loyalty to land could -not be Americanised in New York; but it is not so certain -that he could not be Americanised in America. We might -almost say that a peasantry is hidden in the heart of -America. So far as our impressions go, it is a secret. It is -rather an open secret; covering only some thousand square -miles of open prairie. But for most of our countrymen it is -something invisible, unimagined, and unvisited; the simple -truth that where all those acres are there is agriculture, -and where all that agriculture is there is considerable -tendency towards distributive or decently equalised -property, as in a peasantry. On the other hand, there are -those who say that the Bulgar will never be Americanised, -that he only comes to be a waiter in America that he may -afford to return to be a peasant in Bulgaria. I cannot -decide this issue, and indeed I did not introduce it to this -end. I was led to it by a certain line of reflection that -runs along the Great White Way, and I will continue to -follow it. The criticism, if we could put it rightly, not -only covers more than New York but more than the whole New -World. Any argument against it is quite as valid against the -largest and richest cities of the Old World, against London -or Liverpool or Frankfort or Belfast. But it is in New York -that we see the argument most clearly, because we see the -thing thus towering into its own turrets and breaking into -its own fire works. - -I disagree with the aesthetic condemnation of the modern -city with its sky-scrapers and sky-signs. I mean that which -laments the loss of beauty and its sacrifice to utility. It -seems to me the very reverse of the truth. Years ago, when -people used to say the Salvation Army doubtless had good -intentions, but we must all deplore its methods, I pointed -out that the very contrary is the case. Its method, the -method of drums and democratic appeal, is that of the -Franciscans or any other march of the Church Militant. It -was precisely its aims that were dubious, with their -dissenting morality and despotic finance. It is somewhat the -same with things like the sky-signs in Broadway. The -aesthete must not ask me to mingle my tears with his, -because these things are merely useful and ugly. For I am -not specially inclined to think them ugly; but I am strongly -inclined to think them useless. As a matter of art for art's -sake, they seem to me rather artistic. As a form of -practical social work they seem to me stark stupid waste. If -Mr. Bilge is rich enough to build a tower four hundred feet -high and give it a crown of golden crescents and crimson -stars, in order to draw attention to his manufacture of the -Paradise Tooth Paste or the Seventh Heaven Cigar, I do not -feel the least disposition to thank him for any serious form -of social service. I have never tried the Seventh Heaven -Cigar; indeed a premonition moves me towards the belief that -I shall go down to the dust without trying it. I have every -reason to doubt whether it does any particular good to those -who smoke it, or any good to anybody except those who sell -it. In short Mr. Bilge's usefulness consists in being useful -to Mr. Bilge, and all the rest is illusion and -sentimentalism. But because I know that Bilge is only Bilge, -shall I stoop to the profanity of saying that fire is only -fire? Shall I blaspheme crimson stars any more than crimson -sunsets, or deny that those moons are golden any more than -that this grass is green? If a child saw these coloured -lights, he would dance with as much delight as at any other -coloured toys; and it is the duty of every poet, and even of -every critic, to dance in respectful imitation of the child. -Indeed I am in a mood of so much sympathy with the fairy -lights of this pantomime city, that I should be almost sorry -to see social sanity and a sense of proportion return to -extinguish them. I fear the day is breaking, and the broad -daylight of tradition and ancient truth is coming to end all -this delightful nightmare of New York at night. Peasants and -priests and all sorts of practical and sensible people are -coming back into power, and their stern realism may wither -all these beautiful, unsubstantial, useless things. They -will not believe in the Seventh Heaven Cigar, even when they -see it shining as with stars in the seventh heaven. They -will not be affected by advertisements, any more than the -priests and peasants of the Middle Ages would have been -affected by advertisements. Only a very soft-headed, -sentimental and rather servile generation of men could -possibly be affected by advertisements at all. People who -are a little more hard-headed, humorous, and intellectually -independent, see the rather simple joke; and are not -impressed by this or any other form of self-praise. Almost -any other men in almost any other age would have seen the -joke. If you had said to a man in the Stone Age, 'Ugg says -Ugg makes the best stone hatchets,' he would have perceived -a lack of detachment and disinterestedness about the -testimonial. If you had said to a medieval peasant, 'Robert -the Bowyer proclaims, with three blasts of a horn, that he -makes good bows,' the peasant would have said, 'Well, of -course he does,' and thought about something more important. -It is only among people whose minds have been weakened by a -sort of mesmerism that so trans parent a trick as that of -advertisement could ever have been tried at all. And if ever -we have again, as for other reasons I cannot but hope we -shall, a more democratic distribution of property and a more -agricultural basis of national life, it would seem at first -sight only too likely that all this beautiful superstition -will perish, and the fairyland of Broadway with all its -varied rainbows fade away. For such people the Seventh -Heaven Cigar, like the nineteenth-century city, will have -ended in smoke. And even the smoke of it will have vanished. - -But the next stage of reflection brings us back to the -peasant looking at the lights of Broadway. It is not true to -say in the strict sense that the peasant has never seen such -things before. The truth is that he has seen them on a much -smaller scale, but for a much larger purpose. Peasants also -have their ritual and ornament, but it is to adorn more real -things. Apart from our first fancy about the peasant who -could not read, there is no doubt about what would be -apparent to a peasant who could read, and who could under -stand. For him also fire is sacred, for him also colour is -symbolic. But where he sets up a candle to light the little -shrine of St. Joseph, he finds it takes twelve hundred -candles to light the Seventh Heaven Cigar. He is used to the -colours in church windows showing red for martyrs or blue -for madonnas; but here he can only conclude that all the -colours of the rainbow belong to Mr. Bilge. Now upon the -aesthetic side he might well be impressed; but it is exactly -on the social and even scientific side that he has a right -to criticise. If he were a Chinese peasant, for instance, -and came from a land of fireworks, he would naturally -suppose that he had happened to arrive at a great fireworks -display in celebration of something; perhaps the Sacred -Emperor's birthday, or rather birth-night. It would -gradually dawn on the Chinese philosopher that the Emperor -could hardly be born every night. And when he learnt the -truth the philosopher, if he was a philosopher, would be a -little disappointed... possibly a little disdainful. - -Compare, for instance, these everlasting fireworks with the -damp squibs and dying bonfires of Guy Fawkes Day. That -quaint and even queer national festival has been fading for -some time out of English life. Still, it was a national -festival, in the double sense that it rep resented some sort -of public spirit pursued by some sort of popular impulse. -People spent money on the display of fireworks; they did not -get money by it. And the people who spent money were often -those who had very little money to spend. It had something -of the glorious and fanatical character of making the poor -poorer. It did not, like the advertisements, have only the -mean and materialistic character of making the rich richer. -In short, it came from the people and it appealed to the -nation. The historical and religious cause in which it -originated is not mine; and I think it has perished partly -through being tied to a historical theory for which there is -no future. I think this is illustrated in the very fact that -the ceremonial is merely negative and destructive. Negation -and destruction are very noble things as far as they go, and -when they go in the right direction; and the popular -expression of them has always something hearty and human -about it. I shall not therefore bring any fine or fastidious -criticism, whether literary or musical, to bear upon the -little boys who drag about a bolster and a paper mask, -calling out +When I had looked at the lights of Broadway by night, I made to my +American friends an innocent remark that seemed for some reason to amuse +them. I had looked, not without joy, at that long kaleidoscope of +coloured lights arranged in large letters and sprawling trade-marks, +advertising everything, from pork to pianos, through the agency of the +two most vivid and most mystical of the gifts of God; colour and fire. I +said to them, in my simplicity, 'What a glorious garden of wonders this +would be, to any one who was lucky enough to be unable to read.' + +Here it is but a text for a further suggestion. But let us suppose that +there does walk down this flaming avenue a peasant, of the sort called +scornfully an illiterate peasant; by those who think that insisting on +.people reading and writing is the best way to keep out the spies who +read in all languages and the forgers who write in all hands. On this +principle indeed, a peasant merely acquainted with things of little +practical use to mankind, such as ploughing, cutting wood, or growing +vegetables, would very probably be excluded; and it is not for us to +criticise from the outside the philosophy of those who would keep out +the farmer and let in the forger. But let us suppose, if only for the +sake of argument, that the peasant is walking under the artificial suns +and stars of this tremendous thoroughfare; that he has escaped to the +land of liberty upon some general rumour and romance of the story of its +liberation, but without being yet able to understand the arbitrary signs +of its alphabet. The soul of such a man would surely soar higher than +the sky-scrapers, and embrace a brotherhood broader than Broadway. +Realising that he had arrived on an evening of exceptional festivity, +worthy to be blazoned with all this burning heraldry, he would please +himself by guessing what great proclamation or principle of the Republic +hung in the sky like a constellation or rippled across the street like a +comet. He would be shrewd enough to guess that the three festoons +fringed with fiery words of somewhat similar pattern stood for +'Government of the People, For the People, By the People'; for it must +obviously be that, unless it were 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.' His +shrewdness would perhaps be a little shaken if he knew that the triad +stood for 'Tang Tonic To-day; Tang Tonic To-morrow; Tang Tonic All the +Time.' He will soon identify a restless ribbon of red lettering, red hot +and rebellious, as the saying, 'Give me liberty or give me death.' He +will fail to identify it as the equally famous saying, 'Skyoline Has +Gout Beaten to a Frazzle.' Therefore it was that I desired the peasant +to walk down that grove of fiery trees, under all that golden foliage +and fruits like monstrous jewels, as innocent as Adam before the Fall. +He would see sights almost as fine as the flaming sword or the purple +and peacock plumage of the seraphim; so long as he did not go near the +Tree of Knowledge. + +In other words, if once he went to school it would be all up; and indeed +I fear in any case he would soon discover his error. If he stood wildly +waving his hat for liberty in the middle of the road as Chunk Chutney +picked itself out in ruby stars upon the sky, he would impede the +excellent but extremely rigid traffic system, of New York. If he fell on +his knees before a sapphire splendour, and began saying an Ave Maria +under a mistaken association, he would be conducted kindly but firmly by +an Irish policeman to a more authentic shrine. But though the foreign +simplicity might not long survive in New York, it is quite a mistake to +suppose that such foreign simplicity cannot enter New York. He may be +excluded for being illiterate, but he cannot be excluded for being +ignorant, nor for being innocent. Least of all can he be excluded for +being wiser in his innocence than the world in its knowledge. There is +here indeed more than one distinction to be made. New York is a +cosmopolitan city; but it is not a city of cosmopolitans. Most of the +masses in New York have a nation, whether or no it be the nation to +which New York belongs. Those who are Americanised are American, and +very patriotically American. Those who are not thus nationalised are not +in the least internationalised. They simply continue to be themselves; +the Irish are Irish; the Jews are Jewish; and all sorts of other tribes +carry on the traditions of remote European valleys almost untouched. In +short, there is a sort of slender bridge between their old country and +their new, which they either cross or do not cross, but which they +seldom simply occupy. They are exiles or they are citizens; there is no +moment when they are cosmopolitans. But very often the exiles bring with +them not only rooted traditions, but rooted truths. + +Indeed it is to a great extent the thought of these strange souls in +crude American garb that gives a meaning to the masquerade of New York. +In the hotel where I stayed the head waiter in one room was a Bohemian; +and I am glad to say that he called himself a Bohemian. I have already +protested sufficiently, before American audiences, against the pedantry +of perpetually talking about Czecho-Slovakia. I suggested to my American +friends that the abandonment of the word Bohemian in its historical +sense might well extend to its literary and figurative sense. We might +be expected to say, 'I'm afraid Henry has got into very Czecho-Slovakian +habits lately,' or 'Don't bother to dress; it's quite a Czecho-Slovakian +affair.' Anyhow my Bohemian would have nothing to do with such non +sense; he called himself a son of Bohemia, and spoke as such in his +criticisms of America, which were both favourable and unfavourable. He +was a squat man, with a sturdy figure and a steady smile; and his eyes +were like dark pools in the depth of a darker forest; but I do not think +he had ever been deceived by the lights of Broadway. + +But I found something like my real innocent abroad, my real peasant +among the sky-signs, in another part of the same establishment. He was a +much leaner man, equally dark, with a hook nose, hungry face, and fierce +black moustaches. He also was a waiter, and was in the costume of a +waiter, which is a smarter edition of the costume of a lecturer. As he +was serving me with clam chowder or some such thing, I fell into speech +with him and he told me he was a Bulgar. I said something like, 'I'm +afraid I don't know as much as I ought to about Bulgaria. I suppose most +of your people are agricultural, aren't they?' He did not stir an inch +from his regular attitude, but he slightly lowered his low voice and +said, 'Yes. From the earth we come and to the earth we return; when +people get away from that they are lost.' + +To hear such a thing said by the waiter was alone an epoch in the life +of an unfortunate writer of fantastic novels. To see him clear away the +clam chowder like an automaton, and bring me more iced water like an +automaton or like nothing on earth except an American waiter (for piling +up ice is the cold passion of their lives), and all this after having +uttered something so dark and deep, so starkly incongruous and so +startlingly true, was an indescribable thing, but very like the picture +of the peasant admiring Broadway. So he passed, with his artificial +clothes and manners, lit up with all the ghastly artificial light of the +hotel, and all the ghastly artificial life of the city; and his heart +was like his own remote and rocky valley, where those unchanging words +were carved as on a rock. + +I do not profess to discuss here at all adequately the question this +raises about the Americanisation of the Bulgar. It has many aspects, of +some of which most Englishmen and even some Americans are rather +unconscious. For one thing, a man with so rugged a loyalty to land could +not be Americanised in New York; but it is not so certain that he could +not be Americanised in America. We might almost say that a peasantry is +hidden in the heart of America. So far as our impressions go, it is a +secret. It is rather an open secret; covering only some thousand square +miles of open prairie. But for most of our countrymen it is something +invisible, unimagined, and unvisited; the simple truth that where all +those acres are there is agriculture, and where all that agriculture is +there is considerable tendency towards distributive or decently +equalised property, as in a peasantry. On the other hand, there are +those who say that the Bulgar will never be Americanised, that he only +comes to be a waiter in America that he may afford to return to be a +peasant in Bulgaria. I cannot decide this issue, and indeed I did not +introduce it to this end. I was led to it by a certain line of +reflection that runs along the Great White Way, and I will continue to +follow it. The criticism, if we could put it rightly, not only covers +more than New York but more than the whole New World. Any argument +against it is quite as valid against the largest and richest cities of +the Old World, against London or Liverpool or Frankfort or Belfast. But +it is in New York that we see the argument most clearly, because we see +the thing thus towering into its own turrets and breaking into its own +fire works. + +I disagree with the aesthetic condemnation of the modern city with its +sky-scrapers and sky-signs. I mean that which laments the loss of beauty +and its sacrifice to utility. It seems to me the very reverse of the +truth. Years ago, when people used to say the Salvation Army doubtless +had good intentions, but we must all deplore its methods, I pointed out +that the very contrary is the case. Its method, the method of drums and +democratic appeal, is that of the Franciscans or any other march of the +Church Militant. It was precisely its aims that were dubious, with their +dissenting morality and despotic finance. It is somewhat the same with +things like the sky-signs in Broadway. The aesthete must not ask me to +mingle my tears with his, because these things are merely useful and +ugly. For I am not specially inclined to think them ugly; but I am +strongly inclined to think them useless. As a matter of art for art's +sake, they seem to me rather artistic. As a form of practical social +work they seem to me stark stupid waste. If Mr. Bilge is rich enough to +build a tower four hundred feet high and give it a crown of golden +crescents and crimson stars, in order to draw attention to his +manufacture of the Paradise Tooth Paste or the Seventh Heaven Cigar, I +do not feel the least disposition to thank him for any serious form of +social service. I have never tried the Seventh Heaven Cigar; indeed a +premonition moves me towards the belief that I shall go down to the dust +without trying it. I have every reason to doubt whether it does any +particular good to those who smoke it, or any good to anybody except +those who sell it. In short Mr. Bilge's usefulness consists in being +useful to Mr. Bilge, and all the rest is illusion and sentimentalism. +But because I know that Bilge is only Bilge, shall I stoop to the +profanity of saying that fire is only fire? Shall I blaspheme crimson +stars any more than crimson sunsets, or deny that those moons are golden +any more than that this grass is green? If a child saw these coloured +lights, he would dance with as much delight as at any other coloured +toys; and it is the duty of every poet, and even of every critic, to +dance in respectful imitation of the child. Indeed I am in a mood of so +much sympathy with the fairy lights of this pantomime city, that I +should be almost sorry to see social sanity and a sense of proportion +return to extinguish them. I fear the day is breaking, and the broad +daylight of tradition and ancient truth is coming to end all this +delightful nightmare of New York at night. Peasants and priests and all +sorts of practical and sensible people are coming back into power, and +their stern realism may wither all these beautiful, unsubstantial, +useless things. They will not believe in the Seventh Heaven Cigar, even +when they see it shining as with stars in the seventh heaven. They will +not be affected by advertisements, any more than the priests and +peasants of the Middle Ages would have been affected by advertisements. +Only a very soft-headed, sentimental and rather servile generation of +men could possibly be affected by advertisements at all. People who are +a little more hard-headed, humorous, and intellectually independent, see +the rather simple joke; and are not impressed by this or any other form +of self-praise. Almost any other men in almost any other age would have +seen the joke. If you had said to a man in the Stone Age, 'Ugg says Ugg +makes the best stone hatchets,' he would have perceived a lack of +detachment and disinterestedness about the testimonial. If you had said +to a medieval peasant, 'Robert the Bowyer proclaims, with three blasts +of a horn, that he makes good bows,' the peasant would have said, 'Well, +of course he does,' and thought about something more important. It is +only among people whose minds have been weakened by a sort of mesmerism +that so trans parent a trick as that of advertisement could ever have +been tried at all. And if ever we have again, as for other reasons I +cannot but hope we shall, a more democratic distribution of property and +a more agricultural basis of national life, it would seem at first sight +only too likely that all this beautiful superstition will perish, and +the fairyland of Broadway with all its varied rainbows fade away. For +such people the Seventh Heaven Cigar, like the nineteenth-century city, +will have ended in smoke. And even the smoke of it will have vanished. + +But the next stage of reflection brings us back to the peasant looking +at the lights of Broadway. It is not true to say in the strict sense +that the peasant has never seen such things before. The truth is that he +has seen them on a much smaller scale, but for a much larger purpose. +Peasants also have their ritual and ornament, but it is to adorn more +real things. Apart from our first fancy about the peasant who could not +read, there is no doubt about what would be apparent to a peasant who +could read, and who could under stand. For him also fire is sacred, for +him also colour is symbolic. But where he sets up a candle to light the +little shrine of St. Joseph, he finds it takes twelve hundred candles to +light the Seventh Heaven Cigar. He is used to the colours in church +windows showing red for martyrs or blue for madonnas; but here he can +only conclude that all the colours of the rainbow belong to Mr. Bilge. +Now upon the aesthetic side he might well be impressed; but it is +exactly on the social and even scientific side that he has a right to +criticise. If he were a Chinese peasant, for instance, and came from a +land of fireworks, he would naturally suppose that he had happened to +arrive at a great fireworks display in celebration of something; perhaps +the Sacred Emperor's birthday, or rather birth-night. It would gradually +dawn on the Chinese philosopher that the Emperor could hardly be born +every night. And when he learnt the truth the philosopher, if he was a +philosopher, would be a little disappointed... possibly a little +disdainful. + +Compare, for instance, these everlasting fireworks with the damp squibs +and dying bonfires of Guy Fawkes Day. That quaint and even queer +national festival has been fading for some time out of English life. +Still, it was a national festival, in the double sense that it rep +resented some sort of public spirit pursued by some sort of popular +impulse. People spent money on the display of fireworks; they did not +get money by it. And the people who spent money were often those who had +very little money to spend. It had something of the glorious and +fanatical character of making the poor poorer. It did not, like the +advertisements, have only the mean and materialistic character of making +the rich richer. In short, it came from the people and it appealed to +the nation. The historical and religious cause in which it originated is +not mine; and I think it has perished partly through being tied to a +historical theory for which there is no future. I think this is +illustrated in the very fact that the ceremonial is merely negative and +destructive. Negation and destruction are very noble things as far as +they go, and when they go in the right direction; and the popular +expression of them has always something hearty and human about it. I +shall not therefore bring any fine or fastidious criticism, whether +literary or musical, to bear upon the little boys who drag about a +bolster and a paper mask, calling out >   Guy Fawkes Guy > > Hit him in the eye. -But I admit it is a disadvantage that they have not a saint -or hero to crown in effigy as well as a traitor to burn in -effigy. I admit that popular Protestantism has become too -purely negative for people to breathe in flowers the statue -of Mr. Kensit or even of Dr. Clifford. I do not disguise my -preference for popular Catholicism; which still has statues -that can be wreathed in flowers. I wish our national feast -of fireworks revolved round something positive and popular. -I wish the beauty of a Catherine Wheel were displayed to the -glory of St. Catherine. I should not especially complain if -Roman candles were really Roman candles. But this negative -character does not destroy the national character; which -began at least in disinterested faith and has ended at least -in disinterested fun. There is nothing disinterested at all -about the new commercial fireworks. There is nothing so -dignified as a dingy guy among the lights of Broadway. In -that thoroughfare, indeed, the very word guy has another and -milder significance. An American friend congratulated me on -the impression I had produced on a lady interviewer, -observing, 'She says you're a regular guy.' This puzzled me -a little at the time. 'Her description is no doubt correct,' -I said, 'but I confess that it would never have struck me as -specially complimentary.' But it appears that it is one of -the most graceful of compliments, in the original American. -A guy in America is a colourless term for a human being. All -men are guys, being endowed by their Creator with certain... -but I am misled by another association. And a regular guy -means, I presume, a reliable or respectable guy. The point -here, however, is that the guy in the grotesque English -sense does represent the di lapidated remnant of a real -human tradition of symbolising real historic ideals by the -sacramental mystery of fire. It is a great fall from the -lowest of these lowly bonfires to the highest of the modern -sky-signs. The new illumination does not stand for any -national ideal at all; and what is yet more to the point, it -does not come from any popular enthusiasm at all. That is -where it differs from the narrowest national Protestantism -of the English institution. Mobs have risen in support of No -Popery; no mobs are likely to rise in defence of the New -Puffery. Many a poor, crazy Orangeman has died saying, 'To -Hell with the Pope'; it is doubtful whether any man will -ever, with his last breath, frame the ecstatic words, 'Try -Hugby's Chewing Gum.' These modern and mercantile legends -are imposed upon us by a mercantile minority, and we are -merely passive to the suggestion. The hypnotist of high -finance or big business merely writes his commands in heaven -with a finger of fire. All men really are guys, in the sense -of dummies. We are only the victims of his pyrotechnic -violence; and it is he who hits us in the eye. - -This is the real case against that modern society that is -symbolised by such art and architecture. It is not that it -is toppling, but that it is top-heavy. It is not that it is -vulgar, but rather that it is not popular. In other words, -the democratic ideal of countries like America, while it is -still generally sincere and sometimes intense, is at issue -with another tendency, an industrial progress which is of -all things on earth the most undemocratic. America is not -alone in possessing the industrialism, but she is alone in -emphasising the ideal that strives with industrialism. -Industrial capitalism and ideal democracy are everywhere in -controversy; but perhaps only here are they in conflict. -France has a democratic ideal; but France is not industrial. -England and Germany are industrial; but England and Germany -are not really democratic. Of course when I speak here of -industrialism I speak of great industrial areas; there is, -as will be noted later, another side to all these countries; -there is in America itself not only a great deal of -agricultural society, but a great deal of agricultural -equality; just as there are still peasants in Germany and -may some day again be peasants in England. But the point is -that the ideal and its enemy the reality are here crushed -very close to each other in the high, narrow city; and that -the sky-scraper is truly named because its top, towering in -such insolence, is scraping the stars off the American sky, -the very heaven of the American spirit. - -That seems to me the main outline of the whole problem. In -the first chapter of this book, I have emphasised the fact -that equality is still the ideal though no longer the -reality of America. I should like to conclude this one by -emphasising the fact that the reality of modern capitalism -is menacing that ideal with terrors and even splendours that -might well stagger the wavering and impressionable modern -spirit. Upon the issue of that struggle depends the question -of whether this new great civilisation continues to exist, -and even whether any one cares if it exists or not. I have -already used the parable of the American flag, and the stars -that stand for a multitudinous equality; I might here take -the opposite symbol of these artificial and terrestrial -stars flaming on the forehead of the commercial city; and -note the peril of the last illusion, which is that the -artificial stars may seem to fill the heavens, and the real -stars to have faded from sight. But I am content for the -moment to reaffirm the merely imaginative pleasure of those -dizzy turrets and dancing fires. If those nightmare -buildings were really all built for nothing, how noble they -would be! The fact that they were really built for something -need not unduly depress us for a moment, or drag down our -soaring fancies. There is something about these vertical -lines that suggests a sort of rush upwards, as of great -cataracts topsy-turvy. I have spoken of fireworks, but here -I should rather speak of rockets. There is only some thing -underneath the mind murmuring that nothing re mains at last -of a flaming rocket except a falling stick. I have spoken of -Babylonian perspectives, and of words written with a fiery -finger, like that huge inhuman finger that wrote on -Belshazzar's wall... But what did it write on Belshazzar's -wall?... I am content once more to end on a note of doubt -and a rather dark sympathy with those many-coloured solar -systems turning so dizzily, far up in the divine vacuum of -the night. - -'From the earth we come and to the earth we return; when -people get away from that they are lost.' +But I admit it is a disadvantage that they have not a saint or hero to +crown in effigy as well as a traitor to burn in effigy. I admit that +popular Protestantism has become too purely negative for people to +breathe in flowers the statue of Mr. Kensit or even of Dr. Clifford. I +do not disguise my preference for popular Catholicism; which still has +statues that can be wreathed in flowers. I wish our national feast of +fireworks revolved round something positive and popular. I wish the +beauty of a Catherine Wheel were displayed to the glory of +St. Catherine. I should not especially complain if Roman candles were +really Roman candles. But this negative character does not destroy the +national character; which began at least in disinterested faith and has +ended at least in disinterested fun. There is nothing disinterested at +all about the new commercial fireworks. There is nothing so dignified as +a dingy guy among the lights of Broadway. In that thoroughfare, indeed, +the very word guy has another and milder significance. An American +friend congratulated me on the impression I had produced on a lady +interviewer, observing, 'She says you're a regular guy.' This puzzled me +a little at the time. 'Her description is no doubt correct,' I said, +'but I confess that it would never have struck me as specially +complimentary.' But it appears that it is one of the most graceful of +compliments, in the original American. A guy in America is a colourless +term for a human being. All men are guys, being endowed by their Creator +with certain... but I am misled by another association. And a regular +guy means, I presume, a reliable or respectable guy. The point here, +however, is that the guy in the grotesque English sense does represent +the di lapidated remnant of a real human tradition of symbolising real +historic ideals by the sacramental mystery of fire. It is a great fall +from the lowest of these lowly bonfires to the highest of the modern +sky-signs. The new illumination does not stand for any national ideal at +all; and what is yet more to the point, it does not come from any +popular enthusiasm at all. That is where it differs from the narrowest +national Protestantism of the English institution. Mobs have risen in +support of No Popery; no mobs are likely to rise in defence of the New +Puffery. Many a poor, crazy Orangeman has died saying, 'To Hell with the +Pope'; it is doubtful whether any man will ever, with his last breath, +frame the ecstatic words, 'Try Hugby's Chewing Gum.' These modern and +mercantile legends are imposed upon us by a mercantile minority, and we +are merely passive to the suggestion. The hypnotist of high finance or +big business merely writes his commands in heaven with a finger of fire. +All men really are guys, in the sense of dummies. We are only the +victims of his pyrotechnic violence; and it is he who hits us in the +eye. + +This is the real case against that modern society that is symbolised by +such art and architecture. It is not that it is toppling, but that it is +top-heavy. It is not that it is vulgar, but rather that it is not +popular. In other words, the democratic ideal of countries like America, +while it is still generally sincere and sometimes intense, is at issue +with another tendency, an industrial progress which is of all things on +earth the most undemocratic. America is not alone in possessing the +industrialism, but she is alone in emphasising the ideal that strives +with industrialism. Industrial capitalism and ideal democracy are +everywhere in controversy; but perhaps only here are they in conflict. +France has a democratic ideal; but France is not industrial. England and +Germany are industrial; but England and Germany are not really +democratic. Of course when I speak here of industrialism I speak of +great industrial areas; there is, as will be noted later, another side +to all these countries; there is in America itself not only a great deal +of agricultural society, but a great deal of agricultural equality; just +as there are still peasants in Germany and may some day again be +peasants in England. But the point is that the ideal and its enemy the +reality are here crushed very close to each other in the high, narrow +city; and that the sky-scraper is truly named because its top, towering +in such insolence, is scraping the stars off the American sky, the very +heaven of the American spirit. + +That seems to me the main outline of the whole problem. In the first +chapter of this book, I have emphasised the fact that equality is still +the ideal though no longer the reality of America. I should like to +conclude this one by emphasising the fact that the reality of modern +capitalism is menacing that ideal with terrors and even splendours that +might well stagger the wavering and impressionable modern spirit. Upon +the issue of that struggle depends the question of whether this new +great civilisation continues to exist, and even whether any one cares if +it exists or not. I have already used the parable of the American flag, +and the stars that stand for a multitudinous equality; I might here take +the opposite symbol of these artificial and terrestrial stars flaming on +the forehead of the commercial city; and note the peril of the last +illusion, which is that the artificial stars may seem to fill the +heavens, and the real stars to have faded from sight. But I am content +for the moment to reaffirm the merely imaginative pleasure of those +dizzy turrets and dancing fires. If those nightmare buildings were +really all built for nothing, how noble they would be! The fact that +they were really built for something need not unduly depress us for a +moment, or drag down our soaring fancies. There is something about these +vertical lines that suggests a sort of rush upwards, as of great +cataracts topsy-turvy. I have spoken of fireworks, but here I should +rather speak of rockets. There is only some thing underneath the mind +murmuring that nothing re mains at last of a flaming rocket except a +falling stick. I have spoken of Babylonian perspectives, and of words +written with a fiery finger, like that huge inhuman finger that wrote on +Belshazzar's wall... But what did it write on Belshazzar's wall?... I am +content once more to end on a note of doubt and a rather dark sympathy +with those many-coloured solar systems turning so dizzily, far up in the +divine vacuum of the night. + +'From the earth we come and to the earth we return; when people get away +from that they are lost.' # Irish and Other Interviews -It is often asked what should be the first thing that a man -sees when he lands in a foreign country; but I think it -should be the vision of his own country. At least when I -came into New York Harbour, a sort of grey and green cloud -came between me and the towers with multitudinous windows, -white in the winter sunlight; and I saw an old brown house -standing back among the beech-trees at home, the house of -only one among many friends and neighbours, but one somehow -so sunken in the very heart of England as to be unconscious -of her imperial or international position, and out of sound -of her perilous seas. But what made most clear the vision -that revisited me was something else. Before we touched land -the men of my own guild, the journalists and reporters, had -already boarded the ship like pirates. And one of them spoke -to me in an accent that I knew; and thanked me for all I had -done for Ireland. And it was at that moment that I knew most -vividly that what I wanted was to do something for England. - -Then, as it chanced, I looked across at the statue of -Liberty, and saw that the great bronze was gleaming green in -the morning light. I had made all the obvious jokes about -the statue of Liberty. I found it had a soothing effect on -earnest Prohibitionists on the boat to urge, as a point of -dignity and delicacy, that it ought to be given back to the -French, a vicious race abandoned to the culture of the vine. -I proposed that the last liquors on board should be poured -out in a pagan libation before it. And then I suddenly -remembered that this Liberty was still in some sense -enlightening the world, or one part of the world; was a lamp -for one sort of wanderer, a star of one sort of seafarer. To -one persecuted people at least this land had really been an -asylum; even if recent legislation (as I have said) had made -them think it a lunatic asylum. They had made it so much -their home that the very colour of the country seemed to -change with the infusion; as the bronze of the great statue -took on a semblance of the wearing of the green. - -It is a commonplace that the Englishman has been stupid in -his relations with the Irish; but he has been far more -stupid in his relations with the Americans on the subject of -the Irish. His propaganda has been worse than his practice; -and his defence more ill-considered than the most -indefensible things that it was intended to defend. There is -in this matter a curious tangle of cross-purposes, which -only a parallel example can make at all clear. And I will -note the point here, because it is some testimony to its -vivid importance that it was really the first I had to -discuss on American soil with an American citizen. In a -double sense I touched Ireland before I came to America. I -will take an imaginary in stance from another controversy; -in order to show how the apology can be worse than the -action. The best we can say for ourselves is worse than the -worst that we can do. - -There was a time when English poets and other .publicists -could always be inspired with instantaneous indignation -about the persecuted Jews in Russia. We have heard less -about them since we heard more about the persecuting Jews in -Russia. I fear there are a great many middle-class -Englishmen already who wish that Trotsky had been persecuted -a little more. But even in those days Englishmen divided -their minds in a curious fashion; and unconsciously -distinguished between the Jews whom they had never seen, in -Warsaw, and the Jew whom they had often seen in Whitechapel. -It seemed to be assumed that, by a curious coincidence, -Russia possessed not only the very worst Anti-Semites but -the very best Semites. A moneylender in London might be like -Judas Iscariot; but a moneylender in Moscow must be like -Judas Maccabeus. - -Nevertheless there remained in our common sense an -unconscious but fundamental comprehension of the unity of -Israel; a sense that some things could be said, and some -could not be said, about the Jews as a whole. Sup pose that -even in those days, to say nothing of these, an English -protest against Russian Anti-Semitism had been answered by -the Russian Anti-Semites, and suppose the answer had been -somewhat as follows:-- - -'It is all very well for foreigners to complain of our -denying civic rights to our Jewish subjects; but we know the -Jews better than they do. They are a barbarous people, -entirely primitive, and very like the simple savages who -cannot count beyond five on their fingers. It is quite -impossible to make them understand ordinary numbers, to say -nothing of simple economics. They do not realise the meaning -or the value of money. No Jew anywhere in the world can get -into his stupid head the notion of a bargain, or of -exchanging one thing for another. Their hopeless incapacity -for commerce or finance would retard the progress of our -people, would prevent the spread of any sort of economic -education, would keep the whole country on a level lower -than that of the most prehistoric methods of barter. What -Russia needs most is a mercantile middle class; and it is -unjust to ask us to swamp its small beginnings in thousands -of these rude tribesmen, who cannot do a sum of simple -addition, or understand the symbolic character of a -threepenny bit, We might as well be asked to give civic -rights to cows and pigs as to this unhappy half-witted race -who can no more count than the beasts of the field. In every -intellectual exercise they are hopelessly incompetent; no -Jew can play chess; no Jew can learn languages; no Jew has -ever appeared in the smallest part in any theatrical -performance; no Jew can give or take any pleasure connected -with any musical instrument. These people are our subjects; -and we must understand them. We accept full responsibility -for treating such troglodytes on our own terms.' - -It would not be entirely convincing. It would sound a little -far-fetched and unreal. But it would sound exactly like our -utterances about the Irish, as they sound to all Americans, -and rather especially to Anti-Irish Americans. That is -exactly the impression we produce on the people of the -United States when we say, as we do say in substance, -something like this: 'We mean no harm to the poor dear -Irish, so dreamy, so irresponsible, so incapable of order or -organisation. If we were to withdraw from their country they -would only fight among themselves; they have no notion of -how to rule themselves. There is something charming about -their unpracticability, about their very incapacity for the -coarse business of politics. But for their own sakes it is -impossible to leave these emotional visionaries to ruin -themselves in the attempt to rule themselves, They are like -children; but they are our own children, and we understand -them. We accept full responsibility for acting as their +It is often asked what should be the first thing that a man sees when he +lands in a foreign country; but I think it should be the vision of his +own country. At least when I came into New York Harbour, a sort of grey +and green cloud came between me and the towers with multitudinous +windows, white in the winter sunlight; and I saw an old brown house +standing back among the beech-trees at home, the house of only one among +many friends and neighbours, but one somehow so sunken in the very heart +of England as to be unconscious of her imperial or international +position, and out of sound of her perilous seas. But what made most +clear the vision that revisited me was something else. Before we touched +land the men of my own guild, the journalists and reporters, had already +boarded the ship like pirates. And one of them spoke to me in an accent +that I knew; and thanked me for all I had done for Ireland. And it was +at that moment that I knew most vividly that what I wanted was to do +something for England. + +Then, as it chanced, I looked across at the statue of Liberty, and saw +that the great bronze was gleaming green in the morning light. I had +made all the obvious jokes about the statue of Liberty. I found it had a +soothing effect on earnest Prohibitionists on the boat to urge, as a +point of dignity and delicacy, that it ought to be given back to the +French, a vicious race abandoned to the culture of the vine. I proposed +that the last liquors on board should be poured out in a pagan libation +before it. And then I suddenly remembered that this Liberty was still in +some sense enlightening the world, or one part of the world; was a lamp +for one sort of wanderer, a star of one sort of seafarer. To one +persecuted people at least this land had really been an asylum; even if +recent legislation (as I have said) had made them think it a lunatic +asylum. They had made it so much their home that the very colour of the +country seemed to change with the infusion; as the bronze of the great +statue took on a semblance of the wearing of the green. + +It is a commonplace that the Englishman has been stupid in his relations +with the Irish; but he has been far more stupid in his relations with +the Americans on the subject of the Irish. His propaganda has been worse +than his practice; and his defence more ill-considered than the most +indefensible things that it was intended to defend. There is in this +matter a curious tangle of cross-purposes, which only a parallel example +can make at all clear. And I will note the point here, because it is +some testimony to its vivid importance that it was really the first I +had to discuss on American soil with an American citizen. In a double +sense I touched Ireland before I came to America. I will take an +imaginary in stance from another controversy; in order to show how the +apology can be worse than the action. The best we can say for ourselves +is worse than the worst that we can do. + +There was a time when English poets and other .publicists could always +be inspired with instantaneous indignation about the persecuted Jews in +Russia. We have heard less about them since we heard more about the +persecuting Jews in Russia. I fear there are a great many middle-class +Englishmen already who wish that Trotsky had been persecuted a little +more. But even in those days Englishmen divided their minds in a curious +fashion; and unconsciously distinguished between the Jews whom they had +never seen, in Warsaw, and the Jew whom they had often seen in +Whitechapel. It seemed to be assumed that, by a curious coincidence, +Russia possessed not only the very worst Anti-Semites but the very best +Semites. A moneylender in London might be like Judas Iscariot; but a +moneylender in Moscow must be like Judas Maccabeus. + +Nevertheless there remained in our common sense an unconscious but +fundamental comprehension of the unity of Israel; a sense that some +things could be said, and some could not be said, about the Jews as a +whole. Sup pose that even in those days, to say nothing of these, an +English protest against Russian Anti-Semitism had been answered by the +Russian Anti-Semites, and suppose the answer had been somewhat as +follows:-- + +'It is all very well for foreigners to complain of our denying civic +rights to our Jewish subjects; but we know the Jews better than they do. +They are a barbarous people, entirely primitive, and very like the +simple savages who cannot count beyond five on their fingers. It is +quite impossible to make them understand ordinary numbers, to say +nothing of simple economics. They do not realise the meaning or the +value of money. No Jew anywhere in the world can get into his stupid +head the notion of a bargain, or of exchanging one thing for another. +Their hopeless incapacity for commerce or finance would retard the +progress of our people, would prevent the spread of any sort of economic +education, would keep the whole country on a level lower than that of +the most prehistoric methods of barter. What Russia needs most is a +mercantile middle class; and it is unjust to ask us to swamp its small +beginnings in thousands of these rude tribesmen, who cannot do a sum of +simple addition, or understand the symbolic character of a threepenny +bit, We might as well be asked to give civic rights to cows and pigs as +to this unhappy half-witted race who can no more count than the beasts +of the field. In every intellectual exercise they are hopelessly +incompetent; no Jew can play chess; no Jew can learn languages; no Jew +has ever appeared in the smallest part in any theatrical performance; no +Jew can give or take any pleasure connected with any musical instrument. +These people are our subjects; and we must understand them. We accept +full responsibility for treating such troglodytes on our own terms.' + +It would not be entirely convincing. It would sound a little far-fetched +and unreal. But it would sound exactly like our utterances about the +Irish, as they sound to all Americans, and rather especially to +Anti-Irish Americans. That is exactly the impression we produce on the +people of the United States when we say, as we do say in substance, +something like this: 'We mean no harm to the poor dear Irish, so dreamy, +so irresponsible, so incapable of order or organisation. If we were to +withdraw from their country they would only fight among themselves; they +have no notion of how to rule themselves. There is something charming +about their unpracticability, about their very incapacity for the coarse +business of politics. But for their own sakes it is impossible to leave +these emotional visionaries to ruin themselves in the attempt to rule +themselves, They are like children; but they are our own children, and +we understand them. We accept full responsibility for acting as their parents and guardians.' -Now the point is not only that this view of the Irish is -false, but that it is the particular view that the Americans -know to be false. While we are saying that the Irish could -not organise, the Americans are complaining, often very -bitterly, of the power of Irish organisation, While we say -that the Irishman could not rule himself, the Americans are -saying, more or less humorously, that the Irishman rules -them. A highly intelligent professor said to me in Boston, -'We have solved the Irish problem here; we have an entirely -independent Irish Government.' While we are complaining, in -an almost passionate manner, of the impotence of mere -cliques of idealists and dreamers, they are complaining, -often in a very indignant manner, of the power of great -gangs of bosses and bullies. There are a great many -Americans who pity the Irish, very naturally and very -rightly, for the historic martyrdom which their patriotism -has endured. \[But there are a great many Americans who do -not pity the Irish in the least. They would be much more -likely to pity the English; only this particular way of -talking tends rather to make them despise the English. Thus -both the friends of Ireland and the foes of Ireland tend to -be the foes of England. We make one set of enemies by our -action, and another by our apology. - -It is a thing that can from time to time be found in -history; a misunderstanding that really has a moral. The -English excuse would carry much more weight if it had more -sincerity and more humility. There are a considerable number -of people in the United States who could sympathise with us, -if we would say frankly that we fear the Irish. Those who -thus despise our pity might possibly even respect our fear. -The argument I have often used in other places comes back -with prodigious and redoubled force, after hearing anything -of American opinion; the argument that the only reasonable -or reputable excuse for the English is the excuse of a -patriotic sense of peril; and that the Unionist, if he must -be a Unionist, should use that and no other. When the -Unionist has said that he dare not let loose against him -self a captive he has so cruelly wronged, he has said all -that he has to say; all that he has ever had to say; all -that he will ever have to say. He is like a man who has sent -a virile and rather vindictive rival unjustly to penal -servitude; and who connives at the continuance of the -sentence, not because he himself is particularly vindictive, -but because he is afraid of what the convict will do when he -comes out of prison. This is not exactly a moral strength, -but it is a very human weakness; and that is the most that -can be said for it. All other talk, about Celtic frenzy or -Catholic superstition, is cant in vented to deceive himself -or to deceive the world. But the vital point to realise is -that it is cant that cannot possibly deceive the American -world. In the matter of the Irishman the American is not to -be deceived. It is not merely true to say that he knows -better. It is equally true to say that he knows worse. He -knows vices and evils in the Irishman that are entirely -hidden in the hazy vision of the Englishman. He knows that -our unreal slanders are inconsistent even with the real -sins. To us Ireland is a shadowy Isle of Sunset, like -Atlantis, about which we can make up legends. To him it is a -positive ward or parish in the heart of his huge cities, -like Whitechapel; about which even we cannot make legends -but only lies. And, as I have said, there are some lies we -do not tell even about Whitechapel. We do not say it is in -habited by Jews too stupid to count or know the value of a -coin. - -The first thing for any honest Englishman to send across the -sea is this; that the English have not the shadow of a -notion of what they are up against in America. They have -never even heard of the batteries of almost brutal energy, -of which I had thus touched a live wire even before I -landed. People talk about the hypocrisy of England in -dealing with a small nationality. What strikes me is the -stupidity of England in supposing that she is dealing with a -small nationality; when she is really dealing with a very -large nationality. She is dealing with a nationality that -often threatens, even numerically, to dominate all the other -nationalities of the United States. The Irish are not -decaying; they are not unpractical; they are scarcely even -scattered; they are not even poor. They are the most -powerful and practical world-combination with whom we can -decide to be friends or foes; and that is why I thought -first of that still and solid brown house in -Buckinghamshire, standing back in the shadow of the trees. - -Among my impressions of America I have deliberately put -first the figure of the Irish-American interviewer, standing -on the shore more symbolic than the statue of Liberty. The -Irish interviewer's importance for the English lay in the -fact of his being an Irishman, but there was also -considerable interest in the circumstance of his being an -interviewer. And as certain wild birds sometimes wing their -way far out to sea and are the first signal of the shore, so -the first Americans the traveller meets are often American -interviewers; and they are generally birds of a feather, and -they certainly flock together. In this respect, there is a -slight difference in the etiquette of the craft in the two -countries, which I was delighted to discuss with my fellow -craftsmen. If I could at that moment have flown back to -Fleet Street I am happy to reflect that nobody in the world -would in the least wish to interview me. I should attract no -more attention than the stone griffin opposite the Law -Courts; both monsters being grotesque but also familiar. But -supposing for the sake of argument that anybody did want to -interview me, it is fairly certain that the fact of one -paper publishing such an interview would rather prevent the -other papers from doing so. The repetition of the same views -of the same individual in two places would be considered -rather bad journalism; it would have an air of stolen -thunder, not to say stage thunder. - -But in America the fact of my landing and lecturing was -evidently regarded in the same light as a murder or a great -fire, or any other terrible but incurable catastrophe, a -matter of interest to all pressmen concerned with practical -events. One of the first questions I was asked was how I -should be disposed to explain the wave of crime in New York. -Naturally I replied that it might possibly be due to the -number of English lecturers who had recently landed. In the -mood of the moment it seemed possible that, if they had all -been interviewed, regrettable incidents might possibly have -taken place. But this was only the mood of the moment, and -even as a mood did not last more than a moment. And since it -has reference to a rather common and a rather unjust -conception of American journalism, I think it well to take -it first as a fallacy to be refuted, though the refutation -may require a rather long approach. - -I have generally found that the traveller fails to under -stand a foreign country, through treating it as a tendency -and not as a balance. But if a thing were always tending in -one direction it would soon tend to destruction. Everything -that merely progresses finally perishes. Every nation, like -every family, exists upon a compromise, and commonly a -rather eccentric compromise; using the word eccentric in the -sense of something that is somehow at once crazy and -healthy. Now the foreigner commonly sees some feature that -he thinks fantastic without seeing the feature that balances -it. The ordinary examples are obvious enough. An Englishman -dining inside an hotel on the boulevards thinks the French -eccentric in refusing to open a window. But he does not -think the English eccentric in refusing to carry "their -chairs and tables out on to the pavement in Ludgate Circus. -An Englishman will go poking about in little Swiss or -Italian villages, in wild mountains or in remote islands, -demanding tea; and never reflects that he is like a Chinaman -who should enter all the wayside public houses in Kent or -Sussex and demand opium. But the point is not merely that he -demands what he cannot expect to enjoy; it is that he -ignores even what he does en joy. He does not realise the -sublime and starry paradox of the phrase, *vin ordinaire*, -which to him should be a glorious jest like the phrase -common gold or daily diamonds. These are the simple and -self-evident cases; but there are many more subtle cases of -the same thing; of the tendency to see that the nation fills -up its own gap with its own substitute; or corrects its own -extravagance with its own precaution. The national antidote -generally grows wild in the woods side by side with the -national poison. If it did not, all the natives would be -dead. For it is so, as I have said, that nations necessarily -die of the undiluted poison called progress. - -It is so in this much-abused and over-abused example of the -American journalist. The American interviewers really have -exceedingly good manners for the purposes of their trade, -granted that it is necessary to pursue their trade. And even -what is called their hustling method can truly be said to -cut both ways, or hustle both ways; for if they hustle in, -they also hustle out. It may not at first sight seem the -very warmest compliment to a gentle man to congratulate him -on the fact that he soon goes away. But it really is a -tribute to his perfection in a very delicate social art; and -I am quite serious when I say that in this respect the -interviewers are artists. It might be more difficult for an -Englishman to come to the point, particularly the sort of -point which American journalists are supposed, with some -exaggeration, to aim at. It might be more difficult for an -Englishman to ask a total stranger on the spur of the moment -for the exact inscription on his mother's grave; but I -really think that if an Englishman once got so far as that -he would go very much farther, and certainly go on very much -longer. The Englishman would approach the church yard by a -rather more wandering woodland path; but if once he had got -to the grave I think he would have much more disposition, so -to speak, to sit down on it. Our own national temperament -would find it decidedly more difficult to disconnect when -connections had really been established. Possibly that is -the reason why our national temperament does not establish -them. I suspect that the real reason that an Englishman does -not talk is that he cannot leave off talking. I suspect that -my solitary countrymen, hiding in separate railway -compartments, are not so much retiring as a race of -Trappists as escaping from a race of talkers. - -However this may be, there is obviously something of -practical advantage in the ease with which the American -butterfly flits from flower to flower. He may in a sense -force his acquaintance on us, but he does not force himself -on us. Even when, to our prejudices, he seems to insist on -knowing us, "at least he does not insist on our knowing -him. It may be, to some sensibilities, a bad thing that a -total stranger should talk as if he were a friend, but it -might possibly be worse if he insisted on being a friend -before he would talk like one. To a great deal of the -interviewing 1 , indeed much the greater part of it, even -this criticism does not apply; there is nothing which even -an Englishman of extreme sensibility could regard as -particularly private; the questions involved are generally -entirely public, and treated with not a little public -spirit. But my only reason for saying here what can be said -even for the worst exceptions is to point out this general -and neglected principle; that the very thing that we -complain of in a foreigner generally carries with it its own -foreign cure. American interviewing is generally very -reasonable, and it is always very rapid. And even those to -whom talking to an intelligent fellow creature is as -horrible as having a tooth out may still admit that American -interviewing has many of the qualities of American -dentistry. - -Another effect that has given rise to this fallacy, this -exaggeration of the vulgarity and curiosity of the press, is -the distinction between the articles and the headlines; or -rather the tendency to ignore that distinction. The few -really untrue and unscrupulous things I have seen in -American stories have always been in the headlines. And the -headlines are written by somebody else; some solitary and -savage cynic locked up in the office, hating all mankind, -and raging and revenging himself at random, while the neat, -polite, and rational pressman can safely be let loose to -wander about the town. - -For instance, I talked to two decidedly thoughtful fellow -journalists immediately on my arrival at a town in which -there had been some labour troubles. I told them my general -view of Labour in the very largest and perhaps the vaguest -historical outline; pointing out that the one great truth to -be taught to the middle classes was that Capitalism was -itself a crisis, and a passing crisis; that it was not so -much that it was breaking down as that it had never really -stood up. Slaveries could last, and peasantries could last; -but wage-earning communities could hardly even live, and -were already dying. - -All this moral and even metaphysical generalisation was most -fairly and most faithfully reproduced by the interviewer, -who had actually heard it casually and idly spoken. But on -the top of this column of political philosophy was the -extraordinary announcement in enormous letters, 'Chesterton -Takes Sides in Trolley Strike.' This was inaccurate. When I -spoke I not only did not know that there was any trolley -strike, but I did not know What a trolley strike was. I -should have had an indistinct idea that a large number of -citizens earned their living by carrying things about in -wheel-barrows, and that they had desisted from the -beneficent activities. Any one who did not happen to be a -journalist, or know a little about journalism, American and -English, would have supposed that the same man who wrote the -article had suddenly gone mad and written the title. But I -know that we have here to deal with two different types of -journalists; and the man who writes the headlines I will not -dare to describe; for I have not seen him except in dreams. - -Another innocent complication is that the interviewer does -sometimes translate things into his native language. It -would not seem odd that a French interviewer should -translate them into French; and it is certain that the -American interviewer sometimes translates them into -American. Those who imagine the two languages to be the same -are more innocent than any interviewer. To take one out of -the twenty examples, some of which I have mentioned -elsewhere, suppose an interviewer had said that I had the -reputation of being a nut. I should be flattered but faintly -surprised at such a tribute to my dress and dashing -exterior. I should afterwards be sobered and enlightened by -discovering that in America a nut does not mean a dandy but -a defective or imbecile person. And as I have here to -translate their American phrase into English, it may be very -defensible that they should translate my English phrases -into American. Anyhow they often do translate them into -American. In answer to the usual question about Prohibition -I had made the usual answer, obvious to the point of -dullness to those who are in daily contact with it, that it -is a law that the rich make knowing they can always break +Now the point is not only that this view of the Irish is false, but that +it is the particular view that the Americans know to be false. While we +are saying that the Irish could not organise, the Americans are +complaining, often very bitterly, of the power of Irish organisation, +While we say that the Irishman could not rule himself, the Americans are +saying, more or less humorously, that the Irishman rules them. A highly +intelligent professor said to me in Boston, 'We have solved the Irish +problem here; we have an entirely independent Irish Government.' While +we are complaining, in an almost passionate manner, of the impotence of +mere cliques of idealists and dreamers, they are complaining, often in a +very indignant manner, of the power of great gangs of bosses and +bullies. There are a great many Americans who pity the Irish, very +naturally and very rightly, for the historic martyrdom which their +patriotism has endured. \[But there are a great many Americans who do +not pity the Irish in the least. They would be much more likely to pity +the English; only this particular way of talking tends rather to make +them despise the English. Thus both the friends of Ireland and the foes +of Ireland tend to be the foes of England. We make one set of enemies by +our action, and another by our apology. + +It is a thing that can from time to time be found in history; a +misunderstanding that really has a moral. The English excuse would carry +much more weight if it had more sincerity and more humility. There are a +considerable number of people in the United States who could sympathise +with us, if we would say frankly that we fear the Irish. Those who thus +despise our pity might possibly even respect our fear. The argument I +have often used in other places comes back with prodigious and redoubled +force, after hearing anything of American opinion; the argument that the +only reasonable or reputable excuse for the English is the excuse of a +patriotic sense of peril; and that the Unionist, if he must be a +Unionist, should use that and no other. When the Unionist has said that +he dare not let loose against him self a captive he has so cruelly +wronged, he has said all that he has to say; all that he has ever had to +say; all that he will ever have to say. He is like a man who has sent a +virile and rather vindictive rival unjustly to penal servitude; and who +connives at the continuance of the sentence, not because he himself is +particularly vindictive, but because he is afraid of what the convict +will do when he comes out of prison. This is not exactly a moral +strength, but it is a very human weakness; and that is the most that can +be said for it. All other talk, about Celtic frenzy or Catholic +superstition, is cant in vented to deceive himself or to deceive the +world. But the vital point to realise is that it is cant that cannot +possibly deceive the American world. In the matter of the Irishman the +American is not to be deceived. It is not merely true to say that he +knows better. It is equally true to say that he knows worse. He knows +vices and evils in the Irishman that are entirely hidden in the hazy +vision of the Englishman. He knows that our unreal slanders are +inconsistent even with the real sins. To us Ireland is a shadowy Isle of +Sunset, like Atlantis, about which we can make up legends. To him it is +a positive ward or parish in the heart of his huge cities, like +Whitechapel; about which even we cannot make legends but only lies. And, +as I have said, there are some lies we do not tell even about +Whitechapel. We do not say it is in habited by Jews too stupid to count +or know the value of a coin. + +The first thing for any honest Englishman to send across the sea is +this; that the English have not the shadow of a notion of what they are +up against in America. They have never even heard of the batteries of +almost brutal energy, of which I had thus touched a live wire even +before I landed. People talk about the hypocrisy of England in dealing +with a small nationality. What strikes me is the stupidity of England in +supposing that she is dealing with a small nationality; when she is +really dealing with a very large nationality. She is dealing with a +nationality that often threatens, even numerically, to dominate all the +other nationalities of the United States. The Irish are not decaying; +they are not unpractical; they are scarcely even scattered; they are not +even poor. They are the most powerful and practical world-combination +with whom we can decide to be friends or foes; and that is why I thought +first of that still and solid brown house in Buckinghamshire, standing +back in the shadow of the trees. + +Among my impressions of America I have deliberately put first the figure +of the Irish-American interviewer, standing on the shore more symbolic +than the statue of Liberty. The Irish interviewer's importance for the +English lay in the fact of his being an Irishman, but there was also +considerable interest in the circumstance of his being an interviewer. +And as certain wild birds sometimes wing their way far out to sea and +are the first signal of the shore, so the first Americans the traveller +meets are often American interviewers; and they are generally birds of a +feather, and they certainly flock together. In this respect, there is a +slight difference in the etiquette of the craft in the two countries, +which I was delighted to discuss with my fellow craftsmen. If I could at +that moment have flown back to Fleet Street I am happy to reflect that +nobody in the world would in the least wish to interview me. I should +attract no more attention than the stone griffin opposite the Law +Courts; both monsters being grotesque but also familiar. But supposing +for the sake of argument that anybody did want to interview me, it is +fairly certain that the fact of one paper publishing such an interview +would rather prevent the other papers from doing so. The repetition of +the same views of the same individual in two places would be considered +rather bad journalism; it would have an air of stolen thunder, not to +say stage thunder. + +But in America the fact of my landing and lecturing was evidently +regarded in the same light as a murder or a great fire, or any other +terrible but incurable catastrophe, a matter of interest to all pressmen +concerned with practical events. One of the first questions I was asked +was how I should be disposed to explain the wave of crime in New York. +Naturally I replied that it might possibly be due to the number of +English lecturers who had recently landed. In the mood of the moment it +seemed possible that, if they had all been interviewed, regrettable +incidents might possibly have taken place. But this was only the mood of +the moment, and even as a mood did not last more than a moment. And +since it has reference to a rather common and a rather unjust conception +of American journalism, I think it well to take it first as a fallacy to +be refuted, though the refutation may require a rather long approach. + +I have generally found that the traveller fails to under stand a foreign +country, through treating it as a tendency and not as a balance. But if +a thing were always tending in one direction it would soon tend to +destruction. Everything that merely progresses finally perishes. Every +nation, like every family, exists upon a compromise, and commonly a +rather eccentric compromise; using the word eccentric in the sense of +something that is somehow at once crazy and healthy. Now the foreigner +commonly sees some feature that he thinks fantastic without seeing the +feature that balances it. The ordinary examples are obvious enough. An +Englishman dining inside an hotel on the boulevards thinks the French +eccentric in refusing to open a window. But he does not think the +English eccentric in refusing to carry "their chairs and tables out on +to the pavement in Ludgate Circus. An Englishman will go poking about in +little Swiss or Italian villages, in wild mountains or in remote +islands, demanding tea; and never reflects that he is like a Chinaman +who should enter all the wayside public houses in Kent or Sussex and +demand opium. But the point is not merely that he demands what he cannot +expect to enjoy; it is that he ignores even what he does en joy. He does +not realise the sublime and starry paradox of the phrase, *vin +ordinaire*, which to him should be a glorious jest like the phrase +common gold or daily diamonds. These are the simple and self-evident +cases; but there are many more subtle cases of the same thing; of the +tendency to see that the nation fills up its own gap with its own +substitute; or corrects its own extravagance with its own precaution. +The national antidote generally grows wild in the woods side by side +with the national poison. If it did not, all the natives would be dead. +For it is so, as I have said, that nations necessarily die of the +undiluted poison called progress. + +It is so in this much-abused and over-abused example of the American +journalist. The American interviewers really have exceedingly good +manners for the purposes of their trade, granted that it is necessary to +pursue their trade. And even what is called their hustling method can +truly be said to cut both ways, or hustle both ways; for if they hustle +in, they also hustle out. It may not at first sight seem the very +warmest compliment to a gentle man to congratulate him on the fact that +he soon goes away. But it really is a tribute to his perfection in a +very delicate social art; and I am quite serious when I say that in this +respect the interviewers are artists. It might be more difficult for an +Englishman to come to the point, particularly the sort of point which +American journalists are supposed, with some exaggeration, to aim at. It +might be more difficult for an Englishman to ask a total stranger on the +spur of the moment for the exact inscription on his mother's grave; but +I really think that if an Englishman once got so far as that he would go +very much farther, and certainly go on very much longer. The Englishman +would approach the church yard by a rather more wandering woodland path; +but if once he had got to the grave I think he would have much more +disposition, so to speak, to sit down on it. Our own national +temperament would find it decidedly more difficult to disconnect when +connections had really been established. Possibly that is the reason why +our national temperament does not establish them. I suspect that the +real reason that an Englishman does not talk is that he cannot leave off +talking. I suspect that my solitary countrymen, hiding in separate +railway compartments, are not so much retiring as a race of Trappists as +escaping from a race of talkers. + +However this may be, there is obviously something of practical advantage +in the ease with which the American butterfly flits from flower to +flower. He may in a sense force his acquaintance on us, but he does not +force himself on us. Even when, to our prejudices, he seems to insist on +knowing us, "at least he does not insist on our knowing him. It may be, +to some sensibilities, a bad thing that a total stranger should talk as +if he were a friend, but it might possibly be worse if he insisted on +being a friend before he would talk like one. To a great deal of the +interviewing 1 , indeed much the greater part of it, even this criticism +does not apply; there is nothing which even an Englishman of extreme +sensibility could regard as particularly private; the questions involved +are generally entirely public, and treated with not a little public +spirit. But my only reason for saying here what can be said even for the +worst exceptions is to point out this general and neglected principle; +that the very thing that we complain of in a foreigner generally carries +with it its own foreign cure. American interviewing is generally very +reasonable, and it is always very rapid. And even those to whom talking +to an intelligent fellow creature is as horrible as having a tooth out +may still admit that American interviewing has many of the qualities of +American dentistry. + +Another effect that has given rise to this fallacy, this exaggeration of +the vulgarity and curiosity of the press, is the distinction between the +articles and the headlines; or rather the tendency to ignore that +distinction. The few really untrue and unscrupulous things I have seen +in American stories have always been in the headlines. And the headlines +are written by somebody else; some solitary and savage cynic locked up +in the office, hating all mankind, and raging and revenging himself at +random, while the neat, polite, and rational pressman can safely be let +loose to wander about the town. + +For instance, I talked to two decidedly thoughtful fellow journalists +immediately on my arrival at a town in which there had been some labour +troubles. I told them my general view of Labour in the very largest and +perhaps the vaguest historical outline; pointing out that the one great +truth to be taught to the middle classes was that Capitalism was itself +a crisis, and a passing crisis; that it was not so much that it was +breaking down as that it had never really stood up. Slaveries could +last, and peasantries could last; but wage-earning communities could +hardly even live, and were already dying. + +All this moral and even metaphysical generalisation was most fairly and +most faithfully reproduced by the interviewer, who had actually heard it +casually and idly spoken. But on the top of this column of political +philosophy was the extraordinary announcement in enormous letters, +'Chesterton Takes Sides in Trolley Strike.' This was inaccurate. When I +spoke I not only did not know that there was any trolley strike, but I +did not know What a trolley strike was. I should have had an indistinct +idea that a large number of citizens earned their living by carrying +things about in wheel-barrows, and that they had desisted from the +beneficent activities. Any one who did not happen to be a journalist, or +know a little about journalism, American and English, would have +supposed that the same man who wrote the article had suddenly gone mad +and written the title. But I know that we have here to deal with two +different types of journalists; and the man who writes the headlines I +will not dare to describe; for I have not seen him except in dreams. + +Another innocent complication is that the interviewer does sometimes +translate things into his native language. It would not seem odd that a +French interviewer should translate them into French; and it is certain +that the American interviewer sometimes translates them into American. +Those who imagine the two languages to be the same are more innocent +than any interviewer. To take one out of the twenty examples, some of +which I have mentioned elsewhere, suppose an interviewer had said that I +had the reputation of being a nut. I should be flattered but faintly +surprised at such a tribute to my dress and dashing exterior. I should +afterwards be sobered and enlightened by discovering that in America a +nut does not mean a dandy but a defective or imbecile person. And as I +have here to translate their American phrase into English, it may be +very defensible that they should translate my English phrases into +American. Anyhow they often do translate them into American. In answer +to the usual question about Prohibition I had made the usual answer, +obvious to the point of dullness to those who are in daily contact with +it, that it is a law that the rich make knowing they can always break it. From the printed interview it appeared that I had said, -'Prohibition! All matter of dollar sign.' This is almost -avowed translation, like a French translation. Nobody can -suppose that it would come natural to an Englishman to talk -about a dollar, still less about a dollar sign---whatever -that may be. It is exactly as if he had made me talk about -the Skelt and Stevenson Toy Theatre as 'a cent plain, and -two cents coloured' or condemned a parsimonious policy as -dime-wise and dollar-foolish. Another interviewer once asked -me who was the greatest American writer. I have forgotten -exactly what I said, but after mentioning several names, I -said that the greatest natural genius and artistic force was -probably Walt Whitman. The printed interview is more -precise; and---students of my literary and conversational -style will be interested to know that I said, 'See here, -Walt Whitman was your one real red-blooded man.' Here again -I hardly think the translation can have been quite -unconscious; most of my intimates are indeed aware that I do -not talk like that, but I fancy that the same fact would -have dawned on the journalist to whom I had been talking. -And even this trivial point carries with it the two truths -which must be, I fear, the rather monotonous moral of these -pages. The first is that America and England can be far -better friends when sharply divided than when shapelessly -amalgamated. These two journalists were false reporters, but -they were true translators. They were not so much inter -viewers as interpreters. And the second is that in any such -difference it is often wholesome to look beneath the surface -for a superiority. For ability to translate does imply -ability to understand; and many of these journalists really -did understand. I think there are many English journalists -who would be more puzzled by so simple an idea as the -plutocratic foundation of Prohibition. But the American knew -at once that I meant it was a matter of dollar sign; -probably because he knew very well that it is. - -Then again there is a curious convention by which American -interviewing makes itself out much worse than it is. The -reports are far more rowdy and insolent than the -conversations. This is probably a part of the fact that a -certain vivacity, which to some seems vitality and to some -vulgarity, is not only an ambition but an ideal. It must -always be grasped that this vulgarity is an ideal even more -than it is a reality. It is an ideal when it is not a -reality. A very quiet and intelligent young man, in a soft -black hat and tortoise-shell spectacles, will ask for an -interview with unimpeachable politeness, wait for his living -subject with unimpeachable patience, talk to him quite -sensibly for twenty minutes, and go noiselessly away. Then -in the newspaper next morning you will read how he beat the -bedroom door in, and pursued his victim on to the roof or -dragged him from under the bed, and tore from! him replies -to all sorts of bald and ruthless questions printed in large -black letters. I was often interviewed in the evening, and -had no notion of how atrociously I had been insulted till I -saw it in the paper next morning. I had no notion I had been -on the rack of an inquisitor until I saw it in plain print; -and then of course I believed it, with a faith and docility -unknown in any previous epoch of history. An interesting -essay might be written upon points upon which nations affect -more vices than they possess; and it might deal more fully -with the American pressman, who is a harmless clubman in -private, and becomes a sort of high way-robber in print. +'Prohibition! All matter of dollar sign.' This is almost avowed +translation, like a French translation. Nobody can suppose that it would +come natural to an Englishman to talk about a dollar, still less about a +dollar sign---whatever that may be. It is exactly as if he had made me +talk about the Skelt and Stevenson Toy Theatre as 'a cent plain, and two +cents coloured' or condemned a parsimonious policy as dime-wise and +dollar-foolish. Another interviewer once asked me who was the greatest +American writer. I have forgotten exactly what I said, but after +mentioning several names, I said that the greatest natural genius and +artistic force was probably Walt Whitman. The printed interview is more +precise; and---students of my literary and conversational style will be +interested to know that I said, 'See here, Walt Whitman was your one +real red-blooded man.' Here again I hardly think the translation can +have been quite unconscious; most of my intimates are indeed aware that +I do not talk like that, but I fancy that the same fact would have +dawned on the journalist to whom I had been talking. And even this +trivial point carries with it the two truths which must be, I fear, the +rather monotonous moral of these pages. The first is that America and +England can be far better friends when sharply divided than when +shapelessly amalgamated. These two journalists were false reporters, but +they were true translators. They were not so much inter viewers as +interpreters. And the second is that in any such difference it is often +wholesome to look beneath the surface for a superiority. For ability to +translate does imply ability to understand; and many of these +journalists really did understand. I think there are many English +journalists who would be more puzzled by so simple an idea as the +plutocratic foundation of Prohibition. But the American knew at once +that I meant it was a matter of dollar sign; probably because he knew +very well that it is. + +Then again there is a curious convention by which American interviewing +makes itself out much worse than it is. The reports are far more rowdy +and insolent than the conversations. This is probably a part of the fact +that a certain vivacity, which to some seems vitality and to some +vulgarity, is not only an ambition but an ideal. It must always be +grasped that this vulgarity is an ideal even more than it is a reality. +It is an ideal when it is not a reality. A very quiet and intelligent +young man, in a soft black hat and tortoise-shell spectacles, will ask +for an interview with unimpeachable politeness, wait for his living +subject with unimpeachable patience, talk to him quite sensibly for +twenty minutes, and go noiselessly away. Then in the newspaper next +morning you will read how he beat the bedroom door in, and pursued his +victim on to the roof or dragged him from under the bed, and tore from! +him replies to all sorts of bald and ruthless questions printed in large +black letters. I was often interviewed in the evening, and had no notion +of how atrociously I had been insulted till I saw it in the paper next +morning. I had no notion I had been on the rack of an inquisitor until I +saw it in plain print; and then of course I believed it, with a faith +and docility unknown in any previous epoch of history. An interesting +essay might be written upon points upon which nations affect more vices +than they possess; and it might deal more fully with the American +pressman, who is a harmless clubman in private, and becomes a sort of +high way-robber in print. I have turned this chapter into something like a defence of -interviewers, because I really think they are made to bear -too much of the burden of the bad developments of modern -journalism. But I am very far from meaning to suggest that -those bad developments are not very bad. So far from wishing -to minimise the evil, I would in a real sense rather magnify -it. I would suggest that the evil itself is a much larger -and more fundamental thing; and that to deal with it by -abusing poor journalists, doing their particular and perhaps -peculiar duty, is like dealing with a pestilence by rubbing -at one of the spots. What is wrong with the modern world -will not be righted by attributing the whole disease to each -of its symptoms in turn; first to the tavern and then to the -cinema and then to the reporter's room. The evil of -journalism is not in the journalists. It is not in the poor -men on the lowest level of the profession, but in the rich -men at the top of the profession; or rather in the rich men -who are too much on top of the profession even to belong to -it. The trouble with newspapers is the Newspaper Trust, as -the trouble might be with a Wheat Trust, without involving a -vilification of all the people who grow wheat. It is the -American plutocracy and not the American press. What is the -matter with the modern world is not modern headlines or -modern films or modern machinery. What is the matter with -the modern world is the modern world; and the cure will come -from another. +interviewers, because I really think they are made to bear too much of +the burden of the bad developments of modern journalism. But I am very +far from meaning to suggest that those bad developments are not very +bad. So far from wishing to minimise the evil, I would in a real sense +rather magnify it. I would suggest that the evil itself is a much larger +and more fundamental thing; and that to deal with it by abusing poor +journalists, doing their particular and perhaps peculiar duty, is like +dealing with a pestilence by rubbing at one of the spots. What is wrong +with the modern world will not be righted by attributing the whole +disease to each of its symptoms in turn; first to the tavern and then to +the cinema and then to the reporter's room. The evil of journalism is +not in the journalists. It is not in the poor men on the lowest level of +the profession, but in the rich men at the top of the profession; or +rather in the rich men who are too much on top of the profession even to +belong to it. The trouble with newspapers is the Newspaper Trust, as the +trouble might be with a Wheat Trust, without involving a vilification of +all the people who grow wheat. It is the American plutocracy and not the +American press. What is the matter with the modern world is not modern +headlines or modern films or modern machinery. What is the matter with +the modern world is the modern world; and the cure will come from +another. # Some American Buildings -There is one point, almost to be called a para dox, to be -noted about New York; and that is that in one sense it is -really new. The term very seldom has any relevance to the -reality. The New Forest is nearly as old as the Conquest, -and the New Theology is nearly as old as the Creed. Things -have been offered to me as the new thought that might more -(properly be called the old thoughtlessness; and the thing -we call the New Poor Law is already old enough to know -better. But there is a sense in which New York is always -new; in the sense that it is always being renewed. A -stranger might well say that the chief industry of the -citizens consists of destroying their city; but he soon -realises that they always start it all over again with -undiminished energy and hope. At first I had a fancy that -they never quite finished putting up a big building without -feeling that it was time to pull it down again; and that -somebody began to dig up the first foundations while -somebody else was putting on the last tiles. This fills the -whole of this brilliant and bewildering place with a quite -unique and unparalleled air of rapid ruin. Ruins spring up -so suddenly like mushrooms, which with us are the growth of -age like mosses, that one half expects to see ivy climbing -quickly up the broken walls as in the nightmare of the Time -Machine, or in some incredibly accelerated cinema. - -There is no sight in any country that raises my own spirits -so much as a scaffolding. It is a tragedy that they always -take the scaffolding away, and leave us nothing but a mere -building. If they would only take the building away and -leave us a beautiful scaffolding, it would in most cases be -a gain to the loveliness of earth. If I could analyse what -it is that lifts the heart about the lightness and clarity -of such a white and wooden skeleton, I could explain what it -is that is really charming about New York; in spite of its -suffering from the curse of cosmopolitanism and even the -provincial superstition of progress. It is partly that all -this destruction and reconstruction is an unexhausted -artistic energy; but it is partly also that it is an -artistic energy that does not take itself too seriously. It -is first because man is here a carpenter; and secondly -because he is a stage carpenter. Indeed there is about the -whole scene the spirit of scene-shifting. It therefore -touches whatever nerve in us has since childhood thrilled at -all theatrical things. But the picture will be imperfect -unless we realise some thing which gives it unity and marks -its chief difference from the climate and colours of Western -Europe. We may say that the back-scene remains the same. The -sky remained, and in the depths of winter it seemed to be -blue with summer; and so clear that I almost flattered -myself that clouds were English products like primroses. An -American would probably retort on my charge of -scene-shifting by saying that at least he only shifted the -towers and domes of the earth; and that in England it is the -heavens that are shifty. And indeed we have changes from day -to day that would seem to him as distinct as different -magic-lantern slides; one view showing the Bay of Naples and -the next the North Pole. I do not mean, of course, that -there are no changes in American weather; but as a matter of -proportion it is true that the most unstable part of our -scenery is the most stable part of theirs. Indeed we might -almost be pardoned the boast that Britain alone really -possesses the noble thing called weather; most other -countries having to be content with climate. It must be -confessed, how ever, that they often are content with it. -And the beauty of New York, which is considerable, is very -largely due to the clarity that brings out the colours of -varied buildings against the equal colour of the sky. -Strangely enough I found myself repeating about this vista -of the West two vivid lines in which Mr. W. B. Yeats has -called up a vision of the East:-- +There is one point, almost to be called a para dox, to be noted about +New York; and that is that in one sense it is really new. The term very +seldom has any relevance to the reality. The New Forest is nearly as old +as the Conquest, and the New Theology is nearly as old as the Creed. +Things have been offered to me as the new thought that might more +(properly be called the old thoughtlessness; and the thing we call the +New Poor Law is already old enough to know better. But there is a sense +in which New York is always new; in the sense that it is always being +renewed. A stranger might well say that the chief industry of the +citizens consists of destroying their city; but he soon realises that +they always start it all over again with undiminished energy and hope. +At first I had a fancy that they never quite finished putting up a big +building without feeling that it was time to pull it down again; and +that somebody began to dig up the first foundations while somebody else +was putting on the last tiles. This fills the whole of this brilliant +and bewildering place with a quite unique and unparalleled air of rapid +ruin. Ruins spring up so suddenly like mushrooms, which with us are the +growth of age like mosses, that one half expects to see ivy climbing +quickly up the broken walls as in the nightmare of the Time Machine, or +in some incredibly accelerated cinema. + +There is no sight in any country that raises my own spirits so much as a +scaffolding. It is a tragedy that they always take the scaffolding away, +and leave us nothing but a mere building. If they would only take the +building away and leave us a beautiful scaffolding, it would in most +cases be a gain to the loveliness of earth. If I could analyse what it +is that lifts the heart about the lightness and clarity of such a white +and wooden skeleton, I could explain what it is that is really charming +about New York; in spite of its suffering from the curse of +cosmopolitanism and even the provincial superstition of progress. It is +partly that all this destruction and reconstruction is an unexhausted +artistic energy; but it is partly also that it is an artistic energy +that does not take itself too seriously. It is first because man is here +a carpenter; and secondly because he is a stage carpenter. Indeed there +is about the whole scene the spirit of scene-shifting. It therefore +touches whatever nerve in us has since childhood thrilled at all +theatrical things. But the picture will be imperfect unless we realise +some thing which gives it unity and marks its chief difference from the +climate and colours of Western Europe. We may say that the back-scene +remains the same. The sky remained, and in the depths of winter it +seemed to be blue with summer; and so clear that I almost flattered +myself that clouds were English products like primroses. An American +would probably retort on my charge of scene-shifting by saying that at +least he only shifted the towers and domes of the earth; and that in +England it is the heavens that are shifty. And indeed we have changes +from day to day that would seem to him as distinct as different +magic-lantern slides; one view showing the Bay of Naples and the next +the North Pole. I do not mean, of course, that there are no changes in +American weather; but as a matter of proportion it is true that the most +unstable part of our scenery is the most stable part of theirs. Indeed +we might almost be pardoned the boast that Britain alone really +possesses the noble thing called weather; most other countries having to +be content with climate. It must be confessed, how ever, that they often +are content with it. And the beauty of New York, which is considerable, +is very largely due to the clarity that brings out the colours of varied +buildings against the equal colour of the sky. Strangely enough I found +myself repeating about this vista of the West two vivid lines in which +Mr. W. B. Yeats has called up a vision of the East:-- >   And coloured like the eastern birds > > At evening in their rainless skies. -To invoke a somewhat less poetic parallel, even the -untravelled Englishman has probably seen American posters -and trade advertisements of a patchy and gaudy kind, in -which a white house or a yellow motor-car are cut out as in -a cardboard against a sky like blue marble. I used to think -it was only New Art, but I found that it is really New York. - -It is not for nothing that the very nature of local -character has gained the nickname of local colour. Colour -runs through all our experience;--and we all know that our -childhood found talismanic gems in the very paints in the -paint-box, or even in their very names. And just as the very -name of 'crimson lake 'really suggested to me some sanguine -and mysterious mere, dark yet red as blood, so the very name -of 'burnt sienna' became afterwards tangled up in my mind -with the notion of something traditional and tragic; as if -some such golden Italian city had really been darkened by -many conflagrations in the wars of mediaeval democracy. Now -if one had the caprice of conceiving some city exactly -contrary to one thus seared and seasoned by fire, its colour -might be called up to a childish fancy by the mere name of -'raw umber'; and such a city is New York. I used to be -puzzled by the name of 'raw umber,' being unable to imagine -the effect of fried umber or stewed umber. But the colours -of New York are exactly in that key; and might be adumbrated -by phrases like raw pink or raw yellow. It is really in a -sense like something uncooked; or something which the -satiric would call half-baked. And yet the effect is not -only beautiful, it is even delicate. I had no name for this -nuance; until I saw that somebody had written of 'the -pastel-tinted towers of New York'; and I knew that the name -had been found. There are no paints dry enough to describe -all that dry light; and it is not a box of colours but of -crayons. If the Englishman returning to England is moved at -the sight of a block of white chalk, the American sees -rather a bundle of chalks. Nor can I imagine anything more -moving. Fairy tales are told to children about a country -where the trees are like sugar-sticks and the lakes like -treacle, but most children would feel almost as greedy for a -fairyland where the trees were like brushes of green paint -and the hills were of coloured chalks. - -But here what accentuates the arid freshness is the -fragmentary look of the continual reconstruction and change. -The strong daylight finds everywhere the broken edges of -things, and the sort of hues we see in newly-turned earth or -the white sections of trees. And it is in this respect that -the local colour can literally be taken as local character. -For New York considered in itself is primarily a place of -unrest, and those who sincerely love it, as many do, love it -for the romance of its restlessness. A man almost looks at a -building as he passes to wonder whether it will be there -when he comes back from his walk; and the doubt is part of -an indescribable notion, as of a white nightmare of -daylight, which is increased by the very numbering of the -streets, with its tangle of numerals which at first makes an -English head reel. The detail is merely a symbol; and when -he is used to it he can see that it is, like the most -humdrum human customs, both worse and better than his own. -'271 West 52nd Street' is the easiest of all addresses to -find, but the hardest of all addresses to remember. He who -is, like myself, so constituted as necessarily to lose any -piece of paper he has particular reason to preserve, will -find himself wishing the place were called 'Pine Crest' or -'Heather Crag' like any unobtrusive villa in Streatham. But -his sense of some sort of incalculable calculations, as of -the vision of a mad mathematician, is rooted in a more real -impression. His first feeling that his head is turning round -is due to something really dizzy in the movement of a life -that turns dizzily like a wheel. If there be in the modern -mind something paradoxical that can find peace in change, it -is here that it has indeed built its habitation or rather is -still building and unbuilding it. One might fancy that it -changes in everything and that nothing endures but its -invisible name; and even its name, as I have said, seems to -make a boast of novelty. - -That is something like a sincere first impression of the -atmosphere of New York. Those who think that is the -atmosphere of America have never got any farther than New -York. We might almost say that they have never entered -America, any more than if they had been detained like -undesirable aliens at Ellis Island. And in deed there are a -good many undesirable aliens detained on Manhattan Island -too. But of that I will not speak, being myself an alien -with no particular pretensions to be desirable. Anyhow, such -is New York; but such is not the New World. The great -American Republic contains very considerable varieties, and -of these varieties, I necessarily saw far too little to -allow me to generalise. But from the little I did see, I -should venture on the generalisation that the great part of -America is singularly and even strikingly unlike New York. -It goes without saying that New York is very unlike the vast -agricultural plains and small agricultural towns of the -Middle West, which I did see. It may be conjectured with -some confidence that it is very unlike what is called the -Wild and sometimes the Woolly West, which I did not see. But -I am here comparing New York, not with the newer states of -the prairie or the mountains, but with the other older -cities of the Atlantic coast. And New York, as it seems to -me, is quite vitally different from the other historic -cities of America. It is so different that it shows them all -for the moment in a false light, as a long white searchlight -will throw a light that is fantastic and theatrical upon -ancient and quiet villages folded in the everlasting hills. -Philadelphia and Boston and Baltimore are more like those -quiet villages than they are like New York. - -If I were to call this book The Antiquities of America, I -should give rise to misunderstanding and possibly to -annoyance. And yet the double sense in such words is an -undeserved misfortune for them. We talk of Plato or the -Parthenon or the Greek passion for beauty as parts of the -antique, but hardly of the antiquated. When we call them -ancient it ig not because they have perished, but rather -because they have survived. In the same way I hear some New -Yorkers refer to Philadelphia or Baltimore as dead towns/ -They mean by a dead town a town that has had the impudence -not to die. Such people are astonished to find an ancient -thing alive, just as they are now astonished, and will be -increasingly astonished, to find Poland or the Papacy or the -French nation still alive. And what I mean by Philadelphia -and Baltimore being alive is precisely what these people -mean by their being dead; it is continuity; it is the -presence of the life first breathed into them and of the -purpose of their being; it is the benediction of the -founders of the colonies and the fathers of the republic. -This tradition is truly to be called life; for life alone -can link the past and the future. It merely means that as -what was done yesterday makes some difference to-day, so -what is done to-day will make some difference to morrow. In -New York it is difficult to feel that any day will make any -difference. These moderns only die daily without power to -rise from the dead. But I can truly claim that in coming -into some of these more stable cities of the States I felt -something quite sincerely of that historic emotion which is. -satisfied in the eternal cities of the Mediterranean. I felt -in America what many Americans suppose can only be felt in -Europe. I have seldom had that sentiment stirred more, -simply and directly than when I saw from afar off, above -that vast grey labyrinth of Philadelphia, great Penn upon -his pinnacle like the graven figure of a god who had -fashioned a new world; and remembered that his body lay -buried in a field at the turning of a lane, a league from my -own door. - -For this aspect of America is rather neglected in the talk -about electricity and headlines. Needless to say, the modern -vulgarity of avarice and advertisement sprawls all over -Philadelphia or Boston; but so it does over Winchester or -Canterbury. But most people know that there is something -else to be found in Canterbury or Winchester; many people -know that it is rather more interesting; and some people -know that Alfred can still walk in Winchester and that -St. Thomas at Canterbury was killed but did not die. It is -at least as possible for a Philadelphian to feel the -presence of Penn and Franklin as for an Englishman to see -the ghosts of Alfred and of Becket. Tradition does not mean -a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but -that the dead are alive. It means that it still matters what -Penn did two hundred years ago or what Franklin did a -hundred years ago; I never could feel in New York that it -mattered what any body did an hour ago. And these things did -and do matter. Quakerism is not my favourite creed; but on -that day when William Penn stood unarmed upon that spot and -made his treaty with the Red Indians, his creed of humanity -did have a triumph and a triumph that has not turned back. -The praise given to him is not a priggish fiction of our -conventional history, though such fictions have illogically -curtailed it. The Nonconformists have been rather unfair to -Penn even in picking their praises; and they generally -forget that toleration cuts both ways and that an open mind -is open on all sides. Those who deify him for consenting to -bargain with the savages cannot forgive him for consenting -to bargain with the Stuarts. And the same is true of the -other city, yet more closely connected with the tolerant -experiment of the Stuarts. The state of Maryland was the -first experiment in religious freedom in human history. Lord -Baltimore and his Catholics were a long march ahead of -William Penn and his Quakers on what is now called the path -of progress. That the first religious toleration ever -granted in the world was granted by Roman Catholics is one -of those little informing details with which our Victorian -histories did not exactly teem. But when I went into my -hotel at Baltimore and found two priests waiting to see me, -I was moved in a new fashion, for I felt that I touched the -end of a living chain. Nor was the impression accidental; it -will always remain with me with a mixture of gratitude and -grief, for they brought a message of welcome from a great -American whose name I had known from childhood and whose -career was drawing to its close; for it was but a few days -after I left the city that I learned that Cardinal Gibbons -was dead. - -On the top of a hill on one side of the town stood the first -monument raised after the Revolution to Washington. Beyond -it was a new monument saluting in the name of Lafayette the -American soldiers who fell fighting in France in the Great -War. Between them were steps and stone seats, and I sat down -on one of them and talked to two children who were -clambering about the bases of the monument. I felt a -profound and radiant peace in the thought that they at any -rate were not going to my lecture. It made me happy that in -that talk neither they nor I had any names. I was full of -that indescribable waking vision of the strangeness of life, -and especially of the strangeness of locality; of how we -find places and lose them; and see faces for a moment in a -far-off land, and it is equally mysterious if we remember -and mysterious if we forget. I had even stirring in my head -the suggestion of some verses that I shall never finish-- +To invoke a somewhat less poetic parallel, even the untravelled +Englishman has probably seen American posters and trade advertisements +of a patchy and gaudy kind, in which a white house or a yellow motor-car +are cut out as in a cardboard against a sky like blue marble. I used to +think it was only New Art, but I found that it is really New York. + +It is not for nothing that the very nature of local character has gained +the nickname of local colour. Colour runs through all our +experience;--and we all know that our childhood found talismanic gems in +the very paints in the paint-box, or even in their very names. And just +as the very name of 'crimson lake 'really suggested to me some sanguine +and mysterious mere, dark yet red as blood, so the very name of 'burnt +sienna' became afterwards tangled up in my mind with the notion of +something traditional and tragic; as if some such golden Italian city +had really been darkened by many conflagrations in the wars of mediaeval +democracy. Now if one had the caprice of conceiving some city exactly +contrary to one thus seared and seasoned by fire, its colour might be +called up to a childish fancy by the mere name of 'raw umber'; and such +a city is New York. I used to be puzzled by the name of 'raw umber,' +being unable to imagine the effect of fried umber or stewed umber. But +the colours of New York are exactly in that key; and might be adumbrated +by phrases like raw pink or raw yellow. It is really in a sense like +something uncooked; or something which the satiric would call +half-baked. And yet the effect is not only beautiful, it is even +delicate. I had no name for this nuance; until I saw that somebody had +written of 'the pastel-tinted towers of New York'; and I knew that the +name had been found. There are no paints dry enough to describe all that +dry light; and it is not a box of colours but of crayons. If the +Englishman returning to England is moved at the sight of a block of +white chalk, the American sees rather a bundle of chalks. Nor can I +imagine anything more moving. Fairy tales are told to children about a +country where the trees are like sugar-sticks and the lakes like +treacle, but most children would feel almost as greedy for a fairyland +where the trees were like brushes of green paint and the hills were of +coloured chalks. + +But here what accentuates the arid freshness is the fragmentary look of +the continual reconstruction and change. The strong daylight finds +everywhere the broken edges of things, and the sort of hues we see in +newly-turned earth or the white sections of trees. And it is in this +respect that the local colour can literally be taken as local character. +For New York considered in itself is primarily a place of unrest, and +those who sincerely love it, as many do, love it for the romance of its +restlessness. A man almost looks at a building as he passes to wonder +whether it will be there when he comes back from his walk; and the doubt +is part of an indescribable notion, as of a white nightmare of daylight, +which is increased by the very numbering of the streets, with its tangle +of numerals which at first makes an English head reel. The detail is +merely a symbol; and when he is used to it he can see that it is, like +the most humdrum human customs, both worse and better than his own. '271 +West 52nd Street' is the easiest of all addresses to find, but the +hardest of all addresses to remember. He who is, like myself, so +constituted as necessarily to lose any piece of paper he has particular +reason to preserve, will find himself wishing the place were called +'Pine Crest' or 'Heather Crag' like any unobtrusive villa in Streatham. +But his sense of some sort of incalculable calculations, as of the +vision of a mad mathematician, is rooted in a more real impression. His +first feeling that his head is turning round is due to something really +dizzy in the movement of a life that turns dizzily like a wheel. If +there be in the modern mind something paradoxical that can find peace in +change, it is here that it has indeed built its habitation or rather is +still building and unbuilding it. One might fancy that it changes in +everything and that nothing endures but its invisible name; and even its +name, as I have said, seems to make a boast of novelty. + +That is something like a sincere first impression of the atmosphere of +New York. Those who think that is the atmosphere of America have never +got any farther than New York. We might almost say that they have never +entered America, any more than if they had been detained like +undesirable aliens at Ellis Island. And in deed there are a good many +undesirable aliens detained on Manhattan Island too. But of that I will +not speak, being myself an alien with no particular pretensions to be +desirable. Anyhow, such is New York; but such is not the New World. The +great American Republic contains very considerable varieties, and of +these varieties, I necessarily saw far too little to allow me to +generalise. But from the little I did see, I should venture on the +generalisation that the great part of America is singularly and even +strikingly unlike New York. It goes without saying that New York is very +unlike the vast agricultural plains and small agricultural towns of the +Middle West, which I did see. It may be conjectured with some confidence +that it is very unlike what is called the Wild and sometimes the Woolly +West, which I did not see. But I am here comparing New York, not with +the newer states of the prairie or the mountains, but with the other +older cities of the Atlantic coast. And New York, as it seems to me, is +quite vitally different from the other historic cities of America. It is +so different that it shows them all for the moment in a false light, as +a long white searchlight will throw a light that is fantastic and +theatrical upon ancient and quiet villages folded in the everlasting +hills. Philadelphia and Boston and Baltimore are more like those quiet +villages than they are like New York. + +If I were to call this book The Antiquities of America, I should give +rise to misunderstanding and possibly to annoyance. And yet the double +sense in such words is an undeserved misfortune for them. We talk of +Plato or the Parthenon or the Greek passion for beauty as parts of the +antique, but hardly of the antiquated. When we call them ancient it ig +not because they have perished, but rather because they have survived. +In the same way I hear some New Yorkers refer to Philadelphia or +Baltimore as dead towns/ They mean by a dead town a town that has had +the impudence not to die. Such people are astonished to find an ancient +thing alive, just as they are now astonished, and will be increasingly +astonished, to find Poland or the Papacy or the French nation still +alive. And what I mean by Philadelphia and Baltimore being alive is +precisely what these people mean by their being dead; it is continuity; +it is the presence of the life first breathed into them and of the +purpose of their being; it is the benediction of the founders of the +colonies and the fathers of the republic. This tradition is truly to be +called life; for life alone can link the past and the future. It merely +means that as what was done yesterday makes some difference to-day, so +what is done to-day will make some difference to morrow. In New York it +is difficult to feel that any day will make any difference. These +moderns only die daily without power to rise from the dead. But I can +truly claim that in coming into some of these more stable cities of the +States I felt something quite sincerely of that historic emotion which +is. satisfied in the eternal cities of the Mediterranean. I felt in +America what many Americans suppose can only be felt in Europe. I have +seldom had that sentiment stirred more, simply and directly than when I +saw from afar off, above that vast grey labyrinth of Philadelphia, great +Penn upon his pinnacle like the graven figure of a god who had fashioned +a new world; and remembered that his body lay buried in a field at the +turning of a lane, a league from my own door. + +For this aspect of America is rather neglected in the talk about +electricity and headlines. Needless to say, the modern vulgarity of +avarice and advertisement sprawls all over Philadelphia or Boston; but +so it does over Winchester or Canterbury. But most people know that +there is something else to be found in Canterbury or Winchester; many +people know that it is rather more interesting; and some people know +that Alfred can still walk in Winchester and that St. Thomas at +Canterbury was killed but did not die. It is at least as possible for a +Philadelphian to feel the presence of Penn and Franklin as for an +Englishman to see the ghosts of Alfred and of Becket. Tradition does not +mean a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but that the +dead are alive. It means that it still matters what Penn did two hundred +years ago or what Franklin did a hundred years ago; I never could feel +in New York that it mattered what any body did an hour ago. And these +things did and do matter. Quakerism is not my favourite creed; but on +that day when William Penn stood unarmed upon that spot and made his +treaty with the Red Indians, his creed of humanity did have a triumph +and a triumph that has not turned back. The praise given to him is not a +priggish fiction of our conventional history, though such fictions have +illogically curtailed it. The Nonconformists have been rather unfair to +Penn even in picking their praises; and they generally forget that +toleration cuts both ways and that an open mind is open on all sides. +Those who deify him for consenting to bargain with the savages cannot +forgive him for consenting to bargain with the Stuarts. And the same is +true of the other city, yet more closely connected with the tolerant +experiment of the Stuarts. The state of Maryland was the first +experiment in religious freedom in human history. Lord Baltimore and his +Catholics were a long march ahead of William Penn and his Quakers on +what is now called the path of progress. That the first religious +toleration ever granted in the world was granted by Roman Catholics is +one of those little informing details with which our Victorian histories +did not exactly teem. But when I went into my hotel at Baltimore and +found two priests waiting to see me, I was moved in a new fashion, for I +felt that I touched the end of a living chain. Nor was the impression +accidental; it will always remain with me with a mixture of gratitude +and grief, for they brought a message of welcome from a great American +whose name I had known from childhood and whose career was drawing to +its close; for it was but a few days after I left the city that I +learned that Cardinal Gibbons was dead. + +On the top of a hill on one side of the town stood the first monument +raised after the Revolution to Washington. Beyond it was a new monument +saluting in the name of Lafayette the American soldiers who fell +fighting in France in the Great War. Between them were steps and stone +seats, and I sat down on one of them and talked to two children who were +clambering about the bases of the monument. I felt a profound and +radiant peace in the thought that they at any rate were not going to my +lecture. It made me happy that in that talk neither they nor I had any +names. I was full of that indescribable waking vision of the strangeness +of life, and especially of the strangeness of locality; of how we find +places and lose them; and see faces for a moment in a far-off land, and +it is equally mysterious if we remember and mysterious if we forget. I +had even stirring in my head the suggestion of some verses that I shall +never finish-- >   If I ever go back to Baltimore > > The city of Maryland. -But the poem would have to contain far too much; for I was -thinking of a thousand things at once; and wondering what -the children would be like twenty years after and whether -they would travel in white goods or be interested in oil, -and I was not untouched (it may be said) by the fact that a -neighbouring shop had provided the only sample of the -substance called tea ever found on the American continent; -and in front of me soared up into the sky on wings of stone -the column of all those high hopes of humanity a hundred -years ago; and beyond there were lighted candles in the -chapels and prayers in the ante-chambers, where perhaps -already a Prince of the Church was dying. Only on a later -page can I even attempt to comb out such a tangle of -contrasts, which is indeed the tangle of America and this -mortal life; but sitting there on that stone seat under that -quiet sky, I had some experience of the thronging thousands -of living thoughts and things, noisy and numberless as -birds, that give its everlasting vivacity and vitality to a -dead town. - -Two other cities I visited which have this particular type -of traditional character, the one being typical of the North -and the other of the South. At least I may take as -convenient anti-types the towns of Boston and St. Louis; and -we might add Nashville as being a shade more truly southern -than St. Louis. To the extreme South, in the sense of what -is called the Black Belt, I never went at all. Now English -travellers expect the South to be somewhat traditional; but -they are not prepared for the aspects of Boston in the North -which are even more so. If we wished only for an antic of -antithesis, we might say that on one side the places are -more prosaic than the names and on the other the names are -more prosaic than the places. St. Louis is a fine town, and -we recognise a fine instinct of the imagination that set on -the hill overlooking the river the statue of that holy -horseman who has christened the city. But the city is not as -beautiful as its name; it could not be. Indeed these titles -set up a standard to which the most splendid spires and -turrets could not rise, and below which the commercial -chimneys and sky-signs conspicuously sink. We should think -it odd if Belfast had borne the name of Joan of Arc. We -should be slightly shocked if the town of Johannesburg -happened to be called Jesus Christ. But few have noted a -blasphemy, or even a somewhat challenging benediction, to be -found in the very name of San Francisco. - -But on the other hand a place like Boston is much more -beautiful than its name. And, as I have suggested, an -Englishman's general information, or lack of information, -leaves him in some ignorance of the type of beauty that -turns up in that type of place. He has heard so much about -the purely commercial North as against the agricultural and -aristocratic South, and the traditions of Boston and -Philadelphia are rather too tenuous and delicate to be seen -from across the Atlantic. But here also there are traditions -and a great deal of traditionalism. The circle of old -families, which still meets with a certain exclusiveness in -Philadelphia, is the sort of thing that we in England should -expect to find rather in New Orleans. The academic -aristocracy of Boston, which Oliver Wendell Holmes called -the Brahmins, is still a reality though it was always a -minority and is now a very small minority. An epigram, -invented by Yale at the expense of Harvard, describes it as -very small in deed:-- - ->   Here is to jolly old Boston, the home of the bean and -> the cod, +But the poem would have to contain far too much; for I was thinking of a +thousand things at once; and wondering what the children would be like +twenty years after and whether they would travel in white goods or be +interested in oil, and I was not untouched (it may be said) by the fact +that a neighbouring shop had provided the only sample of the substance +called tea ever found on the American continent; and in front of me +soared up into the sky on wings of stone the column of all those high +hopes of humanity a hundred years ago; and beyond there were lighted +candles in the chapels and prayers in the ante-chambers, where perhaps +already a Prince of the Church was dying. Only on a later page can I +even attempt to comb out such a tangle of contrasts, which is indeed the +tangle of America and this mortal life; but sitting there on that stone +seat under that quiet sky, I had some experience of the thronging +thousands of living thoughts and things, noisy and numberless as birds, +that give its everlasting vivacity and vitality to a dead town. + +Two other cities I visited which have this particular type of +traditional character, the one being typical of the North and the other +of the South. At least I may take as convenient anti-types the towns of +Boston and St. Louis; and we might add Nashville as being a shade more +truly southern than St. Louis. To the extreme South, in the sense of +what is called the Black Belt, I never went at all. Now English +travellers expect the South to be somewhat traditional; but they are not +prepared for the aspects of Boston in the North which are even more so. +If we wished only for an antic of antithesis, we might say that on one +side the places are more prosaic than the names and on the other the +names are more prosaic than the places. St. Louis is a fine town, and we +recognise a fine instinct of the imagination that set on the hill +overlooking the river the statue of that holy horseman who has +christened the city. But the city is not as beautiful as its name; it +could not be. Indeed these titles set up a standard to which the most +splendid spires and turrets could not rise, and below which the +commercial chimneys and sky-signs conspicuously sink. We should think it +odd if Belfast had borne the name of Joan of Arc. We should be slightly +shocked if the town of Johannesburg happened to be called Jesus Christ. +But few have noted a blasphemy, or even a somewhat challenging +benediction, to be found in the very name of San Francisco. + +But on the other hand a place like Boston is much more beautiful than +its name. And, as I have suggested, an Englishman's general information, +or lack of information, leaves him in some ignorance of the type of +beauty that turns up in that type of place. He has heard so much about +the purely commercial North as against the agricultural and aristocratic +South, and the traditions of Boston and Philadelphia are rather too +tenuous and delicate to be seen from across the Atlantic. But here also +there are traditions and a great deal of traditionalism. The circle of +old families, which still meets with a certain exclusiveness in +Philadelphia, is the sort of thing that we in England should expect to +find rather in New Orleans. The academic aristocracy of Boston, which +Oliver Wendell Holmes called the Brahmins, is still a reality though it +was always a minority and is now a very small minority. An epigram, +invented by Yale at the expense of Harvard, describes it as very small +in deed:-- + +>   Here is to jolly old Boston, the home of the bean and the cod, > -> Where Cabots speak only to Lowells, and Lowells speak only -> to God. - -But an aristocracy must be a minority, and it is arguable -that the smaller it is the better. I am bound to say, -however, that the distinguished Dr. Cabot, the present -representative of the family, broke through any taboo that -may tie his affections to his Creator and to Miss Amy -Lowell, and broadened his sympathies so indiscriminately as -to show kindness and hospitality to so lost a being as an -English lecturer. But if the thing is hardly a limit it is -very living as a memory; and Boston on this side is very -much a place of memories. It would be paying it a very poor -compliment merely to say that parts of it reminded me of -England; for indeed they reminded me of English things that -have largely vanished from England. There are old brown -houses in the corners of squares and streets that are like -glimpses of a man's forgotten childhood; and when I saw the -log path with posts where the Autocrat may be supposed to -have walked with the schoolmistress, I felt I had come to +> Where Cabots speak only to Lowells, and Lowells speak only to God. + +But an aristocracy must be a minority, and it is arguable that the +smaller it is the better. I am bound to say, however, that the +distinguished Dr. Cabot, the present representative of the family, broke +through any taboo that may tie his affections to his Creator and to Miss +Amy Lowell, and broadened his sympathies so indiscriminately as to show +kindness and hospitality to so lost a being as an English lecturer. But +if the thing is hardly a limit it is very living as a memory; and Boston +on this side is very much a place of memories. It would be paying it a +very poor compliment merely to say that parts of it reminded me of +England; for indeed they reminded me of English things that have largely +vanished from England. There are old brown houses in the corners of +squares and streets that are like glimpses of a man's forgotten +childhood; and when I saw the log path with posts where the Autocrat may +be supposed to have walked with the schoolmistress, I felt I had come to the land where old tales come true. -I pause in this place upon this particular aspect of America -because it is very much missed in a mere contrast with -England. I need not say that if I felt it even about slight -figures of fiction, I felt it even more about solid figures -of history. Such ghosts seemed particularly solid in the -Southern States, precisely because of the comparative -quietude and leisure of the atmosphere of the South. It was -never more vivid to me than when coming, at a quiet hour of -the night, *into* the comparatively quiet hotel at Nashville -in Tennessee, and mounting to a dim and deserted upper floor -where I found myself before a faded picture; and from the -dark canvas looked forth the face of Andrew Jackson, -watchful like a white eagle. - -At that moment, perhaps, I was in more than one sense alone. -Most Englishmen know a good deal of American fiction, and -nothing whatever of American history. They know more about -the autocrat of the breakfast-table than about the autocrat -of the army and the people, the one great democratic despot -of modern times; the Napoleon of the New World. The only -notion the English public ever got about American politics -they got from a novel, *Uncle Tom's Cabin*; and to say the -least of it, it was no exception to the prevalence of -fiction over fact. Hundreds of us have heard of Tom Sawyer -for one who had heard of Charles Sumner; and it is probable -that most of us could pass a more detailed examination about -Toddy and Budge than about Lincoln and Lee. But in the case -of Andrew Jackson it may be that I felt a special sense of -individual isolation; for I believe that there are even -fewer among Englishmen than among Americans who realise that -the energy of that great man was largely directed towards -saving us from the chief evil which destroys the nations -to-day. He sought to cut down, as with a sword of -simplicity, the new and nameless enormity of finance; and he -must have known, as by a lightning flash, that the people -were behind him, because all the politicians were against -him. The end of that struggle is not yet; but if the bank is -stronger than the sword or the sceptre of popular -sovereignty, the end will be the end of democracy. It will -have to choose between accepting an acknowledged dictator -and accepting dictation which it dare not acknowledge. The -process will have begun by giving power to people and -refusing to give them their titles; and it will have ended -by giving the power to people who refuse to give us their -names. - -But I have a special reason for ending this chapter on the -name of the great popular dictator who made war on the -politicians and the financiers. This chapter does not -profess to touch on one in twenty of the interesting cities -of America, even in this particular aspect of their relation -to the history of America, which is so much neglected in -England. If that were so, there would be a great deal to say -even about the newest of them; Chicago, for instance, is -certainly something more than the mere pork-packing yard -that English tradition suggests; and it has been building a -boulevard not unworthy of its splendid position on its -splendid lake. But all these cities are defiled and even -diseased with industrialism. It is due to the Americans to -remember that they have deliberately preserved one of their -cities from such defilement and such disease. And that is -the presidential city, which stands in the American mind for -the same ideal as the President; the idea of the Republic -that rises above modern money-making and endures. There has -really been an effort to keep the White House white. No -factories are allowed in that town; no more than the -necessary shops are tolerated. It is a beautiful city; and -really retains something of that classical serenity of the -eighteenth century in which the Fathers of the Republic -moved. With all respect to the colonial place of that name, -I do not suppose that Wellington is particularly like -Wellington. But Washington really is like Washington. - -In this, as in so many things, there is no harm in our -criticising foreigners, if only we would also criticise -ourselves. In other words, the world might need even less of -its new charity, if it had a little more of the old -humility. When we complain of American individual ism, we -forget that we have fostered it by ourselves having far less -of this impersonal ideal of the Republic or commonwealth as -a whole. When we complain, very justly, for instance, of -great pictures passing into the possession of American -magnates, we ought to remember that we paved the way for it -by allowing them all to accumulate in the possession of -English magnates. It is bad that a public treasure should be -in the possession of a private man in America, but we took -the first step in lightly letting it disappear into the -private collection of a man in England. I know all about the -genuine national tradition which treated the aristocracy as -constituting the state; but these very foreign purchases go -to prove that we ought to have had a state independent of -the aristocracy. It is true that rich Americans do some -times covet the monuments of our culture in a fashion that -rightly revolts us as vulgar and irrational. They are said -sometimes to want to take whole buildings away with them; -and too many of such buildings are private and for sale. -There were wilder stories of a millionaire wishing to -transplant Glastonbury Abbey and similar buildings as if -they were portable shrubs in pots. It is obvious that it is -nonsense as well as vandalism to separate Glastonbury Abbey -from Glastonbury. I can understand a man venerating it as a -ruin; and I can understand a man despising it as a -rubbish-heap. But it is senseless to insult a thing in order -to idolise it; it is meaningless to desecrate the shrine in -order to worship the stones. That sort of thing is the bad -side of American appetite and ambition; and we are perfectly -right to see it not only as a deliberate blasphemy but as an -unconscious buffoonery. But there is another side to the -American tradition, which is really too much lacking in our -own tradition. And it is illustrated in this idea of -preserving Washington as a sort of paradise of impersonal -politics without personal commerce. Nobody could buy the -White House or the Washington Monument; it may be hinted (as -by an inhabitant of Glaston bury) that nobody wants to; but -nobody could if he did want to. There is really a certain -air of serenity and security about the place, lacking in -every other American town. It is increased, of course, by -the clear blue skies of that half-southern province, from -which smoke has been banished. The effect is not so much in -the mere buildings, though they are classical and often -beautiful. But whatever else they have built, they have -built a great blue dome, the largest dome in the world. And -the place does express something in the inconsistent -idealism of this strange people; and here at least they have -lifted it higher than all the sky-scrapers, and set it in a -stainless sky. +I pause in this place upon this particular aspect of America because it +is very much missed in a mere contrast with England. I need not say that +if I felt it even about slight figures of fiction, I felt it even more +about solid figures of history. Such ghosts seemed particularly solid in +the Southern States, precisely because of the comparative quietude and +leisure of the atmosphere of the South. It was never more vivid to me +than when coming, at a quiet hour of the night, *into* the comparatively +quiet hotel at Nashville in Tennessee, and mounting to a dim and +deserted upper floor where I found myself before a faded picture; and +from the dark canvas looked forth the face of Andrew Jackson, watchful +like a white eagle. + +At that moment, perhaps, I was in more than one sense alone. Most +Englishmen know a good deal of American fiction, and nothing whatever of +American history. They know more about the autocrat of the +breakfast-table than about the autocrat of the army and the people, the +one great democratic despot of modern times; the Napoleon of the New +World. The only notion the English public ever got about American +politics they got from a novel, *Uncle Tom's Cabin*; and to say the +least of it, it was no exception to the prevalence of fiction over fact. +Hundreds of us have heard of Tom Sawyer for one who had heard of Charles +Sumner; and it is probable that most of us could pass a more detailed +examination about Toddy and Budge than about Lincoln and Lee. But in the +case of Andrew Jackson it may be that I felt a special sense of +individual isolation; for I believe that there are even fewer among +Englishmen than among Americans who realise that the energy of that +great man was largely directed towards saving us from the chief evil +which destroys the nations to-day. He sought to cut down, as with a +sword of simplicity, the new and nameless enormity of finance; and he +must have known, as by a lightning flash, that the people were behind +him, because all the politicians were against him. The end of that +struggle is not yet; but if the bank is stronger than the sword or the +sceptre of popular sovereignty, the end will be the end of democracy. It +will have to choose between accepting an acknowledged dictator and +accepting dictation which it dare not acknowledge. The process will have +begun by giving power to people and refusing to give them their titles; +and it will have ended by giving the power to people who refuse to give +us their names. + +But I have a special reason for ending this chapter on the name of the +great popular dictator who made war on the politicians and the +financiers. This chapter does not profess to touch on one in twenty of +the interesting cities of America, even in this particular aspect of +their relation to the history of America, which is so much neglected in +England. If that were so, there would be a great deal to say even about +the newest of them; Chicago, for instance, is certainly something more +than the mere pork-packing yard that English tradition suggests; and it +has been building a boulevard not unworthy of its splendid position on +its splendid lake. But all these cities are defiled and even diseased +with industrialism. It is due to the Americans to remember that they +have deliberately preserved one of their cities from such defilement and +such disease. And that is the presidential city, which stands in the +American mind for the same ideal as the President; the idea of the +Republic that rises above modern money-making and endures. There has +really been an effort to keep the White House white. No factories are +allowed in that town; no more than the necessary shops are tolerated. It +is a beautiful city; and really retains something of that classical +serenity of the eighteenth century in which the Fathers of the Republic +moved. With all respect to the colonial place of that name, I do not +suppose that Wellington is particularly like Wellington. But Washington +really is like Washington. + +In this, as in so many things, there is no harm in our criticising +foreigners, if only we would also criticise ourselves. In other words, +the world might need even less of its new charity, if it had a little +more of the old humility. When we complain of American individual ism, +we forget that we have fostered it by ourselves having far less of this +impersonal ideal of the Republic or commonwealth as a whole. When we +complain, very justly, for instance, of great pictures passing into the +possession of American magnates, we ought to remember that we paved the +way for it by allowing them all to accumulate in the possession of +English magnates. It is bad that a public treasure should be in the +possession of a private man in America, but we took the first step in +lightly letting it disappear into the private collection of a man in +England. I know all about the genuine national tradition which treated +the aristocracy as constituting the state; but these very foreign +purchases go to prove that we ought to have had a state independent of +the aristocracy. It is true that rich Americans do some times covet the +monuments of our culture in a fashion that rightly revolts us as vulgar +and irrational. They are said sometimes to want to take whole buildings +away with them; and too many of such buildings are private and for sale. +There were wilder stories of a millionaire wishing to transplant +Glastonbury Abbey and similar buildings as if they were portable shrubs +in pots. It is obvious that it is nonsense as well as vandalism to +separate Glastonbury Abbey from Glastonbury. I can understand a man +venerating it as a ruin; and I can understand a man despising it as a +rubbish-heap. But it is senseless to insult a thing in order to idolise +it; it is meaningless to desecrate the shrine in order to worship the +stones. That sort of thing is the bad side of American appetite and +ambition; and we are perfectly right to see it not only as a deliberate +blasphemy but as an unconscious buffoonery. But there is another side to +the American tradition, which is really too much lacking in our own +tradition. And it is illustrated in this idea of preserving Washington +as a sort of paradise of impersonal politics without personal commerce. +Nobody could buy the White House or the Washington Monument; it may be +hinted (as by an inhabitant of Glaston bury) that nobody wants to; but +nobody could if he did want to. There is really a certain air of +serenity and security about the place, lacking in every other American +town. It is increased, of course, by the clear blue skies of that +half-southern province, from which smoke has been banished. The effect +is not so much in the mere buildings, though they are classical and +often beautiful. But whatever else they have built, they have built a +great blue dome, the largest dome in the world. And the place does +express something in the inconsistent idealism of this strange people; +and here at least they have lifted it higher than all the sky-scrapers, +and set it in a stainless sky. # In the American Country -The sharpest pleasure of a traveller is in finding the -things which he did not expect, but which he might have -expected to expect. I mean the things that are at once so -strange and so obvious that they must have been noticed, yet -somehow they have not been noted. Thus I had heard a -thousand things about Jerusalem before I ever saw it; I had -heard rhapsodies and disparagements of every description. -Modern rationalistic critics, with characteristic -consistency, had blamed it for its accumulated rubbish and -its modern restoration, for its antiquated superstition and -its up-to-date vulgarity. But somehow the one impression -that had never pierced through their description was the -simple and single impression of a city on a hill, with walls -coming to the very edge of slopes that were almost as steep -as walls; the turreted city which crowns a cone-shaped hill -in so many mediaeval landscapes. One would suppose that this -was at once the plainest and most picturesque of all the -facts; yet somehow, in my reading, I had always lost it amid -a mass of minor facts that were merely details. We know that -a city that is set upon a hill cannot be hid; and yet it -would seem that it is exactly the hill that is hid; though -perhaps it is only hid from the wise and the understanding. -I had a similar and simple impression when I discovered -America. I cannot avoid the phrase; for it would really seem -that each man dis covers it for himself. - -Thus I had heard a great deal, before I saw them, about the -tall and dominant buildings of New York. I agree that they -have an instant effect on the imagination; which I think is -increased by the situation in which they stand, and out of -which they arose. They are all the more impressive because -the building, while it is vertically so vast, is -horizontally almost narrow. New York is an island, and has -all the intensive romance of an island. It is a thing of -almost infinite height upon very finite foundations. It is -almost like a lofty lighthouse upon a lonely rock. But this -story of the sky-scrapers, which I had often heard, would by -itself give a curiously false impression of the freshest and -most curious characteristic of American architecture. Told -only in terms of these great towers of stone and brick in -the big industrial cities, the story would tend too much to -an impression of something cold and colossal like the -monuments of Asia. It would suggest a modern Babylon -altogether too Babylonian. It would imply that a man of the -new world was a sort of new Pharaoh, who built not so much a -pyramid as a pagoda of pyramids. It would suggest houses -built by mammoths out of mountains; the cities reared by -elephants in their own elephantine school of architecture. -And New York does recall the most famous of all -sky-scrapers---the tower of Babel. She recalls it none the -less because there is no doubt about the confusion of -tongues. But in truth the very reverse is true of most of -the buildings in America. I had no sooner passed out into -the suburbs of New York on the way to Boston than I began to -see something else quite contrary and far more curious. I -saw forests upon forests of small houses stretching away to -the horizon as literal forests do; villages and towns and -cities. And they were, in another sense, literally like -forests. They were all made of wood. It was almost as -fantastic to an English eye as if they had been all made of -cardboard. I had long outlived the silly old joke that -referred to Americans as if they all lived in the backwoods. -But, in a sense, if they do not live in the woods they are -not yet out of the wood. - -I do not say this in any sense as a censure. As it happens, -I am particularly fond of wood. Of all the superstitions -which our fathers took lightly enough to love, the most -natural seems to me the notion it is lucky to touch wood. -Some of them affect me the less as superstitions, because I -feel them as symbols. If humanity had really thought Friday -unlucky it would have talked about bad Friday instead of -good Friday. And while I feel the thrill of thirteen at a -table, I am not so sure that it is the most miserable of all -human fates to fill the places of the Twelve Apostles. But -the idea that there was something cleansing or wholesome -about the touching of wood seems to me one of those ideas -which are truly popular, because they are truly poetic. It -is probable enough that the conception came originally from -the healing of the wood of the Cross; but that only clinches -the divine coincidence. It is like that other divine -coincidence that the Victim was a carpenter, who might -almost have made His own cross. Whether we take the mystical -or the mythical explanation, there is obviously a very deep -connection between the human working in wood and such plain -and pathetic mysticism. It gives something like a touch of -the holy childishness to the tale, as if that terrible -engine could be a toy. In the same fashion a child fancies -that mysterious and sinister horse, which was the downfall -of Troy, as something plain and staring, and perhaps -spotted, like his own rocking-horse in the nursery. - -It might be said symbolically that Americans have a taste -for rocking-horses, as they certainly have a taste for -rocking-chairs. A flippant critic might suggest that they -select rocking-chairs so that, even when they are sitting -down, they need not be sitting still. Something of this -restlessness in the race may really be involved in the -matter; but I think the deeper significance of the -rocking-chair may still be found in the deeper symbolism of -the rocking-horse. I think there is behind all this fresh -and facile use of wood a certain spirit that is childish in -the good sense of the word; something that is innocent, and -easily pleased. It is not altogether untrue, still less is -it unamiable, to say that the landscape seems to be dotted -with dolls houses. It is the true tragedy of every fallen -son of Adam that he has grown too big to live in a dolls -house. These things seem somehow to escape the irony of time -by not even challenging it; they are too temporary even to -be merely temporal. These people are not building tombs; -they are not, as in the fine image of Mrs. Meynell's poem, -merely building ruins. It is not easy to imagine the ruins -of a dolls house; and that is why a dolls house is an ever -lasting habitation. How far it promises a political -permanence is a matter for further discussion; I am only -describing the mood of discovery; in which all these -cottages built of lath, like the palaces of a pantomime, -really seemed coloured like the clouds of morning; which are -both fugitive and eternal. - -There is also in all this an atmosphere that comes in -another sense from the nursery. We hear much of Americans -being educated on English literature; but I think few -Americans realise how much English children have been -educated on American literature. It is true, and it is -inevitable, that they can only be educated on rather -old-fashioned American literature. Mr. Bernard Shaw, in one -of his plays, noted truly the limitations of the young -American millionaire, and especially the staleness of his -English culture; but there is necessarily another side to -it. If the American talked more of Macaulay than of -Nietzsche, we should probably talk more of Emerson than of -Ezra Pound. Whether this staleness is necessarily a -disadvantage is, of course, a different question. But, in -any case, it is true that the old American books were often -the books of our childhood, even in the literal sense of the -books of our nursery. I know few men in England who have not -left their boyhood to some extent lost and entangled in the -forests of *Huckleberry Finn*. I know few women in England, -from the most revolutionary Suffragette to the most -carefully preserved Early Victorian, who will not confess to -having passed a happy childhood with the *Little Women* of -Miss Alcott. *Helen's Babies* was the first and by far the -best book in the modern scriptures of baby-worship. And -about all this old-fashioned American literature there was -an undefinable savour that satisfied, and even pleased, our -growing minds. Perhaps it was the smell of growing things; -but I am far from certain that it was not simply the smell -of wood. Now that all the memory comes back to me, it seems -to come back heavy in a hundred forms with the fragrance and -the touch of timber. There was the perpetual reference to -the wood-pile, the perpetual background of the woods. There -was something crude and clean about everything; something -fresh and strange about those far-off houses, to which I -could not then have put a name. Indeed, many things become -clear in this wilderness of wood, which could only be -expressed in symbol and even in fantasy. I will not go so -far as to say that it shortened the transition from Log -Cabin to White House; as if the White House were itself made -of white wood (as Oliver Wendell Holmes said), 'that cuts -like cheese, but lasts like iron for things like these.' But -I will say that the experience illuminates some other lines -by Holmes himself:-- +The sharpest pleasure of a traveller is in finding the things which he +did not expect, but which he might have expected to expect. I mean the +things that are at once so strange and so obvious that they must have +been noticed, yet somehow they have not been noted. Thus I had heard a +thousand things about Jerusalem before I ever saw it; I had heard +rhapsodies and disparagements of every description. Modern rationalistic +critics, with characteristic consistency, had blamed it for its +accumulated rubbish and its modern restoration, for its antiquated +superstition and its up-to-date vulgarity. But somehow the one +impression that had never pierced through their description was the +simple and single impression of a city on a hill, with walls coming to +the very edge of slopes that were almost as steep as walls; the turreted +city which crowns a cone-shaped hill in so many mediaeval landscapes. +One would suppose that this was at once the plainest and most +picturesque of all the facts; yet somehow, in my reading, I had always +lost it amid a mass of minor facts that were merely details. We know +that a city that is set upon a hill cannot be hid; and yet it would seem +that it is exactly the hill that is hid; though perhaps it is only hid +from the wise and the understanding. I had a similar and simple +impression when I discovered America. I cannot avoid the phrase; for it +would really seem that each man dis covers it for himself. + +Thus I had heard a great deal, before I saw them, about the tall and +dominant buildings of New York. I agree that they have an instant effect +on the imagination; which I think is increased by the situation in which +they stand, and out of which they arose. They are all the more +impressive because the building, while it is vertically so vast, is +horizontally almost narrow. New York is an island, and has all the +intensive romance of an island. It is a thing of almost infinite height +upon very finite foundations. It is almost like a lofty lighthouse upon +a lonely rock. But this story of the sky-scrapers, which I had often +heard, would by itself give a curiously false impression of the freshest +and most curious characteristic of American architecture. Told only in +terms of these great towers of stone and brick in the big industrial +cities, the story would tend too much to an impression of something cold +and colossal like the monuments of Asia. It would suggest a modern +Babylon altogether too Babylonian. It would imply that a man of the new +world was a sort of new Pharaoh, who built not so much a pyramid as a +pagoda of pyramids. It would suggest houses built by mammoths out of +mountains; the cities reared by elephants in their own elephantine +school of architecture. And New York does recall the most famous of all +sky-scrapers---the tower of Babel. She recalls it none the less because +there is no doubt about the confusion of tongues. But in truth the very +reverse is true of most of the buildings in America. I had no sooner +passed out into the suburbs of New York on the way to Boston than I +began to see something else quite contrary and far more curious. I saw +forests upon forests of small houses stretching away to the horizon as +literal forests do; villages and towns and cities. And they were, in +another sense, literally like forests. They were all made of wood. It +was almost as fantastic to an English eye as if they had been all made +of cardboard. I had long outlived the silly old joke that referred to +Americans as if they all lived in the backwoods. But, in a sense, if +they do not live in the woods they are not yet out of the wood. + +I do not say this in any sense as a censure. As it happens, I am +particularly fond of wood. Of all the superstitions which our fathers +took lightly enough to love, the most natural seems to me the notion it +is lucky to touch wood. Some of them affect me the less as +superstitions, because I feel them as symbols. If humanity had really +thought Friday unlucky it would have talked about bad Friday instead of +good Friday. And while I feel the thrill of thirteen at a table, I am +not so sure that it is the most miserable of all human fates to fill the +places of the Twelve Apostles. But the idea that there was something +cleansing or wholesome about the touching of wood seems to me one of +those ideas which are truly popular, because they are truly poetic. It +is probable enough that the conception came originally from the healing +of the wood of the Cross; but that only clinches the divine coincidence. +It is like that other divine coincidence that the Victim was a +carpenter, who might almost have made His own cross. Whether we take the +mystical or the mythical explanation, there is obviously a very deep +connection between the human working in wood and such plain and pathetic +mysticism. It gives something like a touch of the holy childishness to +the tale, as if that terrible engine could be a toy. In the same fashion +a child fancies that mysterious and sinister horse, which was the +downfall of Troy, as something plain and staring, and perhaps spotted, +like his own rocking-horse in the nursery. + +It might be said symbolically that Americans have a taste for +rocking-horses, as they certainly have a taste for rocking-chairs. A +flippant critic might suggest that they select rocking-chairs so that, +even when they are sitting down, they need not be sitting still. +Something of this restlessness in the race may really be involved in the +matter; but I think the deeper significance of the rocking-chair may +still be found in the deeper symbolism of the rocking-horse. I think +there is behind all this fresh and facile use of wood a certain spirit +that is childish in the good sense of the word; something that is +innocent, and easily pleased. It is not altogether untrue, still less is +it unamiable, to say that the landscape seems to be dotted with dolls +houses. It is the true tragedy of every fallen son of Adam that he has +grown too big to live in a dolls house. These things seem somehow to +escape the irony of time by not even challenging it; they are too +temporary even to be merely temporal. These people are not building +tombs; they are not, as in the fine image of Mrs. Meynell's poem, merely +building ruins. It is not easy to imagine the ruins of a dolls house; +and that is why a dolls house is an ever lasting habitation. How far it +promises a political permanence is a matter for further discussion; I am +only describing the mood of discovery; in which all these cottages built +of lath, like the palaces of a pantomime, really seemed coloured like +the clouds of morning; which are both fugitive and eternal. + +There is also in all this an atmosphere that comes in another sense from +the nursery. We hear much of Americans being educated on English +literature; but I think few Americans realise how much English children +have been educated on American literature. It is true, and it is +inevitable, that they can only be educated on rather old-fashioned +American literature. Mr. Bernard Shaw, in one of his plays, noted truly +the limitations of the young American millionaire, and especially the +staleness of his English culture; but there is necessarily another side +to it. If the American talked more of Macaulay than of Nietzsche, we +should probably talk more of Emerson than of Ezra Pound. Whether this +staleness is necessarily a disadvantage is, of course, a different +question. But, in any case, it is true that the old American books were +often the books of our childhood, even in the literal sense of the books +of our nursery. I know few men in England who have not left their +boyhood to some extent lost and entangled in the forests of *Huckleberry +Finn*. I know few women in England, from the most revolutionary +Suffragette to the most carefully preserved Early Victorian, who will +not confess to having passed a happy childhood with the *Little Women* +of Miss Alcott. *Helen's Babies* was the first and by far the best book +in the modern scriptures of baby-worship. And about all this +old-fashioned American literature there was an undefinable savour that +satisfied, and even pleased, our growing minds. Perhaps it was the smell +of growing things; but I am far from certain that it was not simply the +smell of wood. Now that all the memory comes back to me, it seems to +come back heavy in a hundred forms with the fragrance and the touch of +timber. There was the perpetual reference to the wood-pile, the +perpetual background of the woods. There was something crude and clean +about everything; something fresh and strange about those far-off +houses, to which I could not then have put a name. Indeed, many things +become clear in this wilderness of wood, which could only be expressed +in symbol and even in fantasy. I will not go so far as to say that it +shortened the transition from Log Cabin to White House; as if the White +House were itself made of white wood (as Oliver Wendell Holmes said), +'that cuts like cheese, but lasts like iron for things like these.' But +I will say that the experience illuminates some other lines by Holmes +himself:-- >   Little I ask, my wants are few, > > I only ask a hut of stone. -I should not have known, in England, that he was already -asking for a good deal even in asking for that. In the -presence of this wooden world the very combination of words -seems almost a contradiction, like a hut of marble, or a -hovel of gold. - -It was therefore with an almost infantile pleasure that I -looked at all this promising expansion of fresh-cut timber -and thought of the housing shortage at home, I know not by -what incongruous movement of the mind there swept across me, -at the same moment, the thought of things ancestral and -hoary with the light of ancient dawns. The last war brought -back body-armour; the next war may bring back bows and -arrows. And I suddenly had a memory of old wooden houses in -London; and a model of Shakespeare's town. - -It is possible indeed that such Elizabethan memories may -receive a check or a chill when the traveller comes, as he -sometimes does, to the outskirts of one of these strange -hamlets of new frame-houses, and is confronted with a -placard inscribed in enormous letters, 'Watch Us Grow.' He -can always imagine that he sees the timbers swelling before -his eyes like pumpkins in some super-tropical summer. But he -may have formed the conviction that no such proclamation -could be found outside Shakespeare's town. And indeed there -is a serious criticism here, to any one who knows history; -since the things that grow are not always the things that -remain; and pumpkins of that expansiveness have a tendency -to burst. I was always told that Americans were harsh, -hustling, rather rude and perhaps vulgar; but they were very -practical and the future belonged to them. I confess I felt -a fine shade of difference; I liked the Americans; I thought -they were sympathetic, imaginative, and full of fine -enthusiasms; the one thing I could not always feel clear -about was their future. I believe they were happier in their -frame-houses than most people in most houses; having -democracy, good education, and a hobby of work; the one -doubt that did float across me was something like, 'Will all -this be here at all in two hundred years?' That was the -first impression produced by the wooden houses that seemed -like the waggons of gipsies; it is a serious impression, but -there is an answer to it. It is an answer that opens on the -traveller more and more as he goes westward, and finds the -little towns dotted about the vast central prairies. And the -answer is agriculture. Wooden houses may or may not last; -but farms will last; and farming will always last. - -The houses may look like gipsy caravans on a heath or -common; but they are not on a heath or common. They are on -the most productive and prosperous land, perhaps, in the -modern world. The houses might fall down like shanties, but -the fields would remain; and whoever tills those fields will -count for a great deal in the affairs of humanity. They are -already counting for a great deal, and possibly for too -much, in the affairs of America. The real criticism of the -Middle West is concerned with two facts, neither of which -has been yet adequately appreciated by the educated class in -England. The first is that the turn of the world has come, -and the turn of the agricultural countries with it. That is -the meaning of the resurrection of Ireland; that is the -meaning of the practical surrender of the Bolshevist Jews to -the Russian peasants. The other is that in most places these -peasant societies carry on what may be called the Catholic -tradition. The Middle West is perhaps the one considerable -place where they still carry on the Puritan tradition. But -the Puritan tradition was originally a tradition of the -town; and the second truth about the Middle West turns -largely on its moral relation to the town. As I shall -suggest presently, there is much in common between this -agricultural society of America and the great agricultural -societies of Europe. It tends, as the agricultural society -nearly always does, to some decent degree of democracy. The -agricultural society tends to the agrarian law. But in -Puritan America there is an additional problem, which I can -hardly explain without a periphrasis. - -There was a time when the progress of the cities seemed to -mock the decay of the country. It is more and more true, I -think, to-day that it is rather the decay of the cities that -seems to poison the progress and prom ise of the -countryside. The cinema boasts of being a substitute for the -tavern, but I think it a very bad substitute. I think so -quite apart from the question about fermented liquor. Nobody -enjoys cinemas more than I, but to enjoy them a man has only -to look and not even to listen, and in a tavern he has to -talk. Occasionally, I admit, he has to fight; but he need -never move at the movies. Thus in the real village inn are -the real village politics, while in the other are only the -remote and unreal metropolitan politics. And those central -city politics are not only cosmopolitan politics but corrupt -politics. They corrupt everything that they reach, and this -is the real point about many perplexing questions. - -For instance, so far as I am concerned, it is the whole -point about feminism and the factory. It is very largely the -point about feminism and many other callings, apparently -more cultured than the factory, such as the law court and -the political platform. When I see women so wildly anxious -to tie themselves to all this machinery of the modern city -my first feeling is not indignation, but that dark and -ominous sort of pity with which we should see a crowd -rushing to embark in a leaking ship under a lowering storm. -When I see wives and mothers going in for business -government I not only regard it as a bad business but as a -bankrupt business. It seems to me very much as if the -peasant women, just before the French revolution, had -insisted on being made duchesses or (as is quite as logical -and likely) on being made dukes. - -It is as if those ragged women, instead of crying out for -bread, had cried out for powder and patches. By the time -they were wearing them they would be the only people wearing -them. For powder and patches soon went out of fashion, but -bread does not go out of fashion. In the same way, if women -desert the family for the factory, they may find they have -only done it for a deserted factory. It would have been very -unwise of the lower orders to claim all the privileges of -the higher orders in the last days of the French monarchy. -It would have been very laborious to learn the science of -heraldry or the tables of precedence when all such things -were at once most complicated and most moribund. It would be -tiresome to be taught all those tricks just when the whole -bag of tricks was coming to an end. A French satirist might -have written a fine apologue about Jacques Bonhomme coming -up to Paris in his wooden shoes and demanding to be made -Gold Stick in Waiting in the name of Liberty, Equality, and -Fraternity; but I fear the stick in waiting would be waiting -still. - -One of the first topics on which I heard a conversation -turning in America was that of a, very interesting book -called *Main Street*, which involves many of these questions -of the modern industrial and eternal feminine. It is simply -the story, or perhaps rather the study than the story, of a -young married woman in one of the multitudinous little towns -on the great central plains of Amer ca; and of a sort of -struggle between her own more rest less culture and the -provincial prosperity of her neighbours. There are a number -of true and telling suggestions in the book, but the one -touch which I found tingling in the memory of many readers -was the last sentence, in which the master of the house, -with unshaken simplicity, merely asks for the whereabouts of -some domestic implement; I think it was a screw-driver. It -seems to me a harmless request, but from the way people -talked about it one might suppose he had asked for a -screw-driver to screw down the wife in her coffin. And a -great many advanced persons would tell us that the wooden -house in which she lived really was like a wooden coffin. -But this appears to me to be taking a somewhat funereal view -of the life of humanity. - -For, after all, on the face of it at any rate, this is -merely the life of humanity, and even the life which all -humanitarians have striven to give to humanity. -Revolutionists have treated it not only as the normal but -even as the ideal. Revolutionary wars have been waged to -establish this; revolutionary heroes have fought, and -revolutionary martyrs have died, only to build such a wooden -house for such a worthy family. Men have taken the sword and -perished by the sword in order that the poor gentleman might -have liberty to look for his screw-driver. For there is here -a fact about America that is almost entirely unknown in -England. The English have not in the least realised the real -strength of America. We in England hear a great deal, we -hear far too much, about the economic energy of industrial -America, about the money of Mr. Morgan, or the machinery of -Mr. Edison. We never realise that while we in England suffer -from the same sort of successes in capitalism and clockwork, -we have not got what the Americans have got; something at -least to balance it in the way of a free agriculture, a vast -field of free farms dotted with small freeholders. For the -reason I shall mention in a moment, they are not perhaps in -the fullest and finest sense a peasantry. But they are in -the practical and political sense a pure peasantry, in that -their comparative equality is a true counterweight to the -toppling injustice to the towns. - -And, even in places like that described as Main Street, that -comparative equality can immediately be felt. The men may be -provincials, but they are certainly citizens; they consult -on a common basis. And I repeat that in this, after all, -they do achieve what many prophets and righteous men have -died to achieve. This plain village, fairly prosperous, -fairly equal, untaxed by tyrants and untroubled by wars, is -after all the place which reformers have regarded as their -aim; whenever reformers have used their wits sufficiently to -have any aim. The march to Utopia, the march to the Earthly -Paradise, the march to the New Jerusalem, has been very -largely the march to Main Street. And the latest modern -sensation is a book written to show how wretched it is to +I should not have known, in England, that he was already asking for a +good deal even in asking for that. In the presence of this wooden world +the very combination of words seems almost a contradiction, like a hut +of marble, or a hovel of gold. + +It was therefore with an almost infantile pleasure that I looked at all +this promising expansion of fresh-cut timber and thought of the housing +shortage at home, I know not by what incongruous movement of the mind +there swept across me, at the same moment, the thought of things +ancestral and hoary with the light of ancient dawns. The last war +brought back body-armour; the next war may bring back bows and arrows. +And I suddenly had a memory of old wooden houses in London; and a model +of Shakespeare's town. + +It is possible indeed that such Elizabethan memories may receive a check +or a chill when the traveller comes, as he sometimes does, to the +outskirts of one of these strange hamlets of new frame-houses, and is +confronted with a placard inscribed in enormous letters, 'Watch Us +Grow.' He can always imagine that he sees the timbers swelling before +his eyes like pumpkins in some super-tropical summer. But he may have +formed the conviction that no such proclamation could be found outside +Shakespeare's town. And indeed there is a serious criticism here, to any +one who knows history; since the things that grow are not always the +things that remain; and pumpkins of that expansiveness have a tendency +to burst. I was always told that Americans were harsh, hustling, rather +rude and perhaps vulgar; but they were very practical and the future +belonged to them. I confess I felt a fine shade of difference; I liked +the Americans; I thought they were sympathetic, imaginative, and full of +fine enthusiasms; the one thing I could not always feel clear about was +their future. I believe they were happier in their frame-houses than +most people in most houses; having democracy, good education, and a +hobby of work; the one doubt that did float across me was something +like, 'Will all this be here at all in two hundred years?' That was the +first impression produced by the wooden houses that seemed like the +waggons of gipsies; it is a serious impression, but there is an answer +to it. It is an answer that opens on the traveller more and more as he +goes westward, and finds the little towns dotted about the vast central +prairies. And the answer is agriculture. Wooden houses may or may not +last; but farms will last; and farming will always last. + +The houses may look like gipsy caravans on a heath or common; but they +are not on a heath or common. They are on the most productive and +prosperous land, perhaps, in the modern world. The houses might fall +down like shanties, but the fields would remain; and whoever tills those +fields will count for a great deal in the affairs of humanity. They are +already counting for a great deal, and possibly for too much, in the +affairs of America. The real criticism of the Middle West is concerned +with two facts, neither of which has been yet adequately appreciated by +the educated class in England. The first is that the turn of the world +has come, and the turn of the agricultural countries with it. That is +the meaning of the resurrection of Ireland; that is the meaning of the +practical surrender of the Bolshevist Jews to the Russian peasants. The +other is that in most places these peasant societies carry on what may +be called the Catholic tradition. The Middle West is perhaps the one +considerable place where they still carry on the Puritan tradition. But +the Puritan tradition was originally a tradition of the town; and the +second truth about the Middle West turns largely on its moral relation +to the town. As I shall suggest presently, there is much in common +between this agricultural society of America and the great agricultural +societies of Europe. It tends, as the agricultural society nearly always +does, to some decent degree of democracy. The agricultural society tends +to the agrarian law. But in Puritan America there is an additional +problem, which I can hardly explain without a periphrasis. + +There was a time when the progress of the cities seemed to mock the +decay of the country. It is more and more true, I think, to-day that it +is rather the decay of the cities that seems to poison the progress and +prom ise of the countryside. The cinema boasts of being a substitute for +the tavern, but I think it a very bad substitute. I think so quite apart +from the question about fermented liquor. Nobody enjoys cinemas more +than I, but to enjoy them a man has only to look and not even to listen, +and in a tavern he has to talk. Occasionally, I admit, he has to fight; +but he need never move at the movies. Thus in the real village inn are +the real village politics, while in the other are only the remote and +unreal metropolitan politics. And those central city politics are not +only cosmopolitan politics but corrupt politics. They corrupt everything +that they reach, and this is the real point about many perplexing +questions. + +For instance, so far as I am concerned, it is the whole point about +feminism and the factory. It is very largely the point about feminism +and many other callings, apparently more cultured than the factory, such +as the law court and the political platform. When I see women so wildly +anxious to tie themselves to all this machinery of the modern city my +first feeling is not indignation, but that dark and ominous sort of pity +with which we should see a crowd rushing to embark in a leaking ship +under a lowering storm. When I see wives and mothers going in for +business government I not only regard it as a bad business but as a +bankrupt business. It seems to me very much as if the peasant women, +just before the French revolution, had insisted on being made duchesses +or (as is quite as logical and likely) on being made dukes. + +It is as if those ragged women, instead of crying out for bread, had +cried out for powder and patches. By the time they were wearing them +they would be the only people wearing them. For powder and patches soon +went out of fashion, but bread does not go out of fashion. In the same +way, if women desert the family for the factory, they may find they have +only done it for a deserted factory. It would have been very unwise of +the lower orders to claim all the privileges of the higher orders in the +last days of the French monarchy. It would have been very laborious to +learn the science of heraldry or the tables of precedence when all such +things were at once most complicated and most moribund. It would be +tiresome to be taught all those tricks just when the whole bag of tricks +was coming to an end. A French satirist might have written a fine +apologue about Jacques Bonhomme coming up to Paris in his wooden shoes +and demanding to be made Gold Stick in Waiting in the name of Liberty, +Equality, and Fraternity; but I fear the stick in waiting would be +waiting still. + +One of the first topics on which I heard a conversation turning in +America was that of a, very interesting book called *Main Street*, which +involves many of these questions of the modern industrial and eternal +feminine. It is simply the story, or perhaps rather the study than the +story, of a young married woman in one of the multitudinous little towns +on the great central plains of Amer ca; and of a sort of struggle +between her own more rest less culture and the provincial prosperity of +her neighbours. There are a number of true and telling suggestions in +the book, but the one touch which I found tingling in the memory of many +readers was the last sentence, in which the master of the house, with +unshaken simplicity, merely asks for the whereabouts of some domestic +implement; I think it was a screw-driver. It seems to me a harmless +request, but from the way people talked about it one might suppose he +had asked for a screw-driver to screw down the wife in her coffin. And a +great many advanced persons would tell us that the wooden house in which +she lived really was like a wooden coffin. But this appears to me to be +taking a somewhat funereal view of the life of humanity. + +For, after all, on the face of it at any rate, this is merely the life +of humanity, and even the life which all humanitarians have striven to +give to humanity. Revolutionists have treated it not only as the normal +but even as the ideal. Revolutionary wars have been waged to establish +this; revolutionary heroes have fought, and revolutionary martyrs have +died, only to build such a wooden house for such a worthy family. Men +have taken the sword and perished by the sword in order that the poor +gentleman might have liberty to look for his screw-driver. For there is +here a fact about America that is almost entirely unknown in England. +The English have not in the least realised the real strength of America. +We in England hear a great deal, we hear far too much, about the +economic energy of industrial America, about the money of Mr. Morgan, or +the machinery of Mr. Edison. We never realise that while we in England +suffer from the same sort of successes in capitalism and clockwork, we +have not got what the Americans have got; something at least to balance +it in the way of a free agriculture, a vast field of free farms dotted +with small freeholders. For the reason I shall mention in a moment, they +are not perhaps in the fullest and finest sense a peasantry. But they +are in the practical and political sense a pure peasantry, in that their +comparative equality is a true counterweight to the toppling injustice +to the towns. + +And, even in places like that described as Main Street, that comparative +equality can immediately be felt. The men may be provincials, but they +are certainly citizens; they consult on a common basis. And I repeat +that in this, after all, they do achieve what many prophets and +righteous men have died to achieve. This plain village, fairly +prosperous, fairly equal, untaxed by tyrants and untroubled by wars, is +after all the place which reformers have regarded as their aim; whenever +reformers have used their wits sufficiently to have any aim. The march +to Utopia, the march to the Earthly Paradise, the march to the New +Jerusalem, has been very largely the march to Main Street. And the +latest modern sensation is a book written to show how wretched it is to live there. -All this is true, and I think the lady might be more -contented in her coffin, which is more comfortably furnished -than most of the coffins where her fellow creatures live. -Nevertheless, there is an answer to this, or at least a -modification of it. There is a case for the lady and a case -against the gentleman and the screw-driver. And when we have -noted what it really is we have noted the real disadvantage -in a situation like that of modern America, and especially -the Middle West. And with that we come back to the truth -with which I started this speculation; the truth that few -have yet realised, but of which I, for one, am more and more -convinced---that industrialism is spreading because it is -decaying; that only the dust and ashes of its dissolution -are choking up the growth of natural things everywhere and -turning the green world grey. - -In this relative agricultural equality the Americans of the -Middle West are far in advance of the English of the -twentieth century. It is not their fault if they are still -some centuries behind the English of the twelfth century. -But the defect by which they fall short of being a true -peasantry is that they do not produce their town spiritual -food, in the same sense as their own material food. They do -not, like some peasantries, create other kinds of culture -besides the kind called agriculture. Their culture comes -from the great cities; and that is where all the evil comes -from. - -If a man had gone across England in the Middle Ages, or even -across Europe in more recent times, he would have found a -culture which showed its vitality by its variety. We know -the adventures of the three brothers in the old fairy tales -who passed across the endless plain from city to city, and -found one kingdom ruled by a wizard and another wasted by a -dragon, one people living in castles of crystal and another -sitting by fountains of wine. These are but legendary -enlargements of the real adventures of a traveller passing -from one patch of peasantry to another and finding women -wearing strange head-dresses and men singing new songs. - -A traveller in America would be somewhat surprised if he -found the people in the city of St. Louis all wearing crowns -and crusading armour in honour of their patron saint. He -might even feel some faint surprise if he found all the -citizens of Philadelphia clad in a composite costume, -combining that of a Quaker with that of a Red Indian, in -honour of the noble treaty of William Penn. Yet these are -the sort of local and traditional things that would really -be found giving variety to the valleys of mediaeval Europe. -I myself felt a perfectly genuine and generous exhilaration -of freedom and fresh enterprise in new places like Oklahoma. -But you would hardly find in Oklahoma what was found in -Oberammergau. What goes to Oklahoma is not the peasant play, -but the cinema. And the objection to the cinema is not so -much that it goes to Oklahoma as that it does not come from -Oklahoma. In other words, these people have on the economic -side a much closer approach than we have to economic -freedom. It is not for us, who have allowed our land to be -stolen by squires and then vulgarized by sham squires, to -sneer at such colonists as merely crude and prosaic. They at -least have really kept something of the simplicity and, -therefore, the dignity of democracy; and that democracy may -yet save their country even from the calamities of wealth -and science. - -But, while these farmers do not need to become industrial in -order to become industrious, they do tend to become -industrial in so far as they become intellectual. Their -culture, and to some great extent their creed, do come along -the railroads from the great modern urban centres, and bring -with them a blast of death and a reek of rotting things. It -is that influence that alone prevents the Middle West from -progressing towards the Middle Ages. - -For, after all, linked up in a hundred legends of the Middle -Ages, may be found a symbolic pattern of hammers and nails -and saws; and there is no reason why they should not have -also sanctified screw-drivers. There is no reason why the -screw-driver that seemed such a trifle to the author should -not have been borne in triumph down Main Street like a sword -of state, in some pageant of the Guild of St. Joseph of the -Carpenters or St. Dunstan of the Smiths. It was the Catholic -poetry and piety that filled common life with something that -is lacking in the worthy and virile democracy of the West. -Nor are Americans of intelligence so ignorant of this as -some may suppose. There is an admirable society called the -Mediaevalists in Chicago; whose name and address will strike -many as suggesting a certain struggle of the soul against -the environment. With the national heartiness they blazon -their note-paper with heraldry and the hues of Gothic -windows; with the national high spirits they assume the -fancy dress of friars; but any one who should essay to laugh -at them instead of with them would find out his mistake. For -many of them do really know a great deal about mediaevalism; -much more than I do, or most other men brought up on an -island that is crowded with its cathedrals. Something of the -same spirit may be seen in the beautiful new plans and -buildings of Yale, deliberately modelled not on classical -harmony but on Gothic irregularity and surprise. The grace -and energy of the mediaeval architecture resurrected by a -man like Professor Cram of Boston has behind it not merely -artistic but historical and ethical enthusiasm; an -enthusiasm for the Catholic creed which made mediaeval -civilisation. Even on the huge Puritan plains of Middle West -the influence strays in the strangest fashion. And it is -notable that among the pessimistic epitaphs of the Spoon -River Anthology, in that churchyard compared with which most -churchyards are cheery, among the suicides and secret -drinkers and monomaniacs and hideous hypocrites of that -happy village, almost the only record of respect and a -recognition of wider hopes is dedicated to the Catholic -priest. - -But Main Street is Main Street in the main. Main Street is -Modern Street in its multiplicity of mildly half-educated -people; and all these historic things are a thou sand miles -from them. They have not heard the ancient noise either of -arts or arms; the building of the cathedral or the marching -of the crusade. But at least they have not deliberately -slandered the crusade and defaced the cathedral. And if they -have not produced the peasant arts, they can still produce -the peasant crafts. They can sow and plough and reap and -live by these everlasting things; nor shall the foundations -of their state be moved. And the memory of those colossal -fields, of those fruitful deserts, came back the more -readily into my mind because I finished these reflections in -the very heart of a modern industrial city, if it can be -said to have a heart. It was in fact an English industrial -city, but it struck me that it might very well be an -American one. And it also stuck me that we yield rather too -easily to America the dusty palm of industrial enterprise, -and feel far too little apprehension about greener and -fresher vegetables. There is a story of an American who -carefully studied all the sights of London or Rome or Paris, -and came to the conclusion that 'it had nothing on -Minneapolis.' It seems to me that Minneapolis has nothing on -Manchester. There were the same grey vistas of shops full of -rubber tyres and metallic appliances; a man felt that he -might walk a day without seeing a blade of grass; the whole -horizon was so infinite with efficiency. The factory -chimneys might have been Pittsburg; the sky-signs might have -been New York. One looked up in a sort of despair at the -sky, not for a sky-sign but in a sense for a sign, for some -sentence of significance and judgment; by the instinct that -makes any man in such a scene seek for the only thing that -has not been made by men. But even that was illogical, for -it was night, and I could only expect to see the stars, -which might have reminded me of Old Glory; but that was not -the sign that oppressed me. All the ground was a wilderness -of stone and all the buildings a forest of brick; I was far -in the interior of a labyrinth of lifeless things. Only, -looking up, between two black chimneys and a telegraph pole, -I saw vast and far and faint, as the first men saw it, the -silver pattern of the Plough. +All this is true, and I think the lady might be more contented in her +coffin, which is more comfortably furnished than most of the coffins +where her fellow creatures live. Nevertheless, there is an answer to +this, or at least a modification of it. There is a case for the lady and +a case against the gentleman and the screw-driver. And when we have +noted what it really is we have noted the real disadvantage in a +situation like that of modern America, and especially the Middle West. +And with that we come back to the truth with which I started this +speculation; the truth that few have yet realised, but of which I, for +one, am more and more convinced---that industrialism is spreading +because it is decaying; that only the dust and ashes of its dissolution +are choking up the growth of natural things everywhere and turning the +green world grey. + +In this relative agricultural equality the Americans of the Middle West +are far in advance of the English of the twentieth century. It is not +their fault if they are still some centuries behind the English of the +twelfth century. But the defect by which they fall short of being a true +peasantry is that they do not produce their town spiritual food, in the +same sense as their own material food. They do not, like some +peasantries, create other kinds of culture besides the kind called +agriculture. Their culture comes from the great cities; and that is +where all the evil comes from. + +If a man had gone across England in the Middle Ages, or even across +Europe in more recent times, he would have found a culture which showed +its vitality by its variety. We know the adventures of the three +brothers in the old fairy tales who passed across the endless plain from +city to city, and found one kingdom ruled by a wizard and another wasted +by a dragon, one people living in castles of crystal and another sitting +by fountains of wine. These are but legendary enlargements of the real +adventures of a traveller passing from one patch of peasantry to another +and finding women wearing strange head-dresses and men singing new +songs. + +A traveller in America would be somewhat surprised if he found the +people in the city of St. Louis all wearing crowns and crusading armour +in honour of their patron saint. He might even feel some faint surprise +if he found all the citizens of Philadelphia clad in a composite +costume, combining that of a Quaker with that of a Red Indian, in honour +of the noble treaty of William Penn. Yet these are the sort of local and +traditional things that would really be found giving variety to the +valleys of mediaeval Europe. I myself felt a perfectly genuine and +generous exhilaration of freedom and fresh enterprise in new places like +Oklahoma. But you would hardly find in Oklahoma what was found in +Oberammergau. What goes to Oklahoma is not the peasant play, but the +cinema. And the objection to the cinema is not so much that it goes to +Oklahoma as that it does not come from Oklahoma. In other words, these +people have on the economic side a much closer approach than we have to +economic freedom. It is not for us, who have allowed our land to be +stolen by squires and then vulgarized by sham squires, to sneer at such +colonists as merely crude and prosaic. They at least have really kept +something of the simplicity and, therefore, the dignity of democracy; +and that democracy may yet save their country even from the calamities +of wealth and science. + +But, while these farmers do not need to become industrial in order to +become industrious, they do tend to become industrial in so far as they +become intellectual. Their culture, and to some great extent their +creed, do come along the railroads from the great modern urban centres, +and bring with them a blast of death and a reek of rotting things. It is +that influence that alone prevents the Middle West from progressing +towards the Middle Ages. + +For, after all, linked up in a hundred legends of the Middle Ages, may +be found a symbolic pattern of hammers and nails and saws; and there is +no reason why they should not have also sanctified screw-drivers. There +is no reason why the screw-driver that seemed such a trifle to the +author should not have been borne in triumph down Main Street like a +sword of state, in some pageant of the Guild of St. Joseph of the +Carpenters or St. Dunstan of the Smiths. It was the Catholic poetry and +piety that filled common life with something that is lacking in the +worthy and virile democracy of the West. Nor are Americans of +intelligence so ignorant of this as some may suppose. There is an +admirable society called the Mediaevalists in Chicago; whose name and +address will strike many as suggesting a certain struggle of the soul +against the environment. With the national heartiness they blazon their +note-paper with heraldry and the hues of Gothic windows; with the +national high spirits they assume the fancy dress of friars; but any one +who should essay to laugh at them instead of with them would find out +his mistake. For many of them do really know a great deal about +mediaevalism; much more than I do, or most other men brought up on an +island that is crowded with its cathedrals. Something of the same spirit +may be seen in the beautiful new plans and buildings of Yale, +deliberately modelled not on classical harmony but on Gothic +irregularity and surprise. The grace and energy of the mediaeval +architecture resurrected by a man like Professor Cram of Boston has +behind it not merely artistic but historical and ethical enthusiasm; an +enthusiasm for the Catholic creed which made mediaeval civilisation. +Even on the huge Puritan plains of Middle West the influence strays in +the strangest fashion. And it is notable that among the pessimistic +epitaphs of the Spoon River Anthology, in that churchyard compared with +which most churchyards are cheery, among the suicides and secret +drinkers and monomaniacs and hideous hypocrites of that happy village, +almost the only record of respect and a recognition of wider hopes is +dedicated to the Catholic priest. + +But Main Street is Main Street in the main. Main Street is Modern Street +in its multiplicity of mildly half-educated people; and all these +historic things are a thou sand miles from them. They have not heard the +ancient noise either of arts or arms; the building of the cathedral or +the marching of the crusade. But at least they have not deliberately +slandered the crusade and defaced the cathedral. And if they have not +produced the peasant arts, they can still produce the peasant crafts. +They can sow and plough and reap and live by these everlasting things; +nor shall the foundations of their state be moved. And the memory of +those colossal fields, of those fruitful deserts, came back the more +readily into my mind because I finished these reflections in the very +heart of a modern industrial city, if it can be said to have a heart. It +was in fact an English industrial city, but it struck me that it might +very well be an American one. And it also stuck me that we yield rather +too easily to America the dusty palm of industrial enterprise, and feel +far too little apprehension about greener and fresher vegetables. There +is a story of an American who carefully studied all the sights of London +or Rome or Paris, and came to the conclusion that 'it had nothing on +Minneapolis.' It seems to me that Minneapolis has nothing on Manchester. +There were the same grey vistas of shops full of rubber tyres and +metallic appliances; a man felt that he might walk a day without seeing +a blade of grass; the whole horizon was so infinite with efficiency. The +factory chimneys might have been Pittsburg; the sky-signs might have +been New York. One looked up in a sort of despair at the sky, not for a +sky-sign but in a sense for a sign, for some sentence of significance +and judgment; by the instinct that makes any man in such a scene seek +for the only thing that has not been made by men. But even that was +illogical, for it was night, and I could only expect to see the stars, +which might have reminded me of Old Glory; but that was not the sign +that oppressed me. All the ground was a wilderness of stone and all the +buildings a forest of brick; I was far in the interior of a labyrinth of +lifeless things. Only, looking up, between two black chimneys and a +telegraph pole, I saw vast and far and faint, as the first men saw it, +the silver pattern of the Plough. # The American Businessman -It is a commonplace that men are all agreed in using -symbols, and all differ about the meaning of the symbols. It -is obvious that a Russian republican might come to identify -the eagle as a bird of empire and therefore a bird of prey. -But when he ultimately escaped to the land of the free, he -might find the same bird on the American coinage figuring as -a bird of freedom. Doubtless, he might find many other -things to surprise him in the land of the free, and many -calculated to make him think that the bird, if not imperial, -was at least rather imperious. - -But I am not discussing those exceptional details here. It -is equally obvious that a Russian reactionary might cross -the world with a vow of vengeance against the red flag. But -that authoritarian might have some difficulties with the -authorities if he shot a man for using the red flag on the -railway between Willesden and Clapham Junction. - -But, of course, the difficulty about symbols is generally -much more subtle than in these simple cases. I have remarked -elsewhere that the first thing which a traveller should -write about is the thing which he has not read about. It may -be a small or secondary thing, but it is a thing that he has -seen and not merely expected to see. - -I gave the example of the great multitude of wooden houses -in America; we might say of wooden towns and wooden cities. -But after he has seen such things, his next duty is to see -the meaning of them; and here a great deal of complication -and controversy is possible. The thing probably does not -mean what he first supposes it to mean on the face of it; -but even on the face of it, it might mean many different and -even opposite things. - -For instance, a wooden house might suggest an almost savage -solitude; a rude shanty put together by a pioneer in a -forest; or it might mean a very recent and rapid solution of -the housing problem, conducted cheaply and therefore on a -very large scale A wooden house might suggest the very -newest thing in American or one of the very oldest things in -England. It might mean a grey ruin at Stratford or a white -exhibition at Earl's Court. - -It is when we come to this interpretation of inter national -symbols that we make most of the international mistakes. -Without the smallest error of detail, I will promise to -prove that Oriental women are independent because they wear -trousers, or Oriental men subject because they wear skirts. -Merely to apply it to this case, I will take the example of -two very commonplace and trivial objects of modern life---a -walking stick and a fur coat. - -As it happened, I travelled about America with two sticks, -like a Japanese nobleman with his two swords. I fear the -simile is too stately. I bore more resemblance to a cripple -with two crutches or a highly ineffectual version of the -devil on two sticks. I carried them both because I valued -them both, and did not wish to risk losing either of them in -my erratic travels. One is a very plain grey stick from the -woods of Buckinghamshire, but as I took it with me to -Palestine it partakes of the character of a pilgrim's staff. -When I can say that I have taken the same stick to Jerusalem -and to Chicago, I think the stick and I may both have a -rest. The other, which I value even more, was given me by -the Knights of Columbus at Yale, and I wish I could think -that their chivalric title allowed me to regard it as a -sword. - -Now, I do not know whether the Americans I met, struck by -the fastidious foppery of my dress and appearance, concluded -that it is the custom of elegant English dandies to carry -two walking sticks. But I do know that it is much less -common among Americans than among Englishmen to carry even -one. The point, however, is not merely that more sticks are -carried by Englishmen than by Americans; it is that the -sticks which are carried by Americans stand for something -entirely different. - -In America a stick is commonly called a cane, and it has -about it something of the atmosphere which the poet -described as the nice conduct of the clouded cane. It would -be an exaggeration to say that when the citizens of the -United States see a man carrying a light stick they deduce -that if he does that he does nothing else. But there is -about it a faint flavour of luxury and lounging, and most of -the energetic citizens of this energetic society avoid it by -instinct. - -Now, in an Englishman like myself, carrying a stick may -imply lounging, but it does not imply luxury, and I can say -with some firmness that it does not imply dandyism. In a -great many Englishmen it means the very opposite even of -lounging. By. one of those fantastic paradoxes which are the -mystery of nationality, a walking stick often actually means -walking. It frequently suggests the very reverse of the beau -with his clouded cane; it does not suggest a town type, but -rather specially a country type. It rather implies the kind -of English an who tramps about in lanes and meadows and -knocks the tops off thistles. It suggests the sort of man -who has carried the stick through his native woods, and +It is a commonplace that men are all agreed in using symbols, and all +differ about the meaning of the symbols. It is obvious that a Russian +republican might come to identify the eagle as a bird of empire and +therefore a bird of prey. But when he ultimately escaped to the land of +the free, he might find the same bird on the American coinage figuring +as a bird of freedom. Doubtless, he might find many other things to +surprise him in the land of the free, and many calculated to make him +think that the bird, if not imperial, was at least rather imperious. + +But I am not discussing those exceptional details here. It is equally +obvious that a Russian reactionary might cross the world with a vow of +vengeance against the red flag. But that authoritarian might have some +difficulties with the authorities if he shot a man for using the red +flag on the railway between Willesden and Clapham Junction. + +But, of course, the difficulty about symbols is generally much more +subtle than in these simple cases. I have remarked elsewhere that the +first thing which a traveller should write about is the thing which he +has not read about. It may be a small or secondary thing, but it is a +thing that he has seen and not merely expected to see. + +I gave the example of the great multitude of wooden houses in America; +we might say of wooden towns and wooden cities. But after he has seen +such things, his next duty is to see the meaning of them; and here a +great deal of complication and controversy is possible. The thing +probably does not mean what he first supposes it to mean on the face of +it; but even on the face of it, it might mean many different and even +opposite things. + +For instance, a wooden house might suggest an almost savage solitude; a +rude shanty put together by a pioneer in a forest; or it might mean a +very recent and rapid solution of the housing problem, conducted cheaply +and therefore on a very large scale A wooden house might suggest the +very newest thing in American or one of the very oldest things in +England. It might mean a grey ruin at Stratford or a white exhibition at +Earl's Court. + +It is when we come to this interpretation of inter national symbols that +we make most of the international mistakes. Without the smallest error +of detail, I will promise to prove that Oriental women are independent +because they wear trousers, or Oriental men subject because they wear +skirts. Merely to apply it to this case, I will take the example of two +very commonplace and trivial objects of modern life---a walking stick +and a fur coat. + +As it happened, I travelled about America with two sticks, like a +Japanese nobleman with his two swords. I fear the simile is too stately. +I bore more resemblance to a cripple with two crutches or a highly +ineffectual version of the devil on two sticks. I carried them both +because I valued them both, and did not wish to risk losing either of +them in my erratic travels. One is a very plain grey stick from the +woods of Buckinghamshire, but as I took it with me to Palestine it +partakes of the character of a pilgrim's staff. When I can say that I +have taken the same stick to Jerusalem and to Chicago, I think the stick +and I may both have a rest. The other, which I value even more, was +given me by the Knights of Columbus at Yale, and I wish I could think +that their chivalric title allowed me to regard it as a sword. + +Now, I do not know whether the Americans I met, struck by the fastidious +foppery of my dress and appearance, concluded that it is the custom of +elegant English dandies to carry two walking sticks. But I do know that +it is much less common among Americans than among Englishmen to carry +even one. The point, however, is not merely that more sticks are carried +by Englishmen than by Americans; it is that the sticks which are carried +by Americans stand for something entirely different. + +In America a stick is commonly called a cane, and it has about it +something of the atmosphere which the poet described as the nice conduct +of the clouded cane. It would be an exaggeration to say that when the +citizens of the United States see a man carrying a light stick they +deduce that if he does that he does nothing else. But there is about it +a faint flavour of luxury and lounging, and most of the energetic +citizens of this energetic society avoid it by instinct. + +Now, in an Englishman like myself, carrying a stick may imply lounging, +but it does not imply luxury, and I can say with some firmness that it +does not imply dandyism. In a great many Englishmen it means the very +opposite even of lounging. By. one of those fantastic paradoxes which +are the mystery of nationality, a walking stick often actually means +walking. It frequently suggests the very reverse of the beau with his +clouded cane; it does not suggest a town type, but rather specially a +country type. It rather implies the kind of English an who tramps about +in lanes and meadows and knocks the tops off thistles. It suggests the +sort of man who has carried the stick through his native woods, and perhaps even cut it in his native woods. -Now there are plenty of these vigorous loungers, no doubt, -in the rural parts of America, but the idea of a walking -stick would not especially suggest them to Americans; it -would not call up such figures like a fairy wand. It would -be easy ta trace back the difference to many English -origins, possibly to aristocratic origins, to the idea of -the old squire, a man vigorous and even rustic, but trained -to hold a useless staff rather than a useful tool. - -It might be suggested that American citizens do at least so -far love freedom as to like to have their hands free. It -might be suggested, on the other hand, that they keep their -hands for the handles of many machines. And that the hand on -a handle is less free than the hand on a stick or even a -tool. But these again are controversial questions and I am -only noting a fact. - -If an Englishman wished to imagine more or less exactly what -the impression is, and how misleading it is, he could find -something like a parallel in what he himself feels about a -fur coat. When I first found myself among the crowds on the -main floor of a New York hotel, my rather exaggerated -impression of the luxury of the place was largely produced -by the number of men in fur coats, and what we should -consider rather ostentatious fur coats, with all the fur -outside. - -Now an Englishman has a number of atmospheric but largely -accidental associations in connection with a fur coat. I -will not say that he thinks a man in a fur coat must be a -wealthy and wicked man; but I do say that in his own ideal -and perfect vision a wealthy and wicked man would wear a fur -coat, Thus I had the sensation of standing in a surging mob -of American millionaires, or even African millionaires; for -the millionaires of Chicago must be like the Knights of the -Round Table compared with the millionaires of Johannesburg, - -But, as a matter of fact, the man in the fur coat was not -even an American millionaire, but simply an American. It did -not signify luxury, but rather necessity, and even a harsh -and almost heroic necessity. Orson probably wore a fur coat; -and he was brought up by bears, but not the bears of Wall -Street. Eskimos are generally represented as a furry folk; -but they are not necessarily engaged in delicate financial -operations, even in the typical and appropriate occupation -called freezing out. And if the American is not exactly an -arctic traveller rushing from pole to pole, at least he is -often literally fleeing from ice to ice. He has to make a -very extreme distinction be tween outdoor and indoor -clothing. He has to live in an icehouse outside and a -hothouse inside; so hot that he may be said to construct an -icehouse inside that. He turns himself into an icehouse and -warms himself against the cold until he is warm enough to -eat ices. But the point is that the same coat of fur which -in England would indicate the sybarite life may here very -well indicate strenuous life; just as the same walking stick -which would here suggest a lounger would in England suggest -a plodder and almost a pilgrim. - -Now these two trifles are types which I should like to put, -by way of proviso and apology, at the very beginning of any -attempt at a record of any impressions of a foreign society. -They serve merely to illustrate the most important -impression of all, the impression of how false all -impressions may be. I suspect that most of the very false -impressions have come from careful record of very true -facts. They have come from the fatal power of observing the -facts without being able to observe the truth. They came -from seeing the symbol with the most vivid clarity and being -blind to all that it symbolises. - -It is as if a man who knew no Greek should imagine that he -could read a Greek inscription because he took the Greek R -for an English P or the Greek long E for an English H. I do -not mention this merely as a criticism o n other people's -impressions of America, but as a criticism on my own. I wish -it to be understood that I am well aware that all my views -are subject to this sort of potential criticism, and that -even when I am certain of the facts I do not profess to be -certain of the deductions. - -In this chapter I hope to point out how a misunderstanding -of this kind affects the common impression, not altogether -unfounded, that the Americans talk about dollars. But for -the moment I am merely anxious to avoid a similar -misunderstanding when I talk about Americans. About the -dogmas of democracy, about the right of a people to its own -symbols, whether they be coins or customs, I am convinced, -and no longer to be shaken. But about the meaning of those -symbols, in silver or other substances, I am always open to -correction. That error is the price we pay for the great -glory of nationality. And in this sense I am quite ready, at -the start, to warn my own readers against my own opinions. - -The fact without the truth is futile; indeed the fact -without the truth is false. I have already noted that this -is especially true touching our observations of a strange -country; and it is certainly true touching one small fact -which has swelled into a large fable. I mean the fable about -America commonly summed up in the phrase about the Almighty -Dollar. I do not think the dollar is almighty in America; I -fancy many things are mightier, including many ideals and -some rather insane ideals. But I think it might be -maintained that the dollar has another of the attributes of -deity. If it is not omnipotent it is in a sense omnipresent. -Whatever Americans think about dollars, it is, I think, -relatively true that they talk about dollars. If a mere -mechanical record could be taken by the modern machinery of -dictaphones and stenography, I do not think it probable that -the mere word 'dollars' would occur more often in any given -number of American conversations than the mere word 'pounds' -or 'shillings' in a similar number of English conversations. -And these statistics, like nearly all statistics, would be -utterly useless and even fundamentally false. It is as if we -should calculate that the word elephant had been mentioned a -certain number of times in a particular London street, or so -many times more often than the word thunderbolt had been -used in Stoke Poges. Doubtless there are statisticians -capable of carefully collecting those statistics also; and -doubtless there are scientific social reformers capable of -legislating on the basis of them. They would probably argue -from the elephantine imagery of the London street that such -and such a percentage of the householders were megalomaniacs -and required medical care and police coercion. And doubtless -their calculations, like nearly all such calculations, would -leave out the only important point; as that the street was -in the immediate neighbourhood of the Zoo, or was yet more -happily situated under the benignant shadow of the Elephant -and Castle. And in the same way the mechanical calculation -about the mention of dollars is entirely useless unless we -have some moral understanding, of why they are mentioned. It -certainly does not mean merely a love of money; and if it -did, a love of money may mean a great many very different -and even contrary things. The love of money is very -different in a peasant or in a pirate, in a miser or in a -gambler, in a great financier or in a man doing some -practical and productive work. Now this difference in the -conversation of American and English business men arises, I -think, from certain much deeper things in the American which -are generally not understood by the Englishman. It also -arises from much deeper things in the Englishman, of which -the Englishman is even more ignorant. - -To begin with, I fancy that the American, quite apart from -any love of money, has a great love of measurement. He will -mention the exact size or weight of things in a way which -appears to us as irrelevant. It is as if we were to say that -a man came to see us carrying three feet of walking stick -and four inches of cigar. It is so in cases that have no -possible connection with any avarice or greed for gain. An -American will praise the prodigal generosity of some other -man in giving up his own estate for the good of the poor. -But he will generally say that the philanthropist gave them -a 200-acre park, where an Englishman would think it quite -sufficient to say that he gave them a park. There is -something about this precision which seems suitable to the -American atmosphere; to the hard sunlight, and the cloudless -skies, and the glittering detail of the architecture and the -landscape; just as the vaguer English version is consonant -to our mistier and more impressionist scenery. It is also -connected perhaps with something more boyish about the -younger civilisation; and corresponds to the passionate -particularity with which a boy will distinguish the uniforms -of regiments, the rigs of ships, or even the colours of tram -tickets. It is a certain godlike appetite for things, as -distinct from thoughts. - -But there is also, of course, a much deeper cause of the -difference; and it can easily be deduced by noting the real -nature of the difference itself. When two business men in a -train are talking about dollars, I am not so foolish as to -expect them to be talking about the philosophy of St. Thomas -Aquinas. But if they were two English business men I should -not expect them to be talking about business. Probably it -would be about some sport; and most probably some sport in -which they themselves never dreamed of indulging. The -approximate difference is that the American talks about his -work and the Englishman about his holidays. His ideal is not -labour but leisure. Like every other national -characteristic, this is not primarily a point for praise or -blame; in essence it involves neither and in effect it -involves both. It is certainly connected with that -snobbishness which is the great sin of English society. The -Englishman does love to conceive himself as a sort of -country gentleman; and his castles in the air are all -castles in Scotland rather than in Spain. For, as an ideal, -a Scotch castle is as English as a Welsh rarebit or an Irish -stew. And if he talks less about money I fear it is mostly -because in one sense he thinks more of it. Money is a -mystery in the old and literal sense of something too sacred -for speech, Gold is a god; and like the god of some -agnostics has no name, and is worshipped only in his works. -It is true in a sense that the English gentleman wishes to -have enough money to be able to forget it. But it may be -questioned whether he does entirely forget it. As against -this weakness the American has succeeded, at the price of a -great deal of crudity and clatter, in making general a very -real respect for work. He has partly disenchanted the -dangerous glamour of the gentleman, and in that sense has -achieved some degree of democracy; which is the most -difficult achievement in the world. - -On the other hand, there is a good side to the English man's -day-dream of leisure, and one which the American spirit -tends to miss. It may be expressed in the word 'holiday' or -still better in the word 'hobby.' The Englishman, in his -character of Robin Hood, really has, got two strings to his -bow. Indeed the Englishman really is well represented by -Robin Hood; for there is always something about him that may -literally be called outlawed, in the sense of being -extra-legal or outside the rules. A Frenchman said of -Browning that his centre was not in the middle; and it may -be said of many an Englishman that his heart is not where -his treasure is. Browning expressed a very English sentiment -when he said:-- +Now there are plenty of these vigorous loungers, no doubt, in the rural +parts of America, but the idea of a walking stick would not especially +suggest them to Americans; it would not call up such figures like a +fairy wand. It would be easy ta trace back the difference to many +English origins, possibly to aristocratic origins, to the idea of the +old squire, a man vigorous and even rustic, but trained to hold a +useless staff rather than a useful tool. + +It might be suggested that American citizens do at least so far love +freedom as to like to have their hands free. It might be suggested, on +the other hand, that they keep their hands for the handles of many +machines. And that the hand on a handle is less free than the hand on a +stick or even a tool. But these again are controversial questions and I +am only noting a fact. + +If an Englishman wished to imagine more or less exactly what the +impression is, and how misleading it is, he could find something like a +parallel in what he himself feels about a fur coat. When I first found +myself among the crowds on the main floor of a New York hotel, my rather +exaggerated impression of the luxury of the place was largely produced +by the number of men in fur coats, and what we should consider rather +ostentatious fur coats, with all the fur outside. + +Now an Englishman has a number of atmospheric but largely accidental +associations in connection with a fur coat. I will not say that he +thinks a man in a fur coat must be a wealthy and wicked man; but I do +say that in his own ideal and perfect vision a wealthy and wicked man +would wear a fur coat, Thus I had the sensation of standing in a surging +mob of American millionaires, or even African millionaires; for the +millionaires of Chicago must be like the Knights of the Round Table +compared with the millionaires of Johannesburg, + +But, as a matter of fact, the man in the fur coat was not even an +American millionaire, but simply an American. It did not signify luxury, +but rather necessity, and even a harsh and almost heroic necessity. +Orson probably wore a fur coat; and he was brought up by bears, but not +the bears of Wall Street. Eskimos are generally represented as a furry +folk; but they are not necessarily engaged in delicate financial +operations, even in the typical and appropriate occupation called +freezing out. And if the American is not exactly an arctic traveller +rushing from pole to pole, at least he is often literally fleeing from +ice to ice. He has to make a very extreme distinction be tween outdoor +and indoor clothing. He has to live in an icehouse outside and a +hothouse inside; so hot that he may be said to construct an icehouse +inside that. He turns himself into an icehouse and warms himself against +the cold until he is warm enough to eat ices. But the point is that the +same coat of fur which in England would indicate the sybarite life may +here very well indicate strenuous life; just as the same walking stick +which would here suggest a lounger would in England suggest a plodder +and almost a pilgrim. + +Now these two trifles are types which I should like to put, by way of +proviso and apology, at the very beginning of any attempt at a record of +any impressions of a foreign society. They serve merely to illustrate +the most important impression of all, the impression of how false all +impressions may be. I suspect that most of the very false impressions +have come from careful record of very true facts. They have come from +the fatal power of observing the facts without being able to observe the +truth. They came from seeing the symbol with the most vivid clarity and +being blind to all that it symbolises. + +It is as if a man who knew no Greek should imagine that he could read a +Greek inscription because he took the Greek R for an English P or the +Greek long E for an English H. I do not mention this merely as a +criticism o n other people's impressions of America, but as a criticism +on my own. I wish it to be understood that I am well aware that all my +views are subject to this sort of potential criticism, and that even +when I am certain of the facts I do not profess to be certain of the +deductions. + +In this chapter I hope to point out how a misunderstanding of this kind +affects the common impression, not altogether unfounded, that the +Americans talk about dollars. But for the moment I am merely anxious to +avoid a similar misunderstanding when I talk about Americans. About the +dogmas of democracy, about the right of a people to its own symbols, +whether they be coins or customs, I am convinced, and no longer to be +shaken. But about the meaning of those symbols, in silver or other +substances, I am always open to correction. That error is the price we +pay for the great glory of nationality. And in this sense I am quite +ready, at the start, to warn my own readers against my own opinions. + +The fact without the truth is futile; indeed the fact without the truth +is false. I have already noted that this is especially true touching our +observations of a strange country; and it is certainly true touching one +small fact which has swelled into a large fable. I mean the fable about +America commonly summed up in the phrase about the Almighty Dollar. I do +not think the dollar is almighty in America; I fancy many things are +mightier, including many ideals and some rather insane ideals. But I +think it might be maintained that the dollar has another of the +attributes of deity. If it is not omnipotent it is in a sense +omnipresent. Whatever Americans think about dollars, it is, I think, +relatively true that they talk about dollars. If a mere mechanical +record could be taken by the modern machinery of dictaphones and +stenography, I do not think it probable that the mere word 'dollars' +would occur more often in any given number of American conversations +than the mere word 'pounds' or 'shillings' in a similar number of +English conversations. And these statistics, like nearly all statistics, +would be utterly useless and even fundamentally false. It is as if we +should calculate that the word elephant had been mentioned a certain +number of times in a particular London street, or so many times more +often than the word thunderbolt had been used in Stoke Poges. Doubtless +there are statisticians capable of carefully collecting those statistics +also; and doubtless there are scientific social reformers capable of +legislating on the basis of them. They would probably argue from the +elephantine imagery of the London street that such and such a percentage +of the householders were megalomaniacs and required medical care and +police coercion. And doubtless their calculations, like nearly all such +calculations, would leave out the only important point; as that the +street was in the immediate neighbourhood of the Zoo, or was yet more +happily situated under the benignant shadow of the Elephant and Castle. +And in the same way the mechanical calculation about the mention of +dollars is entirely useless unless we have some moral understanding, of +why they are mentioned. It certainly does not mean merely a love of +money; and if it did, a love of money may mean a great many very +different and even contrary things. The love of money is very different +in a peasant or in a pirate, in a miser or in a gambler, in a great +financier or in a man doing some practical and productive work. Now this +difference in the conversation of American and English business men +arises, I think, from certain much deeper things in the American which +are generally not understood by the Englishman. It also arises from much +deeper things in the Englishman, of which the Englishman is even more +ignorant. + +To begin with, I fancy that the American, quite apart from any love of +money, has a great love of measurement. He will mention the exact size +or weight of things in a way which appears to us as irrelevant. It is as +if we were to say that a man came to see us carrying three feet of +walking stick and four inches of cigar. It is so in cases that have no +possible connection with any avarice or greed for gain. An American will +praise the prodigal generosity of some other man in giving up his own +estate for the good of the poor. But he will generally say that the +philanthropist gave them a 200-acre park, where an Englishman would +think it quite sufficient to say that he gave them a park. There is +something about this precision which seems suitable to the American +atmosphere; to the hard sunlight, and the cloudless skies, and the +glittering detail of the architecture and the landscape; just as the +vaguer English version is consonant to our mistier and more +impressionist scenery. It is also connected perhaps with something more +boyish about the younger civilisation; and corresponds to the passionate +particularity with which a boy will distinguish the uniforms of +regiments, the rigs of ships, or even the colours of tram tickets. It is +a certain godlike appetite for things, as distinct from thoughts. + +But there is also, of course, a much deeper cause of the difference; and +it can easily be deduced by noting the real nature of the difference +itself. When two business men in a train are talking about dollars, I am +not so foolish as to expect them to be talking about the philosophy of +St. Thomas Aquinas. But if they were two English business men I should +not expect them to be talking about business. Probably it would be about +some sport; and most probably some sport in which they themselves never +dreamed of indulging. The approximate difference is that the American +talks about his work and the Englishman about his holidays. His ideal is +not labour but leisure. Like every other national characteristic, this +is not primarily a point for praise or blame; in essence it involves +neither and in effect it involves both. It is certainly connected with +that snobbishness which is the great sin of English society. The +Englishman does love to conceive himself as a sort of country gentleman; +and his castles in the air are all castles in Scotland rather than in +Spain. For, as an ideal, a Scotch castle is as English as a Welsh +rarebit or an Irish stew. And if he talks less about money I fear it is +mostly because in one sense he thinks more of it. Money is a mystery in +the old and literal sense of something too sacred for speech, Gold is a +god; and like the god of some agnostics has no name, and is worshipped +only in his works. It is true in a sense that the English gentleman +wishes to have enough money to be able to forget it. But it may be +questioned whether he does entirely forget it. As against this weakness +the American has succeeded, at the price of a great deal of crudity and +clatter, in making general a very real respect for work. He has partly +disenchanted the dangerous glamour of the gentleman, and in that sense +has achieved some degree of democracy; which is the most difficult +achievement in the world. + +On the other hand, there is a good side to the English man's day-dream +of leisure, and one which the American spirit tends to miss. It may be +expressed in the word 'holiday' or still better in the word 'hobby.' The +Englishman, in his character of Robin Hood, really has, got two strings +to his bow. Indeed the Englishman really is well represented by Robin +Hood; for there is always something about him that may literally be +called outlawed, in the sense of being extra-legal or outside the rules. +A Frenchman said of Browning that his centre was not in the middle; and +it may be said of many an Englishman that his heart is not where his +treasure is. Browning expressed a very English sentiment when he said:-- >   I like to know a butcher paints, > @@ -3274,2986 +2759,2497 @@ when he said:-- > > Blows out his brains upon the flute. -Stevenson touched on the same insular sentiment when he said -that many men he knew, who were meat-salesmen to the outward -eye, might in the life of contemplation sit with the saints. -Now the extraordinary achievement of the American -meat-salesman is that his poetic enthusiasm can really be -for meat sales; not for money but for meat. An American -commercial traveller asked me, with a religious fire in his -eye, whether I did not think that salesmanship could be an -art. In England there are many salesmen who are sincerely -fond of art; but seldom of the art of salesmanship. Art is -with them a hobby; a thing of leisure and liberty. That is -why the English traveller talks, if not of art, then of -sport. That is why the two city men in the London train, if -they are not talking about golf, may be talking about -gardening. If they are not talking about dollars, or the -equivalent of dollars, the reason lies much deeper than any -superficial praise or blame touching the desire for wealth. -In the English case, at least, it lies very deep in the -English spirit. Many of the greatest English things have had -this lighter and looser character of a hobby or a holiday -experiment. Even a masterpiece has often been a by-product. -The works of Shakespeare come out so casually that they can -be attributed to the most improbable people; even to Bacon. -The sonnets of Shakespeare are picked up afterwards as if -out of a wastepaper basket. The immortality of Dr. Johnson -does not rest on the written leaves he collected, but -entirely on the words he wasted, the words he scattered to -the winds. So great a thing as Pickwick is almost a kind of -accident; it began as something secondary and grew into -something primary and pre eminent. It began with mere words -written to illustrate somebody else's pictures; and swelled -like an epic expanded from an epigram. It might almost be -said that in the case of Pickwick the author began as the -servant of the artist. But, as in the same story of -Pickwick, the servant became greater than the master. This -incalculable and accidental quality, like all national -qualities, has its strength and weakness; but it does -represent a certain reserve fund of interests in the -Englishman's life; and distinguishes him from the other -extreme type, of the millionaire who works till he drops, or -who drops be cause he stops working. It is the great -achievement of American civilisation that in that country it -really is not cant to talk about the dignity of labour. -There is some thing that might almost be called the sanctity -of labour; but it is subject to the profound law that when -anything less than the highest becomes a sanctity, it tends -also to become a superstition. When the candlestick-maker -does not blow out his brains upon the flute, there is always -a danger that he may blow them out somewhere else, owing to -depressing conditions in the candlestick market. - -Now certainly one of the first impressions of America, or at -any rate of New York, which is by no means the same thing as -America, is that of a sort of mob of business men, behaving -in many ways in a fashion very different from that of the -swarms of London city men who go up every day to the city. -They sit about in groups with Red-Indian gravity, as if -passing the pipe of peace; though, in fact, most of them are -smoking cigars and some of them are eating cigars. The -latter strikes me as one of the most peculiar of -transatlantic tastes, more peculiar than that of chewing -gum. A man will sit for hours consuming a cigar as if it -were a sugar-stick; but I should imagine it to be a very -disagreeable sugar-stick. Why he attempts to enjoy a cigar -without lighting it I do not know; whether it is a more -economical way of carrying a mere symbol of commercial -conservation; or whether something of the same queer -outlandish morality that draws such a distinction between -beer and ginger beer draws an equally ethical distinction -between touching tobacco and lighting it. For the rest, it -would be easy to make a merely external sketch full of -things equally strange; for this can always be done in a -strange country. I allow for the fact of all foreigners -looking alike; but I fancy that all those hard-featured -faces, with spectacles and shaven jaws, do look rather -alike, because they all like to make their faces hard. And -with the mention of their mental attitude we realise the -futility of any such external sketch. Unless we can see that -these are something more than men smoking cigars and talking -about dollars, we had much better not see them at all. - -It is customary to condemn the American as a materialist -because of his worship of success. But indeed this very -worship, like any worship, even devil-worship, proves him -rather a mystic than a materialist. The Frenchman who -retires front business, when he has money enough to drink -his wine and eat his omelette in peace, might much more -plausibly be called a materialist by those who do not prefer -to call him a man of sense. But Americans do worship success -in the abstract, as a sort of ideal vision. They follow -success rather than money; they follow money rather than -meat and drink. If their national life in one sense is a -perpetual game of poker, they are playing excitedly for -chips or counters as well as for coins. And by the ultimate -test of material enjoyment, like the enjoyment of an -omelette, even a coin is itself a counter. The Yankee cannot -eat chips as the Frenchman can eat chipped potatoes; but -neither can he swallow red cents as the Frenchman swallows -red wine. Thus when people say of a Yankee that he worships -the dollar, they pay a compliment to his fine spirituality -more true and delicate than they imagine. The dollar is an -idol because it is an image; but it is an image of success -and not of enjoyment. - -That this romance is also a religion is shown in the fact -that there is a queer sort of morality attached to it. The -nearest parallel to it is something like the sense of honour -in the old duelling days. There is not a material but a -distinctly moral savour about the implied obligation to -collect dollars or to collect chips. We hear too much in -England of the phrase about 'making good'; for no sensible -Englishman favours the needless interlarding of English with -scraps of foreign languages. But though it means nothing in -English, it means some thing very particular in American. -There is a fine shade of distinction between succeeding and -making good, precisely because there must always be a sort -of ethical echo in the word good. America does vaguely feel -a man making good as something analogous to a man being good -or a man doing good. It is connected with his serious -self-respect and his sense of being worthy of those he -loves. Nor is this curious crude idealism wholly insincere -even when it drives him to what some of us would call -stealing; any more than the duellist's honour was insincere -when it drove him to what some would call murder. A very -clever American play which I once saw acted contained a -complete working model of this morality. A girl was loyal -to, but distressed by, her engagement to a young man on whom -there was a sort of cloud of humiliation. The atmosphere was -exactly what it would have been in England if he had been -accused of cowardice or card-sharping. And there was nothing -whatever the matter with the poor young man except that some -rotten mine or other in 'Arizona had not made good.' Now in -England we should either be below or above that ideal of -good. If we were snobs, we should be content to know that he -was a gentleman of good connections, perhaps too much -accustomed to private means to be expected to be -business-like. If we were somewhat larger-minded people, we -should know that he might be as wise as Socrates and as -splendid as Bayard and yet be unfitted, perhaps one should -say therefore be unfitted, for the dismal and dirty gambling -of modern commerce. But whether we were snobbish enough to -admire him for being an idler, or chivalrous enough to -admire him for being an outlaw, in neither case should we -ever really and in our hearts despise him for being a -failure. For it is this inner verdict of instinctive -idealism that is the point at issue. Of course there is -nothing new, or peculiar to the new world, about a man's -engagement practically failing through his financial -failure. An English girl might easily drop a man because he -was poor, or she might stick to him faithfully and defiantly -although he was poor. The point is that this girl was -faithful but she was not defiant; that is, she was not -proud. The whole psychology of the situation was that she -shared the weird worldly idealism of her family, and it was -wounded as her patriotism would have been wounded if he had -betrayed his country. To do them justice, there was nothing -to show that they would have had any real respect for a -royal duke who had inherited millions; what the simple -barbarians wanted was a man who could make good. That the -process of making good would probably drag him through the -mire of everything bad, that he would make good by bluffing, -lying, swindling, and grinding the faces of the poor, did -not seem to trouble them in the least. Against this -fanaticism there is this shadow of truth even in the fiction -of aristocracy; that a gentleman may at least be allowed to -be good without being bothered to make it. - -Another objection to the phrase about the almighty dollar is -that it is an almighty phrase, and therefore an almighty -nuisance. I mean that it is made to explain everything, and -to explain everything much too well; that is, much too -easily. It does not really help people to understand a -foreign country; but it gives them the fatal illusion that -they do understand it. Dollars stood for America as frogs -stood for France; because it was necessary to connect -particular foreigners with something, or it would be so easy -to confuse a Moor with a Montenegrin or a Russian with a Red -Indian. The only cure for this sort of satisfied familiarity -is the shock of something really unfamiliar. When people can -see nothing at all in American democracy except a Yankee -running after a dollar, then the only thing to do is to trip -them up as they run after the Yankee, or runaway with their -notion of the Yankee, by the obstacle of certain odd and -obstinate facts that have no relation to that notion. And, -as a matter of fact, there are a number of such obstacles to -any such generalisation; a number of notable facts that have -to be reconciled somehow to our previous notions. It does -not matter for this purpose whether the facts are favourable -or unfavourable, or whether the qualities are merits or -defects; especially as we do not even understand them -sufficiently to say which they are. The point is that we are -brought to a pause, and compelled to attempt to understand -them rather better than we do. We have found the one thing -that we did not expect; and therefore the one thing that we -cannot explain. And we are moved to an effort, probably an -unsuccessful effort, to explain it. - -For instance, Americans are very unpunctual. That is the -last thing that a critic expects who comes to condemn them -for hustling and haggling and vulgar avarice. But it is -almost the first fact that strikes the spectator on the -spot. The chief difference between the humdrum English -businessman and the hustling American businessman is that -the hustling American businessman is always late. Of course -there is a great deal of difference between coming late and -coming too late. But I noticed the fashion first in -connection with my own lectures; touching which I could -heartily recommend the habit of coming too late. I could -easily understand a crowd of commercial Americans not coming -to my lectures at all; but there was something odd about -their coming in a crowd, and the crowd being expected to -turn up some time after the appointed hour. The managers of -these lectures (I continue to call them lectures out of -courtesy to myself) often explained to me that it was quite -useless to begin properly until about half an hour after -time. Often people were still coming in three-quarters of an -hour or even an hour after time. Not that I objected to -that, as some lectures are said to do; it seemed to me an -agreeable break in the monotony; but as a characteristic of -a people mostly engaged in practical business, it struck me -as curious and interesting. I have grown accustomed to being -the most unbusinesslike person in any given company; and it -gave me a sort of dizzy exaltation to find I was not the -most unpunctual person in that company. I was afterwards -told by many Americans that my impression was quite correct; -that American unpunctuality was really very prevalent, and -extended to much more important things. But at least I was -not content to lump this along with all sorts of contrary -things that I did not happen to like, and call it America. I -am not sure of what it really means, but I rather fancy that -though it may seem the very reverse of the hustling, it has -the same origin as the hustling. The American is not -punctual because he is not punctilious. He is impulsive, and -has an impulse to stay as well as impulse to go. For, after -all, punctuality belongs to the same order of ideas as -punctuation; and there is no punctuation in telegrams. The -order of clocks and set hours which English business has -always observed is a good thing in its own way; indeed I -think that in a larger sense it is better than the other -way. But it is better because it is a protection against -hustling, not a promotion of it. In other words, it is -better because it is more civilised; as a great Venetian -merchant prince clad in cloth of gold was more civilised; or -an old English merchant drinking port in an oak-panelled -room was more civilised; or a little French shopkeeper -shutting up his shop to play dominoes is more civilised. And -the reason is that the American has the romance of business -and is monomaniac, while the Frenchman has the romance of -life and is sane. But the romance of business really is a -romance, and the Americans are really romantic about it. And -that romance, though it revolves round pork or petrol, is -really like a love-affair in this; that it involves not only -rushing but also lingering. - -The American is too busy to have business habits. He is also -too much in earnest to have business rules. If we wish to -understand him, we must compare him not with the French -shopkeeper when he plays dominoes, but with the same French -shopkeeper when he works the guns or mans the trenches as a -conscript soldier. Everybody used to the punctilious -Prussian standard of uniform and parade has noticed the -roughness and apparent laxity of the French soldier, the -looseness of his clothes, the unsightliness of his heavy -knapsack, in short his inferiority in every detail of the -business of war except fighting. There he is much too swift -to be smart. He is much too practical to be precise. By a -strange illusion which can lift pork-packing almost to the -level of patriotism, the American has the same free rhythm -in his romance of business. He varies his conduct not to -suit the clock but to suit the case. He gives more time to -more important and less time to less important things; and -he makes up his time-table as he goes along. Suppose he has -three appointments; the first, let us say, is some mere -trifle of erecting a tower twenty storeys high and -exhibiting a sky-sign on the top of it; the second is a -business discussion about the possibility of printing -advertisements of soft drinks on the table-napkins at a -restaurant; the third is attending a conference to decide -how the populace can be prevented from using chewing-gum and -the manufacturers can still manage to sell it. He will be -content merely to glance at the sky-sign as he goes by in a -trolley-car or an automobile; he will then settle down to -the discussion with his partner about the table-napkins, -each speaker indulging in long monologues in turn; a -peculiarity of much American conversation. Now if in the -middle of one of these monologues, he suddenly thinks that -the vacant space of the waiter's shirt-front might also be -utilised to advertise the Gee Whiz Ginger Champagne, he will -instantly follow up the new idea in all its aspects and -possibilities, in an even longer monologue; and will never -think of looking at his watch while he is rapturously -looking at his waiter. The con sequence is that he will come -late into the great social movement against chewing-gum, -where an Englishman would probably have arrived at the -proper hour. But though the Englishman's conduct is more -proper, it need not be in all respects more practical. The -Englishman's rules are better for the business of life, but -not necessarily for the life of business. And it is true -that for many of these Americans business is the business of -life. It is really also, as I have said, the romance of -life. We shall admire or deplore this spirit, in proportion -as we are glad to see trade irradiated with so much poetry, -or sorry to see so much poetry wasted on trade. But it does -make many people happy, like any other hobby; and one is -disposed to add that it does fill their imaginations like -any other delusion. For the true criticism of all this -commercial romance would involve a criticism of this -historic phase of commerce. These people are building on the -sand, though it shines like gold, and for them like fairy -gold; but the world will remember the legend about fairy -gold. Half the financial operations they follow deal with -things that do not even exist; for in that sense all finance -is a fairy-tale. Many of them are buying and selling things -that do nothing but harm; but it does them good to buy and -sell them. The claim of the romantic salesman is better -justified than he realises. Business really is romance; for -it is not reality. - -There is one real advantage that America has over England, -largely due to its livelier and more impressionable ideal. -America does not think that stupidity is practical. It does -not think that ideas are merely destructive things. It does -not think that a genius is only a person to be told to go -away and blow his brains out; rather it would open all its -machinery to the genius and beg him to blow his brains in. -It might attempt to use a natural force like Blake or -Shelley for very ignoble purposes; it would be quite capable -of asking Blake to take his tiger and his golden lions round -as a sort of Barnum's show, or Shelley to hang his stars and -haloed clouds among the lights of Broadway. But it would not -assume that a natural force is useless, any more than that -Niagara is useless. And there is a very definite distinction -here touching the intelligence of the trader, whatever we -may think of either course touching the intelligence of the -artist. It is one thing that Apollo should be employed by -Admetus, although he is a god. It is quite another thing -that Apollo should always be sacked by Admetus, because he -is a god. Now in England, largely owing to the accident of a -rivalry and therefore a comparison with France, there arose -about the end of the eighteenth century an extraordinary -notion that there was some sort of connection between -dullness and success. What the Americans call a bonehead -became what the English call a hard-headed man. The -merchants of London evinced their contempt for the fantastic -logicians of Paris by living in a permanent state of terror -lest somebody should set the Thames on fire. In this as in -much else it is much easier to understand the Americans, if -we connect them with the French who were their allies than -with the English who were their enemies. There are a great -many Franco-American resemblances which the practical -Anglo-Saxons are of course too hard-headed (or boneheaded) -to see. American history is haunted with the shadow of the -Plebiscitary President; they have a tradition of classical -architecture for public buildings, Their cities are planned -upon the squares of Paris and not upon the labyrinth of -London. They call their cities Corinth and Syracuse, as the -French called their citizens Epaminondas and Timoleon. Their -soldiers wore the French kepi; and they make coffee -admirably, and do not make tea at all. But of all the French -elements in America the most French is this real -practicality. They know that at certain times the most -businesslike of all qualities is 'l'audace, et encore de -l'audace, et toujours de l'audace.' The publisher may induce -the poet to do a pot-boiler; but the publisher would -cheerfully allow the poet to set the Mississippi on fire, if -it would boil his particular pot. It is not so much that -Englishmen are stupid as that they are afraid of being -clever; and it is not so much that Americans are clever as -that they do not try to be any stupider than they are. The -fire of French logic has burnt that out of America as it has -burnt it out of Europe, and of almost every place except -England. This is one of the few points on which England -insularity really is a disadvantage. It is the fatal notion -that the only sort of common-sense is to be found in -compromise, and that the only sort of compromise is to be -found in confusion. This must be clearly distinguished from -the commonplace about the utilitarian world not rising to -the invisible values of genius. Under this philosophy the -utilitarian does not see the utility of genius, even when it -is quite visible. He does not see it, not because he is a -utilitarian, but because he is an idealist whose ideal is -dullness. For some time the English aspired to be stupid, -prayed and hoped with soaring spiritual ambition to be -stupid. But with all their worship of success, they did not -succeed in being stupid. The natural talents of a great and -traditional nation were always breaking out in spite of -them. In spite of the merchants of London, Turner did set -the Thames on fire. In spite of our repeatedly explained -preference for realism to romance, Europe persisted in -resounding with the name of Byron. And just when we had made -it perfectly clear to the French that we despised all their -flamboyant tricks, that we were a plain prosaic people and -there was no fantastic glory or chivalry about us, the very -shaft we sent against them shone with the name of Nelson, a -shooting and a falling star. +Stevenson touched on the same insular sentiment when he said that many +men he knew, who were meat-salesmen to the outward eye, might in the +life of contemplation sit with the saints. Now the extraordinary +achievement of the American meat-salesman is that his poetic enthusiasm +can really be for meat sales; not for money but for meat. An American +commercial traveller asked me, with a religious fire in his eye, whether +I did not think that salesmanship could be an art. In England there are +many salesmen who are sincerely fond of art; but seldom of the art of +salesmanship. Art is with them a hobby; a thing of leisure and liberty. +That is why the English traveller talks, if not of art, then of sport. +That is why the two city men in the London train, if they are not +talking about golf, may be talking about gardening. If they are not +talking about dollars, or the equivalent of dollars, the reason lies +much deeper than any superficial praise or blame touching the desire for +wealth. In the English case, at least, it lies very deep in the English +spirit. Many of the greatest English things have had this lighter and +looser character of a hobby or a holiday experiment. Even a masterpiece +has often been a by-product. The works of Shakespeare come out so +casually that they can be attributed to the most improbable people; even +to Bacon. The sonnets of Shakespeare are picked up afterwards as if out +of a wastepaper basket. The immortality of Dr. Johnson does not rest on +the written leaves he collected, but entirely on the words he wasted, +the words he scattered to the winds. So great a thing as Pickwick is +almost a kind of accident; it began as something secondary and grew into +something primary and pre eminent. It began with mere words written to +illustrate somebody else's pictures; and swelled like an epic expanded +from an epigram. It might almost be said that in the case of Pickwick +the author began as the servant of the artist. But, as in the same story +of Pickwick, the servant became greater than the master. This +incalculable and accidental quality, like all national qualities, has +its strength and weakness; but it does represent a certain reserve fund +of interests in the Englishman's life; and distinguishes him from the +other extreme type, of the millionaire who works till he drops, or who +drops be cause he stops working. It is the great achievement of American +civilisation that in that country it really is not cant to talk about +the dignity of labour. There is some thing that might almost be called +the sanctity of labour; but it is subject to the profound law that when +anything less than the highest becomes a sanctity, it tends also to +become a superstition. When the candlestick-maker does not blow out his +brains upon the flute, there is always a danger that he may blow them +out somewhere else, owing to depressing conditions in the candlestick +market. + +Now certainly one of the first impressions of America, or at any rate of +New York, which is by no means the same thing as America, is that of a +sort of mob of business men, behaving in many ways in a fashion very +different from that of the swarms of London city men who go up every day +to the city. They sit about in groups with Red-Indian gravity, as if +passing the pipe of peace; though, in fact, most of them are smoking +cigars and some of them are eating cigars. The latter strikes me as one +of the most peculiar of transatlantic tastes, more peculiar than that of +chewing gum. A man will sit for hours consuming a cigar as if it were a +sugar-stick; but I should imagine it to be a very disagreeable +sugar-stick. Why he attempts to enjoy a cigar without lighting it I do +not know; whether it is a more economical way of carrying a mere symbol +of commercial conservation; or whether something of the same queer +outlandish morality that draws such a distinction between beer and +ginger beer draws an equally ethical distinction between touching +tobacco and lighting it. For the rest, it would be easy to make a merely +external sketch full of things equally strange; for this can always be +done in a strange country. I allow for the fact of all foreigners +looking alike; but I fancy that all those hard-featured faces, with +spectacles and shaven jaws, do look rather alike, because they all like +to make their faces hard. And with the mention of their mental attitude +we realise the futility of any such external sketch. Unless we can see +that these are something more than men smoking cigars and talking about +dollars, we had much better not see them at all. + +It is customary to condemn the American as a materialist because of his +worship of success. But indeed this very worship, like any worship, even +devil-worship, proves him rather a mystic than a materialist. The +Frenchman who retires front business, when he has money enough to drink +his wine and eat his omelette in peace, might much more plausibly be +called a materialist by those who do not prefer to call him a man of +sense. But Americans do worship success in the abstract, as a sort of +ideal vision. They follow success rather than money; they follow money +rather than meat and drink. If their national life in one sense is a +perpetual game of poker, they are playing excitedly for chips or +counters as well as for coins. And by the ultimate test of material +enjoyment, like the enjoyment of an omelette, even a coin is itself a +counter. The Yankee cannot eat chips as the Frenchman can eat chipped +potatoes; but neither can he swallow red cents as the Frenchman swallows +red wine. Thus when people say of a Yankee that he worships the dollar, +they pay a compliment to his fine spirituality more true and delicate +than they imagine. The dollar is an idol because it is an image; but it +is an image of success and not of enjoyment. + +That this romance is also a religion is shown in the fact that there is +a queer sort of morality attached to it. The nearest parallel to it is +something like the sense of honour in the old duelling days. There is +not a material but a distinctly moral savour about the implied +obligation to collect dollars or to collect chips. We hear too much in +England of the phrase about 'making good'; for no sensible Englishman +favours the needless interlarding of English with scraps of foreign +languages. But though it means nothing in English, it means some thing +very particular in American. There is a fine shade of distinction +between succeeding and making good, precisely because there must always +be a sort of ethical echo in the word good. America does vaguely feel a +man making good as something analogous to a man being good or a man +doing good. It is connected with his serious self-respect and his sense +of being worthy of those he loves. Nor is this curious crude idealism +wholly insincere even when it drives him to what some of us would call +stealing; any more than the duellist's honour was insincere when it +drove him to what some would call murder. A very clever American play +which I once saw acted contained a complete working model of this +morality. A girl was loyal to, but distressed by, her engagement to a +young man on whom there was a sort of cloud of humiliation. The +atmosphere was exactly what it would have been in England if he had been +accused of cowardice or card-sharping. And there was nothing whatever +the matter with the poor young man except that some rotten mine or other +in 'Arizona had not made good.' Now in England we should either be below +or above that ideal of good. If we were snobs, we should be content to +know that he was a gentleman of good connections, perhaps too much +accustomed to private means to be expected to be business-like. If we +were somewhat larger-minded people, we should know that he might be as +wise as Socrates and as splendid as Bayard and yet be unfitted, perhaps +one should say therefore be unfitted, for the dismal and dirty gambling +of modern commerce. But whether we were snobbish enough to admire him +for being an idler, or chivalrous enough to admire him for being an +outlaw, in neither case should we ever really and in our hearts despise +him for being a failure. For it is this inner verdict of instinctive +idealism that is the point at issue. Of course there is nothing new, or +peculiar to the new world, about a man's engagement practically failing +through his financial failure. An English girl might easily drop a man +because he was poor, or she might stick to him faithfully and defiantly +although he was poor. The point is that this girl was faithful but she +was not defiant; that is, she was not proud. The whole psychology of the +situation was that she shared the weird worldly idealism of her family, +and it was wounded as her patriotism would have been wounded if he had +betrayed his country. To do them justice, there was nothing to show that +they would have had any real respect for a royal duke who had inherited +millions; what the simple barbarians wanted was a man who could make +good. That the process of making good would probably drag him through +the mire of everything bad, that he would make good by bluffing, lying, +swindling, and grinding the faces of the poor, did not seem to trouble +them in the least. Against this fanaticism there is this shadow of truth +even in the fiction of aristocracy; that a gentleman may at least be +allowed to be good without being bothered to make it. + +Another objection to the phrase about the almighty dollar is that it is +an almighty phrase, and therefore an almighty nuisance. I mean that it +is made to explain everything, and to explain everything much too well; +that is, much too easily. It does not really help people to understand a +foreign country; but it gives them the fatal illusion that they do +understand it. Dollars stood for America as frogs stood for France; +because it was necessary to connect particular foreigners with +something, or it would be so easy to confuse a Moor with a Montenegrin +or a Russian with a Red Indian. The only cure for this sort of satisfied +familiarity is the shock of something really unfamiliar. When people can +see nothing at all in American democracy except a Yankee running after a +dollar, then the only thing to do is to trip them up as they run after +the Yankee, or runaway with their notion of the Yankee, by the obstacle +of certain odd and obstinate facts that have no relation to that notion. +And, as a matter of fact, there are a number of such obstacles to any +such generalisation; a number of notable facts that have to be +reconciled somehow to our previous notions. It does not matter for this +purpose whether the facts are favourable or unfavourable, or whether the +qualities are merits or defects; especially as we do not even understand +them sufficiently to say which they are. The point is that we are +brought to a pause, and compelled to attempt to understand them rather +better than we do. We have found the one thing that we did not expect; +and therefore the one thing that we cannot explain. And we are moved to +an effort, probably an unsuccessful effort, to explain it. + +For instance, Americans are very unpunctual. That is the last thing that +a critic expects who comes to condemn them for hustling and haggling and +vulgar avarice. But it is almost the first fact that strikes the +spectator on the spot. The chief difference between the humdrum English +businessman and the hustling American businessman is that the hustling +American businessman is always late. Of course there is a great deal of +difference between coming late and coming too late. But I noticed the +fashion first in connection with my own lectures; touching which I could +heartily recommend the habit of coming too late. I could easily +understand a crowd of commercial Americans not coming to my lectures at +all; but there was something odd about their coming in a crowd, and the +crowd being expected to turn up some time after the appointed hour. The +managers of these lectures (I continue to call them lectures out of +courtesy to myself) often explained to me that it was quite useless to +begin properly until about half an hour after time. Often people were +still coming in three-quarters of an hour or even an hour after time. +Not that I objected to that, as some lectures are said to do; it seemed +to me an agreeable break in the monotony; but as a characteristic of a +people mostly engaged in practical business, it struck me as curious and +interesting. I have grown accustomed to being the most unbusinesslike +person in any given company; and it gave me a sort of dizzy exaltation +to find I was not the most unpunctual person in that company. I was +afterwards told by many Americans that my impression was quite correct; +that American unpunctuality was really very prevalent, and extended to +much more important things. But at least I was not content to lump this +along with all sorts of contrary things that I did not happen to like, +and call it America. I am not sure of what it really means, but I rather +fancy that though it may seem the very reverse of the hustling, it has +the same origin as the hustling. The American is not punctual because he +is not punctilious. He is impulsive, and has an impulse to stay as well +as impulse to go. For, after all, punctuality belongs to the same order +of ideas as punctuation; and there is no punctuation in telegrams. The +order of clocks and set hours which English business has always observed +is a good thing in its own way; indeed I think that in a larger sense it +is better than the other way. But it is better because it is a +protection against hustling, not a promotion of it. In other words, it +is better because it is more civilised; as a great Venetian merchant +prince clad in cloth of gold was more civilised; or an old English +merchant drinking port in an oak-panelled room was more civilised; or a +little French shopkeeper shutting up his shop to play dominoes is more +civilised. And the reason is that the American has the romance of +business and is monomaniac, while the Frenchman has the romance of life +and is sane. But the romance of business really is a romance, and the +Americans are really romantic about it. And that romance, though it +revolves round pork or petrol, is really like a love-affair in this; +that it involves not only rushing but also lingering. + +The American is too busy to have business habits. He is also too much in +earnest to have business rules. If we wish to understand him, we must +compare him not with the French shopkeeper when he plays dominoes, but +with the same French shopkeeper when he works the guns or mans the +trenches as a conscript soldier. Everybody used to the punctilious +Prussian standard of uniform and parade has noticed the roughness and +apparent laxity of the French soldier, the looseness of his clothes, the +unsightliness of his heavy knapsack, in short his inferiority in every +detail of the business of war except fighting. There he is much too +swift to be smart. He is much too practical to be precise. By a strange +illusion which can lift pork-packing almost to the level of patriotism, +the American has the same free rhythm in his romance of business. He +varies his conduct not to suit the clock but to suit the case. He gives +more time to more important and less time to less important things; and +he makes up his time-table as he goes along. Suppose he has three +appointments; the first, let us say, is some mere trifle of erecting a +tower twenty storeys high and exhibiting a sky-sign on the top of it; +the second is a business discussion about the possibility of printing +advertisements of soft drinks on the table-napkins at a restaurant; the +third is attending a conference to decide how the populace can be +prevented from using chewing-gum and the manufacturers can still manage +to sell it. He will be content merely to glance at the sky-sign as he +goes by in a trolley-car or an automobile; he will then settle down to +the discussion with his partner about the table-napkins, each speaker +indulging in long monologues in turn; a peculiarity of much American +conversation. Now if in the middle of one of these monologues, he +suddenly thinks that the vacant space of the waiter's shirt-front might +also be utilised to advertise the Gee Whiz Ginger Champagne, he will +instantly follow up the new idea in all its aspects and possibilities, +in an even longer monologue; and will never think of looking at his +watch while he is rapturously looking at his waiter. The con sequence is +that he will come late into the great social movement against +chewing-gum, where an Englishman would probably have arrived at the +proper hour. But though the Englishman's conduct is more proper, it need +not be in all respects more practical. The Englishman's rules are better +for the business of life, but not necessarily for the life of business. +And it is true that for many of these Americans business is the business +of life. It is really also, as I have said, the romance of life. We +shall admire or deplore this spirit, in proportion as we are glad to see +trade irradiated with so much poetry, or sorry to see so much poetry +wasted on trade. But it does make many people happy, like any other +hobby; and one is disposed to add that it does fill their imaginations +like any other delusion. For the true criticism of all this commercial +romance would involve a criticism of this historic phase of commerce. +These people are building on the sand, though it shines like gold, and +for them like fairy gold; but the world will remember the legend about +fairy gold. Half the financial operations they follow deal with things +that do not even exist; for in that sense all finance is a fairy-tale. +Many of them are buying and selling things that do nothing but harm; but +it does them good to buy and sell them. The claim of the romantic +salesman is better justified than he realises. Business really is +romance; for it is not reality. + +There is one real advantage that America has over England, largely due +to its livelier and more impressionable ideal. America does not think +that stupidity is practical. It does not think that ideas are merely +destructive things. It does not think that a genius is only a person to +be told to go away and blow his brains out; rather it would open all its +machinery to the genius and beg him to blow his brains in. It might +attempt to use a natural force like Blake or Shelley for very ignoble +purposes; it would be quite capable of asking Blake to take his tiger +and his golden lions round as a sort of Barnum's show, or Shelley to +hang his stars and haloed clouds among the lights of Broadway. But it +would not assume that a natural force is useless, any more than that +Niagara is useless. And there is a very definite distinction here +touching the intelligence of the trader, whatever we may think of either +course touching the intelligence of the artist. It is one thing that +Apollo should be employed by Admetus, although he is a god. It is quite +another thing that Apollo should always be sacked by Admetus, because he +is a god. Now in England, largely owing to the accident of a rivalry and +therefore a comparison with France, there arose about the end of the +eighteenth century an extraordinary notion that there was some sort of +connection between dullness and success. What the Americans call a +bonehead became what the English call a hard-headed man. The merchants +of London evinced their contempt for the fantastic logicians of Paris by +living in a permanent state of terror lest somebody should set the +Thames on fire. In this as in much else it is much easier to understand +the Americans, if we connect them with the French who were their allies +than with the English who were their enemies. There are a great many +Franco-American resemblances which the practical Anglo-Saxons are of +course too hard-headed (or boneheaded) to see. American history is +haunted with the shadow of the Plebiscitary President; they have a +tradition of classical architecture for public buildings, Their cities +are planned upon the squares of Paris and not upon the labyrinth of +London. They call their cities Corinth and Syracuse, as the French +called their citizens Epaminondas and Timoleon. Their soldiers wore the +French kepi; and they make coffee admirably, and do not make tea at all. +But of all the French elements in America the most French is this real +practicality. They know that at certain times the most businesslike of +all qualities is 'l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de +l'audace.' The publisher may induce the poet to do a pot-boiler; but the +publisher would cheerfully allow the poet to set the Mississippi on +fire, if it would boil his particular pot. It is not so much that +Englishmen are stupid as that they are afraid of being clever; and it is +not so much that Americans are clever as that they do not try to be any +stupider than they are. The fire of French logic has burnt that out of +America as it has burnt it out of Europe, and of almost every place +except England. This is one of the few points on which England +insularity really is a disadvantage. It is the fatal notion that the +only sort of common-sense is to be found in compromise, and that the +only sort of compromise is to be found in confusion. This must be +clearly distinguished from the commonplace about the utilitarian world +not rising to the invisible values of genius. Under this philosophy the +utilitarian does not see the utility of genius, even when it is quite +visible. He does not see it, not because he is a utilitarian, but +because he is an idealist whose ideal is dullness. For some time the +English aspired to be stupid, prayed and hoped with soaring spiritual +ambition to be stupid. But with all their worship of success, they did +not succeed in being stupid. The natural talents of a great and +traditional nation were always breaking out in spite of them. In spite +of the merchants of London, Turner did set the Thames on fire. In spite +of our repeatedly explained preference for realism to romance, Europe +persisted in resounding with the name of Byron. And just when we had +made it perfectly clear to the French that we despised all their +flamboyant tricks, that we were a plain prosaic people and there was no +fantastic glory or chivalry about us, the very shaft we sent against +them shone with the name of Nelson, a shooting and a falling star. # Presidents and Problems -All good Americans wish to fight the representatives they -have chosen. All good Englishmen wish to forget the -representatives they have chosen. This difference, deep and -perhaps ineradicable in the temperaments of the two peoples, -explains a thousand things in their literature and their -laws. The American national poet praised his people for -their readiness 'to *rise* against the never-ending audacity -of elected persons.' The English national anthem is content -to say heartily, but almost hastily, 'Confound their -politics,' and then more cheerfully, as if changing the -subject, 'God save the King.' For this is especially the -secret of the monarch or chief magistrate in the two -countries. They arm the President with the powers of a King, -that he may be a nuisance in politics. We deprive the King -even of the powers of a President, lest he should remind us -of a politician. We desire to forget the never-ending -audacity of elected persons; and with us therefore it really -never does end. That is the practical objection to our own -habit of changing the subject, instead of changing the -ministry. The King, as the Irish wit observed, is not a -subject; but in that sense the English crowned head is not a -King. He is a popular figure in tended to remind us of the -England that politicians do not remember; the England of -horses and ships and gardens and good fellowship. The -Americans have no such purely social Symbol; and it is -rather the root than the result of this that their social -luxury, and especially their sport, are a little lacking in -humanity and humour. It is the American, much more than the -Englishman, who takes his pleasures sadly, not to say -savagely. - -The genuine popularity of constitutional monarchs, in -parliamentary countries, can be explained by any practical -example. Let us suppose that great social reform, The -Compulsory Haircutting Act, has just begun to be enforced. -The Compulsory Haircutting Act, as every good citizen knows, -is a statute which permits any person to grow his hair to -any length, in any wild or wonderful shape, so long as he is -registered with a hairdresser who charges a shilling. But it -imposes a universal close-shave (like that which is found so -hygienic during a curative detention at Dartmoor) on all who -are registered only with a barber who charges threepence. -Thus, while the ornamental classes can continue to ornament -the street with Piccadilly weepers or chin-beards if they -choose, the working classes demonstrate the care with which -the State protects them by going about in a fresher, cooler -and cleaner condition; a condition which has the further -advantage of revealing at a glance that outline of the -criminal skull, which is so common among them. The -Compulsory Haircutting Act is thus in every way a compact -and convenient example of all our current laws about -education, sport, liquor, and liberty in general. Well, the -law has passed, and the masses, insensible to its scientific -value, are still murmuring against it. The ignorant peasant -maiden is averse to so extreme a fashion of bobbing her -hair; and does not see how she can even be a flapper with -nothing to flap. Her father, his mind already poisoned by -Bolshevists, begins to wonder who the devil does these -things, and why. In proportion as he knows the world of -to-day, he guesses that the real origin may be quite -obscure, or the real motive quite corrupt. The pressure may -have come from anybody who has gained power or money anyhow. -It may come from the foreign millionaire who owns all the -expensive hair-dressing saloons; it may come from some -swindler in the cutlery trade who has contracted to sell a -million bad razors. Hence the poor man looks about him with -suspicion in the street; knowing that the lowest sneak or -the loudest snob he sees may be directing the government of -his country. Anybody may have to do with politics; and this -sort of thing is politics. Suddenly he catches sight of a -crowd, stops, and begins wildly to cheer a carriage that is -passing. The carriage contains the one person who has -certainly not originated any great scientific reform. He is -the only person in the commonwealth who is not allowed to -cut off other people's hair, or to take away other people's -liberties. He at least is kept out of politics; and men hold -him up as they did an unspotted victim to appease the wrath -of the gods. He is their King, and the only man they know is -not their ruler. We need not be surprised that he is -popular, knowing how they are ruled. - -The popularity of a President in America is exactly the -opposite. The American Republic is the last mediaeval -monarchy. It is intended that the President shall rule, and -take all the risks of ruling. If the hair is cut he is the -hair-cutter, the magistrate that bears not the razor in -vain. All the popular Presidents, Jackson and Lincoln and -Roosevelt, have acted as democratic despots, but -emphatically not as constitutional monarchs. In short, the -names have become curiously interchanged; and as a -historical reality it is the President who ought to be -called a King. - -But it is not only true that the President could correctly -be called a King. It is also true that the King might -correctly be called a President. We could hardly find a more -exact description of him than to call him a President. What -is expected in modern times of a modern constitutional -monarch is emphatically that he should preside. We expect -him to take the throne exactly as if he were taking the -chair. The chairman does not move the motion or resolution, -far less vote it; he is not supposed even to favour it. He -is expected to please everybody by favouring nobody. The -primary essentials of a President or Chairman are that he -should be treated with ceremonial respect, that he should be -popular in his personality and yet impersonal in his -opinions, and that he should actually be a link between all -the other persons by being different from all of them. This -is exactly what is demanded of the constitutional monarch in -modern times. It is exactly the opposite to the American -position; in which the President does not preside at all. He -moves; and the thing he moves may truly be called a motion; -for the national idea is perpetual motion. Technically it is -called a message; and might often actually be called a -menace. Thus we may truly say that the King presides and the -President reigns. Some would prefer to say that the -President rules; and some Senators and members of Congress -would prefer to say that he rebels. But there is no doubt -that he moves; he does not take the chair or even the stool, -but rather the stump. - -Some people seem to suppose that the fall of President -Wilson was a denial of this almost despotic ideal in -America, As a matter of fact it was the strongest possible -assertion of it The idea is that the President shall take -responsibility and risk; and responsibility means being -blamed, and risk means the risk of being blamed. The theory -is that things are done by the President; and if things go -wrong, or are alleged to go wrong, it is the fault of the -President. This does not invalidate, but rather ratifies the -comparison with true monarchs such as the mediaeval -monarchs. Constitutional princes are seldom deposed; but -despots were often deposed. In the simpler races of sunnier -lands, such as Turkey, they were commonly assassinated. Even -in our own history a King often received the same respectful -tribute to the responsibility and reality of his office. But -King John was attacked because he was strong, not because he -was weak. Richard the Second lost the crown because the -crown was a trophy, not because it was a trifle. And -President Wilson was deposed because he had used a power -which is such, in its nature, that a man must use it at the -risk of deposition. As a matter of fact, of course, it is -easy to exaggerate Mr. Wilson's real unpopularity, and still -more easy to exaggerate Mr. Wilson's real failure. There are -a great many people in America who justify and applaud him; -and what is yet more interesting, who justify him not on -pacifist and idealistic, but on patriotic and even military -grounds. It is especially insisted by some that his -demonstration, which seemed futile as a threat against -Mexico, was a very far-sighted preparation for the threat -against Prussia. But in so far as the democracy did disagree -with him, it was but the occasional and inevitable result of -the theory by which the despot has to anticipate the -democracy. - -Thus the American King and the English President are the -very opposite of each other; yet they are both the varied -and very national indications of the same con temporary -truth. It is the great weariness and contempt that have -fallen upon common politics in both countries. It may be -answered, with some show of truth, that the new American -President represents a return to common politics; and that -in that sense he marks a real rebuke to the last President -and his more uncommon politics. And it is true that many who -put Mr. Harding in power regard him as the symbol of -something which they call normalcy; which may roughly be -translated into English by the word normality. And by this -they do mean, more or less, the return to the vague -capitalist conservatism of the nineteenth century. They -might call Mr. Harding a Victorian if they had ever lived -under Victoria. Perhaps these people do entertain the -extraordinary notion that the nineteenth century was normal. -But there are very few who think so, and even they will not -think so long. The blunder is the beginning of nearly all -our present troubles. The nineteenth century was the very -reverse of normal. It suffered a most unnatural strain in -the combination of political equality in theory with extreme -economic inequality in practice. Capitalism was not a -normalcy but an abnormally. Property is normal, and is more -normal in proportion as it is universal. Slavery may be -normal and even natural, in the sense that a bad habit may -be a second nature. But Capitalism was never anything so -human as a habit; we may say it was never anything so good -as a bad habit. It was never a custom; for men never grew -accustomed to it. It was never even conservative; for before -it was even created wise men had realised that it could not -be conserved. It was from the first a problem; and those who -will not even admit the Capitalist problem deserve to get -the Bolshevist solution. All things considered, I cannot say -anything worse of them than that. - -The recent Presidential election preserved some trace of the -old Party System of America; but its tradition has very -nearly faded like that of the Party System of England. It is -easy for an Englishman to confess that he never quite -understood the American Party System. It would perhaps be -more courageous in him, and more informing, to confess that -he never really understood the British Party System. The -planks in the two American platforms may easily be exhibited -as very disconnected and ramshackle; but our own party was -as much of a patchwork, and indeed I think even more so. -Everybody knows that the two American factions were called -'Democrat' and 'Republican.' It does not at all cover the -case to identify the former with Liberals and the latter -with Conservatives. The Democrats are the party of the South -and have some true tradition from the Southern aristocracy -and the defence of Secession and State Rights. The -Republicans rose in the North as the party of Lincoln, -largely condemning slavery. But the Republicans are also the -party of Tariffs, and are at least accused of being the -party of Trusts. The Democrats are the party of Free Trade; -and in the great movement of twenty years ago the party of -Free Silver. The Democrats are also the party of the Irish; -and the stones they throw at Trusts are retorted by stones -thrown at Tammany. It is easy to see all these things as -curiously sporadic and bewildering; but I am inclined to -think that they are as a whole more coherent and rational -than our own old division of Liberals and Conservatives. -There is even more doubt nowadays about what is the -connecting link between the different items in the old -British party programmes. I have never been able to -understand why being in favour of Protection should have -anything to do with being opposed to Home Rule; especially -as most of the people who were to receive Home Rule were -themselves in favour of Protection. I could never see what -giving people cheap bread had to do with forbidding them -cheap beer; or why the party which sympathises with Ireland -cannot sympathise with Poland. I cannot see why Liberals did -not liberate public-houses or Conservatives conserve -crofters. I do not understand the principle upon which the -causes were selected on both sides; and I incline to think -that it was with the impartial object of distributing -nonsense equally on both sides. Heaven knows there is enough -nonsense in American politics too; towering and tropical -nonsense like a cyclone or an earth quake. But when all is -said, I incline to think that there was more spiritual and -atmospheric cohesion in the different parts of the American -party than in those of the English party; and I think this -unity was all the more real because it was more difficult to -define. The Republican party originally stood for the -triumph of the North, and the North stood for the nineteenth -century; that is for the characteristic commercial expansion -of the nineteenth century; for a firm faith in the profit -and progress of its great and growing cities, its division -of labour, its industrial science, and its evolutionary -reform. The Democratic party stood more loosely for all the -elements that doubted whether this development was -democratic or was desirable; all that looked back to -Jeffersonian idealism and the serene abstractions of the -eighteenth century, or forward to Bryanite idealism and some -simplified Utopia founded on grain rather than gold. Along -with this went, not at all unnaturally, the last and -lingering sentiment of the Southern squires, who remembered -a more rural civilisation that seemed by comparison -romantic. Along with this went, quite logically, the -passions and the pathos of the Irish, themselves a rural -civilisation, whose basis is a religion or what the -nineteenth century tended to call a superstition. Above all, -it was perfectly natural that this tone of thought should -favour local liberties, and even a revolt on behalf of local -liberties, and should distrust the huge machine of -centralised power called the Union. In short, something very -near the truth was said by a suicidally silly Republican -orator, who was running Elaine for the Presidency, when he -denounced the Democratic party as supported by 'Rome, rum, -and rebellion.' They seem to me to be three excel lent -things in their place; and that is why I suspect that I -should have belonged to the Democratic party, if I had been -born in America when there was a Democratic party. But I -fancy that by this time even this general distinction has -become very dim. If I had been an American twenty years ago, -in the time of the great Free Silver campaign, I should -certainly never have hesitated for an instant about my -sympathies or my side. My feelings would have been exactly -those that are nobly expressed by Mr. Vachell Lindsay, in a -poem bearing the characteristic title of 'Bryan, Bryan, -Bryan, Bryan.' And, by the way, nobody can begin to -sympathise with America whose soul does not to some extent -begin to swing and dance to the drums and gongs of -Mr. Vachell Lindsay's great orchestra; which has the note of -his whole nation in this: that a refined person can revile -it a hundred times over as vulgar and brazen and barbarous -and absurd, but not as insincere; there is something in it, -and that something is the soul of many million men. But the -poet himself, in the political poem referred to, speaks of -Bryan's fall over free Silver as defeat of my boyhood, -defeat of my dream; and it is only too probable that the -cause has fallen as well as the candidate. The William -Jennings Bryan of later years is not the man whom I should -have seen in my youth, with the visionary eyes of -Mr. Vachell Lindsay. He has become a commonplace Pacifist, -which is in its nature the very opposite of a revolutionist; -for if men will fight rather than sacrifice humanity on a -golden cross, it cannot be wrong for them to resist its -being sacrificed to an iron cross. I came into very indirect -contact with Mr. Bryan when I was in America, in a fashion -that made me realise how it has become to recover the -illusions of a Bryanite. I believe that my lecture agent was -anxious to arrange a debate, and I threw out a sort of loose -challenge to the effect that woman's suffrage had weakened -the position of woman; and while I was away in the wilds of -Oklahoma my lecture agent (a man of blood-curdling courage -and enterprise) asked Mr. Bryan to debate with me. Now -Mr. Bryan is one of the greatest orators of modern history, -and there is no conceivable reason why he should trouble to -debate with a wandering lecturer. But as a matter of fact he -expressed himself in the most magnanimous and courteous -terms about my personal position, but said (as I understood) -that it would be improper to debate on female suffrage as it -was already a part of the political system. And when I heard -that, I could not help a sigh; for I recognised something -that I knew only too well on the front benches of my own -beloved land. The great and glorious demagogue had -degenerated into a statesman. I had never expected for a -moment that the great orator could be bothered to debate -with me at all; but it had never occurred to me, as a -general principle, that two educated men were for ever -forbidden to talk sense about a particular topic, because a -lot of other people had already voted on it. What is the -matter with that attitude is the loss of the freedom of the -mind. There can be no liberty of thought unless it is ready -to unsettle what has recently been settled, as well as what -has long been settled. We are perpetually being told in the -papers that what is wanted is a strong man who will do -things. What is wanted is a strong man who will undo things; -and that will be a real test of strength. - -Anyhow, we could have believed, in the time of the Free -Silver fight, that the Democratic party was democratic with -a small d. In Mr. Wilson it was transfigured, his friends -would say into a higher and his foes into a hazier thing. -And the Republican reaction against him, even where it has -been healthy, has also been hazy. In fact, it has been not -so much the victory of a political party as a relapse into -repose after certain political passions; and in that sense -there is a truth in the strange phrase about normalcy; in -the sense that there is nothing more normal than going to -sleep. But an even larger truth is this; it is most likely -that America is no longer concentrated on these faction -fights at all, but is considering certain large problems -upon which those factions hardly troubled to take sides. -They are too large even to be classified as foreign policy -distinct from domestic policy. They are so large as to be -inside as well as out side the state. From an English -standpoint the most obvious example is the Irish; for the -Irish problem is not a British problem, but also an American -problem. And this is true even of the great external enigma -of Japan. The Japanese question may be a part of foreign -policy for America, but it is a part of domestic policy for -California. And the same is true of that other intense and -intelligent Eastern people, the genius and limitations of -which have troubled the world so much longer. What the Japs -are in California, the Jews are in America. That is, they -are a piece of foreign policy that has become embedded in -domestic policy; something which is found inside but still -has to be regarded from the outside. On these great -international matters I doubt if Americans got much guidance -from their party system; especially as most of these -questions have grown very recently and rapidly to enormous -size. Men are left free to judge of them with fresh minds. -And that is the truth in the statement that the Washington +All good Americans wish to fight the representatives they have chosen. +All good Englishmen wish to forget the representatives they have chosen. +This difference, deep and perhaps ineradicable in the temperaments of +the two peoples, explains a thousand things in their literature and +their laws. The American national poet praised his people for their +readiness 'to *rise* against the never-ending audacity of elected +persons.' The English national anthem is content to say heartily, but +almost hastily, 'Confound their politics,' and then more cheerfully, as +if changing the subject, 'God save the King.' For this is especially the +secret of the monarch or chief magistrate in the two countries. They arm +the President with the powers of a King, that he may be a nuisance in +politics. We deprive the King even of the powers of a President, lest he +should remind us of a politician. We desire to forget the never-ending +audacity of elected persons; and with us therefore it really never does +end. That is the practical objection to our own habit of changing the +subject, instead of changing the ministry. The King, as the Irish wit +observed, is not a subject; but in that sense the English crowned head +is not a King. He is a popular figure in tended to remind us of the +England that politicians do not remember; the England of horses and +ships and gardens and good fellowship. The Americans have no such purely +social Symbol; and it is rather the root than the result of this that +their social luxury, and especially their sport, are a little lacking in +humanity and humour. It is the American, much more than the Englishman, +who takes his pleasures sadly, not to say savagely. + +The genuine popularity of constitutional monarchs, in parliamentary +countries, can be explained by any practical example. Let us suppose +that great social reform, The Compulsory Haircutting Act, has just begun +to be enforced. The Compulsory Haircutting Act, as every good citizen +knows, is a statute which permits any person to grow his hair to any +length, in any wild or wonderful shape, so long as he is registered with +a hairdresser who charges a shilling. But it imposes a universal +close-shave (like that which is found so hygienic during a curative +detention at Dartmoor) on all who are registered only with a barber who +charges threepence. Thus, while the ornamental classes can continue to +ornament the street with Piccadilly weepers or chin-beards if they +choose, the working classes demonstrate the care with which the State +protects them by going about in a fresher, cooler and cleaner condition; +a condition which has the further advantage of revealing at a glance +that outline of the criminal skull, which is so common among them. The +Compulsory Haircutting Act is thus in every way a compact and convenient +example of all our current laws about education, sport, liquor, and +liberty in general. Well, the law has passed, and the masses, insensible +to its scientific value, are still murmuring against it. The ignorant +peasant maiden is averse to so extreme a fashion of bobbing her hair; +and does not see how she can even be a flapper with nothing to flap. Her +father, his mind already poisoned by Bolshevists, begins to wonder who +the devil does these things, and why. In proportion as he knows the +world of to-day, he guesses that the real origin may be quite obscure, +or the real motive quite corrupt. The pressure may have come from +anybody who has gained power or money anyhow. It may come from the +foreign millionaire who owns all the expensive hair-dressing saloons; it +may come from some swindler in the cutlery trade who has contracted to +sell a million bad razors. Hence the poor man looks about him with +suspicion in the street; knowing that the lowest sneak or the loudest +snob he sees may be directing the government of his country. Anybody may +have to do with politics; and this sort of thing is politics. Suddenly +he catches sight of a crowd, stops, and begins wildly to cheer a +carriage that is passing. The carriage contains the one person who has +certainly not originated any great scientific reform. He is the only +person in the commonwealth who is not allowed to cut off other people's +hair, or to take away other people's liberties. He at least is kept out +of politics; and men hold him up as they did an unspotted victim to +appease the wrath of the gods. He is their King, and the only man they +know is not their ruler. We need not be surprised that he is popular, +knowing how they are ruled. + +The popularity of a President in America is exactly the opposite. The +American Republic is the last mediaeval monarchy. It is intended that +the President shall rule, and take all the risks of ruling. If the hair +is cut he is the hair-cutter, the magistrate that bears not the razor in +vain. All the popular Presidents, Jackson and Lincoln and Roosevelt, +have acted as democratic despots, but emphatically not as constitutional +monarchs. In short, the names have become curiously interchanged; and as +a historical reality it is the President who ought to be called a King. + +But it is not only true that the President could correctly be called a +King. It is also true that the King might correctly be called a +President. We could hardly find a more exact description of him than to +call him a President. What is expected in modern times of a modern +constitutional monarch is emphatically that he should preside. We expect +him to take the throne exactly as if he were taking the chair. The +chairman does not move the motion or resolution, far less vote it; he is +not supposed even to favour it. He is expected to please everybody by +favouring nobody. The primary essentials of a President or Chairman are +that he should be treated with ceremonial respect, that he should be +popular in his personality and yet impersonal in his opinions, and that +he should actually be a link between all the other persons by being +different from all of them. This is exactly what is demanded of the +constitutional monarch in modern times. It is exactly the opposite to +the American position; in which the President does not preside at all. +He moves; and the thing he moves may truly be called a motion; for the +national idea is perpetual motion. Technically it is called a message; +and might often actually be called a menace. Thus we may truly say that +the King presides and the President reigns. Some would prefer to say +that the President rules; and some Senators and members of Congress +would prefer to say that he rebels. But there is no doubt that he moves; +he does not take the chair or even the stool, but rather the stump. + +Some people seem to suppose that the fall of President Wilson was a +denial of this almost despotic ideal in America, As a matter of fact it +was the strongest possible assertion of it The idea is that the +President shall take responsibility and risk; and responsibility means +being blamed, and risk means the risk of being blamed. The theory is +that things are done by the President; and if things go wrong, or are +alleged to go wrong, it is the fault of the President. This does not +invalidate, but rather ratifies the comparison with true monarchs such +as the mediaeval monarchs. Constitutional princes are seldom deposed; +but despots were often deposed. In the simpler races of sunnier lands, +such as Turkey, they were commonly assassinated. Even in our own history +a King often received the same respectful tribute to the responsibility +and reality of his office. But King John was attacked because he was +strong, not because he was weak. Richard the Second lost the crown +because the crown was a trophy, not because it was a trifle. And +President Wilson was deposed because he had used a power which is such, +in its nature, that a man must use it at the risk of deposition. As a +matter of fact, of course, it is easy to exaggerate Mr. Wilson's real +unpopularity, and still more easy to exaggerate Mr. Wilson's real +failure. There are a great many people in America who justify and +applaud him; and what is yet more interesting, who justify him not on +pacifist and idealistic, but on patriotic and even military grounds. It +is especially insisted by some that his demonstration, which seemed +futile as a threat against Mexico, was a very far-sighted preparation +for the threat against Prussia. But in so far as the democracy did +disagree with him, it was but the occasional and inevitable result of +the theory by which the despot has to anticipate the democracy. + +Thus the American King and the English President are the very opposite +of each other; yet they are both the varied and very national +indications of the same con temporary truth. It is the great weariness +and contempt that have fallen upon common politics in both countries. It +may be answered, with some show of truth, that the new American +President represents a return to common politics; and that in that sense +he marks a real rebuke to the last President and his more uncommon +politics. And it is true that many who put Mr. Harding in power regard +him as the symbol of something which they call normalcy; which may +roughly be translated into English by the word normality. And by this +they do mean, more or less, the return to the vague capitalist +conservatism of the nineteenth century. They might call Mr. Harding a +Victorian if they had ever lived under Victoria. Perhaps these people do +entertain the extraordinary notion that the nineteenth century was +normal. But there are very few who think so, and even they will not +think so long. The blunder is the beginning of nearly all our present +troubles. The nineteenth century was the very reverse of normal. It +suffered a most unnatural strain in the combination of political +equality in theory with extreme economic inequality in practice. +Capitalism was not a normalcy but an abnormally. Property is normal, and +is more normal in proportion as it is universal. Slavery may be normal +and even natural, in the sense that a bad habit may be a second nature. +But Capitalism was never anything so human as a habit; we may say it was +never anything so good as a bad habit. It was never a custom; for men +never grew accustomed to it. It was never even conservative; for before +it was even created wise men had realised that it could not be +conserved. It was from the first a problem; and those who will not even +admit the Capitalist problem deserve to get the Bolshevist solution. All +things considered, I cannot say anything worse of them than that. + +The recent Presidential election preserved some trace of the old Party +System of America; but its tradition has very nearly faded like that of +the Party System of England. It is easy for an Englishman to confess +that he never quite understood the American Party System. It would +perhaps be more courageous in him, and more informing, to confess that +he never really understood the British Party System. The planks in the +two American platforms may easily be exhibited as very disconnected and +ramshackle; but our own party was as much of a patchwork, and indeed I +think even more so. Everybody knows that the two American factions were +called 'Democrat' and 'Republican.' It does not at all cover the case to +identify the former with Liberals and the latter with Conservatives. The +Democrats are the party of the South and have some true tradition from +the Southern aristocracy and the defence of Secession and State Rights. +The Republicans rose in the North as the party of Lincoln, largely +condemning slavery. But the Republicans are also the party of Tariffs, +and are at least accused of being the party of Trusts. The Democrats are +the party of Free Trade; and in the great movement of twenty years ago +the party of Free Silver. The Democrats are also the party of the Irish; +and the stones they throw at Trusts are retorted by stones thrown at +Tammany. It is easy to see all these things as curiously sporadic and +bewildering; but I am inclined to think that they are as a whole more +coherent and rational than our own old division of Liberals and +Conservatives. There is even more doubt nowadays about what is the +connecting link between the different items in the old British party +programmes. I have never been able to understand why being in favour of +Protection should have anything to do with being opposed to Home Rule; +especially as most of the people who were to receive Home Rule were +themselves in favour of Protection. I could never see what giving people +cheap bread had to do with forbidding them cheap beer; or why the party +which sympathises with Ireland cannot sympathise with Poland. I cannot +see why Liberals did not liberate public-houses or Conservatives +conserve crofters. I do not understand the principle upon which the +causes were selected on both sides; and I incline to think that it was +with the impartial object of distributing nonsense equally on both +sides. Heaven knows there is enough nonsense in American politics too; +towering and tropical nonsense like a cyclone or an earth quake. But +when all is said, I incline to think that there was more spiritual and +atmospheric cohesion in the different parts of the American party than +in those of the English party; and I think this unity was all the more +real because it was more difficult to define. The Republican party +originally stood for the triumph of the North, and the North stood for +the nineteenth century; that is for the characteristic commercial +expansion of the nineteenth century; for a firm faith in the profit and +progress of its great and growing cities, its division of labour, its +industrial science, and its evolutionary reform. The Democratic party +stood more loosely for all the elements that doubted whether this +development was democratic or was desirable; all that looked back to +Jeffersonian idealism and the serene abstractions of the eighteenth +century, or forward to Bryanite idealism and some simplified Utopia +founded on grain rather than gold. Along with this went, not at all +unnaturally, the last and lingering sentiment of the Southern squires, +who remembered a more rural civilisation that seemed by comparison +romantic. Along with this went, quite logically, the passions and the +pathos of the Irish, themselves a rural civilisation, whose basis is a +religion or what the nineteenth century tended to call a superstition. +Above all, it was perfectly natural that this tone of thought should +favour local liberties, and even a revolt on behalf of local liberties, +and should distrust the huge machine of centralised power called the +Union. In short, something very near the truth was said by a suicidally +silly Republican orator, who was running Elaine for the Presidency, when +he denounced the Democratic party as supported by 'Rome, rum, and +rebellion.' They seem to me to be three excel lent things in their +place; and that is why I suspect that I should have belonged to the +Democratic party, if I had been born in America when there was a +Democratic party. But I fancy that by this time even this general +distinction has become very dim. If I had been an American twenty years +ago, in the time of the great Free Silver campaign, I should certainly +never have hesitated for an instant about my sympathies or my side. My +feelings would have been exactly those that are nobly expressed by +Mr. Vachell Lindsay, in a poem bearing the characteristic title of +'Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan.' And, by the way, nobody can begin to +sympathise with America whose soul does not to some extent begin to +swing and dance to the drums and gongs of Mr. Vachell Lindsay's great +orchestra; which has the note of his whole nation in this: that a +refined person can revile it a hundred times over as vulgar and brazen +and barbarous and absurd, but not as insincere; there is something in +it, and that something is the soul of many million men. But the poet +himself, in the political poem referred to, speaks of Bryan's fall over +free Silver as defeat of my boyhood, defeat of my dream; and it is only +too probable that the cause has fallen as well as the candidate. The +William Jennings Bryan of later years is not the man whom I should have +seen in my youth, with the visionary eyes of Mr. Vachell Lindsay. He has +become a commonplace Pacifist, which is in its nature the very opposite +of a revolutionist; for if men will fight rather than sacrifice humanity +on a golden cross, it cannot be wrong for them to resist its being +sacrificed to an iron cross. I came into very indirect contact with +Mr. Bryan when I was in America, in a fashion that made me realise how +it has become to recover the illusions of a Bryanite. I believe that my +lecture agent was anxious to arrange a debate, and I threw out a sort of +loose challenge to the effect that woman's suffrage had weakened the +position of woman; and while I was away in the wilds of Oklahoma my +lecture agent (a man of blood-curdling courage and enterprise) asked +Mr. Bryan to debate with me. Now Mr. Bryan is one of the greatest +orators of modern history, and there is no conceivable reason why he +should trouble to debate with a wandering lecturer. But as a matter of +fact he expressed himself in the most magnanimous and courteous terms +about my personal position, but said (as I understood) that it would be +improper to debate on female suffrage as it was already a part of the +political system. And when I heard that, I could not help a sigh; for I +recognised something that I knew only too well on the front benches of +my own beloved land. The great and glorious demagogue had degenerated +into a statesman. I had never expected for a moment that the great +orator could be bothered to debate with me at all; but it had never +occurred to me, as a general principle, that two educated men were for +ever forbidden to talk sense about a particular topic, because a lot of +other people had already voted on it. What is the matter with that +attitude is the loss of the freedom of the mind. There can be no liberty +of thought unless it is ready to unsettle what has recently been +settled, as well as what has long been settled. We are perpetually being +told in the papers that what is wanted is a strong man who will do +things. What is wanted is a strong man who will undo things; and that +will be a real test of strength. + +Anyhow, we could have believed, in the time of the Free Silver fight, +that the Democratic party was democratic with a small d. In Mr. Wilson +it was transfigured, his friends would say into a higher and his foes +into a hazier thing. And the Republican reaction against him, even where +it has been healthy, has also been hazy. In fact, it has been not so +much the victory of a political party as a relapse into repose after +certain political passions; and in that sense there is a truth in the +strange phrase about normalcy; in the sense that there is nothing more +normal than going to sleep. But an even larger truth is this; it is most +likely that America is no longer concentrated on these faction fights at +all, but is considering certain large problems upon which those factions +hardly troubled to take sides. They are too large even to be classified +as foreign policy distinct from domestic policy. They are so large as to +be inside as well as out side the state. From an English standpoint the +most obvious example is the Irish; for the Irish problem is not a +British problem, but also an American problem. And this is true even of +the great external enigma of Japan. The Japanese question may be a part +of foreign policy for America, but it is a part of domestic policy for +California. And the same is true of that other intense and intelligent +Eastern people, the genius and limitations of which have troubled the +world so much longer. What the Japs are in California, the Jews are in +America. That is, they are a piece of foreign policy that has become +embedded in domestic policy; something which is found inside but still +has to be regarded from the outside. On these great international +matters I doubt if Americans got much guidance from their party system; +especially as most of these questions have grown very recently and +rapidly to enormous size. Men are left free to judge of them with fresh +minds. And that is the truth in the statement that the Washington Conference has opened the gates of a new world. -On the relations to England and Ireland I will not attempt -to dwell adequately here. I have already noted that my first -interview was with an Irishman, and my first impression from -that interview a vivid sense of the importance of Ireland in -Anglo-American relations; and I have said something of the -Irish problem, prematurely and out of its proper order, -under the stress of that sense of urgency. Here I will only -add two remarks about the two countries respectively. A -great many British journalists have recently imagined that -they were pouring oil upon the troubled waters, when they -were rather pouring out oil to smooth the downward path; and -to turn the broad road to destruction into a butter-slide. -They seem to have no notion of what to do, except to say -what they imagine the very stupidest of their readers would -be pleased to hear, and conceal whatever the most -intelligent of their readers would probably like to know. -They therefore informed the public that 'the majority of -Americans' had abandoned all sympathy with Ireland, because -of its alleged sympathy with Germany; and that this majority -of Americans was now adherently in sympathy with its English -brothers across the sea. Now to begin with, such critics -have no notion of what they are saying when they talk about -the majority of Americans. To anybody who has happened to -look in, let us say, on the city of Omaha, Nebraska, the -remark will have something enormous and overwhelming about -it. It is like saying that the majority of the inhabitants -of China would agree with the Chinese Ambassador in a -preference for dining at the Savoy rather than the Ritz. -There are millions and millions of people living in those -great central plains of the North American Continent of whom -it would be nearer the truth to say that they have never -heard of England, or of Ireland either, than to say that -their first emotional movement is a desire to come to the -rescue of either of them. It is perfectly true that the more -monomaniac sort of Sinn Feiner might sometimes irritate this -innocent and isolated American spirit by being pro-Irish. It -is equally true that a traditional Bostonian or Virginian -might irritate it by being pro-English. The only difference -is that large numbers of pure Irishmen are scattered in -those far places, and large numbers of pure Englishmen are -not. But it is truest of all to say that neither England nor -Ireland so much! as crosses the mind of most of them once in -six months. Painting up large notices of 'Watch us Grow,' -making money by farming with machinery, together with an -occasional hold-up with six-shooters and photographs of a -beautiful murderess or divorcée, fill up the round of their -good and happy lives, and fleet the time carelessly as in -the golden age. - -But putting aside all this vast and distant democracy, which -is the 'real majority of Americans,' and confining ourselves -to that older culture on the eastern coast which the critics -probably had in mind, we shall find the case more comforting -but not to be covered with cheap and false comfort. Now it -is perfectly true that any Englishman coming to this eastern -coast, as I did, finds himself not only most warmly welcomed -as a guest, but most cordially complimented as an -Englishman. Men recall with pride the branches of their -family that belong to England or the English counties where -they were rooted; and there are enthusiasms for English -literature and history which are as spontaneous as -patriotism itself. Something of this may be put down to a -certain promptitude and flexibility in all American -kindness, which is never sufficiently stodgy to be called -good nature. The Englishman does sometimes wonder whether if -he had been a Russian, his hosts would not have remembered -re mote Russian aunts and uncles and disinterred a Muscovite -great-grandmother; or whether if he had come from Iceland, -they would not have known as much about Icelandic sagas and -been as sympathetic about the absence of Icelandic snakes. -But with a fair review of the pro portions of the case he -will dismiss this conjecture, and come to the conclusion -that a number of educated Americans are very warmly and -sincerely sympathetic with England. - -What I began to feel, with a certain creeping chill, was -that they were only too sympathetic with England. The word -sympathetic has sometimes rather a double sense. The -impression I received was that all these chivalrous -Southerners and men mellow with Bostonian memories were -*rallying* to England. They were on the defensive; and it -was poor old England that they were defending. Their -attitude implied that somebody or something was leaving her -undefended, or finding her indefensible. The burden of that -hearty chorus was that England was not so black as she was -painted; it seemed clear that somewhere or other she was -being painted pretty black. But there was something else -that made me uncomfortable; it was not only the sense of -being somewhat boisterously forgiven; it was also something -involving questions of power as well as morality. Then it -seemed to me that a new sensation turned me hot and cold; -and I felt something I have never before felt in a foreign -land. Never had my father or my grandfather known that -sensation; never during the great and complex and perhaps -perilous expansion of our power and commerce in the last -hundred years had an Englishman heard exactly that note in a -human voice. England was being *pitied*. I, as an -Englishman, was not only being pardoned but pitied. My -country was beginning to be an object of compassion, like -Poland or Spain. My first emotion, full of the mood and -movement of a hundred years, was one of furious anger. But -the anger has given place to anxiety; and the anxiety is not -yet at an end. - -It is not my business here to expound my view of English -politics, still less of European politics or the politics of -the world; but to put down a few impressions of American -travel. On many points of European politics the impression -will be purely negative; I am sure that most Americans have -no notion of the position of France or the position of -Poland. But if English readers want the truth, I am sure -this is the truth about their notion of the position of -England. They are wondering, or those who are watching are -wondering, whether the term of her success is come and she -is going down the dark road after Prussia. Many are sorry if -this is so; some are glad if it is so; but all are seriously -considering the probability of its being so. And herein lay -especially the horrible folly of our Black-and-Tan terrorism -over the Irish people. I have noted that the newspapers told -us that America had been chilled in its Irish sympathies by -Irish detachment during the war. It is the painful truth -that any advantage we might have had from this we ourselves -immediately proceeded to destroy. Ireland *might* have put -herself wrong with America by her attitude about Belgium, if -England had not instantly proceeded to put herself more -wrong by her attitude towards Ireland. It is quite true that -two blacks do not make a white; but you cannot send a black -to reproach people with tolerating blackness; and this is -quite as true when one is a Black Brunswicker and the other -a Black-and-Tan. It is true that since then England has made -surprisingly sweeping concessions; concessions so large as -to increase the amazement that the refusal should have been -so long. But unfortunately the combination of the two rather -clinches the conception of our decline. If the concession -had come before the terror, it would have looked like an -attempt to emancipate, and would probably have succeeded. -Coming so abruptly after the terror, it looked only like an -attempt to tyrannise, and an attempt that failed. It was -partly an inheritance from a stupid tradition, which tried -to combine what it called firmness with what it called -conciliation; as if when we made up our minds to soothe a -man with a five-pound note, we always took care to undo our -own action by giving him a kick as well. The English -politician has often done that; though there is nothing to -be said of such a fool except that he has wasted a fiver. -But in this case he gave the kick first, received a kicking -in return, and *then* gave up the money; and it was hard for -the bystanders to say anything except that he had been badly -beaten. The combination and sequence of events seems almost -as if it were arranged to suggest the dark and ominous -parallel. The first action looked only too like the invasion -of (Belgium, and the second like the evacuation of Belgium. -So that vast and silent crowd in the West looked at the -British Empire, as men look at a great tower that has begun -to lean. Thus it was that while I found real pleasure, I -could not find unrelieved consolation in the sincere -compliments paid to my country by so many cultivated -Americans; their memories of homely corners of historic -counties from which their fathers came, of the cathedral -that dwarfs the town, or the inn at the turning of the road. -There was something in their voices and the look in their -eyes which from the first disturbed me. So I have heard good -Englishmen, who died afterwards the death of soldiers, cry -aloud in 1914, 'It seems impossible of those jolly -Bavarians!' or, 'I will never believe it, when I think of -the time I had at Heidelberg!' - -But there are other things besides the parallel of Prussia -or the problem of Ireland. The American press is much freer -than our own; the American public is much more familiar with -the discussion of corruption than our own; and it is much -more conscious of the corruption of our politics than we -are. Almost any man in America may talk of the Marconi Case; -many a man in England does not even know what it means. Many -imagine that it had something to do with the propriety of -politicians speculating on the Stock Exchange. So that it -means a great deal to Americans to say that one figure in -that drama is ruling India and another is ruling Palestine, -And this brings me to another problem, which is also dealt -with much more openly in America than in England. I mention -it here only because it is a perfect model of the -misunderstandings in the modern world. If any one asks for -an example of exactly how the important part of every story -is left out, and even the part that is reported is not -understood, he could hardly have a stronger case than the -story of Henry Ford of Detroit. - -When I was in Detroit I had the pleasure of meeting -Mr. Ford, and it really was a pleasure. He is a man I quite -capable of views which I think silly to the point of -insanity; but he is not the vulgar benevolent boss. It must -be admitted that he is a millionaire; but he cannot really -be convicted of being a philanthropist. He is not a man who -merely wants to run people; it is rather his views that run -him, and perhaps runaway with him. He has a distinguished -and sensitive face; he really invented things himself, -unlike most men who profit by inventions; he is something of -an artist and not a little of a fighter. A man of that type -is always capable of being wildly wrong, especially in the -sectarian atmosphere of America; and Mr. Ford has been wrong -before and may be wrong now. He is chiefly known in England -for a project which I think very preposterous; that of the -Peace Ship, which came to Europe during the war. But he is -not known in England at all in connection with a much more -important campaign, which he has conducted much more -recently and with much more success; a campaign against the -Jews like one of the Anti-Semitic campaigns of the -Continent. Now any one who knows anything of America knows -exactly what the Peace Ship would be like. It was a national -combination of imagination and ignorance, which has at least -some of the beauty of innocence. Men living in those huge -hedge-less inland plains know nothing about frontiers or the -tragedy of a fight for freedom; they know nothing of alarum -and armament or the peril of a high civilisation poised like -a precious statue within reach of a mailed fist. They are -accustomed to a cosmopolitan citizenship, in which men of -all bloods mingle and in which men of all creeds are counted -equal. Their highest moral boast is humanitarianism; their -highest mental boast is enlightenment. In a word, they are -the very last men in the world who would seem likely to -pride themselves on a prejudice against the Jews. They have -no religion in particular, except a sincere sentiment which -they would call 'true Christianity,' and which specially -forbids an attack on the Jews. They have a patriotism which -prides itself on assimilating all types, including the Jews. -Mr. Ford is a pure product of this pacific world, as was -sufficiently proved by his pacifism. If a man of that sort -has discovered that there is a Jewish problem, it is because -there is a Jewish problem. It is certainly not because there -is an Anti-Jewish prejudice. For if there had been any -amount of such racial and religious prejudice, he would have -been about the very last sort of man to have it. His -particular part of the world would have been the very last -place to produce it. We may well laugh at the Peace Ship, -and its wild course and inevitable shipwreck; but remember -that its very wildness was an attempt to sail as far as -possible from the castle of Front-de-Boeuf. Everything that -made him Anti-War should have prevented him from being -Anti-Semite. We may mock him for being mad on peace; but we -can not say that he was so mad on peace that he made war on -Israel. - -It happened that, when I was in America, I had just -published some studies on Palestine; and I was besieged by -Rabbis lamenting my 'prejudice.' I pointed out that they -would have got hold of the wrong word, even if they had not -got hold of the wrong man. As a point of personal -autobiography, I do not happen to be a man who dislikes -Jews; though I believe that some men do. I have had Jews -among my most intimate and faithful friends since my -boyhood, and I hope to have them till I die. But even if I -did have a dislike of Jews, it would be illogical to call -that dislike a prejudice. Prejudice is a very lucid Latin -word meaning the bias which a man has before he considers a -case. I might be said to be prejudiced against a Hairy Ainu -because of his name, for I have never been on terms of such -intimacy with him as to correct my preconceptions. But if -after moving about in the modern world and meeting Jews, -knowing about Jews, I came to the conclusion that I did not -like Jews, my conclusion certainly would not be a prejudice. -It would simply be an opinion; and one I should be perfectly -entitled to hold; though as a matter of fact I do not hold -it. No extravagance of hatred merely following on -*experience* of Jews can properly be called a prejudice. - -Now the point is that this new American Anti-Semitism -springs from experience and nothing but experience. There is -no prejudice for it to spring from. Or rather the prejudice -is all the other way. All the traditions of that democracy, -and very creditable traditions too, are in favour of -toleration and a sort of idealistic indifference. The -sympathies in which these nineteenth-century people were -reared were all against Front-de-Boeuf and in favour of -Rebecca. They inherited a prejudice against Anti-Semitism; a -prejudice of Anti-Anti-Semitism. These people of the plains -have found the Jewish problem exactly as they might have -struck oil; because it is *there*, and not even because they -were looking for it. Their view of the problem, like their -use of the oil, is not always satisfactory; and with parts -of it I entirely disagree. But the point is that the thing -which I call a problem, and others call a prejudice, has now -appeared in broad daylight in a new country where there is -no priest-craft, no feudalism, no ancient superstition to -explain it. It has appeared because it is a problem; and -those are the best friends of the Jews, including many of -the Jews themselves, who are trying to find a solution. That -is the meaning of the incident of Mr. Henry Ford of Detroit; -and you will hardly hear an intelligible word about it in -England. - -The talk of prejudice against the Japanese is not unlike the -talk of prejudice against the Jews. Only in this case our -indifference has really the excuse of ignorance. We used to -lecture the Russians for oppressing the Jews, before we -heard the word Bolshevist and began to lecture them for -being oppressed by the Jews. In the same way we have long -lectured the Californians for oppressing the Japanese, -without allowing for the possibility of their foreseeing -that the oppression may soon be the other way. As in the -other case, it may be a persecution but it is not a -prejudice. The Californians know more about the Japanese -than we do; and our own colonists when they are placed in -the same position generally say the same thing. I will not -attempt to deal adequately here with the vast international -and diplomatic problems which arise with the name of the new -power in the Far East. It is possible that Japan, having -imitated European militarism, may imitate European -pacificism. I cannot honestly pretend to know what the -Japanese mean by the one any more than by the other. But -when Englishmen, especially English Liberals like myself, -take a superior and censorious attitude towards Americans -and especially Californians, I am moved to make a final -remark. When a considerable number of Englishmen talk of the -grave contending claims of our friendship with Japan and our -friendship with America, when they finally tend in a sort of -summing up to dwell on the superior virtues of Japan, I may -be permitted to make a single comment. - -We are perpetually boring the world and each other with talk -about the bonds that bind us to America. We are perpetually -crying aloud that England and America are very much alike, -especially England. We are always insisting that the two are -identical in all the things in. which they most obviously -differ. We are always saying that both stand for democracy, -when we should not con sent to. stand for their democracy -for half a day. We are always saying that at least we are -all Anglo-Saxons, when we are descended from Romans and -Normans and Brit ons and Danes, and they are descended from -Irishmen and Italians and Slavs and Germans. We tell a -people whose very existence is a revolt against the British -Crown that they are passionately devoted to the British -Constitution. We tell a nation whose whole policy has been -isolation and independence that with us she can bear safely -the White Man's Burden of the universal empire. We tell a -continent crowded with Irishmen to thank God that the Saxon -can always rule the Celt. We tell a populace whose very -virtues are lawless that together we up hold the Reign of -Law. We recognise our own law-abiding character in people -who make laws that neither they nor anybody else can abide. -We congratulate them on clinging to all they have cast away, -and on imitating everything which they came into existence -to insult. And when we have established all these -nonsensical analogies with a non-existent nation, we wait -until there is a crisis in which we really are at one with -America, and then we falter and threaten to fail her. In a -battle where we really are of one blood, the blood of the -great white race throughout the world, when we really have -one language, the fundamental alphabet of Cadmus and the -script of Rome, when we really do represent the same reign -of law, the common conscience of Christendom and the morals -of men baptized, when we really have an implicit faith and -honour and type of freedom to summon up our souls as with -trumpets--*then* many of us begin to weaken and waver and -wonder whether there is not something very nice about little -yellow men, whose heroic legends revolved round polygamy and -suicide, and whose heroes wore two swords and worshipped the -ancestors of the Mikado. +On the relations to England and Ireland I will not attempt to dwell +adequately here. I have already noted that my first interview was with +an Irishman, and my first impression from that interview a vivid sense +of the importance of Ireland in Anglo-American relations; and I have +said something of the Irish problem, prematurely and out of its proper +order, under the stress of that sense of urgency. Here I will only add +two remarks about the two countries respectively. A great many British +journalists have recently imagined that they were pouring oil upon the +troubled waters, when they were rather pouring out oil to smooth the +downward path; and to turn the broad road to destruction into a +butter-slide. They seem to have no notion of what to do, except to say +what they imagine the very stupidest of their readers would be pleased +to hear, and conceal whatever the most intelligent of their readers +would probably like to know. They therefore informed the public that +'the majority of Americans' had abandoned all sympathy with Ireland, +because of its alleged sympathy with Germany; and that this majority of +Americans was now adherently in sympathy with its English brothers +across the sea. Now to begin with, such critics have no notion of what +they are saying when they talk about the majority of Americans. To +anybody who has happened to look in, let us say, on the city of Omaha, +Nebraska, the remark will have something enormous and overwhelming about +it. It is like saying that the majority of the inhabitants of China +would agree with the Chinese Ambassador in a preference for dining at +the Savoy rather than the Ritz. There are millions and millions of +people living in those great central plains of the North American +Continent of whom it would be nearer the truth to say that they have +never heard of England, or of Ireland either, than to say that their +first emotional movement is a desire to come to the rescue of either of +them. It is perfectly true that the more monomaniac sort of Sinn Feiner +might sometimes irritate this innocent and isolated American spirit by +being pro-Irish. It is equally true that a traditional Bostonian or +Virginian might irritate it by being pro-English. The only difference is +that large numbers of pure Irishmen are scattered in those far places, +and large numbers of pure Englishmen are not. But it is truest of all to +say that neither England nor Ireland so much! as crosses the mind of +most of them once in six months. Painting up large notices of 'Watch us +Grow,' making money by farming with machinery, together with an +occasional hold-up with six-shooters and photographs of a beautiful +murderess or divorcée, fill up the round of their good and happy lives, +and fleet the time carelessly as in the golden age. + +But putting aside all this vast and distant democracy, which is the +'real majority of Americans,' and confining ourselves to that older +culture on the eastern coast which the critics probably had in mind, we +shall find the case more comforting but not to be covered with cheap and +false comfort. Now it is perfectly true that any Englishman coming to +this eastern coast, as I did, finds himself not only most warmly +welcomed as a guest, but most cordially complimented as an Englishman. +Men recall with pride the branches of their family that belong to +England or the English counties where they were rooted; and there are +enthusiasms for English literature and history which are as spontaneous +as patriotism itself. Something of this may be put down to a certain +promptitude and flexibility in all American kindness, which is never +sufficiently stodgy to be called good nature. The Englishman does +sometimes wonder whether if he had been a Russian, his hosts would not +have remembered re mote Russian aunts and uncles and disinterred a +Muscovite great-grandmother; or whether if he had come from Iceland, +they would not have known as much about Icelandic sagas and been as +sympathetic about the absence of Icelandic snakes. But with a fair +review of the pro portions of the case he will dismiss this conjecture, +and come to the conclusion that a number of educated Americans are very +warmly and sincerely sympathetic with England. + +What I began to feel, with a certain creeping chill, was that they were +only too sympathetic with England. The word sympathetic has sometimes +rather a double sense. The impression I received was that all these +chivalrous Southerners and men mellow with Bostonian memories were +*rallying* to England. They were on the defensive; and it was poor old +England that they were defending. Their attitude implied that somebody +or something was leaving her undefended, or finding her indefensible. +The burden of that hearty chorus was that England was not so black as +she was painted; it seemed clear that somewhere or other she was being +painted pretty black. But there was something else that made me +uncomfortable; it was not only the sense of being somewhat boisterously +forgiven; it was also something involving questions of power as well as +morality. Then it seemed to me that a new sensation turned me hot and +cold; and I felt something I have never before felt in a foreign land. +Never had my father or my grandfather known that sensation; never during +the great and complex and perhaps perilous expansion of our power and +commerce in the last hundred years had an Englishman heard exactly that +note in a human voice. England was being *pitied*. I, as an Englishman, +was not only being pardoned but pitied. My country was beginning to be +an object of compassion, like Poland or Spain. My first emotion, full of +the mood and movement of a hundred years, was one of furious anger. But +the anger has given place to anxiety; and the anxiety is not yet at an +end. + +It is not my business here to expound my view of English politics, still +less of European politics or the politics of the world; but to put down +a few impressions of American travel. On many points of European +politics the impression will be purely negative; I am sure that most +Americans have no notion of the position of France or the position of +Poland. But if English readers want the truth, I am sure this is the +truth about their notion of the position of England. They are wondering, +or those who are watching are wondering, whether the term of her success +is come and she is going down the dark road after Prussia. Many are +sorry if this is so; some are glad if it is so; but all are seriously +considering the probability of its being so. And herein lay especially +the horrible folly of our Black-and-Tan terrorism over the Irish people. +I have noted that the newspapers told us that America had been chilled +in its Irish sympathies by Irish detachment during the war. It is the +painful truth that any advantage we might have had from this we +ourselves immediately proceeded to destroy. Ireland *might* have put +herself wrong with America by her attitude about Belgium, if England had +not instantly proceeded to put herself more wrong by her attitude +towards Ireland. It is quite true that two blacks do not make a white; +but you cannot send a black to reproach people with tolerating +blackness; and this is quite as true when one is a Black Brunswicker and +the other a Black-and-Tan. It is true that since then England has made +surprisingly sweeping concessions; concessions so large as to increase +the amazement that the refusal should have been so long. But +unfortunately the combination of the two rather clinches the conception +of our decline. If the concession had come before the terror, it would +have looked like an attempt to emancipate, and would probably have +succeeded. Coming so abruptly after the terror, it looked only like an +attempt to tyrannise, and an attempt that failed. It was partly an +inheritance from a stupid tradition, which tried to combine what it +called firmness with what it called conciliation; as if when we made up +our minds to soothe a man with a five-pound note, we always took care to +undo our own action by giving him a kick as well. The English politician +has often done that; though there is nothing to be said of such a fool +except that he has wasted a fiver. But in this case he gave the kick +first, received a kicking in return, and *then* gave up the money; and +it was hard for the bystanders to say anything except that he had been +badly beaten. The combination and sequence of events seems almost as if +it were arranged to suggest the dark and ominous parallel. The first +action looked only too like the invasion of (Belgium, and the second +like the evacuation of Belgium. So that vast and silent crowd in the +West looked at the British Empire, as men look at a great tower that has +begun to lean. Thus it was that while I found real pleasure, I could not +find unrelieved consolation in the sincere compliments paid to my +country by so many cultivated Americans; their memories of homely +corners of historic counties from which their fathers came, of the +cathedral that dwarfs the town, or the inn at the turning of the road. +There was something in their voices and the look in their eyes which +from the first disturbed me. So I have heard good Englishmen, who died +afterwards the death of soldiers, cry aloud in 1914, 'It seems +impossible of those jolly Bavarians!' or, 'I will never believe it, when +I think of the time I had at Heidelberg!' + +But there are other things besides the parallel of Prussia or the +problem of Ireland. The American press is much freer than our own; the +American public is much more familiar with the discussion of corruption +than our own; and it is much more conscious of the corruption of our +politics than we are. Almost any man in America may talk of the Marconi +Case; many a man in England does not even know what it means. Many +imagine that it had something to do with the propriety of politicians +speculating on the Stock Exchange. So that it means a great deal to +Americans to say that one figure in that drama is ruling India and +another is ruling Palestine, And this brings me to another problem, +which is also dealt with much more openly in America than in England. I +mention it here only because it is a perfect model of the +misunderstandings in the modern world. If any one asks for an example of +exactly how the important part of every story is left out, and even the +part that is reported is not understood, he could hardly have a stronger +case than the story of Henry Ford of Detroit. + +When I was in Detroit I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Ford, and it +really was a pleasure. He is a man I quite capable of views which I +think silly to the point of insanity; but he is not the vulgar +benevolent boss. It must be admitted that he is a millionaire; but he +cannot really be convicted of being a philanthropist. He is not a man +who merely wants to run people; it is rather his views that run him, and +perhaps runaway with him. He has a distinguished and sensitive face; he +really invented things himself, unlike most men who profit by +inventions; he is something of an artist and not a little of a fighter. +A man of that type is always capable of being wildly wrong, especially +in the sectarian atmosphere of America; and Mr. Ford has been wrong +before and may be wrong now. He is chiefly known in England for a +project which I think very preposterous; that of the Peace Ship, which +came to Europe during the war. But he is not known in England at all in +connection with a much more important campaign, which he has conducted +much more recently and with much more success; a campaign against the +Jews like one of the Anti-Semitic campaigns of the Continent. Now any +one who knows anything of America knows exactly what the Peace Ship +would be like. It was a national combination of imagination and +ignorance, which has at least some of the beauty of innocence. Men +living in those huge hedge-less inland plains know nothing about +frontiers or the tragedy of a fight for freedom; they know nothing of +alarum and armament or the peril of a high civilisation poised like a +precious statue within reach of a mailed fist. They are accustomed to a +cosmopolitan citizenship, in which men of all bloods mingle and in which +men of all creeds are counted equal. Their highest moral boast is +humanitarianism; their highest mental boast is enlightenment. In a word, +they are the very last men in the world who would seem likely to pride +themselves on a prejudice against the Jews. They have no religion in +particular, except a sincere sentiment which they would call 'true +Christianity,' and which specially forbids an attack on the Jews. They +have a patriotism which prides itself on assimilating all types, +including the Jews. Mr. Ford is a pure product of this pacific world, as +was sufficiently proved by his pacifism. If a man of that sort has +discovered that there is a Jewish problem, it is because there is a +Jewish problem. It is certainly not because there is an Anti-Jewish +prejudice. For if there had been any amount of such racial and religious +prejudice, he would have been about the very last sort of man to have +it. His particular part of the world would have been the very last place +to produce it. We may well laugh at the Peace Ship, and its wild course +and inevitable shipwreck; but remember that its very wildness was an +attempt to sail as far as possible from the castle of Front-de-Boeuf. +Everything that made him Anti-War should have prevented him from being +Anti-Semite. We may mock him for being mad on peace; but we can not say +that he was so mad on peace that he made war on Israel. + +It happened that, when I was in America, I had just published some +studies on Palestine; and I was besieged by Rabbis lamenting my +'prejudice.' I pointed out that they would have got hold of the wrong +word, even if they had not got hold of the wrong man. As a point of +personal autobiography, I do not happen to be a man who dislikes Jews; +though I believe that some men do. I have had Jews among my most +intimate and faithful friends since my boyhood, and I hope to have them +till I die. But even if I did have a dislike of Jews, it would be +illogical to call that dislike a prejudice. Prejudice is a very lucid +Latin word meaning the bias which a man has before he considers a case. +I might be said to be prejudiced against a Hairy Ainu because of his +name, for I have never been on terms of such intimacy with him as to +correct my preconceptions. But if after moving about in the modern world +and meeting Jews, knowing about Jews, I came to the conclusion that I +did not like Jews, my conclusion certainly would not be a prejudice. It +would simply be an opinion; and one I should be perfectly entitled to +hold; though as a matter of fact I do not hold it. No extravagance of +hatred merely following on *experience* of Jews can properly be called a +prejudice. + +Now the point is that this new American Anti-Semitism springs from +experience and nothing but experience. There is no prejudice for it to +spring from. Or rather the prejudice is all the other way. All the +traditions of that democracy, and very creditable traditions too, are in +favour of toleration and a sort of idealistic indifference. The +sympathies in which these nineteenth-century people were reared were all +against Front-de-Boeuf and in favour of Rebecca. They inherited a +prejudice against Anti-Semitism; a prejudice of Anti-Anti-Semitism. +These people of the plains have found the Jewish problem exactly as they +might have struck oil; because it is *there*, and not even because they +were looking for it. Their view of the problem, like their use of the +oil, is not always satisfactory; and with parts of it I entirely +disagree. But the point is that the thing which I call a problem, and +others call a prejudice, has now appeared in broad daylight in a new +country where there is no priest-craft, no feudalism, no ancient +superstition to explain it. It has appeared because it is a problem; and +those are the best friends of the Jews, including many of the Jews +themselves, who are trying to find a solution. That is the meaning of +the incident of Mr. Henry Ford of Detroit; and you will hardly hear an +intelligible word about it in England. + +The talk of prejudice against the Japanese is not unlike the talk of +prejudice against the Jews. Only in this case our indifference has +really the excuse of ignorance. We used to lecture the Russians for +oppressing the Jews, before we heard the word Bolshevist and began to +lecture them for being oppressed by the Jews. In the same way we have +long lectured the Californians for oppressing the Japanese, without +allowing for the possibility of their foreseeing that the oppression may +soon be the other way. As in the other case, it may be a persecution but +it is not a prejudice. The Californians know more about the Japanese +than we do; and our own colonists when they are placed in the same +position generally say the same thing. I will not attempt to deal +adequately here with the vast international and diplomatic problems +which arise with the name of the new power in the Far East. It is +possible that Japan, having imitated European militarism, may imitate +European pacificism. I cannot honestly pretend to know what the Japanese +mean by the one any more than by the other. But when Englishmen, +especially English Liberals like myself, take a superior and censorious +attitude towards Americans and especially Californians, I am moved to +make a final remark. When a considerable number of Englishmen talk of +the grave contending claims of our friendship with Japan and our +friendship with America, when they finally tend in a sort of summing up +to dwell on the superior virtues of Japan, I may be permitted to make a +single comment. + +We are perpetually boring the world and each other with talk about the +bonds that bind us to America. We are perpetually crying aloud that +England and America are very much alike, especially England. We are +always insisting that the two are identical in all the things in. which +they most obviously differ. We are always saying that both stand for +democracy, when we should not con sent to. stand for their democracy for +half a day. We are always saying that at least we are all Anglo-Saxons, +when we are descended from Romans and Normans and Brit ons and Danes, +and they are descended from Irishmen and Italians and Slavs and Germans. +We tell a people whose very existence is a revolt against the British +Crown that they are passionately devoted to the British Constitution. We +tell a nation whose whole policy has been isolation and independence +that with us she can bear safely the White Man's Burden of the universal +empire. We tell a continent crowded with Irishmen to thank God that the +Saxon can always rule the Celt. We tell a populace whose very virtues +are lawless that together we up hold the Reign of Law. We recognise our +own law-abiding character in people who make laws that neither they nor +anybody else can abide. We congratulate them on clinging to all they +have cast away, and on imitating everything which they came into +existence to insult. And when we have established all these nonsensical +analogies with a non-existent nation, we wait until there is a crisis in +which we really are at one with America, and then we falter and threaten +to fail her. In a battle where we really are of one blood, the blood of +the great white race throughout the world, when we really have one +language, the fundamental alphabet of Cadmus and the script of Rome, +when we really do represent the same reign of law, the common conscience +of Christendom and the morals of men baptized, when we really have an +implicit faith and honour and type of freedom to summon up our souls as +with trumpets--*then* many of us begin to weaken and waver and wonder +whether there is not something very nice about little yellow men, whose +heroic legends revolved round polygamy and suicide, and whose heroes +wore two swords and worshipped the ancestors of the Mikado. # Prohibition in Fact and Fancy -I went to America with some notion of not discussing -Prohibition. But I soon found that well-to-do Americans were -only too delighted to discuss it over the nuts and wine. -They were even willing, if necessary, to dispense with the -nuts. I am far from sneering at this; having a general -philosophy which need not here be expounded, but which may -be symbolised by saying that monkeys can enjoy nuts but only -men can enjoy wine. But if I am to deal with Prohibition, -there is no doubt of the first thing to be said about it. -The first thing to be said about it is that it does not -exist. It is to some extent enforced among the poor; at any -rate it was intended to be enforced among the poor; though -even among them I fancy it is much evaded. It is certainly -not enforced among the rich; and I doubt whether it was -intended to be. I suspect that this has always happened -whenever this negative notion has taken hold of some -particular province or tribe. Prohibition never prohibits. -It never has in history; not even in Muslim history; and it -never will. Muhammad at least had the argument of a climate -and not the interest of a class. But if a test is needed, -consider what part of Moslem culture has passed permanently -into our own modern culture. You will find the one Muslim -poem that has really pierced is a Muslim poem in praise of -wine. The crown of all the victories of the Crescent is that -nobody reads the Koran and every body reads the Rubaiyat. - -Most of us remember with satisfaction an old picture in -*Punch*, representing a festive old gentleman in a state of -collapse on the pavement, and a philanthropic old lady -anxiously calling the attention of a cabman to the calamity. -The old lady says, 'I'm sure this poor gentleman is ill, and -the cabman replies with fervour, 'Ill! I wish I 'ad 'alf 'is -complaint.' - -We talk about unconscious humour; but there is such a thing -as unconscious seriousness. Flippancy is a flower whose -roots are often underground in the subconsciousness. Many a -man talks sense when he thinks he is talking nonsense; -touches on a conflict of ideas as if it were only a -contradiction of language, or really makes a parallel when -he means only to make a pun. Some of the *Punch* jokes of -the best period are examples of this; and that quoted above -is a very strong example of it. The cabman meant what he -said; but he said a great deal more than he meant. His -utterance contained fine philosophical doctrines and -distinctions of which he was not perhaps entirely conscious. -The spirit of the English language, the tragedy and comedy -of the condition of the English people, spoke through him as -the god spoke through a teraph-head or brazen mask of -oracle. And the oracle is an omen; and in some sense an omen -of doom. - -Observe, to begin with, the sobriety of the cabman. Note his -measure, his moderation; or to use the yet truer term, his -temperance. He only wishes to have half the old gentleman's -complaint. The old gentleman is wel come to the other half, -along with all the other pomps and luxuries of his superior -social station. There is nothing Bolshevist or even -Communist about the temperance cabman. He might almost be -called Distributist, in the sense that he wishes to -distribute the old gentleman's complaint more equally -between the old gentleman and himself. And, of course, the -social relations there represented are very much truer to -life than it is fashionable to suggest. By the realism of -this picture Mr. Punch made amends for some more snobbish -pictures, with the opposite social moral. It will remain -eternally among his real glories that he exhibited a picture -in which a cabman was sober and the gentleman was drunk. -Despite many ideas to the contrary, it was emphatically a -picture of real life. The truth is subject to the simplest -of all possible tests. If the cabman were really and truly -drunk he would not be a cabman, for he could not drive a -cab. If he had the whole of the old gentleman's complaint, -he would be sitting happily on the pavement beside the old -gentleman; a symbol of social equality found at last, and -the levelling of all classes of mankind. I do not say that -there has never been such a monster known as a drunken -cabman; I do not say that the driver may not sometimes have -approximated imprudently to three-quarters of the complaint, -instead of adhering to his severe but wise conception of -half of it. But I do say that most men of the world, if they -spoke sincerely, would testify to more examples of -helplessly drunken gentlemen put inside of cabs than of -helplessly drunken drivers on top of them. Philanthropists -and officials, who never look at people but only at papers, -probably have a mass of social statistics to the contrary; -founded on the simple fact that cabmen can be cross-examined -about their habits and gentlemen cannot. Social workers -probably have the whole thing worked out in sections and -compartments, showing how the extreme intoxication of cabmen -compares with the parallel intoxication of costermongers, or -measuring the drunkenness of a dustman against the -drunkenness of a crossing-sweeper. But there is more -practical experience embodied in the practical speech of the -English; and in the proverb that says 'as drunk as a lord.' - -Now Prohibition, whether as a proposal in England or a -pretence in America, simply means that the man who has drunk -less shall have no drink, and the man who has drunk more -shall have all the drink. It means that the old gentleman -shall be carried home in a cab drunker than ever; but that, -in order to make it quite safe for him to drink to excess, -the man who drives him shall be forbidden to drink even in -moderation. That is what it means; that is all it means; -that is all it ever will mean. It means that often in Islam; -where the luxurious and advanced drink champagne, while the -poor and fanatical drink water. It means that in modern -America; where the wealthy are all at this moment sipping -their cocktails, and discussing how much harder labourers -can be made to work if only they can be kept from festivity. -This is what it means and all it means; and men are divided -about it according to whether they believe in a certain -transcendental concept called 'justice,' expressed in a more -mystical paradox as the equality of men. So long as you do -not believe in justice, and so long as you are rich and -really confident of remaining so, you can have Prohibition -and be as drunk as you choose. - -I see that some remarks by the Rev. R. J. Campbell, dealing -with social conditions in America, are reported in the -press. They include some observations about Sinn Fein in -which, as in most of Mr. Campbell's allusions to Ireland, it -is not difficult to detect his dismal origin, or the acrid -smell of the smoke of Belfast. But the remarks about America -are valuable in the objective sense, over and above their -philosophy. He believes that Prohibition will survive and be -a success, nor does he seem himself to regard the prospect -with any special disfavour. But he frankly and freely -testifies to the truth I have asserted; that Prohibition -does not prohibit, so far as the wealthy are concerned. He -testifies to constantly seeing wine on the table, as will -any other grateful guest of the generous hospitality of -America; and he implies humorously that he asked no -questions about the story told him of the old stocks in the -cellars. So there is no dispute about the facts; and we come -back as before to the principles. Is Mr. Campbell content -with a Prohibition which is another name for Privilege? If -so, he has simply absorbed along with his new theology a new -morality which is different from mine. But he does state -both sides of the inequality with equal logic and clearness; -and in these days of intellectual fog that alone is like a -ray of sunshine. - -Now my primary objection to Prohibition is not based on any -arguments against it, but on the one argument for it. I need -nothing more for its condemnation than the only thing that -is said in its defence. It is said by capitalists all over -America; and it is very clearly and correctly reported by -Mr. Campbell himself. The argument is that employees work -harder, and therefore employers get richer. That this idea -should be taken calmly, by itself, as the test or a problem -of liberty, is in itself a final testimony to the presence -of slavery. It shows that people have completely forgotten -that there is any other test except the servile test. -Employers are willing that workmen should have exercise, as -it may help them to do more work. They are even willing that -workmen should Have leisure; for the more intelligent -capitalists can see that this also really means that they -can do more work. But they are not in any way willing that -workmen should have fun; for fun only increases the -happiness and not the utility of the worker. Fun is freedom; -and in that sense is an end in itself. It concerns the man -not as a worker but as a citizen, or even as a soul; and the -soul in that sense is an end in itself. That a man shall -have a reasonable amount of comedy and poetry and even -fantasy in his life is part of his spiritual health, which -is for the service of God; and not merely for his mechanical -health, which is now bound to the service of man. Th\* very -test adopted has all the servile implication; the test of -what we can get out of him, instead of the test of what he -can get out of life. - -Mr. Campbell is reported to have suggested, doubt less -rather as a conjecture than a prophecy, that England may -find it necessary to become teetotal in order to compete -commercially with the efficiency and economy of teetotal -America. Well, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth -centuries there was in America one of the most economical -and efficient of all forms of labour. It did not happen to -be feasible for the English to compete with it by copying -it. There were so many humanitarian prejudices about in -those days. But economically there seems to be no reason why -a man should not have prophesied that England would be -forced to adopt American Slavery then, as she is urged to -adopt American Prohibition now. Perhaps such a prophet would -have prophesied rightly. Certainly it is not impossible that -universal Slavery might have been the vision of Calhoun as -universal Prohibition seems to be the vision of Campbell. -The old England of 1830 would have said that such a plea for -Slavery was monstrous; but what would it have said of a plea -for enforced water-drinking? Nevertheless, the nobler -Servile State of Calhoun collapsed before it could spread to -Europe. And there is always the hope that the same may -happen to the far more materialistic Utopia of Mr. Campbell -and Soft Drinks. - -Abstract morality is very important; and it may well clear -the mind to consider what would be the effect of Prohibition -in America if it were introduced there. It would, of course, -be a decisive departure from the tradition of the -Declaration of Independence. Those who deny that are hardly -serious enough to demand attention. It is enough to say that -they are reduced to minimising that document in defence of -Prohibition, exactly as the slave-owners were reduced to -minimising it in defence of Slavery. They are reduced to -saying that the Fathers of the Republic meant no more than -that they would not be ruled by a king. And they are -obviously open to the reply which Lincoln gave to Douglas on -the slavery question; that if that great charter was limited -to certain events in the eighteenth century, it was hardly -worth making such a fuss about in the nineteenth---or in the -twentieth. But they are also open to another reply which is -even more to the point, when they pretend that Jefferson's -famous preamble only means to say that monarchy is wrong. -They are maintaining that Jefferson only meant to say -something that he does not say at all. The great preamble -does not say that all monarchical government must be wrong; -on the contrary, it rather implies that most government is -right. It speaks of human governments in general as -justified by the necessity of defending certain personal -rights. I see no reason whatever to suppose that it would -not include any royal government that does defend those -rights. Still less do I doubt what it would say of a -republican government that does destroy those rights. - -But what are those rights? Sophists can always debate about -their degree; but even sophists cannot debate about their -direction. Nobody in his five wits will deny that -Jeffersonian democracy wished to give the law a general -control in more public things, but the citizens a more -general liberty in private things. Wherever we draw the -line, liberty can only be personal liberty; and the most -personal liberties must at least be the last liberties we -lose. But to-day they are the first liberties we lose. It is -not a question of drawing the line in the right place, but -of beginning at the wrong end. What are the rights of man, -if they do not include the normal right to regulate his own -health, in relation to the normal risks of diet and daily -life? Nobody can pretend that beer is a poison as prussic -acid is a poison; that all the millions of civilized men who -drank it all fell down dead when they had touched it. Its -use and abuse is obviously a matter of judgment; and there -can be no personal liberty, if it is not a matter of private -judgment. It is not in the least a question of drawing the -line between liberty and licence. If this is licence, there -is no such thing as liberty. It is plainly impossible to -find any right more individual or intimate. To say that a -man has a right to a vote, but not a right to a voice about -the choice of his dinner, is like saying that he has a right -to his hat but not a right to his head. - -Prohibition, therefore, plainly violates the rights of man, -if there are any rights of man. What its supporters really -mean is that there are none. And in suggesting this, they -have all the advantages that every sceptic has when he -supports a negation. That sort of ultimate scepticism can -only be retorted upon itself, and we can point out to them -that they can no more prove the right of the city to be -oppressive than we can prove the right of the citizen to be -free. In the primary metaphysics of such a claim, it would -surely be easier to make it out for a single conscious soul -than for an artificial social combination. If there are no -rights of men, what are the rights of nations? Perhaps a -nation has no claim to self-government. Perhaps it has no -claim to good government. Perhaps it has no claim to any -sort of government or any sort of independence. Perhaps they -will say *that* is not implied in the Declaration of -Independence. But without going deep into my reasons for -believing in natural rights, or rather in supernatural -rights (and Jefferson certainly states them as -supernatural), I am content here to note that a man's -treatment of his own body, in relation to tradition and -ordinary opportunities for bodily excess, is as near to his -self-respect as social coercion can possibly go; and that -when that is gone there is nothing left. If coercion applies -to that, it applies to everything; and in the future of this -controversy it obviously will apply to everything. When I -was in America, people were already applying it to tobacco. -I never can see why they should not apply it to talking. -Talking often goes with tobacco as it goes with beer; and -what is more relevant, talking may often lead both to beer -and tobacco. Talking often drives a man to drink, both -negatively in the form of nagging and positively in the form -of bad company. If the American Puritan is so anxious to be -a *censor morum*, he should obviously put a stop to the evil -communications that really corrupt good manners. He should -reintroduce the Scold's Bridle among the other Blue Laws for -a land of blue devils. He should gag all gay deceivers and -plausible cynics; he should cut off all flattering lips and -the tongue that speaketh proud things. Nobody can doubt that -nine-tenths of the harm in the world is done simply by -talking. Jefferson and the old democrats allowed people to -talk, not because they were unaware of this fact, but -because they were fettered by this old fancy of theirs about -freedom and the rights of man. But since we have already -abandoned that doctrine in a final fashion, I cannot see why -the new principle should not be applied intelligently; and -in that case it would be applied to the control of -conversation. The State would provide us with forms already -filled up with the subjects suitable for us to discuss at -breakfast; perhaps allowing us a limited number of epigrams -each. Perhaps we should have to make a formal application in -writing, to be allowed to make a joke that had just occurred -to us in conversation. And the committee would consider it -in due course. Perhaps it would be effected in a more -practical fashion, and the private citizens would be shut up -as the public-houses were shut up. Perhaps they would all -wear gags, which the policeman would remove at stated hours; -and their mouths would be opened from one to three, as now -in England even the public-houses are from time to time -accessible to the public. To some this will sound fantastic; -but not so fantastic as Jefferson would have thought -Prohibition. But there is one sense in which it is indeed -fantastic, for by hypothesis it leaves out the favouritism -that is the fundamental of the whole matter. The only sense -in which we can say that logic will never go so far as this -is that logic will never go the length of equality. It is -perfectly possible that the same forces that have forbidden -beer may go on to forbid tobacco. But they will in a special -and limited sense forbid tobacco---but not cigars. Or at any -rate not expensive cigars. In America, where large numbers -of ordinary men smoke rather ordinary cigars, there would be -doubtless a good opportunity of penalising a very ordinary -pleasure. But the Havanas of the millionaire will be all -right. So it will be if ever the Puritans bring back the -Scold's Bridle and the statutory silence of the populace. It -will only be the populace that is silent. The politicians -will go on talking. - -These I believe to be the broad facts of the problem of -Prohibition; but it would not be fair to leave it without -mentioning two other causes which, if not defences, are at -least excuses. The first is that Prohibition was largely -passed in a sort of fervour or fever of self-sacrifice, -which was a part of the passionate patriotism of America in -the war. As I have remarked elsewhere, those who have any -notion of what that national unanimity was like will smile -when they see America made a model of mere international -idealism. Prohibition was partly a sort of patriotic -renunciation; for the popular instinct, like every poetic -instinct, always tends at great crises to great gestures of -renunciation. But this very fact, while it makes the -inhumanity far more human, makes it far less final and -convincing. Men cannot remain standing stiffly in such -symbolical attitudes; nor can a permanent policy be founded -on something analogous to flinging a gauntlet or uttering a -battle-cry. We might as well expect all the Yale students to -remain through life with their mouths open, exactly as they -were when they uttered the college yell. It would be as -reasonable as to expect them to remain through life with -their mouths shut, while the wine-cup which has been the -sacrament of all poets and lovers passed round among all the -youth of the world. This point appeared very plainly in a -discussion I had with a very thoughtful and sympathetic -American critic, a clergyman writing in an Anglo-Catholic -magazine. He put the sentiment of these healthier -Prohibitionists, which had so much to do with the passing of -Prohibition, by asking, 'May not a man who is asked to give -up his blood for his country be asked to give up his beer -for his country?' And this phrase clearly illuminates all -the limitations of the case. I have never denied, in -principle, that it might in some abnormal crisis be lawful -for a government to lock up the beer, or to lock up the -bread. In that sense I am quite prepared to treat the -sacrifice of beer in the same way as the sacrifice of blood. -But is my American critic really ready to treat the -sacrifice of blood in the same way as the sacrifice of beer? -Is bloodshed to be as prolonged and protracted as -Prohibition? Is the normal non-combatant to shed his gore as -often as he misses his drink? I can imagine people -submitting to a special regulation, as I can imagine them -serving in a particular war. I do indeed despise the -political knavery that deliberately passes drink regulations -as war measures and then preserves them as peace measures. -But that is not a question of whether drink and drunkenness -are wrong, but of whether lying and swindling are wrong. But -I never denied that there might need to be exceptional -sacrifices for exceptional occasions; and war is in its -nature an exception. Only, if war is the exception, why -should Prohibition be the rule? If the surrender of beer is -worthy to be compared to the shedding of blood, why then -blood ought to be flowing for ever like a fountain in the -public squares of Philadelphia and New York. If my critic -wants to complete his parallel, he must draw up rather a a -remarkable programme for the daily life of the ordinary -citizens. He must suppose that, through all their lives, -they are paraded every day at lunch time and prodded with -bayonets to show that they will shed their blood for their -country. He must suppose that every evening, after a light -repast of poison gas and shrapnel, they are made to go to -sleep in a trench under a permanent drizzle of shell-fire. -It is surely obvious that if this were the normal life of -the citizen, the citizen would have no nor mal life. The -common sense of the thing is that sacrifices of this sort -are admirable but abnormal. It is not normal for the State -to be perpetually regulating our days with the discipline of -a fighting regiment; and it is not normal for the State to -be perpetually regulating our diet with the discipline of a -famine. To say that every citizen must be subject to control -in such bodily things is like saying that every Christian -ought to tear himself with red-hot pincers because the -Christian martyrs did their duty in time of persecution. A -man has a right to control his body, though in a time of -martyrdom he may give his body to be burned; and a man has a -right to control his bodily health, though in a state of -siege he may give his body to be starved. Thus, though the -patriotic defence was a sincere defence, it is a defence -that comes back on the defenders like a boomerang. For it -proves only that Prohibition ought to be ephemeral, unless -war ought to be eternal. - -The other excuse is much less romantic and much more -realistic. I have already said enough of the cause which is -really realistic. The real power behind Prohibition is -simply the plutocratic power of the pushing employers who -wish to get the last inch of work out of their workmen. But -before the progress of modern plutocracy had reached this -stage, there was a predetermining cause for which there was -a much better case. The whole business began with the -problem of black labour. I have not attempted in this book -to deal adequately with the question of the Negro. I have -refrained for a reason that may seem somewhat sensational; -that I do not think I have anything particularly valuable to -say or suggest. I do not profess to understand this -singularly dark and intricate matter; and I see no use in -men who have no solution filling up the gap with -sentimentalism. The chief thing that struck me about the -coloured people I saw was their charming and astonishing -cheerfulness. My sense of pathos was appealed to much more -by the Red Indians; and indeed I wish I had more space here -to do justice to the Red Indians. They did heroic service in -the war; and more than justified their glorious place in the -day-dreams and nightmares of our boyhood. But the negro -problem certainly demands more study than a sight-seer could -give it; and this book is controversial enough about things -that I have really considered, without permitting it to -exhibit me as a sight-seer who shoots at sight. But I -believe that it was always common ground to people of common -sense that the enslavement and importation of negroes had -been the crime and catastrophe of American history. The only -difference was originally that one side thought that, the -crime once committed, the only reparation was their freedom; -while the other thought that, the crime once committed, the -only safety was their slavery. It was only comparatively -lately, by a process I shall have to indicate elsewhere, -that anything like a positive case for slavery became -possible. Now among the many problems of the presence of an -alien and at least recently barbaric figure among the -citizens, there was a very real problem of drink. Drink -certainly has a very exceptionally destructive effect upon -negroes in their native countries; and it was alleged to -have a peculiarly demoralising effect upon negroes in the -United States; to call up the passions that are the -particular temptation of the race and to lead to appalling -outrages that are followed by appalling popular vengeance. -However this may be, many of the states of the American -Union, which first forbade liquor to citizens, meant simply -to forbid it to negroes. But they had not the moral courage -to deny that negroes are citizens. About all their political -expedients necessarily hung the load that hangs on so much -of modern politics: hypocrisy. The superior race had to rule -by a sort of secret society organised against the inferior. -The American politicians dared not disfranchise the negroes; -so they coerced everybody in theory and only the negroes in -practice. The drinking of the white men became as much a -conspiracy as the shooting by the white horsemen of the -Ku-Klux-Klan. And in that connection, it may be remarked in -passing that the comparison illustrates the idiocy of -supposing that the moral sense of mankind will ever support -the prohibition of drinking as if it were something like the -prohibition of shooting. Shooting in America is liable to -take a free form, and sometimes a very horrible form; as -when private bravos were hired to kill workmen in the -capitalistic interests of that pure patron of disarmament, -Carnegie. But when some of the rich Americans gravely tell -us that their drinking cannot be interfered with, because -they are only using up their existing stocks of wine, we may -well be disposed to smile. When I was there, at any rate, -they were using them up very fast; and with no apparent -fears about the supply. But if the Ku-Klux-Klan had started -suddenly shooting everybody they didn't like in broad -daylight, and had blandly explained that they were only -using up the stocks of their ammunition, left over from the -Civil War, it seems probable that there would at least have -been a little curiosity about how much they had left. There -might at least have been occasional inquiries about how long -it was likely to go on. It is even conceivable that some -steps might have been taken to stop it. - -No steps are taken to stop the drinking of the rich, chiefly -because the rich now make all the rules and therefore all -the exceptions, but partly because nobody ever could feel -the full moral seriousness of this particular rule. And the -truth is, as I have indicated, that it was originally -established as an exception and not as a rule. The -emancipated Negro was an exception in the community, and a -certain plan was, rightly or wrongly, adopted to meet his -case. A law was made professedly for every body and -practically only for him. Prohibition is only important as -marking the transition by which the trick, tried -successfully on black labour, could be extended to all -labour. We in England have no right to be Pharisaic at the -expense of the Americans in this matter; for we have tried -the same trick in a hundred forms. The true philosophical -defence of the modern oppression of the poor would be to say -frankly that we have ruled them so badly that they are unfit -to rule themselves. But no modern oligarch is enough of a -man to say this. - -For like all virile cynicism it would have an element of -humility; which would not mix with the necessary element of -hypocrisy. So we proceed, just as the Americans do, to make -a law for everybody and then evade it for ourselves. We have -not the honesty to say that the rich may bet because they -can afford it; so we forbid any man to bet in any place; and -then say that a place is not a place. It is exactly as if -there were an American law allowing a Negro to be murdered -because he is not a man within the meaning of the Act. We -have not the honesty to drive the poor to school because -they are ignorant; so we pretend to drive everybody; and -then send inspectors to the slums but not to the smart -streets. We apply the same ingenuous principle; and are -quite as undemocratic as Western democracy. Nevertheless -there is an element in the American case which cannot be -present in ours; and this chapter may well conclude upon so -important a change. - -America can now say with pride that she has abolished the -colour bar. In this matter the white labourer and the black -labourer have at last been put upon an equal social footing. -White labour is every bit as much enslaved as black labour; -and is actually enslaved by a method and a model only -intended for black labour. We might think it rather odd if -the exact regulations about flogging negroes were reproduced -as a plan for punishing strikers; or if industrial -arbitration issued its reports in the precise terminology of -the Fugitive Slave Law. But this is in essentials what has -happened; and one could almost fancy some Negro orgy of -triumph, with the beating of gongs and all the secret -violence of Voodoo, crying aloud to some ancestral Mumbo -Jumbo that the Poor White Trash was being treated according -to its name. +I went to America with some notion of not discussing Prohibition. But I +soon found that well-to-do Americans were only too delighted to discuss +it over the nuts and wine. They were even willing, if necessary, to +dispense with the nuts. I am far from sneering at this; having a general +philosophy which need not here be expounded, but which may be symbolised +by saying that monkeys can enjoy nuts but only men can enjoy wine. But +if I am to deal with Prohibition, there is no doubt of the first thing +to be said about it. The first thing to be said about it is that it does +not exist. It is to some extent enforced among the poor; at any rate it +was intended to be enforced among the poor; though even among them I +fancy it is much evaded. It is certainly not enforced among the rich; +and I doubt whether it was intended to be. I suspect that this has +always happened whenever this negative notion has taken hold of some +particular province or tribe. Prohibition never prohibits. It never has +in history; not even in Muslim history; and it never will. Muhammad at +least had the argument of a climate and not the interest of a class. But +if a test is needed, consider what part of Moslem culture has passed +permanently into our own modern culture. You will find the one Muslim +poem that has really pierced is a Muslim poem in praise of wine. The +crown of all the victories of the Crescent is that nobody reads the +Koran and every body reads the Rubaiyat. + +Most of us remember with satisfaction an old picture in *Punch*, +representing a festive old gentleman in a state of collapse on the +pavement, and a philanthropic old lady anxiously calling the attention +of a cabman to the calamity. The old lady says, 'I'm sure this poor +gentleman is ill, and the cabman replies with fervour, 'Ill! I wish I +'ad 'alf 'is complaint.' + +We talk about unconscious humour; but there is such a thing as +unconscious seriousness. Flippancy is a flower whose roots are often +underground in the subconsciousness. Many a man talks sense when he +thinks he is talking nonsense; touches on a conflict of ideas as if it +were only a contradiction of language, or really makes a parallel when +he means only to make a pun. Some of the *Punch* jokes of the best +period are examples of this; and that quoted above is a very strong +example of it. The cabman meant what he said; but he said a great deal +more than he meant. His utterance contained fine philosophical doctrines +and distinctions of which he was not perhaps entirely conscious. The +spirit of the English language, the tragedy and comedy of the condition +of the English people, spoke through him as the god spoke through a +teraph-head or brazen mask of oracle. And the oracle is an omen; and in +some sense an omen of doom. + +Observe, to begin with, the sobriety of the cabman. Note his measure, +his moderation; or to use the yet truer term, his temperance. He only +wishes to have half the old gentleman's complaint. The old gentleman is +wel come to the other half, along with all the other pomps and luxuries +of his superior social station. There is nothing Bolshevist or even +Communist about the temperance cabman. He might almost be called +Distributist, in the sense that he wishes to distribute the old +gentleman's complaint more equally between the old gentleman and +himself. And, of course, the social relations there represented are very +much truer to life than it is fashionable to suggest. By the realism of +this picture Mr. Punch made amends for some more snobbish pictures, with +the opposite social moral. It will remain eternally among his real +glories that he exhibited a picture in which a cabman was sober and the +gentleman was drunk. Despite many ideas to the contrary, it was +emphatically a picture of real life. The truth is subject to the +simplest of all possible tests. If the cabman were really and truly +drunk he would not be a cabman, for he could not drive a cab. If he had +the whole of the old gentleman's complaint, he would be sitting happily +on the pavement beside the old gentleman; a symbol of social equality +found at last, and the levelling of all classes of mankind. I do not say +that there has never been such a monster known as a drunken cabman; I do +not say that the driver may not sometimes have approximated imprudently +to three-quarters of the complaint, instead of adhering to his severe +but wise conception of half of it. But I do say that most men of the +world, if they spoke sincerely, would testify to more examples of +helplessly drunken gentlemen put inside of cabs than of helplessly +drunken drivers on top of them. Philanthropists and officials, who never +look at people but only at papers, probably have a mass of social +statistics to the contrary; founded on the simple fact that cabmen can +be cross-examined about their habits and gentlemen cannot. Social +workers probably have the whole thing worked out in sections and +compartments, showing how the extreme intoxication of cabmen compares +with the parallel intoxication of costermongers, or measuring the +drunkenness of a dustman against the drunkenness of a crossing-sweeper. +But there is more practical experience embodied in the practical speech +of the English; and in the proverb that says 'as drunk as a lord.' + +Now Prohibition, whether as a proposal in England or a pretence in +America, simply means that the man who has drunk less shall have no +drink, and the man who has drunk more shall have all the drink. It means +that the old gentleman shall be carried home in a cab drunker than ever; +but that, in order to make it quite safe for him to drink to excess, the +man who drives him shall be forbidden to drink even in moderation. That +is what it means; that is all it means; that is all it ever will mean. +It means that often in Islam; where the luxurious and advanced drink +champagne, while the poor and fanatical drink water. It means that in +modern America; where the wealthy are all at this moment sipping their +cocktails, and discussing how much harder labourers can be made to work +if only they can be kept from festivity. This is what it means and all +it means; and men are divided about it according to whether they believe +in a certain transcendental concept called 'justice,' expressed in a +more mystical paradox as the equality of men. So long as you do not +believe in justice, and so long as you are rich and really confident of +remaining so, you can have Prohibition and be as drunk as you choose. + +I see that some remarks by the Rev. R. J. Campbell, dealing with social +conditions in America, are reported in the press. They include some +observations about Sinn Fein in which, as in most of Mr. Campbell's +allusions to Ireland, it is not difficult to detect his dismal origin, +or the acrid smell of the smoke of Belfast. But the remarks about +America are valuable in the objective sense, over and above their +philosophy. He believes that Prohibition will survive and be a success, +nor does he seem himself to regard the prospect with any special +disfavour. But he frankly and freely testifies to the truth I have +asserted; that Prohibition does not prohibit, so far as the wealthy are +concerned. He testifies to constantly seeing wine on the table, as will +any other grateful guest of the generous hospitality of America; and he +implies humorously that he asked no questions about the story told him +of the old stocks in the cellars. So there is no dispute about the +facts; and we come back as before to the principles. Is Mr. Campbell +content with a Prohibition which is another name for Privilege? If so, +he has simply absorbed along with his new theology a new morality which +is different from mine. But he does state both sides of the inequality +with equal logic and clearness; and in these days of intellectual fog +that alone is like a ray of sunshine. + +Now my primary objection to Prohibition is not based on any arguments +against it, but on the one argument for it. I need nothing more for its +condemnation than the only thing that is said in its defence. It is said +by capitalists all over America; and it is very clearly and correctly +reported by Mr. Campbell himself. The argument is that employees work +harder, and therefore employers get richer. That this idea should be +taken calmly, by itself, as the test or a problem of liberty, is in +itself a final testimony to the presence of slavery. It shows that +people have completely forgotten that there is any other test except the +servile test. Employers are willing that workmen should have exercise, +as it may help them to do more work. They are even willing that workmen +should Have leisure; for the more intelligent capitalists can see that +this also really means that they can do more work. But they are not in +any way willing that workmen should have fun; for fun only increases the +happiness and not the utility of the worker. Fun is freedom; and in that +sense is an end in itself. It concerns the man not as a worker but as a +citizen, or even as a soul; and the soul in that sense is an end in +itself. That a man shall have a reasonable amount of comedy and poetry +and even fantasy in his life is part of his spiritual health, which is +for the service of God; and not merely for his mechanical health, which +is now bound to the service of man. Th\* very test adopted has all the +servile implication; the test of what we can get out of him, instead of +the test of what he can get out of life. + +Mr. Campbell is reported to have suggested, doubt less rather as a +conjecture than a prophecy, that England may find it necessary to become +teetotal in order to compete commercially with the efficiency and +economy of teetotal America. Well, in the eighteenth and early +nineteenth centuries there was in America one of the most economical and +efficient of all forms of labour. It did not happen to be feasible for +the English to compete with it by copying it. There were so many +humanitarian prejudices about in those days. But economically there +seems to be no reason why a man should not have prophesied that England +would be forced to adopt American Slavery then, as she is urged to adopt +American Prohibition now. Perhaps such a prophet would have prophesied +rightly. Certainly it is not impossible that universal Slavery might +have been the vision of Calhoun as universal Prohibition seems to be the +vision of Campbell. The old England of 1830 would have said that such a +plea for Slavery was monstrous; but what would it have said of a plea +for enforced water-drinking? Nevertheless, the nobler Servile State of +Calhoun collapsed before it could spread to Europe. And there is always +the hope that the same may happen to the far more materialistic Utopia +of Mr. Campbell and Soft Drinks. + +Abstract morality is very important; and it may well clear the mind to +consider what would be the effect of Prohibition in America if it were +introduced there. It would, of course, be a decisive departure from the +tradition of the Declaration of Independence. Those who deny that are +hardly serious enough to demand attention. It is enough to say that they +are reduced to minimising that document in defence of Prohibition, +exactly as the slave-owners were reduced to minimising it in defence of +Slavery. They are reduced to saying that the Fathers of the Republic +meant no more than that they would not be ruled by a king. And they are +obviously open to the reply which Lincoln gave to Douglas on the slavery +question; that if that great charter was limited to certain events in +the eighteenth century, it was hardly worth making such a fuss about in +the nineteenth---or in the twentieth. But they are also open to another +reply which is even more to the point, when they pretend that +Jefferson's famous preamble only means to say that monarchy is wrong. +They are maintaining that Jefferson only meant to say something that he +does not say at all. The great preamble does not say that all +monarchical government must be wrong; on the contrary, it rather implies +that most government is right. It speaks of human governments in general +as justified by the necessity of defending certain personal rights. I +see no reason whatever to suppose that it would not include any royal +government that does defend those rights. Still less do I doubt what it +would say of a republican government that does destroy those rights. + +But what are those rights? Sophists can always debate about their +degree; but even sophists cannot debate about their direction. Nobody in +his five wits will deny that Jeffersonian democracy wished to give the +law a general control in more public things, but the citizens a more +general liberty in private things. Wherever we draw the line, liberty +can only be personal liberty; and the most personal liberties must at +least be the last liberties we lose. But to-day they are the first +liberties we lose. It is not a question of drawing the line in the right +place, but of beginning at the wrong end. What are the rights of man, if +they do not include the normal right to regulate his own health, in +relation to the normal risks of diet and daily life? Nobody can pretend +that beer is a poison as prussic acid is a poison; that all the millions +of civilized men who drank it all fell down dead when they had touched +it. Its use and abuse is obviously a matter of judgment; and there can +be no personal liberty, if it is not a matter of private judgment. It is +not in the least a question of drawing the line between liberty and +licence. If this is licence, there is no such thing as liberty. It is +plainly impossible to find any right more individual or intimate. To say +that a man has a right to a vote, but not a right to a voice about the +choice of his dinner, is like saying that he has a right to his hat but +not a right to his head. + +Prohibition, therefore, plainly violates the rights of man, if there are +any rights of man. What its supporters really mean is that there are +none. And in suggesting this, they have all the advantages that every +sceptic has when he supports a negation. That sort of ultimate +scepticism can only be retorted upon itself, and we can point out to +them that they can no more prove the right of the city to be oppressive +than we can prove the right of the citizen to be free. In the primary +metaphysics of such a claim, it would surely be easier to make it out +for a single conscious soul than for an artificial social combination. +If there are no rights of men, what are the rights of nations? Perhaps a +nation has no claim to self-government. Perhaps it has no claim to good +government. Perhaps it has no claim to any sort of government or any +sort of independence. Perhaps they will say *that* is not implied in the +Declaration of Independence. But without going deep into my reasons for +believing in natural rights, or rather in supernatural rights (and +Jefferson certainly states them as supernatural), I am content here to +note that a man's treatment of his own body, in relation to tradition +and ordinary opportunities for bodily excess, is as near to his +self-respect as social coercion can possibly go; and that when that is +gone there is nothing left. If coercion applies to that, it applies to +everything; and in the future of this controversy it obviously will +apply to everything. When I was in America, people were already applying +it to tobacco. I never can see why they should not apply it to talking. +Talking often goes with tobacco as it goes with beer; and what is more +relevant, talking may often lead both to beer and tobacco. Talking often +drives a man to drink, both negatively in the form of nagging and +positively in the form of bad company. If the American Puritan is so +anxious to be a *censor morum*, he should obviously put a stop to the +evil communications that really corrupt good manners. He should +reintroduce the Scold's Bridle among the other Blue Laws for a land of +blue devils. He should gag all gay deceivers and plausible cynics; he +should cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaketh proud +things. Nobody can doubt that nine-tenths of the harm in the world is +done simply by talking. Jefferson and the old democrats allowed people +to talk, not because they were unaware of this fact, but because they +were fettered by this old fancy of theirs about freedom and the rights +of man. But since we have already abandoned that doctrine in a final +fashion, I cannot see why the new principle should not be applied +intelligently; and in that case it would be applied to the control of +conversation. The State would provide us with forms already filled up +with the subjects suitable for us to discuss at breakfast; perhaps +allowing us a limited number of epigrams each. Perhaps we should have to +make a formal application in writing, to be allowed to make a joke that +had just occurred to us in conversation. And the committee would +consider it in due course. Perhaps it would be effected in a more +practical fashion, and the private citizens would be shut up as the +public-houses were shut up. Perhaps they would all wear gags, which the +policeman would remove at stated hours; and their mouths would be opened +from one to three, as now in England even the public-houses are from +time to time accessible to the public. To some this will sound +fantastic; but not so fantastic as Jefferson would have thought +Prohibition. But there is one sense in which it is indeed fantastic, for +by hypothesis it leaves out the favouritism that is the fundamental of +the whole matter. The only sense in which we can say that logic will +never go so far as this is that logic will never go the length of +equality. It is perfectly possible that the same forces that have +forbidden beer may go on to forbid tobacco. But they will in a special +and limited sense forbid tobacco---but not cigars. Or at any rate not +expensive cigars. In America, where large numbers of ordinary men smoke +rather ordinary cigars, there would be doubtless a good opportunity of +penalising a very ordinary pleasure. But the Havanas of the millionaire +will be all right. So it will be if ever the Puritans bring back the +Scold's Bridle and the statutory silence of the populace. It will only +be the populace that is silent. The politicians will go on talking. + +These I believe to be the broad facts of the problem of Prohibition; but +it would not be fair to leave it without mentioning two other causes +which, if not defences, are at least excuses. The first is that +Prohibition was largely passed in a sort of fervour or fever of +self-sacrifice, which was a part of the passionate patriotism of America +in the war. As I have remarked elsewhere, those who have any notion of +what that national unanimity was like will smile when they see America +made a model of mere international idealism. Prohibition was partly a +sort of patriotic renunciation; for the popular instinct, like every +poetic instinct, always tends at great crises to great gestures of +renunciation. But this very fact, while it makes the inhumanity far more +human, makes it far less final and convincing. Men cannot remain +standing stiffly in such symbolical attitudes; nor can a permanent +policy be founded on something analogous to flinging a gauntlet or +uttering a battle-cry. We might as well expect all the Yale students to +remain through life with their mouths open, exactly as they were when +they uttered the college yell. It would be as reasonable as to expect +them to remain through life with their mouths shut, while the wine-cup +which has been the sacrament of all poets and lovers passed round among +all the youth of the world. This point appeared very plainly in a +discussion I had with a very thoughtful and sympathetic American critic, +a clergyman writing in an Anglo-Catholic magazine. He put the sentiment +of these healthier Prohibitionists, which had so much to do with the +passing of Prohibition, by asking, 'May not a man who is asked to give +up his blood for his country be asked to give up his beer for his +country?' And this phrase clearly illuminates all the limitations of the +case. I have never denied, in principle, that it might in some abnormal +crisis be lawful for a government to lock up the beer, or to lock up the +bread. In that sense I am quite prepared to treat the sacrifice of beer +in the same way as the sacrifice of blood. But is my American critic +really ready to treat the sacrifice of blood in the same way as the +sacrifice of beer? Is bloodshed to be as prolonged and protracted as +Prohibition? Is the normal non-combatant to shed his gore as often as he +misses his drink? I can imagine people submitting to a special +regulation, as I can imagine them serving in a particular war. I do +indeed despise the political knavery that deliberately passes drink +regulations as war measures and then preserves them as peace measures. +But that is not a question of whether drink and drunkenness are wrong, +but of whether lying and swindling are wrong. But I never denied that +there might need to be exceptional sacrifices for exceptional occasions; +and war is in its nature an exception. Only, if war is the exception, +why should Prohibition be the rule? If the surrender of beer is worthy +to be compared to the shedding of blood, why then blood ought to be +flowing for ever like a fountain in the public squares of Philadelphia +and New York. If my critic wants to complete his parallel, he must draw +up rather a a remarkable programme for the daily life of the ordinary +citizens. He must suppose that, through all their lives, they are +paraded every day at lunch time and prodded with bayonets to show that +they will shed their blood for their country. He must suppose that every +evening, after a light repast of poison gas and shrapnel, they are made +to go to sleep in a trench under a permanent drizzle of shell-fire. It +is surely obvious that if this were the normal life of the citizen, the +citizen would have no nor mal life. The common sense of the thing is +that sacrifices of this sort are admirable but abnormal. It is not +normal for the State to be perpetually regulating our days with the +discipline of a fighting regiment; and it is not normal for the State to +be perpetually regulating our diet with the discipline of a famine. To +say that every citizen must be subject to control in such bodily things +is like saying that every Christian ought to tear himself with red-hot +pincers because the Christian martyrs did their duty in time of +persecution. A man has a right to control his body, though in a time of +martyrdom he may give his body to be burned; and a man has a right to +control his bodily health, though in a state of siege he may give his +body to be starved. Thus, though the patriotic defence was a sincere +defence, it is a defence that comes back on the defenders like a +boomerang. For it proves only that Prohibition ought to be ephemeral, +unless war ought to be eternal. + +The other excuse is much less romantic and much more realistic. I have +already said enough of the cause which is really realistic. The real +power behind Prohibition is simply the plutocratic power of the pushing +employers who wish to get the last inch of work out of their workmen. +But before the progress of modern plutocracy had reached this stage, +there was a predetermining cause for which there was a much better case. +The whole business began with the problem of black labour. I have not +attempted in this book to deal adequately with the question of the +Negro. I have refrained for a reason that may seem somewhat sensational; +that I do not think I have anything particularly valuable to say or +suggest. I do not profess to understand this singularly dark and +intricate matter; and I see no use in men who have no solution filling +up the gap with sentimentalism. The chief thing that struck me about the +coloured people I saw was their charming and astonishing cheerfulness. +My sense of pathos was appealed to much more by the Red Indians; and +indeed I wish I had more space here to do justice to the Red Indians. +They did heroic service in the war; and more than justified their +glorious place in the day-dreams and nightmares of our boyhood. But the +negro problem certainly demands more study than a sight-seer could give +it; and this book is controversial enough about things that I have +really considered, without permitting it to exhibit me as a sight-seer +who shoots at sight. But I believe that it was always common ground to +people of common sense that the enslavement and importation of negroes +had been the crime and catastrophe of American history. The only +difference was originally that one side thought that, the crime once +committed, the only reparation was their freedom; while the other +thought that, the crime once committed, the only safety was their +slavery. It was only comparatively lately, by a process I shall have to +indicate elsewhere, that anything like a positive case for slavery +became possible. Now among the many problems of the presence of an alien +and at least recently barbaric figure among the citizens, there was a +very real problem of drink. Drink certainly has a very exceptionally +destructive effect upon negroes in their native countries; and it was +alleged to have a peculiarly demoralising effect upon negroes in the +United States; to call up the passions that are the particular +temptation of the race and to lead to appalling outrages that are +followed by appalling popular vengeance. However this may be, many of +the states of the American Union, which first forbade liquor to +citizens, meant simply to forbid it to negroes. But they had not the +moral courage to deny that negroes are citizens. About all their +political expedients necessarily hung the load that hangs on so much of +modern politics: hypocrisy. The superior race had to rule by a sort of +secret society organised against the inferior. The American politicians +dared not disfranchise the negroes; so they coerced everybody in theory +and only the negroes in practice. The drinking of the white men became +as much a conspiracy as the shooting by the white horsemen of the +Ku-Klux-Klan. And in that connection, it may be remarked in passing that +the comparison illustrates the idiocy of supposing that the moral sense +of mankind will ever support the prohibition of drinking as if it were +something like the prohibition of shooting. Shooting in America is +liable to take a free form, and sometimes a very horrible form; as when +private bravos were hired to kill workmen in the capitalistic interests +of that pure patron of disarmament, Carnegie. But when some of the rich +Americans gravely tell us that their drinking cannot be interfered with, +because they are only using up their existing stocks of wine, we may +well be disposed to smile. When I was there, at any rate, they were +using them up very fast; and with no apparent fears about the supply. +But if the Ku-Klux-Klan had started suddenly shooting everybody they +didn't like in broad daylight, and had blandly explained that they were +only using up the stocks of their ammunition, left over from the Civil +War, it seems probable that there would at least have been a little +curiosity about how much they had left. There might at least have been +occasional inquiries about how long it was likely to go on. It is even +conceivable that some steps might have been taken to stop it. + +No steps are taken to stop the drinking of the rich, chiefly because the +rich now make all the rules and therefore all the exceptions, but partly +because nobody ever could feel the full moral seriousness of this +particular rule. And the truth is, as I have indicated, that it was +originally established as an exception and not as a rule. The +emancipated Negro was an exception in the community, and a certain plan +was, rightly or wrongly, adopted to meet his case. A law was made +professedly for every body and practically only for him. Prohibition is +only important as marking the transition by which the trick, tried +successfully on black labour, could be extended to all labour. We in +England have no right to be Pharisaic at the expense of the Americans in +this matter; for we have tried the same trick in a hundred forms. The +true philosophical defence of the modern oppression of the poor would be +to say frankly that we have ruled them so badly that they are unfit to +rule themselves. But no modern oligarch is enough of a man to say this. + +For like all virile cynicism it would have an element of humility; which +would not mix with the necessary element of hypocrisy. So we proceed, +just as the Americans do, to make a law for everybody and then evade it +for ourselves. We have not the honesty to say that the rich may bet +because they can afford it; so we forbid any man to bet in any place; +and then say that a place is not a place. It is exactly as if there were +an American law allowing a Negro to be murdered because he is not a man +within the meaning of the Act. We have not the honesty to drive the poor +to school because they are ignorant; so we pretend to drive everybody; +and then send inspectors to the slums but not to the smart streets. We +apply the same ingenuous principle; and are quite as undemocratic as +Western democracy. Nevertheless there is an element in the American case +which cannot be present in ours; and this chapter may well conclude upon +so important a change. + +America can now say with pride that she has abolished the colour bar. In +this matter the white labourer and the black labourer have at last been +put upon an equal social footing. White labour is every bit as much +enslaved as black labour; and is actually enslaved by a method and a +model only intended for black labour. We might think it rather odd if +the exact regulations about flogging negroes were reproduced as a plan +for punishing strikers; or if industrial arbitration issued its reports +in the precise terminology of the Fugitive Slave Law. But this is in +essentials what has happened; and one could almost fancy some Negro orgy +of triumph, with the beating of gongs and all the secret violence of +Voodoo, crying aloud to some ancestral Mumbo Jumbo that the Poor White +Trash was being treated according to its name. # Fads and Political Opinion -Foreigner is a man who laughs at everything except jokes. He -is perfectly entitled to laugh at anything, so long as he -realises, in a reverent and religious spirit, that he -himself is laughable. I was a foreigner in America; and I -can truly claim that the sense of my own laughable position -never left me. But when the native and the foreign have -finished with seeing the fun of each other in things that -are meant to be serious, they both approach the far more -delicate and dangerous ground of things that are meant to be -funny. The sense of humour is generally very national; -perhaps that is why the internationalists are so careful to -purge themselves of it. I had occasion during the war to -consider the rights and wrongs of certain differences -alleged to have arisen between the English and American -soldiers at the front. And, rightly or wrongly, I came to -the conclusion that they arose from the failure to -understand when a foreigner is serious and when he is -humorous. And it is in the very nature of the best sort of -joke to be the worst sort of insult if it is not taken as a -joke. - -The English and the American types of humour are in one way -directly contrary. The most American sort of fun involves a -soaring imagination, piling one house on another in a tower -like that of a sky-scraper. The most English humour consists -of a sort of bathos, of a man returning to the earth his -mother in a homely fashion; as when he sits down suddenly on -a butter-slide. English farce describes a man as being in a -hole. American fantasy, in its more aspiring spirit, -describes a man as being up a tree. The former is to be -found in the cockney comic songs that concern themselves -with hanging out the washing or coming home with the milk. -The latter is to be found in those fantastic yarns about -machines that turn live pigs into pig-skin purses or burning -cities that serve to hatch an egg. But it will be -inevitable, when the two come first into contact, that the -bathos will sound like vulgarity and the extravagance will -sound like boasting. - -Suppose an American soldier said to an English soldier in -the trenches, The Kaiser may want a place in the sun; I -reckon he won t have a place in the solar system when we -begin to hustle/ The English soldier will very probably form -the impression that this is arrogance; an impression based -on the extraordinary assumption that the American means what -he says. The American has merely indulged in a little art -for art's sake, an abstract adventure of the imagination; he -has told an American short story. But the Englishman, not -understanding this, will think the other man is boasting, -and reflecting on the insufficiency of the English effort. -The English soldier is very likely to say something like, -'Oh, you ll be wanting to get home to your old woman before -that, and asking for a kipper with your tea.' And it is -quite likely that the American will be offended in his turn -at having his arabesque of abstract beauty answered in so -personal a fashion. Being an American, he will probably have -a fine and chivalrous respect for his wife; and may object -to her being called an old woman. Possibly he in turn may be -under the extraordinary delusion that talking of the old -woman really means that the woman is old. Possibly he thinks -the mysterious demand for a kipper carries with it some -charge of ill-treating his wife; which his national sense of -honour swiftly resents. But the real cross-purposes come -from the contrary direction of the two exaggerations, the -American making life more wild and impossible than it is, -and the Englishman making it more flat and farcical than it -is; the one escaping the house of life by a skylight and the -other by a trap-door. - -This difficulty of different humours is a very practical one -for practical people. Most of those who profess to remove -all international differences are not practical people. Most -of the phrases offered for the reconciliation of severally -patriotic peoples are entirely serious and even solemn -phrases. But human conversation is not conducted in those -phrases. The normal man on nine occasions out of ten is -rather a flippant man. And the normal man is almost always -the national man. Patriotism is the most popular of all -virtues. The drier sort of democrats who despise it have the -democracy against them in every country in the world. Hence -their international efforts seldom go any farther than to -effect an international reconciliation of all -internationalists. But we have not solved the normal and -popular problem until we have an international -reconciliation of all nationalists. - -It is very difficult to see how humour can be translated at -all. When Sam Weller is in the Fleet Prison and Mrs. Weller -and Mr. Stiggins sit on each side of the fireplace and weep -and groan with sympathy, old Mr. Weller observes, 'Vell, -Samivel, I hope you ll find your spirits rose by this ere -wisit.' I have never looked up this pas sage in the popular -and successful French version of *Pickwick*; but I confess I -am curious as to what French past-participle conveys the -precise effect of the word 'rose.' A translator has not only -to give the right translation of the right word but the -right translation of the wrong word. And in the same way I -am quite prepared to suspect that there are English jokes -which an Englishman must enjoy in his own rich and romantic -solitude, without asking for the sympathy of an American. -But English men are generally only too prone to claim this -fine perception, without seeing that the fine edge of it -cuts both ways. I have begun this chapter on the note of -national humour, because I wish to make it quite clear that -I realise how easily a foreigner may take something -seriously that is not serious. When I think something in -America is really foolish, it may be I that am made a fool -of. It is the first duty of a traveller to allow for this; -but it seems to be the very last thing that occurs to some -travellers. But when I seek to say something of what may be -called the fantastic side of America, I allow beforehand -that some of it may be meant to be fantastic. And indeed it -is very difficult to believe that some of it is meant to be -serious. But whether or no there is a joke, there is -certainly an inconsistency; and it is an inconsistency in -the moral make-up of America which both puzzles and amuses -me. - -The danger of democracy is not anarchy but convention. There -is even a sort of double meaning in the word 'convention'; -for it is also used for the most informal and popular sort -of parliament; a parliament not summoned by any king. The -Americans come together very easily without any king; but -their coming together is in every sense a convention, and -even a very conventional convention. In a democracy riot is -rather the exception and respectability certainly the rule. -And though a superficial sight-seer should hesitate about -all such generalisations, and certainly should allow for -enormous exceptions to them, he does receive a general -impression of unity verging on uniformity. Thus Americans -all dress well; one might almost say that American women all -look well; but they do not, as compared with Europeans, look -very different. They are in the fashion; too much in the -fashion even to be conspicuously fashionable. Of course -there are patches, both Bohemian and Babylonian, of which -this is not true, but I am talking of the general tone of a -whole democracy. I have said there is more respectability -than riot; but indeed in a deeper sense the same spirit is -behind both riot and respectability. It is the same social -force that makes it possible for the respectable to boycott -a man and for the riotous to lynch him. I do not object to -it being called 'the herd instinct,' so long as we realise -that it is a metaphor and not an explanation. - -Public opinion can be a prairie fire. It eats up every thing -that opposes it; and there is the grandeur as well as the -grave disadvantages of a natural catastrophe in that -national unity. Pacifists who complained in England of the -intolerance of patriotism have no notion of what patriotism -can be like. If they had been in America, after America had -entered the war, they would have seen something which they -would have always perhaps subconsciously dreaded, and would -then have beyond all their worse dreams detested; and the -name of it is democracy. They would have found that there -are disadvantages in birds of a feather flocking together; -and that one of them follows on a too complacent display of -the white feather. The truth is that a certain flexible -sympathy with eccentrics of this kind is rather one of the -advantages of an aristocratic tradition. The imprisonment of -Mr. Debs, the American Pacifist, which really was prolonged -and oppressive, would probably have been shortened in -England, where his opinions were shared by aristocrats like -Mr. Bertrand Russell and Mr. Ponsonby. A man like Lord Hugh -Cecil could be moved to the defence of conscientious -objectors, partly by a true instinct of chivalry; but partly -also by the general feeling that a gentleman may very -probably have aunts and uncles who are quite as mad. He -takes the matter personally, in the sense of being able to -imagine the psychology of the persons. But democracy is no -respecter of persons. It is no respecter of them, either in -the bad and servile or in the good and sympathetic sense. -And Debs was nothing to democracy. He was but one of the -millions. This is a real problem, or question in the -balance, touching different forms of government; which is, -of course, quite neglected by the idealists who merely -repeat long words. There was during the war a society called -the Union of Democratic Control, which would have been -instantly destroyed anywhere democracy had any control, or -where there was any union. And in this sense the United -States have most emphatically got a union. Nevertheless I -think there is something rather more subtle than this simple -popular solidity behind the assimilation of American -citizens to each other. There is something even in the -individual ideals that drives towards this social sympathy. -And it is here that we have to remember that biological -fancies like the herd instinct are only figures of speech, -and cannot really cover anything human. For the Americans -are in some ways a very self-conscious people. To compare -their social enthusiasm to a stampede of cattle is to ask us -to believe in a bull writing a diary or a cow looking in a -looking-glass. Intensely sensitive by their very vitality, -they are certainly conscious of criticism peculiar point -about them is that it is this very vividness in the self -that often produces the similarity. It may be that when they -are unconscious they are like bulls and cows. But it is when -they are self-conscious that they are like each other. - -Individualism is the death of individuality. It is so, if -only because it is an 'ism.' Many Americans become almost -impersonal in their worship of personality. Where their -natural selves might differ, their ideal selves tend to be -the same. Anybody can see what I mean in those strong -self-conscious photographs of American business men that can -be seen in any American magazine. Each may conceive himself -to be a solitary Napoleon brooding at St. Helena; but the -result is a multitude of Napoleons brooding all over the -place. Each of them must have the eyes of a mesmerist; but -the most weak-minded person cannot be mesmerised by more -than one millionaire at a time. Each of the millionaires -must thrust forward his jaw, offering (if I may say so) to -fight the world with the same weapon as Samson. Each of them -must accentuate the length of his chin, especially, of -course, by always being completely clean-shaven. It would be -obviously inconsistent with Personality to prefer to wear a -beard. These are of course fantastic examples on the fringe -of American life; but they do stand for a certain -assimilation, not through brute gregariousness, but rather -through isolated dreaming. And though it is not always -carried so far as this, I do think it is carried too far. -There is not quite enough unconsciousness to produce real -individuality. There is a sort of worship of will-power in -the abstract, so that people are actually thinking about how -they can will, more than about what they want. To this I do -think a certain corrective could be found in the nature of -English eccentricity. Every man in his humour is most -interesting when he is unconscious of his humour; or at -least when he is in an intermediate stage between humour in -the old sense of oddity and in the new sense of irony. Much -is said in these days against negative morality; and -certainly most Americans would show a positive preference -for positive morality. The virtues they venerate -collectively are very active virtues; cheerfulness and -courage and vim, otherwise zip, also pep and similar things. -But it is sometimes forgotten that negative morality is -freer than positive morality. Negative morality is a net of -a larger and more open pattern, of which the lines or cords -constrict at longer intervals. A man like Dr. Johnson could -grow in his own way to his own stature in the net of the Ten -Commandments; precisely because he was convinced there were -only ten of them. He was not compressed into the mould of -positive beauty, like that of the Apollo Belvedere or the -American citizen. - -This criticism is sometimes true even of the American woman, -who is certainly a much more delightful person than the -mesmeric millionaire with his shaven jaw. Interviewers in -the United States perpetually asked me what I thought of -American women, and I confessed a distaste for such -generalisations which I have not managed to lose. The -Americans, who are the most chivalrous people in the world, -may perhaps understand me; but I can never help feeling that -there is something polygamous about talking of women in the -plural at all; something unworthy of any American except a -Mormon. Nevertheless, I think the exaggeration I suggest -does extend in a less degree to American women, fascinating -as they are. I think they too tend too much to this cult of -impersonal personality. - -It is a description easy to exaggerate even by the faintest -emphasis; for all these things are subtle and subject to -striking individual exceptions. To complain of people for -being brave and bright and kind and intelligent may not -unreasonably appear unreasonable. And yet there is something -in the background that can only be expressed by a symbol, -something that is not shallowness but a neglect of the -subconsciousness and the vaguer and slower impulses; -something that can be missed amid all that laughter and -light, under those starry candelabra of the ideals of the -happy virtues. Sometimes it came over me, in a wordless -wave, that I should like to see a sulky woman. How she would -walk in beauty like the night, and reveal more silent spaces -full of older stars! These things cannot be conveyed in -their delicate proportion even in the most large and -allusive terms. But the same thing was in the mind of a -white-bearded old man I met in New York, an Irish exile and -a wonderful talker, who stared up at the tower of gilded -galleries of the great hotel, and said with that spontaneous -movement of style which is hardly heard except from Irish -talkers: 'And I have been in a village in the mountains -where the people could hardly read or write; but all the men +Foreigner is a man who laughs at everything except jokes. He is +perfectly entitled to laugh at anything, so long as he realises, in a +reverent and religious spirit, that he himself is laughable. I was a +foreigner in America; and I can truly claim that the sense of my own +laughable position never left me. But when the native and the foreign +have finished with seeing the fun of each other in things that are meant +to be serious, they both approach the far more delicate and dangerous +ground of things that are meant to be funny. The sense of humour is +generally very national; perhaps that is why the internationalists are +so careful to purge themselves of it. I had occasion during the war to +consider the rights and wrongs of certain differences alleged to have +arisen between the English and American soldiers at the front. And, +rightly or wrongly, I came to the conclusion that they arose from the +failure to understand when a foreigner is serious and when he is +humorous. And it is in the very nature of the best sort of joke to be +the worst sort of insult if it is not taken as a joke. + +The English and the American types of humour are in one way directly +contrary. The most American sort of fun involves a soaring imagination, +piling one house on another in a tower like that of a sky-scraper. The +most English humour consists of a sort of bathos, of a man returning to +the earth his mother in a homely fashion; as when he sits down suddenly +on a butter-slide. English farce describes a man as being in a hole. +American fantasy, in its more aspiring spirit, describes a man as being +up a tree. The former is to be found in the cockney comic songs that +concern themselves with hanging out the washing or coming home with the +milk. The latter is to be found in those fantastic yarns about machines +that turn live pigs into pig-skin purses or burning cities that serve to +hatch an egg. But it will be inevitable, when the two come first into +contact, that the bathos will sound like vulgarity and the extravagance +will sound like boasting. + +Suppose an American soldier said to an English soldier in the trenches, +The Kaiser may want a place in the sun; I reckon he won t have a place +in the solar system when we begin to hustle/ The English soldier will +very probably form the impression that this is arrogance; an impression +based on the extraordinary assumption that the American means what he +says. The American has merely indulged in a little art for art's sake, +an abstract adventure of the imagination; he has told an American short +story. But the Englishman, not understanding this, will think the other +man is boasting, and reflecting on the insufficiency of the English +effort. The English soldier is very likely to say something like, 'Oh, +you ll be wanting to get home to your old woman before that, and asking +for a kipper with your tea.' And it is quite likely that the American +will be offended in his turn at having his arabesque of abstract beauty +answered in so personal a fashion. Being an American, he will probably +have a fine and chivalrous respect for his wife; and may object to her +being called an old woman. Possibly he in turn may be under the +extraordinary delusion that talking of the old woman really means that +the woman is old. Possibly he thinks the mysterious demand for a kipper +carries with it some charge of ill-treating his wife; which his national +sense of honour swiftly resents. But the real cross-purposes come from +the contrary direction of the two exaggerations, the American making +life more wild and impossible than it is, and the Englishman making it +more flat and farcical than it is; the one escaping the house of life by +a skylight and the other by a trap-door. + +This difficulty of different humours is a very practical one for +practical people. Most of those who profess to remove all international +differences are not practical people. Most of the phrases offered for +the reconciliation of severally patriotic peoples are entirely serious +and even solemn phrases. But human conversation is not conducted in +those phrases. The normal man on nine occasions out of ten is rather a +flippant man. And the normal man is almost always the national man. +Patriotism is the most popular of all virtues. The drier sort of +democrats who despise it have the democracy against them in every +country in the world. Hence their international efforts seldom go any +farther than to effect an international reconciliation of all +internationalists. But we have not solved the normal and popular problem +until we have an international reconciliation of all nationalists. + +It is very difficult to see how humour can be translated at all. When +Sam Weller is in the Fleet Prison and Mrs. Weller and Mr. Stiggins sit +on each side of the fireplace and weep and groan with sympathy, old +Mr. Weller observes, 'Vell, Samivel, I hope you ll find your spirits +rose by this ere wisit.' I have never looked up this pas sage in the +popular and successful French version of *Pickwick*; but I confess I am +curious as to what French past-participle conveys the precise effect of +the word 'rose.' A translator has not only to give the right translation +of the right word but the right translation of the wrong word. And in +the same way I am quite prepared to suspect that there are English jokes +which an Englishman must enjoy in his own rich and romantic solitude, +without asking for the sympathy of an American. But English men are +generally only too prone to claim this fine perception, without seeing +that the fine edge of it cuts both ways. I have begun this chapter on +the note of national humour, because I wish to make it quite clear that +I realise how easily a foreigner may take something seriously that is +not serious. When I think something in America is really foolish, it may +be I that am made a fool of. It is the first duty of a traveller to +allow for this; but it seems to be the very last thing that occurs to +some travellers. But when I seek to say something of what may be called +the fantastic side of America, I allow beforehand that some of it may be +meant to be fantastic. And indeed it is very difficult to believe that +some of it is meant to be serious. But whether or no there is a joke, +there is certainly an inconsistency; and it is an inconsistency in the +moral make-up of America which both puzzles and amuses me. + +The danger of democracy is not anarchy but convention. There is even a +sort of double meaning in the word 'convention'; for it is also used for +the most informal and popular sort of parliament; a parliament not +summoned by any king. The Americans come together very easily without +any king; but their coming together is in every sense a convention, and +even a very conventional convention. In a democracy riot is rather the +exception and respectability certainly the rule. And though a +superficial sight-seer should hesitate about all such generalisations, +and certainly should allow for enormous exceptions to them, he does +receive a general impression of unity verging on uniformity. Thus +Americans all dress well; one might almost say that American women all +look well; but they do not, as compared with Europeans, look very +different. They are in the fashion; too much in the fashion even to be +conspicuously fashionable. Of course there are patches, both Bohemian +and Babylonian, of which this is not true, but I am talking of the +general tone of a whole democracy. I have said there is more +respectability than riot; but indeed in a deeper sense the same spirit +is behind both riot and respectability. It is the same social force that +makes it possible for the respectable to boycott a man and for the +riotous to lynch him. I do not object to it being called 'the herd +instinct,' so long as we realise that it is a metaphor and not an +explanation. + +Public opinion can be a prairie fire. It eats up every thing that +opposes it; and there is the grandeur as well as the grave disadvantages +of a natural catastrophe in that national unity. Pacifists who +complained in England of the intolerance of patriotism have no notion of +what patriotism can be like. If they had been in America, after America +had entered the war, they would have seen something which they would +have always perhaps subconsciously dreaded, and would then have beyond +all their worse dreams detested; and the name of it is democracy. They +would have found that there are disadvantages in birds of a feather +flocking together; and that one of them follows on a too complacent +display of the white feather. The truth is that a certain flexible +sympathy with eccentrics of this kind is rather one of the advantages of +an aristocratic tradition. The imprisonment of Mr. Debs, the American +Pacifist, which really was prolonged and oppressive, would probably have +been shortened in England, where his opinions were shared by aristocrats +like Mr. Bertrand Russell and Mr. Ponsonby. A man like Lord Hugh Cecil +could be moved to the defence of conscientious objectors, partly by a +true instinct of chivalry; but partly also by the general feeling that a +gentleman may very probably have aunts and uncles who are quite as mad. +He takes the matter personally, in the sense of being able to imagine +the psychology of the persons. But democracy is no respecter of persons. +It is no respecter of them, either in the bad and servile or in the good +and sympathetic sense. And Debs was nothing to democracy. He was but one +of the millions. This is a real problem, or question in the balance, +touching different forms of government; which is, of course, quite +neglected by the idealists who merely repeat long words. There was +during the war a society called the Union of Democratic Control, which +would have been instantly destroyed anywhere democracy had any control, +or where there was any union. And in this sense the United States have +most emphatically got a union. Nevertheless I think there is something +rather more subtle than this simple popular solidity behind the +assimilation of American citizens to each other. There is something even +in the individual ideals that drives towards this social sympathy. And +it is here that we have to remember that biological fancies like the +herd instinct are only figures of speech, and cannot really cover +anything human. For the Americans are in some ways a very self-conscious +people. To compare their social enthusiasm to a stampede of cattle is to +ask us to believe in a bull writing a diary or a cow looking in a +looking-glass. Intensely sensitive by their very vitality, they are +certainly conscious of criticism peculiar point about them is that it is +this very vividness in the self that often produces the similarity. It +may be that when they are unconscious they are like bulls and cows. But +it is when they are self-conscious that they are like each other. + +Individualism is the death of individuality. It is so, if only because +it is an 'ism.' Many Americans become almost impersonal in their worship +of personality. Where their natural selves might differ, their ideal +selves tend to be the same. Anybody can see what I mean in those strong +self-conscious photographs of American business men that can be seen in +any American magazine. Each may conceive himself to be a solitary +Napoleon brooding at St. Helena; but the result is a multitude of +Napoleons brooding all over the place. Each of them must have the eyes +of a mesmerist; but the most weak-minded person cannot be mesmerised by +more than one millionaire at a time. Each of the millionaires must +thrust forward his jaw, offering (if I may say so) to fight the world +with the same weapon as Samson. Each of them must accentuate the length +of his chin, especially, of course, by always being completely +clean-shaven. It would be obviously inconsistent with Personality to +prefer to wear a beard. These are of course fantastic examples on the +fringe of American life; but they do stand for a certain assimilation, +not through brute gregariousness, but rather through isolated dreaming. +And though it is not always carried so far as this, I do think it is +carried too far. There is not quite enough unconsciousness to produce +real individuality. There is a sort of worship of will-power in the +abstract, so that people are actually thinking about how they can will, +more than about what they want. To this I do think a certain corrective +could be found in the nature of English eccentricity. Every man in his +humour is most interesting when he is unconscious of his humour; or at +least when he is in an intermediate stage between humour in the old +sense of oddity and in the new sense of irony. Much is said in these +days against negative morality; and certainly most Americans would show +a positive preference for positive morality. The virtues they venerate +collectively are very active virtues; cheerfulness and courage and vim, +otherwise zip, also pep and similar things. But it is sometimes +forgotten that negative morality is freer than positive morality. +Negative morality is a net of a larger and more open pattern, of which +the lines or cords constrict at longer intervals. A man like Dr. Johnson +could grow in his own way to his own stature in the net of the Ten +Commandments; precisely because he was convinced there were only ten of +them. He was not compressed into the mould of positive beauty, like that +of the Apollo Belvedere or the American citizen. + +This criticism is sometimes true even of the American woman, who is +certainly a much more delightful person than the mesmeric millionaire +with his shaven jaw. Interviewers in the United States perpetually asked +me what I thought of American women, and I confessed a distaste for such +generalisations which I have not managed to lose. The Americans, who are +the most chivalrous people in the world, may perhaps understand me; but +I can never help feeling that there is something polygamous about +talking of women in the plural at all; something unworthy of any +American except a Mormon. Nevertheless, I think the exaggeration I +suggest does extend in a less degree to American women, fascinating as +they are. I think they too tend too much to this cult of impersonal +personality. + +It is a description easy to exaggerate even by the faintest emphasis; +for all these things are subtle and subject to striking individual +exceptions. To complain of people for being brave and bright and kind +and intelligent may not unreasonably appear unreasonable. And yet there +is something in the background that can only be expressed by a symbol, +something that is not shallowness but a neglect of the subconsciousness +and the vaguer and slower impulses; something that can be missed amid +all that laughter and light, under those starry candelabra of the ideals +of the happy virtues. Sometimes it came over me, in a wordless wave, +that I should like to see a sulky woman. How she would walk in beauty +like the night, and reveal more silent spaces full of older stars! These +things cannot be conveyed in their delicate proportion even in the most +large and allusive terms. But the same thing was in the mind of a +white-bearded old man I met in New York, an Irish exile and a wonderful +talker, who stared up at the tower of gilded galleries of the great +hotel, and said with that spontaneous movement of style which is hardly +heard except from Irish talkers: 'And I have been in a village in the +mountains where the people could hardly read or write; but all the men were like soldiers, and all the women had pride.' -It sounds like a poem about an earthly paradise to say that -in this land the old women can be more beautiful than the -young. Indeed, I think Walt Whitman, the national poet, has -a line somewhere almost precisely to that effect. It sounds -like a parody upon Utopia, and the image of the lion lying -down with the lamb, to say it is a place where a man might -almost fall in love with his mother-in-law. But there is -nothing in which the finer side of American gravity and good -feeling does more honourably exhibit itself than in a -certain atmosphere around the older women. It is not a cant -phrase to say that they grow old gracefully; for they do -really grow old. In this the national optimism really has in -it the national courage. The old women do not dress like -young women; they only dress better. There is another side -to this feminine dignity in the old, sometimes a little lost -in the young, with which I shall deal presently. The point -for the moment is that even Whitman's truly poetic vision of -the beautiful old women suffers a little from that -bewildering multiplicity and recurrence that is indeed the -whole theme of Whitman. It is like the green eternity of -Leaves of Grass. When I think of the eccentric spinsters and -incorrigible grandmothers of my own country, I cannot -imagine that any one of them could possibly be mistaken for -another, even at a glance; and in comparison I feel as if I -had been travelling in an earthly paradise of more -decorative harmonies; and I remember only a vast cloud of -grey and pink as of the plumage of cherubim in an old -picture. But on second thoughts, I think this may be only -the inevitable effect of visiting any country in a swift and -superficial fashion; and that the grey and pink cloud is -possibly an illusion, like the spinning prairies scattered -by the wheel of the train. - -Anyhow there is enough of this equality, and of a certain -social unity favourable to sanity, to make the next point -about America very much of a puzzle. It seems to me a very -real problem, to which I have never seen an answer even such -as I shall attempt here, why a democracy should produce -fads; and why, where there is so genuine a sense of human -dignity, there should be so much of an impossible petty -tyranny. I am not referring solely or even specially to -Prohibition, which I discuss elsewhere. Prohibition is at -least a superstition, and therefore next door to a religion; -it has some imaginable connection with moral questions, as -have slavery or human sacrifice. But those who ask us to -model ourselves on the States which punish the sin of drink -forget that there are States which punish the equally -shameless sin of smoking a cigarette in the open air. The -same American atmosphere that permits Prohibition permits of -people being punished for kissing each other. In other -words, there are States psychologically capable of making a -man a convict for wearing a blue neck-tie or having a green -front-door, or anything else that anybody chooses to fancy. -There is an American atmosphere in which people may some day -be shot for shaking hands, or hanged for writing a -post-card. - -As for the sort of thing to which I refer, the American -newspapers are full of it and there is no name for it but -mere madness. Indeed it is not only mad, but it calls itself -mad. To mention but. one example out of many, it was -actually boasted that some lunatics were teaching children -to take care of their health. And it was proudly added that -the children were 'health-mad.' That it is not exactly the -object of all mental hygiene to make people mad did not -occur to them; and they may still be engaged in their -earnest labours to teach babies to be valetudinarians and -hypochondriacs in order to make them healthy. In such cases, -we may say that the modern world is too ridiculous to be -ridiculed. You cannot caricature a caricature. Imagine what -a satirist of saner days would have made of the daily life -of a child of six, who was actually admitted to be mad on -the subject of his own health. These are not days in which -that great extravaganza could be written; but I dimly see -some of its episodes like uncompleted dreams. I see the -child pausing in the middle of a cart-wheel, or when he has -performed three-quarters of a cart-wheel, and consulting a -little note-book about the amount of exercise per diem. I -see him pausing half-way up a tree, or when he has climbed -exactly one-third of a tree; and then producing a clinical -thermometer to take his own temperature. But what would be -the good of imaginative logic to prove the madness of such -people, when they themselves praise it for being mad? - -There is also the cult of the Infant Phenomenon, of which -Dickens made fun and of which educationalists make fusses. -When I was in America another news paper produced a -marvellous child of six who had the intellect of a child of -twelve. The only test given, and apparently one on which the -experiment turned, was that she could be made to understand -and even to employ the word 'annihilate.' When asked to say -something proving this, the happy infant offered the -polished aphorism, When common sense comes in, superstition -is annihilated. In reply to which, by way of showing that I -also am as intelligent as a child of twelve, and there is no -arrested development about me, I will say in the same -elegant diction, 'When psychological education comes in, -common sense is annihilated.' Everybody seems to be sitting -round this child in an adoring fashion. It did not seem to -occur to anybody that we do not particularly want even a -child of twelve to talk about annihilating superstition; -that we do not want a child of six to talk like a child of -twelve, or a child of twelve to talk like a man of fifty, or -even a man of fifty to talk like a fool. And on the -principle of hoping that a little girl of six will have a -massive and mature brain there is every reason for hoping -that a little boy of six will grow a magnificent and bushy -beard. - -Now there is any amount of this nonsense cropping up among -American cranks. Anybody may propose to establish coercive -Eugenics; or enforce psycho-analysis---that is, enforce -confession without absolution. And I confess I cannot -connect this feature with the genuine democratic spirit of -the mass. I can only suggest, in concluding this chapter, -two possible causes rather peculiar to America, which may -have made this great democracy so unlike all other -democracies, and in this so manifestly hostile to the whole -democratic idea. - -The first historical cause is Puritanism; but not Puritanism -merely in the sense of Prohibitionism. The truth is that -prohibitions might have done far less harm as prohibitions, -if a vague association had not arisen, on some dark day of -human unreason, between prohibition and progress. And it was -the progress that did the harm, not the prohibition. Men can -enjoy life under considerable limitations, if they can be -sure of their limited enjoyments; but under Progressive -Puritanism we can never be sure of anything. The curse of it -is not limitation; it is unlimited limitation. The evil is -not in the restriction; but in the fact that nothing can -ever restrict the restriction. The prohibitions are bound to -progress point by point; more and more human rights and -pleasures must of necessity be taken away; for it is of the -nature of this futurism that the latest fad is the faith of -the future, and the most fantastic fad inevitably makes the -pace. Thus the worst thing in the seventeenth-century -aberration was not so much Puritanism as sectarianism. It -searched for truth not by synthesis but by subdivision, It -not only broke religion into small pieces, but it was bound -to choose the smallest piece There is in America, I believe, -a large religious body that has felt it right to separate -itself from Christendom, because it cannot believe in the -morality of wearing buttons. I do not know how the schism -arose; but it is easy to suppose, for the sake of argument, -that there had originally existed some Puritan body which -condemned the frivolity of ribbons though not of buttons, I -was going to say of badges but not buttons; but on -reflection I cannot bring myself to believe that any -American, however insane, would object to wearing badges. -But the point is that as the holy spirit of progressive -prophesy rested on the first sect because it had invented a -new objection to ribbons, so that holy spirit would then -pass from it to the new sect who invented a further -objection to buttons. And from them it must inevitably pass -to any rebel among them who shall choose to rise and say -that he disapproves of trousers because of the existence of -trouser-buttons. Each secession in turn must be right -because it is recent, and progress must progress by growing -smaller and smaller. That is the progressive theory, the -legacy of seventeenth-century sectarianism, the dogma -implied in much modern politics, and the evident enemy of -democracy. Democracy is reproached with saying that the -majority is always right. But progress says that the -minority is always right. Progressives are prophets; and -fortunately not all the people are prophets. Thus in the -atmosphere of this slowly dying sectarianism anybody who -chooses to prophesy and prohibit can tyrannise over the -people. If he chooses to say that drinking is always wrong, -or that kissing is always wrong, or that wearing buttons is -always wrong, people are afraid to contradict him for fear -they should be contradicting their own great-grandchild. For -their superstition is an inversion of the ancestor-worship -of China; and instead of vainly appealing to something that -is dead, they appeal to something that may never be born. - -There is another cause of this strange servile disease in -American democracy. It is to be found in American feminism, -and feminist America is an entirely different thing from -feminine America. I should say that the overwhelming -majority of American girls laugh at their female politicians -at least as much as the majority of American men despise -their male politicians. But though the aggressive feminists -are a minority, they are in this atmosphere which I have -tried to analyse; the atmosphere in which there is a sort of -sanctity about the minority. And it is this superstition of -seriousness that constitutes the most solid obstacle and -exception to the general and almost conventional pressure of -public opinion. When a fad is frankly felt to be -anti-national, as was Abolitionism before the Civil War, or -Pro-Germanism in the Great War, or the suggestion of radical -admixture in the South at all times, then the fad meets far -less mercy than anywhere else in the world; it is snowed -under and swept away. But when it does not thus directly -challenge patriotism or popular ideas, a curious halo of -hopeful solemnity surrounds it, merely because it is a fad, -but above all if it is a feminine fad. The earnest -lady-reformer who really utters a warning against the social -evil of beer or buttons is seen to be walking clothed in -light, like a prophetess. Perhaps it is something of the -holy aureole which the East sees shining around an idiot. - -But I think there is another explanation, feminine rather -than feminist, and proceeding from normal women and not from -abnormal idiots. It is something that involves an old -controversy, but one upon which I have not, like so many -politicians, changed my opinion. It concerns the particular -fashion in which women tend to regard, or rather to -disregard, the formal and legal rights of the citizen. In so -far as this is a bias, it is a bias in the directly opposite -direction from that now lightly alleged. There is a sort of -underbred history going about, according to which women in -the past have always been in the position of slaves. It is -much more to the point to note that women have always been -in the position of despots. They have been despotic, because -they ruled in an area where they had too much common sense -to attempt to be constitutional. You cannot grant a -constitution to a nursery; nor can babies assemble like -barons and extort a Great Charter. Tommy cannot plead a -Habeas Corpus against going to bed; and an infant cannot be -tried by twelve other infants before he is put in the -corner. And as there can be no laws or liberties in a -nursery, the extension of feminism means that there shall be -no more laws or liberties in a state than there are in a -nursery. The woman does not really regard men as citizens -but as children. She may, if she is a humanitarian, love all -mankind; but she does not respect it. Still less does she -respect its votes. Now a man must be very blind nowadays not -to see that there is a danger of a sort of amateur science -or pseudo-science being made the excuse for every trick of -tyranny and interference. Anybody who is not an anarchist -agrees with having a policeman at the corner of the street; -but the danger at present is that of finding the policeman -halfway down the chimney or even under the bed. In other -words, it is a danger of turning the policeman into a sort -of benevolent burglar. Against this protests are already -being made, and will increasingly be made, if men retain any -instinct of independence or dignity at all. But to complain -of the woman interfering in the home will always sound like -the complaining of the oyster intruding into the -oyster-shell. To object that she has too much power over -education will seem like objecting to a hen having too much -to do with eggs. She has already been given an almost -irresponsible power over a limited region in these things; -and if that power is made infinite it will be even more -irresponsible, If she adds to her own power in the family -all these alien fads external to the family, her power will -not only be irresponsible but insane. She will be something -which may well be called a nightmare of the nursery; a mad -mother. But the point is that she will be mad about other -nurseries as well as her own, or possibly instead of her -own. The results will be interesting; but at least it is -certain that under this softening influence government of -the people, by the people, for the people, will most -assuredly perish from the earth. - -But there is always another possibility. Hints of it may be -noted here and there like muffled gongs of doom. The other -day some people preaching some low trick or other, for -running away from the glory of motherhood, were suddenly -silenced in New York; by a voice of deep and democratic -volume. The prigs who potter about the great plains are -pygmies dancing round a sleeping giant. That which sleeps, -so far as they are concerned, is the huge power of human -unanimity and intolerance in the soul of America. At present -the masses in the Middle West are indifferent to such -fancies or faintly attracted by them, as fashions of culture -from the great cities. But any day it may not be so; some -lunatic may cut across their economic rights or their -strange and buried religion; and then he will see something. -He will find himself running like a nigger who has wronged a -white woman, or a man who has set the prairie on fire. He -will see something which the politicians fan in its sleep -and flatter with the name of the people, which many -reactionaries have cursed with the name of the mob, but -which in any case has had under its feet the crowns of many -kings. It was said that the voice of the people is the voice -of God; and this at least is certain, that it can be the -voice of God to the wicked. And the last antics of their -arrogance shall stiffen before something enormous, such as -towers in the last words that Job heard out of the -whirlwind; and a voice they never knew shall tell them that -his name is Leviathan, and he is lord over all the children -of pride. +It sounds like a poem about an earthly paradise to say that in this land +the old women can be more beautiful than the young. Indeed, I think Walt +Whitman, the national poet, has a line somewhere almost precisely to +that effect. It sounds like a parody upon Utopia, and the image of the +lion lying down with the lamb, to say it is a place where a man might +almost fall in love with his mother-in-law. But there is nothing in +which the finer side of American gravity and good feeling does more +honourably exhibit itself than in a certain atmosphere around the older +women. It is not a cant phrase to say that they grow old gracefully; for +they do really grow old. In this the national optimism really has in it +the national courage. The old women do not dress like young women; they +only dress better. There is another side to this feminine dignity in the +old, sometimes a little lost in the young, with which I shall deal +presently. The point for the moment is that even Whitman's truly poetic +vision of the beautiful old women suffers a little from that bewildering +multiplicity and recurrence that is indeed the whole theme of Whitman. +It is like the green eternity of Leaves of Grass. When I think of the +eccentric spinsters and incorrigible grandmothers of my own country, I +cannot imagine that any one of them could possibly be mistaken for +another, even at a glance; and in comparison I feel as if I had been +travelling in an earthly paradise of more decorative harmonies; and I +remember only a vast cloud of grey and pink as of the plumage of +cherubim in an old picture. But on second thoughts, I think this may be +only the inevitable effect of visiting any country in a swift and +superficial fashion; and that the grey and pink cloud is possibly an +illusion, like the spinning prairies scattered by the wheel of the +train. + +Anyhow there is enough of this equality, and of a certain social unity +favourable to sanity, to make the next point about America very much of +a puzzle. It seems to me a very real problem, to which I have never seen +an answer even such as I shall attempt here, why a democracy should +produce fads; and why, where there is so genuine a sense of human +dignity, there should be so much of an impossible petty tyranny. I am +not referring solely or even specially to Prohibition, which I discuss +elsewhere. Prohibition is at least a superstition, and therefore next +door to a religion; it has some imaginable connection with moral +questions, as have slavery or human sacrifice. But those who ask us to +model ourselves on the States which punish the sin of drink forget that +there are States which punish the equally shameless sin of smoking a +cigarette in the open air. The same American atmosphere that permits +Prohibition permits of people being punished for kissing each other. In +other words, there are States psychologically capable of making a man a +convict for wearing a blue neck-tie or having a green front-door, or +anything else that anybody chooses to fancy. There is an American +atmosphere in which people may some day be shot for shaking hands, or +hanged for writing a post-card. + +As for the sort of thing to which I refer, the American newspapers are +full of it and there is no name for it but mere madness. Indeed it is +not only mad, but it calls itself mad. To mention but. one example out +of many, it was actually boasted that some lunatics were teaching +children to take care of their health. And it was proudly added that the +children were 'health-mad.' That it is not exactly the object of all +mental hygiene to make people mad did not occur to them; and they may +still be engaged in their earnest labours to teach babies to be +valetudinarians and hypochondriacs in order to make them healthy. In +such cases, we may say that the modern world is too ridiculous to be +ridiculed. You cannot caricature a caricature. Imagine what a satirist +of saner days would have made of the daily life of a child of six, who +was actually admitted to be mad on the subject of his own health. These +are not days in which that great extravaganza could be written; but I +dimly see some of its episodes like uncompleted dreams. I see the child +pausing in the middle of a cart-wheel, or when he has performed +three-quarters of a cart-wheel, and consulting a little note-book about +the amount of exercise per diem. I see him pausing half-way up a tree, +or when he has climbed exactly one-third of a tree; and then producing a +clinical thermometer to take his own temperature. But what would be the +good of imaginative logic to prove the madness of such people, when they +themselves praise it for being mad? + +There is also the cult of the Infant Phenomenon, of which Dickens made +fun and of which educationalists make fusses. When I was in America +another news paper produced a marvellous child of six who had the +intellect of a child of twelve. The only test given, and apparently one +on which the experiment turned, was that she could be made to understand +and even to employ the word 'annihilate.' When asked to say something +proving this, the happy infant offered the polished aphorism, When +common sense comes in, superstition is annihilated. In reply to which, +by way of showing that I also am as intelligent as a child of twelve, +and there is no arrested development about me, I will say in the same +elegant diction, 'When psychological education comes in, common sense is +annihilated.' Everybody seems to be sitting round this child in an +adoring fashion. It did not seem to occur to anybody that we do not +particularly want even a child of twelve to talk about annihilating +superstition; that we do not want a child of six to talk like a child of +twelve, or a child of twelve to talk like a man of fifty, or even a man +of fifty to talk like a fool. And on the principle of hoping that a +little girl of six will have a massive and mature brain there is every +reason for hoping that a little boy of six will grow a magnificent and +bushy beard. + +Now there is any amount of this nonsense cropping up among American +cranks. Anybody may propose to establish coercive Eugenics; or enforce +psycho-analysis---that is, enforce confession without absolution. And I +confess I cannot connect this feature with the genuine democratic spirit +of the mass. I can only suggest, in concluding this chapter, two +possible causes rather peculiar to America, which may have made this +great democracy so unlike all other democracies, and in this so +manifestly hostile to the whole democratic idea. + +The first historical cause is Puritanism; but not Puritanism merely in +the sense of Prohibitionism. The truth is that prohibitions might have +done far less harm as prohibitions, if a vague association had not +arisen, on some dark day of human unreason, between prohibition and +progress. And it was the progress that did the harm, not the +prohibition. Men can enjoy life under considerable limitations, if they +can be sure of their limited enjoyments; but under Progressive +Puritanism we can never be sure of anything. The curse of it is not +limitation; it is unlimited limitation. The evil is not in the +restriction; but in the fact that nothing can ever restrict the +restriction. The prohibitions are bound to progress point by point; more +and more human rights and pleasures must of necessity be taken away; for +it is of the nature of this futurism that the latest fad is the faith of +the future, and the most fantastic fad inevitably makes the pace. Thus +the worst thing in the seventeenth-century aberration was not so much +Puritanism as sectarianism. It searched for truth not by synthesis but +by subdivision, It not only broke religion into small pieces, but it was +bound to choose the smallest piece There is in America, I believe, a +large religious body that has felt it right to separate itself from +Christendom, because it cannot believe in the morality of wearing +buttons. I do not know how the schism arose; but it is easy to suppose, +for the sake of argument, that there had originally existed some Puritan +body which condemned the frivolity of ribbons though not of buttons, I +was going to say of badges but not buttons; but on reflection I cannot +bring myself to believe that any American, however insane, would object +to wearing badges. But the point is that as the holy spirit of +progressive prophesy rested on the first sect because it had invented a +new objection to ribbons, so that holy spirit would then pass from it to +the new sect who invented a further objection to buttons. And from them +it must inevitably pass to any rebel among them who shall choose to rise +and say that he disapproves of trousers because of the existence of +trouser-buttons. Each secession in turn must be right because it is +recent, and progress must progress by growing smaller and smaller. That +is the progressive theory, the legacy of seventeenth-century +sectarianism, the dogma implied in much modern politics, and the evident +enemy of democracy. Democracy is reproached with saying that the +majority is always right. But progress says that the minority is always +right. Progressives are prophets; and fortunately not all the people are +prophets. Thus in the atmosphere of this slowly dying sectarianism +anybody who chooses to prophesy and prohibit can tyrannise over the +people. If he chooses to say that drinking is always wrong, or that +kissing is always wrong, or that wearing buttons is always wrong, people +are afraid to contradict him for fear they should be contradicting their +own great-grandchild. For their superstition is an inversion of the +ancestor-worship of China; and instead of vainly appealing to something +that is dead, they appeal to something that may never be born. + +There is another cause of this strange servile disease in American +democracy. It is to be found in American feminism, and feminist America +is an entirely different thing from feminine America. I should say that +the overwhelming majority of American girls laugh at their female +politicians at least as much as the majority of American men despise +their male politicians. But though the aggressive feminists are a +minority, they are in this atmosphere which I have tried to analyse; the +atmosphere in which there is a sort of sanctity about the minority. And +it is this superstition of seriousness that constitutes the most solid +obstacle and exception to the general and almost conventional pressure +of public opinion. When a fad is frankly felt to be anti-national, as +was Abolitionism before the Civil War, or Pro-Germanism in the Great +War, or the suggestion of radical admixture in the South at all times, +then the fad meets far less mercy than anywhere else in the world; it is +snowed under and swept away. But when it does not thus directly +challenge patriotism or popular ideas, a curious halo of hopeful +solemnity surrounds it, merely because it is a fad, but above all if it +is a feminine fad. The earnest lady-reformer who really utters a warning +against the social evil of beer or buttons is seen to be walking clothed +in light, like a prophetess. Perhaps it is something of the holy aureole +which the East sees shining around an idiot. + +But I think there is another explanation, feminine rather than feminist, +and proceeding from normal women and not from abnormal idiots. It is +something that involves an old controversy, but one upon which I have +not, like so many politicians, changed my opinion. It concerns the +particular fashion in which women tend to regard, or rather to +disregard, the formal and legal rights of the citizen. In so far as this +is a bias, it is a bias in the directly opposite direction from that now +lightly alleged. There is a sort of underbred history going about, +according to which women in the past have always been in the position of +slaves. It is much more to the point to note that women have always been +in the position of despots. They have been despotic, because they ruled +in an area where they had too much common sense to attempt to be +constitutional. You cannot grant a constitution to a nursery; nor can +babies assemble like barons and extort a Great Charter. Tommy cannot +plead a Habeas Corpus against going to bed; and an infant cannot be +tried by twelve other infants before he is put in the corner. And as +there can be no laws or liberties in a nursery, the extension of +feminism means that there shall be no more laws or liberties in a state +than there are in a nursery. The woman does not really regard men as +citizens but as children. She may, if she is a humanitarian, love all +mankind; but she does not respect it. Still less does she respect its +votes. Now a man must be very blind nowadays not to see that there is a +danger of a sort of amateur science or pseudo-science being made the +excuse for every trick of tyranny and interference. Anybody who is not +an anarchist agrees with having a policeman at the corner of the street; +but the danger at present is that of finding the policeman halfway down +the chimney or even under the bed. In other words, it is a danger of +turning the policeman into a sort of benevolent burglar. Against this +protests are already being made, and will increasingly be made, if men +retain any instinct of independence or dignity at all. But to complain +of the woman interfering in the home will always sound like the +complaining of the oyster intruding into the oyster-shell. To object +that she has too much power over education will seem like objecting to a +hen having too much to do with eggs. She has already been given an +almost irresponsible power over a limited region in these things; and if +that power is made infinite it will be even more irresponsible, If she +adds to her own power in the family all these alien fads external to the +family, her power will not only be irresponsible but insane. She will be +something which may well be called a nightmare of the nursery; a mad +mother. But the point is that she will be mad about other nurseries as +well as her own, or possibly instead of her own. The results will be +interesting; but at least it is certain that under this softening +influence government of the people, by the people, for the people, will +most assuredly perish from the earth. + +But there is always another possibility. Hints of it may be noted here +and there like muffled gongs of doom. The other day some people +preaching some low trick or other, for running away from the glory of +motherhood, were suddenly silenced in New York; by a voice of deep and +democratic volume. The prigs who potter about the great plains are +pygmies dancing round a sleeping giant. That which sleeps, so far as +they are concerned, is the huge power of human unanimity and intolerance +in the soul of America. At present the masses in the Middle West are +indifferent to such fancies or faintly attracted by them, as fashions of +culture from the great cities. But any day it may not be so; some +lunatic may cut across their economic rights or their strange and buried +religion; and then he will see something. He will find himself running +like a nigger who has wronged a white woman, or a man who has set the +prairie on fire. He will see something which the politicians fan in its +sleep and flatter with the name of the people, which many reactionaries +have cursed with the name of the mob, but which in any case has had +under its feet the crowns of many kings. It was said that the voice of +the people is the voice of God; and this at least is certain, that it +can be the voice of God to the wicked. And the last antics of their +arrogance shall stiffen before something enormous, such as towers in the +last words that Job heard out of the whirlwind; and a voice they never +knew shall tell them that his name is Leviathan, and he is lord over all +the children of pride. # The Extraordinary American -When I was in America I had the feeling that it was far more -foreign than France or even than Ireland. And by foreign I -mean fascinating rather than repulsive. I mean that element -of strangeness which marks the frontier of any fairyland, or -gives to the traveller himself the almost eerie title of the -stranger. And I saw there more clearly than in countries -counted as more remote from us, in race or religion, a -paradox that is one of the great truths of travel. - -We have never even begun to understand a people until we -have found something that we do not understand. So long as -we find the character easy to read, we are reading into it -our own character. If when we see an event we can promptly -provide an explanation, we may be pretty certain that we had -ourselves prepared the explanation before we saw the event. -It follows from this that the best picture of a foreign -people can probably be found in a puzzle picture. If we can -find an event of which the meaning is really dark to us, it -will probably throw some light on the truth. I will -therefore take from my American experiences one isolated -incident, which certainly could not have happened in any -other country I have ever clapped eyes on. I have really no -notion of what it meant. I have heard even from Americans -about five different conjectures about its meaning. But -though I do not understand it, I do sincerely believe that -if I did understand it, I should understand America. - -It happened in the city of Oklahoma, which would require a -book to itself, even considered as a background. The State -of Oklahoma is a district in the south-west recently -reclaimed from the Red Indian territory. What many, quite -incorrectly, imagine about all America is really true of -Oklahoma. It is proud of having no history. It is glowing -with the sense of having a great future---and nothing else. -People are just as likely to boast of an old building in -Nashville as in Norwich; people are just as proud of old -families in Boston as in Bath. But in Oklahoma the citizens -do point out a colossal structure, arrogantly affirming that -it wasn't there last week. It was against the colours of -this crude stage scenery, as of a pantomime city of -pasteboard, that the fantastic figure appeared which still -haunts me like a walking note of interrogation. I was -strolling down the main street of the city, and looking in -at a paper-stall vivid with the news of crime, when a -stranger addressed me; and asked me, quite politely but with -a curious air of having authority to put the question, what -I was doing in that city. - -He was a lean brown man, having rather the look of a shabby -tropical traveller, with a grey moustache and a lively and -alert eye. But the most singular thing about him was that -the front of his coat was covered with a multitude of -shining metallic emblems made m the shape of stars and -crescents. I was well accustomed by this time to Americans -adorning the lapels of their coats with little symbols of -various societies; it is a part of the American passion for -the ritual of comradeship. There is nothing that an American -likes so much as to have a secret society and to make no -secret of it. But in this case, if I may put it so, the rash -of symbolism seemed to have broken out all over the man, in -a fashion that indicated that the fever was far advanced. Of -this minor mystery, however, his first few sentences offered -a provisional explanation. In answer to his question, -touching my business in Oklahoma, I replied with restraint -that I was lecturing. To which he replied without restraint, -but rather with an expansive and radiant pride, 'I also am -lecturing. I am lecturing on astronomy.' - -So far a certain wild rationality seemed to light up the -affair. I knew it was unusual, in my own country, for the -Astronomer Royal to walk down the Strand with his coat -plastered all over with the Solar System. In deed, it was -unusual for any English astronomical lecturer to advertise -the subject of his lectures in this fashion. But though it -would be unusual, it would not necessarily be unreasonable. -In fact, I think it might add to the colour and variety of -life, if specialists did adopt this sort of scientific -heraldry. I should like to be able to recognise an -entomologist at sight by the decorative spiders and -cockroaches crawling all over his coat and waistcoat. I -should like to see a conchologist in a simple costume of -shells. An osteopath, I suppose, would be agreeably painted -so as to resemble a skeleton, while a botanist would enliven -the street with the appearance of a Jack-in-the-Green, So -while I regarded the astronomical lecturer in the -astronomical coat as a figure distinguishable, by a high -degree of differentiation, from the artless astronomers of -my island home (enough their simple loveliness for me) I saw -in him nothing illogical, but rather an imaginative extreme -of logic. And then came another turn of the wheel of -topsy-turvydom, and all the logic was scattered to the wind. - -Expanding his starry bosom and standing astraddle, with the -air of one who owned the street, the strange being -continued, 'Yes, I am lecturing on astronomy, anthropology, -archaeology, palaeontology, embryology, eschatology,' and so -on in a thunderous roll of theoretical sciences apparently -beyond the scope of any single university, let alone any -single professor, Having thus introduced himself, however, -he got to business. He apologised with true American -courtesy for having questioned me at all, and excused it on -the ground of his own exacting responsibilities. I imagined -him to mean the responsibility of simultaneously occupying -the chairs of all the faculties already mentioned, But these -apparently were trifles to him, and something far more -serious was clouding his brow. - -'I feel it to be my duty,' he said, 'to acquaint myself with -any stranger visiting this city; and it is an additional -pleasure to welcome here a member of the Upper Ten.' I -assured him earnestly that I knew nothing about the Upper -Ten, except that I did not belong to them; I felt, not -without alarm, that the Upper Ten might be another secret -society. He waved my abnegation aside and continued, 'I have -a great responsibility in watching over this city. My friend -the mayor and I have a great responsibility,' And then an -extraordinary thing happened. Suddenly diving his hand into -his breast-pocket, he flashed something before my eyes like -a hand-mirror; something which disappeared again almost as -soon as it appeared. In that flash I could only see that it -was some sort of polished metal plate, with some letters -engraved on it like a monogram, But the reward of a studious -and virtuous life, which has been spent chiefly in the -reading of American detective stories, shone forth for me in -that hour of trial; I received at last the prize of a -profound scholarship in the matter of imaginary murders in -tenth-rate magazines. I remembered who it was who in the -Yankee detective yarn flashes before the eyes of Slim Jim or -the Lone Hand Crook a badge of metal sometimes called a -shield. Assuming all the desperate composure of Slim Jim -himself, I replied, 'You mean you are connected with the -police authorities here, don't you? Well, if I commit a -murder here, I'll let you know.' Whereupon that astonishing -man waved a hand in deprecation, bowed in farewell with the -grace of a dancing master; and said, 'Oh, those are not -things we expect from members of the Upper Ten.' - -Then that moving constellation moved away, disappearing in -the dark tides of humanity, as the vision passed away down -the dark tides from Sir Galahad and, starlike, mingled with -the stars. - -That is the problem I would put to all Americans, and to all -who claim to understand America. Who and what was that man? -Was he an astronomer? Was he a detective? Was he a wandering -lunatic? If he was a lunatic who thought he was an -astronomer, why did he have a badge to prove he was a -detective? If he was a detective pretending to be an -astronomer, why did he tell a total stranger that he was a -detective two minutes after saying he was an astronomer? If -he wished to watch over the city in a quiet and unobtrusive -fashion, why did he blazon himself all over with all the -stars of the sky, and profess to give public lectures on all -the subjects of the world? Every wise and well-conducted -student of murder stories is acquainted with the notion of a -policeman in plain clothes. But nobody could possibly say -that this gentleman was in plain clothes. Why not wear his -uniform, if he was resolved to show every stranger in the -street his badge? Perhaps after all he had no uniform; for -these lands were but recently a wild frontier rudely ruled -by vigilance committees. Some Americans suggested to me that -he was the Sheriff; the regular hard-riding, free-shooting -Sheriff of Bret Harte and my boyhood's dreams. Others -suggested that he was an agent of the Ku Klux Klan, that -great nameless revolution of the revival of which there were -rumours at the time; and that the symbol he exhibited was -theirs. But whether he was a sheriff acting for the law, or -a conspirator against the law, or a lunatic entirely outside -the law, I agree with the former conjectures upon one point. -I am perfectly certain he had something else in his pocket -besides a badge. And I am perfectly certain that under -certain circumstances he would have handled it instantly, -and shot me dead between the gay bookstall and the crowded -trams, And that is the last touch to the complexity; for -though in that country it often seems that the law is made -by a lunatic you never know when the lunatic may not shoot -you for keeping it. Only in the presence of that citizen of -Oklahoma I feel I am confronted with the fullness and depth -of the mystery of America. Be cause I understand nothing, I -recognise the thing that we call a nation; and I salute the -flag. - -But even in connection with this mysterious figure there is -a moral which affords another reason for mentioning him. -Whether he was a sheriff or an outlaw, there was certainly -something about him that suggested the adventurous violence -of the old border life of America; and whether he was -connected with the police or no, there was certainly -violence enough in his environment to satisfy the most -ardent policeman. The posters in the paper-shop were -placarded with the verdict in the Hamon trial; a *cause -célèbre* which reached its crisis in Oklahoma while I was -there, Senator Hamon had been shot by a girl whom he had -wronged) and his widow demanded justice, or what might -fairly be called vengeance. There was very great excitement -culminating in the girl's acquittal. Nor did the Hamon case -appear to be entirely exceptional in that breezy borderland. -The moment the town had received the news that Clara Smith -was free, newsboys rushed down the street shouting, 'Double -stabbing outrage near Oklahoma,' or 'Banker's throat cut on -Main Street,' and otherwise resuming their regular mode of -life. It seemed as much as to say, 'Do not imagine that our -local energies are exhausted in shooting a Senator,' or -'Come, now, the world is young, even if Clara Smith is -acquitted, and the enthusiasm of Oklahoma is not yet cold.' - -But my particular reason for mentioning the matter is this. -Despite my friend's mystical remarks about the Upper Ten, he -lived in an atmosphere of something that was at least the -very reverse of a respect for persons. Indeed, there was -something in the very crudity of his social compliment that -smacked, strangely enough, of that egalitarian Soil. In a -vaguely aristocratic country like England, people would -never dream of telling a total stranger that he was a member -of the Upper Ten. For one thing, they would be afraid that -he might be. Real Snobbishness is never vulgar; for it is -intended to please the refined. Nobody licks the boots of a -duke, if only because the duke does not like his boots -cleaned in that way. Nobody embraces the knees of a marquis, -because it would embarrass that nobleman. And nobody tells -him he is a member of the Upper Ten, because everybody is -expected to know it? But there is a much more subtle kind of -snobbishness pervading the atmosphere of any society trial -in England, And the first thing that struck me was the total -absence of that atmosphere in the trial at Oklahoma. -Mr. Hamon was presumably a member of the Upper Ten, if there -is such a thing. He was a member of the Senate or Upper -House in the American Parliament; he was a millionaire and a -pillar of the Republican party, which might be called the -respectable party; he is said to have been mentioned as a -possible President. And the speeches of Clara Smith's -counsel, who was known by the delightfully Oklahoman title -of Wild Bill McLean, were wild enough in all con science; -but they left very little of my friend's illusion that -members of the Upper Ten could not be accused of crimes. -Nero and Borgia were quite presentable people compared with -Senator Hamon when Wild Bill McLean had done with him. But -the difference was deeper, and even in a sense more delicate -than this. There is a certain tone about English trials, -which does at least begin with a certain scepticism about -people prominent in public life being abominable in private -life. People do vaguely doubt the criminality of a man in -that position; that is, the position of the Marquise de -Brinvilliers or the Marquis de Sade. *Prima facie*, it would -be an advantage to the Marquis de Sade that he was a -marquis. But it was certainly against Hamon that he was a -millionaire. Wild Bill did not minimise him as a bankrupt or -an adventurer; he insisted on the solidity and size of his -fortune, he made mountains out of the 'Hamon millions,' as -if they made the matter much worse; as indeed I think they -do. But that is because I happen to share a certain -political philosophy with Wild Bill and other wild buffaloes -of the prairies. In other words, there is really present -here a democratic instinct against the domination of wealth. -It does not prevent wealth from dominating; but it does -prevent the domination from being regarded with any -affection or loyalty. Despite the man in the starry coat, -the Americans have not really any illusions about the Upper -Ten. McLean was appealing to an implicit public opinion when -he pelted the Senator with his gold. - -But something more is involved. I became conscious, as I -have been conscious in reading the crime novels of America, -that the millionaire was taken as a type and not an -individual. This is the great difference; that America -recognises rich crooks as a *class*. Any Englishman might -recognise them as individuals. Any English romance may turn -on a crime in high life; in which the baronet is found to -have poisoned his wife, or the elusive burglar turns out to -be the bishop. But the English are not always saying, either -in romance or reality, 'What's to be done, if our food is -being poisoned by all these baronets?' They do not murmur in -indignation, 'If bishops will go on burgling like this, -something must be done.' The whole point of the English -romance is the exceptional character of a crime in high -life. That is not the tone of American novels or American -newspapers or American trials like the trial in Oklahoma. -Americans may be excited when a millionaire crook is caught, -as when any other crook is caught; but it is at his being -caught, not at his being discovered. To put the matter -shortly, England recognises a criminal class at the bottom -of the social scale. America also recognises a criminal -class at the top of the social scale. In both, for various -reasons, it may be difficult for the criminals to be -convicted; but in America the upper class of criminals is -recognised. In both America and England, of course, it -exists. - -This is an assumption at the back of the American mind which -makes a great difference in many ways; and in my opinion a -difference for the better. I wrote merely fancifully just -now about bishops being burglars; but there is a story in -New York, illustrating this, which really does in a sense -attribute a burglary to a bishop. The story was that an -Anglican Lord Spiritual, of the pompous and now rather -antiquated school, was pushing open the door of a poor -American tenement with all the placid patronage of the -squire and rector visiting the cottagers, when a gigantic -Irish policeman came round the corner and hit him a crack -over the head with a truncheon on the assumption that he was -a house-breaker. I hope that those who laugh at the story -see that the laugh is not altogether against the policeman; -and that it is not only the policeman, but rather the -bishop, who had failed to recognise some final logical -distinctions. The bishop, being a learned man, might well be -called upon (when he had sufficiently recovered from the -knock on the head) to define what is the exact difference -between a house-breaker and a home-visitor; and why the -home-visitor should not be regarded as a house-breaker when -he will not behave as a guest. An impartial intelligence -will be much less shocked at the policeman's disrespect for -the home-visitor than by the home-visitor's disrespect for -the home. - -But that story smacks of the western soil, precisely because -of the element of brutality there is in it. In England -snobbishness and social oppression are much subtler and -softer; the manifestations of them at least are more mellow -and humane. In Comparison there is indeed Something which -people call ruthless about the air of America, especially -the American cities. The bishop may push open the door -without an apology, but he would not break open the door -with a truncheon; but the Irish policeman's truncheon hits -both ways, It may be brutal to the tenement dweller as well -as to the bishop; but the difference and distinction is that -it might really be brutal to the bishop. It is because there -is after all, at the back of all that barbarism, a sort of a -negative belief in the brotherhood of men, a dark democratic -sense that men are really men and nothing more, that the -coarse and even corrupt bureaucracy is not resented exactly -as oligarchic bureaucracies are resented. There is a sense -in which corruption is not so narrow as nepotism. It is upon -this queer cynical charity, and even humility, that it has -been possible to rear so high and uphold so long that tower -of brass, Tammany Hall. The modern police system is in -spirit the most inhuman in history, and its evil belongs to -an age and not to a nation. But some American police methods -are evil past all parallel; and the detective can be more -crooked than a hundred crooks. But in the States it is not -only possible that the policeman is worse than the convict, -it is by no means certain that he thinks that he is any -better. In the popular stories of O. Henry there are light -allusions to tramps being thrown out of hotels which will -make any Christian seek relief in strong language and a -trust in heaven---not to say in hell. And yet books even -more popular than O. Henry's are those of the -'sob-sisterhood' who swim in lachrymose lakes after -love-lorn spinsters, who pass their lives in reclaiming and -consoling such tramps. There are in this people two strains -of brutality and sentimentalism which I do not understand, -especially where they mingle; but I am fairly sure they both -work back to the dim democratic origin. The Irish policeman -does not confine himself fastidiously to bludgeoning -bishops; his truncheon finds plenty of poor people's heads -to hit; and yet I believe on my soul he has a sort of -sympathy with poor people not to be found in the police of -more aristocratic states. I believe he also reads and weeps -over the stories of the spinsters and the reclaimed tramps; -in fact, there is much of such pathos in an American -magazine (my sole companion on many happy railway journeys) -which is not only devoted to detective stories, but -apparently edited by detectives. In these stories also there -is the honest popular astonishment at the Upper Ten -expressed by the astronomical detective, if indeed he was a -detective and not a demon from the dark Red-Indian forests -that faded to the horizon behind him. But I have set him as -the head and text of this chapter because with these -elements of the Third Degree of devilry and the Seventh -Heaven of sentimentalism I touch on elements that I do not -understand; and when I do not Understand, I say so. +When I was in America I had the feeling that it was far more foreign +than France or even than Ireland. And by foreign I mean fascinating +rather than repulsive. I mean that element of strangeness which marks +the frontier of any fairyland, or gives to the traveller himself the +almost eerie title of the stranger. And I saw there more clearly than in +countries counted as more remote from us, in race or religion, a paradox +that is one of the great truths of travel. + +We have never even begun to understand a people until we have found +something that we do not understand. So long as we find the character +easy to read, we are reading into it our own character. If when we see +an event we can promptly provide an explanation, we may be pretty +certain that we had ourselves prepared the explanation before we saw the +event. It follows from this that the best picture of a foreign people +can probably be found in a puzzle picture. If we can find an event of +which the meaning is really dark to us, it will probably throw some +light on the truth. I will therefore take from my American experiences +one isolated incident, which certainly could not have happened in any +other country I have ever clapped eyes on. I have really no notion of +what it meant. I have heard even from Americans about five different +conjectures about its meaning. But though I do not understand it, I do +sincerely believe that if I did understand it, I should understand +America. + +It happened in the city of Oklahoma, which would require a book to +itself, even considered as a background. The State of Oklahoma is a +district in the south-west recently reclaimed from the Red Indian +territory. What many, quite incorrectly, imagine about all America is +really true of Oklahoma. It is proud of having no history. It is glowing +with the sense of having a great future---and nothing else. People are +just as likely to boast of an old building in Nashville as in Norwich; +people are just as proud of old families in Boston as in Bath. But in +Oklahoma the citizens do point out a colossal structure, arrogantly +affirming that it wasn't there last week. It was against the colours of +this crude stage scenery, as of a pantomime city of pasteboard, that the +fantastic figure appeared which still haunts me like a walking note of +interrogation. I was strolling down the main street of the city, and +looking in at a paper-stall vivid with the news of crime, when a +stranger addressed me; and asked me, quite politely but with a curious +air of having authority to put the question, what I was doing in that +city. + +He was a lean brown man, having rather the look of a shabby tropical +traveller, with a grey moustache and a lively and alert eye. But the +most singular thing about him was that the front of his coat was covered +with a multitude of shining metallic emblems made m the shape of stars +and crescents. I was well accustomed by this time to Americans adorning +the lapels of their coats with little symbols of various societies; it +is a part of the American passion for the ritual of comradeship. There +is nothing that an American likes so much as to have a secret society +and to make no secret of it. But in this case, if I may put it so, the +rash of symbolism seemed to have broken out all over the man, in a +fashion that indicated that the fever was far advanced. Of this minor +mystery, however, his first few sentences offered a provisional +explanation. In answer to his question, touching my business in +Oklahoma, I replied with restraint that I was lecturing. To which he +replied without restraint, but rather with an expansive and radiant +pride, 'I also am lecturing. I am lecturing on astronomy.' + +So far a certain wild rationality seemed to light up the affair. I knew +it was unusual, in my own country, for the Astronomer Royal to walk down +the Strand with his coat plastered all over with the Solar System. In +deed, it was unusual for any English astronomical lecturer to advertise +the subject of his lectures in this fashion. But though it would be +unusual, it would not necessarily be unreasonable. In fact, I think it +might add to the colour and variety of life, if specialists did adopt +this sort of scientific heraldry. I should like to be able to recognise +an entomologist at sight by the decorative spiders and cockroaches +crawling all over his coat and waistcoat. I should like to see a +conchologist in a simple costume of shells. An osteopath, I suppose, +would be agreeably painted so as to resemble a skeleton, while a +botanist would enliven the street with the appearance of a +Jack-in-the-Green, So while I regarded the astronomical lecturer in the +astronomical coat as a figure distinguishable, by a high degree of +differentiation, from the artless astronomers of my island home (enough +their simple loveliness for me) I saw in him nothing illogical, but +rather an imaginative extreme of logic. And then came another turn of +the wheel of topsy-turvydom, and all the logic was scattered to the +wind. + +Expanding his starry bosom and standing astraddle, with the air of one +who owned the street, the strange being continued, 'Yes, I am lecturing +on astronomy, anthropology, archaeology, palaeontology, embryology, +eschatology,' and so on in a thunderous roll of theoretical sciences +apparently beyond the scope of any single university, let alone any +single professor, Having thus introduced himself, however, he got to +business. He apologised with true American courtesy for having +questioned me at all, and excused it on the ground of his own exacting +responsibilities. I imagined him to mean the responsibility of +simultaneously occupying the chairs of all the faculties already +mentioned, But these apparently were trifles to him, and something far +more serious was clouding his brow. + +'I feel it to be my duty,' he said, 'to acquaint myself with any +stranger visiting this city; and it is an additional pleasure to welcome +here a member of the Upper Ten.' I assured him earnestly that I knew +nothing about the Upper Ten, except that I did not belong to them; I +felt, not without alarm, that the Upper Ten might be another secret +society. He waved my abnegation aside and continued, 'I have a great +responsibility in watching over this city. My friend the mayor and I +have a great responsibility,' And then an extraordinary thing happened. +Suddenly diving his hand into his breast-pocket, he flashed something +before my eyes like a hand-mirror; something which disappeared again +almost as soon as it appeared. In that flash I could only see that it +was some sort of polished metal plate, with some letters engraved on it +like a monogram, But the reward of a studious and virtuous life, which +has been spent chiefly in the reading of American detective stories, +shone forth for me in that hour of trial; I received at last the prize +of a profound scholarship in the matter of imaginary murders in +tenth-rate magazines. I remembered who it was who in the Yankee +detective yarn flashes before the eyes of Slim Jim or the Lone Hand +Crook a badge of metal sometimes called a shield. Assuming all the +desperate composure of Slim Jim himself, I replied, 'You mean you are +connected with the police authorities here, don't you? Well, if I commit +a murder here, I'll let you know.' Whereupon that astonishing man waved +a hand in deprecation, bowed in farewell with the grace of a dancing +master; and said, 'Oh, those are not things we expect from members of +the Upper Ten.' + +Then that moving constellation moved away, disappearing in the dark +tides of humanity, as the vision passed away down the dark tides from +Sir Galahad and, starlike, mingled with the stars. + +That is the problem I would put to all Americans, and to all who claim +to understand America. Who and what was that man? Was he an astronomer? +Was he a detective? Was he a wandering lunatic? If he was a lunatic who +thought he was an astronomer, why did he have a badge to prove he was a +detective? If he was a detective pretending to be an astronomer, why did +he tell a total stranger that he was a detective two minutes after +saying he was an astronomer? If he wished to watch over the city in a +quiet and unobtrusive fashion, why did he blazon himself all over with +all the stars of the sky, and profess to give public lectures on all the +subjects of the world? Every wise and well-conducted student of murder +stories is acquainted with the notion of a policeman in plain clothes. +But nobody could possibly say that this gentleman was in plain clothes. +Why not wear his uniform, if he was resolved to show every stranger in +the street his badge? Perhaps after all he had no uniform; for these +lands were but recently a wild frontier rudely ruled by vigilance +committees. Some Americans suggested to me that he was the Sheriff; the +regular hard-riding, free-shooting Sheriff of Bret Harte and my +boyhood's dreams. Others suggested that he was an agent of the Ku Klux +Klan, that great nameless revolution of the revival of which there were +rumours at the time; and that the symbol he exhibited was theirs. But +whether he was a sheriff acting for the law, or a conspirator against +the law, or a lunatic entirely outside the law, I agree with the former +conjectures upon one point. I am perfectly certain he had something else +in his pocket besides a badge. And I am perfectly certain that under +certain circumstances he would have handled it instantly, and shot me +dead between the gay bookstall and the crowded trams, And that is the +last touch to the complexity; for though in that country it often seems +that the law is made by a lunatic you never know when the lunatic may +not shoot you for keeping it. Only in the presence of that citizen of +Oklahoma I feel I am confronted with the fullness and depth of the +mystery of America. Be cause I understand nothing, I recognise the thing +that we call a nation; and I salute the flag. + +But even in connection with this mysterious figure there is a moral +which affords another reason for mentioning him. Whether he was a +sheriff or an outlaw, there was certainly something about him that +suggested the adventurous violence of the old border life of America; +and whether he was connected with the police or no, there was certainly +violence enough in his environment to satisfy the most ardent policeman. +The posters in the paper-shop were placarded with the verdict in the +Hamon trial; a *cause célèbre* which reached its crisis in Oklahoma +while I was there, Senator Hamon had been shot by a girl whom he had +wronged) and his widow demanded justice, or what might fairly be called +vengeance. There was very great excitement culminating in the girl's +acquittal. Nor did the Hamon case appear to be entirely exceptional in +that breezy borderland. The moment the town had received the news that +Clara Smith was free, newsboys rushed down the street shouting, 'Double +stabbing outrage near Oklahoma,' or 'Banker's throat cut on Main +Street,' and otherwise resuming their regular mode of life. It seemed as +much as to say, 'Do not imagine that our local energies are exhausted in +shooting a Senator,' or 'Come, now, the world is young, even if Clara +Smith is acquitted, and the enthusiasm of Oklahoma is not yet cold.' + +But my particular reason for mentioning the matter is this. Despite my +friend's mystical remarks about the Upper Ten, he lived in an atmosphere +of something that was at least the very reverse of a respect for +persons. Indeed, there was something in the very crudity of his social +compliment that smacked, strangely enough, of that egalitarian Soil. In +a vaguely aristocratic country like England, people would never dream of +telling a total stranger that he was a member of the Upper Ten. For one +thing, they would be afraid that he might be. Real Snobbishness is never +vulgar; for it is intended to please the refined. Nobody licks the boots +of a duke, if only because the duke does not like his boots cleaned in +that way. Nobody embraces the knees of a marquis, because it would +embarrass that nobleman. And nobody tells him he is a member of the +Upper Ten, because everybody is expected to know it? But there is a much +more subtle kind of snobbishness pervading the atmosphere of any society +trial in England, And the first thing that struck me was the total +absence of that atmosphere in the trial at Oklahoma. Mr. Hamon was +presumably a member of the Upper Ten, if there is such a thing. He was a +member of the Senate or Upper House in the American Parliament; he was a +millionaire and a pillar of the Republican party, which might be called +the respectable party; he is said to have been mentioned as a possible +President. And the speeches of Clara Smith's counsel, who was known by +the delightfully Oklahoman title of Wild Bill McLean, were wild enough +in all con science; but they left very little of my friend's illusion +that members of the Upper Ten could not be accused of crimes. Nero and +Borgia were quite presentable people compared with Senator Hamon when +Wild Bill McLean had done with him. But the difference was deeper, and +even in a sense more delicate than this. There is a certain tone about +English trials, which does at least begin with a certain scepticism +about people prominent in public life being abominable in private life. +People do vaguely doubt the criminality of a man in that position; that +is, the position of the Marquise de Brinvilliers or the Marquis de Sade. +*Prima facie*, it would be an advantage to the Marquis de Sade that he +was a marquis. But it was certainly against Hamon that he was a +millionaire. Wild Bill did not minimise him as a bankrupt or an +adventurer; he insisted on the solidity and size of his fortune, he made +mountains out of the 'Hamon millions,' as if they made the matter much +worse; as indeed I think they do. But that is because I happen to share +a certain political philosophy with Wild Bill and other wild buffaloes +of the prairies. In other words, there is really present here a +democratic instinct against the domination of wealth. It does not +prevent wealth from dominating; but it does prevent the domination from +being regarded with any affection or loyalty. Despite the man in the +starry coat, the Americans have not really any illusions about the Upper +Ten. McLean was appealing to an implicit public opinion when he pelted +the Senator with his gold. + +But something more is involved. I became conscious, as I have been +conscious in reading the crime novels of America, that the millionaire +was taken as a type and not an individual. This is the great difference; +that America recognises rich crooks as a *class*. Any Englishman might +recognise them as individuals. Any English romance may turn on a crime +in high life; in which the baronet is found to have poisoned his wife, +or the elusive burglar turns out to be the bishop. But the English are +not always saying, either in romance or reality, 'What's to be done, if +our food is being poisoned by all these baronets?' They do not murmur in +indignation, 'If bishops will go on burgling like this, something must +be done.' The whole point of the English romance is the exceptional +character of a crime in high life. That is not the tone of American +novels or American newspapers or American trials like the trial in +Oklahoma. Americans may be excited when a millionaire crook is caught, +as when any other crook is caught; but it is at his being caught, not at +his being discovered. To put the matter shortly, England recognises a +criminal class at the bottom of the social scale. America also +recognises a criminal class at the top of the social scale. In both, for +various reasons, it may be difficult for the criminals to be convicted; +but in America the upper class of criminals is recognised. In both +America and England, of course, it exists. + +This is an assumption at the back of the American mind which makes a +great difference in many ways; and in my opinion a difference for the +better. I wrote merely fancifully just now about bishops being burglars; +but there is a story in New York, illustrating this, which really does +in a sense attribute a burglary to a bishop. The story was that an +Anglican Lord Spiritual, of the pompous and now rather antiquated +school, was pushing open the door of a poor American tenement with all +the placid patronage of the squire and rector visiting the cottagers, +when a gigantic Irish policeman came round the corner and hit him a +crack over the head with a truncheon on the assumption that he was a +house-breaker. I hope that those who laugh at the story see that the +laugh is not altogether against the policeman; and that it is not only +the policeman, but rather the bishop, who had failed to recognise some +final logical distinctions. The bishop, being a learned man, might well +be called upon (when he had sufficiently recovered from the knock on the +head) to define what is the exact difference between a house-breaker and +a home-visitor; and why the home-visitor should not be regarded as a +house-breaker when he will not behave as a guest. An impartial +intelligence will be much less shocked at the policeman's disrespect for +the home-visitor than by the home-visitor's disrespect for the home. + +But that story smacks of the western soil, precisely because of the +element of brutality there is in it. In England snobbishness and social +oppression are much subtler and softer; the manifestations of them at +least are more mellow and humane. In Comparison there is indeed +Something which people call ruthless about the air of America, +especially the American cities. The bishop may push open the door +without an apology, but he would not break open the door with a +truncheon; but the Irish policeman's truncheon hits both ways, It may be +brutal to the tenement dweller as well as to the bishop; but the +difference and distinction is that it might really be brutal to the +bishop. It is because there is after all, at the back of all that +barbarism, a sort of a negative belief in the brotherhood of men, a dark +democratic sense that men are really men and nothing more, that the +coarse and even corrupt bureaucracy is not resented exactly as +oligarchic bureaucracies are resented. There is a sense in which +corruption is not so narrow as nepotism. It is upon this queer cynical +charity, and even humility, that it has been possible to rear so high +and uphold so long that tower of brass, Tammany Hall. The modern police +system is in spirit the most inhuman in history, and its evil belongs to +an age and not to a nation. But some American police methods are evil +past all parallel; and the detective can be more crooked than a hundred +crooks. But in the States it is not only possible that the policeman is +worse than the convict, it is by no means certain that he thinks that he +is any better. In the popular stories of O. Henry there are light +allusions to tramps being thrown out of hotels which will make any +Christian seek relief in strong language and a trust in heaven---not to +say in hell. And yet books even more popular than O. Henry's are those +of the 'sob-sisterhood' who swim in lachrymose lakes after love-lorn +spinsters, who pass their lives in reclaiming and consoling such tramps. +There are in this people two strains of brutality and sentimentalism +which I do not understand, especially where they mingle; but I am fairly +sure they both work back to the dim democratic origin. The Irish +policeman does not confine himself fastidiously to bludgeoning bishops; +his truncheon finds plenty of poor people's heads to hit; and yet I +believe on my soul he has a sort of sympathy with poor people not to be +found in the police of more aristocratic states. I believe he also reads +and weeps over the stories of the spinsters and the reclaimed tramps; in +fact, there is much of such pathos in an American magazine (my sole +companion on many happy railway journeys) which is not only devoted to +detective stories, but apparently edited by detectives. In these stories +also there is the honest popular astonishment at the Upper Ten expressed +by the astronomical detective, if indeed he was a detective and not a +demon from the dark Red-Indian forests that faded to the horizon behind +him. But I have set him as the head and text of this chapter because +with these elements of the Third Degree of devilry and the Seventh +Heaven of sentimentalism I touch on elements that I do not understand; +and when I do not Understand, I say so. # The Republican in the Ruins -The heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone; -especially to a wood-cut or a lithographic stone. Modern -people put their trust in pictures, especially scientific -pictures, as much as the most superstitious ever put it in -religious pictures. They publish a portrait of the Missing -Link as if he were the Missing Man, for whom the police are -always advertising; for all the world as if the anthropoid -had been photographed before he absconded. The scientific -diagram may be a hypothesis; it may be a fancy; it may be a -forgery. But it is always an idol in the true sense of an -image; and an image in the true sense of a thing mastering -the imagination and not the reason. The power of these -talismanic pictures is almost hypnotic to modern humanity. -We can never forget that we have seen a portrait of the -Missing Link; though we should instantly detect the lapse of -logic into superstition, if we were told that the old Greek -agnostics had made a statue of the Unknown God. But there is -a still stranger fashion in which we fall victims to the -same trick of fancy. We accept in a blind and literal -spirit, not only images of speculation, but even figures of -speech. The nineteenth century prided itself on having lost -its faith in myths, and proceeded to put all its faith in -metaphors. It dismissed the old doctrines about the way of -life and the light of the world; and then it proceeded to -talk as if the light of truth were really and literally a -light, that could be absorbed by merely opening our eyes; or -as if the path of progress were really and truly a path, to -be found by merely following our noses. Thus the purpose of -God is an idea, true or false; but the purpose of Nature is -merely a metaphor; for obviously if there is no God there is -no purpose. Yet while men, by an imaginative instinct, spoke -of the purpose of God with a grand agnosticism, as something -too large to be seen, something reaching out to worlds and -to eternities, they talk of the purpose of Nature in -particular and practical problems of curing babies or -cutting up rabbits. The power of the modern metaphor must be -understood, by way of an introduction, if we are to -understand one of the chief errors, at once evasive and -pervasive, which perplex the problem of America. - -America is always spoken of as a young nation; and whether -or no this be a valuable and suggestive metaphor, very few -people notice that it is a metaphor at all. If somebody said -that a certain deserving charity had just gone into -trousers, we should recognise that it was a figure of -speech, and perhaps a rather surprising figure of speech. If -somebody said that a daily paper had recently put its hair -up, we should know it could only be a metaphor, and possibly -a rather strained metaphor. Yet these phrases would mean the -only thing that can possibly be meant by calling a corporate -association of all sorts of people young; that is, that a -certain institution has only existed for a certain time. I -am not now denying that such a corporate nationality may -happen to have a psychology comparatively analogous to the -psychology of youth. I am not even denying that America has -it. I am only pointing out, to begin with, that we must free -our selves from the talismanic tyranny of a metaphor which -we do recognise as a metaphor. Men realised that the old -mystical doctrines were mystical; they do not realise that -the new metaphors are metaphorical. They have some, sort of -hazy notion that American society must be growing, must be -promising, must have the virtues of hope or the faults of -ignorance, merely *because* it has only had a separate -existence since the eighteenth century. And that is exactly -like saying that a new chapel must be growing taller, or -that a limited liability company will soon have its second -teeth. - -Now in truth this particular conception of American -hopefulness would be anything but hopeful for America. If -the argument really were, as it is still vaguely supposed to -be, that America must have a long life before it, because it -only started in the eighteenth century, we should find a -very fatal answer by looking at the other political systems -that did start in the eighteenth century. The eighteenth -century was called the Age of Reason; and there is a very -real sense in which the other systems were indeed started in -a spirit of reason. But starting from reason has not saved -them from ruin. If we survey the Europe of to-day with real -clarity and historic comprehension, we shall see that it is -precisely the most recent and the most rationalistic -creations that have been ruined. The two great states which -did most definitely and emphatically deserve to be called -modern states were Prussia and Russia. There was no real -Prussia before Frederick the Great; no real Russian Empire -before Peter the Great. Both those innovators recognised -themselves as rationalists bringing a new reason and order -into an indeterminate barbarism; and doing for the -barbarians what the barbarians could not do for themselves. -They did not, like the kings of England or France or Spain -or Scotland, inherit a sceptre that was the symbol of a -historic and patriotic people. In this sense there was no -Russia but only an Emperor of Russia. In this sense Prussia -was a kingdom before it was a nation; if it ever was a -nation. But anyhow both men were particularly modern in -their whole mood and mind. They were modern to the extent of -being not only anti-traditional, but almost anti-patriotic. -Peter forced the science of the West on Russia to the regret -of many Russians. Frederick talked the French of Voltaire -and not the German of Luther. The two experiments were -entirely in the spirit of Voltairien rationalism; they were -built in broad daylight by men who believed in nothing but -the light of common day; and already their day is done. - -If then the promise of America were in the fact that she is -one of the latest births of progress, we should point out -that it is exactly the latest born that were the first to -die. If in this sense she is praised as young, it may be -answered that the young have died young, and have not lived -to be old. And if this be confused with the argument that -she came in an age of clarity and scepticism, uncontaminated -by old superstitions, it could still be retorted that the -works of superstition have survived the works of scepticism. -But the truth is, of course, that the real quality of -America is much more subtle and complex than this; and is -mixed not only of good and bad, and rational and mystical, -but also of old and new. That is what makes the task of -tracing the true proportions of American life so interesting -and so impossible. - -To begin with, such a metaphor is always as distracting as a -mixed metaphor. It is a double-edged tool that cuts both -ways; and consequently opposite ways. We use the same word -young to mean two opposite extremes. We mean something at an -early stage of growth, and also something having the latest -fruits of growth. We might call a commonwealth young if it -conducted all its daily conversation by wireless telegraphy; -meaning that it was progressive. But we might also call it -young if it conducted all its industry with chipped flints; -meaning that it was primitive. These two meanings of youth -are hopelessly mixed up when the word is applied to America. -But what is more curious, the two elements really are wildly -entangled in America. America is in some ways what is called -in advance of the times, and in some ways what is called -behind the times; but it seems a little confusing to convey -both notions by the same word. - -On the one hand, Americans often are successful in the last -inventions. And for that very reason they are often -neglectful of the last but one. It is true of men in -general, dealing with things in general, that while they are -progressing in one thing, such as science, they are going -back in another thing, such as art. What is less fully -realized is that this is true even as between different -methods of science. The perfection of wireless telegraphy -might well be followed by the gross imperfection of wires. -The very enthusiasm of American science brings this out very -vividly. The telephone in New York works miracles all day -long. Replies from remote places come as promptly as in a -private talk; nobody cuts anybody off; nobody says, 'Sorry -you ve been troubled.' But then the postal service of New -York does not work at all. At least I could never discover -it working. Letters lingered in it for days and days, as in -some wild village of the Pyrenees. When I asked a -taxi-driver to drive me to a post-office, a look of far-off -vision and adventure came into his eyes, and he said he had -once heard of a post-office somewhere near West -Ninety-Seventh Street. Men are not efficient in everything, -but only in the fashionable thing. This may be a mark of the -march of science; it does certainly in one sense deserve the -description of youth. We can imagine a very young person -forgetting the old toy in the excitement of a new one. - -But on the other hand, American manners contain much that is -called young in the contrary sense; in the sense of an -earlier stage of history. There are whole patches and -particular aspects that seem to me quite Early Victorian. I -cannot help having this sensation, for instance, about the -arrangement for smoking in the railway carriages. There are -no smoking carriages, as a rule; but a corner of each of the -great cars is curtained off mysteriously, that a man may go -behind the curtain and smoke. Nobody thinks of a woman doing -so. It is regarded as a dark, bohemian, and almost brutally -masculine indulgence; exactly as it was regarded by the -dowagers in Thackeray's novels. Indeed, this is one of the -many such cases in which extremes meet; the extremes of -stuffy antiquity and cranky modernity. The American dowager -is sorry that tobacco was ever introduced; and the American -suffragette and social reformer is considering whether -tobacco ought not to be abolished. The tone of American -society suggests some sort of compromise, by which women -will be allowed to smoke, but men forbidden to do so. - -In one respect, however, America is very old indeed. In one -respect America is more historic than England; I might -almost say more archaeological than England. The record of -one period of the past, morally remote and probably -irrevocable, is there preserved in a more perfect form as a -pagan city is preserved at Pompeii. In a more general sense, -of course, it is easy to exaggerate the contrast as a mere -contrast between the old world and the new. There is a -superficial satire about the millionaire's daughter who has -recently become the wife of an aristocrat; but there is a -rather more subtle satire in the question of how long the -aristocrat has been aristocratic. There is often much -misplaced mockery of a marriage between an upstart's -daughter and a decayed relic of feudalism; when it is really -a marriage between an upstart's daughter and an upstart's -grandson. The sentimental socialist often seems to admit the -blue blood of the nobleman, even when he wants to shed it; -just as he seems to admit the marvellous brains of the -millionaire, even when he wants to blow them out. -Unfortunately (in the interests of social science, of -course) the sentimental socialist never does go so far as -bloodshed or blowing out brains; otherwise the colour and -quality of both blood and brains would probably be a -disappointment to him. There are certainly more American -families that really came over in the *Mayflower* than -English families that really came over with the Conqueror; -and an English county family clearly dating from the time of -the *Mayflower* would be considered a very traditional and -historic house. Nevertheless, there are ancient things in -England, though the aristocracy is hardly one of them. There -are buildings, there are institutions, there are even ideas -in England which do preserve, as in a perfect pattern, some -particular epoch of the past, and even of the remote past. A -man could study the Middle Ages in Lincoln as well as in -Rouen; in Canterbury as well as in Cologne. Even of the -Renaissance the same is true, at least on the literary side; -if Shakespeare was later he was also greater than Ronsard. -But the point is that the spirit and philosophy of the -periods were present in fullness and in freedom. The -guildsmen were as Christian in England as they were -anywhere; the poets were as pagan in England as they were -anywhere. Personally I do not admit that the men who served -patrons were freer than those who served patron saints. But -each fashion had its own kind of freedom; and the point is -that the English, in each case, had the fullness of that -kind of freedom. But there was another ideal of freedom -which the English never had at all; or, anyhow, never -expressed at all. There was an other ideal, the soul of -another epoch, round which we built no monuments and wrote -no masterpieces. You will find no traces of it in England; -but you will find them in America. - -The thing I mean was the real religion of the eighteenth -century. Its religion, in the more defined sense, was -generally Deism, as in Robespierre or Jefferson. In the more -general way of morals and atmosphere it was rather Stoicism, -as in the suicide of Wolfe Tone. It had certain very noble -and, as some would say, impossible ideals; as that a -politician should be poor, and should be proud of being -poor. It knew Latin; and therefore insisted on the strange -fancy that the Republic should be a public thing. Its -Republican simplicity was anything but a silly pose; unless -all martyrdom is a silly pose. Even of the prigs and -fanatics of the American and French Revolutions we can often -say, as Stevenson said of an American, that 'thrift and -courage glowed in him.' And its virtue and value for us is -that it did remember the things we now most tend to forget; -from the dignity of liberty to the danger of luxury. It did -really believe in self-determination, in the -self-determination of the self, as well as of the state. And -its determination was really determined. In short, it -believed in self-respect; and it is strictly true even of -its rebels and regicides that they desired chiefly to be -respectable. But there were in it the marks of religion as -well as respectability; it had a creed; it had a crusade. -Men died singing its songs; men starved rather than write -against its principles. And its principles were liberty, -equality, and fraternity, or the dogmas of the Declaration -of Independence. This was the idea that redeemed the dreary -negations of the eighteenth century; and there are still -corners of Philadelphia or Boston or Baltimore where we can -feel so suddenly in the silence its plain garb and formal -manners, that the walking ghost of Jefferson would hardly -surprise us. - -There is not the ghost of such a thing in England. In -England the real religion of the eighteenth century never -found freedom or scope. It never cleared a space in which to -build that cold and classic building called the Capitol. It -never made elbow-room for that free if sometimes frigid -figure called the Citizen. - -In eighteenth-century England he was crowded out, partly -perhaps by the relics of better things of the past, but -largely at least by the presence of much worse things in the -present. The worst things kept out the best things of the -eighteenth century. The ground was occupied by legal -fictions; by a godless Erastian church and a powerless -Hanoverian king. Its realties were an aristocracy of Regency -dandies, in costumes made to match Brighton Pavilion; a -paganism not frigid but florid. It was a touch of this -aristocratic waste in Fox that prevented that great man from -being a glorious exception. It is therefore well for us to -realise that there is something in history which we did not -experience; and therefore probably something in Americans -that we do not understand. There was this idealism at the -very beginning of their individualism. There was a note of -heroic publicity and honourable poverty which lingers in the -very name of Cincinnati. - -But I have another and special reason for noting this -historical fact; the fact that we English never made -anything upon the model of a capitol, while we can match -anybody with the model of a cathedral. It is far from -improbable that the latter model may again be a working -model. For I have myself felt, naturally and for a long -time, a warm sympathy with both those past ideals, which -seem to some so incompatible. I have felt the attraction of -the red cap as well as the red cross, of the Marseillaise as -well as the Magnificat. And even when they were in furious -conflict I have never altogether lost my sympathy for -either. But in the conflict between the Republic and the -Church, the point often made against the Church seems to me -much more of a point against the Republic.It is emphatically -the Republic and not the Church that I venerate as something -beautiful but belonging to the past. In fact I feel exactly -the same sort of sad respect for the republican ideal that -many mid-Victorian free-thinkers felt for the religious -ideal. The most sincere poets of that period were largely -divided between those who insisted, like Arnold and Clough, -that Christianity might be a ruin, but after all it must be -treated as a picturesque ruin; and those, like Swinburne, -who insisted that it might be a picturesque ruin, but after -all it must be treated as a ruin. But surely their own pagan -temple of political liberty is now much more of a ruin than -the other; and I fancy I am one of the few who still take -off their hats in that ruined temple. That is why I went -about looking for the fading traces of that lost cause, in -the old-world atmosphere of the new world. - -But I do not, as a fact, feel that the cathedral is a ruin; -I doubt if I should feel it even if I wished to lay it in -ruins. I doubt if Mr. McCabe really thinks that Catholicism -is dying, though he might deceive himself into saying so. -Nobody could be naturally moved to say that the crowded -cathedral of St. Patrick in New York was a ruin, or even -that the unfinished Anglo-Catholic cathedral at Washington -was a ruin, though it is not yet a church; or that there is -anything lost or lingering about the splendid and spirited -Gothic churches springing up under the inspiration of -Mr. Cram of Boston. As a matter of feeling, as a matter of -fact, as a matter quite apart from theory or opinion, it is -not in the religious centres that we now have the feeling of -something beautiful but receding, of something loved but -lost. It is exactly in the spaces cleared and levelled by -America for the large and sober religion of the eighteenth -century; it is where an old house in Philadelphia contains -an old picture of Franklin, or where the men of Maryland -raised above their city the first monument of Washington. It -is there that I feel like one who treads alone some banquet -hall deserted, whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead, -and all save he departed. It is then that I feel as if I -were the last Republican. - -But when I say that the Republic of the Age of Reason is now -a ruin, I should rather say that at its best it is a ruin. -At its worst it has collapsed into a death-trap or is -rotting like a dunghill. What is the real Republic of our -day, as distinct from the ideal Republic of our fathers, but -a heap of corrupt capitalism crawling with worms; with those -parasites, the professional politicians? I was re-reading -Swinburne's bitter but not ignoble poem, Before a Crucifix, -in which he bids Christ, or the ecclesiastical image of -Christ, stand out of the way of the onward march of -political idealism represented by United Italy or the French -Republic. I was struck by the strange and ironic exactitude -with which every taunt he flings at the degradation of the -old divine ideal would now fit the degradation of his own -human ideal. The time has already come when we can ask his -Goddess of Liberty, as represented by the actual Liberals, -'Have *you* filled full men's starved-out souls; have *you* -brought freedom on the earth?' For every engine in which -these old free-thinkers firmly and confidently trusted has -itself become an engine of oppression and even of class -oppression. Its free Parliament has become an oligarchy. Its -free press has become a monopoly. If the pure Church has -been corrupted in the course of two thousand years, what -about the pure Republic that has rotted into a filthy -plutocracy in less than a hundred? +The heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone; especially to +a wood-cut or a lithographic stone. Modern people put their trust in +pictures, especially scientific pictures, as much as the most +superstitious ever put it in religious pictures. They publish a portrait +of the Missing Link as if he were the Missing Man, for whom the police +are always advertising; for all the world as if the anthropoid had been +photographed before he absconded. The scientific diagram may be a +hypothesis; it may be a fancy; it may be a forgery. But it is always an +idol in the true sense of an image; and an image in the true sense of a +thing mastering the imagination and not the reason. The power of these +talismanic pictures is almost hypnotic to modern humanity. We can never +forget that we have seen a portrait of the Missing Link; though we +should instantly detect the lapse of logic into superstition, if we were +told that the old Greek agnostics had made a statue of the Unknown God. +But there is a still stranger fashion in which we fall victims to the +same trick of fancy. We accept in a blind and literal spirit, not only +images of speculation, but even figures of speech. The nineteenth +century prided itself on having lost its faith in myths, and proceeded +to put all its faith in metaphors. It dismissed the old doctrines about +the way of life and the light of the world; and then it proceeded to +talk as if the light of truth were really and literally a light, that +could be absorbed by merely opening our eyes; or as if the path of +progress were really and truly a path, to be found by merely following +our noses. Thus the purpose of God is an idea, true or false; but the +purpose of Nature is merely a metaphor; for obviously if there is no God +there is no purpose. Yet while men, by an imaginative instinct, spoke of +the purpose of God with a grand agnosticism, as something too large to +be seen, something reaching out to worlds and to eternities, they talk +of the purpose of Nature in particular and practical problems of curing +babies or cutting up rabbits. The power of the modern metaphor must be +understood, by way of an introduction, if we are to understand one of +the chief errors, at once evasive and pervasive, which perplex the +problem of America. + +America is always spoken of as a young nation; and whether or no this be +a valuable and suggestive metaphor, very few people notice that it is a +metaphor at all. If somebody said that a certain deserving charity had +just gone into trousers, we should recognise that it was a figure of +speech, and perhaps a rather surprising figure of speech. If somebody +said that a daily paper had recently put its hair up, we should know it +could only be a metaphor, and possibly a rather strained metaphor. Yet +these phrases would mean the only thing that can possibly be meant by +calling a corporate association of all sorts of people young; that is, +that a certain institution has only existed for a certain time. I am not +now denying that such a corporate nationality may happen to have a +psychology comparatively analogous to the psychology of youth. I am not +even denying that America has it. I am only pointing out, to begin with, +that we must free our selves from the talismanic tyranny of a metaphor +which we do recognise as a metaphor. Men realised that the old mystical +doctrines were mystical; they do not realise that the new metaphors are +metaphorical. They have some, sort of hazy notion that American society +must be growing, must be promising, must have the virtues of hope or the +faults of ignorance, merely *because* it has only had a separate +existence since the eighteenth century. And that is exactly like saying +that a new chapel must be growing taller, or that a limited liability +company will soon have its second teeth. + +Now in truth this particular conception of American hopefulness would be +anything but hopeful for America. If the argument really were, as it is +still vaguely supposed to be, that America must have a long life before +it, because it only started in the eighteenth century, we should find a +very fatal answer by looking at the other political systems that did +start in the eighteenth century. The eighteenth century was called the +Age of Reason; and there is a very real sense in which the other systems +were indeed started in a spirit of reason. But starting from reason has +not saved them from ruin. If we survey the Europe of to-day with real +clarity and historic comprehension, we shall see that it is precisely +the most recent and the most rationalistic creations that have been +ruined. The two great states which did most definitely and emphatically +deserve to be called modern states were Prussia and Russia. There was no +real Prussia before Frederick the Great; no real Russian Empire before +Peter the Great. Both those innovators recognised themselves as +rationalists bringing a new reason and order into an indeterminate +barbarism; and doing for the barbarians what the barbarians could not do +for themselves. They did not, like the kings of England or France or +Spain or Scotland, inherit a sceptre that was the symbol of a historic +and patriotic people. In this sense there was no Russia but only an +Emperor of Russia. In this sense Prussia was a kingdom before it was a +nation; if it ever was a nation. But anyhow both men were particularly +modern in their whole mood and mind. They were modern to the extent of +being not only anti-traditional, but almost anti-patriotic. Peter forced +the science of the West on Russia to the regret of many Russians. +Frederick talked the French of Voltaire and not the German of Luther. +The two experiments were entirely in the spirit of Voltairien +rationalism; they were built in broad daylight by men who believed in +nothing but the light of common day; and already their day is done. + +If then the promise of America were in the fact that she is one of the +latest births of progress, we should point out that it is exactly the +latest born that were the first to die. If in this sense she is praised +as young, it may be answered that the young have died young, and have +not lived to be old. And if this be confused with the argument that she +came in an age of clarity and scepticism, uncontaminated by old +superstitions, it could still be retorted that the works of superstition +have survived the works of scepticism. But the truth is, of course, that +the real quality of America is much more subtle and complex than this; +and is mixed not only of good and bad, and rational and mystical, but +also of old and new. That is what makes the task of tracing the true +proportions of American life so interesting and so impossible. + +To begin with, such a metaphor is always as distracting as a mixed +metaphor. It is a double-edged tool that cuts both ways; and +consequently opposite ways. We use the same word young to mean two +opposite extremes. We mean something at an early stage of growth, and +also something having the latest fruits of growth. We might call a +commonwealth young if it conducted all its daily conversation by +wireless telegraphy; meaning that it was progressive. But we might also +call it young if it conducted all its industry with chipped flints; +meaning that it was primitive. These two meanings of youth are +hopelessly mixed up when the word is applied to America. But what is +more curious, the two elements really are wildly entangled in America. +America is in some ways what is called in advance of the times, and in +some ways what is called behind the times; but it seems a little +confusing to convey both notions by the same word. + +On the one hand, Americans often are successful in the last inventions. +And for that very reason they are often neglectful of the last but one. +It is true of men in general, dealing with things in general, that while +they are progressing in one thing, such as science, they are going back +in another thing, such as art. What is less fully realized is that this +is true even as between different methods of science. The perfection of +wireless telegraphy might well be followed by the gross imperfection of +wires. The very enthusiasm of American science brings this out very +vividly. The telephone in New York works miracles all day long. Replies +from remote places come as promptly as in a private talk; nobody cuts +anybody off; nobody says, 'Sorry you ve been troubled.' But then the +postal service of New York does not work at all. At least I could never +discover it working. Letters lingered in it for days and days, as in +some wild village of the Pyrenees. When I asked a taxi-driver to drive +me to a post-office, a look of far-off vision and adventure came into +his eyes, and he said he had once heard of a post-office somewhere near +West Ninety-Seventh Street. Men are not efficient in everything, but +only in the fashionable thing. This may be a mark of the march of +science; it does certainly in one sense deserve the description of +youth. We can imagine a very young person forgetting the old toy in the +excitement of a new one. + +But on the other hand, American manners contain much that is called +young in the contrary sense; in the sense of an earlier stage of +history. There are whole patches and particular aspects that seem to me +quite Early Victorian. I cannot help having this sensation, for +instance, about the arrangement for smoking in the railway carriages. +There are no smoking carriages, as a rule; but a corner of each of the +great cars is curtained off mysteriously, that a man may go behind the +curtain and smoke. Nobody thinks of a woman doing so. It is regarded as +a dark, bohemian, and almost brutally masculine indulgence; exactly as +it was regarded by the dowagers in Thackeray's novels. Indeed, this is +one of the many such cases in which extremes meet; the extremes of +stuffy antiquity and cranky modernity. The American dowager is sorry +that tobacco was ever introduced; and the American suffragette and +social reformer is considering whether tobacco ought not to be +abolished. The tone of American society suggests some sort of +compromise, by which women will be allowed to smoke, but men forbidden +to do so. + +In one respect, however, America is very old indeed. In one respect +America is more historic than England; I might almost say more +archaeological than England. The record of one period of the past, +morally remote and probably irrevocable, is there preserved in a more +perfect form as a pagan city is preserved at Pompeii. In a more general +sense, of course, it is easy to exaggerate the contrast as a mere +contrast between the old world and the new. There is a superficial +satire about the millionaire's daughter who has recently become the wife +of an aristocrat; but there is a rather more subtle satire in the +question of how long the aristocrat has been aristocratic. There is +often much misplaced mockery of a marriage between an upstart's daughter +and a decayed relic of feudalism; when it is really a marriage between +an upstart's daughter and an upstart's grandson. The sentimental +socialist often seems to admit the blue blood of the nobleman, even when +he wants to shed it; just as he seems to admit the marvellous brains of +the millionaire, even when he wants to blow them out. Unfortunately (in +the interests of social science, of course) the sentimental socialist +never does go so far as bloodshed or blowing out brains; otherwise the +colour and quality of both blood and brains would probably be a +disappointment to him. There are certainly more American families that +really came over in the *Mayflower* than English families that really +came over with the Conqueror; and an English county family clearly +dating from the time of the *Mayflower* would be considered a very +traditional and historic house. Nevertheless, there are ancient things +in England, though the aristocracy is hardly one of them. There are +buildings, there are institutions, there are even ideas in England which +do preserve, as in a perfect pattern, some particular epoch of the past, +and even of the remote past. A man could study the Middle Ages in +Lincoln as well as in Rouen; in Canterbury as well as in Cologne. Even +of the Renaissance the same is true, at least on the literary side; if +Shakespeare was later he was also greater than Ronsard. But the point is +that the spirit and philosophy of the periods were present in fullness +and in freedom. The guildsmen were as Christian in England as they were +anywhere; the poets were as pagan in England as they were anywhere. +Personally I do not admit that the men who served patrons were freer +than those who served patron saints. But each fashion had its own kind +of freedom; and the point is that the English, in each case, had the +fullness of that kind of freedom. But there was another ideal of freedom +which the English never had at all; or, anyhow, never expressed at all. +There was an other ideal, the soul of another epoch, round which we +built no monuments and wrote no masterpieces. You will find no traces of +it in England; but you will find them in America. + +The thing I mean was the real religion of the eighteenth century. Its +religion, in the more defined sense, was generally Deism, as in +Robespierre or Jefferson. In the more general way of morals and +atmosphere it was rather Stoicism, as in the suicide of Wolfe Tone. It +had certain very noble and, as some would say, impossible ideals; as +that a politician should be poor, and should be proud of being poor. It +knew Latin; and therefore insisted on the strange fancy that the +Republic should be a public thing. Its Republican simplicity was +anything but a silly pose; unless all martyrdom is a silly pose. Even of +the prigs and fanatics of the American and French Revolutions we can +often say, as Stevenson said of an American, that 'thrift and courage +glowed in him.' And its virtue and value for us is that it did remember +the things we now most tend to forget; from the dignity of liberty to +the danger of luxury. It did really believe in self-determination, in +the self-determination of the self, as well as of the state. And its +determination was really determined. In short, it believed in +self-respect; and it is strictly true even of its rebels and regicides +that they desired chiefly to be respectable. But there were in it the +marks of religion as well as respectability; it had a creed; it had a +crusade. Men died singing its songs; men starved rather than write +against its principles. And its principles were liberty, equality, and +fraternity, or the dogmas of the Declaration of Independence. This was +the idea that redeemed the dreary negations of the eighteenth century; +and there are still corners of Philadelphia or Boston or Baltimore where +we can feel so suddenly in the silence its plain garb and formal +manners, that the walking ghost of Jefferson would hardly surprise us. + +There is not the ghost of such a thing in England. In England the real +religion of the eighteenth century never found freedom or scope. It +never cleared a space in which to build that cold and classic building +called the Capitol. It never made elbow-room for that free if sometimes +frigid figure called the Citizen. + +In eighteenth-century England he was crowded out, partly perhaps by the +relics of better things of the past, but largely at least by the +presence of much worse things in the present. The worst things kept out +the best things of the eighteenth century. The ground was occupied by +legal fictions; by a godless Erastian church and a powerless Hanoverian +king. Its realties were an aristocracy of Regency dandies, in costumes +made to match Brighton Pavilion; a paganism not frigid but florid. It +was a touch of this aristocratic waste in Fox that prevented that great +man from being a glorious exception. It is therefore well for us to +realise that there is something in history which we did not experience; +and therefore probably something in Americans that we do not understand. +There was this idealism at the very beginning of their individualism. +There was a note of heroic publicity and honourable poverty which +lingers in the very name of Cincinnati. + +But I have another and special reason for noting this historical fact; +the fact that we English never made anything upon the model of a +capitol, while we can match anybody with the model of a cathedral. It is +far from improbable that the latter model may again be a working model. +For I have myself felt, naturally and for a long time, a warm sympathy +with both those past ideals, which seem to some so incompatible. I have +felt the attraction of the red cap as well as the red cross, of the +Marseillaise as well as the Magnificat. And even when they were in +furious conflict I have never altogether lost my sympathy for either. +But in the conflict between the Republic and the Church, the point often +made against the Church seems to me much more of a point against the +Republic.It is emphatically the Republic and not the Church that I +venerate as something beautiful but belonging to the past. In fact I +feel exactly the same sort of sad respect for the republican ideal that +many mid-Victorian free-thinkers felt for the religious ideal. The most +sincere poets of that period were largely divided between those who +insisted, like Arnold and Clough, that Christianity might be a ruin, but +after all it must be treated as a picturesque ruin; and those, like +Swinburne, who insisted that it might be a picturesque ruin, but after +all it must be treated as a ruin. But surely their own pagan temple of +political liberty is now much more of a ruin than the other; and I fancy +I am one of the few who still take off their hats in that ruined temple. +That is why I went about looking for the fading traces of that lost +cause, in the old-world atmosphere of the new world. + +But I do not, as a fact, feel that the cathedral is a ruin; I doubt if I +should feel it even if I wished to lay it in ruins. I doubt if +Mr. McCabe really thinks that Catholicism is dying, though he might +deceive himself into saying so. Nobody could be naturally moved to say +that the crowded cathedral of St. Patrick in New York was a ruin, or +even that the unfinished Anglo-Catholic cathedral at Washington was a +ruin, though it is not yet a church; or that there is anything lost or +lingering about the splendid and spirited Gothic churches springing up +under the inspiration of Mr. Cram of Boston. As a matter of feeling, as +a matter of fact, as a matter quite apart from theory or opinion, it is +not in the religious centres that we now have the feeling of something +beautiful but receding, of something loved but lost. It is exactly in +the spaces cleared and levelled by America for the large and sober +religion of the eighteenth century; it is where an old house in +Philadelphia contains an old picture of Franklin, or where the men of +Maryland raised above their city the first monument of Washington. It is +there that I feel like one who treads alone some banquet hall deserted, +whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead, and all save he departed. It +is then that I feel as if I were the last Republican. + +But when I say that the Republic of the Age of Reason is now a ruin, I +should rather say that at its best it is a ruin. At its worst it has +collapsed into a death-trap or is rotting like a dunghill. What is the +real Republic of our day, as distinct from the ideal Republic of our +fathers, but a heap of corrupt capitalism crawling with worms; with +those parasites, the professional politicians? I was re-reading +Swinburne's bitter but not ignoble poem, Before a Crucifix, in which he +bids Christ, or the ecclesiastical image of Christ, stand out of the way +of the onward march of political idealism represented by United Italy or +the French Republic. I was struck by the strange and ironic exactitude +with which every taunt he flings at the degradation of the old divine +ideal would now fit the degradation of his own human ideal. The time has +already come when we can ask his Goddess of Liberty, as represented by +the actual Liberals, 'Have *you* filled full men's starved-out souls; +have *you* brought freedom on the earth?' For every engine in which +these old free-thinkers firmly and confidently trusted has itself become +an engine of oppression and even of class oppression. Its free +Parliament has become an oligarchy. Its free press has become a +monopoly. If the pure Church has been corrupted in the course of two +thousand years, what about the pure Republic that has rotted into a +filthy plutocracy in less than a hundred? > O hidden face of man, whereover > @@ -6268,3012 +5264,2521 @@ plutocracy in less than a hundred? > And in gold shekels coin thy love. Which has most to do with shekels to-day, the priests or the -politicians? Can we say in any special sense nowadays that -clergymen, as such, make a poison out of the blood of the -martyrs? Can we say it in any thing like the real sense, in -which we do say that yellow journalists make a poison out of -the blood of the soldiers? - -But I understand how Swinburne felt when con fronted by the -image of the carven Christ, and, perplexed by the contrast -between its claims and its con sequences, he said his -strange farewell to it, hastily in deed, but not without -regret, not even really without respect. I felt the same -myself when I looked for the last time on their Statue of -Liberty. +politicians? Can we say in any special sense nowadays that clergymen, as +such, make a poison out of the blood of the martyrs? Can we say it in +any thing like the real sense, in which we do say that yellow +journalists make a poison out of the blood of the soldiers? + +But I understand how Swinburne felt when con fronted by the image of the +carven Christ, and, perplexed by the contrast between its claims and its +con sequences, he said his strange farewell to it, hastily in deed, but +not without regret, not even really without respect. I felt the same +myself when I looked for the last time on their Statue of Liberty. # Is the Atlantic Narrowing? -A certain kind of question is asked very earnestly in our -time. Because of a certain logical quality in it, connected -with premises and data, it is very difficult to answer. Thus -people will ask what is the hidden weakness in the Celtic -race that makes it everywhere fail or fade away; or how the -Germans contrived to bring all their organisation into a -state of such perfect efficiency; and what was the -significance of the recent victory of Prussia. Or they will -ask by what stages the modern world has abandoned all belief -in miracles; and the modern newspapers ceased to print any -news of murders. They will ask why English politics are free -from corruption; or by what mental and moral training -certain millionaires were enabled to succeed by sheer force -of character; in short, they will ask why plutocrats govern -well and how it is that pigs fly, spreading their pink -pinions to the breeze or delighting us as they twitter and -flutter from tree to tree. The logical difficulty of -answering these questions is connected with an old story -about Charles the Second and a bowl of goldfish, and with -another anecdote about a gentleman who was asked, 'When did -you leave off beating your wife?' But there is something -analogous to it in the present discussions about the forces -drawing England and America together. It seems as if the -reasoners hardly went far enough back in their argument, or -took trouble enough to disentangle their assumptions. They -are still moving with the momentum of the peculiar -nineteenth-century notion of progress; of certain very -simple tendencies perpetually increasing and needing no -special analysis. It is so with the international -*rapprochement* I have to consider here. - -In other places I have ventured to express a doubt about -whether nations can be drawn together by an ancient rumour -about races; by a sort of prehistoric chit-chat or the -gossip of the Stone Age. I have ventured farther; and even -expressed a doubt about whether they ought to be drawn -together, or rather dragged together, by the brute violence -of the engines of science and speed. But there is yet -another horrible doubt haunting my morbid mind, which it -will be better for my constitution to confess frankly. And -that is the doubt about whether they are being drawn -together at all. - -It has long been a conversational commonplace among the -enlightened that all countries are coming closer and closer -to each other. It was a conversational common place among -the enlightened, somewhere about the year 1913, that all -wars were receding farther and farther into a barbaric past. -There is something about these sayings that seems simple and -familiar and entirely satisfactory when we say them; they -are of that consoling sort which we can say without any of -the mental pain of thinking what we are saying. But if we -turn our attention from the phrases we use to the facts that -we talk about, we shall realise at least that there are a -good many facts on the other side and examples pointing the -other way. For instance, it does happen occasionally, from -time to time, that people talk about Ireland. He would be a -very hilarious humanitarian who should maintain that Ireland -and England have been more and more assimilated during the -last hundred years. The very name of Sinn Fein is an answer -to it, and the very language in which that phrase is spoken. -Curran and Shell would no more have dreamed of uttering the -watchword of 'Repeal' in Gaelic than of uttering it in Zulu. -Grattan could hardly have brought himself to believe that -the real repeal of the Union would actually be signed in -London in the strange script as remote as the snaky ornament -of the Celtic crosses. It would have seemed like Washington -signing the Declaration of Independence in the -picture-writing of the Red Indians. Ireland has clearly -grown away from England; and her language, literature, and -type of patriotism are far less English than they were. On -the other hand, no one will pretend that the mass of modern -Englishmen are much nearer to talking Gaelic or decorating -Celtic crosses. A hundred years ago it was perfectly natural -that Byron and Moore should walk down the street arm in arm. -Even the sight of Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Mr. W. B. Yeats -walking down the street arm in arm would now arouse some -remark. - -I could give any number of other examples of the same new -estrangement of nations. I could cite the obvious facts that -Norway and Sweden parted company not very long ago, that -Austria and Hungary have again become separate States. I -could point to the mob of new nations that have started up -after the war; to the fact that the great empires are now -nearly all broken up; that the Russian Empire no longer -directs Poland, that the Austrian Empire no longer directs -Bohemia, that the Turkish Empire no longer directs -Palestine. Sinn Fein is the separatism of the Irish. Zionism -is the separatism of the Jews. But there is one simple and -sufficing example, which is here more to my purpose, and is -at least equally sufficient for it. And that is the -deepening national difference between the Americans and the -English. - -Let me test it first by my individual experience in the -matter of literature. When I was a boy I read a book like -*The Autocrat of the Breakfast-table* exactly as I read -another book like *The Book of Snobs*. I did not think of it -as an American book, but simply as a book. Its wit and idiom -were like those of the English literary tradition; and its -few touches of local colour seemed merely accidental, like -those of an Englishman who happened to be living in -Switzerland or Sweden. My father and my father's friends -were rightly enthusiastic for the book; so that it seemed to -come to me by inheritance like *Gulliver's Travels* or -*Tristram Shandy*. Its language was as English as Ruskin, -and a great deal more English than Carlyle. Well, I have -seen in later years an almost equally wide and well-merited -popularity of the stories of O. Henry. But never for one -moment could I or any one else reading them forget that they -were stories by an American about America. The very first -fact about them is that they are told with an American -accent, that is, in the unmistakable tones of a brilliant -and fascinating foreigner. And the same is true of every -other recent work of which the fame has managed to cross the -Atlantic. We did not say that *The Spoon River Anthology* -was a new book, but that it was a new book from America. It -was exactly as if a remarkable realistic novel was reported -from Russia or Italy. We were in no danger of confusing it -with the 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard.' People in England -who heard of Main Street were not likely to identify it with -a High Street; with the principal thoroughfare in any little -town in Berkshire or Buckinghamshire. But when I was a boy I -practically identified the boarding-house of the Autocrat -with any boarding-house I happened to know in Brompton or -Brighton. No doubt there were differences; but the point is -that the differences did not pierce the consciousness or -prick the illusion. I said to myself, 'People are like this -in boarding-houses,' not 'People are like this in Boston.' - -This can be seen even in the simple matter of language, -especially in the sense of slang. Take, for instance, the -delightful sketch in the causerie of Oliver Wendell Holmes; -the character of the young man called John. He is a very -modern type in every modern country who does specialise in -slang. He is the young fellow who is something in the City; -the everyday young man of the Gilbertian song, with a stick -and a pipe and a half-bred black-and-tan. In every country -he is at once witty and commonplace. In every country, -therefore, he tends both to the vivacity and the vulgarity -of slang. But when he appeared in Holmes's book, his -language was not very different from what it would have been -in a Brighton instead of a Boston boarding-house; or, in -short, if the young man called John had more commonly been -called 'Arry. If he had appeared in a modern American book, -his language would have been almost literally -unintelligible. At the least an Englishman would have to -read some of the best sentences twice, as he sometimes has -to read the dizzy and involved metaphors of O. Henry. Nor is -it an answer that this depended on the personalities of the -particular writers. A comparison between the real journalism -of the time of Holmes and the real journalism of the time of -Henry reveals the same thing. It is the expansion of a -slight difference of style into a luxuriant difference of -idiom; and the process continued indefinitely would -certainly produce a totally different language. After a few -centuries the signatures of American ambassadors would look -as fantastic as Gaelic, and the very name of the Republic be -as strange as Sinn Fein. - -It is true that there has been on the surface a certain -amount of give and take; or at least, as far as the English -are concerned, of take rather than give. But it is true that -it was once all the other way; and indeed the one thing is -something like a just nemesis of the other. Indeed, the -story of the reversal is somewhat singular, when we come to -think of it. It began in a certain atmosphere and spirit of -certain well-meaning people who talked about the -English-speaking race; and were apparently indifferent to -how the English was spoken, whether in the accent of a -Jamaican Negro or a convict from Botany Bay. It was their -logical tendency to say that Dante was a Dago. It was their -logical punishment to say that Disraeli was an Englishman. -Now there may have been a period when this Anglo-American -amalgamation included more or less equal elements from -England and America. It never included the larger elements, -or the more valuable elements of either. But, on the whole, -I think it true to say that it was not an allotment but an -interchange of parts; and that things first went all one way -and then all the other. People began by telling the -Americans that they owed all their past triumphs to England; -which was false. They ended up by telling the English that -they would owe all their future triumphs to America; which -is if possible still more false. Because we chose to forget -that New York had been New Amsterdam, we are now in danger -of forgetting that London is not New York. Because we -insisted that Chicago was only a pious imitation of -Chiswick, we may yet see Chiswick an inferior imitation of -Chicago. Our Anglo-Saxon historians attempted that conquest -in which Howe and Burgoyne had failed, and with infinitely -less justification on their side. They attempted the great -crime of the Anglicisation of America. They have called down -the punishment of the Americanisation of England. We must -not murmur; but it is a heavy punishment. - -It may lift a little of its load, however, if we look at it -more closely; we shall then find that though it is very much -on top of us, it is only on top. In that sense such -Americanisation as there is is very superficial. For -instance, there is a certain amount of American slang picked -up at random; it appears in certain pushing types of -journalism and drama. But we may easily dwell too much on -this tragedy; of people who have never spoken English -beginning to speak American. I am far from suggesting that -American, like any other foreign language, may not -frequently contribute to the common culture of the world -phrases for which there is no substitute; there are French -phrases so used in England and English phrases in France. -The word 'high-brow,' for instance, is a real discovery and -revelation, a new and necessary name for something that -walked nameless but enormous in the modern world, a shaft of -light and a stroke of lightning. That comes from America and -belongs to the world, as much as 'The Raven' or *The Scarlet -Letter* or the novels of Henry James belong to the world. In -fact, I can imagine Henry James originating it in the throes -of self-expression, and bringing out a word like -high-browed, with a sort of gentle jerk, at the end of -searching sentences which groped sensitively until they -found the phrase. But most of the American slang that is -borrowed seems to be borrowed for no particular reason. It -either has no point or the point is lost by translation into -another context and culture. It is either something which -does not need any grotesque and exaggerative description, or -of which there already exists a grotesque and exaggerative -description more native to our tongue and soil. For -instance, I cannot see that the strong and simple expression -'Now it is for you to pull the police magistrate's nose' is -in any way strengthened by saying, 'Now it is up to you to -pull the police magistrate's nose.' When Tennyson says of -the men of the Light Brigade 'Theirs but to do and die,' the -expression seems to me perfectly lucid. 'Up to them to do -and die' would alter the metre without especially clarifying -the meaning. This is an example of ordinary language being -quite adequate; but there is a further difficulty that even -wild slang comes to sound like ordinary language. Very often -the English have already as humorous and fanciful idiom of -their own, only that through habit it has lost its humour. -When Keats wrote the line, 'What pipes and timbrels, what -wild ecstasy!' I am willing to believe that the American -humorist would have expressed the same sentiment by -beginning the sentence with 'Some pipe!' When that was first -said, somewhere in the wilds of Colorado, it was really -funny; involving a powerful understatement and the -suggestion of a mere sample. If a spinster has informed us -that she keeps a bird, and we find it is an ostrich, there -will be considerable point in the Colorado satirist saying -inquiringly, 'Some bird?' as if he were offering us a small -slice of a small plover. But if we go back to this root and -rationale of a joke, the English language already contains -quite as good a joke. It is not necessary to say, 'Some -bird;' there is a far finer irony in the old expression, -'Something like a bird.' It suggests that the speaker sees -something faintly and strangely birdlike about a bird; that -it remotely and almost irrationally reminds him of a bird; -and that there is about ostrich plumes a yard long something -like the faint and delicate traces of a feather. It has -every quality of imaginative irony, except that nobody even -imagines it to be ironical. All that happens is that people -get tired of that turn of phrase, take up a foreign phrase -and get tired of that, without realising the point of -either. All that happens is that a number of weary people -who used to say 'Something like a bird,' now say, 'Some -bird,' with undiminished weariness. But they might just as -well use dull and decent English; for in both cases they are -only using jocular language without seeing the joke. - -There is indeed a considerable trade in the transplantation -of these American jokes to England just now. They generally -pine and die in our climate, or they are dead before their -arrival; but we cannot be certain that they were never -alive. There is a sort of unending frieze or scroll of -decorative designs unrolled ceaselessly before the British -public, about a hen-pecked husband, which is -indistinguishable to the eye from an actual self-repeating -pattern like that of the Greek key, but which is imported as -if it were as precious and irreplaceable as the Elgin -Marbles. Advertisement and syndication make mountains out of -the most funny little mole-hills; but no doubt the -mole-hills are picturesque enough in their own landscape. In -any case there is nothing so national as humour; and many -things, like many people, can be humorous enough when they -are at home. But these American jokes are boomed as solemnly -as American religions; and their supporters gravely testify -that they are funny, without seeing the fun of it for a -moment. This is partly perhaps the spirit of spontaneous -institutionalism in American democracy, breaking out in the -wrong place. They make humour an institution; and a man will -be set to tell an anecdote as if to play the violin. But -when the story is told in America it really is amusing; and -when these jokes are reprinted in England they are often not -even intelligible. With all the stupidity of the millionaire -and the monopolist, the enterprising proprietor prints jokes -in England which are necessarily unintelligible to nearly -every English person; jokes referring to domestic and local -conditions quite peculiar to America. I saw one of these -narrative caricatures the other day in which the whole of -the joke (what there was of it) turned on the astonishment -of a housewife at the absurd notion of not having an -ice-box. It is perfectly true that nearly every ordinary -American housewife possesses an ice-box. An ordinary English -housewife would no more expect to possess an ice-box than to -possess an iceberg. And it would be about as sensible to tow -an iceberg to an English port all the way from the North -Pole, as to trail that one pale and frigid joke to Fleet -Street all the way from the New York papers. It is the same -with a hundred other advertisements and adaptions. I have -already confessed that I took a considerable delight in the -dancing illuminations of Broadway---in Broadway. Everything -there is suitable to them, the vast interminable -thoroughfare, the toppling houses, the dizzy and rest less -spirit of the whole city. It is a city of dissolving views, -and one may almost say a city in everlasting dis solution. -But I do not especially admire a burning fragment of -Broadway stuck up opposite the old Georgian curve of Regent -Street. I would as soon express sympathy with the Republic -of Switzerland by erecting a small Alp, with imitation snow, -in the middle of St. James's Park. - -But all this commercial copying is very superficial; and -above all, it never copies anything that is, really worth -copying. Nations never *learn* anything from each other in -this way. We have many things to learn from America; but we -only listen to those Americans who have still to learn them. -Thus, for instance, we do not import the small farm but only -the big shop. In other words, we hear nothing of the -democracy of the Middle West, but everything of the -plutocracy of the middleman, who is probably as unpopular in -the Middle West as the miller in the Middle Ages. If -Mr. Elihu K. Pike could be transplanted bodily from the -neighbourhood of his home town of Marathon, Neb., with his -farm and his frame-house and all its fittings, and they -could be set down exactly in the spot now occupied by -Selfridge's (which could be easily cleared away for the -purpose), I think we could really get a great deal of good -by watching him, even if the watching were inevitably a -little too like watching a wild beast in a cage or an insect -under a glass case. Urban crowds could collect every day -behind a barrier or railing, and gaze at Mr. Pike pottering -about all day in his ancient and autochthonous occupations. -We could see him growing Indian corn with all the gravity of -an Indian; though it is impossible to imagine Mrs. Pike -blessing the cornfield in the manner of Minnehaha. As I have -said, there is a certain lack of humane myth and mysticism -about this Puritan peasantry. But we could see him -transforming the maize into pop-corn, which is a very -pleasant domestic ritual and pastime, and is the American -equivalent of the glory of roasting chestnuts. Above all, -many of us would learn for the first time that a man can -really live and walk about upon something more productive -than a pavement; and that when he does so he can really be a -free man, and have no lord but the law. Instead of that, -America can give nothing to London but those multiple modern -shops, of which it has too many already. I know that many -people entertain the innocent illusion that big shops are -more efficient than small ones; but that is only because the -big combinations have the monopoly of advertisement as well -as trade. The big shop is not in the least remarkable for -efficiency; it is only too big to be blamed for its -inefficiency. It is secure in its reputation for always -sacking the wrong man. A big shop, considered as a place to -shop in, is simply a village of small shops roofed in to -keep out the light and air; and one in which none of the -shopkeepers are really responsible for their shops. If any -one has any doubts on this matter, since I have mentioned -it, let him consider this fact: that in practice we never do -apply this method of commercial combination to anything that -matters very much. We do not go to the surgical department -of the Stores to have a portion of our brain removed by a -delicate operation; and then pass on to the advocacy -department to employ one or any of its barristers, when we -are in temporary danger of being hanged. We go to men who -own their own tools and are responsible for the use of their -own talents. And the same truth applies to that other modern -method of advertisement, which has also so largely fallen -across us like the gigantic shadow of America. Nations do -not arm themselves for a mortal struggle by remembering -which sort of submarine they have seen most often on the -hoardings. They can do it about something like soap, -precisely because a nation will not perish by having a -second-rate sort of soap, as it might by having a -second-rate sort of submarine. A nation may indeed perish -slowly by having a second-rate sort of food or drink or -medicine; but that is another and much longer story, and the -story is not ended yet. But nobody wins a great battle at a -great crisis because somebody has told him that Cadgerboy's -Cavalry Is the Best. It may be that commercial enterprise -will eventually cover these fields also, and -advertisement-agents will provide the instruments of the -surgeon and the weapons of the soldier. When that happens, -the armies will be defeated and the patients will die. But -though we modern people are indeed patients, in the sense of -being merely receptive and accepting things with astonishing -patience, we are not dead yet; and we have lingering gleams -of sanity. - -For the best things do not travel. As I appear here as a -traveller, I may say with all modesty that the best people -do not travel either. Both in England and America the normal -people are the national people; and I repeat that I think -they are growing more and more national. I do not think the -abyss is being bridged by cosmopolitan theories; and I am -sure I do not want it bridged by all this slang journalism -and blatant advertisement. I have called all that commercial -publicity the gigantic shadow of America. It may be the -shadow of America, but it is not the light of America. The -light lies far beyond, a level light upon the lands of -sunset, where it shines upon wide places full of a very -simple and a very happy people; and those who would see it -must seek for it. +A certain kind of question is asked very earnestly in our time. Because +of a certain logical quality in it, connected with premises and data, it +is very difficult to answer. Thus people will ask what is the hidden +weakness in the Celtic race that makes it everywhere fail or fade away; +or how the Germans contrived to bring all their organisation into a +state of such perfect efficiency; and what was the significance of the +recent victory of Prussia. Or they will ask by what stages the modern +world has abandoned all belief in miracles; and the modern newspapers +ceased to print any news of murders. They will ask why English politics +are free from corruption; or by what mental and moral training certain +millionaires were enabled to succeed by sheer force of character; in +short, they will ask why plutocrats govern well and how it is that pigs +fly, spreading their pink pinions to the breeze or delighting us as they +twitter and flutter from tree to tree. The logical difficulty of +answering these questions is connected with an old story about Charles +the Second and a bowl of goldfish, and with another anecdote about a +gentleman who was asked, 'When did you leave off beating your wife?' But +there is something analogous to it in the present discussions about the +forces drawing England and America together. It seems as if the +reasoners hardly went far enough back in their argument, or took trouble +enough to disentangle their assumptions. They are still moving with the +momentum of the peculiar nineteenth-century notion of progress; of +certain very simple tendencies perpetually increasing and needing no +special analysis. It is so with the international *rapprochement* I have +to consider here. + +In other places I have ventured to express a doubt about whether nations +can be drawn together by an ancient rumour about races; by a sort of +prehistoric chit-chat or the gossip of the Stone Age. I have ventured +farther; and even expressed a doubt about whether they ought to be drawn +together, or rather dragged together, by the brute violence of the +engines of science and speed. But there is yet another horrible doubt +haunting my morbid mind, which it will be better for my constitution to +confess frankly. And that is the doubt about whether they are being +drawn together at all. + +It has long been a conversational commonplace among the enlightened that +all countries are coming closer and closer to each other. It was a +conversational common place among the enlightened, somewhere about the +year 1913, that all wars were receding farther and farther into a +barbaric past. There is something about these sayings that seems simple +and familiar and entirely satisfactory when we say them; they are of +that consoling sort which we can say without any of the mental pain of +thinking what we are saying. But if we turn our attention from the +phrases we use to the facts that we talk about, we shall realise at +least that there are a good many facts on the other side and examples +pointing the other way. For instance, it does happen occasionally, from +time to time, that people talk about Ireland. He would be a very +hilarious humanitarian who should maintain that Ireland and England have +been more and more assimilated during the last hundred years. The very +name of Sinn Fein is an answer to it, and the very language in which +that phrase is spoken. Curran and Shell would no more have dreamed of +uttering the watchword of 'Repeal' in Gaelic than of uttering it in +Zulu. Grattan could hardly have brought himself to believe that the real +repeal of the Union would actually be signed in London in the strange +script as remote as the snaky ornament of the Celtic crosses. It would +have seemed like Washington signing the Declaration of Independence in +the picture-writing of the Red Indians. Ireland has clearly grown away +from England; and her language, literature, and type of patriotism are +far less English than they were. On the other hand, no one will pretend +that the mass of modern Englishmen are much nearer to talking Gaelic or +decorating Celtic crosses. A hundred years ago it was perfectly natural +that Byron and Moore should walk down the street arm in arm. Even the +sight of Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Mr. W. B. Yeats walking down the street +arm in arm would now arouse some remark. + +I could give any number of other examples of the same new estrangement +of nations. I could cite the obvious facts that Norway and Sweden parted +company not very long ago, that Austria and Hungary have again become +separate States. I could point to the mob of new nations that have +started up after the war; to the fact that the great empires are now +nearly all broken up; that the Russian Empire no longer directs Poland, +that the Austrian Empire no longer directs Bohemia, that the Turkish +Empire no longer directs Palestine. Sinn Fein is the separatism of the +Irish. Zionism is the separatism of the Jews. But there is one simple +and sufficing example, which is here more to my purpose, and is at least +equally sufficient for it. And that is the deepening national difference +between the Americans and the English. + +Let me test it first by my individual experience in the matter of +literature. When I was a boy I read a book like *The Autocrat of the +Breakfast-table* exactly as I read another book like *The Book of +Snobs*. I did not think of it as an American book, but simply as a book. +Its wit and idiom were like those of the English literary tradition; and +its few touches of local colour seemed merely accidental, like those of +an Englishman who happened to be living in Switzerland or Sweden. My +father and my father's friends were rightly enthusiastic for the book; +so that it seemed to come to me by inheritance like *Gulliver's Travels* +or *Tristram Shandy*. Its language was as English as Ruskin, and a great +deal more English than Carlyle. Well, I have seen in later years an +almost equally wide and well-merited popularity of the stories of O. +Henry. But never for one moment could I or any one else reading them +forget that they were stories by an American about America. The very +first fact about them is that they are told with an American accent, +that is, in the unmistakable tones of a brilliant and fascinating +foreigner. And the same is true of every other recent work of which the +fame has managed to cross the Atlantic. We did not say that *The Spoon +River Anthology* was a new book, but that it was a new book from +America. It was exactly as if a remarkable realistic novel was reported +from Russia or Italy. We were in no danger of confusing it with the +'Elegy in a Country Churchyard.' People in England who heard of Main +Street were not likely to identify it with a High Street; with the +principal thoroughfare in any little town in Berkshire or +Buckinghamshire. But when I was a boy I practically identified the +boarding-house of the Autocrat with any boarding-house I happened to +know in Brompton or Brighton. No doubt there were differences; but the +point is that the differences did not pierce the consciousness or prick +the illusion. I said to myself, 'People are like this in +boarding-houses,' not 'People are like this in Boston.' + +This can be seen even in the simple matter of language, especially in +the sense of slang. Take, for instance, the delightful sketch in the +causerie of Oliver Wendell Holmes; the character of the young man called +John. He is a very modern type in every modern country who does +specialise in slang. He is the young fellow who is something in the +City; the everyday young man of the Gilbertian song, with a stick and a +pipe and a half-bred black-and-tan. In every country he is at once witty +and commonplace. In every country, therefore, he tends both to the +vivacity and the vulgarity of slang. But when he appeared in Holmes's +book, his language was not very different from what it would have been +in a Brighton instead of a Boston boarding-house; or, in short, if the +young man called John had more commonly been called 'Arry. If he had +appeared in a modern American book, his language would have been almost +literally unintelligible. At the least an Englishman would have to read +some of the best sentences twice, as he sometimes has to read the dizzy +and involved metaphors of O. Henry. Nor is it an answer that this +depended on the personalities of the particular writers. A comparison +between the real journalism of the time of Holmes and the real +journalism of the time of Henry reveals the same thing. It is the +expansion of a slight difference of style into a luxuriant difference of +idiom; and the process continued indefinitely would certainly produce a +totally different language. After a few centuries the signatures of +American ambassadors would look as fantastic as Gaelic, and the very +name of the Republic be as strange as Sinn Fein. + +It is true that there has been on the surface a certain amount of give +and take; or at least, as far as the English are concerned, of take +rather than give. But it is true that it was once all the other way; and +indeed the one thing is something like a just nemesis of the other. +Indeed, the story of the reversal is somewhat singular, when we come to +think of it. It began in a certain atmosphere and spirit of certain +well-meaning people who talked about the English-speaking race; and were +apparently indifferent to how the English was spoken, whether in the +accent of a Jamaican Negro or a convict from Botany Bay. It was their +logical tendency to say that Dante was a Dago. It was their logical +punishment to say that Disraeli was an Englishman. Now there may have +been a period when this Anglo-American amalgamation included more or +less equal elements from England and America. It never included the +larger elements, or the more valuable elements of either. But, on the +whole, I think it true to say that it was not an allotment but an +interchange of parts; and that things first went all one way and then +all the other. People began by telling the Americans that they owed all +their past triumphs to England; which was false. They ended up by +telling the English that they would owe all their future triumphs to +America; which is if possible still more false. Because we chose to +forget that New York had been New Amsterdam, we are now in danger of +forgetting that London is not New York. Because we insisted that Chicago +was only a pious imitation of Chiswick, we may yet see Chiswick an +inferior imitation of Chicago. Our Anglo-Saxon historians attempted that +conquest in which Howe and Burgoyne had failed, and with infinitely less +justification on their side. They attempted the great crime of the +Anglicisation of America. They have called down the punishment of the +Americanisation of England. We must not murmur; but it is a heavy +punishment. + +It may lift a little of its load, however, if we look at it more +closely; we shall then find that though it is very much on top of us, it +is only on top. In that sense such Americanisation as there is is very +superficial. For instance, there is a certain amount of American slang +picked up at random; it appears in certain pushing types of journalism +and drama. But we may easily dwell too much on this tragedy; of people +who have never spoken English beginning to speak American. I am far from +suggesting that American, like any other foreign language, may not +frequently contribute to the common culture of the world phrases for +which there is no substitute; there are French phrases so used in +England and English phrases in France. The word 'high-brow,' for +instance, is a real discovery and revelation, a new and necessary name +for something that walked nameless but enormous in the modern world, a +shaft of light and a stroke of lightning. That comes from America and +belongs to the world, as much as 'The Raven' or *The Scarlet Letter* or +the novels of Henry James belong to the world. In fact, I can imagine +Henry James originating it in the throes of self-expression, and +bringing out a word like high-browed, with a sort of gentle jerk, at the +end of searching sentences which groped sensitively until they found the +phrase. But most of the American slang that is borrowed seems to be +borrowed for no particular reason. It either has no point or the point +is lost by translation into another context and culture. It is either +something which does not need any grotesque and exaggerative +description, or of which there already exists a grotesque and +exaggerative description more native to our tongue and soil. For +instance, I cannot see that the strong and simple expression 'Now it is +for you to pull the police magistrate's nose' is in any way strengthened +by saying, 'Now it is up to you to pull the police magistrate's nose.' +When Tennyson says of the men of the Light Brigade 'Theirs but to do and +die,' the expression seems to me perfectly lucid. 'Up to them to do and +die' would alter the metre without especially clarifying the meaning. +This is an example of ordinary language being quite adequate; but there +is a further difficulty that even wild slang comes to sound like +ordinary language. Very often the English have already as humorous and +fanciful idiom of their own, only that through habit it has lost its +humour. When Keats wrote the line, 'What pipes and timbrels, what wild +ecstasy!' I am willing to believe that the American humorist would have +expressed the same sentiment by beginning the sentence with 'Some pipe!' +When that was first said, somewhere in the wilds of Colorado, it was +really funny; involving a powerful understatement and the suggestion of +a mere sample. If a spinster has informed us that she keeps a bird, and +we find it is an ostrich, there will be considerable point in the +Colorado satirist saying inquiringly, 'Some bird?' as if he were +offering us a small slice of a small plover. But if we go back to this +root and rationale of a joke, the English language already contains +quite as good a joke. It is not necessary to say, 'Some bird;' there is +a far finer irony in the old expression, 'Something like a bird.' It +suggests that the speaker sees something faintly and strangely birdlike +about a bird; that it remotely and almost irrationally reminds him of a +bird; and that there is about ostrich plumes a yard long something like +the faint and delicate traces of a feather. It has every quality of +imaginative irony, except that nobody even imagines it to be ironical. +All that happens is that people get tired of that turn of phrase, take +up a foreign phrase and get tired of that, without realising the point +of either. All that happens is that a number of weary people who used to +say 'Something like a bird,' now say, 'Some bird,' with undiminished +weariness. But they might just as well use dull and decent English; for +in both cases they are only using jocular language without seeing the +joke. + +There is indeed a considerable trade in the transplantation of these +American jokes to England just now. They generally pine and die in our +climate, or they are dead before their arrival; but we cannot be certain +that they were never alive. There is a sort of unending frieze or scroll +of decorative designs unrolled ceaselessly before the British public, +about a hen-pecked husband, which is indistinguishable to the eye from +an actual self-repeating pattern like that of the Greek key, but which +is imported as if it were as precious and irreplaceable as the Elgin +Marbles. Advertisement and syndication make mountains out of the most +funny little mole-hills; but no doubt the mole-hills are picturesque +enough in their own landscape. In any case there is nothing so national +as humour; and many things, like many people, can be humorous enough +when they are at home. But these American jokes are boomed as solemnly +as American religions; and their supporters gravely testify that they +are funny, without seeing the fun of it for a moment. This is partly +perhaps the spirit of spontaneous institutionalism in American +democracy, breaking out in the wrong place. They make humour an +institution; and a man will be set to tell an anecdote as if to play the +violin. But when the story is told in America it really is amusing; and +when these jokes are reprinted in England they are often not even +intelligible. With all the stupidity of the millionaire and the +monopolist, the enterprising proprietor prints jokes in England which +are necessarily unintelligible to nearly every English person; jokes +referring to domestic and local conditions quite peculiar to America. I +saw one of these narrative caricatures the other day in which the whole +of the joke (what there was of it) turned on the astonishment of a +housewife at the absurd notion of not having an ice-box. It is perfectly +true that nearly every ordinary American housewife possesses an ice-box. +An ordinary English housewife would no more expect to possess an ice-box +than to possess an iceberg. And it would be about as sensible to tow an +iceberg to an English port all the way from the North Pole, as to trail +that one pale and frigid joke to Fleet Street all the way from the New +York papers. It is the same with a hundred other advertisements and +adaptions. I have already confessed that I took a considerable delight +in the dancing illuminations of Broadway---in Broadway. Everything there +is suitable to them, the vast interminable thoroughfare, the toppling +houses, the dizzy and rest less spirit of the whole city. It is a city +of dissolving views, and one may almost say a city in everlasting dis +solution. But I do not especially admire a burning fragment of Broadway +stuck up opposite the old Georgian curve of Regent Street. I would as +soon express sympathy with the Republic of Switzerland by erecting a +small Alp, with imitation snow, in the middle of St. James's Park. + +But all this commercial copying is very superficial; and above all, it +never copies anything that is, really worth copying. Nations never +*learn* anything from each other in this way. We have many things to +learn from America; but we only listen to those Americans who have still +to learn them. Thus, for instance, we do not import the small farm but +only the big shop. In other words, we hear nothing of the democracy of +the Middle West, but everything of the plutocracy of the middleman, who +is probably as unpopular in the Middle West as the miller in the Middle +Ages. If Mr. Elihu K. Pike could be transplanted bodily from the +neighbourhood of his home town of Marathon, Neb., with his farm and his +frame-house and all its fittings, and they could be set down exactly in +the spot now occupied by Selfridge's (which could be easily cleared away +for the purpose), I think we could really get a great deal of good by +watching him, even if the watching were inevitably a little too like +watching a wild beast in a cage or an insect under a glass case. Urban +crowds could collect every day behind a barrier or railing, and gaze at +Mr. Pike pottering about all day in his ancient and autochthonous +occupations. We could see him growing Indian corn with all the gravity +of an Indian; though it is impossible to imagine Mrs. Pike blessing the +cornfield in the manner of Minnehaha. As I have said, there is a certain +lack of humane myth and mysticism about this Puritan peasantry. But we +could see him transforming the maize into pop-corn, which is a very +pleasant domestic ritual and pastime, and is the American equivalent of +the glory of roasting chestnuts. Above all, many of us would learn for +the first time that a man can really live and walk about upon something +more productive than a pavement; and that when he does so he can really +be a free man, and have no lord but the law. Instead of that, America +can give nothing to London but those multiple modern shops, of which it +has too many already. I know that many people entertain the innocent +illusion that big shops are more efficient than small ones; but that is +only because the big combinations have the monopoly of advertisement as +well as trade. The big shop is not in the least remarkable for +efficiency; it is only too big to be blamed for its inefficiency. It is +secure in its reputation for always sacking the wrong man. A big shop, +considered as a place to shop in, is simply a village of small shops +roofed in to keep out the light and air; and one in which none of the +shopkeepers are really responsible for their shops. If any one has any +doubts on this matter, since I have mentioned it, let him consider this +fact: that in practice we never do apply this method of commercial +combination to anything that matters very much. We do not go to the +surgical department of the Stores to have a portion of our brain removed +by a delicate operation; and then pass on to the advocacy department to +employ one or any of its barristers, when we are in temporary danger of +being hanged. We go to men who own their own tools and are responsible +for the use of their own talents. And the same truth applies to that +other modern method of advertisement, which has also so largely fallen +across us like the gigantic shadow of America. Nations do not arm +themselves for a mortal struggle by remembering which sort of submarine +they have seen most often on the hoardings. They can do it about +something like soap, precisely because a nation will not perish by +having a second-rate sort of soap, as it might by having a second-rate +sort of submarine. A nation may indeed perish slowly by having a +second-rate sort of food or drink or medicine; but that is another and +much longer story, and the story is not ended yet. But nobody wins a +great battle at a great crisis because somebody has told him that +Cadgerboy's Cavalry Is the Best. It may be that commercial enterprise +will eventually cover these fields also, and advertisement-agents will +provide the instruments of the surgeon and the weapons of the soldier. +When that happens, the armies will be defeated and the patients will +die. But though we modern people are indeed patients, in the sense of +being merely receptive and accepting things with astonishing patience, +we are not dead yet; and we have lingering gleams of sanity. + +For the best things do not travel. As I appear here as a traveller, I +may say with all modesty that the best people do not travel either. Both +in England and America the normal people are the national people; and I +repeat that I think they are growing more and more national. I do not +think the abyss is being bridged by cosmopolitan theories; and I am sure +I do not want it bridged by all this slang journalism and blatant +advertisement. I have called all that commercial publicity the gigantic +shadow of America. It may be the shadow of America, but it is not the +light of America. The light lies far beyond, a level light upon the +lands of sunset, where it shines upon wide places full of a very simple +and a very happy people; and those who would see it must seek for it. # Lincoln and Lost Causes -It has already been remarked here that the English know a -great deal about past American literature, M but nothing -about past American history. They do not know either, of -course, as well as they know the present American -advertising, which is the least important of the three. But -it is worth noting once more how little they know of the -history, and how illogically that little is chosen. They -have heard, no doubt, of the fame and the greatness of Henry -Clay. He is a cigar. But it would be unwise to cross-examine -any Englishman, who may be consuming that luxury at the -moment, about the Missouri Compromise or the controversies -with Andrew Jackson. And just as the statesman of Kentucky -is a cigar, so the state of Virginia is a cigarette. But -there is perhaps one exception, or half-exception, to this -simple plan. It would perhaps be an exaggeration to say that -Plymouth Rock is a chicken. Any English person keeping -chickens, and chiefly interested in Plymouth Rocks -considered as chickens, would nevertheless have a hazy -sensation of having seen the word somewhere before. He would -feel subconsciously that the Plymouth Rock had not always -been a chicken. Indeed, the name connotes something not only -solid but antiquated; and is not therefore a very tactful -name for a chicken. There-would rise up before him something -memorable in the haze that he calls his history; and he -would see the history books of his boyhood and old -engravings of men in steeple-crowned hats struggling with -sea-waves or Red Indians. The whole thing would suddenly -become clear to him if (by a simple reform) the chickens -were called Pilgrim Fathers. - -Then he would remember all about it. The Pilgrim Fathers -were champions of religious liberty; and they discovered -America. It is true that he has also heard of a man called -Christopher Columbus; but that was in connection with an -egg. He has also heard of somebody known as Sir Walter -Raleigh; and though his principal possession was a cloak, it -is also true that he had a potato, not to mention a pipe of -tobacco. Can it be possible that he brought it from -Virginia, where the cigarettes come from? Gradually the -memories will come back and fit themselves together for the -average hen-wife who learnt history at the English -elementary schools, and who has now something better to do. -Even when the narrative becomes consecutive, it will not -necessarily be come correct. It is not strictly true to say -that the Pilgrim Fathers discovered America. But it is quite -as true as saying that they were champions of religious -liberty. If we said that they were martyrs who would have -died heroically in torments rather than tolerate any -religious liberty, we should be talking something like sense -about them, and telling the real truth that is their due. -The whole Puritan movement, from the Solemn League and -Covenant to the last stand of the last Stuarts, was a -struggle against religious toleration, or what they would -have called religious indifference. The first religious -equality on earth was established by a Catholic cavalier in -Maryland. Now there is nothing in this to diminish any -dignity that belongs to any real virtues and virilities in -the Pilgrim Fathers; on the contrary, it is rather to the -credit of their consistency and conviction. But there is no -doubt that the note of their whole experiment in New England -was intolerance, and even inquisition. And there is no doubt -that New England was then only the newest and not the oldest -of these colonial experiments. At least two cavaliers had -been in the field before any Puritans. And they had carried -with them much more of the atmosphere and nature of the -normal Englishman than any Puritan could possibly carry. -They had established it especially in Virginia, which had -been founded by a great Elizabethan and named after the -great Elizabeth. Before there was any New England in the -North, there was something very like Old England in the -South. Relatively speaking, there is still. - -Whenever the anniversary of the *Mayflower* comes round, -there is a chorus of Anglo-American congratulation and -comradeship, as if this at least were a matter on which all -can agree. But I knew enough about America, even before I -went there, to know that there are a good many people there -at any rate who do not agree with it. Long ago I wrote a -protest in which I asked why English men had forgotten the -great state of Virginia, the first in foundation and long -the first in leadership; and why a few crabbed -Nonconformists should have the right to erase a record that -begins with Raleigh and ends with Lee, and incidentally -includes Washington. The great state of Virginia was the -backbone of America until it was broken in the Civil War. -From Virginia came the first great Presidents and most of -the Fathers of the "Republic. Its adherence to the Southern -side in the war was what made it a great war, and for a long -time a doubtful war. And in the leader of the Southern -armies it produced what is perhaps the one modern figure -that may come to shine like St. Louis in the lost battle, or -Hector dying before holy Troy. - -Again, it is characteristic that while the modern English -know nothing about Lee they do know something about Lincoln; -and nearly all that they know is wrong. They know nothing of -his Southern connections, nothing of his considerable -Southern sympathy, nothing of the meaning of his moderation -in face of the problem of slavery, now lightly treated as -self-evident. Above all, they know nothing about the respect -in which Lincoln was quite un-English, was indeed the very -reverse of English; and can be understood better if we think -of him as a Frenchman, since it seems so hard for some of us -to believe that he was an American. I mean his lust for -logic for its own sake, and the way he kept mathematical -truths in his mind like the fixed stars. He was so far from -being a merely practical man, impatient of academic -abstractions, that he reviewed and revelled in academic -abstractions, even while he could not apply them to -practical life. He loved to repeat that slavery was -intolerable while he tolerated it, and to prove that -something ought to be done while it was impossible to do it. -This was probably very bewildering to his -brother-politicians; for politicians always whitewash what -they do not destroy. But for all that this inconsistency -beat the politicians at their own game, and this abstracted -logic proved the most practical of all. For when the chance -did come to do something, there was no doubt about the thing -to be done. The thunderbolt fell from the clear heights of -heaven; it had not been tossed about and lost like a common -missile in the market-place. The matter is worth mentioning, -because it has a moral for a much larger modern question. A -wise man's attitude towards industrial capitalism will be -very like Lincoln's attitude towards slavery. That is, he -will manage to endure capitalism; but he will not endure a -defence of. capitalism. He will recognise the value, not -only of knowing what he is doing, but of knowing what he -would like to do. He will recognise the importance of having -a thing clearly labelled in his own mind as bad, long before -the opportunity comes to abolish it. He may recognise the -risk of even worse things in immediate abolition, as Lincoln -did in abolitionism. He will not call all business men -brutes, any more than Lincoln would call all planters -demons; because he knows they are not. He will regard many -alternatives to capitalism as crude and inhuman, as Lincoln -regarded John Brown's raid; because they are. But he will -clear his mind from cant about capitalism; he will have no -doubt of what is the truth about Trusts and Trade Combines -and the concentration of. capital; and it is the truth that -they endure under one of the. ironic silences of heaven, -over the pageants and the passing triumphs of hell. - -But the name of Lincoln has a more immediate reference to -the international matters I am considering here. His name -has been much invoked by English politicians and journalists -in connection with the quarrel with Ireland. And if we study -the matter, we shall hardly admire the tact and sagacity of -those journalists and politicians. - -History is an eternal tangle of cross-purposes; and we could -not take a clearer case, or rather a more complicated case, -of such a tangle, than the facts lying behind a political -parallel recently mentioned by many politicians, I mean the -parallel between the movement for Irish independence and the -attempted secession of the Southern Confederacy in America. -Superficially any one might say that the comparison is -natural enough; and that there is much in common between the -quarrel of the North and South in Ireland and the quarrel of -the North and South in America. In both cases the South was -on the whole agricultural, the North on the whole -industrial. True, the parallel exaggerates the position of -Belfast; to complete it we must suppose the whole Federal -system to have consisted of Pittsburg. In both the side that -was more successful was felt by many to be less attractive. -In both the same political terms were used, such as the term -'Union' and 'Unionism.' An ordinary Englishman comes to -America, knowing these main lines of American history, and -knowing that the Americans know the similar main lines of -Irish history. He knows that there are strong champions of -Ireland in America; possibly he also knows that there are -very genuine champions of England in America. By every -possible historical analogy, he would naturally expect to -find the pro-Irish in the South and the pro-English in the -North. As a matter of fact, he finds almost exactly the -opposite. He finds Boston governed by Irishmen, and -Nashville containing people more pro-English than -Englishmen. He finds Virginians not only of British blood, -like George Washington, but of British opinions almost -worthy of George the Third. - -But I do not say this, as will be seen in a moment, as a -criticism of the comparative Toryism of the South. I say it -as a criticism of the superlative stupidity of English -propaganda. In another chapter, I remark on the need for a -new sort of English propaganda; a propaganda that should be -really English and have some remote reference to England. -Now if it were a matter of making foreigners feel the real -humours and humanities of England, there are no Americans so -able or willing to do it as the Americans of the Southern -States. As I have already hinted, some of them are so loyal -to the English humanities, that they think it their duty to -defend even the English inhumanities. New England is turning -into New Ireland. But Old England can still be faintly -traced in Old Dixie. It contains some of the best things -that England herself has had, and therefore (of course) the -things that England herself has lost, or is trying to lose. -But above all, as I have said, there are people in these -places whose historic memories and family traditions really -hold them to us, not by alliance but by affection. Indeed, -they have the affection in spite of the alliance. They love -us in spite of our compliments and courtesies and hands -across the sea; all our ambassadorial salutations and -speeches cannot kill their love. They manage even to respect -us in spite of the shady Jew stockbrokers we send them as -English envoys, or the 'efficient' men, who are sent out to -be tactful with foreigners because they have been too -tactless with trades unionists. This type of traditional -American, North or South, really has some traditions -connecting him with England; and though he is now in a very -small minority, I cannot imagine why England should wish to -make it smaller. England once sympathised with the South. -The South still sympathises with England. It would seem that -the South, or some elements in the South, had rather the -advantage of us in political firmness and fidelity; but it -does not follow that fidelity will stand every shock. And at -this moment, and in this matter, of all things in the world, -our political propagandists must try to bolster British -Imperialism up, by kicking Southern Secession when it is -down. The English politicians eagerly point out that we -shall be justified in crushing Ireland exactly as Sumner and -Stevens crushed the most English part of America. It does -not seem to occur to them that this comparison between the -Unionist triumph in America and a Unionist triumph in -Britain is rather hard upon our particular sympathisers, who -did not triumph. When England exults in Lincoln's victory -over his foes, she is exulting in his victory over her own -friends. If her diplomacy continues as delicate and -chivalrous as it is at present, they may soon be her only -friends. England will be defending herself at the expense of -her only defenders. But however this may be, it is as well -to bear witness to some of the elements of my own -experience; and I can answer for it, at least, that there -are some people in the South who will not be pleased at -being swept into the rubbish-heap of history as rebels and -ruffians; and who will not, I regret to say, by any means -enjoy even being classed with Fenians and Sinn Feiners. - -Now touching the actual comparison between the conquest of -the Confederacy and the conquest of Ireland, there are, of -course, a good many things to be said which politicians -cannot be expected to understand. Strange to say, it is not -certain that a lost cause was never worth winning; and it -would be easy to argue that the world lost very much indeed -when that particular cause was lost. These are not days in -which it is exactly obvious that an agricultural society was -more dangerous than an industrial one. And even Southern -slavery had this one moral merit, that it was decadent; it -has this one historic advantage, that it is dead. The -Northern slavery, industrial slavery, or what is called wage -slavery, is not decaying but increasing; and the end of it -is not yet. But in any case, it would be well for us to -realise that the reproach of resembling the Confederacy does -not ring in all ears as an unanswerable condemnation. It is -scarcely a self-evident or sufficient argument, to some -hearers, even to prove that the English are as delicate and -philanthropic as Sherman, still less that the Irish are as -criminal and lawless as Lee. Nor will it soothe every single -soul on the American continent to say that the English -victory in Ireland will be followed by a reconstruction, -like the reconstruction exhibited in the film called 'The -Birth of a Nation.' And, indeed, there is a further -inference from that fine panorama of the exploits of the -Ku-Klux-Klan. It would be easy, as I say, to turn the -argument entirely in favour of the Confederacy. It would be -easy to draw the moral, not that the Southern Irish are as -wrong as the Southern States, but that the Southern States -were as right as the Southern Irish. But upon the whole, I -do not incline to accept the parallel in that sense any more -than in the opposite sense. For reasons I have already given -elsewhere, I do believe that in the main Abraham Lincoln was -right. But right in what? - -If Lincoln was right, he was right in guessing that there -was not really a Northern nation and a Southern nation, but -only one American nation. And if he has been proved right, -he has been proved right by the fact that men in the South, -as well as the North, do now feel a patriotism for that -American nation. His wisdom, if it really was wisdom, was -justified not by his opponents being conquered, but by their -being converted. Now, if the English politicians must insist -on this parallel, they ought to see that the parallel is -fatal to themselves. The very test which proved Lincoln -right has proved them wrong. The very judgment which may -have justified him quite unquestionably condemns them. We -have again and again conquered Ireland, and have never come -an inch nearer to converting Ireland. We have had not one -Gettysburg, but twenty Gettysburgs; but we have had no -Union. And that is where, as I have remarked, it is relevant -to remember that flying fantastic vision on the films that -told so many people what no histories have told them. I -occasionally heard in America rumours of the local -reappearance of the Ku-Klux-Klan; but the smallness and -mildness of the manifestation, as compared with the old -Southern or the new Irish case, is alone a sufficient -example of the exception that proves the rule. To -approximate to any resemblance to recent Irish events, we -must imagine the Ku-Klux-Klan riding again in more than the -terrors of that vision, wild as the wind, white as the moon, -terrible as an army with banners. If there were really such -a revival of the Southern action, there would equally be a -revival of the Southern argument. It would be clear that Lee -was right and Lincoln was wrong; that the Southern States -were national and were as indestructible as nations. If the -South were as rebellious as Ireland, the North would be as -wrong as England. - -But I desire a new English diplomacy that will exhibit, not -the things in which England is wrong but the things in which -England 19 right. And England is right in England, just as -she is wrong in Ireland; and it is exactly that Tightness of -a real nation in itself that it is at once most difficult -and most desirable to explain to foreigners. Now the -Irishman, and to some extent the American, has remained -alien to England, largely because he does not truly realise -that the Englishman loves England, still less can he really -imagine why the Englishman loves England. That is why I -insist on the stupidity of ignoring and insulting the -opinions of those few Virginians and other Southerners who -really have some inherited notion of why Englishmen love -England; and even love it in something of the same fashion -themselves. Politicians who do not know the English spirit -when they see it at home, cannot of course be expected to -recognise it abroad. Publicists are eloquently praising -Abraham Lincoln, for all the wrong reasons; but -fundamentally for that worst and vilest of all -reasons---that he succeeded. None of them seems to have the -least notion of how to look for England in England; and they -would see something fantastic in the figure of a traveller -who found it elsewhere, or anywhere but in New England. And -it is well, perhaps, that they have not yet found England -where it is hidden in England; for if they found it, they -would kill it. - -All I am concerned to consider here is the inevitable -failure of this sort of Anglo-American propaganda to create -a friendship. To praise Lincoln as an Englishman is about as -appropriate as if we were praising Lincoln as an English -town. We are talking about something totally different. And -indeed the whole conversation is rather like some such -cross-purposes about some such word as 'Lincoln;' in which -one party should be talking about the President and the -other about the cathedral. It is like some wild bewilderment -in a farce, with one man wondering how a President could -have a church-spire, and the other wondering how a church -could have a chin-beard. And the moral is the moral on which -I would insist everywhere in this book; that the remedy is -to be found in disentangling the two and not in entangling -them further. You could not produce a democrat of the -logical type of Lincoln merely out of the moral materials -that now make up an English cathedral town, like that on -which Old Tom of Lincoln looks down. But on the other hand, -it is quite certain that a hundred Abraham Lincolns, working -for a hundred years, could not build Lincoln Cathedral. And -the farcical allegory of an attempt to make Old Tom and Old -Abe embrace to the glory of the illogical Anglo-Saxon -language is but a symbol of something that is always being -attempted, and always attempted in vain. It is not by mutual -imitation that the understanding can come. It is not by -erecting New York sky-scrapers in London that New York can -learn the sacred significance of the towers of Lincoln. It -is not by English dukes importing the daughters of American -millionaires that England can get any glimpse of the -democratic dignity of American men. I have the best of all -reasons for knowing that a stranger can be welcomed in -America; and just as he is courteously treated in the -country as a stranger, so he should always be careful to -treat it as a strange land. That sort of imaginative -respect, as for something different and even distant, is the -only beginning of any attachment between patriotic peoples. -The English traveller may carry with him at least one word -of his own great language and literature; and whenever he is -inclined to say of anything 'This is passing strange,' he -may remember that it was no inconsiderable Englishman who -appended to it the answer, 'And therefore as a stranger give -it welcome.' +It has already been remarked here that the English know a great deal +about past American literature, M but nothing about past American +history. They do not know either, of course, as well as they know the +present American advertising, which is the least important of the three. +But it is worth noting once more how little they know of the history, +and how illogically that little is chosen. They have heard, no doubt, of +the fame and the greatness of Henry Clay. He is a cigar. But it would be +unwise to cross-examine any Englishman, who may be consuming that luxury +at the moment, about the Missouri Compromise or the controversies with +Andrew Jackson. And just as the statesman of Kentucky is a cigar, so the +state of Virginia is a cigarette. But there is perhaps one exception, or +half-exception, to this simple plan. It would perhaps be an exaggeration +to say that Plymouth Rock is a chicken. Any English person keeping +chickens, and chiefly interested in Plymouth Rocks considered as +chickens, would nevertheless have a hazy sensation of having seen the +word somewhere before. He would feel subconsciously that the Plymouth +Rock had not always been a chicken. Indeed, the name connotes something +not only solid but antiquated; and is not therefore a very tactful name +for a chicken. There-would rise up before him something memorable in the +haze that he calls his history; and he would see the history books of +his boyhood and old engravings of men in steeple-crowned hats struggling +with sea-waves or Red Indians. The whole thing would suddenly become +clear to him if (by a simple reform) the chickens were called Pilgrim +Fathers. + +Then he would remember all about it. The Pilgrim Fathers were champions +of religious liberty; and they discovered America. It is true that he +has also heard of a man called Christopher Columbus; but that was in +connection with an egg. He has also heard of somebody known as Sir +Walter Raleigh; and though his principal possession was a cloak, it is +also true that he had a potato, not to mention a pipe of tobacco. Can it +be possible that he brought it from Virginia, where the cigarettes come +from? Gradually the memories will come back and fit themselves together +for the average hen-wife who learnt history at the English elementary +schools, and who has now something better to do. Even when the narrative +becomes consecutive, it will not necessarily be come correct. It is not +strictly true to say that the Pilgrim Fathers discovered America. But it +is quite as true as saying that they were champions of religious +liberty. If we said that they were martyrs who would have died +heroically in torments rather than tolerate any religious liberty, we +should be talking something like sense about them, and telling the real +truth that is their due. The whole Puritan movement, from the Solemn +League and Covenant to the last stand of the last Stuarts, was a +struggle against religious toleration, or what they would have called +religious indifference. The first religious equality on earth was +established by a Catholic cavalier in Maryland. Now there is nothing in +this to diminish any dignity that belongs to any real virtues and +virilities in the Pilgrim Fathers; on the contrary, it is rather to the +credit of their consistency and conviction. But there is no doubt that +the note of their whole experiment in New England was intolerance, and +even inquisition. And there is no doubt that New England was then only +the newest and not the oldest of these colonial experiments. At least +two cavaliers had been in the field before any Puritans. And they had +carried with them much more of the atmosphere and nature of the normal +Englishman than any Puritan could possibly carry. They had established +it especially in Virginia, which had been founded by a great Elizabethan +and named after the great Elizabeth. Before there was any New England in +the North, there was something very like Old England in the South. +Relatively speaking, there is still. + +Whenever the anniversary of the *Mayflower* comes round, there is a +chorus of Anglo-American congratulation and comradeship, as if this at +least were a matter on which all can agree. But I knew enough about +America, even before I went there, to know that there are a good many +people there at any rate who do not agree with it. Long ago I wrote a +protest in which I asked why English men had forgotten the great state +of Virginia, the first in foundation and long the first in leadership; +and why a few crabbed Nonconformists should have the right to erase a +record that begins with Raleigh and ends with Lee, and incidentally +includes Washington. The great state of Virginia was the backbone of +America until it was broken in the Civil War. From Virginia came the +first great Presidents and most of the Fathers of the "Republic. Its +adherence to the Southern side in the war was what made it a great war, +and for a long time a doubtful war. And in the leader of the Southern +armies it produced what is perhaps the one modern figure that may come +to shine like St. Louis in the lost battle, or Hector dying before holy +Troy. + +Again, it is characteristic that while the modern English know nothing +about Lee they do know something about Lincoln; and nearly all that they +know is wrong. They know nothing of his Southern connections, nothing of +his considerable Southern sympathy, nothing of the meaning of his +moderation in face of the problem of slavery, now lightly treated as +self-evident. Above all, they know nothing about the respect in which +Lincoln was quite un-English, was indeed the very reverse of English; +and can be understood better if we think of him as a Frenchman, since it +seems so hard for some of us to believe that he was an American. I mean +his lust for logic for its own sake, and the way he kept mathematical +truths in his mind like the fixed stars. He was so far from being a +merely practical man, impatient of academic abstractions, that he +reviewed and revelled in academic abstractions, even while he could not +apply them to practical life. He loved to repeat that slavery was +intolerable while he tolerated it, and to prove that something ought to +be done while it was impossible to do it. This was probably very +bewildering to his brother-politicians; for politicians always whitewash +what they do not destroy. But for all that this inconsistency beat the +politicians at their own game, and this abstracted logic proved the most +practical of all. For when the chance did come to do something, there +was no doubt about the thing to be done. The thunderbolt fell from the +clear heights of heaven; it had not been tossed about and lost like a +common missile in the market-place. The matter is worth mentioning, +because it has a moral for a much larger modern question. A wise man's +attitude towards industrial capitalism will be very like Lincoln's +attitude towards slavery. That is, he will manage to endure capitalism; +but he will not endure a defence of. capitalism. He will recognise the +value, not only of knowing what he is doing, but of knowing what he +would like to do. He will recognise the importance of having a thing +clearly labelled in his own mind as bad, long before the opportunity +comes to abolish it. He may recognise the risk of even worse things in +immediate abolition, as Lincoln did in abolitionism. He will not call +all business men brutes, any more than Lincoln would call all planters +demons; because he knows they are not. He will regard many alternatives +to capitalism as crude and inhuman, as Lincoln regarded John Brown's +raid; because they are. But he will clear his mind from cant about +capitalism; he will have no doubt of what is the truth about Trusts and +Trade Combines and the concentration of. capital; and it is the truth +that they endure under one of the. ironic silences of heaven, over the +pageants and the passing triumphs of hell. + +But the name of Lincoln has a more immediate reference to the +international matters I am considering here. His name has been much +invoked by English politicians and journalists in connection with the +quarrel with Ireland. And if we study the matter, we shall hardly admire +the tact and sagacity of those journalists and politicians. + +History is an eternal tangle of cross-purposes; and we could not take a +clearer case, or rather a more complicated case, of such a tangle, than +the facts lying behind a political parallel recently mentioned by many +politicians, I mean the parallel between the movement for Irish +independence and the attempted secession of the Southern Confederacy in +America. Superficially any one might say that the comparison is natural +enough; and that there is much in common between the quarrel of the +North and South in Ireland and the quarrel of the North and South in +America. In both cases the South was on the whole agricultural, the +North on the whole industrial. True, the parallel exaggerates the +position of Belfast; to complete it we must suppose the whole Federal +system to have consisted of Pittsburg. In both the side that was more +successful was felt by many to be less attractive. In both the same +political terms were used, such as the term 'Union' and 'Unionism.' An +ordinary Englishman comes to America, knowing these main lines of +American history, and knowing that the Americans know the similar main +lines of Irish history. He knows that there are strong champions of +Ireland in America; possibly he also knows that there are very genuine +champions of England in America. By every possible historical analogy, +he would naturally expect to find the pro-Irish in the South and the +pro-English in the North. As a matter of fact, he finds almost exactly +the opposite. He finds Boston governed by Irishmen, and Nashville +containing people more pro-English than Englishmen. He finds Virginians +not only of British blood, like George Washington, but of British +opinions almost worthy of George the Third. + +But I do not say this, as will be seen in a moment, as a criticism of +the comparative Toryism of the South. I say it as a criticism of the +superlative stupidity of English propaganda. In another chapter, I +remark on the need for a new sort of English propaganda; a propaganda +that should be really English and have some remote reference to England. +Now if it were a matter of making foreigners feel the real humours and +humanities of England, there are no Americans so able or willing to do +it as the Americans of the Southern States. As I have already hinted, +some of them are so loyal to the English humanities, that they think it +their duty to defend even the English inhumanities. New England is +turning into New Ireland. But Old England can still be faintly traced in +Old Dixie. It contains some of the best things that England herself has +had, and therefore (of course) the things that England herself has lost, +or is trying to lose. But above all, as I have said, there are people in +these places whose historic memories and family traditions really hold +them to us, not by alliance but by affection. Indeed, they have the +affection in spite of the alliance. They love us in spite of our +compliments and courtesies and hands across the sea; all our +ambassadorial salutations and speeches cannot kill their love. They +manage even to respect us in spite of the shady Jew stockbrokers we send +them as English envoys, or the 'efficient' men, who are sent out to be +tactful with foreigners because they have been too tactless with trades +unionists. This type of traditional American, North or South, really has +some traditions connecting him with England; and though he is now in a +very small minority, I cannot imagine why England should wish to make it +smaller. England once sympathised with the South. The South still +sympathises with England. It would seem that the South, or some elements +in the South, had rather the advantage of us in political firmness and +fidelity; but it does not follow that fidelity will stand every shock. +And at this moment, and in this matter, of all things in the world, our +political propagandists must try to bolster British Imperialism up, by +kicking Southern Secession when it is down. The English politicians +eagerly point out that we shall be justified in crushing Ireland exactly +as Sumner and Stevens crushed the most English part of America. It does +not seem to occur to them that this comparison between the Unionist +triumph in America and a Unionist triumph in Britain is rather hard upon +our particular sympathisers, who did not triumph. When England exults in +Lincoln's victory over his foes, she is exulting in his victory over her +own friends. If her diplomacy continues as delicate and chivalrous as it +is at present, they may soon be her only friends. England will be +defending herself at the expense of her only defenders. But however this +may be, it is as well to bear witness to some of the elements of my own +experience; and I can answer for it, at least, that there are some +people in the South who will not be pleased at being swept into the +rubbish-heap of history as rebels and ruffians; and who will not, I +regret to say, by any means enjoy even being classed with Fenians and +Sinn Feiners. + +Now touching the actual comparison between the conquest of the +Confederacy and the conquest of Ireland, there are, of course, a good +many things to be said which politicians cannot be expected to +understand. Strange to say, it is not certain that a lost cause was +never worth winning; and it would be easy to argue that the world lost +very much indeed when that particular cause was lost. These are not days +in which it is exactly obvious that an agricultural society was more +dangerous than an industrial one. And even Southern slavery had this one +moral merit, that it was decadent; it has this one historic advantage, +that it is dead. The Northern slavery, industrial slavery, or what is +called wage slavery, is not decaying but increasing; and the end of it +is not yet. But in any case, it would be well for us to realise that the +reproach of resembling the Confederacy does not ring in all ears as an +unanswerable condemnation. It is scarcely a self-evident or sufficient +argument, to some hearers, even to prove that the English are as +delicate and philanthropic as Sherman, still less that the Irish are as +criminal and lawless as Lee. Nor will it soothe every single soul on the +American continent to say that the English victory in Ireland will be +followed by a reconstruction, like the reconstruction exhibited in the +film called 'The Birth of a Nation.' And, indeed, there is a further +inference from that fine panorama of the exploits of the Ku-Klux-Klan. +It would be easy, as I say, to turn the argument entirely in favour of +the Confederacy. It would be easy to draw the moral, not that the +Southern Irish are as wrong as the Southern States, but that the +Southern States were as right as the Southern Irish. But upon the whole, +I do not incline to accept the parallel in that sense any more than in +the opposite sense. For reasons I have already given elsewhere, I do +believe that in the main Abraham Lincoln was right. But right in what? + +If Lincoln was right, he was right in guessing that there was not really +a Northern nation and a Southern nation, but only one American nation. +And if he has been proved right, he has been proved right by the fact +that men in the South, as well as the North, do now feel a patriotism +for that American nation. His wisdom, if it really was wisdom, was +justified not by his opponents being conquered, but by their being +converted. Now, if the English politicians must insist on this parallel, +they ought to see that the parallel is fatal to themselves. The very +test which proved Lincoln right has proved them wrong. The very judgment +which may have justified him quite unquestionably condemns them. We have +again and again conquered Ireland, and have never come an inch nearer to +converting Ireland. We have had not one Gettysburg, but twenty +Gettysburgs; but we have had no Union. And that is where, as I have +remarked, it is relevant to remember that flying fantastic vision on the +films that told so many people what no histories have told them. I +occasionally heard in America rumours of the local reappearance of the +Ku-Klux-Klan; but the smallness and mildness of the manifestation, as +compared with the old Southern or the new Irish case, is alone a +sufficient example of the exception that proves the rule. To approximate +to any resemblance to recent Irish events, we must imagine the +Ku-Klux-Klan riding again in more than the terrors of that vision, wild +as the wind, white as the moon, terrible as an army with banners. If +there were really such a revival of the Southern action, there would +equally be a revival of the Southern argument. It would be clear that +Lee was right and Lincoln was wrong; that the Southern States were +national and were as indestructible as nations. If the South were as +rebellious as Ireland, the North would be as wrong as England. + +But I desire a new English diplomacy that will exhibit, not the things +in which England is wrong but the things in which England 19 right. And +England is right in England, just as she is wrong in Ireland; and it is +exactly that Tightness of a real nation in itself that it is at once +most difficult and most desirable to explain to foreigners. Now the +Irishman, and to some extent the American, has remained alien to +England, largely because he does not truly realise that the Englishman +loves England, still less can he really imagine why the Englishman loves +England. That is why I insist on the stupidity of ignoring and insulting +the opinions of those few Virginians and other Southerners who really +have some inherited notion of why Englishmen love England; and even love +it in something of the same fashion themselves. Politicians who do not +know the English spirit when they see it at home, cannot of course be +expected to recognise it abroad. Publicists are eloquently praising +Abraham Lincoln, for all the wrong reasons; but fundamentally for that +worst and vilest of all reasons---that he succeeded. None of them seems +to have the least notion of how to look for England in England; and they +would see something fantastic in the figure of a traveller who found it +elsewhere, or anywhere but in New England. And it is well, perhaps, that +they have not yet found England where it is hidden in England; for if +they found it, they would kill it. + +All I am concerned to consider here is the inevitable failure of this +sort of Anglo-American propaganda to create a friendship. To praise +Lincoln as an Englishman is about as appropriate as if we were praising +Lincoln as an English town. We are talking about something totally +different. And indeed the whole conversation is rather like some such +cross-purposes about some such word as 'Lincoln;' in which one party +should be talking about the President and the other about the cathedral. +It is like some wild bewilderment in a farce, with one man wondering how +a President could have a church-spire, and the other wondering how a +church could have a chin-beard. And the moral is the moral on which I +would insist everywhere in this book; that the remedy is to be found in +disentangling the two and not in entangling them further. You could not +produce a democrat of the logical type of Lincoln merely out of the +moral materials that now make up an English cathedral town, like that on +which Old Tom of Lincoln looks down. But on the other hand, it is quite +certain that a hundred Abraham Lincolns, working for a hundred years, +could not build Lincoln Cathedral. And the farcical allegory of an +attempt to make Old Tom and Old Abe embrace to the glory of the +illogical Anglo-Saxon language is but a symbol of something that is +always being attempted, and always attempted in vain. It is not by +mutual imitation that the understanding can come. It is not by erecting +New York sky-scrapers in London that New York can learn the sacred +significance of the towers of Lincoln. It is not by English dukes +importing the daughters of American millionaires that England can get +any glimpse of the democratic dignity of American men. I have the best +of all reasons for knowing that a stranger can be welcomed in America; +and just as he is courteously treated in the country as a stranger, so +he should always be careful to treat it as a strange land. That sort of +imaginative respect, as for something different and even distant, is the +only beginning of any attachment between patriotic peoples. The English +traveller may carry with him at least one word of his own great language +and literature; and whenever he is inclined to say of anything 'This is +passing strange,' he may remember that it was no inconsiderable +Englishman who appended to it the answer, 'And therefore as a stranger +give it welcome.' # Wells and the World State -There was recently a highly distinguished gathering to -celebrate the past, present, and especially future triumphs -of aviation. Some of the most brilliant men of the age, such -as Mr. H. G. Wells, and Mr. J. L. Garvin, made interesting -and important speeches, and many scientific aviators -luminously discussed the new science. Among their graceful -felicitations and grave and quiet analyses a word was said, -or a note was struck, which I myself can never hear, even in -the most harmless after-dinner speech, without an impulse to -leap up and yell, and smash the decanters and wreck the -dinner-table. - -Long ago, when I was a boy, I heard it with fury; and never -since have I been able to understand any free man hearing it -without fury. I heard it when Bloch, and the old prophets of -pacifism by panic, preached that war would become too -horrible for patriots to endure. It sounded to me like -saying that an instrument of torture was being prepared by -my dentist, that would finally cure me of loving my dog. And -I felt it again when all these wise and well-meaning persons -began to talk about the inevitable effect of aviation in -bridging the Atlantic, and establishing alliance and -affection between England and America. - -I resent the suggestion that a machine can make me bad. But -I resent quite equally the suggestion that a machine can -make me good. It might be the unfortunate fact that a -coolness had arisen between myself and Mr. Fitzarlington -Blenkinsop, inhabiting the suburban villa and garden next to -mine; and I might even be largely to blame for it. But if -somebody told me that a new kind of lawn-mower had just been -invented, of so cunning a structure that I should be forced -to become a bosom-friend of Mr. Blenkinsop whether I liked -it or not, I should be very much annoyed, I should be moved -to say that if that was the only way of cutting my grass I -would not cut my grass, but continue to cut my neighbour. Or -suppose the difference were even less defensible; suppose a -man had suffered from a trifling shindy with his wife. And -suppose somebody told him that the introduction of an -entirely new vacuum-cleaner would compel him to a reluctant -reconciliation with his wife. It would be found, I fancy, -that human nature abhors that vacuum. Reasonably spirited -human beings will not be ordered about by bicycles and -sewing-machines; and a healthy man will not be made good, -let alone bad, by the things he has himself made. I have -occasionally dictated to a typewriter, but I will not be -dictated to by a typewriter, even of the newest and most -complicated mechanism; nor have I ever met a typewriter, +There was recently a highly distinguished gathering to celebrate the +past, present, and especially future triumphs of aviation. Some of the +most brilliant men of the age, such as Mr. H. G. Wells, and Mr. J. L. +Garvin, made interesting and important speeches, and many scientific +aviators luminously discussed the new science. Among their graceful +felicitations and grave and quiet analyses a word was said, or a note +was struck, which I myself can never hear, even in the most harmless +after-dinner speech, without an impulse to leap up and yell, and smash +the decanters and wreck the dinner-table. + +Long ago, when I was a boy, I heard it with fury; and never since have I +been able to understand any free man hearing it without fury. I heard it +when Bloch, and the old prophets of pacifism by panic, preached that war +would become too horrible for patriots to endure. It sounded to me like +saying that an instrument of torture was being prepared by my dentist, +that would finally cure me of loving my dog. And I felt it again when +all these wise and well-meaning persons began to talk about the +inevitable effect of aviation in bridging the Atlantic, and establishing +alliance and affection between England and America. + +I resent the suggestion that a machine can make me bad. But I resent +quite equally the suggestion that a machine can make me good. It might +be the unfortunate fact that a coolness had arisen between myself and +Mr. Fitzarlington Blenkinsop, inhabiting the suburban villa and garden +next to mine; and I might even be largely to blame for it. But if +somebody told me that a new kind of lawn-mower had just been invented, +of so cunning a structure that I should be forced to become a +bosom-friend of Mr. Blenkinsop whether I liked it or not, I should be +very much annoyed, I should be moved to say that if that was the only +way of cutting my grass I would not cut my grass, but continue to cut my +neighbour. Or suppose the difference were even less defensible; suppose +a man had suffered from a trifling shindy with his wife. And suppose +somebody told him that the introduction of an entirely new +vacuum-cleaner would compel him to a reluctant reconciliation with his +wife. It would be found, I fancy, that human nature abhors that vacuum. +Reasonably spirited human beings will not be ordered about by bicycles +and sewing-machines; and a healthy man will not be made good, let alone +bad, by the things he has himself made. I have occasionally dictated to +a typewriter, but I will not be dictated to by a typewriter, even of the +newest and most complicated mechanism; nor have I ever met a typewriter, however complex, which attempted such a tyranny. -Yet this and nothing else is what is implied in all such -talk of the aeroplane annihilating distinctions as well as -distances; and an international aviation abolishing -nationalities. This and nothing else was really implied in -one speaker's prediction that such aviation will almost -necessitate an Anglo-American friendship. Incidentally, I -may remark, it is not a true suggestion even in the -practical and materialistic sense; and the speaker's phrase -refuted the speaker's argument. He said that international -relations must be more friendly when men can get from -England to America in a day. Well, men can already get from -England to Germany in a day; and the result was a mutual -invitation of which the formalities lasted for five years. -Men could get from the coast of England to the coast of -France very quickly, through nearly all the ages during -which those two coasts were bristling with arms against each -other. They could get there very quickly when Nelson went -down by that Burford Inn to embark for Trafalgar; they could -get there very quickly when Napoleon sat in his tent in that -camp at Boulogne that filled England with alarums of -invasion. Are these the amiable and pacific relations which -will unite England and America, when Englishmen can get to -America in a day? The shortening of the distance seems quite -as likely, so far as that argument goes, to facilitate that -endless guerilla warfare which raged across the narrow seas -in the Middle Ages; when French invaders carried away the -bells of Rye, and the men of those flats of East Sussex -gloriously pursued and recovered them. I do not know whether -American privateers, landing at Liverpool, would carry away -a few of the more elegant factory-chimneys as a substitute -for the superstitious symbols of the past. I know not if the -English, on ripe reflection, would essay with any enthusiasm -to get them back. But anyhow it is anything but self-evident -that people cannot fight each other because they are near to -each other; and if it were true, there would never have been -any such thing as border warfare in the world. As a fact, -border warfare has often been the one sort of warfare which -it was most difficult to bring under control. And our own -traditional position in face of this new logic is somewhat -disconcerting. We have always supposed ourselves safer -because we were insular and therefore isolated. We have been -congratulating ourselves for centuries on having enjoyed -peace because we were cut off from our neighbours. And now -they are telling us that we shall only enjoy peace when we -are joined up with our neighbours. We have pitied the poor -nations with frontiers, because a frontier only produces -fighting; and now we are trusting to a frontier as the only -thing that will produce friendship. But, as a matter of -fact, and for a far deeper and more spiritual reason, a -frontier will not produce friendship. Only friendliness -produces friendship. And we must look far deeper into the -soul of man for the thing that produces friendliness. - -But apart from this fallacy about the facts, I feel, as I -say, a strong abstract anger against the idea, or what some -would call the ideal. If it were true that men could be -taught and tamed by machines, even if they were taught -wisdom or tamed to amiability, I should think it the most -tragic truth in the world. A man so improved would be, in an -exceedingly ugly sense, losing his soul to save it. But in -truth he cannot be so completely coerced into good; and in -so far as he is incompletely coerced, he is quite as likely -to be coerced into evil. Of the financial characters who -figure as philanthropists and philosophers in such cases, it -is strictly true to say that their good is evil. The light -in their bodies is darkness, and the highest objects of such -men are the lowest objects of ordinary men. Their peace is -mere safety, their friendship is mere trade; their -international friendship is mere international trade. The -best we can say of that school of capitalism is that it will -be unsuccessful. It has every other vice, but it is not -practical. It has at least the impossibility of idealism; -and so far as remoteness can carry it, that Inferno is -indeed a Utopia. All the visible manifestations of these men -are materialistic; but at least their visions will not -materialise. The worse we suffer; but the best we shall at -any rate escape. We may continue to endure the realities of +Yet this and nothing else is what is implied in all such talk of the +aeroplane annihilating distinctions as well as distances; and an +international aviation abolishing nationalities. This and nothing else +was really implied in one speaker's prediction that such aviation will +almost necessitate an Anglo-American friendship. Incidentally, I may +remark, it is not a true suggestion even in the practical and +materialistic sense; and the speaker's phrase refuted the speaker's +argument. He said that international relations must be more friendly +when men can get from England to America in a day. Well, men can already +get from England to Germany in a day; and the result was a mutual +invitation of which the formalities lasted for five years. Men could get +from the coast of England to the coast of France very quickly, through +nearly all the ages during which those two coasts were bristling with +arms against each other. They could get there very quickly when Nelson +went down by that Burford Inn to embark for Trafalgar; they could get +there very quickly when Napoleon sat in his tent in that camp at +Boulogne that filled England with alarums of invasion. Are these the +amiable and pacific relations which will unite England and America, when +Englishmen can get to America in a day? The shortening of the distance +seems quite as likely, so far as that argument goes, to facilitate that +endless guerilla warfare which raged across the narrow seas in the +Middle Ages; when French invaders carried away the bells of Rye, and the +men of those flats of East Sussex gloriously pursued and recovered them. +I do not know whether American privateers, landing at Liverpool, would +carry away a few of the more elegant factory-chimneys as a substitute +for the superstitious symbols of the past. I know not if the English, on +ripe reflection, would essay with any enthusiasm to get them back. But +anyhow it is anything but self-evident that people cannot fight each +other because they are near to each other; and if it were true, there +would never have been any such thing as border warfare in the world. As +a fact, border warfare has often been the one sort of warfare which it +was most difficult to bring under control. And our own traditional +position in face of this new logic is somewhat disconcerting. We have +always supposed ourselves safer because we were insular and therefore +isolated. We have been congratulating ourselves for centuries on having +enjoyed peace because we were cut off from our neighbours. And now they +are telling us that we shall only enjoy peace when we are joined up with +our neighbours. We have pitied the poor nations with frontiers, because +a frontier only produces fighting; and now we are trusting to a frontier +as the only thing that will produce friendship. But, as a matter of +fact, and for a far deeper and more spiritual reason, a frontier will +not produce friendship. Only friendliness produces friendship. And we +must look far deeper into the soul of man for the thing that produces +friendliness. + +But apart from this fallacy about the facts, I feel, as I say, a strong +abstract anger against the idea, or what some would call the ideal. If +it were true that men could be taught and tamed by machines, even if +they were taught wisdom or tamed to amiability, I should think it the +most tragic truth in the world. A man so improved would be, in an +exceedingly ugly sense, losing his soul to save it. But in truth he +cannot be so completely coerced into good; and in so far as he is +incompletely coerced, he is quite as likely to be coerced into evil. Of +the financial characters who figure as philanthropists and philosophers +in such cases, it is strictly true to say that their good is evil. The +light in their bodies is darkness, and the highest objects of such men +are the lowest objects of ordinary men. Their peace is mere safety, +their friendship is mere trade; their international friendship is mere +international trade. The best we can say of that school of capitalism is +that it will be unsuccessful. It has every other vice, but it is not +practical. It has at least the impossibility of idealism; and so far as +remoteness can carry it, that Inferno is indeed a Utopia. All the +visible manifestations of these men are materialistic; but at least +their visions will not materialise. The worse we suffer; but the best we +shall at any rate escape. We may continue to endure the realities of cosmopolitan capitalism; but we shall be spared its ideals. -But I am not primarily interested in the plutocrats whose -vision takes so vulgar a form. I am interested in the same -thing when it takes a far more subtle form, in men of genius -and genuine social enthusiasm like Mr. H. G. Wells. It would -be very unfair to a man like Mr. Wells to suggest that in -his vision the Englishman and the American are to embrace -only in the sense of clinging to each other in terror. He is -a man who understands what friendship is, and who knows how -to enjoy the motley humours of humanity. But the political -reconstruction which he proposes is too much determined by -this old nightmare of necessitarianism. He tells us that our -national dignities and differences must be melted into the -huge mould of a World State, or else (and I think these are -almost his own words) we shall be destroyed by the -instruments and machinery we have ourselves made. In effect, -men must abandon patriotism or they will be murdered by -science. After this, surely no one can accuse Mr. Wells of -an undue tenderness for scientific over other types of -training. Greek may be a good thing or no; but nobody says -that if Greek scholarship is carried past a certain point, -everybody will be torn in pieces like Orpheus, or burned up -like Semele, or poisoned like Soc rates. Philosophy, -theology and logic may or may not be idle academic studies; -but nobody supposes that the study of philosophy, or even of -theology, ultimately forces its students to manufacture -racks and thumb-screws against their will; or that even -logicians need be so alarmingly logical as all that. Science -seems to be the only branch of study in which people have to -be waved back from perfection as from a pestilence. But my -business is not with the scientific dangers which alarm -Mr. Wells, but with the remedy he proposes for them; or -rather with the relation of that remedy to the foundation -and the future of America. Now it is not too much to say -that Mr. Wells finds his model in America. The World State -is to be the United States of the World. He answers almost -all objections to the practicability of such a peace among -states, by pointing out that the American States have such a -peace, and by adding, truly enough, that another turn of -history might easily have seen them broken up by war. The -pattern of the World State is to be found in the New World. - -Oddly enough, as it seems to me, he proposes almost cosmic -conquests for the American Constitution, while leaving out -the most successful thing in that Constitution. The point -appeared in answer to a question which many, like myself, -must have put in this matter; the question of despotism and -democracy. I cannot understand any democrat not seeing the -danger of so distant and indirect a system of government. It -is hard enough anywhere to get representatives to represent. -It is hard enough to get a little town council to fulfil the -wishes of a little town, even when the townsmen meet the -town councillors every day in the street, and could kick -them down the street if they liked. What the same town -councillors would be like if they were ruling all their -fellow-creatures from the North Pole or the New Jerusalem, -is a vision of Oriental despotism beyond the towering -fancies of Tamerlane. This difficulty in all representative -government is felt everywhere, and not least in America. But -I think that if there is one truth apparent in such a choice -of evils, it is that monarchy is at least better than -oligarchy; and that where we have to act on a large scale, -the most genuine popularity can gather round a particular -person like a Pope or a President of the United States, or -even a dictator like Caesar or Napoleon, rather than round a -more or less corrupt committee which can only be defined as -an obscure oligarchy. And in that sense any oligarchy is -obscure. For people to continue to trust twenty-seven men it -is necessary, as a preliminary formality, that people should -have heard of them. And there are no twenty-seven men of -whom everybody has heard as everybody in France had heard of -Napoleon, as all Catholics have heard of the Pope or all -Americans have heard of the President. I think the mass of -ordinary Americans do really elect their President; and even -where they cannot control him at least they watch him, and -in the long run they judge him, I think, therefore, that the -American Constitution has a teal popular institution in the -Presidency. But Mr. Wells would appear to want the American -Constitution without the Presidency. If I understand his -words rightly, he seems to want the great democracy without -its popular institution. Alluding to this danger, that the -World State might be a world tyranny, he seems to take -tyranny entirely in the sense of autocracy. He asks whether -the President of the World State would not be rather too -tremendous a person and seems to suggest in answer that -there need not even be any such a person. He seems to imply -that the committee controlling the planet could meet almost -with out any one in the chair, certainly without any one on -the throne. I cannot imagine anything more manifestly made -to be a tyranny than such an acephalous aristocracy. But -while Mr. Well's decision seems to me strange, his reason -for it seems to me still more extraordinary. - -He suggests that no such dictator will be needed in his -World State because 'there will be no wars and no -diplomacy.' A World State ought doubtless to go round the -world; and going round the world seems to be a good training -for arguing in a circle. Obviously there will be no wars and -no war-diplomacy if something has the power to prevent them; -and we cannot deduce that the something will not want any -power. It is rather as if somebody, urging that the Germans -could only be defeated by uniting the Allied commands under -Marshal Foch, had said that after all it need not offend the -British Generals because the French supremacy need only be a -fiction, the Germans being defeated. We should naturally say -that the German defeat would only be a reality because the -Allied command was not a fiction. So the universal peace -would only be a reality if the World State were not a -fiction. And it could not be even a state if it were not a -government. This argument amounts to saying, first that the -World State will be needed because it is strong, and then it -may safely be weak because it will not be needed. - -Internationalism is in any case hostile to democracy. I do -not say it is incompatible with it; but any combination of -the two will be a compromise between the two. The only -purely popular government is local, and founded on local -knowledge. The citizens can rule the city be cause they know -the city; but it will always be an exceptional sort of -citizen who has or claims the right to rule over ten cities, -and these remote and altogether alien cities. All Irishmen -may know roughly the same sort of things about Ireland; but -it is absurd to say they all know the same things about -Iceland, when they may include a scholar steeped in -Icelandic sagas or a sailor who has been to Iceland. To make -all politics cosmopolitan is to create an aristocracy of -globe-trotters. If your political outlook really takes in -the Cannibal Islands, you depend of necessity upon a -superior and picked minority of the people who have been to -the Cannibal Islands; or rather" of the still smaller and -more select minority who have come back. - -Given this difficulty about quite direct democracy over -large areas, I think the nearest thing to democracy is -despotism. At any rate I think it is some sort of more or -less independent monarchy, such as Andrew Jackson created in -America. And I believe it is true to say that the two men -whom the modern world really and almost reluctantly regards -with impersonal respect, as clothed by their office with -something historic and honourable, are the Pope and the -President of the United States. - -But to admire the United States as the United States is one -thing. To admire them as the World State is quite another. -The attempt of Mr. Wells to make America a sort of model for -the federation of all the free nations of the earth, though -it is international in intention, is really as narrowly -national, in the bad sense, as the desire of Mr. Kipling to -cover the world with British Imperialism, or of Professor -Treitschke to cover it with Prussian Pan-Germanism. Not -being schoolboys, we no longer believe that everything can -be settled by painting the map red. Nor do I believe it can -be done by painting it blue with white spots, even if they -are called stars. The insufficiency of British Imperialism -does not lie in the fact that it has always been applied by -force of arms. As a matter of fact, it has not. It has been -effected largely by commerce, by colonisation of -comparatively empty places, by geographical discovery and -diplomatic bargain. Whether it be regarded as praise or -blame, it is certainly the truth that among all the things -that have called themselves empires, the British has been -perhaps the least purely military, and has least both of the -special guilt and the special glory that goes with -militarism. The insufficiency of British Imperialism is not -that it is imperial, let alone military. The insufficiency -of British Imperialism is that it is British; when it is not -merely Jewish. It is that just as a man is no more than a -man, so a nation is no more than a nation; and any nation is -adequate as an international model. Any state looks small -when it occupies the whole earth. Any polity is narrow as -soon as it is as wide as the world. It would be just the -same if Ireland began to paint the map green or Montenegro -were to paint it black. The objection to spreading anything -all over the world is that, among other things, you have to -spread it very thin. - -But America, which Mn Wells takes as a model, is in another -sense rather a warning. Mr. Wells says very truly that there -was a moment in history when America might well have broken -up into independent states like those of Europe. He seems to -take it for granted that it was in all respects an advantage -that this was avoided. Yet there is surely a case, however -mildly we put it, for a certain importance in the world -still attaching to Europe. There are some who find France as -interesting as Florida; and who think they can learn as much -about history and humanity in the marble cities of the -Mediterranean as in the wooden towns of the Middle West. -Europe may have been divided, but it was certainly not -destroyed; nor has its peculiar position in the culture of -the world been destroyed. Nothing has yet appeared capable -of completely eclipsing it, either in its extension in -America or its imitation in Japan. But the immediate point -here is perhaps a more important one. There is now no creed -accepted as embodying the common sense of all Europe, as the -Catholic creed was accepted as embodying it in mediaeval -times. There is no culture broadly superior to all others, -as the Mediterranean culture was superior to that of the -barbarians in Roman times. If Europe were united in modern -times, it would probably be by the victory of one of its -types over others, possibly over all the others. And when -America was united finally in the nineteenth century, it was -by the victory of one of its types over others. It is not -yet certain that this victory was a good thing. It is not -yet certain that the world will be better for the triumph of -the North over the Southern traditions of America. It may -yet turn out to be as unfortunate as a triumph of the North -Germans over the Southern traditions of Germany and of -Europe. - -The men who will not face this fact are men whose minds are -not free. They are more crushed by Progress than any -pietists by Providence. They are not allowed to question -that whatever has recently happened was all for the best. -Now Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a -theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by -accident. It is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an -everlasting coincidence far more miraculous than a miracle. -If there be no purpose, or if the purpose permits of human -free will, then in either case it is almost insanely -unlikely that there should be in history a period of steady -and uninterrupted progress; or in other words a period in -which poor bewildered humanity moves amid a chaos of -complications, without making a single mistake. What has to -be hammered into the heads of most normal newspaper-readers -to-day is that Man has made a great many mistakes. Modern -Man has made a great many mistakes. Indeed, in the case of -that progressive and pioneering character, one is sometimes -tempted to say that he has made nothing but mistakes. -Calvinism was a mistake, and Capitalism was a mistake, and -Teutonism and the flattery of the Northern tribes were -mistakes. In the French the persecution of Catholicism by -the politicians was a mistake, as they found out in the -Great War; when the memory gave Irish or Italian Catholics -an excuse for hanging back. In England the loss of -agriculture and therefore of food-supply in war, and the -power to stand a siege, was a mistake. And in America the -introduction of the negroes was a mistake; but it may yet be -found that the sacrifice of the Southern white man to them -was even more of a mistake. - -The reason of this doubt is in one word. We have not yet -seen the end of the whole industrial experiment; and there -are already signs of it coming to a bad end. It may end in -Bolshevism. It is more likely to end in the Servile State. -Indeed, the two things are not so different as some suppose, -and they grow less different every day. The Bolshevists have -already called in Capitalists to help them to crush the free -peasants. The Capitalists are quite likely to call in Labour -leaders to whitewash their compromise as social reform or -even Socialism. The cosmopolitan Jews who are the Communists -in the East will not find it so very hard to make a bargain -with the cosmopolitan Jews who are Capitalists in the West. -The Western Jews would be willing to admit a nominal -Socialism. The Eastern Jews have already admitted that their -Socialism is nominal. It was the Bolshevist leader himself -who said, 'Russia is again a Capitalist country.' But -whoever makes the bargain, and whatever is its precise -character, the substance of it will be servile. It will be -servile in the only rational and reliable sense; that is an -arrangement by which a mass of men are ensured shelter and -livelihood, in return for being subjected to a law which -obliges them to continue to labour. Of course it will not be -called the Servile State; it is very probable that it will -be called the Socialist State. But nobody seems to realise -how very near all the industrial countries are to it. At any -moment it may appear in the simple form of compulsory -arbitration; for compulsory arbitration dealing with private -employers is by definition slavery. When workmen receive -unemployment pay, and at the same time arouse more and more -irritation by going on strike, it may seem very natural to -give them the unemployment pay for good and forbid them the -strike for good; and the combination of those two things is -by definition slavery. And Trotsky can beat any Trust -magnate as a strike-breaker; for he does not even pretend -that his compulsory labour is a free bargain. If Trotsky and -the Trust magnate come to a working compromise, that -compromise will be a Servile State. But it will also be the -supreme and by far the most constructive and conclusive -result of the industrial movement in history; of the power -of machinery or money; of the huge populations of the modern -cities; of scientific inventions and resources; of all the -things before which the agricultural society of the Southern -Confederacy went down. But even those who cannot see that -commercialism may end in the triumph of slavery can see that -the Northern victory has to a great extent ended in the -triumph of commercialism. And the point at the moment is -that this did definitely mean, even at the time, the triumph -of one American type over another American type; just as -much as any European war might mean the triumph of one -European type over another. A victory of England over France -would be a victory of merchants over peasants; and the -victory of Northerners over Southerners was a victory of -merchants over squires. So that that very unity, which -Mr. Wells contrasts so favourably with war, was not only -itself due to a war, but to a war which had one of the most -questionable and even perilous of the results of war. That -result was a change in the balance of power, the -predominance of a particular partner, the exaltation of a -particular example, the eclipse of excellent traditions when -the defeated lost their international influence. In short, -it made exactly the same sort of difference of which we -speak when we say that 1870 was a disaster to Europe, or -that it was necessary to fight Prussia lest she should -Prussianise the whole world. America would have been very -different if the leadership had remained with Virginia. The -world would have been very different if America had been -very different. It is quite reasonable to rejoice that the -issue went as it did; indeed, as I have explained elsewhere, -for other reasons I do on the whole rejoice in it. But it is -certainly not self-evident that it is a matter for -rejoicing. One type of American state conquered and -subjugated another type of American state; and the virtues -and value of the latter were very largely lost to the world. -So if Mr. Wells insists on the parallel of a United States -of Europe, he must accept the parallel of a Civil War of -Europe. He must suppose that the peasant countries crush the -industrial countries or *vice versa*; and that one or other -of them becomes the European tradition to the neglect of the -other. The situation which seems to satisfy him so -completely in America is, after all, the situation which -would result in Europe if the German Empire, let us say, had -entirely arrested the special development of the Slavs; or -if the influence of France had really broken off short under -the blow from Britain. The Old South had qualities of humane -civilisation which have not sufficiently survived; or at any -rate have not sufficiently spread. It is true that the -decline of the agricultural South has been considerably -balanced by the growth of the agricultural West. It is true, -as I have occasion to emphasise in another place, that the -West does give the New America something that is nearly a -normal peasantry, as a pendant to the industrial towns. But -this is not an answer; it is rather an augmentation of the -argument. In so far as America is saved it is saved by being -patchy; and would be ruined if the Western patch had the -same fate as the Southern patch. When all is said, -therefore, the advantages of American unification are not so -certain that we can apply them to a world unification. The -doubt could be expressed in a great many ways and by a great -many examples. !For that matter, it is already being felt -that supremacy of the Middle West in politics is inflicting -upon other localities exactly the sort of local injustice -that turns provinces into nations struggling to be free. It -has already inflicted what amounts to religious persecution, -or the imposition of an alien morality, on the wine-growing -civilisation of California. In a word, the American system -is a good one as governments go; but it is too large, and -the world will not be improved by making it larger. And for -this reason alone I should reject this second method of -uniting England and America; which is not only Americanising -England, but Americanising everything else. - -But the essential reason is that a type of culture came out -on top in America and England in the nineteenth century, -which cannot and would not be tolerated on top of the world. -To unite all the systems at the top, without improving and -simplifying their social organisation below, would be to tie -all the tops of the trees together where they rise above a -dense and poisonous jungle, and make the jungle darker than -before. To create such a cosmopolitan political platform -would be to build a roof above our own heads to shut out the -sunlight, on which only usurers and conspirators clad in -gold could walk about in the sun. This is no moment when -industrial intellectualism can inflict such an artificial -oppression upon the world. Industrialism itself is coming to -see dark days, and its future is very doubtful. It is split -from end to end with strikes and struggles for economic -life, in which the poor not only plead that they are -starving, but even the rich can only plead that they are -bankrupt. The peasantries are growing not only more -prosperous but more politically effective; the Russian -moujik has held up the Bolshevist Government of Moscow and -Petersburg; a huge concession has been made by England to -Ireland; the League of Nations has decided for Poland -against Prussia. It is not certain that industrialism will -not wither even in its own field; it is certain that its -intellectual ideas will not be allowed to cover every field; -and this sort of cosmopolitan culture is one of its ideas. -Industrialism itself may perish; or on the other hand -industrialism itself may survive, by some searching and -scientific reform that will really guarantee economic -security to all. It may really purge itself of the -accidental maladies of anarchy and famine; and continue as a -machine, but at least as a comparatively clean and humanely -shielded machine; at any rate no longer as a man-eating -machine. Capitalism may clear itself of its worst -corruptions by such reform as is open to it; by creating -humane and healthy conditions for labour, and setting the -labouring classes to work under a lucid and recognised law. -It may make Pittsburg one vast model factory for all who -will model themselves upon factories; and may give to all -men and women in its employment a clear social status in -which they can be contented and secure. And on the day when -that social security is established for the masses, when -industrial capitalism has achieved this larger and more -logical organisation and found peace at last, a strange and -shadowy and ironic triumph, like an abstract apology, will -surely hover over all those graves in the Wilderness where -lay the bones of so many gallant gentlemen; men who had also -from their youth known and upheld such a social -stratification, who had the courage to call a spade a spade -and a slave a slave. +But I am not primarily interested in the plutocrats whose vision takes +so vulgar a form. I am interested in the same thing when it takes a far +more subtle form, in men of genius and genuine social enthusiasm like +Mr. H. G. Wells. It would be very unfair to a man like Mr. Wells to +suggest that in his vision the Englishman and the American are to +embrace only in the sense of clinging to each other in terror. He is a +man who understands what friendship is, and who knows how to enjoy the +motley humours of humanity. But the political reconstruction which he +proposes is too much determined by this old nightmare of +necessitarianism. He tells us that our national dignities and +differences must be melted into the huge mould of a World State, or else +(and I think these are almost his own words) we shall be destroyed by +the instruments and machinery we have ourselves made. In effect, men +must abandon patriotism or they will be murdered by science. After this, +surely no one can accuse Mr. Wells of an undue tenderness for scientific +over other types of training. Greek may be a good thing or no; but +nobody says that if Greek scholarship is carried past a certain point, +everybody will be torn in pieces like Orpheus, or burned up like Semele, +or poisoned like Soc rates. Philosophy, theology and logic may or may +not be idle academic studies; but nobody supposes that the study of +philosophy, or even of theology, ultimately forces its students to +manufacture racks and thumb-screws against their will; or that even +logicians need be so alarmingly logical as all that. Science seems to be +the only branch of study in which people have to be waved back from +perfection as from a pestilence. But my business is not with the +scientific dangers which alarm Mr. Wells, but with the remedy he +proposes for them; or rather with the relation of that remedy to the +foundation and the future of America. Now it is not too much to say that +Mr. Wells finds his model in America. The World State is to be the +United States of the World. He answers almost all objections to the +practicability of such a peace among states, by pointing out that the +American States have such a peace, and by adding, truly enough, that +another turn of history might easily have seen them broken up by war. +The pattern of the World State is to be found in the New World. + +Oddly enough, as it seems to me, he proposes almost cosmic conquests for +the American Constitution, while leaving out the most successful thing +in that Constitution. The point appeared in answer to a question which +many, like myself, must have put in this matter; the question of +despotism and democracy. I cannot understand any democrat not seeing the +danger of so distant and indirect a system of government. It is hard +enough anywhere to get representatives to represent. It is hard enough +to get a little town council to fulfil the wishes of a little town, even +when the townsmen meet the town councillors every day in the street, and +could kick them down the street if they liked. What the same town +councillors would be like if they were ruling all their fellow-creatures +from the North Pole or the New Jerusalem, is a vision of Oriental +despotism beyond the towering fancies of Tamerlane. This difficulty in +all representative government is felt everywhere, and not least in +America. But I think that if there is one truth apparent in such a +choice of evils, it is that monarchy is at least better than oligarchy; +and that where we have to act on a large scale, the most genuine +popularity can gather round a particular person like a Pope or a +President of the United States, or even a dictator like Caesar or +Napoleon, rather than round a more or less corrupt committee which can +only be defined as an obscure oligarchy. And in that sense any oligarchy +is obscure. For people to continue to trust twenty-seven men it is +necessary, as a preliminary formality, that people should have heard of +them. And there are no twenty-seven men of whom everybody has heard as +everybody in France had heard of Napoleon, as all Catholics have heard +of the Pope or all Americans have heard of the President. I think the +mass of ordinary Americans do really elect their President; and even +where they cannot control him at least they watch him, and in the long +run they judge him, I think, therefore, that the American Constitution +has a teal popular institution in the Presidency. But Mr. Wells would +appear to want the American Constitution without the Presidency. If I +understand his words rightly, he seems to want the great democracy +without its popular institution. Alluding to this danger, that the World +State might be a world tyranny, he seems to take tyranny entirely in the +sense of autocracy. He asks whether the President of the World State +would not be rather too tremendous a person and seems to suggest in +answer that there need not even be any such a person. He seems to imply +that the committee controlling the planet could meet almost with out any +one in the chair, certainly without any one on the throne. I cannot +imagine anything more manifestly made to be a tyranny than such an +acephalous aristocracy. But while Mr. Well's decision seems to me +strange, his reason for it seems to me still more extraordinary. + +He suggests that no such dictator will be needed in his World State +because 'there will be no wars and no diplomacy.' A World State ought +doubtless to go round the world; and going round the world seems to be a +good training for arguing in a circle. Obviously there will be no wars +and no war-diplomacy if something has the power to prevent them; and we +cannot deduce that the something will not want any power. It is rather +as if somebody, urging that the Germans could only be defeated by +uniting the Allied commands under Marshal Foch, had said that after all +it need not offend the British Generals because the French supremacy +need only be a fiction, the Germans being defeated. We should naturally +say that the German defeat would only be a reality because the Allied +command was not a fiction. So the universal peace would only be a +reality if the World State were not a fiction. And it could not be even +a state if it were not a government. This argument amounts to saying, +first that the World State will be needed because it is strong, and then +it may safely be weak because it will not be needed. + +Internationalism is in any case hostile to democracy. I do not say it is +incompatible with it; but any combination of the two will be a +compromise between the two. The only purely popular government is local, +and founded on local knowledge. The citizens can rule the city be cause +they know the city; but it will always be an exceptional sort of citizen +who has or claims the right to rule over ten cities, and these remote +and altogether alien cities. All Irishmen may know roughly the same sort +of things about Ireland; but it is absurd to say they all know the same +things about Iceland, when they may include a scholar steeped in +Icelandic sagas or a sailor who has been to Iceland. To make all +politics cosmopolitan is to create an aristocracy of globe-trotters. If +your political outlook really takes in the Cannibal Islands, you depend +of necessity upon a superior and picked minority of the people who have +been to the Cannibal Islands; or rather" of the still smaller and more +select minority who have come back. + +Given this difficulty about quite direct democracy over large areas, I +think the nearest thing to democracy is despotism. At any rate I think +it is some sort of more or less independent monarchy, such as Andrew +Jackson created in America. And I believe it is true to say that the two +men whom the modern world really and almost reluctantly regards with +impersonal respect, as clothed by their office with something historic +and honourable, are the Pope and the President of the United States. + +But to admire the United States as the United States is one thing. To +admire them as the World State is quite another. The attempt of +Mr. Wells to make America a sort of model for the federation of all the +free nations of the earth, though it is international in intention, is +really as narrowly national, in the bad sense, as the desire of +Mr. Kipling to cover the world with British Imperialism, or of Professor +Treitschke to cover it with Prussian Pan-Germanism. Not being +schoolboys, we no longer believe that everything can be settled by +painting the map red. Nor do I believe it can be done by painting it +blue with white spots, even if they are called stars. The insufficiency +of British Imperialism does not lie in the fact that it has always been +applied by force of arms. As a matter of fact, it has not. It has been +effected largely by commerce, by colonisation of comparatively empty +places, by geographical discovery and diplomatic bargain. Whether it be +regarded as praise or blame, it is certainly the truth that among all +the things that have called themselves empires, the British has been +perhaps the least purely military, and has least both of the special +guilt and the special glory that goes with militarism. The insufficiency +of British Imperialism is not that it is imperial, let alone military. +The insufficiency of British Imperialism is that it is British; when it +is not merely Jewish. It is that just as a man is no more than a man, so +a nation is no more than a nation; and any nation is adequate as an +international model. Any state looks small when it occupies the whole +earth. Any polity is narrow as soon as it is as wide as the world. It +would be just the same if Ireland began to paint the map green or +Montenegro were to paint it black. The objection to spreading anything +all over the world is that, among other things, you have to spread it +very thin. + +But America, which Mn Wells takes as a model, is in another sense rather +a warning. Mr. Wells says very truly that there was a moment in history +when America might well have broken up into independent states like +those of Europe. He seems to take it for granted that it was in all +respects an advantage that this was avoided. Yet there is surely a case, +however mildly we put it, for a certain importance in the world still +attaching to Europe. There are some who find France as interesting as +Florida; and who think they can learn as much about history and humanity +in the marble cities of the Mediterranean as in the wooden towns of the +Middle West. Europe may have been divided, but it was certainly not +destroyed; nor has its peculiar position in the culture of the world +been destroyed. Nothing has yet appeared capable of completely eclipsing +it, either in its extension in America or its imitation in Japan. But +the immediate point here is perhaps a more important one. There is now +no creed accepted as embodying the common sense of all Europe, as the +Catholic creed was accepted as embodying it in mediaeval times. There is +no culture broadly superior to all others, as the Mediterranean culture +was superior to that of the barbarians in Roman times. If Europe were +united in modern times, it would probably be by the victory of one of +its types over others, possibly over all the others. And when America +was united finally in the nineteenth century, it was by the victory of +one of its types over others. It is not yet certain that this victory +was a good thing. It is not yet certain that the world will be better +for the triumph of the North over the Southern traditions of America. It +may yet turn out to be as unfortunate as a triumph of the North Germans +over the Southern traditions of Germany and of Europe. + +The men who will not face this fact are men whose minds are not free. +They are more crushed by Progress than any pietists by Providence. They +are not allowed to question that whatever has recently happened was all +for the best. Now Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a +theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It +is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far +more miraculous than a miracle. If there be no purpose, or if the +purpose permits of human free will, then in either case it is almost +insanely unlikely that there should be in history a period of steady and +uninterrupted progress; or in other words a period in which poor +bewildered humanity moves amid a chaos of complications, without making +a single mistake. What has to be hammered into the heads of most normal +newspaper-readers to-day is that Man has made a great many mistakes. +Modern Man has made a great many mistakes. Indeed, in the case of that +progressive and pioneering character, one is sometimes tempted to say +that he has made nothing but mistakes. Calvinism was a mistake, and +Capitalism was a mistake, and Teutonism and the flattery of the Northern +tribes were mistakes. In the French the persecution of Catholicism by +the politicians was a mistake, as they found out in the Great War; when +the memory gave Irish or Italian Catholics an excuse for hanging back. +In England the loss of agriculture and therefore of food-supply in war, +and the power to stand a siege, was a mistake. And in America the +introduction of the negroes was a mistake; but it may yet be found that +the sacrifice of the Southern white man to them was even more of a +mistake. + +The reason of this doubt is in one word. We have not yet seen the end of +the whole industrial experiment; and there are already signs of it +coming to a bad end. It may end in Bolshevism. It is more likely to end +in the Servile State. Indeed, the two things are not so different as +some suppose, and they grow less different every day. The Bolshevists +have already called in Capitalists to help them to crush the free +peasants. The Capitalists are quite likely to call in Labour leaders to +whitewash their compromise as social reform or even Socialism. The +cosmopolitan Jews who are the Communists in the East will not find it so +very hard to make a bargain with the cosmopolitan Jews who are +Capitalists in the West. The Western Jews would be willing to admit a +nominal Socialism. The Eastern Jews have already admitted that their +Socialism is nominal. It was the Bolshevist leader himself who said, +'Russia is again a Capitalist country.' But whoever makes the bargain, +and whatever is its precise character, the substance of it will be +servile. It will be servile in the only rational and reliable sense; +that is an arrangement by which a mass of men are ensured shelter and +livelihood, in return for being subjected to a law which obliges them to +continue to labour. Of course it will not be called the Servile State; +it is very probable that it will be called the Socialist State. But +nobody seems to realise how very near all the industrial countries are +to it. At any moment it may appear in the simple form of compulsory +arbitration; for compulsory arbitration dealing with private employers +is by definition slavery. When workmen receive unemployment pay, and at +the same time arouse more and more irritation by going on strike, it may +seem very natural to give them the unemployment pay for good and forbid +them the strike for good; and the combination of those two things is by +definition slavery. And Trotsky can beat any Trust magnate as a +strike-breaker; for he does not even pretend that his compulsory labour +is a free bargain. If Trotsky and the Trust magnate come to a working +compromise, that compromise will be a Servile State. But it will also be +the supreme and by far the most constructive and conclusive result of +the industrial movement in history; of the power of machinery or money; +of the huge populations of the modern cities; of scientific inventions +and resources; of all the things before which the agricultural society +of the Southern Confederacy went down. But even those who cannot see +that commercialism may end in the triumph of slavery can see that the +Northern victory has to a great extent ended in the triumph of +commercialism. And the point at the moment is that this did definitely +mean, even at the time, the triumph of one American type over another +American type; just as much as any European war might mean the triumph +of one European type over another. A victory of England over France +would be a victory of merchants over peasants; and the victory of +Northerners over Southerners was a victory of merchants over squires. So +that that very unity, which Mr. Wells contrasts so favourably with war, +was not only itself due to a war, but to a war which had one of the most +questionable and even perilous of the results of war. That result was a +change in the balance of power, the predominance of a particular +partner, the exaltation of a particular example, the eclipse of +excellent traditions when the defeated lost their international +influence. In short, it made exactly the same sort of difference of +which we speak when we say that 1870 was a disaster to Europe, or that +it was necessary to fight Prussia lest she should Prussianise the whole +world. America would have been very different if the leadership had +remained with Virginia. The world would have been very different if +America had been very different. It is quite reasonable to rejoice that +the issue went as it did; indeed, as I have explained elsewhere, for +other reasons I do on the whole rejoice in it. But it is certainly not +self-evident that it is a matter for rejoicing. One type of American +state conquered and subjugated another type of American state; and the +virtues and value of the latter were very largely lost to the world. So +if Mr. Wells insists on the parallel of a United States of Europe, he +must accept the parallel of a Civil War of Europe. He must suppose that +the peasant countries crush the industrial countries or *vice versa*; +and that one or other of them becomes the European tradition to the +neglect of the other. The situation which seems to satisfy him so +completely in America is, after all, the situation which would result in +Europe if the German Empire, let us say, had entirely arrested the +special development of the Slavs; or if the influence of France had +really broken off short under the blow from Britain. The Old South had +qualities of humane civilisation which have not sufficiently survived; +or at any rate have not sufficiently spread. It is true that the decline +of the agricultural South has been considerably balanced by the growth +of the agricultural West. It is true, as I have occasion to emphasise in +another place, that the West does give the New America something that is +nearly a normal peasantry, as a pendant to the industrial towns. But +this is not an answer; it is rather an augmentation of the argument. In +so far as America is saved it is saved by being patchy; and would be +ruined if the Western patch had the same fate as the Southern patch. +When all is said, therefore, the advantages of American unification are +not so certain that we can apply them to a world unification. The doubt +could be expressed in a great many ways and by a great many examples. +!For that matter, it is already being felt that supremacy of the Middle +West in politics is inflicting upon other localities exactly the sort of +local injustice that turns provinces into nations struggling to be free. +It has already inflicted what amounts to religious persecution, or the +imposition of an alien morality, on the wine-growing civilisation of +California. In a word, the American system is a good one as governments +go; but it is too large, and the world will not be improved by making it +larger. And for this reason alone I should reject this second method of +uniting England and America; which is not only Americanising England, +but Americanising everything else. + +But the essential reason is that a type of culture came out on top in +America and England in the nineteenth century, which cannot and would +not be tolerated on top of the world. To unite all the systems at the +top, without improving and simplifying their social organisation below, +would be to tie all the tops of the trees together where they rise above +a dense and poisonous jungle, and make the jungle darker than before. To +create such a cosmopolitan political platform would be to build a roof +above our own heads to shut out the sunlight, on which only usurers and +conspirators clad in gold could walk about in the sun. This is no moment +when industrial intellectualism can inflict such an artificial +oppression upon the world. Industrialism itself is coming to see dark +days, and its future is very doubtful. It is split from end to end with +strikes and struggles for economic life, in which the poor not only +plead that they are starving, but even the rich can only plead that they +are bankrupt. The peasantries are growing not only more prosperous but +more politically effective; the Russian moujik has held up the +Bolshevist Government of Moscow and Petersburg; a huge concession has +been made by England to Ireland; the League of Nations has decided for +Poland against Prussia. It is not certain that industrialism will not +wither even in its own field; it is certain that its intellectual ideas +will not be allowed to cover every field; and this sort of cosmopolitan +culture is one of its ideas. Industrialism itself may perish; or on the +other hand industrialism itself may survive, by some searching and +scientific reform that will really guarantee economic security to all. +It may really purge itself of the accidental maladies of anarchy and +famine; and continue as a machine, but at least as a comparatively clean +and humanely shielded machine; at any rate no longer as a man-eating +machine. Capitalism may clear itself of its worst corruptions by such +reform as is open to it; by creating humane and healthy conditions for +labour, and setting the labouring classes to work under a lucid and +recognised law. It may make Pittsburg one vast model factory for all who +will model themselves upon factories; and may give to all men and women +in its employment a clear social status in which they can be contented +and secure. And on the day when that social security is established for +the masses, when industrial capitalism has achieved this larger and more +logical organisation and found peace at last, a strange and shadowy and +ironic triumph, like an abstract apology, will surely hover over all +those graves in the Wilderness where lay the bones of so many gallant +gentlemen; men who had also from their youth known and upheld such a +social stratification, who had the courage to call a spade a spade and a +slave a slave. # A New Martin Chuzzlewit -The aim of this book, if it has one, is to suggest this -thesis; that the very worst way of helping Anglo-American -friendship is to be an Anglo-American. There is only one -thing lower, of course, which is being an Anglo-Saxon. It is -lower, because at least Englishmen do exist and Americans do -exist; and it may be possible, though repulsive, to imagine -an American and an Englishman in some way blended together. -But if Angles and Saxons ever did exist, they are all -fortunately dead now; and the wildest imagination cannot -form the weakest idea of what sort of monster would be made -of mixing one with the other. But my thesis is that the -whole hope, and the only hope, lies not in mixing two things -together, but rather in cutting them very sharply asunder. -That is the only way in which two things can succeed -sufficiently in getting outside each other to appreciate and -admire each other. So long as they are different and yet -supposed to be the same, there can be nothing but a divided -mind and a staggering balance. It may be that in the first -twilight of time man and woman walked about as one -quadruped. But if they did, I am sure it was a quadruped -that reared and bucked and kicked up its heels. Then the -flaming sword of some angel divided them, and they fell in -love with each other. - -Should the reader require an example a little more within -historical range, or a little more subject to critical -tests, than the above prehistoric anecdote (which I need not -say was revealed to me in a vision) it would be easy enough -to supply them both in a hypothetical and a historical form. -It is obvious enough in a general way that if we begin to -subject diverse countries to an identical test, there will -not only be rivalry, but what is far more deadly and -disastrous, superiority. If we institute a competition -between Holland and Switzerland as to the relative grace and -agility of their mountain guides, it will be clear that the -decision is disproportionately easy; it will also be clear -that certain facts about the configuration of Holland have -escaped our international eye. If we establish a comparison -between them in skill and industry in the art of building -dykes against the sea, it will be equally clear that the -injustice falls the other way; it will also be clear that -the situation of Switzerland on the map has received -insufficient study. In both cases there will not only be -rivalry but very unbalanced and unjust rivalry; in both -cases, therefore, there will not only be enmity but very -bitter or insolent enmity. But so long as the two are -sharply divided there can be no enmity because there can be -no rivalry. Nobody can argue about whether the Swiss climb -mountains better than the Dutch build dykes; just as nobody -can argue about whether a triangle is more triangular than a +The aim of this book, if it has one, is to suggest this thesis; that the +very worst way of helping Anglo-American friendship is to be an +Anglo-American. There is only one thing lower, of course, which is being +an Anglo-Saxon. It is lower, because at least Englishmen do exist and +Americans do exist; and it may be possible, though repulsive, to imagine +an American and an Englishman in some way blended together. But if +Angles and Saxons ever did exist, they are all fortunately dead now; and +the wildest imagination cannot form the weakest idea of what sort of +monster would be made of mixing one with the other. But my thesis is +that the whole hope, and the only hope, lies not in mixing two things +together, but rather in cutting them very sharply asunder. That is the +only way in which two things can succeed sufficiently in getting outside +each other to appreciate and admire each other. So long as they are +different and yet supposed to be the same, there can be nothing but a +divided mind and a staggering balance. It may be that in the first +twilight of time man and woman walked about as one quadruped. But if +they did, I am sure it was a quadruped that reared and bucked and kicked +up its heels. Then the flaming sword of some angel divided them, and +they fell in love with each other. + +Should the reader require an example a little more within historical +range, or a little more subject to critical tests, than the above +prehistoric anecdote (which I need not say was revealed to me in a +vision) it would be easy enough to supply them both in a hypothetical +and a historical form. It is obvious enough in a general way that if we +begin to subject diverse countries to an identical test, there will not +only be rivalry, but what is far more deadly and disastrous, +superiority. If we institute a competition between Holland and +Switzerland as to the relative grace and agility of their mountain +guides, it will be clear that the decision is disproportionately easy; +it will also be clear that certain facts about the configuration of +Holland have escaped our international eye. If we establish a comparison +between them in skill and industry in the art of building dykes against +the sea, it will be equally clear that the injustice falls the other +way; it will also be clear that the situation of Switzerland on the map +has received insufficient study. In both cases there will not only be +rivalry but very unbalanced and unjust rivalry; in both cases, +therefore, there will not only be enmity but very bitter or insolent +enmity. But so long as the two are sharply divided there can be no +enmity because there can be no rivalry. Nobody can argue about whether +the Swiss climb mountains better than the Dutch build dykes; just as +nobody can argue about whether a triangle is more triangular than a circle is round. -This fancy example is alphabetically and indeed artificially -simple; but, having used it for convenience, I could easily -give similar examples not of fancy but of fact. I had -occasion recently to attend the Christmas festivity of a -club in London for the exiles of one of the Scandinavian -nations. When I entered the room the first thing that struck -my eye, and greatly raised my spirits, was that the room was -dotted with the colours of peasant costumes and the -specimens of peasant craftsmanship. There were, of course, -other costumes and other crafts in evidence; there were men -dressed like myself (only better) in the garb of the modern -middle classes; there was furniture like the furniture of -any other room in London. Now, according to the ideal -formula of the ordinary internationalist, these things that -we had in common ought to have moved me to a sense of the -kinship of all civilisation. I ought to have felt that as -the Scandinavian gentleman wore a collar and tie, and I also -wore a collar and tie, we were brothers and nothing could -come between us. I ought to have felt that we were standing -for the same principles of truth because we were wearing the -same pair of trousers; or rather, to speak with more -precision, similar pairs of trousers. Anyhow, the pair of -trousers, that cloven pennon, ought to have floated in fancy -over my head as the banner of Europe or the League of -Nations. I am constrained to confess that no such rush of -emotions overcame me; and the topic of trousers did not -float across my mind at all. So far as those things were -concerned, I might have remained in a mood of mortal enmity, -and cheerfully shot or stabbed the best-dressed gentleman in -the room. Precisely what did warm my heart with an abrupt -affection for that northern nation was the very thing that -is utterly and indeed lamentably lacking in my own nation. -It was something corresponding to the one great gap in -English history, corresponding to the one great blot on -English civilisation. It was the spiritual presence of a -peasantry, dressed according to its own dignity, and -expressing itself by its own creations. - -The sketch of America left by Charles Dickens is generally -regarded as something which is either to be used as a taunt -or covered with an apology. Doubtless it was unduly -critical, even of the America of that day; yet curiously -enough it may well be the text for a true reconciliation at -the present day. It is true that in this, as in other -things, the Dickensian exaggeration is itself exaggerated. -It is also true that, while it is over-emphasised, it is not -allowed for. Dickens tended too much to describe the United -States as a vast lunatic asylum; but partly because he had a -natural inspiration and imagination suited to the -description of lunatic asylums. As it was his finest poetic -fancy that created a lunatic over the garden wall, so it was -his fancy that created a lunatic over the western sea. To -read some of the complaints, one would fancy that Dickens -had deliberately invented a low and farcical America to be a -contrast to his high and exalted England. It is suggested -that he showed America as full of rowdy bullies like -Hannibal Chollop, or as ridiculous wind-bags like Elijah -Pogram, while England was full of refined and sincere -spirits like Jonas Chuzzlewit, Chevy Slime, Montague Tigg, -and Mr. Pecksniff. If *Martin Chuzzlewit* makes America a -lunatic asylum, what in the world does it make England? We -can only say a criminal lunatic asylum. The truth is, of -course, that Dickens so described them because he had a -genius for that sort of description; for the making of -almost maniacal grotesques of the same type as Quilp or -Fagin. He made these Americans absurd because he was an -artist in absurdity; and no artist can help finding hints -everywhere for his own peculiar art. In a word, he created a -laughable Pogram for the same reason that he created a -laughable Pecksniff; and that was only because no other -creature could have created them. - -It is often said that we learn to love the characters in -romances as if they were characters in real life. I wish we -could sometimes love the characters in real life as we love -the characters in romances. There are a great many human -souls whom we should accept more kindly, and even appreciate -more clearly, if we simply thought of them as people in a -story. *Martin Chuzzlewit* is itself indeed an -unsatisfactory and even unfortunate example; for it is, -among its author's other works, a rather unusually harsh and -hostile story. I do not suggest that we should feel towards -an American friend that exact shade or tint of tenderness -that we feel towards Mr. Hannibal Chollop. Our enjoyment of -the foreigner should rather resemble our enjoyment of -Pickwick than our enjoyment of Peck sniff. But there is" -this amount of appropriateness even in the particular -example; that Dickens did show in both countries how men can -be made amusing to each other. So far the point is not that -he made fun of America, but that he got fun out of America. -And, as I have already pointed out, he applied exactly the -same method of selection and exaggeration to England. In the -other English stories, written in E more amiable mood, he -applied it in a more amiable manner; but he could apply it -to an American too, when he was writing in that mood and -manner. We can see it in the witty and withering criticism -delivered by the Yankee traveller in the musty refreshment -room of Mugby Junction; a genuine example of a genuinely -American fun and freedom satirising a genuinely British -stuffiness and snobbery. Nobody expects the American -traveller to admire the refreshments at Mugby Junction; but -he might admire the refreshment at one of the Pickwickian -inns, especially if it contained Pickwick. Nobody expects -Pickwick to like Pogram; but he might like the American who -made fun of Mugby Junction. But the point is that, while he -supported him in making fun, he would also think him funny. -The two comic characters could admire each other, but they -would also be amused at each other. And the American would -think the Englishman funny because he was English; and a -very good reason too. The Englishman would think the -American amusing because he was American; nor can I imagine -a better ground for his amusement. - -Now many will debate on the psychological possibility of -such a friendship founded on reciprocal ridicule, or rather -on a comedy of comparisons. But I will say of this harmony -of humours what Mr. H. G. Wells says of his harmony of -states in the unity of his World State. If it can be truly -impossible to have such a peace, then there is nothing -possible except war. If we cannot have friends in this -fashion, then we shall sooner or later have enemies in some -other fashion. There is no hope in the pompous -impersonalities of internationalism. - -And this brings us to the real and relevant mistake of -Dickens. It was not in thinking his Americans funny, but in -thinking them foolish because they were funny. In this sense -it will be noticed that Dickens's American sketches are -almost avowedly superficial; they are descriptions of public -life and riot private life. Mr. Jefferson Brick had no -private life. But Mr. Jonas Chuzzlewit undoubtedly had a -private life; and even kept some parts of it exceeding -private. Mr. Pecksniff was also a domestic character; so was -Mr. Quilp. Mr. Pecksniff and Mr. Quilp had slightly -different ways of surprising their families; Mr. Pecksniff -by playfully observing Boh! when he came home; Mr. Quilp by -coming home at all. But we can form no picture of how -Mr. Hannibal Chollop playfully surprised his family; -possibly by shooting at them; possibly by not shooting at -them. We can only say that he would rather surprise us by -having a family at all. We do not know how the Mother of the -Modern Gracchi managed the Modern Gracchi; for her maternity -was rather a public than private office. We have no romantic -moonlit scenes of the love-making of Elijah Pogram, to -balance against the love story of Seth Pecksniff. These -figures are all in a special sense theatrical; all facing -one way and lit up by a public limelight. Their ridiculous -characters are detachable from their real characters, if -they have any real characters. And the author might -perfectly well be right about what is ridiculous, and wrong -about what is real. He might be as right in smiling at the -Pograms and the Bricks as in smiling at the Pickwicks and -the Boffins. And he might still be as wrong in seeing -Mr. Pogram as a hypocrite as the great Buzfuz was wrong in -seeing Mr. Pickwick as a monster of revolting heartlessness -and systematic villainy. He might still be as wrong in -thinking Jefferson Brick a charlatan and a cheat as was that -great disciple of Lavater, Mrs. Wilfer, in tracing every -wrinkle of evil cunning in the face of Mrs. Boffin. For -Mr. Pickwick's spectacles and gaiters and Mrs. Boffin's -bonnets and boudoir are after all superficial jokes; and -might be equally well seen whatever we saw beneath them. A -man may smile and smile and be a villain; but a man may also -make us smile and not be a villain. He may make us smile and -not even be a fool. He may make us roar with laughter and be -an exceedingly wise man. - -Now that is the paradox of America which Dickens never -discovered. Elijah Pogram was far more fantastic than his -satirist thought; and the most grotesque feature of Brick -and Chollop was hidden from him. The really strange thing -was that Pogram probably did say, 'Rough he may be. So air -our bars. Wild he may be. So air our buffalers,' and yet was -a perfectly intelligent and public-spirited citizen while he -said it. The extraordinary thing is that Jefferson Brick may -really have said, The libation of freedom must sometimes be -quaffed in blood/ and yet Jefferson Brick may have served -freedom, resisting unto blood. There really has been a -florid school of rhetoric in the United States which has -made it quite possible for serious and sensible men to say -such things. It is amusing simply as a difference of idiom -or costume is always amusing; just as English idiom and -English costume are amusing to Americans. But about this -kind of difference there can be no kind of doubt. So sturdy -not to say stuffy a materialist as Ingersoll could say of so -shoddy not to say shady a financial politician as Blaine, -'Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. -Blaine strode down the hall of Congress, and flung his spear -full and true at the shield of every enemy of his country -and every traducer of his fair name.' Compared with that, -the passage about bears and buffaloes, which Mr. Pogram -delivered in defense of the defaulting post-master, is -really a very reasonably and appropriate statement. For -bears and buffaloes are wild and rough and in that sense -free; while plumed knights do not throw their lances about -like the assegais of Zulus. And the defaulting post-master -was at least as good a person to praise in such a fashion as -James G. Blaine of the Little Rock Railway. But anybody who -treated Ingersoll or Blaine merely as a fool and a figure of -fun would have very rapidly found out his mistake. But -Dickens did not know Brick or Chollop long enough to find -out his mistake. It need not be denied that, even after a -full understanding, he might still have found things to -smile at or to criticise. I do not insist on his admitting -that Hannibal Chollop was as great a hero as Hannibal, or -that Elijah Pogram was as true a prophet as Elijah. But I do -say very seriously that they had something about their -atmosphere and situation that made possible a sort of -heroism and even a sort of prophecy that were really less -natural at that period in that Merry England whose comedy -and common sense we sum up under the name of Dickens. When -we joke about the name of Hannibal Chollop, we might -remember of what nation was the general who dismissed his -defeated soldiers at Appomattox with words which the -historian has justly declared to be worthy of Hannibal: 'We -have fought through this war together. I have done my best -for you.' It is not fair to forget Jefferson, or even -Jefferson Davis, entirely in favour of Jefferson Brick. - -For all these three things, good, bad, and indifferent, go -together to form something that Dickens missed, merely -because the England of his time most disastrously missed it. -In this case, as in every-case, the only way to measure -justly the excess of a foreign country is to measure the -defect of our own country. For in this matter the human mind -is the victim of a curious little unconscious trick, the -cause of nearly all international dislikes. A man treats his -own faults as original sin and supposes them scattered -everywhere with the seed of Adam. He supposes that men have -then added their own foreign vices to the solid and simple -foundation of his own private vices. It would astound him to -realise that they have actually, by their strange erratic -path, avoided his vices as well as his virtues. His own -faults are things with which he is so much at home that he -at once forgets and assumes them abroad. He is so faintly -conscious of them in himself that he is not even conscious -of the absence of them in other people. He assumes that they -are there so that he does not see that they are not there. -The Englishman takes it for granted that a Frenchman will -have all the English faults. Then he goes on to be seriously -angry with the Frenchman for having dared to complicate them -by the French faults. The notion that the Frenchman has the -French faults and *not* the English faults is a paradox too -wild to cross his mind. - -He is like an old Chinaman who should laugh at Europeans for -wearing ludicrous top-hats and curling up their pig-tails -inside them; because obviously all men have pig tails, as -all monkeys have tails. Or he is like an old Chinese lady -who should justly deride the high-heeled shoes of the West, -considering them a needless addition to the sufficiently -tight and secure bandaging of the foot; for, of course, all -women bind up their feet, as all women bind up their hair. -What these Celestial thinkers would not think of, or allow -for, is the wild possibility that we do not have pig-tails -although we do have top-hats, or that our ladies are not -silly enough to have Chinese feet, though they are silly -enough to have high-heeled shoes. Nor should we necessarily -have come an inch nearer to the Chinese extravagances even -if the chimney-pot hat rose higher than a factory chimney or -the high heels had evolved into a sort of stilts. By the -same fallacy the Englishman will not only curse the French -peasant as a miser, but will also try to tip him as a -beggar. That is, he will first complain of the man having -the surliness of an independent man, and then accuse him of -having the servility of a dependent one. Just as the -hypothetical Chinaman cannot believe that we have top-hats -but not pig-tails, so the Englishman cannot believe that -peasants are not snobs even when they are savages. Or he -sees that a Paris paper is violent and sensational; and then -supposes that some millionaire owns twenty such papers and -runs them as a newspaper trust. Surely the Yellow Press is -present everywhere to paint the map yellow, as the British -Empire to paint it red. It never occurs to such a critic -that the French paper is violent because it is personal, and -personal because it belongs to a real and responsible -person, and not to a ring of nameless millionaires. It is a -pamphlet, and not an anonymous pamphlet. In a hundred other -cases the same truth could be illustrated; the situation in -which the black man first assumes that all mankind is black, -and then accuses the rest of the artificial vice of painting -their faces red and yellow, or the hypocrisy of -white-washing themselves after the fashion of whited -sepulchers. The particular case of it now before us is that -of the English misunderstanding of America; and it is based, -as in all these cases, on the English misunderstanding of +This fancy example is alphabetically and indeed artificially simple; +but, having used it for convenience, I could easily give similar +examples not of fancy but of fact. I had occasion recently to attend the +Christmas festivity of a club in London for the exiles of one of the +Scandinavian nations. When I entered the room the first thing that +struck my eye, and greatly raised my spirits, was that the room was +dotted with the colours of peasant costumes and the specimens of peasant +craftsmanship. There were, of course, other costumes and other crafts in +evidence; there were men dressed like myself (only better) in the garb +of the modern middle classes; there was furniture like the furniture of +any other room in London. Now, according to the ideal formula of the +ordinary internationalist, these things that we had in common ought to +have moved me to a sense of the kinship of all civilisation. I ought to +have felt that as the Scandinavian gentleman wore a collar and tie, and +I also wore a collar and tie, we were brothers and nothing could come +between us. I ought to have felt that we were standing for the same +principles of truth because we were wearing the same pair of trousers; +or rather, to speak with more precision, similar pairs of trousers. +Anyhow, the pair of trousers, that cloven pennon, ought to have floated +in fancy over my head as the banner of Europe or the League of Nations. +I am constrained to confess that no such rush of emotions overcame me; +and the topic of trousers did not float across my mind at all. So far as +those things were concerned, I might have remained in a mood of mortal +enmity, and cheerfully shot or stabbed the best-dressed gentleman in the +room. Precisely what did warm my heart with an abrupt affection for that +northern nation was the very thing that is utterly and indeed lamentably +lacking in my own nation. It was something corresponding to the one +great gap in English history, corresponding to the one great blot on +English civilisation. It was the spiritual presence of a peasantry, +dressed according to its own dignity, and expressing itself by its own +creations. + +The sketch of America left by Charles Dickens is generally regarded as +something which is either to be used as a taunt or covered with an +apology. Doubtless it was unduly critical, even of the America of that +day; yet curiously enough it may well be the text for a true +reconciliation at the present day. It is true that in this, as in other +things, the Dickensian exaggeration is itself exaggerated. It is also +true that, while it is over-emphasised, it is not allowed for. Dickens +tended too much to describe the United States as a vast lunatic asylum; +but partly because he had a natural inspiration and imagination suited +to the description of lunatic asylums. As it was his finest poetic fancy +that created a lunatic over the garden wall, so it was his fancy that +created a lunatic over the western sea. To read some of the complaints, +one would fancy that Dickens had deliberately invented a low and +farcical America to be a contrast to his high and exalted England. It is +suggested that he showed America as full of rowdy bullies like Hannibal +Chollop, or as ridiculous wind-bags like Elijah Pogram, while England +was full of refined and sincere spirits like Jonas Chuzzlewit, Chevy +Slime, Montague Tigg, and Mr. Pecksniff. If *Martin Chuzzlewit* makes +America a lunatic asylum, what in the world does it make England? We can +only say a criminal lunatic asylum. The truth is, of course, that +Dickens so described them because he had a genius for that sort of +description; for the making of almost maniacal grotesques of the same +type as Quilp or Fagin. He made these Americans absurd because he was an +artist in absurdity; and no artist can help finding hints everywhere for +his own peculiar art. In a word, he created a laughable Pogram for the +same reason that he created a laughable Pecksniff; and that was only +because no other creature could have created them. + +It is often said that we learn to love the characters in romances as if +they were characters in real life. I wish we could sometimes love the +characters in real life as we love the characters in romances. There are +a great many human souls whom we should accept more kindly, and even +appreciate more clearly, if we simply thought of them as people in a +story. *Martin Chuzzlewit* is itself indeed an unsatisfactory and even +unfortunate example; for it is, among its author's other works, a rather +unusually harsh and hostile story. I do not suggest that we should feel +towards an American friend that exact shade or tint of tenderness that +we feel towards Mr. Hannibal Chollop. Our enjoyment of the foreigner +should rather resemble our enjoyment of Pickwick than our enjoyment of +Peck sniff. But there is" this amount of appropriateness even in the +particular example; that Dickens did show in both countries how men can +be made amusing to each other. So far the point is not that he made fun +of America, but that he got fun out of America. And, as I have already +pointed out, he applied exactly the same method of selection and +exaggeration to England. In the other English stories, written in E more +amiable mood, he applied it in a more amiable manner; but he could apply +it to an American too, when he was writing in that mood and manner. We +can see it in the witty and withering criticism delivered by the Yankee +traveller in the musty refreshment room of Mugby Junction; a genuine +example of a genuinely American fun and freedom satirising a genuinely +British stuffiness and snobbery. Nobody expects the American traveller +to admire the refreshments at Mugby Junction; but he might admire the +refreshment at one of the Pickwickian inns, especially if it contained +Pickwick. Nobody expects Pickwick to like Pogram; but he might like the +American who made fun of Mugby Junction. But the point is that, while he +supported him in making fun, he would also think him funny. The two +comic characters could admire each other, but they would also be amused +at each other. And the American would think the Englishman funny because +he was English; and a very good reason too. The Englishman would think +the American amusing because he was American; nor can I imagine a better +ground for his amusement. + +Now many will debate on the psychological possibility of such a +friendship founded on reciprocal ridicule, or rather on a comedy of +comparisons. But I will say of this harmony of humours what Mr. H. G. +Wells says of his harmony of states in the unity of his World State. If +it can be truly impossible to have such a peace, then there is nothing +possible except war. If we cannot have friends in this fashion, then we +shall sooner or later have enemies in some other fashion. There is no +hope in the pompous impersonalities of internationalism. + +And this brings us to the real and relevant mistake of Dickens. It was +not in thinking his Americans funny, but in thinking them foolish +because they were funny. In this sense it will be noticed that Dickens's +American sketches are almost avowedly superficial; they are descriptions +of public life and riot private life. Mr. Jefferson Brick had no private +life. But Mr. Jonas Chuzzlewit undoubtedly had a private life; and even +kept some parts of it exceeding private. Mr. Pecksniff was also a +domestic character; so was Mr. Quilp. Mr. Pecksniff and Mr. Quilp had +slightly different ways of surprising their families; Mr. Pecksniff by +playfully observing Boh! when he came home; Mr. Quilp by coming home at +all. But we can form no picture of how Mr. Hannibal Chollop playfully +surprised his family; possibly by shooting at them; possibly by not +shooting at them. We can only say that he would rather surprise us by +having a family at all. We do not know how the Mother of the Modern +Gracchi managed the Modern Gracchi; for her maternity was rather a +public than private office. We have no romantic moonlit scenes of the +love-making of Elijah Pogram, to balance against the love story of Seth +Pecksniff. These figures are all in a special sense theatrical; all +facing one way and lit up by a public limelight. Their ridiculous +characters are detachable from their real characters, if they have any +real characters. And the author might perfectly well be right about what +is ridiculous, and wrong about what is real. He might be as right in +smiling at the Pograms and the Bricks as in smiling at the Pickwicks and +the Boffins. And he might still be as wrong in seeing Mr. Pogram as a +hypocrite as the great Buzfuz was wrong in seeing Mr. Pickwick as a +monster of revolting heartlessness and systematic villainy. He might +still be as wrong in thinking Jefferson Brick a charlatan and a cheat as +was that great disciple of Lavater, Mrs. Wilfer, in tracing every +wrinkle of evil cunning in the face of Mrs. Boffin. For Mr. Pickwick's +spectacles and gaiters and Mrs. Boffin's bonnets and boudoir are after +all superficial jokes; and might be equally well seen whatever we saw +beneath them. A man may smile and smile and be a villain; but a man may +also make us smile and not be a villain. He may make us smile and not +even be a fool. He may make us roar with laughter and be an exceedingly +wise man. + +Now that is the paradox of America which Dickens never discovered. +Elijah Pogram was far more fantastic than his satirist thought; and the +most grotesque feature of Brick and Chollop was hidden from him. The +really strange thing was that Pogram probably did say, 'Rough he may be. +So air our bars. Wild he may be. So air our buffalers,' and yet was a +perfectly intelligent and public-spirited citizen while he said it. The +extraordinary thing is that Jefferson Brick may really have said, The +libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood/ and yet +Jefferson Brick may have served freedom, resisting unto blood. There +really has been a florid school of rhetoric in the United States which +has made it quite possible for serious and sensible men to say such +things. It is amusing simply as a difference of idiom or costume is +always amusing; just as English idiom and English costume are amusing to +Americans. But about this kind of difference there can be no kind of +doubt. So sturdy not to say stuffy a materialist as Ingersoll could say +of so shoddy not to say shady a financial politician as Blaine, 'Like an +armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine strode down the +hall of Congress, and flung his spear full and true at the shield of +every enemy of his country and every traducer of his fair name.' +Compared with that, the passage about bears and buffaloes, which +Mr. Pogram delivered in defense of the defaulting post-master, is really +a very reasonably and appropriate statement. For bears and buffaloes are +wild and rough and in that sense free; while plumed knights do not throw +their lances about like the assegais of Zulus. And the defaulting +post-master was at least as good a person to praise in such a fashion as +James G. Blaine of the Little Rock Railway. But anybody who treated +Ingersoll or Blaine merely as a fool and a figure of fun would have very +rapidly found out his mistake. But Dickens did not know Brick or Chollop +long enough to find out his mistake. It need not be denied that, even +after a full understanding, he might still have found things to smile at +or to criticise. I do not insist on his admitting that Hannibal Chollop +was as great a hero as Hannibal, or that Elijah Pogram was as true a +prophet as Elijah. But I do say very seriously that they had something +about their atmosphere and situation that made possible a sort of +heroism and even a sort of prophecy that were really less natural at +that period in that Merry England whose comedy and common sense we sum +up under the name of Dickens. When we joke about the name of Hannibal +Chollop, we might remember of what nation was the general who dismissed +his defeated soldiers at Appomattox with words which the historian has +justly declared to be worthy of Hannibal: 'We have fought through this +war together. I have done my best for you.' It is not fair to forget +Jefferson, or even Jefferson Davis, entirely in favour of Jefferson +Brick. + +For all these three things, good, bad, and indifferent, go together to +form something that Dickens missed, merely because the England of his +time most disastrously missed it. In this case, as in every-case, the +only way to measure justly the excess of a foreign country is to measure +the defect of our own country. For in this matter the human mind is the +victim of a curious little unconscious trick, the cause of nearly all +international dislikes. A man treats his own faults as original sin and +supposes them scattered everywhere with the seed of Adam. He supposes +that men have then added their own foreign vices to the solid and simple +foundation of his own private vices. It would astound him to realise +that they have actually, by their strange erratic path, avoided his +vices as well as his virtues. His own faults are things with which he is +so much at home that he at once forgets and assumes them abroad. He is +so faintly conscious of them in himself that he is not even conscious of +the absence of them in other people. He assumes that they are there so +that he does not see that they are not there. The Englishman takes it +for granted that a Frenchman will have all the English faults. Then he +goes on to be seriously angry with the Frenchman for having dared to +complicate them by the French faults. The notion that the Frenchman has +the French faults and *not* the English faults is a paradox too wild to +cross his mind. + +He is like an old Chinaman who should laugh at Europeans for wearing +ludicrous top-hats and curling up their pig-tails inside them; because +obviously all men have pig tails, as all monkeys have tails. Or he is +like an old Chinese lady who should justly deride the high-heeled shoes +of the West, considering them a needless addition to the sufficiently +tight and secure bandaging of the foot; for, of course, all women bind +up their feet, as all women bind up their hair. What these Celestial +thinkers would not think of, or allow for, is the wild possibility that +we do not have pig-tails although we do have top-hats, or that our +ladies are not silly enough to have Chinese feet, though they are silly +enough to have high-heeled shoes. Nor should we necessarily have come an +inch nearer to the Chinese extravagances even if the chimney-pot hat +rose higher than a factory chimney or the high heels had evolved into a +sort of stilts. By the same fallacy the Englishman will not only curse +the French peasant as a miser, but will also try to tip him as a beggar. +That is, he will first complain of the man having the surliness of an +independent man, and then accuse him of having the servility of a +dependent one. Just as the hypothetical Chinaman cannot believe that we +have top-hats but not pig-tails, so the Englishman cannot believe that +peasants are not snobs even when they are savages. Or he sees that a +Paris paper is violent and sensational; and then supposes that some +millionaire owns twenty such papers and runs them as a newspaper trust. +Surely the Yellow Press is present everywhere to paint the map yellow, +as the British Empire to paint it red. It never occurs to such a critic +that the French paper is violent because it is personal, and personal +because it belongs to a real and responsible person, and not to a ring +of nameless millionaires. It is a pamphlet, and not an anonymous +pamphlet. In a hundred other cases the same truth could be illustrated; +the situation in which the black man first assumes that all mankind is +black, and then accuses the rest of the artificial vice of painting +their faces red and yellow, or the hypocrisy of white-washing themselves +after the fashion of whited sepulchers. The particular case of it now +before us is that of the English misunderstanding of America; and it is +based, as in all these cases, on the English misunderstanding of England. -For the truth is that England has suffered of late from not -having enough of the free shooting of Hannibal Chollop; from -not understanding enough that the libation of freedom must -sometimes be quaffed in blood. The prosperous Englishman -will not admit this; but then the prosperous Englishman will -not admit that he has suffered from anything. That is what -he is suffering from. Until lately at least he refused to -realise that many of his modern habits had been bad habits, -the worst of them being contentment. For all the real virtue -in contentment evaporates, when the contentment is only -satisfaction and the satisfaction is only self-satisfaction. -Now it is perfectly true that America and not England has -seen the most obvious and outrageous official denials of -liberty. But it is equally true that it has seen the most -obvious flouting of such official nonsense, far more obvious -than any similar evasions in England. And nobody who knows -the subconscious violence of the American character would -ever be surprised if the weapons of Chollop began to be used -in that most lawful lawlessness. It is perfectly true that -the libation of freedom must sometimes be drunk in blood, -and never more (one would think) than when mad millionaires -forbid it to be drunk in beer. But America, as compared with -England, is the country where one can still fancy men -obtaining the libation of beer by the libation of blood. -Vulgar plutocracy is almost omnipotent in both countries; -but I think there is now more kick of reaction against it in -America than in England. The Americans may go mad when they -make laws; but they recover their reason when they disobey -them. I wish I could believe that there was as much of that -destructive repentance in England; as indeed there certainly -was when Cobbett wrote. It faded gradually like a dying fire -through the Victorian era; and it was one of the very few -realities that Dickens did not understand. But any one who -does understand it will know that the days of Cobbett saw -the last lost fight for English democracy; and that if he -had stood at that turning of the historic road, he would -have wished a better fate to the frame-breakers and the fury -against the first machinery, and luck to the Luddite fires. - -Anyhow, what is wanted is a new Martin Chuzzlewit, told by a -wiser Mark Tapley. It is typical of something sombre and -occasionally stale in the mood of Dickens when he wrote that -book, that the comic servant is not really very comic. Mark -Tapley is a very thin shadow of Sam Weller. But if Dickens -had written it in a happier mood, there might have been a -truer meaning in Mark Tapley's happiness. For it is true -that this illogical good humour amid unreason and disorder -is one of the real virtues of the English people. It is the -real advantage they have in that adventure all over the -world, which they were recently and reluctantly induced to -call an Empire. That receptive ridicule remains with them as -a secret pleasure when they are colonists---or convicts. -Dickens might have written another version of the great -romance, and one in which America was really seen gaily by -Mark instead of gloomily by Martin. Mark Tapley might really -have made the best of America. Then America would have lived -and danced before us like Pickwick's England, a fairyland of -happy lunatics and lovable monsters, and we might still have -sympathised as much with the rhetoric of Lafayette Kettle as -with the rhetoric of Wilkins Micawber, or with the violence -of Chollop as with the violence of Boythorn. That new Martin -Chuzzlewit will never be written; and the loss of it is more -tragic than the loss of *Edwin Drood*. But every man who has -travelled in America has seen glimpses and episodes in that -untold tale; and far away on the Red-Indian frontiers or in -the hamlets in the hills of Pennsylvania, there are people -whom I met for a few hours or a few moments, whom I none the -less sincerely admire and honour because I cannot but smile -as I think of them. But the converse is also true; they have -probably forgotten me; but if they remember they laugh. +For the truth is that England has suffered of late from not having +enough of the free shooting of Hannibal Chollop; from not understanding +enough that the libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood. +The prosperous Englishman will not admit this; but then the prosperous +Englishman will not admit that he has suffered from anything. That is +what he is suffering from. Until lately at least he refused to realise +that many of his modern habits had been bad habits, the worst of them +being contentment. For all the real virtue in contentment evaporates, +when the contentment is only satisfaction and the satisfaction is only +self-satisfaction. Now it is perfectly true that America and not England +has seen the most obvious and outrageous official denials of liberty. +But it is equally true that it has seen the most obvious flouting of +such official nonsense, far more obvious than any similar evasions in +England. And nobody who knows the subconscious violence of the American +character would ever be surprised if the weapons of Chollop began to be +used in that most lawful lawlessness. It is perfectly true that the +libation of freedom must sometimes be drunk in blood, and never more +(one would think) than when mad millionaires forbid it to be drunk in +beer. But America, as compared with England, is the country where one +can still fancy men obtaining the libation of beer by the libation of +blood. Vulgar plutocracy is almost omnipotent in both countries; but I +think there is now more kick of reaction against it in America than in +England. The Americans may go mad when they make laws; but they recover +their reason when they disobey them. I wish I could believe that there +was as much of that destructive repentance in England; as indeed there +certainly was when Cobbett wrote. It faded gradually like a dying fire +through the Victorian era; and it was one of the very few realities that +Dickens did not understand. But any one who does understand it will know +that the days of Cobbett saw the last lost fight for English democracy; +and that if he had stood at that turning of the historic road, he would +have wished a better fate to the frame-breakers and the fury against the +first machinery, and luck to the Luddite fires. + +Anyhow, what is wanted is a new Martin Chuzzlewit, told by a wiser Mark +Tapley. It is typical of something sombre and occasionally stale in the +mood of Dickens when he wrote that book, that the comic servant is not +really very comic. Mark Tapley is a very thin shadow of Sam Weller. But +if Dickens had written it in a happier mood, there might have been a +truer meaning in Mark Tapley's happiness. For it is true that this +illogical good humour amid unreason and disorder is one of the real +virtues of the English people. It is the real advantage they have in +that adventure all over the world, which they were recently and +reluctantly induced to call an Empire. That receptive ridicule remains +with them as a secret pleasure when they are colonists---or convicts. +Dickens might have written another version of the great romance, and one +in which America was really seen gaily by Mark instead of gloomily by +Martin. Mark Tapley might really have made the best of America. Then +America would have lived and danced before us like Pickwick's England, a +fairyland of happy lunatics and lovable monsters, and we might still +have sympathised as much with the rhetoric of Lafayette Kettle as with +the rhetoric of Wilkins Micawber, or with the violence of Chollop as +with the violence of Boythorn. That new Martin Chuzzlewit will never be +written; and the loss of it is more tragic than the loss of *Edwin +Drood*. But every man who has travelled in America has seen glimpses and +episodes in that untold tale; and far away on the Red-Indian frontiers +or in the hamlets in the hills of Pennsylvania, there are people whom I +met for a few hours or a few moments, whom I none the less sincerely +admire and honour because I cannot but smile as I think of them. But the +converse is also true; they have probably forgotten me; but if they +remember they laugh. # The Spirit of America -I suggest that diplomatists of the internationalist school -should spend some of their money on staging farces and -comedies of cross-purposes, founded on the curious and -prevalent idea that England and America have the same -language. I know, of course, that we both inherit the -glorious tongue of Shakespeare, not to mention the tune of -the musical glasses; but there have been moments when I -thought that if we spoke Greek and they spoke Latin we might -understand each other better. For Greek and Latin are at -least fixed, while American at least is still very fluid. I -do not know the American language, and therefore I do not -claim to distinguish between the American language and the -American slang. But I know that highly theatrical -developments might follow on taking the words as part of the -English slang or the English language. I have already given -the example of calling a person 'a regular guy,' which in -the States is a graceful expression of respect and esteem, -but which on the stage, properly handled, might surely lead -the way towards a divorce or duel or something lively. -Sometimes coincidence merely clinches a mistake, as it often -clinches a misprint. Every proof reader knows that the worst -misprint is not that which makes nonsense but that which -makes sense; not that which is obviously wrong but that -which is hideously right. He who has essayed to write 'he -got the book,' and has found it rendered mysteriously as 'he -got the boob' is pensively resigned. It is when it is -rendered quite lucidly as 'he got the boot' that he is moved -to a more passionate mood of regret. I have had -conversations in which this sort of accident would have -wholly misled me, if another accident had not come to the -res cue. An American friend of mine was telling me of his -adventures as a cinema-producer down in the south-west where -real Red Indians were procurable. He said that certain -Indians were 'very bad actors.' It passed for me as a very -ordinary remark on a very ordinary or natural deficiency. It -would hardly seem a crushing criticism to say that some wild -Arab chieftain was not very good at imitating a farmyard; or -that the Grand Llama of Tibet was rather clumsy at making -paper boats. But the remark might be natural in a man -travelling in paper boats, or touring with an invisible -farmyard for his menagerie. As my friend was a -cinema-producer, I supposed he meant that the Indians were -bad cinema actors. But the phrase has really a high and -austere moral meaning, which my levity had wholly missed. A -bad actor means a man whose actions are bad or morally -reprehensible. So that I might have embraced a Red Indian -who was dripping with gore, or covered with atrocious -crimes, imagining there was nothing the matter with him -beyond a mistaken choice of the theatrical profession. -Surely there are here the elements of a play, not to mention -a cinema play. Surely a New England village maiden might -find herself among the wigwams in the power of the -formidable and fiendish Little Blue Bison, merely through -her mistaken sympathy with his financial failure as a Film -Star. The notion gives me glimpses of all sorts of -dissolving views of primeval forests and flamboyant -theatres; but this impulse of irrelevant theatrical -production must be curbed. There is one example, however, of -this complication of language actually used in contrary -senses, about which the same figure can be used to -illustrate a more serious fact. - -Suppose that, in such an international interlude, an English -girl and an American girl are talking about the fiancé of -the former, who is coming to call. The English girl will be -haughty and aristocratic (on the stage), the American girl -will of course have short hair and skirts and will be -cynical; Americans being more completely free from cynicism -than any people in the world. It is the great glory of -Americans that they are not cynical; for that matter, -English aristocrats are hardly ever haughty; they understand -the game much better than that. But on the stage, anyhow, -the American girl may say, referring to her friend's fiancé, -with a cynical wave of the cigarette, 'I suppose he's bound -to come and see you.' And at this the blue blood of the Vere -de Veres will boil over; the English lady will be deeply -wounded and insulted at the suggestion that her lover only -comes to see her because he is forced to do so. A staggering -stage quarrel will then ensue, and things will go from bad -to worse; until the arrival of an Interpreter who can talk -both English and American. He stands between the two ladies -waving two pocket dictionaries, and explains the error on -which the quarrel turns. It is very simple; like the seed of -all tragedies. In English 'he is bound to come and see you' -means that he is obliged or constrained to come and see you. -In American it does not. In American it means that he is -bent on coming to see you, that he is irrevocably resolved -to do so, and will sur mount any obstacle to do it. The two -young ladies will then embrace as the curtain falls. - -Now when I was lecturing in America I was often told, in a -radiant and congratulatory manner, that such and such a -person was bound to come and hear me lecture. It seemed a -very cruel form of conscription, and I could not understand -what authority could have made it compulsory. In the course -of discovering my error, however, I thought I began to -understand certain American ideas and instincts that lie -behind this American idiom. For as I have urged before, and -shall often urge again, the road to international friendship -is through really understanding jokes. It is in a sense -through taking jokes seriously. It is quite legitimate to -laugh at a man who walks down the street in three white hats -and a green dressing gown, because it is unfamiliar; but -after all the man has *some* reason for what he does; and -until we know the reason we do not understand the story, or -even understand the joke. So the outlander will always seem -outlandish in custom or costume; but serious relations -depend on our getting beyond the fact of difference to the -things wherein it differs. A good symbolical figure for all -this may be found among the people who say, perhaps with a -self-revealing simplicity, that they are bound to go to a -lecture. - -If I were asked for a single symbolic figure summing up the -whole of what seems eccentric and interesting about America -to an Englishman, I should be satisfied to select that one -lady who complained of Mrs. Asquith's lecture and wanted her -money back. I do not mean that she was typically American in -complaining; far from it. I, for one, have a great and -guilty knowledge of all that amiable American audiences will -endure without complaint. I do not mean that she was -typically American in wanting her money; quite the contrary. -That sort of American spends money rather than hoards it; -and when we convict them of vulgarity we acquit them of -avarice. Where she was typically American, summing up a -truth individual and indescribable in any other way, is that -she used these words: 'I've risen from a sick-bed to come -and hear her, and I want my money back.' - -The element in that which really amuses an English man is -precisely the element which, properly analysed, ought to -make him admire an American. But my point is that only by -going through the amusement can he reach the admiration. The -amusement is in the vision of a tragic sacrifice for what is -avowedly a rather trivial object. Mrs. Asquith is a candid -lady of considerable humour; and I feel sure she does not -regard the experience of hearing her read her diary as an -ecstasy for which the sick should thus suffer martyrdom. She -also is English; and had no other claim but to amuse -Americans and possibly to be amused by them. This being so, -it is rather as if somebody said, 'I have risked my life in -fire and pestilence to find my way to the music hall,' or, -'I have fasted forty days in the wilderness sustained by the -hope of seeing Totty Toddles do her new dance.' And there is -something rather more subtle involved here. There is -something in an Englishman which would make him feel faintly -ashamed of saying that he had fasted to hear Totty Toddles, -or risen from a sick-bed to hear Mrs. Asquith. He would feel -it was undignified to confess that he had wanted mere -amusement so much; and perhaps that he had wanted anything -so much. He would not like, so to speak, to be seen rushing -down the street after Totty Toddles, or after Mrs. Asquith, -or perhaps after anybody. But there is something in it -distinct from a mere embarrassment at admitting enthusiasm. -He might admit the enthusiasm if the object seemed to -justify it; he might perfectly well be serious about a -serious thing. But he cannot under stand a person being -proud of serious sacrifices for what is not a serious thing. -He does not like to admit that a little thing can excite -him; that he can lose his breath in running, or lose his -balance in reaching, after some thing that might be called -silly. - -Now that is where the American is fundamentally different. -To him the enthusiasm itself is meritorious. To him the -excitement itself is dignified. He counts it a part of his -manhood to fast or fight or rise from a bed of sickness for -something, or possibly for anything. His ideal is not to be -a lock that only a worthy key can open, but a live wire that -anything can touch or anybody can use. In a word, there is a -difference in the very definition of virility and therefore -of virtue. A live wire is not only active, it is also -sensitive. Thus sensibility becomes actually a part of -virility. Something more is involved than the vulgar -simplification of the American as the irresistible force and -the Englishman as the immovable post. As a fact, those who -speak of such things nowadays generally mean by something -irresistible something simply immovable, or at least -something unalterable, motionless even in motion, like a -cannon ball; for a cannon ball is as dead as a cannon. -Prussian militarism was praised in that way---until it met a -French force of about half its size on the banks of the -Marne. But that is not what an American means by energy; -that sort of Prussian energy is only monotony without -repose. American energy is not a soulless machine; for it is -the whole point that he puts his soul into it. It is a very -small box for so big a thing; but it is not an empty box. -But the point is that he is not only proud of his energy, he -is proud of his excitement. He is not ashamed of his -emotion, of the fire or even the tear in him manly eye, when -he tells you that the great wheel of his machine breaks four -billion butterflies an hour. - -That is the point about American sport; that it is not in -the least sportive. It is because it is not very sportive -that we sometimes say it is not very sporting. It has the -vices of a religion. It has all the paradox of original sin -in the service of aboriginal faith. It is sometimes -untruthful because it is sincere. It is sometimes -treacherous because it is loyal. Men lie and cheat for it as -they lied for their lords in a feudal conspiracy, or cheated -for their chieftains in a Highland feud. We may say that the -vassal readily committed treason; but it is equally true -that he readily endured torture. So does the American -athlete endure torture. Not only the self-sacrifice but/the -solemnity of the American athlete is like that of the -American Indian. The athletes in the States have the -attitude of the athletes among the Spartans, the great -historical nation without a sense of humour. They suffer an -ascetic regime not to be matched in any monasticism and -hardly in any militarism. If any tradition of these things -remains in a saner age, they will probably be remembered as -a mysterious religious order of fakirs or dancing dervishes, -who shaved their heads and fasted in honour of Hercules or -Caster and Pollux. And that is really the spiritual -atmosphere though the Gods have vanished; and the religion -is subconscious and therefore irrational. For the problem of -the modern world is that is has continued to be religious -when it has ceased to be rational. Americans really would -starve to win a cocoa-nut shy. They would fast or bleed to -win a race of paper boats on a pond. They would rise from a -sick-bed to listen to Mrs. Asquith. - -But it is the real reason that interests me here. It is -certainly not that Americans are so stupid as not to know -that cocoa-nuts are only cocoa-nuts and paper boats only -made of paper. Americans are, on an average, rather more -intelligent than Englishmen; and they are well aware that -Hercules is a myth and that Mrs. Asquith is something of a -mythologist. It is not that they do not know that the object -is small in itself; it is that they do really believe that -the enthusiasm is great in itself. They admire people for -being impressionable. They admire people for being excited. -An American so struggling for some disproportionate trifle -(like one of my lectures) really feels in a mystical way -that he is right, because it is his whole morality to be -keen. So long as he wants something very much, whatever it -is, he feels he has his conscience behind him, and the -common sentiment of society behind him, and God and the -whole universe be hind him. Wedged on one leg in a hot crowd -at a trivial lecture, he has self-respect; his dignity is at -rest. That is what he means when he says he is bound to come -to the lecture. - -Now the Englishman is fond of occasional larks. But these -things are not larks; nor are they occasional. It is the -essential of the Englishman's lark that he should think it a -lark; that he should laugh at it even when he does it. Being -English myself, I like it; but being English myself, I know -it is connected with weaknesses as well as merits. In its -irony there is condescension and therefore embarrassment. -This patronage is allied to the patron, and the patron is -allied to the aristocratic tradition of society. The larks -are a variant of laziness because of leisure; and the -leisure is a variant of the security and even supremacy of -the gentleman. When an undergraduate at Oxford smashes half -a hundred windows, he is well aware that the incident is -merely a trifle. He can be trusted to explain to his parents -and guardians that it was merely a trifle. He does not say, -even in the American sense, that he was bound to smash the -windows. He does not say that he had risen from a sick-bed -to smash the windows. He does not especially think he has -risen at all; he knows he has descended (though with -delight, like one diving or sliding down the banisters) to -something flat and farcical and full of the English taste -for the bathos. He has collapsed into something entirely -commonplace; though the owners of the windows may possibly -not think so. This rather indescribable element runs through -a hundred English things, as in the love of bathos shown -even in the sound of proper names; so that even the yearning -lover in a lyric yearns for somebody named Sally rather than -Salome, and for a place called Wapping rather than a place -called Westermain. Even in the relapse into rowdiness there -is a sort of relapse into comfort. There is also what is so -large a part of comfort; carelessness. The undergraduate -breaks windows because he does not care about windows, not -because he does care about more fresh air like a hygienist, -or about more light like a German poet. Still less does he -heroically smash a hundred windows because they come between -him and the voice of Mrs. Asquith. But least of all does he -do it because he seriously prides himself on the energy -apart from its aim, and on the will-power that carries it -through. He is not bound to smash the windows, even in the -sense of being bent upon it. He is not bound at all but -rather relaxed; and his violence is not only a relaxation -but a laxity. Finally, this is shown in the fact that he -only smashes windows when he is in the mood to smash -windows; when some fortunate conjunction of stars and all -the tints and nuances of nature whisper to him that it would -be well to smash windows. But the American is always ready, -at any moment, to waste his energies on the wilder and more -suicidal course of going to lectures. And this is because to -him such excitement is not a mood but a moral ideal. As I -note in another connection, much of the English mystery -would be clear to Americans if they understood the word -'mood.' Englishmen are very moody, especially when they -smash windows. But I doubt if many Americans understand -exactly what we mean by the mood; especially the passive -mood. - -It is only by trying to get some notion of all this that an -Englishman can enjoy the final crown and fruit of all -international friendship; which is really liking an American -to be American. If we only think that parts of him are -excellent because parts of him are English, it would be far -more sensible to stop at. home and possibly enjoy the -society of a whole complete Englishman. But anybody who does -understand this can take the same pleasure in an American -being American that he does in a thunderbolt being swift and -a barometer being sensitive. He can see that a vivid -sensibility and vigilance really radiate outwards through -all the ramifications of machinery and even of materialism. -He can see that the American uses his great practical, -powers upon very small provocation; but he can also see that -there is a kind of sense of honour, like that of a duellist, -in his readiness to be provoked. Indeed, there is some -parallel between the American man of action, however vulgar -his aims, and the old feudal, idea of the gentleman with a -sword at his side. The gentleman may have been proud of -being strong or sturdy; he may too often have been proud of -being thick-headed; but he was not proud of being -thick-skinned. On the contrary, he was proud of being -thin-skinned. He also seriously thought that sensitiveness -was a part of masculinity. It may be very absurd to read of -two Irish gentlemen trying to kill each other for trifles, -or of two Irish-American millionaires trying to ruin each -other for trash. But the very pettiness of the pretext and -even the purpose illustrates the same conception; which may -be called the virtue of excitability. And it is really this, -and not any rubbish about iron will-power and masterful -mentality, that redeems with romance their clockwork cosmos -and its industrial ideals. Being a live wire does not mean -that the nerves should be like wires; but rather that the -very wires should be like nerves. - -Another approximation to the truth would be to say that an -American is really not ashamed of curiosity. It is not so -simple as it looks. Men will carry off curiosity with -various kinds of laughter and bravado, just as they will -carry off drunkenness or bankruptcy. But very few people are -really proud of lying on a door-step, and very few people -are really proud of longing to look through a key-hole. I do -not speak of looking through it, which involves questions of -honour and self-control; but few people feel that even the -desire is dignified. Now I fancy the American, at least by -comparison with the Englishman, does feel that his curiosity -is consistent with his dignity, because dignity is -consistent with vivacity. He feels it is not merely the -curiosity of Paul Pry, but the curiosity of Christopher -Columbus. He is not a spy but an explorer; and he feels his -greatness rather grow with his refusal to turn back, as a -traveller might feel taller and taller as he neared the -source of the Nile or the North-West passage. Many an -Englishman has had that feeling about discoveries in dark -continents; but he does not often have it about discoveries -in daily life. The one type does believe in the indignity -and the other in the dignity of the detective. It has -nothing to do with ethics in the merely external sense. It -involves no particular comparison in practical morals and -manners. It is something in the whole poise and posture of -the self; of the way a man carries himself. For men are not -only affected by what they are; but still more, when they -are fools, by what they think they are; and when they are +I suggest that diplomatists of the internationalist school should spend +some of their money on staging farces and comedies of cross-purposes, +founded on the curious and prevalent idea that England and America have +the same language. I know, of course, that we both inherit the glorious +tongue of Shakespeare, not to mention the tune of the musical glasses; +but there have been moments when I thought that if we spoke Greek and +they spoke Latin we might understand each other better. For Greek and +Latin are at least fixed, while American at least is still very fluid. I +do not know the American language, and therefore I do not claim to +distinguish between the American language and the American slang. But I +know that highly theatrical developments might follow on taking the +words as part of the English slang or the English language. I have +already given the example of calling a person 'a regular guy,' which in +the States is a graceful expression of respect and esteem, but which on +the stage, properly handled, might surely lead the way towards a divorce +or duel or something lively. Sometimes coincidence merely clinches a +mistake, as it often clinches a misprint. Every proof reader knows that +the worst misprint is not that which makes nonsense but that which makes +sense; not that which is obviously wrong but that which is hideously +right. He who has essayed to write 'he got the book,' and has found it +rendered mysteriously as 'he got the boob' is pensively resigned. It is +when it is rendered quite lucidly as 'he got the boot' that he is moved +to a more passionate mood of regret. I have had conversations in which +this sort of accident would have wholly misled me, if another accident +had not come to the res cue. An American friend of mine was telling me +of his adventures as a cinema-producer down in the south-west where real +Red Indians were procurable. He said that certain Indians were 'very bad +actors.' It passed for me as a very ordinary remark on a very ordinary +or natural deficiency. It would hardly seem a crushing criticism to say +that some wild Arab chieftain was not very good at imitating a farmyard; +or that the Grand Llama of Tibet was rather clumsy at making paper +boats. But the remark might be natural in a man travelling in paper +boats, or touring with an invisible farmyard for his menagerie. As my +friend was a cinema-producer, I supposed he meant that the Indians were +bad cinema actors. But the phrase has really a high and austere moral +meaning, which my levity had wholly missed. A bad actor means a man +whose actions are bad or morally reprehensible. So that I might have +embraced a Red Indian who was dripping with gore, or covered with +atrocious crimes, imagining there was nothing the matter with him beyond +a mistaken choice of the theatrical profession. Surely there are here +the elements of a play, not to mention a cinema play. Surely a New +England village maiden might find herself among the wigwams in the power +of the formidable and fiendish Little Blue Bison, merely through her +mistaken sympathy with his financial failure as a Film Star. The notion +gives me glimpses of all sorts of dissolving views of primeval forests +and flamboyant theatres; but this impulse of irrelevant theatrical +production must be curbed. There is one example, however, of this +complication of language actually used in contrary senses, about which +the same figure can be used to illustrate a more serious fact. + +Suppose that, in such an international interlude, an English girl and an +American girl are talking about the fiancé of the former, who is coming +to call. The English girl will be haughty and aristocratic (on the +stage), the American girl will of course have short hair and skirts and +will be cynical; Americans being more completely free from cynicism than +any people in the world. It is the great glory of Americans that they +are not cynical; for that matter, English aristocrats are hardly ever +haughty; they understand the game much better than that. But on the +stage, anyhow, the American girl may say, referring to her friend's +fiancé, with a cynical wave of the cigarette, 'I suppose he's bound to +come and see you.' And at this the blue blood of the Vere de Veres will +boil over; the English lady will be deeply wounded and insulted at the +suggestion that her lover only comes to see her because he is forced to +do so. A staggering stage quarrel will then ensue, and things will go +from bad to worse; until the arrival of an Interpreter who can talk both +English and American. He stands between the two ladies waving two pocket +dictionaries, and explains the error on which the quarrel turns. It is +very simple; like the seed of all tragedies. In English 'he is bound to +come and see you' means that he is obliged or constrained to come and +see you. In American it does not. In American it means that he is bent +on coming to see you, that he is irrevocably resolved to do so, and will +sur mount any obstacle to do it. The two young ladies will then embrace +as the curtain falls. + +Now when I was lecturing in America I was often told, in a radiant and +congratulatory manner, that such and such a person was bound to come and +hear me lecture. It seemed a very cruel form of conscription, and I +could not understand what authority could have made it compulsory. In +the course of discovering my error, however, I thought I began to +understand certain American ideas and instincts that lie behind this +American idiom. For as I have urged before, and shall often urge again, +the road to international friendship is through really understanding +jokes. It is in a sense through taking jokes seriously. It is quite +legitimate to laugh at a man who walks down the street in three white +hats and a green dressing gown, because it is unfamiliar; but after all +the man has *some* reason for what he does; and until we know the reason +we do not understand the story, or even understand the joke. So the +outlander will always seem outlandish in custom or costume; but serious +relations depend on our getting beyond the fact of difference to the +things wherein it differs. A good symbolical figure for all this may be +found among the people who say, perhaps with a self-revealing +simplicity, that they are bound to go to a lecture. + +If I were asked for a single symbolic figure summing up the whole of +what seems eccentric and interesting about America to an Englishman, I +should be satisfied to select that one lady who complained of +Mrs. Asquith's lecture and wanted her money back. I do not mean that she +was typically American in complaining; far from it. I, for one, have a +great and guilty knowledge of all that amiable American audiences will +endure without complaint. I do not mean that she was typically American +in wanting her money; quite the contrary. That sort of American spends +money rather than hoards it; and when we convict them of vulgarity we +acquit them of avarice. Where she was typically American, summing up a +truth individual and indescribable in any other way, is that she used +these words: 'I've risen from a sick-bed to come and hear her, and I +want my money back.' + +The element in that which really amuses an English man is precisely the +element which, properly analysed, ought to make him admire an American. +But my point is that only by going through the amusement can he reach +the admiration. The amusement is in the vision of a tragic sacrifice for +what is avowedly a rather trivial object. Mrs. Asquith is a candid lady +of considerable humour; and I feel sure she does not regard the +experience of hearing her read her diary as an ecstasy for which the +sick should thus suffer martyrdom. She also is English; and had no other +claim but to amuse Americans and possibly to be amused by them. This +being so, it is rather as if somebody said, 'I have risked my life in +fire and pestilence to find my way to the music hall,' or, 'I have +fasted forty days in the wilderness sustained by the hope of seeing +Totty Toddles do her new dance.' And there is something rather more +subtle involved here. There is something in an Englishman which would +make him feel faintly ashamed of saying that he had fasted to hear Totty +Toddles, or risen from a sick-bed to hear Mrs. Asquith. He would feel it +was undignified to confess that he had wanted mere amusement so much; +and perhaps that he had wanted anything so much. He would not like, so +to speak, to be seen rushing down the street after Totty Toddles, or +after Mrs. Asquith, or perhaps after anybody. But there is something in +it distinct from a mere embarrassment at admitting enthusiasm. He might +admit the enthusiasm if the object seemed to justify it; he might +perfectly well be serious about a serious thing. But he cannot under +stand a person being proud of serious sacrifices for what is not a +serious thing. He does not like to admit that a little thing can excite +him; that he can lose his breath in running, or lose his balance in +reaching, after some thing that might be called silly. + +Now that is where the American is fundamentally different. To him the +enthusiasm itself is meritorious. To him the excitement itself is +dignified. He counts it a part of his manhood to fast or fight or rise +from a bed of sickness for something, or possibly for anything. His +ideal is not to be a lock that only a worthy key can open, but a live +wire that anything can touch or anybody can use. In a word, there is a +difference in the very definition of virility and therefore of virtue. A +live wire is not only active, it is also sensitive. Thus sensibility +becomes actually a part of virility. Something more is involved than the +vulgar simplification of the American as the irresistible force and the +Englishman as the immovable post. As a fact, those who speak of such +things nowadays generally mean by something irresistible something +simply immovable, or at least something unalterable, motionless even in +motion, like a cannon ball; for a cannon ball is as dead as a cannon. +Prussian militarism was praised in that way---until it met a French +force of about half its size on the banks of the Marne. But that is not +what an American means by energy; that sort of Prussian energy is only +monotony without repose. American energy is not a soulless machine; for +it is the whole point that he puts his soul into it. It is a very small +box for so big a thing; but it is not an empty box. But the point is +that he is not only proud of his energy, he is proud of his excitement. +He is not ashamed of his emotion, of the fire or even the tear in him +manly eye, when he tells you that the great wheel of his machine breaks +four billion butterflies an hour. + +That is the point about American sport; that it is not in the least +sportive. It is because it is not very sportive that we sometimes say it +is not very sporting. It has the vices of a religion. It has all the +paradox of original sin in the service of aboriginal faith. It is +sometimes untruthful because it is sincere. It is sometimes treacherous +because it is loyal. Men lie and cheat for it as they lied for their +lords in a feudal conspiracy, or cheated for their chieftains in a +Highland feud. We may say that the vassal readily committed treason; but +it is equally true that he readily endured torture. So does the American +athlete endure torture. Not only the self-sacrifice but/the solemnity of +the American athlete is like that of the American Indian. The athletes +in the States have the attitude of the athletes among the Spartans, the +great historical nation without a sense of humour. They suffer an +ascetic regime not to be matched in any monasticism and hardly in any +militarism. If any tradition of these things remains in a saner age, +they will probably be remembered as a mysterious religious order of +fakirs or dancing dervishes, who shaved their heads and fasted in honour +of Hercules or Caster and Pollux. And that is really the spiritual +atmosphere though the Gods have vanished; and the religion is +subconscious and therefore irrational. For the problem of the modern +world is that is has continued to be religious when it has ceased to be +rational. Americans really would starve to win a cocoa-nut shy. They +would fast or bleed to win a race of paper boats on a pond. They would +rise from a sick-bed to listen to Mrs. Asquith. + +But it is the real reason that interests me here. It is certainly not +that Americans are so stupid as not to know that cocoa-nuts are only +cocoa-nuts and paper boats only made of paper. Americans are, on an +average, rather more intelligent than Englishmen; and they are well +aware that Hercules is a myth and that Mrs. Asquith is something of a +mythologist. It is not that they do not know that the object is small in +itself; it is that they do really believe that the enthusiasm is great +in itself. They admire people for being impressionable. They admire +people for being excited. An American so struggling for some +disproportionate trifle (like one of my lectures) really feels in a +mystical way that he is right, because it is his whole morality to be +keen. So long as he wants something very much, whatever it is, he feels +he has his conscience behind him, and the common sentiment of society +behind him, and God and the whole universe be hind him. Wedged on one +leg in a hot crowd at a trivial lecture, he has self-respect; his +dignity is at rest. That is what he means when he says he is bound to +come to the lecture. + +Now the Englishman is fond of occasional larks. But these things are not +larks; nor are they occasional. It is the essential of the Englishman's +lark that he should think it a lark; that he should laugh at it even +when he does it. Being English myself, I like it; but being English +myself, I know it is connected with weaknesses as well as merits. In its +irony there is condescension and therefore embarrassment. This patronage +is allied to the patron, and the patron is allied to the aristocratic +tradition of society. The larks are a variant of laziness because of +leisure; and the leisure is a variant of the security and even supremacy +of the gentleman. When an undergraduate at Oxford smashes half a hundred +windows, he is well aware that the incident is merely a trifle. He can +be trusted to explain to his parents and guardians that it was merely a +trifle. He does not say, even in the American sense, that he was bound +to smash the windows. He does not say that he had risen from a sick-bed +to smash the windows. He does not especially think he has risen at all; +he knows he has descended (though with delight, like one diving or +sliding down the banisters) to something flat and farcical and full of +the English taste for the bathos. He has collapsed into something +entirely commonplace; though the owners of the windows may possibly not +think so. This rather indescribable element runs through a hundred +English things, as in the love of bathos shown even in the sound of +proper names; so that even the yearning lover in a lyric yearns for +somebody named Sally rather than Salome, and for a place called Wapping +rather than a place called Westermain. Even in the relapse into +rowdiness there is a sort of relapse into comfort. There is also what is +so large a part of comfort; carelessness. The undergraduate breaks +windows because he does not care about windows, not because he does care +about more fresh air like a hygienist, or about more light like a German +poet. Still less does he heroically smash a hundred windows because they +come between him and the voice of Mrs. Asquith. But least of all does he +do it because he seriously prides himself on the energy apart from its +aim, and on the will-power that carries it through. He is not bound to +smash the windows, even in the sense of being bent upon it. He is not +bound at all but rather relaxed; and his violence is not only a +relaxation but a laxity. Finally, this is shown in the fact that he only +smashes windows when he is in the mood to smash windows; when some +fortunate conjunction of stars and all the tints and nuances of nature +whisper to him that it would be well to smash windows. But the American +is always ready, at any moment, to waste his energies on the wilder and +more suicidal course of going to lectures. And this is because to him +such excitement is not a mood but a moral ideal. As I note in another +connection, much of the English mystery would be clear to Americans if +they understood the word 'mood.' Englishmen are very moody, especially +when they smash windows. But I doubt if many Americans understand +exactly what we mean by the mood; especially the passive mood. + +It is only by trying to get some notion of all this that an Englishman +can enjoy the final crown and fruit of all international friendship; +which is really liking an American to be American. If we only think that +parts of him are excellent because parts of him are English, it would be +far more sensible to stop at. home and possibly enjoy the society of a +whole complete Englishman. But anybody who does understand this can take +the same pleasure in an American being American that he does in a +thunderbolt being swift and a barometer being sensitive. He can see that +a vivid sensibility and vigilance really radiate outwards through all +the ramifications of machinery and even of materialism. He can see that +the American uses his great practical, powers upon very small +provocation; but he can also see that there is a kind of sense of +honour, like that of a duellist, in his readiness to be provoked. +Indeed, there is some parallel between the American man of action, +however vulgar his aims, and the old feudal, idea of the gentleman with +a sword at his side. The gentleman may have been proud of being strong +or sturdy; he may too often have been proud of being thick-headed; but +he was not proud of being thick-skinned. On the contrary, he was proud +of being thin-skinned. He also seriously thought that sensitiveness was +a part of masculinity. It may be very absurd to read of two Irish +gentlemen trying to kill each other for trifles, or of two +Irish-American millionaires trying to ruin each other for trash. But the +very pettiness of the pretext and even the purpose illustrates the same +conception; which may be called the virtue of excitability. And it is +really this, and not any rubbish about iron will-power and masterful +mentality, that redeems with romance their clockwork cosmos and its +industrial ideals. Being a live wire does not mean that the nerves +should be like wires; but rather that the very wires should be like +nerves. + +Another approximation to the truth would be to say that an American is +really not ashamed of curiosity. It is not so simple as it looks. Men +will carry off curiosity with various kinds of laughter and bravado, +just as they will carry off drunkenness or bankruptcy. But very few +people are really proud of lying on a door-step, and very few people are +really proud of longing to look through a key-hole. I do not speak of +looking through it, which involves questions of honour and self-control; +but few people feel that even the desire is dignified. Now I fancy the +American, at least by comparison with the Englishman, does feel that his +curiosity is consistent with his dignity, because dignity is consistent +with vivacity. He feels it is not merely the curiosity of Paul Pry, but +the curiosity of Christopher Columbus. He is not a spy but an explorer; +and he feels his greatness rather grow with his refusal to turn back, as +a traveller might feel taller and taller as he neared the source of the +Nile or the North-West passage. Many an Englishman has had that feeling +about discoveries in dark continents; but he does not often have it +about discoveries in daily life. The one type does believe in the +indignity and the other in the dignity of the detective. It has nothing +to do with ethics in the merely external sense. It involves no +particular comparison in practical morals and manners. It is something +in the whole poise and posture of the self; of the way a man carries +himself. For men are not only affected by what they are; but still more, +when they are fools, by what they think they are; and when they are wise, by what they wish to be. -There are truths that have almost become untrue by becoming -untruthful. There are statements so often stale and -insincere that one hesitates to use them, even when they -stand for something more subtle. This point about curiosity -is not the conventional complaint against the American -interviewer. It is not the ordinary joke against the -American child. And in the same way I feel the danger of it -being identified with the cant about 'a young nation' if I -say that it has some of the attractions, not of. American -childhood, but of real childhood. There is some truth in the -tradition that the children of wealthy Americans tend to be -too precocious and luxurious. But there is a sense in which -we can really say that if the children are like adults, the -adults are like children. And that sense is in the very best -sense of childhood. It is something which the modern world -does not understand. It is something that modern Americans -do not understand, even when they possess it; but I think -they do possess it. - -The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose; and the text -of Scripture which he now most commonly quotes is, 'The -kingdom of heaven is within you.' That text has been the -stay and support of more Pharisees and prigs and -self-righteous spiritual bullies than all the dogmas in -creation; it has served to identify self-satisfaction with -the peace that passes all understanding. And the text to be -quoted in answer to it is that which declares that no man -can receive the kingdom except as a little child. What we -are to have inside is the childlike spirit; but the -childlike spirit is not entirely concerned about what is -inside. It is the first mark of possessing it that one is -interested in what is outside. The most childlike thing -about a child is his curiosity and his appetite and his -power of wonder at the world. We might almost say that the -whole advantage of having the kingdom within is that we look -for it somewhere else. +There are truths that have almost become untrue by becoming untruthful. +There are statements so often stale and insincere that one hesitates to +use them, even when they stand for something more subtle. This point +about curiosity is not the conventional complaint against the American +interviewer. It is not the ordinary joke against the American child. And +in the same way I feel the danger of it being identified with the cant +about 'a young nation' if I say that it has some of the attractions, not +of. American childhood, but of real childhood. There is some truth in +the tradition that the children of wealthy Americans tend to be too +precocious and luxurious. But there is a sense in which we can really +say that if the children are like adults, the adults are like children. +And that sense is in the very best sense of childhood. It is something +which the modern world does not understand. It is something that modern +Americans do not understand, even when they possess it; but I think they +do possess it. + +The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose; and the text of Scripture +which he now most commonly quotes is, 'The kingdom of heaven is within +you.' That text has been the stay and support of more Pharisees and +prigs and self-righteous spiritual bullies than all the dogmas in +creation; it has served to identify self-satisfaction with the peace +that passes all understanding. And the text to be quoted in answer to it +is that which declares that no man can receive the kingdom except as a +little child. What we are to have inside is the childlike spirit; but +the childlike spirit is not entirely concerned about what is inside. It +is the first mark of possessing it that one is interested in what is +outside. The most childlike thing about a child is his curiosity and his +appetite and his power of wonder at the world. We might almost say that +the whole advantage of having the kingdom within is that we look for it +somewhere else. # The Spirit of England -Nine times out of ten a man's broad-mindedness is -necessarily the narrowest thing about him. This is not -particularly paradoxical; it is, when we come to think of -it, quite inevitable. His vision of his own village may -really be full of varieties; and even his vision of his own -nation may have a rough resemblance to the reality. But his -vision of the world is probably smaller than the world. His -vision of the universe is certainly much smaller than the -universe. Hence he is never so inadequate as when he is -universal; he is never so limited as when he generalises. -This is the fallacy in many modern attempts at a creedless -creed, at something variously described as essential -Christianity or undenominational religion or a world faith -to embrace all the faiths in the world. It is that every -sectarian is more sectarian in his unsectarianism than he is -in his sect. The emancipation of a Baptist is a very Baptist -emancipation. The charity of a Buddhist is a very Buddhist -charity, and very different from Christian charity. When a -philosophy embraces everything it generally squeezes -everything, and squeezes it out of shape; when it digests it -necessarily assimilates. When a theosophist absorbs -Christianity it is rather as a cannibal absorbs Christian -missionaries. In this sense it is even possible for the -larger thing to be swallowed by the smaller; and for men to -move about not only in a Clapham sect but in a Clapham -cosmos under Clapham moon and stars. - -But if this danger exists for all men, it exists especially -for the Englishman. The Englishman is never so insular as -when he is imperial; except indeed when he is international. -In private life he is a good friend and in practical -politics often a very good ally. But theoretical politics -are more practical than practical politics. And in -theoretical politics the Englishman is the worst ally the -world ever saw. This is all the more curious because he has -passed so much of his historical life in the character of an -ally. He has been in twenty great alliances and never -understood one of them. He has never been farther away from -European politics than when he was fighting heroically in -the thick of them. I myself think that this splendid -isolation is sometimes really splendid; so long as it is -isolation and does not imagine itself to be imperialism or -internationalism. With the idea of being international, with -the idea of being imperial, comes the frantic and farcical -idea of being impartial. Generally speaking, men are never -so mean and false and hypocritical as when they are occupied -in being impartial. They are performing the first and most -typical of all the actions of the devil; they are claiming -the throne of God. Even when it is not hypocrisy but only -mental confusion, it is always a confusion worse and worse -confounded. We see it in the impartial historians of the -Victorian Age, who now seem far more Victorian than the -partial historians. Hallam wrote about the Middle Ages; but -Hallam was far less mediaeval than Macaulay; for Macaulay -was at least a fighter. Huxley had more mediaeval sympathies -than Herbert Spencer for the same reason; that Huxley was a -fighter. They both fought in many ways for the limitations -of their own rationalistic epoch; but they were nearer the -truth than the men who simply assumed those limitations as -rational. The war of the controversialists was a wider thing -than the peace of the arbiters. And in the same way the -Englishman never cuts a less convincing figure before other -nations than when he tries to arbitrate between them. - -I have by this time heard a great deal about the necessity -of saving Anglo-American friendship, a necessity which I -myself feel rather too strongly to be satisfied with the -ambassadorial and editorial style of achieving it. I repeat -that the worst road to Anglo-American friendship is to be -Anglo-American; or, as the more illiterate would express, to -be Anglo-Saxon. I am more and more convinced that the way -for the Englishman to do it is to be English; but to know -that he is English and not everything else as well. Thus the -only sincere answer to Irish nationalism is English -nationalism, which is a reality; and not English +Nine times out of ten a man's broad-mindedness is necessarily the +narrowest thing about him. This is not particularly paradoxical; it is, +when we come to think of it, quite inevitable. His vision of his own +village may really be full of varieties; and even his vision of his own +nation may have a rough resemblance to the reality. But his vision of +the world is probably smaller than the world. His vision of the universe +is certainly much smaller than the universe. Hence he is never so +inadequate as when he is universal; he is never so limited as when he +generalises. This is the fallacy in many modern attempts at a creedless +creed, at something variously described as essential Christianity or +undenominational religion or a world faith to embrace all the faiths in +the world. It is that every sectarian is more sectarian in his +unsectarianism than he is in his sect. The emancipation of a Baptist is +a very Baptist emancipation. The charity of a Buddhist is a very +Buddhist charity, and very different from Christian charity. When a +philosophy embraces everything it generally squeezes everything, and +squeezes it out of shape; when it digests it necessarily assimilates. +When a theosophist absorbs Christianity it is rather as a cannibal +absorbs Christian missionaries. In this sense it is even possible for +the larger thing to be swallowed by the smaller; and for men to move +about not only in a Clapham sect but in a Clapham cosmos under Clapham +moon and stars. + +But if this danger exists for all men, it exists especially for the +Englishman. The Englishman is never so insular as when he is imperial; +except indeed when he is international. In private life he is a good +friend and in practical politics often a very good ally. But theoretical +politics are more practical than practical politics. And in theoretical +politics the Englishman is the worst ally the world ever saw. This is +all the more curious because he has passed so much of his historical +life in the character of an ally. He has been in twenty great alliances +and never understood one of them. He has never been farther away from +European politics than when he was fighting heroically in the thick of +them. I myself think that this splendid isolation is sometimes really +splendid; so long as it is isolation and does not imagine itself to be +imperialism or internationalism. With the idea of being international, +with the idea of being imperial, comes the frantic and farcical idea of +being impartial. Generally speaking, men are never so mean and false and +hypocritical as when they are occupied in being impartial. They are +performing the first and most typical of all the actions of the devil; +they are claiming the throne of God. Even when it is not hypocrisy but +only mental confusion, it is always a confusion worse and worse +confounded. We see it in the impartial historians of the Victorian Age, +who now seem far more Victorian than the partial historians. Hallam +wrote about the Middle Ages; but Hallam was far less mediaeval than +Macaulay; for Macaulay was at least a fighter. Huxley had more mediaeval +sympathies than Herbert Spencer for the same reason; that Huxley was a +fighter. They both fought in many ways for the limitations of their own +rationalistic epoch; but they were nearer the truth than the men who +simply assumed those limitations as rational. The war of the +controversialists was a wider thing than the peace of the arbiters. And +in the same way the Englishman never cuts a less convincing figure +before other nations than when he tries to arbitrate between them. + +I have by this time heard a great deal about the necessity of saving +Anglo-American friendship, a necessity which I myself feel rather too +strongly to be satisfied with the ambassadorial and editorial style of +achieving it. I repeat that the worst road to Anglo-American friendship +is to be Anglo-American; or, as the more illiterate would express, to be +Anglo-Saxon. I am more and more convinced that the way for the +Englishman to do it is to be English; but to know that he is English and +not everything else as well. Thus the only sincere answer to Irish +nationalism is English nationalism, which is a reality; and not English imperialism, which is a reactionary fiction, or English internationalism, which is a revolutionary one. -For the English are reviled for their imperialism be cause -they are not imperialistic. They dislike it, which is the -real reason why they do it badly; and they do it badly, -which is the real reason why they are disliked when they do -it. Nobody calls France imperialistic because she has -absorbed Brittany. But everybody calls England imperialistic -because she has not absorbed Ireland. The Englishman is -fixed and frozen for ever in the attitude of a ruthless -conqueror; not because he has conquered such people but -because he has not conquered them; but he is always trying -to conquer them with a heroism worthy of a better cause. For -the really native and vigorous part of what is unfortunately -called the British Empire is not an empire at all, and does -not consist of these conquered provinces at all. It is not -an empire but an adventure; which is probably a much finer -thing. It was not the power of making strange countries -similar to our own, but simply the pleasure of seeing -strange countries because they were different from our own. -The adventurer did indeed, like the third son, set out to -seek his fortune, but not primarily to alter other people's -fortunes; he wished to trade with people rather than to rule -them. But as the other people remained different from him, -so did he remain different from them. The adventurer saw a -thousand strange things and remained a stranger. He was the -Robinson Crusoe on a hundred desert islands; and on each he -remained as insular as on his own island. - -What is wanted for the cause of England to-day is an -Englishman with enough imagination to love his country from -the outside as well as the inside. That is, we need somebody -who will do for the English what has never been done for -them, but what is done for any outlandish peasantry or even -any savage tribe. We want people who can make England -attractive; quite apart from disputes about whether England -is strong or weak. We want somebody to explain, not that -England is everywhere, but what England is anywhere; not -that England is or is not really dying, but why we do not -want her to die. For this purpose the official and -conventional compliments or claims can never get any farther -than pompous abstractions about Law and Justice and Truth; -the ideals which England accepts as every civilised state -accepts them, and violates as every civilised state violates -them. That is not the way in which the picture of any people -has ever been painted on the sympathetic imagination of the -world. Enthusiasts for old Japan did not tell us that the -Japanese recognised the existence of abstract morality; but -that they lived in paper houses or wrote letters with paint -brushes. Men who wished to interest us in Arabs did not -confine themselves to saying that they are monotheists or -moralists; they filled our romances with the rush of Arab -steeds or the colours of strange tents or carpets. What we -want is somebody who will do for the Englishman with his -front garden what was done for the Jap and his paper house; -who shall understand the Englishman with his dog as well as -the Arab with his horse. In a word, what nobody has really -tried to do is the one thing that really wants doing. It is -to make England attractive as a nationality, and even as a +For the English are reviled for their imperialism be cause they are not +imperialistic. They dislike it, which is the real reason why they do it +badly; and they do it badly, which is the real reason why they are +disliked when they do it. Nobody calls France imperialistic because she +has absorbed Brittany. But everybody calls England imperialistic because +she has not absorbed Ireland. The Englishman is fixed and frozen for +ever in the attitude of a ruthless conqueror; not because he has +conquered such people but because he has not conquered them; but he is +always trying to conquer them with a heroism worthy of a better cause. +For the really native and vigorous part of what is unfortunately called +the British Empire is not an empire at all, and does not consist of +these conquered provinces at all. It is not an empire but an adventure; +which is probably a much finer thing. It was not the power of making +strange countries similar to our own, but simply the pleasure of seeing +strange countries because they were different from our own. The +adventurer did indeed, like the third son, set out to seek his fortune, +but not primarily to alter other people's fortunes; he wished to trade +with people rather than to rule them. But as the other people remained +different from him, so did he remain different from them. The adventurer +saw a thousand strange things and remained a stranger. He was the +Robinson Crusoe on a hundred desert islands; and on each he remained as +insular as on his own island. + +What is wanted for the cause of England to-day is an Englishman with +enough imagination to love his country from the outside as well as the +inside. That is, we need somebody who will do for the English what has +never been done for them, but what is done for any outlandish peasantry +or even any savage tribe. We want people who can make England +attractive; quite apart from disputes about whether England is strong or +weak. We want somebody to explain, not that England is everywhere, but +what England is anywhere; not that England is or is not really dying, +but why we do not want her to die. For this purpose the official and +conventional compliments or claims can never get any farther than +pompous abstractions about Law and Justice and Truth; the ideals which +England accepts as every civilised state accepts them, and violates as +every civilised state violates them. That is not the way in which the +picture of any people has ever been painted on the sympathetic +imagination of the world. Enthusiasts for old Japan did not tell us that +the Japanese recognised the existence of abstract morality; but that +they lived in paper houses or wrote letters with paint brushes. Men who +wished to interest us in Arabs did not confine themselves to saying that +they are monotheists or moralists; they filled our romances with the +rush of Arab steeds or the colours of strange tents or carpets. What we +want is somebody who will do for the Englishman with his front garden +what was done for the Jap and his paper house; who shall understand the +Englishman with his dog as well as the Arab with his horse. In a word, +what nobody has really tried to do is the one thing that really wants +doing. It is to make England attractive as a nationality, and even as a small nationality. -For it is a wild folly to suppose that nations will love -each other because they are alike. They will never really do -that unless they are really alike; and then they will not be -nations. Nations can love each other as men and women love -each other, not because they are alike but because they are -different. It can easily be shown, I fancy, that in every -case where a real public sympathy was aroused for some -unfortunate foreign people, it has always been accompanied -with a particular and positive interest in their most -foreign customs and their most foreign externals. The man -who made a romance of the Scotch Highlander made a romance -of his kilt and even of his dirk; the friend of the Red -Indians was interested in picture writing and had some -tendency to be interested in scalping. To take a more -serious example, such nations as Serbia had been largely -commended to international consideration by the study of -Serbian epics or Serbian songs. The epoch of Negro -emancipation was also the epoch of Negro melodies. Those who -wept over Uncle Tom also laughed over Uncle Remus. And just -as the admiration for the Redskin almost became an apology -for scalping, the mysterious fascination of the African has -sometimes almost led us into the fringes of the black forest +For it is a wild folly to suppose that nations will love each other +because they are alike. They will never really do that unless they are +really alike; and then they will not be nations. Nations can love each +other as men and women love each other, not because they are alike but +because they are different. It can easily be shown, I fancy, that in +every case where a real public sympathy was aroused for some unfortunate +foreign people, it has always been accompanied with a particular and +positive interest in their most foreign customs and their most foreign +externals. The man who made a romance of the Scotch Highlander made a +romance of his kilt and even of his dirk; the friend of the Red Indians +was interested in picture writing and had some tendency to be interested +in scalping. To take a more serious example, such nations as Serbia had +been largely commended to international consideration by the study of +Serbian epics or Serbian songs. The epoch of Negro emancipation was also +the epoch of Negro melodies. Those who wept over Uncle Tom also laughed +over Uncle Remus. And just as the admiration for the Redskin almost +became an apology for scalping, the mysterious fascination of the +African has sometimes almost led us into the fringes of the black forest of Voodoo. But the sort of interest that is felt even in the -scalp-hunter and the cannibal, the torturer and the -devil-worshipper, that sort of interest has never been felt -in the Englishman. - -And this is the more extraordinary because the Englishman is -really very interesting. He is interesting in a special -degree in this special manner; he is interesting because he -is individual. No man in the world is more misrepresented by -everything official or even in the ordinary sense national. -A description of English life must be a description of -private life. In that sense there is no public life. In that -sense there is no public opinion. There have never been -those prairie fires of public opinion in England which often -sweep over America. At any rate, there have never been any -such popular revolutions since the popular revolutions of -the Middle Ages. The English are a nation of amateurs; they -are even a nation of eccentrics. An Englishman is never more -English than when he is considered a lunatic by the other -Englishmen. This can be clearly seen in a figure like -Dr. Johnson, who has become national not by being normal but -by being extraordinary. To express this mysterious people, -to explain or suggest why they like tall hedges and heavy -breakfasts and crooked roads and small gardens with large -fences, and why they alone among Christians have kept quite -consistently the great Christian glory of the open -fireplace, here would be a strange and stimulating -opportunity for any of the artists in words, who study the -souls of strange peoples. That would be the true way to -create a friendship between England and America, or between -England and anything else; yes, even between England and -Ireland. For this justice at least has already been done to -Ireland; and as an indignant patriot I demand a more equal -treatment for the two nations. +scalp-hunter and the cannibal, the torturer and the devil-worshipper, +that sort of interest has never been felt in the Englishman. + +And this is the more extraordinary because the Englishman is really very +interesting. He is interesting in a special degree in this special +manner; he is interesting because he is individual. No man in the world +is more misrepresented by everything official or even in the ordinary +sense national. A description of English life must be a description of +private life. In that sense there is no public life. In that sense there +is no public opinion. There have never been those prairie fires of +public opinion in England which often sweep over America. At any rate, +there have never been any such popular revolutions since the popular +revolutions of the Middle Ages. The English are a nation of amateurs; +they are even a nation of eccentrics. An Englishman is never more +English than when he is considered a lunatic by the other Englishmen. +This can be clearly seen in a figure like Dr. Johnson, who has become +national not by being normal but by being extraordinary. To express this +mysterious people, to explain or suggest why they like tall hedges and +heavy breakfasts and crooked roads and small gardens with large fences, +and why they alone among Christians have kept quite consistently the +great Christian glory of the open fireplace, here would be a strange and +stimulating opportunity for any of the artists in words, who study the +souls of strange peoples. That would be the true way to create a +friendship between England and America, or between England and anything +else; yes, even between England and Ireland. For this justice at least +has already been done to Ireland; and as an indignant patriot I demand a +more equal treatment for the two nations. I have already noted the commonplace that in order to teach -internationalism we must talk nationalism. We must make the -nations as nations less odious or mysterious to each other. -We do not make men love each other by describing a monster -with a million arms and legs but by describing the men as -men, with their separate and even solitary emotions. As this -has a particular application to the emotions of the -Englishman, I will expand the topic yet further. Now -Americans have a power that is the soul and success of -democracy, the power of spontaneous social organisation. -Their high spirits, their humane ideals, are really -creative, they abound in unofficial institutions; we might -almost say in unofficial officialism. Nobody who has felt -the presence of all the leagues and guilds and college clubs -will deny that Whitman was national when he said he would -build states and cities out of the love of comrades. When -all this communal enthusiasm collides with the Englishman, -it too often seems literally to leave him cold. They say he -is reserved; they possibly think he is rude. And the -Englishman, having been taught his own history all wrong, is -only too likely to take the criticism as a compliment. He -admits that he is reserved because he is stern and strong; -or even that he is rude because he is shrewd and candid. But -as a fact he is not rude and not especially reserved; at -least reserve is not the meaning of his reluctance. The real -difference lies, I think, in the fact that American high -spirits are not only high but level; that the hilarious -American spirit is like a plateau, and the humorous English -spirit like a ragged mountain range. - -The Englishman is moody; which does not in the least mean -that the Englishman is morose. Dickens, as we all feel in -reading his books, was boisterously English. Dickens was -moody when he wrote *Oliver Twist*; but he was also moody -when he wrote *Pickwick*. That is, he was in another and -much healthier mood. The mood was normal to him in the sense -that nine times out of ten he felt and wrote in that -humorous and hilarious mood. But he was, if ever there was -one, a man of moods; and all the more of a typical -Englishman for being a man of moods. But it was because of -this, almost entirely, that he had a misunderstanding with -America. - -In America there are no moods, or there is only one mood. It -is the same whether it is called hustle or uplift; whether -we regard it as the heroic love of comrades or the last -hysteria of the herd instinct. It has been said of the -typical English aristocrats of the Government offices that -they resemble certain ornamental fountains and play from ten -till four; and it is true that an Englishman, even an -English aristocrat, is not always inclined to play any more -than to work. But American sociability is not like the -Trafalgar fountains. It is like Niagara. It never stops, -under the silent stars or the rolling storms. There seems -always to be the same human heat and pressure behind it; it -is like the central heating of hotels as explained in the -advertisements and announcements. The temperature can be -regulated; but it is not. And it is always rather -overpowering for an Englishman, whose mood changes like his -own mutable and shifting sky. The English mood is very like -the English weather; it is a nuisance and a national -necessity. - -If any one wishes to understand the quarrel between Dickens -and the Americans, let him turn to that chapter in *Martin -Chuzzlewit*, in which young Martin has to receive endless -defiles and deputations of total strangers each announced by -name and demanding formal salutation. There are several -things to be noticed about this incident. To begin with, it -did not happen to Martin Chuzzlewit; but it did happen to -Charles Dickens. Dickens is incorporating almost without -alteration a passage from a diary in the middle of a story; -as he did when he included the admirable account of the -prison petition of John Dickens as the prison petition of -Wilkins Micawber. There is no particular reason why even the -gregarious Americans should so throng the portals of a -perfectly obscure steerage passenger like young Chuzzlewit. -There was every reason why they should throng the portals of -the author of *Pickwick* and *Oliver Twist*. And no doubt -they did. If I may be permitted the aleatory image, you bet -they did. Similar troops of sociable human beings have -visited much more insignificant English travellers in -America, with some of whom I am myself acquainted. I myself -have the luck to be a little more stodgy and less sensitive -than many of my countrymen; and certainly less sensitive -than Dickens. But I know what it was that annoyed him about -that unending and unchanging stream of American visitors; it -was the unending and unchanging stream of American -sociability and high spirits. A people living on such a -lofty but level tableland do not understand the ups and -downs of the English temperament; the temper of a nation of -eccentrics or (as they used to be called) of humorists. -There is something very national in the very name of the old -play of *Every Man in His Humour*. But the play more often -acted in real life is 'Every Man Out of His Humour.' It is -true, as Matthew Arnold said, that an Englishman wants to do -as he likes; but it is not always true even that he likes -what he likes. An Englishman can be friendly and yet not -feel friendly. Or he can be friendly and yet not feel -hospitable. Or he can feel hospitable and yet not welcome -those whom he really loves. He can think, almost with tears -of tenderness, about people at a distance who would be bares -if they came in at the door. - -American sociability sweeps away any such subtlety. It -cannot be expected to understand the paradox or perversity -of the Englishman, who thus can feel friendly and avoid -friends. That is the truth in the suggestion that Dickens -was sentimental. It means that he probably felt most -sociable when he was solitary. In all these attempts to -describe the indescribable, to indicate the real but -unconscious differences between the two peoples, I have -tried to balance my words without the irrelevant bias of -praise and blame. Both characteristics always cut both ways. -On one side this comradeship makes possible a certain -communal courage, a democratic derision of rich men in high -places, that is not easy in our smaller and more stratified -society. On the other hand the Englishman has certainly more -liberty, if less equality and fraternity. But the richest -compensation of the Englishman is not even in the word -'liberty,' but rather in the word 'poetry.' That humour of -escape or seclusion, that genial isolation, that healing of -wounded friendship by what Christian Science would call -absent treatment, that is the best atmosphere of all for the -creation of great poetry; and out of that came 'bare ruined -choirs where late the sweet birds sang' and 'thou wast not -made for death, immortal bird.' In this sense it is indeed -true that poetry is emotion remembered in tranquillity; -which may be extended to mean affection remembered in -loneliness. There is in it a spirit not only of detachment -but even of distance; a spirit which does desire, as in the -old English rhyme, to be not only over the hills but also -far away. In other words, in so far as it is true that the -Englishman is an exception to the great truth of Aristotle, -it is because he is not so near to Aristotle as he is to -Homer. In so far as he is not by nature a political animal, -it is because he is a poetical animal. We see it in his -relations to the other animals; his quaint and almost -illogical love of dogs and horses and dependants whose -political rights cannot possibly be defined in logic. Many -forms of hunting or fishing are but an excuse for the same -thing which the shameless literary man does without any -excuse. Sport is speechless poetry. It would be easy for a -foreigner, by taking a few liberties with the facts, to make -a satire about the sort of silent Shelley who decides -ultimately to shoot the skylark. It would be easy to answer -these poetic suggestions, by saying that he himself might be -responsible for ruining the choirs where late sweet birds -sang, or that the immortal bird was likely to be mortal when -he was out with his gun. But these international satires are -never just; and the real relations of an Englishman and an -English bird are far more delicate. It would be equally easy -and equally unjust to suggest a similar satire against -American democracy; and represent Americans merely as birds -of a feather who can do nothing but flock together. But this -again leaves out the fact that at least it is not the white -feather; that democracy is capable of defiance and of death -for an idea. Touching the souls of great nations, these -criticisms are generally false because they are critical. - -But when we are quite sure that we rejoice in a nation's -strength, then and not before we are justified in judging -its weakness. I am quite sure that I rejoice in any -democratic success without *arrière pensée*; and no body who -knows me will credit me with a covert sneer at civic -equality. And this being granted, I do think there is a -danger in the gregariousness of American society. The danger -of democracy is not anarchy; as I have said, it is -convention. And it is touching this that all my experience -has increased my conviction that a great deal that is called -female emancipation has merely been the increase of female -convention. Now the males of every community are far too -conventional; it was the females who were individual and -criticised the conventions of the tribe. If the females -become conventional also, there is a danger of individuality -being lost. This indeed is not peculiar to America; it is -common to the whole modern industrial world, and to -everything which substitutes the impersonal atmosphere of -the state for the personal atmosphere of the home. But it is -emphasised in America by the curious contradiction that -Americans do in theory value and even venerate the -individual. But individualism is the reverse of -individuality. Where men are trying to compete with each -other they are trying to copy each other. They become -standardised by the very standard of self. Personality, in -becoming a conscious ideal, becomes a common ideal. In this -respect perhaps there is really something to be learnt from -the Englishman with his turn or twist in the direction of -private life. Those who have travelled in such a fashion as -to see all the American hotels and none of the American -houses are sometimes driven to the excess of saying that the -Americans have no private life. But even if the exaggeration -has a hint of truth, we must balance it with the -corresponding truth; that the English have no public life. -They on their side have still to learn the meaning of the -public thing, the republic; and how great are the dangers of -cowardice and corruption when the very state itself has -become a state secret. - -The English are patriotic; but patriotism is the unconscious -form of nationalism. It is being national without -understanding the meaning of a nation. The Americans are on -the whole too self-conscious, kept moving too much in the -pace of public life, with all its temptations to -superficiality and fashion; too much aware of outside -opinion and with too much appetite for outside criticism. -But the English are much too unconscious; and would be the -better for an increase in many forms of consciousness, -including consciousness of sin. But even their sin is -ignorance of their real virtue. The most admirable English -things are not the things that are most admired by the -English, or for which the English admire them selves. They -are things now blindly neglected and in daily danger of -being destroyed. It is all the worse that they should be -destroyed, because there is really nothing like them in the -world. That is why I have suggested a note of nationalism -rather than patriotism for the English; the power of seeing -their nation as a nation and not as the nature of things. We -say of some ballad from the Balkans or some peasant costume -in the Netherlands that it is unique; but the good things of -England really are unique. Our very isolation from -continental wars and revolutionary reconstructions have kept -them unique. The particular kind of beauty there is in an -English village, the particular kind of humour there is in -an English public-house, are things that cannot be found in -lands where the village is far more simply and equally -governed, or where the vine is far more honourably served -and praised. Yet we shall not save them by merely sinking -into them with the conservative sort of contentment, even if -the commercial capacity of our plutocratic reforms would -allow us to do so. We must in a sense get far away from -England in order to behold her; we must rise above -patriotism in order to be practically patriotic; we must -have some sense of more varied and remote things before -these vanishing virtues can be seen suddenly for what they -are; almost as one might fancy that a man would have to rise -to the dizziest heights of the divine understanding before -he saw, as from a peak far above a whirlpool, how precious -is his perishing soul. +internationalism we must talk nationalism. We must make the nations as +nations less odious or mysterious to each other. We do not make men love +each other by describing a monster with a million arms and legs but by +describing the men as men, with their separate and even solitary +emotions. As this has a particular application to the emotions of the +Englishman, I will expand the topic yet further. Now Americans have a +power that is the soul and success of democracy, the power of +spontaneous social organisation. Their high spirits, their humane +ideals, are really creative, they abound in unofficial institutions; we +might almost say in unofficial officialism. Nobody who has felt the +presence of all the leagues and guilds and college clubs will deny that +Whitman was national when he said he would build states and cities out +of the love of comrades. When all this communal enthusiasm collides with +the Englishman, it too often seems literally to leave him cold. They say +he is reserved; they possibly think he is rude. And the Englishman, +having been taught his own history all wrong, is only too likely to take +the criticism as a compliment. He admits that he is reserved because he +is stern and strong; or even that he is rude because he is shrewd and +candid. But as a fact he is not rude and not especially reserved; at +least reserve is not the meaning of his reluctance. The real difference +lies, I think, in the fact that American high spirits are not only high +but level; that the hilarious American spirit is like a plateau, and the +humorous English spirit like a ragged mountain range. + +The Englishman is moody; which does not in the least mean that the +Englishman is morose. Dickens, as we all feel in reading his books, was +boisterously English. Dickens was moody when he wrote *Oliver Twist*; +but he was also moody when he wrote *Pickwick*. That is, he was in +another and much healthier mood. The mood was normal to him in the sense +that nine times out of ten he felt and wrote in that humorous and +hilarious mood. But he was, if ever there was one, a man of moods; and +all the more of a typical Englishman for being a man of moods. But it +was because of this, almost entirely, that he had a misunderstanding +with America. + +In America there are no moods, or there is only one mood. It is the same +whether it is called hustle or uplift; whether we regard it as the +heroic love of comrades or the last hysteria of the herd instinct. It +has been said of the typical English aristocrats of the Government +offices that they resemble certain ornamental fountains and play from +ten till four; and it is true that an Englishman, even an English +aristocrat, is not always inclined to play any more than to work. But +American sociability is not like the Trafalgar fountains. It is like +Niagara. It never stops, under the silent stars or the rolling storms. +There seems always to be the same human heat and pressure behind it; it +is like the central heating of hotels as explained in the advertisements +and announcements. The temperature can be regulated; but it is not. And +it is always rather overpowering for an Englishman, whose mood changes +like his own mutable and shifting sky. The English mood is very like the +English weather; it is a nuisance and a national necessity. + +If any one wishes to understand the quarrel between Dickens and the +Americans, let him turn to that chapter in *Martin Chuzzlewit*, in which +young Martin has to receive endless defiles and deputations of total +strangers each announced by name and demanding formal salutation. There +are several things to be noticed about this incident. To begin with, it +did not happen to Martin Chuzzlewit; but it did happen to Charles +Dickens. Dickens is incorporating almost without alteration a passage +from a diary in the middle of a story; as he did when he included the +admirable account of the prison petition of John Dickens as the prison +petition of Wilkins Micawber. There is no particular reason why even the +gregarious Americans should so throng the portals of a perfectly obscure +steerage passenger like young Chuzzlewit. There was every reason why +they should throng the portals of the author of *Pickwick* and *Oliver +Twist*. And no doubt they did. If I may be permitted the aleatory image, +you bet they did. Similar troops of sociable human beings have visited +much more insignificant English travellers in America, with some of whom +I am myself acquainted. I myself have the luck to be a little more +stodgy and less sensitive than many of my countrymen; and certainly less +sensitive than Dickens. But I know what it was that annoyed him about +that unending and unchanging stream of American visitors; it was the +unending and unchanging stream of American sociability and high spirits. +A people living on such a lofty but level tableland do not understand +the ups and downs of the English temperament; the temper of a nation of +eccentrics or (as they used to be called) of humorists. There is +something very national in the very name of the old play of *Every Man +in His Humour*. But the play more often acted in real life is 'Every Man +Out of His Humour.' It is true, as Matthew Arnold said, that an +Englishman wants to do as he likes; but it is not always true even that +he likes what he likes. An Englishman can be friendly and yet not feel +friendly. Or he can be friendly and yet not feel hospitable. Or he can +feel hospitable and yet not welcome those whom he really loves. He can +think, almost with tears of tenderness, about people at a distance who +would be bares if they came in at the door. + +American sociability sweeps away any such subtlety. It cannot be +expected to understand the paradox or perversity of the Englishman, who +thus can feel friendly and avoid friends. That is the truth in the +suggestion that Dickens was sentimental. It means that he probably felt +most sociable when he was solitary. In all these attempts to describe +the indescribable, to indicate the real but unconscious differences +between the two peoples, I have tried to balance my words without the +irrelevant bias of praise and blame. Both characteristics always cut +both ways. On one side this comradeship makes possible a certain +communal courage, a democratic derision of rich men in high places, that +is not easy in our smaller and more stratified society. On the other +hand the Englishman has certainly more liberty, if less equality and +fraternity. But the richest compensation of the Englishman is not even +in the word 'liberty,' but rather in the word 'poetry.' That humour of +escape or seclusion, that genial isolation, that healing of wounded +friendship by what Christian Science would call absent treatment, that +is the best atmosphere of all for the creation of great poetry; and out +of that came 'bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang' and +'thou wast not made for death, immortal bird.' In this sense it is +indeed true that poetry is emotion remembered in tranquillity; which may +be extended to mean affection remembered in loneliness. There is in it a +spirit not only of detachment but even of distance; a spirit which does +desire, as in the old English rhyme, to be not only over the hills but +also far away. In other words, in so far as it is true that the +Englishman is an exception to the great truth of Aristotle, it is +because he is not so near to Aristotle as he is to Homer. In so far as +he is not by nature a political animal, it is because he is a poetical +animal. We see it in his relations to the other animals; his quaint and +almost illogical love of dogs and horses and dependants whose political +rights cannot possibly be defined in logic. Many forms of hunting or +fishing are but an excuse for the same thing which the shameless +literary man does without any excuse. Sport is speechless poetry. It +would be easy for a foreigner, by taking a few liberties with the facts, +to make a satire about the sort of silent Shelley who decides ultimately +to shoot the skylark. It would be easy to answer these poetic +suggestions, by saying that he himself might be responsible for ruining +the choirs where late sweet birds sang, or that the immortal bird was +likely to be mortal when he was out with his gun. But these +international satires are never just; and the real relations of an +Englishman and an English bird are far more delicate. It would be +equally easy and equally unjust to suggest a similar satire against +American democracy; and represent Americans merely as birds of a feather +who can do nothing but flock together. But this again leaves out the +fact that at least it is not the white feather; that democracy is +capable of defiance and of death for an idea. Touching the souls of +great nations, these criticisms are generally false because they are +critical. + +But when we are quite sure that we rejoice in a nation's strength, then +and not before we are justified in judging its weakness. I am quite sure +that I rejoice in any democratic success without *arrière pensée*; and +no body who knows me will credit me with a covert sneer at civic +equality. And this being granted, I do think there is a danger in the +gregariousness of American society. The danger of democracy is not +anarchy; as I have said, it is convention. And it is touching this that +all my experience has increased my conviction that a great deal that is +called female emancipation has merely been the increase of female +convention. Now the males of every community are far too conventional; +it was the females who were individual and criticised the conventions of +the tribe. If the females become conventional also, there is a danger of +individuality being lost. This indeed is not peculiar to America; it is +common to the whole modern industrial world, and to everything which +substitutes the impersonal atmosphere of the state for the personal +atmosphere of the home. But it is emphasised in America by the curious +contradiction that Americans do in theory value and even venerate the +individual. But individualism is the reverse of individuality. Where men +are trying to compete with each other they are trying to copy each +other. They become standardised by the very standard of self. +Personality, in becoming a conscious ideal, becomes a common ideal. In +this respect perhaps there is really something to be learnt from the +Englishman with his turn or twist in the direction of private life. +Those who have travelled in such a fashion as to see all the American +hotels and none of the American houses are sometimes driven to the +excess of saying that the Americans have no private life. But even if +the exaggeration has a hint of truth, we must balance it with the +corresponding truth; that the English have no public life. They on their +side have still to learn the meaning of the public thing, the republic; +and how great are the dangers of cowardice and corruption when the very +state itself has become a state secret. + +The English are patriotic; but patriotism is the unconscious form of +nationalism. It is being national without understanding the meaning of a +nation. The Americans are on the whole too self-conscious, kept moving +too much in the pace of public life, with all its temptations to +superficiality and fashion; too much aware of outside opinion and with +too much appetite for outside criticism. But the English are much too +unconscious; and would be the better for an increase in many forms of +consciousness, including consciousness of sin. But even their sin is +ignorance of their real virtue. The most admirable English things are +not the things that are most admired by the English, or for which the +English admire them selves. They are things now blindly neglected and in +daily danger of being destroyed. It is all the worse that they should be +destroyed, because there is really nothing like them in the world. That +is why I have suggested a note of nationalism rather than patriotism for +the English; the power of seeing their nation as a nation and not as the +nature of things. We say of some ballad from the Balkans or some peasant +costume in the Netherlands that it is unique; but the good things of +England really are unique. Our very isolation from continental wars and +revolutionary reconstructions have kept them unique. The particular kind +of beauty there is in an English village, the particular kind of humour +there is in an English public-house, are things that cannot be found in +lands where the village is far more simply and equally governed, or +where the vine is far more honourably served and praised. Yet we shall +not save them by merely sinking into them with the conservative sort of +contentment, even if the commercial capacity of our plutocratic reforms +would allow us to do so. We must in a sense get far away from England in +order to behold her; we must rise above patriotism in order to be +practically patriotic; we must have some sense of more varied and remote +things before these vanishing virtues can be seen suddenly for what they +are; almost as one might fancy that a man would have to rise to the +dizziest heights of the divine understanding before he saw, as from a +peak far above a whirlpool, how precious is his perishing soul. # The Future of Democracy -The title of this final chapter requires an apology. I do -not need be reminded, alas, that the whole book requires an -apology. It is written in accordance with a ritual or custom -in which I could see no particular harm, and which gives me -a very interesting subject, but a custom which it would be -not altogether easy to justify in logic. Everybody who goes -to America for a short time is expected to write a book; and -nearly everybody does. A man who takes a holiday at -Trouvaille or Dieppe is not confronted on his return with -the question, 'When is your book on France going to appear?' -A man who betakes himself to Switzerland for the winter -sports is not instantly pinned by the statement, 'I suppose -your History of the Helvetian Republic is coming out this -spring?' Lecturing, at least my kind of lecturing, is not -much more serious or meritorious than skiing or sea-bathing; -and it happens to afford the holiday-maker far less -opportunity of seeing the daily life of the people. Of all -this I am only too well aware; and my only defence is that I -am at least sincere in my enjoyment and appreciation of -America, and equally sincere in my interest in its most -serious problem, which I think a very serious problem -indeed; the problem of democracy in the modern world. -Democracy may be a very obvious and facile affair for -"plutocrats and politicians who only have to use it as a -rhetorical term. But democracy is a very serious problem for -democrats. I certainly do not apologise for the word -democracy; but I do apologise for the word future. I am no -Futurist; and any conjectures I make must be taken with a -grain of salt which is indeed the salt of the earth; the -descent and moderate humility which comes from a belief in -free will. That faith is in itself a divine doubt. I do not -believe in any of the scientific predictions about mankind; -I notice that they always fail to predict any of the purely -human developments of men; I also notice that even their -successes prove the same truth as their failures; for their -successful predictions are not about men but about machines. -But there are two things which a man may reasonably do, in -stating the probabilities of a problem, which do not involve -any claim to be a prophet. The first is to tell the truth, -and especially the neglected truth, about the tendencies -that have already accumulated in human history; any -miscalculation about which must at least mislead us in any -case. We cannot be certain of being right about the future; -but we can be almost certain of being wrong about the -future, if we are wrong about the past. The other thing that -he can do is to note what ideas necessarily go together by -their own nature; what ideas will triumph together or fall -together. Hence it follows that this chapter must consist of -two things. The first is a summary of what has really -happened to the idea of democracy in recent times; the -second a suggestion of the fundamental doctrine which is +The title of this final chapter requires an apology. I do not need be +reminded, alas, that the whole book requires an apology. It is written +in accordance with a ritual or custom in which I could see no particular +harm, and which gives me a very interesting subject, but a custom which +it would be not altogether easy to justify in logic. Everybody who goes +to America for a short time is expected to write a book; and nearly +everybody does. A man who takes a holiday at Trouvaille or Dieppe is not +confronted on his return with the question, 'When is your book on France +going to appear?' A man who betakes himself to Switzerland for the +winter sports is not instantly pinned by the statement, 'I suppose your +History of the Helvetian Republic is coming out this spring?' Lecturing, +at least my kind of lecturing, is not much more serious or meritorious +than skiing or sea-bathing; and it happens to afford the holiday-maker +far less opportunity of seeing the daily life of the people. Of all this +I am only too well aware; and my only defence is that I am at least +sincere in my enjoyment and appreciation of America, and equally sincere +in my interest in its most serious problem, which I think a very serious +problem indeed; the problem of democracy in the modern world. Democracy +may be a very obvious and facile affair for "plutocrats and politicians +who only have to use it as a rhetorical term. But democracy is a very +serious problem for democrats. I certainly do not apologise for the word +democracy; but I do apologise for the word future. I am no Futurist; and +any conjectures I make must be taken with a grain of salt which is +indeed the salt of the earth; the descent and moderate humility which +comes from a belief in free will. That faith is in itself a divine +doubt. I do not believe in any of the scientific predictions about +mankind; I notice that they always fail to predict any of the purely +human developments of men; I also notice that even their successes prove +the same truth as their failures; for their successful predictions are +not about men but about machines. But there are two things which a man +may reasonably do, in stating the probabilities of a problem, which do +not involve any claim to be a prophet. The first is to tell the truth, +and especially the neglected truth, about the tendencies that have +already accumulated in human history; any miscalculation about which +must at least mislead us in any case. We cannot be certain of being +right about the future; but we can be almost certain of being wrong +about the future, if we are wrong about the past. The other thing that +he can do is to note what ideas necessarily go together by their own +nature; what ideas will triumph together or fall together. Hence it +follows that this chapter must consist of two things. The first is a +summary of what has really happened to the idea of democracy in recent +times; the second a suggestion of the fundamental doctrine which is necessary for its triumph at any time. -The last hundred years have seen a general decline in the -democratic idea. If there be anybody left to whom this -historical truth appears a paradox, it is only because -during that period nobody has been taught history, least of -all the history of ideas. If a sort of intellectual -inquisition had been established, for the definition and -differentiation of heresies, it would have been found that -the original republican orthodoxy had suffered more and more -from secessions, schisms and backslidings. The highest point -of democratic idealism and conviction was towards the end of -the eighteenth century, when the American Republic was -'dedicated to the proposition that all men are equal.' It -was then that the largest number of men had the most serious -sort of conviction that the political problem could be -solved by the vote of peoples instead of the arbitrary power -of princes and privileged orders. These men encountered -various difficulties and made various compromises in -relation to the practical politics of their time; in England -they preserved aristocracy; in America they preserved -slavery. But though they had more difficulties, they had -less doubt. Since their time democracy has been steadily -disintegrated by doubts; and these political doubts have -been contemporary with and often identical with religious -doubts. This fact could be followed over almost the whole -field of the modern world; in this place it will be more -appropriate to take the great American example of slavery. I -have found traces in all sorts of intelligent quarters of an -extraordinary idea that all the Fathers of the Republic -owned black men like beasts of burden because they knew no -better, until the light of liberty was revealed to them by -John Brown and Mrs. Beecher Stowe. One of the best weekly -papers in England said recently that even those who drew up -the Declaration of Independence did not include negroes in -its generalisation about humanity. This is quite consistent -with the current convention, in which we were all brought -up; the theory that the heart of humanity broadens in ever -larger circles of brotherhood, till we pass from embracing a -black man to adoring a black beetle. Unfortunately it is -quite inconsistent with the facts of American history. The -facts show that, in this problem of the Old South, the -eighteenth century was *more* liberal than the nineteenth -century. There was *more* sympathy for the Negro in the -school of Jefferson than in the school of Jefferson Davis. -Jefferson, in the dark estate of his simple Deism, said the -sight of slavery in his country made him tremble, -remembering that God is just. His fellow Southerners, after -a century of the world's advance, said that slavery in -itself was good, when they did not go farther and say that -negroes in themselves were bad. And they were supported in -this by the great and growing modern suspicion that nature -is unjust. Difficulties seemed inevitably to delay justice, -to the mind of Jefferson; but so they did to the mind of -Lincoln. But that the slave was human and the servitude -inhuman---that was, if anything, clearer to Jefferson than -to Lincoln. The fact is that the utter separation and sub -ordination of the black like a beast was a *progress*; it -was a growth of nineteenth-century enlightenment and -experiment; a triumph of science over superstition. It was -'the way the world was going,' as Matthew Arnold -reverentially remarked in some connection; perhaps as part -of a definition of God. Anyhow, it was not Jefferson's -definition of God. He fancied, in his far-off patriarchal -way, a Father who had made all men brothers; and brutally -unbrotherly as was the practice, such democratical Deists -never dreamed of denying the theory. It was not until the -scientific sophistries began that brotherhood was really -disputed. Gobineau, who began most of the modern talk about -the superiority and inferiority of racial stocks, was seized -upon eagerly by the less generous of the slave-owners and -trumpeted as a new truth of science and a new defence of -slavery. It was not really until the dawn of Darwinism, when -all our social relations began to smell of the monkey-house, -that men thought of the barbarian as only a first and the -baboon as a second cousin. The full servile philosophy has -been a modern and even a recent thing; made in an age whose -inevitable deity was the Missing Link. The Missing Link was -a true metaphor in more ways than one; and most of all in -its suggestion of a chain. - -By a symbolic coincidence, indeed, slavery grew more brazen -and brutal under the encouragement of more than one movement -of the progressive sort. Its youth was renewed for it by the -industrial prosperity of Lancashire; and under that -influence it became a commercial and competitive instead of -a patriarchal and customary thing, We may say with no -exaggerative irony that the unconscious patrons of slavery -were Huxley and Cobden. The machines of Manchester were -manufacturing a great many more things than the -manufacturers knew en-wanted to know; but they were -certainly manufacturing the fetters of the slave, doubtless -out of the best quality of steel and iron. But this is a -minor illustration of the modern tendency, as compared with -the main stream of scepticism which was destroying -democracy. Evolution became more and more a vision of the -break-up of our brotherhood, till by the end of the -nineteenth century the genius of its greatest scientific -romancer saw it end in the anthropophagous antics of the -Time Machine. So far from evolution lifting us above the -idea of enslaving men, it was providing us at least with a -logical and potential argument for eating them. In the case -of the American negroes, it may be remarked, it does at any -rate permit the preliminary course of roasting them. All -this materialistic hardening, which replaced the remorse of -Jefferson, was part of the growing evolutionary suspicion -that savages were not a part of the human race, or rather -that there was really no such thing as the human race. The -South had begun by agreeing reluctantly to the enslavement -of men. The South ended by agreeing equally reluctantly to -the emancipation of monkeys. - -That is what had happened to the democratic ideal in a -hundred years. Anybody can test it by comparing the final -phase, I will not say with the ideal of Jefferson, but with -the ideal of Johnson. There was far more horror of slavery -in an eighteenth-century Tory like Dr. Johnson than in a -nineteenth-century democrat like Stephen Douglas. Stephen -Douglas may be mentioned because he is a very representative -type of the age of evolution and expansion; a man thinking -in continents, like Cecil Rhodes, human and hopeful in a -truly American fashion, and as a consequence cold and -careless rather than hostile in the matter of the old -mystical doctrines of equality. He 'did not care whether -slavery was voted up or voted down.' His great opponent -Lincoln did indeed care very much. But it was an intense -individual conviction with Lincoln exactly as it was with -Johnson. I doubt if the spirit of the age was not much more -behind Douglas and his westward expansion of the white race. -I am sure that more and more men were coming to be in the -particular mental condition of Douglas; men in whom the old -moral and mystical ideals had been undermined by doubt, but -only with a negative effect of indifference. Their positive -convictions were all concerned with what some called -progress and some imperialism. It is true that there was a -sincere sectional enthusiasm against slavery in the North; -and that the slaves were actually emancipated in the -nineteenth century. But I doubt whether the Abolitionists -would ever have secured Abolition. Abolition was a -by-product of the Civil War; which was fought for quite -other reasons. Anyhow, if slavery had somehow survived to -the age of Rhodes and Roosevelt and evolutionary -imperialism, I doubt if the slaves would ever have been -emancipated at all. Certainly if it had survived till the -modern movement for the Servile State, they would never have -been emancipated at all. Why should the world take the -chains off the black man when it was just putting them on -the white? And in so far as we owe the change to Lincoln, we -owe it to Jefferson. Exactly what gives its real dignity to -the figure of Lincoln is that he stands invoking a primitive -first principle of the age of innocence, and holding up the -tables of an ancient law, *against* the trend of the -nineteenth century; repeating, 'We hold these truths to be -self-evident; that all men were created equal, being endowed -by their Creator, etc.,' to a generation that was more and -more disposed to say something like this: 'We hold these -truths to be probable enough for pragmatists; that all -things looking like men were evolved somehow, being endowed -by heredity and environment with no equal rights, but very -unequal wrongs,' and so on. I do not believe that creed, -left to itself, would ever have founded a state; and I am -pretty certain that, left to itself, it would never have -overthrown a slave state. What it did do, as I have said, -was to produce some very wonderful literary and artistic -flights of sceptical imagination. The world did have new -visions, if they were visions of monsters in the moon and -Martians striding about like spiders as tall as the sky, and -the workmen and capitalists becoming two separate species, -so that one could devour the other as gaily and greedily as -a cat devours a bird. No one has done justice to the meaning -of Mr. Wells and his original departure in fantastic -fiction; to these nightmares that were the last apocalypse -of the nineteenth century. They meant that the bottom had -fallen out of the mind at last, that the bridge of -brotherhood had broken down in the modern brain, letting up -from the chasms this infernal light like a dawn. All had -grown dizzy with degree and relativity; so that there would -not be so very much difference between eating dog and eating -darkie, or between eating darkie and eating dago. There were -different sorts of apes; but there was no doubt that we were -the superior sort. - -Against all this irresistible force stood one immovable -post. Against all this dance of doubt and degree stood -something that can best be symbolized by a simple example. -An ape cannot be a priest, but a Negro can be a priest. The -dogmatic type of Christianity, especially the Catholic type -of Christianity, had riveted itself irrevocably to the -manhood of all men. Where its faith was fixed by creeds and -councils it could not save itself even by surrender. It -could not gradually dilute democracy, as could a merely -sceptical or secular democrat. There stood, in fact or in -possibility, the solid and smiling figure of a black bishop. -And he was either a man claiming the most towering spiritual -privileges of a man, or he was the mere buffoonery and -blasphemy of a monkey in a mitre. That is the point about -Christian and Catholic democracy; it is not that it is -necessarily at any moment more democratic, it is that its -indestructible minimum of democracy really is -indestructible. And by the nature of things that mystical -democracy was destined to survive, when every other sort of -democracy was free to destroy itself. And whenever democracy -destroying itself is suddenly moved to save itself, it -always grasps at a rag or tag of that old tradition that -alone is sure of itself. Hundreds have heard the story about -the mediaeval demagogue who went about repeating the rhyme +The last hundred years have seen a general decline in the democratic +idea. If there be anybody left to whom this historical truth appears a +paradox, it is only because during that period nobody has been taught +history, least of all the history of ideas. If a sort of intellectual +inquisition had been established, for the definition and differentiation +of heresies, it would have been found that the original republican +orthodoxy had suffered more and more from secessions, schisms and +backslidings. The highest point of democratic idealism and conviction +was towards the end of the eighteenth century, when the American +Republic was 'dedicated to the proposition that all men are equal.' It +was then that the largest number of men had the most serious sort of +conviction that the political problem could be solved by the vote of +peoples instead of the arbitrary power of princes and privileged orders. +These men encountered various difficulties and made various compromises +in relation to the practical politics of their time; in England they +preserved aristocracy; in America they preserved slavery. But though +they had more difficulties, they had less doubt. Since their time +democracy has been steadily disintegrated by doubts; and these political +doubts have been contemporary with and often identical with religious +doubts. This fact could be followed over almost the whole field of the +modern world; in this place it will be more appropriate to take the +great American example of slavery. I have found traces in all sorts of +intelligent quarters of an extraordinary idea that all the Fathers of +the Republic owned black men like beasts of burden because they knew no +better, until the light of liberty was revealed to them by John Brown +and Mrs. Beecher Stowe. One of the best weekly papers in England said +recently that even those who drew up the Declaration of Independence did +not include negroes in its generalisation about humanity. This is quite +consistent with the current convention, in which we were all brought up; +the theory that the heart of humanity broadens in ever larger circles of +brotherhood, till we pass from embracing a black man to adoring a black +beetle. Unfortunately it is quite inconsistent with the facts of +American history. The facts show that, in this problem of the Old South, +the eighteenth century was *more* liberal than the nineteenth century. +There was *more* sympathy for the Negro in the school of Jefferson than +in the school of Jefferson Davis. Jefferson, in the dark estate of his +simple Deism, said the sight of slavery in his country made him tremble, +remembering that God is just. His fellow Southerners, after a century of +the world's advance, said that slavery in itself was good, when they did +not go farther and say that negroes in themselves were bad. And they +were supported in this by the great and growing modern suspicion that +nature is unjust. Difficulties seemed inevitably to delay justice, to +the mind of Jefferson; but so they did to the mind of Lincoln. But that +the slave was human and the servitude inhuman---that was, if anything, +clearer to Jefferson than to Lincoln. The fact is that the utter +separation and sub ordination of the black like a beast was a +*progress*; it was a growth of nineteenth-century enlightenment and +experiment; a triumph of science over superstition. It was 'the way the +world was going,' as Matthew Arnold reverentially remarked in some +connection; perhaps as part of a definition of God. Anyhow, it was not +Jefferson's definition of God. He fancied, in his far-off patriarchal +way, a Father who had made all men brothers; and brutally unbrotherly as +was the practice, such democratical Deists never dreamed of denying the +theory. It was not until the scientific sophistries began that +brotherhood was really disputed. Gobineau, who began most of the modern +talk about the superiority and inferiority of racial stocks, was seized +upon eagerly by the less generous of the slave-owners and trumpeted as a +new truth of science and a new defence of slavery. It was not really +until the dawn of Darwinism, when all our social relations began to +smell of the monkey-house, that men thought of the barbarian as only a +first and the baboon as a second cousin. The full servile philosophy has +been a modern and even a recent thing; made in an age whose inevitable +deity was the Missing Link. The Missing Link was a true metaphor in more +ways than one; and most of all in its suggestion of a chain. + +By a symbolic coincidence, indeed, slavery grew more brazen and brutal +under the encouragement of more than one movement of the progressive +sort. Its youth was renewed for it by the industrial prosperity of +Lancashire; and under that influence it became a commercial and +competitive instead of a patriarchal and customary thing, We may say +with no exaggerative irony that the unconscious patrons of slavery were +Huxley and Cobden. The machines of Manchester were manufacturing a great +many more things than the manufacturers knew en-wanted to know; but they +were certainly manufacturing the fetters of the slave, doubtless out of +the best quality of steel and iron. But this is a minor illustration of +the modern tendency, as compared with the main stream of scepticism +which was destroying democracy. Evolution became more and more a vision +of the break-up of our brotherhood, till by the end of the nineteenth +century the genius of its greatest scientific romancer saw it end in the +anthropophagous antics of the Time Machine. So far from evolution +lifting us above the idea of enslaving men, it was providing us at least +with a logical and potential argument for eating them. In the case of +the American negroes, it may be remarked, it does at any rate permit the +preliminary course of roasting them. All this materialistic hardening, +which replaced the remorse of Jefferson, was part of the growing +evolutionary suspicion that savages were not a part of the human race, +or rather that there was really no such thing as the human race. The +South had begun by agreeing reluctantly to the enslavement of men. The +South ended by agreeing equally reluctantly to the emancipation of +monkeys. + +That is what had happened to the democratic ideal in a hundred years. +Anybody can test it by comparing the final phase, I will not say with +the ideal of Jefferson, but with the ideal of Johnson. There was far +more horror of slavery in an eighteenth-century Tory like Dr. Johnson +than in a nineteenth-century democrat like Stephen Douglas. Stephen +Douglas may be mentioned because he is a very representative type of the +age of evolution and expansion; a man thinking in continents, like Cecil +Rhodes, human and hopeful in a truly American fashion, and as a +consequence cold and careless rather than hostile in the matter of the +old mystical doctrines of equality. He 'did not care whether slavery was +voted up or voted down.' His great opponent Lincoln did indeed care very +much. But it was an intense individual conviction with Lincoln exactly +as it was with Johnson. I doubt if the spirit of the age was not much +more behind Douglas and his westward expansion of the white race. I am +sure that more and more men were coming to be in the particular mental +condition of Douglas; men in whom the old moral and mystical ideals had +been undermined by doubt, but only with a negative effect of +indifference. Their positive convictions were all concerned with what +some called progress and some imperialism. It is true that there was a +sincere sectional enthusiasm against slavery in the North; and that the +slaves were actually emancipated in the nineteenth century. But I doubt +whether the Abolitionists would ever have secured Abolition. Abolition +was a by-product of the Civil War; which was fought for quite other +reasons. Anyhow, if slavery had somehow survived to the age of Rhodes +and Roosevelt and evolutionary imperialism, I doubt if the slaves would +ever have been emancipated at all. Certainly if it had survived till the +modern movement for the Servile State, they would never have been +emancipated at all. Why should the world take the chains off the black +man when it was just putting them on the white? And in so far as we owe +the change to Lincoln, we owe it to Jefferson. Exactly what gives its +real dignity to the figure of Lincoln is that he stands invoking a +primitive first principle of the age of innocence, and holding up the +tables of an ancient law, *against* the trend of the nineteenth century; +repeating, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men were +created equal, being endowed by their Creator, etc.,' to a generation +that was more and more disposed to say something like this: 'We hold +these truths to be probable enough for pragmatists; that all things +looking like men were evolved somehow, being endowed by heredity and +environment with no equal rights, but very unequal wrongs,' and so on. I +do not believe that creed, left to itself, would ever have founded a +state; and I am pretty certain that, left to itself, it would never have +overthrown a slave state. What it did do, as I have said, was to produce +some very wonderful literary and artistic flights of sceptical +imagination. The world did have new visions, if they were visions of +monsters in the moon and Martians striding about like spiders as tall as +the sky, and the workmen and capitalists becoming two separate species, +so that one could devour the other as gaily and greedily as a cat +devours a bird. No one has done justice to the meaning of Mr. Wells and +his original departure in fantastic fiction; to these nightmares that +were the last apocalypse of the nineteenth century. They meant that the +bottom had fallen out of the mind at last, that the bridge of +brotherhood had broken down in the modern brain, letting up from the +chasms this infernal light like a dawn. All had grown dizzy with degree +and relativity; so that there would not be so very much difference +between eating dog and eating darkie, or between eating darkie and +eating dago. There were different sorts of apes; but there was no doubt +that we were the superior sort. + +Against all this irresistible force stood one immovable post. Against +all this dance of doubt and degree stood something that can best be +symbolized by a simple example. An ape cannot be a priest, but a Negro +can be a priest. The dogmatic type of Christianity, especially the +Catholic type of Christianity, had riveted itself irrevocably to the +manhood of all men. Where its faith was fixed by creeds and councils it +could not save itself even by surrender. It could not gradually dilute +democracy, as could a merely sceptical or secular democrat. There stood, +in fact or in possibility, the solid and smiling figure of a black +bishop. And he was either a man claiming the most towering spiritual +privileges of a man, or he was the mere buffoonery and blasphemy of a +monkey in a mitre. That is the point about Christian and Catholic +democracy; it is not that it is necessarily at any moment more +democratic, it is that its indestructible minimum of democracy really is +indestructible. And by the nature of things that mystical democracy was +destined to survive, when every other sort of democracy was free to +destroy itself. And whenever democracy destroying itself is suddenly +moved to save itself, it always grasps at a rag or tag of that old +tradition that alone is sure of itself. Hundreds have heard the story +about the mediaeval demagogue who went about repeating the rhyme >   When Adam delved and Eve span, > > Who was then the gentleman? -Many have doubtless offered the obvious answer to the -question, 'The Serpent.' But few seem to have noticed what -would be the more modern answer to the question, if that -innocent agitator went about pro pounding it. 'Adam never -delved and Eve never span, for the simple reason that they -never existed. They are fragments of a Chaldeo-Babylonian -mythos, and Adam is only a slight variation of Tag-Tug, -pronounced Uttu. For the real beginning of humanity we refer -you to Darwin's *Origin of Species*.' And then the modern -man would go on to justify plutocracy to the mediaeval man -by talking about the Struggle for Life and the Survival of -the Fittest; and how the strongest man seized authority by -means of anarchy, and proved himself a gentleman by behaving -like a cad. Now I do not base my beliefs on the theology of -John Ball, or on the literal and materialistic reading of -the text of Genesis; though I think the story of Adam and -Eve infinitely less absurd and unlikely than that of the -prehistoric 'strongest man' who could fight a hundred men. -But I do note the fact that the idealism of the leveller -could be put in the form of an appeal to Scripture, and -could not be put in the form of an appeal to Science. And I -do note also that democrats were still driven to make the -same appeal even in the very century of Science. Tennyson -was, if ever there was one, an evolutionist in his vision -and an aristocrat in his sympathies. He was always boasting -that John Bull was evolutionary and not revolutionary, even -as these Frenchmen. He did not pretend to have any creed -beyond faintly trusting the larger hope. But when human -dignity is really in danger, John Bull has to use the same -old argument as John Ball. He tells Lady Clara Vere de Vere -that the gardener Adam and his wife smile at the claim of -long descent; their own descent being by no means long. Lady -Clara might surely have scored off him pretty smartly by -quoting from 'Maud' and 'In Memoriam' about evolution and -the eft that was lord of valley and hill. But Tennyson has -evidently forgotten all about Darwin-and the long descent of -man. If this was true of an evolutionist like Tennyson, it -was naturally ten times truer of a revolutionist like -Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence dogmatically -bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; -and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they -were certainly evolved unequal. - -There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the -divine origin of man. That is a perfectly simple fact which -the modern world will find out more and more to be a fact. -Every other basis is a sort of sentimental confusion, full -of merely verbal echoes of the older creeds. Those verbal -associations are always, vain for the vital purpose of -constraining the tyrant. An idealist may say to a -capitalist, 'Don't you sometimes feel in the rich twilight, -when the lights twinkle from the distant hamlet in the -hills, that all humanity is a holy family?' But it is -equally possible for the capitalist to reply with brevity -and decision, 'No, I don't,' and there is no more disputing -about it further than about the beauty of a fading cloud. -And the modern world of moods is a world of clouds, even if -some of them are thunderclouds. - -For I have only taken here, as a convenient working model, -the case of Negro slavery; because it was long peculiar to -America and is popularly associated with it. It is more and -more obvious that the line is no longer running between -black and white but between rich and poor. As I have already -noted in the case of Prohibition, the very same arguments, -of the inevitable suicide of the ignorant, of the -impossibility of freedom for the unfit, which were once -applied to barbarians brought from Africa are now applied to -citizens born in America. It is argued even by -industrialists that industrialism has produced a class -submerged below the status of emancipated mankind. They -imply that the Missing Link is no longer missing, even from -England or the Northern States, and that the factories have -manufactured their own monkeys. Scientific hypotheses about -the feeble-minded and the criminal type will supply the -masters of the modern world with more and more excuses for -denying the dogma of equality in the case of white labour as -well as black. And any man who knows the world knows -perfectly well that to tell the millionaires, or their -servants, that they are disappointing the sentiments of -Thomas Jefferson, or disregarding a creed composed in the -eighteenth century, will be about as effective as telling -them that they are not observing the creed of St. Athanasius -or keeping the rule of St. Benedict. - -The world cannot keep its own ideals. The secular order -cannot make secure any one of its own noble and natural -conceptions of secular perfection. That will be found, as -time goes on, the ultimate argument for a Church independent -of the world and the secular order: What has become of all -those ideal figures from the Wise Man of the Stoics to the -democratic Deist of the eighteenth century? What has become -of all that purely human hierarchy or chivalry, with its -punctilious pattern of the good knight, its ardent ambition -in the young squire? The very name of knight has come to -represent the petty triumph of a profiteer, and the very -word squire the petty tyranny of a landlord. What has become -of all that golden liberality of the Humanists, who found on -the high tablelands of the culture of Hellas the very -balance of repose in beauty that is most lacking in the -modern world? The very Greek language that they loved has -become a mere label for snuffy and snobbish dons, and a mere -cock-shy for cheap and half-educated utilitarians, who make -it a symbol of superstition and reaction. We have lived to -see a time when the heroic legend of the Republic and the -Citizen, which seemed to Jefferson the eternal youth of the -world, has begun to grow old in its turn. We cannot recover -the earthly estate of knight hood, to which all the colours -and complications of heraldry seemed as fresh and natural as -flowers. We cannot re-enact the intellectual experiences of -the Humanists, for whom the Greek grammar was like the song -of a bird in spring. The more the matter is considered the -clearer it will seem that these old experiences are now only -alive, where they have found a lodgment in the Catholic -tradition of Christendom, and made themselves friends for -ever. St. Francis is the only surviving troubadour. St. -Thomas More is the only surviving Humanist. St. Louis is the -only surviving knight. - -It would be the worse sort of insincerity, therefore, to -conclude even so hazy an outline of so great and majestic a -matter as the American democratic experiment, with out -testifying my belief that to this also the same ultimate -test will come. So far as that democracy becomes or remains -Catholic and Christian, that democracy will remain -democratic. In so far it does not, it will become wildly and -wickedly undemocratic. Its rich will riot with a brutal -indifference far beyond the feeble feudalism which retains -some shadow of responsibility or at least of patronage. Its -wage-slaves will either sink into heathen slavery, or seek -relief in theories that are destructive not merely in method -but in aim; since they are but the negations of the human -appetites oi property and personality. Eighteenth-century -ideals, formulated in eighteenth-century language, have no -longer in themselves the power to hold all those pagan -passions back. Even those documents depended upon Deism; -their real strength will survive in men who are still -Deists. And the men who are still Deists are more than -Deists. Men will more and more realise that there is no -meaning in democracy if there is no meaning in anything; and -that there is no meaning in anything if the universe has not -a centre of significance and an authority that is the author -of our rights. There is truth in every ancient fable, and -there is here even something of it in the fancy that finds -the symbol of the Republic in the bird that bore the bolts -of Jove. Owls and bats may wander where they will in -darkness, and for them as for the sceptics the universe may -have no centre; kites and vultures may linger as they like -over carrion, and for them as for the plutocrats existence -may have no origin and no end; but it was far back in the -land of legends, where instincts find their true images, -that the cry went forth that freedom is an eagle, whose -glory is gazing at the sun. +Many have doubtless offered the obvious answer to the question, 'The +Serpent.' But few seem to have noticed what would be the more modern +answer to the question, if that innocent agitator went about pro +pounding it. 'Adam never delved and Eve never span, for the simple +reason that they never existed. They are fragments of a +Chaldeo-Babylonian mythos, and Adam is only a slight variation of +Tag-Tug, pronounced Uttu. For the real beginning of humanity we refer +you to Darwin's *Origin of Species*.' And then the modern man would go +on to justify plutocracy to the mediaeval man by talking about the +Struggle for Life and the Survival of the Fittest; and how the strongest +man seized authority by means of anarchy, and proved himself a gentleman +by behaving like a cad. Now I do not base my beliefs on the theology of +John Ball, or on the literal and materialistic reading of the text of +Genesis; though I think the story of Adam and Eve infinitely less absurd +and unlikely than that of the prehistoric 'strongest man' who could +fight a hundred men. But I do note the fact that the idealism of the +leveller could be put in the form of an appeal to Scripture, and could +not be put in the form of an appeal to Science. And I do note also that +democrats were still driven to make the same appeal even in the very +century of Science. Tennyson was, if ever there was one, an evolutionist +in his vision and an aristocrat in his sympathies. He was always +boasting that John Bull was evolutionary and not revolutionary, even as +these Frenchmen. He did not pretend to have any creed beyond faintly +trusting the larger hope. But when human dignity is really in danger, +John Bull has to use the same old argument as John Ball. He tells Lady +Clara Vere de Vere that the gardener Adam and his wife smile at the +claim of long descent; their own descent being by no means long. Lady +Clara might surely have scored off him pretty smartly by quoting from +'Maud' and 'In Memoriam' about evolution and the eft that was lord of +valley and hill. But Tennyson has evidently forgotten all about +Darwin-and the long descent of man. If this was true of an evolutionist +like Tennyson, it was naturally ten times truer of a revolutionist like +Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights +on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they +were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. + +There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine +origin of man. That is a perfectly simple fact which the modern world +will find out more and more to be a fact. Every other basis is a sort of +sentimental confusion, full of merely verbal echoes of the older creeds. +Those verbal associations are always, vain for the vital purpose of +constraining the tyrant. An idealist may say to a capitalist, 'Don't you +sometimes feel in the rich twilight, when the lights twinkle from the +distant hamlet in the hills, that all humanity is a holy family?' But it +is equally possible for the capitalist to reply with brevity and +decision, 'No, I don't,' and there is no more disputing about it further +than about the beauty of a fading cloud. And the modern world of moods +is a world of clouds, even if some of them are thunderclouds. + +For I have only taken here, as a convenient working model, the case of +Negro slavery; because it was long peculiar to America and is popularly +associated with it. It is more and more obvious that the line is no +longer running between black and white but between rich and poor. As I +have already noted in the case of Prohibition, the very same arguments, +of the inevitable suicide of the ignorant, of the impossibility of +freedom for the unfit, which were once applied to barbarians brought +from Africa are now applied to citizens born in America. It is argued +even by industrialists that industrialism has produced a class submerged +below the status of emancipated mankind. They imply that the Missing +Link is no longer missing, even from England or the Northern States, and +that the factories have manufactured their own monkeys. Scientific +hypotheses about the feeble-minded and the criminal type will supply the +masters of the modern world with more and more excuses for denying the +dogma of equality in the case of white labour as well as black. And any +man who knows the world knows perfectly well that to tell the +millionaires, or their servants, that they are disappointing the +sentiments of Thomas Jefferson, or disregarding a creed composed in the +eighteenth century, will be about as effective as telling them that they +are not observing the creed of St. Athanasius or keeping the rule of +St. Benedict. + +The world cannot keep its own ideals. The secular order cannot make +secure any one of its own noble and natural conceptions of secular +perfection. That will be found, as time goes on, the ultimate argument +for a Church independent of the world and the secular order: What has +become of all those ideal figures from the Wise Man of the Stoics to the +democratic Deist of the eighteenth century? What has become of all that +purely human hierarchy or chivalry, with its punctilious pattern of the +good knight, its ardent ambition in the young squire? The very name of +knight has come to represent the petty triumph of a profiteer, and the +very word squire the petty tyranny of a landlord. What has become of all +that golden liberality of the Humanists, who found on the high +tablelands of the culture of Hellas the very balance of repose in beauty +that is most lacking in the modern world? The very Greek language that +they loved has become a mere label for snuffy and snobbish dons, and a +mere cock-shy for cheap and half-educated utilitarians, who make it a +symbol of superstition and reaction. We have lived to see a time when +the heroic legend of the Republic and the Citizen, which seemed to +Jefferson the eternal youth of the world, has begun to grow old in its +turn. We cannot recover the earthly estate of knight hood, to which all +the colours and complications of heraldry seemed as fresh and natural as +flowers. We cannot re-enact the intellectual experiences of the +Humanists, for whom the Greek grammar was like the song of a bird in +spring. The more the matter is considered the clearer it will seem that +these old experiences are now only alive, where they have found a +lodgment in the Catholic tradition of Christendom, and made themselves +friends for ever. St. Francis is the only surviving troubadour. St. +Thomas More is the only surviving Humanist. St. Louis is the only +surviving knight. + +It would be the worse sort of insincerity, therefore, to conclude even +so hazy an outline of so great and majestic a matter as the American +democratic experiment, with out testifying my belief that to this also +the same ultimate test will come. So far as that democracy becomes or +remains Catholic and Christian, that democracy will remain democratic. +In so far it does not, it will become wildly and wickedly undemocratic. +Its rich will riot with a brutal indifference far beyond the feeble +feudalism which retains some shadow of responsibility or at least of +patronage. Its wage-slaves will either sink into heathen slavery, or +seek relief in theories that are destructive not merely in method but in +aim; since they are but the negations of the human appetites oi property +and personality. Eighteenth-century ideals, formulated in +eighteenth-century language, have no longer in themselves the power to +hold all those pagan passions back. Even those documents depended upon +Deism; their real strength will survive in men who are still Deists. And +the men who are still Deists are more than Deists. Men will more and +more realise that there is no meaning in democracy if there is no +meaning in anything; and that there is no meaning in anything if the +universe has not a centre of significance and an authority that is the +author of our rights. There is truth in every ancient fable, and there +is here even something of it in the fancy that finds the symbol of the +Republic in the bird that bore the bolts of Jove. Owls and bats may +wander where they will in darkness, and for them as for the sceptics the +universe may have no centre; kites and vultures may linger as they like +over carrion, and for them as for the plutocrats existence may have no +origin and no end; but it was far back in the land of legends, where +instincts find their true images, that the cry went forth that freedom +is an eagle, whose glory is gazing at the sun. **The End.** diff --git a/src/servile-state.md b/src/servile-state.md index c0001f6..586db1d 100644 --- a/src/servile-state.md +++ b/src/servile-state.md @@ -1,4438 +1,3797 @@ # Introduction: The Subject of This Book -This book is written to maintain and prove the following -truth:-- - -That our free modern society in which the means of -production are owned by a few being necessarily in unstable -equilibrium, it is tending to reach a condition of stable -equilibrium **by the establishment of compulsory labor -legally enforcible upon those who do not own the means of -production for the advantage of those who do**. With this -principle of compulsion applied against the non-owners there -must also come a difference in their status; and in the eyes -of society and of its positive law men will be divided into -two sets: the first economically free and politically free, -possessed of the means of production, and securely confirmed -in that possession; the second economically unfree and -politically unfree, but at first secured by their very lack -of freedom in certain necessaries of life and in a minimum -of well-being beneath which they shall not fall. - -Society having reached such a condition would be released -from its present internal strains and would have taken on a -form which would be stable: that is, capable of being -indefinitely prolonged without change. In it would be -resolved the various factors of instability which -increasingly disturb that form of society called -*Capitalist*, and men would be satisfied to accept, and to -continue in, such a settlement. - -To such a stable society I shall give, for reasons which -will be described in the next section, the title of **The -Servile State**. - -I shall not undertake to judge whether this approaching -organisation of our modern society be good or evil. I shall -concern myself only with showing the necessary tendency -towards it which has long existed and the recent social -provisions which show that it has actually begun. - -This new state will be acceptable to those who desire -consciously or by implication the re-establishment among us -of a difference of status between possessor and -non-possessor: it will be distasteful to those who regard -such a distinction with ill favour or with dread. - -My business will not be to enter into the discussion between -these two types of modern thinkers, but to point out to each -and to both that that which the one favours and the other -would fly is upon them. - -I shall prove my thesis in particular from the case of the -industrial society of Great Britain, including that small, -alien, and exceptional corner of Ireland, which suffers or -enjoys industrial conditions to-day. +This book is written to maintain and prove the following truth:-- + +That our free modern society in which the means of production are owned +by a few being necessarily in unstable equilibrium, it is tending to +reach a condition of stable equilibrium **by the establishment of +compulsory labor legally enforcible upon those who do not own the means +of production for the advantage of those who do**. With this principle +of compulsion applied against the non-owners there must also come a +difference in their status; and in the eyes of society and of its +positive law men will be divided into two sets: the first economically +free and politically free, possessed of the means of production, and +securely confirmed in that possession; the second economically unfree +and politically unfree, but at first secured by their very lack of +freedom in certain necessaries of life and in a minimum of well-being +beneath which they shall not fall. + +Society having reached such a condition would be released from its +present internal strains and would have taken on a form which would be +stable: that is, capable of being indefinitely prolonged without change. +In it would be resolved the various factors of instability which +increasingly disturb that form of society called *Capitalist*, and men +would be satisfied to accept, and to continue in, such a settlement. + +To such a stable society I shall give, for reasons which will be +described in the next section, the title of **The Servile State**. + +I shall not undertake to judge whether this approaching organisation of +our modern society be good or evil. I shall concern myself only with +showing the necessary tendency towards it which has long existed and the +recent social provisions which show that it has actually begun. + +This new state will be acceptable to those who desire consciously or by +implication the re-establishment among us of a difference of status +between possessor and non-possessor: it will be distasteful to those who +regard such a distinction with ill favour or with dread. + +My business will not be to enter into the discussion between these two +types of modern thinkers, but to point out to each and to both that that +which the one favours and the other would fly is upon them. + +I shall prove my thesis in particular from the case of the industrial +society of Great Britain, including that small, alien, and exceptional +corner of Ireland, which suffers or enjoys industrial conditions to-day. I shall divide the matter thus:-- 1. I shall lay down certain definitions. -2. Next, I shall describe the institution of slavery and - **The Servile State** of which it is the basis, as these - were in the ancient world. I shall then: - -3. Sketch very briefly the process whereby that age-long - institution of slavery was slowly dissolved during the - Christian centuries, and whereby the resulting mediaeval - system, based upon highly divided property in the means - of production, was - -4. wrecked in certain areas of Europe as it approached - completion, and had substituted for it, in practice - though not in legal theory, a society based upon - **Capitalism**. - -5. Next, I shall show how Capitalism was of its nature - unstable, because its social realities were in conflict - with all existing or possible systems of law, and - because its effects in denying *sufficiency* and - *security* were intolerable to men how being thus - *unstable*, it consequently presented a *problem* which - demanded a solution: to wit, the establishment of some - stable form of society whose law and social practice - should correspond, and whose economic results, by - providing *sufficiency* and *security*, should be +2. Next, I shall describe the institution of slavery and **The Servile + State** of which it is the basis, as these were in the ancient + world. I shall then: + +3. Sketch very briefly the process whereby that age-long institution of + slavery was slowly dissolved during the Christian centuries, and + whereby the resulting mediaeval system, based upon highly divided + property in the means of production, was + +4. wrecked in certain areas of Europe as it approached completion, and + had substituted for it, in practice though not in legal theory, a + society based upon **Capitalism**. + +5. Next, I shall show how Capitalism was of its nature unstable, + because its social realities were in conflict with all existing or + possible systems of law, and because its effects in denying + *sufficiency* and *security* were intolerable to men how being thus + *unstable*, it consequently presented a *problem* which demanded a + solution: to wit, the establishment of some stable form of society + whose law and social practice should correspond, and whose economic + results, by providing *sufficiency* and *security*, should be tolerable to human nature. -6. I shall next present the only three possible - solutions:-- - - 1. Collectivism, or the placing of the means of - production in the hands of the political officers of - the community. - - 2. Property, or the re-establishment of a Distributive - State in which the mass of citizens should severally - own the means of production. - - 3. Slavery, or a Servile State in which those who do - not own the means of production shall be legally - compelled to work for those who do, and shall - receive in exchange a security of livelihood. - - Now, seeing the distaste which the remains of our long - Christian tradition has bred in us for directly - advocating the third solution and boldly supporting the - re-establishment of slavery, the first two alone are - open to reformers: (1) a reaction towards a condition of - well-divided property or the *Distributive State*; (2) - an attempt to achieve the ideal *Collectivist State*. - - It can easily be shown that this second solution appeals - most naturally and easily to a society already - Capitalist on account of the difficulty which" such a - society has to discover the energy, the will, and the - vision requisite for the first solution. - -7. I shall next proceed to show how the pursuit of this - ideal Collectivist State which is bred of Capitalism - leads men acting upon a Capitalist society *not* towards - the Collectivist State nor anything like it, but to that - third utterly different thing---the *Servile State*. - - To this eighth section I shall add an appendix showing - how the attempt to achieve Collectivism gradually by - public purchase is based upon an illusion. - -8. Recognising that theoretical argument of this kind, - though intellectually convincing, is not sufficient to - the establishment of my thesis, I shall conclude by - giving examples from modern English legislation, which - examples prove that the Servile State is actually upon - us. +6. I shall next present the only three possible solutions:-- + + 1. Collectivism, or the placing of the means of production in the + hands of the political officers of the community. + + 2. Property, or the re-establishment of a Distributive State in + which the mass of citizens should severally own the means of + production. + + 3. Slavery, or a Servile State in which those who do not own the + means of production shall be legally compelled to work for those + who do, and shall receive in exchange a security of livelihood. + + Now, seeing the distaste which the remains of our long Christian + tradition has bred in us for directly advocating the third solution + and boldly supporting the re-establishment of slavery, the first two + alone are open to reformers: (1) a reaction towards a condition of + well-divided property or the *Distributive State*; (2) an attempt to + achieve the ideal *Collectivist State*. + + It can easily be shown that this second solution appeals most + naturally and easily to a society already Capitalist on account of + the difficulty which" such a society has to discover the energy, the + will, and the vision requisite for the first solution. + +7. I shall next proceed to show how the pursuit of this ideal + Collectivist State which is bred of Capitalism leads men acting upon + a Capitalist society *not* towards the Collectivist State nor + anything like it, but to that third utterly different thing---the + *Servile State*. + + To this eighth section I shall add an appendix showing how the + attempt to achieve Collectivism gradually by public purchase is + based upon an illusion. + +8. Recognising that theoretical argument of this kind, though + intellectually convincing, is not sufficient to the establishment of + my thesis, I shall conclude by giving examples from modern English + legislation, which examples prove that the Servile State is actually + upon us. Such is the scheme I design for this book. # Definitions -Man, like every other organism, can only live by the -transformation of his environment to his own use. He must -transform his environment from a condition where it is less -to a condition where it is more subservient to his needs. - -That special, conscious,and intelligent transformation of -his environment which is peculiar to the peculiar -intelligence and creative faculty of man we call the -*Production of Wealth*. - -*Wealth* is matter which has been consciously and -intelligently transformed from a condition in which it is -less to a condition in which it is more serviceable to a -human need. - -Without *Wealth* man cannot exist. The production of it is a -necessity to him, and though it proceeds from the more to -the less necessary, and even to those forms of production -which we call luxuries, yet in any given human society there -is a certain *kind* and a certain *amount* of wealth without -which human life cannot be lived: as, for instance, in -England to-day, certain forms of cooked and elaborately -prepared food, clothing, warmth, and habitation. - -Therefore, to control the production of wealth is to control -human life itself. To refuse man the opportunity for the -production of wealth is to refuse him the opportunity for -life; and, in general, the way in which the production of -wealth is by law permitted is the only way in which the -citizens can legally exist. - -Wealth can only be produced by the application of human -energy, mental and physical, to the forces of nature around -us, and to the material which those forces inform. - -This human energy so applicable to the material world and -its forces we will call *Labour*. As for that material and -those natural forces, we will call them, for the sake of -shortness, by the narrow, but conventionally accepted, term -*Land*. - -It would seem, therefore, that all problems connected with -the production of wealth, and all discussion thereupon, -involve but two principal original factors, to wit, *Labour* -and *Land*, But it so happens that the conscious, -artificial, and intelligent action of man upon nature, -corresponding to his peculiar character compared with other -created beings, introduces a third factor of the utmost -importance. - -Man proceeds to create wealth by ingenious methods of -varying and often increasing complexity, and aids himself by -the construction of *implements*. These soon become in each -new department of the production as truly necessary to that -production as *labour* and *land*. Further, any process of -production takes a certain time; during that time the -producer must be fed, and clothed, and housed, and the rest -of it. There must therefore be an *accumulation of wealth* -created in the past, and reserved with the object of -maintaining labour during its effort to produce for the -future. - -Whether it be the making of an instrument or tool, or the -setting aside of a store of provisions, *labour* applied to -*land* for either purpose is not producing wealth for -immediate consumption. It is setting aside and reserving -somewhat, and that *somewhat* is always necessary in varying -proportions according to the simplicity or complexity of the +Man, like every other organism, can only live by the transformation of +his environment to his own use. He must transform his environment from a +condition where it is less to a condition where it is more subservient +to his needs. + +That special, conscious,and intelligent transformation of his +environment which is peculiar to the peculiar intelligence and creative +faculty of man we call the *Production of Wealth*. + +*Wealth* is matter which has been consciously and intelligently +transformed from a condition in which it is less to a condition in which +it is more serviceable to a human need. + +Without *Wealth* man cannot exist. The production of it is a necessity +to him, and though it proceeds from the more to the less necessary, and +even to those forms of production which we call luxuries, yet in any +given human society there is a certain *kind* and a certain *amount* of +wealth without which human life cannot be lived: as, for instance, in +England to-day, certain forms of cooked and elaborately prepared food, +clothing, warmth, and habitation. + +Therefore, to control the production of wealth is to control human life +itself. To refuse man the opportunity for the production of wealth is to +refuse him the opportunity for life; and, in general, the way in which +the production of wealth is by law permitted is the only way in which +the citizens can legally exist. + +Wealth can only be produced by the application of human energy, mental +and physical, to the forces of nature around us, and to the material +which those forces inform. + +This human energy so applicable to the material world and its forces we +will call *Labour*. As for that material and those natural forces, we +will call them, for the sake of shortness, by the narrow, but +conventionally accepted, term *Land*. + +It would seem, therefore, that all problems connected with the +production of wealth, and all discussion thereupon, involve but two +principal original factors, to wit, *Labour* and *Land*, But it so +happens that the conscious, artificial, and intelligent action of man +upon nature, corresponding to his peculiar character compared with other +created beings, introduces a third factor of the utmost importance. + +Man proceeds to create wealth by ingenious methods of varying and often +increasing complexity, and aids himself by the construction of +*implements*. These soon become in each new department of the production +as truly necessary to that production as *labour* and *land*. Further, +any process of production takes a certain time; during that time the +producer must be fed, and clothed, and housed, and the rest of it. There +must therefore be an *accumulation of wealth* created in the past, and +reserved with the object of maintaining labour during its effort to +produce for the future. + +Whether it be the making of an instrument or tool, or the setting aside +of a store of provisions, *labour* applied to *land* for either purpose +is not producing wealth for immediate consumption. It is setting aside +and reserving somewhat, and that *somewhat* is always necessary in +varying proportions according to the simplicity or complexity of the economic society to the production of wealth. -To such wealth reserved and set aside for the purposes of -future production, and not for immediate consumption, -whether it be in the form of instruments and tools, or in -the form of stores for the maintenance of labour during the -process of production, we give the name of *Capital*. - -There are thus three factors in the production of all human -wealth, which we may conventionally term *Land*, *Capital*, -and *Labour*. - -When we talk of the *Means of Production* we signify land -and capital combined. Thus, when we say that a man is -"dispossessed of the means of production," or cannot produce -wealth save by the leave of another who "possesses the means -of production," we mean that he is the master only of his -labour and has no control, in any useful amount, over either +To such wealth reserved and set aside for the purposes of future +production, and not for immediate consumption, whether it be in the form +of instruments and tools, or in the form of stores for the maintenance +of labour during the process of production, we give the name of +*Capital*. + +There are thus three factors in the production of all human wealth, +which we may conventionally term *Land*, *Capital*, and *Labour*. + +When we talk of the *Means of Production* we signify land and capital +combined. Thus, when we say that a man is "dispossessed of the means of +production," or cannot produce wealth save by the leave of another who +"possesses the means of production," we mean that he is the master only +of his labour and has no control, in any useful amount, over either capital, or land, or both combined. -A man politically free, that is, one who enjoys the right -before the law to exercise his energies when he pleases (or -not at all if he does not so please), but not possessed by -legal right of control over any useful amount of the means -of production, we call *proletarian*, and any considerable -class composed of such men we call a *proletariat*. - -*Property* is a term used for that arrangement in society -whereby the control of land and of wealth made from land, -including therefore all the means of production, is vested -in some person or corporation. Thus we may say of a -building, including the land upon which it stands, that it -is the "property" of such and such a citizen, or family, or -college, or of the State, meaning that those who "own" such -property are guaranteed by the laws in the right to use it -or withhold it from use. *Private property* signifies such -wealth (including the means of production) as may, by the -arrangements of society, be in the control of persons or -corporations *other* than the political bodies of which -these persons or corporations are in another aspect members. -What distinguishes private property is not that the -possessor thereof is less than the State, or is only a part -of the State (for were that so we should talk of municipal -property as private property), but rather that the owner may -exercise his control over it to his own advantage, and not +A man politically free, that is, one who enjoys the right before the law +to exercise his energies when he pleases (or not at all if he does not +so please), but not possessed by legal right of control over any useful +amount of the means of production, we call *proletarian*, and any +considerable class composed of such men we call a *proletariat*. + +*Property* is a term used for that arrangement in society whereby the +control of land and of wealth made from land, including therefore all +the means of production, is vested in some person or corporation. Thus +we may say of a building, including the land upon which it stands, that +it is the "property" of such and such a citizen, or family, or college, +or of the State, meaning that those who "own" such property are +guaranteed by the laws in the right to use it or withhold it from use. +*Private property* signifies such wealth (including the means of +production) as may, by the arrangements of society, be in the control of +persons or corporations *other* than the political bodies of which these +persons or corporations are in another aspect members. What +distinguishes private property is not that the possessor thereof is less +than the State, or is only a part of the State (for were that so we +should talk of municipal property as private property), but rather that +the owner may exercise his control over it to his own advantage, and not as a trustee for society, nor in the hierarchy of political -institutions. Thus Mr Jones is a citizen of Manchester, but -he does not own his private property as a citizen of -Manchester, he owns it as Mr Jones, whereas, if the house -next to his own be owned by the Manchester municipality, -they own it only because they are a political body standing -for the whole community of the town. Mr Jones might move to -Glasgow and still own his property in Manchester, but the -municipality of Manchester can only own its property in -connection with the corporate political life of the town. - -An ideal society in which the means of production should be -in the hands of the political officers of the community we -call *Collectivist*, or more generally *Socialist*. - -A society in which private property in land and capital, -that is, the ownership and therefore the control of the -means of production, is confined to some number of free -citizens not large enough to determine the social mass of -the State, while the rest have not such property and are -therefore proletarian, we call *Capitalist*; and the method -by which wealth is produced in such a society can only be -the application of labour, the determining mass of which -must necessarily be proletarian, to land and capital, in -such fashion that, of the total wealth produced, the -Proletariat which labours shall only receive a portion. - -The two marks, then, defining the Capitalist State are: (1) -That the citizens thereof are politically free: *i.e.* can -use or withhold at will their possessions or their labour, -but are also (2) divided into capitalist and proletarian in -such proportions that the State as a whole is not -characterised by the institution of ownership among free -citizens, but by the restriction of ownership to a section -markedly less than the whole, or even to a small minority. -Such a *Capitalist State* is essentially divided into two -classes of free citizens, the one capitalist or owning, the -other propertyless or proletarian. - -My last definition concerns the Servile State itself, and -since the idea is both somewhat novel and also the subject -of this book, I will not only establish but expand its -definition. +institutions. Thus Mr Jones is a citizen of Manchester, but he does not +own his private property as a citizen of Manchester, he owns it as Mr +Jones, whereas, if the house next to his own be owned by the Manchester +municipality, they own it only because they are a political body +standing for the whole community of the town. Mr Jones might move to +Glasgow and still own his property in Manchester, but the municipality +of Manchester can only own its property in connection with the corporate +political life of the town. + +An ideal society in which the means of production should be in the hands +of the political officers of the community we call *Collectivist*, or +more generally *Socialist*. + +A society in which private property in land and capital, that is, the +ownership and therefore the control of the means of production, is +confined to some number of free citizens not large enough to determine +the social mass of the State, while the rest have not such property and +are therefore proletarian, we call *Capitalist*; and the method by which +wealth is produced in such a society can only be the application of +labour, the determining mass of which must necessarily be proletarian, +to land and capital, in such fashion that, of the total wealth produced, +the Proletariat which labours shall only receive a portion. + +The two marks, then, defining the Capitalist State are: (1) That the +citizens thereof are politically free: *i.e.* can use or withhold at +will their possessions or their labour, but are also (2) divided into +capitalist and proletarian in such proportions that the State as a whole +is not characterised by the institution of ownership among free +citizens, but by the restriction of ownership to a section markedly less +than the whole, or even to a small minority. Such a *Capitalist State* +is essentially divided into two classes of free citizens, the one +capitalist or owning, the other propertyless or proletarian. + +My last definition concerns the Servile State itself, and since the idea +is both somewhat novel and also the subject of this book, I will not +only establish but expand its definition. The definition of the Servile State is as follows:-- -"*That arrangement of society in which so considerable a -number of the families and individuals are constrained by -positive law to labour for the advantage of other families -and individuals as to stamp the whole community with the -mark of such labour we call* **The Servile State**." - -Note first certain negative limitations in the above which -must be clearly seized if we are not to lose clear thinking -in a fog of metaphor and rhetoric. - -That society is not servile in which men are intelligently -constrained to labour by enthusiasm, by a religious tenet, -or indirectly from fear of destitution, or directly from -love of gain, or from the common sense which teaches them -that by their labour they may increase their well-being. - -A clear boundary exists between the servile and the -non-servile condition of labour, and the conditions upon -either side of that boundary utterly differ one from -another, Where there is *compulsion* applicable by *positive -law* to men of a certain *status*, and such compulsion -enforced in the last resort by the powers at the disposal of -the State, there is the institution of *Slavery*; and if -that institution be sufficiently expanded the whole State -may be said to repose upon a servile basis, and is a Servile -State. Where such formal,legal status is absent the -conditions are not servile; and the difference between -servitude and freedom, appreciable in a thousand details of -actual life, is most glaring in this: that the free man can -refuse his labour and use that refusal as an instrument -wherewith to *bargain*; while the slave has no such -instrument or power to bargain at all, but is dependent for -his well-being upon the custom of society, backed by the -regulation of such of its laws as may protect and guarantee -the slave. - -Next, let it be observed that the State is not servile -because the mere institution of slavery is to be discovered -somewhere within its confines. The State is only servile -when so considerable a body of forced labour is affected by -the compulsion of positive law as to give a character to the -whole community. - -Similarly, that State is not servile in which *all* citizens -are liable to submit their energies to the compulsion of -positive law, and must labour at the discretion of State -officials. By loose metaphor and for rhetorical purposes men -who dislike Collectivism (for instance) or the discipline of -a regiment will talk of the "servile" conditions of such -organisations. But for the purposes of strict definition and -clear thinking it is essential to remember that a servile -condition only exists by contrast with a free condition. The -servile condition is present in society only when there is -also present the free citizen for whose benefit the slave -works under the compulsion of positive law. - -Again, it should be noted that this word "servile" in no way -connotes the worst, nor even necessarily a bad, arrangement -of society, This point is so clear that it should hardly -delay us; but a confusion between the rhetorical and the -precise use of the word servile I have discovered to -embarrass public discussion of the matter so much that I +"*That arrangement of society in which so considerable a number of the +families and individuals are constrained by positive law to labour for +the advantage of other families and individuals as to stamp the whole +community with the mark of such labour we call* **The Servile State**." + +Note first certain negative limitations in the above which must be +clearly seized if we are not to lose clear thinking in a fog of metaphor +and rhetoric. + +That society is not servile in which men are intelligently constrained +to labour by enthusiasm, by a religious tenet, or indirectly from fear +of destitution, or directly from love of gain, or from the common sense +which teaches them that by their labour they may increase their +well-being. + +A clear boundary exists between the servile and the non-servile +condition of labour, and the conditions upon either side of that +boundary utterly differ one from another, Where there is *compulsion* +applicable by *positive law* to men of a certain *status*, and such +compulsion enforced in the last resort by the powers at the disposal of +the State, there is the institution of *Slavery*; and if that +institution be sufficiently expanded the whole State may be said to +repose upon a servile basis, and is a Servile State. Where such +formal,legal status is absent the conditions are not servile; and the +difference between servitude and freedom, appreciable in a thousand +details of actual life, is most glaring in this: that the free man can +refuse his labour and use that refusal as an instrument wherewith to +*bargain*; while the slave has no such instrument or power to bargain at +all, but is dependent for his well-being upon the custom of society, +backed by the regulation of such of its laws as may protect and +guarantee the slave. + +Next, let it be observed that the State is not servile because the mere +institution of slavery is to be discovered somewhere within its +confines. The State is only servile when so considerable a body of +forced labour is affected by the compulsion of positive law as to give a +character to the whole community. + +Similarly, that State is not servile in which *all* citizens are liable +to submit their energies to the compulsion of positive law, and must +labour at the discretion of State officials. By loose metaphor and for +rhetorical purposes men who dislike Collectivism (for instance) or the +discipline of a regiment will talk of the "servile" conditions of such +organisations. But for the purposes of strict definition and clear +thinking it is essential to remember that a servile condition only +exists by contrast with a free condition. The servile condition is +present in society only when there is also present the free citizen for +whose benefit the slave works under the compulsion of positive law. + +Again, it should be noted that this word "servile" in no way connotes +the worst, nor even necessarily a bad, arrangement of society, This +point is so clear that it should hardly delay us; but a confusion +between the rhetorical and the precise use of the word servile I have +discovered to embarrass public discussion of the matter so much that I must once more emphasise what should be self-evident. -The discussion as to whether the institution of slavery be a -good or a bad one, or be relatively better or worse than -other alternative institutions, has nothing whatever to do -with the exact definition of that institution. Thus Monarchy -consists in throwing the responsibility for the direction of -society upon an individual. One can imagine some Roman of -the first century praising the new Imperial power, but -through a muddle-headed tradition against "kings" swearing -that he would never tolerate a "monarchy." Such a fellow -would have been a very futile critic of public affairs under -Trajan, but no more futile than a man who swears that -nothing shall make him a "slave," though well prepared to -accept laws that compel him to labour without his consent, -under the force of public law, and upon terms dictated by -others. - -Many would argue that a man so compelled to labour, -guaranteed against insecurity and against insufficiency of -food, housing and clothing, promised subsistence for his old -age, and a similar set of advantages for his posterity, -would be a great deal better off than a free man lacking all -these things. But the argument does not affect the -definition attaching to the word servile. A devout Christian -of blameless life drifting upon an ice-flow in the Arctic -night, without food or any prospect of succour, is not so -comfortably circumstanced as the Khedive of Egypt; but it -would be folly in establishing the definition of the words -"Christian" and "Muslim" to bring this contrast into -account. - -We must then, throughout this inquiry, keep strictly to the -economic aspect of the case. Only when that is established -and when the modern tendency to the re-establishment of -slavery is clear, are we free to discuss the advantages and -disadvantages of the revolution through which we are -passing. - -It must further be grasped that the essential mark of the -Servile Institution does not depend upon the ownership of -the slave by a particular master. That the institution of -slavery tends to that form under the various forces -composing human nature and human society is probable enough. -That if or when slavery were re-established in England a -particular man would in time be found the slave not of -Capitalism in general but of, say, the Shell Oil Trust in -particular, is a very likely development; and we know that -in societies where the institution was of immemorial -antiquity such direct possession of the slave by the free -man or corporation of free men had come to be the rule. But -my point is that such a mark is not essential to the -character of slavery. As an initial phase in the institution -of slavery, or even as a permanent phase marking society for -an indefinite time, it is perfectly easy to conceive of a -whole class rendered servile by positive law, and compelled -by such law to labour for the advantage of another -non-servile free class, without any direct act of possession -permitted to one man over the person of another. - -The final contrast thus established between slave and free -might be maintained by the State guaranteeing to the -*un-free*, security in their subsistence, to the *free*, -security in their property and profits, rent and interest. -What would mark the slave in such a society would be his -belonging to that set or status which was compelled by no -matter what definition to labour, and was thus cut off from -the other set or status not compelled to labour, but free to -labour or not as it willed. - -Again, the Servile State would certainly exist even though a -man, being only compelled to labour during a portion of his -time, were free to bargain and even to accumulate in his -"free" time. The old lawyers used to distinguish between a -serf "in gross" and a serf "regardant." A serf "in gross" -was one who was a serf at all times and places, and not in -respect to a particular lord. A serf "regardant" was a serf -only in his bondage to serve a particular lord. He was free -as against other men. And one might perfectly well have -slaves who were only slaves "regardant" to a particular type -of employment during particular hours. But they would be -slaves none the less, and if their hours were many and their -class numerous, the State which they supported would be a -Servile State. +The discussion as to whether the institution of slavery be a good or a +bad one, or be relatively better or worse than other alternative +institutions, has nothing whatever to do with the exact definition of +that institution. Thus Monarchy consists in throwing the responsibility +for the direction of society upon an individual. One can imagine some +Roman of the first century praising the new Imperial power, but through +a muddle-headed tradition against "kings" swearing that he would never +tolerate a "monarchy." Such a fellow would have been a very futile +critic of public affairs under Trajan, but no more futile than a man who +swears that nothing shall make him a "slave," though well prepared to +accept laws that compel him to labour without his consent, under the +force of public law, and upon terms dictated by others. + +Many would argue that a man so compelled to labour, guaranteed against +insecurity and against insufficiency of food, housing and clothing, +promised subsistence for his old age, and a similar set of advantages +for his posterity, would be a great deal better off than a free man +lacking all these things. But the argument does not affect the +definition attaching to the word servile. A devout Christian of +blameless life drifting upon an ice-flow in the Arctic night, without +food or any prospect of succour, is not so comfortably circumstanced as +the Khedive of Egypt; but it would be folly in establishing the +definition of the words "Christian" and "Muslim" to bring this contrast +into account. + +We must then, throughout this inquiry, keep strictly to the economic +aspect of the case. Only when that is established and when the modern +tendency to the re-establishment of slavery is clear, are we free to +discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the revolution through which +we are passing. + +It must further be grasped that the essential mark of the Servile +Institution does not depend upon the ownership of the slave by a +particular master. That the institution of slavery tends to that form +under the various forces composing human nature and human society is +probable enough. That if or when slavery were re-established in England +a particular man would in time be found the slave not of Capitalism in +general but of, say, the Shell Oil Trust in particular, is a very likely +development; and we know that in societies where the institution was of +immemorial antiquity such direct possession of the slave by the free man +or corporation of free men had come to be the rule. But my point is that +such a mark is not essential to the character of slavery. As an initial +phase in the institution of slavery, or even as a permanent phase +marking society for an indefinite time, it is perfectly easy to conceive +of a whole class rendered servile by positive law, and compelled by such +law to labour for the advantage of another non-servile free class, +without any direct act of possession permitted to one man over the +person of another. + +The final contrast thus established between slave and free might be +maintained by the State guaranteeing to the *un-free*, security in their +subsistence, to the *free*, security in their property and profits, rent +and interest. What would mark the slave in such a society would be his +belonging to that set or status which was compelled by no matter what +definition to labour, and was thus cut off from the other set or status +not compelled to labour, but free to labour or not as it willed. + +Again, the Servile State would certainly exist even though a man, being +only compelled to labour during a portion of his time, were free to +bargain and even to accumulate in his "free" time. The old lawyers used +to distinguish between a serf "in gross" and a serf "regardant." A serf +"in gross" was one who was a serf at all times and places, and not in +respect to a particular lord. A serf "regardant" was a serf only in his +bondage to serve a particular lord. He was free as against other men. +And one might perfectly well have slaves who were only slaves +"regardant" to a particular type of employment during particular hours. +But they would be slaves none the less, and if their hours were many and +their class numerous, the State which they supported would be a Servile +State. -Lastly, let it be remembered that the servile condition -remains as truly an institution of the State when it -attaches permanently and irrevocably at any one time to a -particular set of human beings as when it attaches to a -particular class throughout their lives. Thus the laws of -Paganism permitted the slave to be enfranchised by his -master: it further permitted children or prisoners to be -sold into slavery. The Servile Institution, though -perpetually changing in the elements of its composition, was -still an unchanging factor in the State. Similarly, though -the State should only subject to slavery those who had less -than a certain income, while leaving men free by inheritance -or otherwise to pass out of, and by loss to pass into, the -slave class, that slave class, though fluctuating as to its -composition, would still permanently exist. - -Thus, if the modern industrial State shall make a law by -which servile conditions shall not attach to those capable -of earning more than a certain sum by their own labour, but -shall attach to those who earn less than this sum; or if the -modern industrial State defines manual labour in a -particular fashion, renders it compulsory during a fixed -time for those who undertake it, but leaves them free to -turn later to other occupations if they choose, undoubtedly -such distinctions, though they attach to conditions and not -to individuals, establish the Servile Institution. - -Some considerable number must be manual workers by -definition, and while they were so defined would be slaves. -Here again the composition of the Servile class would -fluctuate, but the class would be permanent and large enough -to stamp all society. I need not insist upon the practical -effect: that such a class, once established, tends to be -fixed in the great majority of those which make it up, and -that the individuals entering or leaving it tend to become -few compared to the whole mass. +Lastly, let it be remembered that the servile condition remains as truly +an institution of the State when it attaches permanently and irrevocably +at any one time to a particular set of human beings as when it attaches +to a particular class throughout their lives. Thus the laws of Paganism +permitted the slave to be enfranchised by his master: it further +permitted children or prisoners to be sold into slavery. The Servile +Institution, though perpetually changing in the elements of its +composition, was still an unchanging factor in the State. Similarly, +though the State should only subject to slavery those who had less than +a certain income, while leaving men free by inheritance or otherwise to +pass out of, and by loss to pass into, the slave class, that slave +class, though fluctuating as to its composition, would still permanently +exist. + +Thus, if the modern industrial State shall make a law by which servile +conditions shall not attach to those capable of earning more than a +certain sum by their own labour, but shall attach to those who earn less +than this sum; or if the modern industrial State defines manual labour +in a particular fashion, renders it compulsory during a fixed time for +those who undertake it, but leaves them free to turn later to other +occupations if they choose, undoubtedly such distinctions, though they +attach to conditions and not to individuals, establish the Servile +Institution. + +Some considerable number must be manual workers by definition, and while +they were so defined would be slaves. Here again the composition of the +Servile class would fluctuate, but the class would be permanent and +large enough to stamp all society. I need not insist upon the practical +effect: that such a class, once established, tends to be fixed in the +great majority of those which make it up, and that the individuals +entering or leaving it tend to become few compared to the whole mass. There is one last point to be considered in this definition. It is this: -Since, in the nature of things, a free society must enforce -a contract (a free society consisting in nothing else but -the enforcement of free contracts), how far can that be -called a Servile condition which is the result of contract -nominally or really free? In other words, is not a contract -to labour, however freely entered into, servile of its -nature when enforced by the State? - -For instance, I have no food or clothing, nor do I possess -the means of production whereby I can produce any wealth in -exchange for such. I am so circumstanced that an owner of -the Means of Production will not allow me access to those -Means unless I sign a contract to serve him for a week at a -wage of bare subsistence. Does the State in enforcing that +Since, in the nature of things, a free society must enforce a contract +(a free society consisting in nothing else but the enforcement of free +contracts), how far can that be called a Servile condition which is the +result of contract nominally or really free? In other words, is not a +contract to labour, however freely entered into, servile of its nature +when enforced by the State? + +For instance, I have no food or clothing, nor do I possess the means of +production whereby I can produce any wealth in exchange for such. I am +so circumstanced that an owner of the Means of Production will not allow +me access to those Means unless I sign a contract to serve him for a +week at a wage of bare subsistence. Does the State in enforcing that contract make me for that week a slave? -Obviously not. For the institution of Slavery presupposes a -certain attitude of mind in the free man and in the slave, a -habit of living in either, and the stamp of both those -habits upon society. No such effects are produced by a -contract enforceable by the length of one week. The duration -of human life is such, and the prospect of posterity, that -the fulfilling of such a contract in no way wounds the -senses of liberty and of choice. - -What of a month, a year, ten years, a lifetime? Suppose an -extreme case, and a destitute man to sign a contract binding -him and all his children who were minors to work for a bare -subsistence until his own death, or the attainment of -majority of the children, whichever event might happen -latest; would the State in forcing that contract be making -the man a slave? - -As undoubtedly as it would not be making him a slave in the -first case, it would be making him a slave in the second. - -One can only say to ancient sophistical difficulties of this -kind, that the sense of men establishes for itself the true -limits of any object, as of freedom. What freedom is, or is -not, in so far as mere measure of time is concerned (though -of course much else than time enters in), human habit -determines; but the enforcing of a contract of service -certainly or probably leaving a choice after its expiration -is consonant with freedom. The enforcement of a contract -probably binding one's whole life is not consonant with -freedom. One binding to service a man's natural heirs is -intolerable to freedom. - -Consider another converse point. A man binds himself to work -for life and his children after him so far as the law may -permit him to bind them in a particular society, but that -not for a bare subsistence, but for so large a wage that he -will be wealthy in a few years,and his posterity, when the -contract is completed, wealthier still. Does the State in -forcing such a contract make the fortunate employee a slave? -No. For it is in the essence of slavery that subsistence or -little more than subsistence should be guaranteed to the -slave. Slavery exists in order that the Free should benefit -by its existence, and connotes a condition in which the men -subjected to it may demand secure existence, but little +Obviously not. For the institution of Slavery presupposes a certain +attitude of mind in the free man and in the slave, a habit of living in +either, and the stamp of both those habits upon society. No such effects +are produced by a contract enforceable by the length of one week. The +duration of human life is such, and the prospect of posterity, that the +fulfilling of such a contract in no way wounds the senses of liberty and +of choice. + +What of a month, a year, ten years, a lifetime? Suppose an extreme case, +and a destitute man to sign a contract binding him and all his children +who were minors to work for a bare subsistence until his own death, or +the attainment of majority of the children, whichever event might happen +latest; would the State in forcing that contract be making the man a +slave? + +As undoubtedly as it would not be making him a slave in the first case, +it would be making him a slave in the second. + +One can only say to ancient sophistical difficulties of this kind, that +the sense of men establishes for itself the true limits of any object, +as of freedom. What freedom is, or is not, in so far as mere measure of +time is concerned (though of course much else than time enters in), +human habit determines; but the enforcing of a contract of service +certainly or probably leaving a choice after its expiration is consonant +with freedom. The enforcement of a contract probably binding one's whole +life is not consonant with freedom. One binding to service a man's +natural heirs is intolerable to freedom. + +Consider another converse point. A man binds himself to work for life +and his children after him so far as the law may permit him to bind them +in a particular society, but that not for a bare subsistence, but for so +large a wage that he will be wealthy in a few years,and his posterity, +when the contract is completed, wealthier still. Does the State in +forcing such a contract make the fortunate employee a slave? No. For it +is in the essence of slavery that subsistence or little more than +subsistence should be guaranteed to the slave. Slavery exists in order +that the Free should benefit by its existence, and connotes a condition +in which the men subjected to it may demand secure existence, but little more. -If anyone were to draw an exact line, and to say that a -life-contract enforceable by law was slavery at so many -shillings a week, but ceased to be slavery after that -margin, his effort would be folly. None the less, there is a -standard of subsistence in any one society, the guarantee of -which (or little more) under an obligation to labour by -compulsion is slavery, while the guarantee of very much more -is not slavery. - -This verbal jugglery might be continued. It is a type of -verbal difficulty apparent in every inquiry open to the -professional disputant, but of no effect upon the mind of -the honest inquirer whose business is not dialectic but -truth. - -It is always possible by establishing a cross-section in a -set of definitions to pose the unanswerable difficulty of -degree, but that will never affect the realities of -discussion. We know, for instance, what is meant by torture -when it exists in a code of laws, and when it is forbidden. -No imaginary difficulties of degree between pulling a man's -hair and scalping him, between warming him and burning him -alive, will disturb a reformer whose business it is to -expunge torture from some penal code. - -In the same way we know what is and what is not compulsory -labour, what is and what is not the Servile Condition. Its -test is, I repeat, the withdrawal from a man of his free -choice to labour or not to labour, here or there, for such -and such an object; and the compelling of him by positive -law to labour for the advantage of others who do not fall -under the same compulsion. - -Where you have *that*, you have slavery: with all the -manifold, spiritual, and political results of that ancient -institution. +If anyone were to draw an exact line, and to say that a life-contract +enforceable by law was slavery at so many shillings a week, but ceased +to be slavery after that margin, his effort would be folly. None the +less, there is a standard of subsistence in any one society, the +guarantee of which (or little more) under an obligation to labour by +compulsion is slavery, while the guarantee of very much more is not +slavery. + +This verbal jugglery might be continued. It is a type of verbal +difficulty apparent in every inquiry open to the professional disputant, +but of no effect upon the mind of the honest inquirer whose business is +not dialectic but truth. + +It is always possible by establishing a cross-section in a set of +definitions to pose the unanswerable difficulty of degree, but that will +never affect the realities of discussion. We know, for instance, what is +meant by torture when it exists in a code of laws, and when it is +forbidden. No imaginary difficulties of degree between pulling a man's +hair and scalping him, between warming him and burning him alive, will +disturb a reformer whose business it is to expunge torture from some +penal code. + +In the same way we know what is and what is not compulsory labour, what +is and what is not the Servile Condition. Its test is, I repeat, the +withdrawal from a man of his free choice to labour or not to labour, +here or there, for such and such an object; and the compelling of him by +positive law to labour for the advantage of others who do not fall under +the same compulsion. + +Where you have *that*, you have slavery: with all the manifold, +spiritual, and political results of that ancient institution. + +Where you have slavery affecting a class of such considerable size as to +mark and determine the character of the State, there you have the +Servile State. -Where you have slavery affecting a class of such -considerable size as to mark and determine the character of -the State, there you have the Servile State. - -To sum up, then:--The **Servile State** is that in which we -find so considerable a body of families and individuals -distinguished from *free citizens* by the mark of compulsory -labour as to stamp a general character upon society, and all -the chief characters, good or evil, attaching to the -institution of slavery will be found permeating such a -State, whether the slaves be directly and personally -attached to their masters, only indirectly attached through -the medium of the State, or attached in a third manner -through their subservience to corporations or to particular -industries. The slave so compelled to labour will be one -dispossessed of the means of production, and compelled by -law to labour for the advantage of all or any who are -possessed thereof. And the distinguishing mark of the slave -proceeds from the special action upon him of a positive law -which first separates one body of men, the less-free, from -another, the more-free, in the function of contract within -the general body of the community. - -Now, from a purely Servile conception of production and of -the arrangement of society we Europeans sprang. The -Immemorial past of Europe is a Servile past. During some -centuries which the Church raised, permeated, and -constructed, Europe was gradually released or divorced from -this immemorial and fundamental conception of slavery; to -that conception, to that institution, our Industrial or -Capitalist society is now upon its return. We are -re-establishing the slave. - -Before proceeding to the proof of this, I shall, in the next -few pages, digress to sketch very briefly the process -whereby the old Pagan slavery was transformed into a free -society some centuries ago. I shall then outline the further -process whereby the new non-servile society was wrecked at -the Reformation in certain areas of Europe, and particularly -in England. There was gradually produced in its stead the -transitory phase of society (now nearing its end) called -generally *Capitalism* or the *Capitalist State*. - -Such a digression, being purely historical, is not logically -necessary to a consideration of our subject, but it is of -great value to the reader, because the knowledge of how, in -reality and in the concrete, things have moved better -enables us to understand the logical process whereby they -tend towards a particular goal in the future. - -One could prove the tendency towards the Servile State in -England to-day to a man who knew nothing of the past of -Europe; but that tendency will seem to him far more -reasonably probable, far more a matter of experience and -less a matter of mere deduction, when he knows what our -society once was, and how it changed into what we know -to-day. +To sum up, then:--The **Servile State** is that in which we find so +considerable a body of families and individuals distinguished from *free +citizens* by the mark of compulsory labour as to stamp a general +character upon society, and all the chief characters, good or evil, +attaching to the institution of slavery will be found permeating such a +State, whether the slaves be directly and personally attached to their +masters, only indirectly attached through the medium of the State, or +attached in a third manner through their subservience to corporations or +to particular industries. The slave so compelled to labour will be one +dispossessed of the means of production, and compelled by law to labour +for the advantage of all or any who are possessed thereof. And the +distinguishing mark of the slave proceeds from the special action upon +him of a positive law which first separates one body of men, the +less-free, from another, the more-free, in the function of contract +within the general body of the community. + +Now, from a purely Servile conception of production and of the +arrangement of society we Europeans sprang. The Immemorial past of +Europe is a Servile past. During some centuries which the Church raised, +permeated, and constructed, Europe was gradually released or divorced +from this immemorial and fundamental conception of slavery; to that +conception, to that institution, our Industrial or Capitalist society is +now upon its return. We are re-establishing the slave. + +Before proceeding to the proof of this, I shall, in the next few pages, +digress to sketch very briefly the process whereby the old Pagan slavery +was transformed into a free society some centuries ago. I shall then +outline the further process whereby the new non-servile society was +wrecked at the Reformation in certain areas of Europe, and particularly +in England. There was gradually produced in its stead the transitory +phase of society (now nearing its end) called generally *Capitalism* or +the *Capitalist State*. + +Such a digression, being purely historical, is not logically necessary +to a consideration of our subject, but it is of great value to the +reader, because the knowledge of how, in reality and in the concrete, +things have moved better enables us to understand the logical process +whereby they tend towards a particular goal in the future. + +One could prove the tendency towards the Servile State in England to-day +to a man who knew nothing of the past of Europe; but that tendency will +seem to him far more reasonably probable, far more a matter of +experience and less a matter of mere deduction, when he knows what our +society once was, and how it changed into what we know to-day. # Our Civilisation Was Originally Servile -In no matter what field of the European past we make our -research, we find, from two thousand years ago upwards, one -fundamental institution whereupon the whole of society -reposes; that fundamental institution is Slavery. - -There is here no distinction between the highly civilised -City-State of the Mediterranean, with its letters, its -plastic art, and its code of laws, with all that makes a -civilisation---and this stretching back far beyond any -surviving record,---there is here no distinction between -that civilised body and the Northern and Western societies -of the Celtic tribes, or of the little known hordes that -wandered in the Germanies. *All* indifferently reposed upon -slavery. It was a fundamental conception of society. It was -everywhere present, nowhere disputed. - -There is a distinction (or would appear to be) between -Europeans and Asiatics in this matter. The religion and -morals of the one so differed in their very origin from -those of the other that every social institution was touched -by the contrast---and Slavery among the rest. - -But with that we need not concern ourselves. My point is -that our European ancestry, those men from whom we are -descended and whose blood runs with little admixture in our -veins, took slavery for granted, made of it the economic -pivot upon which the production of wealth should turn, and -never doubted but that it was normal to all human society. +In no matter what field of the European past we make our research, we +find, from two thousand years ago upwards, one fundamental institution +whereupon the whole of society reposes; that fundamental institution is +Slavery. + +There is here no distinction between the highly civilised City-State of +the Mediterranean, with its letters, its plastic art, and its code of +laws, with all that makes a civilisation---and this stretching back far +beyond any surviving record,---there is here no distinction between that +civilised body and the Northern and Western societies of the Celtic +tribes, or of the little known hordes that wandered in the Germanies. +*All* indifferently reposed upon slavery. It was a fundamental +conception of society. It was everywhere present, nowhere disputed. + +There is a distinction (or would appear to be) between Europeans and +Asiatics in this matter. The religion and morals of the one so differed +in their very origin from those of the other that every social +institution was touched by the contrast---and Slavery among the rest. + +But with that we need not concern ourselves. My point is that our +European ancestry, those men from whom we are descended and whose blood +runs with little admixture in our veins, took slavery for granted, made +of it the economic pivot upon which the production of wealth should +turn, and never doubted but that it was normal to all human society. It is a matter of capital importance to seize this. An arrangement of such a sort would not have endured without -intermission(and indeed without question) for many -centuries, nor have been found emerging fully grown from -that vast space of unrecorded time during which barbarism -and civilisation flourished side by side in Europe, had -there not been something in it, good or evil, native to our +intermission(and indeed without question) for many centuries, nor have +been found emerging fully grown from that vast space of unrecorded time +during which barbarism and civilisation flourished side by side in +Europe, had there not been something in it, good or evil, native to our blood. -There was no question in those ancient societies from which -we spring of making subject races into slaves by the might -of conquering races. All that is the guess-work of the -universities. Not only is there no proof of it, rather all -the existing proof is the other way. The Greek had a Greek -slave, the Latin a Latin slave, the German a German slave, -the Celt a Celtic slave. The theory that "superior races" -invaded a land, either drove out the original inhabitants or -reduced them to slavery, is one which has no argument either -from our present knowledge of man's mind or from recorded -evidence. Indeed, the most striking feature of that Servile -Basis upon which Paganism reposed was the human equality -recognised between master and slave. The master might kill -the slave, but both were of one race and each was human to -the other. - -This spiritual value was not, as a further pernicious piece -of guess-work would dream, a "growth" or a "progress." The -doctrine of human equality was inherent in the very stuff of -antiquity, as it is inherent in those societies which have -not lost tradition. - -We may presume that the barbarian of the North would grasp -the great truth with less facility than the civilised man of -the Mediterranean, because barbarism everywhere shows a -retrogression in intellectual power; but the proof that the -Servile Institution was a social arrangement rather than a -distinction of type is patent from the coincidence -everywhere of Emancipation with Slavery. Pagan Europe not -only thought the existence of Slaves a natural necessity to -society, but equally thought that upon giving a Slave his -freedom the enfranchised man would naturally step, though -perhaps after the interval of some lineage, into the ranks -of free society. Great poets and great artists, statesmen -and soldiers were little troubled by the memory of a servile +There was no question in those ancient societies from which we spring of +making subject races into slaves by the might of conquering races. All +that is the guess-work of the universities. Not only is there no proof +of it, rather all the existing proof is the other way. The Greek had a +Greek slave, the Latin a Latin slave, the German a German slave, the +Celt a Celtic slave. The theory that "superior races" invaded a land, +either drove out the original inhabitants or reduced them to slavery, is +one which has no argument either from our present knowledge of man's +mind or from recorded evidence. Indeed, the most striking feature of +that Servile Basis upon which Paganism reposed was the human equality +recognised between master and slave. The master might kill the slave, +but both were of one race and each was human to the other. + +This spiritual value was not, as a further pernicious piece of +guess-work would dream, a "growth" or a "progress." The doctrine of +human equality was inherent in the very stuff of antiquity, as it is +inherent in those societies which have not lost tradition. + +We may presume that the barbarian of the North would grasp the great +truth with less facility than the civilised man of the Mediterranean, +because barbarism everywhere shows a retrogression in intellectual +power; but the proof that the Servile Institution was a social +arrangement rather than a distinction of type is patent from the +coincidence everywhere of Emancipation with Slavery. Pagan Europe not +only thought the existence of Slaves a natural necessity to society, but +equally thought that upon giving a Slave his freedom the enfranchised +man would naturally step, though perhaps after the interval of some +lineage, into the ranks of free society. Great poets and great artists, +statesmen and soldiers were little troubled by the memory of a servile ancestry. -On the other hand, there was a perpetual recruitment of the -Servile Institution just as there was a perpetual -emancipation from it, proceeding year after year; and the -natural or normal method of recruitment is most clearly -apparent to us in the simple and barbaric societies which -the observation of contemporary civilised Pagans enables us -to judge. +On the other hand, there was a perpetual recruitment of the Servile +Institution just as there was a perpetual emancipation from it, +proceeding year after year; and the natural or normal method of +recruitment is most clearly apparent to us in the simple and barbaric +societies which the observation of contemporary civilised Pagans enables +us to judge. It was poverty that made the slave. -Prisoners of war taken in set combat afforded one mode of -recruitment, and there was also the raiding of men by -pirates in the outer lands and the selling of them in the -slave markets of the South. But at once the cause of the -recruitment and the permanent support of the institution of -slavery was the indigence of the man who sold himself into -slavery, *or was born into it*; for it was a rule of Pagan -Slavery that the slave bred the slave, and that even if one -of the parents were free the offspring was a slave. - -The society of antiquity, therefore, was normally divided -(as must at last be the society of any servile state) into -clearly marked sections: there was upon the one hand the -citizen who had a voice in the conduct of the State, who -would often labour---but labour of his own free will---and -who was normally possessed of property; upon the other hand, -there was a mass dispossessed of the means of production and -compelled by positive law to labour at command. - -It is true that in the further developments of society the -accumulation of private savings by a slave was tolerated and -that slaves so favoured did sometimes purchase their -freedom. - -It is further true that in the confusion of the last -generations of Paganism there arose in some of the great -cities a considerable class of men who, though free, were -dispossessed of the means of production. But these last -never existed in a sufficient proportion to stamp the whole -State of society with a character drawn from their -proletarian circumstance. To the end the Pagan world -remained a world of free proprietors possessed, in various -degrees, of the land and of the capital whereby wealth may -be produced, and applying to that land and capital for the -purpose of producing wealth, *compulsory* labour. - -Certain features in that original Servile State from which -we all spring should be carefully noted by way of -conclusion. - -First, though all nowadays contrast slavery with freedom to -the advantage of the latter, yet men then accepted slavery -freely as an alternative to indigence. - -Secondly (and this is most important for our judgment of the -Servile Institution as a whole, and of the chances of its -return), in all those centuries we find no organised effort, -nor (what is still more significant) do we find any -*complaint of conscience* against the institution which -condemned the bulk of human beings to forced labour. - -Slaves may be found in the literary exercises of the time -bewailing their lot---and joking about it; some philosophers -will complain that an ideal society should contain no -slaves; others will excuse the establishment of slavery upon -this plea or that, while granting that it offends the -dignity of man. The greater part will argue of the State -that it is necessarily Servile. But no one, slave or free, -dreams of abolishing or even of changing the thing. You have -no martyrs for the case of "freedom" as against "slavery." -The so-called Servile wars are the resistance on the part of -escaped slaves to any attempt at recapture, but they are not -accompanied by an accepted affirmation that servitude is an -intolerable thing; nor is that note struck at all from the -unknown beginnings to the Catholic endings of the Pagan -world. Slavery is irksome, undignified, woeful; but it is, -to them, of the nature of things. - -You may say, to be brief, that this arrangement of society -was the very air which Pagan Antiquity breathed. - -Its great works, its leisure and its domestic life, its -humour, its reserves of power, all depend upon the fact that -its society was that of the Servile State. - -Men were happy in that arrangement, or, at least, as happy -as men ever are. - -The attempt to escape by a personal effort, whether of -thrift, of adventure, or of flattery to a master, from the -Servile condition had never even so much of driving power -behind it as the attempt many show to-day to escape from the -rank of wage-earners to those of employers. Servitude did -not seem a hell into which a man would rather die than sink, -or out of which at any sacrifice whatsoever a man would -raise himself. It was a condition accepted by those who -suffered it as much as by those who enjoyed it, and a -perfectly necessary part of all that men did and thought. -You find no barbarian from some free place astonished at the -institution of Slavery; you find no Slave pointing to a -society in which Slavery was unknown as towards a happier -land. To our ancestors not only for those few centuries -during which we have record of their actions, but apparently -during an illimitable past, the division of society into -those who must work under compulsion and those who would -benefit by their labour was the very plan of the -State---apart from which they could hardly think of society -as existing at all. - -Let all this be clearly grasped. It is fundamental to an -understanding of the problem before us. Slavery is no novel -experience in the history of Europe; nor is one suffering an -odd dream when one talks of Slavery as acceptable to -European men. Slavery was of the very stuff of Europe for -thousands upon thousands of years, until Europe engaged upon -that considerable moral experiment called *The Faith*, which -many believe to be now accomplished and discarded, and in -the failure of which it would seem that the old and primary -institution of Slavery must return. - -For there came upon us Europeans after all those centuries, -and centuries of a settled social order which was erected -upon Slavery as upon a sure foundation, the experiment -called the Christian Church. - -Among the by-products of this experiment, very slowly -emerging from the old Pagan world, and not long completed -before Christendom itself suffered a shipwreck, was the -exceedingly gradual transformation of the Servile State into -something other: a society of owners. And how that something -other did proceed from the Pagan Servile State I will next +Prisoners of war taken in set combat afforded one mode of recruitment, +and there was also the raiding of men by pirates in the outer lands and +the selling of them in the slave markets of the South. But at once the +cause of the recruitment and the permanent support of the institution of +slavery was the indigence of the man who sold himself into slavery, *or +was born into it*; for it was a rule of Pagan Slavery that the slave +bred the slave, and that even if one of the parents were free the +offspring was a slave. + +The society of antiquity, therefore, was normally divided (as must at +last be the society of any servile state) into clearly marked sections: +there was upon the one hand the citizen who had a voice in the conduct +of the State, who would often labour---but labour of his own free +will---and who was normally possessed of property; upon the other hand, +there was a mass dispossessed of the means of production and compelled +by positive law to labour at command. + +It is true that in the further developments of society the accumulation +of private savings by a slave was tolerated and that slaves so favoured +did sometimes purchase their freedom. + +It is further true that in the confusion of the last generations of +Paganism there arose in some of the great cities a considerable class of +men who, though free, were dispossessed of the means of production. But +these last never existed in a sufficient proportion to stamp the whole +State of society with a character drawn from their proletarian +circumstance. To the end the Pagan world remained a world of free +proprietors possessed, in various degrees, of the land and of the +capital whereby wealth may be produced, and applying to that land and +capital for the purpose of producing wealth, *compulsory* labour. + +Certain features in that original Servile State from which we all spring +should be carefully noted by way of conclusion. + +First, though all nowadays contrast slavery with freedom to the +advantage of the latter, yet men then accepted slavery freely as an +alternative to indigence. + +Secondly (and this is most important for our judgment of the Servile +Institution as a whole, and of the chances of its return), in all those +centuries we find no organised effort, nor (what is still more +significant) do we find any *complaint of conscience* against the +institution which condemned the bulk of human beings to forced labour. + +Slaves may be found in the literary exercises of the time bewailing +their lot---and joking about it; some philosophers will complain that an +ideal society should contain no slaves; others will excuse the +establishment of slavery upon this plea or that, while granting that it +offends the dignity of man. The greater part will argue of the State +that it is necessarily Servile. But no one, slave or free, dreams of +abolishing or even of changing the thing. You have no martyrs for the +case of "freedom" as against "slavery." The so-called Servile wars are +the resistance on the part of escaped slaves to any attempt at +recapture, but they are not accompanied by an accepted affirmation that +servitude is an intolerable thing; nor is that note struck at all from +the unknown beginnings to the Catholic endings of the Pagan world. +Slavery is irksome, undignified, woeful; but it is, to them, of the +nature of things. + +You may say, to be brief, that this arrangement of society was the very +air which Pagan Antiquity breathed. + +Its great works, its leisure and its domestic life, its humour, its +reserves of power, all depend upon the fact that its society was that of +the Servile State. + +Men were happy in that arrangement, or, at least, as happy as men ever +are. + +The attempt to escape by a personal effort, whether of thrift, of +adventure, or of flattery to a master, from the Servile condition had +never even so much of driving power behind it as the attempt many show +to-day to escape from the rank of wage-earners to those of employers. +Servitude did not seem a hell into which a man would rather die than +sink, or out of which at any sacrifice whatsoever a man would raise +himself. It was a condition accepted by those who suffered it as much as +by those who enjoyed it, and a perfectly necessary part of all that men +did and thought. You find no barbarian from some free place astonished +at the institution of Slavery; you find no Slave pointing to a society +in which Slavery was unknown as towards a happier land. To our ancestors +not only for those few centuries during which we have record of their +actions, but apparently during an illimitable past, the division of +society into those who must work under compulsion and those who would +benefit by their labour was the very plan of the State---apart from +which they could hardly think of society as existing at all. + +Let all this be clearly grasped. It is fundamental to an understanding +of the problem before us. Slavery is no novel experience in the history +of Europe; nor is one suffering an odd dream when one talks of Slavery +as acceptable to European men. Slavery was of the very stuff of Europe +for thousands upon thousands of years, until Europe engaged upon that +considerable moral experiment called *The Faith*, which many believe to +be now accomplished and discarded, and in the failure of which it would +seem that the old and primary institution of Slavery must return. + +For there came upon us Europeans after all those centuries, and +centuries of a settled social order which was erected upon Slavery as +upon a sure foundation, the experiment called the Christian Church. + +Among the by-products of this experiment, very slowly emerging from the +old Pagan world, and not long completed before Christendom itself +suffered a shipwreck, was the exceedingly gradual transformation of the +Servile State into something other: a society of owners. And how that +something other did proceed from the Pagan Servile State I will next explain. # How The Servile Institution Was For A Time Dissolved -The process by which slavery disappeared among Christian -men, though very lengthy in its development (it covered -close upon a thousand years), and though exceedingly -complicated in its detail, may be easily and briefly grasped -in its main lines. - -Let it first be clearly understood that the vast revolution -through which the European mind passed between the first and -the fourth centuries (that revolution which is often termed -the Conversion of the World to Christianity, but which -should for purposes of historical accuracy be called the -Growth of the Church) included no attack upon the Servile -Institution. - -No dogma of the Church pronounced Slavery to be immoral, or -the sale and purchase of men to be a sin, or the imposition -of compulsory labour upon a Christian to be a contravention -of any human right. - -The emancipation of Slaves was indeed regarded as a good -work by the Faithful: but so was it regarded by the Pagan. -It was, on the face of it, a service rendered to one's -fellowmen. The sale of Christians to Pagan masters was -abhorrent to the later empire of the Barbarian Invasions, -not because slavery in itself was condemned, but because it +The process by which slavery disappeared among Christian men, though +very lengthy in its development (it covered close upon a thousand +years), and though exceedingly complicated in its detail, may be easily +and briefly grasped in its main lines. + +Let it first be clearly understood that the vast revolution through +which the European mind passed between the first and the fourth +centuries (that revolution which is often termed the Conversion of the +World to Christianity, but which should for purposes of historical +accuracy be called the Growth of the Church) included no attack upon the +Servile Institution. + +No dogma of the Church pronounced Slavery to be immoral, or the sale and +purchase of men to be a sin, or the imposition of compulsory labour upon +a Christian to be a contravention of any human right. + +The emancipation of Slaves was indeed regarded as a good work by the +Faithful: but so was it regarded by the Pagan. It was, on the face of +it, a service rendered to one's fellowmen. The sale of Christians to +Pagan masters was abhorrent to the later empire of the Barbarian +Invasions, not because slavery in itself was condemned, but because it was a sort of treason to civilisation to force men away from -Civilisation to Barbarism. In general you will discover no -pronouncement against slavery as an institution, nor any -moral definition attacking it, throughout all those early -Christian centuries during which it none the less -effectively disappears. - -The form of its disappearance is well worth noting. It -begins with the establishment as the fundamental unit of -production in Western Europe of those great landed estates, -commonly lying in the hands of a single proprietor, and -generally known as **villae**. - -There were, of course, many other forms of human -agglomeration: small peasant farms owned in absolute -proprietorship by their petty masters; groups of free men -associated in what was called a *Vicus* manufactories in -which groups of slaves were industrially organised to the -profit of their master; and, governing the regions around -them, the scheme of Roman towns. - -But of all these the *Villa* was the dominating type; and as -society passed from the high civilisation of the first four -centuries into the simplicity of the Dark Ages, the *Villa*, -the unit of agricultural production, became more and more -the model of all society. - -Now the *Villa* began as a considerable extent of land, -containing, like a modern English estate, pasture, arable, -water, wood and heath, or waste land. It was owned by a -*dominus* or *lord* in absolute proprietorship, to sell, or -leave by will, to do with it whatsoever he chose. It was -cultivated for him by *Slaves* to whom he owed nothing in -return, and whom it was simply his interest to keep alive -and to continue breeding in order that they might perpetuate -his wealth. - -I concentrate particularly upon these Slaves, the great -majority of the human beings inhabiting the land, because, -although there arose in the Dark Ages, when the Roman Empire -was passing into the society of the Middle Ages, other -social elements within the *Villae*--the Freed men who owed -the lord a modified service, and even occasionally -independent citizens present through a contract terminable -and freely entered into---yet it is the *Slave* who is the -mark of all that society. - -At its origin, then, the Roman *Villa* was a piece of -absolute property, the production of wealth upon which was -due to the application of slave labour to the natural -resources of the place; and that slave labour was as much -the property of the lord as was the land itself. - -The first modification which this arrangement showed in the -new society which accompanied the growth and establishment -of the Church in the Roman world, was a sort of customary -rule which modified the old arbitrary position of the Slave. - -The Slave was still a Slave, but it was both more convenient -in the decay of communications and public power, and more -consonant with the social spirit of the time to make sure of -that Slave's produce by asking him for no more than certain -customary dues. The Slave and his descendants became more or -less rooted to one spot. Some were still bought and sold, -but in decreasing numbers. As the generations passed a -larger and a larger proportion lived where and as their -fathers had lived, and the produce which they raised was -fixed more and more at a certain amount, which the lord was -content to receive and ask no more. The arrangement was made -workable by leaving to the Slave all the remaining produce -of his own labour. There was a sort of implied bargain here, -in the absence of public powers and in the decline of the -old highly centralised and vigorous system which could -always guarantee to the master the full product of the -Slave's effort. The bargain implied was, that if the Slave -Community of the *Villa* would produce for the benefit of -its Lord not less than a certain customary amount of goods -from the soil of the *Villa*, the Lord could count on their -always exercising that effort by leaving to them all the -surplus, which they could increase, if they willed, -indefinitely. - -By the ninth century, when this process had been gradually -at work for a matter of some three hundred years, one fixed -form of productive unit began to be apparent throughout -Western Christendom. - -The old absolutely owned estate had come to be divided into -three portions. One of these was pasture and arable land, -reserved privately to the lord, and called *domain*: that -is, lord's land. Another was in the occupation, and already -almost in the possession (practically, though not -legally),of those who had once been Slaves. A third was -common land over which both the Lord and the Slave exercised -each their various rights, which rights were minutely -remembered and held sacred by custom. For instance, in a -certain village, if there was beech pasture for three -hundred swine, the lord might put in but fifty: two hundred +Civilisation to Barbarism. In general you will discover no pronouncement +against slavery as an institution, nor any moral definition attacking +it, throughout all those early Christian centuries during which it none +the less effectively disappears. + +The form of its disappearance is well worth noting. It begins with the +establishment as the fundamental unit of production in Western Europe of +those great landed estates, commonly lying in the hands of a single +proprietor, and generally known as **villae**. + +There were, of course, many other forms of human agglomeration: small +peasant farms owned in absolute proprietorship by their petty masters; +groups of free men associated in what was called a *Vicus* manufactories +in which groups of slaves were industrially organised to the profit of +their master; and, governing the regions around them, the scheme of +Roman towns. + +But of all these the *Villa* was the dominating type; and as society +passed from the high civilisation of the first four centuries into the +simplicity of the Dark Ages, the *Villa*, the unit of agricultural +production, became more and more the model of all society. + +Now the *Villa* began as a considerable extent of land, containing, like +a modern English estate, pasture, arable, water, wood and heath, or +waste land. It was owned by a *dominus* or *lord* in absolute +proprietorship, to sell, or leave by will, to do with it whatsoever he +chose. It was cultivated for him by *Slaves* to whom he owed nothing in +return, and whom it was simply his interest to keep alive and to +continue breeding in order that they might perpetuate his wealth. + +I concentrate particularly upon these Slaves, the great majority of the +human beings inhabiting the land, because, although there arose in the +Dark Ages, when the Roman Empire was passing into the society of the +Middle Ages, other social elements within the *Villae*--the Freed men +who owed the lord a modified service, and even occasionally independent +citizens present through a contract terminable and freely entered +into---yet it is the *Slave* who is the mark of all that society. + +At its origin, then, the Roman *Villa* was a piece of absolute property, +the production of wealth upon which was due to the application of slave +labour to the natural resources of the place; and that slave labour was +as much the property of the lord as was the land itself. + +The first modification which this arrangement showed in the new society +which accompanied the growth and establishment of the Church in the +Roman world, was a sort of customary rule which modified the old +arbitrary position of the Slave. + +The Slave was still a Slave, but it was both more convenient in the +decay of communications and public power, and more consonant with the +social spirit of the time to make sure of that Slave's produce by asking +him for no more than certain customary dues. The Slave and his +descendants became more or less rooted to one spot. Some were still +bought and sold, but in decreasing numbers. As the generations passed a +larger and a larger proportion lived where and as their fathers had +lived, and the produce which they raised was fixed more and more at a +certain amount, which the lord was content to receive and ask no more. +The arrangement was made workable by leaving to the Slave all the +remaining produce of his own labour. There was a sort of implied bargain +here, in the absence of public powers and in the decline of the old +highly centralised and vigorous system which could always guarantee to +the master the full product of the Slave's effort. The bargain implied +was, that if the Slave Community of the *Villa* would produce for the +benefit of its Lord not less than a certain customary amount of goods +from the soil of the *Villa*, the Lord could count on their always +exercising that effort by leaving to them all the surplus, which they +could increase, if they willed, indefinitely. + +By the ninth century, when this process had been gradually at work for a +matter of some three hundred years, one fixed form of productive unit +began to be apparent throughout Western Christendom. + +The old absolutely owned estate had come to be divided into three +portions. One of these was pasture and arable land, reserved privately +to the lord, and called *domain*: that is, lord's land. Another was in +the occupation, and already almost in the possession (practically, +though not legally),of those who had once been Slaves. A third was +common land over which both the Lord and the Slave exercised each their +various rights, which rights were minutely remembered and held sacred by +custom. For instance, in a certain village, if there was beech pasture +for three hundred swine, the lord might put in but fifty: two hundred and fifty were the rights of the "village." -Upon the first of these portions, Domain, wealth was -produced by the obedience of the Slave for certain fixed -hours of labour. He must come so many days a week, or upon -such and such occasions (all fixed and customary), to till -the land of the Domain for his Lord, and *all* the produce -of this must be handed over to the Lord though, of course, a +Upon the first of these portions, Domain, wealth was produced by the +obedience of the Slave for certain fixed hours of labour. He must come +so many days a week, or upon such and such occasions (all fixed and +customary), to till the land of the Domain for his Lord, and *all* the +produce of this must be handed over to the Lord though, of course, a daily wage in kind was allowed, for the labourer must live. -Upon the second portion, "Land in Villenage," which was -nearly always the most of the arable and pasture land of the -*Villae*, the Slaves worked by rules and customs which they -gradually came to elaborate for themselves. They worked -under an officer of their own, sometimes nominated, -sometimes elected: nearly always, in practice, a man -suitable to them and more or less of their choice; though -this co-operative work upon the old Slave-ground was -controlled by the general customs of the village, common to -lord and slave alike, and the principal officer over both -kinds of land was the Lord's Steward. - -Of the wealth so produced by the Slaves, a certain fixed -portion (estimated originally in kind) was payable to the -Lord's Bailiff, and became the property of the Lord. - -Finally, on the third division of the land, the "Waste," the -"Wood," the "Heath," and certain common pastures, wealth was -produced as elsewhere by the labour of those who had once -been the Slaves, but divided in customary proportions -between them and their master. Thus, such and such a water -meadow would have grazing for so many oxen; the number was -rigidly defined, and of that number so many would be the -Lord's and so many the Villagers'. - -During the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries this system -crystallised and became so natural in men's eyes that the -original servile character of the working folk upon the -*Villa* was forgotten. - -The documents of the time are rare. These three centuries -are the crucible of Europe, and record is drowned and burnt -in them. Our study of their social conditions, especially in -the latter part, are matter rather of inference than of -direct evidence. But the sale and purchase of men, already -exceptional at the beginning of this period.is almost -unknown before the end of it. Apart from domestic slaves -within the household, slavery in the old sense which Pagan -antiquity gave that institution had been transformed out of -all knowledge, and when, with the eleventh century, the true -Middle Ages begin to spring from the soil of the Dark Ages, -and a new civilisation to arise, though the old word -*servus* (the Latin for a slave) is still used for the man -who works the soil, his status in the now increasing number -of documents which we can consult is wholly changed; we can -certainly no longer translate the word by the English word -*slave*; we are compelled to translate it by a new word with -very different connotations: the word *serf*. - -The Serf of the early Middle Ages, of the eleventh and early -twelfth centuries, of the Crusades and the Norman Conquest, -is already nearly a peasant. He is indeed bound in legal -theory to the soil upon which he was born. In social -practice, all that is required of him is that his family -should till its quota of servile land, and that the dues to -the lord shall not fail from absence of labour. That duty -fulfilled, it is easy and common for members of the -serf-class to enter the professions and the Church, or to go -wild; to become men practically free in the growing -industries of the towns. With every passing generation the -ancient servile conception of the labourer's status grows -more and more dim, and the Courts and the practice of -society treat him more and more as a man strictly bound to -certain dues and to certain periodical labour within his -industrial unit, but in all other respects free. - -As the civilisation of the Middle Ages develops, as wealth -increases and the arts progressively flourish, this -character of freedom becomes more marked. In spite of -attempts in time of scarcity (as after a plague) to insist -upon the old rights to compulsory labour, the habit of -commuting these rights for money-payments and dues has grown -too strong to be resisted. - -If at the end of the fourteenth century, let us say, or at -the beginning of the fifteenth, you had visited some Squire -upon his estate in France or in England, he would have told -you of the whole of it, "These are my lands." But the -peasant (as he now was) would have said also of his holding, -"This is my land." He could not be evicted from it. The dues -which he was customarily bound to pay were but a fraction of -its total produce. He could not always sell it, but it was -always inheritable from father to son; and, in general, at -the close of this long process of a thousand years the Slave -had become a free man for all the ordinary purposes of -society. He bought and sold. He saved as he willed, he -invested, he built, he drained at his discretion, and if he -improved the land it was to his own profit. - -Meanwhile, side by side with this emancipation of mankind in -the direct line of descent from the old chattel slaves of -the Roman *villa* went, in the Middle Ages, a crowd of -institutions which all similarly made for a distribution of -property, and for the destruction of even the fossil -remnants of a then forgotten Servile State. Thus industry of -every kind in the towns, in transport, in crafts, and in -commerce, was organised in the form of *Guilds*. And a Guild -was a society partly co-operative, but in the main composed -of private owners of capital whose corporation was -self-governing, and was designed to check competition -between its members: to prevent the growth of one at the -expense of the other. Above all, most jealously did the -Guild safeguard the division of property, so that there -should be formed within its ranks no proletariat upon the -one side, and no monopolising capitalist upon the other. - -There was a period of apprenticeship at a man's entry into a -Guild, during which he worked for a master; but in time he -became a master in his turn. The existence of such -corporations as the normal units of industrial production, -of commercial effort, and of the means of transport, is -proof enough of what the social spirit was which had also -enfranchised the labourer upon the land. And while such -institutions flourished side by side with the no longer -servile village communities, freehold or absolute possession -of the soil, as distinguished from the tenure of the serf -under the lord, also increased. - -These three forms under which labour was exercised---the -serf, secure in his position, and burdened only with regular -dues, which were but a fraction of his produce; the -freeholder, a man independent save for money dues, which -were more of a tax than a rent; the Guild, in which -well-divided capital worked co-operatively for craft -production, for transport and for commerce---all three -between them were making for a society which should be based -upon the principle of property. All, or most, the normal -family should own. And on ownership the freedom of the State -should repose. - -The State, as the minds of men envisaged it at the close of -this process, was an agglomeration of families of varying -wealth, but by far the greater number owners of the means of -production. It was an agglomeration in which the stability -of this *distributive* system (as I have called it) was -guaranteed by the existence of co-operative bodies, binding -men of the same craft or of the same village together; -guaranteeing the small proprietor against loss of his -economic independence, while at the same time it guaranteed -society against the growth of a proletariat. If liberty of -purchase and of sale, of mortgage and of inheritance was -restricted, it was restricted with the social object of -preventing the growth of an economic oligarchy which could -exploit the rest of the community. The restraints upon -liberty were restraints designed for the preservation of -liberty; and every action of Mediaeval Society, from the -flower of the Middle Ages to the approach of their -catastrophe, was directed towards the establishment of a -State in which men should be economically free through the -possession of capital and of land. - -Save here and there in legal formulae, or in rare patches -isolated and eccentric, the Servile Institution had totally -disappeared; nor must it be imagined that anything in the -nature of Collectivism had replaced it. There was common -land, but it was common land jealously guarded by men who -were also personal proprietors of other land. Common -property in the village was but one of the forms of -property, and was used rather as the fly-wheel to preserve -the regularity of the co-operative machine than as a type of -holding in any way peculiarly sacred. The Guilds had -property in common, but that property was the property -necessary to their co-operative life, their Halls, their -Funds for Relief, their Religious Endowments. As for the -instruments of their trades, those instruments were owned by -the individual members, *not* by the guild, save where they -were of so expensive a kind as to necessitate a corporate -control. - -Such was the transformation which had come over European -society in the course of ten Christian centuries. Slavery -had gone, and in its place had come that establishment of -free possession which seemed so normal to men, and so -consonant to a happy human life. No particular name was then -found for it. To-day, and now that it has disappeared, we -must construct an awkward one, and say that the Middle Ages -had instinctively conceived and brought into existence the -**Distributive State**. - -That excellent consummation of human society passed, as we -know, and was in certain Provinces of Europe, but more -particularly in Britain, destroyed. - -For a society in which the determinant mass of families were -owners of capital and of land; for one in which production -was regulated by self-governing corporations of small -owners; and for one in which the misery and insecurity of a -proletariat was unknown, there came to be substituted the -dreadful moral anarchy against which all moral effort is now -turned, and which goes by the name of *Capitalism*. - -How did such a catastrophe come about? Why was it permitted, -and upon what historical process did the evil batten? What -turned an England economically free into the England which -we know to-day, of which at least one-third is indigent, of -which nineteen-twentieths are dispossessed of capital and of -land, and of which the whole industry and national life is -controlled upon its economic side by a few chance directors -of millions, a few masters of unsocial and irresponsible +Upon the second portion, "Land in Villenage," which was nearly always +the most of the arable and pasture land of the *Villae*, the Slaves +worked by rules and customs which they gradually came to elaborate for +themselves. They worked under an officer of their own, sometimes +nominated, sometimes elected: nearly always, in practice, a man suitable +to them and more or less of their choice; though this co-operative work +upon the old Slave-ground was controlled by the general customs of the +village, common to lord and slave alike, and the principal officer over +both kinds of land was the Lord's Steward. + +Of the wealth so produced by the Slaves, a certain fixed portion +(estimated originally in kind) was payable to the Lord's Bailiff, and +became the property of the Lord. + +Finally, on the third division of the land, the "Waste," the "Wood," the +"Heath," and certain common pastures, wealth was produced as elsewhere +by the labour of those who had once been the Slaves, but divided in +customary proportions between them and their master. Thus, such and such +a water meadow would have grazing for so many oxen; the number was +rigidly defined, and of that number so many would be the Lord's and so +many the Villagers'. + +During the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries this system crystallised +and became so natural in men's eyes that the original servile character +of the working folk upon the *Villa* was forgotten. + +The documents of the time are rare. These three centuries are the +crucible of Europe, and record is drowned and burnt in them. Our study +of their social conditions, especially in the latter part, are matter +rather of inference than of direct evidence. But the sale and purchase +of men, already exceptional at the beginning of this period.is almost +unknown before the end of it. Apart from domestic slaves within the +household, slavery in the old sense which Pagan antiquity gave that +institution had been transformed out of all knowledge, and when, with +the eleventh century, the true Middle Ages begin to spring from the soil +of the Dark Ages, and a new civilisation to arise, though the old word +*servus* (the Latin for a slave) is still used for the man who works the +soil, his status in the now increasing number of documents which we can +consult is wholly changed; we can certainly no longer translate the word +by the English word *slave*; we are compelled to translate it by a new +word with very different connotations: the word *serf*. + +The Serf of the early Middle Ages, of the eleventh and early twelfth +centuries, of the Crusades and the Norman Conquest, is already nearly a +peasant. He is indeed bound in legal theory to the soil upon which he +was born. In social practice, all that is required of him is that his +family should till its quota of servile land, and that the dues to the +lord shall not fail from absence of labour. That duty fulfilled, it is +easy and common for members of the serf-class to enter the professions +and the Church, or to go wild; to become men practically free in the +growing industries of the towns. With every passing generation the +ancient servile conception of the labourer's status grows more and more +dim, and the Courts and the practice of society treat him more and more +as a man strictly bound to certain dues and to certain periodical labour +within his industrial unit, but in all other respects free. + +As the civilisation of the Middle Ages develops, as wealth increases and +the arts progressively flourish, this character of freedom becomes more +marked. In spite of attempts in time of scarcity (as after a plague) to +insist upon the old rights to compulsory labour, the habit of commuting +these rights for money-payments and dues has grown too strong to be +resisted. + +If at the end of the fourteenth century, let us say, or at the beginning +of the fifteenth, you had visited some Squire upon his estate in France +or in England, he would have told you of the whole of it, "These are my +lands." But the peasant (as he now was) would have said also of his +holding, "This is my land." He could not be evicted from it. The dues +which he was customarily bound to pay were but a fraction of its total +produce. He could not always sell it, but it was always inheritable from +father to son; and, in general, at the close of this long process of a +thousand years the Slave had become a free man for all the ordinary +purposes of society. He bought and sold. He saved as he willed, he +invested, he built, he drained at his discretion, and if he improved the +land it was to his own profit. + +Meanwhile, side by side with this emancipation of mankind in the direct +line of descent from the old chattel slaves of the Roman *villa* went, +in the Middle Ages, a crowd of institutions which all similarly made for +a distribution of property, and for the destruction of even the fossil +remnants of a then forgotten Servile State. Thus industry of every kind +in the towns, in transport, in crafts, and in commerce, was organised in +the form of *Guilds*. And a Guild was a society partly co-operative, but +in the main composed of private owners of capital whose corporation was +self-governing, and was designed to check competition between its +members: to prevent the growth of one at the expense of the other. Above +all, most jealously did the Guild safeguard the division of property, so +that there should be formed within its ranks no proletariat upon the one +side, and no monopolising capitalist upon the other. + +There was a period of apprenticeship at a man's entry into a Guild, +during which he worked for a master; but in time he became a master in +his turn. The existence of such corporations as the normal units of +industrial production, of commercial effort, and of the means of +transport, is proof enough of what the social spirit was which had also +enfranchised the labourer upon the land. And while such institutions +flourished side by side with the no longer servile village communities, +freehold or absolute possession of the soil, as distinguished from the +tenure of the serf under the lord, also increased. + +These three forms under which labour was exercised---the serf, secure in +his position, and burdened only with regular dues, which were but a +fraction of his produce; the freeholder, a man independent save for +money dues, which were more of a tax than a rent; the Guild, in which +well-divided capital worked co-operatively for craft production, for +transport and for commerce---all three between them were making for a +society which should be based upon the principle of property. All, or +most, the normal family should own. And on ownership the freedom of the +State should repose. + +The State, as the minds of men envisaged it at the close of this +process, was an agglomeration of families of varying wealth, but by far +the greater number owners of the means of production. It was an +agglomeration in which the stability of this *distributive* system (as I +have called it) was guaranteed by the existence of co-operative bodies, +binding men of the same craft or of the same village together; +guaranteeing the small proprietor against loss of his economic +independence, while at the same time it guaranteed society against the +growth of a proletariat. If liberty of purchase and of sale, of mortgage +and of inheritance was restricted, it was restricted with the social +object of preventing the growth of an economic oligarchy which could +exploit the rest of the community. The restraints upon liberty were +restraints designed for the preservation of liberty; and every action of +Mediaeval Society, from the flower of the Middle Ages to the approach of +their catastrophe, was directed towards the establishment of a State in +which men should be economically free through the possession of capital +and of land. + +Save here and there in legal formulae, or in rare patches isolated and +eccentric, the Servile Institution had totally disappeared; nor must it +be imagined that anything in the nature of Collectivism had replaced it. +There was common land, but it was common land jealously guarded by men +who were also personal proprietors of other land. Common property in the +village was but one of the forms of property, and was used rather as the +fly-wheel to preserve the regularity of the co-operative machine than as +a type of holding in any way peculiarly sacred. The Guilds had property +in common, but that property was the property necessary to their +co-operative life, their Halls, their Funds for Relief, their Religious +Endowments. As for the instruments of their trades, those instruments +were owned by the individual members, *not* by the guild, save where +they were of so expensive a kind as to necessitate a corporate control. + +Such was the transformation which had come over European society in the +course of ten Christian centuries. Slavery had gone, and in its place +had come that establishment of free possession which seemed so normal to +men, and so consonant to a happy human life. No particular name was then +found for it. To-day, and now that it has disappeared, we must construct +an awkward one, and say that the Middle Ages had instinctively conceived +and brought into existence the **Distributive State**. + +That excellent consummation of human society passed, as we know, and was +in certain Provinces of Europe, but more particularly in Britain, +destroyed. + +For a society in which the determinant mass of families were owners of +capital and of land; for one in which production was regulated by +self-governing corporations of small owners; and for one in which the +misery and insecurity of a proletariat was unknown, there came to be +substituted the dreadful moral anarchy against which all moral effort is +now turned, and which goes by the name of *Capitalism*. + +How did such a catastrophe come about? Why was it permitted, and upon +what historical process did the evil batten? What turned an England +economically free into the England which we know to-day, of which at +least one-third is indigent, of which nineteen-twentieths are +dispossessed of capital and of land, and of which the whole industry and +national life is controlled upon its economic side by a few chance +directors of millions, a few masters of unsocial and irresponsible monopolies? -The answer most usually given to this fundamental question -in our history, and the one most readily accepted, is that -this misfortune came about through a material process known -as the *Industrial Revolution*. The use of expensive -machinery, the concentration of industry and of its -implements are imagined to have enslaved, in some blind way, -apart from the human will, the action of English mankind. - -The explanation is wholly false. No such material cause -determined the degradation from which we suffer. - -It was the deliberate action of men, evil will in a few and -apathy of will among the many, which produced a catastrophe -as human in its causes and inception as in its vile effect. - -Capitalism was not the growth of the industrial movement, -nor of chance material discoveries. A little acquaintance -with history and a little straight-forwardness in the -teaching of it would be enough to prove that. - -The Industrial System was a growth proceeding from -Capitalism, not its cause. Capitalism was here in England -before the Industrial System came into being;--before the -use of coal and of the new expensive machinery, and of the -concentration of the implements of production in the great -towns. Had Capitalism not been present before the Industrial -Revolution, that revolution might have proved as beneficent -to Englishmen as it has proved maleficent. But -Capitalism---that is, the ownership by a few of the springs -of life---was present long before the great discoveries -came. It warped the effect of these discoveries and new -inventions, and it turned them from a good into an evil -thing. It was not machinery that lost us our freedom; it was -the loss of a free mind. +The answer most usually given to this fundamental question in our +history, and the one most readily accepted, is that this misfortune came +about through a material process known as the *Industrial Revolution*. +The use of expensive machinery, the concentration of industry and of its +implements are imagined to have enslaved, in some blind way, apart from +the human will, the action of English mankind. + +The explanation is wholly false. No such material cause determined the +degradation from which we suffer. + +It was the deliberate action of men, evil will in a few and apathy of +will among the many, which produced a catastrophe as human in its causes +and inception as in its vile effect. + +Capitalism was not the growth of the industrial movement, nor of chance +material discoveries. A little acquaintance with history and a little +straight-forwardness in the teaching of it would be enough to prove +that. + +The Industrial System was a growth proceeding from Capitalism, not its +cause. Capitalism was here in England before the Industrial System came +into being;--before the use of coal and of the new expensive machinery, +and of the concentration of the implements of production in the great +towns. Had Capitalism not been present before the Industrial Revolution, +that revolution might have proved as beneficent to Englishmen as it has +proved maleficent. But Capitalism---that is, the ownership by a few of +the springs of life---was present long before the great discoveries +came. It warped the effect of these discoveries and new inventions, and +it turned them from a good into an evil thing. It was not machinery that +lost us our freedom; it was the loss of a free mind. # How The Distributive State Failed -With the close of the Middle Ages the societies of Western -Christendom and England among the rest were economically -free. - -Property was an institution native to the State and enjoyed -by the great mass of its citizens. Co-operative -institutions, voluntary regulations of labour, restricted -the completely independent use of property by its owners -only in order to keep that institution intact and to prevent -the absorption of small property by great. - -This excellent state of affairs which we had reached after -many centuries of Christian development, and in which the -old institution of slavery had been finally eliminated from -Christendom, did not everywhere survive. In England in -particular it was ruined. The seeds of the disaster were -sown in the sixteenth century. Its first apparent effects -came to light in the seventeenth. During the eighteenth -century England came to be finally, though insecurely, -established upon a proletarian basis, that is, it had -already become a society of rich men possessed of the means -of production on the one hand, and a majority dispossessed -of those means upon the other. With the nineteenth century -the evil plant had come to its maturity, and England had -become before the close of that period a purely Capitalist -State, the type and model of Capitalism for the whole world: -with the means of production tightly held by a very small -group of citizens, and the whole determining mass of the -nation dispossessed of capital and land, and dispossessed, -therefore, in all cases of security, and in many of -sufficiency as well. The mass of Englishmen, still possessed -of political, lacked more and more the elements of economic, -freedom, and were in a worse posture than free citizens have -ever found themselves before in the history of Europe. +With the close of the Middle Ages the societies of Western Christendom +and England among the rest were economically free. + +Property was an institution native to the State and enjoyed by the great +mass of its citizens. Co-operative institutions, voluntary regulations +of labour, restricted the completely independent use of property by its +owners only in order to keep that institution intact and to prevent the +absorption of small property by great. + +This excellent state of affairs which we had reached after many +centuries of Christian development, and in which the old institution of +slavery had been finally eliminated from Christendom, did not everywhere +survive. In England in particular it was ruined. The seeds of the +disaster were sown in the sixteenth century. Its first apparent effects +came to light in the seventeenth. During the eighteenth century England +came to be finally, though insecurely, established upon a proletarian +basis, that is, it had already become a society of rich men possessed of +the means of production on the one hand, and a majority dispossessed of +those means upon the other. With the nineteenth century the evil plant +had come to its maturity, and England had become before the close of +that period a purely Capitalist State, the type and model of Capitalism +for the whole world: with the means of production tightly held by a very +small group of citizens, and the whole determining mass of the nation +dispossessed of capital and land, and dispossessed, therefore, in all +cases of security, and in many of sufficiency as well. The mass of +Englishmen, still possessed of political, lacked more and more the +elements of economic, freedom, and were in a worse posture than free +citizens have ever found themselves before in the history of Europe. By what steps did so enormous a catastrophe fall upon us? -The first step in the process consisted in the mishandling -of a great economic revolution which marked the sixteenth -century. The lands and the accumulated wealth of the -monasteries were taken out of, the hands of their old -possessors with the intention of vesting them in the -Crown---but they passed, as a fact, not into the hands of -the Crown, but into the hands of an already wealthy section -of the community who, after the change was complete, became -in the succeeding hundred years the governing power of -England. +The first step in the process consisted in the mishandling of a great +economic revolution which marked the sixteenth century. The lands and +the accumulated wealth of the monasteries were taken out of, the hands +of their old possessors with the intention of vesting them in the +Crown---but they passed, as a fact, not into the hands of the Crown, but +into the hands of an already wealthy section of the community who, after +the change was complete, became in the succeeding hundred years the +governing power of England. This is what happened:-- -The England of the early sixteenth century, the England over -which Henry VIII inherited his powerful Crown in youth, -though it was an England in which the great mass of men -owned the land they tilled and the houses in which they -dwelt, and the implements with which they worked, was yet an -England in which these goods, though widely distributed, -were distributed unequally. - -Then, as now, the soil and its fixtures were the basis of -all wealth, but the proportion between the value of the soil -and its fixtures and the value of other means of production -(implements, stores of clothing and of subsistence, etc.) -was different from what it is now. The land and the fixtures -upon it formed a very much larger fraction of the totality -of the means of production than they do to-day. They -represent to-day not one-half the total means of production -of this country, and though they are the necessary -foundation for all wealth production, yet our great -machines, our stores of food and clothing, our coal and oil, -our ships and the rest of it, come to more than the true -value of the land and of the fixtures upon the land: they -come to more than the arable soil and the pasture, the -constructional value of the houses, wharves and docks,and so -forth. In the early sixteenth century the land and the -fixtures upon it came, upon the contrary, to very much more -than all other forms of wealth combined. - -Now this form of wealth was here, more than in any other -Western European country, already in the hands of a wealthy -land-owning class at the end of the Middle Ages. - -It is impossible to give exact statistics, because none were -gathered, and we can only make general statements based upon -inference and research. But, roughly speaking, we may say -that of the total value of the land and its fixtures, -probably rather more than a quarter, though less than a -third, was in the hands of this wealthy class. - -The England of that day was mainly agricultural, and -consisted of more than four, but less than six million -people, and in every agricultural community you would have -the Lord, as he was legally called (the squire, as he was -already conversationally termed), in possession of more -demesne land than in any other country. On the average you -found him, I say, owning in this absolute fashion rather -more than a quarter, perhaps a third of the land of the -village: in the towns the distribution was more even. -Sometimes it was a private individual who was in this -position, sometimes a corporation, but in every village you -would have found this demesne land absolutely owned by the -political head of the village, occupying a considerable -proportion of its acreage. The rest, though distributed as -property among the less fortunate of the population, and -carrying with it houses and implements from which they could -not be dispossessed, paid certain dues to the Lord, and, -what was more, the Lord exercised local justice. This class -of wealthy land-owners had been also for now one hundred -years the Justices upon whom local administration depended. - -There was no reason why this state of affairs should not -gradually have led to the rise of the Peasant and the decay -of the Lord. That is what happened in France, and it might -perfectly well have happened here. A peasantry eager to -purchase might have gradually extended their holdings at the -expense of the demesne land, and to the distribution of -property, which was already fairly complete, there might -have been added another excellent element, namely, the more -equal possession of that property. But any such process of -gradual buying by the small man from the great, such as -would seem natural to the temper of us European people, and -such as has since taken place nearly everywhere in countries -which were left free to act upon their popular instincts, -was interrupted in this country by an artificial revolution -of the most violent kind. This artificial revolution -consisted in the seizing of the monastic lands by the Crown. - -It is important to grasp clearly the nature of this -operation, for the whole economic future of England was to -flow from it. - -Of the *demesne* lands, and the power of local -administration which they carried with them (a very -important feature, as we shall see later), rather more than -a quarter were in the hands of the Church; the Church was -therefore the "Lord"of something over 25%, say 28%, or -perhaps nearly 30%, of English agricultural communities, and -the overseers of a like proportion of all English -agricultural produce. The Church was further the absolute -owner in practice of something like 30% of the demesne land -in the villages, and the receiver of something like 30% of -the customary dues, etc., paid by the smaller owners to the -greater. All this economic power lay until 1535 in the hands -of Cathedral Chapters, communities of monks and nuns, -educational establishments conducted by the clergy, and so -forth. - -When the Monastic lands were confiscated by Henry VIII, not -the whole of this vast economic influence was suddenly -extinguished. The secular clergy remained endowed, and most -of the educational establishments, though looted, retained -some revenue; but though the whole 30% did not suffer -confiscation, something well over 20%, did, and the -revolution effected by this vast operation was by far the -most complete, the most sudden, and the most momentous of -any that has taken place in the economic history of any -European people. - -It was at first *intended* to retain this great mass of the -means of production in the hands of the Crown: that must be -clearly remembered by any student of the fortunes of -England, and by all who marvel at the contrast between the -old England and the new. - -Had that intention been firmly maintained, the English State -and its government would have been the most powerful in -Europe. - -The Executive (which in those days meant the *King*) would -have had a greater opportunity for crushing the resistance -of the wealthy, for backing its political power with -economic power, and for ordering the social life of its -subjects than any other executive in Christendom. - -Had Henry VIII and his successors kept the land thus -confiscated, the power of the French Monarchy, at which we -are astonished, would have been nothing to the power of the -English. - -The King of England would have had in his own hands an -instrument of control of the most absolute sort. He would -presumably have used it, as a strong central government -always does, for the weakening of the wealthier classes, and -to the indirect advantage of the mass of the people. At any -rate, it would have been a very different England indeed -from the England we know, if the King had held fast to his -own after the dissolution of the monasteries. - -Now it is precisely here that the capital point in this -great revolution appears. *The King failed to keep the lands -he had seized.* That class of large land-owners which -already existed and controlled, as I have said, anything -from a quarter to a third of the agricultural values of -England, were too strong for the monarchy. They insisted -upon land being granted to themselves, sometimes freely, -sometimes for ridiculously small sums, and they were strong -enough in Parliament, and through the local administrative -power they had, to see that their demands were satisfied. -Nothing that the Crown let go ever went back to the Crown, -and year after year more and more of what had once been the -monastic land became the absolute possession of the large -land-owners. - -Observe the effect of this. All over England men who already -held in virtually absolute property from one-quarter to -one-third of the soil and the ploughs and the barns of a -village, became possessed in a very few years of a further -great section of the means of production, which turned the -scale wholly in their favour. They added to that third a new -and extra fifth. They became at a blow the owners of *half* -the land! In many centres of capital importance they had -come to own *more* than half the land. They were in many -districts not only the unquestioned superiors, but the -economic masters of the rest of the community. They could -buy to the greatest advantage. They were strictly -*competitive*, getting every shilling of due and of rent -where the old clerical landlords had been -*customary*--leaving much to the tenant. They began to fill -the universities, the judiciary. The Crown less and less -decided between great and small. More and more the great -could decide in their own favour. They soon possessed by -these operations the bulk of the means of production, and -they immediately began the process of eating up the small -independent men and gradually forming those great estates -which, in the course of a few generations, became identical -with the village itself. All over England you may notice -that the great squires' houses date from this revolution or -after it. The manorial house, the house of the local great -man as it was in the Middle Ages, survives here and there to -show of what immense effect this revolution was. The -low-timbered place with its steadings and outbuildings, only -a larger farmhouse among the other farmhouses, is turned -after the Reformation and thenceforward into a palace. Save -where great castles (which were only held of the Crown and -not owned) made an exception, the pre-Reformation gentry -lived as men richer than, but not the masters of, other -farmers around them. *After* the Reformation there began to -arise all over England those great "country houses" which -rapidly became the typical centres of English agricultural -life. - -The process was in full swing before Henry died. -Unfortunately for England, he left as his heir a sickly -child, during the six years of whose reign, from 1547 to -1553, the loot went on at an appalling rate. When he died -and Mary came to the throne it was nearly completed. A mass -of new families had arisen, wealthy out of all proportion to -anything which the older England had known, and bound by a -common interest to the older families which had joined in -the grab. Every single man who sat in Parliament for a -country required his price for voting the dissolution of the -monasteries; every single man received it. A list of the -members of the Dissolution Parliament is enough to prove -this, and, apart from their power in Parliament, this class -had a hundred other ways of insisting on their will. The -Howards(already of some lineage), the Cavendishes, the -Cecils, the Russels, and fifty other new families thus rose -upon the ruins of religion; and the process went steadily on -until, about one hundred years after its inception, the -whole face of England was changed. - -In the place of a powerful Crown disposing of revenues far -greater than that of any subject, you had a Crown at its -wit's end for money, and dominated by subjects some of whom -were its equals in wealth, and who could, especially through -the action of Parliament (which they now controlled), do -much what they willed with Government. - -In other words, by the first third of the seventeenth -century, by 1630-40, the economic revolution was finally -accomplished, and the new economic reality thrusting itself -upon the old traditions of England was a powerful oligarchy -of large owners overshadowing an impoverished and dwindled -monarchy. - -Other causes had contributed to this deplorable result. The -change in the value of money had hit the Crown very hard;the -peculiar history of the Tudor family, their violent -passions, their lack of resolution and of any continuous -policy, to some extent the character of Charles I himself, -and many another subsidiary cause may be quoted. But the -great main fact upon which the whole thing is dependent is -the fact that the Monastic Lands, at least a fifth of the -wealth of the country, had been transferred to the great -land-owners, and that this transference had tipped the scale -over entirely in their favour as against the peasantry. - -The diminished and impoverished Crown could no longer stand. -It fought against the new wealth, the struggle of the Civil -Wars; it was utterly defeated; and when a final settlement -was arrived at in 1660, you have all the realities of power -in the hands of a small powerful class of wealthy men, the -King still surrounded by the forms and traditions of his old -power, but in practice a salaried puppet. And in that -economic world which underlies all political appearances, -the great dominating note was that a few wealthy families -had got hold of the bulk of the means of production in -England, while the same families exercised all local -administrative power and were moreover the Judges, the -Higher Education, the Church, and the generals. They quite -overshadowed what was left of central government in this -country. - -Take, as a starting-point for what followed, the date 1700. -By that time more than half of the English were dispossessed -of capital and of land. Not one man in two,even if you -reckon the very small owners, inhabited a house of which he -was the secure possessor, or tilled land from which he could -not be turned off. - -Such a proportion may seem to us to-day a wonderfully free -arrangement, and certainly if nearly one-half of our -population were possessed of the means of production, we -should be in a very different situation from that in which -we find ourselves. But the point to seize is that, though -the bad business was very far from completion in or about -the year 1700, yet by that date England had already become -**Capitalist**. She had already permitted a vast section of -her population to become *proletarian*, and it is this and -*not* the so-called "Industrial Revolution," a later thing, -which accounts for the terrible social condition in which we -find ourselves to-day. - -How true this is what I still have to say in this section -will prove. - -In an England thus already cursed with a very large -proletariat class, and in an England already directed by a -dominating Capitalist class, possessing the means of -production, there came a great industrial development. - -Had that industrial development come upon a people -economically free, it would have taken a co-operative form. -Coming as it did upon a people which had already largely -lost its economic freedom, it took at its very origin a -*Capitalist* form, and this form it has retained, expanded, -and perfected throughout two hundred years. - -It was in England that the Industrial System arose. It was -in England that all its traditions and habits were formed; -and because the England in which it arose was already a -Capitalist England, modern Industrialism, wherever you see -it at work to-day, having spread from England, has proceeded -upon the Capitalist model. - -It was in 1705 that the first practical steam-engine, -Newcomen's, was set to work. The life of a man elapsed -before this invention was made, by Watt's introduction of -the condenser, into the great instrument of production which -has transformed our industry---but in those sixty years all -the origins of the Industrial System are to be discovered. -It was just before Watt's patent that Hargreaves' -spinning-jenny appeared. Thirty years earlier, Abraham Darby -of Colebrook Dale, at the end of a long series of -experiments which had covered more than a century,smelted -iron-ore successfully with coke. Not twenty years later, -King introduced the flying shuttle, the first great -improvement in the hand-loom; and in general the period -covered by such a life as that of Dr Johnson, born just -after Newcomen's engine was first set working, and dying -seventy-four years afterwards, when the Industrial System -was in full blast, covers that great transformation of -England. A man who, as a child, could remember the last -years of Queen Anne, and who lived to the eve of the French -Revolution, saw passing before his eyes the change which -transformed English society and has led it to the expansion -and peril in which we see it to-day. - -What was the characteristic mark of that half-century and -more? Why did the new inventions give us the form of society -now known and hated under the name of Industrial? Why did -the vast increase in the powers of production, in population -and in accumulation of wealth, turn the mass of Englishmen -into a poverty-stricken proletariat, cut off the rich from -the rest of the nation, and develop to the full all the -evils which we associate with the Capitalist State? - -To that question an answer almost as universal as it is -unintelligent has been given. That answer is not only -unintelligent but false, and it will be my business here to -show how false it is. The answer so provided in innumerable -text-books, and taken almost as a commonplace in our -universities, is that the new methods of production---the -new machinery, the new implements---fatally and of -themselves developed a Capitalist State in which a few -should own the means of production and the mass should be -proletariat. The new instruments, it is pointed out, were on -so vastly greater a scale than the old, and were so much -more expensive, that the small man could not afford them; -while the rich man, who could afford them, ate up by his -competition, and reduced from the position of a small owner -to that of a wage-earner, his insufficiently equipped -competitor who still attempted to struggle on with the older -and cheaper tools. To this (we are told) the advantages of -concentration were added in favour of the large owner -against the small. Not only were the new instruments -expensive almost in proportion to their efficiency, but, -especially after the introduction of steam, they were -efficient in proportion to their concentration in few places -and under the direction of a few men. Under the effect of -such false arguments as these we have been taught to believe -that the horrors of the Industrial System were a blind and -necessary product of material and impersonal forces, and -that wherever the steam engine, the power loom, the blast -furnace and the rest were introduced, there fatally would -soon appear a little group of owners exploiting a vast -majority of the dispossessed. - -It is astonishing that a statement so unhistorical should -have gained so general a credence. Indeed, were the main -truths of English history taught in our schools and -universities to-day, were educated men familiar with the -determining and major facts of the national past, such -follies could never have taken root. The vast growth of the -proletariat, the concentration of ownership into the hands -of a few owners, and the exploitation by those owners of the -mass of the community, had no fatal or necessary connection -with the discovery of new and perpetually improving methods -of production. The evil proceeded indirect historical -sequence, proceeded patently and demonstrably, from the fact -that England, the seed-plot of the Industrial System, was -*already* captured by a wealthy oligarchy *before* the -series of great discoveries began. - -Consider in what way the Industrial System developed upon -Capitalist lines. Why were a few rich men put with such ease -into possession of the new methods? Why was it normal and -natural in their eyes and in that of con temporary society -that those who produced the new wealth with the new -machinery should be proletarian and dispossessed? Simply -because the England upon which the new discoveries had come -was *already* an England owned as to its soil and -accumulations of wealth by a small minority: it was -*already* an England in which perhaps half of the whole -population was proletarian, and a medium for exploitation -ready to hand. +The England of the early sixteenth century, the England over which Henry +VIII inherited his powerful Crown in youth, though it was an England in +which the great mass of men owned the land they tilled and the houses in +which they dwelt, and the implements with which they worked, was yet an +England in which these goods, though widely distributed, were +distributed unequally. + +Then, as now, the soil and its fixtures were the basis of all wealth, +but the proportion between the value of the soil and its fixtures and +the value of other means of production (implements, stores of clothing +and of subsistence, etc.) was different from what it is now. The land +and the fixtures upon it formed a very much larger fraction of the +totality of the means of production than they do to-day. They represent +to-day not one-half the total means of production of this country, and +though they are the necessary foundation for all wealth production, yet +our great machines, our stores of food and clothing, our coal and oil, +our ships and the rest of it, come to more than the true value of the +land and of the fixtures upon the land: they come to more than the +arable soil and the pasture, the constructional value of the houses, +wharves and docks,and so forth. In the early sixteenth century the land +and the fixtures upon it came, upon the contrary, to very much more than +all other forms of wealth combined. + +Now this form of wealth was here, more than in any other Western +European country, already in the hands of a wealthy land-owning class at +the end of the Middle Ages. + +It is impossible to give exact statistics, because none were gathered, +and we can only make general statements based upon inference and +research. But, roughly speaking, we may say that of the total value of +the land and its fixtures, probably rather more than a quarter, though +less than a third, was in the hands of this wealthy class. + +The England of that day was mainly agricultural, and consisted of more +than four, but less than six million people, and in every agricultural +community you would have the Lord, as he was legally called (the squire, +as he was already conversationally termed), in possession of more +demesne land than in any other country. On the average you found him, I +say, owning in this absolute fashion rather more than a quarter, perhaps +a third of the land of the village: in the towns the distribution was +more even. Sometimes it was a private individual who was in this +position, sometimes a corporation, but in every village you would have +found this demesne land absolutely owned by the political head of the +village, occupying a considerable proportion of its acreage. The rest, +though distributed as property among the less fortunate of the +population, and carrying with it houses and implements from which they +could not be dispossessed, paid certain dues to the Lord, and, what was +more, the Lord exercised local justice. This class of wealthy +land-owners had been also for now one hundred years the Justices upon +whom local administration depended. + +There was no reason why this state of affairs should not gradually have +led to the rise of the Peasant and the decay of the Lord. That is what +happened in France, and it might perfectly well have happened here. A +peasantry eager to purchase might have gradually extended their holdings +at the expense of the demesne land, and to the distribution of property, +which was already fairly complete, there might have been added another +excellent element, namely, the more equal possession of that property. +But any such process of gradual buying by the small man from the great, +such as would seem natural to the temper of us European people, and such +as has since taken place nearly everywhere in countries which were left +free to act upon their popular instincts, was interrupted in this +country by an artificial revolution of the most violent kind. This +artificial revolution consisted in the seizing of the monastic lands by +the Crown. + +It is important to grasp clearly the nature of this operation, for the +whole economic future of England was to flow from it. + +Of the *demesne* lands, and the power of local administration which they +carried with them (a very important feature, as we shall see later), +rather more than a quarter were in the hands of the Church; the Church +was therefore the "Lord"of something over 25%, say 28%, or perhaps +nearly 30%, of English agricultural communities, and the overseers of a +like proportion of all English agricultural produce. The Church was +further the absolute owner in practice of something like 30% of the +demesne land in the villages, and the receiver of something like 30% of +the customary dues, etc., paid by the smaller owners to the greater. All +this economic power lay until 1535 in the hands of Cathedral Chapters, +communities of monks and nuns, educational establishments conducted by +the clergy, and so forth. + +When the Monastic lands were confiscated by Henry VIII, not the whole of +this vast economic influence was suddenly extinguished. The secular +clergy remained endowed, and most of the educational establishments, +though looted, retained some revenue; but though the whole 30% did not +suffer confiscation, something well over 20%, did, and the revolution +effected by this vast operation was by far the most complete, the most +sudden, and the most momentous of any that has taken place in the +economic history of any European people. + +It was at first *intended* to retain this great mass of the means of +production in the hands of the Crown: that must be clearly remembered by +any student of the fortunes of England, and by all who marvel at the +contrast between the old England and the new. + +Had that intention been firmly maintained, the English State and its +government would have been the most powerful in Europe. + +The Executive (which in those days meant the *King*) would have had a +greater opportunity for crushing the resistance of the wealthy, for +backing its political power with economic power, and for ordering the +social life of its subjects than any other executive in Christendom. + +Had Henry VIII and his successors kept the land thus confiscated, the +power of the French Monarchy, at which we are astonished, would have +been nothing to the power of the English. + +The King of England would have had in his own hands an instrument of +control of the most absolute sort. He would presumably have used it, as +a strong central government always does, for the weakening of the +wealthier classes, and to the indirect advantage of the mass of the +people. At any rate, it would have been a very different England indeed +from the England we know, if the King had held fast to his own after the +dissolution of the monasteries. + +Now it is precisely here that the capital point in this great revolution +appears. *The King failed to keep the lands he had seized.* That class +of large land-owners which already existed and controlled, as I have +said, anything from a quarter to a third of the agricultural values of +England, were too strong for the monarchy. They insisted upon land being +granted to themselves, sometimes freely, sometimes for ridiculously +small sums, and they were strong enough in Parliament, and through the +local administrative power they had, to see that their demands were +satisfied. Nothing that the Crown let go ever went back to the Crown, +and year after year more and more of what had once been the monastic +land became the absolute possession of the large land-owners. + +Observe the effect of this. All over England men who already held in +virtually absolute property from one-quarter to one-third of the soil +and the ploughs and the barns of a village, became possessed in a very +few years of a further great section of the means of production, which +turned the scale wholly in their favour. They added to that third a new +and extra fifth. They became at a blow the owners of *half* the land! In +many centres of capital importance they had come to own *more* than half +the land. They were in many districts not only the unquestioned +superiors, but the economic masters of the rest of the community. They +could buy to the greatest advantage. They were strictly *competitive*, +getting every shilling of due and of rent where the old clerical +landlords had been *customary*--leaving much to the tenant. They began +to fill the universities, the judiciary. The Crown less and less decided +between great and small. More and more the great could decide in their +own favour. They soon possessed by these operations the bulk of the +means of production, and they immediately began the process of eating up +the small independent men and gradually forming those great estates +which, in the course of a few generations, became identical with the +village itself. All over England you may notice that the great squires' +houses date from this revolution or after it. The manorial house, the +house of the local great man as it was in the Middle Ages, survives here +and there to show of what immense effect this revolution was. The +low-timbered place with its steadings and outbuildings, only a larger +farmhouse among the other farmhouses, is turned after the Reformation +and thenceforward into a palace. Save where great castles (which were +only held of the Crown and not owned) made an exception, the +pre-Reformation gentry lived as men richer than, but not the masters of, +other farmers around them. *After* the Reformation there began to arise +all over England those great "country houses" which rapidly became the +typical centres of English agricultural life. + +The process was in full swing before Henry died. Unfortunately for +England, he left as his heir a sickly child, during the six years of +whose reign, from 1547 to 1553, the loot went on at an appalling rate. +When he died and Mary came to the throne it was nearly completed. A mass +of new families had arisen, wealthy out of all proportion to anything +which the older England had known, and bound by a common interest to the +older families which had joined in the grab. Every single man who sat in +Parliament for a country required his price for voting the dissolution +of the monasteries; every single man received it. A list of the members +of the Dissolution Parliament is enough to prove this, and, apart from +their power in Parliament, this class had a hundred other ways of +insisting on their will. The Howards(already of some lineage), the +Cavendishes, the Cecils, the Russels, and fifty other new families thus +rose upon the ruins of religion; and the process went steadily on until, +about one hundred years after its inception, the whole face of England +was changed. + +In the place of a powerful Crown disposing of revenues far greater than +that of any subject, you had a Crown at its wit's end for money, and +dominated by subjects some of whom were its equals in wealth, and who +could, especially through the action of Parliament (which they now +controlled), do much what they willed with Government. + +In other words, by the first third of the seventeenth century, by +1630-40, the economic revolution was finally accomplished, and the new +economic reality thrusting itself upon the old traditions of England was +a powerful oligarchy of large owners overshadowing an impoverished and +dwindled monarchy. + +Other causes had contributed to this deplorable result. The change in +the value of money had hit the Crown very hard;the peculiar history of +the Tudor family, their violent passions, their lack of resolution and +of any continuous policy, to some extent the character of Charles I +himself, and many another subsidiary cause may be quoted. But the great +main fact upon which the whole thing is dependent is the fact that the +Monastic Lands, at least a fifth of the wealth of the country, had been +transferred to the great land-owners, and that this transference had +tipped the scale over entirely in their favour as against the peasantry. + +The diminished and impoverished Crown could no longer stand. It fought +against the new wealth, the struggle of the Civil Wars; it was utterly +defeated; and when a final settlement was arrived at in 1660, you have +all the realities of power in the hands of a small powerful class of +wealthy men, the King still surrounded by the forms and traditions of +his old power, but in practice a salaried puppet. And in that economic +world which underlies all political appearances, the great dominating +note was that a few wealthy families had got hold of the bulk of the +means of production in England, while the same families exercised all +local administrative power and were moreover the Judges, the Higher +Education, the Church, and the generals. They quite overshadowed what +was left of central government in this country. + +Take, as a starting-point for what followed, the date 1700. By that time +more than half of the English were dispossessed of capital and of land. +Not one man in two,even if you reckon the very small owners, inhabited a +house of which he was the secure possessor, or tilled land from which he +could not be turned off. + +Such a proportion may seem to us to-day a wonderfully free arrangement, +and certainly if nearly one-half of our population were possessed of the +means of production, we should be in a very different situation from +that in which we find ourselves. But the point to seize is that, though +the bad business was very far from completion in or about the year 1700, +yet by that date England had already become **Capitalist**. She had +already permitted a vast section of her population to become +*proletarian*, and it is this and *not* the so-called "Industrial +Revolution," a later thing, which accounts for the terrible social +condition in which we find ourselves to-day. + +How true this is what I still have to say in this section will prove. + +In an England thus already cursed with a very large proletariat class, +and in an England already directed by a dominating Capitalist class, +possessing the means of production, there came a great industrial +development. + +Had that industrial development come upon a people economically free, it +would have taken a co-operative form. Coming as it did upon a people +which had already largely lost its economic freedom, it took at its very +origin a *Capitalist* form, and this form it has retained, expanded, and +perfected throughout two hundred years. + +It was in England that the Industrial System arose. It was in England +that all its traditions and habits were formed; and because the England +in which it arose was already a Capitalist England, modern +Industrialism, wherever you see it at work to-day, having spread from +England, has proceeded upon the Capitalist model. + +It was in 1705 that the first practical steam-engine, Newcomen's, was +set to work. The life of a man elapsed before this invention was made, +by Watt's introduction of the condenser, into the great instrument of +production which has transformed our industry---but in those sixty years +all the origins of the Industrial System are to be discovered. It was +just before Watt's patent that Hargreaves' spinning-jenny appeared. +Thirty years earlier, Abraham Darby of Colebrook Dale, at the end of a +long series of experiments which had covered more than a century,smelted +iron-ore successfully with coke. Not twenty years later, King introduced +the flying shuttle, the first great improvement in the hand-loom; and in +general the period covered by such a life as that of Dr Johnson, born +just after Newcomen's engine was first set working, and dying +seventy-four years afterwards, when the Industrial System was in full +blast, covers that great transformation of England. A man who, as a +child, could remember the last years of Queen Anne, and who lived to the +eve of the French Revolution, saw passing before his eyes the change +which transformed English society and has led it to the expansion and +peril in which we see it to-day. + +What was the characteristic mark of that half-century and more? Why did +the new inventions give us the form of society now known and hated under +the name of Industrial? Why did the vast increase in the powers of +production, in population and in accumulation of wealth, turn the mass +of Englishmen into a poverty-stricken proletariat, cut off the rich from +the rest of the nation, and develop to the full all the evils which we +associate with the Capitalist State? + +To that question an answer almost as universal as it is unintelligent +has been given. That answer is not only unintelligent but false, and it +will be my business here to show how false it is. The answer so provided +in innumerable text-books, and taken almost as a commonplace in our +universities, is that the new methods of production---the new machinery, +the new implements---fatally and of themselves developed a Capitalist +State in which a few should own the means of production and the mass +should be proletariat. The new instruments, it is pointed out, were on +so vastly greater a scale than the old, and were so much more expensive, +that the small man could not afford them; while the rich man, who could +afford them, ate up by his competition, and reduced from the position of +a small owner to that of a wage-earner, his insufficiently equipped +competitor who still attempted to struggle on with the older and cheaper +tools. To this (we are told) the advantages of concentration were added +in favour of the large owner against the small. Not only were the new +instruments expensive almost in proportion to their efficiency, but, +especially after the introduction of steam, they were efficient in +proportion to their concentration in few places and under the direction +of a few men. Under the effect of such false arguments as these we have +been taught to believe that the horrors of the Industrial System were a +blind and necessary product of material and impersonal forces, and that +wherever the steam engine, the power loom, the blast furnace and the +rest were introduced, there fatally would soon appear a little group of +owners exploiting a vast majority of the dispossessed. + +It is astonishing that a statement so unhistorical should have gained so +general a credence. Indeed, were the main truths of English history +taught in our schools and universities to-day, were educated men +familiar with the determining and major facts of the national past, such +follies could never have taken root. The vast growth of the proletariat, +the concentration of ownership into the hands of a few owners, and the +exploitation by those owners of the mass of the community, had no fatal +or necessary connection with the discovery of new and perpetually +improving methods of production. The evil proceeded indirect historical +sequence, proceeded patently and demonstrably, from the fact that +England, the seed-plot of the Industrial System, was *already* captured +by a wealthy oligarchy *before* the series of great discoveries began. + +Consider in what way the Industrial System developed upon Capitalist +lines. Why were a few rich men put with such ease into possession of the +new methods? Why was it normal and natural in their eyes and in that of +con temporary society that those who produced the new wealth with the +new machinery should be proletarian and dispossessed? Simply because the +England upon which the new discoveries had come was *already* an England +owned as to its soil and accumulations of wealth by a small minority: it +was *already* an England in which perhaps half of the whole population +was proletarian, and a medium for exploitation ready to hand. When any one of the new industries was launched it had to be -*capitalised*; that is, accumulated wealth from some source -or other had to be found which would support labour in the -process of production until that process should be complete. -Someone must find the corn and the meat and the housing and -the clothing by which should be supported, between the -extraction of the raw material and the moment when the -consumption of the finished article could begin, the human -agents which dealt with that raw material and turned it into -the finished product. Had property been well distributed, -protected by co-operative guilds fenced round and supported -by custom and by the autonomy of great artisan corporations, -those accumulations of wealth, necessary for the launching -of each new method of production and for each new perfection -of it, would have been discovered in the mass of small -owners. *Their* corporations, *their* little parcels of -wealth combined would have furnished the *capitalisation* -required for the new processes,and men already owners would, -as one invention succeeded another, have increased the total -wealth of the community without disturbing the balance of -distribution. There is no conceivable link in reason or in -experience which binds the capitalisation of a new process -with the idea of a few employing owners and a mass of -employed non-owners working at a wage. Such great -discoveries coming in a society like that of the thirteenth -century would have blest and enriched mankind. Coming upon -the diseased moral conditions of the eighteenth century in -this country, they proved a curse. - -To whom could the new industry turn for capitalisation? The -small owner had already largely disappeared. The corporate -life and mutual obligations which had supported him and -confirmed him in his property had been broken to pieces by -no "economic development," but by the deliberate action of -the rich. He was ignorant because his schools had been taken -from him and the universities closed to him. He was the more -ignorant because the common life which once nourished his -social sense and the co-operative arrangements which had -once been his defence had disappeared. When you sought an -accumulation of corn, of clothing, of housing, of fuel as -the indispensable preliminary to the launching of your new -industry; when you looked round for someone who could find -the accumulated wealth necessary for these considerable -experiments, you had to turn to the class which had already -monopolised the bulk of the means of production in England. -The rich men alone could furnish you with those supplies. +*capitalised*; that is, accumulated wealth from some source or other had +to be found which would support labour in the process of production +until that process should be complete. Someone must find the corn and +the meat and the housing and the clothing by which should be supported, +between the extraction of the raw material and the moment when the +consumption of the finished article could begin, the human agents which +dealt with that raw material and turned it into the finished product. +Had property been well distributed, protected by co-operative guilds +fenced round and supported by custom and by the autonomy of great +artisan corporations, those accumulations of wealth, necessary for the +launching of each new method of production and for each new perfection +of it, would have been discovered in the mass of small owners. *Their* +corporations, *their* little parcels of wealth combined would have +furnished the *capitalisation* required for the new processes,and men +already owners would, as one invention succeeded another, have increased +the total wealth of the community without disturbing the balance of +distribution. There is no conceivable link in reason or in experience +which binds the capitalisation of a new process with the idea of a few +employing owners and a mass of employed non-owners working at a wage. +Such great discoveries coming in a society like that of the thirteenth +century would have blest and enriched mankind. Coming upon the diseased +moral conditions of the eighteenth century in this country, they proved +a curse. + +To whom could the new industry turn for capitalisation? The small owner +had already largely disappeared. The corporate life and mutual +obligations which had supported him and confirmed him in his property +had been broken to pieces by no "economic development," but by the +deliberate action of the rich. He was ignorant because his schools had +been taken from him and the universities closed to him. He was the more +ignorant because the common life which once nourished his social sense +and the co-operative arrangements which had once been his defence had +disappeared. When you sought an accumulation of corn, of clothing, of +housing, of fuel as the indispensable preliminary to the launching of +your new industry; when you looked round for someone who could find the +accumulated wealth necessary for these considerable experiments, you had +to turn to the class which had already monopolised the bulk of the means +of production in England. The rich men alone could furnish you with +those supplies. Nor was this all. The supplies once found and the adventure -"capitalised," that form of human energy which lay best to -hand, which was indefinitely exploitable, weak, ignorant, -and desperately necessitous, ready to produce for you upon -almost any terms, and glad enough if you would only keep it -alive, was the existing proletariat which the new plutocracy -had created when, in cornering the wealth of the country -after the Reformation, they had thrust out the mass of -Englishmen from the possession of implements, of houses, and -of land. - -The rich class, adopting some new process of production for -its private gain, worked it upon those lines of mere -competition which its avarice had already established. -Co-operative tradition was dead. Where would it find its -cheapest labour? Obviously among the proletariat---not among -the remaining small owners. What class would increase under -the new wealth? Obviously the proletariat again, without -responsibilities, with nothing to leave to its progeny; and -as they swelled the capitalist's gain, they enabled him with -increasing power to buy out the small owner and send him to -swell by another tributary the proletarian mass. - -It was upon this account that the Industrial Revolution, as -it is called, took in its very origins the form which has -made it an almost unmixed curse for the unhappy society in -which it has flourished. The rich, already possessed of the -accumulations by which that industrial change could alone be -nourished, inherited all its succeeding accumulations of -implements and all its increasing accumulations of -subsistence. The factory system, starting upon a basis of -capitalist and proletariat, grew in the mould which had -determined its origins. With every new advance the -capitalist looked for proletariat grist to feed the -productive mill. Every circumstance of that society, the -form in which the laws that governed ownership and profit -were cast, the obligations of partners, the relations -between "master" and "man," directly made for the indefinite -expansion of a subject, formless, wage-earning class -controlled by a small body of owners, which body would tend -to become smaller and richer still, and to be possessed of +"capitalised," that form of human energy which lay best to hand, which +was indefinitely exploitable, weak, ignorant, and desperately +necessitous, ready to produce for you upon almost any terms, and glad +enough if you would only keep it alive, was the existing proletariat +which the new plutocracy had created when, in cornering the wealth of +the country after the Reformation, they had thrust out the mass of +Englishmen from the possession of implements, of houses, and of land. + +The rich class, adopting some new process of production for its private +gain, worked it upon those lines of mere competition which its avarice +had already established. Co-operative tradition was dead. Where would it +find its cheapest labour? Obviously among the proletariat---not among +the remaining small owners. What class would increase under the new +wealth? Obviously the proletariat again, without responsibilities, with +nothing to leave to its progeny; and as they swelled the capitalist's +gain, they enabled him with increasing power to buy out the small owner +and send him to swell by another tributary the proletarian mass. + +It was upon this account that the Industrial Revolution, as it is +called, took in its very origins the form which has made it an almost +unmixed curse for the unhappy society in which it has flourished. The +rich, already possessed of the accumulations by which that industrial +change could alone be nourished, inherited all its succeeding +accumulations of implements and all its increasing accumulations of +subsistence. The factory system, starting upon a basis of capitalist and +proletariat, grew in the mould which had determined its origins. With +every new advance the capitalist looked for proletariat grist to feed +the productive mill. Every circumstance of that society, the form in +which the laws that governed ownership and profit were cast, the +obligations of partners, the relations between "master" and "man," +directly made for the indefinite expansion of a subject, formless, +wage-earning class controlled by a small body of owners, which body +would tend to become smaller and richer still, and to be possessed of power ever greater and greater as the bad business unfolded. -The spread of economic oligarchy was everywhere, and not in -industry alone. The great landlords destroyed deliberately -and of set purpose and to their own ad vantage the common -rights over common land. The small plutocracy with which -they were knit up, and with whose mercantile elements they -were now fused, directed everything to its own ends. That -strong central government which should protect the community -against the rapacity of a few had gone generations before. -Capitalism triumphant wielded all the mechanism of -legislation and of information too. It still holds them; and -there is not an example of so-called "Social Reform" to-day -which is not demonstrably (though often subconsciously) -directed to the further entrenchment and confirmation of an -industrial society in which it is taken for granted that a -few shall own, that the vast majority shall live at a wage -under them, and that all the bulk of Englishmen may hope for -is the amelioration of their lot by regulations and by -control from above---but not by property; not by freedom. - -We all feel---and those few of us who have analysed the -matter not only feel but know---that the Capitalist society -thus gradually developed from its origins in the capture of -the land four hundred years ago has reached its term. It is -almost self-evident that it cannot continue in the form -which now three generations have known, and it is equally -self-evident that some solution must be found for the -intolerable and increasing instability with which it has -poisoned our lives. But before considering the solutions -variously presented by various schools of thought, I shall -in my next section show how and why the English Capitalist -Industrial System is thus intolerably unstable and -consequently presents an acute problem which must be solved -under pain of social death. - -It must be noted that modern Industrialism has spread to -many other centres from England. It bears everywhere the -features stamped upon it by its origin in this country. +The spread of economic oligarchy was everywhere, and not in industry +alone. The great landlords destroyed deliberately and of set purpose and +to their own ad vantage the common rights over common land. The small +plutocracy with which they were knit up, and with whose mercantile +elements they were now fused, directed everything to its own ends. That +strong central government which should protect the community against the +rapacity of a few had gone generations before. Capitalism triumphant +wielded all the mechanism of legislation and of information too. It +still holds them; and there is not an example of so-called "Social +Reform" to-day which is not demonstrably (though often subconsciously) +directed to the further entrenchment and confirmation of an industrial +society in which it is taken for granted that a few shall own, that the +vast majority shall live at a wage under them, and that all the bulk of +Englishmen may hope for is the amelioration of their lot by regulations +and by control from above---but not by property; not by freedom. + +We all feel---and those few of us who have analysed the matter not only +feel but know---that the Capitalist society thus gradually developed +from its origins in the capture of the land four hundred years ago has +reached its term. It is almost self-evident that it cannot continue in +the form which now three generations have known, and it is equally +self-evident that some solution must be found for the intolerable and +increasing instability with which it has poisoned our lives. But before +considering the solutions variously presented by various schools of +thought, I shall in my next section show how and why the English +Capitalist Industrial System is thus intolerably unstable and +consequently presents an acute problem which must be solved under pain +of social death. + +It must be noted that modern Industrialism has spread to many other +centres from England. It bears everywhere the features stamped upon it +by its origin in this country. # The Capitalist State In Proportion As It Grows Perfect Grows Unstable -For the historical digression which I have introduced by way -of illustrating my subject in the last two sections I now -return to the general discussion of my thesis and to the -logical process by which it may be established. - -The Capitalist State is unstable, and indeed more properly a -transitory phase lying between two permanent and stable -states of society. - -In order to appreciate why this is so, let us recall the -definition of the Capitalist State:-- - -"A society in which the ownership of the means of production -is confined to a body of free citizens, not large enough to -make up properly a general character of that society, while -the rest are dispossessed of the means of production, and -are therefore proletarian, we call *Capitalist*." - -Note the several points of such a state of affairs. You have -private ownership; but it is not private ownership -distributed in many hands and thus familiar as an -institution to society as a whole. Again, you have the great -majority dispossessed but at the same time citizens, that -is, men politically free to act, though economically -impotent; again, though it is but an inference from our -definition, it is a necessary inference that there will be -under Capitalism a conscious, direct, and planned -*exploitation* of the majority, the free citizens who do not -own by the minority who are owners. For wealth must be -produced: the whole of that community must live: and the -possessors can make such terms with the non-possessors as -shall make it certain that a portion of what the +For the historical digression which I have introduced by way of +illustrating my subject in the last two sections I now return to the +general discussion of my thesis and to the logical process by which it +may be established. + +The Capitalist State is unstable, and indeed more properly a transitory +phase lying between two permanent and stable states of society. + +In order to appreciate why this is so, let us recall the definition of +the Capitalist State:-- + +"A society in which the ownership of the means of production is confined +to a body of free citizens, not large enough to make up properly a +general character of that society, while the rest are dispossessed of +the means of production, and are therefore proletarian, we call +*Capitalist*." + +Note the several points of such a state of affairs. You have private +ownership; but it is not private ownership distributed in many hands and +thus familiar as an institution to society as a whole. Again, you have +the great majority dispossessed but at the same time citizens, that is, +men politically free to act, though economically impotent; again, though +it is but an inference from our definition, it is a necessary inference +that there will be under Capitalism a conscious, direct, and planned +*exploitation* of the majority, the free citizens who do not own by the +minority who are owners. For wealth must be produced: the whole of that +community must live: and the possessors can make such terms with the +non-possessors as shall make it certain that a portion of what the non-possessors have produced shall go to the possessors. -A society thus constituted cannot endure. It cannot endure -because it is subject to two very severe strains: strains -which increase in severity in proportion as that society -becomes more thoroughly Capitalist. The first of these -strains arises from the divergence between the moral -theories upon which the State reposes and the social facts -which those moral theories attempt to govern. The second -strain arises from the insecurity to which Capitalism -condemns the great mass of society, and the general -character of anxiety and peril which it imposes upon all -citizens, but in particular upon the majority, which -consists, under Capitalism, of dispossessed free men. - -Of these two strains it is impossible to say which is the -gravest. Either would be enough to destroy a social -arrangement in which it was long present. The two combined -make that destruction certain; and there is no longer any -doubt that Capitalist society must transform itself into -some other and more stable arrangement. It is the object of -these pages to discover what that stable arrangement will -probably be. - -We say that there is a moral strain already intolerably -severe and growing more severe with every perfection of -Capitalism. - -This moral strain comes from a contradiction between the -realities of Capitalist and the moral base of our laws and -traditions. - -The moral base upon which our laws are still administered -and our conventions raised presupposes a state composed of -free citizens. Our laws defend property as a normal -institution with which all citizens are acquainted, and -which all citizens respect. It punishes theft as an abnormal -incident only occurring when, through evil motives, one free -citizen acquires the property of another without his -knowledge and against his will. It punishes fraud as another -abnormal incident in which, from evil motives, one free -citizen induces another to part with his property upon false -representations. It enforces contract, the sole moral base -of which is the freedom of the two contracting parties, and -the power of either, if it so please him, not to enter into -a contract which, once entered into, must be enforced. It -gives to an owner the power to leave his property by will, -under the conception that such ownership and such passage of -property (to natural heirs as a rule, but exceptionally to -any other whom the testator may point out) is the normal -operation of a society generally familiar with such things, -and finding them part of the domestic life lived by the mass -of its citizens. It casts one citizen in damages if by any -wilful action he has caused loss to another---for it -presupposes him able to pay. - -The sanction upon which social life reposes is, in our moral -theory, the legal punishment enforceable in our Courts, and -the basis presupposed for the security and material -happiness of our citizens is the possession of goods which -shall guarantee us from anxiety and permit us an -independence of action in the midst of our fellowmen. - -Now contrast all this, the moral theory upon which society -is still perilously conducted, the moral theory to which -Capitalism itself turns for succour when it is attacked, -contrast, I say, its formulae and its presuppositions with -the social reality of a Capitalist State such as is England -to-day. - -Property remains as an instinct perhaps with most of the -citizens; as an experience and a reality it is unknown to -nineteen out of twenty. One hundred forms of fraud, the -necessary corollary of unrestrained competition between a -few and of unrestrained avarice as the motive controlling -production, are not or cannot be punished: petty forms of -violence in theft and of cunning in fraud the laws can deal -with, but they cannot deal with these alone. Our legal -machinery has become little more than an engine for -protecting the few owners against the necessities, the -demands, or the hatred of the mass of their dispossessed -fellow-citizens. The vast bulk of so-called "free" contracts -are to-day leonine contracts: arrangements which one man was -free to take or to leave, but which the other man was not -free to take or to leave, because the second had for his -alternative starvation. - -Most important of all, the fundamental social fact of our -movement, far more important than any security afforded by -law, or than any machinery which the State can put into -action, is the fact that *livelihood* is at the will of the -possessors. It can be granted by the possessors to the -non-possessors, or it can be withheld. The real sanction in -our society for the arrangements by which it is conducted is -not punishment enforceable by the Courts, but the -withholding of livelihood from the dispossessed by the -possessors. Most men now fear the loss of employment more -than they fear legal punishment, and the discipline under -which men are coerced in their modern forms of activity in -England is the fear of dismissal. The true master of the -Englishman to-day is not the Sovereign nor the officers of -State, nor, save indirectly, the laws; his true master is -the Capitalist. - -Of these main truths everyone is aware; and anyone who sets -out to deny them does so to-day at the peril of his -reputation either for honesty or for intelligence. - -If it be asked why things have come to a head so late -(Capitalism having been in growth for so long), the answer -is that England, even now the most completely Capitalist -State of the modern world, did not itself become a -completely Capitalist State until the present generation. -Within the memory of men now living half England was -agricultural, with relations domestic rather than -competitive between the various human factors to production. - -This moral strain, therefore, arising from the divergence -between what our laws and moral phrases pretend, and what -our society actually is, makes of, that society an utterly -unstable thing. - -This spiritual thesis is of far greater gravity than the -narrow materialism of a generation now passing might -imagine. Spiritual conflict is more fruitful of instability -in the State than conflict of any other kind, and there is -acute spiritual conflict, conflict in every man's conscience -and ill-ease throughout the commonwealth when the realities -of society are divorced from the moral base of its +A society thus constituted cannot endure. It cannot endure because it is +subject to two very severe strains: strains which increase in severity +in proportion as that society becomes more thoroughly Capitalist. The +first of these strains arises from the divergence between the moral +theories upon which the State reposes and the social facts which those +moral theories attempt to govern. The second strain arises from the +insecurity to which Capitalism condemns the great mass of society, and +the general character of anxiety and peril which it imposes upon all +citizens, but in particular upon the majority, which consists, under +Capitalism, of dispossessed free men. + +Of these two strains it is impossible to say which is the gravest. +Either would be enough to destroy a social arrangement in which it was +long present. The two combined make that destruction certain; and there +is no longer any doubt that Capitalist society must transform itself +into some other and more stable arrangement. It is the object of these +pages to discover what that stable arrangement will probably be. + +We say that there is a moral strain already intolerably severe and +growing more severe with every perfection of Capitalism. + +This moral strain comes from a contradiction between the realities of +Capitalist and the moral base of our laws and traditions. + +The moral base upon which our laws are still administered and our +conventions raised presupposes a state composed of free citizens. Our +laws defend property as a normal institution with which all citizens are +acquainted, and which all citizens respect. It punishes theft as an +abnormal incident only occurring when, through evil motives, one free +citizen acquires the property of another without his knowledge and +against his will. It punishes fraud as another abnormal incident in +which, from evil motives, one free citizen induces another to part with +his property upon false representations. It enforces contract, the sole +moral base of which is the freedom of the two contracting parties, and +the power of either, if it so please him, not to enter into a contract +which, once entered into, must be enforced. It gives to an owner the +power to leave his property by will, under the conception that such +ownership and such passage of property (to natural heirs as a rule, but +exceptionally to any other whom the testator may point out) is the +normal operation of a society generally familiar with such things, and +finding them part of the domestic life lived by the mass of its +citizens. It casts one citizen in damages if by any wilful action he has +caused loss to another---for it presupposes him able to pay. + +The sanction upon which social life reposes is, in our moral theory, the +legal punishment enforceable in our Courts, and the basis presupposed +for the security and material happiness of our citizens is the +possession of goods which shall guarantee us from anxiety and permit us +an independence of action in the midst of our fellowmen. + +Now contrast all this, the moral theory upon which society is still +perilously conducted, the moral theory to which Capitalism itself turns +for succour when it is attacked, contrast, I say, its formulae and its +presuppositions with the social reality of a Capitalist State such as is +England to-day. + +Property remains as an instinct perhaps with most of the citizens; as an +experience and a reality it is unknown to nineteen out of twenty. One +hundred forms of fraud, the necessary corollary of unrestrained +competition between a few and of unrestrained avarice as the motive +controlling production, are not or cannot be punished: petty forms of +violence in theft and of cunning in fraud the laws can deal with, but +they cannot deal with these alone. Our legal machinery has become little +more than an engine for protecting the few owners against the +necessities, the demands, or the hatred of the mass of their +dispossessed fellow-citizens. The vast bulk of so-called "free" +contracts are to-day leonine contracts: arrangements which one man was +free to take or to leave, but which the other man was not free to take +or to leave, because the second had for his alternative starvation. + +Most important of all, the fundamental social fact of our movement, far +more important than any security afforded by law, or than any machinery +which the State can put into action, is the fact that *livelihood* is at +the will of the possessors. It can be granted by the possessors to the +non-possessors, or it can be withheld. The real sanction in our society +for the arrangements by which it is conducted is not punishment +enforceable by the Courts, but the withholding of livelihood from the +dispossessed by the possessors. Most men now fear the loss of employment +more than they fear legal punishment, and the discipline under which men +are coerced in their modern forms of activity in England is the fear of +dismissal. The true master of the Englishman to-day is not the Sovereign +nor the officers of State, nor, save indirectly, the laws; his true +master is the Capitalist. + +Of these main truths everyone is aware; and anyone who sets out to deny +them does so to-day at the peril of his reputation either for honesty or +for intelligence. + +If it be asked why things have come to a head so late (Capitalism having +been in growth for so long), the answer is that England, even now the +most completely Capitalist State of the modern world, did not itself +become a completely Capitalist State until the present generation. +Within the memory of men now living half England was agricultural, with +relations domestic rather than competitive between the various human +factors to production. + +This moral strain, therefore, arising from the divergence between what +our laws and moral phrases pretend, and what our society actually is, +makes of, that society an utterly unstable thing. + +This spiritual thesis is of far greater gravity than the narrow +materialism of a generation now passing might imagine. Spiritual +conflict is more fruitful of instability in the State than conflict of +any other kind, and there is acute spiritual conflict, conflict in every +man's conscience and ill-ease throughout the commonwealth when the +realities of society are divorced from the moral base of its institution. -The second strain which we have noted in Capitalism, its -second element of instability, consists in the fact that -Capitalism destroys security. - -Experience is enough to save us any delay upon this main -point of our matter. But even without experience we could -reason with absolute certitude from the very nature of -Capitalism that its chief effect would be the destruction of -security in human life. - -Combine these two elements: the ownership of the means of -production by a very few; the political freedom of owners -and non-owners alike. There follows immediately from that -combination a competitive market wherein the labour of the -non-owner fetches just what it is worth, not as full -productive power, but as productive power which will leave a -surplus to the Capitalist. It fetches nothing when the -labourer cannot work, more in proportion to the pace at -which he is driven; less in middle age than in youth; less -in old age than in middle age; nothing in sickness; nothing -in despair. - -A man in a position to accumulate (the normal result of -human labour), a man founded upon property in sufficient -amount and in established form is no more productive in his -non-productive moments than is a proletarian; but his life -is balanced and regulated by his reception of rent and -interest as well as wages. Surplus values come to him, and -are the fly-wheel balancing the extremes of his life and -carrying him over his bad times. With a proletarian it -cannot be so. The aspect from Capital looks at a human being -whose labour it proposes to purchase cuts right across that -normal aspect of human life from which we all regard our own -affections, duties, and character. A man thinks of himself, -of his chances and of his security along the line of his own -individual existence from birth to death. Capital purchasing -his labour (and not the man himself) purchases but a -cross-section of his life, his moments of activity. For the -rest, he must fend for himself; but to fend for yourself -when you have nothing is to starve. - -As a matter of fact, where a few possess the means of -production perfectly free political conditions are -impossible. A perfect Capitalist State cannot exist, though -we have come nearer to it in modern England than other and -more fortunate nations had thought possible. In the perfect -Capitalist State there would be no food available for the -non-owner save when he was actually engaged in Production, -and that absurdity would, by quickly ending all human lives -save those of the owners, put a term to the arrangement. If -you left men completely free under a Capitalist system, -there would be so heavy a mortality from starvation as would -dry up the sources of labour in a very short time. - -Imagine the dispossessed to be ideally perfect cowards, the -possessors to consider nothing whatsoever except the buying -of their labour in the cheapest market and the system would -break down from the death of children and of out-o'-works -and of women. You would not have a State in mere decline -such as ours is. You would have a State manifestly and +The second strain which we have noted in Capitalism, its second element +of instability, consists in the fact that Capitalism destroys security. + +Experience is enough to save us any delay upon this main point of our +matter. But even without experience we could reason with absolute +certitude from the very nature of Capitalism that its chief effect would +be the destruction of security in human life. + +Combine these two elements: the ownership of the means of production by +a very few; the political freedom of owners and non-owners alike. There +follows immediately from that combination a competitive market wherein +the labour of the non-owner fetches just what it is worth, not as full +productive power, but as productive power which will leave a surplus to +the Capitalist. It fetches nothing when the labourer cannot work, more +in proportion to the pace at which he is driven; less in middle age than +in youth; less in old age than in middle age; nothing in sickness; +nothing in despair. + +A man in a position to accumulate (the normal result of human labour), a +man founded upon property in sufficient amount and in established form +is no more productive in his non-productive moments than is a +proletarian; but his life is balanced and regulated by his reception of +rent and interest as well as wages. Surplus values come to him, and are +the fly-wheel balancing the extremes of his life and carrying him over +his bad times. With a proletarian it cannot be so. The aspect from +Capital looks at a human being whose labour it proposes to purchase cuts +right across that normal aspect of human life from which we all regard +our own affections, duties, and character. A man thinks of himself, of +his chances and of his security along the line of his own individual +existence from birth to death. Capital purchasing his labour (and not +the man himself) purchases but a cross-section of his life, his moments +of activity. For the rest, he must fend for himself; but to fend for +yourself when you have nothing is to starve. + +As a matter of fact, where a few possess the means of production +perfectly free political conditions are impossible. A perfect Capitalist +State cannot exist, though we have come nearer to it in modern England +than other and more fortunate nations had thought possible. In the +perfect Capitalist State there would be no food available for the +non-owner save when he was actually engaged in Production, and that +absurdity would, by quickly ending all human lives save those of the +owners, put a term to the arrangement. If you left men completely free +under a Capitalist system, there would be so heavy a mortality from +starvation as would dry up the sources of labour in a very short time. + +Imagine the dispossessed to be ideally perfect cowards, the possessors +to consider nothing whatsoever except the buying of their labour in the +cheapest market and the system would break down from the death of +children and of out-o'-works and of women. You would not have a State in +mere decline such as ours is. You would have a State manifestly and patently perishing. -As a fact, of course, Capitalism cannot proceed to its own -logical extreme. So long as the political freedom of all -citizens is granted \[the freedom of the few possessors of -food to grant or withhold it, of the many non-possessors to -strike any bargain at all, lest they lack it\]: to exercise -such freedom fully is to starve the very young, the old, the -impotent, and the despairing to death. Capitalism must keep -alive, by non-Capitalist methods, great masses of the -population who would otherwise starve to death; and that is -what Capitalism was careful to do to an increasing extent as -it got a stronger and a stronger grip upon the English -people. Elizabeth's Poor Law at the beginning of the -business,the Poor Law of 1834, coming at a moment when -nearly half England had passed into the grip of Capitalism, -are original and primitive instances: there are to-day a -hundred others. - -Though this cause of insecurity---the fact that the -possessors have no direct incentive to keep men alive---is -logically the most obvious, and always the most enduring -under a Capitalist system, there is another cause more -poignant in its effect upon human life. That other cause is -the competitive anarchy in production which restricted -ownership coupled with freedom involves. Consider what is -involved by the very process of production where the -implements and the soil are in the hands of a few whose -motive for causing the proletariat to produce is not the use -of the wealth created but the enjoyment by those possessors -of surplus value or "profit." - -If full political freedom be allowed to any two such -possessors of implements and stores, each will actively -watch his market, attempt to undersell the other, tend to -overproduce at the end of some season of extra demand for -his article, thus glut the market only to suffer a period of -depression afterwards---and so forth. Again, the Capitalist, -free, individual director of production, will miscalculate; -sometimes he will fail, and his works will be shut down. -Again, a mass of isolated, imperfectly instructed competing -units cannot but direct their clashing efforts at an -enormous waste, and that waste will fluctuate. Most -commissions, most advertisements, most parades, are examples -of this waste. If this waste of effort could be made a -constant, the parasitical employment it afforded would be a -constant too. But of its nature it is a most inconstant -thing, and the employment it affords is therefore -necessarily precarious. The concrete translation of this is -the insecurity of the commercial traveller, the advertising -agent, the insurance agent, and every form of touting and -cozening which competitive Capitalism carries with it. - -Now here again, as in the case of the insecurity produced by -age and sickness, Capitalism cannot be pursued to its -logical conclusion, and it is the element of freedom which -suffers. Competition is, as a fact, restricted to an -increasing extent by an understanding between the -competitors,accompanied, especially in this country, by the -ruin of the smaller competitor through secret conspiracies -entered into by the larger men, and supported by the secret -political forces of the State.In a word, Capitalism, proving -almost as unstable to the owners as to the non-owners, is -tending towards stability by losing its essential character -of political freedom. No better proof of the instability of +As a fact, of course, Capitalism cannot proceed to its own logical +extreme. So long as the political freedom of all citizens is granted +\[the freedom of the few possessors of food to grant or withhold it, of +the many non-possessors to strike any bargain at all, lest they lack +it\]: to exercise such freedom fully is to starve the very young, the +old, the impotent, and the despairing to death. Capitalism must keep +alive, by non-Capitalist methods, great masses of the population who +would otherwise starve to death; and that is what Capitalism was careful +to do to an increasing extent as it got a stronger and a stronger grip +upon the English people. Elizabeth's Poor Law at the beginning of the +business,the Poor Law of 1834, coming at a moment when nearly half +England had passed into the grip of Capitalism, are original and +primitive instances: there are to-day a hundred others. + +Though this cause of insecurity---the fact that the possessors have no +direct incentive to keep men alive---is logically the most obvious, and +always the most enduring under a Capitalist system, there is another +cause more poignant in its effect upon human life. That other cause is +the competitive anarchy in production which restricted ownership coupled +with freedom involves. Consider what is involved by the very process of +production where the implements and the soil are in the hands of a few +whose motive for causing the proletariat to produce is not the use of +the wealth created but the enjoyment by those possessors of surplus +value or "profit." + +If full political freedom be allowed to any two such possessors of +implements and stores, each will actively watch his market, attempt to +undersell the other, tend to overproduce at the end of some season of +extra demand for his article, thus glut the market only to suffer a +period of depression afterwards---and so forth. Again, the Capitalist, +free, individual director of production, will miscalculate; sometimes he +will fail, and his works will be shut down. Again, a mass of isolated, +imperfectly instructed competing units cannot but direct their clashing +efforts at an enormous waste, and that waste will fluctuate. Most +commissions, most advertisements, most parades, are examples of this +waste. If this waste of effort could be made a constant, the parasitical +employment it afforded would be a constant too. But of its nature it is +a most inconstant thing, and the employment it affords is therefore +necessarily precarious. The concrete translation of this is the +insecurity of the commercial traveller, the advertising agent, the +insurance agent, and every form of touting and cozening which +competitive Capitalism carries with it. + +Now here again, as in the case of the insecurity produced by age and +sickness, Capitalism cannot be pursued to its logical conclusion, and it +is the element of freedom which suffers. Competition is, as a fact, +restricted to an increasing extent by an understanding between the +competitors,accompanied, especially in this country, by the ruin of the +smaller competitor through secret conspiracies entered into by the +larger men, and supported by the secret political forces of the State.In +a word, Capitalism, proving almost as unstable to the owners as to the +non-owners, is tending towards stability by losing its essential +character of political freedom. No better proof of the instability of Capitalism as a system could be desired. -Take any one of the numerous Trusts which now control -English industry, and have made of modern England the type, -quoted throughout the Continent, of artificial monopolies. -If the full formula of Capitalism were accepted by our -Courts and our executive statesmen, anyone could start a -rival business, undersell those Trusts and shatter the -comparative security they afford to industry within their -field. The reason that no one does this is that political -freedom is not, as a fact, protected here by the Courts in -commercial affairs. A man attempting to compete with one of -our great English Trusts would find himself at once -undersold. He might, by all the spirit of European law for -centuries, indict those who would ruin him, citing them for -a conspiracy in restraint of trade; of this conspiracy he -would find the judge and the politicians most heartily in -support. - -But it must always be remembered that these conspiracies in -restraint of trade which are the mark of modern England are -in themselves a mark of the transition from the true -Capitalist phase to another. - -Under the essential conditions of Capitalism---under a -perfect political freedom---such conspiracies would be -punished by the Courts for what they are: to wit, a -contravention of the fundamental doctrine of political -liberty. For this doctrine, while it gives any man the right -to make any contract he chooses with any labourer and offer -the produce at such prices as he sees fit, also involves the -protection of that liberty by the punishment of any -conspiracy that may have monopoly for its object. If such -perfect freedom is no longer attempted, if monopolies are -permitted and fostered, it is because the unnatural strain -to which freedom, coupled with restricted ownership, gives -rise, the insecurity of its mere competition, the anarchy of -its productive methods have at last proved intolerable. - -I have already delayed more than was necessary in this -section upon the causes which render a Capitalist State -essentially unstable. - -I might have treated the matter empirically, taking for -granted the observation which all my readers must have made, -that Capitalism is as a fact doomed, and that the Capitalist -State has already passed into its first phase of transition. - -We are clearly no longer possessed of that absolutely -political freedom which true Capitalism essentially demands. -The insecurity involved, coupled with the divorce between -our traditional morals and the facts of society, have -already introduced such novel features as the permission of -conspiracy among both possessors and non-possessors, the -compulsory provision of security through State action, and -all these reforms, implicit or explicit, the tendency of -which I am about to examine. +Take any one of the numerous Trusts which now control English industry, +and have made of modern England the type, quoted throughout the +Continent, of artificial monopolies. If the full formula of Capitalism +were accepted by our Courts and our executive statesmen, anyone could +start a rival business, undersell those Trusts and shatter the +comparative security they afford to industry within their field. The +reason that no one does this is that political freedom is not, as a +fact, protected here by the Courts in commercial affairs. A man +attempting to compete with one of our great English Trusts would find +himself at once undersold. He might, by all the spirit of European law +for centuries, indict those who would ruin him, citing them for a +conspiracy in restraint of trade; of this conspiracy he would find the +judge and the politicians most heartily in support. + +But it must always be remembered that these conspiracies in restraint of +trade which are the mark of modern England are in themselves a mark of +the transition from the true Capitalist phase to another. + +Under the essential conditions of Capitalism---under a perfect political +freedom---such conspiracies would be punished by the Courts for what +they are: to wit, a contravention of the fundamental doctrine of +political liberty. For this doctrine, while it gives any man the right +to make any contract he chooses with any labourer and offer the produce +at such prices as he sees fit, also involves the protection of that +liberty by the punishment of any conspiracy that may have monopoly for +its object. If such perfect freedom is no longer attempted, if +monopolies are permitted and fostered, it is because the unnatural +strain to which freedom, coupled with restricted ownership, gives rise, +the insecurity of its mere competition, the anarchy of its productive +methods have at last proved intolerable. + +I have already delayed more than was necessary in this section upon the +causes which render a Capitalist State essentially unstable. + +I might have treated the matter empirically, taking for granted the +observation which all my readers must have made, that Capitalism is as a +fact doomed, and that the Capitalist State has already passed into its +first phase of transition. + +We are clearly no longer possessed of that absolutely political freedom +which true Capitalism essentially demands. The insecurity involved, +coupled with the divorce between our traditional morals and the facts of +society, have already introduced such novel features as the permission +of conspiracy among both possessors and non-possessors, the compulsory +provision of security through State action, and all these reforms, +implicit or explicit, the tendency of which I am about to examine. # The Stable Solutions Of This Instability -Given a Capitalist State, of its nature unstable, it will -tend to reach stability by some method or another. - -It is the definition of unstable equilibrium that a body in -unstable equilibrium is seeking a stable equilibrium. For -instance, a pyramid balanced upon its apex is in unstable -equilibrium; which simply means that a slight force one way -or the other will make it fall into a position where it will -repose. Similarly, certain chemical mixtures are said to be -in unstable equilibrium when their constituent parts have -such affinity one for another that a slight shock may make -them combine and transform the chemical arrangement of the -whole. Of this sort are explosives. - -If the Capitalist State is in unstable equilibrium, this -only means that it is seeking a stable equilibrium, and that -Capitalism cannot but be transformed into some other -arrangement wherein Society may repose. - -There are but three social arrangements which can replace -Capitalism: Slavery, Socialism, and Property. - -I may imagine a mixture of any two of these three or of all -the three, but each is a dominant type, and from the very -nature of the problem no fourth arrangement can be devised. - -The problem turns, remember, upon the control of the means -of production. Capitalism means that this control is vested -in the hands of few, while political freedom is the appanage -of all. If this anomaly cannot endure, from its insecurity -and from its own contradiction with its presumed moral -basis, you must either have a transformation of the one or -of the other of the two elements which combined have been -found unworkable. These two factors are (1) The ownership of -the means of Production by a few; (2) The Freedom of all. To -solve Capitalism you must get rid of restricted ownership, -or of freedom, or of both. - -Now there is only one alternative to freedom, which is the -negation of it. Either a man is free to work and not to work -as he pleases, or he may be liable to a legal compulsion to -work, backed by the forces of the State. In the first he is -a free man; in the second he is by definition a slave. We -have, therefore, so far as this factor of freedom is -concerned, no choice between a number of changes, but only -the opportunity of one, to wit, the establishment of slavery -in place of freedom. Such a solution, the direct, immediate, -and conscious re-establishment of slavery, would provide a -true solution of the problems which Capitalism offers. It -would guarantee, under workable regulations, sufficiency and -security for the dispossessed. Such a solution, as I shall -show, is the probable goal which our society will in fact -approach. To its immediate and conscious acceptance, -however, there is an obstacle. - -A direct and conscious establishment of slavery as a -solution to the problem of Capitalism, the surviving -Christian tradition of our civilisation compels men to -reject. No reformer will advocate it; no prophet dares take -it as yet for granted. All theories of a reformed society -will therefore attempt, at first, to leave untouched the -factor of *Freedom* among the elements which make up -Capitalism, and will concern themselves with some change in -the factor of *Property*. - -Now, in attempting to remedy the evils of Capitalism by -remedying that one of its two factors which consists in an -ill distribution of property, you have two, and only two, -courses open to you. - -If you are suffering because property is restricted to a -few, you can alter that factor in the problem *either* by -putting property into the hands of many, *or* by putting it -into the hands of none. There is no third course. - -In the concrete, to put property in the hands of "none" -means to vest it as a trust in the hands of political -officers. If you say that the evils proceeding from -Capitalism are due to the institution of property itself, -and not to the dispossession of the many by the few, then -you must forbid the private possession of the means of -production by any particular and private part of the -community: but someone must control the means of production, -or we should have nothing to eat. So in practice this -doctrine means the management of the means of production by -those who are the public officers of the community. Whether -these public officers are themselves controlled by the -community or no has nothing to do with this solution on its -economic side. The essential point to grasp is that the only -alternative to private property is public property. Somebody -must see to the ploughing and must control the ploughs; -otherwise no ploughing will be done. - -It is equally obvious that if you conclude property in -itself to be no evil but only the small number of its -owners, then your remedy is to increase the number of those -owners. - -So much being grasped, we may recapitulate and say that a -society like ours, disliking the name of "slavery," and -avoiding a direct and conscious re-establishment of the -slave status, will necessarily contemplate the reform of its -ill-distributed ownership on one of two models. The first is -the negation of private property and the establishment of -what is called Collectivism: that is, the management of the -means of production by the political officers of the -community. The second is the wider distribution of property -until that institution shall become the mark of the whole -State, and until free citizens are normally found to be -possessors of capital or land, or both. - -The first model we call *Socialism* or the Collectivist -State; the second we call the Proprietary or Distributive +Given a Capitalist State, of its nature unstable, it will tend to reach +stability by some method or another. + +It is the definition of unstable equilibrium that a body in unstable +equilibrium is seeking a stable equilibrium. For instance, a pyramid +balanced upon its apex is in unstable equilibrium; which simply means +that a slight force one way or the other will make it fall into a +position where it will repose. Similarly, certain chemical mixtures are +said to be in unstable equilibrium when their constituent parts have +such affinity one for another that a slight shock may make them combine +and transform the chemical arrangement of the whole. Of this sort are +explosives. + +If the Capitalist State is in unstable equilibrium, this only means that +it is seeking a stable equilibrium, and that Capitalism cannot but be +transformed into some other arrangement wherein Society may repose. + +There are but three social arrangements which can replace Capitalism: +Slavery, Socialism, and Property. + +I may imagine a mixture of any two of these three or of all the three, +but each is a dominant type, and from the very nature of the problem no +fourth arrangement can be devised. + +The problem turns, remember, upon the control of the means of +production. Capitalism means that this control is vested in the hands of +few, while political freedom is the appanage of all. If this anomaly +cannot endure, from its insecurity and from its own contradiction with +its presumed moral basis, you must either have a transformation of the +one or of the other of the two elements which combined have been found +unworkable. These two factors are (1) The ownership of the means of +Production by a few; (2) The Freedom of all. To solve Capitalism you +must get rid of restricted ownership, or of freedom, or of both. + +Now there is only one alternative to freedom, which is the negation of +it. Either a man is free to work and not to work as he pleases, or he +may be liable to a legal compulsion to work, backed by the forces of the +State. In the first he is a free man; in the second he is by definition +a slave. We have, therefore, so far as this factor of freedom is +concerned, no choice between a number of changes, but only the +opportunity of one, to wit, the establishment of slavery in place of +freedom. Such a solution, the direct, immediate, and conscious +re-establishment of slavery, would provide a true solution of the +problems which Capitalism offers. It would guarantee, under workable +regulations, sufficiency and security for the dispossessed. Such a +solution, as I shall show, is the probable goal which our society will +in fact approach. To its immediate and conscious acceptance, however, +there is an obstacle. + +A direct and conscious establishment of slavery as a solution to the +problem of Capitalism, the surviving Christian tradition of our +civilisation compels men to reject. No reformer will advocate it; no +prophet dares take it as yet for granted. All theories of a reformed +society will therefore attempt, at first, to leave untouched the factor +of *Freedom* among the elements which make up Capitalism, and will +concern themselves with some change in the factor of *Property*. + +Now, in attempting to remedy the evils of Capitalism by remedying that +one of its two factors which consists in an ill distribution of +property, you have two, and only two, courses open to you. + +If you are suffering because property is restricted to a few, you can +alter that factor in the problem *either* by putting property into the +hands of many, *or* by putting it into the hands of none. There is no +third course. + +In the concrete, to put property in the hands of "none" means to vest it +as a trust in the hands of political officers. If you say that the evils +proceeding from Capitalism are due to the institution of property +itself, and not to the dispossession of the many by the few, then you +must forbid the private possession of the means of production by any +particular and private part of the community: but someone must control +the means of production, or we should have nothing to eat. So in +practice this doctrine means the management of the means of production +by those who are the public officers of the community. Whether these +public officers are themselves controlled by the community or no has +nothing to do with this solution on its economic side. The essential +point to grasp is that the only alternative to private property is +public property. Somebody must see to the ploughing and must control the +ploughs; otherwise no ploughing will be done. + +It is equally obvious that if you conclude property in itself to be no +evil but only the small number of its owners, then your remedy is to +increase the number of those owners. + +So much being grasped, we may recapitulate and say that a society like +ours, disliking the name of "slavery," and avoiding a direct and +conscious re-establishment of the slave status, will necessarily +contemplate the reform of its ill-distributed ownership on one of two +models. The first is the negation of private property and the +establishment of what is called Collectivism: that is, the management of +the means of production by the political officers of the community. The +second is the wider distribution of property until that institution +shall become the mark of the whole State, and until free citizens are +normally found to be possessors of capital or land, or both. + +The first model we call *Socialism* or the Collectivist State; the +second we call the Proprietary or Distributive State. + +With so much elucidated, I will proceed to show in my next section why +the second model, involving the redistribution of property, is rejected +as impracticable by our existing Capitalist Society, and why, therefore, +the model chosen by reformers is the first model, that of a Collectivist State. -With so much elucidated, I will proceed to show in my next -section why the second model, involving the redistribution -of property, is rejected as impracticable by our existing -Capitalist Society, and why, therefore, the model chosen by -reformers is the first model, that of a Collectivist State. - I shall then proceed to show that at its first inception all -Collectivist Reform is necessarily deflected and evolves, in -the place of what it had intended, a new thing: a society -wherein the owners remain few and wherein the proletarian -mass accepts security at the expense of servitude. +Collectivist Reform is necessarily deflected and evolves, in the place +of what it had intended, a new thing: a society wherein the owners +remain few and wherein the proletarian mass accepts security at the +expense of servitude. Have I made myself clear? -If not, I will repeat for the third time, and in its -briefest terms, the formula which is the kernel of my whole -thesis. +If not, I will repeat for the third time, and in its briefest terms, the +formula which is the kernel of my whole thesis. -The Capitalist State breeds a Collectivist Theory which in -action produces something utterly different from -Collectivism: to wit, the **Servile State**. +The Capitalist State breeds a Collectivist Theory which in action +produces something utterly different from Collectivism: to wit, the +**Servile State**. # Socialism Is The Easiest Apparent Solution Of The Capitalist Crux -I say that the line of least resistance,if it be followed, -leads a Capitalist State to transform itself into a Servile -State. +I say that the line of least resistance,if it be followed, leads a +Capitalist State to transform itself into a Servile State. -I propose to show that this comes about from the fact that -not a *Distributive* but a *Collectivist* solution is the -easiest for a Capitalist State to aim at, and that yet, in -the very act of attempting *Collectivism*, what results is -not Collectivism at all, but the servitude of the many, and -the confirmation in their present privilege of the few; that -is, the Servile State. +I propose to show that this comes about from the fact that not a +*Distributive* but a *Collectivist* solution is the easiest for a +Capitalist State to aim at, and that yet, in the very act of attempting +*Collectivism*, what results is not Collectivism at all, but the +servitude of the many, and the confirmation in their present privilege +of the few; that is, the Servile State. -Men to whom the institution of slavery is abhorrent propose -for the remedy of Capitalism one of two reforms. +Men to whom the institution of slavery is abhorrent propose for the +remedy of Capitalism one of two reforms. -Either they would put property into the hands of most -citizens, so dividing land and capital that a determining -number of families in the State were possessed of the means -of production; or they would put those means of production -into the hands of the political officers of the community, -to be held in trust for the advantage of all. +Either they would put property into the hands of most citizens, so +dividing land and capital that a determining number of families in the +State were possessed of the means of production; or they would put those +means of production into the hands of the political officers of the +community, to be held in trust for the advantage of all. -The first solution may be called the attempted establishment -of the **Distributive State**. The second may be called the -attempted establishment of the **Collectivist State**. +The first solution may be called the attempted establishment of the +**Distributive State**. The second may be called the attempted +establishment of the **Collectivist State**. Those who favour the first course are the Conservatives or -Traditionalists. They are men who respect and would,if -possible, preserve the old forms of Christian European life. -They know that property was thus distributed throughout the -State during the happiest periods of our past history; they -also know that where it is properly distributed to-day, you -have greater social sanity and ease than elsewhere. In -general, those who would re-establish, if possible, the -Distributive State in the place of, and as a remedy for, the -vices and unrest of Capitalism, are men concerned with known -realities, and having for their ideal a condition of society -which experience has tested and proved both stable and good. -They are then, of the two schools of reformers, the more -*practical* in the sense that they deal more than do the -Collectivists (called also Socialists) with things which -either are or have been in actual existence. But they are -less practical in another sense (as we shall see in a -moment) from the fact that the stage of the disease with -which they are dealing does not readily lend itself to such +Traditionalists. They are men who respect and would,if possible, +preserve the old forms of Christian European life. They know that +property was thus distributed throughout the State during the happiest +periods of our past history; they also know that where it is properly +distributed to-day, you have greater social sanity and ease than +elsewhere. In general, those who would re-establish, if possible, the +Distributive State in the place of, and as a remedy for, the vices and +unrest of Capitalism, are men concerned with known realities, and having +for their ideal a condition of society which experience has tested and +proved both stable and good. They are then, of the two schools of +reformers, the more *practical* in the sense that they deal more than do +the Collectivists (called also Socialists) with things which either are +or have been in actual existence. But they are less practical in another +sense (as we shall see in a moment) from the fact that the stage of the +disease with which they are dealing does not readily lend itself to such a reaction as they propose. -The Collectivist,on the other hand, proposes to put land and -capital into the hands of the political officers of the -community,and this on the understanding that they shall hold -such land and capital in trust for the advantage of the -community. In making this proposal he is evidently dealing -with a state of things hitherto imaginary, and his ideal is -not one that has been tested by experience, nor one of which -our race and history can furnish instances. In this sense, -therefore, he is the *less* practical of the two reformers. -His ideal cannot be discovered in any past, known, and -recorded phase of our society. We cannot examine Socialism -in actual working, nor can we say (as we can say of -well-divided property): "On such and such an occasion, in -such and such a period of European history, Collectivism was -established and produced both stability and happiness in -society." - -In this sense, therefore, the Collectivist is far less -practical than the reformer who desires well-distributed +The Collectivist,on the other hand, proposes to put land and capital +into the hands of the political officers of the community,and this on +the understanding that they shall hold such land and capital in trust +for the advantage of the community. In making this proposal he is +evidently dealing with a state of things hitherto imaginary, and his +ideal is not one that has been tested by experience, nor one of which +our race and history can furnish instances. In this sense, therefore, he +is the *less* practical of the two reformers. His ideal cannot be +discovered in any past, known, and recorded phase of our society. We +cannot examine Socialism in actual working, nor can we say (as we can +say of well-divided property): "On such and such an occasion, in such +and such a period of European history, Collectivism was established and +produced both stability and happiness in society." + +In this sense, therefore, the Collectivist is far less practical than +the reformer who desires well-distributed property. + +On the other hand, there is a sense in which this Socialist is more +practical than that other type of reformer, from the fact that the stage +of the disease into which we have fallen apparently admits of his remedy +with less shock than it admits of a reaction towards well-divided property. -On the other hand, there is a sense in which this Socialist -is more practical than that other type of reformer, from the -fact that the stage of the disease into which we have fallen -apparently admits of his remedy with less shock than it -admits of a reaction towards well-divided property. - -For example: the operation of buying out some great tract of -private ownership to-day (as a railway or a harbour company) -with public funds, continuing its administration by publicly -paid officials and converting its revenue to public use, is -a thing with which we are familiar and which seemingly might -be indefinitely multiplied. Individual examples of such -transformation of waterworks, gas, tramways, from a -Capitalist to a Collectivist basis are common, and the -change does not disturb any fundamental thing in our -society. When a private Water company or Tramway line is -bought by some town and worked thereafter in the interests -of the public, the transaction is effected without any -perceptible friction, disturbs the life of no private -citizen, and seems in every way normal to the society in -which it takes place. - -Upon the contrary, the attempt to create a large number of -shareholders in such enterprises and artificially to -substitute many partners, distributed throughout a great -number of the population, in the place of the original few -capitalist owners, would prove lengthy and at every step -would arouse opposition, would create disturbance, would -work at an expense of great friction, and would be -imperilled by the power of the new and many owners to sell -again to a few. - -In a word, the man who desires to re-establish property as -an institution normal to most citizens in the State is -*working against the grain* of our existing Capitalist -society, while a man who desires to establish -Socialist---that is Collectivism---is working *with* the -grain of that society. The first is like a physician who -should say to a man whose limbs were partially atrophied -from disuse: "Do this and that, take such and such exercise, -and you will recover the use of your limbs." The second is -like a physician who should say: "You cannot go on as you -are. Your limbs are atrophied from lack of use. Your attempt -to conduct yourself as though they were not is useless and -painful; you had better make up your mind to be wheeled -about in a fashion consonant to your disease." The Physician -is the Reformer, his Patient the Proletariat. - -It is not the purpose of this book to show how and under -what difficulties a condition of well-divided property might -be restored and might take the place (even in England) of -that Capitalism which is now no longer either stable or -tolerable; but for the purposes of contrast and to emphasise -my argument I will proceed, before showing how the -Collectivist unconsciously makes for the Servile State, to -show what difficulties surround the Distributive solution -and why, therefore, the Collectivist solution appeals so -much more readily to men living under Capitalism. - -If I desire to substitute a number of small owners for a few -large ones in some particular enterprise, how shall I set to -work? - -I might boldly confiscate and redistribute at a blow. But by -what process should I choose the new owners? Even supposing -that there was some machinery whereby the justice of the new -distribution could be assured, how could I avoid the -enormous and innumerable separate acts of injustice that -would attach to general redistributions? To say "none shall -own" and to confiscate is one thing; to say "all should own" -and apportion ownership is another. Action of this kind -would so disturb the whole network of economic relations as -to bring ruin at once to the whole body politic, and -particularly to the smaller interests indirectly affected. -In a society such as ours a catastrophe falling upon the -State from outside might indirectly do good by making such a -redistribution possible. But no one working from within the -State could provoke that catastrophe without ruining his own -cause. - -If, then, I proceed more slowly and more rationally and -canalise the economic life of society so that small property -shall gradually be built up within it, see against what -forces of inertia and custom I have to work to-day in a -Capitalist society! - -If I desire to benefit small savings at the expense of -large, I must reverse the whole economy under which interest -is paid upon deposits to-day. It is far easier to save £100 -out of a revenue of £1000 than to save £10 out of a revenue -of £100. It is infinitely easier to save £10 out of a -revenue of £100 than £5 out of a revenue of £50. To build up -small property through thrift when once the Mass have fallen -into the proletarian trough is impossible unless you -deliberately subsidise small savings, offering them a reward -which, in competition, they could never obtain; and to do -this the whole vast arrangement of credit must be worked -backwards. Or, let the policy be pursued of penalising -undertakings with few owners, of heavily taxing large blocks -of shares and of subsidising with the produce small holders -in proportion to the smallness of their holding. Here again -you are met with the difficulty of a vast majority who -cannot even bid for the smallest share. - -One might multiply instances of the sort indefinitely, but -the strongest force against the distribution of ownership in -a society already permeated with Capitalist modes of thought -is still the moral one: Will men want to own? Will -officials, administrators, and law-makers be able to shake -off the power which under Capitalism seems normal to the -rich? If I approach, for instance, the works of one of our -great Trusts, purchase it with public money, bestow, even as -a gift,the shares thereof to its workmen, can I count upon -any tradition of property in their midst which will prevent -their squandering the new wealth? Can I discover any relics -of the co-operative instinct among such men? Could I get -managers and organisers to take a group of poor men -seriously or to serve them as they would serve rich men? Is -not the whole psychology of a Capitalist society divided -between the proletarian mass which thinks in terms not of -property but of "employment," and the few owners who are +For example: the operation of buying out some great tract of private +ownership to-day (as a railway or a harbour company) with public funds, +continuing its administration by publicly paid officials and converting +its revenue to public use, is a thing with which we are familiar and +which seemingly might be indefinitely multiplied. Individual examples of +such transformation of waterworks, gas, tramways, from a Capitalist to a +Collectivist basis are common, and the change does not disturb any +fundamental thing in our society. When a private Water company or +Tramway line is bought by some town and worked thereafter in the +interests of the public, the transaction is effected without any +perceptible friction, disturbs the life of no private citizen, and seems +in every way normal to the society in which it takes place. + +Upon the contrary, the attempt to create a large number of shareholders +in such enterprises and artificially to substitute many partners, +distributed throughout a great number of the population, in the place of +the original few capitalist owners, would prove lengthy and at every +step would arouse opposition, would create disturbance, would work at an +expense of great friction, and would be imperilled by the power of the +new and many owners to sell again to a few. + +In a word, the man who desires to re-establish property as an +institution normal to most citizens in the State is *working against the +grain* of our existing Capitalist society, while a man who desires to +establish Socialist---that is Collectivism---is working *with* the grain +of that society. The first is like a physician who should say to a man +whose limbs were partially atrophied from disuse: "Do this and that, +take such and such exercise, and you will recover the use of your +limbs." The second is like a physician who should say: "You cannot go on +as you are. Your limbs are atrophied from lack of use. Your attempt to +conduct yourself as though they were not is useless and painful; you had +better make up your mind to be wheeled about in a fashion consonant to +your disease." The Physician is the Reformer, his Patient the +Proletariat. + +It is not the purpose of this book to show how and under what +difficulties a condition of well-divided property might be restored and +might take the place (even in England) of that Capitalism which is now +no longer either stable or tolerable; but for the purposes of contrast +and to emphasise my argument I will proceed, before showing how the +Collectivist unconsciously makes for the Servile State, to show what +difficulties surround the Distributive solution and why, therefore, the +Collectivist solution appeals so much more readily to men living under +Capitalism. + +If I desire to substitute a number of small owners for a few large ones +in some particular enterprise, how shall I set to work? + +I might boldly confiscate and redistribute at a blow. But by what +process should I choose the new owners? Even supposing that there was +some machinery whereby the justice of the new distribution could be +assured, how could I avoid the enormous and innumerable separate acts of +injustice that would attach to general redistributions? To say "none +shall own" and to confiscate is one thing; to say "all should own" and +apportion ownership is another. Action of this kind would so disturb the +whole network of economic relations as to bring ruin at once to the +whole body politic, and particularly to the smaller interests indirectly +affected. In a society such as ours a catastrophe falling upon the State +from outside might indirectly do good by making such a redistribution +possible. But no one working from within the State could provoke that +catastrophe without ruining his own cause. + +If, then, I proceed more slowly and more rationally and canalise the +economic life of society so that small property shall gradually be built +up within it, see against what forces of inertia and custom I have to +work to-day in a Capitalist society! + +If I desire to benefit small savings at the expense of large, I must +reverse the whole economy under which interest is paid upon deposits +to-day. It is far easier to save £100 out of a revenue of £1000 than to +save £10 out of a revenue of £100. It is infinitely easier to save £10 +out of a revenue of £100 than £5 out of a revenue of £50. To build up +small property through thrift when once the Mass have fallen into the +proletarian trough is impossible unless you deliberately subsidise small +savings, offering them a reward which, in competition, they could never +obtain; and to do this the whole vast arrangement of credit must be +worked backwards. Or, let the policy be pursued of penalising +undertakings with few owners, of heavily taxing large blocks of shares +and of subsidising with the produce small holders in proportion to the +smallness of their holding. Here again you are met with the difficulty +of a vast majority who cannot even bid for the smallest share. + +One might multiply instances of the sort indefinitely, but the strongest +force against the distribution of ownership in a society already +permeated with Capitalist modes of thought is still the moral one: Will +men want to own? Will officials, administrators, and law-makers be able +to shake off the power which under Capitalism seems normal to the rich? +If I approach, for instance, the works of one of our great Trusts, +purchase it with public money, bestow, even as a gift,the shares thereof +to its workmen, can I count upon any tradition of property in their +midst which will prevent their squandering the new wealth? Can I +discover any relics of the co-operative instinct among such men? Could I +get managers and organisers to take a group of poor men seriously or to +serve them as they would serve rich men? Is not the whole psychology of +a Capitalist society divided between the proletarian mass which thinks +in terms not of property but of "employment," and the few owners who are alone familiar with the machinery of administration? -I have touched but very briefly and superficially upon this -matter, because it needs no elaboration. Though it is -evident that with a sufficient will and a sufficient social -vitality property could be restored, it is evident that all -efforts to restore it have in a Capitalist society such as -our own a note of oddity, of doubtful experiment, of being -uncoordinated with other social things around them, which -marks the heavy handicap under which any such attempt must +I have touched but very briefly and superficially upon this matter, +because it needs no elaboration. Though it is evident that with a +sufficient will and a sufficient social vitality property could be +restored, it is evident that all efforts to restore it have in a +Capitalist society such as our own a note of oddity, of doubtful +experiment, of being uncoordinated with other social things around them, +which marks the heavy handicap under which any such attempt must proceed. It is like recommending elasticity to the aged. -On the other hand, the Collectivist experiment is thoroughly -suited (in appearance at least) to the Capitalist society -which it proposes to replace. It works with the existing -machinery of Capitalism, talks and thinks in the existing -terms of Capitalism, appeals to just those appetites which -Capitalism has aroused, and ridicules as fantastic and -unheard-of just those things in society the memory of which -Capitalism has killed among men wherever the blight of it -has spread. - -So true is all this that the stupider kind of Collectivist -will often talk of a "Capitalist phase" of society as the -necessary precedent to a "Collectivist phase." A trust or -monopoly is welcomed because it "furnishes a mode of -transition from private to public ownership." Collectivism -promises employment to the great mass who think of -production only in terms of employment. It promises to its -workmen the security which a great and well-organised -industrial Capitalist unit (like one of our railways) can -give through a system of pensions, regular promotion, -etc.,but that security vastly increased through the fact -that it is the State and not a mere unit of the State which -guarantees it. Collectivism would administer, would pay -wages, would promote, would pension off, would fine---and -all the rest of it---exactly as the Capitalist State does -to-day. The proletarian, when the Collectivist (or -Socialist) State is put before him, perceives nothing in the -picture save certain ameliorations of his present position. -Who can imagine that if, say, two of our great industries, -Coal and Railways, were handed over to the State to-morrow, -the armies of men organised therein would find any change in -the character of their lives, save in some increase of -security and possibly in a very slight increase of earnings? - -The whole scheme of Collectivism presents, so far as the -proletarian mass of a Capitalist State is concerned, nothing -unknown at all, but a promise of some increment in wages and -a certainty of far greater ease of mind. - -To that small minority of a Capitalist society which owns -the means of production, Collectivism will of course appear -as an enemy, but, even so, it is an enemy which they -understand and an enemy with whom they can treat in terms -common both to that enemy and to themselves. If, for -instance, the State proposes to take over such and such a -trust now paying 4%, and believes that under State -management it will make the trust pay 5%, then the -transference takes the form of a business proposition: the -State is no harder to the Capitalists taken over than was Mr -Yerkes to the Underground. Again, the State, having greater -credit and longevity, can (it would seem)"buy out" any -existing Capitalist body upon favourable terms. Again, the -discipline by which the State would enforce its rules upon -the proletariat it employed would be the same rules as those -by which the Capitalist imposes discipline in his own -interests to-day. - -There is in the whole scheme which proposes to transform the -Capitalist into the Collectivist State no element of -reaction, the use of no term with which a Capitalist society -is not familiar, the appeal to no instinct, whether of -cowardice, greed, apathy, or mechanical regulation, with -which a Capitalist community is not amply familiar. - -In general, if modern Capitalist England were made by magic -a State of small owners, we should all suffer an enormous -revolution. We should marvel at the insolence of the poor, -at the laziness of the contented, at the strange diversities -of task, at the rebellious, vigorous personalities -discernible upon every side. But if this modern Capitalist -England could, by a process sufficiently slow to allow for -the readjustment of individual interests, be transformed -into a Collectivist State, the apparent change at the end of -that transition would not be conspicuous to the most of us, -and the transition itself should have met with no shocks -that theory can discover. The insecure and hopeless margin -below the regularly paid ranks of labour would have -disappeared into isolated workplaces of a penal kind: we -should hardly miss them. Many incomes now involving -considerable duties to the State would have been replaced by -incomes as large or larger, involving much the same duties -and bearing only the newer name of salaries. The small -shop-keeping class would find itself in part absorbed under -public schemes at a salary, in part engaged in the old work -of distribution at secure incomes; and such small owners as -are left, of boats, of farms, even of machinery, would -perhaps know the new state of things into which they had -survived through nothing more novel than some increase in -the irritating system of inspection and of onerous petty -taxation: they are already fairly used to both. - -This picture of the natural transition from Capitalism to -Collectivism seems so obvious that many Collectivists in a -generation immediately past believed that nothing stood -between them and the realisation of their ideal save the -unintelligence of mankind. They had only to argue and -expound patiently and systematically for the great -transformation to become possible. They had only to continue -arguing and expounding for it at last to be realised. - -I say, "of the last generation." To-day that simple and -superficial judgment is getting woefully disturbed. The most -sincere and single-minded of Collectivists cannot but note -that the practical effect of their propaganda is not an -approach towards the Collectivist State at all, but towards -something very different. It is becoming more and more -evident that with every new reform---and those reforms -commonly promoted by particular Socialists, and in a puzzled -way blessed by Socialists in general---another state emerges -more and more clearly. It is becoming increasingly certain -that the attempted transformation of Capitalism into -Collectivism is resulting not in Collectivism at all, but in -some third thing which the Collectivist never dreamt of, or -the Capitalist either; and that third thing is the -**Servile** State: a State, that is, in which the mass of -men shall be constrained *by law* to labour to the profit of -a minority, but, as the price of such constraint, shall -enjoy a security which the old Capitalism did not give them. - -Why is the apparently simple and direct action of -Collectivist reform diverted into so unexpected a channel? -And in what new laws and institutions does modern England in -particular and industrial society in general show that this -new form of the State is upon us? - -To these two questions I will attempt an answer in the two -concluding divisions of this book. +On the other hand, the Collectivist experiment is thoroughly suited (in +appearance at least) to the Capitalist society which it proposes to +replace. It works with the existing machinery of Capitalism, talks and +thinks in the existing terms of Capitalism, appeals to just those +appetites which Capitalism has aroused, and ridicules as fantastic and +unheard-of just those things in society the memory of which Capitalism +has killed among men wherever the blight of it has spread. + +So true is all this that the stupider kind of Collectivist will often +talk of a "Capitalist phase" of society as the necessary precedent to a +"Collectivist phase." A trust or monopoly is welcomed because it +"furnishes a mode of transition from private to public ownership." +Collectivism promises employment to the great mass who think of +production only in terms of employment. It promises to its workmen the +security which a great and well-organised industrial Capitalist unit +(like one of our railways) can give through a system of pensions, +regular promotion, etc.,but that security vastly increased through the +fact that it is the State and not a mere unit of the State which +guarantees it. Collectivism would administer, would pay wages, would +promote, would pension off, would fine---and all the rest of +it---exactly as the Capitalist State does to-day. The proletarian, when +the Collectivist (or Socialist) State is put before him, perceives +nothing in the picture save certain ameliorations of his present +position. Who can imagine that if, say, two of our great industries, +Coal and Railways, were handed over to the State to-morrow, the armies +of men organised therein would find any change in the character of their +lives, save in some increase of security and possibly in a very slight +increase of earnings? + +The whole scheme of Collectivism presents, so far as the proletarian +mass of a Capitalist State is concerned, nothing unknown at all, but a +promise of some increment in wages and a certainty of far greater ease +of mind. + +To that small minority of a Capitalist society which owns the means of +production, Collectivism will of course appear as an enemy, but, even +so, it is an enemy which they understand and an enemy with whom they can +treat in terms common both to that enemy and to themselves. If, for +instance, the State proposes to take over such and such a trust now +paying 4%, and believes that under State management it will make the +trust pay 5%, then the transference takes the form of a business +proposition: the State is no harder to the Capitalists taken over than +was Mr Yerkes to the Underground. Again, the State, having greater +credit and longevity, can (it would seem)"buy out" any existing +Capitalist body upon favourable terms. Again, the discipline by which +the State would enforce its rules upon the proletariat it employed would +be the same rules as those by which the Capitalist imposes discipline in +his own interests to-day. + +There is in the whole scheme which proposes to transform the Capitalist +into the Collectivist State no element of reaction, the use of no term +with which a Capitalist society is not familiar, the appeal to no +instinct, whether of cowardice, greed, apathy, or mechanical regulation, +with which a Capitalist community is not amply familiar. + +In general, if modern Capitalist England were made by magic a State of +small owners, we should all suffer an enormous revolution. We should +marvel at the insolence of the poor, at the laziness of the contented, +at the strange diversities of task, at the rebellious, vigorous +personalities discernible upon every side. But if this modern Capitalist +England could, by a process sufficiently slow to allow for the +readjustment of individual interests, be transformed into a Collectivist +State, the apparent change at the end of that transition would not be +conspicuous to the most of us, and the transition itself should have met +with no shocks that theory can discover. The insecure and hopeless +margin below the regularly paid ranks of labour would have disappeared +into isolated workplaces of a penal kind: we should hardly miss them. +Many incomes now involving considerable duties to the State would have +been replaced by incomes as large or larger, involving much the same +duties and bearing only the newer name of salaries. The small +shop-keeping class would find itself in part absorbed under public +schemes at a salary, in part engaged in the old work of distribution at +secure incomes; and such small owners as are left, of boats, of farms, +even of machinery, would perhaps know the new state of things into which +they had survived through nothing more novel than some increase in the +irritating system of inspection and of onerous petty taxation: they are +already fairly used to both. + +This picture of the natural transition from Capitalism to Collectivism +seems so obvious that many Collectivists in a generation immediately +past believed that nothing stood between them and the realisation of +their ideal save the unintelligence of mankind. They had only to argue +and expound patiently and systematically for the great transformation to +become possible. They had only to continue arguing and expounding for it +at last to be realised. + +I say, "of the last generation." To-day that simple and superficial +judgment is getting woefully disturbed. The most sincere and +single-minded of Collectivists cannot but note that the practical effect +of their propaganda is not an approach towards the Collectivist State at +all, but towards something very different. It is becoming more and more +evident that with every new reform---and those reforms commonly promoted +by particular Socialists, and in a puzzled way blessed by Socialists in +general---another state emerges more and more clearly. It is becoming +increasingly certain that the attempted transformation of Capitalism +into Collectivism is resulting not in Collectivism at all, but in some +third thing which the Collectivist never dreamt of, or the Capitalist +either; and that third thing is the **Servile** State: a State, that is, +in which the mass of men shall be constrained *by law* to labour to the +profit of a minority, but, as the price of such constraint, shall enjoy +a security which the old Capitalism did not give them. + +Why is the apparently simple and direct action of Collectivist reform +diverted into so unexpected a channel? And in what new laws and +institutions does modern England in particular and industrial society in +general show that this new form of the State is upon us? + +To these two questions I will attempt an answer in the two concluding +divisions of this book. # The Reformers And the Reformed Are Alike Making For The Servile State -I propose in this section to show how the three interests -which between them account for nearly the whole of the -forces making for social change in modern England are all -necessarily drifting towards the Servile State. - -Of these three interests the first two represent the -Reformers---the third the people to be Reformed. - -These three interests are, first, the *Socialist*, who is -the theoretical reformer working along the line of least -resistance; secondly, the "*Practical Man*," who as a -"practical" reformer depends on his shortness of sight, and -is therefore to-day a powerful factor; while the third is -that great proletarian mass for whom the change is being -effected, and on whom it is being imposed. What *they* are -most likely to accept, the way in which *they* will react -upon new institutions is the most important factor of all, -for they are the material with and upon which the work is -being done. +I propose in this section to show how the three interests which between +them account for nearly the whole of the forces making for social change +in modern England are all necessarily drifting towards the Servile +State. + +Of these three interests the first two represent the Reformers---the +third the people to be Reformed. + +These three interests are, first, the *Socialist*, who is the +theoretical reformer working along the line of least resistance; +secondly, the "*Practical Man*," who as a "practical" reformer depends +on his shortness of sight, and is therefore to-day a powerful factor; +while the third is that great proletarian mass for whom the change is +being effected, and on whom it is being imposed. What *they* are most +likely to accept, the way in which *they* will react upon new +institutions is the most important factor of all, for they are the +material with and upon which the work is being done. \(1\) Of the *Socialist* Reformer: -I say that men attempting to achieve Collectivism or -Socialism as the remedy for the evils of the Capitalist -State find themselves drifting not towards a Collectivist -State at all, but towards a Servile State. - -The Socialist movement, the first of the three factors in -this drift, is itself made up of two kinds of men: there is -(a) the man who regards the public ownership of the means of -production (and the consequent compulsion of all citizens to -work under the direction of the State) as the only feasible -solution of our modern social ills. There is also (b) the -man who loves the Collectivist ideal in itself, who does not -pursue it so much because it is a solution of modern -Capitalism, as because it is an ordered and regular form of -society which appeals to him in itself. He loves to consider -the ideal of a State in which land and capital shall be held -by public officials who shall order other men about and so -preserve them from the consequences of *their* vice, +I say that men attempting to achieve Collectivism or Socialism as the +remedy for the evils of the Capitalist State find themselves drifting +not towards a Collectivist State at all, but towards a Servile State. + +The Socialist movement, the first of the three factors in this drift, is +itself made up of two kinds of men: there is (a) the man who regards the +public ownership of the means of production (and the consequent +compulsion of all citizens to work under the direction of the State) as +the only feasible solution of our modern social ills. There is also (b) +the man who loves the Collectivist ideal in itself, who does not pursue +it so much because it is a solution of modern Capitalism, as because it +is an ordered and regular form of society which appeals to him in +itself. He loves to consider the ideal of a State in which land and +capital shall be held by public officials who shall order other men +about and so preserve them from the consequences of *their* vice, ignorance, and folly. -These types are perfectly distinct, in many respects -antagonistic, and between them they cover the whole -Socialist movement. - -Now imagine either of these men at issue with the existing -state of Capitalist society and attempting to transform it. -Along what line of least resistance will either be led? - -\(a\) The first type will begin by demanding the -confiscation of the means of production from the hands of -their present owners, and the vesting of them in the State. -But wait a moment. That demand is an exceedingly hard thing -to accomplish. The present owners have between them and -confiscation a stony moral barrier. It is what *most* men -would call the moral basis of property (the instinct that -property is a *right*), and what *all* men would admit to be -at least a deeply rooted tradition. Again, they have behind -them the innumerable complexities of modern ownership. - -To take a very simple case. Decree that all common lands -enclosed since so late a date as 1760 shall revert to the -public. There you have a very moderate case and a very -defensible one. But conceive for a moment how many small -freeholds, what a nexus of obligation and benefit spread -over millions, what thousands of exchanges, what purchases -made upon the difficult savings of small men such a measure -would wreck! It is conceivable, for, in the moral sphere, -society can do anything to society; but it would bring -crashing down with it twenty times the wealth involved and -all the secure credit of our community. In a word, the thing -is, in the conversational use of that term, impossible. So -your best type of Socialist reformer is led to an expedient -which I will here only mention---as it must be separately -considered at length later on account of its fundamental -importance---the expedient of "buying out" the present -owner. - -It is enough to say in this place that the attempt to "buy -out" without confiscation is based upon an economic error. -This I shall prove in its proper place. For the moment I -assume it and pass on to the rest of my reformer's action. - -He does not confiscate, then; at the most he "buys out" (or -attempts to "buy out") certain sections of the means of -production. - -But this action by no means covers the whole of his motive. -By definition the man is out to cure what he sees to be the -great immediate evils of Capitalist society. He is out to -cure the destitution which it causes in great multitudes and -the harrowing insecurity which it imposes upon all. He is -out to substitute for Capitalist society a society in which -men shall all be fed, clothed, housed, and in which men -shall not live in a perpetual jeopardy of their housing, -clothing, and food. +These types are perfectly distinct, in many respects antagonistic, and +between them they cover the whole Socialist movement. + +Now imagine either of these men at issue with the existing state of +Capitalist society and attempting to transform it. Along what line of +least resistance will either be led? + +\(a\) The first type will begin by demanding the confiscation of the +means of production from the hands of their present owners, and the +vesting of them in the State. But wait a moment. That demand is an +exceedingly hard thing to accomplish. The present owners have between +them and confiscation a stony moral barrier. It is what *most* men would +call the moral basis of property (the instinct that property is a +*right*), and what *all* men would admit to be at least a deeply rooted +tradition. Again, they have behind them the innumerable complexities of +modern ownership. + +To take a very simple case. Decree that all common lands enclosed since +so late a date as 1760 shall revert to the public. There you have a very +moderate case and a very defensible one. But conceive for a moment how +many small freeholds, what a nexus of obligation and benefit spread over +millions, what thousands of exchanges, what purchases made upon the +difficult savings of small men such a measure would wreck! It is +conceivable, for, in the moral sphere, society can do anything to +society; but it would bring crashing down with it twenty times the +wealth involved and all the secure credit of our community. In a word, +the thing is, in the conversational use of that term, impossible. So +your best type of Socialist reformer is led to an expedient which I will +here only mention---as it must be separately considered at length later +on account of its fundamental importance---the expedient of "buying out" +the present owner. + +It is enough to say in this place that the attempt to "buy out" without +confiscation is based upon an economic error. This I shall prove in its +proper place. For the moment I assume it and pass on to the rest of my +reformer's action. + +He does not confiscate, then; at the most he "buys out" (or attempts to +"buy out") certain sections of the means of production. + +But this action by no means covers the whole of his motive. By +definition the man is out to cure what he sees to be the great immediate +evils of Capitalist society. He is out to cure the destitution which it +causes in great multitudes and the harrowing insecurity which it imposes +upon all. He is out to substitute for Capitalist society a society in +which men shall all be fed, clothed, housed, and in which men shall not +live in a perpetual jeopardy of their housing, clothing, and food. Well, there is a way of achieving that without confiscation. -This reformer rightly thinks that the ownership of the means -of production by a few has caused the evils which arouse his -indignation and pity. But they have only been so caused on -account of a combination of such limited ownership with -universal freedom. The combination of the two is the very -definition of the Capitalist State. It is difficult indeed -to dispossess the possessors. It is by no means so difficult -(as we shall see again when we are dealing with the mass -whom these changes will principally affect) to modify the -factor of freedom. - -You can say to the Capitalist: "I desire to dispossess you, -and meanwhile I am determined that your employees shall live -tolerable lives." The Capitalist replies: "I refuse to be -dispossessed, and it is, short of catastrophe, impossible to -dispossess me. But if you will define the relation between -my employees and myself, I will undertake particular -responsibilities due to my position. Subject the -proletarian, as a proletarian, and because he is a -proletarian, to special laws. Clothe me, the Capitalist, as -a Capitalist, and because I am a Capitalist, with special -converse duties under those laws. I will faithfully see that -they are obeyed; I will compel my employees to obey them, -and I will undertake the new role imposed upon me by the -State. Nay, T will go further, and I will say that such a -novel arrangement will make my own profits perhaps larger -and certainly more secure." - -This idealist social reformer, therefore, finds the current -of his demand canalised. As to one part of it, confiscation, -it is checked and barred; as to the other, securing human -conditions for the proletariat, the gates are open. Half the -river is dammed by a strong weir, but there is a sluice, and -that sluice can be lifted. Once lifted, the whole force of -the current will run through the opportunity so afforded it; -there will it scour and deepen its channel; there will the -main stream learn to run. - -To drop the metaphor, all those things in the true -Socialist's demand which are compatible with the Servile -State can certainly be achieved. The first steps towards -them are already achieved. They are of such a nature that -upon them can be based a further advance in the same -direction, and the whole Capitalist State can be rapidly and -easily transformed into the Servile State, satisfying in its -transformation the more immediate claims and the more urgent -demands of the social reformer whose ultimate objective -indeed may be the public ownership of capital and land, but -whose driving power is a burning pity for the poverty and +This reformer rightly thinks that the ownership of the means of +production by a few has caused the evils which arouse his indignation +and pity. But they have only been so caused on account of a combination +of such limited ownership with universal freedom. The combination of the +two is the very definition of the Capitalist State. It is difficult +indeed to dispossess the possessors. It is by no means so difficult (as +we shall see again when we are dealing with the mass whom these changes +will principally affect) to modify the factor of freedom. + +You can say to the Capitalist: "I desire to dispossess you, and +meanwhile I am determined that your employees shall live tolerable +lives." The Capitalist replies: "I refuse to be dispossessed, and it is, +short of catastrophe, impossible to dispossess me. But if you will +define the relation between my employees and myself, I will undertake +particular responsibilities due to my position. Subject the proletarian, +as a proletarian, and because he is a proletarian, to special laws. +Clothe me, the Capitalist, as a Capitalist, and because I am a +Capitalist, with special converse duties under those laws. I will +faithfully see that they are obeyed; I will compel my employees to obey +them, and I will undertake the new role imposed upon me by the State. +Nay, T will go further, and I will say that such a novel arrangement +will make my own profits perhaps larger and certainly more secure." + +This idealist social reformer, therefore, finds the current of his +demand canalised. As to one part of it, confiscation, it is checked and +barred; as to the other, securing human conditions for the proletariat, +the gates are open. Half the river is dammed by a strong weir, but there +is a sluice, and that sluice can be lifted. Once lifted, the whole force +of the current will run through the opportunity so afforded it; there +will it scour and deepen its channel; there will the main stream learn +to run. + +To drop the metaphor, all those things in the true Socialist's demand +which are compatible with the Servile State can certainly be achieved. +The first steps towards them are already achieved. They are of such a +nature that upon them can be based a further advance in the same +direction, and the whole Capitalist State can be rapidly and easily +transformed into the Servile State, satisfying in its transformation the +more immediate claims and the more urgent demands of the social reformer +whose ultimate objective indeed may be the public ownership of capital +and land, but whose driving power is a burning pity for the poverty and peril of the masses. -When the transformation is complete there will be no ground -left, nor any demand or necessity, for public ownership. The -reformer only asked for it in order to secure security and -sufficiency: he has obtained his demand. - -Here are security and sufficiency achieved by another and -much easier method, consonant with and proceeding from the -Capitalist phase immediately preceding it: there is no need -to go further. - -In this way the Socialist whose motive is human good and not -mere organisation is being shepherded in spite of himself -*away* from his Collectivist ideal and *towards* a society -in which the possessors shall remain possessed, the -dispossessed shall remain dispossessed, in which the mass of -men shall still work for the advantage of a few, and in -which those few shall still enjoy the surplus values -produced by labour, but in which the special evils of -insecurity and insufficiency, in the main the product of -freedom, have been eliminated by the destruction of freedom. - -At the end of the process you will have two kinds of men, -the owners economically free, and controlling to their peace -and to the guarantee of their livelihood the economically -unfree non-owners. But that is the Servile State. - -\(b\) The second type of socialist reformer may be dealt -with more briefly. In him the exploitation of man by man -excites no indignation. Indeed, he is not of a type to which -indignation or any other lively passion is familiar. Tables, -statistics, an exact framework for life these afford him the -food that satisfies his moral appetite; the occupation most -congenial to him is the "running" of men: as a machine is -run. +When the transformation is complete there will be no ground left, nor +any demand or necessity, for public ownership. The reformer only asked +for it in order to secure security and sufficiency: he has obtained his +demand. + +Here are security and sufficiency achieved by another and much easier +method, consonant with and proceeding from the Capitalist phase +immediately preceding it: there is no need to go further. + +In this way the Socialist whose motive is human good and not mere +organisation is being shepherded in spite of himself *away* from his +Collectivist ideal and *towards* a society in which the possessors shall +remain possessed, the dispossessed shall remain dispossessed, in which +the mass of men shall still work for the advantage of a few, and in +which those few shall still enjoy the surplus values produced by labour, +but in which the special evils of insecurity and insufficiency, in the +main the product of freedom, have been eliminated by the destruction of +freedom. + +At the end of the process you will have two kinds of men, the owners +economically free, and controlling to their peace and to the guarantee +of their livelihood the economically unfree non-owners. But that is the +Servile State. + +\(b\) The second type of socialist reformer may be dealt with more +briefly. In him the exploitation of man by man excites no indignation. +Indeed, he is not of a type to which indignation or any other lively +passion is familiar. Tables, statistics, an exact framework for life +these afford him the food that satisfies his moral appetite; the +occupation most congenial to him is the "running" of men: as a machine +is run. To such a man the Collectivist ideal particularly appeals. -It is orderly in the extreme. All that human and organic -complexity which is the colour of any vital society offends -him by its infinite differentiation. He is disturbed by -multitudinous things; and the prospect of a vast bureaucracy -wherein the whole of life shall be scheduled and appointed -to certain simple schemes deriving from the co-ordinate work -of public clerks and marshalled by powerful heads of +It is orderly in the extreme. All that human and organic complexity +which is the colour of any vital society offends him by its infinite +differentiation. He is disturbed by multitudinous things; and the +prospect of a vast bureaucracy wherein the whole of life shall be +scheduled and appointed to certain simple schemes deriving from the +co-ordinate work of public clerks and marshalled by powerful heads of departments gives his small stomach a final satisfaction. -Now this man, like the other, would prefer to begin with -public property in capital and land, and upon that basis to -erect the formal scheme which so suits his peculiar -temperament. (It need hardly be said that in his vision of a -future society he conceives of himself as the head of at -least a department and possibly of the whole State---but -that is by the way.) But while he would prefer to begin with -a Collectivist scheme ready-made, he finds in practice that -he cannot do so. He would have to confiscate just as the -more hearty Socialist would; and if that act is very -difficult to the man burning at the sight of human -wrongs.how much more difficult is it to a man impelled by no -such motive force and directed by nothing more intense than -a mechanical appetite for regulation? - -He cannot confiscate or begin to confiscate. At the best he -will "buy out" the Capitalist. - -Now, in his case, as in the case of the more human -Socialist, "buying out" is, as I shall show in its proper -place, a system impossible of general application. - -But all those other things for which such a man cares much -more than he does for the socialisation of the means of -production---tabulation, detailed administration of men, the -co-ordination of many efforts under one schedule, the -elimination of all private power to react against his -Department, all these are immediately obtainable without -disturbing the existing arrangement of society. With him, -precisely as with the other socialist, what he desires can -be reached without any dispossession of the few existing -possessors. He has but to secure the registration of the -proletariat; next to ensure that neither they in the -exercise of their freedom, nor the employer in the exercise -of his, can produce insufficiency or insecurity---and he is -content. Let laws exist which make the proper housing, -feeding, clothing, and recreation of the proletarian mass be -incumbent upon the possessing class, and the observance of -such rules be imposed, by inspection and punishment, upon -those whom he pretends to benefit, and all that he really -cares for will be achieved. - -To such a man the Servile State is hardly a thing towards -which he drifts, it is rather a tolerable alternative to his -ideal Collectivist State, which alternative he is quite -prepared to accept and regards favourably. Already the -greater part of such reformers who, a generation ago, would -have called themselves "Socialists" are now less concerned -with any scheme for socialising Capital and Land than with -innumerable schemes actually existing, some of them -possessing already the force of laws, for regulating, -"running," and drilling the proletariat without trenching by -an inch upon the privilege in implements, stores, and land +Now this man, like the other, would prefer to begin with public property +in capital and land, and upon that basis to erect the formal scheme +which so suits his peculiar temperament. (It need hardly be said that in +his vision of a future society he conceives of himself as the head of at +least a department and possibly of the whole State---but that is by the +way.) But while he would prefer to begin with a Collectivist scheme +ready-made, he finds in practice that he cannot do so. He would have to +confiscate just as the more hearty Socialist would; and if that act is +very difficult to the man burning at the sight of human wrongs.how much +more difficult is it to a man impelled by no such motive force and +directed by nothing more intense than a mechanical appetite for +regulation? + +He cannot confiscate or begin to confiscate. At the best he will "buy +out" the Capitalist. + +Now, in his case, as in the case of the more human Socialist, "buying +out" is, as I shall show in its proper place, a system impossible of +general application. + +But all those other things for which such a man cares much more than he +does for the socialisation of the means of production---tabulation, +detailed administration of men, the co-ordination of many efforts under +one schedule, the elimination of all private power to react against his +Department, all these are immediately obtainable without disturbing the +existing arrangement of society. With him, precisely as with the other +socialist, what he desires can be reached without any dispossession of +the few existing possessors. He has but to secure the registration of +the proletariat; next to ensure that neither they in the exercise of +their freedom, nor the employer in the exercise of his, can produce +insufficiency or insecurity---and he is content. Let laws exist which +make the proper housing, feeding, clothing, and recreation of the +proletarian mass be incumbent upon the possessing class, and the +observance of such rules be imposed, by inspection and punishment, upon +those whom he pretends to benefit, and all that he really cares for will +be achieved. + +To such a man the Servile State is hardly a thing towards which he +drifts, it is rather a tolerable alternative to his ideal Collectivist +State, which alternative he is quite prepared to accept and regards +favourably. Already the greater part of such reformers who, a generation +ago, would have called themselves "Socialists" are now less concerned +with any scheme for socialising Capital and Land than with innumerable +schemes actually existing, some of them possessing already the force of +laws, for regulating, "running," and drilling the proletariat without +trenching by an inch upon the privilege in implements, stores, and land enjoyed by the small Capitalist class. -The so-called "Socialist" of this type has not fall into the -Servile State by a miscalculation. He has fathered it; he -welcomes its birth, he foresees his power over its future. +The so-called "Socialist" of this type has not fall into the Servile +State by a miscalculation. He has fathered it; he welcomes its birth, he +foresees his power over its future. -So much for the Socialist movement, which a generation ago -proposed to transform our Capitalist society into one where -the community should be the universal owner and all men -equally economically free or unfree under its tutelage. -To-day their ideal has failed, and of the two sources whence -their energy proceeded, the one is reluctantly, the other -gladly, acquiescent in the advent of a society which is not -Socialist at all but Servile. +So much for the Socialist movement, which a generation ago proposed to +transform our Capitalist society into one where the community should be +the universal owner and all men equally economically free or unfree +under its tutelage. To-day their ideal has failed, and of the two +sources whence their energy proceeded, the one is reluctantly, the other +gladly, acquiescent in the advent of a society which is not Socialist at +all but Servile. \(2\) Of the *Practical* Reformer: -There is another type of Reformer, one who prides himself on -*not* being a socialist, and one of the greatest weight -to-day. He also is making for the Servile State. This second -factor in the change is the "Practical Man"; and this fool, -on account of his great numbers and determining influence in -the details of legislation, must be carefully examined. - -It is your "Practical Man" who says: "Whatever you theorists -and doctrinaires may hold with regard to this proposal -(which I support), though it may offend some abstract dogma -of yours, yet *in practice* you must admit that it does -good. If you had *practical* experience of the misery of the -Jones' family, or had done *practical* work yourself in +There is another type of Reformer, one who prides himself on *not* being +a socialist, and one of the greatest weight to-day. He also is making +for the Servile State. This second factor in the change is the +"Practical Man"; and this fool, on account of his great numbers and +determining influence in the details of legislation, must be carefully +examined. + +It is your "Practical Man" who says: "Whatever you theorists and +doctrinaires may hold with regard to this proposal (which I support), +though it may offend some abstract dogma of yours, yet *in practice* you +must admit that it does good. If you had *practical* experience of the +misery of the Jones' family, or had done *practical* work yourself in Pudsey, you would have seen that a *practical* man," etc. -It is not difficult to discern that the Practical Man in -social reform is exactly the same animal as the Practical -Man in every other department of human energy, and may be -discovered suffering from the same twin disabilities which -stamp the Practical Man wherever found: these twin -disabilities are an inability to define his own first -principles and an inability to follow the consequences -proceeding from his own action. Both these disabilities -proceed from one simple and deplorable form of impotence, -the inability to think. - -Let us help the Practical Man in his weakness and do a -little thinking for him. - -As a social reformer he has of course (though he does not -know it) first principles and dogmas like all the rest of -us, and *his* first principles and dogmas are exactly the -same as those which his intellectual superiors hold in the -matter of social reform. The two things intolerable to him -as a decent citizen (though a very stupid human being) are -*insufficiency* and *insecurity*. When he was "working" in -the slums of Pudsey or raiding the proletarian Jones's from -the secure base of Toynbee Hall, what shocked the worthy man -most was "unemployment" and "destitution": that is, -insecurity and insufficiency in flesh and blood. - -Now, if the Socialist who has thought out his case, whether -as a mere organiser or as a man hungering and thirsting -after justice, is led away from Socialism and towards the -Servile State by the force of modern things in England, how -much more easily do you not think the "Practical Man" will -be conducted towards that same Servile State like any donkey -to his grazing ground? To those dull and short-sighted eyes -the immediate solution which even the beginnings of the -Servile State propose are what a declivity is to a piece of -brainless matter. The piece of brainless matter rolls down -the declivity, and the Practical Man lollops from Capitalism -to the Servile State with the same inevitable ease. Jones -has not got enough. If you give him something in charity, -that something will be soon consumed, and then Jones will -again not have enough. Jones has been seven weeks out of -work. If you get him work "under our unorganised and -wasteful system, etc.," he may lose it just as he lost his -first jobs. The slums of Pudsey, as the Practical Man knows -by Practical experience, are often unemployable. Then there -are "the ravages of drink": more fatal still the dreadful -habit mankind has of forming families and breeding children. -The worthy fellow notes that "as a practical matter of fact -such men do not work unless you make them." - -He does not, because he cannot, co-ordinate all these -things. He knows nothing of a society in which free men were -once owners, nor of the co-operative and instinctive -institutions for the protection of ownership which such a -society spontaneously breeds. He "takes the world as he -finds it" and the consequence is that whereas men of greater -capacity may admit with different degrees of reluctance the -general principles of the Servile State, *he*, the Practical -Man, positively gloats on every new detail in the building -up of that form of society. And the destruction of freedom -by inches (though he does not see it to be the destruction -of freedom) is the one panacea so obvious that he marvels at -the doctrinaires who resist or suspect the process. - -It has been necessary to waste so much time on this -deplorable individual because the circumstances of our -generation give him a peculiar power. Under the conditions -of modern exchange a man of that sort enjoys great -advantages. He is to be found as he never was in any other -society before our own, possessed of wealth, and political -as never was any such citizen until our time. Of history -with all its lessons; of the great schemes of philosophy and -religion, of human nature itself he is blank. - -The Practical Man left to himself would not produce a welter -of anarchic restrictions which would lead at last to some -kind of revolt. - -Unfortunately, he is not left to himself. He is but the ally -or flanking party of great forces which he does nothing to -oppose, and of particular men, able and prepared for the -work of general change, who use him with gratitude and -contempt. Were he not so numerous in modern England, and, +It is not difficult to discern that the Practical Man in social reform +is exactly the same animal as the Practical Man in every other +department of human energy, and may be discovered suffering from the +same twin disabilities which stamp the Practical Man wherever found: +these twin disabilities are an inability to define his own first +principles and an inability to follow the consequences proceeding from +his own action. Both these disabilities proceed from one simple and +deplorable form of impotence, the inability to think. + +Let us help the Practical Man in his weakness and do a little thinking +for him. + +As a social reformer he has of course (though he does not know it) first +principles and dogmas like all the rest of us, and *his* first +principles and dogmas are exactly the same as those which his +intellectual superiors hold in the matter of social reform. The two +things intolerable to him as a decent citizen (though a very stupid +human being) are *insufficiency* and *insecurity*. When he was "working" +in the slums of Pudsey or raiding the proletarian Jones's from the +secure base of Toynbee Hall, what shocked the worthy man most was +"unemployment" and "destitution": that is, insecurity and insufficiency +in flesh and blood. + +Now, if the Socialist who has thought out his case, whether as a mere +organiser or as a man hungering and thirsting after justice, is led away +from Socialism and towards the Servile State by the force of modern +things in England, how much more easily do you not think the "Practical +Man" will be conducted towards that same Servile State like any donkey +to his grazing ground? To those dull and short-sighted eyes the +immediate solution which even the beginnings of the Servile State +propose are what a declivity is to a piece of brainless matter. The +piece of brainless matter rolls down the declivity, and the Practical +Man lollops from Capitalism to the Servile State with the same +inevitable ease. Jones has not got enough. If you give him something in +charity, that something will be soon consumed, and then Jones will again +not have enough. Jones has been seven weeks out of work. If you get him +work "under our unorganised and wasteful system, etc.," he may lose it +just as he lost his first jobs. The slums of Pudsey, as the Practical +Man knows by Practical experience, are often unemployable. Then there +are "the ravages of drink": more fatal still the dreadful habit mankind +has of forming families and breeding children. The worthy fellow notes +that "as a practical matter of fact such men do not work unless you make +them." + +He does not, because he cannot, co-ordinate all these things. He knows +nothing of a society in which free men were once owners, nor of the +co-operative and instinctive institutions for the protection of +ownership which such a society spontaneously breeds. He "takes the world +as he finds it" and the consequence is that whereas men of greater +capacity may admit with different degrees of reluctance the general +principles of the Servile State, *he*, the Practical Man, positively +gloats on every new detail in the building up of that form of society. +And the destruction of freedom by inches (though he does not see it to +be the destruction of freedom) is the one panacea so obvious that he +marvels at the doctrinaires who resist or suspect the process. + +It has been necessary to waste so much time on this deplorable +individual because the circumstances of our generation give him a +peculiar power. Under the conditions of modern exchange a man of that +sort enjoys great advantages. He is to be found as he never was in any +other society before our own, possessed of wealth, and political as +never was any such citizen until our time. Of history with all its +lessons; of the great schemes of philosophy and religion, of human +nature itself he is blank. + +The Practical Man left to himself would not produce a welter of anarchic +restrictions which would lead at last to some kind of revolt. + +Unfortunately, he is not left to himself. He is but the ally or flanking +party of great forces which he does nothing to oppose, and of particular +men, able and prepared for the work of general change, who use him with +gratitude and contempt. Were he not so numerous in modern England, and, under the extraordinary conditions of a Capitalist State, so -economically powerful, I would have neglected him in this -analysis. As it is, we may console ourselves by remembering -that the advent of the Servile State, with its powerful -organisation and necessity for lucid thought in those who -govern, will certainly eliminate him. - -Our reformers, then, both those who think and those who do -not, both those who are conscious of the process and those -who are unconscious of it, are making directly for the -Servile State. - -\(3\) What of the third factor? What of the people about to -be reformed? What of the millions upon whose carcasses the -reformers are at work, and who are the subject of the great -experiment? Do they tend, as material, to accept or to -reject that transformation from free proletarianism to +economically powerful, I would have neglected him in this analysis. As +it is, we may console ourselves by remembering that the advent of the +Servile State, with its powerful organisation and necessity for lucid +thought in those who govern, will certainly eliminate him. + +Our reformers, then, both those who think and those who do not, both +those who are conscious of the process and those who are unconscious of +it, are making directly for the Servile State. + +\(3\) What of the third factor? What of the people about to be reformed? +What of the millions upon whose carcasses the reformers are at work, and +who are the subject of the great experiment? Do they tend, as material, +to accept or to reject that transformation from free proletarianism to servitude which is the argument of this book? -The question is an important one to decide, for upon whether -the material is suitable or unsuitable for the work to which -it is subjected, depends the success of every experiment -making for the Servile State. The mass of men in the -Capitalist State is proletarian. As a matter of definition, -the actual number of the proletariat and the proportion that -number bears to the total number of families in the State -may vary, but must be sufficient to determine the general -character of the State before we can call that State -*Capitalist*. - -But, as we have seen, the Capitalist State is not a stable, -and therefore not a permanent, condition of society. It has -proved ephemeral; and upon that very account the proletariat -in any Capitalist State retains to a greater or less degree -some memories of a state of society in which its ancestors -were possessors of property and economically free. - -The strength of this memory or tradition is the first -element we have to bear in mind in our problem, when we -examine how far a particular proletariat, such as the -English proletariat to-day, is ready to accept the Servile -State, which would condemn it to a perpetual loss of +The question is an important one to decide, for upon whether the +material is suitable or unsuitable for the work to which it is +subjected, depends the success of every experiment making for the +Servile State. The mass of men in the Capitalist State is proletarian. +As a matter of definition, the actual number of the proletariat and the +proportion that number bears to the total number of families in the +State may vary, but must be sufficient to determine the general +character of the State before we can call that State *Capitalist*. + +But, as we have seen, the Capitalist State is not a stable, and +therefore not a permanent, condition of society. It has proved +ephemeral; and upon that very account the proletariat in any Capitalist +State retains to a greater or less degree some memories of a state of +society in which its ancestors were possessors of property and +economically free. + +The strength of this memory or tradition is the first element we have to +bear in mind in our problem, when we examine how far a particular +proletariat, such as the English proletariat to-day, is ready to accept +the Servile State, which would condemn it to a perpetual loss of property and of all the free habit which property engenders. -Next be it noted that under conditions of freedom the -Capitalist class may be entered by the more cunning or the -more fortunate of the proletariat class. Recruitment of the -kind was originally sufficiently common in the first -development of Capitalism to be a standing feature in -society and to impress the imagination of the general. Such -recruitment is still possible. The proportion which it bears -to the whole proletariat, the chance which each member of -the proletariat may think he has of escaping from his -proletarian condition in a particular phase of Capitalism -such as is ours to-day, is the second factor in the problem. - -The third factor, and by far the greatest of all, is the -appetite of the dispossessed for that security and -sufficiency of which Capitalism, with its essential -condition of freedom, has deprived them. - -Now let us consider the interplay of these three factors in -the English proletariat as we actually know it at this -moment. That proletariat is certainly the, great mass of the -State: it covers about nineteen-twentieths of the -population---if we exclude Ireland, where, as I shall point -out in my concluding pages, the reaction against Capitalism, -and therefore against its development towards a Servile +Next be it noted that under conditions of freedom the Capitalist class +may be entered by the more cunning or the more fortunate of the +proletariat class. Recruitment of the kind was originally sufficiently +common in the first development of Capitalism to be a standing feature +in society and to impress the imagination of the general. Such +recruitment is still possible. The proportion which it bears to the +whole proletariat, the chance which each member of the proletariat may +think he has of escaping from his proletarian condition in a particular +phase of Capitalism such as is ours to-day, is the second factor in the +problem. + +The third factor, and by far the greatest of all, is the appetite of the +dispossessed for that security and sufficiency of which Capitalism, with +its essential condition of freedom, has deprived them. + +Now let us consider the interplay of these three factors in the English +proletariat as we actually know it at this moment. That proletariat is +certainly the, great mass of the State: it covers about +nineteen-twentieths of the population---if we exclude Ireland, where, as +I shall point out in my concluding pages, the reaction against +Capitalism, and therefore against its development towards a Servile State, is already successful. -As to the first factor, it has changed very rapidly within -the memory of men now living. The traditional rights of -property are still strong in the minds of the English poor. -All the moral connotations of that right are familiar to -them. They are familiar with the conception of theft as a -wrong; they are tenacious of any scraps of property which -they may acquire. They could all explain what is meant by -ownership, by legacy, by exchange, and by gift, and even by -contract. There is not one but could put himself in the -position, mentally, of an owner. - -But the actual experience of ownership, and the effect which -that experience has upon character and upon one's view of -the State is a very different matter. Within the memory of -people still living a sufficient number of Englishmen were -owning (as small free-holders, small masters, etc.) to give -to the institution of property coupled with freedom a very -vivid effect upon the popular mind. More than this, there -was a living tradition proceeding from the lips of men who -could still bear living testimony to the relics of a better -state of things. I have myself spoken, when I was a boy, to -old labourers in the neighbourhood of Oxford who had risked -their skins in armed protest against the enclosure of -certain commons, and who had of course suffered imprisonment -by a wealthy judge as the reward of their courage; and I -have my self spoken in Lancashire to old men who could -retrace for me, either from their personal experience the -last phases of small ownership in the textile trade, or, -from what their fathers had told them, the conditions of a -time when small and well-divided ownership in cottage looms -was actually common. - -All that has passed. The last chapter of its passage has -been singularly rapid. Roughly speaking, it is the -generation brought up under the Education Acts of the last -forty years which has grown up definitely and hopelessly -proletarian. The present instinct, use, and meaning of -property is lost to it: and this has had two very powerful -effects, each strongly inclining our modern wage-earners to -ignore the old barriers which lay between a condition of -servitude and a condition of freedom. The first effect is -this: that property is no longer what they seek, nor what -they think obtainable for themselves. The second effect is -that they regard the possessors of property as a class -apart, whom they always must ultimately obey, often envy, -and sometimes hate; whose moral right to so singular a -position most of them would hesitate to concede, and many of -them would now strongly deny, but whose position they, at -any rate, accept as a known and permanent social fact, the -origins of which they have forgotten, and the foundations of -which they believe to be immemorial. - -To sum up: The attitude of the proletariat in England to-day -(the attitude of the overwhelming majority, that is, of -English families) towards property and towards that freedom -which is alone obtainable through property is no longer an -attitude of experience or of expectation. They think of -themselves as wage-earners. To increase the weekly stipend -of the wage-earner is an object which they vividly -appreciate and pursue. To make him cease to be a wage-earner -is an object that would seem to them entirely outside the -realities of life. - -What of the second factor, the gambling chance which the -Capitalist system, with its necessary condition of freedom, -of the legal power to bargain fully, and so forth, permits -to the proletarian of escaping from his proletariat -surroundings? - -Of this gambling chance and the effect it has upon men's -minds we may say that, while it has not disappeared, it has -very greatly lost in force during the last forty years. One -often meets men who tell one, whether they are speaking in -defence of or against the Capitalist system, that it still -blinds the proletarian to any common consciousness of class, -because the proletarian still has the example before him of -members of his class, whom he has known, rising (usually by -various forms of villainy) to the position of capitalist. -But when one goes down among the working men themselves, one -discovers that the hope of such a change in the mind of any -individual worker is now exceedingly remote. Millions of men -in great groups of industry, notably in the transport -industry and in the mines, have quite given up such an -expectation. Tiny as the chance ever was, exaggerated as the -hopes in a lottery always are, that tiny chance has fallen -in the general opinion of the workers to be negligible, and -that hope which a lottery breeds is extinguished. The -proletarian now regards himself as definitely proletarian, -nor destined within human likelihood to be anything but -proletarian. - -These two factors, then, the memory of an older condition of -economic freedom, and the effect of a hope individuals might -entertain of escaping from the wage-earning class, the two -factors which might act most strongly *against* the -acceptation of the Servile State by that class, have so -fallen in value that they offer but little opposition to the -third factor in the situation which is making so strongly -*for* the Servile State, and which consists in the necessity -all men acutely feel for sufficiency and for security. It is -this third factor alone which need be seriously considered -to-day, when we ask ourselves how far the material upon -which social reform is working, that is, the masses of the +As to the first factor, it has changed very rapidly within the memory of +men now living. The traditional rights of property are still strong in +the minds of the English poor. All the moral connotations of that right +are familiar to them. They are familiar with the conception of theft as +a wrong; they are tenacious of any scraps of property which they may +acquire. They could all explain what is meant by ownership, by legacy, +by exchange, and by gift, and even by contract. There is not one but +could put himself in the position, mentally, of an owner. + +But the actual experience of ownership, and the effect which that +experience has upon character and upon one's view of the State is a very +different matter. Within the memory of people still living a sufficient +number of Englishmen were owning (as small free-holders, small masters, +etc.) to give to the institution of property coupled with freedom a very +vivid effect upon the popular mind. More than this, there was a living +tradition proceeding from the lips of men who could still bear living +testimony to the relics of a better state of things. I have myself +spoken, when I was a boy, to old labourers in the neighbourhood of +Oxford who had risked their skins in armed protest against the enclosure +of certain commons, and who had of course suffered imprisonment by a +wealthy judge as the reward of their courage; and I have my self spoken +in Lancashire to old men who could retrace for me, either from their +personal experience the last phases of small ownership in the textile +trade, or, from what their fathers had told them, the conditions of a +time when small and well-divided ownership in cottage looms was actually +common. + +All that has passed. The last chapter of its passage has been singularly +rapid. Roughly speaking, it is the generation brought up under the +Education Acts of the last forty years which has grown up definitely and +hopelessly proletarian. The present instinct, use, and meaning of +property is lost to it: and this has had two very powerful effects, each +strongly inclining our modern wage-earners to ignore the old barriers +which lay between a condition of servitude and a condition of freedom. +The first effect is this: that property is no longer what they seek, nor +what they think obtainable for themselves. The second effect is that +they regard the possessors of property as a class apart, whom they +always must ultimately obey, often envy, and sometimes hate; whose moral +right to so singular a position most of them would hesitate to concede, +and many of them would now strongly deny, but whose position they, at +any rate, accept as a known and permanent social fact, the origins of +which they have forgotten, and the foundations of which they believe to +be immemorial. + +To sum up: The attitude of the proletariat in England to-day (the +attitude of the overwhelming majority, that is, of English families) +towards property and towards that freedom which is alone obtainable +through property is no longer an attitude of experience or of +expectation. They think of themselves as wage-earners. To increase the +weekly stipend of the wage-earner is an object which they vividly +appreciate and pursue. To make him cease to be a wage-earner is an +object that would seem to them entirely outside the realities of life. + +What of the second factor, the gambling chance which the Capitalist +system, with its necessary condition of freedom, of the legal power to +bargain fully, and so forth, permits to the proletarian of escaping from +his proletariat surroundings? + +Of this gambling chance and the effect it has upon men's minds we may +say that, while it has not disappeared, it has very greatly lost in +force during the last forty years. One often meets men who tell one, +whether they are speaking in defence of or against the Capitalist +system, that it still blinds the proletarian to any common consciousness +of class, because the proletarian still has the example before him of +members of his class, whom he has known, rising (usually by various +forms of villainy) to the position of capitalist. But when one goes down +among the working men themselves, one discovers that the hope of such a +change in the mind of any individual worker is now exceedingly remote. +Millions of men in great groups of industry, notably in the transport +industry and in the mines, have quite given up such an expectation. Tiny +as the chance ever was, exaggerated as the hopes in a lottery always +are, that tiny chance has fallen in the general opinion of the workers +to be negligible, and that hope which a lottery breeds is extinguished. +The proletarian now regards himself as definitely proletarian, nor +destined within human likelihood to be anything but proletarian. + +These two factors, then, the memory of an older condition of economic +freedom, and the effect of a hope individuals might entertain of +escaping from the wage-earning class, the two factors which might act +most strongly *against* the acceptation of the Servile State by that +class, have so fallen in value that they offer but little opposition to +the third factor in the situation which is making so strongly *for* the +Servile State, and which consists in the necessity all men acutely feel +for sufficiency and for security. It is this third factor alone which +need be seriously considered to-day, when we ask ourselves how far the +material upon which social reform is working, that is, the masses of the people, may be ready to accept the change. -The thing may be put in many ways. I will put it in what I -believe to be the most conclusive of all. - -If you were to approach those millions of families now -living at a wage, with the proposal for a contract of -service for life, guaranteeing them employment at what each -regarded as his usual full wage, how many would refuse? - -Such a contract would, of course, involve a loss of freedom: -a life-contract of the kind is, to be accurate, no contract -at all. It is the negation of contract and the acceptation -of status. It would lay the man that undertook it under an -obligation of forced labour, coterminous and coincident with -his power to labour. It would be a permanent renunciation of -his right (if such a right exists) to the surplus values -created by his labour. If we ask ourselves how many men, or -rather how many families, would prefer freedom (with its -accompaniments of certain insecurity and possible -insufficiency) to such a life-contract, no one can deny that -the answer is: "Very few would refuse it." That is the key +The thing may be put in many ways. I will put it in what I believe to be +the most conclusive of all. + +If you were to approach those millions of families now living at a wage, +with the proposal for a contract of service for life, guaranteeing them +employment at what each regarded as his usual full wage, how many would +refuse? + +Such a contract would, of course, involve a loss of freedom: a +life-contract of the kind is, to be accurate, no contract at all. It is +the negation of contract and the acceptation of status. It would lay the +man that undertook it under an obligation of forced labour, coterminous +and coincident with his power to labour. It would be a permanent +renunciation of his right (if such a right exists) to the surplus values +created by his labour. If we ask ourselves how many men, or rather how +many families, would prefer freedom (with its accompaniments of certain +insecurity and possible insufficiency) to such a life-contract, no one +can deny that the answer is: "Very few would refuse it." That is the key to the whole matter. -What proportion would refuse it no one can determine; but I -say that even as a voluntary offer, and not as a compulsory -obligation, a contract of this sort which would for the -future destroy contract and re-erect status of a servile -sort would be thought a boon by the mass of the proletariat -to-day. - -Now take the truth from another aspect---by considering it -thus from one point of view and from another we can -appreciate it best---Of what are the mass of men now most -afraid in a Capitalist State? Not of the punishments that -can be inflicted by a Court of Law, but of "the sack." - -You may ask a man why he does not resist such and such a -legal infamy; why he permits himself to be the victim of -fines and deductions from which the Truck Acts specifically -protect him; why he cannot assert his opinion in this or -that matter; why he has accepted, without a blow, such and -such an insult. Some generations ago a man challenged to -tell you why he forswore his manhood in any particular -regard would have answered you that it was because he feared -punishment at the hands of the law; to-day he will tell you -that it is because he fears unemployment. - -Private law has for the second time in our long European -story overcome public law, and the sanctions which the -Capitalist can call to the aid of his private rule, by the -action of his private will, are stronger than those which -the public Courts can impose. - -In the seventeenth century a man feared to go to Mass lest -the judges should punish him. To-day a, man fears to speak -in favour of some social theory which he holds to be just -and true lest his master should punish him. To deny the rule -of public powers once involved public punishments which most -men dreaded, though some stood out. To deny the rule of -private powers involves to-day a private punishment against -the threat of which very few indeed dare to stand out. - -Look at the matter from yet another aspect. A law is passed -(let us suppose) which increases the total revenue of a -wage-earner, or guarantees him against the insecurity of his -position in some small degree. The administration of that -law requires, upon the one hand, a close inquisition into -the man's circumstances by public officials, and, upon the -other hand, the administration of its benefits by that -particular Capitalist or group of Capitalists whom the -wage-earner serves to enrich. Do the Servile conditions -attaching to this material benefit prevent a proletarian in -England to-day from preferring the benefit to freedom? It is -notorious that they do not. - -No matter from what angle you approach the business, the -truth is always the same. That great mass of wage-earners -upon which our society now reposes understands as a present -good all that will increase even to some small amount their -present revenue and all that may guarantee them against -those perils of insecurity to which they are perpetually -subject. They understand and welcome a good of this kind, -and they are perfectly willing to pay for that good the -corresponding price of control and enregimentation, -exercised in gradually increasing degree by those who are -their paymasters. - -It would be easy by substituting superficial for fundamental -things, or even by proposing certain terms and phrases to be -used in the place of terms and phrases now current it would -be easy, I say, by such methods to ridicule or to oppose the -prime truths which I am here submitting. They none the less -remain truths. - -Substitute for the term "employee" in one of our new laws -the term "serf," even do so mild a thing as to substitute -the traditional term "master" for the word "employer," and -the blunt words might breed revolt. Impose of a sudden the -full conditions of a Servile State upon modern England, and -it would certainly breed revolt But my point is that when -the foundations of the thing have to be laid and the first -great steps taken, there is no revolt; on the contrary, -there is acquiescence and for the most part gratitude upon -the part of the poor. After the long terrors imposed upon -them through a freedom unaccompanied by property, they see, -at the expense of losing a mere legal freedom, the very real -prospect of *having enough* and *not losing it*. - -All forces, then, are making for the Servile State in this -the final phase of our evil Capitalist society in England. -The generous reformer is canalised towards it; the -ungenerous one finds it a very mirror of his ideal; the herd -of "practical" men meet at every stage in its inception the -"practical" steps which they expected and demanded; while -that proletarian mass upon whom the experiment is being -tried have lost the tradition of property and of freedom -which might resist the change, and are most powerfully -inclined to its acceptance by the positive benefits which it -confers. - -It may be objected that however true all this may be, no one -can, upon such theoretical grounds, regard the Servile State -as something really approaching us. We need not believe in -its advent (we shall be told) until we see the first effects -of its action. - -To this I answer that the first effects of its action are -already apparent The Servile State is, in industrial England -to-day, no longer a menace but something in actual -existence. It is in process of construction. The first main -lines of it are already plotted out; the corner-stone of it -is already laid. - -To see the truth of this it is enough to consider laws and -projects of law, the first of which we already enjoy, while -the last will pass from project to positive statute in due -process of time. +What proportion would refuse it no one can determine; but I say that +even as a voluntary offer, and not as a compulsory obligation, a +contract of this sort which would for the future destroy contract and +re-erect status of a servile sort would be thought a boon by the mass of +the proletariat to-day. + +Now take the truth from another aspect---by considering it thus from one +point of view and from another we can appreciate it best---Of what are +the mass of men now most afraid in a Capitalist State? Not of the +punishments that can be inflicted by a Court of Law, but of "the sack." + +You may ask a man why he does not resist such and such a legal infamy; +why he permits himself to be the victim of fines and deductions from +which the Truck Acts specifically protect him; why he cannot assert his +opinion in this or that matter; why he has accepted, without a blow, +such and such an insult. Some generations ago a man challenged to tell +you why he forswore his manhood in any particular regard would have +answered you that it was because he feared punishment at the hands of +the law; to-day he will tell you that it is because he fears +unemployment. + +Private law has for the second time in our long European story overcome +public law, and the sanctions which the Capitalist can call to the aid +of his private rule, by the action of his private will, are stronger +than those which the public Courts can impose. + +In the seventeenth century a man feared to go to Mass lest the judges +should punish him. To-day a, man fears to speak in favour of some social +theory which he holds to be just and true lest his master should punish +him. To deny the rule of public powers once involved public punishments +which most men dreaded, though some stood out. To deny the rule of +private powers involves to-day a private punishment against the threat +of which very few indeed dare to stand out. + +Look at the matter from yet another aspect. A law is passed (let us +suppose) which increases the total revenue of a wage-earner, or +guarantees him against the insecurity of his position in some small +degree. The administration of that law requires, upon the one hand, a +close inquisition into the man's circumstances by public officials, and, +upon the other hand, the administration of its benefits by that +particular Capitalist or group of Capitalists whom the wage-earner +serves to enrich. Do the Servile conditions attaching to this material +benefit prevent a proletarian in England to-day from preferring the +benefit to freedom? It is notorious that they do not. + +No matter from what angle you approach the business, the truth is always +the same. That great mass of wage-earners upon which our society now +reposes understands as a present good all that will increase even to +some small amount their present revenue and all that may guarantee them +against those perils of insecurity to which they are perpetually +subject. They understand and welcome a good of this kind, and they are +perfectly willing to pay for that good the corresponding price of +control and enregimentation, exercised in gradually increasing degree by +those who are their paymasters. + +It would be easy by substituting superficial for fundamental things, or +even by proposing certain terms and phrases to be used in the place of +terms and phrases now current it would be easy, I say, by such methods +to ridicule or to oppose the prime truths which I am here submitting. +They none the less remain truths. + +Substitute for the term "employee" in one of our new laws the term +"serf," even do so mild a thing as to substitute the traditional term +"master" for the word "employer," and the blunt words might breed +revolt. Impose of a sudden the full conditions of a Servile State upon +modern England, and it would certainly breed revolt But my point is that +when the foundations of the thing have to be laid and the first great +steps taken, there is no revolt; on the contrary, there is acquiescence +and for the most part gratitude upon the part of the poor. After the +long terrors imposed upon them through a freedom unaccompanied by +property, they see, at the expense of losing a mere legal freedom, the +very real prospect of *having enough* and *not losing it*. + +All forces, then, are making for the Servile State in this the final +phase of our evil Capitalist society in England. The generous reformer +is canalised towards it; the ungenerous one finds it a very mirror of +his ideal; the herd of "practical" men meet at every stage in its +inception the "practical" steps which they expected and demanded; while +that proletarian mass upon whom the experiment is being tried have lost +the tradition of property and of freedom which might resist the change, +and are most powerfully inclined to its acceptance by the positive +benefits which it confers. + +It may be objected that however true all this may be, no one can, upon +such theoretical grounds, regard the Servile State as something really +approaching us. We need not believe in its advent (we shall be told) +until we see the first effects of its action. + +To this I answer that the first effects of its action are already +apparent The Servile State is, in industrial England to-day, no longer a +menace but something in actual existence. It is in process of +construction. The first main lines of it are already plotted out; the +corner-stone of it is already laid. + +To see the truth of this it is enough to consider laws and projects of +law, the first of which we already enjoy, while the last will pass from +project to positive statute in due process of time. ## Appendix on "Buying-Out" -There is an impression abroad among those who propose to -expropriate the Capitalist class for the benefit of the -State, but who appreciate the difficulties in the way of -direct confiscation, that by spreading the process over a -sufficient number of years and pursuing it after a certain -fashion bearing all the outward appearances of a purchase, -the expropriation could be effected without the consequences -and attendant difficulties of direct confiscation. In other -words, there is an impression that the State could "buy-out" -the Capitalist class without their knowing it, and that in a -sort of painless way this class can be slowly conjured out -of existence. - -The impression is held in a confused fashion by most of -those who cherish it, and will not bear a clear analysis. - -It is impossible by any jugglery to "buy-out" the -universality of the means of production without -confiscation. - -To prove this, consider a concrete case which puts the -problem in the simplest terms:-- - -A community of twenty-two families lives upon the produce of -two farms, the property of only two families out of that -twenty-two. - -The remaining twenty families are Proletarian. The two -families, with their ploughs, stores, land, etc., are -Capitalist, - -The labour of the twenty proletarian families applied to the -land and capital of these two capitalist families produces -300 measures of wheat, of which 200 measures, or 10 measures -each, form the annual support of the twenty proletarian -families; the remaining 100 measures are the surplus value -retained as rent, interest, and profit by the two Capitalist -families, each of which has thus a yearly income of 50 +There is an impression abroad among those who propose to expropriate the +Capitalist class for the benefit of the State, but who appreciate the +difficulties in the way of direct confiscation, that by spreading the +process over a sufficient number of years and pursuing it after a +certain fashion bearing all the outward appearances of a purchase, the +expropriation could be effected without the consequences and attendant +difficulties of direct confiscation. In other words, there is an +impression that the State could "buy-out" the Capitalist class without +their knowing it, and that in a sort of painless way this class can be +slowly conjured out of existence. + +The impression is held in a confused fashion by most of those who +cherish it, and will not bear a clear analysis. + +It is impossible by any jugglery to "buy-out" the universality of the +means of production without confiscation. + +To prove this, consider a concrete case which puts the problem in the +simplest terms:-- + +A community of twenty-two families lives upon the produce of two farms, +the property of only two families out of that twenty-two. + +The remaining twenty families are Proletarian. The two families, with +their ploughs, stores, land, etc., are Capitalist, + +The labour of the twenty proletarian families applied to the land and +capital of these two capitalist families produces 300 measures of wheat, +of which 200 measures, or 10 measures each, form the annual support of +the twenty proletarian families; the remaining 100 measures are the +surplus value retained as rent, interest, and profit by the two +Capitalist families, each of which has thus a yearly income of 50 measures. -The State proposes to produce, after a certain length of -time, a condition of affairs such that the surplus values -shall no longer go to the two Capitalist families, but shall -be distributed to the advantage of the whole community, -while it, the State, shall itself become the unembarrassed -owner of both farms. - -Now capital is accumulated with the object of a certain -return as the reward of accumulation. Instead of spending -his money, a man saves it with the object of retaining as -the result of that saving a certain yearly revenue. The -measure of this does not fall in a particular society at a -particular time below a certain level. In other words, if a -man cannot get a certain minimum reward for his -accumulation, he will not accumulate but spend. - -What is called in economics "The Law of Diminishing Returns" -acts so that continual additions to capital, other things -being equal (that is, the methods of production remaining -the same), do not provide a corresponding increase of -revenue. A thousand measures of capital applied to a -particular area of natural forces will produce, for -instance, 40 measures yearly, or 4%; but 2000 measures -applied in the same fashion will not produce 80 measures. -They will produce more than the thousand measures did, but -not more in proportion; not double. They will produce, say, -60 measures, or 3%, upon the capital. The action of this -universal principle automatically checks the accumulation of -capital when it has reached such a point that the -proportionate return is the least which a man will accept. -If it falls below that he will spend rather than accumulate. -The limit of this minimum in any particular society at any -particular time gives the measure to what we call *"the -Effective Desire of Accumulation."* Thus in England to-day -it is a little over 3%. The minimum which limits the -accumulation of capital is a minimum return of about -one-thirtieth yearly upon such capital, and this we may call -for shortness the "E.D.A." of our society at the present -time. - -When, therefore, the Capitalist estimates the full value of -his possessions, he counts them in "so many years' -purchase."And that means that he is willing to take in a -lump sum down for his possessions so many times the yearly -revenue which he at present enjoys. If his E.D.A. is -one-thirtieth, he will take a lump sum representing thirty -times his annual revenue. - -So far so good. Let us suppose the two Capitalists in our -example to have an E.D.A. of one-thirtieth. They will sell -to the State if the State can put up 3000 measures of wheat. - -Now, of course, the State can do nothing of the kind. The -accumulations of wheat being already in the hands of the -Capitalists, and those accumulations amounting to much less -than 3000 measures of wheat, the thing appears to be a -deadlock. - -But it is not a deadlock if the Capitalist is a fool. The -State can go to the Capitalists and say: "Hand me over your -farms, and against them I will give you guarantee that you -shall be paid *rather more than* 100 measures of wheat a -year for the thirty years. In fact, I will pay you half as -much again until these extra payments amount to a purchase -of your original stock." - -Out of what does this extra amount come? Out of the State's -power to tax. - -The State can levy a tax upon the profits of both -Capitalists A and B, and pay them the extra with their own -money. - -In so simple an example it is evident that this "ringing of -the changes" would be spotted by the victims, and that they -would bring against it precisely the same forces which they -would bring against the much simpler and more -straightforward process of immediate confiscation. - -But it is argued that in a complex State, where you are -dealing with myriads of individual Capitalists and thousands -of particular forms of profit, the process can be masked. - -There are two ways in which the State can mask its action -(according to this policy). It can buy out first one small -area of land and capital out of the general taxation and -then another, and then another, until the whole has been -transferred; or it can tax with peculiar severity certain -trades which the rest who are left immune will abandon to -their ruin, and with the general taxation plus this special -taxation buy out those unfortunate trades which will, of -course, have sunk heavily in value under the attack. - -The second of these tricks will soon be apparent in any -society, however complex; for after one unpopular trade had -been selected for attack the trying on of the same methods -in another less unpopular field will at once rouse -suspicion. - -The first method, however, might have some chance of -success, at least for a long time after it was begun, in a -highly complex and numerous society were it not for a -certain check which comes in of itself. That check is the -fact that the Capitalist only takes *more than* his old +The State proposes to produce, after a certain length of time, a +condition of affairs such that the surplus values shall no longer go to +the two Capitalist families, but shall be distributed to the advantage +of the whole community, while it, the State, shall itself become the +unembarrassed owner of both farms. + +Now capital is accumulated with the object of a certain return as the +reward of accumulation. Instead of spending his money, a man saves it +with the object of retaining as the result of that saving a certain +yearly revenue. The measure of this does not fall in a particular +society at a particular time below a certain level. In other words, if a +man cannot get a certain minimum reward for his accumulation, he will +not accumulate but spend. + +What is called in economics "The Law of Diminishing Returns" acts so +that continual additions to capital, other things being equal (that is, +the methods of production remaining the same), do not provide a +corresponding increase of revenue. A thousand measures of capital +applied to a particular area of natural forces will produce, for +instance, 40 measures yearly, or 4%; but 2000 measures applied in the +same fashion will not produce 80 measures. They will produce more than +the thousand measures did, but not more in proportion; not double. They +will produce, say, 60 measures, or 3%, upon the capital. The action of +this universal principle automatically checks the accumulation of +capital when it has reached such a point that the proportionate return +is the least which a man will accept. If it falls below that he will +spend rather than accumulate. The limit of this minimum in any +particular society at any particular time gives the measure to what we +call *"the Effective Desire of Accumulation."* Thus in England to-day it +is a little over 3%. The minimum which limits the accumulation of +capital is a minimum return of about one-thirtieth yearly upon such +capital, and this we may call for shortness the "E.D.A." of our society +at the present time. + +When, therefore, the Capitalist estimates the full value of his +possessions, he counts them in "so many years' purchase."And that means +that he is willing to take in a lump sum down for his possessions so +many times the yearly revenue which he at present enjoys. If his E.D.A. +is one-thirtieth, he will take a lump sum representing thirty times his +annual revenue. + +So far so good. Let us suppose the two Capitalists in our example to +have an E.D.A. of one-thirtieth. They will sell to the State if the +State can put up 3000 measures of wheat. + +Now, of course, the State can do nothing of the kind. The accumulations +of wheat being already in the hands of the Capitalists, and those +accumulations amounting to much less than 3000 measures of wheat, the +thing appears to be a deadlock. + +But it is not a deadlock if the Capitalist is a fool. The State can go +to the Capitalists and say: "Hand me over your farms, and against them I +will give you guarantee that you shall be paid *rather more than* 100 +measures of wheat a year for the thirty years. In fact, I will pay you +half as much again until these extra payments amount to a purchase of +your original stock." + +Out of what does this extra amount come? Out of the State's power to +tax. + +The State can levy a tax upon the profits of both Capitalists A and B, +and pay them the extra with their own money. + +In so simple an example it is evident that this "ringing of the changes" +would be spotted by the victims, and that they would bring against it +precisely the same forces which they would bring against the much +simpler and more straightforward process of immediate confiscation. + +But it is argued that in a complex State, where you are dealing with +myriads of individual Capitalists and thousands of particular forms of +profit, the process can be masked. + +There are two ways in which the State can mask its action (according to +this policy). It can buy out first one small area of land and capital +out of the general taxation and then another, and then another, until +the whole has been transferred; or it can tax with peculiar severity +certain trades which the rest who are left immune will abandon to their +ruin, and with the general taxation plus this special taxation buy out +those unfortunate trades which will, of course, have sunk heavily in +value under the attack. + +The second of these tricks will soon be apparent in any society, however +complex; for after one unpopular trade had been selected for attack the +trying on of the same methods in another less unpopular field will at +once rouse suspicion. + +The first method, however, might have some chance of success, at least +for a long time after it was begun, in a highly complex and numerous +society were it not for a certain check which comes in of itself. That +check is the fact that the Capitalist only takes *more than* his old yearly revenue with the object of reinvesting the surplus. -I have a thousand pounds in Brighton railway stock, yielding -me 3%: £30 a year. The Government asks me to exchange my bit -of paper against another bit of paper guaranteeing the -payment of £50 a year, that is, an extra rate a year, for so -many years as will represent over and above the regular -interest paid a purchase of my stock. The Government's bit -of paper promises to pay to the holder £50 a year for, say, -thirty-eight years. I am delighted to make the exchange, not -because I am such a fool as to enjoy the prospect of my -property being extinguished at the end of thirty-eight -years, but because I hope to be able to reinvest the extra -20 every year in something else that will bring me in 3%. -Thus, at the end of the thirty-eight years I shall (or my -heirs) be better off than I was at the beginning of the -transaction, and I shall have enjoyed during its maturing my -old £30 a year all the same. - -The State can purchase thus on a small scale by subsidising -purchase out of the general taxation. It can, therefore, -play this trick over a small area and for a short time with -success. But the moment this area passes a very narrow limit -the "market for investment" is found to be restricted, -Capital automatically takes alarm, the State can no longer -offer its paper guarantees save at an enhanced price. If it -tries to turn the position by further raising taxation to -what Capital regards as "confiscatory" rates, there will be -opposed to its action just the same forces as would be -opposed to frank and open expropriation. - -The matter is one of plain arithmetic, and all the confusion -introduced by the complex mechanism of "finance" can no more -change the fundamental and arithmetical principles involved -than can the accumulation of triangles in an ordnance survey -reduce the internal angles of the largest triangle to less -than 180 degrees.In fine: *if you desire to confiscate, you -must confiscate.* - -You cannot outflank the enemy, as Financiers in the city and -sharpers on the race-course outflank the simpler of mankind, -nor can you conduct the general process of expropriation -upon a muddle-headed hope that somehow or other something -will come out of nothing in the end. - -There are, indeed, two ways in which the State could -expropriate without meeting the resistance that must be -present against any attempt at confiscation. But the first -of these ways is precarious, the second insufficient. +I have a thousand pounds in Brighton railway stock, yielding me 3%: £30 +a year. The Government asks me to exchange my bit of paper against +another bit of paper guaranteeing the payment of £50 a year, that is, an +extra rate a year, for so many years as will represent over and above +the regular interest paid a purchase of my stock. The Government's bit +of paper promises to pay to the holder £50 a year for, say, thirty-eight +years. I am delighted to make the exchange, not because I am such a fool +as to enjoy the prospect of my property being extinguished at the end of +thirty-eight years, but because I hope to be able to reinvest the extra +20 every year in something else that will bring me in 3%. Thus, at the +end of the thirty-eight years I shall (or my heirs) be better off than I +was at the beginning of the transaction, and I shall have enjoyed during +its maturing my old £30 a year all the same. + +The State can purchase thus on a small scale by subsidising purchase out +of the general taxation. It can, therefore, play this trick over a small +area and for a short time with success. But the moment this area passes +a very narrow limit the "market for investment" is found to be +restricted, Capital automatically takes alarm, the State can no longer +offer its paper guarantees save at an enhanced price. If it tries to +turn the position by further raising taxation to what Capital regards as +"confiscatory" rates, there will be opposed to its action just the same +forces as would be opposed to frank and open expropriation. + +The matter is one of plain arithmetic, and all the confusion introduced +by the complex mechanism of "finance" can no more change the fundamental +and arithmetical principles involved than can the accumulation of +triangles in an ordnance survey reduce the internal angles of the +largest triangle to less than 180 degrees.In fine: *if you desire to +confiscate, you must confiscate.* + +You cannot outflank the enemy, as Financiers in the city and sharpers on +the race-course outflank the simpler of mankind, nor can you conduct the +general process of expropriation upon a muddle-headed hope that somehow +or other something will come out of nothing in the end. + +There are, indeed, two ways in which the State could expropriate without +meeting the resistance that must be present against any attempt at +confiscation. But the first of these ways is precarious, the second +insufficient. They are as follows:-- -\(1\) The State can promise the Capitalist a larger yearly -revenue than he is getting in the expectation that it, the -State, can manage the business better than the Capitalist, -or that some future expansion will come to its aid. In other -words, if the State makes a bigger profit out of the thing -than the Capitalist, it can buy out the Capitalist just as a -private individual with a similar business proposition can -buy him out. - -But the converse of this is that if the State has calculated -badly, or has bad luck, it would find itself *endowing* the -Capitalists of the future instead of gradually extinguishing -them. - -In this fashion the State could have "socialised" without -confiscation the railways of this country if it had taken -them over fifty years ago, promising the then owners more -than they were then obtaining. But if it had socialised the -hansom cab in the nineties, it would now be supporting in -perpetuity that worthy but extinct type the cab-owner (and +\(1\) The State can promise the Capitalist a larger yearly revenue than +he is getting in the expectation that it, the State, can manage the +business better than the Capitalist, or that some future expansion will +come to its aid. In other words, if the State makes a bigger profit out +of the thing than the Capitalist, it can buy out the Capitalist just as +a private individual with a similar business proposition can buy him +out. + +But the converse of this is that if the State has calculated badly, or +has bad luck, it would find itself *endowing* the Capitalists of the +future instead of gradually extinguishing them. + +In this fashion the State could have "socialised" without confiscation +the railways of this country if it had taken them over fifty years ago, +promising the then owners more than they were then obtaining. But if it +had socialised the hansom cab in the nineties, it would now be +supporting in perpetuity that worthy but extinct type the cab-owner (and his children for ever) at the expense of the community. -The second way in which the State can expropriate without -confiscation is by annuity. It can say to such Capitalists -as have no heirs or care little for their fate if they have: -"You have only got so much time to live and to enjoy your -£30, will you take £50 until you die?" Upon the bargain -being accepted the State will, in process of time, though -not immediately upon the death of the annuitant, become an -unembarrassed owner of what had been the annuitant's share -in the means of production. But the area over which this -method can be exercised is a very small one. It is not of -itself a sufficient instrument for the expropriation of any -considerable field. - -I need hardly add that as a matter of fact the so-called -"Socialist" and confiscatory measures of our time have -nothing to do with the problem here discussed. The State is -indeed confiscating, that is, it is taxing in many cases in -such a fashion as to impoverish the tax-payer and is -lessening his capital rather than shearing his income. But -it is not putting the proceeds into the means of production. -It is either using them for immediate consumption in the -shape of new official salaries or handing them over to -another set of Capitalists. - -But these practical considerations of the way in which sham -Socialist experiments are working belong rather to my next -section, in which I shall deal with the actual beginnings of -the Servile State in our midst. +The second way in which the State can expropriate without confiscation +is by annuity. It can say to such Capitalists as have no heirs or care +little for their fate if they have: "You have only got so much time to +live and to enjoy your £30, will you take £50 until you die?" Upon the +bargain being accepted the State will, in process of time, though not +immediately upon the death of the annuitant, become an unembarrassed +owner of what had been the annuitant's share in the means of production. +But the area over which this method can be exercised is a very small +one. It is not of itself a sufficient instrument for the expropriation +of any considerable field. + +I need hardly add that as a matter of fact the so-called "Socialist" and +confiscatory measures of our time have nothing to do with the problem +here discussed. The State is indeed confiscating, that is, it is taxing +in many cases in such a fashion as to impoverish the tax-payer and is +lessening his capital rather than shearing his income. But it is not +putting the proceeds into the means of production. It is either using +them for immediate consumption in the shape of new official salaries or +handing them over to another set of Capitalists. + +But these practical considerations of the way in which sham Socialist +experiments are working belong rather to my next section, in which I +shall deal with the actual beginnings of the Servile State in our midst. # The Servile State Has Begun -In this last division of my book I deal with the actual -appearance of the Servile State in certain laws and -proposals now familiar to the Industrial Society of modern -England. These are the patent objects, "laws and projects of -laws," which lend stuff to my argument, and show that it is -based not upon a mere deduction, but upon an observation of +In this last division of my book I deal with the actual appearance of +the Servile State in certain laws and proposals now familiar to the +Industrial Society of modern England. These are the patent objects, +"laws and projects of laws," which lend stuff to my argument, and show +that it is based not upon a mere deduction, but upon an observation of things. -Two forms of this proof are evident: first, the laws and -proposals which subject the *Proletariat* to Servile -conditions; next, the fact that the *Capitalist*, so far -from being expropriated by modern "Socialist" experiments, -is being confirmed in his power. - -I take these in their order, and I begin by asking in what -statutes or proposals the Servile State first appeared among -us. - -A false conception of our subject might lead one to find the -origins of the Servile State in the restrictions imposed -upon certain forms of manufacture, and the corresponding -duties laid upon the Capitalist in the interest of his -workmen. The Factory Laws, as they are in this country, -would seem to offer upon this superficial and erroneous view -a starting point. They do nothing of the kind; and the view -*is* superficial and erroneous because it neglects the -fundamentals of the case. What distinguishes the Servile -State is not the interference of law with the action of any -citizen even in connection with industrial matters. Such -interference may or may not indicate the presence of a -Servile status. It in no way indicates the presence of that -status when it forbids a particular kind of human action to -be undertaken by the citizen as a citizen. - -The legislator says, for instance, "You may pluck roses; but -as I notice that you sometimes scratch yourself, I will put -you in prison unless you cut them with scissors at least 122 -millimetres long, and I will appoint one thousand inspectors -to go round the country seeing whether the law is observed. -My brother-in-law shall be at the head of the Department at +Two forms of this proof are evident: first, the laws and proposals which +subject the *Proletariat* to Servile conditions; next, the fact that the +*Capitalist*, so far from being expropriated by modern "Socialist" +experiments, is being confirmed in his power. + +I take these in their order, and I begin by asking in what statutes or +proposals the Servile State first appeared among us. + +A false conception of our subject might lead one to find the origins of +the Servile State in the restrictions imposed upon certain forms of +manufacture, and the corresponding duties laid upon the Capitalist in +the interest of his workmen. The Factory Laws, as they are in this +country, would seem to offer upon this superficial and erroneous view a +starting point. They do nothing of the kind; and the view *is* +superficial and erroneous because it neglects the fundamentals of the +case. What distinguishes the Servile State is not the interference of +law with the action of any citizen even in connection with industrial +matters. Such interference may or may not indicate the presence of a +Servile status. It in no way indicates the presence of that status when +it forbids a particular kind of human action to be undertaken by the +citizen as a citizen. + +The legislator says, for instance, "You may pluck roses; but as I notice +that you sometimes scratch yourself, I will put you in prison unless you +cut them with scissors at least 122 millimetres long, and I will appoint +one thousand inspectors to go round the country seeing whether the law +is observed. My brother-in-law shall be at the head of the Department at £2000 a year." -We are all familiar with that type of legislation. We are -all familiar with the arguments for and against it in any -particular case. We may regard it as onerous, futile, or -beneficent, or in any other light, according to our various -temperaments. But it does not fall within the category of -servile legislation, because it establishes no distinction -between two classes of citizens, marking off the one as -legally distinct from the other by a criterion of manual -labour or of income. - -This is even true of such regulations as those which compel -a Cotton Mill, for instance, to have no less than such and -such an amount of cubic space for each operative, and such -and such protection for dangerous machinery. These laws do -not concern themselves with the nature, the amount, or even -the existence of a contract for service. The object, for -example, of the law which compels one to fence off certain -types of machinery is simply to protect human life, -regardless of whether the human being so protected is rich -or poor, Capitalist or Proletarian. These laws may in effect -work in our society so that the Capitalist is made -responsible for the Proletarian, but he is not responsible -*quâ* Capitalist, nor is the Proletarian protected *quâ* +We are all familiar with that type of legislation. We are all familiar +with the arguments for and against it in any particular case. We may +regard it as onerous, futile, or beneficent, or in any other light, +according to our various temperaments. But it does not fall within the +category of servile legislation, because it establishes no distinction +between two classes of citizens, marking off the one as legally distinct +from the other by a criterion of manual labour or of income. + +This is even true of such regulations as those which compel a Cotton +Mill, for instance, to have no less than such and such an amount of +cubic space for each operative, and such and such protection for +dangerous machinery. These laws do not concern themselves with the +nature, the amount, or even the existence of a contract for service. The +object, for example, of the law which compels one to fence off certain +types of machinery is simply to protect human life, regardless of +whether the human being so protected is rich or poor, Capitalist or +Proletarian. These laws may in effect work in our society so that the +Capitalist is made responsible for the Proletarian, but he is not +responsible *quâ* Capitalist, nor is the Proletarian protected *quâ* Proletarian. -In the same way the law may compel me, if I am a Riparian -owner, to put up a fence of statutory strength wherever the -water of my river is of more than a statutory depth. Now it -cannot compel me to do this unless I am the owner of the -land. In a sense, therefore, this might be called the -recognition of my *Status*, because, by the nature of the -case, only landowners can be affected by the law, and -land-owners would be compelled by it to safeguard the lives -of all, whether they were or were not owners of land. - -But the category so established would be purely accidental. -The object and method of the law do not concern themselves -with a distinction between citizens. - -A close observer might indeed discover certain points in the -Factory laws, details and phrases, which did distinctly -connote the existence of a Capitalist and of a Proletarian -class. But we must take the statutes as a whole and the -order in which they were produced, above all, the general -motive and expressions governing each main statute, in order -to judge whether such examples of interference give us an -origin or not - -The verdict will be that they do not. Such legislation may -be oppressive in any degree or necessary in any degree, but -it does not establish status in the place of contract, and -it is not, therefore, servile. - -Neither are those laws servile which in practice attach to -the poor and not to the rich. Compulsory education is in -legal theory required of every citizen for his children. The -state of mind which goes with plutocracy exempts of course -all above a certain standard of wealth from this law. But -the law does apply to the universality of the commonwealth, -and all families resident in Great Britain (not in Ireland) -are subject to its provisions. - -These are not origins. A true origin to the legislation I -approach comes later. The first example of servile -legislation to be discovered upon the Statute Book is that -which establishes the present form of *Employer's -Liability*. - -I am far from saying that that law was passed, as modern -laws are beginning to be passed, with the direct object of -establishing a new status; though it was passed with some -consciousness on the part of the legislator that such a new -status was in existence as a social fact. Its motive was -merely humane, and the relief which it afforded seemed -merely necessary at the time; but it is an instructive -example of the way in which a small neglect of strict -doctrine and a slight toleration of anomaly admit great -changes into the State. - -There had existed from all time in every community, and -there was founded upon common sense, the legal doctrine that -if one citizen was so placed with regard to another by -contract that he must in the fulfilment of that contract -perform certain services, and if those services accidentally -involved damages to a third party, not the actual -perpetrator of the damage, but he who designed the -particular operation leading to it was responsible. - -The point is subtle, but, as I say, fundamental. It involved -no distinction of status between employer and employed. - -Citizen A offered citizen B a sack of wheat down if citizen -B would plough for him a piece of land which might or might -not produce more than a sack of wheat. - -Of course citizen A expected it would produce more, and was -awaiting a surplus value, or he would not have made the -contract with citizen B. But, at any rate, citizen B put his -name to the agreement, and as a free man, capable of -contracting, was correspondingly bound to fulfil it. - -In fulfilling this contract the ploughshare B is driving -destroys a pipe conveying water by agreement through A's -land to C. C suffers damage, and to recover the equivalent -of that damage his action in justice and common sense can -only be against A, for B was carrying out a plan and -instruction of which A was the author. C is a third party -who had nothing to do with such a contract and could not -possibly have justice save by his chances of getting it from -A, who was the true author of the unintentional loss -inflicted, since he designed the course of work. - -But when the damage is not done to C at all, but to B, who -is concerned with a work the risks of which are known and -willingly undertaken, it is quite another matter. - -Citizen A contracts with citizen B that citizen B, in -consideration of a sack of wheat, shall plough a bit of -land. Certain known risks must attach to that operation. -Citizen B, if he is a free man, undertakes those risks with -his eyes open. For instance, he may sprain his wrist in -turning the plough, or one of the horses may kick him while -he is having his bread-and-cheese. If upon such an accident -A is compelled to pay damages to B, a difference of status -is at once recognised. B undertook to do work which, by all -the theory of free contract, was, with its risks and its -expense of energy, the equivalent in B's own eyes of a sack -of wheat; yet a law is passed to say that B can have more -than that sack of wheat if he is hurt. - -There is no converse right of A against B. If the employer -suffers by such an accident to the employee, *he* is not -allowed to dock that sack of wheat, though it was regarded -in the contract as the equivalent to a certain amount of -labour to be performed which, as a fact, has not been -performed. A has no action unless B has been *culpably* -negligent or remiss. In other words, the mere fact that one -man is *working* and the other not is the fundamental -consideration on which the law is built, and the law says: -"You are not a free man making a free contract with all its -consequences. You are a worker, and therefore an inferior: -you are an *employee*; and that *status* gives you a special -position which would not be recognised in the other party to -the contract." - -The principle is pushed still further when an employer is -made liable for an accident happening to one of his -employees at the hands of another employee. - -A gives a sack of wheat to B and D each if they will dig a -well for him. All three parties are cognisant of the risks -and accept them in the contract. B, holding the rope on -which D is lowered, lets it slip. If they were all three men -of exactly equal status, obviously D's action would be -against B. But they are not of equal status in England -to-day. B and D are *employees*, and are therefore in a -special and inferior position before the law com pared with -their employer A. D's action is, by this novel principle, no -longer against B, who accidentally injured him by a personal -act, however involuntary, for which a free man would be -responsible, but against A, who was innocent of the whole -business. - -Now in all this it is quite clear that A has peculiar duties -not because he is a citizen, but because he is something -more: an employer; and B and D have special claims on A, not -because they are citizens,but because they are something -less: *viz. employees*. They can *claim protection* from A, -as inferiors of a superior in a State admitting such +In the same way the law may compel me, if I am a Riparian owner, to put +up a fence of statutory strength wherever the water of my river is of +more than a statutory depth. Now it cannot compel me to do this unless I +am the owner of the land. In a sense, therefore, this might be called +the recognition of my *Status*, because, by the nature of the case, only +landowners can be affected by the law, and land-owners would be +compelled by it to safeguard the lives of all, whether they were or were +not owners of land. + +But the category so established would be purely accidental. The object +and method of the law do not concern themselves with a distinction +between citizens. + +A close observer might indeed discover certain points in the Factory +laws, details and phrases, which did distinctly connote the existence of +a Capitalist and of a Proletarian class. But we must take the statutes +as a whole and the order in which they were produced, above all, the +general motive and expressions governing each main statute, in order to +judge whether such examples of interference give us an origin or not + +The verdict will be that they do not. Such legislation may be oppressive +in any degree or necessary in any degree, but it does not establish +status in the place of contract, and it is not, therefore, servile. + +Neither are those laws servile which in practice attach to the poor and +not to the rich. Compulsory education is in legal theory required of +every citizen for his children. The state of mind which goes with +plutocracy exempts of course all above a certain standard of wealth from +this law. But the law does apply to the universality of the +commonwealth, and all families resident in Great Britain (not in +Ireland) are subject to its provisions. + +These are not origins. A true origin to the legislation I approach comes +later. The first example of servile legislation to be discovered upon +the Statute Book is that which establishes the present form of +*Employer's Liability*. + +I am far from saying that that law was passed, as modern laws are +beginning to be passed, with the direct object of establishing a new +status; though it was passed with some consciousness on the part of the +legislator that such a new status was in existence as a social fact. Its +motive was merely humane, and the relief which it afforded seemed merely +necessary at the time; but it is an instructive example of the way in +which a small neglect of strict doctrine and a slight toleration of +anomaly admit great changes into the State. + +There had existed from all time in every community, and there was +founded upon common sense, the legal doctrine that if one citizen was so +placed with regard to another by contract that he must in the fulfilment +of that contract perform certain services, and if those services +accidentally involved damages to a third party, not the actual +perpetrator of the damage, but he who designed the particular operation +leading to it was responsible. + +The point is subtle, but, as I say, fundamental. It involved no +distinction of status between employer and employed. + +Citizen A offered citizen B a sack of wheat down if citizen B would +plough for him a piece of land which might or might not produce more +than a sack of wheat. + +Of course citizen A expected it would produce more, and was awaiting a +surplus value, or he would not have made the contract with citizen B. +But, at any rate, citizen B put his name to the agreement, and as a free +man, capable of contracting, was correspondingly bound to fulfil it. + +In fulfilling this contract the ploughshare B is driving destroys a pipe +conveying water by agreement through A's land to C. C suffers damage, +and to recover the equivalent of that damage his action in justice and +common sense can only be against A, for B was carrying out a plan and +instruction of which A was the author. C is a third party who had +nothing to do with such a contract and could not possibly have justice +save by his chances of getting it from A, who was the true author of the +unintentional loss inflicted, since he designed the course of work. + +But when the damage is not done to C at all, but to B, who is concerned +with a work the risks of which are known and willingly undertaken, it is +quite another matter. + +Citizen A contracts with citizen B that citizen B, in consideration of a +sack of wheat, shall plough a bit of land. Certain known risks must +attach to that operation. Citizen B, if he is a free man, undertakes +those risks with his eyes open. For instance, he may sprain his wrist in +turning the plough, or one of the horses may kick him while he is having +his bread-and-cheese. If upon such an accident A is compelled to pay +damages to B, a difference of status is at once recognised. B undertook +to do work which, by all the theory of free contract, was, with its +risks and its expense of energy, the equivalent in B's own eyes of a +sack of wheat; yet a law is passed to say that B can have more than that +sack of wheat if he is hurt. + +There is no converse right of A against B. If the employer suffers by +such an accident to the employee, *he* is not allowed to dock that sack +of wheat, though it was regarded in the contract as the equivalent to a +certain amount of labour to be performed which, as a fact, has not been +performed. A has no action unless B has been *culpably* negligent or +remiss. In other words, the mere fact that one man is *working* and the +other not is the fundamental consideration on which the law is built, +and the law says: "You are not a free man making a free contract with +all its consequences. You are a worker, and therefore an inferior: you +are an *employee*; and that *status* gives you a special position which +would not be recognised in the other party to the contract." + +The principle is pushed still further when an employer is made liable +for an accident happening to one of his employees at the hands of +another employee. + +A gives a sack of wheat to B and D each if they will dig a well for him. +All three parties are cognisant of the risks and accept them in the +contract. B, holding the rope on which D is lowered, lets it slip. If +they were all three men of exactly equal status, obviously D's action +would be against B. But they are not of equal status in England to-day. +B and D are *employees*, and are therefore in a special and inferior +position before the law com pared with their employer A. D's action is, +by this novel principle, no longer against B, who accidentally injured +him by a personal act, however involuntary, for which a free man would +be responsible, but against A, who was innocent of the whole business. + +Now in all this it is quite clear that A has peculiar duties not because +he is a citizen, but because he is something more: an employer; and B +and D have special claims on A, not because they are citizens,but +because they are something less: *viz. employees*. They can *claim +protection* from A, as inferiors of a superior in a State admitting such distinctions and patronage. -It will occur at once to the reader that in our existing -social state the employee will be very grateful for such -legislation. One workman cannot recover from another simply -because the other will have no goods out of which to pay -damages. Let the burden, therefore, fall upon the rich man! - -Excellent. But that is not the point. To argue thus is to -say that Servile legislation is necessary if we are to solve -the problems raised by Capitalism. It remains servile -legislation none the less. It is legislation that would not -exist in a society where property was well divided and where -a citizen could normally pay damages for the harm he had -himself caused. - -This first trickle of the stream, however, though it is of -considerable historical interest as a point of departure, is -not of very definite moment to our subject compared with the -great bulk of later proposals, some of which are already -law, others upon the point of becoming law, and which -definitely recognise the Servile State, the re-establishment -of status in the place of contract, and the universal -division of citizens into two categories of employers and -employed. - -These last merit a very different consideration, for they -will represent to history the conscious and designed entry -of Servile Institutions into the old Christian State. They -are not "origins," small indications of coming change which -the historian will painfully discover as a curiosity. They -are the admitted foundations of a new order, deliberately -planned by a few, confusedly accepted by the many, as the -basis upon which a novel and stable society shall arise to -replace the unstable and passing phase of Capitalism. +It will occur at once to the reader that in our existing social state +the employee will be very grateful for such legislation. One workman +cannot recover from another simply because the other will have no goods +out of which to pay damages. Let the burden, therefore, fall upon the +rich man! + +Excellent. But that is not the point. To argue thus is to say that +Servile legislation is necessary if we are to solve the problems raised +by Capitalism. It remains servile legislation none the less. It is +legislation that would not exist in a society where property was well +divided and where a citizen could normally pay damages for the harm he +had himself caused. + +This first trickle of the stream, however, though it is of considerable +historical interest as a point of departure, is not of very definite +moment to our subject compared with the great bulk of later proposals, +some of which are already law, others upon the point of becoming law, +and which definitely recognise the Servile State, the re-establishment +of status in the place of contract, and the universal division of +citizens into two categories of employers and employed. + +These last merit a very different consideration, for they will represent +to history the conscious and designed entry of Servile Institutions into +the old Christian State. They are not "origins," small indications of +coming change which the historian will painfully discover as a +curiosity. They are the admitted foundations of a new order, +deliberately planned by a few, confusedly accepted by the many, as the +basis upon which a novel and stable society shall arise to replace the +unstable and passing phase of Capitalism. They fall roughly into three categories:-- -1. Measures by which the insecurity of the proletariat - shall be relieved through the action of the employing - class, or of the proletariat itself acting under - compulsion. +1. Measures by which the insecurity of the proletariat shall be + relieved through the action of the employing class, or of the + proletariat itself acting under compulsion. -2. Measures by which the employer shall be compelled to - give not less than a certain minimum for any labour he - may purchase, and +2. Measures by which the employer shall be compelled to give not less + than a certain minimum for any labour he may purchase, and -\(3\) Measures which compel a man lacking the means of -production to labour, though he may have made no contract to -that effect. +\(3\) Measures which compel a man lacking the means of production to +labour, though he may have made no contract to that effect. -The last two, as will be seen in a moment, are complementary -one of another. +The last two, as will be seen in a moment, are complementary one of +another. -As to the first: Measures to palliate the insecurity of the -proletariat. +As to the first: Measures to palliate the insecurity of the proletariat. -We have of this an example in actual law at this moment. And -that law---the Insurance Act--(whose political source and -motive I am not here discussing) follows in every particular -the lines of a Servile State. +We have of this an example in actual law at this moment. And that +law---the Insurance Act--(whose political source and motive I am not +here discussing) follows in every particular the lines of a Servile +State. -\(a\) Its fundamental criterion is employment. In other -words, I am compelled to enter a scheme providing me against -the mischances of illness and unemployment not because I am -a citizen, but only if I am: +\(a\) Its fundamental criterion is employment. In other words, I am +compelled to enter a scheme providing me against the mischances of +illness and unemployment not because I am a citizen, but only if I am: 1. Exchanging services for goods; and either -2. Obtaining less than a certain amount of goods for those - services, or +2. Obtaining less than a certain amount of goods for those services, or 3. A vulgar fellow working with his hands. -The law carefully excludes from its provisions those forms -of labour to which the educated and therefore powerful -classes are subject, and further excludes from compulsion -the mass of those who are for the moment earning enough to -make them a class to be reckoned with as economically free. -I may be a writer of books who, should he fall ill, will -leave in the greatest distress the family which he supports. -If the legislator were concerned for the morals of citizens, -I should most undoubtedly come under this law, under the -form of a compulsory insurance added to my income tax. But -the legislator is not concerned with people of my sort. He -is concerned with a new status which he recognises in the -State, to wit, the proletariat. He envisages the proletariat -not quite accurately as men either poor, or, if they are not -poor, at any rate vulgar people working with their hands, -and he legislates accordingly. - -\(b\) Still more striking, as an example of status taking -the place of contract, is the fact that this law puts the -duty of controlling the proletariat and of seeing that the -law is obeyed *not* upon the proletariat itself, but upon -the *Capitalist class*. - -Now this point is of an importance that cannot be -exaggerated. - -The future historian, whatever his interest in the first -indications of that profound revolution through which we are -so rapidly passing, will most certainly fix upon that one -point as the cardinal landmark of our times. The legislator -surveying the Capitalist State proposes as a remedy for -certain of its evils the establishment of two categories in -the State, compels the lower man to registration, to a tax, -and the rest of it,and further compels the upper man to be -the instrument in enforcing that registration and in -collecting that tax. No one acquainted with the way in which -any one of the great changes of the past has taken place, -the substitution of tenure for the Roman proprietary right -in land, or the substitution of the mediaeval peasant for -the serf of the Dark Ages, can possibly misunderstand the +The law carefully excludes from its provisions those forms of labour to +which the educated and therefore powerful classes are subject, and +further excludes from compulsion the mass of those who are for the +moment earning enough to make them a class to be reckoned with as +economically free. I may be a writer of books who, should he fall ill, +will leave in the greatest distress the family which he supports. If the +legislator were concerned for the morals of citizens, I should most +undoubtedly come under this law, under the form of a compulsory +insurance added to my income tax. But the legislator is not concerned +with people of my sort. He is concerned with a new status which he +recognises in the State, to wit, the proletariat. He envisages the +proletariat not quite accurately as men either poor, or, if they are not +poor, at any rate vulgar people working with their hands, and he +legislates accordingly. + +\(b\) Still more striking, as an example of status taking the place of +contract, is the fact that this law puts the duty of controlling the +proletariat and of seeing that the law is obeyed *not* upon the +proletariat itself, but upon the *Capitalist class*. + +Now this point is of an importance that cannot be exaggerated. + +The future historian, whatever his interest in the first indications of +that profound revolution through which we are so rapidly passing, will +most certainly fix upon that one point as the cardinal landmark of our +times. The legislator surveying the Capitalist State proposes as a +remedy for certain of its evils the establishment of two categories in +the State, compels the lower man to registration, to a tax, and the rest +of it,and further compels the upper man to be the instrument in +enforcing that registration and in collecting that tax. No one +acquainted with the way in which any one of the great changes of the +past has taken place, the substitution of tenure for the Roman +proprietary right in land, or the substitution of the mediaeval peasant +for the serf of the Dark Ages, can possibly misunderstand the significance of such a turning point in our history. -Whether it will be completed or whether a reaction will -destroy it is another matter. Its mere proposal is of the -greatest possible moment in the inquiry we are here -pursuing. - -Of the next two groups, the fixing of a Minimum Wage and the -Compulsion to Labour (which, as I have said, and will -shortly show, are complementary one to the other), neither -has yet appeared in actual legislation, but both are -planned, both thought out, both possessed of powerful -advocates, and both upon the threshold of positive law. - -The fixing of a Minimum Wage, with a definite sum fixed by -statute, has not yet entered our laws, but the first step -towards such a consummation has been taken in the shape of -giving legal sanction to some hypothetical Minimum Wage -which shall be arrived at after discussion within a -particular trade. That trade is,of course, the mining -industry. The law does not say: "No Capitalist shall pay a -miner less than so many shillings for so many hours' work." -But it does say: "Figures having been arrived at by local -boards, any miner working within the area of each board can -claim by force of law the minimum sum established by such -boards." It is evident that from this step to the next, -which shall define some sliding scale of remuneration for -labour according to prices and the profits of capital, is an -easy and natural transition. It would give both parties what -each immediately requires: to capital a guarantee against -disturbance; to labour sufficiency and security. The whole -thing is an excellent object lesson in little of that -general movement from free contract to status, and from the -Capitalist to the Servile State, which is the tide of our -time. - -The neglect of older principles as abstract and doctrinaire; -the immediate need of both parties immediately satisfied; -the unforeseen but necessary consequence of satisfying such -needs in such a fashion---all these, which are apparent in -the settlement the mining industry has begun, are the -typical forces producing the Servile State. - -Consider in its largest aspect the nature of such a -settlement. - -The Proletarian accepts a position in which he produces for -the Capitalist a certain total of economic values, and -retains out of that total a portion only, leaving to the -Capitalist all surplus value. The Capitalist, on his side, -is guaranteed in the secure and permanent expectation of -that surplus value through all the perils of social envy; -the Proletarian is guaranteed in a sufficiency and a -security for that sufficiency; but by the very action of -such a guarantee there is withdrawn from him the power to -refuse his labour and thus to aim at putting himself in -possession of the means of production. - -Such schemes definitely divide citizens into two classes, -the Capitalist and the Proletarian. They make it impossible -for the second to combat the privileged position of the -first. They introduce into the positive laws of the -community a recognition of social facts which already divide -Englishmen into two groups of economically more free and -economically less free, and they stamp with the authority of -the State a new constitution of society. Society is -recognised as no longer consisting of free men bargaining -freely for their labour or any other commodity in their -possession, but of two contrasting status, owners and -non-owners. The first must not be allowed to leave the -second without subsistence; the second must not be allowed -to obtain that grip upon the means of production which is -the privilege of the first. It is true that this first -experiment is small in degree and tentative in quality; but -to judge the movement as a general whole we must not only -consider the expression it has actually received so far in -positive law, but the mood of our time. - -When this first experiment in a minimum wage was being -debated in Parliament, what was the great issue of debate? -Upon what did those who were the most ardent reformers -particularly insist? *Not* that the miners should have an -avenue open to them for obtaining possession of the mines; -not even that the State should have an avenue open to it for -obtaining such possession; *but that the minimum wage should -be fixed at a certain satisfactory level*! That, as our -recent experience testifies for all of us, was the crux of -the quarrel. And that such a point should be the crux, not -the socialisation of the mines, nor the admission of the -proletariat to the means of production, but only a -sufficiency and a security of wage,is amply significant of -the perhaps irresistible forces which are making in the -direction for which I argue in this book. - -There was here no attempt of the Capitalist to impose -Servile conditions nor of the Proletarian to resist them. -Both parties were agreed upon that fundamental change. The -discussion turned upon the minimum limit of subsistence to -be securely provided, a point which left aside, because it -took for granted, the establishment of *some* minimum in any -case. - -Next, let it be noted (for it is of moment to a later part -of my argument) that experiments of this sort promise to -extend piecemeal. There is no likelihood, judging by men's -actions and speech, of some grand general scheme for the -establishment of a minimum wage throughout the community. -Such a scheme would, of course, be as truly an establishment -of the Servile State as piecemeal schemes. But, as we shall -see in a moment, the extension of the principle piece-meal -has a considerable effect upon the forms which compulsion -may take. - -The miners' refusal to work, with the exaggerated panic it -caused, bred this first tentative appearance of the minimum -wage in our laws. Normally, capital prefers free labour with -its margin of destitution; for such an anarchy, ephemeral -though it is of its nature, while it lasts provides cheap -labour; from the narrowest point of view it provides in the -still competitive areas of Capitalism a better chance for -profits. - -But as one group of workmen after another, concerned with -trades immediately necessary to the life of the nation, and -therefore tolerating but little interruption, learn the -power which combination gives them, it is inevitable that -the legislator (concentrated as he is upon momentary -remedies for difficulties as they arise) should propose for -one such trade after another the remedy of a minimum wage. - -There can be little doubt that, trade by trade, the -principle will extend. For instance, the two and a half -millions now guaranteed against unemployment are guaranteed -against it for a certain weekly sum. That weekly sum must -bear some relation to their estimated earnings when they are -in employment. - -It is a short step from the calculation of unemployment -benefit (its being fixed by statute at a certain level, and -that level determined by something which is regarded as the -just remuneration of labour in that trade); it is a short -step, I say, from that to a statutory fixing of the sums -paid during employment. - -The State says to the Serf: "I saw to it that you should -have so much when you were unemployed. I find that in some -rare cases my arrangement leads to your getting more when -you are unemployed than when you are employed. I further -find that in many cases, though you get more when you are -employed, yet the difference is not sufficient to tempt a -lazy man to work, or to make him take any particular trouble -to get work. I must see to this." - -The provision of a fixed schedule during unemployment thus -inevitably leads to the examination, the defining, and at -last the imposition of a minimum wage during employment; and -every compulsory provision for unemployed benefits is the -seed of a minimum wage. - -Of still greater effect is the mere presence of State -regulation in such a matter. The fact that the State has -begun to gather statistics of wages over these large areas -of industry, and to do so not for a mere statistical object, -but a practical one, and the fact that the State has begun -to immix the action of positive law and constraint with the -older system of free bargaining, mean that the whole weight -of its influence is now in favour of regulation. It is no -rash prophecy to assert that in the near future our -industrial society will see a gradually extending area of -industry in which from two sides the fixing of wages by -statute shall appear. From the one side it will come in the -form of the State examining the conditions of labour in -connection with its own schemes for establishing sufficiency -and security by insurance. From the other side it will come -through the reasonable proposals to make contracts between -groups of labour and groups of capital enforceable in the +Whether it will be completed or whether a reaction will destroy it is +another matter. Its mere proposal is of the greatest possible moment in +the inquiry we are here pursuing. + +Of the next two groups, the fixing of a Minimum Wage and the Compulsion +to Labour (which, as I have said, and will shortly show, are +complementary one to the other), neither has yet appeared in actual +legislation, but both are planned, both thought out, both possessed of +powerful advocates, and both upon the threshold of positive law. + +The fixing of a Minimum Wage, with a definite sum fixed by statute, has +not yet entered our laws, but the first step towards such a consummation +has been taken in the shape of giving legal sanction to some +hypothetical Minimum Wage which shall be arrived at after discussion +within a particular trade. That trade is,of course, the mining industry. +The law does not say: "No Capitalist shall pay a miner less than so many +shillings for so many hours' work." But it does say: "Figures having +been arrived at by local boards, any miner working within the area of +each board can claim by force of law the minimum sum established by such +boards." It is evident that from this step to the next, which shall +define some sliding scale of remuneration for labour according to prices +and the profits of capital, is an easy and natural transition. It would +give both parties what each immediately requires: to capital a guarantee +against disturbance; to labour sufficiency and security. The whole thing +is an excellent object lesson in little of that general movement from +free contract to status, and from the Capitalist to the Servile State, +which is the tide of our time. + +The neglect of older principles as abstract and doctrinaire; the +immediate need of both parties immediately satisfied; the unforeseen but +necessary consequence of satisfying such needs in such a fashion---all +these, which are apparent in the settlement the mining industry has +begun, are the typical forces producing the Servile State. + +Consider in its largest aspect the nature of such a settlement. + +The Proletarian accepts a position in which he produces for the +Capitalist a certain total of economic values, and retains out of that +total a portion only, leaving to the Capitalist all surplus value. The +Capitalist, on his side, is guaranteed in the secure and permanent +expectation of that surplus value through all the perils of social envy; +the Proletarian is guaranteed in a sufficiency and a security for that +sufficiency; but by the very action of such a guarantee there is +withdrawn from him the power to refuse his labour and thus to aim at +putting himself in possession of the means of production. + +Such schemes definitely divide citizens into two classes, the Capitalist +and the Proletarian. They make it impossible for the second to combat +the privileged position of the first. They introduce into the positive +laws of the community a recognition of social facts which already divide +Englishmen into two groups of economically more free and economically +less free, and they stamp with the authority of the State a new +constitution of society. Society is recognised as no longer consisting +of free men bargaining freely for their labour or any other commodity in +their possession, but of two contrasting status, owners and non-owners. +The first must not be allowed to leave the second without subsistence; +the second must not be allowed to obtain that grip upon the means of +production which is the privilege of the first. It is true that this +first experiment is small in degree and tentative in quality; but to +judge the movement as a general whole we must not only consider the +expression it has actually received so far in positive law, but the mood +of our time. + +When this first experiment in a minimum wage was being debated in +Parliament, what was the great issue of debate? Upon what did those who +were the most ardent reformers particularly insist? *Not* that the +miners should have an avenue open to them for obtaining possession of +the mines; not even that the State should have an avenue open to it for +obtaining such possession; *but that the minimum wage should be fixed at +a certain satisfactory level*! That, as our recent experience testifies +for all of us, was the crux of the quarrel. And that such a point should +be the crux, not the socialisation of the mines, nor the admission of +the proletariat to the means of production, but only a sufficiency and a +security of wage,is amply significant of the perhaps irresistible forces +which are making in the direction for which I argue in this book. + +There was here no attempt of the Capitalist to impose Servile conditions +nor of the Proletarian to resist them. Both parties were agreed upon +that fundamental change. The discussion turned upon the minimum limit of +subsistence to be securely provided, a point which left aside, because +it took for granted, the establishment of *some* minimum in any case. + +Next, let it be noted (for it is of moment to a later part of my +argument) that experiments of this sort promise to extend piecemeal. +There is no likelihood, judging by men's actions and speech, of some +grand general scheme for the establishment of a minimum wage throughout +the community. Such a scheme would, of course, be as truly an +establishment of the Servile State as piecemeal schemes. But, as we +shall see in a moment, the extension of the principle piece-meal has a +considerable effect upon the forms which compulsion may take. + +The miners' refusal to work, with the exaggerated panic it caused, bred +this first tentative appearance of the minimum wage in our laws. +Normally, capital prefers free labour with its margin of destitution; +for such an anarchy, ephemeral though it is of its nature, while it +lasts provides cheap labour; from the narrowest point of view it +provides in the still competitive areas of Capitalism a better chance +for profits. + +But as one group of workmen after another, concerned with trades +immediately necessary to the life of the nation, and therefore +tolerating but little interruption, learn the power which combination +gives them, it is inevitable that the legislator (concentrated as he is +upon momentary remedies for difficulties as they arise) should propose +for one such trade after another the remedy of a minimum wage. + +There can be little doubt that, trade by trade, the principle will +extend. For instance, the two and a half millions now guaranteed against +unemployment are guaranteed against it for a certain weekly sum. That +weekly sum must bear some relation to their estimated earnings when they +are in employment. + +It is a short step from the calculation of unemployment benefit (its +being fixed by statute at a certain level, and that level determined by +something which is regarded as the just remuneration of labour in that +trade); it is a short step, I say, from that to a statutory fixing of +the sums paid during employment. + +The State says to the Serf: "I saw to it that you should have so much +when you were unemployed. I find that in some rare cases my arrangement +leads to your getting more when you are unemployed than when you are +employed. I further find that in many cases, though you get more when +you are employed, yet the difference is not sufficient to tempt a lazy +man to work, or to make him take any particular trouble to get work. I +must see to this." + +The provision of a fixed schedule during unemployment thus inevitably +leads to the examination, the defining, and at last the imposition of a +minimum wage during employment; and every compulsory provision for +unemployed benefits is the seed of a minimum wage. + +Of still greater effect is the mere presence of State regulation in such +a matter. The fact that the State has begun to gather statistics of +wages over these large areas of industry, and to do so not for a mere +statistical object, but a practical one, and the fact that the State has +begun to immix the action of positive law and constraint with the older +system of free bargaining, mean that the whole weight of its influence +is now in favour of regulation. It is no rash prophecy to assert that in +the near future our industrial society will see a gradually extending +area of industry in which from two sides the fixing of wages by statute +shall appear. From the one side it will come in the form of the State +examining the conditions of labour in connection with its own schemes +for establishing sufficiency and security by insurance. From the other +side it will come through the reasonable proposals to make contracts +between groups of labour and groups of capital enforceable in the Courts. -So much, then, for the Principle of a Minimum Wage. It has -already appeared in our laws. It is certain to spread. But -how does the presence of this introduction of a Minimum form -part of the advance towards the Servile State? - -I have said that the principle of a minimum wage involves as -its converse the principle of compulsory labour. Indeed, -most of the importance which the principle of a minimum wage -has for this inquiry lies in that converse necessity of -compulsory labour which it involves. - -But as the connection between the two may not be clear at -first sight, we must do more than take it for granted. We -must establish it by process of reason. - -There are two distinct forms in which the whole policy of -enforcing security and sufficiency by law for the -proletariat produce a corresponding policy of compulsory -labour. - -The first of these forms is the compulsion which the Courts -will exercise upon either of the parties concerned in the -giving and in the receiving of the minimum wage. The second -form is the necessity under which society will find itself, -when once the principle of the minimum wage is conceded, -coupled with the principle of sufficiency and security, to -maintain those whom the minimum wage excludes from the area +So much, then, for the Principle of a Minimum Wage. It has already +appeared in our laws. It is certain to spread. But how does the presence +of this introduction of a Minimum form part of the advance towards the +Servile State? + +I have said that the principle of a minimum wage involves as its +converse the principle of compulsory labour. Indeed, most of the +importance which the principle of a minimum wage has for this inquiry +lies in that converse necessity of compulsory labour which it involves. + +But as the connection between the two may not be clear at first sight, +we must do more than take it for granted. We must establish it by +process of reason. + +There are two distinct forms in which the whole policy of enforcing +security and sufficiency by law for the proletariat produce a +corresponding policy of compulsory labour. + +The first of these forms is the compulsion which the Courts will +exercise upon either of the parties concerned in the giving and in the +receiving of the minimum wage. The second form is the necessity under +which society will find itself, when once the principle of the minimum +wage is conceded, coupled with the principle of sufficiency and +security, to maintain those whom the minimum wage excludes from the area of normal employment. As to the first form:-- -A Proletarian group has struck a bargain with a group of -Capitalists to the effect that it will produce for that -capital ten measures of value in a year, will be content to -receive six measures of value for itself,and will leave four -measures as surplus value for the Capitalists. The bargain -is ratified; the Courts have the power to enforce it. If the -Capitalists by some trick of fines or by bluntly breaking -their word pay out in wages less than the six measures, the -Courts must have some power of constraining them. In other -words, there must be some sanction to the action of the law. -There must be some power of punishment, and, through -punishment,of compulsion. Conversely, if the men, having -struck this bargain, go back upon their word; if individuals -among them or sections among them cease work with a new -demand for seven measures instead of six, the Courts must -have the power of constraining and of punishing *them*. -Where the bargain is ephemeral or at any rate extended over -only reasonable limits of time, it would be straining -language perhaps to say that each individual case of -constraint exercised against the workmen would be a case of -compulsory labour. But extend the system over a long period -of years, make it normal to industry and accepted as a habit -in men's daily conception of the way in which their lives -should be conducted, and the method is necessarily -transformed into a system of compulsory labour. In trades -where wages fluctuate little this will obviously be the -case. "You, the agricultural labourers of this district, -have taken fifteen shillings a week for a very long time. It -has worked perfectly well. There seems no reason why you -should have more. Nay, you put your hands to it through your -officials in the year so and so that you regarded that sum -as sufficient. Such and such of your members are now -refusing to perform what this Court regards as a contract. -They must return within the limits of that contract or -suffer the consequences." - -Remember what power analogy exercises over men's minds, and -how, when systems of the sort are common to many trades, -they will tend to create a general point of view for all -trades. Remember also how comparatively slight a threat is -already sufficient to control men in our industrial society, -the proletarian mass of which is accustomed to live from -week to week under peril of discharge, and has grown readily -amenable to the threat of any reduction in those wages upon -which it can but just subsist. - -Nor are the Courts enforcing such contracts or -quasi-contracts (as they will come to be regarded) the only -inducement. - -A man has been compelled by law to put aside sums from his -wages as insurance against unemployment. But he is no longer -the judge of how such sums shall be used. They are not in -his possession; they are not even in the hands of some -society which he can really control. They are in the hands -of a Government official. "Here is work offered you at -twenty-five shillings a week. If you do not take it you -certainly shall not have a right to the money you have been -compelled to put aside. If you will take it the sum shall -still stand to your credit, and when next in my judgment -your unemployment is not due to your recalcitrance and -refusal to labour, I will permit you to have some of your -money: not otherwise." Dovetailing in with this machinery of -compulsion is all that mass of registration and docketing -which is accumulating through the use of Labour Exchanges. -Not only will the Official have the power to enforce special -contracts, or the power to coerce individual men to labour -under the threat of a fine, but he will also have a series -of *dossiers* by which the record of each workman can be -established. No man, once so registered and known, can -escape; and, of the nature of the system, the numbers caught -in the net must steadily increase until the whole mass of -labour is mapped out and controlled. - -These are very powerful instruments of compulsion indeed. -They already exist. They are already a part of our laws. - -Lastly, there is the obvious bludgeon of "compulsory -arbitration": a bludgeon so obvious that it is revolting -even to our proletariat. Indeed, I know of no civilised -European state which has succumbed to so gross a suggestion. -For it is a frank admission of servitude at one step, and -for good and all, such as men of our culture are not yet +A Proletarian group has struck a bargain with a group of Capitalists to +the effect that it will produce for that capital ten measures of value +in a year, will be content to receive six measures of value for +itself,and will leave four measures as surplus value for the +Capitalists. The bargain is ratified; the Courts have the power to +enforce it. If the Capitalists by some trick of fines or by bluntly +breaking their word pay out in wages less than the six measures, the +Courts must have some power of constraining them. In other words, there +must be some sanction to the action of the law. There must be some power +of punishment, and, through punishment,of compulsion. Conversely, if the +men, having struck this bargain, go back upon their word; if individuals +among them or sections among them cease work with a new demand for seven +measures instead of six, the Courts must have the power of constraining +and of punishing *them*. Where the bargain is ephemeral or at any rate +extended over only reasonable limits of time, it would be straining +language perhaps to say that each individual case of constraint +exercised against the workmen would be a case of compulsory labour. But +extend the system over a long period of years, make it normal to +industry and accepted as a habit in men's daily conception of the way in +which their lives should be conducted, and the method is necessarily +transformed into a system of compulsory labour. In trades where wages +fluctuate little this will obviously be the case. "You, the agricultural +labourers of this district, have taken fifteen shillings a week for a +very long time. It has worked perfectly well. There seems no reason why +you should have more. Nay, you put your hands to it through your +officials in the year so and so that you regarded that sum as +sufficient. Such and such of your members are now refusing to perform +what this Court regards as a contract. They must return within the +limits of that contract or suffer the consequences." + +Remember what power analogy exercises over men's minds, and how, when +systems of the sort are common to many trades, they will tend to create +a general point of view for all trades. Remember also how comparatively +slight a threat is already sufficient to control men in our industrial +society, the proletarian mass of which is accustomed to live from week +to week under peril of discharge, and has grown readily amenable to the +threat of any reduction in those wages upon which it can but just +subsist. + +Nor are the Courts enforcing such contracts or quasi-contracts (as they +will come to be regarded) the only inducement. + +A man has been compelled by law to put aside sums from his wages as +insurance against unemployment. But he is no longer the judge of how +such sums shall be used. They are not in his possession; they are not +even in the hands of some society which he can really control. They are +in the hands of a Government official. "Here is work offered you at +twenty-five shillings a week. If you do not take it you certainly shall +not have a right to the money you have been compelled to put aside. If +you will take it the sum shall still stand to your credit, and when next +in my judgment your unemployment is not due to your recalcitrance and +refusal to labour, I will permit you to have some of your money: not +otherwise." Dovetailing in with this machinery of compulsion is all that +mass of registration and docketing which is accumulating through the use +of Labour Exchanges. Not only will the Official have the power to +enforce special contracts, or the power to coerce individual men to +labour under the threat of a fine, but he will also have a series of +*dossiers* by which the record of each workman can be established. No +man, once so registered and known, can escape; and, of the nature of the +system, the numbers caught in the net must steadily increase until the +whole mass of labour is mapped out and controlled. + +These are very powerful instruments of compulsion indeed. They already +exist. They are already a part of our laws. + +Lastly, there is the obvious bludgeon of "compulsory arbitration": a +bludgeon so obvious that it is revolting even to our proletariat. +Indeed, I know of no civilised European state which has succumbed to so +gross a suggestion. For it is a frank admission of servitude at one +step, and for good and all, such as men of our culture are not yet prepared to swallow. -So much, then, for the first argument and the first form in -which compulsory labour is seen to be a direct and necessary -consequence of establishing a minimum wage and of scheduling -employment to a scale. - -The second is equally clear. In the production of wheat the -healthy and skilled man who can produce ten measures of -wheat is compelled to work for six measures, and the -Capitalist is compelled to remain content with four measures -for his share. The law will punish him if he tries to get -out of his legal obligation and to pay his workmen less than -six measures of wheat during the year. What of the man who -is not sufficiently strong or skilled to produce even six -measures? Will the Capitalist be constrained to pay him more -than the values he can produce? Most certainly not. The -whole structure of production as it was erected during the -Capitalist phase of our industry has been left intact by the -new laws and customs. Profit is still left a necessity. If -it were destroyed, still more if a loss were imposed by law, -that would be a contradiction of the whole spirit in which -all these reforms are being undertaken. They are being -undertaken with the object of establishing stability where -there is now instability, and of "reconciling," as the -ironic phrase goes, "the interests of capital and labour." -It would be impossible, without a general ruin, to compel -capital to lose upon the man who is not worth even the -minimum wage. How shall that element of insecurity and -instability be eliminated? To support the man gratuitously -because he cannot earn a minimum wage, when all the rest of -the commonwealth is working for its guaranteed wages, is to -put a premium upon incapacity and sloth. The man must be -made to work. He must be taught, if possible, to produce -those economic values, which are regarded as the minimum of -sufficiency. He must be kept at that work even if he cannot -produce the minimum, lest his presence as a free labourer -should imperil the whole scheme of the minimum wage, and -introduce at the same time a continuous element of -instability. Hence he is necessarily a subject for forced -labour. We have not yet in this country, established by -force of law, the right to this form of compulsion, but it -is an inevitable consequence of those other reforms which -have just been reviewed. The "Labour Colony" (a prison so -called because euphemism is necessary to every transition) -will be erected to absorb this surplus, and that last form -of compulsion will crown the edifice of these reforms. They -will then be complete so far as the subject classes are -concerned, and even though this particular institution of -the "Labour Colony" (logically the last of all) precede in -time other forms of compulsion, it will make the advent of -those other forms of compulsion more certain, facile, and -rapid. - -There remains one last remark to be made upon the concrete -side of my subject. I have in this last section illustrated -the tendency towards the Servile State from actual laws and -actual projects with which all are to-day familiar in -English industrial society, and I have shown how these are -certainly establishing the proletariat in a novel, but to -them satisfactory, Servile Status. - -It remains to point out in a very few lines the -complementary truth that what should be the very essence of -Collectivist Reform, to wit, the translation of the means of -production from the hands of private owners to the hands of -public officials, is nowhere being attempted. So far from -its being attempted, all so-called "Socialistic" experiments -in municipalisation and nationalisation are merely -increasing the dependence of the community upon the -Capitalist class. To prove this, we need only observe that -every single one of these experiments is effected by a loan. - -Now what is meant in economic reality by these municipal -loans and national loans raised for the purpose of -purchasing certain small sections of the means of -production? - -Certain Capitalists own a number of rails, cars, etc. They -put to work upon these certain Proletarians,and the result -is a certain total of economic values. Let the surplus -values obtainable by the Capitalists after the subsistence -of the proletarians is provided for amount to £10,000 a -year. We all know how a system of this sort is -"Municipalised." A "loan" is raised. It bears "interest." It -is saddled with a "sinking fund." - -Now this loan is not really made in money, though the terms -of it are in money. It is, at the end of a long string of -exchanges, nothing more nor less than the loan of the cars, -the rails, etc., by the Capitalists to the Municipality. And -the Capitalists require, before they will strike the -bargain, a guarantee that the whole of their old profit -shall be paid to them, together with a further yearly sum, -which after a certain number of years shall represent the -original value of the concern when they handed it over. -These last additional sums are called the "sinking fund"; -the, continued payment of the old surplus values is called -the "interest." - -In theory certain small sections of the means of production -might be acquired in this way. That particular section would -have been "socialised." The "Sinking Fund" (that is, the -paying of the Capitalists for their plant by instalments) -might be met out of the general taxation imposed on the -community, considering how large that is compared with any -one experiment of the kind. The "interest" may by good -management be met out of the true profits of the tramways. -At the end of a certain number of years the community will -be in possession of the tramways, will no longer be -exploited in this particular by Capitalism, will have bought -out Capitalism from the general taxes, and, in so far as the -purchase money paid has been consumed and not saved or -invested by the Capitalists, a small measure of -"socialisation" will have been achieved. +So much, then, for the first argument and the first form in which +compulsory labour is seen to be a direct and necessary consequence of +establishing a minimum wage and of scheduling employment to a scale. + +The second is equally clear. In the production of wheat the healthy and +skilled man who can produce ten measures of wheat is compelled to work +for six measures, and the Capitalist is compelled to remain content with +four measures for his share. The law will punish him if he tries to get +out of his legal obligation and to pay his workmen less than six +measures of wheat during the year. What of the man who is not +sufficiently strong or skilled to produce even six measures? Will the +Capitalist be constrained to pay him more than the values he can +produce? Most certainly not. The whole structure of production as it was +erected during the Capitalist phase of our industry has been left intact +by the new laws and customs. Profit is still left a necessity. If it +were destroyed, still more if a loss were imposed by law, that would be +a contradiction of the whole spirit in which all these reforms are being +undertaken. They are being undertaken with the object of establishing +stability where there is now instability, and of "reconciling," as the +ironic phrase goes, "the interests of capital and labour." It would be +impossible, without a general ruin, to compel capital to lose upon the +man who is not worth even the minimum wage. How shall that element of +insecurity and instability be eliminated? To support the man +gratuitously because he cannot earn a minimum wage, when all the rest of +the commonwealth is working for its guaranteed wages, is to put a +premium upon incapacity and sloth. The man must be made to work. He must +be taught, if possible, to produce those economic values, which are +regarded as the minimum of sufficiency. He must be kept at that work +even if he cannot produce the minimum, lest his presence as a free +labourer should imperil the whole scheme of the minimum wage, and +introduce at the same time a continuous element of instability. Hence he +is necessarily a subject for forced labour. We have not yet in this +country, established by force of law, the right to this form of +compulsion, but it is an inevitable consequence of those other reforms +which have just been reviewed. The "Labour Colony" (a prison so called +because euphemism is necessary to every transition) will be erected to +absorb this surplus, and that last form of compulsion will crown the +edifice of these reforms. They will then be complete so far as the +subject classes are concerned, and even though this particular +institution of the "Labour Colony" (logically the last of all) precede +in time other forms of compulsion, it will make the advent of those +other forms of compulsion more certain, facile, and rapid. + +There remains one last remark to be made upon the concrete side of my +subject. I have in this last section illustrated the tendency towards +the Servile State from actual laws and actual projects with which all +are to-day familiar in English industrial society, and I have shown how +these are certainly establishing the proletariat in a novel, but to them +satisfactory, Servile Status. + +It remains to point out in a very few lines the complementary truth that +what should be the very essence of Collectivist Reform, to wit, the +translation of the means of production from the hands of private owners +to the hands of public officials, is nowhere being attempted. So far +from its being attempted, all so-called "Socialistic" experiments in +municipalisation and nationalisation are merely increasing the +dependence of the community upon the Capitalist class. To prove this, we +need only observe that every single one of these experiments is effected +by a loan. + +Now what is meant in economic reality by these municipal loans and +national loans raised for the purpose of purchasing certain small +sections of the means of production? + +Certain Capitalists own a number of rails, cars, etc. They put to work +upon these certain Proletarians,and the result is a certain total of +economic values. Let the surplus values obtainable by the Capitalists +after the subsistence of the proletarians is provided for amount to +£10,000 a year. We all know how a system of this sort is +"Municipalised." A "loan" is raised. It bears "interest." It is saddled +with a "sinking fund." + +Now this loan is not really made in money, though the terms of it are in +money. It is, at the end of a long string of exchanges, nothing more nor +less than the loan of the cars, the rails, etc., by the Capitalists to +the Municipality. And the Capitalists require, before they will strike +the bargain, a guarantee that the whole of their old profit shall be +paid to them, together with a further yearly sum, which after a certain +number of years shall represent the original value of the concern when +they handed it over. These last additional sums are called the "sinking +fund"; the, continued payment of the old surplus values is called the +"interest." + +In theory certain small sections of the means of production might be +acquired in this way. That particular section would have been +"socialised." The "Sinking Fund" (that is, the paying of the Capitalists +for their plant by instalments) might be met out of the general taxation +imposed on the community, considering how large that is compared with +any one experiment of the kind. The "interest" may by good management be +met out of the true profits of the tramways. At the end of a certain +number of years the community will be in possession of the tramways, +will no longer be exploited in this particular by Capitalism, will have +bought out Capitalism from the general taxes, and, in so far as the +purchase money paid has been consumed and not saved or invested by the +Capitalists, a small measure of "socialisation" will have been achieved. As a fact things are never so favourable. -In practice three conditions militate against even these -tiny experiments in expropriation: the fact that the -implements are always sold at much more than their true -value; the fact that the purchase includes non-productive -things; and the fact that the rate of borrowing is much -faster than the rate of repayment. These three adverse -conditions lead in practice to nothing but the riveting of -Capitalism more securely round the body of the State. - -For what is it that is paid for when a tramway, for -instance, is taken over? Is it the true capital alone, the -actual plant, which is paid for, even at an exaggerated -price? Far from it! Over and above the rails and the cars, -there are all the commissions that have been made, all the -champagne luncheons, all the lawyers' fees, all the -compensations to this man and to that man, all the bribes. -Nor does this exhaust the argument. Tramways represent a -productive investment. What about pleasure gardens, -wash-houses, baths, libraries, monuments, and the rest? The -greater part of these things are the product of "loans." -When you put up a public institution you borrow the bricks -and the mortar and the iron and the wood and the tiles from -Capitalists, and you pledge yourself to pay interest, *and -to produce a sinking fund precisely as though a town hall or -a bath were a piece of reproductive machinery*. - -To this must be added the fact that a considerable -proportion of the purchases are failures: purchases of -things just before they are driven out by some new -invention; while on the top of the whole business you have -the fact that the borrowing goes on at a far greater rate -than the repayment. - -In a word, all these experiments up and down Europe during -our generation, municipal and national, have resulted in an -indebtedness to capital increasing rather more than twice, -but not three times, as fast as the rate of repayment. The -interest which capital demands with a complete indifference -as to whether the loan is productive or non-productive -amounts to rather more than 1.5% *excess* over the produce -of the various experiments, even though we count in the most -lucrative and successful of these, such as the state -railways of many countries, and the thoroughly successful -municipal enterprises of many modern towns. - -Capitalism has seen to it that it shall be a winner and not -a loser by this form of sham Socialism, as by every other. -And the same forces which in practice forbid confiscation -see to it that the attempt to mask confiscation by purchase -shall not only fail, but shall turn against those who have -not had the courage to make a frontal attack upon privilege. - -With these concrete examples showing how Collectivism, in -attempting its practice, does but confirm the Capitalist -position, and showing how our laws have already begun to -impose a Servile Status upon the Proletariat, I end the -argumentative thesis of this book. +In practice three conditions militate against even these tiny +experiments in expropriation: the fact that the implements are always +sold at much more than their true value; the fact that the purchase +includes non-productive things; and the fact that the rate of borrowing +is much faster than the rate of repayment. These three adverse +conditions lead in practice to nothing but the riveting of Capitalism +more securely round the body of the State. + +For what is it that is paid for when a tramway, for instance, is taken +over? Is it the true capital alone, the actual plant, which is paid for, +even at an exaggerated price? Far from it! Over and above the rails and +the cars, there are all the commissions that have been made, all the +champagne luncheons, all the lawyers' fees, all the compensations to +this man and to that man, all the bribes. Nor does this exhaust the +argument. Tramways represent a productive investment. What about +pleasure gardens, wash-houses, baths, libraries, monuments, and the +rest? The greater part of these things are the product of "loans." When +you put up a public institution you borrow the bricks and the mortar and +the iron and the wood and the tiles from Capitalists, and you pledge +yourself to pay interest, *and to produce a sinking fund precisely as +though a town hall or a bath were a piece of reproductive machinery*. + +To this must be added the fact that a considerable proportion of the +purchases are failures: purchases of things just before they are driven +out by some new invention; while on the top of the whole business you +have the fact that the borrowing goes on at a far greater rate than the +repayment. + +In a word, all these experiments up and down Europe during our +generation, municipal and national, have resulted in an indebtedness to +capital increasing rather more than twice, but not three times, as fast +as the rate of repayment. The interest which capital demands with a +complete indifference as to whether the loan is productive or +non-productive amounts to rather more than 1.5% *excess* over the +produce of the various experiments, even though we count in the most +lucrative and successful of these, such as the state railways of many +countries, and the thoroughly successful municipal enterprises of many +modern towns. + +Capitalism has seen to it that it shall be a winner and not a loser by +this form of sham Socialism, as by every other. And the same forces +which in practice forbid confiscation see to it that the attempt to mask +confiscation by purchase shall not only fail, but shall turn against +those who have not had the courage to make a frontal attack upon +privilege. + +With these concrete examples showing how Collectivism, in attempting its +practice, does but confirm the Capitalist position, and showing how our +laws have already begun to impose a Servile Status upon the Proletariat, +I end the argumentative thesis of this book. I believe I have proved my case. -The future of industrial society, and in particular of -English society, left to its own direction, is a future in -which subsistence and security shall be guaranteed for the -Proletariat, but shall be guaranteed at the expense of the -old political freedom and by the establishment of that -Proletariat in a status really, though not nominally, -servile. At the same time, the Owners will be guaranteed in -their profits, the whole machinery of production in the -smoothness of its working, and that stability which has been -lost under the Capitalist phase of society will be found -once more. - -The internal strains which have threatened society during -its Capitalist phase will be relaxed and eliminated, and the -community will settle down upon that Servile basis which was -its foundation before the advent of the Christian faith, -from which that faith slowly weaned it, and to which in the -decay of that faith it naturally returns. +The future of industrial society, and in particular of English society, +left to its own direction, is a future in which subsistence and security +shall be guaranteed for the Proletariat, but shall be guaranteed at the +expense of the old political freedom and by the establishment of that +Proletariat in a status really, though not nominally, servile. At the +same time, the Owners will be guaranteed in their profits, the whole +machinery of production in the smoothness of its working, and that +stability which has been lost under the Capitalist phase of society will +be found once more. + +The internal strains which have threatened society during its Capitalist +phase will be relaxed and eliminated, and the community will settle down +upon that Servile basis which was its foundation before the advent of +the Christian faith, from which that faith slowly weaned it, and to +which in the decay of that faith it naturally returns. # Conclusion -It is possible to portray a great social movement of the -past with accuracy and in detail if one can spare to the -task the time necessary for research and further bring to it -a certain power of co-ordination by which a great mass of -detail can be integrated and made one whole. - -Such a task is rarely accomplished, but it does not exceed -the powers of history. - -With regard to the future it is otherwise. No one can say -even in its largest aspect or upon its chief structural line -what that future will be. He can only present the main -tendencies of his time: he can only determine the equation -of the curve and presume that that equation will apply more -or less to its next developments. - -So far as I can judge, those societies which broke with the -continuity of Christian civilisation in the sixteenth -century---which means, roughly, North Germany and Great -Britain---tend at present to the re-establishment of a -Servile Status. It will be diversified by local accident, -modified by local character, hidden under many forms. But it +It is possible to portray a great social movement of the past with +accuracy and in detail if one can spare to the task the time necessary +for research and further bring to it a certain power of co-ordination by +which a great mass of detail can be integrated and made one whole. + +Such a task is rarely accomplished, but it does not exceed the powers of +history. + +With regard to the future it is otherwise. No one can say even in its +largest aspect or upon its chief structural line what that future will +be. He can only present the main tendencies of his time: he can only +determine the equation of the curve and presume that that equation will +apply more or less to its next developments. + +So far as I can judge, those societies which broke with the continuity +of Christian civilisation in the sixteenth century---which means, +roughly, North Germany and Great Britain---tend at present to the +re-establishment of a Servile Status. It will be diversified by local +accident, modified by local character, hidden under many forms. But it will come. -That the mere Capitalist anarchy cannot endure is patent to -all men. That only a very few possible solutions to it exist -should be equally patent to all. For my part, as I have said -in these pages, I do not believe there are more than two: a -reaction towards well-divided property, or the -re-establishment of servitude. I cannot believe that -theoretical Collectivism, now so plainly failing, will ever -inform a real and living society. - -But my conviction that the re-establishment of the Servile -Status in industrial society is actually upon us does not -lead me to any meagre and mechanical prophecy of what the -future of Europe shall be. The force of which I have been -speaking is not the only force in the field. There is a -complex knot of forces underlying any nation once Christian; -a smouldering of the old fires. - -Moreover, one can point to European societies which will -most certainly reject any such solution' of our Capitalist -problem, just as the same societies have either rejected,or -lived suspicious of, Capitalism itself, and have rejected or -lived suspicious of that industrial organisation which till -lately identified itself with "progress" and national -well-being. - -These societies are in the main the same as those which, in -that great storm of the sixteenth century,---the capital -episode in the story of Christendom---held fast to tradition -and saved the continuity of morals. Chief among them should -be noted to-day the French and the Irish. - -I would record it as an impression and no more that the -Servile State, strong as the tide is making for it in -Prussia and in England to-day, will be modified, checked, -perhaps defeated in war, certainly halted in its attempt to -establish itself completely, by the strong reaction which -these freer societies upon its flank will perpetually -exercise. - -Ireland has decided for a free peasantry, and our generation -has seen the solid foundation of that institution laid. In -France the many experiments which elsewhere have -successfully introduced the Servile State have been -contemptuously rejected by the populace,and (most -significant!) a recent attempt to register and to "insure" -the artisans as a separate category of citizens has broken -down in the face of an universal and a virile contempt. - -That this second factor in the development of the future, -the presence of free societies, will destroy the tendency to -the Servile State elsewhere I do not affirm, but I believe -that it will modify that tendency, certainly by example and -perhaps by direct attack. And as I am upon the whole hopeful -that the Faith will recover its intimate and guiding place -in the heart of Europe, so I believe that this sinking back -into our original Paganism (for the tendency to the Servile -State is nothing less) will in due time be halted and -reversed. +That the mere Capitalist anarchy cannot endure is patent to all men. +That only a very few possible solutions to it exist should be equally +patent to all. For my part, as I have said in these pages, I do not +believe there are more than two: a reaction towards well-divided +property, or the re-establishment of servitude. I cannot believe that +theoretical Collectivism, now so plainly failing, will ever inform a +real and living society. + +But my conviction that the re-establishment of the Servile Status in +industrial society is actually upon us does not lead me to any meagre +and mechanical prophecy of what the future of Europe shall be. The force +of which I have been speaking is not the only force in the field. There +is a complex knot of forces underlying any nation once Christian; a +smouldering of the old fires. + +Moreover, one can point to European societies which will most certainly +reject any such solution' of our Capitalist problem, just as the same +societies have either rejected,or lived suspicious of, Capitalism +itself, and have rejected or lived suspicious of that industrial +organisation which till lately identified itself with "progress" and +national well-being. + +These societies are in the main the same as those which, in that great +storm of the sixteenth century,---the capital episode in the story of +Christendom---held fast to tradition and saved the continuity of morals. +Chief among them should be noted to-day the French and the Irish. + +I would record it as an impression and no more that the Servile State, +strong as the tide is making for it in Prussia and in England to-day, +will be modified, checked, perhaps defeated in war, certainly halted in +its attempt to establish itself completely, by the strong reaction which +these freer societies upon its flank will perpetually exercise. + +Ireland has decided for a free peasantry, and our generation has seen +the solid foundation of that institution laid. In France the many +experiments which elsewhere have successfully introduced the Servile +State have been contemptuously rejected by the populace,and (most +significant!) a recent attempt to register and to "insure" the artisans +as a separate category of citizens has broken down in the face of an +universal and a virile contempt. + +That this second factor in the development of the future, the presence +of free societies, will destroy the tendency to the Servile State +elsewhere I do not affirm, but I believe that it will modify that +tendency, certainly by example and perhaps by direct attack. And as I am +upon the whole hopeful that the Faith will recover its intimate and +guiding place in the heart of Europe, so I believe that this sinking +back into our original Paganism (for the tendency to the Servile State +is nothing less) will in due time be halted and reversed. *Videat Deus*. diff --git a/src/social-problems.md b/src/social-problems.md index c1d88dc..56a1902 100644 --- a/src/social-problems.md +++ b/src/social-problems.md @@ -1,19 +1,16 @@ # Preface -The first eleven chapters of this book are revised from -articles published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, -during the first half of this year, under the title of -"Problems of the Time." In the chapters which follow, I have -more fully developed the lines of thought there begun. My -endeavor has been to present the momentous social problems -of our time, unencumbered by technicalities, and without -that abstract reasoning which some of the principles of -Political Economy require for thorough explanation. I have -spoken in this book of some points not touched upon, or but -lightly touched upon, in "Progress and Poverty," but there -are other points as to which I think it would be worth the -while of those who may be interested by this book to read -that. +The first eleven chapters of this book are revised from articles +published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, during the first half +of this year, under the title of "Problems of the Time." In the chapters +which follow, I have more fully developed the lines of thought there +begun. My endeavor has been to present the momentous social problems of +our time, unencumbered by technicalities, and without that abstract +reasoning which some of the principles of Political Economy require for +thorough explanation. I have spoken in this book of some points not +touched upon, or but lightly touched upon, in "Progress and Poverty," +but there are other points as to which I think it would be worth the +while of those who may be interested by this book to read that. **Henry George.** @@ -21,8236 +18,6968 @@ that. # The Increasing Importance of Social Questions -There come moments in our lives that summon all our -powers---when we feel that, casting away illusions, we must -decide and act with our utmost intelligence and energy. So -in the lives of peoples come periods specially calling for -earnestness and intelligence. - -We seem to have entered one of these periods. Over and again -have nations and civilizations been confronted with problems -which, like the riddle of the Sphinx, not to answer was to -be destroyed; but never before have problems so vast and -intricate been presented. This is not strange. That the -closing years of this century must bring up momentous social -questions follows from the material and intellectual -progress that has marked its course. - -Between the development of society and the development of -species there is a close analogy. In the lowest forms of -animal life there is little difference of parts; both wants -and powers are few and simple; movement seems automatic; and -instincts are scarcely distinguishable from those of the -vegetable. So homogeneous are some of these living things, -that if cut in pieces, each piece still lives. But as life -rises into higher manifestations, simplicity gives way to -complexity, the parts develop into organs having separate -functions and reciprocal relations, new wants and powers -arise, and a greater and greater degree of intelligence is -needed to secure food and avoid danger. Did fish, bird or -beast possess no higher intelligence than the polyp, Nature -could bring them forth only to die. - -This law---that the increasing complexity and delicacy of -organization which give higher capacity and increased power -are accompanied by increased wants and dangers, and require, -therefore, increased intelligence---runs through nature. In -the ascending scale of life at last comes man, the most -highly and delicately organized of animals. Yet not only do -his higher powers require for their use a higher -intelligence than exists in other animals, but without -higher intelligence he could not live. His skin is too thin; -his nails too brittle; he is too poorly adapted for running, -climbing, swimming or burrowing. Were he not gifted with -intelligence greater than that of any beast, he would perish -from cold, starve from inability to get food, or be -exterminated by animals better equipped for the struggle in -which brute instinct suffices. - -In man, however, the intelligence which increases all -through nature's rising scale passes at one bound into an -intelligence so superior, that the difference seems of kind -rather than degree. In him, that narrow and seemingly -unconscious intelligence that we call instinct becomes -conscious reason, and the godlike power of adaptation and -invention makes feeble man nature's king. - -But with man the ascending line stops. Animal life assumes -no higher form; nor can we affirm that, in all his -generations, man, as an animal, has a whit improved. But -progression in another line begins. Where the development of -species ends, social development commences, and that advance -of society that we call civilization so increases human -powers, that between savage and civilized man there is a -gulf so vast as to suggest the gulf between the highly -organized animal and the oyster glued to the rocks. And with -every advance upon this line new vistas open. When we try to -think what knowledge and power progressive civilization may -give to the men of the future, imagination fails. - -In this progression which begins with man, as in that which -leads up to him, the same law holds. Each advance makes a -demand for higher and higher intelligence. With the -beginnings of society arises the need for social -intelligence---for that consensus of individual intelligence -which forms a public opinion, a public conscience, a public -will, and is manifested in law, institutions and -administration. As society develops, a higher and higher -degree of this social intelligence is required, for the -relation of individuals to each other becomes more intimate -and important, and the increasing complexity of the social -organization brings liability to new dangers. - -In the rude beginning, each family produces its own food, -makes its own clothes, builds its own house, and, when it -moves, furnishes its own transportation. Compare with this -independence the intricate interdependence of the denizens -of a modern city. They may supply themselves with greater -certainty, and in much greater variety and abundance, than -the savage; but it is by the co-operation of thousands. Even -the water they drink, and the artificial light they use, are -brought to them by elaborate machinery, requiring the -constant labor and watchfulness of many men. They may travel -at a speed incredible to the savage; but in doing so resign -life and limb to the care of others. A broken rail, a -drunken engineer, a careless switch-man, may hurl them to -eternity. And the power of applying labor to the -satisfaction of desire passes, in the same way, beyond the -direct control of the individual. The laborer becomes but -part of a great machine, which may at any time be paralyzed -by causes beyond his power, or even his foresight. Thus does -the well-being of each become more and more dependent upon -the well-being of all---the individual more and more -subordinate to society. - -And so come new dangers. The rude society resembles the -creatures that though cut into pieces will live; the highly -civilized society is like a highly organized animal: a stab -in a vital part, the suppression of a single function, is -death. A savage village may be burned and its people driven -off---but, used to direct recourse to nature, they can -maintain themselves. Highly civilized man, however, -accustomed to capital, to machinery, to the minute division -of labor, becomes helpless when suddenly deprived of these -and thrown upon nature. Under the factory system, some sixty -persons, with the aid of much costly machinery, co-operate -to the making of a pair of shoes. But, of the sixty, not one -could make a whole shoe. This is the tendency in all -branches of production, even in agriculture. How many -farmers of the new generation can use the flail? How many -farmers' wives can now make a coat from the wool? Many of -our farmers do not even make their own butter or raise their -own vegetables! There is an enormous gain in productive -power from this division of labor, which assigns to the -individual the production of but a few of the things, or -even but a small part of one of the things, he needs, and -makes each dependent upon others with whom he never comes in -contact; but the social organization becomes more sensitive. -A primitive village community may pursue the even tenor of -its life without feeling disasters which overtake other -villages but a few miles off; but in the closely knit -civilization to which we have attained, a war, a scarcity, a -commercial crisis, in one hemisphere produces powerful -effects in the other, while shocks and jars from which a -primitive community easily recovers would to a highly -civilized community mean wreck. - -It is startling to think how destructive in a civilization -like ours would be such fierce conflicts as fill the history -of the past. The wars of highly civilized countries, since -the opening of the era of steam and machinery, have been -duels of armies rather than conflicts of peoples or classes. -Our only glimpse of what might happen, were passion fully -aroused, was in the struggle of the Paris Commune. And, -since 1870, to the knowledge of petroleum has been added -that of even more destructive agents. The explosion of a -little nitro-glycerine under a few water-mains would make a -great city uninhabitable; the blowing up of a few railroad -bridges and tunnels would bring famine quicker than the wall -of circumvallation that Titus drew around Jerusalem; the -pumping of atmospheric air into the gas-mains, and the -application of a match, would tear up every street and level -every house. The Thirty Years War set back civilization in -Germany; so fierce a war now would all but destroy it. Not -merely have destructive powers vastly increased, but the +There come moments in our lives that summon all our powers---when we +feel that, casting away illusions, we must decide and act with our +utmost intelligence and energy. So in the lives of peoples come periods +specially calling for earnestness and intelligence. + +We seem to have entered one of these periods. Over and again have +nations and civilizations been confronted with problems which, like the +riddle of the Sphinx, not to answer was to be destroyed; but never +before have problems so vast and intricate been presented. This is not +strange. That the closing years of this century must bring up momentous +social questions follows from the material and intellectual progress +that has marked its course. + +Between the development of society and the development of species there +is a close analogy. In the lowest forms of animal life there is little +difference of parts; both wants and powers are few and simple; movement +seems automatic; and instincts are scarcely distinguishable from those +of the vegetable. So homogeneous are some of these living things, that +if cut in pieces, each piece still lives. But as life rises into higher +manifestations, simplicity gives way to complexity, the parts develop +into organs having separate functions and reciprocal relations, new +wants and powers arise, and a greater and greater degree of intelligence +is needed to secure food and avoid danger. Did fish, bird or beast +possess no higher intelligence than the polyp, Nature could bring them +forth only to die. + +This law---that the increasing complexity and delicacy of organization +which give higher capacity and increased power are accompanied by +increased wants and dangers, and require, therefore, increased +intelligence---runs through nature. In the ascending scale of life at +last comes man, the most highly and delicately organized of animals. Yet +not only do his higher powers require for their use a higher +intelligence than exists in other animals, but without higher +intelligence he could not live. His skin is too thin; his nails too +brittle; he is too poorly adapted for running, climbing, swimming or +burrowing. Were he not gifted with intelligence greater than that of any +beast, he would perish from cold, starve from inability to get food, or +be exterminated by animals better equipped for the struggle in which +brute instinct suffices. + +In man, however, the intelligence which increases all through nature's +rising scale passes at one bound into an intelligence so superior, that +the difference seems of kind rather than degree. In him, that narrow and +seemingly unconscious intelligence that we call instinct becomes +conscious reason, and the godlike power of adaptation and invention +makes feeble man nature's king. + +But with man the ascending line stops. Animal life assumes no higher +form; nor can we affirm that, in all his generations, man, as an animal, +has a whit improved. But progression in another line begins. Where the +development of species ends, social development commences, and that +advance of society that we call civilization so increases human powers, +that between savage and civilized man there is a gulf so vast as to +suggest the gulf between the highly organized animal and the oyster +glued to the rocks. And with every advance upon this line new vistas +open. When we try to think what knowledge and power progressive +civilization may give to the men of the future, imagination fails. + +In this progression which begins with man, as in that which leads up to +him, the same law holds. Each advance makes a demand for higher and +higher intelligence. With the beginnings of society arises the need for +social intelligence---for that consensus of individual intelligence +which forms a public opinion, a public conscience, a public will, and is +manifested in law, institutions and administration. As society develops, +a higher and higher degree of this social intelligence is required, for +the relation of individuals to each other becomes more intimate and +important, and the increasing complexity of the social organization +brings liability to new dangers. + +In the rude beginning, each family produces its own food, makes its own +clothes, builds its own house, and, when it moves, furnishes its own +transportation. Compare with this independence the intricate +interdependence of the denizens of a modern city. They may supply +themselves with greater certainty, and in much greater variety and +abundance, than the savage; but it is by the co-operation of thousands. +Even the water they drink, and the artificial light they use, are +brought to them by elaborate machinery, requiring the constant labor and +watchfulness of many men. They may travel at a speed incredible to the +savage; but in doing so resign life and limb to the care of others. A +broken rail, a drunken engineer, a careless switch-man, may hurl them to +eternity. And the power of applying labor to the satisfaction of desire +passes, in the same way, beyond the direct control of the individual. +The laborer becomes but part of a great machine, which may at any time +be paralyzed by causes beyond his power, or even his foresight. Thus +does the well-being of each become more and more dependent upon the +well-being of all---the individual more and more subordinate to society. + +And so come new dangers. The rude society resembles the creatures that +though cut into pieces will live; the highly civilized society is like a +highly organized animal: a stab in a vital part, the suppression of a +single function, is death. A savage village may be burned and its people +driven off---but, used to direct recourse to nature, they can maintain +themselves. Highly civilized man, however, accustomed to capital, to +machinery, to the minute division of labor, becomes helpless when +suddenly deprived of these and thrown upon nature. Under the factory +system, some sixty persons, with the aid of much costly machinery, +co-operate to the making of a pair of shoes. But, of the sixty, not one +could make a whole shoe. This is the tendency in all branches of +production, even in agriculture. How many farmers of the new generation +can use the flail? How many farmers' wives can now make a coat from the +wool? Many of our farmers do not even make their own butter or raise +their own vegetables! There is an enormous gain in productive power from +this division of labor, which assigns to the individual the production +of but a few of the things, or even but a small part of one of the +things, he needs, and makes each dependent upon others with whom he +never comes in contact; but the social organization becomes more +sensitive. A primitive village community may pursue the even tenor of +its life without feeling disasters which overtake other villages but a +few miles off; but in the closely knit civilization to which we have +attained, a war, a scarcity, a commercial crisis, in one hemisphere +produces powerful effects in the other, while shocks and jars from which +a primitive community easily recovers would to a highly civilized +community mean wreck. + +It is startling to think how destructive in a civilization like ours +would be such fierce conflicts as fill the history of the past. The wars +of highly civilized countries, since the opening of the era of steam and +machinery, have been duels of armies rather than conflicts of peoples or +classes. Our only glimpse of what might happen, were passion fully +aroused, was in the struggle of the Paris Commune. And, since 1870, to +the knowledge of petroleum has been added that of even more destructive +agents. The explosion of a little nitro-glycerine under a few +water-mains would make a great city uninhabitable; the blowing up of a +few railroad bridges and tunnels would bring famine quicker than the +wall of circumvallation that Titus drew around Jerusalem; the pumping of +atmospheric air into the gas-mains, and the application of a match, +would tear up every street and level every house. The Thirty Years War +set back civilization in Germany; so fierce a war now would all but +destroy it. Not merely have destructive powers vastly increased, but the whole social organization has become vastly more delicate. -In a simpler state master and man, neighbor and neighbor, -know each other, and there is that touch of the elbow which, -in times of danger, enables society to rally. But present -tendencies are to the loss of this. In London, dwellers in -one house do not know those in the next; the tenants of -adjoining rooms are utter strangers to each other. Let civil -conflict break or paralyze the authority that preserves -order and the vast population would become a terror-stricken -mob, without point of rally or principle of cohesion, and -your London would be sacked and burned by an army of -thieves. London is only the greatest of great cities. What -is true of London is true of 'New York, and in the same -measure true of the many cities whose hundreds of thousands -are steadily growing toward millions. These vast -aggregations of humanity, where he who seeks isolation may -find it more truly than in the desert; where wealth and -poverty touch and jostle; where one revels and another -starves within a few feet of each other, yet separated by as -great a gulf as that fixed between Dives in Hell and Lazarus -in Abraham's bosom---they are centers and types of our -civilization. Let jar or shock dislocate the complex and -delicate organization, let the policeman's club be thrown -down or wrested from him, and the fountains of the great -deep are opened, and quicker than ever before chaos comes -again. Strong as it may seem, our civilization is evolving -destructive forces. Not desert and forest, but city slums -and country roadsides are nursing the barbarians who may be -to the new what Hun and Vandal were to the old. - -Nor should we forget that in civilized man still lurks the -savage. The men who, in past times, oppressed or revolted, -who fought to the death in petty quarrels and drunk fury -with blood, who burnt cities and rent empires, were men -essentially such as those we daily meet. Social progress has -accumulated knowledge, softened manners, refined tastes and -extended sympathies, but man is yet capable of as blind a -rage as, when clothed in skins, he fought wild beasts with a -flint. And present tendencies, in some respects at least, -threaten to kindle passions that have so often before flamed -in destructive fury. - -There is in all the past nothing to compare with the rapid -changes now going on in the civilized world. It seems as -though in the European race, and in the nineteenth century, -man was just beginning to live---just grasping his tools and -becoming conscious of his powers. The snail's pace of -crawling ages has suddenly become the headlong rush of the -locomotive, speeding faster and faster. This rapid progress -is primarily in industrial methods and material powers. But -industrial changes imply social changes and necessitate -political changes. Progressive societies outgrow -institutions as children outgrow clothes. Social progress -always requires greater intelligence in the management of -public affairs; but this the more as progress is rapid and -change quicker. - -And that the rapid changes now going on are bringing up -problems that demand most earnest attention may be seen on -every hand. Symptoms of danger, premonitions of violence, -are appearing all over the civilized world. Creeds are -dying, beliefs are changing; the old forces of conservatism -are melting away. Political institutions are failing, as -clearly in democratic America as in monarchical Europe. -There is growing unrest and bitterness among the masses, -whatever be the form of government, a blind groping for -escape from conditions becoming intolerable. To attribute -all this to the teachings of demagogues is like attributing -the fever to the quickened pulse. It is the new wine -beginning to ferment in old bottles. To put into a -sailing-ship the powerful engines of a first-class ocean -steamer would be to tear her to pieces with their play. So -the new powers rapidly changing all the relations of society -must shatter social and political organizations not adapted -to meet their strain. - -To adjust our institutions to growing needs and changing -conditions is the task which devolves upon us. Prudence, -patriotism, human sympathy, and religious sentiment, alike -call upon us to undertake it. There is danger in reckless -change; but greater danger in blind conservatism. The -problems beginning to confront us are grave---so grave that -there is fear they may not be solved in time to prevent -great catastrophes. But their gravity comes from -indisposition to frankly recognize and boldly grapple with -them. - -These dangers, which menace not one country alone, but -modern civilization itself, do but show that a higher -civilization is struggling to be born---that the needs and -the aspirations of men have outgrown conditions and -institutions that before sufficed. - -A civilization which tends to concentrate wealth and power -in the hands of a fortunate few, and to make of others mere -human machines, must inevitably evolve anarchy and bring -destruction. But a civilization is possible in which the -poorest could have all the comforts and conveniences now -enjoyed by the rich; in which prisons and almshouses would -be needless, and charitable societies unthought of. Such a -civilization only waits for the social intelligence that -will adapt means to ends. Powers that might give plenty to -all are already in our hands. Though there is poverty and -want, there is, yet, seeming embarrassment from the very -excess of wealth-producing forces. "Give us but a market," -say manufacturers, "and we will supply goods to no end!" +In a simpler state master and man, neighbor and neighbor, know each +other, and there is that touch of the elbow which, in times of danger, +enables society to rally. But present tendencies are to the loss of +this. In London, dwellers in one house do not know those in the next; +the tenants of adjoining rooms are utter strangers to each other. Let +civil conflict break or paralyze the authority that preserves order and +the vast population would become a terror-stricken mob, without point of +rally or principle of cohesion, and your London would be sacked and +burned by an army of thieves. London is only the greatest of great +cities. What is true of London is true of 'New York, and in the same +measure true of the many cities whose hundreds of thousands are steadily +growing toward millions. These vast aggregations of humanity, where he +who seeks isolation may find it more truly than in the desert; where +wealth and poverty touch and jostle; where one revels and another +starves within a few feet of each other, yet separated by as great a +gulf as that fixed between Dives in Hell and Lazarus in Abraham's +bosom---they are centers and types of our civilization. Let jar or shock +dislocate the complex and delicate organization, let the policeman's +club be thrown down or wrested from him, and the fountains of the great +deep are opened, and quicker than ever before chaos comes again. Strong +as it may seem, our civilization is evolving destructive forces. Not +desert and forest, but city slums and country roadsides are nursing the +barbarians who may be to the new what Hun and Vandal were to the old. + +Nor should we forget that in civilized man still lurks the savage. The +men who, in past times, oppressed or revolted, who fought to the death +in petty quarrels and drunk fury with blood, who burnt cities and rent +empires, were men essentially such as those we daily meet. Social +progress has accumulated knowledge, softened manners, refined tastes and +extended sympathies, but man is yet capable of as blind a rage as, when +clothed in skins, he fought wild beasts with a flint. And present +tendencies, in some respects at least, threaten to kindle passions that +have so often before flamed in destructive fury. + +There is in all the past nothing to compare with the rapid changes now +going on in the civilized world. It seems as though in the European +race, and in the nineteenth century, man was just beginning to +live---just grasping his tools and becoming conscious of his powers. The +snail's pace of crawling ages has suddenly become the headlong rush of +the locomotive, speeding faster and faster. This rapid progress is +primarily in industrial methods and material powers. But industrial +changes imply social changes and necessitate political changes. +Progressive societies outgrow institutions as children outgrow clothes. +Social progress always requires greater intelligence in the management +of public affairs; but this the more as progress is rapid and change +quicker. + +And that the rapid changes now going on are bringing up problems that +demand most earnest attention may be seen on every hand. Symptoms of +danger, premonitions of violence, are appearing all over the civilized +world. Creeds are dying, beliefs are changing; the old forces of +conservatism are melting away. Political institutions are failing, as +clearly in democratic America as in monarchical Europe. There is growing +unrest and bitterness among the masses, whatever be the form of +government, a blind groping for escape from conditions becoming +intolerable. To attribute all this to the teachings of demagogues is +like attributing the fever to the quickened pulse. It is the new wine +beginning to ferment in old bottles. To put into a sailing-ship the +powerful engines of a first-class ocean steamer would be to tear her to +pieces with their play. So the new powers rapidly changing all the +relations of society must shatter social and political organizations not +adapted to meet their strain. + +To adjust our institutions to growing needs and changing conditions is +the task which devolves upon us. Prudence, patriotism, human sympathy, +and religious sentiment, alike call upon us to undertake it. There is +danger in reckless change; but greater danger in blind conservatism. The +problems beginning to confront us are grave---so grave that there is +fear they may not be solved in time to prevent great catastrophes. But +their gravity comes from indisposition to frankly recognize and boldly +grapple with them. + +These dangers, which menace not one country alone, but modern +civilization itself, do but show that a higher civilization is +struggling to be born---that the needs and the aspirations of men have +outgrown conditions and institutions that before sufficed. + +A civilization which tends to concentrate wealth and power in the hands +of a fortunate few, and to make of others mere human machines, must +inevitably evolve anarchy and bring destruction. But a civilization is +possible in which the poorest could have all the comforts and +conveniences now enjoyed by the rich; in which prisons and almshouses +would be needless, and charitable societies unthought of. Such a +civilization only waits for the social intelligence that will adapt +means to ends. Powers that might give plenty to all are already in our +hands. Though there is poverty and want, there is, yet, seeming +embarrassment from the very excess of wealth-producing forces. "Give us +but a market," say manufacturers, "and we will supply goods to no end!" "Give us but work!" cry idle men! -The evils that begin to appear spring from the fact that the -application of intelligence to social affairs has not kept -pace with the application of intelligence to individual -needs and material ends. Natural science strides forward, -but political science lags. With all our progress in the -arts which produce wealth, we have made no progress in -securing its equitable distribution. Knowledge has vastly -increased; industry and commerce have been revolutionized; -but whether free trade or protection is best for a nation we -are not yet agreed. We have brought machinery to a pitch of -perfection that, fifty years ago, could not have been -imagined; but, in the presence of political corruption, we -seem as helpless as idiots. The East Hiver bridge is a -crowning triumph of mechanical skill; but to get it built a -leading citizen of Brooklyn had to carry to New York sixty -thousand dollars in a carpet-bag to bribe New York aldermen. -The human soul that thought out the great bridge is prisoned -in a crazed and broken body that lies bed-fast, and could -only watch it grow by peering through a telescope. -Nevertheless, the weight of the immense mass is estimated -and adjusted for every inch. But the skill of the engineer -could not prevent condemned wire being smuggled into the -cable. - -The progress of civilization requires that more and more -intelligence be devoted to social affairs, and this not the -intelligence of the few, but that of the many. We cannot -safely leave politics to politicians, or political economy -to college professors. The people themselves must think, -because the people alone can act. - -In a "journal of civilization" a professed teacher declares -the saving word for society to be that each shall mind his -own business. This is the gospel of selfishness, soothing as -soft flutes to those who, having fared well themselves, -think everybody should be satisfied. But the salvation of -society, the hope for the free, full development of -humanity, is in the gospel of brotherhood---the gospel of -Christ. Social progress makes the well-being of all more and -more the business of each; it binds all closer and closer -together in bonds from which none can escape. He who -observes the law and the proprieties, and cares for his -family, yet takes no interest in the general weal, and gives -no thought to those who are trodden under foot, save now and -then to bestow alms, is not a true Christian. Nor is he a -good citizen. The duty of the citizen is more and harder -than this. - -The intelligence required for the solving of social problems -is not a mere thing of the intellect. It must be animated -with the religious sentiment and warm with sympathy for -human suffering. It must stretch out beyond self-interest, -whether it be the self-interest of the few or the many. It -must seek justice. For at the bottom of every social problem -we will find a social wrong. +The evils that begin to appear spring from the fact that the application +of intelligence to social affairs has not kept pace with the application +of intelligence to individual needs and material ends. Natural science +strides forward, but political science lags. With all our progress in +the arts which produce wealth, we have made no progress in securing its +equitable distribution. Knowledge has vastly increased; industry and +commerce have been revolutionized; but whether free trade or protection +is best for a nation we are not yet agreed. We have brought machinery to +a pitch of perfection that, fifty years ago, could not have been +imagined; but, in the presence of political corruption, we seem as +helpless as idiots. The East Hiver bridge is a crowning triumph of +mechanical skill; but to get it built a leading citizen of Brooklyn had +to carry to New York sixty thousand dollars in a carpet-bag to bribe New +York aldermen. The human soul that thought out the great bridge is +prisoned in a crazed and broken body that lies bed-fast, and could only +watch it grow by peering through a telescope. Nevertheless, the weight +of the immense mass is estimated and adjusted for every inch. But the +skill of the engineer could not prevent condemned wire being smuggled +into the cable. + +The progress of civilization requires that more and more intelligence be +devoted to social affairs, and this not the intelligence of the few, but +that of the many. We cannot safely leave politics to politicians, or +political economy to college professors. The people themselves must +think, because the people alone can act. + +In a "journal of civilization" a professed teacher declares the saving +word for society to be that each shall mind his own business. This is +the gospel of selfishness, soothing as soft flutes to those who, having +fared well themselves, think everybody should be satisfied. But the +salvation of society, the hope for the free, full development of +humanity, is in the gospel of brotherhood---the gospel of Christ. Social +progress makes the well-being of all more and more the business of each; +it binds all closer and closer together in bonds from which none can +escape. He who observes the law and the proprieties, and cares for his +family, yet takes no interest in the general weal, and gives no thought +to those who are trodden under foot, save now and then to bestow alms, +is not a true Christian. Nor is he a good citizen. The duty of the +citizen is more and harder than this. + +The intelligence required for the solving of social problems is not a +mere thing of the intellect. It must be animated with the religious +sentiment and warm with sympathy for human suffering. It must stretch +out beyond self-interest, whether it be the self-interest of the few or +the many. It must seek justice. For at the bottom of every social +problem we will find a social wrong. # Political Dangers -The American Republic is to-day unquestionably foremost of -the nations---the van-leader of modern civilization. Of all -the great peoples of the European family, her people are the -most homogeneous, the most active and most assimilative. -Their average standard of intelligence and comfort is -higher; they have most fully adopted modern industrial -improvements, and are the quickest to utilize discovery and -invention; their political institutions are most in -accordance with modern ideas, their position exempts them -from dangers and difficulties besetting the European -nations, and a vast area of unoccupied land gives them room -to grow. - -At the rate of increase so far maintained, the -English-speaking people of America will, by the close of the -century, number nearly one hundred million---a population as -large as owned the sway of Rome in her palmiest days. By the -middle of the next century---a time which children now born -will live to see---they will, at the same rate, number more -than the present population of Europe; and by its close -nearly equal the population which, at the beginning of this -century, the whole earth was believed to contain. - -But the increase of power is more rapid than the increase of -population, and goes on in accelerating progression. -Discovery and invention stimulate discovery and invention; -and it is only when we consider that the industrial progress -of the last fifty years bids fair to pale before the -achievements of the next that we can vaguely imagine the -future that seems opening before the American people. The -center of wealth, of art, of luxury and learning, must pass -to this side of the Atlantic even before the center of -population. It seems as if this continent had been -reserved---shrouded for ages from the rest of the world---as -the field upon which European civilization might freely -bloom. And for the very reason that our growth is so rapid -and our progress so swift; for the very reason that all the -tendencies of modern civilization assert themselves here -more quickly and strongly than anywhere else, the problems -which modern civilization must meet, will here first fully -present themselves, and will most imperiously demand to be -thought out or fought out. - -It is difficult for any one to turn from the history of the -past to think of the incomparable greatness promised by the -rapid growth of the United States without something of -awe---something of that feeling which induced Amasis of -Egypt to dissolve his alliance with the successful -Polycrates, because "the gods do not permit to mortals such -prosperity." Of this, at least, we may be certain: the -rapidity of our development brings dangers that can only be -guarded against by alert intelligence and earnest -patriotism. - -There is a suggestive fact that must impress any one who -thinks over the history of past eras and preceding -civilizations. The great, wealthy and powerful nations have -always lost their freedom; it is only in small, poor and -isolated communities that Liberty has been maintained. So -true is this that the poets have always sung that Liberty -loves the rocks and the mountains; that she shrinks from -wealth and power and splendor, from the crowded city and the -busy mart. So true is this that philosophical historians -have sought in the richness ot material resources the causes +The American Republic is to-day unquestionably foremost of the +nations---the van-leader of modern civilization. Of all the great +peoples of the European family, her people are the most homogeneous, the +most active and most assimilative. Their average standard of +intelligence and comfort is higher; they have most fully adopted modern +industrial improvements, and are the quickest to utilize discovery and +invention; their political institutions are most in accordance with +modern ideas, their position exempts them from dangers and difficulties +besetting the European nations, and a vast area of unoccupied land gives +them room to grow. + +At the rate of increase so far maintained, the English-speaking people +of America will, by the close of the century, number nearly one hundred +million---a population as large as owned the sway of Rome in her +palmiest days. By the middle of the next century---a time which children +now born will live to see---they will, at the same rate, number more +than the present population of Europe; and by its close nearly equal the +population which, at the beginning of this century, the whole earth was +believed to contain. + +But the increase of power is more rapid than the increase of population, +and goes on in accelerating progression. Discovery and invention +stimulate discovery and invention; and it is only when we consider that +the industrial progress of the last fifty years bids fair to pale before +the achievements of the next that we can vaguely imagine the future that +seems opening before the American people. The center of wealth, of art, +of luxury and learning, must pass to this side of the Atlantic even +before the center of population. It seems as if this continent had been +reserved---shrouded for ages from the rest of the world---as the field +upon which European civilization might freely bloom. And for the very +reason that our growth is so rapid and our progress so swift; for the +very reason that all the tendencies of modern civilization assert +themselves here more quickly and strongly than anywhere else, the +problems which modern civilization must meet, will here first fully +present themselves, and will most imperiously demand to be thought out +or fought out. + +It is difficult for any one to turn from the history of the past to +think of the incomparable greatness promised by the rapid growth of the +United States without something of awe---something of that feeling which +induced Amasis of Egypt to dissolve his alliance with the successful +Polycrates, because "the gods do not permit to mortals such prosperity." +Of this, at least, we may be certain: the rapidity of our development +brings dangers that can only be guarded against by alert intelligence +and earnest patriotism. + +There is a suggestive fact that must impress any one who thinks over the +history of past eras and preceding civilizations. The great, wealthy and +powerful nations have always lost their freedom; it is only in small, +poor and isolated communities that Liberty has been maintained. So true +is this that the poets have always sung that Liberty loves the rocks and +the mountains; that she shrinks from wealth and power and splendor, from +the crowded city and the busy mart. So true is this that philosophical +historians have sought in the richness ot material resources the causes of the corruption and enslavement of peoples. -Liberty is natural. Primitive perceptions are of the equal -rights of the citizen, and political organization always -starts from this base. It is as social development goes on -that we find power concentrating, and institutions based -upon the equality of rights passing into institutions which -make the many the slaves of the few. How this is we may see. -In all institutions which involve the lodgment of governing -power there is, with social growth, a tendency to the -exaltation of their function and the centralization of their -power, and in the stronger of these institutions a tendency -to the absorption of the powers of the rest Thus the -tendency of social growth is to make government the business -of a special class. And as numbers increase and the power -and importance of each become less and less as compared with -that of all, so, for this reason, does government tend to -pass beyond the scrutiny and control of the masses. The -leader of a handful of warriors, or head man of a little -village, can only command or govern by common consent, and -any one aggrieved can readily appeal to his fellows. But -when the tribe becomes a nation and the village expands to a -populous country, the powers of the chieftain, without -formal addition, become practically much greater. For with -increase of numbers scrutiny of his acts becomes more -difficult, it is harder and harder to successfully appeal -from them, and the aggregate power which he directs becomes -irresistible as against individuals. And gradually, as power -thus concentrates, primitive ideas are lost, and the habit -of thought grows up which regards the masses as born but for -the service of their rulers. - -Thus the mere growth of society involves danger of the -gradual conversion of government into something independent -of and beyond the people, and the gradual seizure of its -powers by a ruling class---though not necessarily a class -marked off by personal titles and a hereditary status, for, -as history allows, personal titles and hereditary status do -not accompany the concentration of power, but follow it. The -same methods which, in a little town where each knows his -neighbor and matters of common interest are under the common -eye, enable the citizens to freely govern themselves, may, -in a great city, as we have in many cases seen, enable an -organized ring of plunderers to gain and hold the -government. So, too, as we see in Congress, and even in our -State Legislatures, the growth of the country and the -greater number of interests make the proportion of the votes -of a representative, of which his constituents know or care -to know, less and less. And so, too, the executive and -judicial departments tend constantly to pass beyond the +Liberty is natural. Primitive perceptions are of the equal rights of the +citizen, and political organization always starts from this base. It is +as social development goes on that we find power concentrating, and +institutions based upon the equality of rights passing into institutions +which make the many the slaves of the few. How this is we may see. In +all institutions which involve the lodgment of governing power there is, +with social growth, a tendency to the exaltation of their function and +the centralization of their power, and in the stronger of these +institutions a tendency to the absorption of the powers of the rest Thus +the tendency of social growth is to make government the business of a +special class. And as numbers increase and the power and importance of +each become less and less as compared with that of all, so, for this +reason, does government tend to pass beyond the scrutiny and control of +the masses. The leader of a handful of warriors, or head man of a little +village, can only command or govern by common consent, and any one +aggrieved can readily appeal to his fellows. But when the tribe becomes +a nation and the village expands to a populous country, the powers of +the chieftain, without formal addition, become practically much greater. +For with increase of numbers scrutiny of his acts becomes more +difficult, it is harder and harder to successfully appeal from them, and +the aggregate power which he directs becomes irresistible as against +individuals. And gradually, as power thus concentrates, primitive ideas +are lost, and the habit of thought grows up which regards the masses as +born but for the service of their rulers. + +Thus the mere growth of society involves danger of the gradual +conversion of government into something independent of and beyond the +people, and the gradual seizure of its powers by a ruling class---though +not necessarily a class marked off by personal titles and a hereditary +status, for, as history allows, personal titles and hereditary status do +not accompany the concentration of power, but follow it. The same +methods which, in a little town where each knows his neighbor and +matters of common interest are under the common eye, enable the citizens +to freely govern themselves, may, in a great city, as we have in many +cases seen, enable an organized ring of plunderers to gain and hold the +government. So, too, as we see in Congress, and even in our State +Legislatures, the growth of the country and the greater number of +interests make the proportion of the votes of a representative, of which +his constituents know or care to know, less and less. And so, too, the +executive and judicial departments tend constantly to pass beyond the scrutiny of the people. -But to the changes produced by growth are, with us, added -the changes brought about by improved industrial methods. -The tendency of steam and of machinery is to the division of -labor, to the concentration of wealth and power. Workmen are -becoming massed by hundreds and thousands in the employ of -single individuals and firms; small storekeepers and -merchants are becoming the clerks and salesmen of great -business houses; we have already corporations whose revenues -and pay-rolls belittle those of the greatest States. And -with this concentration grows the facility of combination -among these great business interests. How readily the -railroad companies, the coal operators, the steel producers, -even the match manufacturers, combine, either to regulate -prices or to use the powers of government! The tendency in -all branches of industry is to the formation of rings -against which the individual is helpless, and which exert -their power upon government whenever their interests may -thus be served. - -It is not merely positively, but negatively, that great -aggregations of wealth, whether individual or corporate, -tend to corrupt government and take it out of the control of -the masses of the people. "Nothing is more timorous than a -million dollars---except two million dollars." Great wealth -always supports the party in power, no matter how corrupt it -may be. It never exerts itself for reform, for it -instinctively fears change. It never struggles against -misgovernment. When threatened by the holders of political -power it does not agitate, nor appeal to the people; it buys -them off. It is in this way, no less than by its direct -interference, that aggregated wealth corrupts government, -and helps to make politics a trade. Our organized lobbies, -both Legislative and Congressional, rely as much upon the -fears as upon the hopes of moneyed interests. When -"business" is dull, their resource is to get up a bill which -some moneyed interest will pay them to beat. So, too, these -large moneyed interests will subscribe to political funds, -on the principle of keeping on the right side of those in -power, just as the railroad companies deadhead President -Arthur when he goes to Florida to fish. - -The more corrupt a government the easier wealth can use it. -Where legislation is to be bought, the rich make the laws; -where justice is to be purchased, the rich have the ear of -the courts. And if, for this reason, great wealth does not -absolutely prefer corrupt government to pure government, it -becomes none the less a corrupting influence. A community -composed of very rich and very poor falls an easy prey to -whoever can seize power. The very poor have not spirit and -intelligence enough to resist; the very rich have too much -at stake. - -The rise in the United States of monstrous fortunes, the -aggregation of enormous wealth in the hands of corporations, -necessarily implies the loss by the people of governmental -control. Democratic forms may be maintained, but there can -be as much tyranny and misgovernment under democratic forms -as any other---in fact, they lend themselves most readily to -tyranny and misgovernment. Forms count for little. The -Romans expelled their kings, and continued to abhor the very -name of king. But under the name of Caesars and Emperors, -that at first meant no more than our "Boss," they crouched -before tyrants more absolute than kings. We have already, -under the popular name of "bosses," developed political -Caesars in municipalities and states. If this development -continues, in time there will come a national boss. We are -young; but we are growing. The day may arrive when the "Boss -of America" will be to the modern world what Caesar was to -the Roman world. This, at least, is certain: Democratic -government in more than name can only exist where wealth is -distributed with something like equality---where the great -mass of citizens are personally free and independent, -neither fettered by their poverty nor made subject by their -wealth. There is, after all, some sense in a property -qualification. The man who is dependent on a master for his -living is not a free man. To give the suffrage to slaves is -only to give votes to their owners. That universal suffrage -may add to, instead of decreasing, the political power of -wealth we see when mill-owners and mine-operators vote their -hands. The freedom to earn, without fear or favor, a -comfortable living, ought to go with the freedom to vote. -Thus alone can a sound basis for republican institutions be -secured. How can a man be said to have a country where he -has no right to a square inch of soil; where he has nothing -but his hands, and, urged by starvation, must bid against -his fellows for the privilege of using them? When it comes -to voting tramps, some principle has been carried to a -ridiculous and dangerous extreme. I have known elections to -be decided by the carting of paupers from the almshouse to -the polls. But such decisions can scarcely be in the -interest of good government. - -Beneath all political problems lies the social problem of -the distribution of wealth. This our people do not generally -recognize, and they listen to quacks who propose to cure the -symptoms without touching the disease. "Let us elect good -men to office,--' say the quacks. Yes; let us catch little -birds by sprinkling salt on their tails! - -It behooves us to look facts in the face. The experiment of -popular government in the United States is clearly a -failure. Not that it is a failure everywhere and in -everything. An experiment of this kind does not have to be -fully worked out to be proved a failure. But speaking -generally of the whole country, from the Atlantic to the -Pacific, and from the Lakes to the Gulf, our government by -the people has in large degree become, is in larger degree -becoming, government by the strong and unscrupulous. - -The people, of course, continue to vote; but the people are -losing their power. Money and organization tell more and -more in elections. In some sections bribery has become -chronic, and numbers of voters expect regularly to sell -their votes. In some sections large employers regularly -bulldoze their hands into voting as *they* wish. In -municipal, State and Federal politics the power of the -"machine" is increasing. It many places it has become so -strong that the ordinary citizen has no more influence in -the government under which he lives than he would have in -China. He is, in reality, not one of the governing classes, -but one of the governed. He occasionally, in disgust, votes -for "the other man," or "the other party"; but, generally, -to find that he has only effected a change of masters, or -secured the same masters under different names. And he is -beginning to accept the situation, and to leave politics to -politicians, as something with which an honest, -self-respecting man cannot afford to meddle. - -We are steadily differentiating a governing class, or rather -a class of Praetorians, who make a business of gaining -political power and then selling it. The type of the rising -party leader is not the orator or statesman of an earlier -day, but the shrewd manager, who knows how to handle the -workers, how to combine pecuniary interests, how to obtain -money and to spend it, how to gather to himself followers -and to secure their allegiance. One party machine is -becoming complementary to the other party machine, the -politicians, like the railroad managers, having discovered -that combination pays better than competition. So rings are -made impregnable and great pecuniary interests secure their -ends no matter how elections go. There are sovereign States -so completely in the hands of rings and corporations that it -seems as if nothing short of a revolutionary uprising of the -people could dispossess them. Indeed, whether the General -Government has not already passed beyond popular control may -be doubted. Certain it is that possession of the General -Government has for some time past secured possession. And -for one term, at least, the Presidential chair has been -occupied by a man not elected to it. This, of course, was -largely due to the crookedness of the man who was elected, -and to the lack of principle in his supporters. +But to the changes produced by growth are, with us, added the changes +brought about by improved industrial methods. The tendency of steam and +of machinery is to the division of labor, to the concentration of wealth +and power. Workmen are becoming massed by hundreds and thousands in the +employ of single individuals and firms; small storekeepers and merchants +are becoming the clerks and salesmen of great business houses; we have +already corporations whose revenues and pay-rolls belittle those of the +greatest States. And with this concentration grows the facility of +combination among these great business interests. How readily the +railroad companies, the coal operators, the steel producers, even the +match manufacturers, combine, either to regulate prices or to use the +powers of government! The tendency in all branches of industry is to the +formation of rings against which the individual is helpless, and which +exert their power upon government whenever their interests may thus be +served. + +It is not merely positively, but negatively, that great aggregations of +wealth, whether individual or corporate, tend to corrupt government and +take it out of the control of the masses of the people. "Nothing is more +timorous than a million dollars---except two million dollars." Great +wealth always supports the party in power, no matter how corrupt it may +be. It never exerts itself for reform, for it instinctively fears +change. It never struggles against misgovernment. When threatened by the +holders of political power it does not agitate, nor appeal to the +people; it buys them off. It is in this way, no less than by its direct +interference, that aggregated wealth corrupts government, and helps to +make politics a trade. Our organized lobbies, both Legislative and +Congressional, rely as much upon the fears as upon the hopes of moneyed +interests. When "business" is dull, their resource is to get up a bill +which some moneyed interest will pay them to beat. So, too, these large +moneyed interests will subscribe to political funds, on the principle of +keeping on the right side of those in power, just as the railroad +companies deadhead President Arthur when he goes to Florida to fish. + +The more corrupt a government the easier wealth can use it. Where +legislation is to be bought, the rich make the laws; where justice is to +be purchased, the rich have the ear of the courts. And if, for this +reason, great wealth does not absolutely prefer corrupt government to +pure government, it becomes none the less a corrupting influence. A +community composed of very rich and very poor falls an easy prey to +whoever can seize power. The very poor have not spirit and intelligence +enough to resist; the very rich have too much at stake. + +The rise in the United States of monstrous fortunes, the aggregation of +enormous wealth in the hands of corporations, necessarily implies the +loss by the people of governmental control. Democratic forms may be +maintained, but there can be as much tyranny and misgovernment under +democratic forms as any other---in fact, they lend themselves most +readily to tyranny and misgovernment. Forms count for little. The Romans +expelled their kings, and continued to abhor the very name of king. But +under the name of Caesars and Emperors, that at first meant no more than +our "Boss," they crouched before tyrants more absolute than kings. We +have already, under the popular name of "bosses," developed political +Caesars in municipalities and states. If this development continues, in +time there will come a national boss. We are young; but we are growing. +The day may arrive when the "Boss of America" will be to the modern +world what Caesar was to the Roman world. This, at least, is certain: +Democratic government in more than name can only exist where wealth is +distributed with something like equality---where the great mass of +citizens are personally free and independent, neither fettered by their +poverty nor made subject by their wealth. There is, after all, some +sense in a property qualification. The man who is dependent on a master +for his living is not a free man. To give the suffrage to slaves is only +to give votes to their owners. That universal suffrage may add to, +instead of decreasing, the political power of wealth we see when +mill-owners and mine-operators vote their hands. The freedom to earn, +without fear or favor, a comfortable living, ought to go with the +freedom to vote. Thus alone can a sound basis for republican +institutions be secured. How can a man be said to have a country where +he has no right to a square inch of soil; where he has nothing but his +hands, and, urged by starvation, must bid against his fellows for the +privilege of using them? When it comes to voting tramps, some principle +has been carried to a ridiculous and dangerous extreme. I have known +elections to be decided by the carting of paupers from the almshouse to +the polls. But such decisions can scarcely be in the interest of good +government. + +Beneath all political problems lies the social problem of the +distribution of wealth. This our people do not generally recognize, and +they listen to quacks who propose to cure the symptoms without touching +the disease. "Let us elect good men to office,--' say the quacks. Yes; +let us catch little birds by sprinkling salt on their tails! + +It behooves us to look facts in the face. The experiment of popular +government in the United States is clearly a failure. Not that it is a +failure everywhere and in everything. An experiment of this kind does +not have to be fully worked out to be proved a failure. But speaking +generally of the whole country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and +from the Lakes to the Gulf, our government by the people has in large +degree become, is in larger degree becoming, government by the strong +and unscrupulous. + +The people, of course, continue to vote; but the people are losing their +power. Money and organization tell more and more in elections. In some +sections bribery has become chronic, and numbers of voters expect +regularly to sell their votes. In some sections large employers +regularly bulldoze their hands into voting as *they* wish. In municipal, +State and Federal politics the power of the "machine" is increasing. It +many places it has become so strong that the ordinary citizen has no +more influence in the government under which he lives than he would have +in China. He is, in reality, not one of the governing classes, but one +of the governed. He occasionally, in disgust, votes for "the other man," +or "the other party"; but, generally, to find that he has only effected +a change of masters, or secured the same masters under different names. +And he is beginning to accept the situation, and to leave politics to +politicians, as something with which an honest, self-respecting man +cannot afford to meddle. + +We are steadily differentiating a governing class, or rather a class of +Praetorians, who make a business of gaining political power and then +selling it. The type of the rising party leader is not the orator or +statesman of an earlier day, but the shrewd manager, who knows how to +handle the workers, how to combine pecuniary interests, how to obtain +money and to spend it, how to gather to himself followers and to secure +their allegiance. One party machine is becoming complementary to the +other party machine, the politicians, like the railroad managers, having +discovered that combination pays better than competition. So rings are +made impregnable and great pecuniary interests secure their ends no +matter how elections go. There are sovereign States so completely in the +hands of rings and corporations that it seems as if nothing short of a +revolutionary uprising of the people could dispossess them. Indeed, +whether the General Government has not already passed beyond popular +control may be doubted. Certain it is that possession of the General +Government has for some time past secured possession. And for one term, +at least, the Presidential chair has been occupied by a man not elected +to it. This, of course, was largely due to the crookedness of the man +who was elected, and to the lack of principle in his supporters. Nevertheless, it occurred. -As for the great railroad managers, they may well say "The -people be d---d!" When they want the power of the people -they buy the people's masters. The map of the United States -is colored to show States and Territories. A map of real -political powers would ignore State lines. Here would be a -big patch representing the domains of Vanderbilt; there Jay -Gould's dominions would be brightly marked. In another place -would be set of the empire of Stanford and Huntington; in -another the newer empire of Henry Villard; the States and -parts of States that own the sway of the Pennsylvania -Central would be distinguished from those ruled by the -Baltimore and Ohio; and so on. In our National Senate, -sovereign members of the Union are supposed to be -represented; but what are more truly represented are -railroad kings and great moneyed interests, though -occasionally a mine jobber from Nevada or Colorado, not -mimical to the ruling powers, is suffered to buy himself a -seat for glory. And the Bench as well as the Senate is being -filled with corporation henchmen. A railroad king makes his -attorney a judge of last resort, as the great lord used to -make his chaplain a bishop. - -We do not get even cheap government. We might keep a royal -family, house them in palaces like Versailles or Sans Souci, -provide them with courts and guards, masters of robes and -rangers of parks, let them give balls more costly than -Mrs. Vanderbilt's, and build yachts finer than Jay Gould's, -for much less than is wasted and stolen under our nominal -government of the people. What a noble income would be that -of a Duke of New York, a Marquis of Philadelphia, or a Count -of San Francisco, who would administer the government of -these municipalities for 50% of present waste and stealage! -Unless we got an aesthetic Chinook, where could we get an -absolute ruler who would erect such a monument of -extravagant vulgarity as the new Capitol of the State of New -York? While, as we saw in the Congress just adjourned, the -benevolent gentlemen whose desire it is to protect us -against the pauper labor of Europe quarrel over their -respective shares of the spoil with as little regard for the -taxpayer as a pirate crew would have for the consignees of a -captured vessel. - -The people are largely conscious of all this, and there is -among the masses much dissatisfaction. But there is a lack -of that intelligent interest necessary to adapt political -organization to changing conditions. The popular idea of -reform seems to be merely a change of men or a change of -parties, not a change of system. Political children, we -attribute to bad men or wicked parties what really springs -from deep general causes. Our two great political parties -have really nothing more to propose than the keeping or the -taking of the offices from the other party. On their -outskirts are the Greenbackers, who, with a more or less -definite idea of what they want to do with the currency, -represent vague social dissatisfaction civil service -reformers, who hope to accomplish a political reform while -keeping it out of politics; and anti-monopolists, who -propose to tie up locomotives with pack thread. Even the -labor organizations seem to fear to go further in their -platforms than some such propositions as eight-hour laws, -bureaus of labor statistics, mechanics' liens, and -prohibition of prison contracts. - -All this shows want of grasp and timidity of thought. It is -not by accident that government grows corrupt and passes out -of the hands of the people. If we would really make and -continue this a government of the people, for the people and -by the people, we must give to our politics earnest -attention; we must be prepared to review our opinions, to -give up old ideas and to accept new ones. - -We must abandon prejudice, and make our reckoning with free -minds. The sailor, who, no matter how the wind might change, -should persist in keeping his vessel under the same sail and -on the same tack, would never reach his haven. +As for the great railroad managers, they may well say "The people be +d---d!" When they want the power of the people they buy the people's +masters. The map of the United States is colored to show States and +Territories. A map of real political powers would ignore State lines. +Here would be a big patch representing the domains of Vanderbilt; there +Jay Gould's dominions would be brightly marked. In another place would +be set of the empire of Stanford and Huntington; in another the newer +empire of Henry Villard; the States and parts of States that own the +sway of the Pennsylvania Central would be distinguished from those ruled +by the Baltimore and Ohio; and so on. In our National Senate, sovereign +members of the Union are supposed to be represented; but what are more +truly represented are railroad kings and great moneyed interests, though +occasionally a mine jobber from Nevada or Colorado, not mimical to the +ruling powers, is suffered to buy himself a seat for glory. And the +Bench as well as the Senate is being filled with corporation henchmen. A +railroad king makes his attorney a judge of last resort, as the great +lord used to make his chaplain a bishop. + +We do not get even cheap government. We might keep a royal family, house +them in palaces like Versailles or Sans Souci, provide them with courts +and guards, masters of robes and rangers of parks, let them give balls +more costly than Mrs. Vanderbilt's, and build yachts finer than Jay +Gould's, for much less than is wasted and stolen under our nominal +government of the people. What a noble income would be that of a Duke of +New York, a Marquis of Philadelphia, or a Count of San Francisco, who +would administer the government of these municipalities for 50% of +present waste and stealage! Unless we got an aesthetic Chinook, where +could we get an absolute ruler who would erect such a monument of +extravagant vulgarity as the new Capitol of the State of New York? +While, as we saw in the Congress just adjourned, the benevolent +gentlemen whose desire it is to protect us against the pauper labor of +Europe quarrel over their respective shares of the spoil with as little +regard for the taxpayer as a pirate crew would have for the consignees +of a captured vessel. + +The people are largely conscious of all this, and there is among the +masses much dissatisfaction. But there is a lack of that intelligent +interest necessary to adapt political organization to changing +conditions. The popular idea of reform seems to be merely a change of +men or a change of parties, not a change of system. Political children, +we attribute to bad men or wicked parties what really springs from deep +general causes. Our two great political parties have really nothing more +to propose than the keeping or the taking of the offices from the other +party. On their outskirts are the Greenbackers, who, with a more or less +definite idea of what they want to do with the currency, represent vague +social dissatisfaction civil service reformers, who hope to accomplish a +political reform while keeping it out of politics; and anti-monopolists, +who propose to tie up locomotives with pack thread. Even the labor +organizations seem to fear to go further in their platforms than some +such propositions as eight-hour laws, bureaus of labor statistics, +mechanics' liens, and prohibition of prison contracts. + +All this shows want of grasp and timidity of thought. It is not by +accident that government grows corrupt and passes out of the hands of +the people. If we would really make and continue this a government of +the people, for the people and by the people, we must give to our +politics earnest attention; we must be prepared to review our opinions, +to give up old ideas and to accept new ones. + +We must abandon prejudice, and make our reckoning with free minds. The +sailor, who, no matter how the wind might change, should persist in +keeping his vessel under the same sail and on the same tack, would never +reach his haven. # Coming Increase of Social Pressure -The trees, as I write, have not yet begun to leaf, nor even -the blossoms to appear; yet, passing down the lower part of -Broadway these early days of spring, one breasts a steady -current of uncouthly-dressed men and women, carrying bundles -and boxes and all manner of baggage. As the season advances, -the human current will increase; even in winter it will not -wholly cease its flow. It is the great gulf-stream of -humanity which sets from Europe upon America---the greatest -migration of peoples since the world began. Other minor -branches has the stream. Into Boston and Philadelphia, into -Portland, Quebec and Montreal, into New Orleans, Galveston, -San Francisco and Victoria, come offshoots of the same -current; and as it flows it draws increasing volume from -wider sources. Emigration to America has, since 1848, -reduced the population of Ireland by more than a third; but -as Irish ability to feed the stream declines, English -emigration increases; the German outpour becomes so vast as -to assume the first proportions, and the millions of Italy, -pressed by want as severe as that of Ireland, begin to turn -to the emigrant ship as did the Irish. In Castle Garden one -may see the garb and hear the speech of all European -peoples. From the fjords of Norway, from the plains of -Russia and Hungary, from the mountains of Wallachia, and -from Mediterranean shores and islands, once the center of -classic civilization, the great current is fed. Every year -increases the facility of its flow. Year by year -improvements in steam navigation are practically reducing -the distance between the two continents; year by year -European railroads are making it easier for interior -populations to reach the seaboard, and the telegraph, the -newspaper, the schoolmaster and the cheap post, are -lessening those objections of ignorance and sentiment to -removal that are so strong with people long rooted in one -place. Yet, in spite of this great exodus, the population of -Europe, as a whole, is steadily increasing. - -And across the continent, from east to west, from the older -to the newer States, an even greater migration is going on. -Our people emigrate more readily than those of Europe, and -increasing as European immigration is, it is yet becoming a -less and less important factor of our growth, as compared -with the natural increase of our population. At Chicago and -St. Paul, Omaha and Kansas City, the volume of the westward -moving current has increased, not diminished. From what, so -short a time ago, was the new West of unbroken prairie and -native forest, goes on, as children grow up, a constant -migration to a newer West. - -This westward expansion of population has gone on steadily -since the first settlement of the Eastern shore. It has been -the great distinguishing feature in the conditions of our -people. Without its possibility we would have been in -nothing what we are. Our higher standard of wages and of -comfort and of average intelligence, our superior -self-reliance, energy, inventiveness, adaptability and -assimilative power, spring as directly from this possibility -of expansion as does our unprecedented growth. All that we -are proud of in national life and national character comes -primarily from our background of unused land. We are but -transplanted Europeans, and, for that matter, mostly of the -"inferior classes." It is not usually those whose position -is comfortable and whose prospects are bright who emigrate; -it is those who are pinched and dissatisfied, those to whom -no prospect seems open. There are heralds' colleges in -Europe that drive a good business in providing a certain -class of Americans with pedigrees and coats-of-arms; but it -is probably well for this sort of self-esteem that the -majority of us cannot truly trace our ancestry very far. We -had some Pilgrim Fathers, it is true; likewise some Quaker -fathers, and other sorts of fathers; yet the majority even -of the early settlers did not come to America for "freedom -to worship God," hut because they were poor, dissatisfied, -unsuccessful, or recklessly adventurous---many because they -were evicted, many to escape imprisonment, many because they -were kidnapped, many as self-sold bond men, as indentured -apprentices, or mercenary soldiers. It is the virtue of new -soil, the freedom of opportunity given by the possibility of -expansion, that has here transmuted into wholesome human -growth material that, had it remained in Europe, might have -been degraded and dangerous, just as in Australia the same -conditions have made respected and self-respecting citizens -out of the descendants of convicts, and even out of convicts -themselves. - -It may be doubted if the relation of the opening of the New -World to the development of modern civilization is yet fully -recognized. In many respects the discovery of Columbus has -proved the most important event in the history of the -European world since the birth of Christ. How important -America has been to Europe as furnishing an outlet for the -restless, the dissatisfied, the oppressed and the -down-trodden; how influences emanating from the freer -opportunities and freer life of America have reacted upon -European thought and life---we can only begin to realize -when we try to imagine what would have been the present -condition of Europe had Columbus found only a watery waste -between Europe and Asia, or even had he found here a -continent populated as India or China, or Mexico, were -populated. - -And, correlatively, one of the most momentous events that -could happen to the modern world would be the ending of this -possibility of westward expansion. That it must some time -end is evident when we remember that the earth is round. - -Practically, this event is near at hand. Its shadow is even -now stealing over us. Not that there is any danger of this -continent being really overpopulated. Not that there will -not be for a long time to come, even at our present rate of -growth, plenty of unused land or of land only partially -used. But to feel the results of what is called pressure of -population, to realize here pressure of the same kind that -forces European emigration upon our shores, we will not have -to wait for that. Europe to-day is not overpopulated. In -Ireland, whence we have received such an immense -immigration, not one-sixth of the soil is under cultivation, -and grass grows and beasts feed where once were populous -villages. In Scotland there is the solitude of the deer -forest and the grouse moor where a century ago were homes of -men. One may ride on the railways through the richest -agricultural districts of England and see scarcely as many -houses as in the valley of the Platte, where the buffalo -herded a few years back. - -Twelve months ago, when the hedges were blooming, I passed -along a lovely English road near by the cottage of that -"Shepherd of Salisbury Plain" of whom I read, when a boy, in -a tract which is a good sample of the husks frequently given -to children as religious food, and which is still, I -presume, distributed by the American, as it is by the -English, Tract Society. On one side of the road was a wide -expanse of rich land, in which no plow-share had that season -been struck, because its owner demanded a higher rent than -the farmers would give. On the other, stretched, for many a -broad acre, a lordly park, its velvety verdure untrodden -save by a few light-footed deer. And, as we passed along, my -companion, a native of those parts, bitterly complained -that, since this lord of the manor had enclosed the little -village green and set out his fences to take in the grass of -the roadside, the cottagers could not keep even a goose, and -the children of the village had no place to play! Place -there was in plenty, but, so far as the children were -concerned, it might as well be in Africa or in the moon. And -so in our Far West, I have seen emigrants toiling painfully -for long distances through vacant land without finding a -spot on which they dared settle. In a country where the -springs and streams are all inclosed by walls he cannot -scale, the wayfarer, but for charity, might perish of -thirst, as in a desert. There is plenty of vacant land on -Manhattan Island. But on Manhattan Island human beings are -packed closer than anywhere else in the world. There is -plenty of fresh air all around---one man owns forty acres of -it, a whiff of which he never breathes, since his home is on -his yacht in European waters; but, for all that, thousands -of children die in New York every summer for want of it, and -thousands, more would die did not charitable people -subscribe to fresh-air funds. The social pressure which -forces on our shores this swelling tide of immigration -arises not from the fact that the land of Europe is all in -use, but that it is all appropriated. That will soon be our -case as well. Our land will not all be used; but it will all -be "fenced in." - -We still talk of our vast public domain, and figures showing -millions and millions of acres of unappropriated public land -yet swell grandly in the reports of our Land Office. But -already it is so difficult to find public land fit for -settlement, that the great majority of those wishing to -settle find in cheaper to buy, and rents in California and -the New Northwest run from a quarter to even one half the -crop. It must be remembered that the area which yet figures -in the returns of our public domain includes all the great -mountain chains, all the vast deserts and dry plains fit -only for grazing, or not even for that; it must be -remembered that of what is really fertile, millions and -millions of acres are covered by railroad grants as yet -unpatented, or what amounts to the same thing to the -settler, are shadowed by them; that much is held by -appropriation of the water without which it is useless; and -that much more is held under claims of various kinds, which, -whether legal or illegal, are sufficient to keep the settler -off unless he will consent to pay a price, or to mortgage -his labor for years. - -Nevertheless, land with us is still comparatively cheap. But -this cannot long continue. The stream of immigration that -comes swelling in, added to our steadily augmenting natural -increase, will soon now so occupy the available lands as to -raise the price of the poorest land worth settling on to a -point we have never known. Nearly twenty years ago Mr. Wade, -of Ohio, in a speech in the United States Senate, predicted -that by the close of the century every acre of good -agricultural land in the Union would be worth at least \$50. -That his prediction will be even more than verified we may -already see. By the close of the century our population, at -the normal rate of increase, will be over forty millions -more than in 1880. That is to say, within the next seventeen -years an additional population greater than that of the -whole United States at the close of the civil war will be -demanding room. Where will they find cheap land? There is no -further West. Our advance has reached the Pacific, and -beyond the Pacific is the East, with its teeming millions. -From San Diego to Puget Sound there is no valley of the -coast-line that is not settled or pre-empted. To the very -farthest corners of the Republic settlers are already going. -The pressure is already so great that speculation and -settlement are beginning to cross the northern border into -Canada and the southern border into Mexico; so great that -land is being settled and is becoming valuable that a few -years ago would have been rejected---land where winter lasts -for six months and the thermometer goes down into the -forties below zero; land where, owing to insufficient -rainfall, a crop is always a risk: land that cannot be -cultivated at all without irrigation. The vast spaces of the -western half of the continent do not contain anything like -the proportion of arable land that does the eastern. The -"great American desert" yet exists, though not now marked -upon our maps. There is not to-day remaining in the United -States any considerable body of good land unsettled and -unclaimed, upon which settlers can go with the prospect of -finding a homestead on Government terms. Already the tide of -settlement presses angrily upon the Indian reservations, and -but for the power of the general government would sweep over -them. Already, although her population is as yet but a -fraction more than six to the square mile, the last acre of -the vast public domain of Texas has passed into private -hands, the rush to purchase during the past year having been -such that many thousands of acres more than the State had -were sold. - -We may see what is coming by the avidity with which -capitalists, and especially foreign capitalists, who realize -what is the value of land where none is left over which -population may freely spread, are purchasing land in the -United States. This movement has been going on quietly for -some years, until now there is scarcely a rich English peer -or wealthy English banker who does not, either individually -or as the member of some syndicate, own a great tract of our -new land, and the purchase of large bodies for foreign -account is going on every day. It is with these absentee -landlords that our coming millions must make terms. - -Nor must it be forgotten that, while our population is -increasing, and our "wild lands" are being appropriated, the -productive capacity of our soil is being steadily reduced, -which, practically, amounts to the same thing as reducing -its quantity. Speaking generally, the agriculture of the -United States is an exhaustive agriculture. We do not return -to the earth what we take from it; each crop that is -harvested leaves the soil the poorer. We are cutting down -forests which we do not replant; we are shipping abroad, in -wheat and cotton and tobacco and meat, or flushing into the -sea through the sewers of our great cities, the elements of -fertility that have been embedded in the soil by the slow -processes of nature, acting for long ages. - -The day is near at hand when it will be no longer possible -for our increasing population to freely expand over new -land; when we shall need for our own millions the immense -surplus of foodstuffs now exported; when we shall not only -begin to feel that social pressure which comes when natural -resources are all monopolized, but when increasing social -pressure here will increase social pressure in Europe. How -momentous is this fact we begin to realize when we cast -about for such another outlet as the United States has -furnished. We look in vain. The British possessions to the -north of us embrace comparatively little arable land; the -valleys of the Saskatchewan and the Ked River are being -already taken up, and land speculation is already raging -there in fever. Mexico offers opportunities for American -enterprise and American capital and American trade, but -scarcely for American emigration. There is some room for our -settlers in that northern zone that has been kept desolate -by fierce Indians; but it is very little. The table-land of -Mexico and those portions of Central and South America -suited to our people are already well filled by a population -whom we cannot displace unless, as the Saxons displaced the -ancient Britons, by a war of extermination. Anglo-Saxon -capital and enterprise and influence will doubtless dominate -those regions, and many of our people will go there; but it -will be as Englishmen go to India or British Guinea. "Where -land is already granted and where peon labor can be had for -a song, no such emigration can take place as that which has -been pushing its way westward over the United States. So of -Africa. Our race has made a permanent lodgment on the -southern extremity of that vast continent, but its northern -advance is met by tropical heats and the presence of races -of strong vitality. On the north, the Latin branches of the -European family seem to have again become acclimated, and -will probably in time revive the ancient populousness and -importance of Mediterranean Africa; but it will scarcely -furnish an outlet for more than them. As for Equatorial -Africa, though we may explore, and civilize and develop, we -cannot colonize it in the face of the climate and of races -that increase rather than disappear in presence of the white -man. The arable land of Australia would not merely be soon -well populated by anything like the emigration that Europe -is pouring on America, but there the forestalling of land -goes on as rapidly as here. Thus we come again to that -greatest of the continents, from which our race once started -on its westward way, Asia---mother of peoples and -religions---which yet contains the greater part of the human -race---millions who live and die in all but utter -unconsciousness of our modern world. In the awakening of -those peoples by the impact of Western civilization lies one -of the greatest problems of the future. - -But it is not my purpose to enter into such speculations. -What I want to point out is that we are very soon to lose -one of the most important conditions under which our -civilization has been developing---that possibility of -expansion over virgin soil that has given scope and freedom -to American life, and relieved social pressure in the most -progressive European nations. Tendencies, harmless under -this condition, may become most dangerous when it is -changed. Gunpowder does not explode until it is confined. -You may rest your hand on the slowly ascending jaw of a -hydraulic press. It will only gently raise it. But wait a -moment till it meets resistance! +The trees, as I write, have not yet begun to leaf, nor even the blossoms +to appear; yet, passing down the lower part of Broadway these early days +of spring, one breasts a steady current of uncouthly-dressed men and +women, carrying bundles and boxes and all manner of baggage. As the +season advances, the human current will increase; even in winter it will +not wholly cease its flow. It is the great gulf-stream of humanity which +sets from Europe upon America---the greatest migration of peoples since +the world began. Other minor branches has the stream. Into Boston and +Philadelphia, into Portland, Quebec and Montreal, into New Orleans, +Galveston, San Francisco and Victoria, come offshoots of the same +current; and as it flows it draws increasing volume from wider sources. +Emigration to America has, since 1848, reduced the population of Ireland +by more than a third; but as Irish ability to feed the stream declines, +English emigration increases; the German outpour becomes so vast as to +assume the first proportions, and the millions of Italy, pressed by want +as severe as that of Ireland, begin to turn to the emigrant ship as did +the Irish. In Castle Garden one may see the garb and hear the speech of +all European peoples. From the fjords of Norway, from the plains of +Russia and Hungary, from the mountains of Wallachia, and from +Mediterranean shores and islands, once the center of classic +civilization, the great current is fed. Every year increases the +facility of its flow. Year by year improvements in steam navigation are +practically reducing the distance between the two continents; year by +year European railroads are making it easier for interior populations to +reach the seaboard, and the telegraph, the newspaper, the schoolmaster +and the cheap post, are lessening those objections of ignorance and +sentiment to removal that are so strong with people long rooted in one +place. Yet, in spite of this great exodus, the population of Europe, as +a whole, is steadily increasing. + +And across the continent, from east to west, from the older to the newer +States, an even greater migration is going on. Our people emigrate more +readily than those of Europe, and increasing as European immigration is, +it is yet becoming a less and less important factor of our growth, as +compared with the natural increase of our population. At Chicago and +St. Paul, Omaha and Kansas City, the volume of the westward moving +current has increased, not diminished. From what, so short a time ago, +was the new West of unbroken prairie and native forest, goes on, as +children grow up, a constant migration to a newer West. + +This westward expansion of population has gone on steadily since the +first settlement of the Eastern shore. It has been the great +distinguishing feature in the conditions of our people. Without its +possibility we would have been in nothing what we are. Our higher +standard of wages and of comfort and of average intelligence, our +superior self-reliance, energy, inventiveness, adaptability and +assimilative power, spring as directly from this possibility of +expansion as does our unprecedented growth. All that we are proud of in +national life and national character comes primarily from our background +of unused land. We are but transplanted Europeans, and, for that matter, +mostly of the "inferior classes." It is not usually those whose position +is comfortable and whose prospects are bright who emigrate; it is those +who are pinched and dissatisfied, those to whom no prospect seems open. +There are heralds' colleges in Europe that drive a good business in +providing a certain class of Americans with pedigrees and coats-of-arms; +but it is probably well for this sort of self-esteem that the majority +of us cannot truly trace our ancestry very far. We had some Pilgrim +Fathers, it is true; likewise some Quaker fathers, and other sorts of +fathers; yet the majority even of the early settlers did not come to +America for "freedom to worship God," hut because they were poor, +dissatisfied, unsuccessful, or recklessly adventurous---many because +they were evicted, many to escape imprisonment, many because they were +kidnapped, many as self-sold bond men, as indentured apprentices, or +mercenary soldiers. It is the virtue of new soil, the freedom of +opportunity given by the possibility of expansion, that has here +transmuted into wholesome human growth material that, had it remained in +Europe, might have been degraded and dangerous, just as in Australia the +same conditions have made respected and self-respecting citizens out of +the descendants of convicts, and even out of convicts themselves. + +It may be doubted if the relation of the opening of the New World to the +development of modern civilization is yet fully recognized. In many +respects the discovery of Columbus has proved the most important event +in the history of the European world since the birth of Christ. How +important America has been to Europe as furnishing an outlet for the +restless, the dissatisfied, the oppressed and the down-trodden; how +influences emanating from the freer opportunities and freer life of +America have reacted upon European thought and life---we can only begin +to realize when we try to imagine what would have been the present +condition of Europe had Columbus found only a watery waste between +Europe and Asia, or even had he found here a continent populated as +India or China, or Mexico, were populated. + +And, correlatively, one of the most momentous events that could happen +to the modern world would be the ending of this possibility of westward +expansion. That it must some time end is evident when we remember that +the earth is round. + +Practically, this event is near at hand. Its shadow is even now stealing +over us. Not that there is any danger of this continent being really +overpopulated. Not that there will not be for a long time to come, even +at our present rate of growth, plenty of unused land or of land only +partially used. But to feel the results of what is called pressure of +population, to realize here pressure of the same kind that forces +European emigration upon our shores, we will not have to wait for that. +Europe to-day is not overpopulated. In Ireland, whence we have received +such an immense immigration, not one-sixth of the soil is under +cultivation, and grass grows and beasts feed where once were populous +villages. In Scotland there is the solitude of the deer forest and the +grouse moor where a century ago were homes of men. One may ride on the +railways through the richest agricultural districts of England and see +scarcely as many houses as in the valley of the Platte, where the +buffalo herded a few years back. + +Twelve months ago, when the hedges were blooming, I passed along a +lovely English road near by the cottage of that "Shepherd of Salisbury +Plain" of whom I read, when a boy, in a tract which is a good sample of +the husks frequently given to children as religious food, and which is +still, I presume, distributed by the American, as it is by the English, +Tract Society. On one side of the road was a wide expanse of rich land, +in which no plow-share had that season been struck, because its owner +demanded a higher rent than the farmers would give. On the other, +stretched, for many a broad acre, a lordly park, its velvety verdure +untrodden save by a few light-footed deer. And, as we passed along, my +companion, a native of those parts, bitterly complained that, since this +lord of the manor had enclosed the little village green and set out his +fences to take in the grass of the roadside, the cottagers could not +keep even a goose, and the children of the village had no place to play! +Place there was in plenty, but, so far as the children were concerned, +it might as well be in Africa or in the moon. And so in our Far West, I +have seen emigrants toiling painfully for long distances through vacant +land without finding a spot on which they dared settle. In a country +where the springs and streams are all inclosed by walls he cannot scale, +the wayfarer, but for charity, might perish of thirst, as in a desert. +There is plenty of vacant land on Manhattan Island. But on Manhattan +Island human beings are packed closer than anywhere else in the world. +There is plenty of fresh air all around---one man owns forty acres of +it, a whiff of which he never breathes, since his home is on his yacht +in European waters; but, for all that, thousands of children die in New +York every summer for want of it, and thousands, more would die did not +charitable people subscribe to fresh-air funds. The social pressure +which forces on our shores this swelling tide of immigration arises not +from the fact that the land of Europe is all in use, but that it is all +appropriated. That will soon be our case as well. Our land will not all +be used; but it will all be "fenced in." + +We still talk of our vast public domain, and figures showing millions +and millions of acres of unappropriated public land yet swell grandly in +the reports of our Land Office. But already it is so difficult to find +public land fit for settlement, that the great majority of those wishing +to settle find in cheaper to buy, and rents in California and the New +Northwest run from a quarter to even one half the crop. It must be +remembered that the area which yet figures in the returns of our public +domain includes all the great mountain chains, all the vast deserts and +dry plains fit only for grazing, or not even for that; it must be +remembered that of what is really fertile, millions and millions of +acres are covered by railroad grants as yet unpatented, or what amounts +to the same thing to the settler, are shadowed by them; that much is +held by appropriation of the water without which it is useless; and that +much more is held under claims of various kinds, which, whether legal or +illegal, are sufficient to keep the settler off unless he will consent +to pay a price, or to mortgage his labor for years. + +Nevertheless, land with us is still comparatively cheap. But this cannot +long continue. The stream of immigration that comes swelling in, added +to our steadily augmenting natural increase, will soon now so occupy the +available lands as to raise the price of the poorest land worth settling +on to a point we have never known. Nearly twenty years ago Mr. Wade, of +Ohio, in a speech in the United States Senate, predicted that by the +close of the century every acre of good agricultural land in the Union +would be worth at least \$50. That his prediction will be even more than +verified we may already see. By the close of the century our population, +at the normal rate of increase, will be over forty millions more than in +1880. That is to say, within the next seventeen years an additional +population greater than that of the whole United States at the close of +the civil war will be demanding room. Where will they find cheap land? +There is no further West. Our advance has reached the Pacific, and +beyond the Pacific is the East, with its teeming millions. From San +Diego to Puget Sound there is no valley of the coast-line that is not +settled or pre-empted. To the very farthest corners of the Republic +settlers are already going. The pressure is already so great that +speculation and settlement are beginning to cross the northern border +into Canada and the southern border into Mexico; so great that land is +being settled and is becoming valuable that a few years ago would have +been rejected---land where winter lasts for six months and the +thermometer goes down into the forties below zero; land where, owing to +insufficient rainfall, a crop is always a risk: land that cannot be +cultivated at all without irrigation. The vast spaces of the western +half of the continent do not contain anything like the proportion of +arable land that does the eastern. The "great American desert" yet +exists, though not now marked upon our maps. There is not to-day +remaining in the United States any considerable body of good land +unsettled and unclaimed, upon which settlers can go with the prospect of +finding a homestead on Government terms. Already the tide of settlement +presses angrily upon the Indian reservations, and but for the power of +the general government would sweep over them. Already, although her +population is as yet but a fraction more than six to the square mile, +the last acre of the vast public domain of Texas has passed into private +hands, the rush to purchase during the past year having been such that +many thousands of acres more than the State had were sold. + +We may see what is coming by the avidity with which capitalists, and +especially foreign capitalists, who realize what is the value of land +where none is left over which population may freely spread, are +purchasing land in the United States. This movement has been going on +quietly for some years, until now there is scarcely a rich English peer +or wealthy English banker who does not, either individually or as the +member of some syndicate, own a great tract of our new land, and the +purchase of large bodies for foreign account is going on every day. It +is with these absentee landlords that our coming millions must make +terms. + +Nor must it be forgotten that, while our population is increasing, and +our "wild lands" are being appropriated, the productive capacity of our +soil is being steadily reduced, which, practically, amounts to the same +thing as reducing its quantity. Speaking generally, the agriculture of +the United States is an exhaustive agriculture. We do not return to the +earth what we take from it; each crop that is harvested leaves the soil +the poorer. We are cutting down forests which we do not replant; we are +shipping abroad, in wheat and cotton and tobacco and meat, or flushing +into the sea through the sewers of our great cities, the elements of +fertility that have been embedded in the soil by the slow processes of +nature, acting for long ages. + +The day is near at hand when it will be no longer possible for our +increasing population to freely expand over new land; when we shall need +for our own millions the immense surplus of foodstuffs now exported; +when we shall not only begin to feel that social pressure which comes +when natural resources are all monopolized, but when increasing social +pressure here will increase social pressure in Europe. How momentous is +this fact we begin to realize when we cast about for such another outlet +as the United States has furnished. We look in vain. The British +possessions to the north of us embrace comparatively little arable land; +the valleys of the Saskatchewan and the Ked River are being already +taken up, and land speculation is already raging there in fever. Mexico +offers opportunities for American enterprise and American capital and +American trade, but scarcely for American emigration. There is some room +for our settlers in that northern zone that has been kept desolate by +fierce Indians; but it is very little. The table-land of Mexico and +those portions of Central and South America suited to our people are +already well filled by a population whom we cannot displace unless, as +the Saxons displaced the ancient Britons, by a war of extermination. +Anglo-Saxon capital and enterprise and influence will doubtless dominate +those regions, and many of our people will go there; but it will be as +Englishmen go to India or British Guinea. "Where land is already granted +and where peon labor can be had for a song, no such emigration can take +place as that which has been pushing its way westward over the United +States. So of Africa. Our race has made a permanent lodgment on the +southern extremity of that vast continent, but its northern advance is +met by tropical heats and the presence of races of strong vitality. On +the north, the Latin branches of the European family seem to have again +become acclimated, and will probably in time revive the ancient +populousness and importance of Mediterranean Africa; but it will +scarcely furnish an outlet for more than them. As for Equatorial Africa, +though we may explore, and civilize and develop, we cannot colonize it +in the face of the climate and of races that increase rather than +disappear in presence of the white man. The arable land of Australia +would not merely be soon well populated by anything like the emigration +that Europe is pouring on America, but there the forestalling of land +goes on as rapidly as here. Thus we come again to that greatest of the +continents, from which our race once started on its westward way, +Asia---mother of peoples and religions---which yet contains the greater +part of the human race---millions who live and die in all but utter +unconsciousness of our modern world. In the awakening of those peoples +by the impact of Western civilization lies one of the greatest problems +of the future. + +But it is not my purpose to enter into such speculations. What I want to +point out is that we are very soon to lose one of the most important +conditions under which our civilization has been developing---that +possibility of expansion over virgin soil that has given scope and +freedom to American life, and relieved social pressure in the most +progressive European nations. Tendencies, harmless under this condition, +may become most dangerous when it is changed. Gunpowder does not explode +until it is confined. You may rest your hand on the slowly ascending jaw +of a hydraulic press. It will only gently raise it. But wait a moment +till it meets resistance! # Two Opposing Tendencies -So much freer, so much higher, so much fuller and wider is -the life of our time, that, looking back, we cannot help -feeling something like pity, if not contempt, for preceding -generations. - -Comforts, conveniences, luxuries, that a little while ago -wealth could not purchase, are now matters of ordinary use. -We travel in an hour, easily and comfortably, what to our -fathers was a hard day's journey; we send in minutes -messages that, in their time, would have taken weeks. We are -better acquainted with remote countries than they with -regions little distant; we know as common things what to -them were fast-locked secrets of nature; our world is -larger, our horizon is wider; in the years of our lives we -may see more, do more, learn more. - -Consider the diffusion of knowledge, the quickened -transmission of information. Compare the school-books used -by our children with the school-books used by our fathers; -see how cheap printing has brought within the reach of the -masses the very treasures of literature; how enormously it -has widened the audience of the novelist, the historian, the -essayist and the poet; see how superior are even the trashy -novels and story-papers in which shop-girls delight, to the -rude ballads and "last dying speeches and confessions," -which were their prototypes. Look at the daily newspapers, -read even by the poorest, and giving to them glimpses of the -doings of all classes of society, news from all parts of the -world. Consider the illustrated journals that every week -bring to the million pictures of life in all phases and in -all countries---bird's-eye views of cities, of grand and -beautiful landscapes; the features of noted men and women; -the sittings of parliaments, and congresses, and -conventions; the splendor of courts, and the wild life of -savages; triumphs of art; glories of architecture; processes -of industry; achievements of inventive skill. Such a -panorama as thus, week after week, passes before the eyes of -common men and women, the richest and most powerful could -not a generation ago have commanded. - -These things, and the many other things that the mention of -these will suggest, are necessarily exerting a powerful -influence upon thought and feeling. Superstitions are dying -out, prejudices are giving way, manners and customs are -becoming assimilated, sympathies are widening, new +So much freer, so much higher, so much fuller and wider is the life of +our time, that, looking back, we cannot help feeling something like +pity, if not contempt, for preceding generations. + +Comforts, conveniences, luxuries, that a little while ago wealth could +not purchase, are now matters of ordinary use. We travel in an hour, +easily and comfortably, what to our fathers was a hard day's journey; we +send in minutes messages that, in their time, would have taken weeks. We +are better acquainted with remote countries than they with regions +little distant; we know as common things what to them were fast-locked +secrets of nature; our world is larger, our horizon is wider; in the +years of our lives we may see more, do more, learn more. + +Consider the diffusion of knowledge, the quickened transmission of +information. Compare the school-books used by our children with the +school-books used by our fathers; see how cheap printing has brought +within the reach of the masses the very treasures of literature; how +enormously it has widened the audience of the novelist, the historian, +the essayist and the poet; see how superior are even the trashy novels +and story-papers in which shop-girls delight, to the rude ballads and +"last dying speeches and confessions," which were their prototypes. Look +at the daily newspapers, read even by the poorest, and giving to them +glimpses of the doings of all classes of society, news from all parts of +the world. Consider the illustrated journals that every week bring to +the million pictures of life in all phases and in all +countries---bird's-eye views of cities, of grand and beautiful +landscapes; the features of noted men and women; the sittings of +parliaments, and congresses, and conventions; the splendor of courts, +and the wild life of savages; triumphs of art; glories of architecture; +processes of industry; achievements of inventive skill. Such a panorama +as thus, week after week, passes before the eyes of common men and +women, the richest and most powerful could not a generation ago have +commanded. + +These things, and the many other things that the mention of these will +suggest, are necessarily exerting a powerful influence upon thought and +feeling. Superstitions are dying out, prejudices are giving way, manners +and customs are becoming assimilated, sympathies are widening, new aspirations are quickening the masses. -We come into the world with minds ready to receive any -impression. To the eyes of infancy all is new, and one thing -is no more wonderful than another. In whatever lies beyond -common experience we assume the beliefs of those about us, -and it is only the strongest intellects that can in a little -raise themselves above the accepted opinions of their times. -In a community where that opinion prevailed, the vast -majority of us would as unhesitatingly believe that the -earth is a plain, supported by a gigantic elephant, as we -now believe it a sphere circling round the sun. No theory is -too false, no fable too absurd, no superstition too -degrading for acceptance when it has become embedded in -common belief. Men will submit themselves to tortures and to -death, mothers will immolate their children, at the bidding -of beliefs they thus accept. What more unnatural than -polygamy? Yet see how long and how widely polygamy has -existed! - -In this tendency to accept what we find, to believe what we -are told, is at once good and evil. It is this which makes -social advance possible; it is this which makes it so slow -and painful. Each generation thus obtains without effort the -hard-won knowledge bequeathed to it; it is thus, also, -enslaved by errors and perversions which it in the same way +We come into the world with minds ready to receive any impression. To +the eyes of infancy all is new, and one thing is no more wonderful than +another. In whatever lies beyond common experience we assume the beliefs +of those about us, and it is only the strongest intellects that can in a +little raise themselves above the accepted opinions of their times. In a +community where that opinion prevailed, the vast majority of us would as +unhesitatingly believe that the earth is a plain, supported by a +gigantic elephant, as we now believe it a sphere circling round the sun. +No theory is too false, no fable too absurd, no superstition too +degrading for acceptance when it has become embedded in common belief. +Men will submit themselves to tortures and to death, mothers will +immolate their children, at the bidding of beliefs they thus accept. +What more unnatural than polygamy? Yet see how long and how widely +polygamy has existed! + +In this tendency to accept what we find, to believe what we are told, is +at once good and evil. It is this which makes social advance possible; +it is this which makes it so slow and painful. Each generation thus +obtains without effort the hard-won knowledge bequeathed to it; it is +thus, also, enslaved by errors and perversions which it in the same way receives. -It is thus that tyranny is maintained and superstition -perpetuated. Polygamy is unnatural. Obvious facts of -universal experience prove this. The uniform proportion in -which the sexes are brought into the world; the -exclusiveness of the feeling with which in healthy -conditions they attract each other; the necessities imposed -by the slow growth and development of children, point to the -union of one man with one woman as the intent of Nature. -Yet, although it is repugnant to the most obvious facts and -to the strongest instincts, polygamy seems a perfectly -natural thing to those educated in a society where it has -become an accepted institution, and it is only by long -effort and much struggling that this idea can be eradicated. -So with slavery. Even to such minds as those of Plato and -Aristotle, to own a man seemed as natural as to own a horse. -Even in this nineteenth century and in this "land of -liberty," how long has it been since those who denied the -right of property in human flesh and blood were denounced as -"communists," as "infidels," as "incendiaries," bent on -uprooting social order and destroying all property rights. -So with monarchy, so with aristocracy, so with many other -things as unnatural that are still unquestioningly accepted. -Can anything be more unnatural---that is to say, more -repugnant to right reason and to the facts and laws of -nature---than that those who work least should get most of -the things that work produces? "He that will not work, -neither shall lie eat." That is not merely the word of the -Apostle; it is the obvious law of Nature. Yet all over the -world, hard and poor is the fare of the toiling masses; -while those who aid production neither with hand nor head -live luxuriously and fare sumptuously. This we have been -used to, and it has therefore seemed to us natural, just as -polygamy, slavery, aristocracy and monarchy seem natural to -those accustomed to them. - -But mental habits which made this state of things seem -natural are breaking up; superstitions which prevented its -being questioned are melting away. The revelations of -physical science, the increased knowledge of other times and -other peoples, the extension of education, emigration, -travel, the rise of the critical spirit and the changes in -old methods everywhere going on, are destroying beliefs -which made the masses of men content with the position of -hewers of wood and drawers of water, are softening manners -and widening sympathies, are extending the idea of human -equality and brotherhood. - -All over the world the masses of men are becoming more and -more dissatisfied with conditions under which their fathers -would have been contented. It is in vain that they are told -that their situation has been much improved; it is in vain -that it is pointed out to them that comforts, amusements, -opportunities, are within their reach that their fathers -would not have dreamed of. The having got so much, only -leads them to ask why they should not have more. Desire -grows by what it feeds on. Man is not like the ox. He has no -fixed standard of satisfaction. To arouse his ambition, to -educate him to new wants, is as certain to make him -discontented with his lot as to make that lot harder. We -resign ourselves to what we think cannot be bettered; but -when we realize that improvement is possible, then we become -restive. This is the explanation of the paradox that De -Tocqueville thought astonishing: that the masses find their -position the more intolerable the more it is improved. The -slave codes were wise that prescribed pains and penalties -for teaching bondsmen to read, and they reasoned well who -opposed popular education on the ground that it would bring -revolution. - -But there is in the conditions of the civilized world to-day -something more portentous than a growing restiveness under -evils long endured. Everything tends to awake the sense of -natural equality, to arouse the aspirations and ambitions of -the masses, to excite a keener and keener perception of the -gross injustice of existing inequalities of privilege and -wealth. Yet, at the same time, everything tends to the rapid -and monstrous increase of these inequalities. Never since -great estates were eating out the heart of Rome has the -world seen such enormous fortunes as are now arising. And -never more utter proletarians. In the paper which contained -a many-column account of the Vanderbilt ball, with its -gorgeous dresses and its wealth of diamonds, with its -profusion of roses, costing \$2 each, and its precious wines -flowing like water, I also read a brief item telling how, at -a station-house near by, thirty-nine persons---eighteen of -them women---had sought shelter, and how they were all -marched into court next morning and sent for six months to -prison. "The women," said the item, "shrieked and sobbed -bitterly as they were carried to prison." Christ was born of -a woman. And to Mary Magdalen he turned in tender blessing. -But such vermin have some of these human creatures, made in -God's image, become, that we must shovel them off to prison -without being too particular. - -The railroad is a new thing. It has scarcely begun its work. -Yet it has already differentiated the man who counts his -income by millions every month, and the thousands of men -glad to work for him at from 90 cents to \$1.50 a day. Who -shall set bounds, under present tendencies, to the great -fortunes of the next generation? Or to the correlatives of -these great fortunes, the tramps? - -The tendency of all the inventions and improvements so -wonderfully augmenting productive power is to concentrate -enormous wealth in the hands of a few, to make the condition -of the many more hopeless; to force into the position of -machines for the production of wealth they are not to enjoy, -men whose aspirations are being aroused. Without a single -exception that I can think of, the effect of all modern -industrial improvements is to production upon a large scale, -to the minute division of labor, to the giving to the -possession of large capital an overpowering advantage. Even -such inventions as the telephone and the type-writer tend to -the concentration of wealth, by adding to the ease with -which large businesses can be managed, and lessening -limitations that after a certain point made further -extension more difficult. - -The tendency of the machine is in every thing not merely to -place it out of the power of the workman to become his own -employer, but to reduce him to the position of a mere -attendant or feeder; to dispense with judgment, skill and -brains, save in a few overseers; to reduce all others to the -monotonous work of automatons, to which there is no future +It is thus that tyranny is maintained and superstition perpetuated. +Polygamy is unnatural. Obvious facts of universal experience prove this. +The uniform proportion in which the sexes are brought into the world; +the exclusiveness of the feeling with which in healthy conditions they +attract each other; the necessities imposed by the slow growth and +development of children, point to the union of one man with one woman as +the intent of Nature. Yet, although it is repugnant to the most obvious +facts and to the strongest instincts, polygamy seems a perfectly natural +thing to those educated in a society where it has become an accepted +institution, and it is only by long effort and much struggling that this +idea can be eradicated. So with slavery. Even to such minds as those of +Plato and Aristotle, to own a man seemed as natural as to own a horse. +Even in this nineteenth century and in this "land of liberty," how long +has it been since those who denied the right of property in human flesh +and blood were denounced as "communists," as "infidels," as +"incendiaries," bent on uprooting social order and destroying all +property rights. So with monarchy, so with aristocracy, so with many +other things as unnatural that are still unquestioningly accepted. Can +anything be more unnatural---that is to say, more repugnant to right +reason and to the facts and laws of nature---than that those who work +least should get most of the things that work produces? "He that will +not work, neither shall lie eat." That is not merely the word of the +Apostle; it is the obvious law of Nature. Yet all over the world, hard +and poor is the fare of the toiling masses; while those who aid +production neither with hand nor head live luxuriously and fare +sumptuously. This we have been used to, and it has therefore seemed to +us natural, just as polygamy, slavery, aristocracy and monarchy seem +natural to those accustomed to them. + +But mental habits which made this state of things seem natural are +breaking up; superstitions which prevented its being questioned are +melting away. The revelations of physical science, the increased +knowledge of other times and other peoples, the extension of education, +emigration, travel, the rise of the critical spirit and the changes in +old methods everywhere going on, are destroying beliefs which made the +masses of men content with the position of hewers of wood and drawers of +water, are softening manners and widening sympathies, are extending the +idea of human equality and brotherhood. + +All over the world the masses of men are becoming more and more +dissatisfied with conditions under which their fathers would have been +contented. It is in vain that they are told that their situation has +been much improved; it is in vain that it is pointed out to them that +comforts, amusements, opportunities, are within their reach that their +fathers would not have dreamed of. The having got so much, only leads +them to ask why they should not have more. Desire grows by what it feeds +on. Man is not like the ox. He has no fixed standard of satisfaction. To +arouse his ambition, to educate him to new wants, is as certain to make +him discontented with his lot as to make that lot harder. We resign +ourselves to what we think cannot be bettered; but when we realize that +improvement is possible, then we become restive. This is the explanation +of the paradox that De Tocqueville thought astonishing: that the masses +find their position the more intolerable the more it is improved. The +slave codes were wise that prescribed pains and penalties for teaching +bondsmen to read, and they reasoned well who opposed popular education +on the ground that it would bring revolution. + +But there is in the conditions of the civilized world to-day something +more portentous than a growing restiveness under evils long endured. +Everything tends to awake the sense of natural equality, to arouse the +aspirations and ambitions of the masses, to excite a keener and keener +perception of the gross injustice of existing inequalities of privilege +and wealth. Yet, at the same time, everything tends to the rapid and +monstrous increase of these inequalities. Never since great estates were +eating out the heart of Rome has the world seen such enormous fortunes +as are now arising. And never more utter proletarians. In the paper +which contained a many-column account of the Vanderbilt ball, with its +gorgeous dresses and its wealth of diamonds, with its profusion of +roses, costing \$2 each, and its precious wines flowing like water, I +also read a brief item telling how, at a station-house near by, +thirty-nine persons---eighteen of them women---had sought shelter, and +how they were all marched into court next morning and sent for six +months to prison. "The women," said the item, "shrieked and sobbed +bitterly as they were carried to prison." Christ was born of a woman. +And to Mary Magdalen he turned in tender blessing. But such vermin have +some of these human creatures, made in God's image, become, that we must +shovel them off to prison without being too particular. + +The railroad is a new thing. It has scarcely begun its work. Yet it has +already differentiated the man who counts his income by millions every +month, and the thousands of men glad to work for him at from 90 cents to +\$1.50 a day. Who shall set bounds, under present tendencies, to the +great fortunes of the next generation? Or to the correlatives of these +great fortunes, the tramps? + +The tendency of all the inventions and improvements so wonderfully +augmenting productive power is to concentrate enormous wealth in the +hands of a few, to make the condition of the many more hopeless; to +force into the position of machines for the production of wealth they +are not to enjoy, men whose aspirations are being aroused. Without a +single exception that I can think of, the effect of all modern +industrial improvements is to production upon a large scale, to the +minute division of labor, to the giving to the possession of large +capital an overpowering advantage. Even such inventions as the telephone +and the type-writer tend to the concentration of wealth, by adding to +the ease with which large businesses can be managed, and lessening +limitations that after a certain point made further extension more +difficult. + +The tendency of the machine is in every thing not merely to place it out +of the power of the workman to become his own employer, but to reduce +him to the position of a mere attendant or feeder; to dispense with +judgment, skill and brains, save in a few overseers; to reduce all +others to the monotonous work of automatons, to which there is no future save the same unvarying round. -Under the old system of handicraft, the workman may have -toiled hard and long, but in his work he had companionship, -variety, the pleasure that comes of the exercise of creative -skill, the sense of seeing things growing under his hand to -finished form. He worked in his own home or side by side -with his employer. Labor was lightened by emulation, by -gossip, by laughter, by discussion. As apprentice, he looked -forward to becoming a journeyman; as a journeyman, lie -looked forward to becoming a master and taking an apprentice -of his own. With a few tools and a little raw material he -was independent. He dealt directly with those who used the -finished articles he produces. If he could not find a market -for money he could find a market in exchange. That terrible -dread---the dread of having the opportunities of livelihood -shut off; of finding himself utterly helpless to provide for -his family, never cast its shadow over him. +Under the old system of handicraft, the workman may have toiled hard and +long, but in his work he had companionship, variety, the pleasure that +comes of the exercise of creative skill, the sense of seeing things +growing under his hand to finished form. He worked in his own home or +side by side with his employer. Labor was lightened by emulation, by +gossip, by laughter, by discussion. As apprentice, he looked forward to +becoming a journeyman; as a journeyman, lie looked forward to becoming a +master and taking an apprentice of his own. With a few tools and a +little raw material he was independent. He dealt directly with those who +used the finished articles he produces. If he could not find a market +for money he could find a market in exchange. That terrible dread---the +dread of having the opportunities of livelihood shut off; of finding +himself utterly helpless to provide for his family, never cast its +shadow over him. Consider the blacksmith of the industrial era now everywhere -passing---or rather the "black and white smith," for the -finished workman worked in steel as well. The smithy stood -by roadside or street. Through its open doors were caught -glimpses of nature; all that was passing could be seen. -Wayfarers stopped to inquire, neighbors to tell or hear the -news, children to see the hot iron glow and watch the red -sparks fly. Now the smith shoed a horse; now he put on a -wagon-tire; now he forged and tempered a tool; again he -welded a broken andiron, or beat out with graceful art a -crane for the deep chimney-place, or, when there was nothing -else to do, he wrought iron into nails. - -Go now into one of those enormous establishments covering -acres and acres, in which workmen by the thousand are massed -together, and, by the aid of steam and machinery, iron is -converted to its uses at a fraction of the cost of the old -system. You cannot enter without permission from the office, -for over each door you will find the sign, "Positively no -admittance." If you are permitted to go in, you must not -talk to the workmen; but that makes little difference, as -amid the din and the clatter, and whirr of belts and wheels, -you could not if you would. Here you find men doing over and -over the selfsame thing---passing, all day long, bars of -iron through great rollers; presenting plates to steel jaws, -turning, amid clangor in which you can scarcely "hear -yourself think," bits of iron over and back again, sixty -times a minute, for hour after hour, for day after day, for -year after year. In the whole great establishment there will -be not a man, save here and there one who got his training -under the simpler system now passing away, who can do more -than some minute part of what goes to the making of a -salable article. The lad learns in a little while how to -attend his particular machine. Then his progress stops. He -may become gray-headed without learning more. As his -children grow, the only way he has of augmenting his income -is by setting them to work. As for aspiring to become master -of such an establishment, with its millions of capital in -machinery and stock, he might as well aspire to be King of -England or Pope of Rome. He has no more control over the -conditions that give him employment than has the passenger -in a railroad-car over the motion of the train. Causes which -he can neither prevent nor foresee may at any time stop his -machine and throw him upon the world, an utterly unskilled -laborer, unaccustomed even to swing a pick or handle a -spade. When times are good, and his employer is coining -money, he can only get an advance by a strike or a -threatened strike. At the least symptoms of harder times his -wages are scaled down, and he can only resist by a strike, -which means, for a longer or shorter time, no wages. - -I have spoken of but one trade; but the tendency is the same -in all others. This is the form that industrial organization -is everywhere assuming, even in agriculture. Great -corporations are now stocking immense ranges with cattle, -and "bonanza farms" are cultivated by gangs of nomads -destitute of anything that can be called home. In all -occupations the workman is steadily becoming divorced from -the tools and opportunities of labor; everywhere the -inequalities of fortune are becoming more glaring. And this -at a time when thought is being quickened; when the old -forces of conservatism are giving way; when the idea of -human equality is growing and spreading. - -When between those who work and want and those who live in -idle luxury there is so great a gulf fixed that in popular -imagination they seem to belong to distinct orders of -beings; when, in the name of religion, it is persistently -instilled into the masses that all things in this world are -ordered by Divine Providence, which appoints to each his -place; when children are taught from the earliest infancy -that it is, to use the words of the Episcopal catechism, -their duty toward God and man to "honor and obey the civil -authority," to "order themselves lowly and reverently toward -their betters, and to do their duty in that state of life in -which it has pleased God to call them"; when these counsels -of humility, of contentment and of self-abasement are -enforced by the terrible threat of an eternity of torture, -while on the other hand the poor are taught to believe that -if they patiently bear their lot here God will after death -translate them to a heaven where there is no private -property and no poverty, the most glaring inequalities in +passing---or rather the "black and white smith," for the finished +workman worked in steel as well. The smithy stood by roadside or street. +Through its open doors were caught glimpses of nature; all that was +passing could be seen. Wayfarers stopped to inquire, neighbors to tell +or hear the news, children to see the hot iron glow and watch the red +sparks fly. Now the smith shoed a horse; now he put on a wagon-tire; now +he forged and tempered a tool; again he welded a broken andiron, or beat +out with graceful art a crane for the deep chimney-place, or, when there +was nothing else to do, he wrought iron into nails. + +Go now into one of those enormous establishments covering acres and +acres, in which workmen by the thousand are massed together, and, by the +aid of steam and machinery, iron is converted to its uses at a fraction +of the cost of the old system. You cannot enter without permission from +the office, for over each door you will find the sign, "Positively no +admittance." If you are permitted to go in, you must not talk to the +workmen; but that makes little difference, as amid the din and the +clatter, and whirr of belts and wheels, you could not if you would. Here +you find men doing over and over the selfsame thing---passing, all day +long, bars of iron through great rollers; presenting plates to steel +jaws, turning, amid clangor in which you can scarcely "hear yourself +think," bits of iron over and back again, sixty times a minute, for hour +after hour, for day after day, for year after year. In the whole great +establishment there will be not a man, save here and there one who got +his training under the simpler system now passing away, who can do more +than some minute part of what goes to the making of a salable article. +The lad learns in a little while how to attend his particular machine. +Then his progress stops. He may become gray-headed without learning +more. As his children grow, the only way he has of augmenting his income +is by setting them to work. As for aspiring to become master of such an +establishment, with its millions of capital in machinery and stock, he +might as well aspire to be King of England or Pope of Rome. He has no +more control over the conditions that give him employment than has the +passenger in a railroad-car over the motion of the train. Causes which +he can neither prevent nor foresee may at any time stop his machine and +throw him upon the world, an utterly unskilled laborer, unaccustomed +even to swing a pick or handle a spade. When times are good, and his +employer is coining money, he can only get an advance by a strike or a +threatened strike. At the least symptoms of harder times his wages are +scaled down, and he can only resist by a strike, which means, for a +longer or shorter time, no wages. + +I have spoken of but one trade; but the tendency is the same in all +others. This is the form that industrial organization is everywhere +assuming, even in agriculture. Great corporations are now stocking +immense ranges with cattle, and "bonanza farms" are cultivated by gangs +of nomads destitute of anything that can be called home. In all +occupations the workman is steadily becoming divorced from the tools and +opportunities of labor; everywhere the inequalities of fortune are +becoming more glaring. And this at a time when thought is being +quickened; when the old forces of conservatism are giving way; when the +idea of human equality is growing and spreading. + +When between those who work and want and those who live in idle luxury +there is so great a gulf fixed that in popular imagination they seem to +belong to distinct orders of beings; when, in the name of religion, it +is persistently instilled into the masses that all things in this world +are ordered by Divine Providence, which appoints to each his place; when +children are taught from the earliest infancy that it is, to use the +words of the Episcopal catechism, their duty toward God and man to +"honor and obey the civil authority," to "order themselves lowly and +reverently toward their betters, and to do their duty in that state of +life in which it has pleased God to call them"; when these counsels of +humility, of contentment and of self-abasement are enforced by the +terrible threat of an eternity of torture, while on the other hand the +poor are taught to believe that if they patiently bear their lot here +God will after death translate them to a heaven where there is no +private property and no poverty, the most glaring inequalities in condition may excite neither envy nor indignation. -But the ideas that are stirring in the world to-day are -different from these. - -Near nineteen hundred years ago, when another civilization -was developing monstrous inequalities, when the masses -everywhere were being ground into hopeless slavery, there -arose in a Jewish village an unlearned carpenter, who, -scorning the orthodoxies and rituals of the time, preached -to laborers and fishermen the gospel of the fatherhood of -God, of the equality and brotherhood of men, who taught his -disciples to pray for the coming of the kingdom of heaven on -earth. The college professors sneered at him, the orthodox -preachers denounced him. He was reviled as a dreamer, as a -disturber, as a "communist," and, finally, organized society -took the alarm, and he was crucified between two thieves. -But the word went forth, and, spread by fugitives and -slaves, made its way against power and against persecution -till it revolutionized the world, and out of the rotting old -civilization brought the germ of the new. Then the -privileged classes rallied again, carved the effigy of the -man of the people in the courts and on the tombs of kings, -in his name consecrated inequality, and wrested his gospel -to the defense of social injustice. But again the same great -ideas of a common fatherhood, of a common brotherhood, of a -social state in which none shall be overworked and none -shall want, begin to quicken in common thought. - -"When a mighty wind meets a strong current, it does not -portend a smooth sea. And whoever will think of the opposing -tendencies beginning to develop will appreciate the gravity -of the social problems the civilized world must soon meet. -He will also understand the meaning of Christ's words when -he said: - -> "Think not I am come to send peace on earth. I come not to -> send peace, hut a sword." +But the ideas that are stirring in the world to-day are different from +these. + +Near nineteen hundred years ago, when another civilization was +developing monstrous inequalities, when the masses everywhere were being +ground into hopeless slavery, there arose in a Jewish village an +unlearned carpenter, who, scorning the orthodoxies and rituals of the +time, preached to laborers and fishermen the gospel of the fatherhood of +God, of the equality and brotherhood of men, who taught his disciples to +pray for the coming of the kingdom of heaven on earth. The college +professors sneered at him, the orthodox preachers denounced him. He was +reviled as a dreamer, as a disturber, as a "communist," and, finally, +organized society took the alarm, and he was crucified between two +thieves. But the word went forth, and, spread by fugitives and slaves, +made its way against power and against persecution till it +revolutionized the world, and out of the rotting old civilization +brought the germ of the new. Then the privileged classes rallied again, +carved the effigy of the man of the people in the courts and on the +tombs of kings, in his name consecrated inequality, and wrested his +gospel to the defense of social injustice. But again the same great +ideas of a common fatherhood, of a common brotherhood, of a social state +in which none shall be overworked and none shall want, begin to quicken +in common thought. + +"When a mighty wind meets a strong current, it does not portend a smooth +sea. And whoever will think of the opposing tendencies beginning to +develop will appreciate the gravity of the social problems the civilized +world must soon meet. He will also understand the meaning of Christ's +words when he said: + +> "Think not I am come to send peace on earth. I come not to send peace, +> hut a sword." # The March of Concentration -In 1790, at the time of the first census of the United -States, the cities contained but 3.3% of the whole -population. In 18S0 the cities contained 22.5% of the -population. This tendency of population to concentrate is -one of the marked features of our time. All over the -civilized world the great cities are growing even faster -than the growth of population. The increase in the -population of England and Scotland during the present -century has been in the cities. In France, where population -is nearly stationary, the large cities are year by year -becoming larger. In Ireland, where population is steadily -declining, Dublin and Belfast are steadily growing. - -The same great agencies---steam and machinery---that are -thus massing population in cities are operating even more -powerfully to concentrate industry and trade. This is to be -seen wherever the new forces have had play, and in every -branch of industry, from such primary ones as agriculture, -stock-raising, mining and fishing, up to those created by -recent invention, such as railroading, telegraphing, or the -lighting by gas or electricity. - -It has been stated on the authority of the United States -Census Bureau that the average size of farms is decreasing -in the United States. This statement is not only -inconsistent with facts obvious all over the United States, -and with the tendencies of agriculture in other countries, -such as Great Britain, but it is inconsistent with the -returns furnished by the Census Bureau itself According to -the "Compendium of the Tenth Census," the increase of the -number of farms in the United States during the decade -between 1870 and 1880 was about 50%, and the returns in the -eight classes of farms enumerated show a steady diminution -in the smaller sized farms and a steady increase in the -larger. In the class under three acres, the decrease during -the decade was about 37%; between three and ten acres, about -21%; between ten and twenty acres, about 14%; between twenty -and fifty acres, something less than 8%. With the class -between 50 and 100 acres, the increase begins, amounting in -this class to about 37%. In the next class, between 100 and -500 acres, the increase is nearly 200%. In the class between -500 and 1,000 acres, it is nearly 400%. In the class over -1,000 acres, the largest given, it amounts to almost 700%. - -How, in the face of these figures, the Census Bureau can -report a decline in the average size of farms in the United -States from 153 acres in 1870 to 134 acres in 1880 I cannot -understand. Nor is it worth while here to inquire. The -incontestable fact is that, like everything else, the -ownership of land is concentrating, and farming is assuming -a larger scale. This is due to the improvements in -agricultural machinery, which make farming a business -requiring more capital, to the enhanced value of land, to -the changes produced by railroads, and the advantage which -special rates give the large over the small producer. That -it is an accelerating tendency there is no question. The new -era in farming is only beginning. And whatever be its gains, -it involves the reduction of the great body of American -farmers to the ranks of tenants or laborers. There are no -means of discovering the increase of tenant farming in the -United States during the last decade, as no returns as to -tenantry were made prior to the last census; but that shows -that there were in the United States in 1880 no less than -1,024,601 tenant farmers. If, in addition to this, we could -get at the number of farmers nominally owning their own -land, but who are in reality paying rent in the shape of +In 1790, at the time of the first census of the United States, the +cities contained but 3.3% of the whole population. In 18S0 the cities +contained 22.5% of the population. This tendency of population to +concentrate is one of the marked features of our time. All over the +civilized world the great cities are growing even faster than the growth +of population. The increase in the population of England and Scotland +during the present century has been in the cities. In France, where +population is nearly stationary, the large cities are year by year +becoming larger. In Ireland, where population is steadily declining, +Dublin and Belfast are steadily growing. + +The same great agencies---steam and machinery---that are thus massing +population in cities are operating even more powerfully to concentrate +industry and trade. This is to be seen wherever the new forces have had +play, and in every branch of industry, from such primary ones as +agriculture, stock-raising, mining and fishing, up to those created by +recent invention, such as railroading, telegraphing, or the lighting by +gas or electricity. + +It has been stated on the authority of the United States Census Bureau +that the average size of farms is decreasing in the United States. This +statement is not only inconsistent with facts obvious all over the +United States, and with the tendencies of agriculture in other +countries, such as Great Britain, but it is inconsistent with the +returns furnished by the Census Bureau itself According to the +"Compendium of the Tenth Census," the increase of the number of farms in +the United States during the decade between 1870 and 1880 was about 50%, +and the returns in the eight classes of farms enumerated show a steady +diminution in the smaller sized farms and a steady increase in the +larger. In the class under three acres, the decrease during the decade +was about 37%; between three and ten acres, about 21%; between ten and +twenty acres, about 14%; between twenty and fifty acres, something less +than 8%. With the class between 50 and 100 acres, the increase begins, +amounting in this class to about 37%. In the next class, between 100 and +500 acres, the increase is nearly 200%. In the class between 500 and +1,000 acres, it is nearly 400%. In the class over 1,000 acres, the +largest given, it amounts to almost 700%. + +How, in the face of these figures, the Census Bureau can report a +decline in the average size of farms in the United States from 153 acres +in 1870 to 134 acres in 1880 I cannot understand. Nor is it worth while +here to inquire. The incontestable fact is that, like everything else, +the ownership of land is concentrating, and farming is assuming a larger +scale. This is due to the improvements in agricultural machinery, which +make farming a business requiring more capital, to the enhanced value of +land, to the changes produced by railroads, and the advantage which +special rates give the large over the small producer. That it is an +accelerating tendency there is no question. The new era in farming is +only beginning. And whatever be its gains, it involves the reduction of +the great body of American farmers to the ranks of tenants or laborers. +There are no means of discovering the increase of tenant farming in the +United States during the last decade, as no returns as to tenantry were +made prior to the last census; but that shows that there were in the +United States in 1880 no less than 1,024,601 tenant farmers. If, in +addition to this, we could get at the number of farmers nominally owning +their own land, but who are in reality paying rent in the shape of interest on mortgages, the result would be astounding. -How in all other branches of industry the same process is -going on, it is scarcely necessary to speak. It is -everywhere obvious that the independent mechanic is becoming -an operative, the little storekeeper a salesman in a big -store, the small merchant a clerk or bookkeeper, and that -men, under the old system independent, are being massed in -the employ of great firms and corporations. But the effect -of this is scarcely realized. A large class of people, -including many professed public teachers, are constantly -talking as though energy, industry and economy were alone -necessary to business success---are constantly pointing to -the fact that men who began with nothing are now rich, as +How in all other branches of industry the same process is going on, it +is scarcely necessary to speak. It is everywhere obvious that the +independent mechanic is becoming an operative, the little storekeeper a +salesman in a big store, the small merchant a clerk or bookkeeper, and +that men, under the old system independent, are being massed in the +employ of great firms and corporations. But the effect of this is +scarcely realized. A large class of people, including many professed +public teachers, are constantly talking as though energy, industry and +economy were alone necessary to business success---are constantly +pointing to the fact that men who began with nothing are now rich, as proof that any one can begin with nothing and get rich. -That most of our rich men did begin with nothing is true. -But that the same success could be as easily won now is not -true. Times of change always afford opportunities for the -rise of individuals, which disappear when social relations -are again adjusted. We have not only been overrunning a new -continent, but the introduction of steam and the application -of machinery have brought about industrial changes such as +That most of our rich men did begin with nothing is true. But that the +same success could be as easily won now is not true. Times of change +always afford opportunities for the rise of individuals, which disappear +when social relations are again adjusted. We have not only been +overrunning a new continent, but the introduction of steam and the +application of machinery have brought about industrial changes such as the world never before saw. -When William the Conqueror parceled out England among his -followers, a feudal aristocracy was created out of an army -of adventurers. But when society had hardened again, a -hereditary nobility had formed into which no common man -could hope to win his way, and the descendants of William's -adventurers looked down upon men of their father's class as -upon beings formed of inferior clay. So when a new country -is rapidly settling, those who come while land is cheap and -industry and trade are in process of organization have -opportunities that those who start from the same plane when -land has become valuable and society has formed cannot have. - -The rich men of the first generation in a new country are -always men who started with nothing, but the rich men of -subsequent generations are generally those who inherited -their start. In the United States, when we hear of a wealthy -man, we naturally ask, "How did he make his money?" for the -presumption, over the greater part of the country, is that -he acquired it himself. In England they do not ordinarily -ask that question---there the presumption is that he -inherited it. But, though the soil of England was parceled -out long ago, the great changes consequent upon the -introduction of steam and machinery have there, as here, -opened opportunities to rise from the ranks of labor to -great wealth. Those of opportunities are now closed or -closing. When a railroad train is slowly moving off, a -single step may put one on it. But in a few minutes those -who have not taken that step may run themselves out of -breath in the hopeless endeavor to overtake the train. It is -absurd to think that it is easy to stop aboard a train at -full speed because those who got on board at starting did so -easily. So is it absurd to think that opportunities open -when steam and machinery were beginning their concentrating -work will remain open. - -An English friend, a wealthy retired Manchester -manufacturer, once told me the story of his life. How he -went to work at eight years of age helping make twine, when -twine was made entirely by hand. How, when a young man, he -walked to Manchester, and having got credit for a bale of -flax, made it into twine and sold it. How, building up a -little trade, he got others to work for him. How, when -machinery began to be invented and steam was introduced, he -took advantage of them, until he had a big factory and made -a fortune, when he withdrew to spend the rest of his days at -ease, leaving his business to his son. - -"Supposing you were a young man now," said I, "could you -walk into Manchester and do that again?" - -"No," replied he; "no one could. I couldn't with fifty -thousand pounds in place of my five shillings." - -So in every branch of business in which the new agencies -have begun to reach anything like development. Leland -Stanford drove an ox-team to California; Henry Villard came -here from Germany a poor boy, became a newspaper reporter, -and rode a mule from Kansas City to Denver when the plains -were swarming with Indians---a thing no one with a bank -account would do. Stanford and his associates got hold of -the Central Pacific enterprise, with its government -endowments, and are now masters of something like twelve -thousand miles of rail, millions of acres of land, steamship -lines, express companies, banks and newspapers, to say -nothing of legislatures, congressmen, judges, etc. So Henry -Villard, by a series of fortunate accidents, which he had -energy and tact to improve, got hold of the Oregon Steam -Navigation combination, and of the Northern Pacific -endowment, and has become the railroad king of the immense -domain north of the Stanford dominions, having likewise his -thousands of miles of road, millions of acres of land, his -newspapers, political servitors, and literary brushers-off -of files, and being able to bring over a shipload of lords -and barons to see him drive a golden spike. - -Now, it is not merely that such opportunities as these which -have made the Stanfords and Villards so great, come only -with the opening of new countries and the development of new -industrial agents; but that the rise of the Stanfords and -Villards makes impossible the rise of others such as they. -Whoever now starts a railroad within the domains of either -must become subordinate and tributary to them. The great -railroad king alone can fight the great railroad king, and -control of the railroad system not only gives the railroad -kings control of branch roads, of express companies, stage -lines, steamship lines, etc., not only enables them to make -or unmake the smaller towns, but it enables them to "size -the pile" of any one who develops a business requiring -transportation, and to transfer to their own pockets any -surplus beyond what, after careful consideration, they think -he ought to make. The rise of these great powers is like the -growth of a great tree, which draws the moisture from the -surrounding soil, and stunts all other vegetation by its -shade. - -So, too, does concentration operate in all businesses. The -big mill crushes out the little mill. The big store -undersells the little store till it gets rid of its -competition. On the top of the building of the American News -Company, on Chambers street, New York, stands a newsboy -carved in marble. It was in this way that the managing man -of that great combination began. But what was at first the -union of a few sellers of newspapers for mutual convenience -has become such a powerful concern, that combination after -combination, backed with capital and managed with skill, -have gone down in the attempt to break or share its -monopoly. The newsboy may look upon the statue that crowns -the building as the young Englishman who goes to India to -take a clerical position may look upon the statue of Lord -Clive. It is a lesson and an incentive, to be sure; but just -as Clive's victories, by establishing the English dominion -in India, made such a career as his impossible again, so -does the success of such a concern as the American News -Company make it impossible for men of small capital to -establish another such business. - -So may the printer look upon the *Tribune* building, or the -newspaper writer upon that of the *Herald*. A Greeley or a -Bennett could no longer hope to establish a first-class -paper in New York, or to get control of one already -established, unless he got a Jay Gould to back him. Even in -our newest cities the day has gone by when a few printers -and a few writers could combine and start a daily paper. To -say nothing of the close corporation of the Associated -Press, the newspaper has become an immense machine, -requiring large capital, and for the most part it is written -by literary operatives, who must write to suit the -capitalist that controls it. - -In the last generation a full-rigged Indiaman would be -considered a very large vessel if she registered 500 tons. -Now we are building coasting schooners of 1,000 tons. It is -not long since our first-class ocean steamers were of 1,200 -or 1,500 tons. Now the crack steamers of the transatlantic -route are rising to 10,000 tons. Not merely are there -relatively fewer captains, but the chances of modern -captains are not as good. The captain of a great -transatlantic steamer recently told me that he got no more -pay now than when as a young man he commanded a small -sailing-ship. Nor is there now any "primage," any "venture," -any chance of becoming owner as well as captain of one of -these great steamers. - -Under any condition of things short of a rigid system of -hereditary caste, there will, of course, always be men who, -by force of great abilities and happy accidents, win their -way from poverty to wealth, and from low to high position; -but the strong tendencies of the time are to make this more -and more difficult. Jay Gould is probably a smarter man than -the present Vanderbilt. Had they started even, Vanderbilt -might now have been peddling mouse-traps or working for a -paltry salary as some one's clerk, while Gould counted his -scores of millions. But with all his money-making ability -Gould cannot overcome the start given by the enormous -acquisitions of the first Vanderbilt. And when the sons of -the present great money-makers take their places, the -chances of rivalry on the part of anybody else's sons will -be much less. - -All the tendencies of the present are not merely to the -concentration, but to the perpetuation, of great fortunes. -There are no crusades; the habits of the very rich are not -to that mad extravagance that could dissipate such fortunes; -high play has gone out of fashion, and the gambling of the -Stock Exchange is more dangerous to short than to long -purses. Stocks, bonds, mortgages, safe deposit and trust -companies aid the retention of large wealth, and all modern -agencies enlarge the sphere of its successful employment. - -On the other hand, the mere laborer is becoming more -helpless, and small capitals find it more and more difficult -to compete with larger capitals. The greater railroad -companies are swallowing up the lesser railroad companies; -one great telegraph company already controls the telegraph -wires of the continent, and, to save the cost of buying up -more patents, pays inventors not to invent. As in England, -nearly all the public-houses have passed into the hands of -the great brewers, so, here, large firms start young men, -taking chattel mortgages on their stock. As in Great -Britain, the supplying of railway passengers with eatables -and drinkables has passed into the hands of a single great -company, and in Paris one large restaurateur, with numerous -branches, is taking the trade of the smaller ones, so here -the boys who sell papers and peanuts on the trains are -employees of companies, and bundles are carried and errands -run by corporations. - -I am not denying that this tendency is largely to subserve -public convenience. I am merely pointing out that it exists. -A great change is going on all over the civilized world -similar to that infeudation which, in Europe, during the -rise of the feudal system, converted free proprietors into -vassals, and brought all society into subordination to a -hierarchy of wealth and privilege. Whether the new -aristocracy is hereditary or not makes little difference. -Chance alone may determine who will get the few prizes of a -lottery. But it is not the less certain that the vast -majority of all who take part in it must draw blanks. The -forces of the new era have not yet had time to make status -hereditary, but we may clearly see that when the industrial -organization compels a thousand workmen to take service -under one master, the proportion of masters to men will be -but as one to a thousand, though the one may come from the -ranks of the thousand. "Master!" We don't like the word. It -is not American! But what is the use of objecting to the -word when we have the thing. The man who gives me -employment, which I must have or suffer, that man is my -master, let me call him what I will. +When William the Conqueror parceled out England among his followers, a +feudal aristocracy was created out of an army of adventurers. But when +society had hardened again, a hereditary nobility had formed into which +no common man could hope to win his way, and the descendants of +William's adventurers looked down upon men of their father's class as +upon beings formed of inferior clay. So when a new country is rapidly +settling, those who come while land is cheap and industry and trade are +in process of organization have opportunities that those who start from +the same plane when land has become valuable and society has formed +cannot have. + +The rich men of the first generation in a new country are always men who +started with nothing, but the rich men of subsequent generations are +generally those who inherited their start. In the United States, when we +hear of a wealthy man, we naturally ask, "How did he make his money?" +for the presumption, over the greater part of the country, is that he +acquired it himself. In England they do not ordinarily ask that +question---there the presumption is that he inherited it. But, though +the soil of England was parceled out long ago, the great changes +consequent upon the introduction of steam and machinery have there, as +here, opened opportunities to rise from the ranks of labor to great +wealth. Those of opportunities are now closed or closing. When a +railroad train is slowly moving off, a single step may put one on it. +But in a few minutes those who have not taken that step may run +themselves out of breath in the hopeless endeavor to overtake the train. +It is absurd to think that it is easy to stop aboard a train at full +speed because those who got on board at starting did so easily. So is it +absurd to think that opportunities open when steam and machinery were +beginning their concentrating work will remain open. + +An English friend, a wealthy retired Manchester manufacturer, once told +me the story of his life. How he went to work at eight years of age +helping make twine, when twine was made entirely by hand. How, when a +young man, he walked to Manchester, and having got credit for a bale of +flax, made it into twine and sold it. How, building up a little trade, +he got others to work for him. How, when machinery began to be invented +and steam was introduced, he took advantage of them, until he had a big +factory and made a fortune, when he withdrew to spend the rest of his +days at ease, leaving his business to his son. + +"Supposing you were a young man now," said I, "could you walk into +Manchester and do that again?" + +"No," replied he; "no one could. I couldn't with fifty thousand pounds +in place of my five shillings." + +So in every branch of business in which the new agencies have begun to +reach anything like development. Leland Stanford drove an ox-team to +California; Henry Villard came here from Germany a poor boy, became a +newspaper reporter, and rode a mule from Kansas City to Denver when the +plains were swarming with Indians---a thing no one with a bank account +would do. Stanford and his associates got hold of the Central Pacific +enterprise, with its government endowments, and are now masters of +something like twelve thousand miles of rail, millions of acres of land, +steamship lines, express companies, banks and newspapers, to say nothing +of legislatures, congressmen, judges, etc. So Henry Villard, by a series +of fortunate accidents, which he had energy and tact to improve, got +hold of the Oregon Steam Navigation combination, and of the Northern +Pacific endowment, and has become the railroad king of the immense +domain north of the Stanford dominions, having likewise his thousands of +miles of road, millions of acres of land, his newspapers, political +servitors, and literary brushers-off of files, and being able to bring +over a shipload of lords and barons to see him drive a golden spike. + +Now, it is not merely that such opportunities as these which have made +the Stanfords and Villards so great, come only with the opening of new +countries and the development of new industrial agents; but that the +rise of the Stanfords and Villards makes impossible the rise of others +such as they. Whoever now starts a railroad within the domains of either +must become subordinate and tributary to them. The great railroad king +alone can fight the great railroad king, and control of the railroad +system not only gives the railroad kings control of branch roads, of +express companies, stage lines, steamship lines, etc., not only enables +them to make or unmake the smaller towns, but it enables them to "size +the pile" of any one who develops a business requiring transportation, +and to transfer to their own pockets any surplus beyond what, after +careful consideration, they think he ought to make. The rise of these +great powers is like the growth of a great tree, which draws the +moisture from the surrounding soil, and stunts all other vegetation by +its shade. + +So, too, does concentration operate in all businesses. The big mill +crushes out the little mill. The big store undersells the little store +till it gets rid of its competition. On the top of the building of the +American News Company, on Chambers street, New York, stands a newsboy +carved in marble. It was in this way that the managing man of that great +combination began. But what was at first the union of a few sellers of +newspapers for mutual convenience has become such a powerful concern, +that combination after combination, backed with capital and managed with +skill, have gone down in the attempt to break or share its monopoly. The +newsboy may look upon the statue that crowns the building as the young +Englishman who goes to India to take a clerical position may look upon +the statue of Lord Clive. It is a lesson and an incentive, to be sure; +but just as Clive's victories, by establishing the English dominion in +India, made such a career as his impossible again, so does the success +of such a concern as the American News Company make it impossible for +men of small capital to establish another such business. + +So may the printer look upon the *Tribune* building, or the newspaper +writer upon that of the *Herald*. A Greeley or a Bennett could no longer +hope to establish a first-class paper in New York, or to get control of +one already established, unless he got a Jay Gould to back him. Even in +our newest cities the day has gone by when a few printers and a few +writers could combine and start a daily paper. To say nothing of the +close corporation of the Associated Press, the newspaper has become an +immense machine, requiring large capital, and for the most part it is +written by literary operatives, who must write to suit the capitalist +that controls it. + +In the last generation a full-rigged Indiaman would be considered a very +large vessel if she registered 500 tons. Now we are building coasting +schooners of 1,000 tons. It is not long since our first-class ocean +steamers were of 1,200 or 1,500 tons. Now the crack steamers of the +transatlantic route are rising to 10,000 tons. Not merely are there +relatively fewer captains, but the chances of modern captains are not as +good. The captain of a great transatlantic steamer recently told me that +he got no more pay now than when as a young man he commanded a small +sailing-ship. Nor is there now any "primage," any "venture," any chance +of becoming owner as well as captain of one of these great steamers. + +Under any condition of things short of a rigid system of hereditary +caste, there will, of course, always be men who, by force of great +abilities and happy accidents, win their way from poverty to wealth, and +from low to high position; but the strong tendencies of the time are to +make this more and more difficult. Jay Gould is probably a smarter man +than the present Vanderbilt. Had they started even, Vanderbilt might now +have been peddling mouse-traps or working for a paltry salary as some +one's clerk, while Gould counted his scores of millions. But with all +his money-making ability Gould cannot overcome the start given by the +enormous acquisitions of the first Vanderbilt. And when the sons of the +present great money-makers take their places, the chances of rivalry on +the part of anybody else's sons will be much less. + +All the tendencies of the present are not merely to the concentration, +but to the perpetuation, of great fortunes. There are no crusades; the +habits of the very rich are not to that mad extravagance that could +dissipate such fortunes; high play has gone out of fashion, and the +gambling of the Stock Exchange is more dangerous to short than to long +purses. Stocks, bonds, mortgages, safe deposit and trust companies aid +the retention of large wealth, and all modern agencies enlarge the +sphere of its successful employment. + +On the other hand, the mere laborer is becoming more helpless, and small +capitals find it more and more difficult to compete with larger +capitals. The greater railroad companies are swallowing up the lesser +railroad companies; one great telegraph company already controls the +telegraph wires of the continent, and, to save the cost of buying up +more patents, pays inventors not to invent. As in England, nearly all +the public-houses have passed into the hands of the great brewers, so, +here, large firms start young men, taking chattel mortgages on their +stock. As in Great Britain, the supplying of railway passengers with +eatables and drinkables has passed into the hands of a single great +company, and in Paris one large restaurateur, with numerous branches, is +taking the trade of the smaller ones, so here the boys who sell papers +and peanuts on the trains are employees of companies, and bundles are +carried and errands run by corporations. + +I am not denying that this tendency is largely to subserve public +convenience. I am merely pointing out that it exists. A great change is +going on all over the civilized world similar to that infeudation which, +in Europe, during the rise of the feudal system, converted free +proprietors into vassals, and brought all society into subordination to +a hierarchy of wealth and privilege. Whether the new aristocracy is +hereditary or not makes little difference. Chance alone may determine +who will get the few prizes of a lottery. But it is not the less certain +that the vast majority of all who take part in it must draw blanks. The +forces of the new era have not yet had time to make status hereditary, +but we may clearly see that when the industrial organization compels a +thousand workmen to take service under one master, the proportion of +masters to men will be but as one to a thousand, though the one may come +from the ranks of the thousand. "Master!" We don't like the word. It is +not American! But what is the use of objecting to the word when we have +the thing. The man who gives me employment, which I must have or suffer, +that man is my master, let me call him what I will. # The Wrong in Existing Social Conditions -The comfortable theory that it is in the nature of things -that some should be poor and some should be rich, and that -the gross and constantly increasing inequalities in the -distribution of wealth imply no fault in our institutions, -pervades our literature, and is taught in the press, in the -church, in school and in college. - -This is a free country, we are told---every man has a vote -and every man has a chance. The laborer's son may become -President; poor boys of to-day will be millionaires thirty -or forty years from now, and the millionaire's grandchildren -will probably be poor. What more can be asked? If a man has -energy, industry, prudence and foresight, he may win his way -to great wealth. If he has not the ability to do this he -must not complain of those who have. If some enjoy much and -do little, it is because they, or their parents, possessed -superior qualities which enabled them to "acquire property" -or "make money." If others must work hard and get little, it -is because they have not yet got their start, because they -are ignorant, shiftless, unwilling to practice that economy -necessary for the first accumulation of capital; or because -their fathers were wanting in these respects. The -inequalities in condition result from the inequalities of -human nature, from the difference in the powers and -capacities of different men. If one has to toil ten or -twelve hours a day for a few hundred dollars a year, while -another, doing little or no hard work, gets an income of -many thousands, it is because all that the former -contributes to the augmentation of the common stock of -wealth is little more than the mere force of his muscles. He -can expect little more than the animal, because he brings -into play little more than animal powers. He is but a -private in the ranks of the great army of industry, who has -but to stand still or march, as he is bid. The other is the -organizer, the general, who guides and wields the whole -great machine, who must think, plan and provide; and his -larger income is only commensurate with the far higher and -rarer powers which he exercises, and the far greater -importance of the function he fulfills. Shall not education -have its reward, and skill its payment? What incentive would -there be to the toil needed to learn to do anything well -were great prizes not to be gained by those who learn to -excel? It would not merely be gross injustice to refuse a -Raphael or a Rubens more than a house-painter, but it would -prevent the development of great painters. To destroy -inequalities in condition would be to destroy the incentive -to progress. To quarrel with them is to quarrel with the -laws of nature. We might as well rail against the length of -the days or the phases of the moon; complain that there are -valleys and mountains; zones of tropical heat and regions of -eternal ice. And were we by violent measures to divide -wealth equally, we should accomplish nothing but harm; in a -little while there would be inequalities as great as before. - -This, in substance, is the teaching which we constantly -hear. It is accepted by some because it is flattering to -their vanity, in accordance with their interests or pleasing -to their hope; by others, because it is dinned into their -ears. Like all false theories that obtain wide acceptance, -it contains much truth. But it is truth isolated from other +The comfortable theory that it is in the nature of things that some +should be poor and some should be rich, and that the gross and +constantly increasing inequalities in the distribution of wealth imply +no fault in our institutions, pervades our literature, and is taught in +the press, in the church, in school and in college. + +This is a free country, we are told---every man has a vote and every man +has a chance. The laborer's son may become President; poor boys of +to-day will be millionaires thirty or forty years from now, and the +millionaire's grandchildren will probably be poor. What more can be +asked? If a man has energy, industry, prudence and foresight, he may win +his way to great wealth. If he has not the ability to do this he must +not complain of those who have. If some enjoy much and do little, it is +because they, or their parents, possessed superior qualities which +enabled them to "acquire property" or "make money." If others must work +hard and get little, it is because they have not yet got their start, +because they are ignorant, shiftless, unwilling to practice that economy +necessary for the first accumulation of capital; or because their +fathers were wanting in these respects. The inequalities in condition +result from the inequalities of human nature, from the difference in the +powers and capacities of different men. If one has to toil ten or twelve +hours a day for a few hundred dollars a year, while another, doing +little or no hard work, gets an income of many thousands, it is because +all that the former contributes to the augmentation of the common stock +of wealth is little more than the mere force of his muscles. He can +expect little more than the animal, because he brings into play little +more than animal powers. He is but a private in the ranks of the great +army of industry, who has but to stand still or march, as he is bid. The +other is the organizer, the general, who guides and wields the whole +great machine, who must think, plan and provide; and his larger income +is only commensurate with the far higher and rarer powers which he +exercises, and the far greater importance of the function he fulfills. +Shall not education have its reward, and skill its payment? What +incentive would there be to the toil needed to learn to do anything well +were great prizes not to be gained by those who learn to excel? It would +not merely be gross injustice to refuse a Raphael or a Rubens more than +a house-painter, but it would prevent the development of great painters. +To destroy inequalities in condition would be to destroy the incentive +to progress. To quarrel with them is to quarrel with the laws of nature. +We might as well rail against the length of the days or the phases of +the moon; complain that there are valleys and mountains; zones of +tropical heat and regions of eternal ice. And were we by violent +measures to divide wealth equally, we should accomplish nothing but +harm; in a little while there would be inequalities as great as before. + +This, in substance, is the teaching which we constantly hear. It is +accepted by some because it is flattering to their vanity, in accordance +with their interests or pleasing to their hope; by others, because it is +dinned into their ears. Like all false theories that obtain wide +acceptance, it contains much truth. But it is truth isolated from other truth or alloyed with falsehood. -To try to pump out a ship with a hole in her bottom would be -hopeless; but that is not to say that leaks may not be -stopped and ships pumped dry. It is undeniable that, under -present conditions, inequalities in fortune would tend to -reassert themselves even if arbitrarily leveled for a -moment; but that does not prove that the conditions from -which this tendency to inequality springs may not be -altered. Nor because there are differences in human -qualities and powers does it follow that existing -inequalities of fortune are thus accounted for. I have seen -very fast compositors and very slow compositors, but the -fastest I ever saw could not set twice as much type as the -slowest, and I doubt if in other trades the variations are -greater. Between normal men the difference of a sixth or -seventh is a great difference in height---the tallest giant -ever known was scarcely more than four times as tall as the -smallest dwarf ever known, and I doubt if any good observer -will say that the mental differences of men are greater than -the physical differences. Yet we already have men hundreds -of millions of times richer than other men. - -That he who produces should have, that he who saves should -enjoy, is consistent with human reason and with the natural -order. But existing inequalities of wealth cannot be -justified on this ground. As a matter of fact, how many -great fortunes can be truthfully said to have been fairly -earned? How many of them represent wealth produced by their -possessors or those from whom their present possessors -derived them? Did there not go to the formation of all of -them something. more than superior industry and skill? Such -qualities may give the first start, but when fortunes begin -to roll up into millions there will always be found some -element of monopoly, some appropriation of wealth produced -by others. Often there is a total absence of superior -industry, skill or self-denial, and merely better luck or -greater unscrupulousness. - -An acquaintance of mine died in San Francisco recently, -leaving \$4,000,000, which will go to heirs to be looked up -in England. I have known many men more industrious, more -skillful, more temperate than he---men who did not or who -will not leave a cent. This man did not get his wealth by -his industry, skill or temperance. He no more produced it -than did those lucky relations in England who may now do -nothing for the rest of their lives. He became rich by -getting hold of a piece of land in the early days, which, as -San Francisco grew, became very valuable. His wealth -represented not what he had earned, but what the monopoly of -this bit of the earth's surface enabled him to appropriate -of the'earnings of others. - -A man died in Pittsburgh, the other day, leaving -\$3,000,000. He may or may not have been particularly -industrious, skillful and economical, but it was not by -virtue of these qualities that he got so rich. It was -because he went to Washington and helped lobby through a -bill which, by way of "protecting American workmen against -the pauper labor of Europe," gave him the advantage of a 60% -tariff. To the day of his death he was a stanch -protectionist, and said free trade would ruin our "infant -industries." Evidently the \$3,000,000 which he was enabled -to lay by from his own little cherub of an "infant industry" -did not represent what he had added to production. It was -the advantage given him by the tariff that enabled him to -scoop it up from other people's earnings. - -This element of monopoly, of appropriation and spoliation -will, when we come to analyze them, be found to largely -account for all great fortunes. - -There are two classes of men who are always talking as -though great fortunes resulted from the power of increase -belonging to capital---those who declare that present social -adjustments are all right; and those who denounce capital -and insist that interest should be abolished. The typical -rich man of the one set is he who, saving his earnings, -devotes the surplus to aiding production, and becomes rich -by the natural growth of his capital. The other set make -calculations of the enormous sum a dollar put out at 6% -compound interest will amount to in a hundred years, and say -we must abolish interest if we would prevent the growth of -great fortunes. - -But I think it difficult to instance any great fortune -really due to the legitimate growth of capital obtained by -industry. - -The great fortune of the Rothschilds springs from the -treasure secured by the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel by selling -his people to England to fight against our forefathers in -their struggle for independence. It began in the blood-money -received by this petty tyrant from greater tyrants as the -price of the lives of his subjects. It has grown to its -present enormous dimensions by the jobbing of loans raised -by European kings for holding in subjection the people and -waging destructive wars upon each other. It no more -represents the earnings of industry or of capital than do -the sums now being wrung by England from the -poverty-stricken fellahs of Egypt to pay for the enormous -profits on loans to the Khedive, which he wasted on palaces, -yachts, harems, ballet-dancers, and cart-loads of diamonds, -such as he gave to the Shermans. - -The great fortune of the Duke of Westminster, the richest of -the rich men of England, is purely the result of -appropriation. It no more springs from the earnings of the -present Duke of Westminster or any of his ancestors than did -the great fortunes bestowed by Russian monarchs on their -favorites when they gave them thousands of the Russian -people as their serfs. An English king, long since dead, -gave to an ancestor of the present Duke of Westminster a -piece of land over which the city of London has now -extended---that is to say, he gave him the privilege, still -recognized by the stupid English people, which enables the -present duke to appropriate so much of the earnings of so -many thousands of the present generation of Englishmen. - -So, too, the great fortunes of the English brewers and -distillers have been largely built up by the operation of -the excise in fostering monopoly and concentrating the -business. - -Or, turning again to the United States, take the great -fortune of the Astors. It represents for the most part a -similar appropriation of the earnings of others, as does the -income of the Duke of Westminster and other English -landlords. The first Astor made an arrangement with certain -people living in his time by virtue of which his children -are now allowed to tax other people's children---to demand a -very large part of their earnings from many thousands of the -present population of New York. Its main element is not -production or saving. No human being can produce land or lay -up land. If the Astors had all remained in Germany, or if -there had never been any Astors, the land of Manhattan -Island would have been here all the same. - -Take the great Vanderbilt fortune. The first Vanderbilt was -a boatman who earned money by hard work and saved it. But it -was not working and saving that enabled him to leave such an -enormous fortune. It was spoliation and monopoly. As soon as -he got money enough he used it as a club to extort from -others their earnings. He ran off opposition lines and -monopolized routes of steamboat travel. Then he went into -railroads, pursuing the same tactics. The Vanderbilt fortune -no more comes from working and saving than did the fortune -that Captain Kidd buried. - -Or take the great Gould fortune. Mr. Gould might have got -his first little start by superior industry and superior -self-denial. But it is not that which has made him the -master of a hundred millions. It was by wrecking railroads, -buying judges, corrupting legislatures, getting up rings and -pools and combinations to raise or depress stock values and +To try to pump out a ship with a hole in her bottom would be hopeless; +but that is not to say that leaks may not be stopped and ships pumped +dry. It is undeniable that, under present conditions, inequalities in +fortune would tend to reassert themselves even if arbitrarily leveled +for a moment; but that does not prove that the conditions from which +this tendency to inequality springs may not be altered. Nor because +there are differences in human qualities and powers does it follow that +existing inequalities of fortune are thus accounted for. I have seen +very fast compositors and very slow compositors, but the fastest I ever +saw could not set twice as much type as the slowest, and I doubt if in +other trades the variations are greater. Between normal men the +difference of a sixth or seventh is a great difference in height---the +tallest giant ever known was scarcely more than four times as tall as +the smallest dwarf ever known, and I doubt if any good observer will say +that the mental differences of men are greater than the physical +differences. Yet we already have men hundreds of millions of times +richer than other men. + +That he who produces should have, that he who saves should enjoy, is +consistent with human reason and with the natural order. But existing +inequalities of wealth cannot be justified on this ground. As a matter +of fact, how many great fortunes can be truthfully said to have been +fairly earned? How many of them represent wealth produced by their +possessors or those from whom their present possessors derived them? Did +there not go to the formation of all of them something. more than +superior industry and skill? Such qualities may give the first start, +but when fortunes begin to roll up into millions there will always be +found some element of monopoly, some appropriation of wealth produced by +others. Often there is a total absence of superior industry, skill or +self-denial, and merely better luck or greater unscrupulousness. + +An acquaintance of mine died in San Francisco recently, leaving +\$4,000,000, which will go to heirs to be looked up in England. I have +known many men more industrious, more skillful, more temperate than +he---men who did not or who will not leave a cent. This man did not get +his wealth by his industry, skill or temperance. He no more produced it +than did those lucky relations in England who may now do nothing for the +rest of their lives. He became rich by getting hold of a piece of land +in the early days, which, as San Francisco grew, became very valuable. +His wealth represented not what he had earned, but what the monopoly of +this bit of the earth's surface enabled him to appropriate of +the'earnings of others. + +A man died in Pittsburgh, the other day, leaving \$3,000,000. He may or +may not have been particularly industrious, skillful and economical, but +it was not by virtue of these qualities that he got so rich. It was +because he went to Washington and helped lobby through a bill which, by +way of "protecting American workmen against the pauper labor of Europe," +gave him the advantage of a 60% tariff. To the day of his death he was a +stanch protectionist, and said free trade would ruin our "infant +industries." Evidently the \$3,000,000 which he was enabled to lay by +from his own little cherub of an "infant industry" did not represent +what he had added to production. It was the advantage given him by the +tariff that enabled him to scoop it up from other people's earnings. + +This element of monopoly, of appropriation and spoliation will, when we +come to analyze them, be found to largely account for all great +fortunes. + +There are two classes of men who are always talking as though great +fortunes resulted from the power of increase belonging to +capital---those who declare that present social adjustments are all +right; and those who denounce capital and insist that interest should be +abolished. The typical rich man of the one set is he who, saving his +earnings, devotes the surplus to aiding production, and becomes rich by +the natural growth of his capital. The other set make calculations of +the enormous sum a dollar put out at 6% compound interest will amount to +in a hundred years, and say we must abolish interest if we would prevent +the growth of great fortunes. + +But I think it difficult to instance any great fortune really due to the +legitimate growth of capital obtained by industry. + +The great fortune of the Rothschilds springs from the treasure secured +by the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel by selling his people to England to +fight against our forefathers in their struggle for independence. It +began in the blood-money received by this petty tyrant from greater +tyrants as the price of the lives of his subjects. It has grown to its +present enormous dimensions by the jobbing of loans raised by European +kings for holding in subjection the people and waging destructive wars +upon each other. It no more represents the earnings of industry or of +capital than do the sums now being wrung by England from the +poverty-stricken fellahs of Egypt to pay for the enormous profits on +loans to the Khedive, which he wasted on palaces, yachts, harems, +ballet-dancers, and cart-loads of diamonds, such as he gave to the +Shermans. + +The great fortune of the Duke of Westminster, the richest of the rich +men of England, is purely the result of appropriation. It no more +springs from the earnings of the present Duke of Westminster or any of +his ancestors than did the great fortunes bestowed by Russian monarchs +on their favorites when they gave them thousands of the Russian people +as their serfs. An English king, long since dead, gave to an ancestor of +the present Duke of Westminster a piece of land over which the city of +London has now extended---that is to say, he gave him the privilege, +still recognized by the stupid English people, which enables the present +duke to appropriate so much of the earnings of so many thousands of the +present generation of Englishmen. + +So, too, the great fortunes of the English brewers and distillers have +been largely built up by the operation of the excise in fostering +monopoly and concentrating the business. + +Or, turning again to the United States, take the great fortune of the +Astors. It represents for the most part a similar appropriation of the +earnings of others, as does the income of the Duke of Westminster and +other English landlords. The first Astor made an arrangement with +certain people living in his time by virtue of which his children are +now allowed to tax other people's children---to demand a very large part +of their earnings from many thousands of the present population of New +York. Its main element is not production or saving. No human being can +produce land or lay up land. If the Astors had all remained in Germany, +or if there had never been any Astors, the land of Manhattan Island +would have been here all the same. + +Take the great Vanderbilt fortune. The first Vanderbilt was a boatman +who earned money by hard work and saved it. But it was not working and +saving that enabled him to leave such an enormous fortune. It was +spoliation and monopoly. As soon as he got money enough he used it as a +club to extort from others their earnings. He ran off opposition lines +and monopolized routes of steamboat travel. Then he went into railroads, +pursuing the same tactics. The Vanderbilt fortune no more comes from +working and saving than did the fortune that Captain Kidd buried. + +Or take the great Gould fortune. Mr. Gould might have got his first +little start by superior industry and superior self-denial. But it is +not that which has made him the master of a hundred millions. It was by +wrecking railroads, buying judges, corrupting legislatures, getting up +rings and pools and combinations to raise or depress stock values and transportation rates. -So, likewise, of the great fortunes which the Pacific -railroads have created. They have been made by lobbying -through profligate donations of lands, bonds and subsidies, -by the operations of Crédit Mobilier and Contract and -Finance Companies, by monopolizing and gouging. And so of -fortunes made by such combinations as the Standard Oil -Company, the Bessemer Steel Ring, the Whisky Tax Ring, the -Lucifer Match Ring, and the various rings for the -"protection of the American workman from the pauper labor of -Europe." - -Or take the fortunes made out of successful patents. Like -that element in so many fortunes that comes from the -increased value of land, these result from monopoly, pure -and simple. And though I am not now discussing the -expediency of patent laws, it may be observed, in passing, -that in the vast majority of cases the men who make fortunes +So, likewise, of the great fortunes which the Pacific railroads have +created. They have been made by lobbying through profligate donations of +lands, bonds and subsidies, by the operations of Crédit Mobilier and +Contract and Finance Companies, by monopolizing and gouging. And so of +fortunes made by such combinations as the Standard Oil Company, the +Bessemer Steel Ring, the Whisky Tax Ring, the Lucifer Match Ring, and +the various rings for the "protection of the American workman from the +pauper labor of Europe." + +Or take the fortunes made out of successful patents. Like that element +in so many fortunes that comes from the increased value of land, these +result from monopoly, pure and simple. And though I am not now +discussing the expediency of patent laws, it may be observed, in +passing, that in the vast majority of cases the men who make fortunes out of patents are not the men who make the inventions. Through all great fortunes, and, in fact, through nearly all -acquisitions that in these days can fairly be termed -fortunes, these elements of monopoly, of spoliation, of -gambling run. The head of one of the largest manufacturing -firms in the United States said to me recently, "It is not -on our ordinary business that we make our money; it is where -we can get a monopoly." And this, I think, is generally -true. - -Consider the important part in building up fortunes which -the increase of land values has had, and is having, in the -United States. This is, of course, monopoly, pure and -simple. When land increases in value it does not mean that -its owner has added to the general wealth. The owner may -never have seen the land or done aught to improve it. He -may, and often does, live in a distant city or in another -country. Increase of land values simply means that the -owners, by virtue of their appropriation of something that -existed before man was, have the power of taking a larger -share of the wealth produced by other people's labor. -Consider how much the monopolies created and the advantages -given to the unscrupulous by the tariff and by our system of -internal taxation---how much the railroad (a business in its -nature a monopoly), telegraph, gas, water and other similar -monopolies, have done to concentrate wealth; how special -rates, pools, combinations, corners, stock-watering and -stock-gambling, the destructive use of wealth in driving off -or buying off opposition which the public must finally pay -for, and many other things which these will suggest, have -operated to build up large fortunes, and it will at least -appear that the unequal distribution of wealth is due in -great measure to sheer spoliation; that the reason why those -who work hard get so little, while so many who work little -get so much, is, in very large measure, that the earnings of -the one class are, in one way or another, filched away from -them to swell the incomes of the other. - -That individuals are constantly making their way from the -ranks of those who get less than their earnings to the ranks -of those who get more than their earnings, no more proves -this state of things right than the fact that merchant -sailors were constantly becoming pirates and participating -in the profits of piracy, would prove that piracy was right -and that no effort should be made to suppress it. - -I am not denouncing the rich, nor seeking, by speaking of -these things, to excite envy and hatred; but if we would get -a clear understanding of social problems, we must recognize -the fact that it is to monopolies which we permit and -create, to advantages which we give one man over another, to -methods of extortion sanctioned by law and by public -opinion, that some men are enabled to get so enormously rich -while others remain so miserably poor. If we look around us -and note the elements of monopoly, extortion and spoliation -which go to the building up of all, or nearly all, fortunes, -we see on the one hand how disingenuous are those who preach -to us that there is nothing wrong in social relations and -that the inequalities in the distribution of wealth spring -from the inequalities of human nature; and on the other -hand, we see how wild are those who talk as though capital -were a public enemy, and propose plans for arbitrarily -restricting the acquisition of wealth. Capital is a good; -the capitalist is a helper, if he is not also a monopolist. -We can safely let any one get as rich as he can if he will +acquisitions that in these days can fairly be termed fortunes, these +elements of monopoly, of spoliation, of gambling run. The head of one of +the largest manufacturing firms in the United States said to me +recently, "It is not on our ordinary business that we make our money; it +is where we can get a monopoly." And this, I think, is generally true. + +Consider the important part in building up fortunes which the increase +of land values has had, and is having, in the United States. This is, of +course, monopoly, pure and simple. When land increases in value it does +not mean that its owner has added to the general wealth. The owner may +never have seen the land or done aught to improve it. He may, and often +does, live in a distant city or in another country. Increase of land +values simply means that the owners, by virtue of their appropriation of +something that existed before man was, have the power of taking a larger +share of the wealth produced by other people's labor. Consider how much +the monopolies created and the advantages given to the unscrupulous by +the tariff and by our system of internal taxation---how much the +railroad (a business in its nature a monopoly), telegraph, gas, water +and other similar monopolies, have done to concentrate wealth; how +special rates, pools, combinations, corners, stock-watering and +stock-gambling, the destructive use of wealth in driving off or buying +off opposition which the public must finally pay for, and many other +things which these will suggest, have operated to build up large +fortunes, and it will at least appear that the unequal distribution of +wealth is due in great measure to sheer spoliation; that the reason why +those who work hard get so little, while so many who work little get so +much, is, in very large measure, that the earnings of the one class are, +in one way or another, filched away from them to swell the incomes of +the other. + +That individuals are constantly making their way from the ranks of those +who get less than their earnings to the ranks of those who get more than +their earnings, no more proves this state of things right than the fact +that merchant sailors were constantly becoming pirates and participating +in the profits of piracy, would prove that piracy was right and that no +effort should be made to suppress it. + +I am not denouncing the rich, nor seeking, by speaking of these things, +to excite envy and hatred; but if we would get a clear understanding of +social problems, we must recognize the fact that it is to monopolies +which we permit and create, to advantages which we give one man over +another, to methods of extortion sanctioned by law and by public +opinion, that some men are enabled to get so enormously rich while +others remain so miserably poor. If we look around us and note the +elements of monopoly, extortion and spoliation which go to the building +up of all, or nearly all, fortunes, we see on the one hand how +disingenuous are those who preach to us that there is nothing wrong in +social relations and that the inequalities in the distribution of wealth +spring from the inequalities of human nature; and on the other hand, we +see how wild are those who talk as though capital were a public enemy, +and propose plans for arbitrarily restricting the acquisition of wealth. +Capital is a good; the capitalist is a helper, if he is not also a +monopolist. We can safely let any one get as rich as he can if he will not despoil others in doing so. -There are deep wrongs in the present constitution of -society, but they are not wrongs inherent in the -constitution of man nor in those social laws which are as -truly the laws of the Creator as are the laws of the -physical universe. They are wrongs resulting from bad -adjustments which it is within our power to amend. The ideal -social state is not that in which each gets an equal amount -of wealth, but in which each gets in proportion to his -contribution to the general stock. And in such a social -state there would not be less incentive to exertion than -now; there would be far more incentive. Men will be more -industrious and more moral, better workmen and better -citizens, if each takes his earnings and carries them home -to his family, than where they put their earnings in a pot -and gamble for them until some have far more than they could +There are deep wrongs in the present constitution of society, but they +are not wrongs inherent in the constitution of man nor in those social +laws which are as truly the laws of the Creator as are the laws of the +physical universe. They are wrongs resulting from bad adjustments which +it is within our power to amend. The ideal social state is not that in +which each gets an equal amount of wealth, but in which each gets in +proportion to his contribution to the general stock. And in such a +social state there would not be less incentive to exertion than now; +there would be far more incentive. Men will be more industrious and more +moral, better workmen and better citizens, if each takes his earnings +and carries them home to his family, than where they put their earnings +in a pot and gamble for them until some have far more than they could have earned, and others have little or nothing. # Is It the Best of All Possible Worlds? -There are worlds and worlds---even within bounds of the same -horizon. The man who comes into New York with plenty of -money, who puts up at the Windsor or Brunswick, and is -received by hospitable hosts in Fifth Avenue mansions, sees -one New York. The man who comes with a dollar and a half, -and goes to a twenty-five-cent lodging-house sees another. -There are also fifteen-cent lodging-houses, and people too -poor to go even to them. - -Into the pleasant avenues of the Park, in the bright May -sunshine, dashes the railroad-wrecker's daughter, her tasty -riding-habit floating free from the side of her glistening -bay, and her belted groom, in fresh top-boots and smart new -livery, clattering after, at a respectful distance, on -another blooded horse, that chafes at the bit. The -stock-gambler's son, rising from his trotter at every -stride, in English fashion, his English riding-stick grasped -by the middle, raises his hat to her nod. And as he whirls -past in his London-made dogcart, a liveried servant sitting -with folded arms behind him, she exchanges salutations with -the high-born descendant of the Dutch gardener, whose -cabbage-patch, now covered with brick and mortar, has become -an "estate" of lordly income. While in the soft, warm air -rings a musical note, and drawn by mettled steeds, the -four-in-hands of the coaching-club rush by, with liveried -guards and coach-tops filled with chattering people, to whom -life, with its round of balls, parties, theaters, -flirtations and excursions, is a holiday, in which, but for -the invention of new pleasures, satiety would make time -drag. - -How different this bright world from that of the old woman -who, in the dingy lower street, sits from morning to night -beside her little stock of apples and candy; from that of -the girls who stand all day behind counters and before -looms, who bend over sewing-machines for weary, weary hours, -or who come out at night to prowl the streets! - -One railroad king puts the great provinces of his realm in -charge of satraps and goes to Europe; the new steel yacht of -another is being fitted, regardless of expense, for a voyage -around the world, if it pleases him to take it; a third will -not go abroad---he is too busy buying in his "little old -railroad" every day. Other human beings are gathered into -line every Sunday afternoon by the Rev. -Coffee-and-rolls-man, and listen to his preaching for the -dole they are to get. And upon the benches in the squares -set men from whose sullen, deadened faces the fire of energy -and the light of hope have gone--"tramps" and "bums," the -broken, rotted, human driftwood, the pariahs of our society. - -I stroll along Broadway in the evening, and by the -magnificent saloon of the man who killed Jim Fisk, I meet a -good fellow whom I knew years ago in California, when he -could not jingle more than one dollar on another. It is -different now, and he takes a wad of bills from his pocket -to pay for the thirty-five-cent cigars we light. He has -rooms in the most costly of Broadway hotels, his clothes are -cut by Blissert, and he thinks Delmonico's about the only -place to get a decent meal. He tells me about some "big -things" he has got into, and talks about millions as though -they were marbles. If a man has any speed in him at all, he -says, it is just as easy to deal in big things as in little -things, and the men who play such large hands in the great -game are no smarter than other men when you get alongside of -them and take their measure. As to politics, he says, it is -only a question who hold the offices. The corporations rule -the country, and are going to rule it, and the man is a fool -who don't get on their side. As for the people, what do they -know or care! The press rules the people, and capital rules -the press. Better hunt with the dogs than be hunted with the -hare. - -We part, and as I turn down the street another acquaintance -greets me, and, as his conversation grows interesting, I go -out of my way, for to delay him were sin, as he must be at -work by two in the morning. He has been trying to read -"Progress and Poverty," he says: but he has to take it in -such little snatches, and the children make such a noise in -his two small rooms---for his wife is afraid to let them out -on the street to learn so much bad---that it is hard work to -understand some parts of it. He is a journeyman baker, but -he has a good situation as journeyman bakers go. He works in -a restaurant, and only twelve hours a day. Most bakers, he -tells me, have to work fourteen and sixteen hours. Some of -the places they work in would sicken a man not used to it, -and even those used to it are forced to lay off every now -and again, and to drink, or they could not stand it. In some -bakeries they use good stock, he says, but they have to -charge high prices, which only the richer people will pay. -In most of them you often have to sift the maggots out of -the flour, and the butter is always rancid. He belongs to a -Union, and they are trying to get in all the journeyman -bakers; but those that work longest, and have most need of -it, are the hardest to get. Their long hours make them -stupid, and take all the spirit out of them. He has tried to -get into business for himself, and he and his wife once -pinched and saved till they got a few hundred dollars, and -then set up a little shop. But he had not money enough to -buy a share in the Flour Association---a co-operative -association of boss bakers, by which the members get stock -at lowest rates---and he could not compete, lost his money, -and had to go to work again as a journeyman. He can see no -chance at all of getting out of it, he says; he sometimes -thinks he might as well be a slave. His family grows larger -and it costs more to keep them. His rent was raised two -dollars on the 1st of May. His wife remonstrated with the -agent, said they were making no more, and it cost them more -to live. The agent said he could not help that; the property -had increased in value, and the rents must be raised. The -reason people complained of rents was that they lived too -extravagantly, and thought they must have everything anybody -else had. People could live, and keep strong and fit, on -nothing but oatmeal. If they would do that they would find -it easy enough to pay their rent. - -There is such a rush across the Atlantic that it is -difficult to engage a passage for months ahead. The doors of -the fine, roomy houses in the fashionable streets will soon -be boarded up, as their owners leave for Europe, for the -seashore, or the mountains. "Everybody is out of town," they -will say. Not quite everybody, though. Some twelve or -thirteen hundred thousand people, without counting Brooklyn, -will be left to swelter through the hot summer. The swarming -tenement-houses will not be boarded up; every window and -door will be open to catch the least breath of air. The -dirty streets will be crawling with squalid life, and noisy -with the play of unkempt children, who never saw a green -Held or watched the curl of a breaker, save perhaps, when -charity gave them a treat. Dragged women will be striving to -quiet pining babies, sobbing and wailing away their little -lives for the want of wholesome nourishment and fresh air; -and degradation and misery that hides during the winter will -be seen on every hand. - -In such a city as this, the world of some is as different -from the world in which others live as Jupiter may be from -Mars. There are worlds we shut our eyes to, and do not bear -to think of, still less to look at, but in which human -beings yet live---worlds in which vice takes the place of -virtue, and from which hope here and hope hereafter seem -utterly banished---brutal, discordant, torturing hells of -wickedness and suffering. - -"Why do they cry for bread" asked the innocent French -princess, as the roar of the fierce, hungry mob resounded -through the courtyard of Versailles. "If they have no bread, -why don't they eat cake?" - -Yet, not a fool above other fools was the pretty princess, -who never in her whole life had known that cake was not to -be had for the asking. "Why are not the poor thrifty and -virtuous and wise and temperate? one hears whenever in -luxurious parlors such subjects are mentioned. What is this -but the question of the French princess. Thrift and virtue -and wisdom and temperance are not the fruits of poverty. - -But it is not this of which I intended here to speak so much -as of that complacent assumption which runs through current -thought and speech, that this work! in which we, nineteenth -century. Christian, American men and women live, is, in its -social adjustments, at least, about such a world as the -Almighty intended it to be. - -Some say this in terms, others say it by implication, but in -one form or another it is constantly taught. Even the -wonders of modern invention have, with a most influential -part of society, scarcely shaken the belief that social -improvement is impossible. Men of the sort who, a little -while ago, derided the idea that steam-carriages might be -driven over the land and steam-vessels across the sea, would -not now refuse to believe in the most startling mechanical -invention. But lie who thinks society may be improved, he -who thinks that poverty and greed may be driven from the -world, is still looked upon in circles that pride themselves -on their culture and rationalism as a dreamer, if not as a +There are worlds and worlds---even within bounds of the same horizon. +The man who comes into New York with plenty of money, who puts up at the +Windsor or Brunswick, and is received by hospitable hosts in Fifth +Avenue mansions, sees one New York. The man who comes with a dollar and +a half, and goes to a twenty-five-cent lodging-house sees another. There +are also fifteen-cent lodging-houses, and people too poor to go even to +them. + +Into the pleasant avenues of the Park, in the bright May sunshine, +dashes the railroad-wrecker's daughter, her tasty riding-habit floating +free from the side of her glistening bay, and her belted groom, in fresh +top-boots and smart new livery, clattering after, at a respectful +distance, on another blooded horse, that chafes at the bit. The +stock-gambler's son, rising from his trotter at every stride, in English +fashion, his English riding-stick grasped by the middle, raises his hat +to her nod. And as he whirls past in his London-made dogcart, a liveried +servant sitting with folded arms behind him, she exchanges salutations +with the high-born descendant of the Dutch gardener, whose +cabbage-patch, now covered with brick and mortar, has become an "estate" +of lordly income. While in the soft, warm air rings a musical note, and +drawn by mettled steeds, the four-in-hands of the coaching-club rush by, +with liveried guards and coach-tops filled with chattering people, to +whom life, with its round of balls, parties, theaters, flirtations and +excursions, is a holiday, in which, but for the invention of new +pleasures, satiety would make time drag. + +How different this bright world from that of the old woman who, in the +dingy lower street, sits from morning to night beside her little stock +of apples and candy; from that of the girls who stand all day behind +counters and before looms, who bend over sewing-machines for weary, +weary hours, or who come out at night to prowl the streets! + +One railroad king puts the great provinces of his realm in charge of +satraps and goes to Europe; the new steel yacht of another is being +fitted, regardless of expense, for a voyage around the world, if it +pleases him to take it; a third will not go abroad---he is too busy +buying in his "little old railroad" every day. Other human beings are +gathered into line every Sunday afternoon by the Rev. +Coffee-and-rolls-man, and listen to his preaching for the dole they are +to get. And upon the benches in the squares set men from whose sullen, +deadened faces the fire of energy and the light of hope have +gone--"tramps" and "bums," the broken, rotted, human driftwood, the +pariahs of our society. + +I stroll along Broadway in the evening, and by the magnificent saloon of +the man who killed Jim Fisk, I meet a good fellow whom I knew years ago +in California, when he could not jingle more than one dollar on another. +It is different now, and he takes a wad of bills from his pocket to pay +for the thirty-five-cent cigars we light. He has rooms in the most +costly of Broadway hotels, his clothes are cut by Blissert, and he +thinks Delmonico's about the only place to get a decent meal. He tells +me about some "big things" he has got into, and talks about millions as +though they were marbles. If a man has any speed in him at all, he says, +it is just as easy to deal in big things as in little things, and the +men who play such large hands in the great game are no smarter than +other men when you get alongside of them and take their measure. As to +politics, he says, it is only a question who hold the offices. The +corporations rule the country, and are going to rule it, and the man is +a fool who don't get on their side. As for the people, what do they know +or care! The press rules the people, and capital rules the press. Better +hunt with the dogs than be hunted with the hare. + +We part, and as I turn down the street another acquaintance greets me, +and, as his conversation grows interesting, I go out of my way, for to +delay him were sin, as he must be at work by two in the morning. He has +been trying to read "Progress and Poverty," he says: but he has to take +it in such little snatches, and the children make such a noise in his +two small rooms---for his wife is afraid to let them out on the street +to learn so much bad---that it is hard work to understand some parts of +it. He is a journeyman baker, but he has a good situation as journeyman +bakers go. He works in a restaurant, and only twelve hours a day. Most +bakers, he tells me, have to work fourteen and sixteen hours. Some of +the places they work in would sicken a man not used to it, and even +those used to it are forced to lay off every now and again, and to +drink, or they could not stand it. In some bakeries they use good stock, +he says, but they have to charge high prices, which only the richer +people will pay. In most of them you often have to sift the maggots out +of the flour, and the butter is always rancid. He belongs to a Union, +and they are trying to get in all the journeyman bakers; but those that +work longest, and have most need of it, are the hardest to get. Their +long hours make them stupid, and take all the spirit out of them. He has +tried to get into business for himself, and he and his wife once pinched +and saved till they got a few hundred dollars, and then set up a little +shop. But he had not money enough to buy a share in the Flour +Association---a co-operative association of boss bakers, by which the +members get stock at lowest rates---and he could not compete, lost his +money, and had to go to work again as a journeyman. He can see no chance +at all of getting out of it, he says; he sometimes thinks he might as +well be a slave. His family grows larger and it costs more to keep them. +His rent was raised two dollars on the 1st of May. His wife remonstrated +with the agent, said they were making no more, and it cost them more to +live. The agent said he could not help that; the property had increased +in value, and the rents must be raised. The reason people complained of +rents was that they lived too extravagantly, and thought they must have +everything anybody else had. People could live, and keep strong and fit, +on nothing but oatmeal. If they would do that they would find it easy +enough to pay their rent. + +There is such a rush across the Atlantic that it is difficult to engage +a passage for months ahead. The doors of the fine, roomy houses in the +fashionable streets will soon be boarded up, as their owners leave for +Europe, for the seashore, or the mountains. "Everybody is out of town," +they will say. Not quite everybody, though. Some twelve or thirteen +hundred thousand people, without counting Brooklyn, will be left to +swelter through the hot summer. The swarming tenement-houses will not be +boarded up; every window and door will be open to catch the least breath +of air. The dirty streets will be crawling with squalid life, and noisy +with the play of unkempt children, who never saw a green Held or watched +the curl of a breaker, save perhaps, when charity gave them a treat. +Dragged women will be striving to quiet pining babies, sobbing and +wailing away their little lives for the want of wholesome nourishment +and fresh air; and degradation and misery that hides during the winter +will be seen on every hand. + +In such a city as this, the world of some is as different from the world +in which others live as Jupiter may be from Mars. There are worlds we +shut our eyes to, and do not bear to think of, still less to look at, +but in which human beings yet live---worlds in which vice takes the +place of virtue, and from which hope here and hope hereafter seem +utterly banished---brutal, discordant, torturing hells of wickedness and +suffering. + +"Why do they cry for bread" asked the innocent French princess, as the +roar of the fierce, hungry mob resounded through the courtyard of +Versailles. "If they have no bread, why don't they eat cake?" + +Yet, not a fool above other fools was the pretty princess, who never in +her whole life had known that cake was not to be had for the asking. +"Why are not the poor thrifty and virtuous and wise and temperate? one +hears whenever in luxurious parlors such subjects are mentioned. What is +this but the question of the French princess. Thrift and virtue and +wisdom and temperance are not the fruits of poverty. + +But it is not this of which I intended here to speak so much as of that +complacent assumption which runs through current thought and speech, +that this work! in which we, nineteenth century. Christian, American men +and women live, is, in its social adjustments, at least, about such a +world as the Almighty intended it to be. + +Some say this in terms, others say it by implication, but in one form or +another it is constantly taught. Even the wonders of modern invention +have, with a most influential part of society, scarcely shaken the +belief that social improvement is impossible. Men of the sort who, a +little while ago, derided the idea that steam-carriages might be driven +over the land and steam-vessels across the sea, would not now refuse to +believe in the most startling mechanical invention. But lie who thinks +society may be improved, he who thinks that poverty and greed may be +driven from the world, is still looked upon in circles that pride +themselves on their culture and rationalism as a dreamer, if not as a dangerous lunatic. -The old idea that everything in the social world is ordered -by the Divine Will---that it is the mysterious dispensations -of Providence that give wealth to the few and order poverty -as the lot of the many, make some rulers and the others -serfs---is losing power; but another idea that serves the -same purpose is taking its place, and we are told, in the -name of science, that the only social improvement that is -possible is by a slow race evolution, of which the fierce -struggle for existence is the impelling force; that, as I -have recently read in "a journal ot civilization" from the -pen of a man who has turned from the preaching of what he -called Christianity to the teaching of what he calls -political economy, that "only the *élite* of the race has -been raised to the point where reason and conscience can -even curb the lower motive forces," and"that for all but a -few of us the limit of attainment in life, in the best case, -is to live out our term, to pay our debts, to place three or -four children in a position as good as the father's was, and -there make the account balance." As for "friends of -humanity," and those who would "help the poor," they get -from him the same scorn which the Scribes and Pharisees -eighteen hundred years ago visited on a pestilent social +The old idea that everything in the social world is ordered by the +Divine Will---that it is the mysterious dispensations of Providence that +give wealth to the few and order poverty as the lot of the many, make +some rulers and the others serfs---is losing power; but another idea +that serves the same purpose is taking its place, and we are told, in +the name of science, that the only social improvement that is possible +is by a slow race evolution, of which the fierce struggle for existence +is the impelling force; that, as I have recently read in "a journal ot +civilization" from the pen of a man who has turned from the preaching of +what he called Christianity to the teaching of what he calls political +economy, that "only the *élite* of the race has been raised to the point +where reason and conscience can even curb the lower motive forces," +and"that for all but a few of us the limit of attainment in life, in the +best case, is to live out our term, to pay our debts, to place three or +four children in a position as good as the father's was, and there make +the account balance." As for "friends of humanity," and those who would +"help the poor," they get from him the same scorn which the Scribes and +Pharisees eighteen hundred years ago visited on a pestilent social reformer whom they finally crucified. -Lying beneath all such theories is the selfishness that -would resist any inquiry into the titles to the wealth which -greed has gathered, and the difficulty and indisposition on -the part of the comfortable classes of realizing the -existence of any other world than that seen through their +Lying beneath all such theories is the selfishness that would resist any +inquiry into the titles to the wealth which greed has gathered, and the +difficulty and indisposition on the part of the comfortable classes of +realizing the existence of any other world than that seen through their own eyes. -"That one-half of the world does not know how the other half -live," is much more true of the upper than of the lower -half. We h)ok upon that which is pleasant rather than that -which is disagreeable. The shop-girl delights in the loves -of the Lord de Maltravers and the Lady Blanche, just as -children without a penny will gaze in confectioners' -windows, as hungry men dream of feasts, and poor men relish -tales of sudden wealth. And social suffering is for the most -part mute. The well-dressed take the main street, but the -ragged slink into the by-ways. The man in a good coat will -be listened to where the same man in tatters would be -hustled off. It is that part of society that has the best -reason to be satisfied with things as they are that is heard -in the press, in the church, and in the school, and that -forms the conventional opinion that this world in which we -American Christians, in the latter half ot the nineteenth -century, live is about as good a world as the Creator (if +"That one-half of the world does not know how the other half live," is +much more true of the upper than of the lower half. We h)ok upon that +which is pleasant rather than that which is disagreeable. The shop-girl +delights in the loves of the Lord de Maltravers and the Lady Blanche, +just as children without a penny will gaze in confectioners' windows, as +hungry men dream of feasts, and poor men relish tales of sudden wealth. +And social suffering is for the most part mute. The well-dressed take +the main street, but the ragged slink into the by-ways. The man in a +good coat will be listened to where the same man in tatters would be +hustled off. It is that part of society that has the best reason to be +satisfied with things as they are that is heard in the press, in the +church, and in the school, and that forms the conventional opinion that +this world in which we American Christians, in the latter half ot the +nineteenth century, live is about as good a world as the Creator (if there is a Creator) intended it should be. -But look around. All over the world the beauty and the glory -and the grace of civilization rests on human lives crushed -into misery and distortion. - -I will not speak of Germany, of France, of England. Look -even here, where European civilization flowers in the free -field of a new continent; where there are no kings, no great -standing armies, no relics of feudal servitude; where -national existence began with the solemn declaration of the -equal and inalienable rights of men. I clip, almost at -random, from a daily paper, for I am not seeking the -blackest shadows: - -> "Margaret Hickey, aged 30 years, came to this city a few -> days ago from Boston with a seven-week-old baby. She tried -> to get work, but was not successful. Saturday night she -> placed the child in a cellar at No. 226 West Forty-second -> street. At midnight she called at Police Headquarters and -> said she had lost her baby in Forty-third street. In the -> meantime an officer found the child. The mother was held -> until yesterday morning, when she was taken to the -> Yorkville Court and sent to the Island for six months." - -Morning and evening, day after day, in these times of peace -and prosperity, one may read in our daily papers such items -as this, and worse than this. We are so used to them that -they excite no attention and no comment. We know what the -fate of Margaret Hickey, aged thirty years, and of her baby, -aged seven weeks, sent to the Island for six months, will -be. Better for them and better for society were they drowned -outright, as we would drown a useless cat and mangy kitten; -but so common are such items that we glance at them as we -glance at the number of birds wounded at a pigeon-match, and -turn to read "what is going on in society;" of the last new -opera or play; of the cottages taken for the season at -Newport or Long Branch; of the millionaire's divorce or the -latest great defalcation; how Heber Newton is to be fired -out of the Episcopal church for declaring the Song of -Solomon a love-drama, and the story of Jonah and the whale a -poetical embellishment; or how the great issue which the -American people are to convulse themselves about next year -is the turning of the Republican party out of power. - -I read the other day in a Brooklyn paper of a coroner's jury -summoned to inquire, as the law directs, into the cause of -death of a two days' infant. The unwholesome room was -destitute of everything save a broken chair, a miserable bed -and an empty whisky-bottle. On the bed lay, uncared for, a -young girl, mother of the dead infant; over the chair, in -drunken stupor, sprawled a man---her father. "The -horror-stricken jury," said the report, "rendered a verdict -in accordance with the facts, and left the place as fast as -they could." So do we turn from these horrors. Are there not -policemen and station-houses, almshouses and charitable +But look around. All over the world the beauty and the glory and the +grace of civilization rests on human lives crushed into misery and +distortion. + +I will not speak of Germany, of France, of England. Look even here, +where European civilization flowers in the free field of a new +continent; where there are no kings, no great standing armies, no relics +of feudal servitude; where national existence began with the solemn +declaration of the equal and inalienable rights of men. I clip, almost +at random, from a daily paper, for I am not seeking the blackest +shadows: + +> "Margaret Hickey, aged 30 years, came to this city a few days ago from +> Boston with a seven-week-old baby. She tried to get work, but was not +> successful. Saturday night she placed the child in a cellar at No. 226 +> West Forty-second street. At midnight she called at Police +> Headquarters and said she had lost her baby in Forty-third street. In +> the meantime an officer found the child. The mother was held until +> yesterday morning, when she was taken to the Yorkville Court and sent +> to the Island for six months." + +Morning and evening, day after day, in these times of peace and +prosperity, one may read in our daily papers such items as this, and +worse than this. We are so used to them that they excite no attention +and no comment. We know what the fate of Margaret Hickey, aged thirty +years, and of her baby, aged seven weeks, sent to the Island for six +months, will be. Better for them and better for society were they +drowned outright, as we would drown a useless cat and mangy kitten; but +so common are such items that we glance at them as we glance at the +number of birds wounded at a pigeon-match, and turn to read "what is +going on in society;" of the last new opera or play; of the cottages +taken for the season at Newport or Long Branch; of the millionaire's +divorce or the latest great defalcation; how Heber Newton is to be fired +out of the Episcopal church for declaring the Song of Solomon a +love-drama, and the story of Jonah and the whale a poetical +embellishment; or how the great issue which the American people are to +convulse themselves about next year is the turning of the Republican +party out of power. + +I read the other day in a Brooklyn paper of a coroner's jury summoned to +inquire, as the law directs, into the cause of death of a two days' +infant. The unwholesome room was destitute of everything save a broken +chair, a miserable bed and an empty whisky-bottle. On the bed lay, +uncared for, a young girl, mother of the dead infant; over the chair, in +drunken stupor, sprawled a man---her father. "The horror-stricken jury," +said the report, "rendered a verdict in accordance with the facts, and +left the place as fast as they could." So do we turn from these horrors. +Are there not policemen and station-houses, almshouses and charitable societies? -Nevertheless, we send missionaries to the heathen; and I -read the other day how the missionaries, sent to preach to -the Hindoos the Baptist version of Christ's Gospel, had been -financed out of the difference between American currency and -Indian rupees by the godly men who stay at home and boss the -job. Yet, from Arctic to Antarctic Circle, where are the -heathen among whom such degraded and distorted human beings -are to be found as in our centers of so-called Christian -civilization, where we have such a respect for the -all-seeing eye of God that if you want a drink on Sunday you -must go into the saloon by the back door? Among what tribe -of savages, who never saw a missionary, can the cold-blooded -horrors testified to in the Tewksbury Almshouse -investigation be matched? "Babies don't generally live long -here," they told the farmer's wife who brought them a little -waif And neither did they---seventy-three out of -seventy-four dying in a few weeks, their little bodies sold -off at a round rate per dozen to the dissecting table, and a -six-months' infant left there two days losing three pounds -in weight. Nor did adults---the broken men and women who -there sought shelter---fare better. They were robbed, -starved, beaten, turned into marketable corpses as fast as -possible, while the highly respectable managers waxed fat -and rich, and set before legislative committees the best of -dinners and the choicest of wines. It were slander to dumb -brutes to speak of the bestial cruelty disclosed by the -opening of this whited sepulchre. Yet, not only do the -representatives of the wealth and culture and "high moral -ideas" of Massachusetts receive coldly these revelations, -they fight bitterly the man who has made them, as though the -dragging of such horrors to light, not the doing of them, -were the unpardonable sin. They were only paupers! And I -read in the journal founded by Horace Greeley, that "the -woes of the Tewksbury paupers are no worse than the common -lot of all inmates of pauper refuges the country over." - -Or take the revelations made this winter before a -legislative committee of the barbarities practiced in New -York state prisons. The system remains unaltered; not an -official has been even dismissed. The belief that dominates -our society is evidently that which I find expressed in "a -journal of civilization" by a reverend professor at Yale, -that "the criminal has no claims against society at all. -What shall be done with him is a question of expediency!" I -wonder if our missionaries to the heathen ever read the -American papers? I am certain they don't read them to the -heathen. - -Behind all this is social disease. Criminals, paupers, -prostitutes, women who abandon their children, men who kill -themselves in despair of making a living, the existence of -great armies of beggars and thieves, prove that there are -large classes who find it difficult with the hardest toil to -make an honest and sufficient livelihood. So it is. "There -is," incidentally said to m.e, recently, a New York Supreme -Judge, "a large class---I was about to say a majority---of -the population of New York and Brooklyn, who just live, and -to whom the rearing of two more children means inevitably a -boy for the penitentiary and a girl for the brothel." A -partial report of charitable work in New York city, not -embracing the operations of a number of important societies, -shows 36,000 families obtaining relief, while it is -estimated that were the houses in New York city containing -criminals and the recipients of charity set side by side -they would make a street twenty-two miles long. One -charitable society in New York city extended aid this winter -to the families of three hundred tailors. Their wages are so -small when they do work that when work gives out they must -beg, steal or starve. - -Nor is this state of things confined to the metropolis. In -Massachusetts the statistician of the Labor Bureau declares -that among wage laborers the earnings (exclusive of the -earnings of minors) are less than the cost of living; that -in the majority of cases workingmen do not support their -families on their individual earnings alone, and that -fathers are forced to depend upon their children for from -one-quarter to one-third of the family earnings, children -under fifteen supplying from one-eighth to one-sixth of the -total earnings. Miss Emma E. Brown has shown how parents are -forced to evade the law prohibiting the employment of young -children, and in Pennsylvania, where a similar law has been -passed, I read how, forced by the same necessity, the -operatives of a mill, have resolved to boycott a storekeeper -whose relative had informed that children under thirteen -were employed. While in Canada last winter it was shown that -children under thirteen were kept at work in the mills from -six in the evening to six in the morning, a man on duty with -a strap to keep them awake. - -Illinois is one of the richest States of the Union. It is -scarcely yet fairly settled, for the last census show the -male population in excess of the female, and wages are -considerably higher than in more eastern States. In their -last report the Illinois Commissioners of Labor Statistics -say that their tables of wages and cost of living are -representative only of intelligent workingmen who make the -most of their advantages, and do not reach the confines of -that world of helpless ignorance and destitution in which -multitudes in all large cities continually live, and whose -only statistics are those of epidemics, pauperism and -crime." Nevertheless, they go on to say, an examination of -these tables will demonstrate that one-half of these -intelligent workingmen of Illinois "are not even able to -earn enough for their daily bread, and have to depend upon -the labor of women and children to eke out their miserable -existence." - -It is the fool who saith in his heart there is no God. But -what shall we call the man who tells us that with this sort -of a world God bids us be content? +Nevertheless, we send missionaries to the heathen; and I read the other +day how the missionaries, sent to preach to the Hindoos the Baptist +version of Christ's Gospel, had been financed out of the difference +between American currency and Indian rupees by the godly men who stay at +home and boss the job. Yet, from Arctic to Antarctic Circle, where are +the heathen among whom such degraded and distorted human beings are to +be found as in our centers of so-called Christian civilization, where we +have such a respect for the all-seeing eye of God that if you want a +drink on Sunday you must go into the saloon by the back door? Among what +tribe of savages, who never saw a missionary, can the cold-blooded +horrors testified to in the Tewksbury Almshouse investigation be +matched? "Babies don't generally live long here," they told the farmer's +wife who brought them a little waif And neither did they---seventy-three +out of seventy-four dying in a few weeks, their little bodies sold off +at a round rate per dozen to the dissecting table, and a six-months' +infant left there two days losing three pounds in weight. Nor did +adults---the broken men and women who there sought shelter---fare +better. They were robbed, starved, beaten, turned into marketable +corpses as fast as possible, while the highly respectable managers waxed +fat and rich, and set before legislative committees the best of dinners +and the choicest of wines. It were slander to dumb brutes to speak of +the bestial cruelty disclosed by the opening of this whited sepulchre. +Yet, not only do the representatives of the wealth and culture and "high +moral ideas" of Massachusetts receive coldly these revelations, they +fight bitterly the man who has made them, as though the dragging of such +horrors to light, not the doing of them, were the unpardonable sin. They +were only paupers! And I read in the journal founded by Horace Greeley, +that "the woes of the Tewksbury paupers are no worse than the common lot +of all inmates of pauper refuges the country over." + +Or take the revelations made this winter before a legislative committee +of the barbarities practiced in New York state prisons. The system +remains unaltered; not an official has been even dismissed. The belief +that dominates our society is evidently that which I find expressed in +"a journal of civilization" by a reverend professor at Yale, that "the +criminal has no claims against society at all. What shall be done with +him is a question of expediency!" I wonder if our missionaries to the +heathen ever read the American papers? I am certain they don't read them +to the heathen. + +Behind all this is social disease. Criminals, paupers, prostitutes, +women who abandon their children, men who kill themselves in despair of +making a living, the existence of great armies of beggars and thieves, +prove that there are large classes who find it difficult with the +hardest toil to make an honest and sufficient livelihood. So it is. +"There is," incidentally said to m.e, recently, a New York Supreme +Judge, "a large class---I was about to say a majority---of the +population of New York and Brooklyn, who just live, and to whom the +rearing of two more children means inevitably a boy for the penitentiary +and a girl for the brothel." A partial report of charitable work in New +York city, not embracing the operations of a number of important +societies, shows 36,000 families obtaining relief, while it is estimated +that were the houses in New York city containing criminals and the +recipients of charity set side by side they would make a street +twenty-two miles long. One charitable society in New York city extended +aid this winter to the families of three hundred tailors. Their wages +are so small when they do work that when work gives out they must beg, +steal or starve. + +Nor is this state of things confined to the metropolis. In Massachusetts +the statistician of the Labor Bureau declares that among wage laborers +the earnings (exclusive of the earnings of minors) are less than the +cost of living; that in the majority of cases workingmen do not support +their families on their individual earnings alone, and that fathers are +forced to depend upon their children for from one-quarter to one-third +of the family earnings, children under fifteen supplying from one-eighth +to one-sixth of the total earnings. Miss Emma E. Brown has shown how +parents are forced to evade the law prohibiting the employment of young +children, and in Pennsylvania, where a similar law has been passed, I +read how, forced by the same necessity, the operatives of a mill, have +resolved to boycott a storekeeper whose relative had informed that +children under thirteen were employed. While in Canada last winter it +was shown that children under thirteen were kept at work in the mills +from six in the evening to six in the morning, a man on duty with a +strap to keep them awake. + +Illinois is one of the richest States of the Union. It is scarcely yet +fairly settled, for the last census show the male population in excess +of the female, and wages are considerably higher than in more eastern +States. In their last report the Illinois Commissioners of Labor +Statistics say that their tables of wages and cost of living are +representative only of intelligent workingmen who make the most of their +advantages, and do not reach the confines of that world of helpless +ignorance and destitution in which multitudes in all large cities +continually live, and whose only statistics are those of epidemics, +pauperism and crime." Nevertheless, they go on to say, an examination of +these tables will demonstrate that one-half of these intelligent +workingmen of Illinois "are not even able to earn enough for their daily +bread, and have to depend upon the labor of women and children to eke +out their miserable existence." + +It is the fool who saith in his heart there is no God. But what shall we +call the man who tells us that with this sort of a world God bids us be +content? # That We All Might Be Rich -The terms rich and poor are of course frequently used in a -relative sense. Among Irish peasants, kept on the verge of -starvation by the tribute wrung from them to maintain the -luxury of absentee landlords in London or Paris, "the woman -of three cows" will be looked on as rich, while in the -society of millionaires a man with only \$500,000 will be -regarded as poor. Now, we cannot, of course, all be rich in -the sense of having more than others; but when people say, -as they so often do, that we cannot all be rich, or when -they say that we must always have the poor with us, they do -not use the words in this comparative sense. They mean by -the rich those who have enough, or more than enough, wealth -to gratify all reasonable wants, and by the poor those who -have not. - -Now, using the words in this sense, I join issue with those -who say that we cannot all be rich; with those who declare -that in human society the poor must always exist. I do not, -of course, mean that we all might have an array of servants; -that we all might outshine each other in dress, in equipage, -in the lavishness of our balls or dinners, in the -magnificence of our houses. That would be a contradiction in -terms. What I mean is, that we all might have leisure, -comfort and abundance, not merely of the necessaries, but -even of what are now esteemed the elegancies and luxuries of -life. I do not mean to say that absolute equality could be -had, or would be desirable. I do not mean to say that we -could all have, or would want, the same quantity of all the -different forms of wealth. But I do mean to say that we -might all have enough wealth to satisfy reasonable desires; -that we might all have so much of the material things we now -struggle for, that no one would want to rob or swindle his -neighbor; that no one would worry all day, or lie awake at -nights, fearing he might be brought to poverty, or thinking -how he might acquire wealth. - -Does this seem a utopian dream? What would people of fifty -years ago have thought of one who would have told them that -it was possible to sew by steam-power; to cross the Atlantic -in six days, or the continent in three; to have a message -sent from London at noon delivered in Boston three hours -before noon; to hear in New York the voice of a man talking +The terms rich and poor are of course frequently used in a relative +sense. Among Irish peasants, kept on the verge of starvation by the +tribute wrung from them to maintain the luxury of absentee landlords in +London or Paris, "the woman of three cows" will be looked on as rich, +while in the society of millionaires a man with only \$500,000 will be +regarded as poor. Now, we cannot, of course, all be rich in the sense of +having more than others; but when people say, as they so often do, that +we cannot all be rich, or when they say that we must always have the +poor with us, they do not use the words in this comparative sense. They +mean by the rich those who have enough, or more than enough, wealth to +gratify all reasonable wants, and by the poor those who have not. + +Now, using the words in this sense, I join issue with those who say that +we cannot all be rich; with those who declare that in human society the +poor must always exist. I do not, of course, mean that we all might have +an array of servants; that we all might outshine each other in dress, in +equipage, in the lavishness of our balls or dinners, in the magnificence +of our houses. That would be a contradiction in terms. What I mean is, +that we all might have leisure, comfort and abundance, not merely of the +necessaries, but even of what are now esteemed the elegancies and +luxuries of life. I do not mean to say that absolute equality could be +had, or would be desirable. I do not mean to say that we could all have, +or would want, the same quantity of all the different forms of wealth. +But I do mean to say that we might all have enough wealth to satisfy +reasonable desires; that we might all have so much of the material +things we now struggle for, that no one would want to rob or swindle his +neighbor; that no one would worry all day, or lie awake at nights, +fearing he might be brought to poverty, or thinking how he might acquire +wealth. + +Does this seem a utopian dream? What would people of fifty years ago +have thought of one who would have told them that it was possible to sew +by steam-power; to cross the Atlantic in six days, or the continent in +three; to have a message sent from London at noon delivered in Boston +three hours before noon; to hear in New York the voice of a man talking in Chicago? -Did you ever see a pail of swill given to a pen of hungry -hogs? That is human society as it is. - -Did you ever see a company of well-bred men and women -sitting down to a good dinner, without scrambling, or -jostling, or gluttony, each, knowing that his own appetite -will be satisfied, deferring to and helping the others? That -is human society as it might be. - -"Devil catch the hindmost" is the motto of our so-called -civilized society to-day. We learn early to "take care of -No. 1," lest No. 1 should suffer; we learn early to grasp -from others that we may not want ourselves. The fear of -poverty makes us admire great wealth; and so habits of greed -are formed, and we behold the pitiable spectacle of men who -have already more than they can by any possibility use, -toiling, striving, grasping to add to their store up to the -very verge of the grave---that grave which, whatever else it -may mean, does certainly mean the parting with all earthly -possessions however great they be. - -In vain, in gorgeous churches, on the appointed Sunday, is -the parable of Dives and Lazarus read. What can it mean in -churches where Dives would be welcomed and Lazarus shown the -door? In vain may the preacher preach of the vanity of -riches, while poverty engulfs the hindermost. But the mad -struggle would cease when the fear of poverty had vanished. -Then, and not till then, will a truly Christian civilization -become possible. +Did you ever see a pail of swill given to a pen of hungry hogs? That is +human society as it is. + +Did you ever see a company of well-bred men and women sitting down to a +good dinner, without scrambling, or jostling, or gluttony, each, knowing +that his own appetite will be satisfied, deferring to and helping the +others? That is human society as it might be. + +"Devil catch the hindmost" is the motto of our so-called civilized +society to-day. We learn early to "take care of No. 1," lest No. 1 +should suffer; we learn early to grasp from others that we may not want +ourselves. The fear of poverty makes us admire great wealth; and so +habits of greed are formed, and we behold the pitiable spectacle of men +who have already more than they can by any possibility use, toiling, +striving, grasping to add to their store up to the very verge of the +grave---that grave which, whatever else it may mean, does certainly mean +the parting with all earthly possessions however great they be. + +In vain, in gorgeous churches, on the appointed Sunday, is the parable +of Dives and Lazarus read. What can it mean in churches where Dives +would be welcomed and Lazarus shown the door? In vain may the preacher +preach of the vanity of riches, while poverty engulfs the hindermost. +But the mad struggle would cease when the fear of poverty had vanished. +Then, and not till then, will a truly Christian civilization become +possible. And may not this be? -We are so accustomed to poverty that even in the most -advanced countries we regard it as the natural lot of the -great masses of the people; that we take it as a matter of -course that even in our highest civilization large classes -should want the necessaries of healthful life, and the vast -majority should only get a poor and pinched living by the -hardest toil. There are professors of political economy who -teach that this condition of things is the result of social -laws of which it is idle to complain! There are ministers of -religion who preach that this is the condition which an -all-wise, all-powerful Creator intended for his children! If -an architect were to build a theatre so that not more than -one-tenth of the audience could see and hear, we would call -him a bungler and a botch. If a man were to give a feast and -provide so little food that nine-tenths of his guests must -go away hungry, we would call him a fool, or worse. Yet so -accustomed are we to poverty, that even the preachers of -what passes for Christianity tell us that the great -Architect of the Universe, to whose infinite skill all -nature testifies, has made such a botch job of this world -that the vast majority of the human creatures whom he has -called into it are condemned by the conditions he has -'imposed to want, suffering, and brutalizing toil that gives -no opportunity for the development of mental powers---must -pass their lives in a hard straggle to merely live! - -Yet who can look about him without seeing that to whatever -cause poverty may be due, it is not due to the niggardliness -of nature; without seeing that it is blindness or blasphemy -to assume that the Creator has condemned the masses of men -to hard toil for a bare living? - -If some men have not enough to live decently, do not others -have far more than they really need? If there is not wealth -sufficient to go around, giving every one abundance, is it -because we have reached the limit of the production of -wealth? Is our land all in use? is our labor all employed? -is our capital all utilized? On the contrary, in whatever -direction we look we see the most stupendous waste of -productive forces---of productive forces so potent that were -they permitted to freely play the production of wealth would -be so enormous that there would be more than a sufficiency -for all. What branch of production is there in which the -limit of production has been reached? What single article of -wealth is there of which we might not produce enormously +We are so accustomed to poverty that even in the most advanced countries +we regard it as the natural lot of the great masses of the people; that +we take it as a matter of course that even in our highest civilization +large classes should want the necessaries of healthful life, and the +vast majority should only get a poor and pinched living by the hardest +toil. There are professors of political economy who teach that this +condition of things is the result of social laws of which it is idle to +complain! There are ministers of religion who preach that this is the +condition which an all-wise, all-powerful Creator intended for his +children! If an architect were to build a theatre so that not more than +one-tenth of the audience could see and hear, we would call him a +bungler and a botch. If a man were to give a feast and provide so little +food that nine-tenths of his guests must go away hungry, we would call +him a fool, or worse. Yet so accustomed are we to poverty, that even the +preachers of what passes for Christianity tell us that the great +Architect of the Universe, to whose infinite skill all nature testifies, +has made such a botch job of this world that the vast majority of the +human creatures whom he has called into it are condemned by the +conditions he has 'imposed to want, suffering, and brutalizing toil that +gives no opportunity for the development of mental powers---must pass +their lives in a hard straggle to merely live! + +Yet who can look about him without seeing that to whatever cause poverty +may be due, it is not due to the niggardliness of nature; without seeing +that it is blindness or blasphemy to assume that the Creator has +condemned the masses of men to hard toil for a bare living? + +If some men have not enough to live decently, do not others have far +more than they really need? If there is not wealth sufficient to go +around, giving every one abundance, is it because we have reached the +limit of the production of wealth? Is our land all in use? is our labor +all employed? is our capital all utilized? On the contrary, in whatever +direction we look we see the most stupendous waste of productive +forces---of productive forces so potent that were they permitted to +freely play the production of wealth would be so enormous that there +would be more than a sufficiency for all. What branch of production is +there in which the limit of production has been reached? What single +article of wealth is there of which we might not produce enormously more? -If the mass of the population of New York are jammed into -the fever-breeding rooms of tenement-houses, it is not -because there are not vacant lots enough in and around New -York to give each family space for a separate home. If -settlers are going into Montana and Dakota and Manitoba, it -is not because there are not vast areas of untilled land -much nearer the centres of population. If farmers are paying -one-fourth, one-third, or even one-half their crops for the -privilege of getting land to cultivate, it is not because -there is not, even in our oldest states, great quantities of -land which no one is cultivating. - -So true is it that poverty does not come from the inability -to produce more wealth that from every side we hear that the -power to produce is in excess of the ability to find a -market; that the constant fear seems to be not that too -little, but that too much, will be produced! Do we not -maintain a high tariff, and keep at every port a horde of -Custom House officers, for fear the people of other -countries will overwhelm us with their goods? Is not a great -part of our machinery constantly idle? Are there not, even -in what we call good times, an immense number of unemployed -men who would gladly be at work producing wealth if they -could only get the opportunity? Do we not, even now, hear, -from every side, of embarrassment from the very excess of -productive power, and of combinations to reduce production? -Coal operators band together to limit their output; -ironworks have shut down, or are running on half time; -distillers have agreed to limit their production to one-half -their capacity, and sugar refiners to 60%; paper-mills are -suspending for one, two or three days a week; the gunny -cloth manufacturers, at a recent meeting, agreed to close -their mills until the present overstock on the market is -greatly reduced; many other manufacturers have done the same -thing. The shoemaking machinery of E'ew England can, in six -months full running, it is said, supply the whole demand of -the United States for twelve months; the machinery for -making rubber goods can turn out twice as much as the market -will take. - -This seeming glut of production, this seeming excess of -productive power, runs through all branches of industry, and -is evident all over the civilized world. From blackberries, -bananas or apples, to ocean steamships or plate-glass -mirrors, the're is scarcely an article of human comfort or -convenience that could not be produced in very much greater -quantities than now without lessening the production of -anything else. - -So evident is this that many people think and talk and write -as though the trouble is that there is not *work* enough to -go around. We are in constant fear that other nations may do -for us some of the work we might do for ourselves, and, to -prevent them, guard ourselves with a tariff. We laud as -public benefactors those who, as we say, "furnish -employment." We are constantly talking as though this -"furnishing of employment," this "giving of work" were the -greatest boon that could be conferred upon society. To -listen to much that is talked and much that is written, one -would think that the cause of poverty is that there is not -work enough for so many people, and that if the Creator had -made the rock harder, the soil less fertile, iron as scarce -aa gold, and gold as diamonds; or if ships would sink and -cities burn down oftener, there would be less poverty, -because there would be more work to do. - -The Lord Mayor of London tells a deputation of unemployed -workingmen that there is no demand for their labor, and that -the only resource for them is to go to the poorhouse or -emigrate. The English Government is shipping from Ireland -able-bodied men and women to avoid maintaining them as -paupers. Even in our own land there are at all times large -numbers, and in hard times vast numbers, earnestly seeking -work---the opportunity to give labor for the things produced -by labor. - -Perhaps nothing shows more clearly the enormous forces of -production constantly going to waste than the fact that the -most prosperous times in all branches of business that this -country has known was during the civil war, when we were -maintaining great fleets and armies, and millions of our -industrial population were engaged in supplying them with -wealth for unproductive consumption or for reckless -destruction. It is idle to talk about the fictitious -prosperity of these flush times. The masses of the people -lived better, dressed better, found it easier to get a -living, and had more of luxuries and amusements than in -normal times. There was more real, tangible wealth in the -North at the close than at the beginning of the war. Nor was -it the great issue of paper money, nor the creation of the -debt which caused this prosperity. The Government presses -struck off promises to pay; they could not print ships, -cannon, arms, tools, food and clothing. Nor did we borrow -these things from other countries or "from posterity." Our -bonds did not begin to go to Europe until the close of the -war, and the people of one generation can no more borrow -from the people of a subsequent generation than we who live -on this planet can borrow from the inhabitants of another -planet or another solar system. The wealth consumed and -destroyed by our fleets and armies came from the then -existing stock of wealth. We could have carried on the war -without the issue of a single bond, if, when we did not -shrink from taking from wife and children their only -bread-winner, we had not shrunk from taking the wealth of -the rich. - -Our armies and fleets were maintained, the enormous -unproductive and destructive use of wealth was kept up, by -the labor and capital then and there engaged in production. -And it was that the demand caused by the war stimulated -productive forces into activity that the enormous drain of -the war was not only supplied, but that the North grew -richer. The waste of labor in marching and counter-marching, -in digging trenches, throwing up earthworks, and fighting -battles, the waste of wealth consumed or destroyed by our -armies and fleets did not amount to as much as the waste -constantly going on from unemployed labor and idle or +If the mass of the population of New York are jammed into the +fever-breeding rooms of tenement-houses, it is not because there are not +vacant lots enough in and around New York to give each family space for +a separate home. If settlers are going into Montana and Dakota and +Manitoba, it is not because there are not vast areas of untilled land +much nearer the centres of population. If farmers are paying one-fourth, +one-third, or even one-half their crops for the privilege of getting +land to cultivate, it is not because there is not, even in our oldest +states, great quantities of land which no one is cultivating. + +So true is it that poverty does not come from the inability to produce +more wealth that from every side we hear that the power to produce is in +excess of the ability to find a market; that the constant fear seems to +be not that too little, but that too much, will be produced! Do we not +maintain a high tariff, and keep at every port a horde of Custom House +officers, for fear the people of other countries will overwhelm us with +their goods? Is not a great part of our machinery constantly idle? Are +there not, even in what we call good times, an immense number of +unemployed men who would gladly be at work producing wealth if they +could only get the opportunity? Do we not, even now, hear, from every +side, of embarrassment from the very excess of productive power, and of +combinations to reduce production? Coal operators band together to limit +their output; ironworks have shut down, or are running on half time; +distillers have agreed to limit their production to one-half their +capacity, and sugar refiners to 60%; paper-mills are suspending for one, +two or three days a week; the gunny cloth manufacturers, at a recent +meeting, agreed to close their mills until the present overstock on the +market is greatly reduced; many other manufacturers have done the same +thing. The shoemaking machinery of E'ew England can, in six months full +running, it is said, supply the whole demand of the United States for +twelve months; the machinery for making rubber goods can turn out twice +as much as the market will take. + +This seeming glut of production, this seeming excess of productive +power, runs through all branches of industry, and is evident all over +the civilized world. From blackberries, bananas or apples, to ocean +steamships or plate-glass mirrors, the're is scarcely an article of +human comfort or convenience that could not be produced in very much +greater quantities than now without lessening the production of anything +else. + +So evident is this that many people think and talk and write as though +the trouble is that there is not *work* enough to go around. We are in +constant fear that other nations may do for us some of the work we might +do for ourselves, and, to prevent them, guard ourselves with a tariff. +We laud as public benefactors those who, as we say, "furnish +employment." We are constantly talking as though this "furnishing of +employment," this "giving of work" were the greatest boon that could be +conferred upon society. To listen to much that is talked and much that +is written, one would think that the cause of poverty is that there is +not work enough for so many people, and that if the Creator had made the +rock harder, the soil less fertile, iron as scarce aa gold, and gold as +diamonds; or if ships would sink and cities burn down oftener, there +would be less poverty, because there would be more work to do. + +The Lord Mayor of London tells a deputation of unemployed workingmen +that there is no demand for their labor, and that the only resource for +them is to go to the poorhouse or emigrate. The English Government is +shipping from Ireland able-bodied men and women to avoid maintaining +them as paupers. Even in our own land there are at all times large +numbers, and in hard times vast numbers, earnestly seeking work---the +opportunity to give labor for the things produced by labor. + +Perhaps nothing shows more clearly the enormous forces of production +constantly going to waste than the fact that the most prosperous times +in all branches of business that this country has known was during the +civil war, when we were maintaining great fleets and armies, and +millions of our industrial population were engaged in supplying them +with wealth for unproductive consumption or for reckless destruction. It +is idle to talk about the fictitious prosperity of these flush times. +The masses of the people lived better, dressed better, found it easier +to get a living, and had more of luxuries and amusements than in normal +times. There was more real, tangible wealth in the North at the close +than at the beginning of the war. Nor was it the great issue of paper +money, nor the creation of the debt which caused this prosperity. The +Government presses struck off promises to pay; they could not print +ships, cannon, arms, tools, food and clothing. Nor did we borrow these +things from other countries or "from posterity." Our bonds did not begin +to go to Europe until the close of the war, and the people of one +generation can no more borrow from the people of a subsequent generation +than we who live on this planet can borrow from the inhabitants of +another planet or another solar system. The wealth consumed and +destroyed by our fleets and armies came from the then existing stock of +wealth. We could have carried on the war without the issue of a single +bond, if, when we did not shrink from taking from wife and children +their only bread-winner, we had not shrunk from taking the wealth of the +rich. + +Our armies and fleets were maintained, the enormous unproductive and +destructive use of wealth was kept up, by the labor and capital then and +there engaged in production. And it was that the demand caused by the +war stimulated productive forces into activity that the enormous drain +of the war was not only supplied, but that the North grew richer. The +waste of labor in marching and counter-marching, in digging trenches, +throwing up earthworks, and fighting battles, the waste of wealth +consumed or destroyed by our armies and fleets did not amount to as much +as the waste constantly going on from unemployed labor and idle or partially used machinery. -It is evident that this enormous waste of productive power -is due, not to defects in the laws of nature, but to social -maladjustments which deny to labor access to the natural -opportunities of labor and rob the laborer of his just -reward. Evidently the glut of markets does not really come -from over-production when there are so many who want the -things which are said to be over-produced, and would gladly -exchange their labor for them did they have opportunity. -Every day passed in enforced idleness by a laborer who would -gladly be at work could he find opportunity, means so much -less in the fund which creates the effective demand for -other labor; every time wages are screwed down means so much -reduction in the purchasing power of the workmen whose -incomes are thus reduced. The paralysis which at all time -wastes productive power, and which in times of industrial -depression causes more loss than a great war, springs from -the difficulty which those who would gladly satisfy their -wants by their labor find in doing so. It cannot come from -any natural limitation, so long as human desires remain -unsatisfied, and nature yet offers to man the raw material -of wealth. It must come from social maladjustments which -permit the monopolization of these natural opportunities, -and which rob labor of its fair reward. - -What these maladjustments are I shall in subsequent chapters -endeavor to show. In this I wish simply to call attention to -the fact that productive power in such a state of -civilization as ours is sufficient, did we give it play, to -so enormously increase the production of wealth as to give -abundance to all---to point out that the cause of poverty is -not in natural limitations, which we cannot alter, but in -inequalities and injustices of distribution entirely within -our control. - -The passenger who leaves New York on a trans-Atlantic -steamer does not fear that the provisions will give out. The -men who run these steamers do not send them to sea without -provisions enough for all they carry. Did he who made this -whirling planet for our sojourn lack the forethought of man? -Not so. In soil and sunshine, in vegetable and animal life, -in veins of minerals, and in pulsing forces which we are +It is evident that this enormous waste of productive power is due, not +to defects in the laws of nature, but to social maladjustments which +deny to labor access to the natural opportunities of labor and rob the +laborer of his just reward. Evidently the glut of markets does not +really come from over-production when there are so many who want the +things which are said to be over-produced, and would gladly exchange +their labor for them did they have opportunity. Every day passed in +enforced idleness by a laborer who would gladly be at work could he find +opportunity, means so much less in the fund which creates the effective +demand for other labor; every time wages are screwed down means so much +reduction in the purchasing power of the workmen whose incomes are thus +reduced. The paralysis which at all time wastes productive power, and +which in times of industrial depression causes more loss than a great +war, springs from the difficulty which those who would gladly satisfy +their wants by their labor find in doing so. It cannot come from any +natural limitation, so long as human desires remain unsatisfied, and +nature yet offers to man the raw material of wealth. It must come from +social maladjustments which permit the monopolization of these natural +opportunities, and which rob labor of its fair reward. + +What these maladjustments are I shall in subsequent chapters endeavor to +show. In this I wish simply to call attention to the fact that +productive power in such a state of civilization as ours is sufficient, +did we give it play, to so enormously increase the production of wealth +as to give abundance to all---to point out that the cause of poverty is +not in natural limitations, which we cannot alter, but in inequalities +and injustices of distribution entirely within our control. + +The passenger who leaves New York on a trans-Atlantic steamer does not +fear that the provisions will give out. The men who run these steamers +do not send them to sea without provisions enough for all they carry. +Did he who made this whirling planet for our sojourn lack the +forethought of man? Not so. In soil and sunshine, in vegetable and +animal life, in veins of minerals, and in pulsing forces which we are only beginning to use, are capabilities which we cannot -exhaust---materials and powers from which human effort, -guided by intelligence, may gratify every material want of -every human creature. There is in nature no reason for -poverty---not even for the poverty of the crippled or the -decrepit. For man is by nature a social animal, and the -family affections and the social sympathies would, where -chronic poverty did not distort and embrute, amply provide -for those who could not provide for themselves. - -But if we will not use the intelligence with which we have -been gifted to adapt social organization to natural -laws---if we allow dogs-in-the-manger to monopolize what -they cannot use; if we allow strength and cunning to rob -honest labor, we must have chronic poverty, and all the -social evils it inevitably brings. Under such conditions +exhaust---materials and powers from which human effort, guided by +intelligence, may gratify every material want of every human creature. +There is in nature no reason for poverty---not even for the poverty of +the crippled or the decrepit. For man is by nature a social animal, and +the family affections and the social sympathies would, where chronic +poverty did not distort and embrute, amply provide for those who could +not provide for themselves. + +But if we will not use the intelligence with which we have been gifted +to adapt social organization to natural laws---if we allow +dogs-in-the-manger to monopolize what they cannot use; if we allow +strength and cunning to rob honest labor, we must have chronic poverty, +and all the social evils it inevitably brings. Under such conditions there would be poverty in paradise! -"The poor ye have always with you." If ever a scripture has -been wrested to the devil's service, this is that scripture. -How often have these words been distorted from their obvious -meaning to soothe conscience into acquiescence in human -misery and degradation---to bolster that blasphemy, the very -negation and denial of Christ's teachings, that the All Wise -and Most Merciful, the Infinite Father, has decreed that so -many of his creatures must be poor in order that others of -his creatures to whom he wills the good things of life -should enjoy the pleasure and virtue of doling out alms! -"The poor ye have always with you," said Christ; but all his -teachings supply the limitation, "until the coming of the -Kingdom." In that kingdom of God *on earth*, that kingdom of -justice and love for which he taught his followers to strive -and pray, there will be no poor. But though the faith and -the hope and the striving for this kingdom are of the very -essence of Christ's teaching, the staunchest disbelievers -and revilers of its possibility are found among those who -call themselves Christians. Queer ideas of the Divinity have -some of these Christians who hold themselves orthodox and -contribute to the conversion of the heathen. A very rich -orthodox Christian said to a newspaper reporter, awhile ago, -on the completion of a large work out of which he is said to -have made millions: "We have been peculiarly favored by -Divine Providence; iron never was so cheap before, and labor -has been a drug in the market." - -That in spite of all our great advances we have yet with us -the poor, those who, without fault of their own, cannot get -healthful and wholesome conditions of life, is *our* fault -and *our* shame. Who that looks about him can fail to see -that it is only the injustice that denies natural -opportunities to labor, and robs the producer of the fruits -of his toil, that prevents us all from being rich. Consider -the enormous powers of production now going to waste; -consider the great number of unproductive consumers -maintained at the expense of producers---the rich men and -dudes, the worse than useless Government officials, the -pickpockets, burglars and confidence men; the highly -respectable thieves who carry on their operations inside the -law; the great army of lawyers; the beggars and paupers, and -inmates of prisons; the monopolists and cornerers and -gamblers of every kind and grade. Consider how much brains -and energy and capital are devoted, not to the production of -wealth, but to the grabbing of wealth. Consider the waste -caused by competition which does not increase wealth; by -laws which restrict production and exchange. Consider how -human power is lessened by insufficient food, by unwholesome -lodgings, by work done under conditions that produce disease -and shorten life. Consider how intemperance and unthrift -follow poverty. Consider how the ignorance bred of poverty -lessens production, and how the vice bred of poverty causes -destruction, and who can doubt that under conditions of -social justice all might be rich? - -The wealth-producing powers that would be evoked in a social -state based on justice, where wealth went to the producers -of wealth, and the banishment of poverty had banished the -fear and greed and lusts that spring from it, we now can -only faintly imagine. Wonderful as have been the discoveries -and inventions of this century, it is evident that we have -only begun to grasp that dominion which it is given to mind -to obtain over matter. Discovery and invention are born of -leisure, of material comfort, of freedom. These secured to -all, and who shall say to what command over nature man may -not attain? - -It is not necessary that any one should be condemned to -monotonous toil; it is not necessary that any one should -lack the wealth and the leisure which permit the development -of the faculties that raise man above the animal. Mind, not -muscle, is the motor of progress, the force which compels -nature and produces wealth. In turning men into machines we -are wasting the highest powers. Already in our society there -is a favored class who need take no thought for the -morrow---what they shall eat, or what they shall drink, or -wherewithal they shall be clothed. And may it not be that -Christ was more than a dreamer when he told his disciples -that in that kingdom of justice for which he taught them to -work and pray this might be the condition of all? +"The poor ye have always with you." If ever a scripture has been wrested +to the devil's service, this is that scripture. How often have these +words been distorted from their obvious meaning to soothe conscience +into acquiescence in human misery and degradation---to bolster that +blasphemy, the very negation and denial of Christ's teachings, that the +All Wise and Most Merciful, the Infinite Father, has decreed that so +many of his creatures must be poor in order that others of his creatures +to whom he wills the good things of life should enjoy the pleasure and +virtue of doling out alms! "The poor ye have always with you," said +Christ; but all his teachings supply the limitation, "until the coming +of the Kingdom." In that kingdom of God *on earth*, that kingdom of +justice and love for which he taught his followers to strive and pray, +there will be no poor. But though the faith and the hope and the +striving for this kingdom are of the very essence of Christ's teaching, +the staunchest disbelievers and revilers of its possibility are found +among those who call themselves Christians. Queer ideas of the Divinity +have some of these Christians who hold themselves orthodox and +contribute to the conversion of the heathen. A very rich orthodox +Christian said to a newspaper reporter, awhile ago, on the completion of +a large work out of which he is said to have made millions: "We have +been peculiarly favored by Divine Providence; iron never was so cheap +before, and labor has been a drug in the market." + +That in spite of all our great advances we have yet with us the poor, +those who, without fault of their own, cannot get healthful and +wholesome conditions of life, is *our* fault and *our* shame. Who that +looks about him can fail to see that it is only the injustice that +denies natural opportunities to labor, and robs the producer of the +fruits of his toil, that prevents us all from being rich. Consider the +enormous powers of production now going to waste; consider the great +number of unproductive consumers maintained at the expense of +producers---the rich men and dudes, the worse than useless Government +officials, the pickpockets, burglars and confidence men; the highly +respectable thieves who carry on their operations inside the law; the +great army of lawyers; the beggars and paupers, and inmates of prisons; +the monopolists and cornerers and gamblers of every kind and grade. +Consider how much brains and energy and capital are devoted, not to the +production of wealth, but to the grabbing of wealth. Consider the waste +caused by competition which does not increase wealth; by laws which +restrict production and exchange. Consider how human power is lessened +by insufficient food, by unwholesome lodgings, by work done under +conditions that produce disease and shorten life. Consider how +intemperance and unthrift follow poverty. Consider how the ignorance +bred of poverty lessens production, and how the vice bred of poverty +causes destruction, and who can doubt that under conditions of social +justice all might be rich? + +The wealth-producing powers that would be evoked in a social state based +on justice, where wealth went to the producers of wealth, and the +banishment of poverty had banished the fear and greed and lusts that +spring from it, we now can only faintly imagine. Wonderful as have been +the discoveries and inventions of this century, it is evident that we +have only begun to grasp that dominion which it is given to mind to +obtain over matter. Discovery and invention are born of leisure, of +material comfort, of freedom. These secured to all, and who shall say to +what command over nature man may not attain? + +It is not necessary that any one should be condemned to monotonous toil; +it is not necessary that any one should lack the wealth and the leisure +which permit the development of the faculties that raise man above the +animal. Mind, not muscle, is the motor of progress, the force which +compels nature and produces wealth. In turning men into machines we are +wasting the highest powers. Already in our society there is a favored +class who need take no thought for the morrow---what they shall eat, or +what they shall drink, or wherewithal they shall be clothed. And may it +not be that Christ was more than a dreamer when he told his disciples +that in that kingdom of justice for which he taught them to work and +pray this might be the condition of all? # First Principles -Whoever considers the political and social problems that -confront us, must see that they centre in the problem of the -distribution of wealth, and he must also see that, though -their solution may be simple, it must be radical. - -For every social wrong there must be a remedy. But the -remedy can be nothing less than the abolition of the wrong. -Half-way measures, mere ameliorations and secondary reforms, -can at any time accomplish little, and can in the long run -avail nothing. Our charities, our penal laws, our -restrictions and prohibitions, by which, with so little -avail, we endeavor to assuage poverty and check crime, what -are they, at the very best, but th6 device of the clown who, -having put the whole burden of his ass into one pannier, -sought to enable the poor animal to walk straight by loading -up the other pannier with stones. - -In New York, as I write, the newspapers and the churches are -calling for subscriptions to their "fresh air funds," that -little children may be taken for a day or for a week from -the deadly heat of stifling tenement rooms and given a -breath of the fresh breeze of sea shore or mountain; but -what little does it avail, when we take such children only -to return them to their previous conditions---conditions -which to many mean even worse than death of the body; -conditions which make it certain that of the lives that may -thus be saved, some are saved for the brothel and the -almshouse, and some for the penitentiary. We may go on -forever merely raising fresh air funds, and how great soever -be the funds we raise, the need will only grow, and -children---just such children as those of whom Christ said, -"Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for -I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold -the face of my Father"--will die like flies, so long as -poverty compels fathers and mothers to the life of the -squalid tenement-room. We may open "midnight missions" and -support "Christian homes for destitute young girls," but -what will they avail in the face of general conditions which -render so many men unable to support a wife; which make -young girls think it a privilege to be permitted to earn -three dollars by eighty-one hours' work, and which can drive -a mother to such despair that she will throw her babies from -a wharf of our Christian city and then leap into the river -herself! How vainly shall we endeavor to repress crime by -our barbarous punishment of the poorer class of criminals so -long as children are reared in the brutalizing influences of -poverty, so long as the bite of want drives men to crime? -How little better than idle is it for us to prohibit infant -labor in factories when the scale of wages is so low that it -will not enable fathers to support their families without -the earnings of their little children? How shall we try to -prevent political corruption by framing new checks and -setting one official to watch another official, when the -fear of want stimulates the lust for wealth, and the rich -thief is honored while honest poverty is despised? - -Nor yet could we accomplish any permanent equalization in -the distribution of wealth were we to forcibly take from -those who have and give to those who have not. We would do -great injustice; we would work great harm; but, from the -very moment of such a forced equalization, the tendencies -which show themselves in the present unjust inequalities -would begin to assert themselves again, and we would in a -little while have as gross inequalities as before. - -AVhat we must do if we would cure social disease and avert -social danger is to remove the causes which prevent the just -distribution of wealth. - -This work is only one of removal. It is not necessary for us -to frame elaborate and skillful plans for securing the just -distribution of wealth. For the just distribution of wealth -is manifestly the natural distribution of wealth, and -injustice in the distribution of wealth must, therefore, -result from artificial obstructions to this natural +Whoever considers the political and social problems that confront us, +must see that they centre in the problem of the distribution of wealth, +and he must also see that, though their solution may be simple, it must +be radical. + +For every social wrong there must be a remedy. But the remedy can be +nothing less than the abolition of the wrong. Half-way measures, mere +ameliorations and secondary reforms, can at any time accomplish little, +and can in the long run avail nothing. Our charities, our penal laws, +our restrictions and prohibitions, by which, with so little avail, we +endeavor to assuage poverty and check crime, what are they, at the very +best, but th6 device of the clown who, having put the whole burden of +his ass into one pannier, sought to enable the poor animal to walk +straight by loading up the other pannier with stones. + +In New York, as I write, the newspapers and the churches are calling for +subscriptions to their "fresh air funds," that little children may be +taken for a day or for a week from the deadly heat of stifling tenement +rooms and given a breath of the fresh breeze of sea shore or mountain; +but what little does it avail, when we take such children only to return +them to their previous conditions---conditions which to many mean even +worse than death of the body; conditions which make it certain that of +the lives that may thus be saved, some are saved for the brothel and the +almshouse, and some for the penitentiary. We may go on forever merely +raising fresh air funds, and how great soever be the funds we raise, the +need will only grow, and children---just such children as those of whom +Christ said, "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, +for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the +face of my Father"--will die like flies, so long as poverty compels +fathers and mothers to the life of the squalid tenement-room. We may +open "midnight missions" and support "Christian homes for destitute +young girls," but what will they avail in the face of general conditions +which render so many men unable to support a wife; which make young +girls think it a privilege to be permitted to earn three dollars by +eighty-one hours' work, and which can drive a mother to such despair +that she will throw her babies from a wharf of our Christian city and +then leap into the river herself! How vainly shall we endeavor to +repress crime by our barbarous punishment of the poorer class of +criminals so long as children are reared in the brutalizing influences +of poverty, so long as the bite of want drives men to crime? How little +better than idle is it for us to prohibit infant labor in factories when +the scale of wages is so low that it will not enable fathers to support +their families without the earnings of their little children? How shall +we try to prevent political corruption by framing new checks and setting +one official to watch another official, when the fear of want stimulates +the lust for wealth, and the rich thief is honored while honest poverty +is despised? + +Nor yet could we accomplish any permanent equalization in the +distribution of wealth were we to forcibly take from those who have and +give to those who have not. We would do great injustice; we would work +great harm; but, from the very moment of such a forced equalization, the +tendencies which show themselves in the present unjust inequalities +would begin to assert themselves again, and we would in a little while +have as gross inequalities as before. + +AVhat we must do if we would cure social disease and avert social danger +is to remove the causes which prevent the just distribution of wealth. + +This work is only one of removal. It is not necessary for us to frame +elaborate and skillful plans for securing the just distribution of +wealth. For the just distribution of wealth is manifestly the natural +distribution of wealth, and injustice in the distribution of wealth +must, therefore, result from artificial obstructions to this natural distribution. -As to what is the just distribution of wealth there can be -no dispute. It is that which gives wealth to him who makes -it, and secures wealth to him who saves it. So clearly is -this the only just distribution of wealth that even those -shallow writers who attempt to defend the existing order of -things are driven, by a logical necessity, to falsely assume -that those who now possess the larger share of wealth made -it and saved it, or got it by gift or by inheritance, from -those who did make it and save it; whereas the fact is, as I -have in a previous paper shown, that all these great -fortunes, whose corollaries are paupers and tramps, really -come from the sheer appropriation of the makings and savings -of other people. - -And that this just distribution of wealth is the natural -distribution of wealth can be plainly seen. Nature gives -wealth to labor, and to nothing but labor. There is, and -there can be, no article of wealth but such as labor has got -by making it, or searching for it, out of the raw material -which the Creator has given us to draw from. If there were -but one man in the world it is manifest that he could have -no more wealth than he was able to make and to save. This is -the natural order. And, no matter how great be the -population, or how elaborate the society, no one can have -more wealth than he produces and saves, unless he gets it as -a free gift from some one else, or by appropriating the -earnings of some one else. - -An English writer has divided all men into three -classes---workers, beggars and thieves. The classification -is not complimentary to the "upper classes" and the "better -classes," as they are accustomed to esteem themselves, yet -it is economically true. There are only three ways by which -any individual can get wealth---by work, by gift or by -theft. And, clearly, the reason why the workers get so -little is that the beggars and thieves get so much. "When a -man gets wealth that he does not produce, he necessarily -gets it at the expense of those who produce it. - -All we need do to secure a just distribution of wealth, is -to do that which all theories agree to be the primary -function of government---to secure to each the free use of -his own powers, limited only by the equal freedom of all -others; to secure to each the full enjoyment of his own -earnings, limited only by such contributions as he may be -fairly called upon to make for purposes of common benefit. -When we have done this we shall have done all that we can do -to make social institutions conform to the sense of justice -and to the natural order. - -I wish to emphasize this point, for there are those who -constantly talk and write as though whoever finds fault with -the present distribution of wealth were demanding that the -rich should be spoiled for the benefit of the poor; that the -idle should be taken care of at the expense of the -industrious, and that a false and impossible equality should -be created, which, by reducing every one to the same dead -level, would destroy all incentive to excel and bring -progress to a halt. - -In the reaction from the glaring injustice of present social -conditions, such wild schemes have been proposed, and still -find advocates. But to my way of thinking they are as -impracticable and repugnant as they can seem to those who -are loudest in their denunciations of "communism." I am not -willing to say that in the progress of humanity a state of -society may not be possible which shall realize the formula -of Louis Blanc, "From each according to his abilities; to -each according to his wants," for there exist to-day in the -religious Orders of the Catholic Church, associations which -maintain the communism of early Christianity. But it seems -to me that the only power by which such a state of society -can be attained and preserved is that which the framers of -the schemes I speak of generally ignore, even when they do -not directly antagonize---a deep, definite, intense, -religious faith, so clear, so burning as to latterly melt -away the thought of self---a general moral condition such as -that which the Methodists declare, under the name of -"sanctification," to be individually possible, in which the -dream of pristine innocence should become reality, and man, -so to speak, should again walk with God. - -But the possibility of such a state of society seems to me -in the present stage of human development a speculation -which comes within the higher domain of religious faith -rather than that with which the economist or practical -statesman can concern himself. That nature, as it is -apparent to us here, in this infinitesimal point in space -and time that we call the world, is the highest expression -of the power and purpose that called the universe into -being, what thoughtful man dare affirm? Yet it is manifest -that the only way by which man may attain higher things is -by conforming his conduct to those commandments which are as -obvious in his relations with his fellows and with external -nature as though they were graved by the finger of -Omnipotence upon tablets of imperishable stone. In the order -of moral development, Moses comes before Christ--"Thou shalt -not kill"; "Thou shalt not commit adultery"; "Thou shalt not -steal"; before "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" The -command "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the -corn," precedes the entrancing vision of universal peace, in -which even Nature's rapine shall cease, when the lion shall -lay down with the lamb and a little child shall lead them. - -That justice is the highest quality in the moral hierarchy I -do not say; but that it is the first. That which is above -justice must be based on justice, and include justice, and -be reached through justice. It is not by accident that, in -the Hebraic religious development which through Christianity -we have inherited, the declaration, "The Lord thy God is a -just God," precedes the sweeter revelation of a God of Love. -Until the eternal justice is perceived, the eternal love -must be hidden. As the individual must be just before he can -be truly generous, so must human society be based upon -justice before it can be based on benevolence. - -This, and this alone, is what I contend for---that our -social institutions be conformed to justice; to those -natural and eternal principles of right that are so obvious -that no one can deny or dispute them---so obvious that by a -law of the human mind even those who try to defend social -injustice must invoke them. This, and this alone, I contend -for---that he who makes should have; that he who saves -should enjoy. I ask in behalf of the poor nothing whatever -that properly belongs to the rich. Instead of weakening and -confusing the idea of property, I would surround it with -stronger sanctions. Instead of lessening the incentive to -the production of wealth, I would make it more powerful by -making the reward more certain. Whatever any man has added -to the common stock of wealth, or has received of the free -will of him who did produce it, let that be his as against -all the world---his to use or to give, to do with it -whatever he may please, so long as such use does not -interfere with the equal freedom of others. For my part, I -would put no limit on acquisition. No matter how many -millions any man can get by methods which do not involve the -robbery of others---they are his: let him have them. I would -not even ask him for charity, or have it dinned into his -ears that it is his duty to help the poor. That is his own -affair. Let him do as he pleases with his own, without -restriction and without suggestion. If he gets without -taking from others, and uses without hurting others, what he -does with his wealth is his own business and his own -responsibility. - -I reverence the spirit that, in such cities as London and -New York, organizes such great charities and gives to them -such magnificent endowments, but that there is need for such -charities proves to me that it is a slander upon Christ to -call such cities Christian cities. I honor the Astors for -having provided for New York the Astor Library, and Peter -Cooper for having given it the Cooper Institute; but it is a -shame and a disgrace to the people of New York that such -things should be left to private beneficence. And he who -struggles for that recognition of justice which, by securing -to each his own, will make it needless to beg for alms from -one for another, is doing a greater and a higher work than -he who builds churches, or endows hospitals, or founds -colleges and libraries. This justice, which would first -secure to each his own earnings, is, it seems to me, of that -higher than almsgiving, which the Apostle had in mind, when -he said, "*Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, -and though I give my body to he burned, and have not +As to what is the just distribution of wealth there can be no dispute. +It is that which gives wealth to him who makes it, and secures wealth to +him who saves it. So clearly is this the only just distribution of +wealth that even those shallow writers who attempt to defend the +existing order of things are driven, by a logical necessity, to falsely +assume that those who now possess the larger share of wealth made it and +saved it, or got it by gift or by inheritance, from those who did make +it and save it; whereas the fact is, as I have in a previous paper +shown, that all these great fortunes, whose corollaries are paupers and +tramps, really come from the sheer appropriation of the makings and +savings of other people. + +And that this just distribution of wealth is the natural distribution of +wealth can be plainly seen. Nature gives wealth to labor, and to nothing +but labor. There is, and there can be, no article of wealth but such as +labor has got by making it, or searching for it, out of the raw material +which the Creator has given us to draw from. If there were but one man +in the world it is manifest that he could have no more wealth than he +was able to make and to save. This is the natural order. And, no matter +how great be the population, or how elaborate the society, no one can +have more wealth than he produces and saves, unless he gets it as a free +gift from some one else, or by appropriating the earnings of some one +else. + +An English writer has divided all men into three classes---workers, +beggars and thieves. The classification is not complimentary to the +"upper classes" and the "better classes," as they are accustomed to +esteem themselves, yet it is economically true. There are only three +ways by which any individual can get wealth---by work, by gift or by +theft. And, clearly, the reason why the workers get so little is that +the beggars and thieves get so much. "When a man gets wealth that he +does not produce, he necessarily gets it at the expense of those who +produce it. + +All we need do to secure a just distribution of wealth, is to do that +which all theories agree to be the primary function of government---to +secure to each the free use of his own powers, limited only by the equal +freedom of all others; to secure to each the full enjoyment of his own +earnings, limited only by such contributions as he may be fairly called +upon to make for purposes of common benefit. When we have done this we +shall have done all that we can do to make social institutions conform +to the sense of justice and to the natural order. + +I wish to emphasize this point, for there are those who constantly talk +and write as though whoever finds fault with the present distribution of +wealth were demanding that the rich should be spoiled for the benefit of +the poor; that the idle should be taken care of at the expense of the +industrious, and that a false and impossible equality should be created, +which, by reducing every one to the same dead level, would destroy all +incentive to excel and bring progress to a halt. + +In the reaction from the glaring injustice of present social conditions, +such wild schemes have been proposed, and still find advocates. But to +my way of thinking they are as impracticable and repugnant as they can +seem to those who are loudest in their denunciations of "communism." I +am not willing to say that in the progress of humanity a state of +society may not be possible which shall realize the formula of Louis +Blanc, "From each according to his abilities; to each according to his +wants," for there exist to-day in the religious Orders of the Catholic +Church, associations which maintain the communism of early Christianity. +But it seems to me that the only power by which such a state of society +can be attained and preserved is that which the framers of the schemes I +speak of generally ignore, even when they do not directly antagonize---a +deep, definite, intense, religious faith, so clear, so burning as to +latterly melt away the thought of self---a general moral condition such +as that which the Methodists declare, under the name of +"sanctification," to be individually possible, in which the dream of +pristine innocence should become reality, and man, so to speak, should +again walk with God. + +But the possibility of such a state of society seems to me in the +present stage of human development a speculation which comes within the +higher domain of religious faith rather than that with which the +economist or practical statesman can concern himself. That nature, as it +is apparent to us here, in this infinitesimal point in space and time +that we call the world, is the highest expression of the power and +purpose that called the universe into being, what thoughtful man dare +affirm? Yet it is manifest that the only way by which man may attain +higher things is by conforming his conduct to those commandments which +are as obvious in his relations with his fellows and with external +nature as though they were graved by the finger of Omnipotence upon +tablets of imperishable stone. In the order of moral development, Moses +comes before Christ--"Thou shalt not kill"; "Thou shalt not commit +adultery"; "Thou shalt not steal"; before "Thou shalt love thy neighbor +as thyself" The command "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out +the corn," precedes the entrancing vision of universal peace, in which +even Nature's rapine shall cease, when the lion shall lay down with the +lamb and a little child shall lead them. + +That justice is the highest quality in the moral hierarchy I do not say; +but that it is the first. That which is above justice must be based on +justice, and include justice, and be reached through justice. It is not +by accident that, in the Hebraic religious development which through +Christianity we have inherited, the declaration, "The Lord thy God is a +just God," precedes the sweeter revelation of a God of Love. Until the +eternal justice is perceived, the eternal love must be hidden. As the +individual must be just before he can be truly generous, so must human +society be based upon justice before it can be based on benevolence. + +This, and this alone, is what I contend for---that our social +institutions be conformed to justice; to those natural and eternal +principles of right that are so obvious that no one can deny or dispute +them---so obvious that by a law of the human mind even those who try to +defend social injustice must invoke them. This, and this alone, I +contend for---that he who makes should have; that he who saves should +enjoy. I ask in behalf of the poor nothing whatever that properly +belongs to the rich. Instead of weakening and confusing the idea of +property, I would surround it with stronger sanctions. Instead of +lessening the incentive to the production of wealth, I would make it +more powerful by making the reward more certain. Whatever any man has +added to the common stock of wealth, or has received of the free will of +him who did produce it, let that be his as against all the world---his +to use or to give, to do with it whatever he may please, so long as such +use does not interfere with the equal freedom of others. For my part, I +would put no limit on acquisition. No matter how many millions any man +can get by methods which do not involve the robbery of others---they are +his: let him have them. I would not even ask him for charity, or have it +dinned into his ears that it is his duty to help the poor. That is his +own affair. Let him do as he pleases with his own, without restriction +and without suggestion. If he gets without taking from others, and uses +without hurting others, what he does with his wealth is his own business +and his own responsibility. + +I reverence the spirit that, in such cities as London and New York, +organizes such great charities and gives to them such magnificent +endowments, but that there is need for such charities proves to me that +it is a slander upon Christ to call such cities Christian cities. I +honor the Astors for having provided for New York the Astor Library, and +Peter Cooper for having given it the Cooper Institute; but it is a shame +and a disgrace to the people of New York that such things should be left +to private beneficence. And he who struggles for that recognition of +justice which, by securing to each his own, will make it needless to beg +for alms from one for another, is doing a greater and a higher work than +he who builds churches, or endows hospitals, or founds colleges and +libraries. This justice, which would first secure to each his own +earnings, is, it seems to me, of that higher than almsgiving, which the +Apostle had in mind, when he said, "*Though I bestow all my goods to +feed the poor, and though I give my body to he burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing*." -Let US first ask what are the natural rights of men, and -endeavor to secure them, before we propose either to beg or -to pillage. - -In what succeeds I shall consider what are the natural -rights of men, and how, wider present social adjustments, -they are ignored and denied. This is made necessary by the -nature of this inquiry. But I do not wish to call upon those -my voice may reach to demand their own rights, so much as to -call upon them to secure the rights of others more helpless. -I believe that the idea of duty is more potent for social -improvement than the idea of interest; that in sympathy is a -stronger social force than in selfishness. I believe that -any great social improvement must spring from, and be -animated by, that spirit which seeks to make life better, -nobler, happier for others, rather than by that spirit which -only seeks more enjoyment for itself For the Mammon of -Injustice can always buy the selfish whenever it may think -it worth while to pay enough; but unselfishness it cannot -buy. - -In the idea of the incarnation---of the God voluntarily -descending to the help of men, which is embodied not merely -in Christianity, but in other great religions---lies, I -sometimes think, a deeper truth than perhaps even the -churches teach. This is certain, that the deliverers, the -liberators, the advancers of humanity, have always been -those who were moved by the sight of injustice and misery -rather than those spurred by their own suffering. As it was -a Moses, learned in all the lore of the Egyptians, and free -to the Court of Pharaoh, and not a tasked slave, forced to -make bricks without straw, who led the Children of Israel -from the House of Bondage: as it was the Gracchi, of -patrician blood and fortune, who struggled to the death -against the land-grabbing system which finally destroyed -Rome, as it must, should it go on, in time destroy this -republic. So has it always been that the oppressed, the -degraded, the downtrodden have been freed and elevated -rather by the efforts and the sacrifices of those to whom -fortune had been more kind than by their own strength. For -the more fully men have been deprived of their natural -rights, the less their power to regain them. The more men +Let US first ask what are the natural rights of men, and endeavor to +secure them, before we propose either to beg or to pillage. + +In what succeeds I shall consider what are the natural rights of men, +and how, wider present social adjustments, they are ignored and denied. +This is made necessary by the nature of this inquiry. But I do not wish +to call upon those my voice may reach to demand their own rights, so +much as to call upon them to secure the rights of others more helpless. +I believe that the idea of duty is more potent for social improvement +than the idea of interest; that in sympathy is a stronger social force +than in selfishness. I believe that any great social improvement must +spring from, and be animated by, that spirit which seeks to make life +better, nobler, happier for others, rather than by that spirit which +only seeks more enjoyment for itself For the Mammon of Injustice can +always buy the selfish whenever it may think it worth while to pay +enough; but unselfishness it cannot buy. + +In the idea of the incarnation---of the God voluntarily descending to +the help of men, which is embodied not merely in Christianity, but in +other great religions---lies, I sometimes think, a deeper truth than +perhaps even the churches teach. This is certain, that the deliverers, +the liberators, the advancers of humanity, have always been those who +were moved by the sight of injustice and misery rather than those +spurred by their own suffering. As it was a Moses, learned in all the +lore of the Egyptians, and free to the Court of Pharaoh, and not a +tasked slave, forced to make bricks without straw, who led the Children +of Israel from the House of Bondage: as it was the Gracchi, of patrician +blood and fortune, who struggled to the death against the land-grabbing +system which finally destroyed Rome, as it must, should it go on, in +time destroy this republic. So has it always been that the oppressed, +the degraded, the downtrodden have been freed and elevated rather by the +efforts and the sacrifices of those to whom fortune had been more kind +than by their own strength. For the more fully men have been deprived of +their natural rights, the less their power to regain them. The more men need help, the less can they help themselves. The sentiment to which I would appeal is not envy, nor yet -self-interest, but that nobler sentiment which found strong, -though rude, expression in that battle-hymn which rang -through the land when a great wrong was going down in blood: +self-interest, but that nobler sentiment which found strong, though +rude, expression in that battle-hymn which rang through the land when a +great wrong was going down in blood: -> "In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the -> sea, +> "In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, > > With a glory in His bosom to transfigure you and me, > -> *As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men -> free!*" - -And what is there for which life gives us opportunity that -can be compared with the effort to do what we may, be it -ever so little, to improve social conditions and enable -other lives to reach fuller, nobler development. Old John -Brown, dying the death of the felon, launched into eternity -with pinioned arms and the kiss of the slave child on his -lips---was not his a greater life and a grander death than -though his years had been given to self-seeking? Did he not -take with him more than the man who grabs for wealth and -*leaves* his millions? Envy the rich! Who that realizes that -he must some day wake up in the beyond can envy those who -spend their strength to gather what they cannot use here and -cannot take away? The only thing certain to any of us is -death. "Like the swallow darting through thy hall, such, O -King, is the life of man!" We come from where we know not; -we go---who shall say? Impenetrable darkness behind, and -gathering shades before. What, when our time comes, does it -matter whether we have fared daintily or not, whether we -have worn soft raiment or not, whether we leave a great -fortune or nothing at all, whether we shall have reaped -honors or been despised, have been counted learned or -ignorant---as compared with how we may have used that talent -which has been intrusted to us for the Master's service? -What shall it matter, when eyeballs glaze and ears grow -dull, if out of the darkness may stretch a hand, and into -the silence may come a voice: - -"*Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been -faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many -things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!*" - -I shall speak of rights, I shall speak of utility, I shall -speak of interest; I shall meet on their chosen ground those -who say that the largest production of wealth is the -greatest good, and material progress the highest aim. -Nevertheless, I appreciate the truth embodied in these words -of Mazzini to the working-classes of Italy, and would echo -them: - -> "Workingmen, brothers! When Christ came and changed the -> face of the world, he spoke not of rights to the rich, who -> needed not to achieve them; nor to the poor, who would -> doubtless have abused them, in imitation of the rich; he -> spoke not of utility, nor of interest, to a people whom -> interest and utility had corrupted; he spoke of duty, he -> spoke of love, of sacrifice and of faith; and he said that -> they should be first among all who had contributed most by -> their labor to the good of all, +> *As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free!*" + +And what is there for which life gives us opportunity that can be +compared with the effort to do what we may, be it ever so little, to +improve social conditions and enable other lives to reach fuller, nobler +development. Old John Brown, dying the death of the felon, launched into +eternity with pinioned arms and the kiss of the slave child on his +lips---was not his a greater life and a grander death than though his +years had been given to self-seeking? Did he not take with him more than +the man who grabs for wealth and *leaves* his millions? Envy the rich! +Who that realizes that he must some day wake up in the beyond can envy +those who spend their strength to gather what they cannot use here and +cannot take away? The only thing certain to any of us is death. "Like +the swallow darting through thy hall, such, O King, is the life of man!" +We come from where we know not; we go---who shall say? Impenetrable +darkness behind, and gathering shades before. What, when our time comes, +does it matter whether we have fared daintily or not, whether we have +worn soft raiment or not, whether we leave a great fortune or nothing at +all, whether we shall have reaped honors or been despised, have been +counted learned or ignorant---as compared with how we may have used that +talent which has been intrusted to us for the Master's service? What +shall it matter, when eyeballs glaze and ears grow dull, if out of the +darkness may stretch a hand, and into the silence may come a voice: + +"*Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful +over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou +into the joy of thy Lord!*" + +I shall speak of rights, I shall speak of utility, I shall speak of +interest; I shall meet on their chosen ground those who say that the +largest production of wealth is the greatest good, and material progress +the highest aim. Nevertheless, I appreciate the truth embodied in these +words of Mazzini to the working-classes of Italy, and would echo them: + +> "Workingmen, brothers! When Christ came and changed the face of the +> world, he spoke not of rights to the rich, who needed not to achieve +> them; nor to the poor, who would doubtless have abused them, in +> imitation of the rich; he spoke not of utility, nor of interest, to a +> people whom interest and utility had corrupted; he spoke of duty, he +> spoke of love, of sacrifice and of faith; and he said that they should +> be first among all who had contributed most by their labor to the good +> of all, > -> "And the word of Christ breathed in the ear of a society -> in which all true life was extinct; recalled it to -> existence, conquered the millions, conquered the world, -> and caused the education of the human race to ascend one -> degree on the scale of progress. +> "And the word of Christ breathed in the ear of a society in which all +> true life was extinct; recalled it to existence, conquered the +> millions, conquered the world, and caused the education of the human +> race to ascend one degree on the scale of progress. > -> "Workingmen! We live in an epoch similar to that of -> Christ. We live in the midst of a society as corrupt as -> that of the Roman Empire, feeling in our inmost souls the -> need of reanimating and transforming it, and of uniting -> all its various members in one sole faith, beneath one -> sole law, in one sole aim---the free and progressive -> development of all the faculties of which God has given -> the germ to his creatures. We seek the kingdom of God *on -> earth as it is in heaven*, or, rather, that earth may -> become a preparation for heaven, and society an endeavor +> "Workingmen! We live in an epoch similar to that of Christ. We live in +> the midst of a society as corrupt as that of the Roman Empire, feeling +> in our inmost souls the need of reanimating and transforming it, and +> of uniting all its various members in one sole faith, beneath one sole +> law, in one sole aim---the free and progressive development of all the +> faculties of which God has given the germ to his creatures. We seek +> the kingdom of God *on earth as it is in heaven*, or, rather, that +> earth may become a preparation for heaven, and society an endeavor > after the progressive realization of the divine idea. > -> "But Christ's every act was the visible representation of -> the faith he preached; and around him stood apostles who -> incarnated in their actions the faith they had accepted. -> Be you such and you will conquer. Preach duty to the -> classes about you, and fulfill, as far as in you lies, -> your own. Preach virtue, sacrifice and love; and be -> yourselves virtuous, loving and ready for self-sacrifice. -> Speak your thoughts boldly, and make known your wants -> courageously; but without anger, without reaction, and -> without threats. The strongest menace, if indeed there be -> those for whom threats are necessary, will be the -> firmness, not the irritation, of your speech." +> "But Christ's every act was the visible representation of the faith he +> preached; and around him stood apostles who incarnated in their +> actions the faith they had accepted. Be you such and you will conquer. +> Preach duty to the classes about you, and fulfill, as far as in you +> lies, your own. Preach virtue, sacrifice and love; and be yourselves +> virtuous, loving and ready for self-sacrifice. Speak your thoughts +> boldly, and make known your wants courageously; but without anger, +> without reaction, and without threats. The strongest menace, if indeed +> there be those for whom threats are necessary, will be the firmness, +> not the irritation, of your speech." # The Rights of Man -There are those who, when it suits their purpose, say that -there are no natural rights, but that all rights spring from -the grant of the sovereign political power. It were waste of -time to argue with such persons. There are some facts so -obvious as to be beyond the necessity of argument. And one -of these facts, attested by universal consciousness, is that -there are rights as between man and man which existed before -the formation of government, and which continue to exist in -spite of the abuse of government; that there is a higher law -than any human law---to wit, the law of the Creator, -impressed upon and revealed through nature, which is before -and above human laws, and upon conformity to which all human -laws must depend for their validity. To deny this is to -assert that there is no standard whatever by which the -rightfulness or wrongfulness of laws and institutions can be -measured; to assert that there can be no actions in -themselves right and none in themselves wrong; to assert -that an edict which commanded mothers to kill their children -should receive the same respect as a law prohibiting +There are those who, when it suits their purpose, say that there are no +natural rights, but that all rights spring from the grant of the +sovereign political power. It were waste of time to argue with such +persons. There are some facts so obvious as to be beyond the necessity +of argument. And one of these facts, attested by universal +consciousness, is that there are rights as between man and man which +existed before the formation of government, and which continue to exist +in spite of the abuse of government; that there is a higher law than any +human law---to wit, the law of the Creator, impressed upon and revealed +through nature, which is before and above human laws, and upon +conformity to which all human laws must depend for their validity. To +deny this is to assert that there is no standard whatever by which the +rightfulness or wrongfulness of laws and institutions can be measured; +to assert that there can be no actions in themselves right and none in +themselves wrong; to assert that an edict which commanded mothers to +kill their children should receive the same respect as a law prohibiting infanticide. -These natural rights, this higher law, form the only true -and sure basis for social organization. Just as, if we would -construct a successful machine, we must conform to physical -laws, such as the law of gravitation, the law of combustion, -the law of expansion, etc.; just as, if we would maintain -bodily health, we must conform to the laws of physiology; -so, if we would have a peaceful and healthful social state, -we must conform our institutions to the great moral -laws---laws to which we are absolutely subject, and which -are as much above our control as are the laws of matter and -of motion. And as, when we find that a machine will not -work, we infer that in its construction some law of physics -has been ignored or defied, so when we find social disease -and political evils may we infer that in the organization of -society moral law has been defied and the natural rights of -man have been ignored. - -These natural rights of man are thus set forth in the -American Declaration of Independence as the basis upon which -alone legitimate government can rest: - -> "We hold these truths to be self-evident---that all men -> are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator -> with certain unalienable rights; that among these are -> life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to -> secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, -> deriving their just powers from the consent of the -> governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes -> destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people -> to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new -> government, laying its foundations on such principles, and -> organizing its powers in such form, as shall seem to them -> most likely to affect their safety and happiness." - -So does the preamble to the Constitution of the United -States appeal to the same principles: - -> "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a -> more perfect union, *establish justice*, insure domestic -> tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the -> general welfare, and *secure the blessings of liberty to -> ourselves and our posterity* do ordain and establish this -> Constitution for the United States of America." - -And so, too, is the same fundamental and self-evident truth -set forth in that grand Declaration of the Eights of Man and -of Citizens, issued by the National Assembly of France in -1789: - -> "The representatives of the people of France, formed into -> a National Assembly, *considering that ignorance, neglect, -> or contempt of human rights are the sole causes of public -> misfortunes and corruptions of government*, have resolved -> to set forth, in a solemn declaration, those natural, -> imprescriptible and inalienable rights," and do"recognize -> and declare, in the presence of the Supreme Being, and -> with the hope of His blessing and favor, the following -> sacred rights of men and of citizens: +These natural rights, this higher law, form the only true and sure basis +for social organization. Just as, if we would construct a successful +machine, we must conform to physical laws, such as the law of +gravitation, the law of combustion, the law of expansion, etc.; just as, +if we would maintain bodily health, we must conform to the laws of +physiology; so, if we would have a peaceful and healthful social state, +we must conform our institutions to the great moral laws---laws to which +we are absolutely subject, and which are as much above our control as +are the laws of matter and of motion. And as, when we find that a +machine will not work, we infer that in its construction some law of +physics has been ignored or defied, so when we find social disease and +political evils may we infer that in the organization of society moral +law has been defied and the natural rights of man have been ignored. + +These natural rights of man are thus set forth in the American +Declaration of Independence as the basis upon which alone legitimate +government can rest: + +> "We hold these truths to be self-evident---that all men are created +> equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable +> rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of +> happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted +> among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the +> governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of +> these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, +> and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such +> principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as shall seem to +> them most likely to affect their safety and happiness." + +So does the preamble to the Constitution of the United States appeal to +the same principles: + +> "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect +> union, *establish justice*, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for +> the common defense, promote the general welfare, and *secure the +> blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity* do ordain and +> establish this Constitution for the United States of America." + +And so, too, is the same fundamental and self-evident truth set forth in +that grand Declaration of the Eights of Man and of Citizens, issued by +the National Assembly of France in 1789: + +> "The representatives of the people of France, formed into a National +> Assembly, *considering that ignorance, neglect, or contempt of human +> rights are the sole causes of public misfortunes and corruptions of +> government*, have resolved to set forth, in a solemn declaration, +> those natural, imprescriptible and inalienable rights," and +> do"recognize and declare, in the presence of the Supreme Being, and +> with the hope of His blessing and favor, the following sacred rights +> of men and of citizens: > -> "1. Men are born and always continue free and equal in -> respect of their rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, -> can only be founded on public utility. +> "1. Men are born and always continue free and equal in respect of +> their rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can only be founded on +> public utility. > -> "2. The end of all political associations is the -> preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of -> man, and these rights are liberty, property, security, and -> resistance of oppression." - -It is one thing to assert the eternal principles, as they -are asserted in times of upheaval, when men of convictions -and of the courage of their convictions come to the front, -and another thing for a people just emerging from the night -of ignorance and superstition, and enslaved by habits of -thought formed by injustice and oppression, to adhere to and -carry them out. The French people have not been true to -these principles, nor yet, with far greater advantages, have -we. And so, though the ancient *régime*, with its blasphemy -of "right divine," its Bastille and its *letters de cachet*, -have been abolished in France; there have come red terror -and white terror. Anarchy masquerading as Freedom, and -Imperialism deriving its sanction from universal suffrage, -culminating in such a poor thing as the French Republic of -to-day. And here, with our virgin soil, with our exemption -from foreign complications, and our freedom from powerful -and hostile neighbors, all we can show is another poor thing -of a Republic, with its rings and its bosses, its railroad -kings controlling sovereign states, its gangrene of -corruption eating steadily toward the political heart, its -tramps and its strikes, its ostentation of ill-gotten -wealth, its children toiling in factories, and its women -working out their lives for bread! - -It is possible for men to see the truth, and assert the -truth, and to hear and repeat, again and again, formulas -embodying the truth, without realizing all that that truth -involves. Men who signed the Declaration of Independence, or -applauded the Declaration of Independence, men who year -after year read it, and heard it, and honored it, did so -without thinking that the eternal principles of right which -it invoked condemned the existence of negro slavery as well -as the tyranny of George III. And many who, awakening to the -fuller truth, asserted the unalienable rights of man against -chattel slavery, did not see that these rights involved far -more than the denial of property in human flesh and blood; -and as vainly imagined that they had fully asserted them -when chattel slaves had been emancipated and given the -suffrage, as their fathers vainly imagined they had fully -asserted them, when they threw ofl?" allegiance to the -English king and established here a democratic republic. - -The common belief of Americans of to-day is that among us -the equal and unalienable rights of man are now all -acknowledged, while as for poverty, crime, low wages, "over -production," political corruption, and so on, they are to be -referred to the nature of things---that is to say, if any -one presses for a more definite answer, they exist because -it is the will of God, the Creator, that they should exist. -Yet I believe that these evils are demonstrably due to our -failure to fully acknowledge the equal and unalienable -rights with which, as asserted as a self-evident truth by -the Declaration of Independence, all men have been endowed -by God, their Creator. I believe the National Assembly of -France were right when, a century ago, inspired by the same -spirit that gave us political freedom, they declared that -the great cause of public misfortunes and corruptions of -government is ignorance, neglect, or contempt of human -rights. And just as the famine which was then decimating -France, the bankruptcy and corruption of her Government, the -brutish degradation of her working classes, and the -demoralization of her aristocracy, were directly traceable -to the denial of the equal, natural and imprescriptible -rights of men, so now the social and political problems -which menace the American republic, in common with the whole -civilized world, spring from the same cause. - -Let us consider the matter. The equal, natural and -unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of -happiness, does it not involve the right of each to the free -use of his powers in making a living for himself and his -family, limited only by the equal right of all others? Does -it not require that each shall be free to make, to save and -to enjoy what wealth he may, without interference with the -equal rights of others; that no one shall be compelled to -give forced labor to another, or to yield up his earnings to -another; that no one shall be permitted to extort from -another labor or earnings? All this goes without the saying. -Any recognition of the equal right to life and liberty which -would deny the right to property---the right of a man to his -labor and to the full fruits of his labor, would be mockery. - -But that is just what we do. Our so-called recognition of -the equal and natural rights of man is to large classes of -our people nothing but a mockery, and as social pressure -increases, is becoming a more bitter mockery to larger -classes, because our institutions fail to secure the rights -of men to their labor and the fruits of their labor. - -That this denial of a primary human right is the cause of -poverty on the one side and of overgrown fortunes on the -other, and of all the waste and demoralization and -corruption that flow from the grossly unequal distribution -of wealth, may be easily seen. - -As I am speaking of conditions general oyer the whole -civilized world, let us first take the case of another -country, for we can sometimes see the faults of our -neighbors more clearly than our own. England, the country -from which we derive our language and institutions, is -behind us in the formal recognition of political liberty; -but there is as much industrial liberty there as here---and -in some respects more, for England, though she has not yet -reached free trade, has got rid of the "protective" swindle, -which we still hug. And the English people---poor -things---are, as a whole, satisfied of their freedom, and -boast of it. They think, for it has been so long preached to -them that most of them honestly believe it, that Englishmen -are the freest people in the world, and they sing "Britons -never shall be slaves," as though it were indeed true that -slaves could not breathe British air. - -Let us take a man of the masses of this people---a -"free-born Englishman," coming of long generations of -"free-born Englishmen," in Wiltshire or Devonshire or -Somersetshire, on soil which, if you could trace his -genealogy, you would find his fathers have been tilling from -early Saxon times. He grows to manhood, we will not stop to -inquire how, and, as is the natural order, he takes himself -a wife. Here he stands, a man among his fellows, in a world -in which the Creator has ordained that he should get a -living by his labor. He has wants, and as, in the natural -order, children come to him, he will have more; but he has -in brain and muscle the natural power to satisfy these wants -from the storehouse of nature. He knows how to dig and plow, -to sow and to reap, and there is the rich soil, ready now, -as it was thousands of years ago, to give back wealth to -labor. The rain falls and the sun shines, and as the planet -circles around her orbit, Spring follows Winter, and Summer -succeeds Spring. It is this man's first and clearest right -to earn his living, to transmute his labor into wealth, and -to possess and enjoy that wealth for his own sustenance and -benefit, and for the sustenance and benefit of those whom -nature places in dependence on him. He has no right to -demand any one else's earnings, nor has any one else a right -to demand any portion of his earnings. He has no right to -compel any one else to work for his benefit; nor have others -a right to demand that he shall work for their benefit. This -right to himself, to the use of his own powers and the -results of his own exertions, is a natural, self-evident -right, which, as a matter of principle, no one can dispute, -save upon the blasphemous contention that some men were -created to work for other men. And this primary, natural -right to his own labor, and to the fruits of his own labor, -accorded, this man can abundantly provide for his own needs -and for the needs of his family. His labor will, in the -natural order, produce wealth, which, exchanged in -accordance with mutual desires for wealth which others have -produced, will supply his family with all the material -comforts of life, and in the absence of serious accident, -enable him to bring up his children, and lay by such a -surplus that he and his wife may take their rest, and enjoy -their sunset hour in the declining years when strength shall -fail, without asking any one's alms or being beholden to any -bounty save that of "Our Father which art in heaven." - -But what is the fact? The fact is, that the right of this -"free-born Englishman" to his own labor and the fruits of -his labor is denied as fully and completely as though he -were made by law a slave; that he is compelled to work for -the enrichment of others as truly as though English law had -made him the property of an owner. The law of the land does -not declare that he is a slave: on the contrary, it formally -declares that he is a free man---free to work for himself, -and free to enjoy the fruits of his labor. But a man cannot -labor.without something to labor on, any more than he can -eat without having something to eat. It is not in human -powers to make something out of nothing. This is not -contemplated in the creative scheme. Nature tells us that if -we will not work we must starve; but at the same time -supplies us with everything necessary to work. Food, -clothing, shelter, all the articles that minister to desire -and that we call wealth, can be produced by labor, but only -when the raw material of which they must be composed is -drawn from the land. - -To drop a man in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and tell -him he is at liberty to walk ashore, would not be more -bitter irony than to place a man where all the land is -appropriated as the property of other people and to tell him -that he is a free man, at liberty to work for himself and to -enjoy his own earnings. That is the situation in which our -Englishman finds himself. He is just as free as he would be -were he suspended over a precipice while somebody else held -a sharp knife to the rope; just as free as if thirsting in a -desert he found the only spring for miles walled and guarded -by armed men who told him he could not drink unless h.Q -freely contracted with them on their terms. Had this -Englishman lived generations ago, in the time of his Saxon -ancestors, he would, when he became of age, and had taken a -wife, been allotted his house-plot and his seed-plot; he -would have had an equal share in the great fields which the -villagers cultivated together, he would have been free to -gather his fagots or take game in the common wood, or to -graze his beasts on the common pasturage. Even a few -generations ago, after the land-grabbing that began with the -Tudors had gone on for some centuries, he would have found -in yet existing commons some faint survival of the ancient -principle that this planet was intended for all men, not for -some men. But now he finds every foot of land inclosed -against him. The fields which his forefathers tilled, share -and share alike, are the private property of "my lord," who -rents it out to large farmers on terms so high that, to get -ordinary interest on their capital, they must grind the -faces of their laborers; the ancient woodland is inclosed by -a high wall, topped with broken glass, and is patrolled by -gamekeepers with loaded guns and the authority to take any -intruder before the magistrate, who will send him to prison; -the old-time common has become "my lord's" great park, on -which *his* fat cattle graze, and *his* supple-limbed deer -daintily browse. Even the old footpaths that gave short cuts -from road to road, through hazel-thicket and by tinkling -brook, are now walled in. - -But this "free-born Englishman," this Briton who never shall -be a slave, cannot live without land. He must find some bit -of the earth's surface on which he and his wife can rest, -which they may call "home." But, save the high-roads, there -is not as much of their native land as they may cover with -the soles of their feet, that they can use without some -other human creature's permission; and on the high-road they -would not be suffered to lie down, still less to make them a -bower of leaves. So, to to get living space in his native -land, our "free-born Englishman" must consent to work so -many days in the month for one of the "owners" of England, -or, what amounts to the same thing, he must sell his labor, -or the fruits of his labor, to some third party and pay the -"owner" of some particular part of the planet for the -privilege of living on the planet. Having thus sacrificed a -part of his labor to get permission from another -fellow-creature to live, if he can, our free-born Englishman -must next go to work to procure food, clothing, etc. But as -he cannot get to work without land to work on, he is -compelled, instead of going to work for himself, to sell his -labor to those who have land on such terms as they please, -and those terms are only enough to just support life in the -most miserable fashion---that is to saj, all the produce of -his labor is taken from him, and lie is given back out of it -just what the hardest owner would be forced to give the -slave---enough to support life on. He lives in a miserable -hovel, with its broken floor on the bare ground, and an -ill-kept thatch, through which the rain comes. He works from -morning to night, and his wife must do the same; and their -children, as soon almost as they can walk, must also go to -work, pulling weeds, or scaring away crows, or doing such -like jobs for the landowner, who graciously lets them live -and work on his land. Illness often comes, and death too -often. Then there is no recourse but the parish or "My Lady -Bountiful," the wife or daughter, or almoner of "the God -Almighty of the county-side," as Tennyson calls him,---the -owner (if not the maker) of the world in these parts, who -doles out in insulting and degrading charity some little -stint of the wealth appropriated from the labor of this -family and of other such families. If he does not "order -himself lowly and reverently to all his betters"; if he does -not pull his poor hat off his sheepish head whenever "my -lord" or "my lady," or "his honor," or any of their -understrappers, go by; he does not bring up his children in -the humility which these people think proper and becoming in -the "lower classes"; if there is suspicion that he may have -helped himself to an apple or snared a hare, or slyly hooked -a fish from the stream, this "free-born Englishman" loses -charity and loses work. He must go on the parish or starve. -He becomes bent and stiff before his time. His wife is old -and worn, when she ought to be in her prime of strength and -beauty. His girls---such as live---marry such as he, to lead -such lives as their mother's, or, perhaps, are seduced by -their "betters," and sent, with a few pounds, to a great -town, to die in a few years in brothel, or hospital, or -prison. His boys grow up ignorant and brutish; they cannot -support him when he grows old, even if they would, for they -do not get back enough of the proceeds of their labor. The -only refuge for the pair in their old age is the almshouse, -where, for shame to let them starve on the roadside, these -worked-out slaves are kept to die,---where the man is -separated from the wife, and the old couple, over whom the -parson of the church, by law established, has said, "Whom -God hath joined together let no man put asunder," lead, -apart from each other, a prison-like existence until death -comes to their relief. - -In what is the condition of such a "free-born Englishman" as -this, better than that of a slave? Yet if this is not a fair -picture of the condition of the English agricultural -laborers, it is only because I have not dwelt upon the -darkest shades---the sodden ignorance and brutality, the low -morality of these degraded and debased classes. In quantity -and quality of food, in clothing and housing, in ease and -recreation, and in morality, there can be no doubt that the -average Southern slave was better off than the average -agricultural laborer is in England to-day---that his life -was healthier and happier and fuller. So long as a plump, -well-kept, hearty negro was worth \$1,000, no slave-owner, -selfish or cold-blooded as he might be, would keep his -negroes as great classes of "free-born Englishmen" must -live. But these white slaves have no money-value. It is not -the labor, it is the land that commands the labor, that has -a capitalized value. You can get the labor of men for from -nine to twelve shillings a week---less than it would cost to -keep a slave in good marketable condition, and of children -for sixpence a week, and when they are worked out they can -be left to die or "go on the parish." - -The negroes, some say, are an inferior race. But these white -slaves of England are of the stock that has given England -her scholars and her poets, her philosophers and statesmen, -her merchants and inventors, who have formed the bulwark of -the sea-girt isle, and have carried the meteor flag around -the world. They are ignorant, and degraded, and debased; -they live the life of slaves and die the death of paupers, +> "2. The end of all political associations is the preservation of the +> natural and imprescriptible rights of man, and these rights are +> liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression." + +It is one thing to assert the eternal principles, as they are asserted +in times of upheaval, when men of convictions and of the courage of +their convictions come to the front, and another thing for a people just +emerging from the night of ignorance and superstition, and enslaved by +habits of thought formed by injustice and oppression, to adhere to and +carry them out. The French people have not been true to these +principles, nor yet, with far greater advantages, have we. And so, +though the ancient *régime*, with its blasphemy of "right divine," its +Bastille and its *letters de cachet*, have been abolished in France; +there have come red terror and white terror. Anarchy masquerading as +Freedom, and Imperialism deriving its sanction from universal suffrage, +culminating in such a poor thing as the French Republic of to-day. And +here, with our virgin soil, with our exemption from foreign +complications, and our freedom from powerful and hostile neighbors, all +we can show is another poor thing of a Republic, with its rings and its +bosses, its railroad kings controlling sovereign states, its gangrene of +corruption eating steadily toward the political heart, its tramps and +its strikes, its ostentation of ill-gotten wealth, its children toiling +in factories, and its women working out their lives for bread! + +It is possible for men to see the truth, and assert the truth, and to +hear and repeat, again and again, formulas embodying the truth, without +realizing all that that truth involves. Men who signed the Declaration +of Independence, or applauded the Declaration of Independence, men who +year after year read it, and heard it, and honored it, did so without +thinking that the eternal principles of right which it invoked condemned +the existence of negro slavery as well as the tyranny of George III. And +many who, awakening to the fuller truth, asserted the unalienable rights +of man against chattel slavery, did not see that these rights involved +far more than the denial of property in human flesh and blood; and as +vainly imagined that they had fully asserted them when chattel slaves +had been emancipated and given the suffrage, as their fathers vainly +imagined they had fully asserted them, when they threw ofl?" allegiance +to the English king and established here a democratic republic. + +The common belief of Americans of to-day is that among us the equal and +unalienable rights of man are now all acknowledged, while as for +poverty, crime, low wages, "over production," political corruption, and +so on, they are to be referred to the nature of things---that is to say, +if any one presses for a more definite answer, they exist because it is +the will of God, the Creator, that they should exist. Yet I believe that +these evils are demonstrably due to our failure to fully acknowledge the +equal and unalienable rights with which, as asserted as a self-evident +truth by the Declaration of Independence, all men have been endowed by +God, their Creator. I believe the National Assembly of France were right +when, a century ago, inspired by the same spirit that gave us political +freedom, they declared that the great cause of public misfortunes and +corruptions of government is ignorance, neglect, or contempt of human +rights. And just as the famine which was then decimating France, the +bankruptcy and corruption of her Government, the brutish degradation of +her working classes, and the demoralization of her aristocracy, were +directly traceable to the denial of the equal, natural and +imprescriptible rights of men, so now the social and political problems +which menace the American republic, in common with the whole civilized +world, spring from the same cause. + +Let us consider the matter. The equal, natural and unalienable right to +life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, does it not involve the +right of each to the free use of his powers in making a living for +himself and his family, limited only by the equal right of all others? +Does it not require that each shall be free to make, to save and to +enjoy what wealth he may, without interference with the equal rights of +others; that no one shall be compelled to give forced labor to another, +or to yield up his earnings to another; that no one shall be permitted +to extort from another labor or earnings? All this goes without the +saying. Any recognition of the equal right to life and liberty which +would deny the right to property---the right of a man to his labor and +to the full fruits of his labor, would be mockery. + +But that is just what we do. Our so-called recognition of the equal and +natural rights of man is to large classes of our people nothing but a +mockery, and as social pressure increases, is becoming a more bitter +mockery to larger classes, because our institutions fail to secure the +rights of men to their labor and the fruits of their labor. + +That this denial of a primary human right is the cause of poverty on the +one side and of overgrown fortunes on the other, and of all the waste +and demoralization and corruption that flow from the grossly unequal +distribution of wealth, may be easily seen. + +As I am speaking of conditions general oyer the whole civilized world, +let us first take the case of another country, for we can sometimes see +the faults of our neighbors more clearly than our own. England, the +country from which we derive our language and institutions, is behind us +in the formal recognition of political liberty; but there is as much +industrial liberty there as here---and in some respects more, for +England, though she has not yet reached free trade, has got rid of the +"protective" swindle, which we still hug. And the English people---poor +things---are, as a whole, satisfied of their freedom, and boast of it. +They think, for it has been so long preached to them that most of them +honestly believe it, that Englishmen are the freest people in the world, +and they sing "Britons never shall be slaves," as though it were indeed +true that slaves could not breathe British air. + +Let us take a man of the masses of this people---a "free-born +Englishman," coming of long generations of "free-born Englishmen," in +Wiltshire or Devonshire or Somersetshire, on soil which, if you could +trace his genealogy, you would find his fathers have been tilling from +early Saxon times. He grows to manhood, we will not stop to inquire how, +and, as is the natural order, he takes himself a wife. Here he stands, a +man among his fellows, in a world in which the Creator has ordained that +he should get a living by his labor. He has wants, and as, in the +natural order, children come to him, he will have more; but he has in +brain and muscle the natural power to satisfy these wants from the +storehouse of nature. He knows how to dig and plow, to sow and to reap, +and there is the rich soil, ready now, as it was thousands of years ago, +to give back wealth to labor. The rain falls and the sun shines, and as +the planet circles around her orbit, Spring follows Winter, and Summer +succeeds Spring. It is this man's first and clearest right to earn his +living, to transmute his labor into wealth, and to possess and enjoy +that wealth for his own sustenance and benefit, and for the sustenance +and benefit of those whom nature places in dependence on him. He has no +right to demand any one else's earnings, nor has any one else a right to +demand any portion of his earnings. He has no right to compel any one +else to work for his benefit; nor have others a right to demand that he +shall work for their benefit. This right to himself, to the use of his +own powers and the results of his own exertions, is a natural, +self-evident right, which, as a matter of principle, no one can dispute, +save upon the blasphemous contention that some men were created to work +for other men. And this primary, natural right to his own labor, and to +the fruits of his own labor, accorded, this man can abundantly provide +for his own needs and for the needs of his family. His labor will, in +the natural order, produce wealth, which, exchanged in accordance with +mutual desires for wealth which others have produced, will supply his +family with all the material comforts of life, and in the absence of +serious accident, enable him to bring up his children, and lay by such a +surplus that he and his wife may take their rest, and enjoy their sunset +hour in the declining years when strength shall fail, without asking any +one's alms or being beholden to any bounty save that of "Our Father +which art in heaven." + +But what is the fact? The fact is, that the right of this "free-born +Englishman" to his own labor and the fruits of his labor is denied as +fully and completely as though he were made by law a slave; that he is +compelled to work for the enrichment of others as truly as though +English law had made him the property of an owner. The law of the land +does not declare that he is a slave: on the contrary, it formally +declares that he is a free man---free to work for himself, and free to +enjoy the fruits of his labor. But a man cannot labor.without something +to labor on, any more than he can eat without having something to eat. +It is not in human powers to make something out of nothing. This is not +contemplated in the creative scheme. Nature tells us that if we will not +work we must starve; but at the same time supplies us with everything +necessary to work. Food, clothing, shelter, all the articles that +minister to desire and that we call wealth, can be produced by labor, +but only when the raw material of which they must be composed is drawn +from the land. + +To drop a man in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and tell him he is at +liberty to walk ashore, would not be more bitter irony than to place a +man where all the land is appropriated as the property of other people +and to tell him that he is a free man, at liberty to work for himself +and to enjoy his own earnings. That is the situation in which our +Englishman finds himself. He is just as free as he would be were he +suspended over a precipice while somebody else held a sharp knife to the +rope; just as free as if thirsting in a desert he found the only spring +for miles walled and guarded by armed men who told him he could not +drink unless h.Q freely contracted with them on their terms. Had this +Englishman lived generations ago, in the time of his Saxon ancestors, he +would, when he became of age, and had taken a wife, been allotted his +house-plot and his seed-plot; he would have had an equal share in the +great fields which the villagers cultivated together, he would have been +free to gather his fagots or take game in the common wood, or to graze +his beasts on the common pasturage. Even a few generations ago, after +the land-grabbing that began with the Tudors had gone on for some +centuries, he would have found in yet existing commons some faint +survival of the ancient principle that this planet was intended for all +men, not for some men. But now he finds every foot of land inclosed +against him. The fields which his forefathers tilled, share and share +alike, are the private property of "my lord," who rents it out to large +farmers on terms so high that, to get ordinary interest on their +capital, they must grind the faces of their laborers; the ancient +woodland is inclosed by a high wall, topped with broken glass, and is +patrolled by gamekeepers with loaded guns and the authority to take any +intruder before the magistrate, who will send him to prison; the +old-time common has become "my lord's" great park, on which *his* fat +cattle graze, and *his* supple-limbed deer daintily browse. Even the old +footpaths that gave short cuts from road to road, through hazel-thicket +and by tinkling brook, are now walled in. + +But this "free-born Englishman," this Briton who never shall be a slave, +cannot live without land. He must find some bit of the earth's surface +on which he and his wife can rest, which they may call "home." But, save +the high-roads, there is not as much of their native land as they may +cover with the soles of their feet, that they can use without some other +human creature's permission; and on the high-road they would not be +suffered to lie down, still less to make them a bower of leaves. So, to +to get living space in his native land, our "free-born Englishman" must +consent to work so many days in the month for one of the "owners" of +England, or, what amounts to the same thing, he must sell his labor, or +the fruits of his labor, to some third party and pay the "owner" of some +particular part of the planet for the privilege of living on the planet. +Having thus sacrificed a part of his labor to get permission from +another fellow-creature to live, if he can, our free-born Englishman +must next go to work to procure food, clothing, etc. But as he cannot +get to work without land to work on, he is compelled, instead of going +to work for himself, to sell his labor to those who have land on such +terms as they please, and those terms are only enough to just support +life in the most miserable fashion---that is to saj, all the produce of +his labor is taken from him, and lie is given back out of it just what +the hardest owner would be forced to give the slave---enough to support +life on. He lives in a miserable hovel, with its broken floor on the +bare ground, and an ill-kept thatch, through which the rain comes. He +works from morning to night, and his wife must do the same; and their +children, as soon almost as they can walk, must also go to work, pulling +weeds, or scaring away crows, or doing such like jobs for the landowner, +who graciously lets them live and work on his land. Illness often comes, +and death too often. Then there is no recourse but the parish or "My +Lady Bountiful," the wife or daughter, or almoner of "the God Almighty +of the county-side," as Tennyson calls him,---the owner (if not the +maker) of the world in these parts, who doles out in insulting and +degrading charity some little stint of the wealth appropriated from the +labor of this family and of other such families. If he does not "order +himself lowly and reverently to all his betters"; if he does not pull +his poor hat off his sheepish head whenever "my lord" or "my lady," or +"his honor," or any of their understrappers, go by; he does not bring up +his children in the humility which these people think proper and +becoming in the "lower classes"; if there is suspicion that he may have +helped himself to an apple or snared a hare, or slyly hooked a fish from +the stream, this "free-born Englishman" loses charity and loses work. He +must go on the parish or starve. He becomes bent and stiff before his +time. His wife is old and worn, when she ought to be in her prime of +strength and beauty. His girls---such as live---marry such as he, to +lead such lives as their mother's, or, perhaps, are seduced by their +"betters," and sent, with a few pounds, to a great town, to die in a few +years in brothel, or hospital, or prison. His boys grow up ignorant and +brutish; they cannot support him when he grows old, even if they would, +for they do not get back enough of the proceeds of their labor. The only +refuge for the pair in their old age is the almshouse, where, for shame +to let them starve on the roadside, these worked-out slaves are kept to +die,---where the man is separated from the wife, and the old couple, +over whom the parson of the church, by law established, has said, "Whom +God hath joined together let no man put asunder," lead, apart from each +other, a prison-like existence until death comes to their relief. + +In what is the condition of such a "free-born Englishman" as this, +better than that of a slave? Yet if this is not a fair picture of the +condition of the English agricultural laborers, it is only because I +have not dwelt upon the darkest shades---the sodden ignorance and +brutality, the low morality of these degraded and debased classes. In +quantity and quality of food, in clothing and housing, in ease and +recreation, and in morality, there can be no doubt that the average +Southern slave was better off than the average agricultural laborer is +in England to-day---that his life was healthier and happier and fuller. +So long as a plump, well-kept, hearty negro was worth \$1,000, no +slave-owner, selfish or cold-blooded as he might be, would keep his +negroes as great classes of "free-born Englishmen" must live. But these +white slaves have no money-value. It is not the labor, it is the land +that commands the labor, that has a capitalized value. You can get the +labor of men for from nine to twelve shillings a week---less than it +would cost to keep a slave in good marketable condition, and of children +for sixpence a week, and when they are worked out they can be left to +die or "go on the parish." + +The negroes, some say, are an inferior race. But these white slaves of +England are of the stock that has given England her scholars and her +poets, her philosophers and statesmen, her merchants and inventors, who +have formed the bulwark of the sea-girt isle, and have carried the +meteor flag around the world. They are ignorant, and degraded, and +debased; they live the life of slaves and die the death of paupers, simply because they are robbed of their natural rights. -In the same neighborhood in which you may find such people -as these, in which you may see squalid laborers' cottages -where human beings huddle together like swine, you may also -see grand mansions set in great, velvety, oak-graced parks, -the habitations of local "God Almighty," as the Laureate -styles them, and as these brutalized English people seem -almost to take them to be. They never do any work---they -pride themselves upon the fact that for hundreds of years -their ancestors have never done any work; they look with the -utmost contempt not merely upon the man who works, but even -upon the man whose grandfather had to work. Yet they live in -the utmost luxury. They have town houses and country houses, -horses, carriages, liveried servants, yachts, packs of -hounds; they have all that wealth can command in the way of -literature and education and the culture of travel. And they -have wealth to spare, which they can invest in rail-way -shares, or public debts, or in buying up land in the United -States. But not an iota of this wealth do they produce. They -get it because, it being conceded that they own the land, -the people who do produce wealth, must hand their earnings -over to them. - -Here, clear and plain, is the beginning and primary cause of -that inequality in the distribution of wealth which, in -England, produces such dire, soul-destroying poverty, side -by side with such wantonness of luxury, and which is to be -seen in the cities even more glaringly than in the country. -Here, clear and plain, is the reason why labor seems a drug, -and why, in all occupations in which mere laborers can -engage, wages tend to the merest pittance on which life can -be maintained. Deprived of their natural rights to land, -treated as intruders upon God's earth, men are compelled to -an unnatural competition for the privilege of mere animal -existence, that in manufacturing towns and city slums -reduces humanity to a depth of misery and debasement in -which beings, created in the image of God, sink below the -level of the brutes. - -And the same inequality of conditions which we see beginning -here, is it not due to the same primary cause? American -citizenship confers no right to American soil. The first and -most essential rights of man---the rights to life, liberty -and the pursuit of happiness are denied here as completely -as in England. And the same results must follow. +In the same neighborhood in which you may find such people as these, in +which you may see squalid laborers' cottages where human beings huddle +together like swine, you may also see grand mansions set in great, +velvety, oak-graced parks, the habitations of local "God Almighty," as +the Laureate styles them, and as these brutalized English people seem +almost to take them to be. They never do any work---they pride +themselves upon the fact that for hundreds of years their ancestors have +never done any work; they look with the utmost contempt not merely upon +the man who works, but even upon the man whose grandfather had to work. +Yet they live in the utmost luxury. They have town houses and country +houses, horses, carriages, liveried servants, yachts, packs of hounds; +they have all that wealth can command in the way of literature and +education and the culture of travel. And they have wealth to spare, +which they can invest in rail-way shares, or public debts, or in buying +up land in the United States. But not an iota of this wealth do they +produce. They get it because, it being conceded that they own the land, +the people who do produce wealth, must hand their earnings over to them. + +Here, clear and plain, is the beginning and primary cause of that +inequality in the distribution of wealth which, in England, produces +such dire, soul-destroying poverty, side by side with such wantonness of +luxury, and which is to be seen in the cities even more glaringly than +in the country. Here, clear and plain, is the reason why labor seems a +drug, and why, in all occupations in which mere laborers can engage, +wages tend to the merest pittance on which life can be maintained. +Deprived of their natural rights to land, treated as intruders upon +God's earth, men are compelled to an unnatural competition for the +privilege of mere animal existence, that in manufacturing towns and city +slums reduces humanity to a depth of misery and debasement in which +beings, created in the image of God, sink below the level of the brutes. + +And the same inequality of conditions which we see beginning here, is it +not due to the same primary cause? American citizenship confers no right +to American soil. The first and most essential rights of man---the +rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are denied here as +completely as in England. And the same results must follow. # Dumping Garbage -This gulf-stream of humanity that is setting on our shores -with increasing volume is in all respects worthy of more -attention than we give it. In many ways one of the most -important phenomena of our time, it is one which forcibly -brings to the mind the fact that we are living under -conditions which must soon begin to rapidly change. But -there is one part of the immigration coming to us this year -which is specially suggestive. A number of large steamers of -the transatlantic lines are calling, under contract with the -British Government, at small ports on the west coast of -Ireland, tilling up with men, women and children, whose -passages are paid by their government, and then, ferrying -them across the ocean, are dumping them on the wharves of -New York and Boston with a few dollars apiece in their -pockets to begin life in the New World. - -The strength of a nation is in its men. It is its people -that make a country great and strong, produce its wealth, -and give it rank among other countries. Yet, here is a -civilized and Christian government, or one that jKisses for -such, shipping off its people, to be dumped upon another -continent, as garbage is shipped off from New York to be -dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. Nor are these people -undesirable material for the making of a nation. Whatever -they may sometimes become here, when cooped up in -tenement-houses and exposed to the corruption of our -politics, and to the temptation of a life greatly differing -from that to which they have been accustomed, they are in -their own country, as any one who has been among them there -can testify, a peaceable, industrious, and, in some -important respects, a peculiarly moral people, who lack -intellectual and political education, and the robust virtues -that personal independence alone can give, simply because of -the poverty to which they are condemned. Mr. Trevelyan, the -Chief Secretary for Ireland, has declared in the House of -Commons that they are physically and morally healthy, well -capable of making a living, and yet the government of which -he is a member is shipping them away at public expense as -New York ships its garbage! - -These people are well capable of making a living, -Mr. Trevelyan says, yet if they remain at home they will -only be able to make the poorest of poor livings in the best -of times, and when seasons are not of the best, taxes must -be raised and alms begged to keep them alive; and so as the -cheapest way of getting rid of them, they are shipped away -at public expense. - -What is the reason of this? Why is it that people, in -themselves well capable of making a living, cannot make a -living for themselves in their own country? Simply that the -natural, equal, and unalienable rights of man, with which, -as asserted by our Declaration of Independence, these human -beings have been endowed by their Creator, are denied them. -The famine, the pauperism, the misgovernment and turbulence -of Ireland, the bitter wrongs which keep aglow the fire of -Irish "sedition," and the difficulties with regard to -Ireland which perplex English statesmen, all spring from -what the National Assembly of France, in 1789, declared to +This gulf-stream of humanity that is setting on our shores with +increasing volume is in all respects worthy of more attention than we +give it. In many ways one of the most important phenomena of our time, +it is one which forcibly brings to the mind the fact that we are living +under conditions which must soon begin to rapidly change. But there is +one part of the immigration coming to us this year which is specially +suggestive. A number of large steamers of the transatlantic lines are +calling, under contract with the British Government, at small ports on +the west coast of Ireland, tilling up with men, women and children, +whose passages are paid by their government, and then, ferrying them +across the ocean, are dumping them on the wharves of New York and Boston +with a few dollars apiece in their pockets to begin life in the New +World. + +The strength of a nation is in its men. It is its people that make a +country great and strong, produce its wealth, and give it rank among +other countries. Yet, here is a civilized and Christian government, or +one that jKisses for such, shipping off its people, to be dumped upon +another continent, as garbage is shipped off from New York to be dumped +into the Atlantic Ocean. Nor are these people undesirable material for +the making of a nation. Whatever they may sometimes become here, when +cooped up in tenement-houses and exposed to the corruption of our +politics, and to the temptation of a life greatly differing from that to +which they have been accustomed, they are in their own country, as any +one who has been among them there can testify, a peaceable, industrious, +and, in some important respects, a peculiarly moral people, who lack +intellectual and political education, and the robust virtues that +personal independence alone can give, simply because of the poverty to +which they are condemned. Mr. Trevelyan, the Chief Secretary for +Ireland, has declared in the House of Commons that they are physically +and morally healthy, well capable of making a living, and yet the +government of which he is a member is shipping them away at public +expense as New York ships its garbage! + +These people are well capable of making a living, Mr. Trevelyan says, +yet if they remain at home they will only be able to make the poorest of +poor livings in the best of times, and when seasons are not of the best, +taxes must be raised and alms begged to keep them alive; and so as the +cheapest way of getting rid of them, they are shipped away at public +expense. + +What is the reason of this? Why is it that people, in themselves well +capable of making a living, cannot make a living for themselves in their +own country? Simply that the natural, equal, and unalienable rights of +man, with which, as asserted by our Declaration of Independence, these +human beings have been endowed by their Creator, are denied them. The +famine, the pauperism, the misgovernment and turbulence of Ireland, the +bitter wrongs which keep aglow the fire of Irish "sedition," and the +difficulties with regard to Ireland which perplex English statesmen, all +spring from what the National Assembly of France, in 1789, declared to be the cause of all public misfortunes and corruptions of -government---the contempt of human rights. The Irish peasant -is forced to starve, to beg, or to emigrate; he becomes in -the eyes of those who rule him mere human garbage, to be -shipped off and dumped anywhere, because, like the English -peasant, who, after a slave's life, dies a pauper's death, -his natural rights in his native soil are denied him; -because his unalienable right to procure wealth by his own -exertions and to retain it for his own uses is refused him. +government---the contempt of human rights. The Irish peasant is forced +to starve, to beg, or to emigrate; he becomes in the eyes of those who +rule him mere human garbage, to be shipped off and dumped anywhere, +because, like the English peasant, who, after a slave's life, dies a +pauper's death, his natural rights in his native soil are denied him; +because his unalienable right to procure wealth by his own exertions and +to retain it for his own uses is refused him. The country from which these people are shipped---and the -Government-aided emigration is as nothing compared to the -voluntary emigration---is abundantly capable of maintaining -in comfort a very much larger population than it has ever -had. There is no natural reason why in it people themselves -capable of making a living should suffer want and -starvation. The reason that they do is simply that they are -denied natural opportunities for the employment of their -labor, and that the laws permit others to extort from them -the proceeds of such labor as they are permitted to do. Of -these people who are now being sent across the Atlantic by -the English government, and dumped on our wharves with a few -dollars in their pockets, there are probably none of mature -years who have not by their labor produced wealth enough not -only to have supported them hitherto in a much higher degree -of comfort than that in which they have lived, but to have -enabled them to pay their own passage across the Atlantic, -if they wanted to come, and to have given them on landing -here a capital sufficient for a comfortable start. They are -penniless only because they have been systematically robbed -from the day of their birth to the day they left their -native shores. - -A year ago I traveled through that part of Ireland from -which these Government-aided emigrants come. What surprises -an American at first, even in Connaught, is the apparent -sparseness of population, and he wonders if this can indeed -be that overpopulated Ireland of which he has heard so much. -There is plenty of good land, but on it are only fat beasts, -and sheep so clean and white that you at first think that -they must be washed and combed every morning. Once this soil -was tilled and was populous, but now you will find only -traces of ruined hamlets, and here and there the miserable -hut of a herd, who lives in a way no Terra del Fuegan could -envy. For the "owners" of this land, who live in London and -Paris, many of them never having seen their estates, find -cattle more profitable than men, and so the men have been -driven off". It is only when you reach the bog and the -rocks, in the mountains and by the seashore, that you find a -dense population. Here they are crowded together on land on -which Nature never intended men to live. It is too poor for -grazing, so the people who have been driven from the better -land are allowed to live upon it---as long as they pay their -rent. If it were not too pathetic, the patches they call -fields would make you laugh. Originally the surface of the -ground must have been about as susceptible of cultivation as -the surface of Broadway. But at the cost of enormous labor -the small stones have been picked off and piled up, though -the great boulders remain, so that it is impossible to use a -plow; and the surface of the bog has been cut away, and -manured by sea-weed brought from the shore on the backs of -men and women, till it can be made to grow something. - -For such patches of rock and bog---soil it could not be -called, save by courtesy---which has been made to produce -anything only by their unremitting toil---these people are -compelled to pay their absentee landlords rents varying from -a pound to four pounds per acre, and then they must pay -another rent for the seaweed, which the surf of the wild -Atlantic throws upon the shore, before they are permitted to -take it for manure, and another rent still for the bog from -which they cut their turf As a matter of fact, these people -have to pay more for the land than they can get out of the -land. They are really forced to pay not merely for the use -of the land and for the use of the ocean, but for the use of -the air. Their rents are made up, and they manage to live in -good times, by the few shillings earned by the women, who -knit socks as they carry their creels to and from the market -or seashore; by the earnings of the men, who go over to -England every year to work as harvesters, or by remittances -sent home by husbands or children who have managed to get to -America. In spite of their painful industry the poverty of -these people is appalling. In good times they just manage to -keep above the starvation line. In bad times, when a blight -strikes their potatoes, they must eat seaweed, or beg relief -from the poor-rates, or from the charitable contributions of -the world. When so rich as to have a few chickens or a pig, -they no more think of eating them than Vanderbilt thinks of -eating his \$50,000 trotters. They are sold to help pay the -rent. In the loughs you may see fat salmon swimming in from -the sea; but, if every one of them were marked by nature -with the inscription, "Lord So-and-So, London, with the -compliments of God Almighty," they could not be more out of -the reach of these people. The best shops to be found in the -villages will have for stock a few pounds of sugar and tea -weighed out into ounce and half-ounce papers, a little -flour, two or three red petticoats, a little coarse cloth, a -few yards of flannel, and a few of cotton, some buttons and -thread, a little pig-tail tobacco, and, perhaps, a bottle or -two of "the native" hid away in the ground some distance -from the cabin, so that if the police do capture it the -shopkeeper cannot be put in jail. For the Queen must live -and the army must be supported, and the great distillers of -Dublin and Belfast and Cork, who find such a comfortable -monopoly in the excise, have churches to build and -cathedrals to renovate. So poor are these people, so little -is there in their miserable cabins, that a sub-sheriff who, -last year, superintended the eviction of near one hundred -families in one place, declared that the effects of the -whole lot were not worth £3. - -But the landlords---ah! the landlords!--they live -differently. Every now and again in traveling through this -country you come across some landlord's palatial home -mansion, its magnificent grounds inclosed with high walls. -Pass inside these walls and it is almost like entering -another world. Wide stretches of rich velvety lawn, beds of -bright flowers, noble avenues of arching trees, and a -spacious mansion rich with every appointment of luxury, with -its great stables, kennels, and appurtenances of every kind. -But though they may have these luxurious home places, the -large landlords, with few exceptions, live in London or -Paris, or pass part of the year in the great cities and the -rest in Switzerland or Italy or along the shores of the -Mediterranean; and occasionally one ot them takes a trip -over here to see our new country, with its magnificent -opportunities for investing in wild lands which will soon be -as valuable as English or Irish estates. They do not have to -work; their incomes come without work on their part---all -they have to do is to spend. Some collect galleries of the -most valuable paintings, some are fanciers of old books, and -give fabulous prices for rare editions. Some of them gamble, -some keep studs of racers and costly yachts, and some get -rid of their money in ways worse than these. Even their -agents, whose business it is to extort the rent from the -Irishmen who do work, live luxuriously. But it all comes out -of the earnings of just such people as are now being dumped -on our wharves---out of their earnings, or out of what is -sent them by relatives in America, or by charitable -contributions. - -It is to maintain such a system of robbery as this that -Ireland is filled with policemen and troops and spies and -informers, and a people who might be an integral part of the -British nation are made to that nation a difficulty, a -weakness and a danger. Economically, the Irish landlords are -of no more use than so many great, ravenous, destructive -beasts---packs of wolves, herds of wild elephants, or such -dragons as St. George is reported to have killed. They -produce nothing; they only consume and destroy. And what -they destroy is more even than what they consume. For, not -merely is Ireland turned into a camp of military police and -red-coated soldiery to hold down the people while they are -robbed; but the wealth producers, stripped of capital by -this robbery of their earnings, and condemned by it to -poverty and ignorance, are unable to produce the wealth -which they could and would produce did labor get its full -earnings, and were wealth left to those who make it. Surely -true statesmanship would suggest that if any one is to be -shoveled out of a country it should be those who merely -consume and destroy; not those who produce wealth. - -But English statesmen think otherwise, and these surplus -Irish men and women; these garbage Irish men and women and -little children---surplus and garbage because the landlords -of Ireland have no use for them, *are* shoveled out of their -own country and dumped on our wharves. They have reached -"the land of the free and the home of the brave" just in -time for the Fourth of July, when they may hear the -Declaration of Independence, with its ringing assertion of -unalienable rights, read again in our annual national -celebration. - -Have they, then, escaped from the system which in their own -country made them serfs and human garbage? Not at all. They -have not even escaped the power of their old landlords to -take from them the proceeds of their toil. - -For we are not merely getting these surplus tenants of -English, Scotch and Irish landlords---we are getting the -landlords, too. Simultaneously with this emigration is going -on a movement which is making the landlords and capitalists -of Great Britain owners of vast tracts of American soil. -There is even now scarcely a large landowning family in -Great Britain that does not own even larger American -estates, and American land is becoming with them a more and -more favorite investment. These American estates of "their -graces" and "my lords" are not as yet as valuable as their -home estates, but the natural increase in our population, -augmented by emigration, will soon make them so. - -Every "surplus" Irishman, Englishman or Scotchman sent over -here assists directly in sending up the value of land and -the rent of land. The stimulation of emigration from the Old -Country to this is a bright idea on the part of these -landlords of two continents. They get rid of people who, at -home, in hard times, they might have to support in some sort -of fashion, and lessen, as they think, the forces of -disaffection, while at the same time they augment the value -of their American estates. - -It is not improbable that some of these evicted tenants may -find themselves over here paying rent to the very same -landlords to swell whose incomes they have so long toiled in -their old country; but whether this be so or not, their mere -coming here, by its effect in increasing the demand for -land, helps to enable those landlords to compel some others -of the people of the United States to give up to them a -portion of their earnings in return for the privilege of -living upon American soil. It is merely with this view, and -for this purpose, that the landlords of the Old World are -buying so much land in the Kew. They do not want it to live -upon; they prefer to live in London or Paris, as many of the -privileged classes of America are now learning to prefer to -live. They do not want to work it; they do not propose to -work at all. All they want with it is the power, which, as -soon as our population increases a little, its ownership -will give, of demanding the earnings of other people. And -under present conditions it is a matter, not of a generation -or two, but only of a few years, before they will be able to -draw from their American estates sums even greater than from -their Irish estates. That is to say, they will virtually own -more Americans than they now own Irishmen. - -So far from these Irish immigrants having escaped from the -system that has impoverished and pauperized the masses of -the Irish people for the benefit of a few of their number, -that system has really more unrestricted sway here than in -Ireland. In spite of the fact that we read the Declaration -of Independence every Fourth of July, make a great noise and -have a great jubilation, that first of the unalienable -rights with which every man is endowed by his Creator---the -equal right to the use of the natural elements without which -wealth cannot be produced, nor even life maintained---is no -better acknowledged with us than it is in Ireland. - -There is much said of "Irish landlordism," as though it were -a peculiar kind of landlordism, or a peculiarly bad kind of -landlordism. This is not so. Irish landlordism is in nothing -worse than English landlordism, or Scotch landlordism, or -American landlordism, nor are the Irish landlords harder -than any similar class. Being generally men of education and -culture, accustomed to an easy life, they are, as a whole, -less grasping towards their tenants than the farmers who -rent of them are to the laborers to whom they sublet. They -regard the land as their own, that is all, and expect to get -an income from it; and the agent who sends them the best -income they naturally regard as the best agent. - -Such popular Irish leaders as Mr. Parnell and Mr. Sullivan, -when they come over here and make speeches, have a good deal -to say about the "feudal landlordism" of Ireland. This is -all humbug---an attempt to convey the impression that Irish -landlordism is something different from American -landlordism, so that American landowners will not take -offense, while Irish landowners are denounced. There is in -Ireland nothing that can be called feudal landlordism. All -the power which the Irish landlord has, all the tyranny -which he exercises, springs from his ownership of the soil, -from the legal recognition that it is his property. If -landlordism in Ire land seems more hateful than in England, -it is only because the industrial organization is more -primitive, and there are fewer intermediaries between the -man who is robbed and the man who gets the plunder. And if -either Irish or English landlordism seems more hateful than -the same system in America, it is only because this is a new -country, not yet quite fenced in. But, as a matter of law, -these "my lords" and "your graces," who are now getting -themselves far greater estates in the United States than -they have in their own country, have more power as landlords -here than there. - -In Ireland, especially, the tendency of legislation for a -series of years has been to restrain the power of the -landlord in dealing with the tenant. In the United States he -has in all its fullness the unrestricted power of doing as -he pleases with his own. Rack-renting is with us the common, -almost the exclusive, form of renting. There is no long -process to be gone through with to secure an eviction, no -serving notice upon the relieving officer of the district. -The tenant whom the landlord wants to get rid of can be -"fired out" with the minimum of cost and expense. - -Says the Tribune's "Broadway Lounger" incidentally in his -chatter: - -> "Judge Gedney tells me that on the first of this month he -> signed no less than two hundred and fifty warrants of -> dispossession against poor tenants. His district includes -> many blocks of the most squalid variety of -> tenement-houses, and he has fully as much unpleasant work -> of this kind as any of his judicial brethren. The first of -> May is, of course, the heaviest field-day of the year for -> such business, but there are generally at the beginning of -> every month at least one hundred warrants granted. And to -> those who fret about the minor miseries of life, no more -> wholesome cure could be administered than an enforced -> attendance in a district court on such occasions. The -> lowest depths of misery are sounded. Judge Gedney says, -> too, that in the worst cases the suffering is more -> generally caused by misfortune than by idleness or -> dissipation. A man gets a felon on his hand, which keeps -> him at home until his savings are gone and all his effects -> are in the pawn-shop, and then his children fall sick or -> his wife dies, and the agent of the house, under -> instructions from the owner who is perhaps in Europe -> enjoying himself, won't wait for the rent, and serves him +Government-aided emigration is as nothing compared to the voluntary +emigration---is abundantly capable of maintaining in comfort a very much +larger population than it has ever had. There is no natural reason why +in it people themselves capable of making a living should suffer want +and starvation. The reason that they do is simply that they are denied +natural opportunities for the employment of their labor, and that the +laws permit others to extort from them the proceeds of such labor as +they are permitted to do. Of these people who are now being sent across +the Atlantic by the English government, and dumped on our wharves with a +few dollars in their pockets, there are probably none of mature years +who have not by their labor produced wealth enough not only to have +supported them hitherto in a much higher degree of comfort than that in +which they have lived, but to have enabled them to pay their own passage +across the Atlantic, if they wanted to come, and to have given them on +landing here a capital sufficient for a comfortable start. They are +penniless only because they have been systematically robbed from the day +of their birth to the day they left their native shores. + +A year ago I traveled through that part of Ireland from which these +Government-aided emigrants come. What surprises an American at first, +even in Connaught, is the apparent sparseness of population, and he +wonders if this can indeed be that overpopulated Ireland of which he has +heard so much. There is plenty of good land, but on it are only fat +beasts, and sheep so clean and white that you at first think that they +must be washed and combed every morning. Once this soil was tilled and +was populous, but now you will find only traces of ruined hamlets, and +here and there the miserable hut of a herd, who lives in a way no Terra +del Fuegan could envy. For the "owners" of this land, who live in London +and Paris, many of them never having seen their estates, find cattle +more profitable than men, and so the men have been driven off". It is +only when you reach the bog and the rocks, in the mountains and by the +seashore, that you find a dense population. Here they are crowded +together on land on which Nature never intended men to live. It is too +poor for grazing, so the people who have been driven from the better +land are allowed to live upon it---as long as they pay their rent. If it +were not too pathetic, the patches they call fields would make you +laugh. Originally the surface of the ground must have been about as +susceptible of cultivation as the surface of Broadway. But at the cost +of enormous labor the small stones have been picked off and piled up, +though the great boulders remain, so that it is impossible to use a +plow; and the surface of the bog has been cut away, and manured by +sea-weed brought from the shore on the backs of men and women, till it +can be made to grow something. + +For such patches of rock and bog---soil it could not be called, save by +courtesy---which has been made to produce anything only by their +unremitting toil---these people are compelled to pay their absentee +landlords rents varying from a pound to four pounds per acre, and then +they must pay another rent for the seaweed, which the surf of the wild +Atlantic throws upon the shore, before they are permitted to take it for +manure, and another rent still for the bog from which they cut their +turf As a matter of fact, these people have to pay more for the land +than they can get out of the land. They are really forced to pay not +merely for the use of the land and for the use of the ocean, but for the +use of the air. Their rents are made up, and they manage to live in good +times, by the few shillings earned by the women, who knit socks as they +carry their creels to and from the market or seashore; by the earnings +of the men, who go over to England every year to work as harvesters, or +by remittances sent home by husbands or children who have managed to get +to America. In spite of their painful industry the poverty of these +people is appalling. In good times they just manage to keep above the +starvation line. In bad times, when a blight strikes their potatoes, +they must eat seaweed, or beg relief from the poor-rates, or from the +charitable contributions of the world. When so rich as to have a few +chickens or a pig, they no more think of eating them than Vanderbilt +thinks of eating his \$50,000 trotters. They are sold to help pay the +rent. In the loughs you may see fat salmon swimming in from the sea; +but, if every one of them were marked by nature with the inscription, +"Lord So-and-So, London, with the compliments of God Almighty," they +could not be more out of the reach of these people. The best shops to be +found in the villages will have for stock a few pounds of sugar and tea +weighed out into ounce and half-ounce papers, a little flour, two or +three red petticoats, a little coarse cloth, a few yards of flannel, and +a few of cotton, some buttons and thread, a little pig-tail tobacco, +and, perhaps, a bottle or two of "the native" hid away in the ground +some distance from the cabin, so that if the police do capture it the +shopkeeper cannot be put in jail. For the Queen must live and the army +must be supported, and the great distillers of Dublin and Belfast and +Cork, who find such a comfortable monopoly in the excise, have churches +to build and cathedrals to renovate. So poor are these people, so little +is there in their miserable cabins, that a sub-sheriff who, last year, +superintended the eviction of near one hundred families in one place, +declared that the effects of the whole lot were not worth £3. + +But the landlords---ah! the landlords!--they live differently. Every now +and again in traveling through this country you come across some +landlord's palatial home mansion, its magnificent grounds inclosed with +high walls. Pass inside these walls and it is almost like entering +another world. Wide stretches of rich velvety lawn, beds of bright +flowers, noble avenues of arching trees, and a spacious mansion rich +with every appointment of luxury, with its great stables, kennels, and +appurtenances of every kind. But though they may have these luxurious +home places, the large landlords, with few exceptions, live in London or +Paris, or pass part of the year in the great cities and the rest in +Switzerland or Italy or along the shores of the Mediterranean; and +occasionally one ot them takes a trip over here to see our new country, +with its magnificent opportunities for investing in wild lands which +will soon be as valuable as English or Irish estates. They do not have +to work; their incomes come without work on their part---all they have +to do is to spend. Some collect galleries of the most valuable +paintings, some are fanciers of old books, and give fabulous prices for +rare editions. Some of them gamble, some keep studs of racers and costly +yachts, and some get rid of their money in ways worse than these. Even +their agents, whose business it is to extort the rent from the Irishmen +who do work, live luxuriously. But it all comes out of the earnings of +just such people as are now being dumped on our wharves---out of their +earnings, or out of what is sent them by relatives in America, or by +charitable contributions. + +It is to maintain such a system of robbery as this that Ireland is +filled with policemen and troops and spies and informers, and a people +who might be an integral part of the British nation are made to that +nation a difficulty, a weakness and a danger. Economically, the Irish +landlords are of no more use than so many great, ravenous, destructive +beasts---packs of wolves, herds of wild elephants, or such dragons as +St. George is reported to have killed. They produce nothing; they only +consume and destroy. And what they destroy is more even than what they +consume. For, not merely is Ireland turned into a camp of military +police and red-coated soldiery to hold down the people while they are +robbed; but the wealth producers, stripped of capital by this robbery of +their earnings, and condemned by it to poverty and ignorance, are unable +to produce the wealth which they could and would produce did labor get +its full earnings, and were wealth left to those who make it. Surely +true statesmanship would suggest that if any one is to be shoveled out +of a country it should be those who merely consume and destroy; not +those who produce wealth. + +But English statesmen think otherwise, and these surplus Irish men and +women; these garbage Irish men and women and little children---surplus +and garbage because the landlords of Ireland have no use for them, *are* +shoveled out of their own country and dumped on our wharves. They have +reached "the land of the free and the home of the brave" just in time +for the Fourth of July, when they may hear the Declaration of +Independence, with its ringing assertion of unalienable rights, read +again in our annual national celebration. + +Have they, then, escaped from the system which in their own country made +them serfs and human garbage? Not at all. They have not even escaped the +power of their old landlords to take from them the proceeds of their +toil. + +For we are not merely getting these surplus tenants of English, Scotch +and Irish landlords---we are getting the landlords, too. Simultaneously +with this emigration is going on a movement which is making the +landlords and capitalists of Great Britain owners of vast tracts of +American soil. There is even now scarcely a large landowning family in +Great Britain that does not own even larger American estates, and +American land is becoming with them a more and more favorite investment. +These American estates of "their graces" and "my lords" are not as yet +as valuable as their home estates, but the natural increase in our +population, augmented by emigration, will soon make them so. + +Every "surplus" Irishman, Englishman or Scotchman sent over here assists +directly in sending up the value of land and the rent of land. The +stimulation of emigration from the Old Country to this is a bright idea +on the part of these landlords of two continents. They get rid of people +who, at home, in hard times, they might have to support in some sort of +fashion, and lessen, as they think, the forces of disaffection, while at +the same time they augment the value of their American estates. + +It is not improbable that some of these evicted tenants may find +themselves over here paying rent to the very same landlords to swell +whose incomes they have so long toiled in their old country; but whether +this be so or not, their mere coming here, by its effect in increasing +the demand for land, helps to enable those landlords to compel some +others of the people of the United States to give up to them a portion +of their earnings in return for the privilege of living upon American +soil. It is merely with this view, and for this purpose, that the +landlords of the Old World are buying so much land in the Kew. They do +not want it to live upon; they prefer to live in London or Paris, as +many of the privileged classes of America are now learning to prefer to +live. They do not want to work it; they do not propose to work at all. +All they want with it is the power, which, as soon as our population +increases a little, its ownership will give, of demanding the earnings +of other people. And under present conditions it is a matter, not of a +generation or two, but only of a few years, before they will be able to +draw from their American estates sums even greater than from their Irish +estates. That is to say, they will virtually own more Americans than +they now own Irishmen. + +So far from these Irish immigrants having escaped from the system that +has impoverished and pauperized the masses of the Irish people for the +benefit of a few of their number, that system has really more +unrestricted sway here than in Ireland. In spite of the fact that we +read the Declaration of Independence every Fourth of July, make a great +noise and have a great jubilation, that first of the unalienable rights +with which every man is endowed by his Creator---the equal right to the +use of the natural elements without which wealth cannot be produced, nor +even life maintained---is no better acknowledged with us than it is in +Ireland. + +There is much said of "Irish landlordism," as though it were a peculiar +kind of landlordism, or a peculiarly bad kind of landlordism. This is +not so. Irish landlordism is in nothing worse than English landlordism, +or Scotch landlordism, or American landlordism, nor are the Irish +landlords harder than any similar class. Being generally men of +education and culture, accustomed to an easy life, they are, as a whole, +less grasping towards their tenants than the farmers who rent of them +are to the laborers to whom they sublet. They regard the land as their +own, that is all, and expect to get an income from it; and the agent who +sends them the best income they naturally regard as the best agent. + +Such popular Irish leaders as Mr. Parnell and Mr. Sullivan, when they +come over here and make speeches, have a good deal to say about the +"feudal landlordism" of Ireland. This is all humbug---an attempt to +convey the impression that Irish landlordism is something different from +American landlordism, so that American landowners will not take offense, +while Irish landowners are denounced. There is in Ireland nothing that +can be called feudal landlordism. All the power which the Irish landlord +has, all the tyranny which he exercises, springs from his ownership of +the soil, from the legal recognition that it is his property. If +landlordism in Ire land seems more hateful than in England, it is only +because the industrial organization is more primitive, and there are +fewer intermediaries between the man who is robbed and the man who gets +the plunder. And if either Irish or English landlordism seems more +hateful than the same system in America, it is only because this is a +new country, not yet quite fenced in. But, as a matter of law, these "my +lords" and "your graces," who are now getting themselves far greater +estates in the United States than they have in their own country, have +more power as landlords here than there. + +In Ireland, especially, the tendency of legislation for a series of +years has been to restrain the power of the landlord in dealing with the +tenant. In the United States he has in all its fullness the unrestricted +power of doing as he pleases with his own. Rack-renting is with us the +common, almost the exclusive, form of renting. There is no long process +to be gone through with to secure an eviction, no serving notice upon +the relieving officer of the district. The tenant whom the landlord +wants to get rid of can be "fired out" with the minimum of cost and +expense. + +Says the Tribune's "Broadway Lounger" incidentally in his chatter: + +> "Judge Gedney tells me that on the first of this month he signed no +> less than two hundred and fifty warrants of dispossession against poor +> tenants. His district includes many blocks of the most squalid variety +> of tenement-houses, and he has fully as much unpleasant work of this +> kind as any of his judicial brethren. The first of May is, of course, +> the heaviest field-day of the year for such business, but there are +> generally at the beginning of every month at least one hundred +> warrants granted. And to those who fret about the minor miseries of +> life, no more wholesome cure could be administered than an enforced +> attendance in a district court on such occasions. The lowest depths of +> misery are sounded. Judge Gedney says, too, that in the worst cases +> the suffering is more generally caused by misfortune than by idleness +> or dissipation. A man gets a felon on his hand, which keeps him at +> home until his savings are gone and all his effects are in the +> pawn-shop, and then his children fall sick or his wife dies, and the +> agent of the house, under instructions from the owner who is perhaps +> in Europe enjoying himself, won't wait for the rent, and serves him > with a summons." -A while ago, when it was bitter cold, I read in the papers -an item telling how, in the city of Wilkesbarre, Pa., a -woman and her three children were found one night huddled in -a hogshead on a vacant lot, famished and almost frozen. The -story was a simple one. The man, out of work, had tried to -steal, and been sent to prison. Their rent unpaid, their -landlord had evicted them, and as the only shelter they knew -of, they had gone to the hogshead. In Ireland, bad as it is, -the relieving-officer would have had to be by to have -offered them at least the shelter of the almshouse. - -These Irish men and women who are being dumped on our -wharves with two or three dollars in their pockets, do they -find access to nature any freer here than there? Far out in -the West, if they know where to go, and can get there, they -may, for a little while yet; but though they may see even -around New York plenty of unused land, they will find that -it all belongs to somebody. Let them go to work at what they -will, they must, here as there, give up some of their -earnings for the privilege of working, and pay some other -human creature for the privilege of living. On the whole -their chances will be better here than there, for this is -yet a new country, and a century ago our settlements only -fringed the eastern seaboard of a vast continent. But from -the Atlantic to the Pacific we already have our human -garbage, the volume of which some of this Irish human -garbage will certainly go to swell. Wherever jou go -throughout the country the "tramp" is known; and in this -metropolitan city there are already, it is stated by the -Charity Organization Society, a quarter of a million people -who live on alms! What, in a few years more, are we to do -for a dumping-ground? Will it make our difficulty the less -that our human garbage can vote? +A while ago, when it was bitter cold, I read in the papers an item +telling how, in the city of Wilkesbarre, Pa., a woman and her three +children were found one night huddled in a hogshead on a vacant lot, +famished and almost frozen. The story was a simple one. The man, out of +work, had tried to steal, and been sent to prison. Their rent unpaid, +their landlord had evicted them, and as the only shelter they knew of, +they had gone to the hogshead. In Ireland, bad as it is, the +relieving-officer would have had to be by to have offered them at least +the shelter of the almshouse. + +These Irish men and women who are being dumped on our wharves with two +or three dollars in their pockets, do they find access to nature any +freer here than there? Far out in the West, if they know where to go, +and can get there, they may, for a little while yet; but though they may +see even around New York plenty of unused land, they will find that it +all belongs to somebody. Let them go to work at what they will, they +must, here as there, give up some of their earnings for the privilege of +working, and pay some other human creature for the privilege of living. +On the whole their chances will be better here than there, for this is +yet a new country, and a century ago our settlements only fringed the +eastern seaboard of a vast continent. But from the Atlantic to the +Pacific we already have our human garbage, the volume of which some of +this Irish human garbage will certainly go to swell. Wherever jou go +throughout the country the "tramp" is known; and in this metropolitan +city there are already, it is stated by the Charity Organization +Society, a quarter of a million people who live on alms! What, in a few +years more, are we to do for a dumping-ground? Will it make our +difficulty the less that our human garbage can vote? # Over-Production -That, as declared by the French Assembly, public misfortunes -and corruptions of government spring from ignorance, neglect -or contempt of human rights may be seen from whatever point -we look. - -Consider this matter of "over-production" of which we hear -so much---to which is so commonly attributed dullness of -trade and the difficulty of finding employment. What, when -we come to think of it, can be more preposterous than to -speak in any general sense of over-production? -Over-production of wealth when there is everywhere a -passionate struggle for more wealth; when so many must stint -and strain and contrive, to get a living; when there is -poverty and actual want among large classes! Manifestly -there cannot be over-production, in any general and absolute -sense, until desires for wealth are all satisfied; until no -one wants more wealth. - -Relative over-production, of course, there may be. The -production of certain commodities may be so far in excess of -the proper proportion to the production of other commodities -that the whole quantity produced cannot be exchanged for -enough of those other commodities to give the usual returns -to the labor and capital engaged in bringing them to market. -But this relative over-production is merely disproportionate -production. It may proceed from increased production of -things of one kind, or from decreased production of things -of other kinds. - -Thus, what we would call an over-production of -watches---meaning not that more watches had been produced -than were wanted, but that more had been produced than could -be sold at a remunerative price---would be purely relative. -It might arise from an increase in the production of -watches, outrunning the ability to purchase watches; or from -a decrease in the production of other tilings, lessening the -ability to purchase watches. No matter how much the -production of watches were to increase, within the limits of -the desire for watches, it would not be over-production, if -at the same time the production of other things increased -sufficiently to allow a proportionally increased quantity of -other things to be given for the increased quantity of -watches. And no matter how much the production of watches -might be decreased, there would be relative over-production, -if at the same time the production of other things were -decreased in such proportion as to diminish in greater +That, as declared by the French Assembly, public misfortunes and +corruptions of government spring from ignorance, neglect or contempt of +human rights may be seen from whatever point we look. + +Consider this matter of "over-production" of which we hear so much---to +which is so commonly attributed dullness of trade and the difficulty of +finding employment. What, when we come to think of it, can be more +preposterous than to speak in any general sense of over-production? +Over-production of wealth when there is everywhere a passionate struggle +for more wealth; when so many must stint and strain and contrive, to get +a living; when there is poverty and actual want among large classes! +Manifestly there cannot be over-production, in any general and absolute +sense, until desires for wealth are all satisfied; until no one wants +more wealth. + +Relative over-production, of course, there may be. The production of +certain commodities may be so far in excess of the proper proportion to +the production of other commodities that the whole quantity produced +cannot be exchanged for enough of those other commodities to give the +usual returns to the labor and capital engaged in bringing them to +market. But this relative over-production is merely disproportionate +production. It may proceed from increased production of things of one +kind, or from decreased production of things of other kinds. + +Thus, what we would call an over-production of watches---meaning not +that more watches had been produced than were wanted, but that more had +been produced than could be sold at a remunerative price---would be +purely relative. It might arise from an increase in the production of +watches, outrunning the ability to purchase watches; or from a decrease +in the production of other tilings, lessening the ability to purchase +watches. No matter how much the production of watches were to increase, +within the limits of the desire for watches, it would not be +over-production, if at the same time the production of other things +increased sufficiently to allow a proportionally increased quantity of +other things to be given for the increased quantity of watches. And no +matter how much the production of watches might be decreased, there +would be relative over-production, if at the same time the production of +other things were decreased in such proportion as to diminish in greater degree the ability to give other things for watches. -In short, desire continuing, the over-production of -particular commodities can only be relative to the -production of other commodities, and may result from unduly -increased production in some branches of industry, or from -the checking of production in other branches. But while the -phenomena of over-production may thus arise from causes -directly operating to increase production, or from causes -directly operating to check production, just as the -equipoise of a pair of scales may be disturbed by the -addition or the removal of a weight, there are certain -symptoms by which we may determine from which of these two -kinds of causes any disturbance proceeds. For while to a -limited extent, and in a limited field, these diverse causes -may produce similar effects, their general effects will be -widely different. The increase of production in any branch -of industry tends to the general increase of production; the -checking of production in any branch of industry tends to -the general checking of production. - -This may be seen from the different general effects which -follow increase or diminution of production in the same -branch of industry. Let us suppose that from the discovery -of new mines, the improvement of machinery, the breaking up -of combinations that control it, or any other cause, there -is a great and rapid increase in the production of coal, out -of proportion to the increase of other production. In a free -market the price of coal therefore falls. The effect is to -enable all consumers of coal to somewhat increase their -consumption of coal, and to somewhat increase their -consumption of other things, and to stimulate production, by -reducing cost, in all those branches of industry into which -the use of coal directly or indirectly enters. Thus the -general effect is to increase production, and to beget a -tendency to re-establish the equilibrium between the -production of coal and the production of other things, by -raising the aggregate production. - -But let the coal operators and syndicates, as they -frequently do, determine to stop or reduce the production of -coal in order to raise prices. At once a large body of men -engaged in producing coal find their power of purchasing cut -off or decreased. Their demand for commodities they -habitually use thus falls off; demand and production in -other branches of industry are lessened, and other -consumers, in turn, are obliged to decrease their demands. -At the same time the enhancement in the price of coal tends -to increase the cost of production in all branches of -industry in which coal is used, and to diminish the amount -both of coal and of other things which the users of coal can -call for. Thus the check to production is perpetuated -through all branches of industry, and when the -re-establishment of equilibrium between the production of -coal and the production of other things is effected, it is +In short, desire continuing, the over-production of particular +commodities can only be relative to the production of other commodities, +and may result from unduly increased production in some branches of +industry, or from the checking of production in other branches. But +while the phenomena of over-production may thus arise from causes +directly operating to increase production, or from causes directly +operating to check production, just as the equipoise of a pair of scales +may be disturbed by the addition or the removal of a weight, there are +certain symptoms by which we may determine from which of these two kinds +of causes any disturbance proceeds. For while to a limited extent, and +in a limited field, these diverse causes may produce similar effects, +their general effects will be widely different. The increase of +production in any branch of industry tends to the general increase of +production; the checking of production in any branch of industry tends +to the general checking of production. + +This may be seen from the different general effects which follow +increase or diminution of production in the same branch of industry. Let +us suppose that from the discovery of new mines, the improvement of +machinery, the breaking up of combinations that control it, or any other +cause, there is a great and rapid increase in the production of coal, +out of proportion to the increase of other production. In a free market +the price of coal therefore falls. The effect is to enable all consumers +of coal to somewhat increase their consumption of coal, and to somewhat +increase their consumption of other things, and to stimulate production, +by reducing cost, in all those branches of industry into which the use +of coal directly or indirectly enters. Thus the general effect is to +increase production, and to beget a tendency to re-establish the +equilibrium between the production of coal and the production of other +things, by raising the aggregate production. + +But let the coal operators and syndicates, as they frequently do, +determine to stop or reduce the production of coal in order to raise +prices. At once a large body of men engaged in producing coal find their +power of purchasing cut off or decreased. Their demand for commodities +they habitually use thus falls off; demand and production in other +branches of industry are lessened, and other consumers, in turn, are +obliged to decrease their demands. At the same time the enhancement in +the price of coal tends to increase the cost of production in all +branches of industry in which coal is used, and to diminish the amount +both of coal and of other things which the users of coal can call for. +Thus the check to production is perpetuated through all branches of +industry, and when the re-establishment of equilibrium between the +production of coal and the production of other things is effected, it is on a diminished scale of aggregate production. -All trade, it is to be remembered, is the exchange of -commodities for commodities---money being merely the measure -of values and the instrument for conveniently and -economically effecting exchanges. Demand (which is a -different tiling from desire, as it involves purchasing -power) is the asking for things in exchange for an -equivalent value of other things. Supply is the offering of -things in exchange for an equivalent value of other things. -These terms are therefore relative; demand involves supply, -and supply involves demand. Whatever increases the quantity -of things offered in exchange for other things at once -increases supply and augments demand. And, reversely, -whatever checks the bringing of things to market at once -reduces supply and decreases demand. - -Thus, while the same primary effect upon the relative supply -of and demand for any particular commodity or group of -commodities may be caused either by augmentation of the -supply of such commodities, or by reduction in the supply of -other commodities---in the one case, the general effect will -be to stimulate trade, by calling out greater supplies of -other commodities, and increasing aggregate demand; and in -the other case, to depress trade, by lessening aggregate -demand and diminishing supply. The equation of supply and -demand between agricultural productions and manufactured -goods might thus be altered in the same direction and to the -same extent by such prosperous seasons or improvements in -agriculture as would reduce the price of agricultural -productions as compared with manufactured goods, or by such -restrictions upon the production or exchange of manufactured -goods as would raise their price as compared with -agricultural productions. But in the one case, the aggregate -produce of the community would be increased. There would not -only be an increase of agricultural products, but the -increased demand thus caused would stimulate the production -of manufactured goods; while this prosperity in -manufacturing industries, by enabling those engaged in them -to increase their demand for agricultural productions, would -react upon agriculture. In the other case, the aggregate -produce would be decreased. The increase in the price of -manufactured goods would compel farmers to reduce their -demands, and this would in turn reduce the ability of those -engaged in manufacturing to demand farm products. Thus trade -would slacken, and production be checked in all directions. -That this is so, we may see from the different general -effects which result from good crops and poor crops, though -to an individual farmer high prices may compensate for a +All trade, it is to be remembered, is the exchange of commodities for +commodities---money being merely the measure of values and the +instrument for conveniently and economically effecting exchanges. Demand +(which is a different tiling from desire, as it involves purchasing +power) is the asking for things in exchange for an equivalent value of +other things. Supply is the offering of things in exchange for an +equivalent value of other things. These terms are therefore relative; +demand involves supply, and supply involves demand. Whatever increases +the quantity of things offered in exchange for other things at once +increases supply and augments demand. And, reversely, whatever checks +the bringing of things to market at once reduces supply and decreases +demand. + +Thus, while the same primary effect upon the relative supply of and +demand for any particular commodity or group of commodities may be +caused either by augmentation of the supply of such commodities, or by +reduction in the supply of other commodities---in the one case, the +general effect will be to stimulate trade, by calling out greater +supplies of other commodities, and increasing aggregate demand; and in +the other case, to depress trade, by lessening aggregate demand and +diminishing supply. The equation of supply and demand between +agricultural productions and manufactured goods might thus be altered in +the same direction and to the same extent by such prosperous seasons or +improvements in agriculture as would reduce the price of agricultural +productions as compared with manufactured goods, or by such restrictions +upon the production or exchange of manufactured goods as would raise +their price as compared with agricultural productions. But in the one +case, the aggregate produce of the community would be increased. There +would not only be an increase of agricultural products, but the +increased demand thus caused would stimulate the production of +manufactured goods; while this prosperity in manufacturing industries, +by enabling those engaged in them to increase their demand for +agricultural productions, would react upon agriculture. In the other +case, the aggregate produce would be decreased. The increase in the +price of manufactured goods would compel farmers to reduce their +demands, and this would in turn reduce the ability of those engaged in +manufacturing to demand farm products. Thus trade would slacken, and +production be checked in all directions. That this is so, we may see +from the different general effects which result from good crops and poor +crops, though to an individual farmer high prices may compensate for a poor yield. -To recapitulate: Relative over-production may proceed from -causes which increase, or from causes which diminish, -production. But increased production in any branch of -industry tends to increase production in all; to stimulate -trade and augment the general prosperity; and any -disturbance of equilibrium thus caused must be speedily -readjusted. Diminished production in any branch of industry, -on the other hand, tends to decrease production in all; to -depress trade, and lessen the general prosperity; and -depression thus produced tends to perpetuate itself through -larger circles, as in one branch of industry after another -the check to production reduces the power to demand the -products of other branches of industry. - -Whoever will consider the widespread phenomena which are -currently attributed to over-production can have no doubt -from which of these two classes of causes they spring. He -will see that they are symptoms, not of the excess of -production, but of the restriction and strangulation of +To recapitulate: Relative over-production may proceed from causes which +increase, or from causes which diminish, production. But increased +production in any branch of industry tends to increase production in +all; to stimulate trade and augment the general prosperity; and any +disturbance of equilibrium thus caused must be speedily readjusted. +Diminished production in any branch of industry, on the other hand, +tends to decrease production in all; to depress trade, and lessen the +general prosperity; and depression thus produced tends to perpetuate +itself through larger circles, as in one branch of industry after +another the check to production reduces the power to demand the products +of other branches of industry. + +Whoever will consider the widespread phenomena which are currently +attributed to over-production can have no doubt from which of these two +classes of causes they spring. He will see that they are symptoms, not +of the excess of production, but of the restriction and strangulation of production. -There are with us many restrictions of production, direct -and indirect; for production, it must be remembered, -involves the transportation and exchange as well as the -making of things. And restrictions imposed upon commerce or -any of its instruments may operate to discourage production -as fully as restrictions imposed upon agriculture or -manufactures. The tariff which we maintain for the express -purpose of hampering our foreign commerce, and restricting -the free exchange of our own productions for the productions -of other nations, is in effect a restriction upon -production. The monopolies which we have created or -permitted to grow up, and which levy their toll upon -internal commerce, or by conspiracy and combination diminish -supply, and artificially enhance prices, restrict production -in the same way; while the taxes levied upon certain -manufactures by our internal revenue system directly +There are with us many restrictions of production, direct and indirect; +for production, it must be remembered, involves the transportation and +exchange as well as the making of things. And restrictions imposed upon +commerce or any of its instruments may operate to discourage production +as fully as restrictions imposed upon agriculture or manufactures. The +tariff which we maintain for the express purpose of hampering our +foreign commerce, and restricting the free exchange of our own +productions for the productions of other nations, is in effect a +restriction upon production. The monopolies which we have created or +permitted to grow up, and which levy their toll upon internal commerce, +or by conspiracy and combination diminish supply, and artificially +enhance prices, restrict production in the same way; while the taxes +levied upon certain manufactures by our internal revenue system directly restrict production. -So, too, is production discouraged by the direct taxes -levied by our states, counties and municipalities, which in -the aggregate exceed the taxation of the Federal government. -These taxes are generally levied upon all property, real and -personal, at the same rate, and fall partly on land, which -is not the result of production, and partly on things which -are the result of production; but insomuch as buildings and -improvements are not only thus taxed, but the land so built -upon and improved is universally rated at a much higher -assessment, and generally at a very much higher assessment, -than unused land of the same quality,even the taxation that -falls upon land values largely operates as a deterrent to -production. - -To produce, to improve, is thus fraught with a penalty. We, -in fact, treat the man who produces wealth, or accumulates -wealth, as though he had done something which public policy -calls upon us to discourage. If a house is erected, or a -steamship or a factory is built, down comes the tax-gatherer -to fine the men who have done such things. If a farmer go -upon vacant land, which is adding nothing to the wealth of -the community, reclaim it, cultivate it, cover it with -crops, or stock it with cattle, we not only make him pay for -having thus increased wealth, but, as an additional -discouragement to the doing of such things, we tax him very -much more on the value of his land than we do the man who -holds an equal piece idle. So, too, if a man saves, our -taxes operate to punish him for his thrift. Thus is -production checked in every direction. - -But this is not all. There is with us a yet greater cheek to -production. - -If there be in this universe superior intelligences engaged, -with higher powers, in the study of its infinite marvels, -who sometimes examine the speck we tenant with such studious -curiosity as our microscopists watch the denizens of a drop -of water, the manner in which, in such a country as this, -population is distributed, must greatly puzzle them. In our -cities they find people packed together so closely that they -live over one another in tiers; in the country they see -people separated so widely that they lose all the advantages -of neighborhood. They see buildings going up in the -outskirts of our towns, while much more available lots -remain vacant. They see men going great distances to -cultivate land while there is yet plenty of land to -cultivate in the localities from which they come and through -which they pass. And as these higher intelligences watch -this process of settlement through whatever sort of -microscopes they may require to observe such creatures as -we, they must notice that, for the most part, these -settlers, instead of being attracted by each other, leave -between each other large patches of unused land. If there be -in the universe any societies which have the same relation -to us as our learned societies have to ants and animalculae, -these phenomena must lead to no end of curious theories. - -Take in imagination such a bird's-eje view of the city of -New York as might be had from a balloon. The houses are -climbing heavenward---ten, twelve, even fifteen stories, -tier on tier of people, living, one family above another, -without sufficient water, without sufficient light or air, -without playground or breathing space. So close is the -building that the streets look like narrow rifts in the -brick and mortar, and from street to street the solid blocks -stretch until they almost meet; in the newer districts only -a space of twenty feet, a mere crack in the masonry through -which at high noon a sun-beam can scarcely struggle down, -being left to separate the backs of the tenements fronting -on one street from the backs of those fronting on another -street. Yet, around this city, and within easy access of its -center, there is plenty of vacant land; within the city -limits, in fact, not one-half the land is built upon; and -many blocks of tall tenement houses are surrounded by vacant -lots. If the improvement of our telescopes were to show us -on another planet, lakes where the water, instead of -presenting a level surface, ruffled only by the action of -the wind, stood up here and there in huge columns, it could -hardly perplex us more than these phenomena must perplex -such extramundane intelligences as I have supposed. How is -it, they may well speculate, that the pressure of population -which piles families, tier on tier, above each other, and -raises such towering warehouses and workshops, does not -cover this vacant land with buildings and with homes? Some -restraining cause there must be; but what, it might well -puzzle them to tell. - -A South Sea Islander, however---one of the old heathen sort, -whom, in civilizing, we have well nigh exterminated, might -make a guess. If one of their High Chiefs tabooed a place or -object, no one of the common sort of these superstitious -savages dare use or touch it. He must go around for miles -rather than set his feet on a tabooed path; must parch or -die with thirst rather than drink of a tabooed spring; must -go hungry though the fruit of a tabooed grove rotted on the -ground before his eyes. A South Sea Islander would say that -this vacant land must be "taboo." And he would be not far -from the truth. This land is vacant, simply because it is -cursed by that form of the taboo which we superstitiously -venerate under the names of "private property" and "vested -rights." - -The invisible barrier but for which buildings would rise and -the city would spread, is the high price of land, a price -that increases the more certainly it is seen that a growing -population needs the land. Thus the stronger the incentive -to the use of land, the .higher the barrier that arises -against its use. Tenement houses are built among vacant lots -because the price that must be paid for land is so great -that people who have not large means must economize their -use of land by living one family above another. - -While in all of our cities the value of land, which -increases not merely with their growth, but with the -expectation of growth, thus operates to check building and -improvement, its effect is manifested through the country in -a somewhat different way. Instead of unduly crowding people -together it unduly separates them. The expectation of profit -from the rise in the value of land leads those who take up -new land, not to content themselves with what they may most -profitably use, but to get all the land they can, even -though they must let a great part of it lie idle; and large -tracts are seized upon by those who make no pretense of -using any part of it, but merely calculate to make a profit -out of others who in time will be driven to use it. Thus -population is scattered, not only to loss of all the -comforts, refinements, pleasures and stimulations that come -from neighborhood, but to the great loss of productive -power. The extra cost of constructing and maintaining roads -and railways, the greater distances over which produce and -goods must be transported, the difficulties which separation -interposes to that commerce between men which is necessary -even to the ruder forms of modern production, all retard and -lessen production. While just as the high value of land in -and about a great city make more difficult the erection of -buildings, so does increase in the value of agricultural -land make improvement difficult. The higher the value of -land the more capital does the farmer require if he buys -outright; or, if he buys on installments, or rents, the more -of his earnings must lie give up every year. Men who would -eagerly improve and cultivate land could it be had for the -using are thus turned away---to wander long distances and -waste their means in looking for better opportunities; to -swell the ranks of those seeking for employment as wage -workers; to go back to the cities or manufacturing villages -in the endeavor to make a living; or to remain idle, -frequently for long periods, and sometimes until they become +So, too, is production discouraged by the direct taxes levied by our +states, counties and municipalities, which in the aggregate exceed the +taxation of the Federal government. These taxes are generally levied +upon all property, real and personal, at the same rate, and fall partly +on land, which is not the result of production, and partly on things +which are the result of production; but insomuch as buildings and +improvements are not only thus taxed, but the land so built upon and +improved is universally rated at a much higher assessment, and generally +at a very much higher assessment, than unused land of the same +quality,even the taxation that falls upon land values largely operates +as a deterrent to production. + +To produce, to improve, is thus fraught with a penalty. We, in fact, +treat the man who produces wealth, or accumulates wealth, as though he +had done something which public policy calls upon us to discourage. If a +house is erected, or a steamship or a factory is built, down comes the +tax-gatherer to fine the men who have done such things. If a farmer go +upon vacant land, which is adding nothing to the wealth of the +community, reclaim it, cultivate it, cover it with crops, or stock it +with cattle, we not only make him pay for having thus increased wealth, +but, as an additional discouragement to the doing of such things, we tax +him very much more on the value of his land than we do the man who holds +an equal piece idle. So, too, if a man saves, our taxes operate to +punish him for his thrift. Thus is production checked in every +direction. + +But this is not all. There is with us a yet greater cheek to production. + +If there be in this universe superior intelligences engaged, with higher +powers, in the study of its infinite marvels, who sometimes examine the +speck we tenant with such studious curiosity as our microscopists watch +the denizens of a drop of water, the manner in which, in such a country +as this, population is distributed, must greatly puzzle them. In our +cities they find people packed together so closely that they live over +one another in tiers; in the country they see people separated so widely +that they lose all the advantages of neighborhood. They see buildings +going up in the outskirts of our towns, while much more available lots +remain vacant. They see men going great distances to cultivate land +while there is yet plenty of land to cultivate in the localities from +which they come and through which they pass. And as these higher +intelligences watch this process of settlement through whatever sort of +microscopes they may require to observe such creatures as we, they must +notice that, for the most part, these settlers, instead of being +attracted by each other, leave between each other large patches of +unused land. If there be in the universe any societies which have the +same relation to us as our learned societies have to ants and +animalculae, these phenomena must lead to no end of curious theories. + +Take in imagination such a bird's-eje view of the city of New York as +might be had from a balloon. The houses are climbing heavenward---ten, +twelve, even fifteen stories, tier on tier of people, living, one family +above another, without sufficient water, without sufficient light or +air, without playground or breathing space. So close is the building +that the streets look like narrow rifts in the brick and mortar, and +from street to street the solid blocks stretch until they almost meet; +in the newer districts only a space of twenty feet, a mere crack in the +masonry through which at high noon a sun-beam can scarcely struggle +down, being left to separate the backs of the tenements fronting on one +street from the backs of those fronting on another street. Yet, around +this city, and within easy access of its center, there is plenty of +vacant land; within the city limits, in fact, not one-half the land is +built upon; and many blocks of tall tenement houses are surrounded by +vacant lots. If the improvement of our telescopes were to show us on +another planet, lakes where the water, instead of presenting a level +surface, ruffled only by the action of the wind, stood up here and there +in huge columns, it could hardly perplex us more than these phenomena +must perplex such extramundane intelligences as I have supposed. How is +it, they may well speculate, that the pressure of population which piles +families, tier on tier, above each other, and raises such towering +warehouses and workshops, does not cover this vacant land with buildings +and with homes? Some restraining cause there must be; but what, it might +well puzzle them to tell. + +A South Sea Islander, however---one of the old heathen sort, whom, in +civilizing, we have well nigh exterminated, might make a guess. If one +of their High Chiefs tabooed a place or object, no one of the common +sort of these superstitious savages dare use or touch it. He must go +around for miles rather than set his feet on a tabooed path; must parch +or die with thirst rather than drink of a tabooed spring; must go hungry +though the fruit of a tabooed grove rotted on the ground before his +eyes. A South Sea Islander would say that this vacant land must be +"taboo." And he would be not far from the truth. This land is vacant, +simply because it is cursed by that form of the taboo which we +superstitiously venerate under the names of "private property" and +"vested rights." + +The invisible barrier but for which buildings would rise and the city +would spread, is the high price of land, a price that increases the more +certainly it is seen that a growing population needs the land. Thus the +stronger the incentive to the use of land, the .higher the barrier that +arises against its use. Tenement houses are built among vacant lots +because the price that must be paid for land is so great that people who +have not large means must economize their use of land by living one +family above another. + +While in all of our cities the value of land, which increases not merely +with their growth, but with the expectation of growth, thus operates to +check building and improvement, its effect is manifested through the +country in a somewhat different way. Instead of unduly crowding people +together it unduly separates them. The expectation of profit from the +rise in the value of land leads those who take up new land, not to +content themselves with what they may most profitably use, but to get +all the land they can, even though they must let a great part of it lie +idle; and large tracts are seized upon by those who make no pretense of +using any part of it, but merely calculate to make a profit out of +others who in time will be driven to use it. Thus population is +scattered, not only to loss of all the comforts, refinements, pleasures +and stimulations that come from neighborhood, but to the great loss of +productive power. The extra cost of constructing and maintaining roads +and railways, the greater distances over which produce and goods must be +transported, the difficulties which separation interposes to that +commerce between men which is necessary even to the ruder forms of +modern production, all retard and lessen production. While just as the +high value of land in and about a great city make more difficult the +erection of buildings, so does increase in the value of agricultural +land make improvement difficult. The higher the value of land the more +capital does the farmer require if he buys outright; or, if he buys on +installments, or rents, the more of his earnings must lie give up every +year. Men who would eagerly improve and cultivate land could it be had +for the using are thus turned away---to wander long distances and waste +their means in looking for better opportunities; to swell the ranks of +those seeking for employment as wage workers; to go back to the cities +or manufacturing villages in the endeavor to make a living; or to remain +idle, frequently for long periods, and sometimes until they become utterly demoralized and worse than useless tramps. -Thus is production checked in those vocations which form the -foundation for all others. This check to the production of -some forms of wealth lessens demand for other forms of -wealth, and so the effect is propagated from one branch of -industry to another, begetting the phenomena that are spoken -of as over-production, but which are primarily due to -restricted production. - -And as land values tend to rise, not merely with the growth -of population and wealth, but with the expectation of that -growth, thus enlisting in pushing on the upward movement, -the powerful and illusive sentiment of hope, there is a -constant tendency, especially strong in rapidly growing -countries, to carry up the price of land beyond the point at -which labor and capital can profitably engage in production, -and the only check to this is the refusal of labor and -capital to so engage. This tendency becomes peculiarly -strong in recurring periods, when the fever of speculation -runs high, and leads at length to a correspondingly general -and sudden check to production, which propagating itself (by -checking demand) through all branches of industry, is the -main cause of those paroxysms known as commercial or -industrial depressions, and which are marked by wasting -capital, idle labor, stocks of goods that cannot be sold -without loss, and widespread want and suffering. It is true -that other restrictions upon the free play of productive -forces operate to promote, intensify and continue these -dislocations of the industrial system, but that here is the -main and primary cause I think there can be no doubt. - -And this, perhaps, is even more clear: That from whatever -cause disturbance of industrial and commercial relations may -originally come, these periodical depressions in which -demand and supply seem unable to meet and satisfy each other -could not become widespread and persistent did productive -forces have free access to land. Nothing like general and -protracted congestion of capital and labor could take place -were this natural vent open. The moment symptoms of relative -over-production manifested themselves in any derivative -branch of industry, the turning of capital and labor toward -those occupations which extract wealth from the soil would -give relief. - -Thus may we see that those public misfortunes which we speak -of as "business stagnation" and "hard times," those public -misfortunes that in periods of intensity cause more loss and -suffering than great wars, spring truly from our ignorance -and contempt of human rights; from our disregard of the -equal and inalienable right of all men to freely apply to -nature for the satisfaction of their needs, and to retain -for their own uses the full fruits of their labor. +Thus is production checked in those vocations which form the foundation +for all others. This check to the production of some forms of wealth +lessens demand for other forms of wealth, and so the effect is +propagated from one branch of industry to another, begetting the +phenomena that are spoken of as over-production, but which are primarily +due to restricted production. + +And as land values tend to rise, not merely with the growth of +population and wealth, but with the expectation of that growth, thus +enlisting in pushing on the upward movement, the powerful and illusive +sentiment of hope, there is a constant tendency, especially strong in +rapidly growing countries, to carry up the price of land beyond the +point at which labor and capital can profitably engage in production, +and the only check to this is the refusal of labor and capital to so +engage. This tendency becomes peculiarly strong in recurring periods, +when the fever of speculation runs high, and leads at length to a +correspondingly general and sudden check to production, which +propagating itself (by checking demand) through all branches of +industry, is the main cause of those paroxysms known as commercial or +industrial depressions, and which are marked by wasting capital, idle +labor, stocks of goods that cannot be sold without loss, and widespread +want and suffering. It is true that other restrictions upon the free +play of productive forces operate to promote, intensify and continue +these dislocations of the industrial system, but that here is the main +and primary cause I think there can be no doubt. + +And this, perhaps, is even more clear: That from whatever cause +disturbance of industrial and commercial relations may originally come, +these periodical depressions in which demand and supply seem unable to +meet and satisfy each other could not become widespread and persistent +did productive forces have free access to land. Nothing like general and +protracted congestion of capital and labor could take place were this +natural vent open. The moment symptoms of relative over-production +manifested themselves in any derivative branch of industry, the turning +of capital and labor toward those occupations which extract wealth from +the soil would give relief. + +Thus may we see that those public misfortunes which we speak of as +"business stagnation" and "hard times," those public misfortunes that in +periods of intensity cause more loss and suffering than great wars, +spring truly from our ignorance and contempt of human rights; from our +disregard of the equal and inalienable right of all men to freely apply +to nature for the satisfaction of their needs, and to retain for their +own uses the full fruits of their labor. # Unemployed Labor -How contempt of human rights is the essential element in -building up the great fortunes whose growth is such a marked -feature of our development, we have already seen. And just -as clearly may we see that from the same cause spring -poverty and pauperism. The tramp is the complement of the +How contempt of human rights is the essential element in building up the +great fortunes whose growth is such a marked feature of our development, +we have already seen. And just as clearly may we see that from the same +cause spring poverty and pauperism. The tramp is the complement of the millionaire. -Consider this terrible phenomenon, the tramp---an appearance -more menacing to the republic than that of hostile armies -and fleets bent on destruction. What is the tramp? In the -beginning, he is a man able to work, and willing to work, -for the satisfaction of his needs; but who, not finding -opportunity to work where he is, starts out in quest of it; -who, failing in this search, is, in a later stage, driven by -those imperative needs to beg or to steal, and so, losing -self-respect, loses all that animates and elevates and -stimulates a man to struggle and to labor; becomes a -vagabond and an outcast---a poisonous pariah, avenging on -society the wrong that he keenly, but vaguely, feels has -been done him by society. - -Yet the tramp, known as he is now from the Atlantic to the -Pacific, is only a part of the phenomenon. Behind him, -though not obtrusive, save in what we call "hard times," -there is, even in what we now consider normal times, a great -mass of unemployed labor which is unable, unwilling, or not -yet forced to tramp, but which bears to the tramp the same -relation that the submerged part of an iceberg does to that -much smaller part which shows above the surface. - -The difficulty which so many men who would gladly work to -satisfy their needs find in obtaining opportunity of doing -so, is so common as to occasion no surprise, nor, save when -it becomes particularly intensified, to arouse any inquiry. -We are so used to it, that although we all know that work is -in itself distasteful, and that there never yet was a human -being who wanted work for the sake of work, we have got into -the habit of thinking and talking as though work were in -itself a boon. So deeply is this idea implanted in the -common mind that we maintain a policy based on the notion -that the more work we do for foreign nations and the less we -allow them to do for us, the better oft' we shall be; and in -public and in private we hear men lauded and enterprises -advocated because they "furnish employment"; while there are -many who, with more or less definiteness, hold the idea that -labor-saving inventions have operated injuriously by -lessening the amount of work to be done. - -Manifestly, work is not an end, but a means; manifestly, -there can be no real scarcity of work, which is but the -means of satisfying material wants, until human wants are -all satisfied. How, then, shall we explain the obvious facts -which lead men to think and speak as though work were in -itself desirable? - -When we consider that labor is the producer of all wealth, -the creator of all values, is it not strange that labor -should experience difficulty in finding employment? The -exchange for commodities of that which gives value to all -commodities, ought to be the most certain and easy of -exchanges. One wishing to exchange labor for food or -clothing, or any of the manifold things which labor -produces, is like one wishing to exchange gold-dust for -coin, cotton for cloth, or wheat for flour. Nay, this is -hardly a parallel; for, as the terms upon which the exchange -of labor for commodities takes place are usually that the -labor is first rendered, the man who offers labor in -exchange generally proposes to produce and render value -before value is returned to him. - -This being the case, why is not the competition of employers -to obtain workmen as great as the competition of workmen to -find employment? Why is it that we do not consider the man -who does work as the obliging party, rather than the man -who, as we say, furnishes work? - -So it necessarily would be, if in saying that labor is the -producer of wealth, we stated the whole case. But labor is -only the producer of wealth in the sense of being the active -factor of production. For the production of wealth, labor -must have access to pre-existing substance and natural -forces. Man has no power to bring something out of nothing. -He cannot create an atom of matter or initiate the slightest -motion. Vast as are his powers of modifying matter and -utilizing force, they are merely powers of adapting, -changing, re-combining, what previously exists. The -substance of the hand with which I write these lines, as of -the paper on which I write, has previously formed the -substance of other men and other animals, of plants, soils, -rocks, atmospheres, probably of other worlds and other -systems. And so of the force which impels my pen. All we -know of it is that it has acted and reacted through what -seem to us eternal circlings, and appears to reach this -planet from the sun. The destruction of matter and motion, -as the creation of matter and motion, are to us unthinkable. - -In the human being, in some mysterious way which neither the -researches of physiologists nor the speculations of -philosophers enable us to comprehend, conscious, planning -intelligence comes into control, fur a limited time and to a -limited extent, of the matter and motion contained in the -human frame. The power of contracting and expanding human -muscles is the initial force with which the human mind acts -upon the material world. By the use of this power other -powers are utilized, und the forms and relations of matter -are changed in accordance with human desire. But how great -soever be the powder of affecting and using external nature -which human intelligence thus obtains,---and how great this -may be we are only beginning now to realize,---it is still -only the power of affecting and using what previously -exists. Without access to external nature, without the power -of availing himself of her substance and forces, man is not -merely powerless to produce anything, he ceases to exist in -the material world. He himself, in physical body at least, -is but a changing form of matter, a passing mode of motion, -that must be continually drawn from the reservoirs of -external nature. - -Without either of the three elements, land, air and water, -man could not exist; but he is peculiarly a land animal, -living on its surface, and drawing from it his supplies. -Though he is able to navigate the ocean, and may some day be -able to navigate the air, he can only do so by availing -himself of materials drawn from land. Land is to him the -great storehouse of materials and reservoir of forces upon -which he must draw for his needs. And as wealth consists of -materials and products of nature which have been secured, or -modified by human exertion so as to fit them for the -satisfaction of human desires,labor is the active factor in -the production of wealth, but land is the passive factor, +Consider this terrible phenomenon, the tramp---an appearance more +menacing to the republic than that of hostile armies and fleets bent on +destruction. What is the tramp? In the beginning, he is a man able to +work, and willing to work, for the satisfaction of his needs; but who, +not finding opportunity to work where he is, starts out in quest of it; +who, failing in this search, is, in a later stage, driven by those +imperative needs to beg or to steal, and so, losing self-respect, loses +all that animates and elevates and stimulates a man to struggle and to +labor; becomes a vagabond and an outcast---a poisonous pariah, avenging +on society the wrong that he keenly, but vaguely, feels has been done +him by society. + +Yet the tramp, known as he is now from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is +only a part of the phenomenon. Behind him, though not obtrusive, save in +what we call "hard times," there is, even in what we now consider normal +times, a great mass of unemployed labor which is unable, unwilling, or +not yet forced to tramp, but which bears to the tramp the same relation +that the submerged part of an iceberg does to that much smaller part +which shows above the surface. + +The difficulty which so many men who would gladly work to satisfy their +needs find in obtaining opportunity of doing so, is so common as to +occasion no surprise, nor, save when it becomes particularly +intensified, to arouse any inquiry. We are so used to it, that although +we all know that work is in itself distasteful, and that there never yet +was a human being who wanted work for the sake of work, we have got into +the habit of thinking and talking as though work were in itself a boon. +So deeply is this idea implanted in the common mind that we maintain a +policy based on the notion that the more work we do for foreign nations +and the less we allow them to do for us, the better oft' we shall be; +and in public and in private we hear men lauded and enterprises +advocated because they "furnish employment"; while there are many who, +with more or less definiteness, hold the idea that labor-saving +inventions have operated injuriously by lessening the amount of work to +be done. + +Manifestly, work is not an end, but a means; manifestly, there can be no +real scarcity of work, which is but the means of satisfying material +wants, until human wants are all satisfied. How, then, shall we explain +the obvious facts which lead men to think and speak as though work were +in itself desirable? + +When we consider that labor is the producer of all wealth, the creator +of all values, is it not strange that labor should experience difficulty +in finding employment? The exchange for commodities of that which gives +value to all commodities, ought to be the most certain and easy of +exchanges. One wishing to exchange labor for food or clothing, or any of +the manifold things which labor produces, is like one wishing to +exchange gold-dust for coin, cotton for cloth, or wheat for flour. Nay, +this is hardly a parallel; for, as the terms upon which the exchange of +labor for commodities takes place are usually that the labor is first +rendered, the man who offers labor in exchange generally proposes to +produce and render value before value is returned to him. + +This being the case, why is not the competition of employers to obtain +workmen as great as the competition of workmen to find employment? Why +is it that we do not consider the man who does work as the obliging +party, rather than the man who, as we say, furnishes work? + +So it necessarily would be, if in saying that labor is the producer of +wealth, we stated the whole case. But labor is only the producer of +wealth in the sense of being the active factor of production. For the +production of wealth, labor must have access to pre-existing substance +and natural forces. Man has no power to bring something out of nothing. +He cannot create an atom of matter or initiate the slightest motion. +Vast as are his powers of modifying matter and utilizing force, they are +merely powers of adapting, changing, re-combining, what previously +exists. The substance of the hand with which I write these lines, as of +the paper on which I write, has previously formed the substance of other +men and other animals, of plants, soils, rocks, atmospheres, probably of +other worlds and other systems. And so of the force which impels my pen. +All we know of it is that it has acted and reacted through what seem to +us eternal circlings, and appears to reach this planet from the sun. The +destruction of matter and motion, as the creation of matter and motion, +are to us unthinkable. + +In the human being, in some mysterious way which neither the researches +of physiologists nor the speculations of philosophers enable us to +comprehend, conscious, planning intelligence comes into control, fur a +limited time and to a limited extent, of the matter and motion contained +in the human frame. The power of contracting and expanding human muscles +is the initial force with which the human mind acts upon the material +world. By the use of this power other powers are utilized, und the forms +and relations of matter are changed in accordance with human desire. But +how great soever be the powder of affecting and using external nature +which human intelligence thus obtains,---and how great this may be we +are only beginning now to realize,---it is still only the power of +affecting and using what previously exists. Without access to external +nature, without the power of availing himself of her substance and +forces, man is not merely powerless to produce anything, he ceases to +exist in the material world. He himself, in physical body at least, is +but a changing form of matter, a passing mode of motion, that must be +continually drawn from the reservoirs of external nature. + +Without either of the three elements, land, air and water, man could not +exist; but he is peculiarly a land animal, living on its surface, and +drawing from it his supplies. Though he is able to navigate the ocean, +and may some day be able to navigate the air, he can only do so by +availing himself of materials drawn from land. Land is to him the great +storehouse of materials and reservoir of forces upon which he must draw +for his needs. And as wealth consists of materials and products of +nature which have been secured, or modified by human exertion so as to +fit them for the satisfaction of human desires,labor is the active +factor in the production of wealth, but land is the passive factor, without which labor can neither produce nor exist. -All this is so obvious that it may seem like wasting space -to state it. Yet, in this obvious fact lies the explanation -of that enigma that to so many seems a hopeless puzzle---the -labor question. What is inexplicable, if we lose sight of -man's absolute and constant dependence upon land, is clear -when we recognize it. - -Let us suppose, as well as we can, human society in a world -as near as possible like our own, with one essential -difference. Let us suppose this imaginary world and its -inhabitants so constructed that men could support themselves -in air, and could from the material of the air produce by -their labor what they needed for nourishment and use. I do -not mean to suppose a state of things in which men might -float around like birds in the air or fishes in the ocean, -supplying the prime necessities of animal life from what -they could pick up. I am merely trying to suppose a state of -things in which men as they are, were relieved of absolute -dependence upon land for a standing place and reservoir of -material and forces. We will suppose labor to be as -necessary as with us, human desires to be as boundless as -with us, the cumulative power of labor to give to capital as -much advantage as with us, and the division of labor to have -gone as far as with us---the only difference being (the idea -of claiming the air as private property not having been -thought of) that no human creature would be compelled to -make terms with another in order to get a resting-place, and -to obtain access to the materials and force without which -labor cannot produce. In such a state of things, no matter -how minute had become the division of labor, no matter how -great had become the accumulation of capital, or how far -labor-saving inventions had been carried,---there could -never be anything that seemed like an excess of the supply -of labor over the demand for labor; there could never be any -difficulty in finding employment; and the spectacle of -willing men, having in their own brains and muscles the -power of supplying the needs of themselves and their -families, yet compelled to beg for work or for alms, could -never be witnessed. It being in the power of every one able -to labor to apply his labor directly to the satisfaction of -his needs without asking leave of any one else, that -cut-throat competition, in which men who must find -employment or starve are forced to bid against each other -could never arise. - -Variations there might be in the demand for particular -commodities or services, which would produce variations in -the demand for labor in different occupations, and cause -wages in those occupations to somewhat rise above or fall -below the general level, but the ability of labor to employ -itself, the freedom ol indefinite expansion in the primary -employments, would allow labor to accommodate itself to -these variations, not merely without loss or suffering, but -so easily that they would be scarcely noticed. For -occupations shade into one an'other by imperceptible -degrees, no matter how minute the division of labor---or, -rather, the more minute the division of labor the more -insensible the gradation---so that there are in each -occupation enough who could easily pass to other -occupations, to readily allow of such contractions and -expansions as might in a state of freedom occur. The -possibility of indefinite expansion in the primary -occupations, the ability of every one to make a living by -resort to them would produce elasticity throughout the whole -industrial system. - -Under such conditions capital could not oppress labor. At -present, in any dispute between capital and labor, capital -enjoys the enormous advantage of being better able to wait. -Capital wastes when not employed; but labor starves. Where, -however, labor could always employ itself, the disadvantage -in any conflict would be on the side of capital, while that -surplus of unemployed labor which enables capital to make -such advantageous bargains with labor would not exist, the -man who wanted to get others to work for him would not find -men crowding for employment, but, finding all labor already -employed, would have to offer higher wages, in order to -tempt them into his employment, than the men he wanted could -make for themselves. The competition would be that of -employers to obtain workmen, rather than that of workmen to -get employment, and thus the advantages which the -accumulation of capital gives in the production of wealth -would ( save enough to secure the accumulation and -employment of capital) go ultimately to labor. In such a -state of things, instead of thinking that the man who -employed another was doing him a favor, we would rather look -upon the man who went to work for another as the obliging -party. To suppose that under such conditions there could be -such inequality in the distribution of wealth as we now see, -would require a more violent presumption than we have made -in supposing air, instead of land, to be the element from -which wealth is chiefly derived. But supposing existing -inequalities to be translated into such a state, it is -evident that large fortunes could avail little, and continue -but a short time, there there is always labor seeking -employment on any terms; where the masses earn only a bare -living, and dismissal from employment means anxiety and -privation, and even beggary or starvation, these large -fortunes have monstrous power. But in a condition of things -where there was no unemployed labor, where every one could -make a living for himself and family without fear or favor, -what could a hundred or five hundred millions avail in the -way of enabling its possessor to extort or tyrannize? - -The upper millstone alone cannot grind. That it may do so, -the nether millstone as well is needed. No amount of force -will break an eggshell if exerted on one side alone. So -capital could not squeeze labor as long as labor was free to -natural opportunities, and in a world where these natural -materials and opportunities were as free to all as is the -air to us, there could be no difficulty in finding -employment, no willing hands conjoined with hungry stomachs, -no tendency of wages toward the minimum on which the worker -could barely live. In such a world we would no more think of -thanking anybody for furnishing us employment than we here +All this is so obvious that it may seem like wasting space to state it. +Yet, in this obvious fact lies the explanation of that enigma that to so +many seems a hopeless puzzle---the labor question. What is inexplicable, +if we lose sight of man's absolute and constant dependence upon land, is +clear when we recognize it. + +Let us suppose, as well as we can, human society in a world as near as +possible like our own, with one essential difference. Let us suppose +this imaginary world and its inhabitants so constructed that men could +support themselves in air, and could from the material of the air +produce by their labor what they needed for nourishment and use. I do +not mean to suppose a state of things in which men might float around +like birds in the air or fishes in the ocean, supplying the prime +necessities of animal life from what they could pick up. I am merely +trying to suppose a state of things in which men as they are, were +relieved of absolute dependence upon land for a standing place and +reservoir of material and forces. We will suppose labor to be as +necessary as with us, human desires to be as boundless as with us, the +cumulative power of labor to give to capital as much advantage as with +us, and the division of labor to have gone as far as with us---the only +difference being (the idea of claiming the air as private property not +having been thought of) that no human creature would be compelled to +make terms with another in order to get a resting-place, and to obtain +access to the materials and force without which labor cannot produce. In +such a state of things, no matter how minute had become the division of +labor, no matter how great had become the accumulation of capital, or +how far labor-saving inventions had been carried,---there could never be +anything that seemed like an excess of the supply of labor over the +demand for labor; there could never be any difficulty in finding +employment; and the spectacle of willing men, having in their own brains +and muscles the power of supplying the needs of themselves and their +families, yet compelled to beg for work or for alms, could never be +witnessed. It being in the power of every one able to labor to apply his +labor directly to the satisfaction of his needs without asking leave of +any one else, that cut-throat competition, in which men who must find +employment or starve are forced to bid against each other could never +arise. + +Variations there might be in the demand for particular commodities or +services, which would produce variations in the demand for labor in +different occupations, and cause wages in those occupations to somewhat +rise above or fall below the general level, but the ability of labor to +employ itself, the freedom ol indefinite expansion in the primary +employments, would allow labor to accommodate itself to these +variations, not merely without loss or suffering, but so easily that +they would be scarcely noticed. For occupations shade into one an'other +by imperceptible degrees, no matter how minute the division of +labor---or, rather, the more minute the division of labor the more +insensible the gradation---so that there are in each occupation enough +who could easily pass to other occupations, to readily allow of such +contractions and expansions as might in a state of freedom occur. The +possibility of indefinite expansion in the primary occupations, the +ability of every one to make a living by resort to them would produce +elasticity throughout the whole industrial system. + +Under such conditions capital could not oppress labor. At present, in +any dispute between capital and labor, capital enjoys the enormous +advantage of being better able to wait. Capital wastes when not +employed; but labor starves. Where, however, labor could always employ +itself, the disadvantage in any conflict would be on the side of +capital, while that surplus of unemployed labor which enables capital to +make such advantageous bargains with labor would not exist, the man who +wanted to get others to work for him would not find men crowding for +employment, but, finding all labor already employed, would have to offer +higher wages, in order to tempt them into his employment, than the men +he wanted could make for themselves. The competition would be that of +employers to obtain workmen, rather than that of workmen to get +employment, and thus the advantages which the accumulation of capital +gives in the production of wealth would ( save enough to secure the +accumulation and employment of capital) go ultimately to labor. In such +a state of things, instead of thinking that the man who employed another +was doing him a favor, we would rather look upon the man who went to +work for another as the obliging party. To suppose that under such +conditions there could be such inequality in the distribution of wealth +as we now see, would require a more violent presumption than we have +made in supposing air, instead of land, to be the element from which +wealth is chiefly derived. But supposing existing inequalities to be +translated into such a state, it is evident that large fortunes could +avail little, and continue but a short time, there there is always labor +seeking employment on any terms; where the masses earn only a bare +living, and dismissal from employment means anxiety and privation, and +even beggary or starvation, these large fortunes have monstrous power. +But in a condition of things where there was no unemployed labor, where +every one could make a living for himself and family without fear or +favor, what could a hundred or five hundred millions avail in the way of +enabling its possessor to extort or tyrannize? + +The upper millstone alone cannot grind. That it may do so, the nether +millstone as well is needed. No amount of force will break an eggshell +if exerted on one side alone. So capital could not squeeze labor as long +as labor was free to natural opportunities, and in a world where these +natural materials and opportunities were as free to all as is the air to +us, there could be no difficulty in finding employment, no willing hands +conjoined with hungry stomachs, no tendency of wages toward the minimum +on which the worker could barely live. In such a world we would no more +think of thanking anybody for furnishing us employment than we here think of thanking anybody for furnishing us with appetites. -That the Creator might have put us in the kind of world I -have sought to imagine, as readily as in this kind of a -world, I have no doubt. Why He has not done so may, however, -I think, be seen. That kind of a world would be best for -fools. This is the best for men who will use the -intelligence with which they have been gifted. Of this, -however, I shall speak hereafter. What I am now trying to do -by asking my readers to endeavor to imagine a world in which -natural opportunities were as "free as air," is to show that -the barriers which prevent labor from freely using land is -the nether millstone against which labor is ground, the true -cause of the difficulties which are apparent through the -whole industrial organization. - -But it may be said, as I have often heard it said, " We do -not all want land! We cannot all become farmers! " - -To this I reply that we *do* all want land, though it may be -in different ways and in varying degrees. Without land no -human being can live; without land no human occupation can -be carried on. Agriculture is not the only use of land. It -is only one of many. And just as the uppermost story of the -tallest building rests upon land as truly as the lowest, so -is the operative as truly a user of land as is the farmer. -As all wealth is in the last analysis the resultant of land -and labor, so is all production in the last analysis the -expenditure of labor upon land. - -Nor is it true that we could not all become farmers. That -*is* the one thing that we might all become. If all men were -merchants, or tailors, or mechanics, all men would soon -starve. But there have been, and still exist, societies in -which all get their living directly from nature. The +That the Creator might have put us in the kind of world I have sought to +imagine, as readily as in this kind of a world, I have no doubt. Why He +has not done so may, however, I think, be seen. That kind of a world +would be best for fools. This is the best for men who will use the +intelligence with which they have been gifted. Of this, however, I shall +speak hereafter. What I am now trying to do by asking my readers to +endeavor to imagine a world in which natural opportunities were as "free +as air," is to show that the barriers which prevent labor from freely +using land is the nether millstone against which labor is ground, the +true cause of the difficulties which are apparent through the whole +industrial organization. + +But it may be said, as I have often heard it said, " We do not all want +land! We cannot all become farmers! " + +To this I reply that we *do* all want land, though it may be in +different ways and in varying degrees. Without land no human being can +live; without land no human occupation can be carried on. Agriculture is +not the only use of land. It is only one of many. And just as the +uppermost story of the tallest building rests upon land as truly as the +lowest, so is the operative as truly a user of land as is the farmer. As +all wealth is in the last analysis the resultant of land and labor, so +is all production in the last analysis the expenditure of labor upon +land. + +Nor is it true that we could not all become farmers. That *is* the one +thing that we might all become. If all men were merchants, or tailors, +or mechanics, all men would soon starve. But there have been, and still +exist, societies in which all get their living directly from nature. The occupations that resort directly to nature are the primitive -occupations, from which, as society progresses, all others -are differentiated. No matter how complex the industrial -organization, these must always remain the fundamental -occupations, upon which all other occupations rest, just as -the upper stories of a building rest upon the foundation. -Now, as ever, "the farmer feedeth all." And necessarily, the -condition of labor in these first and widest of occupations, -determines the general condition of labor, just as the level -of the ocean determines the level of all its arms and bays -and seas. Where there is a great demand for labor in -agriculture, and wages are high, there must soon be a great -demand for labor, and high wages, in all occupations. Where -it is difficult to get employment in agriculture, and wages -are low, there must soon be a difficulty of obtaining -employment, and low wages, in all occupations. Now, what -determines the demand for labor and the rate of wages in -agriculture is manifestly the ability of labor to employ -itself---that is to say, the ease with which land can be -obtained. This is the reason that in new countries, where -land is easily had, wages, not merely in agriculture, but in -all occupations, are higher than in older countries, where -land is hard to get. And thus it is that, as the value of -Land increases, wages fall, and the difficulty in finding -employment arises. - -This whoever will may see by merely looking around him. -Clearly the difficulty of finding employment, the fact that -in all vocations, as a rule, the supply of labor seems to -exceed the demand for labor, springs from difficulties that -prevent labor finding employment for itself---from the -barriers that fence labor off of land. That there is a -surplus of labor in any one occupation arises from the -difficulty of finding employment in other occupations, but -for which the surplus would be immediately drained off. When -there was a great demand for clerks no bookkeeper could -suffer for want of employment. And so on, down to the -fundamental employments which directly extract wealth from -land, the opening in which of opportunities for labor to -employ itself would soon drain off any surplus in derivative -occupations. Not that every unemployed mechanic, or -operative, or clerk, could or would get himself a farm; but -that from all the various occupations enough would betake -themselves to the land to relieve any pressure for -employment. +occupations, from which, as society progresses, all others are +differentiated. No matter how complex the industrial organization, these +must always remain the fundamental occupations, upon which all other +occupations rest, just as the upper stories of a building rest upon the +foundation. Now, as ever, "the farmer feedeth all." And necessarily, the +condition of labor in these first and widest of occupations, determines +the general condition of labor, just as the level of the ocean +determines the level of all its arms and bays and seas. Where there is a +great demand for labor in agriculture, and wages are high, there must +soon be a great demand for labor, and high wages, in all occupations. +Where it is difficult to get employment in agriculture, and wages are +low, there must soon be a difficulty of obtaining employment, and low +wages, in all occupations. Now, what determines the demand for labor and +the rate of wages in agriculture is manifestly the ability of labor to +employ itself---that is to say, the ease with which land can be +obtained. This is the reason that in new countries, where land is easily +had, wages, not merely in agriculture, but in all occupations, are +higher than in older countries, where land is hard to get. And thus it +is that, as the value of Land increases, wages fall, and the difficulty +in finding employment arises. + +This whoever will may see by merely looking around him. Clearly the +difficulty of finding employment, the fact that in all vocations, as a +rule, the supply of labor seems to exceed the demand for labor, springs +from difficulties that prevent labor finding employment for +itself---from the barriers that fence labor off of land. That there is a +surplus of labor in any one occupation arises from the difficulty of +finding employment in other occupations, but for which the surplus would +be immediately drained off. When there was a great demand for clerks no +bookkeeper could suffer for want of employment. And so on, down to the +fundamental employments which directly extract wealth from land, the +opening in which of opportunities for labor to employ itself would soon +drain off any surplus in derivative occupations. Not that every +unemployed mechanic, or operative, or clerk, could or would get himself +a farm; but that from all the various occupations enough would betake +themselves to the land to relieve any pressure for employment. # The Effects of Machinery -How ignorance, neglect or contempt of human rights may turn -public benefits into public misfortunes we may clearly see -if we trace the effect of labor-saving inventions. - -It is not altogether from a blind dislike of innovation that -even the more thoughtful and intelligent Chinese set their -faces against the introduction into their dense population -of the labor-saving machinery of Western civilization. They -recognize the superiority which in many things invention has -given us, but to their view this superiority must ultimately -be paid for with too high a price. The Eastern mind, in -fact, regards the greater powers grasped by Western -civilization somewhat as the mediaeval European mind -regarded the powers which it believed might be gained by the -Black Art, but for which the user must finally pay in -destruction of body and damnation of soul. And there is much -in the present aspects and tendencies of our civilization to -confirm the Chinese in this view. - -It is clear that the inventions and discoveries which during -this century have so enormously increased the power of -producing wealth have not proved an unmixed good. Their -benefits are not merely unequally distributed, but they are -bringing about absolutely injurious effects. They are -concentrating capital, and increasing the power of these -concentrations to monopolize and oppress; are rendering the -workman more dependent; depriving him of the advantages of -skill and of opportunities to acquire it; lessening his -control over his own condition and his hope of improving it; -cramping his mind, and in many cases distorting and +How ignorance, neglect or contempt of human rights may turn public +benefits into public misfortunes we may clearly see if we trace the +effect of labor-saving inventions. + +It is not altogether from a blind dislike of innovation that even the +more thoughtful and intelligent Chinese set their faces against the +introduction into their dense population of the labor-saving machinery +of Western civilization. They recognize the superiority which in many +things invention has given us, but to their view this superiority must +ultimately be paid for with too high a price. The Eastern mind, in fact, +regards the greater powers grasped by Western civilization somewhat as +the mediaeval European mind regarded the powers which it believed might +be gained by the Black Art, but for which the user must finally pay in +destruction of body and damnation of soul. And there is much in the +present aspects and tendencies of our civilization to confirm the +Chinese in this view. + +It is clear that the inventions and discoveries which during this +century have so enormously increased the power of producing wealth have +not proved an unmixed good. Their benefits are not merely unequally +distributed, but they are bringing about absolutely injurious effects. +They are concentrating capital, and increasing the power of these +concentrations to monopolize and oppress; are rendering the workman more +dependent; depriving him of the advantages of skill and of opportunities +to acquire it; lessening his control over his own condition and his hope +of improving it; cramping his mind, and in many cases distorting and enervating his body. -It seems to me impossible to consider the present tendencies -of our industrial development without feeling that if there -be no escape from them, the Chinese philosophers are right, -and that the powers we have called into our service must -ultimately destroy us. We are reducing the cost of -production; but in doing so, are stunting children, and -unfitting women for the duties of maternity, and degrading -men into the position of mere feeders of machines. We are -not lessening the fierceness of the struggle for existence. -Though we work with an intensity and application that with -the great majority of us leaves time and power for little -else, we have increased, not decreased, the anxieties of -life. Insanity is increasing, suicide is increasing, the -disposition to shun marriage is increasing. We are -developing on the one side, enormous fortunes, but on the -other side, utter pariahs. These are symptoms of disease for -which no gains can compensate. - -Yet it is manifestly wrong to attribute either necessary -good or necessary evil to the improvements and inventions -which are so changing industrial and social relations. They -simply increase power---and power may work either good or -evil as intelligence controls or fails to control it. - -Let us consider the effects of the introduction of -labor-saving machinery---or rather, of all discoveries, -inventions and improvements, that increase the produce a -given amount of labor can obtain: - -In that primitive state in which the labor of each family -supplies its wants, any invention or discovery which -increases the power of supplying one of these wants will -increase the power of supplying all, since the labor saved -in one direction may be expended in other directions. - -When division of labor has taken place, and different parts -in production are taken by different individuals, the gain -obtained by any labor-saving improvement in one branch of -production will, in like manner, be averaged with all. If, -for instance, improvements be made in the weaving of cloth -and the working of iron, the effect will be that a bushel of -grain will exchange for more cloth and more iron, and thus -the farmer will be enabled to obtain the same quantity of -all the things he wants with less labor, or a somewhat -greater quantity with the same labor. And so with all other -producers. - -Even when the improvement is kept a secret, or the inventor -is protected for a time by a patent, it is only in part that -the benefit can be retained. It is the general -characteristic of labor-saving improvements, after at least -a certain stage in the arts is reached, that the production -of larger quantities is necessary to secure the economy. And -those who have the monopoly, are impelled by their desire -for the largest profit to produce more at a lower price, -rather than to produce the same quantity at the previous -price, thus enabling the producers of other things to obtain -for less labor the particular things in the production of -which the saving has been effected, and thus diffusing part -of the benefit, and generally the largest part, over the -whole field of industry. - -In this way all labor-saving inventions tend to increase the -productive power of all labor, and, except in so far as they -are monopolized, their whole benefit is thus diffused. For, -if in one occupation labor become more profitable than in -others, labor is drawn to it until the net average in -different occupations is restored. And so, where not -artificially prevented, does the same tendency bring to a -com-mon level the earnings of capital. The direct effect of -improvements and inventions which add to productive power -is, it is to be remarked, always to increase the earnings of -labor, never to increase the earnings of capital. The -advantage, even in such improvements as may seem primarily -to be rather capital-saving than labor-saving---as, for -instance, an invention which lessens the time required for -the tanning of hides---becomes a property and advantage of -labor. The reason is, not to go into a more elaborate -explanation, that labor is the active factor in production. -Capital is merely its tool and instrument. The great gains -made by particular capitalists in the utilization of -improvements, are not the gains of capital, but generally -the gains of monopoly, though sometimes they may be gains of -adventure or of management. The rate of interest, which is -the measure of the earnings of capital, has not increased -with all the enormous labor-saving improvements of our -century; on the contrary, its tendency has been to diminish. -But the requirement of larger amounts of capital, which is -generally characteristic of labor-saving improvements, may -increase the facility with which those who have large -capitals can establish monopolies that enable them to -intercept what would naturally go to labor. This, however, -is an effect, rather than a cause, of the failure of labor -to get the benefit of improvements in production. - -For the cause we must go further. While labor-saving -improvements increase the power of labor, no improvement or -invention can release labor from its dependence upon land. -Labor-saving improvements only increase the power of -producing wealth from land. And land being monopolized as -the private property of certain persons, who can thus -prevent others from using it, all these gains, which accrue -primarily to labor, can be demanded from labor by the owners -of land, in higher rents and higher prices. Thus, as we see -it, the march of improvement and invention has increased -neither interest nor wages, but its general effect has -everywhere been to increase the value of land. Where -increase of wages has been won, it has been by combination, -or the concurrence of special causes; but what of the -increased productiveness which primarily attaches to labor -has been thus secured by labor is comparatively trivial. -Some part of it has gone to various other monopolies, but -the great bulk has gone to the monopoly of the soil, has -increased ground-rents and raised the value of land. - -The railroad, for instance, is a great labor-saving -invention. It does not increase the quantity of grain which -the farmer can raise, nor the quantity of goods which the -manufacturer can turn out; but by reducing the cost of -transportation it increases the quantity of all the various -things which can be obtained in exchange for produce of -either kind; which practically amounts to the same thing. - -These gains primarily accrue to labor; that is to say, the -advantage given by the railroad in the district which it -affects, is to save labor; to enable the same labor to -procure more wealth. But as we see where railroads are -built, it is not labor that secures the gain. The railroad -being a monopoly---and in the United States, a practically -unrestricted monopoly---as large a portion as possible of -these gains, over and above the fair returns on the capital -invested, is intercepted by the managers, who by fictitious -costs, watered stock, and in various other ways, thinly -disguise their levies, and who generally rob the -stockholders while they fleece the public. The rest of the -gain---the advantage which, after these deductions, accrues -to labor, is intercepted by the monopolists of land. As the -productiveness of labor is increased, or even as there is a -promise of its increase, so does the value of land increase, -and labor, having to pay proportionately more for land, is -shorn of all the benefit. Taught by experience, when a -railroad opens a new district we do not expect wages to -increase; what we expect to increase is the value of land. - -The elevated railroads of New York are great labor-saving -machines, which have greatly reduced the time and labor -necessary to take people from one end of the city to the -other. They have made accessible to the over-crowded -population of the lower part of the island, the vacant -spaces at the upper. But they have not added to the earnings -of labor, nor made it easier for the mere laborer to live. -Some portion of the gain has been intercepted by Mr. Cyrus -Field, Mr. Samuel J. Tilden, Mr. Jay Gould, and other -managers and manipulators. Over and above this, the -advantage has gone to the owners of land. The reduction in -the time and cost of transportation has made much vacant -land accessible to an overcrowded population, but as this -land has been made accessible, so has its value risen, and -the tenement-house population is as crowded as ever. The -managers of the roads have gained some millions; the owners -of the land affected, some hundreds of millions; but the -working classes of New York are no better off. What they -gain in improved transportation they must pay in increased +It seems to me impossible to consider the present tendencies of our +industrial development without feeling that if there be no escape from +them, the Chinese philosophers are right, and that the powers we have +called into our service must ultimately destroy us. We are reducing the +cost of production; but in doing so, are stunting children, and +unfitting women for the duties of maternity, and degrading men into the +position of mere feeders of machines. We are not lessening the +fierceness of the struggle for existence. Though we work with an +intensity and application that with the great majority of us leaves time +and power for little else, we have increased, not decreased, the +anxieties of life. Insanity is increasing, suicide is increasing, the +disposition to shun marriage is increasing. We are developing on the one +side, enormous fortunes, but on the other side, utter pariahs. These are +symptoms of disease for which no gains can compensate. + +Yet it is manifestly wrong to attribute either necessary good or +necessary evil to the improvements and inventions which are so changing +industrial and social relations. They simply increase power---and power +may work either good or evil as intelligence controls or fails to +control it. + +Let us consider the effects of the introduction of labor-saving +machinery---or rather, of all discoveries, inventions and improvements, +that increase the produce a given amount of labor can obtain: + +In that primitive state in which the labor of each family supplies its +wants, any invention or discovery which increases the power of supplying +one of these wants will increase the power of supplying all, since the +labor saved in one direction may be expended in other directions. + +When division of labor has taken place, and different parts in +production are taken by different individuals, the gain obtained by any +labor-saving improvement in one branch of production will, in like +manner, be averaged with all. If, for instance, improvements be made in +the weaving of cloth and the working of iron, the effect will be that a +bushel of grain will exchange for more cloth and more iron, and thus the +farmer will be enabled to obtain the same quantity of all the things he +wants with less labor, or a somewhat greater quantity with the same +labor. And so with all other producers. + +Even when the improvement is kept a secret, or the inventor is protected +for a time by a patent, it is only in part that the benefit can be +retained. It is the general characteristic of labor-saving improvements, +after at least a certain stage in the arts is reached, that the +production of larger quantities is necessary to secure the economy. And +those who have the monopoly, are impelled by their desire for the +largest profit to produce more at a lower price, rather than to produce +the same quantity at the previous price, thus enabling the producers of +other things to obtain for less labor the particular things in the +production of which the saving has been effected, and thus diffusing +part of the benefit, and generally the largest part, over the whole +field of industry. + +In this way all labor-saving inventions tend to increase the productive +power of all labor, and, except in so far as they are monopolized, their +whole benefit is thus diffused. For, if in one occupation labor become +more profitable than in others, labor is drawn to it until the net +average in different occupations is restored. And so, where not +artificially prevented, does the same tendency bring to a com-mon level +the earnings of capital. The direct effect of improvements and +inventions which add to productive power is, it is to be remarked, +always to increase the earnings of labor, never to increase the earnings +of capital. The advantage, even in such improvements as may seem +primarily to be rather capital-saving than labor-saving---as, for +instance, an invention which lessens the time required for the tanning +of hides---becomes a property and advantage of labor. The reason is, not +to go into a more elaborate explanation, that labor is the active factor +in production. Capital is merely its tool and instrument. The great +gains made by particular capitalists in the utilization of improvements, +are not the gains of capital, but generally the gains of monopoly, +though sometimes they may be gains of adventure or of management. The +rate of interest, which is the measure of the earnings of capital, has +not increased with all the enormous labor-saving improvements of our +century; on the contrary, its tendency has been to diminish. But the +requirement of larger amounts of capital, which is generally +characteristic of labor-saving improvements, may increase the facility +with which those who have large capitals can establish monopolies that +enable them to intercept what would naturally go to labor. This, +however, is an effect, rather than a cause, of the failure of labor to +get the benefit of improvements in production. + +For the cause we must go further. While labor-saving improvements +increase the power of labor, no improvement or invention can release +labor from its dependence upon land. Labor-saving improvements only +increase the power of producing wealth from land. And land being +monopolized as the private property of certain persons, who can thus +prevent others from using it, all these gains, which accrue primarily to +labor, can be demanded from labor by the owners of land, in higher rents +and higher prices. Thus, as we see it, the march of improvement and +invention has increased neither interest nor wages, but its general +effect has everywhere been to increase the value of land. Where increase +of wages has been won, it has been by combination, or the concurrence of +special causes; but what of the increased productiveness which primarily +attaches to labor has been thus secured by labor is comparatively +trivial. Some part of it has gone to various other monopolies, but the +great bulk has gone to the monopoly of the soil, has increased +ground-rents and raised the value of land. + +The railroad, for instance, is a great labor-saving invention. It does +not increase the quantity of grain which the farmer can raise, nor the +quantity of goods which the manufacturer can turn out; but by reducing +the cost of transportation it increases the quantity of all the various +things which can be obtained in exchange for produce of either kind; +which practically amounts to the same thing. + +These gains primarily accrue to labor; that is to say, the advantage +given by the railroad in the district which it affects, is to save +labor; to enable the same labor to procure more wealth. But as we see +where railroads are built, it is not labor that secures the gain. The +railroad being a monopoly---and in the United States, a practically +unrestricted monopoly---as large a portion as possible of these gains, +over and above the fair returns on the capital invested, is intercepted +by the managers, who by fictitious costs, watered stock, and in various +other ways, thinly disguise their levies, and who generally rob the +stockholders while they fleece the public. The rest of the gain---the +advantage which, after these deductions, accrues to labor, is +intercepted by the monopolists of land. As the productiveness of labor +is increased, or even as there is a promise of its increase, so does the +value of land increase, and labor, having to pay proportionately more +for land, is shorn of all the benefit. Taught by experience, when a +railroad opens a new district we do not expect wages to increase; what +we expect to increase is the value of land. + +The elevated railroads of New York are great labor-saving machines, +which have greatly reduced the time and labor necessary to take people +from one end of the city to the other. They have made accessible to the +over-crowded population of the lower part of the island, the vacant +spaces at the upper. But they have not added to the earnings of labor, +nor made it easier for the mere laborer to live. Some portion of the +gain has been intercepted by Mr. Cyrus Field, Mr. Samuel J. Tilden, +Mr. Jay Gould, and other managers and manipulators. Over and above this, +the advantage has gone to the owners of land. The reduction in the time +and cost of transportation has made much vacant land accessible to an +overcrowded population, but as this land has been made accessible, so +has its value risen, and the tenement-house population is as crowded as +ever. The managers of the roads have gained some millions; the owners of +the land affected, some hundreds of millions; but the working classes of +New York are no better off. What they gain in improved transportation +they must pay in increased rent. + +And so would it be with any improvement or material benefaction. +Supposing the very rich men of New York were to become suddenly imbued +with that public spirit which shows itself in the Astor Library and the +Cooper Institute, and that it should become among them a passion, +leading them even to beggar themselves in the emulation to benefit their +fellow citizens. Supposing such a man as Mr. Gould were to make the +elevated roads free, were to assume the cost of the Fire Department, and +give every house a free telephone connection; and Mr. Vanderbilt, not to +be outdone, were to assume the cost of putting down good pavements, and +cleaning the streets, and running the horse cars for nothing; while the +Astors were to build libraries in every ward. Supposing the fifty, +twenty, ten, and still smaller millionaires, seized by the same passion, +were singly or together, at their own cost, to bring in plentiful +supplies of water; to furnish heat, light and power free of charge; to +improve and maintain the schools; to open theaters and concerts to the +public; to establish public gardens and baths and markets; to open +stores where everything could be bought at retail for the lowest +wholesale price;--in short, were to do everything that could be done to +make New York a cheap and pleasant place to live in? The result would be +that New York being so much more desirable a place to live in, more +people would desire to live in it, and the land owners could charge so +much the more for the privilege. All these benefactions would increase rent. -And so would it be with any improvement or material -benefaction. Supposing the very rich men of New York were to -become suddenly imbued with that public spirit which shows -itself in the Astor Library and the Cooper Institute, and -that it should become among them a passion, leading them -even to beggar themselves in the emulation to benefit their -fellow citizens. Supposing such a man as Mr. Gould were to -make the elevated roads free, were to assume the cost of the -Fire Department, and give every house a free telephone -connection; and Mr. Vanderbilt, not to be outdone, were to -assume the cost of putting down good pavements, and cleaning -the streets, and running the horse cars for nothing; while -the Astors were to build libraries in every ward. Supposing -the fifty, twenty, ten, and still smaller millionaires, -seized by the same passion, were singly or together, at -their own cost, to bring in plentiful supplies of water; to -furnish heat, light and power free of charge; to improve and -maintain the schools; to open theaters and concerts to the -public; to establish public gardens and baths and markets; -to open stores where everything could be bought at retail -for the lowest wholesale price;--in short, were to do -everything that could be done to make New York a cheap and -pleasant place to live in? The result would be that New York -being so much more desirable a place to live in, more people -would desire to live in it, and the land owners could charge -so much the more for the privilege. All these benefactions -would increase rent. - -And so, whatever be the character of the improvement, its -benefit, land being monopolized, must ultimately go to the -owners of land. Were labor-saving invention carried so far -that the necessity of labor in the production of wealth were -done away with, the result would be this: the owners of land -could command all the wealth that could be produced, and -need not share with labor even what is necessary for its -maintenance. Were the powers and capacities of land -increased, the gain would be that of landowners. Or were the -improvement to take place in the powers and capacities of -labor, it would still be the owners of land, not laborers, +And so, whatever be the character of the improvement, its benefit, land +being monopolized, must ultimately go to the owners of land. Were +labor-saving invention carried so far that the necessity of labor in the +production of wealth were done away with, the result would be this: the +owners of land could command all the wealth that could be produced, and +need not share with labor even what is necessary for its maintenance. +Were the powers and capacities of land increased, the gain would be that +of landowners. Or were the improvement to take place in the powers and +capacities of labor, it would still be the owners of land, not laborers, who would reap the advantage. -For land being indispensable to labor, those who monopolize -land are able to make their own terms with labor; or rather, -the competition with each other of those who cannot employ -themselves, yet must find employment or starve, will force -wages down to the lowest point at which the habits of the -labor ing class permit them to live and reproduce. At this -point, in all countries where land is fully monopolized, the -wages of common labor must rest, and toward it all other -wages tend, being only kept up above it by the special -conditions, artificial or otherwise, which give labor in -some occupations higher wages than in others. And so no -improvement even in the power of labor itself---whether it -come from education, from the actual increase of muscular -force, or from the ability to do with less sleep and work -longer hours---could raise the reward of labor above this -point. This we see in countries and in occupations where the -labor of women and children is called in to aid the natural -bread-winner in the support of the family. While as for any -increase in economy and thrift, as soon as it became general -it could only lessen, not increase, the reward of labor. - -This is the "iron law of wages," as it is styled by the -Germans---the law which determines wages to the minimum on -which laborers will consent to live and reproduce. It is -recognized by all economists, though by most of them -attributed to other causes than the true one. It is -manifestly an inevitable result of making the land from -which all must live the exclusive property of some. The lord -of the soil is necessarily lord of the men who live upon it. -They are as truly and as fully his slaves as though his -ownership in their flesh and blood acknowledged. Their -competition with each other to obtain from him the means of -livelihood must compel them to give up to him all their -earnings save the necessary wages of slavery---to wit, -enough to keep them in working condition and maintain their -numbers. And as no possible increase in the power of his -labor, or reduction in his expenses of living, can benefit -the slave, neither can it, where land is monopolized, -benefit those who have nothing but their labor. It can only -increase the value of land---the proportion of the produce -that goes to the landowner. And this being the case, the -greater employment of machinery, the greater division of -labor, the greater contrasts in the distribution of wealth, -become to the working masses positive evils---making their -lot harder and more hopeless as material progress goes on. -Even education adds but to the capacity for suffering. If -the slave must continue to be a slave, it is cruelty to -educate him. - -All this we may not yet fully realize, because the -industrial revolution which began with the introduction of -steam, is as yet in its first stages, while up to this time -the overrunning of a new continent has reduced social -pressure, not merely here, but even in Europe. But the new -continent is rapidly being fenced in, and the industrial -revolution goes on faster and faster. +For land being indispensable to labor, those who monopolize land are +able to make their own terms with labor; or rather, the competition with +each other of those who cannot employ themselves, yet must find +employment or starve, will force wages down to the lowest point at which +the habits of the labor ing class permit them to live and reproduce. At +this point, in all countries where land is fully monopolized, the wages +of common labor must rest, and toward it all other wages tend, being +only kept up above it by the special conditions, artificial or +otherwise, which give labor in some occupations higher wages than in +others. And so no improvement even in the power of labor +itself---whether it come from education, from the actual increase of +muscular force, or from the ability to do with less sleep and work +longer hours---could raise the reward of labor above this point. This we +see in countries and in occupations where the labor of women and +children is called in to aid the natural bread-winner in the support of +the family. While as for any increase in economy and thrift, as soon as +it became general it could only lessen, not increase, the reward of +labor. + +This is the "iron law of wages," as it is styled by the Germans---the +law which determines wages to the minimum on which laborers will consent +to live and reproduce. It is recognized by all economists, though by +most of them attributed to other causes than the true one. It is +manifestly an inevitable result of making the land from which all must +live the exclusive property of some. The lord of the soil is necessarily +lord of the men who live upon it. They are as truly and as fully his +slaves as though his ownership in their flesh and blood acknowledged. +Their competition with each other to obtain from him the means of +livelihood must compel them to give up to him all their earnings save +the necessary wages of slavery---to wit, enough to keep them in working +condition and maintain their numbers. And as no possible increase in the +power of his labor, or reduction in his expenses of living, can benefit +the slave, neither can it, where land is monopolized, benefit those who +have nothing but their labor. It can only increase the value of +land---the proportion of the produce that goes to the landowner. And +this being the case, the greater employment of machinery, the greater +division of labor, the greater contrasts in the distribution of wealth, +become to the working masses positive evils---making their lot harder +and more hopeless as material progress goes on. Even education adds but +to the capacity for suffering. If the slave must continue to be a slave, +it is cruelty to educate him. + +All this we may not yet fully realize, because the industrial revolution +which began with the introduction of steam, is as yet in its first +stages, while up to this time the overrunning of a new continent has +reduced social pressure, not merely here, but even in Europe. But the +new continent is rapidly being fenced in, and the industrial revolution +goes on faster and faster. # Slavery and Slavery -I must leave it to the reader to carry on in other -directions, if he choose, such inquiries as those to which -the last three chapters have been devoted.The more carefully -he examines, the more fully will he see that at the root of -every social problem lies a social wrong, that "ignorance, -neglect or contempt of human rights are the causes of public -misfortunes and corruptions of government." Yet, in truth, -no elaborate examination is necessary. To understand why -material progress does not benefit the masses requires but a -recognition of the self-evident truth that man cannot live -without land; that it is only on land and from land that -human labor can produce. - -Robinson Crusoe, as we all know, took Friday as his slave. -Suppose, however, that instead of taking Friday as his -slave, Robinson Crusoe had welcomed him as a man and a -brother; had read him a Declaration of Independence, an -Emancipation Proclamation and a Fifteenth Amendment, and -informed him that he was a free and independent citizen, -entitled to vote and hold office; but had at the same time -also informed him that that particular island was his -(Robinson Crusoe's) private and exclusive property. What -would have been the difference? Since Friday could not fly -up into the air nor swim off through the sea, since if he -lived at all he must live on the island, he would have been -in one case as much a slave as in the other. Crusoe's -ownership of the island would be equivalent of his ownership -of Friday. - -Chattel slavery is, in fact, merely the rude and primitive -mode of property in man. It only grows up where population -is sparse; it never, save by virtue of special -circumstances, continues where the pressure of population -gives land a high value, for in that case the ownership of -land gives all the power that comes from the ownership of -men in more convenient form. When in the course of history -we see the conquerors making chattel slaves of the -conquered, it is always where population is sparse and land -of little value, or where they want to carry off their human -spoil. In other cases, the conquerors merely appropriate the -lands of the conquered, by which means they just as -effectually, and much more conveniently, compel the -conquered to work for them. It was not until the great -estates of the rich patricians began to depopulate Italy -that the importation of slaves began. In Turkey and Egypt, -where chattel slavery is yet legal, it is confined to the -inmates and attendants of harems. English ships carried -negro slaves to America, and not to England or Ireland, -because in America land was cheap and labor was valuable, -while in western Europe land was valuable and labor was -cheap. As soon as the possibility of expansion over new land -ceased, chattel slavery would have died out in our Southern -states. As it is. Southern planters do not regret the -abolition of slavery. They get out of the freedmen as -tenants as much as they got out of them as slaves. While as -for praedial slavery---the attachment of serfs to the -soil---the form of chattel slavery which existed longest in -Europe, it is only of use to the proprietor where there is -little competition for land. Neither praedial slavery nor -absolute chattel slavery could have added to the Irish -landlord's virtual ownership of men---to his power to make -them work for him without return. Their own competition for -the means of livelihood insured him all they possibly could -give. To the English proprietor the ownership of slaves -would be only a burden and a loss, when lie can get laborers -for less than it would cost to maintain them as slaves, and -when they are become ill or infirm can turn them on the -parish. Or what would the New England manufacturer gain by -the enslavement of his operatives? The competition with each -other of so-called freemen, who are denied all right to the -soil of what is called *their* country, brings him labor -cheaper and more conveniently than would chattel slavery. - -That a people can be enslaved just as effectually by making -property of their lands as by making property of their -bodies, is a truth that conquerors in all ages have -recognized, and that, as society developed, the strong and -unscrupulous who desired to live off the labor of others, -have been prompt to see. The coarser form of slavery, in -which each particular slave is the property of a particular -owner, is only fitted for a rude state of society, and with -social development entails more and more care, trouble and -expense upon the owner. But by making property of the land -instead of the person, much care, supervision and expense -are saved the proprietors; and though no particular slave is -owned by a particular master, yet the one class still -appropriates the labor of the other class as before. - -That each particular slave should be owned by a particular -master would in fact become, as social development went on, -and industrial organization grew complex, a manifest -disadvantage to the masters. They would be at the trouble of -whipping, or otherwise compelling the slaves to work; at the -cost of watching them, and of keeping them when ill or -unproductive; at the trouble of finding work for them to do, -or of hiring them out, as at different seasons or at -different times, the number of slaves which different owners -or different contractors could advantageously employ would -vary. As social development went on, these inconveniences -might, were there no other way of obviating them, have led -slave-owners to adopt some such device for the joint -ownership and management of slaves, as the mutual -convenience of capitalists has led to in the management of -capital. In a rude state of society, the man who wants to -have money ready for use must hoard it, or, if he travels, -carry it with him. The man who has capital must use it -himself or lend it. But mutual convenience has, as society -developed, suggested methods of saving this trouble. The man -who wishes to have his money accessible turns it over to a -bank, which does not agree to keep or hand him back that -particular money, but money to that amount. And so by -turning over his capital to savings banks or trust -companies, or by buying the stock or bonds of corporations, -he gets rid of all trouble of handling and employing it. Had -chattel slavery continued, some similar device for the -ownership and management of slaves would in time have been -adopted. But by changing the form of slavery---by freeing -men and appropriating land---all the advantages of chattel -slavery can be secured without any of the disadvantages -which in a complex society attend the owning of a particular -man by a particular master. - -Unable to employ themselves, the nominally free laborers are -forced by their competition with each other to pay as rent -all their earnings above a bare living, or to sell their -labor for wages which give but a bare living, and as -landowners the ex-slaveholders are enabled as before, to -appropriate to themselves the labor or the produce of the -labor of their former chattels, having in the value which -this power of appropriating the proceeds of labor gives to -the ownership of land, a capitalized value equivalent, or -more than equivalent, to the value of their slaves. They no -longer have to drive their slaves to work; want and the fear -of want do that more effectually than the lash. They no -longer have the trouble of looking out for their employment -or hiring out their labor, or the expense of keeping them -when they cannot work. That is thrown upon the slaves. The -tribute that they still wring from labor seems like -voluntary payment. In fact, they take it as their honest -share of the rewards of production---since they furnish the -land! And they find so-called political economists, to say -nothing of so-called preachers of Christianity, to tell them -it is so. - -We of the United States take credit for having abolished -slavery. Passing the question of how much credit the -majority of us are entitled to for the abolition of negro -slavery, it remains true that we have only abolished one -form of slavery---and that a primitive form which had been -abolished in the greater portion of the country by social -development, and that, notwithstanding its race character -gave it peculiar tenacity, would in time have been abolished -in the same way in other parts of the country. We have not -really abolished slavery; we have retained it in its most -insidious and widespread form---in a form which applies to -whites as to blacks. So far from having abolished slavery, -it is extending and intensifying, and we make no scruple of -selling into it our own children---the citizens of the -republic yet to be. For what else are we doing in selling -the land on which future citizens must live, if they are to -live at all? - -The essence of slavery is the robbery of labor. It consists -in compelling men to work, yet taking from them all the -produce of their labor except what suffices for a bare -living. Of how many of our "free and equal American -citizens" is that already the lot? And of how many more is -it coming to be the lot? - -In all our cities there are, even in good times, thousands -and thousands of men who would gladly go to work for wages -that would give them merely board and clothes---that is to -say, who would gladly accept the wages of slaves. As I have -previously stated, the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor -Statistics and the Illinois Bui-eau ot Labor Statistics both -declare that in the majority of cases the earnings of wage -workers will not maintain their families, and must be pieced -out by the earnings of women and children. In our richest -states are to be found men reduced to a virtual -peonage---living in their employers' houses, trading at -their stores, and for the most part unable to get out of -their debt from one year's end to the other. In New York, -shirts are made for 35 cents a dozen, and women working from -fourteen to sixteen hours a day average three dollars or -four dollars a week. There are cities where the prices of -such work are lower still. As a matter of dollars and cents, -no master could afford to work slaves so hard and keep them -so cheaply. - -But it may be said that the analogy between our industrial -system and chattel slavery is only supported by the -consideration of extremes. Between those who get but a bare -living and those who can live luxuriously on the earnings of -others, are many gradations, and here lies the great middle -class. Between all classes, moreover, a constant movement of -individuals is going on. The millionaire's grand children -may be tramps, while even the poor man who has lost hope for -himself may cherish it for his son. Moreover, it is not true -that all the difference between what labor fairly earns and -what labor really gets goes to the owners of land. And with -us, in the United States, a great many of the owners of land -are small owners---men who own the homesteads in which they -live or the soil which they till, and who combine the -characters of laborer and landowner. - -These objections will be best met by endeavoring to imagine -a well developed society, like our own, in which chattel -slavery exists without distinction of race. To do this -requires some imagination, for we know of no such case. -Chattel slavery had died out in Europe before modem -civilization began, and in the Xew World has existed only as -race slavery, and in communities of low industrial -development. - -But if we do imagine slavery without race distinction in a -progressive community, we shall see that society, even if -starting from a point where the greater part of the people -were made the chattel slaves of the rest could not long -consist of but the two classes, masters and slaves. The -indolence, interest and necessity of the masters would soon -develop a class of intermediaries between the completely -enslaved and themselves. To supervise the labor of the -slaves, and to keep them in subjection, it would be -necessary to take, from the ranks of the slaves, overseers, -policemen, etc., and to reward them by more of the produce -of slave labor than goes to the ordinary slave. So, too, -would it be necessary to draw out special skill and talent -And in the course of social development a class of traders -would necessarily arise, who, exchanging the products of -slave labor, would retain a considerable portion; and a -class of contractors, who, hiring slave labor from the -masters, would also retain a portion of its produce. Thus, -between the slaves forced to work for a bare living and the -masters who lived without work, intermediaries of various -grades would be developed, some of whom would doubtless -acquire large wealth. - -And in the mutations of fortune, some slaveholders would be -constantly falling into the class of intermediaries, and -finally into the class of slaves, while individual slaves -would be rising. The conscience, benevolence or gratitude of -masters would lead them occasionally to manumit slaves; -their interest would lead them to reward the diligence, -inventiveness, fidelity to themselves, or treachery to their -fellows, of particular slaves. Thus, as has often occurred -in slave countries, we would find slaves who were free to -make what they could on condition of paying so much to their -masters every month or every quarter; slaves who had -partially bought their freedom, for a day or two days or -three days in the week, or for certain months in the year, -and those who had completely bought themselves, or had been -presented with their freedom. And, as has always happened -where slavery had not race character, some of these -ex-slaves or their children would, in the constant movement, -be always working their way to the highest places, so that -in such a state of society the apologists of things as they -are would triumphantly point to these examples, saying, "See -how beautiful a thing is slavery! Any slave can become a -slaveholder himself if he is only faithful, industrious and -prudent! It is only their own ignorance and dissipation and -laziness that prevent all slaves from becoming masters!" And -then they would indulge in a moan for human nature. "Alas!" -they would say, "the fault is not in slavery; it is in human -nature"--meaning, of course, other human nature than their -own. And if anyone hinted at the abolition of slavery, they -would charge him with assailing the sacred rights of -property, and of endeavoring to rob poor blind widow women -of the slaves that were their sole dependence; call him a -crank and a communist; an enemy of man and a defier of God! - -Consider, furthermore, the operation of taxation in an -advanced society based on chattel slavery; the effect of the -establishment of monopolies of manufacture, trade and -transportation; of the creation of public debts, etc., and -you will see that in reality the social phenomena would be -essentially the same if men were made property as they are -under the system that makes land property. - -It must be remembered, however, that the slavery that -results from the appropriation of land does not come -suddenly, but insidiously and progressively. Where -population is sparse and land of little value, the -institution of private property in land may exist without -its effects being much felt. As it becomes more and more -difficult to get laud, so will the virtual enslavement of -the laboring classes go on. As the value of land rises, more -and more of the earnings of labor will be demanded for the -use of land, until finally nothing is left to laborers but -the wages of slavery---a bare living. - -But the degree as well as the manner in which individuals -are affected by this movement must vary very much. Where the -ownership of land has been much diffused, there will remain, -for some time after the mere laborer has been reduced to the -wages of slavery, a greater body of smaller landowners -occupying an intermediate position, and who, according to -the land they hold, and the relation which it bears to their -labor, may, to make a comparison with chattel slavery, be -compared, in their gradations, to the owners of a few -slaves; to those who own no slaves but are themselves free; -or to partial slaves, compelled to render service for one, -two, three, four or five days in the week, but for the rest -of the time their own masters. As land becomes more and more -valuable this class will gradually pass into the ranks of -the completely enslaved. The independent American farmer -working with his own hands on his own land is doomed as -certainly as two thousand years ago his prototype of Italy -was doomed. He must disappear, with the development of the -private ownership of land, as the English yeoman has already -disappeared. - -We have abolished negro slavery in the United States. But -how small is the real benefit to the slave. George M. -Jackson writes me from St. Louis, under date of August 15, -1883: - -> During the war I served in a Kentucky regiment in the -> Federal army. When the war broke out, my father owned -> sixty slaves. I had not been back to my old Kentucky home -> for years until a short time ago, when I was met by one of -> my father's old negroes, who said to me: "Mas George, you -> say you sot us free; but 'fore God, I'm wus off than when -> I belonged to your father." The planters, on the other -> hand, are contented with the change. They say: "How -> foolish it was in us to go to war for slavery. We get -> labor cheaper now than when we owned the slaves." How do -> they get it cheaper? Why, in the shape of rents they take -> more of the labor of the negro than they could under -> slavery, for then they were compelled to return him -> sufficient food, clothing and medical attendance to keep -> him well, and were compelled by conscience and public -> opinion, as well as by law, to keep him when he could no -> longer work. Now their interest and responsibility ceases -> when they have got all the work out of him they can. - -In one of his novels, Capt. Marryat tells of a schoolmaster -who announced that he had abandoned the use of the rod. When -tender mothers, tempted by this announcement, brought their -boys to his institution, he was eloquent in his -denunciations of the barbarism of the rod; but no sooner had -the doors closed upon them than the luckless pupils found -that the master had only abandoned the use of the rod for -the use of the cane! Very much like this is our abolition of -negro slavery. - -The only one of our prominent men who had any glimmering of -what was really necessary to the abolition of slavery was -Thaddeus Stephens, but it was only a glimmering. "Forty -acres and a mule" would have been a measure of scant justice -to the freedmen, and it would for awhile have given them -something of that personal independence which is necessary -to freedom. Yet only for awhile. In the course of time, and -as the pressure of population increased, the forty acres -would, with the majority of them, have been mortgaged and -the mule sold, and they would soon have been, as now, -competitors for a foothold upon the earth and for the means -of making a living from it. Such a measure would have given -the freedmen a fairer start, and for many of them would have -postponed the evil day; but that is all. Land being private -property, that evil day *must* come. - -I do not deny that the blacks of the South have in some -things gained by the abolition of chattel slavery. I will -not even insist that, on the whole, their material condition -has not been improved. But it must be remembered that the -South is yet but sparsely settled, and is behindhand in -industrial development. The continued existence of slavery -there was partly the effect and partly the cause of this. As -population increases, as industry is developed, the -condition of the freedmen must become harder and harder. As -yet, land is comparatively cheap in the South, and there is -much not only unused but unclaimed. The consequence is, that -the freedmen are not yet driven into that fierce competition -which must come with denser population; there is no seeming -surplus of labor seeking employment on any terms, as in the -North. The freedmen merely get a living, as in the days of -slavery, and in many cases not so good a living; but still -there is little or no difficulty in getting that. To fairly -compare the new estate of the freedmen with the old, we must -wait until in population and industrial development the -South begins to approach the condition of the North. - -But not even in the North (nor, foi that matter, even in -Europe) has that form of slavery which necessarily results -from the disinheritance of labor by the monopolization of -land, yet reached its culmination. For the vast area of -unoccupied land on this continent has prevented the full -effects ot modern development from being felt. As it becomes -more and more difficult to obtain land, so will the virtual -enslavement of the laboring classes go on. As the value of -land rises, more and more of the earnings of labor will be -demanded for the use of land---that is to say, laborers must -give a greater and greater portion of their time up to the -service of the landlord, until, finally, no matter how hard -they work, nothing is loft them but a bare living. - -Of the two systems of slavery, I think there can be no doubt -that upon the same moral level, that which makes property of -persons is more humane than that which results from making -private property of land. The cruelties which are -perpetrated under the system of chattel slavery are more -striking and arouse more indignation because they are the -conscious acts of individuals. But for the suffering of the -poor under the more refined system no one in particular -seems responsible. That one human being should be -deliberately burned by other human beings excites our -imagination and arouses our indignation much more than the -great fire or railroad accident in which a hundred people -are roasted alive. But this very fact permits cruelties that -would not be tolerated under the one system to pass almost -unnoticed under the other. Human beings are overworked, are -starved, are robbed of all the light and sweetness of life, -are condemned to ignorance and brutishness, and to the -infection of physical and moral disease; are driven to crime -and suicide, not by other individuals, but by iron -necessities for which it seems that no one in particular is -responsible. - -To match from the annals of chattel slavery the horrors that -day after day transpire unnoticed in the heart of Christian -civilization it would be necessary to go back to ancient -slavery, to the chronicles of Spanish conquest in the New -World, or to stories of the Middle Passage. - -That chattel slavery is not the worst form of slavery we -know from the fact that in countries where it has prevailed -irrespective of race distinctions, the ranks of chattel -slaves have been recruited from the ranks of the free poor, -who, driven by distress, have sold themselves or their -children. And I think no one who reads our daily papers can -doubt that even already, in the United States, there are -many who, did chattel slavery; without race distinction, -exist among us, would gladly sell themselves or their -children, and who would really make a good exchange for -their nominal freedom in doing so. - -We have not abolished slavery. We never can abolish slavery, -until we honestly accept the fundamental truth asserted by -the Declaration of Independence and secure to all the equal -and unalienable rights with which they are endowed by their -Creator. If we can not or will not do that, then, as a -matter of humanity and social stability, it might be well, -would it avail, to consider whether it were not wise to -amend our constitution and permit poor whites and blacks -alike to sell themselves and their children to good masters. -If we must have slavery, it were better in the form in which -the slave knows his owner, and the heart and conscience and -pride of that owner can be appealed to. Better breed -children for the slaves of good, Christian, civilized people -than breed them for the brothel or the penitentiary. But -alas! that recourse is denied. Supposing we did legalize -chattel slavery again, who would buy men when men can be -hired so cheaply? +I must leave it to the reader to carry on in other directions, if he +choose, such inquiries as those to which the last three chapters have +been devoted.The more carefully he examines, the more fully will he see +that at the root of every social problem lies a social wrong, that +"ignorance, neglect or contempt of human rights are the causes of public +misfortunes and corruptions of government." Yet, in truth, no elaborate +examination is necessary. To understand why material progress does not +benefit the masses requires but a recognition of the self-evident truth +that man cannot live without land; that it is only on land and from land +that human labor can produce. + +Robinson Crusoe, as we all know, took Friday as his slave. Suppose, +however, that instead of taking Friday as his slave, Robinson Crusoe had +welcomed him as a man and a brother; had read him a Declaration of +Independence, an Emancipation Proclamation and a Fifteenth Amendment, +and informed him that he was a free and independent citizen, entitled to +vote and hold office; but had at the same time also informed him that +that particular island was his (Robinson Crusoe's) private and exclusive +property. What would have been the difference? Since Friday could not +fly up into the air nor swim off through the sea, since if he lived at +all he must live on the island, he would have been in one case as much a +slave as in the other. Crusoe's ownership of the island would be +equivalent of his ownership of Friday. + +Chattel slavery is, in fact, merely the rude and primitive mode of +property in man. It only grows up where population is sparse; it never, +save by virtue of special circumstances, continues where the pressure of +population gives land a high value, for in that case the ownership of +land gives all the power that comes from the ownership of men in more +convenient form. When in the course of history we see the conquerors +making chattel slaves of the conquered, it is always where population is +sparse and land of little value, or where they want to carry off their +human spoil. In other cases, the conquerors merely appropriate the lands +of the conquered, by which means they just as effectually, and much more +conveniently, compel the conquered to work for them. It was not until +the great estates of the rich patricians began to depopulate Italy that +the importation of slaves began. In Turkey and Egypt, where chattel +slavery is yet legal, it is confined to the inmates and attendants of +harems. English ships carried negro slaves to America, and not to +England or Ireland, because in America land was cheap and labor was +valuable, while in western Europe land was valuable and labor was cheap. +As soon as the possibility of expansion over new land ceased, chattel +slavery would have died out in our Southern states. As it is. Southern +planters do not regret the abolition of slavery. They get out of the +freedmen as tenants as much as they got out of them as slaves. While as +for praedial slavery---the attachment of serfs to the soil---the form of +chattel slavery which existed longest in Europe, it is only of use to +the proprietor where there is little competition for land. Neither +praedial slavery nor absolute chattel slavery could have added to the +Irish landlord's virtual ownership of men---to his power to make them +work for him without return. Their own competition for the means of +livelihood insured him all they possibly could give. To the English +proprietor the ownership of slaves would be only a burden and a loss, +when lie can get laborers for less than it would cost to maintain them +as slaves, and when they are become ill or infirm can turn them on the +parish. Or what would the New England manufacturer gain by the +enslavement of his operatives? The competition with each other of +so-called freemen, who are denied all right to the soil of what is +called *their* country, brings him labor cheaper and more conveniently +than would chattel slavery. + +That a people can be enslaved just as effectually by making property of +their lands as by making property of their bodies, is a truth that +conquerors in all ages have recognized, and that, as society developed, +the strong and unscrupulous who desired to live off the labor of others, +have been prompt to see. The coarser form of slavery, in which each +particular slave is the property of a particular owner, is only fitted +for a rude state of society, and with social development entails more +and more care, trouble and expense upon the owner. But by making +property of the land instead of the person, much care, supervision and +expense are saved the proprietors; and though no particular slave is +owned by a particular master, yet the one class still appropriates the +labor of the other class as before. + +That each particular slave should be owned by a particular master would +in fact become, as social development went on, and industrial +organization grew complex, a manifest disadvantage to the masters. They +would be at the trouble of whipping, or otherwise compelling the slaves +to work; at the cost of watching them, and of keeping them when ill or +unproductive; at the trouble of finding work for them to do, or of +hiring them out, as at different seasons or at different times, the +number of slaves which different owners or different contractors could +advantageously employ would vary. As social development went on, these +inconveniences might, were there no other way of obviating them, have +led slave-owners to adopt some such device for the joint ownership and +management of slaves, as the mutual convenience of capitalists has led +to in the management of capital. In a rude state of society, the man who +wants to have money ready for use must hoard it, or, if he travels, +carry it with him. The man who has capital must use it himself or lend +it. But mutual convenience has, as society developed, suggested methods +of saving this trouble. The man who wishes to have his money accessible +turns it over to a bank, which does not agree to keep or hand him back +that particular money, but money to that amount. And so by turning over +his capital to savings banks or trust companies, or by buying the stock +or bonds of corporations, he gets rid of all trouble of handling and +employing it. Had chattel slavery continued, some similar device for the +ownership and management of slaves would in time have been adopted. But +by changing the form of slavery---by freeing men and appropriating +land---all the advantages of chattel slavery can be secured without any +of the disadvantages which in a complex society attend the owning of a +particular man by a particular master. + +Unable to employ themselves, the nominally free laborers are forced by +their competition with each other to pay as rent all their earnings +above a bare living, or to sell their labor for wages which give but a +bare living, and as landowners the ex-slaveholders are enabled as +before, to appropriate to themselves the labor or the produce of the +labor of their former chattels, having in the value which this power of +appropriating the proceeds of labor gives to the ownership of land, a +capitalized value equivalent, or more than equivalent, to the value of +their slaves. They no longer have to drive their slaves to work; want +and the fear of want do that more effectually than the lash. They no +longer have the trouble of looking out for their employment or hiring +out their labor, or the expense of keeping them when they cannot work. +That is thrown upon the slaves. The tribute that they still wring from +labor seems like voluntary payment. In fact, they take it as their +honest share of the rewards of production---since they furnish the land! +And they find so-called political economists, to say nothing of +so-called preachers of Christianity, to tell them it is so. + +We of the United States take credit for having abolished slavery. +Passing the question of how much credit the majority of us are entitled +to for the abolition of negro slavery, it remains true that we have only +abolished one form of slavery---and that a primitive form which had been +abolished in the greater portion of the country by social development, +and that, notwithstanding its race character gave it peculiar tenacity, +would in time have been abolished in the same way in other parts of the +country. We have not really abolished slavery; we have retained it in +its most insidious and widespread form---in a form which applies to +whites as to blacks. So far from having abolished slavery, it is +extending and intensifying, and we make no scruple of selling into it +our own children---the citizens of the republic yet to be. For what else +are we doing in selling the land on which future citizens must live, if +they are to live at all? + +The essence of slavery is the robbery of labor. It consists in +compelling men to work, yet taking from them all the produce of their +labor except what suffices for a bare living. Of how many of our "free +and equal American citizens" is that already the lot? And of how many +more is it coming to be the lot? + +In all our cities there are, even in good times, thousands and thousands +of men who would gladly go to work for wages that would give them merely +board and clothes---that is to say, who would gladly accept the wages of +slaves. As I have previously stated, the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor +Statistics and the Illinois Bui-eau ot Labor Statistics both declare +that in the majority of cases the earnings of wage workers will not +maintain their families, and must be pieced out by the earnings of women +and children. In our richest states are to be found men reduced to a +virtual peonage---living in their employers' houses, trading at their +stores, and for the most part unable to get out of their debt from one +year's end to the other. In New York, shirts are made for 35 cents a +dozen, and women working from fourteen to sixteen hours a day average +three dollars or four dollars a week. There are cities where the prices +of such work are lower still. As a matter of dollars and cents, no +master could afford to work slaves so hard and keep them so cheaply. + +But it may be said that the analogy between our industrial system and +chattel slavery is only supported by the consideration of extremes. +Between those who get but a bare living and those who can live +luxuriously on the earnings of others, are many gradations, and here +lies the great middle class. Between all classes, moreover, a constant +movement of individuals is going on. The millionaire's grand children +may be tramps, while even the poor man who has lost hope for himself may +cherish it for his son. Moreover, it is not true that all the difference +between what labor fairly earns and what labor really gets goes to the +owners of land. And with us, in the United States, a great many of the +owners of land are small owners---men who own the homesteads in which +they live or the soil which they till, and who combine the characters of +laborer and landowner. + +These objections will be best met by endeavoring to imagine a well +developed society, like our own, in which chattel slavery exists without +distinction of race. To do this requires some imagination, for we know +of no such case. Chattel slavery had died out in Europe before modem +civilization began, and in the Xew World has existed only as race +slavery, and in communities of low industrial development. + +But if we do imagine slavery without race distinction in a progressive +community, we shall see that society, even if starting from a point +where the greater part of the people were made the chattel slaves of the +rest could not long consist of but the two classes, masters and slaves. +The indolence, interest and necessity of the masters would soon develop +a class of intermediaries between the completely enslaved and +themselves. To supervise the labor of the slaves, and to keep them in +subjection, it would be necessary to take, from the ranks of the slaves, +overseers, policemen, etc., and to reward them by more of the produce of +slave labor than goes to the ordinary slave. So, too, would it be +necessary to draw out special skill and talent And in the course of +social development a class of traders would necessarily arise, who, +exchanging the products of slave labor, would retain a considerable +portion; and a class of contractors, who, hiring slave labor from the +masters, would also retain a portion of its produce. Thus, between the +slaves forced to work for a bare living and the masters who lived +without work, intermediaries of various grades would be developed, some +of whom would doubtless acquire large wealth. + +And in the mutations of fortune, some slaveholders would be constantly +falling into the class of intermediaries, and finally into the class of +slaves, while individual slaves would be rising. The conscience, +benevolence or gratitude of masters would lead them occasionally to +manumit slaves; their interest would lead them to reward the diligence, +inventiveness, fidelity to themselves, or treachery to their fellows, of +particular slaves. Thus, as has often occurred in slave countries, we +would find slaves who were free to make what they could on condition of +paying so much to their masters every month or every quarter; slaves who +had partially bought their freedom, for a day or two days or three days +in the week, or for certain months in the year, and those who had +completely bought themselves, or had been presented with their freedom. +And, as has always happened where slavery had not race character, some +of these ex-slaves or their children would, in the constant movement, be +always working their way to the highest places, so that in such a state +of society the apologists of things as they are would triumphantly point +to these examples, saying, "See how beautiful a thing is slavery! Any +slave can become a slaveholder himself if he is only faithful, +industrious and prudent! It is only their own ignorance and dissipation +and laziness that prevent all slaves from becoming masters!" And then +they would indulge in a moan for human nature. "Alas!" they would say, +"the fault is not in slavery; it is in human nature"--meaning, of +course, other human nature than their own. And if anyone hinted at the +abolition of slavery, they would charge him with assailing the sacred +rights of property, and of endeavoring to rob poor blind widow women of +the slaves that were their sole dependence; call him a crank and a +communist; an enemy of man and a defier of God! + +Consider, furthermore, the operation of taxation in an advanced society +based on chattel slavery; the effect of the establishment of monopolies +of manufacture, trade and transportation; of the creation of public +debts, etc., and you will see that in reality the social phenomena would +be essentially the same if men were made property as they are under the +system that makes land property. + +It must be remembered, however, that the slavery that results from the +appropriation of land does not come suddenly, but insidiously and +progressively. Where population is sparse and land of little value, the +institution of private property in land may exist without its effects +being much felt. As it becomes more and more difficult to get laud, so +will the virtual enslavement of the laboring classes go on. As the value +of land rises, more and more of the earnings of labor will be demanded +for the use of land, until finally nothing is left to laborers but the +wages of slavery---a bare living. + +But the degree as well as the manner in which individuals are affected +by this movement must vary very much. Where the ownership of land has +been much diffused, there will remain, for some time after the mere +laborer has been reduced to the wages of slavery, a greater body of +smaller landowners occupying an intermediate position, and who, +according to the land they hold, and the relation which it bears to +their labor, may, to make a comparison with chattel slavery, be +compared, in their gradations, to the owners of a few slaves; to those +who own no slaves but are themselves free; or to partial slaves, +compelled to render service for one, two, three, four or five days in +the week, but for the rest of the time their own masters. As land +becomes more and more valuable this class will gradually pass into the +ranks of the completely enslaved. The independent American farmer +working with his own hands on his own land is doomed as certainly as two +thousand years ago his prototype of Italy was doomed. He must disappear, +with the development of the private ownership of land, as the English +yeoman has already disappeared. + +We have abolished negro slavery in the United States. But how small is +the real benefit to the slave. George M. Jackson writes me from +St. Louis, under date of August 15, 1883: + +> During the war I served in a Kentucky regiment in the Federal army. +> When the war broke out, my father owned sixty slaves. I had not been +> back to my old Kentucky home for years until a short time ago, when I +> was met by one of my father's old negroes, who said to me: "Mas +> George, you say you sot us free; but 'fore God, I'm wus off than when +> I belonged to your father." The planters, on the other hand, are +> contented with the change. They say: "How foolish it was in us to go +> to war for slavery. We get labor cheaper now than when we owned the +> slaves." How do they get it cheaper? Why, in the shape of rents they +> take more of the labor of the negro than they could under slavery, for +> then they were compelled to return him sufficient food, clothing and +> medical attendance to keep him well, and were compelled by conscience +> and public opinion, as well as by law, to keep him when he could no +> longer work. Now their interest and responsibility ceases when they +> have got all the work out of him they can. + +In one of his novels, Capt. Marryat tells of a schoolmaster who +announced that he had abandoned the use of the rod. When tender mothers, +tempted by this announcement, brought their boys to his institution, he +was eloquent in his denunciations of the barbarism of the rod; but no +sooner had the doors closed upon them than the luckless pupils found +that the master had only abandoned the use of the rod for the use of the +cane! Very much like this is our abolition of negro slavery. + +The only one of our prominent men who had any glimmering of what was +really necessary to the abolition of slavery was Thaddeus Stephens, but +it was only a glimmering. "Forty acres and a mule" would have been a +measure of scant justice to the freedmen, and it would for awhile have +given them something of that personal independence which is necessary to +freedom. Yet only for awhile. In the course of time, and as the pressure +of population increased, the forty acres would, with the majority of +them, have been mortgaged and the mule sold, and they would soon have +been, as now, competitors for a foothold upon the earth and for the +means of making a living from it. Such a measure would have given the +freedmen a fairer start, and for many of them would have postponed the +evil day; but that is all. Land being private property, that evil day +*must* come. + +I do not deny that the blacks of the South have in some things gained by +the abolition of chattel slavery. I will not even insist that, on the +whole, their material condition has not been improved. But it must be +remembered that the South is yet but sparsely settled, and is behindhand +in industrial development. The continued existence of slavery there was +partly the effect and partly the cause of this. As population increases, +as industry is developed, the condition of the freedmen must become +harder and harder. As yet, land is comparatively cheap in the South, and +there is much not only unused but unclaimed. The consequence is, that +the freedmen are not yet driven into that fierce competition which must +come with denser population; there is no seeming surplus of labor +seeking employment on any terms, as in the North. The freedmen merely +get a living, as in the days of slavery, and in many cases not so good a +living; but still there is little or no difficulty in getting that. To +fairly compare the new estate of the freedmen with the old, we must wait +until in population and industrial development the South begins to +approach the condition of the North. + +But not even in the North (nor, foi that matter, even in Europe) has +that form of slavery which necessarily results from the disinheritance +of labor by the monopolization of land, yet reached its culmination. For +the vast area of unoccupied land on this continent has prevented the +full effects ot modern development from being felt. As it becomes more +and more difficult to obtain land, so will the virtual enslavement of +the laboring classes go on. As the value of land rises, more and more of +the earnings of labor will be demanded for the use of land---that is to +say, laborers must give a greater and greater portion of their time up +to the service of the landlord, until, finally, no matter how hard they +work, nothing is loft them but a bare living. + +Of the two systems of slavery, I think there can be no doubt that upon +the same moral level, that which makes property of persons is more +humane than that which results from making private property of land. The +cruelties which are perpetrated under the system of chattel slavery are +more striking and arouse more indignation because they are the conscious +acts of individuals. But for the suffering of the poor under the more +refined system no one in particular seems responsible. That one human +being should be deliberately burned by other human beings excites our +imagination and arouses our indignation much more than the great fire or +railroad accident in which a hundred people are roasted alive. But this +very fact permits cruelties that would not be tolerated under the one +system to pass almost unnoticed under the other. Human beings are +overworked, are starved, are robbed of all the light and sweetness of +life, are condemned to ignorance and brutishness, and to the infection +of physical and moral disease; are driven to crime and suicide, not by +other individuals, but by iron necessities for which it seems that no +one in particular is responsible. + +To match from the annals of chattel slavery the horrors that day after +day transpire unnoticed in the heart of Christian civilization it would +be necessary to go back to ancient slavery, to the chronicles of Spanish +conquest in the New World, or to stories of the Middle Passage. + +That chattel slavery is not the worst form of slavery we know from the +fact that in countries where it has prevailed irrespective of race +distinctions, the ranks of chattel slaves have been recruited from the +ranks of the free poor, who, driven by distress, have sold themselves or +their children. And I think no one who reads our daily papers can doubt +that even already, in the United States, there are many who, did chattel +slavery; without race distinction, exist among us, would gladly sell +themselves or their children, and who would really make a good exchange +for their nominal freedom in doing so. + +We have not abolished slavery. We never can abolish slavery, until we +honestly accept the fundamental truth asserted by the Declaration of +Independence and secure to all the equal and unalienable rights with +which they are endowed by their Creator. If we can not or will not do +that, then, as a matter of humanity and social stability, it might be +well, would it avail, to consider whether it were not wise to amend our +constitution and permit poor whites and blacks alike to sell themselves +and their children to good masters. If we must have slavery, it were +better in the form in which the slave knows his owner, and the heart and +conscience and pride of that owner can be appealed to. Better breed +children for the slaves of good, Christian, civilized people than breed +them for the brothel or the penitentiary. But alas! that recourse is +denied. Supposing we did legalize chattel slavery again, who would buy +men when men can be hired so cheaply? # Public Debts and Indirect Taxation -The more we examine, the more clearly may we see that public -misfortunes and corruptions of government *do* spring from -neglect or contempt of the natural rights of man. - -That, in spite of the progress of civilization, Europe is -to-day a vast camp, and the energies of the most advanced -portion of mankind are everywhere taxed so heavily to pay -for preparations for war or the costs of war, is due to two -great inventions, that of indirect taxation and that of -public debt. - -Both of these devices by which tyrannies are maintained, -governments are corrupted, and the common people plundered, -spring historically from the monopolization of land, and -both directly ignore the natural rights of man. Under the -feudal system the greater part of public expenses were -defrayed from the rent of land, and the landholders had to -do the fighting or bear its cost. Had this system been -continued, England, for instance, would to-day have had no -public debt. And it is safe to say that her people and the -world would have been saved those unnecessary and cruel wars -in which in modern times English blood and treasure has been -wasted. But by the institution of indirect taxes and public -debts the great landholders were enabled to throw oif on the -people at large the burdens which constituted the condition -on which they held their lands, and to throw them off in -such a way that those on whom they rested, though they might -feel the pressure, could not tell from whence it came. Thus -it was that the holding of land was insidiously changed from -a trust into an individual possession, and the masses -stripped of the first and most important of the rights of -man. - -The institution of public debts, like the institution of -private property in land, rests upon the preposterous -assumption that one generation may bind another generation. -If a man were to come to me and say, "Here is a promissory -note which your great-grandfather gave to my -great-grandfather, and which you will oblige me by paying," -I would laugh at him, and tell him that if he wanted to -collect his note he had better hunt up the man who made it; -that I had nothing to do with my great-grandfather's -promises. And if he were to insist upon payment, and to call -my attention to the terms of the bond in which my -great-grandfather expressly stipulated with his great -grandfather that I should pay him, I would only laugh the -more, and be the more certain that he was a lunatic. To such -a demand any one of us would reply in effect, "My -great-grandfather was evidently a knave or a joker, and your -great-grandfather was certainly a fool, which quality you -surely have inherited if you expect me to pay you money -because my great-grandfather promised that I should do so. -He might as well have given your great-grandfather a draft -upon Adam or a check upon the First National Bank of the -Moon." - -Yet upon this assumption that ascendants may bind -descendants, that one generation may legislate for another -generation, rests the assumed validity of our land titles -and public debts. - -If it were possible for the present to borrow of the future, -for those now living to draw upon wealth to be created by -those who are yet to come, there could be no more dangerous -power, none more certain to be abused; and none that would -involve in its exercise a more flagrant contempt for the -natural and unalienable rights of man. But we have no such -power, and there is no possible invention by which we can -obtain it. When we talk about calling upon future -generations to bear their part in the costs and burdens of -the present, about imposing upon them a share in -expenditures we take the liberty of assuming they will -consider to have been made for their benefit as well as for -ours, we are carrying metaphor into absurdity. Public debts -are not a device for borrowing from the future, for -compelling those yet to be to bear a share in expenses which -a present generation may choose to incur. That is, of -course, a physical impossibility. They are merely a device -for obtaining control of wealth in the present by promising -that a certain distribution of wealth in the future shall be -made---a device by which the owners of existing wealth are -induced to give it up under promise, not merely that other -people shall be taxed to pay them, but that other people's -children shall be taxed for the benefit of their children or -the children of their assigns. Those who get control of -governments are thus enabled to get sums which they could -not get by immediate taxation without arousing the -indignation and resistance of those who could make the most -effective resistance. Thus tyrants are enabled to maintain -themselves, and extravagance and corruption are fostered. If -any cases can be pointed to in which the power to incur -public debts has been in any way a benefit, they are as -nothing compared with the cases in which the effects have -been purely injurious. - -The public debts for which most can be said are those -contracted for the purpose of making public improvements, -yet what extravagance and corruption the power of -contracting such debts has engendered in the United States -is too well known to require illustration, and has led, in a -number of the States, to constitutional restrictions. Even -the quasi public debts of railroad and other such -corporations have similarly led to extravagance and -corruption that have far outweighed any good results -accomplished through them. While as for the great national -debts of the world, incurred as they have been for purposes -of tyranny and war, it is impossible to see in them anything -but evil. Of all these great national debts that of the -United States will best bear examination; but it is no -exception. As I have before said, the wealth expended in -carrying on the war did not come from abroad or from the -future, but from the existing wealth in the States under the -national flag, and if, when we called on men to die for -their country, we had not shrunk from taking, if necessary, -nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand dollars from every -millionaire, we need not have created any debt. But instead -of that, what taxation we did impose was so levied as to -fall on the poor more heavily than on the rich, and to -incidentally establish monopolies by which the rich could -profit at the expense of the poor. And then, when more -wealth still was needed, instead of taking it from those who -had it, we told the rich that if they would voluntarily let -the nation use some of their wealth we would make it -profitable to them by guaranteeing the use of the taxing -power to pay them back, principal and interest. And we did -make it profitable with a vengeance. ISTot only did we, by -the institution of the National Banking system, give them -back nine-tenths of much of the money thus borrowed while -continuing to pay interest on the whole amount, but even -where it was required neither by the letter of the bond nor -the equity of the circumstances we made debt incurred in -depreciated greenbacks payable on its face in gold. The -consequence of this method of carrying on the war was to -make the rich richer instead of poorer. The era of monstrous -fortunes in the United States dates from the war. - -But if this can be said of the debt of the United States, -what shall be said of other national debts! - -In paying interest upon their enormous national debt, what -is it that the people of England are paying? They are paying -interest upon sums thrown or given away by profligate -tyrants, and corrupt oligarchies in generations past---upon -grants made to courtesans, and panders, and sycophants, and -traitors to the liberties of their country; upon sums -borrowed to corrupt their own legislatures and wage wars -both against their own liberties and the liberties of other -peoples. For the Hessians hired and the Indians armed and -the fleets and armies sent to crush the American colonies -into submission, with the effect of splitting into two what -might but for that have perhaps yet been one great -confederated nation; for the cost of treading down the Irish -people and inflicting wounds that yet rankle; for the -enormous sums spent in the endeavor to maintain on the -continent of Europe the blasphemy of divine right; for -expenditures made to carry rapine among unoffending peoples -in the four quarters of the globe, Englishmen of to-day are -taxed. It is not the case of asking a man to pay a debt -contracted by his great-grandfather; it is asking him to pay -for the rope with which his great-grandfather was hanged or -the faggots with which he was burned. - -The so-called Egyptian debt which the power of England has -recently been used to enforce is a still more flagrant -instance of spoliation. The late Khedive was no more than an -Arab robber, living at free quarters in the country and -plundering its people. All he could get by stripping them to -starvation and nakedness not satisfying his insensate and -barbarian profligacy, European money-lenders, relying upon -the assumed sanctity of national debts, offered him money on -the most usurious terms. The money was spent with the -wildest recklessness, upon harems, palaces, yachts, -diamonds, presents and entertainments; yet to extort -interest upon it from poverty-stricken fellahs, Christian -England sends fleets and armies to murder and burn, and with -her power maintains the tyranny and luxury of a khedival -puppet at the expense of the Egyptian people. - -Thus the device of public debts enables tyrants to entrench -themselves, and adventurers who seize upon government to -defy the people. It permits the making of great and wasteful -expenditures, by silencing, and even converting into -support, the opposition of those who would otherwise resist -these expenditures with most energy and force. But for the -ability of rulers to contract public debts, nine-tenths of -the wars of Christendom for the past two centuries could -never have been waged. The destruction of wealth and the -shedding of blood, the agony of wives and mothers and -children thus caused, cannot be computed, but to these items -must be added the waste and loss and demoralization caused -by constant preparation for war. - -Nor do the public misfortunes and corruptions of government -which arise from the ignorance and contempt of human rights -involved in the recognition of public debts, end with the -costs of war and war-like preparation, and the corruptions -which such vast public expenditures foster. The passions -aroused by war, the national hatreds, the worship of -military glory, the thirst for victory or revenge, dull -public conscience, pervert the best social instincts into -that low, unreasoning extension of selfishness miscalled -patriotism; deaden the love of liberty; lead men to submit -to tyranny and usurpation from the savage thirst for cutting -the throats of other people, or the fear of having their own -throats cut. They so pervert religious perceptions that -professed followers of Christ bless in his name the -standards of murder and rapine, and thanks are given to the -Prince of Peace for victories that pile the earth with -mangled corpses, and make hearth-stones desolate! - -Nor yet does the evil end here. William H. Vanderbilt, with -his forty millions of registered bonds, declares that the -national debt ought not to be paid off; that, on the -contrary, it ought to be increased, because it gives -stability to the government, "every man who gets a bond -becoming a loyal and loving citizen."Mr. Vanderbilt -expresses the universal feeling of his kind. It was not -loyal and loving citizens with bonds in their pockets who -rushed to the front in our civil war, or who rush to the -front in any war, but the possession of a bond does tend to -make a man loyal and loving to whoever may grasp the -machinery of government, and will continue to cash coupons. -A great public debt creates a great moneyed interest that -wants "strong government" and fears change, and thus forms a -powerful element on which corrupt and tyrannous government -can always rely as against the people. We may see already in -the United States the demoralization of this influence; -while in Europe, where it has had more striking -manifestations, it is the mainstay of tyranny, and the -strongest obstacle to political reform. - -Thomas Jefferson was right, when as a deduction from "the -self evident truth that the land belongs in usufruct to the -living," he declared that one generation should not hold -itself bound by the laws or the debts of its predecessors, -and as this widest-minded of American patriots and greatest -of American statesmen said, measures which would give -practical effect to this principle will appear the more -salutary the more they are considered. - -Indirect taxation, the other device by which the people are -bled without feeling it, and those who could make the most -effective resistance to extravagance and corruption are -bribed into acquiescence, is an invention whereby taxes are -so levied that those who directly pay are enabled to collect -them again from others, and generally to collect them with a -profit, in higher prices. Those who directly pay the taxes -and, still more important, those who desire high prices, are -thus interested in the imposition and maintenance of -taxation, while those on whom the burden ultimately falls do -not realize it. - -The corrupting effects of indirect taxation are obvious -wherever it has been resorted to, but nowhere more obvious -than in the United States. Ever since the war the great -effort of our national government has not been to reduce -taxation, but to find excuses for maintaining war taxation. -The most corrupting extravagance in every department of -administration has thus been fostered, and every endeavor -used to increase expense. We have deliberately substituted a -costly currency for a cheap currency; we have deliberately -added to the cost of paying off the public debt; we maintain -a costly navy for which we have no sort of use, and which, -in case of war, would be of no sort of use to us; and an -army twelve times as large and fifteen times as expensive as -we need. "We are digging silver out of certain holes in the -ground in Nevada and Colorado and poking it down other holes -in the ground in Washington, New York and San Francisco. We -are spending great sums in useless"public improvements," and -are paying pensions under a law which seems framed but to -put a premium upon fraud and get away with public money. And -yet the great question before Congress is what to do with -the surplus. Any proposition to reduce taxation arouses the -most bitter opposition from those who profit or who imagine -they profit from the imposition of this taxation, and a -clamorous lobby surrounds Congress, begging, bullying, -bribing, log-rolling *against* the reduction of taxation, -each interest protesting and insisting that whatever tax is -reduced, its own pet tax must be left intact. This clamor of -special interests for the continuance of indirect taxation -may give us some idea of how much greater are the sums these -taxes take from the people than those they put in the -treasury. But it is only a faint idea, for besides what goes -to the government and what is intercepted by private -interests, there is the loss and waste caused by the -artificial restrictions and difficulties which this system -of indirect taxation places in the way of production and -exchange, and which unquestionably amount to far more than -the other two items. - -The cost of this system that can be measured in money is, -however, of little moment as compared with its effect in -corrupting government, in debasing public morals and -befogging the thought of the people. The first thing every -man is called upon to do when he reaches this "land of -liberty" is to take a false oath; the next thing he is -called upon to do is to bribe a Custom House officer. And so -on, through every artery of the body politic and every fiber -of the public mind, runs the poisonous virus. Law is brought -into contempt by the making of actions that are not crimes -in morals crimes in law; the unscrupulous are given an -advantage over the scrupulous; voters are bought, officials -are corrupted, the press is debauched; and the persistent -advocacy of these selfish interests has so far beclouded -popular thought that a very large number---I am inclined to -think a very large majority---of the American people -actually believe that they are benefited by being thus -taxed! - -To recount in detail the public misfortunes and corruptions -of government which arise from this vicious system of -taxation would take more space than I can here devote to the -subject. But what I wish specially to point out is, that, -like the evils arising from public debts, they are in the -last analysis due to "ignorance, neglect or contempt of -human rights." While every citizen may properly be called -upon to bear his fair share in all proper expenses of -government, it is manifestly an infringement of natural -rights to use the taxing power so as to give one citizen an -advantage over another, to take from some the proceeds of -their labor in order to swell the profit of others, and to -punish as crimes actions which in themselves are not -injurious. +The more we examine, the more clearly may we see that public misfortunes +and corruptions of government *do* spring from neglect or contempt of +the natural rights of man. + +That, in spite of the progress of civilization, Europe is to-day a vast +camp, and the energies of the most advanced portion of mankind are +everywhere taxed so heavily to pay for preparations for war or the costs +of war, is due to two great inventions, that of indirect taxation and +that of public debt. + +Both of these devices by which tyrannies are maintained, governments are +corrupted, and the common people plundered, spring historically from the +monopolization of land, and both directly ignore the natural rights of +man. Under the feudal system the greater part of public expenses were +defrayed from the rent of land, and the landholders had to do the +fighting or bear its cost. Had this system been continued, England, for +instance, would to-day have had no public debt. And it is safe to say +that her people and the world would have been saved those unnecessary +and cruel wars in which in modern times English blood and treasure has +been wasted. But by the institution of indirect taxes and public debts +the great landholders were enabled to throw oif on the people at large +the burdens which constituted the condition on which they held their +lands, and to throw them off in such a way that those on whom they +rested, though they might feel the pressure, could not tell from whence +it came. Thus it was that the holding of land was insidiously changed +from a trust into an individual possession, and the masses stripped of +the first and most important of the rights of man. + +The institution of public debts, like the institution of private +property in land, rests upon the preposterous assumption that one +generation may bind another generation. If a man were to come to me and +say, "Here is a promissory note which your great-grandfather gave to my +great-grandfather, and which you will oblige me by paying," I would +laugh at him, and tell him that if he wanted to collect his note he had +better hunt up the man who made it; that I had nothing to do with my +great-grandfather's promises. And if he were to insist upon payment, and +to call my attention to the terms of the bond in which my +great-grandfather expressly stipulated with his great grandfather that I +should pay him, I would only laugh the more, and be the more certain +that he was a lunatic. To such a demand any one of us would reply in +effect, "My great-grandfather was evidently a knave or a joker, and your +great-grandfather was certainly a fool, which quality you surely have +inherited if you expect me to pay you money because my great-grandfather +promised that I should do so. He might as well have given your +great-grandfather a draft upon Adam or a check upon the First National +Bank of the Moon." + +Yet upon this assumption that ascendants may bind descendants, that one +generation may legislate for another generation, rests the assumed +validity of our land titles and public debts. + +If it were possible for the present to borrow of the future, for those +now living to draw upon wealth to be created by those who are yet to +come, there could be no more dangerous power, none more certain to be +abused; and none that would involve in its exercise a more flagrant +contempt for the natural and unalienable rights of man. But we have no +such power, and there is no possible invention by which we can obtain +it. When we talk about calling upon future generations to bear their +part in the costs and burdens of the present, about imposing upon them a +share in expenditures we take the liberty of assuming they will consider +to have been made for their benefit as well as for ours, we are carrying +metaphor into absurdity. Public debts are not a device for borrowing +from the future, for compelling those yet to be to bear a share in +expenses which a present generation may choose to incur. That is, of +course, a physical impossibility. They are merely a device for obtaining +control of wealth in the present by promising that a certain +distribution of wealth in the future shall be made---a device by which +the owners of existing wealth are induced to give it up under promise, +not merely that other people shall be taxed to pay them, but that other +people's children shall be taxed for the benefit of their children or +the children of their assigns. Those who get control of governments are +thus enabled to get sums which they could not get by immediate taxation +without arousing the indignation and resistance of those who could make +the most effective resistance. Thus tyrants are enabled to maintain +themselves, and extravagance and corruption are fostered. If any cases +can be pointed to in which the power to incur public debts has been in +any way a benefit, they are as nothing compared with the cases in which +the effects have been purely injurious. + +The public debts for which most can be said are those contracted for the +purpose of making public improvements, yet what extravagance and +corruption the power of contracting such debts has engendered in the +United States is too well known to require illustration, and has led, in +a number of the States, to constitutional restrictions. Even the quasi +public debts of railroad and other such corporations have similarly led +to extravagance and corruption that have far outweighed any good results +accomplished through them. While as for the great national debts of the +world, incurred as they have been for purposes of tyranny and war, it is +impossible to see in them anything but evil. Of all these great national +debts that of the United States will best bear examination; but it is no +exception. As I have before said, the wealth expended in carrying on the +war did not come from abroad or from the future, but from the existing +wealth in the States under the national flag, and if, when we called on +men to die for their country, we had not shrunk from taking, if +necessary, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand dollars from every +millionaire, we need not have created any debt. But instead of that, +what taxation we did impose was so levied as to fall on the poor more +heavily than on the rich, and to incidentally establish monopolies by +which the rich could profit at the expense of the poor. And then, when +more wealth still was needed, instead of taking it from those who had +it, we told the rich that if they would voluntarily let the nation use +some of their wealth we would make it profitable to them by guaranteeing +the use of the taxing power to pay them back, principal and interest. +And we did make it profitable with a vengeance. ISTot only did we, by +the institution of the National Banking system, give them back +nine-tenths of much of the money thus borrowed while continuing to pay +interest on the whole amount, but even where it was required neither by +the letter of the bond nor the equity of the circumstances we made debt +incurred in depreciated greenbacks payable on its face in gold. The +consequence of this method of carrying on the war was to make the rich +richer instead of poorer. The era of monstrous fortunes in the United +States dates from the war. + +But if this can be said of the debt of the United States, what shall be +said of other national debts! + +In paying interest upon their enormous national debt, what is it that +the people of England are paying? They are paying interest upon sums +thrown or given away by profligate tyrants, and corrupt oligarchies in +generations past---upon grants made to courtesans, and panders, and +sycophants, and traitors to the liberties of their country; upon sums +borrowed to corrupt their own legislatures and wage wars both against +their own liberties and the liberties of other peoples. For the Hessians +hired and the Indians armed and the fleets and armies sent to crush the +American colonies into submission, with the effect of splitting into two +what might but for that have perhaps yet been one great confederated +nation; for the cost of treading down the Irish people and inflicting +wounds that yet rankle; for the enormous sums spent in the endeavor to +maintain on the continent of Europe the blasphemy of divine right; for +expenditures made to carry rapine among unoffending peoples in the four +quarters of the globe, Englishmen of to-day are taxed. It is not the +case of asking a man to pay a debt contracted by his great-grandfather; +it is asking him to pay for the rope with which his great-grandfather +was hanged or the faggots with which he was burned. + +The so-called Egyptian debt which the power of England has recently been +used to enforce is a still more flagrant instance of spoliation. The +late Khedive was no more than an Arab robber, living at free quarters in +the country and plundering its people. All he could get by stripping +them to starvation and nakedness not satisfying his insensate and +barbarian profligacy, European money-lenders, relying upon the assumed +sanctity of national debts, offered him money on the most usurious +terms. The money was spent with the wildest recklessness, upon harems, +palaces, yachts, diamonds, presents and entertainments; yet to extort +interest upon it from poverty-stricken fellahs, Christian England sends +fleets and armies to murder and burn, and with her power maintains the +tyranny and luxury of a khedival puppet at the expense of the Egyptian +people. + +Thus the device of public debts enables tyrants to entrench themselves, +and adventurers who seize upon government to defy the people. It permits +the making of great and wasteful expenditures, by silencing, and even +converting into support, the opposition of those who would otherwise +resist these expenditures with most energy and force. But for the +ability of rulers to contract public debts, nine-tenths of the wars of +Christendom for the past two centuries could never have been waged. The +destruction of wealth and the shedding of blood, the agony of wives and +mothers and children thus caused, cannot be computed, but to these items +must be added the waste and loss and demoralization caused by constant +preparation for war. + +Nor do the public misfortunes and corruptions of government which arise +from the ignorance and contempt of human rights involved in the +recognition of public debts, end with the costs of war and war-like +preparation, and the corruptions which such vast public expenditures +foster. The passions aroused by war, the national hatreds, the worship +of military glory, the thirst for victory or revenge, dull public +conscience, pervert the best social instincts into that low, unreasoning +extension of selfishness miscalled patriotism; deaden the love of +liberty; lead men to submit to tyranny and usurpation from the savage +thirst for cutting the throats of other people, or the fear of having +their own throats cut. They so pervert religious perceptions that +professed followers of Christ bless in his name the standards of murder +and rapine, and thanks are given to the Prince of Peace for victories +that pile the earth with mangled corpses, and make hearth-stones +desolate! + +Nor yet does the evil end here. William H. Vanderbilt, with his forty +millions of registered bonds, declares that the national debt ought not +to be paid off; that, on the contrary, it ought to be increased, because +it gives stability to the government, "every man who gets a bond +becoming a loyal and loving citizen."Mr. Vanderbilt expresses the +universal feeling of his kind. It was not loyal and loving citizens with +bonds in their pockets who rushed to the front in our civil war, or who +rush to the front in any war, but the possession of a bond does tend to +make a man loyal and loving to whoever may grasp the machinery of +government, and will continue to cash coupons. A great public debt +creates a great moneyed interest that wants "strong government" and +fears change, and thus forms a powerful element on which corrupt and +tyrannous government can always rely as against the people. We may see +already in the United States the demoralization of this influence; while +in Europe, where it has had more striking manifestations, it is the +mainstay of tyranny, and the strongest obstacle to political reform. + +Thomas Jefferson was right, when as a deduction from "the self evident +truth that the land belongs in usufruct to the living," he declared that +one generation should not hold itself bound by the laws or the debts of +its predecessors, and as this widest-minded of American patriots and +greatest of American statesmen said, measures which would give practical +effect to this principle will appear the more salutary the more they are +considered. + +Indirect taxation, the other device by which the people are bled without +feeling it, and those who could make the most effective resistance to +extravagance and corruption are bribed into acquiescence, is an +invention whereby taxes are so levied that those who directly pay are +enabled to collect them again from others, and generally to collect them +with a profit, in higher prices. Those who directly pay the taxes and, +still more important, those who desire high prices, are thus interested +in the imposition and maintenance of taxation, while those on whom the +burden ultimately falls do not realize it. + +The corrupting effects of indirect taxation are obvious wherever it has +been resorted to, but nowhere more obvious than in the United States. +Ever since the war the great effort of our national government has not +been to reduce taxation, but to find excuses for maintaining war +taxation. The most corrupting extravagance in every department of +administration has thus been fostered, and every endeavor used to +increase expense. We have deliberately substituted a costly currency for +a cheap currency; we have deliberately added to the cost of paying off +the public debt; we maintain a costly navy for which we have no sort of +use, and which, in case of war, would be of no sort of use to us; and an +army twelve times as large and fifteen times as expensive as we need. +"We are digging silver out of certain holes in the ground in Nevada and +Colorado and poking it down other holes in the ground in Washington, New +York and San Francisco. We are spending great sums in useless"public +improvements," and are paying pensions under a law which seems framed +but to put a premium upon fraud and get away with public money. And yet +the great question before Congress is what to do with the surplus. Any +proposition to reduce taxation arouses the most bitter opposition from +those who profit or who imagine they profit from the imposition of this +taxation, and a clamorous lobby surrounds Congress, begging, bullying, +bribing, log-rolling *against* the reduction of taxation, each interest +protesting and insisting that whatever tax is reduced, its own pet tax +must be left intact. This clamor of special interests for the +continuance of indirect taxation may give us some idea of how much +greater are the sums these taxes take from the people than those they +put in the treasury. But it is only a faint idea, for besides what goes +to the government and what is intercepted by private interests, there is +the loss and waste caused by the artificial restrictions and +difficulties which this system of indirect taxation places in the way of +production and exchange, and which unquestionably amount to far more +than the other two items. + +The cost of this system that can be measured in money is, however, of +little moment as compared with its effect in corrupting government, in +debasing public morals and befogging the thought of the people. The +first thing every man is called upon to do when he reaches this "land of +liberty" is to take a false oath; the next thing he is called upon to do +is to bribe a Custom House officer. And so on, through every artery of +the body politic and every fiber of the public mind, runs the poisonous +virus. Law is brought into contempt by the making of actions that are +not crimes in morals crimes in law; the unscrupulous are given an +advantage over the scrupulous; voters are bought, officials are +corrupted, the press is debauched; and the persistent advocacy of these +selfish interests has so far beclouded popular thought that a very large +number---I am inclined to think a very large majority---of the American +people actually believe that they are benefited by being thus taxed! + +To recount in detail the public misfortunes and corruptions of +government which arise from this vicious system of taxation would take +more space than I can here devote to the subject. But what I wish +specially to point out is, that, like the evils arising from public +debts, they are in the last analysis due to "ignorance, neglect or +contempt of human rights." While every citizen may properly be called +upon to bear his fair share in all proper expenses of government, it is +manifestly an infringement of natural rights to use the taxing power so +as to give one citizen an advantage over another, to take from some the +proceeds of their labor in order to swell the profit of others, and to +punish as crimes actions which in themselves are not injurious. # The Functions of Government -To prevent government from becoming corrupt and tyrannous, -its organization and methods should be as simple as -possible, its functions be restricted to those necessary to -the common welfare, and in all its parts it should be kept -as close to the people and as directly within their control -as may be. - -We have ignored these principles in many ways, and the -result has been corruption and demoralization, the loss of -control by the people, and the wresting of government to the -advantage of the few and the spoliation of the many. The -line of reform, on one side at least, lies in -simplification. - -The first and main purpose of government is admirably stated -in that grand document which we Americans so honor and so -ignore---the Declaration of Independence. It is to secure to -men those equal and unalienable rights with which the -Creator has endowed them. I shall hereafter show how the -adoption of the only means by which, in civilized and -progressive society, the first of these unalienable -rights---the equal right to land---can be secured, will at -the same time greatly simplify government and do away with -corrupting influences. And beyond tins, much simplification -is possible, and should be sought wherever it can be -attained. As political corruption makes it easier to resist -the demand for reform, whatever may be done to purify -politics and bring government within the intelligent -supervision and control of the people is not merely in -itself an end to be sought, but a means to larger ends. - -The American Republic has no more need for its burlesque of -a navy than a peaceable giant would have for a stuffed club -or a tin sword. It is only maintained for the sake of the -officers and the naval rings. In peace it is a source of -expense and corruption; in war it would be useless. We. are -too strong for any foreign power to wantonly attack, we -ought to be too great to wantonly attack others. If war -should ever be forced upon us, we could safely rely upon -science and invention, which are already superseding navies -faster than they can be built. - -So with our army. All we need, if we even now need that, is -a small force of frontier police, such as is maintained in -Australia and Canada. Standing navies and standing armies -are inimical to the genius of democracy, and it ought to be -our pride, as it is our duty, to show the world that a great -republic can dispense with both. And in organization, as in -principle, both our navy and our army are repugnant to the -democratic idea. In both we maintain that distinction -between commissioned officers and common soldiers and -sailors which arose in Europe when the nobility who -furnished the one were considered a superior race to the -serfs and peasants who supplied the other. The whole system -is an insult to democracy, and ought to be swept away. - -Our diplomatic system, too, is servilely copied from the -usages of kings who plotted with each other against the -liberties of the people, before the ocean steamship and the -telegraph were invented. It serves no purpose save to reward -unscrupulous politicians and corruptionists, and -occasionally to demoralize a poet. To abolish it would save -expense, corruption and national dignity. - -In legal administration there is a large field for radical -reform. Here, too, we have servilely copied English -precedents, and have allowed lawyers to make law in the -interests of their class until justice is a costly gamble -for which a poor man cannot afford to sue. The best use that -could be made of our great law libraries, to which the -reports of thirty-eight States, of the Federal courts, and -of the English, Scotch and Irish courts are each year being -added, would be to send them to the paper mills, and to -adopt such principles and methods of procedure as would -reduce our great army of lawyers at least to the French -standard. At the same time our statute books are full of -enactments which could, with advantage, be swept away. It is -not the business of government to make men virtuous or -religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of -his own folly. Government should be repressive no further -than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal -rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and -the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line -they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are -intended to serve. For while the tendency of laws which -prohibit or command what the moral sense does not, is to -bring law into contempt and produce hypocrisy and evasion, -so the attempt to bring law to the aid of morals as to those -acts and relations which do not plainly involve violation of -the liberty of others, is to weaken rather than to -strengthen moral influences; to make the standard of wrong -and right a legal one, and to enable him who can dexterously -escape the punishment of the law to escape all punishment. -Thus, for instance, there can be no doubt that the standard -of commercial honesty would be much higher in the absence of -laws for the collection of debts. As to ali such matters, -the cunning rogue keeps within the law or evades the law, -while the existence of a legal standard lowers the moral -standard and weakens the sanction of public opinions. - -Restrictions, prohibitions, interferences with the liberty -of action in itself harmless, are evil in their nature, and, -though they may sometimes be necessary, may for the most -part be likened to medicines which suppress or modify some -symptom without lessening the disease; and, generally, where -restrictive or prohibitive laws are called for, the evils -they are designed to meet may be traced to previous +To prevent government from becoming corrupt and tyrannous, its +organization and methods should be as simple as possible, its functions +be restricted to those necessary to the common welfare, and in all its +parts it should be kept as close to the people and as directly within +their control as may be. + +We have ignored these principles in many ways, and the result has been +corruption and demoralization, the loss of control by the people, and +the wresting of government to the advantage of the few and the +spoliation of the many. The line of reform, on one side at least, lies +in simplification. + +The first and main purpose of government is admirably stated in that +grand document which we Americans so honor and so ignore---the +Declaration of Independence. It is to secure to men those equal and +unalienable rights with which the Creator has endowed them. I shall +hereafter show how the adoption of the only means by which, in civilized +and progressive society, the first of these unalienable rights---the +equal right to land---can be secured, will at the same time greatly +simplify government and do away with corrupting influences. And beyond +tins, much simplification is possible, and should be sought wherever it +can be attained. As political corruption makes it easier to resist the +demand for reform, whatever may be done to purify politics and bring +government within the intelligent supervision and control of the people +is not merely in itself an end to be sought, but a means to larger ends. + +The American Republic has no more need for its burlesque of a navy than +a peaceable giant would have for a stuffed club or a tin sword. It is +only maintained for the sake of the officers and the naval rings. In +peace it is a source of expense and corruption; in war it would be +useless. We. are too strong for any foreign power to wantonly attack, we +ought to be too great to wantonly attack others. If war should ever be +forced upon us, we could safely rely upon science and invention, which +are already superseding navies faster than they can be built. + +So with our army. All we need, if we even now need that, is a small +force of frontier police, such as is maintained in Australia and Canada. +Standing navies and standing armies are inimical to the genius of +democracy, and it ought to be our pride, as it is our duty, to show the +world that a great republic can dispense with both. And in organization, +as in principle, both our navy and our army are repugnant to the +democratic idea. In both we maintain that distinction between +commissioned officers and common soldiers and sailors which arose in +Europe when the nobility who furnished the one were considered a +superior race to the serfs and peasants who supplied the other. The +whole system is an insult to democracy, and ought to be swept away. + +Our diplomatic system, too, is servilely copied from the usages of kings +who plotted with each other against the liberties of the people, before +the ocean steamship and the telegraph were invented. It serves no +purpose save to reward unscrupulous politicians and corruptionists, and +occasionally to demoralize a poet. To abolish it would save expense, +corruption and national dignity. + +In legal administration there is a large field for radical reform. Here, +too, we have servilely copied English precedents, and have allowed +lawyers to make law in the interests of their class until justice is a +costly gamble for which a poor man cannot afford to sue. The best use +that could be made of our great law libraries, to which the reports of +thirty-eight States, of the Federal courts, and of the English, Scotch +and Irish courts are each year being added, would be to send them to the +paper mills, and to adopt such principles and methods of procedure as +would reduce our great army of lawyers at least to the French standard. +At the same time our statute books are full of enactments which could, +with advantage, be swept away. It is not the business of government to +make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the +consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no +further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal +rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment +governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of +defeating the very ends they are intended to serve. For while the +tendency of laws which prohibit or command what the moral sense does +not, is to bring law into contempt and produce hypocrisy and evasion, so +the attempt to bring law to the aid of morals as to those acts and +relations which do not plainly involve violation of the liberty of +others, is to weaken rather than to strengthen moral influences; to make +the standard of wrong and right a legal one, and to enable him who can +dexterously escape the punishment of the law to escape all punishment. +Thus, for instance, there can be no doubt that the standard of +commercial honesty would be much higher in the absence of laws for the +collection of debts. As to ali such matters, the cunning rogue keeps +within the law or evades the law, while the existence of a legal +standard lowers the moral standard and weakens the sanction of public +opinions. + +Restrictions, prohibitions, interferences with the liberty of action in +itself harmless, are evil in their nature, and, though they may +sometimes be necessary, may for the most part be likened to medicines +which suppress or modify some symptom without lessening the disease; +and, generally, where restrictive or prohibitive laws are called for, +the evils they are designed to meet may be traced to previous restriction---to some curtailment of natural rights. -All the tendencies of the time are to the absorption of -smaller communities, to the enlargement of the area within -which uniformity of law and administration is necessary or -desirable. But for this very reason we ought with the more -tenacity to hold, wherever possible, to the principle of -local self-government---the principle that, in things which -concern only themselves, the people of each political -subdivision---township, ward, city or state, as may -be---shall act for themselves. We have neglected this -principle within our States even more than in the relations -between the State and National Governments, and in -attempting to govern great cities by State commissions, and -in making what properly belongs to County Supervisors and -Township Trustees the business of legislatures, we have -divided responsibility and promoted corruption. - -Much, too, may be done to restrict the abuse of party -machinery, and make the ballot the true ex pression of the -will of the voter, by simplifying our elective methods. And -a principle should always be kept in mind which we have -largely ignored, that the people cannot manage details, nor -intelligently choose more than a few officials. To call upon -the average citizen to vote at each election for a long -string of candidates, as to the majority of whom he can know -nothing unless he makes a business of politics, is to -relegate choice to nominating conventions and political -rings. And to divide power is often to destroy +All the tendencies of the time are to the absorption of smaller +communities, to the enlargement of the area within which uniformity of +law and administration is necessary or desirable. But for this very +reason we ought with the more tenacity to hold, wherever possible, to +the principle of local self-government---the principle that, in things +which concern only themselves, the people of each political +subdivision---township, ward, city or state, as may be---shall act for +themselves. We have neglected this principle within our States even more +than in the relations between the State and National Governments, and in +attempting to govern great cities by State commissions, and in making +what properly belongs to County Supervisors and Township Trustees the +business of legislatures, we have divided responsibility and promoted +corruption. + +Much, too, may be done to restrict the abuse of party machinery, and +make the ballot the true ex pression of the will of the voter, by +simplifying our elective methods. And a principle should always be kept +in mind which we have largely ignored, that the people cannot manage +details, nor intelligently choose more than a few officials. To call +upon the average citizen to vote at each election for a long string of +candidates, as to the majority of whom he can know nothing unless he +makes a business of politics, is to relegate choice to nominating +conventions and political rings. And to divide power is often to destroy responsibility, and to provoke, not to prevent, usurpation. -I can but briefly allude to these matters, though in -themselves they deserve much attention. It is the more -necessary to simplify government as much as possible and to -improve, as much as may be, what may be called the mechanics -of government, because, with the progress of society, the -functions which government must assume steadily increase. It -is only in the infancy of society that the functions of -government can be properly confined to providing for the -common defense and protecting the weak against the physical -power of the strong. As society develops in obedience to -that law of integration and increasing complexity of which I -spoke in the first of these chapters, it becomes necessary -in order to secure equality that other regulations should be -made and enforced, and upon the primary and restrictive -functions of government are superimposed what may be called -cooperative functions, the refusal to assume which leads, in -many cases, to the disregard of individual rights as surely -as does the assumption of directive and restrictive -functions not properly belonging to government. - -In the division of labor and the specialization of vocation -that begin in an early stage of social development, and -increase with it, the assumption by individuals of certain -parts in the business of society necessarily operates to the -exclusion of other individuals. Thus when one opens a store -or an inn, or establishes a regular carriage of passengers -or goods, or devotes himself to a special trade or -profession of which all may have need, his doing of these -things operates to prevent others from doing them, and leads -to the establishment of habits and customs which make resort -to him a necessity to others, and which would put those who -were denied this resort at a great disadvantage as compared -with other individuals. Thus to secure equality it becomes -necessary to so limit liberty of action as to oblige those -who thus take upon themselves quasi-public functions to -serve without discrimination those who may apply to them -upon customary conditions. This principle is recognized by -all nations that have made any progress in civilization, in -their laws relating to common carriers, innkeepers, etc. - -As civilization progresses and industrial development goes -on, the concentration which results from the utilization of -larger powers and improved processes operates more and more -to the restriction and exclusion of competition, and to the -establishment of complete monopolies. This we may see very -clearly in the railroad. It is but a sheer waste of capital -and labor to build one railroad alongside of another; and -even where this is done, an irresistible tendency leads -either to consolidation or to combination; and even at what -are called competing points, competition is only -transitional. The consolidation of companies, which in a few -years bids fair to concentrate the whole railway business of -the United States in the hands of a half-a-dozen -managements, the pooling of receipts, and agreements as to -business and charges, which even at competing points prevent -competition, are due to a tendency inherent in the -development of the railroad system, and of which it is idle -to complain. - -The primary purpose and end of government being to secure -the natural rights and equal liberty of each, all businesses -that involve monopoly are within the necessary province of -governmental regulation, and businesses that are in their -nature complete monopolies become properly functions of the -State. As society develops, the State must assume these -functions, in their nature cooperative, in order to secure -the equal rights and liberty of all. That is to say, as, in -the process of integration, the individual becomes more and -more dependent upon and subordinate to the all, it becomes -necessary for government, which is properly that social -organ by which alone the whole body of individuals can act, -to take upon itself, in the interest of all, certain -functions which cannot safely be left to individuals. Thus -out of the principle that it is the proper end and purpose -of government to secure the natural rights and equal liberty -of the individual, grows the principle that it is the -business of government to do for the mass of individuals -those things which cannot be done, or cannot be so well -done, by individual action. As in the development of -species, the power of conscious, coordinated action of the -whole being must assume greater and greater relative -importance to the automatic action of parts, so is it in the -development of society. This is the truth in socialism, -which, although it is being forced upon us by industrial -progress and social development, we are so slow to -recognize. - -In the physical organism, weakness and disease result alike -from the overstraining of functions and from the non-use of -functions. In like manner governments may be corrupted and -public misfortunes induced by the failure to assume, as -governmental, functions that properly belong to government -as the controlling organ in the management of common -interests, as well as from interferences by government in -the proper sphere of individual action. This we may see in -our own case. In what we attempt to do by government and -what we leave undone we are like a man who should leave the -provision of his dinner to the promptings of his stomach -while attempting to govern his digestion by the action of -his will; or like one who, in walking through a crowded -street or over a bad road, should concentrate all his -conscious faculties upon the movement of his legs without -paying any attention to where he was going. - -To illustrate: It is not the business of government to -interfere with the views which any one may hold of the -Creator or with the worship he may choose to pay him, so -long as the exercise of these individual rights does not -conflict with the equal liberty of others; and the result of -governmental interference in this domain has been hypocrisy, -corruption, persecution and religious war. It is not the -business of government to direct the employment of labor and -capital, and to foster certain industries at the expense of -other industries; and the attempt to do so leads to all the -waste, loss and corruption due to protective tariffs. - -On the other hand, it is the business of government to issue -money. This is perceived as soon as the great labor-saving -invention of money supplants barter. To leave it to every -one who chose to do so to issue money would be to entail -general inconvenience and loss, to offer many temptations to -roguery, and to put the poorer classes of society at a great -disadvantage. These obvious considerations have everywhere, -as society became well organized, led to the recognition of -the coinage of money as an exclusive function of government. -When, in the progress of society, a further labor-saving -improvement becomes possible by the substitution of paper -for the precious metals as the material for money, the -reasons why the issuance of this money should be made a -government function become still stronger. The evils -entailed by wildcat banking in the United States are too -well remembered to need reference. The loss and -inconvenience, the swindling and corruption that flowed from -the assumption by each State of the Union of the power to -license banks of issue ended with the war, and no one would -now go back to them. Yet instead of doing what every public -consideration impels us to, and assuming wholly and fully as -the exclusive function of the General Government the power -to issue paper money, the private interests of bankers have, -up to this, compelled us to the use of a hybrid currency, of -which a large part, though guaranteed by the General -Government, is issued and made profitable to corporations. -The legitimate business of banking---the safe keeping and -loaning of money, and the making and exchange of credits, is -properly left to individuals and associations; but by -leaving to them, even in part and under restrictions and -guarantees, the issuance of money, the people of the United -States suffer an annual loss of millions of dollars, and -sensibly increase the influences which exert a corrupting -effect upon their government. - -The principle evident here may be seen in even stronger -light in another department of social life. - -The great "railroad question," with its dangers and -perplexities, is a most striking instance of the evil -consequences which result from the failure of the State to -assume functions that properly belong to it. - -In rude stages of social development, and where government, -neglectful of its proper functions, has been occupied in -making needless wars and imposing harmful restrictions, the -making and improvement of highways has been left to -individuals, who, to recompense themselves, have been -permitted to exact tolls. It has, however, from the first, -been recognized that these tolls are properly subject to -governmental control and regulation. But the great -inconveniences of this system, and the heavy taxes which, in -spite of attempted regulation, are under it levied upon -production, have led, as social advance went on, to the -assumption of the making and maintenance of highroads as a -governmental duty. In the course of social development came -the invention of the railroad, which merged the business of -making and maintaining roads with the business of carrying -freight and passengers upon them. It is probably due to this -that it was not at first recognized that the same reasons -which render it necessary for the State to make and maintain -common roads apply with even greater force to the building -and operating of railroads. In Great Britain and the United -States, and, with partial exceptions, in other countries, -railroads have been left to private enterprise to build and -private greed to manage. In the United States, where -railroads are of more importance than in any other country -in the world, our only recognition of their public character -has been in the donation of lands and the granting of -subsidies, which have been the cause of much corruption, and -in some feeble attempts to regulate fares and freights. - -But the fact that the railroad system as far as yet -developed (and perhaps necessarily) combines transportation -with the maintenance of roadways, renders competition all -the more impossible, and brings it still more clearly within -the province of the State. That it makes the assumption of -the railroad business by the State a most serious matter is -not to be denied. Even if it were possible, which may well -be doubted, as has been sometimes proposed, to have the -roadway maintained by the State, leaving the furnishing of -trains to private enterprise, it would be still a most -serious matter. But look at it which way we may, it is so -serious a matter that it must be faced. As the individual -grows from childhood to maturity, he must meet difficulties -and accept responsibilities from which he well might shrink. -So is it with society. New powers bring new duties and new -responsibilities. Imprudence in going forward involves -danger, but it is fatal to stand still. And however great be -the difficulties involved in the assumption of the railroad -business by the State, much greater difficulties are -involved in the refusal to assume it. - -It is not necessary to go into any elaborate argument to -show that the ownership and management of railroads is a -function of the State. That is proved beyond dispute by the -logic of events and of existing facts. Nothing is more -obvious---at least in the United States, where the -tendencies of modern development may be seen much more -clearly than in Europe---than that a union of railroading -with the other functions of government is inevitable. We may -not like it, but we cannot avoid it. Either government must -manage the railroads, or the railroads must manage the -government. There is no escape. To refuse one horn of the +I can but briefly allude to these matters, though in themselves they +deserve much attention. It is the more necessary to simplify government +as much as possible and to improve, as much as may be, what may be +called the mechanics of government, because, with the progress of +society, the functions which government must assume steadily increase. +It is only in the infancy of society that the functions of government +can be properly confined to providing for the common defense and +protecting the weak against the physical power of the strong. As society +develops in obedience to that law of integration and increasing +complexity of which I spoke in the first of these chapters, it becomes +necessary in order to secure equality that other regulations should be +made and enforced, and upon the primary and restrictive functions of +government are superimposed what may be called cooperative functions, +the refusal to assume which leads, in many cases, to the disregard of +individual rights as surely as does the assumption of directive and +restrictive functions not properly belonging to government. + +In the division of labor and the specialization of vocation that begin +in an early stage of social development, and increase with it, the +assumption by individuals of certain parts in the business of society +necessarily operates to the exclusion of other individuals. Thus when +one opens a store or an inn, or establishes a regular carriage of +passengers or goods, or devotes himself to a special trade or profession +of which all may have need, his doing of these things operates to +prevent others from doing them, and leads to the establishment of habits +and customs which make resort to him a necessity to others, and which +would put those who were denied this resort at a great disadvantage as +compared with other individuals. Thus to secure equality it becomes +necessary to so limit liberty of action as to oblige those who thus take +upon themselves quasi-public functions to serve without discrimination +those who may apply to them upon customary conditions. This principle is +recognized by all nations that have made any progress in civilization, +in their laws relating to common carriers, innkeepers, etc. + +As civilization progresses and industrial development goes on, the +concentration which results from the utilization of larger powers and +improved processes operates more and more to the restriction and +exclusion of competition, and to the establishment of complete +monopolies. This we may see very clearly in the railroad. It is but a +sheer waste of capital and labor to build one railroad alongside of +another; and even where this is done, an irresistible tendency leads +either to consolidation or to combination; and even at what are called +competing points, competition is only transitional. The consolidation of +companies, which in a few years bids fair to concentrate the whole +railway business of the United States in the hands of a half-a-dozen +managements, the pooling of receipts, and agreements as to business and +charges, which even at competing points prevent competition, are due to +a tendency inherent in the development of the railroad system, and of +which it is idle to complain. + +The primary purpose and end of government being to secure the natural +rights and equal liberty of each, all businesses that involve monopoly +are within the necessary province of governmental regulation, and +businesses that are in their nature complete monopolies become properly +functions of the State. As society develops, the State must assume these +functions, in their nature cooperative, in order to secure the equal +rights and liberty of all. That is to say, as, in the process of +integration, the individual becomes more and more dependent upon and +subordinate to the all, it becomes necessary for government, which is +properly that social organ by which alone the whole body of individuals +can act, to take upon itself, in the interest of all, certain functions +which cannot safely be left to individuals. Thus out of the principle +that it is the proper end and purpose of government to secure the +natural rights and equal liberty of the individual, grows the principle +that it is the business of government to do for the mass of individuals +those things which cannot be done, or cannot be so well done, by +individual action. As in the development of species, the power of +conscious, coordinated action of the whole being must assume greater and +greater relative importance to the automatic action of parts, so is it +in the development of society. This is the truth in socialism, which, +although it is being forced upon us by industrial progress and social +development, we are so slow to recognize. + +In the physical organism, weakness and disease result alike from the +overstraining of functions and from the non-use of functions. In like +manner governments may be corrupted and public misfortunes induced by +the failure to assume, as governmental, functions that properly belong +to government as the controlling organ in the management of common +interests, as well as from interferences by government in the proper +sphere of individual action. This we may see in our own case. In what we +attempt to do by government and what we leave undone we are like a man +who should leave the provision of his dinner to the promptings of his +stomach while attempting to govern his digestion by the action of his +will; or like one who, in walking through a crowded street or over a bad +road, should concentrate all his conscious faculties upon the movement +of his legs without paying any attention to where he was going. + +To illustrate: It is not the business of government to interfere with +the views which any one may hold of the Creator or with the worship he +may choose to pay him, so long as the exercise of these individual +rights does not conflict with the equal liberty of others; and the +result of governmental interference in this domain has been hypocrisy, +corruption, persecution and religious war. It is not the business of +government to direct the employment of labor and capital, and to foster +certain industries at the expense of other industries; and the attempt +to do so leads to all the waste, loss and corruption due to protective +tariffs. + +On the other hand, it is the business of government to issue money. This +is perceived as soon as the great labor-saving invention of money +supplants barter. To leave it to every one who chose to do so to issue +money would be to entail general inconvenience and loss, to offer many +temptations to roguery, and to put the poorer classes of society at a +great disadvantage. These obvious considerations have everywhere, as +society became well organized, led to the recognition of the coinage of +money as an exclusive function of government. When, in the progress of +society, a further labor-saving improvement becomes possible by the +substitution of paper for the precious metals as the material for money, +the reasons why the issuance of this money should be made a government +function become still stronger. The evils entailed by wildcat banking in +the United States are too well remembered to need reference. The loss +and inconvenience, the swindling and corruption that flowed from the +assumption by each State of the Union of the power to license banks of +issue ended with the war, and no one would now go back to them. Yet +instead of doing what every public consideration impels us to, and +assuming wholly and fully as the exclusive function of the General +Government the power to issue paper money, the private interests of +bankers have, up to this, compelled us to the use of a hybrid currency, +of which a large part, though guaranteed by the General Government, is +issued and made profitable to corporations. The legitimate business of +banking---the safe keeping and loaning of money, and the making and +exchange of credits, is properly left to individuals and associations; +but by leaving to them, even in part and under restrictions and +guarantees, the issuance of money, the people of the United States +suffer an annual loss of millions of dollars, and sensibly increase the +influences which exert a corrupting effect upon their government. + +The principle evident here may be seen in even stronger light in another +department of social life. + +The great "railroad question," with its dangers and perplexities, is a +most striking instance of the evil consequences which result from the +failure of the State to assume functions that properly belong to it. + +In rude stages of social development, and where government, neglectful +of its proper functions, has been occupied in making needless wars and +imposing harmful restrictions, the making and improvement of highways +has been left to individuals, who, to recompense themselves, have been +permitted to exact tolls. It has, however, from the first, been +recognized that these tolls are properly subject to governmental control +and regulation. But the great inconveniences of this system, and the +heavy taxes which, in spite of attempted regulation, are under it levied +upon production, have led, as social advance went on, to the assumption +of the making and maintenance of highroads as a governmental duty. In +the course of social development came the invention of the railroad, +which merged the business of making and maintaining roads with the +business of carrying freight and passengers upon them. It is probably +due to this that it was not at first recognized that the same reasons +which render it necessary for the State to make and maintain common +roads apply with even greater force to the building and operating of +railroads. In Great Britain and the United States, and, with partial +exceptions, in other countries, railroads have been left to private +enterprise to build and private greed to manage. In the United States, +where railroads are of more importance than in any other country in the +world, our only recognition of their public character has been in the +donation of lands and the granting of subsidies, which have been the +cause of much corruption, and in some feeble attempts to regulate fares +and freights. + +But the fact that the railroad system as far as yet developed (and +perhaps necessarily) combines transportation with the maintenance of +roadways, renders competition all the more impossible, and brings it +still more clearly within the province of the State. That it makes the +assumption of the railroad business by the State a most serious matter +is not to be denied. Even if it were possible, which may well be +doubted, as has been sometimes proposed, to have the roadway maintained +by the State, leaving the furnishing of trains to private enterprise, it +would be still a most serious matter. But look at it which way we may, +it is so serious a matter that it must be faced. As the individual grows +from childhood to maturity, he must meet difficulties and accept +responsibilities from which he well might shrink. So is it with society. +New powers bring new duties and new responsibilities. Imprudence in +going forward involves danger, but it is fatal to stand still. And +however great be the difficulties involved in the assumption of the +railroad business by the State, much greater difficulties are involved +in the refusal to assume it. + +It is not necessary to go into any elaborate argument to show that the +ownership and management of railroads is a function of the State. That +is proved beyond dispute by the logic of events and of existing facts. +Nothing is more obvious---at least in the United States, where the +tendencies of modern development may be seen much more clearly than in +Europe---than that a union of railroading with the other functions of +government is inevitable. We may not like it, but we cannot avoid it. +Either government must manage the railroads, or the railroads must +manage the government. There is no escape. To refuse one horn of the dilemma is to be impaled on the other. -As for any satisfactory State regulation of railroads, the -experience of our States shows it to be impossible. A -strong-willed despot, clothed with arbitrary power, might -curb such leviathans; but popular governments cannot. The -power of the whole people is, of course, greater than the -power of the railroads, but it cannot be exerted steadily -and in details. Even a small special interest is, by reason -of its intelligence, compactness and flexibility, more than -a match for large and vague general interests; it has the -advantage which belongs to a well-armed and disciplined -force in dealing with a mob. But in the number of its -employees, the amount of its revenues, and the extent of the -interests which it controls, the railroad power is gigantic. -And, growing faster than the growth of the country, it is -tending still faster to concentration. It may be that the -man is already born who will control the whole railroad -system of the United States, as Vanderbilt, Gould and -Huntingdon now control great sections of it. - -Practical politicians all over the United States recognize -the utter hopelessness of contending with the railroad -power. In many if not in most of the States, no prudent man -will run for office if he believes the railroad power is -against him. Yet in the direct appeal to the people a power -of this kind is weakest, and railroad kings rule States -where, on any issues that came fairly before the people, -they would be voted down. It is by throwing their weight -into primaries, and managing conventions, by controlling the -press, manipulating legislatures, and filling the bench with -their creatures, that the railroads best exert political -power. The people of California, for instance, have voted -against the railroad time and again, or rather imagined they -did, and even adopted a very bad new constitution because -they supposed the railroad was against it. The result is, -that the great railroad company, of whose domain California, -with an area greater than twice that of Great Britain, is -but one of the provinces, absolutely dominates the State. -The men who really fought it are taken into its service or -crushed, and powers are exerted in the interests of the -corporation managers which no government would dare attempt. -This company, heavily subsidized, in the first place, as a -great public convenience, levies on commerce, not tolls, but -tariffs. If a man goes into business requiring -transportation he must exhibit his profits and take it into -partnership for the lion's share. Importers are bound by an -"iron-clad agreement" to give its agents access to their -books, and if they do anything the company deems against its -interests they are fined or ruined by being placed at a -disadvantage to their rivals in business. Three continental -railroads, heavily subsidized by the nation under the -impression that the competition would keep down rates, have -now reached the Pacific. Instead of competing they have -pooled their receipts. The line of steamers from San -Francisco to New York via the Isthmus receives \$100,000 a -month to keep up fares and freights to a level with those -exacted by the railroad, and if you would send goods from -Kew York to San Francisco by way of the Isthmus, the -cheapest way is to first ship them to England. Shippers to -interior points are charged as much as though their goods -were carried to the end of the road and then shipped back -again; and even, by means of the agreements mentioned, an -embargo is laid upon ocean commerce by sailing vessels, -wherever it might interfere with the monopoly. - -I speak of California only as an instance. The power of the -railroads is apparent in State after State, as it is in the -National Government. Nothing can be clearer than that, if -present conditions must continue, the American people might -as well content themselves to surrender political power to -these great corporations and their affiliated interests. -There is no escape from this. The railroad managers cannot -keep out of politics, even if they wished to. The -difficulties of the railroad question do not arise from the -fact that peculiarly bad men have got control of the -railroads; they arise from the nature of the railroad -business and its intimate relations to other interests and +As for any satisfactory State regulation of railroads, the experience of +our States shows it to be impossible. A strong-willed despot, clothed +with arbitrary power, might curb such leviathans; but popular +governments cannot. The power of the whole people is, of course, greater +than the power of the railroads, but it cannot be exerted steadily and +in details. Even a small special interest is, by reason of its +intelligence, compactness and flexibility, more than a match for large +and vague general interests; it has the advantage which belongs to a +well-armed and disciplined force in dealing with a mob. But in the +number of its employees, the amount of its revenues, and the extent of +the interests which it controls, the railroad power is gigantic. And, +growing faster than the growth of the country, it is tending still +faster to concentration. It may be that the man is already born who will +control the whole railroad system of the United States, as Vanderbilt, +Gould and Huntingdon now control great sections of it. + +Practical politicians all over the United States recognize the utter +hopelessness of contending with the railroad power. In many if not in +most of the States, no prudent man will run for office if he believes +the railroad power is against him. Yet in the direct appeal to the +people a power of this kind is weakest, and railroad kings rule States +where, on any issues that came fairly before the people, they would be +voted down. It is by throwing their weight into primaries, and managing +conventions, by controlling the press, manipulating legislatures, and +filling the bench with their creatures, that the railroads best exert +political power. The people of California, for instance, have voted +against the railroad time and again, or rather imagined they did, and +even adopted a very bad new constitution because they supposed the +railroad was against it. The result is, that the great railroad company, +of whose domain California, with an area greater than twice that of +Great Britain, is but one of the provinces, absolutely dominates the +State. The men who really fought it are taken into its service or +crushed, and powers are exerted in the interests of the corporation +managers which no government would dare attempt. This company, heavily +subsidized, in the first place, as a great public convenience, levies on +commerce, not tolls, but tariffs. If a man goes into business requiring +transportation he must exhibit his profits and take it into partnership +for the lion's share. Importers are bound by an "iron-clad agreement" to +give its agents access to their books, and if they do anything the +company deems against its interests they are fined or ruined by being +placed at a disadvantage to their rivals in business. Three continental +railroads, heavily subsidized by the nation under the impression that +the competition would keep down rates, have now reached the Pacific. +Instead of competing they have pooled their receipts. The line of +steamers from San Francisco to New York via the Isthmus receives +\$100,000 a month to keep up fares and freights to a level with those +exacted by the railroad, and if you would send goods from Kew York to +San Francisco by way of the Isthmus, the cheapest way is to first ship +them to England. Shippers to interior points are charged as much as +though their goods were carried to the end of the road and then shipped +back again; and even, by means of the agreements mentioned, an embargo +is laid upon ocean commerce by sailing vessels, wherever it might +interfere with the monopoly. + +I speak of California only as an instance. The power of the railroads is +apparent in State after State, as it is in the National Government. +Nothing can be clearer than that, if present conditions must continue, +the American people might as well content themselves to surrender +political power to these great corporations and their affiliated +interests. There is no escape from this. The railroad managers cannot +keep out of politics, even if they wished to. The difficulties of the +railroad question do not arise from the fact that peculiarly bad men +have got control of the railroads; they arise from the nature of the +railroad business and its intimate relations to other interests and industries. -But it will be said, "If the railroads are even now a -corrupting element in our politics, what would they be if -the government were to own and to attempt to i-un them? Is -not governmental management notoriously corrupt and -inefficient? Would not the effect of adding such a vast army -to the already great number of government employees, of -increasing so enormously the revenues and expenditures of -government, be to enable those who got control of government -to defy opposition and perpetuate their power indefinitely; -and would it not be, finally, to sink the whole political -organization in a hopeless slough of corruption?" - -My reply is, that great as these dangers may be, they must -be faced, lest worse befall us. When a gale sets him on a -lee shore, the seaman must make sail, even at the risk of -having his canvas fly from the bolt-ropes and his masts go -by the board. The dangers of wind and sea urge him to make -everything snug as may be, alow and aloft; to get rid of -anything that might diminish the weatherly qualities of his -ship, and to send his best helmsmen to the wheel,---not to -supinely accept the certain destruction of the rocks. - -Instead of belittling the dangers of adding to the functions -of government as it is at present, what I am endeavoring to -point out is the urgent necessity of simplifying and -improving government, that it may safely assume the -additional functions that social development forces upon it. -It is not merely necessary to prevent government from -getting more corrupt and more inefficient, though we can no -more do that by a negative policy than the seaman can lay-to -in a gale without drifting; it is necessary tp make -government much more efficient and much less corrupt. The -dangers that menace us are not accidental. They spring from -a universal law which we cannot escape. That law is the one -I pointed out in the first chapter of this book---that every -advance brings new dangers and requires higher and more -alert intelligence. A s the more highly organized animal -cannot live unless it have a more fully developed brain than -those of lower animal organizations, so the more highly -organized society must perish unless it bring to the -management of social alFairs greater intelligence and higher -moral sense. The great material advances which modern -invention have enabled us to make, necessitate corresponding -social and political advances. Nature knows no "Baby Act." -We must live up to her conditions or not live at all. - -My purpose here is to show how important it is that we -simplify government, purify politics and improve social -conditions, as a preliminary to showing how much in all -these directions may be accomplished by one single great -reform. But although I shall be obliged to do so briefly, it -may be worth while, even if briefly, to call attention to -some principles that should not be forgotten in thinking of -the assumption by the State of such functions as the running -of railroads. - -In the first place, I think it may be accepted as a -principle proved by experience, that any considerable -interest having necessary relations with government is more -corruptive of government when acting upon government from -without than when assumed by government. Let a ship in -mid-ocean drop her anchor and pay out her cable, and though -she would be relieved of some weight, since part of the -weight of anchor and cable would be supported by the water, -not only would her progress be retarded, but she would -refuse to answer her helm, and become utterly unmanageable. -Yet, assumed as part of the ship, and properly stowed on -board, anchor and cable no longer perceptibly interfere with -her movements. - -A standing army is a corrupting influence, and a danger to -popular liberties; but who would maintain that on this -ground it were wiser, if a standing army must be kept, that -it should be enlisted and paid by private parties, and hired -of them by the state? Such an army would be far more -corrupting and far more dangerous than one maintained -directly by the state, and would soon make its leaders -masters of the state. - -I do not think the postal department of the government, with -its extensive ramifications and its numerous employees, -begins to be as important a factor in our politics, or -exerts so corrupting an influence, as would a private -corporation carrying on this business, and which would be -constantly tempted or forced into politics to procure -favorable or prevent unfavorable legislation. Where -individual States and the General Government have -substituted public printing-offices for Public Printers, who -themselves furnished material and hired labor, I think the -result has been to lessen, not to increase, corruptive -influences; and speaking generally, I think experience shows -that in all departments of government the system of -contracting for work and supplies has, on the whole, led to -more corruption than the system of direct employment. The -reason I take to be, that there is in one case a much -greater concentration of corruptive interests and power than -in the other. - -The inefficiency, extravagance and corruption which we -commonly attribute to governmental management are mostly in -those departments which do not come under the public eye, -and little concern, if they concern at all, public -convenience. Whether the six new steel cruisers which the -persistent lobbying of contractors has induced Congress to -order, are well or illy built the American people will never -know, except as they learn through the newspapers, and the -fact will no more affect their comfort and convenience than -does the fitting of the Sultan's new breeches, or the latest -changes in officers' uniforms which it has pleased the -Secretary of the Navy to order. But let the mails go astray -or the postman fail in his rounds, and there is at once an -outcry. The post-office department is managed with greater -efficiency than any other department of the national -government, because it comes close to the people. To say the -very least, it is managed as efficiently as any private -company could manage such a vast business, and I think, on -the whole, as economically. And the scandals and abuses that -have arisen in it have been, for the most part, as to -out-of-the-way places, and things of which there was little -or no public consciousness. So in England, the telegraph and -parcel-carrying and savings bank businesses are managed by -government more efficiently and economically than before by -private corporations. - -Like these businesses---perhaps even more so---the railroad -business comes directly under the notice of the people. It -so immediately concerns the interests, the convenience and -the safety of tha great body, that under public management -it would compel that close and quick attention that secures -efficiency. - -It seems to me that in regard to public affairs we too -easily accept the dictum that faithful and efficient work -can only be secured by the hopes of pecuniary profit, or the -fear of pecuniary loss. We get faithful and efficient work -in our colleges and similar institutions without this, not -to speak of the army and navy, or of the postal and -educational departments of government; and be this as it -may, our railroads are really run by men who, from -switch-tender to general superintendent, have no pecuniary -interest in the business other than to get their pay---in -most cases paltry and inefficient---and hold their -positions. Under governmental ownership they would have, at -the very least, all the incentives to faithfulness and -efficiency that they have now, for that governmental -management of railroads must involve the principles of civil -service reform goes without the saying. The most determined -supporter of the spoils system would not care to resign the -safety of limb and life to engineers and brakemen appointed -for political services. - -Look, moreover, at the railroad system as it exists now. -That it is not managed in the interests of the public is -clear; but is it managed in the interests of its owners? Is -it managed with that economy, efficiency and intelligence -that are presumed to be the results of private ownership and -control? On the contrary, while the public interests are -utterly disregarded, the interests of the stockholders are -in most cases little better considered. Our railroads are -really managed in the interests of unscrupulous adventurers, -whose purpose is to bull and bear the stock market; by men -who make the interests of the property they manage -subservient to their personal interests in other railroads -or in other businesses; who speculate in lands and -townsites, who give themselves or their friends contracts -for supplies and special rates for transportation, and who -often deliberately wreck the corporation they control and -rob stockholders to the last cent. From one end to the -other, the management of our railroad system, as it now -exists, reeks with jobbery and fraud. - -That ordinary roads, bridges, etc., should not be maintained -for profit, either public or private, is an accepted -principle, and the State of New York has recently gone so -far as to abolish all tolls on the Erie canal. Our postal -service we merely aim to make self-sustaining, and no one -would now think of proposing that the rates of postage -should be increased in order to furnish public revenues; -still less would any one think of proposing to abandon the -government postal service, and turn the business over to -individuals or corporations. In the beginning the postal -service was carried on by individuals with a view to -profits. Had that system been continued to the present day, -it is certain that we should not begin to have such -extensive and regular postal facilities as we have now, nor -such cheap rates; and all the objections that are now urged -against the government assumption of the railroad business -would be urged against government carriage of letters. We -never can enjoy the full benefits of the invention of the -railroad until we make the railroads public property, -managed by public servants in the public interests. And thus -will a great cause of the corruption of government, and a -great cause of monstrous fortunes, be destroyed. - -All I have said of the railroad applies, of course, to the -telegraph, the telephone, the supplying of 17 cities with -gas, water, heat and electricity,---in short to all -businesses which are in their nature monopolies. I speak of -the railroad only because the magnitude of the business -makes its assumption by the State the most formidable of -such undertakings. - -Businesses that are in their nature monopolies are properly -functions of the State. The State must control or assume -them, in self-defense, and for the protection of the equal -rights of citizens. But beyond this, the field in which the -State may operate beneficially as the executive of the great -cooperative association, into which it is the tendency of -true civilization to blend society, will widen with the -improvement of government and the growth of public spirit. - -We have already made an important step in this direction in -our public school system. Our public schools are not -maintained for the poor, as are the English board -schools---where, moreover, payment is required from all who -can pay; nor yet is their main motive the protection of the -State against ignorance. These are subsidiary motives. But -the main motive for the maintenance of our public schools -is, that by far the greater part of our people find them the -best and most economical means of educating their children. -American society is, in fact, organized by the operation of -government into cooperative educational associations, and -with such happy results that in no State where the public -school system has obtained would any proposition to abolish -it get respectful consideration. In spite of the corruption -of our politics, our public schools are, on the whole, much -better than private schools; while by their association of -the children of rich and poor, of Jew and Gentile, of -Protestant and Catholic, of Republican and Democrat, they -are of inestimable value in breaking down prejudice and -checking the growth of class feeling. It is likewise to be -remarked as to our public school system, that corruptive -influences seem to spring rather from our not having gone -far enough than from our having gone too far in the -direction of State action. In some of our States the books -used by the children are supplied at public expense, being -considered school property, which the pupil receives on -entering the school or class, and returns when leaving. In -most of them, however, the pupils, unless their parents -cannot afford the outlay, are required to furnish their own -books. Experience has shown the former system to be much the -best, not only because, when books are furnished to all, -there is no temptation of those who can afford to purchase -books to falsely plead indigence, and no humiliation on the -part of those who cannot; but because the number of books -required is much less, and they can be purchased at cheaper -rates. This not only affects a large economy in the -aggregate expenditure, but lessens an important corruptive -influence. For the strife of the great school-book -publishers to get their books adopted in the public schools, -in which most of them make no scruple of resorting to -bribery wherever they can, has done much to degrade the -character of school boards. This corruptive influence can -only be fully done away with by manufacturing school-books -at public expense, as has been in a number of the States -proposed. - -The public library system, which, beginning in the -public-spirited city of Boston, is steadily making its way -over the country, and under which both reading and lending -libraries are maintained at public expense for the free use -of the public, is another instance of the successful -extension of the cooperative functions of government. So are -the public parks and recreation grounds which we are -beginning to establish. - -Not only is it possible to go much further in the direction -of thus providing, at public expense, for the public health, -education and recreation, and for public encouragement of -science and invention, but if we can simplify and purify -government it will become possible for society in its -various subdivisions to obtain in many other ways, but in -much larger degree, those advantages for its members that -voluntary cooperative societies seek to obtain. Not only -could the most enormous economies thus be obtained, but the -growing tendency to adulteration and dishonesty, as fatal to -morals as to health, would be checked,and at least such an -organization of industry be reached as would very greatly -reduce the appropriative power of aggregated capital, and -prevent those strifes that may be likened to wars. The -natural progress of social development is unmistakably -toward cooperation, or, if the word be preferred, toward -socialism, though I dislike to use a word to which such -various and vague meanings are attached. Civilization is the -art of living together in closer relations. That mankind -should dwell together in unity is the evident intent of the -Divine mind,---of that Will, expressed in the immutable laws -of the physical and moral universe which reward obedience -and punish disobedience. The dangers which menace modern -society are but the reverse of blessings which modern -society may grasp. The concentration that is going on in all -branches of industry is a necessary tendency of our advance -in the material arts. It is not in itself an evil. If in -anything its results are evil, it is simply because of our -bad social adjustments. The construction of this world in -which we find ourselves is such that a thousand men working -together can produce many times more than the same thousand -men working singly. But this does not make it necessary that -the nine hundred and ninety-nine must be the virtual slaves -of the one. - -Let me repeat it, though again and again, for it is, it -seems to me, the great lesson which existing social facts -impress upon him who studies them, and that it is -all-important that we should heed. The natural laws which -permit of social advance, require that advance to be -intellectual and moral as well as material. The natural laws -which give us the steamship, the locomotive, the telegraph, -the printing press, and all the thousand inventions by which -our mastery over matter and material conditions is -increased, *require* greater social intelligence and a -higher standard of social morals. Especially do they make -more and more imperative that justice between man and man -which demands the recognition of the equality of natural -rights. - -"Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness \[right -or just doing\] and all these things shall be added unto -you." The first step toward a natural and healthy -organization of society is to secure to all men their -natural, equal and inalienable rights in the material -universe. To do this is not to do everything that may be -necessary; but it is to make all else easier. And unless we -do this nothing else will avail. - -I have in this chapter touched briefly upon subjects that -for thorough treatment would require much more space. My -purpose has been to show that the simplification and -purification of government is rendered the more necessary, -on account of functions which industrial development is -forcing upon government, and the further functions which it -is becoming more and more evident that it would be -advantageous for government to assume. In succeeding -chapters I propose to show how, by recognizing in -practicable method the equal and inalienable rights of men -to the soil of their country, government may be greatly -simplified, and corrupting influences destroyed. For it is -indeed true, as the French Assembly declared, that public -misfortunes and corruptions of government spring from -ignorance, neglect or contempt of human rights. - -Of course in this chapter and elsewhere in speaking of -government, the state, the community, etc., I use these -terms in a general sense, without reference to existing -political divisions. What should properly belong to the -township or ward, what to the county or state, what to the -nation, and what to such federations of nations as it is in -the manifest line of civilization to evolve, is a matter -into which I have not entered. As to the proper organization -of government, and the distribution of powers, there is much -need for thought. +But it will be said, "If the railroads are even now a corrupting element +in our politics, what would they be if the government were to own and to +attempt to i-un them? Is not governmental management notoriously corrupt +and inefficient? Would not the effect of adding such a vast army to the +already great number of government employees, of increasing so +enormously the revenues and expenditures of government, be to enable +those who got control of government to defy opposition and perpetuate +their power indefinitely; and would it not be, finally, to sink the +whole political organization in a hopeless slough of corruption?" + +My reply is, that great as these dangers may be, they must be faced, +lest worse befall us. When a gale sets him on a lee shore, the seaman +must make sail, even at the risk of having his canvas fly from the +bolt-ropes and his masts go by the board. The dangers of wind and sea +urge him to make everything snug as may be, alow and aloft; to get rid +of anything that might diminish the weatherly qualities of his ship, and +to send his best helmsmen to the wheel,---not to supinely accept the +certain destruction of the rocks. + +Instead of belittling the dangers of adding to the functions of +government as it is at present, what I am endeavoring to point out is +the urgent necessity of simplifying and improving government, that it +may safely assume the additional functions that social development +forces upon it. It is not merely necessary to prevent government from +getting more corrupt and more inefficient, though we can no more do that +by a negative policy than the seaman can lay-to in a gale without +drifting; it is necessary tp make government much more efficient and +much less corrupt. The dangers that menace us are not accidental. They +spring from a universal law which we cannot escape. That law is the one +I pointed out in the first chapter of this book---that every advance +brings new dangers and requires higher and more alert intelligence. A s +the more highly organized animal cannot live unless it have a more fully +developed brain than those of lower animal organizations, so the more +highly organized society must perish unless it bring to the management +of social alFairs greater intelligence and higher moral sense. The great +material advances which modern invention have enabled us to make, +necessitate corresponding social and political advances. Nature knows no +"Baby Act." We must live up to her conditions or not live at all. + +My purpose here is to show how important it is that we simplify +government, purify politics and improve social conditions, as a +preliminary to showing how much in all these directions may be +accomplished by one single great reform. But although I shall be obliged +to do so briefly, it may be worth while, even if briefly, to call +attention to some principles that should not be forgotten in thinking of +the assumption by the State of such functions as the running of +railroads. + +In the first place, I think it may be accepted as a principle proved by +experience, that any considerable interest having necessary relations +with government is more corruptive of government when acting upon +government from without than when assumed by government. Let a ship in +mid-ocean drop her anchor and pay out her cable, and though she would be +relieved of some weight, since part of the weight of anchor and cable +would be supported by the water, not only would her progress be +retarded, but she would refuse to answer her helm, and become utterly +unmanageable. Yet, assumed as part of the ship, and properly stowed on +board, anchor and cable no longer perceptibly interfere with her +movements. + +A standing army is a corrupting influence, and a danger to popular +liberties; but who would maintain that on this ground it were wiser, if +a standing army must be kept, that it should be enlisted and paid by +private parties, and hired of them by the state? Such an army would be +far more corrupting and far more dangerous than one maintained directly +by the state, and would soon make its leaders masters of the state. + +I do not think the postal department of the government, with its +extensive ramifications and its numerous employees, begins to be as +important a factor in our politics, or exerts so corrupting an +influence, as would a private corporation carrying on this business, and +which would be constantly tempted or forced into politics to procure +favorable or prevent unfavorable legislation. Where individual States +and the General Government have substituted public printing-offices for +Public Printers, who themselves furnished material and hired labor, I +think the result has been to lessen, not to increase, corruptive +influences; and speaking generally, I think experience shows that in all +departments of government the system of contracting for work and +supplies has, on the whole, led to more corruption than the system of +direct employment. The reason I take to be, that there is in one case a +much greater concentration of corruptive interests and power than in the +other. + +The inefficiency, extravagance and corruption which we commonly +attribute to governmental management are mostly in those departments +which do not come under the public eye, and little concern, if they +concern at all, public convenience. Whether the six new steel cruisers +which the persistent lobbying of contractors has induced Congress to +order, are well or illy built the American people will never know, +except as they learn through the newspapers, and the fact will no more +affect their comfort and convenience than does the fitting of the +Sultan's new breeches, or the latest changes in officers' uniforms which +it has pleased the Secretary of the Navy to order. But let the mails go +astray or the postman fail in his rounds, and there is at once an +outcry. The post-office department is managed with greater efficiency +than any other department of the national government, because it comes +close to the people. To say the very least, it is managed as efficiently +as any private company could manage such a vast business, and I think, +on the whole, as economically. And the scandals and abuses that have +arisen in it have been, for the most part, as to out-of-the-way places, +and things of which there was little or no public consciousness. So in +England, the telegraph and parcel-carrying and savings bank businesses +are managed by government more efficiently and economically than before +by private corporations. + +Like these businesses---perhaps even more so---the railroad business +comes directly under the notice of the people. It so immediately +concerns the interests, the convenience and the safety of tha great +body, that under public management it would compel that close and quick +attention that secures efficiency. + +It seems to me that in regard to public affairs we too easily accept the +dictum that faithful and efficient work can only be secured by the hopes +of pecuniary profit, or the fear of pecuniary loss. We get faithful and +efficient work in our colleges and similar institutions without this, +not to speak of the army and navy, or of the postal and educational +departments of government; and be this as it may, our railroads are +really run by men who, from switch-tender to general superintendent, +have no pecuniary interest in the business other than to get their +pay---in most cases paltry and inefficient---and hold their positions. +Under governmental ownership they would have, at the very least, all the +incentives to faithfulness and efficiency that they have now, for that +governmental management of railroads must involve the principles of +civil service reform goes without the saying. The most determined +supporter of the spoils system would not care to resign the safety of +limb and life to engineers and brakemen appointed for political +services. + +Look, moreover, at the railroad system as it exists now. That it is not +managed in the interests of the public is clear; but is it managed in +the interests of its owners? Is it managed with that economy, efficiency +and intelligence that are presumed to be the results of private +ownership and control? On the contrary, while the public interests are +utterly disregarded, the interests of the stockholders are in most cases +little better considered. Our railroads are really managed in the +interests of unscrupulous adventurers, whose purpose is to bull and bear +the stock market; by men who make the interests of the property they +manage subservient to their personal interests in other railroads or in +other businesses; who speculate in lands and townsites, who give +themselves or their friends contracts for supplies and special rates for +transportation, and who often deliberately wreck the corporation they +control and rob stockholders to the last cent. From one end to the +other, the management of our railroad system, as it now exists, reeks +with jobbery and fraud. + +That ordinary roads, bridges, etc., should not be maintained for profit, +either public or private, is an accepted principle, and the State of New +York has recently gone so far as to abolish all tolls on the Erie canal. +Our postal service we merely aim to make self-sustaining, and no one +would now think of proposing that the rates of postage should be +increased in order to furnish public revenues; still less would any one +think of proposing to abandon the government postal service, and turn +the business over to individuals or corporations. In the beginning the +postal service was carried on by individuals with a view to profits. Had +that system been continued to the present day, it is certain that we +should not begin to have such extensive and regular postal facilities as +we have now, nor such cheap rates; and all the objections that are now +urged against the government assumption of the railroad business would +be urged against government carriage of letters. We never can enjoy the +full benefits of the invention of the railroad until we make the +railroads public property, managed by public servants in the public +interests. And thus will a great cause of the corruption of government, +and a great cause of monstrous fortunes, be destroyed. + +All I have said of the railroad applies, of course, to the telegraph, +the telephone, the supplying of 17 cities with gas, water, heat and +electricity,---in short to all businesses which are in their nature +monopolies. I speak of the railroad only because the magnitude of the +business makes its assumption by the State the most formidable of such +undertakings. + +Businesses that are in their nature monopolies are properly functions of +the State. The State must control or assume them, in self-defense, and +for the protection of the equal rights of citizens. But beyond this, the +field in which the State may operate beneficially as the executive of +the great cooperative association, into which it is the tendency of true +civilization to blend society, will widen with the improvement of +government and the growth of public spirit. + +We have already made an important step in this direction in our public +school system. Our public schools are not maintained for the poor, as +are the English board schools---where, moreover, payment is required +from all who can pay; nor yet is their main motive the protection of the +State against ignorance. These are subsidiary motives. But the main +motive for the maintenance of our public schools is, that by far the +greater part of our people find them the best and most economical means +of educating their children. American society is, in fact, organized by +the operation of government into cooperative educational associations, +and with such happy results that in no State where the public school +system has obtained would any proposition to abolish it get respectful +consideration. In spite of the corruption of our politics, our public +schools are, on the whole, much better than private schools; while by +their association of the children of rich and poor, of Jew and Gentile, +of Protestant and Catholic, of Republican and Democrat, they are of +inestimable value in breaking down prejudice and checking the growth of +class feeling. It is likewise to be remarked as to our public school +system, that corruptive influences seem to spring rather from our not +having gone far enough than from our having gone too far in the +direction of State action. In some of our States the books used by the +children are supplied at public expense, being considered school +property, which the pupil receives on entering the school or class, and +returns when leaving. In most of them, however, the pupils, unless their +parents cannot afford the outlay, are required to furnish their own +books. Experience has shown the former system to be much the best, not +only because, when books are furnished to all, there is no temptation of +those who can afford to purchase books to falsely plead indigence, and +no humiliation on the part of those who cannot; but because the number +of books required is much less, and they can be purchased at cheaper +rates. This not only affects a large economy in the aggregate +expenditure, but lessens an important corruptive influence. For the +strife of the great school-book publishers to get their books adopted in +the public schools, in which most of them make no scruple of resorting +to bribery wherever they can, has done much to degrade the character of +school boards. This corruptive influence can only be fully done away +with by manufacturing school-books at public expense, as has been in a +number of the States proposed. + +The public library system, which, beginning in the public-spirited city +of Boston, is steadily making its way over the country, and under which +both reading and lending libraries are maintained at public expense for +the free use of the public, is another instance of the successful +extension of the cooperative functions of government. So are the public +parks and recreation grounds which we are beginning to establish. + +Not only is it possible to go much further in the direction of thus +providing, at public expense, for the public health, education and +recreation, and for public encouragement of science and invention, but +if we can simplify and purify government it will become possible for +society in its various subdivisions to obtain in many other ways, but in +much larger degree, those advantages for its members that voluntary +cooperative societies seek to obtain. Not only could the most enormous +economies thus be obtained, but the growing tendency to adulteration and +dishonesty, as fatal to morals as to health, would be checked,and at +least such an organization of industry be reached as would very greatly +reduce the appropriative power of aggregated capital, and prevent those +strifes that may be likened to wars. The natural progress of social +development is unmistakably toward cooperation, or, if the word be +preferred, toward socialism, though I dislike to use a word to which +such various and vague meanings are attached. Civilization is the art of +living together in closer relations. That mankind should dwell together +in unity is the evident intent of the Divine mind,---of that Will, +expressed in the immutable laws of the physical and moral universe which +reward obedience and punish disobedience. The dangers which menace +modern society are but the reverse of blessings which modern society may +grasp. The concentration that is going on in all branches of industry is +a necessary tendency of our advance in the material arts. It is not in +itself an evil. If in anything its results are evil, it is simply +because of our bad social adjustments. The construction of this world in +which we find ourselves is such that a thousand men working together can +produce many times more than the same thousand men working singly. But +this does not make it necessary that the nine hundred and ninety-nine +must be the virtual slaves of the one. + +Let me repeat it, though again and again, for it is, it seems to me, the +great lesson which existing social facts impress upon him who studies +them, and that it is all-important that we should heed. The natural laws +which permit of social advance, require that advance to be intellectual +and moral as well as material. The natural laws which give us the +steamship, the locomotive, the telegraph, the printing press, and all +the thousand inventions by which our mastery over matter and material +conditions is increased, *require* greater social intelligence and a +higher standard of social morals. Especially do they make more and more +imperative that justice between man and man which demands the +recognition of the equality of natural rights. + +"Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness \[right or just +doing\] and all these things shall be added unto you." The first step +toward a natural and healthy organization of society is to secure to all +men their natural, equal and inalienable rights in the material +universe. To do this is not to do everything that may be necessary; but +it is to make all else easier. And unless we do this nothing else will +avail. + +I have in this chapter touched briefly upon subjects that for thorough +treatment would require much more space. My purpose has been to show +that the simplification and purification of government is rendered the +more necessary, on account of functions which industrial development is +forcing upon government, and the further functions which it is becoming +more and more evident that it would be advantageous for government to +assume. In succeeding chapters I propose to show how, by recognizing in +practicable method the equal and inalienable rights of men to the soil +of their country, government may be greatly simplified, and corrupting +influences destroyed. For it is indeed true, as the French Assembly +declared, that public misfortunes and corruptions of government spring +from ignorance, neglect or contempt of human rights. + +Of course in this chapter and elsewhere in speaking of government, the +state, the community, etc., I use these terms in a general sense, +without reference to existing political divisions. What should properly +belong to the township or ward, what to the county or state, what to the +nation, and what to such federations of nations as it is in the manifest +line of civilization to evolve, is a matter into which I have not +entered. As to the proper organization of government, and the +distribution of powers, there is much need for thought. # What We Must Do At the risk of repetition let me recapitulate: -The main source of the difficulties that menace us is the -growing inequality in the distribution of wealth. To this -all modern inventors seem to contribute, and the movement is -hastened by political corruption, and by special monopolies -established •by abuse of legislative power. But the primary -cause lies evidently in fundamental social adjustments---in -the relations which we have established between labor and -the natural material, and means of labor---between man and -the planet which is his dwelling-place, workshop and -storehouse. As the earth must be the foundation of every -material structure, so institutions which regulate the use -of land constitute the foundation of every social -organization, and must affect the whole character and -development of that organization. In a society where the -equality of natural rights is recognized, it is manifest -that there can be no great disparity in fortunes. None -except the physically incapacitated will be dependent on -others; none will be forced to sell their labor to others. -There will be differences in wealth, for there are -differences among men as to energy, skill, prudence, -foresight and industry; but there can be no very rich class, -and no very poor class; and, as each generation becomes -possessed of equal natural opportunities, whatever -differences in fortune grow up in one generation will not -tend to perpetuate themselves. In such a community, whatever -may be its form, the political organization must be -essentially democratic. - -But, in a community where the soil is treated as the -property of but a portion of the people, some of these -people from the very day of their birth must be at a -disadvantage, and some will have an enormous advantage. -Those who have no rights in the land will be forced to sell -their labor to the landholders for what they can get; and, -in fact, cannot 'live without the landlords' permission. -Such a community must inevitably develop a class of masters -and a class of serfs---a class possessing great wealth, and -a class having nothing; and its political organization, no -matter what its form, must become a virtual despotism. - -Our fundamental mistake is in treating land as private -property. On this false basis modern civilization everywhere -rests, and hence, as material progress goes on, is -everywhere developing such monstrous inequalities in -condition as must ultimately destroy it. As without land man -cannot exist; as his very physical substance, and all that -he can acquire or make, must be drawn from the land, the -ownership of the land of a country is necessarily the -ownership of the people of that country---involving their -industrial, social and political subjection. Here is the -great reason why the labor-saving inventions, of which our -century has been so strikingly prolific, have signally -failed to improve the condition of laborers. Labor-saving -inventions primarily increase the power of labor, and -should, therefore, increase wages and improve the condition -of the laboring classes. But this only where land is free to -labor; for labor cannot exert itself without land. No -labor-saving inventions can enable us to make something out -of nothing, or in anywise lessen our dependence upon land. -They can merely add to the efficiency of labor in working up -the raw materials drawn from land. Therefore, wherever land -has been subjected to private ownership, the ultimate effect -of labor-saving inventions, and of all improved processes -and discoveries, is to enable landowners to demand, and -labor to pay, more for the use of land. Land becomes more -valuable, but the wages of labor do not increase; on the -contrary, if there is any margin for possible reductions, -they may be absolutely reduced. - -This we already see, and that in spite of the fact that a -very important part of the effect of modern invention has -been by the improvement of transportation to open up new -land. What will be the effect of continued improvement in -industrial processes when the land of this continent is all -"fenced in," as in a few more years it will be, we may -imagine if we consider what would have been the effect of -labor-saving inventions upon Europe had no New World been -opened. - -But it may be said that, in asserting that where land is -private property the benefit of industrial improvements goes -ultimately to landowners, I ignore facts, and attribute to -one principle more importance than is its due, since it is -clear that a great deal of the increased wealth arising from -modern improvements has not gone to the owners of land, but -to capitalists, manufacturers, speculators, railroad owners, -and the holders of other monopolies than that of land. It -may be pointed out that the richest family in Europe are the -Rothschilds, who are more loan-jobbers and bankers than -landowners; that the richest in America are the Vanderbilts, -and not the Astors; that Jay Gould got his money, not by -securing land, but by bulling and bearing the stock market, -by robbing people with hired lawyers and purchased judges -and corrupted legislatures. I may be asked if I attach no -importance to the jobbery and robbery of the tariff, under -pretense of "protecting American labor"; to the jugglery -with the monetary system, from the wildcat State banks and -national banking system down to the trade-dollar swindle? - -In previous chapters I have given answers to all such -objections; but to repeat in concise form, my reply is, that -I do not ignore any of these things, but that they in nowise -invalidate the self-evident principle that land being -private property, the ultimate benefit of all improvements -in production must go to the landowners. To say that if a -man continues to play at "rondo" the table will ultimately -get his money, is not to say that in the meantime he may not -have his pocket picked. Let me illustrate: - -Suppose an island, the soil of which is conceded to be the -property of a few of the inhabitants. the rest of the -inhabitants of this island must either hire land of these -landowners, paying rent for it, or sell their labor to them, -receiving wages. As population increases, the competition -between the non-landowners for employment or the means of -employment must increase rent and decrease wages until the -non-landowners get merely a bare living, and the landholders -get all the rest of the produce of the island. Now, suppose -any improvement or invention made which will increase the -efficiency of labor, it is manifest that, as soon as it -becomes general, the competition between the non-landholders -must give to the landholders all the benefit. No matter how -great the improvement be, it can have but this ultimate -result. If the improvements are so great that all the wealth -the island can produce or that the landowners care for can -be obtained with one-half the labor, they can let the other -half of the laborers starve or evict them into the sea; or -if they aro pious people of the conventional sort, who -believe that God Almighty intended these laborers to live, -though he did not provide any land for them to live on, they -may support them as paupers or ship them off to some other -country as the English Government is shipping the "surplus" -Irishmen. But whether they let them die or keep them alive, -they would have no use for them, and, if improvement still -went on, they would have use for less and less of them. +The main source of the difficulties that menace us is the growing +inequality in the distribution of wealth. To this all modern inventors +seem to contribute, and the movement is hastened by political +corruption, and by special monopolies established •by abuse of +legislative power. But the primary cause lies evidently in fundamental +social adjustments---in the relations which we have established between +labor and the natural material, and means of labor---between man and the +planet which is his dwelling-place, workshop and storehouse. As the +earth must be the foundation of every material structure, so +institutions which regulate the use of land constitute the foundation of +every social organization, and must affect the whole character and +development of that organization. In a society where the equality of +natural rights is recognized, it is manifest that there can be no great +disparity in fortunes. None except the physically incapacitated will be +dependent on others; none will be forced to sell their labor to others. +There will be differences in wealth, for there are differences among men +as to energy, skill, prudence, foresight and industry; but there can be +no very rich class, and no very poor class; and, as each generation +becomes possessed of equal natural opportunities, whatever differences +in fortune grow up in one generation will not tend to perpetuate +themselves. In such a community, whatever may be its form, the political +organization must be essentially democratic. + +But, in a community where the soil is treated as the property of but a +portion of the people, some of these people from the very day of their +birth must be at a disadvantage, and some will have an enormous +advantage. Those who have no rights in the land will be forced to sell +their labor to the landholders for what they can get; and, in fact, +cannot 'live without the landlords' permission. Such a community must +inevitably develop a class of masters and a class of serfs---a class +possessing great wealth, and a class having nothing; and its political +organization, no matter what its form, must become a virtual despotism. + +Our fundamental mistake is in treating land as private property. On this +false basis modern civilization everywhere rests, and hence, as material +progress goes on, is everywhere developing such monstrous inequalities +in condition as must ultimately destroy it. As without land man cannot +exist; as his very physical substance, and all that he can acquire or +make, must be drawn from the land, the ownership of the land of a +country is necessarily the ownership of the people of that +country---involving their industrial, social and political subjection. +Here is the great reason why the labor-saving inventions, of which our +century has been so strikingly prolific, have signally failed to improve +the condition of laborers. Labor-saving inventions primarily increase +the power of labor, and should, therefore, increase wages and improve +the condition of the laboring classes. But this only where land is free +to labor; for labor cannot exert itself without land. No labor-saving +inventions can enable us to make something out of nothing, or in anywise +lessen our dependence upon land. They can merely add to the efficiency +of labor in working up the raw materials drawn from land. Therefore, +wherever land has been subjected to private ownership, the ultimate +effect of labor-saving inventions, and of all improved processes and +discoveries, is to enable landowners to demand, and labor to pay, more +for the use of land. Land becomes more valuable, but the wages of labor +do not increase; on the contrary, if there is any margin for possible +reductions, they may be absolutely reduced. + +This we already see, and that in spite of the fact that a very important +part of the effect of modern invention has been by the improvement of +transportation to open up new land. What will be the effect of continued +improvement in industrial processes when the land of this continent is +all "fenced in," as in a few more years it will be, we may imagine if we +consider what would have been the effect of labor-saving inventions upon +Europe had no New World been opened. + +But it may be said that, in asserting that where land is private +property the benefit of industrial improvements goes ultimately to +landowners, I ignore facts, and attribute to one principle more +importance than is its due, since it is clear that a great deal of the +increased wealth arising from modern improvements has not gone to the +owners of land, but to capitalists, manufacturers, speculators, railroad +owners, and the holders of other monopolies than that of land. It may be +pointed out that the richest family in Europe are the Rothschilds, who +are more loan-jobbers and bankers than landowners; that the richest in +America are the Vanderbilts, and not the Astors; that Jay Gould got his +money, not by securing land, but by bulling and bearing the stock +market, by robbing people with hired lawyers and purchased judges and +corrupted legislatures. I may be asked if I attach no importance to the +jobbery and robbery of the tariff, under pretense of "protecting +American labor"; to the jugglery with the monetary system, from the +wildcat State banks and national banking system down to the trade-dollar +swindle? + +In previous chapters I have given answers to all such objections; but to +repeat in concise form, my reply is, that I do not ignore any of these +things, but that they in nowise invalidate the self-evident principle +that land being private property, the ultimate benefit of all +improvements in production must go to the landowners. To say that if a +man continues to play at "rondo" the table will ultimately get his +money, is not to say that in the meantime he may not have his pocket +picked. Let me illustrate: + +Suppose an island, the soil of which is conceded to be the property of a +few of the inhabitants. the rest of the inhabitants of this island must +either hire land of these landowners, paying rent for it, or sell their +labor to them, receiving wages. As population increases, the competition +between the non-landowners for employment or the means of employment +must increase rent and decrease wages until the non-landowners get +merely a bare living, and the landholders get all the rest of the +produce of the island. Now, suppose any improvement or invention made +which will increase the efficiency of labor, it is manifest that, as +soon as it becomes general, the competition between the non-landholders +must give to the landholders all the benefit. No matter how great the +improvement be, it can have but this ultimate result. If the +improvements are so great that all the wealth the island can produce or +that the landowners care for can be obtained with one-half the labor, +they can let the other half of the laborers starve or evict them into +the sea; or if they aro pious people of the conventional sort, who +believe that God Almighty intended these laborers to live, though he did +not provide any land for them to live on, they may support them as +paupers or ship them off to some other country as the English Government +is shipping the "surplus" Irishmen. But whether they let them die or +keep them alive, they would have no use for them, and, if improvement +still went on, they would have use for less and less of them. This is the general principle. -But in addition to this population of landowners and their -tenants and laborers, let us suppose there to be on the -island a storekeeper, an inventor, a gambler and a pirate. -To make our supposition conform to modern fashions, we will -suppose a highly respectable gambler---one of the kind who -endows colleges and subscribes to the conversion of the -heathen---and a very gentlemanly pirate, who flies on his -swift cruiser the ensign of a yacht club instead of the old -raw head and bloody bones, but who, even more regularly and -efficiently than the old-fashioned pirate, levies his toll. - -Let us suppose the storekeeper, the gambler and the pirate -well established in business and making money. Along comes -the inventor, and says: "I have an invention which will -greatly add to the efficiency of labor and enable you to -greatly increase the produce of this island, so that there -will he very much more to divide among you all; but, as a -condition for telling you of it, I want you to agree that I -shall have a royalty upon its use." This is agreed to, the -invention is adopted, and does greatly increase the -production of wealth. But it does not benefit the laborers. -The competition between them still forces them to pay such -high rent or take such low wages that they are no better off -than before. They stiL. barely live. But the whole benefit -of the invention does not in this case go to the landowners. -The inventor's royalty gives him a great income, while the -storekeeper, the gambler and the pirate all find their -incomes much increased. The incomes of each one of these -four, we may readily suppose, are larger than any single one -of the landowners, and their gains offer the most striking -contrast to the poverty of the laborers, who are bitterly -disappointed at not getting any share of the increased -wealth that followed the improvement. Something they feel is -wrong, and some among them even begin to murmur that the -Creator of the island surely did not make it for the benefit -of only a few of its inhabitants, and that, as the common -creatures of the Creator, they, too, have some rights to the -use of the soil of the island. - -Suppose then some one to arise and say: "What is the use of -discussing such abstractions as the land question, that -cannot come into practical politics for many a day, and that -can only excite dissension and general unpleasantness, and -that, moreover, savor of communism, which as you laborers, -who have nothing but your few rags, very well know is a -highly wicked and dangerous thing, meaning the robbery of -widow women and orphans, and being opposed to religion? Let -us be practical. You laborers are poor and can scarcely get -a living, because you are swindled by the storekeeper, taxed -by the inventor, gouged by the gambler and robbed by the -pirate. Landholders and non-landholders, our interests are -in common as against these vampires. Let us unite to stop -their exactions. The storekeeper makes a profit of 10-50% on -all that he sells. Let us form a cooperative society, which -will sell everything at cost and enable laborers to get rich -by saving the storekeeper's profit on all that they use. As -for the inventor, he has been already well enough paid. Let -us stop his royalty, and there will be so much more to -divide between the landowners and the non-landowners. As for -the gambler and the pirate, let us put a summary end to -their proceedings and drive them off the island!" - -Let us imagine a roar of applause, and these propositions -carried out. What then? Then the landowners would become so -much the richer. The laborers would gain nothing, unless it -might be in a clearer apprehension of the ultimate cause of -their poverty. For, although by getting rid of the -storekeeper, the laborers might be able to live cheaper, the -competition between them would soon force them to give up -this advantage to the landowners by taking lower wages or -giving higher rents. And so the elimination of the -inventor's royalty, and of the pickings and stealings of the -gambler and pirate, would only make land more valuable and -increase the incomes of the landholders. The saving made by -getting rid of the storekeeper, inventor, gambler and pirate -would accrue to their benefit, as did the increase in -production from the application of the invention. - -That all this is true we may see, as I have shown. The -growth of the railroad system has, for instance, resulted in -putting almost the whole transportation business of the -country in the hands of giant monopolies, who, for the most -part, charge "what the traffic will bear," and who -frequently discriminate in the most outrageous way against -localities. The effect where this is done, as is alleged in -the complaints that are made, is to reduce the price of -land. And all this might be remedied, without raising wages -or improving the condition of labor. It would only make land -more valuable---that is to say, in consideration of the -saving effected in transportation, labor would have to pay a -higher premium for land. - -So with all monopolies, and their name is legion. If all -monopolies, save the monopoly of land, were abolished; if, -even, by means of cooperative societies, or other devices, -the profits of exchange were saved, and goods passed from -producer to consumer at the minimum of cost; if government -were reformed to the point of absolute purity and economy, -nothing whatever would be done toward equalization in the -distribution of wealth. The competition between laborers, -who, having no rights in the land, cannot work without some -one else's permission, would increase the value of land, and -force wages to the point of bare subsistence. - -Let me not be misunderstood. I do not say that in the -recognition of the equal and unalienable right of each human -being to the natural elements from which life must be -supported and wants satisfied, lies the solution of all -social problems. I fully recognize the fact that even after -we do this, much will remain to do. We might recognize the -equal right to land, and yet tyranny and spoliation be -continued. But whatever else we do, so long as we fail to -recognize the equal right to the elements of nature, nothing -will avail to remedy that unnatural inequality in the -distribution of wealth which is fraught with so much evil -and danger. Reform as we may, until we make this fundamental -reform our material progress can but tend to differentiate -our people into the monstrously rich and the frightfully -poor. Whatever be the increase of wealth, the masses will -still be ground toward the point of bare subsistence---we -must still have our great criminal classes, our paupers and -our tramps, men and women driven to degradation and -desperation from inability to make an honest living. +But in addition to this population of landowners and their tenants and +laborers, let us suppose there to be on the island a storekeeper, an +inventor, a gambler and a pirate. To make our supposition conform to +modern fashions, we will suppose a highly respectable gambler---one of +the kind who endows colleges and subscribes to the conversion of the +heathen---and a very gentlemanly pirate, who flies on his swift cruiser +the ensign of a yacht club instead of the old raw head and bloody bones, +but who, even more regularly and efficiently than the old-fashioned +pirate, levies his toll. + +Let us suppose the storekeeper, the gambler and the pirate well +established in business and making money. Along comes the inventor, and +says: "I have an invention which will greatly add to the efficiency of +labor and enable you to greatly increase the produce of this island, so +that there will he very much more to divide among you all; but, as a +condition for telling you of it, I want you to agree that I shall have a +royalty upon its use." This is agreed to, the invention is adopted, and +does greatly increase the production of wealth. But it does not benefit +the laborers. The competition between them still forces them to pay such +high rent or take such low wages that they are no better off than +before. They stiL. barely live. But the whole benefit of the invention +does not in this case go to the landowners. The inventor's royalty gives +him a great income, while the storekeeper, the gambler and the pirate +all find their incomes much increased. The incomes of each one of these +four, we may readily suppose, are larger than any single one of the +landowners, and their gains offer the most striking contrast to the +poverty of the laborers, who are bitterly disappointed at not getting +any share of the increased wealth that followed the improvement. +Something they feel is wrong, and some among them even begin to murmur +that the Creator of the island surely did not make it for the benefit of +only a few of its inhabitants, and that, as the common creatures of the +Creator, they, too, have some rights to the use of the soil of the +island. + +Suppose then some one to arise and say: "What is the use of discussing +such abstractions as the land question, that cannot come into practical +politics for many a day, and that can only excite dissension and general +unpleasantness, and that, moreover, savor of communism, which as you +laborers, who have nothing but your few rags, very well know is a highly +wicked and dangerous thing, meaning the robbery of widow women and +orphans, and being opposed to religion? Let us be practical. You +laborers are poor and can scarcely get a living, because you are +swindled by the storekeeper, taxed by the inventor, gouged by the +gambler and robbed by the pirate. Landholders and non-landholders, our +interests are in common as against these vampires. Let us unite to stop +their exactions. The storekeeper makes a profit of 10-50% on all that he +sells. Let us form a cooperative society, which will sell everything at +cost and enable laborers to get rich by saving the storekeeper's profit +on all that they use. As for the inventor, he has been already well +enough paid. Let us stop his royalty, and there will be so much more to +divide between the landowners and the non-landowners. As for the gambler +and the pirate, let us put a summary end to their proceedings and drive +them off the island!" + +Let us imagine a roar of applause, and these propositions carried out. +What then? Then the landowners would become so much the richer. The +laborers would gain nothing, unless it might be in a clearer +apprehension of the ultimate cause of their poverty. For, although by +getting rid of the storekeeper, the laborers might be able to live +cheaper, the competition between them would soon force them to give up +this advantage to the landowners by taking lower wages or giving higher +rents. And so the elimination of the inventor's royalty, and of the +pickings and stealings of the gambler and pirate, would only make land +more valuable and increase the incomes of the landholders. The saving +made by getting rid of the storekeeper, inventor, gambler and pirate +would accrue to their benefit, as did the increase in production from +the application of the invention. + +That all this is true we may see, as I have shown. The growth of the +railroad system has, for instance, resulted in putting almost the whole +transportation business of the country in the hands of giant monopolies, +who, for the most part, charge "what the traffic will bear," and who +frequently discriminate in the most outrageous way against localities. +The effect where this is done, as is alleged in the complaints that are +made, is to reduce the price of land. And all this might be remedied, +without raising wages or improving the condition of labor. It would only +make land more valuable---that is to say, in consideration of the saving +effected in transportation, labor would have to pay a higher premium for +land. + +So with all monopolies, and their name is legion. If all monopolies, +save the monopoly of land, were abolished; if, even, by means of +cooperative societies, or other devices, the profits of exchange were +saved, and goods passed from producer to consumer at the minimum of +cost; if government were reformed to the point of absolute purity and +economy, nothing whatever would be done toward equalization in the +distribution of wealth. The competition between laborers, who, having no +rights in the land, cannot work without some one else's permission, +would increase the value of land, and force wages to the point of bare +subsistence. + +Let me not be misunderstood. I do not say that in the recognition of the +equal and unalienable right of each human being to the natural elements +from which life must be supported and wants satisfied, lies the solution +of all social problems. I fully recognize the fact that even after we do +this, much will remain to do. We might recognize the equal right to +land, and yet tyranny and spoliation be continued. But whatever else we +do, so long as we fail to recognize the equal right to the elements of +nature, nothing will avail to remedy that unnatural inequality in the +distribution of wealth which is fraught with so much evil and danger. +Reform as we may, until we make this fundamental reform our material +progress can but tend to differentiate our people into the monstrously +rich and the frightfully poor. Whatever be the increase of wealth, the +masses will still be ground toward the point of bare subsistence---we +must still have our great criminal classes, our paupers and our tramps, +men and women driven to degradation and desperation from inability to +make an honest living. # The First Great Reform -Do what we may, we can accomplish nothing real and lasting -until we secure to all the first of those equal and -unalienable rights with which, as our Declaration of -Independence has it, man is endowed by his Creator---the -equal and unalienable right to the use and benefit of +Do what we may, we can accomplish nothing real and lasting until we +secure to all the first of those equal and unalienable rights with +which, as our Declaration of Independence has it, man is endowed by his +Creator---the equal and unalienable right to the use and benefit of natural opportunities. -There are people who are always trying to find some mean -between right and wrong---people who, if they were to see a -man about to be unjustly beheaded, might insist that the -proper thing to do would be to chop ofi" his feet. These are -the people who, beginning to recognize the importance of the -land question, propose in Ireland and England such measures -as judicial valuations of rents and peasant proprietary, and -in the United States, the reservation to actual settlers of -what is left of the public lands, and the limitation of -estates. - -Nothing whatever can be accomplished by such timid, -illogical measures. If we would cure social disease we must -go to the root. - -There is no use in talking of reserving what there may be -left of our public domain to actual settlers. That would be -merely a locking of the stable door after the horse had been -stolen, and even if it were not, would avail nothing. - -There is no use in talking about restricting the amount of -land any one man may hold. That, even if it were -practicable, were idle, and would not meet the difficulty. -The ownership of an acre in a city may give more command of -the labor of others than the ownership of a hundred thousand -acres in a sparsely settled district, and it is utterly -impossible by any legal device to prevent the concentration -of property so long as the general causes which irresistibly -tend to the concentration of property remain untouched. So -long as the wages tend to the point of a bare living for the -laborer we cannot stop the tendency of property of all -kinds. to concentration, and this must be the tendency of -wages until equal rights in the soil of their country are -secured to all. We can no more abolish industrial slavery by -limiting the size of estates than we could abolish chattel -slavery by putting a limit on the number of slaves a single -slaveholder might own. In the one case as in the other, so -far as such restrictions could be made operative they would -only increase the difficulties of abolition by enlarging the -class who would resist it. - -There is no escape from it. If we would save the republic -before social inequality and political demoralization have -reached the point when no salvation is possible, we must -assert the principle of the Declaration of Independence, -acknowledge the equal and unalienable rights which inhere in -man by endowment of the Creator, and make land common +There are people who are always trying to find some mean between right +and wrong---people who, if they were to see a man about to be unjustly +beheaded, might insist that the proper thing to do would be to chop ofi" +his feet. These are the people who, beginning to recognize the +importance of the land question, propose in Ireland and England such +measures as judicial valuations of rents and peasant proprietary, and in +the United States, the reservation to actual settlers of what is left of +the public lands, and the limitation of estates. + +Nothing whatever can be accomplished by such timid, illogical measures. +If we would cure social disease we must go to the root. + +There is no use in talking of reserving what there may be left of our +public domain to actual settlers. That would be merely a locking of the +stable door after the horse had been stolen, and even if it were not, +would avail nothing. + +There is no use in talking about restricting the amount of land any one +man may hold. That, even if it were practicable, were idle, and would +not meet the difficulty. The ownership of an acre in a city may give +more command of the labor of others than the ownership of a hundred +thousand acres in a sparsely settled district, and it is utterly +impossible by any legal device to prevent the concentration of property +so long as the general causes which irresistibly tend to the +concentration of property remain untouched. So long as the wages tend to +the point of a bare living for the laborer we cannot stop the tendency +of property of all kinds. to concentration, and this must be the +tendency of wages until equal rights in the soil of their country are +secured to all. We can no more abolish industrial slavery by limiting +the size of estates than we could abolish chattel slavery by putting a +limit on the number of slaves a single slaveholder might own. In the one +case as in the other, so far as such restrictions could be made +operative they would only increase the difficulties of abolition by +enlarging the class who would resist it. + +There is no escape from it. If we would save the republic before social +inequality and political demoralization have reached the point when no +salvation is possible, we must assert the principle of the Declaration +of Independence, acknowledge the equal and unalienable rights which +inhere in man by endowment of the Creator, and make land common property. -If there seems anything strange in the idea that all men -have equal and unalienable rights to the use of the earth, -it is merely that habit can blind us to the most obvious -truths. Slavery, polygamy, cannibalism, the flattening of -children's heads, or the squeezing of their feet, seem -perfectly natural to those brought up where such -institutions or customs exist. But, as a matter of fact, -nothing is more repugnant to the natural perceptions of men -than that land should be treated as subject to individual -ownership, like things produced by labor. It is only among -an insignificant fraction of the people who have lived on -the earth that the idea that the earth itself could be made -private property has ever obtained; nor has it ever obtained -save as the result of a long course of usurpation, tyranny -and fraud. This idea reached development among the Romans, -whom it corrupted and destroyed. It took many generations -for it to make its way among our ancestors; and it did not, -in fact, reach full recognition until two centuries ago, -when, in the time of Charles II, the feudal dues were shaken -off by a landholders' parliament. We accepted it as we have -accepted the aristocratic organization of our army and navy, -and many other things, in which we have servilely followed -European custom. Land being plenty and population sparse, we -did not realize what it would mean when in two or three -cities we should have the population of the thirteen -colonies. But it is time that we should begin to think of it -now, when we see ourselves confronted, in spite of our free -political institutions, with all the problems that menace -Europe---when, though our virgin soil is not quite yet -fenced in, we have a "working class," a "criminal class" and -a "pauper class"; when there are already thousands of -so-called *free* citizens of the republic who cannot by the -hardest toil make a living for their families, and when we -are, on the other hand, developing such monstrous fortunes -as the world has not seen since great estates were eating -out the heart of Rome. - -What more preposterous than the treatment of land as -individual property. In every essential land differs from -those things which being the product of human labor are -rightfully property. It is the creation of God; they are -produced by man. It is fixed in quantity; they may be -increased inimitably. It exists, though generations come and -go; they in a little while decay and pass again into the -elements. What more preposterous than that one tenant for a -day of this rolling sphere should collect rent for it from -his co-tenants, or sell to them for a price what was here -ages before him and will be here ages after him? What more -preposterous than that we, living in New York city in this -1883, should be working for a lot of landlords who get the -authority to live on our labor from some English king dead -and gone these centuries? What more preposterous than that -we, the present population of the United States, should -presume to grant to our own people or to foreign capitalists -the right to strip of their earnings American citizens of -the next generation? What more utterly preposterous than -these titles to land? Although the whole people of the earth -in one generation were to unite, they could no more sell -title to land against the next generation than they could -sell that generation. It if a self-evident truth, as Thomas -Jefferson said, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the -living. - -Nor can any defense of private property in land be made on -the ground of expediency. On the contrary;, look where you -will, and it is evident that the private ownership of land -keeps land out of use; that the speculation it engenders -crowds population where it ought to be more diffused, -diffuses it where it ought to be closer together; compels -those who wish to improve to pay away a large part of their -capital, or mortgage their labor for years before they are -permitted to improve; prevents men from going to work for -themselves who would gladly do so, crowding them into deadly -competition with each other for the wages of employers; and -enormously restricts tha production of wealth while causing -the grossest inequality in its distribution. - -No assumption can be more gratuitous than that constantly -made that absolute ownership of land is necessary to the -improvement and proper use of land. What is necessary to the -best use of land is the security of improvements---the -assurance that the labor and capital expended upon it shall -enjoy their reward. This is a very different thing from the -absolute ownership of land. Some of the finest buildings in -New York are erected upon leased ground. Nearly the whole of -London and other English cities, and great parts of -Philadelphia and Baltimore, are so built. All sorts of mines -are opened and operated on leases. In California and Nevada -the most costly mining operations, involving the expenditure -of immense amounts of capital, were undertaken upon no -better security than the mining regulations, which gave no -ownership of the land, but only guaranteed possession as -long as the mines were worked. - -If shafts can be sunk and tunnels can be run, and the most -costly machinery can be put up on public land on mere -security of possession, why could not improvements of all -kinds be made on that security? If individuals will use and -improve land belonging to other individuals, why would they -not use and improve land belonging to the whole people? What -is to prevent land owned by Trinity church, by the Sailors' -Snug Harbor, by the Astors or Rheinlanders, or any other -corporate or individual owners, from being as well improved -and used as now, if the ground rents, instead of going to -corporations or individuals, went into the public treasury? - -In point of fact, if land were treated as the common -property of the whole people, it would be far more readily -improved than now, for then the improver would get the whole -benefit of his improvements. Under the present system, the -price that must be paid for land operates as a powerful -deterrent to improvement. And when the improver has secured -land either by purchase or by lease, he is taxed upon his -improvements, and heavily taxed in various ways upon all -that he uses. "Were land treated as the property of the -whole people, the ground rent accruing to the community -would suffice for public purposes, and all other taxation -might be dispensed with. The improver could more easily get -land to improve, and would retain for himself the full -benefit of his improvements exempt from taxation. - -To secure to all citizens their equal right to the land on -which they live, does not mean, as some of the ignorant seem -to suppose, that every one must be given a farm, and city -land be cut up into little pieces. It would be impossible to -secure the equal rights of all in that way, even if such -division were not in itself impossible. In a small and -primitive community of simple industries and habits, such a -that Moses legislated for, substantial equality may be -secured by allotting to each family an equal share of the -land and making it inalienable. Or, as among our rude -ancestors in western Europe, or in such primitive society as -the village communities of Russia and India, substantial -equality maybe secured by periodical allotment or -cultivation in common. Or in sparse populations, such as the -early New England colonies, substantial equality may be -secured by giving to each family its town lot and its seed -lot, holding the rest of the land as townland or common. But -among a highly civilized and rapidly growing population, -with changing centers, with great cities and minute division -of industry, and a complex system of production and -exchange, such rude devices become ineffective and -impossible. - -Must we therefore consent to inequality---must we therefore -consent that some shall monopolize what is the common -heritage of all? Not at all. If two men find a diamond, they -do not march to a lapidary to have it cut in two. If three -sons inherit a ship, they do not proceed to saw her into -three pieces; nor yet do they agree that if this cannot be -done equal division is impossible? Kor yet is there no other -way to secure the rights of the owners of a railroad than by -breaking up track, engines, cars and depots into as many -separate bits as there are stockholders? And so it is not -necessary, in order to secure equal rights to land, to make -an equal division of land. All that it is necessary to do is -to collect the ground rents for the common benefit. - -Nor, to take ground rents for the common benefit, is it -necessary that the State should actually take possession of -the land and rent it out from year to year, or from term to -term, as some ignorant people suppose. It can be done in a -much more simple and easy manner by means of the existing -machinery of taxation. All it is necessary to do is to -abolish all other forms of taxation until the weight of -taxation rests upon the value of land irrespective of -improvements, and takes the ground rent for the public -benefit. - -In this simple way, without increasing governmental -machinery, but, on the contrary, greatly simplifying it, we -could make land common property. And in doing this we could -abolish all other taxation, and still have a great and -steadily increasing surplus---a growing common fund, in the -benefits of which all might share, and in the management of -which there would be such a direct and general interest as -to afford the strongest guarantees against misappropriation -or waste. Under this system no one could afford to hold land -he was not using, and land not in use would be thrown open -to those who wished to use it, at once relieving the labor -market and giving an enormous stimulus to production and -improvement, while land in use would be paid for according -to its value, irrespective of the improvements the user -might make. On these he would not be taxed. All that his -labor could add to the common wealth, all that his prudence -could save, would be his own, instead of, as now, subjecting -him to fine. Thus would the sacred right of property be +If there seems anything strange in the idea that all men have equal and +unalienable rights to the use of the earth, it is merely that habit can +blind us to the most obvious truths. Slavery, polygamy, cannibalism, the +flattening of children's heads, or the squeezing of their feet, seem +perfectly natural to those brought up where such institutions or customs +exist. But, as a matter of fact, nothing is more repugnant to the +natural perceptions of men than that land should be treated as subject +to individual ownership, like things produced by labor. It is only among +an insignificant fraction of the people who have lived on the earth that +the idea that the earth itself could be made private property has ever +obtained; nor has it ever obtained save as the result of a long course +of usurpation, tyranny and fraud. This idea reached development among +the Romans, whom it corrupted and destroyed. It took many generations +for it to make its way among our ancestors; and it did not, in fact, +reach full recognition until two centuries ago, when, in the time of +Charles II, the feudal dues were shaken off by a landholders' +parliament. We accepted it as we have accepted the aristocratic +organization of our army and navy, and many other things, in which we +have servilely followed European custom. Land being plenty and +population sparse, we did not realize what it would mean when in two or +three cities we should have the population of the thirteen colonies. But +it is time that we should begin to think of it now, when we see +ourselves confronted, in spite of our free political institutions, with +all the problems that menace Europe---when, though our virgin soil is +not quite yet fenced in, we have a "working class," a "criminal class" +and a "pauper class"; when there are already thousands of so-called +*free* citizens of the republic who cannot by the hardest toil make a +living for their families, and when we are, on the other hand, +developing such monstrous fortunes as the world has not seen since great +estates were eating out the heart of Rome. + +What more preposterous than the treatment of land as individual +property. In every essential land differs from those things which being +the product of human labor are rightfully property. It is the creation +of God; they are produced by man. It is fixed in quantity; they may be +increased inimitably. It exists, though generations come and go; they in +a little while decay and pass again into the elements. What more +preposterous than that one tenant for a day of this rolling sphere +should collect rent for it from his co-tenants, or sell to them for a +price what was here ages before him and will be here ages after him? +What more preposterous than that we, living in New York city in this +1883, should be working for a lot of landlords who get the authority to +live on our labor from some English king dead and gone these centuries? +What more preposterous than that we, the present population of the +United States, should presume to grant to our own people or to foreign +capitalists the right to strip of their earnings American citizens of +the next generation? What more utterly preposterous than these titles to +land? Although the whole people of the earth in one generation were to +unite, they could no more sell title to land against the next generation +than they could sell that generation. It if a self-evident truth, as +Thomas Jefferson said, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living. + +Nor can any defense of private property in land be made on the ground of +expediency. On the contrary;, look where you will, and it is evident +that the private ownership of land keeps land out of use; that the +speculation it engenders crowds population where it ought to be more +diffused, diffuses it where it ought to be closer together; compels +those who wish to improve to pay away a large part of their capital, or +mortgage their labor for years before they are permitted to improve; +prevents men from going to work for themselves who would gladly do so, +crowding them into deadly competition with each other for the wages of +employers; and enormously restricts tha production of wealth while +causing the grossest inequality in its distribution. + +No assumption can be more gratuitous than that constantly made that +absolute ownership of land is necessary to the improvement and proper +use of land. What is necessary to the best use of land is the security +of improvements---the assurance that the labor and capital expended upon +it shall enjoy their reward. This is a very different thing from the +absolute ownership of land. Some of the finest buildings in New York are +erected upon leased ground. Nearly the whole of London and other English +cities, and great parts of Philadelphia and Baltimore, are so built. All +sorts of mines are opened and operated on leases. In California and +Nevada the most costly mining operations, involving the expenditure of +immense amounts of capital, were undertaken upon no better security than +the mining regulations, which gave no ownership of the land, but only +guaranteed possession as long as the mines were worked. + +If shafts can be sunk and tunnels can be run, and the most costly +machinery can be put up on public land on mere security of possession, +why could not improvements of all kinds be made on that security? If +individuals will use and improve land belonging to other individuals, +why would they not use and improve land belonging to the whole people? +What is to prevent land owned by Trinity church, by the Sailors' Snug +Harbor, by the Astors or Rheinlanders, or any other corporate or +individual owners, from being as well improved and used as now, if the +ground rents, instead of going to corporations or individuals, went into +the public treasury? + +In point of fact, if land were treated as the common property of the +whole people, it would be far more readily improved than now, for then +the improver would get the whole benefit of his improvements. Under the +present system, the price that must be paid for land operates as a +powerful deterrent to improvement. And when the improver has secured +land either by purchase or by lease, he is taxed upon his improvements, +and heavily taxed in various ways upon all that he uses. "Were land +treated as the property of the whole people, the ground rent accruing to +the community would suffice for public purposes, and all other taxation +might be dispensed with. The improver could more easily get land to +improve, and would retain for himself the full benefit of his +improvements exempt from taxation. + +To secure to all citizens their equal right to the land on which they +live, does not mean, as some of the ignorant seem to suppose, that every +one must be given a farm, and city land be cut up into little pieces. It +would be impossible to secure the equal rights of all in that way, even +if such division were not in itself impossible. In a small and primitive +community of simple industries and habits, such a that Moses legislated +for, substantial equality may be secured by allotting to each family an +equal share of the land and making it inalienable. Or, as among our rude +ancestors in western Europe, or in such primitive society as the village +communities of Russia and India, substantial equality maybe secured by +periodical allotment or cultivation in common. Or in sparse populations, +such as the early New England colonies, substantial equality may be +secured by giving to each family its town lot and its seed lot, holding +the rest of the land as townland or common. But among a highly civilized +and rapidly growing population, with changing centers, with great cities +and minute division of industry, and a complex system of production and +exchange, such rude devices become ineffective and impossible. + +Must we therefore consent to inequality---must we therefore consent that +some shall monopolize what is the common heritage of all? Not at all. If +two men find a diamond, they do not march to a lapidary to have it cut +in two. If three sons inherit a ship, they do not proceed to saw her +into three pieces; nor yet do they agree that if this cannot be done +equal division is impossible? Kor yet is there no other way to secure +the rights of the owners of a railroad than by breaking up track, +engines, cars and depots into as many separate bits as there are +stockholders? And so it is not necessary, in order to secure equal +rights to land, to make an equal division of land. All that it is +necessary to do is to collect the ground rents for the common benefit. + +Nor, to take ground rents for the common benefit, is it necessary that +the State should actually take possession of the land and rent it out +from year to year, or from term to term, as some ignorant people +suppose. It can be done in a much more simple and easy manner by means +of the existing machinery of taxation. All it is necessary to do is to +abolish all other forms of taxation until the weight of taxation rests +upon the value of land irrespective of improvements, and takes the +ground rent for the public benefit. + +In this simple way, without increasing governmental machinery, but, on +the contrary, greatly simplifying it, we could make land common +property. And in doing this we could abolish all other taxation, and +still have a great and steadily increasing surplus---a growing common +fund, in the benefits of which all might share, and in the management of +which there would be such a direct and general interest as to afford the +strongest guarantees against misappropriation or waste. Under this +system no one could afford to hold land he was not using, and land not +in use would be thrown open to those who wished to use it, at once +relieving the labor market and giving an enormous stimulus to production +and improvement, while land in use would be paid for according to its +value, irrespective of the improvements the user might make. On these he +would not be taxed. All that his labor could add to the common wealth, +all that his prudence could save, would be his own, instead of, as now, +subjecting him to fine. Thus would the sacred right of property be acknowledged by securing to each the reward of his exertion. -Practically, then, the greatest, the most fundamental of all -reforms, the reform which will make all other reforms -easier, and without which no other reform will avail, is to -be reached by concentrating all taxation into a tax upon the -value of land, and making that heavy enough to take as near -as may be the whole ground rent for common purposes. - -To those who have never studied the subject, it will seem -ridiculous to propose as the greatest and most far-reaching -of all reforms a mere fiscal change. But whoever has -followed the train of thought through which in preceding -chapters I have endeavored to lead, will see that in this -simple proposition is involved the greatest of social -revolutions---a revolution compared with which that which -destroyed ancient monarchy in France or that which destroyed -chattel slavery in our southern states, were as nothing. - -In a book such as this, intended for the casual reader, who -lacks inclination to follow the close reasoning necessary to -show the full relation of this seemingly simple reform to -economic laws, I cannot exhibit its full force, but I may -point to some of the more obvious of its effects. - -To appropriate ground rentto public uses by means of -taxation would permit the abolition of all the taxation -which now presses so heavily upon labor and capital. This -would enormously increase the production of wealth by the -removal of restrictions and by adding to the incentives to -production. - -It would at the same time enormously increase the production -of wealth by throwing open natural opportunities. It would -utterly destroy land monopoly by making the holding of land -unprofitable to any but the user. There would be no -temptation to any one to hold land in expectation of future -increase in its value when that increase was certain to be -demanded in taxes. No one could afford to hold valuable land -idle when the taxes upon it would be as heavy as they would -be were it put to the fullest use. Thus speculation in land -would be utterly destroyed, and land not in use would become -free to those who wished to use it. - -The enormous increase in production which would result from -thus throwing open the natural means and opportunities of -production, while at the same time removing the taxation -which now hampers, restricts and fines production, would -enormously augment the annual fund from which all incomes -are drawn. It would at the same time make the distribution -of wealth much more equal. That great part of this fund -which is now taken by the owners of land, not as a return -for anything by which they add to production, but because -they have appropriated as their own the natural means and -opportunities of production, and which as material progress -goes on, and the value of land rises, is constantly becoming -larger and larger, would be virtually divided among all, by -being utilized for common purposes. The removal of -restrictions upon labor and the opening of natural -opportunities to labor, would make labor free to employ -itself. Labor, the producer of all wealth, could never -become "a drug in the market" while desire for any form of -wealth was unsatisfied. With the natural opportunities of -employment thrown open to all, the spectacle of willing men -seeking vainly for employment could not be witnessed; there -could be no surplus of unemployed labor to beget that -cut-throat competition of laborers for employment which -crowds wages down to the cost of merely living. Instead of -the one-sided competition of workmen to find employment, -employers would compete with each other to obtain workmen. -there would be no need of combinations to raise or maintain -wages; for wages, instead of tending to the lowest point at -which laborers can live, would tend to the highest point -which employers could pay, and thus, instead of getting but -a mere fraction of his earnings, the workman would get the -full return of his labor, leaving to the skill, foresight -and capital of the employer those additional earnings that -are justly their due. - -The equalization in the distribution of wealth that would -thus result would effect immense economies and greatly add -to productive power. The cost of the idleness, pauperism and -crime that spring from poverty would be saved to the -community; the increased mobility of labor, the increased -intelligence of the masses, that would result from this -equalized distribution of wealth, the greater incentive to -invention and to the use of improved processes that would -result from the increase in wages, would enormously increase +Practically, then, the greatest, the most fundamental of all reforms, +the reform which will make all other reforms easier, and without which +no other reform will avail, is to be reached by concentrating all +taxation into a tax upon the value of land, and making that heavy enough +to take as near as may be the whole ground rent for common purposes. + +To those who have never studied the subject, it will seem ridiculous to +propose as the greatest and most far-reaching of all reforms a mere +fiscal change. But whoever has followed the train of thought through +which in preceding chapters I have endeavored to lead, will see that in +this simple proposition is involved the greatest of social +revolutions---a revolution compared with which that which destroyed +ancient monarchy in France or that which destroyed chattel slavery in +our southern states, were as nothing. + +In a book such as this, intended for the casual reader, who lacks +inclination to follow the close reasoning necessary to show the full +relation of this seemingly simple reform to economic laws, I cannot +exhibit its full force, but I may point to some of the more obvious of +its effects. + +To appropriate ground rentto public uses by means of taxation would +permit the abolition of all the taxation which now presses so heavily +upon labor and capital. This would enormously increase the production of +wealth by the removal of restrictions and by adding to the incentives to production. -To abolish all taxes save a tax upon the value of land would -at the same time greatly simplify the machinery and expenses -of government, and greatly reduce government expenses. An -army of customhouse officers, and internal revenue -officials, and license collectors and assessors, clerks, -accountants, spies, detectives, and government employees of -every description, could be dispensed with. The corrupting -effect of indirect taxation would be taken out of our -politics. The rings and combinations now interested in -keeping up taxation would cease to contribute money for the -debauching of voters and to beset the law-making power with -their lobbyists. We should get rid of the fraud and false -swearing, of the bribery and subornation which now attend -the collection of so much of our public revenues. We should -get rid of the demoralization that proceeds from laws which -prohibit actions in themselves harmless, punish men for -crimes which the moral sense does not condemn, and offer a -constant premium to evasion. "Land lies out of doors." It -cannot be hid or carried off. Its value can be ascertained -with greater ease and exactness than the value of anything -else, and taxes upon that value can be collected with -absolute certainty and at the minimum of expense. To rely -upon land values for the whole public revenue would so -simplify government, would so eliminate incentives to -corruption, that we could safely assume as governmental -functions the management of telegraphs and railroads, and -safely apply thQ increasing surplus to securing such common -benefits and providing such public conveniences as advancing -civilization may call for. - -And in thinking of what is possible in the way of the -management of common concerns for the common benefit, not -only is the great simplification of government which would -result from the reform I have suggested to be considered, -but the higher moral tone that would be given to social life -by the equalization of conditions and the abolition of -poverty. The greed of wealth, which makes it a business -motto that every man is to be treated as though he were a -rascal, and induces despair of getting in places of public -trust men who will not abuse them for selfish ends, is but -the reflection of the fear of want. Men trample over each -other from the frantic dread of being trampled upon, and the -admiration with which even the unscrupulous money-getter is -regarded springs from habits of thought engendered by the -fierce struggle for existence to which the most of us are -obliged to give up our best energies. But when no one feared -want, when every one felt assured of his ability to make an -easy and independent living for himself and his family, that -popular admiration which now spurs even the rich man still -to add to his wealth would be given to other things than the -getting of money. We should learn to regard the man who -strove to get more than he could use, as a fool---as indeed -he is. - -He must have eyes only for the mean and vile, who has mixed -with men without realizing that selfishness and greed and -vice and crime are largely the result of social conditions -which bring out the bad qualities of human nature and stunt -the good; without realizing that there is even now among men -patriotism and virtue enough to secure us the best possible -management of public affairs if our social and political -adjustments enabled us to utilize those qualities. Who has -not known poor men who might safely be trusted with untold -millions? Who has not met with rich men who retained the -most ardent sympathy with their fellows, the warmest -devotion to all that would benefit their kind? Look to-day -at our charities, hopeless of permanent good though they may -be! They at least show the existence ot unselfish -sympathies, capable, if rightly directed, of the largest -results. - -It is no mere fiscal reform that I propose; it is a -conforming of the most important social adjustments to -natural laws. To those who have never given thought to the -matter, it may seem irreverently presumptuous to say that it -is the evident intent of the Creator that land values should -be the subject of taxation; that rent should be utilized for -the benefit of the entire community. Yet to whoever does -think of it, to say this will appear no more presumptuous -than to say that the Creator has intended men to walk on -their feet, and not on their hands. Man, in his social -relations, is as much included in the creative scheme as man -in his physical relations. Just as certainly as the fish was -intended to swim in the water, and the bird to fly through -the air, and monkeys to live in trees, and moles to burrow -underground, was man intended to live with his fellows. He -is by nature a social animal. And the creative scheme must -embrace the life and development of society, as truly as it -embraces the life a-nd development of the individual. Our -civilization cannot carry us beyond the domain of law. -Railroads, telegraphs and labor-saving machinery are no more -accidents than are flowers and trees. - -Man is driven by his instincts and needs to form society. -Society, thus formed, has certain needs and functions for -which revenue is required. These needs and functions -increase with social development, requiring a larger and -larger revenue. Now, experience and analogy, if not the -instinctive perceptions of the human mind, teach us that -there is a natural way of satisfying every natural want. And -if human society is included in nature, as it surely is, -this must apply to social wants as well as to the wants of -the individual, and there must be a natural or right method -of taxation, as there is a natural or right method of +It would at the same time enormously increase the production of wealth +by throwing open natural opportunities. It would utterly destroy land +monopoly by making the holding of land unprofitable to any but the user. +There would be no temptation to any one to hold land in expectation of +future increase in its value when that increase was certain to be +demanded in taxes. No one could afford to hold valuable land idle when +the taxes upon it would be as heavy as they would be were it put to the +fullest use. Thus speculation in land would be utterly destroyed, and +land not in use would become free to those who wished to use it. + +The enormous increase in production which would result from thus +throwing open the natural means and opportunities of production, while +at the same time removing the taxation which now hampers, restricts and +fines production, would enormously augment the annual fund from which +all incomes are drawn. It would at the same time make the distribution +of wealth much more equal. That great part of this fund which is now +taken by the owners of land, not as a return for anything by which they +add to production, but because they have appropriated as their own the +natural means and opportunities of production, and which as material +progress goes on, and the value of land rises, is constantly becoming +larger and larger, would be virtually divided among all, by being +utilized for common purposes. The removal of restrictions upon labor and +the opening of natural opportunities to labor, would make labor free to +employ itself. Labor, the producer of all wealth, could never become "a +drug in the market" while desire for any form of wealth was unsatisfied. +With the natural opportunities of employment thrown open to all, the +spectacle of willing men seeking vainly for employment could not be +witnessed; there could be no surplus of unemployed labor to beget that +cut-throat competition of laborers for employment which crowds wages +down to the cost of merely living. Instead of the one-sided competition +of workmen to find employment, employers would compete with each other +to obtain workmen. there would be no need of combinations to raise or +maintain wages; for wages, instead of tending to the lowest point at +which laborers can live, would tend to the highest point which employers +could pay, and thus, instead of getting but a mere fraction of his +earnings, the workman would get the full return of his labor, leaving to +the skill, foresight and capital of the employer those additional +earnings that are justly their due. + +The equalization in the distribution of wealth that would thus result +would effect immense economies and greatly add to productive power. The +cost of the idleness, pauperism and crime that spring from poverty would +be saved to the community; the increased mobility of labor, the +increased intelligence of the masses, that would result from this +equalized distribution of wealth, the greater incentive to invention and +to the use of improved processes that would result from the increase in +wages, would enormously increase production. + +To abolish all taxes save a tax upon the value of land would at the same +time greatly simplify the machinery and expenses of government, and +greatly reduce government expenses. An army of customhouse officers, and +internal revenue officials, and license collectors and assessors, +clerks, accountants, spies, detectives, and government employees of +every description, could be dispensed with. The corrupting effect of +indirect taxation would be taken out of our politics. The rings and +combinations now interested in keeping up taxation would cease to +contribute money for the debauching of voters and to beset the +law-making power with their lobbyists. We should get rid of the fraud +and false swearing, of the bribery and subornation which now attend the +collection of so much of our public revenues. We should get rid of the +demoralization that proceeds from laws which prohibit actions in +themselves harmless, punish men for crimes which the moral sense does +not condemn, and offer a constant premium to evasion. "Land lies out of +doors." It cannot be hid or carried off. Its value can be ascertained +with greater ease and exactness than the value of anything else, and +taxes upon that value can be collected with absolute certainty and at +the minimum of expense. To rely upon land values for the whole public +revenue would so simplify government, would so eliminate incentives to +corruption, that we could safely assume as governmental functions the +management of telegraphs and railroads, and safely apply thQ increasing +surplus to securing such common benefits and providing such public +conveniences as advancing civilization may call for. + +And in thinking of what is possible in the way of the management of +common concerns for the common benefit, not only is the great +simplification of government which would result from the reform I have +suggested to be considered, but the higher moral tone that would be +given to social life by the equalization of conditions and the abolition +of poverty. The greed of wealth, which makes it a business motto that +every man is to be treated as though he were a rascal, and induces +despair of getting in places of public trust men who will not abuse them +for selfish ends, is but the reflection of the fear of want. Men trample +over each other from the frantic dread of being trampled upon, and the +admiration with which even the unscrupulous money-getter is regarded +springs from habits of thought engendered by the fierce struggle for +existence to which the most of us are obliged to give up our best +energies. But when no one feared want, when every one felt assured of +his ability to make an easy and independent living for himself and his +family, that popular admiration which now spurs even the rich man still +to add to his wealth would be given to other things than the getting of +money. We should learn to regard the man who strove to get more than he +could use, as a fool---as indeed he is. + +He must have eyes only for the mean and vile, who has mixed with men +without realizing that selfishness and greed and vice and crime are +largely the result of social conditions which bring out the bad +qualities of human nature and stunt the good; without realizing that +there is even now among men patriotism and virtue enough to secure us +the best possible management of public affairs if our social and +political adjustments enabled us to utilize those qualities. Who has not +known poor men who might safely be trusted with untold millions? Who has +not met with rich men who retained the most ardent sympathy with their +fellows, the warmest devotion to all that would benefit their kind? Look +to-day at our charities, hopeless of permanent good though they may be! +They at least show the existence ot unselfish sympathies, capable, if +rightly directed, of the largest results. + +It is no mere fiscal reform that I propose; it is a conforming of the +most important social adjustments to natural laws. To those who have +never given thought to the matter, it may seem irreverently presumptuous +to say that it is the evident intent of the Creator that land values +should be the subject of taxation; that rent should be utilized for the +benefit of the entire community. Yet to whoever does think of it, to say +this will appear no more presumptuous than to say that the Creator has +intended men to walk on their feet, and not on their hands. Man, in his +social relations, is as much included in the creative scheme as man in +his physical relations. Just as certainly as the fish was intended to +swim in the water, and the bird to fly through the air, and monkeys to +live in trees, and moles to burrow underground, was man intended to live +with his fellows. He is by nature a social animal. And the creative +scheme must embrace the life and development of society, as truly as it +embraces the life a-nd development of the individual. Our civilization +cannot carry us beyond the domain of law. Railroads, telegraphs and +labor-saving machinery are no more accidents than are flowers and trees. + +Man is driven by his instincts and needs to form society. Society, thus +formed, has certain needs and functions for which revenue is required. +These needs and functions increase with social development, requiring a +larger and larger revenue. Now, experience and analogy, if not the +instinctive perceptions of the human mind, teach us that there is a +natural way of satisfying every natural want. And if human society is +included in nature, as it surely is, this must apply to social wants as +well as to the wants of the individual, and there must be a natural or +right method of taxation, as there is a natural or right method of walking. -We know, beyond peradventure, that the natural or right way -for a man to walk is on his feet, and not on his hands. We -know this of a surety---because the feet are adapted to -walking, while the hands are not; because in walking on the -feet all the other organs of the body are free to perform -their proper functions, while in walking on the hands they -are not; because a man can walk on his feet with ease, -convenience and celerity, while no amount of training will -enable him to walk on his hands save awkwardly, slowly and -painfully. In the same way we may know that the natural or -right way of raising the revenues which are required by the -needs of society is by the taxation of land values. The -value of land is in its nature and relations adapted to -purposes of taxation, just as the feet in their nature and -relations are adapted to the purposes of walking. The value -of land only arises as in the integration of society the -need for some public or common revenue begins to be felt. It -increases as the development of society goes on, and as -larger and larger revenues are therefore required. Taxation -upon land values does not lessen the individual incentive to -production and accumulation, as do other methods of -taxation; on the contrary, it leaves perfect freedom to -productive forces, and prevents restrictions upon production -from arising. It does not foster monopolies, and cause -unjust inequalities in the distribution of wealth, as do -other taxes; on the contrary, it has the effect of breaking -down monopoly and equalizing the distribution of wealth. It -can be collected with greater certainty and economy than any -other tax; it does not beget the evasion, corruption and -dishonesty that flow from other taxes. In short, it conforms -to every economic and moral requirement. What can be more in -accordance with justice than that the value of land, which -is not created by individual effort, but arises from the -existence and growth of society, should be taken by society -for social needs? - -In trying, in a previous chapter, to imagine a world in -which natural material and opportunities were free as air, I -said that such a world as we find ourselves in is best for -men who will use the intelligence with which man has been -gifted. So, evidently, it is. The very laws which cause -social injustice to result in inequality, suffering and -degradation are in their nature beneficent. All this evil is -the wrong side of good that might be. - -Man is more than an animal. And the more we consider the -constitution of this world in which we find ourselves, the -more clearly we see that its constitution is such as to -develop more than animal life. K the purpose for which this -world existed were merely to enable animal man to eat, drink -and comfortably clothe and house himself for his little day, -some such world as I have previously endeavored to imagine -would be best. But the purpose of this world, so far at -least as man is concerned, is evidently the development of -moral and intellectual, even more than of animal, powders. -Whether we consider man himself or his relations to nature -external to him, the substantial truth of that bold -declaration of the Hebrew scriptures, that man has been -created in the image of God, forces itself upon the mind. - -If all the material things needed by man could be produced -equally well at all points on the earth's surface, it might -seem more convenient for man the animal, but how would he -have risen above the animal level? As we see in the history -of social development, commerce has been and is the great -civilizer and educator. The seemingly infinite diversities -in the capacity of different parts of the earth's surface -lead to that exchange of productions which is the most -powerful agent in preventing isolation, in breaking down -prejudice, in increasing knowledge and widening thought. -These diversities of nature, which seemingly increase with -our knowledge of nature's powers, like the diversities in -the aptitudes of individuals and communities, which -similarly increase with social development, call forth -powers and give rise to pleasures which could never arise -had man been placed, like an ox, in a boundless field of -clover. The "international law of God" which we fight with -our tariffs,---so shortsighted are the selfish prejudices of -men---is the law which stimulates mental and moral progress; -the law to which civilization is due. - -And so, when we consider the phenomena of rent, it reveals -to us one of those beautiful and beneficent adaptations, in -which more than in anything else the human mind recognizes -evidences of Mind infinitely greater, and catches glimpses -of the Master Workman. - -This is the law of rent: As individuals come together in -communities, and society grows, integrating more and more -its individual members, and making general interests and -general conditions of more and more relative importance, -there arises, over and above the value which individuals can -create for themselves, a value which is created by the -community as a whole, and which, attaching to land, becomes -tangible, definite and capable of computation and -appropriation. As society grows, so grows this value, which -springs from and represents in tangible form what society as -a whole contributes to production as distinguished from what -is contributed by individual exertion. By virtue of natural -law in those aspects which it is the purpose of the science -we call political economy to discover, as it is the purpose -of the sciences which we call chemistry and astronomy to -discover other aspects of natural law,---all social advance -necessarily contributes to the increase of this common +We know, beyond peradventure, that the natural or right way for a man to +walk is on his feet, and not on his hands. We know this of a +surety---because the feet are adapted to walking, while the hands are +not; because in walking on the feet all the other organs of the body are +free to perform their proper functions, while in walking on the hands +they are not; because a man can walk on his feet with ease, convenience +and celerity, while no amount of training will enable him to walk on his +hands save awkwardly, slowly and painfully. In the same way we may know +that the natural or right way of raising the revenues which are required +by the needs of society is by the taxation of land values. The value of +land is in its nature and relations adapted to purposes of taxation, +just as the feet in their nature and relations are adapted to the +purposes of walking. The value of land only arises as in the integration +of society the need for some public or common revenue begins to be felt. +It increases as the development of society goes on, and as larger and +larger revenues are therefore required. Taxation upon land values does +not lessen the individual incentive to production and accumulation, as +do other methods of taxation; on the contrary, it leaves perfect freedom +to productive forces, and prevents restrictions upon production from +arising. It does not foster monopolies, and cause unjust inequalities in +the distribution of wealth, as do other taxes; on the contrary, it has +the effect of breaking down monopoly and equalizing the distribution of +wealth. It can be collected with greater certainty and economy than any +other tax; it does not beget the evasion, corruption and dishonesty that +flow from other taxes. In short, it conforms to every economic and moral +requirement. What can be more in accordance with justice than that the +value of land, which is not created by individual effort, but arises +from the existence and growth of society, should be taken by society for +social needs? + +In trying, in a previous chapter, to imagine a world in which natural +material and opportunities were free as air, I said that such a world as +we find ourselves in is best for men who will use the intelligence with +which man has been gifted. So, evidently, it is. The very laws which +cause social injustice to result in inequality, suffering and +degradation are in their nature beneficent. All this evil is the wrong +side of good that might be. + +Man is more than an animal. And the more we consider the constitution of +this world in which we find ourselves, the more clearly we see that its +constitution is such as to develop more than animal life. K the purpose +for which this world existed were merely to enable animal man to eat, +drink and comfortably clothe and house himself for his little day, some +such world as I have previously endeavored to imagine would be best. But +the purpose of this world, so far at least as man is concerned, is +evidently the development of moral and intellectual, even more than of +animal, powders. Whether we consider man himself or his relations to +nature external to him, the substantial truth of that bold declaration +of the Hebrew scriptures, that man has been created in the image of God, +forces itself upon the mind. + +If all the material things needed by man could be produced equally well +at all points on the earth's surface, it might seem more convenient for +man the animal, but how would he have risen above the animal level? As +we see in the history of social development, commerce has been and is +the great civilizer and educator. The seemingly infinite diversities in +the capacity of different parts of the earth's surface lead to that +exchange of productions which is the most powerful agent in preventing +isolation, in breaking down prejudice, in increasing knowledge and +widening thought. These diversities of nature, which seemingly increase +with our knowledge of nature's powers, like the diversities in the +aptitudes of individuals and communities, which similarly increase with +social development, call forth powers and give rise to pleasures which +could never arise had man been placed, like an ox, in a boundless field +of clover. The "international law of God" which we fight with our +tariffs,---so shortsighted are the selfish prejudices of men---is the +law which stimulates mental and moral progress; the law to which +civilization is due. + +And so, when we consider the phenomena of rent, it reveals to us one of +those beautiful and beneficent adaptations, in which more than in +anything else the human mind recognizes evidences of Mind infinitely +greater, and catches glimpses of the Master Workman. + +This is the law of rent: As individuals come together in communities, +and society grows, integrating more and more its individual members, and +making general interests and general conditions of more and more +relative importance, there arises, over and above the value which +individuals can create for themselves, a value which is created by the +community as a whole, and which, attaching to land, becomes tangible, +definite and capable of computation and appropriation. As society grows, +so grows this value, which springs from and represents in tangible form +what society as a whole contributes to production as distinguished from +what is contributed by individual exertion. By virtue of natural law in +those aspects which it is the purpose of the science we call political +economy to discover, as it is the purpose of the sciences which we call +chemistry and astronomy to discover other aspects of natural law,---all +social advance necessarily contributes to the increase of this common value; to the growth of this common fund. -Here is a provision made by natural law for the increasing -needs of social growth; here is an adaptation of nature by -virtue of which the natural progress of society is a -progress toward equality, not toward inequality; a -centripetal force tending to unity, growing out of and ever -balancing a centrifugal force tending to diversity. Here is -a fund belonging to society as a whole from which, without -the degradation of alms, private or public, provision can be -made for the weak, the helpless, the aged; from which -provision can be made for the common wants of all as a -matter of common right to each, and by the utilization of -which society, as it advances, may pass, by natural methods -and easy stages from a rude association for purposes of -defense and police, into a cooperative association, in which -combined power guided by combined intelligence can give to -each more than his own exertions multiplied many fold could -produce. - -By making land private property, by permitting individuals -to appropriate this fund which nature plainly intended for -the use of all, we throw the children's bread to the dogs of -Greed and Lust; we produce a primary inequality which gives -rise in every direction to other tendencies to inequality; -and from this perversion of the good gifts of the Creator, -from this ignoring and defying of his social laws, there -arise in the very heart of our civilization those horrible -and monstrous things that betoken social putrefaction. +Here is a provision made by natural law for the increasing needs of +social growth; here is an adaptation of nature by virtue of which the +natural progress of society is a progress toward equality, not toward +inequality; a centripetal force tending to unity, growing out of and +ever balancing a centrifugal force tending to diversity. Here is a fund +belonging to society as a whole from which, without the degradation of +alms, private or public, provision can be made for the weak, the +helpless, the aged; from which provision can be made for the common +wants of all as a matter of common right to each, and by the utilization +of which society, as it advances, may pass, by natural methods and easy +stages from a rude association for purposes of defense and police, into +a cooperative association, in which combined power guided by combined +intelligence can give to each more than his own exertions multiplied +many fold could produce. + +By making land private property, by permitting individuals to +appropriate this fund which nature plainly intended for the use of all, +we throw the children's bread to the dogs of Greed and Lust; we produce +a primary inequality which gives rise in every direction to other +tendencies to inequality; and from this perversion of the good gifts of +the Creator, from this ignoring and defying of his social laws, there +arise in the very heart of our civilization those horrible and monstrous +things that betoken social putrefaction. # The American Farmer -It is frequently asserted that no proposition for the -recognition of common rights to land can become a practical -question in the United States because of the opposition of -the farmers who own their own farms, and who constitute the -great body of our population, wielding when they choose to -exert it a dominating political power. - -That new ideas make their way more slowly among an -agricultural population than among the population of cities -and towns is true---though, I think, in less degree true of -the United States than of any other country. But beyond -this, it seems to me that those who look upon the small -farmers of the United States as forming an impregnable +It is frequently asserted that no proposition for the recognition of +common rights to land can become a practical question in the United +States because of the opposition of the farmers who own their own farms, +and who constitute the great body of our population, wielding when they +choose to exert it a dominating political power. + +That new ideas make their way more slowly among an agricultural +population than among the population of cities and towns is +true---though, I think, in less degree true of the United States than of +any other country. But beyond this, it seems to me that those who look +upon the small farmers of the United States as forming an impregnable bulwark to private property in land very much miscalculate. -Even admitting, which I do not, that farmers could be relied -upon to oppose measures fraught with great general benefits -if seemingly opposed to their smaller personal interests, it -is not true that such measures as I have suggested are -opposed to the interests of the great body of farmers. On -the contrary, these measures would be as clearly to their -advantage as to the advantage of wage-workers. The average -farmer may at first start at the idea of virtually making -land common property, but given time for discussion and -reflection, and those who are already trying to persuade him -that to put all taxation upon the value of land would be to -put all taxation upon him, have as little chance of success -as the slaveholders had of persuading their negroes that the -Northern armies were bent on kidnapping and selling them in -Cuba. The average farmer can read, write and cypher---and on -matters connected with his own interests cyphers pretty -closely. He is not out of the great currents of thought, -though they may affect him more slowly, and he is anything -but a contented peasant, ignorantly satisfied with things as -they are, and impervious to ideas of change. Already -dissatisfied, he is becoming more so. His hard and barren -life seems harder and more barren as contrasted with the -excitement and luxury of cities, of which he constantly -reads even if he does not frequently see, and the great -fortunes accumulated by men who do nothing to add to the -stock of wealth arouse his sense of injustice. He is at -least beginning to feel that he bears more than his fair -share of the burdens of society, and gets less than his fair -share of its benefits; and though the time for his awakening -has not yet come, his thought, with the decadence of old -political issues, is more and more turning to economic and -social questions. - -It is clear that the change in taxation which I propose as -the means whereby equal rights to the soil may be asserted -and maintained, would be to the advantage of farmers who are -working land belonging to others, of those whose farms are -virtually owned by mortgagees, and of those who are seeking -farms. And not only do the farmers whose opposition is -relied upon---those who own their own farms---form, as I -shall hereafter show, but a decreasing minority of the -agricultural vote, and a small and even more rapidly -decreasing minority of the aggregate vote; but the change -would be so manifestly to the advantage of the smaller -farmers who constitute the great body, that when they come -to understand it they will favor instead of opposing it. The -farmer who cultivates his own small farm with his own hands -is a landowner, it is true, but he is in greater degree a -laborer, and in his ownership of stock, improvements, tools, -etc., a capitalist. It is from his labor, aided by this -capital, rather than from any advantage represented by the -value of his land, that he derives his living. His main -interest is that of a producer, not that of a landowner. - -There lived in Dublin, some years ago, a gentleman named -Murphy--"Cozy" Murphy, they called him, for short, and -because he was a very comfortable sort of a Murphy. Cozy -Murphy owned land in Tipperary; but as he had an agent in -Tipperary to collect his rents and evict his tenants when -they did not pay, he himself lived in Dublin, as being the -more comfortable place. And he concluded, at length, that -the most comfortable place in Dublin, in fact the most -comfortable place in the whole world, was---in bed. So he -went to bed and stayed there for nearly eight years; not -because he was at all ill, but because he liked it. He ate -his dinners, and drank his wine, and smoked his cigars, and -read, and played cards, and received visitors, and verified -his agent's accounts, and drew checks---all in bed. After -eight years' lying in bed, he grew tired of it, got up, -dressed himself, and for some years went around like other -people, and then died. But his family were just as well off -as though he had never gone to bed---in fact, they were -better off; for while his income was not a whit diminished -by his going to bed, his expenses were. - -This was a typical landowner---a landowner pure and simple. -Now let the working farmer consider what would become of -himself and family if he and his boys were to go to bed and -stay there, and he will realize how much his interests as a -laborer exceed his interests as a landowner. - -It requires no grasp of abstractions for the working farmer -to see that to abolish all taxation, save upon the value of -land, would be really to his interest, no matter how it -might affect larger landholders. Let the working farmer -consider how the weight of indirect taxation falls upon him -without his having power to shift it off upon any one else; -how it adds to the price of nearly everything he has to buy, -without adding to the price of what he has to sell; how it -compels him to contribute to the support of government in -far greater proportion to what he possesses than it does -those who are much richer, and he will see that by the -substitution of direct for indirect taxation, he would be -largely the gainer. Let him consider further, and he will -see that he would be still more largely the gainer if direct -taxation were confined to the value of land. The land of the -working farmer is improved land, and usually the value of -the improvements and of the stock used in cultivating it -bear a very high proportion to the value of the bare land. -Now, as all valuable land is not improved as is that of the -working farmer, as there is much more of valuable land than -of improved land, to substitute for the taxation now levied -upon improvements and stock, a tax upon the naked value of -land, irrespective of improvements, would be manifestly to -the advantage of the owners of improved land, and especially -of small owners, the value of whose improvements bears a -much greater ratio to the value of their land than is the -case with larger owners; and who, as one of the effects of -treating improvements as a proper subject of taxation, are -taxed far more heavily, even upon the value of their land, +Even admitting, which I do not, that farmers could be relied upon to +oppose measures fraught with great general benefits if seemingly opposed +to their smaller personal interests, it is not true that such measures +as I have suggested are opposed to the interests of the great body of +farmers. On the contrary, these measures would be as clearly to their +advantage as to the advantage of wage-workers. The average farmer may at +first start at the idea of virtually making land common property, but +given time for discussion and reflection, and those who are already +trying to persuade him that to put all taxation upon the value of land +would be to put all taxation upon him, have as little chance of success +as the slaveholders had of persuading their negroes that the Northern +armies were bent on kidnapping and selling them in Cuba. The average +farmer can read, write and cypher---and on matters connected with his +own interests cyphers pretty closely. He is not out of the great +currents of thought, though they may affect him more slowly, and he is +anything but a contented peasant, ignorantly satisfied with things as +they are, and impervious to ideas of change. Already dissatisfied, he is +becoming more so. His hard and barren life seems harder and more barren +as contrasted with the excitement and luxury of cities, of which he +constantly reads even if he does not frequently see, and the great +fortunes accumulated by men who do nothing to add to the stock of wealth +arouse his sense of injustice. He is at least beginning to feel that he +bears more than his fair share of the burdens of society, and gets less +than his fair share of its benefits; and though the time for his +awakening has not yet come, his thought, with the decadence of old +political issues, is more and more turning to economic and social +questions. + +It is clear that the change in taxation which I propose as the means +whereby equal rights to the soil may be asserted and maintained, would +be to the advantage of farmers who are working land belonging to others, +of those whose farms are virtually owned by mortgagees, and of those who +are seeking farms. And not only do the farmers whose opposition is +relied upon---those who own their own farms---form, as I shall hereafter +show, but a decreasing minority of the agricultural vote, and a small +and even more rapidly decreasing minority of the aggregate vote; but the +change would be so manifestly to the advantage of the smaller farmers +who constitute the great body, that when they come to understand it they +will favor instead of opposing it. The farmer who cultivates his own +small farm with his own hands is a landowner, it is true, but he is in +greater degree a laborer, and in his ownership of stock, improvements, +tools, etc., a capitalist. It is from his labor, aided by this capital, +rather than from any advantage represented by the value of his land, +that he derives his living. His main interest is that of a producer, not +that of a landowner. + +There lived in Dublin, some years ago, a gentleman named Murphy--"Cozy" +Murphy, they called him, for short, and because he was a very +comfortable sort of a Murphy. Cozy Murphy owned land in Tipperary; but +as he had an agent in Tipperary to collect his rents and evict his +tenants when they did not pay, he himself lived in Dublin, as being the +more comfortable place. And he concluded, at length, that the most +comfortable place in Dublin, in fact the most comfortable place in the +whole world, was---in bed. So he went to bed and stayed there for nearly +eight years; not because he was at all ill, but because he liked it. He +ate his dinners, and drank his wine, and smoked his cigars, and read, +and played cards, and received visitors, and verified his agent's +accounts, and drew checks---all in bed. After eight years' lying in bed, +he grew tired of it, got up, dressed himself, and for some years went +around like other people, and then died. But his family were just as +well off as though he had never gone to bed---in fact, they were better +off; for while his income was not a whit diminished by his going to bed, +his expenses were. + +This was a typical landowner---a landowner pure and simple. Now let the +working farmer consider what would become of himself and family if he +and his boys were to go to bed and stay there, and he will realize how +much his interests as a laborer exceed his interests as a landowner. + +It requires no grasp of abstractions for the working farmer to see that +to abolish all taxation, save upon the value of land, would be really to +his interest, no matter how it might affect larger landholders. Let the +working farmer consider how the weight of indirect taxation falls upon +him without his having power to shift it off upon any one else; how it +adds to the price of nearly everything he has to buy, without adding to +the price of what he has to sell; how it compels him to contribute to +the support of government in far greater proportion to what he possesses +than it does those who are much richer, and he will see that by the +substitution of direct for indirect taxation, he would be largely the +gainer. Let him consider further, and he will see that he would be still +more largely the gainer if direct taxation were confined to the value of +land. The land of the working farmer is improved land, and usually the +value of the improvements and of the stock used in cultivating it bear a +very high proportion to the value of the bare land. Now, as all valuable +land is not improved as is that of the working farmer, as there is much +more of valuable land than of improved land, to substitute for the +taxation now levied upon improvements and stock, a tax upon the naked +value of land, irrespective of improvements, would be manifestly to the +advantage of the owners of improved land, and especially of small +owners, the value of whose improvements bears a much greater ratio to +the value of their land than is the case with larger owners; and who, as +one of the effects of treating improvements as a proper subject of +taxation, are taxed far more heavily, even upon the value of their land, than are larger owners. -The working farmer has only to look about him to realize -this. Near by his farm of eighty or one hundred and sixty -acres he will find tracts of five hundred or a thousand, or, -in some places, tens of thousands of acres, of equally -valuable land, on which the improvements, stock, tools and -household effects are much less in proportion than on his -own small farm, or which may be totally unimproved and -unused. In the villages he will find acre, half-acre and -quarter-acre lots, unimproved or slightly improved, which -are more valuable than his whole farm. If he looks further, -he will see tracts of mineral land, or land with other -superior natural advantages, having immense value, yet on -which the taxable improvements amount to little or nothing; -while, when he looks to the great cities, he will find -vacant lots, twenty-five by one hundred feet, worth more -than a whole section of agricultural land such as his; and -as he goes toward their centers. he will find most -magnificent buildings less valuable than the ground on which -they stand, and block after block where the land would sell -for more per front foot than his whole farm. Manifestly to -put all taxes on the value of land would be to lessen -relatively and absolutely the taxes the working farmer has -to pay. - -So far from the effect of placing all taxes upon the value -of land being to the advantage of the towns at the expense -of the agricultural districts, the very reverse of this is -obviously true. The great increase of land values is in the -cities, and with the present tendencies of growth this must -continue to be the case. To place all taxes on the value of -land would be to reduce the taxation of agricultural -districts relatively to the taxation of towns and cities. -And this would be only just; for it is not alone the -presence of their own populations which gives value to the -land of towns and cities, but the presence of the more -scattered agricultural population, for whom they constitute -industrial, commercial and financial centers. - -While at first blush it may seem to the farmer that to -abolish all taxes upon other things than the value of land -would be to exempt the richer inhabitants of cities from -taxation, and unduly to tax him, discussion and reflection -will certainly show him that the reverse is the case. -Personal property is not, never has been, and never can be, -fairly taxed. The rich man always escapes more easily than -the man who has but little; the city, more easily than the -country. Taxes which add to prices bear upon the inhabitants -of sparsely settled districts with as much weight, and in -many cases with much more weight, than upon the inhabitants -of great cities. Taxes upon improvements manifestly fall -more heavily upon the working farmer, a great part of the -value of whose farm consists of the value of improvements, -than upon the owners of valuable unimproved land, or upon -those whose land, as that of cities, bears a higher relation -in value to the improvements. - -The truth is, that the working farmer would be an immense -gainer by the change. "Where he would have to pay more taxes -on the value of his land, he would be released from the -taxes now levied on his stock and improvements, and from all -the indirect taxes that now weigh so heavily upon him. And -as the effect of taxing unimproved land as heavily as though -it were improved would be to compel mere holders to sell, -and to destroy mere speculative values, the farmer in -sparsely settled districts would have little or no taxes to -pay. It would not be until equally good land all about him -was in use, and he had all the advantages of a well settled -neighborhood, that his taxes would be more than nominal. - -What the farmer who owns his own farm would lose would be -the selling value of his land, but its usefulness to him -would be as great as before---greater than before, in fact, -as he would get larger returns from his labor upon it; and -as the selling value of other land would be similarly -affected, this loss would not make it harder for him to get -another farm if lie wished to move, while it would be easier -for him to settle his children or to get more land if he -could advantageously cultivate more. The loss would be -nominal; the gain would be real. It is better for the small -farmer, and especially for the small farmer with a growing -family, that labor should be high than that land should be -high. Paradoxical as it may appear, small landowners do not -profit by the rise in the value of land. On the contrary -they are extinguished. But before speaking of this let me -show how much misapprehension there is in the assumption -that the small independent farmers constitute, and will +The working farmer has only to look about him to realize this. Near by +his farm of eighty or one hundred and sixty acres he will find tracts of +five hundred or a thousand, or, in some places, tens of thousands of +acres, of equally valuable land, on which the improvements, stock, tools +and household effects are much less in proportion than on his own small +farm, or which may be totally unimproved and unused. In the villages he +will find acre, half-acre and quarter-acre lots, unimproved or slightly +improved, which are more valuable than his whole farm. If he looks +further, he will see tracts of mineral land, or land with other superior +natural advantages, having immense value, yet on which the taxable +improvements amount to little or nothing; while, when he looks to the +great cities, he will find vacant lots, twenty-five by one hundred feet, +worth more than a whole section of agricultural land such as his; and as +he goes toward their centers. he will find most magnificent buildings +less valuable than the ground on which they stand, and block after block +where the land would sell for more per front foot than his whole farm. +Manifestly to put all taxes on the value of land would be to lessen +relatively and absolutely the taxes the working farmer has to pay. + +So far from the effect of placing all taxes upon the value of land being +to the advantage of the towns at the expense of the agricultural +districts, the very reverse of this is obviously true. The great +increase of land values is in the cities, and with the present +tendencies of growth this must continue to be the case. To place all +taxes on the value of land would be to reduce the taxation of +agricultural districts relatively to the taxation of towns and cities. +And this would be only just; for it is not alone the presence of their +own populations which gives value to the land of towns and cities, but +the presence of the more scattered agricultural population, for whom +they constitute industrial, commercial and financial centers. + +While at first blush it may seem to the farmer that to abolish all taxes +upon other things than the value of land would be to exempt the richer +inhabitants of cities from taxation, and unduly to tax him, discussion +and reflection will certainly show him that the reverse is the case. +Personal property is not, never has been, and never can be, fairly +taxed. The rich man always escapes more easily than the man who has but +little; the city, more easily than the country. Taxes which add to +prices bear upon the inhabitants of sparsely settled districts with as +much weight, and in many cases with much more weight, than upon the +inhabitants of great cities. Taxes upon improvements manifestly fall +more heavily upon the working farmer, a great part of the value of whose +farm consists of the value of improvements, than upon the owners of +valuable unimproved land, or upon those whose land, as that of cities, +bears a higher relation in value to the improvements. + +The truth is, that the working farmer would be an immense gainer by the +change. "Where he would have to pay more taxes on the value of his land, +he would be released from the taxes now levied on his stock and +improvements, and from all the indirect taxes that now weigh so heavily +upon him. And as the effect of taxing unimproved land as heavily as +though it were improved would be to compel mere holders to sell, and to +destroy mere speculative values, the farmer in sparsely settled +districts would have little or no taxes to pay. It would not be until +equally good land all about him was in use, and he had all the +advantages of a well settled neighborhood, that his taxes would be more +than nominal. + +What the farmer who owns his own farm would lose would be the selling +value of his land, but its usefulness to him would be as great as +before---greater than before, in fact, as he would get larger returns +from his labor upon it; and as the selling value of other land would be +similarly affected, this loss would not make it harder for him to get +another farm if lie wished to move, while it would be easier for him to +settle his children or to get more land if he could advantageously +cultivate more. The loss would be nominal; the gain would be real. It is +better for the small farmer, and especially for the small farmer with a +growing family, that labor should be high than that land should be high. +Paradoxical as it may appear, small landowners do not profit by the rise +in the value of land. On the contrary they are extinguished. But before +speaking of this let me show how much misapprehension there is in the +assumption that the small independent farmers constitute, and will continue to constitute, the majority of the American people. -Agriculture is the primitive occupation; the farmer is the -American pioneer; and even in those cases, comparatively -unimportant, where settlement is begun in the search for the -precious metals, it does not become permanent until -agriculture in some of its branches takes root. But as -population increases and industrial development goes on, the -relative importance of agriculture diminishes. That the -non-agricultural population of the United States is steadily -and rapidly gaining on the agricultural population is of -course obvious. According to the census report the urban -population of the United States was in 1Y90 but 3.3% of the -whole population, while in 1880 it had risen to -22.5%.Agriculture is jet the largest occupation, but in the -aggregate other occupations much exceed it. According to the -census, which, unsatisfactory as it is, is yet the only -authority we have, the number of persons engaged in -agriculture in 18S0 was 7,670,493 out of 17,392,099 returned -as engaged in gainful occupations of all kinds. Or, if we -take the number of adult males as a better comparison of -political power, we may find, with a little figuring, that -the returns show 6,491,116 males of sixteen years and over -engaged in agriculture, against 7,422,639 engaged in other -occupations. According to these figures the agricultural -vote is already in a clear minority in the United States, -while the preponderance of the non-agricultural vote, -already great, is steadily and rapidly increasing. - -But while the agricultural population of the United States -is thus already in a minority, the men who own their own -farms are already in a minority in the agricultural -population. According to the census the number of farms and -plantations in the United States in 1880 was 4,008,907. The -number of tenant farmers, paying money rents or snare rents, -is given by one of the census bulletins at 1,024,601. This -would leave but 2,984,306 nominal owners of farms, out of -the 7,679,493 persons employed in agriculture. The real -owners of their farms must be greatly less even than this. -The most common form of agricultural tenancy in the United -States is not that of money or share rent, but of mortgage. -What proportion of American farms occupied by their nominal -owners are under mortgage, we can only guess. But there can -be little doubt that the number of mortgaged farms must -largely exceed the number of rented farms, and it may not be -too high an estimate to put the number of mortgaged farms at -one-half the number of unrented ones.However this may be, it -is certain that the farmers who really own their farms are -but a minority of farmers, and a small minority of those +Agriculture is the primitive occupation; the farmer is the American +pioneer; and even in those cases, comparatively unimportant, where +settlement is begun in the search for the precious metals, it does not +become permanent until agriculture in some of its branches takes root. +But as population increases and industrial development goes on, the +relative importance of agriculture diminishes. That the non-agricultural +population of the United States is steadily and rapidly gaining on the +agricultural population is of course obvious. According to the census +report the urban population of the United States was in 1Y90 but 3.3% of +the whole population, while in 1880 it had risen to 22.5%.Agriculture is +jet the largest occupation, but in the aggregate other occupations much +exceed it. According to the census, which, unsatisfactory as it is, is +yet the only authority we have, the number of persons engaged in +agriculture in 18S0 was 7,670,493 out of 17,392,099 returned as engaged +in gainful occupations of all kinds. Or, if we take the number of adult +males as a better comparison of political power, we may find, with a +little figuring, that the returns show 6,491,116 males of sixteen years +and over engaged in agriculture, against 7,422,639 engaged in other +occupations. According to these figures the agricultural vote is already +in a clear minority in the United States, while the preponderance of the +non-agricultural vote, already great, is steadily and rapidly +increasing. + +But while the agricultural population of the United States is thus +already in a minority, the men who own their own farms are already in a +minority in the agricultural population. According to the census the +number of farms and plantations in the United States in 1880 was +4,008,907. The number of tenant farmers, paying money rents or snare +rents, is given by one of the census bulletins at 1,024,601. This would +leave but 2,984,306 nominal owners of farms, out of the 7,679,493 +persons employed in agriculture. The real owners of their farms must be +greatly less even than this. The most common form of agricultural +tenancy in the United States is not that of money or share rent, but of +mortgage. What proportion of American farms occupied by their nominal +owners are under mortgage, we can only guess. But there can be little +doubt that the number of mortgaged farms must largely exceed the number +of rented farms, and it may not be too high an estimate to put the +number of mortgaged farms at one-half the number of unrented +ones.However this may be, it is certain that the farmers who really own +their farms are but a minority of farmers, and a small minority of those engaged in agriculture. -Further than this, all the tendencies of the time are to the -extinction of the typical American farmer---the man who -cultivates his own acres with his own hands. This movement -has only recently begun, but it is going on, and must go on, -under present conditions, with increasing rapidity. The -remarkable increase in the large farms and diminution in the -small ones, shown by the analysis of the census figures -which will be found in the appendix, is but evidence of the -fact---too notorious to need the proof of figures---that the -tendency to concentration, which in so many other branches -of industry has substituted the factory for self-employing -workmen, has reached agriculture. One invention after -another has already given the large farmer a crushing -advantage over the small farmer, and invention is still -going on.And it is not merely in the making of his crops, -but in their transportation and marketing, and in the -purchase of his supplies, that the large producer in -agriculture gains an advantage over the small one. To talk, -as some do, about the bonanza farms breaking up in a little -while into small homesteads, is as foolish as to talk of the -great shoe factory giving way again to journeymen shoemakers -with their lapstones and awls. The bonanza farm and the -great wire-fenced stock ranch have come to stay while -present conditions last. If they show themselves first on -new land, it is because there is on new land the greatest -freedom of development, but the tendency exists wherever -modern industrial influences are felt, and is showing itself -in the British Isles as well as in our older states. - -This tendency means the extirpation of the typical American -farmer, who with his own hands and the aid of his boys -cultivates his own small farm. When a Brooklyn lawyer or -Boston banker can take a run in a palace car out to the new -Northwest, buy some sections of land; contract for having it -broken up, seeded, reaped and threshed; leave on it a -superintendent, and make a profit on his first year's crop -of from six to ten thousand dollars a section, what chance -has the emigrant farmer of the old type who comes toiling -along in the wagon which contains his wife and children, and -the few traps that with his team constitute his entire -capital? When English and American capitalists can run miles -of barbed wire fence, and stock the great enclosure with -large herds of cattle, which can be tended, carried to -market, and sold, at the minimum of expense and maximum of -profit, what chance has the man who would start -stock-raising with a few cows? - -From the typical American farmer of the era now beginning to -pass away, two types are differentiating---the capitalist -farmer and the farm-laborer. The former does not work with -his own hands, but with the hands of other men. He passes -but a portion of his time, in some cases hardly any of it, -upon the land he cultivates. His home is in a large town or -great city, and he is, perhaps, a banker and speculator as -well as a farmer. The latter is proletarian, a nomad---part -of the year a laborer and part of the year a tramp, -migrating from farm to farm and from place to place, without -family or home or any of the influences and responsibilities -that develop manly character. If our treatment of land -continues as now, some of our small independent farmers will -tend toward one of these extremes, and many more will tend -toward the other. But besides the tendency to production on -a large scale, which is operating to extirpate the small -independent farmer, there is, in the rise of land values, -another powerful tendency operating in the same direction. - -At the looting of the Summer Palace at Pekin by the allied -forces in 1860, some valuable jewels were obtained by -private soldiers. How long did they remain in such -possession? If a Duke of Brunswick were to distribute his -hoard of diamonds among the poor, how long would the poor -continue to hold them? The peasants of Ireland and the -costermongers of London have their donkeys, which are worth -only a few shillings. But if by any combination of -circumstances the donkey became as valuable as a blooded -horse, no peasant or costermonger would be found driving a -donkey. Where chickens are cheap, the common people eat -them; where they are dear, they are to be found only on the -tables of the rich. So it is with land. As it becomes -valuable it must gravitate from the hands of those who work -for a living into the possession of the rich. - -What has caused the extreme concentration of land ownership -in England is not so much the conversion of the feudal -tenures into fee simple, the spoliation of the religious -houses and the enclosure of the commons, as this effect of -the rise in the value of land. The small estates, of which -there were many in England two centuries and even a century -ago, have become parts of large estates mainly by purchase. -They gravitated to the possession of the rich, just as -diamonds, or valuable paintings, or fine horses, gravitate -to the possession of the rich. - -So long as the masses are fools enough to permit private -property in land, it is rightly esteemed the most secure -possession. It cannot be burned, or destroyed by any -accident; it cannot be carried off; it tends constantly to -increase in value with the growth of population and -improvement in the arts. Its possession being a visible sign -of secure wealth, and putting its owner, as competition -becomes sharp, in the position of a lord or god to the human -creatures who have no legal rights to this planet, carries -with it social consideration and deference. For these -reasons land commands a higher price in proportion to the -income it yields than anything else, and the man to whom -immediate income is of more importance than a secure -investment finds it cheaper to rent land than to buy it. - -Thus, as land grew in value in England, the small owners -were not merely tempted or compelled by the vicissitudes of -life to sell their land, but it became more profitable to -them to sell it than to hold it, as they could hire land -cheaper than they could hire capital. By selling and then -renting, the English farmer, thus converted from a landowner -into a tenant, acquired, for a time at least, the use of -more land and more capital, and the ownership of land thus -gravitated from the hands of those whose prime object is to -get a living into the hands of those whoso prime object is a -secure investment. - -This process must go on in the United States as land rises -in value. We may observe it now. It is in the newer parts of -our growing cities that we find people of moderate means -living in their own houses. Where land is more valuable, we -find such people living in rented houses. In such cities, -block after block is put up and sold, generally under -mortgage, to families who thus endeavor to secure a home of -their own. But I think it is the general experience, that as -years pass by, and land acquires a greater value, these -houses and lots pass from the nominal ownership of dwellers -into the possession of landlords, and are occupied by -tenants. So, in the agricultural districts, it is where land -has increased little if anything in value that we find -homesteads which have been long in the possession of the -same family of working farmers. A general officer of one of -the great trunk railroad lines told me that his attention -had been called to the supreme importance of the land -question by the great westward emigration of farmers, which, -as the result of extensive inquiries, he found due to the -rise of land values. As land rises in value the working -farmer finds it more and more difficult for his boys to get -farms of their own, while the price for which he can sell -will give him a considerably larger tract of land where land -is cheaper; or he is tempted or forced to mortgage, and the -mortgage eats and eats until it eats him out, or until he -concludes that the wisest thing he can do is to realize the -difference between the mortgage and the selling value of his -farm and emigrate west. And in many cases he commences again -under the load of a mortgage; for as settlement is now -going, very much of the land sold to settlers by railroad -companies and speculators is sold upon mortgage. And what is -the usual result may be inferred from such announcements as -those placarded in the union depot at Council Bluffs, -offering thousands of improved farms for sale on liberal -terms as to payment. One man buys upon mortgage, fails in -his payments, or gets disgusted, and moves on, and the farm -he has improved is sold to another man upon mortgage. -Generally speaking, the ultimate result is, that the -mortgagee, not the mortgagor, becomes the full owner. -Cultivation under mortgage is, in truth, the transitional -form between cultivation by the small owner and cultivation -by the large owner or by tenant. - -The fact is, that the typical American farmer, the -cultivator of a small farm of which he is the owner, is the -product of conditions under which labor is dear and land is -cheap. As these conditions change, labor becoming cheap and -land becoming dear, he must pass away as he has passed away -in England. - -It has already become impossible in our older states for a -man starting with nothing to become by his labor the owner -of a farm. As the public domain disappears this will become -impossible all over the United States. And as in the -accidents and mutations of life the small owners are shaken -from their holdings, or find it impossible to compete with -the grand culture of capitalistic farming, they will not be -able to recover, and must swell the mass of tenants and -laborers. Thus the concentration of land ownership is -proceeding, and must proceed, if private property in land be -continued. So far from it being to the interest of the -working farmer to defend private property in land, its -continued recognition means that his children, if not -himself, shall lose all right whatever in their native soil; -shall sink from the condition of free men to that of serfs. +Further than this, all the tendencies of the time are to the extinction +of the typical American farmer---the man who cultivates his own acres +with his own hands. This movement has only recently begun, but it is +going on, and must go on, under present conditions, with increasing +rapidity. The remarkable increase in the large farms and diminution in +the small ones, shown by the analysis of the census figures which will +be found in the appendix, is but evidence of the fact---too notorious to +need the proof of figures---that the tendency to concentration, which in +so many other branches of industry has substituted the factory for +self-employing workmen, has reached agriculture. One invention after +another has already given the large farmer a crushing advantage over the +small farmer, and invention is still going on.And it is not merely in +the making of his crops, but in their transportation and marketing, and +in the purchase of his supplies, that the large producer in agriculture +gains an advantage over the small one. To talk, as some do, about the +bonanza farms breaking up in a little while into small homesteads, is as +foolish as to talk of the great shoe factory giving way again to +journeymen shoemakers with their lapstones and awls. The bonanza farm +and the great wire-fenced stock ranch have come to stay while present +conditions last. If they show themselves first on new land, it is +because there is on new land the greatest freedom of development, but +the tendency exists wherever modern industrial influences are felt, and +is showing itself in the British Isles as well as in our older states. + +This tendency means the extirpation of the typical American farmer, who +with his own hands and the aid of his boys cultivates his own small +farm. When a Brooklyn lawyer or Boston banker can take a run in a palace +car out to the new Northwest, buy some sections of land; contract for +having it broken up, seeded, reaped and threshed; leave on it a +superintendent, and make a profit on his first year's crop of from six +to ten thousand dollars a section, what chance has the emigrant farmer +of the old type who comes toiling along in the wagon which contains his +wife and children, and the few traps that with his team constitute his +entire capital? When English and American capitalists can run miles of +barbed wire fence, and stock the great enclosure with large herds of +cattle, which can be tended, carried to market, and sold, at the minimum +of expense and maximum of profit, what chance has the man who would +start stock-raising with a few cows? + +From the typical American farmer of the era now beginning to pass away, +two types are differentiating---the capitalist farmer and the +farm-laborer. The former does not work with his own hands, but with the +hands of other men. He passes but a portion of his time, in some cases +hardly any of it, upon the land he cultivates. His home is in a large +town or great city, and he is, perhaps, a banker and speculator as well +as a farmer. The latter is proletarian, a nomad---part of the year a +laborer and part of the year a tramp, migrating from farm to farm and +from place to place, without family or home or any of the influences and +responsibilities that develop manly character. If our treatment of land +continues as now, some of our small independent farmers will tend toward +one of these extremes, and many more will tend toward the other. But +besides the tendency to production on a large scale, which is operating +to extirpate the small independent farmer, there is, in the rise of land +values, another powerful tendency operating in the same direction. + +At the looting of the Summer Palace at Pekin by the allied forces in +1860, some valuable jewels were obtained by private soldiers. How long +did they remain in such possession? If a Duke of Brunswick were to +distribute his hoard of diamonds among the poor, how long would the poor +continue to hold them? The peasants of Ireland and the costermongers of +London have their donkeys, which are worth only a few shillings. But if +by any combination of circumstances the donkey became as valuable as a +blooded horse, no peasant or costermonger would be found driving a +donkey. Where chickens are cheap, the common people eat them; where they +are dear, they are to be found only on the tables of the rich. So it is +with land. As it becomes valuable it must gravitate from the hands of +those who work for a living into the possession of the rich. + +What has caused the extreme concentration of land ownership in England +is not so much the conversion of the feudal tenures into fee simple, the +spoliation of the religious houses and the enclosure of the commons, as +this effect of the rise in the value of land. The small estates, of +which there were many in England two centuries and even a century ago, +have become parts of large estates mainly by purchase. They gravitated +to the possession of the rich, just as diamonds, or valuable paintings, +or fine horses, gravitate to the possession of the rich. + +So long as the masses are fools enough to permit private property in +land, it is rightly esteemed the most secure possession. It cannot be +burned, or destroyed by any accident; it cannot be carried off; it tends +constantly to increase in value with the growth of population and +improvement in the arts. Its possession being a visible sign of secure +wealth, and putting its owner, as competition becomes sharp, in the +position of a lord or god to the human creatures who have no legal +rights to this planet, carries with it social consideration and +deference. For these reasons land commands a higher price in proportion +to the income it yields than anything else, and the man to whom +immediate income is of more importance than a secure investment finds it +cheaper to rent land than to buy it. + +Thus, as land grew in value in England, the small owners were not merely +tempted or compelled by the vicissitudes of life to sell their land, but +it became more profitable to them to sell it than to hold it, as they +could hire land cheaper than they could hire capital. By selling and +then renting, the English farmer, thus converted from a landowner into a +tenant, acquired, for a time at least, the use of more land and more +capital, and the ownership of land thus gravitated from the hands of +those whose prime object is to get a living into the hands of those +whoso prime object is a secure investment. + +This process must go on in the United States as land rises in value. We +may observe it now. It is in the newer parts of our growing cities that +we find people of moderate means living in their own houses. Where land +is more valuable, we find such people living in rented houses. In such +cities, block after block is put up and sold, generally under mortgage, +to families who thus endeavor to secure a home of their own. But I think +it is the general experience, that as years pass by, and land acquires a +greater value, these houses and lots pass from the nominal ownership of +dwellers into the possession of landlords, and are occupied by tenants. +So, in the agricultural districts, it is where land has increased little +if anything in value that we find homesteads which have been long in the +possession of the same family of working farmers. A general officer of +one of the great trunk railroad lines told me that his attention had +been called to the supreme importance of the land question by the great +westward emigration of farmers, which, as the result of extensive +inquiries, he found due to the rise of land values. As land rises in +value the working farmer finds it more and more difficult for his boys +to get farms of their own, while the price for which he can sell will +give him a considerably larger tract of land where land is cheaper; or +he is tempted or forced to mortgage, and the mortgage eats and eats +until it eats him out, or until he concludes that the wisest thing he +can do is to realize the difference between the mortgage and the selling +value of his farm and emigrate west. And in many cases he commences +again under the load of a mortgage; for as settlement is now going, very +much of the land sold to settlers by railroad companies and speculators +is sold upon mortgage. And what is the usual result may be inferred from +such announcements as those placarded in the union depot at Council +Bluffs, offering thousands of improved farms for sale on liberal terms +as to payment. One man buys upon mortgage, fails in his payments, or +gets disgusted, and moves on, and the farm he has improved is sold to +another man upon mortgage. Generally speaking, the ultimate result is, +that the mortgagee, not the mortgagor, becomes the full owner. +Cultivation under mortgage is, in truth, the transitional form between +cultivation by the small owner and cultivation by the large owner or by +tenant. + +The fact is, that the typical American farmer, the cultivator of a small +farm of which he is the owner, is the product of conditions under which +labor is dear and land is cheap. As these conditions change, labor +becoming cheap and land becoming dear, he must pass away as he has +passed away in England. + +It has already become impossible in our older states for a man starting +with nothing to become by his labor the owner of a farm. As the public +domain disappears this will become impossible all over the United +States. And as in the accidents and mutations of life the small owners +are shaken from their holdings, or find it impossible to compete with +the grand culture of capitalistic farming, they will not be able to +recover, and must swell the mass of tenants and laborers. Thus the +concentration of land ownership is proceeding, and must proceed, if +private property in land be continued. So far from it being to the +interest of the working farmer to defend private property in land, its +continued recognition means that his children, if not himself, shall +lose all right whatever in their native soil; shall sink from the +condition of free men to that of serfs. # City and Country -Cobbett compared London, even in his day, to a great wen -growing upon the fair face of England. There is truth in -such comparison. Nothing more clearly shows the -unhealthiness of present social tendencies than the steadily -increasing concentration of population in great cities. -There are about 12,000 head of beef cattle killed weekly in -the shambles of Xew York, while, exclusive of what goes -through for export, there are about 2,100 beef carcasses per -week brought in refrigerator cars from Chicago. Consider -what this single item in the food supply of a great city -suggests as to the elements of fertility, which, instead of -being returned to the soil from which they come, are swept -out through the sewers of our great cities. The reverse of -this is the destructive character of our agriculture, which -is year by year decreasing the productiveness of our soil, -and virtually lessening the area of land available for the -support of our increasing millions. - -In all the aspects of human life similar effects are being -produced. The vast populations of these great cities are -utterly divorced from all the genial influences of nature. -The great mass of them never, from year's end to year's end, -press foot upon mother earth, or pluck a wild flower, or -hear the tinkle of brooks, the rustle of grain, or the -murmur of leaves as the light breeze comes through the -woods. All the sweet and joyous influences of nature are -shut out from them. Her sounds are drowned by the roar of -the streets and the clatter of the people in the next room, -or the next tenement; her sights, by tall buildings, which -reduce the horizon to one of feet. Sun and moon rise and -set, and in solemn procession the constellations move across -the sky, but these imprisoned multitudes behold them only as -might a man in a deep quarry. The white snow falls in winter -only to become dirty slush on the pavements, and as the sun -sinks'in summer a worse than noonday heat is refracted from -masses of brick and stone. Wisely have the authorities of -Philadelphia labeled with its name every tree in their -squares; for how else shall the children growing up in such -cities know one tree from another? how shall they even know -grass from clover? - -This life of great cities is not the natural life of man. He -must, under such conditions, deteriorate, physically, -mentally, morally. Yet the evil does not end here. This is -only one side of it. This unnatural life of the great cities -means an equally unnatural life in the country. Just as the -wen or tumor, drawing the wholesome juices of the body into -its poisonous vortex, impoverishes all other parts of the -frame, so does the crowding of human beings into great -cities impoverish human life in the country. - -Man is a gregarious animal. He cannot live by bread alone. -If he suffers in body, mind and soul from being crowded into -too close contact with his fellows, so also does he suffer -from being separated too far from them. The beauty and the -grandeur of nature pall upon man where other men are not to -be met; her infinite diversity becomes monotonous where -there is not human companionship; his physical comforts are -poor and scant, his nobler powers languish; all that makes -him higher than the animal suffers for want of the stimulus -that comes from the contact of man with man. Consider the -barrenness of the isolated farmer's life---the dull round of -work and sleep, in which so much of it passes. Consider, -what is still worse, the monotonous existence to which his -wife is condemned; its lack of recreation and excitement, -and of gratifications of taste, and of the sense of harmony -and beauty; its steady drag of cares and toils that make -women worn and wrinkled when they should be in their bloom. -Even the discomforts and evils of the crowded tenement house -are not worse than the discomforts and evils of such a life. -Yet as the cities grow, unwholesomely crowding people -together till they are packed in tiers, family above family, -so are they unwholesomely separated in the country. The -tendency everywhere that this process of urban concentration -is going on, is to make the life of the country poor and -hard, and to rob it of the social stimulus and social -gratifications that are so necessary to human beings. The -old healthy social life of village and townland is -everywhere disappearing. In England, Scotland and Ireland, -the thinning out of population in the agricultural districts -is as marked as is its concentration in cities and large -towns. In Ireland, as you ride along the roads, your -car-driver, if he be an old man, will point out to you spot -after spot, which, when he was a boy, were the sites of -populous hamlets, echoing in the summer evenings with the -laughter of children and the joyous sports of young people, -but now utterly desolate, showing, as the only evidences of -human occupation, the isolated cabins of miserable herds. In -Scotland, where in such cities as Glasgow, human beings are -so crowded together that two-thirds of the families live in -a single room, where if you go through the streets of a -Saturday night, you will think, if you have ever seen the -Terra del Fuegans, that these poor creatures might envy -them, there are wide tracts once populous, now given up to -cattle, to grouse and to deer---glens that once sent out -their thousand fighting men now tenanted by a couple of -gamekeepers. So across the Tweed, while London, Liverpool, -Leeds, Manchester and Nottingham have grown, the village -life of "merrie England" is all bnt extinct. Two-thirds of -the entire population is crowded into cities. Clustering -hamlets, such as those through which, according to -tradition, Shakespeare and his comrades rollicked, have -disappeared; village greens where stood the may-pole, and -the clothyard arrow flew from the longbow to the bull's eye -of the butt, are plowed under or enclosed by the walls of -some lordly demesne, while here and there stand mementoes -alike of a bygone faith and a departed population, in great -churches or their remains---churches such as that now could -never be filled unless the congregations were brought from -town by railroad excursion trains. - -So in the agricultural districts of our older States the -same tendency may be beheld; but it is in the newer States -that its fullest expression is to be found---in ranches -measured by square miles, where half-savage cowboys, whose -social life is confined to the excitement of the "round-up" -or a periodical "drunk" in a railroad town; and in bonanza -farms, where in the spring the eye wearies of seas of waving -grain before resting on a single home---farms where the -cultivators are lodged in barracks, and only the -superintendent" enjoys the luxury of a wife. - -That present tendencies are hurrying modern society toward -inevitable catastrophe, is apparent from the constantly -increasing concentration of population in great cities, if -in nothing else. A century ago New York and its suburbs -contained about 25,000 souls; now they contain over -2,000,000. The same growth for another century would put -here a population of 160,000,000. Such a city is impossible. -But what shall we say of the cities of ten and twenty -millions, that, if present tendencies continue, children now -born shall see? - -On this, however, I will not dwell. I merely wish to call -attention to the fact that this concentration of population -impoverishes social life at the extremities, as well as -poisons it at the center; that it is as injurious to the -farmer as it is to the inhabitant of the city slum. - -This unnatural distribution of population, like that -unnatural distribution of wealth which gives one man -hundreds of millions and makes other men tramps, is the -result of the action of the new industrial forces in social -conditions not adapted to them. It springs primarily from -our treatment of land as private property, and secondarily -from our neglect to assume social functions which material -progress forces upon us. Its causes removed, there would -ensue a natural distribution of population, which would give -every one breathing space and neighborhood. - -It is in this that would be the great gain of the farmer in -the measures I have proposed. With the resumption of common -rights to the soil, the overcrowded population of the cities -would spread, the scattered population of the country would -grow denser. When no individual could profit by advance in -the value of land, when no one need fear that his children -could be jostled out of their natural rights, no one would -want more land than he could profitably use. Instead of -scraggy, half cultivated farms, separated by great tracts -lying idle, homesteads would come close to each other. -Emigrants would not toil through unused acres, nor grain be -hauled for thousand of miles past half-tilled land. The use -of machinery would not be abandoned: where culture on a -large scale secured economies it would still go on; but with -the breaking up of monopolies, the rise in wages and the -better distribution of wealth, industry of this kind would -assume the cooperative form. Agriculture would cease to be -destructive, and would become more intense, obtaining more -from the soil and returning what it borrowed. Closer -settlement would give rise to economies of all kinds; labor -would be far more productive, and rural life would partake -of the conveniences, recreations and stimulations now only -to be obtained by the favored classes in large towns. The -monopoly of land broken up, it seems to me that rural life -would tend to revert to the primitive type of the village -surrounded by cultivated fields, with its common pasturage -and woodlands. But however this may be, the working farmer -would participate fully in all the enormous economies and -all the immense gains which society can secure by the -substitution of orderly cooperation for the anarchy of -reckless, greedy scrambling. - -That the masses now festering in the tenement houses of our -cities, under conditions which breed disease and death, and -vice and crime, should each family have its healthful home, -set in its garden; that the working farmer should be able to -make a living with a daily average of two or three hours' -work, which more resembled healthy recreation than toil; -that his home should be replete with all the conveniences -yet esteemed luxuries; that it should be supplied with light -and heat, and power if needed, and connected with those of -his neighbors by the telephone; that his family should be -free to libraries, and lectures, and scientific apparatus, -and instruction; that they should be able to visit the -theatre, or concert, or opera, as often as they cared to, -and occasionally to make trips to other parts of the country -or to Europe; that, in short, not merely the successful man, -the one in a thousand, but the man of ordinary parts and -ordinary foresight and prudence, should enjoy all that -advancing civilization can bring to elevate and expand human -life, seems, in the light of existing facts, as wild a dream -as ever entered the brain of hasheesh eater. Yet the powers +Cobbett compared London, even in his day, to a great wen growing upon +the fair face of England. There is truth in such comparison. Nothing +more clearly shows the unhealthiness of present social tendencies than +the steadily increasing concentration of population in great cities. +There are about 12,000 head of beef cattle killed weekly in the shambles +of Xew York, while, exclusive of what goes through for export, there are +about 2,100 beef carcasses per week brought in refrigerator cars from +Chicago. Consider what this single item in the food supply of a great +city suggests as to the elements of fertility, which, instead of being +returned to the soil from which they come, are swept out through the +sewers of our great cities. The reverse of this is the destructive +character of our agriculture, which is year by year decreasing the +productiveness of our soil, and virtually lessening the area of land +available for the support of our increasing millions. + +In all the aspects of human life similar effects are being produced. The +vast populations of these great cities are utterly divorced from all the +genial influences of nature. The great mass of them never, from year's +end to year's end, press foot upon mother earth, or pluck a wild flower, +or hear the tinkle of brooks, the rustle of grain, or the murmur of +leaves as the light breeze comes through the woods. All the sweet and +joyous influences of nature are shut out from them. Her sounds are +drowned by the roar of the streets and the clatter of the people in the +next room, or the next tenement; her sights, by tall buildings, which +reduce the horizon to one of feet. Sun and moon rise and set, and in +solemn procession the constellations move across the sky, but these +imprisoned multitudes behold them only as might a man in a deep quarry. +The white snow falls in winter only to become dirty slush on the +pavements, and as the sun sinks'in summer a worse than noonday heat is +refracted from masses of brick and stone. Wisely have the authorities of +Philadelphia labeled with its name every tree in their squares; for how +else shall the children growing up in such cities know one tree from +another? how shall they even know grass from clover? + +This life of great cities is not the natural life of man. He must, under +such conditions, deteriorate, physically, mentally, morally. Yet the +evil does not end here. This is only one side of it. This unnatural life +of the great cities means an equally unnatural life in the country. Just +as the wen or tumor, drawing the wholesome juices of the body into its +poisonous vortex, impoverishes all other parts of the frame, so does the +crowding of human beings into great cities impoverish human life in the +country. + +Man is a gregarious animal. He cannot live by bread alone. If he suffers +in body, mind and soul from being crowded into too close contact with +his fellows, so also does he suffer from being separated too far from +them. The beauty and the grandeur of nature pall upon man where other +men are not to be met; her infinite diversity becomes monotonous where +there is not human companionship; his physical comforts are poor and +scant, his nobler powers languish; all that makes him higher than the +animal suffers for want of the stimulus that comes from the contact of +man with man. Consider the barrenness of the isolated farmer's +life---the dull round of work and sleep, in which so much of it passes. +Consider, what is still worse, the monotonous existence to which his +wife is condemned; its lack of recreation and excitement, and of +gratifications of taste, and of the sense of harmony and beauty; its +steady drag of cares and toils that make women worn and wrinkled when +they should be in their bloom. Even the discomforts and evils of the +crowded tenement house are not worse than the discomforts and evils of +such a life. Yet as the cities grow, unwholesomely crowding people +together till they are packed in tiers, family above family, so are they +unwholesomely separated in the country. The tendency everywhere that +this process of urban concentration is going on, is to make the life of +the country poor and hard, and to rob it of the social stimulus and +social gratifications that are so necessary to human beings. The old +healthy social life of village and townland is everywhere disappearing. +In England, Scotland and Ireland, the thinning out of population in the +agricultural districts is as marked as is its concentration in cities +and large towns. In Ireland, as you ride along the roads, your +car-driver, if he be an old man, will point out to you spot after spot, +which, when he was a boy, were the sites of populous hamlets, echoing in +the summer evenings with the laughter of children and the joyous sports +of young people, but now utterly desolate, showing, as the only +evidences of human occupation, the isolated cabins of miserable herds. +In Scotland, where in such cities as Glasgow, human beings are so +crowded together that two-thirds of the families live in a single room, +where if you go through the streets of a Saturday night, you will think, +if you have ever seen the Terra del Fuegans, that these poor creatures +might envy them, there are wide tracts once populous, now given up to +cattle, to grouse and to deer---glens that once sent out their thousand +fighting men now tenanted by a couple of gamekeepers. So across the +Tweed, while London, Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester and Nottingham have +grown, the village life of "merrie England" is all bnt extinct. +Two-thirds of the entire population is crowded into cities. Clustering +hamlets, such as those through which, according to tradition, +Shakespeare and his comrades rollicked, have disappeared; village greens +where stood the may-pole, and the clothyard arrow flew from the longbow +to the bull's eye of the butt, are plowed under or enclosed by the walls +of some lordly demesne, while here and there stand mementoes alike of a +bygone faith and a departed population, in great churches or their +remains---churches such as that now could never be filled unless the +congregations were brought from town by railroad excursion trains. + +So in the agricultural districts of our older States the same tendency +may be beheld; but it is in the newer States that its fullest expression +is to be found---in ranches measured by square miles, where half-savage +cowboys, whose social life is confined to the excitement of the +"round-up" or a periodical "drunk" in a railroad town; and in bonanza +farms, where in the spring the eye wearies of seas of waving grain +before resting on a single home---farms where the cultivators are lodged +in barracks, and only the superintendent" enjoys the luxury of a wife. + +That present tendencies are hurrying modern society toward inevitable +catastrophe, is apparent from the constantly increasing concentration of +population in great cities, if in nothing else. A century ago New York +and its suburbs contained about 25,000 souls; now they contain over +2,000,000. The same growth for another century would put here a +population of 160,000,000. Such a city is impossible. But what shall we +say of the cities of ten and twenty millions, that, if present +tendencies continue, children now born shall see? + +On this, however, I will not dwell. I merely wish to call attention to +the fact that this concentration of population impoverishes social life +at the extremities, as well as poisons it at the center; that it is as +injurious to the farmer as it is to the inhabitant of the city slum. + +This unnatural distribution of population, like that unnatural +distribution of wealth which gives one man hundreds of millions and +makes other men tramps, is the result of the action of the new +industrial forces in social conditions not adapted to them. It springs +primarily from our treatment of land as private property, and +secondarily from our neglect to assume social functions which material +progress forces upon us. Its causes removed, there would ensue a natural +distribution of population, which would give every one breathing space +and neighborhood. + +It is in this that would be the great gain of the farmer in the measures +I have proposed. With the resumption of common rights to the soil, the +overcrowded population of the cities would spread, the scattered +population of the country would grow denser. When no individual could +profit by advance in the value of land, when no one need fear that his +children could be jostled out of their natural rights, no one would want +more land than he could profitably use. Instead of scraggy, half +cultivated farms, separated by great tracts lying idle, homesteads would +come close to each other. Emigrants would not toil through unused acres, +nor grain be hauled for thousand of miles past half-tilled land. The use +of machinery would not be abandoned: where culture on a large scale +secured economies it would still go on; but with the breaking up of +monopolies, the rise in wages and the better distribution of wealth, +industry of this kind would assume the cooperative form. Agriculture +would cease to be destructive, and would become more intense, obtaining +more from the soil and returning what it borrowed. Closer settlement +would give rise to economies of all kinds; labor would be far more +productive, and rural life would partake of the conveniences, +recreations and stimulations now only to be obtained by the favored +classes in large towns. The monopoly of land broken up, it seems to me +that rural life would tend to revert to the primitive type of the +village surrounded by cultivated fields, with its common pasturage and +woodlands. But however this may be, the working farmer would participate +fully in all the enormous economies and all the immense gains which +society can secure by the substitution of orderly cooperation for the +anarchy of reckless, greedy scrambling. + +That the masses now festering in the tenement houses of our cities, +under conditions which breed disease and death, and vice and crime, +should each family have its healthful home, set in its garden; that the +working farmer should be able to make a living with a daily average of +two or three hours' work, which more resembled healthy recreation than +toil; that his home should be replete with all the conveniences yet +esteemed luxuries; that it should be supplied with light and heat, and +power if needed, and connected with those of his neighbors by the +telephone; that his family should be free to libraries, and lectures, +and scientific apparatus, and instruction; that they should be able to +visit the theatre, or concert, or opera, as often as they cared to, and +occasionally to make trips to other parts of the country or to Europe; +that, in short, not merely the successful man, the one in a thousand, +but the man of ordinary parts and ordinary foresight and prudence, +should enjoy all that advancing civilization can bring to elevate and +expand human life, seems, in the light of existing facts, as wild a +dream as ever entered the brain of hasheesh eater. Yet the powers already within the grasp of man make it easily possible. -In our mad scramble to get on top of one another, how little -do we take of the good things that bountiful nature offers -us. Consider this fact: To the majority of people in such -countries as England, and even largely in the United States, -fruit is a luxury. Yet mother earth is not niggard of her -fruit. If we chose to have it so, every road might be lined -with fruit trees. +In our mad scramble to get on top of one another, how little do we take +of the good things that bountiful nature offers us. Consider this fact: +To the majority of people in such countries as England, and even largely +in the United States, fruit is a luxury. Yet mother earth is not niggard +of her fruit. If we chose to have it so, every road might be lined with +fruit trees. # Conclusion -Here, it seems to me, is the gist and meaning of the great -social problems of our time: More is given to us than to any -people at any time before; and, *therefore*, more is -required of us. We have made, and still are making, enormous -advances on material lines. It is necessary that we -commensurately advance on moral lines. Civilization, as it -progresses, *requires* a higher conscience, a keener sense -of justice, a warmer brotherhood, a wider, loftier, truer -public spirit. Failing these, civilization must pass into -destruction. It cannot be maintained on the ethics of -savagery. For civilization knits men more and more closely -together, and constantly tends to subordinate the individual -to the whole, and to make more and more important social -conditions. - -The social and political problems that confront us are -darker than they realize who have not given thought to them; -yet their solution is a mere matter of the proper adjustment -of social forces. Man masters material nature by studying -her laws, and in conditions and powers that seemed most -forbidding, has already found his richest storehouses and -most powerful servants. Although we have but begun to -systematize our knowledge of physical nature, it is evident -she will refuse us no desire if we but seek its -gratification in accordance with her laws. - -And that faculty of adapting means to ends which has enabled -man to convert the once impassable ocean into his highway, -to transport himself with a speed which leaves the swallow -behind, to annihilate space in the communication of his -thoughts, to convert the rocks into warmth and light and -power and material for a thousand uses, to weigh the stars -and analyze the sun, to make ice under the equator, and bid -flowers bloom in northern winters, will also, if he will use -it, enable him to overcome social difficulties and avoid -social dangers. The domain of law is not confined to -physical nature. It just as certainly embraces the mental -and moral universe, and social growth and social life have -their laws as fixed as those of matter and of motion. Would -we make social life healthy and happy, we must discover -those laws, and seek our ends in accordance with them. - -I ask no one who may read this book to accept my views. I -ask him to think for himself. - -Whoever, laying aside prejudice and self-interest, will -honestly and carefully make up his own mind as to the causes -and the cure of the social evils that are so apparent, does, -in that, the most important thing ill his power toward their -removal. This primary obligation devolves upon us -individually, as citizens and as men. Whatever else we may -be able to do, this must come first. For "if the blind lead -the blind, they both shall fall into the ditch." - -Social reform is not to be secured by noise and shouting; by -complaints and denunciation; by the formation of parties, or -the making of revolutions; but by the awakening of thought -and the progress of ideas. Until there be correct thought, -there cannot be right action; and when there is correct -thought, right action *will* follow. Power is always in the -hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is -their own ignorance, their own shortsighted selfishness. - -The great work of the present for every man, and every -organization of men, who would improve social conditions, is -the work of education---the propagation of ideas. It is only -as it aids this that anything else can avail. And in this -work every one who can think may aid---first by forming -clear ideas himself, and then by endeavoring to arouse the +Here, it seems to me, is the gist and meaning of the great social +problems of our time: More is given to us than to any people at any time +before; and, *therefore*, more is required of us. We have made, and +still are making, enormous advances on material lines. It is necessary +that we commensurately advance on moral lines. Civilization, as it +progresses, *requires* a higher conscience, a keener sense of justice, a +warmer brotherhood, a wider, loftier, truer public spirit. Failing +these, civilization must pass into destruction. It cannot be maintained +on the ethics of savagery. For civilization knits men more and more +closely together, and constantly tends to subordinate the individual to +the whole, and to make more and more important social conditions. + +The social and political problems that confront us are darker than they +realize who have not given thought to them; yet their solution is a mere +matter of the proper adjustment of social forces. Man masters material +nature by studying her laws, and in conditions and powers that seemed +most forbidding, has already found his richest storehouses and most +powerful servants. Although we have but begun to systematize our +knowledge of physical nature, it is evident she will refuse us no desire +if we but seek its gratification in accordance with her laws. + +And that faculty of adapting means to ends which has enabled man to +convert the once impassable ocean into his highway, to transport himself +with a speed which leaves the swallow behind, to annihilate space in the +communication of his thoughts, to convert the rocks into warmth and +light and power and material for a thousand uses, to weigh the stars and +analyze the sun, to make ice under the equator, and bid flowers bloom in +northern winters, will also, if he will use it, enable him to overcome +social difficulties and avoid social dangers. The domain of law is not +confined to physical nature. It just as certainly embraces the mental +and moral universe, and social growth and social life have their laws as +fixed as those of matter and of motion. Would we make social life +healthy and happy, we must discover those laws, and seek our ends in +accordance with them. + +I ask no one who may read this book to accept my views. I ask him to +think for himself. + +Whoever, laying aside prejudice and self-interest, will honestly and +carefully make up his own mind as to the causes and the cure of the +social evils that are so apparent, does, in that, the most important +thing ill his power toward their removal. This primary obligation +devolves upon us individually, as citizens and as men. Whatever else we +may be able to do, this must come first. For "if the blind lead the +blind, they both shall fall into the ditch." + +Social reform is not to be secured by noise and shouting; by complaints +and denunciation; by the formation of parties, or the making of +revolutions; but by the awakening of thought and the progress of ideas. +Until there be correct thought, there cannot be right action; and when +there is correct thought, right action *will* follow. Power is always in +the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own +ignorance, their own shortsighted selfishness. + +The great work of the present for every man, and every organization of +men, who would improve social conditions, is the work of education---the +propagation of ideas. It is only as it aids this that anything else can +avail. And in this work every one who can think may aid---first by +forming clear ideas himself, and then by endeavoring to arouse the thought of those with whom he comes in contact. -Many there are, too depressed, too embruted with hard toil -and the struggle for animal existence, to think for -themselves. Therefore the obligation devolves with all the -more force on those who can. If thinking men are few, they -are for that reason all the more powerful. Let no man -imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and -wherever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a -light and a power. That for every idle word men may speak -they shall give an account at the day of judgment, seems a -hard saying. But what more clear than that the theory of the -persistence of force, which teaches us that every movement -continues to act and react, must apply as well to the -universe of mind as to that of matter. Whoever becomes -imbued with a noble idea kindles a flame from which other -torches are lit, and influences those with whom he comes in -contact, be they few or many. How far that influence, thus -perpetuated, may extend, it is not given to him here to see. -But it may be that the Lord of the Vineyard will know. - -As I said in the first of these papers, the progress of -civilization necessitates the giving of greater and greater -attention and intelligence to public affairs. And for this -reason I am convinced that we make a great mistake in -depriving one sex of voice in public matters, and that we -could in no way so increase the attention, the intelligence -and the devotion which may be brought to the solution of -social problems as by enfranchising our women. Even if in a -ruder state of society the intelligence of one sex suffices -for the management of common interests, the vastly more -intricate, more delicate and more important questions which -the progress of civilization makes of public moment, require -the intelligence of women as of men, and that we never can -obtain until we interest them in public affairs. And I have -come to believe that very much of the inattention, the -flippancy, the want of conscience, which we see manifested -in regard to public matters of the greatest moment, arises -from the fact that we debar our women from taking their -proper part in these matters, nothing will fully interest -men unless it also interests women. There are those who say -that women are less intelligent than men; but who will say -that they are less influential? - -And I am firmly convinced, as I have already said, that to -effect any great social improvement, it is sympathy rather -than self-interest, the sense of duty rather than the desire -for self-advancement, that must be appealed to. Envy is akin -to admiration, and it is the admiration which the rich and -powerful excite which secures the perpetuation of -aristocracies. Where tenpenny Jack looks with contempt upon -ninepenny Joe, the social injustice which makes the masses -of the people hewers of wood and drawers of water for a -privileged few, has the strongest bulwarks. It is told of a -certain Florentine agitator that when he had received a new -pair of boots, he concluded that all popular grievances were -satisfied. How often do we see this story illustrated anew -in working-men's movements and trade-union struggles? This -is the weakness of all movements that appeal only to -self-interest. - -And as man is so constituted that it is utterly impossible -for him to attain happiness save by seeking the happiness of -others, so does it seem to be of the nature of things that -individuals and classes can obtain their own just rights -only by struggling for the rights of others. To illustrate: -When workmen in any trade form a trades union, they gain, by -subordinating the individual interests of each to the common -interests of all, the power of making better terms with -employers. But this power goes only a little way when the -combination of the trades union is met and checked by the -pressure for employment of those outside its limits. No -combination of workmen can raise their own wages much above -the level of ordinary wages. The attempt to do so is like -the attempt to bail out a boat without stopping up the -seams. For this reason, it is necessary, if workmen would -accomplish anything real and permanent for themselves, not -merely that each trade should seek the common interests of -all trades, but that skilled workmen should address -themselves to those general measures which will improve the -condition of unskilled workmen. Those who are most to be -considered, those for whose help the struggle must be made, -if labor is to be enfranchised, and social justice won, are -those least able to help or struggle for themselves, those -who have no advantage of property or skill or -intelligence,---the men and women who are at the very bottom -of the social scale. In securing the equal rights of these -we shall secure the equal rights of all. - -Hence it is, as Mazzini said, that it is around the standard -of duty rather than around the standard of self-interest -that men must rally to win the rights of man. And herein may -we see the deep philosophy of Him who bid men love their -neighbors as themselves. - -In that spirit, and in no other, is the power to solve -social problems and carry civilization onward. +Many there are, too depressed, too embruted with hard toil and the +struggle for animal existence, to think for themselves. Therefore the +obligation devolves with all the more force on those who can. If +thinking men are few, they are for that reason all the more powerful. +Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and +wherever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a light and a +power. That for every idle word men may speak they shall give an account +at the day of judgment, seems a hard saying. But what more clear than +that the theory of the persistence of force, which teaches us that every +movement continues to act and react, must apply as well to the universe +of mind as to that of matter. Whoever becomes imbued with a noble idea +kindles a flame from which other torches are lit, and influences those +with whom he comes in contact, be they few or many. How far that +influence, thus perpetuated, may extend, it is not given to him here to +see. But it may be that the Lord of the Vineyard will know. + +As I said in the first of these papers, the progress of civilization +necessitates the giving of greater and greater attention and +intelligence to public affairs. And for this reason I am convinced that +we make a great mistake in depriving one sex of voice in public matters, +and that we could in no way so increase the attention, the intelligence +and the devotion which may be brought to the solution of social problems +as by enfranchising our women. Even if in a ruder state of society the +intelligence of one sex suffices for the management of common interests, +the vastly more intricate, more delicate and more important questions +which the progress of civilization makes of public moment, require the +intelligence of women as of men, and that we never can obtain until we +interest them in public affairs. And I have come to believe that very +much of the inattention, the flippancy, the want of conscience, which we +see manifested in regard to public matters of the greatest moment, +arises from the fact that we debar our women from taking their proper +part in these matters, nothing will fully interest men unless it also +interests women. There are those who say that women are less intelligent +than men; but who will say that they are less influential? + +And I am firmly convinced, as I have already said, that to effect any +great social improvement, it is sympathy rather than self-interest, the +sense of duty rather than the desire for self-advancement, that must be +appealed to. Envy is akin to admiration, and it is the admiration which +the rich and powerful excite which secures the perpetuation of +aristocracies. Where tenpenny Jack looks with contempt upon ninepenny +Joe, the social injustice which makes the masses of the people hewers of +wood and drawers of water for a privileged few, has the strongest +bulwarks. It is told of a certain Florentine agitator that when he had +received a new pair of boots, he concluded that all popular grievances +were satisfied. How often do we see this story illustrated anew in +working-men's movements and trade-union struggles? This is the weakness +of all movements that appeal only to self-interest. + +And as man is so constituted that it is utterly impossible for him to +attain happiness save by seeking the happiness of others, so does it +seem to be of the nature of things that individuals and classes can +obtain their own just rights only by struggling for the rights of +others. To illustrate: When workmen in any trade form a trades union, +they gain, by subordinating the individual interests of each to the +common interests of all, the power of making better terms with +employers. But this power goes only a little way when the combination of +the trades union is met and checked by the pressure for employment of +those outside its limits. No combination of workmen can raise their own +wages much above the level of ordinary wages. The attempt to do so is +like the attempt to bail out a boat without stopping up the seams. For +this reason, it is necessary, if workmen would accomplish anything real +and permanent for themselves, not merely that each trade should seek the +common interests of all trades, but that skilled workmen should address +themselves to those general measures which will improve the condition of +unskilled workmen. Those who are most to be considered, those for whose +help the struggle must be made, if labor is to be enfranchised, and +social justice won, are those least able to help or struggle for +themselves, those who have no advantage of property or skill or +intelligence,---the men and women who are at the very bottom of the +social scale. In securing the equal rights of these we shall secure the +equal rights of all. + +Hence it is, as Mazzini said, that it is around the standard of duty +rather than around the standard of self-interest that men must rally to +win the rights of man. And herein may we see the deep philosophy of Him +who bid men love their neighbors as themselves. + +In that spirit, and in no other, is the power to solve social problems +and carry civilization onward. diff --git a/src/st-francis.md b/src/st-francis.md index 7bca961..c8fdf31 100644 --- a/src/st-francis.md +++ b/src/st-francis.md @@ -1,908 +1,762 @@ # The Problem of St. Francis -A sketch of St. Francis of Assisi in modern English may be -written in one of three ways. Between these the writer must -make his selection; and the third way, which is adopted -here, is in some respects the most difficult of all. At -least, it would be the most difficult if the other two were -not impossible. - -First, he may deal with this great and most amazing man as a -figure in secular history and a model of social virtues. He -may describe this divine demagogue as being, as he probably -that St. Francis anticipated all that is most liberal and -sympathetic in the modern mood; the love of nature; the love -of animals; the sense of social compassion; the sense of the -spiritual dangers of prosperity and even of property. All -those things that nobody understood before Wordsworth were -familiar to St. Francis. All those things that were first -discovered by Tolstoy had been taken for granted by -St. Francis. He could be presented, not only as a human but -a humanitarian hero; indeed as the first hero of humanism. -He has been described as a sort of morning star of the -Renaissance. And in comparison with all these things, his -ascetical theology can be ignored or dismissed as a -contemporary accident, which was fortunately not a fatal -accident. His religion can be regarded as a superstition, -but an inevitable superstition, from which not even genius -could wholly free itself; in the consideration of which it -would be unjust to condemn St. Francis for his self-denial -or unduly chide him for his chastity. It is quite true that -even from so detached a standpoint his stature would still -appear heroic. There would still be a great deal to be said -about the man who tried to end the Crusades by talking to -the Saracens or who interceded with the Emperor for the -birds. The writer might describe in a purely historical -spirit the whole of that great Franciscan inspiration that -was felt in the painting of Giotto, in the poetry of Dante, -in the miracle plays that made possible the modern drama, -and in so many other things that are already appreciated by -the modern culture. He may try to do it, as others have -done, almost without raising any religious question at all. -In short, he may try to tell the story of a saint without -God; which is like being told to write the life of Nansen -and forbidden to mention the North Pole. - -Second, he may go to the opposite extreme, and decide, as it -were, to be defiantly devotional. He may make the -theological enthusiasm as thoroughly the theme as it was the -theme of the first Franciscans. He may treat religion as the -real thing that it was to the real Francis of Assisi. He can -find an austere joy, so to speak, in parading the paradoxes -of asceticism and all the holy topsy-turvydom of humility. -He can stamp the whole history with the Stigmata, record -fasts like fights against a dragon; till in the vague modern -mind St. Francis is as dark a figure as St. Dominic. In -short he can produce what many in our world will regard as a -sort of photographic negative, the reversal of all lights -and shades; what the foolish will find as impenetrable as -darkness and even many of the wise will find almost as -invisible as if it were written in silver upon white. Such a -study of St. Francis would be unintelligible to anyone who -does not share his religion, perhaps only partly -intelligible to anyone who does not share his vocation. -According to degrees of judgment, it will be regarded as -something too bad or too good for the world. The only -difficulty about doing the thing in this way is that it -cannot be done. It would really require a saint to write the -life of a saint. In the present case the objections to such +A sketch of St. Francis of Assisi in modern English may be written in +one of three ways. Between these the writer must make his selection; and +the third way, which is adopted here, is in some respects the most +difficult of all. At least, it would be the most difficult if the other +two were not impossible. + +First, he may deal with this great and most amazing man as a figure in +secular history and a model of social virtues. He may describe this +divine demagogue as being, as he probably that St. Francis anticipated +all that is most liberal and sympathetic in the modern mood; the love of +nature; the love of animals; the sense of social compassion; the sense +of the spiritual dangers of prosperity and even of property. All those +things that nobody understood before Wordsworth were familiar to +St. Francis. All those things that were first discovered by Tolstoy had +been taken for granted by St. Francis. He could be presented, not only +as a human but a humanitarian hero; indeed as the first hero of +humanism. He has been described as a sort of morning star of the +Renaissance. And in comparison with all these things, his ascetical +theology can be ignored or dismissed as a contemporary accident, which +was fortunately not a fatal accident. His religion can be regarded as a +superstition, but an inevitable superstition, from which not even genius +could wholly free itself; in the consideration of which it would be +unjust to condemn St. Francis for his self-denial or unduly chide him +for his chastity. It is quite true that even from so detached a +standpoint his stature would still appear heroic. There would still be a +great deal to be said about the man who tried to end the Crusades by +talking to the Saracens or who interceded with the Emperor for the +birds. The writer might describe in a purely historical spirit the whole +of that great Franciscan inspiration that was felt in the painting of +Giotto, in the poetry of Dante, in the miracle plays that made possible +the modern drama, and in so many other things that are already +appreciated by the modern culture. He may try to do it, as others have +done, almost without raising any religious question at all. In short, he +may try to tell the story of a saint without God; which is like being +told to write the life of Nansen and forbidden to mention the North +Pole. + +Second, he may go to the opposite extreme, and decide, as it were, to be +defiantly devotional. He may make the theological enthusiasm as +thoroughly the theme as it was the theme of the first Franciscans. He +may treat religion as the real thing that it was to the real Francis of +Assisi. He can find an austere joy, so to speak, in parading the +paradoxes of asceticism and all the holy topsy-turvydom of humility. He +can stamp the whole history with the Stigmata, record fasts like fights +against a dragon; till in the vague modern mind St. Francis is as dark a +figure as St. Dominic. In short he can produce what many in our world +will regard as a sort of photographic negative, the reversal of all +lights and shades; what the foolish will find as impenetrable as +darkness and even many of the wise will find almost as invisible as if +it were written in silver upon white. Such a study of St. Francis would +be unintelligible to anyone who does not share his religion, perhaps +only partly intelligible to anyone who does not share his vocation. +According to degrees of judgment, it will be regarded as something too +bad or too good for the world. The only difficulty about doing the thing +in this way is that it cannot be done. It would really require a saint +to write the life of a saint. In the present case the objections to such a course are insuperable. -Third, he may try to do what I have tried to do here; and, -as I have already suggested, the course has peculiar -problems of its own. The writer may put himself in the -position of the ordinary modern outsider and enquirer; as -indeed the present writer is still largely and was once -entirely in that position. He may start from the standpoint -of a man who already admires St. Francis, but only for those -things which such a man finds admirable. In other words he -may assume that the reader is at least as enlightened as -Renan or Matthew Arnold; but in the light of that -enlightenment he may try to illuminate what Renan and -Matthew Arnold left dark. He may try to use what is -understood to explain what is not understood. He may say to -the modern English reader: "Here is an historical character -which is admittedly attractive to many of us already, by its -gaiety, its romantic imagination, its spiritual courtesy and -camaraderie, but which also contains elements (evidently -equally sincere and emphatic) which seem to you quite remote -and repulsive. But after all, this man was a man and not -half a dozen men. What seems inconsistency to you did not -seem inconsistency to him. Let us see whether we can -understand, with the help of the existing understanding, -these other things that seem now to be doubly dark, by their -intrinsic gloom and their ironic contrast." I do not mean, -of course, that I can really reach such a psychological -completeness in this crude and curt outline. But I mean that -this is the only controversial condition that I shall here -assume; that I am dealing with the sympathetic outsider. I -shall not assume any more or any less agreement than this. A -materialist may not care whether the inconsistencies are -reconciled or not. A Catholic may not see any -inconsistencies to reconcile. But I am here addressing the -ordinary modern man, sympathetic but sceptical, and I can -only rather hazily hope that, by approaching the great -saint's story through what is evidently picturesque and -popular about it, I may at least leave the reader -understanding a little more than he did before of the -consistency of a complete character; that by approaching it -in this way, we may at least get a glimmering of why the -poet who praised his lord the sun, often hid himself in a -dark cavern, of why the saint who was so gentle with his -Brother the Wolf was so harsh to his Brother the Ass (as he -nicknamed his own body), of why the troubadour who said that -love set his heart on fire separated himself from women, of -why the singer who rejoiced in the strength and gaiety of -the fire deliberately rolled himself in the snow, of why the -very song which cries with all the passion of a pagan, -"Praised be God for our Sister, Mother Earth, which brings -forth varied fruits and grass and glowing flowers," ends -almost with the words "Praised be God for our Sister, the -death of the body." - -Renan and Matthew Arnold failed utterly at this test. They -were content to follow Francis with their praises until they -were stopped by their prejudices; the stubborn prejudices of -the sceptic. The moment Francis began to do something they -did not understand or did not like, they did not try to -understand it, still less to like it; they simply turned -their backs on the whole business and "walked no more with -him." No man will get any further along a path of historical -enquiry in that fashion. These sceptics are really driven to -drop the whole subject in despair, to leave the most simple -and sincere of all historical characters as a mass of -contradictions, to be praised on the principle of the -curate's egg. Arnold refers to the asceticism of Alverno -almost hurriedly, as if it were an unlucky but undeniable -blot on the beauty of the story; or rather as if it were a -pitiable break-down and bathos at the end of the story. Now -this is simply to be stone-blind to the whole point of any -story. To represent Mount Alverno as the mere collapse of -Francis is exactly like representing Mount Calvary as the -mere collapse of Christ. Those mountains are mountains, -whatever else they are, and it is nonsense to say (like the -Red Queen) that they are comparative hollows or negative -holes in the ground. They were quite manifestly meant to be -culminations and landmarks. To treat the Stigmata as a sort -of scandal, to be touched on tenderly but with pain, is -exactly like treating the original five wounds of Jesus -Christ as five blots on His character. You may dislike the -idea of asceticism; you may dislike equally the idea of -martyrdom; for that matter you may have an honest and -natural dislike of the whole conception of sacrifice -symbolised by the cross. But if it is an intelligent -dislike, you will still retain the capacity for seeing the -point of a story; of the story of a martyr or even the story -of a monk. You will not be able rationally to read the -Gospel and regard the Crucifixion as an afterthought or an -anti-climax or an accident in the life of Christ; it is -obviously the point of the story like the point of a sword, -the sword that pierced the heart of the Mother of God. - -And you will not be able rationally to read the story of a -man presented as a Mirror of Christ without understanding -his final phase as a Man of Sorrows, and at least -artistically appreciating the appropriateness of his -receiving, in a cloud of mystery and isolation, inflicted by -no human hand, the unhealed everlasting wounds that heal the -world. - -The practical reconciliation of the gaiety and austerity I -must leave the story itself to suggest. But since I have -mentioned Matthew Arnold and Renan and the rationalistic -admirers of St. Francis, I will here give the hint of what -it seems to me most advisable for such readers to keep in -mind. These distinguished writers found things like the -Stigmata a stumbling-block because to them a religion was a -philosophy. It was an impersonal thing; and it is only the -most personal passion that provides here an approximate -earthly parallel. A man will not roll in the snow for a -stream of tendency by which all things fulfil the law of -their being. He will not go without food in the name of -something, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness. He -will do things like this, or pretty nearly like this, under -quite a different impulse. He will do these things when he -is in love. The first fact to realise about St. Francis is -involved in the first fact with which his story starts; that -when he said from the first that he was a Troubadour, and -said later that he was a Troubadour of a newer and nobler -romance, he was not using a mere metaphor, but understood -himself much better than the scholars understand him. He -was, to the last agonies of asceticism, a Troubadour. He was -a Lover. He was a lover of God and he was really and truly a -lover of men; possibly a much rarer mystical vocation. A -lover of men is very nearly the opposite of a -philanthropist; indeed the pedantry of the Greek word -carries something like a satire on itself. A philanthropist -may be said to love anthropoids. But as St. Francis did not -love humanity but men, so he did not love Christianity but -Christ. Say, if you think so, that he was a lunatic loving -an imaginary person; but an imaginary person, not an -imaginary idea. And for the modern reader the clue to the -asceticism and all the rest can best be found in the stories -of lovers when they seemed to be rather like lunatics. Tell -it as the tale of one of the Troubadours, and the wild -things he would do for his lady, and the whole of the modern -puzzle disappears. In such a romance there would be no -contradiction between the poet gathering flowers in the sun -and enduring a freezing vigil in the snow, between his -praising all earthly and bodily beauty and then refusing to -eat, between his glorifying gold and purple and perversely -going in rags, between his showing pathetically a hunger for -a happy life and a thirst for a heroic death. All these -riddles would easily be resolved in the simplicity of any -noble love; only this was so noble a love that nine men out -of ten have hardly even heard of it. We shall see later that -this parallel of the earthly lover has a very practical -relation to the problems of his life, as to his relations -with his father and with his friends and their families. The -modern reader will almost always find that if he could only -feel this kind of love as a reality, he could feel this kind -of extravagance as a romance. But I only note it here as a -preliminary point because, though it is very far from being -the final truth in the matter, it is the best approach to -it. The reader cannot even begin to see the sense of a story -that may well seem to him a very wild one, until he -understands that to this great mystic his religion was not a -thing like a theory but a thing like a love-affair. And the -only purpose of this prefatory chapter is to explain the -limits of this present book; which is only addressed to that -part of the modern world which finds in St. Francis a -certain modern difficulty; which can admire him yet hardly -accept him, or which can appreciate the saint almost without -the sanctity. And my only claim even to attempt such a task -is that I myself have for so long been in various stages of -such a condition. Many thousand things that I now partly -comprehend I should have thought utterly incomprehensible, -many things I now hold sacred I should have scouted as -utterly superstitious, many things that seem to me lucid and -enlightened now they are seen from the inside I should -honestly have called dark and barbarous seen from the -outside, when long ago in those days of boyhood my fancy -first caught fire with the glory of Francis of Assisi. I too -have lived in Arcady; but even in Arcady I met one walking -in a brown habit who loved the woods better than Pan. The -figure in the brown habit stands above the hearth in the -room where I write, and alone among many such images, at no -stage of my pilgrimage has he ever seemed to me a stranger. -There is something of harmony between the hearth and the -firelight and my own first pleasure in his words about his -brother fire; for he stands far enough back in my memory to -mingle with all those more domestic dreams of the first -days. Even the fantastic shadows thrown by fire make a sort -of shadow pantomime that belongs to the nursery; yet the -shadows were even then the shadows of his favourite beasts -and birds, as he saw them, grotesque but haloed with the -love of God. His Brother Wolf and Brother Sheep seemed then -almost like the Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit of a more Christian -Uncle Remus. I have come slowly to see many and more -marvellous aspects of such a man, but I have never lost that -one. His figure stands on a sort of bridge connecting my -boyhood with my conversion to many other things; for the -romance of his religion had penetrated even the rationalism -of that vague Victorian time. In so far as I have had this -experience, I may be able to lead others a little further -along that road; but only a very little further. Nobody -knows better than I do now that it is a road upon which -angels might fear to tread; but though I am certain of -failure I am not altogether overcome by fear; for he -suffered fools gladly. +Third, he may try to do what I have tried to do here; and, as I have +already suggested, the course has peculiar problems of its own. The +writer may put himself in the position of the ordinary modern outsider +and enquirer; as indeed the present writer is still largely and was once +entirely in that position. He may start from the standpoint of a man who +already admires St. Francis, but only for those things which such a man +finds admirable. In other words he may assume that the reader is at +least as enlightened as Renan or Matthew Arnold; but in the light of +that enlightenment he may try to illuminate what Renan and Matthew +Arnold left dark. He may try to use what is understood to explain what +is not understood. He may say to the modern English reader: "Here is an +historical character which is admittedly attractive to many of us +already, by its gaiety, its romantic imagination, its spiritual courtesy +and camaraderie, but which also contains elements (evidently equally +sincere and emphatic) which seem to you quite remote and repulsive. But +after all, this man was a man and not half a dozen men. What seems +inconsistency to you did not seem inconsistency to him. Let us see +whether we can understand, with the help of the existing understanding, +these other things that seem now to be doubly dark, by their intrinsic +gloom and their ironic contrast." I do not mean, of course, that I can +really reach such a psychological completeness in this crude and curt +outline. But I mean that this is the only controversial condition that I +shall here assume; that I am dealing with the sympathetic outsider. I +shall not assume any more or any less agreement than this. A materialist +may not care whether the inconsistencies are reconciled or not. A +Catholic may not see any inconsistencies to reconcile. But I am here +addressing the ordinary modern man, sympathetic but sceptical, and I can +only rather hazily hope that, by approaching the great saint's story +through what is evidently picturesque and popular about it, I may at +least leave the reader understanding a little more than he did before of +the consistency of a complete character; that by approaching it in this +way, we may at least get a glimmering of why the poet who praised his +lord the sun, often hid himself in a dark cavern, of why the saint who +was so gentle with his Brother the Wolf was so harsh to his Brother the +Ass (as he nicknamed his own body), of why the troubadour who said that +love set his heart on fire separated himself from women, of why the +singer who rejoiced in the strength and gaiety of the fire deliberately +rolled himself in the snow, of why the very song which cries with all +the passion of a pagan, "Praised be God for our Sister, Mother Earth, +which brings forth varied fruits and grass and glowing flowers," ends +almost with the words "Praised be God for our Sister, the death of the +body." + +Renan and Matthew Arnold failed utterly at this test. They were content +to follow Francis with their praises until they were stopped by their +prejudices; the stubborn prejudices of the sceptic. The moment Francis +began to do something they did not understand or did not like, they did +not try to understand it, still less to like it; they simply turned +their backs on the whole business and "walked no more with him." No man +will get any further along a path of historical enquiry in that fashion. +These sceptics are really driven to drop the whole subject in despair, +to leave the most simple and sincere of all historical characters as a +mass of contradictions, to be praised on the principle of the curate's +egg. Arnold refers to the asceticism of Alverno almost hurriedly, as if +it were an unlucky but undeniable blot on the beauty of the story; or +rather as if it were a pitiable break-down and bathos at the end of the +story. Now this is simply to be stone-blind to the whole point of any +story. To represent Mount Alverno as the mere collapse of Francis is +exactly like representing Mount Calvary as the mere collapse of Christ. +Those mountains are mountains, whatever else they are, and it is +nonsense to say (like the Red Queen) that they are comparative hollows +or negative holes in the ground. They were quite manifestly meant to be +culminations and landmarks. To treat the Stigmata as a sort of scandal, +to be touched on tenderly but with pain, is exactly like treating the +original five wounds of Jesus Christ as five blots on His character. You +may dislike the idea of asceticism; you may dislike equally the idea of +martyrdom; for that matter you may have an honest and natural dislike of +the whole conception of sacrifice symbolised by the cross. But if it is +an intelligent dislike, you will still retain the capacity for seeing +the point of a story; of the story of a martyr or even the story of a +monk. You will not be able rationally to read the Gospel and regard the +Crucifixion as an afterthought or an anti-climax or an accident in the +life of Christ; it is obviously the point of the story like the point of +a sword, the sword that pierced the heart of the Mother of God. + +And you will not be able rationally to read the story of a man presented +as a Mirror of Christ without understanding his final phase as a Man of +Sorrows, and at least artistically appreciating the appropriateness of +his receiving, in a cloud of mystery and isolation, inflicted by no +human hand, the unhealed everlasting wounds that heal the world. + +The practical reconciliation of the gaiety and austerity I must leave +the story itself to suggest. But since I have mentioned Matthew Arnold +and Renan and the rationalistic admirers of St. Francis, I will here +give the hint of what it seems to me most advisable for such readers to +keep in mind. These distinguished writers found things like the Stigmata +a stumbling-block because to them a religion was a philosophy. It was an +impersonal thing; and it is only the most personal passion that provides +here an approximate earthly parallel. A man will not roll in the snow +for a stream of tendency by which all things fulfil the law of their +being. He will not go without food in the name of something, not +ourselves, that makes for righteousness. He will do things like this, or +pretty nearly like this, under quite a different impulse. He will do +these things when he is in love. The first fact to realise about +St. Francis is involved in the first fact with which his story starts; +that when he said from the first that he was a Troubadour, and said +later that he was a Troubadour of a newer and nobler romance, he was not +using a mere metaphor, but understood himself much better than the +scholars understand him. He was, to the last agonies of asceticism, a +Troubadour. He was a Lover. He was a lover of God and he was really and +truly a lover of men; possibly a much rarer mystical vocation. A lover +of men is very nearly the opposite of a philanthropist; indeed the +pedantry of the Greek word carries something like a satire on itself. A +philanthropist may be said to love anthropoids. But as St. Francis did +not love humanity but men, so he did not love Christianity but Christ. +Say, if you think so, that he was a lunatic loving an imaginary person; +but an imaginary person, not an imaginary idea. And for the modern +reader the clue to the asceticism and all the rest can best be found in +the stories of lovers when they seemed to be rather like lunatics. Tell +it as the tale of one of the Troubadours, and the wild things he would +do for his lady, and the whole of the modern puzzle disappears. In such +a romance there would be no contradiction between the poet gathering +flowers in the sun and enduring a freezing vigil in the snow, between +his praising all earthly and bodily beauty and then refusing to eat, +between his glorifying gold and purple and perversely going in rags, +between his showing pathetically a hunger for a happy life and a thirst +for a heroic death. All these riddles would easily be resolved in the +simplicity of any noble love; only this was so noble a love that nine +men out of ten have hardly even heard of it. We shall see later that +this parallel of the earthly lover has a very practical relation to the +problems of his life, as to his relations with his father and with his +friends and their families. The modern reader will almost always find +that if he could only feel this kind of love as a reality, he could feel +this kind of extravagance as a romance. But I only note it here as a +preliminary point because, though it is very far from being the final +truth in the matter, it is the best approach to it. The reader cannot +even begin to see the sense of a story that may well seem to him a very +wild one, until he understands that to this great mystic his religion +was not a thing like a theory but a thing like a love-affair. And the +only purpose of this prefatory chapter is to explain the limits of this +present book; which is only addressed to that part of the modern world +which finds in St. Francis a certain modern difficulty; which can admire +him yet hardly accept him, or which can appreciate the saint almost +without the sanctity. And my only claim even to attempt such a task is +that I myself have for so long been in various stages of such a +condition. Many thousand things that I now partly comprehend I should +have thought utterly incomprehensible, many things I now hold sacred I +should have scouted as utterly superstitious, many things that seem to +me lucid and enlightened now they are seen from the inside I should +honestly have called dark and barbarous seen from the outside, when long +ago in those days of boyhood my fancy first caught fire with the glory +of Francis of Assisi. I too have lived in Arcady; but even in Arcady I +met one walking in a brown habit who loved the woods better than Pan. +The figure in the brown habit stands above the hearth in the room where +I write, and alone among many such images, at no stage of my pilgrimage +has he ever seemed to me a stranger. There is something of harmony +between the hearth and the firelight and my own first pleasure in his +words about his brother fire; for he stands far enough back in my memory +to mingle with all those more domestic dreams of the first days. Even +the fantastic shadows thrown by fire make a sort of shadow pantomime +that belongs to the nursery; yet the shadows were even then the shadows +of his favourite beasts and birds, as he saw them, grotesque but haloed +with the love of God. His Brother Wolf and Brother Sheep seemed then +almost like the Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit of a more Christian Uncle +Remus. I have come slowly to see many and more marvellous aspects of +such a man, but I have never lost that one. His figure stands on a sort +of bridge connecting my boyhood with my conversion to many other things; +for the romance of his religion had penetrated even the rationalism of +that vague Victorian time. In so far as I have had this experience, I +may be able to lead others a little further along that road; but only a +very little further. Nobody knows better than I do now that it is a road +upon which angels might fear to tread; but though I am certain of +failure I am not altogether overcome by fear; for he suffered fools +gladly. # The World St. Francis Found -The modern innovation which has substituted journalism for -history, or for that tradition that is the gossip of -history, has had at least one definite effect. It has -insured that everybody should only hear the end of every -story. Journalists are in the habit of printing above the -very last chapters of their serial stories (when the hero -and heroine are just about to embrace in the last chapter, -as only an unfathomable perversity prevented them from doing -in the first) the rather misleading words, "You can begin -this story here." But even this is not a complete parallel; -for the journals do give some sort of a summary of the -story, while they never give anything remotely resembling a -summary of the history. Newspapers not only deal with news, -but they deal with everything as if it were entirely new. -Tutankhamen, for instance, was entirely new. It is exactly -in the same fashion that we read that Admiral Bangs has been -shot, which is the first intimation we have that he has ever -been born. There is something singularly significant in the -use which journalism makes of its stores of biography. It -never thinks of publishing the life until it is publishing -the death. As it deals with individuals it deals with -institutions and ideas. After the Great War our public began -to be told of all sorts of nations being emancipated. It had -never been told a word about their being enslaved. We were -called upon to judge of the justice of the settlements, when -we had never been allowed to hear of the very existence of -the quarrels. People would think it pedantic to talk about -the Serbian epics and they prefer to speak in plain -every-day modern language about the Yugo-Slavonic -international new diplomacy; and they are quite excited -about something they call CzechoSlovakia without apparently -having ever heard of Bohemia. Things that are as old as -Europe are regarded as more recent than the very latest -claims pegged out on the prairies of America. It is very -exciting; like the last act of a play to people who have -only come into the theatre just before the curtain falls. -But it does not conduce exactly to knowing what it is all -about. To those content with the mere fact of a pistol-shot -or a passionate embrace, such a leisurely manner of -patronising the drama may be recommended. To those tormented -by a merely intellectual curiosity about who is kissing or -killing whom, and why, it is unsatisfactory. - -Most modern history, especially in England, suffers from the -same imperfection as journalism. At best it only tells half -of the history of Christendom; and that the second half -without the first half. Men for whom reason begins with the -Revival of Learning, men for whom religion begins with the -Reformation, can never give a complete account of anything, -for they have to start with institutions whose origin they -cannot explain, or generally even imagine. Just as we hear -of the admiral being shot but have never heard of his being -born, so we all heard a great deal about the dissolution of -the monasteries, but we heard next to nothing about the -creation of the monasteries. Now this sort of history would -be hopelessly insufficient, even for an intelligent man who -hated the monasteries. It is hopelessly insufficient in -connection with' institutions that many intelligent men do -in a quite healthy spirit hate. For instance, it is possible -that some of us have occasionally seen some mention, by our -learned leader-writers, of an obscure institution called the -Spanish Inquisition. Well, it really is an obscure -institution, according to them and the histories they read. -It is obscure because its origin is obscure. Protestant -history simply begins with the horrible thing in possession, -as the pantomime begins with the demon king in the goblin -kitchen. It is likely enough that it was, especially towards -the end, a horrible thing that might be haunted by demons; -but if we say this was so, we have no notion why it was so. -To understand the Spanish Inquisition it would be necessary -to discover two things that we have never dreamed of -bothering about; what Spain was and what an Inquisition was. -The former would bring in the whole great question about the -Crusade against the Moors; and by what heroic chivalry a -European nation freed itself of an alien domination from -Africa. The latter would bring in the whole business of the -other Crusade against the Albigensians, and why men loved -and hated that nihilistic vision from Asia. Unless we -understand that there was in these things originally the -rush and romance of a Crusade, we cannot understand how they -came to deceive men or drag them on towards evil. The -Crusaders doubtless abused their victory, but there was a -victory to abuse. And where there is victory there is valour -in the field and popularity in the forum. There is some sort -of enthusiasm that encourages excesses or covers faults. For -instance, I for one have maintained from very early days the -responsibility of the English for their atrocious treatment -of the Irish. But it would be quite unfair to the English to -describe even the devilry of '98 and leave out altogether -all mention of the war with Napoleon. It would be unjust to -suggest that the English mind was bent on nothing but the -death of Emmett, when it was more probably full of the glory -of the death of Nelson. Unfortunately '98 was very far from -being the last date of such dirty work; and only a few years -ago our politicians started trying to rule by random robbing -and killing, while gently remonstrating with the Irish for -their memory of old unhappy far-off things and battles long -ago. But however badly we may think of the Black-and-Tan -business, it would be unjust to forget that most of us were -not thinking of Black-and-Tan but of khaki; and that khaki -had just then a noble and national connotation covering many -things. To write of the war in Ireland and leave out the war -against Prussia, and the English sincerity about it, would -be unjust to the English. So to talk about the -torture-engine as if it had been a hideous toy is unjust to -the Spanish. It does not tell sensibly from the start the -story of what the Spaniard did, and why. We may concede to -our contemporaries that in any case it is not a story that -ends well. We do not insist that in their version it should -begin well. What we complain of is that in their version it -does not begin at all. They are only in at the death; or -even, like Lord Tom Noddy, too late for the hanging. It is -quite true that it was sometimes more horrible than any -hanging; but they only gather, so to speak, the very ashes -of the ashes; the fag-end of the faggot. - -The case of the Inquisition is here taken at random, for it -is one among any number illustrating the same thing; and not -because it is especially connected with St. Francis, in -whatever sense it may have been connected with St. Dominic. -It may well be suggested later indeed that St. Francis is -unintelligible, just as St. Dominic is unintelligible, -unless we do understand something of what the thirteenth -century meant by heresy and a crusade. But for the moment I -use it as a lesser example for a much larger purpose. It is -to point out that to begin the story of St. Francis with the -birth of St. Francis would be to miss the whole point of the -story, or rather not to tell the story at all. And it is to -suggest that the modern tail-foremost type of journalistic -history perpetually fails us. We learn about reformers -without knowing what they had to reform, about rebels -without a notion of what they rebelled against, of memorials -that are not connected with any memory and restorations of -things that had apparently never existed before. Even at the -expense of this chapter appearing disproportionate, it is -necessary to say something about the great movements that -led up to the entrance of the founder of the Franciscans. It -may seem to mean describing a world, or even a universe, in -order to describe a man. It will inevitably mean that the -world or the universe will be described with a few desperate -generalisations in a few abrupt sentences. But so far from -its meaning that we see a very small figure under so large a -sky, it will mean that we must measure the sky before we can -begin to measure the towering stature of the man. - -And this phrase alone brings me to the preliminary -suggestions that seem necessary before even a slight sketch -of the life of St. Francis. It is necessary to realise, in -however rude and elementary a fashion, into what sort of a -world St. Francis entered and what has been the history of -that world, at least in so far as it affected him. It is -necessary to have, if only in a few sentences, a sort of -preface in the form of an Outline of History, if we may -borrow the phrase of Mr. Wells. In the case of Mr. Wells -himself, it is evident that the distinguished novelist -suffered the same disadvantage as if he had been obliged to -write a novel of which he hated the hero. To write history -and hate Rome, both pagan and papal, is practically to hate -nearly everything that has happened. It comes very near to -hating humanity on purely humanitarian grounds. To dislike -both the priest and the soldier, both the laurels of the -warrior and the lilies of the saint, is to suffer a division -from the mass of mankind for which not all the dexterities -of the finest and most flexible of modern intelligences can -compensate. A much wider sympathy is needed for the -historical setting of St. Francis, himself both a soldier -and a saint. I will therefore conclude this chapter with a -few generalisations about the world that St. Francis found. - -Men will not believe because they will not broaden their -minds. As a matter of individual belief, I should of course -express it by saying that they are not sufficiently catholic -to be Catholic. But I am not going to discuss here the -doctrinal truths of Christianity, but simply the broad -historical fact of Christianity, as it might appear to a -really enlightened and imaginative person even if he were -not a Christian. What I mean at the moment is that the -majority of doubts are made out of details. In the course of -random reading a man comes across a pagan custom that -strikes him as picturesque or a Christian action that -strikes him as cruel; but he does not enlarge his mind -sufficiently to see the main truth about pagan custom or the -Christian reaction against it. Until we understand, not -necessarily in detail, but in their big bulk and proportion -that pagan progress and that Christian reaction, we cannot -really understand the point of history at which St. Francis +The modern innovation which has substituted journalism for history, or +for that tradition that is the gossip of history, has had at least one +definite effect. It has insured that everybody should only hear the end +of every story. Journalists are in the habit of printing above the very +last chapters of their serial stories (when the hero and heroine are +just about to embrace in the last chapter, as only an unfathomable +perversity prevented them from doing in the first) the rather misleading +words, "You can begin this story here." But even this is not a complete +parallel; for the journals do give some sort of a summary of the story, +while they never give anything remotely resembling a summary of the +history. Newspapers not only deal with news, but they deal with +everything as if it were entirely new. Tutankhamen, for instance, was +entirely new. It is exactly in the same fashion that we read that +Admiral Bangs has been shot, which is the first intimation we have that +he has ever been born. There is something singularly significant in the +use which journalism makes of its stores of biography. It never thinks +of publishing the life until it is publishing the death. As it deals +with individuals it deals with institutions and ideas. After the Great +War our public began to be told of all sorts of nations being +emancipated. It had never been told a word about their being enslaved. +We were called upon to judge of the justice of the settlements, when we +had never been allowed to hear of the very existence of the quarrels. +People would think it pedantic to talk about the Serbian epics and they +prefer to speak in plain every-day modern language about the +Yugo-Slavonic international new diplomacy; and they are quite excited +about something they call CzechoSlovakia without apparently having ever +heard of Bohemia. Things that are as old as Europe are regarded as more +recent than the very latest claims pegged out on the prairies of +America. It is very exciting; like the last act of a play to people who +have only come into the theatre just before the curtain falls. But it +does not conduce exactly to knowing what it is all about. To those +content with the mere fact of a pistol-shot or a passionate embrace, +such a leisurely manner of patronising the drama may be recommended. To +those tormented by a merely intellectual curiosity about who is kissing +or killing whom, and why, it is unsatisfactory. + +Most modern history, especially in England, suffers from the same +imperfection as journalism. At best it only tells half of the history of +Christendom; and that the second half without the first half. Men for +whom reason begins with the Revival of Learning, men for whom religion +begins with the Reformation, can never give a complete account of +anything, for they have to start with institutions whose origin they +cannot explain, or generally even imagine. Just as we hear of the +admiral being shot but have never heard of his being born, so we all +heard a great deal about the dissolution of the monasteries, but we +heard next to nothing about the creation of the monasteries. Now this +sort of history would be hopelessly insufficient, even for an +intelligent man who hated the monasteries. It is hopelessly insufficient +in connection with' institutions that many intelligent men do in a quite +healthy spirit hate. For instance, it is possible that some of us have +occasionally seen some mention, by our learned leader-writers, of an +obscure institution called the Spanish Inquisition. Well, it really is +an obscure institution, according to them and the histories they read. +It is obscure because its origin is obscure. Protestant history simply +begins with the horrible thing in possession, as the pantomime begins +with the demon king in the goblin kitchen. It is likely enough that it +was, especially towards the end, a horrible thing that might be haunted +by demons; but if we say this was so, we have no notion why it was so. +To understand the Spanish Inquisition it would be necessary to discover +two things that we have never dreamed of bothering about; what Spain was +and what an Inquisition was. The former would bring in the whole great +question about the Crusade against the Moors; and by what heroic +chivalry a European nation freed itself of an alien domination from +Africa. The latter would bring in the whole business of the other +Crusade against the Albigensians, and why men loved and hated that +nihilistic vision from Asia. Unless we understand that there was in +these things originally the rush and romance of a Crusade, we cannot +understand how they came to deceive men or drag them on towards evil. +The Crusaders doubtless abused their victory, but there was a victory to +abuse. And where there is victory there is valour in the field and +popularity in the forum. There is some sort of enthusiasm that +encourages excesses or covers faults. For instance, I for one have +maintained from very early days the responsibility of the English for +their atrocious treatment of the Irish. But it would be quite unfair to +the English to describe even the devilry of '98 and leave out altogether +all mention of the war with Napoleon. It would be unjust to suggest that +the English mind was bent on nothing but the death of Emmett, when it +was more probably full of the glory of the death of Nelson. +Unfortunately '98 was very far from being the last date of such dirty +work; and only a few years ago our politicians started trying to rule by +random robbing and killing, while gently remonstrating with the Irish +for their memory of old unhappy far-off things and battles long ago. But +however badly we may think of the Black-and-Tan business, it would be +unjust to forget that most of us were not thinking of Black-and-Tan but +of khaki; and that khaki had just then a noble and national connotation +covering many things. To write of the war in Ireland and leave out the +war against Prussia, and the English sincerity about it, would be unjust +to the English. So to talk about the torture-engine as if it had been a +hideous toy is unjust to the Spanish. It does not tell sensibly from the +start the story of what the Spaniard did, and why. We may concede to our +contemporaries that in any case it is not a story that ends well. We do +not insist that in their version it should begin well. What we complain +of is that in their version it does not begin at all. They are only in +at the death; or even, like Lord Tom Noddy, too late for the hanging. It +is quite true that it was sometimes more horrible than any hanging; but +they only gather, so to speak, the very ashes of the ashes; the fag-end +of the faggot. + +The case of the Inquisition is here taken at random, for it is one among +any number illustrating the same thing; and not because it is especially +connected with St. Francis, in whatever sense it may have been connected +with St. Dominic. It may well be suggested later indeed that St. Francis +is unintelligible, just as St. Dominic is unintelligible, unless we do +understand something of what the thirteenth century meant by heresy and +a crusade. But for the moment I use it as a lesser example for a much +larger purpose. It is to point out that to begin the story of +St. Francis with the birth of St. Francis would be to miss the whole +point of the story, or rather not to tell the story at all. And it is to +suggest that the modern tail-foremost type of journalistic history +perpetually fails us. We learn about reformers without knowing what they +had to reform, about rebels without a notion of what they rebelled +against, of memorials that are not connected with any memory and +restorations of things that had apparently never existed before. Even at +the expense of this chapter appearing disproportionate, it is necessary +to say something about the great movements that led up to the entrance +of the founder of the Franciscans. It may seem to mean describing a +world, or even a universe, in order to describe a man. It will +inevitably mean that the world or the universe will be described with a +few desperate generalisations in a few abrupt sentences. But so far from +its meaning that we see a very small figure under so large a sky, it +will mean that we must measure the sky before we can begin to measure +the towering stature of the man. + +And this phrase alone brings me to the preliminary suggestions that seem +necessary before even a slight sketch of the life of St. Francis. It is +necessary to realise, in however rude and elementary a fashion, into +what sort of a world St. Francis entered and what has been the history +of that world, at least in so far as it affected him. It is necessary to +have, if only in a few sentences, a sort of preface in the form of an +Outline of History, if we may borrow the phrase of Mr. Wells. In the +case of Mr. Wells himself, it is evident that the distinguished novelist +suffered the same disadvantage as if he had been obliged to write a +novel of which he hated the hero. To write history and hate Rome, both +pagan and papal, is practically to hate nearly everything that has +happened. It comes very near to hating humanity on purely humanitarian +grounds. To dislike both the priest and the soldier, both the laurels of +the warrior and the lilies of the saint, is to suffer a division from +the mass of mankind for which not all the dexterities of the finest and +most flexible of modern intelligences can compensate. A much wider +sympathy is needed for the historical setting of St. Francis, himself +both a soldier and a saint. I will therefore conclude this chapter with +a few generalisations about the world that St. Francis found. + +Men will not believe because they will not broaden their minds. As a +matter of individual belief, I should of course express it by saying +that they are not sufficiently catholic to be Catholic. But I am not +going to discuss here the doctrinal truths of Christianity, but simply +the broad historical fact of Christianity, as it might appear to a +really enlightened and imaginative person even if he were not a +Christian. What I mean at the moment is that the majority of doubts are +made out of details. In the course of random reading a man comes across +a pagan custom that strikes him as picturesque or a Christian action +that strikes him as cruel; but he does not enlarge his mind sufficiently +to see the main truth about pagan custom or the Christian reaction +against it. Until we understand, not necessarily in detail, but in their +big bulk and proportion that pagan progress and that Christian reaction, +we cannot really understand the point of history at which St. Francis appears or what his great popular mission was all about. -Now everybody knows, I imagine, that the twelfth and -thirteenth centuries were an awakening of the world. They -were a fresh flowering of culture and the creative arts -after a long spell of much sterner and even more sterile -experience which we call the Dark Ages. They may be called -an emancipation; they were certainly an end; an end of what -may at least seem a harsher and more inhuman time. But what -was it that was ended ? From what was it that men were -emancipated? That is where there is a real collision and -point at issue between the different philosophies of -history. On the merely external and secular side, it has -been truly said that men awoke from a sleep; but there had -been dreams in that sleep of a mystical and sometimes of a -monstrous kind. In that rationalistic routine into which -most modern historians have fallen, it is considered enough -to say that they were emancipated from mere savage -superstition and advanced towards mere civilised -enlightenment. Now this is the big blunder that stands as a -stumbling-block at the very beginning of our story. Anybody -who supposes that the Dark Ages were plain darkness and -nothing else, and that the dawn of the thirteenth century -was plain daylight and nothing else, will not be able to -make head or tail of the human story of St. Francis of -Assisi. The truth is that the joy of St. Francis and his -Jongleurs de Dieu was not merely an awakening. It was -something which cannot be understood without understanding -their own mystical creed. The end of the Dark Ages was not -merely the end of a sleep. It was certainly not merely the -end of a superstitious enslavement. It was the end of -something belonging to a quite definite but quite different -order of ideas. - -It was the end of a penance; or, if it be preferred, a -purgation. It marked the moment when a certain spiritual -expiation had been finally worked out and certain spiritual -diseases had been finally expelled from the system. They had -been expelled by an era of asceticism, which was the only -thing that could have expelled them. Christianity had -entered the world to cure the world; and she had cured it in -the only way in which it could be cured. - -Viewed merely in an external and experimental fashion, the -whole of the high civilisation of antiquity had ended in the -learning of a certain lesson; that is, in its conversion to -Christianity. But that lesson was a psychological fact as -well as a theological faith. That pagan civilisation had -indeed been a very high civilisation. It would not weaken -our thesis, it might even strengthen it, to say that it was -the highest that humanity ever reached. It had discovered -its still unrivalled arts of poetry and plastic -representation; it had discovered its own permanent -political ideals; it had discovered its own clear system of -logic and of language. But above all, it had discovered its +Now everybody knows, I imagine, that the twelfth and thirteenth +centuries were an awakening of the world. They were a fresh flowering of +culture and the creative arts after a long spell of much sterner and +even more sterile experience which we call the Dark Ages. They may be +called an emancipation; they were certainly an end; an end of what may +at least seem a harsher and more inhuman time. But what was it that was +ended ? From what was it that men were emancipated? That is where there +is a real collision and point at issue between the different +philosophies of history. On the merely external and secular side, it has +been truly said that men awoke from a sleep; but there had been dreams +in that sleep of a mystical and sometimes of a monstrous kind. In that +rationalistic routine into which most modern historians have fallen, it +is considered enough to say that they were emancipated from mere savage +superstition and advanced towards mere civilised enlightenment. Now this +is the big blunder that stands as a stumbling-block at the very +beginning of our story. Anybody who supposes that the Dark Ages were +plain darkness and nothing else, and that the dawn of the thirteenth +century was plain daylight and nothing else, will not be able to make +head or tail of the human story of St. Francis of Assisi. The truth is +that the joy of St. Francis and his Jongleurs de Dieu was not merely an +awakening. It was something which cannot be understood without +understanding their own mystical creed. The end of the Dark Ages was not +merely the end of a sleep. It was certainly not merely the end of a +superstitious enslavement. It was the end of something belonging to a +quite definite but quite different order of ideas. + +It was the end of a penance; or, if it be preferred, a purgation. It +marked the moment when a certain spiritual expiation had been finally +worked out and certain spiritual diseases had been finally expelled from +the system. They had been expelled by an era of asceticism, which was +the only thing that could have expelled them. Christianity had entered +the world to cure the world; and she had cured it in the only way in +which it could be cured. + +Viewed merely in an external and experimental fashion, the whole of the +high civilisation of antiquity had ended in the learning of a certain +lesson; that is, in its conversion to Christianity. But that lesson was +a psychological fact as well as a theological faith. That pagan +civilisation had indeed been a very high civilisation. It would not +weaken our thesis, it might even strengthen it, to say that it was the +highest that humanity ever reached. It had discovered its still +unrivalled arts of poetry and plastic representation; it had discovered +its own permanent political ideals; it had discovered its own clear +system of logic and of language. But above all, it had discovered its own mistake. -That mistake was too deep to be ideally defined; the -short-hand of it is to call it the mistake of -nature-worship. It might almost as truly be called the -mistake of being natural; and it was a very natural mistake. -The Greeks, the great guides and pioneers of pagan -antiquity, started out with the idea of something splendidly -obvious and direct; the idea that if man walked straight -ahead on the high road of reason and nature, he could come -to no harm; especially if he was, as the Greek was, -eminently enlightened and intelligent. We might be so -flippant as to say that man was simply to follow his nose, -so long as it was a Greek nose. And the case of the Greeks -themselves is alone enough to illustrate the strange but -certain fatality that attends upon this fallacy. No sooner -did the Greeks themselves begin to follow their own noses -and their own notion of being natural, than the queerest -thing in history seems to have happened to them. It was much -too queer to be an easy matter to discuss. It may be -remarked that our more repulsive realists never give us the -benefit of their realism. Their studies of unsavoury -subjects never take note of the testimony which they bear to -the truths of a traditional morality. But if we had the -taste for such things, we could cite thousands of such -things as part of the case for Christian morals. And an -instance of this is found in the fact that nobody has -written, in this sense, a real moral history of the Greeks. -Nobody has seen the scale or the strangeness of the story. -The wisest men in the world set out to be natural; and the -most unnatural thing in the world was the very first thing -they did. The immediate effect of saluting the sun and the -sunny sanity of nature was a perversion spreading like a -pestilence. The greatest and even the purest philosophers -could not apparently avoid this low sort of lunacy. Why ? It -would seem simple enough for the people whose poets had -conceived Helen of Troy, whose sculptors had carved the -Venus of Milo, to remain healthy on the point. The truth is -that people who worship health cannot remain healthy. When -Man goes straight he goes crooked. When he follows his nose -he manages somehow to put his nose out of joint, or even to -cut off his nose to spite his face; and that in accordance -with something much deeper in human nature than -nature-worshippers could ever understand. It was the -discovery of that deeper thing, humanly speaking, that -constituted the conversion to Christianity. There is a bias -in man like the bias in the bowl; and Christianity was the -discovery of how to correct the bias and therefore hit the -mark. There are many who will smile at the saying; but it is -profoundly true to say that the glad good news brought by -the Gospel was the news of original sin. - -Rome rose at the expense of her Greek teachers largely -because she did not entirely consent to be taught these -tricks. She had a much more decent domestic tradition; but -she ultimately suffered from the same fallacy in her -religious tradition; which was necessarily in no small -degree the heathen tradition of nature-worship. What was the -matter with the whole heathen civilisation was that there -was nothing for the mass of men in the way of mysticism, -except that concerned with the mystery of the nameless -forces of nature, such as sex and growth and death. In the -Roman Empire also, long before the end, we find -nature-worship inevitably producing things that are against -nature. Cases like that of Nero have passed into a proverb, -when Sadism sat on a throne brazen in the broad daylight. -But the truth I mean is something much more subtle and -universal than a conventional catalogue of atrocities. What -had happened to the human imagination, as a whole, was that -the whole world was coloured by dangerous and rapidly -deteriorating passions; by natural passions becoming -unnatural passions. Thus the effect of treating sex as only -one innocent natural thing was that every other innocent -natural thing became soaked and sodden with sex. For sex -cannot be admitted to a mere equality among elementary -emotions or experiences like eating and sleeping. The moment -sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant. There is -something dangerous and disproportionate in its place in -human nature, for whatever reason; and it does really need a -special purification, and dedication. The modern talk about -sex being free like any other sense, about the body being -beautiful like any tree or flower, is either a description -of the Garden of Eden or a piece of thoroughly bad -psychology, of which the world grew weary two thousand years -ago. - -This is not to be confused with mere self-righteous -sensationalism about the wickedness of the pagan world. It -was not so much that the pagan world was wicked as that it -was good enough to realise that its paganism was becoming -wicked, or rather was on the logical high road to -wickedness. I mean that there was no future for "natural -magic"; to deepen it was only to darken it into black magic. -There was no future for it; because in the past it had only -been innocent because it was young. We might say it had only -been innocent because it was shallow. Pagans were wiser than -paganism; that is why the pagans became Christians. -Thousands of them had philosophy and family virtues and -military honour to hold them up; but by this time the purely -popular thing called religion was certainly dragging them -down. When this reaction against the evil is allowed for, it -is true to repeat that it was an evil that was ever5where. -In another and more literal sense its name was Pan. - -It was no metaphor to say that these people needed a new -heaven and a new earth; for they had really defiled their -own earth and even their own heaven. How could their case be -met by looking at the sky, when erotic legends were scrawled -in stars across it; how could they learn anything from the -love of birds and flowers after the sort of love stories -that were told of them ? It is impossible here to multiply -evidences, and one small example may stand for the rest. We -know what sort of sentimental associations are called up to -us by the phrase "a garden"; and how we think mostly of the -memory of melancholy and innocent romances, or quite as -often of some gracious maiden lady or kindly old parson -pottering under a yew hedge, perhaps in sight of a village -spire. Then, let anyone who knows a little Latin poetry -recall suddenly what would once have stood in place of the -sun-dial or the fountain, obscene and monstrous in the sun; -and of what sort was the god of their gardens. - -Nothing could purge this obsession but a religion that was -literally unearthly. It was no good telling such people to -have a natural religion full of stars and flowers; there was -not a flower or even a star that had not been stained. They -had to go into the desert where they could find no flowers -or even into the cavern where they could see no stars. Into -that desert and that cavern the highest human intellect -entered for some four centuries; and it was the very wisest -thing it could do. Nothing but the stark supernatural stood -up for its salvation; if God could not save it, certainly -the gods could not. The Early Church called the gods of -paganism devils; and the Early Church was perfectly right. -Whatever natural religion may have had to do with their -beginnings, nothing but fiends now inhabited those hollow -shrines. Pan was nothing but panic. Venus was nothing but -venereal vice. I do not mean for a moment, of course, that -all the individual pagans were of this character even to the -end; but it was as individuals that they differed from it. -Nothing distinguishes paganism from Christianity so clearly -as the fact that the individual thing called philosophy had -little or nothing to do with the social thing called -religion. Anyhow it was no good to preach natural religion -to people to whom nature had grown as unnatural as any -religion. They knew much better than we do what was the -matter with them and what sort of demons at once tempted and -tormented them; and they wrote across that great space of -history the text: "This sort goeth not out but by prayer and -fasting." - -Now the historic importance of St. Francis and the -transition from the twelfth to the thirteenth century, lies -in the fact that they marked the end of this expiation. Men -at the close of the Dark Ages may have been rude and -unlettered and unlearned in everything but wars with heathen -tribes, more barbarous than themselves, but they were clean. -They were like children; the first beginnings of their rude -arts have all the clean pleasure of children. We have to -conceive them in Europe as a whole living under little local -governments, feudal in so far as they were a survival of -fierce wars with the barbarians, often monastic and carrying -a more friendly and fatherly character, still faintly -imperial in so far as Rome still ruled as a great legend. -But in Italy something had survived more typical of the -finer spirit of antiquity; the republic. Italy was dotted -with little states, largely democratic in their ideals, and -often filled with real citizens. But the city no longer lay -open as under the Roman peace, but was pent in high walls -for defence against feudal war and all the citizens had to -be soldiers. One of these stood in a steep and striking -position on the wooded hills of Umbria; and its name was -Assisi. Out of its deep gate under its high turrets was to -come the message that was the gospel of the hour, "Your -warfare is accomplished, your iniquity is pardoned." But it -was out of all these fragmentary things of feudalism and -freedom and remains of Roman Law that there was to rise, at -the beginning of the thirteenth century, vast and almost -universal, the mighty civilisation of the Middle Ages. - -It is an exaggeration to attribute it entirely to the -inspiration of any one man, even the most original genius of -the thirteenth century. Its elementary ethics of fraternity -and fair play had never been entirely extinct and -Christendom had never been anything less than Christian. The -great truisms about justice and pity can be found in the -rudest monastic records of the barbaric transition or the -stiffest maxims of the Byzantine decline. And early in the -eleventh and twelfth centuries a larger moral movement had -clearly begun. But what may fairly be said of it is this, -that over all those first movements there was still -something of that ancient austerity that came from the long -penitential period. It was the twilight of morning; but it -was still a grey twilight. This may be illustrated by the -mere mention of two or three of these reforms before the -Franciscan reform. The monastic institution itself, of -course, was far older than all these things; indeed it was -undoubtedly almost as old as Christianity. Its counsels of -perfection had always taken the form of vows of chastity and -poverty and obedience. With these unworldly aims it had long -ago civilised a great part of the world. The monks had -taught people to plough and sow as well as to read and -write; indeed they had taught the people nearly everything -that the people knew. But it may truly be said that the -monks were severely practical, in the sense that they were -not only practical but also severe; though they were -generally severe with themselves and practical for other -people. All this early monastic movement had long ago -settled down and doubtless often deteriorated; but when we -come to the first medieval movements this sterner character -is still apparent. Three examples may be taken to illustrate -the point. - -First, the ancient social mould of slavery was already -beginning to melt. Not only was the slave turning into the -serf, who was practically free as regards his own farm and -family life, but many lords were freeing slaves and serfs -altogether. This was done under the pressure of the priests; -but especially it was done in the spirit of a penance. In -one sense, of course, any Catholic society must have an -atmosphere of penance; but I am speaking of that rather -sterner spirit of penance which had expiated the excesses of -paganism. There was about such restitutions the atmosphere -of the death-bed; as many of them doubtless were examples of -death-bed repentance. A very honest atheist with whom I once -debated made use of the expression, "Men have only been kept -in slavery by the fear of hell." As I pointed out to him, if -he had said that men had only been freed from slavery by the -fear of hell, he would at least have been referring to an -unquestionable historical fact. - -Another example was the sweeping reform of Church discipline -by Pope Gregory the Seventh. It really was a reform, -undertaken from the highest motives and having the -healthiest results; it conducted a searching inquisition -against simony or the financial corruptions of the clergy; -it insisted on a more serious and self-sacrificing ideal for -the life of a parish priest. But the very fact that this -largely took the form of making universal the obligation of -celibacy will strike the note of something which, however -noble, would seem to many to be vaguely negative. The third -example is in one sense the strongest of all. For the third -example was a war; a heroic war and for many of us a holy -war; but still something having all the stark and terrible -responsibilities of war. There is no space here to say all -that should be said about the true nature of the Crusades. -Everybody knows that in the very darkest hour of the Dark -Ages a sort of heresy had sprung up in Arabia and become a -new religion of a military but nomadic sort, invoking the -name of Mahomet. Intrinsically it had a character found in -many heresies from the Moslem to the Monist. It seemed to -the heretic a sane simplification of religion; while it -seems to the Catholic an insane simplification of religion, -because it simplifies all to a single idea and so loses the -breadth and balance of Catholicism. Anyhow its objective -character was that of a military danger to Christendom and -Christendom had struck at the very heart of it, in seeking -to reconquer the Holy Places. The great Duke Godfrey and the -first Christians who stormed Jerusalem were heroes if there -were ever any in the world; but they were the heroes of a +That mistake was too deep to be ideally defined; the short-hand of it is +to call it the mistake of nature-worship. It might almost as truly be +called the mistake of being natural; and it was a very natural mistake. +The Greeks, the great guides and pioneers of pagan antiquity, started +out with the idea of something splendidly obvious and direct; the idea +that if man walked straight ahead on the high road of reason and nature, +he could come to no harm; especially if he was, as the Greek was, +eminently enlightened and intelligent. We might be so flippant as to say +that man was simply to follow his nose, so long as it was a Greek nose. +And the case of the Greeks themselves is alone enough to illustrate the +strange but certain fatality that attends upon this fallacy. No sooner +did the Greeks themselves begin to follow their own noses and their own +notion of being natural, than the queerest thing in history seems to +have happened to them. It was much too queer to be an easy matter to +discuss. It may be remarked that our more repulsive realists never give +us the benefit of their realism. Their studies of unsavoury subjects +never take note of the testimony which they bear to the truths of a +traditional morality. But if we had the taste for such things, we could +cite thousands of such things as part of the case for Christian morals. +And an instance of this is found in the fact that nobody has written, in +this sense, a real moral history of the Greeks. Nobody has seen the +scale or the strangeness of the story. The wisest men in the world set +out to be natural; and the most unnatural thing in the world was the +very first thing they did. The immediate effect of saluting the sun and +the sunny sanity of nature was a perversion spreading like a pestilence. +The greatest and even the purest philosophers could not apparently avoid +this low sort of lunacy. Why ? It would seem simple enough for the +people whose poets had conceived Helen of Troy, whose sculptors had +carved the Venus of Milo, to remain healthy on the point. The truth is +that people who worship health cannot remain healthy. When Man goes +straight he goes crooked. When he follows his nose he manages somehow to +put his nose out of joint, or even to cut off his nose to spite his +face; and that in accordance with something much deeper in human nature +than nature-worshippers could ever understand. It was the discovery of +that deeper thing, humanly speaking, that constituted the conversion to +Christianity. There is a bias in man like the bias in the bowl; and +Christianity was the discovery of how to correct the bias and therefore +hit the mark. There are many who will smile at the saying; but it is +profoundly true to say that the glad good news brought by the Gospel was +the news of original sin. + +Rome rose at the expense of her Greek teachers largely because she did +not entirely consent to be taught these tricks. She had a much more +decent domestic tradition; but she ultimately suffered from the same +fallacy in her religious tradition; which was necessarily in no small +degree the heathen tradition of nature-worship. What was the matter with +the whole heathen civilisation was that there was nothing for the mass +of men in the way of mysticism, except that concerned with the mystery +of the nameless forces of nature, such as sex and growth and death. In +the Roman Empire also, long before the end, we find nature-worship +inevitably producing things that are against nature. Cases like that of +Nero have passed into a proverb, when Sadism sat on a throne brazen in +the broad daylight. But the truth I mean is something much more subtle +and universal than a conventional catalogue of atrocities. What had +happened to the human imagination, as a whole, was that the whole world +was coloured by dangerous and rapidly deteriorating passions; by natural +passions becoming unnatural passions. Thus the effect of treating sex as +only one innocent natural thing was that every other innocent natural +thing became soaked and sodden with sex. For sex cannot be admitted to a +mere equality among elementary emotions or experiences like eating and +sleeping. The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant. +There is something dangerous and disproportionate in its place in human +nature, for whatever reason; and it does really need a special +purification, and dedication. The modern talk about sex being free like +any other sense, about the body being beautiful like any tree or flower, +is either a description of the Garden of Eden or a piece of thoroughly +bad psychology, of which the world grew weary two thousand years ago. + +This is not to be confused with mere self-righteous sensationalism about +the wickedness of the pagan world. It was not so much that the pagan +world was wicked as that it was good enough to realise that its paganism +was becoming wicked, or rather was on the logical high road to +wickedness. I mean that there was no future for "natural magic"; to +deepen it was only to darken it into black magic. There was no future +for it; because in the past it had only been innocent because it was +young. We might say it had only been innocent because it was shallow. +Pagans were wiser than paganism; that is why the pagans became +Christians. Thousands of them had philosophy and family virtues and +military honour to hold them up; but by this time the purely popular +thing called religion was certainly dragging them down. When this +reaction against the evil is allowed for, it is true to repeat that it +was an evil that was ever5where. In another and more literal sense its +name was Pan. + +It was no metaphor to say that these people needed a new heaven and a +new earth; for they had really defiled their own earth and even their +own heaven. How could their case be met by looking at the sky, when +erotic legends were scrawled in stars across it; how could they learn +anything from the love of birds and flowers after the sort of love +stories that were told of them ? It is impossible here to multiply +evidences, and one small example may stand for the rest. We know what +sort of sentimental associations are called up to us by the phrase "a +garden"; and how we think mostly of the memory of melancholy and +innocent romances, or quite as often of some gracious maiden lady or +kindly old parson pottering under a yew hedge, perhaps in sight of a +village spire. Then, let anyone who knows a little Latin poetry recall +suddenly what would once have stood in place of the sun-dial or the +fountain, obscene and monstrous in the sun; and of what sort was the god +of their gardens. + +Nothing could purge this obsession but a religion that was literally +unearthly. It was no good telling such people to have a natural religion +full of stars and flowers; there was not a flower or even a star that +had not been stained. They had to go into the desert where they could +find no flowers or even into the cavern where they could see no stars. +Into that desert and that cavern the highest human intellect entered for +some four centuries; and it was the very wisest thing it could do. +Nothing but the stark supernatural stood up for its salvation; if God +could not save it, certainly the gods could not. The Early Church called +the gods of paganism devils; and the Early Church was perfectly right. +Whatever natural religion may have had to do with their beginnings, +nothing but fiends now inhabited those hollow shrines. Pan was nothing +but panic. Venus was nothing but venereal vice. I do not mean for a +moment, of course, that all the individual pagans were of this character +even to the end; but it was as individuals that they differed from it. +Nothing distinguishes paganism from Christianity so clearly as the fact +that the individual thing called philosophy had little or nothing to do +with the social thing called religion. Anyhow it was no good to preach +natural religion to people to whom nature had grown as unnatural as any +religion. They knew much better than we do what was the matter with them +and what sort of demons at once tempted and tormented them; and they +wrote across that great space of history the text: "This sort goeth not +out but by prayer and fasting." + +Now the historic importance of St. Francis and the transition from the +twelfth to the thirteenth century, lies in the fact that they marked the +end of this expiation. Men at the close of the Dark Ages may have been +rude and unlettered and unlearned in everything but wars with heathen +tribes, more barbarous than themselves, but they were clean. They were +like children; the first beginnings of their rude arts have all the +clean pleasure of children. We have to conceive them in Europe as a +whole living under little local governments, feudal in so far as they +were a survival of fierce wars with the barbarians, often monastic and +carrying a more friendly and fatherly character, still faintly imperial +in so far as Rome still ruled as a great legend. But in Italy something +had survived more typical of the finer spirit of antiquity; the +republic. Italy was dotted with little states, largely democratic in +their ideals, and often filled with real citizens. But the city no +longer lay open as under the Roman peace, but was pent in high walls for +defence against feudal war and all the citizens had to be soldiers. One +of these stood in a steep and striking position on the wooded hills of +Umbria; and its name was Assisi. Out of its deep gate under its high +turrets was to come the message that was the gospel of the hour, "Your +warfare is accomplished, your iniquity is pardoned." But it was out of +all these fragmentary things of feudalism and freedom and remains of +Roman Law that there was to rise, at the beginning of the thirteenth +century, vast and almost universal, the mighty civilisation of the +Middle Ages. + +It is an exaggeration to attribute it entirely to the inspiration of any +one man, even the most original genius of the thirteenth century. Its +elementary ethics of fraternity and fair play had never been entirely +extinct and Christendom had never been anything less than Christian. The +great truisms about justice and pity can be found in the rudest monastic +records of the barbaric transition or the stiffest maxims of the +Byzantine decline. And early in the eleventh and twelfth centuries a +larger moral movement had clearly begun. But what may fairly be said of +it is this, that over all those first movements there was still +something of that ancient austerity that came from the long penitential +period. It was the twilight of morning; but it was still a grey +twilight. This may be illustrated by the mere mention of two or three of +these reforms before the Franciscan reform. The monastic institution +itself, of course, was far older than all these things; indeed it was +undoubtedly almost as old as Christianity. Its counsels of perfection +had always taken the form of vows of chastity and poverty and obedience. +With these unworldly aims it had long ago civilised a great part of the +world. The monks had taught people to plough and sow as well as to read +and write; indeed they had taught the people nearly everything that the +people knew. But it may truly be said that the monks were severely +practical, in the sense that they were not only practical but also +severe; though they were generally severe with themselves and practical +for other people. All this early monastic movement had long ago settled +down and doubtless often deteriorated; but when we come to the first +medieval movements this sterner character is still apparent. Three +examples may be taken to illustrate the point. + +First, the ancient social mould of slavery was already beginning to +melt. Not only was the slave turning into the serf, who was practically +free as regards his own farm and family life, but many lords were +freeing slaves and serfs altogether. This was done under the pressure of +the priests; but especially it was done in the spirit of a penance. In +one sense, of course, any Catholic society must have an atmosphere of +penance; but I am speaking of that rather sterner spirit of penance +which had expiated the excesses of paganism. There was about such +restitutions the atmosphere of the death-bed; as many of them doubtless +were examples of death-bed repentance. A very honest atheist with whom I +once debated made use of the expression, "Men have only been kept in +slavery by the fear of hell." As I pointed out to him, if he had said +that men had only been freed from slavery by the fear of hell, he would +at least have been referring to an unquestionable historical fact. + +Another example was the sweeping reform of Church discipline by Pope +Gregory the Seventh. It really was a reform, undertaken from the highest +motives and having the healthiest results; it conducted a searching +inquisition against simony or the financial corruptions of the clergy; +it insisted on a more serious and self-sacrificing ideal for the life of +a parish priest. But the very fact that this largely took the form of +making universal the obligation of celibacy will strike the note of +something which, however noble, would seem to many to be vaguely +negative. The third example is in one sense the strongest of all. For +the third example was a war; a heroic war and for many of us a holy war; +but still something having all the stark and terrible responsibilities +of war. There is no space here to say all that should be said about the +true nature of the Crusades. Everybody knows that in the very darkest +hour of the Dark Ages a sort of heresy had sprung up in Arabia and +become a new religion of a military but nomadic sort, invoking the name +of Mahomet. Intrinsically it had a character found in many heresies from +the Moslem to the Monist. It seemed to the heretic a sane simplification +of religion; while it seems to the Catholic an insane simplification of +religion, because it simplifies all to a single idea and so loses the +breadth and balance of Catholicism. Anyhow its objective character was +that of a military danger to Christendom and Christendom had struck at +the very heart of it, in seeking to reconquer the Holy Places. The great +Duke Godfrey and the first Christians who stormed Jerusalem were heroes +if there were ever any in the world; but they were the heroes of a tragedy. -Now I have taken these two or three examples of the earlier -medieval movements in order to note about them one general -character, which refers back to the penance that followed -paganism. There is something in all these movements that is -bracing even while it is still bleak, like a wind blowing -between the clefts of the mountains. That wind, austere and -pure, of which the poet speaks, is really the spirit of the -time, for it is the wind of a world that has at last been -purified. To anyone who can appreciate atmospheres there is -something clear and clean about the atmosphere of this crude -and often harsh society. Its very lusts are clean; for they -have no longer any smell of perversion. Its very cruelties -are clean; they are not the luxurious cruelties of the -amphitheatre. They come either of a very simple horror at -blasphemy or a very simple fury at insult. Gradually against -this grey background beauty begins to appear, as something -really fresh and delicate and above all surprising. Love -returning is no longer what was once called platonic but -what is still called chivalric love. The flowers and stars -have recovered their first innocence. Fire and water are -felt to be worthy to be the brother and sister of a saint. -The purge of paganism is complete at last. - -For water itself has been washed. Fire itself has been -purified as by fire. Water is no longer that water into -which slaves were flung to feed the fishes. Fire is no -longer that fire through which children were passed to -Moloch. Flowers smell no more of the forgotten garlands -gathered in the garden of Priapus; stars stand no more as -signs of the far frigidity of gods as cold as those cold -fires. They are all like things newly made and awaiting new -names, from one who shall come to name them. Neither the -universe nor the earth have now any longer the old sinister -significance of the world. They await a new reconciliation -with man, but they are already capable of being reconciled. -Man has stripped from his soul the last rag of -nature-worship, and can return to nature. - -While it was yet twilight a figure appeared silently and -suddenly on a little hill above the city, dark against the -fading darkness. For it was the end of a long and stem -night, a night of vigil, not unvisited by stars. He stood -with his hands lifted, as in so many statues and pictures, -and about him was a burst of birds singing; and behind him -was the break of day. +Now I have taken these two or three examples of the earlier medieval +movements in order to note about them one general character, which +refers back to the penance that followed paganism. There is something in +all these movements that is bracing even while it is still bleak, like a +wind blowing between the clefts of the mountains. That wind, austere and +pure, of which the poet speaks, is really the spirit of the time, for it +is the wind of a world that has at last been purified. To anyone who can +appreciate atmospheres there is something clear and clean about the +atmosphere of this crude and often harsh society. Its very lusts are +clean; for they have no longer any smell of perversion. Its very +cruelties are clean; they are not the luxurious cruelties of the +amphitheatre. They come either of a very simple horror at blasphemy or a +very simple fury at insult. Gradually against this grey background +beauty begins to appear, as something really fresh and delicate and +above all surprising. Love returning is no longer what was once called +platonic but what is still called chivalric love. The flowers and stars +have recovered their first innocence. Fire and water are felt to be +worthy to be the brother and sister of a saint. The purge of paganism is +complete at last. + +For water itself has been washed. Fire itself has been purified as by +fire. Water is no longer that water into which slaves were flung to feed +the fishes. Fire is no longer that fire through which children were +passed to Moloch. Flowers smell no more of the forgotten garlands +gathered in the garden of Priapus; stars stand no more as signs of the +far frigidity of gods as cold as those cold fires. They are all like +things newly made and awaiting new names, from one who shall come to +name them. Neither the universe nor the earth have now any longer the +old sinister significance of the world. They await a new reconciliation +with man, but they are already capable of being reconciled. Man has +stripped from his soul the last rag of nature-worship, and can return to +nature. + +While it was yet twilight a figure appeared silently and suddenly on a +little hill above the city, dark against the fading darkness. For it was +the end of a long and stem night, a night of vigil, not unvisited by +stars. He stood with his hands lifted, as in so many statues and +pictures, and about him was a burst of birds singing; and behind him was +the break of day. # Francis the Fighter -According to one tale, which if not true would be none the -less typical, the very name of St. Francis was not so much a -name as a nickname. There would be something akin to his -familiar and popular instinct in the notion that he was -nicknamed very much as an ordinary schoolboy might be called -"Frenchy" at school. According to this version, his name was -not Francis at all but John; and his companions called him -"Francesco" or "The little Frenchman" because of his passion -for the French poetry of the Troubadours. The more probable -story is that his mother had named him John when he was born -in the absence of his father, who shortly returned from a -visit to France, where his commercial success had filled him -with so much enthusiasm for French taste and social usage -that he gave his son the new name signifying the Frank or -Frenchman In either case the name has a certain -significance, as connecting Francis from the first with what -he himself regarded as the romantic fairyland of the +According to one tale, which if not true would be none the less typical, +the very name of St. Francis was not so much a name as a nickname. There +would be something akin to his familiar and popular instinct in the +notion that he was nicknamed very much as an ordinary schoolboy might be +called "Frenchy" at school. According to this version, his name was not +Francis at all but John; and his companions called him "Francesco" or +"The little Frenchman" because of his passion for the French poetry of +the Troubadours. The more probable story is that his mother had named +him John when he was born in the absence of his father, who shortly +returned from a visit to France, where his commercial success had filled +him with so much enthusiasm for French taste and social usage that he +gave his son the new name signifying the Frank or Frenchman In either +case the name has a certain significance, as connecting Francis from the +first with what he himself regarded as the romantic fairyland of the Troubadours. -The name of the father was Pietro Bernardone and he was a -substantial citizen of the guild of the cloth merchants in -the town of Assisi. It is hard to describe the position of -such a man without some appreciation of the position of such -a guild and even of such a town. It did not exactly -correspond to anything that is meant in modern times either -by a merchant or a man of business or a tradesman, or -anything that exists under the conditions of capitalism. -Bernardone may have employed people but he was not an -employer; that is, he did not belong to an employing class -as distinct from an employed class. The person we definitely -hear of his employing is his son Francis; who, one is -tempted to guess, was about the last person that any man of -business would employ if it were convenient to employ -anybody else. He was rich, as a peasant may be rich by the -work of his own family; but he evidently expected his own -family to work in a way almost as plain as a peasant's. He -was a prominent citizen, but he belonged to a social' order -which existed to prevent him being too prominent to be a -citizen. It kept all such people on their own simple level, -and no prosperity connoted that escape from drudgery by -which in modern times the lad might have seemed to be a lord -or a fine gentleman or something other than the cloth -merchant's son. This is a rule that is proved even in the -exception. Francis was one of those people who are popular -with everybody in any case; and his guileless swagger as a -Troubadour and leader of French fashions made him a sort of -romantic ringleader among the young men of the town. He -threw money about both in extravagance and benevolence, in a -way native to a man who never, all his life, exactly -understood what money was. This moved his mother to mingled -exultation and exasperation and she said, as any tradesman's -wife might say anywhere: "He is more like a prince than our -son." But one of the earliest glimpses we have of him shows -him as simply selling bales of cloth from a booth in the -market; which his mother may or may not have believed to be -one of the habits of princes. This first glimpse of the -young man in the market is symbolic in more ways than one. -An incident occurred which is perhaps the shortest and -sharpest summary that could be given of certain curious -things which were a part of his character, long before it -was transfigured by transcendental faith. While he was -selling velvet and fine embroideries to some solid merchant -of the town, a beggar came imploring alms; evidently in a -somewhat tactless manner. It was a rude and simple society -and there were no laws to punish a starving man for -expressing his need for food, such as have been established -in a more humanitarian age; and the lack of any organised -police permitted such persons to pester the wealthy without -any great danger. But there was, I believe, in many places a -local custom of the guild forbidding outsiders to interrupt -a fair bargain; and it is possible that some such thing put -the mendicant more than normally in the wrong. Francis had -all his life a great liking for people who had been put -hopelessly in the wrong. On this occasion he seems to have -dealt with the double interview with rather a divided mind; -certainly with distraction, possibly with irritation. -Perhaps he was all the more uneasy because of the almost -fastidious standard of manners that came to him quite -naturally. All are agreed that politeness flowed from him -from the first, like one of the public fountains in such a -sunny Italian market place. He might have written among his -own poems as his own motto that verse of Mr. Belloc's +The name of the father was Pietro Bernardone and he was a substantial +citizen of the guild of the cloth merchants in the town of Assisi. It is +hard to describe the position of such a man without some appreciation of +the position of such a guild and even of such a town. It did not exactly +correspond to anything that is meant in modern times either by a +merchant or a man of business or a tradesman, or anything that exists +under the conditions of capitalism. Bernardone may have employed people +but he was not an employer; that is, he did not belong to an employing +class as distinct from an employed class. The person we definitely hear +of his employing is his son Francis; who, one is tempted to guess, was +about the last person that any man of business would employ if it were +convenient to employ anybody else. He was rich, as a peasant may be rich +by the work of his own family; but he evidently expected his own family +to work in a way almost as plain as a peasant's. He was a prominent +citizen, but he belonged to a social' order which existed to prevent him +being too prominent to be a citizen. It kept all such people on their +own simple level, and no prosperity connoted that escape from drudgery +by which in modern times the lad might have seemed to be a lord or a +fine gentleman or something other than the cloth merchant's son. This is +a rule that is proved even in the exception. Francis was one of those +people who are popular with everybody in any case; and his guileless +swagger as a Troubadour and leader of French fashions made him a sort of +romantic ringleader among the young men of the town. He threw money +about both in extravagance and benevolence, in a way native to a man who +never, all his life, exactly understood what money was. This moved his +mother to mingled exultation and exasperation and she said, as any +tradesman's wife might say anywhere: "He is more like a prince than our +son." But one of the earliest glimpses we have of him shows him as +simply selling bales of cloth from a booth in the market; which his +mother may or may not have believed to be one of the habits of princes. +This first glimpse of the young man in the market is symbolic in more +ways than one. An incident occurred which is perhaps the shortest and +sharpest summary that could be given of certain curious things which +were a part of his character, long before it was transfigured by +transcendental faith. While he was selling velvet and fine embroideries +to some solid merchant of the town, a beggar came imploring alms; +evidently in a somewhat tactless manner. It was a rude and simple +society and there were no laws to punish a starving man for expressing +his need for food, such as have been established in a more humanitarian +age; and the lack of any organised police permitted such persons to +pester the wealthy without any great danger. But there was, I believe, +in many places a local custom of the guild forbidding outsiders to +interrupt a fair bargain; and it is possible that some such thing put +the mendicant more than normally in the wrong. Francis had all his life +a great liking for people who had been put hopelessly in the wrong. On +this occasion he seems to have dealt with the double interview with +rather a divided mind; certainly with distraction, possibly with +irritation. Perhaps he was all the more uneasy because of the almost +fastidious standard of manners that came to him quite naturally. All are +agreed that politeness flowed from him from the first, like one of the +public fountains in such a sunny Italian market place. He might have +written among his own poems as his own motto that verse of Mr. Belloc's poem--- > 'Of Courtesy, it is much less @@ -913,3480 +767,2915 @@ poem--- > > That the grace of God is in Courtesy.' -Nobody ever doubted that Francis Bernardone had courage of -heart, even of the most ordinary manly and military sort; -and a time was to come when there was quite as little doubt -about the holiness and the grace of God. But I think that if -there was one thing about which he was punctilious, it was -punctiliousness. If there was one thing of which so humble a -man could be said to be proud, he was proud of good manners. -Only behind his perfectly natural urbanity were wider and -even wilder possibilities, of which we get the first flash -in this trivial incident. Anyhow Francis was evidently tom -two ways with the botheration of two talkers, but finished -his business with the merchant somehow; and when he had -finished it, found the beggar was gone. Francis leapt from -his booth, left all the bales of velvet and embroidery -behind him apparently unprotected, and went racing across -the market-place like an arrow from the bow. Still running, -he threaded the labyrinth of the narrow and crooked streets -of the little town, looking for his beggar, whom he -eventually discovered; and loaded that astonished mendicant -with money. Then he straightened himself, so to speak, and -swore before God that he would never all his life refuse -help to a poor man. The sweeping simplicity of this -undertaking is extremely characteristic. Never was any man -so little afraid of his own promises. His life was one riot -of rash vows; of rash vows that turned out right. - -The first biographers of Francis, naturally alive with the -great religious revolution that he wrought, equally -naturally looked back to his first years chiefly for omens -and signs of such a spiritual earthquake. But writing at a -greater distance, we shall not decrease that dramatic -effect, but rather increase it, if we realise that there was -not at this time any external sign of anything particularly -mystical about the young man. He had not anything of that -early sense of his vocation that has belonged to some of the -saints. Over and above his main ambition to win fame as a -French poet, he would seem to have most often thought of -winning fame as a soldier. He was born kind; he was brave in -the normal boyish fashion; but he drew the line both in -kindness and bravery pretty well where most boys would have -drawn it; for instance, he had the human horror of leprosy -of which few normal people felt any need to be ashamed. He -had the love of gay and bright apparel which was inherent in -the heraldic taste of medieval times and seems altogether to -have been rather a festive figure. If he did not paint the -town red, he would probably have preferred to paint it all -the colours of the rainbow, as in a medieval picture. But in -this story of the young man in gay garments scampering after -the vanishing beggar in rags there are certain notes of his -natural individuality that must be assumed from first to -last. - -For instance, there is the spirit of swiftness. In a sense -he continued running for the rest of his life, as he ran -after the beggar. Because nearly all the errands he ran on -were errands of mercy, there appeared in his portraiture a -mere element of mildness which was true in the truest sense, -but is easily misunderstood. A certain precipitancy was the -very poise of his soul. This saint should be represented -among the other saints as angels were sometimes represented -in pictures of angels; with flying feet or even with -feathers; in the spirit of the text that makes angels winds -and messengers a flaming fire. It is a curiosity of language -that courage actually means running; and some of our -sceptics will no doubt demonstrate that courage really means -running away. But his courage was running, in the sense of -rushing. With all his gentleness, there was originally -something of impatience in his impetuosity. The -psychological truth about it illustrates very well the -modern muddle about the word "practical." If we mean by what -is practical what is most immediately practicable, we mean -merely what is easiest. In that sense St. Francis was very -unpractical, and his ultimate aims were very unworldly. But -if we mean by practicality a preference for prompt effort -and energy over doubt or delay, he was very practical -indeed. Some might call him a madman, but he was the very -reverse of a dreamer. Nobody would be likely to call him a -man of business; but he was very emphatically a man of -action. In some of his early experiments he was rather too -much of a man of action; he acted too soon and was too -practical to be prudent. But at every turn of his -extraordinary career we shall find him flinging himself -round comers in the most unexpected fashion, as when he flew -through the crooked streets after the beggar. - -Another element implied in the story, which was already -partially a natural instinct, before it became a -supernatural ideal, was something that had never perhaps -been wholly lost in those little republics of medieval -Italy. It was something very puzzling to some people; -something clearer as a rule to Southerners than to -Northerners, and I think to Catholics than to Protestants; -the quite natural assumption of the equality of men. It has -nothing necessarily to do with the Franciscan love for men; -on the contrary one of its merely practical tests is the -equality of the duel. Perhaps a gentleman will never be -fully an egalitarian until he can really quarrel with his -servant. But it was an antecedent condition of the -Franciscan brotherhood; and we feel it in this early and -secular incident. Francis, I fancy, felt a real doubt about -which he must attend to, the beggar or the merchant; and -having attended to the merchant, he turned to attend to the -beggar; he thought of them as two men. This is a thing much -more difficult to describe, in a society from which it is -absent, but it was the original basis of the whole business; -it was why the popular movement arose in that sort of place -and that sort of man. His imaginative magnanimity afterwards -rose Like a tower to starry heights that might well seem -dizzy and even crazy; but it was founded on this high -table-land of human equality. - -I have taken this the first among a hundred tales of the -youth of St. Francis, and dwelt on its significance a -little, because until we have learned to look for the -significance there will often seem to be little but a sort -of light sentiment in telling the story. St. Francis is not -a proper person to be patronised with merely "pretty" -stories. There are any number of them; but they are too -often used so as to be a sort of sentimental sediment of the -medieval world, instead of being, as the saint emphatically -is, a challenge to the modern world. We must take his real -human development somewhat more seriously; and the next -story in which we get a real glimpse of it is in a very -different setting. But in exactly the same way it opens, as -if by accident, certain abysses of the mind and perhaps of -the unconscious mind. Francis still looks more or less like -an ordinary young man; and it is only when we look at him as -an ordinary young man, that we realise what an extraordinary -young man he must be. - -War had broken out between Assisi and Perugia. It is now -fashionable to say in a satirical spirit that such wars did -not so much break out as go on indefinitely between the -city-states of medieval Italy. It will be enough to say here -that if one of these medieval wars had really gone on -without stopping for a century, it might possibly have come -within a remote distance of killing as many people as we -kill in a year, in one of our great modern scientific wars -between our great modern industrial empires. But the -citizens of the medieval republic were certainly under the -limitation of only being asked to die for the things with -which they had always lived, the houses they inhabited, the -shrines they venerated and the rulers and representatives -they knew; and had not the larger vision calling them to die -for the latest rumours about remote colonies as reported in -anonymous newspapers. And if we infer from our own -experience that war paralysed civilisation, we must at least -admit that these warring towns turned out a number of -paralytics who go by the names of Dante and Michael Angelo, -Ariosto and Titian, Leonardo and Columbus, not to mention -Catherine of Siena and the subject of this story. While we -lament all this local patriotism as a hubbub of the Dark -Ages, it must seem a rather curious fact that about three -quarters of the greatest men who ever lived came out of -these little towns and were often engaged in these little -wars. It remains to be seen what will ultimately come out of -our large towns; but there has been no sign of anything of -this sort since they became large; and I have sometimes been -haunted by a fancy of my youth, that these things will not -come till there is a city wall round Clapham and the tocsin -is rung at night to arm the citizens of Wimbledon. - -Anyhow, the tocsin was rung in Assisi and the citizens -armed, and among them Francis the son of the cloth merchant. -He went out to fight with some company of lancers and in -some fight or foray or other he and his little band were -taken prisoners. To me it seems most probable that there had -been some tale of treason or cowardice about the disaster; -for we are told that there was one of the captives with whom -his fellow-prisoners flatly refused to associate even in -prison; and when this happens in such circumstances, it is -generally because the military blame for the surrender is -thrown on some individual. Anyhow, somebody noted a small -but curious thing, though it might seem rather negative than -positive. Francis, we are told, moved among his captive -companions with all his characteristic courtesy and even -conviviality, "liberal and hilarious" as somebody said of -him, resolved to keep up their spirits and his own. And when -he came across the mysterious outcast, traitor or coward or -whatever he was called, he simply treated him exactly like -all the rest, neither with coldness nor compassion, but with -the same unaffected gaiety and good fellowship. But if there -had been present in that prison someone with a sort of -second sight about the truth and trend of spiritual things, -he might have known he was in the presence of something new -and seemingly almost anarchic; a deep tide driving out to -uncharted seas of charity. For in this sense there was -really something wanting in Francis of Assisi, something to -which he was blind that he might see better and more -beautiful things. All those limits in good fellowship and -good form, all those landmarks of social life that divide -the tolerable and the intolerable, all those social scruples -and conventional conditions that are normal and even noble -in ordinary men, all those things that hold many decent -societies together, could never hold this man at all. He -liked as he liked; he seems to have liked every-body, but -especially those whom everybody disliked him for liking. -Something very vast and universal was already present in -that narrow dungeon, and such a seer might have seen in its -darkness that red halo of *caritas caritatum* which marks -one saint among saints as well as among men. He might have -heard the first whisper of that wild blessing that -afterwards took the form of a blasphemy; "He listens to -those to whom God himself will not listen." - -But though such a seer might have seen such a truth, it is -exceedingly doubtful if Francis himself saw it. He had acted -out of an unconscious largeness, or in the fine medieval -phrase largesse within himself, something that might almost -have been lawless if it had not been reaching out to a more -divine law; but it is doubtful whether he yet knew that the -law was divine. It is evident that he had not at this time -any notion of abandoning the military, still less of -adopting the monastic life. It is true that there is not, as -pacifists and prigs imagine, the least inconsistency between -loving men and fighting them, if we fight them fairly and -for a good cause. But it seems to me that there was more -than this involved; that the mind of the young man was -really running towards a military morality in any case. -About this time the first calamity crossed his path in the -form of a malady which was to revisit him many times and -hamper his headlong career. Sickness made him more serious; -but one fancies it would only have made him a more serious -soldier, or even more serious about soldiering. And while he -was recovering, something rather larger than the little -feuds and raids of the Italian towns opened an avenue of -adventure and ambition. The crown of Sicily, a considerable -centre of controversy at the time, was apparently claimed by -a certain Gauthier de Brienne, and the Papal cause to aid -which Gauthier was called in aroused enthusiasm among a -number of young Assisians, including Francis, who proposed -to march into Apulia on the count's behalf; perhaps his -French name had something to do with it. For it must never -be forgotten that though that world was in one sense a world -of little things, it was a world of little things concerned -about great things. There was more internationalism in the -lands dotted with tiny republics than in the huge -homogeneous impenetrable national divisions of to-day. The -legal authority of the Assisian magistrates might hardly -reach further than a bow-shot from their high embattled city -walls. But their sympathies might be with the ride of the -Normans through Sicily or the palace of the Troubadours at -Toulouse; with the Emperor throned in the German forests or -the great Pope dying in the exile of Salerno. Above all, it -must be remembered that when the interests of an age are -mainly religious they must be universal. Nothing can be more -universal than the universe. And there are several things -about the religious position at that particular moment which -modern people not unnaturally fail to realise. For one -thing, modern people naturally think of people so remote as -ancient people, and even early people. We feel vaguely that -these things happened in the first ages of the Church. The -Church was already a good deal more than a thousand years -old. That is, the Church was then rather older than France -is now, a great deal older than England is now. And she -looked old then; almost as old as she does now; possibly -older than she does now. The Church looked like great -Charlemagne with the long white beard, who had already -fought a hundred wars with the heathen, and in the legend -was bidden by an angel to go forth and fight once more -though he was two hundred years old. The Church had topped -her thousand years and turned the comer of the second -thousand; she had come through the Dark Ages in which -nothing could be done except desperate fighting against the -barbarians and the stubborn repetition of the creed. The -creed was still being repeated after the victory or escape; -but it is not unnatural to suppose that there was something -a little monotonous about the repetition. The Church looked -old then as now; and there were some who thought her dying -then as now. In truth orthodoxy was not dead but it may have -been dull; it is certain that some people began to think it -dull. The Troubadours of the Provençal movement had already -begun to take that turn or twist towards Oriental fancies -and the paradox of pessimism, which always come to Europeans -as something fresh when their own sanity seems to be -something stale. It is likely enough that after all those -centuries of hopeless war without and ruthless asceticism -within, the official orthodoxy seemed to be something stale. -The freshness and freedom of the first Christians seemed -then as much as now a lost and almost prehistoric age of -gold. Rome was still more rational than anything else; the -Church was really wiser but it may well have seemed wearier -than the world. There was something more adventurous and -alluring, perhaps, about the mad metaphysics that had been -blown across out of Asia. Dreams were gathering like dark -clouds over the Midi to break in a thunder of anathema and -civil war. Only the light lay on the great plain round Rome; -but the light was blank and the plain was flat; and there -was no stir in the still air and the immemorial silence -about the sacred town. - -High in the dark house of Assisi Francesco Bernardone slept -and dreamed of arms. There came to him in the darkness a -vision splendid with swords, patterned after the cross in -the Crusading fashion, of spears and shields and helmets -hung in a high armoury, all bearing the sacred sign. When he -awoke he accepted the dream as a trumpet bidding him to the -battlefield, and rushed out to take horse and arms. He -delighted in all the exercises of chivalry; and was -evidently an accomplished cavalier and fighting man by the -tests of the tournament and the camp. He would doubtless at -any time have preferred a Christian sort of chivalry; but it -seems clear that he was also in a mood which thirsted for -glory, though in him that glory would always have been -identical with honour. He was not without some vision of -that wreath of laurel which Caesar has left for all the -Latins. As he rode out to war the great gate in the deep -wall of Assisi resounded with his last boast, "I shall come -back a great prince." - -A little way along his road his sickness rose again and -threw him. It seems highly probable, in the light of his -impetuous temper, that he had ridden away long before he was -fit to move. And in the darkness of this second and far more -desolating interruption, he seems to have had another dream -in which a voice said to him, "You have mistaken the meaning -of the vision. Return to your own town." And Francis trailed -back in his sickness to Assisi, a very dismal and -disappointed and perhaps even derided figure, with nothing -to do but to wait for what should happen next. It was his -first descent into a dark •ravine that is called the valley -of humiliation, which seemed to him very rocky and desolate, -but in which he was afterwards to find many flowers. - -But he was not only disappointed and humiliated; he was also -very much puzzled and bewildered. He still firmly believed -that his two dreams must have meant something; and he could -not imagine what they could possibly mean. It was while he -was drifting, one may even say mooning, about the streets of -Assisi and the fields outside the city wall, that an -incident occurred to him which has not always been -immediately connected with the business of the dreams, but -which seems to me the obvious culmination of them. He was -riding listlessly in some wayside place, apparently in the -open country, when he saw a figure coming along the road -towards him and halted; for he saw it was a leper. And he -knew instantly that his courage was challenged, not as the -world challenges, but as one would challenge who knew the -secrets of the heart of a man. What he saw advancing was not -the banner and spears of Perugia, from which it never -occurred to him to shrink; not the armies that fought for -the crown of Sicily, of which he had always thought as a -courageous man thinks of mere vulgar danger. Francis -Bernardone saw his fear coming up the road towards him; the -fear that comes from within and not without; though it stood -white and horrible in the sunlight. For once in the long -rush of his life his soul must have stood still. Then he -sprang from his horse, knowing nothing between stillness and -swiftness, and rushed on the leper and threw his arms round -him. It was the beginning of a long vocation of ministry -among many lepers, for whom he did many services; to this -man he gave what money he could and mounted and rode on. We -do not know how far he rode, or with what sense of the -things around him; but it is said that when he looked back, -he could see no figure on the road. +Nobody ever doubted that Francis Bernardone had courage of heart, even +of the most ordinary manly and military sort; and a time was to come +when there was quite as little doubt about the holiness and the grace of +God. But I think that if there was one thing about which he was +punctilious, it was punctiliousness. If there was one thing of which so +humble a man could be said to be proud, he was proud of good manners. +Only behind his perfectly natural urbanity were wider and even wilder +possibilities, of which we get the first flash in this trivial incident. +Anyhow Francis was evidently tom two ways with the botheration of two +talkers, but finished his business with the merchant somehow; and when +he had finished it, found the beggar was gone. Francis leapt from his +booth, left all the bales of velvet and embroidery behind him apparently +unprotected, and went racing across the market-place like an arrow from +the bow. Still running, he threaded the labyrinth of the narrow and +crooked streets of the little town, looking for his beggar, whom he +eventually discovered; and loaded that astonished mendicant with money. +Then he straightened himself, so to speak, and swore before God that he +would never all his life refuse help to a poor man. The sweeping +simplicity of this undertaking is extremely characteristic. Never was +any man so little afraid of his own promises. His life was one riot of +rash vows; of rash vows that turned out right. + +The first biographers of Francis, naturally alive with the great +religious revolution that he wrought, equally naturally looked back to +his first years chiefly for omens and signs of such a spiritual +earthquake. But writing at a greater distance, we shall not decrease +that dramatic effect, but rather increase it, if we realise that there +was not at this time any external sign of anything particularly mystical +about the young man. He had not anything of that early sense of his +vocation that has belonged to some of the saints. Over and above his +main ambition to win fame as a French poet, he would seem to have most +often thought of winning fame as a soldier. He was born kind; he was +brave in the normal boyish fashion; but he drew the line both in +kindness and bravery pretty well where most boys would have drawn it; +for instance, he had the human horror of leprosy of which few normal +people felt any need to be ashamed. He had the love of gay and bright +apparel which was inherent in the heraldic taste of medieval times and +seems altogether to have been rather a festive figure. If he did not +paint the town red, he would probably have preferred to paint it all the +colours of the rainbow, as in a medieval picture. But in this story of +the young man in gay garments scampering after the vanishing beggar in +rags there are certain notes of his natural individuality that must be +assumed from first to last. + +For instance, there is the spirit of swiftness. In a sense he continued +running for the rest of his life, as he ran after the beggar. Because +nearly all the errands he ran on were errands of mercy, there appeared +in his portraiture a mere element of mildness which was true in the +truest sense, but is easily misunderstood. A certain precipitancy was +the very poise of his soul. This saint should be represented among the +other saints as angels were sometimes represented in pictures of angels; +with flying feet or even with feathers; in the spirit of the text that +makes angels winds and messengers a flaming fire. It is a curiosity of +language that courage actually means running; and some of our sceptics +will no doubt demonstrate that courage really means running away. But +his courage was running, in the sense of rushing. With all his +gentleness, there was originally something of impatience in his +impetuosity. The psychological truth about it illustrates very well the +modern muddle about the word "practical." If we mean by what is +practical what is most immediately practicable, we mean merely what is +easiest. In that sense St. Francis was very unpractical, and his +ultimate aims were very unworldly. But if we mean by practicality a +preference for prompt effort and energy over doubt or delay, he was very +practical indeed. Some might call him a madman, but he was the very +reverse of a dreamer. Nobody would be likely to call him a man of +business; but he was very emphatically a man of action. In some of his +early experiments he was rather too much of a man of action; he acted +too soon and was too practical to be prudent. But at every turn of his +extraordinary career we shall find him flinging himself round comers in +the most unexpected fashion, as when he flew through the crooked streets +after the beggar. + +Another element implied in the story, which was already partially a +natural instinct, before it became a supernatural ideal, was something +that had never perhaps been wholly lost in those little republics of +medieval Italy. It was something very puzzling to some people; something +clearer as a rule to Southerners than to Northerners, and I think to +Catholics than to Protestants; the quite natural assumption of the +equality of men. It has nothing necessarily to do with the Franciscan +love for men; on the contrary one of its merely practical tests is the +equality of the duel. Perhaps a gentleman will never be fully an +egalitarian until he can really quarrel with his servant. But it was an +antecedent condition of the Franciscan brotherhood; and we feel it in +this early and secular incident. Francis, I fancy, felt a real doubt +about which he must attend to, the beggar or the merchant; and having +attended to the merchant, he turned to attend to the beggar; he thought +of them as two men. This is a thing much more difficult to describe, in +a society from which it is absent, but it was the original basis of the +whole business; it was why the popular movement arose in that sort of +place and that sort of man. His imaginative magnanimity afterwards rose +Like a tower to starry heights that might well seem dizzy and even +crazy; but it was founded on this high table-land of human equality. + +I have taken this the first among a hundred tales of the youth of +St. Francis, and dwelt on its significance a little, because until we +have learned to look for the significance there will often seem to be +little but a sort of light sentiment in telling the story. St. Francis +is not a proper person to be patronised with merely "pretty" stories. +There are any number of them; but they are too often used so as to be a +sort of sentimental sediment of the medieval world, instead of being, as +the saint emphatically is, a challenge to the modern world. We must take +his real human development somewhat more seriously; and the next story +in which we get a real glimpse of it is in a very different setting. But +in exactly the same way it opens, as if by accident, certain abysses of +the mind and perhaps of the unconscious mind. Francis still looks more +or less like an ordinary young man; and it is only when we look at him +as an ordinary young man, that we realise what an extraordinary young +man he must be. + +War had broken out between Assisi and Perugia. It is now fashionable to +say in a satirical spirit that such wars did not so much break out as go +on indefinitely between the city-states of medieval Italy. It will be +enough to say here that if one of these medieval wars had really gone on +without stopping for a century, it might possibly have come within a +remote distance of killing as many people as we kill in a year, in one +of our great modern scientific wars between our great modern industrial +empires. But the citizens of the medieval republic were certainly under +the limitation of only being asked to die for the things with which they +had always lived, the houses they inhabited, the shrines they venerated +and the rulers and representatives they knew; and had not the larger +vision calling them to die for the latest rumours about remote colonies +as reported in anonymous newspapers. And if we infer from our own +experience that war paralysed civilisation, we must at least admit that +these warring towns turned out a number of paralytics who go by the +names of Dante and Michael Angelo, Ariosto and Titian, Leonardo and +Columbus, not to mention Catherine of Siena and the subject of this +story. While we lament all this local patriotism as a hubbub of the Dark +Ages, it must seem a rather curious fact that about three quarters of +the greatest men who ever lived came out of these little towns and were +often engaged in these little wars. It remains to be seen what will +ultimately come out of our large towns; but there has been no sign of +anything of this sort since they became large; and I have sometimes been +haunted by a fancy of my youth, that these things will not come till +there is a city wall round Clapham and the tocsin is rung at night to +arm the citizens of Wimbledon. + +Anyhow, the tocsin was rung in Assisi and the citizens armed, and among +them Francis the son of the cloth merchant. He went out to fight with +some company of lancers and in some fight or foray or other he and his +little band were taken prisoners. To me it seems most probable that +there had been some tale of treason or cowardice about the disaster; for +we are told that there was one of the captives with whom his +fellow-prisoners flatly refused to associate even in prison; and when +this happens in such circumstances, it is generally because the military +blame for the surrender is thrown on some individual. Anyhow, somebody +noted a small but curious thing, though it might seem rather negative +than positive. Francis, we are told, moved among his captive companions +with all his characteristic courtesy and even conviviality, "liberal and +hilarious" as somebody said of him, resolved to keep up their spirits +and his own. And when he came across the mysterious outcast, traitor or +coward or whatever he was called, he simply treated him exactly like all +the rest, neither with coldness nor compassion, but with the same +unaffected gaiety and good fellowship. But if there had been present in +that prison someone with a sort of second sight about the truth and +trend of spiritual things, he might have known he was in the presence of +something new and seemingly almost anarchic; a deep tide driving out to +uncharted seas of charity. For in this sense there was really something +wanting in Francis of Assisi, something to which he was blind that he +might see better and more beautiful things. All those limits in good +fellowship and good form, all those landmarks of social life that divide +the tolerable and the intolerable, all those social scruples and +conventional conditions that are normal and even noble in ordinary men, +all those things that hold many decent societies together, could never +hold this man at all. He liked as he liked; he seems to have liked +every-body, but especially those whom everybody disliked him for liking. +Something very vast and universal was already present in that narrow +dungeon, and such a seer might have seen in its darkness that red halo +of *caritas caritatum* which marks one saint among saints as well as +among men. He might have heard the first whisper of that wild blessing +that afterwards took the form of a blasphemy; "He listens to those to +whom God himself will not listen." + +But though such a seer might have seen such a truth, it is exceedingly +doubtful if Francis himself saw it. He had acted out of an unconscious +largeness, or in the fine medieval phrase largesse within himself, +something that might almost have been lawless if it had not been +reaching out to a more divine law; but it is doubtful whether he yet +knew that the law was divine. It is evident that he had not at this time +any notion of abandoning the military, still less of adopting the +monastic life. It is true that there is not, as pacifists and prigs +imagine, the least inconsistency between loving men and fighting them, +if we fight them fairly and for a good cause. But it seems to me that +there was more than this involved; that the mind of the young man was +really running towards a military morality in any case. About this time +the first calamity crossed his path in the form of a malady which was to +revisit him many times and hamper his headlong career. Sickness made him +more serious; but one fancies it would only have made him a more serious +soldier, or even more serious about soldiering. And while he was +recovering, something rather larger than the little feuds and raids of +the Italian towns opened an avenue of adventure and ambition. The crown +of Sicily, a considerable centre of controversy at the time, was +apparently claimed by a certain Gauthier de Brienne, and the Papal cause +to aid which Gauthier was called in aroused enthusiasm among a number of +young Assisians, including Francis, who proposed to march into Apulia on +the count's behalf; perhaps his French name had something to do with it. +For it must never be forgotten that though that world was in one sense a +world of little things, it was a world of little things concerned about +great things. There was more internationalism in the lands dotted with +tiny republics than in the huge homogeneous impenetrable national +divisions of to-day. The legal authority of the Assisian magistrates +might hardly reach further than a bow-shot from their high embattled +city walls. But their sympathies might be with the ride of the Normans +through Sicily or the palace of the Troubadours at Toulouse; with the +Emperor throned in the German forests or the great Pope dying in the +exile of Salerno. Above all, it must be remembered that when the +interests of an age are mainly religious they must be universal. Nothing +can be more universal than the universe. And there are several things +about the religious position at that particular moment which modern +people not unnaturally fail to realise. For one thing, modern people +naturally think of people so remote as ancient people, and even early +people. We feel vaguely that these things happened in the first ages of +the Church. The Church was already a good deal more than a thousand +years old. That is, the Church was then rather older than France is now, +a great deal older than England is now. And she looked old then; almost +as old as she does now; possibly older than she does now. The Church +looked like great Charlemagne with the long white beard, who had already +fought a hundred wars with the heathen, and in the legend was bidden by +an angel to go forth and fight once more though he was two hundred years +old. The Church had topped her thousand years and turned the comer of +the second thousand; she had come through the Dark Ages in which nothing +could be done except desperate fighting against the barbarians and the +stubborn repetition of the creed. The creed was still being repeated +after the victory or escape; but it is not unnatural to suppose that +there was something a little monotonous about the repetition. The Church +looked old then as now; and there were some who thought her dying then +as now. In truth orthodoxy was not dead but it may have been dull; it is +certain that some people began to think it dull. The Troubadours of the +Provençal movement had already begun to take that turn or twist towards +Oriental fancies and the paradox of pessimism, which always come to +Europeans as something fresh when their own sanity seems to be something +stale. It is likely enough that after all those centuries of hopeless +war without and ruthless asceticism within, the official orthodoxy +seemed to be something stale. The freshness and freedom of the first +Christians seemed then as much as now a lost and almost prehistoric age +of gold. Rome was still more rational than anything else; the Church was +really wiser but it may well have seemed wearier than the world. There +was something more adventurous and alluring, perhaps, about the mad +metaphysics that had been blown across out of Asia. Dreams were +gathering like dark clouds over the Midi to break in a thunder of +anathema and civil war. Only the light lay on the great plain round +Rome; but the light was blank and the plain was flat; and there was no +stir in the still air and the immemorial silence about the sacred town. + +High in the dark house of Assisi Francesco Bernardone slept and dreamed +of arms. There came to him in the darkness a vision splendid with +swords, patterned after the cross in the Crusading fashion, of spears +and shields and helmets hung in a high armoury, all bearing the sacred +sign. When he awoke he accepted the dream as a trumpet bidding him to +the battlefield, and rushed out to take horse and arms. He delighted in +all the exercises of chivalry; and was evidently an accomplished +cavalier and fighting man by the tests of the tournament and the camp. +He would doubtless at any time have preferred a Christian sort of +chivalry; but it seems clear that he was also in a mood which thirsted +for glory, though in him that glory would always have been identical +with honour. He was not without some vision of that wreath of laurel +which Caesar has left for all the Latins. As he rode out to war the +great gate in the deep wall of Assisi resounded with his last boast, "I +shall come back a great prince." + +A little way along his road his sickness rose again and threw him. It +seems highly probable, in the light of his impetuous temper, that he had +ridden away long before he was fit to move. And in the darkness of this +second and far more desolating interruption, he seems to have had +another dream in which a voice said to him, "You have mistaken the +meaning of the vision. Return to your own town." And Francis trailed +back in his sickness to Assisi, a very dismal and disappointed and +perhaps even derided figure, with nothing to do but to wait for what +should happen next. It was his first descent into a dark •ravine that is +called the valley of humiliation, which seemed to him very rocky and +desolate, but in which he was afterwards to find many flowers. + +But he was not only disappointed and humiliated; he was also very much +puzzled and bewildered. He still firmly believed that his two dreams +must have meant something; and he could not imagine what they could +possibly mean. It was while he was drifting, one may even say mooning, +about the streets of Assisi and the fields outside the city wall, that +an incident occurred to him which has not always been immediately +connected with the business of the dreams, but which seems to me the +obvious culmination of them. He was riding listlessly in some wayside +place, apparently in the open country, when he saw a figure coming along +the road towards him and halted; for he saw it was a leper. And he knew +instantly that his courage was challenged, not as the world challenges, +but as one would challenge who knew the secrets of the heart of a man. +What he saw advancing was not the banner and spears of Perugia, from +which it never occurred to him to shrink; not the armies that fought for +the crown of Sicily, of which he had always thought as a courageous man +thinks of mere vulgar danger. Francis Bernardone saw his fear coming up +the road towards him; the fear that comes from within and not without; +though it stood white and horrible in the sunlight. For once in the long +rush of his life his soul must have stood still. Then he sprang from his +horse, knowing nothing between stillness and swiftness, and rushed on +the leper and threw his arms round him. It was the beginning of a long +vocation of ministry among many lepers, for whom he did many services; +to this man he gave what money he could and mounted and rode on. We do +not know how far he rode, or with what sense of the things around him; +but it is said that when he looked back, he could see no figure on the +road. # Francis the Builder -We have now reached the great break in the life of Francis -of Assisi; the point at which something happened to him that -must remain greatly dark to most of us, who are ordinary and -selfish men whom God has not broken to make anew. - -In dealing with this difficult passage, especially for my -own purpose of making things moderately easy for the more -secular sympathiser, I have hesitated as to the proper -course; and have eventually decided to state first of all -what happened, with little more than a hint of what I -imagine to have been the meaning of what happened. The -fuller meaning may be debated more easily afterwards, when -it was unfolded in the full Franciscan life. Anyhow what -happened was this. The story very largely revolves round the -ruins of the Church of St. Damian, an old shrine in Assisi -which was apparently neglected and falling to pieces. Here -Francis was in the habit of praying before the crucifix -during these dark and aimless days of transition that -followed the tragical collapse of all his military -ambitions, probably made bitter by some loss of social -prestige terrible to his sensitive spirit. As he did so he -heard a voice saying to him, "Francis, seest thou not that -my house is in ruins? Go and restore it for me." - -Francis sprang up and went. To go and do something was one -of the driving demands of his nature; probably he had gone -and done it before he had at all thoroughly thought out what -he had done. In any case what he had done was something very -decisive and immediately very disastrous for his singular -social career. In the coarse conventional language of the -uncomprehending world, he stole. From his own enthusiastic -point of view, he extended to his venerable father Peter -Bernardone the exquisite excitement and inestimable -privilege of assisting, more or less unconsciously, in the -rebuilding of St. Damian's Church. In point of fact what he -did was first to sell his own horse and then to go off and -sell several bales of his father's cloth, making the sign of -the cross over them to indicate their pious and charitable -destination. Peter Bernardone did not see things in this -light. Peter Bernardone indeed had not very much light to -see by, so far as understanding the genius and temperament -of his extraordinary son was concerned. Instead of -understanding in what sort of a wind and flame of abstract -appetites the lad was living, instead of simply telling him -(as the priest practically did later) that he had done an -indefensible thing with the best intentions, old Bernardone -took up the matter in the hardest style; in a legal and -literal fashion. He used absolute political powers like a -heathen father, and himself put his son under lock and key -as a vulgar thief. It would appear that the cry was caught -up among many with whom the unlucky Francis had once been -popular; and altogether, in his efforts to build up the -house of God he had only succeeded in bringing his own house -about his ears and lying buried under the ruins. The quarrel -dragged drearily through several stages; at one time the -wretched young man seems to have disappeared underground, so -to speak, into some cavern or cellar where he remained -huddled hopelessly in the darkness. Anyhow, it was his -blackest moment; the whole world had turned over; the whole -world was on top of him. - -When he came out, it was only perhaps gradually that anybody -grasped that something had happened. He and his father were -summoned in the court of the bishop; for Francis had refused -the authority of all legal tribunals. The bishop addressed -some remarks to him, full of that excellent common sense -which the Catholic Church keeps permanently as the -background for all the fiery attitudes of her saints. He -told Francis that he must unquestionably restore the money -to his father; that no blessing could follow a good work -done by unjust methods; and in short (to put it crudely) if -the young fanatic would give back his money to the old fool, -the incident would then terminate. There was a new air about -Francis. He was no longer crushed, still less crawling, so -far as his father was concerned; yet his words do not, I -think, indicate either just indignation or wanton insult or -anything in the nature of a mere continuation of the -quarrel. They are rather remotely akin to mysterious -utterances of his great model, "What have I to do with -thee?" or even the terrible "Touch me not." - -He stood up before them all and said, "Up to this time I -have called Pietro Bernardone father, but now I am the -servant of God. Not only the money but everything that can -be called his I will restore to my father, even the very -clothes he has given me." And he rent off all his garments +We have now reached the great break in the life of Francis of Assisi; +the point at which something happened to him that must remain greatly +dark to most of us, who are ordinary and selfish men whom God has not +broken to make anew. + +In dealing with this difficult passage, especially for my own purpose of +making things moderately easy for the more secular sympathiser, I have +hesitated as to the proper course; and have eventually decided to state +first of all what happened, with little more than a hint of what I +imagine to have been the meaning of what happened. The fuller meaning +may be debated more easily afterwards, when it was unfolded in the full +Franciscan life. Anyhow what happened was this. The story very largely +revolves round the ruins of the Church of St. Damian, an old shrine in +Assisi which was apparently neglected and falling to pieces. Here +Francis was in the habit of praying before the crucifix during these +dark and aimless days of transition that followed the tragical collapse +of all his military ambitions, probably made bitter by some loss of +social prestige terrible to his sensitive spirit. As he did so he heard +a voice saying to him, "Francis, seest thou not that my house is in +ruins? Go and restore it for me." + +Francis sprang up and went. To go and do something was one of the +driving demands of his nature; probably he had gone and done it before +he had at all thoroughly thought out what he had done. In any case what +he had done was something very decisive and immediately very disastrous +for his singular social career. In the coarse conventional language of +the uncomprehending world, he stole. From his own enthusiastic point of +view, he extended to his venerable father Peter Bernardone the exquisite +excitement and inestimable privilege of assisting, more or less +unconsciously, in the rebuilding of St. Damian's Church. In point of +fact what he did was first to sell his own horse and then to go off and +sell several bales of his father's cloth, making the sign of the cross +over them to indicate their pious and charitable destination. Peter +Bernardone did not see things in this light. Peter Bernardone indeed had +not very much light to see by, so far as understanding the genius and +temperament of his extraordinary son was concerned. Instead of +understanding in what sort of a wind and flame of abstract appetites the +lad was living, instead of simply telling him (as the priest practically +did later) that he had done an indefensible thing with the best +intentions, old Bernardone took up the matter in the hardest style; in a +legal and literal fashion. He used absolute political powers like a +heathen father, and himself put his son under lock and key as a vulgar +thief. It would appear that the cry was caught up among many with whom +the unlucky Francis had once been popular; and altogether, in his +efforts to build up the house of God he had only succeeded in bringing +his own house about his ears and lying buried under the ruins. The +quarrel dragged drearily through several stages; at one time the +wretched young man seems to have disappeared underground, so to speak, +into some cavern or cellar where he remained huddled hopelessly in the +darkness. Anyhow, it was his blackest moment; the whole world had turned +over; the whole world was on top of him. + +When he came out, it was only perhaps gradually that anybody grasped +that something had happened. He and his father were summoned in the +court of the bishop; for Francis had refused the authority of all legal +tribunals. The bishop addressed some remarks to him, full of that +excellent common sense which the Catholic Church keeps permanently as +the background for all the fiery attitudes of her saints. He told +Francis that he must unquestionably restore the money to his father; +that no blessing could follow a good work done by unjust methods; and in +short (to put it crudely) if the young fanatic would give back his money +to the old fool, the incident would then terminate. There was a new air +about Francis. He was no longer crushed, still less crawling, so far as +his father was concerned; yet his words do not, I think, indicate either +just indignation or wanton insult or anything in the nature of a mere +continuation of the quarrel. They are rather remotely akin to mysterious +utterances of his great model, "What have I to do with thee?" or even +the terrible "Touch me not." + +He stood up before them all and said, "Up to this time I have called +Pietro Bernardone father, but now I am the servant of God. Not only the +money but everything that can be called his I will restore to my father, +even the very clothes he has given me." And he rent off all his garments except one; and they saw that that was a hair-shirt. -He piled the garments in a heap on the floor and tossed the -money on top of them. Then he turned to the bishop, and -received his blessing, like one who turns his back on -society; and, according to the account, went out as he was -into the cold world. Apparently it was literally a cold -world at the moment, and snow was on the ground. A curious -detail, very deep in its significance, I fancy, is given in -the same account of this great crisis in his fife. He went -out half-naked in his hair-shirt into the winter woods, -walking the frozen ground between the frosty trees; a man -without a father. He was penniless, he was parentless, he -was to all appearance without a trade or a plan or a hope in -the world; and as he went under the frosty trees, he burst -suddenly into song. - -It was apparently noted as remarkable that the language in -which he sang was French, or that Provençal which was called -for convenience French. It was not his native language; and -it was in his native language that he ultimately won fame as -a poet; indeed St. Francis is one of the very first of the -national poets in the purely national dialects of Europe. -But it was the language with which all his most boyish -ardours and ambitions had been identified; it was for him -pre-eminently the language of romance. That it broke from -him in this extraordinary extremity seems to me something at -first sight very strange and in the last analysis very -significant. What that significance was, or may well have -been, I will try to suggest in the subsequent chapter; it is -enough to indicate here that the whole philosophy of -St. Francis revolved round the idea of a new supernatural -light on natural things, which meant the ultimate recovery -not the ultimate refusal of natural things. And for the -purpose of this purely narrative part of the business, it is -enough to record that while he wandered in the winter forest -in his hair-shirt, like the very wildest of the hermits, he -sang in the tongue of the Troubadours. - -Meanwhile the narrative naturally reverts to the problem of -the ruined or at least neglected church, which had been the -starting point of the saint's innocent crime and beatific -punishment. That problem still predominated in his mind and -was soon engaging his insatiable activities; but they were -activities of a new sort; and he made no more attempts to -interfere with the commercial ethics of the town of Assisi. -There had dawned on him one of those great paradoxes that -are also platitudes. He realised that the way to build a -church is not to become entangled in bargains and, to him, -rather bewildering questions of legal claim. The way to -build a church is not to pay for it, certainly not with -somebody else's money. The way to build a church is not even -to pay for it with your own money. The way to build a church -is to build it. - -He went about by himself collecting stones. He begged all -the people he met to give him stones. In fact he became a -new sort of beggar, reversing the parable; a beggar who asks -not for bread but a stone. Probably, as happened to him -again and again throughout his extraordinary existence, the -very queerness of the request gave it a sort of popularity; -and all sorts of idle and luxurious people fell in with the -benevolent project, as they would have done with a bet. He -worked with his own hands at the rebuilding of the church, -dragging the material like a beast of burden and learning -the very last and lowest lessons of toil. A vast number of -stories are told about Francis at this as at every other -period of his life; but for the purpose here, which is one -of simplification, it is best to dwell on this definite -reentrance of the saint into the world by the low gate of -manual labour. There does indeed lam through the whole of -his life a sort of double meaning, like his shadow thrown -upon the wall. All his action had something of the character -of an allegory; and it is likely enough that some -leaden-witted scientific historian may some day try to prove -that he himself was never anything but an allegory. It is -true enough in this sense that he was labouring at a double -task, and rebuilding something else as well as the church of -St. Damian. He was not only discovering the general lesson -that his glory was not to be in overthrowing men in battle -but in building up the positive and creative monuments of -peace. He was truly building up something else, or beginning -to build it up; something that has often enough fallen into -ruin but has never been past rebuilding; a church that could -always be built anew though it had rotted away to its first -foundation-stone, against which the gates of hell shall not -prevail. - -The next stage in his progress is probably marked by his -transferring the same energies of architectural -reconstruction to the little church of St. Mary of the -Angels at the Portiuncula. He had already done something of -the same kind at a church dedicated to St. Peter; and that -quality in his life noted above, which made it seem like a -symbolical drama, led many of his most devout biographers to -note the numerical symbolism of the three churches; There -was at any rate a more historical and practical symbolism -about two of them. For the original church of St. Damian -afterwards became the seat of his striking experiment of a -female order, and of the pure and spiritual romance of -St. Clare. And the church of the Portiuncula will remain for -ever as one of the great historic buildings of the world; -for it was there that he gathered the little knot of friends -and enthusiasts; it was the home of many homeless men. At -this time, however, it is not clear that he had the definite -idea of any such monastic developments. How early the plan -appeared in his own mind it is of course impossible to say; -but on the face of events it first takes the form of a few -friends who attached themselves to him one by one because -they shared his own passion for simplicity. The account -given of the form of their dedication is, however, very -significant; for it was that of an invocation of the -simplification of life as suggested in the New Testament. -The adoration of Christ had been a part of the man's -passionate nature for a long time past. But the imitation of -Christ, as a sort of plan or ordered scheme of life, may in +He piled the garments in a heap on the floor and tossed the money on top +of them. Then he turned to the bishop, and received his blessing, like +one who turns his back on society; and, according to the account, went +out as he was into the cold world. Apparently it was literally a cold +world at the moment, and snow was on the ground. A curious detail, very +deep in its significance, I fancy, is given in the same account of this +great crisis in his fife. He went out half-naked in his hair-shirt into +the winter woods, walking the frozen ground between the frosty trees; a +man without a father. He was penniless, he was parentless, he was to all +appearance without a trade or a plan or a hope in the world; and as he +went under the frosty trees, he burst suddenly into song. + +It was apparently noted as remarkable that the language in which he sang +was French, or that Provençal which was called for convenience French. +It was not his native language; and it was in his native language that +he ultimately won fame as a poet; indeed St. Francis is one of the very +first of the national poets in the purely national dialects of Europe. +But it was the language with which all his most boyish ardours and +ambitions had been identified; it was for him pre-eminently the language +of romance. That it broke from him in this extraordinary extremity seems +to me something at first sight very strange and in the last analysis +very significant. What that significance was, or may well have been, I +will try to suggest in the subsequent chapter; it is enough to indicate +here that the whole philosophy of St. Francis revolved round the idea of +a new supernatural light on natural things, which meant the ultimate +recovery not the ultimate refusal of natural things. And for the purpose +of this purely narrative part of the business, it is enough to record +that while he wandered in the winter forest in his hair-shirt, like the +very wildest of the hermits, he sang in the tongue of the Troubadours. + +Meanwhile the narrative naturally reverts to the problem of the ruined +or at least neglected church, which had been the starting point of the +saint's innocent crime and beatific punishment. That problem still +predominated in his mind and was soon engaging his insatiable +activities; but they were activities of a new sort; and he made no more +attempts to interfere with the commercial ethics of the town of Assisi. +There had dawned on him one of those great paradoxes that are also +platitudes. He realised that the way to build a church is not to become +entangled in bargains and, to him, rather bewildering questions of legal +claim. The way to build a church is not to pay for it, certainly not +with somebody else's money. The way to build a church is not even to pay +for it with your own money. The way to build a church is to build it. + +He went about by himself collecting stones. He begged all the people he +met to give him stones. In fact he became a new sort of beggar, +reversing the parable; a beggar who asks not for bread but a stone. +Probably, as happened to him again and again throughout his +extraordinary existence, the very queerness of the request gave it a +sort of popularity; and all sorts of idle and luxurious people fell in +with the benevolent project, as they would have done with a bet. He +worked with his own hands at the rebuilding of the church, dragging the +material like a beast of burden and learning the very last and lowest +lessons of toil. A vast number of stories are told about Francis at this +as at every other period of his life; but for the purpose here, which is +one of simplification, it is best to dwell on this definite reentrance +of the saint into the world by the low gate of manual labour. There does +indeed lam through the whole of his life a sort of double meaning, like +his shadow thrown upon the wall. All his action had something of the +character of an allegory; and it is likely enough that some +leaden-witted scientific historian may some day try to prove that he +himself was never anything but an allegory. It is true enough in this +sense that he was labouring at a double task, and rebuilding something +else as well as the church of St. Damian. He was not only discovering +the general lesson that his glory was not to be in overthrowing men in +battle but in building up the positive and creative monuments of peace. +He was truly building up something else, or beginning to build it up; +something that has often enough fallen into ruin but has never been past +rebuilding; a church that could always be built anew though it had +rotted away to its first foundation-stone, against which the gates of +hell shall not prevail. + +The next stage in his progress is probably marked by his transferring +the same energies of architectural reconstruction to the little church +of St. Mary of the Angels at the Portiuncula. He had already done +something of the same kind at a church dedicated to St. Peter; and that +quality in his life noted above, which made it seem like a symbolical +drama, led many of his most devout biographers to note the numerical +symbolism of the three churches; There was at any rate a more historical +and practical symbolism about two of them. For the original church of +St. Damian afterwards became the seat of his striking experiment of a +female order, and of the pure and spiritual romance of St. Clare. And +the church of the Portiuncula will remain for ever as one of the great +historic buildings of the world; for it was there that he gathered the +little knot of friends and enthusiasts; it was the home of many homeless +men. At this time, however, it is not clear that he had the definite +idea of any such monastic developments. How early the plan appeared in +his own mind it is of course impossible to say; but on the face of +events it first takes the form of a few friends who attached themselves +to him one by one because they shared his own passion for simplicity. +The account given of the form of their dedication is, however, very +significant; for it was that of an invocation of the simplification of +life as suggested in the New Testament. The adoration of Christ had been +a part of the man's passionate nature for a long time past. But the +imitation of Christ, as a sort of plan or ordered scheme of life, may in that sense be said to begin here. -The two men who have the credit, apparently, of having first -perceived something of what was happening in the world of -the soul were a solid and wealthy citizen named Bernard of -Quintavalle and a canon from a neighbouring church named -Peter. It is the more to their credit because Francis, if -one may put it so, was by this time wallowing in poverty and -association with lepers and ragged mendicants; and these two -were men with much to give up; the one of comforts in the -world and the other of ambition in the Church. Bernard the -rich burgher did quite literally and finally sell all he had -and give to the poor. Peter did even more; for he descended -from a chair of spiritual authority, probably when he was -already a man of mature years and therefore of fixed mental -habits, to follow an extravagant young eccentric whom most -people probably regarded as a maniac What it was of which -they had caught a glimpse, of which Francis had seen the -glory, may be suggested later so far as it can be suggested -at all. At this stage we need profess to see no more than -all Assisi saw, and that something not altogether unworthy -of comment. The citizens of Assisi only saw the camel go in -triumph through the eye of the needle and God doing -impossible things because to him all things were possible; -only a priest who rent his robes like the Publican and not -like the Pharisee and a rich man who went away joyful, for -he had no possessions. - -These three strange figures are said to have built -themselves a sort of hut or den adjoining the leper -hospital. There they talked to each other, in the intervals -of drudgery and danger (for it needed ten times more courage -to look after a leper than to fight for the crown of -Sicily), in the terms of their new life, almost like -children talking a secret language. Of these individual -elements on their first friendship we can say little with -certainty; but it is certain that they remained friends to -the end. Bernard of Quintavalle occupies in the story -something of the position of Sir Bedivere, "first made and -latest left of Arthur's knights," for he reappears again at -the right hand of the saint on his deathbed and receives -some sort of special blessing. But all those things belong -to another historical world and were quite remote from the -ragged and fantastic trio in their tumble-down hut. They -were not monks except perhaps in the most literal and -archaic sense which was identical with hermits. They were, -so to speak, three solitaries living together socially, but -not as a society. The whole thing seems to have been -intensely individual, as seen from the outside doubtless -individual to the point of insanity. The stir of something -that had in it the promise of a movement or a mission can -first be felt as I have said in the affair of the appeal to -the New Testament. - -It was a sort of *sors virgiliana* applied to the Bible; a -practice not unknown among Protestants though open to their -criticism, one would think, as being rather a superstition -of pagans. Anyhow it seems almost the opposite of searching -the Scriptures to open them at random; but St. Francis -certainly opened them at random. According to one story, he -merely made the sign of the cross over the volume of the -Gospel and opened it at three places reading three texts. -The first was the tale of the rich young man whose refusal -to sell all his goods was the occasion of the great paradox -about the camel and the needle. The second was the -commandment to the disciples to take nothing with them on -their journey, neither scrip nor staff nor any money. The -third was that saying, literally to be called crucial, that -the follower of Christ must also carry his cross There is a -somewhat similar story of Francis finding one of these -texts, almost as accidentally, merely in listening to what -happened to be the Gospel of the day. But from the former -version at least it would seem that the incident occurred -very early indeed in his new life, perhaps soon after his -breach with his father; for it was after this oracle, -apparently, that Bernard the first disciple rushed forth and -scattered all his goods among the poor. If this be so, it -would seem that nothing followed it for the moment except -the individual ascetical life with the hut for a hermitage. -It must of course have been a rather public sort of -hermitage, but it was none the less in a very real sense -withdrawn from the world. St. Simeon Stylites on the top of -his pillar was in one sense an exceed-public character; but -there was something a little singular in his situation for -all that. It may be presumed that most people thought the -situation of Francis singular, that some even thought it too -singular. There was inevitably indeed in any Catholic -society something ultimate and even subconscious that was at -least capable of comprehending it better than a pagan or -puritan society could comprehend it. But we must not at this -stage, I think, exaggerate this potential public sympathy. -As has already been suggested, the Church and all its -institutions had already the air of being old and settled -and sensible things, the monastic institutions among the -rest. Common sense was commoner in the Middle Ages, I think, -than in our own rather jumpy journalistic age; but men like -Francis are not common in any age, nor are they to be fully -understood merely by the exercise of common sense. The -thirteenth century was certainly a progressive period; -perhaps the only really progressive period in human history. -But it can truly be called progressive precisely because its -progress was very orderly. It is really and truly an example -of an epoch of reforms without revolutions. But the reforms -were not only progressive but very practical; and they were -very much to the advantage of highly practical institutions; -the towns and the trading guilds and the manual crafts. Now -the solid men of town and guild in the time of Francis of -Assisi were probably very solid indeed. They were much more -economically equal, they were much more justly governed in -their own economic environment, than the moderns who -struggle madly between starvation and the monopolist prizes -of capitalism; but it is likely enough that the majority of -such citizens were as hard-headed as peasants. Certainly the -behaviour of the venerable Peter Bernardone does not -indicate a delicate sympathy with the fine and almost -fanciful subtleties of the Franciscan spirit. And we cannot -measure the beauty and originality of this strange spiritual -adventure, unless we have the humour and human sympathy to -put into plain words how it would have looked to such an -unsympathetic person at the time when it happened. In the -next chapter I shall make an attempt, inevitably inadequate, -to indicate the inside of this story of the building of the -three churches and the little hut. In this chapter I have -but outlined it from the outside. And in concluding that -chapter I ask the reader to remember and realise what that -story really looked like, when thus seen from the outside. -Given a critic of rather coarse common sense, with no -feeling about the incident except annoyance, and how would -the story seem to stand? - -A young fool or rascal is caught robbing his father and -selling goods which he ought to guard; and the only -explanation he will offer is that a loud voice from nowhere -spoke in his ear and told him to mend the cracks and holes -in a particular wall. He then declares himself naturally -independent of all powers corresponding to the police or the -magistrates, and takes refuge with an amiable bishop who is -forced to remonstrate with him and tell him he is wrong. He -then proceeds to take off his clothes in public and -practically throw them at his father; announcing at the same -time that his father is not his father at all. He then runs -about the town asking everybody he meets to give him -fragments of buildings or building materials, apparently -with reference to his old monomania about mending the wall. -It may be an excellent thing that cracks should be filled -up, but preferably not by somebody who is himself cracked; -and architectural restoration like other things is not best -performed by builders who, as we should say, have a tile -loose. Finally the wretched youth relapses into rags and -squalor and practically crawls away into the gutter. That is -the spectacle that Francis must have presented to a very -large number of his neighbours and friends. - -How he lived at all must have seemed to them dubious; but -presumably he already begged for bread as he had begged for -building materials. But he was always very careful to beg -for the blackest or worst bread he could get, for the -stalest crusts or something rather less luxurious than the -crumbs which the dogs eat, and which fall from the rich -man's table. Thus he probably fared worse than an ordinary -beggar; for the beggar would eat the best he could get and -the saint ate the worst he could get. In plain fact he was -ready to five on refuse; and it was probably something much -uglier as an experience than the refined simplicity which -vegetarians and water-drinkers would call the simple life. -As he dealt with the question of food, so he apparently -dealt with the question of clothing. He dealt with it, that -is, upon the same principle of taking what he could get, and -not even the best of what he could get. According to one -story he changed clothes with a beggar; and he would -doubtless have been content to change them with a scarecrow. -In another version he got hold of the rough brown tunic of a -peasant, but presumably only because the peasant gave him -his very oldest brown tunic, which was probably very old -indeed. Most peasants have few changes of clothing to give -away; and some peasants are not specially inclined to give -them away until it is absolutely necessary. It is said that -in place of the girdle which he had flung off (perhaps with -the more symbolic scorn because it probably carried the -purse or wallet by the fashion of the period) he picked up a -rope more or less at random, because it was lying near, and -tied it round his waist. He undoubtedly meant it as a shabby -expedient; rather as the very destitute tramp will sometimes -tie his clothes together with a piece of string. He meant to -strike the note of collecting his clothes anyhow, like rags -from a succession of dust-bins. Ten years later that -make-shift costume was the uniform of five thousand men; and -a hundred years later, in that, for a pontifical panoply, -they laid great Dante in the grave. +The two men who have the credit, apparently, of having first perceived +something of what was happening in the world of the soul were a solid +and wealthy citizen named Bernard of Quintavalle and a canon from a +neighbouring church named Peter. It is the more to their credit because +Francis, if one may put it so, was by this time wallowing in poverty and +association with lepers and ragged mendicants; and these two were men +with much to give up; the one of comforts in the world and the other of +ambition in the Church. Bernard the rich burgher did quite literally and +finally sell all he had and give to the poor. Peter did even more; for +he descended from a chair of spiritual authority, probably when he was +already a man of mature years and therefore of fixed mental habits, to +follow an extravagant young eccentric whom most people probably regarded +as a maniac What it was of which they had caught a glimpse, of which +Francis had seen the glory, may be suggested later so far as it can be +suggested at all. At this stage we need profess to see no more than all +Assisi saw, and that something not altogether unworthy of comment. The +citizens of Assisi only saw the camel go in triumph through the eye of +the needle and God doing impossible things because to him all things +were possible; only a priest who rent his robes like the Publican and +not like the Pharisee and a rich man who went away joyful, for he had no +possessions. + +These three strange figures are said to have built themselves a sort of +hut or den adjoining the leper hospital. There they talked to each +other, in the intervals of drudgery and danger (for it needed ten times +more courage to look after a leper than to fight for the crown of +Sicily), in the terms of their new life, almost like children talking a +secret language. Of these individual elements on their first friendship +we can say little with certainty; but it is certain that they remained +friends to the end. Bernard of Quintavalle occupies in the story +something of the position of Sir Bedivere, "first made and latest left +of Arthur's knights," for he reappears again at the right hand of the +saint on his deathbed and receives some sort of special blessing. But +all those things belong to another historical world and were quite +remote from the ragged and fantastic trio in their tumble-down hut. They +were not monks except perhaps in the most literal and archaic sense +which was identical with hermits. They were, so to speak, three +solitaries living together socially, but not as a society. The whole +thing seems to have been intensely individual, as seen from the outside +doubtless individual to the point of insanity. The stir of something +that had in it the promise of a movement or a mission can first be felt +as I have said in the affair of the appeal to the New Testament. + +It was a sort of *sors virgiliana* applied to the Bible; a practice not +unknown among Protestants though open to their criticism, one would +think, as being rather a superstition of pagans. Anyhow it seems almost +the opposite of searching the Scriptures to open them at random; but +St. Francis certainly opened them at random. According to one story, he +merely made the sign of the cross over the volume of the Gospel and +opened it at three places reading three texts. The first was the tale of +the rich young man whose refusal to sell all his goods was the occasion +of the great paradox about the camel and the needle. The second was the +commandment to the disciples to take nothing with them on their journey, +neither scrip nor staff nor any money. The third was that saying, +literally to be called crucial, that the follower of Christ must also +carry his cross There is a somewhat similar story of Francis finding one +of these texts, almost as accidentally, merely in listening to what +happened to be the Gospel of the day. But from the former version at +least it would seem that the incident occurred very early indeed in his +new life, perhaps soon after his breach with his father; for it was +after this oracle, apparently, that Bernard the first disciple rushed +forth and scattered all his goods among the poor. If this be so, it +would seem that nothing followed it for the moment except the individual +ascetical life with the hut for a hermitage. It must of course have been +a rather public sort of hermitage, but it was none the less in a very +real sense withdrawn from the world. St. Simeon Stylites on the top of +his pillar was in one sense an exceed-public character; but there was +something a little singular in his situation for all that. It may be +presumed that most people thought the situation of Francis singular, +that some even thought it too singular. There was inevitably indeed in +any Catholic society something ultimate and even subconscious that was +at least capable of comprehending it better than a pagan or puritan +society could comprehend it. But we must not at this stage, I think, +exaggerate this potential public sympathy. As has already been +suggested, the Church and all its institutions had already the air of +being old and settled and sensible things, the monastic institutions +among the rest. Common sense was commoner in the Middle Ages, I think, +than in our own rather jumpy journalistic age; but men like Francis are +not common in any age, nor are they to be fully understood merely by the +exercise of common sense. The thirteenth century was certainly a +progressive period; perhaps the only really progressive period in human +history. But it can truly be called progressive precisely because its +progress was very orderly. It is really and truly an example of an epoch +of reforms without revolutions. But the reforms were not only +progressive but very practical; and they were very much to the advantage +of highly practical institutions; the towns and the trading guilds and +the manual crafts. Now the solid men of town and guild in the time of +Francis of Assisi were probably very solid indeed. They were much more +economically equal, they were much more justly governed in their own +economic environment, than the moderns who struggle madly between +starvation and the monopolist prizes of capitalism; but it is likely +enough that the majority of such citizens were as hard-headed as +peasants. Certainly the behaviour of the venerable Peter Bernardone does +not indicate a delicate sympathy with the fine and almost fanciful +subtleties of the Franciscan spirit. And we cannot measure the beauty +and originality of this strange spiritual adventure, unless we have the +humour and human sympathy to put into plain words how it would have +looked to such an unsympathetic person at the time when it happened. In +the next chapter I shall make an attempt, inevitably inadequate, to +indicate the inside of this story of the building of the three churches +and the little hut. In this chapter I have but outlined it from the +outside. And in concluding that chapter I ask the reader to remember and +realise what that story really looked like, when thus seen from the +outside. Given a critic of rather coarse common sense, with no feeling +about the incident except annoyance, and how would the story seem to +stand? + +A young fool or rascal is caught robbing his father and selling goods +which he ought to guard; and the only explanation he will offer is that +a loud voice from nowhere spoke in his ear and told him to mend the +cracks and holes in a particular wall. He then declares himself +naturally independent of all powers corresponding to the police or the +magistrates, and takes refuge with an amiable bishop who is forced to +remonstrate with him and tell him he is wrong. He then proceeds to take +off his clothes in public and practically throw them at his father; +announcing at the same time that his father is not his father at all. He +then runs about the town asking everybody he meets to give him fragments +of buildings or building materials, apparently with reference to his old +monomania about mending the wall. It may be an excellent thing that +cracks should be filled up, but preferably not by somebody who is +himself cracked; and architectural restoration like other things is not +best performed by builders who, as we should say, have a tile loose. +Finally the wretched youth relapses into rags and squalor and +practically crawls away into the gutter. That is the spectacle that +Francis must have presented to a very large number of his neighbours and +friends. + +How he lived at all must have seemed to them dubious; but presumably he +already begged for bread as he had begged for building materials. But he +was always very careful to beg for the blackest or worst bread he could +get, for the stalest crusts or something rather less luxurious than the +crumbs which the dogs eat, and which fall from the rich man's table. +Thus he probably fared worse than an ordinary beggar; for the beggar +would eat the best he could get and the saint ate the worst he could +get. In plain fact he was ready to five on refuse; and it was probably +something much uglier as an experience than the refined simplicity which +vegetarians and water-drinkers would call the simple life. As he dealt +with the question of food, so he apparently dealt with the question of +clothing. He dealt with it, that is, upon the same principle of taking +what he could get, and not even the best of what he could get. According +to one story he changed clothes with a beggar; and he would doubtless +have been content to change them with a scarecrow. In another version he +got hold of the rough brown tunic of a peasant, but presumably only +because the peasant gave him his very oldest brown tunic, which was +probably very old indeed. Most peasants have few changes of clothing to +give away; and some peasants are not specially inclined to give them +away until it is absolutely necessary. It is said that in place of the +girdle which he had flung off (perhaps with the more symbolic scorn +because it probably carried the purse or wallet by the fashion of the +period) he picked up a rope more or less at random, because it was lying +near, and tied it round his waist. He undoubtedly meant it as a shabby +expedient; rather as the very destitute tramp will sometimes tie his +clothes together with a piece of string. He meant to strike the note of +collecting his clothes anyhow, like rags from a succession of dust-bins. +Ten years later that make-shift costume was the uniform of five thousand +men; and a hundred years later, in that, for a pontifical panoply, they +laid great Dante in the grave. # Le Jongleur de Dieu -Many signs and symbols might be used to give a hint of what -really happened in the mind of the young poet of Assisi. -Indeed they are at once too numerous for selection and yet -too slight for satisfaction. But one of them may be -adumbrated in this small and apparently accidental fact; -that when he and his secular companions carried their -pageant of poetry through the town, they called themselves -Troubadours. But when he and his spiritual companions came -out to do their spiritual work in the world, they were -called by their leader the Jongleurs de Dieu. - -Nothing has been said here at any length of the great -culture of the Troubadours as it appeared in Provence or -Languedoc, great as was their influence in history and their -influence on St. Francis. Something more may be said of them -when we come to summarise his relation to history; it is -enough to note here in a few sentences the facts about them -that were relevant to him, and especially the particular -point now in question, which was the most relevant of all. -Everybody knows who the Troubadours were; everybody knows -that very early in the Middle Ages, in the twelfth and early -thirteenth centuries, there arose a civilisation in Southern -France which threatened to rival or eclipse the rising -tradition of Paris. Its chief product was a school of -poetry, or rather more especially a school of poets. They -were primarily love-poets, though they were often also -satirists and critics of things in general. Their -picturesque posture in history is largely due to the fact -that they sang their own poems and often played their own -accompaniments, on the light musical instruments of the -period; they were minstrels as well as men of letters. -Allied to their love-poetry were other institutions of a -decorative and fanciful kind concerned with the same theme. -There was what was called the "Gay Science," the attempt to -reduce to a sort of system the fine shades of flirtation and -philandering. There were the things called Courts of Love, -in which the same delicate subjects were dealt with with -legal pomp and pedantry. There is one point in this part of -the business that must be remembered in relation to St, -Francis, There were manifest moral dangers in all this -superb sentimentalism; but it is a mistake to suppose that -its only danger of exaggeration was in the direction of -sensualism. There was a strain in the southern romance that -was actually an excess of spirituality; just as the -pessimist heresy it produced was in one sense an excess of -spirituality. The love was not always animal; sometimes it -was so airy as to be almost allegorical. The reader realises -that the lady is the most beautiful being that can possibly -exist, only he has occasional doubts as to whether she does -exist. Dante owed something to the Troubadours; and the -critical debates about his ideal woman are an excellent -example of these doubts. We know that Beatrice was not his -wife, but we should in any case be equally sure that she was -not his mistress; and some critics have even suggested that -she was nothing at all, so to speak, except his muse. This -idea of Beatrice as an allegorical figure is, I believe, -unsound; it would seem unsound to any man who has read the -*Vita Nuova* and has been in love. But the very fact that it -is possible to suggest it illustrates something abstract and -scholastic in these medieval passions. But though they were -abstract passions they were very passionate passions. These -men could feel almost like lovers, even about allegories and -abstractions. It is necessary to remember this in order to -realise that St. Francis was talking the true language of a -troubadour when he said that he also had a most glorious and -gracious lady and that her name was Poverty. - -But the particular point to be noted here is not concerned -so much with the word Troubadour as with the word Jongleur. -It is especially concerned with the transition from one to -the other; and for this it is necessary to grasp another -detail about the poets of the Gay Science. A jongleur was -not the same thing as a troubadour, even if the same man -were both a troubadour and a jongleur. More often, I -believe, they were separate men as well as separate trades. -In many cases apparently the two men would walk the world -together like companions in arms, or rather companions in -arts. The jongleur was properly a joculator or jester; -sometimes he was what we should call a juggler. This is the -point, I imagine, of the tale about Taillefer the Jongleur -at the battle of Hastings, who sang of the death of Roland -while he tossed up his sword and caught it, as a juggler -catches balls. Sometimes he may have been even a tumbler; -like that acrobat in the beautiful legend who was called -"The Tumbler of Our Lady," because he turned head over heels -and stood on his head before the image of the Blessed -Virgin, for which he was nobly thanked and comforted by her -and the whole company of heaven. In the ordinary way, we may -imagine, the troubadour would exalt the company with earnest -and solemn strains of love and then the jongleur would do -his turn as a sort of comic relief. A glorious medieval -romance remains to be written about two such companions -wandering through the world. At any rate, if there is one -place in which the true Franciscan spirit can be found -outside the true Franciscan story, it is in that tale of the -Tumbler of Our Lady. And when St. Francis called his -followers the Jongleurs de Dieu, he meant something very -like the Tumblers of Our Lord. - -Somewhere in that transition from the ambition of the -Troubadour to the antics of the Tumbler is hidden, as under -a parable, the truth of St. Francis. Of the two minstrels or -entertainers, the jester was presumably the servant or at -least the secondary figure. St. Francis really meant what he -said when he said he had found the secret of life in being -the servant and the secondary figure. There was to be found -ultimately in such service a freedom almost amounting to -frivolity. It was comparable to the condition of the -jongleur because it almost amounted to frivolity. The jester -could be free when the knight was rigid; and it was possible -to be a jester in the service which is perfect freedom. This -parallel of the two poets or minstrels is perhaps the best -preliminary and external statement of the Franciscan change -of heart, being conceived under an image with which the -imagination of the modern world has a certain sympathy. -There was, of course, a great deal more than this involved; -and we must endeavor however insufficiently to penetrate -past the image to the idea. It is so far like the tumblers +Many signs and symbols might be used to give a hint of what really +happened in the mind of the young poet of Assisi. Indeed they are at +once too numerous for selection and yet too slight for satisfaction. But +one of them may be adumbrated in this small and apparently accidental +fact; that when he and his secular companions carried their pageant of +poetry through the town, they called themselves Troubadours. But when he +and his spiritual companions came out to do their spiritual work in the +world, they were called by their leader the Jongleurs de Dieu. + +Nothing has been said here at any length of the great culture of the +Troubadours as it appeared in Provence or Languedoc, great as was their +influence in history and their influence on St. Francis. Something more +may be said of them when we come to summarise his relation to history; +it is enough to note here in a few sentences the facts about them that +were relevant to him, and especially the particular point now in +question, which was the most relevant of all. Everybody knows who the +Troubadours were; everybody knows that very early in the Middle Ages, in +the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, there arose a civilisation +in Southern France which threatened to rival or eclipse the rising +tradition of Paris. Its chief product was a school of poetry, or rather +more especially a school of poets. They were primarily love-poets, +though they were often also satirists and critics of things in general. +Their picturesque posture in history is largely due to the fact that +they sang their own poems and often played their own accompaniments, on +the light musical instruments of the period; they were minstrels as well +as men of letters. Allied to their love-poetry were other institutions +of a decorative and fanciful kind concerned with the same theme. There +was what was called the "Gay Science," the attempt to reduce to a sort +of system the fine shades of flirtation and philandering. There were the +things called Courts of Love, in which the same delicate subjects were +dealt with with legal pomp and pedantry. There is one point in this part +of the business that must be remembered in relation to St, Francis, +There were manifest moral dangers in all this superb sentimentalism; but +it is a mistake to suppose that its only danger of exaggeration was in +the direction of sensualism. There was a strain in the southern romance +that was actually an excess of spirituality; just as the pessimist +heresy it produced was in one sense an excess of spirituality. The love +was not always animal; sometimes it was so airy as to be almost +allegorical. The reader realises that the lady is the most beautiful +being that can possibly exist, only he has occasional doubts as to +whether she does exist. Dante owed something to the Troubadours; and the +critical debates about his ideal woman are an excellent example of these +doubts. We know that Beatrice was not his wife, but we should in any +case be equally sure that she was not his mistress; and some critics +have even suggested that she was nothing at all, so to speak, except his +muse. This idea of Beatrice as an allegorical figure is, I believe, +unsound; it would seem unsound to any man who has read the *Vita Nuova* +and has been in love. But the very fact that it is possible to suggest +it illustrates something abstract and scholastic in these medieval +passions. But though they were abstract passions they were very +passionate passions. These men could feel almost like lovers, even about +allegories and abstractions. It is necessary to remember this in order +to realise that St. Francis was talking the true language of a +troubadour when he said that he also had a most glorious and gracious +lady and that her name was Poverty. + +But the particular point to be noted here is not concerned so much with +the word Troubadour as with the word Jongleur. It is especially +concerned with the transition from one to the other; and for this it is +necessary to grasp another detail about the poets of the Gay Science. A +jongleur was not the same thing as a troubadour, even if the same man +were both a troubadour and a jongleur. More often, I believe, they were +separate men as well as separate trades. In many cases apparently the +two men would walk the world together like companions in arms, or rather +companions in arts. The jongleur was properly a joculator or jester; +sometimes he was what we should call a juggler. This is the point, I +imagine, of the tale about Taillefer the Jongleur at the battle of +Hastings, who sang of the death of Roland while he tossed up his sword +and caught it, as a juggler catches balls. Sometimes he may have been +even a tumbler; like that acrobat in the beautiful legend who was called +"The Tumbler of Our Lady," because he turned head over heels and stood +on his head before the image of the Blessed Virgin, for which he was +nobly thanked and comforted by her and the whole company of heaven. In +the ordinary way, we may imagine, the troubadour would exalt the company +with earnest and solemn strains of love and then the jongleur would do +his turn as a sort of comic relief. A glorious medieval romance remains +to be written about two such companions wandering through the world. At +any rate, if there is one place in which the true Franciscan spirit can +be found outside the true Franciscan story, it is in that tale of the +Tumbler of Our Lady. And when St. Francis called his followers the +Jongleurs de Dieu, he meant something very like the Tumblers of Our +Lord. + +Somewhere in that transition from the ambition of the Troubadour to the +antics of the Tumbler is hidden, as under a parable, the truth of +St. Francis. Of the two minstrels or entertainers, the jester was +presumably the servant or at least the secondary figure. St. Francis +really meant what he said when he said he had found the secret of life +in being the servant and the secondary figure. There was to be found +ultimately in such service a freedom almost amounting to frivolity. It +was comparable to the condition of the jongleur because it almost +amounted to frivolity. The jester could be free when the knight was +rigid; and it was possible to be a jester in the service which is +perfect freedom. This parallel of the two poets or minstrels is perhaps +the best preliminary and external statement of the Franciscan change of +heart, being conceived under an image with which the imagination of the +modern world has a certain sympathy. There was, of course, a great deal +more than this involved; and we must endeavor however insufficiently to +penetrate past the image to the idea. It is so far like the tumblers that it is really to many people a topsy-turvy idea. -Francis, at the time or somewhere about the time when he -disappeared into the prison or the dark cavern, underwent a -reversal of a certain psychological kind; which was really -like the reversal of a complete somersault, in that by -coming full circle it came back, or apparently came back, to -the same normal posture. It is necessary to use the -grotesque simile of an acrobatic antic, because there is -hardly any other figure that will make the fact clear. But -in the inward sense it was a profound spiritual revolution. -The man who went into the cave was not the man who came out -again; in that sense he was almost as different as if he -were dead, as if he were a ghost or a blessed spirit. And -the effects of this on his attitude towards the actual world -were really as extravagant as any parallel can make them. He -looked at the world as differently from other men as if he -had come out of that dark hole walking on his hands. - -If we apply this parable of Our Lady's Tumbler to the case, -we shall come very near to the point of it. Now it really is -a fact that any scene such as a landscape can sometimes be -more clearly and freshly seen if it is seen upside down. -There have been landscape-painters who adopted the most -startling and pantomimic postures in order to look at it for -a moment in that fashion. Thus that inverted vision, so much -more bright and quaint and arresting, does bear a certain -resemblance to the world which a mystic like St. Francis -sees every day. But herein is the essential part of the -parable. Our Lady's Tumbler did not stand on his head *in -order* to see flowers and trees as a clearer or quainter -vision. He did not do so; and it would never have occurred -to him to do so. Our Lady's Tumbler stood on his head to -please Our Lady. If St. Francis had done the same thing, as -he was quite capable of doing, it would originally have been -from the same motive; a motive of a purely supernatural -thought. It would be *after* this that his enthusiasm would -extend itself and give a sort of halo to the edges of all -earthly things. This is why it is not true to represent -St. Francis as a mere romantic forerunner of the Renaissance -and a revival of natural pleasures for their own sake. The -whole point of him was that the secret of recovering the -natural pleasures lay in regarding them in the light of a -supernatural pleasure. In other words, he repeated in his -own person that historic process noted in the introductory -chapter; the vigil of asceticism which ends in the vision of -a natural world made new. But in the personal case there was -even more than this; there were elements that make the -parallel of the Jongleur or Tumbler even more appropriate -than this. - -It may be suspected that in that black cell or cave Francis -passed the blackest hours of his life. By nature he was the -sort of man who has that vanity which is the opposite of -pride; that vanity which is very near to humility. He never -despised his fellow creatures and therefore he never -despised the opinion of his fellow creatures; including the -admiration of his fellow creatures. All that part of his -human nature had suffered the heaviest and most crushing -blows. It is possible that after his humiliating return from -his frustrated military campaign he was called a coward. It -is certain that after his quarrel with his father about the -bales of cloth he was called a thief. And even those who had -sympathised most with him, the priest whose church he had -restored, the bishop whose blessing he had received, had -evidently treated him with an almost humorous amiability -which left only too clear the ultimate conclusion of the -matter. He had made a fool of himself. Any man who has been -young, who has ridden horses or thought himself ready for a -fight, who has fancied himself as a troubadour and accepted -the conventions of comradeship, will appreciate the -ponderous and crushing weight of that simple phrase. The -conversion of St. Francis, like the conversion of St. Paul, -involved his being in some sense flung suddenly from a -horse; but in a sense it was an even worse fall; for it was -a war-horse. Anyhow, there was not a rag of him left that -was not ridiculous. Everybody knew that at the best he had -made a fool of himself. It was a solid objective fact, like -the stones in the road, that he had made a fool of himself. -He saw himself as an object, very small and distinct like a -fly walking on a clear window pane; and it was unmistakably -a fool. And as he stared at the word "fool" written in -luminous letters before him, the word itself began to shine -and change. - -We used to be told in the nursery that if a man were to bore -a hole through the centre of the earth and climb continually -down and down, there would come a moment at the centre when -he would seem to be climbing up and up. I do not know -whether this is true. The reason I do not know whether it is -true is that I never happened to bore a hole through the -centre of the earth, still less to crawl through it. If I do -not know what this reversal or inversion feels like, it is -because I have never been there. And this also is an -allegory. It is certain that the writer, it is even possible -that the reader, is an ordinary person who has never been -there. We cannot follow St Francis to that final spiritual -overturn in which complete humiliation becomes complete -holiness or happiness, because we have never been there. I -for one do not profess to follow it any further than that -first breaking down of the romantic barricades of boyish -vanity, which I have suggested in the last paragraph. And -even that paragraph, of course, is merely conjectural, an -individual guess at what he may have felt; but he may have -felt something quite different. But whatever else it was, it -was so far analogous to the story of the man making a tunnel -through the earth that it did mean a man going down and down -until at some mysterious moment he begins to go up and up. -We have never gone up like that because we have never gone -down hke that; we are obviously incapable of saying that it -does not happen; and the more candidly and calmly we read -human history, and especially the history of the wisest men, -the more we shall come to the conclusion that it does -happen. Of the intrinsic internal essence of the experience -I make no pretence of writing at all. But the external -effect of it, for the purpose of this narrative, may be -expressed by saying that when Francis came forth from his -cave of vision, he was wearing the same word "fool" as a -feather in his cap; as a crest or even a crown. He would go -on being a fool; he would become more and more of a fool; he -would be the court fool of the King of Paradise. - -This state can only be represented in symbol; but the symbol -of inversion is true in another way. If a man saw the world -upside down, with all the trees and towers hanging head -downwards as in a pool, one effect would be to emphasise the -idea of dependence. There is a Latin and literal connection; -for the very word dependence only means hanging. It would -make vivid the Scriptural text which says that God has -hanged the world upon nothing. If St. Francis had seen, in -one of his strange dreams, the town of Assisi upside down, -it need not have differed in a single detail from itself -except in being entirely the other way round. But the point -is this: that whereas to the normal eye the large masonry of -its walls or the massive foundations of its watchtowers and -its high citadel would make it seem safer and more -permanent, the moment it was turned over the very same -weight would make it seem more helpless and more in peril. -It is but a symbol; but it happens to fit the psychological -fact. St. Francis might love his little town as much as -before, or more than before; but the nature of the love -would be altered even in being increased. He might see and -love every tile on the steep roofs or every bird on the -battlements; but he would see them all in a new and divine -light of eternal danger and dependence. Instead of being -merely proud of his strong city because it could not be -moved, he would be thankful to God Almighty that it had not -been dropped; he would be thankful to God for not dropping -the whole cosmos like a vast crystal to be shattered into -falling stars. Perhaps St. Peter saw the world so, when he -was crucified head-downwards. - -It is commonly in a somewhat cynical sense that men have -said, "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall -not be disappointed." It was in a wholly happy and -enthusiastic sense that St. Francis said, "Blessed is he who -expecteth nothing, for he shall enjoy everything." It was by -this deliberate idea of starting from zero, from the dark -nothingness of his own deserts, that he did come to enjoy -even earthly things as few people have enjoyed them; and -they are in themselves the best working example of the idea. -For there is no way in which a man can earn a star or -deserve a sunset. But there is more than this involved, and -more indeed than is easily to be expressed in words. It is -not only true that the less a man thinks of himself, the -more he thinks of his good luck and of all the gifts of God. -It is also true that he sees more of the things themselves -when he sees more of their origin; for their origin is a -part of them and indeed the most important part of them. -Thus they become more extraordinary by being explained. He -has more wonder at them but less fear of them; for a thing -is really wonderful when it is significant and not when it -is insignificant; and a monster, shapeless or dumb or merely -destructive, may be larger than the mountains, but is still -in a literal sense insignificant. For a mystic like -St. Francis the monsters had a meaning; that is, they had -delivered their message. They spoke no longer in an unknown -tongue. That is the meaning of all those stories, whether -legendary or historical, in which he appears as a magician -speaking the language of beasts and birds. The mystic will -have nothing to do with mere mystery; mere mystery is -generally a mystery of iniquity. - -The transition from the good man to the saint is a sort of -revolution; by which one for whom all things illustrate and -illuminate God becomes one for whom God illustrates and -illuminates all things. It is rather like the reversal -whereby a lover might say at first sight that a lady looked -like a flower, and say afterwards that all flowers reminded -him of his lady. A saint and a poet standing by the same -flower might seem to say the same thing; but indeed though -they would both be telling the truth, they would be telling -different truths. For one the joy of life is a cause of -faith, for the other rather a result of faith. But one -effect of the difference is that the sense of a divine -dependence, which for the artist is like the brilliant -levin-blaze, for the saint is like the broad daylight. Being -in some mystical sense on the other side of things, he sees -things go forth from the divine as children going forth from -a familiar and accepted home, instead of meeting them as -they come out, as most of us do, upon the roads of the -world. And it is the paradox that by this privilege he is -more familiar, more free and fraternal, more carelessly -hospitable than we. For us the elements are like heralds who -tell us with trumpet and tabard that we are drawing near the -city of a great king; but he hails them with an old -familiarity that is almost an old frivolity. He calls them -his Brother Fire and his Sister Water. - -So arises out of this almost nihilistic abyss the noble -thing that is called Praise; which no one will ever -understand while he identifies it with nature-worship or -pantheistic optimism. When we say that a poet praises the -whole creation, we commonly mean only that he praises the -whole cosmos. But this sort of poet does really praise -creation, in the sense of the act of creation. He praises -the passage or transition from nonentity to entity; there -falls here also the shadow of that archetypal image of the -bridge, which has given to the priest his archaic and -mysterious name. The mystic who passes through the moment -when there is nothing but God does in some sense behold the -beginningless beginnings in which there was really nothing -else. He not only appreciates everything but the nothing of -which everything was made. In a fashion he endures and -answers even the earthquake irony of the Book of Job; in -some sense he is there when the foundations of the world are -laid, with the morning stars singing together and the sons -of God shouting for joy. That is but a distant adumbration -of the reason why the Franciscan, ragged, penniless, -homeless and apparently hopeless, did indeed come forth -singing such songs as might come from the stars of morning; -and shouting, a son of God. - -This sense of the great gratitude and the sublime dependence -was not a phrase or even a sentiment; it is the whole point -that this was the very rock of reality. It was not a fancy -but a fact; rather it is true that beside it all facts are -fancies. That we all depend in every detail, at every -instant, as a Christian would say upon God, as even an -agnostic would say upon existence and the nature of things, -is not an illusion of imagination; on the contrary, it is -the fundamental fact which we cover up, as with curtains, -with the illusion of ordinary life. That ordinary life is an -admirable thing in itself, just as imagination is an -admirable thing in itself. But it is much more the ordinary -life that is made of imagination than the contemplative -life. He who has seen the whole world hanging on a hair of -the mercy of God has seen the truth; we might almost say the -cold truth. He who has seen the vision of his city +Francis, at the time or somewhere about the time when he disappeared +into the prison or the dark cavern, underwent a reversal of a certain +psychological kind; which was really like the reversal of a complete +somersault, in that by coming full circle it came back, or apparently +came back, to the same normal posture. It is necessary to use the +grotesque simile of an acrobatic antic, because there is hardly any +other figure that will make the fact clear. But in the inward sense it +was a profound spiritual revolution. The man who went into the cave was +not the man who came out again; in that sense he was almost as different +as if he were dead, as if he were a ghost or a blessed spirit. And the +effects of this on his attitude towards the actual world were really as +extravagant as any parallel can make them. He looked at the world as +differently from other men as if he had come out of that dark hole +walking on his hands. + +If we apply this parable of Our Lady's Tumbler to the case, we shall +come very near to the point of it. Now it really is a fact that any +scene such as a landscape can sometimes be more clearly and freshly seen +if it is seen upside down. There have been landscape-painters who +adopted the most startling and pantomimic postures in order to look at +it for a moment in that fashion. Thus that inverted vision, so much more +bright and quaint and arresting, does bear a certain resemblance to the +world which a mystic like St. Francis sees every day. But herein is the +essential part of the parable. Our Lady's Tumbler did not stand on his +head *in order* to see flowers and trees as a clearer or quainter +vision. He did not do so; and it would never have occurred to him to do +so. Our Lady's Tumbler stood on his head to please Our Lady. If +St. Francis had done the same thing, as he was quite capable of doing, +it would originally have been from the same motive; a motive of a purely +supernatural thought. It would be *after* this that his enthusiasm would +extend itself and give a sort of halo to the edges of all earthly +things. This is why it is not true to represent St. Francis as a mere +romantic forerunner of the Renaissance and a revival of natural +pleasures for their own sake. The whole point of him was that the secret +of recovering the natural pleasures lay in regarding them in the light +of a supernatural pleasure. In other words, he repeated in his own +person that historic process noted in the introductory chapter; the +vigil of asceticism which ends in the vision of a natural world made +new. But in the personal case there was even more than this; there were +elements that make the parallel of the Jongleur or Tumbler even more +appropriate than this. + +It may be suspected that in that black cell or cave Francis passed the +blackest hours of his life. By nature he was the sort of man who has +that vanity which is the opposite of pride; that vanity which is very +near to humility. He never despised his fellow creatures and therefore +he never despised the opinion of his fellow creatures; including the +admiration of his fellow creatures. All that part of his human nature +had suffered the heaviest and most crushing blows. It is possible that +after his humiliating return from his frustrated military campaign he +was called a coward. It is certain that after his quarrel with his +father about the bales of cloth he was called a thief. And even those +who had sympathised most with him, the priest whose church he had +restored, the bishop whose blessing he had received, had evidently +treated him with an almost humorous amiability which left only too clear +the ultimate conclusion of the matter. He had made a fool of himself. +Any man who has been young, who has ridden horses or thought himself +ready for a fight, who has fancied himself as a troubadour and accepted +the conventions of comradeship, will appreciate the ponderous and +crushing weight of that simple phrase. The conversion of St. Francis, +like the conversion of St. Paul, involved his being in some sense flung +suddenly from a horse; but in a sense it was an even worse fall; for it +was a war-horse. Anyhow, there was not a rag of him left that was not +ridiculous. Everybody knew that at the best he had made a fool of +himself. It was a solid objective fact, like the stones in the road, +that he had made a fool of himself. He saw himself as an object, very +small and distinct like a fly walking on a clear window pane; and it was +unmistakably a fool. And as he stared at the word "fool" written in +luminous letters before him, the word itself began to shine and change. + +We used to be told in the nursery that if a man were to bore a hole +through the centre of the earth and climb continually down and down, +there would come a moment at the centre when he would seem to be +climbing up and up. I do not know whether this is true. The reason I do +not know whether it is true is that I never happened to bore a hole +through the centre of the earth, still less to crawl through it. If I do +not know what this reversal or inversion feels like, it is because I +have never been there. And this also is an allegory. It is certain that +the writer, it is even possible that the reader, is an ordinary person +who has never been there. We cannot follow St Francis to that final +spiritual overturn in which complete humiliation becomes complete +holiness or happiness, because we have never been there. I for one do +not profess to follow it any further than that first breaking down of +the romantic barricades of boyish vanity, which I have suggested in the +last paragraph. And even that paragraph, of course, is merely +conjectural, an individual guess at what he may have felt; but he may +have felt something quite different. But whatever else it was, it was so +far analogous to the story of the man making a tunnel through the earth +that it did mean a man going down and down until at some mysterious +moment he begins to go up and up. We have never gone up like that +because we have never gone down hke that; we are obviously incapable of +saying that it does not happen; and the more candidly and calmly we read +human history, and especially the history of the wisest men, the more we +shall come to the conclusion that it does happen. Of the intrinsic +internal essence of the experience I make no pretence of writing at all. +But the external effect of it, for the purpose of this narrative, may be +expressed by saying that when Francis came forth from his cave of +vision, he was wearing the same word "fool" as a feather in his cap; as +a crest or even a crown. He would go on being a fool; he would become +more and more of a fool; he would be the court fool of the King of +Paradise. + +This state can only be represented in symbol; but the symbol of +inversion is true in another way. If a man saw the world upside down, +with all the trees and towers hanging head downwards as in a pool, one +effect would be to emphasise the idea of dependence. There is a Latin +and literal connection; for the very word dependence only means hanging. +It would make vivid the Scriptural text which says that God has hanged +the world upon nothing. If St. Francis had seen, in one of his strange +dreams, the town of Assisi upside down, it need not have differed in a +single detail from itself except in being entirely the other way round. +But the point is this: that whereas to the normal eye the large masonry +of its walls or the massive foundations of its watchtowers and its high +citadel would make it seem safer and more permanent, the moment it was +turned over the very same weight would make it seem more helpless and +more in peril. It is but a symbol; but it happens to fit the +psychological fact. St. Francis might love his little town as much as +before, or more than before; but the nature of the love would be altered +even in being increased. He might see and love every tile on the steep +roofs or every bird on the battlements; but he would see them all in a +new and divine light of eternal danger and dependence. Instead of being +merely proud of his strong city because it could not be moved, he would +be thankful to God Almighty that it had not been dropped; he would be +thankful to God for not dropping the whole cosmos like a vast crystal to +be shattered into falling stars. Perhaps St. Peter saw the world so, +when he was crucified head-downwards. + +It is commonly in a somewhat cynical sense that men have said, "Blessed +is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed." It was +in a wholly happy and enthusiastic sense that St. Francis said, "Blessed +is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall enjoy everything." It was by +this deliberate idea of starting from zero, from the dark nothingness of +his own deserts, that he did come to enjoy even earthly things as few +people have enjoyed them; and they are in themselves the best working +example of the idea. For there is no way in which a man can earn a star +or deserve a sunset. But there is more than this involved, and more +indeed than is easily to be expressed in words. It is not only true that +the less a man thinks of himself, the more he thinks of his good luck +and of all the gifts of God. It is also true that he sees more of the +things themselves when he sees more of their origin; for their origin is +a part of them and indeed the most important part of them. Thus they +become more extraordinary by being explained. He has more wonder at them +but less fear of them; for a thing is really wonderful when it is +significant and not when it is insignificant; and a monster, shapeless +or dumb or merely destructive, may be larger than the mountains, but is +still in a literal sense insignificant. For a mystic like St. Francis +the monsters had a meaning; that is, they had delivered their message. +They spoke no longer in an unknown tongue. That is the meaning of all +those stories, whether legendary or historical, in which he appears as a +magician speaking the language of beasts and birds. The mystic will have +nothing to do with mere mystery; mere mystery is generally a mystery of +iniquity. + +The transition from the good man to the saint is a sort of revolution; +by which one for whom all things illustrate and illuminate God becomes +one for whom God illustrates and illuminates all things. It is rather +like the reversal whereby a lover might say at first sight that a lady +looked like a flower, and say afterwards that all flowers reminded him +of his lady. A saint and a poet standing by the same flower might seem +to say the same thing; but indeed though they would both be telling the +truth, they would be telling different truths. For one the joy of life +is a cause of faith, for the other rather a result of faith. But one +effect of the difference is that the sense of a divine dependence, which +for the artist is like the brilliant levin-blaze, for the saint is like +the broad daylight. Being in some mystical sense on the other side of +things, he sees things go forth from the divine as children going forth +from a familiar and accepted home, instead of meeting them as they come +out, as most of us do, upon the roads of the world. And it is the +paradox that by this privilege he is more familiar, more free and +fraternal, more carelessly hospitable than we. For us the elements are +like heralds who tell us with trumpet and tabard that we are drawing +near the city of a great king; but he hails them with an old familiarity +that is almost an old frivolity. He calls them his Brother Fire and his +Sister Water. + +So arises out of this almost nihilistic abyss the noble thing that is +called Praise; which no one will ever understand while he identifies it +with nature-worship or pantheistic optimism. When we say that a poet +praises the whole creation, we commonly mean only that he praises the +whole cosmos. But this sort of poet does really praise creation, in the +sense of the act of creation. He praises the passage or transition from +nonentity to entity; there falls here also the shadow of that archetypal +image of the bridge, which has given to the priest his archaic and +mysterious name. The mystic who passes through the moment when there is +nothing but God does in some sense behold the beginningless beginnings +in which there was really nothing else. He not only appreciates +everything but the nothing of which everything was made. In a fashion he +endures and answers even the earthquake irony of the Book of Job; in +some sense he is there when the foundations of the world are laid, with +the morning stars singing together and the sons of God shouting for joy. +That is but a distant adumbration of the reason why the Franciscan, +ragged, penniless, homeless and apparently hopeless, did indeed come +forth singing such songs as might come from the stars of morning; and +shouting, a son of God. + +This sense of the great gratitude and the sublime dependence was not a +phrase or even a sentiment; it is the whole point that this was the very +rock of reality. It was not a fancy but a fact; rather it is true that +beside it all facts are fancies. That we all depend in every detail, at +every instant, as a Christian would say upon God, as even an agnostic +would say upon existence and the nature of things, is not an illusion of +imagination; on the contrary, it is the fundamental fact which we cover +up, as with curtains, with the illusion of ordinary life. That ordinary +life is an admirable thing in itself, just as imagination is an +admirable thing in itself. But it is much more the ordinary life that is +made of imagination than the contemplative life. He who has seen the +whole world hanging on a hair of the mercy of God has seen the truth; we +might almost say the cold truth. He who has seen the vision of his city upside-down has seen it the right way up. -Rossetti makes the remark somewhere, bitterly but with great -truth, that the worst moment for the atheist is when he is -really thankful and has nobody to thank. The converse of -this proposition is also true; and it is certain that this -gratitude produced, in such men as we are here considering, -the most purely joyful moments that have been known to man. -The great painter boasted that he mixed all his colours with -brains, and the great saint may be said to mix all his -thoughts with thanks. All goods look better when they look -like gifts. In this sense it is certain that the mystical -method establishes a very healthy external relation to -everything else. But it must always be remembered that -everything else has for ever fallen into a second place, in -comparison with this simple fact of dependence on the divine -reality. In so far as ordinary social relations have in them -something that seems solid and self-supporting, some sense -of being at once buttressed and cushioned; in so far as they -establish sanity in the sense of security and security in -the sense of self-sufficiency, the man who has seen the -world hanging on a hair does have some difficulty in taking -them so seriously as that. In so far as even the secular -authorities and hierarchies, even the most natural -superiorities and the most necessary subordinations, tend at -once to put a man in his place, and to make him sure of his -position, the man who has seen the human hierarchy upside -down will always have something of a smile for its -superiorities. In this sense the direct vision of divine -reality does disturb solemnities that are sane enough in -themselves. The mystic may have added a cubit to his -stature; but he generally loses something of his status. He -can no longer take himself for granted, merely because he -can verify his own existence in a parish register or a -family Bible. Such a man may have something of the -appearance of the lunatic who has lost his name while -preserving his nature; who straightaway forgets what manner -of man he was. "Hitherto I have called Pietro Bernardone -father; but now I am the servant of God." - -All these profound matters must be suggested in short and -imperfect phrases; and the shortest statement of one aspect -of this illumination is to say that it is the discovery of -an infinite debt. It may seem a paradox to say that a man -may be transported with joy to discover that he is in debt. -But this is only because in commercial cases the creditor -does not generally share the transports of joy; especially -when the debt is by hypothesis infinite and therefore -unrecoverable. But here again the parallel of a natural -love-story of the nobler sort disposes of the difficulty in -a flash. There the infinite creditor does share the joy of -the infinite debtor; for indeed they are both debtors and -both creditors. In other words debt and dependence do become -pleasures in the presence of unspoilt love; the word is used -too loosely and luxuriously in popular simplifications like -the present; but here the word is really the key. It is the -key of all the problems of Franciscan morality which puzzle -the merely modern mind; but above all it is the key of -asceticism. It is the highest and holiest of the paradoxes -that the man who really knows he cannot pay his debt will be -for ever pa3nng it. He will be for ever giving back what he -cannot give back, and cannot be expected to give back. He -will be always throwing things away into a bottomless pit of -unfathomable thanks. Men who think they are too modern to -understand this are in fact too mean to understand it; we -are most of us too mean to practise it. We are not generous -enough to be ascetics; one might almost say not genial -enough to be ascetics. A man must have magnanimity of -surrender, of which he commonly only catches a glimpse in -first love, like a glimpse of our lost Eden. But whether he -sees it or not, the truth is in that riddle; that the whole -world has, or is, only one good thing; and it is a bad debt. - -If ever that rarer sort of romantic love, which was the -truth that sustained the Troubadours, falls out of fashion -and is treated as fiction, we may see some such -misunderstanding as that of the modern world about -asceticism. For it seems conceivable that some barbarians -might try to destroy chivalry in love, as the barbarians -ruling in Berlin destroyed chivalry in war. If that were -ever so, we should have the same sort of unintelligent -sneers and unimaginative questions. Men will ask what -selfish sort of woman it must have been who ruthlessly -exacted tribute in the form of flowers, or what an -avaricious creature she can have been to demand solid gold -in the form of a ring; just as they ask what cruel kind of -God can have demanded sacrifice and self-denial. They will -have lost the clue to all that lovers have meant by love; -and will not understand that it was because the thing was -not demanded that it was done. But whether or no any such -lesser things will throw a light on the greater, it is -utterly useless to study a great thing like the Franciscan -movement while remaining in the modern mood that murmurs -against gloomy asceticism. The whole point about St. Francis -of Assisi is that he certainly was ascetical and he -certainly was not gloomy. As soon as ever he had been -unhorsed by the glorious humiliation of his vision of -dependence on the divine love, he flung himself into fasting -and vigil exactly as he had flung himself furiously into -battle. He had wheeled his charger clean round, but there -was no halt or check in the thundering impetuosity of his -charge. There was nothing negative about it; it was not a -regimen or a stoical simplicity of life. It was not -self-denial merely in the sense of self-control. It was as -positive as a passion; it had all the air of being as -positive as a pleasure. He devoured fasting as a man devours -food. He plunged after poverty as men have dug madly for -gold. And it is precisely the positive and passionate -quality of this part of his personality that is a challenge -to the modern mind in the whole problem of the pursuit of -pleasure. There undeniably is the historical fact; and there -attached to it is another moral fact almost as undeniable. -It is certain that he held on this heroic or unnatural -course from the moment when he went forth in his hair-shirt -into the winter woods to the moment when he desired even in -his death agony to lie bare upon the bare ground, to prove -that he had and that he was nothing. And we can say, with -almost as deep a certainty, that the stars which passed -above that gaunt and wasted corpse stark upon the rocky -floor had for once, in all their shining cycles round the -world of labouring humanity, looked down upon a happy man. +Rossetti makes the remark somewhere, bitterly but with great truth, that +the worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has +nobody to thank. The converse of this proposition is also true; and it +is certain that this gratitude produced, in such men as we are here +considering, the most purely joyful moments that have been known to man. +The great painter boasted that he mixed all his colours with brains, and +the great saint may be said to mix all his thoughts with thanks. All +goods look better when they look like gifts. In this sense it is certain +that the mystical method establishes a very healthy external relation to +everything else. But it must always be remembered that everything else +has for ever fallen into a second place, in comparison with this simple +fact of dependence on the divine reality. In so far as ordinary social +relations have in them something that seems solid and self-supporting, +some sense of being at once buttressed and cushioned; in so far as they +establish sanity in the sense of security and security in the sense of +self-sufficiency, the man who has seen the world hanging on a hair does +have some difficulty in taking them so seriously as that. In so far as +even the secular authorities and hierarchies, even the most natural +superiorities and the most necessary subordinations, tend at once to put +a man in his place, and to make him sure of his position, the man who +has seen the human hierarchy upside down will always have something of a +smile for its superiorities. In this sense the direct vision of divine +reality does disturb solemnities that are sane enough in themselves. The +mystic may have added a cubit to his stature; but he generally loses +something of his status. He can no longer take himself for granted, +merely because he can verify his own existence in a parish register or a +family Bible. Such a man may have something of the appearance of the +lunatic who has lost his name while preserving his nature; who +straightaway forgets what manner of man he was. "Hitherto I have called +Pietro Bernardone father; but now I am the servant of God." + +All these profound matters must be suggested in short and imperfect +phrases; and the shortest statement of one aspect of this illumination +is to say that it is the discovery of an infinite debt. It may seem a +paradox to say that a man may be transported with joy to discover that +he is in debt. But this is only because in commercial cases the creditor +does not generally share the transports of joy; especially when the debt +is by hypothesis infinite and therefore unrecoverable. But here again +the parallel of a natural love-story of the nobler sort disposes of the +difficulty in a flash. There the infinite creditor does share the joy of +the infinite debtor; for indeed they are both debtors and both +creditors. In other words debt and dependence do become pleasures in the +presence of unspoilt love; the word is used too loosely and luxuriously +in popular simplifications like the present; but here the word is really +the key. It is the key of all the problems of Franciscan morality which +puzzle the merely modern mind; but above all it is the key of +asceticism. It is the highest and holiest of the paradoxes that the man +who really knows he cannot pay his debt will be for ever pa3nng it. He +will be for ever giving back what he cannot give back, and cannot be +expected to give back. He will be always throwing things away into a +bottomless pit of unfathomable thanks. Men who think they are too modern +to understand this are in fact too mean to understand it; we are most of +us too mean to practise it. We are not generous enough to be ascetics; +one might almost say not genial enough to be ascetics. A man must have +magnanimity of surrender, of which he commonly only catches a glimpse in +first love, like a glimpse of our lost Eden. But whether he sees it or +not, the truth is in that riddle; that the whole world has, or is, only +one good thing; and it is a bad debt. + +If ever that rarer sort of romantic love, which was the truth that +sustained the Troubadours, falls out of fashion and is treated as +fiction, we may see some such misunderstanding as that of the modern +world about asceticism. For it seems conceivable that some barbarians +might try to destroy chivalry in love, as the barbarians ruling in +Berlin destroyed chivalry in war. If that were ever so, we should have +the same sort of unintelligent sneers and unimaginative questions. Men +will ask what selfish sort of woman it must have been who ruthlessly +exacted tribute in the form of flowers, or what an avaricious creature +she can have been to demand solid gold in the form of a ring; just as +they ask what cruel kind of God can have demanded sacrifice and +self-denial. They will have lost the clue to all that lovers have meant +by love; and will not understand that it was because the thing was not +demanded that it was done. But whether or no any such lesser things will +throw a light on the greater, it is utterly useless to study a great +thing like the Franciscan movement while remaining in the modern mood +that murmurs against gloomy asceticism. The whole point about +St. Francis of Assisi is that he certainly was ascetical and he +certainly was not gloomy. As soon as ever he had been unhorsed by the +glorious humiliation of his vision of dependence on the divine love, he +flung himself into fasting and vigil exactly as he had flung himself +furiously into battle. He had wheeled his charger clean round, but there +was no halt or check in the thundering impetuosity of his charge. There +was nothing negative about it; it was not a regimen or a stoical +simplicity of life. It was not self-denial merely in the sense of +self-control. It was as positive as a passion; it had all the air of +being as positive as a pleasure. He devoured fasting as a man devours +food. He plunged after poverty as men have dug madly for gold. And it is +precisely the positive and passionate quality of this part of his +personality that is a challenge to the modern mind in the whole problem +of the pursuit of pleasure. There undeniably is the historical fact; and +there attached to it is another moral fact almost as undeniable. It is +certain that he held on this heroic or unnatural course from the moment +when he went forth in his hair-shirt into the winter woods to the moment +when he desired even in his death agony to lie bare upon the bare +ground, to prove that he had and that he was nothing. And we can say, +with almost as deep a certainty, that the stars which passed above that +gaunt and wasted corpse stark upon the rocky floor had for once, in all +their shining cycles round the world of labouring humanity, looked down +upon a happy man. # The Little Poor Man -From that cavern, that was a furnace of glowing gratitude -and humility, there came forth one of the strongest and -strangest and most original personalities that human history -has known. He was, among other things, emphatically what we -call a character; almost as we speak of a character in a -good novel or play. He was not only a humanist but a -humorist; a humorist especially in the old English sense of -a man always in his humour, going his own way and doing what -nobody else would have done. The anecdotes about him have a -certain biographical quality of which the most familiar -example is Dr. Johnson; which belongs in another way to -William Blake or to Charles Lamb. The atmosphere can only be -defined by a sort of antithesis; the act is always -unexpected and never inappropriate. Before the thing is said -or done it cannot even be conjectured; but after it is said -or done it is felt to be merely characteristic. It is -surprisingly and yet inevitably individual. This quality of -abrupt fitness and bewildering consistency belongs to St. -Francis in a way that marks him out from most men of his -time. Men are learning more and more of the solid social -virtues of medieval civilisation; but those impressions are -still social rather than individual. The medieval world was -far ahead of the modern world in its sense of the things in -which all men are at one: death and the daylight of reason -and the common conscience that holds communities together. -Its generalisations were saner and sounder than the mad -materialistic theories of to-day; nobody would have -tolerated a Schopenhauer scorning life or a Nietzsche living -only for scorn. But the modern world is more subtle in its -sense of the things in which men are not at one; in the -temperamental varieties and differentiations that make up -the personal problems of life. All men who can think -themselves now realise that the great school-men had a type -of thought that was wonderfully clear; but it was as it were -deliberately colourless. All are now agreed that the -greatest art of the age was the art of public buildings; the -popular and communal art of architecture. But it was not an -age for the art of portrait-painting. Yet the friends of -St. Francis have really contrived to leave behind a -portrait; something almost resembling a devout and -affectionate caricature. There are lines and colours in it -that are personal almost to the extent of being perverse, if -one can use the word perversity of an inversion that was -also a conversion. Even among the saints he has the air of a -sort of eccentric, if one may use the word of one whose -eccentricity consisted in always turning towards the centre. - -Before resuming the narrative of his first adventures, and -the building of the great brotherhood which was the -beginning of so merciful a revolution, I think it well to -complete this imperfect personal portrait here; and having -attempted in the last chapter a tentative description of the -process, to add in this chapter a few touches to describe -the result. I mean by the result the real man as he was -after his first formative experiences; the man whom men met -walking about on the Italian roads in his brown tunic tied -with a rope. For that man, saving the grace of God, is the -explanation of all that followed; men acted quite -differently according to whether they had met him or not. If -we see afterwards a vast tumult, an appeal to the Pope, mobs -of men in brown habits besieging the seats of authority. -Papal pronouncements, heretical sessions, trial and -triumphant survival, the world full of a new movement, the -friar a household word in every comer of Europe, and if we -ask why all this happened, we can only approximate to any -answer to our own question if we can, in some faint and -indirect imaginative fashion, hear one human voice or see -one human face under a hood. There is no answer except that -Francis Bernardone had happened; and we must try in some -sense to see what we should have seen if he had happened to -us. In other words, after some groping suggestions about his -life from the inside, we must again consider it from the -outside; as if he were a stranger coming up the road towards -us, along the hills of Umbria, between the olives or the -vines. - -Francis of Assisi was slight in figure with that sort of -slightness which, combined with so much vivacity, gives the -impression of smallness. He was probably taller than he -looked; middle-sized, his biographers say; he was certainly -very active and, considering what he went through, must have -been tolerably tough. He was of the brownish Southern -colouring, with a dark beard thin and pointed such as -appears in pictures under the hoods of elves; and his eyes -glowed with the fire that fretted him night and day. There -is something about the description of all he said and did -which suggests that, even more than most Italians, he turned -naturally to a passionate pantomime of gestures. If this was -so it is equally certain that with him, even more than with -most Italians, the gestures were all gestures of politeness -or hospitality. And both these facts, the vivacity and the -courtesy, are the outward signs of something that mark him -out very distinctively from many who might appear to be more -of his kind than they really are. It is truly said that -Francis of Assisi was one of the founders of the medieval -drama, and therefore of the modern drama. He was the very -reverse of a theatrical person in the selfish sense; but for -all that he was pre-eminently a dramatic person. This side -of him can best be suggested by taking what is commonly -regarded as a reposeful quality; what is commonly described -as a love of nature. We are compelled to use the term; and -it is entirely the wrong term. - -St. Francis was not a lover of nature. Properly understood, -a lover of nature was precisely what he was not. The phrase -implies accepting the material universe as a vague -environment, a sort of sentimental pantheism. In the -romantic period of literature, in the age of Byron and -Scott, it was easy enough to imagine that a hermit in the -ruins of a chapel (preferably by moonlight) might find peace -and a mild pleasure in the harmony of solemn forests and -silent stars, while he pondered over some scroll or -illuminated volume, about the liturgical nature of which the -author was a little vague. In short, the hermit might love -nature as a background. Now for St. Francis nothing was ever -in the background. We might say that his mind had no -background, except perhaps that divine darkness out of which -the divine love had called up every coloured creature one by -one. He saw everything as dramatic, distinct from its -setting, not all of a piece like a picture but in action -like a play. A bird went by him like an arrow; something -with a story and a purpose, though it was a purpose of life -and not a purpose of death. A bush could stop him like a -brigand; and indeed he was as ready to welcome the brigand -as the bush. - -In a word, we talk about a man who cannot see the wood for -the trees. St. Francis was a man who did not want to see the -wood for the trees. He wanted to see each tree as a separate -and almost a sacred thing, being a child of God and -therefore a brother or sister of man. But he did not want to -stand against a piece of stage scenery used merely as a -background, and inscribed in a general fashion: "Scene; a -wood." In this sense we might say that he was too dramatic -for the drama. The scenery would have come to life in his -comedies; the walls would really have spoken like Snout the -Tinker and the trees would really have come walking to -Dunsinane. Everything would have been in the foreground; and -in that sense in the footlights. Everything would be in -every sense a character. This is the quality in which, as a -poet, he is the very opposite of a pantheist. He did not -call nature his mother; he called a particular donkey his -brother or a particular sparrow his sister. If he had called -a pelican his aunt or an elephant his uncle, as he might -possibly have done, he would still have meant that they were -particular creatures assigned by their Creator to particular -places; not mere expressions of the evolutionary energy of -things. That is where his mysticism is so close to the -common sense of the child. A child has no difficulty about -understanding that God made the dog and the cat; though he -is well aware that the making of dogs and cats out of -nothing is a mysterious process beyond his own imagination. -But no child would understand what you meant if you mixed up -the dog and the cat and everything else into one monster -with a myriad legs and called it nature. The child would -resolutely refuse to make head or tail of any such animal. -St. Francis was a mystic, but he believed in mysticism and -not in mystification. As a mystic he was the mortal enemy of -all those mystics who melt away the edges of things and -dissolve an entity into its environment. He was a mystic of -the daylight and the darkness; but not a mystic of the -twilight. He was the very contrary of that sort of oriental -visionary who is only a mystic because he is too much of a -sceptic to be a materialist. St. Francis was emphatically a -realist, using the word realist in its much more real -medieval sense. In this matter he really was akin to the -best spirit of his age, which had just won its victory over -the nominalism of the twelfth century. In this indeed there -was something symbolic in the contemporary art and -decoration of his period; as in the art of heraldry. The -Franciscan birds and beasts were really rather like heraldic -birds and beasts; not in the sense of being fabulous animals -but in the sense of being treated as if they were facts, -clear and positive and unaffected by the illusions of -atmosphere and perspective. In that sense he did see a bird -sable on a field azure or a sheep argent on a field vert. -But the heraldry of humility was richer than the heraldry of -pride; for it saw all these things that God had given as -something more precious and unique than the blazonry that -princes and peers had only given to themselves. Indeed out -of the depths of that surrender it rose higher than the -highest titles of the feudal age; than the laurel of Caesar -or the Iron Grown of Lombardy. It is an example of extremes -that meet, that the Little Poor Man, who had stripped -himself of everything and named himself as nothing, took the -same title that has been the wild vaunt of the vanity of the -gorgeous Asiatic autocrat, and called himself the Brother of -the Sun and Moon. This quality, of something outstanding and -even startling in things as St. Francis saw them, is here -important as illustrating a character in his own life. As he -saw all things dramatically, so he himself was always -dramatic. We have to assume throughout, needless to say, -that he was a poet and can only be understood as a poet. But -he had one poetic privilege denied to most poets In that -respect indeed he might be called the one happy poet among -all the unhappy poets of the world. He was a poet whose -whole life was a poem. He was not so much a minstrel merely -singing his own songs as a dramatist capable of acting the -whole of his own play. The things he said were more -imaginative than the things he wrote. The things he did were -more imaginative than the things he said. His whole course -through life was a series of scenes in which he had a sort -of perpetual luck in bringing things to a beautiful crisis. -To talk about the art of living has come to sound rather -artificial than artistic. But St. Francis did in a definite -sense make the very act of living an art, though it was an -unpremeditated art. Many of his acts will seem grotesque and -puzzling to a rationalistic taste. But they were always acts -and not explanations; and they always meant what he meant -them to mean. The amazing vividness with which he stamped -himself on the memory and imagination of mankind is very -largely due to the fact that he was seen again and again -under such dramatic conditions. From the moment when he rent -his robes and flung them at his father's feet to the moment -when he stretched himself in death on the bare earth in the -pattern of the cross, his life was made up of these -unconscious attitudes and unhesitating gestures. It would be -easy to fill page after page with examples; but I will here -pursue the method found convenient everywhere in this short -sketch, and take one typical example, dwelling on it with a -little more detail than would be possible in a catalogue, in -the hope of making the meaning more clear. The example taken -here occurred in the last days of his life, but it refers -back in a rather curious fashion to the first; and rounds -off the remarkable unity of that romance of religion. - -The phrase about his brotherhood with the sun and moon, and -with the water and the fire, occurs of course in his famous -poem called the Canticle of the Creatures or the Canticle of -the Sun. He sang it wandering in the meadows in the sunnier -season of his own career, when he was pouring upwards into -the sky all the passions of a poet. It is a supremely -characteristic work, and much of St. Francis could be -reconstructed from that work alone. Though in some ways the -thing is as simple and straightforward as a ballad, there is -a delicate instinct of differentiation in it. Notice, for -instance, the sense of sex in inanimate things, which goes -far beyond the arbitrary genders of a grammar It was not for -nothing that he called fire his brother, fierce and gay and -strong, and water his sister, pure and clear and inviolate. -Remember that St Francis was neither encumbered nor assisted -by all that Greek and Roman polytheism turned into allegory, -which has been to European poetry often an inspiration, too -often a convention. Whether he gained or lost by his -contempt of learning, it never occurred to him to connect -Neptune and the nymphs with the water or Vulcan and the -Cyclops with the flame. This point exactly illustrates what -has already been suggested; that, so far from being a -revival of paganism, the Franciscan renascence was a sort of -fresh start and first awakening after a forgetfulness of -paganism. Certainly it is responsible for a certain -freshness in the thing itself. Anyhow St. Francis was, as it -were, the founder of a new folk-lore; but he could -distinguish his mermaids from his mermen and his witches -from his wizards. In short, he had to make his own -mythology; but he knew at a glance the goddesses from the -gods. This fanciful instinct for the sexes is not the only -example of an imaginative instinct of the kind. There is -just the same quaint felicity in the fact that he singles -out the sun with a slightly more courtly title besides that -of brother; a phrase that one king might use of another, -corresponding to "Monsieur notre frère." It is like a faint -half ironic shadow of the shining primacy that it had held -in the pagan heavens. A bishop is said to have complained of -a Nonconformist saying Paul instead of Saint Paul; and to -have added "He might at least have called him Mr. Paul." So -St. Francis is free of all obligation to cry out in praise -or terror on the Lord God Apollo, but in his new nursery -heavens, he salutes him as Mr. Sun. Those are the things in -which he has a sort of inspired infancy, only to be -paralleled in nursery tales. Something of the same hazy but -healthy awe makes the story of Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit -refer respectfully to Mr. Man. - -This poem, full of the mirth of youth and the memories of -childhood, runs through his whole life like a refrain, and -scraps of it turn up continually in the ordinary habit of -his talk. Perhaps the last appearance of its special -language was in an incident that has always seemed to me -intensely impressive, and is at any rate very illustrative -of the great manner and gesture of which I speak. -Impressions of that kind are a matter of imagination and in -that sense of taste. It is idle to argue about them; for it -is the whole point of them that they have passed beyond -words; and even when they use words, seem to be completed by -some ritual movement like a blessing or a blow. So, in a -supreme example, there is something far past all exposition, -something like the sweeping movement and mighty shadow of a -hand, darkening even the darkness of Gethsemane; "Sleep on -now, and take your rest..." Yet there are people who have -started to paraphrase and expand the story of the Passion. - -St. Francis was a dying man. We might say he was an old man, -at the time this typical incident occurred; but in fact he -was only prematurely old; for he was not fifty when he died, -worn out with his fighting and fasting life. But when he -came down from the awful asceticism and more awful -revelation of Alverno, he was a broken man. As will be -apparent when these events are touched on in their turn, it -was not only sickness and bodily decay that may well have -darkened his life; he had been recently disappointed in his -main mission to end the Crusades by the conversion of Islam; -he had been still more disappointed by the signs of -compromise and a more political or practical spirit in his -own order; he had spent his last energies in protest. At -this point he was told that he was going blind. If the -faintest hint has been given here of what St Francis felt -about the glory and pageantry of earth and sky, about the -heraldic shape and colour and symbolism of birds and beasts -and flowers, some notion may be formed of what it meant to -him to go blind. Yet the remedy might well have seemed worse -than the disease. The remedy, admittedly an uncertain -remedy, was to cauterise the eye, and that without any -anaesthetic In other words it was to burn his living -eyeballs with a red-hot iron. Many of the tortures of -martyrdom, which he envied in martyrology and sought vainly -in Syria, can have been no worse. When they took the brand -from the furnace, he rose as with an urbane gesture and -spoke as to an invisible presence; "Brother Fire, God made -you beautiful and strong and useful; I pray you be courteous -with me." - -If there be any such thing as the art of life, it seems to -me that such a moment was one of its masterpieces. Not to -many poets has it been given to remember their own poetry at -such a moment, still less to live one of their own poems. -Even William Blake would have been disconcerted if, while he -was re-reading the noble lines "Tiger, tiger, burning -bright," a real large live Bengal tiger had put his head in -at the window of the cottage in Felpham, evidently with -every intention of biting his head off. He might have -wavered before politely saluting it, above all by calmly -completing the recitation of the poem to the quadruped to -whom it was dedicated. Shelley, when he wished to be a cloud -or a leaf carried before the wind, might have been mildly -surprised to find himself turning slowly head over heels in -mid air a thousand feet above the sea. Even Keats, knowing -that his hold on life was a frail one, might have been -disturbed to discover that the true, the blushful Hippocrene -of which he had just partaken freely had indeed contained a -drug, which really ensured that he should cease upon the -midnight with no pain. For Francis there was no drug; and -for Francis there was plenty of pain. But his first thought -was one of his first fancies from the songs of his youth. He -remembered the time when a flame was a flower, only the most -glorious and gaily coloured of the flowers in the garden of -God; and when that shining thing returned to him in the -shape of an instrument of torture, he hailed it from afar -like an old friend, calling it by the nickname which might -most truly be called its Christian name. - -That is only one incident out of a life of such incidents; -and I have selected it partly because it shows what is meant -here by that shadow of gesture there is in all his words, -the dramatic gesture of the south; and partly because its -special reference to courtesy covers the next fact to be -noted. The popular instinct of St. Francis, and his -perpetual preoccupation with the idea of brotherhood, will -be entirely misunderstood if it is understood in the sense -of what is often called camaraderie; the back-slapping sort -of brotherhood. Frequently from the enemies and too -frequently from the friends of the democratic ideal, there -has come a notion that this note is necessary to that ideal. -It is assumed that equality means all men being equally -uncivil, whereas it obviously ought to mean all men being -equally civil Such people have forgotten the very meaning -and derivation of the word civility, if they do not see that -to be uncivil is to be uncivic. But anyhow that was not the -equality which Francis of Assisi encouraged; but an equality -of the opposite kind; it was a camaraderie actually founded -on courtesy. - -Even in that fairy borderland of his mere fancies about -flowers and animals and even inanimate things, he retained -this permanent posture of a sort of deference. A friend of -mine said that somebody was the sort of man who apologises -to the cat. St. Francis really would have apologised to the -cat. When he was about to preach in a wood full of the -chatter of birds, he said, with a gentle gesture "Little -sisters, if you have now had your say, it is time that I -also should be heard." And all the birds were silent; as I -for one can very easily believe. In deference to my special -design of making matters intelligible to average modernity, -I have treated separately the subject of the miraculous -powers that St Francis most certainly possessed But even -apart from any miraculous powers, men of that magnetic sort, -with that intense interest in animals, often have an -extraordinary power over them. St. Francis's power was -always exercised with this elaborate politeness. Much of it -was doubtless a sort of symbolic joke, a pious pantomime -intended to convey the vital distinction in his divine -mission, that he not only loved but reverenced God in all -his creatures. In this sense he had the air not only of -apologising to the cat or to the birds, but of apologising -to a chair for sitting on it or to a table for sitting down -at it. Anyone who had followed him through life merely to -laugh at him, as a sort of lovable lunatic, might easily -have had an impression as of a lunatic who bowed to every -post or took off his hat to every tree. This was all a part -of his instinct for imaginative gesture. He taught the world -a large part of its lesson by a sort of divine dumb -alphabet. But if there was this ceremonial element even in -lighter or lesser matters, its significance became far more -serious in the serious work of his fife, which was an appeal -to humanity, or rather to human beings. - -I have said that St. Francis deliberately did not see the -wood for the trees. It is even more true that he -deliberately did not see the mob for the men. What -distinguishes this very genuine democrat from any mere -demagogue is that he never either deceived or was deceived -by the illusion of mass-suggestion. Whatever his taste in -monsters, he never saw before him a many-headed beast. He -only saw the image of God multiplied but never monotonous. -To him a man was always a man and did not disappear in a -dense crowd any more than in a desert. He honoured all men; -that is, he not only loved but respected them all. What gave -him his extraordinary personal power was this; that from the -Pope to the beggar, from the sultan of Syria in his pavilion -to the ragged robbers crawling out of the wood, there was -never a man who looked into those brown burning eyes without -being certain that Francis Bernardone was really interested -in *him;* in his own inner individual life from the cradle -to the grave; that he himself was being valued and taken -seriously, and not merely added to the spoils of some social -policy or the names in some clerical document. Now for this -particular moral and religious idea there is no external -expression except courtesy. Exhortation does not express it, -for it is not mere abstract enthusiasm; beneficence does not -express it, for it is not mere pity It can only be conveyed -by a certain grand manner which may be called good manners. -We may say if we like that St. Francis, in the bare and -barren simplicity of his life, had clung to one rag of -luxury; the manners of a court. But whereas in a court there -is one king and a hundred courtiers, in this story there was -one courtier, moving among a hundred kings. For he treated -the whole mob of men as a mob of kings. And this was really -and truly the only attitude that will appeal to that part of -man to which he wished to appeal. It cannot be done by -giving gold or even bread; for it is a proverb that any -reveller may fling largesse in mere scorn. It cannot even be -done by giving time and attention; for any number of -philanthropists and benevolent bureaucrats do such work with -a scorn far more cold and horrible in their hearts. No plans -or proposals or efficient rearrangements will give back to a -broken man his self-respect and sense of speaking with an -equal. One gesture will do it. - -With that gesture Francis of Assisi moved among men; and it -was soon found to have something in it of magic and to act, -in a double sense, like a charm. But it must always be -conceived as a completely natural gesture; for indeed it was -almost a gesture of apology. He must be imagined as moving -thus swiftly through the world with a sort of impetuous -politeness; almost like the movement of a man who stumbles -on one knee half in haste and half in obeisance, The eager -face under the brown hood was that of a man always going -somewhere, as if he followed as well as watched the flight -of the birds. And this sense of motion is indeed the meaning -of the whole revolution that he made; for the work that has -now to be described was of the nature of an earthquake or a -volcano, an explosion that drove outwards with demonic -energy the forces stored up by ten centuries in the monastic -fortress or arsenal and scattered all its riches recklessly -to the ends of the earth. In a better sense than the -antithesis commonly conveys, it is true to say that what -St. Benedict had stored St. Francis scattered; but in the -world of spiritual things what had been stored into the -barns like grain was scattered over the world as seed. The -servants of God who had been a besieged garrison became a -marching army; the ways of the world were filled as with -thunder with the trampling of their feet and far ahead of -that ever swelling host went a man singing; as simply he had -sung that morning in the winter woods, where he walked -alone. +From that cavern, that was a furnace of glowing gratitude and humility, +there came forth one of the strongest and strangest and most original +personalities that human history has known. He was, among other things, +emphatically what we call a character; almost as we speak of a character +in a good novel or play. He was not only a humanist but a humorist; a +humorist especially in the old English sense of a man always in his +humour, going his own way and doing what nobody else would have done. +The anecdotes about him have a certain biographical quality of which the +most familiar example is Dr. Johnson; which belongs in another way to +William Blake or to Charles Lamb. The atmosphere can only be defined by +a sort of antithesis; the act is always unexpected and never +inappropriate. Before the thing is said or done it cannot even be +conjectured; but after it is said or done it is felt to be merely +characteristic. It is surprisingly and yet inevitably individual. This +quality of abrupt fitness and bewildering consistency belongs to St. +Francis in a way that marks him out from most men of his time. Men are +learning more and more of the solid social virtues of medieval +civilisation; but those impressions are still social rather than +individual. The medieval world was far ahead of the modern world in its +sense of the things in which all men are at one: death and the daylight +of reason and the common conscience that holds communities together. Its +generalisations were saner and sounder than the mad materialistic +theories of to-day; nobody would have tolerated a Schopenhauer scorning +life or a Nietzsche living only for scorn. But the modern world is more +subtle in its sense of the things in which men are not at one; in the +temperamental varieties and differentiations that make up the personal +problems of life. All men who can think themselves now realise that the +great school-men had a type of thought that was wonderfully clear; but +it was as it were deliberately colourless. All are now agreed that the +greatest art of the age was the art of public buildings; the popular and +communal art of architecture. But it was not an age for the art of +portrait-painting. Yet the friends of St. Francis have really contrived +to leave behind a portrait; something almost resembling a devout and +affectionate caricature. There are lines and colours in it that are +personal almost to the extent of being perverse, if one can use the word +perversity of an inversion that was also a conversion. Even among the +saints he has the air of a sort of eccentric, if one may use the word of +one whose eccentricity consisted in always turning towards the centre. + +Before resuming the narrative of his first adventures, and the building +of the great brotherhood which was the beginning of so merciful a +revolution, I think it well to complete this imperfect personal portrait +here; and having attempted in the last chapter a tentative description +of the process, to add in this chapter a few touches to describe the +result. I mean by the result the real man as he was after his first +formative experiences; the man whom men met walking about on the Italian +roads in his brown tunic tied with a rope. For that man, saving the +grace of God, is the explanation of all that followed; men acted quite +differently according to whether they had met him or not. If we see +afterwards a vast tumult, an appeal to the Pope, mobs of men in brown +habits besieging the seats of authority. Papal pronouncements, heretical +sessions, trial and triumphant survival, the world full of a new +movement, the friar a household word in every comer of Europe, and if we +ask why all this happened, we can only approximate to any answer to our +own question if we can, in some faint and indirect imaginative fashion, +hear one human voice or see one human face under a hood. There is no +answer except that Francis Bernardone had happened; and we must try in +some sense to see what we should have seen if he had happened to us. In +other words, after some groping suggestions about his life from the +inside, we must again consider it from the outside; as if he were a +stranger coming up the road towards us, along the hills of Umbria, +between the olives or the vines. + +Francis of Assisi was slight in figure with that sort of slightness +which, combined with so much vivacity, gives the impression of +smallness. He was probably taller than he looked; middle-sized, his +biographers say; he was certainly very active and, considering what he +went through, must have been tolerably tough. He was of the brownish +Southern colouring, with a dark beard thin and pointed such as appears +in pictures under the hoods of elves; and his eyes glowed with the fire +that fretted him night and day. There is something about the description +of all he said and did which suggests that, even more than most +Italians, he turned naturally to a passionate pantomime of gestures. If +this was so it is equally certain that with him, even more than with +most Italians, the gestures were all gestures of politeness or +hospitality. And both these facts, the vivacity and the courtesy, are +the outward signs of something that mark him out very distinctively from +many who might appear to be more of his kind than they really are. It is +truly said that Francis of Assisi was one of the founders of the +medieval drama, and therefore of the modern drama. He was the very +reverse of a theatrical person in the selfish sense; but for all that he +was pre-eminently a dramatic person. This side of him can best be +suggested by taking what is commonly regarded as a reposeful quality; +what is commonly described as a love of nature. We are compelled to use +the term; and it is entirely the wrong term. + +St. Francis was not a lover of nature. Properly understood, a lover of +nature was precisely what he was not. The phrase implies accepting the +material universe as a vague environment, a sort of sentimental +pantheism. In the romantic period of literature, in the age of Byron and +Scott, it was easy enough to imagine that a hermit in the ruins of a +chapel (preferably by moonlight) might find peace and a mild pleasure in +the harmony of solemn forests and silent stars, while he pondered over +some scroll or illuminated volume, about the liturgical nature of which +the author was a little vague. In short, the hermit might love nature as +a background. Now for St. Francis nothing was ever in the background. We +might say that his mind had no background, except perhaps that divine +darkness out of which the divine love had called up every coloured +creature one by one. He saw everything as dramatic, distinct from its +setting, not all of a piece like a picture but in action like a play. A +bird went by him like an arrow; something with a story and a purpose, +though it was a purpose of life and not a purpose of death. A bush could +stop him like a brigand; and indeed he was as ready to welcome the +brigand as the bush. + +In a word, we talk about a man who cannot see the wood for the trees. +St. Francis was a man who did not want to see the wood for the trees. He +wanted to see each tree as a separate and almost a sacred thing, being a +child of God and therefore a brother or sister of man. But he did not +want to stand against a piece of stage scenery used merely as a +background, and inscribed in a general fashion: "Scene; a wood." In this +sense we might say that he was too dramatic for the drama. The scenery +would have come to life in his comedies; the walls would really have +spoken like Snout the Tinker and the trees would really have come +walking to Dunsinane. Everything would have been in the foreground; and +in that sense in the footlights. Everything would be in every sense a +character. This is the quality in which, as a poet, he is the very +opposite of a pantheist. He did not call nature his mother; he called a +particular donkey his brother or a particular sparrow his sister. If he +had called a pelican his aunt or an elephant his uncle, as he might +possibly have done, he would still have meant that they were particular +creatures assigned by their Creator to particular places; not mere +expressions of the evolutionary energy of things. That is where his +mysticism is so close to the common sense of the child. A child has no +difficulty about understanding that God made the dog and the cat; though +he is well aware that the making of dogs and cats out of nothing is a +mysterious process beyond his own imagination. But no child would +understand what you meant if you mixed up the dog and the cat and +everything else into one monster with a myriad legs and called it +nature. The child would resolutely refuse to make head or tail of any +such animal. St. Francis was a mystic, but he believed in mysticism and +not in mystification. As a mystic he was the mortal enemy of all those +mystics who melt away the edges of things and dissolve an entity into +its environment. He was a mystic of the daylight and the darkness; but +not a mystic of the twilight. He was the very contrary of that sort of +oriental visionary who is only a mystic because he is too much of a +sceptic to be a materialist. St. Francis was emphatically a realist, +using the word realist in its much more real medieval sense. In this +matter he really was akin to the best spirit of his age, which had just +won its victory over the nominalism of the twelfth century. In this +indeed there was something symbolic in the contemporary art and +decoration of his period; as in the art of heraldry. The Franciscan +birds and beasts were really rather like heraldic birds and beasts; not +in the sense of being fabulous animals but in the sense of being treated +as if they were facts, clear and positive and unaffected by the +illusions of atmosphere and perspective. In that sense he did see a bird +sable on a field azure or a sheep argent on a field vert. But the +heraldry of humility was richer than the heraldry of pride; for it saw +all these things that God had given as something more precious and +unique than the blazonry that princes and peers had only given to +themselves. Indeed out of the depths of that surrender it rose higher +than the highest titles of the feudal age; than the laurel of Caesar or +the Iron Grown of Lombardy. It is an example of extremes that meet, that +the Little Poor Man, who had stripped himself of everything and named +himself as nothing, took the same title that has been the wild vaunt of +the vanity of the gorgeous Asiatic autocrat, and called himself the +Brother of the Sun and Moon. This quality, of something outstanding and +even startling in things as St. Francis saw them, is here important as +illustrating a character in his own life. As he saw all things +dramatically, so he himself was always dramatic. We have to assume +throughout, needless to say, that he was a poet and can only be +understood as a poet. But he had one poetic privilege denied to most +poets In that respect indeed he might be called the one happy poet among +all the unhappy poets of the world. He was a poet whose whole life was a +poem. He was not so much a minstrel merely singing his own songs as a +dramatist capable of acting the whole of his own play. The things he +said were more imaginative than the things he wrote. The things he did +were more imaginative than the things he said. His whole course through +life was a series of scenes in which he had a sort of perpetual luck in +bringing things to a beautiful crisis. To talk about the art of living +has come to sound rather artificial than artistic. But St. Francis did +in a definite sense make the very act of living an art, though it was an +unpremeditated art. Many of his acts will seem grotesque and puzzling to +a rationalistic taste. But they were always acts and not explanations; +and they always meant what he meant them to mean. The amazing vividness +with which he stamped himself on the memory and imagination of mankind +is very largely due to the fact that he was seen again and again under +such dramatic conditions. From the moment when he rent his robes and +flung them at his father's feet to the moment when he stretched himself +in death on the bare earth in the pattern of the cross, his life was +made up of these unconscious attitudes and unhesitating gestures. It +would be easy to fill page after page with examples; but I will here +pursue the method found convenient everywhere in this short sketch, and +take one typical example, dwelling on it with a little more detail than +would be possible in a catalogue, in the hope of making the meaning more +clear. The example taken here occurred in the last days of his life, but +it refers back in a rather curious fashion to the first; and rounds off +the remarkable unity of that romance of religion. + +The phrase about his brotherhood with the sun and moon, and with the +water and the fire, occurs of course in his famous poem called the +Canticle of the Creatures or the Canticle of the Sun. He sang it +wandering in the meadows in the sunnier season of his own career, when +he was pouring upwards into the sky all the passions of a poet. It is a +supremely characteristic work, and much of St. Francis could be +reconstructed from that work alone. Though in some ways the thing is as +simple and straightforward as a ballad, there is a delicate instinct of +differentiation in it. Notice, for instance, the sense of sex in +inanimate things, which goes far beyond the arbitrary genders of a +grammar It was not for nothing that he called fire his brother, fierce +and gay and strong, and water his sister, pure and clear and inviolate. +Remember that St Francis was neither encumbered nor assisted by all that +Greek and Roman polytheism turned into allegory, which has been to +European poetry often an inspiration, too often a convention. Whether he +gained or lost by his contempt of learning, it never occurred to him to +connect Neptune and the nymphs with the water or Vulcan and the Cyclops +with the flame. This point exactly illustrates what has already been +suggested; that, so far from being a revival of paganism, the Franciscan +renascence was a sort of fresh start and first awakening after a +forgetfulness of paganism. Certainly it is responsible for a certain +freshness in the thing itself. Anyhow St. Francis was, as it were, the +founder of a new folk-lore; but he could distinguish his mermaids from +his mermen and his witches from his wizards. In short, he had to make +his own mythology; but he knew at a glance the goddesses from the gods. +This fanciful instinct for the sexes is not the only example of an +imaginative instinct of the kind. There is just the same quaint felicity +in the fact that he singles out the sun with a slightly more courtly +title besides that of brother; a phrase that one king might use of +another, corresponding to "Monsieur notre frère." It is like a faint +half ironic shadow of the shining primacy that it had held in the pagan +heavens. A bishop is said to have complained of a Nonconformist saying +Paul instead of Saint Paul; and to have added "He might at least have +called him Mr. Paul." So St. Francis is free of all obligation to cry +out in praise or terror on the Lord God Apollo, but in his new nursery +heavens, he salutes him as Mr. Sun. Those are the things in which he has +a sort of inspired infancy, only to be paralleled in nursery tales. +Something of the same hazy but healthy awe makes the story of Brer Fox +and Brer Rabbit refer respectfully to Mr. Man. + +This poem, full of the mirth of youth and the memories of childhood, +runs through his whole life like a refrain, and scraps of it turn up +continually in the ordinary habit of his talk. Perhaps the last +appearance of its special language was in an incident that has always +seemed to me intensely impressive, and is at any rate very illustrative +of the great manner and gesture of which I speak. Impressions of that +kind are a matter of imagination and in that sense of taste. It is idle +to argue about them; for it is the whole point of them that they have +passed beyond words; and even when they use words, seem to be completed +by some ritual movement like a blessing or a blow. So, in a supreme +example, there is something far past all exposition, something like the +sweeping movement and mighty shadow of a hand, darkening even the +darkness of Gethsemane; "Sleep on now, and take your rest..." Yet there +are people who have started to paraphrase and expand the story of the +Passion. + +St. Francis was a dying man. We might say he was an old man, at the time +this typical incident occurred; but in fact he was only prematurely old; +for he was not fifty when he died, worn out with his fighting and +fasting life. But when he came down from the awful asceticism and more +awful revelation of Alverno, he was a broken man. As will be apparent +when these events are touched on in their turn, it was not only sickness +and bodily decay that may well have darkened his life; he had been +recently disappointed in his main mission to end the Crusades by the +conversion of Islam; he had been still more disappointed by the signs of +compromise and a more political or practical spirit in his own order; he +had spent his last energies in protest. At this point he was told that +he was going blind. If the faintest hint has been given here of what St +Francis felt about the glory and pageantry of earth and sky, about the +heraldic shape and colour and symbolism of birds and beasts and flowers, +some notion may be formed of what it meant to him to go blind. Yet the +remedy might well have seemed worse than the disease. The remedy, +admittedly an uncertain remedy, was to cauterise the eye, and that +without any anaesthetic In other words it was to burn his living +eyeballs with a red-hot iron. Many of the tortures of martyrdom, which +he envied in martyrology and sought vainly in Syria, can have been no +worse. When they took the brand from the furnace, he rose as with an +urbane gesture and spoke as to an invisible presence; "Brother Fire, God +made you beautiful and strong and useful; I pray you be courteous with +me." + +If there be any such thing as the art of life, it seems to me that such +a moment was one of its masterpieces. Not to many poets has it been +given to remember their own poetry at such a moment, still less to live +one of their own poems. Even William Blake would have been disconcerted +if, while he was re-reading the noble lines "Tiger, tiger, burning +bright," a real large live Bengal tiger had put his head in at the +window of the cottage in Felpham, evidently with every intention of +biting his head off. He might have wavered before politely saluting it, +above all by calmly completing the recitation of the poem to the +quadruped to whom it was dedicated. Shelley, when he wished to be a +cloud or a leaf carried before the wind, might have been mildly +surprised to find himself turning slowly head over heels in mid air a +thousand feet above the sea. Even Keats, knowing that his hold on life +was a frail one, might have been disturbed to discover that the true, +the blushful Hippocrene of which he had just partaken freely had indeed +contained a drug, which really ensured that he should cease upon the +midnight with no pain. For Francis there was no drug; and for Francis +there was plenty of pain. But his first thought was one of his first +fancies from the songs of his youth. He remembered the time when a flame +was a flower, only the most glorious and gaily coloured of the flowers +in the garden of God; and when that shining thing returned to him in the +shape of an instrument of torture, he hailed it from afar like an old +friend, calling it by the nickname which might most truly be called its +Christian name. + +That is only one incident out of a life of such incidents; and I have +selected it partly because it shows what is meant here by that shadow of +gesture there is in all his words, the dramatic gesture of the south; +and partly because its special reference to courtesy covers the next +fact to be noted. The popular instinct of St. Francis, and his perpetual +preoccupation with the idea of brotherhood, will be entirely +misunderstood if it is understood in the sense of what is often called +camaraderie; the back-slapping sort of brotherhood. Frequently from the +enemies and too frequently from the friends of the democratic ideal, +there has come a notion that this note is necessary to that ideal. It is +assumed that equality means all men being equally uncivil, whereas it +obviously ought to mean all men being equally civil Such people have +forgotten the very meaning and derivation of the word civility, if they +do not see that to be uncivil is to be uncivic. But anyhow that was not +the equality which Francis of Assisi encouraged; but an equality of the +opposite kind; it was a camaraderie actually founded on courtesy. + +Even in that fairy borderland of his mere fancies about flowers and +animals and even inanimate things, he retained this permanent posture of +a sort of deference. A friend of mine said that somebody was the sort of +man who apologises to the cat. St. Francis really would have apologised +to the cat. When he was about to preach in a wood full of the chatter of +birds, he said, with a gentle gesture "Little sisters, if you have now +had your say, it is time that I also should be heard." And all the birds +were silent; as I for one can very easily believe. In deference to my +special design of making matters intelligible to average modernity, I +have treated separately the subject of the miraculous powers that St +Francis most certainly possessed But even apart from any miraculous +powers, men of that magnetic sort, with that intense interest in +animals, often have an extraordinary power over them. St. Francis's +power was always exercised with this elaborate politeness. Much of it +was doubtless a sort of symbolic joke, a pious pantomime intended to +convey the vital distinction in his divine mission, that he not only +loved but reverenced God in all his creatures. In this sense he had the +air not only of apologising to the cat or to the birds, but of +apologising to a chair for sitting on it or to a table for sitting down +at it. Anyone who had followed him through life merely to laugh at him, +as a sort of lovable lunatic, might easily have had an impression as of +a lunatic who bowed to every post or took off his hat to every tree. +This was all a part of his instinct for imaginative gesture. He taught +the world a large part of its lesson by a sort of divine dumb alphabet. +But if there was this ceremonial element even in lighter or lesser +matters, its significance became far more serious in the serious work of +his fife, which was an appeal to humanity, or rather to human beings. + +I have said that St. Francis deliberately did not see the wood for the +trees. It is even more true that he deliberately did not see the mob for +the men. What distinguishes this very genuine democrat from any mere +demagogue is that he never either deceived or was deceived by the +illusion of mass-suggestion. Whatever his taste in monsters, he never +saw before him a many-headed beast. He only saw the image of God +multiplied but never monotonous. To him a man was always a man and did +not disappear in a dense crowd any more than in a desert. He honoured +all men; that is, he not only loved but respected them all. What gave +him his extraordinary personal power was this; that from the Pope to the +beggar, from the sultan of Syria in his pavilion to the ragged robbers +crawling out of the wood, there was never a man who looked into those +brown burning eyes without being certain that Francis Bernardone was +really interested in *him;* in his own inner individual life from the +cradle to the grave; that he himself was being valued and taken +seriously, and not merely added to the spoils of some social policy or +the names in some clerical document. Now for this particular moral and +religious idea there is no external expression except courtesy. +Exhortation does not express it, for it is not mere abstract enthusiasm; +beneficence does not express it, for it is not mere pity It can only be +conveyed by a certain grand manner which may be called good manners. We +may say if we like that St. Francis, in the bare and barren simplicity +of his life, had clung to one rag of luxury; the manners of a court. But +whereas in a court there is one king and a hundred courtiers, in this +story there was one courtier, moving among a hundred kings. For he +treated the whole mob of men as a mob of kings. And this was really and +truly the only attitude that will appeal to that part of man to which he +wished to appeal. It cannot be done by giving gold or even bread; for it +is a proverb that any reveller may fling largesse in mere scorn. It +cannot even be done by giving time and attention; for any number of +philanthropists and benevolent bureaucrats do such work with a scorn far +more cold and horrible in their hearts. No plans or proposals or +efficient rearrangements will give back to a broken man his self-respect +and sense of speaking with an equal. One gesture will do it. + +With that gesture Francis of Assisi moved among men; and it was soon +found to have something in it of magic and to act, in a double sense, +like a charm. But it must always be conceived as a completely natural +gesture; for indeed it was almost a gesture of apology. He must be +imagined as moving thus swiftly through the world with a sort of +impetuous politeness; almost like the movement of a man who stumbles on +one knee half in haste and half in obeisance, The eager face under the +brown hood was that of a man always going somewhere, as if he followed +as well as watched the flight of the birds. And this sense of motion is +indeed the meaning of the whole revolution that he made; for the work +that has now to be described was of the nature of an earthquake or a +volcano, an explosion that drove outwards with demonic energy the forces +stored up by ten centuries in the monastic fortress or arsenal and +scattered all its riches recklessly to the ends of the earth. In a +better sense than the antithesis commonly conveys, it is true to say +that what St. Benedict had stored St. Francis scattered; but in the +world of spiritual things what had been stored into the barns like grain +was scattered over the world as seed. The servants of God who had been a +besieged garrison became a marching army; the ways of the world were +filled as with thunder with the trampling of their feet and far ahead of +that ever swelling host went a man singing; as simply he had sung that +morning in the winter woods, where he walked alone. # The Three Orders -There is undoubtedly a sense in which two is company and -three is none; there is also another sense in which three is -company and four is none, as is proved by the procession of -historic and fictitious figures moving three deep, the -famous trios like the Three Musketeers or the Three Soldiers -of Kipling. But there is yet another and a different sense -in which four is company and three is none; if we use the -word company in the vaguer sense of a crowd or a mass. With -the fourth man enters the shadow of a mob; the group is no -longer one of three individuals only conceived individually. -That shadow of the fourth man fell across the little -hermitage of the Portiuncula when a man named Egidio, -apparently a poor workman, was invited by St. Francis to -enter. He mingled without difficulty with the merchant and -the canon who had already become the companions of Francis; -but with his coming an invisible line was crossed; for it -must have been felt by this time that the growth of that -small group had become potentially infinite, or at least -that its outline had become permanently indefinite. It may -have been in the time of that transition that Francis had -another of his dreams full of voices; but now the voices -were a clamour of the tongues of all nations, Frenchmen and -Italians and English and Spanish and Germans, telling of the -glory of God each in his own tongue; a new Pentecost and a -happier Babel. - -Before describing the first steps he took to regularise the -growing group, it is well to have a rough grasp of what he -conceived that group to be. He did not call his followers -monks; and it is not clear, at this time at least, that he -even thought of them as monks. He called them by a name -which is generally rendered in English as the Friars Minor; -but we shall be much closer to the atmosphere of his own -mind if we render it almost literally as The Little -Brothers. Presumably he was already resolved, indeed, that -they should take the three vows of poverty, chastity and -obedience which had always been the mark of a monk. But it -would seem that he was not so much afraid of the idea of a -monk as of the idea of an abbot. He was afraid that the -great spiritual magistracies which had given even to their -holiest possessors at least a sort of impersonal and -corporate pride, would import an element of pomposity that -would spoil his extremely and almost extravagantly simple -version of the life of humility. But the supreme difference -between his discipline and the discipline of the old -monastic system was concerned, of course, with the idea that -the monks were to become migratory and almost nomadic -instead of stationary. They were to mingle with the world; -and to this the more old-fashioned monk would naturally -reply by asking how they were to mingle with the world -without becoming entangled with the world. It was a much -more real question than a loose religiosity is likely to -realise; but St. Francis had his answer to it, of his own -individual sort; and the interest of the problem is in that +There is undoubtedly a sense in which two is company and three is none; +there is also another sense in which three is company and four is none, +as is proved by the procession of historic and fictitious figures moving +three deep, the famous trios like the Three Musketeers or the Three +Soldiers of Kipling. But there is yet another and a different sense in +which four is company and three is none; if we use the word company in +the vaguer sense of a crowd or a mass. With the fourth man enters the +shadow of a mob; the group is no longer one of three individuals only +conceived individually. That shadow of the fourth man fell across the +little hermitage of the Portiuncula when a man named Egidio, apparently +a poor workman, was invited by St. Francis to enter. He mingled without +difficulty with the merchant and the canon who had already become the +companions of Francis; but with his coming an invisible line was +crossed; for it must have been felt by this time that the growth of that +small group had become potentially infinite, or at least that its +outline had become permanently indefinite. It may have been in the time +of that transition that Francis had another of his dreams full of +voices; but now the voices were a clamour of the tongues of all nations, +Frenchmen and Italians and English and Spanish and Germans, telling of +the glory of God each in his own tongue; a new Pentecost and a happier +Babel. + +Before describing the first steps he took to regularise the growing +group, it is well to have a rough grasp of what he conceived that group +to be. He did not call his followers monks; and it is not clear, at this +time at least, that he even thought of them as monks. He called them by +a name which is generally rendered in English as the Friars Minor; but +we shall be much closer to the atmosphere of his own mind if we render +it almost literally as The Little Brothers. Presumably he was already +resolved, indeed, that they should take the three vows of poverty, +chastity and obedience which had always been the mark of a monk. But it +would seem that he was not so much afraid of the idea of a monk as of +the idea of an abbot. He was afraid that the great spiritual +magistracies which had given even to their holiest possessors at least a +sort of impersonal and corporate pride, would import an element of +pomposity that would spoil his extremely and almost extravagantly simple +version of the life of humility. But the supreme difference between his +discipline and the discipline of the old monastic system was concerned, +of course, with the idea that the monks were to become migratory and +almost nomadic instead of stationary. They were to mingle with the +world; and to this the more old-fashioned monk would naturally reply by +asking how they were to mingle with the world without becoming entangled +with the world. It was a much more real question than a loose +religiosity is likely to realise; but St. Francis had his answer to it, +of his own individual sort; and the interest of the problem is in that highly individual answer. -The good Bishop of Assisi expressed a sort of horror at the -hard life which the Little Brothers lived at the -Portiuncula, without comforts, without possessions, eating -anything they could get and sleeping anyhow on the ground. -St. Francis answered him with that curious and almost -stunning shrewdness which the unworldly can sometimes wield -like a club of stone. He said, "If we had any possessions, -we should need weapons and laws to defend them." That -sentence is the clue to the whole policy that he pursued. It -rested upon a real piece of logic; and about that he was -never anything but logical. He was ready to own himself -wrong about anything else; but he was quite certain he was -right about this particular rule. He was only once seen -angry; and that was when there was talk of an exception to -the rule. - -His argument was this: that the dedicated man might go -anywhere among any kind of men, even the worst kind of men, -so long as there was nothing by which they could hold him. -If he had any ties or needs like ordinary men, he would -become like ordinary men. St. Francis was the last man in -the world to think any the worse of ordinary men for being -ordinary. They had more affection and admiration from him -than they are ever likely to have again. But for his own -particular purpose of stirring up the world to a new -spiritual enthusiasm, he saw with a logical clarity that was -quite reverse of fanatical or sentimental, that friars must -not become like ordinary men; that the salt must not lose -its savour even to turn into human nature's daily food. And -the difference between a friar and an ordinary man was -really that a friar was freer than an ordinary man. It was -necessary that he should be free from the cloister; but it -was even more important that he should be free from the -world. It is perfectly sound common sense to say that there -is a sense in which the ordinary man cannot be free from the -world; or rather ought not to be free from the world. The -feudal world in particular was one labyrinthine system of -dependence; but it was not only the feudal world that went -to make up the medieval world nor the medieval world that -went to make up the whole world; and the whole world is full -of this fact. Family life as much as feudal life is in its -nature a system of dependence. Modern trade unions as much -as medieval guilds are interdependent among themselves even -in order to be independent of others. In medieval as in -modern life, even where these limitations do exist for the -sake of liberty, they have in them a considerable element of -luck. They are partly the result of circumstances; sometimes -the almost unavoidable result of circumstances. So the -twelfth century had been the age of vows; and there was -something of relative freedom in that feudal gesture of the -vow; for no man asks vows from slaves any more than from -spades. Still, in practice, a man rode to war in support of -the ancient house of the Column or behind the Great Dog of -the Stairway largely because he had been born in a certain -city or countryside. But no man need obey little Francis in -the old brown coat unless he chose. Even in his relations -with his chosen leader he was in one sense relatively free, -compared with the world around him. He was obedient but not -dependent. And he was as free as the wind, he was almost -wildly free, in his relation to that world around him. The -world around him was, as has been noted, a network of feudal -and family and other forms of dependence. The whole idea of -St. Francis was that the Little Brothers should be like -little fishes who could go freely in and out of that net. -They could do so precisely because they were small fishes -and in that sense even slippery fishes. There was nothing -that the world could hold them by; for the world catches us -mostly by the fringes of our garments, the futile externals -of our lives. One of the Franciscans says later, "A monk -should own nothing but his harp"; meaning, I suppose, that -he should value nothing but his song, the song with which it -was his business as a minstrel to serenade every castle and -cottage, the song of the joy of the Creator in his creation -and the beauty of the brotherhood of men. In imagining the -life of this sort of visionary vagabond, we may already get -a glimpse also of the practical side of that asceticism -which puzzles those who think themselves practical. A man -had to be thin to pass always through the bars and out of -the cage; he had to travel light in order to ride so fast -and so far. It was the whole calculation, so to speak, of -that innocent cunning, that the world was to be outflanked -and outwitted by him, and be embarrassed about what to do -with him. You could not threaten to starve a man who was -ever striving to fast. You could not ruin him and reduce him -to beggary, for he was already a beggar. There was a very -lukewarm satisfaction even in beating him with a stick, when -he only indulged in little leaps and cries of joy because -indignity was his only dignity. You could not put his head -in a halter without the risk of putting it in a halo. - -But one distinction between the old monks and the new friars -counted especially in the matter of practicality and -especially of promptitude. The old fraternities with their -fixed habitations and enclosed existence had the limitations -of ordinary householders. However simply they lived there -must be a certain number of cells or a certain number of -beds or at least a certain cubic space for a certain number -of brothers; their numbers therefore depended on their land -and building material. But since a man could become a -Franciscan by merely promising to take his chance of eating -berries in a lane or begging a crust from a kitchen, of -sleeping under a hedge or sitting patiently on a doorstep, -there was no economic reason why there should not be any -number of such eccentric enthusiasts within any short period -of time. It must also be remembered that the whole of this -rapid development was full of a certain kind of democratic -optimism that really was part of the personal character of -St. Francis. His very asceticism was in one sense the height -of optimism. He demanded a great deal of human nature not -because he despised it but rather because he trusted it. He -was expecting a very great deal from the extraordinary men -who followed him; but he was also expecting a good deal from -the ordinary men to whom he sent them. He asked the laity -for food as confidently as he asked the fraternity for -fasting. But he counted on the hospitality of humanity -because he really did regard every house as the house of a -friend. He really did love and honour ordinary men and -ordinary things; indeed we may say that he only sent out the -extraordinary men to encourage men to be ordinary. - -This paradox may be more exactly stated or explained when we -come to deal with the very interesting matter of the Third -Order, which was designed to assist ordinary men to be -ordinary with an extraordinary exultation. The point at -issue at present is the audacity and simplicity of the -Franciscan plan for quartering its spiritual soldiery upon -the population; not by force but by persuasion, and even by -the persuasion of impotence. It was an act of confidence and -therefore a compliment. It was completely successful. It was -an example of something that clung about St. Francis always; -a kind of tact that looked like luck because it was as -simple and direct as a thunderbolt. There are many examples -in his private relations of this sort of tactless tact; this -surprise effected by striking at the heart of the matter. It -is said that a young friar was suffering from a sort of -sulks between morbidity and humility, common enough in youth -and hero-worship, in which he had got it into his head that -his hero hated or despised him. We can imagine how tactfully -social diplomatists would steer clear of scenes and -excitements, how cautiously psychologists would watch and -handle such delicate cases. Francis suddenly walked up to -the young man, who was of course secretive and silent as the -grave, and said, "Be not troubled in your thoughts for you -are dear to me, and even among the number of those who are -most dear. You know that you are worthy of my friendship and -society; therefore come to me, in confidence, whensoever you -will, and from friendship learn faith." Exactly as he spoke -to that morbid boy he spoke to all mankind. He always went -to the point; he always seemed at once more right and more -simple than the person he was speaking to. He seemed at once -to be laying open his guard and yet lunging at the heart. -Something in this attitude disarmed the world as it has -never been disarmed again. He was better than other men; he -was a benefactor of other men; and yet he was not hated. The -world came into church by a newer and nearer door; and by -friendship it learnt faith. - -It was while the little knot of people at the Portiuncula -was still small enough to gather in a small room that -St. Francis resolved on his first important and even -sensational stroke. It is said that there were only twelve -Franciscans in the whole world when he decided to march, as -it were, on Rome and found a Franciscan order. It would seem -that this appeal to remote headquarters was not generally -regarded as necessary; possibly something could have been -done in a secondary way under the Bishop of Assisi and the -local clergy. It would seem even more probable that people -thought it somewhat unnecessary to trouble the supreme -tribunal of Christendom about what a dozen chance men chose -to call themselves. But Francis was obstinate and as it were -blind on this point; and his brilliant blindness is -exceedingly characteristic of him. A man satisfied with -small things, or even in love with small things, he yet -never felt quite as we do about the disproportion between -small things and large. He never saw things to scale in our -sense, but with a dizzy disproportion which makes the mind -reel. Sometimes it seems merely out of drawing like a gaily -coloured medieval map; and then again it seems to have -escaped from everything like a short cut in the fourth -dimension. He is said to have made a journey to interview -the Emperor, throned among his armies under the eagle of the -Holy Roman Empire, to intercede for the lives of certain -little birds. He was quite capable of facing fifty emperors -to intercede for one bird. He started out with two -companions to convert the Muslim world. He started out with -eleven companions to ask the Pope to make a new monastic -world. - -Innocent III, the great Pope, according to Bonaventura, was -walking on the terrace of St. John Lateran, doubtless -revolving the great political questions which troubled his -reign, when there appeared abruptly before him a person in -peasant costume whom he took to be some sort of shepherd. He -appears to have got rid of the shepherd with all convenient -speed; possibly he formed the opinion that the shepherd was -mad. Anyhow he thought no more about it until, says the -great Franciscan biographer, he dreamed that night a strange -dream. He fancied that he saw the whole huge ancient temple -of St. John Lateran, on whose high terraces he had walked so -securely, leaning horribly and crooked against the sky as if -all its domes and turrets were stooping before an -earthquake. Then he looked again and saw that a human figure -was holding it up like a living caryatid; and the figure was -that of the ragged shepherd or peasant from whom he had -turned away on the terrace. Whether this be a fact or a -figure it is a very true figure of the abrupt simplicity -with which Francis won the attention and the favour of Rome. -His first friend seems to have been the Cardinal Giovanni di -San Paolo who pleaded for the Franciscan idea before a -conclave of Cardinals summoned for the purpose. It is -interesting to note that the doubts thrown upon it seem to -have been chiefly doubts about whether the rule was not too -hard for humanity, for the Catholic Church is always on the -watch against excessive asceticism and its evils. Probably -they meant, especially when they said it was unduly hard, -that it was truly dangerous. For a certain element that can -only be called danger is what marks the innovation as -compared with older institutions of the kind. In one sense -indeed the friar was almost the opposite of the monk. The -value of the old monasticism had been that there was not -only an ethical but an economic repose. Out of that repose -had come the works for which the world will never be -sufficiently grateful, the preservation of the classics, the -beginning of the Gothic, the schemes of science and -philosophies, the illuminated manuscripts and the coloured -glass. The whole point of a monk was that his economic -affairs were settled for good; he knew where he would get -his supper, though it was a very plain supper. But the whole -point of a friar was that he did not know where he would get -his supper. There was always a possibility that he might get -no supper. There was an element of what would be called -romance, as of the gipsy or adventurer. But there was also -an element of potential tragedy, as of the tramp or the -casual labourer. So the Cardinals of the thirteenth century -were filled with compassion, seeing a few men entering of -their own free will that estate to which the poor of the -twentieth century are daily driven by cold coercion and -moved on by the police. - -Cardinal San Paolo seems to have argued more or less in this -manner: it may be a hard life, but after all it is the life -apparently described as ideal in the Gospel; make what -compromises you think wise or humane about that ideal; but -do not commit yourselves to saying that men shall not fulfil -that ideal if they can. We shall see the importance of this -argument when we come to the whole of that higher aspect of -the life of St. Francis which may be called the Imitation of -Christ. The upshot of the discussion was that the Pope gave -his verbal approval to the project and promised a more -definite endorsement, if the movement should grow to more -considerable proportions. It is probable that Innocent, who -was himself a man of no ordinary mentality, had very little -doubt that it would do so; anyhow he was not left long in -doubt before it did do so. The next passage in the history -of the order is simply the story of more and more people -flocking to its standard; and as has already been remarked, -once it had begun to grow, it could in its nature grow much -more quickly than any ordinary society requiring ordinary -funds and public buildings. Even the return of the twelve -pioneers from their papal audience seems to have been a sort -of triumphal procession. In one place in particular, it is -said, the whole population of a town, men, women and -children, turned out, leaving their work and wealth and -homes exactly as they stood and begging to be taken into the -army of God on the spot. According to the story, it was on -this occasion that St. Francis first foreshadowed his idea -of the Third Order which enabled men to share in the -movement without leaving the homes and habits of normal -humanity. For the moment it is most important to regard this -story as one example of the riot of conversion with which he -was already filling all the roads of Italy. It was a world -of wandering; friars perpetually coming and going in all the -highways and byways, seeking to ensure that any man who met -one of them by chance should have a spiritual adventure. The -First Order of St. Francis had entered history. - -This rough outline can only be rounded off here with some -description of the Second and Third Orders, though they were -founded later and at separate times. The former was an order -for women and owed its existence, of course, to the -beautiful friendship of St. Francis and St. Clare. There is -no story about which even the most sympathetic critics of -another creed have been more bewildered and misleading. For -there is no story that more clearly turns on that simple -test which I have taken as crucial throughout this -criticism. I mean that what is the matter with these critics -is that they will not believe that a heavenly love can be as -real as an earthly love. The moment it is treated as real, -like an earthly love, their whole riddle is easily resolved. -A girl of seventeen, named Clare and belonging to one of the -noble families of Assisi, was filled with an enthusiasm for -the conventual life; and Francis helped her to escape from -her home and to take up the conventual life. If we like to -put it so, he helped her to elope into the cloister, defying -her parents as he had defied his father. Indeed the scene -had many of the elements of a regular romantic elopement; -for she escaped through a hole in the wall, fled through a -wood and was received at midnight by the light of torches. -Even Mrs. Oliphant, in her fine and delicate study of -St. Francis, calls it "an incident which we can hardly -record with satisfaction." - -Now about that incident I will here only say this. If it had -really been a romantic elopement and the girl had become a -bride instead of a nun, practically the whole modern world -would have made her a heroine. If the action of the Friar -towards Clare had been the action of the Friar towards -Juliet, everybody would be sympathising with her exactly as -they sympathise with Juliet. It is not conclusive to say -that Clare was only seventeen. Juliet was only fourteen. -Girls married and boys fought in battles at such early ages -in medieval times; and a girl of seventeen in the thirteenth -century was certainly old enough to know her own mind. There -cannot be the shadow of a doubt, for any sane person -considering subsequent events, that St. Clare did know her -own mind. But the point for the moment is that parents when -it is done in the name of romantic love. For it knows that -romantic love is a reality, but it does not know that divine -love is a reality. There may have been something to be said -for the parents of Clare; there may have been something to -be said for Peter Bernardone. So there may have been a great -deal to be said for the Montagues or the Capulets; but the -modern world does not want it said; and does not say it. The -fact is that as soon as we assume for a moment as a -hypothesis, what St. Francis and St. Clare assumed all the -time as an absolute, that there is a direct divine relation -more glorious than any romance, the story of St. Clare's -elopement is simply a romance with a happy ending; and -St. Francis is the St. George or knight-errant who gave it a -happy ending. And seeing that some millions of men and women -have lived and died treating this relation as a reality, a -man is not much of a philosopher if he cannot even treat it -as a hypothesis. - -For the rest, we may at least assume that no friend of what -is called the emancipation of women will regret the revolt -of St. Clare. She did most truly, in the modern jargon, live -her own fife, the life that she herself wanted to lead, as -distinct from the life into which parental commands and -conventional arrangements would have forced her. She became -the foundress of a great feminine movement which still -profoundly affects the world; and her place is with the -powerful women of history. It is not clear that she would -have been so great or so useful if she had made a runaway -match, or even stopped at home and made a marriage de -convenance. So much any sensible man may well say -considering the matter merely from the outside; and I have -no intention of attempting to consider it from the inside. -If a man may well doubt whether he is worthy to write a word -about St. Francis, he will certainly want words better than -his own to speak of the friendship of St. Francis and St. -Clare. I have often remarked that the mysteries of this -story are best expressed symbolically in certain silent -attitudes and actions. And I know no better symbol than that -found by the felicity of popular legend, which says that one -night the people of Assisi thought the trees and the holy -house were on fire, and rushed up to extinguish the -conflagration. But they found all quiet within, where -St. Francis broke bread with St. Clare at one of their rare -meetings, and talked of the love of God. It would be hard to -find a more imaginative image, for some sort of utterly pure -and disembodied passion, than that red halo round the -unconscious figures on the hill; a flame feeding on nothing -and setting the very air on fire. - -But if the Second Order was the memorial of such an -unearthly love, the Third Order was as solid a memorial of a -very solid sympathy with earthly loves and earthly lives. -The whole of this feature in Catholic life, the lay orders -in touch with clerical orders, is very little understood in -Protestant countries and very little allowed for in -Protestant history. The vision which has been so faintly -suggested in these pages has never been confined to monks or -even to friars. It has been an inspiration to innumerable -crowds of ordinary married men and women; living lives like -our own, only entirely different. That morning glory which -St. Francis spread over earth and sky has fingered as a -secret sunshine under a multitude of roofs and in a -multitude of rooms. In societies like ours nothing is known -of such a Franciscan following. Nothing is known of such -obscure followers; and if possible less is known of the -well-known followers. If we imagine passing us in the street -a pageant of the Third Order of St. Francis, the famous -figures would surprise us more than the strange ones. For us -it would be like the unmasking of some mighty secret -society. There rides St. Louis, the great king, lord of the -higher justice whose scales hang crooked in favour of the -poor. There is Dante crowned with laurel, the poet who in -his fife of passions sang the praises of the Lady Poverty, -whose grey garment is lined with purple and all glorious -within. All sorts of great names from the most recent and -rationalistic centuries would stand revealed; the great -Galvani, for instance, the father of all electricity, the -magician who has made so many modern systems of stars and -sounds. So various a following would alone be enough to -prove that St. Francis had no lack of sympathy with normal -men, if the whole of his own life did not prove it. - -But in fact his life did prove it, and that possibly in a -more subtle sense. There is, I fancy, some truth in the hint -of one of his modern biographers, that even his natural -passions were singularly normal and even noble, in the sense -of turning towards things not unlawful in themselves but -only unlawful for him. Nobody ever lived of whom we could -less fitly use the word "regret" than Francis of Assisi. -Though there was much that was romantic, there was nothing -in the least sentimental about his mood. It was not -melancholy enough for that. He was of far too swift and -rushing a temper to be troubled with doubts and -reconsiderations about the race he ran; though he had any -amount of self-reproach about not running faster. But it is -true, one suspects, that when he wrestled with the devil, as -every man must to be worth calling a man, the whispers -referred mostly to those healthy instincts that he would -have approved for others; they bore no resemblance to that -ghastly painted paganism which sent its demoniac courtesans -to plague St. Anthony in the desert. If St. Francis had only -pleased himself, it would have been with simpler pleasures. -He was moved to love rather than lust, and by nothing wilder -than wedding-bells. It is suggested in that strange story of -how he defied the devil by making images in the snow, and -crying out that these sufficed him for a wife and family. It -is suggested in the saying he used when disclaiming any -security from sin, "I may yet have children"; almost as if -it was of the children rather than the woman that he -dreamed. And this, if it be true, gives a final touch to the -truth about his character. There was so much about him of -the spirit of the morning, so much that was curiously young -and clean, that even what was bad in him was good. As it was -said of others that the light in their body was darkness, so -it may be said of this luminous spirit that the very shadows -in his soul were of light. Evil itself could not come to him -save in the form of a forbidden good; and he could only be -tempted by a sacrament. +The good Bishop of Assisi expressed a sort of horror at the hard life +which the Little Brothers lived at the Portiuncula, without comforts, +without possessions, eating anything they could get and sleeping anyhow +on the ground. St. Francis answered him with that curious and almost +stunning shrewdness which the unworldly can sometimes wield like a club +of stone. He said, "If we had any possessions, we should need weapons +and laws to defend them." That sentence is the clue to the whole policy +that he pursued. It rested upon a real piece of logic; and about that he +was never anything but logical. He was ready to own himself wrong about +anything else; but he was quite certain he was right about this +particular rule. He was only once seen angry; and that was when there +was talk of an exception to the rule. + +His argument was this: that the dedicated man might go anywhere among +any kind of men, even the worst kind of men, so long as there was +nothing by which they could hold him. If he had any ties or needs like +ordinary men, he would become like ordinary men. St. Francis was the +last man in the world to think any the worse of ordinary men for being +ordinary. They had more affection and admiration from him than they are +ever likely to have again. But for his own particular purpose of +stirring up the world to a new spiritual enthusiasm, he saw with a +logical clarity that was quite reverse of fanatical or sentimental, that +friars must not become like ordinary men; that the salt must not lose +its savour even to turn into human nature's daily food. And the +difference between a friar and an ordinary man was really that a friar +was freer than an ordinary man. It was necessary that he should be free +from the cloister; but it was even more important that he should be free +from the world. It is perfectly sound common sense to say that there is +a sense in which the ordinary man cannot be free from the world; or +rather ought not to be free from the world. The feudal world in +particular was one labyrinthine system of dependence; but it was not +only the feudal world that went to make up the medieval world nor the +medieval world that went to make up the whole world; and the whole world +is full of this fact. Family life as much as feudal life is in its +nature a system of dependence. Modern trade unions as much as medieval +guilds are interdependent among themselves even in order to be +independent of others. In medieval as in modern life, even where these +limitations do exist for the sake of liberty, they have in them a +considerable element of luck. They are partly the result of +circumstances; sometimes the almost unavoidable result of circumstances. +So the twelfth century had been the age of vows; and there was something +of relative freedom in that feudal gesture of the vow; for no man asks +vows from slaves any more than from spades. Still, in practice, a man +rode to war in support of the ancient house of the Column or behind the +Great Dog of the Stairway largely because he had been born in a certain +city or countryside. But no man need obey little Francis in the old +brown coat unless he chose. Even in his relations with his chosen leader +he was in one sense relatively free, compared with the world around him. +He was obedient but not dependent. And he was as free as the wind, he +was almost wildly free, in his relation to that world around him. The +world around him was, as has been noted, a network of feudal and family +and other forms of dependence. The whole idea of St. Francis was that +the Little Brothers should be like little fishes who could go freely in +and out of that net. They could do so precisely because they were small +fishes and in that sense even slippery fishes. There was nothing that +the world could hold them by; for the world catches us mostly by the +fringes of our garments, the futile externals of our lives. One of the +Franciscans says later, "A monk should own nothing but his harp"; +meaning, I suppose, that he should value nothing but his song, the song +with which it was his business as a minstrel to serenade every castle +and cottage, the song of the joy of the Creator in his creation and the +beauty of the brotherhood of men. In imagining the life of this sort of +visionary vagabond, we may already get a glimpse also of the practical +side of that asceticism which puzzles those who think themselves +practical. A man had to be thin to pass always through the bars and out +of the cage; he had to travel light in order to ride so fast and so far. +It was the whole calculation, so to speak, of that innocent cunning, +that the world was to be outflanked and outwitted by him, and be +embarrassed about what to do with him. You could not threaten to starve +a man who was ever striving to fast. You could not ruin him and reduce +him to beggary, for he was already a beggar. There was a very lukewarm +satisfaction even in beating him with a stick, when he only indulged in +little leaps and cries of joy because indignity was his only dignity. +You could not put his head in a halter without the risk of putting it in +a halo. + +But one distinction between the old monks and the new friars counted +especially in the matter of practicality and especially of promptitude. +The old fraternities with their fixed habitations and enclosed existence +had the limitations of ordinary householders. However simply they lived +there must be a certain number of cells or a certain number of beds or +at least a certain cubic space for a certain number of brothers; their +numbers therefore depended on their land and building material. But +since a man could become a Franciscan by merely promising to take his +chance of eating berries in a lane or begging a crust from a kitchen, of +sleeping under a hedge or sitting patiently on a doorstep, there was no +economic reason why there should not be any number of such eccentric +enthusiasts within any short period of time. It must also be remembered +that the whole of this rapid development was full of a certain kind of +democratic optimism that really was part of the personal character of +St. Francis. His very asceticism was in one sense the height of +optimism. He demanded a great deal of human nature not because he +despised it but rather because he trusted it. He was expecting a very +great deal from the extraordinary men who followed him; but he was also +expecting a good deal from the ordinary men to whom he sent them. He +asked the laity for food as confidently as he asked the fraternity for +fasting. But he counted on the hospitality of humanity because he really +did regard every house as the house of a friend. He really did love and +honour ordinary men and ordinary things; indeed we may say that he only +sent out the extraordinary men to encourage men to be ordinary. + +This paradox may be more exactly stated or explained when we come to +deal with the very interesting matter of the Third Order, which was +designed to assist ordinary men to be ordinary with an extraordinary +exultation. The point at issue at present is the audacity and simplicity +of the Franciscan plan for quartering its spiritual soldiery upon the +population; not by force but by persuasion, and even by the persuasion +of impotence. It was an act of confidence and therefore a compliment. It +was completely successful. It was an example of something that clung +about St. Francis always; a kind of tact that looked like luck because +it was as simple and direct as a thunderbolt. There are many examples in +his private relations of this sort of tactless tact; this surprise +effected by striking at the heart of the matter. It is said that a young +friar was suffering from a sort of sulks between morbidity and humility, +common enough in youth and hero-worship, in which he had got it into his +head that his hero hated or despised him. We can imagine how tactfully +social diplomatists would steer clear of scenes and excitements, how +cautiously psychologists would watch and handle such delicate cases. +Francis suddenly walked up to the young man, who was of course secretive +and silent as the grave, and said, "Be not troubled in your thoughts for +you are dear to me, and even among the number of those who are most +dear. You know that you are worthy of my friendship and society; +therefore come to me, in confidence, whensoever you will, and from +friendship learn faith." Exactly as he spoke to that morbid boy he spoke +to all mankind. He always went to the point; he always seemed at once +more right and more simple than the person he was speaking to. He seemed +at once to be laying open his guard and yet lunging at the heart. +Something in this attitude disarmed the world as it has never been +disarmed again. He was better than other men; he was a benefactor of +other men; and yet he was not hated. The world came into church by a +newer and nearer door; and by friendship it learnt faith. + +It was while the little knot of people at the Portiuncula was still +small enough to gather in a small room that St. Francis resolved on his +first important and even sensational stroke. It is said that there were +only twelve Franciscans in the whole world when he decided to march, as +it were, on Rome and found a Franciscan order. It would seem that this +appeal to remote headquarters was not generally regarded as necessary; +possibly something could have been done in a secondary way under the +Bishop of Assisi and the local clergy. It would seem even more probable +that people thought it somewhat unnecessary to trouble the supreme +tribunal of Christendom about what a dozen chance men chose to call +themselves. But Francis was obstinate and as it were blind on this +point; and his brilliant blindness is exceedingly characteristic of him. +A man satisfied with small things, or even in love with small things, he +yet never felt quite as we do about the disproportion between small +things and large. He never saw things to scale in our sense, but with a +dizzy disproportion which makes the mind reel. Sometimes it seems merely +out of drawing like a gaily coloured medieval map; and then again it +seems to have escaped from everything like a short cut in the fourth +dimension. He is said to have made a journey to interview the Emperor, +throned among his armies under the eagle of the Holy Roman Empire, to +intercede for the lives of certain little birds. He was quite capable of +facing fifty emperors to intercede for one bird. He started out with two +companions to convert the Muslim world. He started out with eleven +companions to ask the Pope to make a new monastic world. + +Innocent III, the great Pope, according to Bonaventura, was walking on +the terrace of St. John Lateran, doubtless revolving the great political +questions which troubled his reign, when there appeared abruptly before +him a person in peasant costume whom he took to be some sort of +shepherd. He appears to have got rid of the shepherd with all convenient +speed; possibly he formed the opinion that the shepherd was mad. Anyhow +he thought no more about it until, says the great Franciscan biographer, +he dreamed that night a strange dream. He fancied that he saw the whole +huge ancient temple of St. John Lateran, on whose high terraces he had +walked so securely, leaning horribly and crooked against the sky as if +all its domes and turrets were stooping before an earthquake. Then he +looked again and saw that a human figure was holding it up like a living +caryatid; and the figure was that of the ragged shepherd or peasant from +whom he had turned away on the terrace. Whether this be a fact or a +figure it is a very true figure of the abrupt simplicity with which +Francis won the attention and the favour of Rome. His first friend seems +to have been the Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo who pleaded for the +Franciscan idea before a conclave of Cardinals summoned for the purpose. +It is interesting to note that the doubts thrown upon it seem to have +been chiefly doubts about whether the rule was not too hard for +humanity, for the Catholic Church is always on the watch against +excessive asceticism and its evils. Probably they meant, especially when +they said it was unduly hard, that it was truly dangerous. For a certain +element that can only be called danger is what marks the innovation as +compared with older institutions of the kind. In one sense indeed the +friar was almost the opposite of the monk. The value of the old +monasticism had been that there was not only an ethical but an economic +repose. Out of that repose had come the works for which the world will +never be sufficiently grateful, the preservation of the classics, the +beginning of the Gothic, the schemes of science and philosophies, the +illuminated manuscripts and the coloured glass. The whole point of a +monk was that his economic affairs were settled for good; he knew where +he would get his supper, though it was a very plain supper. But the +whole point of a friar was that he did not know where he would get his +supper. There was always a possibility that he might get no supper. +There was an element of what would be called romance, as of the gipsy or +adventurer. But there was also an element of potential tragedy, as of +the tramp or the casual labourer. So the Cardinals of the thirteenth +century were filled with compassion, seeing a few men entering of their +own free will that estate to which the poor of the twentieth century are +daily driven by cold coercion and moved on by the police. + +Cardinal San Paolo seems to have argued more or less in this manner: it +may be a hard life, but after all it is the life apparently described as +ideal in the Gospel; make what compromises you think wise or humane +about that ideal; but do not commit yourselves to saying that men shall +not fulfil that ideal if they can. We shall see the importance of this +argument when we come to the whole of that higher aspect of the life of +St. Francis which may be called the Imitation of Christ. The upshot of +the discussion was that the Pope gave his verbal approval to the project +and promised a more definite endorsement, if the movement should grow to +more considerable proportions. It is probable that Innocent, who was +himself a man of no ordinary mentality, had very little doubt that it +would do so; anyhow he was not left long in doubt before it did do so. +The next passage in the history of the order is simply the story of more +and more people flocking to its standard; and as has already been +remarked, once it had begun to grow, it could in its nature grow much +more quickly than any ordinary society requiring ordinary funds and +public buildings. Even the return of the twelve pioneers from their +papal audience seems to have been a sort of triumphal procession. In one +place in particular, it is said, the whole population of a town, men, +women and children, turned out, leaving their work and wealth and homes +exactly as they stood and begging to be taken into the army of God on +the spot. According to the story, it was on this occasion that +St. Francis first foreshadowed his idea of the Third Order which enabled +men to share in the movement without leaving the homes and habits of +normal humanity. For the moment it is most important to regard this +story as one example of the riot of conversion with which he was already +filling all the roads of Italy. It was a world of wandering; friars +perpetually coming and going in all the highways and byways, seeking to +ensure that any man who met one of them by chance should have a +spiritual adventure. The First Order of St. Francis had entered history. + +This rough outline can only be rounded off here with some description of +the Second and Third Orders, though they were founded later and at +separate times. The former was an order for women and owed its +existence, of course, to the beautiful friendship of St. Francis and +St. Clare. There is no story about which even the most sympathetic +critics of another creed have been more bewildered and misleading. For +there is no story that more clearly turns on that simple test which I +have taken as crucial throughout this criticism. I mean that what is the +matter with these critics is that they will not believe that a heavenly +love can be as real as an earthly love. The moment it is treated as +real, like an earthly love, their whole riddle is easily resolved. A +girl of seventeen, named Clare and belonging to one of the noble +families of Assisi, was filled with an enthusiasm for the conventual +life; and Francis helped her to escape from her home and to take up the +conventual life. If we like to put it so, he helped her to elope into +the cloister, defying her parents as he had defied his father. Indeed +the scene had many of the elements of a regular romantic elopement; for +she escaped through a hole in the wall, fled through a wood and was +received at midnight by the light of torches. Even Mrs. Oliphant, in her +fine and delicate study of St. Francis, calls it "an incident which we +can hardly record with satisfaction." + +Now about that incident I will here only say this. If it had really been +a romantic elopement and the girl had become a bride instead of a nun, +practically the whole modern world would have made her a heroine. If the +action of the Friar towards Clare had been the action of the Friar +towards Juliet, everybody would be sympathising with her exactly as they +sympathise with Juliet. It is not conclusive to say that Clare was only +seventeen. Juliet was only fourteen. Girls married and boys fought in +battles at such early ages in medieval times; and a girl of seventeen in +the thirteenth century was certainly old enough to know her own mind. +There cannot be the shadow of a doubt, for any sane person considering +subsequent events, that St. Clare did know her own mind. But the point +for the moment is that parents when it is done in the name of romantic +love. For it knows that romantic love is a reality, but it does not know +that divine love is a reality. There may have been something to be said +for the parents of Clare; there may have been something to be said for +Peter Bernardone. So there may have been a great deal to be said for the +Montagues or the Capulets; but the modern world does not want it said; +and does not say it. The fact is that as soon as we assume for a moment +as a hypothesis, what St. Francis and St. Clare assumed all the time as +an absolute, that there is a direct divine relation more glorious than +any romance, the story of St. Clare's elopement is simply a romance with +a happy ending; and St. Francis is the St. George or knight-errant who +gave it a happy ending. And seeing that some millions of men and women +have lived and died treating this relation as a reality, a man is not +much of a philosopher if he cannot even treat it as a hypothesis. + +For the rest, we may at least assume that no friend of what is called +the emancipation of women will regret the revolt of St. Clare. She did +most truly, in the modern jargon, live her own fife, the life that she +herself wanted to lead, as distinct from the life into which parental +commands and conventional arrangements would have forced her. She became +the foundress of a great feminine movement which still profoundly +affects the world; and her place is with the powerful women of history. +It is not clear that she would have been so great or so useful if she +had made a runaway match, or even stopped at home and made a marriage de +convenance. So much any sensible man may well say considering the matter +merely from the outside; and I have no intention of attempting to +consider it from the inside. If a man may well doubt whether he is +worthy to write a word about St. Francis, he will certainly want words +better than his own to speak of the friendship of St. Francis and St. +Clare. I have often remarked that the mysteries of this story are best +expressed symbolically in certain silent attitudes and actions. And I +know no better symbol than that found by the felicity of popular legend, +which says that one night the people of Assisi thought the trees and the +holy house were on fire, and rushed up to extinguish the conflagration. +But they found all quiet within, where St. Francis broke bread with +St. Clare at one of their rare meetings, and talked of the love of God. +It would be hard to find a more imaginative image, for some sort of +utterly pure and disembodied passion, than that red halo round the +unconscious figures on the hill; a flame feeding on nothing and setting +the very air on fire. + +But if the Second Order was the memorial of such an unearthly love, the +Third Order was as solid a memorial of a very solid sympathy with +earthly loves and earthly lives. The whole of this feature in Catholic +life, the lay orders in touch with clerical orders, is very little +understood in Protestant countries and very little allowed for in +Protestant history. The vision which has been so faintly suggested in +these pages has never been confined to monks or even to friars. It has +been an inspiration to innumerable crowds of ordinary married men and +women; living lives like our own, only entirely different. That morning +glory which St. Francis spread over earth and sky has fingered as a +secret sunshine under a multitude of roofs and in a multitude of rooms. +In societies like ours nothing is known of such a Franciscan following. +Nothing is known of such obscure followers; and if possible less is +known of the well-known followers. If we imagine passing us in the +street a pageant of the Third Order of St. Francis, the famous figures +would surprise us more than the strange ones. For us it would be like +the unmasking of some mighty secret society. There rides St. Louis, the +great king, lord of the higher justice whose scales hang crooked in +favour of the poor. There is Dante crowned with laurel, the poet who in +his fife of passions sang the praises of the Lady Poverty, whose grey +garment is lined with purple and all glorious within. All sorts of great +names from the most recent and rationalistic centuries would stand +revealed; the great Galvani, for instance, the father of all +electricity, the magician who has made so many modern systems of stars +and sounds. So various a following would alone be enough to prove that +St. Francis had no lack of sympathy with normal men, if the whole of his +own life did not prove it. + +But in fact his life did prove it, and that possibly in a more subtle +sense. There is, I fancy, some truth in the hint of one of his modern +biographers, that even his natural passions were singularly normal and +even noble, in the sense of turning towards things not unlawful in +themselves but only unlawful for him. Nobody ever lived of whom we could +less fitly use the word "regret" than Francis of Assisi. Though there +was much that was romantic, there was nothing in the least sentimental +about his mood. It was not melancholy enough for that. He was of far too +swift and rushing a temper to be troubled with doubts and +reconsiderations about the race he ran; though he had any amount of +self-reproach about not running faster. But it is true, one suspects, +that when he wrestled with the devil, as every man must to be worth +calling a man, the whispers referred mostly to those healthy instincts +that he would have approved for others; they bore no resemblance to that +ghastly painted paganism which sent its demoniac courtesans to plague +St. Anthony in the desert. If St. Francis had only pleased himself, it +would have been with simpler pleasures. He was moved to love rather than +lust, and by nothing wilder than wedding-bells. It is suggested in that +strange story of how he defied the devil by making images in the snow, +and crying out that these sufficed him for a wife and family. It is +suggested in the saying he used when disclaiming any security from sin, +"I may yet have children"; almost as if it was of the children rather +than the woman that he dreamed. And this, if it be true, gives a final +touch to the truth about his character. There was so much about him of +the spirit of the morning, so much that was curiously young and clean, +that even what was bad in him was good. As it was said of others that +the light in their body was darkness, so it may be said of this luminous +spirit that the very shadows in his soul were of light. Evil itself +could not come to him save in the form of a forbidden good; and he could +only be tempted by a sacrament. # The Mirror of Christ -No man who has been given the freedom of the Faith is likely -to fall into those hole-and-corner extravagances in which -later degenerate Franciscans, or rather Fraticelli, sought -to concentrate entirely on St. Francis as a second Christ, -the creator of a new gospel. In fact any such notion makes -nonsense of every motive in the man's life; for no man would -reverently magnify what he was meant to rival, or only -profess to follow what he existed to supplant. On the -contrary, as will appear later, this little study would -rather specially insist that it was really the papal -sagacity that saved the great Franciscan movement for the -whole world and the universal Church, and prevented it from -petering out as that sort of stale and second-rate sect that -is called a new religion. Everything that is written here -must be understood not only as distinct from but -diametrically opposed to the idolatry of the Fraticelli. The -difference between Christ and St. Francis was the difference -between the Creator and the creature; and certainly no -creature was ever so conscious of that colossal contrast as -St. Francis himself. But subject to this understanding, it -is perfectly true and it is vitally important that Christ -was the pattern on which St. Francis sought to fashion -himself; and that at many points their human and historical -lives were even curiously coincident; and above all, that -compared to most of us at least St. Francis is a most -sublime approximation to his Master, and, even in being an -intermediary and a reflection, is a splendid and yet a -merciful Mirror of Christ. And this truth suggests another, -which I think has hardly been noticed; but which happens to -be a highly forcible argument for the authority of Christ +No man who has been given the freedom of the Faith is likely to fall +into those hole-and-corner extravagances in which later degenerate +Franciscans, or rather Fraticelli, sought to concentrate entirely on +St. Francis as a second Christ, the creator of a new gospel. In fact any +such notion makes nonsense of every motive in the man's life; for no man +would reverently magnify what he was meant to rival, or only profess to +follow what he existed to supplant. On the contrary, as will appear +later, this little study would rather specially insist that it was +really the papal sagacity that saved the great Franciscan movement for +the whole world and the universal Church, and prevented it from petering +out as that sort of stale and second-rate sect that is called a new +religion. Everything that is written here must be understood not only as +distinct from but diametrically opposed to the idolatry of the +Fraticelli. The difference between Christ and St. Francis was the +difference between the Creator and the creature; and certainly no +creature was ever so conscious of that colossal contrast as St. Francis +himself. But subject to this understanding, it is perfectly true and it +is vitally important that Christ was the pattern on which St. Francis +sought to fashion himself; and that at many points their human and +historical lives were even curiously coincident; and above all, that +compared to most of us at least St. Francis is a most sublime +approximation to his Master, and, even in being an intermediary and a +reflection, is a splendid and yet a merciful Mirror of Christ. And this +truth suggests another, which I think has hardly been noticed; but which +happens to be a highly forcible argument for the authority of Christ being continuous in the Catholic Church. -Cardinal Newman wrote in his liveliest controversial work a -sentence that might be a model of what we mean by saying -that his creed tends to lucidity and logical courage. In -speaking of the ease with which truth may be made to look -like its own shadow or sham, he said, "And if Antichrist is -like Christ, Christ I suppose is like Antichrist." Mere -religious sentiment might well be shocked at the end of the -sentence; but nobody could object to it except the logician -who said that Caesar and Pompey were very much alike, -especially Pompey. It may give a much milder shock if I say -here, what most of us have forgotten, that if St. Francis -was like Christ, Christ was to that extent like St. Francis. -And my present point is that it is really very enlightening -to realise that Christ was like St. Francis. What I mean is -this; that if men find certain riddles and hard sayings in -the story of Galilee, and if they find the answers to those -riddles in the story of Assisi, it really does show that a -secret has been handed down in one religious tradition and -no other. It shows that the casket that was locked in -Palestine can be unlocked in Umbria; for the Church is the -keeper of the keys. - -Now in truth while it has always seemed natural to explain -St. Francis in the light of Christ, it has not occurred to -many people to explain Christ in the light of St. Francis. -Perhaps the word "fight" is not here the proper metaphor; -but the same truth is admitted in the accepted metaphor of -the mirror. St. Francis is the mirror of Christ rather as -the moon is the mirror of the sun. The moon is much smaller -than the sun, but it is also much nearer to us; and being -less vivid it is more visible. Exactly in the same sense -St. Francis is nearer to us, and being a mere man like -ourselves is in that sense more imaginable. Being -necessarily less of a mystery, he does not, for us, so much -open his mouth in mysteries. Yet as a matter of fact, many -minor things that seem mysteries in the mouth of Christ -would seem merely characteristic paradoxes in the mouth of -St. Francis. It seems natural to re-read the more remote -incidents with the help of the more recent ones. It is a -truism to say that Christ lived before Christianity; and it -follows that as an historical figure He is a figure in -heathen history. I mean that the medium in which He moved -was not the medium of Christendom but of the old pagan -empire; and from that alone, not to mention the distance of -time, it follows that His circumstances are more alien to us -than those of an Italian monk such as we might meet even -to-day. I suppose the most authoritative commentary can -hardly be certain of the current or conventional weight of -all His words or phrases; of which of them would then have -seemed a common allusion and which a strange fancy. This -archaic setting has left many of the sayings standing like -hieroglyphics and subject to many and peculiar individual -interpretations. Yet it is true of almost any of them that -if we simply translate them into the Umbrian dialect of the -first Franciscans, they would seem hke any other part of the -Franciscan story; doubtless in one sense fantastic, but -quite familiar. All sorts of critical controversies have -revolved round the passage which bids men consider the -lilies of the field and copy them in taking no thought for -the morrow. The sceptic has alternated between telling us to -be true Christians and do it, and explaining that it is -impossible to do. When he is a communist as well as an -atheist, he is generally doubtful whether to blame us for -preaching what is impracticable or for not instantly putting -it into practice. I am not going to discuss here the point -of ethics and economics; I merely remark that even those who -are puzzled at the saying of Christ would hardly pause in -accepting it as a saying of St. Francis. Nobody would be -surprised to find that he had said, "I beseech you, little -brothers, that you be as wise as Brother Daisy and Brother -Dandelion; for never do they lie awake thinking of -to-morrow, yet they have gold crowns like kings and emperors -or like Charlemagne in all his glory." Even more bitterness -and bewilderment has arisen about the command to turn the -other cheek and to give the coat to the robber who has taken -the cloak. It is widely held to imply the wickedness of war -among nations; about which, in itself, not a word seems to -have been said. Taken thus literally and universally, it -much more clearly implies the wickedness of all law and -government. Yet there are many prosperous peacemakers who -are much more shocked at the idea of using the brute force -of soldiers against a powerful foreigner than they are at -using the brute force of policemen against a poor -fellow-citizen. Here again I am content to point out that -the paradox becomes perfectly human and probable if -addressed by Francis to Franciscans. Nobody would be -surprised to read that Brother Juniper did then run after -the thief that had stolen his hood, beseeching him to take -his gown also; for so St. Francis had commanded him. Nobody -would be surprised if St. Francis told a young noble, about -to be admitted to his company, that so far from pursuing a -brigand to recover his shoes, he ought to pursue him to make -him a present of his stockings. We may like or not the -atmosphere these things imply; but we know what atmosphere -they do imply. We recognise a certain note as natural and -clear as the note of a bird; the note of St. Francis. There -is in it something of gentle mockery of the very idea of -possessions; something of a hope of disarming the enemy by -generosity; something of a humorous sense of bewildering the -worldly with the unexpected; something of the joy of -carrying an enthusiastic conviction to a logical extreme. -But anyhow we have no difficulty in recognising it, if we -have read any of the literature of the Little Brothers and -the movement that began in Assisi. It seems reasonable to -infer that if it was this spirit that made such strange -things possible in Umbria, it was the same spirit that made -them possible in Palestine. If we hear the same unmistakable -note and sense the same indescribable savour in two things -at such a distance from each other, it seems natural to -suppose that the case that is more remote from our -experience was like the case that is closer to our -experience. As the thing is explicable on the assumption -that Francis was speaking to Franciscans, it is not an -irrational explanation to suggest that Christ also was -speaking to some dedicated band that had much the same -function as Franciscans. In other words, it seems only -natural to hold, as the Catholic Church has held, that these -counsels of perfection were part of a particular vocation to -astonish and awaken the world. But in any case it is -important to note that when we do find these particular -features, with their seemingly fantastic fitness, -reappearing after more than a thousand years, we find them -produced by the same religious system which claims -continuity and authority from the scenes in which they first -appeared. Any number of philosophies will repeat the -platitudes of Christianity. But it is the ancient Church -that can again startle the world with the paradoxes of -Christianity. *Ubi Petrus ibi Franciscus.* - -But if we understand that it was truly under the inspiration -of his divine Master that St. Francis did these merely -quaint or eccentric acts of charity, we must understand that -it was under the same inspiration that he did acts of -self-denial and austerity". It is clear that these more or -less playful parables of the love of men were conceived -after a close study of the Sermon on the Mount. But it is -evident that he made an even closer study of the silent -sermon on that other mountain; the mountain that was called -Golgotha. Here again he was speaking the strict historical -truth, when he said that in fasting or suffering humiliation -he was but trying to do something of what Christ did; and -here again it seems probable that as the same truth appears -at the two ends of a chain of tradition, the tradition has -preserved the truth. But the import of this fact at the -moment affects the next phase in the personal history of the -man himself. - -For as it becomes clearer that his great communal scheme is -an accomplished fact and past the peril of an early -collapse, as it becomes evident that there already is such a -thing as an Order of the Friars Minor, this more individual -and intense ambition of St. Francis emerges more and more. -So soon as he certainly has followers, he does not compare -himself with his followers, towards whom he might appear as -a master; he compares himself more and more with his Master, -towards whom he appears only as a servant. This, it may be -said in passing, is one of the moral and even practical -conveniences of the ascetical privilege. Every other sort of -superiority may be superciliousness. - -But the saint is never supercilious, for he is always by -hypothesis in the presence of a superior. The objection to -an aristocracy is that it is a priesthood without a god. But -in any case the service to which St. Francis had committed -himself was one which, about this time, he conceived more -and more in terms of sacrifice and crucifixion. He was full -of the sentiment that he had not suffered enough to be -worthy even to be a distant follower of his suffering God. -And this passage in his history may really be roughly -summarised as the Search for Martyrdom. - -This was the ultimate idea in the remarkable business of his -expedition among the Saracens in Syria. There were indeed -other elements in his conception, which are worthy of more -intelligent understanding than they have often received. His -idea, of course, was to bring the Crusades in a double sense -to their end; that is, to reach their conclusion and to -achieve their purpose. Only he wished to do it by conversion -and not by conquest; that is, by intellectual and not -material means. The modern mind is hard to please; and it -generally calls the way of Godfrey ferocious and the way of -Francis fanatical. That is, it calls any moral method -impractical, when it has just called any practical method -immoral. But the idea of St. Francis was far from being a -fanatical or necessarily even an unpractical idea; though -perhaps he saw the problem as rather too simple, lacking the -learning of his great inheritor Raymond Lully, who -understood more but has been quite as little understood. The -way he approached the matter was indeed highly personal and -peculiar; but that was true of almost everything he did. It -was in one way a simple idea, as most of his ideas were -simple ideas. But it was not a silly idea; there was a great -deal to be said for it and it might have succeeded. It was, -of course, simply the idea that it is better to create -Christians than to destroy Moslems. If Islam had been -converted, the world would have been immeasurably more -united and happy; for one thing, three quarters of the wars -of modern history would never have taken place. It was not -absurd to suppose that this might be effected, without -military force, by missionaries who were also mart5n:s. The -Church had conquered Europe in that way and may yet conquer -Asia or Africa in that way. But when all this is allowed -for, there is still another sense in which St. Francis was -not thinking of Martyrdom as a means to an end, but almost -as an end in itself; in the sense that to him the supreme -end was to come closer to the example of Christ. Through all -his plunging and restless days ran the refrain; I have not -suffered enough; I have not sacrificed enough; I am not yet -worthy even of the shadow of the crown of thorns. He -wandered about the valleys of the world looking for the hill -that has the outline of a skull. - -A little while before his final departure for the East a -vast and triumphant assembly of the whole order had been -held near the Portiuncula; and called The Assembly of the -Straw Huts, from the manner in which that mighty army -encamped in the field. Tradition says that it was on this -occasion that St. Francis met St. Dominic for the first and -last time. It also says, what is probable enough, that the -practical spirit of the Spaniard was almost appalled at the -devout irresponsibility of the Italian, who had assembled -such a crowd without organising a commissariat. Dominic the -Spaniard was, like nearly every Spaniard, a man with the -mind of a soldier. His charity took the practical form of -provision and preparation. But, apart from the disputes -about faith which such incidents open, he probably did not -understand in this case the power of mere popularity -produced by mere personality. In all his leaps in the dark, -Francis had an extraordinary faculty of falling on his feet. -The whole countryside came down like a landslide to provide -food and drink for this sort of pious picnic. Peasants -brought waggons of wine and game; great nobles walked about -doing the work of footmen. It was a very real victory for -the Franciscan spirit of a reckless faith not only in God -but in man. Of course there is much doubt and dispute about -the whole story and the whole relation of Francis and -Dominic; and the story of the Assembly of the Straw Huts is -told from the Franciscan side. But the alleged meeting is -worth mentioning, precisely because it was immediately -before St. Francis set forth on his bloodless crusade that -he is said to have met St. Dominic, who has been so much -criticised for lending himself to a more bloody one. There -is no space in this little book to explain how St. Francis, -as much as St. Dominic, would ultimately have defended the -defence of Christian unity by arms. Indeed it would need a -large book instead of a little book to develop that point -alone from its first principles. For the modern mind is -merely a blank about the philosophy of toleration; and the -average agnostic of recent times has really had no notion of -what he meant by religious liberty and equality. He took his -own ethics as self-evident and enforced them; such as -decency or the error of the Adamite heresy. Then he was -horribly shocked if he heard of anybody else, Moslem or -Christian, taking his ethics as self-evident and enforcing -them; such as reverence or the error of the Atheist heresy. -And then he wound up by taking all this lop-sided illogical -deadlock, of the unconscious meeting the unfamiliar, and -called it the liberality of his own mind. Medieval men -thought that if a social system was founded on a certain -idea it must fight for that idea, whether it was as simple -as Islam or as carefully balanced as Catholicism. Modern men -really think the same thing, as is clear when communists -attack their ideas of property. Only they do not think it so -clearly, because they have not really thought out their idea -of property. But while it is probable that St. Francis would -have reluctantly agreed with St. Dominic that war for the -truth was right in the last resort, it is certain that -St. Dominic did enthusiastically agree with St. Francis that -it was far better to prevail by persuasion and enlightenment -if it were possible. St. Dominic devoted himself much more -to persuading than to persecuting; but there was a -difference in the methods simply because there was a -difference in the men. About everything St. Francis did -there was something that was in a good sense childish, and -even in a good sense wilful. He threw himself into things -abruptly, as if they had just occurred to him. He made a -dash for his Mediterranean enterprise with something of the -air of a schoolboy running away to sea. - -In the first act of that attempt he characteristically -distinguished himself by becoming the Patron Saint of -Stowaways. He never thought of waiting for introductions or -bargains or any of the considerable backing that he already -had from rich and responsible people. He simply saw a boat -and threw himself into it, as he threw himself into -everything else. It has all that air of running a race which -makes his whole life read like an escapade or even literally -an escape. He lay like lumber among the cargo, with one -companion whom he had swept with him in his rush; but the -voyage was apparently unfortunate and erratic and ended in -an enforced return to Italy. Apparently it was after this -first false start that the great re-union took place at the -Portiuncula, and between this and the final Syrian journey -there was also an attempt to meet the Moslem menace by -preaching to the Moors in Spain. In Spain indeed several of -the first Franciscans had already succeeded gloriously in -being martyred. But the great Francis still went about -stretching out his arms for such torments and desiring that -agony in vain. No one would have said more readily than he -that he was probably less like Christ than those others who -had already found their Calvary; but the thing remained with -him like a secret; the strangest of the sorrows of man. - -His later voyage was more successful, so far as arriving at -the scene of operations was concerned. He arrived at the -headquarters of the Crusade which was in front of the -besieged city of Damietta, and went on in his rapid and -solitary fashion to seek the headquarters of the Saracens. -He succeeded in obtaining an interview with the Sultan; and -it was at that interview that he evidently offered, and as -some say proceeded, to fling himself into the fire as a -divine ordeal, defying the Moslem religious teachers to do -the same. It is quite certain that he would have done so at -a moment's notice. Indeed throwing himself into the fire was -hardly more desperate, in any case, than throwing himself -among the weapons and tools of torture of a horde of -fanatical Muslims and asking them to renounce Mahomet. It is -said further that the Muslim muftis showed some coldness -towards the proposed competition, and that one of them -quietly withdrew while it was under discussion; which would -also appear credible. But for whatever reason Francis -evidently returned as freely as he came. There may be -something in the story of the individual impression produced -on the Sultan, which the narrator represents as a sort of -secret conversion. There may be something in the suggestion -that the holy man was unconsciously protected among -half-barbarous orientals by the halo of sanctity that is -supposed in such places to surround an idiot. There is -probably as much or more in the more generous explanation of -that graceful though capricious courtesy and compassion -which mingled with wilder things in the stately Soldans of -the type and tradition of Saladin. Finally, there is perhaps -something in the suggestion that the tale of St. Francis -might be told as a sort of ironic tragedy and comedy called -The Man Who Could Not Get Killed. Men liked him too much for -himself to let him die for his faith; and the man was -received instead of the message. But all these are only -converging guesses at a great effort that is hard to judge, -because it broke off short like the beginnings of a great -bridge that might have united East and West, and remains one -of the great might-have-beens of history. - -Meanwhile the great movement in Italy was making giant -strides. Backed now by papal authority as well as popular -enthusiasm, and creating a kind of comradeship among all -classes, it had started a riot of reconstruction on all -sides of religious and social life; and especially began to -express itself in that enthusiasm for building which is the -mark of all the resurrections of Western Europe. There had -notably been established at Bologna a magnificent mission -house of the Friars Minor; and a vast body of them and their -sympathisers surrounded it with a chorus of acclamation. -Their unanimity had a strange interruption. One man alone in -that crowd was seen to turn and suddenly denounce the -building as if it had been a Babylonian temple; demanding -indignantly since when the Lady Poverty had thus been -insulted with the luxury of palaces. It was Francis, a wild -figure, returned from his Eastern Crusade; and it was the -first and last time that he spoke in wrath to his children. - -A word must be said later about this serious division of -sentiment and policy, about which many Franciscans, and to -some extent Francis himself, parted company with the more -moderate policy which ultimately prevailed. At this point we -need only note it as another shadow fallen upon his spirit -after his disappointment in the desert; and as in some sense -the prelude to the next phase of his career, which is the -most isolated and the most mysterious. It is true that -everything about this episode seems to be covered with some -cloud of dispute, even including its date; some writers -putting it much earlier in the narrative than this. But -whether or no it was chronologically it was certainly -logically the culmination of the story, and may best be -indicated here. I say indicated for it must be a matter of -little more than indication; the thing being a mystery both -in the higher moral and the more trivial historical sense. -Anyhow the conditions of the affair seem to have been these. -Francis and a young companion, in the course of their common -wandering, came past a great castle all lighted up with the -festivities attending a son of the house receiving the -honour of knighthood. This aristocratic mansion, which took -its name from Monte Feltro, they entered in their beautiful -and casual fashion and began to give their own sort of good -news. There were some at least who listened to the saint "as -if he had been an angel of God"; among them a gentleman -named Orlando of Chiusi, who had great lands in Tuscany, and -who proceeded to do St. Francis a singular and somewhat -picturesque act of courtesy. He gave him a mountain; a thing -somewhat unique among the gifts of the world. Presumably the -Franciscan rule which forbade a man to accept money had made -no detailed provision about accepting mountains. Nor indeed -did St. Francis accept it save as he accepted everything, as -a temporary convenience rather than a personal possession; -but he turned it into a sort of refuge for the eremitical -rather than the monastic life; he retired there when he -wished for a life of prayer and fasting which he did not ask -even his closest friends to follow. This was Alverno of the -Apennines, and upon its peak there rests for ever a dark +Cardinal Newman wrote in his liveliest controversial work a sentence +that might be a model of what we mean by saying that his creed tends to +lucidity and logical courage. In speaking of the ease with which truth +may be made to look like its own shadow or sham, he said, "And if +Antichrist is like Christ, Christ I suppose is like Antichrist." Mere +religious sentiment might well be shocked at the end of the sentence; +but nobody could object to it except the logician who said that Caesar +and Pompey were very much alike, especially Pompey. It may give a much +milder shock if I say here, what most of us have forgotten, that if +St. Francis was like Christ, Christ was to that extent like St. Francis. +And my present point is that it is really very enlightening to realise +that Christ was like St. Francis. What I mean is this; that if men find +certain riddles and hard sayings in the story of Galilee, and if they +find the answers to those riddles in the story of Assisi, it really does +show that a secret has been handed down in one religious tradition and +no other. It shows that the casket that was locked in Palestine can be +unlocked in Umbria; for the Church is the keeper of the keys. + +Now in truth while it has always seemed natural to explain St. Francis +in the light of Christ, it has not occurred to many people to explain +Christ in the light of St. Francis. Perhaps the word "fight" is not here +the proper metaphor; but the same truth is admitted in the accepted +metaphor of the mirror. St. Francis is the mirror of Christ rather as +the moon is the mirror of the sun. The moon is much smaller than the +sun, but it is also much nearer to us; and being less vivid it is more +visible. Exactly in the same sense St. Francis is nearer to us, and +being a mere man like ourselves is in that sense more imaginable. Being +necessarily less of a mystery, he does not, for us, so much open his +mouth in mysteries. Yet as a matter of fact, many minor things that seem +mysteries in the mouth of Christ would seem merely characteristic +paradoxes in the mouth of St. Francis. It seems natural to re-read the +more remote incidents with the help of the more recent ones. It is a +truism to say that Christ lived before Christianity; and it follows that +as an historical figure He is a figure in heathen history. I mean that +the medium in which He moved was not the medium of Christendom but of +the old pagan empire; and from that alone, not to mention the distance +of time, it follows that His circumstances are more alien to us than +those of an Italian monk such as we might meet even to-day. I suppose +the most authoritative commentary can hardly be certain of the current +or conventional weight of all His words or phrases; of which of them +would then have seemed a common allusion and which a strange fancy. This +archaic setting has left many of the sayings standing like hieroglyphics +and subject to many and peculiar individual interpretations. Yet it is +true of almost any of them that if we simply translate them into the +Umbrian dialect of the first Franciscans, they would seem hke any other +part of the Franciscan story; doubtless in one sense fantastic, but +quite familiar. All sorts of critical controversies have revolved round +the passage which bids men consider the lilies of the field and copy +them in taking no thought for the morrow. The sceptic has alternated +between telling us to be true Christians and do it, and explaining that +it is impossible to do. When he is a communist as well as an atheist, he +is generally doubtful whether to blame us for preaching what is +impracticable or for not instantly putting it into practice. I am not +going to discuss here the point of ethics and economics; I merely remark +that even those who are puzzled at the saying of Christ would hardly +pause in accepting it as a saying of St. Francis. Nobody would be +surprised to find that he had said, "I beseech you, little brothers, +that you be as wise as Brother Daisy and Brother Dandelion; for never do +they lie awake thinking of to-morrow, yet they have gold crowns like +kings and emperors or like Charlemagne in all his glory." Even more +bitterness and bewilderment has arisen about the command to turn the +other cheek and to give the coat to the robber who has taken the cloak. +It is widely held to imply the wickedness of war among nations; about +which, in itself, not a word seems to have been said. Taken thus +literally and universally, it much more clearly implies the wickedness +of all law and government. Yet there are many prosperous peacemakers who +are much more shocked at the idea of using the brute force of soldiers +against a powerful foreigner than they are at using the brute force of +policemen against a poor fellow-citizen. Here again I am content to +point out that the paradox becomes perfectly human and probable if +addressed by Francis to Franciscans. Nobody would be surprised to read +that Brother Juniper did then run after the thief that had stolen his +hood, beseeching him to take his gown also; for so St. Francis had +commanded him. Nobody would be surprised if St. Francis told a young +noble, about to be admitted to his company, that so far from pursuing a +brigand to recover his shoes, he ought to pursue him to make him a +present of his stockings. We may like or not the atmosphere these things +imply; but we know what atmosphere they do imply. We recognise a certain +note as natural and clear as the note of a bird; the note of +St. Francis. There is in it something of gentle mockery of the very idea +of possessions; something of a hope of disarming the enemy by +generosity; something of a humorous sense of bewildering the worldly +with the unexpected; something of the joy of carrying an enthusiastic +conviction to a logical extreme. But anyhow we have no difficulty in +recognising it, if we have read any of the literature of the Little +Brothers and the movement that began in Assisi. It seems reasonable to +infer that if it was this spirit that made such strange things possible +in Umbria, it was the same spirit that made them possible in Palestine. +If we hear the same unmistakable note and sense the same indescribable +savour in two things at such a distance from each other, it seems +natural to suppose that the case that is more remote from our experience +was like the case that is closer to our experience. As the thing is +explicable on the assumption that Francis was speaking to Franciscans, +it is not an irrational explanation to suggest that Christ also was +speaking to some dedicated band that had much the same function as +Franciscans. In other words, it seems only natural to hold, as the +Catholic Church has held, that these counsels of perfection were part of +a particular vocation to astonish and awaken the world. But in any case +it is important to note that when we do find these particular features, +with their seemingly fantastic fitness, reappearing after more than a +thousand years, we find them produced by the same religious system which +claims continuity and authority from the scenes in which they first +appeared. Any number of philosophies will repeat the platitudes of +Christianity. But it is the ancient Church that can again startle the +world with the paradoxes of Christianity. *Ubi Petrus ibi Franciscus.* + +But if we understand that it was truly under the inspiration of his +divine Master that St. Francis did these merely quaint or eccentric acts +of charity, we must understand that it was under the same inspiration +that he did acts of self-denial and austerity". It is clear that these +more or less playful parables of the love of men were conceived after a +close study of the Sermon on the Mount. But it is evident that he made +an even closer study of the silent sermon on that other mountain; the +mountain that was called Golgotha. Here again he was speaking the strict +historical truth, when he said that in fasting or suffering humiliation +he was but trying to do something of what Christ did; and here again it +seems probable that as the same truth appears at the two ends of a chain +of tradition, the tradition has preserved the truth. But the import of +this fact at the moment affects the next phase in the personal history +of the man himself. + +For as it becomes clearer that his great communal scheme is an +accomplished fact and past the peril of an early collapse, as it becomes +evident that there already is such a thing as an Order of the Friars +Minor, this more individual and intense ambition of St. Francis emerges +more and more. So soon as he certainly has followers, he does not +compare himself with his followers, towards whom he might appear as a +master; he compares himself more and more with his Master, towards whom +he appears only as a servant. This, it may be said in passing, is one of +the moral and even practical conveniences of the ascetical privilege. +Every other sort of superiority may be superciliousness. + +But the saint is never supercilious, for he is always by hypothesis in +the presence of a superior. The objection to an aristocracy is that it +is a priesthood without a god. But in any case the service to which +St. Francis had committed himself was one which, about this time, he +conceived more and more in terms of sacrifice and crucifixion. He was +full of the sentiment that he had not suffered enough to be worthy even +to be a distant follower of his suffering God. And this passage in his +history may really be roughly summarised as the Search for Martyrdom. + +This was the ultimate idea in the remarkable business of his expedition +among the Saracens in Syria. There were indeed other elements in his +conception, which are worthy of more intelligent understanding than they +have often received. His idea, of course, was to bring the Crusades in a +double sense to their end; that is, to reach their conclusion and to +achieve their purpose. Only he wished to do it by conversion and not by +conquest; that is, by intellectual and not material means. The modern +mind is hard to please; and it generally calls the way of Godfrey +ferocious and the way of Francis fanatical. That is, it calls any moral +method impractical, when it has just called any practical method +immoral. But the idea of St. Francis was far from being a fanatical or +necessarily even an unpractical idea; though perhaps he saw the problem +as rather too simple, lacking the learning of his great inheritor +Raymond Lully, who understood more but has been quite as little +understood. The way he approached the matter was indeed highly personal +and peculiar; but that was true of almost everything he did. It was in +one way a simple idea, as most of his ideas were simple ideas. But it +was not a silly idea; there was a great deal to be said for it and it +might have succeeded. It was, of course, simply the idea that it is +better to create Christians than to destroy Moslems. If Islam had been +converted, the world would have been immeasurably more united and happy; +for one thing, three quarters of the wars of modern history would never +have taken place. It was not absurd to suppose that this might be +effected, without military force, by missionaries who were also +mart5n:s. The Church had conquered Europe in that way and may yet +conquer Asia or Africa in that way. But when all this is allowed for, +there is still another sense in which St. Francis was not thinking of +Martyrdom as a means to an end, but almost as an end in itself; in the +sense that to him the supreme end was to come closer to the example of +Christ. Through all his plunging and restless days ran the refrain; I +have not suffered enough; I have not sacrificed enough; I am not yet +worthy even of the shadow of the crown of thorns. He wandered about the +valleys of the world looking for the hill that has the outline of a +skull. + +A little while before his final departure for the East a vast and +triumphant assembly of the whole order had been held near the +Portiuncula; and called The Assembly of the Straw Huts, from the manner +in which that mighty army encamped in the field. Tradition says that it +was on this occasion that St. Francis met St. Dominic for the first and +last time. It also says, what is probable enough, that the practical +spirit of the Spaniard was almost appalled at the devout +irresponsibility of the Italian, who had assembled such a crowd without +organising a commissariat. Dominic the Spaniard was, like nearly every +Spaniard, a man with the mind of a soldier. His charity took the +practical form of provision and preparation. But, apart from the +disputes about faith which such incidents open, he probably did not +understand in this case the power of mere popularity produced by mere +personality. In all his leaps in the dark, Francis had an extraordinary +faculty of falling on his feet. The whole countryside came down like a +landslide to provide food and drink for this sort of pious picnic. +Peasants brought waggons of wine and game; great nobles walked about +doing the work of footmen. It was a very real victory for the Franciscan +spirit of a reckless faith not only in God but in man. Of course there +is much doubt and dispute about the whole story and the whole relation +of Francis and Dominic; and the story of the Assembly of the Straw Huts +is told from the Franciscan side. But the alleged meeting is worth +mentioning, precisely because it was immediately before St. Francis set +forth on his bloodless crusade that he is said to have met St. Dominic, +who has been so much criticised for lending himself to a more bloody +one. There is no space in this little book to explain how St. Francis, +as much as St. Dominic, would ultimately have defended the defence of +Christian unity by arms. Indeed it would need a large book instead of a +little book to develop that point alone from its first principles. For +the modern mind is merely a blank about the philosophy of toleration; +and the average agnostic of recent times has really had no notion of +what he meant by religious liberty and equality. He took his own ethics +as self-evident and enforced them; such as decency or the error of the +Adamite heresy. Then he was horribly shocked if he heard of anybody +else, Moslem or Christian, taking his ethics as self-evident and +enforcing them; such as reverence or the error of the Atheist heresy. +And then he wound up by taking all this lop-sided illogical deadlock, of +the unconscious meeting the unfamiliar, and called it the liberality of +his own mind. Medieval men thought that if a social system was founded +on a certain idea it must fight for that idea, whether it was as simple +as Islam or as carefully balanced as Catholicism. Modern men really +think the same thing, as is clear when communists attack their ideas of +property. Only they do not think it so clearly, because they have not +really thought out their idea of property. But while it is probable that +St. Francis would have reluctantly agreed with St. Dominic that war for +the truth was right in the last resort, it is certain that St. Dominic +did enthusiastically agree with St. Francis that it was far better to +prevail by persuasion and enlightenment if it were possible. St. Dominic +devoted himself much more to persuading than to persecuting; but there +was a difference in the methods simply because there was a difference in +the men. About everything St. Francis did there was something that was +in a good sense childish, and even in a good sense wilful. He threw +himself into things abruptly, as if they had just occurred to him. He +made a dash for his Mediterranean enterprise with something of the air +of a schoolboy running away to sea. + +In the first act of that attempt he characteristically distinguished +himself by becoming the Patron Saint of Stowaways. He never thought of +waiting for introductions or bargains or any of the considerable backing +that he already had from rich and responsible people. He simply saw a +boat and threw himself into it, as he threw himself into everything +else. It has all that air of running a race which makes his whole life +read like an escapade or even literally an escape. He lay like lumber +among the cargo, with one companion whom he had swept with him in his +rush; but the voyage was apparently unfortunate and erratic and ended in +an enforced return to Italy. Apparently it was after this first false +start that the great re-union took place at the Portiuncula, and between +this and the final Syrian journey there was also an attempt to meet the +Moslem menace by preaching to the Moors in Spain. In Spain indeed +several of the first Franciscans had already succeeded gloriously in +being martyred. But the great Francis still went about stretching out +his arms for such torments and desiring that agony in vain. No one would +have said more readily than he that he was probably less like Christ +than those others who had already found their Calvary; but the thing +remained with him like a secret; the strangest of the sorrows of man. + +His later voyage was more successful, so far as arriving at the scene of +operations was concerned. He arrived at the headquarters of the Crusade +which was in front of the besieged city of Damietta, and went on in his +rapid and solitary fashion to seek the headquarters of the Saracens. He +succeeded in obtaining an interview with the Sultan; and it was at that +interview that he evidently offered, and as some say proceeded, to fling +himself into the fire as a divine ordeal, defying the Moslem religious +teachers to do the same. It is quite certain that he would have done so +at a moment's notice. Indeed throwing himself into the fire was hardly +more desperate, in any case, than throwing himself among the weapons and +tools of torture of a horde of fanatical Muslims and asking them to +renounce Mahomet. It is said further that the Muslim muftis showed some +coldness towards the proposed competition, and that one of them quietly +withdrew while it was under discussion; which would also appear +credible. But for whatever reason Francis evidently returned as freely +as he came. There may be something in the story of the individual +impression produced on the Sultan, which the narrator represents as a +sort of secret conversion. There may be something in the suggestion that +the holy man was unconsciously protected among half-barbarous orientals +by the halo of sanctity that is supposed in such places to surround an +idiot. There is probably as much or more in the more generous +explanation of that graceful though capricious courtesy and compassion +which mingled with wilder things in the stately Soldans of the type and +tradition of Saladin. Finally, there is perhaps something in the +suggestion that the tale of St. Francis might be told as a sort of +ironic tragedy and comedy called The Man Who Could Not Get Killed. Men +liked him too much for himself to let him die for his faith; and the man +was received instead of the message. But all these are only converging +guesses at a great effort that is hard to judge, because it broke off +short like the beginnings of a great bridge that might have united East +and West, and remains one of the great might-have-beens of history. + +Meanwhile the great movement in Italy was making giant strides. Backed +now by papal authority as well as popular enthusiasm, and creating a +kind of comradeship among all classes, it had started a riot of +reconstruction on all sides of religious and social life; and especially +began to express itself in that enthusiasm for building which is the +mark of all the resurrections of Western Europe. There had notably been +established at Bologna a magnificent mission house of the Friars Minor; +and a vast body of them and their sympathisers surrounded it with a +chorus of acclamation. Their unanimity had a strange interruption. One +man alone in that crowd was seen to turn and suddenly denounce the +building as if it had been a Babylonian temple; demanding indignantly +since when the Lady Poverty had thus been insulted with the luxury of +palaces. It was Francis, a wild figure, returned from his Eastern +Crusade; and it was the first and last time that he spoke in wrath to +his children. + +A word must be said later about this serious division of sentiment and +policy, about which many Franciscans, and to some extent Francis +himself, parted company with the more moderate policy which ultimately +prevailed. At this point we need only note it as another shadow fallen +upon his spirit after his disappointment in the desert; and as in some +sense the prelude to the next phase of his career, which is the most +isolated and the most mysterious. It is true that everything about this +episode seems to be covered with some cloud of dispute, even including +its date; some writers putting it much earlier in the narrative than +this. But whether or no it was chronologically it was certainly +logically the culmination of the story, and may best be indicated here. +I say indicated for it must be a matter of little more than indication; +the thing being a mystery both in the higher moral and the more trivial +historical sense. Anyhow the conditions of the affair seem to have been +these. Francis and a young companion, in the course of their common +wandering, came past a great castle all lighted up with the festivities +attending a son of the house receiving the honour of knighthood. This +aristocratic mansion, which took its name from Monte Feltro, they +entered in their beautiful and casual fashion and began to give their +own sort of good news. There were some at least who listened to the +saint "as if he had been an angel of God"; among them a gentleman named +Orlando of Chiusi, who had great lands in Tuscany, and who proceeded to +do St. Francis a singular and somewhat picturesque act of courtesy. He +gave him a mountain; a thing somewhat unique among the gifts of the +world. Presumably the Franciscan rule which forbade a man to accept +money had made no detailed provision about accepting mountains. Nor +indeed did St. Francis accept it save as he accepted everything, as a +temporary convenience rather than a personal possession; but he turned +it into a sort of refuge for the eremitical rather than the monastic +life; he retired there when he wished for a life of prayer and fasting +which he did not ask even his closest friends to follow. This was +Alverno of the Apennines, and upon its peak there rests for ever a dark cloud that has a rim or halo of glory. -What it was exactly that happened there may never be known. -The matter has been, I believe, a subject of dispute among -the most devout students of the saintly life as well as -between such students and others of the more secular sort. -It may be that St. Francis never spoke to a soul on the -subject; it would be highly characteristic, and it is -certain in any case that he said very little; I think he is -only alleged to have spoken of it to one man. Subject -however to such truly sacred doubts, I will confess that to -me personally this one solitary and indirect report that has -come down to us reads very like the report of something -real; of some of those things that are more real than what -we call daily realities. Even something as it were double -and bewildering about the image seems to carry the -impression of an experience shaking the senses; as does the -passage in Revelations about the supernatural creatures full -of eyes. It would seem that St. Francis beheld the heavens -above him occupied by a vast winged being like a seraph -spread out hke a cross. There seems some mystery about -whether the winged figure was itself crucified or in the -posture of crucifixion, or whether it merely enclosed in its -frame of wings some colossal crucifix. But it seems clear -that there was some question of the former impression; for -St. Bonaventura distinctly says that St. Francis doubted how -a seraph could be crucified, since those awful and ancient -principalities were without the infirmity of the Passion. -St. Bonaventura suggests that the seeming contradiction may -have meant that St. Francis was to be crucified as a spirit -since he could not be crucified as a man; but whatever the -meaning of the vision, the general idea of it is very vivid -and overwhelming. St. Francis saw above him, filling the -whole heavens, some vast immemorial unthinkable power, -ancient like the Ancient of Days, whose calm men had -conceived under the forms of winged bulls or monstrous -cherubim, and all that winged wonder was in pain like a -wounded bird. This seraphic suffering, it is said, pierced -his soul with a sword of grief and pity; it may be inferred -that some sort of morning agony accompanied the ecstasy. -Finally after some fashion the apocalypse faded from the sky -and the agony within subsided; and silence and the natural -air filled the morning twilight and settled slowly in the -purple chasms and cleft abysses of the Apennines. - -The head of the solitary sank, amid all that relaxation and -quiet in which time can drift by with the sense of something -ended and complete; and as he stared downwards, he saw the -marks of nails in his own hands. +What it was exactly that happened there may never be known. The matter +has been, I believe, a subject of dispute among the most devout students +of the saintly life as well as between such students and others of the +more secular sort. It may be that St. Francis never spoke to a soul on +the subject; it would be highly characteristic, and it is certain in any +case that he said very little; I think he is only alleged to have spoken +of it to one man. Subject however to such truly sacred doubts, I will +confess that to me personally this one solitary and indirect report that +has come down to us reads very like the report of something real; of +some of those things that are more real than what we call daily +realities. Even something as it were double and bewildering about the +image seems to carry the impression of an experience shaking the senses; +as does the passage in Revelations about the supernatural creatures full +of eyes. It would seem that St. Francis beheld the heavens above him +occupied by a vast winged being like a seraph spread out hke a cross. +There seems some mystery about whether the winged figure was itself +crucified or in the posture of crucifixion, or whether it merely +enclosed in its frame of wings some colossal crucifix. But it seems +clear that there was some question of the former impression; for +St. Bonaventura distinctly says that St. Francis doubted how a seraph +could be crucified, since those awful and ancient principalities were +without the infirmity of the Passion. St. Bonaventura suggests that the +seeming contradiction may have meant that St. Francis was to be +crucified as a spirit since he could not be crucified as a man; but +whatever the meaning of the vision, the general idea of it is very vivid +and overwhelming. St. Francis saw above him, filling the whole heavens, +some vast immemorial unthinkable power, ancient like the Ancient of +Days, whose calm men had conceived under the forms of winged bulls or +monstrous cherubim, and all that winged wonder was in pain like a +wounded bird. This seraphic suffering, it is said, pierced his soul with +a sword of grief and pity; it may be inferred that some sort of morning +agony accompanied the ecstasy. Finally after some fashion the apocalypse +faded from the sky and the agony within subsided; and silence and the +natural air filled the morning twilight and settled slowly in the purple +chasms and cleft abysses of the Apennines. + +The head of the solitary sank, amid all that relaxation and quiet in +which time can drift by with the sense of something ended and complete; +and as he stared downwards, he saw the marks of nails in his own hands. # Miracles and Death -The tremendous story of the Stigmata of St. Francis, which -was the end of the last chapter, was in some sense the end -of his life. In a logical sense, it would have been the end -even if it had happened at the beginning. But truer -traditions refer it to a later date and suggest that his -remaining days on the earth had something about them of the -lingering of a shadow. Whether St. Bonaventura was right in -his hint that St. Francis saw in that seraphic vision -something almost like a vast mirror of his own soul, that -could at least suffer like an angel though not like a god, -or whether it expressed under an imagery more primitive and -colossal than common Christian art the primary paradox of -the death of God, it is evident from its traditional -consequences that it was meant for a crown and for a seal. -It seems to have been after seeing this vision that he began -to go blind. - -But the incident has another and much less important place -in this rough and limited outline. It is the natural -occasion for considering briefly and collectively all the -facts or fables of another aspect of the life of -St. Francis; an aspect which is, I will not say more -disputable, but certainly more disputed. I mean all that -mass of testimony and tradition that concerns his miraculous -powers and supernatural experiences, with which it would -have been easy to stud and bejewel every page of the story; -only that certain circumstances necessary to the conditions -of this narration make it better to gather, somewhat -hastily, all such jewels into a heap, - -I have here adopted this course in order to make allowance -for a prejudice. It is indeed to a great extent a prejudice -of the past; a prejudice that is plainly disappearing in -days of greater enlightenment, and especially of a greater -range of scientific experiment and knowledge. But it is a -prejudice that is still tenacious in many of an older -generation and still traditional in many of the younger. I -mean, of course, what used to be called the belief "that -miracles do not happen," as I think Matthew Arnold expressed -it, in expressing the standpoint of so many of our Victorian -uncles and great-uncles. In other words it was the remains -of that sceptical simplification by which some of the -philosophers of the early eighteenth century had popularised -the impression (for a very short time) that we had -discovered the regulations of the cosmos like the works of a -clock, of so very simple a clock that it was possible to -distinguish almost at a glance what could or could not have -happened in human experience. It should be remembered that -these real sceptics, of the golden age of scepticism, were -quite as scornful of the first fancies of science as of the -lingering legends of religion. Voltaire, when he was told -that a fossil fish had been found on the peaks of the Alps, -laughed openly at the tale and said that some fasting monk -or hermit had dropped his fish-bones there; possibly in -order to effect another monkish fraud. Everybody knows by -this time that science has had its revenge on scepticism. -The border between the credible and the incredible has not -only become once more as vague as in any barbaric twilight; -but the credible is obviously increasing and the incredible -shrinking. A man in Voltaire's time did not know what -miracle he would next have to throw up. A man in our time -does not know what miracle he will next have to swallow. - -But long before these things had happened, in those days of -my boyhood when I first saw the figure of St. Francis far -away in the distance and drawing me even at that distance, -in those Victorian days which did seriously separate the -virtues from the miracles of the saints---even in those days -I could not help feeling vaguely puzzled about how this -method could be applied to history. Even then I did not -quite understand, and even now I do not quite understand, on -what principle one is to pick and choose in the chronicles -of the past which seem to be all of a piece. All our -knowledge of certain historical periods, and notably of the -whole medieval period, rests on certain connected chronicles -written by people who are some of them nameless and all of -them dead, who cannot in any case be cross-examined and -cannot in some cases be corroborated. I have never been -quite clear about the nature of the right by which -historians accepted masses of detail from them as definitely -true, and suddenly denied their truthfulness when one detail -was preternatural. I do not complain of their being -sceptics; I am puzzled about why the sceptics are not more -sceptical. I can understand their saying that these details -would never have been included in a chronicle except by -lunatics or liars; but in that case the only inference is -that the chronicle was written by liars or lunatics. They -will write for instance: Monkish fanaticism found it easy to -spread the report that miracles were already being worked at -the tomb of Thomas Becket." Why should they not say equally -well, "Monkish fanaticism found it easy to spread the -slander that four knights from King Henry's court had -assassinated Thomas Becket in the cathedral"? They would -write something like this: "The credulity of the age readily -believed that Joan of Arc had been inspired to point out the -Dauphin although he was in disguise." Why should they not -write on the same principle: "The credulity of the age was -such as to suppose that an obscure peasant girl could get an -audience at the court of the Dauphin"? And so, in the -present case, when they tell us there is a wild story that -St. Francis flung himself into the fire and emerged -scathless, upon what precise principle are they forbidden to -tell us of a wild story that St. Francis flung himself into -the camp of the ferocious Moslems and returned safe? I only -ask for information; for I do not see the rationale of the -thing myself. I will undertake to say there was not a word -written of St. Francis by any contemporary who was himself -incapable of believing and telling a miraculous story. -Perhaps it is all monkish fables and there never was any -St. Francis or any St. Thomas Becket or any Joan of Arc. -This is undoubtedly a *reductio ad absurdum*; but it is a -*reductio ad absurdum* of the view which thought all -miracles absurd. - -And in abstract logic this method of selection would lead to -the wildest absurdities. An intrinsically incredible story -could only mean that the authority was unworthy of credit. -It could not mean that other parts of his story must be -received with complete credulity. If somebody said he had -met a man in yellow trousers, who proceeded to jump down his -own throat, we should not exactly take our Bible oath or be -burned at the stake for the statement that he wore yellow -trousers. If somebody claimed to have gone up in a blue -balloon and found that the moon was made of green cheese, we -should not exactly take an affidavit that the balloon was -blue any more than that the moon was green. And the really -logical conclusion from throwing doubts on all tales like -the miracles of St. Francis was to throw doubts on the -existence of men like St. Francis. And there really was a -modern moment, a sort of high-water mark of insane -scepticism, when this sort of thing was really said or done. -People used to go about saying that there was no such person -as St. Patrick; which is every bit as much of a human and -historical howler as saying there was no such person as -St. Francis. There was a time, for instance, when the -madness of mythological explanation had dissolved a large -part of solid history under the universal and luxuriant -warmth and radiance of the Sun-Myth. I believe that that -particular sun has already set, but there have been any -number of moons and meteors to take its place. - -St. Francis, of course, would make u magnificent Sun-Myth. -How could anybody miss the chance of being a Sun-Myth when -he is actually best known by a song called The Canticle of -the Sun? It is needless to point out that the fire in Syria -was the dawn in the East and the bleeding wounds in Tuscany -the sunset in the West. I could expound this theory at -considerable length; only, as so often happens to such fine -theorists, another and more promising theory occurs to me. I -cannot think how everybody, including myself, can have -overlooked the fact that the whole tale of St. Francis is of -Totemistic origin. It is unquestionably a tale that simply -swarms with totems. The Franciscan woods are as full of them -as any Red Indian fable. Francis is made to call himself an -ass, because in the original mythos Francis was merely the -name given to the real four-footed donkey, afterwards -vaguely evolved into a half-human god or hero. And that, no -doubt, is why I used to feel that the Brother Wolf and -Sister Bird of St. Francis were somehow like the Brer Fox -and Sis Cow of Uncle Remus. Some say there is an innocent -stage of infancy in which we do really believe that a cow -talked or a fox made a tar baby. Anyhow there is an innocent -period of intellectual growth in which we do sometimes -really believe that St. Patrick was a Sun-Myth or -St. Francis a Totem. But for the most of us both those -phases of paradise are past. - -As I shall suggest in a moment, there is one sense in which -we can for practical purposes distinguish between probable -and improbable things in such a story. It is not so much a -question of cosmic criticism about the nature of the event -as of literary criticism about the nature of the story. Some -stories are told much more seriously than others. But apart -from this, I shall not attempt here any definite -differentiation between them. I shall not do so for a -practical reason affecting the utility of the proceeding; I -mean the fact that in a practical sense the whole of this -matter is again in the melting pot, from which many things -may emerge moulded into what rationalism would have called -monsters. The fixed points of faith and philosophy do indeed -remain always the same. Whether a man believes that fire in -one case could fail to bum, depends on why he thinks it -generally does burn. If it burns nine sticks out of ten -because it is its nature or doom to do so, then it will bum -the tenth stick as well. If it burns nine sticks because it -is the will of God that it should, then it might be the will -of God that the tenth should be unburned. Nobody can get -behind that fundamental difference about the reason of -things; and it is as rational for a theist to believe in -miracles as for an atheist to disbelieve in them. In other -words there is only one intelligent reason why a man does -not believe in miracles and that is that he does believe in -materialism. But these fixed points of faith and philosophy -are things for a theoretical work and have no particular -place here. And in the matter of history and biography, -which have their place here, nothing is fixed at all. The -world is in a welter of the possible and impossible, and -nobody knows what will be the next scientific hypothesis to -support some ancient superstition. Three-quarters of the -miracles attributed to St. Francis would already be -explained by psychologists, not indeed as a Catholic -explains them, but as a materialist must necessarily refuse -to explain them. There is one whole department of the -miracles of St. Francis; the miracles of healing. What is -the good of a superior sceptic throwing them away as -unthinkable, at the moment when faith-healing is already a -big booming Yankee business like Barnum's Show? There is -another whole department analogous to the tales of Christ -"perceiving men's thoughts." What is the use of censoring -them and blacking them out because they are marked -"miracles," when thought-reading is already a parlour game -hke musical chairs? There is another whole department, to be -studied separately if such scientific study were possible, -of the well-attested wonders worked from his relics and -fragmentary possessions. What is the use of dismissing all -that as inconceivable, when even these common psychical -parlour tricks turn perpetually upon touching some familiar -object or holding in the hand some personal possession? I do -not believe, of course, that these tricks are of the same -type as the good works of the saint; save perhaps in the -sense of *Diabolus simius Dei*. But it is not a question of -what I believe and why, but of what the sceptic disbelieves -and why. And the moral for the practical biographer and -historian is that he must wait till things settle down a -little more, before he claims to disbelieve anything. - -This being so he can choose between two courses; and not -without some hesitation, I have here chosen between them. -The best and boldest course would be to tell the whole story -in a straightforward way, miracles and all, as the original -historians told it. And to this sane and simple course the -new historians will probably have to return. But it must be -remembered that this book is avowedly only an introduction -to St. Francis or the study of St. Francis. Those who need -an introduction are in their nature strangers. With them the -object is to get them to listen to St. Francis at all; and -in doing so it is perfectly legitimate so to arrange the -order of the facts that the familiar come before the -unfamiliar and those they can at once understand before -those they have a difficulty in understanding. I should only -be too thankful if this thin and scratchy sketch contains a -line or two that attracts men to study St. Francis for -themselves; and if they do study him for themselves, they -will soon find that the supernatural part of the story seems -quite as natural as the rest. But it was necessary that my -outline should be a merely human one, since I was only -presenting his claim on all humanity, including sceptical -humanity. I therefore adopted the alternative course, of -showing first that nobody but a born fool could fail to -realise that Francis of Assisi was a very real historical -human being; and then summarising briefly in this chapter -the superhuman powers that were certainly a part of that -history and humanity. It only remains to say a few words -about some distinctions that may reasonably be observed in -the matter by any man of any views; that he may not confuse -the point and climax of the saint's life with the fancies or +The tremendous story of the Stigmata of St. Francis, which was the end +of the last chapter, was in some sense the end of his life. In a logical +sense, it would have been the end even if it had happened at the +beginning. But truer traditions refer it to a later date and suggest +that his remaining days on the earth had something about them of the +lingering of a shadow. Whether St. Bonaventura was right in his hint +that St. Francis saw in that seraphic vision something almost like a +vast mirror of his own soul, that could at least suffer like an angel +though not like a god, or whether it expressed under an imagery more +primitive and colossal than common Christian art the primary paradox of +the death of God, it is evident from its traditional consequences that +it was meant for a crown and for a seal. It seems to have been after +seeing this vision that he began to go blind. + +But the incident has another and much less important place in this rough +and limited outline. It is the natural occasion for considering briefly +and collectively all the facts or fables of another aspect of the life +of St. Francis; an aspect which is, I will not say more disputable, but +certainly more disputed. I mean all that mass of testimony and tradition +that concerns his miraculous powers and supernatural experiences, with +which it would have been easy to stud and bejewel every page of the +story; only that certain circumstances necessary to the conditions of +this narration make it better to gather, somewhat hastily, all such +jewels into a heap, + +I have here adopted this course in order to make allowance for a +prejudice. It is indeed to a great extent a prejudice of the past; a +prejudice that is plainly disappearing in days of greater enlightenment, +and especially of a greater range of scientific experiment and +knowledge. But it is a prejudice that is still tenacious in many of an +older generation and still traditional in many of the younger. I mean, +of course, what used to be called the belief "that miracles do not +happen," as I think Matthew Arnold expressed it, in expressing the +standpoint of so many of our Victorian uncles and great-uncles. In other +words it was the remains of that sceptical simplification by which some +of the philosophers of the early eighteenth century had popularised the +impression (for a very short time) that we had discovered the +regulations of the cosmos like the works of a clock, of so very simple a +clock that it was possible to distinguish almost at a glance what could +or could not have happened in human experience. It should be remembered +that these real sceptics, of the golden age of scepticism, were quite as +scornful of the first fancies of science as of the lingering legends of +religion. Voltaire, when he was told that a fossil fish had been found +on the peaks of the Alps, laughed openly at the tale and said that some +fasting monk or hermit had dropped his fish-bones there; possibly in +order to effect another monkish fraud. Everybody knows by this time that +science has had its revenge on scepticism. The border between the +credible and the incredible has not only become once more as vague as in +any barbaric twilight; but the credible is obviously increasing and the +incredible shrinking. A man in Voltaire's time did not know what miracle +he would next have to throw up. A man in our time does not know what +miracle he will next have to swallow. + +But long before these things had happened, in those days of my boyhood +when I first saw the figure of St. Francis far away in the distance and +drawing me even at that distance, in those Victorian days which did +seriously separate the virtues from the miracles of the saints---even in +those days I could not help feeling vaguely puzzled about how this +method could be applied to history. Even then I did not quite +understand, and even now I do not quite understand, on what principle +one is to pick and choose in the chronicles of the past which seem to be +all of a piece. All our knowledge of certain historical periods, and +notably of the whole medieval period, rests on certain connected +chronicles written by people who are some of them nameless and all of +them dead, who cannot in any case be cross-examined and cannot in some +cases be corroborated. I have never been quite clear about the nature of +the right by which historians accepted masses of detail from them as +definitely true, and suddenly denied their truthfulness when one detail +was preternatural. I do not complain of their being sceptics; I am +puzzled about why the sceptics are not more sceptical. I can understand +their saying that these details would never have been included in a +chronicle except by lunatics or liars; but in that case the only +inference is that the chronicle was written by liars or lunatics. They +will write for instance: Monkish fanaticism found it easy to spread the +report that miracles were already being worked at the tomb of Thomas +Becket." Why should they not say equally well, "Monkish fanaticism found +it easy to spread the slander that four knights from King Henry's court +had assassinated Thomas Becket in the cathedral"? They would write +something like this: "The credulity of the age readily believed that +Joan of Arc had been inspired to point out the Dauphin although he was +in disguise." Why should they not write on the same principle: "The +credulity of the age was such as to suppose that an obscure peasant girl +could get an audience at the court of the Dauphin"? And so, in the +present case, when they tell us there is a wild story that St. Francis +flung himself into the fire and emerged scathless, upon what precise +principle are they forbidden to tell us of a wild story that St. Francis +flung himself into the camp of the ferocious Moslems and returned safe? +I only ask for information; for I do not see the rationale of the thing +myself. I will undertake to say there was not a word written of +St. Francis by any contemporary who was himself incapable of believing +and telling a miraculous story. Perhaps it is all monkish fables and +there never was any St. Francis or any St. Thomas Becket or any Joan of +Arc. This is undoubtedly a *reductio ad absurdum*; but it is a *reductio +ad absurdum* of the view which thought all miracles absurd. + +And in abstract logic this method of selection would lead to the wildest +absurdities. An intrinsically incredible story could only mean that the +authority was unworthy of credit. It could not mean that other parts of +his story must be received with complete credulity. If somebody said he +had met a man in yellow trousers, who proceeded to jump down his own +throat, we should not exactly take our Bible oath or be burned at the +stake for the statement that he wore yellow trousers. If somebody +claimed to have gone up in a blue balloon and found that the moon was +made of green cheese, we should not exactly take an affidavit that the +balloon was blue any more than that the moon was green. And the really +logical conclusion from throwing doubts on all tales like the miracles +of St. Francis was to throw doubts on the existence of men like +St. Francis. And there really was a modern moment, a sort of high-water +mark of insane scepticism, when this sort of thing was really said or +done. People used to go about saying that there was no such person as +St. Patrick; which is every bit as much of a human and historical howler +as saying there was no such person as St. Francis. There was a time, for +instance, when the madness of mythological explanation had dissolved a +large part of solid history under the universal and luxuriant warmth and +radiance of the Sun-Myth. I believe that that particular sun has already +set, but there have been any number of moons and meteors to take its +place. + +St. Francis, of course, would make u magnificent Sun-Myth. How could +anybody miss the chance of being a Sun-Myth when he is actually best +known by a song called The Canticle of the Sun? It is needless to point +out that the fire in Syria was the dawn in the East and the bleeding +wounds in Tuscany the sunset in the West. I could expound this theory at +considerable length; only, as so often happens to such fine theorists, +another and more promising theory occurs to me. I cannot think how +everybody, including myself, can have overlooked the fact that the whole +tale of St. Francis is of Totemistic origin. It is unquestionably a tale +that simply swarms with totems. The Franciscan woods are as full of them +as any Red Indian fable. Francis is made to call himself an ass, because +in the original mythos Francis was merely the name given to the real +four-footed donkey, afterwards vaguely evolved into a half-human god or +hero. And that, no doubt, is why I used to feel that the Brother Wolf +and Sister Bird of St. Francis were somehow like the Brer Fox and Sis +Cow of Uncle Remus. Some say there is an innocent stage of infancy in +which we do really believe that a cow talked or a fox made a tar baby. +Anyhow there is an innocent period of intellectual growth in which we do +sometimes really believe that St. Patrick was a Sun-Myth or St. Francis +a Totem. But for the most of us both those phases of paradise are past. + +As I shall suggest in a moment, there is one sense in which we can for +practical purposes distinguish between probable and improbable things in +such a story. It is not so much a question of cosmic criticism about the +nature of the event as of literary criticism about the nature of the +story. Some stories are told much more seriously than others. But apart +from this, I shall not attempt here any definite differentiation between +them. I shall not do so for a practical reason affecting the utility of +the proceeding; I mean the fact that in a practical sense the whole of +this matter is again in the melting pot, from which many things may +emerge moulded into what rationalism would have called monsters. The +fixed points of faith and philosophy do indeed remain always the same. +Whether a man believes that fire in one case could fail to bum, depends +on why he thinks it generally does burn. If it burns nine sticks out of +ten because it is its nature or doom to do so, then it will bum the +tenth stick as well. If it burns nine sticks because it is the will of +God that it should, then it might be the will of God that the tenth +should be unburned. Nobody can get behind that fundamental difference +about the reason of things; and it is as rational for a theist to +believe in miracles as for an atheist to disbelieve in them. In other +words there is only one intelligent reason why a man does not believe in +miracles and that is that he does believe in materialism. But these +fixed points of faith and philosophy are things for a theoretical work +and have no particular place here. And in the matter of history and +biography, which have their place here, nothing is fixed at all. The +world is in a welter of the possible and impossible, and nobody knows +what will be the next scientific hypothesis to support some ancient +superstition. Three-quarters of the miracles attributed to St. Francis +would already be explained by psychologists, not indeed as a Catholic +explains them, but as a materialist must necessarily refuse to explain +them. There is one whole department of the miracles of St. Francis; the +miracles of healing. What is the good of a superior sceptic throwing +them away as unthinkable, at the moment when faith-healing is already a +big booming Yankee business like Barnum's Show? There is another whole +department analogous to the tales of Christ "perceiving men's thoughts." +What is the use of censoring them and blacking them out because they are +marked "miracles," when thought-reading is already a parlour game hke +musical chairs? There is another whole department, to be studied +separately if such scientific study were possible, of the well-attested +wonders worked from his relics and fragmentary possessions. What is the +use of dismissing all that as inconceivable, when even these common +psychical parlour tricks turn perpetually upon touching some familiar +object or holding in the hand some personal possession? I do not +believe, of course, that these tricks are of the same type as the good +works of the saint; save perhaps in the sense of *Diabolus simius Dei*. +But it is not a question of what I believe and why, but of what the +sceptic disbelieves and why. And the moral for the practical biographer +and historian is that he must wait till things settle down a little +more, before he claims to disbelieve anything. + +This being so he can choose between two courses; and not without some +hesitation, I have here chosen between them. The best and boldest course +would be to tell the whole story in a straightforward way, miracles and +all, as the original historians told it. And to this sane and simple +course the new historians will probably have to return. But it must be +remembered that this book is avowedly only an introduction to +St. Francis or the study of St. Francis. Those who need an introduction +are in their nature strangers. With them the object is to get them to +listen to St. Francis at all; and in doing so it is perfectly legitimate +so to arrange the order of the facts that the familiar come before the +unfamiliar and those they can at once understand before those they have +a difficulty in understanding. I should only be too thankful if this +thin and scratchy sketch contains a line or two that attracts men to +study St. Francis for themselves; and if they do study him for +themselves, they will soon find that the supernatural part of the story +seems quite as natural as the rest. But it was necessary that my outline +should be a merely human one, since I was only presenting his claim on +all humanity, including sceptical humanity. I therefore adopted the +alternative course, of showing first that nobody but a born fool could +fail to realise that Francis of Assisi was a very real historical human +being; and then summarising briefly in this chapter the superhuman +powers that were certainly a part of that history and humanity. It only +remains to say a few words about some distinctions that may reasonably +be observed in the matter by any man of any views; that he may not +confuse the point and climax of the saint's life with the fancies or rumours that were really only the fringes of his reputation. -There is so immense a mass of legends and anecdotes about -St. Francis of Assisi, and there are so many admirable -compilations that cover nearly all of them, that I have been -compelled within these narrow limits to pursue a somewhat -narrow policy; that of following one line of explanation and -only mentioning one anecdote here or there because it -illustrates that explanation. If this is true about all the -legends and stories, it is especially true about the -miraculous legends and the supernatural stories. If we were -to take some stories as they stand, we should receive a -rather bewildered impression that the biography contains -more supernatural events than natural ones. Now it is clean -against Catholic tradition, co-incident in so many points -with common sense, to suppose that this is really the -proportion of these things in practical human life. -Moreover, even considered as supernatural or preternatural -stories, they obviously fall into certain different classes, -not so much by our experience of miracles as by our -experience of stories. Some of them have the character of -fairy stories, in their form even more than their incident. -They are obviously tales told by the fire to peasants or the -children of peasants, under conditions in which nobody -thinks he is propounding a religious doctrine to be received -or rejected, but only rounding off a story in the most -symmetrical way, according to that sort of decorative scheme -or pattern that runs through all fairy stories. Others are -obviously in their form most emphatically evidence; that is -they are testimony that is truth or lies; and it will be -very hard for any judge of human nature to think they are -lies. - -It is admitted that the story of the Stigmata is not a -legend but can only be a lie. I mean that it is certainly -not a late legendary accretion added afterwards to the fame -of St. Francis; but is something that started almost -immediately with his earliest biographers. It is practically -necessary to suggest that it was a conspiracy; indeed there -has been some disposition to put the fraud upon the -unfortunate Elias, whom so many parties have been disposed -to treat as a useful universal villain. It has been said, -indeed, that these early biographers, St. Bonaventura and -Celano and the Three Companions, though they declare that -St. Francis received the mystical wounds, do not say that -they themselves saw those wounds. I do not think this -argument conclusive; because it only arises out of the very -nature of the narrative. The Three Companions are not in any -case making an affidavit; and therefore none of the admitted -parts of their story are in the form of an affidavit. They -are writing a chronicle of a comparatively impersonal and -very objective description. They do not say, "I saw -St. Francis's wounds"; they say, "St. Francis received -wounds." But neither do they say, "I saw St. Francis go into -the Portiuncula"; they say, "St. Francis went into the -Portiuncula." But I still cannot understand why they should -be trusted as eye-witnesses about the one fact and not -trusted as eye-witnesses about the other. It is all of a -piece; it would be a most abrupt and abnormal interruption -in their way of telling the story if they suddenly began to -curse and to swear, and give their names and addresses, and -take their oath that they themselves saw and verified the -physical facts in question. It seems to me, therefore, that -this particular discussion goes back to the general question -I have already mentioned; the question of why these -chronicles should be credited at all, if they are credited -with abounding in the incredible. But that again will -probably be found to revert, in the last resort, to the mere -fact that some men cannot believe in miracles because they -are materialists. That is logical enough; but they are bound -to deny the preternatural as much in the testimony of a -modern scientific professor as in that of a medieval monkish -chronicler. And there are plenty of professors for them to -contradict by this time. - -But whatever may be thought of such supernaturalism in the -comparatively material and popular sense of supernatural -acts, we shall miss the whole point of St. Francis, -especially of St. Francis after Alverno, if we do not -realise that he was living a supernatural life. And there is -more and more of such supernaturalism in his life as he -approaches towards his death. This element of the -supernatural did not separate him from the natural; for it -was the whole point of his position that it united him more -perfectly to the natural. It did not make him dismal or -dehumanised; for it was the whole meaning of his message -that such mysticism makes a man cheerful and humane. But it -was the whole point of his position, and it was the whole -meaning of his message, that the power that did it was a -supernatural power. If this simple distinction were not -apparent from the whole of his life, it would be difficult -for anyone to miss it in reading the account of his death. - -In a sense he may be said to have wandered as a dying man, -just as he had wandered as a living one. As it became more -and more apparent that his health was failing, he seems to -have been carried from place to place like a pageant of -sickness or almost like a pageant of mortality. He went to -Rieti, to Nursia, perhaps to Naples, certainly to Cortona by -the lake of Perugia. But there is something profoundly -pathetic, and full of great problems, in the fact that at -last, as it would seem, his flame of life leapt up and his -heart rejoiced when they saw afar off on the Assisian hill -the solemn pillars of the Portiuncula. He who had become a -vagabond for the sake of a vision, he who had denied himself -all sense of place and possession, he whose whole gospel and -glory it was to be homeless, received like a Parthian shot -from nature, the sting of the sense of home. He also had his -*maladie du clocher*, his sickness of the spire; though his -spire was higher than ours. "Never," he cried with the -sudden energy of strong spirits in death, "never give up -this place. If you would go anywhere or make any pilgrimage, -return always to your home; for this is the holy house of -God." And the procession passed under the arches of his -home; and he laid down on his bed and his brethren gathered -round him for the last long vigil. It seems to me no moment -for entering into the subsequent disputes about which -successors he blessed or in what form and with what -significance. In that one mighty moment he blessed us all. - -After he had taken farewell of some of his nearest and -especially some of his oldest friends, he was lifted at his -own request off his own rude bed and laid on the bare -ground; as some say clad only in a hair-shirt, as he had -first gone forth into the wintry woods from the presence of -his father. It was the final assertion of his great fixed -idea; of praise and thanks springing to their most towering -height out of nakedness and nothing. As he lay there we may -be certain that his seared and blinded eyes saw nothing but -their object and their origin. We may be sure that the soul, -in its last inconceivable isolation, was face to face with -nothing less than God Incarnate and Christ Crucified. But -for the men standing around him there must have been other -thoughts mingling with these; and many memories must have -gathered like ghosts in the twilight, as that day wore on -and that great darkness descended in which we all lost a -friend. - -For what lay dying there was not Dominic of the Dogs of God, -a leader in logical and controversial wars that could be -reduced to a plan and handed on like a plan; a master of a -machine of democratic discipline by which others could -organise themselves. What was passing from the world was a -person; a poet; an outlook on life like a light that was -never after on sea or land; a thing not to be replaced or -repeated while the earth endures. It has been said that -there was only one Christian, who died on the cross; it is -truer to say in this sense that there was only one -Franciscan, whose name was Francis. Huge and happy as was -the popular work he left behind him, there was something -that he could not leave behind, any more than a landscape -painter can leave his eyes in his will. It was an artist in -life who was here called to be an artist in death; and he -had a better right than Nero, his anti-type, to say *Qualis -artifex pereo*. For Nero's life was full of posing for the -occasion like that of an actor; while the Umbrian's had a -natural and continuous grace like that of an athlete. But -St. Francis had better things to say and better things to -think about, and his thoughts were caught upwards where we -cannot follow them, in divine and dizzy heights to which -death alone can lift us up. - -Round about him stood the brethren in their brown habits, -those that had loved him even if they afterwards disputed -with each other. There was Bernard his first friend and -Angelo who had served as his secretary and Elias his -successor, whom tradition tried to turn into a sort of -Judas, but who seems to have been little worse than an -official in the wrong place. His tragedy was that he had a -Franciscan habit without a Franciscan heart, or at any rate -with a very un-Franciscan head. But though he made a bad -Franciscan, he might have made a decent Dominican. Anyhow, -there is no reason to doubt that he loved Francis, for -ruffians and savages did that. Anyhow he stood among the -rest as the hours passed and the shadows lengthened in the -house of the Portiuncula; and nobody need think so ill of -him as to suppose that his thoughts were then in the -tumultuous future, in the ambitions and controversies of his -later years. - -A man might fancy that the birds must have known when it -happened; and made some motion in the evening sky. As they -had once, according to the tale, scattered to the four winds -of heaven in the pattern of a cross at his signal of -dispersion, they might now have written in such dotted lines -a more awful augury across the sky. Hidden in the woods -perhaps were little cowering creatures never again to be so -much noticed and understood; and it has been said that -animals are sometimes conscious of things to which man their -spiritual superior is for the moment blind. We do not know -whether any shiver passed through all the thieves and the -outcasts and the outlaws, to tell them what had happened to -him who never knew the nature of scorn. But at least in the -passages and porches of the Portiuncula there was a sudden -stillness, where all the brown figures stood like bronze -statues; for the stopping of the great heart that had not -broken till it held the world. +There is so immense a mass of legends and anecdotes about St. Francis of +Assisi, and there are so many admirable compilations that cover nearly +all of them, that I have been compelled within these narrow limits to +pursue a somewhat narrow policy; that of following one line of +explanation and only mentioning one anecdote here or there because it +illustrates that explanation. If this is true about all the legends and +stories, it is especially true about the miraculous legends and the +supernatural stories. If we were to take some stories as they stand, we +should receive a rather bewildered impression that the biography +contains more supernatural events than natural ones. Now it is clean +against Catholic tradition, co-incident in so many points with common +sense, to suppose that this is really the proportion of these things in +practical human life. Moreover, even considered as supernatural or +preternatural stories, they obviously fall into certain different +classes, not so much by our experience of miracles as by our experience +of stories. Some of them have the character of fairy stories, in their +form even more than their incident. They are obviously tales told by the +fire to peasants or the children of peasants, under conditions in which +nobody thinks he is propounding a religious doctrine to be received or +rejected, but only rounding off a story in the most symmetrical way, +according to that sort of decorative scheme or pattern that runs through +all fairy stories. Others are obviously in their form most emphatically +evidence; that is they are testimony that is truth or lies; and it will +be very hard for any judge of human nature to think they are lies. + +It is admitted that the story of the Stigmata is not a legend but can +only be a lie. I mean that it is certainly not a late legendary +accretion added afterwards to the fame of St. Francis; but is something +that started almost immediately with his earliest biographers. It is +practically necessary to suggest that it was a conspiracy; indeed there +has been some disposition to put the fraud upon the unfortunate Elias, +whom so many parties have been disposed to treat as a useful universal +villain. It has been said, indeed, that these early biographers, +St. Bonaventura and Celano and the Three Companions, though they declare +that St. Francis received the mystical wounds, do not say that they +themselves saw those wounds. I do not think this argument conclusive; +because it only arises out of the very nature of the narrative. The +Three Companions are not in any case making an affidavit; and therefore +none of the admitted parts of their story are in the form of an +affidavit. They are writing a chronicle of a comparatively impersonal +and very objective description. They do not say, "I saw St. Francis's +wounds"; they say, "St. Francis received wounds." But neither do they +say, "I saw St. Francis go into the Portiuncula"; they say, "St. Francis +went into the Portiuncula." But I still cannot understand why they +should be trusted as eye-witnesses about the one fact and not trusted as +eye-witnesses about the other. It is all of a piece; it would be a most +abrupt and abnormal interruption in their way of telling the story if +they suddenly began to curse and to swear, and give their names and +addresses, and take their oath that they themselves saw and verified the +physical facts in question. It seems to me, therefore, that this +particular discussion goes back to the general question I have already +mentioned; the question of why these chronicles should be credited at +all, if they are credited with abounding in the incredible. But that +again will probably be found to revert, in the last resort, to the mere +fact that some men cannot believe in miracles because they are +materialists. That is logical enough; but they are bound to deny the +preternatural as much in the testimony of a modern scientific professor +as in that of a medieval monkish chronicler. And there are plenty of +professors for them to contradict by this time. + +But whatever may be thought of such supernaturalism in the comparatively +material and popular sense of supernatural acts, we shall miss the whole +point of St. Francis, especially of St. Francis after Alverno, if we do +not realise that he was living a supernatural life. And there is more +and more of such supernaturalism in his life as he approaches towards +his death. This element of the supernatural did not separate him from +the natural; for it was the whole point of his position that it united +him more perfectly to the natural. It did not make him dismal or +dehumanised; for it was the whole meaning of his message that such +mysticism makes a man cheerful and humane. But it was the whole point of +his position, and it was the whole meaning of his message, that the +power that did it was a supernatural power. If this simple distinction +were not apparent from the whole of his life, it would be difficult for +anyone to miss it in reading the account of his death. + +In a sense he may be said to have wandered as a dying man, just as he +had wandered as a living one. As it became more and more apparent that +his health was failing, he seems to have been carried from place to +place like a pageant of sickness or almost like a pageant of mortality. +He went to Rieti, to Nursia, perhaps to Naples, certainly to Cortona by +the lake of Perugia. But there is something profoundly pathetic, and +full of great problems, in the fact that at last, as it would seem, his +flame of life leapt up and his heart rejoiced when they saw afar off on +the Assisian hill the solemn pillars of the Portiuncula. He who had +become a vagabond for the sake of a vision, he who had denied himself +all sense of place and possession, he whose whole gospel and glory it +was to be homeless, received like a Parthian shot from nature, the sting +of the sense of home. He also had his *maladie du clocher*, his sickness +of the spire; though his spire was higher than ours. "Never," he cried +with the sudden energy of strong spirits in death, "never give up this +place. If you would go anywhere or make any pilgrimage, return always to +your home; for this is the holy house of God." And the procession passed +under the arches of his home; and he laid down on his bed and his +brethren gathered round him for the last long vigil. It seems to me no +moment for entering into the subsequent disputes about which successors +he blessed or in what form and with what significance. In that one +mighty moment he blessed us all. + +After he had taken farewell of some of his nearest and especially some +of his oldest friends, he was lifted at his own request off his own rude +bed and laid on the bare ground; as some say clad only in a hair-shirt, +as he had first gone forth into the wintry woods from the presence of +his father. It was the final assertion of his great fixed idea; of +praise and thanks springing to their most towering height out of +nakedness and nothing. As he lay there we may be certain that his seared +and blinded eyes saw nothing but their object and their origin. We may +be sure that the soul, in its last inconceivable isolation, was face to +face with nothing less than God Incarnate and Christ Crucified. But for +the men standing around him there must have been other thoughts mingling +with these; and many memories must have gathered like ghosts in the +twilight, as that day wore on and that great darkness descended in which +we all lost a friend. + +For what lay dying there was not Dominic of the Dogs of God, a leader in +logical and controversial wars that could be reduced to a plan and +handed on like a plan; a master of a machine of democratic discipline by +which others could organise themselves. What was passing from the world +was a person; a poet; an outlook on life like a light that was never +after on sea or land; a thing not to be replaced or repeated while the +earth endures. It has been said that there was only one Christian, who +died on the cross; it is truer to say in this sense that there was only +one Franciscan, whose name was Francis. Huge and happy as was the +popular work he left behind him, there was something that he could not +leave behind, any more than a landscape painter can leave his eyes in +his will. It was an artist in life who was here called to be an artist +in death; and he had a better right than Nero, his anti-type, to say +*Qualis artifex pereo*. For Nero's life was full of posing for the +occasion like that of an actor; while the Umbrian's had a natural and +continuous grace like that of an athlete. But St. Francis had better +things to say and better things to think about, and his thoughts were +caught upwards where we cannot follow them, in divine and dizzy heights +to which death alone can lift us up. + +Round about him stood the brethren in their brown habits, those that had +loved him even if they afterwards disputed with each other. There was +Bernard his first friend and Angelo who had served as his secretary and +Elias his successor, whom tradition tried to turn into a sort of Judas, +but who seems to have been little worse than an official in the wrong +place. His tragedy was that he had a Franciscan habit without a +Franciscan heart, or at any rate with a very un-Franciscan head. But +though he made a bad Franciscan, he might have made a decent Dominican. +Anyhow, there is no reason to doubt that he loved Francis, for ruffians +and savages did that. Anyhow he stood among the rest as the hours passed +and the shadows lengthened in the house of the Portiuncula; and nobody +need think so ill of him as to suppose that his thoughts were then in +the tumultuous future, in the ambitions and controversies of his later +years. + +A man might fancy that the birds must have known when it happened; and +made some motion in the evening sky. As they had once, according to the +tale, scattered to the four winds of heaven in the pattern of a cross at +his signal of dispersion, they might now have written in such dotted +lines a more awful augury across the sky. Hidden in the woods perhaps +were little cowering creatures never again to be so much noticed and +understood; and it has been said that animals are sometimes conscious of +things to which man their spiritual superior is for the moment blind. We +do not know whether any shiver passed through all the thieves and the +outcasts and the outlaws, to tell them what had happened to him who +never knew the nature of scorn. But at least in the passages and porches +of the Portiuncula there was a sudden stillness, where all the brown +figures stood like bronze statues; for the stopping of the great heart +that had not broken till it held the world. # The Testament of St. Francis -In one sense doubtless it is a sad irony that St. Francis, -who all his life had desired all men to agree, should have -died amid increasing disagreements. But we must not -exaggerate this discord, as some have done, so as to turn it -into a mere defeat of all his ideals. There are some who -represent his work as having been merely ruined by the -wickedness of the world, or what they always assume to be -the even greater wickedness of the Church. - -This little book is an essay on St. Francis and not on the -Franciscan Order, still less on the Catholic Church or the -Papacy or the policy pursued towards the extreme Franciscans -or the Fraticelli. It is therefore only necessary to note in -a very few words what was the general nature of the -controversy that raged after the great saint's death, and to -some extent troubled the last days of his life. The dominant -detail was the interpretation of the vow of poverty, or the -refusal of all possessions. Nobody so far as I know ever -proposed to interfere with the vow of the individual friar -that he would have no individual possessions. Nobody, that -is, proposed to interfere with his negation of private -property. But some Franciscans, invoking the authority of -Francis on their side, went further than this and further I -think than anybody else has ever gone. They proposed to -abolish not only private property but property. That is, -they refused to be corporately responsible for anything at -all; for any buildings or stores or tools; they refused to -own them collectively even when they used them collectively. -It is perfectly true that many, especially among the first -supporters of this view, were men of a splendid and selfless -spirit, wholly devoted to the great saint's ideal. It is -also perfectly true that the Pope and the authorities of the -Church did not think this conception was a workable -arrangement, and went so far in modifying it as to set aside -certain clauses in the great saint's will. But it is not at -all easy to see that it was a workable arrangement or even -an arrangement at all; for it was really a refusal to -arrange anything. Everybody knew of course that Franciscans -were communists; but this was not so much being a communist -as being an anarchist. Surely upon any argument somebody or -something must be answerable for what happened to or in or -concerning a number of historic edifices and ordinary goods -and chattels. Many idealists of a socialistic sort, notably -of the school of Mr. Shaw or Mr. Wells, have treated this -dispute as if it were merely a case of the tyranny of -wealthy and wicked pontiffs crushing the true Christianity -of Christian Socialists. But in truth this extreme ideal was -in a sense the very reverse of Socialist, or even social. -Precisely the thing which these enthusiasts refused was that -social ownership on which Socialism is built; what they -primarily refused to do was what Socialists primarily exist -to do; to own legally in their corporate capacity. Nor is it -true that the tone of the Popes towards the enthusiasts was -merely harsh and hostile. The Pope maintained for a long -time a compromise which he had specially designed to meet -their own conscientious objections; a compromise by which -the Papacy itself held the property in a kind of trust for -the owners who refused to touch it. The truth is that this -incident shows two things which are common enough in -Catholic history, but very little understood by the -journalistic history of industrial civilisation. It shows -that the Saints were sometimes great men when the Popes were -small men. But it also shows that great men are sometimes -wrong when small men are right. And it will be found, after -all, very difficult for any candid and clear-headed outsider -to deny that the Pope was right, when he insisted that the +In one sense doubtless it is a sad irony that St. Francis, who all his +life had desired all men to agree, should have died amid increasing +disagreements. But we must not exaggerate this discord, as some have +done, so as to turn it into a mere defeat of all his ideals. There are +some who represent his work as having been merely ruined by the +wickedness of the world, or what they always assume to be the even +greater wickedness of the Church. + +This little book is an essay on St. Francis and not on the Franciscan +Order, still less on the Catholic Church or the Papacy or the policy +pursued towards the extreme Franciscans or the Fraticelli. It is +therefore only necessary to note in a very few words what was the +general nature of the controversy that raged after the great saint's +death, and to some extent troubled the last days of his life. The +dominant detail was the interpretation of the vow of poverty, or the +refusal of all possessions. Nobody so far as I know ever proposed to +interfere with the vow of the individual friar that he would have no +individual possessions. Nobody, that is, proposed to interfere with his +negation of private property. But some Franciscans, invoking the +authority of Francis on their side, went further than this and further I +think than anybody else has ever gone. They proposed to abolish not only +private property but property. That is, they refused to be corporately +responsible for anything at all; for any buildings or stores or tools; +they refused to own them collectively even when they used them +collectively. It is perfectly true that many, especially among the first +supporters of this view, were men of a splendid and selfless spirit, +wholly devoted to the great saint's ideal. It is also perfectly true +that the Pope and the authorities of the Church did not think this +conception was a workable arrangement, and went so far in modifying it +as to set aside certain clauses in the great saint's will. But it is not +at all easy to see that it was a workable arrangement or even an +arrangement at all; for it was really a refusal to arrange anything. +Everybody knew of course that Franciscans were communists; but this was +not so much being a communist as being an anarchist. Surely upon any +argument somebody or something must be answerable for what happened to +or in or concerning a number of historic edifices and ordinary goods and +chattels. Many idealists of a socialistic sort, notably of the school of +Mr. Shaw or Mr. Wells, have treated this dispute as if it were merely a +case of the tyranny of wealthy and wicked pontiffs crushing the true +Christianity of Christian Socialists. But in truth this extreme ideal +was in a sense the very reverse of Socialist, or even social. Precisely +the thing which these enthusiasts refused was that social ownership on +which Socialism is built; what they primarily refused to do was what +Socialists primarily exist to do; to own legally in their corporate +capacity. Nor is it true that the tone of the Popes towards the +enthusiasts was merely harsh and hostile. The Pope maintained for a long +time a compromise which he had specially designed to meet their own +conscientious objections; a compromise by which the Papacy itself held +the property in a kind of trust for the owners who refused to touch it. +The truth is that this incident shows two things which are common enough +in Catholic history, but very little understood by the journalistic +history of industrial civilisation. It shows that the Saints were +sometimes great men when the Popes were small men. But it also shows +that great men are sometimes wrong when small men are right. And it will +be found, after all, very difficult for any candid and clear-headed +outsider to deny that the Pope was right, when he insisted that the world was not made only for Franciscans. -For that was what was behind the quarrel. At the back of -this particular practical question there was something much -larger and more momentous, the stir and wind of which we can -feel as we read the controversy. We might go so far as to -put the ultimate truth thus. St. Francis was so great and -original a man that he had something in him of what makes -the founder of a religion. Many of his followers were more -or less ready, in their hearts, to treat him as the founder -of a religion. They were willing to let the Franciscan -spirit escape from Christendom as the Christian spirit had -escaped from Israel. They were willing to let it eclipse -Christendom as the Christian spirit had eclipsed Israel. -Francis, the fire that ran through the roads of Italy, was -to be the beginning of a conflagration in which the old -Christian civilisation was to be consumed. That was the -point the Pope had to settle; whether Christendom should -absorb Francis or Francis Christendom. And he decided -rightly, apart from the duties of his place; for the Church -could include all that was good in the Franciscans and the -Franciscans could not include all that was good in the -Church. - -There is one consideration which, though sufficiently clear -in the whole story, has not perhaps been sufficiently noted, -especially by those who cannot see the case for a certain -Catholic common sense larger even than Franciscan -enthusiasm. - -Yet it arises out of the very merits of the man whom they so -rightly admire. Francis of Assisi, as has been said again -and again, was a poet; that is, he was a person who could -express his personality. Now it is everywhere the mark of -this sort of man that his very limitations make him larger. -He is what he is, not only by what he has, but in some -degree by what he has not. But the limits that make the -lines of such a personal portrait cannot be made the limits -of all humanity. St. Francis is a very strong example of -this quality in the man of genius, that in him even what is -negative is positive, because it is part of a character. An -excellent example of what I mean may be found in his -attitude towards learning and scholarship. He ignored and in -some degree discouraged books and book-learning; and from -his own point of view and that of his own work in the world -he was absolutely right. The whole point of his message was -to be so simple that the village idiot could understand it. -The whole point of his point of view was that it looked out -freshly upon a fresh world, that might have been made that -morning. Save for the great primal things, the Creation and -the Story of Eden, the first Christmas and the first Easter, -the world had no history. But is it desired or desirable -that the whole Catholic Church should have no history? - -It is perhaps the chief suggestion of this book that -St. Francis walked the world like the Pardon of God. I mean -that his appearance marked the moment when men could be -reconciled not only to God but to nature and, most difficult -of all, to themselves. For it marked the moment when all the -stale paganism that had poisoned the ancient world was at -last worked out of the social system. He opened the gates of -the Dark Ages as of a prison of purgatory, where men had -cleansed themselves as hermits in the desert or heroes in -the barbarian wars. It was in fact his whole function to -tell men to start afresh and, in that sense, to tell them to -forget. If they were to turn over a new leaf and begin a -fresh page with the first large letters of the alphabet, -simply drawn and brilliantly coloured m the early medieval -manner, it was clearly a part of that particular childlike -cheerfulness that they should paste down the old page that -was all black and bloody with horrid things. For instance, I -have already noted that there IS not a trace in the poetry -of this first Italian poet of all that pagan mythology which -lingered long after paganism. The first Italian poet seems -the only man in the world who has never even heard of -Virgil. This was exactly right for the special sense in -which he is the first Italian poet. It is quite right that -he should call a nightingale a nightingale, and not have its -song spoilt or saddened by the terrible tales of Itylus or -Procne. In short, it is really quite right and quite -desirable that St. Francis should never have heard of -Virgil. But do we really desire that Dante should never have -heard of Virgil? Do we really desire that Dante should never -have read any pagan mythology? It has been truly said that -the use that Dante makes of such fables is altogether part -of a deeper orthodoxy; that his huge heathen fragments, his -gigantic figures of Minos or of Charon, only give a hint of -some enormous natural religion behind all history and from -the first foreshadowing the Faith. It is well to have the -Sybil as well as David in the Dies Irae. That St. Francis -would have burned all the leaves of all the books of the -Sybil, in exchange for one fresh leaf from the nearest tree, -is perfectly true; and perfectly proper to St. Francis. But -it is good to have the Dies Irae as well as the Canticle of -the Sun. - -By this thesis, in short, the coming of St. Francis was like -the birth of a child in a dark house, lifting its doom; a -child that grows up unconscious of the tragedy and triumphs -over it by his innocence. In him it is necessarily not only -innocence but ignorance. It is the essence of the story that -*he* should pluck at the green grass without knowing it -grows over a murdered man or climb the apple-tree without -knowing it was the gibbet of a suicide. It was such an -amnesty and reconciliation that the freshness of the -Franciscan spirit brought to all the world. But it does not -follow that it ought to impose its ignorance on all the -world. And I think it would have tried to impose it on all -the world. For some Franciscans it would have seemed right -that Franciscan poetry should expel Benedictine prose. For -the symbolic child it was quite rational. It was right -enough that for such a child the world should be a large new -nursery with blank white-washed walls, on which he could -draw his own pictures in chalk in the childish fashion, -crude in outline and gay in colour; the beginnings of all -our art. It was right enough that to him such a nursery -should seem the most magnificent mansion of the imagination -of man. But in the Church of God are many mansions. - -Every heresy has been an effort to narrow the Church. If the -Franciscan movement had turned into a new religion, it would -after all have been a narrow religion. In so far as it did -turn here and there into a heresy, it was a narrow heresy. -It did what heresy always does; it set the mood against the -mind. The mood was indeed originally the good and glorious -mood of the great Francis, but it was not the whole mind of -God or even of man. And it is a fact that the mood itself -degenerated, as the mood turned into a monomania. A sect -that came to be called the Fraticelli declared themselves -the true sons of St. Francis and broke away from the -compromises of Rome in favour of what they would have called -the complete programme of Assisi. In a very little while -these loose Franciscans began to look as ferocious as -Flagellants. They launched new and violent vetoes; they -denounced marriage; that is, they denounced mankind. In the -name of the most human of saints they declared war upon -humanity. They did not perish particularly through being -persecuted; many of them were eventually persuaded; and the -unpersuadable rump of them that remained remained without -producing anything in the least calculated to remind anybody -of the real St. Francis. What was the matter with these -people was that they were mystics; mystics and nothing else -but mystics; mystics and not Catholics; mystics and not -Christians; mystics and not men. They rotted away because, -in the most exact sense, they would not listen to reason. -And St. Francis, however wild and romantic his gyrations -might appear to many, always hung on to reason by one -invisible and indestructible hair. - -The great saint was sane; and with the very sound of the -word sanity, as at a deeper chord struck upon a harp, we -come back to something that was indeed deeper than -everything about him that seemed an almost elvish -eccentricity. He was not a mere eccentric because he was -always turning towards the centre and heart of the maze; he -took the queerest and most zig-zag short cuts through the -wood, but he was always going home. He was not only far too -humble to be an heresiarch, but he was far too human to -desire to be an extremist, in the sense of an exile at the -ends of the earth. The sense of humour which salts all the -stories of his escapades alone prevented him from ever -hardening into the solemnity of sectarian -self-righteousness. He was by nature ready to admit that he -was wrong; and if his followers had on some practical points -to admit that he was wrong, they only admitted that he was -wrong in order to prove that he was right. For it is they, -his real followers, who have really proved that he was right -and even in transcending some of his negations have -triumphantly extended and interpreted his truth. The -Franciscan order did not fossilise or break off short like -something of which the true purpose has been frustrated by -official tyranny or internal treason. It was this, the -central and orthodox trunk of it, that afterwards bore fruit -for the world. It counted among its sons Bonaventura the -great mystic and Bernardino the popular preacher, who filled -Italy with the very beatific buffooneries of a Jongleur de -Dieu. It counted Raymond Lully with his strange learning and -his large and daring plans for the conversion of the world; -a man intensely individual exactly as St. Francis was -intensely individual. It counted Roger Bacon, the first -naturalist whose experiments with light and water had all -the luminous quaintness that belongs to the beginnings of -natural history; and whom even the most material scientists -have hailed as a father of science. It is not merely true -that these were great men who did great work for the world; -it is also true that they were a certain kind of men keeping -the spirit and savour of a certain kind of man, that we can -recognise in them a taste and tang of audacity and -simplicity, and know them for the sons of St. Francis. - -For that is the full and final spirit in which we should -turn to St. Francis; in the spirit of thanks for what he has -done. He was above all things a great giver; and he cared -chiefly for the best kind of giving which is called -thanksgiving. If another great man wrote a grammar of -assent, he may well be said to have written a grammar of -acceptance; a grammar of gratitude. He understood down to -its very depths the theory of thanks; and its depths are a -bottomless abyss. He knew that the praise of God stands on -its strongest ground when it stands on nothing. He knew that -we can best measure the towering miracle of the mere fact of -existence if we realise that but for some strange mercy we -should not even exist. And something of that larger truth is -repeated in a lesser form in our own relations with so -mighty a maker of history. He also is a giver of things we -could not have even thought of for ourselves; he also is too -great for anything but gratitude. From him came a whole -awakening of the world and a dawn in which all shapes and -colours could be seen anew. The mighty men of genius who -made the Christian civilisation that we know appear in -history almost as his servants and imitators. Before Dante -was, he had given poetry to Italy; before St. Louis ruled, -he had risen as the tribune of the poor; and before Giotto -had painted the pictures, he had enacted the scenes. That -great painter who began the whole human inspiration of -European painting had himself gone to St. Francis to be -inspired. It is said that when St. Francis staged in his own -simple fashion a Nativity Play of Bethlehem, with kings and -angels in the stiff and gay medieval garments and the golden -wigs that stood for haloes, a miracle was wrought full of -the Franciscan glory. The Holy Child was a wooden doll or -bambino, and it was said that he embraced it and that the -image came to Mfe in his arms. He assuredly was not thinking -of lesser things; but we may at least say that one thing -came to life in his arms; and that was the thing that we -call the drama. Save for his intense individual love of -song, he did not perhaps himself embody this spirit in any -of these arts. He was the spirit that was embodied. He was -the spiritual essence and substance that walked the world, -before anyone had seen these things in visible forms derived -from it: a wandering fire as if from nowhere, at which men -more material could light both torches and tapers. He was -the soul of medieval civilisation before it even found a -body. Another and quite different stream of spiritual -inspiration derives largely from him; all that reforming -energy of medieval and modern times that goes to the burden -of *Deus est Deus Pauperum*. His abstract ardour for human -beings was in a multitude of just medieval laws against the -pride and cruelty of riches; it is to-day behind much that -is loosely called Christian Socialist and can more correctly -be called Catholic Democrat. Neither on the artistic nor the -social side would anybody pretend that these things would -not have existed without him; yet it is strictly true to say -that we cannot now imagine them without him; since he has -lived and changed the world. - -And something of that sense of impotence which was more than -half his power will descend on anyone who knows what that -inspiration has been in history, and can only record it in a -series of straggling and meagre sentences. He will know -something of what St. Francis meant by the great and good -debt that cannot be paid. He will feel at once the desire to -have done infinitely more and the futility of having done -anything. He will know what it is to stand under such a -deluge of a dead man's marvels, and have nothing in return -to establish against it; to have nothing to set up under the -overhanging, overwhelming arches of such a temple of time -and eternity, but this brief candle burnt out so quickly +For that was what was behind the quarrel. At the back of this particular +practical question there was something much larger and more momentous, +the stir and wind of which we can feel as we read the controversy. We +might go so far as to put the ultimate truth thus. St. Francis was so +great and original a man that he had something in him of what makes the +founder of a religion. Many of his followers were more or less ready, in +their hearts, to treat him as the founder of a religion. They were +willing to let the Franciscan spirit escape from Christendom as the +Christian spirit had escaped from Israel. They were willing to let it +eclipse Christendom as the Christian spirit had eclipsed Israel. +Francis, the fire that ran through the roads of Italy, was to be the +beginning of a conflagration in which the old Christian civilisation was +to be consumed. That was the point the Pope had to settle; whether +Christendom should absorb Francis or Francis Christendom. And he decided +rightly, apart from the duties of his place; for the Church could +include all that was good in the Franciscans and the Franciscans could +not include all that was good in the Church. + +There is one consideration which, though sufficiently clear in the whole +story, has not perhaps been sufficiently noted, especially by those who +cannot see the case for a certain Catholic common sense larger even than +Franciscan enthusiasm. + +Yet it arises out of the very merits of the man whom they so rightly +admire. Francis of Assisi, as has been said again and again, was a poet; +that is, he was a person who could express his personality. Now it is +everywhere the mark of this sort of man that his very limitations make +him larger. He is what he is, not only by what he has, but in some +degree by what he has not. But the limits that make the lines of such a +personal portrait cannot be made the limits of all humanity. St. Francis +is a very strong example of this quality in the man of genius, that in +him even what is negative is positive, because it is part of a +character. An excellent example of what I mean may be found in his +attitude towards learning and scholarship. He ignored and in some degree +discouraged books and book-learning; and from his own point of view and +that of his own work in the world he was absolutely right. The whole +point of his message was to be so simple that the village idiot could +understand it. The whole point of his point of view was that it looked +out freshly upon a fresh world, that might have been made that morning. +Save for the great primal things, the Creation and the Story of Eden, +the first Christmas and the first Easter, the world had no history. But +is it desired or desirable that the whole Catholic Church should have no +history? + +It is perhaps the chief suggestion of this book that St. Francis walked +the world like the Pardon of God. I mean that his appearance marked the +moment when men could be reconciled not only to God but to nature and, +most difficult of all, to themselves. For it marked the moment when all +the stale paganism that had poisoned the ancient world was at last +worked out of the social system. He opened the gates of the Dark Ages as +of a prison of purgatory, where men had cleansed themselves as hermits +in the desert or heroes in the barbarian wars. It was in fact his whole +function to tell men to start afresh and, in that sense, to tell them to +forget. If they were to turn over a new leaf and begin a fresh page with +the first large letters of the alphabet, simply drawn and brilliantly +coloured m the early medieval manner, it was clearly a part of that +particular childlike cheerfulness that they should paste down the old +page that was all black and bloody with horrid things. For instance, I +have already noted that there IS not a trace in the poetry of this first +Italian poet of all that pagan mythology which lingered long after +paganism. The first Italian poet seems the only man in the world who has +never even heard of Virgil. This was exactly right for the special sense +in which he is the first Italian poet. It is quite right that he should +call a nightingale a nightingale, and not have its song spoilt or +saddened by the terrible tales of Itylus or Procne. In short, it is +really quite right and quite desirable that St. Francis should never +have heard of Virgil. But do we really desire that Dante should never +have heard of Virgil? Do we really desire that Dante should never have +read any pagan mythology? It has been truly said that the use that Dante +makes of such fables is altogether part of a deeper orthodoxy; that his +huge heathen fragments, his gigantic figures of Minos or of Charon, only +give a hint of some enormous natural religion behind all history and +from the first foreshadowing the Faith. It is well to have the Sybil as +well as David in the Dies Irae. That St. Francis would have burned all +the leaves of all the books of the Sybil, in exchange for one fresh leaf +from the nearest tree, is perfectly true; and perfectly proper to +St. Francis. But it is good to have the Dies Irae as well as the +Canticle of the Sun. + +By this thesis, in short, the coming of St. Francis was like the birth +of a child in a dark house, lifting its doom; a child that grows up +unconscious of the tragedy and triumphs over it by his innocence. In him +it is necessarily not only innocence but ignorance. It is the essence of +the story that *he* should pluck at the green grass without knowing it +grows over a murdered man or climb the apple-tree without knowing it was +the gibbet of a suicide. It was such an amnesty and reconciliation that +the freshness of the Franciscan spirit brought to all the world. But it +does not follow that it ought to impose its ignorance on all the world. +And I think it would have tried to impose it on all the world. For some +Franciscans it would have seemed right that Franciscan poetry should +expel Benedictine prose. For the symbolic child it was quite rational. +It was right enough that for such a child the world should be a large +new nursery with blank white-washed walls, on which he could draw his +own pictures in chalk in the childish fashion, crude in outline and gay +in colour; the beginnings of all our art. It was right enough that to +him such a nursery should seem the most magnificent mansion of the +imagination of man. But in the Church of God are many mansions. + +Every heresy has been an effort to narrow the Church. If the Franciscan +movement had turned into a new religion, it would after all have been a +narrow religion. In so far as it did turn here and there into a heresy, +it was a narrow heresy. It did what heresy always does; it set the mood +against the mind. The mood was indeed originally the good and glorious +mood of the great Francis, but it was not the whole mind of God or even +of man. And it is a fact that the mood itself degenerated, as the mood +turned into a monomania. A sect that came to be called the Fraticelli +declared themselves the true sons of St. Francis and broke away from the +compromises of Rome in favour of what they would have called the +complete programme of Assisi. In a very little while these loose +Franciscans began to look as ferocious as Flagellants. They launched new +and violent vetoes; they denounced marriage; that is, they denounced +mankind. In the name of the most human of saints they declared war upon +humanity. They did not perish particularly through being persecuted; +many of them were eventually persuaded; and the unpersuadable rump of +them that remained remained without producing anything in the least +calculated to remind anybody of the real St. Francis. What was the +matter with these people was that they were mystics; mystics and nothing +else but mystics; mystics and not Catholics; mystics and not Christians; +mystics and not men. They rotted away because, in the most exact sense, +they would not listen to reason. And St. Francis, however wild and +romantic his gyrations might appear to many, always hung on to reason by +one invisible and indestructible hair. + +The great saint was sane; and with the very sound of the word sanity, as +at a deeper chord struck upon a harp, we come back to something that was +indeed deeper than everything about him that seemed an almost elvish +eccentricity. He was not a mere eccentric because he was always turning +towards the centre and heart of the maze; he took the queerest and most +zig-zag short cuts through the wood, but he was always going home. He +was not only far too humble to be an heresiarch, but he was far too +human to desire to be an extremist, in the sense of an exile at the ends +of the earth. The sense of humour which salts all the stories of his +escapades alone prevented him from ever hardening into the solemnity of +sectarian self-righteousness. He was by nature ready to admit that he +was wrong; and if his followers had on some practical points to admit +that he was wrong, they only admitted that he was wrong in order to +prove that he was right. For it is they, his real followers, who have +really proved that he was right and even in transcending some of his +negations have triumphantly extended and interpreted his truth. The +Franciscan order did not fossilise or break off short like something of +which the true purpose has been frustrated by official tyranny or +internal treason. It was this, the central and orthodox trunk of it, +that afterwards bore fruit for the world. It counted among its sons +Bonaventura the great mystic and Bernardino the popular preacher, who +filled Italy with the very beatific buffooneries of a Jongleur de Dieu. +It counted Raymond Lully with his strange learning and his large and +daring plans for the conversion of the world; a man intensely individual +exactly as St. Francis was intensely individual. It counted Roger Bacon, +the first naturalist whose experiments with light and water had all the +luminous quaintness that belongs to the beginnings of natural history; +and whom even the most material scientists have hailed as a father of +science. It is not merely true that these were great men who did great +work for the world; it is also true that they were a certain kind of men +keeping the spirit and savour of a certain kind of man, that we can +recognise in them a taste and tang of audacity and simplicity, and know +them for the sons of St. Francis. + +For that is the full and final spirit in which we should turn to +St. Francis; in the spirit of thanks for what he has done. He was above +all things a great giver; and he cared chiefly for the best kind of +giving which is called thanksgiving. If another great man wrote a +grammar of assent, he may well be said to have written a grammar of +acceptance; a grammar of gratitude. He understood down to its very +depths the theory of thanks; and its depths are a bottomless abyss. He +knew that the praise of God stands on its strongest ground when it +stands on nothing. He knew that we can best measure the towering miracle +of the mere fact of existence if we realise that but for some strange +mercy we should not even exist. And something of that larger truth is +repeated in a lesser form in our own relations with so mighty a maker of +history. He also is a giver of things we could not have even thought of +for ourselves; he also is too great for anything but gratitude. From him +came a whole awakening of the world and a dawn in which all shapes and +colours could be seen anew. The mighty men of genius who made the +Christian civilisation that we know appear in history almost as his +servants and imitators. Before Dante was, he had given poetry to Italy; +before St. Louis ruled, he had risen as the tribune of the poor; and +before Giotto had painted the pictures, he had enacted the scenes. That +great painter who began the whole human inspiration of European painting +had himself gone to St. Francis to be inspired. It is said that when +St. Francis staged in his own simple fashion a Nativity Play of +Bethlehem, with kings and angels in the stiff and gay medieval garments +and the golden wigs that stood for haloes, a miracle was wrought full of +the Franciscan glory. The Holy Child was a wooden doll or bambino, and +it was said that he embraced it and that the image came to Mfe in his +arms. He assuredly was not thinking of lesser things; but we may at +least say that one thing came to life in his arms; and that was the +thing that we call the drama. Save for his intense individual love of +song, he did not perhaps himself embody this spirit in any of these +arts. He was the spirit that was embodied. He was the spiritual essence +and substance that walked the world, before anyone had seen these things +in visible forms derived from it: a wandering fire as if from nowhere, +at which men more material could light both torches and tapers. He was +the soul of medieval civilisation before it even found a body. Another +and quite different stream of spiritual inspiration derives largely from +him; all that reforming energy of medieval and modern times that goes to +the burden of *Deus est Deus Pauperum*. His abstract ardour for human +beings was in a multitude of just medieval laws against the pride and +cruelty of riches; it is to-day behind much that is loosely called +Christian Socialist and can more correctly be called Catholic Democrat. +Neither on the artistic nor the social side would anybody pretend that +these things would not have existed without him; yet it is strictly true +to say that we cannot now imagine them without him; since he has lived +and changed the world. + +And something of that sense of impotence which was more than half his +power will descend on anyone who knows what that inspiration has been in +history, and can only record it in a series of straggling and meagre +sentences. He will know something of what St. Francis meant by the great +and good debt that cannot be paid. He will feel at once the desire to +have done infinitely more and the futility of having done anything. He +will know what it is to stand under such a deluge of a dead man's +marvels, and have nothing in return to establish against it; to have +nothing to set up under the overhanging, overwhelming arches of such a +temple of time and eternity, but this brief candle burnt out so quickly before his shrine. diff --git a/src/superstition-divorce.md b/src/superstition-divorce.md index 6904aba..0bf01f7 100644 --- a/src/superstition-divorce.md +++ b/src/superstition-divorce.md @@ -1,18 +1,16 @@ ## Introductory Note -The earlier part of this book came out in the form of five -articles which appeared in the "New Witness" at the crisis -of the recent controversy in the Press on the subject of -divorce. Crude and sketchy as they confessedly were, they -had a certain rude plan of their own, which I find it very -difficult to recast even in order to expand. I have there -fore decided to reprint the original articles as they stood, -save for a few introductory words; and then, at the risk of -repetition, to add a few further chapters, explaining more -fully any conceptions that may seem to have been too crudely -assumed or dismissed. I have set forth the original matter -as it appeared, under a general heading, without dividing it -into chapters. +The earlier part of this book came out in the form of five articles +which appeared in the "New Witness" at the crisis of the recent +controversy in the Press on the subject of divorce. Crude and sketchy as +they confessedly were, they had a certain rude plan of their own, which +I find it very difficult to recast even in order to expand. I have there +fore decided to reprint the original articles as they stood, save for a +few introductory words; and then, at the risk of repetition, to add a +few further chapters, explaining more fully any conceptions that may +seem to have been too crudely assumed or dismissed. I have set forth the +original matter as it appeared, under a general heading, without +dividing it into chapters. G. K. C. @@ -20,2415 +18,2026 @@ G. K. C. ## I -It is futile to talk of reform without reference to form. To -take a case from my own taste and fancy, there is nothing I -feel to be so beautiful and wonderful as a window. All -casements are magic casements, whether they open on the foam -or the front-garden; they lie close to the ultimate mystery -and paradox of limitation and liberty. But if I followed my -instinct towards an infinite number of windows, it would end -in having no walls. It would also (it may be added -incidentally) end in having no windows either; for a window -makes a picture by making a picture-frame. But there is a -simpler way of stating my more simple and fatal error. It is -that I have wanted a window, without considering whether I -wanted a house. Now many appeals are being made to us to-day -on behalf of that light and liberty that might well be -symbolised by windows; especially as so many of them concern -the enlightenment and liberation of the house, in the sense -of the home. Many quite disinterested people urge many quite -reasonable considerations in the case of divorce, as a type -of domestic liberation; but in the journalistic and general -discussion of the matter there is far too much of the mind -that works backwards and at random, in the manner of all -windows and no walls. Such people say they want divorce, -without asking themselves whether they want marriage. Even -in order to be divorced it has generally been found -necessary to go through the preliminary formality of being -married; and unless the nature of this initial act be -considered, we might as well be discussing haircutting for -the bald or spectacles for the blind. To be divorced is to -be in the literal sense unmarried; and there is no sense in -a thing being undone when we do not know if it is done. - -There is perhaps no worse advice, nine times out of ten, -than the advice to do the work that's nearest. It is -especially bad when it means, as it generally does, removing -the obstacle that's nearest. It means that men are not to -behave like men but like mice; who nibble at the thing that -s nearest. The man, like the mouse, undermines what he -cannot understand. Because he himself bumps into a thing, he -calls it the nearest obstacle; though the obstacle may -happen to be the pillar that holds up the whole roof over -his head. He industriously removes the obstacle; and in -return the obstacle removes him, and much more valuable -things than he. This opportunism is perhaps the most -unpractical thing in this highly unpractical world. People -talk vaguely against destructive criticism; but what is the -matter with this criticism is not that it destroys, but that -it does not criticise. It is destruction without design. It -is taking a complex machine to pieces bit by bit, in any -order, without even knowing what the machine is for. And if -a man deals with a deadly dynamic machine on the principle -of touching the knob that's nearest, he will find out the -defects of that cheery philosophy. Now leaving many sincere -and serious critics of modern marriage on one side for the -moment, great masses of modern men and women, who write and -talk about marriage, are thus nibbling blindly at it like an -army of mice. When the reformers propose, for instance, that -divorce should be obtainable after an absence of three years -(the absence actually taken for granted in the first -military arrangements of the late European War) their -readers and supporters could seldom give any sort of logical -reason for the period being three years, and not three -months or three minutes. They are like people who should say -"Give me three feet of dog"; and not care where the cut -came. Such persons fail to see a dog as an organic entity; -in other words, they cannot make head or tail of it. And the -chief thing to say about such reformers of marriage is that -they cannot make head or tail of it. They do not know what -it is, or what it is meant to be, or what its sup porters -suppose it to be; they never look at it, even when they are -inside it. They do the work that's nearest; which is poking -holes in the bottom of a boat under the impression that they -are digging in a garden. This question of what a thing is, -and whether it is a garden or a boat, appears to them -abstract and academic. They have no notion of how large is -the idea they attack; or how relatively small appear the -holes that they pick in it. - -Thus, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an intelligent man in other -matters, says that there is only a "theological" opposition -to divorce, and that it is entirely founded on "certain -texts" in the Bible about marriage. This is exactly as if he -said that a belief in the brotherhood of men was only -founded on certain texts in the Bible, about all men being -the children of Adam and Eve. Millions of peasants and plain -people all over the world assume marriage to be static, -without having ever clapped eyes on any text. Numbers of -more modern people, especially after the recent experiments -in America, think divorce is a social disease, without -having ever bothered about any text. It may be maintained -that even in these, or in any one, the idea of marriage is -ultimately mystical; and the same may be maintained about -the idea of brotherhood. It is obvious that a husband and -wife are not visibly one flesh, in the sense of being one -quadruped. It is equally obvious that Paderewski and Jack -Johnson are not twins, and probably have not played together -at their mother's knee. There is indeed a very important -admission, or addition, to be realised here. What is true is -this: that if the non sense of Nietzsche or some such -sophist sub merged current culture, so that it was the -fashion to deny the duties of fraternity; then indeed it -might be found that the group which still affirmed -fraternity was the original group in whose sacred books was -the text about Adam and Eve. Suppose some Prussian professor -has opportunely discovered that Ger mans and lesser men are -respectively descended from two such very different monkeys -that they are in no sense brothers, but barely cousins -(German) any number of times re moved. And suppose he -proceeds to remove them even further with a hatchet; suppose -he bases on this a repetition of the conduct of Cain, saying -not so much "Am I my brother's keeper?" as "Is he really my -brother?" And suppose this higher philosophy of the hatchet -becomes prevalent in colleges and cultivated circles, as -even more foolish philo sophies have done. Then I agree it -probably will be the Christian, the man who preserves the -text about Cain, who will continue to assert that he is -still the professor's brother; that he is still the -professor's keeper. He may possibly add that, in his -opinion, the professor seems to require a keeper. - -And that is doubtless the situation in the controversies -about divorce and marriage to day. It is the Christian -church which continues to hold strongly, when the world for -some reason has weakened on it, what many others hold at -other times. But even then it is barely picking up the -shreds and scraps of the subject to talk about a reliance on -texts. The vital point in the comparison is this : that -human brotherhood means a whole view of life, held in the -light of life, and defended, rightly or wrongly, by constant -appeals to every aspect of life. The religion that holds it -most strongly will hold it when nobody else holds it; that -is quite true, and that some of us may be so perverse as to -think a point in favour of the religion. But anybody who -holds it at all will hold it as a philosophy, not hung on -one text but on a hundred truths. Fraternity may be a -sentimental metaphor; I may be suffering a delusion when I -hail a Montenegrin peasant as my long-lost brother. As a -fact, I have my own suspicions about which of us it is that -has got lost. But my delusion is not a deduction from one -text, or from twenty; it is the expression of a relation -that to me at least seems a reality. And what I should say -about the idea of a brother, I should say about the idea of -a wife. - -It is supposed to be very unbusinesslike to begin at the -beginning. It is called "abstract and academic principles -with which we English, etc., etc." It is still in some -strange way considered unpractical to open up inquiries -about anything by asking what it is. I happen to have, -however, a fairly complete contempt for that sort of -practicality; for I know that it is not even practical. My -ideal business man would not be one who planked down fifty -pounds and said "Here is hard cash; I am a plain man; it is -quite indifferent to me whether I am paying a debt, or -giving alms to a beggar, or buying a wild bull or a bathing -machine." Despite the infectious heartiness of his tone, I -should still, in considering the hard cash, say (like a -cabman) "What's this?" I should continue to insist, -priggishly, that it was a highly practical point what the -money was; what it was supposed to stand for, to aim at or -to declare; what was the nature of the trans action; or, in -short, what the devil the man supposed he was doing. I shall -therefore begin by asking, in an equally mystical manner, -what in the name of God and the angels a man getting married -supposes he is doing. I shall begin by asking what marriage -is; and the mere question will probably reveal that the act -itself, good or bad, wise or foolish, is of a certain kind; -that it is not an inquiry or an experiment or an accident: -it may probably dawn on us that it is a promise. It can be -more fully defined by saying it is a vow. - -Many will immediately answer that it is a rash vow. I am -content for the moment to reply that all vows are rash vows. -I am not now defending but defining vows; I am pointing out -that this is a discussion about vows; first, of whether -there ought to be vows; and second, of what vows ought to -be. Ought a man to break a promise? Ought a man to make a -promise? These are philosophic questions; but the -philosophic peculiarity of divorce and re-marriage, as -compared with free love and no marriage, is that a man -breaks and makes a promise at the same moment. It is a -highly German philosophy; and recalls the way in which the -enemy wishes to celebrate his successful destruction of all -treaties by signing some more. If I were breaking a promise, -I would do it without promises. But I am very far from -minimising the momentous and disputable nature of the vow -itself. I shall try to show, in a further article, that this -rash and romantic operation is the only furnace from which -can come the plain hardware of humanity, the cast-iron -resistance of citizenship or the cold steel of common sense; -but I am not denying that the furnace is a fire, The vow is -a violent and unique thing; though there have been many -besides the marriage vow; vows of chivalry, vows of poverty, -vows of celibacy, pagan as well as Christian. But modern -fashion has rather fallen out of the habit; and men miss the -type for the lack of the parallels. The shortest way of -putting the problem is to ask whether being free includes -being free to bind oneself. For the vow is a tryst with -oneself. - -I may be misunderstood if I say, for brevity, that marriage -is an affair of honour. The sceptic will be delighted to -assent, by saying it is a fight. And so it is, if only with -oneself; but the point here is that it necessarily has the -touch of the heroic, in which virtue can be translated by -*virtus*. Now about fighting, in its nature, there is an -implied infinity, or at least a potential infinity. I mean -that loyalty in war is loyalty in defeat or even disgrace; -it is due to the flag precisely at the moment when the flag -nearly falls. We do already apply this to the flag of the -nation; and the question is whether it is wise or unwise to -apply it to the flag of the family. Of course, it is tenable -that we should apply it to neither; that mis-government in -the nation or misery in the citizen would make the desertion -of the flag an act of reason and not treason. I will only -say here that, if this were really the limit of national -loyalty, some of us would have deserted our nation long ago. +It is futile to talk of reform without reference to form. To take a case +from my own taste and fancy, there is nothing I feel to be so beautiful +and wonderful as a window. All casements are magic casements, whether +they open on the foam or the front-garden; they lie close to the +ultimate mystery and paradox of limitation and liberty. But if I +followed my instinct towards an infinite number of windows, it would end +in having no walls. It would also (it may be added incidentally) end in +having no windows either; for a window makes a picture by making a +picture-frame. But there is a simpler way of stating my more simple and +fatal error. It is that I have wanted a window, without considering +whether I wanted a house. Now many appeals are being made to us to-day +on behalf of that light and liberty that might well be symbolised by +windows; especially as so many of them concern the enlightenment and +liberation of the house, in the sense of the home. Many quite +disinterested people urge many quite reasonable considerations in the +case of divorce, as a type of domestic liberation; but in the +journalistic and general discussion of the matter there is far too much +of the mind that works backwards and at random, in the manner of all +windows and no walls. Such people say they want divorce, without asking +themselves whether they want marriage. Even in order to be divorced it +has generally been found necessary to go through the preliminary +formality of being married; and unless the nature of this initial act be +considered, we might as well be discussing haircutting for the bald or +spectacles for the blind. To be divorced is to be in the literal sense +unmarried; and there is no sense in a thing being undone when we do not +know if it is done. + +There is perhaps no worse advice, nine times out of ten, than the advice +to do the work that's nearest. It is especially bad when it means, as it +generally does, removing the obstacle that's nearest. It means that men +are not to behave like men but like mice; who nibble at the thing that s +nearest. The man, like the mouse, undermines what he cannot understand. +Because he himself bumps into a thing, he calls it the nearest obstacle; +though the obstacle may happen to be the pillar that holds up the whole +roof over his head. He industriously removes the obstacle; and in return +the obstacle removes him, and much more valuable things than he. This +opportunism is perhaps the most unpractical thing in this highly +unpractical world. People talk vaguely against destructive criticism; +but what is the matter with this criticism is not that it destroys, but +that it does not criticise. It is destruction without design. It is +taking a complex machine to pieces bit by bit, in any order, without +even knowing what the machine is for. And if a man deals with a deadly +dynamic machine on the principle of touching the knob that's nearest, he +will find out the defects of that cheery philosophy. Now leaving many +sincere and serious critics of modern marriage on one side for the +moment, great masses of modern men and women, who write and talk about +marriage, are thus nibbling blindly at it like an army of mice. When the +reformers propose, for instance, that divorce should be obtainable after +an absence of three years (the absence actually taken for granted in the +first military arrangements of the late European War) their readers and +supporters could seldom give any sort of logical reason for the period +being three years, and not three months or three minutes. They are like +people who should say "Give me three feet of dog"; and not care where +the cut came. Such persons fail to see a dog as an organic entity; in +other words, they cannot make head or tail of it. And the chief thing to +say about such reformers of marriage is that they cannot make head or +tail of it. They do not know what it is, or what it is meant to be, or +what its sup porters suppose it to be; they never look at it, even when +they are inside it. They do the work that's nearest; which is poking +holes in the bottom of a boat under the impression that they are digging +in a garden. This question of what a thing is, and whether it is a +garden or a boat, appears to them abstract and academic. They have no +notion of how large is the idea they attack; or how relatively small +appear the holes that they pick in it. + +Thus, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an intelligent man in other matters, says +that there is only a "theological" opposition to divorce, and that it is +entirely founded on "certain texts" in the Bible about marriage. This is +exactly as if he said that a belief in the brotherhood of men was only +founded on certain texts in the Bible, about all men being the children +of Adam and Eve. Millions of peasants and plain people all over the +world assume marriage to be static, without having ever clapped eyes on +any text. Numbers of more modern people, especially after the recent +experiments in America, think divorce is a social disease, without +having ever bothered about any text. It may be maintained that even in +these, or in any one, the idea of marriage is ultimately mystical; and +the same may be maintained about the idea of brotherhood. It is obvious +that a husband and wife are not visibly one flesh, in the sense of being +one quadruped. It is equally obvious that Paderewski and Jack Johnson +are not twins, and probably have not played together at their mother's +knee. There is indeed a very important admission, or addition, to be +realised here. What is true is this: that if the non sense of Nietzsche +or some such sophist sub merged current culture, so that it was the +fashion to deny the duties of fraternity; then indeed it might be found +that the group which still affirmed fraternity was the original group in +whose sacred books was the text about Adam and Eve. Suppose some +Prussian professor has opportunely discovered that Ger mans and lesser +men are respectively descended from two such very different monkeys that +they are in no sense brothers, but barely cousins (German) any number of +times re moved. And suppose he proceeds to remove them even further with +a hatchet; suppose he bases on this a repetition of the conduct of Cain, +saying not so much "Am I my brother's keeper?" as "Is he really my +brother?" And suppose this higher philosophy of the hatchet becomes +prevalent in colleges and cultivated circles, as even more foolish philo +sophies have done. Then I agree it probably will be the Christian, the +man who preserves the text about Cain, who will continue to assert that +he is still the professor's brother; that he is still the professor's +keeper. He may possibly add that, in his opinion, the professor seems to +require a keeper. + +And that is doubtless the situation in the controversies about divorce +and marriage to day. It is the Christian church which continues to hold +strongly, when the world for some reason has weakened on it, what many +others hold at other times. But even then it is barely picking up the +shreds and scraps of the subject to talk about a reliance on texts. The +vital point in the comparison is this : that human brotherhood means a +whole view of life, held in the light of life, and defended, rightly or +wrongly, by constant appeals to every aspect of life. The religion that +holds it most strongly will hold it when nobody else holds it; that is +quite true, and that some of us may be so perverse as to think a point +in favour of the religion. But anybody who holds it at all will hold it +as a philosophy, not hung on one text but on a hundred truths. +Fraternity may be a sentimental metaphor; I may be suffering a delusion +when I hail a Montenegrin peasant as my long-lost brother. As a fact, I +have my own suspicions about which of us it is that has got lost. But my +delusion is not a deduction from one text, or from twenty; it is the +expression of a relation that to me at least seems a reality. And what I +should say about the idea of a brother, I should say about the idea of a +wife. + +It is supposed to be very unbusinesslike to begin at the beginning. It +is called "abstract and academic principles with which we English, etc., +etc." It is still in some strange way considered unpractical to open up +inquiries about anything by asking what it is. I happen to have, +however, a fairly complete contempt for that sort of practicality; for I +know that it is not even practical. My ideal business man would not be +one who planked down fifty pounds and said "Here is hard cash; I am a +plain man; it is quite indifferent to me whether I am paying a debt, or +giving alms to a beggar, or buying a wild bull or a bathing machine." +Despite the infectious heartiness of his tone, I should still, in +considering the hard cash, say (like a cabman) "What's this?" I should +continue to insist, priggishly, that it was a highly practical point +what the money was; what it was supposed to stand for, to aim at or to +declare; what was the nature of the trans action; or, in short, what the +devil the man supposed he was doing. I shall therefore begin by asking, +in an equally mystical manner, what in the name of God and the angels a +man getting married supposes he is doing. I shall begin by asking what +marriage is; and the mere question will probably reveal that the act +itself, good or bad, wise or foolish, is of a certain kind; that it is +not an inquiry or an experiment or an accident: it may probably dawn on +us that it is a promise. It can be more fully defined by saying it is a +vow. + +Many will immediately answer that it is a rash vow. I am content for the +moment to reply that all vows are rash vows. I am not now defending but +defining vows; I am pointing out that this is a discussion about vows; +first, of whether there ought to be vows; and second, of what vows ought +to be. Ought a man to break a promise? Ought a man to make a promise? +These are philosophic questions; but the philosophic peculiarity of +divorce and re-marriage, as compared with free love and no marriage, is +that a man breaks and makes a promise at the same moment. It is a highly +German philosophy; and recalls the way in which the enemy wishes to +celebrate his successful destruction of all treaties by signing some +more. If I were breaking a promise, I would do it without promises. But +I am very far from minimising the momentous and disputable nature of the +vow itself. I shall try to show, in a further article, that this rash +and romantic operation is the only furnace from which can come the plain +hardware of humanity, the cast-iron resistance of citizenship or the +cold steel of common sense; but I am not denying that the furnace is a +fire, The vow is a violent and unique thing; though there have been many +besides the marriage vow; vows of chivalry, vows of poverty, vows of +celibacy, pagan as well as Christian. But modern fashion has rather +fallen out of the habit; and men miss the type for the lack of the +parallels. The shortest way of putting the problem is to ask whether +being free includes being free to bind oneself. For the vow is a tryst +with oneself. + +I may be misunderstood if I say, for brevity, that marriage is an affair +of honour. The sceptic will be delighted to assent, by saying it is a +fight. And so it is, if only with oneself; but the point here is that it +necessarily has the touch of the heroic, in which virtue can be +translated by *virtus*. Now about fighting, in its nature, there is an +implied infinity, or at least a potential infinity. I mean that loyalty +in war is loyalty in defeat or even disgrace; it is due to the flag +precisely at the moment when the flag nearly falls. We do already apply +this to the flag of the nation; and the question is whether it is wise +or unwise to apply it to the flag of the family. Of course, it is +tenable that we should apply it to neither; that mis-government in the +nation or misery in the citizen would make the desertion of the flag an +act of reason and not treason. I will only say here that, if this were +really the limit of national loyalty, some of us would have deserted our +nation long ago. ## II -To the two or three articles appearing here on this subject -I have given the title of the Superstition of Divorce; and -the title is not taken at random. While free love seems to -me a heresy, divorce does really seem to me a superstition. -It is not only more of a superstition than free love, but -much more of a superstition than strict sacramental -marriage; and this point can hardly be made too plain. It is -the partisans of divorce, not the defenders of marriage, who -attach a stiff and senseless sanctity to a mere ceremony, -apart from the meaning of the ceremony. It is our opponents, -and not we, who hope to be saved by the letter of ritual, -instead of the spirit of reality. It is they who hold that -vow or violation, loyalty or disloyalty, can all be disposed -of by a mysterious and magic rite, performed first in a law -court and then in a church or a registry office. There is -little difference between the two parts of the ritual; -except that the law court is much more ritualistic. But the -plainest parallels will show anybody that all this is sheer -barbarous credulity. It may or may not be superstition for a -man to believe he must kiss the Bible to show he is telling -the truth. It is certainly the most grovelling superstition -for him to believe that, if he kisses the Bible, anything he -says will come true. It would surely be the blackest and -most benighted Bible-worship to suggest that the mere kiss -on the mere book alters the moral quality of perjury. Yet -this is precisely what is implied in saying that formal -re-marriage alters the moral quality of conjugal infidelity. -It may have been a mark of the Dark Ages that Harold should -swear on a relic, though he were afterwards forsworn. But -surely those ages would have been at their darkest, if he -had been content to be sworn on a relic and forsworn on -another relic. Yet this is the new altar these reformers -would erect for us, out of the mouldy and meaning less -relics of their dead law and their dying religion. - -Now we, at any rate, are talking about an idea, a thing of -the intellect and the soul; which we feel to be unalterable -by legal antics. We are talking about the idea of loyalty; -perhaps a fantastic, perhaps only an unfashionable idea, but -one we can explain and defend as an idea. Now I have already -pointed out that most sane men do admit our ideal in such a -case as patriotism or public spirit; the necessity of saving -the state to which we belong. The patriot may revile but -must not renounce his country; he must curse it to cure it, -but not to wither it up. The old pagan citizens felt thus -about the city; and modern nationalists feel thus about the -nation. But even mere modern internationalists feel it about -something; if it is only the nation of mankind. Even the -humanitarian does not become a misanthrope and live in a -monkey-house. Even a disappointed Collectivist or Communist -does not retire into the exclusive society of beavers, -because beavers are all communists of the most -class-conscious solidarity. He admits the necessity of -clinging to his fellow-creatures, and begging them to -abandon the use of the possessive pronoun; heart-breaking as -his efforts must seem to him after a time. Even a Pacifist -does not prefer rats to men, on the ground that the rat -community is so pure from the taint of Jingoism as always to -leave the sinking ship. In short, everybody recognises that -there is *some* ship, large and small, which he ought not to -leave, even when he thinks it is sinking. - -We may take it then that there are institutions to which we -are attached finally; just as there are others to which we -are attached temporarily. We go from shop to shop trying to -get what we want; but we do not go from nation to nation -doing this; unless we belong to a certain group now heading -very straight for Pogroms. In the first case it is the -threat that we shall withdraw our custom; in the second it -is the threat that we shall never withdraw ourselves; that -we shall be part of the institution to the last. The time -when the shop loses its customers is the time when the city -needs its citizens; but it needs them as critics who will -always remain to criticise. I need not now emphasise the -deadly need of this double energy of internal reform and -external defence; the whole towering tragedy which has -eclipsed our earth in our time is but one terrific -illustration of it. The hammer-strokes are coming thick and -fast now,[^1] and filling the world with infernal thunders; -and there is still the iron sound of something unbreakable -deeper and louder than all the things that break. We may -curse the kings, we may distrust the captains, we may murmur -at the very existence of the armies; but we know that in the -darkest days that may come to us, no man will desert the +To the two or three articles appearing here on this subject I have given +the title of the Superstition of Divorce; and the title is not taken at +random. While free love seems to me a heresy, divorce does really seem +to me a superstition. It is not only more of a superstition than free +love, but much more of a superstition than strict sacramental marriage; +and this point can hardly be made too plain. It is the partisans of +divorce, not the defenders of marriage, who attach a stiff and senseless +sanctity to a mere ceremony, apart from the meaning of the ceremony. It +is our opponents, and not we, who hope to be saved by the letter of +ritual, instead of the spirit of reality. It is they who hold that vow +or violation, loyalty or disloyalty, can all be disposed of by a +mysterious and magic rite, performed first in a law court and then in a +church or a registry office. There is little difference between the two +parts of the ritual; except that the law court is much more ritualistic. +But the plainest parallels will show anybody that all this is sheer +barbarous credulity. It may or may not be superstition for a man to +believe he must kiss the Bible to show he is telling the truth. It is +certainly the most grovelling superstition for him to believe that, if +he kisses the Bible, anything he says will come true. It would surely be +the blackest and most benighted Bible-worship to suggest that the mere +kiss on the mere book alters the moral quality of perjury. Yet this is +precisely what is implied in saying that formal re-marriage alters the +moral quality of conjugal infidelity. It may have been a mark of the +Dark Ages that Harold should swear on a relic, though he were afterwards +forsworn. But surely those ages would have been at their darkest, if he +had been content to be sworn on a relic and forsworn on another relic. +Yet this is the new altar these reformers would erect for us, out of the +mouldy and meaning less relics of their dead law and their dying +religion. + +Now we, at any rate, are talking about an idea, a thing of the intellect +and the soul; which we feel to be unalterable by legal antics. We are +talking about the idea of loyalty; perhaps a fantastic, perhaps only an +unfashionable idea, but one we can explain and defend as an idea. Now I +have already pointed out that most sane men do admit our ideal in such a +case as patriotism or public spirit; the necessity of saving the state +to which we belong. The patriot may revile but must not renounce his +country; he must curse it to cure it, but not to wither it up. The old +pagan citizens felt thus about the city; and modern nationalists feel +thus about the nation. But even mere modern internationalists feel it +about something; if it is only the nation of mankind. Even the +humanitarian does not become a misanthrope and live in a monkey-house. +Even a disappointed Collectivist or Communist does not retire into the +exclusive society of beavers, because beavers are all communists of the +most class-conscious solidarity. He admits the necessity of clinging to +his fellow-creatures, and begging them to abandon the use of the +possessive pronoun; heart-breaking as his efforts must seem to him after +a time. Even a Pacifist does not prefer rats to men, on the ground that +the rat community is so pure from the taint of Jingoism as always to +leave the sinking ship. In short, everybody recognises that there is +*some* ship, large and small, which he ought not to leave, even when he +thinks it is sinking. + +We may take it then that there are institutions to which we are attached +finally; just as there are others to which we are attached temporarily. +We go from shop to shop trying to get what we want; but we do not go +from nation to nation doing this; unless we belong to a certain group +now heading very straight for Pogroms. In the first case it is the +threat that we shall withdraw our custom; in the second it is the threat +that we shall never withdraw ourselves; that we shall be part of the +institution to the last. The time when the shop loses its customers is +the time when the city needs its citizens; but it needs them as critics +who will always remain to criticise. I need not now emphasise the deadly +need of this double energy of internal reform and external defence; the +whole towering tragedy which has eclipsed our earth in our time is but +one terrific illustration of it. The hammer-strokes are coming thick and +fast now,[^1] and filling the world with infernal thunders; and there is +still the iron sound of something unbreakable deeper and louder than all +the things that break. We may curse the kings, we may distrust the +captains, we may murmur at the very existence of the armies; but we know +that in the darkest days that may come to us, no man will desert the flag. -Now when we pass from loyalty to the nation to loyalty to -the family, there can be no doubt about the first and -plainest difference. The difference is that the family is a -thing far more free. The vow is a voluntary loyalty; and the -marriage vow is marked among ordinary oaths of allegiance by -the fact that the allegiance is also a choice. The man is -not only a citizen of the city, but also the founder and -builder of the city. He is not only a soldier serving the -colours, but he has himself artistically selected and -combined the colours, like the colours of an individual -dress. If it be admissible to ask him to be true to the -commonwealth that has made him, it is at least not more -illiberal to ask him to be true to the commonwealth he has -himself made. If civic fidelity be, as it is, a necessity, -it is also in a special sense a constraint. The old joke -against patriotism, the Gilbertian irony, congratulated the -Englishman on his fine and fastidious taste in being born in -England. It made a plausible point in saying "For he might -have been a Russian"; though indeed we have lived to see -some persons who seemed to think they could be Russians when -the fancy took them. If common sense considers even such -involuntary loyalty natural, we can hardly wonder if it -thinks voluntary loyalty still more natural. And the small -state founded on the sexes is at once the most voluntary and -the most natural of all self- governing states. It is not -true of Mr. Brown that he might have been a Russian; but it -may be true of Mrs. Brown that she might have been a -Robinson. - -Now it is not at all hard to see why this small community, -so specially free touching its cause, should yet be -specially bound touching its effects. It is not hard to see -why the vow made most freely is the vow kept most firmly. -There are attached to it, by the nature of things, -consequences so tremendous that no contract can offer any -comparison. There is no contract, unless it be that said to -be signed in blood, that can call spirits from the vasty -deep; or bring cherubs (or goblins) to inhabit a small -modern villa. There is no stroke of the pen which creates -real bodies and souls, or makes the characters in a novel -come to life. The institution that puzzles intellectuals so -much can be explained by the mere material fact (perceptible -even to intellectuals) that children are, generally -speaking, younger than their parents. "Till death do us -part" is not an irrational formula, for those will almost -certainly die before they see more than half of the amazing -(or alarming) thing they have done. - -Such is, in a curt and crude outline, this obvious thing for -those to whom it is not obvious. Now I know there are -thinking men among those who would tamper with it; and I -shall expect some of these to reply to my questions. But for -the moment I only ask this question: whether the -parliamentary and journalistic divorce movement shows even a -shadowy trace of these fundamental truths, regarded as -tests. Does it even discuss the nature of a vow, the limits -and objects of loyalty, the survival of the family as a -small and free state? The writers are content to say that -Mr. Brown is uncomfortable with Mrs. Brown. And the last -emancipation, for separated couples, seems only to mean that -he is still uncomfortable without Mrs. Brown. These are not -days in which being uncomfortable is felt as the final test -of public action. For the rest, the reformers show -statistically that families are in fact so scattered in our -industrial anarchy, that they may as well abandon hope of -finding their way home again. I am acquainted with that -argument for making bad worse, and I see it everywhere -leading to slavery. Because London Bridge is broken down, we -must assume that bridges are not meant to bridge. Because -London commercialism and capitalism have copied hell, we are -to continue to copy them. Anyhow, some will retain the -conviction that the ancient bridge built between the two -towers of sex is the worthiest of the great works of the -earth. - -It is exceedingly characteristic of the dreary decades -before the War that the forms of freedom in which they -seemed to specialise were suicide and divorce. I am not at -the moment pronouncing on the moral problem of either; I am -merely noting, as signs of those times, those two true or -false counsels of despair; the end of life and the end of -love. Other forms of freedom were being increasingly -curtailed. Freedom indeed was the one thing that -progressives and conservatives alike condemned. Socialists -were largely concerned to prevent strikes, by State -arbitration; that is, by adding another rich man to give the -casting vote between rich and poor. Even in claiming what -they called the right to work, they tacitly surrendered the -right to leave off working. Tories were preaching -conscription, not so much to defend the independence of -England as to destroy the independence of Englishmen. -Liberals, of course, were chiefly interested in eliminating -liberty, especially touching beer and betting. It was wicked -to fight, and unsafe even to argue; for citing any certain -and contemporary fact might land one in a libel action. As -all these doors were successfully shut in our faces along -the chilly and cheerless corridor of progress (with its -glazed tiles) the doors of death and divorce alone stood -open, or rather opened wider and wider. I do not expect the -exponents of divorce to admit any similarity in the two -things; yet the passing parallel is not irrelevant. It may -enable them to realise the limits within which our moral -instincts can, even for the sake of argument, treat this -desperate remedy as a normal object of desire. Divorce is -for us at best a failure, of which we are more concerned to -find and cure the cause than to complete the effects; and we -regard a system that produces many divorces as we do a -system that drives men to drown and shoot themselves. For -instance, it is perhaps the commonest complaint against the -existing law that the poor cannot afford to avail themselves -of it. It is an argument to which normally I should listen -with special sympathy. But while I should condemn the law -being a luxury, my first thought will naturally be that -divorce and death are only luxuries in a rather rare sense. -I should not primarily condole with the poor man on the high -price of prussic acid; or on the fact that all precipices of -suitable suicidal height were the private property of the -landlords. There are other high prices and high precipices I -should attack first. I should admit in the abstract that -what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; that -what is good for the rich is good for the poor; but my first -and strongest impression would be that prussic acid sauce is -not good for anybody. I fear I should, on the impulse of the -moment, pull a poor clerk or artisan back by the coat-tails -if he were jumping over Shakespeare's Cliff, even if Dover -sands were strewn with the remains of the dukes and bankers -who had already taken the plunge. - -But in one respect, I will heartily concede, the cult of -divorce has differed from the mere cult of death. The cult -of death is dead. Those I knew in my youth as young -pessimists are now aged optimists. And, what is more to the -point at present, even when it was living it was limited; it -was a thing of one clique in one class. We know the rule in -the old comedy, that when the heroine went mad in white -satin, the confidante went mad in white muslin. But when, in -some tragedy of the artistic temperament, the painter -committed suicide in velvet, it was never implied that the -plumber must commit suicide in corduroy. It was never held -that Hedda Gabler's housemaid must die in torments on the -carpet (trying as her term of service may have been); or -that Mrs. Tanqueray's butler must play the Roman fool and -die on his own carving knife. That particular form of -playing the fool, Roman or otherwise, was an oligarchic -privilege in the decadent epoch; and even as such has -largely passed with that epoch. Pessimism, which was never -popular, is no longer even fashionable. A far different fate -has awaited the other fashion; the other somewhat dismal -form of freedom. If divorce is a disease, it is no longer to -be a fashionable disease like appendicitis; it is to be made -an epidemic like small-pox. As we have already seen, papers -and public men to-day make a vast parade of the necessity of -setting the poor man free to get a divorce. Now why are they -so mortally anxious that he should be free to get a divorce, -and not in the least anxious that he should be free to get -any thing else? Why are the same people happy, nay almost -hilarious, when he gets a divorce, who are horrified when he -gets a drink? What becomes of his money, what becomes of his -children, where he works, when he ceases to work, are less -and less under his personal control. Labour Exchanges, -Insurance Cards, Welfare Work, and a hundred forms of police -inspection and supervision, have combined for good or evil -to fix him more and more strictly to a certain place in -society. He is less and less allowed to go to look for a new -job; why is he allowed to go to look for a new wife? He is -more and more compelled to recognise a Moslem code about -liquor; why is it made so easy for him to escape from his -old Christian code about sex? What is the meaning of this -mysterious immunity, this special permit for adultery; and -why is running away with his neighbour's wife to be the only -exhilaration still left open to him? Why must he love as he +Now when we pass from loyalty to the nation to loyalty to the family, +there can be no doubt about the first and plainest difference. The +difference is that the family is a thing far more free. The vow is a +voluntary loyalty; and the marriage vow is marked among ordinary oaths +of allegiance by the fact that the allegiance is also a choice. The man +is not only a citizen of the city, but also the founder and builder of +the city. He is not only a soldier serving the colours, but he has +himself artistically selected and combined the colours, like the colours +of an individual dress. If it be admissible to ask him to be true to the +commonwealth that has made him, it is at least not more illiberal to ask +him to be true to the commonwealth he has himself made. If civic +fidelity be, as it is, a necessity, it is also in a special sense a +constraint. The old joke against patriotism, the Gilbertian irony, +congratulated the Englishman on his fine and fastidious taste in being +born in England. It made a plausible point in saying "For he might have +been a Russian"; though indeed we have lived to see some persons who +seemed to think they could be Russians when the fancy took them. If +common sense considers even such involuntary loyalty natural, we can +hardly wonder if it thinks voluntary loyalty still more natural. And the +small state founded on the sexes is at once the most voluntary and the +most natural of all self- governing states. It is not true of Mr. Brown +that he might have been a Russian; but it may be true of Mrs. Brown that +she might have been a Robinson. + +Now it is not at all hard to see why this small community, so specially +free touching its cause, should yet be specially bound touching its +effects. It is not hard to see why the vow made most freely is the vow +kept most firmly. There are attached to it, by the nature of things, +consequences so tremendous that no contract can offer any comparison. +There is no contract, unless it be that said to be signed in blood, that +can call spirits from the vasty deep; or bring cherubs (or goblins) to +inhabit a small modern villa. There is no stroke of the pen which +creates real bodies and souls, or makes the characters in a novel come +to life. The institution that puzzles intellectuals so much can be +explained by the mere material fact (perceptible even to intellectuals) +that children are, generally speaking, younger than their parents. "Till +death do us part" is not an irrational formula, for those will almost +certainly die before they see more than half of the amazing (or +alarming) thing they have done. + +Such is, in a curt and crude outline, this obvious thing for those to +whom it is not obvious. Now I know there are thinking men among those +who would tamper with it; and I shall expect some of these to reply to +my questions. But for the moment I only ask this question: whether the +parliamentary and journalistic divorce movement shows even a shadowy +trace of these fundamental truths, regarded as tests. Does it even +discuss the nature of a vow, the limits and objects of loyalty, the +survival of the family as a small and free state? The writers are +content to say that Mr. Brown is uncomfortable with Mrs. Brown. And the +last emancipation, for separated couples, seems only to mean that he is +still uncomfortable without Mrs. Brown. These are not days in which +being uncomfortable is felt as the final test of public action. For the +rest, the reformers show statistically that families are in fact so +scattered in our industrial anarchy, that they may as well abandon hope +of finding their way home again. I am acquainted with that argument for +making bad worse, and I see it everywhere leading to slavery. Because +London Bridge is broken down, we must assume that bridges are not meant +to bridge. Because London commercialism and capitalism have copied hell, +we are to continue to copy them. Anyhow, some will retain the conviction +that the ancient bridge built between the two towers of sex is the +worthiest of the great works of the earth. + +It is exceedingly characteristic of the dreary decades before the War +that the forms of freedom in which they seemed to specialise were +suicide and divorce. I am not at the moment pronouncing on the moral +problem of either; I am merely noting, as signs of those times, those +two true or false counsels of despair; the end of life and the end of +love. Other forms of freedom were being increasingly curtailed. Freedom +indeed was the one thing that progressives and conservatives alike +condemned. Socialists were largely concerned to prevent strikes, by +State arbitration; that is, by adding another rich man to give the +casting vote between rich and poor. Even in claiming what they called +the right to work, they tacitly surrendered the right to leave off +working. Tories were preaching conscription, not so much to defend the +independence of England as to destroy the independence of Englishmen. +Liberals, of course, were chiefly interested in eliminating liberty, +especially touching beer and betting. It was wicked to fight, and unsafe +even to argue; for citing any certain and contemporary fact might land +one in a libel action. As all these doors were successfully shut in our +faces along the chilly and cheerless corridor of progress (with its +glazed tiles) the doors of death and divorce alone stood open, or rather +opened wider and wider. I do not expect the exponents of divorce to +admit any similarity in the two things; yet the passing parallel is not +irrelevant. It may enable them to realise the limits within which our +moral instincts can, even for the sake of argument, treat this desperate +remedy as a normal object of desire. Divorce is for us at best a +failure, of which we are more concerned to find and cure the cause than +to complete the effects; and we regard a system that produces many +divorces as we do a system that drives men to drown and shoot +themselves. For instance, it is perhaps the commonest complaint against +the existing law that the poor cannot afford to avail themselves of it. +It is an argument to which normally I should listen with special +sympathy. But while I should condemn the law being a luxury, my first +thought will naturally be that divorce and death are only luxuries in a +rather rare sense. I should not primarily condole with the poor man on +the high price of prussic acid; or on the fact that all precipices of +suitable suicidal height were the private property of the landlords. +There are other high prices and high precipices I should attack first. I +should admit in the abstract that what is sauce for the goose is sauce +for the gander; that what is good for the rich is good for the poor; but +my first and strongest impression would be that prussic acid sauce is +not good for anybody. I fear I should, on the impulse of the moment, +pull a poor clerk or artisan back by the coat-tails if he were jumping +over Shakespeare's Cliff, even if Dover sands were strewn with the +remains of the dukes and bankers who had already taken the plunge. + +But in one respect, I will heartily concede, the cult of divorce has +differed from the mere cult of death. The cult of death is dead. Those I +knew in my youth as young pessimists are now aged optimists. And, what +is more to the point at present, even when it was living it was limited; +it was a thing of one clique in one class. We know the rule in the old +comedy, that when the heroine went mad in white satin, the confidante +went mad in white muslin. But when, in some tragedy of the artistic +temperament, the painter committed suicide in velvet, it was never +implied that the plumber must commit suicide in corduroy. It was never +held that Hedda Gabler's housemaid must die in torments on the carpet +(trying as her term of service may have been); or that Mrs. Tanqueray's +butler must play the Roman fool and die on his own carving knife. That +particular form of playing the fool, Roman or otherwise, was an +oligarchic privilege in the decadent epoch; and even as such has largely +passed with that epoch. Pessimism, which was never popular, is no longer +even fashionable. A far different fate has awaited the other fashion; +the other somewhat dismal form of freedom. If divorce is a disease, it +is no longer to be a fashionable disease like appendicitis; it is to be +made an epidemic like small-pox. As we have already seen, papers and +public men to-day make a vast parade of the necessity of setting the +poor man free to get a divorce. Now why are they so mortally anxious +that he should be free to get a divorce, and not in the least anxious +that he should be free to get any thing else? Why are the same people +happy, nay almost hilarious, when he gets a divorce, who are horrified +when he gets a drink? What becomes of his money, what becomes of his +children, where he works, when he ceases to work, are less and less +under his personal control. Labour Exchanges, Insurance Cards, Welfare +Work, and a hundred forms of police inspection and supervision, have +combined for good or evil to fix him more and more strictly to a certain +place in society. He is less and less allowed to go to look for a new +job; why is he allowed to go to look for a new wife? He is more and more +compelled to recognise a Moslem code about liquor; why is it made so +easy for him to escape from his old Christian code about sex? What is +the meaning of this mysterious immunity, this special permit for +adultery; and why is running away with his neighbour's wife to be the +only exhilaration still left open to him? Why must he love as he pleases; when he may not even live as he pleases? -The answer is, I regret to say, that this social campaign, -in most though by no means all of its most prominent -campaigners, relies in this matter on a very smug and -pestilent piece of cant. There are some advocates of -democratic divorce who are really advocates of general -democratic freedom; but they are the exceptions; I might -say, with all respect, that they are the dupes. The -omnipresence of the thing in the press and in political -society is due to a motive precisely opposite to the motive -professed. The modern rulers, who are simply the rich men, -are really quite consistent in their attitude to the poor -man. It is the same spirit which takes away his children -under the pretence of order, which takes away his wife under -the pretence of liberty. That which wishes, in the words of -the comic song, to break up the happy home, is primarily -anxious not to break up the much more unhappy factory. -Capitalism, of course, is at war with the family, for the -same reason which has led to its being at war with the Trade -Union. This indeed is the only sense in which it is true -that capitalism is connected with individualism. Capitalism -believes in collectivism for itself and individualism for -its enemies. It desires its victims to be individuals, or -(in other words) to be atoms. For the word atom, in its -clearest meaning (which is none too clear) might be -translated as "individual." If there be any bond, if there -be any brotherhood, if there be any class loyalty or -domestic discipline, by which the poor can help the poor, -these emancipators will certainly strive to loosen that bond -or lift that discipline in the most liberal fashion. If -there be such a brotherhood, these individualists will -redistribute it in the form of individuals; or in other -words smash it to atoms. - -The masters of modern plutocracy know what they are about. -They are making no mistake; they can be cleared of the -slander of inconsistency. A very profound and precise -instinct has led them to single out the human household as -the chief obstacle to their in human progress. Without the -family we are helpless before the State, which in our modern -case is the Servile State. To use a military metaphor, the -family is the only formation in which the charge of the rich -can be repulsed. It is a force that forms twos as soldiers -form fours; and, in every peasant country, has stood in the -square house or the square plot of land as infantry have -stood in squares against cavalry. How this force operates -thus, and why, I will try to explain in the last of these -articles. But it is when it is most nearly ridden down by -the horsemen of pride and privilege, as in Poland or -Ireland, when the battle grows most desperate and the hope -most dark, that men begin to understand why that wild oath -in its beginnings was flung beyond the bounds of the world; -and what would seem as passing as a vision is made permanent -as a vow. +The answer is, I regret to say, that this social campaign, in most +though by no means all of its most prominent campaigners, relies in this +matter on a very smug and pestilent piece of cant. There are some +advocates of democratic divorce who are really advocates of general +democratic freedom; but they are the exceptions; I might say, with all +respect, that they are the dupes. The omnipresence of the thing in the +press and in political society is due to a motive precisely opposite to +the motive professed. The modern rulers, who are simply the rich men, +are really quite consistent in their attitude to the poor man. It is the +same spirit which takes away his children under the pretence of order, +which takes away his wife under the pretence of liberty. That which +wishes, in the words of the comic song, to break up the happy home, is +primarily anxious not to break up the much more unhappy factory. +Capitalism, of course, is at war with the family, for the same reason +which has led to its being at war with the Trade Union. This indeed is +the only sense in which it is true that capitalism is connected with +individualism. Capitalism believes in collectivism for itself and +individualism for its enemies. It desires its victims to be individuals, +or (in other words) to be atoms. For the word atom, in its clearest +meaning (which is none too clear) might be translated as "individual." +If there be any bond, if there be any brotherhood, if there be any class +loyalty or domestic discipline, by which the poor can help the poor, +these emancipators will certainly strive to loosen that bond or lift +that discipline in the most liberal fashion. If there be such a +brotherhood, these individualists will redistribute it in the form of +individuals; or in other words smash it to atoms. + +The masters of modern plutocracy know what they are about. They are +making no mistake; they can be cleared of the slander of inconsistency. +A very profound and precise instinct has led them to single out the +human household as the chief obstacle to their in human progress. +Without the family we are helpless before the State, which in our modern +case is the Servile State. To use a military metaphor, the family is the +only formation in which the charge of the rich can be repulsed. It is a +force that forms twos as soldiers form fours; and, in every peasant +country, has stood in the square house or the square plot of land as +infantry have stood in squares against cavalry. How this force operates +thus, and why, I will try to explain in the last of these articles. But +it is when it is most nearly ridden down by the horsemen of pride and +privilege, as in Poland or Ireland, when the battle grows most desperate +and the hope most dark, that men begin to understand why that wild oath +in its beginnings was flung beyond the bounds of the world; and what +would seem as passing as a vision is made permanent as a vow. ## III -There has long been a curiously consistent attempt to -conceal the fact that France is a Christian country. There -have been French men in the plot, no doubt, and no doubt -there have been Frenchmen---though I have myself only found -Englishmen---in the derivative attempt to conceal the fact -that Balzac was a Christian writer. I began to read Balzac -long after I had read the admirers of Balzac; and they had -never given me a hint of this truth. I had read that his -books were bound in yellow and "quite impudently French"; -though I may have been cloudy about why being French should -be impudent in a French man. I had read the truer -description of "the grimy wizard of the *Comedie Humaine*" -and have lived to learn the truth of it; Balzac certainly is -a genius of the type of that artist he himself describes, -who could draw a broom stick so that one knew it had swept -the room after a murder. The furniture of Balzac is more -alive than the figures of many dramas. For this I was -prepared; but not for a certain spiritual assumption which I -recognised at once as a historical phenomenon. The morality -of a great writer is not the morality he teaches, but the -morality he takes for granted. The Catholic type of -Christian ethics runs through Balzac's books, exactly as the -Puritan type of Christian ethics runs through Bunyan s -books. What his professed opinions were I do not know, any -more than I know Shakespeare's; but I know that both those -great creators of a multitudinous world made it, as compared -with other and later writers, on the same fundamental moral -plan as the universe of Dante. There can be no doubt about -it for any one who can apply as a test the truth I have -mentioned; that the fundamental things in a man are not the -things he explains, but rather the things he forgets to -explain. But here and there Balzac does explain; and with -that intellectual concentration Mr. George Moore has acutely -observed in that novelist when he is a theorist. And the -other day I found in one of Balzac's novels this passage; -which, whether or no it would precisely hit Mr. George -Moore's mood at this moment, strikes me as a perfect -prophecy of this epoch, and might almost be a motto for this -book. "With the solidarity of the family society has lost -that elemental force which Montesquieu defined and called -'honour.' Society has isolated its members the better to +There has long been a curiously consistent attempt to conceal the fact +that France is a Christian country. There have been French men in the +plot, no doubt, and no doubt there have been Frenchmen---though I have +myself only found Englishmen---in the derivative attempt to conceal the +fact that Balzac was a Christian writer. I began to read Balzac long +after I had read the admirers of Balzac; and they had never given me a +hint of this truth. I had read that his books were bound in yellow and +"quite impudently French"; though I may have been cloudy about why being +French should be impudent in a French man. I had read the truer +description of "the grimy wizard of the *Comedie Humaine*" and have +lived to learn the truth of it; Balzac certainly is a genius of the type +of that artist he himself describes, who could draw a broom stick so +that one knew it had swept the room after a murder. The furniture of +Balzac is more alive than the figures of many dramas. For this I was +prepared; but not for a certain spiritual assumption which I recognised +at once as a historical phenomenon. The morality of a great writer is +not the morality he teaches, but the morality he takes for granted. The +Catholic type of Christian ethics runs through Balzac's books, exactly +as the Puritan type of Christian ethics runs through Bunyan s books. +What his professed opinions were I do not know, any more than I know +Shakespeare's; but I know that both those great creators of a +multitudinous world made it, as compared with other and later writers, +on the same fundamental moral plan as the universe of Dante. There can +be no doubt about it for any one who can apply as a test the truth I +have mentioned; that the fundamental things in a man are not the things +he explains, but rather the things he forgets to explain. But here and +there Balzac does explain; and with that intellectual concentration +Mr. George Moore has acutely observed in that novelist when he is a +theorist. And the other day I found in one of Balzac's novels this +passage; which, whether or no it would precisely hit Mr. George Moore's +mood at this moment, strikes me as a perfect prophecy of this epoch, and +might almost be a motto for this book. "With the solidarity of the +family society has lost that elemental force which Montesquieu defined +and called 'honour.' Society has isolated its members the better to govern them, and has divided in order to weaken." -Throughout our youth and the years before the War, the -current criticism followed Ibsen in describing the domestic -system as a doll's house and the domestic woman as a doll. -Mr. Bernard Shaw varied the metaphor by saying that mere -custom kept the woman in the home as it keeps the parrot in -the cage; and the plays and tales of the period made vivid -sketches of a woman who also resembled a parrot in other -particulars, rich in raiment, shrill in accent and addicted -to saying over and over again what she had been taught to -say. Mr.  Granville Barker, the spiritual child of Mr.  -Bernard Shaw, commented in his clever play of "The Voysey -Inheritance" on tyranny, hypocrisy and boredom, as the -constituent elements of a "happy English home." Leaving the -truth of this aside for the moment, it will be well to -insist that the conventionality thus criticised would be -even more characteristic of a happy French home. It is not -the Englishman's house, but the Frenchman's house that is -his castle. It might be further added, touching the -essential ethical view of the sexes at least, that the -Irishman's house is his castle; though it has been for some -centuries a besieged castle. Anyhow, those conventions which -were remarked as making domesticity dull, narrow and -unnaturally meek and submissive, are particularly powerful -among the Irish and the French. From this it will surely be -easy, for any lucid and logical thinker, to deduce the fact -that the French are dull and narrow, and that the Irish are -unnaturally meek and submissive. Mr. Bernard Shaw, being an -Irishman who lives among Englishmen, may be conveniently -taken as the type of the difference; and it will no doubt be -found that the political friends of Mr. Shaw, among -Englishmen, will be of a wilder revolutionary type than -those whom he would have found among Irishmen. We are in a -position to compare the meekness of the Fenians with the -fury of the Fabians. This deadening monogamic ideal may -even, in a larger sense, define and distinguish all the flat -subserviency of Clare from all the flaming revolt of -Clapham. Nor need we now look far to understand why -revolutions have been unknown in the history of France; or -why they happen so persistently in the vaguer politics of -England. This rigidity and respectability must surely be the -explanation of all that incapacity for any civil experiment -or explosion, which has always marked that sleepy hamlet of -very private private houses, which we call the city of -Paris. But the same things are true not only of Parisians -but of peasants; they are even true of other peasants in the -great Alliance. Students of Serbian traditions tell us that -the peasant literature lays a special and singular curse on -the violation of marriage; and this may well explain the -prim and sheepish pacifism complained of in that people. - -In plain words, there is clearly something wrong in the -calculation by which it was proved that a housewife must be -as much a servant as a housemaid; or which exhibited the -domesticated man as being as gentle as the primrose or as -conservative as the Primrose League. It is precisely those -who have been conservative about the family who have been -revolutionary about the state. Those who are blamed for the -bigotry or *bourgeois* smugness of their marriage -conventions are actually those blamed for the restlessness -and violence of their political reforms. Nor is there -seriously any difficulty in discovering the cause of this. -It is simply that in such a society the government, in -dealing with the family, deals with something almost as -permanent and self-renewing as itself. There can be a -continuous family policy, like a continuous foreign policy. -In peasant countries the family fights, it may almost be -said that the farm fights. I do not mean merely that it -riots in evil and exceptional times; though this is not -unimportant. It was a savage but a sane feature when, in the -Irish evictions, the women poured hot water from the -windows; it was part of a final falling back on private -tools as public weapons. That sort of thing is not only war -to the knife, but almost war to the fork and spoon. It was -in this grim sense perhaps that Parnell, in that mysterious -pun, said that Kettle was a household word in Ireland (it -certainly ought to be after its subsequent glories), and in -a more general sense it is certain that meddling with the -housewife will ultimately mean getting into hot water. But -it is not of such crises of bodily struggle that I speak, -but of a steady and peaceful pressure from below of a -thousand families upon the framework of government. For this -a certain spirit of defence and enclosure is essential; and -even feudalism was right in feeling that any such affair of -honour must be a family affair. It was a true artistic -instinct that pictured the pedigree on a coat that protects -the body. The free peasant has arms if he has not armorial -bearings. He has not an escutcheon; but he has a shield. Nor -do I see why, in a freer and happier society than the -present, or even the past, it should not be a blazoned -shield. For that is true of pedigree which is true of -property; the wrong is not in its being imposed on men, but -rather in its being denied to them. Too much capitalism does -not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists; and -so aristocracy sins, not in planting a family tree, but in -not planting a family forest. - -Anyhow, it is found in practice that the domestic citizen -can stand a siege, even by the State; because he has those -who will stand by him through thick and thin---especially -thin. Now those who hold that the State can be made fit to -own all and administer all, can consistently disregard this -argument; but it may be said with all respect that the world -is more and more disregarding them. If we could find a -perfect machine, and a perfect man to work it, it might be a -good argument for State Socialism, though an equally good -argument for personal despotism. But most of us, I fancy, -are now agreed that something of that social pressure from -below which we call freedom is vital to the health of the -state; and this it is which cannot be fully exercised by -individuals, but only by groups and traditions. Such groups -have been many; there have been monasteries; there may be -guilds; but there is only one type among them which all -human beings have a spontaneous and omnipresent inspiration -to build for themselves; and this type is the family. - -I had intended this article to be the last of those -outlining the elements of this debate; but I shall have to -add a short concluding section on the way in which all this -is missed in the practical (or rather unpractical) proposals -about divorce. Here I will only say that they suffer from -the modern and morbid weakness of always sacrificing the -normal to the abnormal. As a fact the "tyranny, hypocrisy -and boredom" complained of are not domesticity, but the -decay of domesticity. The case of that particular complaint, -in Mr. Granville Barker s play, is itself a proof. The whole -point of "The Voysey Inheritance" was that there was no -Voysey inheritance. The only heritage of that family was a -highly dishonourable debt. Naturally their family affections -had decayed when their whole ideal of property and probity -had decayed; and there was little love as well as little -honour among thieves. It has yet to be proved that they -would have been as much bored if they had had a positive and -not a negative heritage; and had worked a farm instead of a -fraud. And the experience of mankind points the other way. +Throughout our youth and the years before the War, the current criticism +followed Ibsen in describing the domestic system as a doll's house and +the domestic woman as a doll. Mr. Bernard Shaw varied the metaphor by +saying that mere custom kept the woman in the home as it keeps the +parrot in the cage; and the plays and tales of the period made vivid +sketches of a woman who also resembled a parrot in other particulars, +rich in raiment, shrill in accent and addicted to saying over and over +again what she had been taught to say. Mr.  Granville Barker, the +spiritual child of Mr.  Bernard Shaw, commented in his clever play of +"The Voysey Inheritance" on tyranny, hypocrisy and boredom, as the +constituent elements of a "happy English home." Leaving the truth of +this aside for the moment, it will be well to insist that the +conventionality thus criticised would be even more characteristic of a +happy French home. It is not the Englishman's house, but the Frenchman's +house that is his castle. It might be further added, touching the +essential ethical view of the sexes at least, that the Irishman's house +is his castle; though it has been for some centuries a besieged castle. +Anyhow, those conventions which were remarked as making domesticity +dull, narrow and unnaturally meek and submissive, are particularly +powerful among the Irish and the French. From this it will surely be +easy, for any lucid and logical thinker, to deduce the fact that the +French are dull and narrow, and that the Irish are unnaturally meek and +submissive. Mr. Bernard Shaw, being an Irishman who lives among +Englishmen, may be conveniently taken as the type of the difference; and +it will no doubt be found that the political friends of Mr. Shaw, among +Englishmen, will be of a wilder revolutionary type than those whom he +would have found among Irishmen. We are in a position to compare the +meekness of the Fenians with the fury of the Fabians. This deadening +monogamic ideal may even, in a larger sense, define and distinguish all +the flat subserviency of Clare from all the flaming revolt of Clapham. +Nor need we now look far to understand why revolutions have been unknown +in the history of France; or why they happen so persistently in the +vaguer politics of England. This rigidity and respectability must surely +be the explanation of all that incapacity for any civil experiment or +explosion, which has always marked that sleepy hamlet of very private +private houses, which we call the city of Paris. But the same things are +true not only of Parisians but of peasants; they are even true of other +peasants in the great Alliance. Students of Serbian traditions tell us +that the peasant literature lays a special and singular curse on the +violation of marriage; and this may well explain the prim and sheepish +pacifism complained of in that people. + +In plain words, there is clearly something wrong in the calculation by +which it was proved that a housewife must be as much a servant as a +housemaid; or which exhibited the domesticated man as being as gentle as +the primrose or as conservative as the Primrose League. It is precisely +those who have been conservative about the family who have been +revolutionary about the state. Those who are blamed for the bigotry or +*bourgeois* smugness of their marriage conventions are actually those +blamed for the restlessness and violence of their political reforms. Nor +is there seriously any difficulty in discovering the cause of this. It +is simply that in such a society the government, in dealing with the +family, deals with something almost as permanent and self-renewing as +itself. There can be a continuous family policy, like a continuous +foreign policy. In peasant countries the family fights, it may almost be +said that the farm fights. I do not mean merely that it riots in evil +and exceptional times; though this is not unimportant. It was a savage +but a sane feature when, in the Irish evictions, the women poured hot +water from the windows; it was part of a final falling back on private +tools as public weapons. That sort of thing is not only war to the +knife, but almost war to the fork and spoon. It was in this grim sense +perhaps that Parnell, in that mysterious pun, said that Kettle was a +household word in Ireland (it certainly ought to be after its subsequent +glories), and in a more general sense it is certain that meddling with +the housewife will ultimately mean getting into hot water. But it is not +of such crises of bodily struggle that I speak, but of a steady and +peaceful pressure from below of a thousand families upon the framework +of government. For this a certain spirit of defence and enclosure is +essential; and even feudalism was right in feeling that any such affair +of honour must be a family affair. It was a true artistic instinct that +pictured the pedigree on a coat that protects the body. The free peasant +has arms if he has not armorial bearings. He has not an escutcheon; but +he has a shield. Nor do I see why, in a freer and happier society than +the present, or even the past, it should not be a blazoned shield. For +that is true of pedigree which is true of property; the wrong is not in +its being imposed on men, but rather in its being denied to them. Too +much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few +capitalists; and so aristocracy sins, not in planting a family tree, but +in not planting a family forest. + +Anyhow, it is found in practice that the domestic citizen can stand a +siege, even by the State; because he has those who will stand by him +through thick and thin---especially thin. Now those who hold that the +State can be made fit to own all and administer all, can consistently +disregard this argument; but it may be said with all respect that the +world is more and more disregarding them. If we could find a perfect +machine, and a perfect man to work it, it might be a good argument for +State Socialism, though an equally good argument for personal despotism. +But most of us, I fancy, are now agreed that something of that social +pressure from below which we call freedom is vital to the health of the +state; and this it is which cannot be fully exercised by individuals, +but only by groups and traditions. Such groups have been many; there +have been monasteries; there may be guilds; but there is only one type +among them which all human beings have a spontaneous and omnipresent +inspiration to build for themselves; and this type is the family. + +I had intended this article to be the last of those outlining the +elements of this debate; but I shall have to add a short concluding +section on the way in which all this is missed in the practical (or +rather unpractical) proposals about divorce. Here I will only say that +they suffer from the modern and morbid weakness of always sacrificing +the normal to the abnormal. As a fact the "tyranny, hypocrisy and +boredom" complained of are not domesticity, but the decay of +domesticity. The case of that particular complaint, in Mr. Granville +Barker s play, is itself a proof. The whole point of "The Voysey +Inheritance" was that there was no Voysey inheritance. The only heritage +of that family was a highly dishonourable debt. Naturally their family +affections had decayed when their whole ideal of property and probity +had decayed; and there was little love as well as little honour among +thieves. It has yet to be proved that they would have been as much bored +if they had had a positive and not a negative heritage; and had worked a +farm instead of a fraud. And the experience of mankind points the other +way. ## IV -I have touched before now on a famous or infamous Royalist -who suggested that the people should eat grass; an -unfortunate remark perhaps for a Royalist to make; since the -regimen is only recorded of a Royal Personage. But there was -certainly a simplicity in the solution worthy of a sultan or -even a savage chief; and it is this touch of autocratic -innocence on which I have mainly insisted touching the -social reforms of our day, and especially the social reform -known as divorce. I am primarily more concerned with the -arbitrary method than with the anarchic result. Very much as -the old tyrant would turn any number of men out to grass, so -the new tyrant would turn any number of women into -grass-widows. Anyhow, to vary the legendary symbolism, it -never seems to occur to the king in this fairy tale that the -gold crown on his head is a less, and not a more, sacred and -settled ornament than the gold ring on the woman's finger. -This change is being achieved by the summary and even secret -government which we now suffer; and this would be the first -point against it, even if it were really an emancipation; -and it is only in form an emancipation. I will not -anticipate the details of its defence, which can be offered -by others, but I will here conclude for the present by -roughly suggesting the practical defences of divorce, as -generally given just at present, under four heads. And I -will only ask the reader to note that they all have one -thing in common: the fact that each argument is also used -for all that social reform which plain men are already -calling slavery. - -First, it is very typical of the latest practical proposals -that they are concerned with the case of those who are -already separated, and the steps they must take to be -divorced. There is a spirit penetrating all our society -to-day by which the exception is allowed to alter the rule; -the exile to deflect patriotism, the orphan to depose -parenthood, and even the widow or, in this case as we have -seen the grass-widow, to destroy the position of the wife. -There is a sort of symbol of this tendency in that -mysterious and unfortunate nomadic nation which has been -allowed to alter so many things, from a crusade in Russia to -a cottage in South Bucks. We have been told to treat the -wandering Jew as a pilgrim, while we still treat the -wandering Christian as a vagabond. And yet the latter is at -least trying to get home, like Ulysses; whereas the former -is, if anything, rather fleeing from home, like Cain. He who -is detached, disgruntled, nondescript, intermediate, is -everywhere made the excuse for altering what is common, -corporate, traditional and popular. And the alteration is -always for the worse. The mermaid never becomes more -womanly, but only more fishy. The centaur never becomes more -manly, but only more horsy. The Jew cannot really -internationalise Christendom; he can only denationalise -Christendom. The proletarian does not find it easy to become -a small proprietor; he is finding it far easier to become a -slave. So the unfortunate man, who cannot tolerate the woman -he has chosen from all the women of the world, is not -encouraged to return to her and tolerate her, but encouraged -to choose another woman whom he may in due course refuse to -tolerate. And in all these cases the argument is the same; -that the man in the intermediate state is unhappy. Probably -he is unhappy, since he is abnormal; but the point is that -he is permitted to loosen the universal bond which has kept -millions of others normal. Because he has himself got into a -hole, he is allowed to burrow in it like a rabbit and -undermine a whole countryside. - -Next we have, as we always have touching such crude -experiments, an argument from the example of other -countries, and especially of new countries. Thus the -Eugenists tell me solemnly that there have been very -successful Eugenic experiments in America. And they rigidly -retain their solemnity (while refusing with many rebukes to -believe in mine), when I tell them that one of the Eugenic -experiments in America is a chemical experiment; which -consists of changing a black man into the allotropic form of -white ashes. It is really an exceedingly Eugenic experiment; -since its chief object is to discourage an inter-racial -mixture of blood which is not desired. But I do not like -this American experiment, however American; and I trust and -believe that it is not typically American at all. It -represents, I conceive, only one element in the complexity -of the great democracy; and goes along with other evil -elements; so that I am not at all surprised that the same -strange social sections, which permit a human being to be -burned alive, also permit the exalted science of Eugenics. -It is the same in the milder matter of liquor laws; and we -are told that certain rather crude colonials have -established prohibition laws, which they try to evade; just -as we are told they have established divorce laws, which -they are now trying to repeal. For in this case of divorce, -at least, the argument from distant precedents has recoiled -crushingly upon itself. There is already an agitation for -less divorce in America, even while there is an agitation +I have touched before now on a famous or infamous Royalist who suggested +that the people should eat grass; an unfortunate remark perhaps for a +Royalist to make; since the regimen is only recorded of a Royal +Personage. But there was certainly a simplicity in the solution worthy +of a sultan or even a savage chief; and it is this touch of autocratic +innocence on which I have mainly insisted touching the social reforms of +our day, and especially the social reform known as divorce. I am +primarily more concerned with the arbitrary method than with the +anarchic result. Very much as the old tyrant would turn any number of +men out to grass, so the new tyrant would turn any number of women into +grass-widows. Anyhow, to vary the legendary symbolism, it never seems to +occur to the king in this fairy tale that the gold crown on his head is +a less, and not a more, sacred and settled ornament than the gold ring +on the woman's finger. This change is being achieved by the summary and +even secret government which we now suffer; and this would be the first +point against it, even if it were really an emancipation; and it is only +in form an emancipation. I will not anticipate the details of its +defence, which can be offered by others, but I will here conclude for +the present by roughly suggesting the practical defences of divorce, as +generally given just at present, under four heads. And I will only ask +the reader to note that they all have one thing in common: the fact that +each argument is also used for all that social reform which plain men +are already calling slavery. + +First, it is very typical of the latest practical proposals that they +are concerned with the case of those who are already separated, and the +steps they must take to be divorced. There is a spirit penetrating all +our society to-day by which the exception is allowed to alter the rule; +the exile to deflect patriotism, the orphan to depose parenthood, and +even the widow or, in this case as we have seen the grass-widow, to +destroy the position of the wife. There is a sort of symbol of this +tendency in that mysterious and unfortunate nomadic nation which has +been allowed to alter so many things, from a crusade in Russia to a +cottage in South Bucks. We have been told to treat the wandering Jew as +a pilgrim, while we still treat the wandering Christian as a vagabond. +And yet the latter is at least trying to get home, like Ulysses; whereas +the former is, if anything, rather fleeing from home, like Cain. He who +is detached, disgruntled, nondescript, intermediate, is everywhere made +the excuse for altering what is common, corporate, traditional and +popular. And the alteration is always for the worse. The mermaid never +becomes more womanly, but only more fishy. The centaur never becomes +more manly, but only more horsy. The Jew cannot really internationalise +Christendom; he can only denationalise Christendom. The proletarian does +not find it easy to become a small proprietor; he is finding it far +easier to become a slave. So the unfortunate man, who cannot tolerate +the woman he has chosen from all the women of the world, is not +encouraged to return to her and tolerate her, but encouraged to choose +another woman whom he may in due course refuse to tolerate. And in all +these cases the argument is the same; that the man in the intermediate +state is unhappy. Probably he is unhappy, since he is abnormal; but the +point is that he is permitted to loosen the universal bond which has +kept millions of others normal. Because he has himself got into a hole, +he is allowed to burrow in it like a rabbit and undermine a whole +countryside. + +Next we have, as we always have touching such crude experiments, an +argument from the example of other countries, and especially of new +countries. Thus the Eugenists tell me solemnly that there have been very +successful Eugenic experiments in America. And they rigidly retain their +solemnity (while refusing with many rebukes to believe in mine), when I +tell them that one of the Eugenic experiments in America is a chemical +experiment; which consists of changing a black man into the allotropic +form of white ashes. It is really an exceedingly Eugenic experiment; +since its chief object is to discourage an inter-racial mixture of blood +which is not desired. But I do not like this American experiment, +however American; and I trust and believe that it is not typically +American at all. It represents, I conceive, only one element in the +complexity of the great democracy; and goes along with other evil +elements; so that I am not at all surprised that the same strange social +sections, which permit a human being to be burned alive, also permit the +exalted science of Eugenics. It is the same in the milder matter of +liquor laws; and we are told that certain rather crude colonials have +established prohibition laws, which they try to evade; just as we are +told they have established divorce laws, which they are now trying to +repeal. For in this case of divorce, at least, the argument from distant +precedents has recoiled crushingly upon itself. There is already an +agitation for less divorce in America, even while there is an agitation for more divorce in England. -Again, when an argument is based on a need of population, it -will be well if those supporting it realise where it may -carry them. It is exceedingly doubtful whether population is -one of the advantages of divorce; but there is no doubt that -it is one of the advantages of polygamy. It is already used -in Germany as an argument for polygamy. But the very word -will teach us to look even beyond Germany for something yet -more remote and repulsive. Mere population, along with a -sort of polygamous anarchy, will not appear even as a -practical ideal to any one who considers, for instance, how -consistently Europe has held the headship of the human race, -in face of the chaotic myriads of Asia. If population were -the chief test of progress and efficiency, China would long -ago have proved itself the most progressive and efficient -state. De Quincey summed up the whole of that enormous -situation, in a sentence which is perhaps more impressive -and even appalling than all the perspectives of orient -architecture and vistas of opium vision in the midst of -which it comes. "Man is a weed in those regions." Many -Europeans, fearing for the garden of the world, have fancied -that in some future fatality those weeds may spring up and -choke it. But no Europeans have really wished that the -flowers should become like the weeds. Even if it were true, -therefore, that the loosening of the tie necessarily -increased the population; even if this were not -contradicted, as it is, by the facts of many countries, we -should have strong historical grounds for not accepting the -deduction. We should still be suspicious of the paradox that -we may encourage large families by abolishing the family. - -Lastly, I believe it is part of the defence of the new -proposal that even its defenders have found its principle a -little too crude. I hear they have added provisions which -modify the principle; and which seem to be in substance, -first, that a man shall be made responsible for a money -payment to the wife he deserts, and second, that the matter -shall once again be submitted in some fashion to some -magistrate. For my purpose here, it is enough to note that -there is something of the unmistakable savour of the -sociology we resist, in these two touching acts of faith, in -a cheque-book and in a lawyer. Most of the fashionable -reformers of marriage would be faintly shocked at any -suggestion that a poor old charwoman might possibly refuse -such money, or that a good kind magistrate might not have -the right to give such advice. For the reformers of marriage -are very respectable people, with some honour able -exceptions; and nothing could fit more smoothly into the -rather greasy groove of their respectability than the -suggestion that treason is best treated with the damages, -gentlemen, heavy damages, of Mr, Serjeant Buzfuz; or that -tragedy is best treated by the spiritual arbitrament of +Again, when an argument is based on a need of population, it will be +well if those supporting it realise where it may carry them. It is +exceedingly doubtful whether population is one of the advantages of +divorce; but there is no doubt that it is one of the advantages of +polygamy. It is already used in Germany as an argument for polygamy. But +the very word will teach us to look even beyond Germany for something +yet more remote and repulsive. Mere population, along with a sort of +polygamous anarchy, will not appear even as a practical ideal to any one +who considers, for instance, how consistently Europe has held the +headship of the human race, in face of the chaotic myriads of Asia. If +population were the chief test of progress and efficiency, China would +long ago have proved itself the most progressive and efficient state. De +Quincey summed up the whole of that enormous situation, in a sentence +which is perhaps more impressive and even appalling than all the +perspectives of orient architecture and vistas of opium vision in the +midst of which it comes. "Man is a weed in those regions." Many +Europeans, fearing for the garden of the world, have fancied that in +some future fatality those weeds may spring up and choke it. But no +Europeans have really wished that the flowers should become like the +weeds. Even if it were true, therefore, that the loosening of the tie +necessarily increased the population; even if this were not +contradicted, as it is, by the facts of many countries, we should have +strong historical grounds for not accepting the deduction. We should +still be suspicious of the paradox that we may encourage large families +by abolishing the family. + +Lastly, I believe it is part of the defence of the new proposal that +even its defenders have found its principle a little too crude. I hear +they have added provisions which modify the principle; and which seem to +be in substance, first, that a man shall be made responsible for a money +payment to the wife he deserts, and second, that the matter shall once +again be submitted in some fashion to some magistrate. For my purpose +here, it is enough to note that there is something of the unmistakable +savour of the sociology we resist, in these two touching acts of faith, +in a cheque-book and in a lawyer. Most of the fashionable reformers of +marriage would be faintly shocked at any suggestion that a poor old +charwoman might possibly refuse such money, or that a good kind +magistrate might not have the right to give such advice. For the +reformers of marriage are very respectable people, with some honour able +exceptions; and nothing could fit more smoothly into the rather greasy +groove of their respectability than the suggestion that treason is best +treated with the damages, gentlemen, heavy damages, of Mr, Serjeant +Buzfuz; or that tragedy is best treated by the spiritual arbitrament of Mr. Nupkins. -One word should be added to this hasty sketch of the -elements of the case. I have deliberately left out the -loftiest aspect and argument, that which sees marriage as a -divine institution; and that for the logical reason that -those who believe in this would not believe in divorce; and -I am arguing with those who do believe in divorce. I do not -ask them to assume the worth of my creed or any creed; and I -could wish they did not so often ask me to assume the worth -of their worthless, poisonous plutocratic modern society. -But if it could be shown, as I think it can, that a long -historical view and a patient political experience can at -last accumulate solid scientific evidence of the vital need -of such a vow, then I can conceive no more tremendous -tribute than this, to any faith, which made a flaming -affirmation from the darkest beginnings, ot what the latest -enlightenment can only slowly discover in the end. +One word should be added to this hasty sketch of the elements of the +case. I have deliberately left out the loftiest aspect and argument, +that which sees marriage as a divine institution; and that for the +logical reason that those who believe in this would not believe in +divorce; and I am arguing with those who do believe in divorce. I do not +ask them to assume the worth of my creed or any creed; and I could wish +they did not so often ask me to assume the worth of their worthless, +poisonous plutocratic modern society. But if it could be shown, as I +think it can, that a long historical view and a patient political +experience can at last accumulate solid scientific evidence of the vital +need of such a vow, then I can conceive no more tremendous tribute than +this, to any faith, which made a flaming affirmation from the darkest +beginnings, ot what the latest enlightenment can only slowly discover in +the end. # The Story of the Family -The most ancient of human institutions has an authority that -may seem as wild as anarchy. Alone among all such -institutions it begins with a spontaneous attraction; and -may be said strictly and not sentimentally to be founded on -love instead of fear. The attempt to com pare it with -coercive institutions complicating later history has led to -infinite illogicality in later times. It is as unique as it -is universal. There is nothing in any other social relations -in any way parallel to the mutual attraction of the sexes. -By missing this simple point, the modern world has fallen -into a hundred follies. The idea of a general revolt of -women against men has been proclaimed with flags and pro -cessions, like a revolt of vassals against their lords, of -niggers against nigger-drivers, of Poles against Prussians -or Irishmen against English men; for all the world as if we -really believed in the fabulous nation of the Amazons. The -equally philosophical idea of a general revolt of men -against women has been put into a romance by Sir Walter -Besant, and into a sociological book by Mr. Belfort Bax. But -at the first touch of this truth of an aboriginal -attraction, all such comparisons collapse and are seen to be -comic. A Prussian does not feel from the first that he can -only be happy if he spends his days and nights with a Pole. -An Englishman does not think his house empty and cheerless -unless it happens to contain an Irishman. A white man does -not in his romantic youth dream of the perfect beauty of a -black man. A railway magnate seldom writes poems about the -personal fascination of a rail way porter. All the other -revolts against all the other relations are reasonable and -even inevitable, because those relations are originally only -founded upon force or self-interest. Force can abolish what -force can establish; self-interest can terminate a contract -when self-interest has dictated the contract. But the love -of man and woman is not an institution that can be -abolished, or a contract that can be terminated. It is -something older than all institutions or contracts, and -something that is certain to outlast them all. All the other -revolts are real, because there remains a possibility that -the things may be destroyed, or at least divided. You can -abolish capitalists; but you cannot abolish males. Prussians -can go out of Poland or negroes can be repatriated to -Africa; but a man and a woman must remain together in one -way or another; and must learn to put up with each other -somehow. - -These are very simple truths; that is why nobody nowadays -seems to take any particular notice of them; and the truth -that follows next is equally obvious. There is no dispute -about the purpose of Nature in creating such an attraction. -It would be more intelligent to call it the purpose of God; -for Nature can have no purpose unless God is behind it. To -talk of the purpose of Nature is to make a vain attempt to -avoid being anthropomorphic merely by being feminist. It is -believing in a goddess because you are too sceptical to -believe in a god. But this is a controversy which can be -kept apart from the question, if we content ourselves with -saying that the vital value ultimately found in this -attraction is, of course, the renewal of the race itself. -The child is an explanation of the father and mother; and -the fact that it is a human child is the explanation of the -ancient human ties connecting the father and mother. The -more human, that is the less bestial, is the child, the more -lawful and lasting are the ties. So far from any progress in -culture or the sciences tending to loosen the bond, any such -progress must logically tend to tighten it. The more things -there are for the child to learn, the longer he must remain -at the natural school for learning them: and the longer his -teachers must at least postpone the dissolution of their -partnership. This elementary truth is hidden to-day in vast -masses of vicarious, indirect and artificial work, with the -fundamental fallacy of which I shall deal in a moment. Here -I speak of the primary position of the human group, as it -has stood through unthinkable ages of waxing and waning -civilisations; often unable to delegate any of its work, -always unable to delegate all of it. In this, I repeat, it -will always be necessary for the two teachers to remain -together, in pro portion as they have anything to teach. One -of the shapeless sea-beasts, that merely detaches itself -from its offspring and floats away, could float away to a -submarine divorce court, or an advanced club founded on -free-love for fishes. The sea-beast might do this, precisely -because the sea-beast's offspring need do nothing; because -it has not got to learn the polka or the multiplication -table. All these are truisms, but they are also truths, and -truths that will return; for the present tangle of -semi-official substitutes is not only a stop-gap, but one -that is not big enough to stop the gap. If people cannot -mind their own business, it cannot possibly be more -economical to pay them to mind each other s business; and -still less to mind each other's babies. It is simply -throwing away a natural force and then paying for an -artificial force; as if a man were to water a plant with a -hose while holding up an umbrella to protect it from the -rain. The whole really rests on a plutocratic illusion of an -infinite supply of servants. When we offer any other system -as a "career for women," we are really proposing that an -infinite number of them should become servants, of a -plutocratic or bureaucratic sort. Ultimately, we are arguing -that a woman should not be a mother to her own baby, but a -nursemaid to somebody else's baby. But it will not work, -even on paper. We cannot all live by taking in each other s -washing, especially in the form of pinafores. In the last -resort, the only people who either can or will give -individual care, to each of the individual children, are -their individual parents. The expression as applied to those -dealing with changing crowds of children is a graceful and -legitimate flourish of speech. - -This triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, -cannot be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilisations -which disregard it. Most modern reformers are merely -bottomless sceptics, and have no basis on which to rebuild; -and it is well that such reformers should realise that there -is something they cannot reform. You can put down the mighty -from their seat; you can turn the world upside down, and -there is much to be said for the view that it may then be -the right way up. But you cannot create a world in which the -baby carries the mother. You cannot create a world in which -the mother has not authority over the baby. You can waste -your time in trying; by giving votes to babies or -proclaiming a republic of infants in arms. You can say, as -an educationist said the other day, that small children -should "criticise, question authority and suspend their -judgment." I do not know why he did not go on to say that -they should earn their own living, pay income tax to the -state, and die in battle for the fatherland; for the -proposal evidently is that children shall have no childhood. -But you can, if you find entertainment in such games, -organise "representative government" among little boys and -girls, and tell them to take their legal and constitutional -responsibilities as seriously as possible. In short, you can -be crazy; but you cannot be consistent. You cannot really -carry your own principle back to the aboriginal group, and -really apply it to the mother and the baby. You will not act -on your own theory in the simplest and most practical of all -possible cases. You are not quite so mad as that. - -This nucleus of natural authority has always existed in the -midst of more artificial authorities. It has always been -regarded as something in the literal sense individual; that -is as an absolute that could not really be divided. A baby -was not even a baby apart from its mother; it was something -else, most probably a corpse. It was always recognised as -standing in a peculiar relation to government; simply -because it was one of the few things that had not been made -by government; and could to some extent come into existence -without the support of government. Indeed the case for it is -too strong to be stated. For the case for it that there is -nothing like it; and we can only find faint parallels to it -in those more elaborate and painful powers and institutions -that are its inferiors. Thus the only way of conveying it is -to compare it to a nation; although, compared to it, -national divisions are as modern and formal as national -anthems. Thus I may often use the metaphor of a city; though -in its presence a citizen is as recent as a city clerk. It -is enough to note here that everybody does know by intuition -and admit by implication that a family is a solid fact, -having a character and colour like a nation. The truth can -be tested by the most modern and most daily experiences. A -man does say "That is the sort of thing the Browns will -like"; however tangled and interminable a psychological -novel he might compose on the shades of difference between -Mr. and Mrs. Brown. A woman does say "I don't like Jemima -seeing so much of the Robinsons"; and she does not always, -in the scurry of her social or domestic duties, pause to -distinguish the optimistic materialism of Mrs. Robinson from -the more acid cynicism which tinges the hedonism of -Mr. Robinson. There is a colour of the household inside, as -conspicuous as the colour of the house outside. That colour -is a blend, and if any tint in it predominates it is -generally that preferred by Mrs. Robinson. But like all -composite colours, it is a separate colour; as separate as -green is from blue and yellow. Every marriage is a sort of -wild balance; and in every case the compromise is as unique -as an eccentricity. Philanthropists walking in the slums -often see the compromise in the street, and mistake it for a -fight. When they interfere, they are thoroughly thumped by -both parties; and serve them right, for not respecting the -very institution that brought them into the world. - -The first thing to see is that this enormous normality is -like a mountain; and one that is capable of being a volcano. -Every abnormality that is now opposed to it is like a -mole-hill; and the earnest sociological organisers of it are -exceedingly like moles. But the mountain is a volcano in -another sense also; as suggested in that tradition of the -southern fields fertilised by larva. It has a creative as -well as a destructive side; and it only remains, in this -part of the analysis, to note the political effect of this -extra-political institution, and the political ideals of -which it has been the champion; and perhaps the only -permanent champion. - -The ideal for which it stands in the state is liberty. It -stands for liberty for the very simple reason with which -this rough analysis started. It is the only one of these -institutions that is at once necessary and voluntary. It is -the only check on the state that is bound to renew itself as -eternally as the state, and more naturally than the state. -Every sane man recognises that unlimited liberty is anarchy, -or rather is nonentity. The civic idea of liberty is to give -the citizen a province of liberty; a limitation within which -a citizen is a king. This is the only way in which truth can -ever find refuge from public persecution, and the good man -survive the bad government. But the good man by himself is -no match for the bad government. The citizen by himself is -no match for the city. There must be balanced against it -another ideal institution, and in that sense an immortal -institution. So long as the state is the only ideal -institution the state will call on the citizen to sacrifice -himself, and therefore will not have the smallest scruple in -sacrificing the citizen. The state consists of coercion; and -must always be justified from its own point of view in -extending the bounds of coercion; as, for instance, in the -case of conscription. The only thing that can be set up to -check or challenge this authority is a voluntary law and a -voluntary loyalty. That loyalty is the protection of -liberty, in the only sphere where liberty can fully dwell. -It is a principle of the constitution that the King never -dies. It is the whole principle of the family that the -citizen never dies. There must be a heraldry and heredity of -freedom; a tradition of resistance to tyranny. A man must be -not only free, but free-born. - -Indeed, there is something in the family that might loosely -be called anarchist; and more correctly called amateur. As -there seems something almost vague about its voluntary -origin, so there seems something vague about its voluntary -organisation. The most vital function it performs, perhaps -the most vital function that anything can perform, is that -of education; but its type of early education is far too -essential to be mistaken for instruction. In a thousand -things it works rather by rule of thumb than rule of theory. -To take a common -place and even comic example, I doubt if -any text book or code of rules has ever contained any -directions about standing a child in a corner. Doubtless -when the modern process is complete, and the coercive -principle of the state has entirely extinguished the -voluntary element of the family, there will be some exact -regulation or restriction about the matter. Possibly it will -say that the corner must be an angle of at least ninety-five -degrees. Possibly it will say that the converging line of -any ordinary corner tends to make a child squint. In fact I -am certain that if I said casually, at a sufficient number -of tea-tables, that corners made children squint, it would -rapidly become a universally received dogma of popular -science. For the modern world will accept no dogmas upon any -authority; but it will accept any dogmas upon no authority. -Say that a thing is so, according to the Pope or the Bible, -and it will be dismissed as a superstition without -examination. But preface your remark merely with "they say" -or "don't you know that---?" or try (and fail) to remember -the name of some professor mentioned in some newspaper; and -the keen rationalism of the modern mind will accept every -word you say. This parenthesis is not so irrelevant as it -may appear; for it will be well to remember that when a -rigid officialism breaks in upon the voluntary com promises -of the home, that officialism itself will be only rigid in -its action and will be exceedingly limp in its thought. -Intellectually it will be at least as vague as the amateur -arrangements of the home, and the only difference is that -the domestic arrangements are in the only real sense -practical; that is, they are founded on experiences that -have been suffered. The others are what is now generally -called scientific; that is, they are founded on experiments -that have not yet been made. As a matter of fact, instead of -invading the family with the blundering bureaucracy that mis -manages the public services, it would be far more -philosophical to work the reform the other way round. It -would be really quite as reasonable to alter the laws of the -nation so as to resemble the laws of the nursery. The -punishments would be far less horrible, far more humorous, -and far more really calculated to make men feel they had -made fools of them selves. It would be a pleasant change if -a judge, instead of putting on the black cap, had to put on -the dunce's cap; or if we could stand a financier in his own -corner. - -Of course this opinion is rare, and reactionary---whatever -that may mean. Modern education is founded on the principle -that a parent is more likely to be cruel than anybody else. -It passes over the obvious fact that he is *less* likely to -be cruel than anybody else. Anybody may happen to be cruel; -but the first chances of cruelty come with the whole -colourless and indifferent crowd of total strangers and -mechanical mercenaries, whom it is now the custom to call in -as infallible agents of improvement; policemen, doctors, -detectives, inspectors, instructors, and so on. They are -automatically given arbitrary power because there are here -and there such things as criminal parents; as if there were -no such things as criminal doctors or criminal -schoolmasters. A mother is not always judicious about her -child's diet; so it is given into the control of -Dr. Crippen. A father is thought not to teach his sons the -purest morality; so they are put under the tutorship of -Eugene Aram. These celebrated criminals are no more rare in -their respective professions than the cruel parents are in -the profession of parenthood. But indeed the case is far -stronger than this; and there is no need to rely on the case -of such criminals at all. The ordinary weaknesses of human -nature will explain all the weakness of bureaucracy and -business government all over the world. The official need -only be an ordinary man to be more indifferent to other -people's children than to his own; and even to sacrifice -other people's family prosperity to his own. He may be -bored; he may be bribed; he may be brutal, for any one of -the thousand reasons that ever made a man a brute. All this -elementary common sense is entirely left out of account in -our educational and social systems of to-day. It is assumed -that the hireling will *not* flee, and that solely because -he is a hire ling. It is denied that the shepherd will lay -down his life for the sheep; or for that matter, even that -the she-wolf will fight for the cubs. We are to believe that -mothers are inhuman; but not that officials are human. There -are unnatural parents, but there are no natural passions; at -least, there are none where the fury of King Lear dared to -find them in the beadle. Such is the latest light on the -education of the young; and the same principle that is -applied to the child is applied to the husband and wife. -Just as it assumes that a child will certainly be loved by -anybody except his mother, so it assumes that a man can be -happy with anybody except the one woman he has himself -chosen for his wife. - -Thus the coercive spirit of the state prevails over the free -promise of the family, in the shape of formal officialism. -But this is not the most coercive of the coercive elements -in the modern commonwealth. An even more rigid and ruthless -external power is that of industrial employment and -unemployment. An even more ferocious enemy of the family is -the factory. Between these modern mechanical things the -ancient natural institution is not being reformed or -modified or even cut down; it is being torn in pieces. It is -not only being torn in pieces in the sense of a true -metaphor, like a living thing caught in a hideous clock work -of manufacture. It is being literally torn in pieces, in -that the husband may go to one factory, the wife to another, -and the child to a third. Each will become the servant of a -separate financial group, which is more and more gaining the -political power of a feudal group. But whereas feudalism -received the loyalty of families, the lords of the new -servile state will receive only the loyalty of individuals; -that is, of lonely men and even of lost children. - -It is sometimes said that Socialism attacks the family; -which is founded on little beyond the accident that some -Socialists believe in free-love. I have been a Socialist, -and I am no longer a Socialist, and at no time did I believe -in free-love. It is true, I think in a larger and -unconscious sense, that State Socialism encourages the -general coercive claim I have been considering. But if it be -true that Socialism attacks the family in theory, it is far -more certain that Capitalism attacks it in practice. It is a -paradox, but a plain fact, that men never notice a thing as -long as it exists in practice. Men who will note a heresy -will ignore an abuse. Let any one who doubts the paradox -imagine the newspapers formally printing along with the -Honours List a price list, for peerages and knighthoods; -though everybody knows they are bought and sold. So the -factory is destroying the family in fact; and need depend on -no poor mad theorist who dreams of destroying it in fancy. -And what is destroying it is nothing so plausible as -free-love; but something rather to be described as an -enforced fear. It is economic punishment more terrible than -legal punishment, which may yet land us in slavery as the -only safety. - -From its first days in the forest, this human group had to -fight against wild monsters; and so it is now fighting -against these wild machines. It only managed to survive -then, and it will only manage to survive now, by a strong -internal sanctity; a tacit oath or dedication deeper than -that of the city or the tribe. But though this silent -promise was always present, it took at a certain turning -point of our history a special form which I shall try to -sketch in the next chapter. That turning point was the -creation of Christendom by the religion which created it. -Nothing will destroy the sacred triangle; and even the -Christian faith, the most amazing revolution that ever took -place in the mind, served only in a sense to turn that -triangle upside down. It held up a mystical mirror in which -the order of the three things was reversed; and added a holy -family of child, mother, and father to the human family of -father, mother, and child. +The most ancient of human institutions has an authority that may seem as +wild as anarchy. Alone among all such institutions it begins with a +spontaneous attraction; and may be said strictly and not sentimentally +to be founded on love instead of fear. The attempt to com pare it with +coercive institutions complicating later history has led to infinite +illogicality in later times. It is as unique as it is universal. There +is nothing in any other social relations in any way parallel to the +mutual attraction of the sexes. By missing this simple point, the modern +world has fallen into a hundred follies. The idea of a general revolt of +women against men has been proclaimed with flags and pro cessions, like +a revolt of vassals against their lords, of niggers against +nigger-drivers, of Poles against Prussians or Irishmen against English +men; for all the world as if we really believed in the fabulous nation +of the Amazons. The equally philosophical idea of a general revolt of +men against women has been put into a romance by Sir Walter Besant, and +into a sociological book by Mr. Belfort Bax. But at the first touch of +this truth of an aboriginal attraction, all such comparisons collapse +and are seen to be comic. A Prussian does not feel from the first that +he can only be happy if he spends his days and nights with a Pole. An +Englishman does not think his house empty and cheerless unless it +happens to contain an Irishman. A white man does not in his romantic +youth dream of the perfect beauty of a black man. A railway magnate +seldom writes poems about the personal fascination of a rail way porter. +All the other revolts against all the other relations are reasonable and +even inevitable, because those relations are originally only founded +upon force or self-interest. Force can abolish what force can establish; +self-interest can terminate a contract when self-interest has dictated +the contract. But the love of man and woman is not an institution that +can be abolished, or a contract that can be terminated. It is something +older than all institutions or contracts, and something that is certain +to outlast them all. All the other revolts are real, because there +remains a possibility that the things may be destroyed, or at least +divided. You can abolish capitalists; but you cannot abolish males. +Prussians can go out of Poland or negroes can be repatriated to Africa; +but a man and a woman must remain together in one way or another; and +must learn to put up with each other somehow. + +These are very simple truths; that is why nobody nowadays seems to take +any particular notice of them; and the truth that follows next is +equally obvious. There is no dispute about the purpose of Nature in +creating such an attraction. It would be more intelligent to call it the +purpose of God; for Nature can have no purpose unless God is behind it. +To talk of the purpose of Nature is to make a vain attempt to avoid +being anthropomorphic merely by being feminist. It is believing in a +goddess because you are too sceptical to believe in a god. But this is a +controversy which can be kept apart from the question, if we content +ourselves with saying that the vital value ultimately found in this +attraction is, of course, the renewal of the race itself. The child is +an explanation of the father and mother; and the fact that it is a human +child is the explanation of the ancient human ties connecting the father +and mother. The more human, that is the less bestial, is the child, the +more lawful and lasting are the ties. So far from any progress in +culture or the sciences tending to loosen the bond, any such progress +must logically tend to tighten it. The more things there are for the +child to learn, the longer he must remain at the natural school for +learning them: and the longer his teachers must at least postpone the +dissolution of their partnership. This elementary truth is hidden to-day +in vast masses of vicarious, indirect and artificial work, with the +fundamental fallacy of which I shall deal in a moment. Here I speak of +the primary position of the human group, as it has stood through +unthinkable ages of waxing and waning civilisations; often unable to +delegate any of its work, always unable to delegate all of it. In this, +I repeat, it will always be necessary for the two teachers to remain +together, in pro portion as they have anything to teach. One of the +shapeless sea-beasts, that merely detaches itself from its offspring and +floats away, could float away to a submarine divorce court, or an +advanced club founded on free-love for fishes. The sea-beast might do +this, precisely because the sea-beast's offspring need do nothing; +because it has not got to learn the polka or the multiplication table. +All these are truisms, but they are also truths, and truths that will +return; for the present tangle of semi-official substitutes is not only +a stop-gap, but one that is not big enough to stop the gap. If people +cannot mind their own business, it cannot possibly be more economical to +pay them to mind each other s business; and still less to mind each +other's babies. It is simply throwing away a natural force and then +paying for an artificial force; as if a man were to water a plant with a +hose while holding up an umbrella to protect it from the rain. The whole +really rests on a plutocratic illusion of an infinite supply of +servants. When we offer any other system as a "career for women," we are +really proposing that an infinite number of them should become servants, +of a plutocratic or bureaucratic sort. Ultimately, we are arguing that a +woman should not be a mother to her own baby, but a nursemaid to +somebody else's baby. But it will not work, even on paper. We cannot all +live by taking in each other s washing, especially in the form of +pinafores. In the last resort, the only people who either can or will +give individual care, to each of the individual children, are their +individual parents. The expression as applied to those dealing with +changing crowds of children is a graceful and legitimate flourish of +speech. + +This triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be +destroyed; it can only destroy those civilisations which disregard it. +Most modern reformers are merely bottomless sceptics, and have no basis +on which to rebuild; and it is well that such reformers should realise +that there is something they cannot reform. You can put down the mighty +from their seat; you can turn the world upside down, and there is much +to be said for the view that it may then be the right way up. But you +cannot create a world in which the baby carries the mother. You cannot +create a world in which the mother has not authority over the baby. You +can waste your time in trying; by giving votes to babies or proclaiming +a republic of infants in arms. You can say, as an educationist said the +other day, that small children should "criticise, question authority and +suspend their judgment." I do not know why he did not go on to say that +they should earn their own living, pay income tax to the state, and die +in battle for the fatherland; for the proposal evidently is that +children shall have no childhood. But you can, if you find entertainment +in such games, organise "representative government" among little boys +and girls, and tell them to take their legal and constitutional +responsibilities as seriously as possible. In short, you can be crazy; +but you cannot be consistent. You cannot really carry your own principle +back to the aboriginal group, and really apply it to the mother and the +baby. You will not act on your own theory in the simplest and most +practical of all possible cases. You are not quite so mad as that. + +This nucleus of natural authority has always existed in the midst of +more artificial authorities. It has always been regarded as something in +the literal sense individual; that is as an absolute that could not +really be divided. A baby was not even a baby apart from its mother; it +was something else, most probably a corpse. It was always recognised as +standing in a peculiar relation to government; simply because it was one +of the few things that had not been made by government; and could to +some extent come into existence without the support of government. +Indeed the case for it is too strong to be stated. For the case for it +that there is nothing like it; and we can only find faint parallels to +it in those more elaborate and painful powers and institutions that are +its inferiors. Thus the only way of conveying it is to compare it to a +nation; although, compared to it, national divisions are as modern and +formal as national anthems. Thus I may often use the metaphor of a city; +though in its presence a citizen is as recent as a city clerk. It is +enough to note here that everybody does know by intuition and admit by +implication that a family is a solid fact, having a character and colour +like a nation. The truth can be tested by the most modern and most daily +experiences. A man does say "That is the sort of thing the Browns will +like"; however tangled and interminable a psychological novel he might +compose on the shades of difference between Mr. and Mrs. Brown. A woman +does say "I don't like Jemima seeing so much of the Robinsons"; and she +does not always, in the scurry of her social or domestic duties, pause +to distinguish the optimistic materialism of Mrs. Robinson from the more +acid cynicism which tinges the hedonism of Mr. Robinson. There is a +colour of the household inside, as conspicuous as the colour of the +house outside. That colour is a blend, and if any tint in it +predominates it is generally that preferred by Mrs. Robinson. But like +all composite colours, it is a separate colour; as separate as green is +from blue and yellow. Every marriage is a sort of wild balance; and in +every case the compromise is as unique as an eccentricity. +Philanthropists walking in the slums often see the compromise in the +street, and mistake it for a fight. When they interfere, they are +thoroughly thumped by both parties; and serve them right, for not +respecting the very institution that brought them into the world. + +The first thing to see is that this enormous normality is like a +mountain; and one that is capable of being a volcano. Every abnormality +that is now opposed to it is like a mole-hill; and the earnest +sociological organisers of it are exceedingly like moles. But the +mountain is a volcano in another sense also; as suggested in that +tradition of the southern fields fertilised by larva. It has a creative +as well as a destructive side; and it only remains, in this part of the +analysis, to note the political effect of this extra-political +institution, and the political ideals of which it has been the champion; +and perhaps the only permanent champion. + +The ideal for which it stands in the state is liberty. It stands for +liberty for the very simple reason with which this rough analysis +started. It is the only one of these institutions that is at once +necessary and voluntary. It is the only check on the state that is bound +to renew itself as eternally as the state, and more naturally than the +state. Every sane man recognises that unlimited liberty is anarchy, or +rather is nonentity. The civic idea of liberty is to give the citizen a +province of liberty; a limitation within which a citizen is a king. This +is the only way in which truth can ever find refuge from public +persecution, and the good man survive the bad government. But the good +man by himself is no match for the bad government. The citizen by +himself is no match for the city. There must be balanced against it +another ideal institution, and in that sense an immortal institution. So +long as the state is the only ideal institution the state will call on +the citizen to sacrifice himself, and therefore will not have the +smallest scruple in sacrificing the citizen. The state consists of +coercion; and must always be justified from its own point of view in +extending the bounds of coercion; as, for instance, in the case of +conscription. The only thing that can be set up to check or challenge +this authority is a voluntary law and a voluntary loyalty. That loyalty +is the protection of liberty, in the only sphere where liberty can fully +dwell. It is a principle of the constitution that the King never dies. +It is the whole principle of the family that the citizen never dies. +There must be a heraldry and heredity of freedom; a tradition of +resistance to tyranny. A man must be not only free, but free-born. + +Indeed, there is something in the family that might loosely be called +anarchist; and more correctly called amateur. As there seems something +almost vague about its voluntary origin, so there seems something vague +about its voluntary organisation. The most vital function it performs, +perhaps the most vital function that anything can perform, is that of +education; but its type of early education is far too essential to be +mistaken for instruction. In a thousand things it works rather by rule +of thumb than rule of theory. To take a common -place and even comic +example, I doubt if any text book or code of rules has ever contained +any directions about standing a child in a corner. Doubtless when the +modern process is complete, and the coercive principle of the state has +entirely extinguished the voluntary element of the family, there will be +some exact regulation or restriction about the matter. Possibly it will +say that the corner must be an angle of at least ninety-five degrees. +Possibly it will say that the converging line of any ordinary corner +tends to make a child squint. In fact I am certain that if I said +casually, at a sufficient number of tea-tables, that corners made +children squint, it would rapidly become a universally received dogma of +popular science. For the modern world will accept no dogmas upon any +authority; but it will accept any dogmas upon no authority. Say that a +thing is so, according to the Pope or the Bible, and it will be +dismissed as a superstition without examination. But preface your remark +merely with "they say" or "don't you know that---?" or try (and fail) to +remember the name of some professor mentioned in some newspaper; and the +keen rationalism of the modern mind will accept every word you say. This +parenthesis is not so irrelevant as it may appear; for it will be well +to remember that when a rigid officialism breaks in upon the voluntary +com promises of the home, that officialism itself will be only rigid in +its action and will be exceedingly limp in its thought. Intellectually +it will be at least as vague as the amateur arrangements of the home, +and the only difference is that the domestic arrangements are in the +only real sense practical; that is, they are founded on experiences that +have been suffered. The others are what is now generally called +scientific; that is, they are founded on experiments that have not yet +been made. As a matter of fact, instead of invading the family with the +blundering bureaucracy that mis manages the public services, it would be +far more philosophical to work the reform the other way round. It would +be really quite as reasonable to alter the laws of the nation so as to +resemble the laws of the nursery. The punishments would be far less +horrible, far more humorous, and far more really calculated to make men +feel they had made fools of them selves. It would be a pleasant change +if a judge, instead of putting on the black cap, had to put on the +dunce's cap; or if we could stand a financier in his own corner. + +Of course this opinion is rare, and reactionary---whatever that may +mean. Modern education is founded on the principle that a parent is more +likely to be cruel than anybody else. It passes over the obvious fact +that he is *less* likely to be cruel than anybody else. Anybody may +happen to be cruel; but the first chances of cruelty come with the whole +colourless and indifferent crowd of total strangers and mechanical +mercenaries, whom it is now the custom to call in as infallible agents +of improvement; policemen, doctors, detectives, inspectors, instructors, +and so on. They are automatically given arbitrary power because there +are here and there such things as criminal parents; as if there were no +such things as criminal doctors or criminal schoolmasters. A mother is +not always judicious about her child's diet; so it is given into the +control of Dr. Crippen. A father is thought not to teach his sons the +purest morality; so they are put under the tutorship of Eugene Aram. +These celebrated criminals are no more rare in their respective +professions than the cruel parents are in the profession of parenthood. +But indeed the case is far stronger than this; and there is no need to +rely on the case of such criminals at all. The ordinary weaknesses of +human nature will explain all the weakness of bureaucracy and business +government all over the world. The official need only be an ordinary man +to be more indifferent to other people's children than to his own; and +even to sacrifice other people's family prosperity to his own. He may be +bored; he may be bribed; he may be brutal, for any one of the thousand +reasons that ever made a man a brute. All this elementary common sense +is entirely left out of account in our educational and social systems of +to-day. It is assumed that the hireling will *not* flee, and that solely +because he is a hire ling. It is denied that the shepherd will lay down +his life for the sheep; or for that matter, even that the she-wolf will +fight for the cubs. We are to believe that mothers are inhuman; but not +that officials are human. There are unnatural parents, but there are no +natural passions; at least, there are none where the fury of King Lear +dared to find them in the beadle. Such is the latest light on the +education of the young; and the same principle that is applied to the +child is applied to the husband and wife. Just as it assumes that a +child will certainly be loved by anybody except his mother, so it +assumes that a man can be happy with anybody except the one woman he has +himself chosen for his wife. + +Thus the coercive spirit of the state prevails over the free promise of +the family, in the shape of formal officialism. But this is not the most +coercive of the coercive elements in the modern commonwealth. An even +more rigid and ruthless external power is that of industrial employment +and unemployment. An even more ferocious enemy of the family is the +factory. Between these modern mechanical things the ancient natural +institution is not being reformed or modified or even cut down; it is +being torn in pieces. It is not only being torn in pieces in the sense +of a true metaphor, like a living thing caught in a hideous clock work +of manufacture. It is being literally torn in pieces, in that the +husband may go to one factory, the wife to another, and the child to a +third. Each will become the servant of a separate financial group, which +is more and more gaining the political power of a feudal group. But +whereas feudalism received the loyalty of families, the lords of the new +servile state will receive only the loyalty of individuals; that is, of +lonely men and even of lost children. + +It is sometimes said that Socialism attacks the family; which is founded +on little beyond the accident that some Socialists believe in free-love. +I have been a Socialist, and I am no longer a Socialist, and at no time +did I believe in free-love. It is true, I think in a larger and +unconscious sense, that State Socialism encourages the general coercive +claim I have been considering. But if it be true that Socialism attacks +the family in theory, it is far more certain that Capitalism attacks it +in practice. It is a paradox, but a plain fact, that men never notice a +thing as long as it exists in practice. Men who will note a heresy will +ignore an abuse. Let any one who doubts the paradox imagine the +newspapers formally printing along with the Honours List a price list, +for peerages and knighthoods; though everybody knows they are bought and +sold. So the factory is destroying the family in fact; and need depend +on no poor mad theorist who dreams of destroying it in fancy. And what +is destroying it is nothing so plausible as free-love; but something +rather to be described as an enforced fear. It is economic punishment +more terrible than legal punishment, which may yet land us in slavery as +the only safety. + +From its first days in the forest, this human group had to fight against +wild monsters; and so it is now fighting against these wild machines. It +only managed to survive then, and it will only manage to survive now, by +a strong internal sanctity; a tacit oath or dedication deeper than that +of the city or the tribe. But though this silent promise was always +present, it took at a certain turning point of our history a special +form which I shall try to sketch in the next chapter. That turning point +was the creation of Christendom by the religion which created it. +Nothing will destroy the sacred triangle; and even the Christian faith, +the most amazing revolution that ever took place in the mind, served +only in a sense to turn that triangle upside down. It held up a mystical +mirror in which the order of the three things was reversed; and added a +holy family of child, mother, and father to the human family of father, +mother, and child. # The Story of the Vow -Charles Lamb, with his fine fantastic instinct for -combinations that are also contrasts, has noted somewhere a -contrast between St. Valen tine and valentines. There seems -a comic incongruity in such lively and frivolous flirtations -still depending on the date and title of an ascetic and -celibate bishop of the Dark Ages. The paradox lends itself -to his treatment, and there is a truth in his view of it. -Perhaps it may seem even more of a paradox to say there is -no paradox. In such cases unification appears more -provocative than division; and it may seem idly -contradictory to deny the contradiction. And yet in truth -there is no contradiction. In the deepest sense there is a -very real similarity, which puts St. Valentine and his -valentines on one side, and most of the modern world on the -other. I should hesitate to ask even a German professor to -collect, collate and study carefully all the valentines in -the world, with the object of tracing a philosophical -principle running through them. But if he did, I have no -doubt about the philosophic principle he would find. However -trivial, however imbecile, however vulgar or vapid or -stereotyped the imagery of such things might be, it would -always involve one idea, the same idea that makes lovers -laboriously chip their initials on a tree or a rock, in a -sort of monogram of monogamy, It may be a cockney trick to -tie one's love on a tree; though Orlando did it, and would -now doubtless be arrested by the police for breaking the -bye-laws of the Forest of Arden. I am not here concerned -especially to commend the habit of cutting one's own name -and private address in large letters on the front of the -Parthenon, across the face of the Sphinx, or in any other -nook or corner where it may chance to arrest the sentimental -interest of posterity. But like many other popular things, -of the sort that can generally be found in Shakespeare, -there is a meaning in it that would probably be missed by a -less popular poet, like Shelley. There is a very permanent -truth in the fact that two free persons deliberately tie -themselves to a log of wood. And it is the idea of tying -oneself to something that runs through all this old amorous -allegory like a pattern of fetters. There is always the -notion of hearts chained together, or skewered together, or -in some manner secured; there is a security that can only be -called captivity. That it frequently fails to secure itself -has nothing to do with the present point. The point is that -every philosophy of sex must fail, which does not account -for its ambition of fixity, as well as for its experience of -failure. There is nothing to make Orlando commit himself on -the sworn evidence of the nearest tree. He is not bound to -be bound; he is under constraint, but nobody constrains him -to be under constraint. In short, Orlando took a vow to -marry precisely as Valentine took a vow not to marry. Nor -could any ascetic, without being a heretic, have asserted in -the wildest reactions of asceticism, that the vow of Orlando -was not lawful as well as the vow of Valentine. But it is a -notable fact that even when it was not lawful, it was still -a vow. Through all that mediaeval culture, which has left us -the legend of romance, there ran this pattern of a chain, -which was felt as binding even where it ought not to bind. -The lawless loves of mediaeval legends all have their own -law, and especially their own loyalty, as in the tales of -Tristram or Lancelot. In this sense we might say that -mediaeval profligacy was more fixed than modern marriage. I -am not here discussing either modern or mediaeval ethics, in -the matter of what they did say or ought to say of such -things. I am only noting as a historical fact the insistence -of the mediaeval imagination, even at its wildest, upon one +Charles Lamb, with his fine fantastic instinct for combinations that are +also contrasts, has noted somewhere a contrast between St. Valen tine +and valentines. There seems a comic incongruity in such lively and +frivolous flirtations still depending on the date and title of an +ascetic and celibate bishop of the Dark Ages. The paradox lends itself +to his treatment, and there is a truth in his view of it. Perhaps it may +seem even more of a paradox to say there is no paradox. In such cases +unification appears more provocative than division; and it may seem idly +contradictory to deny the contradiction. And yet in truth there is no +contradiction. In the deepest sense there is a very real similarity, +which puts St. Valentine and his valentines on one side, and most of the +modern world on the other. I should hesitate to ask even a German +professor to collect, collate and study carefully all the valentines in +the world, with the object of tracing a philosophical principle running +through them. But if he did, I have no doubt about the philosophic +principle he would find. However trivial, however imbecile, however +vulgar or vapid or stereotyped the imagery of such things might be, it +would always involve one idea, the same idea that makes lovers +laboriously chip their initials on a tree or a rock, in a sort of +monogram of monogamy, It may be a cockney trick to tie one's love on a +tree; though Orlando did it, and would now doubtless be arrested by the +police for breaking the bye-laws of the Forest of Arden. I am not here +concerned especially to commend the habit of cutting one's own name and +private address in large letters on the front of the Parthenon, across +the face of the Sphinx, or in any other nook or corner where it may +chance to arrest the sentimental interest of posterity. But like many +other popular things, of the sort that can generally be found in +Shakespeare, there is a meaning in it that would probably be missed by a +less popular poet, like Shelley. There is a very permanent truth in the +fact that two free persons deliberately tie themselves to a log of wood. +And it is the idea of tying oneself to something that runs through all +this old amorous allegory like a pattern of fetters. There is always the +notion of hearts chained together, or skewered together, or in some +manner secured; there is a security that can only be called captivity. +That it frequently fails to secure itself has nothing to do with the +present point. The point is that every philosophy of sex must fail, +which does not account for its ambition of fixity, as well as for its +experience of failure. There is nothing to make Orlando commit himself +on the sworn evidence of the nearest tree. He is not bound to be bound; +he is under constraint, but nobody constrains him to be under +constraint. In short, Orlando took a vow to marry precisely as Valentine +took a vow not to marry. Nor could any ascetic, without being a heretic, +have asserted in the wildest reactions of asceticism, that the vow of +Orlando was not lawful as well as the vow of Valentine. But it is a +notable fact that even when it was not lawful, it was still a vow. +Through all that mediaeval culture, which has left us the legend of +romance, there ran this pattern of a chain, which was felt as binding +even where it ought not to bind. The lawless loves of mediaeval legends +all have their own law, and especially their own loyalty, as in the +tales of Tristram or Lancelot. In this sense we might say that mediaeval +profligacy was more fixed than modern marriage. I am not here discussing +either modern or mediaeval ethics, in the matter of what they did say or +ought to say of such things. I am only noting as a historical fact the +insistence of the mediaeval imagination, even at its wildest, upon one particular idea. That idea is the idea of the -vow. It might be the vow which St. Valentine took; it might -be a lesser vow which he regarded as lawful; it might be a -wild vow which he regarded as quite lawless. But the whole -society which made such festivals and bequeathed to us such -traditions was full of the idea of vows; and we must -recognise this notion, even if we think it nonsensical, as -the note of the whole civilisation. And Valentine and the -valentine both express it for us; even more if we feel them -both as exaggerated, or even as exaggerating opposites. -Those extremes meet; and they meet in the same place. Their -trysting place is by the tree on which the lover hung his -love-letters. And even if the lover hung himself on the -tree, instead of his literary compositions, even that act +vow. It might be the vow which St. Valentine took; it might be a lesser +vow which he regarded as lawful; it might be a wild vow which he +regarded as quite lawless. But the whole society which made such +festivals and bequeathed to us such traditions was full of the idea of +vows; and we must recognise this notion, even if we think it +nonsensical, as the note of the whole civilisation. And Valentine and +the valentine both express it for us; even more if we feel them both as +exaggerated, or even as exaggerating opposites. Those extremes meet; and +they meet in the same place. Their trysting place is by the tree on +which the lover hung his love-letters. And even if the lover hung +himself on the tree, instead of his literary compositions, even that act had about it also an indefinable flavour of finality. -It is often said by the critics of Christian origins that -certain ritual feasts, processions or dances are really of -pagan origin. They might as well say that our legs are of -pagan origin. Nobody ever disputed that humanity was human -before it was Christian; and no Church manufactured the legs -with which men walked or danced, either in a pilgrimage or a -ballet. What can really be maintained, so as to carry not a -little conviction, is this: that where such a Church has -existed it has *preserved* not only the processions but the -dances; not only the cathedral but the carnival. One of the -chief claims of Christian civilisation is to have preserved -things of pagan origin. In short, in the old religious -countries men *continue* to dance; while in the new +It is often said by the critics of Christian origins that certain ritual +feasts, processions or dances are really of pagan origin. They might as +well say that our legs are of pagan origin. Nobody ever disputed that +humanity was human before it was Christian; and no Church manufactured +the legs with which men walked or danced, either in a pilgrimage or a +ballet. What can really be maintained, so as to carry not a little +conviction, is this: that where such a Church has existed it has +*preserved* not only the processions but the dances; not only the +cathedral but the carnival. One of the chief claims of Christian +civilisation is to have preserved things of pagan origin. In short, in +the old religious countries men *continue* to dance; while in the new scientific cities they are often content to drudge. -But when this saner view of history is realised, there does -remain something more mystical and difficult to define. Even -heathen things are Christian when they have been preserved -by Christianity. Chivalry is some thing recognisably -different even from the *virtus* of Virgil. Charity is -something exceedingly different from the plain pity of -Homer. Even our patriotism is something more subtle than the -undivided love of the city; and the change is felt in the -most permanent things, such as the love of landscape or the -love of woman. To define the differentiation in all these -things will always be hopelessly difficult. But I would here -suggest one element in the change which is perhaps too much -neglected which at any rate ought not to be neglected; the -nature of a vow. I might express it by saying that pagan -antiquity was the age of status; that Christian medievalism -was the age of vows; and that sceptical modernity has been -the age of contracts; or rather has tried to be, and has -failed. - -The outstanding example of status was slavery. Needless to -say slavery does not mean tyranny; indeed it need only be -regarded relatively to other things to be regarded as -charity. The idea of slavery is that large numbers of men -are meant and made to do the heavy work of the world, and -that others, while taking the margin of profits, must -nevertheless support them while they do it. The point is not -whether the work is excessive or moderate, or whether the -condition is comfort able or uncomfortable. The point is -that his work is chosen for the man, his status fixed for -the man; and this status is forced on him by law. As -Mr. Balfour said about Socialism, that is slavery and -nothing else is slavery. The slave might well be, and often -was, far more comfortable than the average free labourer; -and certainly far more lazy than the average peasant. He was -a slave because he had not reached his position by choice, -or promise, or bargain, but merely by status. - -It is admitted that when Christianity had been for some time -at work in the world, this ancient servile status began in -some mysterious manner to disappear. I suggest here that one -of the forms which the new spirit took was the importance of -the vow. Feudalism, for instance, differed from slavery -chiefly because feudalism was a vow. The vassal put his -hands in those of his lord, and vowed to be his man; but -there was an accent on the noun substantive as well as on -the possessive pronoun. By swearing to be his man, he proved -he was not his chattel. Nobody exacts a promise from a -pickaxe; or expects a poker to swear everlasting friendship -with the tongs. Nobody takes the word of a spade; and nobody -ever took the word of a slave. It marks at least a special -stage of transition that the form of freedom was essential -to the fact of service, or even of servitude. In this way it -is not a coincidence that the word homage actually means -manhood. And if there was vow instead of status even in the -static parts of Feudalism, it is needless to say that there -was a wilder luxuriance of vows in the more adventurous part -of it. The whole of what we call chivalry was one great vow. -Vows of chivalry varied infinitely from the most solid to -the most fantastic; from a vow to give all the spoils of -conquest to the poor to a vow to refrain from shaving until -the first glimpse of Jerusalem. As I have remarked, this -rule of loyalty, even in the unruly exceptions which proved -the rule, ran through all the romances and songs of the -troubadours; and there were always vows even when they were -very far from being marriage vows. The idea is as much -present in what they called the Gay Science, of love, as in -what they called the Divine Science, of theology. The modern -reader will smile at the mention of these things as -sciences; and will turn to the study of sociology, ethnology -and psycho-analysis; for if these are sciences (about which -I would not divulge a doubt) at least nobody would insult -them by calling them either gay or divine. - -I mean here to emphasise the presence, and not even to -settle the proportion, of this new notion in the middle -ages. But the critic will be quite wrong if he thinks it -enough to answer that all these things affected only a -cultured class, not corresponding to the servile class of -antiquity. When we come to workmen and small tradesmen, we -find the same vague yet vivid presence of the spirit that -can only be called the vow. In this sense there was a -chivalry of trades as well as a chivalry of orders of -knighthood; just as there was a heraldry of shop-signs as -well as a heraldry of shields. Only it happens that in the -enlightenment and liberation of the sixteenth century, the -heraldry of the rich was preserved, and the heraldry of the -poor destroyed. And there is a sinister symbolism in the -fact that almost the only emblem still hung above a shop is -that of the three balls of Lombardy. Of all those democratic -glories nothing can now glitter in the sun; except the sign -of the golden usury that has devoured them all. The point -here, how ever, is that the trade or craft had not only -something like the crest, but something like the vow of -knighthood. There was in the position of the guildsman the -same basic notion that belonged to knights and even to -monks. It was the notion of the free choice of a fixed -estate. We can realise the moral atmosphere if we compare -the system of the Christian guilds, not only with the status -of the Greek and Roman slaves, but with such a scheme as -that of the Indian castes. The oriental caste has some of -the qualities of the occidental guild; especially the -valuable quality of tradition and the accumulation of -culture. Men might be proud of their castes, as they were -proud of their guilds. But they had never chosen their -castes, as they have chosen their guilds. They had never, -within historic memory, even collectively created their -castes, as they collectively created their guilds. Like the -slave system, the caste system was older than history. The -heathens of modern Asia, as much as the heathens of ancient -Europe, lived by the very spirit of status. Status in a -trade has been accepted like status in a tribe; and that in -a tribe of beasts and birds rather than men. The fisherman -continued to be a fisherman as the fish continued to be a -fish; and the hunter would no more turn into a cook than his -dog would try its luck as a cat. Certainly his dog would not -be found prostrated before the mysterious altar of Pasht, -barking or whining a wild, lonely, and individual vow that -he at all costs would become a cat. Yet that was the vital -revolt and innovation of vows, as compared with castes or -slavery; as when a man vowed to be a monk, or the son of a -cobbler saluted the shrine of St. Joseph the patron saint of -carpenters. When he had entered the guild of the carpenters -he did indeed find himself responsible for a very real -loyalty and discipline; but the whole social atmosphere -surrounding his entrance was full of the sense of a separate -and personal decision. There is one place where we can still -find this sentiment; the sentiment of something at once free -and final. We can feel it, if the service is properly -understood, before and after the marriage vows at any -ordinary wedding in any ordinary church. - -Such, in very vague outline, has been the historical nature -of vows; and the unique part they played in that mediaeval -civilisation out of which modern civilisation rose or fell. -We can now consider, a little less cloudily than it is -generally considered nowadays, whether we really think vows -are good things; whether they ought to be broken; and (as -would naturally follow) whether they ought to be made. But -we can never judge it fairly till we face, as I have tried -to suggest, this main fact of history: that the personal -pledge, feudal or civic or monastic, was the way in which -the world did escape from the system of slavery in the past. -For the modern break-down of mere contract leaves it still -doubtful if there be any other way of escaping it in the -future. - -The idea, or at any rate the ideal, of the thing called a -vow is fairly obvious. It is to combine the fixity that goes -with finality with the self-respect that only goes with -freedom. The man is a slave who is his own master, and a -king who is his own ancestor. For all kinds of social -purposes he has the calculable orbit of the man in the caste -or the servile state; but in the story of his own soul he is -still pursuing, at great peril, his own adventure. As seen -by his neighbours, he is as safe as if immured in a -fortress; but as seen by himself he may be for ever +But when this saner view of history is realised, there does remain +something more mystical and difficult to define. Even heathen things are +Christian when they have been preserved by Christianity. Chivalry is +some thing recognisably different even from the *virtus* of Virgil. +Charity is something exceedingly different from the plain pity of Homer. +Even our patriotism is something more subtle than the undivided love of +the city; and the change is felt in the most permanent things, such as +the love of landscape or the love of woman. To define the +differentiation in all these things will always be hopelessly difficult. +But I would here suggest one element in the change which is perhaps too +much neglected which at any rate ought not to be neglected; the nature +of a vow. I might express it by saying that pagan antiquity was the age +of status; that Christian medievalism was the age of vows; and that +sceptical modernity has been the age of contracts; or rather has tried +to be, and has failed. + +The outstanding example of status was slavery. Needless to say slavery +does not mean tyranny; indeed it need only be regarded relatively to +other things to be regarded as charity. The idea of slavery is that +large numbers of men are meant and made to do the heavy work of the +world, and that others, while taking the margin of profits, must +nevertheless support them while they do it. The point is not whether the +work is excessive or moderate, or whether the condition is comfort able +or uncomfortable. The point is that his work is chosen for the man, his +status fixed for the man; and this status is forced on him by law. As +Mr. Balfour said about Socialism, that is slavery and nothing else is +slavery. The slave might well be, and often was, far more comfortable +than the average free labourer; and certainly far more lazy than the +average peasant. He was a slave because he had not reached his position +by choice, or promise, or bargain, but merely by status. + +It is admitted that when Christianity had been for some time at work in +the world, this ancient servile status began in some mysterious manner +to disappear. I suggest here that one of the forms which the new spirit +took was the importance of the vow. Feudalism, for instance, differed +from slavery chiefly because feudalism was a vow. The vassal put his +hands in those of his lord, and vowed to be his man; but there was an +accent on the noun substantive as well as on the possessive pronoun. By +swearing to be his man, he proved he was not his chattel. Nobody exacts +a promise from a pickaxe; or expects a poker to swear everlasting +friendship with the tongs. Nobody takes the word of a spade; and nobody +ever took the word of a slave. It marks at least a special stage of +transition that the form of freedom was essential to the fact of +service, or even of servitude. In this way it is not a coincidence that +the word homage actually means manhood. And if there was vow instead of +status even in the static parts of Feudalism, it is needless to say that +there was a wilder luxuriance of vows in the more adventurous part of +it. The whole of what we call chivalry was one great vow. Vows of +chivalry varied infinitely from the most solid to the most fantastic; +from a vow to give all the spoils of conquest to the poor to a vow to +refrain from shaving until the first glimpse of Jerusalem. As I have +remarked, this rule of loyalty, even in the unruly exceptions which +proved the rule, ran through all the romances and songs of the +troubadours; and there were always vows even when they were very far +from being marriage vows. The idea is as much present in what they +called the Gay Science, of love, as in what they called the Divine +Science, of theology. The modern reader will smile at the mention of +these things as sciences; and will turn to the study of sociology, +ethnology and psycho-analysis; for if these are sciences (about which I +would not divulge a doubt) at least nobody would insult them by calling +them either gay or divine. + +I mean here to emphasise the presence, and not even to settle the +proportion, of this new notion in the middle ages. But the critic will +be quite wrong if he thinks it enough to answer that all these things +affected only a cultured class, not corresponding to the servile class +of antiquity. When we come to workmen and small tradesmen, we find the +same vague yet vivid presence of the spirit that can only be called the +vow. In this sense there was a chivalry of trades as well as a chivalry +of orders of knighthood; just as there was a heraldry of shop-signs as +well as a heraldry of shields. Only it happens that in the enlightenment +and liberation of the sixteenth century, the heraldry of the rich was +preserved, and the heraldry of the poor destroyed. And there is a +sinister symbolism in the fact that almost the only emblem still hung +above a shop is that of the three balls of Lombardy. Of all those +democratic glories nothing can now glitter in the sun; except the sign +of the golden usury that has devoured them all. The point here, how +ever, is that the trade or craft had not only something like the crest, +but something like the vow of knighthood. There was in the position of +the guildsman the same basic notion that belonged to knights and even to +monks. It was the notion of the free choice of a fixed estate. We can +realise the moral atmosphere if we compare the system of the Christian +guilds, not only with the status of the Greek and Roman slaves, but with +such a scheme as that of the Indian castes. The oriental caste has some +of the qualities of the occidental guild; especially the valuable +quality of tradition and the accumulation of culture. Men might be proud +of their castes, as they were proud of their guilds. But they had never +chosen their castes, as they have chosen their guilds. They had never, +within historic memory, even collectively created their castes, as they +collectively created their guilds. Like the slave system, the caste +system was older than history. The heathens of modern Asia, as much as +the heathens of ancient Europe, lived by the very spirit of status. +Status in a trade has been accepted like status in a tribe; and that in +a tribe of beasts and birds rather than men. The fisherman continued to +be a fisherman as the fish continued to be a fish; and the hunter would +no more turn into a cook than his dog would try its luck as a cat. +Certainly his dog would not be found prostrated before the mysterious +altar of Pasht, barking or whining a wild, lonely, and individual vow +that he at all costs would become a cat. Yet that was the vital revolt +and innovation of vows, as compared with castes or slavery; as when a +man vowed to be a monk, or the son of a cobbler saluted the shrine of +St. Joseph the patron saint of carpenters. When he had entered the guild +of the carpenters he did indeed find himself responsible for a very real +loyalty and discipline; but the whole social atmosphere surrounding his +entrance was full of the sense of a separate and personal decision. +There is one place where we can still find this sentiment; the sentiment +of something at once free and final. We can feel it, if the service is +properly understood, before and after the marriage vows at any ordinary +wedding in any ordinary church. + +Such, in very vague outline, has been the historical nature of vows; and +the unique part they played in that mediaeval civilisation out of which +modern civilisation rose or fell. We can now consider, a little less +cloudily than it is generally considered nowadays, whether we really +think vows are good things; whether they ought to be broken; and (as +would naturally follow) whether they ought to be made. But we can never +judge it fairly till we face, as I have tried to suggest, this main fact +of history: that the personal pledge, feudal or civic or monastic, was +the way in which the world did escape from the system of slavery in the +past. For the modern break-down of mere contract leaves it still +doubtful if there be any other way of escaping it in the future. + +The idea, or at any rate the ideal, of the thing called a vow is fairly +obvious. It is to combine the fixity that goes with finality with the +self-respect that only goes with freedom. The man is a slave who is his +own master, and a king who is his own ancestor. For all kinds of social +purposes he has the calculable orbit of the man in the caste or the +servile state; but in the story of his own soul he is still pursuing, at +great peril, his own adventure. As seen by his neighbours, he is as safe +as if immured in a fortress; but as seen by himself he may be for ever careering through the sky or crashing towards the earth in a flying-ship. What is socially humdrum is produced by what is -individually heroic; and a city is made not merely of -citizens but knight-errants. It is needless to point out, -the part played by the monastery in civilising Europe in its -most barbaric interregnum; and even those who still denounce -the monasteries will be found denouncing them for these two -extreme and apparently opposite eccentricities. They are -blamed for the rigid character of their collective routine; -and also for the fantastic character of their individual -fanaticism. For the purposes of this part of the argument, -it would not matter if the marriage vow produced the most -austere discomforts of the monastic vow. The point for the -present is that it was sustained by a sense of free will; -and the feeling that its evils were not accepted but chosen. -The same spirit ran through all the guilds and popular arts -and spontaneous social systems of the whole civilisation. It -had all the discipline of an army; but it was an army of +individually heroic; and a city is made not merely of citizens but +knight-errants. It is needless to point out, the part played by the +monastery in civilising Europe in its most barbaric interregnum; and +even those who still denounce the monasteries will be found denouncing +them for these two extreme and apparently opposite eccentricities. They +are blamed for the rigid character of their collective routine; and also +for the fantastic character of their individual fanaticism. For the +purposes of this part of the argument, it would not matter if the +marriage vow produced the most austere discomforts of the monastic vow. +The point for the present is that it was sustained by a sense of free +will; and the feeling that its evils were not accepted but chosen. The +same spirit ran through all the guilds and popular arts and spontaneous +social systems of the whole civilisation. It had all the discipline of +an army; but it was an army of volunteers. + +The civilisation of vows was broken up when Henry the Eighth broke his +own vow of marriage. Or rather, it was broken up by a new cynicism in +the ruling powers of Europe, of which that was the almost accidental +expression in England. The monasteries, that had been built by vows, +were destroyed. The guilds, that had been regiments of volunteers, were +dispersed. The sacramental nature of marriage was denied; and many of +the greatest intellects of the new movement, like Milton, already +indulged in a very modern idealisation of divorce. The progress of this +sort of emancipation advanced step by step with the progress of that +aristocratic ascendancy which has made the history of modern England; +with all its sympathy with personal liberty, and all its utter lack of +sympathy with popular life. Marriage not only became less of a sacrament +but less of a sanctity. It threatened to become not only a contract, but +a contract that could not be kept. For this one question has retained a +strange symbolic supremacy amid all the similar questions, which seems +to perpetuate the coincidence of the origin. It began with divorce for a +king; and it is now ending in divorces for a whole kingdom. + +The modern era that followed can be called the era of contract; but it +can still more truly be called the era of leonine contract. The nobles +of the new time first robbed the people, and then offered to bargain +with them. It would not be an exaggeration to say that they first robbed +the people, and then offered to cheat them. For their rents were +competitive rents, their economics competitive economics, their ethics +competitive ethics; they applied not only legality but pettifogging. No +more was heard of the customary rents of the mediaeval estates; just as +no more was heard of the standard wages of the mediaeval guilds. The +object of the whole process was to isolate the individual poor man in +his dealings with the individual rich man; and then offer to buy and +sell with him, though it must necessarily be himself that was bought and +sold. In the matter of labour, that is, though a man was supposed to be +in the position of a seller, he was more and more really in the +possession of a slave. Unless the tendency be reversed, he will probably +become admittedly a slave. That is to say, the word slave will never be +used, for it is always easy to find an inoffensive word; but he will be +admittedly a man legally bound to certain social service, in return for +economic security. In other words, the modern experiment of mere +contract has broken down. Trusts as well as Trades Unions express the +fact that it has broken down. Social reform, Socialism, Guild Socialism, +Syndicalism, even organised philanthropy, are so many ways of saying +that it has broken down. The substitute for it may be the old one of +status; but it must be something having some of the stability of status. +So far history has found only one way of combining that sort of +stability with any sort of liberty. In this sense there is a meaning in +the much misused phrase about the army of industry. But the army must be +stiffened either by the discipline of conscripts or by the vows of volunteers. -The civilisation of vows was broken up when Henry the Eighth -broke his own vow of marriage. Or rather, it was broken up -by a new cynicism in the ruling powers of Europe, of which -that was the almost accidental expression in England. The -monasteries, that had been built by vows, were destroyed. -The guilds, that had been regiments of volunteers, were -dispersed. The sacramental nature of marriage was denied; -and many of the greatest intellects of the new movement, -like Milton, already indulged in a very modern idealisation -of divorce. The progress of this sort of emancipation -advanced step by step with the progress of that aristocratic -ascendancy which has made the history of modern England; -with all its sympathy with personal liberty, and all its -utter lack of sympathy with popular life. Marriage not only -became less of a sacrament but less of a sanctity. It -threatened to become not only a contract, but a contract -that could not be kept. For this one question has retained a -strange symbolic supremacy amid all the similar questions, -which seems to perpetuate the coincidence of the origin. It -began with divorce for a king; and it is now ending in -divorces for a whole kingdom. - -The modern era that followed can be called the era of -contract; but it can still more truly be called the era of -leonine contract. The nobles of the new time first robbed -the people, and then offered to bargain with them. It would -not be an exaggeration to say that they first robbed the -people, and then offered to cheat them. For their rents were -competitive rents, their economics competitive economics, -their ethics competitive ethics; they applied not only -legality but pettifogging. No more was heard of the -customary rents of the mediaeval estates; just as no more -was heard of the standard wages of the mediaeval guilds. The -object of the whole process was to isolate the individual -poor man in his dealings with the individual rich man; and -then offer to buy and sell with him, though it must -necessarily be himself that was bought and sold. In the -matter of labour, that is, though a man was supposed to be -in the position of a seller, he was more and more really in -the possession of a slave. Unless the tendency be reversed, -he will probably become admittedly a slave. That is to say, -the word slave will never be used, for it is always easy to -find an inoffensive word; but he will be admittedly a man -legally bound to certain social service, in return for -economic security. In other words, the modern experiment of -mere contract has broken down. Trusts as well as Trades -Unions express the fact that it has broken down. Social -reform, Socialism, Guild Socialism, Syndicalism, even -organised philanthropy, are so many ways of saying that it -has broken down. The substitute for it may be the old one of -status; but it must be something having some of the -stability of status. So far history has found only one way -of combining that sort of stability with any sort of -liberty. In this sense there is a meaning in the much -misused phrase about the army of industry. But the army must -be stiffened either by the discipline of conscripts or by -the vows of volunteers. - -If we may extend the doubtful metaphor of an army of -industry to cover the yet weaker phrase about captains of -industry, there is no doubt about what those captains at -present command. They work for a centralised discipline in -every department. They erect a vast apparatus of supervision -and inspection; they support all the modern restrictions -touching drink and hygiene. They may be called the friends -of temperance or even of happiness; but even their friends -would not call them the friends of freedom. There is only -one form of freedom which they tolerate; and that is the -sort of sexual freedom which is covered by the legal fiction -of divorce. If we ask why this liberty is alone left, when -so many liberties are lost, we shall find the answer in the -summary of this chapter. They are trying to break the vow of -the knight as they broke the vow of the monk. They recognise -the vow as the vital antithesis to servile status; the -alternative and therefore the antagonist. Marriage makes a -small state within the state, which resists all such -regimentation. That bond breaks all other bonds; that law is -found stronger than all later and lesser laws. They desire -the democracy to be sexually fluid, because the making of -small nuclei is like the making of small nations. Like small -nations, they are a nuisance to the mind of imperial scope. -In short, what they fear, in the most literal sense, is home -rule. - -Men can always be blind to a thing so long as it is big -enough. It is so difficult to see the world in which we -live, that I know that many will see all I have said here of -slavery as a nonsensical nightmare. But if my association of -divorce with slavery seems only a far fetched and -theoretical paradox, I should have no difficulty in -replacing it by a concrete and familiar picture. Let them -merely remember the time when they read "Uncle Tom's Cabin," -and ask themselves whether the oldest and simplest of the -charges against slavery has not always been the breaking up -of families. +If we may extend the doubtful metaphor of an army of industry to cover +the yet weaker phrase about captains of industry, there is no doubt +about what those captains at present command. They work for a +centralised discipline in every department. They erect a vast apparatus +of supervision and inspection; they support all the modern restrictions +touching drink and hygiene. They may be called the friends of temperance +or even of happiness; but even their friends would not call them the +friends of freedom. There is only one form of freedom which they +tolerate; and that is the sort of sexual freedom which is covered by the +legal fiction of divorce. If we ask why this liberty is alone left, when +so many liberties are lost, we shall find the answer in the summary of +this chapter. They are trying to break the vow of the knight as they +broke the vow of the monk. They recognise the vow as the vital +antithesis to servile status; the alternative and therefore the +antagonist. Marriage makes a small state within the state, which resists +all such regimentation. That bond breaks all other bonds; that law is +found stronger than all later and lesser laws. They desire the democracy +to be sexually fluid, because the making of small nuclei is like the +making of small nations. Like small nations, they are a nuisance to the +mind of imperial scope. In short, what they fear, in the most literal +sense, is home rule. + +Men can always be blind to a thing so long as it is big enough. It is so +difficult to see the world in which we live, that I know that many will +see all I have said here of slavery as a nonsensical nightmare. But if +my association of divorce with slavery seems only a far fetched and +theoretical paradox, I should have no difficulty in replacing it by a +concrete and familiar picture. Let them merely remember the time when +they read "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and ask themselves whether the oldest and +simplest of the charges against slavery has not always been the breaking +up of families. # The Tragedies of Marriage -There is one view very common among the liberal-minded which -is exceedingly fatiguing to the clear-headed. It is -symbolised in the sort of man who says "These ruthless -bigots will refuse to bury me in consecrated ground, because -I have always refused to be baptised." A clear-headed person -can easily conceive his point of view, in so far as he -happens to think that baptism does not matter. But the clear -headed will be completely puzzled when they ask themselves -why, if he thinks that baptism does not matter, he should -think that burial does matter. If it is in no way imprudent -for a man to keep himself from a consecrated font, how can -it be inhuman for other people to keep him from a -consecrated field? It is surely much nearer to mere -superstition to attach importance to what is done to a dead -body than to a live baby. I can understand a man think ing -both superstitious, or both sacred; but I cannot see why he -should grumble that other people do not give him as -sanctities what he regards as superstitions. He is merely -com plaining of being treated as what he declares himself to -be. It is as if a man were to say "My persecutors still -refuse to make me king, out of mere malice because I am a -strict re publican." Or it is as if he said "These heartless -brutes are so prejudiced against a teetotaler, that they won -t even give him a glass of brandy." - -The fashion of divorce would not be a modern fashion if it -were not full of this touching fallacy. A great deal of it -might be summed up as a most illogical and fanatical -appetite for getting married in churches. It is as if a man -should practice polygamy out of sheer greed for wedding -cake. Or it is as if he provided his household with new -shoes, entirely by having them thrown after the wedding -carriage when he went off with a new wife. There are other -ways of procuring cake or purchasing shoes; and there are -other ways of setting up a human establishment. What is -unreasonable is the request which the modern man really -makes of the religious institutions of his fathers. The -modern man wants to buy one shoe without the other; to -obtain one half of a supernatural revelation without the -other. The modern man wants to eat his wedding cake and have -it too. - -I am not basing this book on the religious argument, and -therefore I will not pause to inquire why the old Catholic -institutions of Christianity seem to be especially made the -objects of these unreasonable complaints. As a matter of -fact nobody does propose that some ferocious Anti-Semite -like M. Drumont should be buried as a Jew with all the rites -of the Synagogue. But the broad-minded were furious because -Tolstoy, who had denounced Russian orthodoxy quite as -ferociously, was not buried as orthodox, with all the rites -of the Russian Church. Nobody does insist that a man who -wishes to have fifty wives when Mahomet allowed him five, -must have his fifty with the full approval of Mahomet's -religion. But the broad-minded are extremely bitter because -a Christian who wishes to have several wives when his own -promise bound him to one, is not allowed to violate his vow -at the same altar at which he made it. Nobody does insist on -Baptists totally immersing people who totally deny the -advantages of being totally immersed. Nobody ever did expect -Mormons to receive the open mockers of the Book of Mormon, -nor Christian Scientists to let their churches be used for -exposing Mrs, Eddy as an old fraud. It is only of the forms -of Christianity making the Catholic claim that such -inconsistent claims are made. And even the inconsistency is, -I fancy, a tribute to the acceptance of the Catholic idea in -a catholic fashion. It may be that men have an obscure sense -that nobody need belong to the Mormon religion and every one -does ultimately belong to the Church ; and though he may -have made a few dozen Mormon marriages in a wandering and -entertaining life, he will really have no where to go to if -he does not somehow find his way back to the churchyard. But -all this concerns the general theological question and not -the matter involved here, which is merely historical and -social. The point here is that it is at least superficially -inconsistent to ask institutions for a formal approval, +There is one view very common among the liberal-minded which is +exceedingly fatiguing to the clear-headed. It is symbolised in the sort +of man who says "These ruthless bigots will refuse to bury me in +consecrated ground, because I have always refused to be baptised." A +clear-headed person can easily conceive his point of view, in so far as +he happens to think that baptism does not matter. But the clear headed +will be completely puzzled when they ask themselves why, if he thinks +that baptism does not matter, he should think that burial does matter. +If it is in no way imprudent for a man to keep himself from a +consecrated font, how can it be inhuman for other people to keep him +from a consecrated field? It is surely much nearer to mere superstition +to attach importance to what is done to a dead body than to a live baby. +I can understand a man think ing both superstitious, or both sacred; but +I cannot see why he should grumble that other people do not give him as +sanctities what he regards as superstitions. He is merely com plaining +of being treated as what he declares himself to be. It is as if a man +were to say "My persecutors still refuse to make me king, out of mere +malice because I am a strict re publican." Or it is as if he said "These +heartless brutes are so prejudiced against a teetotaler, that they won t +even give him a glass of brandy." + +The fashion of divorce would not be a modern fashion if it were not full +of this touching fallacy. A great deal of it might be summed up as a +most illogical and fanatical appetite for getting married in churches. +It is as if a man should practice polygamy out of sheer greed for +wedding cake. Or it is as if he provided his household with new shoes, +entirely by having them thrown after the wedding carriage when he went +off with a new wife. There are other ways of procuring cake or +purchasing shoes; and there are other ways of setting up a human +establishment. What is unreasonable is the request which the modern man +really makes of the religious institutions of his fathers. The modern +man wants to buy one shoe without the other; to obtain one half of a +supernatural revelation without the other. The modern man wants to eat +his wedding cake and have it too. + +I am not basing this book on the religious argument, and therefore I +will not pause to inquire why the old Catholic institutions of +Christianity seem to be especially made the objects of these +unreasonable complaints. As a matter of fact nobody does propose that +some ferocious Anti-Semite like M. Drumont should be buried as a Jew +with all the rites of the Synagogue. But the broad-minded were furious +because Tolstoy, who had denounced Russian orthodoxy quite as +ferociously, was not buried as orthodox, with all the rites of the +Russian Church. Nobody does insist that a man who wishes to have fifty +wives when Mahomet allowed him five, must have his fifty with the full +approval of Mahomet's religion. But the broad-minded are extremely +bitter because a Christian who wishes to have several wives when his own +promise bound him to one, is not allowed to violate his vow at the same +altar at which he made it. Nobody does insist on Baptists totally +immersing people who totally deny the advantages of being totally +immersed. Nobody ever did expect Mormons to receive the open mockers of +the Book of Mormon, nor Christian Scientists to let their churches be +used for exposing Mrs, Eddy as an old fraud. It is only of the forms of +Christianity making the Catholic claim that such inconsistent claims are +made. And even the inconsistency is, I fancy, a tribute to the +acceptance of the Catholic idea in a catholic fashion. It may be that +men have an obscure sense that nobody need belong to the Mormon religion +and every one does ultimately belong to the Church ; and though he may +have made a few dozen Mormon marriages in a wandering and entertaining +life, he will really have no where to go to if he does not somehow find +his way back to the churchyard. But all this concerns the general +theological question and not the matter involved here, which is merely +historical and social. The point here is that it is at least +superficially inconsistent to ask institutions for a formal approval, which they can only give by an inconsistency. -I have put first the question of what is marriage. And we -are now in a position to ask more clearly what is divorce. -It is not merely the negation or neglect of marriage; for -any one can always neglect marriage. It is not the -dissolution of the legal obligation of marriage, or even the -legal obligation of mono gamy; for the simple reason that no -such obligation exists. Any man in modern London may have a -hundred wives if he does not call them wives; or rather, if -he does not go through certain more or less mystical -ceremonies in order to assert that they are wives. He might -create a certain social coolness round his house hold, a -certain fading of his general popularity. But that is not -created by law, and could not be prevented by law. As the -late Lord Salis bury very sensibly observed about boycotting -in Ireland, "How can you make a law to prevent people going -out of the room when somebody they don't like comes into -it?" We cannot be forcibly introduced to a polygamist by a -policeman. It would not be an assertion of social liberty, -but a denial of social liberty, if we found ourselves -practically obliged to associate with all the profligates in -society. But divorce is not in this sense mere anarchy. On -the contrary divorce is in this sense respect ability; and -even a rigid excess of respectability. Divorce in this sense -might indeed be not un fairly called snobbery. The -definition of divorce, which concerns us here, is that it is -the attempt to give respectability, and not liberty. It is -the attempt to give a certain social status, and not a legal -status. It is indeed supposed that this can be done by the -alteration of certain legal forms; and this will be more or -less true according to the extent to which law as such -overawed public opinion, or was valued as a true expression -of public opinion. If a man divorced in the large-minded -fashion of Henry the Eighth pleaded his legal title among -the peasantry of Ireland, for in stance, I think he would -find a difference still existing between respectability and -religion. But the peculiar point here is that many are -claiming the sanction of religion as well as of -respectability. They would attach to their very natural and -sometimes very pardonable experiments a certain atmosphere, -and even glamour, which has undoubtedly belonged to the -status of marriage in historic Christendom. But before they -make this attempt, it would be well to ask why such a -dignity ever appeared or in what it consisted. And I fancy -we shall find ourselves confronted with the very simple -truth, that the dignity arose wholly and entirely out of the -fidelity; and that the glamour merely came from the vow. -People were regarded as having a certain dignity because -they were dedicated in a certain way; as bound to certain -duties and, if it be preferred, to certain dis comforts. It -may be irrational to endure these discomforts; it may even -be irrational to respect them. But it is certainly much more -irrational to respect them, and then artificially transfer -the same respect to the absence of them. It is as if we were -to expect uniforms to be saluted when armies were disbanded; -and ask people to cheer a soldier's coat when it did not -contain a soldier. If you think you can abolish war, abolish -it; but do not suppose that when there are no wars to be -waged, there will still be warriors to be worshipped. If it -was a good thing that the monasteries were dissolved, let us -say so and dismiss them. But the nobles who dissolved the -monasteries did not shave their heads, and ask to be -regarded as saints solely on account of that ceremony. The -nobles did not dress up as abbots and ask to be credited -with a potential talent for working miracles, because of the -austerity of their vows of poverty and chastity. They got -inside the houses, but not the hoods, and still less the -haloes. They at least knew that it is not the habit that -makes the monk. They were not so superstitious as those -moderns, who think it is the veil that makes the bride. - -What is respected, in short, is fidelity to the ancient flag -of the family, and a readiness to fight for what I have -noted as its unique type of freedom. I say readiness to -fight for fortunately the fight itself is the exception -rather than the rule. The soldier is not respected because -he is doomed to death, but because he is ready for death; -and even ready for defeat. The married man or woman is not -doomed to evil, sickness or poverty; but is respected for -taking a certain step for better for worse, for richer for -poorer, in sickness or in health. But there is one result of -this line of argument which should correct a danger in some -arguments on the same side. - -It is very essential that a stricture on divorce, which is -in fact simply a defence of marriage, should be independent -of sentimentalism, especially in the form called optimism. A -man justifying a fight for national independence or civic -freedom is neither senti mental nor optimistic. He explains -the sacrifice, but he does not explain it away. He does not -say that bayonet wounds are pin-pricks, or mere scratches of -the thorns on the rose of pleasure. He does not say that the -whole display of firearms is a festive display of fire -works. On the contrary, when he praises it most, he praises -it as pain rather than pleasure. He increases the praise -with the pain; it is his whole boast that militarism, and -even modern science, can produce no instrument of torture to -tame the soul of man. It is idle, in speaking of war, to pit -the realistic against the romantic, in the sense of the -heroic; for all possible realism can only increase the -heroism; and therefore, in the highest sense, increase the -romance. Now I do not compare marriage with war, but I do -compare marriage with law or liberty or patriotism or -popular government, or any of the human ideals which have -often to be defended by war. Even the wildest of those -ideals, which seem to escape from all the discipline of -peace, do not escape from the discipline of war. The -Bolshevists may have aimed at pure peace and liberty; but -they have been compelled, for their own purpose, first to -raise armies and then to rule armies. In a word, however -beautiful you may think your own visions of beatitude, men -must suffer to be beautiful, and even suffer a considerable -interval of being ugly. And I have no notion of denying that -mankind suffers much from the maintenance of the standard of -marriage; as it suffers much from the necessity of criminal -law or the recurrence of crusades and revolutions. The only -question here is whether marriage is indeed, as I maintain, -an ideal and an institution making for popular freedom; I do -not need to be told that anything making for popular freedom -has to be paid for in vigilance and pain, and a whole army -of martyrs. - -Hence I am far indeed from denying the hard cases which -exist here, as in all matters involving the idea of honour. -For indeed I could not deny them without denying the whole -parallel of militant morality on which my argument rests. -But this being first under stood, it will be well to discuss -in a little more detail what are described as the tragedies -of marriage. And the first thing to note about the most -tragic of them is that they are not tragedies of marriage at -all. They are tragedies of sex; and might easily occur in a -highly modern romance in which marriage was not mentioned at -all. It is generally summarised by saying that the tragic -element is the absence of love. But it is often forgotten -that another tragic element is often the presence of love. -The doctors of divorce, with an air of the frank and -friendly realism of men of the world, are always -recommending and rejoicing in a sensible separation by -mutual consent. But if we are really to dismiss our dreams -of dignity and honour, if we are really to fall back on the -frank realism of our experience as men of the world, then -the very first thing that our experience will tell us is -that it very seldom is a separation by mutual consent; that -is, that the consent very seldom is sincerely and -spontaneously mutual. By far the commonest problem in such -cases is that in which one party wishes to end the -partnership and the other does not. And of that emotional -situation you can make nothing but a tragedy, whichever way -you turn it. With or without marriage, with or without -divorce, with or without any arrangements that anybody can -suggest or imagine, it remains a tragedy. The only -difference is that by the doctrine of marriage it remains -both a noble and a fruitful tragedy; like that of a man who -falls fighting for his country, or dies testifying to the -truth. But the truth is that the innovators have as much -sham optimism about divorce as any romanticist can have had -about marriage. They regard their story, when it ends in the -divorce court, through as rosy a mist of sentimentalism as -anybody ever regarded a story ending with wedding bells. -Such a reformer is quite sure that when once the prince and -princess are divorced by the fairy godmother, they will live -happily ever after. I enjoy romance, but I like it to be -rooted in reality; and any one with a touch of reality knows -that nine couples out of ten, when they are divorced, are -left in an exceedingly different state. It will be safe to -say in most cases that one partner will fail to find -happiness in an infatuation, and the other will from the -first accept a tragedy. In the realm of reality and not of -romance, it is commonly a case of breaking hearts as well as -breaking promises; and even dishonour is not always a remedy -for remorse. The next limitation to be laid down in the -matter affects certain practical forms of dis comfort, on a -level rather lower than love or hatred. The cases most -commonly quoted concern what is called "drink" and what is -called "cruelty." They are always talked about as matters of -fact; though in practice they are very decidedly matters of -opinion. It is not a flippancy, but a fact, that the -misfortune of the woman who has married a drunkard may have -to be balanced against the misfortune of the man who has -married a teetotaler. For the very definition of drunken -ness may depend on the dogma of teetotalism. Drunkenness, it -has been very truly observed,[^2] "may mean anything from -*delirium tremens* to having a stronger head than the -official appointed to conduct the examination." Mr.  Bernard -Shaw once professed, apparently seriously, that any man -drinking wine or beer at all was incapacitated from managing -a motor-car; and still more, therefore, one would suppose, -from managing a wife. The scales are weighted here, of -course, with all those false weights of snobbishness which -are the curse of justice in this country. The working class -is forced to conduct almost in public a normal and varying -festive habit, which the upper class can afford to conduct -in private; and a certain section of the middle class, that -which happens to concern itself most with local politics and -social reforms, really has or affects a standard quite -abnormal and even alien. They might go any lengths of -injustice in dealing with the working man or working woman -accused of too hearty a taste in beer. To mention but one -matter out of a thousand, the middle class reformers are -obviously quite ignorant of the hours at which working -people begin to work. Because they themselves, at eleven o -clock in the morning, have only recently finished breakfast -and the full moral digestion of the *Daily Mail*, they think -a char woman drinking beer at that hour is one of those -rising early in the morning to follow after strong drink. -Most of them really do not know that she has already done -more than half a heavy day's work, and is partaking of a -very reasonable luncheon. The whole problem of proletarian -drink is entangled in a network of these misunderstandings; -and there is no doubt whatever that, when judged by these -generalisations, the poor will be taken in a net of -injustices. And this truth is as certain in the case of what -is called cruelty as of what is called drink. Nine times out -of ten the judgment on a navvy for hitting a woman is about -as just as a judgment on him for not taking off his hat to a -lady. It is a class test; it may be a class superiority; but -it is not an act of equal justice between the classes. It -leaves out a thousand things; the provocation, the -atmosphere, the harassing restrictions of space, the nagging -which Dickens described as the terrors of "temper in a -cart," the absence of certain taboos of social training, the -tradition of greater roughness even in the gestures of -affection. To make all marriage or divorce, in the case of -such a man, turn upon a blow is like blasting the whole life -of a gentleman because he has slammed the door. Often a poor -man cannot slam the door; partly because the model villa -might fall down; but more because he has nowhere to go to; -the smoking-room, the billiard-room and the pea cock +I have put first the question of what is marriage. And we are now in a +position to ask more clearly what is divorce. It is not merely the +negation or neglect of marriage; for any one can always neglect +marriage. It is not the dissolution of the legal obligation of marriage, +or even the legal obligation of mono gamy; for the simple reason that no +such obligation exists. Any man in modern London may have a hundred +wives if he does not call them wives; or rather, if he does not go +through certain more or less mystical ceremonies in order to assert that +they are wives. He might create a certain social coolness round his +house hold, a certain fading of his general popularity. But that is not +created by law, and could not be prevented by law. As the late Lord +Salis bury very sensibly observed about boycotting in Ireland, "How can +you make a law to prevent people going out of the room when somebody +they don't like comes into it?" We cannot be forcibly introduced to a +polygamist by a policeman. It would not be an assertion of social +liberty, but a denial of social liberty, if we found ourselves +practically obliged to associate with all the profligates in society. +But divorce is not in this sense mere anarchy. On the contrary divorce +is in this sense respect ability; and even a rigid excess of +respectability. Divorce in this sense might indeed be not un fairly +called snobbery. The definition of divorce, which concerns us here, is +that it is the attempt to give respectability, and not liberty. It is +the attempt to give a certain social status, and not a legal status. It +is indeed supposed that this can be done by the alteration of certain +legal forms; and this will be more or less true according to the extent +to which law as such overawed public opinion, or was valued as a true +expression of public opinion. If a man divorced in the large-minded +fashion of Henry the Eighth pleaded his legal title among the peasantry +of Ireland, for in stance, I think he would find a difference still +existing between respectability and religion. But the peculiar point +here is that many are claiming the sanction of religion as well as of +respectability. They would attach to their very natural and sometimes +very pardonable experiments a certain atmosphere, and even glamour, +which has undoubtedly belonged to the status of marriage in historic +Christendom. But before they make this attempt, it would be well to ask +why such a dignity ever appeared or in what it consisted. And I fancy we +shall find ourselves confronted with the very simple truth, that the +dignity arose wholly and entirely out of the fidelity; and that the +glamour merely came from the vow. People were regarded as having a +certain dignity because they were dedicated in a certain way; as bound +to certain duties and, if it be preferred, to certain dis comforts. It +may be irrational to endure these discomforts; it may even be irrational +to respect them. But it is certainly much more irrational to respect +them, and then artificially transfer the same respect to the absence of +them. It is as if we were to expect uniforms to be saluted when armies +were disbanded; and ask people to cheer a soldier's coat when it did not +contain a soldier. If you think you can abolish war, abolish it; but do +not suppose that when there are no wars to be waged, there will still be +warriors to be worshipped. If it was a good thing that the monasteries +were dissolved, let us say so and dismiss them. But the nobles who +dissolved the monasteries did not shave their heads, and ask to be +regarded as saints solely on account of that ceremony. The nobles did +not dress up as abbots and ask to be credited with a potential talent +for working miracles, because of the austerity of their vows of poverty +and chastity. They got inside the houses, but not the hoods, and still +less the haloes. They at least knew that it is not the habit that makes +the monk. They were not so superstitious as those moderns, who think it +is the veil that makes the bride. + +What is respected, in short, is fidelity to the ancient flag of the +family, and a readiness to fight for what I have noted as its unique +type of freedom. I say readiness to fight for fortunately the fight +itself is the exception rather than the rule. The soldier is not +respected because he is doomed to death, but because he is ready for +death; and even ready for defeat. The married man or woman is not doomed +to evil, sickness or poverty; but is respected for taking a certain step +for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness or in health. +But there is one result of this line of argument which should correct a +danger in some arguments on the same side. + +It is very essential that a stricture on divorce, which is in fact +simply a defence of marriage, should be independent of sentimentalism, +especially in the form called optimism. A man justifying a fight for +national independence or civic freedom is neither senti mental nor +optimistic. He explains the sacrifice, but he does not explain it away. +He does not say that bayonet wounds are pin-pricks, or mere scratches of +the thorns on the rose of pleasure. He does not say that the whole +display of firearms is a festive display of fire works. On the contrary, +when he praises it most, he praises it as pain rather than pleasure. He +increases the praise with the pain; it is his whole boast that +militarism, and even modern science, can produce no instrument of +torture to tame the soul of man. It is idle, in speaking of war, to pit +the realistic against the romantic, in the sense of the heroic; for all +possible realism can only increase the heroism; and therefore, in the +highest sense, increase the romance. Now I do not compare marriage with +war, but I do compare marriage with law or liberty or patriotism or +popular government, or any of the human ideals which have often to be +defended by war. Even the wildest of those ideals, which seem to escape +from all the discipline of peace, do not escape from the discipline of +war. The Bolshevists may have aimed at pure peace and liberty; but they +have been compelled, for their own purpose, first to raise armies and +then to rule armies. In a word, however beautiful you may think your own +visions of beatitude, men must suffer to be beautiful, and even suffer a +considerable interval of being ugly. And I have no notion of denying +that mankind suffers much from the maintenance of the standard of +marriage; as it suffers much from the necessity of criminal law or the +recurrence of crusades and revolutions. The only question here is +whether marriage is indeed, as I maintain, an ideal and an institution +making for popular freedom; I do not need to be told that anything +making for popular freedom has to be paid for in vigilance and pain, and +a whole army of martyrs. + +Hence I am far indeed from denying the hard cases which exist here, as +in all matters involving the idea of honour. For indeed I could not deny +them without denying the whole parallel of militant morality on which my +argument rests. But this being first under stood, it will be well to +discuss in a little more detail what are described as the tragedies of +marriage. And the first thing to note about the most tragic of them is +that they are not tragedies of marriage at all. They are tragedies of +sex; and might easily occur in a highly modern romance in which marriage +was not mentioned at all. It is generally summarised by saying that the +tragic element is the absence of love. But it is often forgotten that +another tragic element is often the presence of love. The doctors of +divorce, with an air of the frank and friendly realism of men of the +world, are always recommending and rejoicing in a sensible separation by +mutual consent. But if we are really to dismiss our dreams of dignity +and honour, if we are really to fall back on the frank realism of our +experience as men of the world, then the very first thing that our +experience will tell us is that it very seldom is a separation by mutual +consent; that is, that the consent very seldom is sincerely and +spontaneously mutual. By far the commonest problem in such cases is that +in which one party wishes to end the partnership and the other does not. +And of that emotional situation you can make nothing but a tragedy, +whichever way you turn it. With or without marriage, with or without +divorce, with or without any arrangements that anybody can suggest or +imagine, it remains a tragedy. The only difference is that by the +doctrine of marriage it remains both a noble and a fruitful tragedy; +like that of a man who falls fighting for his country, or dies +testifying to the truth. But the truth is that the innovators have as +much sham optimism about divorce as any romanticist can have had about +marriage. They regard their story, when it ends in the divorce court, +through as rosy a mist of sentimentalism as anybody ever regarded a +story ending with wedding bells. Such a reformer is quite sure that when +once the prince and princess are divorced by the fairy godmother, they +will live happily ever after. I enjoy romance, but I like it to be +rooted in reality; and any one with a touch of reality knows that nine +couples out of ten, when they are divorced, are left in an exceedingly +different state. It will be safe to say in most cases that one partner +will fail to find happiness in an infatuation, and the other will from +the first accept a tragedy. In the realm of reality and not of romance, +it is commonly a case of breaking hearts as well as breaking promises; +and even dishonour is not always a remedy for remorse. The next +limitation to be laid down in the matter affects certain practical forms +of dis comfort, on a level rather lower than love or hatred. The cases +most commonly quoted concern what is called "drink" and what is called +"cruelty." They are always talked about as matters of fact; though in +practice they are very decidedly matters of opinion. It is not a +flippancy, but a fact, that the misfortune of the woman who has married +a drunkard may have to be balanced against the misfortune of the man who +has married a teetotaler. For the very definition of drunken ness may +depend on the dogma of teetotalism. Drunkenness, it has been very truly +observed,[^2] "may mean anything from *delirium tremens* to having a +stronger head than the official appointed to conduct the examination." +Mr.  Bernard Shaw once professed, apparently seriously, that any man +drinking wine or beer at all was incapacitated from managing a +motor-car; and still more, therefore, one would suppose, from managing a +wife. The scales are weighted here, of course, with all those false +weights of snobbishness which are the curse of justice in this country. +The working class is forced to conduct almost in public a normal and +varying festive habit, which the upper class can afford to conduct in +private; and a certain section of the middle class, that which happens +to concern itself most with local politics and social reforms, really +has or affects a standard quite abnormal and even alien. They might go +any lengths of injustice in dealing with the working man or working +woman accused of too hearty a taste in beer. To mention but one matter +out of a thousand, the middle class reformers are obviously quite +ignorant of the hours at which working people begin to work. Because +they themselves, at eleven o clock in the morning, have only recently +finished breakfast and the full moral digestion of the *Daily Mail*, +they think a char woman drinking beer at that hour is one of those +rising early in the morning to follow after strong drink. Most of them +really do not know that she has already done more than half a heavy +day's work, and is partaking of a very reasonable luncheon. The whole +problem of proletarian drink is entangled in a network of these +misunderstandings; and there is no doubt whatever that, when judged by +these generalisations, the poor will be taken in a net of injustices. +And this truth is as certain in the case of what is called cruelty as of +what is called drink. Nine times out of ten the judgment on a navvy for +hitting a woman is about as just as a judgment on him for not taking off +his hat to a lady. It is a class test; it may be a class superiority; +but it is not an act of equal justice between the classes. It leaves out +a thousand things; the provocation, the atmosphere, the harassing +restrictions of space, the nagging which Dickens described as the +terrors of "temper in a cart," the absence of certain taboos of social +training, the tradition of greater roughness even in the gestures of +affection. To make all marriage or divorce, in the case of such a man, +turn upon a blow is like blasting the whole life of a gentleman because +he has slammed the door. Often a poor man cannot slam the door; partly +because the model villa might fall down; but more because he has nowhere +to go to; the smoking-room, the billiard-room and the pea cock music-room not being yet attached to his premises. -I say this in passing, to point out that while I do not -dream of suggesting that there are only happy marriages, -there will quite certainly, as things work nowadays, be a -very large number of unhappy and unjust divorces. They will -be cases in which the innocent partner will receive the real -punishment of the guilty partner, through being in fact and -feeling the faithful partner. For instance, it is insisted -that a married person must at least find release from the -society of a lunatic; but it is also true that the -scientific reformers, with their fuss about "the -feeble-minded," are continually giving larger and looser -definitions of lunacy. The process might begin by releasing -some body from a homicidal maniac, and end by dealing in the -same way with a rather dull conversationalist. But in fact -nobody does deny that a person should be allowed some sort -of release from a homicidal maniac. The most extreme school -of orthodoxy only maintains that anybody who has had that -experience should be content with that release. In other -words, it says he should be content with that experience of -matrimony, and not seek another. It was put very wittily, I -think, by a Roman Catholic friend of mine, who said he -approved of release so long as it was not spelt with a -hyphen. - -To put it roughly, we are prepared in some cases to listen -to the man who complains of having a wife. But we are not -prepared to listen, at such length, to the same man when he -comes back and complains that he has not got a wife. Now in -practice at this moment the great mass of the complaints are -precisely of this kind. The reformers insist particularly on -the pathos of a man's position when he has obtained a -separation without a divorce. Their most tragic figure is -that of the man who is already free of all those ills he -had, and is only asking to be allowed to fly to others that -he knows not of. I should be the last to deny that, in -certain emotional circumstances, his tragedy may be very -tragic indeed. But his tragedy is of the emotional kind -which can never be entirely eliminated; and which he has -himself, in all probability, inflicted on the partner he has -left. We may call it the price of maintaining an ideal or -the price of making a mistake; but anyhow it is the point of -our whole distinction in the matter; it is here that we draw -the line, and I have nowhere denied that it is a line of -battle. The battle joins on the debatable ground, not of the -man's doubtful past but of his still more doubtful future. -In a word, the divorce controversy is not really a -controversy about divorce. It is a controversy about -re-marriage; or rather about whether it is marriage at all. - -And with that we can only return to the point of honour -which I have compared here to a point of patriotism; since -it is both the smallest and the greatest kind of patriotism. -Men have died in torments during the last five years for -points of patriotism far more dubious and fugitive. Men like -the Poles or the Serbians, through long periods of their -history, may be said rather to have lived in torments. I -will never admit that the vital need of the freedom of the -family, as I have tried to sketch it here, is riot a cause -as valuable as the freedom of any frontier. But I do -willingly admit that the cause would be a dark and terrible -one, if it really asked these men to suffer torments. As I -have stated it, on its most extreme terms, it only asks them -to suffer abnegations. And those negative sufferings I do -think they may honourably be called upon to bear, for the -glory of their own oath and the great things by which the -nations live. In relation to their own nation most normal -men will feel that this distinction between please and -"re-lease" is neither fanciful nor harsh, but very rational -and human. A patriot may be an exile in another country; but -he will not be a patriot of another country. He will be as -cheer ful as he can in an abnormal position; he may or may -not sing his country's songs in a strange land; but he will -not sing the strange songs as his own. And such may fairly -be also the attitude of the citizen who has gone into exile -from the oldest of earthly cities. +I say this in passing, to point out that while I do not dream of +suggesting that there are only happy marriages, there will quite +certainly, as things work nowadays, be a very large number of unhappy +and unjust divorces. They will be cases in which the innocent partner +will receive the real punishment of the guilty partner, through being in +fact and feeling the faithful partner. For instance, it is insisted that +a married person must at least find release from the society of a +lunatic; but it is also true that the scientific reformers, with their +fuss about "the feeble-minded," are continually giving larger and looser +definitions of lunacy. The process might begin by releasing some body +from a homicidal maniac, and end by dealing in the same way with a +rather dull conversationalist. But in fact nobody does deny that a +person should be allowed some sort of release from a homicidal maniac. +The most extreme school of orthodoxy only maintains that anybody who has +had that experience should be content with that release. In other words, +it says he should be content with that experience of matrimony, and not +seek another. It was put very wittily, I think, by a Roman Catholic +friend of mine, who said he approved of release so long as it was not +spelt with a hyphen. + +To put it roughly, we are prepared in some cases to listen to the man +who complains of having a wife. But we are not prepared to listen, at +such length, to the same man when he comes back and complains that he +has not got a wife. Now in practice at this moment the great mass of the +complaints are precisely of this kind. The reformers insist particularly +on the pathos of a man's position when he has obtained a separation +without a divorce. Their most tragic figure is that of the man who is +already free of all those ills he had, and is only asking to be allowed +to fly to others that he knows not of. I should be the last to deny +that, in certain emotional circumstances, his tragedy may be very tragic +indeed. But his tragedy is of the emotional kind which can never be +entirely eliminated; and which he has himself, in all probability, +inflicted on the partner he has left. We may call it the price of +maintaining an ideal or the price of making a mistake; but anyhow it is +the point of our whole distinction in the matter; it is here that we +draw the line, and I have nowhere denied that it is a line of battle. +The battle joins on the debatable ground, not of the man's doubtful past +but of his still more doubtful future. In a word, the divorce +controversy is not really a controversy about divorce. It is a +controversy about re-marriage; or rather about whether it is marriage at +all. + +And with that we can only return to the point of honour which I have +compared here to a point of patriotism; since it is both the smallest +and the greatest kind of patriotism. Men have died in torments during +the last five years for points of patriotism far more dubious and +fugitive. Men like the Poles or the Serbians, through long periods of +their history, may be said rather to have lived in torments. I will +never admit that the vital need of the freedom of the family, as I have +tried to sketch it here, is riot a cause as valuable as the freedom of +any frontier. But I do willingly admit that the cause would be a dark +and terrible one, if it really asked these men to suffer torments. As I +have stated it, on its most extreme terms, it only asks them to suffer +abnegations. And those negative sufferings I do think they may +honourably be called upon to bear, for the glory of their own oath and +the great things by which the nations live. In relation to their own +nation most normal men will feel that this distinction between please +and "re-lease" is neither fanciful nor harsh, but very rational and +human. A patriot may be an exile in another country; but he will not be +a patriot of another country. He will be as cheer ful as he can in an +abnormal position; he may or may not sing his country's songs in a +strange land; but he will not sing the strange songs as his own. And +such may fairly be also the attitude of the citizen who has gone into +exile from the oldest of earthly cities. # The Vista of Divorce -The case for divorce combines all the advantages of having -it both ways; and of drawing the same deduction from right -or left, and from black or white. Whichever way the pro -gramme works in practice, it can still be justified in -theory. If there are few examples of divorce, it shows how -little divorce need be dreaded; if there are many, it shows -how much it is required. The rarity of divorce is an -argument in favour of divorce; and the multiplicity of -divorce is an argument against marriage. Now, in truth, if -we were confined to considering this alternative in a -speculative manner, if there were no concrete facts but only -abstract probabilities, we should have no difficulty in -arguing our case. The abstract liberty allowed by the -reformers is as near as possible to anarchy, and gives no -logical or legal guarantee worth discussing. The advantages -of their reform do not accrue to the innocent party, but to -the guilty party; especially if he be sufficiently guilty. A -man has only to commit the crime of desertion to obtain the -reward of divorce. And if they are entitled to take as -typical the most horrible hypothetical cases of the abuse of -the marriage laws, surely we are entitled to take equally -extreme possibilities in the abuse of their own divorce -laws. If they, when looking about for a husband, so often -hit upon a homicidal maniac, surely we may politely -introduce them to the far more human figure of the gentleman -who marries as many women as he likes and gets rid of them -as often as he pleases. But in fact there is no necessity -for us to argue thus in the abstract; for the amiable gentle -man in question undoubtedly exists in the concrete. Of -course, he is no new figure; he is a very recurrent type of -rascal; his name has been Lothario or Don Juan; and he has -often been represented as a rather romantic rascal. The -point of divorce reform, it cannot be too often repeated, is -that the rascal should not only be regarded as romantic, but -regarded as respectable. He is not to sow his wild oats and -settle down; he is merely to settle down to sowing his wild -oats. They are to be regarded as tame and inoffensive oats; -almost, if one may say so, as Quaker oats. But there is no -need, as I say, to speculate about whether the looser view -of divorce might prevail; for it is already prevailing. The -newspapers are full of an astonishing hilarity about the -rapidity with which hundreds or thousands of human families -are being broken up by the lawyers; and about the -undisguised haste of the "hustling judges" who carry on the -work. It is a form of hilarity which would seem to recall -the gaiety of a grave-digger in a city swept by a -pestilence. But a few details occasionally flash by in the -happy dance; from time to time the court is moved by a -momentary curiosity about the causes of the general -violation of oaths and promises; as if there might, here and -there, be a hint of some sort of reason for ruining the -fundamental institution of society. And nobody who notes -those details, or considers those faint hints of reason, can -doubt for a moment that masses of these men and women are -now simply using divorce in the spirit of free-love. They -are very seldom the sort of people who have once fallen -tragically into the wrong place, and have now found their -way triumphantly to the right place. They are almost always -people who are obviously wandering from one place to -another, and will probably leave their last shelter exactly -as they have left their first. But it seems to amuse them to -make again, if possible in a church, a promise they have -already broken in practice and almost avowedly disbelieve in -principle. - -In face of this headlong fashion, it is really reasonable to -ask the divorce reformers what is their attitude towards the -old monogamous ethic of our civilisation; and whether they -wish to retain it in general, or to retain it at all. -Unfortunately even the sincerest and most lucid of them use -language which leaves the matter a little doubtful. Mr. E. -S. P. Haynes is one of the most brilliant and most -fair-minded controversialists on that side; and he has said, -for instance, that he agrees with me in supporting the ideal -of indissoluble or, at least, of undissolved marriage. -Mr. Haynes is one of the few friends of divorce who are also -real friends of democracy; and I am sure that in practice -this stands for a real sympathy with the home, especially -the poor home. Unfortunately, on the theoretic side, the -word "ideal" is far from being an exact term, and is open to -two almost opposite interpretations. For many would say that -marriage is an ideal as some would say that monasticism is -an ideal, in the sense of a counsel of perfection. Now -certainly we might preserve a conjugal ideal in this way. A -man might be reverently pointed out in the street as a sort -of saint, merely because he was married. A man might wear a -medal for monogamy; or have letters after his name similar -to V.C. or D.D.; let us say L.W. for "Lives With his Wife," -or N.D.Y. for "Not Divorced Yet." We might, on entering some -strange city, be struck by a stately column erected to the -memory of a wife who never ran away with a soldier, or the -shrine and image of a historical character, who had resisted -the example of the man in the "New Witness" ballade in -bolting with the children's nurse. Such high artistic -hagiology would be quite consistent with Mr. Haynes divorce -reform; with re-marriage after three years, or three hours. -It would also be quite consistent with Mr. Haynes phrase -about preserving an ideal of marriage. What it would not be -consistent with is the perfectly plain, solid, secular and -social usefulness which I have here attributed to marriage. -It does not create or preserve a natural institution, normal -to the whole community, to balance the more artificial and -even more arbitrary institution of the state; which is less -natural even if it is equally necessary. It does not defend -a voluntary association, but leaves the only claim on life, -death and loyalty with a more coercive institution. It does -not stand, in the sense I have tried to explain, for the -principle of liberty. In short, it does not do any of the -things which Mr. Haynes himself would especially desire to -see done. For humanity to be thus spontaneously organised -from below, it is necessary that the organisation should be -almost as universal as the official organisation from above. -The tyrant must find not one family but many families -defying his power; he must find mankind not a dust of atoms, -but fixed in solid blocks of fidelity. And those human -groups must support not only themselves but each other. In -this sense what some call individualism is as corporate as -communism. It is a thing of volunteers; but volunteers must -be soldiers. It is a defence of private person%; but we -might say that the private persons must be private soldiers. -The family must be recognised as well as real; above all, -the family must be recognised by the families. To expect -individuals to suffer successfully for a home apart from the -home, that is for some thing which is an incident but not an -institution, is really a confusion between two ideas; it is -a verbal sophistry almost in the nature of a pun. Similarly, -for instance, we cannot prove the moral force of a peasantry -by pointing to one peasant; we might almost as well reveal -the military force of infantry by pointing to one infant. - -I take it however that the advocates of divorce do not mean -that marriage is to remain ideal only in the sense of being -almost im possible. They do not mean that a faithful husband -is only to be admired as a fanatic. The reasonable men among -them do really mean that a divorced person shall be -tolerated as something unusually unfortunate, not merely -that a married person shall be admired as something -unusually blessed and inspired. But whatever they desire, it -is as well that they should realise exactly what they do; -and in this case I should like to hear their criticisms in -the matter of what they see. They must surely see that in -England at present, as in many parts of America in the past, -the new liberty is being taken in the spirit of licence, as -if the exception were to be the rule, or, rather, perhaps -the absence of rule. This will especially be made manifest -if we consider that the effect of the process is -accumulative like a snowball, and returns on itself like a -snowball. The obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be -frivolous marriage. If people can be separated for no reason -they will feel it all the easier to be united for no reason. -A man might quite clearly foresee that a sensual infatuation -would be fleeting, and console him self with the knowledge -that the connection could be equally fleeting. There seems -no particular reason why he should not elaborately calculate -that he could stand a particular lady's temper for ten -months; or reckon that he would have enjoyed and exhausted -her repertoire of drawing-room songs in two years. The old -joke about choosing the wife to fit the furniture or the -fashions might quite logically return, not as an old joke -but as a new solemnity; indeed, it will be found that a new -religion is generally the return of an old joke. A man might -quite consistently see a woman as suited to the period of -the hobble skirt, and as less suited to the threatened -recurrence of the crinoline. These fancies are fantastic -enough, but they are not a shade more fantastic than the -facts of many a divorce controversy as urged in the divorce -courts. And this is to leave out altogether the most -fantastic fact of all: the winking at widespread and -conspicuous collusion. Collusion has be come not so much an -illegal evasion as a legal fiction, and even a legal -institution, as it is admirably satirised in Mr. Somerset -Maugham's brilliant play of "Home and Beauty." The fact was -very frankly brought before the public by a man who was -eminently calculated to disarm satire by sincerity. Colonel -Wedgewood is a man who can never be too much honoured, by -all who have any hope of popular liberties still finding -champions in the midst of parliamentary corruption. He is -one of the very few men alive who have shown both military -and political courage; the courage of the camp and the -courage of the forum. And doubtless he showed a third type -of social courage, in avowing the absurd expedient which so -many others are content merely to accept and employ. It is -admittedly a frantic and farcical thing that a good man -should find or think it necessary to pretend to commit a -sin. Some of the divorce moralists seem to deduce from this -that he ought really to commit the sin. They may possibly be -aware, however, that there are some who do not agree with -them. - -For this latter fact is the next step in the speculative -progress of the new morality. The divorce advocates must be -well aware that modern civilisation still contains strong -elements, not the least intelligent and certainly not the -least vigorous, which will not accept the new respectability -as a substitute for the old religious vow. The Roman +The case for divorce combines all the advantages of having it both ways; +and of drawing the same deduction from right or left, and from black or +white. Whichever way the pro gramme works in practice, it can still be +justified in theory. If there are few examples of divorce, it shows how +little divorce need be dreaded; if there are many, it shows how much it +is required. The rarity of divorce is an argument in favour of divorce; +and the multiplicity of divorce is an argument against marriage. Now, in +truth, if we were confined to considering this alternative in a +speculative manner, if there were no concrete facts but only abstract +probabilities, we should have no difficulty in arguing our case. The +abstract liberty allowed by the reformers is as near as possible to +anarchy, and gives no logical or legal guarantee worth discussing. The +advantages of their reform do not accrue to the innocent party, but to +the guilty party; especially if he be sufficiently guilty. A man has +only to commit the crime of desertion to obtain the reward of divorce. +And if they are entitled to take as typical the most horrible +hypothetical cases of the abuse of the marriage laws, surely we are +entitled to take equally extreme possibilities in the abuse of their own +divorce laws. If they, when looking about for a husband, so often hit +upon a homicidal maniac, surely we may politely introduce them to the +far more human figure of the gentleman who marries as many women as he +likes and gets rid of them as often as he pleases. But in fact there is +no necessity for us to argue thus in the abstract; for the amiable +gentle man in question undoubtedly exists in the concrete. Of course, he +is no new figure; he is a very recurrent type of rascal; his name has +been Lothario or Don Juan; and he has often been represented as a rather +romantic rascal. The point of divorce reform, it cannot be too often +repeated, is that the rascal should not only be regarded as romantic, +but regarded as respectable. He is not to sow his wild oats and settle +down; he is merely to settle down to sowing his wild oats. They are to +be regarded as tame and inoffensive oats; almost, if one may say so, as +Quaker oats. But there is no need, as I say, to speculate about whether +the looser view of divorce might prevail; for it is already prevailing. +The newspapers are full of an astonishing hilarity about the rapidity +with which hundreds or thousands of human families are being broken up +by the lawyers; and about the undisguised haste of the "hustling judges" +who carry on the work. It is a form of hilarity which would seem to +recall the gaiety of a grave-digger in a city swept by a pestilence. But +a few details occasionally flash by in the happy dance; from time to +time the court is moved by a momentary curiosity about the causes of the +general violation of oaths and promises; as if there might, here and +there, be a hint of some sort of reason for ruining the fundamental +institution of society. And nobody who notes those details, or considers +those faint hints of reason, can doubt for a moment that masses of these +men and women are now simply using divorce in the spirit of free-love. +They are very seldom the sort of people who have once fallen tragically +into the wrong place, and have now found their way triumphantly to the +right place. They are almost always people who are obviously wandering +from one place to another, and will probably leave their last shelter +exactly as they have left their first. But it seems to amuse them to +make again, if possible in a church, a promise they have already broken +in practice and almost avowedly disbelieve in principle. + +In face of this headlong fashion, it is really reasonable to ask the +divorce reformers what is their attitude towards the old monogamous +ethic of our civilisation; and whether they wish to retain it in +general, or to retain it at all. Unfortunately even the sincerest and +most lucid of them use language which leaves the matter a little +doubtful. Mr. E. S. P. Haynes is one of the most brilliant and most +fair-minded controversialists on that side; and he has said, for +instance, that he agrees with me in supporting the ideal of indissoluble +or, at least, of undissolved marriage. Mr. Haynes is one of the few +friends of divorce who are also real friends of democracy; and I am sure +that in practice this stands for a real sympathy with the home, +especially the poor home. Unfortunately, on the theoretic side, the word +"ideal" is far from being an exact term, and is open to two almost +opposite interpretations. For many would say that marriage is an ideal +as some would say that monasticism is an ideal, in the sense of a +counsel of perfection. Now certainly we might preserve a conjugal ideal +in this way. A man might be reverently pointed out in the street as a +sort of saint, merely because he was married. A man might wear a medal +for monogamy; or have letters after his name similar to V.C. or D.D.; +let us say L.W. for "Lives With his Wife," or N.D.Y. for "Not Divorced +Yet." We might, on entering some strange city, be struck by a stately +column erected to the memory of a wife who never ran away with a +soldier, or the shrine and image of a historical character, who had +resisted the example of the man in the "New Witness" ballade in bolting +with the children's nurse. Such high artistic hagiology would be quite +consistent with Mr. Haynes divorce reform; with re-marriage after three +years, or three hours. It would also be quite consistent with Mr. Haynes +phrase about preserving an ideal of marriage. What it would not be +consistent with is the perfectly plain, solid, secular and social +usefulness which I have here attributed to marriage. It does not create +or preserve a natural institution, normal to the whole community, to +balance the more artificial and even more arbitrary institution of the +state; which is less natural even if it is equally necessary. It does +not defend a voluntary association, but leaves the only claim on life, +death and loyalty with a more coercive institution. It does not stand, +in the sense I have tried to explain, for the principle of liberty. In +short, it does not do any of the things which Mr. Haynes himself would +especially desire to see done. For humanity to be thus spontaneously +organised from below, it is necessary that the organisation should be +almost as universal as the official organisation from above. The tyrant +must find not one family but many families defying his power; he must +find mankind not a dust of atoms, but fixed in solid blocks of fidelity. +And those human groups must support not only themselves but each other. +In this sense what some call individualism is as corporate as communism. +It is a thing of volunteers; but volunteers must be soldiers. It is a +defence of private person%; but we might say that the private persons +must be private soldiers. The family must be recognised as well as real; +above all, the family must be recognised by the families. To expect +individuals to suffer successfully for a home apart from the home, that +is for some thing which is an incident but not an institution, is really +a confusion between two ideas; it is a verbal sophistry almost in the +nature of a pun. Similarly, for instance, we cannot prove the moral +force of a peasantry by pointing to one peasant; we might almost as well +reveal the military force of infantry by pointing to one infant. + +I take it however that the advocates of divorce do not mean that +marriage is to remain ideal only in the sense of being almost im +possible. They do not mean that a faithful husband is only to be admired +as a fanatic. The reasonable men among them do really mean that a +divorced person shall be tolerated as something unusually unfortunate, +not merely that a married person shall be admired as something unusually +blessed and inspired. But whatever they desire, it is as well that they +should realise exactly what they do; and in this case I should like to +hear their criticisms in the matter of what they see. They must surely +see that in England at present, as in many parts of America in the past, +the new liberty is being taken in the spirit of licence, as if the +exception were to be the rule, or, rather, perhaps the absence of rule. +This will especially be made manifest if we consider that the effect of +the process is accumulative like a snowball, and returns on itself like +a snowball. The obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be frivolous +marriage. If people can be separated for no reason they will feel it all +the easier to be united for no reason. A man might quite clearly foresee +that a sensual infatuation would be fleeting, and console him self with +the knowledge that the connection could be equally fleeting. There seems +no particular reason why he should not elaborately calculate that he +could stand a particular lady's temper for ten months; or reckon that he +would have enjoyed and exhausted her repertoire of drawing-room songs in +two years. The old joke about choosing the wife to fit the furniture or +the fashions might quite logically return, not as an old joke but as a +new solemnity; indeed, it will be found that a new religion is generally +the return of an old joke. A man might quite consistently see a woman as +suited to the period of the hobble skirt, and as less suited to the +threatened recurrence of the crinoline. These fancies are fantastic +enough, but they are not a shade more fantastic than the facts of many a +divorce controversy as urged in the divorce courts. And this is to leave +out altogether the most fantastic fact of all: the winking at widespread +and conspicuous collusion. Collusion has be come not so much an illegal +evasion as a legal fiction, and even a legal institution, as it is +admirably satirised in Mr. Somerset Maugham's brilliant play of "Home +and Beauty." The fact was very frankly brought before the public by a +man who was eminently calculated to disarm satire by sincerity. Colonel +Wedgewood is a man who can never be too much honoured, by all who have +any hope of popular liberties still finding champions in the midst of +parliamentary corruption. He is one of the very few men alive who have +shown both military and political courage; the courage of the camp and +the courage of the forum. And doubtless he showed a third type of social +courage, in avowing the absurd expedient which so many others are +content merely to accept and employ. It is admittedly a frantic and +farcical thing that a good man should find or think it necessary to +pretend to commit a sin. Some of the divorce moralists seem to deduce +from this that he ought really to commit the sin. They may possibly be +aware, however, that there are some who do not agree with them. + +For this latter fact is the next step in the speculative progress of the +new morality. The divorce advocates must be well aware that modern +civilisation still contains strong elements, not the least intelligent +and certainly not the least vigorous, which will not accept the new +respectability as a substitute for the old religious vow. The Roman Catholic Church, the Anglo-Catholic school, the conservative -peasantries, and a large section of the popular life -everywhere, will regard the riot of divorce and re-marriage -as they would any other riot of irresponsibility. The -consequence would appear to be that two different standards -will appear in ordinary morality, and even in ordinary -society. Instead of the old social distinction between those -who are married and those who are unmarried, there will be a -distinction between those who are married and those who are -really married. Society might even become divided into two -societies; which is perilously approximate to Disraeli's -famous exaggeration about England divided into two nations. -But whether England be actually so divided or not, this note -of the two nations is the real note of warning in the -matter. It is in this connection, perhaps, that we have to -consider most gravely and doubtfully the future of our own -country. - -Anarchy cannot last, but anarchic communities cannot last -either. Mere lawlessness cannot live, but it can destroy -life. The nations of the earth always return to sanity and -solidarity; but the nations which return to it first are the -nations which survive. We in England cannot afford to allow -our social institutions to go to pieces, as if this ancient -and noble country were an ephemeral colony. We cannot afford -it comparatively, even if we could afford it positively. We -are surrounded by vigorous nations mainly rooted in the -peasant or permanent ideals; notably in the case of France -and Ireland. I know that the detested and detestably -undemocratic parliamentary clique, which corrupts France as -it does England, was persuaded or bribed by a Jew named -Naquet to pass a crude and recent divorce law, which was -full of the hatred of Christianity. But only a very -superficial critic of France can be unaware that French -parliamentarism is superficial. The French nation as a -whole, the most rigidly respectable nation in the world, -will certainly go on living by the old standards of -domesticity. When Frenchmen are not Christians they are -heathens; the heathens who worshipped the household gods. It -might seem strange to say, for instance, that an atheist -like M. Clemenceau has for his chief ideal a thing called -piety. But to understand this it is only necessary to know a -little Latin---and a little French. - -A short time ago, as I am well aware, it would have sounded -very strange to represent the old religious and peasant -communities either as a model or a menace. It was counted a -queer thing to say, in the days when my friends and I first -said it; in the days of my youth when the republic of France -and the religion of Ireland were regarded as alike -ridiculous and decadent. But many things have happened since -then; and it will not now be so easy to persuade even -newspaper-readers that Foch is a fool, either because he is -a Frenchman or because he is a Catholic. The older -tradition, even in the most unfashionable forms, has found -champions in the most unexpected quarters. Only the other -day Dr. Saleeby, a distinguished scientific critic who had -made himself the special advocate of all the instruction and -organisation that is called social science, startled his -friends and foes alike by saying that the peasant families -in the West of Ireland were far more satisfactory and -successful than those brooded over by all the benevolent -sociology of Bradford. He gave his testimony from an -entirely rationalistic and even materialistic point of view; -indeed, he carried rationalism so far as to give the -preference to Roscommon because the women are still mammals. -To a mind of the more traditional type it might seem -sufficient to say they are still mothers. To a memory that -lingers over the legends and lyrical movements of mankind, -it might seem no great improvement to imagine a song that -ran "My mammal bids me bind my hair," or "I'm to be Queen of -the May, mammal, I'm to be Queen of the May." But indeed the -truth to which he testified is all the more arresting, -because for him it was materialistic and not mystical. The -brute biological advantage, as well as other advantages, was -with those for whom that truth was a truth; and it was all -the more instinctive and automatic where that truth was a -tradition. The sort of place where mothers are still -something more than mammals is the only sort of place where -they still are mammals. There the people are still healthy -animals; healthy enough to hit you if you call them animals. -I also have, on this merely controversial occasion, used -through out the rationalistic and not the religious appeal. -But it;is not unreasonable to note that the materialistic -advantages are really found among those who most repudiate -materialism. This one stray testimony is but a type of a -thousand things of the same kind, which will convince any -one with the sense of social atmospheres that the day of the -peasantries is not passing, but rather arriving. It is the -more complex types of society that are now entangled in -their own complexities. Those who tell us, with a monotonous -metaphor, that we cannot put the clock back, seem to be -curiously unconscious of the fact that their own clock has -stopped. And there is nothing so hopeless as clockwork when -it stops. A machine cannot mend itself; it requires a man to -mend it; and the future lies with those who can make living -laws for men and not merely dead laws for machinery. Those -living laws are not to be found in the scatter brained -scepticism which is busy in the great cities, dissolving -what it cannot analyse. The primary laws of man are to be -found in the permanent life of man; in those things that -have been common to it in every time and land, though in the -highest civilisation they have reached an enrichment like -that of the divine romance of Cana in Galilee. We know that -many critics of such a story say that its elements are not -permanent; but indeed it is the critics who are not -permanent. A hundred mad dogs of heresy have worried man -from the beginning; but it was always the dog that died. We -know there is a school of prigs who disapprove of the wine; -and there may now be a school of prigs who disapprove of the -wedding. For in such a case as the story of Cana, it may be -remarked that the pedants are prejudiced against the earthly -elements as much as, or more than, the heavenly elements. It -is not the supernatural that disgusts them, so much as the -natural. And those of us who have seen all the normal rules -and relations of humanity uprooted by random speculators, as -if they were abnormal abuses and almost accidents, will -understand why men have sought for something divine if they -wished to preserve anything human. They will know why common -sense, cast out from some academy of fads and fashions -conducted on the lines of a luxurious madhouse, has age -after age sought refuge in the high sanity of a sacrament. +peasantries, and a large section of the popular life everywhere, will +regard the riot of divorce and re-marriage as they would any other riot +of irresponsibility. The consequence would appear to be that two +different standards will appear in ordinary morality, and even in +ordinary society. Instead of the old social distinction between those +who are married and those who are unmarried, there will be a distinction +between those who are married and those who are really married. Society +might even become divided into two societies; which is perilously +approximate to Disraeli's famous exaggeration about England divided into +two nations. But whether England be actually so divided or not, this +note of the two nations is the real note of warning in the matter. It is +in this connection, perhaps, that we have to consider most gravely and +doubtfully the future of our own country. + +Anarchy cannot last, but anarchic communities cannot last either. Mere +lawlessness cannot live, but it can destroy life. The nations of the +earth always return to sanity and solidarity; but the nations which +return to it first are the nations which survive. We in England cannot +afford to allow our social institutions to go to pieces, as if this +ancient and noble country were an ephemeral colony. We cannot afford it +comparatively, even if we could afford it positively. We are surrounded +by vigorous nations mainly rooted in the peasant or permanent ideals; +notably in the case of France and Ireland. I know that the detested and +detestably undemocratic parliamentary clique, which corrupts France as +it does England, was persuaded or bribed by a Jew named Naquet to pass a +crude and recent divorce law, which was full of the hatred of +Christianity. But only a very superficial critic of France can be +unaware that French parliamentarism is superficial. The French nation as +a whole, the most rigidly respectable nation in the world, will +certainly go on living by the old standards of domesticity. When +Frenchmen are not Christians they are heathens; the heathens who +worshipped the household gods. It might seem strange to say, for +instance, that an atheist like M. Clemenceau has for his chief ideal a +thing called piety. But to understand this it is only necessary to know +a little Latin---and a little French. + +A short time ago, as I am well aware, it would have sounded very strange +to represent the old religious and peasant communities either as a model +or a menace. It was counted a queer thing to say, in the days when my +friends and I first said it; in the days of my youth when the republic +of France and the religion of Ireland were regarded as alike ridiculous +and decadent. But many things have happened since then; and it will not +now be so easy to persuade even newspaper-readers that Foch is a fool, +either because he is a Frenchman or because he is a Catholic. The older +tradition, even in the most unfashionable forms, has found champions in +the most unexpected quarters. Only the other day Dr. Saleeby, a +distinguished scientific critic who had made himself the special +advocate of all the instruction and organisation that is called social +science, startled his friends and foes alike by saying that the peasant +families in the West of Ireland were far more satisfactory and +successful than those brooded over by all the benevolent sociology of +Bradford. He gave his testimony from an entirely rationalistic and even +materialistic point of view; indeed, he carried rationalism so far as to +give the preference to Roscommon because the women are still mammals. To +a mind of the more traditional type it might seem sufficient to say they +are still mothers. To a memory that lingers over the legends and lyrical +movements of mankind, it might seem no great improvement to imagine a +song that ran "My mammal bids me bind my hair," or "I'm to be Queen of +the May, mammal, I'm to be Queen of the May." But indeed the truth to +which he testified is all the more arresting, because for him it was +materialistic and not mystical. The brute biological advantage, as well +as other advantages, was with those for whom that truth was a truth; and +it was all the more instinctive and automatic where that truth was a +tradition. The sort of place where mothers are still something more than +mammals is the only sort of place where they still are mammals. There +the people are still healthy animals; healthy enough to hit you if you +call them animals. I also have, on this merely controversial occasion, +used through out the rationalistic and not the religious appeal. But +it;is not unreasonable to note that the materialistic advantages are +really found among those who most repudiate materialism. This one stray +testimony is but a type of a thousand things of the same kind, which +will convince any one with the sense of social atmospheres that the day +of the peasantries is not passing, but rather arriving. It is the more +complex types of society that are now entangled in their own +complexities. Those who tell us, with a monotonous metaphor, that we +cannot put the clock back, seem to be curiously unconscious of the fact +that their own clock has stopped. And there is nothing so hopeless as +clockwork when it stops. A machine cannot mend itself; it requires a man +to mend it; and the future lies with those who can make living laws for +men and not merely dead laws for machinery. Those living laws are not to +be found in the scatter brained scepticism which is busy in the great +cities, dissolving what it cannot analyse. The primary laws of man are +to be found in the permanent life of man; in those things that have been +common to it in every time and land, though in the highest civilisation +they have reached an enrichment like that of the divine romance of Cana +in Galilee. We know that many critics of such a story say that its +elements are not permanent; but indeed it is the critics who are not +permanent. A hundred mad dogs of heresy have worried man from the +beginning; but it was always the dog that died. We know there is a +school of prigs who disapprove of the wine; and there may now be a +school of prigs who disapprove of the wedding. For in such a case as the +story of Cana, it may be remarked that the pedants are prejudiced +against the earthly elements as much as, or more than, the heavenly +elements. It is not the supernatural that disgusts them, so much as the +natural. And those of us who have seen all the normal rules and +relations of humanity uprooted by random speculators, as if they were +abnormal abuses and almost accidents, will understand why men have +sought for something divine if they wished to preserve anything human. +They will know why common sense, cast out from some academy of fads and +fashions conducted on the lines of a luxurious madhouse, has age after +age sought refuge in the high sanity of a sacrament. # Conclusion -This is a pamphlet and not a book; and the writer of a -pamphlet not only deals with passing things, but generally -with things which he hopes will pass. In that sense it is -the object of a pamphlet to be out of date as soon as -possible. It can only survive when it does not succeed. The -successful pamphlets are necessarily dull; and though I have -no great hopes of this being successful, I dare say it is -dull enough for all that. It is designed merely to note -certain fugitive proposals of the moment, and compare them -with certain recurrent necessities of the race; but -especially the necessity for some spontaneous social -formation freer than that of the state. If it were more in -the nature of a work of literature, with - -anything like an ambition of endurance, I might go deeper -into the matter, and give some suggestions about the -philosophy or religion of marriage, and the philosophy or -religion of all these rather random departures from it. Some -day perhaps I may try to write something about the spiritual -or psychological quarrel between faith and fads. Here I will -only say, in conclusion, that I believe the universal -fallacy here is a fallacy of being universal. There is a -sense in which it is really a human if heroic possibility to -love everybody; and the young student will not find it a bad -preliminary exercise to love somebody. But the fallacy I -mean is that of a man who is not even content to love -everybody, but really wishes to be every body. He wishes to -walk down a hundred roads at once; to sleep in a hundred -houses at once; to live a hundred lives at once. To do -something like this in the imagination is one of the -occasional visions of art and poetry; to attempt it in the -art of life is not only anarchy but inaction. Even in the -arts it can only be the first hint and not the final -fulfilment; a man cannot work at once in bronze and marble, -or play the organ and the violin at the same time. The -universal vision of being such a Briareus is a nightmare of -nonsense even in the merely imaginative world; and ends in -mere nihilism in the social world. If a man had a hundred -houses, there would still be more houses than he had days in -which to dream of them; if a man had a hundred wives, there -would still be more women than he could ever know. He would -be an insane sultan jealous of the whole human race, and -even of the dead and the unborn. I believe that behind the -art and philosophy of our time there is a consider able -element of this bottomless ambition and this unnatural -hunger; and since in these last words I am touching only -lightly on things that would need much larger treatment, I -will admit that the rending of the ancient roof of man is -probably only a part of such an endless and empty expansion. -I asked in the last chapter what those most wildly engaged -in the mere dance of divorce, as fantastic as the dance of -death, really expected for themselves or for their children. -And in the deepest sense I think this is the answer; that -they expect the impossible, that is the universal. They are -not crying for the moon, which is a definite and therefore a -defensible desire. They are crying for the world; and when -they had it, they would want another one. In the last resort -they would like to try every situation, not in fancy but in -fact; but they cannot refuse any and therefore cannot -resolve on any. In so far as this is the modern mood, it is -a thing so deadly as to be already dead. What is vitally -needed everywhere, in art as much as in ethics, in poetry as -much as in politics, is choice; a creative power in the will -as well as in the mind. Without that self-limitation of -somebody, nothing living will ever see the light. +This is a pamphlet and not a book; and the writer of a pamphlet not only +deals with passing things, but generally with things which he hopes will +pass. In that sense it is the object of a pamphlet to be out of date as +soon as possible. It can only survive when it does not succeed. The +successful pamphlets are necessarily dull; and though I have no great +hopes of this being successful, I dare say it is dull enough for all +that. It is designed merely to note certain fugitive proposals of the +moment, and compare them with certain recurrent necessities of the race; +but especially the necessity for some spontaneous social formation freer +than that of the state. If it were more in the nature of a work of +literature, with + +anything like an ambition of endurance, I might go deeper into the +matter, and give some suggestions about the philosophy or religion of +marriage, and the philosophy or religion of all these rather random +departures from it. Some day perhaps I may try to write something about +the spiritual or psychological quarrel between faith and fads. Here I +will only say, in conclusion, that I believe the universal fallacy here +is a fallacy of being universal. There is a sense in which it is really +a human if heroic possibility to love everybody; and the young student +will not find it a bad preliminary exercise to love somebody. But the +fallacy I mean is that of a man who is not even content to love +everybody, but really wishes to be every body. He wishes to walk down a +hundred roads at once; to sleep in a hundred houses at once; to live a +hundred lives at once. To do something like this in the imagination is +one of the occasional visions of art and poetry; to attempt it in the +art of life is not only anarchy but inaction. Even in the arts it can +only be the first hint and not the final fulfilment; a man cannot work +at once in bronze and marble, or play the organ and the violin at the +same time. The universal vision of being such a Briareus is a nightmare +of nonsense even in the merely imaginative world; and ends in mere +nihilism in the social world. If a man had a hundred houses, there would +still be more houses than he had days in which to dream of them; if a +man had a hundred wives, there would still be more women than he could +ever know. He would be an insane sultan jealous of the whole human race, +and even of the dead and the unborn. I believe that behind the art and +philosophy of our time there is a consider able element of this +bottomless ambition and this unnatural hunger; and since in these last +words I am touching only lightly on things that would need much larger +treatment, I will admit that the rending of the ancient roof of man is +probably only a part of such an endless and empty expansion. I asked in +the last chapter what those most wildly engaged in the mere dance of +divorce, as fantastic as the dance of death, really expected for +themselves or for their children. And in the deepest sense I think this +is the answer; that they expect the impossible, that is the universal. +They are not crying for the moon, which is a definite and therefore a +defensible desire. They are crying for the world; and when they had it, +they would want another one. In the last resort they would like to try +every situation, not in fancy but in fact; but they cannot refuse any +and therefore cannot resolve on any. In so far as this is the modern +mood, it is a thing so deadly as to be already dead. What is vitally +needed everywhere, in art as much as in ethics, in poetry as much as in +politics, is choice; a creative power in the will as well as in the +mind. Without that self-limitation of somebody, nothing living will ever +see the light. [^1]: Written at the time of the last great German assault. diff --git a/src/the-free-press.md b/src/the-free-press.md index ecba27e..61554b6 100644 --- a/src/the-free-press.md +++ b/src/the-free-press.md @@ -4,1123 +4,976 @@ Kings Land, Shipley, Horsham. *October* 14, 1917. My Dear Orage, -I dedicate this little essay to you not only because "The -New Age" (which is your paper) published it in its original -form, but much more because you were, I think, the pioneer, -in its modern form at any rate, of the Free Press in this -country. I well remember the days when one used to write to -"The New Age" simply because one knew it to be the only -paper in which the truth with regard to our corrupt -politics, or indeed with regard to any powerful evil, could -be told. That is now some years ago; but even to-day there -is only one other paper in London of which this is true, and -that is the "New Witness." Your paper and that at present -edited by Mr. Gilbert Chesterton are the fullest examples of -the Free Press we have. - -It is significant, I think, that these two papers differ -entirely in the philosophies which underlie their conduct -and in the social ends at which they aim. In other words, -they differ entirely in religion which is the ultimate -spring of all political action. There is perhaps no single -problem of any importance in private or in public morals -which the one would not attempt to solve in a fashion -different from, and usually antagonistic to, the other. Yet -we discover these two papers with their limited circulation, -their lack of advertisement subsidy, their restriction to a -comparatively small circle, possessing a power which is not -only increasing but has long been quite out of proportion to -their numerical status. - -Things happen because of words printed in "The New Age" and -the "New Witness." That is less and less true of what I have -called the official press. The phenomenon is worth -analysing. Its intellectual interest alone will arrest the -attention of any future historian. Here is a force -numerically quite small, lacking the one great obvious power -of our time (which is the power to bribe), rigidly -boycotted---so much so that it is hardly known outside the -circle of its immediate adherents and quite unknown abroad. -Yet this force is doing work---is creating---at a moment -when almost everything else is marking time; and the work it -is doing grows more and more apparent. - -The reason is, of course, the principle which was a -commonplace with antiquity, though it was almost forgotten -in the last modern generation, that truth has a power of its -own. Mere indignation against organized falsehood, mere -revolt against it, is creative. - -It is the thesis of this little essay, as you will see, that -the Free Press will succeed in its main object which is the -making of the truth known. - -There was a moment, I confess, when I would not have written -so hopefully. - -Some years ago, especially after I had founded the -"Eye-Witness," I was, in the tedium of the effort, half -convinced that success could not be obtained. It is a mood -which accompanies exile. To produce that mood is the very -object of the boycott to which the Free Press is subjected. - -But I have lived, in the last five years, to see that this -mood was false. It is now clear that steady work in the -exposure of what is evil, whatever forces are brought to -bear against that exposure, bears fruit. That is the reason -I have written the few pages printed here: To convince men -that even to-day one can do something in the way of -political reform, and that even to-day there is room for -something of free speech. - -I say at the close of these pages that I do not believe the -new spirit we have produced will lead to any system of -self-government, economic or political. I think the decay -has gone too far for that. In this I may be wrong; it is but -an opinion with regard to the future. On the other matter I -have experience and immediate example before me, and I am -certain that the battle for free political discussion is now -won. Mere knowledge of our public evils,, economic and -political, will henceforward spread; and though we must -suffer the external consequences of so' prolonged a regime -of lying, the lies are now known to be lies. True -expression, though it should bear no immediate and practical -fruit, is at least now guaranteed a measure of freedom, and -the coming evils which the State must still endure will at -least not be endured in silence. Therefore it was worth -while fighting. +I dedicate this little essay to you not only because "The New Age" +(which is your paper) published it in its original form, but much more +because you were, I think, the pioneer, in its modern form at any rate, +of the Free Press in this country. I well remember the days when one +used to write to "The New Age" simply because one knew it to be the only +paper in which the truth with regard to our corrupt politics, or indeed +with regard to any powerful evil, could be told. That is now some years +ago; but even to-day there is only one other paper in London of which +this is true, and that is the "New Witness." Your paper and that at +present edited by Mr. Gilbert Chesterton are the fullest examples of the +Free Press we have. + +It is significant, I think, that these two papers differ entirely in the +philosophies which underlie their conduct and in the social ends at +which they aim. In other words, they differ entirely in religion which +is the ultimate spring of all political action. There is perhaps no +single problem of any importance in private or in public morals which +the one would not attempt to solve in a fashion different from, and +usually antagonistic to, the other. Yet we discover these two papers +with their limited circulation, their lack of advertisement subsidy, +their restriction to a comparatively small circle, possessing a power +which is not only increasing but has long been quite out of proportion +to their numerical status. + +Things happen because of words printed in "The New Age" and the "New +Witness." That is less and less true of what I have called the official +press. The phenomenon is worth analysing. Its intellectual interest +alone will arrest the attention of any future historian. Here is a force +numerically quite small, lacking the one great obvious power of our time +(which is the power to bribe), rigidly boycotted---so much so that it is +hardly known outside the circle of its immediate adherents and quite +unknown abroad. Yet this force is doing work---is creating---at a moment +when almost everything else is marking time; and the work it is doing +grows more and more apparent. + +The reason is, of course, the principle which was a commonplace with +antiquity, though it was almost forgotten in the last modern generation, +that truth has a power of its own. Mere indignation against organized +falsehood, mere revolt against it, is creative. + +It is the thesis of this little essay, as you will see, that the Free +Press will succeed in its main object which is the making of the truth +known. + +There was a moment, I confess, when I would not have written so +hopefully. + +Some years ago, especially after I had founded the "Eye-Witness," I was, +in the tedium of the effort, half convinced that success could not be +obtained. It is a mood which accompanies exile. To produce that mood is +the very object of the boycott to which the Free Press is subjected. + +But I have lived, in the last five years, to see that this mood was +false. It is now clear that steady work in the exposure of what is evil, +whatever forces are brought to bear against that exposure, bears fruit. +That is the reason I have written the few pages printed here: To +convince men that even to-day one can do something in the way of +political reform, and that even to-day there is room for something of +free speech. + +I say at the close of these pages that I do not believe the new spirit +we have produced will lead to any system of self-government, economic or +political. I think the decay has gone too far for that. In this I may be +wrong; it is but an opinion with regard to the future. On the other +matter I have experience and immediate example before me, and I am +certain that the battle for free political discussion is now won. Mere +knowledge of our public evils,, economic and political, will +henceforward spread; and though we must suffer the external consequences +of so' prolonged a regime of lying, the lies are now known to be lies. +True expression, though it should bear no immediate and practical fruit, +is at least now guaranteed a measure of freedom, and the coming evils +which the State must still endure will at least not be endured in +silence. Therefore it was worth while fighting. Very sincerely yours, H. Belloc. # -I propose to discuss in what follows the evil of the great -modern Capitalist Press, its function in vitiating and -misinforming opinion and in putting power into ignoble -hands; its correction by the formation of small independent -organs, and the probably increasing effect of these last. +I propose to discuss in what follows the evil of the great modern +Capitalist Press, its function in vitiating and misinforming opinion and +in putting power into ignoble hands; its correction by the formation of +small independent organs, and the probably increasing effect of these +last. # I -About two hundred years ago a number of things began to -appear in Europe which were the fruit of the Renaissance and -of the Reformation combined: Two warring twins. - -These things appeared first of all in England, because -England was the only province of Europe wherein the old -Latin tradition ran side by side with the novel effects of -protestantism. But for England the great schism and heresy -of the sixteenth century, already dissolving to-day, would -long ago have died; It would have been confined for some few -generations to those outer Northern parts of the Continent -which had never really digested but had only received in -some mechanical fashion the strong meat of Rome. It would -have ceased with, or shortly after, the Thirty Years War. - -It was the defection of the English Crown, the immense booty -rapidly obtained by a few adventurers, like the Cecils and -Russells, and a still smaller number of old families, like -the Howards, which put England, with all its profound -traditions and with all its organic inheritance of the great -European thing, upon the side of the Northern Germanies. It -was inevitable, therefore, that in England the fruits should -first appear, for here only was there deep soil. - -That fruit upon which our modern observation has been most -fixed was *Capitalism.* - -Capitalism proceeded from England and from the English -Reformation; but it was not fully alive until the early -eighteenth century. In the nineteenth it matured. - -Another cognate fruit was what to-day we call *Finance*, -that is, the domination of the State by private Capitalists -who, taking advantage of the necessities of the State, fix -an increasing mortgage upon the State and work perpetually -for fluidity, anonymity, and irresponsibility in their -arrangements. It was in England, again, that this began and -vigorously began with what I think was the first true -"National Debt"; a product contemporary in its origins with -industrial Capitalism. - -Another was that curious and certainly ephemeral vagary of -the human mind which has appeared before now in human -history, which is called "Sophistry," and which consists in -making up "systems" to explain the world; in contrast with -Philosophy which aims at the answering of questions, the -solution of problems and the final establishment of the +About two hundred years ago a number of things began to appear in Europe +which were the fruit of the Renaissance and of the Reformation combined: +Two warring twins. + +These things appeared first of all in England, because England was the +only province of Europe wherein the old Latin tradition ran side by side +with the novel effects of protestantism. But for England the great +schism and heresy of the sixteenth century, already dissolving to-day, +would long ago have died; It would have been confined for some few +generations to those outer Northern parts of the Continent which had +never really digested but had only received in some mechanical fashion +the strong meat of Rome. It would have ceased with, or shortly after, +the Thirty Years War. + +It was the defection of the English Crown, the immense booty rapidly +obtained by a few adventurers, like the Cecils and Russells, and a still +smaller number of old families, like the Howards, which put England, +with all its profound traditions and with all its organic inheritance of +the great European thing, upon the side of the Northern Germanies. It +was inevitable, therefore, that in England the fruits should first +appear, for here only was there deep soil. + +That fruit upon which our modern observation has been most fixed was +*Capitalism.* + +Capitalism proceeded from England and from the English Reformation; but +it was not fully alive until the early eighteenth century. In the +nineteenth it matured. + +Another cognate fruit was what to-day we call *Finance*, that is, the +domination of the State by private Capitalists who, taking advantage of +the necessities of the State, fix an increasing mortgage upon the State +and work perpetually for fluidity, anonymity, and irresponsibility in +their arrangements. It was in England, again, that this began and +vigorously began with what I think was the first true "National Debt"; a +product contemporary in its origins with industrial Capitalism. + +Another was that curious and certainly ephemeral vagary of the human +mind which has appeared before now in human history, which is called +"Sophistry," and which consists in making up "systems" to explain the +world; in contrast with Philosophy which aims at the answering of +questions, the solution of problems and the final establishment of the truth. -But most interesting of all just now, though but a minor -fruit, is the thing called "The Press." It also began to -arise contemporaneously with Capitalism and Finance: it has -grown with them and served them. It came to the height of -its power at the same modern moment as did they. +But most interesting of all just now, though but a minor fruit, is the +thing called "The Press." It also began to arise contemporaneously with +Capitalism and Finance: it has grown with them and served them. It came +to the height of its power at the same modern moment as did they. -Let us consider what exactly it means: then we shall the -better understand what its development has been. +Let us consider what exactly it means: then we shall the better +understand what its development has been. # II -"The Press" means (for the purpose of such an examination) -the dissemination by frequently and regularly printed sheets -(commonly daily sheets) of (1) news and (2) suggested ideas. +"The Press" means (for the purpose of such an examination) the +dissemination by frequently and regularly printed sheets (commonly daily +sheets) of (1) news and (2) suggested ideas. -These two things are quite distinct in character and should -be regarded separately, though they merge in this: that -false ideas are suggested by false news and especially by -news which is false through suppression. +These two things are quite distinct in character and should be regarded +separately, though they merge in this: that false ideas are suggested by +false news and especially by news which is false through suppression. First, of News:---- -News, that is, information with regard to those things which -affect us but which are not within our own immediate view, -is necessary to the life of the State. - -The obvious, the extremely cheap, the *universal* means of -propagating it, is by word of mouth. - -A man has seen a thing; many men have seen a thing. They -testify to that thing, and others who have heard them repeat -their testimony. The Press thrust Into the midst of this -natural system (which Is still that upon which all -reasonable men act, whenever they can, in matters most -nearly concerning them) two novel features, both of them -exceedingly corrupting. In the first place, it gave to the -printed words a *rapidity of extension* with which repeated -spoken words could not compete. In the second place, it gave -them a *mechanical similarity* which was the very opposite -to the marks of healthy human news. - -I would particularly insist upon this last point. It Is -little understood and it is vital. - -If we want to know what to think of a fire which has taken -place many miles away, but which affects property of our -own, we listen to the accounts of dozens of men. We rapidly -and instinctively differentiate between these accounts -according to the characters of the witnesses. Equally -instinctively, we counter-test these accounts by the -inherent probabilities of the situation. - -An honest and sober man tells us that the roof of the house -fell in. An imaginative fool, who is also a swindler, -assures us that he later saw the roof standing. We remember -that the roof was of iron girders covered with wood, and -draw this conclusion: That the framework still stands, but -that the healing fell through in a mass of blazing rubbish. -Our common sense and our knowledge of the situation incline -us rather to the bad than to the good witness, and we are -right. But the Press cannot of its nature give a great -number of separate testimonies. These would take too long to -collect, and would be too expensive to collect. Still less -is it able to deliver the weight of each. It, therefore, -presents us, even at its best when the testimony is not -tainted, no more than one crude affirmation. This one -relation is, as I have said, further propagated unanimously -and with extreme rapidity. Instead of an organic impression -formed at leisure in the comparison of many human sources, -the reader obtains a mechanical one. At the same moment -myriads of other men receive this same impression. Their -adherence to it corroborates his own. Even therefore when -the disseminator of the news, that is, the owner of the -newspaper, has no special motive for lying, the message is -conveyed in a vitiated and inhuman form. Where he has a -motive for lying (as he usually has) his lie can outdo any -merely spoken or written truth. - -If this be true of news and of its vitiation through the -Press, it is still truer of opinions and suggested ideas. - -Opinions, above all, we judge by the personalities of those -who deliver them: by voice, tone, expression, and known -character. The Press eliminates three-quarters of all by -which opinion may be judged. And yet it presents the opinion -with the more force. The idea is presented in a sort of -impersonal manner that impresses with peculiar power because -it bears a sort of detachment, as though it came from some -authority too secure and superior to be questioned. It is -suddenly communicated to thousands. It goes unchallenged, -unless by some accident another controller of such machines -will contradict it and can get his contradiction read by the -same men as have read the first statement. - -These general characters were present in the Press even in -its infancy, when each news-sheet still covered but a -comparatively small circle; when distribution was difficult, -and when the audience addressed was also select and in some -measure able to criticize whatever was presented to it. But -though present they had no great force; for the adventure of -a newspaper was limited. The older method of obtaining news -was still remembered and used. The regular readers of -anything, paper or book, were few, and those few cared much -more for the quality of what they read than for its amount. -Moreover, they had some means of judging its truth and -value. - -In this early phase, moreover, the Press was necessarily -highly diverse. One man could print and sell profitably a -thousand copies of his version of a piece of news, of his -opinions, or those of his clique. There were hundreds of -other men who, if they took the pains, had the means to set -out a rival account and a rival opinion. We shall see how, -as Capitalism grew, these safeguards decayed and the bad -characters described were increased to their present -enormity. +News, that is, information with regard to those things which affect us +but which are not within our own immediate view, is necessary to the +life of the State. + +The obvious, the extremely cheap, the *universal* means of propagating +it, is by word of mouth. + +A man has seen a thing; many men have seen a thing. They testify to that +thing, and others who have heard them repeat their testimony. The Press +thrust Into the midst of this natural system (which Is still that upon +which all reasonable men act, whenever they can, in matters most nearly +concerning them) two novel features, both of them exceedingly +corrupting. In the first place, it gave to the printed words a *rapidity +of extension* with which repeated spoken words could not compete. In the +second place, it gave them a *mechanical similarity* which was the very +opposite to the marks of healthy human news. + +I would particularly insist upon this last point. It Is little +understood and it is vital. + +If we want to know what to think of a fire which has taken place many +miles away, but which affects property of our own, we listen to the +accounts of dozens of men. We rapidly and instinctively differentiate +between these accounts according to the characters of the witnesses. +Equally instinctively, we counter-test these accounts by the inherent +probabilities of the situation. + +An honest and sober man tells us that the roof of the house fell in. An +imaginative fool, who is also a swindler, assures us that he later saw +the roof standing. We remember that the roof was of iron girders covered +with wood, and draw this conclusion: That the framework still stands, +but that the healing fell through in a mass of blazing rubbish. Our +common sense and our knowledge of the situation incline us rather to the +bad than to the good witness, and we are right. But the Press cannot of +its nature give a great number of separate testimonies. These would take +too long to collect, and would be too expensive to collect. Still less +is it able to deliver the weight of each. It, therefore, presents us, +even at its best when the testimony is not tainted, no more than one +crude affirmation. This one relation is, as I have said, further +propagated unanimously and with extreme rapidity. Instead of an organic +impression formed at leisure in the comparison of many human sources, +the reader obtains a mechanical one. At the same moment myriads of other +men receive this same impression. Their adherence to it corroborates his +own. Even therefore when the disseminator of the news, that is, the +owner of the newspaper, has no special motive for lying, the message is +conveyed in a vitiated and inhuman form. Where he has a motive for lying +(as he usually has) his lie can outdo any merely spoken or written +truth. + +If this be true of news and of its vitiation through the Press, it is +still truer of opinions and suggested ideas. + +Opinions, above all, we judge by the personalities of those who deliver +them: by voice, tone, expression, and known character. The Press +eliminates three-quarters of all by which opinion may be judged. And yet +it presents the opinion with the more force. The idea is presented in a +sort of impersonal manner that impresses with peculiar power because it +bears a sort of detachment, as though it came from some authority too +secure and superior to be questioned. It is suddenly communicated to +thousands. It goes unchallenged, unless by some accident another +controller of such machines will contradict it and can get his +contradiction read by the same men as have read the first statement. + +These general characters were present in the Press even in its infancy, +when each news-sheet still covered but a comparatively small circle; +when distribution was difficult, and when the audience addressed was +also select and in some measure able to criticize whatever was presented +to it. But though present they had no great force; for the adventure of +a newspaper was limited. The older method of obtaining news was still +remembered and used. The regular readers of anything, paper or book, +were few, and those few cared much more for the quality of what they +read than for its amount. Moreover, they had some means of judging its +truth and value. + +In this early phase, moreover, the Press was necessarily highly diverse. +One man could print and sell profitably a thousand copies of his version +of a piece of news, of his opinions, or those of his clique. There were +hundreds of other men who, if they took the pains, had the means to set +out a rival account and a rival opinion. We shall see how, as Capitalism +grew, these safeguards decayed and the bad characters described were +increased to their present enormity. # III -Side by side with the development of Capitalism went a -change In the Press from Its primitive condition to a worse. -The development of Capitalism meant that a smaller and a yet -smaller number of men commanded the means of production and -of distribution whereby could be printed and set before a -large circle a news-sheet fuller than the old model. When -distribution first changed with the advent of the railways -the difference from the old condition was accentuated, and -there arose perhaps one hundred, perhaps two hundred -"organs," as they were called, which, in this country and -the Lowlands of Scotland, told men what their proprietors -chose to tell them, both as to news and as to opinion. The -population was still fairly well spread; there were a number -of local capitals; distribution was not yet so organized as -to permit a paper printed as near as Birmingham, even, to -feel the competition of a paper printed in London only loo -miles away. Papers printed as far from London as York, -Liverpool or Exeter were the more Independent. - -Further the mass of men, though there was more Intelligent -reading (and writing, for that matter) than there is to-day, -had not acquired the habit of dally reading. - -It may be doubted whether even to-day the mass of men (In -the sense of the actual majority of adult citizens) have -done so. But what I mean is that in the time of which I -speak (the earlier part, and a portion of the middle, of the -nineteenth century), there was no reading of papers as a -regular habit by those who work with their hands. The papers -were still in the main written for those who had leisure; -those who for the most part had some travel, and those who -had a smattering, at least, of the Humanities. - -The matter appearing in the newspapers was often *written -by* men of less facilities. But the people who wrote them, -wrote them under the knowledge that their audience was of -the sort I describe. To this day in the healthy remnant of -our old State, in the country villages, much of this -tradition survives. The country folk in my own neighbourhood -can read as well as I can; but they prefer to talk among -themselves when they are at leisure, or, at the most, to -seize in a few moments the main items of news about the war; -they prefer this, I say, as a habit of mind, to the poring -over square yards of printed matter which (especially in the -Sunday papers) are now food for their fellows in the town. -That is because in the country a man has true neighbours, -whereas the towns are a dust of isolated beings, mentally -(and often physically) starved. +Side by side with the development of Capitalism went a change In the +Press from Its primitive condition to a worse. The development of +Capitalism meant that a smaller and a yet smaller number of men +commanded the means of production and of distribution whereby could be +printed and set before a large circle a news-sheet fuller than the old +model. When distribution first changed with the advent of the railways +the difference from the old condition was accentuated, and there arose +perhaps one hundred, perhaps two hundred "organs," as they were called, +which, in this country and the Lowlands of Scotland, told men what their +proprietors chose to tell them, both as to news and as to opinion. The +population was still fairly well spread; there were a number of local +capitals; distribution was not yet so organized as to permit a paper +printed as near as Birmingham, even, to feel the competition of a paper +printed in London only loo miles away. Papers printed as far from London +as York, Liverpool or Exeter were the more Independent. + +Further the mass of men, though there was more Intelligent reading (and +writing, for that matter) than there is to-day, had not acquired the +habit of dally reading. + +It may be doubted whether even to-day the mass of men (In the sense of +the actual majority of adult citizens) have done so. But what I mean is +that in the time of which I speak (the earlier part, and a portion of +the middle, of the nineteenth century), there was no reading of papers +as a regular habit by those who work with their hands. The papers were +still in the main written for those who had leisure; those who for the +most part had some travel, and those who had a smattering, at least, of +the Humanities. + +The matter appearing in the newspapers was often *written by* men of +less facilities. But the people who wrote them, wrote them under the +knowledge that their audience was of the sort I describe. To this day in +the healthy remnant of our old State, in the country villages, much of +this tradition survives. The country folk in my own neighbourhood can +read as well as I can; but they prefer to talk among themselves when +they are at leisure, or, at the most, to seize in a few moments the main +items of news about the war; they prefer this, I say, as a habit of +mind, to the poring over square yards of printed matter which +(especially in the Sunday papers) are now food for their fellows in the +town. That is because in the country a man has true neighbours, whereas +the towns are a dust of isolated beings, mentally (and often physically) +starved. # IV -Meanwhile, there had appeared in connection with this new -institution, "The Press," a certain factor of the utmost -importance: Capitalist also in origin, and, therefore, -inevitably exhibiting all the poisonous vices of Capitalism -as its effect flourished from more to more. This factor was -*subsidy through advertisement*. - -At first the advertisement was not a subsidy. A man desiring -to let a thing be known could let it be known much more -widely and immediately through a newspaper than in any other -fashion. He paid the newspaper to publish the thing that he -wanted known, as that he had a house to let, or wine to -sell. - -But it was clear that this was bound to lead to the -paradoxical state of affairs from which we began to suffer -in the later nineteenth century. A paper had for its revenue -not only what people paid in order to obtain it, but also -what people paid in order to get their wares or needs known -through it. It, therefore, could be profitably produced at a -cost greater than its selling price. Advertisement revenue -made it possible for a man to print a paper at a cost of 2d. -and sell it at 1d. - -In the simple and earlier form of advertisement the extent -and nature of the circulation was the only thing considered -by the advertiser, and the man who printed the newspaper got -more and more profit as he extended that circulation by -giving more reading matter for a better-looking paper and -still selling it further and further below cost price. - -When it was discovered how powerful the effect of suggestion -upon the readers of advertisements could be, especially over -such an audience as our modern great towns provide (a chaos, -I repeat, of isolated minds with a lessening personal -experience and with a lessening community of tradition), the -value of advertising space rapidly rose. It became a more -and more tempting venture to "start a newspaper," but at the -same time, the development of capitalism made that venture -more and more hazardous. It was more and more of a risky -venture to start a new great paper even of a local sort, for -the expense got greater and greater, and the loss, if you -failed, more and more rapid and serious. Advertisement -became more and more the basis of profit, and the giving in -one way and another of more and more for the 1d. or the ½d. -became the chief concern of the now wealthy and wholly -capitalistic newspaper proprietor. - -Long before the last third of the nineteenth century a -newspaper. If it was of large circulation, was everywhere a -venture or a property dependent wholly upon its advertisers. -It had ceased to consider its public save as a bait for the -advertiser. It lived (*in this phase*) entirely on its -advertisement columns. +Meanwhile, there had appeared in connection with this new institution, +"The Press," a certain factor of the utmost importance: Capitalist also +in origin, and, therefore, inevitably exhibiting all the poisonous vices +of Capitalism as its effect flourished from more to more. This factor +was *subsidy through advertisement*. + +At first the advertisement was not a subsidy. A man desiring to let a +thing be known could let it be known much more widely and immediately +through a newspaper than in any other fashion. He paid the newspaper to +publish the thing that he wanted known, as that he had a house to let, +or wine to sell. + +But it was clear that this was bound to lead to the paradoxical state of +affairs from which we began to suffer in the later nineteenth century. A +paper had for its revenue not only what people paid in order to obtain +it, but also what people paid in order to get their wares or needs known +through it. It, therefore, could be profitably produced at a cost +greater than its selling price. Advertisement revenue made it possible +for a man to print a paper at a cost of 2d. and sell it at 1d. + +In the simple and earlier form of advertisement the extent and nature of +the circulation was the only thing considered by the advertiser, and the +man who printed the newspaper got more and more profit as he extended +that circulation by giving more reading matter for a better-looking +paper and still selling it further and further below cost price. + +When it was discovered how powerful the effect of suggestion upon the +readers of advertisements could be, especially over such an audience as +our modern great towns provide (a chaos, I repeat, of isolated minds +with a lessening personal experience and with a lessening community of +tradition), the value of advertising space rapidly rose. It became a +more and more tempting venture to "start a newspaper," but at the same +time, the development of capitalism made that venture more and more +hazardous. It was more and more of a risky venture to start a new great +paper even of a local sort, for the expense got greater and greater, and +the loss, if you failed, more and more rapid and serious. Advertisement +became more and more the basis of profit, and the giving in one way and +another of more and more for the 1d. or the ½d. became the chief concern +of the now wealthy and wholly capitalistic newspaper proprietor. + +Long before the last third of the nineteenth century a newspaper. If it +was of large circulation, was everywhere a venture or a property +dependent wholly upon its advertisers. It had ceased to consider its +public save as a bait for the advertiser. It lived (*in this phase*) +entirely on its advertisement columns. # V -Let us halt at this phase in the development of the thing to -consider certain other changes which were on the point of -appearance, and why they were on the point of appearance. - -In the first place, if advertisement had come to be the -stand-by of a newspaper, the Capitalist owning the sheet -would necessarily consider his revenue from advertisement -before anything else. He was indeed *compelled* to do so -unless he had enormous revenues from other sources, and ran -his paper as a luxury costing a vast fortune a year. For in -this industry the rule is either very great profits or very -great and rapid losses---losses at the rate of £100,000 at -least in a year where a great daily paper is concerned. - -He was compelled then to respect his advertisers as his -paymasters. To that extent, therefore, his power of giving -true news and of printing sound opinion was limited, even -though his own inclinations should lean towards such news -and such opinion. - -An individual newspaper owner might, for instance, have the -greatest possible dislike for the trade in patent medicines. -He might object to the swindling of the poor which is the -soul of that trade. He might himself have suffered acute -physical pain through the imprudent absorption of one of -those quack drugs. But he certainly could not print an -article against them, nor even an article describing how -they were made, without losing a great part of his income, -directly; and, perhaps, indirectly, the whole of it, from -the annoyance caused to other advertisers, who would note -his independence and fear friction in their own case. He -would prefer to retain his income, persuade his readers to -buy poison, and remain free (personally) from touching the -stuff he recommended for pay. - -As with patent medicines so with any other matter whatsoever -that was advertised. However bad, shoddy, harmful, or even -treasonable the matter might be, the proprietor was always -at the choice of publishing matter which did not affect -*him*, and saving his fortune, or refusing it and +Let us halt at this phase in the development of the thing to consider +certain other changes which were on the point of appearance, and why +they were on the point of appearance. + +In the first place, if advertisement had come to be the stand-by of a +newspaper, the Capitalist owning the sheet would necessarily consider +his revenue from advertisement before anything else. He was indeed +*compelled* to do so unless he had enormous revenues from other sources, +and ran his paper as a luxury costing a vast fortune a year. For in this +industry the rule is either very great profits or very great and rapid +losses---losses at the rate of £100,000 at least in a year where a great +daily paper is concerned. + +He was compelled then to respect his advertisers as his paymasters. To +that extent, therefore, his power of giving true news and of printing +sound opinion was limited, even though his own inclinations should lean +towards such news and such opinion. + +An individual newspaper owner might, for instance, have the greatest +possible dislike for the trade in patent medicines. He might object to +the swindling of the poor which is the soul of that trade. He might +himself have suffered acute physical pain through the imprudent +absorption of one of those quack drugs. But he certainly could not print +an article against them, nor even an article describing how they were +made, without losing a great part of his income, directly; and, perhaps, +indirectly, the whole of it, from the annoyance caused to other +advertisers, who would note his independence and fear friction in their +own case. He would prefer to retain his income, persuade his readers to +buy poison, and remain free (personally) from touching the stuff he +recommended for pay. + +As with patent medicines so with any other matter whatsoever that was +advertised. However bad, shoddy, harmful, or even treasonable the matter +might be, the proprietor was always at the choice of publishing matter +which did not affect *him*, and saving his fortune, or refusing it and jeopardizing his fortune. He chose the former course. -In the second place, there was an even more serious -development. Advertisement having become the stand-by of the -newspaper the large advertiser (as Capitalism developed and -the controls became fewer and more in touch one with the -other) could not but regard his "giving" of an advertisement -as something of a favour. - -There is always this psychological, or, if you will, -artistic element in exchange. - -In pure Economics exchange is exactly balanced by the -respective advantages of the exchangers; just as in pure -dynamics you have the parallelogram of forces. In the -immense complexity of the real world material, friction, and -a million other things affect the ideal parallelogram of -forces; and in economics other conscious passions besides -those of mere avarice affect exchange: there are a million +In the second place, there was an even more serious development. +Advertisement having become the stand-by of the newspaper the large +advertiser (as Capitalism developed and the controls became fewer and +more in touch one with the other) could not but regard his "giving" of +an advertisement as something of a favour. + +There is always this psychological, or, if you will, artistic element in +exchange. + +In pure Economics exchange is exactly balanced by the respective +advantages of the exchangers; just as in pure dynamics you have the +parallelogram of forces. In the immense complexity of the real world +material, friction, and a million other things affect the ideal +parallelogram of forces; and in economics other conscious passions +besides those of mere avarice affect exchange: there are a million half-conscious and sub-conscious motives at work as well. -The large advertiser still *mainly* paid for advertisement -according to circulation, but he also began to be influenced -by less direct intentions. He would not advertise in papers -which he thought might by their publication of opinion -ultimately hurt Capitalism as a whole; still less in those -whose opinions might affect his own private fortune +The large advertiser still *mainly* paid for advertisement according to +circulation, but he also began to be influenced by less direct +intentions. He would not advertise in papers which he thought might by +their publication of opinion ultimately hurt Capitalism as a whole; +still less in those whose opinions might affect his own private fortune adversely. Stupid (like all people given up to gain), he was -muddle-headed about the distinction between a large -circulation and a circulation small, but appealing to the -rich. He would refuse advertisements of luxuries to a paper -read by half the wealthier class if he had heard in the -National Liberal Club, or some such place, that the paper -was "in bad taste." - -Not only was there this negative power in the hands of the -advertiser, that of refusing the favour or patronage of his -advertisements, there was also a positive one, though that -only grew up later. - -The advertiser came to see that he could actually dictate -policy and opinion; and that he had also another most -powerful and novel weapon in his hand, which was the -*suppression* of news. - -We must not exaggerate this element. For one thing the power -represented by the great Capitalist Press was a power equal -with that of the great advertisers. For another, there was -no clear-cut distinction between the Capitalism that owned -newspapers and the Capitalism that advertised. The same man -who owned "The Daily Times" was a shareholder in Jones's -Soap or Smith's Pills. The man who gambled and lost on "The -Howl" was at the same time gambling and winning on a -bucket-shop advertised in "The Howl." There was no -antagonism of class interest one against the other, and what -was more they were of the same kind and breed. The fellow -that got rich quick in a newspaper speculation---or ended in -jail over it---was exactly the same kind of man as he who -bought a peerage out of a "combine" in music halls or cut -his throat when his bluff in Indian silver was called. The -type is the common modern type. Parliament is full of it, -and it runs newspapers only as one of its activities---all +muddle-headed about the distinction between a large circulation and a +circulation small, but appealing to the rich. He would refuse +advertisements of luxuries to a paper read by half the wealthier class +if he had heard in the National Liberal Club, or some such place, that +the paper was "in bad taste." + +Not only was there this negative power in the hands of the advertiser, +that of refusing the favour or patronage of his advertisements, there +was also a positive one, though that only grew up later. + +The advertiser came to see that he could actually dictate policy and +opinion; and that he had also another most powerful and novel weapon in +his hand, which was the *suppression* of news. + +We must not exaggerate this element. For one thing the power represented +by the great Capitalist Press was a power equal with that of the great +advertisers. For another, there was no clear-cut distinction between the +Capitalism that owned newspapers and the Capitalism that advertised. The +same man who owned "The Daily Times" was a shareholder in Jones's Soap +or Smith's Pills. The man who gambled and lost on "The Howl" was at the +same time gambling and winning on a bucket-shop advertised in "The +Howl." There was no antagonism of class interest one against the other, +and what was more they were of the same kind and breed. The fellow that +got rich quick in a newspaper speculation---or ended in jail over +it---was exactly the same kind of man as he who bought a peerage out of +a "combine" in music halls or cut his throat when his bluff in Indian +silver was called. The type is the common modern type. Parliament is +full of it, and it runs newspapers only as one of its activities---all of which need the suggestion of advertisement. -The newspaper owner and the advertiser, then, were -intermixed. But on the balance the advertising interest -being wider spread was the stronger, and what you got was a -sort of imposition, often quite conscious and direct, of -advertising power over the Press; and this was, as I have -said, not only negative (that was long obvious) but, at -last, positive. - -Sometimes there is an open battle between the advertiser and -the proprietor, especially when, as is the case with framers -of artificial monopolies, both combatants are of a low, -cunning, and unintelligent type. Minor friction due to the -same cause is constantly taking place. Sometimes the victory -falls to the newspaper proprietor, more often to the -advertiser---never to the public. - -So far, we see the growth of the Press marked by these -characteristics. (1) It falls into the hands of a very few -rich men, and nearly always of men of base origin and -capacities. (2) It is, in their hands, a mere commercial -enterprise. (3) It is economically supported by advertisers -who can in part control it, but these are of the same -Capitalist kind, in motive and manner, with the owners of -the papers. Their power does not, therefore, clash in the -main with that of the owners, but the fact that -advertisement makes a paper, has created a standard of -printing and paper such that no one---save at a disastrous -loss---can issue regularly to large numbers news and opinion -which the large Capitalist advertisers disapprove. - -There would seem to be for any independent Press no possible -economic basis, because the public has been taught to expect -for id. what it costs 3d. to make---the difference being -paid by the advertisement subsidy. - -But there is now a graver corruption at work even than this -always negative and sometimes positive power of the -advertiser. - -It is the advent of the great newspaper owner as the true -governing power in the political machinery of the State, -superior to the officials in the State, nominating ministers -and dismissing them, imposing policies, and, in general, -usurping sovereignty---all this secretly and without -responsibility. - -It is the chief political event of our time and is the -peculiar mark of this country to-day. Its full development -has come on us suddenly and taken us by surprise in the -midst of a terrible war. It was undreamt of but a few years -ago. It is already to-day the capital fact of our whole -political system. A Prime Minister is made or deposed by the -owner of a group of newspapers, not by popular vote or by -any other form of open authority. - -No policy is attempted until it is ascertained that the -newspaper owner is in favour of it. Few are proffered -without first consulting his wishes. Many are directly -ordered by him. We are, if we talk in terms of real things -(as men do in their private councils at Westminster) mainly -governed to-day, not even by the professional politicians, -nor even by those who pay them money, but by whatever owner -of a newspaper trust is, for the moment, the most -unscrupulous and the most ambitious. - -How did such a catastrophe come about? That is what we must -inquire into before going further to examine its operation -and the possible remedy. +The newspaper owner and the advertiser, then, were intermixed. But on +the balance the advertising interest being wider spread was the +stronger, and what you got was a sort of imposition, often quite +conscious and direct, of advertising power over the Press; and this was, +as I have said, not only negative (that was long obvious) but, at last, +positive. + +Sometimes there is an open battle between the advertiser and the +proprietor, especially when, as is the case with framers of artificial +monopolies, both combatants are of a low, cunning, and unintelligent +type. Minor friction due to the same cause is constantly taking place. +Sometimes the victory falls to the newspaper proprietor, more often to +the advertiser---never to the public. + +So far, we see the growth of the Press marked by these characteristics. +(1) It falls into the hands of a very few rich men, and nearly always of +men of base origin and capacities. (2) It is, in their hands, a mere +commercial enterprise. (3) It is economically supported by advertisers +who can in part control it, but these are of the same Capitalist kind, +in motive and manner, with the owners of the papers. Their power does +not, therefore, clash in the main with that of the owners, but the fact +that advertisement makes a paper, has created a standard of printing and +paper such that no one---save at a disastrous loss---can issue regularly +to large numbers news and opinion which the large Capitalist advertisers +disapprove. + +There would seem to be for any independent Press no possible economic +basis, because the public has been taught to expect for id. what it +costs 3d. to make---the difference being paid by the advertisement +subsidy. + +But there is now a graver corruption at work even than this always +negative and sometimes positive power of the advertiser. + +It is the advent of the great newspaper owner as the true governing +power in the political machinery of the State, superior to the officials +in the State, nominating ministers and dismissing them, imposing +policies, and, in general, usurping sovereignty---all this secretly and +without responsibility. + +It is the chief political event of our time and is the peculiar mark of +this country to-day. Its full development has come on us suddenly and +taken us by surprise in the midst of a terrible war. It was undreamt of +but a few years ago. It is already to-day the capital fact of our whole +political system. A Prime Minister is made or deposed by the owner of a +group of newspapers, not by popular vote or by any other form of open +authority. + +No policy is attempted until it is ascertained that the newspaper owner +is in favour of it. Few are proffered without first consulting his +wishes. Many are directly ordered by him. We are, if we talk in terms of +real things (as men do in their private councils at Westminster) mainly +governed to-day, not even by the professional politicians, nor even by +those who pay them money, but by whatever owner of a newspaper trust is, +for the moment, the most unscrupulous and the most ambitious. + +How did such a catastrophe come about? That is what we must inquire into +before going further to examine its operation and the possible remedy. # VI -During all this development of the Press there has been -present, *first*, as a doctrine plausible and arguable; -*next*, as a tradition no longer in touch with reality; -*lastly*, as an hypocrisy still pleading truth, a certain -definition of the functions of the Press; a doctrine which -we must thoroughly grasp before proceeding to the nature of -the Press in these our present times. +During all this development of the Press there has been present, +*first*, as a doctrine plausible and arguable; *next*, as a tradition no +longer in touch with reality; *lastly*, as an hypocrisy still pleading +truth, a certain definition of the functions of the Press; a doctrine +which we must thoroughly grasp before proceeding to the nature of the +Press in these our present times. -This doctrine was that the Press was an *organ of -opinion*--that is, an expression of the public thought and -will. +This doctrine was that the Press was an *organ of opinion*--that is, an +expression of the public thought and will. -Why was this doctrine originally what I have called it, -"plausible and arguable"? At first sight it would seem to be -neither the one nor the other. +Why was this doctrine originally what I have called it, "plausible and +arguable"? At first sight it would seem to be neither the one nor the +other. -A man controlling a newspaper can print any folly or -falsehood he likes. *He* is the dictator: not his public. -*They* only receive. +A man controlling a newspaper can print any folly or falsehood he likes. +*He* is the dictator: not his public. *They* only receive. Yes: but he is limited by his public. -If I am rich enough to set up a big rotary printing press -and print in a million copies of a daily paper the *news* -that the Pope has become a Methodist, or the *opinion* that -tin-tacks make a very good breakfast food, my newspaper -containing such news and such an opinion would obviously not -touch the general thought and will at all. No one, outside -the small catholic minority, wants to hear about the Pope; -and no one, Catholic or Muslim, will believe that he has -become a Methodist. No one alive will consent to eat -tin-tacks. A paper printing stuff like that is free to do -so, the proprietor could certainly get his employees, or -most of them, to write as he told them. But his paper would -stop selling. - -It is perfectly clear that the Press in itself simply -represents the news which its owners desire to print and the -opinions which they desire to propagate; and this argument -against the Press has always been used by those who are -opposed to its influence at any moment. - -But there is no smoke without fire, and the element of truth -in the legend that the Press "represents" opinion lies in -this, that there is a *limit* of outrageous contradiction to -known truths beyond which it cannot go without heavy -financial loss through failure of circulation, which is -synonymous with failure of power. When people talked of the -newspaper owners as "representing public opinion" there was -a shadow of reality in such talk, absurd as it seems to us -to-day. Though the doctrine that newspapers are "organs of -public opinion" was (like most nineteenth century so-called -"Liberal" doctrines) falsely stated and hypocritical, it had -that element of truth about it---at least, in the earlier -phase of newspaper development. There is even a certain -savour of truth hanging about it to this day. - -Newspapers are only offered for sale; the purchase of them -is not (as yet) compulsorily enforced. A newspaper can, -therefore, never succeed unless it prints news in which -people are interested and on the nature of which they can be -taken in. A newspaper can manufacture interest, but there -are certain broad currents in human affairs which neither a -newspaper proprietor nor any other human being can control. -If England is at war no newspaper can boycott war news and -live. If London were devastated by an earthquake no -advertising power in the Insurance Companies nor any private -interest of newspaper owners in real estate could prevent -the thing "getting into the newspapers." - -Indeed, until quite lately---say, until about the '8o's or -so---most news printed was really news about things which -people wanted to understand. However garbled or truncated or -falsified, It at least dealt with Interesting matters which -the newspaper proprietors had not started as a hare of their -own, and which the public, as a whole, was determined to -hear something about. Even to-day, apart from the war, there -Is a large element of this. - -There was (and is) a further check upon the artificiality of -the news side of the Press; which is that Reality always -comes into its own at last. +If I am rich enough to set up a big rotary printing press and print in a +million copies of a daily paper the *news* that the Pope has become a +Methodist, or the *opinion* that tin-tacks make a very good breakfast +food, my newspaper containing such news and such an opinion would +obviously not touch the general thought and will at all. No one, outside +the small catholic minority, wants to hear about the Pope; and no one, +Catholic or Muslim, will believe that he has become a Methodist. No one +alive will consent to eat tin-tacks. A paper printing stuff like that is +free to do so, the proprietor could certainly get his employees, or most +of them, to write as he told them. But his paper would stop selling. + +It is perfectly clear that the Press in itself simply represents the +news which its owners desire to print and the opinions which they desire +to propagate; and this argument against the Press has always been used +by those who are opposed to its influence at any moment. + +But there is no smoke without fire, and the element of truth in the +legend that the Press "represents" opinion lies in this, that there is a +*limit* of outrageous contradiction to known truths beyond which it +cannot go without heavy financial loss through failure of circulation, +which is synonymous with failure of power. When people talked of the +newspaper owners as "representing public opinion" there was a shadow of +reality in such talk, absurd as it seems to us to-day. Though the +doctrine that newspapers are "organs of public opinion" was (like most +nineteenth century so-called "Liberal" doctrines) falsely stated and +hypocritical, it had that element of truth about it---at least, in the +earlier phase of newspaper development. There is even a certain savour +of truth hanging about it to this day. + +Newspapers are only offered for sale; the purchase of them is not (as +yet) compulsorily enforced. A newspaper can, therefore, never succeed +unless it prints news in which people are interested and on the nature +of which they can be taken in. A newspaper can manufacture interest, but +there are certain broad currents in human affairs which neither a +newspaper proprietor nor any other human being can control. If England +is at war no newspaper can boycott war news and live. If London were +devastated by an earthquake no advertising power in the Insurance +Companies nor any private interest of newspaper owners in real estate +could prevent the thing "getting into the newspapers." + +Indeed, until quite lately---say, until about the '8o's or so---most +news printed was really news about things which people wanted to +understand. However garbled or truncated or falsified, It at least dealt +with Interesting matters which the newspaper proprietors had not started +as a hare of their own, and which the public, as a whole, was determined +to hear something about. Even to-day, apart from the war, there Is a +large element of this. + +There was (and is) a further check upon the artificiality of the news +side of the Press; which is that Reality always comes into its own at +last. You cannot, beyond a certain limit of time, burke reality. -In a word, the Press must always largely deal with what are -called "living issues." It can *boycott* very successfully, -and does so, with complete power. But It cannot artificially -create unlimitedly the objects of "news." +In a word, the Press must always largely deal with what are called +"living issues." It can *boycott* very successfully, and does so, with +complete power. But It cannot artificially create unlimitedly the +objects of "news." -There is, then, this much truth in the old figment of the -Press being "an organ of opinion," that It must In some -degree (and that a large degree) present real matter for -observation and debate. It can and does select. It can and -does garble. But it has to do this always within certain -limitations. +There is, then, this much truth in the old figment of the Press being +"an organ of opinion," that It must In some degree (and that a large +degree) present real matter for observation and debate. It can and does +select. It can and does garble. But it has to do this always within +certain limitations. -These limitations have, I think, already been reached; but -that is a matter which I argue more fully later on. +These limitations have, I think, already been reached; but that is a +matter which I argue more fully later on. # VII As to opinion, you have the same limitations. -If opinion can be once launched in spite of, or during the -indifference of, the Press (and it is a big "if"); if there -is no machinery for actually suppressing the mere statement -of a doctrine clearly important to its readers---then the -Press is bound sooner or later to deal with such doctrine: -just as it is bound to deal with really vital news. - -Here, again, we are dealing with something very different -indeed from that title "An organ of opinion" to which the -large newspaper has in the past pretended. But I am arguing -for the truth that the Press---in the sense of the great -Capitalist newspapers---cannot be wholly divorced from -opinion. - -We have had three great examples of this in our own time in -England. Two proceeded from the small wealthy class, and one -from the mass of the people. - -The two proceeding from the small wealthy classes were the -Fabian movement and the movement for Women's Suffrage. The -one proceeding from the populace was the sudden, brief (and -rapidly suppressed) insurrection of the working classes -against their masters in the matter of Chinese Labour in -South Africa. - -The Fabian movement, which was a drawing-room movement, -compelled the discussion in the Press of Socialism, for and -against. Although every effort was made to boycott the -Socialist contention in the Press, the Fabians were at last -strong enough to compel its discussion, and they have by now -canalized the whole thing into the direction of their -"Servile State." I myself am no more than middle-aged, but I -can remember the time when popular newspapers such as "The -Star" openly printed arguments in favour of Collectivism, -and though to-day those arguments are never heard in the -Press---largely because the Fabian Society has itself -abandoned Collectivism in favour of forced labour---yet we -may be certain that a Capitalist paper would not have -discussed them at all, still less have supported them, -unless it had been compelled. The newspapers simply *could* -not ignore Socialism at a time when Socialism still -commanded a really strong body of opinion among the wealthy. - -It was the same with the Suffrage for Women, which cry a -clique of wealthy ladies got up in London. I have never -myself quite understood why these wealthy ladies wanted such -an absurdity as the modern franchise, or why they so blindly -hated the Christian institution of the Family. I suppose it -was some perversion. But, anyhow, they displayed great -sincerity, enthusiasm, and devotion, suffering many things -for their cause, and acting in the only way which is at all -practical in our plutocracy---to wit, by making their -fellow-rich exceedingly uncomfortable. You may say that no -one newspaper took up the cause, but, at least, it was not -boycotted. It was actively discussed. - -The little flash in the pan of Chinese Labour was, I think, -even more remarkable. The Press not only had word from the -twin Party Machines (with which it was then allied for the -purposes of power) to boycott the Chinese Labour agitation -rigidly, but it was manifestly to the interest of all the -Capitalist Newspaper Proprietors to boycott it, and boycott -it they did---as long as they could. But it was too much for -them. They were swept off their feet. There were great -meetings in the North-country which almost approached the -dignity of popular action, and the Press at last not only -took up the question for discussion, but apparently -permitted itself a certain timid support. - -My point is, then, that the idea of the Press as "an organ -of public opinion," that is, "an expression of the general -thought and will," is not *only* hypocritical, though it is -*mainly* so. There is still something in the claim. A -generation ago there was more, and a couple of generations -ago there was more still. - -Even to-day, if a large paper went right against the -national will in the matter of the present war it would be -ruined, and papers which supported in 1914 the Cabinet -intrigue to abandon our Allies at the beginning of the war -have long since been compelled to eat their words. - -For the strength of a newspaper owner lies in his power to -deceive the public and to withhold or to publish at will -hidden things: his power in this terrifies the professional -politicians who hold nominal authority: in a word, the -newspaper owner controls the professional politician because -he can and does blackmail the professional politician, -especially upon his private life. But if he does not command -a large public this power to blackmail does not exist; and -he can only command a large public---that is, a large -circulation---by interesting that public and even by -flattering It that It has Its opinions reflected---not +If opinion can be once launched in spite of, or during the indifference +of, the Press (and it is a big "if"); if there is no machinery for +actually suppressing the mere statement of a doctrine clearly important +to its readers---then the Press is bound sooner or later to deal with +such doctrine: just as it is bound to deal with really vital news. + +Here, again, we are dealing with something very different indeed from +that title "An organ of opinion" to which the large newspaper has in the +past pretended. But I am arguing for the truth that the Press---in the +sense of the great Capitalist newspapers---cannot be wholly divorced +from opinion. + +We have had three great examples of this in our own time in England. Two +proceeded from the small wealthy class, and one from the mass of the +people. + +The two proceeding from the small wealthy classes were the Fabian +movement and the movement for Women's Suffrage. The one proceeding from +the populace was the sudden, brief (and rapidly suppressed) insurrection +of the working classes against their masters in the matter of Chinese +Labour in South Africa. + +The Fabian movement, which was a drawing-room movement, compelled the +discussion in the Press of Socialism, for and against. Although every +effort was made to boycott the Socialist contention in the Press, the +Fabians were at last strong enough to compel its discussion, and they +have by now canalized the whole thing into the direction of their +"Servile State." I myself am no more than middle-aged, but I can +remember the time when popular newspapers such as "The Star" openly +printed arguments in favour of Collectivism, and though to-day those +arguments are never heard in the Press---largely because the Fabian +Society has itself abandoned Collectivism in favour of forced +labour---yet we may be certain that a Capitalist paper would not have +discussed them at all, still less have supported them, unless it had +been compelled. The newspapers simply *could* not ignore Socialism at a +time when Socialism still commanded a really strong body of opinion +among the wealthy. + +It was the same with the Suffrage for Women, which cry a clique of +wealthy ladies got up in London. I have never myself quite understood +why these wealthy ladies wanted such an absurdity as the modern +franchise, or why they so blindly hated the Christian institution of the +Family. I suppose it was some perversion. But, anyhow, they displayed +great sincerity, enthusiasm, and devotion, suffering many things for +their cause, and acting in the only way which is at all practical in our +plutocracy---to wit, by making their fellow-rich exceedingly +uncomfortable. You may say that no one newspaper took up the cause, but, +at least, it was not boycotted. It was actively discussed. + +The little flash in the pan of Chinese Labour was, I think, even more +remarkable. The Press not only had word from the twin Party Machines +(with which it was then allied for the purposes of power) to boycott the +Chinese Labour agitation rigidly, but it was manifestly to the interest +of all the Capitalist Newspaper Proprietors to boycott it, and boycott +it they did---as long as they could. But it was too much for them. They +were swept off their feet. There were great meetings in the +North-country which almost approached the dignity of popular action, and +the Press at last not only took up the question for discussion, but +apparently permitted itself a certain timid support. + +My point is, then, that the idea of the Press as "an organ of public +opinion," that is, "an expression of the general thought and will," is +not *only* hypocritical, though it is *mainly* so. There is still +something in the claim. A generation ago there was more, and a couple of +generations ago there was more still. + +Even to-day, if a large paper went right against the national will in +the matter of the present war it would be ruined, and papers which +supported in 1914 the Cabinet intrigue to abandon our Allies at the +beginning of the war have long since been compelled to eat their words. + +For the strength of a newspaper owner lies in his power to deceive the +public and to withhold or to publish at will hidden things: his power in +this terrifies the professional politicians who hold nominal authority: +in a word, the newspaper owner controls the professional politician +because he can and does blackmail the professional politician, +especially upon his private life. But if he does not command a large +public this power to blackmail does not exist; and he can only command a +large public---that is, a large circulation---by interesting that public +and even by flattering It that It has Its opinions reflected---not created---for it. -The power of the Press is not a direct and open power. It -depends upon a trick of deception; and no trick of deception -works if the trickster passes a certain degree of cynicism. +The power of the Press is not a direct and open power. It depends upon a +trick of deception; and no trick of deception works if the trickster +passes a certain degree of cynicism. -We must, therefore, guard ourselves against the conception -that the great modern Capitalist Press is *merely* a channel -for the propagation of such news as may suit its -proprietors, or of such opinions as they hold or desire to -see held. Such a judgment would be fanatical, and therefore -worthless. +We must, therefore, guard ourselves against the conception that the +great modern Capitalist Press is *merely* a channel for the propagation +of such news as may suit its proprietors, or of such opinions as they +hold or desire to see held. Such a judgment would be fanatical, and +therefore worthless. -Our interest is in the *degree* to which news can be -suppressed or garbled, particular discussion of interest to -the common-weal suppressed, spontaneous opinion boycotted, -and artificial opinion produced. +Our interest is in the *degree* to which news can be suppressed or +garbled, particular discussion of interest to the common-weal +suppressed, spontaneous opinion boycotted, and artificial opinion +produced. # VIII -I say that our interest lies in the question of degree. It -always does. The philosopher said: "All things are a matter -of degree; and who shall establish degree?" But I think we -are agreed---and by "we" I mean all educated men with some -knowledge of the world around us---that the degree to which -the suppression of truth, the propagation of falsehood, the -artificial creation of opinion, and the boycott of -Inconvenient doctrine have reached in the great Capitalist -Press for some time past in England, Is at least dangerously -high. - -There is no one in public life but could give dozens of -examples from his own experience of perfectly sensible -letters to the Press, citing irrefutable testimony upon -matters of the first importance, being refused publicity. -Within the guild of the journalists, there is not a man who -could not give you a hundred examples of deliberate -suppression and deliberate falsehood by his employers both -as regards news important to the nation and as regards great -bodies of opinion. - -Equally significant with the mere vast numerical -accumulation of such instances is their quality. - -Let me give a few examples. No straight-forward, -common-sense, *real* description of any professional -politician---his manners, capacities, way of speaking, -intelligence---ever appears to-day in any of the great -papers. We never have anything within a thousand miles of -what men who meet them say. - -We are, indeed, long past the time when the professional -politicians were treated as revered beings of whom an inept -ritual description had to be given. But the substitute has -only been a putting of them into the limelight in another -and more grotesque fashion, far less dignified, and quite -equally false. - -We cannot even say that the professional politicians are -still made to "fill the stage." That metaphor is false, -because upon a stage the audience knows that it is all -play-acting, and actually *sees* the figures. - -Let any man of reasonable competence soberly and simply -describe the scene in the House of Commons when some one of -the ordinary professional politicians is speaking. - -It would not be an exciting description. The truth here -would not be a violent or dangerous truth. Let him but write -soberly and with truth. Let him write it as private letters -are daily written in dozens about such folk, or as private -conversation runs among those who know them, and who have no -reason to exaggerate their importance, but see them as they -are. Such a description would never be printed! The few -owners of the Press will not turn off the limelight and make -a brief, accurate statement about these mediocrities, -because their power to govern depends upon keeping in the -limelight the men whom they control. - -Once let the public know what sort of mediocrities the -politicians are and they lose power. Once let them lose -power and their hidden masters lose power. - -Take a larger instance: the middle and upper classes are -never allowed by any chance to hear in time the dispute -which leads to a strike or a lock-out. - -Here is an example of news which is of the utmost possible -importance to the commonwealth, and to each of us -individually. To understand *why* a vast domestic dispute -has arisen is the very first necessity for a sound civic -judgment. But we never get it. The event always comes upon -us with violence and is always completely -misunderstood---because the Press has boycotted the men's -claims. - -I talked to dozens of people in my own station of -life---that is, of the professional middle classes---about -the great building lock-out which coincided with the -outbreak of the War. *I did not find a single one who knew -that it was a lock-out at all!* The few who did at least -know the difference between a strike and a lock-out, *all* -thought it was a strike! - -Let no one say that the disgusting falsehoods spread by the -Press in this respect were of no effect. The men themselves -gave in, and their perfectly just demands were defeated, -mainly because middle-class opinion *and a great deal of -proletarian opinion as well* had been led to believe that -the builders' cessation of labour was a *strike* due to -their own initiative against existing conditions, and -thought the operation of such an initiative immoral in time -of war. They did not know the plain truth that the -provocation was the masters', and that the men were turned -out of employment, that is deprived of access to the -Capitalist stores of food and all other necessaries, -wantonly and avariciously by the masters. The Press would -not print that enormous truth. +I say that our interest lies in the question of degree. It always does. +The philosopher said: "All things are a matter of degree; and who shall +establish degree?" But I think we are agreed---and by "we" I mean all +educated men with some knowledge of the world around us---that the +degree to which the suppression of truth, the propagation of falsehood, +the artificial creation of opinion, and the boycott of Inconvenient +doctrine have reached in the great Capitalist Press for some time past +in England, Is at least dangerously high. + +There is no one in public life but could give dozens of examples from +his own experience of perfectly sensible letters to the Press, citing +irrefutable testimony upon matters of the first importance, being +refused publicity. Within the guild of the journalists, there is not a +man who could not give you a hundred examples of deliberate suppression +and deliberate falsehood by his employers both as regards news important +to the nation and as regards great bodies of opinion. + +Equally significant with the mere vast numerical accumulation of such +instances is their quality. + +Let me give a few examples. No straight-forward, common-sense, *real* +description of any professional politician---his manners, capacities, +way of speaking, intelligence---ever appears to-day in any of the great +papers. We never have anything within a thousand miles of what men who +meet them say. + +We are, indeed, long past the time when the professional politicians +were treated as revered beings of whom an inept ritual description had +to be given. But the substitute has only been a putting of them into the +limelight in another and more grotesque fashion, far less dignified, and +quite equally false. + +We cannot even say that the professional politicians are still made to +"fill the stage." That metaphor is false, because upon a stage the +audience knows that it is all play-acting, and actually *sees* the +figures. + +Let any man of reasonable competence soberly and simply describe the +scene in the House of Commons when some one of the ordinary professional +politicians is speaking. + +It would not be an exciting description. The truth here would not be a +violent or dangerous truth. Let him but write soberly and with truth. +Let him write it as private letters are daily written in dozens about +such folk, or as private conversation runs among those who know them, +and who have no reason to exaggerate their importance, but see them as +they are. Such a description would never be printed! The few owners of +the Press will not turn off the limelight and make a brief, accurate +statement about these mediocrities, because their power to govern +depends upon keeping in the limelight the men whom they control. + +Once let the public know what sort of mediocrities the politicians are +and they lose power. Once let them lose power and their hidden masters +lose power. + +Take a larger instance: the middle and upper classes are never allowed +by any chance to hear in time the dispute which leads to a strike or a +lock-out. + +Here is an example of news which is of the utmost possible importance to +the commonwealth, and to each of us individually. To understand *why* a +vast domestic dispute has arisen is the very first necessity for a sound +civic judgment. But we never get it. The event always comes upon us with +violence and is always completely misunderstood---because the Press has +boycotted the men's claims. + +I talked to dozens of people in my own station of life---that is, of the +professional middle classes---about the great building lock-out which +coincided with the outbreak of the War. *I did not find a single one who +knew that it was a lock-out at all!* The few who did at least know the +difference between a strike and a lock-out, *all* thought it was a +strike! + +Let no one say that the disgusting falsehoods spread by the Press in +this respect were of no effect. The men themselves gave in, and their +perfectly just demands were defeated, mainly because middle-class +opinion *and a great deal of proletarian opinion as well* had been led +to believe that the builders' cessation of labour was a *strike* due to +their own initiative against existing conditions, and thought the +operation of such an initiative immoral in time of war. They did not +know the plain truth that the provocation was the masters', and that the +men were turned out of employment, that is deprived of access to the +Capitalist stores of food and all other necessaries, wantonly and +avariciously by the masters. The Press would not print that enormous +truth. I will give another general example. -The whole of England was concerned during the second year of -the War with the first rise in the price of food. There was -no man so rich but he had noticed it in his household books, -and for nine families out of ten it was the one -pre-occupation of the moment. I do not say the great -newspapers did not deal with it, but *how* did they deal -with it? With a mass of advocacy in favour of this -professional politician or that; with a mass of -uncoordinated advices; and, above all, with a mass of -nonsense about the immense earnings of the proletariat. The -whole thing was really and deliberately side-tracked for -months until, by the mere force of things, it compelled -attention. Each of us is a witness to this. We have all seen -it. Every single reader of these lines knows that my -indictment is true. Not a journalist of the hundreds who -were writing the falsehood or the rubbish at the dictation -of his employer but had felt the strain upon the little -weekly cheque which was his *own* wage. Yet this enormous -national thing was at first not dealt with at all in the -Press, and, when dealt with, was falsified out of -recognition. - -I could give any number of other, and, perhaps, minor -instances as the times go (but still enormous instances as -older morals went) of the same thing. They have shown the -incapacity and falsehood of the great capitalist newspapers -during these few months of white-hot crisis in the fate of -England. - -This is not a querulous complaint against evils that are -human and necessary, and therefore always present. I detest -such waste of energy, and I agree with all my heart in the -statement recently made by the Editor of "The New Age" that -in moments such as these, when any waste is inexcusable, -sterile complaint is the *worst* of waste. But my complaint -here is not sterile. It is fruitful. This Capitalist Press -has come at last to warp all judgment. The tiny oligarchy -which controls it is irresponsible and feels itself immune. -It has come to believe that it can suppress any truth and -suggest any falsehood. It governs, and governs abominably: -and it is governing thus in the midst of a war for life. +The whole of England was concerned during the second year of the War +with the first rise in the price of food. There was no man so rich but +he had noticed it in his household books, and for nine families out of +ten it was the one pre-occupation of the moment. I do not say the great +newspapers did not deal with it, but *how* did they deal with it? With a +mass of advocacy in favour of this professional politician or that; with +a mass of uncoordinated advices; and, above all, with a mass of nonsense +about the immense earnings of the proletariat. The whole thing was +really and deliberately side-tracked for months until, by the mere force +of things, it compelled attention. Each of us is a witness to this. We +have all seen it. Every single reader of these lines knows that my +indictment is true. Not a journalist of the hundreds who were writing +the falsehood or the rubbish at the dictation of his employer but had +felt the strain upon the little weekly cheque which was his *own* wage. +Yet this enormous national thing was at first not dealt with at all in +the Press, and, when dealt with, was falsified out of recognition. + +I could give any number of other, and, perhaps, minor instances as the +times go (but still enormous instances as older morals went) of the same +thing. They have shown the incapacity and falsehood of the great +capitalist newspapers during these few months of white-hot crisis in the +fate of England. + +This is not a querulous complaint against evils that are human and +necessary, and therefore always present. I detest such waste of energy, +and I agree with all my heart in the statement recently made by the +Editor of "The New Age" that in moments such as these, when any waste is +inexcusable, sterile complaint is the *worst* of waste. But my complaint +here is not sterile. It is fruitful. This Capitalist Press has come at +last to warp all judgment. The tiny oligarchy which controls it is +irresponsible and feels itself immune. It has come to believe that it +can suppress any truth and suggest any falsehood. It governs, and +governs abominably: and it is governing thus in the midst of a war for +life. # IX -I say that the few newspaper controllers govern; and govern -abominably. I am right. But they only do so, as do all new -powers, by at once alliance with, and treason against, the -old: witness Harmsworth and the politicians. The new -governing Press is an oligarchy which still works " in with -" the just-less-new parliamentary oligarchy. - -This connection has developed in the great Capitalist papers -a certain character which can be best described by the term -"Official." - -Under certain forms of arbitrary government In Continental -Europe ministers once made use of picked and rare newspapers -to express their views, and these newspapers came to be -called "The Official Press." It was a crude method, and has -been long abandoned even by the simpler despotic forms of -government. Nothing of that kind exists now, of course, in -the deeper corruption of modern Europe---least of all In +I say that the few newspaper controllers govern; and govern abominably. +I am right. But they only do so, as do all new powers, by at once +alliance with, and treason against, the old: witness Harmsworth and the +politicians. The new governing Press is an oligarchy which still works " +in with " the just-less-new parliamentary oligarchy. + +This connection has developed in the great Capitalist papers a certain +character which can be best described by the term "Official." + +Under certain forms of arbitrary government In Continental Europe +ministers once made use of picked and rare newspapers to express their +views, and these newspapers came to be called "The Official Press." It +was a crude method, and has been long abandoned even by the simpler +despotic forms of government. Nothing of that kind exists now, of +course, in the deeper corruption of modern Europe---least of all In England. -What has grown up here is a Press organization of support -and favour to the system of professional politics which -colours the whole of our great Capitalist papers to-day in -England. This gives them so distinct a character of -parliamentary falsehood, and that falsehood Is so clearly -dictated by their connection with executive power that they -merit the title "Official." - -The regime under which we are now living is that of a -Plutocracy which has gradually replaced the old Aristocratic -tradition of England. This Plutocracy---a few wealthy -interests---in part controls, in part is expressed by, is in -part identical with the professional politicians, and it has -in the existing Capitalist Press an ally similar to that -"Official Press" which continental nations knew in the past. -But there is this great difference, that the "Official -Press" of Continental experiments never consisted in more -than a few chosen organs the character of which was well -known, and the attitude of which contrasted sharply with the -rest. But *our* "official Press" (for it is no less) covers -the whole field. It has in the region of the great -newspapers no competitor; indeed, it has no competitors at -all, save that small Free Press, of which I shall speak in a -moment, and which is its sole antagonist. - -If any one doubts that this adjective "official" can -properly be applied to our Capitalist Press to-day, let him -ask himself first what the forces are which govern the -nation, and next, whether those forces---that Government or -regime---could be better served even under a system of -permanent censorship than it is in the great dailies of -London and the principal provincial capitals. - -Is not everything which the regime desires to be suppressed, -suppressed? Is not everything which it desires suggested, -suggested? And is there any public question which would -weaken the regime, and the discussion of which is ever -allowed to appear in the great Capitalist journals? - -There has not been such a case for at least twenty years. -The current simulacrum of criticism apparently attacking -some portion of the regime, never deals with matters vital -to its prestige. On the contrary, it deliberately -side-tracks any vital discussion that sincere conviction may -have forced upon the public, and spoils the scent with false -issues. - -One paper, not a little while ago, was clamouring against -the excess of lawyers in Government. Its remedy was an -opposition to be headed by a lawyer. - -Another was very serious upon secret trading with the enemy. -It suppressed for months all reference to the astounding -instance of that misdemeanour by the connections of a very -prominent professional politician early in the war, and -refused to comment on the single reference made to this -crime in the House of Commons! - -Another clamours for the elimination of enemy financial -power in the affairs of this country, and yet says not a -word upon the auditing of the secret Party Funds! - -I say that the big daily papers have now not only those -other qualities dangerous to the State which I have -described, but that they have become essentially " -official," that is, insincere and corrupt in their -interested support of that plutocratic complex which, in the -decay of aristocracy, governs England. They are as official -in this sense as were ever the Court organs of ephemeral -Continental experiments. All the vices, all the unreality, -and all the peril that goes with the existence of an -official Press is stamped upon the great dailies of our -time. They are not independent where Power is concerned. -They do not really criticize. They serve a clique whom they -should expose, and denounce and betray the generality---that -is the State---for whose sake the salaried public servants -should be perpetually watched with suspicion and sharply +What has grown up here is a Press organization of support and favour to +the system of professional politics which colours the whole of our great +Capitalist papers to-day in England. This gives them so distinct a +character of parliamentary falsehood, and that falsehood Is so clearly +dictated by their connection with executive power that they merit the +title "Official." + +The regime under which we are now living is that of a Plutocracy which +has gradually replaced the old Aristocratic tradition of England. This +Plutocracy---a few wealthy interests---in part controls, in part is +expressed by, is in part identical with the professional politicians, +and it has in the existing Capitalist Press an ally similar to that +"Official Press" which continental nations knew in the past. But there +is this great difference, that the "Official Press" of Continental +experiments never consisted in more than a few chosen organs the +character of which was well known, and the attitude of which contrasted +sharply with the rest. But *our* "official Press" (for it is no less) +covers the whole field. It has in the region of the great newspapers no +competitor; indeed, it has no competitors at all, save that small Free +Press, of which I shall speak in a moment, and which is its sole +antagonist. + +If any one doubts that this adjective "official" can properly be applied +to our Capitalist Press to-day, let him ask himself first what the +forces are which govern the nation, and next, whether those +forces---that Government or regime---could be better served even under a +system of permanent censorship than it is in the great dailies of London +and the principal provincial capitals. + +Is not everything which the regime desires to be suppressed, suppressed? +Is not everything which it desires suggested, suggested? And is there +any public question which would weaken the regime, and the discussion of +which is ever allowed to appear in the great Capitalist journals? + +There has not been such a case for at least twenty years. The current +simulacrum of criticism apparently attacking some portion of the regime, +never deals with matters vital to its prestige. On the contrary, it +deliberately side-tracks any vital discussion that sincere conviction +may have forced upon the public, and spoils the scent with false issues. + +One paper, not a little while ago, was clamouring against the excess of +lawyers in Government. Its remedy was an opposition to be headed by a +lawyer. + +Another was very serious upon secret trading with the enemy. It +suppressed for months all reference to the astounding instance of that +misdemeanour by the connections of a very prominent professional +politician early in the war, and refused to comment on the single +reference made to this crime in the House of Commons! + +Another clamours for the elimination of enemy financial power in the +affairs of this country, and yet says not a word upon the auditing of +the secret Party Funds! + +I say that the big daily papers have now not only those other qualities +dangerous to the State which I have described, but that they have become +essentially " official," that is, insincere and corrupt in their +interested support of that plutocratic complex which, in the decay of +aristocracy, governs England. They are as official in this sense as were +ever the Court organs of ephemeral Continental experiments. All the +vices, all the unreality, and all the peril that goes with the existence +of an official Press is stamped upon the great dailies of our time. They +are not independent where Power is concerned. They do not really +criticize. They serve a clique whom they should expose, and denounce and +betray the generality---that is the State---for whose sake the salaried +public servants should be perpetually watched with suspicion and sharply kept in control. -The result is that the mass of Englishmen have ceased to -obtain, or even to expect, information upon the way they are -governed. - -They are beginning to feel a certain uneasiness. They know -that their old power of observation over public servants has -slipped from them. They suspect that the known gross -corruption of Public life, and particularly of the House of -Commons, is entrenched behind a conspiracy of silence on the -part of those very few who have the power to Inform them. -But, as yet, they have not passed the stage of such -suspicion. They have not advanced nearly as far as the -discovery of the great newspaper owners and their system. -They are still, for the most part, duped. - -This transitional state of affairs (for I hope to show that -it is only transitional) is a very great evil. It warps and -depletes public Information. It prevents the just criticism -of public servants. Above all, it gives immense and -*irresponsible* power to a handful of wealthy men---and -especially to the one most wealthy and unscrupulous among -them---whose wealth is an accident of speculation, whose -origins are repulsive, and whose characters have, as a rule, -the weakness and baseness developed by this sort of -adventures. There are, among such gutter-snipes, thousands -whose luck ends in the native gutter, half a dozen whose -luck lands them into millions, one or two at most who, on -the top of such a career go crazy with the ambition of the -parvenu and propose to direct the State. Even when gambling -adventurers of this sort are known and responsible (as they -are in professional politics) their power is a grave danger. -Possessing as the newspaper owners do every power of -concealment and, at the same time, no shred of -responsibility to any organ of the State, they are a deadly -peril. The chief of these men are more powerful to-day than -any Minister. Nay, they do, as I have said (and it is now -notorious), make and unmake Ministers, and they may yet in -our worst hour decide the national fate. - -Now to every human evil of a political sort that has -appeared in history (to every evil, that is, affecting the -State, and proceeding from the will of man---not from -ungovernable natural forces outside man) there comes a term -and a reaction. - -Here I touch the core of my matter. Side by side with what I -have called "the Official Press" in our top-heavy plutocracy -there has arisen a certain force for which I have a -difficulty in finding a name, but which I will call for lack -of a better name "the Free Press." - -I might call it the "independent" Press were it not that -such a word would connote as yet a little too much power, -though I do believe its power to be rising, and though I am -confident that it will in the near future change our -affairs. - -I am not acquainted with any other modern language than -French and English, but I read this Free Press French and -English, Colonial and American regularly and it seems to me -the chief intellectual phenomenon of our time. - -In France and in England, and for all I know elsewhere, -there has arisen in protest against the complete corruption -and falsehood of the great Capitalist papers a crop of new -organs which *are* in the strictest sense of the word -"organs of Opinion." I need not detain English readers with -the effect of this upon the Continent. It is already -sufficiently noteworthy in England alone, and we shall do -well to note it carefully. - -"The New Age" was, I think, the pioneer in the matter. It -still maintains a pre-eminent position. I myself founded the -"Eye-Witness" in the same chapter of ideas (by which I do -not mean at all with similar objects of propaganda). Ireland -has produced more than one organ of the sort, Scotland one -or two. Their number will increase. - -With this I pass from the just denunciation of evil to the -exposition of what is good. - -I propose to examine the nature of that movement which I -call "The Free Press," to analyse the disabilities under -which it suffers, and to conclude with my conviction that it -is, in spite of its disabilities, not only a growing force, -but a salutary one, and, in a certain measure, a conquering -one. It is to this argument that I shall now ask my readers +The result is that the mass of Englishmen have ceased to obtain, or even +to expect, information upon the way they are governed. + +They are beginning to feel a certain uneasiness. They know that their +old power of observation over public servants has slipped from them. +They suspect that the known gross corruption of Public life, and +particularly of the House of Commons, is entrenched behind a conspiracy +of silence on the part of those very few who have the power to Inform +them. But, as yet, they have not passed the stage of such suspicion. +They have not advanced nearly as far as the discovery of the great +newspaper owners and their system. They are still, for the most part, +duped. + +This transitional state of affairs (for I hope to show that it is only +transitional) is a very great evil. It warps and depletes public +Information. It prevents the just criticism of public servants. Above +all, it gives immense and *irresponsible* power to a handful of wealthy +men---and especially to the one most wealthy and unscrupulous among +them---whose wealth is an accident of speculation, whose origins are +repulsive, and whose characters have, as a rule, the weakness and +baseness developed by this sort of adventures. There are, among such +gutter-snipes, thousands whose luck ends in the native gutter, half a +dozen whose luck lands them into millions, one or two at most who, on +the top of such a career go crazy with the ambition of the parvenu and +propose to direct the State. Even when gambling adventurers of this sort +are known and responsible (as they are in professional politics) their +power is a grave danger. Possessing as the newspaper owners do every +power of concealment and, at the same time, no shred of responsibility +to any organ of the State, they are a deadly peril. The chief of these +men are more powerful to-day than any Minister. Nay, they do, as I have +said (and it is now notorious), make and unmake Ministers, and they may +yet in our worst hour decide the national fate. + +Now to every human evil of a political sort that has appeared in history +(to every evil, that is, affecting the State, and proceeding from the +will of man---not from ungovernable natural forces outside man) there +comes a term and a reaction. + +Here I touch the core of my matter. Side by side with what I have called +"the Official Press" in our top-heavy plutocracy there has arisen a +certain force for which I have a difficulty in finding a name, but which +I will call for lack of a better name "the Free Press." + +I might call it the "independent" Press were it not that such a word +would connote as yet a little too much power, though I do believe its +power to be rising, and though I am confident that it will in the near +future change our affairs. + +I am not acquainted with any other modern language than French and +English, but I read this Free Press French and English, Colonial and +American regularly and it seems to me the chief intellectual phenomenon +of our time. + +In France and in England, and for all I know elsewhere, there has arisen +in protest against the complete corruption and falsehood of the great +Capitalist papers a crop of new organs which *are* in the strictest +sense of the word "organs of Opinion." I need not detain English readers +with the effect of this upon the Continent. It is already sufficiently +noteworthy in England alone, and we shall do well to note it carefully. + +"The New Age" was, I think, the pioneer in the matter. It still +maintains a pre-eminent position. I myself founded the "Eye-Witness" in +the same chapter of ideas (by which I do not mean at all with similar +objects of propaganda). Ireland has produced more than one organ of the +sort, Scotland one or two. Their number will increase. + +With this I pass from the just denunciation of evil to the exposition of +what is good. + +I propose to examine the nature of that movement which I call "The Free +Press," to analyse the disabilities under which it suffers, and to +conclude with my conviction that it is, in spite of its disabilities, +not only a growing force, but a salutary one, and, in a certain measure, +a conquering one. It is to this argument that I shall now ask my readers to direct themselves. # X -The rise of what I have called "The Free Press" was due to a -reaction against what I have called "The Official Press." -But this reaction was not single in motive. - -Three distinct moral motives lay behind it and converged -upon it. We shall do well to separate and recognize each, -because each has had its effect upon the Free Press as a -whole, and that Free Press bears the marks of all three most -strongly to-day. - -The first motive apparent, coming much earlier than either -of the other two, was the motive of (A) *Propaganda*. The -second motive was (B) *Indignation against the concealment -of Truth* and the third motive was (C) *Indignation against -irresponsible power:* the sense of oppression which an -immoral irresponsibility in power breeds among those who are +The rise of what I have called "The Free Press" was due to a reaction +against what I have called "The Official Press." But this reaction was +not single in motive. + +Three distinct moral motives lay behind it and converged upon it. We +shall do well to separate and recognize each, because each has had its +effect upon the Free Press as a whole, and that Free Press bears the +marks of all three most strongly to-day. + +The first motive apparent, coming much earlier than either of the other +two, was the motive of (A) *Propaganda*. The second motive was (B) +*Indignation against the concealment of Truth* and the third motive was +(C) *Indignation against irresponsible power:* the sense of oppression +which an immoral irresponsibility in power breeds among those who are unhappily subject to it. Let us take each of these in their order. @@ -1129,1223 +982,1051 @@ Let us take each of these in their order. ## A -The motive of Propaganda (which began to work much the -earliest of the three) concerned Religions, and also certain -racial enthusiasms or political doctrines which, by their -sincerity and readiness for sacrifice, had half the force of -Religions. - -Men found that the great papers (in their final phase) -refused to talk about anything really important in Religion. -They dared do nothing but repeat very discreetly the vaguest -ethical platitudes. They hardly dared do even that. They -took for granted a sort of invertebrate common opinion. They -consented to be slightly coloured by the dominating religion -of the country in which each paper happened to be -printed---and there was an end of it. - -Great bodies of men who cared intensely for a definite creed -found that expression for it was lacking, even if this creed -(as in France) were that of a very large majority in the -State. The "organs of opinion" professed a genteel Ignorance -of that idea which was most widespread, most intense, and -most formative. Nor could it be otherwise with a Capitalist -enterprise whose directing motive was not conversion or even -expression, but mere gain. There was nothing to distinguish -a large daily paper owned by a Jew from one owned by an -Agnostic or a Catholic. Necessity of expression compelled -the creation of a Free Press in connection with this one -motive of religion. - -Men came across very little of this in England, because -England was for long virtually homogeneous in religion, and -that religion was not enthusiastic during the years in which -the Free Press arose. But such a Free Press in defence of -religion (the pioneer of all the Free Press) arose in -Ireland and in France and elsewhere. It had at first no -quarrel with the big official Capitalist Press. It took for -granted the anodyne and meaningless remarks on Religion -which appeared in the sawdust in the Official Press, but it -asserted the necessity of specially emphasizing its -particular point of view in its own columns: for religion -affects all life. - -This same motive of Propaganda later launched other papers -in defence of enthusiasms other than strictly religious -enthusiasms, and the most important of these was the -enthusiasm for Collectivism---Socialism. - -A generation ago and more, great numbers of men were -persuaded that a solution for the whole complex of social -injustice was to be found in what they called "nationalizing -the means of production, distribution, and exchange." That -is, of course, in plain English, putting land, houses, and -machinery, and stores of food and clothing into the hands of -the politicians for control in use and for distribution in -consumption. - -This creed was held with passionate conviction by men of the -highest ability in every country of Europe; and a Socialist -Press began to arise, which was everywhere free, and soon in -active opposition to the Official Press. Again (of a -religious temper in their segregation, conviction and -enthusiasm) there began to appear (when the oppressor was -mild), the small papers defending the rights of oppressed -nationalities. - -Religion, then, and cognate enthusiasms were the first -breeders of the Free Press. - -It is exceedingly important to recognize this, because it -has stamped the whole movement with a particular character -to which I shall later refer when I come to its -disabilities. - -The motive of Propaganda, I repeat, was not at first -conscious of anything iniquitous in the great Press or -Official Press side by side with which it existed. Veuillot, -in founding his splendidly fighting newspaper, which had so -prodigious an effect in France, felt no particular animosity -against the "Debats," for instance; his particular Catholic -enthusiasm recognized itself as exceptional, and was content -to accept the humble or, at any rate, inferior position, -which admitted eccentricity connotes. "Later," these -founders of the Free Press seemed to say, "we may convert -the mass to our views, but, for the moment, we are -admittedly a clique: an exceptional body with the penalties -attaching to such." They said this although the whole life -of France is at least as Catholic as the life of Great -Britain is Plutocratic, or the life of Switzerland -Democratic. And they said it because they arose *after* the -Capitalist press (neutral in religion as in every vital +The motive of Propaganda (which began to work much the earliest of the +three) concerned Religions, and also certain racial enthusiasms or +political doctrines which, by their sincerity and readiness for +sacrifice, had half the force of Religions. + +Men found that the great papers (in their final phase) refused to talk +about anything really important in Religion. They dared do nothing but +repeat very discreetly the vaguest ethical platitudes. They hardly dared +do even that. They took for granted a sort of invertebrate common +opinion. They consented to be slightly coloured by the dominating +religion of the country in which each paper happened to be printed---and +there was an end of it. + +Great bodies of men who cared intensely for a definite creed found that +expression for it was lacking, even if this creed (as in France) were +that of a very large majority in the State. The "organs of opinion" +professed a genteel Ignorance of that idea which was most widespread, +most intense, and most formative. Nor could it be otherwise with a +Capitalist enterprise whose directing motive was not conversion or even +expression, but mere gain. There was nothing to distinguish a large +daily paper owned by a Jew from one owned by an Agnostic or a Catholic. +Necessity of expression compelled the creation of a Free Press in +connection with this one motive of religion. + +Men came across very little of this in England, because England was for +long virtually homogeneous in religion, and that religion was not +enthusiastic during the years in which the Free Press arose. But such a +Free Press in defence of religion (the pioneer of all the Free Press) +arose in Ireland and in France and elsewhere. It had at first no quarrel +with the big official Capitalist Press. It took for granted the anodyne +and meaningless remarks on Religion which appeared in the sawdust in the +Official Press, but it asserted the necessity of specially emphasizing +its particular point of view in its own columns: for religion affects +all life. + +This same motive of Propaganda later launched other papers in defence of +enthusiasms other than strictly religious enthusiasms, and the most +important of these was the enthusiasm for Collectivism---Socialism. + +A generation ago and more, great numbers of men were persuaded that a +solution for the whole complex of social injustice was to be found in +what they called "nationalizing the means of production, distribution, +and exchange." That is, of course, in plain English, putting land, +houses, and machinery, and stores of food and clothing into the hands of +the politicians for control in use and for distribution in consumption. + +This creed was held with passionate conviction by men of the highest +ability in every country of Europe; and a Socialist Press began to +arise, which was everywhere free, and soon in active opposition to the +Official Press. Again (of a religious temper in their segregation, +conviction and enthusiasm) there began to appear (when the oppressor was +mild), the small papers defending the rights of oppressed nationalities. + +Religion, then, and cognate enthusiasms were the first breeders of the +Free Press. + +It is exceedingly important to recognize this, because it has stamped +the whole movement with a particular character to which I shall later +refer when I come to its disabilities. + +The motive of Propaganda, I repeat, was not at first conscious of +anything iniquitous in the great Press or Official Press side by side +with which it existed. Veuillot, in founding his splendidly fighting +newspaper, which had so prodigious an effect in France, felt no +particular animosity against the "Debats," for instance; his particular +Catholic enthusiasm recognized itself as exceptional, and was content to +accept the humble or, at any rate, inferior position, which admitted +eccentricity connotes. "Later," these founders of the Free Press seemed +to say, "we may convert the mass to our views, but, for the moment, we +are admittedly a clique: an exceptional body with the penalties +attaching to such." They said this although the whole life of France is +at least as Catholic as the life of Great Britain is Plutocratic, or the +life of Switzerland Democratic. And they said it because they arose +*after* the Capitalist press (neutral in religion as in every vital thing) had captured the whole field. -The first Propagandists, then, did not stand up to the -Official Press as equals. They crept in as inferiors, or -rather as open eccentrics. For Victorian England and Third -Empire France falsely proclaimed the "representative" -quality of the Official Press. - -To the honour of the Socialist movement the Socialist Free -Press was the first to stand up as an equal against the -giants. - -I remember how in my boyhood I was shocked and a little -dazed to see references in Socialist sheets such as -"Justice" to papers like the "Daily Telegraph," or the -"Times," with the epithet "Capitalist" put after them in -brackets. I thought, then, it was the giving of an abnormal -epithet to a normal thing; but I now know that these small -Socialist free papers were talking the plainest common sense -when they specifically emphasized as *Capitalist* the -falsehoods and suppressions of their great contemporaries. -From the Socialist point of view the leading fact about the -insincerity of the great official papers is that this -insincerity is Capitalist; just as from a Catholic point of -view the leading fact about it was, and is, that it is -anti-Catholic. - -Though, however, certain of the Socialist Free Papers thus -boldly took up a standpoint of moral equality with the -others, their attitude was exceptional. Most editors or -owners of, most writers upon, the Free Press, in its first -beginnings, took the then almost universal point of view -that the great papers were innocuous enough and fairly -represented general opinion, and were, therefore, not things -to be specifically combated. - -The great Dailies were thought grey; not wicked---only -general and vague. The Free Press in its beginnings did not -attack as an enemy. It only timidly claimed to be heard. It -*regarded itself* as a "speciality." It was humble. And -there went with it a mass of eccentric stuff. - -If one passes in review all the Free Press journals which -owed their existence in England and France alone to this -motive of Propaganda, one finds many "side shows," as it -were, beside the main motives of local or race patriotism, -Religion, or Socialist conviction. You have, for instance, -up and down Europe, the very powerful and exceedingly -well-written anti-Semitic papers, of which Drumont's "Libre -Parole" was long the chief. You have the Single-tax papers. -You have the Teetotal papers---and, really, it is a wonder -that you have not yet also had the Iconoclasts and the -Diabolists producing papers. The Rationalist and the Atheist -propaganda I reckon among the religious. - -We may take it, then, that Propaganda was, in order of time, -the first motive of the Free Press and the first cause of -its production. - -Now from this fact arises a consideration of great -importance to our subject. This Propagandist origin of the -Free Press stamped it from its outset with a character it -still bears, and will continue to bear, until it has had -that effect in correcting, and, perhaps, destroying, the +The first Propagandists, then, did not stand up to the Official Press as +equals. They crept in as inferiors, or rather as open eccentrics. For +Victorian England and Third Empire France falsely proclaimed the +"representative" quality of the Official Press. + +To the honour of the Socialist movement the Socialist Free Press was the +first to stand up as an equal against the giants. + +I remember how in my boyhood I was shocked and a little dazed to see +references in Socialist sheets such as "Justice" to papers like the +"Daily Telegraph," or the "Times," with the epithet "Capitalist" put +after them in brackets. I thought, then, it was the giving of an +abnormal epithet to a normal thing; but I now know that these small +Socialist free papers were talking the plainest common sense when they +specifically emphasized as *Capitalist* the falsehoods and suppressions +of their great contemporaries. From the Socialist point of view the +leading fact about the insincerity of the great official papers is that +this insincerity is Capitalist; just as from a Catholic point of view +the leading fact about it was, and is, that it is anti-Catholic. + +Though, however, certain of the Socialist Free Papers thus boldly took +up a standpoint of moral equality with the others, their attitude was +exceptional. Most editors or owners of, most writers upon, the Free +Press, in its first beginnings, took the then almost universal point of +view that the great papers were innocuous enough and fairly represented +general opinion, and were, therefore, not things to be specifically +combated. + +The great Dailies were thought grey; not wicked---only general and +vague. The Free Press in its beginnings did not attack as an enemy. It +only timidly claimed to be heard. It *regarded itself* as a +"speciality." It was humble. And there went with it a mass of eccentric +stuff. + +If one passes in review all the Free Press journals which owed their +existence in England and France alone to this motive of Propaganda, one +finds many "side shows," as it were, beside the main motives of local or +race patriotism, Religion, or Socialist conviction. You have, for +instance, up and down Europe, the very powerful and exceedingly +well-written anti-Semitic papers, of which Drumont's "Libre Parole" was +long the chief. You have the Single-tax papers. You have the Teetotal +papers---and, really, it is a wonder that you have not yet also had the +Iconoclasts and the Diabolists producing papers. The Rationalist and the +Atheist propaganda I reckon among the religious. + +We may take it, then, that Propaganda was, in order of time, the first +motive of the Free Press and the first cause of its production. + +Now from this fact arises a consideration of great importance to our +subject. This Propagandist origin of the Free Press stamped it from its +outset with a character it still bears, and will continue to bear, until +it has had that effect in correcting, and, perhaps, destroying, the Official Press, to which I shall later turn. -I mean that the Free Press has had stamped upon it the -character of *disparate particularism*. - -Wherever I go, my first object, If I wish to find out the -truth, is to get hold of the Free Press in France as in -England, and even in America. But I know that wherever I get -hold of such an organ it will be very strongly coloured with -the opinion, or even fanaticism, of some minority. The Free -Press, as a whole, if you add it all up and cancel out one -exaggerated statement against another, does give you a true -view of the state of society in which you live. The Official -Press to-day gives you an absurdly false one everywhere. -What a caricature---and what a base, empty caricature---of -England or France or Italy you get in the "Times," or the -"Manchester Guardian," the "Matin," or the "Tribunal"! No -one of them is in any sense general---or really national. - -The Free Press gives you the truth; but only in disjointed -sections, for it is *disparate* and it is *particularist*: -It is marked with isolation---and it is so marked because -Its origin lay in various and most diverse *propaganda*: -because it came later than the official Press of Capitalism, -and was, in its origins, but a reaction against it. +I mean that the Free Press has had stamped upon it the character of +*disparate particularism*. + +Wherever I go, my first object, If I wish to find out the truth, is to +get hold of the Free Press in France as in England, and even in America. +But I know that wherever I get hold of such an organ it will be very +strongly coloured with the opinion, or even fanaticism, of some +minority. The Free Press, as a whole, if you add it all up and cancel +out one exaggerated statement against another, does give you a true view +of the state of society in which you live. The Official Press to-day +gives you an absurdly false one everywhere. What a caricature---and what +a base, empty caricature---of England or France or Italy you get in the +"Times," or the "Manchester Guardian," the "Matin," or the "Tribunal"! +No one of them is in any sense general---or really national. + +The Free Press gives you the truth; but only in disjointed sections, for +it is *disparate* and it is *particularist*: It is marked with +isolation---and it is so marked because Its origin lay in various and +most diverse *propaganda*: because it came later than the official Press +of Capitalism, and was, in its origins, but a reaction against it. ## B -The second motive, that of indignation against *falsehood*, -came to work much later than the motive of propaganda. - -Men gradually came to notice that one thing after another of -great public interest, sometimes of vital public interest, -was deliberately suppressed in the principal great official -papers, and that positive falsehoods were increasingly -suggested, or stated. - -There was more than this. For long the *owner* of a -newspaper had for the most part been content to regard it as -a revenue-producing thing. The *editor* was supreme in -matters of culture and opinion. True, the editor, being -revocable and poor, could not pretend to full political -power. But it was a sort of dual arrangement which yet -modified the power of the vulgar owner. - -I myself remember that state of affairs: the editor who was -a gentleman and dined out, the proprietor who was a lord and -nervous when he met a gentleman. It changed in the nineties -of the last century or the late eighties. It had disappeared -by the 1900's. - -The editor became (and now is) a mere mouthpiece of the -proprietor. Editors succeed each other rapidly. Of great -papers to-day the editor's name of the moment is hardly -known---but not a Cabinet Minister that could not pass an -examination in the life, vices, vulnerability, fortune, -investments and favours of the owner. The change was rapidly -admitted. It came quickly but thoroughly. At last---like -most rapid developments---it exceeded itself. - -Men owning the chief newspapers could be heard boasting of -their power in public, as an admitted thing; and as this -power was recognized, and as it grew with time and -experiment, it bred a reaction. - -Why should this or that vulgarian (men began to say) -exercise (and boast of!) the power to keep the people -ignorant upon matters vital to us all? To distort, to lie? -The sheer necessity of getting certain truths told, which -these powerful but hidden fellows refused to tell, was a -force working at high potential and almost compelling the -production of Free Papers side by side with the big Official -ones. That is why you nearly always find the Free Press -directed by men of intelligence and cultivation---of -exceptional intelligence and cultivation. And that is where -it contrasts most with its opponents. +The second motive, that of indignation against *falsehood*, came to work +much later than the motive of propaganda. + +Men gradually came to notice that one thing after another of great +public interest, sometimes of vital public interest, was deliberately +suppressed in the principal great official papers, and that positive +falsehoods were increasingly suggested, or stated. + +There was more than this. For long the *owner* of a newspaper had for +the most part been content to regard it as a revenue-producing thing. +The *editor* was supreme in matters of culture and opinion. True, the +editor, being revocable and poor, could not pretend to full political +power. But it was a sort of dual arrangement which yet modified the +power of the vulgar owner. + +I myself remember that state of affairs: the editor who was a gentleman +and dined out, the proprietor who was a lord and nervous when he met a +gentleman. It changed in the nineties of the last century or the late +eighties. It had disappeared by the 1900's. + +The editor became (and now is) a mere mouthpiece of the proprietor. +Editors succeed each other rapidly. Of great papers to-day the editor's +name of the moment is hardly known---but not a Cabinet Minister that +could not pass an examination in the life, vices, vulnerability, +fortune, investments and favours of the owner. The change was rapidly +admitted. It came quickly but thoroughly. At last---like most rapid +developments---it exceeded itself. + +Men owning the chief newspapers could be heard boasting of their power +in public, as an admitted thing; and as this power was recognized, and +as it grew with time and experiment, it bred a reaction. + +Why should this or that vulgarian (men began to say) exercise (and boast +of!) the power to keep the people ignorant upon matters vital to us all? +To distort, to lie? The sheer necessity of getting certain truths told, +which these powerful but hidden fellows refused to tell, was a force +working at high potential and almost compelling the production of Free +Papers side by side with the big Official ones. That is why you nearly +always find the Free Press directed by men of intelligence and +cultivation---of exceptional intelligence and cultivation. And that is +where it contrasts most with its opponents. ## C -But only a little later than this second motive of -indignation against falsehood and acting with equal force -(though upon fewer men) was the third motive of *freedom*: -of indignation against *arbitrary Power*. - -For men who knew the way in which we are governed, and who -recognized, especially during the last twenty years, that -the great newspaper was coming to be more powerful than the -open and responsible (though corrupt) Executive of the -country, the position was intolerable. - -It is bad enough to be governed by an aristocracy or a -monarch whose executive power is dependent upon legend in -the mass of the people; it is humiliating enough to be thus -governed through a sort of play-acting instead of enjoying -the self-government of free men. - -It is worse far to be governed by a clique of Professional -Politicians bamboozling the multitude with a pretence of -"Democracy." - -But it is intolerable that similar power should reside in -the hands of obscure nobodies about whom no illusion could -possibly exist, whose tyranny is not admitted or public at -all, who do not even take the risk of exposing their -features, and to whom no responsibility whatever attaches. - -The knowledge that this was so provided the third, and, -perhaps, the most powerful motive for the creation of a Free -Press. - -Unfortunately, it could affect only very few men. With the -mass even of well-educated and observant men the feeling -created by the novel power of the great papers was little -more than a vague ill ease. They had a general conception -that the owner of a widely circulated popular newspaper -could, and did, blackmail the professional politician: make -or unmake the professional politician by granting or -refusing him the limelight; dispose of Cabinets; nominate -absurd Ministers. - -But the particular, vivid, concrete instances that specially -move men to action were hidden from them. Only a small -number of people were acquainted with such particular -truths. But that small number knew very well that we were -thus in reality governed by men responsible to no one, and -hidden from public blame. The determination to be rid of -such a secret monopoly of power compelled a reaction: and -that reaction was the Free Press. +But only a little later than this second motive of indignation against +falsehood and acting with equal force (though upon fewer men) was the +third motive of *freedom*: of indignation against *arbitrary Power*. + +For men who knew the way in which we are governed, and who recognized, +especially during the last twenty years, that the great newspaper was +coming to be more powerful than the open and responsible (though +corrupt) Executive of the country, the position was intolerable. + +It is bad enough to be governed by an aristocracy or a monarch whose +executive power is dependent upon legend in the mass of the people; it +is humiliating enough to be thus governed through a sort of play-acting +instead of enjoying the self-government of free men. + +It is worse far to be governed by a clique of Professional Politicians +bamboozling the multitude with a pretence of "Democracy." + +But it is intolerable that similar power should reside in the hands of +obscure nobodies about whom no illusion could possibly exist, whose +tyranny is not admitted or public at all, who do not even take the risk +of exposing their features, and to whom no responsibility whatever +attaches. + +The knowledge that this was so provided the third, and, perhaps, the +most powerful motive for the creation of a Free Press. + +Unfortunately, it could affect only very few men. With the mass even of +well-educated and observant men the feeling created by the novel power +of the great papers was little more than a vague ill ease. They had a +general conception that the owner of a widely circulated popular +newspaper could, and did, blackmail the professional politician: make or +unmake the professional politician by granting or refusing him the +limelight; dispose of Cabinets; nominate absurd Ministers. + +But the particular, vivid, concrete instances that specially move men to +action were hidden from them. Only a small number of people were +acquainted with such particular truths. But that small number knew very +well that we were thus in reality governed by men responsible to no one, +and hidden from public blame. The determination to be rid of such a +secret monopoly of power compelled a reaction: and that reaction was the +Free Press. # XII -Such being the motive powers of the Free Press in all -countries, but particularly in France and England, where the -evils of the Capitalist (or Official) Press were at their -worst, let us next consider the disabilities under which -this reaction---the Free Press---suffered. +Such being the motive powers of the Free Press in all countries, but +particularly in France and England, where the evils of the Capitalist +(or Official) Press were at their worst, let us next consider the +disabilities under which this reaction---the Free Press---suffered. I think these disabilities lie under four groups. -1. In the first place, the free journals suffered from the - difficulty which all true reformers have, that they have - to begin by going against the stream. +1. In the first place, the free journals suffered from the difficulty + which all true reformers have, that they have to begin by going + against the stream. 2. In the second place they suffered from that character of - particularism or "crankiness," which was a necessary - result of their Propagandist character. + particularism or "crankiness," which was a necessary result of their + Propagandist character. -3. In the third place---and this is most important---they - suffered economically. They were unable to present to - their readers all that their readers expected at the - price. This was because they were refused advertisement - subsidy and were boycotted. +3. In the third place---and this is most important---they suffered + economically. They were unable to present to their readers all that + their readers expected at the price. This was because they were + refused advertisement subsidy and were boycotted. -4. In the fourth place, for reasons that will be apparent - in a moment, they suffered from lack of information. +4. In the fourth place, for reasons that will be apparent in a moment, + they suffered from lack of information. -To these four main disabilities the Free Papers in *this* -country added a fifth peculiarly our own; they stood in -peril from the arbitrary power of the Political Lawyers. +To these four main disabilities the Free Papers in *this* country added +a fifth peculiarly our own; they stood in peril from the arbitrary power +of the Political Lawyers. -Let us consider first the main four points. When we have -examined them all we shall see against what forces, and in -spite of what negative factors, the Free Press has -established itself to-day. +Let us consider first the main four points. When we have examined them +all we shall see against what forces, and in spite of what negative +factors, the Free Press has established itself to-day. ## 1 -I say that in the first place the Free Press, being a -reformer, suffered from what all reformers suffer from, to -wit, that in their origins they must, by definition, go -against the stream. - -The official Capitalist Press round about them had already -become a habit when the Free Papers appeared. Men had for -some time made it a normal thing to read their daily paper; -to believe what it told them to be facts, and even in a -great measure to accept its opinion. A new voice criticizing -by implication, or directly blaming or ridiculing a habit so -formed, was necessarily an unpopular voice with the mass of -readers, or, if it was not unpopular, that was only because -it was negligible. - -This first disability, however, under which the Free Press -suffered, and still suffers, would not naturally have been -of long duration. The remaining three were far graver. For -the mere inertia or counter current against which any -reformer struggles is soon turned if the reformer (as was -the case here) represented a real reaction, and was doing or -saying things which the people, had they been as well -informed as himself, would have agreed with. With the -further disabilities of (2) particularism, (3) poverty, (4) -insufficiency (to which I add, in this country, restraint by -the political lawyers), it was otherwise. +I say that in the first place the Free Press, being a reformer, suffered +from what all reformers suffer from, to wit, that in their origins they +must, by definition, go against the stream. + +The official Capitalist Press round about them had already become a +habit when the Free Papers appeared. Men had for some time made it a +normal thing to read their daily paper; to believe what it told them to +be facts, and even in a great measure to accept its opinion. A new voice +criticizing by implication, or directly blaming or ridiculing a habit so +formed, was necessarily an unpopular voice with the mass of readers, or, +if it was not unpopular, that was only because it was negligible. + +This first disability, however, under which the Free Press suffered, and +still suffers, would not naturally have been of long duration. The +remaining three were far graver. For the mere inertia or counter current +against which any reformer struggles is soon turned if the reformer (as +was the case here) represented a real reaction, and was doing or saying +things which the people, had they been as well informed as himself, +would have agreed with. With the further disabilities of (2) +particularism, (3) poverty, (4) insufficiency (to which I add, in this +country, restraint by the political lawyers), it was otherwise. ## 2 -The Particularism of the Free Papers was a grave and -permanent weakness which still endures. Any instructed man -to-day who really wants to find out what is going on reads -the Free Press; but he is compelled, as I have said, to read -the whole of it and piece together the sections if he wishes -to discover his true whereabouts. Each particular organ -gives him an individual impression, which is ex-centric, -often highly ex-centric, to the general impression. - -When I want to know, for instance, what is happening in -France, I read the Jewish Socialist paper, the "Humanité"; -the most violent French Revolutionary papers I can get, such -as "La Guerre Sociale"; the Royalist "Action Française"; the -anti-Semitic "Libre Parole," and so forth. - -If I want to find out what is really happening with regard -to Ireland, I not only buy the various small Irish free -papers (and they are numerous), but also "The New Age" and -the "New Witness": and so on, all through the questions that -are of real and vital interest. But I only get my picture as -a composite. The very same truth will be emphasized by +The Particularism of the Free Papers was a grave and permanent weakness +which still endures. Any instructed man to-day who really wants to find +out what is going on reads the Free Press; but he is compelled, as I +have said, to read the whole of it and piece together the sections if he +wishes to discover his true whereabouts. Each particular organ gives him +an individual impression, which is ex-centric, often highly ex-centric, +to the general impression. + +When I want to know, for instance, what is happening in France, I read +the Jewish Socialist paper, the "Humanité"; the most violent French +Revolutionary papers I can get, such as "La Guerre Sociale"; the +Royalist "Action Française"; the anti-Semitic "Libre Parole," and so +forth. + +If I want to find out what is really happening with regard to Ireland, I +not only buy the various small Irish free papers (and they are +numerous), but also "The New Age" and the "New Witness": and so on, all +through the questions that are of real and vital interest. But I only +get my picture as a composite. The very same truth will be emphasized by different Free Papers for totally different motives. -Take the Marconi case. The big official papers first -boycotted it for months, and then told a pack of silly lies -in support of the politicians. The Free Press gave one the -truth---but its various organs gave the truth for very -different reasons and with very different impressions. To -some of the Irish papers Marconi was a comic episode, "just -what one expects of Westminster"; others dreaded it for fear -it should lower the value of the Irish-owned Marconi shares. -"The New Age" looked at it from quite another point of view -than that of the "New Witness," and the specifically -Socialist Free Press pointed it out as no more than an -example of what happens under Capitalist Government. - -An Islamic paper would no doubt have called it a result of -the Nazarene religion, and a Thug paper an awful example of -what happens when your politicians are not Thugs. - -My point is, then, that the Free Press thus starting from so -many different particular standpoints has not yet produced a -general organ; by which I mean that it has not produced an -organ such as would command the agreement of a very great -body of men, should that very great body of men be -instructed on the real way in which we are governed. - -Drumont was very useful for telling one innumerable -particular fragments of truth, which the Official Press -refuse to mention---such as the way in which the Rothschilds -cheated the French Government over the death duties in Paris -some years ago. Indeed, he alone ultimately compelled those -wealthy men to disgorge, and it was a fine piece of work. -But when he went on to argue that cheating the revenue was a -purely Jewish vice he could never get the mass of people to -agree with him, for it was nonsense. - -Charles Maurras is one of the most powerful writers living, -and when he points out in the "Action Française" that the -French Supreme Court committed an illegal action at the -close of the Dreyfus case, he is doing useful work, for he -is telling the truth on a matter of vital public importance. -But when he goes on to say that such a thing would not have -occurred under a nominal Monarchy, he is talking nonsense. -Any one with the slightest experience of what the Courts of -Law can be under a nominal Monarchy shrugs his shoulders and -says that Maurras's action may have excellent results, but -that his proposed remedy of setting up one of these modern -Kingships in France in the place of the very corrupt +Take the Marconi case. The big official papers first boycotted it for +months, and then told a pack of silly lies in support of the +politicians. The Free Press gave one the truth---but its various organs +gave the truth for very different reasons and with very different +impressions. To some of the Irish papers Marconi was a comic episode, +"just what one expects of Westminster"; others dreaded it for fear it +should lower the value of the Irish-owned Marconi shares. "The New Age" +looked at it from quite another point of view than that of the "New +Witness," and the specifically Socialist Free Press pointed it out as no +more than an example of what happens under Capitalist Government. + +An Islamic paper would no doubt have called it a result of the Nazarene +religion, and a Thug paper an awful example of what happens when your +politicians are not Thugs. + +My point is, then, that the Free Press thus starting from so many +different particular standpoints has not yet produced a general organ; +by which I mean that it has not produced an organ such as would command +the agreement of a very great body of men, should that very great body +of men be instructed on the real way in which we are governed. + +Drumont was very useful for telling one innumerable particular fragments +of truth, which the Official Press refuse to mention---such as the way +in which the Rothschilds cheated the French Government over the death +duties in Paris some years ago. Indeed, he alone ultimately compelled +those wealthy men to disgorge, and it was a fine piece of work. But when +he went on to argue that cheating the revenue was a purely Jewish vice +he could never get the mass of people to agree with him, for it was +nonsense. + +Charles Maurras is one of the most powerful writers living, and when he +points out in the "Action Française" that the French Supreme Court +committed an illegal action at the close of the Dreyfus case, he is +doing useful work, for he is telling the truth on a matter of vital +public importance. But when he goes on to say that such a thing would +not have occurred under a nominal Monarchy, he is talking nonsense. Any +one with the slightest experience of what the Courts of Law can be under +a nominal Monarchy shrugs his shoulders and says that Maurras's action +may have excellent results, but that his proposed remedy of setting up +one of these modern Kingships in France in the place of the very corrupt Parliament is not convincing. -The "New Republic" in New York vigorously defends Brandeis -because Brandeis is a Jew, and the "New Republic" (which I -read regularly, and which is invaluable to-day as an -independent instructor on a small rich minority of American -opinion) is Jewish in tone. The defence of Brandeis -interests me and instructs me. But when the "New Republic" -prints pacifist propaganda by Brailsford, or applauds Lane -under the alias of "Norman Angell," it is---in my -view---eccentric and even contemptible. "New Ireland" helps -me to understand the quarrel of the younger men in Ireland -with the Irish Parliamentary party---but I must, and do, -read the "Freeman" as well. - -In a word, the Free Press all over the world, as far as I -can read it, suffers from this note of particularity, and, -therefore, of isolation and strain. It is not of general -appeal. - -In connection with this disability you get the fact that the -Free Press has come to depend upon individuals, and thus -fails to be as yet an institution. It is difficult to see -how any of the papers I have named would long survive a loss -of their present editorship. There might possibly be one -successor; there certainly would not be two; and the result -is that the effect of these organs is sporadic and -irregular. - -In the same connection you have the disability of a -restricted audience. - -There are some men (and I count myself one) who will read -anything, however much they differ from its tone and -standpoint, in order to obtain more knowledge. I am not sure -that it is a healthy habit. At any rate it is an unusual -one. Most men will only read that which, while informing -them, takes for granted a philosophy more or less -sympathetic with their own. The Free Press, therefore, so -long as it springs from many and varied minorities, not only -suffers everywhere from an audience restricted in the case -of each organ, but from preaching to the converted. It does -get hold of a certain outside public which increases slowly, -but it captures no great area of public attention at any one +The "New Republic" in New York vigorously defends Brandeis because +Brandeis is a Jew, and the "New Republic" (which I read regularly, and +which is invaluable to-day as an independent instructor on a small rich +minority of American opinion) is Jewish in tone. The defence of Brandeis +interests me and instructs me. But when the "New Republic" prints +pacifist propaganda by Brailsford, or applauds Lane under the alias of +"Norman Angell," it is---in my view---eccentric and even contemptible. +"New Ireland" helps me to understand the quarrel of the younger men in +Ireland with the Irish Parliamentary party---but I must, and do, read +the "Freeman" as well. + +In a word, the Free Press all over the world, as far as I can read it, +suffers from this note of particularity, and, therefore, of isolation +and strain. It is not of general appeal. + +In connection with this disability you get the fact that the Free Press +has come to depend upon individuals, and thus fails to be as yet an +institution. It is difficult to see how any of the papers I have named +would long survive a loss of their present editorship. There might +possibly be one successor; there certainly would not be two; and the +result is that the effect of these organs is sporadic and irregular. + +In the same connection you have the disability of a restricted audience. + +There are some men (and I count myself one) who will read anything, +however much they differ from its tone and standpoint, in order to +obtain more knowledge. I am not sure that it is a healthy habit. At any +rate it is an unusual one. Most men will only read that which, while +informing them, takes for granted a philosophy more or less sympathetic +with their own. The Free Press, therefore, so long as it springs from +many and varied minorities, not only suffers everywhere from an audience +restricted in the case of each organ, but from preaching to the +converted. It does get hold of a certain outside public which increases +slowly, but it captures no great area of public attention at any one time. ## 3 -The third group of disabilities, as I have said, attaches to -the economic weakness of the Free Press. +The third group of disabilities, as I have said, attaches to the +economic weakness of the Free Press. -The Free Press is rigorously boycotted by the great -advertisers, partly, perhaps, because its small circulation -renders them contemptuous (because nearly all of them are of -the true wooden-headed "business" type that go in herds and -never see for themselves where their goods will find the -best market) but much more from frank enmity against the +The Free Press is rigorously boycotted by the great advertisers, partly, +perhaps, because its small circulation renders them contemptuous +(because nearly all of them are of the true wooden-headed "business" +type that go in herds and never see for themselves where their goods +will find the best market) but much more from frank enmity against the existence of any Free Press at all. -Stupidity, for instance, would account for the great -advertisers not advertising articles of luxury in a paper -with only a three thousand a week circulation, even if that -paper were read from cover to cover by all the rich people -in England; but it would not account for absence *in the -Free Press alone* of advertisements appearing in every other -kind of paper, and in many organs of far smaller circulation -than the Free Press papers have. - -The boycott is deliberate, and is persistently maintained. -The effect is that the Free I Press cannot give in space and -quality of paper, excellence of distribution, and the rest, -what the Official Press can give; for it lacks advertisement -subsidy. This is a very grave economic handicap indeed. - -In part the Free Press is indirectly supported by a subsidy -from its own writers. Men whose writing commands high -payment will contribute to the Free Press sometimes for -small fees, usually for nothing; but, at any rate, always -well below their market prices. But contribution of that -kind is always precarious, and, if I may use the word, -jerky. Meanwhile, it does not fill a paper. It is true that -the level of writing in the Free Press is very much higher -than in the Official Press. To compare the Notes in "The New -Age," for instance, with the Notes in the "Spectator" is to -discern a contrast like that between one's chosen -conversation with equals, and one's forced conversation with -commercial travellers in a railway carriage. To read Shaw or -Wells or Gilbert or Cecil Chesterton or Quiller Couch or any -one of twenty others in the "New Witness" is to be in -another world from the sludge and grind of the official -weekly. But the boycott is rigid and therefore the supply is -intermittent. It is not only a boycott of advertisement: it -is a boycott of quotation. Most of the governing class know -the Free Press. The vast lower middle class does not yet -know that it exists. - -The occasional articles in the Free Press have the same mark -of high value, but it is not regular: and, meanwhile, hardly -one of the Free Papers pays its way. The difficulty of -distribution, which I have mentioned, comes under the same -heading, and is another grave handicap. - -If a man finds a difficulty in getting some paper to which -he is not a regular subscriber, but which he desires to -purchase more or less regularly, it drops out of his habits. -I myself, who am an assiduous reader of all such matter, -have sometimes lost touch with one Free Paper or another for -months, on account of a couple of weeks' difficulty in -getting my copy. I believe this impediment of habit to apply -to most of the Free Papers. +Stupidity, for instance, would account for the great advertisers not +advertising articles of luxury in a paper with only a three thousand a +week circulation, even if that paper were read from cover to cover by +all the rich people in England; but it would not account for absence *in +the Free Press alone* of advertisements appearing in every other kind of +paper, and in many organs of far smaller circulation than the Free Press +papers have. + +The boycott is deliberate, and is persistently maintained. The effect is +that the Free I Press cannot give in space and quality of paper, +excellence of distribution, and the rest, what the Official Press can +give; for it lacks advertisement subsidy. This is a very grave economic +handicap indeed. + +In part the Free Press is indirectly supported by a subsidy from its own +writers. Men whose writing commands high payment will contribute to the +Free Press sometimes for small fees, usually for nothing; but, at any +rate, always well below their market prices. But contribution of that +kind is always precarious, and, if I may use the word, jerky. Meanwhile, +it does not fill a paper. It is true that the level of writing in the +Free Press is very much higher than in the Official Press. To compare +the Notes in "The New Age," for instance, with the Notes in the +"Spectator" is to discern a contrast like that between one's chosen +conversation with equals, and one's forced conversation with commercial +travellers in a railway carriage. To read Shaw or Wells or Gilbert or +Cecil Chesterton or Quiller Couch or any one of twenty others in the +"New Witness" is to be in another world from the sludge and grind of the +official weekly. But the boycott is rigid and therefore the supply is +intermittent. It is not only a boycott of advertisement: it is a boycott +of quotation. Most of the governing class know the Free Press. The vast +lower middle class does not yet know that it exists. + +The occasional articles in the Free Press have the same mark of high +value, but it is not regular: and, meanwhile, hardly one of the Free +Papers pays its way. The difficulty of distribution, which I have +mentioned, comes under the same heading, and is another grave handicap. + +If a man finds a difficulty in getting some paper to which he is not a +regular subscriber, but which he desires to purchase more or less +regularly, it drops out of his habits. I myself, who am an assiduous +reader of all such matter, have sometimes lost touch with one Free Paper +or another for months, on account of a couple of weeks' difficulty in +getting my copy. I believe this impediment of habit to apply to most of +the Free Papers. ## 4 -Fourthly, but also partly economic, there is the impediment -the Free Press suffers of imperfect information. It will -print truths which the Great Papers studiously conceal, but -daily and widespread information on general matters it has -great difficulty in obtaining. - -Information is obtained either at great expense through -private agents, or else by favour through official channels, -that is, from the professional politicians. The Official -Press makes and unmakes the politicians. Therefore, the -politician is careful to keep it informed of truths that are -valuable to him, as well as to make it the organ of +Fourthly, but also partly economic, there is the impediment the Free +Press suffers of imperfect information. It will print truths which the +Great Papers studiously conceal, but daily and widespread information on +general matters it has great difficulty in obtaining. + +Information is obtained either at great expense through private agents, +or else by favour through official channels, that is, from the +professional politicians. The Official Press makes and unmakes the +politicians. Therefore, the politician is careful to keep it informed of +truths that are valuable to him, as well as to make it the organ of falsehoods equally valuable. -Most of the official papers, for instance, were informed of -the Indian Silver scandal by the culprits themselves in a -fashion which forestalled attack. Those who led the attack -groped in the dark. - -For we must remember that the professional politicians all -stand in together when a financial swindle is being carried -out. There is no "opposition" in these things. Since it is -the very business of the Free Press to expose the falsehood -or inanity of the Official Capitalist Press, one may truly -say that a great part of the energies of the Free Press is -wasted in this "groping in the dark" to which it is -condemned. At the same time, the Economic difficulty -prevents the Free Press from paying for Information -difficult to be obtained, and under these twin disabilities -it remains heavily handicapped. +Most of the official papers, for instance, were informed of the Indian +Silver scandal by the culprits themselves in a fashion which forestalled +attack. Those who led the attack groped in the dark. + +For we must remember that the professional politicians all stand in +together when a financial swindle is being carried out. There is no +"opposition" in these things. Since it is the very business of the Free +Press to expose the falsehood or inanity of the Official Capitalist +Press, one may truly say that a great part of the energies of the Free +Press is wasted in this "groping in the dark" to which it is condemned. +At the same time, the Economic difficulty prevents the Free Press from +paying for Information difficult to be obtained, and under these twin +disabilities it remains heavily handicapped. ## The Political Lawyers -We must consider separately, for it is not universal but -peculiar to our own society, the heavy disability under -which the Free Press suffers in this country from the now -unchecked power of the political lawyers. - -I have no need to emphasize the power of a Guild when it is -once formed, and has behind it strong corporate traditions. -It is the principal thesis of "The New Age," in which this -essay first appeared, that national guilds, applied to the -whole field of society, would be the saving of it through -their inherent strength and vitality. - -Such guilds as we still have among us (possessed of a -Charter giving them a monopoly, and, therefore, making them -in "The New Age" phrase "black-leg proof") are confined, of -course, to the privileged wealthier classes. The two great -ones with which we are all familiar are those of the Doctors -and of the Lawyers. - -What their power is we saw in the sentencing to one of the -most terrible punishments known to all civilized -Europe---twelve months hard labour---of a man who had -exercised his supposed right to give medical advice to a -patient who had freely consulted him. The patient happened -to die, as she might have died in the hands of a regular -Guild doctor. It has been known for patients to die under -the hands of regular Guild doctors. But the mishap taking -place in the hands of some one who was *not* of the Guild, -although the advice had been freely sought and honestly -given, the person who infringed the monopoly of the Guild +We must consider separately, for it is not universal but peculiar to our +own society, the heavy disability under which the Free Press suffers in +this country from the now unchecked power of the political lawyers. + +I have no need to emphasize the power of a Guild when it is once formed, +and has behind it strong corporate traditions. It is the principal +thesis of "The New Age," in which this essay first appeared, that +national guilds, applied to the whole field of society, would be the +saving of it through their inherent strength and vitality. + +Such guilds as we still have among us (possessed of a Charter giving +them a monopoly, and, therefore, making them in "The New Age" phrase +"black-leg proof") are confined, of course, to the privileged wealthier +classes. The two great ones with which we are all familiar are those of +the Doctors and of the Lawyers. + +What their power is we saw in the sentencing to one of the most terrible +punishments known to all civilized Europe---twelve months hard +labour---of a man who had exercised his supposed right to give medical +advice to a patient who had freely consulted him. The patient happened +to die, as she might have died in the hands of a regular Guild doctor. +It has been known for patients to die under the hands of regular Guild +doctors. But the mishap taking place in the hands of some one who was +*not* of the Guild, although the advice had been freely sought and +honestly given, the person who infringed the monopoly of the Guild suffered this savage piece of revenge. -But even the Guild of the Doctors is not so powerful as that -of the Lawyers, *qua* guild alone. Its administrative power -makes it far more powerful. The well-to-do are not compelled -to employ a doctor, but all are compelled to employ a lawyer -at every turn, and that at a cost quite unknown anywhere -else in Europe. But this power of the legal guild, *qua* -guild, in modern England is supplemented by further -administrative and arbitrary powers attached to a selected -number of its members. - -Now the Lawyers' Guild has latterly become (to its own hurt -as it will find) hardly distinguishable from the complex of -professional politics. - -One need not be in Parliament many days to discover that -most laws are made and all revised by members of this Guild. -Parliament is, as a drafting body, virtually a Committee of -Lawyers who are indifferent to the figment of representation -which still clings to the House of Commons. - -It should be added that this part of their work is honestly -done, that the greatest labour is devoted to it, and that it -is only consciously tyrannical or fraudulent when the Legal -Guild feels *itself* to be in danger. - -But far more important than the legislative power of the -Legal Guild (which is now the chief framer of statutory law -as it has long been the *salutary* source of common law) is -its executive or governing power. - -Whether after exposing a political scandal you shall or -shall not be subject to the risk of ruin or loss of liberty, -and all the exceptionally cruel scheme of modern -imprisonment, depends negatively upon the Legal Guild. That -is, so long as the lawyers support the politicians you have -no redress, and only in case of independent action by the -lawyers against the politicians, with whom they have come to -be so closely identified, have you any opportunity for -discussion and free trial. The old idea of the lawyer on the -Bench protecting the subject against the arbitrary power of -the executive, of the judge independent of the government, -has nearly disappeared. - -You may, of course, commit any crime with impunity if the -professional politicians among the lawyers refuse to -prosecute. But that is only a negative evil. More serious is -the positive side of the affair: that you may conversely be -put at the *risk* of any penalty if they desire to put you -at that risk: for the modern secret police being ubiquitous -and privileged, their opponent can be decoyed into peril at -the will of those who govern, even where the politicians -dare not prosecute him for exposing corruption. - -Once the citizen has been put at this peril---that is, -brought into court before the lawyers---whether it shall -lead to his actual ruin or no is again in the hands of -members of the legal guild; the judge may (it has happened), -withstand the politicians (by whom he was made, to whom he -often belongs, and upon whom his general position to-day -depends). He *may* stand out, or---as nearly always now---he -will identify himself with the political system and act as -its mouthpiece. - -It is the prevalence of this last attitude which so -powerfully affects the position of the Free Press in this -country. - -When the judge lends himself to the politicians we all know -what follows. - -The instrument used is that of an accusation of libel, and, -in cases where it is desired to establish terror, of -criminal libel. - -The defence of the man so accused must either be undertaken -by a Member of the Legal Guild---in which case the -advocate's own future depends upon his supporting the -interests of the politicians and so betraying his -client---or, if some eccentric undertakes his own defence, -the whole power of the Guild will be turned against him -under forms of liberty which are no longer even -hypocritical. A special juryman, for instance, that should -stand out against the political verdict desired would be a -marked man. But the point is not worth making, for, as a -fact, no juryman ever has stood out lately when a political -verdict was ordered. - -Even in the case of so glaring an abuse, with which the -whole country is now familiar, we must not exaggerate. It -would still be impossible for the politicians, for instance, -to get a verdict during war in favour of an overt act of -treason. But after all, argument of this sort applies to any -tyranny, and the power the politicians have and exercise of -refusing to prosecute, however clear an act of treason or -other grossly unpopular act might be, is equivalent to a -power of acquittal. - -The lawyers decide in the last resort on the freedom of -speech and writing among their fellow-citizens, and as their -Guild is now unhappily intertwined with the whole machinery -of Executive Government, we have in modern England an -executive controlling the expression of opinion. It is +But even the Guild of the Doctors is not so powerful as that of the +Lawyers, *qua* guild alone. Its administrative power makes it far more +powerful. The well-to-do are not compelled to employ a doctor, but all +are compelled to employ a lawyer at every turn, and that at a cost quite +unknown anywhere else in Europe. But this power of the legal guild, +*qua* guild, in modern England is supplemented by further administrative +and arbitrary powers attached to a selected number of its members. + +Now the Lawyers' Guild has latterly become (to its own hurt as it will +find) hardly distinguishable from the complex of professional politics. + +One need not be in Parliament many days to discover that most laws are +made and all revised by members of this Guild. Parliament is, as a +drafting body, virtually a Committee of Lawyers who are indifferent to +the figment of representation which still clings to the House of +Commons. + +It should be added that this part of their work is honestly done, that +the greatest labour is devoted to it, and that it is only consciously +tyrannical or fraudulent when the Legal Guild feels *itself* to be in +danger. + +But far more important than the legislative power of the Legal Guild +(which is now the chief framer of statutory law as it has long been the +*salutary* source of common law) is its executive or governing power. + +Whether after exposing a political scandal you shall or shall not be +subject to the risk of ruin or loss of liberty, and all the +exceptionally cruel scheme of modern imprisonment, depends negatively +upon the Legal Guild. That is, so long as the lawyers support the +politicians you have no redress, and only in case of independent action +by the lawyers against the politicians, with whom they have come to be +so closely identified, have you any opportunity for discussion and free +trial. The old idea of the lawyer on the Bench protecting the subject +against the arbitrary power of the executive, of the judge independent +of the government, has nearly disappeared. + +You may, of course, commit any crime with impunity if the professional +politicians among the lawyers refuse to prosecute. But that is only a +negative evil. More serious is the positive side of the affair: that you +may conversely be put at the *risk* of any penalty if they desire to put +you at that risk: for the modern secret police being ubiquitous and +privileged, their opponent can be decoyed into peril at the will of +those who govern, even where the politicians dare not prosecute him for +exposing corruption. + +Once the citizen has been put at this peril---that is, brought into +court before the lawyers---whether it shall lead to his actual ruin or +no is again in the hands of members of the legal guild; the judge may +(it has happened), withstand the politicians (by whom he was made, to +whom he often belongs, and upon whom his general position to-day +depends). He *may* stand out, or---as nearly always now---he will +identify himself with the political system and act as its mouthpiece. + +It is the prevalence of this last attitude which so powerfully affects +the position of the Free Press in this country. + +When the judge lends himself to the politicians we all know what +follows. + +The instrument used is that of an accusation of libel, and, in cases +where it is desired to establish terror, of criminal libel. + +The defence of the man so accused must either be undertaken by a Member +of the Legal Guild---in which case the advocate's own future depends +upon his supporting the interests of the politicians and so betraying +his client---or, if some eccentric undertakes his own defence, the whole +power of the Guild will be turned against him under forms of liberty +which are no longer even hypocritical. A special juryman, for instance, +that should stand out against the political verdict desired would be a +marked man. But the point is not worth making, for, as a fact, no +juryman ever has stood out lately when a political verdict was ordered. + +Even in the case of so glaring an abuse, with which the whole country is +now familiar, we must not exaggerate. It would still be impossible for +the politicians, for instance, to get a verdict during war in favour of +an overt act of treason. But after all, argument of this sort applies to +any tyranny, and the power the politicians have and exercise of refusing +to prosecute, however clear an act of treason or other grossly unpopular +act might be, is equivalent to a power of acquittal. + +The lawyers decide in the last resort on the freedom of speech and +writing among their fellow-citizens, and as their Guild is now unhappily +intertwined with the whole machinery of Executive Government, we have in +modern England an executive controlling the expression of opinion. It is absolute in a degree unknown, I think, in past society. -Now, it is evident that, of all forms of civic activity, -writing upon the Free Press most directly challenges this -arbitrary power. There is not an editor responsible for the -management of any Free Paper who will not tell you that a -thousand times he has had to consider whether it were -possible to tell a particular truth, however important that -truth might be to the commonwealth. And the fear which -restrains him is the fear of destruction which the -combination of the professional politician and lawyer holds -in its hand. There is not one such editor who could not bear -witness to the numerous occasions on which he had, however -courageous he might be, to forgo the telling of a truth -which was of vital value, because its publication would -involve the destruction of the paper he precariously -controlled. - -There is no need to labour all this. The loss of freedom we -have gradually suffered is quite familiar to all of us, and -it is among the worst of all the mortal symptoms with which -our society is affected. +Now, it is evident that, of all forms of civic activity, writing upon +the Free Press most directly challenges this arbitrary power. There is +not an editor responsible for the management of any Free Paper who will +not tell you that a thousand times he has had to consider whether it +were possible to tell a particular truth, however important that truth +might be to the commonwealth. And the fear which restrains him is the +fear of destruction which the combination of the professional politician +and lawyer holds in its hand. There is not one such editor who could not +bear witness to the numerous occasions on which he had, however +courageous he might be, to forgo the telling of a truth which was of +vital value, because its publication would involve the destruction of +the paper he precariously controlled. + +There is no need to labour all this. The loss of freedom we have +gradually suffered is quite familiar to all of us, and it is among the +worst of all the mortal symptoms with which our society is affected. # XIII -Why do I say, then, that in spite of such formidable -obstacles, both in its own character and in the resistance -it must overcome, the Free Press will probably increase in -power, and may, in the long run, transform public opinion? - -It is with the argument in favour of this judgment that I -will conclude. - -My reasons for forming this judgment are based not only upon -the observation of others but upon my own experience. - -1 started the "Eye-Witness" (succeeded by the "New Witness" -under the editorship of Mr. Cecil Chesterton, who took it -over from me some years ago, and now under the editorship of -his brother, Mr. Gilbert Chesterton) with the special object -of providing a new organ of free expression. - -I knew from intimate personal experience exactly how -formidable all these obstacles were. - -I knew how my own paper could not but appear particular and -personal, and could not but suffer from that eccentricity to -general opinion of which I have spoken. I had a half-tragic -and half-comic experience of the economic difficulty; of the -difficulty of obtaining information; of the difficulty in -distribution, and all the rest of it. The editor of "The New -Age" could provide an exactly similar record. I had -experience, and after me Mr. Cecil Chesterton had -experience, of the threats levelled by the professional -politicians and their modern lawyers against the free -expression of truth, and I have no doubt that the editor of -"The New Age" could provide similar testimony. As for the -Free Press in Ireland, we all know how *that* is dealt with. -It is simply suppressed at the will of the police. - -In the face of such experience, and in spite of it, I am yet -of the deliberate opinion that the Free Press will succeed. +Why do I say, then, that in spite of such formidable obstacles, both in +its own character and in the resistance it must overcome, the Free Press +will probably increase in power, and may, in the long run, transform +public opinion? + +It is with the argument in favour of this judgment that I will conclude. + +My reasons for forming this judgment are based not only upon the +observation of others but upon my own experience. + +1 started the "Eye-Witness" (succeeded by the "New Witness" under the +editorship of Mr. Cecil Chesterton, who took it over from me some years +ago, and now under the editorship of his brother, Mr. Gilbert +Chesterton) with the special object of providing a new organ of free +expression. + +I knew from intimate personal experience exactly how formidable all +these obstacles were. + +I knew how my own paper could not but appear particular and personal, +and could not but suffer from that eccentricity to general opinion of +which I have spoken. I had a half-tragic and half-comic experience of +the economic difficulty; of the difficulty of obtaining information; of +the difficulty in distribution, and all the rest of it. The editor of +"The New Age" could provide an exactly similar record. I had experience, +and after me Mr. Cecil Chesterton had experience, of the threats +levelled by the professional politicians and their modern lawyers +against the free expression of truth, and I have no doubt that the +editor of "The New Age" could provide similar testimony. As for the Free +Press in Ireland, we all know how *that* is dealt with. It is simply +suppressed at the will of the police. + +In the face of such experience, and in spite of it, I am yet of the +deliberate opinion that the Free Press will succeed. Now let me give my reasons for this audacious conclusion. # XIV The first thing to note is that the Free Press is not read -perfunctorily, but with close attention. The audience it -has, if small, is an audience which never misses its -pronouncements whether it agrees or disagrees with them, and -which is absorbed in its opinions, its statement of fact and -its arguments. Look narrowly at History and you will find -that all great *reforms* have started thus: not through a -widespread control acting downwards, but through spontaneous -energy, local and intensive, acting upwards. - -You cannot say this of the Official Press, for the simple -reason that the Official Press is only of real political -interest on rare and brief occasions. It is read of course, -by a thousand times more people than those who read the Free -Press. But its readers are not gripped by it. They are not, -save upon the rare occasions of a particular "scoop" or -"boom," *informed* by it, in the old sense of that pregnant -word, *informed:*--they are not possessed, filled, changed, -moulded to new action. - -One of the proofs of this---a curious, a comic, but a most -conclusive proof---is the dependence of the great daily -papers on the headline. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred -retain this and nothing more, because the matter below is -but a flaccid expansion of the headline. - -Now the Headline suggests, of course, a fact (or falsehood) -with momentary power. So does the Poster. But the mere fact -of dependence on such methods is a proof of the inherent -weakness underlying it. - -You have, then, at the outset a difference of *quality* in -the reading and in the effect of the reading which it is of -capital importance to my argument that the reader should -note. The Free Press is really read and digested. The -Official Press is not. Its scream is heard, but it provides -no food for the mind. One does not contrast the exiguity of -a pint of nitric acid in an engraver's studio with the -hundreds of gallons of water in the cisterns of his house. -No amount of water would bite into the copper. Only the acid -does that: and a little of the acid is enough. +perfunctorily, but with close attention. The audience it has, if small, +is an audience which never misses its pronouncements whether it agrees +or disagrees with them, and which is absorbed in its opinions, its +statement of fact and its arguments. Look narrowly at History and you +will find that all great *reforms* have started thus: not through a +widespread control acting downwards, but through spontaneous energy, +local and intensive, acting upwards. + +You cannot say this of the Official Press, for the simple reason that +the Official Press is only of real political interest on rare and brief +occasions. It is read of course, by a thousand times more people than +those who read the Free Press. But its readers are not gripped by it. +They are not, save upon the rare occasions of a particular "scoop" or +"boom," *informed* by it, in the old sense of that pregnant word, +*informed:*--they are not possessed, filled, changed, moulded to new +action. + +One of the proofs of this---a curious, a comic, but a most conclusive +proof---is the dependence of the great daily papers on the headline. +Ninety-nine people out of a hundred retain this and nothing more, +because the matter below is but a flaccid expansion of the headline. + +Now the Headline suggests, of course, a fact (or falsehood) with +momentary power. So does the Poster. But the mere fact of dependence on +such methods is a proof of the inherent weakness underlying it. + +You have, then, at the outset a difference of *quality* in the reading +and in the effect of the reading which it is of capital importance to my +argument that the reader should note. The Free Press is really read and +digested. The Official Press is not. Its scream is heard, but it +provides no food for the mind. One does not contrast the exiguity of a +pint of nitric acid in an engraver's studio with the hundreds of gallons +of water in the cisterns of his house. No amount of water would bite +into the copper. Only the acid does that: and a little of the acid is +enough. # XV -Next let it be noted that the Free Press powerfully affects, -even when they disagree with it, and most of all when they -hate it, the small class through whom in the modern world -ideas spread. - -There never was a time in European history when the mass of -people thought so little for themselves, and depended so -much (for the ultimate form of their society) upon the -conclusions and vocabulary of a restricted leisured body. - -That is a diseased state of affairs. It gives all their -power to tiny cliques of well-to-do people. But incidentally -it helps the Free Press. - -It is a restricted leisured body to which the Free Press -appeals. So strict has been the boycott---and still is, -though a little weakening---that the editors of, and writers -upon, the Free Papers probably underestimate their own -effect even now. They are never mentioned in the great daily -journals. It is almost a point of honour with the Official -Press to turn a phrase upside down, or, if they must quote, -to quote in the most round-about fashion, rather than print -in plain black and white the three words "The New Age" or -"The New Witness." - -But there are a number of tests which show how deeply the -effect of a Free Paper of limited circulation bites in. Here -is one apparently superficial test, but a test to which I -attach great importance because it is a revelation of how -minds work. Certain phrases peculiar to the Free Journals -find their way into the writing of all the rest. I could -give a number of instances. I will give one: the word -"profiteer." It was first used in the columns of "The New -Age," if I am not mistaken. It has gained ground everywhere. -This does not mean that the mass of the employees upon daily -papers understand what they are talking about when they use -the word "profiteer," any more than they understand what -they are talking about when they use the words "servile -state." They commonly debase the word "profiteer" to mean -some one who gets an exceptional profit, just as they use my -own "Eye-Witness" phrase, "The Servile State," to mean -strict regulation of all civic life---an idea twenty miles -away from the proper signification of the term. But my point -is that the Free Press must have had already a profound -effect for its mere vocabulary to have sunk in thus, and to -have spread so widely In the face of the rigid boycott to -which it is subjected. +Next let it be noted that the Free Press powerfully affects, even when +they disagree with it, and most of all when they hate it, the small +class through whom in the modern world ideas spread. + +There never was a time in European history when the mass of people +thought so little for themselves, and depended so much (for the ultimate +form of their society) upon the conclusions and vocabulary of a +restricted leisured body. + +That is a diseased state of affairs. It gives all their power to tiny +cliques of well-to-do people. But incidentally it helps the Free Press. + +It is a restricted leisured body to which the Free Press appeals. So +strict has been the boycott---and still is, though a little +weakening---that the editors of, and writers upon, the Free Papers +probably underestimate their own effect even now. They are never +mentioned in the great daily journals. It is almost a point of honour +with the Official Press to turn a phrase upside down, or, if they must +quote, to quote in the most round-about fashion, rather than print in +plain black and white the three words "The New Age" or "The New +Witness." + +But there are a number of tests which show how deeply the effect of a +Free Paper of limited circulation bites in. Here is one apparently +superficial test, but a test to which I attach great importance because +it is a revelation of how minds work. Certain phrases peculiar to the +Free Journals find their way into the writing of all the rest. I could +give a number of instances. I will give one: the word "profiteer." It +was first used in the columns of "The New Age," if I am not mistaken. It +has gained ground everywhere. This does not mean that the mass of the +employees upon daily papers understand what they are talking about when +they use the word "profiteer," any more than they understand what they +are talking about when they use the words "servile state." They commonly +debase the word "profiteer" to mean some one who gets an exceptional +profit, just as they use my own "Eye-Witness" phrase, "The Servile +State," to mean strict regulation of all civic life---an idea twenty +miles away from the proper signification of the term. But my point is +that the Free Press must have had already a profound effect for its mere +vocabulary to have sunk in thus, and to have spread so widely In the +face of the rigid boycott to which it is subjected. # XVI -Much more important than this clearly applicable test of -vocabulary is the more general and less measurable test of -programmes and news. The programme of National Guilds, for -instance--"Guild Socialism" as "The New Age," its advocate -in this country, has called it---is followed everywhere, and -is everywhere considered. Journalists employed by -Harmsworth, for instance, use the idea for all it is worth, -and they use it more and more, although It is as much as -their place is worth to mention "The New Age" in connection -with it---as yet. And It is the same, I think, with all the -efforts the Free Press has made in the past. The propaganda -of Socialism (which, as an idea, was so enormously -successful until a few years ago) was, on its journalistic -side, almost entirely conducted by Free Papers, most of them -of small circulation, and all of them boycotted, even as to -their names, by the Official Press. The same is true of my -own effort and Mr. Chesterton's on the "New Witness." The -paper was rigidly boycotted and never quoted. But every one -to-day talks, as I have just said, of "The Servile State," -of the "Professional Politician," of the "Secret Party -Funds," of the Aliases under which men hide, of the Purchase -of Honours, Policies and places in the Government, etc., -etc. - -More than this: one gets to hear of significant manoeuvres, -conducted secretly, of course, but showing vividly the -weight and effect of the Free Press. One hears of orders -given by a politician which prove his fear of the Free -Press: of approaches made by this or that Capitalist to -obtain control of a free journal: sometimes of a policy -initiated, an official document drawn up, a memorandum -filed, which proceeded directly from the advice, suggestion, -or argument of a Free Paper which no one but its own readers -is allowed to hear of, and of whose very existence the -suburbs would be sceptical. - -Latterly I have noticed something still more significant. -The action of the Free Press takes effect sometimes *at -once*. It was obvious in the case of the Spanish Jew Vigo, -the German agent. On account of his financial connections -all the Official Press had orders to call him French under a -false name. One paragraph in the "New Witness" broke down +Much more important than this clearly applicable test of vocabulary is +the more general and less measurable test of programmes and news. The +programme of National Guilds, for instance--"Guild Socialism" as "The +New Age," its advocate in this country, has called it---is followed +everywhere, and is everywhere considered. Journalists employed by +Harmsworth, for instance, use the idea for all it is worth, and they use +it more and more, although It is as much as their place is worth to +mention "The New Age" in connection with it---as yet. And It is the +same, I think, with all the efforts the Free Press has made in the past. +The propaganda of Socialism (which, as an idea, was so enormously +successful until a few years ago) was, on its journalistic side, almost +entirely conducted by Free Papers, most of them of small circulation, +and all of them boycotted, even as to their names, by the Official +Press. The same is true of my own effort and Mr. Chesterton's on the +"New Witness." The paper was rigidly boycotted and never quoted. But +every one to-day talks, as I have just said, of "The Servile State," of +the "Professional Politician," of the "Secret Party Funds," of the +Aliases under which men hide, of the Purchase of Honours, Policies and +places in the Government, etc., etc. + +More than this: one gets to hear of significant manoeuvres, conducted +secretly, of course, but showing vividly the weight and effect of the +Free Press. One hears of orders given by a politician which prove his +fear of the Free Press: of approaches made by this or that Capitalist to +obtain control of a free journal: sometimes of a policy initiated, an +official document drawn up, a memorandum filed, which proceeded directly +from the advice, suggestion, or argument of a Free Paper which no one +but its own readers is allowed to hear of, and of whose very existence +the suburbs would be sceptical. + +Latterly I have noticed something still more significant. The action of +the Free Press takes effect sometimes *at once*. It was obvious in the +case of the Spanish Jew Vigo, the German agent. On account of his +financial connections all the Official Press had orders to call him +French under a false name. One paragraph in the "New Witness" broke down that lie before the week was out. # XVII -Next consider this powerful factor in the business. *The -truth confirms itself.* - -Half a million people read of a professional politician, for -instance, that his oratory has an "electric effect," or that -he is "full of personal magnetism," or that he "can sway an -audience to tears or laughter at will." A Free Paper telling -the truth about him says that he is a dull speaker, full of -commonplaces, elderly, smelling strongly of the Chapel, and -giving the impression that he is tired out; flogging up sham -enthusiasm with stale phrases which the reporters have -already learnt to put into shorthand with one conventional -outline years ago. - -Well, the false, the ludicrously false picture designed to -put this politician in the lime-light (as against favours to -be rendered), no doubt remains the general impression with -most of those 500,000 people. The simple and rather tawdry -truth may be but doubtfully accepted by a few hundreds only. - -But sooner or later a certain small proportion of the -500,000 actually *hear* the politician in question. They -hear him speak. They receive a primary and true impression. - -If they had not read anything suggesting the truth, it is -quite upon the cards that the false suggestion would still -have weight with them, In spite of the evidence of their -senses. Men are so built that uncontradicted falsehood -sufficiently repeated does have that curious power of -illusion. A man having heard the speech delivered by the old -gentleman, if there were nothing but the Official Press to -inform opinion, might go away saying to himself: "I was not -very much impressed, but no doubt that was due to my own -weariness. I cannot but believe that the general reputation -he bears is well founded. He must be a great orator, for I -have always heard him called one." - -But a man who has even once seen it stated that this -politician was *exactly what he was* will vividly remember -that description (which at first hearing he probably thought -false); physical experience has confirmed the true statement -and made it live. These statements of truth, even when they -are quite unimportant, more, of course, when they illuminate -matters of great civic moment, have a cumulative effect. - -I am confident, for instance, that at the present time the -mass of middle-class people are not only acquainted with, -but convinced of, the truth, that, long before the war, the -House of Commons had become a fraud; that its debates did -not turn upon matters which really divided opinion, and that -even its paltry debating points, the pretence of a true -opposition was a falsehood. - -This salutary truth had been arrived at, of course, by many -other channels. The scandalous arrangement between the Front -Benches which forced the Insurance Act down our throats was -an eye-opener for the great masses of the people. So was the -cynical action of the politicians in the matter of Chinese -Labour after the Election of 1906. So was the puerile stage -play indulged in over things like the Welsh Disestablishment -Bill and the Education Bills. - -But among the forces which opened people's eyes about the -House of Commons, the Free Press played a very great part, -though it was never mentioned in the big Official papers, -and though not one man in many hundreds of the public ever -heard of it. The few who read it were startled into -acceptance by the exact correspondence between its statement -and observed fact. - -The man who tells the truth when his colleagues around him -are lying, always enjoys a certain restricted power of -prophecy. If there were a general conspiracy to maintain the -falsehood that all peers were over six foot high, a man -desiring to correct this falsehood would be perfectly safe -if he were to say: "I do not know whether the next peer you -meet will be over six foot or not, but I am pretty safe in -prophesying that you will find among the next dozen three or -four peers less than six foot high." - -If there were a general conspiracy to pretend that people -with incomes above the income-tax level never cheated one in -a bargain, one could not say "on such-and-such a day you -will be cheated in a bargain by such-and-such a person, -whose income will be above the income-tax level," but one -could say: "Note the people who swindle you in the next five -years, and I will prophesy that some of the number will be -people paying income-tax." - -This power of prophecy, which is an adjunct of truth -telling, I have noticed to affect people very profoundly. - -A worthy provincial might have been shocked ten years ago to -hear that places in the Upper House of Parliament were -regularly bought and sold. He might have indignantly denied -it. The Free Press said: "In some short while you will have -a glaring instance of a man who is incompetent and obscure -but very rich, appearing as a legislator with permanent -hereditary power, transferable to his son after his death. I -don't know which the next one will be, but there is bound to -be a case of the sort quite soon for the thing goes on -continually. You will be puzzled to explain it. The -explanation is that the rich man has given a large sum of -money to the needy professional politician. Selah." - -Our worthy provincial may have heard but an echo of this -truth, for it would have had, ten years ago, but few -readers. He may not have seen a syllable of it in his daily -paper. But things happen. He sees first a great soldier, -then a well-advertised politician, not a rich man, but very -widely talked about, made peers. The events are norm.al in -each case, and he is not moved. But sooner or later there -comes a case in which he has local knowledge. He says to -himself: "Why on earth is So-and-so made a peer (or a front -bench man, or what not)? Why, in the name of goodness, is -this very rich but unknown, and to my knowledge incompetent, -man suddenly put into such a position?" Then he remembers -what he was told, begins to ask questions, and finds out, of -course, that money passed; perhaps, if he is lucky, he finds -out which professional politician pouched the money---and -even how much he took! +Next consider this powerful factor in the business. *The truth confirms +itself.* + +Half a million people read of a professional politician, for instance, +that his oratory has an "electric effect," or that he is "full of +personal magnetism," or that he "can sway an audience to tears or +laughter at will." A Free Paper telling the truth about him says that he +is a dull speaker, full of commonplaces, elderly, smelling strongly of +the Chapel, and giving the impression that he is tired out; flogging up +sham enthusiasm with stale phrases which the reporters have already +learnt to put into shorthand with one conventional outline years ago. + +Well, the false, the ludicrously false picture designed to put this +politician in the lime-light (as against favours to be rendered), no +doubt remains the general impression with most of those 500,000 people. +The simple and rather tawdry truth may be but doubtfully accepted by a +few hundreds only. + +But sooner or later a certain small proportion of the 500,000 actually +*hear* the politician in question. They hear him speak. They receive a +primary and true impression. + +If they had not read anything suggesting the truth, it is quite upon the +cards that the false suggestion would still have weight with them, In +spite of the evidence of their senses. Men are so built that +uncontradicted falsehood sufficiently repeated does have that curious +power of illusion. A man having heard the speech delivered by the old +gentleman, if there were nothing but the Official Press to inform +opinion, might go away saying to himself: "I was not very much +impressed, but no doubt that was due to my own weariness. I cannot but +believe that the general reputation he bears is well founded. He must be +a great orator, for I have always heard him called one." + +But a man who has even once seen it stated that this politician was +*exactly what he was* will vividly remember that description (which at +first hearing he probably thought false); physical experience has +confirmed the true statement and made it live. These statements of +truth, even when they are quite unimportant, more, of course, when they +illuminate matters of great civic moment, have a cumulative effect. + +I am confident, for instance, that at the present time the mass of +middle-class people are not only acquainted with, but convinced of, the +truth, that, long before the war, the House of Commons had become a +fraud; that its debates did not turn upon matters which really divided +opinion, and that even its paltry debating points, the pretence of a +true opposition was a falsehood. + +This salutary truth had been arrived at, of course, by many other +channels. The scandalous arrangement between the Front Benches which +forced the Insurance Act down our throats was an eye-opener for the +great masses of the people. So was the cynical action of the politicians +in the matter of Chinese Labour after the Election of 1906. So was the +puerile stage play indulged in over things like the Welsh +Disestablishment Bill and the Education Bills. + +But among the forces which opened people's eyes about the House of +Commons, the Free Press played a very great part, though it was never +mentioned in the big Official papers, and though not one man in many +hundreds of the public ever heard of it. The few who read it were +startled into acceptance by the exact correspondence between its +statement and observed fact. + +The man who tells the truth when his colleagues around him are lying, +always enjoys a certain restricted power of prophecy. If there were a +general conspiracy to maintain the falsehood that all peers were over +six foot high, a man desiring to correct this falsehood would be +perfectly safe if he were to say: "I do not know whether the next peer +you meet will be over six foot or not, but I am pretty safe in +prophesying that you will find among the next dozen three or four peers +less than six foot high." + +If there were a general conspiracy to pretend that people with incomes +above the income-tax level never cheated one in a bargain, one could not +say "on such-and-such a day you will be cheated in a bargain by +such-and-such a person, whose income will be above the income-tax +level," but one could say: "Note the people who swindle you in the next +five years, and I will prophesy that some of the number will be people +paying income-tax." + +This power of prophecy, which is an adjunct of truth telling, I have +noticed to affect people very profoundly. + +A worthy provincial might have been shocked ten years ago to hear that +places in the Upper House of Parliament were regularly bought and sold. +He might have indignantly denied it. The Free Press said: "In some short +while you will have a glaring instance of a man who is incompetent and +obscure but very rich, appearing as a legislator with permanent +hereditary power, transferable to his son after his death. I don't know +which the next one will be, but there is bound to be a case of the sort +quite soon for the thing goes on continually. You will be puzzled to +explain it. The explanation is that the rich man has given a large sum +of money to the needy professional politician. Selah." + +Our worthy provincial may have heard but an echo of this truth, for it +would have had, ten years ago, but few readers. He may not have seen a +syllable of it in his daily paper. But things happen. He sees first a +great soldier, then a well-advertised politician, not a rich man, but +very widely talked about, made peers. The events are norm.al in each +case, and he is not moved. But sooner or later there comes a case in +which he has local knowledge. He says to himself: "Why on earth is +So-and-so made a peer (or a front bench man, or what not)? Why, in the +name of goodness, is this very rich but unknown, and to my knowledge +incompetent, man suddenly put into such a position?" Then he remembers +what he was told, begins to ask questions, and finds out, of course, +that money passed; perhaps, if he is lucky, he finds out which +professional politician pouched the money---and even how much he took! # XVIII -The effect of the Free Press from all these causes may be -compared to the cumulative effect of one of the great -offensives of the present war. Each individual blow is -neither dramatic nor extensive in effect; there is little -movement or none. The map is disappointing. But each blow -tells, and *when the end comes* every one will see suddenly -what the cumulative effect was. - -There is not a single thing which the Free Papers have -earnestly said during the last few years which has not been -borne out by events---and sometimes borne out with -astonishing rapidity and identity of detail. - -It would, perhaps, be superstitious to believe that strong -and courageous truth-telling calls down from Heaven, new, -unexpected, and vivid examples to support it. But, really, -the events of the last few years would almost incline one to -that superstition. The Free Press has hardly to point out -some political truth which the Official Press has refused to -publish, when the stars in their courses seem to fight for -that truth. It is thrust into the public gaze by some -abnormal accident immediately after! Hardly had -Mr. Chesterton and I begun to publish articles on the state -of affairs at Westminster when the Marconi men very kindly -obliged us. +The effect of the Free Press from all these causes may be compared to +the cumulative effect of one of the great offensives of the present war. +Each individual blow is neither dramatic nor extensive in effect; there +is little movement or none. The map is disappointing. But each blow +tells, and *when the end comes* every one will see suddenly what the +cumulative effect was. + +There is not a single thing which the Free Papers have earnestly said +during the last few years which has not been borne out by events---and +sometimes borne out with astonishing rapidity and identity of detail. + +It would, perhaps, be superstitious to believe that strong and +courageous truth-telling calls down from Heaven, new, unexpected, and +vivid examples to support it. But, really, the events of the last few +years would almost incline one to that superstition. The Free Press has +hardly to point out some political truth which the Official Press has +refused to publish, when the stars in their courses seem to fight for +that truth. It is thrust into the public gaze by some abnormal accident +immediately after! Hardly had Mr. Chesterton and I begun to publish +articles on the state of affairs at Westminster when the Marconi men +very kindly obliged us. # XIX -But there is a last factor in this progressive advance of -the free Press towards success which I think the most -important of all. It is the factor of time in the process of -human generations. - -It is an old tag that the paradox of one age is the -commonplace of the next, and that tag is true. It is true, -because young men are doubly formed. First, by the reality -and freshness of their own experience, and next, by the -authority of their elders. - -You see the thing in the reputation of poets. For instance, -when A is 20, B 40, and C 60, a new poet appears, and is, -perhaps, thought an eccentric. "A" cannot help recognizing -the new note and admiring it, but he is a little ashamed of -what may turn out to be an immature opinion, and he holds -his tongue. "B" is too busy in middle life and already too -hardened to feel the force of the new note and the authority -he has over "A" renders "A" still more doubtful of his own -judgment. "C" is frankly contemptuous of the new note. He -has sunk into the groove of old age. - -Now let twenty years pass, and things will have changed in -this fashion. "C" is dead. "B" has grown old, and is of less -effect as an authority. "A" is himself in middle age, and is -sure of his own taste and not prepared to take that of -elders. He has already long expressed his admiration for the -new poet, who is, indeed, not a "new poet" any longer, but, -perhaps, already an established classic. - -We are all witnesses to this phenomenon in the realm of -literature. I believe that the same thing goes on with even -more force in the realm of political ideas. - -Can any one conceive the men who were just leaving the -University five or six years ago returning from the war and -still taking the House of Commons seriously? I cannot -conceive it. As undergraduates they would already have heard -of its breakdown; as young men they knew that the expression -of this truth was annoying to their elders, and they always -felt when they expressed it---perhaps they enjoyed -feeling---that there was something impertinent and odd, and -possibly exaggerated in their attitude. But when they are -men between 30 and 40 they will take so simple a truth for -granted. There will be no elders for them to fear, and they -will be in no doubt upon judgments maturely formed. Unless -something like a revolution occurs In the habits and -personal constitution of the House of Commons It will by -that time be a joke and let us hope already a partly -innocuous joke. - -With this Increasing and cumulative effect of truth-telling, -even when that truth is marred or distorted by enthusiasm, -all the disabilities under which It has suffered will -coincidently weaken. The strongest force of all against -people's hearing the truth---the arbitrary power still used -by the political lawyers to suppress Free writing---will, I +But there is a last factor in this progressive advance of the free Press +towards success which I think the most important of all. It is the +factor of time in the process of human generations. + +It is an old tag that the paradox of one age is the commonplace of the +next, and that tag is true. It is true, because young men are doubly +formed. First, by the reality and freshness of their own experience, and +next, by the authority of their elders. + +You see the thing in the reputation of poets. For instance, when A is +20, B 40, and C 60, a new poet appears, and is, perhaps, thought an +eccentric. "A" cannot help recognizing the new note and admiring it, but +he is a little ashamed of what may turn out to be an immature opinion, +and he holds his tongue. "B" is too busy in middle life and already too +hardened to feel the force of the new note and the authority he has over +"A" renders "A" still more doubtful of his own judgment. "C" is frankly +contemptuous of the new note. He has sunk into the groove of old age. + +Now let twenty years pass, and things will have changed in this fashion. +"C" is dead. "B" has grown old, and is of less effect as an authority. +"A" is himself in middle age, and is sure of his own taste and not +prepared to take that of elders. He has already long expressed his +admiration for the new poet, who is, indeed, not a "new poet" any +longer, but, perhaps, already an established classic. + +We are all witnesses to this phenomenon in the realm of literature. I +believe that the same thing goes on with even more force in the realm of +political ideas. + +Can any one conceive the men who were just leaving the University five +or six years ago returning from the war and still taking the House of +Commons seriously? I cannot conceive it. As undergraduates they would +already have heard of its breakdown; as young men they knew that the +expression of this truth was annoying to their elders, and they always +felt when they expressed it---perhaps they enjoyed feeling---that there +was something impertinent and odd, and possibly exaggerated in their +attitude. But when they are men between 30 and 40 they will take so +simple a truth for granted. There will be no elders for them to fear, +and they will be in no doubt upon judgments maturely formed. Unless +something like a revolution occurs In the habits and personal +constitution of the House of Commons It will by that time be a joke and +let us hope already a partly innocuous joke. + +With this Increasing and cumulative effect of truth-telling, even when +that truth is marred or distorted by enthusiasm, all the disabilities +under which It has suffered will coincidently weaken. The strongest +force of all against people's hearing the truth---the arbitrary power +still used by the political lawyers to suppress Free writing---will, I think, weaken. -The Courts, after all, depend largely upon the mass of -opinion. Twenty years ago, for instance, an accusation of -bribery brought against some professional politician would -have been thought a monstrosity, and, however true, would -nearly always have given the political lawyers, his -colleagues, occasion for violent repression. To-day the -thing has become so much a commonplace that all appeals to -the old Illusion would fall flat. The presiding lawyer could -not put on an air of shocked incredulity at hearing that -such-and-such a Minister had been mixed up in such-and-such -a financial scandal. We take such things for granted +The Courts, after all, depend largely upon the mass of opinion. Twenty +years ago, for instance, an accusation of bribery brought against some +professional politician would have been thought a monstrosity, and, +however true, would nearly always have given the political lawyers, his +colleagues, occasion for violent repression. To-day the thing has become +so much a commonplace that all appeals to the old Illusion would fall +flat. The presiding lawyer could not put on an air of shocked +incredulity at hearing that such-and-such a Minister had been mixed up +in such-and-such a financial scandal. We take such things for granted nowadays. # XX -What I do doubt in the approaching and already apparent -success of the Free Press is its power to effect democratic -reform. - -It will succeed at last in getting the truth told pretty -openly and pretty thoroughly. It will break down the barrier -between the little governing clique in which the truth is -cynically admitted and the bulk of educated men and women -who cannot get the truth by word of mouth but depend upon -the printed word. We shall, I believe, even within the -lifetime of those who have taken part in the struggle, have -all the great problems of our time, particularly the -Economic problems, honestly debated. But what I do not see -is the avenue whereby the great mass of the people can now -be restored to an interest in the way in which they are -governed, or even in the re-establishment of their own -economic independence. - -So far as I can gather from the life around me, the popular -appetite for freedom and even for criticism has disappeared. -The wage-earner demands sufficient and regular subsistence, -including a system of pensions, and, as part of his -definition of subsistence and sufficiency, a due portion of -leisure. That he demands a property in the means of -production, I can see no sign whatever. It may come; but all -the evidence Is the other way. And as for a general public -indignation against corrupt government, there is (below the -few in the know who either share the swag or shrug their -shoulders) no sign that it will be strong enough to have any +What I do doubt in the approaching and already apparent success of the +Free Press is its power to effect democratic reform. + +It will succeed at last in getting the truth told pretty openly and +pretty thoroughly. It will break down the barrier between the little +governing clique in which the truth is cynically admitted and the bulk +of educated men and women who cannot get the truth by word of mouth but +depend upon the printed word. We shall, I believe, even within the +lifetime of those who have taken part in the struggle, have all the +great problems of our time, particularly the Economic problems, honestly +debated. But what I do not see is the avenue whereby the great mass of +the people can now be restored to an interest in the way in which they +are governed, or even in the re-establishment of their own economic +independence. + +So far as I can gather from the life around me, the popular appetite for +freedom and even for criticism has disappeared. The wage-earner demands +sufficient and regular subsistence, including a system of pensions, and, +as part of his definition of subsistence and sufficiency, a due portion +of leisure. That he demands a property in the means of production, I can +see no sign whatever. It may come; but all the evidence Is the other +way. And as for a general public indignation against corrupt government, +there is (below the few in the know who either share the swag or shrug +their shoulders) no sign that it will be strong enough to have any effect. -All we can hope to do Is, for the moment, negative: In my -view, at least. We can undermine the power of the Capitalist -Press. We can expose it as we have exposed the Politicians. -It is very powerful but very vulnerable---as are all human -things that repose on a lie. We may expect, in a delay -perhaps as brief as that which was required to pillory, and, -therefore, to hamstring the miserable falsehood and -ineptitude called the Party System (that Is, In some ten -years or less), to reduce the Official Press to the same -plight. In some ways the danger of failure is less, for our -opponent is certainly less well-organized. But beyond -that---beyond these limits---we shall not attain. We shall -enlighten, and by enlightening, destroy. We shall not -provoke public action, for the methods and instincts of -corporate civic action have disappeared. - -Such a conclusion might seem to imply that the deliberate -and continued labour of truth-telling without reward, and -always in some peril, is useless; and that those who have -for now so many years given their best work freely for the -establishment of a Free Press have toiled In vain. I intend -no such implication: I intend its very opposite. - -I shall myself continue in the future, as I have in the -past, to write and publish in that Press without regard to -the Boycott in publicity and in advertisement subsidy which -is intended to destroy it and to make all our effort of no -effect. I shall continue to do so, although I know that in -"The New Age," or the "New Witness," I have but one reader, -where in the "Weekly Dispatch" or the "Times" I should have -a thousand. - -I shall do so, and the others who continue in like service -will do so, *first*, because, though the work is so far -negative only, there is (and we all instinctively feel it), -a *Vis Medicatrix Naturae*: merely in weakening an evil you -may soon be, you ultimately will surely be, creating a good: -*secondly*, because self-respect and honour demand it. No -man who has the truth to tell and the power to tell it can -long remain hiding it from fear or even from despair without -ignominy. To release the truth against whatever odds, even -if so doing can no longer help the Commonwealth, is a -necessity for the soul. - -We have also this last consolation, that those who leave us -and attach themselves from fear or greed to the stronger -party of dissemblers gradually lose thereby their chance of -fame in letters. Sound writing cannot survive in the air of -mechanical hypocrisy. They with their enormous modern -audiences are the hacks doomed to oblivion. We, under the -modern silence, are the inheritors of those who built up the -political greatness of England upon a foundation of free -speech, and of the prose which it begets. Those who prefer -to sell themselves or to be cowed gain, as a rule, not even -that ephemeral security for which they betrayed their -fellows; meanwhile, they leave to us the only solid and -permanent form of political power, which is the gift of -mastery through persuasion. +All we can hope to do Is, for the moment, negative: In my view, at +least. We can undermine the power of the Capitalist Press. We can expose +it as we have exposed the Politicians. It is very powerful but very +vulnerable---as are all human things that repose on a lie. We may +expect, in a delay perhaps as brief as that which was required to +pillory, and, therefore, to hamstring the miserable falsehood and +ineptitude called the Party System (that Is, In some ten years or less), +to reduce the Official Press to the same plight. In some ways the danger +of failure is less, for our opponent is certainly less well-organized. +But beyond that---beyond these limits---we shall not attain. We shall +enlighten, and by enlightening, destroy. We shall not provoke public +action, for the methods and instincts of corporate civic action have +disappeared. + +Such a conclusion might seem to imply that the deliberate and continued +labour of truth-telling without reward, and always in some peril, is +useless; and that those who have for now so many years given their best +work freely for the establishment of a Free Press have toiled In vain. I +intend no such implication: I intend its very opposite. + +I shall myself continue in the future, as I have in the past, to write +and publish in that Press without regard to the Boycott in publicity and +in advertisement subsidy which is intended to destroy it and to make all +our effort of no effect. I shall continue to do so, although I know that +in "The New Age," or the "New Witness," I have but one reader, where in +the "Weekly Dispatch" or the "Times" I should have a thousand. + +I shall do so, and the others who continue in like service will do so, +*first*, because, though the work is so far negative only, there is (and +we all instinctively feel it), a *Vis Medicatrix Naturae*: merely in +weakening an evil you may soon be, you ultimately will surely be, +creating a good: *secondly*, because self-respect and honour demand it. +No man who has the truth to tell and the power to tell it can long +remain hiding it from fear or even from despair without ignominy. To +release the truth against whatever odds, even if so doing can no longer +help the Commonwealth, is a necessity for the soul. + +We have also this last consolation, that those who leave us and attach +themselves from fear or greed to the stronger party of dissemblers +gradually lose thereby their chance of fame in letters. Sound writing +cannot survive in the air of mechanical hypocrisy. They with their +enormous modern audiences are the hacks doomed to oblivion. We, under +the modern silence, are the inheritors of those who built up the +political greatness of England upon a foundation of free speech, and of +the prose which it begets. Those who prefer to sell themselves or to be +cowed gain, as a rule, not even that ephemeral security for which they +betrayed their fellows; meanwhile, they leave to us the only solid and +permanent form of political power, which is the gift of mastery through +persuasion. diff --git a/src/tolstoy-philosophy.md b/src/tolstoy-philosophy.md index 5228515..8f156ed 100644 --- a/src/tolstoy-philosophy.md +++ b/src/tolstoy-philosophy.md @@ -1,37 +1,924 @@ -I wonder what Tolstoy would say if he could see us discussing his philosophy in evening clothes after a banquet like this. I wish he were here in my place to tell you. I can imagine what the effect would be of having him sitting in my chair. In fact, I do not see why you should not have him. If your enterprising Secretary can get Wu Ting Fang---isn't that his name!---and other people, from distant places, I do not see why you should not have Tolstoy himself. But, I can imagine him sitting here as I saw him when I visited him in Russia some six years ago. You know his picture very well,---a plain-looking Russian peasant, with a loose kind of a blouse on, a belt around his waist---you could hardly call it a belt; it looked like a very-much-damaged trunk-strap, I think, more than anything else,---as shabbily dressed as a man could be dressed, only distinguished from the peasant in the field by his scrupulous neatness and by something in his face, a twinkle in the eye, under its shaggy gray eye-brows, which showed that he was a man who had done a great deal of thinking in his time. It would be a rather dramatic thing, would it not, to have him here?---a subject worthy of some of the latest school of French artists. And I am inclined to think, in anything that he had to say, although a great deal of it you would not agree with, that there would not be a word that you would not receive with respect and I am sure when he sat down you would all feel that you had listened to a man, not only one of the most sincere men on earth to-day but actually one of the sanest men as well. +I wonder what Tolstoy would say if he could see us discussing his +philosophy in evening clothes after a banquet like this. I wish he were +here in my place to tell you. I can imagine what the effect would be of +having him sitting in my chair. In fact, I do not see why you should not +have him. If your enterprising Secretary can get Wu Ting Fang---isn't +that his name!---and other people, from distant places, I do not see why +you should not have Tolstoy himself. But, I can imagine him sitting here +as I saw him when I visited him in Russia some six years ago. You know +his picture very well,---a plain-looking Russian peasant, with a loose +kind of a blouse on, a belt around his waist---you could hardly call it +a belt; it looked like a very-much-damaged trunk-strap, I think, more +than anything else,---as shabbily dressed as a man could be dressed, +only distinguished from the peasant in the field by his scrupulous +neatness and by something in his face, a twinkle in the eye, under its +shaggy gray eye-brows, which showed that he was a man who had done a +great deal of thinking in his time. It would be a rather dramatic thing, +would it not, to have him here?---a subject worthy of some of the latest +school of French artists. And I am inclined to think, in anything that +he had to say, although a great deal of it you would not agree with, +that there would not be a word that you would not receive with respect +and I am sure when he sat down you would all feel that you had listened +to a man, not only one of the most sincere men on earth to-day but +actually one of the sanest men as well. -It is quite fitting that Tolstoy should be presented in a dramatic way because to my mind he is one of the most dramatic of men---the least theatrical, but the most dramatic. It is the secret of the wonderful power of his novels. He is a man whom argument affects little; he is a man who, I am inclined to think, would gain little from the reading of books; he is a man who sees things dramatically in figures; he is a man who always selects the practical side, the side of action rather than the side of thought. The very first incident in his life which we are told had the effect of drawing him away a little from the conventional view of things, was a dramatic incident. It is told of him when he was a student only eighteen years old at the University of *Kazan*, he was invited to a ball at the house of a nobleman who lived in the country in the vicinity; it was a frightfully cold winter night; Tolstoy went out to this ball in a sleigh driven by one of the peasant coachmen that are so common in Russia. We must remember in Russia that there are only two classes. The middle class is only beginning to exist there. There are the rich and the nobility on the one side, and the peasants on the other---and the servant class, the coachman class. The other class that we are familiar with in our cities are really representatives of the peasant class. So Tolstoy was driven out to this ball by a peasant coachman. He went into the ball, passed the night in dancing, and finally, forgetting altogether the coachman in the sleigh that he had left outside, when he came out, at an early hour in the morning, he found his driver unconscious, very nearly frozen to death; it was necessary to rub him; chafe his hands and his feet for two or three hours before he was brought again to consciousness. That dramatic incident had a tremendous effect on Tolstoy's mind, although he was only eighteen years old. He thought, "Why is it? Here am I, a fellow eighteen years old, who has never been of use to anybody; nobody knows whether I am going to be of any use t anybody or not. Why should I be enjoying all these things in this warm house, this palace of this nobleman, feasting on the fat things of the earth in a warmly heated ball-room, and why should this man---representative of the great peasant class that does all the hard work of the country, be shut outside in the cold?" It seemed to him to be a picture of the state of the society that he lived in and he was so affected by it that he threw up his college course, went back to his estate, where I visited him, Yasnaya Polyana, south of Moscow,---his father and mother had died and he was the owner of it himself---and he tried to devote himself to the advantage and benefit of the serfs who were living then on his estate. He tried that two or three years and did not find it very successful. Those of you who have had any experience in trying to introduce new discoveries in the way of machinery and the management generally of agricultural property, know that it is not an easy thing, in this country, to change the habits of an agricultural population. Tolstoy found it in Russia even more difficult, and after two or three years he was discouraged; he gave it up as a bad job. +It is quite fitting that Tolstoy should be presented in a dramatic way +because to my mind he is one of the most dramatic of men---the least +theatrical, but the most dramatic. It is the secret of the wonderful +power of his novels. He is a man whom argument affects little; he is a +man who, I am inclined to think, would gain little from the reading of +books; he is a man who sees things dramatically in figures; he is a man +who always selects the practical side, the side of action rather than +the side of thought. The very first incident in his life which we are +told had the effect of drawing him away a little from the conventional +view of things, was a dramatic incident. It is told of him when he was a +student only eighteen years old at the University of *Kazan*, he was +invited to a ball at the house of a nobleman who lived in the country in +the vicinity; it was a frightfully cold winter night; Tolstoy went out +to this ball in a sleigh driven by one of the peasant coachmen that are +so common in Russia. We must remember in Russia that there are only two +classes. The middle class is only beginning to exist there. There are +the rich and the nobility on the one side, and the peasants on the +other---and the servant class, the coachman class. The other class that +we are familiar with in our cities are really representatives of the +peasant class. So Tolstoy was driven out to this ball by a peasant +coachman. He went into the ball, passed the night in dancing, and +finally, forgetting altogether the coachman in the sleigh that he had +left outside, when he came out, at an early hour in the morning, he +found his driver unconscious, very nearly frozen to death; it was +necessary to rub him; chafe his hands and his feet for two or three +hours before he was brought again to consciousness. That dramatic +incident had a tremendous effect on Tolstoy's mind, although he was only +eighteen years old. He thought, "Why is it? Here am I, a fellow eighteen +years old, who has never been of use to anybody; nobody knows whether I +am going to be of any use t anybody or not. Why should I be enjoying all +these things in this warm house, this palace of this nobleman, feasting +on the fat things of the earth in a warmly heated ball-room, and why +should this man---representative of the great peasant class that does +all the hard work of the country, be shut outside in the cold?" It +seemed to him to be a picture of the state of the society that he lived +in and he was so affected by it that he threw up his college course, +went back to his estate, where I visited him, Yasnaya Polyana, south of +Moscow,---his father and mother had died and he was the owner of it +himself---and he tried to devote himself to the advantage and benefit of +the serfs who were living then on his estate. He tried that two or three +years and did not find it very successful. Those of you who have had any +experience in trying to introduce new discoveries in the way of +machinery and the management generally of agricultural property, know +that it is not an easy thing, in this country, to change the habits of +an agricultural population. Tolstoy found it in Russia even more +difficult, and after two or three years he was discouraged; he gave it +up as a bad job. -He went back to Moscow and applied for a commission in the army. We find him going down to serve the active service, first in the Caucasus and then shortly after that, as the captain of a battery of artillery in the great Crimean War, and he actually served in the defence of Sebastopol until the capitulation of that city; saw all there was to be seen in one of the greatest wars of the century. We must remember that when Tolstoy condemns war absolutely, when he says that it is a piece of barbarity that we have no right to countenance at the end of the nineteenth century, remember he is not speaking like many of us who have had no experience in it; he is a man who has seen service and who came out of the test honorably, promoted from a lieutenant to a captain, for his services in that way; and I have been told by very good authorities that as the result of his army experience he describes better than any other master of fiction what warfare really is, not only in his great novel "War and Peace" but in his military work called "Sebastopol" which gave an account of this very same war, which was one of the first things he ever wrote. At the end of the war Tolstoy had already begun to write. His reputation began to spread throughout Russia and he found the career of a novelist open before him. So he resigned his commission, went for the first time to St. Petersburg and was received at once into the best literary and fashionable society of that city. +He went back to Moscow and applied for a commission in the army. We find +him going down to serve the active service, first in the Caucasus and +then shortly after that, as the captain of a battery of artillery in the +great Crimean War, and he actually served in the defence of Sebastopol +until the capitulation of that city; saw all there was to be seen in one +of the greatest wars of the century. We must remember that when Tolstoy +condemns war absolutely, when he says that it is a piece of barbarity +that we have no right to countenance at the end of the nineteenth +century, remember he is not speaking like many of us who have had no +experience in it; he is a man who has seen service and who came out of +the test honorably, promoted from a lieutenant to a captain, for his +services in that way; and I have been told by very good authorities that +as the result of his army experience he describes better than any other +master of fiction what warfare really is, not only in his great novel +"War and Peace" but in his military work called "Sebastopol" which gave +an account of this very same war, which was one of the first things he +ever wrote. At the end of the war Tolstoy had already begun to write. +His reputation began to spread throughout Russia and he found the career +of a novelist open before him. So he resigned his commission, went for +the first time to St. Petersburg and was received at once into the best +literary and fashionable society of that city. -He tells us that for the next few years he passed his life in a great deal of dissipation. I often think that a great many of the very good men who are, you might say, freed from their sins rather late in life, take pleasure in picturing their sins as blacker than they really were, yet we know that the life of a fashionable man in Russia is very far from being what it should be. We know they are tremendous drinkers, they are tremendous gamblers. Tolstoy speaks of the large amount of money he lost in gambling. He also tells us of the number of duels he fought---a great many things which he would to-day totally disapprove of. Yet when we read his writings we were always impressed by the fact that there was a serious substratum in his character. He never was satisfied with the life he was leading; he was always looking for something as a guide in life, always feeling the want of a working theory of life. He tells us about his visiting the great European capitals, getting letters-of-introduction to the principal writers, trying to find out from them something about their opinions as to what the +He tells us that for the next few years he passed his life in a great +deal of dissipation. I often think that a great many of the very good +men who are, you might say, freed from their sins rather late in life, +take pleasure in picturing their sins as blacker than they really were, +yet we know that the life of a fashionable man in Russia is very far +from being what it should be. We know they are tremendous drinkers, they +are tremendous gamblers. Tolstoy speaks of the large amount of money he +lost in gambling. He also tells us of the number of duels he fought---a +great many things which he would to-day totally disapprove of. Yet when +we read his writings we were always impressed by the fact that there was +a serious substratum in his character. He never was satisfied with the +life he was leading; he was always looking for something as a guide in +life, always feeling the want of a working theory of life. He tells us +about his visiting the great European capitals, getting +letters-of-introduction to the principal writers, trying to find out +from them something about their opinions as to what the -life of man means, what the hereafter is to be, what the object of his life is, but he came back without any satisfactory answer. It was on that trip that another one of these dramatic pictures was presented to him that had a lasting influence upon his character. He was in Paris and he went to see a public execution by the guillotine. As you know, in Paris those executions are open, on the public square. He went. I don't know why. I suppose as a novelist he thought every experience he could have was a valuable one. He went to see the execution. It had a remarkable effect upon him. He tells us that as he heard the head and the body drop separately into the box that was prepared for them beneath, that he felt not only in his mind, in his heart, but through his whole person that that was a wrong act and that no theory of government or progress of civilization could possibly justify it. It was the first idea that came into his mind, the non-resistant, anti-government ideas which afterwards became so prominent in it, and you will see there, as in the case of the frozen coachman, it was not a matter of reasoning; it was the picture that was presented to him that brought him to that conviction. He came back from his foreign travels. Just at that time the serfs were freed; 1861, I think it was. Tolstoy, like a great many other good landlords, went back to his estates in the country to try to fit the new freedmen for their freedom. He started a village school in his own village; taught there as principal himself; he started an educational newspaper that was largely circulated among the landlords of Russia. Something of those papers have been collected in three volumes and translated into French. I have them in my library and they are most interesting as giving an example of Tolstoy's ideas on education way back forty years ago. It shows that many of his new ideas were really in his mind at that time. He started out with the principle in teaching the children in school in his village that no child should be taught anything that it did not want to learn, and carried that out absolutely. They would take up a lesson in the morning; if the children did not like that lesson he would take up some other lesson until he got a lesson that they liked. The children were never obliged to study in the school. He tells us that about twice a week some boy would jump up and run over back and get his cap and start for home and all the other children would follow, and beyond a few calm words of invitation the teachers never interfered in any way whatever. He says that happened only about twice a week after they had already been in school some two hours and he thinks the advantage he obtained from knowing that the other five days of the week they stayed of their own accord, and even for those two days they stayed a couple of hours, was quite worth all they lost even by the absence of those children for a part of two days. I am not sure that that is altogether wrong. I do not suppose it could be applied very well in a city as large as Buffalo, but we have got to take Tolstoy's word about his educational experiments because we have no other witnesses to call, and he assures us that there were never any children in any part of the world so well educated as the children of his town during the time of his experiment, and I am sure we will have to take that point as proven. For a year or two he found this educational work sufficient to occupy his mind, but he tells us that at this time, when he was about thirty-four or thirty-five years old, that the great questions of life and death which came up before him and insisted upon an answer fifteen years later, that they would have presented themselves to him then if it had not been for the fact that just at that time he happened to meet a lady who became Madam Tolstoy. His mind was diverted from these deep questions of eternity to the questions of this world, and he fell in love, he married her, and in the writing of his two great novels and in the raising of a large family of children in the country, he found his mind so occupied for the coming fifteen years that he had very little time left for the questions which afterwards came up. Those of you who are familiar with the novel "Anna Karenina" will remember the courtship of Levin and Kitty. It is an actual transcript of Tolstoy's now life; the whale story of it wae the story of his relations with Madam Tolstoy. When I went to Yasnaya Polyana, after having read that book for the first time, and I actually met "Kitty"---Madam Tolstoy---it was very much as though you should happen to meet "Agnes Copperfield" or "Ethel Newcome" or some other favorite of yours that you should never imagine to have been a being on the surface of the earth at all. It was a very curious and interesting experience to make her acquaintance. +life of man means, what the hereafter is to be, what the object of his +life is, but he came back without any satisfactory answer. It was on +that trip that another one of these dramatic pictures was presented to +him that had a lasting influence upon his character. He was in Paris and +he went to see a public execution by the guillotine. As you know, in +Paris those executions are open, on the public square. He went. I don't +know why. I suppose as a novelist he thought every experience he could +have was a valuable one. He went to see the execution. It had a +remarkable effect upon him. He tells us that as he heard the head and +the body drop separately into the box that was prepared for them +beneath, that he felt not only in his mind, in his heart, but through +his whole person that that was a wrong act and that no theory of +government or progress of civilization could possibly justify it. It was +the first idea that came into his mind, the non-resistant, +anti-government ideas which afterwards became so prominent in it, and +you will see there, as in the case of the frozen coachman, it was not a +matter of reasoning; it was the picture that was presented to him that +brought him to that conviction. He came back from his foreign travels. +Just at that time the serfs were freed; 1861, I think it was. Tolstoy, +like a great many other good landlords, went back to his estates in the +country to try to fit the new freedmen for their freedom. He started a +village school in his own village; taught there as principal himself; he +started an educational newspaper that was largely circulated among the +landlords of Russia. Something of those papers have been collected in +three volumes and translated into French. I have them in my library and +they are most interesting as giving an example of Tolstoy's ideas on +education way back forty years ago. It shows that many of his new ideas +were really in his mind at that time. He started out with the principle +in teaching the children in school in his village that no child should +be taught anything that it did not want to learn, and carried that out +absolutely. They would take up a lesson in the morning; if the children +did not like that lesson he would take up some other lesson until he got +a lesson that they liked. The children were never obliged to study in +the school. He tells us that about twice a week some boy would jump up +and run over back and get his cap and start for home and all the other +children would follow, and beyond a few calm words of invitation the +teachers never interfered in any way whatever. He says that happened +only about twice a week after they had already been in school some two +hours and he thinks the advantage he obtained from knowing that the +other five days of the week they stayed of their own accord, and even +for those two days they stayed a couple of hours, was quite worth all +they lost even by the absence of those children for a part of two days. +I am not sure that that is altogether wrong. I do not suppose it could +be applied very well in a city as large as Buffalo, but we have got to +take Tolstoy's word about his educational experiments because we have no +other witnesses to call, and he assures us that there were never any +children in any part of the world so well educated as the children of +his town during the time of his experiment, and I am sure we will have +to take that point as proven. For a year or two he found this +educational work sufficient to occupy his mind, but he tells us that at +this time, when he was about thirty-four or thirty-five years old, that +the great questions of life and death which came up before him and +insisted upon an answer fifteen years later, that they would have +presented themselves to him then if it had not been for the fact that +just at that time he happened to meet a lady who became Madam Tolstoy. +His mind was diverted from these deep questions of eternity to the +questions of this world, and he fell in love, he married her, and in the +writing of his two great novels and in the raising of a large family of +children in the country, he found his mind so occupied for the coming +fifteen years that he had very little time left for the questions which +afterwards came up. Those of you who are familiar with the novel "Anna +Karenina" will remember the courtship of Levin and Kitty. It is an +actual transcript of Tolstoy's now life; the whale story of it wae the +story of his relations with Madam Tolstoy. When I went to Yasnaya +Polyana, after having read that book for the first time, and I actually +met "Kitty"---Madam Tolstoy---it was very much as though you should +happen to meet "Agnes Copperfield" or "Ethel Newcome" or some other +favorite of yours that you should never imagine to have been a being on +the surface of the earth at all. It was a very curious and interesting +experience to make her acquaintance. -The next fifteen years passed. As I say, Tolstoy was busily occupied in writing his great novel. His family was growing up around him in the country. They very rarely went into town at all. Now take a look at Tolstoy at fifty: a man of very high rank; a man of very large landed estates; a man who had added very considerably to his wealth by the large income that he derived from his books; a man whose novels are being translated into all the civilized languages of the world, and who is recognized as one of the two or three literary leaders of the world; a man who is very happily married, who had a devoted wife who assisted him in his work, and a fine family of children growing up around him. I am sure anyone would say that it would be impossible for any man at fifty years of age to have been more fortunate than Tolstoy was. And yet he tells us that as he came to be fifty years of age he was so dissatisfied with his life that he found it difficult to keep ideas of suicide out of his mind. He tells us that there was a rope lying about the house and he hid it away in the closet so that he might not see it and be tempted to use it. He was a great sportsman, very fond of shooting. He gave up shooting altogether, for fear that some day, in a fit of the blues, he might be tempted to blow out his own brains. Now, of course, that, we will all admit and agree, was a most abnormal and unhealthy and im- proper frame of mind for a man to be in. I certainly have not a word to say in its favor. And yet I am inclined to think that the state of mind of a man or a woman who reaches the age of fifty years without any working theory of life, without any dea of what he is living for, without any idea of what he is coming to, who does not give any attention to those subjects, who loses himself in the business or the amusement of the day,---I am not sure that the state of mind of such a man or such a woman is not really more abnormal and unhealthy than Tolstoy's was. And we must remember that Tolstoy did not give way to these temptations. He was not a coward. Suicide is the act of a coward. He determined to grapple with these great questions and for the space of five long years he grappled with them until, to his own satisfaction at any rate, he succeeded in overcoming them. I do not know whether you have noticed, but in all the great biographies, in all the great histories, you will find that the men who have been fitted to become leaders of their fellow men have been for a time led out to be tempted in the wilderness; to grapple with the great questions of life and death; to determine for themselves whether they are strong enough to answer them; that then they come back and give a message to the world. It seems to me that Tolstoy is one of those men and that this great struggle of his during the five years, of which I can only give you a very brief outline, shows that he is fitted to rank among those great historical characters. +The next fifteen years passed. As I say, Tolstoy was busily occupied in +writing his great novel. His family was growing up around him in the +country. They very rarely went into town at all. Now take a look at +Tolstoy at fifty: a man of very high rank; a man of very large landed +estates; a man who had added very considerably to his wealth by the +large income that he derived from his books; a man whose novels are +being translated into all the civilized languages of the world, and who +is recognized as one of the two or three literary leaders of the world; +a man who is very happily married, who had a devoted wife who assisted +him in his work, and a fine family of children growing up around him. I +am sure anyone would say that it would be impossible for any man at +fifty years of age to have been more fortunate than Tolstoy was. And yet +he tells us that as he came to be fifty years of age he was so +dissatisfied with his life that he found it difficult to keep ideas of +suicide out of his mind. He tells us that there was a rope lying about +the house and he hid it away in the closet so that he might not see it +and be tempted to use it. He was a great sportsman, very fond of +shooting. He gave up shooting altogether, for fear that some day, in a +fit of the blues, he might be tempted to blow out his own brains. Now, +of course, that, we will all admit and agree, was a most abnormal and +unhealthy and im- proper frame of mind for a man to be in. I certainly +have not a word to say in its favor. And yet I am inclined to think that +the state of mind of a man or a woman who reaches the age of fifty years +without any working theory of life, without any dea of what he is living +for, without any idea of what he is coming to, who does not give any +attention to those subjects, who loses himself in the business or the +amusement of the day,---I am not sure that the state of mind of such a +man or such a woman is not really more abnormal and unhealthy than +Tolstoy's was. And we must remember that Tolstoy did not give way to +these temptations. He was not a coward. Suicide is the act of a coward. +He determined to grapple with these great questions and for the space of +five long years he grappled with them until, to his own satisfaction at +any rate, he succeeded in overcoming them. I do not know whether you +have noticed, but in all the great biographies, in all the great +histories, you will find that the men who have been fitted to become +leaders of their fellow men have been for a time led out to be tempted +in the wilderness; to grapple with the great questions of life and +death; to determine for themselves whether they are strong enough to +answer them; that then they come back and give a message to the world. +It seems to me that Tolstoy is one of those men and that this great +struggle of his during the five years, of which I can only give you a +very brief outline, shows that he is fitted to rank among those great +historical characters. -The first thing he did was to apply himself to the members of his own circle of society. He went to the religious people in his own circle, and he tells us that there were very few of them; he tried to find out what their ideas were; he did not care so much about their dogmatic beliefs, but with that dramatic and practical turn of mind of his he wanted to find out from them what their idea of a Christian life was, and as he came into their answers it seemed to him that they were deceiving themselves. They talked a great deal about love for God and love for their neighbor but he couldn't see that they lived in their outward lives differently from anybody else, and he got no lasting satisfaction there. Then he begun to study the scientific works of the day,---Spencer and Huxley, and the German philosophers, and particularly the new biological school, as it was at that time, the scientific learning of the day. He found it all very interesting, but it seemed to him that the scientific people were beginning at the very wrong end; that they tried to get hold of life as far away from themselves as they could; if they could find it in a germ or microbe or protoplasm, then they were perfectly satisfied, but the life in their own souls they knew nothing about, had no advice to give with reference to it, and he got no satisfaction at all. He determined to go out into the country and see what he could learn from the peasantry. He had always been very fond of the peasants. As a boy he had been brought up in the country in that strange patriarchal life of the old Russian nobility, and he had associated with the peasant children as a child; he had become acquainted with them again when he attempted to teach them after the emancipation of the serfs. Now he went back to them again, and it seemed to him that they had in their lives some kind of a practical answer to the question that he was putting. They worked very hard from morning to night; they did all the hard work of the Russian Empire; and yet they seemed to be more or less contented. One thing that struck him more than anything else was that they were not afraid of disease and death. In his own circle of society, even the most religious people, who talked about going to heaven when they died, the moment they got a serious symptom of any kind would travel all over the face of the earth to postpone their death and send for all the great doctors that were within reach and that could be obtained. To his surprise the peasants, when death came, seemed to think it was a natural thing. There was no rebellion against it. That seemed to him a very significant fact. He concluded that there was a kind of faith that the peasants had that the people of his own class of society did not have. He made up his mind to try to find out what that faith was. He began to go regularly to the little church, which was pointed out to me, near his home in the country,---one of those curious white stucco churches, with green cupolas,---you will find these in pictures of Russia. He had not been accustomed to attend church for many, many years before. He went regularly to that church for many months. There was a great deal of the services that he could not approve of; there were a great many of the professed beliefs of that church that he could not accept, but he was so anxious to find out what the peasants' faith was that he stuck to it as long as he could, and it shows you the practical character of the man's mind that the thing which finally turned him away from the church was not any difficulty with its dogmas, but was a practical mistake, as it seemed to him. The war had just broken out between Russia and Turkey. Tolstoy went to church. In the first part of the service the priest would read that we ought to love our enemies and do good to those that persecute us, and so on, and then, at the end of the service, there was a prayer offered by order of the Russian Synod asking God to help the Russian armies to blow up the Turks with bombshells; or words to that effect. It seemed to Tolstoy such a totally inconsistent thing that it shocked him. From the very day that that prayer was said the first time he gave up going to that church. It seemed to him that a church which taught such inconsistent things must have something radically wrong in it. +The first thing he did was to apply himself to the members of his own +circle of society. He went to the religious people in his own circle, +and he tells us that there were very few of them; he tried to find out +what their ideas were; he did not care so much about their dogmatic +beliefs, but with that dramatic and practical turn of mind of his he +wanted to find out from them what their idea of a Christian life was, +and as he came into their answers it seemed to him that they were +deceiving themselves. They talked a great deal about love for God and +love for their neighbor but he couldn't see that they lived in their +outward lives differently from anybody else, and he got no lasting +satisfaction there. Then he begun to study the scientific works of the +day,---Spencer and Huxley, and the German philosophers, and particularly +the new biological school, as it was at that time, the scientific +learning of the day. He found it all very interesting, but it seemed to +him that the scientific people were beginning at the very wrong end; +that they tried to get hold of life as far away from themselves as they +could; if they could find it in a germ or microbe or protoplasm, then +they were perfectly satisfied, but the life in their own souls they knew +nothing about, had no advice to give with reference to it, and he got no +satisfaction at all. He determined to go out into the country and see +what he could learn from the peasantry. He had always been very fond of +the peasants. As a boy he had been brought up in the country in that +strange patriarchal life of the old Russian nobility, and he had +associated with the peasant children as a child; he had become +acquainted with them again when he attempted to teach them after the +emancipation of the serfs. Now he went back to them again, and it seemed +to him that they had in their lives some kind of a practical answer to +the question that he was putting. They worked very hard from morning to +night; they did all the hard work of the Russian Empire; and yet they +seemed to be more or less contented. One thing that struck him more than +anything else was that they were not afraid of disease and death. In his +own circle of society, even the most religious people, who talked about +going to heaven when they died, the moment they got a serious symptom of +any kind would travel all over the face of the earth to postpone their +death and send for all the great doctors that were within reach and that +could be obtained. To his surprise the peasants, when death came, seemed +to think it was a natural thing. There was no rebellion against it. That +seemed to him a very significant fact. He concluded that there was a +kind of faith that the peasants had that the people of his own class of +society did not have. He made up his mind to try to find out what that +faith was. He began to go regularly to the little church, which was +pointed out to me, near his home in the country,---one of those curious +white stucco churches, with green cupolas,---you will find these in +pictures of Russia. He had not been accustomed to attend church for +many, many years before. He went regularly to that church for many +months. There was a great deal of the services that he could not approve +of; there were a great many of the professed beliefs of that church that +he could not accept, but he was so anxious to find out what the +peasants' faith was that he stuck to it as long as he could, and it +shows you the practical character of the man's mind that the thing which +finally turned him away from the church was not any difficulty with its +dogmas, but was a practical mistake, as it seemed to him. The war had +just broken out between Russia and Turkey. Tolstoy went to church. In +the first part of the service the priest would read that we ought to +love our enemies and do good to those that persecute us, and so on, and +then, at the end of the service, there was a prayer offered by order of +the Russian Synod asking God to help the Russian armies to blow up the +Turks with bombshells; or words to that effect. It seemed to Tolstoy +such a totally inconsistent thing that it shocked him. From the very day +that that prayer was said the first time he gave up going to that +church. It seemed to him that a church which taught such inconsistent +things must have something radically wrong in it. -Now, what was he he todo? He was not baffled yet. He began to study the Gospels for himself. It is almost pathetic to see the earnestness with which he went into that work. He began to study Greek again so that he might go into the originals. He made a complete commentary of the Gospels from one end to the other; an English translation of some of that has been published. I have two volumes. You have the Greek text on one side, the translation in English on the other. Of course, it was in Russian, in the original, and then a complete commentary underneath by Tolstoy. Now, I must admit that even with the little knowledge of Greek that I have I could see that it was by no means a learned commentary. There were some little defects in Tolstoy's method, but whenever he came across a verse that he did not like, he left it out,---a very simple method. I wonder commentators have not thought before of applying it;---entirely satisfactory to the commentator, at any rate. But even when you allow for such high-handed proceedings as that, it seems to me that that commentary of Tolstoy's is one of the best that I have ever looked at, and for that very reason, that he has this dramatic talent that I have been talking to you about. When Tolstoy reads the Gospels he thinks it over; he sees how Jesus said this and the Disciples said that and the whole thing is present before him as if it had happened today, in the streets in Buffalo and New York, for he seems to get the common sense meaning of it in a way that the most learned men have failed to get it, and this study of the Gospels led Tolstoy to a study of the Sermon on the Mount. He began to confine his attention to that. He read it over and over again, and every time those passages, those familiar passages which speak of loving our enemies, loving those who persecute us, loving our neighbor, loving God with all our heart and soul, loving everybody, letting our influence go out upon them equally to the good and the bad, as the sunshine, upon the just and upon the unjust,---those always seemed to go deeper into his mind, into his heart, than anything else. +Now, what was he he todo? He was not baffled yet. He began to study the +Gospels for himself. It is almost pathetic to see the earnestness with +which he went into that work. He began to study Greek again so that he +might go into the originals. He made a complete commentary of the +Gospels from one end to the other; an English translation of some of +that has been published. I have two volumes. You have the Greek text on +one side, the translation in English on the other. Of course, it was in +Russian, in the original, and then a complete commentary underneath by +Tolstoy. Now, I must admit that even with the little knowledge of Greek +that I have I could see that it was by no means a learned commentary. +There were some little defects in Tolstoy's method, but whenever he came +across a verse that he did not like, he left it out,---a very simple +method. I wonder commentators have not thought before of applying +it;---entirely satisfactory to the commentator, at any rate. But even +when you allow for such high-handed proceedings as that, it seems to me +that that commentary of Tolstoy's is one of the best that I have ever +looked at, and for that very reason, that he has this dramatic talent +that I have been talking to you about. When Tolstoy reads the Gospels he +thinks it over; he sees how Jesus said this and the Disciples said that +and the whole thing is present before him as if it had happened today, +in the streets in Buffalo and New York, for he seems to get the common +sense meaning of it in a way that the most learned men have failed to +get it, and this study of the Gospels led Tolstoy to a study of the +Sermon on the Mount. He began to confine his attention to that. He read +it over and over again, and every time those passages, those familiar +passages which speak of loving our enemies, loving those who persecute +us, loving our neighbor, loving God with all our heart and soul, loving +everybody, letting our influence go out upon them equally to the good +and the bad, as the sunshine, upon the just and upon the unjust,---those +always seemed to go deeper into his mind, into his heart, than anything +else. -Gradually he began, as he thought, to see what the secret of these Gospels is; that when Christ said we must love God with all our heart and our soul and our neighbor as ourselves, he really meant what he said. "Why," he thought, "I have heard those words read time and again for the last fifty years but it never entered my head before that anybody really meant them," and he began to make the experiment in his own mind of loving everybody more than himself as much as he possibly could, and as he gradually gave himself up to that mental exercise, the whole thing began to seem clear to him. This love for God and love for neighbor, taken as an actual experience and an exercise seemed like a new pair of spectacles with which to look out upon the world. He began to feel the most curious sensations in himself. He tells us that as he began really to let his soul go out in love to others, he began to feel that there was an immortal essence in himself that was not going to die. He had never believed in the immortality of the soul. He tells us that it is quite impossible, although so many books have been written on the subject, to prove the immortality of the soul to anybody, but, he says, "if you let your soul go out in love to others you will feel its immortality, and that is the only way to prove it." He satisfied himself of the immortality of the soul in that way. Now, what was Tolstoy to do? His first impulse was what would have been the impulse, I expect, of any of us under the same circumstances,---to undertake some great charitable work. He rushed into Moscow, where there were so many poor people; he made up his mind to do what he could to establish some great charitable society to collect the superfluous wealth of the rich and to distribute it among the poor. Somehow or other he found it did not work. He expected the money that he gave to the poor people to unite them together in brotherly love. He found, instead of that, that as soon as he gave a rouble to a man that it seemed to be like a brick wall between them;---no unification, upon the basis of giving and taking, of that kind. By this time he got more ideas in his mind about manual labor---of which I will speak a little more later on---and he had got in the habit of going out into the suburbs of Moscow once or twice a week and sawing wood there for a certain length of time. One day he was walking into town between two wood-sawers, two peasants who had been engaged in sawing wood with him. They came across a beggar,---another one of those little dramatic incidents I have told you about. Each of them put his hand in his pocket, took out a small copper coin and put it into the beggar's hat. That set Tolstoy thinking. He said, "Now, it looks there as if we had done the same thing, but we haven't been doing the same thing at all." That copper coin represented so much labor, an hour or half an hour, or whatever it was, on the part of this peasant. He was giving himself; he was giving his own work. Besides that, he is a very poor man; he needs every penny that he can get; he will have to go without some---not luxury perhaps, some necessity to-night at supper because he has given that coin away; he has not only been giving himself and his own work but he has been depriving himself of something that he would have enjoyed. "Now, what have I been doing? In the first place I don't know whether I have got this coin or not; it is such a small coin it is absolutely of no importance to me one way or the other. Then, where did I get it? Why, let me see. That is a part of the rent that I got for some of my farms down at Yasnaya Polyana. What I have done with that coin is, I have taken it out of the pocket of a peasant in the country and I have put it into the hat of a peasant in the city. That is really all that I have had to do with it," And he began to see, according to his own ideas, at any rate, that charity, when it was based upon the superfluous wealth that comes in the way of unearned income, is not at all the same thing as the charity where a man gives the money that he actually earns himself and needs, and he began to think that this great society that he was going to found would not give the satisfaction that he expected it would, and just about that time he was filled with a feeling of revolt against the kind of life he had been living all his life long,---a life in which he had had every kind of luxury, in which everything had been done for him by others and in which he had done practically nothing for anybody else except writing very interesting and instructive novels but always simply for the benefit of the class that lived in the same way that he did. He had been doing absolutely nothing for the great working class to which he was indebted for so large a part of the things that he had been enjoying. He began to be filled with disgust for the fashionable life of Moscow, for the club life, for the social and the church life and all the rest of it, and he began from that time, not with any idea of theatrical effect, but because he could not help it, to dress as the peasants dressed; to go down into the country and live there as simply as he could; to get along without the luxuries for which he did not feel that he was giving a full return to society, and to remove all those differences which drew the line between him and the humble members of society in which he lived. +Gradually he began, as he thought, to see what the secret of these +Gospels is; that when Christ said we must love God with all our heart +and our soul and our neighbor as ourselves, he really meant what he +said. "Why," he thought, "I have heard those words read time and again +for the last fifty years but it never entered my head before that +anybody really meant them," and he began to make the experiment in his +own mind of loving everybody more than himself as much as he possibly +could, and as he gradually gave himself up to that mental exercise, the +whole thing began to seem clear to him. This love for God and love for +neighbor, taken as an actual experience and an exercise seemed like a +new pair of spectacles with which to look out upon the world. He began +to feel the most curious sensations in himself. He tells us that as he +began really to let his soul go out in love to others, he began to feel +that there was an immortal essence in himself that was not going to die. +He had never believed in the immortality of the soul. He tells us that +it is quite impossible, although so many books have been written on the +subject, to prove the immortality of the soul to anybody, but, he says, +"if you let your soul go out in love to others you will feel its +immortality, and that is the only way to prove it." He satisfied himself +of the immortality of the soul in that way. Now, what was Tolstoy to do? +His first impulse was what would have been the impulse, I expect, of any +of us under the same circumstances,---to undertake some great charitable +work. He rushed into Moscow, where there were so many poor people; he +made up his mind to do what he could to establish some great charitable +society to collect the superfluous wealth of the rich and to distribute +it among the poor. Somehow or other he found it did not work. He +expected the money that he gave to the poor people to unite them +together in brotherly love. He found, instead of that, that as soon as +he gave a rouble to a man that it seemed to be like a brick wall between +them;---no unification, upon the basis of giving and taking, of that +kind. By this time he got more ideas in his mind about manual labor---of +which I will speak a little more later on---and he had got in the habit +of going out into the suburbs of Moscow once or twice a week and sawing +wood there for a certain length of time. One day he was walking into +town between two wood-sawers, two peasants who had been engaged in +sawing wood with him. They came across a beggar,---another one of those +little dramatic incidents I have told you about. Each of them put his +hand in his pocket, took out a small copper coin and put it into the +beggar's hat. That set Tolstoy thinking. He said, "Now, it looks there +as if we had done the same thing, but we haven't been doing the same +thing at all." That copper coin represented so much labor, an hour or +half an hour, or whatever it was, on the part of this peasant. He was +giving himself; he was giving his own work. Besides that, he is a very +poor man; he needs every penny that he can get; he will have to go +without some---not luxury perhaps, some necessity to-night at supper +because he has given that coin away; he has not only been giving himself +and his own work but he has been depriving himself of something that he +would have enjoyed. "Now, what have I been doing? In the first place I +don't know whether I have got this coin or not; it is such a small coin +it is absolutely of no importance to me one way or the other. Then, +where did I get it? Why, let me see. That is a part of the rent that I +got for some of my farms down at Yasnaya Polyana. What I have done with +that coin is, I have taken it out of the pocket of a peasant in the +country and I have put it into the hat of a peasant in the city. That is +really all that I have had to do with it," And he began to see, +according to his own ideas, at any rate, that charity, when it was based +upon the superfluous wealth that comes in the way of unearned income, is +not at all the same thing as the charity where a man gives the money +that he actually earns himself and needs, and he began to think that +this great society that he was going to found would not give the +satisfaction that he expected it would, and just about that time he was +filled with a feeling of revolt against the kind of life he had been +living all his life long,---a life in which he had had every kind of +luxury, in which everything had been done for him by others and in which +he had done practically nothing for anybody else except writing very +interesting and instructive novels but always simply for the benefit of +the class that lived in the same way that he did. He had been doing +absolutely nothing for the great working class to which he was indebted +for so large a part of the things that he had been enjoying. He began to +be filled with disgust for the fashionable life of Moscow, for the club +life, for the social and the church life and all the rest of it, and he +began from that time, not with any idea of theatrical effect, but +because he could not help it, to dress as the peasants dressed; to go +down into the country and live there as simply as he could; to get along +without the luxuries for which he did not feel that he was giving a full +return to society, and to remove all those differences which drew the +line between him and the humble members of society in which he lived. -Now, in considering Tolstoy's behavior I think we ought to take into account the peculiarity of the Russian character. I believe that from my knowledge of Russians, which has not been obtained from the Russian language at all---I don't read a word of Russian---but from reading translations of Russian books, and from those that I have met, they are the most absolutely logical people that ever lived. You persuade a Russian that autocracy is a bad thing, fully persuade him, and you will probably find him before night trying to blow up the Czar. You persuade him that riches are a bad thing and the chances are you will find him around the corner before very long with his pockets inside out, giving away his last penny to the beggars in the street. Now, of course, that is not our way of behaving. We sometimes get new ideas into our minds. We are generally pretty cautious about them. We think them over for twenty or thirty or forty years and generally the ideas last longer than we do. You remember the story of the Irishman with the parrot. He had been told that parrots lived to be two hundred years old, so he bought a young parrot, to see whether it was true or not. That is often the way with us, with our new ideas, and generally we do not live long enough to find out. Now, there are advantages in both of those methods. The logic of the Russian is a very fine thing and the caution of the American and the European is, also, a very fine thing in its way. I suppose perhaps a medium between the two would be the best thing of all. But when we judge Tolstoy and say that he has gone too far, in this or that or the other thing, we must remember that he has that logical characteristic of the Russians and when he has once made up his mind for himself that a certain course of action is the proper course, he goes ahead and performs it, no matter what the results may be. +Now, in considering Tolstoy's behavior I think we ought to take into +account the peculiarity of the Russian character. I believe that from my +knowledge of Russians, which has not been obtained from the Russian +language at all---I don't read a word of Russian---but from reading +translations of Russian books, and from those that I have met, they are +the most absolutely logical people that ever lived. You persuade a +Russian that autocracy is a bad thing, fully persuade him, and you will +probably find him before night trying to blow up the Czar. You persuade +him that riches are a bad thing and the chances are you will find him +around the corner before very long with his pockets inside out, giving +away his last penny to the beggars in the street. Now, of course, that +is not our way of behaving. We sometimes get new ideas into our minds. +We are generally pretty cautious about them. We think them over for +twenty or thirty or forty years and generally the ideas last longer than +we do. You remember the story of the Irishman with the parrot. He had +been told that parrots lived to be two hundred years old, so he bought a +young parrot, to see whether it was true or not. That is often the way +with us, with our new ideas, and generally we do not live long enough to +find out. Now, there are advantages in both of those methods. The logic +of the Russian is a very fine thing and the caution of the American and +the European is, also, a very fine thing in its way. I suppose perhaps a +medium between the two would be the best thing of all. But when we judge +Tolstoy and say that he has gone too far, in this or that or the other +thing, we must remember that he has that logical characteristic of the +Russians and when he has once made up his mind for himself that a +certain course of action is the proper course, he goes ahead and +performs it, no matter what the results may be. -And now let us take up one or two of these peculiarities of his and see whether they are really so very peculiar after all. Take this matter of manual labor. It looks very funny for a man like Tolstoy to dress like a peasant and go out in the fields and plough and yet which is the desirable thing in the civilization, is it the production of all-round men, or merely the production of merchandise? Are we not making a far greater mistake, on the other hand? Are we not beginning to think that the real measure of civilization is the number of bicycles, automobiles, jimcracks of all kinds that we can turn out in a given period of time, no matter what effect the manufacture of them may have upon human beings? I do not believe men were made to spend ten hours a day in a factory making one very small and unimportant part of some object of use. I do not believe it. To come to our own class of society; I do not believe that men were made to spend the greater part of their lives scribbling at desks in offices. I do not believe they were made for any such kind of work as that. That is to say, I do not believe they were made to have that as their sole work. And I think that when Tolstoy says that it is ridiculous to think that one part of the human race should have all their muscles developed and let their minds atrophy and that another part should have their minds developed till you have the typical German professor, +And now let us take up one or two of these peculiarities of his and see +whether they are really so very peculiar after all. Take this matter of +manual labor. It looks very funny for a man like Tolstoy to dress like a +peasant and go out in the fields and plough and yet which is the +desirable thing in the civilization, is it the production of all-round +men, or merely the production of merchandise? Are we not making a far +greater mistake, on the other hand? Are we not beginning to think that +the real measure of civilization is the number of bicycles, automobiles, +jimcracks of all kinds that we can turn out in a given period of time, +no matter what effect the manufacture of them may have upon human +beings? I do not believe men were made to spend ten hours a day in a +factory making one very small and unimportant part of some object of +use. I do not believe it. To come to our own class of society; I do not +believe that men were made to spend the greater part of their lives +scribbling at desks in offices. I do not believe they were made for any +such kind of work as that. That is to say, I do not believe they were +made to have that as their sole work. And I think that when Tolstoy says +that it is ridiculous to think that one part of the human race should +have all their muscles developed and let their minds atrophy and that +another part should have their minds developed till you have the typical +German professor, -ith nothing left except a beard and eye-glasses, with no chest, no health, nothing whatever but brains---it seems to me that the thing becomes a reductio ad absurdum and that the very desirable division of labor is really at least run into the ground. It seems to me that although Tolstoy very likely does go too far in the other way, that he is teaching mankind a lesson that mankind really ought to learn; that when we go knocking golf balls about, playing tennis, lifting up iron weights and doing all sorts of things very often for the purpose of supplying that exercise which a healthy all-round life would supply of itself, that we are just proving to our own satisfaction, if we would only pay attention to our own behavior, that the kind of life which we lead is not the kind of life which a man ought to lead. I do believe if we are going to have anything in the nature of a Utopian life upon this world that every human being will be called upon to develop his arms and his legs and his brains, all three together. And I fail to see anything pertinent or suggesting lunacy in a man like Count Tolstoy, when he tries as hard as he can to give an example, you may say,---a very poor and lame example, I admit,---but an example of what he thinks the life of a human being ought to be. I know we are accustomed to think that our civilization is a kind of finality. I don't believe it is. No kind of civilization ever was. I am inclined to think that most of us, if we should ask ourselves, would think that things are going on as they are forever. Cities are going on and getting bigger and bigger and bigger, we think; lunatic asylums are going on and getting bigger and bigger and bigger, the number of lunatic asylums to the thousand increasing; prisons are going on, getting bigger and bigger, electrocution chairs are going to spread to all places all over the country; the number of tramps is going to get bigger, our millionaires are going to get bigger and we are going to have more of them; our slums are going to get worse and worse; I think that is the idea the average man has today. I was looking, at Niagara Falls, at the immense mills turning our forests into pulp,---and a good deal of it was lying about the streets of Niagara Falls when I was there,---that is really our idea of civilization,---and there is going to be more smoke in engines and more rushing up and down in trolley cars and up and down in elevators until the whole thing flies to pieces. I don't believe it. It is a mere episode. +ith nothing left except a beard and eye-glasses, with no chest, no +health, nothing whatever but brains---it seems to me that the thing +becomes a reductio ad absurdum and that the very desirable division of +labor is really at least run into the ground. It seems to me that +although Tolstoy very likely does go too far in the other way, that he +is teaching mankind a lesson that mankind really ought to learn; that +when we go knocking golf balls about, playing tennis, lifting up iron +weights and doing all sorts of things very often for the purpose of +supplying that exercise which a healthy all-round life would supply of +itself, that we are just proving to our own satisfaction, if we would +only pay attention to our own behavior, that the kind of life which we +lead is not the kind of life which a man ought to lead. I do believe if +we are going to have anything in the nature of a Utopian life upon this +world that every human being will be called upon to develop his arms and +his legs and his brains, all three together. And I fail to see anything +pertinent or suggesting lunacy in a man like Count Tolstoy, when he +tries as hard as he can to give an example, you may say,---a very poor +and lame example, I admit,---but an example of what he thinks the life +of a human being ought to be. I know we are accustomed to think that our +civilization is a kind of finality. I don't believe it is. No kind of +civilization ever was. I am inclined to think that most of us, if we +should ask ourselves, would think that things are going on as they are +forever. Cities are going on and getting bigger and bigger and bigger, +we think; lunatic asylums are going on and getting bigger and bigger and +bigger, the number of lunatic asylums to the thousand increasing; +prisons are going on, getting bigger and bigger, electrocution chairs +are going to spread to all places all over the country; the number of +tramps is going to get bigger, our millionaires are going to get bigger +and we are going to have more of them; our slums are going to get worse +and worse; I think that is the idea the average man has today. I was +looking, at Niagara Falls, at the immense mills turning our forests into +pulp,---and a good deal of it was lying about the streets of Niagara +Falls when I was there,---that is really our idea of civilization,---and +there is going to be more smoke in engines and more rushing up and down +in trolley cars and up and down in elevators until the whole thing flies +to pieces. I don't believe it. It is a mere episode. -I admire the energy. Energy is a magnificent thing. God forbid that it is always going to be devoted to the ends that it is now devoted to, and God forbid, and I don't believe it is going to be devoted to it, and if you study history you will find that it won't. Now, take this matter of education. I remember some years ago going into the University of El-Azhar in Cairo; there were a number of teachers sitting around the floor, and students, cross-legged, and they had some writing in their hands going "Wow-wow-wow" in this way, and I thought what a lot of consummate idiots they were. They had been studying the Quran for a number of years,---and it is a book, from my own knowledge, that is absolutely unworthy of study, and I thought "they'll never get a step farther," and I thought "what idiots they are---why are you not wise like me?" Then I began to think about myself. I spent eight years of my life studying two dead languages and when I had finished I couldn't read, write or speak either one of them. You know that is true. That is what our education amounts to. The monks of the middle ages have got most of our education. They have got their dead hand on it today as much as they always had. I have a boy of thirteen; I help him a good deal in his lessons; but the one thing I try to impress on him most is that most of the stuff that he is learning is rubbish---and he is rather inclined to agree with me, too. Now, we have got an idea in our heads that learning languages is education---a perfectly idiotic idea. If you have lived in a city as I have, Alexandria in Egypt---which is a very polyglot city; everybody born there in the Levantine or foreign society knows about eleven languages just as well as their own; and they are the most uneducated people you ever met in your life. The knowledge of language has nothing to do with education. And I include in that the knowledge of your own language. Take spelling, for instance. We generally think a man is uneducated if he does not spell well. I would like to bet any man here present that it is much more essential to spell most English words wrong than it is right. The school boy who spells "dead" d-e-d is a much more sensible animal than you or I who spell it d-e-a-d. You cannot deny that. Yet our children spend hours learning such nonsense as that. Take grammar. What a purely artificial thing grammar is. The object of grammar is to convey your ideas. The man who says "them things" will convey his idea just as well as the man who says "these things." Perhaps, in a hundred years from now, "them things" will be right and "these things" will be wrong. I do not object to learning grammar, but I object to the thought that it constitutes an essential element in education. Where I live, at Dutchess County, I have a superintendent on my farm who cannot spell straight, cannot talk correct grammar, but he can do pretty much everything else under the sun. He can build a house, he can lay a wall, go through an orchard, look at the trees and tell you how many barrels to get for your apples; he knows the price of everything; he can tend to sheep or cattle or horses when they are sick; he knows what you ought to do for them; he knows what feed they require; he knows when to plant this, how it grows, and when to reap it. Those are things worth knowing. They have something to do with nature and with actual life, and I often think, I sometimes think, I will tell him when I see him mending a mowing machine, "My dear fellow, you're a thousand times better educated than I can ever dream of being." I have never said it, but I believe I shall. But that is the way I feel towards that man. I think our ideas have got to be overhauled in very much the same way that Tolstoy thinks they should be taught. He thinks that children should be taught to love their neighbors as themselves and then try to be useful to their neighbors. And I think if you carry that out you will see it covers pretty much the whole field of activity. Now take the matter of caste. My time is pretty near up, but I want to say a few words about that. Take the matter of caste, rank, standing in the community, which Tolstoy wants to throw overboard in his own case at any rate. The idea of any kind of pride being based upon one man lifting himself above his fellow men is a scientifically incorrect idea. You cannot lift water above its own level. If I raise myself or think or estimate myself above my fellow men I must push them down just to the degree I raise myself. If I am a constituent part of the human race, any idea of mine to raise myself, estimate myself in value as being superior to them, is really degrading all the rest of the human race if it is raising me at all. It is a total misconception of the real human pride. This whole idea of "superior" persons I believe a thoroughly rotten, poisonous idea that we have got to get out of our minds; not that there are not superior persons, but that they are not generally the people who think they are superior persons. There is a pride, a pride of democracy, that I think most of us have very little idea of,---the pride by which a man feels that he is an elemental part not only of the human race, but of the universe, that he is a little microcosm of himself, that he is a brother not only of the king and the emperor, but of the tramp and the prostitute and that there is a little of everything in him and that the whole human race belongs to him and that he represents the whole human race. That is real pride. I believe there was some such idea of pride in the minds of the men who founded our republic and I believe we have got to keep true to that idea of pride if we are going to make this great democracy of ours a success and that we must resolutely resist the temptation to look upon ourselves as superior people who are to hand down benefits to the people who happen to be beneath us. Things do not grow from up down, they grow from down up. History shows that again and again and again. +I admire the energy. Energy is a magnificent thing. God forbid that it +is always going to be devoted to the ends that it is now devoted to, and +God forbid, and I don't believe it is going to be devoted to it, and if +you study history you will find that it won't. Now, take this matter of +education. I remember some years ago going into the University of +El-Azhar in Cairo; there were a number of teachers sitting around the +floor, and students, cross-legged, and they had some writing in their +hands going "Wow-wow-wow" in this way, and I thought what a lot of +consummate idiots they were. They had been studying the Quran for a +number of years,---and it is a book, from my own knowledge, that is +absolutely unworthy of study, and I thought "they'll never get a step +farther," and I thought "what idiots they are---why are you not wise +like me?" Then I began to think about myself. I spent eight years of my +life studying two dead languages and when I had finished I couldn't +read, write or speak either one of them. You know that is true. That is +what our education amounts to. The monks of the middle ages have got +most of our education. They have got their dead hand on it today as much +as they always had. I have a boy of thirteen; I help him a good deal in +his lessons; but the one thing I try to impress on him most is that most +of the stuff that he is learning is rubbish---and he is rather inclined +to agree with me, too. Now, we have got an idea in our heads that +learning languages is education---a perfectly idiotic idea. If you have +lived in a city as I have, Alexandria in Egypt---which is a very +polyglot city; everybody born there in the Levantine or foreign society +knows about eleven languages just as well as their own; and they are the +most uneducated people you ever met in your life. The knowledge of +language has nothing to do with education. And I include in that the +knowledge of your own language. Take spelling, for instance. We +generally think a man is uneducated if he does not spell well. I would +like to bet any man here present that it is much more essential to spell +most English words wrong than it is right. The school boy who spells +"dead" d-e-d is a much more sensible animal than you or I who spell it +d-e-a-d. You cannot deny that. Yet our children spend hours learning +such nonsense as that. Take grammar. What a purely artificial thing +grammar is. The object of grammar is to convey your ideas. The man who +says "them things" will convey his idea just as well as the man who says +"these things." Perhaps, in a hundred years from now, "them things" will +be right and "these things" will be wrong. I do not object to learning +grammar, but I object to the thought that it constitutes an essential +element in education. Where I live, at Dutchess County, I have a +superintendent on my farm who cannot spell straight, cannot talk correct +grammar, but he can do pretty much everything else under the sun. He can +build a house, he can lay a wall, go through an orchard, look at the +trees and tell you how many barrels to get for your apples; he knows the +price of everything; he can tend to sheep or cattle or horses when they +are sick; he knows what you ought to do for them; he knows what feed +they require; he knows when to plant this, how it grows, and when to +reap it. Those are things worth knowing. They have something to do with +nature and with actual life, and I often think, I sometimes think, I +will tell him when I see him mending a mowing machine, "My dear fellow, +you're a thousand times better educated than I can ever dream of being." +I have never said it, but I believe I shall. But that is the way I feel +towards that man. I think our ideas have got to be overhauled in very +much the same way that Tolstoy thinks they should be taught. He thinks +that children should be taught to love their neighbors as themselves and +then try to be useful to their neighbors. And I think if you carry that +out you will see it covers pretty much the whole field of activity. Now +take the matter of caste. My time is pretty near up, but I want to say a +few words about that. Take the matter of caste, rank, standing in the +community, which Tolstoy wants to throw overboard in his own case at any +rate. The idea of any kind of pride being based upon one man lifting +himself above his fellow men is a scientifically incorrect idea. You +cannot lift water above its own level. If I raise myself or think or +estimate myself above my fellow men I must push them down just to the +degree I raise myself. If I am a constituent part of the human race, any +idea of mine to raise myself, estimate myself in value as being superior +to them, is really degrading all the rest of the human race if it is +raising me at all. It is a total misconception of the real human pride. +This whole idea of "superior" persons I believe a thoroughly rotten, +poisonous idea that we have got to get out of our minds; not that there +are not superior persons, but that they are not generally the people who +think they are superior persons. There is a pride, a pride of democracy, +that I think most of us have very little idea of,---the pride by which a +man feels that he is an elemental part not only of the human race, but +of the universe, that he is a little microcosm of himself, that he is a +brother not only of the king and the emperor, but of the tramp and the +prostitute and that there is a little of everything in him and that the +whole human race belongs to him and that he represents the whole human +race. That is real pride. I believe there was some such idea of pride in +the minds of the men who founded our republic and I believe we have got +to keep true to that idea of pride if we are going to make this great +democracy of ours a success and that we must resolutely resist the +temptation to look upon ourselves as superior people who are to hand +down benefits to the people who happen to be beneath us. Things do not +grow from up down, they grow from down up. History shows that again and +again and again. -Then this matter---there are two or three other points I might go into; I haven't got time---this matter of wealth. (Cries of "Go on!" "Go on!"). This matter of wealth I think is a thing that has got to be left to everybody's individual conscience, but I think it is a very good practice for any one of us to think over our own sources of wealth, whatever they may be; to think how far we are earning our own living; to think how far we are living on other people's earnings; we may perhaps be taking away from them that which they ought to have. I believe it is a salutary thing to think in that way; to think with reference to our own earnings, whether those earnings have been received for any real useful work to the community, and when I say community I mean not only to the wealthy, superior people of our own class but to the whole community, the community as a whole. And I think it is a salutary thing for us to think of the vast number of people who raise our food for us and our clothing and build our houses for us, and I do not think we ought to take it as a matter of course that whenever we want anything it has got to be ready and supplied. We ought to think about the processes by which those things come about and we ought to think whether it is not our duty to take a part---I do not say we are not doing it, but I expect a great many of us are not; I know I am not;---that we ought to take a part in supplying those things which are necessary for the life of mankind in this great question of land, and that alone we could spend a whole evening upon. Tolstoy thinks that either God or Nature, which ever way you please to put it, has supplied the human race with a globe to live on, and he thinks for one-tenth of the human race to charge the other nine-tenths rent for staying on that globe is an indefensible proceeding. I have never heard an argument raised on the other side and I do not think anybody agrees with Tolstoy except a few cranks like myself. I think that is a matter worth thinking about. I am not here in favor of any specific reform. Moses made an attempt to try to give every citizen of Israel a stake in the land. I think we have got to do something of the same kind if we want to have our legislation as just as the legislation of Moses was. +Then this matter---there are two or three other points I might go into; +I haven't got time---this matter of wealth. (Cries of "Go on!" "Go +on!"). This matter of wealth I think is a thing that has got to be left +to everybody's individual conscience, but I think it is a very good +practice for any one of us to think over our own sources of wealth, +whatever they may be; to think how far we are earning our own living; to +think how far we are living on other people's earnings; we may perhaps +be taking away from them that which they ought to have. I believe it is +a salutary thing to think in that way; to think with reference to our +own earnings, whether those earnings have been received for any real +useful work to the community, and when I say community I mean not only +to the wealthy, superior people of our own class but to the whole +community, the community as a whole. And I think it is a salutary thing +for us to think of the vast number of people who raise our food for us +and our clothing and build our houses for us, and I do not think we +ought to take it as a matter of course that whenever we want anything it +has got to be ready and supplied. We ought to think about the processes +by which those things come about and we ought to think whether it is not +our duty to take a part---I do not say we are not doing it, but I expect +a great many of us are not; I know I am not;---that we ought to take a +part in supplying those things which are necessary for the life of +mankind in this great question of land, and that alone we could spend a +whole evening upon. Tolstoy thinks that either God or Nature, which ever +way you please to put it, has supplied the human race with a globe to +live on, and he thinks for one-tenth of the human race to charge the +other nine-tenths rent for staying on that globe is an indefensible +proceeding. I have never heard an argument raised on the other side and +I do not think anybody agrees with Tolstoy except a few cranks like +myself. I think that is a matter worth thinking about. I am not here in +favor of any specific reform. Moses made an attempt to try to give every +citizen of Israel a stake in the land. I think we have got to do +something of the same kind if we want to have our legislation as just as +the legislation of Moses was. -Then, to come to the last point of Tolstoy's, this matter of war. I feel pretty strongly on that subject, as on a good many others, as you have seen, but it does not seem to me that there is very much room for argument there. The idea, at the end of the nineteenth century, that people should suppose that it can in any way assist the righteous settlement of a question to have the people who happen to be on the other side try to cut each other's throats and blow each other up with bombshells! It is just as ridiculous and silly as those old tests we used to have a hundred years ago,---making people walk across red-hot irons, making them go through the fire or under water, to see whether they were injured or not, for the purpose of finding out whether they were on the right or wrong side of some controversy. I tell you, my friends, here at the beginning of the twentieth century we ought to have discovered some other way of settling our disputes than by fighting and taking each other's lives, and I believe with Tolstoy that the right way to stop war is to stop making war,---a simple method that I do not suppose anybody will adopt, but it seems to me the right way and the sensible one, and I do not think once in a thousand years we will have to submit to any injustice if we undertake to submit to that simple way of putting an end to,war. How does Tolstoy himself carry out these ideas? I admit, and I am sure he would be one of the first to admit, that he does it very imperfectly. In some ways I think he has done it very injudiciously. His house there at Yasnaya Polyana he has stripped of every kind of luxury. As I remember there was not a single mat on the floor; the service at the table was much simpler and plainer than I have ever seen in many a tenement house in New York. To be sure, his wife was not in the country when I was there; she was in the city; one or two of his daughters were there. Madam Tolstoy, to a considerable extent, has her own way. You must remember Tolstoy is a non- resistant, and that works very well in the domestic situation. (Laughter). Madam Tolstoy goes a good way with him, but when she puts her foot down, why he immediately yields. I do not know but it would be a very good thing to introduce into this country in the matter of marriages, always to have one of the parties a non-resistant. My own impression is that usually it would be the husband, so far as my own experience goes and as the experience of the Tolstoy household goes. (Laughter). At any rate, that is the way it works there. It seems to me that Tolstoy lacks a little, strange to say, of the exterior artistic sense. He certainly has it in literature; nobody can question that. He has become so disgusted with the life of the fashionable class that he belonged to that he cannot bear to have about him any of those refinements of life that we are accustomed to associate with agreeable living. It seems to me there he has gone a great deal too far. If he could have combined his ideas somewhat with those of William Morris, for instance; if he could have endeavored to show the village people about him now they could make their surroundings artistic, and yet in a cheap and simple way, it might perhaps have been a better thing. And yet I cannot be sorry that to this extent he is a one-sided man. You really need a one-sided man to be of very much use in this world. It seems to me that Tolstoy is a direct successor of the Prophets of old---the men who, in old times, would go about in sack-cloth and ashes crying upon the people to repent. It seems to me that, without any intention on his part, that very dramatic instinct of his has made him a sort of a representation before men to attract their attention to the evils of the civilization they live in. All his books cannot have the influence that the knowledge has that there is one man there trying seriously, pathetically, to live what he thinks the life of a human being should be; that even where he fails and even where there is an element of sadness in admitting that he has failed, it is all the more a picture to draw our attention to him, to make us think what our own position is. And yet, though it is a dramatic picture of that kind, I do not want to leave the impression in your minds that he is in the slightest degree theatrical. He is a man who does not think in the least about what people think about him. I have often contrasted him in my mind with Victor Hugo, whose ideas were very much the same at Tolstoy's. Read "Les Miserables" and you will find in it again and again Tolstoy's ideas, in almost Tolstoy's words, and yet Victor Hugo had that element of the theatrical in him. Victor Hugo had all that love for his fellow men and especially for the French peasant. You may remember in that great funeral that Hugo had in Paris, he left special instructions in his will that he should be buried in a pauper's coffin, but he had the good sense to know that if he had tried to dress like a pauper during his life that he could not have carried it out; there always would have been the eye for the gallery, and he very wisely postponed it until after his death. Now, Tolstoy is a sort of a Hugo without that theatrical sense of playing to the gallery, absolutely devoid of it. Those things that he has done he has done because he cannot help it. +Then, to come to the last point of Tolstoy's, this matter of war. I feel +pretty strongly on that subject, as on a good many others, as you have +seen, but it does not seem to me that there is very much room for +argument there. The idea, at the end of the nineteenth century, that +people should suppose that it can in any way assist the righteous +settlement of a question to have the people who happen to be on the +other side try to cut each other's throats and blow each other up with +bombshells! It is just as ridiculous and silly as those old tests we +used to have a hundred years ago,---making people walk across red-hot +irons, making them go through the fire or under water, to see whether +they were injured or not, for the purpose of finding out whether they +were on the right or wrong side of some controversy. I tell you, my +friends, here at the beginning of the twentieth century we ought to have +discovered some other way of settling our disputes than by fighting and +taking each other's lives, and I believe with Tolstoy that the right way +to stop war is to stop making war,---a simple method that I do not +suppose anybody will adopt, but it seems to me the right way and the +sensible one, and I do not think once in a thousand years we will have +to submit to any injustice if we undertake to submit to that simple way +of putting an end to,war. How does Tolstoy himself carry out these +ideas? I admit, and I am sure he would be one of the first to admit, +that he does it very imperfectly. In some ways I think he has done it +very injudiciously. His house there at Yasnaya Polyana he has stripped +of every kind of luxury. As I remember there was not a single mat on the +floor; the service at the table was much simpler and plainer than I have +ever seen in many a tenement house in New York. To be sure, his wife was +not in the country when I was there; she was in the city; one or two of +his daughters were there. Madam Tolstoy, to a considerable extent, has +her own way. You must remember Tolstoy is a non- resistant, and that +works very well in the domestic situation. (Laughter). Madam Tolstoy +goes a good way with him, but when she puts her foot down, why he +immediately yields. I do not know but it would be a very good thing to +introduce into this country in the matter of marriages, always to have +one of the parties a non-resistant. My own impression is that usually it +would be the husband, so far as my own experience goes and as the +experience of the Tolstoy household goes. (Laughter). At any rate, that +is the way it works there. It seems to me that Tolstoy lacks a little, +strange to say, of the exterior artistic sense. He certainly has it in +literature; nobody can question that. He has become so disgusted with +the life of the fashionable class that he belonged to that he cannot +bear to have about him any of those refinements of life that we are +accustomed to associate with agreeable living. It seems to me there he +has gone a great deal too far. If he could have combined his ideas +somewhat with those of William Morris, for instance; if he could have +endeavored to show the village people about him now they could make +their surroundings artistic, and yet in a cheap and simple way, it might +perhaps have been a better thing. And yet I cannot be sorry that to this +extent he is a one-sided man. You really need a one-sided man to be of +very much use in this world. It seems to me that Tolstoy is a direct +successor of the Prophets of old---the men who, in old times, would go +about in sack-cloth and ashes crying upon the people to repent. It seems +to me that, without any intention on his part, that very dramatic +instinct of his has made him a sort of a representation before men to +attract their attention to the evils of the civilization they live in. +All his books cannot have the influence that the knowledge has that +there is one man there trying seriously, pathetically, to live what he +thinks the life of a human being should be; that even where he fails and +even where there is an element of sadness in admitting that he has +failed, it is all the more a picture to draw our attention to him, to +make us think what our own position is. And yet, though it is a dramatic +picture of that kind, I do not want to leave the impression in your +minds that he is in the slightest degree theatrical. He is a man who +does not think in the least about what people think about him. I have +often contrasted him in my mind with Victor Hugo, whose ideas were very +much the same at Tolstoy's. Read "Les Miserables" and you will find in +it again and again Tolstoy's ideas, in almost Tolstoy's words, and yet +Victor Hugo had that element of the theatrical in him. Victor Hugo had +all that love for his fellow men and especially for the French peasant. +You may remember in that great funeral that Hugo had in Paris, he left +special instructions in his will that he should be buried in a pauper's +coffin, but he had the good sense to know that if he had tried to dress +like a pauper during his life that he could not have carried it out; +there always would have been the eye for the gallery, and he very wisely +postponed it until after his death. Now, Tolstoy is a sort of a Hugo +without that theatrical sense of playing to the gallery, absolutely +devoid of it. Those things that he has done he has done because he +cannot help it. -Now, in conclusion, I want to tell you just one little story---it will take me about three minutes and then I will be done---to show how Tolstoy carries out his non-resistant ideas in his own family. I spent a couple of days at his country house in 1894. There was a very interesting Swiss governess there. Of course, she was a concession to Madam Tolstoy. Iam quite sure Tolstoy does not approve of governesses. But she was there at any rate for the benefit of the younger children, and I had some very interesting talks with her, because of course I could ask her questions where I could not very well question members of the family---and she told me this story: Just two or three days before I arrived there his little daughter, who was then ten years old, had been out playing in front of the house with a village boy from the neighboring village; they got to quarreling about something or other; the boy had taken up a stick and given her a hard hit on the arm with it, so that her arm was quite black-and-blue. The little girl ran into the house crying. Evidently she had not read any of her father's books, because she rushed up to him and she said, "Papa, this naughty boy has hit me on the arm. Do come out and give him a whipping!" The governess, hearing what was going on listened to see how Tolstoy would take this very natural demand. He took the little girl on his lap. "Why," he said, "my dear, what good would it do if I went and whipped that boy? Your arm would hurt you just as much." "Yes," "yes,"---and she, as a little girl would, went on crying. "He's a naughty boy and you ought to whip him." "Why," he said, "my dear, what did that boy hit you for? He hit you because he was angry at you. That means that for a few moments there he hated you. Now, don't you think that we ought to try to make him stop hating? If I go out there and give him a whipping he'll not only hate you but he'll hate me too and he may get into such a habit of hating that he may go on hating all the rest of his life. Now don't you think it will be a very much better thing if we can do something which will make him love us instead of hate us? Perhaps it will change that boy's character all the rest of his life." By that time the little girl's arm did not hurt her very much and she began to be rather amused; she wondered what her father was going to say; she was very fond of her father and wanted to please him. Well, he soothed her a little longer. He said, "Now I'll tell you what I'd do if I were you. That raspberry jam in the pantry there which we had for tea last night, if I were you I'd go and get a saucer and a spoon and some of that jam and take it out to that small boy. I'm inclined to think he'll begin to love us then and I think he would never think of such a thing as hitting a little girl again." Well, the little girl went. I do not know what her motives were. We will have to guess at it. The governess told me the story just a couple of days after she went to the country. She got the jam in a saucer and spoon and she took it out to the little boy. I am very sorry that all the rest I know of that story is that the boy ate the jam. I have never heard what his future history was. He may have committed all the crimes in the decalogue since that time. And I only tell the story as an example of Tolstoy's method at home. But I have often thought over that story. I know people have different opinions about it. I told it once to an audience down in New Jersey and an old man got up in the back of the house---they had a discussion afterwards---and said, "Mr. Crosby, I know what that boy would do," and I said "What?" "Why," he said, "he'd come up next day and hit her on the other arm." (Laughter). I have not found out to this day whether that old gentleman was in earnest or not, but I am quite sure he was mistaken. It seems to me that Tolstoy's argument there is perfectly sound. It is likely it would be impossible to turn that boy into a good boy; I am not sure; but I believe Tolstoy's way of going at him was the only possible way of really making a good boy out of him. You can imagine that boy, after he got the whipping,---probably he knew he deserved it, but he would have gone down cursing and swearing to himself at the whole Tolstoy family. I believe he would have got more or less of a habit of hating people. Then if you try to imagine his feelings on the other hand, when the door opened and this little girl came out with the raspberry jam, his resistance of his rising feelings of resentment, then when you think what a rare thing perhaps it was to a little peasant boy, how he could not resist the temptation, and in what a shame-faced way he must have come forward and gulped it down, and how he must have gone down to his house convinced that those people up there on the hill were a great deal better than he was and if he was ever going to be a good man he must behave a little more in the way that they did, it seems to me that Tolstoy there did right, and it opens up a very broad question of ethics and penology which I will leave with you. +Now, in conclusion, I want to tell you just one little story---it will +take me about three minutes and then I will be done---to show how +Tolstoy carries out his non-resistant ideas in his own family. I spent a +couple of days at his country house in 1894. There was a very +interesting Swiss governess there. Of course, she was a concession to +Madam Tolstoy. Iam quite sure Tolstoy does not approve of governesses. +But she was there at any rate for the benefit of the younger children, +and I had some very interesting talks with her, because of course I +could ask her questions where I could not very well question members of +the family---and she told me this story: Just two or three days before I +arrived there his little daughter, who was then ten years old, had been +out playing in front of the house with a village boy from the +neighboring village; they got to quarreling about something or other; +the boy had taken up a stick and given her a hard hit on the arm with +it, so that her arm was quite black-and-blue. The little girl ran into +the house crying. Evidently she had not read any of her father's books, +because she rushed up to him and she said, "Papa, this naughty boy has +hit me on the arm. Do come out and give him a whipping!" The governess, +hearing what was going on listened to see how Tolstoy would take this +very natural demand. He took the little girl on his lap. "Why," he said, +"my dear, what good would it do if I went and whipped that boy? Your arm +would hurt you just as much." "Yes," "yes,"---and she, as a little girl +would, went on crying. "He's a naughty boy and you ought to whip him." +"Why," he said, "my dear, what did that boy hit you for? He hit you +because he was angry at you. That means that for a few moments there he +hated you. Now, don't you think that we ought to try to make him stop +hating? If I go out there and give him a whipping he'll not only hate +you but he'll hate me too and he may get into such a habit of hating +that he may go on hating all the rest of his life. Now don't you think +it will be a very much better thing if we can do something which will +make him love us instead of hate us? Perhaps it will change that boy's +character all the rest of his life." By that time the little girl's arm +did not hurt her very much and she began to be rather amused; she +wondered what her father was going to say; she was very fond of her +father and wanted to please him. Well, he soothed her a little longer. +He said, "Now I'll tell you what I'd do if I were you. That raspberry +jam in the pantry there which we had for tea last night, if I were you +I'd go and get a saucer and a spoon and some of that jam and take it out +to that small boy. I'm inclined to think he'll begin to love us then and +I think he would never think of such a thing as hitting a little girl +again." Well, the little girl went. I do not know what her motives were. +We will have to guess at it. The governess told me the story just a +couple of days after she went to the country. She got the jam in a +saucer and spoon and she took it out to the little boy. I am very sorry +that all the rest I know of that story is that the boy ate the jam. I +have never heard what his future history was. He may have committed all +the crimes in the decalogue since that time. And I only tell the story +as an example of Tolstoy's method at home. But I have often thought over +that story. I know people have different opinions about it. I told it +once to an audience down in New Jersey and an old man got up in the back +of the house---they had a discussion afterwards---and said, "Mr. Crosby, +I know what that boy would do," and I said "What?" "Why," he said, "he'd +come up next day and hit her on the other arm." (Laughter). I have not +found out to this day whether that old gentleman was in earnest or not, +but I am quite sure he was mistaken. It seems to me that Tolstoy's +argument there is perfectly sound. It is likely it would be impossible +to turn that boy into a good boy; I am not sure; but I believe Tolstoy's +way of going at him was the only possible way of really making a good +boy out of him. You can imagine that boy, after he got the +whipping,---probably he knew he deserved it, but he would have gone down +cursing and swearing to himself at the whole Tolstoy family. I believe +he would have got more or less of a habit of hating people. Then if you +try to imagine his feelings on the other hand, when the door opened and +this little girl came out with the raspberry jam, his resistance of his +rising feelings of resentment, then when you think what a rare thing +perhaps it was to a little peasant boy, how he could not resist the +temptation, and in what a shame-faced way he must have come forward and +gulped it down, and how he must have gone down to his house convinced +that those people up there on the hill were a great deal better than he +was and if he was ever going to be a good man he must behave a little +more in the way that they did, it seems to me that Tolstoy there did +right, and it opens up a very broad question of ethics and penology +which I will leave with you. ---- +------------------------------------------------------------------------ -After remarks by Mr. Taylor, Mr. Elmendorf, Mr. Larned, Mr. O'Brian, Mr. Detmers, Rabbi Aaron and Mr. Monroe, the discussion was concluded by Mr. Crosby as follows: +After remarks by Mr. Taylor, Mr. Elmendorf, Mr. Larned, Mr. O'Brian, +Mr. Detmers, Rabbi Aaron and Mr. Monroe, the discussion was concluded by +Mr. Crosby as follows: -I think almost all the points that have been made by gentlemen this evening are more or less well taken. I am very far from regarding Tolstoy as perfect and I know perfectly well that he is very far from regarding himself as such. My own view of what Tolstoy has done is this: he has taken that part of the Bible which appealed to his deepest self---and I am inclined to think that that is the only part of the Bible or any other book that any of us have any business to take---he has taken the part which appealed to his deepest self and that was the part which Christ said was the summing-up of the law and the prophets. So, certainly Tolstoy does not think that that is an invention of Christ's; he knows that it comes from the law and the prophets that you should love God with all your heart and your soul and your strength, and your neighbor as yourself. When Tolstoy began to take that thought seriously it seemed to open a new world to him, and I am inclined to think that any man, woman or child who, for the first time, takes that thought seriously, will find that it will have very much the same kind of influence upon him, simply because it is the truth, not because anybody in particular said it; and the effect that it has had upon Tolstoy I have already dwelt on to a certain degree. It has had the effect of convincing him of the immortality of his own soul, but it has had the still further effect, as is shown very beautifully in a book that has just been published by the Crowells, called "Miscellan-ies," I think, "of Tolstoy." There is one section of that, of twenty or thirty pages, which considers his thoughts upon God. Tolstoy used to be a complete agnostic; he did not believe in the existence of God at all; and yet, as you read those twenty or thirty pages, you begin to feel that he is what they used to call a god-intoxicated man; as much so as the Psalmist. Some of his writings in those Miscellanies are more like the Psalms than anything I have read since. They have convinced Tolstoy of the existence of a God who is in touch with his own soul and who is providentially arranging the affairs of this world, and the pessimism which Tolstoy was overwhelmed with has ended in the optimistic outlook. The gentleman on my right was perfectly correct in saying that in "War and Peace" the opinions of André were pessimistic, but that book was written long before Tolstoy had passed through the crisis of his own life. Now, the value of Tolstoy to civilization today seems to be this: that taking, in this intense sense, the desire to let his life go out in love to everything outside of him, he has brought that principle as a test for the institutions of the world as they are, and almost in every instance he has found that those institutions fail lamentably. Tolstoy never advises the overthrowing of those institutions; he would not lift his hand to overthrow them; but, he says, "When I think a thing is wrong I can't do it. I think war is wrong. I can't serve in the army. I think condemning men to death or prison is wrong. I can't act as a judge. There are other things of that kind that I cannot do. I do not call upon you to follow my example until you have adopted my opinion,"---and that brings in this whole question of non-resistance. I do not go as far as Tolstoy has in that, yet I believe at bottom he is right. I believe that most of the ills of the world are caused by the use of force by sane men against sane men. There certainly is a point where a man is a lunatic, where he is in a delirium---as in the case of animals or a mad dog,---where it seems foolish to deny that force is a good thing to use. I am not at all quite clear as to whether Tolstoy would agree with me as to that. But when it comes to the management of sane people who can be reached by argument, I am fully of Tolstoy's belief that there are more crime and violence in the world today because we try to use force to stop them than there would be if we did not try to use it. But Tolstoy does not even take that ground. He comes back again. He is the chief novelist of the day, as I think, someone has said here this evening. He only argues what is right for him. He says, "I want to love everybody. I do, to the best of my ability, I do love everybody, and when I love a man it is impossible for me, I cannot bring myself up to using violence against him. It is as impossible for me to put a bayonet into an enemy of my country as it would be for me to skin a baby,"---and I expect most of us here have got far enough along in civilization to refuse to skin a baby,even if it were to save five million lives. That is the way Tolstoy feels about a bayonet charge; that is the way he feels about hanging a man; that is the way he feels about using force around him in any shape. That is a very big question. He has written volume upon volume on the question. It is impossible to go into it tonight but I confess at the bottom of my soul I have very much that same feeling. If I really love a man in all my heart I cannot find it in my heart to use violence against him. It seems to me the wonderful thing about the history of Jesus is that it shows he felt that way. There is just that one incident about the money-changers in the temple, on the other side, and it seems to me it has done a great deal more service in the history of biblical criticism than it was calculated to do. If you read the account in St. John it simply shows that he used the ordinary whip of the country for the purpose of driving the cattle out of the temple and that he upset a certain number of tables. There is absolutely no proof of any kind and I do not believe it for a moment, that Jesus ever struck one of the men there with the whip and if he used it even for the cattle, I should say it was merely as a matter of form and as the ordinary way of driving. When we come down there to the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane where Peter cuts off the ear of the servant of the high priest, Christ tells him to put back the sword into the sheath, not on account of the individual peculiarities of that special occasion, but on the broad general principle that they that take the sword shall perish by the sword. Peter was not only acting in self-defense, he was acting in the far nobler character of a man who was defending his best beloved friend, and Christ rebukes him, laying down the broadest principle. Like almost all---like all, I should say, of the sayings of Christ, it is founded on the deep philosophical truth; if you take up the sword you will perish by the sword; that is, if you exert violence, you are going to create violence in the future. We have been living here on the earth I don't know how many thousands of years, each of us with his own ideas, each of us with his own desires of what he wants done and each of us determined in one way or another to force people to do what he wants. Tolstoy says we are taking the wrong method. If you love other people, you would say that you are taking the wrong method. Let us stop the violence which causes all these evils, and the best way for you and me to do it is to refrain from it and the little crime that will result from it will be far less than the crimes that are committed every day in the year. It does seem to me that that is a luminous thought. I do not expect everybody to accept it, but there is something in every man's heart that responds to that. It is a fact we are far too apt to rely upon force and violence as a means of attaining our ends; that sometimes it might be a good thing for us to forego the ends we have set our hearts upon if by so doing we could decrease the violence that exists in the world today. I believe that is a message that is worth preaching; I believe it is a message that is worth preaching outside of the boundaries of Russia; I believe that the great value of Tolstoy in preaching it has been the fact that he has done it with such sincerity that nobody can question his intention. He may be inconsistent in some small matters. They are such small matters that they are hardly worth talking about. Now, as to this matter of sanity, and I have done. I do not believe it is possible for a man to be ahead of the times to any degree without lacking a little in sanity. It is impossible. It is an abnormal position for a man to be in. And yet those are the men that are necessary to the world. We all remember that Christ's own family thought he was beside himself. That has been the criticism upon all men who have been ahead of their times. I believe it to a certain degree in the case of Tolstoy. It is a just criticism. He does these things too much from his own point of view. He criticises existing conditions a little too much without the sense of historical perspective, but I think that just for that reason his usefulness is increased; makes us criticise the institutions of the time, just as the abolitionists fifty years ago did their noble work in making us criticise the institutions of those times. Every age has had its barbarisms, and it is a strange thing that in every succeeding age people think they have got rid of all the barbarisms that there are. Slavery was a barbarism fifty years ago; hanging men and boys too, for stealing a shilling, was a barbarism fifty years before that; examining witnesses by torture was a barbarism fifty years before that; burning criminals at the stake was a barbarism, imprisonment for debt was a barbarism. But here we are in the year 1900 and you wish me to believe there are no barbarisms now, when the lesson of history is that there are always barbarisms, and you have got to have men like Tolstoy on ahead to show you what they are,---and one of them has been referred to this evening by Mr. Larned, and that is the barbarism of war, one of the most self-evident of all, and if we apply this same test of Tolstoy, love,---love your enemies,---to the question of war, I am inclined to think that the whole thing will melt away. I have never been in a position where I have had to wage war on anybody. I do not believe any of you ever have been, and I do not believe by reading the newspapers and hearing what people are doing ten thousand miles away that we can find out, to our advantage, that there is any danger of anybody waging war upon us. The things that cause the war are our armaments, the things that we are going to build now on this coast and on the Pacific coast, the ships,---are the things that are going to bring about war, and if we had no navy or army at all I believe we should have more influence in the world for the next hundred years than we are going to have with our army, and with our navy, and I am perfectly sure that there is no nation on the face of the earth that will ever pick a quarrel with us. Those are my sentiments and beliefs. Of course, I do not expect many to agree with me but I do believe that Tolstoy, even if he lacks sanity, even if he does overdo things a little, is, by that very thing, doing a favor to the world, and by giving a dramatic expression to his criticism of institutions as they are, he is making us think in a way in which we all ought to think. +I think almost all the points that have been made by gentlemen this +evening are more or less well taken. I am very far from regarding +Tolstoy as perfect and I know perfectly well that he is very far from +regarding himself as such. My own view of what Tolstoy has done is this: +he has taken that part of the Bible which appealed to his deepest +self---and I am inclined to think that that is the only part of the +Bible or any other book that any of us have any business to take---he +has taken the part which appealed to his deepest self and that was the +part which Christ said was the summing-up of the law and the prophets. +So, certainly Tolstoy does not think that that is an invention of +Christ's; he knows that it comes from the law and the prophets that you +should love God with all your heart and your soul and your strength, and +your neighbor as yourself. When Tolstoy began to take that thought +seriously it seemed to open a new world to him, and I am inclined to +think that any man, woman or child who, for the first time, takes that +thought seriously, will find that it will have very much the same kind +of influence upon him, simply because it is the truth, not because +anybody in particular said it; and the effect that it has had upon +Tolstoy I have already dwelt on to a certain degree. It has had the +effect of convincing him of the immortality of his own soul, but it has +had the still further effect, as is shown very beautifully in a book +that has just been published by the Crowells, called "Miscellan-ies," I +think, "of Tolstoy." There is one section of that, of twenty or thirty +pages, which considers his thoughts upon God. Tolstoy used to be a +complete agnostic; he did not believe in the existence of God at all; +and yet, as you read those twenty or thirty pages, you begin to feel +that he is what they used to call a god-intoxicated man; as much so as +the Psalmist. Some of his writings in those Miscellanies are more like +the Psalms than anything I have read since. They have convinced Tolstoy +of the existence of a God who is in touch with his own soul and who is +providentially arranging the affairs of this world, and the pessimism +which Tolstoy was overwhelmed with has ended in the optimistic outlook. +The gentleman on my right was perfectly correct in saying that in "War +and Peace" the opinions of André were pessimistic, but that book was +written long before Tolstoy had passed through the crisis of his own +life. Now, the value of Tolstoy to civilization today seems to be this: +that taking, in this intense sense, the desire to let his life go out in +love to everything outside of him, he has brought that principle as a +test for the institutions of the world as they are, and almost in every +instance he has found that those institutions fail lamentably. Tolstoy +never advises the overthrowing of those institutions; he would not lift +his hand to overthrow them; but, he says, "When I think a thing is wrong +I can't do it. I think war is wrong. I can't serve in the army. I think +condemning men to death or prison is wrong. I can't act as a judge. +There are other things of that kind that I cannot do. I do not call upon +you to follow my example until you have adopted my opinion,"---and that +brings in this whole question of non-resistance. I do not go as far as +Tolstoy has in that, yet I believe at bottom he is right. I believe that +most of the ills of the world are caused by the use of force by sane men +against sane men. There certainly is a point where a man is a lunatic, +where he is in a delirium---as in the case of animals or a mad +dog,---where it seems foolish to deny that force is a good thing to use. +I am not at all quite clear as to whether Tolstoy would agree with me as +to that. But when it comes to the management of sane people who can be +reached by argument, I am fully of Tolstoy's belief that there are more +crime and violence in the world today because we try to use force to +stop them than there would be if we did not try to use it. But Tolstoy +does not even take that ground. He comes back again. He is the chief +novelist of the day, as I think, someone has said here this evening. He +only argues what is right for him. He says, "I want to love everybody. I +do, to the best of my ability, I do love everybody, and when I love a +man it is impossible for me, I cannot bring myself up to using violence +against him. It is as impossible for me to put a bayonet into an enemy +of my country as it would be for me to skin a baby,"---and I expect most +of us here have got far enough along in civilization to refuse to skin a +baby,even if it were to save five million lives. That is the way Tolstoy +feels about a bayonet charge; that is the way he feels about hanging a +man; that is the way he feels about using force around him in any shape. +That is a very big question. He has written volume upon volume on the +question. It is impossible to go into it tonight but I confess at the +bottom of my soul I have very much that same feeling. If I really love a +man in all my heart I cannot find it in my heart to use violence against +him. It seems to me the wonderful thing about the history of Jesus is +that it shows he felt that way. There is just that one incident about +the money-changers in the temple, on the other side, and it seems to me +it has done a great deal more service in the history of biblical +criticism than it was calculated to do. If you read the account in +St. John it simply shows that he used the ordinary whip of the country +for the purpose of driving the cattle out of the temple and that he +upset a certain number of tables. There is absolutely no proof of any +kind and I do not believe it for a moment, that Jesus ever struck one of +the men there with the whip and if he used it even for the cattle, I +should say it was merely as a matter of form and as the ordinary way of +driving. When we come down there to the scene in the Garden of +Gethsemane where Peter cuts off the ear of the servant of the high +priest, Christ tells him to put back the sword into the sheath, not on +account of the individual peculiarities of that special occasion, but on +the broad general principle that they that take the sword shall perish +by the sword. Peter was not only acting in self-defense, he was acting +in the far nobler character of a man who was defending his best beloved +friend, and Christ rebukes him, laying down the broadest principle. Like +almost all---like all, I should say, of the sayings of Christ, it is +founded on the deep philosophical truth; if you take up the sword you +will perish by the sword; that is, if you exert violence, you are going +to create violence in the future. We have been living here on the earth +I don't know how many thousands of years, each of us with his own ideas, +each of us with his own desires of what he wants done and each of us +determined in one way or another to force people to do what he wants. +Tolstoy says we are taking the wrong method. If you love other people, +you would say that you are taking the wrong method. Let us stop the +violence which causes all these evils, and the best way for you and me +to do it is to refrain from it and the little crime that will result +from it will be far less than the crimes that are committed every day in +the year. It does seem to me that that is a luminous thought. I do not +expect everybody to accept it, but there is something in every man's +heart that responds to that. It is a fact we are far too apt to rely +upon force and violence as a means of attaining our ends; that sometimes +it might be a good thing for us to forego the ends we have set our +hearts upon if by so doing we could decrease the violence that exists in +the world today. I believe that is a message that is worth preaching; I +believe it is a message that is worth preaching outside of the +boundaries of Russia; I believe that the great value of Tolstoy in +preaching it has been the fact that he has done it with such sincerity +that nobody can question his intention. He may be inconsistent in some +small matters. They are such small matters that they are hardly worth +talking about. Now, as to this matter of sanity, and I have done. I do +not believe it is possible for a man to be ahead of the times to any +degree without lacking a little in sanity. It is impossible. It is an +abnormal position for a man to be in. And yet those are the men that are +necessary to the world. We all remember that Christ's own family thought +he was beside himself. That has been the criticism upon all men who have +been ahead of their times. I believe it to a certain degree in the case +of Tolstoy. It is a just criticism. He does these things too much from +his own point of view. He criticises existing conditions a little too +much without the sense of historical perspective, but I think that just +for that reason his usefulness is increased; makes us criticise the +institutions of the time, just as the abolitionists fifty years ago did +their noble work in making us criticise the institutions of those times. +Every age has had its barbarisms, and it is a strange thing that in +every succeeding age people think they have got rid of all the +barbarisms that there are. Slavery was a barbarism fifty years ago; +hanging men and boys too, for stealing a shilling, was a barbarism fifty +years before that; examining witnesses by torture was a barbarism fifty +years before that; burning criminals at the stake was a barbarism, +imprisonment for debt was a barbarism. But here we are in the year 1900 +and you wish me to believe there are no barbarisms now, when the lesson +of history is that there are always barbarisms, and you have got to have +men like Tolstoy on ahead to show you what they are,---and one of them +has been referred to this evening by Mr. Larned, and that is the +barbarism of war, one of the most self-evident of all, and if we apply +this same test of Tolstoy, love,---love your enemies,---to the question +of war, I am inclined to think that the whole thing will melt away. I +have never been in a position where I have had to wage war on anybody. I +do not believe any of you ever have been, and I do not believe by +reading the newspapers and hearing what people are doing ten thousand +miles away that we can find out, to our advantage, that there is any +danger of anybody waging war upon us. The things that cause the war are +our armaments, the things that we are going to build now on this coast +and on the Pacific coast, the ships,---are the things that are going to +bring about war, and if we had no navy or army at all I believe we +should have more influence in the world for the next hundred years than +we are going to have with our army, and with our navy, and I am +perfectly sure that there is no nation on the face of the earth that +will ever pick a quarrel with us. Those are my sentiments and beliefs. +Of course, I do not expect many to agree with me but I do believe that +Tolstoy, even if he lacks sanity, even if he does overdo things a +little, is, by that very thing, doing a favor to the world, and by +giving a dramatic expression to his criticism of institutions as they +are, he is making us think in a way in which we all ought to think. diff --git a/src/utopia-usurers.md b/src/utopia-usurers.md index 9c8793a..333a5b2 100644 --- a/src/utopia-usurers.md +++ b/src/utopia-usurers.md @@ -1,1083 +1,919 @@ # Art and Advertisement -I propose, subject to the patience of the reader, to devote -two or three articles to prophecy. Like all healthy-minded -prophets, sacred and profane, I can only prophesy when I am -in a rage and think things look ugly for everybody. And like -all healthy-minded prophets, I prophesy in the hope that my -prophecy may not come true. For the prediction made by the -true soothsayer is like the warning given by a good doctor. -And the doctor has really triumphed when the patient he -condemned to death has revived to life. The threat is -justified at the very moment when it is falsified. Now I -have said again and again (and I shall continue to say again -and again on all the most inappropriate occasions) that we -must hit Capitalism, and hit it hard, for the plain and -definite reason that it is growing stronger. Most of the -excuses which serve the capitalists as masks are, of course, -the excuses of hypocrites. They lie when they claim -philanthropy; they no more feel any particular love of men -than Albu felt an affection for Chinamen. They lie when they -say they have reached their position through their own -organising ability. They generally have to pay men to -organise the mine, exactly as they pay men to go down it. -They often lie about their present wealth, as they generally -lie about their past poverty. But when they say that they -are going in for a "constructive social policy," they do not -lie. They really are going in for a constructive social -policy. And we must go in for an equally destructive social -policy; and destroy, while it is still half-constructed, the -accursed thing which they construct. +I propose, subject to the patience of the reader, to devote two or three +articles to prophecy. Like all healthy-minded prophets, sacred and +profane, I can only prophesy when I am in a rage and think things look +ugly for everybody. And like all healthy-minded prophets, I prophesy in +the hope that my prophecy may not come true. For the prediction made by +the true soothsayer is like the warning given by a good doctor. And the +doctor has really triumphed when the patient he condemned to death has +revived to life. The threat is justified at the very moment when it is +falsified. Now I have said again and again (and I shall continue to say +again and again on all the most inappropriate occasions) that we must +hit Capitalism, and hit it hard, for the plain and definite reason that +it is growing stronger. Most of the excuses which serve the capitalists +as masks are, of course, the excuses of hypocrites. They lie when they +claim philanthropy; they no more feel any particular love of men than +Albu felt an affection for Chinamen. They lie when they say they have +reached their position through their own organising ability. They +generally have to pay men to organise the mine, exactly as they pay men +to go down it. They often lie about their present wealth, as they +generally lie about their past poverty. But when they say that they are +going in for a "constructive social policy," they do not lie. They +really are going in for a constructive social policy. And we must go in +for an equally destructive social policy; and destroy, while it is still +half-constructed, the accursed thing which they construct. ## The Example of the Arts -Now I propose to take, one after another, certain aspects -and departments of modern life, and describe what I think -they will be like in this paradise of plutocrats, this -Utopia of gold and brass in which the great story of England -seems so likely to end. I propose to say what I think our -new masters, the mere millionaires, will do with certain -human interests and institutions, such as art, science, -jurisprudence, or religion---unless we strike soon enough to -prevent them. And for the sake of argument I will take in -this article the example of the arts. - -Most people have seen a picture called "Bubbles," which is -used for the advertisement of a celebrated soap, a small -cake of which is introduced into the pictorial design. And -anybody with an instinct for design (the caricaturist of the -*Daily Herald*, for instance), will guess that it was not -originally a part of the design. He will see that the cake -of soap destroys the picture as a picture; as much as if the -cake of soap had been used to scrub off the paint. Small as -it is, it breaks and confuses the whole balance of objects -in the composition. I offer no judgment here upon Millais's -action in the matter; in fact, I do not know what it was. -The important point for me at the moment is that the picture -was not painted for the soap, but the soap added to the -picture. And the spirit of the corrupting change which has -separated us from that Victorian epoch can be best seen in -this: that the Victorian atmosphere, with all its faults, -did not permit such a style of patronage to pass as a matter -of course. Michael Angelo may have been proud to have helped -an emperor or a pope; though, indeed, I think he was prouder -than they were on his own account. I do not believe Sir John -Millais was proud of having helped a soap-boiler. I do not -say he thought it wrong; but he was not proud of it. And -that marks precisely the change from his time to our own. -Our merchants have really adopted the style of merchant -princes. They have begun openly to dominate the civilisation -of the State, as the emperors and popes openly dominated in -Italy. In Millais's time, broadly speaking, art was supposed -to mean good art; advertisement was supposed to mean -inferior art. The head of a black man, painted to advertise -somebody's blacking, could be a rough symbol, like an inn -sign. The black man had only to be black enough. An artist -exhibiting the picture of a Negro was expected to know that -a black man is not so black as he is painted. He was -expected to render a thousand tints of grey and brown and -violet: for there is no such thing as a black man just as -there is no such thing as a white man. A fairly clear line +Now I propose to take, one after another, certain aspects and +departments of modern life, and describe what I think they will be like +in this paradise of plutocrats, this Utopia of gold and brass in which +the great story of England seems so likely to end. I propose to say what +I think our new masters, the mere millionaires, will do with certain +human interests and institutions, such as art, science, jurisprudence, +or religion---unless we strike soon enough to prevent them. And for the +sake of argument I will take in this article the example of the arts. + +Most people have seen a picture called "Bubbles," which is used for the +advertisement of a celebrated soap, a small cake of which is introduced +into the pictorial design. And anybody with an instinct for design (the +caricaturist of the *Daily Herald*, for instance), will guess that it +was not originally a part of the design. He will see that the cake of +soap destroys the picture as a picture; as much as if the cake of soap +had been used to scrub off the paint. Small as it is, it breaks and +confuses the whole balance of objects in the composition. I offer no +judgment here upon Millais's action in the matter; in fact, I do not +know what it was. The important point for me at the moment is that the +picture was not painted for the soap, but the soap added to the picture. +And the spirit of the corrupting change which has separated us from that +Victorian epoch can be best seen in this: that the Victorian atmosphere, +with all its faults, did not permit such a style of patronage to pass as +a matter of course. Michael Angelo may have been proud to have helped an +emperor or a pope; though, indeed, I think he was prouder than they were +on his own account. I do not believe Sir John Millais was proud of +having helped a soap-boiler. I do not say he thought it wrong; but he +was not proud of it. And that marks precisely the change from his time +to our own. Our merchants have really adopted the style of merchant +princes. They have begun openly to dominate the civilisation of the +State, as the emperors and popes openly dominated in Italy. In Millais's +time, broadly speaking, art was supposed to mean good art; advertisement +was supposed to mean inferior art. The head of a black man, painted to +advertise somebody's blacking, could be a rough symbol, like an inn +sign. The black man had only to be black enough. An artist exhibiting +the picture of a Negro was expected to know that a black man is not so +black as he is painted. He was expected to render a thousand tints of +grey and brown and violet: for there is no such thing as a black man +just as there is no such thing as a white man. A fairly clear line separated advertisement from art. ## The First Effect -I should say the first effect of the triumph of the -capitalist (if we allow him to triumph) will be that that -line of demarcation will entirely disappear. There will be -no art that might not just as well be advertisement. I do -not necessarily mean that there will be no good art; much of -it might be, much of it already is, very good art. You may -put it, if you please, in the form that there has been a -vast improvement in advertisements. Certainly there would be -nothing surprising if the head of a Negro advertising -Somebody's Blacking nowadays were finished with as careful -and subtle colours as one of the old and superstitious -painters would have wasted on the negro king who brought -gifts to Christ. But the improvement of advertisements is -the degradation of artists. It is their degradation for this -clear and vital reason: that the artist will work, not only -to please the rich, but only to increase their riches; which -is a considerable step lower. After all, it was as a human -being that a pope took pleasure in a cartoon of Raphael or a -prince took pleasure in a statuette of Cellini. The prince -paid for the statuette; but he did not expect the statuette -to pay him. It is my impression that no cake of soap can be -found anywhere in the cartoons which the Pope ordered of -Raphael. And no one who knows the small-minded cynicism of -our plutocracy, its secrecy, its gambling spirit, its -contempt of conscience, can doubt that the artist-advertiser -will often be assisting enterprises over which he will have -no moral control, and of which he could feel no moral -approval. He will be working to spread quack medicines, -queer investments; and will work for Marconi instead of -Medici. And to this base ingenuity he will have to bend the -proudest and purest of the virtues of the intellect, the -power to attract his brethren, and the noble duty of praise. -For that picture by Millais is a very allegorical picture. -It is almost a prophecy of what uses are awaiting the beauty -of the child unborn. The praise will be of a kind that may -correctly be called soap; and the enterprises of a kind that +I should say the first effect of the triumph of the capitalist (if we +allow him to triumph) will be that that line of demarcation will +entirely disappear. There will be no art that might not just as well be +advertisement. I do not necessarily mean that there will be no good art; +much of it might be, much of it already is, very good art. You may put +it, if you please, in the form that there has been a vast improvement in +advertisements. Certainly there would be nothing surprising if the head +of a Negro advertising Somebody's Blacking nowadays were finished with +as careful and subtle colours as one of the old and superstitious +painters would have wasted on the negro king who brought gifts to +Christ. But the improvement of advertisements is the degradation of +artists. It is their degradation for this clear and vital reason: that +the artist will work, not only to please the rich, but only to increase +their riches; which is a considerable step lower. After all, it was as a +human being that a pope took pleasure in a cartoon of Raphael or a +prince took pleasure in a statuette of Cellini. The prince paid for the +statuette; but he did not expect the statuette to pay him. It is my +impression that no cake of soap can be found anywhere in the cartoons +which the Pope ordered of Raphael. And no one who knows the small-minded +cynicism of our plutocracy, its secrecy, its gambling spirit, its +contempt of conscience, can doubt that the artist-advertiser will often +be assisting enterprises over which he will have no moral control, and +of which he could feel no moral approval. He will be working to spread +quack medicines, queer investments; and will work for Marconi instead of +Medici. And to this base ingenuity he will have to bend the proudest and +purest of the virtues of the intellect, the power to attract his +brethren, and the noble duty of praise. For that picture by Millais is a +very allegorical picture. It is almost a prophecy of what uses are +awaiting the beauty of the child unborn. The praise will be of a kind +that may correctly be called soap; and the enterprises of a kind that may truly be described as Bubbles. # Letters and the New Laureates -In these articles I only take two or three examples of the -first and fundamental fact of our time. I mean the fact that -the capitalists of our community are becoming quite openly -the kings of it. In my last (and first) article, I took the -case of Art and advertisement. I pointed out that Art must -be growing worse---merely because advertisement is growing -better. In those days Millais condescended to Pears' soap. -In these days I really think it would be Pears who -condescended to Millais. But here I turn to an art I know -more about, that of journalism. Only in my case the art -verges on artlessness. - -The great difficulty with the English lies in the absence of -something one may call democratic imagination. We find it -easy to realise an individual, but very hard to realise that -the great masses consist of individuals. Our system has been -aristocratic: in the special sense of there being only a few -actors on the stage. And the back scene is kept quite dark, -though it is really a throng of faces. Home Rule tended to -be not so much the Irish as the Grand Old Man. The Boer War -tended not to be so much South Africa as simply "Joe." And -it is the amusing but distressing fact that every class of -political leadership, as it comes to the front in its turn, -catches the rays of this isolating lime-light; and becomes a -small aristocracy. Certainly no one has the aristocratic -complaint so badly as the Labour Party. At the recent -Congress, the real difference between Larkin and the English -Labour leaders was not so much in anything right or wrong in -what he said, as in something elemental and even mystical in -the way he suggested a mob. But it must be plain, even to -those who agree with the more official policy, that for Mr. -Havelock Wilson the principal question was Mr. Havelock -Wilson; and that Mr. Sexton was mainly considering the -dignity and fine feelings of Mr. Sexton. You may say they -were as sensitive as aristocrats, or as sulky as babies; the -point is that the feeling was personal. But Larkin, like -Danton, not only talks like ten thousand men talking, but he -also has some of the carelessness of the colossus of Arcis; -"Que mon nom soit fletri, que la France soit libra." +In these articles I only take two or three examples of the first and +fundamental fact of our time. I mean the fact that the capitalists of +our community are becoming quite openly the kings of it. In my last (and +first) article, I took the case of Art and advertisement. I pointed out +that Art must be growing worse---merely because advertisement is growing +better. In those days Millais condescended to Pears' soap. In these days +I really think it would be Pears who condescended to Millais. But here I +turn to an art I know more about, that of journalism. Only in my case +the art verges on artlessness. + +The great difficulty with the English lies in the absence of something +one may call democratic imagination. We find it easy to realise an +individual, but very hard to realise that the great masses consist of +individuals. Our system has been aristocratic: in the special sense of +there being only a few actors on the stage. And the back scene is kept +quite dark, though it is really a throng of faces. Home Rule tended to +be not so much the Irish as the Grand Old Man. The Boer War tended not +to be so much South Africa as simply "Joe." And it is the amusing but +distressing fact that every class of political leadership, as it comes +to the front in its turn, catches the rays of this isolating lime-light; +and becomes a small aristocracy. Certainly no one has the aristocratic +complaint so badly as the Labour Party. At the recent Congress, the real +difference between Larkin and the English Labour leaders was not so much +in anything right or wrong in what he said, as in something elemental +and even mystical in the way he suggested a mob. But it must be plain, +even to those who agree with the more official policy, that for Mr. +Havelock Wilson the principal question was Mr. Havelock Wilson; and that +Mr. Sexton was mainly considering the dignity and fine feelings of +Mr. Sexton. You may say they were as sensitive as aristocrats, or as +sulky as babies; the point is that the feeling was personal. But Larkin, +like Danton, not only talks like ten thousand men talking, but he also +has some of the carelessness of the colossus of Arcis; "Que mon nom soit +fletri, que la France soit libra." ## A Dance of Degradation -It is needless to say that this respecting of persons has -led all the other parties a dance of degradation. We ruin -South Africa because it would be a slight on Lord Gladstone -to save South Africa. We have a bad army. because it would -be a snub to Lord Haldane to have a good army. And no Tory -is allowed to say "Marconi" for fear Mr. George should say -"Kynoch." But this curious personal element, with its -appalling lack of patriotism, has appeared in a new and -curious form in another department of life; the department -of literature, especially periodical literature. And the -form it takes is the next example I shall give of the way in -which the capitalists are now appearing, more and more -openly, as the masters and princes of the community. - -I will take a Victorian instance to mark the change; as I -did in the case of the advertisement of "Bubbles." It was -said in my childhood, by the more apoplectic and elderly -sort of Tory, that W. E. Gladstone was only a Free Trader -because he had a partnership in Gilbey's foreign wines. This -was, no doubt, nonsense; but it had a dim symbolic, or -mainly prophetic, truth in it. It was true, to some extent -even then, and it has been increasingly true since, that the -statesman was often an ally of the salesman; and represented -not only a nation of shopkeepers, but one particular shop. -But in Gladstone's time, even if this was true, it was never -the whole truth; and no one would have endured it being the -admitted truth. The politician was not solely an eloquent -and persuasive bagman travelling for certain business men; -he was bound to mix even his corruption with some -intelligible ideals and rules of policy. And the proof of it -is this: that at least it was the statesman who bulked large -in the public eye; and his financial backer was entirely in -the background. Old gentlemen might choke over their port, -with the moral certainty that the Prime Minister had shares -in a wine merchant's. But the old gentleman would have died -on the spot if the wine merchant had really been made as -important as the Prime Minister. If it had been Sir Walter -Gilbey whom Disraeli denounced, or Punch caricatured; if Sir -Walter Gilbey's favourite collars (with the design of which -I am unacquainted) had grown as large as the wings of an -archangel; if Sir Walter Gilbey had been credited with -successfully eliminating the British Oak with his little -hatchet; if, near the Temple and the Courts of Justice, our -sight was struck by a majestic statue of a wine merchant; or -if the earnest Conservative lady who threw a gingerbread-nut -at the Premier had directed it towards the wine merchant -instead, the shock to Victorian England would have been very -great indeed. +It is needless to say that this respecting of persons has led all the +other parties a dance of degradation. We ruin South Africa because it +would be a slight on Lord Gladstone to save South Africa. We have a bad +army. because it would be a snub to Lord Haldane to have a good army. +And no Tory is allowed to say "Marconi" for fear Mr. George should say +"Kynoch." But this curious personal element, with its appalling lack of +patriotism, has appeared in a new and curious form in another department +of life; the department of literature, especially periodical literature. +And the form it takes is the next example I shall give of the way in +which the capitalists are now appearing, more and more openly, as the +masters and princes of the community. + +I will take a Victorian instance to mark the change; as I did in the +case of the advertisement of "Bubbles." It was said in my childhood, by +the more apoplectic and elderly sort of Tory, that W. E. Gladstone was +only a Free Trader because he had a partnership in Gilbey's foreign +wines. This was, no doubt, nonsense; but it had a dim symbolic, or +mainly prophetic, truth in it. It was true, to some extent even then, +and it has been increasingly true since, that the statesman was often an +ally of the salesman; and represented not only a nation of shopkeepers, +but one particular shop. But in Gladstone's time, even if this was true, +it was never the whole truth; and no one would have endured it being the +admitted truth. The politician was not solely an eloquent and persuasive +bagman travelling for certain business men; he was bound to mix even his +corruption with some intelligible ideals and rules of policy. And the +proof of it is this: that at least it was the statesman who bulked large +in the public eye; and his financial backer was entirely in the +background. Old gentlemen might choke over their port, with the moral +certainty that the Prime Minister had shares in a wine merchant's. But +the old gentleman would have died on the spot if the wine merchant had +really been made as important as the Prime Minister. If it had been Sir +Walter Gilbey whom Disraeli denounced, or Punch caricatured; if Sir +Walter Gilbey's favourite collars (with the design of which I am +unacquainted) had grown as large as the wings of an archangel; if Sir +Walter Gilbey had been credited with successfully eliminating the +British Oak with his little hatchet; if, near the Temple and the Courts +of Justice, our sight was struck by a majestic statue of a wine +merchant; or if the earnest Conservative lady who threw a +gingerbread-nut at the Premier had directed it towards the wine merchant +instead, the shock to Victorian England would have been very great +indeed. ## Haloes for Employers -Now something very like that is happening; the mere wealthy -employer is beginning to have not only the power but some of -the glory. I have seen in several magazines lately, and -magazines of a high class, the appearance of a new kind of -article. Literary men are being employed to praise a big -business man personally, as men used to praise a king. They -not only find political reasons for the commercial -schemes---that they have done for some time past---they also -find moral defences for the commercial schemers. They -describe the capitalist's brain of steel and heart of gold -in a way that Englishmen hitherto have been at least in the -habit of reserving for romantic figures like Garibaldi or -Gordon. In one excellent magazine Mr. T. P. O'Connor, who, -when he likes, can write on letters like a man of letters, -has some purple pages in praise of Sir Joseph Lyons---the -man who runs those tea-shop places. He incidentally brought -in a delightful passage about the beautiful souls possessed -by some people called Salmon and Gluckstein. I think I like -best the passage where he said that Lyons's charming social -accomplishments included a talent for "imitating a Jew." The -article is accompanied with a large and somewhat leering -portrait of that shopkeeper, which makes the parlour-trick -in question particularly astonishing. Another literary man, -who certainly ought to know better, wrote in another paper a -piece of hero-worship about Mr. Selfridge. No doubt the -fashion will spread, and the art of words, as polished and -pointed by Ruskin or Meredith, will be perfected yet further -to explore the labyrinthine heart of Harrod; or compare the -simple stoicism of Marshall with the saintly charm of -Snelgrove. - -Any man can be praised---and rightly praised. If he only -stands on two legs he does something a cow cannot do. If a -rich man can manage to stand on two legs for a reasonable -time, it is called self-control. If he has only one leg, it -is called (with some truth) self-sacrifice. I could say -something nice (and true) about every man I have ever met. -Therefore, I do not doubt I could find something nice about -Lyons or Self ridge if I searched for it. But I shall not. -The nearest postman or cab-man will provide me with just the -same brain of steel and heart of gold as these unlucky lucky -men. But I do resent the whole age of patronage being -revived under such absurd patrons; and all poets becoming -court poets, under kings that have taken no oath, nor led us +Now something very like that is happening; the mere wealthy employer is +beginning to have not only the power but some of the glory. I have seen +in several magazines lately, and magazines of a high class, the +appearance of a new kind of article. Literary men are being employed to +praise a big business man personally, as men used to praise a king. They +not only find political reasons for the commercial schemes---that they +have done for some time past---they also find moral defences for the +commercial schemers. They describe the capitalist's brain of steel and +heart of gold in a way that Englishmen hitherto have been at least in +the habit of reserving for romantic figures like Garibaldi or Gordon. In +one excellent magazine Mr. T. P. O'Connor, who, when he likes, can write +on letters like a man of letters, has some purple pages in praise of Sir +Joseph Lyons---the man who runs those tea-shop places. He incidentally +brought in a delightful passage about the beautiful souls possessed by +some people called Salmon and Gluckstein. I think I like best the +passage where he said that Lyons's charming social accomplishments +included a talent for "imitating a Jew." The article is accompanied with +a large and somewhat leering portrait of that shopkeeper, which makes +the parlour-trick in question particularly astonishing. Another literary +man, who certainly ought to know better, wrote in another paper a piece +of hero-worship about Mr. Selfridge. No doubt the fashion will spread, +and the art of words, as polished and pointed by Ruskin or Meredith, +will be perfected yet further to explore the labyrinthine heart of +Harrod; or compare the simple stoicism of Marshall with the saintly +charm of Snelgrove. + +Any man can be praised---and rightly praised. If he only stands on two +legs he does something a cow cannot do. If a rich man can manage to +stand on two legs for a reasonable time, it is called self-control. If +he has only one leg, it is called (with some truth) self-sacrifice. I +could say something nice (and true) about every man I have ever met. +Therefore, I do not doubt I could find something nice about Lyons or +Self ridge if I searched for it. But I shall not. The nearest postman or +cab-man will provide me with just the same brain of steel and heart of +gold as these unlucky lucky men. But I do resent the whole age of +patronage being revived under such absurd patrons; and all poets +becoming court poets, under kings that have taken no oath, nor led us into any battle. # Unbusinesslike Business -The fairy tales we were all taught did not, like the history -we were all taught, consist entirely of lies. Parts of the -tale of "Puss in Boots" or "Jack and the Beanstalk" may -strike the realistic eye as a little unlikely and out of the -common way, so to speak; but they contain some very solid -and very practical truths. For instance, it may be noted -that both in "Puss in Boots" and "Jack and the Beanstalk," -if I remember aright, the ogre was not only an ogre but also -a magician. And it will generally be found that in all such -popular narratives, the king, if he is a wicked king, is -generally also a wizard. Now there is a very vital human -truth enshrined in this. Bad government, like good -government, is a spiritual thing. Even the tyrant never -rules by force alone; but mostly by fairy tales. And so it -is with the modern tyrant, the great employer. The sight of -a millionaire is seldom, in the ordinary sense, an -enchanting sight: nevertheless he is in his way an -enchanter. As they say in the gushing articles about him in -the magazines, he is a fascinating personality. So is a -snake. At least he is fascinating to rabbits; and so is the -millionaire to the rabbit-witted sort of people that ladies -and gentlemen have allowed themselves to become. He does, in -a manner, cast a spell, such as that which imprisoned -princes and princesses under the shapes of falcons or stags. -He has truly turned men into sheep, as Circe turned them -into swine. - -Now, the chief of the fairy tales, by which he gains this -glory and glamour, is a certain hazy association he has -managed to create between the idea of bigness and the idea -of practicality. Numbers of the rabbit-witted ladies and -gentlemen do really think, in spite of themselves and their -experience, that so long as a shop has hundreds of different -doors and a great many hot and unhealthy underground -departments (they must be hot; this is very important), and -more people than would be needed for a man-of-war, or -crowded cathedral, to say: "This way, madam," and "The next -article, sir," it follows that the goods are good. In short, -they hold that the big businesses are businesslike. They are -not. Any housekeeper in a truthful mood, that is to say, any -housekeeper in a bad temper, will tell you that they are -not. But housekeepers, too, are human, and therefore -inconsistent and complex; and they do not always stick to -truth and bad temper. They are also affected by this queer -idolatry of the enormous and elaborate; and cannot help -feeling that anything so complicated must go like clockwork. -But complexity is no guarantee of accuracy---in clock-work -or in anything else. A clock can be as wrong as the human -head; and a clock can stop, as suddenly as the human heart. - -But this strange poetry of plutocracy prevails over people -against their very senses. You write to one of the great -London stores or emporia, asking, let us say, for an -umbrella. A month or two afterwards you receive a very -elaborately constructed parcel, containing a broken parasol. -You are very pleased. You are gratified to reflect on what a -vast number of assistants and employees had combined to -break that parasol. You luxuriate in the memory of all those -long rooms and departments and wonder in which of them the -parasol that you never ordered was broken. Or you want a toy -elephant for your child on Christmas Day; as children, like -all nice and healthy people, are very ritualistic. Some week -or so after Twelfth Night, let us say, you have the pleasure -of removing three layers of pasteboards, five layers of -brown paper, and fifteen layers of tissue paper and -discovering the fragments of an artificial crocodile. You -smile in an expansive spirit. You feel that your soul has -been broadened by the vision of incompetence conducted on so -large a scale. You admire all the more the colossal and -Omnipresent Brain of the Organiser of Industry, who amid all -his multitudinous cares did not disdain to remember his duty -of smashing even the smallest toy of the smallest child. Or, -supposing you have asked him to send you some two rolls of -cocoa-nut matting: and supposing (after a due interval for -reflection) he duly delivers to you the five rolls of wire -netting. You take pleasure in the consideration of a -mystery: which coarse minds might have called a mistake. It -consoles you to know how big the business is: and what an -enormous number of people were needed to make such a -mistake. - -That is the romance that has been told about the big shops; -in the literature and art which they have bought, and which -(as I said in my recent articles) will soon be quite -indistinguishable from their ordinary advertisements. The -literature is commercial; and it is only fair to say that -the commerce is often really literary. It is no romance, but -only rubbish. - -The big commercial concerns of to-day are quite -exceptionally incompetent. They will be even more -incompetent when they are omnipotent. Indeed, that is, and -always has been, the whole point of a monopoly; the old and -sound argument against a monopoly. It is only because it is -incompetent that it has to be omnipotent. When one large -shop occupies the whole of one side of a street (or -sometimes both sides), it does so in order that men may be -unable to get what they want; and may be forced to buy what -they don't want. That the rapidly approaching kingdom of the -Capitalists will ruin art and letters, I have already said. -I say here that in the only sense that can be called human, -it will ruin trade, too. - -I will not let Christmas go by, even when writing for a -revolutionary paper necessarily appealing to many with none -of my religious sympathies, without appealing to those -sympathies. I knew a man who sent to a great rich shop for a -figure for a group of Bethlehem. It arrived broken. I think -that is exactly all that business men have now the sense to -do. +The fairy tales we were all taught did not, like the history we were all +taught, consist entirely of lies. Parts of the tale of "Puss in Boots" +or "Jack and the Beanstalk" may strike the realistic eye as a little +unlikely and out of the common way, so to speak; but they contain some +very solid and very practical truths. For instance, it may be noted that +both in "Puss in Boots" and "Jack and the Beanstalk," if I remember +aright, the ogre was not only an ogre but also a magician. And it will +generally be found that in all such popular narratives, the king, if he +is a wicked king, is generally also a wizard. Now there is a very vital +human truth enshrined in this. Bad government, like good government, is +a spiritual thing. Even the tyrant never rules by force alone; but +mostly by fairy tales. And so it is with the modern tyrant, the great +employer. The sight of a millionaire is seldom, in the ordinary sense, +an enchanting sight: nevertheless he is in his way an enchanter. As they +say in the gushing articles about him in the magazines, he is a +fascinating personality. So is a snake. At least he is fascinating to +rabbits; and so is the millionaire to the rabbit-witted sort of people +that ladies and gentlemen have allowed themselves to become. He does, in +a manner, cast a spell, such as that which imprisoned princes and +princesses under the shapes of falcons or stags. He has truly turned men +into sheep, as Circe turned them into swine. + +Now, the chief of the fairy tales, by which he gains this glory and +glamour, is a certain hazy association he has managed to create between +the idea of bigness and the idea of practicality. Numbers of the +rabbit-witted ladies and gentlemen do really think, in spite of +themselves and their experience, that so long as a shop has hundreds of +different doors and a great many hot and unhealthy underground +departments (they must be hot; this is very important), and more people +than would be needed for a man-of-war, or crowded cathedral, to say: +"This way, madam," and "The next article, sir," it follows that the +goods are good. In short, they hold that the big businesses are +businesslike. They are not. Any housekeeper in a truthful mood, that is +to say, any housekeeper in a bad temper, will tell you that they are +not. But housekeepers, too, are human, and therefore inconsistent and +complex; and they do not always stick to truth and bad temper. They are +also affected by this queer idolatry of the enormous and elaborate; and +cannot help feeling that anything so complicated must go like clockwork. +But complexity is no guarantee of accuracy---in clock-work or in +anything else. A clock can be as wrong as the human head; and a clock +can stop, as suddenly as the human heart. + +But this strange poetry of plutocracy prevails over people against their +very senses. You write to one of the great London stores or emporia, +asking, let us say, for an umbrella. A month or two afterwards you +receive a very elaborately constructed parcel, containing a broken +parasol. You are very pleased. You are gratified to reflect on what a +vast number of assistants and employees had combined to break that +parasol. You luxuriate in the memory of all those long rooms and +departments and wonder in which of them the parasol that you never +ordered was broken. Or you want a toy elephant for your child on +Christmas Day; as children, like all nice and healthy people, are very +ritualistic. Some week or so after Twelfth Night, let us say, you have +the pleasure of removing three layers of pasteboards, five layers of +brown paper, and fifteen layers of tissue paper and discovering the +fragments of an artificial crocodile. You smile in an expansive spirit. +You feel that your soul has been broadened by the vision of incompetence +conducted on so large a scale. You admire all the more the colossal and +Omnipresent Brain of the Organiser of Industry, who amid all his +multitudinous cares did not disdain to remember his duty of smashing +even the smallest toy of the smallest child. Or, supposing you have +asked him to send you some two rolls of cocoa-nut matting: and supposing +(after a due interval for reflection) he duly delivers to you the five +rolls of wire netting. You take pleasure in the consideration of a +mystery: which coarse minds might have called a mistake. It consoles you +to know how big the business is: and what an enormous number of people +were needed to make such a mistake. + +That is the romance that has been told about the big shops; in the +literature and art which they have bought, and which (as I said in my +recent articles) will soon be quite indistinguishable from their +ordinary advertisements. The literature is commercial; and it is only +fair to say that the commerce is often really literary. It is no +romance, but only rubbish. + +The big commercial concerns of to-day are quite exceptionally +incompetent. They will be even more incompetent when they are +omnipotent. Indeed, that is, and always has been, the whole point of a +monopoly; the old and sound argument against a monopoly. It is only +because it is incompetent that it has to be omnipotent. When one large +shop occupies the whole of one side of a street (or sometimes both +sides), it does so in order that men may be unable to get what they +want; and may be forced to buy what they don't want. That the rapidly +approaching kingdom of the Capitalists will ruin art and letters, I have +already said. I say here that in the only sense that can be called +human, it will ruin trade, too. + +I will not let Christmas go by, even when writing for a revolutionary +paper necessarily appealing to many with none of my religious +sympathies, without appealing to those sympathies. I knew a man who sent +to a great rich shop for a figure for a group of Bethlehem. It arrived +broken. I think that is exactly all that business men have now the sense +to do. # The War on Holidays -The general proposition, not always easy to define -exhaustively, that the reign of the capitalist will be the -reign of the cad---that is, of the unlicked type that is -neither the citizen nor the gentleman---can be excellently -studied in its attitude towards holidays. The special -emblematic Employer of to-day, especially the Model Employer -(who is the worst sort) has in his starved and evil heart a -sincere hatred of holidays. I do not mean that he -necessarily wants all his workmen to work until they drop; -that only occurs when he happens to be stupid as well as -wicked. I do not mean to say that he is necessarily -unwilling to grant what he would call "decent hours of -labour." He may treat men like dirt; but if you want to make -money, even out of dirt, you must let it lie fallow by some -rotation of rest. He may treat men as dogs, but unless he is -a lunatic he will for certain periods let sleeping dogs lie. - -But humane and reasonable hours for labour have nothing -whatever to do with the idea of holidays. It is not even a -question of ten-hours day and eight-hours day; it is not a -question of cutting down leisure to the space necessary for -food, sleep and exercise. If the modern employer came to the -conclusion, for some reason or other, that he could get most -out of his men by working them hard for only two hours a -day, his whole mental attitude would still be foreign and -hostile to holidays. For his whole mental attitude is that -the passive time and the active time are alike useful for -him and his business. All is, indeed, grist that comes to -his mill, including the millers. His slaves' still serve him -in unconsciousness, as dogs still hunt in slumber. His grist -is ground not only by the sounding wheels of iron, but by -the soundless wheel of blood and brain. His sacks are still -filling silently when the doors are shut on the streets and -the sound of the grinding is low. +The general proposition, not always easy to define exhaustively, that +the reign of the capitalist will be the reign of the cad---that is, of +the unlicked type that is neither the citizen nor the gentleman---can be +excellently studied in its attitude towards holidays. The special +emblematic Employer of to-day, especially the Model Employer (who is the +worst sort) has in his starved and evil heart a sincere hatred of +holidays. I do not mean that he necessarily wants all his workmen to +work until they drop; that only occurs when he happens to be stupid as +well as wicked. I do not mean to say that he is necessarily unwilling to +grant what he would call "decent hours of labour." He may treat men like +dirt; but if you want to make money, even out of dirt, you must let it +lie fallow by some rotation of rest. He may treat men as dogs, but +unless he is a lunatic he will for certain periods let sleeping dogs +lie. + +But humane and reasonable hours for labour have nothing whatever to do +with the idea of holidays. It is not even a question of ten-hours day +and eight-hours day; it is not a question of cutting down leisure to the +space necessary for food, sleep and exercise. If the modern employer +came to the conclusion, for some reason or other, that he could get most +out of his men by working them hard for only two hours a day, his whole +mental attitude would still be foreign and hostile to holidays. For his +whole mental attitude is that the passive time and the active time are +alike useful for him and his business. All is, indeed, grist that comes +to his mill, including the millers. His slaves' still serve him in +unconsciousness, as dogs still hunt in slumber. His grist is ground not +only by the sounding wheels of iron, but by the soundless wheel of blood +and brain. His sacks are still filling silently when the doors are shut +on the streets and the sound of the grinding is low. ## The Great Holiday -Now a holiday has no connection with using a man either by -beating or feeding him. When you give a man a holiday you -give him back his body and soul. It is quite possible you -may be doing him an injury (though he seldom thinks so), but -that does not affect the question for those to whom a -holiday is holy. Immortality is the great holiday; and a -holiday, like the immortality in the old theologies, is a -double-edged privilege. But wherever it is genuine it is -simply the restoration and completion of the man. If people -ever looked at the printed word under their eye, the word -"recreation" would be like the word "resurrection," the -blast of a trumpet. - -A man, being merely useful, is necessarily incomplete, -especially if he be a modern man and means by being useful -being "utilitarian." A man going into a modern club gives up -his hat; a man going into a modern factory gives up his -head. He then goes in and works loyally for the old firm to -build up the great fabric of commerce (which can be done -without a head), but when he has done work he goes to the -cloak-room, like the man at the club, and gets his head back -again; that is the germ of the holiday. It may be urged that -the club man who leaves his hat often goes away with another -hat; and perhaps it may be the same with the factory hand -who has left his head. A hand that has lost its head may -affect the fastidious as a mixed metaphor; but, God pardon -us all, what an unmixed truth! We could almost prove the -whole case from the habit of calling human beings merely -"hands" while they are working; as if the hand were horribly -cut off, like the hand that has offended; as if, while the -sinner entered heaven maimed, his unhappy hand still -laboured laying up riches for the lords of hell. But to -return to the man whom we found waiting for his head in the -cloak-room. It may be urged, we say, that he might take the -wrong head, like the wrong hat; but here the similarity -ceases. For it has been observed by benevolent onlookers at -life's drama that the hat taken away by mistake is -frequently better than the real hat; whereas the head taken -away after the hours of toil is certainly worse: stained -with the cobwebs and dust of this dustbin of all the +Now a holiday has no connection with using a man either by beating or +feeding him. When you give a man a holiday you give him back his body +and soul. It is quite possible you may be doing him an injury (though he +seldom thinks so), but that does not affect the question for those to +whom a holiday is holy. Immortality is the great holiday; and a holiday, +like the immortality in the old theologies, is a double-edged privilege. +But wherever it is genuine it is simply the restoration and completion +of the man. If people ever looked at the printed word under their eye, +the word "recreation" would be like the word "resurrection," the blast +of a trumpet. + +A man, being merely useful, is necessarily incomplete, especially if he +be a modern man and means by being useful being "utilitarian." A man +going into a modern club gives up his hat; a man going into a modern +factory gives up his head. He then goes in and works loyally for the old +firm to build up the great fabric of commerce (which can be done without +a head), but when he has done work he goes to the cloak-room, like the +man at the club, and gets his head back again; that is the germ of the +holiday. It may be urged that the club man who leaves his hat often goes +away with another hat; and perhaps it may be the same with the factory +hand who has left his head. A hand that has lost its head may affect the +fastidious as a mixed metaphor; but, God pardon us all, what an unmixed +truth! We could almost prove the whole case from the habit of calling +human beings merely "hands" while they are working; as if the hand were +horribly cut off, like the hand that has offended; as if, while the +sinner entered heaven maimed, his unhappy hand still laboured laying up +riches for the lords of hell. But to return to the man whom we found +waiting for his head in the cloak-room. It may be urged, we say, that he +might take the wrong head, like the wrong hat; but here the similarity +ceases. For it has been observed by benevolent onlookers at life's drama +that the hat taken away by mistake is frequently better than the real +hat; whereas the head taken away after the hours of toil is certainly +worse: stained with the cobwebs and dust of this dustbin of all the centuries. ## The Supreme Adventure -All the words dedicated to places of eating and drinking are -pure and poetic words. Even the word "hotel" is the word -hospital. And St. Julien, whose claret I drank this -Christmas, was the patron saint of innkeepers, because (as -far as I can make out) he was hospitable to lepers. Now I do -not say that the ordinary hotel-keeper in Piccadilly or the -Avenue de l'Opera would embrace a leper, slap him on the -back, and ask him to order what he liked; but I do say that -hospitality is his trade virtue. And I do also say it is -well to keep before our eyes the supreme adventure of a -virtue. If you are brave, think of the man who was braver -than you. If you are kind, think of the man who was kinder +All the words dedicated to places of eating and drinking are pure and +poetic words. Even the word "hotel" is the word hospital. And +St. Julien, whose claret I drank this Christmas, was the patron saint of +innkeepers, because (as far as I can make out) he was hospitable to +lepers. Now I do not say that the ordinary hotel-keeper in Piccadilly or +the Avenue de l'Opera would embrace a leper, slap him on the back, and +ask him to order what he liked; but I do say that hospitality is his +trade virtue. And I do also say it is well to keep before our eyes the +supreme adventure of a virtue. If you are brave, think of the man who +was braver than you. If you are kind, think of the man who was kinder than you. -That is what was meant by having a patron saint. That is the -link between the poor saint who received bodily lepers and -the great hotel proprietor who (as a rule) receives -spiritual lepers. But a word yet weaker than "hotel" -illustrates the same point---the word "restaurant." There -again you have the admission that there is a definite -building or statue to "restore"; that ineffaceable image of -man that some call the image of God. And that is the -holiday; it is the restaurant or restoring thing that, by a -blast of magic, turns a man into himself. - -This complete and reconstructed man is the nightmare of the -modern capitalist. His whole scheme would crack across like -a mirror of Shallot, if once a plain man were ready for his -two plain duties---ready to live and ready to die. And that -horror of holidays which marks the modern capitalist is very -largely a horror of the vision of a whole human being: -something that is not a "hand" or a "head for figures." But -an awful creature who has met himself in the wilderness. The -employers will give time to eat, time to sleep; they are in -terror of a time to think. - -To anyone who knows any history it is wholly needless to say -that holidays have been destroyed. As Mr. Belloc, who knows -much more history than you or I, recently pointed out in the -"Pall Mall Magazine," Shakespeare's title of "Twelfth Night: -or What You Will" simply meant that a winter carnival for -everybody went on wildly till the twelfth night after -Christmas. Those of my readers who work for modern offices -or factories might ask their employers for twelve days' -holidays after Christmas. And they might let me know the -reply. +That is what was meant by having a patron saint. That is the link +between the poor saint who received bodily lepers and the great hotel +proprietor who (as a rule) receives spiritual lepers. But a word yet +weaker than "hotel" illustrates the same point---the word "restaurant." +There again you have the admission that there is a definite building or +statue to "restore"; that ineffaceable image of man that some call the +image of God. And that is the holiday; it is the restaurant or restoring +thing that, by a blast of magic, turns a man into himself. + +This complete and reconstructed man is the nightmare of the modern +capitalist. His whole scheme would crack across like a mirror of +Shallot, if once a plain man were ready for his two plain duties---ready +to live and ready to die. And that horror of holidays which marks the +modern capitalist is very largely a horror of the vision of a whole +human being: something that is not a "hand" or a "head for figures." But +an awful creature who has met himself in the wilderness. The employers +will give time to eat, time to sleep; they are in terror of a time to +think. + +To anyone who knows any history it is wholly needless to say that +holidays have been destroyed. As Mr. Belloc, who knows much more history +than you or I, recently pointed out in the "Pall Mall Magazine," +Shakespeare's title of "Twelfth Night: or What You Will" simply meant +that a winter carnival for everybody went on wildly till the twelfth +night after Christmas. Those of my readers who work for modern offices +or factories might ask their employers for twelve days' holidays after +Christmas. And they might let me know the reply. # The Church of the Servile State -I confess I cannot see why mere blasphemy by itself should -be an excuse for tyranny and treason; or how the mere -isolated fact of a man not believing in God should be a -reason for my believing in Him. - -But the rather spinsterish flutter among some of the old -Freethinkers has put one tiny ripple of truth in it; and -that affects the idea which I wish to emphasise even to -monotony in these pages. I mean the idea that the new -community which the capitalists are now constructing will be -a very complete and absolute community; and one which will -tolerate nothing really independent of itself. Now, it is -true that any positive creed, true or false, would tend to -be independent of itself. It might be Roman Catholicism or -Islam or Materialism; but, if strongly held, it would be a -thorn in the side of the Servile State. The Muslim thinks -all men immortal: the Materialist thinks all men mortal. But -the Muslim does not think the rich Sinbad will live forever; -but the poor Sinbad will die on his deathbed. The -Materialist does not think that Mr. Haeckel will go to -heaven, while all the peasants will go to pot, like their -chickens. In every serious doctrine of the destiny of men, -there is some trace of the doctrine of the equality of men. -But the capitalist really depends on some religion of -inequality. The capitalist must somehow distinguish himself -from human kind; he must be obviously above it---or he would -be obviously below it. Take even the least attractive and -popular side of the larger religions to-day; take the mere -vetoes imposed by Islam on Atheism or Catholicism. The -Muslim veto upon intoxicants cuts across all classes. But it -is absolutely necessary for the capitalist (who presides at -a Licensing Committee, and also at a large dinner), it is -absolutely necessary for *him*, to make a distinction -between gin and champagne. The Atheist veto upon all -miracles cuts across all classes. But it is absolutely -necessary for the capitalist to make a distinction between -his wife (who is an aristocrat and consults crystal gazers -and star gazers in the West End), and vulgar miracles -claimed by gipsies or travelling showmen. The Catholic veto -upon usury, as defined in dogmatic councils, cuts across all -classes. But it is absolutely necessary to the capitalist to -distinguish more delicately between two kinds of usury; the -kind he finds useful and the kind he does not find useful. -The religion of the Servile State must have no dogmas or -definitions. It cannot afford to have any definitions. For -definitions are very dreadful things: they do the two things -that most men, especially comfortable men, cannot endure. -They fight; and they fight fair. - -Every religion, apart from open devil worship, must appeal -to a virtue or the pretence of a virtue. But a virtue, -generally speaking, does some good to everybody. It is -therefore necessary to distinguish among the people it was -meant to benefit those whom it does benefit. Modern -broad-mindedness benefits the rich; and benefits nobody -else. It was meant to benefit the rich; and meant to benefit -no-body else. And if you think this unwarranted, I will put -before you one plain question. There are some pleasures of -the poor that may also mean profits for the rich: there are -other pleasures of the poor which cannot mean profits for -the rich? Watch this one contrast, and you will watch the -whole creation of a careful slavery. - -In the last resort the two things called Beer and Soap end -only in a froth. They are both below the high notice of a -real religion. But there is just this difference: that the -soap makes the factory more satisfactory, while the beer -only makes the workman more satisfied. Wait and see if the -Soap does not increase and the Beer decrease. Wait and see -whether the religion of the Servile State is not in every -case what I say: the encouragement of small virtues -supporting capitalism, the discouragement of the huge -virtues that defy it. Many great religions, Pagan and -Christian, have insisted on wine. Only one, I think, has -insisted on Soap. You will find it in the New Testament -attributed to the Pharisees. +I confess I cannot see why mere blasphemy by itself should be an excuse +for tyranny and treason; or how the mere isolated fact of a man not +believing in God should be a reason for my believing in Him. + +But the rather spinsterish flutter among some of the old Freethinkers +has put one tiny ripple of truth in it; and that affects the idea which +I wish to emphasise even to monotony in these pages. I mean the idea +that the new community which the capitalists are now constructing will +be a very complete and absolute community; and one which will tolerate +nothing really independent of itself. Now, it is true that any positive +creed, true or false, would tend to be independent of itself. It might +be Roman Catholicism or Islam or Materialism; but, if strongly held, it +would be a thorn in the side of the Servile State. The Muslim thinks all +men immortal: the Materialist thinks all men mortal. But the Muslim does +not think the rich Sinbad will live forever; but the poor Sinbad will +die on his deathbed. The Materialist does not think that Mr. Haeckel +will go to heaven, while all the peasants will go to pot, like their +chickens. In every serious doctrine of the destiny of men, there is some +trace of the doctrine of the equality of men. But the capitalist really +depends on some religion of inequality. The capitalist must somehow +distinguish himself from human kind; he must be obviously above it---or +he would be obviously below it. Take even the least attractive and +popular side of the larger religions to-day; take the mere vetoes +imposed by Islam on Atheism or Catholicism. The Muslim veto upon +intoxicants cuts across all classes. But it is absolutely necessary for +the capitalist (who presides at a Licensing Committee, and also at a +large dinner), it is absolutely necessary for *him*, to make a +distinction between gin and champagne. The Atheist veto upon all +miracles cuts across all classes. But it is absolutely necessary for the +capitalist to make a distinction between his wife (who is an aristocrat +and consults crystal gazers and star gazers in the West End), and vulgar +miracles claimed by gipsies or travelling showmen. The Catholic veto +upon usury, as defined in dogmatic councils, cuts across all classes. +But it is absolutely necessary to the capitalist to distinguish more +delicately between two kinds of usury; the kind he finds useful and the +kind he does not find useful. The religion of the Servile State must +have no dogmas or definitions. It cannot afford to have any definitions. +For definitions are very dreadful things: they do the two things that +most men, especially comfortable men, cannot endure. They fight; and +they fight fair. + +Every religion, apart from open devil worship, must appeal to a virtue +or the pretence of a virtue. But a virtue, generally speaking, does some +good to everybody. It is therefore necessary to distinguish among the +people it was meant to benefit those whom it does benefit. Modern +broad-mindedness benefits the rich; and benefits nobody else. It was +meant to benefit the rich; and meant to benefit no-body else. And if you +think this unwarranted, I will put before you one plain question. There +are some pleasures of the poor that may also mean profits for the rich: +there are other pleasures of the poor which cannot mean profits for the +rich? Watch this one contrast, and you will watch the whole creation of +a careful slavery. + +In the last resort the two things called Beer and Soap end only in a +froth. They are both below the high notice of a real religion. But there +is just this difference: that the soap makes the factory more +satisfactory, while the beer only makes the workman more satisfied. Wait +and see if the Soap does not increase and the Beer decrease. Wait and +see whether the religion of the Servile State is not in every case what +I say: the encouragement of small virtues supporting capitalism, the +discouragement of the huge virtues that defy it. Many great religions, +Pagan and Christian, have insisted on wine. Only one, I think, has +insisted on Soap. You will find it in the New Testament attributed to +the Pharisees. # Science and the Eugenists -The key fact in the new development of plutocracy is that it -will use its own blunder as an excuse for further crimes. -Everywhere the very completeness of the impoverishment will -be made a reason for the enslavement; though the men who -impoverished were the same who enslaved. It is as if a -highwayman not only took away a gentleman's horse and all -his money, but then handed him over to the police for -tramping without visible means of subsistence. And the most -monstrous feature in this enormous meanness may be noted in -the plutocratic appeal to science, or, rather, to the -pseudo-science that they call Eugenics. - -The Eugenists get the ear of the humane but rather hazy -cliques by saying that the present "conditions" under which -people work and breed are bad for the race; but the modern -mind will not generally stretch beyond one step of -reasoning, and the consequence which appears to follow on -the consideration of these "conditions" is by no means what -would originally have been expected. If somebody says: "A -rickety cradle may mean a rickety baby," the natural -deduction, one would think, would be to give the people a -good cradle, or give them money enough to buy one. But that -means higher wages and greater equalisation of wealth; and -the plutocratic scientist, with a slightly troubled -expression, turns his eyes and pince-nez in another -direction. Reduced to brutal terms of truth, his difficulty -is this and simply this: More food, leisure, and money for -the workman would mean a better workman, better even from -the point of view of anyone for whom he worked. But more -food, leisure, and money would also mean a more independent -workman. A house with a decent fire and a full pantry would -be a better house to make a chair or mend a clock in, even -from the customer's point of view, than a hovel with a leaky -roof and a cold hearth. But a house with a decent fire and a -full pantry would also be a better house in which to -*refuse* to make a chair or mend a clock---a much better -house to do nothing in---and doing nothing is sometimes one -of the highest of the duties of man. All but the -hard-hearted must be torn with pity for this pathetic -dilemma of the rich man, who has to keep the poor man just -stout enough to do the work and just thin enough to have to -do it. As he stood gazing at the leaky roof and the rickety -cradle in a pensive manner, there one day came into his mind -a new and curious idea---one of the most strange, simple, -and horrible ideas that have ever risen from the deep pit of -original sin. - -The roof could not be mended, or, at least, it could not be -mended much, without upsetting the capitalist balance, or, -rather, disproportion in society; for a man with a roof is a -man with a house, and to that extent his house is his -castle. The cradle could not be made to rock easier, or, at -least, not much easier, without strengthening the hands of -the poor household, for the hand that rocks the cradle rules -the world---to that extent. But it occurred to the -capitalist that there was one sort of furniture in the house -that could be altered. The husband and wife could be -altered. Birth costs nothing, except in pain and valour and -such old-fashioned things; and the merchant need pay no more -for mating a strong miner to a healthy fishwife than he pays -when the miner mates himself with a less robust female whom -he has the sentimentality to prefer. Thus it might be -possible, by keeping on certain broad lines of heredity, to -have some physical improvement without any moral, political, -or social improvement. It might be possible to keep a supply -of strong and healthy slaves without coddling them with -decent conditions. As the mill-owners use the wind and the -water to drive their mills, they would use this natural -force as something even cheaper; and turn their wheels by -diverting from its channel the blood of a man in his youth. -That is what Eugenics means; and that is all that it means. - -Of the moral state of those who think of such things it does -not become us to speak. The practical question is rather the -intellectual one: of whether their calculations are well -founded, and whether the men of science can or will -guarantee them any such physical certainties. Fortunately, -it becomes clearer every day that they are, scientifically -speaking, building on the shifting sand. The theory of -breeding slaves breaks down through what a democrat calls -the equality of men, but which even an oligarchist will find -himself forced to call the similarity of men. That is, that -though it is not true that all men are normal, it is -overwhelmingly certain that most men are normal. All the -common Eugenic arguments are drawn from extreme cases, -which, even if human honour and laughter allowed of their -being eliminated, would not by their elimination greatly -affect the mass. For the rest, there remains the enormous -weakness in Eugenics, that if ordinary men's judgment or -liberty is to be discounted in relation to heredity, the -judgment of the judges must be discounted in relation to -their heredity. The Eugenic professor may or may not succeed -in choosing a baby's parents; it is quite certain that he -cannot succeed in choosing his own parents. All his -thoughts, including his Eugenic thoughts, are, by the very -principle of those thoughts, flowing from a doubtful or -tainted source. In short, we should need a perfectly Wise -Man to do the thing at all. And if he were a Wise Man he -would not do it. +The key fact in the new development of plutocracy is that it will use +its own blunder as an excuse for further crimes. Everywhere the very +completeness of the impoverishment will be made a reason for the +enslavement; though the men who impoverished were the same who enslaved. +It is as if a highwayman not only took away a gentleman's horse and all +his money, but then handed him over to the police for tramping without +visible means of subsistence. And the most monstrous feature in this +enormous meanness may be noted in the plutocratic appeal to science, or, +rather, to the pseudo-science that they call Eugenics. + +The Eugenists get the ear of the humane but rather hazy cliques by +saying that the present "conditions" under which people work and breed +are bad for the race; but the modern mind will not generally stretch +beyond one step of reasoning, and the consequence which appears to +follow on the consideration of these "conditions" is by no means what +would originally have been expected. If somebody says: "A rickety cradle +may mean a rickety baby," the natural deduction, one would think, would +be to give the people a good cradle, or give them money enough to buy +one. But that means higher wages and greater equalisation of wealth; and +the plutocratic scientist, with a slightly troubled expression, turns +his eyes and pince-nez in another direction. Reduced to brutal terms of +truth, his difficulty is this and simply this: More food, leisure, and +money for the workman would mean a better workman, better even from the +point of view of anyone for whom he worked. But more food, leisure, and +money would also mean a more independent workman. A house with a decent +fire and a full pantry would be a better house to make a chair or mend a +clock in, even from the customer's point of view, than a hovel with a +leaky roof and a cold hearth. But a house with a decent fire and a full +pantry would also be a better house in which to *refuse* to make a chair +or mend a clock---a much better house to do nothing in---and doing +nothing is sometimes one of the highest of the duties of man. All but +the hard-hearted must be torn with pity for this pathetic dilemma of the +rich man, who has to keep the poor man just stout enough to do the work +and just thin enough to have to do it. As he stood gazing at the leaky +roof and the rickety cradle in a pensive manner, there one day came into +his mind a new and curious idea---one of the most strange, simple, and +horrible ideas that have ever risen from the deep pit of original sin. + +The roof could not be mended, or, at least, it could not be mended much, +without upsetting the capitalist balance, or, rather, disproportion in +society; for a man with a roof is a man with a house, and to that extent +his house is his castle. The cradle could not be made to rock easier, +or, at least, not much easier, without strengthening the hands of the +poor household, for the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world---to +that extent. But it occurred to the capitalist that there was one sort +of furniture in the house that could be altered. The husband and wife +could be altered. Birth costs nothing, except in pain and valour and +such old-fashioned things; and the merchant need pay no more for mating +a strong miner to a healthy fishwife than he pays when the miner mates +himself with a less robust female whom he has the sentimentality to +prefer. Thus it might be possible, by keeping on certain broad lines of +heredity, to have some physical improvement without any moral, +political, or social improvement. It might be possible to keep a supply +of strong and healthy slaves without coddling them with decent +conditions. As the mill-owners use the wind and the water to drive their +mills, they would use this natural force as something even cheaper; and +turn their wheels by diverting from its channel the blood of a man in +his youth. That is what Eugenics means; and that is all that it means. + +Of the moral state of those who think of such things it does not become +us to speak. The practical question is rather the intellectual one: of +whether their calculations are well founded, and whether the men of +science can or will guarantee them any such physical certainties. +Fortunately, it becomes clearer every day that they are, scientifically +speaking, building on the shifting sand. The theory of breeding slaves +breaks down through what a democrat calls the equality of men, but which +even an oligarchist will find himself forced to call the similarity of +men. That is, that though it is not true that all men are normal, it is +overwhelmingly certain that most men are normal. All the common Eugenic +arguments are drawn from extreme cases, which, even if human honour and +laughter allowed of their being eliminated, would not by their +elimination greatly affect the mass. For the rest, there remains the +enormous weakness in Eugenics, that if ordinary men's judgment or +liberty is to be discounted in relation to heredity, the judgment of the +judges must be discounted in relation to their heredity. The Eugenic +professor may or may not succeed in choosing a baby's parents; it is +quite certain that he cannot succeed in choosing his own parents. All +his thoughts, including his Eugenic thoughts, are, by the very principle +of those thoughts, flowing from a doubtful or tainted source. In short, +we should need a perfectly Wise Man to do the thing at all. And if he +were a Wise Man he would not do it. # The Evolution of the Prison -I have never understood why it is that those who talk most -about evolution, and talk it in the very age of fashionable -evolutionism, do not see the one way in which evolution -really does apply to our modern difficulty. There is, of -course, an element of evolutionism in the universe; and I -know no religion or philosophy that ever entirely ignored -it. Evolution, popularly speaking, is that which happens to -unconscious things. They grow unconsciously; or fade -unconsciously; or rather, some parts of them grow and some -parts of them fade; and at any given moment there is almost -always some presence of the fading thing, and some -incompleteness in the growing one. Thus, if I went to sleep -for a hundred years, like the Sleeping Beauty (I wish I -could), I should grow a beard---unlike the Sleeping Beauty. -And just as I should grow hair if I were asleep, I should -grow grass if I were dead. Those whose religion it was that -God was asleep were perpetually impressed and affected by -the fact that he had a long beard. And those whose -philosophy it is that the universe is dead from the -beginning (being the grave of nobody in particular) think -that is the way that grass can grow. In any case, these -developments only occur with dead or dreaming things. What -happens when everyone is asleep is called Evolution. What +I have never understood why it is that those who talk most about +evolution, and talk it in the very age of fashionable evolutionism, do +not see the one way in which evolution really does apply to our modern +difficulty. There is, of course, an element of evolutionism in the +universe; and I know no religion or philosophy that ever entirely +ignored it. Evolution, popularly speaking, is that which happens to +unconscious things. They grow unconsciously; or fade unconsciously; or +rather, some parts of them grow and some parts of them fade; and at any +given moment there is almost always some presence of the fading thing, +and some incompleteness in the growing one. Thus, if I went to sleep for +a hundred years, like the Sleeping Beauty (I wish I could), I should +grow a beard---unlike the Sleeping Beauty. And just as I should grow +hair if I were asleep, I should grow grass if I were dead. Those whose +religion it was that God was asleep were perpetually impressed and +affected by the fact that he had a long beard. And those whose +philosophy it is that the universe is dead from the beginning (being the +grave of nobody in particular) think that is the way that grass can +grow. In any case, these developments only occur with dead or dreaming +things. What happens when everyone is asleep is called Evolution. What happens when everyone is awake is called Revolution. -There was once an honest man, whose name I never knew, but -whose face I can almost see (it is framed in Victorian -whiskers and fixed in a Victorian neck-cloth), who was -balancing the achievements of France and England in -civilisation and social efficiencies. And when he came to -the religious aspect he said that there were more stone and -brick churches used in France; but, on the other hand, there -are more sects in England. Whether such a lively -disintegration is a proof of vitality in any valuable sense -I have always doubted. The sun may breed maggots in a dead -dog; but it is essential for such a liberation of life that -the dog should be unconscious or (to say the least of it) -absent-minded. Broadly speaking, you may call the thing -corruption, if you happen to like dogs. You may call it -evolution, if you happen to like maggots. In either case, it -is what happens to things if you leave them alone. +There was once an honest man, whose name I never knew, but whose face I +can almost see (it is framed in Victorian whiskers and fixed in a +Victorian neck-cloth), who was balancing the achievements of France and +England in civilisation and social efficiencies. And when he came to the +religious aspect he said that there were more stone and brick churches +used in France; but, on the other hand, there are more sects in England. +Whether such a lively disintegration is a proof of vitality in any +valuable sense I have always doubted. The sun may breed maggots in a +dead dog; but it is essential for such a liberation of life that the dog +should be unconscious or (to say the least of it) absent-minded. Broadly +speaking, you may call the thing corruption, if you happen to like dogs. +You may call it evolution, if you happen to like maggots. In either +case, it is what happens to things if you leave them alone. ## The Evolutionists' Error -Now, the modern Evolutionists have made no real use of the -idea of evolution, especially in the matter of social -prediction. They always fall into what is (from their -logical point of view) the error of supposing that evolution -knows what it is doing. They predict the State of the future -as a fruit rounded and polished. But the whole point of -evolution (the only point there is in it) is that no State -will ever be rounded and polished, because it will always -contain some organs that outlived their use, and some that -have not yet fully found theirs. If we wish to prophesy what -will happen, we must imagine things now moderate grown -enormous; things now local grown universal; things now -promising grown triumphant; primroses bigger than -sunflowers, and sparrows stalking about like flamingoes. - -In other words, we must ask what modern institution has a -future before it? What modern institution may have swollen -to six times its present size in the social heat and growth -of the future? I do not think the Garden City will grow: but -of that I may speak in my next and last article of this -series. I do not think even the ordinary Elementary School, -with its compulsory education, will grow. Too many -unlettered people hate the teacher for teaching; and too -many lettered people hate the teacher for not teaching. The -Garden City will not bear much blossom; the young idea will -not shoot, unless it shoots the teacher. But the one -flowering tree on the estate, the one natural expansion -which I think will expand, is the institution we call the -Prison. +Now, the modern Evolutionists have made no real use of the idea of +evolution, especially in the matter of social prediction. They always +fall into what is (from their logical point of view) the error of +supposing that evolution knows what it is doing. They predict the State +of the future as a fruit rounded and polished. But the whole point of +evolution (the only point there is in it) is that no State will ever be +rounded and polished, because it will always contain some organs that +outlived their use, and some that have not yet fully found theirs. If we +wish to prophesy what will happen, we must imagine things now moderate +grown enormous; things now local grown universal; things now promising +grown triumphant; primroses bigger than sunflowers, and sparrows +stalking about like flamingoes. + +In other words, we must ask what modern institution has a future before +it? What modern institution may have swollen to six times its present +size in the social heat and growth of the future? I do not think the +Garden City will grow: but of that I may speak in my next and last +article of this series. I do not think even the ordinary Elementary +School, with its compulsory education, will grow. Too many unlettered +people hate the teacher for teaching; and too many lettered people hate +the teacher for not teaching. The Garden City will not bear much +blossom; the young idea will not shoot, unless it shoots the teacher. +But the one flowering tree on the estate, the one natural expansion +which I think will expand, is the institution we call the Prison. ## Prisons for All -If the capitalists are allowed to erect their constructive -capitalist community, I speak quite seriously when I say -that I think Prison will become an almost universal -experience. It will not necessarily be a cruel or shameful -experience: on these points (I concede certainly for the -present purpose of debate) it may be a vastly improved -experience. The conditions in the prison, very possibly, -will be made more humane. But the prison will be made more -humane only in order to contain more of humanity. I think -little of the judgment and sense of humour of any man who -can have watched recent police trials without realising that -it is no longer a question of whether the law has been -broken by a crime; but, now, solely a question of whether -the situation could be mended by an imprisonment. It was so -with Tom Mann; it was so with Larkin; it was so with the -poor atheist who was kept in gaol for saying something he -had been acquitted of saying: it is so in such cases day by -day. We no longer lock a man up for doing something; we lock -him up in the hope of his doing nothing. Given this -principle, it is evidently possible to make the mere -conditions of punishment more moderate, or--(more probably) -more secret. There may really be more mercy in the Prison, -on condition that there is less justice in the Court. I -should not be surprised if, before we are done with all -this, a man was allowed to smoke in prison, on condition, of -course, that he had been put in prison for smoking. - -Now that is the process which, in the absence of democratic -protest, will certainly proceed, will increase and multiply -and replenish the earth and subdue it. Prison may even lose -its disgrace for a little time; it will be difficult to make -it disgraceful when men like Larkin can be imprisoned for no -reason at all, just as his celebrated ancestor was hanged -for no reason at all. But capitalist society, which -naturally does not know the meaning of honour, cannot know -the meaning of disgrace: and it will still go on imprisoning -for no reason at all. Or rather for that rather simple -reason that makes a cat spring or a rat run away. - -It matters little whether our masters stoop to state the -matter in the form that every prison should be a school; or -in the more candid form that every school should be a -prison. They have already fulfilled their servile principle -in the case of the schools. Everyone goes to the Elementary -Schools except the few people who tell them to go there. I -prophesy that (unless our revolt succeeds) nearly everyone -will be going to Prison, with a precisely similar patience. +If the capitalists are allowed to erect their constructive capitalist +community, I speak quite seriously when I say that I think Prison will +become an almost universal experience. It will not necessarily be a +cruel or shameful experience: on these points (I concede certainly for +the present purpose of debate) it may be a vastly improved experience. +The conditions in the prison, very possibly, will be made more humane. +But the prison will be made more humane only in order to contain more of +humanity. I think little of the judgment and sense of humour of any man +who can have watched recent police trials without realising that it is +no longer a question of whether the law has been broken by a crime; but, +now, solely a question of whether the situation could be mended by an +imprisonment. It was so with Tom Mann; it was so with Larkin; it was so +with the poor atheist who was kept in gaol for saying something he had +been acquitted of saying: it is so in such cases day by day. We no +longer lock a man up for doing something; we lock him up in the hope of +his doing nothing. Given this principle, it is evidently possible to +make the mere conditions of punishment more moderate, or--(more +probably) more secret. There may really be more mercy in the Prison, on +condition that there is less justice in the Court. I should not be +surprised if, before we are done with all this, a man was allowed to +smoke in prison, on condition, of course, that he had been put in prison +for smoking. + +Now that is the process which, in the absence of democratic protest, +will certainly proceed, will increase and multiply and replenish the +earth and subdue it. Prison may even lose its disgrace for a little +time; it will be difficult to make it disgraceful when men like Larkin +can be imprisoned for no reason at all, just as his celebrated ancestor +was hanged for no reason at all. But capitalist society, which naturally +does not know the meaning of honour, cannot know the meaning of +disgrace: and it will still go on imprisoning for no reason at all. Or +rather for that rather simple reason that makes a cat spring or a rat +run away. + +It matters little whether our masters stoop to state the matter in the +form that every prison should be a school; or in the more candid form +that every school should be a prison. They have already fulfilled their +servile principle in the case of the schools. Everyone goes to the +Elementary Schools except the few people who tell them to go there. I +prophesy that (unless our revolt succeeds) nearly everyone will be going +to Prison, with a precisely similar patience. # The Lash for Labour -If I were to prophesy that two hundred years hence a grocer -would have the right and habit of beating the grocer's -assistant with a stick, or that shop girls might be flogged, -as they already can be fined, many would regard it as rather -a rash remark. It would be a rash remark. Prophecy is always -unreliable; unless we except the kind which is avowedly -irrational, mystical and supernatural prophecy. But -relatively to nearly all the other prophecies that are being -made around me to-day, I should say my prediction stood an -exceptionally good chance. In short, I think the grocer with -the stick is a figure we are far more likely to see than the -Superman or the Samurai, or the True Model Employer, or the -Perfect Fabian Official, or the citizen of the Collectivist -State. And it is best for us to see the full ugliness of the -transformation which is passing over our Society in some -such abrupt and even grotesque image at the end of it. The -beginnings of a decline, in every age of history, have -always had the appearance of being reforms. Nero not only -fiddled while Rome was burning, but he probably really paid -more attention to the fiddle than to the fire. The Roi -Soleil, like many other *soleils*, was most splendid to all -appearance a little before sunset. And if I ask myself what -will be the ultimate and final fruit of all our social -reforms, garden cities, model employers, insurances, -exchanges, arbitration courts, and so on, then, I say, quite -seriously, "I think it will be labour under the lash." +If I were to prophesy that two hundred years hence a grocer would have +the right and habit of beating the grocer's assistant with a stick, or +that shop girls might be flogged, as they already can be fined, many +would regard it as rather a rash remark. It would be a rash remark. +Prophecy is always unreliable; unless we except the kind which is +avowedly irrational, mystical and supernatural prophecy. But relatively +to nearly all the other prophecies that are being made around me to-day, +I should say my prediction stood an exceptionally good chance. In short, +I think the grocer with the stick is a figure we are far more likely to +see than the Superman or the Samurai, or the True Model Employer, or the +Perfect Fabian Official, or the citizen of the Collectivist State. And +it is best for us to see the full ugliness of the transformation which +is passing over our Society in some such abrupt and even grotesque image +at the end of it. The beginnings of a decline, in every age of history, +have always had the appearance of being reforms. Nero not only fiddled +while Rome was burning, but he probably really paid more attention to +the fiddle than to the fire. The Roi Soleil, like many other *soleils*, +was most splendid to all appearance a little before sunset. And if I ask +myself what will be the ultimate and final fruit of all our social +reforms, garden cities, model employers, insurances, exchanges, +arbitration courts, and so on, then, I say, quite seriously, "I think it +will be labour under the lash." ## The Sultan and the Sack -Let us arrange in some order a number of converging -considerations that all point in this direction. (1) It is -broadly true, no doubt, that the weapon of the employer has -hitherto been the threat of dismissal, that is, the threat -of enforced starvation. He is a Sultan who need not order -the bastinado, so long as he can order the sack. But there -are not a few signs that this weapon is not quite so -convenient and flexible a one as his increasing rapacities -require. The fact of the introduction of fines, secretly or -openly, in many shops and factories, proves that it is -convenient for the capitalists to have some temporary and -adjustable form of punishment besides the final punishment -of pure ruin. Nor is it difficult to see the common-sense of -this from their wholly inhuman point of view. The act of -sacking a man is attended with the same disadvantages as the -act of shooting a man: one of which is that you can get no -more out of him. It is, I am told, distinctly annoying to -blow a fellow creature's brains out with a revolver and then -suddenly remember that he was the only person who knew where -to get the best Russian cigarettes. So our Sultan, who is -the orderer of the sack, is also the bearer of the -bow-string. A school in which there was no punishment, -except expulsion, would be a school in which it would be -very difficult to keep proper discipline; and the sort of -discipline on which the reformed capitalism will insist will -be all of the type which in free nations is imposed only on -children. Such a school would probably be in a chronic -condition of breaking up for the holidays. And the reasons -for the insufficiency of this extreme instrument are also -varied and evident. The materialistic Sociologists, who talk -about the survival of the fittest and the weakest going to -the wall (and whose way of looking at the world is to put on -the latest and most powerful scientific spectacles, and then -shut their eyes), frequently talk as if a workman were -simply efficient or non-efficient, as if a criminal were -reclaimable or irreclaimable. The employers have sense -enough at least to know better than that. They can see that -a servant may be useful in one way and exasperating in -another; that he may be bad in one part of his work and good -in another; that he may be occasionally drunk and yet -generally indispensable. Just as a practical school-master -would know that a schoolboy can be at once the plague and -the pride of the school. Under these circumstances small and -varying penalties are obviously the most convenient things -for the person keeping order; an underling can be punished -for coming late, and yet do useful work when he comes. It -will be possible to give a rap over the knuckles without -wholly cutting off the right hand that has offended. Under -these circumstances the employers have naturally resorted to -fines. But there is a further ground for believing that the -process will go beyond fines before it is completed. - -\(2\) The fine is based on the old European idea that -everybody possesses private property in some reasonable -degree; but not only is this not true to-day, but it is not -being made any truer, even by those who honestly believe -that they are mending matters. The great employers will -often do something towards improving what they call the -"conditions" of their workers; but a worker might have his -conditions as carefully arranged as a racehorse has, and -still have no more personal property than a racehorse. If -you take an average poor seamstress or factory girl, you -will find that the power of chastising her through her -property has very considerable limits; it is almost as hard -for the employer of labour to tax her for punishment as it -is for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to tax her for -revenue. The next most obvious thing to think of, of course, -would be imprisonment, and that might be effective enough -under simpler conditions. An old-fashioned shop-keeper might -have locked up his apprentice in his coal-cellar; but his -coal-cellar would be a real, pitch dark coal-cellar, and the -rest of his house would be a real human house. Everybody -(especially the apprentice) would see a most perceptible -difference between the two. But, as I pointed out in the -article before this, the whole tendency of the capitalist -legislation and experiment is to make imprisonment much more -general and automatic, while making it, or professing to -make it, more humane. In other words, the hygienic prison -and the servile factory will become so uncommonly like each -other that the poor man will hardly know or care whether he -is at the moment expiating an offence or merely swelling a -dividend. In both places there will be the same sort of -shiny tiles. In neither place will there be any cell so -unwholesome as a coal-cellar or so wholesome as a home. The -weapon of the prison, therefore, like the weapon of the +Let us arrange in some order a number of converging considerations that +all point in this direction. (1) It is broadly true, no doubt, that the +weapon of the employer has hitherto been the threat of dismissal, that +is, the threat of enforced starvation. He is a Sultan who need not order +the bastinado, so long as he can order the sack. But there are not a few +signs that this weapon is not quite so convenient and flexible a one as +his increasing rapacities require. The fact of the introduction of +fines, secretly or openly, in many shops and factories, proves that it +is convenient for the capitalists to have some temporary and adjustable +form of punishment besides the final punishment of pure ruin. Nor is it +difficult to see the common-sense of this from their wholly inhuman +point of view. The act of sacking a man is attended with the same +disadvantages as the act of shooting a man: one of which is that you can +get no more out of him. It is, I am told, distinctly annoying to blow a +fellow creature's brains out with a revolver and then suddenly remember +that he was the only person who knew where to get the best Russian +cigarettes. So our Sultan, who is the orderer of the sack, is also the +bearer of the bow-string. A school in which there was no punishment, +except expulsion, would be a school in which it would be very difficult +to keep proper discipline; and the sort of discipline on which the +reformed capitalism will insist will be all of the type which in free +nations is imposed only on children. Such a school would probably be in +a chronic condition of breaking up for the holidays. And the reasons for +the insufficiency of this extreme instrument are also varied and +evident. The materialistic Sociologists, who talk about the survival of +the fittest and the weakest going to the wall (and whose way of looking +at the world is to put on the latest and most powerful scientific +spectacles, and then shut their eyes), frequently talk as if a workman +were simply efficient or non-efficient, as if a criminal were +reclaimable or irreclaimable. The employers have sense enough at least +to know better than that. They can see that a servant may be useful in +one way and exasperating in another; that he may be bad in one part of +his work and good in another; that he may be occasionally drunk and yet +generally indispensable. Just as a practical school-master would know +that a schoolboy can be at once the plague and the pride of the school. +Under these circumstances small and varying penalties are obviously the +most convenient things for the person keeping order; an underling can be +punished for coming late, and yet do useful work when he comes. It will +be possible to give a rap over the knuckles without wholly cutting off +the right hand that has offended. Under these circumstances the +employers have naturally resorted to fines. But there is a further +ground for believing that the process will go beyond fines before it is +completed. + +\(2\) The fine is based on the old European idea that everybody +possesses private property in some reasonable degree; but not only is +this not true to-day, but it is not being made any truer, even by those +who honestly believe that they are mending matters. The great employers +will often do something towards improving what they call the +"conditions" of their workers; but a worker might have his conditions as +carefully arranged as a racehorse has, and still have no more personal +property than a racehorse. If you take an average poor seamstress or +factory girl, you will find that the power of chastising her through her +property has very considerable limits; it is almost as hard for the +employer of labour to tax her for punishment as it is for the Chancellor +of the Exchequer to tax her for revenue. The next most obvious thing to +think of, of course, would be imprisonment, and that might be effective +enough under simpler conditions. An old-fashioned shop-keeper might have +locked up his apprentice in his coal-cellar; but his coal-cellar would +be a real, pitch dark coal-cellar, and the rest of his house would be a +real human house. Everybody (especially the apprentice) would see a most +perceptible difference between the two. But, as I pointed out in the +article before this, the whole tendency of the capitalist legislation +and experiment is to make imprisonment much more general and automatic, +while making it, or professing to make it, more humane. In other words, +the hygienic prison and the servile factory will become so uncommonly +like each other that the poor man will hardly know or care whether he is +at the moment expiating an offence or merely swelling a dividend. In +both places there will be the same sort of shiny tiles. In neither place +will there be any cell so unwholesome as a coal-cellar or so wholesome +as a home. The weapon of the prison, therefore, like the weapon of the fine, will be found to have considerable limitations to its -effectiveness when employed against the wretched reduced -citizen of our day. Whether it be property or liberty you -cannot take from him what he has not got. You cannot -imprison a slave, because you cannot enslave a slave. +effectiveness when employed against the wretched reduced citizen of our +day. Whether it be property or liberty you cannot take from him what he +has not got. You cannot imprison a slave, because you cannot enslave a +slave. ## The Barbarous Revival -\(3\) Most people, on hearing the suggestion that it may -come to corporal punishment at last (as it did in every -slave system I ever heard of, including some that were -generally kindly, and even successful), will merely be -struck with horror and incredulity, and feel that such a -barbarous revival is unthinkable in the modern atmosphere. -How far it will be, or need be, a revival of the actual -images and methods of ruder times I will discuss in a -moment. But first, as another of the converging lines -tending to corporal punishment, consider this: that for some -reason or other the old full-blooded and masculine -humanitarianism in this matter has weakened and fallen -silent; it has weakened and fallen silent in a very curious -manner, the precise reason for which I do not altogether -understand. I knew the average Liberal, the average -Nonconformist minister, the average Labour Member, the -average middle-class Socialist, were, with all their good -qualities, very deficient in what I consider a respect for -the human soul. But I did imagine that they had the ordinary -modern respect for the human body. The fact, however, is -clear and incontrovertible. In spite of the horror of all -humane people, in spite of the hesitation even of our -corrupt and panic-stricken Parliament, measures can now be -triumphantly passed for spreading or increasing the use of -physical torture, and for applying it to the newest and -vaguest categories of crime. Thirty or forty years ago, nay, -twenty years ago, when Mr. F. Hugh O'Donnell and others -forced a Liberal Government to drop the cat-'o-nine-tails -like a scorpion, we could have counted on a mass of honest -hatred of such things. We cannot count on it now. - -\(4\) But lastly, it is not necessary that in the factories -of the future the institution of physical punishment should -actually *remind* people of the jambok or the knout. It -could easily be developed out of the many forms of physical -discipline which are already used by employers on the -excuses of education or hygiene. Already in some factories -girls are obliged to swim whether they like it or not, or do -gymnastics whether they like it or not. By a simple -extension of hours or complication of exercises a pair of -Swedish clubs could easily be so used as to leave their -victim as exhausted as one who had come off the rack. I -think it extremely likely that they will be. +\(3\) Most people, on hearing the suggestion that it may come to +corporal punishment at last (as it did in every slave system I ever +heard of, including some that were generally kindly, and even +successful), will merely be struck with horror and incredulity, and feel +that such a barbarous revival is unthinkable in the modern atmosphere. +How far it will be, or need be, a revival of the actual images and +methods of ruder times I will discuss in a moment. But first, as another +of the converging lines tending to corporal punishment, consider this: +that for some reason or other the old full-blooded and masculine +humanitarianism in this matter has weakened and fallen silent; it has +weakened and fallen silent in a very curious manner, the precise reason +for which I do not altogether understand. I knew the average Liberal, +the average Nonconformist minister, the average Labour Member, the +average middle-class Socialist, were, with all their good qualities, +very deficient in what I consider a respect for the human soul. But I +did imagine that they had the ordinary modern respect for the human +body. The fact, however, is clear and incontrovertible. In spite of the +horror of all humane people, in spite of the hesitation even of our +corrupt and panic-stricken Parliament, measures can now be triumphantly +passed for spreading or increasing the use of physical torture, and for +applying it to the newest and vaguest categories of crime. Thirty or +forty years ago, nay, twenty years ago, when Mr. F. Hugh O'Donnell and +others forced a Liberal Government to drop the cat-'o-nine-tails like a +scorpion, we could have counted on a mass of honest hatred of such +things. We cannot count on it now. + +\(4\) But lastly, it is not necessary that in the factories of the +future the institution of physical punishment should actually *remind* +people of the jambok or the knout. It could easily be developed out of +the many forms of physical discipline which are already used by +employers on the excuses of education or hygiene. Already in some +factories girls are obliged to swim whether they like it or not, or do +gymnastics whether they like it or not. By a simple extension of hours +or complication of exercises a pair of Swedish clubs could easily be so +used as to leave their victim as exhausted as one who had come off the +rack. I think it extremely likely that they will be. # The Mask of Socialism -The chief aim of all honest Socialists just now is to -prevent the coming of Socialism. I do not say it as a sneer, -but, on the contrary, as a compliment; a compliment to their -political instinct and public spirit. I admit it may be -called an exaggeration; but there really is a sort of sham -Socialism that the modern politicians may quite possibly -agree to set up; if they do succeed in setting it up, the -battle for the poor is lost. - -We must note, first of all, a general truth about the -curious time we live in. It will not be so difficult as some -people may suppose to make the Servile State *look* rather -like Socialism, especially to the more pedantic kind of -Socialist. The reason is this. The old lucid and trenchant -expounder of Socialism, such as Blatchford or Fred -Henderson, always describes the economic power of the -plutocrats as consisting in private property. Of course, in -a sense, this is quite true; though they too often miss the -point that private property, as such, is not the same as -property confined to the few. But the truth is that the -situation has grown much more subtle; perhaps too subtle, -not to say too insane, for straight-thinking theorists like -Blatchford. The rich man to-day does not only rule by using -private property; he also rules by treating public property -as if it were private property. A man like Lord Murray -pulled the strings, especially the purse-strings; but the -whole point of his position was that all sorts of strings -had got entangled. The secret strength of the money he held -did not lie merely in the fact that it was his money. It lay -precisely in the fact that nobody had any clear idea of -whether it was his money, or his successor's money, or his -brother's money, or the Marconi Company's money, or the -Liberal Party's money, or the English Nation's money. It was -buried treasure; but it was not private property. It was the -acme of plutocracy because it was not private property. Now, -by following this precedent, this unprincipled vagueness -about official and unofficial moneys by the cheerful habit -of always mixing up the money in the pocket with the money -in the till, it would be quite possible to keep the rich as -rich as ever in practice, though they might have suffered -confiscation in theory. Mr. Lloyd George has four hundred a -year as an M. P.; but he not only gets much more as a -Minister, but he might at any time get immeasurably more by -speculating on State secrets that are necessarily known to -him. Some say that he has even attempted something of the -kind. Now, it would be quite possible to cut Mr. George -down, not to four hundred a year, but to fourpence a day; +The chief aim of all honest Socialists just now is to prevent the coming +of Socialism. I do not say it as a sneer, but, on the contrary, as a +compliment; a compliment to their political instinct and public spirit. +I admit it may be called an exaggeration; but there really is a sort of +sham Socialism that the modern politicians may quite possibly agree to +set up; if they do succeed in setting it up, the battle for the poor is +lost. + +We must note, first of all, a general truth about the curious time we +live in. It will not be so difficult as some people may suppose to make +the Servile State *look* rather like Socialism, especially to the more +pedantic kind of Socialist. The reason is this. The old lucid and +trenchant expounder of Socialism, such as Blatchford or Fred Henderson, +always describes the economic power of the plutocrats as consisting in +private property. Of course, in a sense, this is quite true; though they +too often miss the point that private property, as such, is not the same +as property confined to the few. But the truth is that the situation has +grown much more subtle; perhaps too subtle, not to say too insane, for +straight-thinking theorists like Blatchford. The rich man to-day does +not only rule by using private property; he also rules by treating +public property as if it were private property. A man like Lord Murray +pulled the strings, especially the purse-strings; but the whole point of +his position was that all sorts of strings had got entangled. The secret +strength of the money he held did not lie merely in the fact that it was +his money. It lay precisely in the fact that nobody had any clear idea +of whether it was his money, or his successor's money, or his brother's +money, or the Marconi Company's money, or the Liberal Party's money, or +the English Nation's money. It was buried treasure; but it was not +private property. It was the acme of plutocracy because it was not +private property. Now, by following this precedent, this unprincipled +vagueness about official and unofficial moneys by the cheerful habit of +always mixing up the money in the pocket with the money in the till, it +would be quite possible to keep the rich as rich as ever in practice, +though they might have suffered confiscation in theory. Mr. Lloyd George +has four hundred a year as an M. P.; but he not only gets much more as a +Minister, but he might at any time get immeasurably more by speculating +on State secrets that are necessarily known to him. Some say that he has +even attempted something of the kind. Now, it would be quite possible to +cut Mr. George down, not to four hundred a year, but to fourpence a day; and still leave him all these other and enormous financial -superiorities. It must be remembered that a Socialist State, -in any way resembling a modern State, must, however -egalitarian it may be, have the handling of huge sums, and -the enjoyment of large conveniences; it is not improbable -that the same men will handle and enjoy in much the same -manner, though in theory they are doing it as instruments, -and not as individuals. For instance, the Prime Minister has -a private house, which is also (I grieve to inform that -eminent Puritan) a public house. It is supposed to be a sort -of Government office; though people do not generally give -children's parties, or go to bed in a Government office. I -do not know where Mr. Herbert Samuel lives; but I have no -doubt he does himself well in the matter of decoration and -furniture. On the existing official parallel there is no -need to move any of these things in order to Socialise them. -There is no need to withdraw one diamond-headed nail from -the carpet; or one golden teaspoon from the tray. It is only -necessary to call it an official residence, like 10 -Downing-street. I think it is not at all improbable that -this Plutocracy, pretending to be a Bureaucracy, will be -attempted or achieved. Our wealthy rulers will be in the -position which grumblers in the world of sport sometimes -attribute to some of the "gentlemen" players. They assert -that some of these are paid like any professional; only -their pay is called their expenses. This system might run -side by side with a theory of equal wages, as absolute as -that once laid down by Mr. Bernard Shaw. By the theory of -the State, Mr. Herbert Samuel and Mr. Lloyd George might be -humble citizens, drudging for their four-pence a day; and no -better off than porters and coal-heavers. If there were -presented to our mere senses what appeared to be the form of -Mr. Herbert Samuel in an astrakhan coat and a motor-car, we -should find the record of the expenditure (if we could find -it at all) under the heading of "Speed Limit Extension -Enquiry Commission." If it fell to our lot to behold (with -the eye of flesh) what seemed to be Mr. Lloyd George lying -in a hammock and smoking a costly cigar, we should know that -the expenditure would be divided between the "Condition of -Rope and Netting Investigation Department," and the "State -of Cuban Tobacco Trade: Imperial Inspector's Report." Such -is the society I think they will build unless we can knock -it down as fast as they build it. Everything in it, -tolerable or intolerable, will have but one use; and that -use what our ancestors used to call usance or usury. Its art -may be good or bad, but it will be an advertisement for -usurers; its literature may be good or bad, but it will -appeal to the patronage of usurers; its scientific selection -will select according to the needs of usurers; its religion -will be just charitable enough to pardon usurers; its penal -system will be just cruel enough to crush all the critics of -usurers: the truth of it will be Slavery: and the title of -it may quite possibly be Socialism. +superiorities. It must be remembered that a Socialist State, in any way +resembling a modern State, must, however egalitarian it may be, have the +handling of huge sums, and the enjoyment of large conveniences; it is +not improbable that the same men will handle and enjoy in much the same +manner, though in theory they are doing it as instruments, and not as +individuals. For instance, the Prime Minister has a private house, which +is also (I grieve to inform that eminent Puritan) a public house. It is +supposed to be a sort of Government office; though people do not +generally give children's parties, or go to bed in a Government office. +I do not know where Mr. Herbert Samuel lives; but I have no doubt he +does himself well in the matter of decoration and furniture. On the +existing official parallel there is no need to move any of these things +in order to Socialise them. There is no need to withdraw one +diamond-headed nail from the carpet; or one golden teaspoon from the +tray. It is only necessary to call it an official residence, like 10 +Downing-street. I think it is not at all improbable that this +Plutocracy, pretending to be a Bureaucracy, will be attempted or +achieved. Our wealthy rulers will be in the position which grumblers in +the world of sport sometimes attribute to some of the "gentlemen" +players. They assert that some of these are paid like any professional; +only their pay is called their expenses. This system might run side by +side with a theory of equal wages, as absolute as that once laid down by +Mr. Bernard Shaw. By the theory of the State, Mr. Herbert Samuel and +Mr. Lloyd George might be humble citizens, drudging for their four-pence +a day; and no better off than porters and coal-heavers. If there were +presented to our mere senses what appeared to be the form of Mr. Herbert +Samuel in an astrakhan coat and a motor-car, we should find the record +of the expenditure (if we could find it at all) under the heading of +"Speed Limit Extension Enquiry Commission." If it fell to our lot to +behold (with the eye of flesh) what seemed to be Mr. Lloyd George lying +in a hammock and smoking a costly cigar, we should know that the +expenditure would be divided between the "Condition of Rope and Netting +Investigation Department," and the "State of Cuban Tobacco Trade: +Imperial Inspector's Report." Such is the society I think they will +build unless we can knock it down as fast as they build it. Everything +in it, tolerable or intolerable, will have but one use; and that use +what our ancestors used to call usance or usury. Its art may be good or +bad, but it will be an advertisement for usurers; its literature may be +good or bad, but it will appeal to the patronage of usurers; its +scientific selection will select according to the needs of usurers; its +religion will be just charitable enough to pardon usurers; its penal +system will be just cruel enough to crush all the critics of usurers: +the truth of it will be Slavery: and the title of it may quite possibly +be Socialism. diff --git a/src/what-christian-may.md b/src/what-christian-may.md index 58482a8..fca3cdb 100644 --- a/src/what-christian-may.md +++ b/src/what-christian-may.md @@ -1,118 +1,103 @@ -One thousand eight hundred and eighty years ago a new law -was revealed to men by Jesus Christ. By His life and His -death Christ showed to men what he who wants to be His -disciple, a Christian, may do, and what not. - -According to Christ's teaching, the sons of the Father are -free (Matthew 17:26), for they know the truth, and the truth -shall make them free (John 8:32). Christ's teaching was -then, even as it is now, contrary to the teaching of the -world. According to the teaching of the world, the powers -govern the nations, and, to govern them, compel some people -to kill, execute, punish others, and to swear that they will -in everything do the will of the rulers. According to -Christ's teaching, a man not only cannot kill another, but -even cannot do violence to him, or resist him with force: he -can not do evil to his neighbour, nor even to his enemy. - -The teaching of the world and of Christ have always been and -always will be opposed to each other. Christ knew this, and -said this to His disciples, and predicted to them that He -Himself would suffer and that they, too, would be delivered -to be afflicted and killed (Matthew 24:9), and that the -world would hate them, because they would not be the +One thousand eight hundred and eighty years ago a new law was revealed +to men by Jesus Christ. By His life and His death Christ showed to men +what he who wants to be His disciple, a Christian, may do, and what not. + +According to Christ's teaching, the sons of the Father are free (Matthew +17:26), for they know the truth, and the truth shall make them free +(John 8:32). Christ's teaching was then, even as it is now, contrary to +the teaching of the world. According to the teaching of the world, the +powers govern the nations, and, to govern them, compel some people to +kill, execute, punish others, and to swear that they will in everything +do the will of the rulers. According to Christ's teaching, a man not +only cannot kill another, but even cannot do violence to him, or resist +him with force: he can not do evil to his neighbour, nor even to his +enemy. + +The teaching of the world and of Christ have always been and always will +be opposed to each other. Christ knew this, and said this to His +disciples, and predicted to them that He Himself would suffer and that +they, too, would be delivered to be afflicted and killed (Matthew 24:9), +and that the world would hate them, because they would not be the servants of the world, but of the Father (John 15:19,20). -And everything came to pass as Jesus had predicted. The -world hated Him and tried to ruin Him. All, the Pharisees, -and the Sadducees, and the scribes, and the Herodians, -rebuked Him for being an enemy to Caesar, for prohibiting -men from paying tribute to him, for disturbing and -corrupting the world. They said that He was an evildoer, -that He made Himself a king, and so was an enemy of Caesar -(John 19:12). - -Even before He was delivered up to be put to death, they, -watching Him, sent cunning men up to Him, to catch Him in -some utterance, so as to dehver Him up to the authorities -and the power of the ruler. And they asked Him: - -Master, we know that Thou art true, and teachest the way of -God in truth, neither carest Thou for any man: for Thou -regardest not the person of men. Tell us therefore, What -thinkest Thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or -not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why -tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the tribute money. And -they brought unto Him a penny. And He saith unto them. Whose -is this image and superscription? They say unto Him, -Csesar's. Then saith He unto them, Eender therefore unto -Csesar the things which are Csesar's; and unto God the -things that are God's. When they had heard these words, they -marvelled at His answer, and grew silent. - -They had expected Him to say, either that it is lawful and -necessary to pay tribute to Csesar, and that thus He would -destroy His whole teaching about the sons being free, about -a man being obliged to hve Hke the birds of the air, not -caring for the morrow, and many similar things; or that He -would say that it is not lawful to pay tribute to Csesar, -and that thus He would show Himself to be an enemy to -Caesar. But Christ said. Unto Caesar the things which are -Caesar's, and unto God the things which are God's. He said -more than they had expected of Him. He defined everything, -dividing everything a man has into two parts,---into the -human and the divine, and said that what is man's may be -given to man, and what is God's cannot be given to man, but -only to God; and what both God and Csesar claim ought to be -given to God. - -With these words He told them that if a man believes in the -law of God, he can fulfil Ccesar's law only when it is not -contrary to God's. For the Pharisees, who did not know the -truth, there still existed a law of God which they would not -have transgressed, even if Caesar's law demanded it of them. -They would not have departed from circumcision, from the -observance of the Sabbath, from fasting and from many other -things. If Caesar had demanded of them work on a Sabbath, -they would have said: "To Caesar belong all days, but not -the Sabbath." The same is true of circumcision and of other -things. - -Christ showed them with His answer that God's law stood -higher than Caesar's, and that a man can give to Caesar only -what is not contrary to God's law. - -Now, what is for Christ and for His disciples Caesar's, and -what God's? - -One is horrified to think of the answer to this question, -which one may hear from Christians of our time! God's, in -the opinion of our Christians, never interferes with -Caesar's, and Caesar's is always in agreement with God's. -The whole life is given up to the service of Caesar, and -only what does not interfere with Caesar is turned over to +And everything came to pass as Jesus had predicted. The world hated Him +and tried to ruin Him. All, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees, and the +scribes, and the Herodians, rebuked Him for being an enemy to Caesar, +for prohibiting men from paying tribute to him, for disturbing and +corrupting the world. They said that He was an evildoer, that He made +Himself a king, and so was an enemy of Caesar (John 19:12). + +Even before He was delivered up to be put to death, they, watching Him, +sent cunning men up to Him, to catch Him in some utterance, so as to +dehver Him up to the authorities and the power of the ruler. And they +asked Him: + +Master, we know that Thou art true, and teachest the way of God in +truth, neither carest Thou for any man: for Thou regardest not the +person of men. Tell us therefore, What thinkest Thou? Is it lawful to +give tribute unto Caesar, or not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness, +and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the tribute money. And +they brought unto Him a penny. And He saith unto them. Whose is this +image and superscription? They say unto Him, Csesar's. Then saith He +unto them, Eender therefore unto Csesar the things which are Csesar's; +and unto God the things that are God's. When they had heard these words, +they marvelled at His answer, and grew silent. + +They had expected Him to say, either that it is lawful and necessary to +pay tribute to Csesar, and that thus He would destroy His whole teaching +about the sons being free, about a man being obliged to hve Hke the +birds of the air, not caring for the morrow, and many similar things; or +that He would say that it is not lawful to pay tribute to Csesar, and +that thus He would show Himself to be an enemy to Caesar. But Christ +said. Unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things +which are God's. He said more than they had expected of Him. He defined +everything, dividing everything a man has into two parts,---into the +human and the divine, and said that what is man's may be given to man, +and what is God's cannot be given to man, but only to God; and what both +God and Csesar claim ought to be given to God. + +With these words He told them that if a man believes in the law of God, +he can fulfil Ccesar's law only when it is not contrary to God's. For +the Pharisees, who did not know the truth, there still existed a law of +God which they would not have transgressed, even if Caesar's law +demanded it of them. They would not have departed from circumcision, +from the observance of the Sabbath, from fasting and from many other +things. If Caesar had demanded of them work on a Sabbath, they would +have said: "To Caesar belong all days, but not the Sabbath." The same is +true of circumcision and of other things. + +Christ showed them with His answer that God's law stood higher than +Caesar's, and that a man can give to Caesar only what is not contrary to +God's law. + +Now, what is for Christ and for His disciples Caesar's, and what God's? + +One is horrified to think of the answer to this question, which one may +hear from Christians of our time! God's, in the opinion of our +Christians, never interferes with Caesar's, and Caesar's is always in +agreement with God's. The whole life is given up to the service of +Caesar, and only what does not interfere with Caesar is turned over to God. Not so did Christ understand it. -For Christ the whole life is God's business, and what is not -God's may be given to Caesar. +For Christ the whole life is God's business, and what is not God's may +be given to Caesar. -"Unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the -things which are God's." +"Unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things +which are God's." What is Caesar's? The coin,---what is carnal,---not yours. -Give, then, everything carnal to him who will take it; but -your Life, which you have received from God, is all God's. -This cannot be given to any one but God, because man's life, -according to Christ's teaching, is the service of God -(Matthew 4:10), and one cannot serve two masters (Matthew -6:24). +Give, then, everything carnal to him who will take it; but your Life, +which you have received from God, is all God's. This cannot be given to +any one but God, because man's life, according to Christ's teaching, is +the service of God (Matthew 4:10), and one cannot serve two masters +(Matthew 6:24). -Everything carnal a man must give to somebody, and so may -give also to Caesar; but he cannot serve anybody but God. +Everything carnal a man must give to somebody, and so may give also to +Caesar; but he cannot serve anybody but God. -If men believed in Christ's teaching, in the teaching of -love, they could not lose all the divine laws revealed by -Christ, in order to fulfil the laws of Caesar. +If men believed in Christ's teaching, in the teaching of love, they +could not lose all the divine laws revealed by Christ, in order to +fulfil the laws of Caesar. *1887.* diff --git a/src/whats-wrong.md b/src/whats-wrong.md index 94e05ee..8963eec 100644 --- a/src/whats-wrong.md +++ b/src/whats-wrong.md @@ -4,46 +4,40 @@ **My Dear Charles,** -I originally called this book "What is Wrong," and it would -have satisfied your sardonic temper to note the number of -social misunderstandings that arose from the use of the -title. Many a mild lady visitor opened her eyes when I -remarked casually, "I have been doing 'What is Wrong' all -this morning." And one minister of religion moved quite -sharply in his chair when I told him (as he understood it) -that I had to run upstairs and do what was wrong, but should -be down again in a minute. Exactly of what occult vice they -silently accused me I cannot conjecture, but I know of what -I accuse myself; and that is, of having written a very -shapeless and inadequate book, and one quite unworthy to be -dedicated to you. As far as literature goes, this book is -what is wrong, and no mistake. - -It may seem a refinement of insolence to present so wild a -composition to one who has recorded two or three of the -really impressive visions of the moving millions of England. -You are the only man alive who can make the map of England -crawl with life; a most creepy and enviable, accomplishment. -Why then should I trouble you with a book which, even if it -achieves its object (which is monstrously unlikely) can only -be a thundering gallop of theory? - -Well, I do it partly because I think you politicians are -none the worse for a few inconvenient ideals; but more -because you will recognise the many arguments we have had; -those arguments which the most wonderful ladies in the world -can never endure for very long. And, perhaps, you will agree -with me that the thread of comradeship and conversation must -be protected because it is so frivolous. It must be held -sacred, it must not be snapped, because it is not worth -tying together again. It is exactly because argument is idle -that men (I mean males) must take it seriously; for when (we -feel), until the crack of doom, shall we have so delightful -a difference again? But most of all I offer it to you -because there exists not only comradeship, but a very -different thing, called friendship; an agreement under all -the arguments and a thread which, please God, will never -break. +I originally called this book "What is Wrong," and it would have +satisfied your sardonic temper to note the number of social +misunderstandings that arose from the use of the title. Many a mild lady +visitor opened her eyes when I remarked casually, "I have been doing +'What is Wrong' all this morning." And one minister of religion moved +quite sharply in his chair when I told him (as he understood it) that I +had to run upstairs and do what was wrong, but should be down again in a +minute. Exactly of what occult vice they silently accused me I cannot +conjecture, but I know of what I accuse myself; and that is, of having +written a very shapeless and inadequate book, and one quite unworthy to +be dedicated to you. As far as literature goes, this book is what is +wrong, and no mistake. + +It may seem a refinement of insolence to present so wild a composition +to one who has recorded two or three of the really impressive visions of +the moving millions of England. You are the only man alive who can make +the map of England crawl with life; a most creepy and enviable, +accomplishment. Why then should I trouble you with a book which, even if +it achieves its object (which is monstrously unlikely) can only be a +thundering gallop of theory? + +Well, I do it partly because I think you politicians are none the worse +for a few inconvenient ideals; but more because you will recognise the +many arguments we have had; those arguments which the most wonderful +ladies in the world can never endure for very long. And, perhaps, you +will agree with me that the thread of comradeship and conversation must +be protected because it is so frivolous. It must be held sacred, it must +not be snapped, because it is not worth tying together again. It is +exactly because argument is idle that men (I mean males) must take it +seriously; for when (we feel), until the crack of doom, shall we have so +delightful a difference again? But most of all I offer it to you because +there exists not only comradeship, but a very different thing, called +friendship; an agreement under all the arguments and a thread which, +please God, will never break. Yours always, @@ -53,1536 +47,1294 @@ Yours always, ## The Medical Mistake -A book of modern social inquiry has a shape that is somewhat -sharply defined. It begins as a rule with an analysis, with -statistics, tables of population, decrease of crime among -Congregationalists, growth of hysteria among policemen, and -similar ascertained facts; it ends with a chapter that is -generally called "The Remedy." It is almost wholly due to -this careful, solid, and scientific method that "The Remedy" -is never found. For this scheme of medical question and -answer is a blunder; the first great blunder of sociology. -It is always called stating the disease before we find the -cure. But it is the whole definition and dignity of man that -in social matters we must actually find the cure before we -find the disease. - -The fallacy is one of the fifty fallacies that come from the -modern madness for biological or bodily metaphors. It is -convenient to speak of the Social Organism, just as it is -convenient to speak of the British Lion. But Britain is no -more an organism than Britain is a lion. The moment we begin -to give a nation the unity and simplicity of an animal, we -begin to think wildly. Because every man is a biped, fifty -men are not a centipede. This has produced, for instance, -the gaping absurdity of perpetually talking about "young -nations" and "dying nations," as if a nation had a fixed and -physical span of life. Thus people will say that Spain has -entered a final senility; they might as well say that Spain -is losing all her teeth. Or people will say that Canada -should soon produce a literature; which is like saying that -Canada must soon grow a mustache. Nations consist of people; -the first generation may be decrepit, or the ten thousandth -may be vigorous. Similar applications of the fallacy are -made by those who see in the increasing size of national -possessions, a simple increase in wisdom and stature, and in -favor with God and man. These people, indeed, even fall -short in subtlety of the parallel of a human body. They do -not even ask whether an empire is growing taller in its -youth, or only growing fatter in its old age. But of all the -instances of error arising from this physical fancy, the -worst is that we have before us: the habit of exhaustively -describing a social sickness, and then propounding a social -drug. - -Now we do talk first about the disease in cases of bodily -breakdown; and that for an excellent reason. Because, though -there may be doubt about the way in which the body broke -down, there is no doubt at all about the shape in which it -should be built up again. No doctor proposes to produce a -new kind of man, with a new arrangement of eyes or limbs. -The hospital, by necessity, may send a man home with one leg -less: but it will not (in a creative rapture) send him home -with one leg extra. Medical science is content with the -normal human body, and only seeks to restore it. - -But social science is by no means always content with the -normal human soul; it has all sorts of fancy souls for sale. -Man as a social idealist will say "I am tired of being a -Puritan; I want to be a Pagan," or "Beyond this dark -probation of Individualism I see the shining paradise of -Collectivism." Now in bodily ills there is none of this -difference about the ultimate ideal. The patient may or may -not want quinine; but he certainly wants health. No one says -"I am tired of this headache; I want some toothache," or -"The only thing for this Russian influenza is a few German -measles," or "Through this dark probation of catarrh I see -the shining paradise of rheumatism." But exactly the whole -difficulty in our public problems is that some men are -aiming at cures which other men would regard as worse -maladies; are offering ultimate conditions as states of -health which others would uncompromisingly call states of -disease. Mr. Belloc once said that he would no more part -with the idea of property than with his teeth; yet to -Mr. Bernard Shaw property is not a tooth, but a toothache. -Lord Milner has sincerely attempted to introduce German -efficiency; and many of us would as soon welcome German -measles. Dr. Saleeby would honestly like to have Eugenics; -but I would rather have rheumatics. - -This is the arresting and dominant fact about modern social -discussion; that the quarrel is not merely about the -difficulties, but about the aim. We agree about the evil; it -is about the good that we should tear each other's eyes out. -We all admit that a lazy aristocracy is a bad thing. We -should not by any means all admit than an active aristocracy -would be a good thing. We all feel angry with an irreligious -priesthood; but some of us would go mad with disgust at a -really religious one. Everyone is indignant if our army is -weak, including the people who would be even more indignant -if it were strong. The social case is exactly the opposite -of the medical case. We do not disagree, like doctors', -about the precise nature of the illness, while agreeing -about the nature of health. On the contrary, we all agree -that England is unhealthy, but half of us would not look at -her in what the other half would call blooming health. -Public abuses are so prominent and pestilent that they sweep -all generous people into a sort of fictitious unanimity. We -forget that, while we agree about the abuses of things, we -should differ very much about the uses of them. Mr. Cadbury -and I would agree about the bad public-house. It would be -precisely in front of the good public-house that our painful -personal *fracas* would occur. - -I maintain, therefore, that the common sociological method -is quite useless: that of first dissecting abject poverty or -cataloguing prostitution. We all dislike abject poverty; but -it might be another business if we began to discuss -independent and dignified poverty. We all disapprove of -prostitution; but we do not all approve of purity. The only -way to discuss the social evil is to get at once to the -social ideal. We can all see the national madness; but what -is national sanity? I have called this book "What Is Wrong -with the World?" and the upshot of the title can be easily -and clearly stated. What is wrong is that we do not ask what -is right. +A book of modern social inquiry has a shape that is somewhat sharply +defined. It begins as a rule with an analysis, with statistics, tables +of population, decrease of crime among Congregationalists, growth of +hysteria among policemen, and similar ascertained facts; it ends with a +chapter that is generally called "The Remedy." It is almost wholly due +to this careful, solid, and scientific method that "The Remedy" is never +found. For this scheme of medical question and answer is a blunder; the +first great blunder of sociology. It is always called stating the +disease before we find the cure. But it is the whole definition and +dignity of man that in social matters we must actually find the cure +before we find the disease. + +The fallacy is one of the fifty fallacies that come from the modern +madness for biological or bodily metaphors. It is convenient to speak of +the Social Organism, just as it is convenient to speak of the British +Lion. But Britain is no more an organism than Britain is a lion. The +moment we begin to give a nation the unity and simplicity of an animal, +we begin to think wildly. Because every man is a biped, fifty men are +not a centipede. This has produced, for instance, the gaping absurdity +of perpetually talking about "young nations" and "dying nations," as if +a nation had a fixed and physical span of life. Thus people will say +that Spain has entered a final senility; they might as well say that +Spain is losing all her teeth. Or people will say that Canada should +soon produce a literature; which is like saying that Canada must soon +grow a mustache. Nations consist of people; the first generation may be +decrepit, or the ten thousandth may be vigorous. Similar applications of +the fallacy are made by those who see in the increasing size of national +possessions, a simple increase in wisdom and stature, and in favor with +God and man. These people, indeed, even fall short in subtlety of the +parallel of a human body. They do not even ask whether an empire is +growing taller in its youth, or only growing fatter in its old age. But +of all the instances of error arising from this physical fancy, the +worst is that we have before us: the habit of exhaustively describing a +social sickness, and then propounding a social drug. + +Now we do talk first about the disease in cases of bodily breakdown; and +that for an excellent reason. Because, though there may be doubt about +the way in which the body broke down, there is no doubt at all about the +shape in which it should be built up again. No doctor proposes to +produce a new kind of man, with a new arrangement of eyes or limbs. The +hospital, by necessity, may send a man home with one leg less: but it +will not (in a creative rapture) send him home with one leg extra. +Medical science is content with the normal human body, and only seeks to +restore it. + +But social science is by no means always content with the normal human +soul; it has all sorts of fancy souls for sale. Man as a social idealist +will say "I am tired of being a Puritan; I want to be a Pagan," or +"Beyond this dark probation of Individualism I see the shining paradise +of Collectivism." Now in bodily ills there is none of this difference +about the ultimate ideal. The patient may or may not want quinine; but +he certainly wants health. No one says "I am tired of this headache; I +want some toothache," or "The only thing for this Russian influenza is a +few German measles," or "Through this dark probation of catarrh I see +the shining paradise of rheumatism." But exactly the whole difficulty in +our public problems is that some men are aiming at cures which other men +would regard as worse maladies; are offering ultimate conditions as +states of health which others would uncompromisingly call states of +disease. Mr. Belloc once said that he would no more part with the idea +of property than with his teeth; yet to Mr. Bernard Shaw property is not +a tooth, but a toothache. Lord Milner has sincerely attempted to +introduce German efficiency; and many of us would as soon welcome German +measles. Dr. Saleeby would honestly like to have Eugenics; but I would +rather have rheumatics. + +This is the arresting and dominant fact about modern social discussion; +that the quarrel is not merely about the difficulties, but about the +aim. We agree about the evil; it is about the good that we should tear +each other's eyes out. We all admit that a lazy aristocracy is a bad +thing. We should not by any means all admit than an active aristocracy +would be a good thing. We all feel angry with an irreligious priesthood; +but some of us would go mad with disgust at a really religious one. +Everyone is indignant if our army is weak, including the people who +would be even more indignant if it were strong. The social case is +exactly the opposite of the medical case. We do not disagree, like +doctors', about the precise nature of the illness, while agreeing about +the nature of health. On the contrary, we all agree that England is +unhealthy, but half of us would not look at her in what the other half +would call blooming health. Public abuses are so prominent and pestilent +that they sweep all generous people into a sort of fictitious unanimity. +We forget that, while we agree about the abuses of things, we should +differ very much about the uses of them. Mr. Cadbury and I would agree +about the bad public-house. It would be precisely in front of the good +public-house that our painful personal *fracas* would occur. + +I maintain, therefore, that the common sociological method is quite +useless: that of first dissecting abject poverty or cataloguing +prostitution. We all dislike abject poverty; but it might be another +business if we began to discuss independent and dignified poverty. We +all disapprove of prostitution; but we do not all approve of purity. The +only way to discuss the social evil is to get at once to the social +ideal. We can all see the national madness; but what is national sanity? +I have called this book "What Is Wrong with the World?" and the upshot +of the title can be easily and clearly stated. What is wrong is that we +do not ask what is right. ## Wanted: An Unpractical Man -There is a popular philosophical joke intended to typify the -endless and useless arguments of philosophers; I mean the -joke about which came first, the chicken or the egg? I am -not sure that properly understood, it is so futile an -inquiry after all. I am not concerned here to enter on those -deep metaphysical and theological differences of which the -chicken and egg debate is a frivolous, but a very -felicitous, type. The evolutionary materialists are -appropriately enough represented in the vision of all things -coming from an egg, a dim and monstrous oval germ that had -laid itself by accident. That other supernatural school of -thought (to which I personally adhere) would be not -unworthily typified in the fancy that this round world of -ours is but an egg brooded upon by a sacred unbegotten bird; -the mystic dove of the prophets. But it is to much humbler -functions that I here call the awful power of such a -distinction. Whether or no the living bird is at the -beginning of our mental chain, it is absolutely necessary -that it should be at the end of our mental chain. The bird -is the thing to be aimed at---not with a gun, but a -life-bestowing wand. What is essential to our right thinking -is this: that the egg and the bird must not be thought of as -equal cosmic occurrences recurring alternatively forever. -They must not become a mere egg and bird pattern, like the -egg and dart pattern. One is a means and the other an end; -they are in different mental worlds. Leaving the -complications of the human breakfast-table out of account, -in an elemental sense, the egg only exists to produce the -chicken. But the chicken does not exist only in order to -produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself, to -praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist. -Being a conscious life, he is, or may be, valuable in -himself. Now our modern politics are full of a noisy -forgetfulness; forgetfulness that the production of this -happy and conscious life is after all the aim of all -complexities and compromises. We talk of nothing but useful -men and working institutions; that is, we only think of the -chickens as things that will lay more eggs. Instead of -seeking to breed our ideal bird, the eagle of Zeus or the -Swan of Avon, or whatever we happen to want, we talk -entirely in terms of the process and the embryo. The process -itself, divorced from its divine object, becomes doubtful -and even morbid; poison enters the embryo of everything; and +There is a popular philosophical joke intended to typify the endless and +useless arguments of philosophers; I mean the joke about which came +first, the chicken or the egg? I am not sure that properly understood, +it is so futile an inquiry after all. I am not concerned here to enter +on those deep metaphysical and theological differences of which the +chicken and egg debate is a frivolous, but a very felicitous, type. The +evolutionary materialists are appropriately enough represented in the +vision of all things coming from an egg, a dim and monstrous oval germ +that had laid itself by accident. That other supernatural school of +thought (to which I personally adhere) would be not unworthily typified +in the fancy that this round world of ours is but an egg brooded upon by +a sacred unbegotten bird; the mystic dove of the prophets. But it is to +much humbler functions that I here call the awful power of such a +distinction. Whether or no the living bird is at the beginning of our +mental chain, it is absolutely necessary that it should be at the end of +our mental chain. The bird is the thing to be aimed at---not with a gun, +but a life-bestowing wand. What is essential to our right thinking is +this: that the egg and the bird must not be thought of as equal cosmic +occurrences recurring alternatively forever. They must not become a mere +egg and bird pattern, like the egg and dart pattern. One is a means and +the other an end; they are in different mental worlds. Leaving the +complications of the human breakfast-table out of account, in an +elemental sense, the egg only exists to produce the chicken. But the +chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also +exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a +French dramatist. Being a conscious life, he is, or may be, valuable in +himself. Now our modern politics are full of a noisy forgetfulness; +forgetfulness that the production of this happy and conscious life is +after all the aim of all complexities and compromises. We talk of +nothing but useful men and working institutions; that is, we only think +of the chickens as things that will lay more eggs. Instead of seeking to +breed our ideal bird, the eagle of Zeus or the Swan of Avon, or whatever +we happen to want, we talk entirely in terms of the process and the +embryo. The process itself, divorced from its divine object, becomes +doubtful and even morbid; poison enters the embryo of everything; and our politics are rotten eggs. -Idealism is only considering everything in its practical -essence. Idealism only means that we should consider a poker -in reference to poking before we discuss its suitability for -wife-beating; that we should ask if an egg is good enough -for practical poultry-rearing before we decide that the egg -is bad enough for practical politics. But I know that this -primary pursuit of the theory (which is but pursuit of the -aim) exposes one to the cheap charge of fiddling while Rome -is burning. A school, of which Lord Rosebery is -representative, has endeavored to substitute for the moral -or social ideals which have hitherto been the motives of -politics a general coherency or completeness in the social -system which has gained the nickname of "efficiency." I am -not very certain of the secret doctrine of this sect In the -matter. But, as far as I can make out, "efficiency" means -that we ought to discover everything about a machine except -what it is for. There has arisen in our time a most singular -fancy: the fancy that when things go very wrong we need a -practical man. It would be far truer to say, that when -things go very wrong we need an unpractical man. Certainly, -at least, we need a theorist. A practical man means a man -accustomed to mere daily practice, to the way things -commonly work. When things will not work, you must have the -thinker, the man who has some doctrine about why they work -at all. It is wrong to fiddle while Rome is burning; but it -is quite right to study the theory of hydraulics while Rome -is burning. - -It is then necessary to drop one's daily agnosticism and -attempt (rerum cognoscere causas). If your aeroplane has a -slight indisposition, a handy man may mend it. But, if it is -seriously ill, it is all the more likely that some -absent-minded old professor with wild white hair will have -to be dragged out of a college or a laboratory to analyze -the evil. The more complicated the smash, the whiter-haired -and more absent-minded will be the theorist who is needed to -deal with it; and in some extreme cases, no one but the man -(probably insane) who invented your flying-ship could -possibly say what was the matter with it. - -"Efficiency," of course, is futile for the same reason that -strong men, will-power and the superman are futile. That is, -it is futile because it only deals with actions after they -have been performed. It has no philosophy for incidents -before they happen; therefore it has no power of choice. An -act can only be successful or unsuccessful when it is over; -if it is to begin, it must be, in the abstract, right or -wrong. There is no such thing as backing a winner; for he -cannot be a winner when he is backed. There is no such thing -as fighting on the winning side; one fights to find out -which is the winning side. If any operation has occurred, -that operation was efficient. If a man is murdered, the -murder was efficient. A tropical sun is as efficient in -making people lazy as a Lancashire foreman bully in making -them energetic. Maeterlinck is as efficient in filling a man -with strange spiritual tremors as Messrs. Crosse and -Blackwell are in filling a man with jam. But it all depends -on what you want to be filled with. Lord Rosebery, being a -modern skeptic, probably prefers the spiritual tremors. I, -being -an orthodox Christian, prefer the jam. But both are -efficient when they have been effected; and inefficient -until they are effected. A man who thinks much about success -must be the drowsiest sentimentalist; for he must be always -looking back. If he only likes victory he must always come -late for the battle. For the man of action there is nothing -but idealism. - -This definite ideal is a far more urgent and practical -matter in our existing English trouble than any immediate -plans or proposals. For the present chaos is due to a sort -of general oblivion of all that men were originally aiming -at. No man demands what he desires; each man demands what he -fancies he can get. Soon people forget what the man really -wanted first; and after a successful and vigorous political -life, he forgets it himself. The whole is an extravagant -riot of second bests, a pandemonium of *pis-aller*. Now this -sort of pliability does not merely prevent any heroic -consistency; it also prevents any really practical -compromise. One can only find the middle distance between -two points if the two points will stand still. We may make -an arrangement between two litigants who cannot both get -what they want; but not if they will not even tell us what -they want. The keeper of a restaurant would much prefer that -each customer should give his order smartly, though it were -for stewed ibis or boiled elephant, rather than that each -customer should sit holding his head in his hands, plunged -in arithmetical calculations about how much food there can -be on the premises. Most of us have suffered from a certain -sort of ladies who, by their perverse unselfishness, give -more trouble than the selfish; who almost clamor for the -unpopular dish and scramble for the worst seat. Most of us -have known parties or expeditions full of this seething fuss -of self-effacement. From much meaner motives than those of -such admirable women, our practical politicians keep things -in the same confusion through the same doubt about their -real demands. There is nothing that so much prevents a -settlement as a tangle of small surrenders. We are -bewildered on every side by politicians who are in favor of -secular education, but think it hopeless to work for it; who -desire total prohibition, but are certain they should not -demand it; who regret compulsory education, but resignedly -continue it; or who want peasant proprietorship and -therefore vote for something else. It is this dazed and -floundering opportunism that gets in the way of everything. -If our statesmen were visionaries something practical might -be done. If we asked for something in the abstract we might -get something in the concrete. As it is, it is not only -impossible to get what one wants, but it is impossible to -get any part of it, because nobody can mark it out plainly -like a map. That clear and even hard quality that there was -in the old bargaining has wholly vanished. We forget that -the word "compromise" contains, among other things, the -rigid and ringing word "promise." Moderation is not vague; -it is as definite as perfection. The middle point is as -fixed as the extreme point. - -If I am made to walk the plank by a pirate, it is vain for -me to offer, as a common-sense compromise, to walk along the -plank for a reasonable distance. It is exactly about the -reasonable distance that the pirate and I differ. There is -an exquisite mathematical split second at which the plank -tips up. My common-sense ends just before that instant; the -pirate's common-sense begins just beyond it. But the point -itself is as hard as any geometrical diagram; as abstract as -any theological dogma. +Idealism is only considering everything in its practical essence. +Idealism only means that we should consider a poker in reference to +poking before we discuss its suitability for wife-beating; that we +should ask if an egg is good enough for practical poultry-rearing before +we decide that the egg is bad enough for practical politics. But I know +that this primary pursuit of the theory (which is but pursuit of the +aim) exposes one to the cheap charge of fiddling while Rome is burning. +A school, of which Lord Rosebery is representative, has endeavored to +substitute for the moral or social ideals which have hitherto been the +motives of politics a general coherency or completeness in the social +system which has gained the nickname of "efficiency." I am not very +certain of the secret doctrine of this sect In the matter. But, as far +as I can make out, "efficiency" means that we ought to discover +everything about a machine except what it is for. There has arisen in +our time a most singular fancy: the fancy that when things go very wrong +we need a practical man. It would be far truer to say, that when things +go very wrong we need an unpractical man. Certainly, at least, we need a +theorist. A practical man means a man accustomed to mere daily practice, +to the way things commonly work. When things will not work, you must +have the thinker, the man who has some doctrine about why they work at +all. It is wrong to fiddle while Rome is burning; but it is quite right +to study the theory of hydraulics while Rome is burning. + +It is then necessary to drop one's daily agnosticism and attempt (rerum +cognoscere causas). If your aeroplane has a slight indisposition, a +handy man may mend it. But, if it is seriously ill, it is all the more +likely that some absent-minded old professor with wild white hair will +have to be dragged out of a college or a laboratory to analyze the evil. +The more complicated the smash, the whiter-haired and more absent-minded +will be the theorist who is needed to deal with it; and in some extreme +cases, no one but the man (probably insane) who invented your +flying-ship could possibly say what was the matter with it. + +"Efficiency," of course, is futile for the same reason that strong men, +will-power and the superman are futile. That is, it is futile because it +only deals with actions after they have been performed. It has no +philosophy for incidents before they happen; therefore it has no power +of choice. An act can only be successful or unsuccessful when it is +over; if it is to begin, it must be, in the abstract, right or wrong. +There is no such thing as backing a winner; for he cannot be a winner +when he is backed. There is no such thing as fighting on the winning +side; one fights to find out which is the winning side. If any operation +has occurred, that operation was efficient. If a man is murdered, the +murder was efficient. A tropical sun is as efficient in making people +lazy as a Lancashire foreman bully in making them energetic. Maeterlinck +is as efficient in filling a man with strange spiritual tremors as +Messrs. Crosse and Blackwell are in filling a man with jam. But it all +depends on what you want to be filled with. Lord Rosebery, being a +modern skeptic, probably prefers the spiritual tremors. I, being -an +orthodox Christian, prefer the jam. But both are efficient when they +have been effected; and inefficient until they are effected. A man who +thinks much about success must be the drowsiest sentimentalist; for he +must be always looking back. If he only likes victory he must always +come late for the battle. For the man of action there is nothing but +idealism. + +This definite ideal is a far more urgent and practical matter in our +existing English trouble than any immediate plans or proposals. For the +present chaos is due to a sort of general oblivion of all that men were +originally aiming at. No man demands what he desires; each man demands +what he fancies he can get. Soon people forget what the man really +wanted first; and after a successful and vigorous political life, he +forgets it himself. The whole is an extravagant riot of second bests, a +pandemonium of *pis-aller*. Now this sort of pliability does not merely +prevent any heroic consistency; it also prevents any really practical +compromise. One can only find the middle distance between two points if +the two points will stand still. We may make an arrangement between two +litigants who cannot both get what they want; but not if they will not +even tell us what they want. The keeper of a restaurant would much +prefer that each customer should give his order smartly, though it were +for stewed ibis or boiled elephant, rather than that each customer +should sit holding his head in his hands, plunged in arithmetical +calculations about how much food there can be on the premises. Most of +us have suffered from a certain sort of ladies who, by their perverse +unselfishness, give more trouble than the selfish; who almost clamor for +the unpopular dish and scramble for the worst seat. Most of us have +known parties or expeditions full of this seething fuss of +self-effacement. From much meaner motives than those of such admirable +women, our practical politicians keep things in the same confusion +through the same doubt about their real demands. There is nothing that +so much prevents a settlement as a tangle of small surrenders. We are +bewildered on every side by politicians who are in favor of secular +education, but think it hopeless to work for it; who desire total +prohibition, but are certain they should not demand it; who regret +compulsory education, but resignedly continue it; or who want peasant +proprietorship and therefore vote for something else. It is this dazed +and floundering opportunism that gets in the way of everything. If our +statesmen were visionaries something practical might be done. If we +asked for something in the abstract we might get something in the +concrete. As it is, it is not only impossible to get what one wants, but +it is impossible to get any part of it, because nobody can mark it out +plainly like a map. That clear and even hard quality that there was in +the old bargaining has wholly vanished. We forget that the word +"compromise" contains, among other things, the rigid and ringing word +"promise." Moderation is not vague; it is as definite as perfection. The +middle point is as fixed as the extreme point. + +If I am made to walk the plank by a pirate, it is vain for me to offer, +as a common-sense compromise, to walk along the plank for a reasonable +distance. It is exactly about the reasonable distance that the pirate +and I differ. There is an exquisite mathematical split second at which +the plank tips up. My common-sense ends just before that instant; the +pirate's common-sense begins just beyond it. But the point itself is as +hard as any geometrical diagram; as abstract as any theological dogma. ## The New Hypocrite -But this new cloudy political cowardice has rendered useless -the old English compromise. People have begun to be -terrified of an improvement merely because it is complete. -They call it Utopian and revolutionary that anyone should -really have his own way, or anything be really done, and -done with. Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was -better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems -to mean that half a loaf is better than a whole loaf. - -As an instance to sharpen the argument, I take the one case -of our everlasting education bills. We have actually -contrived to invent a new kind of hypocrite. The old -hypocrite, Tartuffe or Pecksniff, was a man whose aims were -really worldly and practical, while he pretended that they -were religious. The new hypocrite is one whose aims are -really religious, while he pretends that they are wordly and -practical. The Rev. Brown, the Wesleyan minister, sturdily -declares that he cares nothing for creeds, but only for -education; meanwhile, in truth, the wildest Wesleyanism is -tearing his soul. The Rev. Smith, of the Church of England, -explains gracefully, with the Oxford manner, that the only -question for him is the prosperity and efficiency of the -schools; while in truth all the evil passions of a curate -are roaring within him. It is a fight of creeds masquerading -as policies. I think these reverend gentlemen do themselves -wrong; I think they are more pious than they will admit. -Theology is not (as some suppose) expunged as an error. It -is merely concealed, like a sin. Dr. Clifford really wants a -theological atmosphere as much as Lord Halifax; only it is a -different one. If Dr. Clifford would ask plainly for -Puritanism and Lord Halifax ask plainly for Catholicism, -something might be done for them. We are all, one hopes, -imaginative enough to recognize the dignity and distinctness -of another religion, like Islam or the cult of Apollo. I am -quite ready to respect another man's faith; but it is too -much to ask that I should respect his doubt, his worldly -hesitations and fictions, his political bargain and -make-believe. Most Nonconformists with an instinct for -English history could see something poetic and national -about the Archbishop of Canterbury as an Archbishop of -Canterbury. It is when he does the rational British -statesman that they very justifiably get annoyed. Most -Anglicans with an eye for pluck and simplicity could admire -Dr. Clifford as a Baptist minister. It is when he says that -he is simply a citizen that nobody can possibly believe him. - -But indeed the case is yet more curious than this. The one -argument that used to be urged for our creedless vagueness -was that at least it saved us from fanaticism. But it does -not even do that. On the contrary, it creates and renews -fanaticism with a force quite peculiar to itself. This is at -once so strange and so true that I will ask the reader's +But this new cloudy political cowardice has rendered useless the old +English compromise. People have begun to be terrified of an improvement +merely because it is complete. They call it Utopian and revolutionary +that anyone should really have his own way, or anything be really done, +and done with. Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than +no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a +loaf is better than a whole loaf. + +As an instance to sharpen the argument, I take the one case of our +everlasting education bills. We have actually contrived to invent a new +kind of hypocrite. The old hypocrite, Tartuffe or Pecksniff, was a man +whose aims were really worldly and practical, while he pretended that +they were religious. The new hypocrite is one whose aims are really +religious, while he pretends that they are wordly and practical. The +Rev. Brown, the Wesleyan minister, sturdily declares that he cares +nothing for creeds, but only for education; meanwhile, in truth, the +wildest Wesleyanism is tearing his soul. The Rev. Smith, of the Church +of England, explains gracefully, with the Oxford manner, that the only +question for him is the prosperity and efficiency of the schools; while +in truth all the evil passions of a curate are roaring within him. It is +a fight of creeds masquerading as policies. I think these reverend +gentlemen do themselves wrong; I think they are more pious than they +will admit. Theology is not (as some suppose) expunged as an error. It +is merely concealed, like a sin. Dr. Clifford really wants a theological +atmosphere as much as Lord Halifax; only it is a different one. If +Dr. Clifford would ask plainly for Puritanism and Lord Halifax ask +plainly for Catholicism, something might be done for them. We are all, +one hopes, imaginative enough to recognize the dignity and distinctness +of another religion, like Islam or the cult of Apollo. I am quite ready +to respect another man's faith; but it is too much to ask that I should +respect his doubt, his worldly hesitations and fictions, his political +bargain and make-believe. Most Nonconformists with an instinct for +English history could see something poetic and national about the +Archbishop of Canterbury as an Archbishop of Canterbury. It is when he +does the rational British statesman that they very justifiably get +annoyed. Most Anglicans with an eye for pluck and simplicity could +admire Dr. Clifford as a Baptist minister. It is when he says that he is +simply a citizen that nobody can possibly believe him. + +But indeed the case is yet more curious than this. The one argument that +used to be urged for our creedless vagueness was that at least it saved +us from fanaticism. But it does not even do that. On the contrary, it +creates and renews fanaticism with a force quite peculiar to itself. +This is at once so strange and so true that I will ask the reader's attention to it with a little more precision. -Some people do not like the word "dogma." Fortunately they -are free, and there is an alternative for them. There are -two things, and two things only, for the human mind, a dogma -and a prejudice. The Middle Ages were a rational epoch, an -age of doctrine. Our age is, at its best, a poetical epoch, -an age of prejudice. A doctrine is a definite point; a -prejudice is a direction. That an ox may be eaten, while a -man should not be eaten, is a doctrine. That as little as -possible of anything should be eaten is a prejudice; which -is also sometimes called an ideal. Now a direction is always -far more fantastic than a plan. I would rather have the most -archaic map of the road to Brighton than a general -recommendation to turn to the left. Straight lines that are -not parallel must meet at last; but curves may recoil -forever. A pair of lovers might walk along the frontier of -France and Germany, one on the one side and one on the -other, so long as they were not vaguely told to keep away -from each other. And this is a strictly true parable of the -effect of our modern vagueness in losing and separating men -as in a mist. - -It is not merely true that a creed unites men. Nay, a -difference of creed unites men so long as it is a clear -difference. A boundary unites. Many a magnanimous Moslem and -chivalrous Crusader must have been nearer to each other, -because they were both dogmatists, than any two homeless -agnostics in a pew of Mr. Campbell's chapel. "I say God is -One," and "I say God is One but also Three," that is the -beginning of a good quarrelsome, manly friendship. But our -age would turn these creeds into tendencies. It would tell -the Trinitarian to follow multiplicity as such (because it -was his "temperament"), and he would turn up later with -three hundred and thirty-three persons in the Trinity. -Meanwhile, it would turn the Moslem into a Monist: a -frightful intellectual fall. It would force that previously -healthy person not only to admit that there was one God, but -to admit that there was nobody else. When each had, for a -long enough period, followed the gleam of his own nose (like -the Dong) they would appear again; the Christian a -Polytheist, and the Muslim a Pantheist, both quite mad, and -far more unfit to understand each other than before. - -It is exactly the same with politics. Our political -vagueness divides men, it does not fuse them. Men will walk -along the edge of a chasm in clear weather, but they will -edge miles away from it in a fog. So a Tory can walk up to -the very edge of Socialism, *if he knows what is Socialism.* -But if he is told that Socialism is a spirit, a sublime -atmosphere, a noble, indefinable tendency, why, then he -keeps out of its way; and quite right too. One can meet an -assertion with argument; but healthy bigotry is the only way -in which one can meet a tendency. I am told that the -Japanese method of wrestling consists not of suddenly -pressing, but of suddenly giving way. This is one of my many -reasons for disliking the Japanese civilization. To use -surrender as a weapon is the very worst spirit of the East. -But certainly there is no force so hard to fight as the -force which it is easy to conquer; the force that always -yields and then returns. Such is the force of a great -impersonal prejudice, such a.9 possesses the modern world on -so many points. Against this there is no weapon at all -except a rigid and steely sanity, a resolution not to listen -to fads, and not to be infected by diseases. - -In short, the rational human faith must armor itself with -prejudice in an age of prejudices, just as it armored itself -with logic in an age of logic. But the difference between -the two mental methods is marked and unmistakable. The -essential of the difference is this: that prejudices are -divergent, whereas creeds are always in collision. Believers -bump into each other; whereas bigots keep out of each -other's way. A creed is a collective thing, and even its -sins are sociable. A prejudice is a private thing, and even -its tolerance is misanthropic. So it is with our existing -divisions. They keep out of each other's way; the Tory paper -and the Radical paper do not answer each other; they ignore -each other. Genuine controversy, fair cut and thrust before -a common audience, has become in our special epoch very -rare. For the sincere controversialist is above all things a -good listener. The really burning enthusiast never -interrupts; he listens to the enemy's arguments as eagerly -as a spy would listen to the enemy's arrangements. But if -you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of -opposite politics, you will find that no medium is admitted -between violence and evasion. You will have no answer except -slanging or silence. A modern editor must not have that -eager ear that goes with the honest tongue. He may be deaf -and silent; and that is called dignity. Or he may be deaf -and noisy; and that is called slashing journalism. In -neither case is there any controversy; for the whole object -of modern party combatants is to charge out of earshot. - -The only logical cure for all this is the assertion of a -human ideal. In dealing with this, I will try to be as -little transcendental as is consistent with reason; it is -enough to say that unless we have some doctrine of a divine -man, all abuses may be excused, since evolution may turn -them into uses. It will b'e easy for the scientific -plutocrat to maintain that humanity will adapt itself to any -conditions which we now consider evil. The old tyrants -invoked the past; the new tyrants will invoke the future. -Evolution has produced the snail and the owl; evolution can -produce a workman who wants no more space than a snail, and -no more light than an owl. The employer need not mind -sending a Kaffir to work underground; he will soon become an -underground animal, like a mole. He need not mind sending a -diver to hold his breath in the deep seas; he will soon be a -deep-sea animal. Men need not trouble to alter conditions; -conditions will so soon alter men. The head can be beaten -small enough to fit the hat. Do not knock the fetters off -the slave; knock the slave until he forgets the fetters. To -all this plausible modern argument for oppression, the only -adequate answer is, that there is a permanent human ideal -that must not be either confused or destroyed. The most -important man on earth is the perfect man who is not there. -The Christian religion has specially uttered the ultimate -sanity of Man, says Scripture, who shall judge the incarnate -and human truth. Our lives and laws are not judged by divine -superiority, but simply by human perfection. It is man, says -Aristotle, who is the measure. It is the Son of Man, says -Scripture, who shall judge the quick and the dead. - -Doctrine, therefore, does not cause dissensions; rather a -doctrine alone can cure our dissensions. It is necessary to -ask, however, roughly, what abstract and ideal shape in -state or family would fulfil the human hunger; and this -apart from whether we can completely obtain it or not. But -when we come to ask what is the need of normal men, what is -the desire of all nations, what is the ideal house, or road, -or rule, or republic, or king, or priesthood, then we are -confronted with a strange and irritating difficulty peculiar -to the present time; and we must call a temporary halt and -examine that obstacle. +Some people do not like the word "dogma." Fortunately they are free, and +there is an alternative for them. There are two things, and two things +only, for the human mind, a dogma and a prejudice. The Middle Ages were +a rational epoch, an age of doctrine. Our age is, at its best, a +poetical epoch, an age of prejudice. A doctrine is a definite point; a +prejudice is a direction. That an ox may be eaten, while a man should +not be eaten, is a doctrine. That as little as possible of anything +should be eaten is a prejudice; which is also sometimes called an ideal. +Now a direction is always far more fantastic than a plan. I would rather +have the most archaic map of the road to Brighton than a general +recommendation to turn to the left. Straight lines that are not parallel +must meet at last; but curves may recoil forever. A pair of lovers might +walk along the frontier of France and Germany, one on the one side and +one on the other, so long as they were not vaguely told to keep away +from each other. And this is a strictly true parable of the effect of +our modern vagueness in losing and separating men as in a mist. + +It is not merely true that a creed unites men. Nay, a difference of +creed unites men so long as it is a clear difference. A boundary unites. +Many a magnanimous Moslem and chivalrous Crusader must have been nearer +to each other, because they were both dogmatists, than any two homeless +agnostics in a pew of Mr. Campbell's chapel. "I say God is One," and "I +say God is One but also Three," that is the beginning of a good +quarrelsome, manly friendship. But our age would turn these creeds into +tendencies. It would tell the Trinitarian to follow multiplicity as such +(because it was his "temperament"), and he would turn up later with +three hundred and thirty-three persons in the Trinity. Meanwhile, it +would turn the Moslem into a Monist: a frightful intellectual fall. It +would force that previously healthy person not only to admit that there +was one God, but to admit that there was nobody else. When each had, for +a long enough period, followed the gleam of his own nose (like the Dong) +they would appear again; the Christian a Polytheist, and the Muslim a +Pantheist, both quite mad, and far more unfit to understand each other +than before. + +It is exactly the same with politics. Our political vagueness divides +men, it does not fuse them. Men will walk along the edge of a chasm in +clear weather, but they will edge miles away from it in a fog. So a Tory +can walk up to the very edge of Socialism, *if he knows what is +Socialism.* But if he is told that Socialism is a spirit, a sublime +atmosphere, a noble, indefinable tendency, why, then he keeps out of its +way; and quite right too. One can meet an assertion with argument; but +healthy bigotry is the only way in which one can meet a tendency. I am +told that the Japanese method of wrestling consists not of suddenly +pressing, but of suddenly giving way. This is one of my many reasons for +disliking the Japanese civilization. To use surrender as a weapon is the +very worst spirit of the East. But certainly there is no force so hard +to fight as the force which it is easy to conquer; the force that always +yields and then returns. Such is the force of a great impersonal +prejudice, such a.9 possesses the modern world on so many points. +Against this there is no weapon at all except a rigid and steely sanity, +a resolution not to listen to fads, and not to be infected by diseases. + +In short, the rational human faith must armor itself with prejudice in +an age of prejudices, just as it armored itself with logic in an age of +logic. But the difference between the two mental methods is marked and +unmistakable. The essential of the difference is this: that prejudices +are divergent, whereas creeds are always in collision. Believers bump +into each other; whereas bigots keep out of each other's way. A creed is +a collective thing, and even its sins are sociable. A prejudice is a +private thing, and even its tolerance is misanthropic. So it is with our +existing divisions. They keep out of each other's way; the Tory paper +and the Radical paper do not answer each other; they ignore each other. +Genuine controversy, fair cut and thrust before a common audience, has +become in our special epoch very rare. For the sincere controversialist +is above all things a good listener. The really burning enthusiast never +interrupts; he listens to the enemy's arguments as eagerly as a spy +would listen to the enemy's arrangements. But if you attempt an actual +argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will find that no +medium is admitted between violence and evasion. You will have no answer +except slanging or silence. A modern editor must not have that eager ear +that goes with the honest tongue. He may be deaf and silent; and that is +called dignity. Or he may be deaf and noisy; and that is called slashing +journalism. In neither case is there any controversy; for the whole +object of modern party combatants is to charge out of earshot. + +The only logical cure for all this is the assertion of a human ideal. In +dealing with this, I will try to be as little transcendental as is +consistent with reason; it is enough to say that unless we have some +doctrine of a divine man, all abuses may be excused, since evolution may +turn them into uses. It will b'e easy for the scientific plutocrat to +maintain that humanity will adapt itself to any conditions which we now +consider evil. The old tyrants invoked the past; the new tyrants will +invoke the future. Evolution has produced the snail and the owl; +evolution can produce a workman who wants no more space than a snail, +and no more light than an owl. The employer need not mind sending a +Kaffir to work underground; he will soon become an underground animal, +like a mole. He need not mind sending a diver to hold his breath in the +deep seas; he will soon be a deep-sea animal. Men need not trouble to +alter conditions; conditions will so soon alter men. The head can be +beaten small enough to fit the hat. Do not knock the fetters off the +slave; knock the slave until he forgets the fetters. To all this +plausible modern argument for oppression, the only adequate answer is, +that there is a permanent human ideal that must not be either confused +or destroyed. The most important man on earth is the perfect man who is +not there. The Christian religion has specially uttered the ultimate +sanity of Man, says Scripture, who shall judge the incarnate and human +truth. Our lives and laws are not judged by divine superiority, but +simply by human perfection. It is man, says Aristotle, who is the +measure. It is the Son of Man, says Scripture, who shall judge the quick +and the dead. + +Doctrine, therefore, does not cause dissensions; rather a doctrine alone +can cure our dissensions. It is necessary to ask, however, roughly, what +abstract and ideal shape in state or family would fulfil the human +hunger; and this apart from whether we can completely obtain it or not. +But when we come to ask what is the need of normal men, what is the +desire of all nations, what is the ideal house, or road, or rule, or +republic, or king, or priesthood, then we are confronted with a strange +and irritating difficulty peculiar to the present time; and we must call +a temporary halt and examine that obstacle. ## The Fear of the Past -The last few decades have been marked by a special -cultivation of the romance of the future. We seem to have -made up our minds to misunderstand what has happened; and we -turn, with a sort of relief, to stating what will -happen---which is (apparently) much easier. The modern man -no longer preserves the memoirs of his great-grandfather; -but he is engaged in writing a detailed and authoritative -biography of his great-grandson. Instead of trembling before -the specters of the dead, we shudder abjectly under the -shadow of the babe unborn. This spirit is apparent -everywhere, even to the creation of a form of futurist -romance. Sir Walter Scott stands at the dawn of the -nineteenth century for the novel of the past; Mr. H. G. -Wells stands at the dawn of the twentieth century for the -novel of the future. The old story, we know, was supposed to -begin: "Late on a winter's evening two horsemen might have -been seen---." The new story has to begin: "Late on a -winter's evening two aviators will be seen---." The movement -is not without its elements of charm; there is something -spirited, if eccentric, in the sight of so many people -fighting over again the fights that have not yet happened; -of people still glowing with the memory of tomorrow morning. -A man in advance of the age is a familiar phrase enough. An -age in advance of the age is really rather odd. - -But when full allowance has been made for this harmless -element of poetry and pretty human perversity in the thing, -I shall not hesitate to maintain here that this cult of the -future is not only a weakness but a cowardice of the age. It -is the peculiar evil of this epoch that even its pugnacity -is fundamentally frightened; and the Jingo is contemptible -not because he is impudent, but because he is timid. The -reason why modern armaments do not inflame the imagination -like the arms and emblazonments of the Crusades is a reason -quite apart from optical ugliness or beauty. Some -battleships are as beautiful as the sea; and many Norman -nosepieces were as ugly as Norman noses. The atmospheric -ugliness that surrounds our scientific war is an emanation -from that evil panic which is at the heart of it. The charge -of the Crusades was a charge; it was charging towards God, -the wild consolation of the braver. The charge of the modern -armaments is not a charge at all. It is a rout, a retreat, a -flight from the devil, who will catch the hindmost. It is -impossible to imagine a mediaeval knight talking of longer -and longer French lances, with precisely the quivering -employed about larger and larger German ships. The man who -called the Blue Water School the "Blue Funk School" uttered -a psychological truth which that school itself would -scarcely essentially deny. Even the two-power standard, if -it be a necessity, is in a sense a degrading necessity. -Nothing has more alienated many magnanimous minds from -Imperial enterprises than the fact that they are always -exhibited as stealthy or sudden defenses against a world of -cold rapacity and fear. The Boer War, for instance, was -colored not so much by the creed that we were doing -something right, as by the creed that Boers and Germans were -probably doing something wrong; driving us (as it was said) -to the sea. Mr. Chamberlain, I think, said that the war was -a feather in his cap; and so it was: a white feather. - -Now this same primary panic that I feel in our rush towards -patriotic armaments I feel also in our rush towards future -visions of society. The modern mind is forced towards the -future by a certain sense of fatigue, not unmixed with -terror, with which it regards the past. It is propelled -towards the coming time; it is, in the exact words of the -popular phrase, knocked into the middle of next week. And -the goad which drives it on thus eagerly is not an -affectation for futurity. Futurity does not exist, because -it is still future. Rather it is a fear of the past; a fear -not merely of the evil in the past, but of the good in the -past also. The brain breaks down under the unbearable virtue -of mankind. There have been so many flaming faiths that we -cannot hold; so many harsh heroisms that we cannot imitate; -so many great efforts of monumental building or of military -glory which seem to us at once sublime and pathetic. The -future is a refuge from the fierce competition of our -forefathers. The older generation, not the younger, is -knocking at our door. It is agreeable to escape, as Henley -said, into the Street of By-and-Bye, where stands the -Hostelry of Never. It is pleasant to play with children, -especially unborn children. The future is a blank wall on -which every man can write his own name as large as he likes; -the past I find already covered with illegible scribbles, -such as Plato, Isaiah, Shakespeare, Michael Angelo, -Napoleon. I can make the future as narrow as myself; the -past is obliged to be as broad and turbulent as humanity. -And the upshot of this modern attitude is really this: that -men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old -ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are -afraid to look back. - -Now in history there is no Revolution that is not a -Restoration. Among the many things that leave me doubtful -about the modern habit of fixing eyes on the future, none is -stronger than this: that all the men in history who have -really done anything with the future have had their eyes -fixed upon the past. I need not mention the Renaissance, the -very word proves my case. The originality of Michael Angelo -and Shakespeare began with the digging up of old vases and -manuscripts. The mildness of poets absolutely arose out of -the mildness of antiquaries. So the great mediaeval revival -was a memory of the Roman Empire. So the Reformation looked -back to the Bible and Bible times. So the modern Catholic -movement has looked back to patristic times. But that modern -movement which many would count the most anarchic of all is -in this sense the most conservative of all. Never was the -past more venerated by men than it was by the French -Revolutionists. They invoked the little republics of -antiquity with the complete confidence of one who invokes -the gods. The Sans-culottes believed (as their name might -imply) in a return to simplicity. They believed most piously -in a remote past; some might call it a mythical past. For -some strange reason man must always thus plant his fruit -trees in a {graveyard. Man can only find life among the -dead. Man is a misshapen monster, with his feet set forward -and his face turned back. He can make the future luxuriant -and gigantic, so long as he is thinking about the past. When -he tries to think about the future itself, his mind -diminishes to a pin point with imbecility, which some call -Nirvana. To-morrow is the Gorgon; a man must only see it -mirrored in the shining shield of yesterday. If he sees it -directly he is turned to stone. This has been the fate of -all those who have really seen fate and futurity as clear -and inevitable. The Calvinists, with their perfect creed of -predestination, were turned to stone. The modern -sociological scientists (with their excruciating Eugenics) -are turned to stone. The only difference is that the -Puritans make dignified, and the Eugenists somewhat amusing, -statues. - -But there is one feature in the past which more than all the -rest defies and depresses the moderns and drives them -towards this featureless future. I mean the presence in the -past of huge ideals, unfulfilled and sometimes abandoned. -The sight of these splendid failures is melancholy to a -restless and rather morbid generation; and they maintain a -strange silence about them---sometimes amounting to an -unscrupulous silence. They keep them entirely out of their -newspapers and almost entirely out of their history books. -For example, they will often tell you (in their praises of -the coming age) that we are moving on towards a United -States of Europe. But they carefully omit to tell you that -we are moving away from a United States of Europe; that such -a thing existed literally in Roman and essentially in -mediaeval times. They never admit that the international -hatreds (which they call barbaric) are really very recent, -the mere breakdown of the ideal of the Holy Roman Empire. Or -again, they will tell you that there is going to be a social -revolution, a great rising of the poor against the rich; but -they never rub it in that France made that magnificent -attempt, unaided, and that we and all the world allowed it -to be trampled out and forgotten. I say decisively that -nothing is so marked in modern writing as the prediction of -such ideals in the future combined with the ignoring of them -in the past. Anyone can test this for himself. Read any -thirty or forty pages of pamphlets advocating peace in -Europe and see how many of them praise the old Popes or -Emperors for keeping the peace in Europe. Read any armful of -essays and poems in praise of social democracy, and see how -many of them praise the old Jacobins who created democracy -and died for it. These colossal ruins are to the modern only -enormous eyesores. He looks back along the valley of the -past and sees a perspective of splendid but unfinished -cities. They are unfinished, not always through enmity or -accident, but often through fickleness, mental fatigue, and -the lust for alien philosophies. We have not only left -undone those things that we ought to have done, but we have -even left undone those things that we wanted to do. - -It is very currently suggested that the modern man is the -heir of all the ages, that he has got the good out of these -successive human experiments. I know not what to say in -answer to this, except to ask the reader to look at the -modern man, as I have just looked at the modern man in the -looking-glass. Is it really true that you 'and I are two -starry towers built up of all the most towering visions of -the past? Have we really fulfilled all the great historic -ideals one after the other, from our naked ancestor who was -brave enough to kill a mammoth with a stone knife, through -the Greek citizen and the Christian saint to our own -grandfather or great-grandfather, who may have been sabred -by the Manchester Yeomanry or shot in the '48? Are we still -strong enough to spear mammoths, but now tender enough to -spare them? Does the cosmos contain any mammoth that we have -either speared or spared? When we decline (in a marked -manner) to fly the red flag and fire across a barricade like -our grandfathers, are we really declining in deference to -sociologists---or to soldiers? Have we indeed outstripped -the warrior and passed the ascetical saint? I fear we only -outstrip the warrior in the sense that we should probably -run away from him. And if we have passed the saint, I fear -we have passed him without bowing. - -This is, first and foremost, what I mean by the narrowness -of the new ideas, the limiting effect of the future. Our -modern prophetic idealism is narrow because it has undergone -a persistent process of elimination. We must ask for new -things because we are not allowed to ask for old things. The -whole position is based on this idea that we have got all -the good that can be got out of the ideas of the past. But -we have not got all the good out of them, perhaps at this -moment not any of the good out of them. And the need here is -a need of complete freedom for restoration as well as -revolution. - -We often read nowadays of the valor or audacity with which -some rebel attacks a hoary tyranny or an antiquated -superstition. There is not really any courage at all in -attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in -offering to fight one's grandmother. The really courageous -man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and -superstitions fresh as the first flowers. The only true -freethinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the -future as from the past. He cares as little for what will be -as for what has been; he cares only for what ought to be. -And for my present purpose I specially insist on this -abstract independence. If I am to discuss what is wrong, one -of the first things that are wrong is this: the deep and -silent modern assumption that past things have become -impossible. There is one metaphor of which the moderns are -very fond; they are always saying, "You can't put the clock -back." The simple and obvious answer is "You can." A clock, -being a piece of human construction, can be restored by the -human finger to any figure or hour. In the same way society, -being a piece of human construction, can be reconstructed -upon any plan that has ever existed. - -There is another proverb, "As you have made your bed, so you -must lie on it"; which again is simply a lie. If I have made -my bed uncomfortable, please God I will make it again. We -could restore the Heptarchy or the stage coaches if we -chose. It might take some time to do, and it might be very -inadvisable to do it; but certainly it is not impossible as -bringing back last Friday is impossible. This is, as I say, -the first freedom that I claim: the freedom to restore. I -claim a right to propose as a solution the old patriarchal -system of a Highland clan, if that should seem to eliminate -the largest number of evils. It certainly would eliminate -some evils; for instance, the unnatural sense of obeying -cold and harsh strangers, mere bureaucrats and policemen. I -claim the right to propose the complete independence of the -small Greek or Italian towns, a sovereign city of Brixton or -Brompton, if that seems the best way out of our troubles. It -would be a way out of some of our troubles; we could not -have in a small state, for instance, those enormous -illusions about men or measures which are nourished by the -great national or international newspapers. You could not -persuade a city state that Mr. Beit was an Englishman, or -Mr. Dillon a desperado, any more than you could persuade a -Hampshire village that the village drunkard was a -teetotaller or the village idiot a statesman. Nevertheless, -I do not as a fact propose that the Browns and the Smiths -should be collected under separate tartans. Nor do I even -propose that Clapham should declare its independence. I -merely declare my independence. I merely claim my choice of -all the tools in the universe; and I shall not admit that -any of them are blunted merely because they have been used. +The last few decades have been marked by a special cultivation of the +romance of the future. We seem to have made up our minds to +misunderstand what has happened; and we turn, with a sort of relief, to +stating what will happen---which is (apparently) much easier. The modern +man no longer preserves the memoirs of his great-grandfather; but he is +engaged in writing a detailed and authoritative biography of his +great-grandson. Instead of trembling before the specters of the dead, we +shudder abjectly under the shadow of the babe unborn. This spirit is +apparent everywhere, even to the creation of a form of futurist romance. +Sir Walter Scott stands at the dawn of the nineteenth century for the +novel of the past; Mr. H. G. Wells stands at the dawn of the twentieth +century for the novel of the future. The old story, we know, was +supposed to begin: "Late on a winter's evening two horsemen might have +been seen---." The new story has to begin: "Late on a winter's evening +two aviators will be seen---." The movement is not without its elements +of charm; there is something spirited, if eccentric, in the sight of so +many people fighting over again the fights that have not yet happened; +of people still glowing with the memory of tomorrow morning. A man in +advance of the age is a familiar phrase enough. An age in advance of the +age is really rather odd. + +But when full allowance has been made for this harmless element of +poetry and pretty human perversity in the thing, I shall not hesitate to +maintain here that this cult of the future is not only a weakness but a +cowardice of the age. It is the peculiar evil of this epoch that even +its pugnacity is fundamentally frightened; and the Jingo is contemptible +not because he is impudent, but because he is timid. The reason why +modern armaments do not inflame the imagination like the arms and +emblazonments of the Crusades is a reason quite apart from optical +ugliness or beauty. Some battleships are as beautiful as the sea; and +many Norman nosepieces were as ugly as Norman noses. The atmospheric +ugliness that surrounds our scientific war is an emanation from that +evil panic which is at the heart of it. The charge of the Crusades was a +charge; it was charging towards God, the wild consolation of the braver. +The charge of the modern armaments is not a charge at all. It is a rout, +a retreat, a flight from the devil, who will catch the hindmost. It is +impossible to imagine a mediaeval knight talking of longer and longer +French lances, with precisely the quivering employed about larger and +larger German ships. The man who called the Blue Water School the "Blue +Funk School" uttered a psychological truth which that school itself +would scarcely essentially deny. Even the two-power standard, if it be a +necessity, is in a sense a degrading necessity. Nothing has more +alienated many magnanimous minds from Imperial enterprises than the fact +that they are always exhibited as stealthy or sudden defenses against a +world of cold rapacity and fear. The Boer War, for instance, was colored +not so much by the creed that we were doing something right, as by the +creed that Boers and Germans were probably doing something wrong; +driving us (as it was said) to the sea. Mr. Chamberlain, I think, said +that the war was a feather in his cap; and so it was: a white feather. + +Now this same primary panic that I feel in our rush towards patriotic +armaments I feel also in our rush towards future visions of society. The +modern mind is forced towards the future by a certain sense of fatigue, +not unmixed with terror, with which it regards the past. It is propelled +towards the coming time; it is, in the exact words of the popular +phrase, knocked into the middle of next week. And the goad which drives +it on thus eagerly is not an affectation for futurity. Futurity does not +exist, because it is still future. Rather it is a fear of the past; a +fear not merely of the evil in the past, but of the good in the past +also. The brain breaks down under the unbearable virtue of mankind. +There have been so many flaming faiths that we cannot hold; so many +harsh heroisms that we cannot imitate; so many great efforts of +monumental building or of military glory which seem to us at once +sublime and pathetic. The future is a refuge from the fierce competition +of our forefathers. The older generation, not the younger, is knocking +at our door. It is agreeable to escape, as Henley said, into the Street +of By-and-Bye, where stands the Hostelry of Never. It is pleasant to +play with children, especially unborn children. The future is a blank +wall on which every man can write his own name as large as he likes; the +past I find already covered with illegible scribbles, such as Plato, +Isaiah, Shakespeare, Michael Angelo, Napoleon. I can make the future as +narrow as myself; the past is obliged to be as broad and turbulent as +humanity. And the upshot of this modern attitude is really this: that +men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They +look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back. + +Now in history there is no Revolution that is not a Restoration. Among +the many things that leave me doubtful about the modern habit of fixing +eyes on the future, none is stronger than this: that all the men in +history who have really done anything with the future have had their +eyes fixed upon the past. I need not mention the Renaissance, the very +word proves my case. The originality of Michael Angelo and Shakespeare +began with the digging up of old vases and manuscripts. The mildness of +poets absolutely arose out of the mildness of antiquaries. So the great +mediaeval revival was a memory of the Roman Empire. So the Reformation +looked back to the Bible and Bible times. So the modern Catholic +movement has looked back to patristic times. But that modern movement +which many would count the most anarchic of all is in this sense the +most conservative of all. Never was the past more venerated by men than +it was by the French Revolutionists. They invoked the little republics +of antiquity with the complete confidence of one who invokes the gods. +The Sans-culottes believed (as their name might imply) in a return to +simplicity. They believed most piously in a remote past; some might call +it a mythical past. For some strange reason man must always thus plant +his fruit trees in a {graveyard. Man can only find life among the dead. +Man is a misshapen monster, with his feet set forward and his face +turned back. He can make the future luxuriant and gigantic, so long as +he is thinking about the past. When he tries to think about the future +itself, his mind diminishes to a pin point with imbecility, which some +call Nirvana. To-morrow is the Gorgon; a man must only see it mirrored +in the shining shield of yesterday. If he sees it directly he is turned +to stone. This has been the fate of all those who have really seen fate +and futurity as clear and inevitable. The Calvinists, with their perfect +creed of predestination, were turned to stone. The modern sociological +scientists (with their excruciating Eugenics) are turned to stone. The +only difference is that the Puritans make dignified, and the Eugenists +somewhat amusing, statues. + +But there is one feature in the past which more than all the rest defies +and depresses the moderns and drives them towards this featureless +future. I mean the presence in the past of huge ideals, unfulfilled and +sometimes abandoned. The sight of these splendid failures is melancholy +to a restless and rather morbid generation; and they maintain a strange +silence about them---sometimes amounting to an unscrupulous silence. +They keep them entirely out of their newspapers and almost entirely out +of their history books. For example, they will often tell you (in their +praises of the coming age) that we are moving on towards a United States +of Europe. But they carefully omit to tell you that we are moving away +from a United States of Europe; that such a thing existed literally in +Roman and essentially in mediaeval times. They never admit that the +international hatreds (which they call barbaric) are really very recent, +the mere breakdown of the ideal of the Holy Roman Empire. Or again, they +will tell you that there is going to be a social revolution, a great +rising of the poor against the rich; but they never rub it in that +France made that magnificent attempt, unaided, and that we and all the +world allowed it to be trampled out and forgotten. I say decisively that +nothing is so marked in modern writing as the prediction of such ideals +in the future combined with the ignoring of them in the past. Anyone can +test this for himself. Read any thirty or forty pages of pamphlets +advocating peace in Europe and see how many of them praise the old Popes +or Emperors for keeping the peace in Europe. Read any armful of essays +and poems in praise of social democracy, and see how many of them praise +the old Jacobins who created democracy and died for it. These colossal +ruins are to the modern only enormous eyesores. He looks back along the +valley of the past and sees a perspective of splendid but unfinished +cities. They are unfinished, not always through enmity or accident, but +often through fickleness, mental fatigue, and the lust for alien +philosophies. We have not only left undone those things that we ought to +have done, but we have even left undone those things that we wanted to +do. + +It is very currently suggested that the modern man is the heir of all +the ages, that he has got the good out of these successive human +experiments. I know not what to say in answer to this, except to ask the +reader to look at the modern man, as I have just looked at the modern +man in the looking-glass. Is it really true that you 'and I are two +starry towers built up of all the most towering visions of the past? +Have we really fulfilled all the great historic ideals one after the +other, from our naked ancestor who was brave enough to kill a mammoth +with a stone knife, through the Greek citizen and the Christian saint to +our own grandfather or great-grandfather, who may have been sabred by +the Manchester Yeomanry or shot in the '48? Are we still strong enough +to spear mammoths, but now tender enough to spare them? Does the cosmos +contain any mammoth that we have either speared or spared? When we +decline (in a marked manner) to fly the red flag and fire across a +barricade like our grandfathers, are we really declining in deference to +sociologists---or to soldiers? Have we indeed outstripped the warrior +and passed the ascetical saint? I fear we only outstrip the warrior in +the sense that we should probably run away from him. And if we have +passed the saint, I fear we have passed him without bowing. + +This is, first and foremost, what I mean by the narrowness of the new +ideas, the limiting effect of the future. Our modern prophetic idealism +is narrow because it has undergone a persistent process of elimination. +We must ask for new things because we are not allowed to ask for old +things. The whole position is based on this idea that we have got all +the good that can be got out of the ideas of the past. But we have not +got all the good out of them, perhaps at this moment not any of the good +out of them. And the need here is a need of complete freedom for +restoration as well as revolution. + +We often read nowadays of the valor or audacity with which some rebel +attacks a hoary tyranny or an antiquated superstition. There is not +really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any +more than in offering to fight one's grandmother. The really courageous +man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions +fresh as the first flowers. The only true freethinker is he whose +intellect is as much free from the future as from the past. He cares as +little for what will be as for what has been; he cares only for what +ought to be. And for my present purpose I specially insist on this +abstract independence. If I am to discuss what is wrong, one of the +first things that are wrong is this: the deep and silent modern +assumption that past things have become impossible. There is one +metaphor of which the moderns are very fond; they are always saying, +"You can't put the clock back." The simple and obvious answer is "You +can." A clock, being a piece of human construction, can be restored by +the human finger to any figure or hour. In the same way society, being a +piece of human construction, can be reconstructed upon any plan that has +ever existed. + +There is another proverb, "As you have made your bed, so you must lie on +it"; which again is simply a lie. If I have made my bed uncomfortable, +please God I will make it again. We could restore the Heptarchy or the +stage coaches if we chose. It might take some time to do, and it might +be very inadvisable to do it; but certainly it is not impossible as +bringing back last Friday is impossible. This is, as I say, the first +freedom that I claim: the freedom to restore. I claim a right to propose +as a solution the old patriarchal system of a Highland clan, if that +should seem to eliminate the largest number of evils. It certainly would +eliminate some evils; for instance, the unnatural sense of obeying cold +and harsh strangers, mere bureaucrats and policemen. I claim the right +to propose the complete independence of the small Greek or Italian +towns, a sovereign city of Brixton or Brompton, if that seems the best +way out of our troubles. It would be a way out of some of our troubles; +we could not have in a small state, for instance, those enormous +illusions about men or measures which are nourished by the great +national or international newspapers. You could not persuade a city +state that Mr. Beit was an Englishman, or Mr. Dillon a desperado, any +more than you could persuade a Hampshire village that the village +drunkard was a teetotaller or the village idiot a statesman. +Nevertheless, I do not as a fact propose that the Browns and the Smiths +should be collected under separate tartans. Nor do I even propose that +Clapham should declare its independence. I merely declare my +independence. I merely claim my choice of all the tools in the universe; +and I shall not admit that any of them are blunted merely because they +have been used. ## The Unfinished Temple -The task of modern idealists indeed is made much too easy -for them by the fact that they are always taught that if a -thing has been defeated it has been disproved. Logically, -the case is quite clearly the other way. The lost causes are -exactly those which might have saved the world. If a man -says that the Young Pretender would have made England happy, -it is hard to answer him. If anyone says that the Georges -made England happy, I hope we all know what to answer. That -which was prevented is always impregnable; and the only -perfect King of England was he who was smothered. Exactly -because Jacobitism failed we cannot call it a failure. -Precisely because the Commune collapsed as a rebellion we -cannot say that it collapsed as a system. But such outbursts -were brief or incidental. Few people realize how many of the -largest efforts, the facts that will fill history, were -frustrated in their full design and come down to us as -gigantic cripples. I have only space to allude to the two -largest facts of modern history: the Catholic Church and -that modern growth rooted in the French Revolution. - -When four knights scattered the blood and brains of -St. Thomas of Canterbury, it was not only a sign of anger -but of a sort of black admiration. They wished for his -blood, but they wished even more for his brains. Such a blow -will remain forever unintelligible unless we realize what -the brains of St. Thomas were thinking about just before -they were distributed over the floor. They were thinking -about the great mediaeval conception that the church is the -judge of the world. Becket objected to a priest being tried -even by the Lord Chief Justice. And his reason was simple: -because the Lord Chief Justice was being tried by the -priest. The judiciary was itself *sub-judice*. The kings -were themselves in the dock. The idea was to create an -invisible kingdom, without armies or prisons, but with -complete freedom to condemn publicly all the kingdoms of the -earth. Whether such a supreme church would have cured -society we cannot affirm definitely; because the church -never was a supreme church. We only know that in England at -any rate the princes conquered the saints. What the world -wanted we see before us; and some of us call it a failure. -But we cannot call what the church wanted a failure, simply -because the church failed. Tracy struck a little too soon. -England had not yet made the great Protestant discovery that -the king can do no wrong. The king was whipped in the -cathedral; a performance which I recommend to those who -regret the unpopularity of church-going. But the discovery -was made; and Henry VIII scattered Becket's bones as easily -as Tracy had scattered his brains. - -Of course, I mean that Catholicism was not tried; plenty of -Catholics were tried, and found guilty. My point is that the -world did not tire of the church's ideal, but of its -reality. Monasteries were impugned not for the chastity of -monies, but for the unchastity of monks. Christianity was -unpopular not because of the humility, but of the arrogance -of Christians. Certainly, if the church failed it was -largely through the churchmen. But at the same time hostile -elements had certainly begun to end it long before it could -have done its work. In the nature of things it needed a -common scheme of life and thought in Europe. Yet the -mediaeval system began to be broken to pieces -intellectually, long before it showed the slightest hint of -falling to pieces morally. The huge early heresies, like the -Albigenses, had not the faintest excuse in moral -superiority. And it is actually true that the Reformation -began to tear Europe apart before the Catholic Church had -had time to pull it together. The Prussians, for instance, -were not converted to Christianity at all until quite close -to the Reformation. The poor creatures hardly had time to -become Catholics before they were told to become -Protestants. This explains a great deal of their subsequent -conduct. But I have only taken this as the first and most -evident case of the general truth: that the great ideals of -the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean -over-lived), but by not being lived enough. Mankind has not -passed through the Middle!Ages. Rather mankind has retreated -from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout. The Christian -ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been +The task of modern idealists indeed is made much too easy for them by +the fact that they are always taught that if a thing has been defeated +it has been disproved. Logically, the case is quite clearly the other +way. The lost causes are exactly those which might have saved the world. +If a man says that the Young Pretender would have made England happy, it +is hard to answer him. If anyone says that the Georges made England +happy, I hope we all know what to answer. That which was prevented is +always impregnable; and the only perfect King of England was he who was +smothered. Exactly because Jacobitism failed we cannot call it a +failure. Precisely because the Commune collapsed as a rebellion we +cannot say that it collapsed as a system. But such outbursts were brief +or incidental. Few people realize how many of the largest efforts, the +facts that will fill history, were frustrated in their full design and +come down to us as gigantic cripples. I have only space to allude to the +two largest facts of modern history: the Catholic Church and that modern +growth rooted in the French Revolution. + +When four knights scattered the blood and brains of St. Thomas of +Canterbury, it was not only a sign of anger but of a sort of black +admiration. They wished for his blood, but they wished even more for his +brains. Such a blow will remain forever unintelligible unless we realize +what the brains of St. Thomas were thinking about just before they were +distributed over the floor. They were thinking about the great mediaeval +conception that the church is the judge of the world. Becket objected to +a priest being tried even by the Lord Chief Justice. And his reason was +simple: because the Lord Chief Justice was being tried by the priest. +The judiciary was itself *sub-judice*. The kings were themselves in the +dock. The idea was to create an invisible kingdom, without armies or +prisons, but with complete freedom to condemn publicly all the kingdoms +of the earth. Whether such a supreme church would have cured society we +cannot affirm definitely; because the church never was a supreme church. +We only know that in England at any rate the princes conquered the +saints. What the world wanted we see before us; and some of us call it a +failure. But we cannot call what the church wanted a failure, simply +because the church failed. Tracy struck a little too soon. England had +not yet made the great Protestant discovery that the king can do no +wrong. The king was whipped in the cathedral; a performance which I +recommend to those who regret the unpopularity of church-going. But the +discovery was made; and Henry VIII scattered Becket's bones as easily as +Tracy had scattered his brains. + +Of course, I mean that Catholicism was not tried; plenty of Catholics +were tried, and found guilty. My point is that the world did not tire of +the church's ideal, but of its reality. Monasteries were impugned not +for the chastity of monies, but for the unchastity of monks. +Christianity was unpopular not because of the humility, but of the +arrogance of Christians. Certainly, if the church failed it was largely +through the churchmen. But at the same time hostile elements had +certainly begun to end it long before it could have done its work. In +the nature of things it needed a common scheme of life and thought in +Europe. Yet the mediaeval system began to be broken to pieces +intellectually, long before it showed the slightest hint of falling to +pieces morally. The huge early heresies, like the Albigenses, had not +the faintest excuse in moral superiority. And it is actually true that +the Reformation began to tear Europe apart before the Catholic Church +had had time to pull it together. The Prussians, for instance, were not +converted to Christianity at all until quite close to the Reformation. +The poor creatures hardly had time to become Catholics before they were +told to become Protestants. This explains a great deal of their +subsequent conduct. But I have only taken this as the first and most +evident case of the general truth: that the great ideals of the past +failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not +being lived enough. Mankind has not passed through the Middle!Ages. +Rather mankind has retreated from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout. +The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried. -It is, of course, the same in the case of the French -Revolution. A great part of our present perplexity arises -from the fact that the French Revolution has half succeeded -and half failed. In one sense, Valmy was the decisive battle -of the West, and in another Trafalgar. We have, indeed, -destroyed the largest territorial tyrannies, and created a -free peasantry in almost all Christian countries except -England; of which we shall say more anon. But representative -government, the one universal relic, is a very poor fragment -of the full republican idea. The theory of the French -Revolution presupposed two things in government, things -which it achieved at the time, but which it has certainly -not bequeathed to its imitators in England, Germany, and -America. The first of these was the idea of honorable -poverty; that a statesman must be something of a stoic; the -second was the idea of extreme publicity. Many imaginative -English writers, including Carlyle, seem quite unable to -imagine how it was that men like Robespierre and Marat were -ardently admired. The best answer is that they were admired -for being poor poor when they might have been rich. - -No one will pretend that this ideal exists at all in the -*haute politique* of this country. Our national claim to -political incorruptibility is actually based on exactly the -opposite argument; it is based on the theory that wealthy -men in assured positions will have no temptation to -financial trickery. Whether the history of the English -aristocracy, from the spoliation of the monasteries to the -annexation of the mines, entirely supports this theory I am -not now inquiring; but certainly it is our theory, that -wealth will be a protection against political corruption. -The English statesman is bribed not to be bribed. He is born -with a silver spoon in his mouth, so that he may never -afterwards be found with the silver spoons in his pocket. So -strong is our faith in this protection by plutocracy, that -we are more and more trusting our empire in the hands of -families which inherit wealth without either blood or -manners. Some of our political houses are parvenue by -pedigree; they hand on vulgarity like a coat-of-arms. In the -case of many a modern statesman to say that he is born with -a silver spoon in his mouth, is at once inadequate and -excessive. He is born with a silver knife in his mouth. But -all this only illustrates the English theory that poverty is -perilous for a politician. - -It will be the same if we compare the conditions that have -come about with the Revolution legend touching publicity. -The old democratic doctrine was that the more light that was -let in to all departments of State, the easier it was for a -righteous indignation to move promptly against wrong. In -other words, monarchs were to live in glass houses, (that -mobs might throw stones. Again, no admirer of existing -English politics (if there is any admirer of existing -English politics) will really pretend that this ideal of -publicity is exhausted, or even attempted. Obviously public -life grows more private every day. The French have, indeed, -continued the tradition of revealing secrets and making -scandals; hence they are more flagrant and palpable than we, -not in sin, but in the confession of sin. The first trial of -Dreyfus might have happened in England; it is exactly the -second trial that would have been legally impossible. But, -indeed, if we wish to realize how far we fall short of the -original republican outline, the sharpest way to test it is -to note how far we fall short even of the republican element -in the older regime. Not only are we less democratic than -Danton and Condorcet, but we are in many ways less -democratic than Choiseuil and Marie Antoinette. The richest -nobles before the revolt were needy middle-class people -compared with our Rothschilds and Roseberys. And in the -matter of publicity the old French monarchy was infinitely -more democratic than any of the monarchies of to-day. -Practically anybody who chose could walk into the palace and -see the king playing with his children, or paring his nails. -The people possessed the monarch, as the people possess -Primrose Hill; that is, they cannot move it, but they can -sprawl all over it. The old French monarchy was founded on -the excellent principle that a cat may look at a king. But -nowadays a cat may not look at a king; unless it is a very -tame cat. Even where the press is free for criticism it is -only used for adulation. The substantial difference comes to -something uncommonly like this: Eighteenth century tyranny -meant that you could say "The K--- of Br---rd is a -profligate." Twentieth century liberty really means that you -are allowed to say "The King of Brentford is a model family -man." - -But we have delayed the main argument too long for the -parenthetical purpose of showing that the great democratic -dream, like the great mediaeval dream, has in a strict and -practical sense been a dream unfulfilled. Whatever is the -matter with modern England it is not that we have carried -out too literally, or achieved with disappointing -completeness, either the Catholicism of Becket or the -equality of Marat. Now I have taken these two cases merely -because they are typical of ten thousand other cases; the -world is full of these unfulfilled ideas, these uncompleted -temples. History does not consist of completed and crumbling -ruins; rather it consists of half-built villas abandoned by -a bankrupt-builder. This world is more like an unfinished -suburb than a deserted cemetery. +It is, of course, the same in the case of the French Revolution. A great +part of our present perplexity arises from the fact that the French +Revolution has half succeeded and half failed. In one sense, Valmy was +the decisive battle of the West, and in another Trafalgar. We have, +indeed, destroyed the largest territorial tyrannies, and created a free +peasantry in almost all Christian countries except England; of which we +shall say more anon. But representative government, the one universal +relic, is a very poor fragment of the full republican idea. The theory +of the French Revolution presupposed two things in government, things +which it achieved at the time, but which it has certainly not bequeathed +to its imitators in England, Germany, and America. The first of these +was the idea of honorable poverty; that a statesman must be something of +a stoic; the second was the idea of extreme publicity. Many imaginative +English writers, including Carlyle, seem quite unable to imagine how it +was that men like Robespierre and Marat were ardently admired. The best +answer is that they were admired for being poor poor when they might +have been rich. + +No one will pretend that this ideal exists at all in the *haute +politique* of this country. Our national claim to political +incorruptibility is actually based on exactly the opposite argument; it +is based on the theory that wealthy men in assured positions will have +no temptation to financial trickery. Whether the history of the English +aristocracy, from the spoliation of the monasteries to the annexation of +the mines, entirely supports this theory I am not now inquiring; but +certainly it is our theory, that wealth will be a protection against +political corruption. The English statesman is bribed not to be bribed. +He is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, so that he may never +afterwards be found with the silver spoons in his pocket. So strong is +our faith in this protection by plutocracy, that we are more and more +trusting our empire in the hands of families which inherit wealth +without either blood or manners. Some of our political houses are +parvenue by pedigree; they hand on vulgarity like a coat-of-arms. In the +case of many a modern statesman to say that he is born with a silver +spoon in his mouth, is at once inadequate and excessive. He is born with +a silver knife in his mouth. But all this only illustrates the English +theory that poverty is perilous for a politician. + +It will be the same if we compare the conditions that have come about +with the Revolution legend touching publicity. The old democratic +doctrine was that the more light that was let in to all departments of +State, the easier it was for a righteous indignation to move promptly +against wrong. In other words, monarchs were to live in glass houses, +(that mobs might throw stones. Again, no admirer of existing English +politics (if there is any admirer of existing English politics) will +really pretend that this ideal of publicity is exhausted, or even +attempted. Obviously public life grows more private every day. The +French have, indeed, continued the tradition of revealing secrets and +making scandals; hence they are more flagrant and palpable than we, not +in sin, but in the confession of sin. The first trial of Dreyfus might +have happened in England; it is exactly the second trial that would have +been legally impossible. But, indeed, if we wish to realize how far we +fall short of the original republican outline, the sharpest way to test +it is to note how far we fall short even of the republican element in +the older regime. Not only are we less democratic than Danton and +Condorcet, but we are in many ways less democratic than Choiseuil and +Marie Antoinette. The richest nobles before the revolt were needy +middle-class people compared with our Rothschilds and Roseberys. And in +the matter of publicity the old French monarchy was infinitely more +democratic than any of the monarchies of to-day. Practically anybody who +chose could walk into the palace and see the king playing with his +children, or paring his nails. The people possessed the monarch, as the +people possess Primrose Hill; that is, they cannot move it, but they can +sprawl all over it. The old French monarchy was founded on the excellent +principle that a cat may look at a king. But nowadays a cat may not look +at a king; unless it is a very tame cat. Even where the press is free +for criticism it is only used for adulation. The substantial difference +comes to something uncommonly like this: Eighteenth century tyranny +meant that you could say "The K--- of Br---rd is a profligate." +Twentieth century liberty really means that you are allowed to say "The +King of Brentford is a model family man." + +But we have delayed the main argument too long for the parenthetical +purpose of showing that the great democratic dream, like the great +mediaeval dream, has in a strict and practical sense been a dream +unfulfilled. Whatever is the matter with modern England it is not that +we have carried out too literally, or achieved with disappointing +completeness, either the Catholicism of Becket or the equality of Marat. +Now I have taken these two cases merely because they are typical of ten +thousand other cases; the world is full of these unfulfilled ideas, +these uncompleted temples. History does not consist of completed and +crumbling ruins; rather it consists of half-built villas abandoned by a +bankrupt-builder. This world is more like an unfinished suburb than a +deserted cemetery. ## The Enemies of Property -But it is for this especial reason that such an explanation -is necessary on the very threshold of the definition of -ideals. For owing to that historic fallacy with which I have -just dealt, numbers of readers will expect me, when I -propound an ideal, to propound a new ideal. Now I have no -notion at all of propounding a new ideal. There is no new -ideal imaginable by the madness of modern sophists, which -will be anything like so startling as fulfilling any one of -the old ones. On the day that any copybook maxim is carried -out there will be something like an earthquake on the earth. -There is only one thing new that can be done under the sun; -and that is to look at the sun. If you attempt it on a blue -day in June, you will know why men do not look straight at -their ideals. There is only one really startling thing to be -done with the ideal, and that is to do it. It is to face the -flaming logical fact, and its frightful consequences. Christ -knew that it would be a more stunning thunderbolt to fulfil -the law than to destroy it. It is true of both the cases I -have quoted, and of every case. The pagans had always adored -purity: Athene, Artemis, Vesta. It was when the virgin -martyrs began defiantly to practice purity that they rent -them with wild beasts, and rolled them on red-hot coals. The -world had always loved the notion of the poor man uppermost; -it can be proved by every legend from Cinderella to -Whittington, by every poem from the Magnificat to the -Marseillaise. The kings went mad against France not because -she idealized this ideal, but because she realized it. -Joseph of Austria and Catherine of Russia quite agreed that -the people should rule; what horrified them was that the -people did. The French Revolution, therefore, is the type of -all true revolutions, because its ideal is as old as the Old -Adam, but its fulfillment almost as fresh, as miraculous, -and as new as the New Jerusalem. +But it is for this especial reason that such an explanation is necessary +on the very threshold of the definition of ideals. For owing to that +historic fallacy with which I have just dealt, numbers of readers will +expect me, when I propound an ideal, to propound a new ideal. Now I have +no notion at all of propounding a new ideal. There is no new ideal +imaginable by the madness of modern sophists, which will be anything +like so startling as fulfilling any one of the old ones. On the day that +any copybook maxim is carried out there will be something like an +earthquake on the earth. There is only one thing new that can be done +under the sun; and that is to look at the sun. If you attempt it on a +blue day in June, you will know why men do not look straight at their +ideals. There is only one really startling thing to be done with the +ideal, and that is to do it. It is to face the flaming logical fact, and +its frightful consequences. Christ knew that it would be a more stunning +thunderbolt to fulfil the law than to destroy it. It is true of both the +cases I have quoted, and of every case. The pagans had always adored +purity: Athene, Artemis, Vesta. It was when the virgin martyrs began +defiantly to practice purity that they rent them with wild beasts, and +rolled them on red-hot coals. The world had always loved the notion of +the poor man uppermost; it can be proved by every legend from Cinderella +to Whittington, by every poem from the Magnificat to the Marseillaise. +The kings went mad against France not because she idealized this ideal, +but because she realized it. Joseph of Austria and Catherine of Russia +quite agreed that the people should rule; what horrified them was that +the people did. The French Revolution, therefore, is the type of all +true revolutions, because its ideal is as old as the Old Adam, but its +fulfillment almost as fresh, as miraculous, and as new as the New +Jerusalem. But in the modern world we are primarily confronted with the -extraordinary spectacle of people turning to new ideals -because they have not tried the old. Men have not got tired -of Christianity; they have never found enough Christianity -to get tired of. Men have never wearied of political -justice; they have wearied of waiting for it. - -Now, for the purpose of this book, I propose to take only -one of these old ideals; but one that is perhaps the oldest. -I take the principle of domesticity: the ideal house; the -happy family, the holy family of history. For the moment it -is only necessary to remark that it is like the church and -like the republic, now chiefly assailed by those who have -never known it, or by those who have failed to fulfil it. -Numberless modern women have rebelled against domesticity in -theory because they have never known it in practice. Hosts -of the poor are driven to the workhouse without ever having -known the house. Generally speaking, the cultured class is -shrieking to be let out of the decent home, just as the -working class is shouting to be let into it. - -Now if we take this house or home as a test, we may very -generally lay the simple spiritual foundations or the idea. -God is that which can make something out of nothing. Man (it -may truly be said) is that which can make something out of -anything. In other words, while the joy of God be unlimited -creation, the special joy of man is limited creation, the -combination of creation with limits. Man's pleasure, -therefore, is to possess conditions, but also to be partly -possessed by them; to be half-controlled by the flute he -plays or by the field he digs. The excitement is to get the -utmost out of given conditions; the conditions will stretch, -but not indefinitely. A man can write an immortal sonnet on -an old envelope, or hack a hero out of a lump of rock. But -hacking a sonnet out of a rock would be a laborious -business, and making a hero out of an envelope is almost out -of the sphere of practical politics. This fruitful strife -with limitations, when it concerns some airy entertainment -of an educated class, goes by the name of Art. But the mass -of men have neither time nor aptitude for the invention of -invisible or abstract beauty. For the mass of men the idea -of artistic creation can only be expressed by an idea -unpopular in present discussions---the idea of property. The -average man cannot cut clay into the shape of a man; but he -can cut earth into the shape of a garden; and though he -arranges it with red geraniums and blue potatoes in -alternate straight lines, he is still an artist; because he -has chosen. The average man cannot paint the sunset whose -colors he admires; but he can paint his own house with what -color he chooses, and though he paints it pea green with -pink spots, he is still an artist; because that is his -choice. Property is merely the art of the democracy. It -means that every man should have something that he can shape -in his own image, as he is shaped in the image of heaven. -But because he is not God, but only a graven image of God, -his self-expression must deal with limits; properly with -limits that are strict and even small. - -I am well aware that the word "property" has been defied in -our time by the corruption of the great capitalists. One -would think, to hear people talk, that the Rothschilds and -the Rockefellers were on the side of property. But obviously -they are the enemies of property; because they are enemies -of their own limitations. They do not want their own land; -but other people's. When they remove their neighbor's -landmark, they also remove their own. A man who loves a -little triangular field ought to love it because it is -triangular; anyone who destroys the shape, by giving him -more land, is a thief who has stolen a triangle. A man with -the true poetry of possession wishes to see the wall where -his garden meets Smith's garden; the hedge where his farm -touches Brown's. He cannot see the shape of his own land -unless he sees the edges of his neighbor's. It is the -negation of property that the Duke of Sutherland should have -all the farms in one estate; just as it would be the +extraordinary spectacle of people turning to new ideals because they +have not tried the old. Men have not got tired of Christianity; they +have never found enough Christianity to get tired of. Men have never +wearied of political justice; they have wearied of waiting for it. + +Now, for the purpose of this book, I propose to take only one of these +old ideals; but one that is perhaps the oldest. I take the principle of +domesticity: the ideal house; the happy family, the holy family of +history. For the moment it is only necessary to remark that it is like +the church and like the republic, now chiefly assailed by those who have +never known it, or by those who have failed to fulfil it. Numberless +modern women have rebelled against domesticity in theory because they +have never known it in practice. Hosts of the poor are driven to the +workhouse without ever having known the house. Generally speaking, the +cultured class is shrieking to be let out of the decent home, just as +the working class is shouting to be let into it. + +Now if we take this house or home as a test, we may very generally lay +the simple spiritual foundations or the idea. God is that which can make +something out of nothing. Man (it may truly be said) is that which can +make something out of anything. In other words, while the joy of God be +unlimited creation, the special joy of man is limited creation, the +combination of creation with limits. Man's pleasure, therefore, is to +possess conditions, but also to be partly possessed by them; to be +half-controlled by the flute he plays or by the field he digs. The +excitement is to get the utmost out of given conditions; the conditions +will stretch, but not indefinitely. A man can write an immortal sonnet +on an old envelope, or hack a hero out of a lump of rock. But hacking a +sonnet out of a rock would be a laborious business, and making a hero +out of an envelope is almost out of the sphere of practical politics. +This fruitful strife with limitations, when it concerns some airy +entertainment of an educated class, goes by the name of Art. But the +mass of men have neither time nor aptitude for the invention of +invisible or abstract beauty. For the mass of men the idea of artistic +creation can only be expressed by an idea unpopular in present +discussions---the idea of property. The average man cannot cut clay into +the shape of a man; but he can cut earth into the shape of a garden; and +though he arranges it with red geraniums and blue potatoes in alternate +straight lines, he is still an artist; because he has chosen. The +average man cannot paint the sunset whose colors he admires; but he can +paint his own house with what color he chooses, and though he paints it +pea green with pink spots, he is still an artist; because that is his +choice. Property is merely the art of the democracy. It means that every +man should have something that he can shape in his own image, as he is +shaped in the image of heaven. But because he is not God, but only a +graven image of God, his self-expression must deal with limits; properly +with limits that are strict and even small. + +I am well aware that the word "property" has been defied in our time by +the corruption of the great capitalists. One would think, to hear people +talk, that the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers were on the side of +property. But obviously they are the enemies of property; because they +are enemies of their own limitations. They do not want their own land; +but other people's. When they remove their neighbor's landmark, they +also remove their own. A man who loves a little triangular field ought +to love it because it is triangular; anyone who destroys the shape, by +giving him more land, is a thief who has stolen a triangle. A man with +the true poetry of possession wishes to see the wall where his garden +meets Smith's garden; the hedge where his farm touches Brown's. He +cannot see the shape of his own land unless he sees the edges of his +neighbor's. It is the negation of property that the Duke of Sutherland +should have all the farms in one estate; just as it would be the negation of marriage if he had all our wives in, one harem. ## The Free Family -As I have said, I propose to take only one central instance; -I will take the institution called the private house or -home; the shell and organ of the family. We will consider -cosmic and political tendencies simply as they strike that -ancient and unique roof. Very few words will suffice for all -I have to say about the family itself. I leave alone the -speculations about its animal origin and the details of its -social reconstruction; I am concerned only with its palpable -omnipresence. It is a necessity for mankind; it is (if you -like to put it so) a trap for mankind. Only by the -hypocritical ignoring of a huge fact can anyone contrive to -talk of "free love"; as if love were an episode like -lighting a cigarette, or whistling a tune. Suppose whenever -a man lit a cigarette, a towering genie arose from the rings -of smoke and followed him everywhere as a huge slave. -Suppose whenever a man whistled a tune he "drew an angel -down" and had to walk about forever with a seraph on a -string. These catastrophic images are but faint parallels to -the earthquake consequences that Nature has attached to sex; -and it is perfectly plain at the beginning that a man cannot -be a free lover; he is either a traitor or a tied man. The -second element that creates the family is that its -consequences, though colossal, are gradual; the cigarette -produces a baby giant, the song only an infant seraph. -Thence arises the necessity for some prolonged system of -co-operation; and thence arises the family in its full -educational sense. - -It may be said that this institution of the home is the one -anarchist institution. That is to say, it is older than law, -and stands outside the State. By its nature it is refreshed -or corrupted by indefinable forces of custom or kinship. -This is not to be understood as meaning that the State has -no authority over families; that State authority is invoked -and ought to be invoked in many abnormal cases. But in most -normal cases of family joys and sorrows, the State has no -mode of entry. It is not so much that the law should not -interfere, as that the law cannot. Just as there are fields -too far off for law, so there are fields too near; as a man -may see the North Pole before he sees his own backbone. -Small and near matters escape control at least as much as -vast and remote ones; and the real pains and pleasures of -the family form a strong instance of this. If a baby cries -for the moon, the policeman cannot procure the moon---but -neither can he stop the baby. Creatures so close to each -other as a husband and wife, or a mother and children, have -powers of making each other happy or miserable with which no -public coercion can deal. If a marriage could be dissolved -every morning it would not give back his night's rest to a -man kept awake by a curtain lecture; and what is the good of -giving a man a lot of power where he only wants a little -peace? The child must depend on the most imperfect mother; -the mother may be devoted to the most unworthy children; in -such relations legal revenges are vain. Even in the abnormal -cases where the law may operate, this difficulty is -constantly found; as many a bewildered magistrate knows. He -has to save children from starvation by taking away their -breadwinner. And he often has to break a wife's heart -because her husband has already broken her head. The State -has no tool delicate enough to deracinate the rooted habits -and tangled affections of the family; the two sexes, whether -happy or unhappy, are glued together too tightly for us to -get the blade of a legal penknife in between them. The man -and the woman are one flesh----yes, even when they are not -one spirit. Man is a quadruped. Upon this ancient and -anarchic intimacy, types of government have little or no -effect; it is happy or unhappy, by its own sexual -wholesomeness and genial habit, under the republic of -Switzerland or the despotism of Siam. Even a republic in -Siam would not have done much towards freeing the Siamese -Twins. - -The problem is not in marriage, but in sex; and would be -felt under the freest concubinage. Nevertheless, the -overwhelming mass of mankind has not believed in freedom in -this matter, but rather in a more or less lasting tie. -Tribes and civilizations differ about the occasions on which -we may loosen the bond, but they all agree that there is a -bond to be loosened, not a mere universal detachment. For -the purposes of this book I am not concerned to discuss that -mystical view of marriage in which I myself believe: the -great European tradition which has made marriage a -sacrament. It is enough to say here that heathen and -Christian alike have regarded marriage as a tie; a thing not -normally to be sundered. Briefly, this human belief in a -sexual bond rests on a principle of which the modern mind -has made a very inadequate study. It is, perhaps, most -nearly paralleled by the principle of the second wind in -walking. - -The principle is this: that in everything worth having, even -in every pleasure, there is a point of pain or tedium that -must be survived, so that the pleasure may revive and -endure. The joy of battle comes after the first fear of -death; the joy of reading Virgil comes after the bore of -learning him; the glow of the sea-bather comes after the icy -shock of the sea bath; and the success of the marriage comes -after the failure of the honeymoon. All human vows, laws, -and contracts are so many ways of surviving with success -this breaking point, this instant of potential surrender. - -In everything on this earth that is worth doing, there is a -stage when no one would do it, except for necessity or -honor. It is then that the Institution upholds a man and -helps him on to the firmer ground ahead. Whether this solid -fact of human nature is sufficient to justify the sublime -dedication of Christian marriage is quite another matter, it -is amply sufficient to justify the general human feeling of -marriage as a fixed thing, dissolution of which is a fault -or, at least, an ignominy. The essential element is not so -much duration as security. Two people must be tied together -in order to do themselves justice; for twenty minutes at a -dance, or for twenty years in a marriage. In both cases the -point is, that if a man is bored in the first five minutes -he must go on and force himself to be happy. Coercion is a -kind of encouragement; and anarchy (or what some call -liberty) is essentially oppressive, because it is -essentially discouraging. If we all floated in the air like -bubbles, free to drift anywhere at any instant, the -practical result would be that no one would have the courage -to begin a conversation. It would be so embarrassing to -start a sentence in a friendly whisper, and then have to -shout the last half of it because the other party was -floating away into the free and formless ether. The two must -hold each other to do justice to each other. If Americans -can be divorced for "incompatibility of temper" I cannot -conceive why they are not all divorced. I have known many -happy marriages, but never a compatible one. The whole aim -of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant when -incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and a -woman, as such, are incompatible. +As I have said, I propose to take only one central instance; I will take +the institution called the private house or home; the shell and organ of +the family. We will consider cosmic and political tendencies simply as +they strike that ancient and unique roof. Very few words will suffice +for all I have to say about the family itself. I leave alone the +speculations about its animal origin and the details of its social +reconstruction; I am concerned only with its palpable omnipresence. It +is a necessity for mankind; it is (if you like to put it so) a trap for +mankind. Only by the hypocritical ignoring of a huge fact can anyone +contrive to talk of "free love"; as if love were an episode like +lighting a cigarette, or whistling a tune. Suppose whenever a man lit a +cigarette, a towering genie arose from the rings of smoke and followed +him everywhere as a huge slave. Suppose whenever a man whistled a tune +he "drew an angel down" and had to walk about forever with a seraph on a +string. These catastrophic images are but faint parallels to the +earthquake consequences that Nature has attached to sex; and it is +perfectly plain at the beginning that a man cannot be a free lover; he +is either a traitor or a tied man. The second element that creates the +family is that its consequences, though colossal, are gradual; the +cigarette produces a baby giant, the song only an infant seraph. Thence +arises the necessity for some prolonged system of co-operation; and +thence arises the family in its full educational sense. + +It may be said that this institution of the home is the one anarchist +institution. That is to say, it is older than law, and stands outside +the State. By its nature it is refreshed or corrupted by indefinable +forces of custom or kinship. This is not to be understood as meaning +that the State has no authority over families; that State authority is +invoked and ought to be invoked in many abnormal cases. But in most +normal cases of family joys and sorrows, the State has no mode of entry. +It is not so much that the law should not interfere, as that the law +cannot. Just as there are fields too far off for law, so there are +fields too near; as a man may see the North Pole before he sees his own +backbone. Small and near matters escape control at least as much as vast +and remote ones; and the real pains and pleasures of the family form a +strong instance of this. If a baby cries for the moon, the policeman +cannot procure the moon---but neither can he stop the baby. Creatures so +close to each other as a husband and wife, or a mother and children, +have powers of making each other happy or miserable with which no public +coercion can deal. If a marriage could be dissolved every morning it +would not give back his night's rest to a man kept awake by a curtain +lecture; and what is the good of giving a man a lot of power where he +only wants a little peace? The child must depend on the most imperfect +mother; the mother may be devoted to the most unworthy children; in such +relations legal revenges are vain. Even in the abnormal cases where the +law may operate, this difficulty is constantly found; as many a +bewildered magistrate knows. He has to save children from starvation by +taking away their breadwinner. And he often has to break a wife's heart +because her husband has already broken her head. The State has no tool +delicate enough to deracinate the rooted habits and tangled affections +of the family; the two sexes, whether happy or unhappy, are glued +together too tightly for us to get the blade of a legal penknife in +between them. The man and the woman are one flesh----yes, even when they +are not one spirit. Man is a quadruped. Upon this ancient and anarchic +intimacy, types of government have little or no effect; it is happy or +unhappy, by its own sexual wholesomeness and genial habit, under the +republic of Switzerland or the despotism of Siam. Even a republic in +Siam would not have done much towards freeing the Siamese Twins. + +The problem is not in marriage, but in sex; and would be felt under the +freest concubinage. Nevertheless, the overwhelming mass of mankind has +not believed in freedom in this matter, but rather in a more or less +lasting tie. Tribes and civilizations differ about the occasions on +which we may loosen the bond, but they all agree that there is a bond to +be loosened, not a mere universal detachment. For the purposes of this +book I am not concerned to discuss that mystical view of marriage in +which I myself believe: the great European tradition which has made +marriage a sacrament. It is enough to say here that heathen and +Christian alike have regarded marriage as a tie; a thing not normally to +be sundered. Briefly, this human belief in a sexual bond rests on a +principle of which the modern mind has made a very inadequate study. It +is, perhaps, most nearly paralleled by the principle of the second wind +in walking. + +The principle is this: that in everything worth having, even in every +pleasure, there is a point of pain or tedium that must be survived, so +that the pleasure may revive and endure. The joy of battle comes after +the first fear of death; the joy of reading Virgil comes after the bore +of learning him; the glow of the sea-bather comes after the icy shock of +the sea bath; and the success of the marriage comes after the failure of +the honeymoon. All human vows, laws, and contracts are so many ways of +surviving with success this breaking point, this instant of potential +surrender. + +In everything on this earth that is worth doing, there is a stage when +no one would do it, except for necessity or honor. It is then that the +Institution upholds a man and helps him on to the firmer ground ahead. +Whether this solid fact of human nature is sufficient to justify the +sublime dedication of Christian marriage is quite another matter, it is +amply sufficient to justify the general human feeling of marriage as a +fixed thing, dissolution of which is a fault or, at least, an ignominy. +The essential element is not so much duration as security. Two people +must be tied together in order to do themselves justice; for twenty +minutes at a dance, or for twenty years in a marriage. In both cases the +point is, that if a man is bored in the first five minutes he must go on +and force himself to be happy. Coercion is a kind of encouragement; and +anarchy (or what some call liberty) is essentially oppressive, because +it is essentially discouraging. If we all floated in the air like +bubbles, free to drift anywhere at any instant, the practical result +would be that no one would have the courage to begin a conversation. It +would be so embarrassing to start a sentence in a friendly whisper, and +then have to shout the last half of it because the other party was +floating away into the free and formless ether. The two must hold each +other to do justice to each other. If Americans can be divorced for +"incompatibility of temper" I cannot conceive why they are not all +divorced. I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one. +The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant +when incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and a woman, as +such, are incompatible. ## The Wildness of Domesticity -In the course of this crude study we shall have to touch on -what is called the problem of poverty, especially the -dehumanized poverty of modern industrialism. But in this -primary matter of the ideal the difficulty is not the -problem of poverty, but the problem of wealth. It is the -special psychology of leisure and luxury that falsifies -life. Some experience of modern movements of the sort called -"advanced" has led me to the conviction that they generally -repose upon some experience peculiar to the rich. It is so -with that fallacy of free love of which I have already -spoken; the idea of sexuality as a string of episodes. That -implies a long holiday in which to get tired of one woman, -and a motor car in which to wander looking for others; it -also implies money for maintenances. An omnibus conductor -has hardly time to love his own wife, let alone other -people's. And the success with which nuptial estrangements -are depicted in modern "problem plays" is due to the fact -that there is only one thing that a drama cannot -depict---that is a hard day's work. I could give many other -instances of this plutocratic assumption behind progressive -fads. For instance, there is a plutocratic assumption behind -the phrase "Why should woman be economically dependent upon -man?" The answer is that among poor and practical people she -isn't; except in the sense in which he is dependent upon -her. 'A hunter has to tear his clothes; there must be -somebody to mend them. A fisher has to catch fish; there -must be somebody to cook them. It is surely quite clear that -this modern notion that woman is a mere "pretty clinging -parasite," "a plaything," etc., arose through the somber -contemplation of some rich banking family, in which the -banker, at least, went to the city and pretended to do -something, while the banker's wife went to the Park and did -not pretend to do anything at all. A poor man and his wife -are a business partnership. If one partner in a firm of -publishers interviews the authors while the other interviews -the clerks, is one of them economically dependent? Was -Hodder a pretty parasite clinging to Stoughton? Was Marshall -a mere plaything for Snelgrove? - -But of all the modern notions generated by mere wealth the -worst is this: the notion that domesticity is dull and tame. -Inside the home (they say) is dead decorum and routine; -outside is adventure and variety. This is indeed a rich -man's opinion. The rich man knows that his own house moves -on vast and soundless wheels of wealth, is run by regiments -of servants, by a swift and silent ritual. On the other -hand, every sort of vagabondage of romance is open to him in -the streets outside. He has plenty of money and can afford -to be a tramp. His wildest adventure will end in a -restaurant, while the yokel's tamest adventure may end in a -police-court. If he smashes a window he can pay for it; if -he smashes a man he can pension him. He can (like the -millionaire in the story) buy an hotel to get a glass of -gin. And because he, the luxurious man, dictates the tone of -nearly all "advanced" and "progressive" thought, we have -almost forgotten what a home really means to the -overwhelming millions of mankind. - -For the truth is, that to the moderately poor the home is -the only place of liberty. Nay, it is the only place of -anarchy. It is the only spot on the earth where a man can -alter arrangements suddenly, make an experiment or indulge -in a whim. Everywhere else he goes he must accept the strict -rules of the shop, inn, club, or museum that he happens to -enter. He can eat his meals on the floor in his own house if -he likes. I often do it myself; it gives a curious, -childish, poetic, picnic feeling. There would be -considerable trouble if I tried to do it in an A. B. C. -tea-shop. A man can wear a dressing-gown and slippers in his -house; while I am sure that this would not be permitted at -the Savoy, though I never actually tested the point. If you -go to a restaurant you must drink some of the wines on the -wine list, all of them if you insist, but certainly some of -them. But if you have a house and garden you can try to make -hollyhock tea or convolvulus wine if you like. For a plain, -hard-working man the home is not the one tame place in the -world of adventure. It is the one wild place in the world of -rules and set tasks. The home is the one place where he can -put the carpet on the ceiling or the slates on the floor if -he wants to. When a man spends every night staggering from -bar to bar or from music-hall to music-hall, we say that he -is living an irregular life. But he is not; he is living a -highly regular life, under the dull, and often oppressive, -laws of such places. Sometimes he is not allowed even to sit -down in the bars; and frequently he is not allowed to sing -in the music-halls. Hotels may be defined as places where -you are forced to dress; and theaters may be defined as -places where you are forbidden to smoke. A man can only +In the course of this crude study we shall have to touch on what is +called the problem of poverty, especially the dehumanized poverty of +modern industrialism. But in this primary matter of the ideal the +difficulty is not the problem of poverty, but the problem of wealth. It +is the special psychology of leisure and luxury that falsifies life. +Some experience of modern movements of the sort called "advanced" has +led me to the conviction that they generally repose upon some experience +peculiar to the rich. It is so with that fallacy of free love of which I +have already spoken; the idea of sexuality as a string of episodes. That +implies a long holiday in which to get tired of one woman, and a motor +car in which to wander looking for others; it also implies money for +maintenances. An omnibus conductor has hardly time to love his own wife, +let alone other people's. And the success with which nuptial +estrangements are depicted in modern "problem plays" is due to the fact +that there is only one thing that a drama cannot depict---that is a hard +day's work. I could give many other instances of this plutocratic +assumption behind progressive fads. For instance, there is a plutocratic +assumption behind the phrase "Why should woman be economically dependent +upon man?" The answer is that among poor and practical people she isn't; +except in the sense in which he is dependent upon her. 'A hunter has to +tear his clothes; there must be somebody to mend them. A fisher has to +catch fish; there must be somebody to cook them. It is surely quite +clear that this modern notion that woman is a mere "pretty clinging +parasite," "a plaything," etc., arose through the somber contemplation +of some rich banking family, in which the banker, at least, went to the +city and pretended to do something, while the banker's wife went to the +Park and did not pretend to do anything at all. A poor man and his wife +are a business partnership. If one partner in a firm of publishers +interviews the authors while the other interviews the clerks, is one of +them economically dependent? Was Hodder a pretty parasite clinging to +Stoughton? Was Marshall a mere plaything for Snelgrove? + +But of all the modern notions generated by mere wealth the worst is +this: the notion that domesticity is dull and tame. Inside the home +(they say) is dead decorum and routine; outside is adventure and +variety. This is indeed a rich man's opinion. The rich man knows that +his own house moves on vast and soundless wheels of wealth, is run by +regiments of servants, by a swift and silent ritual. On the other hand, +every sort of vagabondage of romance is open to him in the streets +outside. He has plenty of money and can afford to be a tramp. His +wildest adventure will end in a restaurant, while the yokel's tamest +adventure may end in a police-court. If he smashes a window he can pay +for it; if he smashes a man he can pension him. He can (like the +millionaire in the story) buy an hotel to get a glass of gin. And +because he, the luxurious man, dictates the tone of nearly all +"advanced" and "progressive" thought, we have almost forgotten what a +home really means to the overwhelming millions of mankind. + +For the truth is, that to the moderately poor the home is the only place +of liberty. Nay, it is the only place of anarchy. It is the only spot on +the earth where a man can alter arrangements suddenly, make an +experiment or indulge in a whim. Everywhere else he goes he must accept +the strict rules of the shop, inn, club, or museum that he happens to +enter. He can eat his meals on the floor in his own house if he likes. I +often do it myself; it gives a curious, childish, poetic, picnic +feeling. There would be considerable trouble if I tried to do it in an +A. B. C. tea-shop. A man can wear a dressing-gown and slippers in his +house; while I am sure that this would not be permitted at the Savoy, +though I never actually tested the point. If you go to a restaurant you +must drink some of the wines on the wine list, all of them if you +insist, but certainly some of them. But if you have a house and garden +you can try to make hollyhock tea or convolvulus wine if you like. For a +plain, hard-working man the home is not the one tame place in the world +of adventure. It is the one wild place in the world of rules and set +tasks. The home is the one place where he can put the carpet on the +ceiling or the slates on the floor if he wants to. When a man spends +every night staggering from bar to bar or from music-hall to music-hall, +we say that he is living an irregular life. But he is not; he is living +a highly regular life, under the dull, and often oppressive, laws of +such places. Sometimes he is not allowed even to sit down in the bars; +and frequently he is not allowed to sing in the music-halls. Hotels may +be defined as places where you are forced to dress; and theaters may be +defined as places where you are forbidden to smoke. A man can only picnic at home. -Now I take, as I have said, this small human omnipotence, -this possession of a definite cell or chamber of liberty, as -the working model for the present inquiry. Whether we can -give every Englishman a free home of his own or not, at -least we should desire it; and he desires it. For the moment -we speak of what he wants, not of what he expects to get. He -wants, for instance, a separate house; he does not want a -semi-detached house. He may be forced in the commercial race -to share one wall with another man. Similarly he might be -forced in a three-legged race to share one leg with another -man; but it is not so that he pictures himself in his dreams -of elegance and liberty. Again, he does not desire a flat. -He can eat and sleep and praise God in a flat; he can eat -and sleep and praise God in a railway train. But a railway -train is not a house, because it is a house on wheels. And a -flat is not a house, because it is a house on stilts. An -idea of earthy contact and foundation, as well as an idea of -separation and independence, is a part of this instructive -human picture. - -I take, then, this one institution as a test. As every -normal man desires a woman, and children born of a woman, -every normal man desires a house of his own to put them -into. He does not merely want a roof above him and a chair -below him; he wants an objective and visible kingdom; a fire -at which he can cook what food he likes, a door he can open -to what friends he chooses. This is the normal appetite of -men; I do not say there are not exceptions. There may be -saints above the need and philanthropists below it. -Opalstein, now he is a duke, may have got used to more than -this; and when he was a convict may have got used to less. -But the normality of the thing is enormous. To give nearly -everybody ordinary houses would please nearly everybody; -that is what I assert without apology. Now in modern England -(as you eagerly point out) it is very difficult to give -nearly everybody houses. Quite so; I merely set up the -*desideratum*; and ask the reader to leave it standing there -while he turns with me to a consideration of what really -happens in the social wars of our time. +Now I take, as I have said, this small human omnipotence, this +possession of a definite cell or chamber of liberty, as the working +model for the present inquiry. Whether we can give every Englishman a +free home of his own or not, at least we should desire it; and he +desires it. For the moment we speak of what he wants, not of what he +expects to get. He wants, for instance, a separate house; he does not +want a semi-detached house. He may be forced in the commercial race to +share one wall with another man. Similarly he might be forced in a +three-legged race to share one leg with another man; but it is not so +that he pictures himself in his dreams of elegance and liberty. Again, +he does not desire a flat. He can eat and sleep and praise God in a +flat; he can eat and sleep and praise God in a railway train. But a +railway train is not a house, because it is a house on wheels. And a +flat is not a house, because it is a house on stilts. An idea of earthy +contact and foundation, as well as an idea of separation and +independence, is a part of this instructive human picture. + +I take, then, this one institution as a test. As every normal man +desires a woman, and children born of a woman, every normal man desires +a house of his own to put them into. He does not merely want a roof +above him and a chair below him; he wants an objective and visible +kingdom; a fire at which he can cook what food he likes, a door he can +open to what friends he chooses. This is the normal appetite of men; I +do not say there are not exceptions. There may be saints above the need +and philanthropists below it. Opalstein, now he is a duke, may have got +used to more than this; and when he was a convict may have got used to +less. But the normality of the thing is enormous. To give nearly +everybody ordinary houses would please nearly everybody; that is what I +assert without apology. Now in modern England (as you eagerly point out) +it is very difficult to give nearly everybody houses. Quite so; I merely +set up the *desideratum*; and ask the reader to leave it standing there +while he turns with me to a consideration of what really happens in the +social wars of our time. ## History of Hudge and Gudge -There is, let us say, a certain filthy rookery in Hoxton, -dripping with disease and honeycombed with crime and -promiscuity. There are, let us say, two noble and courageous -young men, of pure intentions and (if you prefer it) noble -birth; let us call them Hudge and Gudge. Hudge, let us say, -is of a bustling sort; he points out that the people must at -all costs be got out of this den; he subscribes and collects -money, but he finds (despite the large financial interests -of the Hudges) that the thing will have to be done on the -cheap if it is to be done on the spot. He, therefore, runs -up a row of tall bare tenements like beehives; and soon has -all the poor people bundled into their little brick cells, -which are certainly better than their old quarters, in so -far as they are weather proof, well ventilated and supplied -with clean water. But Gudge has a more delicate nature. He -feels a nameless something lacking in the little brick -boxes; he raises numberless objections; he even assails the -celebrated Hudge Report, with the Gudge Minority Report; and -by the end of a year or so has come to telling Hudge -heatedly that the people were much happier where they were -before. As the people preserve in both places precisely the -same air of dazed amiability, it is very difficult to find -out which is right. But at least one might safely say that -no people ever liked stench or starvation as such, but only -some peculiar pleasures entangled with them. Not so feels -the sensitive Gudge. Long before the final quarrel (Hudge v. -Gudge and Another), Gudge has succeeded in persuading -himself that slums and stinks are really very nice things; -that the habit of sleeping fourteen in a room is what has -made our England great; and that the smell of open drains is +There is, let us say, a certain filthy rookery in Hoxton, dripping with +disease and honeycombed with crime and promiscuity. There are, let us +say, two noble and courageous young men, of pure intentions and (if you +prefer it) noble birth; let us call them Hudge and Gudge. Hudge, let us +say, is of a bustling sort; he points out that the people must at all +costs be got out of this den; he subscribes and collects money, but he +finds (despite the large financial interests of the Hudges) that the +thing will have to be done on the cheap if it is to be done on the spot. +He, therefore, runs up a row of tall bare tenements like beehives; and +soon has all the poor people bundled into their little brick cells, +which are certainly better than their old quarters, in so far as they +are weather proof, well ventilated and supplied with clean water. But +Gudge has a more delicate nature. He feels a nameless something lacking +in the little brick boxes; he raises numberless objections; he even +assails the celebrated Hudge Report, with the Gudge Minority Report; and +by the end of a year or so has come to telling Hudge heatedly that the +people were much happier where they were before. As the people preserve +in both places precisely the same air of dazed amiability, it is very +difficult to find out which is right. But at least one might safely say +that no people ever liked stench or starvation as such, but only some +peculiar pleasures entangled with them. Not so feels the sensitive +Gudge. Long before the final quarrel (Hudge v. Gudge and Another), Gudge +has succeeded in persuading himself that slums and stinks are really +very nice things; that the habit of sleeping fourteen in a room is what +has made our England great; and that the smell of open drains is absolutely essential to the rearing of a Viking breed. -But, meanwhile, has there been no degeneration in Hudge? -Alas, I fear there has. Those maniacally ugly buildings -which he originally put up as unpretentious sheds barely to -shelter human life, grow every day more and more lovely to -his deluded eye. Things he would never have dreamed of -defending, except as crude necessities, things like common -kitchens or infamous asbestos stoves, begin to shine quite -sacredly before him, merely because they reflect the wrath -of Gudge. He maintains, with the aid of eager little books -by Socialists, that man is really happier in a hive than in -a house. The practical difficulty of keeping total strangers -out of your bedroom he describes as Brotherhood; and the -necessity for climbing twenty-three flights of cold stone -stairs, I dare say he calls Effort. The net result of their -philanthropic adventure is this: that one has come to -defending indefensible slums and still more indefensible -slum-landlords; while the other has come to treating as -divine the sheds and pipes which he only meant as desperate. -Gudge is now a corrupt and apoplectic old Tory in the -Carlton Club; if you mention poverty to him he roars at you -in a thick, hoarse voice something that is conjectured to be -"Do 'em good!" Nor is Hudge more happy; for he is a lean -vegetarian with a gray, pointed beard and an unnaturally -easy smile, who goes about telling everybody that at last we -shall all sleep in one universal bedroom; and he lives in a -Garden City, like one forgotten of God. - -Such is the lamentable history of Hudge and Gudge; which I -merely introduce as a type of an endless and exasperating -misunderstanding which is always occurring in modern -England. To get men out of a rookery men are put into a -tenement; and at the beginning the healthy human soul -loathes them both. A man's first desire is to get away as -far as possible from the rookery, even should his mad course -lead him to a model dwelling. The second desire is, -naturally, to get away from the model dwelling, even if it -should lead a man back to the rookery. But I am neither a -Hudgian nor a Gudgian; and I think the mistakes of these two -famous and fascinating persons arose from one simple fact. -They arose from the fact that neither Hudge nor Gudge had -ever thought for an instant what sort of house a man might -probably like for himself. In short, they did not begin with -the ideal; and, therefore, were not practical politicians. - -We may now return to the purpose of our awkward parenthesis -about the praise of the future and the failures of the past. -A house of his own being the obvious ideal for every man, we -may now ask (taking this need as typical of all such needs) -why he hasn't got it; and whether it is in any philosophical -sense his own fault. Now, I think that in some philosophical -sense it is his own fault; I think in a yet more -philosophical sense it is the fault of his philosophy. And -this is what I have now to attempt to explain. - -Burke, a fine rhetorician, who rarely faced realities, said, -I think, that an Englishman's house is his castle. This is -honestly entertaining; for as it happens the Englishman is -almost the only man in Europe whose house is not his castle. -Nearly everywhere else exists the assumption of peasant -proprietorship; that a poor man may be a landlord, though he -is only lord of his own land. Making the landlord and the -tenant the same person has certain trivial advantages, as -that the tenant pays no rent, while the landlord does a -little work. But I am not concerned with the defense of -small proprietorship, but merely with the fact that it -exists almost everywhere except in England. It is also true, -however, that this estate of small possession is attacked -everywhere today; it has never existed among ourselves, and -it may be destroyed among our neighbors. We have, therefore, -to ask ourselves what it is in human affairs generally, and -in this domestic ideal in particular, that has really ruined -the natural human creation, especially in this country. - -Man has always lost his way. He has been a tramp ever since -Eden; but he always knew, or thought he knew, what he was -looking for. Every man has a house somewhere in the -elaborate cosmos; his house waits for him waist deep in slow -Norfolk rivers or sunning itself upon Sussex downs. Man has -always been looking for that home which is the subject -matter of this book. But in the bleak and blinding hail of -skepticism to which he has been now so long subjected, he -has begun for the first time to be chilled, not merely in -his hopes, but in his desires. For the first time in history -he begins really to doubt the object of his wanderings on -the earth. He has always lost his way; but now he has lost -his address. - -Under the pressure of certain upper-class philosophies (or -in other words, under the pressure of Hudge and Gudge) the -average man has really become bewildered about the goal of -his efforts; and his efforts, therefore, grow feebler and -feebler. His simple notion of having a home of his own is -derided as bourgeois, as sentimental, or as despicably -Christian, tinder various verbal forms he is recommended to -go on to the streets---which is called Individualism; or to -the work-house---which is called Collectivism. We shall -consider this process somewhat more carefully in a moment. -But it may be said here that Hudge and Gudge, or the -governing class generally, will never fail for lack of some -modern phrase to cover their ancient predominance. The great -lords will refuse the English peasant his three acres and a -cow on advanced grounds, if they cannot refuse it longer on -reactionary grounds. They will deny him the three acres on -grounds of State Ownership. They will forbid him the cow on -grounds of humanitarianism. - -And this brings us to the ultimate analysis of this singular -influence that has prevented doctrinal demands by the -English people. There are, I believe, some who still deny -that England is governed by an oligarchy. It is quite enough -for me to know that a man might have gone to sleep some -thirty years ago over the day's newspaper and woke up last -week over the later newspaper, and fancied he was reading -about the same people. In one paper he would have found a -Lord Robert Cecil, a Mr. Gladstone, a Mr. Lyttleton, a -Churchill, a Chamberlain, a Trevelyan, an Acland. In the -other paper he would find a Lord Robert Cecil, a Mr. -Gladstone, a Mr. Lyttleton, a Churchill, a Chamberlain, a -Trevelyan, an Acland. If this is not being governed by -families I cannot imagine what it is. I suppose it la being -governed by extraordinary democratic coincidences. +But, meanwhile, has there been no degeneration in Hudge? Alas, I fear +there has. Those maniacally ugly buildings which he originally put up as +unpretentious sheds barely to shelter human life, grow every day more +and more lovely to his deluded eye. Things he would never have dreamed +of defending, except as crude necessities, things like common kitchens +or infamous asbestos stoves, begin to shine quite sacredly before him, +merely because they reflect the wrath of Gudge. He maintains, with the +aid of eager little books by Socialists, that man is really happier in a +hive than in a house. The practical difficulty of keeping total +strangers out of your bedroom he describes as Brotherhood; and the +necessity for climbing twenty-three flights of cold stone stairs, I dare +say he calls Effort. The net result of their philanthropic adventure is +this: that one has come to defending indefensible slums and still more +indefensible slum-landlords; while the other has come to treating as +divine the sheds and pipes which he only meant as desperate. Gudge is +now a corrupt and apoplectic old Tory in the Carlton Club; if you +mention poverty to him he roars at you in a thick, hoarse voice +something that is conjectured to be "Do 'em good!" Nor is Hudge more +happy; for he is a lean vegetarian with a gray, pointed beard and an +unnaturally easy smile, who goes about telling everybody that at last we +shall all sleep in one universal bedroom; and he lives in a Garden City, +like one forgotten of God. + +Such is the lamentable history of Hudge and Gudge; which I merely +introduce as a type of an endless and exasperating misunderstanding +which is always occurring in modern England. To get men out of a rookery +men are put into a tenement; and at the beginning the healthy human soul +loathes them both. A man's first desire is to get away as far as +possible from the rookery, even should his mad course lead him to a +model dwelling. The second desire is, naturally, to get away from the +model dwelling, even if it should lead a man back to the rookery. But I +am neither a Hudgian nor a Gudgian; and I think the mistakes of these +two famous and fascinating persons arose from one simple fact. They +arose from the fact that neither Hudge nor Gudge had ever thought for an +instant what sort of house a man might probably like for himself. In +short, they did not begin with the ideal; and, therefore, were not +practical politicians. + +We may now return to the purpose of our awkward parenthesis about the +praise of the future and the failures of the past. A house of his own +being the obvious ideal for every man, we may now ask (taking this need +as typical of all such needs) why he hasn't got it; and whether it is in +any philosophical sense his own fault. Now, I think that in some +philosophical sense it is his own fault; I think in a yet more +philosophical sense it is the fault of his philosophy. And this is what +I have now to attempt to explain. + +Burke, a fine rhetorician, who rarely faced realities, said, I think, +that an Englishman's house is his castle. This is honestly entertaining; +for as it happens the Englishman is almost the only man in Europe whose +house is not his castle. Nearly everywhere else exists the assumption of +peasant proprietorship; that a poor man may be a landlord, though he is +only lord of his own land. Making the landlord and the tenant the same +person has certain trivial advantages, as that the tenant pays no rent, +while the landlord does a little work. But I am not concerned with the +defense of small proprietorship, but merely with the fact that it exists +almost everywhere except in England. It is also true, however, that this +estate of small possession is attacked everywhere today; it has never +existed among ourselves, and it may be destroyed among our neighbors. We +have, therefore, to ask ourselves what it is in human affairs generally, +and in this domestic ideal in particular, that has really ruined the +natural human creation, especially in this country. + +Man has always lost his way. He has been a tramp ever since Eden; but he +always knew, or thought he knew, what he was looking for. Every man has +a house somewhere in the elaborate cosmos; his house waits for him waist +deep in slow Norfolk rivers or sunning itself upon Sussex downs. Man has +always been looking for that home which is the subject matter of this +book. But in the bleak and blinding hail of skepticism to which he has +been now so long subjected, he has begun for the first time to be +chilled, not merely in his hopes, but in his desires. For the first time +in history he begins really to doubt the object of his wanderings on the +earth. He has always lost his way; but now he has lost his address. + +Under the pressure of certain upper-class philosophies (or in other +words, under the pressure of Hudge and Gudge) the average man has really +become bewildered about the goal of his efforts; and his efforts, +therefore, grow feebler and feebler. His simple notion of having a home +of his own is derided as bourgeois, as sentimental, or as despicably +Christian, tinder various verbal forms he is recommended to go on to the +streets---which is called Individualism; or to the work-house---which is +called Collectivism. We shall consider this process somewhat more +carefully in a moment. But it may be said here that Hudge and Gudge, or +the governing class generally, will never fail for lack of some modern +phrase to cover their ancient predominance. The great lords will refuse +the English peasant his three acres and a cow on advanced grounds, if +they cannot refuse it longer on reactionary grounds. They will deny him +the three acres on grounds of State Ownership. They will forbid him the +cow on grounds of humanitarianism. + +And this brings us to the ultimate analysis of this singular influence +that has prevented doctrinal demands by the English people. There are, I +believe, some who still deny that England is governed by an oligarchy. +It is quite enough for me to know that a man might have gone to sleep +some thirty years ago over the day's newspaper and woke up last week +over the later newspaper, and fancied he was reading about the same +people. In one paper he would have found a Lord Robert Cecil, a +Mr. Gladstone, a Mr. Lyttleton, a Churchill, a Chamberlain, a Trevelyan, +an Acland. In the other paper he would find a Lord Robert Cecil, a Mr. +Gladstone, a Mr. Lyttleton, a Churchill, a Chamberlain, a Trevelyan, an +Acland. If this is not being governed by families I cannot imagine what +it is. I suppose it la being governed by extraordinary democratic +coincidences. ## Oppression by Optimism -But we are not here concerned with the nature and existence -of the aristocracy, but with the origin of its peculiar -power; why is it the last of the true oligarchies of Europe; -and why does there seem no very immediate prospect of our -seeing the end of it? The explanation is simple though it -remains strangely unnoticed. The friends of aristocracy -often praise it for preserving ancient and gracious -traditions. The enemies of aristocracy often blame it for -clinging to cruel or antiquated customs. Both its enemies -and its friends are wrong. Generally speaking the -aristocracy does not preserve either good or bad traditions; -it does not preserve anything except game. Who would dream -of looking among aristocrats anywhere for an old custom? One -might as well look for an old costume! The god of the -aristocrats is not tradition, but fashion, which is the -opposite of tradition. If you wanted to find an old-world -Norwegian head-dress, would you look for it in the -Scandinavian Smart Set? No; the aristocrats never have -customs; at the best they have habits, like the animals. -Only the mob has customs. - -The real power of the English aristocrats has lain in -exactly the opposite of tradition. The simple key to the -power of our upper classes is this: that they have always -kept carefully on the side of what is called Progress. They -have always been up to date, and this comes quite easy to an -aristocracy. For the aristocracy are the supreme instances -of that frame of mind of which we spoke just now. Novelty is -to them a luxury verging on a necessity. They, above all, -are so bored with the past and with the present, that they -gape, with a horrible hunger, for the future. - -But whatever else the great lords forgot they never forgot -that it was their business to stand for the new things, for -whatever was being most talked about among university dons -or fussy financiers. Thus they were on the side of the -Reformation against the Church, of the Whigs against the -Stuarts, of the Baconian science against the old philosophy, -of the manufacturing system against the operatives, and -(to-day) of the increased power of the State against the -old-fashioned individualists. In short, the rich are always -modern; it is their business. But the immediate effect of -this fact upon the question we are studying is somewhat -singular. - -In each of the separate holes or quandaries in which the -ordinary Englishman has been placed, he has been told that -his situation is, for some particular reason, all for the -best. He woke up one fine morning and discovered that the -public things, which for eight hundred years he had used at -once as inns and sanctuaries, had all been suddenly and -savagely abolished, to increase the private wealth of about -six or seven men. One would think he might have been annoyed -at that; in many places he was, and was put down by the -soldiery. But it was not merely the army that kept him -quiet. - -He was kept quiet by the sages as well as the soldiers; the -six or seven men who took away the inns of the poor told him -that they were not doing it for themselves, but for the -religion of the future, the great dawn of Protestantism and -truth. So whenever a seventeenth century noble was caught -pulling down a peasant's fence and stealing his field, the -noble pointed excitedly at the face of Charles I or James II -(which at that moment, perhaps, wore a cross expression) and -thus diverted the simple peasant's attention. The great -Puritan lords created the Commonwealth, and destroyed the -common land. They saved their poorer countrymen from the -disgrace of paying Ship Money, by taking from them the plow -money and spade money which they were doubtless too weak to -guard. A fine old English rhyme has immortalized this easy -aristocratic habit--- +But we are not here concerned with the nature and existence of the +aristocracy, but with the origin of its peculiar power; why is it the +last of the true oligarchies of Europe; and why does there seem no very +immediate prospect of our seeing the end of it? The explanation is +simple though it remains strangely unnoticed. The friends of aristocracy +often praise it for preserving ancient and gracious traditions. The +enemies of aristocracy often blame it for clinging to cruel or +antiquated customs. Both its enemies and its friends are wrong. +Generally speaking the aristocracy does not preserve either good or bad +traditions; it does not preserve anything except game. Who would dream +of looking among aristocrats anywhere for an old custom? One might as +well look for an old costume! The god of the aristocrats is not +tradition, but fashion, which is the opposite of tradition. If you +wanted to find an old-world Norwegian head-dress, would you look for it +in the Scandinavian Smart Set? No; the aristocrats never have customs; +at the best they have habits, like the animals. Only the mob has +customs. + +The real power of the English aristocrats has lain in exactly the +opposite of tradition. The simple key to the power of our upper classes +is this: that they have always kept carefully on the side of what is +called Progress. They have always been up to date, and this comes quite +easy to an aristocracy. For the aristocracy are the supreme instances of +that frame of mind of which we spoke just now. Novelty is to them a +luxury verging on a necessity. They, above all, are so bored with the +past and with the present, that they gape, with a horrible hunger, for +the future. + +But whatever else the great lords forgot they never forgot that it was +their business to stand for the new things, for whatever was being most +talked about among university dons or fussy financiers. Thus they were +on the side of the Reformation against the Church, of the Whigs against +the Stuarts, of the Baconian science against the old philosophy, of the +manufacturing system against the operatives, and (to-day) of the +increased power of the State against the old-fashioned individualists. +In short, the rich are always modern; it is their business. But the +immediate effect of this fact upon the question we are studying is +somewhat singular. + +In each of the separate holes or quandaries in which the ordinary +Englishman has been placed, he has been told that his situation is, for +some particular reason, all for the best. He woke up one fine morning +and discovered that the public things, which for eight hundred years he +had used at once as inns and sanctuaries, had all been suddenly and +savagely abolished, to increase the private wealth of about six or seven +men. One would think he might have been annoyed at that; in many places +he was, and was put down by the soldiery. But it was not merely the army +that kept him quiet. + +He was kept quiet by the sages as well as the soldiers; the six or seven +men who took away the inns of the poor told him that they were not doing +it for themselves, but for the religion of the future, the great dawn of +Protestantism and truth. So whenever a seventeenth century noble was +caught pulling down a peasant's fence and stealing his field, the noble +pointed excitedly at the face of Charles I or James II (which at that +moment, perhaps, wore a cross expression) and thus diverted the simple +peasant's attention. The great Puritan lords created the Commonwealth, +and destroyed the common land. They saved their poorer countrymen from +the disgrace of paying Ship Money, by taking from them the plow money +and spade money which they were doubtless too weak to guard. A fine old +English rhyme has immortalized this easy aristocratic habit--- > You prosecute the man or woman > @@ -1592,4596 +1344,3879 @@ aristocratic habit--- > > Who steals the common from the goose. -But here, as in the case of the monasteries, we confront the -strange problem of submission. If they stole the common from -the goose, one can only say that he was a great goose to -stand it. The truth is that they reasoned with the goose; -they explained to him that all this was needed to get the -Stuart fox over seas. So in the nineteenth century the great -nobles who became mine-owners and railway directors -earnestly assured everybody that they did not do this from -preference, but owing to a newly discovered Economic Law. So -the prosperous politicians of our own generation introduce -bills to prevent poor mothers from going about with their -own babies; or they calmly forbid their tenants to drink -beer in public inns. But this insolence is not (as you would -suppose) howled at by everybody as outrageous feudalism. It -is gently rebuked as Socialism. For an aristocracy is always -progressive; it is a form of going the pace. Their parties -grow later and later at night; for they are trying to live -to-morrow. +But here, as in the case of the monasteries, we confront the strange +problem of submission. If they stole the common from the goose, one can +only say that he was a great goose to stand it. The truth is that they +reasoned with the goose; they explained to him that all this was needed +to get the Stuart fox over seas. So in the nineteenth century the great +nobles who became mine-owners and railway directors earnestly assured +everybody that they did not do this from preference, but owing to a +newly discovered Economic Law. So the prosperous politicians of our own +generation introduce bills to prevent poor mothers from going about with +their own babies; or they calmly forbid their tenants to drink beer in +public inns. But this insolence is not (as you would suppose) howled at +by everybody as outrageous feudalism. It is gently rebuked as Socialism. +For an aristocracy is always progressive; it is a form of going the +pace. Their parties grow later and later at night; for they are trying +to live to-morrow. ## The Homelessness of Jones -Thus the Future of which we spoke at the beginning has (in -England at least) always been the ally of tyranny. The -ordinary Englishman has been duped out of his old -possessions, such as they were, and always in the name of -progress. The destroyers of the abbeys took away his bread -and gave him a stone, assuring him that it was a precious -stone, the white pebble of the Lord's elect. They took away -his maypole and his original rural life and promised him -instead the Golden Age of Peace and Commerce inaugurated at -the Crystal Palace. And now they are taking away the little -that remains of his dignity as a householder and the head of -a family, promising him instead Utopias which are called -(appropriately enough) "Anticipations" or "News from -Nowhere." We come back, in fact, to the main feature which -has already been mentioned. The past is communal: the future -must be individualist. In the past are all the evils of -democracy, variety and violence and doubt, but the future is -pure despotism, for the future is pure caprice. Yesterday, I -know I was a human fool, but to-morrow I can easily be the -Superman. - -The modern Englishman, however, is like a man who should be -perpetually kept out, for one reason after another, from the -house in which he had meant his married life to begin. This -man (Jones let us call him) has always desired the divinely -ordinary things; he has married for love, he has chosen or -built a small house that fits like a coat; he is ready to be -a great grandfather and a local god. And just as he is -moving in, something goes wrong. Some tyranny, personal or -political, suddenly debars him from the home; and he has to -take his meals in the front garden. A passing philosopher -(who is also, by a mere coincidence, the man who turned him -out) pauses, and leaning elegantly on the railings, explains -to him that he is now living that bold life upon the bounty -of nature which will be the life of the sublime future. He -finds life in the front garden more bold than bountiful, and -has to move into mean lodgings in the next spring. The -philosopher (who turned him out), happening to call at these -lodgings, with the probable intention of raising the rent, -stops to explain to him that he is now in the real life of -mercantile endeavor; the economic struggle between him and -the landlady is the only thing out of which, in the sublime -future, the wealth of nations can come. He is defeated in -the economic struggle, and goes to the workhouse. The -philosopher who turned him out (happening at that very -moment to be inspecting the workhouse) assures him that he -is now at last in that golden republic which is the goal of -mankind; he is in an equal, scientific, Socialistic -commonwealth, owned by the State and ruled by public -officers; in fact, the commonwealth of the sublime future. - -Nevertheless, there are signs that the irrational Jones -still dreams at night of his old idea of having an ordinary -home. He asked for so little, and he has been offered so -much. He has been offered bribes of worlds and systems; he -has been offered Eden and Utopia and the New Jerusalem, and -he only wanted a house; and that has been refused him. - -Such an apologue is literally no exaggeration of the facts -of English history. The rich did literally turn the poor out -of the old guest house on to the road, briefly telling them -that it was the road of progress. They did literally force -them into factories and the modern wage-slavery, assuring -them all the time that this was the only way to wealth and -civilization. Just as they had dragged the rustic from the -convent food and ale by saying that the streets of heaven -were paved with gold, so now they dragged him from the -village food and ale by telling him that the streets of -London were paved with gold. As he entered the gloomy porch -of Puritanism, so he entered the gloomy porch of -Industrialism, being told that each of them was the gate of -the future. Hitherto he has only gone from prison to prison, -nay, into darkening prisons, for Calvinism opened one small -window upon heaven. And now he is asked, in the same -educated and authoritative tones, to enter another dark -porch, at which he has to surrender, into unseen hands, his -children, his small possessions and all the habits of his +Thus the Future of which we spoke at the beginning has (in England at +least) always been the ally of tyranny. The ordinary Englishman has been +duped out of his old possessions, such as they were, and always in the +name of progress. The destroyers of the abbeys took away his bread and +gave him a stone, assuring him that it was a precious stone, the white +pebble of the Lord's elect. They took away his maypole and his original +rural life and promised him instead the Golden Age of Peace and Commerce +inaugurated at the Crystal Palace. And now they are taking away the +little that remains of his dignity as a householder and the head of a +family, promising him instead Utopias which are called (appropriately +enough) "Anticipations" or "News from Nowhere." We come back, in fact, +to the main feature which has already been mentioned. The past is +communal: the future must be individualist. In the past are all the +evils of democracy, variety and violence and doubt, but the future is +pure despotism, for the future is pure caprice. Yesterday, I know I was +a human fool, but to-morrow I can easily be the Superman. + +The modern Englishman, however, is like a man who should be perpetually +kept out, for one reason after another, from the house in which he had +meant his married life to begin. This man (Jones let us call him) has +always desired the divinely ordinary things; he has married for love, he +has chosen or built a small house that fits like a coat; he is ready to +be a great grandfather and a local god. And just as he is moving in, +something goes wrong. Some tyranny, personal or political, suddenly +debars him from the home; and he has to take his meals in the front +garden. A passing philosopher (who is also, by a mere coincidence, the +man who turned him out) pauses, and leaning elegantly on the railings, +explains to him that he is now living that bold life upon the bounty of +nature which will be the life of the sublime future. He finds life in +the front garden more bold than bountiful, and has to move into mean +lodgings in the next spring. The philosopher (who turned him out), +happening to call at these lodgings, with the probable intention of +raising the rent, stops to explain to him that he is now in the real +life of mercantile endeavor; the economic struggle between him and the +landlady is the only thing out of which, in the sublime future, the +wealth of nations can come. He is defeated in the economic struggle, and +goes to the workhouse. The philosopher who turned him out (happening at +that very moment to be inspecting the workhouse) assures him that he is +now at last in that golden republic which is the goal of mankind; he is +in an equal, scientific, Socialistic commonwealth, owned by the State +and ruled by public officers; in fact, the commonwealth of the sublime +future. + +Nevertheless, there are signs that the irrational Jones still dreams at +night of his old idea of having an ordinary home. He asked for so +little, and he has been offered so much. He has been offered bribes of +worlds and systems; he has been offered Eden and Utopia and the New +Jerusalem, and he only wanted a house; and that has been refused him. + +Such an apologue is literally no exaggeration of the facts of English +history. The rich did literally turn the poor out of the old guest house +on to the road, briefly telling them that it was the road of progress. +They did literally force them into factories and the modern +wage-slavery, assuring them all the time that this was the only way to +wealth and civilization. Just as they had dragged the rustic from the +convent food and ale by saying that the streets of heaven were paved +with gold, so now they dragged him from the village food and ale by +telling him that the streets of London were paved with gold. As he +entered the gloomy porch of Puritanism, so he entered the gloomy porch +of Industrialism, being told that each of them was the gate of the +future. Hitherto he has only gone from prison to prison, nay, into +darkening prisons, for Calvinism opened one small window upon heaven. +And now he is asked, in the same educated and authoritative tones, to +enter another dark porch, at which he has to surrender, into unseen +hands, his children, his small possessions and all the habits of his fathers. -Whether this last opening be in truth any more inviting than -the old openings of Puritanism and Industrialism can be -discussed later. But there can be little doubt, I think, -that if some form of Collectivism is imposed upon England it -will be imposed, as everything else has been, by an -instructed political class upon a people partly apathetic -and partly hypnotized. The aristocracy will be as ready to -"administer" Collectivism as they were to administer -Puritanism or Manchesterism; in some ways such a centralized -political power is necessarily attractive to them. It will -not be so hard as some innocent Socialists seem to suppose -to induce the Honorable Tomnoddy to take over the milk -supply as well as the stamp supply;---at an increased -salary. Mr. Bernard Shaw has remarked that rich men are -better than poor men on parish councils because they are -free from "financial timidity." Now, the English ruling -class is quite free from financial timidity. The Duke of -Sussex will be quite ready to be Administrator of Sussex at -the same screw. Sir William Harcourt, that typical -aristocrat, put it quite correctly. "We" (that is, the -aristocracy) "are all Socialists now." - -But this is not the essential note on which I desire to end. -My main contention is that, whether necessary or not, both -Industrialism and Collectivism have been accepted as -necessities---not as naked ideals or desires. Nobody liked -the Manchester School; it was endured as the only way of -producing wealth. Nobody likes the Marxian school; it is -endured as the only way of preventing poverty. Nobody's real -heart is in the idea of preventing a free man from owning -his own farm, or an old woman from cultivating her own -garden, any more than anybody's real heart was in the -heartless battle of the machines. The purpose of this -chapter is sufficiently served in indicating that this -proposal also is a pis oiler, a desperate second best---like -teetotalism. I do not propose to prove here that Socialism -is a poison; it is enough if I maintain that it is a -medicine and not a wine. - -The idea of private property universal but private, the idea -of families free but still families, of domesticity -democratic but still domestic, of one man one house---this -remains the real vision and magnet of mankind. The world may -accept something more official and general, less human and -intimate. But the world will be like a broken-hearted woman -who makes a humdrum marriage because she may not make a -happy one; Socialism may be the world's deliverance, but it -is not the world's desire. +Whether this last opening be in truth any more inviting than the old +openings of Puritanism and Industrialism can be discussed later. But +there can be little doubt, I think, that if some form of Collectivism is +imposed upon England it will be imposed, as everything else has been, by +an instructed political class upon a people partly apathetic and partly +hypnotized. The aristocracy will be as ready to "administer" +Collectivism as they were to administer Puritanism or Manchesterism; in +some ways such a centralized political power is necessarily attractive +to them. It will not be so hard as some innocent Socialists seem to +suppose to induce the Honorable Tomnoddy to take over the milk supply as +well as the stamp supply;---at an increased salary. Mr. Bernard Shaw has +remarked that rich men are better than poor men on parish councils +because they are free from "financial timidity." Now, the English ruling +class is quite free from financial timidity. The Duke of Sussex will be +quite ready to be Administrator of Sussex at the same screw. Sir William +Harcourt, that typical aristocrat, put it quite correctly. "We" (that +is, the aristocracy) "are all Socialists now." + +But this is not the essential note on which I desire to end. My main +contention is that, whether necessary or not, both Industrialism and +Collectivism have been accepted as necessities---not as naked ideals or +desires. Nobody liked the Manchester School; it was endured as the only +way of producing wealth. Nobody likes the Marxian school; it is endured +as the only way of preventing poverty. Nobody's real heart is in the +idea of preventing a free man from owning his own farm, or an old woman +from cultivating her own garden, any more than anybody's real heart was +in the heartless battle of the machines. The purpose of this chapter is +sufficiently served in indicating that this proposal also is a pis +oiler, a desperate second best---like teetotalism. I do not propose to +prove here that Socialism is a poison; it is enough if I maintain that +it is a medicine and not a wine. + +The idea of private property universal but private, the idea of families +free but still families, of domesticity democratic but still domestic, +of one man one house---this remains the real vision and magnet of +mankind. The world may accept something more official and general, less +human and intimate. But the world will be like a broken-hearted woman +who makes a humdrum marriage because she may not make a happy one; +Socialism may be the world's deliverance, but it is not the world's +desire. # Imperialism, or the Mistake about Man ## The Charm of Jingoism -I have cast about widely to find a title for this section; -and I confess that the word "Imperialism" is a clumsy -version of my meaning. But no other word came nearer; -"Militarism" would have been even more misleading, and "The -Superman" makes nonsense of any discussion that he enters. -Perhaps, upon the whole, the word "Caesarism" would have -been better; but I desire a popular word; and Imperialism -(as the reader will perceive) does cover for the most part -the men and theories that I mean to discuss. - -This small confusion is increased, however, by the fact that -I do also disbelieve in Imperialism in its popular sense, as -a mode or theory of the patriotic sentiment of this country. -But popular Imperialism in England has very little to do -with the sort of Caesarean Imperialism I wish to sketch. I -differ from the Colonial idealism of Rhodes and Kipling; but -I do not think, as some of its opponents do, that it is an -insolent creation of English harshness and rapacity. -Imperialism, I think, is a fiction created, not by English -hardness, but by English softness; nay, in a sense, even by -English kindness. - -The reasons for believing in Australia are mostly as -sentimental as the most sentimental reasons for believing in -heaven. New South Wales is quite literally regarded as a -place where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary -are at rest; that is, a paradise for uncles who have turned -dishonest and for nephews who are born tired. British -Columbia is in strict sense a fairyland; it is a world where -a magic and irrational luck is supposed to attend the -youngest sons. This strange optimism about the ends of the -earth is an English weakness; but to show that it is not a -coldness or a harshness it is quite sufficient to say that -no one shared it more than that gigantic English -sentimentalist the great Charles Dickens. The end of "David -Copperfield" is unreal not merely because it is an -optimistic ending, but because it is an Imperialistic -ending. The decorous British happiness planned out for David -Copperfield and Agnes would be embarrassed by the perpetual -presence of the hopeless tragedy of Emily, or the more -hopeless farce of Micawber. Therefore, both Emily and -Micawber are shipped off to a vague colony where changes -come over them with no conceivable cause, except the -climate. The tragic woman becomes contented and the comic -man becomes responsible, solely as the result of a sea -voyage and the first sight of a kangaroo. - -To Imperialism in the light political sense, therefore, my -only objection is that it is an illusion of comfort; that an -Empire whose heart is failing should be specially proud of -the extremities, is to me no more sublime a fact than that -an old dandy whose brain is gone should still be proud of -his legs. It consoles men for the evident ugliness and -apathy of England with legends of fair youth and heroic -strenuousness in distant continents and islands. A man can -sit amid the squalor of Seven Dials and feel that life is -innocent and godlike in the bush or on the veldt. Just so a -man might sit in the squalor of Seven Dials and feel that -life was innocent and godlike in Brixton and Surbiton. -Brixton and Surbiton are "new"; they are expanding; they are -"nearer to nature," in the sense that they have eaten up -nature mile by mile. The only objection is the objection of -fact. The young men of Brixton are not young giants. The -lovers of Surbiton are not all pagan poets, singing with the -sweet energy of the spring. Nor are the people of the -Colonies when you meet them young giants or pagan poets. -They are mostly Cockneys who have lost their last music of -real things by getting out of the sound of Bow Bells. -Mr. Rudyard Kipling, a man of real though decadent genius, -threw a theoretic glamour over them which is already fading. -Mr. Kipling is, in a precise and rather startling sense, the -exception that proves the rule. For he has imagination, of -an oriental and cruel kind, but he has it, not because he -grew up in a new country, but precisely because he grew up -in the oldest country upon earth. He is rooted in a -past---an Asiatic past. He might never have written "Kabul +I have cast about widely to find a title for this section; and I confess +that the word "Imperialism" is a clumsy version of my meaning. But no +other word came nearer; "Militarism" would have been even more +misleading, and "The Superman" makes nonsense of any discussion that he +enters. Perhaps, upon the whole, the word "Caesarism" would have been +better; but I desire a popular word; and Imperialism (as the reader will +perceive) does cover for the most part the men and theories that I mean +to discuss. + +This small confusion is increased, however, by the fact that I do also +disbelieve in Imperialism in its popular sense, as a mode or theory of +the patriotic sentiment of this country. But popular Imperialism in +England has very little to do with the sort of Caesarean Imperialism I +wish to sketch. I differ from the Colonial idealism of Rhodes and +Kipling; but I do not think, as some of its opponents do, that it is an +insolent creation of English harshness and rapacity. Imperialism, I +think, is a fiction created, not by English hardness, but by English +softness; nay, in a sense, even by English kindness. + +The reasons for believing in Australia are mostly as sentimental as the +most sentimental reasons for believing in heaven. New South Wales is +quite literally regarded as a place where the wicked cease from +troubling and the weary are at rest; that is, a paradise for uncles who +have turned dishonest and for nephews who are born tired. British +Columbia is in strict sense a fairyland; it is a world where a magic and +irrational luck is supposed to attend the youngest sons. This strange +optimism about the ends of the earth is an English weakness; but to show +that it is not a coldness or a harshness it is quite sufficient to say +that no one shared it more than that gigantic English sentimentalist the +great Charles Dickens. The end of "David Copperfield" is unreal not +merely because it is an optimistic ending, but because it is an +Imperialistic ending. The decorous British happiness planned out for +David Copperfield and Agnes would be embarrassed by the perpetual +presence of the hopeless tragedy of Emily, or the more hopeless farce of +Micawber. Therefore, both Emily and Micawber are shipped off to a vague +colony where changes come over them with no conceivable cause, except +the climate. The tragic woman becomes contented and the comic man +becomes responsible, solely as the result of a sea voyage and the first +sight of a kangaroo. + +To Imperialism in the light political sense, therefore, my only +objection is that it is an illusion of comfort; that an Empire whose +heart is failing should be specially proud of the extremities, is to me +no more sublime a fact than that an old dandy whose brain is gone should +still be proud of his legs. It consoles men for the evident ugliness and +apathy of England with legends of fair youth and heroic strenuousness in +distant continents and islands. A man can sit amid the squalor of Seven +Dials and feel that life is innocent and godlike in the bush or on the +veldt. Just so a man might sit in the squalor of Seven Dials and feel +that life was innocent and godlike in Brixton and Surbiton. Brixton and +Surbiton are "new"; they are expanding; they are "nearer to nature," in +the sense that they have eaten up nature mile by mile. The only +objection is the objection of fact. The young men of Brixton are not +young giants. The lovers of Surbiton are not all pagan poets, singing +with the sweet energy of the spring. Nor are the people of the Colonies +when you meet them young giants or pagan poets. They are mostly Cockneys +who have lost their last music of real things by getting out of the +sound of Bow Bells. Mr. Rudyard Kipling, a man of real though decadent +genius, threw a theoretic glamour over them which is already fading. +Mr. Kipling is, in a precise and rather startling sense, the exception +that proves the rule. For he has imagination, of an oriental and cruel +kind, but he has it, not because he grew up in a new country, but +precisely because he grew up in the oldest country upon earth. He is +rooted in a past---an Asiatic past. He might never have written "Kabul River" if he had been born in Melbourne. -I say frankly, therefore (lest there should be any air of -evasion), that Imperialism in its common patriotic -pretensions appears to me both weak and perilous. It is the -attempt of a European country to create a kind of sham -Europe which it can dominate, instead of the real Europe, -which it can only share. It is a love of living with one's -inferiors. The notion of restoring the Roman Empire by -oneself and for oneself is a dream that has haunted every -Christian nation in a different shape and in almost every -shape as a snare. The Spanish are a consistent and -conservative people; therefore they embodied that attempt at -Empire in long and lingering dynasties. The French are a -violent people, and therefore they twice conquered that -Empire by violence of arms. The English are above all a -poetical and optimistic people; and therefore their Empire -is something vague and yet sympathetic, something distant -and yet dear. But this dream of theirs of being powerful in -the uttermost places, though a native weakness, is still a -weakness in them; much more of a weakness than gold was to -Spain or glory to Napoleon. If ever we were in collision -with our real brothers and rivals we should leave all this -fancy out of account. We should no more dream of pitting -Australian armies against German than of pitting Tasmanian -sculpture against French. I have thus explained, lest anyone -should accuse me of concealing an unpopular attitude, why I -do not believe in Imperialism as commonly understood. I -think it not merely an occasional wrong to other peoples, -but a continuous feebleness, a running sore, in my own. But -it is also true that I have dwelt on this Imperialism that -is an amiable delusion partly in order to show how different -it is from the deeper, more sinister and yet more persuasive -thing that I have been forced to call Imperialism for the -convenience of this chapter. In order to get to the root of -this evil and quite un-English Imperialism we must cast back -and begin anew with a more general discussion of the first -needs of human intercourse. +I say frankly, therefore (lest there should be any air of evasion), that +Imperialism in its common patriotic pretensions appears to me both weak +and perilous. It is the attempt of a European country to create a kind +of sham Europe which it can dominate, instead of the real Europe, which +it can only share. It is a love of living with one's inferiors. The +notion of restoring the Roman Empire by oneself and for oneself is a +dream that has haunted every Christian nation in a different shape and +in almost every shape as a snare. The Spanish are a consistent and +conservative people; therefore they embodied that attempt at Empire in +long and lingering dynasties. The French are a violent people, and +therefore they twice conquered that Empire by violence of arms. The +English are above all a poetical and optimistic people; and therefore +their Empire is something vague and yet sympathetic, something distant +and yet dear. But this dream of theirs of being powerful in the +uttermost places, though a native weakness, is still a weakness in them; +much more of a weakness than gold was to Spain or glory to Napoleon. If +ever we were in collision with our real brothers and rivals we should +leave all this fancy out of account. We should no more dream of pitting +Australian armies against German than of pitting Tasmanian sculpture +against French. I have thus explained, lest anyone should accuse me of +concealing an unpopular attitude, why I do not believe in Imperialism as +commonly understood. I think it not merely an occasional wrong to other +peoples, but a continuous feebleness, a running sore, in my own. But it +is also true that I have dwelt on this Imperialism that is an amiable +delusion partly in order to show how different it is from the deeper, +more sinister and yet more persuasive thing that I have been forced to +call Imperialism for the convenience of this chapter. In order to get to +the root of this evil and quite un-English Imperialism we must cast back +and begin anew with a more general discussion of the first needs of +human intercourse. ## Wisdom and the Weather -It is admitted, one may hope, that common things are never -commonplace. Birth is covered with curtains precisely -because it is a staggering and monstrous prodigy. Death and -first love, though they happen to everybody, can stop one's -heart with the very thought of them. But while this is -granted, something further may be claimed. It is not merely -true that these universal things are strange; it is moreover -true that they are subtle. In the last analysis most common -things will be found to be highly complicated. Some men of -science do indeed get over the difficulty by dealing only -with the easy part of it: thus, they will call first love -the instinct of sex, and the awe of death the instinct of -self-preservation. But this is only getting over the -difficulty of describing peacock green by calling it blue. -There is blue in it. That there is a strong physical element -in both romance and the *Memento Mori* makes them if -possible more, baffling than if they had been wholly -intellectual. No man could say exactly how much his -sexuality was colored by a clean love of beauty, or by the -mere boyish itch for irrevocable adventures, like running -away to sea. No man could say how far his animal dread of -the end was mixed up with mystical traditions touching -morals and religion. It is exactly because these things are -animal, but not quite animal, that the dance of all the -difficulties begins. The materialists analyze the easy part, -deny the hard part and go home to their tea. - -It is complete error to suppose that because a thing is -vulgar therefore it is not refined; that is, subtle and hard -to define. A drawing-room song of my youth which began "In -the gloaming, O, my darling," was vulgar enough as a song; -but the connection between human passion and the twilight is -none the less an exquisite and even inscrutable thing. Or to -take another obvious instance: the jokes about a -mother-in-law are scarcely delicate, but the problem of a -mother-in-law is extremely delicate. A mother-in-law is -subtle because she is a thing like the twilight. She is a -mystical blend of two inconsistent things law and a mother. -The caricatures misrepresent her; but they arise out of a -real human enigma. "Comic Cuts" deals with the difficulty -wrongly, but it would need George Meredith at his best to -deal with the difficulty rightly. The nearest statement of -the problem perhaps is this: it is not that a mother-in-law -must be nasty, but that she must be very nice. - -But it is best perhaps to take in illustration some daily -custom we have all heard despised as vulgar or trite. Take, -for the sake of argument, the custom of talking about the -weather. Stevenson calls It "the very nadir and scoff of -good conversationalists." Now there are very deep reasons -for talking about the weather, reasons that are delicate as -well as deep; they lie in layer upon layer of stratified -sagacity. First of all it is a gesture of primeval worship. -The sky must be invoked; and to begin everything with the -weather is a sort of pagan way of beginning everything with -prayer. Jones and Brown talk about the weather: but so do -Milton and Shelley. Then it is an expression of that -elementary idea in politeness equality. For the very word -politeness is only the Greek for citizenship. The word -politeness is akin to the word policeman; a charming -thought. Properly understood, the citizen should be more -polite than the gentleman; perhaps the policeman should be -the most courtly and elegant of the three. But all good -manners must obviously begin with the sharing of something -in a simple style. Two men should share an umbrella; if they -have not got an umbrella, they should at least share the -rain, with all its rich potentialities of wit and -philosophy. "For He maketh His sun to shine..." This is the -second element in the weather; its recognition of human -equality in that we all have our hats under the dark blue -spangled umbrella of the universe. Arising out of this is -the third wholesome strain in the custom; I mean that it -begins with the body and with our inevitable bodily -brotherhood. All true friendliness begins with fire and food -and drink and the recognition of rain or frost. Those who -will not begin at the bodily end of things are already prigs -and may soon be Christian Scientists. Each human soul has in -a sense to enact for itself the gigantic humility of the -Incarnation. Every man must descend into the flesh to meet -mankind. - -Briefly, in the mere observation "a fine day" there is the -whole great human idea of comradeship. Now, pure comradeship -is another of those broad and yet bewildering things. We all -enjoy it; yet when we come to talk about it we almost always -talk nonsense, chiefly because we suppose it to be a simpler -affair than it is. It is simple to conduct; but it is by no -means simple to analyze. Comradeship is at the most only one -half of human life; the other half is Love, a thing so -different that one might fancy it had been made for another -universe. And I do not mean mere sex love; any kind of -concentrated passion, maternal love, or even the fiercer -kinds of friendship are in their nature alien to pure -comradeship. Both sides are essential to life; and both are -known in differing degrees to everybody of every age or sex. -But very broadly speaking it may still be said that women -stand for the dignity of love and men; for the dignity of -comradeship. I mean that the institution would hardly be -expected if the males of the tribe did not mor at guard over -it. The affections in which women excel have so much more -authority and intensity that pure comradeship would be -washed away if it were not rallied and guarded in clubs, -corps, colleges, banquets and regiments. Most of us have -heard the voice in which the hostess tells her husband not -to sit too long over the cigars. It is the dreadful voice of -Love, seeking to destroy Comradeship. - -All true comradeship has in it those three elements which I -have remarked in the ordinary exclamation about the weather. -First, it has a sort of broad philosophy like the common -sky, emphasizing that we are all under the same cosmic -conditions. We are all in the same boat, the "winged rock" -of Mr. Herbert Trench. Secondly, it recognizes this bond as -the essential one; for comradeship is simply humanity seen -in that one aspect in which men are really equal. The old -writers were entirely wise when they talked of the equality -of men; but they were also very wise in not mentioning -women. Women are always authoritarian; they are always above -or below; that is why marriage Is a sort of poetical -see-saw. There are only three things in the world that women -do not understand; and they are Liberty, Equality, and -Fraternity. But men '(a class little understood in the -modern world) find these things the breath of their -nostrils; and our most learned ladies will not even begin to -understand them until they make allowance for this kind of -cool camaraderie. Lastly, it contains the third quality of -the weather, the insistence upon the body and its -indispensable satisfaction. No one has even begun to -understand comradeship who does not accept with it a certain -hearty eagerness in eating, drinking, or smoking, an -uproarious materialism which to many women appears only; -hoggish. You may call the thing an orgy or a sacrament; it -is certainly an essential. It is at root a resistance to the -superciliousness of the individual. Nay, its very swaggering -and howling are humble. In the heart of its rowdiness there -is a sort of mad modesty; a desire to melt the separate soul -into the mass of unpretentious masculinity. It is a -clamorous confession of the weakness of all flesh. No man -must be superior to the things that are common to men. This -sort of equality must be bodily and gross and comic. Not -only are we all in the same boat, but we are all seasick. - -The word comradeship just now promises to become as fatuous -as the word "affinity." There are clubs of a Socialist sort -where all the members, men and women, call each other -"Comrade." I have no serious emotions, hostile or otherwise, -about this particular habit: at the worst it is -conventionality, and at the best flirtation. I am convinced -here only to point out a rational principle. If you choose -to lump all flowers together, lilies and dahlias and tulips -and chrysanthemums and call them all daisies, you will find -that ou have spoiled the very fine word daisy. If you choose -to call every human attachment comradeship, if you include -under that name the respect of a youth for a venerable -prophetess, the interest of a man in a beautiful woman who -baffles him, the pleasure of a philosophical old fogy in a -girl who is impudent and innocent, the end of the meanest -quarrel or the beginning of the most mountainous love; if -you are going to call all these comradeship, you will gain -nothing; you will only lose a word. Daisies are obvious and -universal and open; but they are only one kind of flower. -Comradeship is obvious and universal and open; but it is -only one kind of affection; it has characteristics that -would destroy any other kind. Anyone who has known true -comradeship in a club or in a regiment, knows that it is -impersonal. There is a pedantic phrase used in debating -clubs which is strictly true to the masculine emotion; they -call it "speaking to the question." Women speak to each -other; men speak to the subject they are speaking about. -Many an honest man has sat in a ring of his five best -friends under heaven and forgotten who was in the room while -he explained some system. This is not peculiar to -intellectual men; men are all theoretical, whether they are -talking about God or about golf. Men are all impersonal; -that is to say, republican. No one remembers after a really -good talk who has said the good things. Every man speaks to -a visionary multitude; a mystical cloud, that is called the -club. - -It is obvious that this cool and careless quality which is -essential to the collective affection of males involves -disadvantages and dangers. It leads to spitting; it leads to -coarse speech; it must lead to these things so long as it is -honorable; comradeship must be in some degree ugly. The -moment beauty is mentioned in male friendship, the nostrils -are stopped with the smell of abominable things. Friendship -must be physically dirty if it is to be morally clean. It -must be in its shirt sleeves. The chaos of habits that -always goes with males when left entirely to themselves has -only one honorable cure; and that is the strict discipline -of a monastery. Anyone who has seen our unhappy young -idealists in East End Settlements losing their collars in -the wash and living on tinned salmon will fully understand -why it was decided by the wisdom of St. Bernard or -St. Benedict, that if men were to live without women, they -must not live without rules. Something of the same sort of -artificial exactitude, of course, is obtained in an army; -and an army also has to be in many ways monastic; only that -it has celibacy without chastity. But these things do not -apply to normal married men. These have a quite sufficient -restraint on their instinctive anarchy in the savage -common-sense of the other sex. There is only one very timid -sort of man that is not afraid of women. +It is admitted, one may hope, that common things are never commonplace. +Birth is covered with curtains precisely because it is a staggering and +monstrous prodigy. Death and first love, though they happen to +everybody, can stop one's heart with the very thought of them. But while +this is granted, something further may be claimed. It is not merely true +that these universal things are strange; it is moreover true that they +are subtle. In the last analysis most common things will be found to be +highly complicated. Some men of science do indeed get over the +difficulty by dealing only with the easy part of it: thus, they will +call first love the instinct of sex, and the awe of death the instinct +of self-preservation. But this is only getting over the difficulty of +describing peacock green by calling it blue. There is blue in it. That +there is a strong physical element in both romance and the *Memento +Mori* makes them if possible more, baffling than if they had been wholly +intellectual. No man could say exactly how much his sexuality was +colored by a clean love of beauty, or by the mere boyish itch for +irrevocable adventures, like running away to sea. No man could say how +far his animal dread of the end was mixed up with mystical traditions +touching morals and religion. It is exactly because these things are +animal, but not quite animal, that the dance of all the difficulties +begins. The materialists analyze the easy part, deny the hard part and +go home to their tea. + +It is complete error to suppose that because a thing is vulgar therefore +it is not refined; that is, subtle and hard to define. A drawing-room +song of my youth which began "In the gloaming, O, my darling," was +vulgar enough as a song; but the connection between human passion and +the twilight is none the less an exquisite and even inscrutable thing. +Or to take another obvious instance: the jokes about a mother-in-law are +scarcely delicate, but the problem of a mother-in-law is extremely +delicate. A mother-in-law is subtle because she is a thing like the +twilight. She is a mystical blend of two inconsistent things law and a +mother. The caricatures misrepresent her; but they arise out of a real +human enigma. "Comic Cuts" deals with the difficulty wrongly, but it +would need George Meredith at his best to deal with the difficulty +rightly. The nearest statement of the problem perhaps is this: it is not +that a mother-in-law must be nasty, but that she must be very nice. + +But it is best perhaps to take in illustration some daily custom we have +all heard despised as vulgar or trite. Take, for the sake of argument, +the custom of talking about the weather. Stevenson calls It "the very +nadir and scoff of good conversationalists." Now there are very deep +reasons for talking about the weather, reasons that are delicate as well +as deep; they lie in layer upon layer of stratified sagacity. First of +all it is a gesture of primeval worship. The sky must be invoked; and to +begin everything with the weather is a sort of pagan way of beginning +everything with prayer. Jones and Brown talk about the weather: but so +do Milton and Shelley. Then it is an expression of that elementary idea +in politeness equality. For the very word politeness is only the Greek +for citizenship. The word politeness is akin to the word policeman; a +charming thought. Properly understood, the citizen should be more polite +than the gentleman; perhaps the policeman should be the most courtly and +elegant of the three. But all good manners must obviously begin with the +sharing of something in a simple style. Two men should share an +umbrella; if they have not got an umbrella, they should at least share +the rain, with all its rich potentialities of wit and philosophy. "For +He maketh His sun to shine..." This is the second element in the +weather; its recognition of human equality in that we all have our hats +under the dark blue spangled umbrella of the universe. Arising out of +this is the third wholesome strain in the custom; I mean that it begins +with the body and with our inevitable bodily brotherhood. All true +friendliness begins with fire and food and drink and the recognition of +rain or frost. Those who will not begin at the bodily end of things are +already prigs and may soon be Christian Scientists. Each human soul has +in a sense to enact for itself the gigantic humility of the Incarnation. +Every man must descend into the flesh to meet mankind. + +Briefly, in the mere observation "a fine day" there is the whole great +human idea of comradeship. Now, pure comradeship is another of those +broad and yet bewildering things. We all enjoy it; yet when we come to +talk about it we almost always talk nonsense, chiefly because we suppose +it to be a simpler affair than it is. It is simple to conduct; but it is +by no means simple to analyze. Comradeship is at the most only one half +of human life; the other half is Love, a thing so different that one +might fancy it had been made for another universe. And I do not mean +mere sex love; any kind of concentrated passion, maternal love, or even +the fiercer kinds of friendship are in their nature alien to pure +comradeship. Both sides are essential to life; and both are known in +differing degrees to everybody of every age or sex. But very broadly +speaking it may still be said that women stand for the dignity of love +and men; for the dignity of comradeship. I mean that the institution +would hardly be expected if the males of the tribe did not mor at guard +over it. The affections in which women excel have so much more authority +and intensity that pure comradeship would be washed away if it were not +rallied and guarded in clubs, corps, colleges, banquets and regiments. +Most of us have heard the voice in which the hostess tells her husband +not to sit too long over the cigars. It is the dreadful voice of Love, +seeking to destroy Comradeship. + +All true comradeship has in it those three elements which I have +remarked in the ordinary exclamation about the weather. First, it has a +sort of broad philosophy like the common sky, emphasizing that we are +all under the same cosmic conditions. We are all in the same boat, the +"winged rock" of Mr. Herbert Trench. Secondly, it recognizes this bond +as the essential one; for comradeship is simply humanity seen in that +one aspect in which men are really equal. The old writers were entirely +wise when they talked of the equality of men; but they were also very +wise in not mentioning women. Women are always authoritarian; they are +always above or below; that is why marriage Is a sort of poetical +see-saw. There are only three things in the world that women do not +understand; and they are Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. But men '(a +class little understood in the modern world) find these things the +breath of their nostrils; and our most learned ladies will not even +begin to understand them until they make allowance for this kind of cool +camaraderie. Lastly, it contains the third quality of the weather, the +insistence upon the body and its indispensable satisfaction. No one has +even begun to understand comradeship who does not accept with it a +certain hearty eagerness in eating, drinking, or smoking, an uproarious +materialism which to many women appears only; hoggish. You may call the +thing an orgy or a sacrament; it is certainly an essential. It is at +root a resistance to the superciliousness of the individual. Nay, its +very swaggering and howling are humble. In the heart of its rowdiness +there is a sort of mad modesty; a desire to melt the separate soul into +the mass of unpretentious masculinity. It is a clamorous confession of +the weakness of all flesh. No man must be superior to the things that +are common to men. This sort of equality must be bodily and gross and +comic. Not only are we all in the same boat, but we are all seasick. + +The word comradeship just now promises to become as fatuous as the word +"affinity." There are clubs of a Socialist sort where all the members, +men and women, call each other "Comrade." I have no serious emotions, +hostile or otherwise, about this particular habit: at the worst it is +conventionality, and at the best flirtation. I am convinced here only to +point out a rational principle. If you choose to lump all flowers +together, lilies and dahlias and tulips and chrysanthemums and call them +all daisies, you will find that ou have spoiled the very fine word +daisy. If you choose to call every human attachment comradeship, if you +include under that name the respect of a youth for a venerable +prophetess, the interest of a man in a beautiful woman who baffles him, +the pleasure of a philosophical old fogy in a girl who is impudent and +innocent, the end of the meanest quarrel or the beginning of the most +mountainous love; if you are going to call all these comradeship, you +will gain nothing; you will only lose a word. Daisies are obvious and +universal and open; but they are only one kind of flower. Comradeship is +obvious and universal and open; but it is only one kind of affection; it +has characteristics that would destroy any other kind. Anyone who has +known true comradeship in a club or in a regiment, knows that it is +impersonal. There is a pedantic phrase used in debating clubs which is +strictly true to the masculine emotion; they call it "speaking to the +question." Women speak to each other; men speak to the subject they are +speaking about. Many an honest man has sat in a ring of his five best +friends under heaven and forgotten who was in the room while he +explained some system. This is not peculiar to intellectual men; men are +all theoretical, whether they are talking about God or about golf. Men +are all impersonal; that is to say, republican. No one remembers after a +really good talk who has said the good things. Every man speaks to a +visionary multitude; a mystical cloud, that is called the club. + +It is obvious that this cool and careless quality which is essential to +the collective affection of males involves disadvantages and dangers. It +leads to spitting; it leads to coarse speech; it must lead to these +things so long as it is honorable; comradeship must be in some degree +ugly. The moment beauty is mentioned in male friendship, the nostrils +are stopped with the smell of abominable things. Friendship must be +physically dirty if it is to be morally clean. It must be in its shirt +sleeves. The chaos of habits that always goes with males when left +entirely to themselves has only one honorable cure; and that is the +strict discipline of a monastery. Anyone who has seen our unhappy young +idealists in East End Settlements losing their collars in the wash and +living on tinned salmon will fully understand why it was decided by the +wisdom of St. Bernard or St. Benedict, that if men were to live without +women, they must not live without rules. Something of the same sort of +artificial exactitude, of course, is obtained in an army; and an army +also has to be in many ways monastic; only that it has celibacy without +chastity. But these things do not apply to normal married men. These +have a quite sufficient restraint on their instinctive anarchy in the +savage common-sense of the other sex. There is only one very timid sort +of man that is not afraid of women. ## The Common Vision -Now this masculine love of an open and level camaraderie is -the life within all democracies and attempts to govern by -debate; without it the republic would be a dead formula. -Even as it is, of course, the spirit of democracy frequently -differs widely from the letter, and a pothouse is often a -better test than a Parliament. Democracy in its human sense -is not arbitrament by the majority; it is not even -arbitrament by everybody. It can be more nearly defined as -arbitrament by anybody. I mean that it rests on that club -habit of taking a total stranger for granted, of assuming -certain things to be inevitably common to yourself and him. -Only the things that anybody may be presumed to hold have -the full authority of democracy. Look out of the window and -notice the first man who walks by. The Liberals may have -swept England with an overwhelming majority; but you would -not stake a button that the man is a Liberal. The Bible may -be read in all schools and respected in all law courts; but -you would not bet a straw that he believes in the Bible. But -you would bet your week's wages, let us say, that he -believes in wearing clothes. You would bet that he believes -that physical courage is a fine thing, or that parents have -authority over children. Of course, he might be the -millionth man who does not believe these things; if it comes -to that, he might be the Bearded Lady dressed up as a man. -But these prodigies are quite a different thing from any -mere calculation of numbers. People who hold these views are -not a minority, but a monstrosity. But of these universal -dogmas that have full democratic authority the only test is -this test of anybody. What you would observe before any -newcomer in a tavern---that is the real English law. The -first man you see from the window, he is the King of -England. - -The decay of taverns, which is but a part of the general -decay of democracy, has undoubtedly weakened this masculine -spirit of equality. I remember that a roomful of Socialists -literally laughed when I told them that there were no two -nobler words in all poetry than Public House. They thought -it was a joke. Why *they* should think it a joke, since they -want to make all houses public houses, I cannot imagine. But -if anyone wishes to see the real rowdy egalitarianism which -is necessary (to males, at least) he can find it as well as -anywhere in the great old tavern disputes which come down to -us in such books as Boswell's Johnson. It is worth while to -mention that one name especially because the modern world in -its morbidity has done it a strange injustice. The demeanor -of Johnson, it is said, was "harsh and despotic." It was -occasionally harsh, but it was never despotic. Johnson was -not in the least a despot; Johnson was a demagogue, he -shouted against a shouting crowd. The very fact that he -wrangled with other people is proof that other people were -allowed to wrangle with him. His very brutality was based on -the idea of an equal scrimmage, like that of football. It is -strictly true that he bawled and banged the table because he -was a modest man. He was honestly afraid of being -overwhelmed or even overlooked. Addison had exquisite -manners and was the king of his company; he was polite to -everybody; but superior to everybody; therefore he has been -handed down forever in the immortal insult of Pope--- +Now this masculine love of an open and level camaraderie is the life +within all democracies and attempts to govern by debate; without it the +republic would be a dead formula. Even as it is, of course, the spirit +of democracy frequently differs widely from the letter, and a pothouse +is often a better test than a Parliament. Democracy in its human sense +is not arbitrament by the majority; it is not even arbitrament by +everybody. It can be more nearly defined as arbitrament by anybody. I +mean that it rests on that club habit of taking a total stranger for +granted, of assuming certain things to be inevitably common to yourself +and him. Only the things that anybody may be presumed to hold have the +full authority of democracy. Look out of the window and notice the first +man who walks by. The Liberals may have swept England with an +overwhelming majority; but you would not stake a button that the man is +a Liberal. The Bible may be read in all schools and respected in all law +courts; but you would not bet a straw that he believes in the Bible. But +you would bet your week's wages, let us say, that he believes in wearing +clothes. You would bet that he believes that physical courage is a fine +thing, or that parents have authority over children. Of course, he might +be the millionth man who does not believe these things; if it comes to +that, he might be the Bearded Lady dressed up as a man. But these +prodigies are quite a different thing from any mere calculation of +numbers. People who hold these views are not a minority, but a +monstrosity. But of these universal dogmas that have full democratic +authority the only test is this test of anybody. What you would observe +before any newcomer in a tavern---that is the real English law. The +first man you see from the window, he is the King of England. + +The decay of taverns, which is but a part of the general decay of +democracy, has undoubtedly weakened this masculine spirit of equality. I +remember that a roomful of Socialists literally laughed when I told them +that there were no two nobler words in all poetry than Public House. +They thought it was a joke. Why *they* should think it a joke, since +they want to make all houses public houses, I cannot imagine. But if +anyone wishes to see the real rowdy egalitarianism which is necessary +(to males, at least) he can find it as well as anywhere in the great old +tavern disputes which come down to us in such books as Boswell's +Johnson. It is worth while to mention that one name especially because +the modern world in its morbidity has done it a strange injustice. The +demeanor of Johnson, it is said, was "harsh and despotic." It was +occasionally harsh, but it was never despotic. Johnson was not in the +least a despot; Johnson was a demagogue, he shouted against a shouting +crowd. The very fact that he wrangled with other people is proof that +other people were allowed to wrangle with him. His very brutality was +based on the idea of an equal scrimmage, like that of football. It is +strictly true that he bawled and banged the table because he was a +modest man. He was honestly afraid of being overwhelmed or even +overlooked. Addison had exquisite manners and was the king of his +company; he was polite to everybody; but superior to everybody; +therefore he has been handed down forever in the immortal insult of +Pope--- > "Like Cato, give his little Senate laws > > And sit attentive to his own applause." -Johnson, so far from being king of his company, was a sort -of Irish Member in his own Parliament. Addison was a -courteous superior and was hated. Johnson was an insolent -equal and therefore was loved by all who knew him, and -handed down in a marvelous book, which is one of the mere +Johnson, so far from being king of his company, was a sort of Irish +Member in his own Parliament. Addison was a courteous superior and was +hated. Johnson was an insolent equal and therefore was loved by all who +knew him, and handed down in a marvelous book, which is one of the mere miracles of love. -This doctrine of equality is essential to conversation; so -much may be admitted by anyone who knows what conversation -is. Once arguing at a table in a tavern the most famous man -on earth would wish to be obscure, so that his brilliant -remarks might blaze like stars on the background of his -obscurity. To anything worth calling a man nothing can be -conceived more cold or cheerless than to be king of your -company. But it may be said that in masculine sports and -games, other than the great game of debate, there is -definite emulation and eclipse. There is indeed emulation, -but this is only an ardent sort of equality. Games are -competitive, because that is the only way of making them -exciting. But if anyone doubts that men must forever return -to the ideal of equality, it is only necessary to answer -that there is such a thing as a handicap. If men exulted in -mere superiority, they would seek to see how far such -superiority could go; they would b'e glad when one strong -runner came in miles ahead of all the rest. But what men -like is not the triumph of superiors, but the struggle of -equals; and, therefore, they introduce even Into their -competitive sports an artificial equality. It is sad to -think how few of those who arrange our sporting handicaps -can be supposed with any probability to realize that they -are abstract and even severe republicans. - -No; the real objection to equality and self-rule has nothing -to do with any of these free and festive aspects of mankind; -all men are democrats when they are happy. The philosophic -opponent of democracy would substantially sum up his -position by saying that it "will not work." Before going -further, I will register in passing a protest against the -assumption that working is the one test of humanity. Heaven -does not work; it plays. Men are most themselves when they -are free; and if I find that men are snob's in their work -but democrats on their holidays, I shall take the liberty to -believe their holidays. But it is this question of work -which really perplexes the question of equality; and it is -with that that we must now deal. Perhaps the truth can be -put most pointedly thus: that democracy has one real enemy, -and that is civilization. Those utilitarian miracles which -science has made are anti-democratic, not so much in their -perversion, or even in their practical result, as in their -primary shape and purpose. The Frame-Breaking Rioters were -right; not perhaps in thinking that machines would make -fewer men workmen; but certainly in thinking that machines -would make fewer men masters. More wheels do mean fewer -handles; fewer handles do mean fewer hands. The machinery of -science must be individualistic and isolated. A mob can -shout round a palace; but a mob cannot shout down a -telephone. The specialist appears and democracy is half -spoiled at a stroke. +This doctrine of equality is essential to conversation; so much may be +admitted by anyone who knows what conversation is. Once arguing at a +table in a tavern the most famous man on earth would wish to be obscure, +so that his brilliant remarks might blaze like stars on the background +of his obscurity. To anything worth calling a man nothing can be +conceived more cold or cheerless than to be king of your company. But it +may be said that in masculine sports and games, other than the great +game of debate, there is definite emulation and eclipse. There is indeed +emulation, but this is only an ardent sort of equality. Games are +competitive, because that is the only way of making them exciting. But +if anyone doubts that men must forever return to the ideal of equality, +it is only necessary to answer that there is such a thing as a handicap. +If men exulted in mere superiority, they would seek to see how far such +superiority could go; they would b'e glad when one strong runner came in +miles ahead of all the rest. But what men like is not the triumph of +superiors, but the struggle of equals; and, therefore, they introduce +even Into their competitive sports an artificial equality. It is sad to +think how few of those who arrange our sporting handicaps can be +supposed with any probability to realize that they are abstract and even +severe republicans. + +No; the real objection to equality and self-rule has nothing to do with +any of these free and festive aspects of mankind; all men are democrats +when they are happy. The philosophic opponent of democracy would +substantially sum up his position by saying that it "will not work." +Before going further, I will register in passing a protest against the +assumption that working is the one test of humanity. Heaven does not +work; it plays. Men are most themselves when they are free; and if I +find that men are snob's in their work but democrats on their holidays, +I shall take the liberty to believe their holidays. But it is this +question of work which really perplexes the question of equality; and it +is with that that we must now deal. Perhaps the truth can be put most +pointedly thus: that democracy has one real enemy, and that is +civilization. Those utilitarian miracles which science has made are +anti-democratic, not so much in their perversion, or even in their +practical result, as in their primary shape and purpose. The +Frame-Breaking Rioters were right; not perhaps in thinking that machines +would make fewer men workmen; but certainly in thinking that machines +would make fewer men masters. More wheels do mean fewer handles; fewer +handles do mean fewer hands. The machinery of science must be +individualistic and isolated. A mob can shout round a palace; but a mob +cannot shout down a telephone. The specialist appears and democracy is +half spoiled at a stroke. ## The Insane Necessity -The common conception among the dregs of Darwinian culture -is that men have slowly worked their way out of inequality -into a state of comparative equality. The truth is, I fancy, -almost exactly the opposite. All men have normally and -naturally begun with the idea of equality; they have only -abandoned it late and reluctantly, and always for some -material reason of detail. They have never naturally felt -that one class of men was superior to another; they have -always been driven to assume it through certain practical -limitations of space and time. +The common conception among the dregs of Darwinian culture is that men +have slowly worked their way out of inequality into a state of +comparative equality. The truth is, I fancy, almost exactly the +opposite. All men have normally and naturally begun with the idea of +equality; they have only abandoned it late and reluctantly, and always +for some material reason of detail. They have never naturally felt that +one class of men was superior to another; they have always been driven +to assume it through certain practical limitations of space and time. For example, there is one element which must always tend to -oligarchy---or rather to despotism; I mean the element of -hurry. If the house has caught fire a man must ring up the -fire engines; a committee cannot ring them up. If a camp is -surprised by night somebody must give the order to fire; -there is no time to vote it. It is solely a question of the -physical limitations of time and space; not at all of any -mental limitations in the mass of men commanded. If all the -people in the house were men of destiny it would still be -better that they should not all talk into the telephone at -once; nay, it would be better that the silliest man of all -should speak uninterrupted. If an army actually consisted of -nothing but Hanibals and Napoleons, it would still be better -in the case of a surprise that they should not all give -orders together. Nay, it would be better if the stupidest of -them all gave the orders. Thus, we see that merely military -subordination, so far from resting on the inequality of men, -actually rests on the equality of men. Discipline does not -involve the Carlylean notion that somebody is always right -when everybody is wrong, and that we must discover and crown -that somebody. On the contrary, discipline means that in -certain frightfully rapid circumstances, one can trust -anybody so long as he is not everybody. The military spirit -does Hot mean (as Carlyle fancied) obeying the strongest and -wisest man. On the contrary, the military spirit means, if -anything, obeying the weakest and stupidest man, obeying him -merely because he is a man, and not a thousand men. -Submission to a weak man is discipline. Submission to a -strong man is only servility. - -Now it can be easily shown that the thing we call -aristocracy in Europe is not in its origin and spirit an -aristocracy at all. It is not a system of spiritual degrees -and distinctions like, for example, the caste system of -India, or even like the old Greek distinction between +oligarchy---or rather to despotism; I mean the element of hurry. If the +house has caught fire a man must ring up the fire engines; a committee +cannot ring them up. If a camp is surprised by night somebody must give +the order to fire; there is no time to vote it. It is solely a question +of the physical limitations of time and space; not at all of any mental +limitations in the mass of men commanded. If all the people in the house +were men of destiny it would still be better that they should not all +talk into the telephone at once; nay, it would be better that the +silliest man of all should speak uninterrupted. If an army actually +consisted of nothing but Hanibals and Napoleons, it would still be +better in the case of a surprise that they should not all give orders +together. Nay, it would be better if the stupidest of them all gave the +orders. Thus, we see that merely military subordination, so far from +resting on the inequality of men, actually rests on the equality of men. +Discipline does not involve the Carlylean notion that somebody is always +right when everybody is wrong, and that we must discover and crown that +somebody. On the contrary, discipline means that in certain frightfully +rapid circumstances, one can trust anybody so long as he is not +everybody. The military spirit does Hot mean (as Carlyle fancied) +obeying the strongest and wisest man. On the contrary, the military +spirit means, if anything, obeying the weakest and stupidest man, +obeying him merely because he is a man, and not a thousand men. +Submission to a weak man is discipline. Submission to a strong man is +only servility. + +Now it can be easily shown that the thing we call aristocracy in Europe +is not in its origin and spirit an aristocracy at all. It is not a +system of spiritual degrees and distinctions like, for example, the +caste system of India, or even like the old Greek distinction between free-men and slaves. It is simply the remains of a military -organization, framed partly to sustain the sinking Roman -Empire, partly to break and avenge the awful onslaught of -Islam. The word Duke simply means Colonel, just as the word -Emperor simply means Commander-in-Chief. The whole story is -told in the single title of Counts of the Holy Roman Empire, -which merely means officers in the European army against the -contemporary Yellow Peril. Now in an army nobody ever dreams -of supposing that difference of rank represents a difference -of moral reality. Nobody ever says about a regiment, "Your -Major is very humorous and energetic; your Colonel, of -course, must be even more humorous and yet more energetic." -No one ever says, in reporting a mess-room conversation, -"Lieutenant Jones was very witty, but was naturally inferior -to Captain Smith." The essence of an army is the idea of -official inequality, founded on unofficial equality. The -Colonel is not obeyed because he is the best man, but -because he is the Colonel. Such was probably the spirit of -the system of dukes and counts when it first arose out of -the military spirit and military necessities of Rome. With -the decline of those necessities it has gradually ceased to -have meaning as a military organization, and become -honeycombed with unclean plutocracy. Even now it is not a -spiritual aristocracy---it is not so bad as all that. It is -simply an army without an enemy---billeted upon the people. - -Man, therefore, has a specialist as well as comrade-like -aspect; and the case of militarism is not the only case of -such specialist submission. The tinker and tailor, as well -as the soldier and sailor, require a certain rigidity of -rapidity of action: at least, if the tinker is not organized -that is largely why he does not tinker on any large scale. -The tinker and tailor often represent the two nomadic races -in Europe: the Gipsy and the Jew; but the Jew alone has -influence because he alone accepts some sort of discipline. -Man, we say, has two sides, the specialist side where he -must have subordination, and the social side where he must -have equality. There is a truth in the saying that ten -tailors go to make a man; but we must remember also that ten -Poets Laureate or ten Astronomers Royal go to make a man, -too. Ten million tradesmen go to make Man himself; but -humanity consists of tradesmen when they are not talking -shop. Now the peculiar peril of our time, which I call for -argument's sake Imperialism or Caesarism, is the complete -eclipse of comradeship and equality by specialism and +organization, framed partly to sustain the sinking Roman Empire, partly +to break and avenge the awful onslaught of Islam. The word Duke simply +means Colonel, just as the word Emperor simply means Commander-in-Chief. +The whole story is told in the single title of Counts of the Holy Roman +Empire, which merely means officers in the European army against the +contemporary Yellow Peril. Now in an army nobody ever dreams of +supposing that difference of rank represents a difference of moral +reality. Nobody ever says about a regiment, "Your Major is very humorous +and energetic; your Colonel, of course, must be even more humorous and +yet more energetic." No one ever says, in reporting a mess-room +conversation, "Lieutenant Jones was very witty, but was naturally +inferior to Captain Smith." The essence of an army is the idea of +official inequality, founded on unofficial equality. The Colonel is not +obeyed because he is the best man, but because he is the Colonel. Such +was probably the spirit of the system of dukes and counts when it first +arose out of the military spirit and military necessities of Rome. With +the decline of those necessities it has gradually ceased to have meaning +as a military organization, and become honeycombed with unclean +plutocracy. Even now it is not a spiritual aristocracy---it is not so +bad as all that. It is simply an army without an enemy---billeted upon +the people. + +Man, therefore, has a specialist as well as comrade-like aspect; and the +case of militarism is not the only case of such specialist submission. +The tinker and tailor, as well as the soldier and sailor, require a +certain rigidity of rapidity of action: at least, if the tinker is not +organized that is largely why he does not tinker on any large scale. The +tinker and tailor often represent the two nomadic races in Europe: the +Gipsy and the Jew; but the Jew alone has influence because he alone +accepts some sort of discipline. Man, we say, has two sides, the +specialist side where he must have subordination, and the social side +where he must have equality. There is a truth in the saying that ten +tailors go to make a man; but we must remember also that ten Poets +Laureate or ten Astronomers Royal go to make a man, too. Ten million +tradesmen go to make Man himself; but humanity consists of tradesmen +when they are not talking shop. Now the peculiar peril of our time, +which I call for argument's sake Imperialism or Caesarism, is the +complete eclipse of comradeship and equality by specialism and domination. -There are only two kinds of social structure -conceivable--personal government and impersonal government. -If my anarchic friends will not have rules---they will have -rulers. Preferring personal government, with its tact and -flexibility, is called Royalism. Preferring impersonal -government, with its dogmas and definitions, is called -Republicanism. Objecting broad=mindedly both to kings and -creeds is called Bosh; at least, I know no more philosophic -word for it. You can be guided by the shrewdness or presence -of mind of one ruler, or by the equality and ascertained -justice of one rule; but you must have one or the other, or -you are not a nation, but a nasty mess. Now men in their -aspect of equality and debate adore the idea of rules; they -develop and complicate them greatly to excess. A man finds -far more regulations and definitions in his club, where -there are rules, than in his home, where there is a ruler. A -deliberative assembly, the House of Commons, for instance, -carries this mummery to the point of a methodical madness. -The whole system is stiff with rigid unreason; like the -Royal Court in Lewis Carroll. You would think the Speaker -would speak; therefore he is mostly silent. You would think -a man would take off his hat to stop and put it on to go -away; therefore he takes off his hat to walk out and puts it -on to stop in. Names are forbidden, and a man must call his -own father "my right honorable friend the member for West -Birmingham." These are, perhaps, fantasies of decay: but -fundamentally they answer a masculine appetite. Men feel -that rules, even if irrational, are universal; men feel that -law is equal, even when it is not equitable. There is a wild +There are only two kinds of social structure conceivable--personal +government and impersonal government. If my anarchic friends will not +have rules---they will have rulers. Preferring personal government, with +its tact and flexibility, is called Royalism. Preferring impersonal +government, with its dogmas and definitions, is called Republicanism. +Objecting broad=mindedly both to kings and creeds is called Bosh; at +least, I know no more philosophic word for it. You can be guided by the +shrewdness or presence of mind of one ruler, or by the equality and +ascertained justice of one rule; but you must have one or the other, or +you are not a nation, but a nasty mess. Now men in their aspect of +equality and debate adore the idea of rules; they develop and complicate +them greatly to excess. A man finds far more regulations and definitions +in his club, where there are rules, than in his home, where there is a +ruler. A deliberative assembly, the House of Commons, for instance, +carries this mummery to the point of a methodical madness. The whole +system is stiff with rigid unreason; like the Royal Court in Lewis +Carroll. You would think the Speaker would speak; therefore he is mostly +silent. You would think a man would take off his hat to stop and put it +on to go away; therefore he takes off his hat to walk out and puts it on +to stop in. Names are forbidden, and a man must call his own father "my +right honorable friend the member for West Birmingham." These are, +perhaps, fantasies of decay: but fundamentally they answer a masculine +appetite. Men feel that rules, even if irrational, are universal; men +feel that law is equal, even when it is not equitable. There is a wild fairness in the thing---as there is in tossing up. -Again, it is gravely unfortunate that when critics do attack -such cases as the Commons it is always on the points -(perhaps the few points) where the Commons are right. They -denounce the House as the Talking-Shop, and complain that it -wastes time in wordy mazes. Now this is just one respect in -which the Commons are actually like the Common People. If -they love leisure and long debate, it is because all men -love it; that they really represent England. There the -Parliament does approach to the virile virtues of the -pothouse. - -The real truth is that adumbrated in the introductory -section, when we spoke of the sense of home and property, as -now we speak of the sense of counsel and community. All men -do naturally love the idea of leisure, laughter, loud and -equal argument; but there stands a specter in our hall. We -are conscious of the towering modern challenge that is -called specialism or cut-throat competition---Business. -Business will have nothing to do with leisure; business will -have no truck with comradeship; business will pretend to no -patience with all the legal fictions and fantastic handicaps -by which comradeship protects its egalitarian ideal. The -modern millionaire, when engaged in the agreeable and -typical task of sacking his own father, will certainly not -refer to him as the right honorable clerk from the Laburnum -Road, Brixton. Therefore there has arisen in modern life a -literary fashion devoting itself to the romance of business, -to great demigods of greed and to fairyland of finance. This -popular philosophy is utterly despotic and anti-democratic; -this fashion is the flower of that Caesarism against which I -am concerned to protest. The ideal millionaire is strong in -the possession of a brain of steel. The fact that the real -millionaire is rather more often strong in the possession of -a head of wood, does not alter the spirit and trend of the -idolatry. The essential argument is "Specialists must be -despots; men must be specialists. You cannot have equality -in a soap factory; so you cannot have it anywhere. You -cannot have comradeship in a wheat corner; so you cannot -have it at all. We must have commercial civilization; -therefore we must destroy democracy." I know that plutocrats -have seldom sufficient fancy to soar to such examples as -soap or wheat. They generally confine themselves, with fine -freshness of mind, to a comparison between the state and a -ship. One anti-democratic writer remarked that he would not -like to sail in a vessel in which the cabin-boy had an equal -vote with the captain. It might easily be urged in answer -that many a ship (the Victoria, for instance) was sunk -because an admiral gave an order which a cabin-boy could see -was wrong. But this is a debating reply; the essential -fallacy is both deeper and simpler. The elementary fact is -that we were all born in a state; we were not all born on a -ship; like some of our great British bankers. A ship still -remains a specialist experiment, like a diving-bell or a -flying ship: in such peculiar perils the need for -promptitude constitutes the need for autocracy. But we live -and die in the vessel of the state; and if we cannot find -freedom, camaraderie and the popular element in the state, -we cannot find it at all. And the modern doctrine of -commercial despotism means that we shall not find it at all. -Our specialist trades in their highly civilized state cannot -(it says) be run without the whole brutal business of -bossing and sacking, "too old at forty" and all the rest of -the filth. And they; must be run, and therefore we call on -Caesar. Nobody but the Superman could descend to do such -dirty work. - -Now (to reiterate my title) this is what is wrong. This is -the huge modern heresy of altering the human soul to fit its -conditions, instead of altering human conditions to fit the -human soul. If soap-boiling is really inconsistent with -brotherhood, so much the worst for soap-boiling, not for -brotherhood. If civilization really cannot get on with -democracy, so much the worse for civilization, not for -democracy. Certainly, it would be far better to go back to -village communes, if they really are communes. Certainly, it -would be better to do without soap rather than to do without -society. Certainly, we would sacrifice all our wires, -wheels, systems, specialties, physical science and frenzied -finance for one half-hour of happiness such as has often -come to us with comrades in a common tavern. I do not say -the sacrifice will be necessary; I only say it will be easy. +Again, it is gravely unfortunate that when critics do attack such cases +as the Commons it is always on the points (perhaps the few points) where +the Commons are right. They denounce the House as the Talking-Shop, and +complain that it wastes time in wordy mazes. Now this is just one +respect in which the Commons are actually like the Common People. If +they love leisure and long debate, it is because all men love it; that +they really represent England. There the Parliament does approach to the +virile virtues of the pothouse. + +The real truth is that adumbrated in the introductory section, when we +spoke of the sense of home and property, as now we speak of the sense of +counsel and community. All men do naturally love the idea of leisure, +laughter, loud and equal argument; but there stands a specter in our +hall. We are conscious of the towering modern challenge that is called +specialism or cut-throat competition---Business. Business will have +nothing to do with leisure; business will have no truck with +comradeship; business will pretend to no patience with all the legal +fictions and fantastic handicaps by which comradeship protects its +egalitarian ideal. The modern millionaire, when engaged in the agreeable +and typical task of sacking his own father, will certainly not refer to +him as the right honorable clerk from the Laburnum Road, Brixton. +Therefore there has arisen in modern life a literary fashion devoting +itself to the romance of business, to great demigods of greed and to +fairyland of finance. This popular philosophy is utterly despotic and +anti-democratic; this fashion is the flower of that Caesarism against +which I am concerned to protest. The ideal millionaire is strong in the +possession of a brain of steel. The fact that the real millionaire is +rather more often strong in the possession of a head of wood, does not +alter the spirit and trend of the idolatry. The essential argument is +"Specialists must be despots; men must be specialists. You cannot have +equality in a soap factory; so you cannot have it anywhere. You cannot +have comradeship in a wheat corner; so you cannot have it at all. We +must have commercial civilization; therefore we must destroy democracy." +I know that plutocrats have seldom sufficient fancy to soar to such +examples as soap or wheat. They generally confine themselves, with fine +freshness of mind, to a comparison between the state and a ship. One +anti-democratic writer remarked that he would not like to sail in a +vessel in which the cabin-boy had an equal vote with the captain. It +might easily be urged in answer that many a ship (the Victoria, for +instance) was sunk because an admiral gave an order which a cabin-boy +could see was wrong. But this is a debating reply; the essential fallacy +is both deeper and simpler. The elementary fact is that we were all born +in a state; we were not all born on a ship; like some of our great +British bankers. A ship still remains a specialist experiment, like a +diving-bell or a flying ship: in such peculiar perils the need for +promptitude constitutes the need for autocracy. But we live and die in +the vessel of the state; and if we cannot find freedom, camaraderie and +the popular element in the state, we cannot find it at all. And the +modern doctrine of commercial despotism means that we shall not find it +at all. Our specialist trades in their highly civilized state cannot (it +says) be run without the whole brutal business of bossing and sacking, +"too old at forty" and all the rest of the filth. And they; must be run, +and therefore we call on Caesar. Nobody but the Superman could descend +to do such dirty work. + +Now (to reiterate my title) this is what is wrong. This is the huge +modern heresy of altering the human soul to fit its conditions, instead +of altering human conditions to fit the human soul. If soap-boiling is +really inconsistent with brotherhood, so much the worst for +soap-boiling, not for brotherhood. If civilization really cannot get on +with democracy, so much the worse for civilization, not for democracy. +Certainly, it would be far better to go back to village communes, if +they really are communes. Certainly, it would be better to do without +soap rather than to do without society. Certainly, we would sacrifice +all our wires, wheels, systems, specialties, physical science and +frenzied finance for one half-hour of happiness such as has often come +to us with comrades in a common tavern. I do not say the sacrifice will +be necessary; I only say it will be easy. # Feminism, or the Mistake about Woman ## The Unmilitary Suffragette -It will be better to adopt in this chapter the same process -that appeared a piece of mental justice in the last. My -general opinions on the feminine question are such as many -suffragists would warmly approve; and it would be easy to -state them without any open reference to the current -controversy. But just as it seemed more decent to say first -that I was not in favor of Imperialism even in its practical -and popular sense, so it seems more decent to say the same -of Female Suffrage, in its practical and popular sense. In -other words, it is only fair to state, however hurriedly, -the superficial objection to the Suffragettes before we go -on to the really subtle questions behind the Suffrage. - -Well, to get this honest but unpleasant business over, the -objection to the Suffragettes is not that they are Militant -Suffragettes. On the contrary, it is that they are not -militant enough. A revolution is a military thing; it has -all the military virtues; one of which is that it comes to -an end. Two parties fight with deadly weapons, but under -certain rules of arbitrary honor; the party that wins -becomes the government and proceeds to govern. The aim of -civil war, like the aim of all war, is peace. Now the -Suffragettes cannot raise civil war in this soldierly and -decisive sense; first, because they are women; and, -secondly, because they are very few women. But they can -raise something else; which is altogether another pair of -shoes. They do not create revolution; what they do create is -anarchy; and the difference between these is not a question -of violence, but a question of fruitfulness and finality. -Revolution of its nature produces government; anarchy only -produces more anarchy. Men may have what opinions they -please about the beheading of King Charles or King Louis, -but they cannot deny that Bradshaw and Cromwell ruled, that -Carnot and Napoleon governed. Someone conquered; something -occurred. You can only knock off the King's head once. But -you can knock off the King's hat any number of times. -Destruction is finite; obstruction is infinite: so long as -rebellion takes the form of mere disorder (instead of an -attempt to enforce a new order) there is no logical end to -it; it can feed on itself and renew itself forever. If -Napoleon had not wanted to be a Consul, but only wanted to -be a nuisance, he could, possibly, have prevented any -government arising successfully out of the Revolution. But -such a proceeding would not have deserved the dignified name -of rebellion. - -It is exactly this unmilitant quality in the Suffragettes -that makes their superficial problem. The problem is that -their action has none of the advantages of ultimate -violence; it does not afford a test. War is a dreadful -thing; but it does prove two points sharply and -unanswerably---numbers, and an unnatural valor. One does -discover the two urgent matters; how many rebels there are -alive, and how many are ready to be dead. But a tiny -minority, even an interested minority, may maintain mere -disorder forever. There is also, of course, in the case of -these women, the further falsity that is introduced by their -sex. It is false to state the matter as a mere brutal -question of strength. If his muscles give a man a vote, then -his horse ought to have two votes and his elephant five -votes. The truth is more subtle than that; it is that bodily -outbreak is a man's instinctive weapon, like the hoofs to -the horse or the tusks to the elephant. All riot is a threat -of war; but the woman is brandishing a weapon she can never -use. There are many weapons that she could and does use. If -(for example) all the women nagged for a vote they would get -it in a month. But there again, one must remember, it would -be necessary to get all the women to nag. And that brings us -to the end of the political surface of the matter. The -working objection to the Suffragette philosophy is simply -that overmastering millions of women do not agree with it. I -am aware that some maintain that women ought to have votes -whether the majority wants them or not; but this is surely a -strange and childish case of setting up formal democracy to -the destruction of actual democracy. What should the mass of -women decide if they do not decide their general place in -the State? These people practically say that females may -vote about everything except about Female Suffrage. - -But having again cleared my conscience of my merely -political and possibly unpopular opinion, I will again cast -back and try to treat the matter in a slower and more -sympathetic style; attempt to trace the real roots of -woman's position in the western state, and the causes of our -existing traditions or perhaps prejudices upon the point. -And for this purpose it is again necessary to travel far -from the modern topic, the mere Suffragette of today, and to -go back to subjects which, though much more old, are, I -think, considerably more fresh. +It will be better to adopt in this chapter the same process that +appeared a piece of mental justice in the last. My general opinions on +the feminine question are such as many suffragists would warmly approve; +and it would be easy to state them without any open reference to the +current controversy. But just as it seemed more decent to say first that +I was not in favor of Imperialism even in its practical and popular +sense, so it seems more decent to say the same of Female Suffrage, in +its practical and popular sense. In other words, it is only fair to +state, however hurriedly, the superficial objection to the Suffragettes +before we go on to the really subtle questions behind the Suffrage. + +Well, to get this honest but unpleasant business over, the objection to +the Suffragettes is not that they are Militant Suffragettes. On the +contrary, it is that they are not militant enough. A revolution is a +military thing; it has all the military virtues; one of which is that it +comes to an end. Two parties fight with deadly weapons, but under +certain rules of arbitrary honor; the party that wins becomes the +government and proceeds to govern. The aim of civil war, like the aim of +all war, is peace. Now the Suffragettes cannot raise civil war in this +soldierly and decisive sense; first, because they are women; and, +secondly, because they are very few women. But they can raise something +else; which is altogether another pair of shoes. They do not create +revolution; what they do create is anarchy; and the difference between +these is not a question of violence, but a question of fruitfulness and +finality. Revolution of its nature produces government; anarchy only +produces more anarchy. Men may have what opinions they please about the +beheading of King Charles or King Louis, but they cannot deny that +Bradshaw and Cromwell ruled, that Carnot and Napoleon governed. Someone +conquered; something occurred. You can only knock off the King's head +once. But you can knock off the King's hat any number of times. +Destruction is finite; obstruction is infinite: so long as rebellion +takes the form of mere disorder (instead of an attempt to enforce a new +order) there is no logical end to it; it can feed on itself and renew +itself forever. If Napoleon had not wanted to be a Consul, but only +wanted to be a nuisance, he could, possibly, have prevented any +government arising successfully out of the Revolution. But such a +proceeding would not have deserved the dignified name of rebellion. + +It is exactly this unmilitant quality in the Suffragettes that makes +their superficial problem. The problem is that their action has none of +the advantages of ultimate violence; it does not afford a test. War is a +dreadful thing; but it does prove two points sharply and +unanswerably---numbers, and an unnatural valor. One does discover the +two urgent matters; how many rebels there are alive, and how many are +ready to be dead. But a tiny minority, even an interested minority, may +maintain mere disorder forever. There is also, of course, in the case of +these women, the further falsity that is introduced by their sex. It is +false to state the matter as a mere brutal question of strength. If his +muscles give a man a vote, then his horse ought to have two votes and +his elephant five votes. The truth is more subtle than that; it is that +bodily outbreak is a man's instinctive weapon, like the hoofs to the +horse or the tusks to the elephant. All riot is a threat of war; but the +woman is brandishing a weapon she can never use. There are many weapons +that she could and does use. If (for example) all the women nagged for a +vote they would get it in a month. But there again, one must remember, +it would be necessary to get all the women to nag. And that brings us to +the end of the political surface of the matter. The working objection to +the Suffragette philosophy is simply that overmastering millions of +women do not agree with it. I am aware that some maintain that women +ought to have votes whether the majority wants them or not; but this is +surely a strange and childish case of setting up formal democracy to the +destruction of actual democracy. What should the mass of women decide if +they do not decide their general place in the State? These people +practically say that females may vote about everything except about +Female Suffrage. + +But having again cleared my conscience of my merely political and +possibly unpopular opinion, I will again cast back and try to treat the +matter in a slower and more sympathetic style; attempt to trace the real +roots of woman's position in the western state, and the causes of our +existing traditions or perhaps prejudices upon the point. And for this +purpose it is again necessary to travel far from the modern topic, the +mere Suffragette of today, and to go back to subjects which, though much +more old, are, I think, considerably more fresh. ## The Universal Stick -Cast your eye round the room in which you sit, and select -some three or four things that have been with man almost -since his beginning; which at least we hear of early in the -centuries and often among the tribes. Let me suppose that -you see a knife on the table, a stick in the corner, or a -fire on the hearth. About each of these you will notice one -specialty; that not one of them is special. Each of these -ancestral things is a universal thing; made to supply many -different needs; and while tottering pedants nose about to -find the cause and origin of some old custom, the truth is -that it had fifty causes or a hundred origins. The knife is -meant to cut wood, to cut cheese, to cut pencils, to cut -throats; for a myriad ingenious or innocent human objects. -The stick is meant partly to hold a man up, partly to knock -a man down; partly to point with like a finger-post, partly -to balance with like a balancing pole, partly to trifle with -like a cigarette, partly to kill with like a club of a -giant; it is a crutch and a cudgel; an elongated finger and -an extra leg. The case is the same, of course, with the -fire; about which the strangest modern views have arisen. A -queer fancy seems to be current that a fire exists to warm -people. It exists to warm people, to light their darkness, -to raise their spirits, to toast their muffins, to air their -rooms, to cook their chestnuts, to tell stories to their -children, to make checkered shadows on their walls, to boil -their hurried kettles, and to be the red heart of a man's -house and that hearth for which, as the great heathens said, -a man should die. - -Now it is the great mark of our modernity that people are -always proposing substitutes for these old things; and these -substitutes always answer one purpose where the old thing -answered ten. The modern man will wave a cigarette instead -of a stick; he will cut his pencil with a little screwing -pencil-sharpener instead of a knife; and he will even boldly -offer to be warmed by hot water pipes instead of a fire. I -have my doubts about pencil-sharpeners even for sharpening -pencils; and about hot water pipes even for heat. But when -we think of all those other requirements that these -institutions answered, there opens before us the whole -horrible harlequinade of our civilization. We see as in a -vision a world where a man tries to cut his throat with a -pencil-sharpener; where a man must learn single-stick with a -cigarette; where a man must try to toast muffins at electric -lamps, and see red and golden castles in the surface of hot -water pipes. - -The principle of which I speak can be seen everywhere in a -comparison between the ancient and universal things and the -modern and specialist things. The object of a theodolite is -to lie level; the object of a stick is to swing loose at any -angle; to whirl like the very wheel of liberty. The object -of a lancet is to lance; when used for slashing, gashing, -ripping, lopping off heads and limbs, it is a disappointing -instrument. The object of an electric light is merely to -light (a despicable modesty); and the object of an asbestos -stove... I wonder what is the object of an asbestos stove? -If a man found a coil of rope in a desert he could at least -think of all the things that can be done with a coil of -rope; and some of them might even be practical. He could tow -a boat or lasso a horse. He could play cat's-cradle, or pick -oakum. He could construct a rope-ladder for an eloping -heiress, or cord her boxes for a traveling maiden aunt. He -could learn to tie a bow, or he could hang himself. Far -otherwise with the unfortunate traveler who should find a -telephone in the desert. You can telephone with a telephone; -you cannot do anything else with it. And though this is one -of the wildest joys of life, it falls by one degree from its -full delirium when there is nobody to answer you. The -contention is, in brief, that you must pull up a hundred -roots, and not one, before you uproot any of these hoary and -simple expedients. It is only with great difficulty that a -modern scientific sociologist can be got to see that any old -method has a leg to stand on. But almost every old method -has four or five legs to stand on. Almost all the old -institutions are quadrupeds; and some of them are -centipedes. - -Consider these cases, old and new, and you will observe the -operation of a general tendency. Everywhere there was one -big thing that served six purposes; everywhere now there are -six small things; or, rather (and there is the trouble), -there are just five and a half. Nevertheless, we will not -say that this separation and specialism is entirely useless -or inexcusable. I have often thanked God for the telephone; -I may any day thank God for the lancet; and there is none of -these brilliant and narrow inventions (except, of course, -the asbestos stove) which might not be at some moment -necessary and lovely. But I do not think the most austere -upholder of specialism will deny that there is in these old, -many-sided institutions an element of unity and universality -which may well be preserved in its due proportion and place. -Spiritually, at least, it will be admitted that some -all-round balance is needed to equalize the extravagance of -experts. It would not be difficult to carry the parable of -the knife and stick into higher regions. Religion, the -immortal maiden, has been a maid-of-all-work as well as a -servant of mankind. She provided men at once with the -theoretic laws of an unalterable cosmos; and also with the -practical rules of the rapid and thrilling game of morality. -She taught logic to the student and told fairy tales to the -children; it was her business to confront the nameless gods -whose fears are on all flesh, and also to see the streets -were spotted with silver and scarlet, that there was a day -for wearing ribbons or an hour for ringing bells. The large -uses of religion have been broken up into lesser -specialties, just as the uses of the hearth have been broken -up into hot water pipes and electric bulbs. The romance of -ritual and colored emblem has been taken over by that -narrowest of all trades, modern art (the sort called art for -art's sake), and men are in modern practice informed that -they may use all symbols so long as they mean nothing by -them. The romance of conscience has been dried up into the -science of ethics; which may well be called decency for -decency's sake, decency unborn of cosmic energies and barren -of artistic flower. The cry to the dim gods, cut off from -ethics and cosmology, has become mere Psychical Research. -Everything has been sundered from everything else, and -everything has grown cold. Soon we shall hear of specialists -dividing the tune from the words of a song, on the ground -that they spoil each other; and I did once meet a man who -openly advocated the separation of almonds and raisins. This -world is all one wild divorce court; nevertheless, there are -many who still hear in their souls the thunder of the -authority of human habit; those whom Man hath joined let no -man sunder. - -This book must avoid religion, but there must (I say) be -many, religious and irreligious, who will concede that this -power of answering many purposes was a sort of strength -which should not wholly die out of our lives. As a part of -personal character, even the moderns will agree that -many-sidedness is a merit and a merit that may easily be -overlooked. This balance and universality has been the -vision of many groups of men in many ages. It was the -Liberal Education of Aristotle; the jack-of-all-trades -artistry of Leonardo da Vinci and his friends; the august -amateurishness of the Cavalier Person of Quality like Sir -William Temple or the great Earl of Dorset. It has appeared -in literature in our time in the most erratic and opposite -shapes, set to almost inaudible music by Walter Pater and -enunciated through a foghorn by Walt Whitman. But the great -mass of men have always been unable to achieve this literal -universality, because of the nature of their work in the -world. Not, let it be noted, because of the existence of -their work. Leonardo da Vinci must have worked pretty hard; -on the other hand, many a government office cleric, village -constable or elusive plumber may do (to all human -appearance) no work at all, and yet show no signs of the -Aristotelian universalism. What makes it difficult for the -average man to be a universalist is that the average man has -to be a specialist; he has not only to learn one trade, but -to learn it so well as to uphold him in a more or less -ruthless society. This is generally true of males from the -first hunter to the last electrical engineer; each has not -merely to act, but to excel. Nimrod has not only to be a -mighty hunter before the Lord, but also a mighty hunter -before the other hunters. The electrical engineer has to be -a very electrical engineer, or he is outstripped by -engineers yet more electrical. Those very miracles of the -human mind on which the modern world prides itself, and -rightly in the main, would be impossible without a certain -concentration which disturbs the pure balance of reason more -than does religious bigotry. No creed can be so limiting as -that awful adjuration that the cobbler must not go beyond -his last. So the largest and wildest shots of our world are -but in one direction and with a defined trajectory: the -gunner cannot go beyond his shot, and his shot so often -falls short; the astronomer cannot go beyond his telescope, -and his telescope goes such a little way. All these are like -men who have stood on the high peak of a mountain and seen -the horizon like a single ring and who then descend down -different paths towards different towns, traveling slow or -fast. It is right; there must be people traveling to -different towns; there must be specialists; but shall no one -behold the horizon? Shall all mankind be specialist surgeons -or peculiar plumbers; shall all humanity be monomaniac? -Tradition has decided that only half of humanity shall be -monomaniac. It has decided that in every home there shall be -a tradesman and a Jack-of-all-trades. But it has also -decided, among other things, that the Jack-of-all-trades -shall be a Gill-of-all-trades. It has decided, rightly or -wrongly, that this specialism and this universalism shall be -divided between the sexes. Cleverness shall be left for men -and wisdom for women. For cleverness kills wisdom; that is -one of the few sad and certain things. - -But for women this ideal of comprehensive capacity (or -common-sense) must long ago have been washed away. It must -have melted in the frightful furnaces of ambition and eager -technicality. A man must be partly a one-dead man, because -he is a one-weaponed man and he is flung naked into the -fight. The world's demand comes to him direct; to his wife -indirectly. In short, he must (as the books on Success say) -give "his best"; and what a small part of a man "his best" -is! His second and third best are often much better. If he -is the first violin he must fiddle for life; he must not -remember that he is a fine fourth bagpipe, a fair fifteenth -billiard-cue, a foil, a fountain-pen, a hand at whist, a -gun, and an image of God. +Cast your eye round the room in which you sit, and select some three or +four things that have been with man almost since his beginning; which at +least we hear of early in the centuries and often among the tribes. Let +me suppose that you see a knife on the table, a stick in the corner, or +a fire on the hearth. About each of these you will notice one specialty; +that not one of them is special. Each of these ancestral things is a +universal thing; made to supply many different needs; and while +tottering pedants nose about to find the cause and origin of some old +custom, the truth is that it had fifty causes or a hundred origins. The +knife is meant to cut wood, to cut cheese, to cut pencils, to cut +throats; for a myriad ingenious or innocent human objects. The stick is +meant partly to hold a man up, partly to knock a man down; partly to +point with like a finger-post, partly to balance with like a balancing +pole, partly to trifle with like a cigarette, partly to kill with like a +club of a giant; it is a crutch and a cudgel; an elongated finger and an +extra leg. The case is the same, of course, with the fire; about which +the strangest modern views have arisen. A queer fancy seems to be +current that a fire exists to warm people. It exists to warm people, to +light their darkness, to raise their spirits, to toast their muffins, to +air their rooms, to cook their chestnuts, to tell stories to their +children, to make checkered shadows on their walls, to boil their +hurried kettles, and to be the red heart of a man's house and that +hearth for which, as the great heathens said, a man should die. + +Now it is the great mark of our modernity that people are always +proposing substitutes for these old things; and these substitutes always +answer one purpose where the old thing answered ten. The modern man will +wave a cigarette instead of a stick; he will cut his pencil with a +little screwing pencil-sharpener instead of a knife; and he will even +boldly offer to be warmed by hot water pipes instead of a fire. I have +my doubts about pencil-sharpeners even for sharpening pencils; and about +hot water pipes even for heat. But when we think of all those other +requirements that these institutions answered, there opens before us the +whole horrible harlequinade of our civilization. We see as in a vision a +world where a man tries to cut his throat with a pencil-sharpener; where +a man must learn single-stick with a cigarette; where a man must try to +toast muffins at electric lamps, and see red and golden castles in the +surface of hot water pipes. + +The principle of which I speak can be seen everywhere in a comparison +between the ancient and universal things and the modern and specialist +things. The object of a theodolite is to lie level; the object of a +stick is to swing loose at any angle; to whirl like the very wheel of +liberty. The object of a lancet is to lance; when used for slashing, +gashing, ripping, lopping off heads and limbs, it is a disappointing +instrument. The object of an electric light is merely to light (a +despicable modesty); and the object of an asbestos stove... I wonder +what is the object of an asbestos stove? If a man found a coil of rope +in a desert he could at least think of all the things that can be done +with a coil of rope; and some of them might even be practical. He could +tow a boat or lasso a horse. He could play cat's-cradle, or pick oakum. +He could construct a rope-ladder for an eloping heiress, or cord her +boxes for a traveling maiden aunt. He could learn to tie a bow, or he +could hang himself. Far otherwise with the unfortunate traveler who +should find a telephone in the desert. You can telephone with a +telephone; you cannot do anything else with it. And though this is one +of the wildest joys of life, it falls by one degree from its full +delirium when there is nobody to answer you. The contention is, in +brief, that you must pull up a hundred roots, and not one, before you +uproot any of these hoary and simple expedients. It is only with great +difficulty that a modern scientific sociologist can be got to see that +any old method has a leg to stand on. But almost every old method has +four or five legs to stand on. Almost all the old institutions are +quadrupeds; and some of them are centipedes. + +Consider these cases, old and new, and you will observe the operation of +a general tendency. Everywhere there was one big thing that served six +purposes; everywhere now there are six small things; or, rather (and +there is the trouble), there are just five and a half. Nevertheless, we +will not say that this separation and specialism is entirely useless or +inexcusable. I have often thanked God for the telephone; I may any day +thank God for the lancet; and there is none of these brilliant and +narrow inventions (except, of course, the asbestos stove) which might +not be at some moment necessary and lovely. But I do not think the most +austere upholder of specialism will deny that there is in these old, +many-sided institutions an element of unity and universality which may +well be preserved in its due proportion and place. Spiritually, at +least, it will be admitted that some all-round balance is needed to +equalize the extravagance of experts. It would not be difficult to carry +the parable of the knife and stick into higher regions. Religion, the +immortal maiden, has been a maid-of-all-work as well as a servant of +mankind. She provided men at once with the theoretic laws of an +unalterable cosmos; and also with the practical rules of the rapid and +thrilling game of morality. She taught logic to the student and told +fairy tales to the children; it was her business to confront the +nameless gods whose fears are on all flesh, and also to see the streets +were spotted with silver and scarlet, that there was a day for wearing +ribbons or an hour for ringing bells. The large uses of religion have +been broken up into lesser specialties, just as the uses of the hearth +have been broken up into hot water pipes and electric bulbs. The romance +of ritual and colored emblem has been taken over by that narrowest of +all trades, modern art (the sort called art for art's sake), and men are +in modern practice informed that they may use all symbols so long as +they mean nothing by them. The romance of conscience has been dried up +into the science of ethics; which may well be called decency for +decency's sake, decency unborn of cosmic energies and barren of artistic +flower. The cry to the dim gods, cut off from ethics and cosmology, has +become mere Psychical Research. Everything has been sundered from +everything else, and everything has grown cold. Soon we shall hear of +specialists dividing the tune from the words of a song, on the ground +that they spoil each other; and I did once meet a man who openly +advocated the separation of almonds and raisins. This world is all one +wild divorce court; nevertheless, there are many who still hear in their +souls the thunder of the authority of human habit; those whom Man hath +joined let no man sunder. + +This book must avoid religion, but there must (I say) be many, religious +and irreligious, who will concede that this power of answering many +purposes was a sort of strength which should not wholly die out of our +lives. As a part of personal character, even the moderns will agree that +many-sidedness is a merit and a merit that may easily be overlooked. +This balance and universality has been the vision of many groups of men +in many ages. It was the Liberal Education of Aristotle; the +jack-of-all-trades artistry of Leonardo da Vinci and his friends; the +august amateurishness of the Cavalier Person of Quality like Sir William +Temple or the great Earl of Dorset. It has appeared in literature in our +time in the most erratic and opposite shapes, set to almost inaudible +music by Walter Pater and enunciated through a foghorn by Walt Whitman. +But the great mass of men have always been unable to achieve this +literal universality, because of the nature of their work in the world. +Not, let it be noted, because of the existence of their work. Leonardo +da Vinci must have worked pretty hard; on the other hand, many a +government office cleric, village constable or elusive plumber may do +(to all human appearance) no work at all, and yet show no signs of the +Aristotelian universalism. What makes it difficult for the average man +to be a universalist is that the average man has to be a specialist; he +has not only to learn one trade, but to learn it so well as to uphold +him in a more or less ruthless society. This is generally true of males +from the first hunter to the last electrical engineer; each has not +merely to act, but to excel. Nimrod has not only to be a mighty hunter +before the Lord, but also a mighty hunter before the other hunters. The +electrical engineer has to be a very electrical engineer, or he is +outstripped by engineers yet more electrical. Those very miracles of the +human mind on which the modern world prides itself, and rightly in the +main, would be impossible without a certain concentration which disturbs +the pure balance of reason more than does religious bigotry. No creed +can be so limiting as that awful adjuration that the cobbler must not go +beyond his last. So the largest and wildest shots of our world are but +in one direction and with a defined trajectory: the gunner cannot go +beyond his shot, and his shot so often falls short; the astronomer +cannot go beyond his telescope, and his telescope goes such a little +way. All these are like men who have stood on the high peak of a +mountain and seen the horizon like a single ring and who then descend +down different paths towards different towns, traveling slow or fast. It +is right; there must be people traveling to different towns; there must +be specialists; but shall no one behold the horizon? Shall all mankind +be specialist surgeons or peculiar plumbers; shall all humanity be +monomaniac? Tradition has decided that only half of humanity shall be +monomaniac. It has decided that in every home there shall be a tradesman +and a Jack-of-all-trades. But it has also decided, among other things, +that the Jack-of-all-trades shall be a Gill-of-all-trades. It has +decided, rightly or wrongly, that this specialism and this universalism +shall be divided between the sexes. Cleverness shall be left for men and +wisdom for women. For cleverness kills wisdom; that is one of the few +sad and certain things. + +But for women this ideal of comprehensive capacity (or common-sense) +must long ago have been washed away. It must have melted in the +frightful furnaces of ambition and eager technicality. A man must be +partly a one-dead man, because he is a one-weaponed man and he is flung +naked into the fight. The world's demand comes to him direct; to his +wife indirectly. In short, he must (as the books on Success say) give +"his best"; and what a small part of a man "his best" is! His second and +third best are often much better. If he is the first violin he must +fiddle for life; he must not remember that he is a fine fourth bagpipe, +a fair fifteenth billiard-cue, a foil, a fountain-pen, a hand at whist, +a gun, and an image of God. ## The Emancipation of Domesticity -And it should be remarked in passing that this force upon a -man to develop one feature has nothing to do with what is -commonly called our competitive system, but would equally -exist under any rationally conceivable kind of Collectivism. -Unless the Socialists are frankly ready for a fall in the -standard of violins, telescopes and electric lights, they -must somehow create a moral demand on the individual that he -shall keep up his present concentration on these things. It -was only by men being in some degree specialist that there -ever were any telescopes; they must certainly be in some -degree specialist in order to keep them going. It is not by -making a man a State wage-earner that you can prevent him -thinking principally about the very difficult way he earns -his wages. There is only one way to preserve in the world -that high levity and that more leisurely outlook which -fulfils the old vision of universalism. That is, to permit -the existence of a partly protected half of humanity; a half -which the harassing industrial demand troubles indeed, but -only troubles indirectly. In other words, there must be in -every center of humanity one human being upon a larger plan; -one who does not "give her best," but gives her all. - -Our old analogy of the fire remains the most workable one. -The fire need not blaze like electricity nor boil like -boiling water; its point is that it blazes more than water -and warms more than light. The wife is like the fire, or to -put things in their proper proportion, the fire is like the -wife. Like the fire, the woman is expected to cook: not to -excel in cooking, but to cook; to cook better than her -husband who is earning the coke by lecturing on botany or -breaking stones. Like the fire, the woman is expected to -tell tales to the children, not original and artistic tales, -but tales---better tales than would probably be told by a -first-class cook. Like the fire, the woman is expected to -illuminate and ventilate, not by the most startling -revelations or the wildest winds of thought, but better than -a man can do it after breaking stones or lecturing. But she -cannot be expected to endure anything like this universal -duty if she is also to endure the direct cruelty of -competitive or bureaucratic toil. Woman must be a cook, but -not a competitive cook; a schoolmistress, but not a -competitive schoolmistress; a house-decorator, but not a -competitive house-decorator; a dressmaker, but not a -competitive dressmaker. She should have not one trade but -twenty hobbies; she, unlike the man, may develop all her -second bests. This is what has been really aimed at from the -first in what is called the seclusion, or even the -oppression, of women. Women were not kept at home in order -to keep them narrow; on the contrary, they were kept at home -in order to keep them broad. The world outside the home was -one mass of narrowness, a maze of cramped paths, a madhouse -of monomaniacs. It was only by partly limiting and -protecting the woman that she was enabled to play at five or -six professions and so come almost as near to God as the -child when he plays at a hundred trades. But the woman's -professions, unlike the child's, were all truly and almost -terribly fruitful; so tragically real that nothing but her -universality and balance prevented them being merely morbid. -This is the substance of the contention I offer about the -historic female position. I do not deny that women have been -wronged and even tortured; but I doubt if they were ever -tortured so much as they are tortured now by the absurd -modern attempt to make them domestic empresses and -competitive clerks at the same time. I do not deny that even -under the old tradition women had a harder time than men; -that is why we take off our hats. I do not deny that all -these various female functions were exasperating:; but I say -that there was some aim and meaning in keeping them various. -I do not pause even to deny that woman was a servant; but at -least she was a general servant. - -The shortest way of summarizing the position is to say that -woman stands for the idea of Sanity; that intellectual home -to which the mind must return after every excursion on -extravagance. The mind that finds its way to wild places is -the poet's; but the mind that never finds its way back is -the lunatic's. There must in every machine be a part that -moves and a part that stands still; there must be in -everything that changes a part that is unchangeable. And -many of the phenomena which moderns hastily condemn are -really parts of this position of the woman as the center and -pillar of health. Much of what is called her subservience, -and even her pliability, is merely the subservience and -pliability of a universal remedy; she varies as medicines -vary, with the disease. She has to be an optimist to the -morbid husband, a salutary pessimist to the happy-go-lucky -husband. She has to prevent the Quixote from being put upon, -and the bully from putting upon others. The French King -wrote--- +And it should be remarked in passing that this force upon a man to +develop one feature has nothing to do with what is commonly called our +competitive system, but would equally exist under any rationally +conceivable kind of Collectivism. Unless the Socialists are frankly +ready for a fall in the standard of violins, telescopes and electric +lights, they must somehow create a moral demand on the individual that +he shall keep up his present concentration on these things. It was only +by men being in some degree specialist that there ever were any +telescopes; they must certainly be in some degree specialist in order to +keep them going. It is not by making a man a State wage-earner that you +can prevent him thinking principally about the very difficult way he +earns his wages. There is only one way to preserve in the world that +high levity and that more leisurely outlook which fulfils the old vision +of universalism. That is, to permit the existence of a partly protected +half of humanity; a half which the harassing industrial demand troubles +indeed, but only troubles indirectly. In other words, there must be in +every center of humanity one human being upon a larger plan; one who +does not "give her best," but gives her all. + +Our old analogy of the fire remains the most workable one. The fire need +not blaze like electricity nor boil like boiling water; its point is +that it blazes more than water and warms more than light. The wife is +like the fire, or to put things in their proper proportion, the fire is +like the wife. Like the fire, the woman is expected to cook: not to +excel in cooking, but to cook; to cook better than her husband who is +earning the coke by lecturing on botany or breaking stones. Like the +fire, the woman is expected to tell tales to the children, not original +and artistic tales, but tales---better tales than would probably be told +by a first-class cook. Like the fire, the woman is expected to +illuminate and ventilate, not by the most startling revelations or the +wildest winds of thought, but better than a man can do it after breaking +stones or lecturing. But she cannot be expected to endure anything like +this universal duty if she is also to endure the direct cruelty of +competitive or bureaucratic toil. Woman must be a cook, but not a +competitive cook; a schoolmistress, but not a competitive +schoolmistress; a house-decorator, but not a competitive +house-decorator; a dressmaker, but not a competitive dressmaker. She +should have not one trade but twenty hobbies; she, unlike the man, may +develop all her second bests. This is what has been really aimed at from +the first in what is called the seclusion, or even the oppression, of +women. Women were not kept at home in order to keep them narrow; on the +contrary, they were kept at home in order to keep them broad. The world +outside the home was one mass of narrowness, a maze of cramped paths, a +madhouse of monomaniacs. It was only by partly limiting and protecting +the woman that she was enabled to play at five or six professions and so +come almost as near to God as the child when he plays at a hundred +trades. But the woman's professions, unlike the child's, were all truly +and almost terribly fruitful; so tragically real that nothing but her +universality and balance prevented them being merely morbid. This is the +substance of the contention I offer about the historic female position. +I do not deny that women have been wronged and even tortured; but I +doubt if they were ever tortured so much as they are tortured now by the +absurd modern attempt to make them domestic empresses and competitive +clerks at the same time. I do not deny that even under the old tradition +women had a harder time than men; that is why we take off our hats. I do +not deny that all these various female functions were exasperating:; but +I say that there was some aim and meaning in keeping them various. I do +not pause even to deny that woman was a servant; but at least she was a +general servant. + +The shortest way of summarizing the position is to say that woman stands +for the idea of Sanity; that intellectual home to which the mind must +return after every excursion on extravagance. The mind that finds its +way to wild places is the poet's; but the mind that never finds its way +back is the lunatic's. There must in every machine be a part that moves +and a part that stands still; there must be in everything that changes a +part that is unchangeable. And many of the phenomena which moderns +hastily condemn are really parts of this position of the woman as the +center and pillar of health. Much of what is called her subservience, +and even her pliability, is merely the subservience and pliability of a +universal remedy; she varies as medicines vary, with the disease. She +has to be an optimist to the morbid husband, a salutary pessimist to the +happy-go-lucky husband. She has to prevent the Quixote from being put +upon, and the bully from putting upon others. The French King wrote--- > "Toujours femme varie > > Bien fol qui s'y fie," -but the truth is that woman always varies, and that is -exactly why we always trust her. To correct every adventure -and extravagance with its antidote in common-sense is not -(as the moderns seem to think) to be in the position of a -spy or a slave. It is to be in the position of Aristotle or -(at the lowest) Herbert Spencer, to be a universal morality, -a complete system of thought. The slave flatters; the -complete moralist rebukes. It is, in short, to be a Trimmer -in the true sense of that honorable term; which for some -reason or other is always used in a sense exactly opposite -to its own. It seems really to be supposed that a Trimmer -means a cowardly person who always goes over to the stronger -side. It really means a highly chivalrous person who always -goes over to the weaker side; like one who trims a boat by -sitting where there are few people seated. Woman is a -trimmer; and it is a generous, dangerous and romantic trade. - -The final fact which fixes this is a sufficiently plain one. -Supposing it to be conceded that humanity has acted at least -not unnaturally in dividing itself into two halves, -respectively typifying the ideals of special talent and of -general sanity (since they are genuinely difficult to -combine completely in one mind), it is not difficult to see -why the line of cleavage has followed the line of sex, or -why the female became the emblem of the universal and the -male of the special and superior. Two gigantic facts of -nature fixed it thus: first, that the woman who frequently -fulfilled her functions literally could not be specially -prominent in experiment and adventure; and second, that the -same natural operation surrounded her with very young -children, who require to be taught not so much anything as -everything. Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be -introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is -generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time -when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that -there aren't. It would be odd if she retained any of the -narrowness of a specialist. Now if anyone says that this -duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern -rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more -protected person) is in itself too exacting and oppressive, -I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race -has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in -order to keep common-sense in the world. But when people -begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely -difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the -question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination -conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is -called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double -meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard -work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might -drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at -Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy -because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the -soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the -words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, -deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be -Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, -sheets, cakes, and books, to be Aristotle within a certain -area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can -understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot -imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career -to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and -a small career to tell one's own children about the -universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to -everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a -woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, -not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the -hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its +but the truth is that woman always varies, and that is exactly why we +always trust her. To correct every adventure and extravagance with its +antidote in common-sense is not (as the moderns seem to think) to be in +the position of a spy or a slave. It is to be in the position of +Aristotle or (at the lowest) Herbert Spencer, to be a universal +morality, a complete system of thought. The slave flatters; the complete +moralist rebukes. It is, in short, to be a Trimmer in the true sense of +that honorable term; which for some reason or other is always used in a +sense exactly opposite to its own. It seems really to be supposed that a +Trimmer means a cowardly person who always goes over to the stronger +side. It really means a highly chivalrous person who always goes over to +the weaker side; like one who trims a boat by sitting where there are +few people seated. Woman is a trimmer; and it is a generous, dangerous +and romantic trade. + +The final fact which fixes this is a sufficiently plain one. Supposing +it to be conceded that humanity has acted at least not unnaturally in +dividing itself into two halves, respectively typifying the ideals of +special talent and of general sanity (since they are genuinely difficult +to combine completely in one mind), it is not difficult to see why the +line of cleavage has followed the line of sex, or why the female became +the emblem of the universal and the male of the special and superior. +Two gigantic facts of nature fixed it thus: first, that the woman who +frequently fulfilled her functions literally could not be specially +prominent in experiment and adventure; and second, that the same natural +operation surrounded her with very young children, who require to be +taught not so much anything as everything. Babies need not to be taught +a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, +woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time +when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there +aren't. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a +specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment +(even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more +spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and +oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race +has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep +common-sense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this +domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply +give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination +conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called +drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. +If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges +in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge +behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more +heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, +then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be +Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors +and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, +boots, sheets, cakes, and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, +teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how +this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow +it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about +the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about +the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and +narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, +but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity +Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness. -But though the essential of the woman's task is -universality, this does not, of course, prevent her from -having one or two severe though largely wholesome -prejudices. She has, on the whole, been more conscious than -man that she is only one half of humanity; but she has -expressed it (if one may say so of a lady) by getting her -teeth into the two or three things which she thinks she -stands for. I would observe here in parenthesis that much of -the recent official trouble about women has arisen from the -fact that they transfer to things of doubt and reason that -sacred stubbornness only proper to the primary things which -a woman was set to guard. One's own children, one's own -altar, ought to be a matter of principle or if you like, a -matter of prejudice. On the other hand, who wrote Junius's -Letters ought not to be a principle or a prejudice, it ought -to be a matter of free and almost indifferent inquiry. But -make an energetic modern girl secretary to a league to show -that George III wrote Junius, and in three months she will -believe it, too, out of mere loyalty to her employers. -Modern women defend their office with all the fierceness of -domesticity. They fight for desk and typewriter as for -hearth and home, and develop a sort of wolfish wifehood on -behalf of the invisible head of the firm. That is why they -do office work so well; and that is why they ought not to do -it. +But though the essential of the woman's task is universality, this does +not, of course, prevent her from having one or two severe though largely +wholesome prejudices. She has, on the whole, been more conscious than +man that she is only one half of humanity; but she has expressed it (if +one may say so of a lady) by getting her teeth into the two or three +things which she thinks she stands for. I would observe here in +parenthesis that much of the recent official trouble about women has +arisen from the fact that they transfer to things of doubt and reason +that sacred stubbornness only proper to the primary things which a woman +was set to guard. One's own children, one's own altar, ought to be a +matter of principle or if you like, a matter of prejudice. On the other +hand, who wrote Junius's Letters ought not to be a principle or a +prejudice, it ought to be a matter of free and almost indifferent +inquiry. But make an energetic modern girl secretary to a league to show +that George III wrote Junius, and in three months she will believe it, +too, out of mere loyalty to her employers. Modern women defend their +office with all the fierceness of domesticity. They fight for desk and +typewriter as for hearth and home, and develop a sort of wolfish +wifehood on behalf of the invisible head of the firm. That is why they +do office work so well; and that is why they ought not to do it. ## The Romance of Thrift -The larger part of womankind, however, have had to fight for -things slightly more intoxicating to the eye than the desk -or the typewriter; and it cannot be denied that in defending -these, women have developed the quality called prejudice to -a powerful and even menacing degree. But these prejudices -will always be found to fortify the main position of the -woman, that she is to remain a general overseer, an autocrat -within small compass but on all sides. On the one or two -points on which she really misunderstands the man's -position, it is almost entirely in order to preserve her -own. The two points on which woman, actually and of herself, -is most tenacious may be roughly summarized as the ideal of +The larger part of womankind, however, have had to fight for things +slightly more intoxicating to the eye than the desk or the typewriter; +and it cannot be denied that in defending these, women have developed +the quality called prejudice to a powerful and even menacing degree. But +these prejudices will always be found to fortify the main position of +the woman, that she is to remain a general overseer, an autocrat within +small compass but on all sides. On the one or two points on which she +really misunderstands the man's position, it is almost entirely in order +to preserve her own. The two points on which woman, actually and of +herself, is most tenacious may be roughly summarized as the ideal of thrift and the ideal of dignity. -Unfortunately for this book it is written by 1a male, and -these two qualities, if not hateful to a man, are at least -hateful in a man. But if we are to settle the sex question -at all fairly, all males must make an imaginative attempt to -enter into the attitude of all good women toward these two -things. The difficulty exists especially, perhaps, in the -thing called thrift; we men have so much encouraged each -other in throwing money right and left, that there has come -at last to be a sort of chivalrous and poetical air about -losing sixpence. But on a broader and more candid -consideration the case scarcely stands so. - -Thrift is the really romantic thing; economy is more -romantic than extravagance. Heaven knows I for one speak -disinterestedly in the matter; for I cannot clearly remember -saving a half-penny ever since I was born. But the thing is -true; economy, properly understood, is the more poetic. -Thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic -because it is waste. It is prosaic to throw money away, -because it is prosaic to throw anything away; it is -negative; it is a confession of indifference, that is, it is -a confession of failure. The most prosaic thing about the -house is the dustbin, and the one great objection to the new -fastidious and aesthetic homestead is simply that in such a -moral *ménage* the dustbin must be bigger than the house. If -a man could undertake to make use of all things in his -dustbin he would be a broader genius than Shakespeare. When -science began to use by-products; when science found that -colors could be made out of coal-tar, she made her greatest -and perhaps her only claim on the real respect of the human -soul. Now the aim of the good woman is to use the -by-products, or, in other words, to rummage in the dustbin. - -A man can only fully comprehend it if he thinks of some -sudden joke or expedient got up with such materials as may -be found in a private house on a rainy day. A man's definite -daily work is generally run with such rigid convenience of -modern science that thrift, the picking up of potential -helps here and there, has almost become unmeaning to him. He -comes across it most (as I say) when he is playing some game -within four walls; when in charades, a hearthrug will just -do for a fur coat, or a tea-cozy just do for a cocked hat; -when a toy theater needs timber and cardboard, and the house -has just enough firewood and just enough bandboxes. This is -the man's occasional glimpse and pleasing parody of thrift. -But many a good housekeeper plays the same game every day -with ends of cheese and scraps of silk, not because she is -mean, but on the contrary, because she is magnanimous; -because she wishes her creative mercy to be over all her -works, that not one sardine should be destroyed, or cast as -rubbish to the void, when she has made the pile complete. - -The modern world must somehow be made to understand (in -theology and other things) that a view may be vast, broad, -universal, liberal and yet come into conflict with another -view that is vast, broad, universal and liberal also. There -is never a war between two sects, but only between two -universal Catholic Churches. The only possible collision is -the collision of one cosmos with another. So in a smaller -way it must be first made clear that this female economic -ideal is a part of that female variety of outlook and -all-round art of life which we have already attributed to -the sex: thrift is not a small or timid or provincial thing; -it is part of that great idea of the woman watching on all -sides out of all the windows of the soul and being -answerable for everything. For in the average human house -there is one hole by which money comes in and a hundred by -which it goes out; man has to do with the one hole, woman -with the hundred. But though the very stinginess of a woman -is a part of her spiritual breadth, it is none the less true -that it brings her into conflict with the special kind of -spiritual breadth that belongs to the males of the tribe. It -brings her into conflict with that shapeless cataract of -Comradeship, of chaotic feasting and deafening debate, which -we noted in the last section. The very touch of the eternal -in the two sexual tastes brings them the more into -antagonism; for one stands for a universal vigilance and the -other for an almost infinite output. Partly through the -nature of his moral weakness, and partly through the nature -of his physical strength, the male is normally prone to -expand things into a sort of eternity; he always thinks of a -dinner party as lasting all night; and he always thinks of a -night as lasting forever. When the working women in the poor -districts come to the doors of the public houses and try to -get their husbands home, simple-minded "social workers" -always imagine that every husband is a tragic drunkard and -every wife a broken-hearted saint. It never occurs to them -that the poor woman is only doing under coarser conventions -exactly what every fashionable hostess does when she tries -to get the men from arguing over the cigars to come and -gossip over the teacups. These women are not exasperated -merely at the amount of money that is wasted in beer; they -are exasperated also at the amount of time that is wasted in -talk. It Is not merely what goeth into the mouth but what -cometh out of the mouth that, in their opinion, defileth a -man. They will raise against an argument (like their sisters -of all ranks) the ridiculous objection that nobody is -convinced by it; as if a man wanted to make a body-slave of -anybody with whom he had played single-stick. But the real -female prejudice on this point is not without a basis; the -real feeling is this, that the most masculine pleasures have -a quality of the ephemeral. A duchess may ruin a duke for a -diamond necklace; but there is the necklace. r A coster may -ruin his wife for a pot of beer; and where is the beer? The -duchess quarrels with another duchess in order to crush her, -to produce a result; the coster does not argue with another -coster in order to convince him, but in order to enjoy at -once the sound of his own voice, the clearness of his own -opinions and the sense of masculine society. There is this -element of a fine fruitlessness about the male enjoyments; -wine is poured into a bottomless bucket; thought plunges -into a bottomless abyss. All this has set woman against the -Public House that is, against the Parliament House. She is -there to prevent waste; and the "pub" and the parliament are -the very palaces of waste. In the upper classes the "pub" is -called the club, but that makes no more difference to the -reason than it does to the rhyme. High and low, the woman's -objection to the Public House is perfectly definite and -rational; it is that the Public House wastes the energies -that could be used on the private house. - -As it is about feminine thrift against masculine waste, so -it is about feminine dignity against masculine rowdiness. -The woman has a fixed and very well-founded idea that if she -does not insist on good manners nobody else will. Babies are -not always strong on the point of dignity, and grown-up men -are quite unpresentable. It is true that there are many very -polite men, but none that I ever heard of who were not -either fascinating women or obeying them. But indeed the -female ideal of dignity, like the female ideal of thrift, -lies deeper and may easily be misunderstood. It rests -ultimately on a strong idea of spiritual isolation; the same -that makes women religious. They do not like being melted -down; they dislike and avoid the mob. That anonymous quality -we have remarked in the club conversation would be common -impertinence in a case of ladies. I remember an artistic and -eager lady asking me in her grand green drawing-room whether -I believed in comradeship between the sexes, and why not. I -was driven back on offering the obvious and sincere answer -"Because if I were to treat you for two minutes like a -comrade you would turn me out of the house." The only -certain rule on this subject is always to deal with woman -and never with women. "Women" is a profligate word; I have -used it repeatedly in this chapter; but it always has a -blackguard sound. It smells of oriental cynicism and -hedonism. Every woman is a captive queen. But every crowd of -women is only a harem broken loose. - -I am not expressing my own views here, but those of nearly -all the women I have known. It is quite unfair to say that a -woman hates other women individually; but I think it would -be quite true to say that she detests them in a confused -heap. And this is not because she despises her own sex, but -because she respects it; and respects especially that -sanctity and separation of each item which is represented in -manners by the idea of dignity and In morals by the idea of -chastity. +Unfortunately for this book it is written by 1a male, and these two +qualities, if not hateful to a man, are at least hateful in a man. But +if we are to settle the sex question at all fairly, all males must make +an imaginative attempt to enter into the attitude of all good women +toward these two things. The difficulty exists especially, perhaps, in +the thing called thrift; we men have so much encouraged each other in +throwing money right and left, that there has come at last to be a sort +of chivalrous and poetical air about losing sixpence. But on a broader +and more candid consideration the case scarcely stands so. + +Thrift is the really romantic thing; economy is more romantic than +extravagance. Heaven knows I for one speak disinterestedly in the +matter; for I cannot clearly remember saving a half-penny ever since I +was born. But the thing is true; economy, properly understood, is the +more poetic. Thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic +because it is waste. It is prosaic to throw money away, because it is +prosaic to throw anything away; it is negative; it is a confession of +indifference, that is, it is a confession of failure. The most prosaic +thing about the house is the dustbin, and the one great objection to the +new fastidious and aesthetic homestead is simply that in such a moral +*ménage* the dustbin must be bigger than the house. If a man could +undertake to make use of all things in his dustbin he would be a broader +genius than Shakespeare. When science began to use by-products; when +science found that colors could be made out of coal-tar, she made her +greatest and perhaps her only claim on the real respect of the human +soul. Now the aim of the good woman is to use the by-products, or, in +other words, to rummage in the dustbin. + +A man can only fully comprehend it if he thinks of some sudden joke or +expedient got up with such materials as may be found in a private house +on a rainy day. A man's definite daily work is generally run with such +rigid convenience of modern science that thrift, the picking up of +potential helps here and there, has almost become unmeaning to him. He +comes across it most (as I say) when he is playing some game within four +walls; when in charades, a hearthrug will just do for a fur coat, or a +tea-cozy just do for a cocked hat; when a toy theater needs timber and +cardboard, and the house has just enough firewood and just enough +bandboxes. This is the man's occasional glimpse and pleasing parody of +thrift. But many a good housekeeper plays the same game every day with +ends of cheese and scraps of silk, not because she is mean, but on the +contrary, because she is magnanimous; because she wishes her creative +mercy to be over all her works, that not one sardine should be +destroyed, or cast as rubbish to the void, when she has made the pile +complete. + +The modern world must somehow be made to understand (in theology and +other things) that a view may be vast, broad, universal, liberal and yet +come into conflict with another view that is vast, broad, universal and +liberal also. There is never a war between two sects, but only between +two universal Catholic Churches. The only possible collision is the +collision of one cosmos with another. So in a smaller way it must be +first made clear that this female economic ideal is a part of that +female variety of outlook and all-round art of life which we have +already attributed to the sex: thrift is not a small or timid or +provincial thing; it is part of that great idea of the woman watching on +all sides out of all the windows of the soul and being answerable for +everything. For in the average human house there is one hole by which +money comes in and a hundred by which it goes out; man has to do with +the one hole, woman with the hundred. But though the very stinginess of +a woman is a part of her spiritual breadth, it is none the less true +that it brings her into conflict with the special kind of spiritual +breadth that belongs to the males of the tribe. It brings her into +conflict with that shapeless cataract of Comradeship, of chaotic +feasting and deafening debate, which we noted in the last section. The +very touch of the eternal in the two sexual tastes brings them the more +into antagonism; for one stands for a universal vigilance and the other +for an almost infinite output. Partly through the nature of his moral +weakness, and partly through the nature of his physical strength, the +male is normally prone to expand things into a sort of eternity; he +always thinks of a dinner party as lasting all night; and he always +thinks of a night as lasting forever. When the working women in the poor +districts come to the doors of the public houses and try to get their +husbands home, simple-minded "social workers" always imagine that every +husband is a tragic drunkard and every wife a broken-hearted saint. It +never occurs to them that the poor woman is only doing under coarser +conventions exactly what every fashionable hostess does when she tries +to get the men from arguing over the cigars to come and gossip over the +teacups. These women are not exasperated merely at the amount of money +that is wasted in beer; they are exasperated also at the amount of time +that is wasted in talk. It Is not merely what goeth into the mouth but +what cometh out of the mouth that, in their opinion, defileth a man. +They will raise against an argument (like their sisters of all ranks) +the ridiculous objection that nobody is convinced by it; as if a man +wanted to make a body-slave of anybody with whom he had played +single-stick. But the real female prejudice on this point is not without +a basis; the real feeling is this, that the most masculine pleasures +have a quality of the ephemeral. A duchess may ruin a duke for a diamond +necklace; but there is the necklace. r A coster may ruin his wife for a +pot of beer; and where is the beer? The duchess quarrels with another +duchess in order to crush her, to produce a result; the coster does not +argue with another coster in order to convince him, but in order to +enjoy at once the sound of his own voice, the clearness of his own +opinions and the sense of masculine society. There is this element of a +fine fruitlessness about the male enjoyments; wine is poured into a +bottomless bucket; thought plunges into a bottomless abyss. All this has +set woman against the Public House that is, against the Parliament +House. She is there to prevent waste; and the "pub" and the parliament +are the very palaces of waste. In the upper classes the "pub" is called +the club, but that makes no more difference to the reason than it does +to the rhyme. High and low, the woman's objection to the Public House is +perfectly definite and rational; it is that the Public House wastes the +energies that could be used on the private house. + +As it is about feminine thrift against masculine waste, so it is about +feminine dignity against masculine rowdiness. The woman has a fixed and +very well-founded idea that if she does not insist on good manners +nobody else will. Babies are not always strong on the point of dignity, +and grown-up men are quite unpresentable. It is true that there are many +very polite men, but none that I ever heard of who were not either +fascinating women or obeying them. But indeed the female ideal of +dignity, like the female ideal of thrift, lies deeper and may easily be +misunderstood. It rests ultimately on a strong idea of spiritual +isolation; the same that makes women religious. They do not like being +melted down; they dislike and avoid the mob. That anonymous quality we +have remarked in the club conversation would be common impertinence in a +case of ladies. I remember an artistic and eager lady asking me in her +grand green drawing-room whether I believed in comradeship between the +sexes, and why not. I was driven back on offering the obvious and +sincere answer "Because if I were to treat you for two minutes like a +comrade you would turn me out of the house." The only certain rule on +this subject is always to deal with woman and never with women. "Women" +is a profligate word; I have used it repeatedly in this chapter; but it +always has a blackguard sound. It smells of oriental cynicism and +hedonism. Every woman is a captive queen. But every crowd of women is +only a harem broken loose. + +I am not expressing my own views here, but those of nearly all the women +I have known. It is quite unfair to say that a woman hates other women +individually; but I think it would be quite true to say that she detests +them in a confused heap. And this is not because she despises her own +sex, but because she respects it; and respects especially that sanctity +and separation of each item which is represented in manners by the idea +of dignity and In morals by the idea of chastity. ## The Coldness of Chloe -We hear much of the human error which accepts what is sham -as what is real. But it is worth while to remember that with -unfamiliar things we often mistake what is real for what is -sham. It is true that a very young man may think the wig of -an actress is her hair. But it is equally true that a child -yet younger may call the hair of a Negro his wig. Just -because the woolly savage is remote and barbaric he seems to -be unnaturally neat and tidy. Everyone must have noticed the -same thing in the fixed and almost offensive color of all -unfamiliar things, tropic birds and tropic blossoms. Tropic -birds look like staring toys out of a toy-shop. Tropic -flowers simply look like artificial flowers, like things cut -out of wax. This is a deep matter, and, I think, not -unconnected with divinity; but anyhow it the truth that when -we see things for the first time we feel instantly that they -are fictive creations; we feel the finger of God. It is only -when we are thoroughly used to them and our five wits are -wearied, that we see them as wild and objectless; like the -shapeless tree-tops or the shifting cloud. It is the design -in Nature that strikes us first; the sense of the crosses -and confusions in that design only comes afterwards through -experience and an almost eerie monotony. If a man saw the -stars abruptly by accident he would think them as festive -and as artificial as a firework. We talk of the folly of -painting the lily; but if we saw the lily without warning we -should think that it was painted. We talk of the devil not -being so black as he is painted; but that very phrase is a -testimony to the kinship between what is called vivid and -what is called artificial. If the modern sage had only one -glimpse of grass and sky, he would say that grass was not as -green as it was painted; that sky was not as blue as it was -painted. If one could see the whole universe suddenly, it -would look like a bright-colored toy, just as the South -American hornbill looks like a bright-colored toy. And so -they are---both of them, I mean. - -But it was not with this aspect of the startling air of -artifice about all strange objects that I meant to deal. I -mean merely, as a guide to history, that we should not be -surprised if things wrought in fashions remote from ours -seem artificial; we should convince ourselves that nine -times out of ten these things are nakedly and almost -indecently honest. You will hear men talk of the frosted -classicism of Corneille or of the powdered pomposities of -the eighteenth century, but all these phrases are very -superficial. There never was an artificial epoch. There -never was an age of reason. Men were always men and women -women: and their two generous appetites always were the -expression of passion and the telling of truth. We can see -something stiff and quaint in their mode of expression, just -as our descendants will see something stiff and quaint in -our coarsest slum sketch or our most naked pathological -play. But men have never talked about anything but important -things; and the next force in femininity which we have to -consider can be considered best perhaps in some dusty old -volume of verses by a person of quality. - -The eighteenth century is spoken of as the period of -artificiality, in externals at least; but, indeed, there may -be two words about that. In modern speech one uses -artificiality as meaning indefinitely a sort of deceit; and -the eighteenth century was far too artificial to deceive. It -cultivated that completest art that does not conceal the -art. Its fashions and costumes positively revealed nature by -avowing artifice; as in that obvious instance of a barbering -that frosted every head with the same silver. It would be -fantastic to call this a quaint humility that concealed -youth; but, at least, it was not one with the evil pride -that conceals old age. Under the eighteenth century fashion -people did not so much all pretend to be young, as all agree -to be old. The same applies to the most odd and unnatural of -their fashions; they were freakish, but they were not false. -A lady may or may not be as red as she is painted, but -plainly she was not so black as she was patched. - -But I only introduce the reader into this atmosphere of the -older and franker fictions that he may be induced to have -patience for a moment with a certain element which is very -common in the decoration and literature of that age and of -the two centuries preceding it. It is necessary to mention -it in such a connection because it is exactly one of those -things that look as superficial as powder, and are really as +We hear much of the human error which accepts what is sham as what is +real. But it is worth while to remember that with unfamiliar things we +often mistake what is real for what is sham. It is true that a very +young man may think the wig of an actress is her hair. But it is equally +true that a child yet younger may call the hair of a Negro his wig. Just +because the woolly savage is remote and barbaric he seems to be +unnaturally neat and tidy. Everyone must have noticed the same thing in +the fixed and almost offensive color of all unfamiliar things, tropic +birds and tropic blossoms. Tropic birds look like staring toys out of a +toy-shop. Tropic flowers simply look like artificial flowers, like +things cut out of wax. This is a deep matter, and, I think, not +unconnected with divinity; but anyhow it the truth that when we see +things for the first time we feel instantly that they are fictive +creations; we feel the finger of God. It is only when we are thoroughly +used to them and our five wits are wearied, that we see them as wild and +objectless; like the shapeless tree-tops or the shifting cloud. It is +the design in Nature that strikes us first; the sense of the crosses and +confusions in that design only comes afterwards through experience and +an almost eerie monotony. If a man saw the stars abruptly by accident he +would think them as festive and as artificial as a firework. We talk of +the folly of painting the lily; but if we saw the lily without warning +we should think that it was painted. We talk of the devil not being so +black as he is painted; but that very phrase is a testimony to the +kinship between what is called vivid and what is called artificial. If +the modern sage had only one glimpse of grass and sky, he would say that +grass was not as green as it was painted; that sky was not as blue as it +was painted. If one could see the whole universe suddenly, it would look +like a bright-colored toy, just as the South American hornbill looks +like a bright-colored toy. And so they are---both of them, I mean. + +But it was not with this aspect of the startling air of artifice about +all strange objects that I meant to deal. I mean merely, as a guide to +history, that we should not be surprised if things wrought in fashions +remote from ours seem artificial; we should convince ourselves that nine +times out of ten these things are nakedly and almost indecently honest. +You will hear men talk of the frosted classicism of Corneille or of the +powdered pomposities of the eighteenth century, but all these phrases +are very superficial. There never was an artificial epoch. There never +was an age of reason. Men were always men and women women: and their two +generous appetites always were the expression of passion and the telling +of truth. We can see something stiff and quaint in their mode of +expression, just as our descendants will see something stiff and quaint +in our coarsest slum sketch or our most naked pathological play. But men +have never talked about anything but important things; and the next +force in femininity which we have to consider can be considered best +perhaps in some dusty old volume of verses by a person of quality. + +The eighteenth century is spoken of as the period of artificiality, in +externals at least; but, indeed, there may be two words about that. In +modern speech one uses artificiality as meaning indefinitely a sort of +deceit; and the eighteenth century was far too artificial to deceive. It +cultivated that completest art that does not conceal the art. Its +fashions and costumes positively revealed nature by avowing artifice; as +in that obvious instance of a barbering that frosted every head with the +same silver. It would be fantastic to call this a quaint humility that +concealed youth; but, at least, it was not one with the evil pride that +conceals old age. Under the eighteenth century fashion people did not so +much all pretend to be young, as all agree to be old. The same applies +to the most odd and unnatural of their fashions; they were freakish, but +they were not false. A lady may or may not be as red as she is painted, +but plainly she was not so black as she was patched. + +But I only introduce the reader into this atmosphere of the older and +franker fictions that he may be induced to have patience for a moment +with a certain element which is very common in the decoration and +literature of that age and of the two centuries preceding it. It is +necessary to mention it in such a connection because it is exactly one +of those things that look as superficial as powder, and are really as rooted as hair. -In all the old flowery and pastoral love-songs, those of the -seventeenth and eighteenth centuries especially, you will -find a perpetual reproach against woman in the matter of her -coldness; ceaseless and stale similes that compare her eyes -to northern stars, her heart to ice, or her bosom to snow. -Now most of us have always supposed these old and iterant -phrases to be a mere pattern of dead words, a thing like a -cold wall-paper. Yet I think those old cavalier poets who -wrote about the coldness of Chloe had hold of a -psychological truth missed in nearly all the realistic -novels of today. Our psychological romancers perpetually -represent wives as striking terror into their husbands by -rolling on the floor, gnashing their teeth, throwing about -the furniture or poisoning the coffee; all this upon some -strange fixed theory that women are what they call -emotional. But in truth the old and frigid form is much -nearer to the vital fact. Most men if they spoke with any -sincerity would agree that the most terrible quality in -women, whether in friendship, courtship or marriage, was not -so much being emotional as being unemotional. - -There is an awful armor of ice which may be the legitimate -protection of a more delicate organism; but whatever be the -psychological explanation there can surely be no question of -the fact. The instinctive cry of the female in anger is the -*noli me tangere*. I take this as the most obvious and at -the same time the least hackneyed instance of a fundamental -quality in the female tradition, which has tended in our -time to be almost immeasurably misunderstood, both by the -cant of moralists and the cant of immoralists. The proper -name for the thing is modesty; but as we live in an age of -prejudice and must not call things by their right names, we -will yield to a more modern nomenclature and call it -dignity. Whatever else it is, it is the thing which a -thousand poets and a million lovers have called the coldness -of Chloe. It is akin to the classical, and is at least the -opposite of the grotesque. And since we are talking here -chiefly in types and symbols, perhaps as good an embodiment -as any of the idea may be found in the mere fact of a woman -wearing a skirt. It is highly typical of the rabid -plagiarism which now passes everywhere for emancipation, -that a little while ago it was common for an "advanced" -woman to claim the right to wear trousers; a right about as -grotesque as the right to wear a false nose. Whether female -liberty is much advanced by the act of wearing a skirt on -each leg I do not know; perhaps Turkish women might offer -some information on the point. But if the western woman -walks about (as it were) trailing the curtains of the harem -with her, it is quite certain that the woven mansion is -meant for a perambulating palace, not for a perambulating -prison. It is quite certain that the skirt means female -dignity, not female submission; it can be proved by the -simplest of all tests. No ruler would deliberately dress up -in the recognized fetters of a slave; no judge would appear -covered with broad arrows. But when men wish to be safely -impressive, as judges, priests or kings, they do wear -skirts, the long, trailing robes of female dignity. The -whole world is under petticoat government; for even men wear -petticoats when they wish to govern. +In all the old flowery and pastoral love-songs, those of the seventeenth +and eighteenth centuries especially, you will find a perpetual reproach +against woman in the matter of her coldness; ceaseless and stale similes +that compare her eyes to northern stars, her heart to ice, or her bosom +to snow. Now most of us have always supposed these old and iterant +phrases to be a mere pattern of dead words, a thing like a cold +wall-paper. Yet I think those old cavalier poets who wrote about the +coldness of Chloe had hold of a psychological truth missed in nearly all +the realistic novels of today. Our psychological romancers perpetually +represent wives as striking terror into their husbands by rolling on the +floor, gnashing their teeth, throwing about the furniture or poisoning +the coffee; all this upon some strange fixed theory that women are what +they call emotional. But in truth the old and frigid form is much nearer +to the vital fact. Most men if they spoke with any sincerity would agree +that the most terrible quality in women, whether in friendship, +courtship or marriage, was not so much being emotional as being +unemotional. + +There is an awful armor of ice which may be the legitimate protection of +a more delicate organism; but whatever be the psychological explanation +there can surely be no question of the fact. The instinctive cry of the +female in anger is the *noli me tangere*. I take this as the most +obvious and at the same time the least hackneyed instance of a +fundamental quality in the female tradition, which has tended in our +time to be almost immeasurably misunderstood, both by the cant of +moralists and the cant of immoralists. The proper name for the thing is +modesty; but as we live in an age of prejudice and must not call things +by their right names, we will yield to a more modern nomenclature and +call it dignity. Whatever else it is, it is the thing which a thousand +poets and a million lovers have called the coldness of Chloe. It is akin +to the classical, and is at least the opposite of the grotesque. And +since we are talking here chiefly in types and symbols, perhaps as good +an embodiment as any of the idea may be found in the mere fact of a +woman wearing a skirt. It is highly typical of the rabid plagiarism +which now passes everywhere for emancipation, that a little while ago it +was common for an "advanced" woman to claim the right to wear trousers; +a right about as grotesque as the right to wear a false nose. Whether +female liberty is much advanced by the act of wearing a skirt on each +leg I do not know; perhaps Turkish women might offer some information on +the point. But if the western woman walks about (as it were) trailing +the curtains of the harem with her, it is quite certain that the woven +mansion is meant for a perambulating palace, not for a perambulating +prison. It is quite certain that the skirt means female dignity, not +female submission; it can be proved by the simplest of all tests. No +ruler would deliberately dress up in the recognized fetters of a slave; +no judge would appear covered with broad arrows. But when men wish to be +safely impressive, as judges, priests or kings, they do wear skirts, the +long, trailing robes of female dignity. The whole world is under +petticoat government; for even men wear petticoats when they wish to +govern. ## The Pedant and Savage -We say then that the female holds up with two strong arms -these two pillars of civilization; we say also that she -could do neither, but for her position; her curious position -of private omnipotence, universality on a small scale. The -first element is thrift; not the destructive thrift of the -miser, but the creative thrift of the peasant; the second -element is dignity, which is but the expression of sacred -personality and privacy. Now I know the question that will -be abruptly and automatically asked by all that know the -dull tricks and turns of the modern sexual quarrel. The -advanced person will at once begin to argue about whether -these instincts are inherent and inevitable in woman or -whether they are merely prejudices produced by her history -and education. Now I do not propose to discuss whether woman -could now be educated out of her habits touching thrift and -dignity; and that for two excellent reasons. First it is a -question which cannot conceivably ever find any answer: that -is why modern people are so fond of it. From the nature of -the case it is obviously impossible to decide whether any of -the peculiarities of civilized man have been strictly -necessary to his civilization. It is not self-evident (for -instance), that even the habit of standing upright was the -only path of human progress. There might have been a -quadrupedal civilization, in which a city gentleman put on -four boots to go to the city every morning. Or there might -have been reptilian civilization, in which he rolled up to -the office on his stomach; it is impossible to say that -intelligence might not have developed in such creatures. All -we can say is that man as he is walks upright; and that -woman is something almost more upright than uprightness. - -And the second point is this: that upon the whole we rather -prefer women (nay, even men) to walk upright; so we do not -waste much of our noble lives in inventing any other way for -them to walk. In short, my second reason for not speculating -upon whether woman might get rid of these peculiarities, is -that I do not want her to get rid of them; nor does she. I -will not exhaust my intelligence by inventing ways in which -mankind might unlearn the violin or forget how to ride -horses; and the art of domesticity seems to me as special -and as valuable as all the ancient arts of our race. Nor do -I propose to enter at all into those formless and -floundering speculations about how woman was or is regarded -in the primitive times that we cannot remember, or in the -savage countries which we cannot understand. Even if these -people segregated their women for low or barbaric reasons it -would not make our reasons barbaric; and I am haunted with a -tenacious suspicion that these people's feelings were -really, under other forms, very much the same as ours. Some -impatient trader, some superficial missionary, walks across -an island and sees the squaw digging in the fields while the -man is playing a flute; and immediately says that the man is -a mere lord of creation and the woman a mere serf. He does -not remember that he might see the same thing in half the -back gardens in Brixton, merely because women are at once -more conscientious and more impatient, while men are at once -more quiescent and more greedy for pleasure. It may often be -in Hawaii simply as it is in Hoxton. That is, the woman does -not work because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On -the contrary, the woman works because she has told the man -to work, and he hasn't obeyed. I do not affirm that this is -the whole truth, but I do affirm that we have too little -comprehension of the souls of savages to know how far it is -untrue. It is the same with the relations of our hasty and -surface science, with the problem of sexual dignity and -modesty. Professors find all over the world fragmentary -ceremonies in which the bride affects some sort of -reluctance, hides from her husband, or runs away from him. -The professor then pompously proclaims that this is a -survival of Marriage by Capture. I wonder he never says that -the veil thrown over the bride is really a net. I gravely -doubt whether women ever were married by capture. I think -they pretended to be; as they do still. - -It is equally obvious that these two necessary sanctities of -thrift and dignity are bound to come into collision with the -wordiness, the wastefulness, and the perpetual -pleasure-seeking of masculine companionship. Wise women -allow for the thing; foolish women try to crush it; but all -women try to counteract it, and they do well. In many a home -all round us at this moment, we know that the nursery rhyme -is reversed. The queen is in the counting-house, counting -out the money. The king is in the parlor, eating bread and -honey. But it must be strictly understood that the king has -captured the honey in some heroic wars. The quarrel can be -found in moldering Gothic carvings and in crabbed Greek -manuscripts. In every age, in every land, in every tribe and -village, has been waged the great sexual war between the -Private House and the Public House. I have seen a collection -of mediaeval English poems, divided into sections such as -"Religious Carols," "Drinking Songs," and so on; and the -section headed, "Poems of Domestic Life" consisted entirely -(literally, entirely) of the complaints of husbands who were -bullied by their wives. Though the English was archaic, the -words were in many cases precisely the same as those which I -have heard in the streets and public houses of Battersea, -protests on behalf of an extension of time and talk, -protests against the nervous impatience and the devouring -utilitarianism of the female. Such, I say, is the quarrel; -it can never be anything but a quarrel; but the aim of all -morals and all society is to keep it a lovers' quarrel. +We say then that the female holds up with two strong arms these two +pillars of civilization; we say also that she could do neither, but for +her position; her curious position of private omnipotence, universality +on a small scale. The first element is thrift; not the destructive +thrift of the miser, but the creative thrift of the peasant; the second +element is dignity, which is but the expression of sacred personality +and privacy. Now I know the question that will be abruptly and +automatically asked by all that know the dull tricks and turns of the +modern sexual quarrel. The advanced person will at once begin to argue +about whether these instincts are inherent and inevitable in woman or +whether they are merely prejudices produced by her history and +education. Now I do not propose to discuss whether woman could now be +educated out of her habits touching thrift and dignity; and that for two +excellent reasons. First it is a question which cannot conceivably ever +find any answer: that is why modern people are so fond of it. From the +nature of the case it is obviously impossible to decide whether any of +the peculiarities of civilized man have been strictly necessary to his +civilization. It is not self-evident (for instance), that even the habit +of standing upright was the only path of human progress. There might +have been a quadrupedal civilization, in which a city gentleman put on +four boots to go to the city every morning. Or there might have been +reptilian civilization, in which he rolled up to the office on his +stomach; it is impossible to say that intelligence might not have +developed in such creatures. All we can say is that man as he is walks +upright; and that woman is something almost more upright than +uprightness. + +And the second point is this: that upon the whole we rather prefer women +(nay, even men) to walk upright; so we do not waste much of our noble +lives in inventing any other way for them to walk. In short, my second +reason for not speculating upon whether woman might get rid of these +peculiarities, is that I do not want her to get rid of them; nor does +she. I will not exhaust my intelligence by inventing ways in which +mankind might unlearn the violin or forget how to ride horses; and the +art of domesticity seems to me as special and as valuable as all the +ancient arts of our race. Nor do I propose to enter at all into those +formless and floundering speculations about how woman was or is regarded +in the primitive times that we cannot remember, or in the savage +countries which we cannot understand. Even if these people segregated +their women for low or barbaric reasons it would not make our reasons +barbaric; and I am haunted with a tenacious suspicion that these +people's feelings were really, under other forms, very much the same as +ours. Some impatient trader, some superficial missionary, walks across +an island and sees the squaw digging in the fields while the man is +playing a flute; and immediately says that the man is a mere lord of +creation and the woman a mere serf. He does not remember that he might +see the same thing in half the back gardens in Brixton, merely because +women are at once more conscientious and more impatient, while men are +at once more quiescent and more greedy for pleasure. It may often be in +Hawaii simply as it is in Hoxton. That is, the woman does not work +because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On the contrary, the +woman works because she has told the man to work, and he hasn't obeyed. +I do not affirm that this is the whole truth, but I do affirm that we +have too little comprehension of the souls of savages to know how far it +is untrue. It is the same with the relations of our hasty and surface +science, with the problem of sexual dignity and modesty. Professors find +all over the world fragmentary ceremonies in which the bride affects +some sort of reluctance, hides from her husband, or runs away from him. +The professor then pompously proclaims that this is a survival of +Marriage by Capture. I wonder he never says that the veil thrown over +the bride is really a net. I gravely doubt whether women ever were +married by capture. I think they pretended to be; as they do still. + +It is equally obvious that these two necessary sanctities of thrift and +dignity are bound to come into collision with the wordiness, the +wastefulness, and the perpetual pleasure-seeking of masculine +companionship. Wise women allow for the thing; foolish women try to +crush it; but all women try to counteract it, and they do well. In many +a home all round us at this moment, we know that the nursery rhyme is +reversed. The queen is in the counting-house, counting out the money. +The king is in the parlor, eating bread and honey. But it must be +strictly understood that the king has captured the honey in some heroic +wars. The quarrel can be found in moldering Gothic carvings and in +crabbed Greek manuscripts. In every age, in every land, in every tribe +and village, has been waged the great sexual war between the Private +House and the Public House. I have seen a collection of mediaeval +English poems, divided into sections such as "Religious Carols," +"Drinking Songs," and so on; and the section headed, "Poems of Domestic +Life" consisted entirely (literally, entirely) of the complaints of +husbands who were bullied by their wives. Though the English was +archaic, the words were in many cases precisely the same as those which +I have heard in the streets and public houses of Battersea, protests on +behalf of an extension of time and talk, protests against the nervous +impatience and the devouring utilitarianism of the female. Such, I say, +is the quarrel; it can never be anything but a quarrel; but the aim of +all morals and all society is to keep it a lovers' quarrel. ## The Modern Surrender of Woman -But in this corner called England, at this end of the -century, there has happened a strange and startling thing. -Openly and to all appearance, this ancestral conflict has -silently and abruptly ended; one of the two sexes has -suddenly surrendered to the other. By the beginning of the -twentieth century, within the last few years, the woman has -in public surrendered to the man. She has seriously and -officially owned that the man has been right all along; that -the public house (or Parliament) is really more important -than the private house; that politics are not (as woman had -always maintained) an excuse for pots of beer, but are a -sacred solemnity to which new female worshippers may kneel; -that the talkative patriots in the tavern are not only -admirable but enviable; that talk is not a waste of time, -and therefore (as a consequence, surely) that taverns are -not a waste of money. All we men had grown used to oar wires -and mothers, and grandmothers, and great aunts all pouring a -chorus of contempt upon our hobbies of sport, drink and -party politics. And now comes Miss Pankhurst with tears in -her eyes, owning that all the women were wrong and all the -men were right; humbly imploring to be admitted into so much -as an outer court, from which she may catch a glimpse of -those masculine merits which her erring sisters had so -thoughtlessly scorned. - -Now this development naturally perturbs and even paralyzes -us. Males, like females, in the course of that old fight -between the public and private house, had indulged in -overstatement and extravagance, feeling that they must keep -up their end of the see-saw. We told our wives that -Parliament had sat late on most essential business; but it -never crossed our minds that our wives would believe ft. We -said that everyone must have a vote In the country; -similarly our wives said that no one must have a pipe in the -drawing-room. In both cases the idea was the same. "It does -not matter much, but if you let those things slide there is -chaos." We said that Lord Huggins or Mr. Buggins was -absolutely necessary to the country. We knew quite well that -nothing is necessary to the country except that the men -should be men and the women women. We knew this; we thought -the women knew it even more clearly; and we thought the -women would say it. Suddenly, without warning, the women -have begun to say all the nonsense that we ourselves hardly -believed when we said it. The solemnity of politics; the -necessity of votes; the necessity of Huggins; the necessity -of Buggins; all these flow in a pellucid stream from the -lips of all the suffragette speakers. I suppose in every -fight, however old, one has a vague aspiration to conquer; -but we never wanted to conquer women so completely as this. -We only expected that they might leave us a little more -margin for our nonsense; we never expected that they would -accept it seriously as sense. Therefore I am all at sea -about the existing situation; I scarcely know whether to be -relieved or enraged by this substitution of the feeble -platform lecture for the forcible curtain-lecture. I am lost -without the trenchant and candid Mrs. Caudle. I really do -not know what to do with the prostrate and penitent Miss -Pankhurst. This surrender of the modern woman has taken us -all so much by surprise that it is desirable to pause a -moment, and collect our wits about what she is really -saying. - -As I have already remarked, there is one very simple answer -to all this; these are not the modern women, but about one -in two thousand of the modern women. This fact is important -to a democrat; but it is of very little importance to the -typically modern mind. Both the characteristic modern -parties believed in a government by the few; the only -difference is whether it is the Conservative few or -Progressive few. It might be put, somewhat coarsely perhaps, -by saying that one believes in any minority that is rich and -the other in any minority that is mad. But in this state of -things the democratic argument obviously falls out for the -moment; and we are bound to take the prominent minority, -merely because it is prominent. Let us eliminate altogether -from our minds the thousands of women who detest this cause, -and the millions of women who have hardly heard of it. Let -us concede that the English people itself is not and will -not be for a very long time within the sphere of practical -politics. Let us confine ourselves to saying that these -particular women want a vote and to asking themselves what a -vote is. If we ask these ladies ourselves what a vote is, we -shall get a very vague reply. It is the only question, as a -rule, for which they are not prepared. For the truth is that -they go mainly by precedent; by the mere fact that men have -votes already. So far from being a mutinous movement, it is -really a very Conservative one; it is in the narrowest rut -of the British Constitution. Let us take a little wider and -freer sweep of thought and ask ourselves what is the -ultimate point and meaning of this odd business called -voting. +But in this corner called England, at this end of the century, there has +happened a strange and startling thing. Openly and to all appearance, +this ancestral conflict has silently and abruptly ended; one of the two +sexes has suddenly surrendered to the other. By the beginning of the +twentieth century, within the last few years, the woman has in public +surrendered to the man. She has seriously and officially owned that the +man has been right all along; that the public house (or Parliament) is +really more important than the private house; that politics are not (as +woman had always maintained) an excuse for pots of beer, but are a +sacred solemnity to which new female worshippers may kneel; that the +talkative patriots in the tavern are not only admirable but enviable; +that talk is not a waste of time, and therefore (as a consequence, +surely) that taverns are not a waste of money. All we men had grown used +to oar wires and mothers, and grandmothers, and great aunts all pouring +a chorus of contempt upon our hobbies of sport, drink and party +politics. And now comes Miss Pankhurst with tears in her eyes, owning +that all the women were wrong and all the men were right; humbly +imploring to be admitted into so much as an outer court, from which she +may catch a glimpse of those masculine merits which her erring sisters +had so thoughtlessly scorned. + +Now this development naturally perturbs and even paralyzes us. Males, +like females, in the course of that old fight between the public and +private house, had indulged in overstatement and extravagance, feeling +that they must keep up their end of the see-saw. We told our wives that +Parliament had sat late on most essential business; but it never crossed +our minds that our wives would believe ft. We said that everyone must +have a vote In the country; similarly our wives said that no one must +have a pipe in the drawing-room. In both cases the idea was the same. +"It does not matter much, but if you let those things slide there is +chaos." We said that Lord Huggins or Mr. Buggins was absolutely +necessary to the country. We knew quite well that nothing is necessary +to the country except that the men should be men and the women women. We +knew this; we thought the women knew it even more clearly; and we +thought the women would say it. Suddenly, without warning, the women +have begun to say all the nonsense that we ourselves hardly believed +when we said it. The solemnity of politics; the necessity of votes; the +necessity of Huggins; the necessity of Buggins; all these flow in a +pellucid stream from the lips of all the suffragette speakers. I suppose +in every fight, however old, one has a vague aspiration to conquer; but +we never wanted to conquer women so completely as this. We only expected +that they might leave us a little more margin for our nonsense; we never +expected that they would accept it seriously as sense. Therefore I am +all at sea about the existing situation; I scarcely know whether to be +relieved or enraged by this substitution of the feeble platform lecture +for the forcible curtain-lecture. I am lost without the trenchant and +candid Mrs. Caudle. I really do not know what to do with the prostrate +and penitent Miss Pankhurst. This surrender of the modern woman has +taken us all so much by surprise that it is desirable to pause a moment, +and collect our wits about what she is really saying. + +As I have already remarked, there is one very simple answer to all this; +these are not the modern women, but about one in two thousand of the +modern women. This fact is important to a democrat; but it is of very +little importance to the typically modern mind. Both the characteristic +modern parties believed in a government by the few; the only difference +is whether it is the Conservative few or Progressive few. It might be +put, somewhat coarsely perhaps, by saying that one believes in any +minority that is rich and the other in any minority that is mad. But in +this state of things the democratic argument obviously falls out for the +moment; and we are bound to take the prominent minority, merely because +it is prominent. Let us eliminate altogether from our minds the +thousands of women who detest this cause, and the millions of women who +have hardly heard of it. Let us concede that the English people itself +is not and will not be for a very long time within the sphere of +practical politics. Let us confine ourselves to saying that these +particular women want a vote and to asking themselves what a vote is. If +we ask these ladies ourselves what a vote is, we shall get a very vague +reply. It is the only question, as a rule, for which they are not +prepared. For the truth is that they go mainly by precedent; by the mere +fact that men have votes already. So far from being a mutinous movement, +it is really a very Conservative one; it is in the narrowest rut of the +British Constitution. Let us take a little wider and freer sweep of +thought and ask ourselves what is the ultimate point and meaning of this +odd business called voting. ## The Brand of the Fleur-de-Lis -Seemingly from the dawn of man all nations have had -governments; and all nations have been ashamed of them. -Nothing is more openly fallacious than to fancy that in -ruder or simpler ages ruling, judging and punishing appeared -perfectly innocent and dignified. These things were always -regarded as the penalties of the Fall; as part of the -humiliation of mankind, as bad in themselves. That the king -can do no wrong was never anything but a legal fiction; and -it is a legal fiction still. The doctrine of Divine Right -was not a piece of idealism, but rather a piece of realism, -a practical way of ruling amid the ruin of humanity; a very -pragmatist piece of faith. The religious basis of government -was not so much that people put their trust in princes, as -that they did not put their trust in any child of man. It -was so with all the ugly institutions which disfigure human -history. Torture and slavery were never talked of as good -things; they were always talked of as necessary evils. A -pagan spoke of one man owning ten slaves just as a modern -business man speaks of one merchant sacking ten clerks: -"It's very horrible; but how else can society be conducted?" -A mediaeval scholastic regarded the possibility of a man -being burned to death just as a modern business man regards -the possibility of a man being starved to death: "It is a -shocking torture; but can you organize a painless world?" It -is possible that a future society may find a way of doing -without the question by hunger as we have done without the -question by fire. It is equally possible, for the matter of -that, that a future society may re-establish legal torture -with the whole apparatus of rack and fagot. The most modern -of countries, America, has introduced with a vague savor of -science, a method which it calls "the third degree." This is -simply the extortion of secrets by nervous fatigue; which is -surely uncommonly close to their extortion (by bodily pain. -And this is legal and scientific America. Amateur ordinary -America, of course, simply burns people alive in broad -daylight, as they did in the Reformation Wars. But though -some punishments are more inhuman than others there is no -such thing as humane punishment. As long as nineteen men -claim the right in any sense or shape to take hold of the -twentieth man and make him even mildly uncomfortable, so -long the whole proceeding must be a humiliating one for all -concerned. And the proof of how poignantly men have always -felt this lies in the fact that the headsman and the -hangman, the jailors and the torturers, were always regarded -not merely with fear but with contempt; while all kinds of -careless smiters, bankrupt knights and swashbucklers and -outlaws, were regarded with indulgence or even admiration. -To kill a man lawlessly was pardoned. To kill a man lawfully -was unpardonable. The most bare-faced duelist might almost -brandish his weapon. But the executioner was always masked. - -This is the first essential element in government; coercion; -a necessary but not a noble element. I may remark in passing -that when people say that government rests on force they -give an admirable instance of the foggy and muddled cynicism -of modernity. Government does not rest on force. Government -is force; it rests on consent or a conception of justice. A -king or a community holding a certain thing to be abnormal, -evil, uses the general strength to crush it out; the -strength is his tool, but the belief is his only sanction. -You might as well say that glass is the real reason for -telescopes. But arising from whatever reason the act of -government is coercive and is burdened with all the coarse -and painful qualities of coercion. And if anyone asks what -is the use of insisting on the ugliness of this task of -state violence since all mankind is condemned to employ it, -I have a simple answer to that. It would be useless to -insist on it if all humanity were condemned to it. But it is -not irrelevant to insist on its ugliness so long as half of -humanity is kept out of it. - -All government then is coercive; we happen to have created a -government which is not only coercive, but collective. There -are only two kinds of government, as I have already said, -the despotic and the democratic. Aristocracy is not a -government, it is a riot; that most effective kind of riot, -a riot of the rich. The most intelligent apologists of -aristocracy, sophists like Burke and Nietzsche, have never -claimed for aristocracy any virtues but the virtues of a -riot, the accidental virtues, courage, variety and -adventure. There is no case anywhere of aristocracy having -established a universal and applicable order, as despots and -democracies have often done; as the last Caesars created the -Roman law, as the last Jacobins created the Code Napoleon. -With the first of these elementary forms of government, that -of the king or chieftain, we are not in this matter of the -sexes immediately concerned. We shall return to it later -when we remark how differently mankind has dealt with female -claims in the despotic as against the democratic field. But -for the moment the essential point is that in self-governing -countries this coercion of criminals is a collective -coercion. The abnormal person is theoretically thumped by a -million fists and kicked by a million feet. If a man is -flogged we all flogged him; if a man is hanged, we all -hanged him. That is the only possible meaning of democracy, -which can give any meaning to the first two syllables and -also to the last two. In this sense each citizen has the -high responsibility of a rioter. Every statute is a -declaration of war, to be backed by arms. Every tribunal is -a revolutionary tribunal. In a republic all punishment is as -sacred and solemn as lynching. +Seemingly from the dawn of man all nations have had governments; and all +nations have been ashamed of them. Nothing is more openly fallacious +than to fancy that in ruder or simpler ages ruling, judging and +punishing appeared perfectly innocent and dignified. These things were +always regarded as the penalties of the Fall; as part of the humiliation +of mankind, as bad in themselves. That the king can do no wrong was +never anything but a legal fiction; and it is a legal fiction still. The +doctrine of Divine Right was not a piece of idealism, but rather a piece +of realism, a practical way of ruling amid the ruin of humanity; a very +pragmatist piece of faith. The religious basis of government was not so +much that people put their trust in princes, as that they did not put +their trust in any child of man. It was so with all the ugly +institutions which disfigure human history. Torture and slavery were +never talked of as good things; they were always talked of as necessary +evils. A pagan spoke of one man owning ten slaves just as a modern +business man speaks of one merchant sacking ten clerks: "It's very +horrible; but how else can society be conducted?" A mediaeval scholastic +regarded the possibility of a man being burned to death just as a modern +business man regards the possibility of a man being starved to death: +"It is a shocking torture; but can you organize a painless world?" It is +possible that a future society may find a way of doing without the +question by hunger as we have done without the question by fire. It is +equally possible, for the matter of that, that a future society may +re-establish legal torture with the whole apparatus of rack and fagot. +The most modern of countries, America, has introduced with a vague savor +of science, a method which it calls "the third degree." This is simply +the extortion of secrets by nervous fatigue; which is surely uncommonly +close to their extortion (by bodily pain. And this is legal and +scientific America. Amateur ordinary America, of course, simply burns +people alive in broad daylight, as they did in the Reformation Wars. But +though some punishments are more inhuman than others there is no such +thing as humane punishment. As long as nineteen men claim the right in +any sense or shape to take hold of the twentieth man and make him even +mildly uncomfortable, so long the whole proceeding must be a humiliating +one for all concerned. And the proof of how poignantly men have always +felt this lies in the fact that the headsman and the hangman, the +jailors and the torturers, were always regarded not merely with fear but +with contempt; while all kinds of careless smiters, bankrupt knights and +swashbucklers and outlaws, were regarded with indulgence or even +admiration. To kill a man lawlessly was pardoned. To kill a man lawfully +was unpardonable. The most bare-faced duelist might almost brandish his +weapon. But the executioner was always masked. + +This is the first essential element in government; coercion; a necessary +but not a noble element. I may remark in passing that when people say +that government rests on force they give an admirable instance of the +foggy and muddled cynicism of modernity. Government does not rest on +force. Government is force; it rests on consent or a conception of +justice. A king or a community holding a certain thing to be abnormal, +evil, uses the general strength to crush it out; the strength is his +tool, but the belief is his only sanction. You might as well say that +glass is the real reason for telescopes. But arising from whatever +reason the act of government is coercive and is burdened with all the +coarse and painful qualities of coercion. And if anyone asks what is the +use of insisting on the ugliness of this task of state violence since +all mankind is condemned to employ it, I have a simple answer to that. +It would be useless to insist on it if all humanity were condemned to +it. But it is not irrelevant to insist on its ugliness so long as half +of humanity is kept out of it. + +All government then is coercive; we happen to have created a government +which is not only coercive, but collective. There are only two kinds of +government, as I have already said, the despotic and the democratic. +Aristocracy is not a government, it is a riot; that most effective kind +of riot, a riot of the rich. The most intelligent apologists of +aristocracy, sophists like Burke and Nietzsche, have never claimed for +aristocracy any virtues but the virtues of a riot, the accidental +virtues, courage, variety and adventure. There is no case anywhere of +aristocracy having established a universal and applicable order, as +despots and democracies have often done; as the last Caesars created the +Roman law, as the last Jacobins created the Code Napoleon. With the +first of these elementary forms of government, that of the king or +chieftain, we are not in this matter of the sexes immediately concerned. +We shall return to it later when we remark how differently mankind has +dealt with female claims in the despotic as against the democratic +field. But for the moment the essential point is that in self-governing +countries this coercion of criminals is a collective coercion. The +abnormal person is theoretically thumped by a million fists and kicked +by a million feet. If a man is flogged we all flogged him; if a man is +hanged, we all hanged him. That is the only possible meaning of +democracy, which can give any meaning to the first two syllables and +also to the last two. In this sense each citizen has the high +responsibility of a rioter. Every statute is a declaration of war, to be +backed by arms. Every tribunal is a revolutionary tribunal. In a +republic all punishment is as sacred and solemn as lynching. ## Sincerity and the Gallows -When, therefore, it is said that the tradition against -Female Suffrage keeps women out of activity, social -influence and citizenship, let us a little more soberly and -strictly ask ourselves what it actually does keep her out -of. It does definitely keep her out of the collective act of -coercion; the act of punishment by a mob. The human -tradition does say that, if twenty men hang a man from a -tree or a lamp-post, they shall be twenty men and not women. -Now I do not think any reasonable Suffragist will deny that -exclusion from this function, to say the least of it, might -be maintained to be a protection as well as a veto. No -candid person will wholly dismiss the proposition that the -idea of having a Lord Chancellor but not a Lady Chancellor -may at least be connected with the idea of having a headsman -but not a heads-woman, a hangman but not a hangwoman. Nor -will it be adequate to answer (as is so often answered to -this contention) that in modern civilization women would not -really be required to capture, to sentence, or to slay; that -all this is done indirectly, that specialists kill our -criminals as they kill our cattle. To urge this is not to -urge the reality of the vote, but to urge its unreality. -Democracy was meant to be a more direct way of ruling, not a -more indirect way; and if we do not feel that we are all -jailers, so much the worse for us, and for the prisoners. If -it is really an unwomanly thing to lock up a robber or a -tyrant, it ought to be no softening of the situation that -the woman does not feel as if she were doing the thing that -she certainly is doing. It is bad enough that men can only -associate on paper who could once associate in the street; -it is bad enough that men have made a vote very much of a -fiction. It is much worse that a great class should claim -the vote because it is a fiction, who would be sickened by -it if it were a fact. If votes for women do not mean mobs -for women they do not mean what they were meant to mean. A -woman can make a cross on a paper as well as a man; a child -could do it as well as a woman; and a chimpanzee after a few -lessons could do it as well as a child. But nobody ought to -regard it merely as making a cross on paper; everyone ought -to regard it as what it ultimately is, branding the -fleur-de-lis, marking the broad arrow, signing the death -warrant. Both men and women ought to face more fully the -things they do or cause to be done; face them or leave off -doing them. - -'On that disastrous day when public executions were -abolished, private executions were renewed and ratified, -perhaps forever. Things grossly unsuited to the moral -sentiment of a society cannot be safely done in broad -daylight; but I see no reason why we should not still be -roasting heretics alive, in a private room. It is very -likely (to speak in the manner foolishly called Irish) that -if there were public executions there would be no -executions. The old open-air punishments, the pillory and -the gibbet, at least fixed responsibility upon the law; and -in actual practice they gave the mob an opportunity of -throwing roses as well as rotten eggs; of crying "Hosannah" -as well as "Crucify." But I do not like the public -executioner being turned into the private executioner. I -think it is a crooked, oriental, sinister sort of business, -and smells of the harem and the divan rather than of the -forum and the market place. In modern times the official has -lost all the social honor and dignity of the common hangman. -He is only the bearer of the bowstring. - -Here, however, I suggest a plea for a brutal publicity only -in order to emphasize the fact that it is this brutal -publicity and nothing else from which women have been -excluded. I also say it to emphasize the fact that the mere -modern veiling of the brutality does not make the situation -different, unless we openly say that we are giving the -suffrage, not because it is power, but because it is not; or -in other words, that women are not so much to vote as to -play voting. No suffragist, I suppose, will take up that -position; and few suffragists will wholly deny that this -human necessity of pains and penalties is an ugly, -humiliating business, and that good motives as well as bad -may have helped to keep women out of it. More than once I -have remarked in these pages that female limitations may be -the limits of a temple as well as of a prison, the -disabilities of a priest and not of a pariah. I noted it, I -think, in the case of the pontifical feminine 'dress. In the -same way it is not evidently irrational, if men decided that -a woman, like a priest, must not be a shedder of blood. +When, therefore, it is said that the tradition against Female Suffrage +keeps women out of activity, social influence and citizenship, let us a +little more soberly and strictly ask ourselves what it actually does +keep her out of. It does definitely keep her out of the collective act +of coercion; the act of punishment by a mob. The human tradition does +say that, if twenty men hang a man from a tree or a lamp-post, they +shall be twenty men and not women. Now I do not think any reasonable +Suffragist will deny that exclusion from this function, to say the least +of it, might be maintained to be a protection as well as a veto. No +candid person will wholly dismiss the proposition that the idea of +having a Lord Chancellor but not a Lady Chancellor may at least be +connected with the idea of having a headsman but not a heads-woman, a +hangman but not a hangwoman. Nor will it be adequate to answer (as is so +often answered to this contention) that in modern civilization women +would not really be required to capture, to sentence, or to slay; that +all this is done indirectly, that specialists kill our criminals as they +kill our cattle. To urge this is not to urge the reality of the vote, +but to urge its unreality. Democracy was meant to be a more direct way +of ruling, not a more indirect way; and if we do not feel that we are +all jailers, so much the worse for us, and for the prisoners. If it is +really an unwomanly thing to lock up a robber or a tyrant, it ought to +be no softening of the situation that the woman does not feel as if she +were doing the thing that she certainly is doing. It is bad enough that +men can only associate on paper who could once associate in the street; +it is bad enough that men have made a vote very much of a fiction. It is +much worse that a great class should claim the vote because it is a +fiction, who would be sickened by it if it were a fact. If votes for +women do not mean mobs for women they do not mean what they were meant +to mean. A woman can make a cross on a paper as well as a man; a child +could do it as well as a woman; and a chimpanzee after a few lessons +could do it as well as a child. But nobody ought to regard it merely as +making a cross on paper; everyone ought to regard it as what it +ultimately is, branding the fleur-de-lis, marking the broad arrow, +signing the death warrant. Both men and women ought to face more fully +the things they do or cause to be done; face them or leave off doing +them. + +'On that disastrous day when public executions were abolished, private +executions were renewed and ratified, perhaps forever. Things grossly +unsuited to the moral sentiment of a society cannot be safely done in +broad daylight; but I see no reason why we should not still be roasting +heretics alive, in a private room. It is very likely (to speak in the +manner foolishly called Irish) that if there were public executions +there would be no executions. The old open-air punishments, the pillory +and the gibbet, at least fixed responsibility upon the law; and in +actual practice they gave the mob an opportunity of throwing roses as +well as rotten eggs; of crying "Hosannah" as well as "Crucify." But I do +not like the public executioner being turned into the private +executioner. I think it is a crooked, oriental, sinister sort of +business, and smells of the harem and the divan rather than of the forum +and the market place. In modern times the official has lost all the +social honor and dignity of the common hangman. He is only the bearer of +the bowstring. + +Here, however, I suggest a plea for a brutal publicity only in order to +emphasize the fact that it is this brutal publicity and nothing else +from which women have been excluded. I also say it to emphasize the fact +that the mere modern veiling of the brutality does not make the +situation different, unless we openly say that we are giving the +suffrage, not because it is power, but because it is not; or in other +words, that women are not so much to vote as to play voting. No +suffragist, I suppose, will take up that position; and few suffragists +will wholly deny that this human necessity of pains and penalties is an +ugly, humiliating business, and that good motives as well as bad may +have helped to keep women out of it. More than once I have remarked in +these pages that female limitations may be the limits of a temple as +well as of a prison, the disabilities of a priest and not of a pariah. I +noted it, I think, in the case of the pontifical feminine 'dress. In the +same way it is not evidently irrational, if men decided that a woman, +like a priest, must not be a shedder of blood. ## The Higher Anarchy -But there is a further fact; forgotten also because we -moderns forget that there is a female point of view. The -woman's wisdom stands partly, not only for a wholesome -hesitation about punishment, but even for a wholesome -hesitation about absolute rules. There was something -feminine and perversely true in that phrase of Wilde's, that -people should not be treated as the rule, but all of them as -exceptions. Made by a man the remark was a little -effeminate; for Wilde did lack the masculine power of dogma -and of democratic cooperation. But if a woman had said it it -would have been simply true; a woman does treat each person -as a peculiar person. In other words, she stands for -Anarchy; a very ancient and arguable philosophy; not anarchy -in the sense of having no customs in one's life (which is -inconceivable), but anarchy in the sense of having no rules -for one's mind. To her, almost certainly, are due all those -working traditions that cannot be found in books, especially -those of education; it was she who first gave a child a -stuffed stocking for being good or stood him in the corner -for being naughty. This unclassified knowledge is sometimes -called rule of thumb and sometimes mother-wit. The last -phrase suggests the whole truth, for none ever called it -fatherwit. - -Now anarchy is only tact when it works badly. Tact is only -anarchy when it works well. And we ought to realize that in -one half of the world---the private house---it does work -well. We modern men are perpetually forgetting that the case -for clear rules and crude penalties is not self-evident, -that there is a great deal to be said for the benevolent -lawlessness of the autocrat, especially on a small scale; in -short, that government is only one side of life. The other -half is called Society, in which women are admittedly -dominant. And they have always been ready to maintain that -their kingdom is better governed than ours, because (in the -logical and legal sense) it is not governed at all. -"Whenever you have a real difficulty," they say, "when a boy -is bumptious or an aunt is stingy, when a silly girl will -marry somebody, or a wicked man won't marry somebody, all -your lumbering Roman Law and British Constitution come to a -standstill. A snub from a duchess or a slanging from a -fish-wife are much more likely to put things straight." So, -at least, rang the ancient female challenge down the ages -until the recent female capitulation. So streamed the red -standard of the higher anarchy until Miss Pankhurst hoisted -the white flag. - -It must be remembered that the modern world has done deep -treason to the eternal intellect by believing in the swing -of the pendulum. A man must be dead before he swings. It has -substituted an idea of fatalistic alternation for the -mediaeval freedom of the soul seeking truth. All modern -thinkers are reactionaries; for their thought is always a -reaction from what went before. When you meet a modern man -he is always coming from a place, not going to it. Thus, -mankind has in nearly all places and periods seen that there -is a soul and a body as plainly as that there is a sun and -moon. But because a narrow Protestant sect called -Materialists declared for a short time that there was no -soul, another narrow Protestant sect called Christian -Science is now maintaining that there is no body. Now just -in the same way the unreasonable neglect of government by -the Manchester School has produced, not a reasonable regard -for government, but an unreasonable neglect of everything -else. So that to hear people talk to-day one would fancy -that every important human function must be organized and -avenged by law; that all education must be state education, -and all employment state employment; that everybody and -everything must be brought to the foot of the august and -prehistoric gibbet. But a somewhat more liberal and -sympathetic examination of mankind will convince us that the -cross is even older than the gibbet, that voluntary -suffering was before and independence of compulsory; and in -short that in most important matters a man has always been -free to ruin himself if he chose. The huge fundamental -function upon which all anthropology turns, that of sex and -childbirth, has never been inside the political state, but -always outside it. The state concerned itself with the -trivial question of killing people, but wisely left alone -the whole business of getting them born. A Eugenist might -indeed plausibly say that the government is an absent-minded -and inconsistent person who occupies himself with providing -for the old age of people who have never been infants. I -will not deal here in any detail with the fact that some -Eugenists have in our time made the maniacal answer that the -police ought to control marriage and birth as they control -labor and death. Except for this inhuman handful (with whom -I regret to say I shall have to deal later) all the -Eugenists I know divide themselves into two sections: -ingenious people who once meant this, and rather bewildered -people who swear they never meant it---nor anything else. -But if it be conceded (by a breezier estimate of men) that -they do mostly desire marriage to remain free from -government, it does not follow that they desire it to remain -free from everything. If man does not control the marriage -market by law, is it controlled at all? Surely the answer is -broadly that man does not control the marriage market by -law, but that woman does control it by sympathy and -prejudice. There was until lately a law forbidding a man to -marry his deceased wife's sister; yet the thing happened -constantly. There was no law forbidding a man to marry his -deceased wife's scullery-maid; yet it did not happen nearly -so often. It did not happen because the marriage market is -managed in the spirit and by the authority of women; and -women are generally conservative where classes are -concerned. It is the same with that system of exclusiveness -by which ladies have so often contrived (as by a process of -elimination) to prevent the marriages that they did not want -and even sometimes to procure those that they did. There is -no need of the broad arrow and the fleur-de-lis, the -turnkey's chains or the hangman's halter. You need not -strangle a man if you can silence him. The branded shoulder -is less effective and final than the cold shoulder; and you -need not trouble to lock a man in when you can lock him out. - -The same, of course, is true of the colossal architecture -which we call infant education: an architecture reared -wholly by women. Nothing can ever overcome that one enormous -sex superiority, that even the male child is born closer to -his mother than to his father. No one, staring at that -frightful female privilege, can quite believe in the -equality of the sexes. Here and there we read of a girl -brought up like a torn-boy; but every boy is brought up like -a tame girl. The flesh and spirit of femininity surround him -from the first like the four walls of a house; and even the -vaguest or most brutal man has been womanized by being born. -Man that is born of a woman has short days and full of -misery; but nobody can picture the obscenity and bestial -tragedy that would belong to such a monster as man that was -born of a man. +But there is a further fact; forgotten also because we moderns forget +that there is a female point of view. The woman's wisdom stands partly, +not only for a wholesome hesitation about punishment, but even for a +wholesome hesitation about absolute rules. There was something feminine +and perversely true in that phrase of Wilde's, that people should not be +treated as the rule, but all of them as exceptions. Made by a man the +remark was a little effeminate; for Wilde did lack the masculine power +of dogma and of democratic cooperation. But if a woman had said it it +would have been simply true; a woman does treat each person as a +peculiar person. In other words, she stands for Anarchy; a very ancient +and arguable philosophy; not anarchy in the sense of having no customs +in one's life (which is inconceivable), but anarchy in the sense of +having no rules for one's mind. To her, almost certainly, are due all +those working traditions that cannot be found in books, especially those +of education; it was she who first gave a child a stuffed stocking for +being good or stood him in the corner for being naughty. This +unclassified knowledge is sometimes called rule of thumb and sometimes +mother-wit. The last phrase suggests the whole truth, for none ever +called it fatherwit. + +Now anarchy is only tact when it works badly. Tact is only anarchy when +it works well. And we ought to realize that in one half of the +world---the private house---it does work well. We modern men are +perpetually forgetting that the case for clear rules and crude penalties +is not self-evident, that there is a great deal to be said for the +benevolent lawlessness of the autocrat, especially on a small scale; in +short, that government is only one side of life. The other half is +called Society, in which women are admittedly dominant. And they have +always been ready to maintain that their kingdom is better governed than +ours, because (in the logical and legal sense) it is not governed at +all. "Whenever you have a real difficulty," they say, "when a boy is +bumptious or an aunt is stingy, when a silly girl will marry somebody, +or a wicked man won't marry somebody, all your lumbering Roman Law and +British Constitution come to a standstill. A snub from a duchess or a +slanging from a fish-wife are much more likely to put things straight." +So, at least, rang the ancient female challenge down the ages until the +recent female capitulation. So streamed the red standard of the higher +anarchy until Miss Pankhurst hoisted the white flag. + +It must be remembered that the modern world has done deep treason to the +eternal intellect by believing in the swing of the pendulum. A man must +be dead before he swings. It has substituted an idea of fatalistic +alternation for the mediaeval freedom of the soul seeking truth. All +modern thinkers are reactionaries; for their thought is always a +reaction from what went before. When you meet a modern man he is always +coming from a place, not going to it. Thus, mankind has in nearly all +places and periods seen that there is a soul and a body as plainly as +that there is a sun and moon. But because a narrow Protestant sect +called Materialists declared for a short time that there was no soul, +another narrow Protestant sect called Christian Science is now +maintaining that there is no body. Now just in the same way the +unreasonable neglect of government by the Manchester School has +produced, not a reasonable regard for government, but an unreasonable +neglect of everything else. So that to hear people talk to-day one would +fancy that every important human function must be organized and avenged +by law; that all education must be state education, and all employment +state employment; that everybody and everything must be brought to the +foot of the august and prehistoric gibbet. But a somewhat more liberal +and sympathetic examination of mankind will convince us that the cross +is even older than the gibbet, that voluntary suffering was before and +independence of compulsory; and in short that in most important matters +a man has always been free to ruin himself if he chose. The huge +fundamental function upon which all anthropology turns, that of sex and +childbirth, has never been inside the political state, but always +outside it. The state concerned itself with the trivial question of +killing people, but wisely left alone the whole business of getting them +born. A Eugenist might indeed plausibly say that the government is an +absent-minded and inconsistent person who occupies himself with +providing for the old age of people who have never been infants. I will +not deal here in any detail with the fact that some Eugenists have in +our time made the maniacal answer that the police ought to control +marriage and birth as they control labor and death. Except for this +inhuman handful (with whom I regret to say I shall have to deal later) +all the Eugenists I know divide themselves into two sections: ingenious +people who once meant this, and rather bewildered people who swear they +never meant it---nor anything else. But if it be conceded (by a breezier +estimate of men) that they do mostly desire marriage to remain free from +government, it does not follow that they desire it to remain free from +everything. If man does not control the marriage market by law, is it +controlled at all? Surely the answer is broadly that man does not +control the marriage market by law, but that woman does control it by +sympathy and prejudice. There was until lately a law forbidding a man to +marry his deceased wife's sister; yet the thing happened constantly. +There was no law forbidding a man to marry his deceased wife's +scullery-maid; yet it did not happen nearly so often. It did not happen +because the marriage market is managed in the spirit and by the +authority of women; and women are generally conservative where classes +are concerned. It is the same with that system of exclusiveness by which +ladies have so often contrived (as by a process of elimination) to +prevent the marriages that they did not want and even sometimes to +procure those that they did. There is no need of the broad arrow and the +fleur-de-lis, the turnkey's chains or the hangman's halter. You need not +strangle a man if you can silence him. The branded shoulder is less +effective and final than the cold shoulder; and you need not trouble to +lock a man in when you can lock him out. + +The same, of course, is true of the colossal architecture which we call +infant education: an architecture reared wholly by women. Nothing can +ever overcome that one enormous sex superiority, that even the male +child is born closer to his mother than to his father. No one, staring +at that frightful female privilege, can quite believe in the equality of +the sexes. Here and there we read of a girl brought up like a torn-boy; +but every boy is brought up like a tame girl. The flesh and spirit of +femininity surround him from the first like the four walls of a house; +and even the vaguest or most brutal man has been womanized by being +born. Man that is born of a woman has short days and full of misery; but +nobody can picture the obscenity and bestial tragedy that would belong +to such a monster as man that was born of a man. ## The Queen and the Suffragettes -But, indeed, with this educational matter I must of -necessity embroil myself later. The fourth section of the -discussion is supposed to be about the child, but I think it -will be mostly about the mother. In this place I have -systematically insisted on the large part of life that is -governed, not by man with his vote, but by woman with her -voice, or more often, with her horrible silence. Only one -thing remains to be added. In a sprawling and explanatory -style has been traced out the idea that government is -ultimately coercion, that coercion must mean cold -definitions as well as cruel consequences, and that -therefore there is something to be said for the old human -habit of keeping one-half of humanity out of so harsh and -dirty a business. But the case is stronger still. - -Voting is not only coercion, but collective coercion. I -think Queen Victoria would have been yet more popular and -satisfying if she had never signed a death warrant. I think -Queen Elizabeth would have stood out as more solid and -splendid in history if she had not earned (among those who -happen to know her history) the nickname of Bloody Bess. I -think, in short, that the great historic woman is more -herself when she is persuasive rather than coercive. But I -feel all mankind behind me when I say that if a woman has -this power it should be despotic power---not democratic -power. There is a much stronger historic argument for giving -Miss Pankhurst a throne than for giving her a vote. She -might have a crown, or at least a coronet, like so many of -her supporters; for these old powers are purely personal and -therefore female. Miss Pankhurst as a despot might be as -virtuous as Queen Victoria, and she certainly would find it -difficult to be as wicked as Queen Bess; but the point is -that, good or bad, she would be irresponsible---she would -not be governed by a rule and by a ruler. There are only two -ways of governing: by a rule and by a ruler. And it is -seriously true to say of a woman, in education and -domesticity, that the freedom of the autocrat appears to be -necessary to her. She is never responsible until she is -irresponsible. In case this sounds like an idle -contradiction, I confidently appeal to the cold facts of -history. Almost every despotic or oligarchic state has -admitted women to its privileges. Scarcely one democratic -state has ever admitted them to its rights. The reason is -very simple: that something female is endangered by -violence; but endangered much more by the violence of the -crowd. In short, one Pankhurst is an exception, but a -thousand Pankhursts are a nightmare, a Bacchic orgy, a -Witches' Sabbath. For in all legends men have thought of +But, indeed, with this educational matter I must of necessity embroil +myself later. The fourth section of the discussion is supposed to be +about the child, but I think it will be mostly about the mother. In this +place I have systematically insisted on the large part of life that is +governed, not by man with his vote, but by woman with her voice, or more +often, with her horrible silence. Only one thing remains to be added. In +a sprawling and explanatory style has been traced out the idea that +government is ultimately coercion, that coercion must mean cold +definitions as well as cruel consequences, and that therefore there is +something to be said for the old human habit of keeping one-half of +humanity out of so harsh and dirty a business. But the case is stronger +still. + +Voting is not only coercion, but collective coercion. I think Queen +Victoria would have been yet more popular and satisfying if she had +never signed a death warrant. I think Queen Elizabeth would have stood +out as more solid and splendid in history if she had not earned (among +those who happen to know her history) the nickname of Bloody Bess. I +think, in short, that the great historic woman is more herself when she +is persuasive rather than coercive. But I feel all mankind behind me +when I say that if a woman has this power it should be despotic +power---not democratic power. There is a much stronger historic argument +for giving Miss Pankhurst a throne than for giving her a vote. She might +have a crown, or at least a coronet, like so many of her supporters; for +these old powers are purely personal and therefore female. Miss +Pankhurst as a despot might be as virtuous as Queen Victoria, and she +certainly would find it difficult to be as wicked as Queen Bess; but the +point is that, good or bad, she would be irresponsible---she would not +be governed by a rule and by a ruler. There are only two ways of +governing: by a rule and by a ruler. And it is seriously true to say of +a woman, in education and domesticity, that the freedom of the autocrat +appears to be necessary to her. She is never responsible until she is +irresponsible. In case this sounds like an idle contradiction, I +confidently appeal to the cold facts of history. Almost every despotic +or oligarchic state has admitted women to its privileges. Scarcely one +democratic state has ever admitted them to its rights. The reason is +very simple: that something female is endangered by violence; but +endangered much more by the violence of the crowd. In short, one +Pankhurst is an exception, but a thousand Pankhursts are a nightmare, a +Bacchic orgy, a Witches' Sabbath. For in all legends men have thought of women as sublime separately but horrible in a herd. ## The Modern Slave -Now I have only taken the test case of Female Suffrage -because it is topical and concrete; it is not of great -moment for me as a political proposal. I can quite imagine -anyone substantially agreeing with my view of woman as -universalist and autocrat in a limited area; and still -thinking that she would be none the worse for a ballot -paper. The real question is whether this old ideal of woman -as the great amateur is admitted or not. There are many -modern things which threaten it much more than suffragism; -notably the increase of self-supporting women, even in the -most severe or the most squalid employments. If there be -something against nature in the idea of a horde of wild -women governing, there is something truly intolerable in the -idea of a herd of tame women being governed. And there are -elements in human psychology that make this situation -particularly poignant or ignominious. The ugly exactitudes -of business, the bells and clocks, the fixed hours and rigid -departments, were all meant for the male: who, as a rule, -can only do one thing and can only with the greatest -difficulty be induced to do that. If clerks do not try to -shirk their work, our whole great commercial system breaks -down. It is breaking down, under the inroad of women who are -adopting the unprecedented and impossible course of taking -the system seriously and doing it well. Their very -efficiency is the definition of their slavery. It is -generally a very bad sign when one is trusted very much by -one's employers. And if the evasive clerks have a look of -being blackguards, the earnest ladies are often something -very like blacklegs. But the more immediate point is that -the modern working woman bears a double burden, for she -endures both the grinding officialism of the new office and -the distracting scrupulosity of the old home. Few men -understand what conscientiousness is. They understand duty, -which generally means one duty; but conscientiousness is the -duty of the universalist. It is limited by no work days or -holidays; it is a lawless, limitless, devouring decorum. If -women are to be subjected to the dull rule of commerce, we -must find some way of emancipating them from the wild rule -of conscience. But I rather fancy you will find it easier to -leave the conscience and knock off the commerce. As it is, -the modern clerk or secretary exhausts herself to put one -thing straight in the ledger and then goes home to put -everything straight in the house. - -This condition (described by some as emancipated) is at -least the reverse of my ideal. I would give woman, not more -rights, but more privileges. Instead of sending her to seek -such freedom as notoriously prevails in banks and factories, -I would design specially a house in which she can be free. -And with that we come to the last point of all; the point at -which we can perceive the needs of women, like the rights of -men, stopped and falsified by something which it is the -object of this book to expose. - -The Feminist (which means, I think, one who dislikes the -chief feminine characteristics) has heard my loose -monologue, bursting all the time with one pent-up protest. -At this point he will break out and say, "But what are we to -do? There is modern commerce and its clerks; there is the -modern family with its unmarried daughters; specialism is -expected everywhere; female thrift and conscientiousness are -demanded and supplied. What does it matter whether we should -in the abstract prefer the old human and housekeeping woman; -we might prefer the Garden of Eden. But since women have -trades they ought to have trades unions. Since women work in -factories, they ought to vote on factory-acts. If they are -unmarried they must be commercial; if they are commercial -they must be political. We must have new rules for a new -world---even if it be not a better one." I said to a -Feminist once: "The question is not whether women are good -enough for votes: it is whether votes are good enough for -women." He only answered: "Ah, you go and say that to the +Now I have only taken the test case of Female Suffrage because it is +topical and concrete; it is not of great moment for me as a political +proposal. I can quite imagine anyone substantially agreeing with my view +of woman as universalist and autocrat in a limited area; and still +thinking that she would be none the worse for a ballot paper. The real +question is whether this old ideal of woman as the great amateur is +admitted or not. There are many modern things which threaten it much +more than suffragism; notably the increase of self-supporting women, +even in the most severe or the most squalid employments. If there be +something against nature in the idea of a horde of wild women governing, +there is something truly intolerable in the idea of a herd of tame women +being governed. And there are elements in human psychology that make +this situation particularly poignant or ignominious. The ugly +exactitudes of business, the bells and clocks, the fixed hours and rigid +departments, were all meant for the male: who, as a rule, can only do +one thing and can only with the greatest difficulty be induced to do +that. If clerks do not try to shirk their work, our whole great +commercial system breaks down. It is breaking down, under the inroad of +women who are adopting the unprecedented and impossible course of taking +the system seriously and doing it well. Their very efficiency is the +definition of their slavery. It is generally a very bad sign when one is +trusted very much by one's employers. And if the evasive clerks have a +look of being blackguards, the earnest ladies are often something very +like blacklegs. But the more immediate point is that the modern working +woman bears a double burden, for she endures both the grinding +officialism of the new office and the distracting scrupulosity of the +old home. Few men understand what conscientiousness is. They understand +duty, which generally means one duty; but conscientiousness is the duty +of the universalist. It is limited by no work days or holidays; it is a +lawless, limitless, devouring decorum. If women are to be subjected to +the dull rule of commerce, we must find some way of emancipating them +from the wild rule of conscience. But I rather fancy you will find it +easier to leave the conscience and knock off the commerce. As it is, the +modern clerk or secretary exhausts herself to put one thing straight in +the ledger and then goes home to put everything straight in the house. + +This condition (described by some as emancipated) is at least the +reverse of my ideal. I would give woman, not more rights, but more +privileges. Instead of sending her to seek such freedom as notoriously +prevails in banks and factories, I would design specially a house in +which she can be free. And with that we come to the last point of all; +the point at which we can perceive the needs of women, like the rights +of men, stopped and falsified by something which it is the object of +this book to expose. + +The Feminist (which means, I think, one who dislikes the chief feminine +characteristics) has heard my loose monologue, bursting all the time +with one pent-up protest. At this point he will break out and say, "But +what are we to do? There is modern commerce and its clerks; there is the +modern family with its unmarried daughters; specialism is expected +everywhere; female thrift and conscientiousness are demanded and +supplied. What does it matter whether we should in the abstract prefer +the old human and housekeeping woman; we might prefer the Garden of +Eden. But since women have trades they ought to have trades unions. +Since women work in factories, they ought to vote on factory-acts. If +they are unmarried they must be commercial; if they are commercial they +must be political. We must have new rules for a new world---even if it +be not a better one." I said to a Feminist once: "The question is not +whether women are good enough for votes: it is whether votes are good +enough for women." He only answered: "Ah, you go and say that to the women chain-makers on Cradley Heath." -Now this is the attitude which I attack. It is the huge -heresy of Precedent. It is the view that because we have got -into a mess we must grow messier to suit it; that because we -have taken a wrong turn some time ago we must go forward and -not backwards; that because we have lost our way we must -lose our map also; and because we have missed our ideal, we -must forget it. There are numbers of excellent people who do -not think votes unfeminine; and there may be enthusiasts for -our beautiful modern industry who do not think factories -unfeminine. But if these things are unfeminine it is no -answer to say that they fit into each other. I am not -satisfied with the statement that my daughter must have -unwomanly powers because she has unwomanly wrongs. -Industrial soot and political printer's ink are two blacks -which do not make a white. Most of the Feminists would -probably agree with me that womanhood is under shameful -tyranny in the shops and mills. But I want to destroy the -tyranny. They want to destroy the womanhood. That is the -only difference. - -Whether we can recover the clear vision of woman as a tower -with many windows, the fixed eternal feminine from which her -sons, the specialists, go forth; whether we can preserve the -tradition of a central thing which is even more human than -democracy and even more practical than politics; whether, in -a word, it is possible to re-establish the family, freed -from the filthy cynicism and cruelty of the commercial -epoch, I shall discuss in the last section of this book. But -meanwhile do not talk to me about the poor chain-makers on -Cradley Heath. I know all about them and what they are -doing. They are engaged in a very widespread and flourishing -industry of the present age. They are making chains. +Now this is the attitude which I attack. It is the huge heresy of +Precedent. It is the view that because we have got into a mess we must +grow messier to suit it; that because we have taken a wrong turn some +time ago we must go forward and not backwards; that because we have lost +our way we must lose our map also; and because we have missed our ideal, +we must forget it. There are numbers of excellent people who do not +think votes unfeminine; and there may be enthusiasts for our beautiful +modern industry who do not think factories unfeminine. But if these +things are unfeminine it is no answer to say that they fit into each +other. I am not satisfied with the statement that my daughter must have +unwomanly powers because she has unwomanly wrongs. Industrial soot and +political printer's ink are two blacks which do not make a white. Most +of the Feminists would probably agree with me that womanhood is under +shameful tyranny in the shops and mills. But I want to destroy the +tyranny. They want to destroy the womanhood. That is the only +difference. + +Whether we can recover the clear vision of woman as a tower with many +windows, the fixed eternal feminine from which her sons, the +specialists, go forth; whether we can preserve the tradition of a +central thing which is even more human than democracy and even more +practical than politics; whether, in a word, it is possible to +re-establish the family, freed from the filthy cynicism and cruelty of +the commercial epoch, I shall discuss in the last section of this book. +But meanwhile do not talk to me about the poor chain-makers on Cradley +Heath. I know all about them and what they are doing. They are engaged +in a very widespread and flourishing industry of the present age. They +are making chains. # Education, or the Mistake about the Child ## The Calvinism of To-day -When I wrote a little volume on my friend Mr. Bernard Shaw, -it is needless to say that he reviewed it. I naturally felt -tempted to answer and to criticise the book from the same -disinterested and impartial standpoint from which Mr. Shaw -had criticised the subject of it. I was not withheld by any -feeling that the joke was getting a little obvious; for an -obvious joke is only a successful joke; it is only the -unsuccessful clowns who comfort themselves with being -subtle. The real reason why I did not answer Mr. Shaw's -amusing attack was this: that one simple phrase in it -surrendered to me all that I have ever wanted, or could want -from him to all eternity. I told Mr. Shaw (in substance) -that he was a charming and clever fellow, but a common -Calvinist. He admitted that this was true; and there (so far -as I am concerned) is an end of the matter. He said that, of -course, Calvin was quite right in holding that "if once a -man is born it is too late to damn or save him." That is the -fundamental and subterranean secret; that is the last lie in -hell. - -The difference between Puritanism and Catholicism is not -about whether some priestly word or gesture is significant -and sacred. It is about whether any word or gesture is -significant and sacred. To the Catholic every other daily -act is a dramatic dedication to the service of good or of -evil. To the Calvinist no act can have that sort of -solemnity, because the person doing it has been dedicated -from eternity, and is merely filling up his time until the -crack of doom. The difference is something subtler than -plum-puddings or private theatricals; the difference is that -to a Christian of my kind this short earthly life is -intensely thrilling and precious; to a Calvinist like -Mr. Shaw it is confessedly automatic and uninteresting. To -me these threescore years and ten are the battle. To the -Fabian Calvinist (by; his own confession) they are only a -long procession of the victors in laurels and the vanquished -in chains. To me earthly life is the drama; to him it is the -epilogue. Shavians think about the embryo; Spiritualists -about the ghost; Christians about the man. It is as well to -have these things clear. - -Now all our sociology and eugenics and the rest of it are -not so much materialist as confusedly Calvinist; they are -chiefly occupied in educating the child before he exists. -The whole movement is full of a singular depression about -what one can do with the populace, combined with a strange -disembodied gaiety about what may be done with posterity. -These essential Calvinists have, indeed, abolished some of -the more liberal and universal parts of Calvinism, such as -the belief in an intellectual design or an everlasting -happiness. But though Mr. Shaw and his friends admit it is a -superstition that a man is judged after death, they stick to -their central doctrine, that he is judged before he is born. - -In consequence of this atmosphere of Calvinism in the -cultured world of to-day, it is apparently necessary to -begin all arguments on education with some mention of -obstetrics and the unknown world of the prenatal. All I -shall have to say, however, on heredity will be very brief, -because I shall confine myself to what is known about it, -and that is very nearly nothing. It is by no means -self-evident, but it is a current modern dogma, that nothing -actually enters the body at birth except a life derived and -compounded from the parents. There is at least quite as much -to be said for the Christian theory that an element comes -from God, or the Buddhist theory that such an element comes -from previous existences. But this is not a religious work, -and I must submit to those very narrow intellectual limits -which the absence of theology always imposes. Leaving the -soul on one side, let us suppose for the sake of argument -that the human character in the first case comes wholly from -parents; and then let us curtly state our knowledge, or -rather our ignorance. +When I wrote a little volume on my friend Mr. Bernard Shaw, it is +needless to say that he reviewed it. I naturally felt tempted to answer +and to criticise the book from the same disinterested and impartial +standpoint from which Mr. Shaw had criticised the subject of it. I was +not withheld by any feeling that the joke was getting a little obvious; +for an obvious joke is only a successful joke; it is only the +unsuccessful clowns who comfort themselves with being subtle. The real +reason why I did not answer Mr. Shaw's amusing attack was this: that one +simple phrase in it surrendered to me all that I have ever wanted, or +could want from him to all eternity. I told Mr. Shaw (in substance) that +he was a charming and clever fellow, but a common Calvinist. He admitted +that this was true; and there (so far as I am concerned) is an end of +the matter. He said that, of course, Calvin was quite right in holding +that "if once a man is born it is too late to damn or save him." That is +the fundamental and subterranean secret; that is the last lie in hell. + +The difference between Puritanism and Catholicism is not about whether +some priestly word or gesture is significant and sacred. It is about +whether any word or gesture is significant and sacred. To the Catholic +every other daily act is a dramatic dedication to the service of good or +of evil. To the Calvinist no act can have that sort of solemnity, +because the person doing it has been dedicated from eternity, and is +merely filling up his time until the crack of doom. The difference is +something subtler than plum-puddings or private theatricals; the +difference is that to a Christian of my kind this short earthly life is +intensely thrilling and precious; to a Calvinist like Mr. Shaw it is +confessedly automatic and uninteresting. To me these threescore years +and ten are the battle. To the Fabian Calvinist (by; his own confession) +they are only a long procession of the victors in laurels and the +vanquished in chains. To me earthly life is the drama; to him it is the +epilogue. Shavians think about the embryo; Spiritualists about the +ghost; Christians about the man. It is as well to have these things +clear. + +Now all our sociology and eugenics and the rest of it are not so much +materialist as confusedly Calvinist; they are chiefly occupied in +educating the child before he exists. The whole movement is full of a +singular depression about what one can do with the populace, combined +with a strange disembodied gaiety about what may be done with posterity. +These essential Calvinists have, indeed, abolished some of the more +liberal and universal parts of Calvinism, such as the belief in an +intellectual design or an everlasting happiness. But though Mr. Shaw and +his friends admit it is a superstition that a man is judged after death, +they stick to their central doctrine, that he is judged before he is +born. + +In consequence of this atmosphere of Calvinism in the cultured world of +to-day, it is apparently necessary to begin all arguments on education +with some mention of obstetrics and the unknown world of the prenatal. +All I shall have to say, however, on heredity will be very brief, +because I shall confine myself to what is known about it, and that is +very nearly nothing. It is by no means self-evident, but it is a current +modern dogma, that nothing actually enters the body at birth except a +life derived and compounded from the parents. There is at least quite as +much to be said for the Christian theory that an element comes from God, +or the Buddhist theory that such an element comes from previous +existences. But this is not a religious work, and I must submit to those +very narrow intellectual limits which the absence of theology always +imposes. Leaving the soul on one side, let us suppose for the sake of +argument that the human character in the first case comes wholly from +parents; and then let us curtly state our knowledge, or rather our +ignorance. ## The Tribal Terror -Popular science, like that of Mr. Blatchford, is in this -matter as mild as old wives' tales. Mr. Blatchford, with -colossal simplicity, explained to millions of clerks and -workingmen that the mother is like a bottle of blue beads -and the father like a bottle of yellow beads; and so the -child is like a bottle of mixed blue beads and yellow. He -might just as well have said that if the father has two legs -and the mother has two legs, the child will have four legs. -Obviously it is not a question of simple addition or simple -division of a number of hard detached "qualities," like -beads. It is an organic crisis and transformation of the -most mysterious sort; so that even if the result is -unavoidable, it will still be unexpected. It is not like -blue beads mixed with yellow beads; it is like blue mixed -with yellow; the result of which is *green*, a totally novel -and unique experience, a new emotion. A man might live in a -complete cosmos of blue and yellow, like the "Edinburgh -Review"; a man might never have seen anything but a golden -cornfield and a sapphire sky; and still he might never have -had so wild a fancy as green. If you paid a sovereign for a -bluebell; if you spilled the mustard on the blue-books; if -you married a canary to a blue baboon; there is nothing in -any of these wild weddings that contains even a hint of -green. Green is not a mental combination, like addition; it -is physical result, like birth. So, apart from the fact that -nobody ever really understands parents or children either, -yet even if we could understand the parents, we could not -make any conjecture about the children. Each time the force -works in a different way; each time the constituent colors -combine into a different spectacle. A girl may actually -inherit her ugliness from her mother's good looks. A boy may -actually get his weakness from his father's strength. Even -if we admit it is really a fate, for us it must remain a -fairy tale. Considered in regard to its causes, the -Calvinists and materialists may be right or wrong; we leave -them their dreary debate. But considered in regard to its -results there is no doubt about it. The thing is always a -new color; a strange star. Every birth is as lonely as a -miracle. Every child is as uninvited as a monstrosity. - -On all such subjects there is no science, but only a sort of -ardent ignorance; and nobody has ever been able to offer any -theories of moral heredity which justified themselves in the -only scientific sense; that is that one could calculate on -them beforehand. There are six cases, say, of a grandson -having the same twitch of mouth or vice of character as his -grandfather; or perhaps there are sixteen cases, or perhaps -sixty. But there are not two cases, there is not one case, -there are no cases at all, of anybody betting half a crown -that the grandfather will have a grandson with the twitch or -the vice. In short, we deal with heredity as we deal with -omens, affinities and the fulfilment of dreams. The things -do happen, and when they happen we record them; but not even -a lunatic ever reckons on them. Indeed, heredity, like -dreams and omens, is a barbaric notion; that is, not -necessarily an untrue, but a dim, groping and unsystematized -notion. A civilized man feels himself a little more free -from his family. Before Christianity these tales of tribal -doom occupied the savage north; and since the Reformation -and the revolt against Christianity (which is the religion -of a civilized freedom) savagery is slowly creeping back in -the form of realistic novels and problem plays. The curse of -Rougon-Macquart is as heathen and superstitious as the curse -of Ravenswood; only not so well written. But in this -twilight barbaric sense the feeling of a racial fate is not -irrational, and may be allowed like a hundred other half -emotions that make life whole. The only essential of tragedy -is that one should take it lightly. But even when the -barbarian deluge rose to its highest in the madder novels of -Zola (such as that called "The Human Beast"; a gross libel -on beasts as well as humanity), even then the application of -the hereditary idea to practice is avowedly timid and -fumbling. The students of heredity are savages in this vital -sense; that they stare back at marvels, but they dare not -stare forward to schemes. In practice no one is mad enough -to legislate or educate upon dogmas of physical inheritance; -and even the language of the thing is rarely used except for -special modern purposes, such as the endowment of research -or the oppression of the poor. +Popular science, like that of Mr. Blatchford, is in this matter as mild +as old wives' tales. Mr. Blatchford, with colossal simplicity, explained +to millions of clerks and workingmen that the mother is like a bottle of +blue beads and the father like a bottle of yellow beads; and so the +child is like a bottle of mixed blue beads and yellow. He might just as +well have said that if the father has two legs and the mother has two +legs, the child will have four legs. Obviously it is not a question of +simple addition or simple division of a number of hard detached +"qualities," like beads. It is an organic crisis and transformation of +the most mysterious sort; so that even if the result is unavoidable, it +will still be unexpected. It is not like blue beads mixed with yellow +beads; it is like blue mixed with yellow; the result of which is +*green*, a totally novel and unique experience, a new emotion. A man +might live in a complete cosmos of blue and yellow, like the "Edinburgh +Review"; a man might never have seen anything but a golden cornfield and +a sapphire sky; and still he might never have had so wild a fancy as +green. If you paid a sovereign for a bluebell; if you spilled the +mustard on the blue-books; if you married a canary to a blue baboon; +there is nothing in any of these wild weddings that contains even a hint +of green. Green is not a mental combination, like addition; it is +physical result, like birth. So, apart from the fact that nobody ever +really understands parents or children either, yet even if we could +understand the parents, we could not make any conjecture about the +children. Each time the force works in a different way; each time the +constituent colors combine into a different spectacle. A girl may +actually inherit her ugliness from her mother's good looks. A boy may +actually get his weakness from his father's strength. Even if we admit +it is really a fate, for us it must remain a fairy tale. Considered in +regard to its causes, the Calvinists and materialists may be right or +wrong; we leave them their dreary debate. But considered in regard to +its results there is no doubt about it. The thing is always a new color; +a strange star. Every birth is as lonely as a miracle. Every child is as +uninvited as a monstrosity. + +On all such subjects there is no science, but only a sort of ardent +ignorance; and nobody has ever been able to offer any theories of moral +heredity which justified themselves in the only scientific sense; that +is that one could calculate on them beforehand. There are six cases, +say, of a grandson having the same twitch of mouth or vice of character +as his grandfather; or perhaps there are sixteen cases, or perhaps +sixty. But there are not two cases, there is not one case, there are no +cases at all, of anybody betting half a crown that the grandfather will +have a grandson with the twitch or the vice. In short, we deal with +heredity as we deal with omens, affinities and the fulfilment of dreams. +The things do happen, and when they happen we record them; but not even +a lunatic ever reckons on them. Indeed, heredity, like dreams and omens, +is a barbaric notion; that is, not necessarily an untrue, but a dim, +groping and unsystematized notion. A civilized man feels himself a +little more free from his family. Before Christianity these tales of +tribal doom occupied the savage north; and since the Reformation and the +revolt against Christianity (which is the religion of a civilized +freedom) savagery is slowly creeping back in the form of realistic +novels and problem plays. The curse of Rougon-Macquart is as heathen and +superstitious as the curse of Ravenswood; only not so well written. But +in this twilight barbaric sense the feeling of a racial fate is not +irrational, and may be allowed like a hundred other half emotions that +make life whole. The only essential of tragedy is that one should take +it lightly. But even when the barbarian deluge rose to its highest in +the madder novels of Zola (such as that called "The Human Beast"; a +gross libel on beasts as well as humanity), even then the application of +the hereditary idea to practice is avowedly timid and fumbling. The +students of heredity are savages in this vital sense; that they stare +back at marvels, but they dare not stare forward to schemes. In practice +no one is mad enough to legislate or educate upon dogmas of physical +inheritance; and even the language of the thing is rarely used except +for special modern purposes, such as the endowment of research or the +oppression of the poor. ## The Tricks of Environment -After all the modern clatter of Calvinism, therefore, it is -only with the born child that anybody dares to deal; and the -question is not eugenics hot education. Or again, to adopt -that rather tiresome terminology of popular science, it is -not a question of heredity but of environment. I will not -needlessly complicate this question by urging at length that -environment also is open to some of the objections and -hesitations which paralyze UK employment of heredity. I will -merely suggest in passing that even about the effect of -environment modern people talk much too cheerfully and -cheaply. The idea that surroundings will mold a man is -always mixed op with the totally different idea that they -will mold him in one particular way. To take the broadest -case, landscape no doubt affects the soul; but how it -affects it is quite another matter. To be born among -pine-trees might mean loving pine-trees. It might mean -loathing pine-trees. It might quite seriously mean never -having seen a pine-tree. Or it might mean any mixture of -these or any degree of any of them. So that the scientific -method here lacks a little in precision. I am not speaking -without the book; on the contrary, I am speaking with the -bluebook, with the guide-book and the atlas. It may be that -the Highlanders are poetical because they inhabit mountains; -but are the Swiss prosaic because they inhabit mountains? It -may be the Swiss have fought for freedom because they had -hills; did the Dutch fight for freedom because they hadn't? -Personally I should think it quite likely. Environment might -work negatively as well as positively. The Swiss may be -sensible, not in spite of their wild skyline, but because of -their wild skyline. The Flemings may be fantastic artists, -not in spite of their dull skyline, but because of it. - -I only pause on this parenthesis to show that, even in -matters admittedly within its range, popular science goes a -great deal too fast, and drops enormous links of logic. -Nevertheless, it remains the working reality that what we -have to deal with in the case of children is, for all -practical purposes, environment; or, to use the older word, -education. When all such deductions are made, education is -at least a form of will-worship, not of cowardly -fact-worship; it deals with a department that we can -control; it does not merely darken us with the barbarian -pessimism of Zola and the heredity-hunt. We shall certainly -make fools of ourselves; that is what is meant by -philosophy. But we shall not merely make beasts of -ourselves; which is the nearest popular definition for -merely following the laws of Nature and cowering under the -vengeance of the flesh. Education contains much moonshine; -but not of the sort that makes mere moon-calves and idiots, -the slaves of a silver magnet, the one eye of the world. In -this decent arena there are fads, but not frenzies. -Doubtless we shall often find a mare's nest; but it will not -always be the nightmare's. +After all the modern clatter of Calvinism, therefore, it is only with +the born child that anybody dares to deal; and the question is not +eugenics hot education. Or again, to adopt that rather tiresome +terminology of popular science, it is not a question of heredity but of +environment. I will not needlessly complicate this question by urging at +length that environment also is open to some of the objections and +hesitations which paralyze UK employment of heredity. I will merely +suggest in passing that even about the effect of environment modern +people talk much too cheerfully and cheaply. The idea that surroundings +will mold a man is always mixed op with the totally different idea that +they will mold him in one particular way. To take the broadest case, +landscape no doubt affects the soul; but how it affects it is quite +another matter. To be born among pine-trees might mean loving +pine-trees. It might mean loathing pine-trees. It might quite seriously +mean never having seen a pine-tree. Or it might mean any mixture of +these or any degree of any of them. So that the scientific method here +lacks a little in precision. I am not speaking without the book; on the +contrary, I am speaking with the bluebook, with the guide-book and the +atlas. It may be that the Highlanders are poetical because they inhabit +mountains; but are the Swiss prosaic because they inhabit mountains? It +may be the Swiss have fought for freedom because they had hills; did the +Dutch fight for freedom because they hadn't? Personally I should think +it quite likely. Environment might work negatively as well as +positively. The Swiss may be sensible, not in spite of their wild +skyline, but because of their wild skyline. The Flemings may be +fantastic artists, not in spite of their dull skyline, but because of +it. -## The Truth about Education +I only pause on this parenthesis to show that, even in matters +admittedly within its range, popular science goes a great deal too fast, +and drops enormous links of logic. Nevertheless, it remains the working +reality that what we have to deal with in the case of children is, for +all practical purposes, environment; or, to use the older word, +education. When all such deductions are made, education is at least a +form of will-worship, not of cowardly fact-worship; it deals with a +department that we can control; it does not merely darken us with the +barbarian pessimism of Zola and the heredity-hunt. We shall certainly +make fools of ourselves; that is what is meant by philosophy. But we +shall not merely make beasts of ourselves; which is the nearest popular +definition for merely following the laws of Nature and cowering under +the vengeance of the flesh. Education contains much moonshine; but not +of the sort that makes mere moon-calves and idiots, the slaves of a +silver magnet, the one eye of the world. In this decent arena there are +fads, but not frenzies. Doubtless we shall often find a mare's nest; but +it will not always be the nightmare's. -When a man is asked to write down what he really thinks on -education, a certain gravity grips and stiffens his soul, -which might b'e mistaken by the superficial for disgust. If -it be really true that men sickened of sacred words and -wearied of theology, if this largely unreasoning irritation -against "dogma" did arise out of some ridiculous excess of -such things among priests in the past, then I fancy we must -be laying up a fine crop of cant for our descendants to grow -tired of. Probably the word "education" will some day seem -honestly as old and objectless as the word "justification" -now seems in a Puritan folio. Gibbon thought it frightfully -funny that people should have fought about the difference -between the "Homoousion" and the "Homoiousion." The lime -will come when somebody will laugh louder to think that men -thundered against Sectarian Education and also against -Secular Education; that men of prominence and position -actually denounced the schools for teaching a creed and also -for not teaching a faith. The two Greek words in Gibbon look -rather alike; but they really mean quite different things. -Faith and creed do not look alike, but they mean exactly the -same thing. Creed happens to be the Latin for faith. - -Now having read numberless newspaper articles on education, -and even written a good many of them, and having heard -deafening and indeterminate discussion going on all around -me almost ever since I was born, about whether religion was -a part of education, about whether hygiene was an essential -of education, about whether militarism was inconsistent with -true education, I naturally pondered much on this recurring -substantive, and I am ashamed to say that it was -comparatively late in life that I saw the main fact about -it. +## The Truth about Education -Of course, the main fact about education is that there is no -such thing. It does not exist, as theology or soldiering -exist. Theology is a word like geology, soldiering is a word -like soldering; these sciences may be healthy or no as -hobbies; but they deal with stone and kettles, with definite -things. But education is not a word like geology or kettles. -Education is a word like "transmission" or "inheritance"; it -is not an object, but a method. It must mean the conveying -of certain facts, views or qualities, to the last baby born. -They might be the most trivial facts or the most -preposterous views or the most offensive qualities; but if -they are handed on from one generation to another they are -education. Education is not a thing like theology; it is not -an inferior or superior thing; it is not a thing in the same -category of terms. Theology and education are to each other -like a love-letter to the General Post Office. Mr. Fagin was -quite as educational as Dr. Strong; in practice probably -more educational. It is giving something---perhaps poison. -Education is tradition, and tradition (as its name implies) -can be treason. - -This first truth is frankly banal; but it is so perpetually -ignored in our political prosing that it must be made plain. -A little boy in a little house, son of a little tradesman, -is taught to eat his breakfast, to take his medicine, to -love his country, to say his prayers, and to wear his Sunday -clothes. Obviously Fagin, if he found such a boy, would -teach him to drink gin, to lie, to betray his country, to -blaspheme and to wear false whiskers. But so also Mr. Salt -the vegetarian would abolish the boy's breakfast; Mrs. Eddy -would throw away his medicine; Count Tolstoy would rebuke -him for loving his country; Mr. Blatchford would stop his -prayers, and Mr. Edward Carpenter would theoretically -denounce Sunday clothes, and perhaps all clothes. I do not -defend any of these advanced views, not even Fagin's. But I -do ask what, between the lot of them, has become of the -abstract entity called education. It is not (as commonly -supposed) that the tradesman teaches education plus -Christianity; Mr. Salt, education plus vegetarianism; Fagin, -education plus crime. The truth is, that there is nothing in -common at all between these teachers, except that they -teach. In short, the only thing they share is the one thing -they profess to dislike: the general idea of authority. It -is quaint that people talk of separating dogma from -education. Dogma is actually the only thing that cannot be -separated from education. It is education. A teacher who is -not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching. +When a man is asked to write down what he really thinks on education, a +certain gravity grips and stiffens his soul, which might b'e mistaken by +the superficial for disgust. If it be really true that men sickened of +sacred words and wearied of theology, if this largely unreasoning +irritation against "dogma" did arise out of some ridiculous excess of +such things among priests in the past, then I fancy we must be laying up +a fine crop of cant for our descendants to grow tired of. Probably the +word "education" will some day seem honestly as old and objectless as +the word "justification" now seems in a Puritan folio. Gibbon thought it +frightfully funny that people should have fought about the difference +between the "Homoousion" and the "Homoiousion." The lime will come when +somebody will laugh louder to think that men thundered against Sectarian +Education and also against Secular Education; that men of prominence and +position actually denounced the schools for teaching a creed and also +for not teaching a faith. The two Greek words in Gibbon look rather +alike; but they really mean quite different things. Faith and creed do +not look alike, but they mean exactly the same thing. Creed happens to +be the Latin for faith. + +Now having read numberless newspaper articles on education, and even +written a good many of them, and having heard deafening and +indeterminate discussion going on all around me almost ever since I was +born, about whether religion was a part of education, about whether +hygiene was an essential of education, about whether militarism was +inconsistent with true education, I naturally pondered much on this +recurring substantive, and I am ashamed to say that it was comparatively +late in life that I saw the main fact about it. + +Of course, the main fact about education is that there is no such thing. +It does not exist, as theology or soldiering exist. Theology is a word +like geology, soldiering is a word like soldering; these sciences may be +healthy or no as hobbies; but they deal with stone and kettles, with +definite things. But education is not a word like geology or kettles. +Education is a word like "transmission" or "inheritance"; it is not an +object, but a method. It must mean the conveying of certain facts, views +or qualities, to the last baby born. They might be the most trivial +facts or the most preposterous views or the most offensive qualities; +but if they are handed on from one generation to another they are +education. Education is not a thing like theology; it is not an inferior +or superior thing; it is not a thing in the same category of terms. +Theology and education are to each other like a love-letter to the +General Post Office. Mr. Fagin was quite as educational as Dr. Strong; +in practice probably more educational. It is giving something---perhaps +poison. Education is tradition, and tradition (as its name implies) can +be treason. + +This first truth is frankly banal; but it is so perpetually ignored in +our political prosing that it must be made plain. A little boy in a +little house, son of a little tradesman, is taught to eat his breakfast, +to take his medicine, to love his country, to say his prayers, and to +wear his Sunday clothes. Obviously Fagin, if he found such a boy, would +teach him to drink gin, to lie, to betray his country, to blaspheme and +to wear false whiskers. But so also Mr. Salt the vegetarian would +abolish the boy's breakfast; Mrs. Eddy would throw away his medicine; +Count Tolstoy would rebuke him for loving his country; Mr. Blatchford +would stop his prayers, and Mr. Edward Carpenter would theoretically +denounce Sunday clothes, and perhaps all clothes. I do not defend any of +these advanced views, not even Fagin's. But I do ask what, between the +lot of them, has become of the abstract entity called education. It is +not (as commonly supposed) that the tradesman teaches education plus +Christianity; Mr. Salt, education plus vegetarianism; Fagin, education +plus crime. The truth is, that there is nothing in common at all between +these teachers, except that they teach. In short, the only thing they +share is the one thing they profess to dislike: the general idea of +authority. It is quaint that people talk of separating dogma from +education. Dogma is actually the only thing that cannot be separated +from education. It is education. A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply +a teacher who is not teaching. ## An Evil Cry -The fashionable fallacy is that by education we can give -people something that we have not got. To hear people talk -one would think it was some sort of magic chemistry, by -which, out of a laborious hotchpotch of hygienic meals, -baths, breathing exercises, fresh air and freehand drawing, -we can produce something splendid by accident; we can create -what we cannot conceive. These pages have, of course, no -other general purpose than to point out that we cannot -create anything good until we have conceived it. It is odd -that these people, who in the matter of heredity are so -sullenly attached to law, in the matter of environment seem -almost to believe in miracle. They insist that nothing but -what was in the bodies of the parents can go to make the -bodies of the children. But they seem somehow to think that -things can get into the heads of the children which were not -in the heads of the parents, or, indeed, anywhere else. - -There has arisen in this connection a foolish and wicked cry -typical of the confusion. I mean the cry, "Save the -children." It is, of course, part of that modern morbidity -that insists on treating the State (which is the home of -man) as a sort of desperate expedient in time of panic. This -terrified opportunism is also the origin of the Socialist -and other schemes. Just as they would collect and share all -the food as men do in a famine, so they would divide the -children from their fathers, as men do in a shipwreck. That -a human community might conceivably not be in a condition of -famine or shipwreck never seems to cross their minds. This -cry of "Save the children" has in it the hateful implication -that it is impossible to save the fathers; in other words, -that many millions of grown-up, sane, responsible and -self-supporting Europeans are to be treated as dirt or -debris and swept away out of the discussion; called -dipsomaniacs because they drink in public houses instead of -private houses; called unemployables because nobody knows -how to get them work; called dullards if they still adhere -to conventions, and called loafers if they still love -liberty. Now I am concerned, first and last, to maintain -that unless you can save the fathers, you cannot save the -children; that at present we cannot save others, for we -cannot save ourselves. We cannot teach citizenship if we are -not citizens; we cannot free others if we have forgotten the -appetite of freedom. Education is only truth in a state of -transmission; and how can we pass on truth if it has never -come into our hand? Thus we find that education is of all -the cases the clearest for our general purpose. It is vain -to save children; for they cannot remain children. By -hypothesis we are teaching them to be men; and how can it be -so simple to teach an ideal manhood to others if it is so -vain and hopeless to find one for ourselves? - -I know that certain crazy pedants have attempted to counter -this difficulty by maintaining that education is not -instruction at all, does not teach by authority at all. They -present the process as coming, not from outside, from the -teacher, but entirely from inside the boy. Education, they -say, is the Latin for leading out or drawing out the dormant -faculties of each person. Somewhere far down in the dim -boyish soul is a primordial yearning to learn Greek accents -or to wear clean collars; and the schoolmasters only gently -and tenderly liberates this imprisoned purpose. Sealed up in -the newborn babe are the intrinsic secrets of how to eat -asparagus and what was the date of Bannockburn. The educator -only draws out the child's own unapparent love of long -division; only leads out the child's own slightly veiled -preference for milk pudding to tarts. I am not sure that I -believe in the derivation; I have heard the disgraceful -suggestion that "educator," if applied to a Roman -schoolmaster, did not mean leading out young functions into -freedom; but only meant taking out little boys for a walk. -But I am much more certain that I do not agree with the -doctrine; I think it would be about as sane to say that the -baby's milk comes from the baby as to say that the baby's -educational merits do. There is, indeed, in each living -creature a collection of forces and functions; but education -means producing these in particular shapes and training them -to particular purposes, or it means nothing at all. Speaking -is the most practical instance of the whole situation. You -may indeed "draw out" squeals and grunts from the child by -simply poking him and pulling him about, a pleasant but -cruel pastime to which many psychologists are addicted. But -you will wait and watch very patiently indeed before you -draw the English language out of him. That you have got to -put into him; and there is an end of the matter. +The fashionable fallacy is that by education we can give people +something that we have not got. To hear people talk one would think it +was some sort of magic chemistry, by which, out of a laborious +hotchpotch of hygienic meals, baths, breathing exercises, fresh air and +freehand drawing, we can produce something splendid by accident; we can +create what we cannot conceive. These pages have, of course, no other +general purpose than to point out that we cannot create anything good +until we have conceived it. It is odd that these people, who in the +matter of heredity are so sullenly attached to law, in the matter of +environment seem almost to believe in miracle. They insist that nothing +but what was in the bodies of the parents can go to make the bodies of +the children. But they seem somehow to think that things can get into +the heads of the children which were not in the heads of the parents, +or, indeed, anywhere else. + +There has arisen in this connection a foolish and wicked cry typical of +the confusion. I mean the cry, "Save the children." It is, of course, +part of that modern morbidity that insists on treating the State (which +is the home of man) as a sort of desperate expedient in time of panic. +This terrified opportunism is also the origin of the Socialist and other +schemes. Just as they would collect and share all the food as men do in +a famine, so they would divide the children from their fathers, as men +do in a shipwreck. That a human community might conceivably not be in a +condition of famine or shipwreck never seems to cross their minds. This +cry of "Save the children" has in it the hateful implication that it is +impossible to save the fathers; in other words, that many millions of +grown-up, sane, responsible and self-supporting Europeans are to be +treated as dirt or debris and swept away out of the discussion; called +dipsomaniacs because they drink in public houses instead of private +houses; called unemployables because nobody knows how to get them work; +called dullards if they still adhere to conventions, and called loafers +if they still love liberty. Now I am concerned, first and last, to +maintain that unless you can save the fathers, you cannot save the +children; that at present we cannot save others, for we cannot save +ourselves. We cannot teach citizenship if we are not citizens; we cannot +free others if we have forgotten the appetite of freedom. Education is +only truth in a state of transmission; and how can we pass on truth if +it has never come into our hand? Thus we find that education is of all +the cases the clearest for our general purpose. It is vain to save +children; for they cannot remain children. By hypothesis we are teaching +them to be men; and how can it be so simple to teach an ideal manhood to +others if it is so vain and hopeless to find one for ourselves? + +I know that certain crazy pedants have attempted to counter this +difficulty by maintaining that education is not instruction at all, does +not teach by authority at all. They present the process as coming, not +from outside, from the teacher, but entirely from inside the boy. +Education, they say, is the Latin for leading out or drawing out the +dormant faculties of each person. Somewhere far down in the dim boyish +soul is a primordial yearning to learn Greek accents or to wear clean +collars; and the schoolmasters only gently and tenderly liberates this +imprisoned purpose. Sealed up in the newborn babe are the intrinsic +secrets of how to eat asparagus and what was the date of Bannockburn. +The educator only draws out the child's own unapparent love of long +division; only leads out the child's own slightly veiled preference for +milk pudding to tarts. I am not sure that I believe in the derivation; I +have heard the disgraceful suggestion that "educator," if applied to a +Roman schoolmaster, did not mean leading out young functions into +freedom; but only meant taking out little boys for a walk. But I am much +more certain that I do not agree with the doctrine; I think it would be +about as sane to say that the baby's milk comes from the baby as to say +that the baby's educational merits do. There is, indeed, in each living +creature a collection of forces and functions; but education means +producing these in particular shapes and training them to particular +purposes, or it means nothing at all. Speaking is the most practical +instance of the whole situation. You may indeed "draw out" squeals and +grunts from the child by simply poking him and pulling him about, a +pleasant but cruel pastime to which many psychologists are addicted. But +you will wait and watch very patiently indeed before you draw the +English language out of him. That you have got to put into him; and +there is an end of the matter. ## Authority the Unavoidable -But the important point here is only that you cannot anyhow -get rid of authority in education; it is not so much (as the -poor Conservatives say) that parental authority ought to be -preserved, as that it cannot be destroyed. Mr. Bernard Shaw -once said that he hated the idea of forming a child's mind. -In that case Mr. Bernard Shaw had better hang himself; for -he hates something inseparable from human life. I only -mentioned *educere* and the drawing out of the faculties in -order to point out that even this mental trick does not -avoid the inevitable idea of parental or scholastic -authority. The educator drawing out is just as arbitrary and -coercive as the instructor pouring in; for he draws out what -he chooses. He decides what in the child shall be developed -and what shall not be developed. He does not (I suppose) -draw out the neglected faculty of forgery. He does not (so -far at least) lead out, with timid steps, a shy talent for -torture. The only result of all this pompous and precise -distinction between the educator and the instructor is that -the instructor pokes where he likes and the educator pulls -where he likes. Exactly the same intellectual violence is -done to the creature who is poked and pulled. Now we must -all accept the responsibility of this intellectual violence. -Education is violent; because it is creative. It is creative -because it is human. It is as reckless as playing on the -fiddle; as dogmatic as drawing a picture; as brutal as -building a house. In short, it is what all human action is; -it is an interference with life and growth. After that it is -a trifling and even a jocular question whether we say of -this tremendous tormentor, the artist Man, that he puts -things into us like an apothecary, or draws things out of -us, like a dentist. - -The point is that Man does what he likes. He claims the -right to take his mother Nature under his control; he claims -the right to make his child the Superman, in his image. Once -flinch from this creative authority of man, and the whole -courageous raid which we call civilization wavers and falls -to pieces. Now most modern freedom is at root fear. It is -not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is -rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities. And -Mr. Shaw and such people are especially shrinking from that -awful and ancestral responsibility to which our fathers -committed us when they took the wild step of becoming men. I -mean the responsibility of affirming the truth of our human -tradition and handing it on with a voice of authority, an -unshaken voice. That is the one eternal education; to be -sure enough that something is true that you dare to tell it -to a child. From this high audacious duty the moderns are -fleeing on every side; and the only excuse for them is, '(of -course,) that their modern philosophies are so half-baked -and hypothetical that they cannot convince themselves enough -to convince even a newborn babe. This, of course, is -connected with the decay of democracy; and is somewhat of a -separate subject. Suffice it to say here that when I say -that we should instruct our children, I mean that we should -do it, not that Mr. Sully or Professor Earl Barnes should do -it. The trouble in too many of our modern schools is that -the State, being controlled so specially by the few, allows -cranks and experiments to go straight to the schoolroom when -they have never passed through the Parliament, the public -house, the private house, the church, or the marketplace. -Obviously, it ought to be the oldest things that are taught -to the youngest people; the assured and experienced truths -that are put first to the baby. But in a school to-day the -baby has to submit to a system that is younger than himself. -The flopping infant of four actually has more experience, -and has weathered the world longer, than the dogma to which -he is made to submit. Many a school boasts of having the -last ideas in education, when it has not even the first -idea; for the first idea is that even innocence, divine as -it is, may learn something from experience. But this, as I -say, is all due to the mere fact that we are managed by a -little oligarchy; my system presupposes that men who govern -themselves will govern their children. To-day we all use -Popular Education as meaning education of the people. I wish -I could use it as meaning education by the people. - -The urgent point at present is that these expansive -educators do not avoid the violence of authority an inch -more than the old schoolmasters. Nay, it might be maintained -that they avoid it less. The old village schoolmaster beat a -boy for not learning grammar and sent him out into the -playground to play at anything he liked; or at nothing, if -he liked that better. The modern scientific schoolmaster -pursues him into the playground and makes him play at -cricket, because exercise is so good for the health. The -modern Dr. Busby is a doctor of medicine as well as a doctor -of divinity. He may say that the good of exercise is -self-evident; but he must say it, and say it with authority. -It cannot really be self-evident or it never could have been -compulsory. But this is in modern practice a very mild case. -In modern practice the free educationists forbid far more -things than the old-fashioned educationists. A person with a -taste for paradox (if any such shameless creature could -exist) might with some plausibility maintain concerning all -our expansion since the failure of Luther's frank paganism -and its replacement by Calvin's Puritanism, that all this -expansion has not been an expansion, but the closing in of a -prison, so that less and less beautiful and humane things -have been permitted. The Puritans destroyed images; the -Rationalists forbade fairy tales. Count Tolstoy practically -issued one of his papal encyclicals against music; and I -have heard of modern educationists who forbid children to -play with tin soldiers. I remember a meek little madman who -came up to me at some Socialist soiree or other, and asked -me to use my influence (have I any influence?) against -adventure stories for boys. It seems they breed an appetite -for blood. But never mind that; one must keep one's temper -in this madhouse. I need only insist here that these things, -even if a just deprivation, are a deprivation. I do not deny -that the old vetoes and punishments were often idiotic and -cruel; though they are much more so in a country like -England (where in practice only a rich man decrees the -punishment and only a poor man receives it) than in -countries with a clearer popular tradition---such as Russia. -In Russia flogging is often inflicted by peasants on a -peasant. In modern England flogging can only in practice be -inflicted by a gentleman on a very poor man. Thus only a few -days ago as I write a small boy (a son of the poor, of -course) was sentenced to flogging and imprisonment for five -years for having picked up a small piece of coal which the -experts value at 5d. I am entirely on the side of such -liberals and humanitarians as have protested against this -almost bestial ignorance about boys. But I do think it a -little unfair that these humanitarians, who excuse boys for -being robbers, should denounce them for playing at robbers. -I do think that those who understand a guttersnipe playing -with a piece of coal might, by a sudden spurt of -imagination, understand him playing with a tin soldier. To -sum it up in one sentence: I think my meek little madman -might have understood that there is many a boy who would -rather be flogged, and unjustly flogged, than have his -adventure story taken away. +But the important point here is only that you cannot anyhow get rid of +authority in education; it is not so much (as the poor Conservatives +say) that parental authority ought to be preserved, as that it cannot be +destroyed. Mr. Bernard Shaw once said that he hated the idea of forming +a child's mind. In that case Mr. Bernard Shaw had better hang himself; +for he hates something inseparable from human life. I only mentioned +*educere* and the drawing out of the faculties in order to point out +that even this mental trick does not avoid the inevitable idea of +parental or scholastic authority. The educator drawing out is just as +arbitrary and coercive as the instructor pouring in; for he draws out +what he chooses. He decides what in the child shall be developed and +what shall not be developed. He does not (I suppose) draw out the +neglected faculty of forgery. He does not (so far at least) lead out, +with timid steps, a shy talent for torture. The only result of all this +pompous and precise distinction between the educator and the instructor +is that the instructor pokes where he likes and the educator pulls where +he likes. Exactly the same intellectual violence is done to the creature +who is poked and pulled. Now we must all accept the responsibility of +this intellectual violence. Education is violent; because it is +creative. It is creative because it is human. It is as reckless as +playing on the fiddle; as dogmatic as drawing a picture; as brutal as +building a house. In short, it is what all human action is; it is an +interference with life and growth. After that it is a trifling and even +a jocular question whether we say of this tremendous tormentor, the +artist Man, that he puts things into us like an apothecary, or draws +things out of us, like a dentist. + +The point is that Man does what he likes. He claims the right to take +his mother Nature under his control; he claims the right to make his +child the Superman, in his image. Once flinch from this creative +authority of man, and the whole courageous raid which we call +civilization wavers and falls to pieces. Now most modern freedom is at +root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is +rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities. And Mr. Shaw +and such people are especially shrinking from that awful and ancestral +responsibility to which our fathers committed us when they took the wild +step of becoming men. I mean the responsibility of affirming the truth +of our human tradition and handing it on with a voice of authority, an +unshaken voice. That is the one eternal education; to be sure enough +that something is true that you dare to tell it to a child. From this +high audacious duty the moderns are fleeing on every side; and the only +excuse for them is, '(of course,) that their modern philosophies are so +half-baked and hypothetical that they cannot convince themselves enough +to convince even a newborn babe. This, of course, is connected with the +decay of democracy; and is somewhat of a separate subject. Suffice it to +say here that when I say that we should instruct our children, I mean +that we should do it, not that Mr. Sully or Professor Earl Barnes should +do it. The trouble in too many of our modern schools is that the State, +being controlled so specially by the few, allows cranks and experiments +to go straight to the schoolroom when they have never passed through the +Parliament, the public house, the private house, the church, or the +marketplace. Obviously, it ought to be the oldest things that are taught +to the youngest people; the assured and experienced truths that are put +first to the baby. But in a school to-day the baby has to submit to a +system that is younger than himself. The flopping infant of four +actually has more experience, and has weathered the world longer, than +the dogma to which he is made to submit. Many a school boasts of having +the last ideas in education, when it has not even the first idea; for +the first idea is that even innocence, divine as it is, may learn +something from experience. But this, as I say, is all due to the mere +fact that we are managed by a little oligarchy; my system presupposes +that men who govern themselves will govern their children. To-day we all +use Popular Education as meaning education of the people. I wish I could +use it as meaning education by the people. + +The urgent point at present is that these expansive educators do not +avoid the violence of authority an inch more than the old schoolmasters. +Nay, it might be maintained that they avoid it less. The old village +schoolmaster beat a boy for not learning grammar and sent him out into +the playground to play at anything he liked; or at nothing, if he liked +that better. The modern scientific schoolmaster pursues him into the +playground and makes him play at cricket, because exercise is so good +for the health. The modern Dr. Busby is a doctor of medicine as well as +a doctor of divinity. He may say that the good of exercise is +self-evident; but he must say it, and say it with authority. It cannot +really be self-evident or it never could have been compulsory. But this +is in modern practice a very mild case. In modern practice the free +educationists forbid far more things than the old-fashioned +educationists. A person with a taste for paradox (if any such shameless +creature could exist) might with some plausibility maintain concerning +all our expansion since the failure of Luther's frank paganism and its +replacement by Calvin's Puritanism, that all this expansion has not been +an expansion, but the closing in of a prison, so that less and less +beautiful and humane things have been permitted. The Puritans destroyed +images; the Rationalists forbade fairy tales. Count Tolstoy practically +issued one of his papal encyclicals against music; and I have heard of +modern educationists who forbid children to play with tin soldiers. I +remember a meek little madman who came up to me at some Socialist soiree +or other, and asked me to use my influence (have I any influence?) +against adventure stories for boys. It seems they breed an appetite for +blood. But never mind that; one must keep one's temper in this madhouse. +I need only insist here that these things, even if a just deprivation, +are a deprivation. I do not deny that the old vetoes and punishments +were often idiotic and cruel; though they are much more so in a country +like England (where in practice only a rich man decrees the punishment +and only a poor man receives it) than in countries with a clearer +popular tradition---such as Russia. In Russia flogging is often +inflicted by peasants on a peasant. In modern England flogging can only +in practice be inflicted by a gentleman on a very poor man. Thus only a +few days ago as I write a small boy (a son of the poor, of course) was +sentenced to flogging and imprisonment for five years for having picked +up a small piece of coal which the experts value at 5d. I am entirely on +the side of such liberals and humanitarians as have protested against +this almost bestial ignorance about boys. But I do think it a little +unfair that these humanitarians, who excuse boys for being robbers, +should denounce them for playing at robbers. I do think that those who +understand a guttersnipe playing with a piece of coal might, by a sudden +spurt of imagination, understand him playing with a tin soldier. To sum +it up in one sentence: I think my meek little madman might have +understood that there is many a boy who would rather be flogged, and +unjustly flogged, than have his adventure story taken away. ## The Humility of Mrs. Grundy -In short, the new education is as harsh as the old, whether -or no it is as high. The freest fad, as much as the -strictest formula, is stiff with authority. It is because -the humane father thinks soldiers wrong that they are -forbidden; there is no pretense, there can be no pretense, -that the boy would think so. The average boy's impression -certainly would be simply this: "If your father is a -Methodist you must not play with soldiers on Sunday. If your -father is a Socialist you must not play with them even on -week days." All educationists are utterly dogmatic and -authoritarian. You cannot have free education; for if you -left a child free you would not educate him at all. Is -there, then, no distinction or difference between the most -hide-bound conventionalists and the most brilliant and -bizarre innovators? Is there no difference between the -heaviest heavy father and the most reckless and speculative -maiden aunt? Yes; there is. The difference is that the heavy -father, in his heavy way, is a democrat. He does not urge a -thing merely because to his fancy it should be done; but, -because (in his own admirable republican formula) "Everybody -does it." The conventional authority does claim some popular -mandate; the unconventional authority does not. The Puritan -who forbids soldiers on Sunday is at least expressing -Puritan opinion; not merely his own opinion. He is not a -despot; he is a democracy, a tyrannical democracy, a dingy -and local democracy perhaps; but one that could do and has -done the two ultimate virile things fight and appeal to God. -But the veto of the new educationist is like the veto of the -House of Lords; it does not pretend to be representative. -These innovators are always talking about the blushing -modesty of Mrs. Grundy. I do not know whether Mrs. Grundy is -more modest than they are; but I am sure she is more humble. - -But there is a further complication. The more anarchic -modern may again attempt to escape the dilemma by saying -that education should only be an enlargement of the mind, an -opening of all the organs of receptivity. Light (he says) -should be brought into darkness; blinded and thwarted -existences in all our ugly corners should merely be -permitted to perceive and expand; in short, enlightenment -should be shed over darkest London. Now here is just the -trouble; that, in so far as this is involved, there is no -darkest London. London is not dark at all; not even at -night. We have said that if education is a solid substance, -then there is none of it. We may now say that if education -is an abstract expansion there is no lack of it. There is -far too much of it. In fact, there is nothing else. - -There are no uneducated people. Everybody in England is -educated; only most people are educated wrong. The state -schools were not the first schools, but among the last -schools to be established; and London had been educating -Londoners long before the London School Board. The error is -a highly practical one. It is persistently assumed that -unless a child is civilized by the established schools, he -must remain a barbarian. I wish he did. Every child in -London becomes a highly civilized person. But there are so -many different civilizations, most of them born tired. -Anyone will tell you that the trouble with the poor is not -so much that the old are still foolish, but rather that the -young are already wise. Without going to school at all, the -gutter-boy would be educated. Without going to school at -all, he would be over-educated. The real object of our -schools should be not so much to suggest complexity as -solely to restore simplicity. You will hear venerable -idealists declare we must make war on the ignorance of the -poor; but, indeed, we have rather to make war on their -knowledge. Real educationists have to resist a kind of -roaring cataract of culture. The truant is being taught all -day. If the children do not look at the large letters in the -spelling-book, they need only walk outside and look at the -large letters on the poster. If they do not care for the -colored maps provided by the school, they can gape at the -colored maps provided by the *Daily Mall*. If they tire of -electricity, they can take to electric trams. If they are -unmoved by music, they can take to drink. If they will not -work so as to get a prize from their school, they may work -to get a prize from *Prizy Bits*. If they cannot learn -enough about law and citizenship to please the teacher, they -learn enough about them to avoid the policeman. If they will -not learn history forwards from the right end in the history -books, they will learn it backwards from the wrong end in -the party newspapers. And this is the tragedy of the whole -affair: that the London poor, a particularly quick-witted -and civilized class, learn everything tail foremost, learn -even what is right in the way of what is wrong. They do not -see the first principles of law in a law book; they only see -its last results in the police news. They do not see the -truths of politics in a general survey. They only see the -lies of politics, at a General Election. - -But whatever be the pathos of the London poor, it has -nothing to do with being uneducated. So far from being -without guidance, they are guided constantly, earnestly, -excitedly; only guided wrong. The poor are not at all -neglected, they are merely oppressed; nay, rather they are -persecuted. There are no people in London who are not -appealed to by the rich; the appeals of the rich shriek from -every hoarding and shout from every hustings. For it should -always be remembered that the queer, abrupt ugliness of our -streets and costumes are not the creation of democracy, but -of aristocracy. The House of Lords objected to the -Embankment being disfigured by trams. But most of the rich -men who disfigure the street-walls with their wares are -actually in the House of Lords. The peers make the country -seats beautiful by making the town streets hideous. This, -however, is parenthetical. The point is, that the poor in -London are not left alone, but rather deafened and -bewildered with raucous and despotic advice. They are not -like sheep without a shepherd. They are more like one sheep -whom twenty-seven shepherds are shouting at. All the -newspapers, all the new advertisements, all the new -medicines and new theologies, all the glare and blare of the -gas and brass of modern times---it is against these that the -national school must bear up if it can. I will not question -that our elementary education is better than barbaric -ignorance. But there is no barbaric ignorance. I do not -doubt that our schools would be good for uninstructed boys. -But there are no uninstructed boys. A modern London, school -ought not merely to be clearer, kindlier, more clever and -more rapid than ignorance and darkness. It must also be -clearer than a picture postcard, cleverer than a Limerick -competition, quicker than the tram, and kindlier than the -tavern. The school, in fact, has the responsibility of -universal rivalry. We need not deny that everywhere there is -a light that must conquer darkness. But here we demand a -light that can conquer light. +In short, the new education is as harsh as the old, whether or no it is +as high. The freest fad, as much as the strictest formula, is stiff with +authority. It is because the humane father thinks soldiers wrong that +they are forbidden; there is no pretense, there can be no pretense, that +the boy would think so. The average boy's impression certainly would be +simply this: "If your father is a Methodist you must not play with +soldiers on Sunday. If your father is a Socialist you must not play with +them even on week days." All educationists are utterly dogmatic and +authoritarian. You cannot have free education; for if you left a child +free you would not educate him at all. Is there, then, no distinction or +difference between the most hide-bound conventionalists and the most +brilliant and bizarre innovators? Is there no difference between the +heaviest heavy father and the most reckless and speculative maiden aunt? +Yes; there is. The difference is that the heavy father, in his heavy +way, is a democrat. He does not urge a thing merely because to his fancy +it should be done; but, because (in his own admirable republican +formula) "Everybody does it." The conventional authority does claim some +popular mandate; the unconventional authority does not. The Puritan who +forbids soldiers on Sunday is at least expressing Puritan opinion; not +merely his own opinion. He is not a despot; he is a democracy, a +tyrannical democracy, a dingy and local democracy perhaps; but one that +could do and has done the two ultimate virile things fight and appeal to +God. But the veto of the new educationist is like the veto of the House +of Lords; it does not pretend to be representative. These innovators are +always talking about the blushing modesty of Mrs. Grundy. I do not know +whether Mrs. Grundy is more modest than they are; but I am sure she is +more humble. + +But there is a further complication. The more anarchic modern may again +attempt to escape the dilemma by saying that education should only be an +enlargement of the mind, an opening of all the organs of receptivity. +Light (he says) should be brought into darkness; blinded and thwarted +existences in all our ugly corners should merely be permitted to +perceive and expand; in short, enlightenment should be shed over darkest +London. Now here is just the trouble; that, in so far as this is +involved, there is no darkest London. London is not dark at all; not +even at night. We have said that if education is a solid substance, then +there is none of it. We may now say that if education is an abstract +expansion there is no lack of it. There is far too much of it. In fact, +there is nothing else. + +There are no uneducated people. Everybody in England is educated; only +most people are educated wrong. The state schools were not the first +schools, but among the last schools to be established; and London had +been educating Londoners long before the London School Board. The error +is a highly practical one. It is persistently assumed that unless a +child is civilized by the established schools, he must remain a +barbarian. I wish he did. Every child in London becomes a highly +civilized person. But there are so many different civilizations, most of +them born tired. Anyone will tell you that the trouble with the poor is +not so much that the old are still foolish, but rather that the young +are already wise. Without going to school at all, the gutter-boy would +be educated. Without going to school at all, he would be over-educated. +The real object of our schools should be not so much to suggest +complexity as solely to restore simplicity. You will hear venerable +idealists declare we must make war on the ignorance of the poor; but, +indeed, we have rather to make war on their knowledge. Real +educationists have to resist a kind of roaring cataract of culture. The +truant is being taught all day. If the children do not look at the large +letters in the spelling-book, they need only walk outside and look at +the large letters on the poster. If they do not care for the colored +maps provided by the school, they can gape at the colored maps provided +by the *Daily Mall*. If they tire of electricity, they can take to +electric trams. If they are unmoved by music, they can take to drink. If +they will not work so as to get a prize from their school, they may work +to get a prize from *Prizy Bits*. If they cannot learn enough about law +and citizenship to please the teacher, they learn enough about them to +avoid the policeman. If they will not learn history forwards from the +right end in the history books, they will learn it backwards from the +wrong end in the party newspapers. And this is the tragedy of the whole +affair: that the London poor, a particularly quick-witted and civilized +class, learn everything tail foremost, learn even what is right in the +way of what is wrong. They do not see the first principles of law in a +law book; they only see its last results in the police news. They do not +see the truths of politics in a general survey. They only see the lies +of politics, at a General Election. + +But whatever be the pathos of the London poor, it has nothing to do with +being uneducated. So far from being without guidance, they are guided +constantly, earnestly, excitedly; only guided wrong. The poor are not at +all neglected, they are merely oppressed; nay, rather they are +persecuted. There are no people in London who are not appealed to by the +rich; the appeals of the rich shriek from every hoarding and shout from +every hustings. For it should always be remembered that the queer, +abrupt ugliness of our streets and costumes are not the creation of +democracy, but of aristocracy. The House of Lords objected to the +Embankment being disfigured by trams. But most of the rich men who +disfigure the street-walls with their wares are actually in the House of +Lords. The peers make the country seats beautiful by making the town +streets hideous. This, however, is parenthetical. The point is, that the +poor in London are not left alone, but rather deafened and bewildered +with raucous and despotic advice. They are not like sheep without a +shepherd. They are more like one sheep whom twenty-seven shepherds are +shouting at. All the newspapers, all the new advertisements, all the new +medicines and new theologies, all the glare and blare of the gas and +brass of modern times---it is against these that the national school +must bear up if it can. I will not question that our elementary +education is better than barbaric ignorance. But there is no barbaric +ignorance. I do not doubt that our schools would be good for +uninstructed boys. But there are no uninstructed boys. A modern London, +school ought not merely to be clearer, kindlier, more clever and more +rapid than ignorance and darkness. It must also be clearer than a +picture postcard, cleverer than a Limerick competition, quicker than the +tram, and kindlier than the tavern. The school, in fact, has the +responsibility of universal rivalry. We need not deny that everywhere +there is a light that must conquer darkness. But here we demand a light +that can conquer light. ## The Broken Rainbow -I will take one case that will serve both as symbol and -example: the case of color. We hear the realists (those -sentimental fellows) talking about the gray streets and the -gray lives of the poor. But whatever the poor streets are -they are not gray; but motley, striped, spotted, piebald and -patched like a quilt. Hoxton is not aesthetic enough to be -monochrome; and there is nothing of the Celtic twilight -about it. As a matter of fact, a London gutter-boy walks -unscathed among furnaces of color. Watch him walk along a -line of hoardings, and you will see him now against glowing -green, like a traveler in a tropic forest; now black like a -bird against the burning blue of the Midi; now *passant* -across a field gules, like the golden leopards of England. -He ought to understand the irrational rapture of that cry of -Mr. Stephen Phillips about "that bluer blue, that greener -green." There is no blue much bluer than Reckitt's Blue and -no blacking blacker than Day and Martin's; no more emphatic -yellow than that of Colman's Mustard. If, despite this chaos -of color, like a shattered rainbow, the spirit of the small -boy is not exactly intoxicated with art and culture, the -cause certainly does not lie in universal grayness or the -mere starving of his senses. It lies in the fact that the -colors are presented in the wrong connection, on the wrong -scale, and, above all, from the wrong motive. It is not -colors he lacks, but a philosophy of colors. In short, there -is nothing wrong with Reckitt's Blue except that it is not -Reckitt's. Blue does not belong to Reckitt, but to the sky; -black does not belong to Day and Martin, but to the abyss. -Even the finest posters are only very little things on a -very large scale. There is something specially irritant in -this way about the iteration of advertisements of mustard: a -condiment, a small luxury; a thing in its nature not to be -taken in quantity. There is a special irony in these -starving streets to see such a great deal of mustard to such -very little meat. Yellow is a bright pigment; mustard is a -pungent pleasure. But to look at these seas of yellow is to -be like a man who should swallow gallons of mustard. He -would either die, or lose the taste of mustard altogether. - -Now suppose we compare these gigantic trivialities on the -hoardings with those tiny and tremendous pictures in which -the mediaevals recorded their dreams; little pictures where -the blue sky is hardly longer than a single sapphire, and -the fires of judgment only a pigmy patch of gold. The -difference here is not merely that poster art is in its -nature more hasty than illumination art; it is not even -merely that the ancient artist was serving the Lord while -the modern artist is serving the lords. It is that the old -artist contrived to convey an impression that colors really -were significant and precious things, like jewels and -talismanic stones. The color was often arbitrary; but it was -always authoritative. If a bird was blue, if a tree was -golden, if a fish was silver, if a cloud was scarlet, the -artist managed to convey that these colors were important -and almost painfully intense; all the red red-hot and all -the gold tried in the fire. Now that is the spirit touching -color which the schools must recover and protect if they are -really to give the children any imaginative appetite or -pleasure in the thing. It is not so much an indulgence in -color; it is rather, if anything, a sort of fiery thrift. It -fenced in a green field in heraldry as straitly as a green -field in peasant proprietorship. It would not fling away -gold leaf any more than gold coin; it would not heedlessly -pour out purple or crimson, any more than it would spill -good wine or shed blameless blood. That is the hard task -before educationists in this special matter; they have to -teach people to relish colors like liquors. They have the -heavy business of turning drunkards into wine tasters. If -even the twentieth century succeeds in doing these things, -it will almost catch up with the twelfth. - -The principle covers, however, the whole of modern life. -Morris and the merely aesthetic medievalists always -indicated that a crowd in the time of Chaucer would have -been brightly clad and glittering, compared with a crowd in -the time of Queen Victoria. I am not so sure that the real -distinction is here. There would be brown frocks of friars -in the first scene as well as brown bowlers of clerks in the -second. There would be purple plumes of factory girls in the -second scene as well as purple lenten vestments in the -first. There would be white waistcoats against white ermine; -gold watch chains against gold lions. The real difference is -this: that the brown earth-color of the monk's coat was -instinctively chosen to express labor and humility, whereas -the brown color of the clerk's hat was not chosen to express -anything. The monk did mean to say that he robed himself in -dust. I am sure the clerk does not mean to say that he -crowns himself with clay. He is not putting dust on his -head, as the only diadem of man. Purple, at once rich and -somber, does suggest a triumph temporarily eclipsed by a -tragedy. But the factory girl does not intend her hat to -express a triumph temporarily eclipsed by a tragedy; far -from it. White ermine was meant to express moral purity; -white waistcoats were not. Gold lions do suggest a flaming -magnanimity; gold watch chains do not. The point is not that -we have lost the material hues, but that we have lost the -trick of turning them to the best advantage. We are not like -children who have lost their paint-box and are left alone -with a gray lead-pencil. We are like children who have mixed -all the colors in the paint-box together and lost the paper -of instructions. Even then (I do not deny) one has some fun. - -Now this abundance of colors and loss of a color scheme is a -pretty perfect parable of all that is wrong with our modern -ideals and especially with our modern education. It is the -same with ethical education, economic education, every sort -of education. The growing London child will find no lack of -highly controversial teachers who will teach him that -geography means painting the map red; that economics means -taxing the foreigner; that patriotism means the peculiarly -un-English habit of flying a flag on Empire Day. In -mentioning these examples specially I do not mean to imply -that there are no similar crudities and popular fallacies -upon the other political side. I mention them because they -constitute a very special and arresting feature of the -situation. I mean this, that there were always Radical -revolutionists; but now there are Tory revolutionists also. -The modern Conservative no longer conserves. He is avowedly -an innovator. Thus all the current defenses of the House of -Lords which describe it as a bulwark against the mob, are -intellectually done for; the bottom has fallen out of them; -because on five or six of the most turbulent topics of the -day, the House of Lords is a mob itself; and exceedingly -likely to behave like one. +I will take one case that will serve both as symbol and example: the +case of color. We hear the realists (those sentimental fellows) talking +about the gray streets and the gray lives of the poor. But whatever the +poor streets are they are not gray; but motley, striped, spotted, +piebald and patched like a quilt. Hoxton is not aesthetic enough to be +monochrome; and there is nothing of the Celtic twilight about it. As a +matter of fact, a London gutter-boy walks unscathed among furnaces of +color. Watch him walk along a line of hoardings, and you will see him +now against glowing green, like a traveler in a tropic forest; now black +like a bird against the burning blue of the Midi; now *passant* across a +field gules, like the golden leopards of England. He ought to understand +the irrational rapture of that cry of Mr. Stephen Phillips about "that +bluer blue, that greener green." There is no blue much bluer than +Reckitt's Blue and no blacking blacker than Day and Martin's; no more +emphatic yellow than that of Colman's Mustard. If, despite this chaos of +color, like a shattered rainbow, the spirit of the small boy is not +exactly intoxicated with art and culture, the cause certainly does not +lie in universal grayness or the mere starving of his senses. It lies in +the fact that the colors are presented in the wrong connection, on the +wrong scale, and, above all, from the wrong motive. It is not colors he +lacks, but a philosophy of colors. In short, there is nothing wrong with +Reckitt's Blue except that it is not Reckitt's. Blue does not belong to +Reckitt, but to the sky; black does not belong to Day and Martin, but to +the abyss. Even the finest posters are only very little things on a very +large scale. There is something specially irritant in this way about the +iteration of advertisements of mustard: a condiment, a small luxury; a +thing in its nature not to be taken in quantity. There is a special +irony in these starving streets to see such a great deal of mustard to +such very little meat. Yellow is a bright pigment; mustard is a pungent +pleasure. But to look at these seas of yellow is to be like a man who +should swallow gallons of mustard. He would either die, or lose the +taste of mustard altogether. + +Now suppose we compare these gigantic trivialities on the hoardings with +those tiny and tremendous pictures in which the mediaevals recorded +their dreams; little pictures where the blue sky is hardly longer than a +single sapphire, and the fires of judgment only a pigmy patch of gold. +The difference here is not merely that poster art is in its nature more +hasty than illumination art; it is not even merely that the ancient +artist was serving the Lord while the modern artist is serving the +lords. It is that the old artist contrived to convey an impression that +colors really were significant and precious things, like jewels and +talismanic stones. The color was often arbitrary; but it was always +authoritative. If a bird was blue, if a tree was golden, if a fish was +silver, if a cloud was scarlet, the artist managed to convey that these +colors were important and almost painfully intense; all the red red-hot +and all the gold tried in the fire. Now that is the spirit touching +color which the schools must recover and protect if they are really to +give the children any imaginative appetite or pleasure in the thing. It +is not so much an indulgence in color; it is rather, if anything, a sort +of fiery thrift. It fenced in a green field in heraldry as straitly as a +green field in peasant proprietorship. It would not fling away gold leaf +any more than gold coin; it would not heedlessly pour out purple or +crimson, any more than it would spill good wine or shed blameless blood. +That is the hard task before educationists in this special matter; they +have to teach people to relish colors like liquors. They have the heavy +business of turning drunkards into wine tasters. If even the twentieth +century succeeds in doing these things, it will almost catch up with the +twelfth. + +The principle covers, however, the whole of modern life. Morris and the +merely aesthetic medievalists always indicated that a crowd in the time +of Chaucer would have been brightly clad and glittering, compared with a +crowd in the time of Queen Victoria. I am not so sure that the real +distinction is here. There would be brown frocks of friars in the first +scene as well as brown bowlers of clerks in the second. There would be +purple plumes of factory girls in the second scene as well as purple +lenten vestments in the first. There would be white waistcoats against +white ermine; gold watch chains against gold lions. The real difference +is this: that the brown earth-color of the monk's coat was instinctively +chosen to express labor and humility, whereas the brown color of the +clerk's hat was not chosen to express anything. The monk did mean to say +that he robed himself in dust. I am sure the clerk does not mean to say +that he crowns himself with clay. He is not putting dust on his head, as +the only diadem of man. Purple, at once rich and somber, does suggest a +triumph temporarily eclipsed by a tragedy. But the factory girl does not +intend her hat to express a triumph temporarily eclipsed by a tragedy; +far from it. White ermine was meant to express moral purity; white +waistcoats were not. Gold lions do suggest a flaming magnanimity; gold +watch chains do not. The point is not that we have lost the material +hues, but that we have lost the trick of turning them to the best +advantage. We are not like children who have lost their paint-box and +are left alone with a gray lead-pencil. We are like children who have +mixed all the colors in the paint-box together and lost the paper of +instructions. Even then (I do not deny) one has some fun. + +Now this abundance of colors and loss of a color scheme is a pretty +perfect parable of all that is wrong with our modern ideals and +especially with our modern education. It is the same with ethical +education, economic education, every sort of education. The growing +London child will find no lack of highly controversial teachers who will +teach him that geography means painting the map red; that economics +means taxing the foreigner; that patriotism means the peculiarly +un-English habit of flying a flag on Empire Day. In mentioning these +examples specially I do not mean to imply that there are no similar +crudities and popular fallacies upon the other political side. I mention +them because they constitute a very special and arresting feature of the +situation. I mean this, that there were always Radical revolutionists; +but now there are Tory revolutionists also. The modern Conservative no +longer conserves. He is avowedly an innovator. Thus all the current +defenses of the House of Lords which describe it as a bulwark against +the mob, are intellectually done for; the bottom has fallen out of them; +because on five or six of the most turbulent topics of the day, the +House of Lords is a mob itself; and exceedingly likely to behave like +one. ## The Need for Narrowness -Through all this chaos, then, we come back once more to our -main conclusion. The true task of culture to-day is not a -task of expansion, but very decidedly of selection and -rejection. The educationist must find a creed and teach it. -Even if it be not a theological creed, it must still be as -fastidious and as firm as theology. In short, it must be -orthodox. The teacher may think it antiquated to have to -decide precisely between the faith of Calvin and of Laud, -the faith of Aquinas and of Swedenborg; but he still has to -choose between the faith of Kipling and of Shaw, between the -world of Blatchford and of General Booth. Call it, if you -will, a narrow question whether your child shall be brought -up by vicar or the minister or the popish priest. You have -still to face that larger, more liberal, more highly -civilized question, of whether he shall be brought up by -Harmsworth or by Pearson, by Mr. Eustace Miles with his -Simple Life or Mr. Peter Keary with his Strenuous Life; -whether he shall most eagerly read Miss Annie S. Swan or -Mr. Bart Kennedy; in short, whether he shall end up in the -mere violence of the S. D. F., or in the mere vulgarity of -the Primrose League. They say that nowadays the creeds are -crumbling; I doubt it, but at least the sects are -increasing; and education must now be sectarian education, -merely for practical purposes. Out of all this throng of -theories it must somehow select a theory; out of all these -thundering voices it must manage to hear a voice; out of all -this awful and aching battle of blinding lights, without one -shadow to give shape to them, it must manage somehow to -trace and to track a star. - -I have spoken so far of popular education, which began too -vague and vast and which therefore has accomplished little. -But as it happens there is in England something to compare -it with. There is an institution, or class of institutions, -which began with the same popular object, which has since -followed a much narrower object; but which had the great -advantage that it did follow some object, unlike our modern +Through all this chaos, then, we come back once more to our main +conclusion. The true task of culture to-day is not a task of expansion, +but very decidedly of selection and rejection. The educationist must +find a creed and teach it. Even if it be not a theological creed, it +must still be as fastidious and as firm as theology. In short, it must +be orthodox. The teacher may think it antiquated to have to decide +precisely between the faith of Calvin and of Laud, the faith of Aquinas +and of Swedenborg; but he still has to choose between the faith of +Kipling and of Shaw, between the world of Blatchford and of General +Booth. Call it, if you will, a narrow question whether your child shall +be brought up by vicar or the minister or the popish priest. You have +still to face that larger, more liberal, more highly civilized question, +of whether he shall be brought up by Harmsworth or by Pearson, by +Mr. Eustace Miles with his Simple Life or Mr. Peter Keary with his +Strenuous Life; whether he shall most eagerly read Miss Annie S. Swan or +Mr. Bart Kennedy; in short, whether he shall end up in the mere violence +of the S. D. F., or in the mere vulgarity of the Primrose League. They +say that nowadays the creeds are crumbling; I doubt it, but at least the +sects are increasing; and education must now be sectarian education, +merely for practical purposes. Out of all this throng of theories it +must somehow select a theory; out of all these thundering voices it must +manage to hear a voice; out of all this awful and aching battle of +blinding lights, without one shadow to give shape to them, it must +manage somehow to trace and to track a star. + +I have spoken so far of popular education, which began too vague and +vast and which therefore has accomplished little. But as it happens +there is in England something to compare it with. There is an +institution, or class of institutions, which began with the same popular +object, which has since followed a much narrower object; but which had +the great advantage that it did follow some object, unlike our modern elementary schools. -In all these problems I should urge the solution which is -positive, or, as silly people say, "optimistic." I should -set my face, that is, against most of the solutions that are -solely negative and abolitionist. Most educators of the poor -seem to think that they have to teach the poor man not to -drink. I should be quite content if they teach him to drink; -for it is mere ignorance about how to drink and when to -drink that is accountable for most of his tragedies. I do -not propose (like some of my revolutionary friends) that we -should abolish the public schools. I propose the much more -lurid and desperate experiment that we should make them -public. I do not wish to make Parliament stop working, but -rather to make it work; not to shut up churches, but rather -to open them; not to put out the lamp of learning or destroy -the hedge of property, but only to make some rude effort to -make universities fairly universal and property decently -proper. - -In many cases, let it be remembered, such action is not -merely going back to the old ideal, but is even going back -to the old reality. It would be a great step forward for the -gin shop to go back to the inn. It is incontrovertibly true -that to medievalize the public schools would be to -democratize the public schools. Parliament did once really -mean (as its name seems to imply) a place where people were -allowed to talk. It is only lately that the general increase -of efficiency, that is, of the Speaker, has made it mostly a -place where people are prevented from talking. The poor do -not go to the modern church, but they went to the ancient -church all right; and if the common man in the past had a -grave respect for property, it may conceivably have been -because he sometimes had some of his own. I therefore can -claim that I have no vulgar itch of innovation in anything I -say about any of these institutions. Certainly I have none -in that particular one which I am now obliged to pick out of -the list; a type of institution to which I have genuine and -personal reasons for being friendly and grateful: I mean the -great Tudor foundations, the public schools of England. They -have been praised for a great many things, mostly, I am -sorry to say, praised by themselves and their children. And -yet for some reason no one has ever praised them for the one -really convincing reason. +In all these problems I should urge the solution which is positive, or, +as silly people say, "optimistic." I should set my face, that is, +against most of the solutions that are solely negative and abolitionist. +Most educators of the poor seem to think that they have to teach the +poor man not to drink. I should be quite content if they teach him to +drink; for it is mere ignorance about how to drink and when to drink +that is accountable for most of his tragedies. I do not propose (like +some of my revolutionary friends) that we should abolish the public +schools. I propose the much more lurid and desperate experiment that we +should make them public. I do not wish to make Parliament stop working, +but rather to make it work; not to shut up churches, but rather to open +them; not to put out the lamp of learning or destroy the hedge of +property, but only to make some rude effort to make universities fairly +universal and property decently proper. + +In many cases, let it be remembered, such action is not merely going +back to the old ideal, but is even going back to the old reality. It +would be a great step forward for the gin shop to go back to the inn. It +is incontrovertibly true that to medievalize the public schools would be +to democratize the public schools. Parliament did once really mean (as +its name seems to imply) a place where people were allowed to talk. It +is only lately that the general increase of efficiency, that is, of the +Speaker, has made it mostly a place where people are prevented from +talking. The poor do not go to the modern church, but they went to the +ancient church all right; and if the common man in the past had a grave +respect for property, it may conceivably have been because he sometimes +had some of his own. I therefore can claim that I have no vulgar itch of +innovation in anything I say about any of these institutions. Certainly +I have none in that particular one which I am now obliged to pick out of +the list; a type of institution to which I have genuine and personal +reasons for being friendly and grateful: I mean the great Tudor +foundations, the public schools of England. They have been praised for a +great many things, mostly, I am sorry to say, praised by themselves and +their children. And yet for some reason no one has ever praised them for +the one really convincing reason. ## The Case for the Public Schools -The word success can of course be used in two senses. It may -be used with reference to a thing serving its immediate and -peculiar purpose, as of a wheel going around; or it can be -used with reference to a thing adding to the general -welfare, as of a wheel being a useful discovery. It is one -thing to say that Smith's flying machine is a failure, and -quite another to say that Smith has failed to make a flying -machine. Now this is very broadly the difference between the -old English public schools and the new democratic schools. -Perhaps the old public schools are (as I personally think -they are) ultimately weakening the country rather than -strengthening it, and are therefore, in that ultimate sense, -inefficient. But there is such a thing as being efficiently -inefficient. You can make your flying ship so that it flies, -even if you also make it so that it kills you. Now the -public-school system may not work satisfactorily, but it -works; the public schools may not achieve what we want, but -they achieve what they want. The popular elementary schools -do not in that sense achieve anything at all. It is very -difficult to point to any guttersnipe in the street and say -that he embodies the ideal for which popular education has -been working, in the sense that the fresh-faced, foolish boy -in "Etons" does embody the ideal for which the headmasters -of Harrow and Winchester have been working. The aristocratic -educationists have the positive purpose of turning out -gentlemen; and they do turn out gentlemen, even when they -expel them. The popular educationists would say that they -had the far nobler idea of turning out citizens. I concede -that it is a much nobler idea, but where are the citizens? I -know that the boy in "Etons" is stiff with a rather silly -and sentimental stoicism, called being a man of the world. I -do not fancy that the errand-boy is rigid with that -republican stoicism that is called being a citizen. The -schoolboy will really say with fresh and innocent *hauteur*, -"I am an English gentleman." I cannot so easily picture the -errand-boy drawing up his head to the stars and answering, -"Romanus civis sum." Let it be granted that our elementary -teachers are teaching the very broadest code of morals, -while our great headmasters are teaching only the narrowest -code of manners. Let it be granted that both these things -are being taught. But only one of them is being learned. - -It is always said that great reformers or masters of events -can manage to bring about some specific and practical -reforms, but that they never fulfil their visions or satisfy -their souls. I believe there is a real sense in which this -apparent platitude is quite untrue. By a strange inversion -the political idealist often does not get what he asks for, -but does get what' he wants. The silent pressure of his -ideal lasts much longer and reshapes the world much more -than the actualities by which he attempted to suggest it. -What perishes is the letter, which he thought so practical. -What endures is the spirit, which he felt to be unattainable -and even unutterable. It is exactly his schemes that are not -fulfilled; it is exactly his vision that is fulfilled. Thus -the ten or twelve paper constitutions of the French -Revolution, which seemed so business-like to the framers of -them, seem to us to have flown away on the wind as the -wildest fancies. What has not flown away, what is a fixed -fact in Europe, is the ideal and vision. The Republic, the -idea of a land full of mere citizens all with some minimum -of manners and minimum of wealth, the vision of the -eighteenth century, the reality of the twentieth. So I think -it will generally be with the creator of social things, -desirable or undesirable. All his schemes will fail, all his -tools break in his hands. His compromises will collapse, his -concessions will be useless. He must brace himself to bear -his fate; he shall have nothing but his heart's desire. - -Now if one may compare very small things with very great, -one may say that the English aristocratic schools can claim -something of the same sort of success and solid splendor as -the French democratic politics. At least they can claim the -same sort of superiority over the distracted and fumbling -attempts of modern England to establish democratic -education. Such success as has attended the public schoolboy -throughout the Empire, a success exaggerated indeed by -himself, but still positive and a fact of a certain -indisputable shape and size, has been due to the central and -supreme circumstance that the managers of our public schools -did know what sort of boy they liked. They wanted something -and they got something; instead of going to work in the -broad-minded manner and wanting everything and getting -nothing. - -The only thing in question is the quality of the thing they -got. There is something highly maddening in the circumstance -that when modern people attack an institution that really -does demand reform, they always attack it for the wrong -reasons. Thus many opponents of our public schools, -imagining themselves to be very democratic, have exhausted -themselves in an unmeaning attack upon the study of Greek. I -can understand how Greek may be regarded as useless, -especially by those thirsting to throw themselves into the -cut-throat commerce which is the negation of citizenship; -but I do not understand how it can be considered -undemocratic. I quite understand why Mr. Carnegie has a -hatred of Greek. It is obscurely founded on the firm and -sound impression that in any self-governing Greek city he -would have been killed. But I cannot comprehend why any -chance democrat, say Mr. Quelch, or Mr. Will Crooks, or -Mr. John M. Robertson, should be opposed to people learning -the Greek alphabet, which was the alphabet of liberty. Why -should Radicals dislike Greek? In that language is written -all the earliest and, Heaven knows, the most heroic history -of the Radical party. Why should Greek disgust a democrat, -when the very word democrat is Greek? - -A similar mistake, though a less serious one, is merely -attacking the athletics of public schools as something -promoting animalism and brutality. Now brutality, in the -only immoral sense, is not a vice of the English public -schools. There is much moral bullying, owing to the general -lack of moral courage in the public-school atmosphere. These -schools do, upon the whole, encourage physical courage; but -they do not merely discourage moral courage, they forbid it. -The ultimate result of the thing is seen in the egregious -English officer who cannot even endure to wear a bright -uniform except when it is blurred and hidden in the smoke of -battle. This, like all the affectations of our present -plutocracy, is an entirely modern thing. It was unknown to -the old aristocrats. The Black Prince would certainly have -asked that any knight who had the courage to lift his crest -among his enemies, should also have the courage to lift it -among his friends. As regards moral courage, then, it is not -so much that the public schools support it feebly, as that -they suppress it firmly. But physical courage they do, on -the whole, support; and physical courage is a magnificent -fundamental. The one great, wise Englishman of the -eighteenth century said truly that if a man lost that virtue -he could never be sure of keeping any other. Now it is one -of the mean and morbid modern lies that physical courage is -connected with cruelty. The Tolstoyan and Kiplingite are -nowhere more at one than in maintaining this. They have, I -believe, some small sectarian quarrel with each other, the -one saying that courage must be abandoned because it is -connected with cruelty, and the other maintaining that -cruelty is charming because it is a part of courage. But it -is all, thank God, a lie. An energy and boldness of body may -make a man stupid or reckless or dull or drunk or hungry, -but it does not make him spiteful. And we may admit heartily -(without joining in that perpetual praise which -public-school men are always pouring upon themselves) that -this does operate to the removal of mere evil cruelty in the -public schools. English public-school life is extremely like -English public life, for which it is the preparatory school. -It is like it specially in this, that things are either very -open, common and conventional, or else are very secret -indeed. Now there is cruelty in public schools, just as -there is kleptomania and secret drinking and vices without a -name. But these things do not flourish in the full daylight -and common consciousness of the school; and no more does -cruelty. A tiny trio of sullen-looking boys gather in -corners and seem to have some ugly business always; it may -be indecent literature, it may be the beginning of drink, it -may occasionally be cruelty to little boys. But on this -stage the bully is not a braggart. The proverb says that -bullies are always cowardly, but these bullies are more than -cowardly; they are shy. - -As a third instance of the wrong form of revolt against the -public schools, I may mention the habit of using the word -aristocracy with a double implication. To put the plain -truth as briefly as possible, if aristocracy means rule by a -rich ring, England has aristocracy and the English public -schools support it. If it means rule by ancient families or -flawless blood, England has not got aristocracy, and the -public schools systematically destroy it. In these circles -real aristocracy, like real democracy, has become bad form. -A modern fashionable host dare not praise his ancestry; it -would so often be an insult to half the other oligarchs at -table, who have no ancestry. We have said he has not the -moral courage to wear his uniform; still less has he the -moral courage to wear his coat-of-arms. The whole thing now -is only a vague hodge-podge of nice and nasty gentlemen. The -nice gentleman never refers to anyone else's father, the -nasty gentleman never refers to his own. That is the only -difference; the rest is the public-school manner. But Eton -and Harrow have to be aristocratic because they consist so -largely of parvenues. The public school is not a sort of -refuge for aristocrats, like an asylum, a place where they -go in and never come out. It is a factory for aristocrats; -they come out without ever having perceptibly gone in. The -poor little private schools, in their old-world, -sentimental, feudal style, used to stick up a notice, "For -the Sons of Gentlemen only." If the public schools stuck up -a notice it ought to be inscribed, "For the Fathers of -Gentlemen only." In two generations they can. do the trick. +The word success can of course be used in two senses. It may be used +with reference to a thing serving its immediate and peculiar purpose, as +of a wheel going around; or it can be used with reference to a thing +adding to the general welfare, as of a wheel being a useful discovery. +It is one thing to say that Smith's flying machine is a failure, and +quite another to say that Smith has failed to make a flying machine. Now +this is very broadly the difference between the old English public +schools and the new democratic schools. Perhaps the old public schools +are (as I personally think they are) ultimately weakening the country +rather than strengthening it, and are therefore, in that ultimate sense, +inefficient. But there is such a thing as being efficiently inefficient. +You can make your flying ship so that it flies, even if you also make it +so that it kills you. Now the public-school system may not work +satisfactorily, but it works; the public schools may not achieve what we +want, but they achieve what they want. The popular elementary schools do +not in that sense achieve anything at all. It is very difficult to point +to any guttersnipe in the street and say that he embodies the ideal for +which popular education has been working, in the sense that the +fresh-faced, foolish boy in "Etons" does embody the ideal for which the +headmasters of Harrow and Winchester have been working. The aristocratic +educationists have the positive purpose of turning out gentlemen; and +they do turn out gentlemen, even when they expel them. The popular +educationists would say that they had the far nobler idea of turning out +citizens. I concede that it is a much nobler idea, but where are the +citizens? I know that the boy in "Etons" is stiff with a rather silly +and sentimental stoicism, called being a man of the world. I do not +fancy that the errand-boy is rigid with that republican stoicism that is +called being a citizen. The schoolboy will really say with fresh and +innocent *hauteur*, "I am an English gentleman." I cannot so easily +picture the errand-boy drawing up his head to the stars and answering, +"Romanus civis sum." Let it be granted that our elementary teachers are +teaching the very broadest code of morals, while our great headmasters +are teaching only the narrowest code of manners. Let it be granted that +both these things are being taught. But only one of them is being +learned. + +It is always said that great reformers or masters of events can manage +to bring about some specific and practical reforms, but that they never +fulfil their visions or satisfy their souls. I believe there is a real +sense in which this apparent platitude is quite untrue. By a strange +inversion the political idealist often does not get what he asks for, +but does get what' he wants. The silent pressure of his ideal lasts much +longer and reshapes the world much more than the actualities by which he +attempted to suggest it. What perishes is the letter, which he thought +so practical. What endures is the spirit, which he felt to be +unattainable and even unutterable. It is exactly his schemes that are +not fulfilled; it is exactly his vision that is fulfilled. Thus the ten +or twelve paper constitutions of the French Revolution, which seemed so +business-like to the framers of them, seem to us to have flown away on +the wind as the wildest fancies. What has not flown away, what is a +fixed fact in Europe, is the ideal and vision. The Republic, the idea of +a land full of mere citizens all with some minimum of manners and +minimum of wealth, the vision of the eighteenth century, the reality of +the twentieth. So I think it will generally be with the creator of +social things, desirable or undesirable. All his schemes will fail, all +his tools break in his hands. His compromises will collapse, his +concessions will be useless. He must brace himself to bear his fate; he +shall have nothing but his heart's desire. + +Now if one may compare very small things with very great, one may say +that the English aristocratic schools can claim something of the same +sort of success and solid splendor as the French democratic politics. At +least they can claim the same sort of superiority over the distracted +and fumbling attempts of modern England to establish democratic +education. Such success as has attended the public schoolboy throughout +the Empire, a success exaggerated indeed by himself, but still positive +and a fact of a certain indisputable shape and size, has been due to the +central and supreme circumstance that the managers of our public schools +did know what sort of boy they liked. They wanted something and they got +something; instead of going to work in the broad-minded manner and +wanting everything and getting nothing. + +The only thing in question is the quality of the thing they got. There +is something highly maddening in the circumstance that when modern +people attack an institution that really does demand reform, they always +attack it for the wrong reasons. Thus many opponents of our public +schools, imagining themselves to be very democratic, have exhausted +themselves in an unmeaning attack upon the study of Greek. I can +understand how Greek may be regarded as useless, especially by those +thirsting to throw themselves into the cut-throat commerce which is the +negation of citizenship; but I do not understand how it can be +considered undemocratic. I quite understand why Mr. Carnegie has a +hatred of Greek. It is obscurely founded on the firm and sound +impression that in any self-governing Greek city he would have been +killed. But I cannot comprehend why any chance democrat, say Mr. Quelch, +or Mr. Will Crooks, or Mr. John M. Robertson, should be opposed to +people learning the Greek alphabet, which was the alphabet of liberty. +Why should Radicals dislike Greek? In that language is written all the +earliest and, Heaven knows, the most heroic history of the Radical +party. Why should Greek disgust a democrat, when the very word democrat +is Greek? + +A similar mistake, though a less serious one, is merely attacking the +athletics of public schools as something promoting animalism and +brutality. Now brutality, in the only immoral sense, is not a vice of +the English public schools. There is much moral bullying, owing to the +general lack of moral courage in the public-school atmosphere. These +schools do, upon the whole, encourage physical courage; but they do not +merely discourage moral courage, they forbid it. The ultimate result of +the thing is seen in the egregious English officer who cannot even +endure to wear a bright uniform except when it is blurred and hidden in +the smoke of battle. This, like all the affectations of our present +plutocracy, is an entirely modern thing. It was unknown to the old +aristocrats. The Black Prince would certainly have asked that any knight +who had the courage to lift his crest among his enemies, should also +have the courage to lift it among his friends. As regards moral courage, +then, it is not so much that the public schools support it feebly, as +that they suppress it firmly. But physical courage they do, on the +whole, support; and physical courage is a magnificent fundamental. The +one great, wise Englishman of the eighteenth century said truly that if +a man lost that virtue he could never be sure of keeping any other. Now +it is one of the mean and morbid modern lies that physical courage is +connected with cruelty. The Tolstoyan and Kiplingite are nowhere more at +one than in maintaining this. They have, I believe, some small sectarian +quarrel with each other, the one saying that courage must be abandoned +because it is connected with cruelty, and the other maintaining that +cruelty is charming because it is a part of courage. But it is all, +thank God, a lie. An energy and boldness of body may make a man stupid +or reckless or dull or drunk or hungry, but it does not make him +spiteful. And we may admit heartily (without joining in that perpetual +praise which public-school men are always pouring upon themselves) that +this does operate to the removal of mere evil cruelty in the public +schools. English public-school life is extremely like English public +life, for which it is the preparatory school. It is like it specially in +this, that things are either very open, common and conventional, or else +are very secret indeed. Now there is cruelty in public schools, just as +there is kleptomania and secret drinking and vices without a name. But +these things do not flourish in the full daylight and common +consciousness of the school; and no more does cruelty. A tiny trio of +sullen-looking boys gather in corners and seem to have some ugly +business always; it may be indecent literature, it may be the beginning +of drink, it may occasionally be cruelty to little boys. But on this +stage the bully is not a braggart. The proverb says that bullies are +always cowardly, but these bullies are more than cowardly; they are shy. + +As a third instance of the wrong form of revolt against the public +schools, I may mention the habit of using the word aristocracy with a +double implication. To put the plain truth as briefly as possible, if +aristocracy means rule by a rich ring, England has aristocracy and the +English public schools support it. If it means rule by ancient families +or flawless blood, England has not got aristocracy, and the public +schools systematically destroy it. In these circles real aristocracy, +like real democracy, has become bad form. A modern fashionable host dare +not praise his ancestry; it would so often be an insult to half the +other oligarchs at table, who have no ancestry. We have said he has not +the moral courage to wear his uniform; still less has he the moral +courage to wear his coat-of-arms. The whole thing now is only a vague +hodge-podge of nice and nasty gentlemen. The nice gentleman never refers +to anyone else's father, the nasty gentleman never refers to his own. +That is the only difference; the rest is the public-school manner. But +Eton and Harrow have to be aristocratic because they consist so largely +of parvenues. The public school is not a sort of refuge for aristocrats, +like an asylum, a place where they go in and never come out. It is a +factory for aristocrats; they come out without ever having perceptibly +gone in. The poor little private schools, in their old-world, +sentimental, feudal style, used to stick up a notice, "For the Sons of +Gentlemen only." If the public schools stuck up a notice it ought to be +inscribed, "For the Fathers of Gentlemen only." In two generations they +can. do the trick. ## The School for Hypocrites -These are the false accusations; the accusation of -classicism, the accusation of cruelty, and the accusation of -an exclusiveness based on perfection of pedigree. English -public-school boys are not pedants, they are not torturers; -and they are not, in the vast majority of cases, people -fiercely proud of their ancestry, or even people with any -ancestry to be proud of. They are taught to be courteous, to -be good tempered, to be brave in a bodily sense, to be clean -in a bodily sense; they are generally kind to animals, -generally civil to servants, and to anyone in any sense -their equal, the j oiliest companions on earth. Is there -then anything wrong in the public-school ideal? I think we -all feel there is something very wrong in it, but a blinding -network of newspaper phraseology obscures and entangles us; -so that it is hard to trace to its beginning, beyond all -words and phases, the faults in this great English -achievement. - -Surely, when all is said, the ultimate objection to the -English public school is its utterly blatant and indecent -disregard of the duty of telling the truth. I know there -does still linger among maiden ladies in remote country -houses a notion that English schoolboys are taught to tell -the truth, but it cannot be maintained seriously for a -moment. Very occasionally, very vaguely, English schoolboys -are told not to tell lies, which is a totally different -thing. I may silently support all the obscene fictions and -forgeries in the universe, without once telling a lie. I may -wear another man's coat, steal another man's wit, apostatize -to another man's creed, or poison another man's coffee, all -without ever telling a lie. But no English schoolboy is ever -taught to tell the truth, for the very simple reason that he -is never taught to desire the truth. From the very first he -is taught to be totally careless about whether a fact is a -fact; he is taught to care only whether the fact can be used -on his "side" when he is engaged in "playing the game." He -takes sides in his Union debating society to settle whether -Charles I ought to have been killed, with the same solemn -and pompous frivolity with which he takes sides in the -cricket field to (decide whether Rugby or Westminster shall -win. He is never allowed to admit the abstract notion of the -truth, that the match is a matter of what may happen, but -that Charles I is a matter of what did happen---or did not. -He is Liberal or Tory at the general election exactly as he -is Oxford or Cambridge at the boat-race. He knows that sport -deals with the unknown; he has not even a notion that -politics should deal with the known. If anyone really doubts -this self-evident proposition, that the public schools -definitely discourage the love of truth, there is one fact -which I should think would settle him. England is the -country of the Party System, and it has always been chiefly -run by public-school men. Is there anyone out of Hanwell who -will maintain that the Party System, whatever its -conveniences or inconveniences, could have been created by -people particularly fond of truth? - -The very English happiness on this point is itself a -hypocrisy. When a man really tells the truth, the first -truth he tells is that he himself is a liar. David said in -his haste, that is, in his honesty, that all men are liars. -It was afterwards, in some leisurely official explanation, -that he said that Kings of Israel at least told the truth. -When Lord Curzon was Viceroy he delivered a moral lecture to -the Indians on their reputed indifference to veracity, to -actuality and intellectual honor. A great many people -indignantly discussed whether orientals deserved to receive -this rebuke; whether Indians were indeed in a position to -receive such severe admonition. No one seemed to ask, as I -should venture to ask, whether Lord Curzon was in a position -to give it. He is an ordinary party politician; a party -politician means a politician who might have belonged to -either party. Being such a person, he must again and again, -at every twist and turn of party strategy, either have -deceived others or grossly deceived himself. I do not know -the East; nor do I like what I know. I am quite ready to -believe that when Lord Curzon went out he found a very false -atmosphere. I only say it must have been something -startlingly and chokingly false if it was falser than that -English atmosphere from which he came. The English -Parliament actually cares for everything except veracity. -The public-school man is kind, courageous, polite, clean, -companionable; but, in the most awful sense of the words, -the truth is not in him. - -This weakness of untruthfulness in the English public -schools, in the English political system, and to some extent -in the English character, is a weakness which necessarily -produces a curious crop of superstitions, of lying legends, -of evident delusions clung to through low spiritual -self-indulgence. There are so many of these public-school -superstitions that I have here only space for one of them, -which may be called the superstition of soap. It appears to -have been shared by the ablutionary Pharisees, who resembled -the English public-school aristocrats in so many respects: -in their care about club rules and traditions, in their -offensive optimism at the expense of other people, and above -all in their unimaginative plodding patriotism in the worst -interests of their country. Now the old human common sense -about washing is that it is a great pleasure. Water (applied -externally) is a splendid thing, like wine. Sybarites bathe -in wine, and Nonconformists drink water; but we are not -concerned with these frantic exceptions. Washing being a -pleasure, it stands to reason that rich people can afford it -more than poor people, and as long as this was recognized -all was well; and it was very right that rich people should -offer baths to poor people, as they might offer any other -agreeable thing---a drink or a donkey ride. But one dreadful -day, somewhere about the middle of the nineteenth century, -somebody discovered (somebody pretty well off) the two great -modern truths, that washing is a virtue in the rich and -therefore a duty in the poor. For a duty is a virtue that -one can't do. And a virtue is generally a duty that one can -do quite easily; like the bodily cleanliness of the upper -classes. But in the public-school tradition of public life, -soap has become creditable simply because it is pleasant. -Baths are represented as a part of the decay of the Roman -Empire; but the same baths are represented as part of the -energy and rejuvenation of the British Empire. There are -distinguished public-school men, bishops, dons, headmasters, -and high politicians, who, in the course of the eulogies -which from time to time they pass upon themselves, have -actually identified physical cleanliness with moral purity. -They say (if I remember rightly) that a public-school man is -clean inside and out. As if everyone did not know that while -saints can afford to be dirty, seducers have to be clean. As -if everyone did not know that the harlot must be clean, -because it is her business to captivate, while the good wife -may be dirty, because it is her business to clean. As if we -did not all know that whenever God's thunder cracks above -us, it is very likely indeed to find the simplest man in a -muck cart and the most complex blackguard in a bath. - -There are other instances, of course, of this oily trick of -turning the pleasures of a gentleman into the virtues of an -Anglo-Saxon. Sport, like soap, is an admirable thing, but, -like soap, it is an agreeable thing. And it does not sum up -all mortal merits to be a sportsman playing the game in a -world where it is so often necessary to be a workman doing -the work. By all means let a gentleman congratulate himself -that he has not lost his natural love of pleasure, as -against the *blasé*, and unchildlike. But when one has the -childlike joy it is best to have also the childlike -unconsciousness; and I do not think we should have special -affection for the little boy who everlastingly explained -that it was his duty to play Hide and Seek and one of his -family virtues to be prominent in Puss in the Corner. - -Another such irritating hypocrisy is the oligarchic attitude -towards mendicity as against organized charity. Here again, -as in the case of cleanliness and of athletics, the attitude -would be perfectly human and intelligible if it were not -maintained as a merit. Just as the obvious thing about soap -is that it is a convenience, so the obvious thing about -beggars is that they are an inconvenience. The rich would -deserve very little blame if they simply said that they -never dealt directly with beggars, because in modern urban -civilization it is impossible to deal directly with beggars; -or if not impossible, at least very difficult. But these -people do not refuse money to beggars on the ground that -such charity is difficult. They refuse it on the grossly -hypocritical ground that such charity is easy. They say, -with the most grotesque gravity, "Anyone can put his hand in -his pocket and give a poor man a penny; but we, we -philanthropists, go home and brood and travail over the poor -man's troubles until we have discovered exactly what jail, -reformatory, workhouse, or lunatic asylum it will really be -best for him to go to." This is all sheer lying. They do not -brood about the man when they get home, and if they did it -would not alter the original fact that their motive for -discouraging beggars is the perfectly rational one that -beggars are a bother. A man may easily be forgiven for not -doing this or that incidental act of charity, especially -when the question is as genuinely difficult as is the case -of mendicity. But there is something quite pestilently -Pecksniffian about shrinking from a hard task on the plea -that it is not hard enough. If any man will really try -talking to the ten beggars who come to his door he will soon -find out whether it is really so much easier than the labor -of writing a check for a hospital. +These are the false accusations; the accusation of classicism, the +accusation of cruelty, and the accusation of an exclusiveness based on +perfection of pedigree. English public-school boys are not pedants, they +are not torturers; and they are not, in the vast majority of cases, +people fiercely proud of their ancestry, or even people with any +ancestry to be proud of. They are taught to be courteous, to be good +tempered, to be brave in a bodily sense, to be clean in a bodily sense; +they are generally kind to animals, generally civil to servants, and to +anyone in any sense their equal, the j oiliest companions on earth. Is +there then anything wrong in the public-school ideal? I think we all +feel there is something very wrong in it, but a blinding network of +newspaper phraseology obscures and entangles us; so that it is hard to +trace to its beginning, beyond all words and phases, the faults in this +great English achievement. + +Surely, when all is said, the ultimate objection to the English public +school is its utterly blatant and indecent disregard of the duty of +telling the truth. I know there does still linger among maiden ladies in +remote country houses a notion that English schoolboys are taught to +tell the truth, but it cannot be maintained seriously for a moment. Very +occasionally, very vaguely, English schoolboys are told not to tell +lies, which is a totally different thing. I may silently support all the +obscene fictions and forgeries in the universe, without once telling a +lie. I may wear another man's coat, steal another man's wit, apostatize +to another man's creed, or poison another man's coffee, all without ever +telling a lie. But no English schoolboy is ever taught to tell the +truth, for the very simple reason that he is never taught to desire the +truth. From the very first he is taught to be totally careless about +whether a fact is a fact; he is taught to care only whether the fact can +be used on his "side" when he is engaged in "playing the game." He takes +sides in his Union debating society to settle whether Charles I ought to +have been killed, with the same solemn and pompous frivolity with which +he takes sides in the cricket field to (decide whether Rugby or +Westminster shall win. He is never allowed to admit the abstract notion +of the truth, that the match is a matter of what may happen, but that +Charles I is a matter of what did happen---or did not. He is Liberal or +Tory at the general election exactly as he is Oxford or Cambridge at the +boat-race. He knows that sport deals with the unknown; he has not even a +notion that politics should deal with the known. If anyone really doubts +this self-evident proposition, that the public schools definitely +discourage the love of truth, there is one fact which I should think +would settle him. England is the country of the Party System, and it has +always been chiefly run by public-school men. Is there anyone out of +Hanwell who will maintain that the Party System, whatever its +conveniences or inconveniences, could have been created by people +particularly fond of truth? + +The very English happiness on this point is itself a hypocrisy. When a +man really tells the truth, the first truth he tells is that he himself +is a liar. David said in his haste, that is, in his honesty, that all +men are liars. It was afterwards, in some leisurely official +explanation, that he said that Kings of Israel at least told the truth. +When Lord Curzon was Viceroy he delivered a moral lecture to the Indians +on their reputed indifference to veracity, to actuality and intellectual +honor. A great many people indignantly discussed whether orientals +deserved to receive this rebuke; whether Indians were indeed in a +position to receive such severe admonition. No one seemed to ask, as I +should venture to ask, whether Lord Curzon was in a position to give it. +He is an ordinary party politician; a party politician means a +politician who might have belonged to either party. Being such a person, +he must again and again, at every twist and turn of party strategy, +either have deceived others or grossly deceived himself. I do not know +the East; nor do I like what I know. I am quite ready to believe that +when Lord Curzon went out he found a very false atmosphere. I only say +it must have been something startlingly and chokingly false if it was +falser than that English atmosphere from which he came. The English +Parliament actually cares for everything except veracity. The +public-school man is kind, courageous, polite, clean, companionable; +but, in the most awful sense of the words, the truth is not in him. + +This weakness of untruthfulness in the English public schools, in the +English political system, and to some extent in the English character, +is a weakness which necessarily produces a curious crop of +superstitions, of lying legends, of evident delusions clung to through +low spiritual self-indulgence. There are so many of these public-school +superstitions that I have here only space for one of them, which may be +called the superstition of soap. It appears to have been shared by the +ablutionary Pharisees, who resembled the English public-school +aristocrats in so many respects: in their care about club rules and +traditions, in their offensive optimism at the expense of other people, +and above all in their unimaginative plodding patriotism in the worst +interests of their country. Now the old human common sense about washing +is that it is a great pleasure. Water (applied externally) is a splendid +thing, like wine. Sybarites bathe in wine, and Nonconformists drink +water; but we are not concerned with these frantic exceptions. Washing +being a pleasure, it stands to reason that rich people can afford it +more than poor people, and as long as this was recognized all was well; +and it was very right that rich people should offer baths to poor +people, as they might offer any other agreeable thing---a drink or a +donkey ride. But one dreadful day, somewhere about the middle of the +nineteenth century, somebody discovered (somebody pretty well off) the +two great modern truths, that washing is a virtue in the rich and +therefore a duty in the poor. For a duty is a virtue that one can't do. +And a virtue is generally a duty that one can do quite easily; like the +bodily cleanliness of the upper classes. But in the public-school +tradition of public life, soap has become creditable simply because it +is pleasant. Baths are represented as a part of the decay of the Roman +Empire; but the same baths are represented as part of the energy and +rejuvenation of the British Empire. There are distinguished +public-school men, bishops, dons, headmasters, and high politicians, +who, in the course of the eulogies which from time to time they pass +upon themselves, have actually identified physical cleanliness with +moral purity. They say (if I remember rightly) that a public-school man +is clean inside and out. As if everyone did not know that while saints +can afford to be dirty, seducers have to be clean. As if everyone did +not know that the harlot must be clean, because it is her business to +captivate, while the good wife may be dirty, because it is her business +to clean. As if we did not all know that whenever God's thunder cracks +above us, it is very likely indeed to find the simplest man in a muck +cart and the most complex blackguard in a bath. + +There are other instances, of course, of this oily trick of turning the +pleasures of a gentleman into the virtues of an Anglo-Saxon. Sport, like +soap, is an admirable thing, but, like soap, it is an agreeable thing. +And it does not sum up all mortal merits to be a sportsman playing the +game in a world where it is so often necessary to be a workman doing the +work. By all means let a gentleman congratulate himself that he has not +lost his natural love of pleasure, as against the *blasé*, and +unchildlike. But when one has the childlike joy it is best to have also +the childlike unconsciousness; and I do not think we should have special +affection for the little boy who everlastingly explained that it was his +duty to play Hide and Seek and one of his family virtues to be prominent +in Puss in the Corner. + +Another such irritating hypocrisy is the oligarchic attitude towards +mendicity as against organized charity. Here again, as in the case of +cleanliness and of athletics, the attitude would be perfectly human and +intelligible if it were not maintained as a merit. Just as the obvious +thing about soap is that it is a convenience, so the obvious thing about +beggars is that they are an inconvenience. The rich would deserve very +little blame if they simply said that they never dealt directly with +beggars, because in modern urban civilization it is impossible to deal +directly with beggars; or if not impossible, at least very difficult. +But these people do not refuse money to beggars on the ground that such +charity is difficult. They refuse it on the grossly hypocritical ground +that such charity is easy. They say, with the most grotesque gravity, +"Anyone can put his hand in his pocket and give a poor man a penny; but +we, we philanthropists, go home and brood and travail over the poor +man's troubles until we have discovered exactly what jail, reformatory, +workhouse, or lunatic asylum it will really be best for him to go to." +This is all sheer lying. They do not brood about the man when they get +home, and if they did it would not alter the original fact that their +motive for discouraging beggars is the perfectly rational one that +beggars are a bother. A man may easily be forgiven for not doing this or +that incidental act of charity, especially when the question is as +genuinely difficult as is the case of mendicity. But there is something +quite pestilently Pecksniffian about shrinking from a hard task on the +plea that it is not hard enough. If any man will really try talking to +the ten beggars who come to his door he will soon find out whether it is +really so much easier than the labor of writing a check for a hospital. ## The Staleness of the New Schools -For this deep and disabling reason therefore, its cynical -and abandoned indifference to the truth, the English public -school does not provide us with the ideal that we require. -We can only ask its modern critics to remember that right or -wrong the thing can be done; the factory is working, the -wheels are going around, the gentlemen are being produced, -with their soap, cricket and organized charity all complete. -And in this, as we have said before, the public school -really has an advantage over all the other educational -schemes of our time\* You can pick out a public-school man -in any of the many companies into which they stray, from a -Chinese opium den to a German-Jewish dinner-party. But I -doubt if you could tell which little match girl had been -brought up by undenominational religion and which by secular -education. The great English aristocracy which has ruled us -since the Reformation is really, in this sense, a model to -the moderns. It did have an ideal, and therefore it has -produced a reality. - -We may repeat here that these pages propose mainly to show -one thing: that progress ought to be based on principle, -while our modern progress is mostly based on precedent. We -go, not by what may be affirmed in theory, but by what has -been already admitted in practice. That is why the Jacobites -are the last Tories in history with whom a high-spirited -person can have much sympathy. They wanted a specific thing; -they were ready to go forward for it, and so they were also -ready to go back for it. But modern Tories have only the -dullness of defending situations that they had not the -excitement of creating. Revolutionists make a reform, -Conservatives only conserve the reform. They never reform -the reform, which is often very much wanted. Just as the -rivalry of armaments is only a sort of sulky plagiarism, so -the rivalry of parties is only a sort of sulky inheritance. -Men have votes, so women must soon have votes; poor children -are taught b'y force, so they must soon b'e fed by force; -the police shut public houses by twelve o'clock, so soon -they must shut them by eleven o'clock; children stop at -school till they are fourteen, so soon they will stop till -they are forty. No gleam of reason, no momentary return to -first principles, no abstract asking of any obvious -question, can interrupt this mad and monotonous gallop of -mere progress by precedent. It is a good way to prevent real -revolution. By this logic of events, the Radical gets as -much into a rut as the Conservative. We meet one hoary old -lunatic who says his grandfather told him to stand by one -stile. We meet another hoary old lunatic who says his -grandfather told him only to walk along one lane. - -I say we may repeat here this primary part of the argument, -because we have just now come to the place where it is most -startlingly and strongly shown. The final proof that our -elementary schools have no definite ideal of their own is -the fact that they so openly imitate the ideals of the -public schools. In the elementary schools we have all the -ethical prejudices and exaggerations of Eton and Harrow -carefully; copied for people to whom they do not even -roughly apply. We have the same wildly disproportionate -doctrine of the effect of physical cleanliness on moral -character. Educators and educational politicians declare, -amid warm cheers, that cleanliness is far more important -than all the squabbles about moral and religious training. -It would really seem that so long as a little boy washes his -hands it does not matter whether he is washing off his -mother's jam or his brother's gore. We have the same grossly -insincere pretense that sport always encourages a sense of -honor, when we know that it often ruins it. Above all, we -have the same great upper-class assumption that things are -done best by large institutions handling large sums of money -and ordering everybody about; and that trivial and impulsive -charity is in some way contemptible. As Mr. Blatchford says, -"The world does not want piety, but soap and Socialism." -Piety is one of the popular virtues, whereas soap and +For this deep and disabling reason therefore, its cynical and abandoned +indifference to the truth, the English public school does not provide us +with the ideal that we require. We can only ask its modern critics to +remember that right or wrong the thing can be done; the factory is +working, the wheels are going around, the gentlemen are being produced, +with their soap, cricket and organized charity all complete. And in +this, as we have said before, the public school really has an advantage +over all the other educational schemes of our time\* You can pick out a +public-school man in any of the many companies into which they stray, +from a Chinese opium den to a German-Jewish dinner-party. But I doubt if +you could tell which little match girl had been brought up by +undenominational religion and which by secular education. The great +English aristocracy which has ruled us since the Reformation is really, +in this sense, a model to the moderns. It did have an ideal, and +therefore it has produced a reality. + +We may repeat here that these pages propose mainly to show one thing: +that progress ought to be based on principle, while our modern progress +is mostly based on precedent. We go, not by what may be affirmed in +theory, but by what has been already admitted in practice. That is why +the Jacobites are the last Tories in history with whom a high-spirited +person can have much sympathy. They wanted a specific thing; they were +ready to go forward for it, and so they were also ready to go back for +it. But modern Tories have only the dullness of defending situations +that they had not the excitement of creating. Revolutionists make a +reform, Conservatives only conserve the reform. They never reform the +reform, which is often very much wanted. Just as the rivalry of +armaments is only a sort of sulky plagiarism, so the rivalry of parties +is only a sort of sulky inheritance. Men have votes, so women must soon +have votes; poor children are taught b'y force, so they must soon b'e +fed by force; the police shut public houses by twelve o'clock, so soon +they must shut them by eleven o'clock; children stop at school till they +are fourteen, so soon they will stop till they are forty. No gleam of +reason, no momentary return to first principles, no abstract asking of +any obvious question, can interrupt this mad and monotonous gallop of +mere progress by precedent. It is a good way to prevent real revolution. +By this logic of events, the Radical gets as much into a rut as the +Conservative. We meet one hoary old lunatic who says his grandfather +told him to stand by one stile. We meet another hoary old lunatic who +says his grandfather told him only to walk along one lane. + +I say we may repeat here this primary part of the argument, because we +have just now come to the place where it is most startlingly and +strongly shown. The final proof that our elementary schools have no +definite ideal of their own is the fact that they so openly imitate the +ideals of the public schools. In the elementary schools we have all the +ethical prejudices and exaggerations of Eton and Harrow carefully; +copied for people to whom they do not even roughly apply. We have the +same wildly disproportionate doctrine of the effect of physical +cleanliness on moral character. Educators and educational politicians +declare, amid warm cheers, that cleanliness is far more important than +all the squabbles about moral and religious training. It would really +seem that so long as a little boy washes his hands it does not matter +whether he is washing off his mother's jam or his brother's gore. We +have the same grossly insincere pretense that sport always encourages a +sense of honor, when we know that it often ruins it. Above all, we have +the same great upper-class assumption that things are done best by large +institutions handling large sums of money and ordering everybody about; +and that trivial and impulsive charity is in some way contemptible. As +Mr. Blatchford says, "The world does not want piety, but soap and +Socialism." Piety is one of the popular virtues, whereas soap and Socialism are two hobbies of the upper middle class. -These "healthy" ideals, as they are called, which our -politicians and schoolmasters have borrowed from the -aristocratic schools and applied to the democratic, are by -no means particularly appropriate to an impoverished -democracy. A vague admiration for organized government and a -vague distrust of individual aid cannot be made to fit in at -all into the lives of people among whom kindness means -lending a saucepan and honor means keeping out of the -workhouse. It resolves itself either into discouraging that -system of prompt and patchwork generosity which is a daily -glory of the poor, or else into hazy advice to people who -have no money not to give it recklessly away. Nor is the -exaggerated glory of athletics, defensible enough in dealing -with the rich who, if they did not romp and race, would eat -and drink unwholesomely, by any means so much to the point -when applied to people, most of whom will take a great deal -of exercise anyhow, with spade or hammer, pickaxe or saw. -And for the third case, of washing, it is obvious that the -same sort of rhetoric about corporeal daintiness which is -proper to an ornamental class cannot, merely as it stands, -be applicable to a dustman. A gentleman is expected to be -substantially spotless all the time. But it is no more -discreditable for a scavenger to be dirty than for a -deep-sea diver to be wet. A sweep is no more disgraced when -he is covered with soot than Michael Angelo when he is -covered with clay, or Bayard when he is covered with blood. -Nor have these extenders of the public-school tradition done -or suggested anything by way of a substitute for the present -snobbish system which makes cleanliness almost impossible to -the poor; I mean the general ritual of linen and the wearing -of the cast-off clothes of the rich. One man moves into -another man's clothes as he moves into another man's house. -No wonder that our educationists are not horrified at a man -picking up the aristocrat's second-hand trousers, when they -themselves have only taken up the aristocrat's secondhand +These "healthy" ideals, as they are called, which our politicians and +schoolmasters have borrowed from the aristocratic schools and applied to +the democratic, are by no means particularly appropriate to an +impoverished democracy. A vague admiration for organized government and +a vague distrust of individual aid cannot be made to fit in at all into +the lives of people among whom kindness means lending a saucepan and +honor means keeping out of the workhouse. It resolves itself either into +discouraging that system of prompt and patchwork generosity which is a +daily glory of the poor, or else into hazy advice to people who have no +money not to give it recklessly away. Nor is the exaggerated glory of +athletics, defensible enough in dealing with the rich who, if they did +not romp and race, would eat and drink unwholesomely, by any means so +much to the point when applied to people, most of whom will take a great +deal of exercise anyhow, with spade or hammer, pickaxe or saw. And for +the third case, of washing, it is obvious that the same sort of rhetoric +about corporeal daintiness which is proper to an ornamental class +cannot, merely as it stands, be applicable to a dustman. A gentleman is +expected to be substantially spotless all the time. But it is no more +discreditable for a scavenger to be dirty than for a deep-sea diver to +be wet. A sweep is no more disgraced when he is covered with soot than +Michael Angelo when he is covered with clay, or Bayard when he is +covered with blood. Nor have these extenders of the public-school +tradition done or suggested anything by way of a substitute for the +present snobbish system which makes cleanliness almost impossible to the +poor; I mean the general ritual of linen and the wearing of the cast-off +clothes of the rich. One man moves into another man's clothes as he +moves into another man's house. No wonder that our educationists are not +horrified at a man picking up the aristocrat's second-hand trousers, +when they themselves have only taken up the aristocrat's secondhand ideas. ## The Outlawed Parent -There is one thing at least of which there is never so much -as a whisper inside the popular schools; and that is the -opinion of the people. The only persons who seem to have -nothing to do with the education of the children are the -parents. Yet the English poor have very definite traditions -in many ways. They are hidden under embarrassment and irony; -and those psychologists who have disentangled them talk of -them as very strange, barbaric and secretive things. But, as -a matter of fact, the traditions of the poor are mostly -simply the traditions of humanity, a thing which many of us -have not seen for some time. For instance, workingmen have a -tradition that if one is talking about a vile thing it is -better to talk of it in coarse language; one is the less -likely to be seduced into excusing it. But mankind had this -tradition also, until the Puritans and their children, the -Ibsenites, started the opposite idea, that it does not -matter what you say so long as you say it with long words -and a long face. Or again, the educated classes have tabooed -most jesting about personal appearance; but in doing this -they taboo not only the humor of the slums, but more than -half the healthy literature of the world; they put polite -nose-bags on the noses of Punch and Bardolph, Stiggins and -Cyrano de Bergerac. Again, the educated classes have adopted -a hideous and heathen custom of considering death as too -dreadful to talk about, and letting it remain a secret for -each person, like some private malformation. The poor, on -the contrary, make a great gossip and display about -bereavement; and they are right. They have hold of a truth -of psychology which is at the back of all the funeral -customs of the children of men. The way to lessen sorrow is -to make a lot of it. The way to endure a painful crisis is -to insist very much that it is a crisis; to permit people -who must feel sad at least to feel important. In this the -poor are simply the priests of the universal civilization; -and in their stuffy feasts and solemn chattering there is -the smell of the baked meats of Hamlet and the dust and echo -of the funeral games of Patroclus. - -The things philanthropists barely excuse (or do not excuse) -in the life of the laboring classes are simply the things we -have to excuse in all the greatest monuments of man. It may -be that the laborer is as gross as Shakespeare or as -garrulous as Homer; that if he is religious he talks nearly -as much about hell as Dante; that if he is worldly he talks -nearly as much about drink as Dickens. Nor is the poor man -without historic support if he thinks less of that -ceremonial washing which Christ dismissed, and rather more -of that ceremonial drinking which Christ specially -sanctified. The only difference between the poor man of -to-day and the saints and heroes of history is that which in -all classes separates the common man who can feel things -from the great man who can express them. What he feels is -merely the heritage of man. Now nobody expects of course -that the cabmen and coal-heavers can be complete instructors -of their children any more than the squires and colonels and -tea merchants are complete instructors of their children. -There must be an educational specialist *in loco parentis*. -But the master at Harrow is *in loco parentis;* the master -in Hoxton is rather *contra parentum*. The vague politics of -the squire, the vaguer virtues of the colonel, the soul and -spiritual yearnings of a tea merchant, are, in veritable -practice, conveyed to the children of these people at the -English public schools. But I wish here to ask a very plain -and emphatic question. Can anyone alive even pretend to -point out any way in which these special virtues and -traditions of the poor are reproduced in the education of -the poor? I do not wish the costers' irony to appear as -coarsely in the school as it does in the taproom; but does -it appear at all? Is the child taught to sympathize at all -with his father's admirable cheerfulness and slang? I do not -expect the pathetic, eager *pietas* of the mother, with her -funeral clothes and funeral baked meats, to be exactly -imitated in the educational system; but has it any influence -at all on the educational system? Does any elementary -schoolmaster accord it even an instant's consideration or -respect? I do not expect the schoolmaster to hate hospitals -and C.O.S. centers so much as the schoolboy's father; but -does he hate them at all? Does he sympathize in the least -with the poor man's point of honor against official -institutions? Is it not quite certain that the ordinary -elementary schoolmaster will think it not merely natural but -simply conscientious to eradicate all these rugged legends -of a laborious people, and on principle to preach soap and -Socialism against beer and liberty? In the lower classes the -schoolmaster does not work for the parent, but against the -parent. Modern education means handing down the customs of -the minority, and rooting out the customs of the majority. -Instead of their Christlike charity, their Shakespearean -laughter and their high Homeric reverence for the dead, the -poor have imposed on them mere pedantic copies of the -prejudices of the remote rich. They must think a bathroom a -necessity because to the lucky it is a luxury; they must -swing Swedish clubs because their masters are afraid of -English cudgels; and they must get over their prejudice -against being fed by the parish, because aristocrats feel no -shame about being fed by the nation. +There is one thing at least of which there is never so much as a whisper +inside the popular schools; and that is the opinion of the people. The +only persons who seem to have nothing to do with the education of the +children are the parents. Yet the English poor have very definite +traditions in many ways. They are hidden under embarrassment and irony; +and those psychologists who have disentangled them talk of them as very +strange, barbaric and secretive things. But, as a matter of fact, the +traditions of the poor are mostly simply the traditions of humanity, a +thing which many of us have not seen for some time. For instance, +workingmen have a tradition that if one is talking about a vile thing it +is better to talk of it in coarse language; one is the less likely to be +seduced into excusing it. But mankind had this tradition also, until the +Puritans and their children, the Ibsenites, started the opposite idea, +that it does not matter what you say so long as you say it with long +words and a long face. Or again, the educated classes have tabooed most +jesting about personal appearance; but in doing this they taboo not only +the humor of the slums, but more than half the healthy literature of the +world; they put polite nose-bags on the noses of Punch and Bardolph, +Stiggins and Cyrano de Bergerac. Again, the educated classes have +adopted a hideous and heathen custom of considering death as too +dreadful to talk about, and letting it remain a secret for each person, +like some private malformation. The poor, on the contrary, make a great +gossip and display about bereavement; and they are right. They have hold +of a truth of psychology which is at the back of all the funeral customs +of the children of men. The way to lessen sorrow is to make a lot of it. +The way to endure a painful crisis is to insist very much that it is a +crisis; to permit people who must feel sad at least to feel important. +In this the poor are simply the priests of the universal civilization; +and in their stuffy feasts and solemn chattering there is the smell of +the baked meats of Hamlet and the dust and echo of the funeral games of +Patroclus. + +The things philanthropists barely excuse (or do not excuse) in the life +of the laboring classes are simply the things we have to excuse in all +the greatest monuments of man. It may be that the laborer is as gross as +Shakespeare or as garrulous as Homer; that if he is religious he talks +nearly as much about hell as Dante; that if he is worldly he talks +nearly as much about drink as Dickens. Nor is the poor man without +historic support if he thinks less of that ceremonial washing which +Christ dismissed, and rather more of that ceremonial drinking which +Christ specially sanctified. The only difference between the poor man of +to-day and the saints and heroes of history is that which in all classes +separates the common man who can feel things from the great man who can +express them. What he feels is merely the heritage of man. Now nobody +expects of course that the cabmen and coal-heavers can be complete +instructors of their children any more than the squires and colonels and +tea merchants are complete instructors of their children. There must be +an educational specialist *in loco parentis*. But the master at Harrow +is *in loco parentis;* the master in Hoxton is rather *contra parentum*. +The vague politics of the squire, the vaguer virtues of the colonel, the +soul and spiritual yearnings of a tea merchant, are, in veritable +practice, conveyed to the children of these people at the English public +schools. But I wish here to ask a very plain and emphatic question. Can +anyone alive even pretend to point out any way in which these special +virtues and traditions of the poor are reproduced in the education of +the poor? I do not wish the costers' irony to appear as coarsely in the +school as it does in the taproom; but does it appear at all? Is the +child taught to sympathize at all with his father's admirable +cheerfulness and slang? I do not expect the pathetic, eager *pietas* of +the mother, with her funeral clothes and funeral baked meats, to be +exactly imitated in the educational system; but has it any influence at +all on the educational system? Does any elementary schoolmaster accord +it even an instant's consideration or respect? I do not expect the +schoolmaster to hate hospitals and C.O.S. centers so much as the +schoolboy's father; but does he hate them at all? Does he sympathize in +the least with the poor man's point of honor against official +institutions? Is it not quite certain that the ordinary elementary +schoolmaster will think it not merely natural but simply conscientious +to eradicate all these rugged legends of a laborious people, and on +principle to preach soap and Socialism against beer and liberty? In the +lower classes the schoolmaster does not work for the parent, but against +the parent. Modern education means handing down the customs of the +minority, and rooting out the customs of the majority. Instead of their +Christlike charity, their Shakespearean laughter and their high Homeric +reverence for the dead, the poor have imposed on them mere pedantic +copies of the prejudices of the remote rich. They must think a bathroom +a necessity because to the lucky it is a luxury; they must swing Swedish +clubs because their masters are afraid of English cudgels; and they must +get over their prejudice against being fed by the parish, because +aristocrats feel no shame about being fed by the nation. ## Folly and Female Education -It is the same in the case of girls. I am often solemnly -asked what I think of the new ideas about female education. -But there are no new ideas about female education. There is -not, there never has been, even the vestige of a new idea. -All the educational reformers did was to ask what was being -done to boys and then go and do it to girls; just as they -asked what was being taught to young squires and then taught -it to young chimney-sweeps. What they call new ideas are -very old ideas in the wrong place. Boys play football, why -shouldn't girls play football; boys have school-colors, why -shouldn't girls have school-colors; boys go in hundreds to -day-schools, why shouldn't girls go in hundreds to -day-schools; boys go to Oxford, why shouldn't girls go to -Oxford---in short, boys grow mustaches, why shouldn't girls -grow mustaches---that is about their notion of a new idea. -There is no brain-work in the thing at all; no root query of -what sex is, of whether it alters this or that, and why, any -more than there is any imaginative grip of the humor and -heart of the populace in the popular education. There is -nothing but plodding, elaborate, elephantine imitation. And -just as in the case of elementary teaching, the cases are of -a cold and reckless inappropriateness. Even a savage could -see that bodily things, at least, which are good for a man -are very likely to be bad for a woman. Yet there is no boy's -game, however brutal, which these mild lunatics have not -promoted among girls. To take a stronger case, they give -girls very heavy home-work; never reflecting that all girls -have home-work already in their homes. It is all a part of -the same silly subjugation; there must be a hard stick-up -collar round the neck of a woman, because it is already a -nuisance round the neck of a man. Though a Saxon, serf if he -wore that collar of cardboard, would ask for his collar of -brass. - -It will then be answered, not without a sneer, "And what -would you prefer? Would you go back to the elegant early -Victorian female, with ringlets and smelling-bottle, doing a -little in water-colors, dabbling a little in Italian, -playing a little on the harp, writing in vulgar albums and -painting on senseless screens? Do you prefer that?" To which -I answer, "Emphatically, yes." I solidly prefer it to the -new female education, for this reason, that I can see in it -an intellectual design, while there is none in the other. I -am by no means sure that even in point of practical fact -that elegant female would not have been more than a match -for most of the inelegant females. I fancy Jane Austen was -stronger, sharper and shrewder than Charlotte Bronte; I am -quite certain she was stronger, sharper and shrewder than -George Eliot. She could do one thing neither of them could -do: she could coolly and sensibly describe a man. I am not -sure that the old great lady who could only smatter Italian -was not more vigorous than the new great lady who can only -stammer American; nor am I certain that the bygone duchesses -who were scarcely successful when they painted Melrose -Abbey, were so much more weak-minded than the modern -duchesses who paint only their own faces, and are bad at -that. But that is not the point. What was the theory, what -was the idea, in their old, weak water-colors and their -shaky Italian? The idea was the same which in a ruder rank -expressed itself in home-made wines and hereditary recipes; -and which still, in a thousand unexpected ways, can be found -clinging to the women of the poor. It was the idea I urged -in the second part of this book: that the world must keep -one great amateur, lest we all become artists and perish. -Somebody must renounce all specialist conquests, that she -may conquer all the conquerors. That she may be a queen of -life, she must not be a private soldier in it. I do not -think the elegant female with her bad Italian was a perfect -product, any more than I think the slum woman talking gin -and funerals is a perfect product; alas! there are few -perfect products. But they come from a comprehensible idea; -and the new woman comes from nothing and nowhere. It is -right to have an ideal, it is right to have the right ideal, -and these two have the right ideal. The slum mother with her -funerals is the degenerate daughter of Antigone, the -obstinate priestess of the household gods. The lady talking -bad Italian was the decayed tenth cousin of Portia, the -great and golden Italian lady, the Renascence amateur of -life, who could be a barrister because she could be -anything. Sunken and neglected in the sea of modern monotony -and imitation, the types hold tightly to their original -truths. Antigone, ugly, dirty and often drunken, will still -bury her father. The elegant female, vapid and fading away -to nothing, still feels faintly the fundamental difference -between herself and her husband: that he must be Something -in the City, that she may be everything in the country. - -There was a time when you and I and all of us were all very -close to God; so that even now the color of a pebble (or a -paint), the smell of a flower (or a firework), comes to our -hearts with a kind of authority and certainty; as if they -were fragments of a muddled message, or features of a -forgotten face. To pour that fiery simplicity upon the whole -of life is the only real aim of education; and closest to -the child comes the woman---she understands. To say what she -understands is beyond me; save only this, that it is not a -solemnity. Rather it is a towering levity, an uproarious -amateurishness of the universe, such as we felt when we were -little, and would as soon sing as garden, as soon paint as -run. To smatter the tongues of men and angels, to dabble in -the dreadful sciences, to juggle with pillars and pyramids -and toss up the planets like balls, this is that inner -audacity and indifference which the human soul, like a -conjurer catching oranges, must keep up forever. This is -that insanely frivolous thing we call sanity. And the -elegant female, drooping her ringlets over her water-colors, -knew it and acted on it. She was juggling with frantic and -flaming suns. She was maintaining the bold equilibrium of -inferiorities which is the most mysterious of superiorities -and perhaps the most unattainable. She was maintaining the -prime truth of woman, the universal mother: that if a thing -is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. +It is the same in the case of girls. I am often solemnly asked what I +think of the new ideas about female education. But there are no new +ideas about female education. There is not, there never has been, even +the vestige of a new idea. All the educational reformers did was to ask +what was being done to boys and then go and do it to girls; just as they +asked what was being taught to young squires and then taught it to young +chimney-sweeps. What they call new ideas are very old ideas in the wrong +place. Boys play football, why shouldn't girls play football; boys have +school-colors, why shouldn't girls have school-colors; boys go in +hundreds to day-schools, why shouldn't girls go in hundreds to +day-schools; boys go to Oxford, why shouldn't girls go to Oxford---in +short, boys grow mustaches, why shouldn't girls grow mustaches---that is +about their notion of a new idea. There is no brain-work in the thing at +all; no root query of what sex is, of whether it alters this or that, +and why, any more than there is any imaginative grip of the humor and +heart of the populace in the popular education. There is nothing but +plodding, elaborate, elephantine imitation. And just as in the case of +elementary teaching, the cases are of a cold and reckless +inappropriateness. Even a savage could see that bodily things, at least, +which are good for a man are very likely to be bad for a woman. Yet +there is no boy's game, however brutal, which these mild lunatics have +not promoted among girls. To take a stronger case, they give girls very +heavy home-work; never reflecting that all girls have home-work already +in their homes. It is all a part of the same silly subjugation; there +must be a hard stick-up collar round the neck of a woman, because it is +already a nuisance round the neck of a man. Though a Saxon, serf if he +wore that collar of cardboard, would ask for his collar of brass. + +It will then be answered, not without a sneer, "And what would you +prefer? Would you go back to the elegant early Victorian female, with +ringlets and smelling-bottle, doing a little in water-colors, dabbling a +little in Italian, playing a little on the harp, writing in vulgar +albums and painting on senseless screens? Do you prefer that?" To which +I answer, "Emphatically, yes." I solidly prefer it to the new female +education, for this reason, that I can see in it an intellectual design, +while there is none in the other. I am by no means sure that even in +point of practical fact that elegant female would not have been more +than a match for most of the inelegant females. I fancy Jane Austen was +stronger, sharper and shrewder than Charlotte Bronte; I am quite certain +she was stronger, sharper and shrewder than George Eliot. She could do +one thing neither of them could do: she could coolly and sensibly +describe a man. I am not sure that the old great lady who could only +smatter Italian was not more vigorous than the new great lady who can +only stammer American; nor am I certain that the bygone duchesses who +were scarcely successful when they painted Melrose Abbey, were so much +more weak-minded than the modern duchesses who paint only their own +faces, and are bad at that. But that is not the point. What was the +theory, what was the idea, in their old, weak water-colors and their +shaky Italian? The idea was the same which in a ruder rank expressed +itself in home-made wines and hereditary recipes; and which still, in a +thousand unexpected ways, can be found clinging to the women of the +poor. It was the idea I urged in the second part of this book: that the +world must keep one great amateur, lest we all become artists and +perish. Somebody must renounce all specialist conquests, that she may +conquer all the conquerors. That she may be a queen of life, she must +not be a private soldier in it. I do not think the elegant female with +her bad Italian was a perfect product, any more than I think the slum +woman talking gin and funerals is a perfect product; alas! there are few +perfect products. But they come from a comprehensible idea; and the new +woman comes from nothing and nowhere. It is right to have an ideal, it +is right to have the right ideal, and these two have the right ideal. +The slum mother with her funerals is the degenerate daughter of +Antigone, the obstinate priestess of the household gods. The lady +talking bad Italian was the decayed tenth cousin of Portia, the great +and golden Italian lady, the Renascence amateur of life, who could be a +barrister because she could be anything. Sunken and neglected in the sea +of modern monotony and imitation, the types hold tightly to their +original truths. Antigone, ugly, dirty and often drunken, will still +bury her father. The elegant female, vapid and fading away to nothing, +still feels faintly the fundamental difference between herself and her +husband: that he must be Something in the City, that she may be +everything in the country. + +There was a time when you and I and all of us were all very close to +God; so that even now the color of a pebble (or a paint), the smell of a +flower (or a firework), comes to our hearts with a kind of authority and +certainty; as if they were fragments of a muddled message, or features +of a forgotten face. To pour that fiery simplicity upon the whole of +life is the only real aim of education; and closest to the child comes +the woman---she understands. To say what she understands is beyond me; +save only this, that it is not a solemnity. Rather it is a towering +levity, an uproarious amateurishness of the universe, such as we felt +when we were little, and would as soon sing as garden, as soon paint as +run. To smatter the tongues of men and angels, to dabble in the dreadful +sciences, to juggle with pillars and pyramids and toss up the planets +like balls, this is that inner audacity and indifference which the human +soul, like a conjurer catching oranges, must keep up forever. This is +that insanely frivolous thing we call sanity. And the elegant female, +drooping her ringlets over her water-colors, knew it and acted on it. +She was juggling with frantic and flaming suns. She was maintaining the +bold equilibrium of inferiorities which is the most mysterious of +superiorities and perhaps the most unattainable. She was maintaining the +prime truth of woman, the universal mother: that if a thing is worth +doing, it is worth doing badly. # The Home of the Man ## The Empire of the Insect -A cultivated Conservative friend of mine once exhibited -great distress because in a gay moment I once called Edmund -Burke an atheist. I need scarcely say that the remark lacked -something of biographical precision; it was meant to. Burke -was certainly not an atheist in his conscious cosmic theory, -though he had not a special and flaming faith in God, like -Robespierre. Nevertheless, the remark had reference to a -truth which it is here relevant to repeat. I mean that in -the quarrel over the French Revolution, Burke did stand for -the atheistic attitude and mode of argument, as Robespierre -stood for the theistic. The Revolution appealed to the idea -of an abstract and eternal justice, beyond all local custom -or convenience. If there are commands of God, then there -must be rights of man. Here Burke made his brilliant -diversion; he did not attack the Robespierre doctrine with -the old mediaeval doctrine of *jus divinum* (which, like the -Robespierre doctrine, was theistic), he attacked it with the -modern argument of scientific relativity; in short, the -argument of evolution. He suggested that humanity was -everywhere molded by or fitted to its environment and -institutions; in fact, that each people practically got, not -only the tyrant it deserved, but the tyrant it ought to -have. "I know nothing of the rights of men," he said, "but I -know something of the rights of Englishmen." There you have -the essential atheist. His argument is that we have got some -protection by natural accident and growth; and why should we -profess to think beyond it, for all the world as if we were -the images of God! We are born under a House of Lords, as -birds under a house of leaves; we live under a monarchy as -niggers live under a tropic sun; it is not their fault if -they are slaves, and it is not ours if we are snobs. Thus, -long before Darwin struck his great blow at democracy, the -essential of the Darwinian argument had been already urged -against the French Revolution. Man, said Burke in effect, -must adapt himself to everything, like an animal; he must -not try to alter everything, like an angel. The last weak -cry of the pious, pretty, half-artificial optimism and deism -of the eighteenth century came in the voice of Sterne, -saying, "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." And Burke, -the iron evolutionist, essentially answered, "No; God -tempers the shorn lamb to the wind." It is the lamb that has -to adapt himself. That is, he either dies or becomes a +A cultivated Conservative friend of mine once exhibited great distress +because in a gay moment I once called Edmund Burke an atheist. I need +scarcely say that the remark lacked something of biographical precision; +it was meant to. Burke was certainly not an atheist in his conscious +cosmic theory, though he had not a special and flaming faith in God, +like Robespierre. Nevertheless, the remark had reference to a truth +which it is here relevant to repeat. I mean that in the quarrel over the +French Revolution, Burke did stand for the atheistic attitude and mode +of argument, as Robespierre stood for the theistic. The Revolution +appealed to the idea of an abstract and eternal justice, beyond all +local custom or convenience. If there are commands of God, then there +must be rights of man. Here Burke made his brilliant diversion; he did +not attack the Robespierre doctrine with the old mediaeval doctrine of +*jus divinum* (which, like the Robespierre doctrine, was theistic), he +attacked it with the modern argument of scientific relativity; in short, +the argument of evolution. He suggested that humanity was everywhere +molded by or fitted to its environment and institutions; in fact, that +each people practically got, not only the tyrant it deserved, but the +tyrant it ought to have. "I know nothing of the rights of men," he said, +"but I know something of the rights of Englishmen." There you have the +essential atheist. His argument is that we have got some protection by +natural accident and growth; and why should we profess to think beyond +it, for all the world as if we were the images of God! We are born under +a House of Lords, as birds under a house of leaves; we live under a +monarchy as niggers live under a tropic sun; it is not their fault if +they are slaves, and it is not ours if we are snobs. Thus, long before +Darwin struck his great blow at democracy, the essential of the +Darwinian argument had been already urged against the French Revolution. +Man, said Burke in effect, must adapt himself to everything, like an +animal; he must not try to alter everything, like an angel. The last +weak cry of the pious, pretty, half-artificial optimism and deism of the +eighteenth century came in the voice of Sterne, saying, "God tempers the +wind to the shorn lamb." And Burke, the iron evolutionist, essentially +answered, "No; God tempers the shorn lamb to the wind." It is the lamb +that has to adapt himself. That is, he either dies or becomes a particular kind of lamb who likes standing in a draught. -The subconscious popular instinct against Darwinism was not -a mere offense at the grotesque notion of visiting one's -grandfather in a cage in the Regent's Park. Men go in for -drink, practical jokes and many other grotesque things; they -do not much mind making beasts of themselves, and would not -much mind having beasts made of their forefathers. The real -instinct was much deeper and much more valuable. It was -this: that when once one begins to think of man as a -shifting and alterable thing, it is always easy for the -strong and crafty to twist him into new shapes for all kinds -of unnatural purposes. The popular instinct sees in such -developments the possibility of backs bowed and hunch-backed -for their burden, or limbs twisted for their task. It has a +The subconscious popular instinct against Darwinism was not a mere +offense at the grotesque notion of visiting one's grandfather in a cage +in the Regent's Park. Men go in for drink, practical jokes and many +other grotesque things; they do not much mind making beasts of +themselves, and would not much mind having beasts made of their +forefathers. The real instinct was much deeper and much more valuable. +It was this: that when once one begins to think of man as a shifting and +alterable thing, it is always easy for the strong and crafty to twist +him into new shapes for all kinds of unnatural purposes. The popular +instinct sees in such developments the possibility of backs bowed and +hunch-backed for their burden, or limbs twisted for their task. It has a very well-grounded guess that whatever is done swiftly and -systematically will mostly be done by a successful class and -almost solely in their interests. It has therefore a vision -of inhuman hybrids and half-human experiments much in the -style of Mr. Wells's "Island of Dr. Moreau." The rich man -may come to breeding a tribe of dwarfs to be his jockeys, -and a tribe of giants to be his hall-porters. Grooms might -be born bow-legged and tailors born cross-legged; perfumers -might have long, large noses and a crouching attitude, like -hounds of scent; and professional wine-tasters might have -the horrible expression of one tasting wine stamped upon -their faces as infants. Whatever wild image one employs it -cannot keep pace with the panic of the human fancy, when -once it supposes that the fixed type called man could be -changed. If some millionaire wanted arms, some porter must -grow ten arms like an octopus; if he wants legs, some -messenger-boy must go with a hundred trotting legs like a -centipede. In the distorted mirror of hypothesis, that is, -of the unknown, men can dimly see such monstrous and evil -shapes; men run all to eye, or all to fingers, with nothing -left but one nostril or one ear. That is the nightmare with -which the mere notion of adaptation threatens us. That is -the nightmare that is not so very far from the reality. - -It will be said that not the wildest evolutionist really -asks that we should become in any way unhuman or copy any -other animal. Pardon me, that is exactly what not merely the -wildest evolutionists urge, but some of the tamest -evolutionists, too. There has risen high in recent history -an important cultus which bids fair to be the religion of -the future---which means the religion of those few -weak-minded people who live in the future. It is typical of -our time that it has to look for its god through a -microscope; and our time has marked a definite adoration of -the insect. Like most things we call new, of course, it is -not at all new as an idea; it is only new as an idolatry. -Virgil takes bees seriously, but I doubt if he would have -kept bees as carefully as he wrote about them. The wise king -told the sluggard to watch the ant, a charming -occupation---for a sluggard. But in our own time has -appeared a very different tone, and more than one great man, -as well as numberless intelligent men, have in our time -seriously suggested that we should study the insect because -we are his inferiors. The old moralists merely took the -virtues of man and distributed them quite decoratively and -arbitrarily among the animals. The ant was an almost -heraldic symbol of industry, as the lion was of courage, or, -for the matter of that, the pelican of charity. But if the -mediaevals had been convinced that a lion was not -courageous, they would have dropped the lion and kept the -courage; if the pelican is not charitable, they would say, -so much the worse for the pelican. The old moralists, I say, -permitted the ant to enforce and typify man's morality; they -never; allowed the ant to upset it. They used the ant for -industry as the lark for punctuality; they looked up at the -flapping birds and down at the crawling insects for a homely -lesson. But we have lived to see a sect that does not look -down at the insects, but looks up at the insects; that asks -us essentially to bow down and worship beetles, like the -ancient Egyptians. - -Maurice Maeterlinck is a man of unmistakable genius, and -genius always carries a magnifying glass. In the terrible -crystal of his lens we have seen the bees not as a little -yellow swarm, but rather in golden armies and hierarchies of -warriors and queens. Imagination perpetually peers and -creeps further down the avenues and vistas in the tubes of -science, and one fancies every frantic reversal of -proportions; the earwig striding across the echoing plain -like an elephant, or the grasshopper coming roaring above -our roofs like a vast aeroplane, as he leaps from -Hertfordshire to Surrey. One seems to enter in a dream a -temple of enormous entomology, whose architecture is based -on something wilder than arms or backbones; in which the -ribbed columns have the half-crawling look of dim and -monstrous caterpillars; or the dome is a starry spider hung -horribly in the void. There is one of the modern works of -engineering that gives one something of this nameless fear -of the exaggerations of an underworld; and that is the -curious curved architecture of the underground railway, -commonly called the Twopenny Tube. Those squat archways, -without any upright line or pillar, look as if they had been -tunneled by huge worms who have never learned to lift their -heads. It is the very underground palace of the Serpent, the -spirit of changing shape and color, that is the enemy of -man. - -But it is not merely by such strange aesthetic suggestions -that writers like Maeterlinck have influenced us in the -matter; there is also an ethical side to the business. The -upshot of M. Maeterlinck's book on bees is an admiration, -one might also say an envy, of their collective -spirituality; of the fact that they live only for something -which he calls the Soul of the Hive. And this admiration for -the communal morality of insects is expressed in many other -modern writers in various quarters and shapes; in -Mr. Benjamin Kidd's theory of living only for the -evolutionary future of our race, and in the great interest -of some Socialists in ants, which they generally prefer to -bees, I suppose, because they are not so brightly colored. -Not least among the hundred evidences of this vague -insectolatry are the floods of flattery poured by modern -people on that energetic nation of the Far East of which it -has been said that "Patriotism is its only religion"; or, in -other words, that it lives only for the Soul of the Hive. -When at long intervals of the centuries Christendom grows -weak, morbid or skeptical, and mysterious Asia begins to -move against us her dim populations and to pour them -westward like a dark movement of matter, in such cases it -has been very common to compare the invasion to a plague of -lice or incessant armies of locusts. The Eastern armies were -indeed like insects; in their blind, busy destructiveness, -in their black nihilism of personal outlook, in their -hateful indifference to individual life and love, in their -base belief in mere numbers, in their pessimistic courage -and their atheistic patriotism, the riders and raiders of -the East are indeed like all the creeping things of the -earth. But never before, I think, have Christians called a -Turk a locust and meant it as a compliment. Now for the -first time we worship as well as fear; and trace with -adoration that enormous form advancing vast and vague out of -Asia, faintly discernible amid the mystic clouds of winged -creatures hung over the wasted lands, thronging the skies -like thunder and discoloring the skies like rain; Beelzebub, -the Lord of Flies. - -In resisting this horrible theory of the Soul of the Hive, -we of Christendom stand not for ourselves, but for all -humanity; for the essential and distinctive human idea that -one good and happy man is an end in himself, that a soul is -worth saving. Nay, for those who like such biological -fancies it might well be said that we stand as chiefs and -champions of a whole section of nature, princes of the house -whose cognizance is the backbone, standing for the milk of -the individual mother and the courage of the wandering cub, -representing the pathetic chivalry of the dog, the humor and -perversity of cats, the affection of the tranquil horse, the -loneliness of the lion. It is more to the point, however, to -urge that this mere glorification of society as it is in the -social insects is a transformation and a dissolution in one -of the outlines which have been specially the symbols of -man. In the cloud and confusion of the flies and bees is -growing fainter and fainter, as if finally disappearing, the -idea of the human family. The hive has become larger than -the house, the bees are destroying their captors; what the -locust hath left, the caterpillar hath eaten; and the little -house and garden of our friend Jones is in a bad way. +systematically will mostly be done by a successful class and almost +solely in their interests. It has therefore a vision of inhuman hybrids +and half-human experiments much in the style of Mr. Wells's "Island of +Dr. Moreau." The rich man may come to breeding a tribe of dwarfs to be +his jockeys, and a tribe of giants to be his hall-porters. Grooms might +be born bow-legged and tailors born cross-legged; perfumers might have +long, large noses and a crouching attitude, like hounds of scent; and +professional wine-tasters might have the horrible expression of one +tasting wine stamped upon their faces as infants. Whatever wild image +one employs it cannot keep pace with the panic of the human fancy, when +once it supposes that the fixed type called man could be changed. If +some millionaire wanted arms, some porter must grow ten arms like an +octopus; if he wants legs, some messenger-boy must go with a hundred +trotting legs like a centipede. In the distorted mirror of hypothesis, +that is, of the unknown, men can dimly see such monstrous and evil +shapes; men run all to eye, or all to fingers, with nothing left but one +nostril or one ear. That is the nightmare with which the mere notion of +adaptation threatens us. That is the nightmare that is not so very far +from the reality. + +It will be said that not the wildest evolutionist really asks that we +should become in any way unhuman or copy any other animal. Pardon me, +that is exactly what not merely the wildest evolutionists urge, but some +of the tamest evolutionists, too. There has risen high in recent history +an important cultus which bids fair to be the religion of the +future---which means the religion of those few weak-minded people who +live in the future. It is typical of our time that it has to look for +its god through a microscope; and our time has marked a definite +adoration of the insect. Like most things we call new, of course, it is +not at all new as an idea; it is only new as an idolatry. Virgil takes +bees seriously, but I doubt if he would have kept bees as carefully as +he wrote about them. The wise king told the sluggard to watch the ant, a +charming occupation---for a sluggard. But in our own time has appeared a +very different tone, and more than one great man, as well as numberless +intelligent men, have in our time seriously suggested that we should +study the insect because we are his inferiors. The old moralists merely +took the virtues of man and distributed them quite decoratively and +arbitrarily among the animals. The ant was an almost heraldic symbol of +industry, as the lion was of courage, or, for the matter of that, the +pelican of charity. But if the mediaevals had been convinced that a lion +was not courageous, they would have dropped the lion and kept the +courage; if the pelican is not charitable, they would say, so much the +worse for the pelican. The old moralists, I say, permitted the ant to +enforce and typify man's morality; they never; allowed the ant to upset +it. They used the ant for industry as the lark for punctuality; they +looked up at the flapping birds and down at the crawling insects for a +homely lesson. But we have lived to see a sect that does not look down +at the insects, but looks up at the insects; that asks us essentially to +bow down and worship beetles, like the ancient Egyptians. + +Maurice Maeterlinck is a man of unmistakable genius, and genius always +carries a magnifying glass. In the terrible crystal of his lens we have +seen the bees not as a little yellow swarm, but rather in golden armies +and hierarchies of warriors and queens. Imagination perpetually peers +and creeps further down the avenues and vistas in the tubes of science, +and one fancies every frantic reversal of proportions; the earwig +striding across the echoing plain like an elephant, or the grasshopper +coming roaring above our roofs like a vast aeroplane, as he leaps from +Hertfordshire to Surrey. One seems to enter in a dream a temple of +enormous entomology, whose architecture is based on something wilder +than arms or backbones; in which the ribbed columns have the +half-crawling look of dim and monstrous caterpillars; or the dome is a +starry spider hung horribly in the void. There is one of the modern +works of engineering that gives one something of this nameless fear of +the exaggerations of an underworld; and that is the curious curved +architecture of the underground railway, commonly called the Twopenny +Tube. Those squat archways, without any upright line or pillar, look as +if they had been tunneled by huge worms who have never learned to lift +their heads. It is the very underground palace of the Serpent, the +spirit of changing shape and color, that is the enemy of man. + +But it is not merely by such strange aesthetic suggestions that writers +like Maeterlinck have influenced us in the matter; there is also an +ethical side to the business. The upshot of M. Maeterlinck's book on +bees is an admiration, one might also say an envy, of their collective +spirituality; of the fact that they live only for something which he +calls the Soul of the Hive. And this admiration for the communal +morality of insects is expressed in many other modern writers in various +quarters and shapes; in Mr. Benjamin Kidd's theory of living only for +the evolutionary future of our race, and in the great interest of some +Socialists in ants, which they generally prefer to bees, I suppose, +because they are not so brightly colored. Not least among the hundred +evidences of this vague insectolatry are the floods of flattery poured +by modern people on that energetic nation of the Far East of which it +has been said that "Patriotism is its only religion"; or, in other +words, that it lives only for the Soul of the Hive. When at long +intervals of the centuries Christendom grows weak, morbid or skeptical, +and mysterious Asia begins to move against us her dim populations and to +pour them westward like a dark movement of matter, in such cases it has +been very common to compare the invasion to a plague of lice or +incessant armies of locusts. The Eastern armies were indeed like +insects; in their blind, busy destructiveness, in their black nihilism +of personal outlook, in their hateful indifference to individual life +and love, in their base belief in mere numbers, in their pessimistic +courage and their atheistic patriotism, the riders and raiders of the +East are indeed like all the creeping things of the earth. But never +before, I think, have Christians called a Turk a locust and meant it as +a compliment. Now for the first time we worship as well as fear; and +trace with adoration that enormous form advancing vast and vague out of +Asia, faintly discernible amid the mystic clouds of winged creatures +hung over the wasted lands, thronging the skies like thunder and +discoloring the skies like rain; Beelzebub, the Lord of Flies. + +In resisting this horrible theory of the Soul of the Hive, we of +Christendom stand not for ourselves, but for all humanity; for the +essential and distinctive human idea that one good and happy man is an +end in himself, that a soul is worth saving. Nay, for those who like +such biological fancies it might well be said that we stand as chiefs +and champions of a whole section of nature, princes of the house whose +cognizance is the backbone, standing for the milk of the individual +mother and the courage of the wandering cub, representing the pathetic +chivalry of the dog, the humor and perversity of cats, the affection of +the tranquil horse, the loneliness of the lion. It is more to the point, +however, to urge that this mere glorification of society as it is in the +social insects is a transformation and a dissolution in one of the +outlines which have been specially the symbols of man. In the cloud and +confusion of the flies and bees is growing fainter and fainter, as if +finally disappearing, the idea of the human family. The hive has become +larger than the house, the bees are destroying their captors; what the +locust hath left, the caterpillar hath eaten; and the little house and +garden of our friend Jones is in a bad way. ## The Fallacy of the Umbrella Stand -When Lord Morley said that the House of Lords must be either -mended or ended, he used a phrase which has caused some -confusion; because it might seem to suggest that mending and -ending are somewhat similar things. I wish specially to -insist on the fact that mending and ending are opposite -things. You mend a thing because you like it; you end a -thing because you don't. To mend is to strengthen. I, for -instance, disbelieve in oligarchy; so I would no more mend -the House of Lords than I would mend a thumbscrew. On the -other hand, I do believe in the family; therefore I would -mend the family as I would mend a chair; and I will never -deny for a moment that the modern family is a chair that -wants mending. But here comes in the essential point about -the mass of modern advanced sociologists. Here are two -institutions that have always been fundamental with mankind, -the family and the state. Anarchists, I believe, disbelieve -in both. It is quite unfair to say that Socialists believe -in the state, but do not believe in the family; thousands of -Socialists believe more in the family than any Tory. But it -is true to say that while anarchists would end both, -Socialists are specially engaged in mending (that is, -strengthening and renewing) the state; and they are not -specially engaged in strengthening and renewing the family. -They are not doing anything to define the functions of -father, mother, and child, as such; they are not tightening -the machine up again; they are not blackening in again the -fading lines of the old drawing. With the state they are -doing this; they are sharpening its machinery, they are -blacking in its black dogmatic lines, they are making mere -government in every way stronger and in some ways harsher -than before. While they leave the home in ruins, they -restore the hive, especially the stings. Indeed, some -schemes of labor and Poor Law reform recently advanced by -distinguished Socialists, amount to little more than putting -the largest number of people in the despotic power of -Mr. Bumble. Apparently, progress means being moved on---by -the police. - -The point it is my purpose to urge might perhaps be -suggested thus: that Socialists and most social reformers of -their color are vividly conscious of the line between the -kind of things that belong to the state and the kind of -things that belong to mere chaos or incoercible nature; they -may force children to go to school before the sun rises, but -they will not try to force the sun to rise; they will not, -like Canute, banish the sea, but only the sea-bathers. But -inside the outline of the state their lines are confused, -and entities melt into each other. They have no firm -instinctive sense of one thing being in its nature private -and another public, of one thing being necessarily bond and -another free. That is why piece by piece, and quite -silently, personal liberty is being stolen from Englishmen, -as personal land has been silently stolen ever since the -sixteenth century. - -I can only put it sufficiently curtly in a careless simile. -A Socialist means a man who thinks a walking-stick like an -umbrella because they both go into the umbrella-stand. Yet -they are as different as a battle-axe and a bootjack. The -essential idea of an umbrella is breadth and protection. The -essential idea of a stick is slenderness and, partly, -attack. The stick is the sword, the umbrella is the shield, -but it is a shield against another and more nameless -enemy---the hostile but anonymous universe. More properly, -therefore, the umbrella is the roof; it is a kind of -collapsible house. But the vital difference goes far deeper -than this; it branches off into two kingdoms of man's mind, -with a chasm between. For the point is this: that the -umbrella is a shield against an enemy so actual as to be a -mere nuisance; whereas the stick is a sword against enemies -so entirely imaginary as to be a pure pleasure. The stick is -not merely a sword, but a court sword; it is a thing of -purely ceremonial swagger. One cannot express the emotion in -any way except by saying that a man feels more like a man -with a stick in his hand, just as he feels more like a man -with a sword at his side. But nobody ever had any swelling -sentiments about an umbrella; it is a convenience, like a -door-scraper. An umbrella is a necessary evil. A -walking-stick is a quite unnecessary good. This, I fancy, is -the real explanation of the perpetual losing of umbrellas; -one does not hear of people losing walking-sticks. For a -walking-stick is a pleasure, a piece of real personal -property; it is missed even when it is not needed. When my -right hand forgets its stick may it forget its cunning. But -anybody may forget an umbrella, as anybody might forget a -shed that he had stood up in out of the rain. Anybody can -forget a necessary thing. - -If I might pursue the figure of speech, I might briefly say -that the whole Collectivist error consists in saying that -because two men can share an umbrella, therefore two men can -share a walking-stick. Umbrellas might possibly be replaced -by some kind of common awnings covering certain streets from -particular showers. But there is nothing but nonsense in the -notion of swinging a communal stick; it is as if one spoke -of twirling a communal mustache. It will be said that this -is a frank fantasia and that no sociologists suggest such -follies. Pardon me, they do. I will give a precise parallel -to the case of the confusion of sticks and umbrellas, a -parallel from a perpetually reiterated suggestion of reform. -At least sixty Socialists out of a hundred, when they have -spoken of common laundries, will go on at once to speak of -common kitchens. This is just as mechanical and -unintelligent as the fanciful case I have quoted. Sticks and -umbrellas are both stiff rods that go into holes in a stand -in the hall. Kitchens and washhouses are both large rooms -full of heat and damp and steam. But the soul and function -of the two things are utterly opposite. There is only one -way of washing a shirt; that is, there is only one right -way. There is no taste and fancy in tattered shirts. Nobody -says, "Tompkins likes five holes in his shirt, but I must -say, give me the good old four holes." Nobody says, "This -washerwoman rips up the left leg of my pyjamas; now if there -is one thing I insist on it is the *right* leg ripped up." -The ideal washing is simply to send a thing back washed. But -it is by no means true that the ideal cooking is simply to -send a thing back cooked. Cooking is an art; it has in it -personality, and even perversity, for the definition of an -art is that which must be personal and may be perverse. I -know a man, not otherwise dainty, who cannot touch common -sausages unless they are almost burned to a coal. He wants -his sausages fried to rags, yet he does not insist on his -shirts being boiled to rags. I do not say that such points -of culinary delicacy are of high importance. I do not say -that the communal ideal must give way to them. What I say is -that the communal ideal is not conscious of their existence, -and therefore goes wrong from the very start, mixing a -wholly public thing with a highly individual one. Perhaps we -ought to accept communal kitchens in the social crisis, just -as we should accept communal cat's-meat in a siege. But the -cultured Socialist, quite at his ease, by no means in a -siege, talks about communal kitchens as if they were the -same kind of thing as communal laundries. This shows at the -start that he misunderstands human nature. It is as -different as three men singing the same chorus from three -men playing three tunes on the same piano. +When Lord Morley said that the House of Lords must be either mended or +ended, he used a phrase which has caused some confusion; because it +might seem to suggest that mending and ending are somewhat similar +things. I wish specially to insist on the fact that mending and ending +are opposite things. You mend a thing because you like it; you end a +thing because you don't. To mend is to strengthen. I, for instance, +disbelieve in oligarchy; so I would no more mend the House of Lords than +I would mend a thumbscrew. On the other hand, I do believe in the +family; therefore I would mend the family as I would mend a chair; and I +will never deny for a moment that the modern family is a chair that +wants mending. But here comes in the essential point about the mass of +modern advanced sociologists. Here are two institutions that have always +been fundamental with mankind, the family and the state. Anarchists, I +believe, disbelieve in both. It is quite unfair to say that Socialists +believe in the state, but do not believe in the family; thousands of +Socialists believe more in the family than any Tory. But it is true to +say that while anarchists would end both, Socialists are specially +engaged in mending (that is, strengthening and renewing) the state; and +they are not specially engaged in strengthening and renewing the family. +They are not doing anything to define the functions of father, mother, +and child, as such; they are not tightening the machine up again; they +are not blackening in again the fading lines of the old drawing. With +the state they are doing this; they are sharpening its machinery, they +are blacking in its black dogmatic lines, they are making mere +government in every way stronger and in some ways harsher than before. +While they leave the home in ruins, they restore the hive, especially +the stings. Indeed, some schemes of labor and Poor Law reform recently +advanced by distinguished Socialists, amount to little more than putting +the largest number of people in the despotic power of Mr. Bumble. +Apparently, progress means being moved on---by the police. + +The point it is my purpose to urge might perhaps be suggested thus: that +Socialists and most social reformers of their color are vividly +conscious of the line between the kind of things that belong to the +state and the kind of things that belong to mere chaos or incoercible +nature; they may force children to go to school before the sun rises, +but they will not try to force the sun to rise; they will not, like +Canute, banish the sea, but only the sea-bathers. But inside the outline +of the state their lines are confused, and entities melt into each +other. They have no firm instinctive sense of one thing being in its +nature private and another public, of one thing being necessarily bond +and another free. That is why piece by piece, and quite silently, +personal liberty is being stolen from Englishmen, as personal land has +been silently stolen ever since the sixteenth century. + +I can only put it sufficiently curtly in a careless simile. A Socialist +means a man who thinks a walking-stick like an umbrella because they +both go into the umbrella-stand. Yet they are as different as a +battle-axe and a bootjack. The essential idea of an umbrella is breadth +and protection. The essential idea of a stick is slenderness and, +partly, attack. The stick is the sword, the umbrella is the shield, but +it is a shield against another and more nameless enemy---the hostile but +anonymous universe. More properly, therefore, the umbrella is the roof; +it is a kind of collapsible house. But the vital difference goes far +deeper than this; it branches off into two kingdoms of man's mind, with +a chasm between. For the point is this: that the umbrella is a shield +against an enemy so actual as to be a mere nuisance; whereas the stick +is a sword against enemies so entirely imaginary as to be a pure +pleasure. The stick is not merely a sword, but a court sword; it is a +thing of purely ceremonial swagger. One cannot express the emotion in +any way except by saying that a man feels more like a man with a stick +in his hand, just as he feels more like a man with a sword at his side. +But nobody ever had any swelling sentiments about an umbrella; it is a +convenience, like a door-scraper. An umbrella is a necessary evil. A +walking-stick is a quite unnecessary good. This, I fancy, is the real +explanation of the perpetual losing of umbrellas; one does not hear of +people losing walking-sticks. For a walking-stick is a pleasure, a piece +of real personal property; it is missed even when it is not needed. When +my right hand forgets its stick may it forget its cunning. But anybody +may forget an umbrella, as anybody might forget a shed that he had stood +up in out of the rain. Anybody can forget a necessary thing. + +If I might pursue the figure of speech, I might briefly say that the +whole Collectivist error consists in saying that because two men can +share an umbrella, therefore two men can share a walking-stick. +Umbrellas might possibly be replaced by some kind of common awnings +covering certain streets from particular showers. But there is nothing +but nonsense in the notion of swinging a communal stick; it is as if one +spoke of twirling a communal mustache. It will be said that this is a +frank fantasia and that no sociologists suggest such follies. Pardon me, +they do. I will give a precise parallel to the case of the confusion of +sticks and umbrellas, a parallel from a perpetually reiterated +suggestion of reform. At least sixty Socialists out of a hundred, when +they have spoken of common laundries, will go on at once to speak of +common kitchens. This is just as mechanical and unintelligent as the +fanciful case I have quoted. Sticks and umbrellas are both stiff rods +that go into holes in a stand in the hall. Kitchens and washhouses are +both large rooms full of heat and damp and steam. But the soul and +function of the two things are utterly opposite. There is only one way +of washing a shirt; that is, there is only one right way. There is no +taste and fancy in tattered shirts. Nobody says, "Tompkins likes five +holes in his shirt, but I must say, give me the good old four holes." +Nobody says, "This washerwoman rips up the left leg of my pyjamas; now +if there is one thing I insist on it is the *right* leg ripped up." The +ideal washing is simply to send a thing back washed. But it is by no +means true that the ideal cooking is simply to send a thing back cooked. +Cooking is an art; it has in it personality, and even perversity, for +the definition of an art is that which must be personal and may be +perverse. I know a man, not otherwise dainty, who cannot touch common +sausages unless they are almost burned to a coal. He wants his sausages +fried to rags, yet he does not insist on his shirts being boiled to +rags. I do not say that such points of culinary delicacy are of high +importance. I do not say that the communal ideal must give way to them. +What I say is that the communal ideal is not conscious of their +existence, and therefore goes wrong from the very start, mixing a wholly +public thing with a highly individual one. Perhaps we ought to accept +communal kitchens in the social crisis, just as we should accept +communal cat's-meat in a siege. But the cultured Socialist, quite at his +ease, by no means in a siege, talks about communal kitchens as if they +were the same kind of thing as communal laundries. This shows at the +start that he misunderstands human nature. It is as different as three +men singing the same chorus from three men playing three tunes on the +same piano. ## The Dreadful Duty of Gudge -In the quarrel earlier alluded to between the energetic -Progressive and the obstinate Conservative (or, to talk a -tenderer language, between Hudge and Gudge), the state of -cross-purposes is at the present moment acute. The Tory says -he wants to preserve family life in Cindertown; the -Socialist very reasonably points out to him that in -Cindertown at present there isn't any family life to -preserve. But Hudge, the Socialist, in his turn, is highly -vague and mysterious about whether he would preserve the -family life if there were any; or whether he will try to -restore it where it has disappeared. It is all very -confusing. The Tory sometimes talks as if he wanted to -tighten the domestic bonds that do not exist; the Socialist -as if he wanted to loosen the bonds that do not bind -anybody. The question we all want to ask of both of them is -the original ideal question, "Do you want to keep the family -at all?" If Hudge, the Socialist, does want the family he -must be prepared for the natural restraints, distinctions -and divisions of labor in the family. He must brace himself -up to bear the idea of the woman having a preference for the -private house and a man for the public house. He must manage -to endure somehow the idea of a woman being womanly, which -does not mean soft and yielding, but handy, thrifty, rather -hard, and very humorous. He must confront without a quiver -the notion of a child who shall be childish, that is, full -of energy, but without an idea of independence; -fundamentally as eager for authority as for information and -butter-scotch. If a man, a woman and a child live together -any more in free and sovereign households, these ancient -relations will recur; and Hudge must put up with it. He can -only avoid it by destroying the family, driving both sexes -into sexless hives and hordes, and bringing up all children -as the children of the state---like Oliver Twist. But if -these stern words must be addressed to Hudge, neither shall -Gudge escape a somewhat severe admonition. For the plain -truth to be told pretty sharply to the Tory is this, that if -he wants the family to remain, if he wants to be strong -enough to resist the rending forces of our essentially -savage commerce, he must make some very big sacrifices and -try to equalize property. The overwhelming mass of the -English people at this particular instant are simply too -poor to be domestic. They are as domestic as they can -manage; they are much more domestic than the governing -class; but they cannot get what good there was originally -meant to be in this institution, simply because they have -not got enough money. The man ought to stand for a certain -magnanimity, quite lawfully expressed in throwing money -away; but if under given circumstances he can only do it by -throwing the week's food away, then he is not magnanimous, -but mean. The woman ought to stand for a certain wisdom -which is well expressed in valuing things rightly and -guarding money sensibly; but how is she to guard money if -there is no money to guard? The child ought to look on his -mother as a fountain of natural fun and poetry; but how can -he unless the fountain, like other fountains, is allowed to -play? What chance have any of these ancient arts and -functions in a house so hideously topsy-turvy; a house where -the woman is out working and the man isn't; and the child is -forced by law to think his schoolmaster's requirements more -important than his mother's? No, Gudge and his friends in -the House of Lords and the Carlton Club must make up their -minds on this matter, and that very quickly. If they are -content to have England turned into a beehive and an -ant-hill, decorated here and there with a few faded -butterflies playing at an old game called domesticity in the -intervals of the divorce court, then let them have their -empire of insects; they will find plenty of Socialists who -will give it to them. But if they want a domestic England, -they must "shell out," as the phrase goes, to a vastly -greater extent than any Radical politician has yet dared to -suggest; they must endure burdens much heavier than the -Budget and strokes much deadlier than the death duties; for -the thing to be done is nothing more nor less than the -distribution of the great fortunes and the great estates. We -can now only avoid Socialism by a change as vast as -Socialism. If we are to save property we must distribute -property, almost as sternly and sweepingly as did the French -Revolution. If we are to preserve the family we must +In the quarrel earlier alluded to between the energetic Progressive and +the obstinate Conservative (or, to talk a tenderer language, between +Hudge and Gudge), the state of cross-purposes is at the present moment +acute. The Tory says he wants to preserve family life in Cindertown; the +Socialist very reasonably points out to him that in Cindertown at +present there isn't any family life to preserve. But Hudge, the +Socialist, in his turn, is highly vague and mysterious about whether he +would preserve the family life if there were any; or whether he will try +to restore it where it has disappeared. It is all very confusing. The +Tory sometimes talks as if he wanted to tighten the domestic bonds that +do not exist; the Socialist as if he wanted to loosen the bonds that do +not bind anybody. The question we all want to ask of both of them is the +original ideal question, "Do you want to keep the family at all?" If +Hudge, the Socialist, does want the family he must be prepared for the +natural restraints, distinctions and divisions of labor in the family. +He must brace himself up to bear the idea of the woman having a +preference for the private house and a man for the public house. He must +manage to endure somehow the idea of a woman being womanly, which does +not mean soft and yielding, but handy, thrifty, rather hard, and very +humorous. He must confront without a quiver the notion of a child who +shall be childish, that is, full of energy, but without an idea of +independence; fundamentally as eager for authority as for information +and butter-scotch. If a man, a woman and a child live together any more +in free and sovereign households, these ancient relations will recur; +and Hudge must put up with it. He can only avoid it by destroying the +family, driving both sexes into sexless hives and hordes, and bringing +up all children as the children of the state---like Oliver Twist. But if +these stern words must be addressed to Hudge, neither shall Gudge escape +a somewhat severe admonition. For the plain truth to be told pretty +sharply to the Tory is this, that if he wants the family to remain, if +he wants to be strong enough to resist the rending forces of our +essentially savage commerce, he must make some very big sacrifices and +try to equalize property. The overwhelming mass of the English people at +this particular instant are simply too poor to be domestic. They are as +domestic as they can manage; they are much more domestic than the +governing class; but they cannot get what good there was originally +meant to be in this institution, simply because they have not got enough +money. The man ought to stand for a certain magnanimity, quite lawfully +expressed in throwing money away; but if under given circumstances he +can only do it by throwing the week's food away, then he is not +magnanimous, but mean. The woman ought to stand for a certain wisdom +which is well expressed in valuing things rightly and guarding money +sensibly; but how is she to guard money if there is no money to guard? +The child ought to look on his mother as a fountain of natural fun and +poetry; but how can he unless the fountain, like other fountains, is +allowed to play? What chance have any of these ancient arts and +functions in a house so hideously topsy-turvy; a house where the woman +is out working and the man isn't; and the child is forced by law to +think his schoolmaster's requirements more important than his mother's? +No, Gudge and his friends in the House of Lords and the Carlton Club +must make up their minds on this matter, and that very quickly. If they +are content to have England turned into a beehive and an ant-hill, +decorated here and there with a few faded butterflies playing at an old +game called domesticity in the intervals of the divorce court, then let +them have their empire of insects; they will find plenty of Socialists +who will give it to them. But if they want a domestic England, they must +"shell out," as the phrase goes, to a vastly greater extent than any +Radical politician has yet dared to suggest; they must endure burdens +much heavier than the Budget and strokes much deadlier than the death +duties; for the thing to be done is nothing more nor less than the +distribution of the great fortunes and the great estates. We can now +only avoid Socialism by a change as vast as Socialism. If we are to save +property we must distribute property, almost as sternly and sweepingly +as did the French Revolution. If we are to preserve the family we must revolutionize the nation. ## A Last Instance -And now, as this book Is drawing to a close, I will whisper -in the reader's ear a horrible suspicion that has sometimes -haunted me: the suspicion that Hudge and Gudge are secretly -in partnership. That the quarrel they keep up in public is -very much of a put-up job, and that the way in which they -perpetually play into each other's hands is not an -everlasting coincidence. Gudge, the plutocrat, wants an -anarchic industrialism; Hudge, the idealist, provides him -with lyric praises of anarchy. Gudge wants women-workers -because they are cheaper; Hudge calls the woman's work -"freedom to live her own life." Gudge wants steady and -obedient workmen; Hudge preaches teetotalism---to workmen, -not to Gudge. Gudge wants a tame and timid population who -will never take arms against tyranny; Hudge proves from -Tolstoy that nobody must take arms against anything. Gudge -is naturally a healthy and well-washed gentleman; Hudge -earnestly preaches the perfection of Gudge's washing to -people who can't practice it. Above all, Gudge rules by a -coarse and cruel system of sacking and sweating and -bi-sexual toil which is totally inconsistent with the free -family and which is bound to destroy it; therefore Hudge, -stretching out his arms to the universe with a prophetic -smile, tells us that the family is something that we shall -soon gloriously outgrow. - -I do not know whether the partnership of Hudge and Gudge is -conscious or unconscious. I only know that between them they -still keep the common man homeless. I only know I still meet -Jones walking the streets in the gray twilight, looking -sadly at the poles and barriers and low red goblin lanterns -which still guard the house which is none the less his +And now, as this book Is drawing to a close, I will whisper in the +reader's ear a horrible suspicion that has sometimes haunted me: the +suspicion that Hudge and Gudge are secretly in partnership. That the +quarrel they keep up in public is very much of a put-up job, and that +the way in which they perpetually play into each other's hands is not an +everlasting coincidence. Gudge, the plutocrat, wants an anarchic +industrialism; Hudge, the idealist, provides him with lyric praises of +anarchy. Gudge wants women-workers because they are cheaper; Hudge calls +the woman's work "freedom to live her own life." Gudge wants steady and +obedient workmen; Hudge preaches teetotalism---to workmen, not to Gudge. +Gudge wants a tame and timid population who will never take arms against +tyranny; Hudge proves from Tolstoy that nobody must take arms against +anything. Gudge is naturally a healthy and well-washed gentleman; Hudge +earnestly preaches the perfection of Gudge's washing to people who can't +practice it. Above all, Gudge rules by a coarse and cruel system of +sacking and sweating and bi-sexual toil which is totally inconsistent +with the free family and which is bound to destroy it; therefore Hudge, +stretching out his arms to the universe with a prophetic smile, tells us +that the family is something that we shall soon gloriously outgrow. + +I do not know whether the partnership of Hudge and Gudge is conscious or +unconscious. I only know that between them they still keep the common +man homeless. I only know I still meet Jones walking the streets in the +gray twilight, looking sadly at the poles and barriers and low red +goblin lanterns which still guard the house which is none the less his because he has never been in it. ## Conclusion -Here, it may be said, my book ends just where it ought to -begin. I have said that the strong centers of modern English -property must swiftly or slowly be broken up, if even the -idea of property is to remain among Englishmen. There are -two ways in which it could be done, a cold administration by -quite detached officials, which is called Collectivism, or a -personal distribution, so as to produce what is called -Pleasant Proprietorship. I think the latter solution the -finer and more fully human, because it makes each man as -somebody blamed somebody for saying of the Pope, a sort of -small god. A man on his own turf tastes eternity or, in -other words, will give ten minutes more work than is -required. But I believe I am justified in shutting the door -on this vista of argument, instead of opening it. For this -book is not designed to prove the case for Pleasant -Proprietorship, but to prove the case against modern sages -who turn reform to a routine. The whole of this book has -been a rambling and elaborate urging of one purely ethical -fact. And if by any chance it should happen that there are -still some who do not quite see what that point is, I will -end with one plain parable, which is none the worse for -being also a fact. - -A little while ago certain doctors and other persons -permitted by modern law to dictate to their shabbier -fellow-citizens, sent out an order that all little girls -should have their hair cut short. I mean, of course, all -little girls whose parents were poor. Many very unhealthy -habits are common among rich little girls, but it will be -long before any doctors interfere forcibly with them. Now, -the case for this particular interference was this, that the -poor are pressed 'down from above into such stinking and -suffocating underworlds of squalor, that poor people must -not be allowed to have hair, because in their case it must -mean lice in the hair. Therefore, the doctors propose to -abolish the hair. It never seems to have occurred to them to -abolish the lice. Yet it could be done. As is common in most -modern discussions the unmentionable thing is the pivot of -the whole discussion. It is obvious to any Christian man -(that is, to any man with a free soul) that any coercion -applied to a cabman's daughter ought, if possible, to be -applied to a Cabinet Minister's daughter. I will not ask why -the doctors do not, as a matter of fact, apply their rule to -a Cabinet Minister's daughter. I will not ask, because I -know. They do not because they dare not. But what is the -excuse they would urge, what is the plausible argument they -would use, for thus cutting and clipping poor children and -not rich? Their argument would be that the disease is more -likely to be in the hair of poor people than of rich. And -why? Because the poor children are forced (against all the -instincts of the highly domestic working classes) to crowd -together in close rooms under a wildly inefficient system of -public instruction; and because in one out of the forty -children there may be offense. And why? Because the poor man -is so ground down by the great rents of the great ground -landlords that his wife often has to work as well as he. -Therefore she has no time to look after the children; -therefore one in forty of them is dirty. Because the -working-man has these two persons on top of him, the -landlord sitting (literally) on his stomach, and the -schoolmaster sitting (literally) on his head, the workingman -must allow his little girl's hair, first to be neglected -from poverty, next to be poisoned by promiscuity, and, -lastly, to be abolished by hygiene. He, perhaps, was proud -of his little girl's hair. But he does not count. - -Upon this simple principle (or rather precedent) the -sociological doctor drives gayly ahead. When a crapulous -tyranny crushes men down into the dirt, so that their very -hair is dirty, the scientific course is clear. It would be -long and laborious to cut off the heads of the tyrants; it -is easier to cut off the hair of the slaves. In the same -way, if it should ever happen that poor children, screaming -with toothache, disturbed any schoolmaster or artistic -gentleman, it would be easy to pull out all the teeth of the -poor; if their nails were disgustingly dirty, their nails -could be plucked out; if their noses were indecently blown, -their noses could be cut off. The appearance of our humbler -fellow-citizen could be quite strikingly simplified before -we had done with him. But all this is not a bit wilder than -the brute fact that a doctor can walk into the house of a -free man, whose daughter's hair may be as clean as spring -flowers, and order him to cut it off. It never seems to -strike these people that the lesson of lice in the slums is -the wrongness of slums, not the wrongness of hair. Hair is, -to say the least of it, a rooted thing. Its enemy (like the -other insects and oriental armies of whom we have spoken) -sweep upon us but seldom. In truth, it is only by eternal -institutions like hair that we can test passing institutions -like empires. If a house is so built as to knock a man's +Here, it may be said, my book ends just where it ought to begin. I have +said that the strong centers of modern English property must swiftly or +slowly be broken up, if even the idea of property is to remain among +Englishmen. There are two ways in which it could be done, a cold +administration by quite detached officials, which is called +Collectivism, or a personal distribution, so as to produce what is +called Pleasant Proprietorship. I think the latter solution the finer +and more fully human, because it makes each man as somebody blamed +somebody for saying of the Pope, a sort of small god. A man on his own +turf tastes eternity or, in other words, will give ten minutes more work +than is required. But I believe I am justified in shutting the door on +this vista of argument, instead of opening it. For this book is not +designed to prove the case for Pleasant Proprietorship, but to prove the +case against modern sages who turn reform to a routine. The whole of +this book has been a rambling and elaborate urging of one purely ethical +fact. And if by any chance it should happen that there are still some +who do not quite see what that point is, I will end with one plain +parable, which is none the worse for being also a fact. + +A little while ago certain doctors and other persons permitted by modern +law to dictate to their shabbier fellow-citizens, sent out an order that +all little girls should have their hair cut short. I mean, of course, +all little girls whose parents were poor. Many very unhealthy habits are +common among rich little girls, but it will be long before any doctors +interfere forcibly with them. Now, the case for this particular +interference was this, that the poor are pressed 'down from above into +such stinking and suffocating underworlds of squalor, that poor people +must not be allowed to have hair, because in their case it must mean +lice in the hair. Therefore, the doctors propose to abolish the hair. It +never seems to have occurred to them to abolish the lice. Yet it could +be done. As is common in most modern discussions the unmentionable thing +is the pivot of the whole discussion. It is obvious to any Christian man +(that is, to any man with a free soul) that any coercion applied to a +cabman's daughter ought, if possible, to be applied to a Cabinet +Minister's daughter. I will not ask why the doctors do not, as a matter +of fact, apply their rule to a Cabinet Minister's daughter. I will not +ask, because I know. They do not because they dare not. But what is the +excuse they would urge, what is the plausible argument they would use, +for thus cutting and clipping poor children and not rich? Their argument +would be that the disease is more likely to be in the hair of poor +people than of rich. And why? Because the poor children are forced +(against all the instincts of the highly domestic working classes) to +crowd together in close rooms under a wildly inefficient system of +public instruction; and because in one out of the forty children there +may be offense. And why? Because the poor man is so ground down by the +great rents of the great ground landlords that his wife often has to +work as well as he. Therefore she has no time to look after the +children; therefore one in forty of them is dirty. Because the +working-man has these two persons on top of him, the landlord sitting +(literally) on his stomach, and the schoolmaster sitting (literally) on +his head, the workingman must allow his little girl's hair, first to be +neglected from poverty, next to be poisoned by promiscuity, and, lastly, +to be abolished by hygiene. He, perhaps, was proud of his little girl's +hair. But he does not count. + +Upon this simple principle (or rather precedent) the sociological doctor +drives gayly ahead. When a crapulous tyranny crushes men down into the +dirt, so that their very hair is dirty, the scientific course is clear. +It would be long and laborious to cut off the heads of the tyrants; it +is easier to cut off the hair of the slaves. In the same way, if it +should ever happen that poor children, screaming with toothache, +disturbed any schoolmaster or artistic gentleman, it would be easy to +pull out all the teeth of the poor; if their nails were disgustingly +dirty, their nails could be plucked out; if their noses were indecently +blown, their noses could be cut off. The appearance of our humbler +fellow-citizen could be quite strikingly simplified before we had done +with him. But all this is not a bit wilder than the brute fact that a +doctor can walk into the house of a free man, whose daughter's hair may +be as clean as spring flowers, and order him to cut it off. It never +seems to strike these people that the lesson of lice in the slums is the +wrongness of slums, not the wrongness of hair. Hair is, to say the least +of it, a rooted thing. Its enemy (like the other insects and oriental +armies of whom we have spoken) sweep upon us but seldom. In truth, it is +only by eternal institutions like hair that we can test passing +institutions like empires. If a house is so built as to knock a man's head off when he enters it, it is built wrong. -The mob can never rebel unless it is conservative, at least -enough to have conserved some reasons for rebelling. It is -the most awful thought in all our anarchy, that most of the -ancient blows struck for freedom would not be struck at all -to-day, because of the obscuration of the clean, popular -customs from which they came. The insult that brought down -the hammer of Wat Tyler might now be called a medical -examination. That which Virginius loathed and avenged as -foul slavery might now be praised as free love. The cruel -taunt of Foulon, "Let them eat grass," might now be -represented as the dying cry of an idealistic vegetarian. -Those great scissors of science that would snip off the -curls of the poor little school children are ceaselessly -snapping closer and closer to cut off all the corners and -fringes of the arts and honors of the poor. Soon they will -be twisting necks to suit clean collars, and hacking feet to -fit new boots. It never seems to strike them that the body -is more than raiment; that the Sabbath was made for man; -that all institutions shall be judged and damned by whether -they have fitted the normal flesh and spirit. It is the test -of political sanity to keep your head. It is the test of -artistic sanity to keep your hair on. - -Now the whole parable and purpose of these last pages, and -indeed of all these pages, is this: to assert that we must -instantly begin all over again, and begin at the other end. -I begin with a little girl's hair. That I know is a good -thing at any rate. Whatever else is evil, the pride of a -good mother in the beauty of her daughter is good. It is one -of those adamantine tendernesses which are the touchstones -of every age and race. If other things are against it, other -things must go down. If landlords and laws and sciences are -against it, landlords and laws and sciences must go down. -With the red hair of one she-urchin in the gutter I will set -fire to all modern civilization. Because a girl should have -long hair, she should have clean hair; because she should -have clean hair, she should not have an unclean home; -because she should not have an unclean home, she should have -a free and leisured mother; because she should have a free -mother, she should not have an usurious landlord; because -there should not be an usurious landlord, there should be a -redistribution of property; because there should be a -redistribution of property, there shall be a revolution. -That little urchin with the gold-red hair, whom I have just -watched toddling past my house, she shall not be lopped and -lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut short like a -convict's; no, all the kingdoms of the earth shall be hacked -about and mutilated to suit her. She is the human and sacred -image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split -and fall; the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the -roofs of ages come rushing down; and not one hair of her -head shall be harmed. +The mob can never rebel unless it is conservative, at least enough to +have conserved some reasons for rebelling. It is the most awful thought +in all our anarchy, that most of the ancient blows struck for freedom +would not be struck at all to-day, because of the obscuration of the +clean, popular customs from which they came. The insult that brought +down the hammer of Wat Tyler might now be called a medical examination. +That which Virginius loathed and avenged as foul slavery might now be +praised as free love. The cruel taunt of Foulon, "Let them eat grass," +might now be represented as the dying cry of an idealistic vegetarian. +Those great scissors of science that would snip off the curls of the +poor little school children are ceaselessly snapping closer and closer +to cut off all the corners and fringes of the arts and honors of the +poor. Soon they will be twisting necks to suit clean collars, and +hacking feet to fit new boots. It never seems to strike them that the +body is more than raiment; that the Sabbath was made for man; that all +institutions shall be judged and damned by whether they have fitted the +normal flesh and spirit. It is the test of political sanity to keep your +head. It is the test of artistic sanity to keep your hair on. + +Now the whole parable and purpose of these last pages, and indeed of all +these pages, is this: to assert that we must instantly begin all over +again, and begin at the other end. I begin with a little girl's hair. +That I know is a good thing at any rate. Whatever else is evil, the +pride of a good mother in the beauty of her daughter is good. It is one +of those adamantine tendernesses which are the touchstones of every age +and race. If other things are against it, other things must go down. If +landlords and laws and sciences are against it, landlords and laws and +sciences must go down. With the red hair of one she-urchin in the gutter +I will set fire to all modern civilization. Because a girl should have +long hair, she should have clean hair; because she should have clean +hair, she should not have an unclean home; because she should not have +an unclean home, she should have a free and leisured mother; because she +should have a free mother, she should not have an usurious landlord; +because there should not be an usurious landlord, there should be a +redistribution of property; because there should be a redistribution of +property, there shall be a revolution. That little urchin with the +gold-red hair, whom I have just watched toddling past my house, she +shall not be lopped and lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut +short like a convict's; no, all the kingdoms of the earth shall be +hacked about and mutilated to suit her. She is the human and sacred +image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split and fall; +the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the roofs of ages come +rushing down; and not one hair of her head shall be harmed. # Three Notes ## On Female Suffrage -Not wishing to overload this long essay with too many -parentheses, apart from its thesis of progress and -precedent, I append here three notes on points of detail -that may possibly be misunderstood. - -The first refers to the female controversy. It may seem to -many that I dismiss too curtly the contention that all women -should have votes, even if most women do not desire them. It -is constantly said in this connection that males have -received the vote (the agricultural laborers for instance) -when only a minority of them were in favor of it. Mr. -Galsworthy, one of the few fine fighting intellects of our -time, has talked this language in the "Nation." Now, -broadly, I have only to answer here, as everywhere in this -book, that history is not a toboggan slide, but a road to be -reconsidered and even retraced. If we really forced General -Elections upon free laborers who definitely disliked General -Elections, then it was a thoroughly undemocratic thing to -do; if we are democrats we ought to undo it. We want the -will of the people, not the votes of the people; and to give -a man a vote against his will is to make voting more -valuable than the democracy it declares. - -But this analogy is false, for a plain and particular -reason. Many voteless women regard a vote as unwomanly. -Nobody says that most voteless men regarded a vote as -unmanly. Nobody says that any voteless men regarded it as -unmanly. Not in the stillest hamlet or the most stagnant fen -could you find a yokel or a tramp who thought he lost his -sexual dignity by being part of a political mob. If he did -not care about a vote it was solely because he did not know -about a vote; he did not understand the word any better than -Bimetallism. His opposition, if it existed, was merely -negative. His indifference to a vote was really +Not wishing to overload this long essay with too many parentheses, apart +from its thesis of progress and precedent, I append here three notes on +points of detail that may possibly be misunderstood. + +The first refers to the female controversy. It may seem to many that I +dismiss too curtly the contention that all women should have votes, even +if most women do not desire them. It is constantly said in this +connection that males have received the vote (the agricultural laborers +for instance) when only a minority of them were in favor of it. Mr. +Galsworthy, one of the few fine fighting intellects of our time, has +talked this language in the "Nation." Now, broadly, I have only to +answer here, as everywhere in this book, that history is not a toboggan +slide, but a road to be reconsidered and even retraced. If we really +forced General Elections upon free laborers who definitely disliked +General Elections, then it was a thoroughly undemocratic thing to do; if +we are democrats we ought to undo it. We want the will of the people, +not the votes of the people; and to give a man a vote against his will +is to make voting more valuable than the democracy it declares. + +But this analogy is false, for a plain and particular reason. Many +voteless women regard a vote as unwomanly. Nobody says that most +voteless men regarded a vote as unmanly. Nobody says that any voteless +men regarded it as unmanly. Not in the stillest hamlet or the most +stagnant fen could you find a yokel or a tramp who thought he lost his +sexual dignity by being part of a political mob. If he did not care +about a vote it was solely because he did not know about a vote; he did +not understand the word any better than Bimetallism. His opposition, if +it existed, was merely negative. His indifference to a vote was really indifference. -But the female sentiment against the franchise, whatever its -size, is positive. It is not negative; it is by no means -indifferent. Such women as are opposed to the change regard -it (rightly or wrongly) as unfeminine. That is, as insulting -certain affirmative traditions to which they are attached. -You may think such a view prejudiced; but I violently deny -that any democrat has a right to override such prejudices, -if they are popular and positive. Thus he would not have a -right to make millions of Moslems vote with a cross if they -had a prejudice in favor of voting with a crescent. Unless -this is admitted, democracy is a farce we need scarcely keep -up. If it is admitted, the Suffragists have not merely to -awaken an indifferent, but to convert a hostile majority. +But the female sentiment against the franchise, whatever its size, is +positive. It is not negative; it is by no means indifferent. Such women +as are opposed to the change regard it (rightly or wrongly) as +unfeminine. That is, as insulting certain affirmative traditions to +which they are attached. You may think such a view prejudiced; but I +violently deny that any democrat has a right to override such +prejudices, if they are popular and positive. Thus he would not have a +right to make millions of Moslems vote with a cross if they had a +prejudice in favor of voting with a crescent. Unless this is admitted, +democracy is a farce we need scarcely keep up. If it is admitted, the +Suffragists have not merely to awaken an indifferent, but to convert a +hostile majority. ## On Cleanliness in Education -On re-reading my protest, which I honestly think much -needed, against our heathen idolatry of mere ablution, I see -that it may possibly be misread. I hasten to say that I -think washing a most important thing to be taught both to -rich and poor. I do not attack the positive but the relative -position of soap. Let it be insisted on even as much as now; -but let other things be insisted on much more. I am even -ready to admit that cleanliness is next to godliness; but -the moderns will not even admit godliness to be next to -cleanliness. In their talk about Thomas Becket and such -saints and heroes they make soap more important than soul; -they reject godliness whenever it is not cleanliness. If we -resent this about remote saints and heroes, we should resent -it more about the many saints and heroes of the slums, whose -unclean hands cleanse the world. Dirt is evil chiefly as -evidence of sloth; but the fact remains that the classes -that wash most are those that work least. Concerning these, -the practical course is simple; soap should be urged on them -and advertised as what it is---a luxury. With regard to the -poor also the practical course is not hard to harmonize with -our thesis. If we want to give poor people soap we must set -out deliberately to give them luxuries. If we will not make -them rich enough to be clean, then emphatically we must do -what we did with the saints. We must reverence them for -being dirty. +On re-reading my protest, which I honestly think much needed, against +our heathen idolatry of mere ablution, I see that it may possibly be +misread. I hasten to say that I think washing a most important thing to +be taught both to rich and poor. I do not attack the positive but the +relative position of soap. Let it be insisted on even as much as now; +but let other things be insisted on much more. I am even ready to admit +that cleanliness is next to godliness; but the moderns will not even +admit godliness to be next to cleanliness. In their talk about Thomas +Becket and such saints and heroes they make soap more important than +soul; they reject godliness whenever it is not cleanliness. If we resent +this about remote saints and heroes, we should resent it more about the +many saints and heroes of the slums, whose unclean hands cleanse the +world. Dirt is evil chiefly as evidence of sloth; but the fact remains +that the classes that wash most are those that work least. Concerning +these, the practical course is simple; soap should be urged on them and +advertised as what it is---a luxury. With regard to the poor also the +practical course is not hard to harmonize with our thesis. If we want to +give poor people soap we must set out deliberately to give them +luxuries. If we will not make them rich enough to be clean, then +emphatically we must do what we did with the saints. We must reverence +them for being dirty. ## On Peasant Proprietorship -I have not dealt with any details touching distributed -ownership, or its possibility in England, for the reason -stated in the text. This book deals with what is wrong, -wrong in our root of argument and effort. This wrong is, I -say, that we will go forward because we dare not go back. -Thus the Socialist says that property is already -concentrated into Trusts and Stores: the only hope is to -concentrate it further in the State. I say the only hope is -to unconcentrate it; that is, to repent and return; the only -step forward is the step backward. - -But in connection with this distribution I have laid myself -open to another potential mistake. In speaking of a sweeping -redistribution, I speak of decision in the aim, not -necessarily of abruptness in the means. It is not at all too -late to restore an approximately rational state of English -possessions without any mere confiscation. A policy of -buying out landlordism, steadily adopted in England as it -has already been adopted in Ireland (notably in -Mr. Wyndham's wise and fruitful Act), would in a very short -time release the lower end of the see-saw and make the whole -plank swing more level. The objection to this course is not -at all that it would not do, only that it will not be done. -If we leave things as they are, there will almost certainly -be a crash of confiscation. If we hesitate, we shall soon -have to hurry. But if we start doing it quickly we have -still time to do it slowly. - -This point, however, is not essential to my book. All I have -to urge between these two boards is that I dislike the big -Whiteley shop, and that I dislike Socialism because it will -(according to Socialists) be so like that shop. It is its -fulfilment, not its reversal. I do not object to Socialism -because it will revolutionize our commerce, but because it +I have not dealt with any details touching distributed ownership, or its +possibility in England, for the reason stated in the text. This book +deals with what is wrong, wrong in our root of argument and effort. This +wrong is, I say, that we will go forward because we dare not go back. +Thus the Socialist says that property is already concentrated into +Trusts and Stores: the only hope is to concentrate it further in the +State. I say the only hope is to unconcentrate it; that is, to repent +and return; the only step forward is the step backward. + +But in connection with this distribution I have laid myself open to +another potential mistake. In speaking of a sweeping redistribution, I +speak of decision in the aim, not necessarily of abruptness in the +means. It is not at all too late to restore an approximately rational +state of English possessions without any mere confiscation. A policy of +buying out landlordism, steadily adopted in England as it has already +been adopted in Ireland (notably in Mr. Wyndham's wise and fruitful +Act), would in a very short time release the lower end of the see-saw +and make the whole plank swing more level. The objection to this course +is not at all that it would not do, only that it will not be done. If we +leave things as they are, there will almost certainly be a crash of +confiscation. If we hesitate, we shall soon have to hurry. But if we +start doing it quickly we have still time to do it slowly. + +This point, however, is not essential to my book. All I have to urge +between these two boards is that I dislike the big Whiteley shop, and +that I dislike Socialism because it will (according to Socialists) be so +like that shop. It is its fulfilment, not its reversal. I do not object +to Socialism because it will revolutionize our commerce, but because it will leave it so horribly the same. diff --git a/src/where-love.md b/src/where-love.md index 87bfff9..0305e6f 100644 --- a/src/where-love.md +++ b/src/where-love.md @@ -1,72 +1,166 @@ -In the city lived the shoemaker, Martuin Avdyeitch. He lived in a basement, in a little room with one window. The window looked out on the street. Through the window he used to watch the people passing by; although only their feet could be seen, yet by the boots, Martuin Avdyeitch recognized the people. Martuin Avdyeitch had lived long in one place, and had many acquaintances. Few pairs of boots in his district had not been in his hands once and again. Some he would half-sole, some he would patch, some he would stitch around, and occasionally he would also put on new uppers. And through the window he often recognized his work. - -Avdyeitch had plenty to do, because he was a faithful workman, used good material, did not make exorbitant, charges, and kept his word. If it was possible for him to finish an order bya certain time, he would accept it; otherwise, he would not deceive you, he would tell you so beforehand. And all knew Avdyeitch, and he was never out of work. - -Avdyeitch had always been a good man; but as he grew old, he began to think more about his soul, and get nearer to God. Martuin's wife had died when he was still living with his master. His wife left him a boy three years old. None of their other children had lived. All the eldest had died in childhood. Martuin at first intended to send his little son to his sister in the village, but afterward he felt sorry for him; he thought to himself: - -"It will be hard for my Kapitoshka to live in a strange family. I shall keep him with me." - -And Avdyeitch left his master, and went into lodgings with his little son. But God gave Avdyeitch no luck with his children. As Kapitoshka grew older, he began to help his father, and would have been a delight to him, but a sickness fell on him, he went to bed, suffered a week, and died. Martuin buried his son, and fell into despair. So deep was this despair that he began to complain of God. Martuin fell into such a melancholy state, that more than once he prayed to God for death, and reproached God because He had not taken him who was an old man, instead of his beloved only son. Avdyeitch also ceased to go to church. - -And once a little old man from the same district came from Troïtsa[^1] to see Avdyeitch; for seven years he had been wandering about. Avdyeitch talked with him, and began to complain about his sorrows. - -[^1]: Trinity, a famous monastery, pilgrimage to which is considered a virtue. Avdyeitch calls this *zemlyak-starichok*, *Bozhi chelovyek*, God's man.---**Ed.** - -"I have no desire to live any longer," he said, "I only wish I was dead. That is all I pray God for. I am a man without anything to hope for now." +In the city lived the shoemaker, Martuin Avdyeitch. He lived in a +basement, in a little room with one window. The window looked out on the +street. Through the window he used to watch the people passing by; +although only their feet could be seen, yet by the boots, Martuin +Avdyeitch recognized the people. Martuin Avdyeitch had lived long in one +place, and had many acquaintances. Few pairs of boots in his district +had not been in his hands once and again. Some he would half-sole, some +he would patch, some he would stitch around, and occasionally he would +also put on new uppers. And through the window he often recognized his +work. + +Avdyeitch had plenty to do, because he was a faithful workman, used good +material, did not make exorbitant, charges, and kept his word. If it was +possible for him to finish an order bya certain time, he would accept +it; otherwise, he would not deceive you, he would tell you so +beforehand. And all knew Avdyeitch, and he was never out of work. + +Avdyeitch had always been a good man; but as he grew old, he began to +think more about his soul, and get nearer to God. Martuin's wife had +died when he was still living with his master. His wife left him a boy +three years old. None of their other children had lived. All the eldest +had died in childhood. Martuin at first intended to send his little son +to his sister in the village, but afterward he felt sorry for him; he +thought to himself: + +"It will be hard for my Kapitoshka to live in a strange family. I shall +keep him with me." + +And Avdyeitch left his master, and went into lodgings with his little +son. But God gave Avdyeitch no luck with his children. As Kapitoshka +grew older, he began to help his father, and would have been a delight +to him, but a sickness fell on him, he went to bed, suffered a week, and +died. Martuin buried his son, and fell into despair. So deep was this +despair that he began to complain of God. Martuin fell into such a +melancholy state, that more than once he prayed to God for death, and +reproached God because He had not taken him who was an old man, instead +of his beloved only son. Avdyeitch also ceased to go to church. + +And once a little old man from the same district came from Troïtsa[^1] +to see Avdyeitch; for seven years he had been wandering about. Avdyeitch +talked with him, and began to complain about his sorrows. + +"I have no desire to live any longer," he said, "I only wish I was dead. +That is all I pray God for. I am a man without anything to hope for +now." And the little old man said to him:--- -"You don't talk right, Martuin, we must not judge God's doings. The world moves, not by our skill, but by God's will. God decreed for your son to die,---for you---to live. So it is for the best. And you are in despair, because you wish to live for your own happiness." +"You don't talk right, Martuin, we must not judge God's doings. The +world moves, not by our skill, but by God's will. God decreed for your +son to die,---for you---to live. So it is for the best. And you are in +despair, because you wish to live for your own happiness." "But what shall one live for?" asked Martuin. And the little old man said:--- -"We must live for God, Martuin. He gives you life, and for His sake you must live. When you begin to live for Him, you will not grieve over anything, and all will seem easy to you." +"We must live for God, Martuin. He gives you life, and for His sake you +must live. When you begin to live for Him, you will not grieve over +anything, and all will seem easy to you." -Martuin kept silent for a moment, and then said, "But how can one live for God?" +Martuin kept silent for a moment, and then said, "But how can one live +for God?" And the little old man said:--- -"Christ has taught us how to live for God. You know how to read? Buy a Testament, and read it; there you will learn how to live for God. Everything is explained there." +"Christ has taught us how to live for God. You know how to read? Buy a +Testament, and read it; there you will learn how to live for God. +Everything is explained there." -And these words kindled a fire in Avdyeitch's heart. And he went that very same day, bought a New Testament in large print, and began to read. +And these words kindled a fire in Avdyeitch's heart. And he went that +very same day, bought a New Testament in large print, and began to read. -At first Avdyeitch intended to read only on holidays; but as he began to read, it so cheered his soul that he used to read every day. At times he would become so absorbed in reading, that all the kerosene in the lamp would burn out, and still he could not tear himself away. And so Avdyeitch used to read every evening. +At first Avdyeitch intended to read only on holidays; but as he began to +read, it so cheered his soul that he used to read every day. At times he +would become so absorbed in reading, that all the kerosene in the lamp +would burn out, and still he could not tear himself away. And so +Avdyeitch used to read every evening. -And the more he read, the clearer he understood what God wanted of him, and how one should live for God; and his heart kept growing easier and easier. Formerly, when he lay down to sleep, he used to sigh and groan, and always thought of his Kapitoshka; and now his only exclamation was: +And the more he read, the clearer he understood what God wanted of him, +and how one should live for God; and his heart kept growing easier and +easier. Formerly, when he lay down to sleep, he used to sigh and groan, +and always thought of his Kapitoshka; and now his only exclamation was: "Glory to Thee! glory to Thee, Lord! Thy will be done." -And from that time Avdyeitch's whole life was changed. In other days he, too, used to drop into a public-house[^2] as a holiday amusement, to drink a cup of tea; and he was not averse to a little brandy, either. He would take a drink with some acquaintance, and leave the saloon, not intoxicated, exactly, yet in a happy frame of mind, and inclined to talk nonsense, and shout, and use abusive language at a person. Now he left off that sort of thing. His life became quiet and joyful. In the morning he would sit down to work, finish his allotted task, then take the little lamp from the hook, put it on the table, get his book from the shelf, open it, and sit down to read. And the more he read, the more he understood, and the brighter and happier it grew in his heart. - -[^2]: *Traktir.* - -Once it happened that Martuin read till late into the night. He was reading the Gospel of Luke. He was reading over the sixth chapter; and he was reading the verses: - -> "And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." +And from that time Avdyeitch's whole life was changed. In other days he, +too, used to drop into a public-house[^2] as a holiday amusement, to +drink a cup of tea; and he was not averse to a little brandy, either. He +would take a drink with some acquaintance, and leave the saloon, not +intoxicated, exactly, yet in a happy frame of mind, and inclined to talk +nonsense, and shout, and use abusive language at a person. Now he left +off that sort of thing. His life became quiet and joyful. In the morning +he would sit down to work, finish his allotted task, then take the +little lamp from the hook, put it on the table, get his book from the +shelf, open it, and sit down to read. And the more he read, the more he +understood, and the brighter and happier it grew in his heart. + +Once it happened that Martuin read till late into the night. He was +reading the Gospel of Luke. He was reading over the sixth chapter; and +he was reading the verses: + +> "And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; +> and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also. +> Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy +> goods ask them not again. And as ye would that men should do to you, +> do ye also to them likewise." He read farther also those verses, where God speaks: -> "And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew yoa to whom he is like: he is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it; for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great." - -Avdyeitch read these words, and joy filled his soul. He took off his spectacles, put them down on the book, leaned his elbows on the table, and became lost in thought. And he began to measure his life by these words. And he thought to himself:--- - -"Is my house built on the rock, or on the sand? Tis well if on the rock. It is so easy when you are alone by yourself; it seems as if you had done everything as God commands; but when you forget yourself, you sin again. Yet I shall still struggle on. It is very good. Help me, Lord!" - -Thus ran his thoughts; he wanted to go to bed, but he felt loath to tear himself away from the book. And he began to read farther in the seventh chapter. He read about the centurion, he read about the widow's son, he read about the answer given to John's disciples, and finally he came to that place where the rich Pharisee desired the Lord to sit at meat with him; and he read how the woman that was a sinner anointed His feet, and washed them with her tears, and how He forgave her. He reached the forty-fourth verse, and began to read: - -> "And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment." +> "And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? +> Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will +> shew yoa to whom he is like: he is like a man which built an house, +> and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood +> arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake +> it; for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth +> not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the +> earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately +> it fell; and the ruin of that house was great." + +Avdyeitch read these words, and joy filled his soul. He took off his +spectacles, put them down on the book, leaned his elbows on the table, +and became lost in thought. And he began to measure his life by these +words. And he thought to himself:--- + +"Is my house built on the rock, or on the sand? Tis well if on the rock. +It is so easy when you are alone by yourself; it seems as if you had +done everything as God commands; but when you forget yourself, you sin +again. Yet I shall still struggle on. It is very good. Help me, Lord!" + +Thus ran his thoughts; he wanted to go to bed, but he felt loath to tear +himself away from the book. And he began to read farther in the seventh +chapter. He read about the centurion, he read about the widow's son, he +read about the answer given to John's disciples, and finally he came to +that place where the rich Pharisee desired the Lord to sit at meat with +him; and he read how the woman that was a sinner anointed His feet, and +washed them with her tears, and how He forgave her. He reached the +forty-fourth verse, and began to read: + +> "And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this +> woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my +> feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the +> hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the +> time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou +> didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment." He finished reading these verses, and thought to himself:--- -> "Thou gavest me no water for my feet, thou gavest me no kiss. My head with oil thou didst not anoint." +> "Thou gavest me no water for my feet, thou gavest me no kiss. My head +> with oil thou didst not anoint." -And again Avdyeitch took off his spectacles, put them down on the hook, and again he became lost in thought. +And again Avdyeitch took off his spectacles, put them down on the hook, +and again he became lost in thought. -"It seems that Pharisee must have been such a man as I am. I, too, apparently have thought only of myself,---how I might have my tea, be warm and comfortable, but never to think about my guest. He thought about himself, but there was not the least care taken of the guest. And who was his guest? The Lord Himself. If He had come to me, should I have done the same way?" +"It seems that Pharisee must have been such a man as I am. I, too, +apparently have thought only of myself,---how I might have my tea, be +warm and comfortable, but never to think about my guest. He thought +about himself, but there was not the least care taken of the guest. And +who was his guest? The Lord Himself. If He had come to me, should I have +done the same way?" -Avdyeitch rested his head upon both his arms, and did not notice that he fell asleep. +Avdyeitch rested his head upon both his arms, and did not notice that he +fell asleep. "Martuin!" suddenly seemed to sound in his ears. @@ -80,141 +174,273 @@ Again he fell into a doze. Suddenly, he plainly heard:--- "Martuin! Ah, Martuin! look to-morrow on the street. I am coming." -Martuin awoke, rose from the chair, began to rub his eyes. He himself could not tell whether he heard those words in his dream, or in reality. He turned down his lamp, and went to bed. - -At daybreak next morning, Avdyeitch rose, made his prayer to God, lighted the stove, put on the shchi[^3] and the kasha,[^4] put the water in the samovar, put on his apron, and sat down by the window to work. +Martuin awoke, rose from the chair, began to rub his eyes. He himself +could not tell whether he heard those words in his dream, or in reality. +He turned down his lamp, and went to bed. -[^3]: Cabbage-soup. - -[^4]: Gruel. +At daybreak next morning, Avdyeitch rose, made his prayer to God, +lighted the stove, put on the shchi[^3] and the kasha,[^4] put the water +in the samovar, put on his apron, and sat down by the window to work. -And while he was working, he kept thinking about all that had happened the day before. It seemed to him at one moment that it was a dream, and now he had really heard a voice. +And while he was working, he kept thinking about all that had happened +the day before. It seemed to him at one moment that it was a dream, and +now he had really heard a voice. "Well," he said to himself, "such things have been." -Martuin was sitting by the window, and looking out more than he was working. When anyone passed by in boots which he did not know, he would bend down, look out of the window, in order to see, not only the feet, but also the face. - -The dvornik[^5] passed by in new felt boots,[^6] the water-carrier passed by; then there came up to the window an old soldier of Nicholas's time, in an old pair of laced felt boots, with a shovel in his hands. Avdyeitch recognized him by his felt boots. The old man's name was Stepanuitch; and a neighboring merchant, out of charity, gave him a home with him. He was required to assist the dvornik. Stepanuitch began to shovel away the snow from in front of Avdyeitch' s window. Avdyeitch glanced at him, and took up his work again. - -[^5]: House-porter. - -[^6]: Valenki. - -"Pshaw! I must be getting crazy in my old age," said Avdyeitch, and laughed at himself. "Stepanuitch is clearing away the snow, and I imagine that Christ is coming to see me. I was entirely out of my mind, old dotard that I am!" - -Avdyeitch sewed about a dozen stitches, and then felt impelled to look through the window again. He looked out again through the window, and saw that Stepanuitch had leaned his shovel against the wall, and was warming himself, and resting. He was an old, broken-down man; evidently he had not strength enough even to shovel the snow. Avdyeitch said to himself:--- - -"I will give him some tea; by the way, the samovar has only just gone out." Avdyeitch laid down his awl, rose from his seat, put the samovar on the table, poured out the tea, and tapped with his finger at the glass. Stepanuitch turned around, and came to the window. Avdyeitch beckoned to him, and went to open the door. +Martuin was sitting by the window, and looking out more than he was +working. When anyone passed by in boots which he did not know, he would +bend down, look out of the window, in order to see, not only the feet, +but also the face. + +The dvornik[^5] passed by in new felt boots,[^6] the water-carrier +passed by; then there came up to the window an old soldier of Nicholas's +time, in an old pair of laced felt boots, with a shovel in his hands. +Avdyeitch recognized him by his felt boots. The old man's name was +Stepanuitch; and a neighboring merchant, out of charity, gave him a home +with him. He was required to assist the dvornik. Stepanuitch began to +shovel away the snow from in front of Avdyeitch' s window. Avdyeitch +glanced at him, and took up his work again. + +"Pshaw! I must be getting crazy in my old age," said Avdyeitch, and +laughed at himself. "Stepanuitch is clearing away the snow, and I +imagine that Christ is coming to see me. I was entirely out of my mind, +old dotard that I am!" + +Avdyeitch sewed about a dozen stitches, and then felt impelled to look +through the window again. He looked out again through the window, and +saw that Stepanuitch had leaned his shovel against the wall, and was +warming himself, and resting. He was an old, broken-down man; evidently +he had not strength enough even to shovel the snow. Avdyeitch said to +himself:--- + +"I will give him some tea; by the way, the samovar has only just gone +out." Avdyeitch laid down his awl, rose from his seat, put the samovar +on the table, poured out the tea, and tapped with his finger at the +glass. Stepanuitch turned around, and came to the window. Avdyeitch +beckoned to him, and went to open the door. "Come in, warm yourself a little," he said. "You must be cold." "May Christ reward you for this! my bones ache," said Stepanuitch. -Stepanuitch came in, and shook off the snow, tried to wipe his feet, so as not to soil the floor, but staggered. +Stepanuitch came in, and shook off the snow, tried to wipe his feet, so +as not to soil the floor, but staggered. -"Don't trouble to wipe your feet. I will clean it up myself; we are used to such things. Come in and sit down,' said Avdyeitch. "Here, drink a cup of tea." +"Don't trouble to wipe your feet. I will clean it up myself; we are used +to such things. Come in and sit down,' said Avdyeitch."Here, drink a cup +of tea." -And Avdyeitch filled two glasses, and handed one to his guest; while he himself poured his tea into a saucer, and began to blow it. +And Avdyeitch filled two glasses, and handed one to his guest; while he +himself poured his tea into a saucer, and began to blow it. -Stepanuitch finished drinking his glass of tea, turned the glass upside down,[^7] put the half-eaten lump of sugar on it, and began to express his thanks. But it was evident he wanted some more. +Stepanuitch finished drinking his glass of tea, turned the glass upside +down,[^7] put the half-eaten lump of sugar on it, and began to express +his thanks. But it was evident he wanted some more. -[^7]: To signify he was satisfied; a custom among the Russians.---**Ed.** - -"Have some more," said Avdyeitch, filling both his own glass and his guest's. Avdyeitch drank his tea, but from time to time glanced out into the street. +"Have some more," said Avdyeitch, filling both his own glass and his +guest's. Avdyeitch drank his tea, but from time to time glanced out into +the street. "Are you expecting anyone?" asked his guest. -"Am I expecting anyone? I am ashamed even to tell whom I expect. I am, and I am not, expecting someone; but one word has kindled a fire in my heart. Whether it is a dream, or something else, I do not know. Don't you see, brother, I was reading yesterday the Gospel about Christ the Batyushka; how He suffered, how He walked on the earth. I suppose you have heard about it?" - -"Indeed I have," replied Stepanuitch; "but we are people in darkness, we can't read." - -"Well, now, I was reading about that very thing,---how He walked on the earth; I read, you know, how He came to the Pharisee, and the Pharisee did not treat Him hospitably. Well, and so, my brother, I was reading yesterday, about this very thing, and was thinking to myself how he did not receive Christ, the Batyushka, with honor. Suppose, for example, He should come to me, or anyone else, I said to myself, I should not even know how to receive Him. And he gave Him no reception at all. Well I while I was thus thinking, I fell asleep, brother, and I heard someone call me by name. I got up; the voice, just as if someone whispered, said, 'Be on the watch; I shall come to-morrow.' And this happened twice. Well! would you believe it, it got into my head? I scolded myself and yet I am expecting Him, the Batyushka." - -Stepanuitch shook his head, and said nothing; he finished drinking his glass of tea, and put it on the side; but Avdyeitch picked up the glass again, and filled it once more. - -"Drink some more for your good health. You see, I have an idea that, when the Batyushka went about on this earth, He disdained no one, and had more to do with the simple people. He always went to see the simple people. He picked out His disciples more from among folk like such sinners as we are, from the working class. Said He, whoever exalts himself, shall be humbled, and he who is humbled shall become exalted. Said He, you call me Lord, and, said He, I wash your feet. Whoever wishes, said He, to be the first, the same shall be a servant to all. Because, said He, blessed are the poor, the humble, the kind, the generous." - -And Stepanuitch forgot about his tea; he was an old man, and easily moved to tears. He was listening, and the tears rolled down his face. - -"Come, now, have some more tea," said Avdyeitch; but Stepanuitch made the sign of the cross, thanked him, turned down his glass, and arose. - -"Thanks to you," he says, "Martuin Avdyeitch, for treating me kindly, and satisfying me, soul and body." - -"You are welcome; come in again; always glad to see a friend," said Avdyeitch. - -Stepanuitch departed; and Martuin poured out the rest of the tea, drank it up, put away the dishes, and sat down again by the window to work, to stitch on a patch. He kept stitching away, and at the same time looking through the window. He was expecting Christ, and was all the while thinking of Him and His deeds, and his head was filled with the different speeches of Christ. - -Two soldiers passed by: one wore boots furnished by the crown, and the other one, boots that he had made; then the master[^8] of the next house passed by in shining galoshes; then a baker with a basket passed by. All passed by; and now there came also by the window a woman in woolen stockings and rustic bashmaks on her feet. She passed by the window, and stood still near the window-case. - -[^8]: Khozyaïn. - -Avdyeitch looked up at her from the window, and saw it was a stranger, a woman poorly clad, and with a child; she was standing by the wall with her back to the wind, trying to wrap up the child, and she had nothing to wrap it up in. The woman was dressed in shabby summer clothes; and from behind the frame, Avdyeitch could hear the child crying, and the woman trying to pacify it; but she was not able to pacify it. +"Am I expecting anyone? I am ashamed even to tell whom I expect. I am, +and I am not, expecting someone; but one word has kindled a fire in my +heart. Whether it is a dream, or something else, I do not know. Don't +you see, brother, I was reading yesterday the Gospel about Christ the +Batyushka; how He suffered, how He walked on the earth. I suppose you +have heard about it?" + +"Indeed I have," replied Stepanuitch; "but we are people in darkness, we +can't read." + +"Well, now, I was reading about that very thing,---how He walked on the +earth; I read, you know, how He came to the Pharisee, and the Pharisee +did not treat Him hospitably. Well, and so, my brother, I was reading +yesterday, about this very thing, and was thinking to myself how he did +not receive Christ, the Batyushka, with honor. Suppose, for example, He +should come to me, or anyone else, I said to myself, I should not even +know how to receive Him. And he gave Him no reception at all. Well I +while I was thus thinking, I fell asleep, brother, and I heard someone +call me by name. I got up; the voice, just as if someone whispered, +said, 'Be on the watch; I shall come to-morrow.' And this happened +twice. Well! would you believe it, it got into my head? I scolded myself +and yet I am expecting Him, the Batyushka." + +Stepanuitch shook his head, and said nothing; he finished drinking his +glass of tea, and put it on the side; but Avdyeitch picked up the glass +again, and filled it once more. + +"Drink some more for your good health. You see, I have an idea that, +when the Batyushka went about on this earth, He disdained no one, and +had more to do with the simple people. He always went to see the simple +people. He picked out His disciples more from among folk like such +sinners as we are, from the working class. Said He, whoever exalts +himself, shall be humbled, and he who is humbled shall become exalted. +Said He, you call me Lord, and, said He, I wash your feet. Whoever +wishes, said He, to be the first, the same shall be a servant to all. +Because, said He, blessed are the poor, the humble, the kind, the +generous." + +And Stepanuitch forgot about his tea; he was an old man, and easily +moved to tears. He was listening, and the tears rolled down his face. + +"Come, now, have some more tea," said Avdyeitch; but Stepanuitch made +the sign of the cross, thanked him, turned down his glass, and arose. + +"Thanks to you," he says, "Martuin Avdyeitch, for treating me kindly, +and satisfying me, soul and body." + +"You are welcome; come in again; always glad to see a friend," said +Avdyeitch. + +Stepanuitch departed; and Martuin poured out the rest of the tea, drank +it up, put away the dishes, and sat down again by the window to work, to +stitch on a patch. He kept stitching away, and at the same time looking +through the window. He was expecting Christ, and was all the while +thinking of Him and His deeds, and his head was filled with the +different speeches of Christ. + +Two soldiers passed by: one wore boots furnished by the crown, and the +other one, boots that he had made; then the master[^8] of the next house +passed by in shining galoshes; then a baker with a basket passed by. All +passed by; and now there came also by the window a woman in woolen +stockings and rustic bashmaks on her feet. She passed by the window, and +stood still near the window-case. + +Avdyeitch looked up at her from the window, and saw it was a stranger, a +woman poorly clad, and with a child; she was standing by the wall with +her back to the wind, trying to wrap up the child, and she had nothing +to wrap it up in. The woman was dressed in shabby summer clothes; and +from behind the frame, Avdyeitch could hear the child crying, and the +woman trying to pacify it; but she was not able to pacify it. Avdyeitch got up, went to the door, ascended the steps, and cried:--- "My good woman. Hey! my good woman!"[^9] -[^9]: *Umnitsa aumnitsa!* literally, clever one. - The woman heard him and turned around. -"Why are you standing in the cold with the child? Come into my room, where it is warm; you can manage it better. Here, this way!" - -The woman was astonished. She saw an old, old man in an apron, with spectacles on his nose, calling her to him. She followed him. They descended the steps and entered the room; the old man led the woman to his bed. - -"There," says he, "sit down, my good woman, nearer to the stove; you can get warm, and nurse the little one." - -"I have no milk for him. I myself have not eaten anything since morning," said the woman; but, nevertheless, she took the baby to her breast. - -Avdyeitch shook his head, went to the table, brought out the bread and a dish, opened the oven door, poured into the dish some cabbage soup, took out the pot with the gruel, but it was not cooked as yet; so he filled the dish with shchi only, and put it on the table. He got the bread, took the towel down from the hook, and spread it upon the table. - -"Sit down," he says, "and eat, my good woman; and I will mind the little one. You see, I once had children of my own; I know how to handle them." - -The woman crossed herself, sat down at the table, and began to eat; while Avdyeitch took a seat on the bed near the infant. Avdyeitch kept smacking and smacking to it with his lips; but it was a poor kind of smacking, for he had no teeth. The little one kept on crying. And it occurred to Avdyeitch to threaten the little one with his finger; he waved, waved his finger right before the child's mouth, and hastily withdrew it. He did not put it to its mouth, because his finger was black, and soiled with wax. And the little one looked at his finger, and became quiet; then it began to smile, and Avdyeitch also was glad. While the woman was eating, she told who she was, and whither she was going. +"Why are you standing in the cold with the child? Come into my room, +where it is warm; you can manage it better. Here, this way!" + +The woman was astonished. She saw an old, old man in an apron, with +spectacles on his nose, calling her to him. She followed him. They +descended the steps and entered the room; the old man led the woman to +his bed. + +"There," says he, "sit down, my good woman, nearer to the stove; you can +get warm, and nurse the little one." + +"I have no milk for him. I myself have not eaten anything since +morning," said the woman; but, nevertheless, she took the baby to her +breast. + +Avdyeitch shook his head, went to the table, brought out the bread and a +dish, opened the oven door, poured into the dish some cabbage soup, took +out the pot with the gruel, but it was not cooked as yet; so he filled +the dish with shchi only, and put it on the table. He got the bread, +took the towel down from the hook, and spread it upon the table. + +"Sit down," he says, "and eat, my good woman; and I will mind the little +one. You see, I once had children of my own; I know how to handle them." + +The woman crossed herself, sat down at the table, and began to eat; +while Avdyeitch took a seat on the bed near the infant. Avdyeitch kept +smacking and smacking to it with his lips; but it was a poor kind of +smacking, for he had no teeth. The little one kept on crying. And it +occurred to Avdyeitch to threaten the little one with his finger; he +waved, waved his finger right before the child's mouth, and hastily +withdrew it. He did not put it to its mouth, because his finger was +black, and soiled with wax. And the little one looked at his finger, and +became quiet; then it began to smile, and Avdyeitch also was glad. While +the woman was eating, she told who she was, and whither she was going. Said she:--- -"I am a soldier's wife. It is now seven months since they sent my husband away off, and no tidings. I lived out as cook; the baby was born; no one cared to keep me with a child. This is the third month that I have been struggling along without a place. I ate up all I had. I wanted to engage as a wet-nurse no one would take me I am too thin, they say. I have just been to the merchant's wife, where lives a young woman I know, and so they promised to take us in. I thought that was the end of it. But she told me to come next week. And she lives a long way off. I got tired out; and it tired him, too, my heart's darling. Fortunately, our landlady takes pity on us for the sake of Christ, and gives us a room, else I don't know how I should manage to get along." +"I am a soldier's wife. It is now seven months since they sent my +husband away off, and no tidings. I lived out as cook; the baby was +born; no one cared to keep me with a child. This is the third month that +I have been struggling along without a place. I ate up all I had. I +wanted to engage as a wet-nurse no one would take me I am too thin, they +say. I have just been to the merchant's wife, where lives a young woman +I know, and so they promised to take us in. I thought that was the end +of it. But she told me to come next week. And she lives a long way off. +I got tired out; and it tired him, too, my heart's darling. Fortunately, +our landlady takes pity on us for the sake of Christ, and gives us a +room, else I don't know how I should manage to get along." Avdyeitch sighed, and said: "Haven't you any warm clothes?" -"Now is the time, friend, to wear warm clothes; but yesterday I pawned my last shawl for a twenty-kopek piece."[^10] - -[^10]: *Dvagrivennui*, silver, worth sixteen cents. +"Now is the time, friend, to wear warm clothes; but yesterday I pawned +my last shawl for a twenty-kopek piece."[^10] -The woman came to the bed, and took the child; and Avdyeitch rose, went to the partition, rummaged round, and succeeded in finding an old coat. +The woman came to the bed, and took the child; and Avdyeitch rose, went +to the partition, rummaged round, and succeeded in finding an old coat. "Na!" says he; "It is a poor thing, yet you may turn it to some use." -The woman looked at the coat and looked at the old man; she took the coat, and burst into tears; and Avdyeitch turned away his head; crawling under the bed, he pushed out a little trunk, rummaged in it, and sat down again opposite the woman. +The woman looked at the coat and looked at the old man; she took the +coat, and burst into tears; and Avdyeitch turned away his head; crawling +under the bed, he pushed out a little trunk, rummaged in it, and sat +down again opposite the woman. And the woman said:--- -"May Christ bless you, little grandfather![^11] He must have sent me to your window. My little baby would have frozen to death. When I started out it was warm, but now it has grown cold. And He, the Batyushka, led you to look through the window and take pity on me, an unfortunate." - -[^11]: *Diedushka.* +"May Christ bless you, little grandfather![^11] He must have sent me to +your window. My little baby would have frozen to death. When I started +out it was warm, but now it has grown cold. And He, the Batyushka, led +you to look through the window and take pity on me, an unfortunate." Avdyeitch smiled, and said:--- -"Indeed, He did that! I have been looking through the window, my good woman, for some wise reason." - -And Martuin told the soldier's wife his dream, and how he heard the voice,---how the Lord promised to come and see him that day. - -"All things are possible," said the woman. She rose, put on the coat, wrapped up her little child in it; and, as she started to take leave, she thanked Avdyeitch again. - -"Take this, for Christ's sake," said Avdyeitch, giving her a twenty-kopek piece; "redeem your shawl." - -She made the sign of the cross, and Avdyeitch made the sign of the cross and went with her to the door. - -The woman went away. Avdyeitch ate some shchi, washed the dishes, and sat down again to work. While he was working he still remembered the window; when the window grew darker he immediately looked out to see who was passing by. Acquaintances passed by and strangers passed by, and there was nothing out of the ordinary. - -But here Avdyeitch saw that an old apple woman had stopped in front of his window. She carried a basket with apples. Only a few were left, as she had evidently sold them nearly all out; and over her shoulder she had a bag full of chips. She must have gathered them up in some new building, and was on her way home. One could see that the bag was heavy on her shoulder; she tried to shift it to the other shoulder. So she lowered the bag on the sidewalk, stood the basket with the apples on a little post, and began to shake down the splinters in the bag. And while she was shaking her bag, a little boy in a torn cap came along, picked up an apple from the basket, and was about to make his escape; but the old woman noticed it, turned around, and caught the youngster by his sleeve. The little boy began to struggle, tried to tear himself away; but the old woman grasped him with both hands, knocked off his cap, and caught him by the hair. - -The little boy was screaming, the old woman was scolding. Avdyeitch lost no time in putting away his awl; he threw it upon the floor, sprang to the door,---he even stumbled on the stairs, and dropped his spectacles,---and rushed out into the street. - -The old woman was pulling the youngster by his hair, and was scolding and threatening to take him to the policeman; the youngster was defending himself, and denying the charge. +"Indeed, He did that! I have been looking through the window, my good +woman, for some wise reason." + +And Martuin told the soldier's wife his dream, and how he heard the +voice,---how the Lord promised to come and see him that day. + +"All things are possible," said the woman. She rose, put on the coat, +wrapped up her little child in it; and, as she started to take leave, +she thanked Avdyeitch again. + +"Take this, for Christ's sake," said Avdyeitch, giving her a +twenty-kopek piece; "redeem your shawl." + +She made the sign of the cross, and Avdyeitch made the sign of the cross +and went with her to the door. + +The woman went away. Avdyeitch ate some shchi, washed the dishes, and +sat down again to work. While he was working he still remembered the +window; when the window grew darker he immediately looked out to see who +was passing by. Acquaintances passed by and strangers passed by, and +there was nothing out of the ordinary. + +But here Avdyeitch saw that an old apple woman had stopped in front of +his window. She carried a basket with apples. Only a few were left, as +she had evidently sold them nearly all out; and over her shoulder she +had a bag full of chips. She must have gathered them up in some new +building, and was on her way home. One could see that the bag was heavy +on her shoulder; she tried to shift it to the other shoulder. So she +lowered the bag on the sidewalk, stood the basket with the apples on a +little post, and began to shake down the splinters in the bag. And while +she was shaking her bag, a little boy in a torn cap came along, picked +up an apple from the basket, and was about to make his escape; but the +old woman noticed it, turned around, and caught the youngster by his +sleeve. The little boy began to struggle, tried to tear himself away; +but the old woman grasped him with both hands, knocked off his cap, and +caught him by the hair. + +The little boy was screaming, the old woman was scolding. Avdyeitch lost +no time in putting away his awl; he threw it upon the floor, sprang to +the door,---he even stumbled on the stairs, and dropped his +spectacles,---and rushed out into the street. + +The old woman was pulling the youngster by his hair, and was scolding +and threatening to take him to the policeman; the youngster was +defending himself, and denying the charge. "I did not take it," he said; "What are you licking me for? Let me go!" @@ -222,15 +448,19 @@ Avdyeitch tried to separate them. He took the boy by his arm, and said: "Let him go, babushka; forgive him, for Christ's sake." -"I will forgive him so that he won't forget it till the new broom grows. I am going to take the little villain to the police." +"I will forgive him so that he won't forget it till the new broom grows. +I am going to take the little villain to the police." Avdyeitch began to entreat the old woman:--- -"Let him go, babushka," he said, "he will never do it again. Let him go, for Christ's sake.' +"Let him go, babushka," he said, "he will never do it again. Let him go, +for Christ's sake.' -The old woman let him loose; the boy started to run, but Avdyeitch kept him back. +The old woman let him loose; the boy started to run, but Avdyeitch kept +him back. -"Ask the babushka's forgiveness," he said, "and don't you ever do it again; I saw you take the apple." +"Ask the babushka's forgiveness," he said, "and don't you ever do it +again; I saw you take the apple." The boy burst into tears, and began to ask forgiveness. @@ -240,33 +470,49 @@ And Avdyeitch took an apple from the basket, and gave it to the boy. "I will pay you for it, babushka," he said to the old woman. -"You ruin them that way, the good-for-nothings," said the old woman. "He ought to be treated so that he would remember it for a whole week." +"You ruin them that way, the good-for-nothings," said the old woman. "He +ought to be treated so that he would remember it for a whole week." -"Eh, babushka, babushka," said Avdyeitch, "that is right according to our judgment, but not according to God's. If he is to be whipped for an apple, then what ought to be done to us for our sins?" +"Eh, babushka, babushka," said Avdyeitch, "that is right according to +our judgment, but not according to God's. If he is to be whipped for an +apple, then what ought to be done to us for our sins?" The old woman was silent. -And Avdyeitch told her the parable of the master who forgave a debtor all that he owed him, and how the debtor went and began to choke one who owed him. +And Avdyeitch told her the parable of the master who forgave a debtor +all that he owed him, and how the debtor went and began to choke one who +owed him. The old woman listened, and the boy stood listening. -"God has commanded us to forgive," said Avdyeitch, "else we, too, may not be forgiven. All should be forgiven, and the thoughtless especially." +"God has commanded us to forgive," said Avdyeitch, "else we, too, may +not be forgiven. All should be forgiven, and the thoughtless +especially." The old woman shook her head, and sighed. -"That's so," said she; "but the trouble is that they are very much spoiled." +"That's so," said she; "but the trouble is that they are very much +spoiled." "Then we who are older must teach them," said Avdyeitch. -"That's just what I say," remarked the old woman. "I myself have had seven of them, only one daughter is left." +"That's just what I say," remarked the old woman. "I myself have had +seven of them, only one daughter is left." -And the old woman began to relate where and how she lived with her daughter, and how many grandchildren she had. "Here," she says, "my strength is only so-so, and yet I have to work. I pity the youngsters my grandchildren but what nice children they are! No one gives me such a welcome as they do. Aksintka won't go to anyone but me. 'Babushka, dear babushka, loveliest.'" +And the old woman began to relate where and how she lived with her +daughter, and how many grandchildren she had. "Here," she says, "my +strength is only so-so, and yet I have to work. I pity the youngsters my +grandchildren but what nice children they are! No one gives me such a +welcome as they do. Aksintka won't go to anyone but me. 'Babushka, dear +babushka, loveliest.'" And the old woman grew quite sentimental. -"Of course, it is a childish trick. God be with him," said she, pointing to the boy. +"Of course, it is a childish trick. God be with him," said she, pointing +to the boy. -The woman was just about to lift the bag up on her shoulder, when the boy ran up, and said:--- +The woman was just about to lift the bag up on her shoulder, when the +boy ran up, and said:--- "Let me carry it, babushka; it is on my way." @@ -274,30 +520,82 @@ The old woman nodded her head, and put the bag on the boy's back. And side by side they passed along the street. -And the old woman even forgot to ask Avdyeitch to pay for the apple. Avdyeitch stood motionless, and kept gazing after them; and he heard them talking all the time as they walked away. After Avdyeitch saw them disappear, he returned to his room; he found his eye-glasses on the stairs, they were not broken; he picked up his awl, and sat down to work again. - -After working a little while, it grew darker, so that he could not see to sew; he saw the lamplighter passing by to light the streetlamps. - -"It must be time to make a light," he said to himself; so he got his little lamp ready, hung it up, and betook himself again to his work. He had one boot already finished; he turned it around, looked at it: "Well done." He put away his tools, swept off the cuttings, cleared off the bristles and ends, took the lamp, set it on the table, and took down the Gospels from the shelf. He intended to open the book at the very place where he had yesterday put a piece of leather as a mark, but it happened to open at another place; and the moment Avdyeitch opened the Testament, he recollected his last night's dream. And as soon as he remembered it, it seemed as if he heard someone stepping about behind him. Avdyeitch looked around, and saw there, in the dark corner, it seemed as if people were standing; he was at a loss to know who they were. And a voice whispered in his ear:--- +And the old woman even forgot to ask Avdyeitch to pay for the apple. +Avdyeitch stood motionless, and kept gazing after them; and he heard +them talking all the time as they walked away. After Avdyeitch saw them +disappear, he returned to his room; he found his eye-glasses on the +stairs, they were not broken; he picked up his awl, and sat down to work +again. + +After working a little while, it grew darker, so that he could not see +to sew; he saw the lamplighter passing by to light the streetlamps. + +"It must be time to make a light," he said to himself; so he got his +little lamp ready, hung it up, and betook himself again to his work. He +had one boot already finished; he turned it around, looked at it: "Well +done." He put away his tools, swept off the cuttings, cleared off the +bristles and ends, took the lamp, set it on the table, and took down the +Gospels from the shelf. He intended to open the book at the very place +where he had yesterday put a piece of leather as a mark, but it happened +to open at another place; and the moment Avdyeitch opened the Testament, +he recollected his last night's dream. And as soon as he remembered it, +it seemed as if he heard someone stepping about behind him. Avdyeitch +looked around, and saw there, in the dark corner, it seemed as if people +were standing; he was at a loss to know who they were. And a voice +whispered in his ear:--- "Martuin---ah, Martuin! did you not recognize me?" "Who?" exclaimed Avdyeitch. -"Me,' repeated the voice. "It was I;' and Stepanuitch stepped forth from the dark corner; he smiled, and like a little cloud faded away, and soon vanished. +"Me,' repeated the voice."It was I;' and Stepanuitch stepped forth from +the dark corner; he smiled, and like a little cloud faded away, and soon +vanished. "And it was I," said the voice. -From the dark corner stepped forth the woman with her child; the woman smiled, the child laughed, and they also vanished. +From the dark corner stepped forth the woman with her child; the woman +smiled, the child laughed, and they also vanished. -"And it was I," continued the voice; both the old woman and the boy with the apple stepped forward; both smiled and vanished. +"And it was I," continued the voice; both the old woman and the boy with +the apple stepped forward; both smiled and vanished. -Avdyeitch's soul rejoiced; he crossed himself, put on his spectacles, and began to read the Evangelists where it happened to open. On the upper part of the page he read:--- +Avdyeitch's soul rejoiced; he crossed himself, put on his spectacles, +and began to read the Evangelists where it happened to open. On the +upper part of the page he read:--- -> "For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in." +> "For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye +> gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in." And on the lower part of the page he read this:--- -> "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."---Matthew 25. +> "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my +> brethren, ye have done it unto me."---Matthew 25. -And Avdyeitch understood that his dream had not deceived him; that the Saviour really called on him that day, and that he really received Him. +And Avdyeitch understood that his dream had not deceived him; that the +Saviour really called on him that day, and that he really received Him. + +[^1]: Trinity, a famous monastery, pilgrimage to which is considered a + virtue. Avdyeitch calls this *zemlyak-starichok*, *Bozhi chelovyek*, + God's man.---**Ed.** + +[^2]: *Traktir.* + +[^3]: Cabbage-soup. + +[^4]: Gruel. + +[^5]: House-porter. + +[^6]: Valenki. + +[^7]: To signify he was satisfied; a custom among the + Russians.---**Ed.** + +[^8]: Khozyaïn. + +[^9]: *Umnitsa aumnitsa!* literally, clever one. + +[^10]: *Dvagrivennui*, silver, worth sixteen cents. + +[^11]: *Diedushka.* diff --git a/templates/hakyll.html b/templates/hakyll.html index 1bba0cc..693eb24 100644 --- a/templates/hakyll.html +++ b/templates/hakyll.html @@ -31,7 +31,7 @@

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